Blog P.I.

I first ran across John Aravosis’ take on the British terror arrests via Conn Carroll in yesterday’s Blogometer. Carroll quoted Aravosis asking:

[I]sn’t it queer that the emergency [red alert on U.S. airlines] is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman’s loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

Aravosis frames the events of the last 48 hours as the White House surreptitiously moving against against a) the Democratic party, and b) American business travelers. That Bush is using Lieberman’s defeat against Democrats, and second, that he’s imposing stifling aviation rules without justification. (Aravosis’ judgment on the credibility of the Scotland Yard-scotched terror plot has evolved, which I’ll get to a bit later.)

Look, I agree the color-coded system is capricious and unhelpful to the public, and if the no-water on airplanes policy persists past a few weeks, I’ll join him in decrying that (I would also endorse the notion that the shoe-checks have outlived their usefulness, though they were useful at first). But in dysfunctional government policy and hardball politics he sees actual malice. Take this post, filed early yesterday afternoon:

In today’s NY Times, Dick Cheney warned that the Lieberman loss would embolden “Al Qaeda types.” It is reasonable to assume that Cheney, like Bush, knew about the unfolding scandal in Great Britain. Think about this for a minute. It shows how evil the Bush/Cheney team really is. Knowing that this story was about to break, Cheney invoked Al Qaeda in purely political terms.

Cheney and Aravosis are actually making the same mistake on purpose, and both for political reasons. They both purport to believe that “al Qaeda types” are even following the primary defeat of a hawkish opposition party member, so they can politicize the war, for dovishness and calculation.

But what ground rules would Aravosis put on Cheney’s discussion of foreign policy matters? Only if he promises not to mention Democrats? Not within 15 days of an election? Aravosis isn’t criticizing the substance of Cheney’s remarks, but instead that he made any remarks at all.

And I don’t have time to check and see if Aravosis has criticized Bush for calling terrorists “evil,” but if thinking strategically about approaching elections is “evil,” then I don’t know what you’d call Jack Abramoff.

Flash forward to this morning, where Aravosis starts walking back from his verdict on the terror arrests yesterday: That the threat was not legitimate, and the U.S./British reaction was wildly overblown. Conservative bloggers seized on his coments — see Stephen Bainbridge and Pejman Yousefzadeh, plus George Gooding with a bigger picture view — identifying it as more evidence that the left-wing blogosphere is unserious about terrorism, as charged. Carroll put a “tin-foil hat” on him; earlier this week, Jacob Weisberg made a similar argument, saying Ned Lamont’s supporters “appear not to take the wider, global battle against Islamic fanaticism seriously.”

And Aravosis even wrote it like he knew he was mistaking bad timing as a conspiracy:

Do I sound as if I don’t believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don’t believe it. Read the article. They say the plot had an “Al Qaeda footprint.” Ooh, are you scared yet? What that really means is that they found NO evidence whatsoever that the plot had anything to do at all with Al Qaeda, but the plot simply made them think “gosh, this is something Al Qaeda would do.” That’s what a footprint means. Nice, but no cigar.

That’s increasingly untenable, as more information comes out and more arrests are made. Today Aravosis writes:

Intelligence successes are generally more effective when they remain private, but of course if a threat still exists, and can be minimized through public disclosure, that’s a legitimate reason for exposure. Still, considering the past (and present) political use of terror threats, I think skepticism about timing and motives is understandable. They boy who cried wolf writ large.

Well, that’s better. Still, he doesn’t really address his previous exculpation of previous U.S. terrorism arrests:

Were these guys totally innocent? Probably not. But there’s no reason to believe they were any more Osama’s right-hand than Jose Padilla, the famed dirty-bomber who I think is now only being charged with jay-walking or something. Then there were the famous six Muslim-American guys in New York state, supposedly operating their own al Qaeda cell. Not so much. Or how about the Al Qaeda cell in Florida trying to blow up the Sears Tower? Oh that’s right, they were just some demented friends squatting in a warehouse and “thinking” about it. And then there’s the famous plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge - with a single blow torch.

Padilla didn’t get very far as a prospective terrorist, but the legal battle surrounding him has been about how to handle al Qaeda arrestees, not about whether he committed conspiracy to commit jaywalking. In the case of the Buffalo Six, all six were convicted of providing material support to al Qaeda, and one was later killed by a U.S. Hellfire missile in Yemen. He identifies correctly the Miami case as one where there really was no case, and I’ll grant him that. Hey, I’ll even throw in Joel Hinrichs, the Sooner Boomer, the suicidal Oklahoma sudent who detonated himself outside Memorial Stadium during a football game in 2005, of whom conservative bloggers fanned many erroneous rumors. But as for the Brooklyn Bridge, I’m not sure where “a single blow torch” comes from, but Iyman Faris knew Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and he too was convicted.

Besides, there’s no proof that the 7/7 suicide bombers received practical support from Osama bin Laden either, but they were deadly nonetheless.

It’s more problematic that he doesn’t mention Richard Reid [Update: Spelling corrected; see this comment] or Lockerbie. Maybe terrorists haven’t had much luck with blowtorches or crop dusters, but for Aravosis to leave out all previous terrorist attacks involving planes in favor of other, lesser examples of terrorist attempt or intent, while blithely dismissing those and mangling the facts, sure, it’s fair to say that John Aravosis, for one, is not very serious about terrorism.

I will at least allow that he is serious about his opposition to Bush because he disagrees strenuously with his national security policy. I just don’t think Aravosis has any idea what to replace it with, and he’s not above sticking to bad conclusions that make Republicans out to sound as bad as possible.

P.S. Jim Treacher asks: “Why do the beverages hate us?” Along with other clever lines that would’ve made a good header to this post. [Update: He's now hosting a poll asking: What do we call this un-quenching imbroglio?]

P.P.S. Greetings, Instapundit readers! Is there a better Instalanche than a pre-lunch time link before the professor heads to class (I presume) for three hours? Nay, I believe there is not. Well, maybe on a Monday.