Appealing: Ap-peal-ing [Uh-pee-ling]

–adjective evoking or attracting interest, desire, curiosity, sympathy, or the like; attractive. 

[Origin: 1400–50; late ME; see appeal, -ing2]

Some of the most outspoken fans of the Democratic victory at the polls on Tuesday are some of the worst enemies of this nation. I have pointed to a number of the statements hailing the victory from (T)Hugo Chavez to the Iranians to al Qaeda. So have a number of other people.

But so far, I have not seen one - not one - Democratic politician denounce these people. Not a single one. Not one Democrat has bothered to stop high-fiving long enough to realize who their biggest fans are. Or appear to care why these are their biggest fans.

I'd submit that it is time to either denounce these people and stand as Americans, or come out and embrace them. Because you can't have it both ways. Americans are watching. So are others. And it may well be time to take a very hard look at why your appeal is not just to American voters.

UPDATE: On having it both ways: Tigerhawk. Do read the comments, too.

Power Plays

Mudville Gazette has a harsh assessment of what is going on right now in the shaping of public opinion. There is a lot of manipulation and a lot of familiar players. But not all of the players were actually on the same page, no matter how the press spun the stories.

Strangely enough, although the anti-Rumsfeld generals had been frequently quoted over the intervening months, and the elections were looming large on the American calendar, the "show trial" received scant notice in the American media.

One likely reason? The generals were able to give more specific information regarding what they would do differently than Secretary Rumsfeld - and those actions were not to the liking of their assumed supporters:

…Batiste and his colleagues offered their solution: more troops, more money and more time in Iraq.

"We must mobilize our country for a protracted challenge," Batiste warned.

"We better be planning for at least a minimum of a decade or longer," contributed retired Marine Col. Thomas Hammes.

"We are, conservatively, 60,000 soldiers short," added retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of building the Iraqi Security Forces.

Go back and read the first links I've provided above and you'll discover - if you didn't know already - that the generals' criticism of Donald Rumsfeld was little more than the sort of inter-service competition for defense funds that has defined the upper levels of the Pentagon for years (and that Rumsfeld tried to eliminate). While this year's rhetoric admittedly rose to new and desperate levels, the underlying argument was perhaps thinner than most previous "peace time" funding debates. The eternal reality is that all services could use more money - the Air Force is currently attempting to slash 40,000 active duty members from it's pay rolls to enable funding of new systems - even as retired Army generals insist that their service is being short changed in favor of another.

Although getting Rumsfeld out of the picture was only step one, media coverage of the demands of those particular retired generals will probably vanish now that half their goals have been achieved - the remaining steps of the plan are an embarrassment to those who previously offered a large platform and amplification system for their call to arms.

But a "new direction" has been promised, and now it must be found. So Democrats are rapidly seeking a voice to fill the silence left now that "their" generals have been sent home with "mission accomplished". Here's one contender:

George McGovern, the former senator and Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that he will meet with more than 60 members of Congress next week to recommend a strategy to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by June.

If Democrats don't take steps to end the war in Iraq soon, they won't be in power very long, McGovern told reporters before a speech at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

That McGovern, of all people, is offering advice on how to proceed should scare hell out of thinking Americans. This man's agenda led to millions of dead people in Southeast Asia. Hasn't he killed enough people? His "peace" is the peace of the grave.

Semper Fidelis

President Bush announced that the Congressional Medal of Honor will be awarded to Marine corporal Jason Dunham. The award is posthumous, as far too many of the awards are.

(CNN) — President Bush announced on Friday that the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration, will be awarded posthumously to Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham.

In April 2004, Dunham was leading a patrol in an Iraqi town near the Syrian border when the patrol stopped a convoy of cars leaving the scene of an attack on a Marine convoy, according to military and media accounts of the action.

An occupant of one of the cars attacked Dunham and the two fought hand to hand. As they fought, Dunham yelled to fellow Marines, "No, no watch his hand." The attacker then dropped a grenade and Dunham hurled himself on top of it, using his helmet to try to blunt the force of the blast.

Still, Dunham was critically wounded in the explosion and died eight days later at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

"As long as we have Marines like Corporal Dunham, America will never fear for her liberty," Bush said Friday as he announced that Dunham would receive the award. Bush spoke at the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia.

"His was a selfless act of courage to save his fellow Marines," Sgt. Maj. Daniel A. Huff of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, was quoted as saying in Marine Corps News that April.

"He knew what he was doing," Lance Cpl. Jason A. Sanders, 21, of McAllester, Oklahoma, who was in Dunham's company, was quoted as saying by Marine Corps News. "He wanted to save Marines' lives from that grenade."

In various media accounts, fellow Marines told how Dunham had extended his enlistment shortly before he died so he could help his comrades.

"We told him he was crazy for coming out here," Lance Cpl. Mark E. Dean, 22, from Owasso, Oklahoma, said in Marine Corps News. "He decided to come out here and fight with us. All he wanted was to make sure his boys made it back home."

"He loved his country, believed in his mission, and wanted to stay with his fellow Marines and see the job through," Vice President Dick Cheney said when speaking of Dunham's heroism at a Disabled American Veterans conference in July 2004.

The Scio, New York, native would have been 25 years old on Friday.

We are blessed with people who defend us even if we here at home all too often fail to watch their backs.

Mysterious Disappearance

The long-operating Mars Global Surveyor cannot be located any longer. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have not been able to make the craft respond to any commands. The probe has operated long past its original design life.

The space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena lost contact with the probe for two days last week, then received a weak carrier signal with no data on Sunday. Since then, Surveyor has not confirmed receiving a command to point one of its transmitters to Earth, project manager Tom Thorpe said.

The Global Surveyor was launched on Nov. 7, 1996, to systematically map Mars while orbiting the Red Planet. It has operated longer than the other Martian exploration craft.

Carrying a powerful camera that has returned thousands of images, the spacecraft has discovered features suggesting water once flowed on the desert world, and it has looked at potential landing sites for future exploration.

Surveyor is one of four spacecraft orbiting Mars. Its companions include NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey, and the European Space Agency's Mars Express. On the surface, the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity, continue operating.

Surveyor was originally launched as a $247 million mission to last for nearly two years. The mission has received extensions since then.

In an effort to help out the folks at JPL, we have looked into the disappearance of the probe. Fortunately, we were able to obtain this absolutely genuine photograph of what actually happened from some guy who used to do a lot of work for Reuters. Mystery solved!

(Unbutchered photo Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech - they have a bunch of nice images there)

“That’s Nothing, Really,”

"As far as two-handed push-ups, you can do that all night, and it doesn't make a difference whether she's there or not." Jack Palance made that remark at the 1992 Oscar Awards ceremony after demonstrating one-handed pushups for the audience. Sadly, news has just hit the wires that Jack Palance is dead at age 87.

LOS ANGELES - Jack Palance, the craggy-faced menace in "Shane," "Sudden Fear" and other films who turned successfully to comedy in his 70s with his Oscar-winning self-parody in "City Slickers," died Friday.

Palance died of natural causes at his home in Montecito, Calif., surrounded by family, said spokesman Dick Guttman. He was 87.

When Palance accepted his Oscar for best supporting actor he delighted viewers of the 1992 Academy Awards by dropping to the stage and performing one-armed push-ups to demonstrate his physical prowess.

"That's nothing, really," he said slyly. "As far as two-handed push-ups, you can do that all night, and it doesn't make a difference whether she's there or not."

That year's Oscar host, Billy Crystal, turned the moment into a running joke, making increasingly outlandish remarks about Palance's accomplishments throughout the show.

It was a magic moment that epitomized the actor's 40 years in films. Always the iconoclast, Palance had scorned most of his movie roles.

"Most of the stuff I do is garbage," he once told a reporter, adding that most of the directors he worked with were incompetent, too.

"Most of them shouldn't even be directing traffic," he said.

If you ever read an interview with Palance, he was a very plain-spoken man and came across as completely genuine. His film appearances were legendary. When he did menacing, you felt it. Rest in peace.

Try To Keep Up

The Syracuse University men's basketball team thought they were in pretty good shape. So they were all ready to do the days workout that the coaching staff had planned for them. They figured it would be just another day of training and just to keep it fun, they would be practicing with the host team.

The 10th Mountain Division.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Matt Gorman struggled off the muddy trail gasping for air. "We come out of the woods, and you think you're done," said Gorman, a senior forward on Syracuse's men's basketball team. "There were a bunch of sergeants standing there waiting by two Humvees, and one sergeant says, 'Get those bodies on those Humvees,'

"And I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to climb in this thing," Gorman said with a smile. "I'm starting to climb in and he says, 'Get out and push it.' "

Up a hill, no less.

And Gorman thought coach Jim Boeheim's workouts were tough.

….

"Some of them didn't want to go to bed (the night before) because they didn't want to miss their wakeup," Hibbs said. "You could tell they were not used to getting up that early to sit through a lecture, but as a whole they seemed pretty excited."

After a briefing, everybody stretched, warmed up, and dropped into formation for a jog. Even though his dad was behind the whole thing, Matt Gorman was surprised at what unfolded. His father had told him he'd probably have to slow down so the Army guys could keep up.

"We started off with a real casual jog," Gorman said. "We'd all been running in preseason, so a little jog to us ain't nothing. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. We didn't know it was going to be 4.5 miles."

And that along the way they'd have to run about three-quarters of a mile carrying heavy weapons, then take turns lugging stretchers laden with 200 pounds of water another mile.

Fatigue set in fast.

"It doesn't take very long to smoke somebody," Hibbs said.

More duress ensued when the trail turned muddy.

"When you're running on terrain that's not very stable carrying a stretcher, it gets a little tough," Gorman said.

In the end, the Orangemen learned a bit about teamwork. The Humvees had to be kept rolling or they would never make it up the hill.

"You could only go 30 seconds as hard as you could go before you were dead, so someone else had to be ready to go," Forcier said. "If that thing stopped rolling, it was over, no way you could get it started again."

The push has left a lasting impression.

"The greatest thing we saw was there were guys fresh back from Iraq, guys that had been shot, had shrapnel in their bodies as we were running with them," Forcier said. "There was a guy pushing the Humvee in front of us who had knee braces on. He still had pieces of metal in his legs and body, and he was out there working."

Read the whole thing. The writer, John Kekis, did a really nice job with the story.

Election Over, Knives Out - Round Two

Trial balloon sighting! The New Republic is helpfully informing the world that some "big name Democrats" want Howard Dean booted from the DNC. The reason? They say his stinginess with funds cost several pickups.

The candidate being floated to replace Dean? Harold Ford.

Says James Carville, one of the anti-Deaniacs, "Suppose Harold Ford became chairman of the DNC? How much more money do you think we could raise? Just think of the difference it could make in one day. Now probably Harold Ford wants to stay in Tennessee. I just appointed myself his campaign manager."

It is not taking long for Hillary and the DLC to try to purge the extremists, is it? Trouble in paradise already. Get comfy folks it's about to get messy.

Moose In Space!

We here at Blue Crab Boulevard have faithfully tried to document the Animal Uprising™ despite all the whispers behind our backs. Accordingly, faithful readers have been kept abreast of zombie moose, the revenge of Bullwinkle, moose looking for scholarships and the moose (why not meese?) who are overrunning Vermont. Why, it's just like the Nature Channel in here only without the budget. Or production values. Or paychecks. But we digress. Now it is our duty to inform the world of the most evil plan yet devised by the animals.

They plan to take over the International Space Station. And they have enlisted the duplicitous Swedes to help them!

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - With a Swedish astronaut on board, the crew of the space shuttle Discovery are to be treated to Scandinavian delicacies including dried moose meat, crispbread and gingerbread biscuits.

Astronauts on the shuttle — set for launch on December 7 — can also look forward to yoghurts especially created by a Scandinavian company for consumption in space.

"Two products that Arla have developed have been approved by NASA and they will feature on NASA's list of foods that the astronauts can choose from," the Danish-Swedish dairy company said in a statement on Friday.

The two products are a dried milk consisting of lactic pro-biotic bacteria and fruit-flavoured yoghurts that Arla has spent "many years" developing.

Christer Fuglesang, set to be the first Swede in space, has already selected raspberry yoghurt for the duration of the 12-day mission.

Fuglesang hopes to introduce his fellow crew members to other Swedish delights such as dried elk, crispbread and, "seeing as we're approaching Christmas, gingerbread," the Swedish Space Agency said.

The Swedish astronaut is saying he's bringing dried moose meat. But it is much more than that and we, of course, can prove it! Our operative from Magic 8-Ball Confidential Inquiries and Bowling Alley, Inc. managed to get this picture before they repackage the dried moose into nondescript, NASA approved containers.

Election Over, Knives Out

The internecine knife fights for Democratic leadership posts in the House have officially begun. John Murtha is carrying out his threatened campaign to get himself elected to the majority leader post over Steny Hoyer. Needless to say, Hoyer has different ideas in the matter.

One day after Democrats decisively seized control of the chamber from the GOP, one of the architects of that victory — Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) — remained mum about his plans despite speculation that he could run for Majority Whip.

Current Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) was not similarly hesitant, formally announcing his bid for the Majority Leader’s office early Wednesday morning and confidently predicting that he will secure the post when Democrats vote in leadership election on Nov. 16.

“I think I’m going to win,” Hoyer said in an interview Wednesday. The Maryland lawmaker, who has served as Minority Whip since 2003, said “over a majority” of House incumbents as well as newly-elected lawmakers “have indicated that they would be supportive of me.”

But Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) — who stunned fellow lawmakers when he announced in June that he would campaign for the Majority Leader post against Hoyer — re-affirmed his own interest in the office Wednesday.

“I’m working diligently now trying to convince people that I’d make a good balance” to the leadership team, Murtha said in an interview with National Public Radio.

The Pennsylvania lawmaker declined to be interviewed for this article.

Murtha, who is the ranking member of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Defense, also defended his decision to seek the leadership post, asserting that not only is the office an “open seat” in the new Congress, but arguing that he outranks Hoyer in the Caucus hierarchy.

“There’s Nancy Pelosi, [Appropriations Committee ranking member Rep.] Dave Obey (D-Wis.) and myself, and then Hoyer is listed after me in the power plays,” Murtha said on NPR.

That assertion bewildered at least one Democratic House lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity: “In my mind that shows a lack of understanding. I like Mr. Murtha but that’s not just the way it is.”

“There is real genuine concern that we don’t want to see a divisive leadership fight, just at the time that we’re seeing tremendous success and tremendous unity and harmony and good feelings in the Caucus,” the lawmaker added.

Well, the next two years do promise endless entertainment, don't they?

Victory For Iran

the electoral victory of the Democratic party on Tuesday is being heralded as a great victory. For Iran. So says Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"This issue (the elections) is not a purely domestic issue for America, but it is the defeat of Bush's hawkish policies in the world," Khamenei said in remarks reported by Iran's student news agency ISNA on Friday.

"Since Washington's hostile and hawkish policies have always been against the Iranian nation, this defeat is actually an obvious victory for the Iranian nation."

The Democrats wrested control of both houses of Congress from the Republicans in this week's mid-term elections, partly because of voter concern over the war in Iraq.

Khamenei, a senior cleric in power since 1989, has the last word on matters of state in Iran's complex system of Islamic rule, while the government, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in charge of day-to-day decision making.

"The result of this election indicates that the majority of American people are dissatisfied and are fed up with the policies of the American administration," the IRNA state news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Khamenei said military maneuvers in the Gulf this week in which Iranian forces tested new missile systems showed Iran was ready to face any threat.

But, he said: "With the scandalous defeat of America's policies in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan, America's threats are empty threats on an international scale."

This should make people wonder about exactly what message is being transmitted to the world with our internal politics. Well, I don't wonder; I've been warning all along.

UPDATE: Al Qaeda is quite enthusiastic about the Democrats, too. That really should make the Democrats think hard about how they are perceived by the world.

The group also said it welcomed the Republican electoral defeat that led to the departure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and it added that its fighters would not rest until they had blown up the White House.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also urged the U.S. to stay in Iraq so his group would have more opportunities to kill American troops.

"The al-Qaida army has 12,000 fighters in Iraq, and they have vowed to die for God's sake," a man introduced as al-Muhajir said in an audio tape made available on militant Web sites.

"We will not rest from our Jihad until we are under the olive trees of Rumieh and we have blown up the filthiest house — which is called the White House," al-Muhajir said.

Al-Muhajir became the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.

The tape could not be independently verified.

The speaker praised the outcome of Tuesday's elections in which Democrats swept to power in the House and the Senate, in large part due to U.S. voter dissatisfaction over the handling of the war in Iraq.

Meet The New Boss

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
(Pete Townshend, Won't Get Fooled Again, 1971)

Radley Balko, in Reason Magazine, notices the problem with politics, elections and the party in power. He invokes the penultimate line in the 1971 Who classic, Won't Get Fooled Again.

….Democrats who rightly railed against the "Bridge to Nowhere" can't be taken seriously if they sit back and let Byrd resume diverting millions of taxpayer dollars to wasteful pork projects in West Virginia.  Harry Reid should remove him from the Senate Appropriations Committee.

It won't be easy — Byrd in particular is likely to raise holy hell.  But if you're going to change the culture of corruption in Washington, you'd go a long way toward demonstrating your seriousness by starting with your own party. 

It would also be nice to see the lefty blogs pick up on this, and give Pelosi and Reid the cover they need to do the right thing.

UPDATE:  Several readers have written to point out that Pelosi is set to pass over Rep. Jane Harman to  make Rep. Alcee Hastings chair of the Intelligence Committee.  Hastings is of course a formal federal judge who was impeached and removed from the bench by a Democratic Congress in 1989 for taking bribes.  Apparently, the Congressional Black Caucus is demanding a chairmanship for Hastings to compensate for the loss of influence caused by Rep. William Jefferson's removal from the Appropriations Committee — also due to corruption.

This, within 72 hours of the election.   Meet the new boss…

Welcome, my friends, to the show that never ends…… But that's another song. Or is it.

The Way It Was Won

Ann Althouse is depressed. She was not doing day-to-day political posting during the election, either.

What I'm concerned about is national security and, consequently, the way the election was fought and is being interpreted. I'm upset because I think we have sent a terrible message to our enemies: Just hang on long enough and continue to inflict some damage, and the Americans will lose heart and give up. You barely need anything at all. You might not be able to hijack a plane with a box cutter anymore, but you can take back a country — a country we conquered with overwhelming military power — merely by mercilessly and endlessly setting off small bombs in your own town day after day.

How much harder it becomes ever to fight and win a war again. Only pacifists and isolationists should feel good about the way this election was won.

Judging by the comments I've been getting, she's absolutely right on that. Oh, one other group is happy about it. But we all know who those ones are.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds also note Ann Althouse's depression, but reminds people:

I remember lots of gloom-and-doom and catastrophization in the gun rights community ten or twelve years ago. Defeat seemed inexorable, the media were all on the other side, the politicians who were supposed to be on the right side of the issue couldnt' be trusted, the electorate seemed easily manipulated, and — well, enough. Sound familiar?

Ten years later the Democrats won't touch the gun issue, right-to-carry laws are passing in state after state, and the "assault weapons ban" — once seen as the camel's nose in the tent — has expired. How did that happen? Not because of gloom and doom, but because people worked to make it happen: worked politically, worked in terms of communications and media, worked in terms of not getting discouraged but just plugging away. Want the electorate to come around to your views? You've got to persuade them. Over the years, I've seen this hold true for one issue after another.

Remember: Choose a line and stand in it.

From The Halls Of Montezuma

Powerline has a post up about the new museum of the United States Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia. I posted about it yesterday. But they also remind readers that project Valour-IT is still short of its goal of $180,000 by about $50,000. Please consider giving. Tomorrow is Veteran's Day and you owe the right to vote you exercised on Tuesday to the people in the armed forces of this nation. The button to contribute is on the sidebar.

What The Troops Are Saying

The Times of London carries an article that lets the average soldiers in Iraq speak. Not the political elite, not the general officers, not the pentagon insiders or the pundits. And they really do not want to leave Iraq with the mission unfinished.

Indeed, some members of the 101st Airborne Division and other troops approached by The Times as they prepared to fly home from Baghdad airport yesterday expressed concern that Robert Gates, Mr Rumsfeld’s successor, and the Democrat-controlled Congress, might seek to wind down their mission before it was finished.

Mr Rumsfeld “made decisions, he stuck with them and he did what he thought was right, whether people agreed with it, liked it, or not”, Staff Sergeant Frank Notaro said. He insisted that Iraq was better off now than before the war.

Staff Sergeant Michael Howard said: “It’s a blow to the military. He was a good Secretary of Defence. He kept us focused. He kept the leaders focused. It’s going to be hard to fill his shoes.”

But one US army colonel, who did not want to be named, said that such positive views were uncommon in the higher ranks of the US military. “We are the ones closer to the problem. We are the ones who have the broader picture,” he said.

The colonel criticised Mr Rumsfeld for sending too few troops to Iraq, and for refusing to listen to the advice of his generals. He noted that General Eric Shinseki, the former US Army Chief of Staff, was dismissed for demanding more troops, while General John Abizaid, the commander of Central Command, was the sole general to have differed publicly with Mr Rumsfeld and survived.

Certainly the rank-and-file are trained not to question the decisions of their superiors. “We don’t question why we’re sent here. Our job is to do what we’re told and we do it with pride,” said Sergeant Jason Gomez, a military policeman. When pressed, some also admitted that to question Mr Rumsfeld’s execution of the war would raise doubts about the value of their mission and of their comrades’ deaths.

“I try to keep positive. That’s what keeps you going,” said Sergeant Daniel Allen, of the 101st, who has lost three friends during his two tours in Iraq. “When you lose someone close to you, it’s hard to say whether [their deaths] were worthwhile or not. I like to believe so, especially for their families’ sake.”

Ed Morrisey points out the obvious here:

The American troops believe in the mission they serve. Interestingly, the Times — which does not back the Iraq war — gives an extended forum for these men to express their support for their mission and the man who sent them there to complete it. They want to see Iraq succeed, and even now want to stay until it happens.

It's an interesting point of view, and one that may surprise many who claim that the best way to support the troops is to have them retreat. Will that "support" turn to scorn when they realize the troops want to stay? After all, these men will have openly endorsed the policy of forward engagement that critics find so objectionable.

Fletcher reports that the troops also fear the impact of the new Democratic Congress on the war. They see the elections and the sudden departure of Rumsfeld as an ominous turn in domestic support, not without reason. Many of these men have built relationships with Iraqis, especially in the new security units, and will have bonds of friendship with the Iraqis that will be left in the lurch in the event of a precipitous withdrawal.

It seems to me that any effort to "support the troops" ought to at least involve their input.

My son has expressed his concerns about the new Democratic control of congress and the fears of what will happen to the military - again - with them in charge. Maybe they have enough of the "blue dogs" to offset some of the worst effects of the  old generation of Democratic leadership.

Deep Misgivings

Daniel Henninger, writing in the Opinion Journal writes about the deep misgivings he has about the naming of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. He points out that the "fresh eyes" that are being focused on the Iraq situation are anything but fresh.

The village elders on the Iraq Survey Group who will perform this duty are Lee Hamilton, Vernon Jordan, Ed Meese, Sandra Day O'Connor, Leon Panetta, former Clinton Defense Secretary Bill Perry, former Sens. Chuck Robb and Alan Simpson, and the secretary of defense designate, Robert Gates.

George W. Bush has in no way been an Establishment President. On both taxes and foreign policy, he broke with them, and did so decisively. So he ought not underestimate, with the firing of Don Rumsfeld and the odd selection of his father's CIA director, how much visceral pleasure this brings to the displaced Establishment between Georgetown and Manhattan.

Some Beltway pundits are now writing with smug satisfaction–but not without reason–that this marks the end of the Bush Doctrine, the idea that the U.S. could create opportunities for democratic self-determination in a region such as the Middle East. It is expected that the ISG's recommendation will carry with it the implicit conclusion that this goal has been too ambitious. And that it must give way now to a restoration of realism associated with Bush 41's secretary of state, Mr. Baker; with his National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and the former president's CIA director, Mr. Gates. And with the return of established foreign-policy wisdom, the "neocons" associated with Mr. Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney and their "failed" ideas will be swept out to sea.

The post-Rumsfeld purge began yesterday. Sen. Joe Biden, now in the majority, announced that U.N. Ambassador John Bolton's stalled confirmation is "going nowhere."

The three or four men who are thinking of seeking the Republican presidential nomination had better focus now on the potential fall of the Bush Doctrine at the hands of the Iraq Survey Group. If they don't, one of them, on the first day of his presidency, will inherit a re-entrenched foreign policy–at State, the CIA and on Wall Street–with a vision of America's role in the world reduced to that of auto-shop fixit men. They "work" the world's problems.

…..

But what has distinguished Mr. Bush's foreign policy, more than the Bush Doctrine itself, was the sense and belief that he would not abandon an ally. You may not like that, and may have just voted against it, but this country's global reputation is as allied with the people of Iraq as it was with the left-behind people of Vietnam. Or in 1991, the Shiites in southern Iraq.

On Feb. 15 of that year, after routing Saddam's army in the south, President George H.W. Bush urged the Iraqi generals and people to "take matters into their own hands" against Saddam. Then on Feb. 27 came the White House order to Gen. Schwarzkopf to stand down and thus forgo the destruction of Saddam's tank army. The Bush 41 team expected Saddam's Baathist generals to finish him off and "stabilize" Iraq. That was realism. The secretary of state was Jim Baker and the deputy national security advisor to Brent Scowcroft was Robert Gates. Shortly, Saddam's systematic, tank-led slaughter began of the Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north. In April, U.N. Resolution 688 said the attacks "threaten international peace and security in the region." Mr. Gates acknowledged the miscalculation in the New Yorker last year.

This is what the Iranians and al Qaeda have wanted. The last helicopter. The return of realpolitik. A defeat for America. Houston, we have a problem.