A Supporting Actress?

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Righties have seized upon yesterday’s theatrics by Mrs. Sam the Sham as one more opportunity to enjoy self-righteous outrage over the perfidity of Democrats.

Remember, these tender hearts belong to the same folks who assure us that waterboarding isn’t so bad.

I only saw game highlights, but by some accounts Mrs. Sham was made to burst into tears by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, not by the Dems. And by other accounts it was all fake, anyway.

Jane Hamsher observes,

Mrs. Strip Search Sammy sure had herself a Kodak moment today, didn’t she? Goober Graham left off his corn-pone homilies and played the hick card just long enough to set her up by using the B word –– the word they’re all terrified of, the word they wanted to use before the Democrats did — BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT BIGOT — that sent the low-rent Sarah Bernhardt shrieking for the cheap seats.

I’ve worked in the biz long enough to know a poorly executed little melodrama when I see it and that was the worst, the most shameless, most obvious. It’s the role you give a really bad actress, one that can’t even be counted upon to cry with conviction. The mad dash will obscure the crocodile tears and ensure that all the cameras follow, and any attempt at intelligent discussion of quite serious and weighty matters will undoubtedly get trumped by a moment of quick burlesque ripe for the evening news. A slavish press will need no coaching to play along.

Steve M. observes, “After telling us for months and months that al-Qaeda captives regularly claim torture when it hasn’t taken place, right-wingers have apparently decided to try this technique themselves.” Droll.

The rightie reaction reminds me of children made to attend a solemn, grown-up event. They were dozing off until somebody tripped over the microphone, or spilled his water, or picked his nose.

And if it wasn’t faked, Judge Sham might want to consider whether his fragile little frau can handle being the wife of a Supreme.

Truth Hurts

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A case study in rightie “logic” — Captain Ed writes that “Alito blew Chuck Schumer out of the water on abortion.” Here is the section of Senator Schumer’s questioning to which the Captain refers.

SCHUMER: Does the Constitution protect the right to free speech?

ALITO: Certainly it does. That’s in the First Amendment.

SCHUMER: So why can’t you answer the question of: Does the Constitution protect the right to an abortion the same way without talking about stare decisis, without talking about cases, et cetera?

ALITO: Because answering the question of whether the Constitution provides a right to free speech is simply responding to whether there is language in the First Amendment that says that the freedom of speech and freedom of the press can’t be abridged. Asking about the issue of abortion has to do with the interpretation of certain provisions of the Constitution.

SCHUMER: Well, OK. I know you’re not going to answer the question. I didn’t expect really that you would, although I think it would be important that you would. I think it’s part of your obligation to us that you do, particularly that you stated it once before so any idea that you’re approaching this totally fresh without any inclination or bias goes by the way side.

But I do have to tell you, Judge, you’re refusal I find troubling. And it’s sort as if I asked a friend of mine 20 years ago — a friend of mine 20 years ago said to me, he said, you know, I really can’t stand my mother-in-law. And a few weeks ago I saw him and I said, “Do you still hate your mother-in-law?”

He said, “Well, I’m now married to her daughter for 21 years, not one year.”

I said, “No, no, no. Do you still hate your mother-in-law?”

And he said, “I can’t really comment.”

What do you think I’d think?

ALITO: Senator, I think…

SCHUMER: Let me just move on.

Just who blew whom out of the water? I think your answer depends on your values. If you value honesty; if you value liberty; if you value the principle that We, the People, rule this country — Schumer wins. If, instead, you value raw power and winning at any cost — Alito wins.

It’s obvious to everyone on both sides — although not to most reporters — that Alito is evading questions. There is only one reason he couldn’t give Senator Schumer a yes or no answer — he doesn’t want the Senate, and the nation, to know what he really thinks. Certainly a nominee shouldn’t answer questions about cases that might come before the bench. But let’s look at how Ruth Bader Ginsburg handled similiar questions [PDF]:


Senator Leahy [D-Vt.]: Senator Metzenbaum had asked you whether the right to choose is a fundamental right. Is there a constitutional right to privacy?

Judge Ginsburg: There is a constitutional right to privacy composed of at least two distinguishable parts. One is the privacy expressed most vividly in the fourth amendment: The Government shall not break into my home or my office without a warrant, based on probable cause; the Government shall leave me alone.

The other is the notion of personal autonomy. The Government shall not make my decisions for me. I shall make, as an individual, uncontrolled by my Government, basic decisions that affect my life’s course. Yes, I think that what has been placed under the label privacy is a constitutional right that has those two elements, the right to be let alone and the right to make decisions about one’s life course.

….

Judge Ginsburg: [Y]ou asked me about my thinking on equal protection versus individual autonomy. My answer is that both are implicated. The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When Government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.

Now, is there any question about what Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought about a woman’s right to choose an abortion? On the other hand, all we get out of Alito is, in effect, It depends on how you interpret the Constitution, but I have an open mind.

Sure you do, son. And I’m Queen Victoria.

The PDF document I cite above as a reference to Ginsburg contains more quotes relating to the infamous Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision, in which Judge Alito played a part. If you compare Ginsburg’s views on Casey to Alito’s, it is obvious that their ideas on what “privacy” actually means — indeed, on what liberty and personal autonomy actually are — are worlds apart. Alito may say he supports a “right to privacy,” but clearly there should be big, prominent warning labels on that assertion — restrictions may apply; void where prohibited.

I’ve written in the past that, IMO, the notion the Constitution does not protect a right to privacy (because, you know, the word privacy just isn’t in there anywhere) misses the whole meaning and purpose of the American Revolution and Bill of Rights —

… the Constitution recognizes all kinds of rights to be “left alone by the government.” Roe v. Wade argues that the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments put together protect a right to personal privacy, and that this right had already been recognized by many prior decisions. I’ll paste a part of the Roe decision explaining this at the end of this post.

But for the moment let’s step away from examining clauses under a microscope and look at the bigger issue of political liberty. The whole point of it, and the raison d’etre of the Bill of Rights, is the notion (revolutionary in the 18th century) that citizens of the U.S. were not subjects whose lives and property could be messed with on the capricious whims of the sovereign. The underlying philosophy of our government is that citizens are to be free of interference by government unless government has a compelling reason to countermand the free will of citizens. And even then, government must jump through various hoops–the due process of law thing–before requiring a citizen to do something he or she does not want to do.

You know how it is with righties — they like to talk about freedom, but really, to them, freedom’s just another word. And it’s a word that applies only to them and their agenda. They don’t mean for the rest of us to have it.

Update: See Scott at Lawyers, Guns and Money.

While They Were Sleeping

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The meta-message about Alito seeping through to news consumers is, I’m afraid, that he’s not so bad. Even the usually sharp Keith Olbermann made Alito out to be a moderate who wouldn’t really do all those nasty things people say he might do, like reverse Roe. That memo from 1985 was just something he said to get a job. Now, he says he is “keeping an open mind.”

What the hell does that mean, keeping an open mind? Notice that he hasn’t once said he supports Roe, just that he has an “open mind” about it. I’m told Clarence Thomas said the same thing in his hearings. An “open mind” can be open to the return of the coathanger, people.

Dan Abrams called the hearings “boring.” Is boring the effect the Republicans are going for? (How extreme can Alito be, if he’s boring? How can anyone that mundane be dangerous?)

The word for today, boys and girls, is stealthy: “Marked by or acting with quiet, caution, and secrecy intended to avoid notice.” Yeah, ol’ Sam is a real cautious guy. He and his “open mind” are tip-toeing right past the snoozers.

I am not encouraged. I haven’t watched the hearings first-hand, but the real fight isn’t in the Senate. It’s in the media. And our side is losing. Alito, a mild-mannered dweeb, carefully says what everyone wants to hear, and carefully avoids being pinned down on anything substantive. Journalists dutifully report on the packaging but aren’t looking real hard at the product.

This is the way America ends: not with a bang but a snore.

Some on the Left Blogosphere want to wake people up by comparing Alito to Robert Bork. Hello? This won’t mean anything to anyone but us liberal politics junkies. Your standard not-all-that-interested citizen probably barely remembers who Robert Bork is. And Bork got borked not because of any brilliant maneuvering by the Dems, IMO, but because Bork was an arrogant prick who pissed off the wrong people. Although in fact Bork and Alito may cling to the same twig of the ideological family tree, the lessons of Bork do not apply to Alito.

Personally, I think the only hope we have is if the Dems learn some message discipline overnight (well, a miracle may occur) and march around tomorrow with one word on their lips: credibility. Alito is not being upfront about his opinions. He has fudged answers about past ethical lapses. And the nominee of a president under suspicion for misuse of power had damn well better get his feet held to the fire about his opinions on presidential power. So far, his answers sound alarmingly like John Yoo’s.

Sorry if I sound discouraged. And why is it I keep hearing the Wicked Witch of the West in my head?

And now, my beauties! Something with poison in it, I think. With poison in it, but attractive to the eye — and soothing to the smell! (laughs)

Poppies! Poppies! Poppies!

On a more upbeat note — word is that Senator Schumer’s questioning was particularly good, so I copied it from the transcript and pasted it beneath the fold. Enjoy. Continue reading →

Effing Sam Alito

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Righties have a remarkable capacity for bullshitting themselves, which is why some of them may actually believe Sam Alito doesn’t have an “agenda.” After all, returning women to the same legal status as dependent children is only doing what nature and the Founding Fathers intended, isn’t it?

Last night on cable TV various spokespersons for the Right — such as former Solicitor General Ted Olson on Hardball — mustered their best authoritative tones to declare that ol’ Sam could be counted on to rule on the law, not on his personal opinions.

And what is the law? Whatever the Bush Administration says it is, of course. Perry Bacon and Mike Allen wrote for CNN.com:

[Alito] was part of the Litigation Strategy Working Group, a team of about a dozen officials that Attorney General Edwin Meese appointed to help embed Reagan’s philosophy more deeply into the legal system. In a 1986 memo to the group, Alito proposed to have Reagan issue “signing statements,” defining exactly how the President understood a law’s meaning, when he approved a bill that Congress had passed. Reagan issued such statements occasionally, but the Bush Administration has dramatically expanded their use. In one issued two weeks ago, which infuriated both Democrats and Republicans, Bush suggested he would reconsider a recently passed torture ban if he felt there was an imminent national-security threat.

We’ve also been reassured that Alito is a man who respects precedent. As an appellate judge he even ruled against abortion restrictions because of precedent. And that’s true. In Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey v. Farmer, where he sided with Planned Parenthood: “Our responsibility as a lower court is to follow and apply controlling Supreme Court precedent.” But that doesn’t tell us what he’ll do when he’s not on a “lower court,” does it?

So let’s just say I’m not reassured.

Dahlia Lithwick provides yesterday’s game highlights at Slate:

There aren’t a lot of other surprises today: Republicans go on and on about how easy it is for judges to know what “the law” is and what “the Constitution” requires, while Democrats rave about the centrist pragmatism of Sandra Day O’Connor. Not one Democrat on the committee, by my count, misses a chance to quote her “blank check” line from the Hamdi opinion. Senators Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., stage a little abortion-off, in which each fights to become the Most Pro-Life Man in the World (for anyone scoring at home, Coburn does not actually cry this time, but he does sniffle audibly). Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., agrees to introduce Alito, which he does graciously, but then stops short of endorsing him. Democrats fret about executive power in wartime, while Republicans are seemingly too worried about the threat of the Imperial Court to be bothered by the reality of an Imperial Presidency.

For liberals, there is no question that Alito should not be confirmed. But we are faced with two other questions: Can we stop the nomination, and if so, how far should we go to stop it?

Jane Hamsher answers question one with a big yes.

Strip Search Sammy is an altogether different beast than John Roberts, and his hearing comes at quite a different time. The public is starting to get their first tastes of the corruption scandal growing like a cancer on the Republican party who are vulnerable just at the time they are the most visible. Despite his bluster, John Cornyn is rightly terrified that the free pass given him by the press in the Abramoff matter will end any day now. He’s not the only one. There is considerable cover for an attack that didn’t exist only months ago.

And Alito himself is personally unappealing. Stiff, humorless, and comes off as a bit of a weirdo. People like Ron Wyden were afraid to go after Roberts because he was likeable, and Joe Biden learned to his peril that shredding the “nice guy” is the wrong place to try and make your bones. There is an opening for Democrats to capitalize on this as they try to tie unpopular Bush measures like the illegal NSA wiretaps to Alito’s tail like a tin can.

And the RNC knows it. Ken Mehlman himself is meeting today with Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Cap’n Ed, Red State, Political Teen and others to try and control the quite critical message in the blogosphere, and seeding the notion of inevitable failure into the opposition narrative is one of the tricks that plays well for the GOP.

Is the DNC meeting with leftie bloggers? If so, I’m not on the invitation list. But let’s go on … Eleanor Clift argued in November that Democrats should not go to the mattresses over Alito:

Democrats should mount a tough fight and expose Alito and his conservative cheerleaders so the voters know what they’re getting. Highlight the ruling where Alito said Congress has no power to regulate machine guns under the commerce clause of the Constitution. Play the abortion card–but stop short of a filibuster. With President George W. Bush’s approval rating at 35 percent in the latest CBS poll, Democrats have finally sprung to life. That’s a good thing, but a bruising battle over cultural issues is better for Bush than for the Democrats. Rather than risk the filibuster in an unwinnable fight over Alito, Democrats should save it for when and if that awful day arrives when the most liberal member of the court, John Paul Stevens, 85, steps down while Bush is still president.

In other words, Clift calls for a strategic redeployment. One does wonder how bad a nominee has to be before we take a stand, though. We’re gonna redeploy our butts off a cliff one of these days. And what about the F word — filibuster? Via Scott at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Matt Yglesias has switched sides and is arguing against a filibuster. Sam Rosenfeld at TAPPED sounds discouraged:

[I]t’s hard to shake a sense of fatalism here. To state the obvious, the political scene in the last few months has been unusually packed with other issues that have prevented any kind of serious anti-Alito momentum from gathering real head-steam. Democrats clearly feel that they are enjoying quite a bit of momentum at the moment on a number of other fronts and are reluctant to risk losing it in an uphill nomination fight that could merely polarize partisans along familiar and not-particularly-beneficial lines. This isn’t the bravest kind of tactical logic — and of course pointing to the “lack of momentum” in one fight or the other is always a circular way of rationalizing not working to build that momentum — but I still find it pretty compelling. That’s because the Supreme Court “fights” we’ve seen so far in the last half year have already revealed the basic mistake of the longstanding conventional wisdom that post-Breyer nomination fights would inevitably be gonzo partisan battle royals. In fact, we’ve relearned that the presidency enjoys an immense degree of built-in advantage and deference on nominations that makes effective opposition prohibitively difficult, except under very rare circumstances. (This is all particularly true when the opposition party is the minority in the Senate.)

Moreover, the constant refrain that “it all comes down to the hearings” and that the whole dynamic of the fight might change this week seems delusional. The Roberts hearings should have made it abundantly clear that the most disgraceful amount of obfuscation and unjustifiable dodging in no way endangers a nominee’s prospects for confirmation. Roberts’ performance sparked unanimous Democratic grumbling about his giving short shrift to the Senate’s role in the process — and then a bunch of Democrats voted for him. Just because the logic compelling Alito to be forthcoming is even more air-tight and unanswerable doesn’t mean he will, in fact, be forthcoming. Democrats are unlikely to find it a politically compelling proposition to mount a filibuster mainly on procedural grounds, but without that threat there’s no leverage to get Alito to actually say anything.

I’ve heard suggestions that the Bushies want a tough fight against Alito, because it would take attention away from Jack Abramoff and the NSA scandal. On the other hand, the NSA scandal is very much part of why Alito is a frighteningly bad candidate for the SCOTUS. Alito should be compelled to express an opinion on Bush’s “war powers” and whether the 4th Amendment still applies. And I say the Dems should filibuster his ass until he does.

Finally, if the Dems need some new talking points, they should consult the Blogosphere. Via Kos, Michael at AMERICAblog has come up with a dandy:

He is apparently ashamed of everything he’s ever done. Alito boasted on an application for promotion in the Reagan administration about belonging to the racist, Neanderthal-ish Concerned Alumni For Princeton. Now he pretends he can’t remember ever belonging to them at all.

Alito said he wanted to become a lawyer because he was so distraught about Supreme Court rulings that led to “one person, one vote,” a cornerstone of our modern democracy. Now, he says we should ignore his consistent, persistent attacks on affirmative action.

Alito also cannily helped to devise the incremental approach to dismantling Roe v Wade that has been the very tactic the far right has used. Now Alito says to ignore all that.

Alito has repeatedly proven he believes the president is more like an emperor — someone who deserves almost unlimited deference from the Supreme Court, especially during a time of war.

Finally, Alito pledged to the Senate that he would recuse himself under certain situations as a federal judge. He repeatedly broke that pledge. His excuses vary: he forgot, the computers shouldn’t have assigned him those cases in the first place, he never HAD to recuse himself, and finally he never promised he would recuse himself forever. The reasons change, but the fact remains: Alito gave his word and then he broke it. He can’t be trusted.

Since Alito is so clearly ashamed of himself, shouldn’t we be ashamed of him and keep him off the Supreme Court?

Last night on Hardball, the guest-hosting Norah O’Donnell kept trying to get a rightie guest to admit that Alito would turn the court to the Right; I don’t believe she got a straight answer from any of them. What are righties ashamed of (like we don’t know)?

Update: Glenn Greenwald says Dems must filibuster!

Update update: Don’t miss “Bush Wired for Alito Remarks” at Democrats.com!!!

Move Along

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Via Juan Cole, we read in today’s Guardian:

American troops in Baghdad yesterday blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later.

Dr Fadhil is working with Guardian Films on an investigation for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme into claims that tens of millions of dollars worth of Iraqi funds held by the Americans and British have been misused or misappropriated.

The troops told Dr Fadhil that they were looking for an Iraqi insurgent and seized video tapes he had shot for the programme. These have not yet been returned.

What can one say, but … Jebus.

Update: I believe Ali Fadhil is the same Ali Fadhil who bolted from Iraq the Model awhile back to start an independent blog, Free Iraqi. [Update: This is a guess, because the blogger and the writer are both physicians, but I don’t know for certain.] Dr. Fadhil also reported from Fallujah after the November 2004 assault; see “City of Ghosts” in The Guardian, January 11, 2005.

Not Serious

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According to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, 26 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the beginning of January. I’m not sure if this includes all of the 17 U.S. troops who died this weeked. Or was it 20 troops? Today, a suicide bombing killed at least 14 people in Iraq’s interior ministry. No, make that 21 people. [Update: Now the links are saying 28 people.]

Those last throes are a bitch, huh?

Recently we learned that 80 percent of the marines in Iraq who died of upper body wounds could have survived if they’d had extra body armor. The Pentagon could have obtained this armor; it just didn’t. No excuses.

Yesterday NBC News ran an interview of Paul Bremer by Brian Williams. From this, we learn that the Bush Administration hadn’t anticipated an insurgency, and that Bremer’s requests for more troops were ignored. And we learned that in November 2003 Bremer wrote to Cheney that there seemed to be no military strategy.

Williams: You wrote that you told Vice President Cheney there was no military strategy for Iraq, that the policy was driven more by troop rotation. What was the reaction?

Bremer: I said to the vice president, “You know i’m not sure that we really have a strategy for winning this war.” The vice president said to me, “Well, I have similar concerns.” He thought there was something to be said for the argument that we didn’t have a strategy for victory at that time.

This interview needs to be read together with some of James Fallows’s work for The Atlantic, such as “Blind Into Baghdad” and “Bush’s Lost Year.” There was, in fact, copious warning that an insurgency was likely. The Bush Administration simply chose to ignore it.

I keep thinking of some things George Packer said on The Daily Show recently (link to video on this page). Parker spoke of many individuals in Iraq, both Iraqi and American,

Packer: … really pouring their hearts into this project, and meanwhile back in Washington decisions being made on the fly, or not being made at all, being made against all expert advice as if it almost didn’t matter. …

… there was a whole tide of young Republican operatives coming over to staff the occupation, people who had never lived abroad, certainly had no experience in the Middle East, there were maybe three Arabic speakers in the whole coalition provisional authority in the first few few months …

Stewart: You say the more you about Iraq the more you’d be punished, it seems.

Packer: Yes. It’s a law of the occupation that the more you know the less influence you have, and as you go higher and higher in the Administration, knowledge decreases until at the very top …

… they were unbelievably reckless, and I think it’s going to take time for historians to explain how they could have rolled the dice in such a risky way and not taken it more seriously. Over and over again that’s the thing that I come back to. They didn’t take it very seriously.

Rumsfeld, Packer continued, had this “pre-enlightenment idea that you remove tyranny and people are free. No, you remove tyranny and people are crazy.” Once again, someone notices that the Bushies have very muddled notions about what constitutes freedom and democracy.

And once again we see that the Bushies don’t take anything very seriously until it poses a political threat. Just a couple of months ago the White House released the “Strategy for Victory” document, a document clearly thrown together post hoc by describing what has happened in Iraq and framing it as a strategy. The point of this, clearly, was to shore up Bush’s tanking approval numbers. As I wrote last month, even though the Bushies knew, or should have known, that the training of Iraqi security forces is critical to anything resembling success in Iraq, it wasn’t until early 2005 that they got around to putting more money and effort into that training.

Meanwhile, Vichycrat extraordinaire Joe Klein worries that liberal Democrats are “playing fast and loose with issues of war and peace.” Puh-leeze …

More good commentary at The Heritik.

Update: See Eric Alterman.

Spy Links

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I haven’t had time to post as much as I wanted to today, but here are some links to articles and commentary on Bush Regime spying and abuse of power, in no particular order:

Daniel Klaidman, Newsweek, “Because We Can”

Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, “Did It Work?”

Noah Feldman, The New York Times, “Our Presidential Era: Who Can Check the President?”

Katherine Shrader, Associated Press, “Poll: Most Say U.S. Needs Warrant to Snoop”

Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, “Power Versus Justice”

Stirling Newberry, BOP News, “Reactionaries Now Use the ‘Hussien Defense’ for Bush”

Frank Rich, The New York Times (via True Blue Liberal), “The Wiretappers That Couldn’t Shoot Straight”

Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post, “Time to Ask: Who Are We?”

Editorial, Los Angeles Times, “While Congress Slept”

Michael Hammerschlag, Op Ed News, “Unpatriotic Spying: The Struggle for America’s Soul”

Enjoy.

Because Jonah Goldberg Won’t Go

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A rightie at NRO supports the troops — from a distance — but only the male ones. NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez clucks with disapproval at this Washington Post piece by Anne Hull, “When Mom Is Over There.”

“[Y]ou really need to get yourself Women Who Make the World Worse to see how we got to the point where we’re deploying moms to Iraq,” sniffs Lopez, referring to a new book by celebrated right-wing airhead Kate O’Beirne. Lopez links to an interview with O’Beirne, who calls women serving in war zones “a disgrace.”

The Mom at War is Master Sgt. Angela Hull, Anne Hull’s sister-in-law. Anne Hull writes,

Angela is chief controller of the air-traffic control tower at Kirkuk Regional Air Base in northern Iraq. She did not graduate from the Air Force Academy or come from a long line of military heroes. Angela was 22 and working at the Stouffer’s frozen-food factory in her home town of Gaffney, S.C., in 1987 when she rebelled against the smallness of her life and joined the Air Force. She advanced the slow, hard way, from refueling aircraft at 30,000 feet to learning air-traffic control to commanding towers. In Kirkuk, she supervises 10 controllers in the base tower while serving as first sergeant to a squadron of 48.

But “women can’t and don’t meet the male physical standards,” says Kate O’Beirne.

I’d like to see O’Beirne explain physical standards to Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of the 617th Military Police Company, who was awarded a Silver Star last June. According to the American Forces Press Service:

Hester’s squad was shadowing a supply convoy March 20 when anti-Iraqi fighters ambushed the convoy. The squad moved to the side of the road, flanking the insurgents and cutting off their escape route. Hester led her team through the “kill zone” and into a flanking position, where she assaulted a trench line with grenades and M203 grenade-launcher rounds. She and Nein, her squad leader, then cleared two trenches, at which time she killed three insurgents with her rifle.

When the fight was over, 27 insurgents were dead, six were wounded, and one was captured.

Kate O’Beirne finds Sgt. Hester disgraceful, even though her physical standards seemed perfectly adequate.

I realize we ladies are smaller and have a reduced capacity for upper body strength compared to men, and I have no doubt there are many war situations in which women generally would be at a disadvantage. I also realize that it’s hard on a family for Mom to be away. But isn’t it hard on a family for Dad to be away? Do O’Beirne and Lopez believe that husbands and fathers play a less critical role in family life than wives and mothers? I thought conservatives were into fatherhood these days.

I believe we should leave it to the military, not Kate O’Beirne or Kathryn Jean Lopez, to decide who is qualified to be a soldier and who isn’t. I’m told that our military activities in Iraq require smarts as much as brawn, if not more so. And in the past year the military often fell short of recruitment goals, causing the Army to lower its standards on aptitude tests. Are we supposed to replace smart, well-trained women for (possibly) less smart and less-well-trained men in order to satisfy Kate O’Beirne’s sense of propriety?

And if Ms. Lopez wants women serving in Iraq to be replaced by men, she could start by kicking her colleague Jonah Goldberg in his lazy butt and telling him to enlist.

Further — if we don’t want moms and dads going to war, maybe we should be a little more circumspect about starting wars, hm?