World War 2 Fighter Pilot

German declares war on Russia ... again

German foreign minister declares war on Russia pic.twitter.com/C4cAqnZXhD

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 25, 2023

WE (The US) Started This War

 Here's one man's opinion.  Read the whole thing ...

KREMLIN SPOKESMAN SAYS UKRAINE MUST AMEND CONSTITUTION AND REJECT CLAIMS TO ENTER ANY BLOC

UKRAINE MUST RECOGNISE CRIMEA AS RUSSIAN, AND DONETSK AND LUGANSK AS INDEPENDENT STATES

IF THESE CONDITIONS ARE MET, THEN RUSSIAN MILITARY ACTION WILL STOP IN A MOMENT - SPOKESMAN

• We, the United States, repeatedly promised Russia when the Iron Curtain came down and the Warsaw Pact dissolved that we would not expand NATO eastward toward the Russian border.  Go look at the nations our Senate admitted by formal treaty in 2004.  We did this.  We deliberately and intentionally lied and by doing so proved to Russia that we were not to be trusted and our word was worthless on the international stage.
  
  
• We, the United States, formally and openly supported the shooting revolution at Maidan Square during the 2014 timeframe which included the killing of civilians and installation of Zelenskyy.  There was a serious sniping incident during that time.  Not one person who was involved in same was arrested and prosecuted.  This ought to inform you as to which side committed said offense since the other side, the sitting government at the time, was deposed.  If you're so ****ing stupid as to believe that the sitting government of the time committed that atrocity and Zelenskyy's government then "forgave and forgot" about the snipers rather than arresting, prosecuting and executing them you are so ****ing stupid you deserve to be nuked, especially considering that Ukraine just summarily executed one of their peace negotiators who they deemed "disloyal."  The current Ukrainian government certainly has no problem with capital punishment, even when employed summarily without triaRea d

• We're risking a nuclear war to protect a corrupt piece of **** named Zelenskyy and an entire ******ned family of corrupt *******s who was proved long ago have sucked off that source of corruption, the head of which is currently the President of the United States and who directly and personally profited from it.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

 

While Biden-Harris sees itself as “back” in charge, recent Great Power challenges treat them as a fading, decadent relic. At a top-level diplomatic meeting in Alaska, the Chinese envoy said: “The United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength” according to the New York Times.

The disparity is more than one of mere perception that can be fixed by good coverage in the press and social media. Great Power attitudes are not driven by articles in the NYT and the Wapo but by cold-eyed projections of their rival’s capability. America’s foes have extrapolated the Biden-Harris trend of open borders, high taxes, patronage giveaways and unlimited government spending and concluded they can take the ruin that remains. They may be mistaken but that is apparently their judgment.

Mirror mirror on the wall, what’s wrong with America after all? Is it the lack of virtue as defined by academic departments in progressive universities? Or is it some crippling dysfunction striking at the very root of the political system?

WW III Didn't Happen, But Something Else Did

Soleimani killed thousands upon thousands, both Americans and others over the years. But secret war is never real until you put a face to it. Soleimani was the man, the Islamic Republic was the regime that no one was supposed to anger lest they turn their baleful glare on us instead of passing by to kill someone else.

That fact can't be hidden anymore, not even by the nuclear deal.

The end of the secret war phase has left Iran with the strategic problem of continuing a campaign it cannot afford to wage openly. But it also left Washington with a situation they can neither continue to deny nor fob off with nonbinding congressional resolutions. We have yet to learn how to survive in our globalized world with the monsters. As Andy McCarthy put it: "25 years ago today we started jury selection in the Blind Sheikh trial against jihadists who were making war on our country. The long war is not over, but our divisions are more threatening than our enemies. I wish I’d understood that better."

Richard Fernandez: The low chance of war with Iran

The war's no longer hidden and WWIII is not going to come because we killed the head snake.

With everyone wondering if Iran and the US will go to war it's pertinent to understand both nations are already in an undeclared conflict going back more than 40 years. "And often, it’s been a war that our political and intelligence elites have denied exists."

It began on November 4, 1979, when “radicals” loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran ... On April 18, 1983, a suicide bomber drove a truck full of explosives into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon ... Iran has also targeted U.S. soldiers on the battlefield, killing more than 1,000 U.S. troops with specialized improvised explosive devices in Iraq, placing a bounty on U.S. service personnel in Afghanistan, and most recently targeting U.S. forces in Syria.

The obvious question is why this conflict, which has claimed thousands of lives has remained in a state of limbo and why elites are at pains to deny it exists. One possible answer is that the combatants prefer it that way. Iran for its part is heavily engaged in proxy war with Saudi Arabia in far flung theaters including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, the Bahrain uprising, Lebanon and even Afghanistan. It can scarcely afford the additional cost of open conflict with the United States if it is to escape over-extension. It is in Iran's interest to keep its war with America undeclared so that it can pick and choose when to engage.

For analogous but different reasons Washington preferred it secret too. Undeclared conflicts are the only way to fight "forever wars" where the object is not the destruction of the enemy but rather its management and containment in such a way that the global public and markets don't notice.....

Hidden wars allows Western politicians to avoid World War 2 type political choices that might lead to binary outcomes like victory or defeat in favor of a chronic conflict flying just beneath the media radar. That way deal-making can continue with minor interruptions. From this perspective the really disruptive effect of Donald Trump's decision to kill Iranian IGRC chief Qassim Suleimani was not the kinetic act itself but in forcing what past administrations and Iran wanted hidden out into the open.

All of a sudden the issue of Iran can no longer be locked up in a dark closet. To the question: "What will the IRGC do now that it has not already done? Kidnap foreigners? Strike military bases? Sack embassies? Assassination attempts? Target GCC oil interests? Send out militias to crackdown on adversaries?" the answer is simple. They have to own up to it.....

Whether intentional or not Trump's actions have eliminated secret war with Iran as an alternative. "President Trump has warned the US is 'targeting' 52 Iranian sites and will strike 'very fast and very hard' if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets." If Iran tries to dive into the murky waters of deniable conflict again the Donald has 52 depth charges to bring it to the surface. This puts enormous pressure on Tehran to either open another front against America or negotiate a ceasefire in its secret war against the US. As Shadi Hamid of the Atlantic put it, nobody really wants open war but Iran can stand it least of all.

Three cheers for President Trump and General Mattis

Now that’s how things like this should be handled!

When a high government official and the President of the United States have a fundamental disagreement about government policy the government official should resign and do so stating the reason for his resignation.

The President, as Commander in Chief, is in charge of the military.  His Secretary of Defense is the one who carries out the hi policies.  Of course, he can advise the President, even argue his case, but he is required to carry out the President’s policies.

Why?

Because the President, not the Secretaryof Defense, was elected by the people. 

 

This does not mean that the President’s policies are the right ones, but they are the ones that count.  

I believed that President Obama’s policies – foreign and domestic – were wrong and made the country and the world worse off.  But I would not expect his Cabinet secretaries to obstruct him or defy his policies.

Are Trump’s policies of withdrawal from a number of long-term foreign wars right or wrong.  Time will tell.  

A case can be made that keeping American troops in in foreign wars will prevent adversaries from increasing their influence in those regions.  Withdrawal will signal admission of defeat and result in loss of face as well as trust of our allies.  I suspect that General Mattis believes this to be the case.

A case can also be made that participation in endless wars without a strategy for winning is wrong morally, financially and strategically.    

America is a wealthy country with a gargantuan debt and a dysfunctional political system that is unwilling to defend its own borders even as it attempts to defend foreign borders.

Spending billions, sending American men and women to die or be maimed in foreign lands with no prospect of victory is immoral.  Attempting to impose our values on cultures that don’t share out values – who, in many cases despises our values - is foolish.

   

What’s curious is that those who only yesterday opposed these wars are today demanding that we continue them.  The real reason for the screams of outrage on the Left is that (1) this is President Trump’s policy and they oppose Trump in everything and (2) they saw General Mattis as America’s real military leader who made military policy.  They simply can’t stand the fact that Donald Trump is actually telling everyone that he is the Commander in Chief.

I have the utmost respect for General Mattis and I believe he will be missed.  But I also believe that continuing to do what we have been doing, sending our military to hundreds of foreign fields to fight and die will be a slow-motion suicide for this nation.   

We need to define out national interest, defend those interests vigorously, and husband our resources so that when we go to war, we go to win.  I heard someone ask the question recently: “when was the last time America won a war?”  Putting American troops into the battle line for a stalemate is not the answer. 

So this is the Howard Stern Interview Where Trump is Supposed to have Come Out with a Full Throated Support of Invading Iraq

Obama Blames Libya and Syria on British PM David Cameron

Nothing is ever his fault.

Barack Obama has sharply criticised David Cameron for the UK’s role in allowing Libya to become a “shit show” after the fall of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi, in an unprecedented attack on a British leader by a serving US President.

Mr Obama said that following a successful military intervention to aid rebels during the 2011 Arab Spring revolt, Libya was left to spiral out of control – due largely to the inaction of America’s European allies.

In a candid US magazine interview, Mr Obama said: “When I go back and I ask myself what went wrong… there’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up.”

His part of the plan went great. Qaddafi was killed. That's when the plan came apart because Barack's problem is that he trusted the Europeans too much.  Don't be surprised if he ends up blaming Benghazi on Cameron.

And then there's his Syrian Red Line. Poor Barack could not make good on his treat because of the British:

Mr Obama also said Mr Cameron’s failures had affected his decision not to enforce a “red line” over President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war. The President had planned a strike against Assad’s forces in August 2013, following a deadly sarin gas attack by the regime on civilians in a Damascus suburb. The strike was called off at the 11th hour. One “major factor” in the decision, the President said, “was the failure of Cameron to obtain the consent of his Parliament” for military action.

The only surprise in this list of blame-shifting is that he didn't blame George Bush.

So, why does Donald Trump accuse George Bush of lying about WMDs in Iraq?

I totally disagree with Trump on this one, and so do many other Conservatives.

As Bud Norman says in:  The Pinkest Republican

Even if you’re not satisfied by the sarin-tipped rockets and other chemical weapons that were found in Iraq, or discount the many plausible accounts of more weapons being shipped to Syria, and conveniently forget the many other persuasive casus belli offered for the Iraq war, and assume that an absence of more widely publicized evidence is evidence of absence, an allegation that any president knowingly lied to the American people about non-existent weapons of mass destruction to launch a war for still unstated reasons carries a burden a proof. One would have to explain why such a diabolical president would launch a war on a pretext he knew would be exposed, or why such a diabolical president wouldn’t plant some evidence to cover his crime, which shouldn’t have been too hard after recruiting the intelligence agencies of every American ally in Europe and the Middle East to bolster his made-up claims, not to mention getting all those inspectors from the United Nations to say they had their own suspicions about what was going on in Iraq, and we’d like to think it’s still hard to make that case to a majority of Republican primary voters.

I think the errors Bush made in Iraq came after Saddam was toppled; and the disaster came after Obama was elected and abandoned that fragile and still unstable country. He lost the war that Bush won.

But that does not explain Trump’s position. Perhaps he really does believe that the Bush administration lied about the certainty of WMDs. But more important, the “Bush Lied, People Died” meme is now firmly embedded in popular culture. With the exception of people like me, who believe that Saddam was an existential threat and needed to be removed, not just contained, many on the Right, including congressmen, now think that the Iraq war was a mistake.

NBC News reports that:

Seventy-one percent of Americans now say that the war in Iraq “wasn’t worth it,” a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll shows, with skepticism about the lengthy war effort up substantially even in the last 18 months.

In my opinion, Trump is doing what successful businessmen do; they give their customers what they want: the border sealed, stop exporting jobs and bring those jobs back to the U.S., protection from Muslims on Jihad, and an America that’s “Great Again.”

During this election they don’t want to re-fight the culture wars that seem to have been lost to the Left, even if they agree with Conservatives that the culture is important. At this point in time, the existential threat to America and to its middle class is too great.  They don't think that the Political class understands the situation or knows what to do.

At this point Americans may we willing to make the same deal they made in World War II: ally with Stalin to defeat Hitler. Can we fix the culture once the country is back to an even keel? We don’t know, but Trump believes that the majority he needs to win the election has its priorities.

I’ll crawl over broken glass to vote for the Republican in the general election, no matter his name. After that, we’ll fight the culture wars.

The Washington Post Endorses Obama

Here is what the Washington Post wrote when they endorsed Obama:

But Mr. Obama, as anyone who reads his books can tell, also has a sophisticated understanding of the world and America’s place in it. He, too, is committed to maintaining U.S. leadership and sticking up for democratic values, as his recent defense of tiny Georgia makes clear. We hope he would navigate between the amoral realism of some in his party and the counterproductive cocksureness of the current administration, especially in its first term. On most policies, such as the need to go after al-Qaeda, check Iran’s nuclear ambitions and fight HIV/AIDS abroad, he differs little from Mr. Bush or Mr. McCain. But he promises defter diplomacy and greater commitment to allies. His team overstates the likelihood that either of those can produce dramatically better results, but both are certainly worth trying.

I do not see a single thing here that has been proven correct.

Why was this written now? Why am I posting it now? I don't know, but it's like watching the innumerable accounts of Nazi defeat on the Hitler channels; we know how it ends but it's just too sweet to stop. Even as we watch it happening again.

Posted by Rodger the Real King of France

From Legal Insurrection, commenting on the total failure of Obama's policies in the Middle East leading ever closer to a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia:

This failure wouldn’t have been possible without a complicit media, creating a myth instead of a candidate. Will the editors of The Washington Post take a critical look at their 2008 endorsement and learn from their mistake before 2016? I wouldn’t count on it.

Today, Americans More Likely to Say Terrorists Are Winning Than at Any Time Since 9/11

Frankly, this is just sad, considering all the sacrifices made by U.S. military personnel.

Of course, the Democrats are the party of defeat, so it's no surprise the public thinks we're losing the war on terror.

Life in the era of HopeN'Change.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: American special operations forces have been deployed to 135 countries this year alone.

This is what happens when Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize.

We are all about the Constitution

Until Saudi Arabia is forcefully and directly confronted over its international financing of extremism, events like Paris and San Bernardino will continue and multiply. That’s a fact, however, that the president has yet to face up to; it goes against every fiber of his painfully politically correct world view. That world view, however, is getting Americans killed. The oath of office is clear about what the president’s overriding duty is:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The United States is not a nation-state in the sense the European countries are; it is not a country of blood relations, but of fealty to a document of western, Enlightenment principles regarding the relationship of citizen and state. By defending the Constitution — something Obama is increasingly loath to do — the president is defending the country. Because the Constitution, not some vague leftist bromide about our “values” or “the arc of history,” is exactly who we are.

There's more:

Alas, Barack Obama -- who aside from a brief seat-warming stint in the U.S. Senate as the Chicago Machine's hand-picked tomato can has held no significant public office -- cannot win the war against ISIS because he refuses to call the enemy by name. He refuses to admit the motivational force of Islamic supremacist doctrine. He refuses to untie the hands of the military. Obsessed with such domestic ephemera as "climate change" and unconstitutional attempt to disarm the American people in the face of grave, individual danger, he cannot bring himself to see the truth, even as he becomes a national laughingstock.

Nor can he bring himself to uphold his oath of office. There are words for men like him, and none of them is pretty.

Grant and Trump are similar: "He Fights"

Grant was not everyone's favorite commander during the Civil War.  In fact, President Lincoln was his only major supporter.  The reason for that was, unlike McLellan, the Union Army's Commander-in-Chief who was much adored by his troops because he never put them in harm's way, Grant was a dogged fighter.

Even though he won the battle [Shiloh], Grant came under severe fire for the number of casualties at Shiloh and was moved to a support role. Lincoln still thought highly of him, though. “I can't spare this man; he fights,” was the president’s assessment.

"After five Marines are murdered, why is anyone making sure Muslims are OK?"

Waiting to be born.

Once the center falls apart, the parts will not go back together again. Think of the destruction that followed World War 1; the old empires shattered, the new tyrannies already in gestation. And shortly there arose the most violent, deadliest, most oppressive cultures in a millennium.

Shapeless Narrative

Maybe Europe hung up its shootin’ irons figuring that the sheriff would always be there. France and Germany went on a holiday from history, and armed with baguettes, struck east. Then one unexpected day, as in Ferguson and Baltimore, trouble ensues and the distraught residents as ever call the cops. And they wait and they wait and they wait. And no one comes.

There is a chaos abroad, one growing so complete even the narratives put forward don’t make sense. President Obama told an audience of community leaders from ASEAN that his administration has restored the Untied States as the “the most respected country on earth.”

People don’t remember, but when I came into office, the Untied States in world opinion ranked below China and just bareley above Russia, and today once again, the Untied States is the most respected country on earth. Part of that I think is because of the work we did to reengage the world and say we want to work with you as partners with mutual interests and mutual respect. It was on that basis we were able to end two wars while still focusing on the very real threat of terrorism and try to work with our partners in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s the reason why we are moving in the direction to normalize relations with Cuba and the nuclear deal that we are trying to negotiate with Iran.

Perhaps the president really does believe this, or is there in his dogged insistence something bordering on madness? The American presidency, was in its own way one of the last examples of a functioning monarchy. Other countries have had dysfunctional monarchs in their history but possessed institutional workarounds to deal with them.

But America has no office of regent; no way, short of impeachment or removal from office, of governing with a mad king. Thus the Western world is at present leaderless, in a holding pattern, waiting for a new narrative to emerge, collectively holding its breath. The new narrative may come from the presidential election of 2016 or from somewhere else — such as out of the East, or Russia or China — if as seems unthinkably possible, that not only Obama but America has ceased to matter.

Some, like John McCain, still seem to think that a restoration after the career of king Barry has run its course will suffice to bring back the old days. But elect one decent Republican president and all will be back in the groove again. Yet this is unlikely to happen. Just as mad King George III lost America forever, so too has the current occupant of the White dismantled the post-World War 2 order.

Thoughts on the Middle East Wars

Whenever a discussion involves the war in Iraq, there are inevitably many people who argue that the entire enterprise was a failure - or worse - a geopolitical catastrophe that has upset the Middle East apple cart. They are wrong. At the article by the American Interest I made this point in response to a comment by someone who believes that there is no " ... good strategy for success in either Afghanistan or Iraq." Saying we "need to be realistic." The point is that there is a recipe for success and it's not that difficult.  And we have been very unrealistic, but not in the way that most people believe.

Herewith my comment (with a few edits):

“We need to be realistic” is a great tag line, but very little realism has been exhibited by either the supporters or the opponents of the invasion of Iraq. The first unrealistic assumption is that “"of course" people everywhere would choose Western-style democracy and freedom if given the chance.” I never thought so and was worried by the Bush administration’s emphasis on this idea. I suspected that Bush 43 was too naive and this troubled me.

There is little evidence of that Western-style democracy is the default position in developed countries and absolutely none in underdeveloped countries. The idea that the people of Iraq, with absolutely no experience with Western-style democracy, would embrace it was appealing but absolutely unsupported by reason or experience. The fact that the Bush administration was promoting this idea I attribute to one of two reasons: (1) they really believed it (bad), or (2) they were attempting to counter the Left’s theme that the war was a mistake and wanted to use Iraqi elections to counter that propaganda (also bad).

History is a great teacher if anyone bothers to study it. It doesn’t have to be ancient history. Within the last century we defeated Germany and Japan, both first world countries, and have troops there to this day. Japan had no history of Western-style democracy. After defeating the Empire of Japan we did not allow them to have elections and leave. We stayed to make sure that the kind of government we approved of grew up in the rubble of the war. General Douglas MacArthur ruled Japan as an American Proconsul until the Korean War. Modern Japan was largely created by Mac Arthur, not by Japanese elections.

Germany had a brief, unhappy history of democracy between the wars, but after WW2 the conquerors imposed military rule on the country which did not end until 1949. We had a veto power over who was elected and what policies were followed.  As an incentive, the US and other allies maintained a military presence in Germany ever since then.

So what political genius decided that after invading a country with no history of democracy, with a religion that’s hostile to Western-style democracy, all that was needed was a new constitution and a good election to become just like us?

The problems began when the Bush State Department decided to disband the Iraqi military and much of its civilian political structure, creating several million people without jobs and no way of making a living. In comparison, after WW2 the West left most of the German and Japanese political infrastructure in place, and a big enough military presence to quell whatever resistance arose.

Despite these blunders the US won the Iraq war, peace was mostly restored after a brutal struggle and winning the peace would be the challenge. Bush hinted that he understood by his references to the long struggle ahead as he left office.

Then the election of 2008 brought Obama to power. The man who said invading Iraq was a mistake.

Exit the Bush administration, and enter Obama. He declared Iraq was the unnecessary war but Afghanistan was the good war, took a victory lap and - ignoring the fact that Iraq, a disarmed country, was rapidly coming under the control of Iran – left zero military forces behind. With no military influence we could not change destructive Iraqi government policy, we could not dissuade Iran from increasing its influence, we could not even do anything to stop ISIS – the group Obama called the “JV” team – from taking the military gear we left behind and begin its reign of terror.  Today Iraq is rapidly becoming a client state of Iran unless ISIS (the JV team) takes over the entire country.

Obama threw away Iraq. He’s losing the war in Afghanistan. He’s managed to transform Libya from a country with a bad dictator who kept the crazies under control to a failed state that’s a safe haven for every Jihadist who wants a break from beheading infidels. He desperately wanted to turn Egypt over to the Muslim Brotherhood (slogan: “Death to the Jews”). He’s busy helping Iran become the hegemonic power in the Middle East (slogan: “Death to America”). And if he has his way, one day Jerusalem will be the target of the Persian atom bomb, solving his Jewish Problem™.

No war goes according to plan, especially a new kind of war with enemy combatants that look just like the farmer in his field, the passenger on the bus or the woman out shopping. I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt to leaders who want to protect Americans and defend American interests. But the current administration is in the process of shunning traditional allies and accommodating traditional adversaries.  Nixon to China was an example of a major change in American foreign policy. It has born much fruit. However,when these initiatives don’t seem to make thing better questions arise.

At some point, if you are looking at things in a clearheaded way – shedding rose colored glasses – you begin to wonder if it’s all a series of bad decisions by political neophytes or done with deliberate malice. You hope it's the former, but hope is not a plan.

Media Gives President a Pass Again … for Losing Afghanistan

Walter Russell Mead

Once again, be very glad we don’t have a Republican president right now. If we did, we would be treated to a merciless media pounding, night-and-day, on the series of strategic failures, mistakes and false starts that have characterized America’s war strategy in Afghanistan since 2009. ...

President Obama has been permitted to fail in Afghanistan quietly and off center stage. We hear nothing anymore about the months of agonized reflection before choosing strategies that didn’t accomplish their goals. We never see mentions of his 2008 campaign rhetoric about Afghanistan—”the necessary war”—against which we might be asked to measure what has actually been achieved....

But the heavy media bias against Republicans and for mildly to solidly left-of-center Democrats isn’t just a question of conscious and malicious bias. When the press puts Republicans through the wringer while giving Democrats the best deal it can, it’s often a reflection of the groupthink that comes naturally and almost inevitably to those who’ve spent their lives as bubble babies in the ultra-liberal world of the contemporary American campus where intellectual homogeneity is considered a virtue....

The news articles and opinion pieces they write aren’t biased in the sense that they are consciously telling untruths or twisting facts. They are reporting the world as they see it. And in that world, Obama is a master strategist, a visionary diplomat, and an innovative thinker out to change the way the world works.

Jay Rosen thinks that the Press has a deep dark secret.

“The Washington press corps is like that big extended family with a terrible secret that cannot be confronted because everyone knows how bad it would be if the discussion ever got real.”

And what's the secret that' making them neurotic?

I’m sure you have your ideas. Here is mine. I know it will sound crazy (and provide a few chuckles) to those in the room tonight at the Washington Hilton, but I don’t care because the event is itself one gigantic neurotic symptom that begs for some interpretation.

The Washington press corps is like that big extended family with a terrible secret that cannot be confronted because everyone knows how bad it would be if the discussion ever got real. The event at the center of this neurotic system: the failure to detect a phony case for war in 2002 and 2003 and more generally to challenge the Bush forces after 9/11. And this wasn’t just any failure. For a press that imagines itself a watchdog, failing to detect a faulty case for war, then watching the war unfold into the biggest foreign policy disaster in memory… that is an event so huge and deflating that it amounts to an identity crisis.

Now add to that very specific failure a larger lesson that is also too painful to face: in Washington access journalism has been a bust. It doesn’t work. Its practices made possible the spectacular fall down in the run-up to the Iraq War. (Under Obama it’s been so thin that Politico is this week asking: is the White House press corps becoming obsolete?) After a maximal failure like 2002-04 there needed to be a critical reckoning with the whole idea of “access to inside sources as reliable route to scoops.” You can’t maintain that idea and think of yourself as a watchdog, an adversarial force. Not with what happened in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Got it? The thing that's making the press corps crazy is their guilt for failing to stop Bush from invading Iraq. Ever since then, the press has been dysfunctional.

When you read that you realize how deluded Rosen - a handy symbol of the press - really is.

After being challenged, Rosen gets testy. It's fun to read the comments.