The recent assault on the National Security Five is only the most recent example of the fear our elites have about discussing and understanding radical Islamists. 
 
 When an orchestrated assault is launched on the right to ask questions in an effort to stop members of Congress from even inquiring about a topic — you know the fix is in. 
 
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 The intensity of the attack on Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) as well as Republican Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Tom Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia is a reminder of how desperate our elites are to avoid this discussion. Yet consider this rush to silence questions in light of our history of unpleasant surprises during the Cold War. 
 
 Given all the painful things we learn about people every day and the surprises that shock even the experts (the head of the FBI anti-spy effort was a Russian spy, for example), you have to wonder why people would aggressively assert we shouldn’t ask about national security concerns. 
 
 Remember the shock in 2001 when we learned that FBI agent Robert Hanssen had been spying for 22 years — first for the Soviet Union and then the Russian Federation. This disaster came just seven years after the 1994 arrest of Aldrich Ames, a CIA counterintelligence officer who was a Soviet spy for eight years. 
 
 Why should we assume we’re in better shape today, when political correctness is passionately opposed to tough counterintelligence screening? It’s as though our leaders have forgotten every lesson of the 1930s about fascism, Nazism and communism and every lesson from 1945 to 1991 about communism. 
 
 We have replaced tough mindedness about national security with a refusal to think seriously and substituted political correctness and a “solid” assurance that people must be OK because they are “nice” and “hard working” for the systematic, intense investigations of the past. 
 
 I’m not suggesting that our primary threat is espionage. Our greatest problem is getting the wrong analysis, advice and policy proposals. It is the bias of the advisers and the disastrous policies they propose that are our gravest danger at this stage of the long struggle with radical Islamists. 
 
 Our elites refuse to even consider that the advice they are getting is biased, tainted, distorted — or just plain wrong. 
 
 The underlying driving force behind this desperate desire to stop unpleasant questions is the elite’s fear that an honest discussion of radical Islamism will spin out of control. They fear if Americans fully understood how serious radical Islamists are, they would demand a more confrontational strategy. ||||| When Politico first began spewing its pollution back in 2007, I wrote a series of posts examining its ownership and management, its heavy reliance on Drudge links, its biases, and its tawdry methods, and had a lengthy exchange with its Editor, John Harris, about those critiques. I long ago stopped doing that: aside from the handful of genuinely good reporters they have, it is widely recognized that Politico is little more than a glorified gossip rag, the belly of the media beast, the embodiment of everything vapid, reckless, and petty that drives America's media rot. Pointing out the latest examples is pointless and redundant. 
 
 But today Politico descended into territory so toxic that one would be remiss to ignore it. They gave Newt Gingrich almost 5,000 words to warn America of the grave danger posed by Muslims, to condemn "elites" for covering up the threat, and to defend the recent McCarthyite attack by GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann and four other members of Congress on Huma Abedin, the long-time Muslim aide to Hillary Clinton and wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, whom Bachmann essentially accused -- with zero evidence -- of being a secret agent for the Muslim Brotherhood (Politico gave Gingrich 2,500 words for the Op-Ed itself -- headlined: "In defense of Michele Bachmann, Muslim Brotherhood probes" -- and then another 1,800 words for an "appendix" prepared by the neocon-funded, Muslim-obsessed Foundation for the Defense of Democracies). This was the crux of the Bachmann accusations which Gingrich is defending: 
 
 "It appears that there has been deep penetration in the halls of our United States government by the Muslim Brotherhood," Bachmann told radio host Sandy Rios in June. "It appears that there are individuals who are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood who have positions, very sensitive positions, in our Department of Justice, our Department of Homeland Security, potentially even in the National Intelligence Agency." 
 
 Then, "Bachmann singled out Huma Abedin" and "question[ed] why Abedin . . . was able to receive a security clearance despite having family members that Bachmann believes are connected to the Brotherhood." Bachmann wrote: "I am particularly interested in exactly how, given what we know from the international media about Ms. Abedin’s documented family connections with the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, she was able to avoid being disqualified for a security clearance." Bachmann was joined in her crusade by four other House members (Gingirch calls them "The National Security Five," because nobody does self-victimizing, self-martyring melodrama like neocon Tough Guys). 
 
 So noxious was this attack that even people like John McCain and Wolf Blitzer -- along with Catholic bishops and other religious groups -- harshly condemned it (though it seems clear that the anger in official Washington was due more to Abedin's being deeply ensconced in Beltway power circles than it was due to revulsion over the rank Islamophobia underlying the attack; said Blitzer: "I have been very upset about a McCarthy-like attempt to smear one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's closest aides, Huma Abedin, someone I have known for years"). Let me know when Islamophobic law enforcement and Surveillance State practices aimed at marginalized, powerless Muslims provoke similar rage in those circles. ||||| DES MOINES — With less than two months before the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain lead in the polls here. But neither was at the state Republican Party’s annual dinner Friday, leaving Newt Gingrich to get the best reaction by far. 
 
 The five candidates at the event used 10-minute speeches to make their cases for being the main alternative to the two front-runners. Presenting themselves as either the most electable or authentic anti-establishment conservative, the candidates took only implicit shots at Romney — who’ll be back in the state Monday. 
 
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 Before Gingrich, most got polite applause but no loud cheers or standing ovations at the Ronald Reagan Dinner — one of the top events on the local political calendar. From Sen. Chuck Grassley to town mayors, almost every elected Republican official in the state attended, including many of the 99 county chairs whose opinions are respected back home. 
 
 But their reactions changed as the former House speaker ticked through praise for all the people who spoke before him — Ron Paul for pushing to audit the Federal Reserve, Rick Perry for mentoring him on the importance of the 10th amendment, Michele Bachmann for introducing legislation to repeal financial regulatory reform and Rick Santorum for sounding the alarm about “radical Islam.” 
 
 Then, without naming either, he noted the absence of the two candidates who weren’t there. 
 
 “There are a couple that I wish were here tonight, and I would have said nice things, but we’ll skip over that,” he said. 
 
 The knowing crowd roared with laughter. 
 
 Praising ethanol and riffing on his campaign staff’s ties to the state, Gingrich argued that he understands the legislative branch better than anyone and proved in the 1990s that he can get things done. 
 
 Gingrich’s call for seven, three-hour debates with President Barack Obama excited the crowd more than anything all night. He said that he will follow the president around if he does not agree by the time Gingrich wins the nomination. 
 
 “From that date forward, for the rest of the campaign, the White House will be my scheduler,” he said. “And wherever the president appears, I will be four hours later.” 
 
 The reception was in marked contrast to Rick Perry, who’s been hoping to gain back his lead in Iowa. The Texas governor gave a well-crafted speech with lots of rehearsed one-liners, but he didn’t catch fire with the crowd in the dark convention hall. He described a “choice in the race” between the “tinkerers” — “those that support bailouts and oppose major tax reform” — and the “fundamental reformers.” 
 
 “Some want to reform Washington with a pair of tweezers,” he said, doubtlessly referring to Romney. “I’m for bringing a wrecking ball.” 
 
 Perry addressed “Newt” twice during his speech, as if asking for a point of reference on Washington. In criticizing the super committee, he said there have been about 20 committees in the past 30 years to talk about getting the debt under control. “What’s it been, Newt?” he wondered rhetorically. 
 
 Michele Bachmann described herself as the uncompromising “voice in the wilderness” and bragged that commentators called her “extreme” for opposing a debt ceiling increase this summer. She focused her speech on the national debt, which she said is passing a dangerous $15 trillion threshold. 
 
 Pointing to the crisis in Greece, the Minnesota congresswoman said: “Take a really good look in the mirror … because what we just observed is the trailer for where the United States is going.”
– In a six-page, 2,500-word Politico op-ed (with an attached three-page, 1,800-word appendix), Newt Gingrich makes it crystal clear that he is on the side of Michele Bachmann and her four fellow members of Congress who want an inquiry into whether the government is being infiltrated by Islamic extremists. (He refers to the group as "the National Security Five.") According to Gingrich, the quick and plentiful denouncements of Bachmann's theory are simply examples "of the fear our elites have about discussing and understanding radical Islamists," he writes. "You have to wonder why people would aggressively assert we shouldn’t ask about national security concerns." "It’s as though our leaders have forgotten every lesson of the 1930s about fascism, Nazism, and communism and every lesson from 1945 to 1991 about communism," Gingrich writes, noting that "political correctness" has taken precedence over security and that the "elites" worry that "if Americans fully understood how serious radical Islamists are, they would demand a more confrontational strategy." He quotes Tony Blair and JFK (and Wikipedia, notes The Blaze incredulously), and notes the Fort Hood shootings and the Times Square car bomb as evidence that we must be more vigilant. On Salon, Glenn Greenwald decries Politico ("a glorified gossip rag") in general and Gingrich's piece in particular, calling it a "bigoted, McCarthyite screed." Click for Gingrich's full piece, or Greenwald's response.