Be very afraid, please

Reuters

AMERICA and Israel often hint at military action to stop Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons programme. The latest rumblings, however, may be more serious. The atmosphere has been charged by a combination of factors: Iran’s expanding uranium-enrichment programme, faltering diplomatic efforts to halt it, a dying American administration and a nervous Israel. Throw in the latest war games by Israel, America and Iran—and Iran’s apparent rejection of the latest international incentives to halt its nuclear work—and some reckon the sparks could soon fly.

On July 9th Iranian television showed the test-firing of nine missiles (see picture), a day after an aide to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened to “burn” Tel Aviv and American ships in the Gulf, and strike at America’s “vital interests around the globe”, if it were attacked. More tests took place on July 10th.

This was a response to Israel’s demonstration of its own long arm in June, when about 100 Israeli jets took part in exercises that appeared to rehearse the bombing of distant targets. Western officials were struck by helicopter sorties of more than 800 miles (1,290km), about the distance from Israel to Iran, to simulate the rescue of downed pilots. Israel conducted the exercise with Greece, rather than its traditional partner, Turkey, maybe because Greece has some of the Russian SA-20 anti-aircraft missiles Iran recently bought.

In the Gulf, meanwhile, American, British and Bahraini ships are involved in a joint exercise to protect gas and oil installations. This seems to be a reaction to Iran’s threats to retaliate against any attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the passage for roughly 40% of the world’s traded oil, and striking at neighbouring countries.

Does this public bellicosity really make military action more likely? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, dismissed the idea this week as a “funny joke”. And, yes, Israel could well be bluffing, waving its big stick in order to make the rewards the Europeans, Americans, Russians and Chinese are offering Iran in return for an end to uranium enrichment look more tempting. But whether or not Israel has frightened Iran, it has clearly rattled others.

France’s Total, an energy giant, said this week it was giving up plans to invest in Iran because of the risk. A top British government official puts the chance of an Israeli strike at 30%. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of America’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, was worried enough to say publicly that a third war (after Afghanistan and Iraq) would be “extremely stressful, very challenging, with consequences that would be difficult to predict”. As to whether Israel might act alone, he said: “This is a very unstable part of the world, and I don’t need it to become more unstable.”

One uncertainty is how close Iran is to being able to make a nuclear weapon (an aspiration it vehemently denies). America’s controversial National Intelligence Estimate, made public in December, said that Iran had indeed run a weaponisation programme but seemed to stop it in 2003. The Iranians continue (despite UN sanctions) to enrich uranium, but most Western experts think they have much to learn before being able to make the high-enriched variety for a bomb. America’s estimate is that the soonest Iran could make enough for one device would be the end of 2009, but that it could take five or more years longer.

Israeli officials are less sanguine. So far Iran has produced only a small amount of low-enriched uranium, but this could eventually be converted to the bomb-making sort. For all its sabre-rattling, Israel still says that diplomacy is preferable to war. But a number of political and military considerations may yet convince Israel to act alone—sooner rather than later.

One of these is the departure of the friendly Bush administration and the possible advent of a President Obama, who has promised to do “everything” to stop Iran getting a bomb but who is distrusted by many Israelis. Another is that Iran’s Russian-built reactor at Bushehr is due to start working in October. This is less worrying than the underground enrichment facility at Natanz. But if Israel intends to bomb it, it would be best to do so before it is loaded with nuclear fuel. Finally, it would be easier for Israel to act before Iran deploys its SA-20s, which may happen in early 2009.

That said, an effective attack against Iran’s buried and dispersed nuclear facilities would not be easy, even if Israel knew where all of them were. There will be no element of surprise, as when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, and a Syrian facility which America said afterwards was a secret reactor last September.

Another unknown is whether Israel would dare to strike Iran without a green or at least an amber light from the Americans. Without one, flying to Iran the direct way—through American-controlled Iraqi airspace—would be fraught with danger. An unauthorised Israeli strike that added to America’s miscellaneous woes in the Middle East would test even the closest alliance, jeopardising Israel’s relationship with its vital patron and armourer.

Against this must be weighed Israel’s visceral sense of vulnerability, sharpened not only by the Jewish state’s history but also by the implacability of Iran, whose government rules out any accommodation with the “Zionist regime” and repeatedly predicts its disappearance. Nobody can be quite sure that in a corner, confronting what it believed to be existential peril, Israel will not act—alone if necessary.

Not far from the Kenyan border Zoom in | Zoom out

The U.S. military launched what it called “a deliberate, precise strike against a known terrorist and his associates” in Somalia on Monday. The attack destroyed at least one building in the remote southern town of Dobley, just a few miles from the Kenyan border.

The town had reportedly fallen into the hands of Islamic extremists–allies of the Islamic militias who seized much of southern Somalia in 2006, only to be driven back by Somali and Ethiopian forces.

That still-simmering conflict has helped bring Somalia to the brink of “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” according to the UN’s refugee agency–worse even than the crisis in Darfur. How has it come to this? Let’s review Somalia’s sad story, from the nation’s ancient origins to the start of the ongoing chaos nearly two decades ago.

Somalia is located on the Horn of Africa, just across the Gulf of Aden from the Arabian Peninsula. People have occupied its beachfront property for ages. Ancient Egyptians traded along the Horn’s shores. So did Greeks and medieval Arabs. In the 10th century, Chinese merchants arrived and reportedly took home exotic animals for the emperor’s menagerie.

Today’s Somalis claim descent from Arab immigrants who settled along the coast more than 1,000 years ago. Scholars debate when and how they actually arrived and moved inland, but there’s no question that Somali clans were well established in much of modern Somalia by the 16th century.

The clans are still central to Somali society. Each traces its ancestry to a single father figure, and each is divided into sub-clans that don’t always get along. Still, all the clans share a common language (Somali), religion (Islam), and culture. In fact, Somali culture extends beyond Somalia’s borders, which were largely drawn by Europeans.

The Scramble for Somalia

Europeans began arriving in force after the opening of the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1869. Suddenly, the Somali coast lay along a strategically important shipping route, and the British, Italians, and French arrived to promote their interests.

The French set up shop around the Somali port of Djibouti, in an area that later became the independent nation of that name. The British established “British Somaliland” in the northwest, while the Italians moved into the south. Not to be outdone, Ethiopia–then a regional power–assumed control in the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region in the west. Disputes followed, and borders were drawn without asking the locals.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan–whom the British called the “Mad Mullah”–launched a rebellion against the colonizers. He and his followers, called “dervishes,” survived attacks by the British, the Italians, and the Ethiopians before finally falling to the Brits in 1920. Even then, pockets of Somali resistance continued.

Unscrambling Somalia

During World War II, the Italians briefly took British Somaliland, only to see the British return to retake “their” Somaliland, plus Italian Somaliland and Ogaden, too. In 1949, the Italians returned to administer Italian Somaliland as a UN trust territory, but not before many Somalis had begun longing for their own independent, pan-Somali state.

In 1960, the British and Italians left, and British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland joined to form the United Republic of Somalia. Almost immediately, the new nation became embroiled in border conflicts over Somali-inhabited lands in northern Kenya and eastern Ethiopia. A military buildup followed, even as internal tensions mounted between the former British and Italian regions.

In 1969, a bodyguard from a rival clan assassinated Somalia’s president, and the military assumed power. The commander of the army, Mohamed Siad Barre, became president–and, before long, dictator. The coup was restyled a “revolution,” as “Comrade Siad” announced his pursuit of an Islam-friendly version of “scientific socialism.” Yet socialism never really took root in Somalia, and rival clans and Islamic leaders soon resented the Comrade’s rule.

Somalia Rescrambled

In 1974, Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie fell. Three years later, Siad Barre retook the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region. At first, the Soviets tried to mediate the dispute. Then they shifted their support to Ethiopia (which has 77 million people to Somalia’s 9 million). Somalia’s Soviet arms shipments stopped, while Ethiopia got military advisors and Cuban troops. The United States shifted its support from Ethiopia to Somalia, but not before Ogaden was back in Ethiopian hands.

After the defeat in Ogaden, officers from a rival clan tried to topple Siad Barre. They failed, but the threat they posed prompted the dictator to start making government appointments based on perceived clan loyalty. The government and military became less competent, clan rivalries increased, and guerrilla attacks began. As the 1980s wore on, opposition groups became more powerful, and Siad Barre responded with increasingly repressive measures.

By the end of the decade, clan militias had seized much of the country. Last-ditch efforts at political reform failed to appease them, and in January 1991, a united opposition front captured the capital, Mogadishu. Siad Barre fled, and the militias turned on each other. In the next two years, 50,000 people died in factional fighting, and some 300,000 Somalis starved. Meanwhile, the former British Somaliland effectively seceded, calling itself, simply, “Somaliland.” Somalia hasn’t had a functional central government since.

“What’s the status of that ceasefire?”

Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will announce on Friday whether the Mahdi Army will continue to observe the unilateral ceasefire he declared last summer. Since then, violence in Iraq has decreased, even as al-Sadr has reportedly worked to improve the Mahdi Army’s image among everyday Iraqis and to assert more control over the group.

Despite those efforts, and despite his obvious influence over the recent ceasefire, al-Sadr has always insisted that the Mahdi Army isn’t simply his to command. Instead, he says, it “belongs to the Mahdi.” The Mahdi? Who’s the Mahdi?

Islam’s Redeemer

The Mahdi–Arabic for “divinely guided one”–is the redeemer who’s supposed to straighten things out at the end of time. Along with the prophet Isa, Islam’s version of Jesus, the Mahdi is supposed to usher in a golden age here on Earth, just after the defeat of the Antichrist and just before the Final Judgment. (Yes, many Muslims believe that Jesus will one day return–though their view of the Second Coming is pretty different from the Christian one.)

Belief in the messianic Mahdi is common among both Sunnis and Shi’ites. But they disagree about the particulars of his story. And that disagreement ties in with the history of the Sunni-Shi’ite split, which basically began as an argument over who should lead all Muslims after Muhammad’s death in 632.

Infallible Imams

Shi’ites believe Muhammad clearly made Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, successor. But a group of Muslim elders gathered and selected Muhammad’s father-in-law instead. For a time, Ali stayed out of the public eye, but a small community of shi’a (Arabic for “followers”) soon surrounded him and deferred to him as their imam, or guide. These shi’a eventually became the “Shi’ites,” and they developed unique ideas about the nature of Imams–and about the Mahdi, too.

In Sunni usage, an “imam” is generally just the person who leads each mosque in prayer. But for Shi’ites, the Imam is a sort of sinless saint, specially connected to God and set apart from the rest of humanity as an infallible guide. Every such Imam is directly descended from Muhammad, through Ali and his wife Fatima. According to Twelver Shi’ism (the dominant Shi’ite branch), a succession of twelve infallible Imams ended in the 9th century, when the final one, Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Hujjah, disappeared.

But he didn’t die. Rather, they say, he was concealed, or “occulted,” by God and will reappear as the Mahdi when the End Time comes. Other Shi’ite sects recognize fewer legitimate Imams, and so say different things about the Mahdi. Sunni tradition doesn’t recognize any infallible Imams, and tends to put less emphasis on the Mahdi.

Apocalypse Now?

But don’t tell any of that to Muqtada al-Sadr. The young Shi’ite cleric says the Madhi is back and America knows it. In fact, al-Sadr has repeatedly suggested that the real goal of the Iraq invasion was to capture and kill the Mahdi, on whom U.S. forces supposedly keep a detailed file. The Mahdi Army says it has to fight–to help bring Allah’s kingdom to Earth.

Not surprisingly, al-Sadr isn’t the first Muslim leader to call upon the Mahdi in a time of crisis. In fact, Mahdi-centered movements have cropped up throughout Muslim history, from the Spanish reconquest of Spain in the Middle Ages to the British invasion of Sudan in the late 19th century. But the world hasn’t ended yet.

–Steve Sampson

In front of a half-tough crowd

President Bush will deliver his final State of the Union address tonight. Well, maybe not his final one. After all, nothing in the Constitution says the State of the Union has to be an annual affair. Article II, Section 3 just says the president “shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”

Nothing in there about doing it once a year. Nothing in there about making a speech, either. In fact, presidents from Thomas Jefferson to Woodrow Wilson put their statements in writing. So, how did the State of the Union address get to be the way it is? It all started with George Washington.

Precedents for Presidents

In 1790, President Washington delivered the first State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress convened in New York City (then the nation’s capital). At 1,085 words, Washington’s address is among the shortest ever. After hearing the president’s proposals, Congress debated, drafted, and delivered a courteous reply promising its cooperation.

So such speeches went until 1801, when Thomas Jefferson became president. Jefferson thought Washington’s approach reeked of royalty. (In fact, the idea for the State of the Union address did derive from a British tradition in which the king opened Parliament with a “Speech from the Throne.”) What’s more, Jefferson thought the Congress had better things to do than debate replies to presidential speeches.

Rather than speaking, Jefferson submitted his message in writing–saving Congress from “the bloody conflict which the making an answer would have committed them.” The next 24 presidents followed Jefferson’s lead rather than Washington’s, delivering written “information” instead of speeches.

Memorable Moments

In 1823, James Monroe used his written message to Congress to lay out the Monroe Doctrine, which declared that “the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”

In the midst of the Civil War, in 1862, Abraham Lincoln used his message to propose emancipation of the slaves. “The fiery trial through which we pass,” he wrote, “will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.”

Finally, in 1913, Woodrow Wilson decided to follow Washington’s lead and not Jefferson’s. He gave a speech to both houses of Congress–reestablishing, as he put it, that “the President of the United States is a person, not a mere department of the government hailing Congress from some isolated island of jealous power.”

Media Darlings

Ten years after Wilson’s speech, Calvin Coolidge delivered the first State of the Union address to be broadcast by radio. But most agree that the master of the radio address was Franklin Roosevelt, who in 1941 famously looked forward to a future founded on four freedoms: “The first is freedom of speech and expression. . . . The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. . . . The third is freedom from want. . . . The fourth is freedom from fear.”

President Harry Truman delivered the first televised State of the Union speech in 1947, but he didn’t do it in prime time. The first president to take full advantage of the power of prime-time TV was Lyndon Johnson, in 1965. The following year saw the first televised opposition response immediately following the address. So much for carefully debated replies.

Blue Cross is spending $2 million on a campaign here in California to derail healthcare reform in the Legislature — the same Blue Cross that makes more money here, and spends less on patients, than any other big insurer. Earlier this year, Blue Cross shipped almost a billion dollars in our healthcare dollars to its corporate parent in Indiana, despite hundreds of complaints about premium increases, benefit cuts, cancelled policies, and other dangerous business practices.

That staggering profit, made at the expense of healthcare consumers in California, has made Blue Cross the poster child for why we need health care reform.

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs

THIS MAN IS NUTS - WANT PROOF? READ BELOW. FROM HIS OWN MOUTH - ON THE BIN LADEN TAPE

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, some of the details of the Bin Laden tape, the supposed Bin Laden tape, have been released. Now, this is a hoot. In the first place, there is no specific threat to the United States in the tape, unless there is one in code. But there’s no promise that we’re going to get hit again. There may be some code in there, but nothing direct. But it is amazing, folks, it is a liberal rant. He blames the US for global warming. He blames US corporate interests for corrupting the political process, because our politicians have to run out and raise so much money in order to run for president. He excoriates the Democrats. Now I understand why some people were saying earlier that this tape could not be good for Democrats, because what he apparently says on this tape, this Bin Laden look-alike — I’m sorry, I refuse to believe it’s Bin Laden. It’s just me. If I’m wrong, when we find out, I will be glad to admit it. I don’t have to do it very often, so I’m used to it, but I’m going to tell you this: He excoriates the Democrats, he lets it known, lets it be known, that he favors what they promise. He said, “You Democrats won the election in November because the American people want this war in Iraq over. But what have you done? You have continued to authorize billions and billions of dollars for the war. You are failing in your mission to the American people,” and on and on with things like this.He’s blaming the United States for global warming and stealing the world’s resources. It is a liberal rant. It’s everything you would hear out of San Francisco. It’s what you would hear from a major college campus, take your pick of a professor. It’s on the Senate floor. It’s anything you would hear out of the mouth of an average elected Democrat. It’s stunning. I can’t wait to get a hold of the actual transcript of this thing, because it’s obviously in a language — (speaking gobbly gook) — and it would be worthless to play that because we can’t understand it. We’re going to get the transcript of this. It may not happen until Monday, but I was watching the Drive-Bys. Jim Miklaszewski on PMSNBC was going through a brief summary of the transcript. He was focused on how this is not going to help the Democrats. Well, what do you think? Whose side are they on anyway? Why is this a surprise? The Democrats in this country are invested in defeat, they own defeat. They’re cementing that investment today and yesterday, and they’ll do so next week when the Petraeus report comes out. How can anybody assume they’re on anybody’s side but Bin Laden’s? “Rush, you can’t say it like that.” Why not? This is like back in the old Nicaragua days.EDITORS NOTE: HOLD ONTO YOUR HAT - THIS IS A STRANGE RIDE HE’S GOING TO TAKE YOU ON. Let’s review this, because I don’t care what intentions are. I care about end results. So we’ve got a budding little Soviet client state down there, Nicaragua, run by Daniel Ortega, who, by the way, is back in power down there. However, I don’t know what shape his government’s in after Hurricane Felix went in there. But regardless, you remember the Contra wars? Reagan was trying to do everything he could to get some money down there to the Contras, the so-called freedom fighters, the modern equivalent of our Founding Fathers, trying to defeat this Soviet beachhead being established. The Democrats in Congress voted down every funding effort, which is what led to the Iran-Contra scandal and so forth. But that’s the point. Any attempt to fund, the Democrats were constantly voting it down. Then after a number of votes, Ortega would get on a plane and go to the Soviet Union and he’d come back with a big aid package from the Soviet Union and he’d start bragging about it, and the Democrats in Congress: “You can’t embarrass us this way,” and they’d send people like George Miller from California and Kerry went down there a couple times, to scold the guy: “You can’t do this.” So people started saying, “You know what? You guys are actually voting with the communists, the Sandinista government down in Nicaragua.” “You challenge our patriotism?” “Well, sir, you may not be voting for them, but what would be the difference if you were? The result of your actions is you are supporting the establishment of a Soviet beachhead in Nicaragua.” By the way, they still speak glowingly of Castro. They’re not threatened at all or bothered by Hugo Chavez. So it’s the same situation here with the Iraq situation. They may cringe and they may react at allegations that they’re on the side of the terrorists, but how are their votes and their statements to be interpreted any other way? We certainly can’t claim that they’re on our side, not when the side we’re on is victory. They are clearly not for victory. They have no interest in it, total defeat. So this Bin Laden tape makes it clear that he is on the Democrat side and he excoriates them for not doing what they were elected to do. Now, if I’m a Democrat and this tape comes out and I accept the fact that this is actually Bin Laden, which of course they will, and I got this guy who blew up 3,000 Americans and would like to do it as often as he could, sidling up to me being critical because I’m not doing my job to do what he wants accomplished, which is us out of Iraq, how would I feel? Would I be the slightest bit embarrassed? If I’m Jack Murtha, if I’m Dingy Harry, if I’m Nancy Pelosi, or Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, am I embarrassed at all that Osama Bin Laden is on my side? I would think that I would be. I don’t think that is what gets through their thick skulls. They’ll come out with the requisite piece that the only difference between him and a bag of manure is the bag, whatever they’re going to say. But to people paying attention, folks, there can be no mistaking it. Osama Bin Laden expects the Democrat Party of this country to do his bidding and excoriates them for failing in this latest tape of his. MUST HAVE FOUND ANOTHER OXY CONNECTION!

America and Iran From The Economist print edition

What the rest of the world can do to stop America and Iran from talking themselves into a fight

MOST Americans and much of the world is fixated on what General David Petraeus, the American ground commander in Iraq, intends to say when he reports to Congress next week (see article). But in the meantime American relations with Iran appear to be going from bad to worse.

The two countries are used to trading insults, but they have now become explosive. The more George Bush flounders in Iraq, the greater his temptation to blame Iran. On August 28th he called Iran the world’s leading supporter of terrorism, claimed that its nuclear programme had put the Middle East “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust” and authorised his commanders to confront Iran’s “murderous activities”. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, sounds almost as if he is goading Mr Bush to attack. As a “master of tabulation and calculation”, he told Iranian students this week, he had concluded that the country’s enemies “dare not fight us”.

Whatever the master of tabulation may think, there is however a danger that America will at some point dare to strike Iran, either as part of its battle against Iranian-supported Shia militias inside Iraq, or in order to cripple its nuclear programme. Here, too, Mr Ahmadinejad is no help. No sooner had the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported at the end of August that Iran was going slow on uranium enrichment than he popped up to say the opposite. Iran, he said, had achieved its aim of running 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges and would add a new cascade every week.

If America and Iran are really intent on talking each other into a fight, the rest of the world can do little to prevent it. But there are ways to reduce the chances of a war by accident.

The most urgent is to persuade America that it does not have to deal with Iran’s nuclear delinquency on its own. Since July 2006 the UN Security Council has passed three binding resolutions ordering Iran to stop enriching uranium until it shows that, in spite of a history of fibbing, its nuclear intentions are peaceful. To their credit, Russia and China supported these resolutions—including two imposing mild economic sanctions—despite both countries’ commercial interests in Iran. But as Mr Ahmadinejad boasts, Iran has ignored the UN. If the Russians and Chinese are serious about preventing proliferation and shoring up the authority of the Security Council, they should now be more willing to help the Americans and Europeans produce a new resolution with sharper teeth.

The rest of the world should also inject more backbone into the IAEA. Mohamed ElBaradei, its director-general, is anxious to keep Iran in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and inspectors in the country—and to ward off an American military strike. These are honourable aims: an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites might not succeed and could well start a war. But he is now falling into the trap of letting Iran earn a spurious seal of approval for activities his agency cannot properly monitor.

Iran and the IAEA have just announced a new understanding on future co-operation. It is a dreadful one. Though it lists several areas where inspectors have outstanding questions, it allows Iran to drip-feed information. The questions have to be in writing by the middle of this month. There is no real deadline for Iran’s answers. Unless inspectors accept Iran’s version of events and “close the file” on each successive subject, the Iranians won’t provide the next set of answers, and so on. This leaves inspectors hard put to raise new questions when new information comes to hand. Iran has accredited a new list of inspectors—but only after barring those it found too intrusive.

Missing the point

The point of the recent succession of IAEA and UN resolutions, given Iran’s history of lies and cover-ups, was to halt all enrichment and plutonium work. Yet the work is continuing. Mr ElBaradei has said it is pointless asking Iran to stop all enrichment work, since it has already mastered many of the skills. But others have these skills and do not use them. Mr ElBaradei’s argument is that it is better to let Iran continue limited work under close supervision. The trouble is that his agency has no idea where else Iran is doing nuclear work, and so no idea where else these skills may be applied.

Mr Bush’s approach to Iran has long been flawed. By appearing to threaten its regime after it had helped America to unseat the Taliban in Afghanistan, he may have confirmed it in its hostility and reinforced its desire for a bomb. More recently America and Iran have come to see each other as rivals for mastery of the post-Saddam Gulf. Their own interest, and the interests of the Middle East, would probably be better served if they explored the possibility of some sort of grand bargain. But that seems impossible if the Iranians think they have a clear run to a nuclear bomb. The region would be a good deal safer if the rest of the world did more to disabuse them.

“The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: ‘No, don’t raise my taxes, no new taxes,’” Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. “It’s pretty hard to write a book saying, ‘No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes’ on every page.”

Schroeder, who as a Colorado Democrat was once one of Congress’ most liberal House members, was responding to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives.

She said liberals tend to be policy wonks who “can’t say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion.”

White House spokesman Tony Fratto responded, “Obfuscation usually requires a lot more words than if you simply focus on fundamental principles, so I’m not at all surprised by the loquaciousness of liberals.”

Given that the Bush White House is made up of obfuscation specialists, whose mendacitry is unrivaled in modern times, maybe the left should take that as a compliment.