SHORTER JIM LILEKS: Those damned artists never talk about anything important, like the twin menace of Islamofascism and bad living-room decor.

UPDATE. Apparently it's also unseemly to attack Intelligent Design unless you condemn Islamofascism at the same time. Maybe we should pass a law that every new book, movie, play, etc. must include the words "Islamofascism delenda est," preferably as an acrostic.

The real joke is that both these guys are writers, but they want someone else to create their War on Terror epics for them. What's stopping them? I would pay good money to see Lileks' "Babes in Baghdad" at a theatre near me.

LAST BLIGHTY BIT. I haven't the time or the money to make a full report now, but it's been mostly museums and bitter here in London, and I've enjoyed them all. Editor Martin will be more eloquent, or windy, depending on how you want to look at it. Thanks for your patience. Tomorrow, after the ten-hour nap, I will sum up.

MORE FROM ROY'S ASSOCIATE. The proprietors of our hotel, the Arosfa, are a sweet older couple of indeterminate national origin, though her accent is more inflected with British than his. We asked for a wake-up call yesterday morning so that we could catch breakfast, but apparently the ringing phone wasn't enough to rouse us. This morning I struggled to consciousness at 8 a.m., in time for the breakfast, provided in a little room downstairs. The landlady, wearing a patterned housekeeper's smock, served us orange juice, coffee, toast, sausages, a fried egg, and bacon.

We spent most of the day inside the National Gallery, studying 16th- and 17th-century pictures until they all seemed to fuse into a jumble of luminous flesh and rich drapery. Art-induced exhaustion notwithstanding, we still managed to fit in the Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum. I've breathed the air inside the bunker, preserved just as it was on V-E Day, where decisions upon which everything depended were made as German bombs fell all around; and I can die now that I've seen Churchill's own hearing aid.

I have an early plane to catch. If you'll indulge me, I will wrap this all up upon my return to New England.

STOPPARD'S THIRD WAY. I got to see Tom Stoppard's new play, Rock 'n' Roll, at the Duke of York's. Rock ‘n’ Roll adheres to the usual Stoppard formula: a dramatic conflict corresponding to some actual social/political/aesthetic/scientific conflict of the 20th Century. The combatants in this case are Max, an Oxford prof Communist loyalist, and Jan, his former student, a Czech reverse-refugee dreamer. Each of them plays a little part in the decline of Soviet empire from 1967 to 1990. We know from long experience how Stoppard feels about Commies, but we also know that he's been trying to define more specifically what he hoped would be, and then what he hoped had been, saved from Communism. This time he goes in a very unexpected direction.

Through the inglorious Soviet decline, Max clings to his Marxism and his tenure, becoming "the last white rhino," contemptuous of all "bed-wetters" who can't accept the pitiless logic of dialectical materialism. This (seemingly) includes Jan, who leaves Oxford, and Max, unexpectedly and (seemingly) without motivation to return to his native Prague. Despite his philosophical talents, Jan adopts a kind of hippie mysticism based on rock music -- which puts him among, but not of, the reformers who rally behind Dubcek and Havel.

This reduces, not too unfairly, to a good old head-vs.-heart dust-up. Max is a thoroughgoing materialist, and longtime Stoppard fans can already hear the boo-hiss coming there. When his wife is fighting cancer and her body is cut to pieces, Stoppard forces Max to admit that he loves her with his mind -- implicitly because he has no ready access to what we capitalists would call our hearts. And of course he is deaf to Jan's rock music.

But Stoppard is, as usual, generous with his wrong-thinking characters. He gives the old Bolshie credit for intellectual consistency, for human decency, and resiliency, the ability to hold fast not only when the going gets tough, but when it gets ridiculous. In fact, as other characters flip among identities as the times dictate, Max's stubborn streak becomes rather attractive.

Jan, meanwhile, gets beat up by the occupiers, but hangs on to his music-love and even makes speeches about it. Jan is given some character-deepening foibles, too -- though on the right side of history, he suffers injuries to his spirit that, while topically administered by the Government, originate in his weak and unthoughtful character. He is not heroic at all, just persecuted, and his emergence into the sunlight of freedom is a redemption by grace rather than by merit.

I could swallow most of this, happily and with a yum-yum, but something bugged me very much throughout. When Stoppard uses Fermat's theorem or the Third Law of Thermodynamics to carry his case, I can accept his presentation, conditionally, so long as the drama is sustained. But rock 'n' roll is something I know about, and nearly every reference to it in the play -- every musical quote, every panegyric of Jan's, and especially the end in which (I shit you not) Jan’s final triumph comes at a fucking Mixed Emotions-era Rolling Stones concert in Prague -- felt totally false.

Now, come on. If it were anyone else symbolizing the triumph of the human spirit with gummy old Mick and Keef playing a stadium show, I’d say he was kidding. But Stoppard doesn't know enough about the subject to kid -- at least, his writing doesn't show it. I didn't feel any of the divine madness or spiritual sap-rising that was being attributed to rock music. I don't think Stoppard really felt it either. He probably liked the idea of rock music. But rock and the idea of rock are two different things. If Stoppard knew that, Rock 'n' Roll would be a different play -- and Stoppard a different writer. So, in the long run, maybe it's just as well that they aren't.

GUEST BLOGGER MARTIN AGAIN. How surprised we were to find the London pubs shuttered or putting up their stools at 11 p.m., when we left the Duke of York theatre and wended our way back to our neighborhood, desiring to discuss Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll over a pint of bitter. Because of this unfortunate circumstance we reluctantly joined the queue outside the Roxy, a dance club on Rathbone Place. Soon we passed the velvet rope and descended into a space packed shoulder to shoulder with well-scrubbed young things bopping to popular music. We took our drinks and studied the scene, which was not in any way our kind of scene, as would become more comically apparent the longer we hung around. I spied a nice-looking bird dancing alone, and I bid Roy to engage her. Off he shimmied into the mix. I, meanwhile, sought out the loo and then jockeyed at the bar for an interminably long time to place another order. After searching the crowd for some time I rejoined my friend, who now encouraged me, in a shouted and several times repeated exchange, to dance some. I don't like to be a wet blanket, so I danced. Nearby a group of young women and one bloke were arranged in a loose circle, dancing -- that is, sort of shuffling their feet and kind of moving their hips and shoulders, arms bent, hands in loose fists. I inserted myself into the circle. I raised the roof. I did the eagle rock. I did the pogo. I limped to the side like my leg was broken, shakin' and twitchin' kind of like I was smokin'. I threw my hands high in the air and partied harder like I just didn't care. I said, come alive girls, get on your feet, to the rhythm of the beat to the beat, the beat, to the double beat-beat that makes you freak, to the rhythm of the beat that says you go on, on and on until the break of dawn. I succeeded in dispersing the circle. The dude tried to force his girlfriend to dance with me, but she shrank away in disgust. Then I accidentally knocked a beer bottle off a ledge and it broke at her feet.

Before the play, we dined at a restaurant across the street from the theatre, which must only survive on its location. Outwardly it looks okay, like any middle-of-the-road bistro. My meal was amazing: a grey, fatty cutlet of sirloin steak served alongside microwaved frozen vegetables and chips.

The play was nice. "Niiice!" That's what my little girl, Esme, says about things she likes, while stroking them. Esme is the name of a major character in the play. I am happily reassured that I pronounce her name correctly. So many people say "Es-mee" I began to doubt that it's actually "Ehz-may." I should see more plays.

Today we took in the Tate Modern. The building itself shows up its collection on the whole, although there are some standout pieces. Balthus' Sleeping Girl alone made the trip worthwhile. The photography on display was singularly boring: large-scale photos of massed consumer goods in a U.S. supermarket, unremarkable people standing around doing nothing, suburban European houses, etc.

After traversing the Harmonic Bridge to the steps of St. Paul's, we cabbed it out to Brick Lane in Spitalfields, a refreshingly less tony district than what I had heretofore seen, and after walking up and down to see all the options, we allowed ourselves to be diverted by a friendly steerer promising a 20% discount on our meal into a Bangladeshi/Indian restaurant, which measured up to my expectations for curry in London.

Cheers! I am the one Roy sometimes refers to as "editor Martin," though I'm not sure why. I haven't been anyone's editor, let alone his, for many years. I have come to London to sightsee and take the culture. I simply adore culture, and I have been satisfied to find it in evidence everywhere I turn. My companion I'm sure will give a full account of the serious objects of cultural interest we've encountered, with his usual considerable insight. I shall be content to comment upon the trifles and mundanities that preoccupy me.

Immediately I was struck by how well turned out Central Londoners are, almost without exception. The young people are all dressed in the height of fashion, as if they expect at any moment someone could come along and photograph them for an indie-rock album cover. The professional men wear nicely cut dark suits or jackets with thick, Windsor-knotted ties. The women of the city are demurely chic. Both sexes seem to favor square-framed eyeglasses. What I've observed is beyond mere urbanity. I am a frequent visitor to and former resident of New York, and in no quarter there have I seen such a uniformly sharp throng on the streets.

When our self-directed walking tour yesterday took us past the place, a loop played in my mind of Chevy Chase's voice: "Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament ... Big Ben, Parliament ..."

I liked the portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. Becuase I can't always recognize British historical figures by their faces, it was fun to respond to a portrait and then walk up to read the name. For example, I looked at one and thought, that fellow looks intensely serious and very proud. It was Sir Issac Newton.

ON HOLIDAY. Notice the way I said that? Don't I sound British? That's because I'm in London for a few days with editor Martin and, pretentious shit that I am, will mix local colloquialisms into my natural argot til I am given a good sound thrashing by yobs, which should be any moment now.

Our first day was spent walking around central London, which had to be got out of the way because Martin's never been here before, whereas I have, often on business. So we went down from Bloomsbury to Trafalgar to the Embankment etc. I pretended not to be excited to see them again, so Martin would feel like an uncultured ass. But I was excited, and took pictures, with which I may plague you later.

One art highlight so far: the BP Portrait Awards show at the National Portrait Gallery. I'll tell you more about it later as I don't have my notes with me, but I will say now that it was wonderful to see some of that boldness we associate with new British artists allied with decent rendering skills.

We're going to see the new Stoppard tonight, which unfortunately coincides with the Selfish Cunt show at Spitz. If I had any taste at all I'd ditch Stoppard for the thrill of having a painted twat snarl at me while drum machines throb. I am an uncultured ass!

But one who's very happy to be here. Time now for my morning IPA.

DON'T THEY KNOW, IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD. Why, look, the Perfesser gives us a tip on a guy who gives us a tip on another guy: "Bruce Kesler says you don't know Jack. But he thinks you should."

"Jack" turns out to be a nut of the pipe-puffing, philosopher-quoting sort, who whipsaws between despair over the decadent West and hope for its continued dominance over the Islamic hordes. His essay becomes a dramatic contest between these mania, and I read it eagerly to see which would win. At first it seems the "Lickspittles and vassals of the elites" and the "soccer thugs and soccer thugs in-waiting" will prevail (or rather, destroy each other or themselves but in any case piss away our patrimony), resulting in "Eurabia" and "Muslim Oxford." Then Jack realizes that "Europeans have among the nastiest histories of brutality, barbarism and genocide on the planet" -- and that "it is unwise to assume that these characteristics can be bred out of peoples so quickly, no matter what the doddering elites and their court jesters in the MSM seek to portray."

So we slaughter the wogs and wind up on top, yes? Here the crystal ball grows cloudy -- that is to say, the writing becomes inpenetrably dense: "Eurabia may well emerge. It is, however, our expectation that upheavals far worse than anyone is currently forecasting lie ahead for Europe and America in the intervening years." However?

Over at OpinionJournal, another guy says liberals are doomed to irrelevance because they're not having enough babies. Someone gave this guy a teaching job at Syracuse University, yet he seems to think voting choices are heritable racial characteristics. Maybe this categorical confusion comes from hanging out with "Eurabia vs. the Decadent West" types.

You know what's too bad? By the time I got to Lileks staying up late for Dick Clark's Rockin' Apocalypse, it had all begun to seem normal.

I HEARD ABOUT THE NIGHT CHICAGO DIED, YET THEY STILL HAVE TWO BASEBALL TEAMS. I've often wondered what the Giuliani fetishists think Giuliani actually did on September 11, besides his job as defined by law and custom. Today The Anchoress gives us a glimpse: had Giuliani been elected Senator the year before and gone to Washington,

Giuliani would not have been in the middle of NYC, and that city would have died under the ministrations of the ineffectual Mark Greene [sic].

Yes, the woman actually believes that without Rudy at the helm, we citizens all would have said, "fuck this, I'm outtie," and moved to Schenectady. Or, given her crackpot Catholicism, maybe she thinks a giant red hand would have come out of the ground and, to the sound of pitch-shifted laughter, pulled us into Hell.

If they were just wrong, if they were just dishonest, they wouldn't bug me so much. But these people seem to have learned everything about life from Gigantor cartoons.

SHORTER MARIO LOYOLA. The millions of Americans who think Iraq was a mistake are hippies, and George Bush can win them over by calling them hypocrites. (But in a funny way, because hippies love that.)

(I must say I'm enjoying the whole Republican meme to which Loyola is contributing here -- i.e., that there's nothing wrong with Bush that can't be fixed with better bullshit and universal forgetting.)

SHORTER JIM LILEKS: Say what you want about Joe McCarthy, but lay off Mickey Mouse, ya damn beatniks! You make this world a garbage can!

(Despite Jimbo's negative review of someone else's review, Putney Swope is a treat -- more surreal than vulgar -- and I recommend it highly.)

UPDATE. Photo at right shows Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, and Arthur Miller fucking with the squares' heads.

SUNDAY MISCELLANY. I sighed at the picture of the 1986 Mets in today's New York Post. Has it really been 20 years since I passed out in front to the TV during Game 6? Now they look like the Beer-League Champions of 1998. Sic trans-fat gloria mundi. Remind me to get my cholesterol checked.

The current team was apparently inspired by the old team's presence and example: Lastings Millage told the Post that after the pre-game tribute "I was ready to run through a brick wall." And he had a great game. Intangibles, my friends. Speaking of which, Wally Backman told the Post that the Diamondbacks "fucked" him on that managerial offer in 2004. Glad to see the years haven't taken off his edge.

Speaking of old, belligerent drunks, I'll be hauling my aged ass to London in a few days, and I'm looking for pub recommendations. In previous visits I've always gone wherever's been nearest, and it's usually worked out okay. But now, with the power of distributed citizen journalism at my disposal, I hope to eschew Firkins and such like and take my pints and pasties at blogger-approved locals. I'm not interested in darts and quizzes so much as good ale, comfortable seats, and pleasant surroundings.

Finally, with this story I begin to see the need for airport profiling. If I see a 59-year-old white lady in a Rolling Stones T-shirt at JFK, I'm going Peggy Noonan on her ass. A pack, not a herd!

SHORTER OLE PERFESSER: The boys sorta got outta hand with these here "minorities," but that's what happens when the government is always bending over backwards for niggers.

REYNOLDS' UNIVERSAL ROBOTS. A few posts back, when I quoted Motörhead ("That's the way I like it, baby, I don't want to live forever"), I was aware that not everyone sees things that way. Perfesser Glenn Reynolds, for one, looks forward to a near-future in which exist "individuals with powers that would have been until recently regarded as godlike." The Perfesser has elaborated:

Yes, it's possible to draw parallels between the Christian idea of The Rapture -- and, even more generally, between religious ideas of transcendence generally -- and the notion that, once human technology passes a certain threshold, roughly that described by Vinge and other Singularity enthusiasts, human beings will potentially enjoy the kind of powers and pleasures traditionally assigned to gods or beings in heaven: Limitless lifespans, if not immortality, superhuman powers, virtually limitless wealth, fleshly pleasures on demand, etc.

Oddly enough, I was reading Çapek's R.U.R. around the same time, which put me into a fugue state, and resulted in this:

2079

(A midwestern American town. Citizens, like the ones we know today, but with hyperextended thumbs and gently sloping brows, gather in a town square surrounded by barbed-wire and kill-droid guardians, in a high state of excitement)

ACE II: (mounting a plinth) Citizens! We are juiced today by the hyperpresence of the greatest robot lawgiver in our nation-state! Throw your citizenguns in the air like you just don't care for Perfesser Glenn Harlan Reynolds!

(Applause, shrieks, citizengunfire. ACE II descends and the PERFESSER mounts the plinth. He moves somewhat stiffly, being a nanotechnologic replication of his former pre-Singularity self; but his plasticine body is covered in roomy, luminescent grey cloth, and his head -- actually a titanium CPU -- is encased in a bullet-proof glass globe, upon the front of which is projected a lifelike image of his face from his pre-transhumanist days, and on top of which, like Happy Hooligan's hat, rests a small solar generator. His voice issues from a small speaker near what used to be his throat.)

THE PERFESSER: (With a gentle, whirring sound, his arms raise) Citizens! Heh! (giddy general response: "Heh!") Indeed! ("Indeed!") Hear me! (With a gentle, whirring sound, his arms descend; the crowd grows still) I am come to tell you that World War XXVII goes well, and the Free Market still rules! (whistles, cries of "hehindeed") Only a few statists remain in six or seven unsuburban spider-holes. And the statist stronghold of Madison, Wisconsin, I hehindeed to tell you, is today a Patriot Zone! (Cheers, gunfire) We heard the good news this morning from Ann Althouse, who will share it with you today.

(ACE II hands the PERFESSER a medium-sized globe, within which flickers an electronic representation of the face of ANN ALTHOUSE, rendered in psychedelic colors)

ALTHOUSE GLOBE: What a hoot! Partisan peoples running around, then they splashed like Jackson Pollock all over the walls and floors. They were so depressive! Why would I care about them! My toes were all tingly! I saw a pretty butterfly.

(The ALTHOUSE GLOBE makes a sputtering noise. The PERFESSER's arm rises; the crowd applauds; The PERFESSER's arm wobbles, which the crowd takes as a sign to be still)

THE PERFESSER: This news is very hehindeed, but we still face challenges from the Islamocommifascistevilstatistsquareds. (boos, screams, beach balls tossed) I am told that last night Kimkushkiba rockets landed just outside the Freedom Zone. (His voice slowly rising as ACE II turns his volume knob) Citizens, you know what we must do: increase production of iBrains threefold! And of Cafesodasplurges even more! And blog! Blog! Forever blog! (The crowd cheers lustily) For it is blogging, and coffee drinks, and technology, and most of all the Free Market that will destroy our enemies, as it did in the days of Winston Dubya and Reagan Hayek! Thank you, Good Night, and HehIndeed!

(The PERFESSER is helped from the plinth to enjoy the favors of robowhores, as the citizens scream, do the Electric Slide, and shoot each other with their citizenguns.)

2197

(The same midwestern American town as before, but somewhat the worse for wear. Citizens wear crudely-stitched flannel shirts and shapeless leggings, and gather around the PERFESSER, whose body-stocking is now of a faded pink, and stands erect only because he has had an iron bar implanted in his back. His face-image flickers but dimly in his head-globe.)

CITIZEN 1: (holds a stick shaped like a microphone at the PERFESSER) Perfesser! You say we beat Islamofish! That no true me think! Bomb bomb bomb all the time! Me sick alla time and wife she dead!

(Other CITIZENS roar, and point at the sky, each other, and the PERFESSER blocks of wood shaped like handguns.)

CITIZEN 2: Me sick too! Me iBrain no make tune no more! (crying) Me only know one tune no more! (tunelessly wails) "Put body, put body in motion! Put body in lo-co-co-motion!" (snarls, eyes gleaming at the PERFESSER)Uck uck uck! Me hate 'im! It sugg! IT SUGG! IT SUGG! EAT MY SHORT YOU KILL KENNY! EAT MY SHORT YOU KILL KENNY!

(Crowd yells and waves its wooden guns)

THE PERFESSER: (his voice tinny and faint) Citizens, citizens. The Free Market is the answer to your problems. Hehindeed. What is your manufacture? Where is your technology?

CITIZEN 1: Technol'gy? Technol'gy? (Pulls his flannel shirt up by the chest) We smesh together ol' clothes! Cause me got sewing machine, we pedal with feet! Cause no electric! Cause all bomb! Me make wood gun to fight, an' me fight you! You no good! You no good!

(Citizens hurl their wooden guns at THE PERFESSER, who topples, but whose face maintains its rictus grin.)

THE PERFESSER: Where are my robowhores? Bring me my robowhores!

2230

(The same midwestern American town as before. The air is full of blue smoke. The PERFESSER is in the same spot and prone position as before. His plasticine body has flattened and is covered by filthy pink rags. The speaker that was near his throat has been ripped away. The glass globe that served for his head is cracked and unlighted, and to the front of it is taped an ancient photograph of Gordon Ramsey. The solar generator hat tilts almost to the ground, hanging by a few thin wires. Some wild boys, naked and filthy, run up to him. One holds the PERFESSER's former voice-box, and waves it at him tauntingly.)

BOY: Ea' myshort! Faggit funna funna! Fagga ea' myshort!

BOY 2: Skree!

BOY 3: Body in motion! Body in motion!

(The PERFESSER, with his last dying electrical charge, thinks: I have no mouth. And I must heh indeed.)

NEEDED: A BLOGGER COMMONPLACE BOOK. Tbogg provides the first precept:

No one is going to get a blogging Pulitzer for being the fastest to post what they just saw and heard on the TV.

I love that guy.

UPDATE. The nut whom Tbogg is advising does not appreciate the help; nor does he appreciate all those "Brave, Tough, Strong Warriors of the Left" who laugh at his bogus terror alerts. He says that "this country needs a divorce, or at least a trial separation period," from the Left.

Loyal commenters roger that: "Really, Ace, the left and right in this country severely need a divorce. That, or we're gonna kill the bitch." But there are a surprising number of dissenters, some with a good deal of moxie:

Funny how the bedwetters never seems to live in New York, LA, Chicago, whatever.

It's always some loser in Bumfuck, Nebraska who's afraid the swarthy brown man is gonna drop da bomb on him at the In & Out Burger on Main.

To steal a bit from Maher, New Rule: If you're going to wet the bed from every alleged terror plot, you must live within five hundred miles of civilization.

If only my trolls were that funny! But Mr. Spades should probably take heed: this weird, morose state can't be good for him or his co-religionists. Even Jim Lileks, a pants-pisser from way back, is sick of it: "Frankly, I’m weary of dismay. I’m tired of feeling like tremulous Belgium in the latter thirties. We need to buck up. To paraphrase: we need to barg the farg up."

That's the spirit, Jimbo! Barg the farg up, you farging schmarg! And you too, Mr. Spades -- stop apost-hating Andrew Sullivan, that's for Lamont moonbats, the GOP's a big tent! Have a nice big bowl of Patrioats, and turn your attention to the real enemy: common sense!

UPDATE II. He's taken my advice!

CHEAP JOKE FOR THE WEEKEND. Damnum Absque Injuria (new to me, but apparently a Perfesser fave -- and, like the Perfesser, the sort of "libertarian" who can pretty much take or leave Constitutional rights) has some yucks with conspiracy theorists:

Recently we’ve read that 38% of Americans polled believe the U.S. government is withholding information about UFOs proof of the existence of intelligent life from other planets, and 36% think 9/11 was an inside job... Is there any question so wacky that one-third of the population will not answer it in the affirmative?

Wait a second. What's Bush's approval rating again?

PERUBLICAN ALERT. Not to be too optimistic, but it appears that folks are warming to the Democratic Party, while they remain highly disapproving toward George W. Bush.

Naturally, Republicans cry for a do-over.

Wizbang announces that "we need two effective parties in America." For the Democrats to be effective,

Once the hysteria of discovering they are no longer in the majority, but actually in a condition which may fairly be described as a tailspin, the Democrats will have to decide if they are willing to do what it takes to survive.

And what would that be?

The Democrats need a center of focus, to understand what really matters.

I am new to Wizbang, and thought this might be the prelude to a yoga, Rosicrucianism, or colon-cleansing pitch. But there was no follow-up, new age or otherwise, so I assume the author just likes putting the words "Democrat" and "center" together, as if this magical confluence will summon up, Golem-like, an Army of Liebermans.

Oh, and Democrats have to stop their constant attacks on George W. Bush. And for the Republicans to be effective, they also have to stop their constant attacks on George W. Bush:

Republicans, for their part, were only too happy to take the gains which Dubya made happen, only to shun him the moment the MSM claimed he was not effective.

Let us pause to enjoy the mental image of Rick Santorum, his eyes glassy and arms outstretched, in zombie-like submission to the commands of Bill Keller.

The Republican Party also suffers, says Wizbang, from its "Extremists" -- and also from its "moderates," and from its "leaders" as well. Whew -- what's that even leave? Dubya, who "has done more for the United States of America and its citizens, than most Republicans and the Democrats put together."

To sum up, the Democrats -- who, here on planet Earth, may actually luck into some Congressional gains -- are portrayed as hapless losers in "freefall," while George W. Bush, polling at 36% approval, is the Republican Party's only hope, and must be prevailed upon to protect the GOP from the extremists, moderates, and leaders that would drag it down.

I still think the GOP can pull it off if they scream NINE ELEVEN! and FAGS GITTIN' HITCHED! loud enough, but it is nice to see their advocates and apologists so panicked for a change.

WHISKEY! DEMOCRACY! SEXY! BULLSHIT! NYT:

“Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,” said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity.

“Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect,” the expert said, “but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.”

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it is always good to see frauds exposed, and this unraveling might have a salutary shock effect on the American voter, and cause him to question his fearmasters. On the other hand, the state of our education and intellectual life being what it is, the American voter may not remember how we got into Iraq in the first place, and Bush might go on TV tomorrow and blame it on some recently-dead celebrity like, say, Bruno Kirby.

"Sadly," the President may tell them, "the lovable Ed Furillo of 'City Slickers' and Young Clemenza of 'The Godfather Part II' were not the only roles Bruno Kirby played. He was known to his terrorist minders by his secret Islamiciscisc... Islamsis... Islama-ci-sist name, Yabba Dabba Doo. As Bruno Kirby, he enjoyed a great reputation as both an actor and as an expert of Arab-American relations, and unprecendeted access at the highest levels of government. But as Yabba Dabba Doo, he was devoted to undermining and embarrassing the United States of America. When we invaded Iraq, our actions were based on his recommendations, and thousands have lost their lives, or their political viability, as a result of that tragic deception.

"The loved ones left behind in both America and Iraq may take some comfort that justice was done on August 8th, when Yabba Dabbo Doo was taken down by a team of Navy Seals posing as leukemia.

"We must make sure that America is never again caught unprepared for this kind of deception. I have issued an Executive Order establishing a new cabinet-level office, the Department of Sincerity Assessment, which will consist of teams of psychics like they have on TV. These psychics will be able to tell who is telling the truth, and who is lying, or has a terrible secret. Cold cases will be solved, and tragic errors avoided. And unique plot twists will keep audiences coming back week after week."

Or something like that. Maybe he'll just go on TV dressed like Obe Wan Kenobe and say, "We are not the droids you're looking for." Or hold up a swinging watch, or sprinkle pixie dust on us. What the hell: we voted for him twice, how smart can we be?

JESUS, FREAK! Crunchy Con Rod Dreher has started talking about what a mess that Iraq is. We were "rolled" by the Shiites, he says: "They played us for useful idiots...I hate that a single drop of American blood was shed for these people," adds Dreher, whose Christianity apparently stops at the water's edge, "But what happened, happened."

And part of how what happened, happened was crap like this, written by Dreher in the run-up to war:

We’re already moving toward Baghdad in our war against Iraq, one I believe with all my heart is just and necessary. We don’t know how long it will last, or what the fallout will be. When the smoke clears, I am afraid that one home-front casualty will be some friendships.

With America preparing to blow the shit out of a bunch of people on the other side of the world, for Dreher the clear and present danger was arguments with his anti-war buddies.

At least Dreher had an exit strategy: "There’s simply no point in talking to most antiwar people, left and right, because they’re lost in a fever swamp of emotionalism." Comity problem solved! Unfortunately for the Iraqis, they couldn't wish us so easily into the cornfield.

Now that the place is a hellhole, does Dreher regret his support for the Maximun Leader in 2004? Well...

...my heretical thought is not, "Maybe I should have voted for Kerry," though that might be true. My heretical thought is that no matter what my reservations were about Bush either time I voted for him, they were overcome by my single-minded focus on the Supreme Court.

And get this -- he's not sure he wouldn't do it again! Even knowing what was to come of it, and despite all the American (if no other) blood spilled.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Moral Majority Redux: willing to permit the needless deaths of as many non-American non-embryos as it takes to keep women from getting abortions and gay people from getting married.

And they say Allah attracts a rough crowd!

UPDATE. Like Clouseau's crime scene investigation in The Return of the Pink Panther? ("What wax? AAAAAH!"), Dreher keeps finding new and more amusing ways to display idiocy. In a new post, he lambastes the Republicans for playing a "confidence game" in which "all they have to do is keep banging away on the public's fear that the Democrats would be worse." As if to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach, Dreher finishes:

[The Republicans] deserve to lose. They really do. But I don't think the country deserves the Democrats, at least not the Democrats we have now.

One reaches this level of self-unawareness only after years of patient non-study, or immediately following a strong blow to the head.

A PLEASANT SURPRISE. Hey, Professor Althouse has delivered a stern rebuke to parents who use homeschooling as religious indoctrination! "The beauty and freedom of this country does not include the right to deprive children of schooling," she says. And boy is she hard on parents who make their children memorize Bible texts to the exclusion of other subjects!

Actually when I said "Bible," I meant "Koran." But I'm sure the professor would agree that the principle is the same.

UPDATE. Her commenters seem to think it's all about Islam and some epochal struggle ("the battle is joined - the one that England's already lost"). What a hoot!