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Unconventional Wisdom

Read this from Jonathan Rausch in National Journal.

Quick post-post-election exit poll: Which of the following two statements more accurately describes what happened on November 2?

A) The election was a stunning triumph for the president, the Republicans, and (especially) social conservatives. Because the country turned to the right, President Bush received a mandate, the Republicans consolidated their dominance, and the Democrats lost touch with the country.

B) Bush and the Republicans are on thin ice. Bush barely eked out a majority, the country is still divided 50-50, and the electoral landscape has hardly changed, except in one respect: The Republican Party has shifted precariously to the right of the country, and the world, that it leads.

Usual answer: A. Correct answer: B.

For the record, only time will tell, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and all that. Still, level-headed analysis — which is not what this year’s post-election commentary produced — shows that every element of Statement A is suspect or plain wrong.

Begin with that stunning triumph. “Stunning” implies surprising. Any observers who were stunned this year lived in a cave (or on Manhattan’s Upper West Side). All year long, month after month, opinion polls averaged to give Bush a lead in the low-to-mid-single digits, depending on when the poll was taken and who took it. Only toward the end, after the debates, did the gap narrow to that now proverbial “statistical dead heat.” Even then, the statistically insignificant margin generally favored Bush. Another indicator was the University of Iowa’s electronic election market, which lets traders bet on election outcomes; it consistently showed Bush winning with a percentage in the low 50s. Rarely has an election been so unsurprising.

A triumph? Only by the anomalous standards of 2000. By any other standard, 2004 was a squeaker, given that an incumbent was on the ticket. The last conservative, polarizing Republican incumbent who slashed taxes and campaigned on resolve against a foreign enemy won 49 states and received 59 percent of the popular vote. That, of course, was Ronald Reagan, who did not need to scrounge for votes to keep his job.

Most incumbent presidents win in a walk. The prestige and visibility of the White House gives them a powerful natural advantage. Bush enjoyed the further advantage of running against a Northeastern liberal who had trouble defining himself and didn’t find the battlefield until September. By historical standards, Bush in 2004 was notably weak.

The boast that Bush is the first candidate to win a popular majority since 1988 is just pathetic. Bush is the first presidential candidate since 1988 to run without effective third-party competition, and he still barely won. No one doubts that Bill Clinton would have won a majority in his re-election bid in 1996 if not for the candidacy of Ross Perot.

A new political era? A gale-force mandate for change? More like the breezeless, stagnant air of a Washington summer. Despite much higher turnouts than in 2000, only three states switched sides — a startling stasis. Despite Bush’s win, the House of Representatives barely budged. In fact, the Republicans might have lost seats in the House had they not gerrymandered Texas. The allocation of state legislative seats between Republicans and Democrats also barely budged, maintaining close parity. The balance of governorships will change by at most one (at this writing, Washington state’s race was undecided). If that’s not stability, what would be?

In the Senate, the Democrats were routed in the South and their leader was evicted. Those were bruising blows, to be sure; but it was no secret that the Democrats had more Senate seats to defend, that most of those seats were in Republican states, and that five were open. “Early predictions were that the Republicans would pick up three to five seats overall,” notes my colleague Charlie Cook. (See NJ, 11/6/04) In the end, the Republicans picked up four.

Here is the abiding reality, confirmed rather than upset by the election returns: America is a 50-50 nation. According to the National Election Pool exit poll (the largest and probably most reliable such poll), voters identified themselves this year as 37 percent Republicans, 37 percent Democrats, and 26 percent independents. That represents a shift in Republicans’ favor, from 35-39-27 in 2000 — but it is, of course, a shift to parity, not to dominance.

The political realignment that Republicans wish for is real, but it has already happened.

[…]

…the electorate’s center did move, but only about 3 percentage points. That was about how much Bush improved his showing over 2000 in the average state he won twice, and it is also about the size of his margin of victory this year. It was enough to win him a close election, but hardly a breakthrough.

If anything structurally important happened in 2004, it was that the country moved to the right a little, but the Republican Party moved to the right a lot. John Kerry’s Democrats aimed for the center and nearly got there, whereas Bush pulled right. He won, of course, but in doing so he painted his party a brighter shade of red — especially on Capitol Hill, and above all in the Senate, some of whose new Republican members seem nothing short of extreme.

Read it all. I’ve written some of this same myself, so I’m partial, but really all is not lost. With all they had to work with to come down to a few votes in Ohio, gerrymandering Texas and picking off Red State Senate seats doesn’t exactly speak to great electoral strength.

Via Donkey Rising

Real Men Don’t Like Sex

This Is Rich:

It was the most disgraceful thing I’ve ever seen,” Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney said in a telephone interview yesterday. “It’s on at 9 o’clock. Kids are watching, and everyone starts to think this is the NFL. I’ve written a letter to the commissioner [Paul Tagliabue], and I don’t think he can be very happy about it, either. We can’t allow that kind of thing to happen.”

In a prepared statement, ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, said, “We have heard from many of our viewers about last night’s ‘Monday Night Football’ opening segment and we agree that the placement was inappropriate. We apologize.”

The segment opened with actress Nicollette Sheridan, clad in only a towel, standing near Owens in the Eagles’ locker room. On ABC’s new hit series, Sheridan plays a character named Edie Britt, a multiple divorcee who has had a number of sexual conquests in her fictional neighborhood.

Sheridan: “My house burned down and I need to take a long, hot shower. . . . So where are you off to looking so pretty?”

Owens: “Baby, it’s ‘Monday Night Football.’ Game starts in 10 minutes.”

Sheridan: “Oh, you and your little games. . . . I’ve got a game we can play.”

Later, with her back to the camera, Sheridan dropped the towel and Owens said, “Aw, hell, the team’s going to have to win one without me.”

At that point, she jumped into his arms, and the scene cuts to two other “Desperate Housewives” actresses, Felicity Huffman and Teri Hatcher, who uttered MNF’s signature slogan: “Are you ready for some football?”

My Gawd, those NFL fans must have felt so dirty.

Here’s another example of all those Hollywood elites forcing this awful deviant culture on Real America. Still, it is kind of interesting that Neilson reports that while 12 million people tuned in to Monday Night football last week, 24 million watched “Desperate Housewives” the night before.

Needless to say, all the people watching “Housewives” in Real America were gay tourists from San Francisco.

pdate: Reader jjt mentions something that I missed but that is probably significant:

I wonder if what has gotten some people upset on Monday night is not Nicollette Sheridan’s naked back but that she ends up in the arms of a black athlete.

Never underestimate the ability of racists to rationalize their bigotry with calls to morality. It’s an old dodge. A hostile reaction to a scene like that is part of the lizard brain of too many Americans.

I’m also enjoying the moralizing on Fox News today about this story. They are very concerned about this terrible association between sex and sports. Which is why they hire experts like this (warning at work) on Fox Sports. Another of these professional sportscasters appeared earlier and showed one of her modeling sessions for Maxim as an example of what she wouldn’t do on Monday Night Football. It was very instructive, I’m sure.

Also a correction: The “Desperate Housewives” numbers were from the previous week. It was pre-empted last Sunday.

Bad Medicine

Reader Joseph Musco sent me a copy of a letter he wrote to Ron Hayes of the Palm Beach Post and Candy Crowley of CNN about the Green Tea Incident. He points out something very interesting:

The Prostate Cancer Research Institute notes that some chemicals in green tea (and not black tea) are useful in fighting parts of cancer and may aid in keeping some cancers in remission. The American Cancer Society lists prostate cancer is the second deadliest cancer among men. John Kerry lost his father to prostate cancer. John Kerry himself was diagnosed with prostate cancer sometime in early 2003 and underwent successful surgery just weeks after the breakfast Ms.Crowley mentions. Couldn’t John Kerry’s preference for green tea be a small way maintain his health, coping with an illness as best he can to ensure a long life as a father and husband? Is it uncommon for people to have an illness in their family history and alter their diet so they can lead longer healthier lives? Isn’t that a quality to be admired and not scorned?

Candy Crowley was interviewing him at the time so asking John Kerry why he liked green tea would have been easy. She might have found out that his doctor recommended it rather than that he was a sensitive new age bi-coastal liberal elite freakshow who she could make a tidy profit trashing after the election with stories like this. But, that would make her a reporter instead of a tabloid entertainer and that isn’t her job.

Liberal Conspiracy

Blogs For Bush via The Daou Report:

Real Clear Politics also has an excellent look at the real issues driving the election – and it wasn’t just ‘moral values’ as the MSM and the leftwing apologists would have us believe

So this is an MSM and leftwing apologist narrative, hmmm?

I wonder if anyone’s told James Dobson, Richard Viguerie and the Concerned Women of America? The last I heard they weren’t the MSM or leftwing apologists but maybe that’s what they want to be called these days. It’s so hard to keep up.

Why are the Republicans running from their most loyal constituents?

American Anthropology

Here’s a must read by Rick Perlstein on the subject of American tribes.

I’ve been doing a lot of ruminating on this blog lately about that topic so this article about a writer named Paul Cowan who did some very interesting journalism for the Village Voice back in the 70’s is a timely addition to my thinking on the subject. It’s a fascinating look at a writer of the left who delved into tribal America and came away with a complex and insightful view of the longstanding culture war during a period of liberal dominance. (One of the more jarring things about the article is the realization of the extent to which the “liberal reform” impulse that so offends the Real Americans is in retreat today.)

Perlstein finds some intriguing parallels with a radical apostate of the period, Norman Podhoretz one of the godfathers of neoconservatism. Podhoretz, unsurprisingly, does not come out so well by comparison. But then radicals are often full of shit.

It’s a very interesting read and worth thinking about as we launch ourselves into what looks to be an all out cold civil war for the next little while.

Correction: John Podhoretz changed to Norman Podhoretz.

Think Big

I’m so relieved that we are having the discussion about which Democratic values we can safely shed early instead of waiting until closer to the next election like we usually do. I think we should get out ahead on these issues and put the Republicans off their game. I’m already on record as being in favor of scrapping our pesky insistence on teaching evolution. Clearly, it’s disrespectful to those who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible to insist that it is true. That elitist fealty to reason and fact is why they hate us so.

Matt Yglesias and others think that Roe vs Wade is probably a goner and may even be a good thing because if we expend a bunch of energy defending it, more important things will be sacrificed. If some women have to take one for the team, well, nobody ever promised them a rose garden. Everybody knows that an adult’s inalienable right to make a unique and difficult moral choice for herself is a leu-seur. (Check here for a list of countries around the globe that we’ll be joining in the 19th century.) I think the sooner we dump that albatross the sooner everyone will relax and support our superior economic philosophy. Besides, it will still be legal in certain expensive blue states so it’s not like anybody whose father was governor of a red state and went on to become president couldn’t catch a flight and take care of business, if you know what I mean. Big whoop.

Chris Bowers thinks we might want to adios gun control and get with the faith based program. I’m pretty sure that gun control was the issue we ditched after 2000, so I don’t think we can use it again. The rules for proving your bona fides as a Real American require that once you discard a liberal issue you can’t Sistah Soljah it again.

And you know, we already embraced faith based initiatives but with the requirement that they adhere to federal non-discrimination statutes. If we want to wring out a Real America forelock tug from this one, we’re need to insist that the government use federal money to discriminate against women or minorities or people who don’t practice a specific religion. If we couple that with the creationism move and actively work to dismantle public schools, we might just be getting somewhere. Perhaps we could really shake things up by proposing to reverse Brown vs Board of Education, the damned case that lost us Real America in the first place. “Separate but Equal” has some real resonance these days, don’t you think? It fits so nicely on a bumper sticker.

But, will any of this really be enough? I have to wonder. It seems that we just aren’t getting there with these baby steps toward rejoining Real America. I think we need to think big. Really big.

When you look at it, our whole problem can be laid at the foot of the Bill of Rights. Maybe it’s time to take a good hard look at how much good defending that puppy has really done the Democratic Party, eh?

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I’ve already pointed out the damage that the separation of Church and State has done to us. Besides, it says an establishment of religion, not religions. If we make laws that establish more than one religion then we don’t even have to feel bad about it! If a few Buddhists, Muslims, pagans and atheists don’t like it, well that’s getting just a little too fine. They let in the Catholics, fergawdsake. Even the Jews. That’s enough “religions” for anybody.

Free speech forces us to defend the right of people to say things that Real Americans don’t like and it’s costing us. We end up getting associated with all those liberal TV stars from Friends that Real Americans hate, but we get no love for defending the right of Rush Limbaugh to call us traitors every day. I can’t see how it helps us to stick with this one.

Right of Assembly? That is so September 10th. Fuggedaboudit.

Redress of grievances? Petitioning of the government? Hello? Can we say, “I vote yea on the confirmation of Alberto Gonzalez for Attorney general?” Enthusiastically? Thank you.

What is this free press you speak of?

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Now we’re talking some sense.

Amendment III

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

whatever

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Hey, a little sneak ‘n peak never hurt anybody. It is long past time for this to go.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The founders were a little naive, weren’t they? This is all well and good, but all it does is empower a bunch of bleeding hearts. “Due process” is just an excuse for judicial activism. It’s gone.

Well, except for the takings clause. That’s a keeper. Some principles we just can’t toss and still be able to look ourselves in the mirror.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Yeah right, Messrs. Jefferson, Franklin, Adams and the rest. I’d like to introduce you to a couple of guys names Hamdi and Moussaoui. And some guys down in Gitmo who might have known some guys who killed people on September 11th. Maybe if you knew them you wouldn’t have HAMSTRUNG decent Americans from doing what they need to do to keep this country safe. (They obviously didn’t have a clue about what it takes to defend liberty. Sad.)

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Getting rid of this would be the ultimate tort reform. And gawd knows Real Americans want tort reform almost as much as they want the flag burning amendment and prayer in schools. This is a big winner, folks.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

A little waterboarding is good enough to determine who is and isn’t a witch or a terrorist and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to inflict a little pain on those actually convicted of crimes either.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Well, that’s a bunch of crap. Any rights not explicitly enumerated in the constitution are “special rights” and should be denied without a second thought.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

This would be fine as long as we attach the addendum that says, “unless Republicans control the federal government.” I think they’ll go along with that.

Repeal The Bill Of Rights: Vote Democratic!

It’s got a real ring to it, don’t you think?

Press Corpse Zombies

Kevin Drum says what I was going to say about the completely inexplicable decision of the LA Times to publish an editorial by the discredited John Lott. If he is considered credible then there is absolutely no reason why Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair have been drummed out of the business. When you make stuff up our of whole cloth, it should have some effect on your credibility.

Oh wait…I forgot. IOKIYAR

Which leads me to this unbelievably tendentious piece of garbage by Patrick Goldstein in today’s LA Times calendar section. Apparently, Michael Moore and Jennifer Anniston offended some Republicans with their criticism of George W. Bush and that is why we lost the election.

“The Democrats really paid a price for their association with strident Hollywood activists and their palpable contempt for regular people,” says Mike Murphy, the Republican political consultant who ran John McCain’s 2000 presidential bid and now works with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yeah. Arnold and Maria are jes reglar folk, watchin’ NASCAR, drankin’ Dr Pepper and listenin’ to some Toby, I guess.

This construction about “regular” people comes up throughout this article in varying forms. It would appear that the 55 million of us who voted for John Kerry are not regular people. If we were we would have rejected him because he was supported by those who hold Regular People in contempt. Therefore, we are held in contempt. Interesting.

Take the case of newly minted Real American Ron Silver who evidently was raised on a potato farm in Idaho and rides the bull down at Gillies whenever he gets the chance. He says in the article, “There’s an incredibly unhealthy uniformity of opinion in Hollywood. When you’re at a dinner party and the subject of the president comes up, it’s just assumed that all 20 people are thinking, ‘how are we going to get rid of this [jerk].’ I can’t think of any colleague in the entertainment community having a serious conversation with someone who’s pro-life or a born-again Christian. There’s just a real disconnect from the rest of the country.”

Haha. Yes, darling, it’s so true that at dinner parties in Real America all twenty people engage in lively erudite political discourse in which all sides are viewed with equal interest. That’s what makes Real America so special, after all. It’s the fact that it isn’t closed minded like those disconnected Hollywood liberals. In real American, pro-choice and pro-life, black and white, Christian and Jew all break bread together. (And, they serve the tastiest little crab cake hors d’ouevres, too. Yum.)

To be fair, there were a few artists who displayed a touch of class, most notably the Bruce Springsteen-led coalition of rock stars who did Kerry concerts around the country, all without engaging in incendiary political rhetoric. If only their movie star brethren could’ve shown such discretion…Instead Jennifer Anniston called Bush “an idiot,” along with an expletive we can’t print here, while Cher dubbed the president “stupid and lazy.”

The low point of self defeating activism came at a Radio City Music Hall fundraiser at which Chevy Chase said the president had the intellect of an “egg timer” John Mellencamp called Bush a “cheap thug” and Meryl Streep, in a performance that brings new meaning to the word sanctimonious, belittled the president’s faith.

Is it any wonder that the Bush campaign tried in vain to get the Democratic National Committee to release a tape of the event? If there was one thing everyday Americans didn’t want to hear, it was self-involved celebrities trashing the president.

[…]

If the showbiz world is every going to connect with voters, it has to learn to respect them first. Just ask Kirk Wagar, a Miami trial lawyer who served as the Democrat’s Florida finance chairman. Upset over the party’s inability to speak to real Americans, he’s launching an organization devoted to helping Democratic candidates communicate a values-driven message to lower and middle income voters who have a natural affinity for the party’s economic message.

If today’s Hollywood activists want to learn how to communicate with real people, maybe they should try the [Preston] Sturges approach — go out an meet them. No preaching, just lend an ear. When you actually shut up and listen, it’s amazing what you can learn.

No preaching. What a fine idea for limousine liberals, Christian proselytizers and big city show business reporters alike. But, perhaps I shouldn’t say anything being that I’m so irregular, unreal and unusual. We odd Americans who agreed that the president is an idiot and said it out loud to anyone who’d listen at our soirees and dinner parties thought, strangely, that there was a presidential campaign going on, not a coronation. We thought our passionate opinions, and those of the hated “limousine liberals” were as valid as any other. But, we were wrong. We are not everyday Americans. All 55 million of us are not quite right, not quite real.

No one’s saying the industry should temper its views or stop funneling money to the democrats. After all, the GOP rakes in tons of cash from ardent conservatives, but most of its far-right supporters are shrewd enough to avoid the limelight.

That’s going to come as a helluva surprise to Rush Limbaugh’s bosses, who gave him a 250 million dollar contract to say things like this every single day to millions and millions of those wonderful Real Americans:

The left is scared to death of God. They think Bush is a believer, and they got quotes from people that say Bush doesn’t think, he just follows his instincts based on how he feels after he prays. He’s just — “this is horrible.” They’re out there and they’re scared to death because they don’t understand God. They don’t understand a personal relationship with God. They can only think it’s trouble.

The — the Kerry campaign has finally gotten a chocolate chip. The Kerry campaign has announced that civil rights activist, the Reverend Jackson, has joined the campaign on Wednesday

[O]ne of the things we’ve learned is that [Senator John] Kerry has two elements of his base. And that’s why, no matter what he says, he angers half the base.

Half the base is so-called old reasonable Democrats, and they don’t hate the military. The other half of the base hates the military, hates America, hates Bush, hates the world except for France and Germany.

Well, try to figure, just imagine Lurch from The Addams Family hanging out a bus window underneath his face is “JohnKerry.com.” He’s got this sort of weird looking grin on his face with Evita hanging over his left shoulder.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is reporting that the new Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi has executed six insurgents in front of witnesses, wanting to send a clear message to these people. Good. Hubba-hubba.

And before anyone suggests that he is a fringe dweller of the Right, let’s not forget:

“[I]t’s always an opportunity and a thrill for someone like me to be able to talk to somebody like you, the vice president of the United States, and so some of these questions may appear to be leading, and I really don’t mean to do that.

This entire critique of the liberal elites who allegedly don’t understand Real America, and the 55 million of us Unreal Americans who agree with them is another example of this frustrating epistemological relativism to which the press corpse seems consciously oblivious. Up is down and black is white. Entertainers shouldn’t get political unless they agree with Republicans, in which case they can have radio shows that are beamed to more than 25 million people a day in which they can viciously insult Democrats all day long. The contempt with which Rush Limbaugh holds the entire Democratic party day after day after day is down to earth and real. The contempt with which Hollywood Democrats held George Bush at a fundraiser is unamerican.

Rush Limbaugh is the voice of the Republican Party — the allegedly “Real” Americans we liberal elitists don’t understand. His swill is endorsed by the highest reaches of the GOP. If Patrick Goldstein and Ron Silver don’t believe me, maybe they’ll listen to Mary Matlin:

MATALIN: This is a — this is another reason you’re my hero, of all the reasons. I have to read these papers every day because I have to do the defense to them?

RUSH: Yeah.

MATALIN: And it’s not until I listen to you that I actually can crack a smile for the first time in the day. And the reason that they’re — I know most of the country doesn’t read them [“these papers”], but they do drive a lot of the coverage. As a for instance — not — not to pick on The New York Times, but they are particularly egregious when it comes to the Bush administration.

[…]

MATALIN: [Y]ou inspired me this morning. There’s no reason that I have to do that. I’m — and at least I think I do, but when I listen to you, I get all the information I need, and I — and I — it is — I have a confidence in the President, in the policies, in the goals. I have — I know his conviction. I know he’s right and I know he has the leadership to do it. What I don’t have, and what I can only get from you, is the cheerfulness of your confidence —

I think the picture is pretty clear here about Real America, don’t you?

There are 55 million of us freakish, irregular, unReal Americans who refuse to accept that it is a-ok for this asshole (and all of his clones) to infect this country with his hateful bile uncontested and unrebutted anymore. If that means we have to use harsh language, then fine. Real Americans are just going to have to get used to it coming from our side.

Patrick Goldstein may have been born yesterday, but some of us have been watching the Right disseminate it’s eliminationist propaganda for a long, long time. The Left isn’t shutting up because a bunch of effete “journalists” are too stupid to know when they’re being played.. Again.

Gawd, has there ever been a less insightful, less informed, more gullible press corps in history? I can hardly wait for the conservative prom this year. Patrick Goldstein will undoubtedly get the “Richard Cohen Useful Idiot” award, although it’s going to be a very competitive category.

Bloggerrific

For your one stop blog shopping, check out The Daou Report.

It highlights the right thinking Left (a fine service in itself) but, it also gives you the lowdown on the wrong thinking Right, thus saving you from having to wade through the wingnut hell-broth yourself.

CAKEWALK

Fallujah in Pictures

An Iraqi nurse treats 2-year-old child Mustafa Adnan, at a Baghdad hospital, who lost a leg when his house in Falluja’s Jolan district was shelled during fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents in the war-torn city November 14, 2004. U.S. tanks shelled and machine-gunned rebels still holding out in Falluja in heavy fighting that was preventing an Iraqi Red Crescent convoy from getting aid to civilians trapped in the city for six days. (Ali Jasim/Reuters)

Eliana Aponte / Reuters

Liberation

“Destruction was everywhere. I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civilians who stayed in Fallujah were too afraid to go out,” he said.

“There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days.”

By Tuesday afternoon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neighborhood, Hussein snapped.

“U.S. soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay in my house,” he said.

Hussein said he panicked, seizing on a plan to escape across the Euphrates River, which flows on the western side of the city

“I wasn’t really thinking,” he said. “Suddenly, I just had to get out. I didn’t think there was any other choice.”

In the rush, Hussein left behind his camera lens and a satellite telephone for transmitting his images. His lens, marked with the distinctive AP logo, was discovered two days later by U.S. Marines next to a dead man’s body in a house in Jolan.

AP colleagues in the Baghdad bureau, who by then had not heard from Hussein in 48 hours, became even more worried.

Hussein moved from house to house dodging gunfire and reached the river.

“I decided to swim … but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river.”

He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he “helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands.”