Last week we heard from Scott Beauchamp's commanding officer, Col. Ricky Gibbs. Gibbs said that Beauchamp had admitted to the investigating officer that his stories for the New Republic were false--or, as he put it later in the briefing, that, while Beauchamp had not "recanted," he "does not stand by the story." Col. Gibbs also said that Beauchamp was free to speak with the press. The New Republic's last update on the matter (on August 10) had suggested that the Army was preventing them from speaking with their author.

Now one of the bloggers from Blackfive has sat down with Beauchamp in Iraq. He does not report the substance of his conversation with Beauchamp, but he does have this to say:

What I can say is that he is not being held incommunicado in an undisclosed location with Dick Cheney, and that I found an interesting person that I enjoyed meeting.

The Army has officially said that Beauchamp is free to talk to the media, that he no longer stands by the stories, and that the stories are false. Which leaves us with this simple question: Have the editors at the New Republic spoken to Scott Beauchamp? And--if he’s choosing not to speak to them--do they stand behind his stories?

Today's Huffington Post cherry picks a four year old
quote from Atkinson's report on IEDs.

The Washington Post today prints the first in a series of stories by Rick Atkinson on the IED threat in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Pentagon's response to it. The title of the piece: "'The IED problem is getting out of control. We've got to stop the bleeding.'" That quote is damning, but fortunately, it's also four years old:

By late September 2003, Lt. Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army's operations chief, believed that IEDs not only threatened soldiers in Iraq, who included his two sons and a nephew, but also posed a strategic risk to U.S. ambitions in the region. "The IED problem is getting out of control," he told Col. Christopher P. Hughes, a staff officer. "We've got to stop the bleeding."

It's heard to say where this series is going, and to be honest, I don't have too many complaints about the first piece. As a history of the IED problem, it seems accurate so far, ending in mid-2004 with the military's "Manhattan Project-like" approach to defeating the IED. I remain deeply skeptical of that approach, which the military pursued with little success in an attempt to find a technological rather than a tactical solution to the IED problem. There is no silver-bullet, miracle jammer, or armored vehicle that will completely eliminate the threat from the IED--the only real solution is to kill the bad guys who are building, facilitating, and emplacing these devices. But Atkinson seems to get that, quoting Admiral Macy in the introduction to the series:

"Americans want technical solutions. They want the silver bullet," said Rear Adm. Arch Macy, commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Washington, which now oversees several counter-IED technologies. "The solution to IEDs is the whole range of national power --political-military affairs, strategy, operations, intelligence."

And then Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England:

We've had people killed and injured, but we've probably saved five or 10 times that number of people by preventing attacks, or capturing and killing [insurgents], or getting caches of weapons, or disabling them."

Indeed. Here's the recent analysis from Former Spook:

In other words, the number of fatalities from roadside bombs and other IEDs has dropped by 64% in the past six months--a time when the overall ops tempo among U.S. forces has increased dramatically. During that period, Army and Marine units have entered a number of former terrorist strong-holds and cleared them, suffering fewer casualties than many analysts had predicted. And, the declining number of IED deaths shows that the troop surge is hitting the bad guys where it hurts most--in their bomb-making networks.

We're still a long way from defeating the IED, and further still from victory in Iraq, but this headline is a cheap shot at a time when the exact opposite is true--the military may finally be getting the IED problem under control, and as MRAP vehicles begin making their way over to Iraq, the situation is likely to improve even further. We still have to stop the bleeding, but there too, the trend is overwhelmingly positive. Atkinson's introduction appears cautiously optimistic, but the defeatist left, desperate for bad news, is sure to cherry pick the worst bits from this report, as the Huffington Post has done by putting up the four year old quote that Atkinson's editors chose to use as a headline. But that doesn't change the real story here: IED fatalities are down 64 percent over the last six months. What are the chances of a headline like that popping up in the Washington Post at the end of this series?

Yesterday, six of the top thirteen college football teams in the AP poll--all of them heretofore undefeated--lost to lower-ranked or unranked opponents. Upsets happen in sports.

And upsets happen in politics. Especially in multi-candidate fields where almost all of the leading candidates have never run for the office in question before, and where none of the candidates right now is drawing majority support in the polls. Should Hillary Clinton, who leads Barack Obama by about 40 to 23 percent in national polls, be favored over her less experienced opponent? Sure. But could Obama upset Clinton? Easily. He will have as much money as she has for paid advertising--and the punditocracy undervalues the importance of such advertising, while overvaluing the value of pundit-consensus-judgments. Obama is about even with Clinton (along with Edwards) in Iowa. If Obama beats Clinton in Iowa, he'll probably win New Hampshire--and then what? Probably an upset for the Democratic nomination that wouldn't be as big an upset as the D.C. consensus now believes it would be.

In politics, as in sports and in life, things change. Michigan suffered a stunning upset to Appalachian State, was trounced by Oregon--and has since won three games in a row. Momentum shifts. Fred Thompson was all the rage in the late spring-early summer. Then he delayed his entrance into the race, had an easygoing launch--and the pundits disapproved. But he's second right now in most national polls, and is tied for second in Iowa and for first place in South Carolina. Not bad.

Meanwhile, Giuliani is doing well nationally--but his supporters have to be worried by his apparent inability to move above what looks like a 30-percent ceiling. Romney probably has put together the best campaign of the GOP contenders, and he's done very well so far in polling in Iowa and New Hampshire. But his supporters have to be worried that Romney's early leads there may be beginning to dissipate as the other candidates begin focusing on, and advertising in, those states.

On the other hand, Giuliani could stay in front, and Romney's impressive early showing may turn out to be for real. Plus, McCain is still in the hunt. We don't know. What we do know is that it would be amazing if things stayed just as they are. Politics is dynamic--especially the politics of a multi-candidate race with a new and compressed primary schedule. It's unlikely that a present snapshot will capture a three-months-off future outcome. And this, too, we know: conventional wisdom is often wrong. Now, one could respond: So are strained attempts to contravene conventional wisdom! To which I'd have to say: Fair enough.

During the September 5 GOP debate in New Hampshire, Mayor Giuliani had this little noticed dig at Governor Romney:

New York City was, during the years that I was mayor, the safest large city in the United States. In fact, in 2000, which was one of the last years that I was mayor, it was 191 for crime in the country.

For example, in Boston, there was a 59 percent greater chance you'd be the victim of a crime than in New York City. In many other cities, there was 100 to 300 percent greater chance that you'd be a victim of a crime than in New York City.

One of the things I accomplished as mayor of New York City was the impossible.

Besides Giuliani's logical fallacy--if something is impossible, can you really accomplish it?--there are a couple of things to note about this statement. One, Giuliani left office in 2002, while Mitt Romney didn't become governor until 2003. So a direct comparison is, strictly speaking, unfair.

Two, the crime discussion is probably only beginning. For an example, read this Boston Globe story, which reports that "newly released figures show that murders were up 7.5 percent in the Bay State and 25 percent in Boston from 2002 to 2006 while Romney was governor."

Now it should also be noted that assault and rape figures fell during the same period. And a Romney spokesman told the Globe that the former governor has "a strong record on public safety."

Furthermore, I'm not sure crime will be the dispositive issue in the 2008 GOP primary. In fact, I'm pretty sure it won't be dispositive. But the Globe story suggests that for every ad that runs in Iowa attacking Giuliani's positions on abortion, gun control, immigration, etc., etc., there will be another ad attacking Romney's flip-flops and, of all things, his record on crime.

According to NBC's First Read blog, Newt Gingrich will not run for president. Apparently Gingrich received notice only yesterday that he would have to shut down his American Solutions project before running. This was enough, it seems, to prevent Gingrich from announcing.

Note that it was not a perceived lack of pledges that reportedly convinced Gingrich not to run.

House minority leader John Boehner of Ohio and Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina have labored long and hard to make an issue out of Democratic phoniness in supposedly cleaning up the dubious practice of earmarks. Remember earmarks? Those are the items of special interest spending--pork in its purest form--that senators and House members stick into bills without any deliberation or vote. Indeed, earmarks are largely hidden from public view.

Democrats promised that once they controlled Congress they would reform the process and put a spotlight on earmarks. They've done some reforming, but have still found ways to keep many earmarks from being exposed to the light of day. Boehner, who has never authored an earmark, pointed this out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday. Coburn and DeMint have been screaming bloody murder. So you might think earmarks are on the verge of becoming a good Republican issue.

Nope. And there are several reasons for this. It was under the 12-year Republican reign in Congress that the number of earmarks skyrocketed. It was the crooked use of earmarks that sent Republican congressman Duke Cunningham to jail--he traded them for money and gifts--and put other Republicans in hot water. At the moment, Republican senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is Capitol Hill's most famous earmarker. He's under investigation by a federal grand jury--and earmarks are part of the probe.

Last year Republicans actually took steps to reform earmarks, but those steps weren't enough. It didn't change the story line, popular with the media and Democrats, that Republicans alone are the abusers of earmarks. This idea dovetailed with the "culture of corruption" that Democrats accused Republicans of cultivating.

The result: It's hard for Republicans to pass the blame for earmarks to Democrats. But there is a way, one most Republicans balk at, especially those on the House and Senate appropriations committees. It's simply to propose to ban earmarks altogether and ask President Bush to veto any spending bill with earmarks in it.

My guess is that nothing short of a death-to-earmarks stance will lift the burden of earmarks from the backs of Republicans. When something is killing you politically, the only way out is to get rid of it entirely.

Fred Barnes writes in with a preview of this weekend's Beltway Boys:

This week's "Hot Story" is "Talk . . . Bomb?" It's mainly about the Democrats and how bad they were in their Dartmouth debate on Iran--except for Hillary. She gets a separate "UP" arrow for her performance, especially as the lone Senate Democratic presidential candidate who voted for the Kyl-Lieberman resolution to designate the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group. It's a largely pro-Hillary show, based on her being the most hawkish of the Democratic presidential candidates.

Actor Kevin Spacey is zinged in the "Buzz" for his lovefest with Hugo Chavez. And the New York Times's "public editor" Clark Hoyt is praised for his courage as ombudsman in telling the true story of the paper and that MoveOn ad calling Gen. Petraeus a traitor.

You can watch Beltway Boys on the Fox News Channel tonight at 6 p.m. The show is repeated at 11:30 p.m. Saturday and again at 6:30 a.m. Sunday. All times are EST.

I hated middle school, but if anything could have made it better...

Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force presented a "retired" J-6 jet fighter to a middle school in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on Tuesday, to provide a real teaching tool for the school.

The fighter plane will be used as prop for trainee pilots who are attending a pilot training base which lies in Ba County Middle School, Chongqing municipality, the Chongqing Economic Times reports.

The 120 students in the pilot trainee program can get in touch with a real jet fighter in the future besides taking lessons.

Many students didn't sleep well during night before the aircraft arrived as they were so excited. When they were informed the plane had been sent to school the next day, students rushed to the playground, and touched it. Some of them even climbed onto it after teachers approved it.

When the kids sit in the cockpit, do they pretend they're in a dogfight with an F-22, or strafing pro-democracy protesters?

HT Alert 5

The Missile Defense Agency reports on a successful test today:

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced today it has completed an important exercise and flight test involving a successful intercept by a ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack. The flight test results will help to further improve and refine the performance of numerous Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) elements able to provide a defense against the type of long-range ballistic missile that could be used to attack an American city with a weapon of mass destruction.

The interceptor was launched from the Ronald W. Reagan Missile Defense Site, located at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. For this exercise, a threat-representative target missile was launched from Kodiak, Alaska.

Reuters notes that the "threat-representative target" was intended to simulate an incoming North Korean missile:

A U.S. interceptor missile on Friday shot down a dummy warhead replicating an incoming North Korean missile in the 7th successful test of Boeing Co's long-range missile shield, a witness told Reuters.

"We got it," said Riki Ellison, president of the private Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. "It was a success."

Merkel says goodbye to the Dalai Lama after meeting at the chancellery.
(REUTERS/Markus Schreiber/Pool)

Even before the brutal crack-down in Burma turned the international spotlight on China’s cynical unwillingness to pressure the military junta in neighboring Rangoon, it was German Chancellor Merkel who--by receiving the exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama last Sunday in Berlin--decided to send a clear signal to Beijing emphasizing the importance of protecting fundamental human rights. Merkel was not only the first German chancellor to meet with the Dalai Lama. She also decided to receive him at her official residence for what was billed as "private and informal talks" about the Dalai Lama’s "work as the Buddhist Tibetan religious leader and his commitment to his Tibetan homeland." Ever since China forcibly annexed its Himalayan neighbor in 1950 and launched a tough campaign of repression against the native Buddhist Tibetans, Beijing has viewed any international red-carpet treatment for the "god king" as a threat to its political legitimacy and territorial integrity.

In the run-up to the Merkel-Dalai Lama talks, China had tried hard to prevent the sensitive meeting from happening. Last Friday, for instance, Beijing summoned the newly arrived German ambassador there to warn against the potential negative political and economic fall-out for relations between the two countries. Beijing also canceled several senior-level bilateral meetings during this week’s UN General Assembly opening session in New York for "scheduling reasons." According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, the meeting "grossly interferes with the internal affairs of China," "hurts the feelings of the Chinese people and seriously undermines China-Germany relations". While the Merkel government stressed the peaceful nature of the Dalai Lama’s international campaign to achieve autonomy--though not independence--for Tibet and confirmed its continued commitment to the "One China" policy, the German Chancellor nonetheless seized the opportunity to demonstrate that she is not willing to sacrifice her own political beliefs and principles on the altar of close political and economic ties with a rising China.

Merkel’s timing in sending a human rights message to Beijing was carefully chosen, coming just a few weeks after the chancellor’s trip to China (which was overshadowed by reports of PLA cyber attacks against German government computers), and less than a year before the start of the 2008 Olympics. Despite the blustering, Beijing knows too well that it would be counterproductive to make too big of a deal of the Dalai Lama visit, especially since it does not herald any major shift in Germany’s China policy. Just today, the ruling conservative CDU/CSU Bundestag group announced that Chancellor Merkel will give a major major foreign policy address on Asia at a conference in Berlin on October 26. She will leave for another Asia trip right after the speech, thus emphasizing the region’s growing political and economic importance.

Domestically, Angela Merkel got rave across-the-board political and media reviews for receiving the Dalai Lama, including from the opposition FDP and Green parties. Only SPD Chairman Kurt Beck, whose party is a member of the ruling Grand Coalition and who would surely like to take Merkel’s post after the next general elections, slightly criticized the chancellor, indicating that he would have chosen a more "neutral ground" for such an encounter. As an editorial in the left-leaning Berliner Zeitung put it:

"The chancellor's resolve is to be welcomed because a policy of cozying up to Beijing, such as that pursued by (former Chancellor) Gerhard Schroeder, is of no use to anyone and only covers up existing conflicts. The small disturbance will not undermine bilateral relations: The Chinese are reliable and sensible enough to be able to distinguish between tactics and strategy. They wanted--as did Merkel--to send out a signal, and they have done so. Neither side has any interest in further turbulence."

"The real tests lie ahead. The Olympic Games are taking place in Beijing next year and China will soon be the world’s biggest export nation. Beijing’s global influence is growing --and with it the temptation for other countries to not look quite so closely at the human rights situation there. Merkel is thus to be applauded for continuing to defy, in all friendliness, Germany’s biggest partner in Asia."

During the past two weeks or so, Germany seemed to be gripped by a certain "Dalai Lamania" as the Tibetan spiritual leader was on a non-stop political and media tour across the country. For Chancellor Merkel, the meeting in Berlin was also an important opportunity to reach out to centrist voters by once again stressing her personal commitment to the protection of human rights (remember her frank criticism of Russian President Putin in that regard). Traditionally, it had been the SPD party and the Greens who were widely seen as the champions of "soft" issues such as human rights; the tenure of former chancellor and Putin buddy Gerhard Schroeder notwithstanding. Gearing up for the next general elections to be held by the fall of 2009, Merkel is smartly expanding her party’s appeal to the rapidly growing number of swing voters in Germany. One final observation: While the Dalai Lama’s campaign to improve the human rights situation in Tibet in the face of Chinese repression is certainly a worthy cause, it was astonishing to see how otherwise strictly secular politicians from the SPD, Green, FDP, and Left party (and even some CDU folks) bowed down before the "god king," referring to him as "His Holiness." It should be pointed out that these are the same people who generally refuse to address Germany’s top Catholic and Protestant leaders Karl Cardinal Lehmann or Bishop Wolfgang Huber with their appropriate titles, opting instead for a more informal, i.e. less respectful, "Herr Lehmann" or "Herr Huber."

From the Wall Street Journal: Why We're Winning Now in Iraq, by Frederick W. Kagan.

From HughHewitt.com: Activism vs. Punditry, by Dean Barnett.

From the Washington Post: France Flips While Congress Shifts, by Charles Krauthammer.

From the Guardian: Struggling Alone, by Vaclav Havel.\

From the Atlantic: Outsourcing Conflict, by Robert D. Kaplan.

Over at Town Hall, Patrick Ruffini has what may be the most perceptive post of the week. Here are the key grafs:

On Hannity last night, Newt said he would collect pledges over the Internet. That means he's almost certain to reach the $30 million goal he's set for himself. Whether he can actually raise that amount is another matter entirely.

If I'm a person of modest means but I want Newt to run, I can "pledge" to max out at $2,300. Heck, I can even throw in the wife to up it 46 Hamiltons. That doesn't mean I will actually give that much.

Newt would need only 14,000 of his fans to flood the site with $2,300 "pledges" in order to declare a broad public groundswell for his candidacy.

Writes Ruffini: "Newt is either totally naive (highly unlikely) or knows exactly how the Internet game is played. This deal is rigged."

The high point of the Gingrich non-campaign campaign was his debate with Mario Cuomo at Cooper Union. That was in February. I've been assuming he won't run.

But Ruffini may be on to something here.

Via Ben Smith, this Jeanne Cummings piece on John Edwards's decision to accept public matching funds makes a lot of sense. Basically, Cummings writes, Edwards had no other choice:

The simple fact is that Edwards was never going to keep pace with the Democratic front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, or the upstart campaign of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

This decision will limit Edwards's ability to compete in the coming air war, but it's still way too early to declare any serious candidacy over. Edwards has an opening if Obama fizzles and the peace party rejects Clinton.

Edwards's decision on 27 September came a day after the Service Employees International Union delayed their presidential endorsement. Coincidence?

It's a common refrain of Rudy Giuliani's that leadership involves doing things that are unpopular. Here's an ABC News article in which Giuliani says:

Leadership is about sometimes doing the things you know are right, and then it's your job to educate the public, as opposed to just, you know, taking a CNN poll or a Bloomberg poll or a Fox poll and let that run the country.

Apparently, this principle extends to answering phone calls from your wife while addressing the National Rifle Association. According to the Fox News / Opinion Dynamics poll Marc Ambinder cites here, a whopping 81 percent of voters would prefer that presidential candidates wait until finishing their speech before taking a cell-phone call.

Yesterday National Review Online featured a piece on American energy policy by John McCain that can be found here. McCain writes that "America's dependency on foreign oil is a major strategic vulnerability for our nation."

In short, McCain proposes to "implement an energy plan that won't be another grab bag of handouts, a full employment act for lobbyists, nor another round of tax breaks and other subsidies to big oil." Remember: "Change Begins with Us"!

My favorite part of the McCain essay--and the full article is well-worth your time--comes toward the end:

The barriers to nuclear energy are political not technological. We've let the fears of 30 years ago, and an endless political squabble over the storage of nuclear spent fuel, make it virtually impossible to build a single new plant that produces a form of energy that is safe and non-polluting. If France can produce 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power, why can't we? Is France a more secure, advanced, and innovative country than we are? Are France's scientists and entrepreneurs more capable than we are? I need no answer to that rhetorical question. I know my country well enough to know otherwise.

Since Sarkozy's election and France's policy shift on Iran, conservatives have--rightly!--been reluctant to engage in Franco-criticism. Which is what makes McCain's riff so refreshing.

This week, the world has been watching the violent government crackdown on the pro-democracy uprising in Burma. "Citizen journalists" have been responsible for much of the reporting by cell phone text messages to bloggers worldwide. But the Burmese government blocked Internet access and cell phone lines in an effort to curb news distribution.

Via Instapundit, the Wall Street Journal reports:

In the age of YouTube, cellphone cameras and text messaging, technology is playing a critical role in helping news organizations and international groups follow Myanmar's biggest protests in nearly two decades. Citizen witnesses are using cellphones and the Internet to beam out images of bloodied monks and street fires, subverting the Myanmar government's effort to control media coverage and present a sanitized version of the uprising….The events are a trial by fire for so-called citizen journalists, who cover events that professional journalists can't get to. The Myanmar government has successfully kept out many reporters, some of whom are filing their stories about events in Myanmar from India and Thailand.

Bill Toddler at Pajamas Media has great coverage of the "Internet warriors," the "behind the scenes computer-savvy students have given the world a front row seat into the junta's brutal repression via the Internet." He notes:

While the Junta play "Whack-a-Mole" with the bloggers their violent crackdown on the red robed Monks has backfired in ways they never imagined. Within Burma the images of bloodied tiles in monasteries and troops charging crowds of unarmed civilians has only furthered the pro-democracy movement’s cause and increased its popularity. The same bloggers have also opened a window on Burma for the world to see into.

Mike Nizza at The Lede discusses "Ko Htike, an expatriate Burmese citizen living in London," who first reported the murder of a Japanese journalist at the hands of the junta.

OnDeadline reports that Ko Htike is having difficulty reporting due to the blackout, but some bloggers are "funneling the latest news and rumors to a widget."

Michelle Malkin is keeping an eye on the latest regarding the Internet blackout. She has some of the latest videos, too, so keep a watch on her blog.

Gateway Pundit also has an informative news roundup.

In an informative editorial, NRO editors note: "The last time protests on this scale rocked Burma, in 1988, the junta had killed 3,000 people before the dust settled." Hopefully, the current crackdown won't finish in the same way.

But, unfortunately, as Ed at Captain's Quarters says, "The end of Internet access will damage the ability of the activists to get images and stories of brutality out to the world. However, that will probably make little difference, because the world hasn't exactly rushed to the aid of the Burmese. Oh, the world has issued their own version of "challenge documents" in condemning the actions of the military junta by condemning them in diplomatic terms for their crackdown on peaceful demonstrations -- but they have done little to put pressure on Burma to end it."

For all the latest updates, keep checking the widget and Burmanet News.

Lawmakers deplore 'frightening' state of Army readiness:

Members of the House Armed Services Committee expressed concern Wednesday that the sustained combat in Iraq and Afghanistan has reduced the Army's ability to respond to any new conflict.

"The Army has degraded to an intolerable point," Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said. Recalling the so-called "hollow Army" that came out of 10 years of war in Vietnam, he said, "The parallels are alarming. We cannot afford to break the Army again."..

"Today's Army is out of balance," said Casey, a four-star general. "The current demand for our forces exceeds the sustainable supply."

Although he believes "the next several decades will be ones of persistent conflict" and the Army cannot accurately predict when and where the next war will occur, Casey said, "we are consumed with meeting the demands of the current fight and are unable to provide ready forces as rapidly as necessary for other potential contingencies."

The general cited the "stress and strain" on soldiers, their families and Army support systems and said equipment is "wearing out at a far greater pace than expected."

As Bush seeks $190B more for war, Dems signal protracted battle looms:

As the Bush administration took its case to Congress Wednesday for an additional $190 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Democratic leaders downplayed calls for swift action on the massive spending package, foreshadowing a protracted battle over new funding for the U.S. military involvement in Iraq.

At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, which was repeatedly disrupted by raucous anti-war protesters, Democrats were skeptical of comments made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Congress should pass the fiscal 2008 supplemental spending bill “as quickly as possible and without excessive and counterproductive restrictions.”

When asked before the hearing whether there was a sense of urgency in taking up the supplemental funding package, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told The Hill, “Not for me, there isn’t.”

If Congressional leaders truly believe that the military is overstretched, shouldn't it be a priority to fund ongoing conflicts, rather than allow them to further deplete current inventories?

And while we're on the topic, it would be entirely appropriate to consider legislation to expand the army:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that he intends to approve a $2.8 billion plan to accelerate the Army's growth by 74,000 soldiers over the next four years, even as the Army's top official suggested that the need for support troops in Iraq could grow -- rather than decrease -- as limited drawdowns of combat forces begin.

"The issue is, if the brigades come down, will the soldiers outside the brigades go up? If so, how much?" Army Secretary Pete Geren told defense reporters yesterday. "As the mission shifts more to training, more to supporting, what will be the requirements in those areas?"

Several Democratic presidential candidates--including Senators Obama and Clinton--support an expansion of the army. Hopefully Geren's initiative will get a warm welcome on the Hill.

President Bush on 27 September:

"Endless hours sitting in an airplane on a runway with no communication between a pilot and the airport is just not right."

When was the last time Bush flew commercial? Any guesses?

In any case, let's hope the administration has read the Wall Street Journal editorial on FAA reform that can be found here.

Yesterday I received the following fundraising appeal from Chris Dodd:

Hey,

I only have a few seconds on my way back to Washington from last night's debate.

The fundraising quarter is wrapping up and we're just short of hitting our goal. Will you chip in $23 and put us over the top? You can contribute here:

http://www.chrisdodd.com/deadline

I'll be in touch soon.

Chris

And today I get a fundraising appeal from Barack Obama that has "Hey" as its subject line:

I'm just now leaving New York, and you've got me fired up. Nearly 25,000 people came together last night for the rally. . . .

We're still shy of our goal of 350,000 people giving to the campaign by Sunday's deadline.

Make a donation now and get us there:

https://donate.barackobama.com/match

More soon.

Barack

Now, it's nice that Chris Dodd and Barack Obama are pretending to be friends of mine. And there's no doubt I'd enjoy being their friend, too. But why the psuedo-informality? Isn't that a little, you know, contrived? Shouldn't someone running for president present himself more formally? It's not like I'm giving a buddy five bucks to pick up a six pack before the game. They are asking me to give them potentially thousands of dollars to support their campaign to become the most powerful individual in the world. Presumably those people who are most inclined to donate to them can see through a silly gimmick like this.

A reader writes:

The Democrats' attitudes remind me of 1984, when it was assumed that Mondale had a lock on the election, since the people would reject Reagan (recession being fresh in their minds) and return to the "natural governing party," the Democrats. So, they pandered to their core constituencies, especially Big Labor, promised big social programs and higher taxes, and had their heads handed to them in November.

Fast-forward 24 years, and things look very much the same. The only real difference is a) we're at war; b) their core constituency is dominated by Big Anti-War; and c) to pander to them the Democrats have to work for a US defeat in Iraq. All while promising big social programs and higher taxes.

Hmm . . . Mondale with a big shot of McGovern thrown in. That's a powerful mix, and the Democrats may well wake up with a helluva hangover on November 5th, 2008.

Goot point! I'd disagree with two things, however. One, the war is unpopular (for now), so if the Democrats continue to criticize it without lurching toward McGovernism, it probably won't hurt them. Two, presidential contests are, in the end, between two individuals, so if the Democrats have a strong candidate versus a weak Republican, they'd be helped. As respected as Mondale may have been in 1984, Reagan was certainly the better politician.

Start working on those letters to the editor. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts--and again, if you don't send criticism, I won't mind!

The Pentagon's Blogger's Roundtable series featured Col. Ricky Gibbs this morning. Gibbs is the commander of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Multi-National Division-Baghdad, and one of the 5,000 soldiers under his command is Scott Thomas Beauchamp. I asked Col. Gibbs whether the stories told by Scott Thomas Beauchamp in the New Republic were true, and whether his command was "stonewalling" and preventing Beauchamp from speaking to the media, as the New Republic claimed in its last statement on the case on August 10.

In response to the first question, Gibbs said that he had directed an investigation into Beauchamp's allegations and determined them to be false. "The incidents did not take place," Gibbs said. And Beauchamp "admitted that himself" to the investigating officer. For clarity, I asked Gibbs again, did Beauchamp admit the stories were false? "He did admit to the investigating officer that the incidents did not take place."

At the end of the call, Gibbs returned to the subject of Beauchamp's confession to say that "Beauchamp did not recant," but that "he does not stand by the story." This caused some puzzlement among the folks on the line. OnPoint's Andrew Luben Marvin Hutchens asked the Colonel to clarify, does Beauchamp stand by the stories? The Colonel again answered that he does not, and that he is free to speak to the press but has chosen not to. If Beauchamp does not stand by the story, that might explain why he has no interest in talking to the press.

Still, if the investigation has concluded that the incidents did not take place, Beauchamp has signed a letter consenting to that conclusion, as we understand he has, and he no longer stands by the stories, one wonders how that doesn't amount to a recantation. I think it's probably just semantics.

That may be enough to keep him out of trouble with the Army, but how can the editors at the New Republic continue to stand by a story that their own author will not defend? At least we know when those editors say that they "refuse to rush to judgment" they are being honest.

The Lombardo Consulting Group is due to release the latest edition of their election monitor. Here's a preview:

For the last two months we have refrained from commenting on the national and statewide polling on the Presidential race because, quite frankly, nothing was really happening. The fact is that from May to August the race for both major party nominations has been pretty much frozen in place; there's been very little real movement on either side. Other than the intensification of the McCain slide there was no real shift in the underlying political plate tectonics of this campaign. Until this week.

The other major findings are that the Clinton campaign is beginning to resemble the 1999 George W. Bush campaign in its institutional strength; Obama continues to negate the rationale for his candidacy by refusing to attack Clinton; Giuliani's attack on Move On and Clinton was the boldest, most successful political move during September; Michigan may matter more than you may think; and

A just released CBS News survey shows that job approval rating for the Democrat controlled Congress is at 27 percent, which is 6 percent BELOW the President's job approval rating. While people still generally see the Democratic party better able to handle most issues, the perception gap is not as great as it was a year ago. Republicans are still at a structural (more voters say they are Democrat than Republican) and attitudinal disadvantage, but it may not be as big a determinant in the Presidential race as we once thought.

Democrats, like the Republicans before them, are in danger of hubris. Many Democrats assume 2008 is a lock, so it's just a question of winning the party's nomination. The strategy for this is to pander to as many Democratic special interest groups as possible. But you know what happens when you assume . . .

Just a note to let you know that, at the moment, the email address at the bottom of our posts isn't functioning correctly. I'll make an announcement once the address is up and you can send me your thoughts, criticisms, and so forth.

On second thought, if you don't send criticism, I wouldn't really mind.

It's been three months since Cindy McCain has penned an entry to her blog. As Fred Willard's character in A Mighty Wind might say, "Wha' happened?"

Cindy McCain is a charming lady and a wonderful advocate for her husband. But if she doesn't want to blog--and really, who can blame her?--the McCain folks should probably take down that part of their website.

Via Instapundit, Mark Steyn makes a few observations about Katie Couric's problem with the word 'we:'

Before Katie Couric's confession that "saying 'we' when referring to the United States" makes her uncomfortable fades from the news cycle, two observations:

1) You'd be hard put to find anything more institutionally uninterested in the world than TV news. "CBS World News Headquarters" is all headquarters and no world news.

2) It does help explain one of Katie's sillier comments, a few years back when the space shuttle Columbia crashed. On the Today show, she saluted the fallen crew as follows: "They were an airborne United Nations - men, women, an African-American, an Indian woman, an Israeli…."

No, they weren't an "airborne UN". They were an airborne America. For a start, if there was such a thing as a UN rocket, the Israeli guy wouldn't get anywhere near it, except on a one-way ticket to establish the viability of Ahmadinejad's new designated homeland for the Jews on Planet Zongo. I doubt even an EU space shuttle would be eager to admit any astronauts from the Zionist Entity. As for the "Indian woman", Kalpana Chawla was the American Dream writ large upon the stars: she emigrated to the US in the Eighties and was an astronaut within a decade. There's no other country on earth where you can do that. And I'll bet she had no qualms about using the dread "we" word.

When the shuttle crashed, Abu Hamza, Britain's famous firebrand imam, claimed it was God's punishment "because it carried Americans, an Israeli and a Hindu, a trinity of evil against Islam". God bless the old Islamofascist nut but at least he'd grasped the particulars of the situation, instead of just peddling witless one-worldist delusions. Perkiness doesn't make them any more attractive.

3) On the other hand, Miss Couric's reluctance to say "we" may simply reflect the fact that, given her current ratings, the plural may be a tad presumptuous.

The folks on the Left are beside themselves today--thinking that by dint of a truncated quote, they will succeed in shutting down Rush Limbaugh and taking him off the air. Before lining up next to the folks from Crooks and Liars, FireDogLake, Media Matters, ThinkProgress, Huffington Post, and the rest, at least read the full transcript. In Limbaugh's comments after the exchange quoted by the left, he makes clear he is referring to people like Jesse MacBeth--a 'phony soldier' the left would understandably like to forget.

Limbaugh's offhand comment was poorly chosen. It's clear that there are 'real soldiers'--real by anyone's criteria--who oppose the war in Iraq and they're entitled to their views. But much like the recently manufactured controversies over Bill O'Reilly's comments, and President Bush's comment about Saddam having killed "all the Mandelas," the left is trying to pull a fast-one by taking Rush's statement out of context.

It's also clear and undeniable that the political left has eagerly stood behind fakers who spout tales about Iraq that are at times false, or ridiculous, or both. From Jesse MacBeth to Scott Thomas Beauchamp, liberals and anti-war moonbats have suspended logic and reason to embrace people because they liked what they had to say, regardless of whether the tales made sense, or their credentials were as they claimed.

Limbaugh is big enough to defend himself and his healthy ego. But his attackers ought to render his comments honestly and own up to their own embarrassing record.

According to the AP, that's the number of Americans for whom there has never "been a time when there wasn't a Bush or Clinton in the White House, either as president or vice president." I'm one of them!

The rest of the AP story concerns political dynasties. It doesn't contain much new information. There's a quote from . . . David Gergen, the conventional-wisdom machine who worked for both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Still, it's always worth remembering that intangible concerns--do we really want two families dominating the executive branch of the federal government for more than two decades?--play a difficult-to-quantify role in voters' decisions.

Which is why, in the end, a candidate who embraces change might have broad appeal.

Bill Kristol called in from the road to encourage you to read WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor John Podhoretz's latest column.

Here's Pod's take on the Dems:

At this point, a little more than three months before voters show up in Iowa and New Hampshire, it's clear that none of Hillary's foes has the stomach to fight with her. Any that did would have been making a major issue on Wednesday out of her campaign's relationship with indicted mystery multimillionaire donor Norman Hsu.

Since none of them did, it's fair to speculate that they're all playing for second place already. Or that they're hoping she'll respond catastrophically in the wake of some unforeseeable event (as with President Bush and Hurricane Katrina), handing them an opening.

And here's Pod on the GOP:

The only way his rivals can take him down is for Giuliani to lose big in Iowa and New Hampshire. This, in theory, might cause a gigantic momentum shift toward someone else who could then obliterate Rudy's leads in the big states, maybe take Florida away from him and then change the plotline on Feb. 5.

So if Rudy wins in New Hampshire, then it's very, very difficult - absent the unforeseen event - to see how anyone stops him.

Rudy could win without the Granite State. But it's hard to see how he loses if the big story on the evening of Jan. 8 is Giuliani toppling Romney in New Hampshire.

This is the best articulation so far of the "frontrunner" theory of the race. That is, the national polls will end up determining the results of state races.

But Bill points out over the phone that there's just as much evidence that the frontrunner theory is wrong. Obama is within 5 points of Clinton in Iowa in the RCP average of state polling. And this is two months before the serious advertising wars begin. Who's to say that Obama or Edwards won't gain in the coming months and end up trouncing Clinton in Iowa, thus throwing the Democratic race into disarray?

On the GOP side, the CNN/WMUR poll certainly shows that Romney's early-state lead is soft. But Giuliani has only gone up by a couple of points, whereas McCain is surging and Thompson is in a comfortable fourth place without, well, campaigning.

In other words: This is the most volatile and open-ended presidential primary in recent memory.

Beijing is taking some heat for blocking, along with Russia, a UN security council resolution condemning Burma, but the Communist party has other things to worry about besides international opinion and an Olympic boycott. The friendly junta that gives China an outlet to the Indian Ocean is facing a big challenge. Worse, the Chinese people are watching their neighbors--not far off Europeans--protest bravely in the face of overwhelming force.

Last night, my friend Kejian in Hangzhou skyped me. He says popular Chinese internet bulletin boards are dominated by statements of support for the democracy protests in Burma. Volunteers are translating news from English sites that are not blocked by censors. And, my friend pointed out, photographs don’t need translation. Later he reported that censors were starting to block and delete a lot of Burma postings.

One hopes it is no coincidence that President Bush announced he would attend a ceremony next month to honor the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing regards as an “evil splittist,” and button-holed Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi in the Oval Office to press him on Burma on the same day.

Meanwhile, the crackdown continues. You can read an eyewitness account at Radio Free Asia, a list of Burma's pro-democracy blogs at Pajamas Media, and a lot of other news at Michelle Malkin's site. And here's the video of the murder of Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai.

According to the Wall Street Journal, most of the GOP candidates will come up short when they announce third quarter fundraising numbers in the coming days.

John Harwood reports: "Among major Republican candidates, only late-starting Thompson and longshot Huckabee claim to have beaten second-quarter haul."

Traditionally, the third quarter is the weakest fundraising period of the year. And money plays a less dispositive role in politics than most political reporters are inclined to believe. But Harwood raises a good question: Just how much of his own money will Mitt Romney give to his campaign in the third and fourth quarters? My understanding is that Romney is prepared to spend whatever it takes to get him elected. That means millions of dollars when it counts--the weeks between Thanksgiving and the Iowa caucuses, when the air wars will begin and early primary and caucus voters will learn more bad things about the leading GOP candidates than they ever wanted to know.

Last night on PBS, Tavis Smiley hosted a debate on minority issues. The Republican candidates for president were invited, and only six of them showed up: Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, and, yes, Alan Keyes, whose current profession seems to be running for offices of which he has absolutely no chance of winning.

Since the four candidates who are most likely to be the GOP nominee did not show up, however--Romney, Thompson, Giuliani, and McCain--conventional wisdom seems to be congealing around the idea that the debate was a horrible poke in the eye of minority voters and consigned the GOP to defeat in 2008. For an example, you can read David Yepsen's take here.

An editorial in the San Diego-Union Tribune makes this point:

With their support for freedom and economic fairness, Republicans have a message that those voters need to hear. Ronald Reagan understood that, and so did George W. Bush. Both men did very well with Hispanic voters. But you can't share the message if you don't even begin the dialogue. And for some reason, many in the current crop of Republican presidential candidates are staying away from specialized debates that might give them an opportunity to speak directly to Hispanic and African-American voters.

Um, maybe this is just me, but isn't this hyperbole? Are minority voters going to decide to vote against the GOP nominee next year because he didn't take questions from Tavis Smiley? Isn't it far more likely that those voters will base their decisions on their own evaluations of the individual candidates' strengths and weaknesses, their own partisan loyalties, and the Republican and Democratic nominees' policy positions?

We live in a 24-hour news cycle. Every story is deemed the most important story ever, until it is discarded in favor of the next most important story ever. But the idea that the GOP's relationship with minority voters will be decided on the basis of one debate broadcast on PBS is just silly.

Again, Andrew Sullivan, has the best coverage of developments in Burma. The Bush administration has imposed sanctions on the leadership in Burma...I'm sure that'll do a lot of good, especially given the fact that "China and Russia signaled last night that they would block any UN sanctions against Burma." Meanwhile, a friend of Reason blogger Kerry Howley wrote yesterday with this disturbing message:

internet going down. phone lines down. bullets fired into the air. crowd not retreating.

Without the internet, it seems that Burmese have only one source of information. Again, Kerry Howley:

But while the world may be watching, I doubt most Burmese are. The country’s communications infrastructure is incredibly limited. Seven people out of 1,000 own televisions, and they’re not getting BBC. They’re watching MRTV-3: all government propaganda, all the time. It’s difficult to get a license for a satellite or an internet connection. Cell phones cost thousands of dollars; even most expats don’t carry them.

On the effort to tie this to the 2008 Olympics in order to leverage Beijing's assistance, the Washington Realist quotes the Nixon Center's Drew Thompson:

"If the situation in Myanmar deteriorates further and violence ensues on a larger, systematic scale, the Chinese government will be vulnerable to accusations that it has protected and supported a rogue regime. And it bears reminding that the 1988 demonstrations in Burma that were so brutally suppressed is known as the "8888 uprising," standing for August 8, 1988, which is the day the students took to the streets. The opening ceremony in Beijing will occur is twenty years to the day from the start of the protests in Rangoon."

The Economist also weighs in:

If China proves actively obstructive to international efforts to bring the junta to book, it may provoke calls for a boycott of the games.

And if you want to see video, Sullivan links to some good stuff at YouTube. But the video below is also instructive. It shows the wedding of Thandar Shwe, the daughter of the junta's senior general, Than Shwe. And keep in mind this is a country with a per capita GDP of roughly $1,800. It's a stark contrast to the images now coming out of Burma, like the one at the top of the post from Burma Digest.

Mitt Romney has come under fire lately, and new poll showing him losing ground in New Hampshire has put his campaign on the defensive.

It's worth remembering, then, that Romney's campaign has made the most impressive and specific contributions to the GOP policy discussion thus far, especially on the domestic side of things. A brief synopsis of Romney's major initiatives can be found here. In particular, Romney's proposal for tax free savings for individuals with adjusted gross income levels of under $200,000 deserves greater discussion. One of Romney's opponents ought to adopt it.

For Romney, the problem may be that in order to become your party's nominee, much less president of the United States of America, it takes a lot more than smart ideas and sentences including the phrase "adjusted gross income levels."

USA Today has an interesting tally of insurgent casualties today, reporting that Coalition forces have killed some 19,000 insurgents since over the last four years.

More than 19,000 militants have been killed in fighting with coalition forces since the insurgency began more than four years ago, according to military statistics released for the first time.

The statistics show that 4,882 militants were killed in clashes with coalition forces this year, a 25% increase over all of last year.

The increase in enemy deaths this year reflects more aggressive tactics adopted by American forces and an additional 30,000 U.S. troops ordered by the White House this year.

Meanwhile, Coalition casualties are remarkably low for the month of September, with 60* U.S. troops KIA so far this month. With a little luck, this will be the lowest count in more than a year. But one also needs to figure in the increase in force levels. As Petraeus advisor David Kilcullen pointed out in a post at Small Wars Journal in June,

Personally, I think we are doing reasonably well and casualties have been lower so far than I feared. Every single loss is a tragedy. But so far, thank God, the loss rate has not been too terrible: casualties are up in absolute terms, but down as a proportion of troops deployed (in the fourth quarter of 2006 we had about 100,000 troops in country and casualties averaged 90 deaths a month; now we have almost 160,000 troops in country but deaths are under 120 per month, much less than a proportionate increase, which would have been around 150 a month). And last year we patrolled rarely, mainly in vehicles, and got hit almost every time we went out. Now we patrol all the time, on foot, by day and night with Iraqi units normally present as partners, and the chances of getting hit are much lower on each patrol. We are finally coming out of the "defensive crouch" with which we used to approach the environment, and it is starting to pay off.

So, relative to the same time last year, if casualty figures had risen in proportion to troop levels, we'd be at 150 KIA a month. Instead, we're hovering around 60*. That's 60 percent more soldiers, with 30 percent fewer killed. And as far as Iraqi units, while they are increasing in number and visibility, their casualties dropped dramatically over the last two months--this will be the first time ever that Iraqi Security Forces will see two consecutive months with less than 100 KIA (barring a major incident over the weekend). Also, the number of civilians killed has dropped to just over 600, the first time that numbers been below 1,000 in over a year, and less than a quarter of what it was in March (2,762). (All numbers from iCasualties.org)

The worst number ever for Iraqi civilian deaths was September of last year--so if this can't be explained as cyclical. And as far as Coalition deaths, I don't see any pattern there either that would indicate September typically offers a lull in the fighting. It's hard to explain this any other way: the surge is working, fewer Iraqis are dying, fewer Americans are dying, and fewer bad guys seem to be dying, too. That's progress.

*Correction: My math was fuzzy here, my apologies. 39 U.S. troops have been killed in action, not the 60 I'd quoted above. Another 23 died in theater from "non-hostile" causes. U.S. deaths from hostile fire have been on the decline at a rate of roughly 20 percent a month since May.

Pentagon numbers on insurgent deaths, from USA Today.

Via Michael Goldfarb, at post time the Daily Kos poll found here shows that respondents prefer George Clinton to Hillary Clinton by an overwhelming margin.

Say what you will about the Kossacks, but they have excellent taste in music.

According to this AP report, Sen. Robert Byrd has vowed that he will not "rubber stamp" the Bush administration's requested $190 billion appropriation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This got me thinking. When was the last time a member of Congress said he would "rubber stamp" an administration proposal? For the "anti-rubber stamp" trope to have any value, "rubber-stamping" must exist. Except it really doesn't, when you think about it, and probably can't, as the institutional dynamics of our bipartisan, bicameral legislature prevent any sort of legislation from passing without comment, criticism, or alteration.

Memo to Democratic leaders: It's time to improve your cliches!

The Politico states the obvious--notwithstanding their protestations, Democrats in Congress are not doing all they can to end the war in Iraq:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could force a vote a day over Iraq. She could keep the House in session all night, over weekends and through planned vacations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could let filibusters run from now till Christmas rather than yield to pro-war Republicans.

Such tactics might or might not be politically sensible, but in their absence, anti-war lawmakers can hardly say they have done everything possible to challenge the war and bring attention to their cause...

In closed-door caucus meetings, members say, Democratic leaders like Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) have carried the day by warning that there is no appetite for such tactics in the districts of vulnerable Democrats, upon whom the party’s new majority status depends.

Many of these districts are in red states with rural regions filled with military families.

Above all, Democrats do not wish to open themselves to a charge they believe is demagogic, but effective — that they are turning their backs on troops in the field...

Galling as it may be to Democrats, Bush still can claim to be acting with more clarity and courage than the congressional majority.

He believes the Iraq war is right and has thrown away things most politicians crave — approval ratings, and potentially his reputation in history — to get what he wants.

Democratic leaders believe the war is wrong but have pursued their beliefs with a series of ginger calculations that so far have achieved no substantive changes in policy.

The reason that the war continues is that President Bush stands by his convictions, evidently with little regard for the political price of doing so. On the other hand, Democratic leaders in Congress have decided that their convictions aren't worth the political sacrifice.

Jonah Goldberg posts two comments today in response to Tuesday's season premiere of The Unit on CBS. I've been a big fan of the show for its last two seasons. It's not great television and there is no real substance to it. But it is highly entertaining, and for two years it has been hands down the most pro-military show on prime-time television. The cast was routinely called upon to carry out assassinations of Muslim terrorists, and even staged a covert mission into Iran last season. But the season premier included what was obviously an extremely awkward moment for much of the show's audience--myself included--when the wife of the unit's CO remarks:

"America is controlled by 6 families and always has been, sometimes they inter-marry and sometimes they hire out to especially gifted people and on rare occasion allow in someone who shows exceptional potential.

The accusation is absurd, (I assume the Clinton and Bush families would be counted among them, who are the other four?), but I didn't take it at face value. The woman who utters this is the most loathsome character on the show, bordering on mentally unstable, and the delusional charge only reinforces her status as the show's baddie (she made another character take the fall for her DUI last season). But one of Jonah's readers thinks there might be more to it:

One of the speakers that we booked last year was Eric Haney, author of Inside Delta Force and the director and creator of The Unit. I spent multiple hours with Command Sergeant Major Haney (drove him from Dulles to W&L and back) and quickly found out that he has an ax to grind with conservatives and the US government. While he gave many years of honorable service to the US Army, he is unapologetically left wing, believes the Iraq War absolutely heinous, and that Islam is not the problem. You would never know his political views from the first two seasons of The Unit which is why I was painfully surprised to learn of them upon bringing him to campus. That being said, I wasn’t surprised to watch this season’s premier of The Unit. It is truly unfortunate that the only veterans Hollywood seems to embrace are those that march to their political drumbeat. The statement by Colonel Ryan’s wife, quoted in your Corner post, accurately reflects the ideology that drives Command Sergeant Major Haney, an ideology that apparently is going to be at the forefront of this season’s storylines. Command Sergeant Major Haney’s service as an American soldier is nothing short of heroic and it saddens me to see such a hero blinded by the intellectual desert that is modern liberalism.

I'm still dubious that the show would run away from its audience like that. Last season closed with the unit on the run from the U.S. government, but again, I'd always assumed this would somehow be revealed as necessary sacrifice for the greater good. But if the show really is heading in another direction, I suspect its audience will as well.

It's not even 2008, but for John McCain's presidential campaign, you get the sense that it's already the fourth quarter. McCain is near the endzone but time is running out. Can he make it to overtime or will the senator get sacked at the one yard line? Why all the football metaphors? It must be that letter I just read from former Dallas QB Roger Staubach:

Dear Fellow American,

When the clock is running down and the game is on the line, the team huddle is one of the most important parts of the game for a quarterback. It's the last chance he has to pull his team together and inspire them to victory. As the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and U.S. Naval Academy Midshipmen, I learned early on that everyone in the huddle was looking to me to display confidence that we would win. They can see it in your eyes--and it's often the difference between victory and defeat.

For an example of the latter, see Quincy Carter of the Bossier-Shreveport Battle Wings.

Anyway, back to Staubach:

If you look in John McCain's eyes, you see a man ready to win and confident in victory. He is a leader--focused on getting his message out and energized for this important stretch in the campaign.

The fourth quarter of this year is going to be the most important in this campaign. That's why it's important for us not to stand on the sidelines and watch [ with the obvious exception of Jerry Jones, whose presence is always a delight--ed. ]--it's time to get in the game right now. We can't do our job in the fourth quarter unless we play hard in the third . . .

Anyway, you get the idea. Now I have to get back to my picks . . .

Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has an intriguing personality. He can be fiercely partisan and confrontational, or affable and friendly. He is at times one of the easiest Congressional Democrats to work with on bipartisan initiatives. Yet he is prone to offensive attacks and the politics of personal destruction.

In 2005 he dabbled in gutter politics when he called President Bush "Our Bull Conner." He has said that the war to topple Saddam Hussein was "as bad as" the Holocaust. And when it comes to Dick Cheney, Rangel's attacks seem to know no bounds.

He has said that Cheney has a personality disorder. He said that Cheney had heart disease, but it was "not restricted to that part of his body." And how he has told the Hill why he holds Dick Cheney--with whom he served in the House of Representatives for years--in such low esteem:

Last September, Rangel was optimistic that the war would end in a Democratic-led Congress. Asked at the time how Democrats could force the president’s hand, Rangel said, “You’ve got to be able to pay for the war, don’t you?”

Rangel reserves special blame for what he views as the disastrous decision invade Iraq on Vice President Cheney, with whom he has a record of sparring verbally.

History will judge him “as one of the most powerful vice presidents in the history of the United States for policies that I really believe have cost our credibility international[ly] like nothing other than the fact that we legalized slavery,” Rangel said.

Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for Cheney, said, “Such an offensive statement doesn’t warrant a response.”

Since the Democrats regained control of Congress, Rangel has anguished over the party’s failure to halt the war and to push more pieces of its domestic agenda through the Senate. He was stung by Senate Democrats’ refusal to embrace the House’s more sweeping reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the federal program providing health insurance to poor children.

One can understand Rangel's frustration at the inability of the Democratic Congress to accomplish anything noteworthy. Polls show that the voters hold Congress in much lower regard than they do the president. Nevertheless, if Rangel believes the war is criminal, he can't possibly believe that the crime is equivalent to slavery--and that the entire U.S. military, including the many black soldiers serving in Iraq, is complicit. And considering the offenses of Saddam Hussein--who did, essentially, enslave the people of Iraq--it's disgusting to see Rangel throw about slander like this.

Last night the Giuliani campaign organized more than 1,000 house parties across the country and in England to raise money and extend hizzoner's network of grassroots supporters.

Giuliani attended a house party in New Jersey, where he participated in a live webcast for party-goers worldwide. That webcast can be viewed in its entirety here.

Giuliani was introduced by Yogi Berra, who told the audience the two reasons he is supporting Giuliani:

1) Giuliani is a Yankees fan.

2) Giuliani is Italian.

Of course, by this criteria, Yogi Berra could also support a few million other people for president, including me. Yogi, the number's in the book if you'd like to make an endorsement.

Here is the link to the new television and radio ads John McCain is running in New Hampshire.

The first ad, "Live Free", is relatively weak.

The second ad, however--"One Man"--is overwhelmingly powerful. It not only highlights McCain's service to his country and incredible life story, but also features excerpts from his address to the 2004 Republican National Convention, the best speech delivered at the RNC that year and one of McCain's best speeches ever, which is saying something.

Now if only "One Man" were playing in Iowa. . . .

From the Campaign Standard: Cautious Pessimism, by Fred Barnes.

From the New York Times: Myanmar Forces Fire on Protesters, by Seth Mydans.

From the Danger Room: Soldier of the Future Gets His Gear On, by Noah Shachtman.

From the Wall Street Journal: Bush and Iran, by the editors.

From National Review: School of the Absurd, by Victor Davis Hanson.

Via Hot Air, the usage map of online gamers playing the newly released Halo 3.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reports on an emerging compromise caucus and primary schedule here.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but if the calendar turns out to resemble Ambinder's prediction, then Iowa's importance probably will be magnified more than we expect.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters says it best: "Petraeus Moved the Debate."

Democratic presidential candidates changed their rhetoric ever so slightly in last night's debate: Obama, Clinton, and Edwards won't commit to pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013, the end of their first presidential term if elected. Democrats can no longer ignore the fact that progress is being made in Iraq, and bloggers attribute this change directly to General Petraeus's testimony.

According to Morrissey, Petraeus’s “testimony on the surge, and the effects of the surge itself, has made it much more difficult for Democrats to argue for withdrawal and defeat,” simply because “Americans don't like to lose wars, and given the successes that Petraeus has generated, more Americans see an opportunity to persevere in Iraq.”

Ace of Spades outlines the Democrats’ comments, and it is clear that they are in no hurry to withdraw.

Michelle Malkin agrees, and asks these Democrats, “Maybe that White Flag wasn’t such a terrific prop after all, eh?”

Bryan at Hot Air correctly states that the “Netroots ain’t gonna like this.” Of course not. DailyKos, MoveOn.org, and the rest of the antiwar crowd have been calling for immediate withdrawal. Who is “betraying” them now?

Confederate Yankee notes, "What we may--and I caution, may--be witnessing here is a bursting of the progressive blogosphere's image of its influence over the rest of the Democratic Party." Hopefully!

The Oxford Medievalist wryly says, “it looks like not only Hillary, but the other major Democratic candidates as well, have 'willingly suspended disbelief.'" But more importantly, “The fact is the surge is working - we are making enough progress in Iraq for most sensible people to justify continuing and, not only are Democrats powerless to force a surrender, even the Democratic presidential front-runners realize the new reality.”

The Washington Post reports on a story leaked to Spain's El Pais about a meeting between President Bush and the former Spanish president Jose Maria Aznar weeks ahead of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It's interesting to note how Bush discusses Saddam's signals that he might accept exile from Iraq.

El Pais provides the Spanish language transcript here. And here's Bush on the chances that Saddam Hussein might choose exile instead of war [translation mine]:

...The Egyptians are talking to Saddam Hussein. It seems he's indicated that he'd be ready to go into exile if he's allowed to take $1 billion dollars and all the information he wants about weapons of mass destruction. Gaddafi has told Berlusconi that Saddam Hussein wants to leave. Mubarak tells us that in that case, there's a strong possibility that he'd be assassinated.

This begs the question: why would Saddam attach so much importance to information on Iraq's WMD program? The mainstream media, the Democratic party, and many others have accepted that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, and that there is no reason to think that Iraq's program posed a threat to anyone at the time of the US invasion. Small caches of WMD and evidence that Saddam intended to reconstitute the program at some point in the future have been downplayed in light of the failure to find the stockpiles of weapons that most intelligence agencies believed to exist.

Yet if the dominant narrative is correct--that Iraq posed no WMD threat--then why did Saddam stake his life on concealing information about the program? After all, he had to think that if he did not leave Iraq, there was every chance that he would be killed during or after the invasion. Why would it have been so important to hide evidence that merely confirmed the lack of any threat?

The only logical reason for making this a condition of his agreement to exile was that he believed the program was more advanced than it really was, or that he intended to augment it. In either case, it further bolsters the case that Saddam remained a threat to the region (at least), and that it was wise to depose him.

Read more at Barcepundit and Fausta.

CNN.com reports that John McCain's campaign is about to start running TV ads in New Hampshire. Right move, wrong state. The path to winning New Hampshire starts in Iowa. McCain should bet his scarce TV resources in Iowa with a large TV buy. TV ads move numbers in Iowa and a new Hawkeye poll showing McCain moving up would electrify the national media and supercharge McCain's "comeback."

There will be three hot tickets out of Iowa. Former Gov. Mitt Romney will probably have one and former Gov. Mike Huckabee has a good shot at the other if he can consolidate the Christian vote. If McCain can double his existing Iowa support and crawl his way to about 16,000 to 18,000 votes on caucus night, he'll probably capture third place and roar into New Hampshire with real strength. It's a long-shot, but possible. Instead it looks like Team McCain 2.0 is trying to build a fortress in New Hampshire, clearly taking their strategic inspiration from John Connally's South Carolina brainstorm of 1980. It won't work this time either. The Iowa bounce is too strong. Nostalgia is not a strategy.

In a speech this morning at Hudson Institute, McCain once again pointed out the disgrace of America's elite universities having banned ROTC from their campuses:

"This week as well, Columbia University hosted Iranian President Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust denier committed to the destruction of Israel, whose regime targets American soldiers with IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. But while Columbia welcomed Iran’s leader on campus, one organization remains unwelcome on the Columbia campus: the ROTC. It is unconscionable that Columbia, Harvard and other great American universities remain closed to ROTC, whose graduates represent the bulk of the officers commissioned into our Armed Forces each year. Some academic elites may not like ROTC, and they are free to voice their objections. But they are wrong, and I stand with the many graduates of these institutions who for years have been trying in vain to bring ROTC back to their campuses. I fear for our future when terrorist leaders are welcome at our most prestigious centers of learning, universities conceived to strengthen and nurture the ideals of Western liberal political thought, and young men and women who volunteered to risk their lives to defend those ideals are not."

It seems that there are two camps regarding last night's Democratic debate in New Hampshire. One camp says Hillary Clinton emerged more or less unscathed. The other camp thinks Clinton's rivals, John Edwards in particular, did a serviceable job exposing Clinton's weaknesses.

David Yepsen, the Des Moines Register's legendary political reporter, sides with the latter camp in this post. Yepsen writes:

While the evening couldn't have been pleasant for Clinton, it opened a necessary discussion Democrats must have: If they don't probe her weaknesses, the Republicans will. Democrats may well want to nominate her but they should first get to see how she defends herself.

I agree! It's worth noting, however, that what Democrats perceive to be Clinton's weaknesses in a primary context--her October 2002 vote to authorize war against Saddam, her vote this week on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment regarding Iranian intervention in Iraq--actually may turn out to be strengths in a general-election context.

Question is, when will her fellow Democrats test Clinton on her liabilities in a general election? Things like her husband's counterterrorism record and her own unpopularity among Republicans and some independents? They haven't yet.

Byron York's well-reported take on last night's Democratic debate can be found here.

Key quote: "After all the odd and sometimes perplexing answers, there weren't any winners, either."

That sounds about right to me, though with the proviso that a night when no one wins is, for the moment, a good night for Hillary Clinton.

York also noticed this telling moment:

Then came the moment when Russert asked the candidates to name their favorite Bible verse. Sen. Barack Obama said the Sermon on the Mount, which was a little broad, but allowed him to riff on the federal deficit and an "empathy deficit." Rep. Dennis Kucinich cited the prayer of St. Francis, which isn't in the Bible. That was a little odd, because at other gatherings Kucinich has often cited "repairers of the breach," which is from Isaiah and would have been a perfectly fine answer.

According to this Belief Net interview, Kucinich is Roman Catholic and went to parochial school. The interview shows that he is well-informed on religious matters. Who knew? Of course, it would take a miracle to make him president, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

Here's the original video of MSNBC's David Shuster subbing in for Tucker Carlson the other night and putting this question to Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn: "What was the name of the last soldier from your district who was killed in Iraq?"

Blackburn couldn't answer the question. She should have been able to, but I have little doubt that before this interview aired, a good portion of her colleagues likewise would have failed this test. Shuster's gotcha interview backfired though when he tried to show-up Blackburn by providing the name himself: "His name was Jeremy Bohannon. He was killed August the ninth, 2007. How come you didn't know the name?"

Except it wasn't. An enterprising blogger, did some research and discovered that Bohannon hailed from a neighboring district. Shuster appeared on air tonight to apologize for his sloppy attack. Newsbusters has the video, which they describe as having "all the spontaneity of a hostage video." And here's the text:

On Monday evening while guest-hosting the 6 p.m. evening hour, I conducted an interview with Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn. The congresswoman spoke at length about a newspaper ad that criticized General Petraeus. In what I believed was an effort to examine Representative Blackburn's priorities, I then asked her to name the last soldier from her congressional district killed in Iraq.

She responded "the name of the last soldier killed in Iraq from my district, I do not know." After that response, I identified who I believed to be that fallen soldier, a Tennessean killed in Iraq last month. But according to Pentagon documents, that young man came from a town inside a neighboring congressional district, not from Representative Blackburn's, and for that, I apologize for that mistake.

That's a pretty pathetic apology. If you're going to take a big gamble like that and try to humiliate an elected official on national television (it's usually easier to let them humiliate themselves, right?), you have to have your own facts in order. The stunt backfired, Shuster looks like a big-time jerk, and, for a prepared statement, this apology reads an awful lot like he's sorry the kid didn't come from Blackburn's district.

Or his heirs. . . . It should only be a matter of time before we see headlines like: "Crime rises despite leveling off in prison population."

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has just launched a new blog, The Campaign Standard, with an eye on the 2008 elections. It will be edited by Matthew Continetti, and it will feature a number of other contributors, with posts already up from Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes, Richard Starr...and the mysterious, pseudonymous Richelieu.

Go check it out, bookmark it, and subscribe to the RSS feed (just as soon as we set one up). If you like the WWS, you're going to get a kick out The Campaign Standard. And even if you don't like the WWS, give Continetti a try--he's got a sharper eye than I do. Still, compare the caricatures and you'll notice that I'm much better looking.

Last night, for the first time this election cycle, I watched a Democratic presidential debate. It was appalling. But it was also, in a way, encouraging. Before last night, I thought it was 50-50 that the Republican nominee would win in November 2008.

Now I think it's 2 to 1. And if the Democrat is anyone but Hillary, it's 4 to 1.

Here, judging from the debate, is what the 2008 Democratic nominee is likely to be for. Abroad: ensuring defeat in Iraq and permitting a nuclear Iran. At home: more illegal immigration, higher taxes, more government control of health care, and more aggressive prosecution of the war on smoking than of the war on terror. And this is only a bit of an exaggeration. Going into last night, I had no great expectations of the Democratic field. But the level of routine irresponsibility demonstrated throughout the debate was jaw-dropping. Bush may remain unpopular, and the Republican "brand" unattractive. But I believe the toughness of Giuliani, the sobriety of Thompson, the gravitas of McCain--any of these would be very difficult for the Democratic nominee to overcome.

Hillary Clinton is the only possible president among the Democrats. She did occasionally (though only occasionally) try to interject elements of seriousness into the evening. To someone like me, she's the only plausible nomineee. But that makes me wonder whether she's likely to be the nominee.

She's out of sync with her party. That means if she stumbles once, and the magic cloak of inevitability is torn, she could be finished. Obama and Edwards will pour everything they have into winning Iowa. The Iowa Democrats are dovish. What Obama and Edwards will say, over and over--when they go up with serious paid advertising--is that Hillary voted with Bush in October 2002 on Iraq (and has never apologized) and that on September 26, 2007, Hillary voted for the Lieberman-Kyl amendment that (allegedly) lays the predicate for military action against Iran. Hillary could well lose in Iowa. Then Hillary could well lose the nomination. And a Republican would then win the presidency. He probably will anyway.

Those with eagle-eyes will note the appearance of "Richelieu" in the post below. Those with eagle-eyes and access to the WEEKLY STANDARD's masthead will notice that "Richelieu" is not among our number.

So who is Richelieu? He's a smart insider who's been involved with more campaigns than I would like to count. He's plugged into politics like no other. So sit back and enjoy.

A long slog of a debate on MSNBC tonight. One hackneyed cliche after another. Meanwhile the state of the Democratic race stays the same. Hillary kept her hawk's eye on the general election by speaking a lot and saying as little as possible. She was adroit, practiced, and tremendously uncompelling. Never has a debate line been thrown away with less sincerity than Hillary saying that in the past she has made mistakes. She doesn't believe one word of that. Hillary's most truthful moment was obvious: Her steel-eyed "He's not standing here right now" retort to moderator Russert's crafty old (Bill) Clinton quote on the torture question. Hillary's waited a lifetime to say that and has never meant any words any more than those.

Reuters's insta-analysis of the Democratic debate in New Hampshire can be found here.

But there's no reason to read it, because as best I can tell the analysis bears absolutely no relation to reality. The headline reads "In Democratic Debate, Rivals Assail Clinton." One of the examples for this cited by the Reuters writer is . . . a Mike Gravel rant. Does even Mike Gravel take what he says seriously? I think it's highly doubtful.

The Reuters dispatch also includes this sentence:

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, in second place in the polls despite leading in fund-raising . . .

You gotta love that "despite." If only it were that simple! If Reuters is right, then politicians shouldn't actually spend any time campaigning--they just need to make sure they lead in fundraising.

That was Hillary Clinton's response when Tim Russert noted a disagreement between her and Bill Clinton.

There's little doubt that, should Hillary become the Democratic nominee, Republicans will bring up the Clinton legacy and ask voters whether they really want Bill Clinton in the White House for another four years.

If a Democrat were to ask that question now, it might increase his chances of becoming the party nominee. Presumably there are more than a few Democrats--most on the left--who remain disappointed with the forty-second president. Presumably they'd like to vote for someone who isn't Dennis Kucinich.

And not a single serious Democratic candidate seems willing to give them the opportunity.

As Democrats prepared to debate in New Hampshire tonight, local TV station WMUR, partnering with CNN, released a poll showing Giuliani pulling within a statistically insignificant one point behind Mitt Romney.

The WMUR/CNN poll echoes a general trend in which Romney's New Hampshire lead is narrowing as Giuliani and McCain rise. Meanwhile Romney maintains his double-digit lead in Iowa.

But how stable is that? It's notoriously difficult to poll in Iowa, since it's a caucus state. But let's say Romney pulls out a win in Iowa next January. The race will immediately shift to New Hampshire, where Romney's lead appears tenuous (for now). Romney would receive a boost, but so would whoever came in second in Iowa . . . Giuliani, Thompson, McCain, Huckabee, etc. That man, too, would receive a boost, and, if these poll numbers hold--which they probably won't!--that man, too, would have an equal chance to capitalize on his Iowa finish.

Which is to say: Even if the early states matter more than any others in this front-loaded primary--something the Giuliani campaign disputes--the GOP race is wide open.

Mitt Romney has enjoyed a week of good press for his "Change Begins with Us" ad, earning laudatory headlines such as "Romney Tells Republicans to Reform", "Romney Issues Challenge to GOP", and "Romney, in Ad, Criticizes His Party and Calls for Change".

But listen closely to the ad:

Or save some bandwidth and just read the text: "If we're going to change Washington, Republicans have to put our own house in order. We can't be like Democrats, a party of big spending; we can't pretend our borders are secure from illegal immigration; we can't have ethical standards that are a punch line for Jay Leno. When Republicans act like Democrats, America loses. It's time for Republicans to start acting like Republicans. It's time for a change, and change begins with us."

What's striking is that Romney isn't really distancing himself even a millimeter from the party. Instead, he's embracing every tenet of orthodox Republican self-criticism. If you were to poll Republicans on these four points ("Do you think we Republicans should put our own house in order? Should we be big spenders like Democrats? Should we pretend our borders are secure? Should we raise our ethical standards?") majorities of between 95 and 100 percent would agree with the positions Romney stakes out here. Some critique!

This is the political equivalent of the high school student who boldly confesses to hating "fake people." Don't we all?

Fred Barnes mourned the end of Pete Wehner's emails when the 'one-man think tank' left the White House for a job at the Ethics and Public Policy Center last month, but the administration's loss is the blogosphere's gain. Now from his perch at contentions, the blog run by Commentary, Wehner is still free to sound off as he does today on "The World According to Katie":

Couric’s aversion to using the word “we” when referring to her own country is both weird and revealing. After all, she is part of the United States, a citizen of America, and so she is part of “we.” Hers is an example of a certain journalistic sensibility that feels as if members of the media are compromising their objectivity by referring to their country as if they were a part of it. And I suppose in The World According To Katie, it would be a gross violation of journalistic ethics to hope for America to prevail in a war to depose Saddam Hussein and bring liberty to his broken land. Hence, I suppose, her discomfort with how well the initial stages of the Iraq war went. . . .

As for the “inevitable” march toward war and her “kind of feeling like, ‘Will anybody put the brakes on this?’”: First, the “march” to war was not inevitable—one person on this planet could easily have put the brakes on it. His name was Saddam Hussein. He could have stopped the war at any time, if only he had met the commitments to which he had agreed. It was Saddam Hussein who was in material breach of Security Council Resolution 1441. It was he who had amassed a record of defiance for more than a decade. But for Katie Couric, the responsibility for war rests not with the former dictator of Iraq, but with the President of the United States.

And then there is tossing out the standard talking points that those who questioned the administration were “considered unpatriotic” and “it was a very difficult position to be in.” By whom, in Couric’s imaginary history, were critics of the administration considered “unpatriotic”? This notion is a flimsy urban legend—and yet Katie claims to have been put in a “very difficult position” based on a scenario that never even occurred. What a tower of strength she is.

Indeed. Go read the whole thing. And just for fun, here's a link to Couric's early blogging as the new CBS anchor--it's an interesting contrast to Wehner.

From Rule of Lords, a scene from the Saffron Revolution.

Andrew Sullivan has the best round-up of the news from Burma, including a link to this list of eyewitness accounts.

It sounds as though the government's attempt to crackdown on the protesters fell short, and that tomorrow is likely to see more violence. One of the stories Sullivan links includes this description of the day's events:

There were shades of Tianamen Square as people threw themselves and their bicycles on the ground, burying their heads in their hands or hugging their friends. Then a terrified human tide swept down the street, fleeing from the soldiers in my direction. A look of terror was etched on many faces.

There are likely to be a lot of comparisons to Tianamen, and with good reason. Burma's primary patron is China, and as the New York Times reported today, China's primary interest is stability--to keep the supply of raw materials flowing out of the country:

While Beijing has shielded Myanmar’s government from its international critics — for instance, by blocking a United Nations Security Council resolution earlier this year condemning its human rights record — it has also urged the junta to avoid a repeat of the violent crackdown on demonstrations in 1988 that led to extended periods of house arrest for the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi....

Tang Jiaxuan, a member of China’s State Council and a former foreign minister, told Myanmar’s foreign minister, U Nyan Win, on Sept. 13 that the Chinese government hoped its neighbor could restore stability and promote national reconciliation, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

“If Aung San Suu Kyi became the leader of Burma tomorrow, China would be the first country to roll out the red carpet,” said Bertil Lintner, an analyst of Myanmar politics based in Thailand. “But they wouldn’t like to see it happen.”

The 2008 Olympics are a wild card here. There seems to be a consensus that China will not take any extreme measure to prop up its Burmese client, but might the Olympics be used as leverage to pry the Chinese further away from the junta? FP Passport has this skeptical response:

China's motives in relations with Burma have nothing to do with the Olympics. I doubt that even the idea of some connection has ever crossed the minds of Chinese leaders. Only someone distant from the region could even imagine that."

But wasn't there the same disconnect with Sudan? Giving credit where credit is due, the Hollywood crowd seems to have made a dent on that issue. By threatening to label the spectacle the "Genocide Games," Mia Farrow in particular has helped to link the two. It certainly doesn't seem like the idea should be dismissed out of hand. Equally worrisome is the role Russia may play. Reuters reported today that the Russian foreign ministry had released a statement with a rather menacing undertone:

"We consider any attempts to use the latest developments to exercise outside pressure or interference in the domestic affairs of this sovereign state to be counterproductive," the statement said.

It called on both the government and the opposition to "exercise restraint", but added: "We still believe that the processes under way in Myanmar do not threaten international and regional peace and security."

If Burma's spectacularly nasty regime is preparing to slaughter its opponents, that looks an awful lot like a green light from Moscow.

Gary Hart has just posted what looks to be an open letter to the government of Iran over at the Huffington Post:

Presuming that you are not actually ignorant enough to desire war with the United States, you might be well advised to read the history of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor in 1898 and the history of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964.

Having done so, you will surely recognize that Americans are reluctant to go to war unless attacked. Until Pearl Harbor, we were even reluctant to get involved in World War II. For historians of American wars the question is whether we provoke provocations.

Given the unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, you are obviously thinking the rules have changed. Provocation is no longer required to take America to war. But even in this instance, we were led to believe that the mass murderer of American civilians, Osama bin Laden, was lurking, literally or figuratively, in the vicinity of Baghdad.

Given all this, you would probably be well advised to keep your forces, including clandestine forces, as far away from the Iraqi border as you can. You might even consider bringing in some neighbors to verify that you are not shipping arms next door. Tone down the rhetoric on Zionism. You've established your credentials with those in your world who thrive on that.

If it makes you feel powerful to hurl accusations at the American eagle, have at it. Sticks and stones, etc. But, for the next sixteen months or so, you should not only not take provocative actions, you should not seem to be doing so.

For the vast majority of Americans who seek no wider war, in the Middle East or elsewhere, don't tempt fate. Don't give a certain vice president we know the justification he is seeking to attack your country. That is unless you happen to like having bombs fall on your head.

That is awfully presumptuous. It seems entirely possible that the mullahs in Tehran are ignorant, irrational, or some combination of the two. And Hart conveniently lists the evidence pointing in that direction. But leaving aside Hart's creepy characterization of the vice president, this is a simple defense of the logic behind a hawkish, hardline policy: Unless you like bombs falling on your head, stop shipping arms to Iraq and stay on your side of the border. Of course, it's easy to play the Good Cop, as Hart does here--framing this as some friendly, "unsolicited advice"--when Dick Cheney's Bad Cop is a tour de force.

Republicans are demoralized about the 2008 election and they ought to be. By a significant margin, more voters now identify themselves as Democrats. And not only are Democrats raising more money, the party's presidential candidates are generating considerably more enthusiasm than Republican candidates are. Then there's the Senate, where Democrats may pick up 3 to 6 seats, and the House, where it's highly unlikely Republicans will net the 16 seats necessary to recapture control. They'll be fortunate to pick up a half-dozen seats.

I hate to be so gloomy, but there's no value in pretending that the 2006 election was an aberration and happy days for Republicans are on the horizon. They probably aren't. I hedge by saying "probably" because my one rule of thumb in politics is that the future is never a straight-line projection of the present. Prospects may be brighter for Republicans a year from now. But for the moment, they stink.

Jay Cost has a smart post on "what makes a frontrunner." Here's the key graf:

Voters right now are paying little attention to the race. Not only that, they do not have very much information about the state of the race. Now, this might sound surprising to you, but the reality is that the ways in which most voters acquire political information are quite different from the ways that you acquire it. Right now, their ways are not offering them a lot of information. And, as a consequence, they are not thinking about or paying much attention to the race.

It's always important to remember that, in the real world, politics doesn't matter much right now. Voters have other concerns. The question is what happens once voters turn their attention to politics--indeed, what happens when politics becomes inescapable, at least for voters in early primary and caucus states.

Earlier this year, political consultants Mike Murphy and Mark Mellman made a similar point in the Los Angeles Times:

By creating a potentially illusory sense of momentum or of failure, these pseudo-measures affect the extent of media coverage, fundraising, endorsements and the willingness of volunteers to engage.

The result is a cycle. Early national polling is used to declare winners and losers. Those declarations affect the flow of money and coverage, which is then reported as winners and losers, part two, thereby driving the next polls.

In 2003, this cycle nearly buried Kerry.

Who will the cycle nearly bury in 2008?

From the Politico: We Need Colombia More Than It Needs Us, by Roy Blunt.

From the Christian Science Monitor: A Bipartisan Way Out of Iraq, by Joe Sestak.

From the Wall Street Journal ($): Why the 'Law of the Sea' is a Good Deal, by James Baker and George Schultz.

From the State: A Plan for a Stable Iraq, by Joe Biden.

From Investor's Business Daily: The Soros Threat To Democracy.

Via Alert 5, Air & Space Magazine covers the "Air War in Iraq."

On 26 September the Senate voted 76 to 22 to pass Kyl-Lieberman, an amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization bill that expresses the "sense of the Senate" with regard to Iran. You can find more on the amendment here.

It's worth noting that Hillary Clinton voted for the amendment, which expresses concern over Iranian activities in Iraq and calls on the White House to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama, did not vote. (Sens. Biden and Dodd both voted against it.)

Last week, when the Senate voted to condemn MoveOn.org's attacks on General David Petraeus, Obama was also missing. He said that that vote was an example of "empty politics."

There's a Democratic debate on MSNBC tonight. How will Obama justify his absence from today's vote? Will he be asked how he would have voted on Kyl-Lieberman if he had decided to vote? And doesn't "empty politics" occur when you decide against taking a position at all?

A few weeks ago Newsweek featured a cover story on Hillary Clinton. The cover line asked, "What sort of decider will she be?" It's still hard to answer that question, but Jonathan Darman's piece does feature this hilarious pseudo-scoop:

Each weekend [Clinton] pores over "weekly reports" prepared by her legislative office in Washington and her constituent office in New York. The reports are eight to 40 pages and range from updates on pending legislation to responses to Clinton's "Dear Colleague" letters to the names of New Yorkers killed that week in Afghanistan or Iraq. Reading the reports on airplanes or at home in Washington or Chappaqua, N.Y., Clinton marks up the margins with comments: "Great work," or "Let's discuss," or "Is it resolvable?" Once Clinton has finished marking up the reports, she gives the completed copies to her executive assistant, who makes a PDF and distributes it to the senior staff. Aides view the musings in the margins as windows on the senator's mind.

Newsflash: Hillary Clinton marks up the margins of staff reports. She knows how to tell someone else to make a PDF! Now that's leadership.

The House passed a motion today by a margin of 341-79 condemning MoveOn's attack on General Petraeus. In the key provision, the House

condemns in the strongest possible terms the personal attacks made by the advocacy group MoveOn.org impugning the integrity and professionalism of General David H. Petraeus;

And on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment (you can read the full text here, as there were some last minute changes) in the Senate, Hilary voted for it, and so did Harry Reid. Obama didn't vote at all, and the only other member who didn't vote was John McCain, though we can safely assume he supports the measure. The amendment is a pretty forceful response by the United States Senate to the visit of Ahmadinejad. And it is also further evidence of the deep divisions withing the Democratic party, specifically between the netroots and the party leaders. Add to that the overwhelming support in the House for a measure condemning MoveOn, and things are looking pretty good for Republicans on the Hill.

Newsweek's recent issue on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign contained this interesting article by Michael Hirsh on the make-up of Clinton and Obama's foreign policy advisory teams. Basically, Clinton's top advisers were top advisers to her husband when he was president--people like Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, and Sandy Berger.

There are a few high-profile Clintonites who are currently advising Obama, however. Among them are Tony Lake, Susan Rice, Dennis Ross, Bruce Reidel, and . . . Richard Clarke.

Clarke, you will recall, made a splash in 2004 when he praised Bill Clinton's counterterrorism policies in public hearings of the 9/11 Commission after complaining about them in private sessions. Since those policies will undoubtedly be an issue should Hillary Clinton win the Democratic nomination, who better than Clarke to bring up this issue now so as to stop Hillary and help Clarke's choice Obama win the presidency? The attack ads write themselves.

Of course, this assumes that Obama and the rest actually want to beat Clinton.

The 24 September New York Review of Books contains this revealing exchange between contributor Thomas Powers and letter-writer Bob Guldin. What's revealing about it is that neither Guldin nor Powers can accept the idea that the president of the United States actually chooses policies that he believes will better the condition of the United States. Guldin writes:

It's clear by now that neither the facts nor any realistic notion of national interest drove the US invasion. Surely Powers owes us his best assessment of the real motives for war.

Powers's reply goes on for more than 1,100 words. He says that no ulterior motive for war "entirely captures the central idea in the minds of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld." But Powers also admits he has no idea what that "central idea" may have been. And he concludes:

"I don't know what we can do about this."

Here's a suggestion: You could take the elected leaders of a constitutional republic at their word when they say that fundamental American national security interests are at stake in Iraq.

Christopher Jencks had a fascinating, learned take on the immigration debate in a recent New York Review of Books.

Jencks articulates the contradictions involved in our Catch-22 immigration debate:

The federal government's policy of opposing illegal immigration while refusing to enforce laws against hiring illegal immigrants has had huge costs. It has exacerbated popular distrust of the federal government (as indeed it should have). It has also increased hostility to foreigners, especially Mexicans, who are all suspected of having entered the country illegally. To many Americans Washington's failure to control illegal immigration, like its failure to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, is just another example of how out of touch, duplicitous, and incompetent federal officials really are. In the short run such views are good for Republicans who want to discredit government and cut federal spending. In the long run, however, extreme distrust of government also precludes sensible policies that even conservatives should favor.

And then he suggests why the political obstacles to reform are, in the current climate, insurmountable:

Legalization can be implemented within a few years, while penalties for hiring illegal immigrants have to be enforced indefinitely. That means employers get what they want right away, while opponents of illegal immigration have to wait. In view of the federal government's miserable record on enforcement, no sensible conservative--indeed no sensible person of any political persuasion--would now accept mere promises. The conservative mantra is therefore "enforcement first." For many employers that sounds like the road to bankruptcy. They want "legalization first." As long as each side insists on getting what it wants before the other side does, no deal is possible and illegal immigration, with all its unhappy consequences, will persist.

Read the whole thing.

Here's the press release:

The U.S. Senate today adopted a measure authored by U.S. Senators Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) that calls on the U.S. State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. The measure was adopted as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill by a vote of 76 to 22.

The measure comes on the heels of mounting evidence that thorough proxy organizations, Iran is waging a proxy war against the United States in Iraq, providing weapons, training, funding, and direction to radical Shi’a militias who are responsible in turn for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers. Also today, in response to concern that the measure was a possible declaration of war, the amendment was modified to clarify its intent.

“Our military leaders, diplomats, and intelligence reports say that there is clear evidence Iran is exerting negative influence in Iraq,” said Kyl. “I believe that the Senate’s adoption of this measure sends a message to Iran that the U.S. will not tolerate any interference to progress in Iraq. It is now incumbent upon the State Department to add the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to the list of terrorist organizations.”

“It is vital to the national security interests of the United States that the Iranian government not be allowed to prevail in its proxy war against us in Iraq,” said Lieberman. “This amendment makes it clear – both to our enemies and our friends – that the United States will not retreat in the face of Iranian terrorism.”

In Congressional testimony before the House and Senate earlier this month, General David Petraeus, the commander of Multi-National Forces-Iraq, stated that, “it is increasingly apparent to both collation and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of Iranian Republican Guard Corps Qods Force, seeks to turn the Shi’a militia extremists into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq.”

United States Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker stated in the same hearing: “Iran plays a harmful role in Iraq. While claiming to support Iraq in its transition, Iran has actively undermined it by providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state."

There's been some predictable paranoia about this amendment from the left, but the fact that it passed by such a wide margin--much like the measure to condemn MoveOn--indicates that there is really nothing controversial about declaring the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, or explicitly stating a commitment to contain and roll back Iran's influence inside Iraq.

"This was brought to me by a mother . . . of children . . ."

Twenty-eight members of the House of Representatives have come together to sign a statement of principles to govern future action on Iraq. Led by Congressmen John Tanner (D-TN) and Mike Castle (R-DE), the group seeks to end the fighting over Iraq policy inside the walls of Congress, and establish the framework of a bipartisan Iraq policy going forward. The Swamp prints the text of the agreement:

Bipartisan Compact on Iraq Debate

We agree that the U.S. Congress must end the political in-fighting over the conflict in Iraq and commit immediately to a truly bipartisan dialogue on the issues we are facing.

We agree that efforts to eliminate funding for U.S. forces engaged in combat and in harm’s way in Iraq would put at risk the safety and security of our service members.

We agree that there must be a clearly defined and measurable mission for our continued military involvement in Iraq. This mission must be further and continually defined so that the military and the country are aware of the end goal of our mission in Iraq and what progress toward that goal is being achieved.

We agree that the Government of Iraq must now be responsible for Iraq's future course. The Government must continue to make progress on the legislative benchmarks outlined in Section 1314 of the recent Supplemental Appropriations Act (PL110-28).

We agree that it is critical for members of the U.S. Armed Forces, including members of the reserve components, to have adequate rest and recuperation periods between deployments.

We agree that a safe and responsible redeployment of U.S. Armed Forces from Iraq, based on recommendations from our military and foreign policy leaders, is necessary to transition the combat mission over to the Iraqi forces.

We agree that the continued military mission of U.S. combat forces must lead to a timely transition to conducting counterterrorism operations, protecting the U.S. Armed Forces, supporting and equipping Iraqi forces to take full responsibility for their own security, assisting refugees, and preventing genocide.

We agree that U.S. diplomatic efforts should continue to be improved and that the U.S. State Department must engage in robust diplomacy with Iraq’s neighbors in the Middle East to address the Iraq conflict.

These bipartisan agreements often break down over interpreting the principles, and that will be a challenge here. What constitutes a 'defined and measurable mission?' How quickly must we transition to a mission of counterterrorism and supporting the Iraqi forces? It's always possible that these 28 Members will grow impatient with progress in Iraq, and push the Bush administration to move more quickly than it would like.

But in a broader sense, it seems that this may have the effect of imposing a formal, bipartisan imprimatur on the Iraq policy that Congress has de facto hashed out. By choosing to fund the Iraq mission even if it means dropping the demand for a timetable, Congress is essentially allowing the Iraq war to continue under the direction of the generals (and of course, the president). If we continue to 'make progress' (whatever that means), this policy will likely continue. If sectarian violence increases, the government collapses, or the mission otherwise takes a step backward, Congress may reconsider. The Tanner/Castle bipartisan agreement seems to enshrine that state of affairs as the favored policy of the signers.

And in the near term, it effectively takes off the table 28 moderate votes that Democratic leaders might have targeted for legislation to tie the president's hands. If Iraq continues to make sufficient progress, this agreement might be one more sign that the bitter confrontations in Congress about cutting off funding for Iraq are coming to an end--and on the president's terms.

When questions were first raised as to whether MoveOn.org had received a steep discount for placing its 'General Betray Us' ad in the Times, the newspaper quickly cleared itself, reporting that everything was on the up and up.

Catherine J. Mathis, a spokeswoman for The New York Times Company, said the advertising department does not base its rates on political content. She also said the department does not disclose the rates it charges for individual advertisements. But she did say that “similar types of ads are priced in the same way.” She said the department charges advocacy groups $64,575 for full-page, black-and-white advertisements that run on a “standby” basis, meaning an advertiser can request a specific day and placement but is not guaranteed them....

Ms. Mathis said the content of an advertisement is not reviewed before a price is quoted.

As for advance word of when a standby ad is running, she said: “Someone might say, ‘I’d like the standby rate, I’d like it to run tomorrow,’ and we say, ‘We can’t guarantee that,’ but then if we find out it is running, we let them know. If we have room, we try to accommodate them.”

The next time we heard from Ms. Mathis was on Sunday when the Times's public editor, Clark Hoyt, reported that MoveOn "got a price break it was not entitled to." Here's the explanation from Mathis:

Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications for The Times, said, ''We made a mistake.'' She said the advertising representative failed to make it clear that for that rate The Times could not guarantee the Monday placement but left MoveOn.org with the understanding that the ad would run then. She added, ''That was contrary to our policies.''

Today the paper does a follow-up:

In a follow-up interview yesterday, Ms. Mathis declined to comment on how the original mistake occurred or how it came to light.

Asked if the sales representative was sympathetic to MoveOn or was unaware of the pricing policy, Ms. Mathis said: “The salesperson did not see the content of the ad at the time the rate was quoted. There was no bias.”

That statement is absurd on its face, as Tom Maguire sarcastically exclaims: "Because the sales rep had no idea at all which side of the issue MoveOn was taking!" Right. But what I'd like to know is whether Mathis lied to one of the paper's own reporters when first questioned about the discount. The conflict of interest here is obvious, as is the fact that the paper is no longer capable of fairly reporting this story--if it ever was.

The New Yorker's editorialist Hendrik Hertzberg writes this week on the health-care debate:

Americans already have some experience with European-style socialized-medicine plans. The two most efficient, merciful, and politically unchallengeable components of the American health-care system--Medicare and the Veterans Administration--closely resemble what the French and the British, respectively, provide to all their citizens. No need to get spooked.

It seems to me that the claim that Medicare and the Veterans Administration are the "most efficient" components of the American health care system is, at the least, entirely debatable. And there's little doubt that both Medicare and the VA are, in fact, politically "challengeable," as Medicare is subject to reforms from both the right and the left and the VA features elements (restrictions on drug choices, for example) that somebody, somewhere, probably would like to change.

What makes me laugh, though, is the claim that Medicare and the Veterans Administration are the most "merciful" components of American health care. How does one quantify mercy? Are in-patient clinics run by charities or churches less mericiful than Medicare? How about American doctors who join Doctors Without Borders? The logic here seems to be that federal programs supported by liberals are de facto more merciful than private, charitable or market-based alternatives. Still, if Hertzberg has discovered the mathematical formula for mercy, I wish he'd share it with the rest of us.

Via Kay Steiger, apparently Aung San Suu Kyi is not the only pin-up in Desmond Tutu's office:

At the Clinton Global Initiative today, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was invited to represent her country and talk about green investment in the Philippines. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in an attempt to flatter her, said that she was his only "pin-up" in his office.

Is this something the archbishop tells every woman he meets? Why, exactly, does he think it's flattering?

As the saying goes: "We've always liked Desmond Tutu's face. Both of them."

This list of "The 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time" makes for interesting reading, but is Tom Bissell's Chasing the Sea really on the same plane as Herodotus? I've enjoyed Bissell's journalism, but isn't it, you know, some two thousand years too early to tell whether his books stand among the greatest ever written?

Via the inimitable Blake Hounshell, here is Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi:

She's my only pinup in my office.

Notice the archbishop specifies she is the only pinup in his office. It's enough to make you wonder whether he has any others . . .

Actually, maybe it's best not to ask that question.

NBC's excellent First Read blog previews tonight's Democratic debate in New Hampshire:

We've noticed an interesting pattern: Whenever Clinton gets a tough question or is attacked by an opponent directly, she deflects the criticism with laughter. So, if Clinton's doubled-over in laughter most of the night, we'll know she's the target.

We saw an example of this during Clinton's interview with Chris Wallace. Clinton broke into hysterics when Wallace asked her why she and her husband have a "hyper-partisan" view of politics. In this sense, Hillary's laughter is an acknowledgment of vulnerability. Still, the senator from New York hasn't missed an opportunity to address her vulnerabilities in a substantive fashion, as when she told Wallace:

Well, Chris, if you had walked even a day in our shoes over the last 15 years, I'm sure you'd understand. But you know, the real goal for our country right now is to get beyond partisanship, and I'm sure trying to do my part, because we've got a lot of serious problems that we're trying to deal with.

The Clinton campaign is on autopilot. If current trends persist--and there's no reason to think they will!--she will be laughing all the way to the White House.

The American Prospect's Ezra Klein refers to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "Iran's leading civil servant."

I guess that's one way of looking at it. However, a more accurate description might be "Iran's leading radical Islamist and tool of the dictator Ayatollah Khamenei."

Who wouldn’t want the Marines on their streets?

San Francisco, apparently.

San Francisco Film Commission executive director Stefanie Coyote barred the Marines’ Silent Drill Platoon from filming a scene for their new recruitment commercial, “America’s Marines,” on California Street in downtown San Francisco on September 11. Coyote claimed it would cause a traffic problem, and permitted the crew to only film the empty street. Sure, San Francisco is a busy city, but the Marines were allowed to film a scene in Times Square during rush hour, so blocking off one lane on a San Fran street shouldn’t have been much more difficult.

Defense Tech notes that this is nothing new for San Francisco, the city that got rid of high school ROTC (check out Michelle Malkin’s coverage) and banned the Blue Angels, and asks: “Yet another slap in the face of the US Military by a shrill anti-military area or a prudent exercising of civil traffic control by sage city elders? You decide.”

A.J. at PoliPundit is equally outraged and remarks: “Traffic control? That’s funny, that never seemed to stop them from authorizing pro-homosexual, pro-illegal immigrant and anti-war protests before.” Good point.

Allahpundit at Hot Air agrees, noting: “Thank goodness we have vigilant civil servants like Stefanie Coyote working to keep our roads free for automobiles. And also for any sort of demonstration whatsoever that doesn’t involve people in American uniforms.” Allahpundit also dug up some interesting info: Stefanie Coyote is married to actor Peter Coyote, who donated to MoveOn.org ("General Betray Us")...

Riehl World View calls the incident “The Ahmadinejad Factor in America: No Marines in San Fran,” and says, “Too bad some San Fran pols can't appreciate the very people who so valiantly stand between them and a tyrant like Ahmadinejad.”

Ace of Spades asks the important question, “I wonder if their anti-military sentiments will be as strong if a future natural disaster makes sending in the National Guard necessary?”

Of course, San Francisco blog SFist isn’t outraged by the ban.

We wouldn’t expect anything less from Nancy Pelosi’s district.

The New York Times's Alissa J. Rubin reports today on the "Ramadan Offensive" launched by Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Sandwiched between reports of assassinations and bombings, Rubin paints a pretty favorable picture of the Baghdad Security Plan:

“The main reason behind all these attacks are the signs of improvement of the security situation mentioned in the Crocker-Petraeus report,” said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the Iraqi spokesman for the security plan, in a reference to the recent Congressional testimony of General Petraeus and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker. “The terrorist groups are just trying to say to the world that the report did not reflect the reality of the security situation in Iraq.”

Mr. Sheikhly played down the recent violence, though, saying the groups were seeking publicity to compensate for their inability to conduct major offensive operations, which have been sharply curtailed by the surge.

Indeed, the enormous car and truck bombs that plagued Baghdad for so long have been absent in recent weeks. But the string of attacks this week served as a reminder of the insurgency’s persistence, particularly in areas outside of Baghdad and its environs.

Indeed. This was the goal of the Baghdad security plan, and Rubin seems to concede that the plan is having the desired effect. So far this month there have been 58 American servicemen killed in Iraq--with a little luck, this should be the lowest tally in more than a year. Rubin also adds at the end of the piece that "Eight bodies were found in Baghdad on Tuesday." This isn't a good thing, but put in perspective, in October of last year 1,782 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad. Those numbers declined in the spring to a minimum of 182 in April before jumping back up in June and July, but still it's hard not to take away from this piece that, at least in Baghdad, there is real progress being made.

Also of note, Rubin gives this confusing explanation of the Islamic State of Iraq:

One group, the Islamic State of Iraq, took responsibility on Tuesday for the attack in Diyala, which killed at least 18 people on Monday. The group has ties to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group whose leadership has foreign ties, according to American intelligence officials.

So the Islamic State of Iraq has ties to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia whose leadership has foreign ties. Rubin mentions the Islamic State of Iraq in previous reports, referring to it as "another name for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," and more frequently as an "insurgent umbrella group." One gets the sense that Rubin doesn't quite know what to make of this group, but Bill Roggio does. Go read his report from this summer, "Islamic State of Iraq – an al Qaeda front."

Rudy Giuliani reiterates his claim that he is the most "electable" and competitive Republican general-election candidate in this AP interview:

"I think political professionals would tell you that if my opponents get the nomination, a day after the convention, no matter what they say, the Republican Party operation closes down in 20 states, and then we concentrate on the remaining states," Giuliani said. "I think they would tell you that if I get the nomination, there'll be a Republican Party operation in virtually every state, and then as the campaign goes on, we'll assess where we are."

Giuliani made a similar argument last Friday before the NRA and the Michigan Republican leadership conference.

Giuliani presumably bases his argument on general election polling showing him competitive with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. But Giuliani never specifies what makes him competitive in "virtually every state." Is it his social liberalism? His 9/11 celebrity? His forceful personality? His ethnicity? He never says.

We saw in 2004 that "electability" can play a role in voters' decisions. In order to win the GOP nomination, however, Giuliani will probably have to add more meat to the bones of his "electability" argument.

The AP reports that crime is on the rise:

The number of murders in 2006 increased by 1.8 percent over the previous year. In big cities of over 1 million people, however, murder jumped by 6.8 percent. The number of robberies and arson also rose, while the number of rapes and car thefts dropped, FBI data show.

Now let's see: Which 2008 presidential candidate ought to be eager to seize the issue of rising crime rates?

Just asking.

David Brooks writes that the Democratic left is losing its war for control of the party:

The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots' self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don't blow it by drifting into cuckoo land. They also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses.

If that's the case, then why do the Netroots garner so much attention? It must have something to do with the Netroots's ability to influence the media. Journalists, like bloggers, spend a lot of time in front of a computer, and political journalists spend a lot of time in front of a computer . . . reading about politics. They read about politics on political blogs like Daily Kos or wherever. They write about what they read on these blogs. And thus the importance of what these blogs say is magnified.

Thanks to the political media, the Netroots's megaphone is significantly larger than that possessed by the high-school-educated women who, as Brooks suggests, are most likely to determine the winner of the 2008 Democratic primary.

JunkScience.com is sponsoring a competition: The Ultimate Global Warming Challenge. If you can prove that humans are causing catastrophic global warming, you canl win $125,000.

When the contest was announced on August 7, the prize was only $100,000. But apparently the team at JunkScience is getting cocky--perhaps due to the fact that they haven't received a single entry to date.

Steve Milloy--the founder of JunkScience--isn't above a little trash talking, either:

"Surprisingly no one has entered the contest yet," said Steven Milloy, founder and publisher of JunkScience.com and the sponsor of the Ultimate Global Warming Challenge. "I'm surprised since Al Gore, the United Nations and the mainstream media all seem to think that the notion of man made catastrophic global warming is a no-brainer," Milloy added...

"It appears that $100,000 is not enough to spur Al Gore and other climate alarmists to submit their proofs that humans are causing global warming," explained Milloy.

"If it's a matter of money, Al Gore and the alarmists should just come out and tell us what sum it will cost the rest of us to see what proof they have."

It is ON.

Samantha Sault has an excellent round up of the reaction to Mahmoud Ahmadinehad's appearance at Columbia, and Lee Bollinger's introduction of him. But watching Bollinger's comments make me wonder how the Columbia president can be anything other than a strong proponent of forceful and aggressive action against the Iranian regime. Heck--he makes the case for war with Iran more forcefully than Norman Podhoretz:

Funding terrorism

According to reports by the Council on Foreign Relations, it’s well documented that Iran is a state sponsor of terror that funds such violent group as the Lebanese Hezbollah, which Iran helped organize in the 1980s, the Palestinian Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

While your predecessor government was instrumental in providing the US with intelligence and base support in its 2001 campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, your government is now undermining American troops in Iraq by funding, arming, and providing safe transit to insurgent leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr and his forces.

There are a number of reports that also link your government with Syria’s efforts to destabalize the fledgling Lebanese government through violence and political assassination.

My question is this: Why do you support well-documented terrorist organizations that continue to strike at peace and democracy in the Middle East, destroying lives and civil society in the region?

Waging a proxy war against U.S. forces in Iraq

In a briefing before the National Press Club earlier this month, General David Petraeus reported that arms supplies from Iran, including 240mm rockets and explosively formed projectiles, are contributing to “a sophistication of attacks that would by no means be possible without Iranian support.”

A number of Columbia graduates and current students are among the brave members of our military who are serving or have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They, like other Americans with sons, daughters, fathers, husbands and wives serving in combat, rightly see your government as the enemy.

Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming Shi’a militia targeting and killing U.S. troops?

Iran's nuclear program and international sanctions

...Why does your country continue to refuse to adhere to international standards for nuclear weapons verification in defiance of agreements that you have made with the UN nuclear agency? And why have you chosen to make the people of your country vulnerable to the effects of international economic sanctions and threaten to engulf the world with nuclear annihilation?...

In the interest of brevity, I refrained from lifting Bollinger's comments about human rights violations, persecution of women and homosexuals, promises to destroy Israel, and others. Some people would argue that those would be reasons to go to war against Iran, but the financing of terrorists, attacks on Americans, and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction are more clear cut.

The question is: does Lee Bollinger really believe all this? If he does, it's hard to imagine how he could head a university that doesn't even allow the ROTC to operate on campus. Indeed, this sounds like the rhetoric of a 'neocon warmonger.' Surely any institution headed by someone who holds these views would be a bastion for conservatives and militarists. How has Bollinger managed to hide his outrage for so long?

We'll know more about Bollinger's views in the days and months ahead. Perhaps he'll become a crusader for regime change in Iran, and allow his students and faculty to see this side of him more often. We can only hope. It would be a welcome change to have an ally in the war on terror heading up an Ivy League School.

National Journal ranks the Republicans running for the GOP nomination. There are some surprises. Mike Huckabee is ranked Number 4, while John McCain is ranked Number 5. Giuliani remains in first place--that is, National Journal believes that, for now, he is most likely to win the nomination.

Is he? I certainly think there's a chance--in fact, a strong chance--that Giuliani eventually wins the 2008 GOP presidential race, but there's an equally strong chance that he doesn't. Which speaks to how, months before any actual voting occurs, this sort of ranking is irrelevant. The rankings are based "on a number of factors," says the National Journal, including "organization, money, buzz, and polling."

Uh, huh. And how exactly does one quantify "buzz"? If "organization" and "money" are important, then why is Fred Thompson ranked Number Two and Romney Number Three? Thompson has little money and hardly any organization.

A more direct accounting of the criteria involved in the rankings would say: "These rankings are ordered by likelihood of winning the Republican primary and are based on our gut feeling of how things stand at the moment."

Mitt Romney's call to indict Ahmadinejad under the Geneva Conventions seems a little vague--who would prepare the indictment? what specific crimes does Romney have in mind?--but apparently there is legal recourse, and considerable evidentiary support, to eject Iran from the United Nations.

Under Chapter Two, Article Six of the U.N. Charter, a

Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

It's pretty much established beyond a reasonble doubt--which is not, in any case, the standard mentioned in the Charter--that Iran has violated, and is currently violating, U.N. principles. Of course, if the United Nations was made to live up to its principles on even a semi-regular basis, we'd live in a different world.

Today I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion with Congressman Pete Hoekstra, ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. The event was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation's Rob Bluey. Hoekstra's comments ran the gamut--touching on everything from SCHIP, to Iraq, to FISA, to No Child Left Behind and other domestic issues.

In that latter vein, Hoekstra was asked how he views the 2008 election--in particular, the possibility that ethics questions will hound Republicans as they did in 2006. Last year, Republican incumbents found themselves answering questions about Mark Foley, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, and other members (or former members) tainted by scandal. While Republicans expected that those ethics questions would eventually resolve themselves, there remain several Republican Senators and Representatives who are either under investigation by law enforcement, or who are otherwise accused of improprieties. The Associated Press is one of many outlets to report on this--as well as to note that Congressional Democrats don't really have their own house in order, either.

Hoekstra was clear about members who are accused of breaking the law. He said that while all those accused of wrongdoing have the presumption of innocence, that Republican leaders must approach them directly to determine whether they've 'broken the trust.' He said that Republicans must "purge the party, and purge the institution." He stated that they cannot have people who break the law in leadership positions.

This probably sounds easier than it really is. It's been reported that John Boehner approached Bob Ney--his home state colleague--about the investigation into Ney's relationship with Jack Abramoff. Ney reportedly assured Boehner that there was nothing to it. Eventually, Ney pled guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud, and the filing of dishonest disclosures. That's no surprise, of course. It's not likely that elected officials who are hiding something will be any more honest with Republican leaders than with the public.

But if Republicans go before the voters in November, 2008, with some of their members under investigation or indictment, they're not likely to do much better than they did in 2006.

From Reihan's "Facebook Commandments":

An undergrad who doesn't have a Facebook profile is regarded as a Luddite, the social equivalent of leading a survivalist lifestyle complete with flintlock rifle and bandana.

Joe Klein's latest column serves as a good introduction to Hillary Clinton's most recent health plan, and what separates that plan from those of Clinton's Democratic and Republican rivals. My favorite part of this piece, though, was this:

The other mandate will be far more difficult to impose, however: it requires insurance companies to cover all comers, regardless of age or existing medical conditions. In the trade, this is called community rating, and it will be fought hammer and tongs by the insurance industry. Clinton, Obama and Edwards all require it in their plans; none of the Republicans do. This is where politics intrudes, in the form of a legion of insurance- and medical-industry lobbyists.

Funny, but doesn't politics intrude as soon as Hillary Clinton proposes that Congress pass a law requiring insurers to "cover all comers"? Politics doesn't begin when someone rallies to oppose an intervention that affects them. It begins when someone proposes an intervention that will affect someone else.

From the New York Sun: ...Meanwhile, in Iran, by Eli Lake.

From the Wall Street Journal ($): Syria Joins the Axis of Evil, by John Bolton.

From the Christian Science Monitor: Why I Want to Keep Fighting in Iraq, by Chris Brady.

From the New York Times: The Center Holds, by David Brooks.

From National Review: A Defining Moment, by Mitt Romney.

Rudy Giuliani's recent trip to London to receive an award from Margaret Thatcher was a publicity coup, but it was also meant to establish Hizzoner as Reagan's rightful heir.

The word "Reagan" is never far from any Republican's lips, but Giuliani goes out of his way to emulate our fortieth president. On the stump, he continually refers to Reagan as one of his heroes and mentions his service in the Reagan Justice Department. And in interviews like this one with the New York Times's Matt Bai, Giuliani implicitly likens himself to Reagan:

Giuliani said the Iranians had to know that America was serious about stopping them. I asked him: Didn't he think they already knew we were serious? Bush had invaded Iraq for less. That was pretty serious.

"I don't think it's real clear," Giuliani said, blaming Democrats for muddying the message about American resolve. "I think it has to be Ronald Reagan-like real clear. If it is, we have a chance of accomplishing what Ronald Reagan did, which is winning the war without firing a shot."

Presumably Giuliani believes that he, more than any of his rivals, has the ability to deliver a "Ronald Reagan-like real clear" message to Iran. And what better way to communicate this to Republican--and independent--voters than to stand side by side with Reagan's favorite head of state?

I just finished the Francis Fukuyama edited Blindside: How to Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild Cards in Global Politics. I couldn't recommend it more highly. Contributors include David Landes, Richard Posner, James Kurth, Gregg Easterbrook, Walter Russell Mead, and others. It's an easy read about an important topic: the fundamentally unpredictable nature of politics and history.

Of course, Fukuyama and friends argue, some things are predictable, especially in retrospect. The key is to plan for low-probability events that may happen, in order to foster one's ability to deal with all the low-probability events that do happen.

Two contributors, Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, actually attempt to gauge the predictability of unpredictable events for a living. It seems like a fun way to make a lot of money. Though the predictions they include in their chapter "Ahead of the Curve: Anticipating Strategic Surprises" aren't that, well, surprising. They predict, for example, an "anti-American world." Um, isn't that arguably what we have now? I suppose one has to assume that Schwartz and Randall save the really good stuff for their paying customers.

The new Iranian-designed and produced fighter aircraft, the Sa'eqeh.

Beijing
In the midst of recriminations over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia, the Iranian head of state has sent signals this past week that rather than trying to find a diplomatic solution with Washington and its European allies he will continue to maintain a defiant and belligerent stance over Teheran's weapons programs.

The latest in a series of "messages" being sent to the West is the news reported this past week of Ahmadinejad presiding over a military parade that featured a cornucopia of weapon systems now in the hands of the Iranian armed forces. Among these was a new Iranian-designed and produced fighter aircraft, the Sa'eqeh (Lightning), which had just begun series-production in August according to Iran's official state news outlets.

Amadinejad told the crowd, which was assembled to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, that "those (countries) who assume that decaying methods such as psychological war, political propaganda and the so-called economic sanctions would work and prevent Iran's fast drive toward progress are mistaken."

His statements were in reference to the embargo on Teheran for all sales of arms, spare parts, or any other military technology--sanctions that have existed since the overthrow of the Shah's government by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Since that time Iran's armed forces have struggled to keep an ever-aging arsenal of U.S. weaponry functioning, almost all of which was purchased under the Shah more than three decades ago.

Being cut off from any legal means of supporting this military hardware put Iran in a difficult spot when Iraq decided to wage war on the new Islamic Republic, and forced its defence industry to become as self-sufficient as possible. The Sa'eqeh is the culmination of almost 30 years of effort to achieve that self-sufficiency.

The Iranian president boasted that "those who prevented Iran, at the height of the war [with Iraq] from getting even barbed wire must see now that all the equipment on display today has been built by the mighty hands and brains of experts at Iran's armed forces."

However, do not rush to write your congressional representatives to suggest that Washington respond to this new threat by doubling the U.S. Air Force's buy of Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor fighter jets. A closer look at the aircraft shows that its primary significance is symbolic--the first military aircraft to ever be designed and produced in Iran--and that it is not a modern-age weapon system.

The Sa'eqeh is based almost entirely on the old Northrop F-5 fighter aircraft, the chief U.S. export fighter of the 1960s and 70s, 166 of which were sold to Iran before the revolution. After the embargo was initiated the Iranian armed forces were able to purchase spares through illegal channels and on the arms black market since the F-5 had been widely exported to numerous nations friendly to the United States and there were any number of parts depots around the world.

In one case Iran was able to purchase F-5s and a large stock of spare parts from Ethiopia. The African nation had initially purchased the aircraft from Vietnam. The communist government in Hanoi had captured these aircraft from the South Vietnamese air force when they took Saigon, but had no use for them since the new, re-united Vietnam's arsenal was almost all of Soviet make and design.

However, Ethiopia could not sustain the aircraft's operation and sold 18 of them--along with several spare parts sets--to Iran through a British front company, which camouflaged the sale by making it a transaction not to the Islamic Republic's MoD but instead to the National Iranian Oil Company.

Over the weekend, David Ignatius wrote a love letter to the CIA praising the agency for its prescient analysis of the problems this country would face in Iraq. Ignatius writes:

The estimates were circulated in January 2003. You don't have to take my word or Pillar's for what they said: They are posted on the Web site of the Senate intelligence committee. They make haunting reading now, to put it mildly -- because nearly every setback we have seen in Iraq was forecast by Pillar and the analysts in their effort to break through the administration's happy talk.

The opening paragraph of the estimate on "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" made this stark prediction: "The building of an Iraqi democracy would be a long, difficult and probably turbulent process, with potential for backsliding into Iraq's tradition of authoritarianism." The next paragraph warned more explicitly that "a post-Saddam authority would face a deeply divided society with a significant chance that domestic groups would engage in violent conflict."

The second estimate, on "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq," rightly warned that an invasion could spawn more Muslim terrorism, rather than less. Here's how Pillar and the analysts summarized the danger on the first page: "A U.S.-led war against and occupation of Iraq would boost political Islam and increase popular sympathy for some terrorist objectives, at least in the short term."

Gary Schmitt dissected these estimates in THE WEEKLY STANDARD this summer. How about that backsliding?

Certainly, it is true that establishing democracy in Iraq will take time. That said, it actually hasn't been the case that Iraqis have spurned democracy. Given how beaten down civil society and politics were by the Baathist regime, and how extreme the security problems facing Iraqis since Saddam's removal have been, the democratic process has been surprisingly resilient. There has been little or no "backsliding into Iraq's tradition of authoritarianism," as the NIC suggested might happen.

And Iraq's deeply divided society...

Finally, the headline news from the report was the supposed prediction by the intelligence community that sectarian violence would erupt in the wake of a U.S. invasion, Shiites would engage in bloody reprisals against Sunnis, and the dead-enders from Saddam's regime would turn to guerrilla war. Yet, as the NIC analysis also notes, this "violent conflict" between Iraqi groups would occur "unless an occupying force prevented them from doing so."

In short, the sectarian killings we have seen over the past year were not inevitable. To the contrary, until the al Qaeda attack on the Shia mosque in Samara in early 2006, it was quite striking how little Shias struck back at the Iraqi Sunni community. And contrary to the potential bloody "score-settling" predicted by the NIC in the wake of Saddam's fall, the Shia, under the leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, kept sectarian violence to a minimum.

There's a lot more in Schmitt's piece, but the bottom line is that the two NIEs that prompt Ignatius to gush about the CIA's foresight are, in fact, almost entirely worthless. On the upside, Ignatius's sources at the CIA must have been very pleased with his effort to rehabilitate the agency's reputation.

The blogosphere is buzzing about Ahmadinejad’s speech to the Columbia University community. Despite the widespread outrage at Columbia’s invitation--and despite New York City’s refusal to allow Ahmadinejad to visit Ground Zero--the Iranian president was given a massive forum to broadcast his horrifying views. Not only did he insinuate that the U.S. government is a terrorist organization, but he also said that more “research” is needed on the Holocaust. Oh, and homosexuals don’t exist in Iran (perhaps because the Iranian government has openly executed them) and Iranian women are some of the most free women in the world. While we must give Columbia president Lee Bollinger a tiny bit of credit for calling Ahmadinejad “a petty and cruel dictator,” Ahmadinejad should not have been given this platform--and countless bloggers agree.

The writers at contentions have been outraged from the start. Gabriel Schoenfeld discusses Columbia Dean Coatsworth’s admission that he would have invited Hitler to the university, and states: “The university’s invitation to the genocidal aspirant Ahmadinejad is repugnant on many grounds. The outrage committed by Dean Coatsworth upon the dead of World War II…staggers the imagination.” And Max Boot brings to light the fact that “Iran is now escalating its war against the U.S. and our democratic allies”--and we can see the smirk on his face as he writes: “But perhaps Columbia University’s students and faculty can convince Ahmadinejad of the error of his ways when he shows up to speak at their campus.” Yeah, right.

Michelle Malkin chronicles “Mahmoudapalooza” from NYC, noting: “Don’t let the warm embrace of some of the Columbia University students fool you. We saw plenty of disgusted Columbia alumni and families who were not impressed.” Malkin and fellow Hot Air blogger Bryan also vent about not being allowed inside Columbia to hear the speech.

Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters is baffled by Bollinger’s introduction to Ahmadinejad: “What purpose does it serve to supply a 'petty and cruel dictator' with a megaphone? Rational people would advise the exact opposite--to shun and isolate petty and cruel dictators, who certainly have plenty of other outlets for their rantings.”

According to Deebow at Black Five, “The funniest part of his speech, at least for me, is that Ahmawhackjob says he does not have any 'gay people' in Iran. This elicited quite a guffaw from the crowd, but obviously no real outrage. They sure have a lot of outrage saved up for the US Military and the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and the banning of ROTC from their campus.”

And Meryl Yourish makes the interesting point that “Ahmadinejad did not respond fully to a single question asked by either the National Press Club, or anyone at Columbia…he lies, denies, and redirects the question.”

Hugh Hewitt is equally disgusted with Columbia. He remarks, “Columbia...played a role of accessory to many lies today, delivered by a killer of our troops.” Not to mention, Columbia got punked!

But luckily, as a Columbia student told Little Green Footballs, only 20-30 of the 600 present applauded Ahmadinejad’s response to Bollinger (see the speech at Hot Air).

For day-after coverage, check out 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America's coverage of New York City newspaper headlines.

Just for laughs:
Frank J. at IMAO predicted some of Ahmadinejad’s responses to questions...and unfortunately, he wasn’t far off. And, does Columbia have a new school?

President Bush's legacy may be defined by Iraq and the war on terror, but his presidency may also be remembered for failure to act on the looming insolvency of major entitlement programs. In the waning days of the Bush administration, Treasury Secretary Paulson is trying to set the stage for action--presumably under the next president--through a series of papers designed to promote understanding of the problem. The first such paper was released yesterday, with this statement from Paulson:

"I have had many conversations with members of Congress in both parties, inviting them to discuss Social Security reform with no preconditions. While differences over personal accounts and taxes dominate the public debate over this issue, in my conversations I found that there are many other things on which people agree. Everyone I talked with recognizes the seriousness of the problem, and most agreed on some of the principles and policies that must be part of the solution.

"To build on these discussions, Treasury will release a series of issue briefs that will focus on areas of common ground, and provide straightforward analysis of the challenges facing Social Security and the implications of potential reforms.

"By focusing first on areas of agreement, I hope these issue briefs will narrow the divide and spur further discussions of reform."

The first paper is a good primer on the history of Social Security, and it makes clear that the program's fiscal imbalance becomes a real problem far earlier than is generally realized:

As shown in Figure 4, Social Security cash flows become increasingly negative after 2017; as a result, Social Security will have a larger and larger impact on the rest of the federal budget, as general revenues and/or greater public debt issuance are needed in order to redeem trust fund bond holdings and fund full benefit payments until 2041.

Put plainly, Social Security will soon cease to be a federal 'cash cow.' Pundits have complained that the true size of the federal deficit is not generally recognized because Social Security revenues effectively pay a portion of general government spending. In 2017--more or less--that will no longer be the case. Rather, income taxes and other general government revenues must be used to pay down a portion of the Social Security Trust Fund surplus--in order to cover the cost of Social Security benefits. According to this report, that transfer will climb to about $300 billion annually by 2025.

An interesting story from Military.com about "a novel plan to undercut the insurgency by drying up its base of hardened fighters." The operation is run by Marine General Doug Stone, and there is also an audio interview that accompanies the piece.

After assuming command of detainee operations in May, Stone put together a novel program that aims to separate the moderate Iraqis that have been detained during combat operations from the "dead-ender" extremists who he believes are unable to be swayed.

Stone's troops put detainees through a battery of questioning that's more than just a typical interrogation. They're looking for information on education, job history, criminal record, religious motivations and aptitude - all in hopes of developing an alternative to going back to their insurgent ways.

After separating the hard-cores from the moderates, Stone plies the detainees with vocational training, counseling and religion classes run by Iraqi imams to divert their energies into embracing an Iraq without today's sectarian rift....

Though the situation at one time seemed intractable, Stone is beginning to see some success with his plan. In the past, as many as 7 percent of detainees who were eventually released found their way back into the camps. But since the beginning of 2007, less than 2 percent of the 4,000 detainees released have returned - and none of those are graduates of the new program.

Stone adds, "I have not approached it from the perspective that it is warehousing . . . have approached it as a battlespace . . . that needs to be in sync with the greater strategy that Gen. Petraeus has laid out."

WWS pal Stuart Koehl emailed his two cents regarding the discussion here last Friday of Robert Kaplan's "Lost at Sea." Because Koehl is wicked smart, here is his response:

I'm in the midst of writing a chapter on rising great powers in a book on future American strategy in which I noted that China's military buildup has focused mainly on naval and air power precisely because China lives in a geo- strategic cul-de-sac from which it can get out only by sea. But China has no hope whatsoever of developing a blue-water sea control navy such as is now possessed only by the United States. Instead, it seems to be following a classic sea denial strategy, by which it hopes to keep the U.S. out of its critical waters (i.e., the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits) for a limited time, during which it has to achieve its overall strategic objectives (e.g., seizing Taiwan or gaining access to raw materials in the South China Sea). It is doing so by investing in technologies that would inflict serious damage on any U.S. fleet trying to penetrate those shallow waters--at least initially. These include advanced mines, air-independent conventional submarines, anti-ship cruise missiles, and advanced land- based fighters.

China's acquisition of one or two medium-sized conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft carriers (each with only about 20-30 strike fighters) is not central to this strategy, but is rather a "prestige" move--real navies have aircraft carriers--and one intended to give China leverage over its regional competitors (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand--and not to be forgotten, India). But it took the U.S. more than twenty years to learn how to operate aircraft carriers effectively (from 1923 to 1944), and in the post-war era, only the United States has the resources to operate large CTOL carriers (each with 60 strike fighters, plus AEW, ASW and EW aircraft) at sea for extended periods at a high operational tempo.

Buying a carrier is not sufficient--one buys a whole carrier battle group, consisting of a carrier, a couple of Aegis cruisers, some guided missile destroyers, and a few ASW frigates or destroyers--plus the entire fleet train needed to support it: oilers, supply ships, munitions ships, tenders, and their escort group as well. The entire Chinese defense budget wouldn't buy one of these, and we consistently operate ten at sea. Moreover, it's one thing to have the ships and aircraft, it's another to have men who know how to use them. The keystone cops character of recent Russian deployments to the Mediterranean (or even some French efforts to get their carrier Charles de Gaulle out to sea) show that it takes many years of experience to make fleet carrier operations look as easy as it appears in the opening sequences of Top Gun.

So I am not too worried about the ability of China to wrest control of the Pacific from the U.S. Navy. As Lord St. Vincent once said of Napoleon's invasion force, "My Lords, I do not say they will not come. I only say they will not come by sea".

We posted the text of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment here last week, and here's an excerpt of the speech Lieberman gave on the floor of the Senate today offering that amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill:

“{T}he war that Iran is fighting against American troops and our allies in Iraq is an undeclared war, but it is nonetheless a real war, in which real Americans and Iraqis are being murdered by Iranian agents.

It is a war that the Iranians want to wage in the shadows, so that they can escape responsibility for the blood on their hands. This amendment exposes their behavior and demands justice.

As we speak, the President of Iran is in the United States. There is no better time than this for us to send a crystal clear message to him—and the fanatics and tyrants who now run the great country of Iran—that their campaign of terror against our troops in Iraq must end, and that we stand united as Americans against it.”

From the Space Review: The case for withdrawing from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, by John Hickman.

From the Middle East Journal: "Al Qaeda Lost", by Michael J. Totten.

From the American: Howard’s End? by Duncan Currie.

From Contentions: Bad Ad, by Peter Wehner.

From National Review: Antiwar Falling, by David Kahane.

Bonus Audio: Noah Shachtman Talks IEDs on NPR.

Via FP Passport: "Russian developers revealed plans for Federation Island, an artificial island in the
shape of the Russian continent to be built off the coast of the planned Olympic complex."

Here's the statement from John McCain:

"I still find it astonishing and astounding that Columbia University would welcome the president of a country that has not only dedicated itself to a policy of extinction of the state of Israel, but as he is speaking, most of the lethal and explosive devices are being exported from Iran into Iraq, endangering and taking the lives of brave Americans who are serving. Meanwhile, Columbia University's belief in free speech does not extend to Reserve Officers' Training Corps units being allowed on their campus to attract outstanding young men and women to serve in the military."

Isn't this one of the biggest questions to come out of this? If Columbia can invite Ahmadinejad to the campus to say that homosexuality doesn't exist in Iran--essentially that homosexuality is a Western disease, a symptom of cultural decadence and moral decay--how can the university at the same time refuse to allow the United States military to operate an ROTC unit on campus?

The inability of Congressional Democrats to force a change of course on Iraq has led to strained relations with the Netroots--a subject we've covered here. While Democrats in Washington try to figure out how to appeal to both moderates and their anti-war base, that base is debating whether to support primary challenges to sitting Members of Congress.

Recently, Representative Lynn Woolsey inadvertently moved this debate inside the walls of the Capitol, when she encouraged grassroots activists to 'go after' Democrats to build support for ending the war, even if it cost the party the majority. The most pointed exchange in the call was this one:

Carpenter: This seems to be unlike May. This is the line in the sand vote. We in PDA should make it clear that if there are Democrats who are on the wrong side of this one, that there will be primary opposition when they seek their own renomination as the Democratic candidate for Congress. This movement has now drawn the line. If they’re not with us at this point in time, then we need to keep upping the ante from our end, to communicate to those Blue Dogs and those moderate Democrats the political consequence of this vote.

Woolsey: I think that’s a good idea, Tim. I’d hate to lose the majority, but I’m telling you, if we don’t stand up to our responsibility, maybe that’s the lesson to be learned. I don’t know.

Roll Call reports that she has 'apologized' to her Democratic colleagues, and tried to clarify her meaning:

“Many of my colleagues are upset about [my remarks] and I have heard their concerns,” Woolsey wrote. “But let’s deal from the facts, as unattractive as they may be.”

After including a link to the call transcript, Woolsey said she “never suggested” that any Democrats should get primary foes, and she kind of apologized. Or maybe she just apologized for everyone finding out what she’d said.

“I was blunt, to a fault, but then I am, and had I thought that my remarks were going to be widely distributed, you can be sure that I would have couched them more elegantly,” she wrote...

In her letter last week, Woolsey suggested that she had merely said “that grass roots advocacy, particularly email, is persuasive and I said those advocacy efforts should be targeted to my ‘moderate colleagues’ as well as moderate Republicans...”

In the last paragraph of the letter, Woolsey finally comes around to the magic words: “I’m sorry.” But she still isn’t sorry for what she said (except for the whole thing about phrasing her words more “elegantly”). Rather, Woolsey said, “I’m sorry this has taken the focus off our need to bring the troops home.”

Conservative freshman Democrats--the so-called 'majority makers'--might want to hold onto this letter for the day that MoveOn and DailyKos start making donations to their dyed-in-the-wool liberal primary opponents. It's bound to make them feel better.

National Review posted an excellent piece over the weekend by David J. Feith and Jordan C. Hirsch, two undergraduates at Columbia University, on the school's invitation to Ahmadinejad:

Certainly the ideas of a powerful world leader should be studied on American campuses. The true question is whether the university should dignify the Iranian leader by making him an officially invited guest.

It is naïve to ignore the uses to which Ahmadinejad will put his invitation. Over the past years, Ahmadinejad’s confrontational rhetoric and policies have resulted in diplomatic isolation and economic hardship for Iran. These developments are unpopular among Iranians. It is beneficial to Ahmadinejad and his regime, then, if he can claim to the Iranian people that his leadership is not hurting their country. If he can demonstrate that he is treated abroad as a respected leader, he will be better able to counter his critics at home. Columbia’s invitation thus gives political assistance to Ahmadinejad.

Bollinger has written that “it should never be thought that merely to listen to ideas...implies our endorsement of those ideas.” That is true. But the argument against the official invitation of Ahmadinejad is not an argument against listening to his ideas. It is an argument against bestowing prestige on Ahmadinejad.

Having watched the speech, I'm convinced that's exactly what has happened. Ahmadinejad will benefit from this far more than any student that was their to witness it. As John Bolton said on Fox after the event was over, the United States will pay a long-term price for this as moderates inside Iran see Ahmadinejad treated as a respected world leader by what used to be a respected university.

I'm watching Ahmadinejad's lecture right now. It is a disgrace. Ahmadinejad just said they don't have homosexuals in Iran: "we do not have this phenomenon." And yet Bollinger keeps trying to turn it into a debate, as if one can debate the existence of homosexuals, the facts of the Holocaust, or any of the other absurd ideas Ahmadinejad has about the world...if this is a debate, Bollinger is losing badly.

I just saw these statements from the Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee:

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA): “This leader of state, which supports terrorists, is presently sending deadly roadside bombs across the Iraqi border to injure and kill American troops. Columbia University’s hosting of Ahmadinejad is a slap in the face of every one of the 165,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq. As he speaks, his agents will be moving roadside bombs onto the battlefield to be used against America’s military men and women.

“If Columbia University is going to grant President Ahmadinejad access to students and faculty, then our nation’s collegiate military recruitment and training program deserves the same amount of respect. This policy demonstrates complete disregard for our nation’s Armed Forces, especially when President Ahmadinejad continues shipping munitions into Iraq to target our brave troops.”

U.S. Rep. Terry Everett (R-AL): “Ahmadinejad’s Iran is actively attempting to destabilize Iraq and is behind the killing of American troops fighting terrorism in that country. I cannot understand, and frankly, my constituents cannot understand, why a foreign leader of a terrorist sponsoring state and an avowed enemy of the United States should be allowed a pulpit in America.”

U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD): “Iran is defying the international community to pursue its nuclear ambitions. Iran is on the State Department watch list for supporting terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah. Evidence has mounted of Iranian agents and Iranian materials flowing into Iraq targeting, wounding and killing American soldiers with IEDs. It is their right, but reveals an appalling lack of respect for Americans in harm’s way and ludicrous judgment for Columbia University’s leadership to reserve a prestigious lecture opportunity for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who everyone with minimal understanding knows is a powerless figurehead for the mullahs who actually rule Iran. That, alone, shreds Columbia’s defense that Ahmadinejad will be engaging in debate with faculty or students. Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s 60 Minutes and other interviews have given him plenty of access to American audiences for his claim that the Holocaust was a hoax and that Israel should be wiped off the map.”

Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA): "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of Israel, the defeat of American troops in Iraq and is a known terrorist supporter. If the University wishes to provide such a leader a forum to speak, they should then also provide the same forum to the ROTC."

U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC): “Columbia University has made a mistake by inviting the Iranian President to speak. At a time when our brave men and women in uniform are facing Iraqi insurgents armed with Iranian munitions and aided by Iranian military agents, it is deplorable that the university is providing a forum for this man. The Iranian President has his own state-controlled media machine to promote his dangerous and destructive policies.”

U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA): “As our soldiers fight to defend this country from the threat of terror, the administration at Columbia University has opened its doors to one of the largest supporters of terrorism in the world today. Every day, Ahmadinejad supplies deadly weapons to terrorist groups in the Middle East that are then used against American men and women in uniform. As long as Ahmadinejad uses his resources to threaten American lives, he should not be welcomed by any institution or organization in the United States.”

U.S. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ): “Allowing the leader of the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to speak at one of our nation’s most prestigious universities grants him a measure of legitimacy that is both undeserved and fundamentally dangerous. It astounds me that a university could welcome a man responsible for the deaths of countless innocent civilians and American soldiers- while maintaining a ban on the ROTC- and claim that these actions are not an attempt to endorse or legitimize a specific ideology.

“In fact, the Dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs said in a recent interview that if Hitler would engage in debate and discussion with the students of Columbia University and its faculty, they ‘would certainly invite him.’ The idea that anything would be gained by engaging Hitler on the merit of his ‘Final Solution’ should awaken us all to the reality that seeking to engage Ahmadinejad in a similar way is absolute madness and will only further undermine the efforts of our warfighters in the cause of freedom.”

Sonny Bunch picked apart some of the silliness Senator Clinton offered during her full Ginsburg on yesterday's round of Sunday shows. It's interesting to take note of her comments on Iraq, as well. She told CNN's Wolf Blitzer:

"I've reached the conclusion that the best way to support our troops is begin bringing them home," the New York senator and former first lady told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

"I don't believe we should continue to vote for funding that has an open-ended commitment, that has no pressure on the Iraqi government to make the tough political decisions they have to make, or which really gives any urgency to the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts."

She had this to say to Tim Russert:

I have made it clear that if the president does not begin to extricate us from Iraq before he leaves office, which apparently, based on what he himself has said, he will not, when I am president, I will immediately ask my secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my security advisers, to tell me exactly what the state of play is. I don’t believe we even know everything we need to know about what the plans for withdrawal are, how best to implement that. And I will end our involvement at the level that we’ve seen that has not proven to be successful.

"Gosh darn it! If President Bush won't get us out of Iraq, then I'm going to ask for a status report -- and make sure someone drafted a withdrawal plan!"

When asked by George Stephanpolous on This Week whether she would commit to withdrawing all troops before the end of her first term, Clinton refused:

Asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos whether she would withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq during a first term as president, Clinton (D-N.Y.) gave a simple answer: She did not know.

But she used more than 225 words to say so. "You know, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don't know what I'm going to inherit, George. I don't know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become?" Clinton said. "What will be happening in the Middle East? How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what's going on in the greater region? Will we have pushed al-Qaeda in Iraq out of their strongholds with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheiks or will they have regrouped and retrenched?"

She continued: "I don't know, and I think it's not appropriate to be speculating. I can tell you my general principles and my goal. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to do so carefully, responsibly, with the withdrawal of our troops, also, with the withdrawal of a lot of our civilian employees, the contractors who are there, and the Iraqis who have sided with us.

So Senator Clinton favors beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops, but refuses to commit to a full drawdown before January, 2013. She is therefore leaving the door open to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for approximately 10 years--depending on the strategic realities, the threat posed by Iran, the interests of our Iraqi partners, etc.

How exactly is this position different from that of President Bush?

A couple of interesting statements over the weekend in response to Columbia University president Lee Bollinger's decision to host Ahmadinejad. The first is from David M. Schizer, dean of Columbia's Law School:

A controversy has developed about the invitation extended to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran by the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs. Although Columbia Law School was not involved in arranging this invitation, we have received many inquiries about it.

This event raises deep and complicated issues about how best to express our commitment to intellectual freedom, and to our free way of life. Although we believe in free and open debate at Columbia and should never suppress points of view, we are also committed to academic standards. A high-quality academic discussion depends on intellectual honesty but, unfortunately, Mr. Ahmadinejad has proven himself, time and again, to be uninterested in whether his words are true. Therefore, my personal opinion is that he should not be invited to speak. Mr. Ahmadinejad is a reprehensible and dangerous figure who presides over a repressive regime, is responsible for the death of American soldiers, denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel. It would be deeply regrettable if some misread this invitation as lending prestige or legitimacy to his views.

Our university is a pluralistic place, and I recognize that others within our community take a different view in good faith, and that they have the right to extend invitations that I personally would not extend. I know that we will learn from each other in discussing the difficult questions prompted by this invitation.

The other is from Glenn Hubbard, dean of Columbia's Business School:

The University's decision to invite Mr. Ahmadinejad to speak on campus and to engage in a dialogue with our students and faculty has polarized our community. Some would argue that a University should be a place of intellectual freedom and open debate, but others ­ including me ­ argue that Mr. Ahmadinejad, who is responsible for the death of American soldiers, denies the Holocaust, and calls for the destruction of Israel, has proven himself incapable of engaging in a true and honest academic discussion.

From the Corner (via Instapundit):

If men like Richard Bulliet and Lee Bollinger, and women like Lisa Marie Anderson cared about freedom of speech, they might want to enable those who don't have it, rather than celebrate the men who have taken it away.

From NASA, an artist's rendering of China's
Chang'e 1 lunar orbiter.

China and Japan have both nicknamed their lunar missions after the moon goddesses in their respective mythologies. In China, the lady in the moon is called Chang’e; in Japan, Kaguya.

With the tension befitting a rivalry between such legendary beauties, the race to the moon kicked into high gear with the September 14 launch of Japan’s first lunar probe satellite, officially known as the Selenological and Engineering Explorer (SELENE).

Chinese media have provided extensive coverage of the Kaguya expedition, including field reports from Tanegashima, the remote island location of Japan’s largest space center. Feature stories have examined Kaguya’s scientific objectives and detailed how the world’s largest lunar mission since the U.S. Apollo flights had fallen four years behind schedule. The precise timing of the launch is seen, invariably, as a challenge by Japan to her Chinese rival.

Two days after Kaguya blasted into space, Sun Laiyan, vice minister of China’s Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), announced that China’s lunar orbiter, the Chang’e-1, had been positioned at the launch site and was slated to go into space by the end of the year.

Sun’s statement contained little new information. Beijing had indicated as early as 2005 that China’s first unmanned satellite to the moon was set for a launch in 2007, and Chinese media had reported this past March that the launch of Chang’e-1, originally scheduled for April, was to be postponed to the second half of this year. Also in March, Xinhua reported that the launch might take place in September. That remains to be seen, although there are indications that the launch may be imminent.

China Central Television announced on September 18 that production was nearing completion on a seven-part extravaganza titled "Optimum Challenge: Rushing towards Chang’e" that is scheduled to begin airing on October 1, China’s National Day.

On September 19, Jiang Mianheng, eldest son of former president Jiang Zemin and the normally low-profile vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, announced at a "mobilization meeting" for Chang’e-1 team members that the satellite’s VLBI orbit tracking system had entered its final phase of development.

This was followed by reports that the general public, including Hong Kong residents, would soon be able to purchase tickets, through a travel agency, to view the launch of Chang’e-1 from a hillside facing the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, located in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Tickets for the event, projected to last 16 seconds, are going for $800 yuan (US$106.67) apiece.

To say that the Chang’e-1 is a prestige project for Beijing is something of an understatement. During an August 16 on-line discussion with the Chinese public, COSTIND officials declared proudly that Chang’e-1 "is a scientific and engineering objective independently proposed by our scientists and engineers… and all scientific instruments are independently developed by ourselves." The mission also boasts many "firsts," including plans to obtain 3D images of every inch of the moon’s surface and measure the thickness of the lunar soil.

During that same on-line discussion, Hao Xifan, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration Center of COSTIND, reiterated that China’s lunar program has no military purposes and does not aim to compete with any other country.

A week later, however, Xinhua carried a lengthy piece on space warfare, predicting that outer space will be a major battleground in the future. The report attributes the prospect of a "war in the heavens" to the scramble for cosmic supremacy between Russia and the United States.

Subsequently, on September 11, PLA Daily began a three-part series on space warfare.

The editor’s introduction to the series begins:

More than 2300 years ago, the renowned Chinese military strategist Sun Wu stated in The Art of War: "The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth; he who is skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven."

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton made the rounds this weekend, appearing on several of the Sunday morning talk shows from her home in Chappaqua, New York. Sporting a brown blazer on top of a green shirt, Senator Clinton was bubbly and boisterous, and at times confusing.

Clinton made one puzzling statement on This Week, telling George Stephanopoulos “When my husband wanted to go and do what was necessary to end ethnic cleansing and to stop the spread of violence in Europe, he tried to get congressional approval and under the Republican Congress was unable to do so. He thought it important to put together a coalition for Bosnia and Kosovo, which he did.” I’m unclear as to which ethnic cleansing in Europe Clinton was itching to stop but the Republican Congress prevented. Surely it wasn’t the air war in Kosovo, which had wide, bipartisan support. Consider this headline from a CNN.com story back in 1999: “Clinton: Serbs must be stopped now; U.S. on verge of attack; divided Senate to unify on Kosovo mission.”

Perhaps she’s referring to the Croatian ethnic cleansing of Serbs in 1995? I kind of doubt it; then-President Clinton was less than impressive in dealing with that situation. Here’s what Charles Krauthammer had to say about Clinton’s foreign policy dealings in a column summing up his administration’s standing in the humanitarian realm:

“[A]t the time, the U.S. did not stop or even protest the Croatian action. The Clinton Administration tacitly encouraged it. Croatia was being advised by a shadowy group of retired American officers who had been sent to Croatia to help it fight against the Serbs.

No denunciation. No sanctions. No bombing. No indignant speeches about ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of innocents. In fact, in justifying the bombing of Serbia, Clinton made an indirect reference to this Croatian campaign when he credited the "courageous people in Bosnia and in Croatia" who "fought back" against the Serbs and "helped to end the war." Indeed, they did. Croatia's savage ethnic cleansing so demoralized the Serbs that they soon agreed to sign the Dayton peace accord of 1995.”

Anyway, it’s unclear to me exactly what Clinton was referring to. It would have been nice if Stephanopoulos would have pushed her on that statement.

Over at Meet the Press, Clinton again refused to condemn MoveOn.org’s attack on General Petraeus when given the chance, instead demanding that all “attacks” on public officials’ patriotism be condemned.

“I don't condone anything like that, and I have voted against those who would impugn the patriotism and the service of the people who wear the uniform of our country. I don't believe that that should be said about General Petraeus, and I condemn that. I didn't think it should've been said about Senator Cleland or Senator Kerry. I think it's important that we end this kind of attacks on the patriotism of those who serve our country.”

On Fox News Sunday, Clinton tried to reemphasize her leftward swing on the war by pointing out that she’d cut off funding for the troops, regardless of how much danger it put them in, in order to end the conflict a little sooner.

Clinton: “I will not vote for any funding that does not move us toward beginning to withdraw our troops, that does not have pressure on the Iraqi government to make the tough political decisions that they have. …”

Wallace: “But senator, some of this money, as you will know, goes to protect our troops from mines, and IEDs. No matter how you feel about the war, how can vote to cut them off when they’re still on the front lines?”

Clinton: “I think the best way to protect our troops is to start bringing them home.”

Gordon Chang has posted an interesting rebuttal to Robert D. Kaplan's must-read in today's New York Times. Chang is dubious of Kaplan's contention that this century will be "the Asian Century":

Kaplan is right to highlight the growing militarization of Asia. But he’s too hasty in arguing that the continent will, therefore, dominate the 21st century. If anything, Asian militarism probably will be the reason that historians will call this era “the Second American Century.”

In the twentieth century it took two all-encompassing wars and one decades-long struggle to resolve the most pressing matters in Europe. In Asia, Japan and Russia have yet to settle their differences resulting from World War II, and the Korean War still has not been concluded by peace treaty. More important, the animosity among the great powers of Asia—China and India, India and Pakistan, and China and Japan, just to mention the most prominent of them—continues to flare. And then there is always Taiwan, essentially the unfinished Chinese civil war.

Kaplan does note a few of today’s territorial disputes, but he ignores the more important ones, and fails to convey the intensity of any of them. Moreover, he does not refer to the military clashes and confrontations that have threatened peace this decade. Asia is an area of rising giants, failing states, and unresolved disputes, some of which have gone on for centuries. In this context, it’s unlikely that the Chinese, Indians, Japanese, and South Koreans will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new ships and not use them in another monumental clash. We can probably look forward to decades of Asian turbulence. In many respects, Asia today is the Europe of a hundred years ago. For this and other reasons, Asians will not dominate this century.

My own two cents: Kaplan worries that China's increased military spending may result in "a quantitative advantage in naval technology that could erode our qualitative one." This seems unlikely as the U.S. Navy still maintains an enormous quantitative advantage over its competitors, including China. The United States Navy has more ships than the next 17 navies combined. During Pax Britannica, the British Navy understood supremacy to mean a fleet larger than the next two navies combined. And our qualitative advantage is similarly impressive--despite cutting the number of ships from 592 at the end of the Cold War to less than 300 now, the current Navy is a far more lethal force than it was before. There's no doubt that China's ever-growing submarine fleet represents a real challenge, but that is in the littorals. So I'm deeply skeptical that in just "a few years" we will see "the loss of the Pacific Ocean as an American lake after 60 years of near-total dominance." But Kaplan's a smart guy.

In the week just concluded, the Senate has debated a variety of measures related to the war in Iraq. The only measure which passed was one to denounce MoveOn for for its attack on General David Petraeus. By that measure, it was the most productive week the Senate has had on Iraq in months.

But if Democrats failed to hamper the Iraq mission, it was not for lack of trying. They offered three amendments to change the conduct of the war--all of them amendments that had been offered and defeated before. How did they fare this time around?

Senator Levin offered an amendment to require the administration to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. On July 18, the Senate voted against cloture by a vote of 52-47 (where 60 votes are required). On September 21, a similar amendment by Senator Levin also failed to win cloture (47-47)--a loss of five votes (even with Senator Tim Johnson having returned).

Senator Feingold offered an amendment to cut off all funding for the Iraq war. On May 16, the Senate voted against cloture by a margin of 29-67. On September 20, a similar amendment failed by a margin of 28-70.

Senator Webb offered an amendment to specify terms of troop deployments. On July 11, the Senate failed to invoke cloture by a margin of 56-41. On September 19, a similar amendment failed by a margin of 56-44.

Senate Democrats lost ground on all 3 of their major proposals to 'change course' in Iraq. The Politico reports that Senator Reid's 'no compromise' attitude (one apparently dictated by MoveOn) is responsible for this backsliding:

The rejection of the Levin-Reed proposal means the only amendment passed by the Senate this week was a resounding 72-25 condemnation of the now infamous MoveOn.org ad that portrayed Gen. David Petraeus as "General Betray Us." While Republicans have enjoyed a good ride ripping MoveOn and the anti-war movement for the past two weeks, Democrats have scaled back the expectation that many Republicans would join them and vote on binding measures to end the war.

Some moderates that have been targeted by Democrats as possible vote-switchers on the war seem to be turned off with the no-compromise attitude of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"Harry Reid has called up the same amendments for the same votes and gotten the same results - more gridlock on Iraq," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). "Instead of posturing for political gain, it’s time for the Senate’s leaders to sit down with those of us trying to find a consensus."

Undoubtedly this is at least partially true. Reid has avoided a more bipartisan approach that might have fared better. There's some talk that Democrats who are disappointed to see that they have taken a step backward may push for a bipartisan approach next week.

But this whole episode points up a glaring miscalculation by Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi. They decided months ago that the best course for Democrats--politically--was to oppose everything the president proposed on Iraq. They staked everything on a September showdown with the president--gambling that the pressure of anti-war groups would lead Republicans to sue for an end to the war. They even took some slings and arrows from the Netroots when they allowed legislation to pass to fund the war--figuring that they could get Republican dissidents to end the war, so there would be no Democratic fingerprints.

But where do the Democrats stand today? The president's hand is stronger. The surge will run its course and phase down on the administration's timetable. Moderates in both parties are complaining that they have been lied to. And the moderate Democrats are facing potential primary challengers--challenges encouraged by their liberal colleagues.

How are leaders like Reid and Pelosi viewed by their troops now?

From the New York Times: Lost at Sea, by Robert D. Kaplan.

From Congressional Quarterly: Blackwater Draws Senate Attention, by Josh Rogin.

From Pajamas Media: Dam Bursts at Al Dura Trial, by Nidra Poller.

From Captain's Quarters: The Bully Boys of the Internet, by Ed Morrissey.

From Contentions: Why Try?, by Max Boot.

A Columbia student asked how he could effectively protest his university's invitation to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak Monday. My first response was to suggest petitions, e-mails to President Bollinger and the university trustees, letters to the student paper, peaceful protest, and the like. All these are fine. But then I had a second thought. There might be one form of protest that would be effective both in showing appropriate disgust for the Iranian regime, and in shaming the Columbia administration: A total student boycott of Ahmadinejad's speech. Let the Iranian president (and the Columbia president) look out on, and speak to, a sea of empty seats on Monday.

The rationale for a student boycott is simple: The Iranian government is directly involved in killing and wounding American soldiers in Iraq. As a gesture of elementary solidarity with those serving our nation in the military--young men and women, many of them their exact contemporaries--Columbia students should refuse to dignify Ahmadinejad's talk by attending it. Needless to say, Columbia faculty and administrators shouldn't attend either. Some of them will. But this is a chance for the 9/11 generation to show a decency and a sense of honor that some of their elders lack. After all, this is not primarily about Ahmadinejad. Dealing with his regime is mostly a task for our government. This is about us. Columbia students have a chance to shame their elders, redeem the good name of their institution, and make many Americans proud. I urge them to take it.

Congressional Quarterly looks at the agenda ahead in the House and Senate -- including legislation to prevent a government shutdown:

In the final week of the 2007 fiscal year, the House and Senate face packed agendas in an effort to keep the government funded and extend authorizations for a host of programs beyond Sept. 30.

With none of the 12 fiscal 2008 appropriations bills enacted, both the House and Senate will take up continuing resolutions to extend federal government funding at current levels.

House Democratic leaders said they are mulling over a funding resolution that lasts at least five weeks.

A number of agencies and programs may also need authorization extensions, including the Federal Aviation Administration. The House passed an FAA reauthorization bill (HR 2881) on Sept. 20; however, the Senate may not be able to clear it before Oct. 1.

Democrats roundly criticized Republicans for failing to pass appropriations bills and other must-pass legislation when they ran the House. Last year at this time, current House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer noted that the Congress would likely work just 93 days, and had not enacted any of the appropriations bills required to fund the government.

By my count, the House has worked 111 days so far this year. But it turns out that working more days hasn't enabled them to get more done. With an overriding focus on investigations and Iraq, this Congress has passed none of the 12 appropriations bills required to run the government. It has also failed to pass energy legislation, the FAA reauthorization, the FDA reauthorization, four queued-up trade agreements, and other important measures. (I won't even get into the tax increases, refusal to extend FISA for the long-term, or other bills that the Democratic leadership opposes flat out.)

When House Republicans had to resort to a Continuing Resolution to keep the government open in 2004. Hoyer's reaction was brutal:

“Mr. Speaker, today, our Republican friends are waving a white flag, announcing what has become so obvious to so many – that they have surrendered to their own intransigence; that they cannot get their work done.

“This Continuing Resolution is nothing less than an admission of failure by the House Republican leadership. But it is a fitting capstone to the least productive Session of Congress that I have been a part of since I was elected to this body in 1981...

“Because they have failed to enact the Homeland Security bill, critical funding for the ‘SAFER’ program is not available. That means fire departments across the nation will be delayed in their efforts to hire, recruit and retain firefighters.

“Because they have failed to enact the Transportation-Treasury Bill, nearly $1 billion in airport improvement grants is not available. That means airport security fencing and the construction of airport rescue and firefighting stations will be delayed.

“Because they have failed to enact the Commerce-Justice-State bill, $658 million in worldwide security upgrades at U.S. facilities (especially in Kabul, Afghanistan) are not available. Mr. Speaker, the list goes on and on. The Majority’s failure to pass appropriations bills on time will delay funding for everything from construction at Veterans Administration facilities, to humanitarian assistance to the victims of genocide in Sudan, to additional funding for food safety inspections here at home.

Now that Hoyer is the Majority Leader--where his chief responsibility is making the trains run on time--will he acknowledge the priorities that haven't been addressed simply because the Democratic majority has let the trains run off the tracks?

Charles Krauthammer lays out Ahmadinejad's "radically aggressive campaign to assemble, deploy, flaunt and partially activate Iran's proxies in the Arab Middle East":

(1) Hamas launching rockets into Israeli towns and villages across the border from the Gaza Strip. Its intention is to invite an Israeli reaction, preferably a bloody and telegenic ground assault.

(2) Hezbollah heavily rearmed with Iranian rockets transshipped through Syria and preparing for the next round of fighting with Israel. The third Lebanon war, now inevitable, awaits only Tehran's order.

(3) Syria, Iran's only Arab client state, building up forces across the Golan Heights frontier with Israel. And on Wednesday, yet another anti-Syrian member of Lebanon's parliament was killed in a massive car bombing.

(4) The al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard training and equipping Shiite extremist militias in the use of the deadliest IEDs and rocketry against American and Iraqi troops. Iran is similarly helping the Taliban attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Glenn Greenwald responds:

Of the four crimes in the Bill of Particulars against Iran, only one has anything even ostensibly to do with the U.S., and that is composed of highly dubious claims (arming the Taliban) and ones which hardly demonstrate its Evil (they are interfering in a neighboring country of theirs which we invaded and are occupying with 160,000 soldiers).

First off, there's nothing "dubious" about the claim that Iran is arming the Taliban. We know that Greenwald & Co. think that Petraeus is a liar, but what about Admiral Fallon, who told the AP today:

Iran's Revolutionary Guard is also supplying roadside bomb parts for the type of sophisticated and deadly bombs found in Iraq known as "explosively formed penetrators" — accusations the U.S. has made repeatedly in Iraq as well.

"The Iranians are clearly supplying some amount of lethal aid," Fallon told The Associated Press. "There is no doubt .... that agents from Iran are involved in aiding the insurgency."

Greenwald also says that Iranian 'interference'--a very nice euphemism for killing American troops--is hardly evidence of that regime's "Evil." This is the guy who wrote 5,000 words yesterday on "the art of neoconservative innuendo." Call a spade a spade, Glenn. If you think that Iranian attacks on U.S. forces are justified--just come right out and say it.

From the Swamp:

Anti-war protesters barged into a speech Sen. John McCain was giving at the Capital Hilton this morning, but the interruption ended up giving McCain the high moment of his address to the National Rifle Association....

Suddenly, a young woman in a t-shirt reading "Troops Home Now" waded into the middle of the gun rights group, shouting "Bring the troops home!" and forcing McCain to stop speaking while she addressed the television cameras.

After a few seconds of camera time, a woman got up from her table at the NRA breakfast, wrapped the protester in an embrace and pushed her out of the limelight. A second protester was also lead out first by NRA members and then by security guards.

As the protesters left the room, McCain leaned into the microphone for the most emphatic thing he said all morning.

"Well, my friends, we beat you yesterday," he said. "We'll beat you today . . . And we'll beat you tomorrow!"

The crowd rose in an enthusiastic standing ovation, setting aside for the moment any past differences they may be holding against McCain....

"I wouldn't vote for him for president," said Mark Dawkins, a patron NRA member from Winter Park, Fla. "I've felt that he has flip-flopped on the issues . . . But I agree with him on Iraq. The same people who come here and do this protest are the same people who would like to see our guns taken away from us."

Via Instapundit, I see CNN's report on Majority Leader Reid's 'frustration' at finding himself powerless to end the war in Iraq.

Professor Reynolds seems to suggest that Senator Reid is not speaking in earnest:

HARRY REID: "Frustrated Dems will keep pushing for end to Iraq war." But not hard enough to actually succeed in ending it, because then they might be held responsible.

It's not fair to impute bad faith to the Majority Leader, however, without at least considering the possibility that Senator Reid has forgotten that Congress has it in its power to end the conflict. Shockingly, that power is spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 9 of that document specifies:

No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.

It's clear that Senator Reid has the power to end the war, but he brought legislation to fund it to the floor of the Senate last May. When the Senate passed HR 2206 on May 17, it funded a military venture that Senator Reid now asserts he intended to stop--or at least frustrate.

The recently foiled terror attack in Germany--involving several Turkish extremists and, very disturbingly, two German converts--has triggered another acrimonious political debate about how far the government can go to fight terrorism and protect the homeland. For example, does the (conservative) German defense minister have the authority to order the downing of a hijacked civil airliner even if it means the killing of innocent passengers on board? (Back in March 2006, when this issue first erupted following a Constitutional Court ruling prohibiting such shoot-downs, I wrote a DAILY STANDARD piece about the dangers of "Flying Blind in the Post-9/11 World.") And what of those who spend their summers at terrorist training camps in Pakistan learning Bomb Making 101 (like several of the recently detained terrorists did): should German laws be changed so that anyone who attends these training camps can be charged with membership in a terrorist organization? Is it necessary to prove that these folks had the premeditated intention to use their new skills to commit terrorist attacks in the future? Also, should German security agencies have the authority to install spyware on the computers of suspected terrorists to track their online movements? Finally, at a more abstract level, how real is the threat of nuclear terrorism and the use of a "dirty bomb"?

Much of the current controversy centers on the long-standing left/right divide over the appropriate balance between security and civil liberties, a battle that is also being waged here in the United States. In the German context, however, calibrating the government’s response is made particularly difficult by the country’s long shadow of history. Since the end of the Nazi dictatorship, successive generations of German political leaders, as well as large segments of the general population, have consistently put a premium on the far-reaching protection of civil liberties by agreeing to strictly limit the state’s domestic security and surveillance competencies. For sure, during the Red Army Faction’s left-wing terrorist campaign against top-level government and business officials back in the 1970s, West Germany passed expansive anti-terrorism legislation, most of which still remains in force today. Yet while these new police and security measures helped defeat the RAF group’s old-style terrorist tactics, they are hardly a match for today’s breed of doomsday Islamists willing to use any weapon--including nuclear, biological, and chemical devices--to cause wanton mass destruction.

Yesterday, at a special homeland security debate convened in the German Bundestag, the profound political and ideological divisions over the appropriate approach to fight terrorism were on full display. While formally part of Chancellor Merkel’s Grand-Coalition government, several senior politicians from the ruling left-wing SPD party used the parliamentary session to launch harsh attacks on conservative CDU interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble (who will discuss his anti-terrorism approach here in DC next week) and Franz-Josef Jung, his colleague in charge of the defense ministry. The two were accused of deliberately spreading panic and fear of terrorism among the population for political gain. Deputy SPD Bundestag leader Fritz Rudolf Koerper (until 2005 deputy German interior minister in the previous Red-Green Schroeder government) even ridiculed Schaeuble as "the Nostradamus of our times." It was Schaeuble who, just a few days earlier, had caused an uproar in Germany when he said that an attack using "nuclear material" was no longer a question of "if" but "when." In response to these unprecedented and public intra-coalition attacks, CDU/CSU Bundestag majority leader Volker Kauder decided to leave the chamber in protest; an indication of how sour relations between the Grand Coalition partners have turned.

From CENTCOM:

Coalition forces killed an al-Qaeda in Iraq military advisor during an operation Aug. 31 west of Tarmiyah.

Coalition forces conducted a precision operation west of Tarmiyah Aug. 31. The assault force followed a vehicle containing two suspected terrorists and attempted to get the driver to stop. When the driver resisted capture, the assault force fired on the vehicle. Both the driver and the passenger were killed in the operation. Coalition forces later identified one of the men as Abu Yaqub al-Masri.

Al-Masri, who is also known as Zakkariya or Doctor, was a military advisor to al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders in Baghdad and the surrounding belts. He provided guidance and direction for attack planning, coordination and execution.

Intelligence reports indicate al-Masri was directed by senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders to plan attacks that would cultivate sectarian strife. The former al-Qaeda in Iraq military emir of Baghdad, now detained by Coalition forces, described al-Masri as director of the “car bomb division.”...

He was allied with Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second-in-command. He was also close to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq killed in a Coalition air strike in June 2006.

“Coalition operations are disrupting and destroying al-Qaeda’s terrorist networks,” said Maj. Winfield Danielson, MNF-I spokesperson. “There is nowhere to hide.”

Analysis from John at Op-For:

Important that we don't understate how important of a kill this was... if Al-Qa'ida Iraq was structured like the Legion of Doom, this clown would be sitting somewhere between Bizzaro Superman and the Black Manta. I bid a fond farewell to all terrorists, but for this guy I'd be willing to break out the champagne and party poppers, and hire a band to belt out the Axl Rose version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"..... all while steely eyed soldiers usher him along to meet Allah.

Via Hot Air, McCain--half-jokingly--says we ought to restrain Ahmadinejad if necessary in order to prevent him from getting to Ground Zero. Allah also has some deep analysis of the options available to Bloomberg, the Port Authority, the NYPD, etc., as far as preventing this stunt.

In other news, Coalition forces announced the capture of "a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Quds Force" in Sulaimaniya.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to condemn the recent 'General Betray Us' ad by MoveOn.org, passing by a margin of 72-25. A large number of Democrats supported the measure, but Hillary Clinton did not--which isn't at all surprising given that she's declined to condemn the ad on numerous occasions leading up to this vote. What is surprising is that John Kerry did not support the measure; he was, I believe, the first Democrat to break ranks on this. Also joining the 'nays' was Senator Daniel Inouye--perhaps that isn't surprising, but if there's one name on that list that disappoints the most, it's Inouye.

Here's the text of the resolution:

To express the sense of the Senate that General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq, deserves the full support of the Senate and strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all members of the United States Armed Forces.

It doesn't even name MoveOn--how can anyone be opposed to condemning "personal attacks on the honor and integrity" of Petraeus or any other member of the military?

The reaction from the netroots to the resolution's passage is sort of interesting. Talking Points Memo's Greg Sargent writes:

Jim Webb, who just yesterday was a Netroots hero, voted for it, even though the last thing he needs as a military guy is cover on something like this.

Doesn't it follow then that he voted for the resolution because he shares the apparently widespread opinion that the ad was in bad taste?

The response from MyDD is even more telling:

Looks like it was initially going to be a close vote but as it became clear that it would pass, some weak-kneed Democrats flipped to opposing it. Makes you wonder who exactly is running the show here.

Indeed. DailyKos adds:

Do the Democrats even know who votes for them anymore? Don’t they understand that if they continue to piss off the die-hard Democrats, the MoveOn Democrats, they are going to continue to lose elections?

The extent to which these bloggers believe they "own" the Democratic party is striking--and I'm not sure they're entirely wrong, either. But as Brian Faughnan has repeatedly pointed out, "if the anti-war Democratic base flexes its muscles, Republicans will likely be the beneficiaries."

HT LGF

Update: Mitt Romney's response:

"Hillary Clinton had a choice. She could stand with our troop commander in Iraq, or she could stand with the libelous left wing of her party. She chose the latter. The idea that she would be a credible commander-in-chief of our armed forces requires the willing suspension of disbelief."

An excellent editorial in today's New York Sun:

Of all the graduates receiving their diplomas this season, the one we salute this morning is Bret Woellner. He is the Columbia University graduate student who was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army yesterday in the first joint commissioning ceremony ever held at the White House for graduates of the Reserve Officer Training Corps. All of the ROTC graduates are men and women who made extraordinary sacrifices as students. But Mr. Woellner was among a select group who made a double sacrifice, because Columbia, like several other universities who had graduates at the White House yesterday, bans ROTC from campus. So Mr. Woellner had to travel to Fordham to do his military studies.

This was not lost on President Bush, who, in exceptionally eloquent remarks that we reprint on the adjacent page, who declared the commissioning ceremony a "solemn moment" for our country....

"Every American citizen is entitled to his or her opinion about our military," the president said. "But surely the concept of diversity is large enough to embrace one of the most diverse institutions in American life. It should not be hard for our great schools of learning to find room to honor the service of men and women who are standing up to defend the freedoms that make the work of our universities possible."

And then came the pointed words: "To the cadets and midshipmen who are graduating from a college or university that believes ROTC is not worthy of a place on campus, here is my message: Your university may not honor your military service, but the United States of America does. And in this, the people's house, we will always make a place for those who wear the uniform of our country."

From the New York Post: Lose the Mercenaries, by Ralph Peters.

From Reason: The Next Iranian Revolution, by Michael J. Totten.

From Asia Times: U.S., China Vie for Philippine Military Influence, by Noel Tarrazona.

From the Wall Street Journal: Chill Pill, Pete Du Pont.

From the Danger Room: The Stink of Tarmiyah, by Noah Shachtman.

Iran's New Fighter, via The DEW Line.

As part of its ongoing propaganda war, al Qaeda’s leaders are once again flooding the airwaves. Both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri reportedly cover a lot of ground in their two new recently released tapes. Importantly, they have once again declared war on President Musharraf and his government.

Al Qaeda’s threats towards Musharraf are not, of course, entirely new. But these most recent threats appear to be explicitly timed to coincide with the announcement of the date for upcoming elections, which will determine Musharraf’s political fate.

One tape, entitled “Come to Jihad,” reportedly features the voice of Osama bin Laden. Laura Mansfield, whose translations of al Qaeda’s missives are indispensable, provided the Associated Press with some of the highlights from the tape. Bin Laden says the conflict at the Red Mosque in July “demonstrated Musharraf's insistence on continuing his loyalty, submissiveness and aid to America against the Muslims . . . and makes armed rebellion against him and removing him obligatory.” Bin Laden called on Pakistanis to rebel against Musharraf: “So when the capability is there, it is obligatory to rebel against the apostate ruler, as is the case now.”

Another tape features Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to the Associated Press, Zawahiri also referenced the siege of the Red Mosque, saying it “revealed the extent of the despicableness, lowliness and treason of Musharraf and his forces, who don't deserve the honor of defending Pakistan, because Pakistan is a Muslim land, whereas the forces of Musharraf are hunting dogs under [President] Bush's crucifix.”

These open threats raise the specter of a fresh round of attacks in Pakistan. But Musharraf’s life has been threatened before--al Qaeda has already made several attempts on Musharraf's life. The real question, then, is: will these most recent threats convince Pakistan, and her American ally, to do more about al Qaeda’s safe haven in the northern tribal regions?

It is no secret that al Qaeda’s two most senior leaders are, most likely, hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan, including Northern and Southern Waziristan. In fact, in his most recent tape, bin Laden reportedly refers to fallen al Qaeda leaders who were slain in these areas as additional justification for attacking Musharraf’s government. But Musharraf’s response to the terror emanating from these uncontrolled areas of Pakistan has been uneven. At some points in the past he has been willing to make a show of force in confronting the thousands of terrorists holed up there, but at other times he has effectively ceded large swaths of Pakistani territory to al Qaeda’s tribal allies. The latter happened last year when Musharraf agreed to the disastrous tribal accords, which limited Pakistan’s engagement in the region and allowed al Qaeda and its allies time to further entrench themselves in their new safe haven.

Jim Geraghty has posted an excellent column about the potential effect of Hillary Clinton as nominee on Democratic hopes of holding onto seats in southern and swing states. It's well worth a read. Geraghty finds that if you're a Red State Democrat, you're probably backing someone else for the Democratic nomination:

The argument that rural America has driven Democrats’ recent gains, and that risking their advantage there may cost them control of the House, carries some weight, according to results of a survey by the Center for Rural Strategies. According to their June poll of 804 rural likely voters, these voters currently deliver a narrow plurality to a generic Democratic candidate for president, 46 percent to 43 percent. (For comparison, in 2004, President Bush won the rural vote in 2004 by 19 points.) At the congressional level, voters prefer Democrats 46-percent to 44-percent.

But the poll also found that rural voters remain more conservative than the nation as a whole, and it is accurate to say that Hillary Clinton is about as popular as illegal immigrants among these voters. When asked to rate their warm or cool feelings towards figures on a “thermometer” from 0 to 100, the “warm” (positive) rating for all three top Democrats was in the low thirties, but the “cool” (negative) rating for Obama was 34, for Edwards was 36, and for Hillary Clinton was 52. The only comparable cool ratings were given to George W. Bush (44) and illegal immigrants (55).

After the 2006 elections, Charlie Cook prepared a list of Members of the House he regarded as potentially vulnerable in 2008. That list includes 25 Democrats who are heavily exposed--they represent districts that generally favor Republicans by a wide margin. Many of those seats are in states where the Democratic nominee is likely to do poorly in 2008. For comparison, there are just 2 Republicans in strong Democratic seats--a byproduct of their stunning losses last year.

There seems to be a widespread opinion among election analysts that the GOP will do poorly next year. But next year is far away, and while Democrats appear likely to have the financial advantage, they have relatively few targets. In a favorable political environment, Republicans could wind up doing much better than is currently expected.

I wasn't going to put this up--regular readers will know I have a deep aversion to posting images of scantily clad women--but a Marine friend of the WWS emails this morning to insist that this is "a great video" that we "must watch." He adds: "The Marines' girlfriends are the most attractive."

It's been clear for a while that the Democratic party is seriously divided over what to do about Iraq. There are essentially no Democrats who support the war in Iraq, and very few who truly support the broader war on terror. But while there's strong opposition to the current anti-terror agenda, there are deep divisions about whether to act on them. The Netroots and a minority in Washington think that acting on their convictions is the right way to go, but the leadership in Washington views it as political suicide.

With that backdrop, it's no surprise that the Netroots are eager to challenge sitting Democrats in primaries. CQ Today reports:

House Democrats are peeved and Republicans are quietly delighted by warnings that anti-war groups may back primary challengers against Democrats who hesitate to directly challenge President Bush’s Iraq policy.

The threat of primary fights next year reminds congressional Democrats that as they search for a way to deal with the war, they must be mindful that part of their party’s base demands nothing less than a full legislative effort to get U.S. forces out of Iraq...

No primary challenges have yet been announced, but possible targets mentioned by anti-war organizers include five-termer Brian Baird of Washington, six-termer Ellen O. Tauscher of California, eight-termer Albert R. Wynn of Maryland and freshmen Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Hank Johnson of Georgia and Jerry McNerney of California...

MoveOn.org says it will announce on Sept. 24 the results of an online poll that asked its members whether the groups should back primary challenges.

In discussing primary challenges to sitting Members of Congress, some on the left have said that they will focus their fire on Democrats in safe seats -- seats where a more liberal candidate would have no problem keeping the seat in the Democratic column.

With that in mind, it's worth looking at the list of potential primary targets. Respected election analyst Charlie Cook rates seats based on their 'Partisan Vote Index' (PVI). It reflects the average performance of a Democratic and a Republican candidate in the district. Joe Donnelly's seat has a PVI of +4 Republican. Jerry McNerney's is +3 Republican. Brian Baird's seat is rated '0' -- a pure tossup. The seats of Tauscher, Johnson, and Wynn are considerably safer.

But if the anti-war Democratic base flexes its muscles, Republicans will likely be the beneficiaries.

The Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which calls on the United States to combat, contain, and roll back Iranian violence inside Iraq, will be offered for debate in the Senate today. The amendment also expresses the "Sense of the Senate," that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The key provisions:

It is the sense of the Senate...

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies;

(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization...

Senator McCain, who gave the commencement address at Columbia in 2006, just sent out this statement:

"A man who is directing the maiming and killing of Americans troops should not be given an invitation to speak at an American university. Rather than rolling out the red carpet for the leader of a terrorist-sponsoring regime, Columbia should be welcoming the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) back on campus to honor the men and women who put their lives on the line every day defending our freedom."

Just posted at THE DAILY STANDARD, the boss on Lee Bollinger's choice:

In fact, the introduction with "sharp challenges" by Bollinger makes the situation even more of a disgrace. Now there will be the appearance of real dialogue, of Ahmadinejad answering challenges, which further legitimizes the notion that Holocaust denial, say, is a subject of legitimate and reasonable debate. But if Bollinger had chosen to deny Ahmadinejad's request, or not to dignify Ahmadinejad's appearance by his presence--then Bollinger would have been denied the opportunity to lecture us, in Columbia's press release, to this effect: "It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open the public forum to their voices. To hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible. That such a forum could not take place on a university campus in Iran today sharpens the point of what we do here....This is America at its best."

Actually, this is a liberal university president at his stupidest....

Meanwhile: As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus.

A perfect synecdoche for too much of American higher education: they are friendlier to Ahmadinejad than to the U.S. military.

Go read the whole thing.

Powerline picks up reports that Columbia University will play host to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on September 24 for what the university describes as "a question and answer session with university faculty and students." Well, not really. University president Lee Bollinger elaborates: "In order to have such a University-wide forum, we have insisted that a number of conditions be met, first and foremost that President Ahmadinejad agree to divide his time evenly between delivering remarks and responding to audience questions."

Bollinger then goes on to list Ahmadinejad's crimes against "innocent civilians and American troops...journalists and scholars, including one of Columbia's own alumni, Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh," and "his government's widely documented suppression of civil society and particularly of women's rights," before declaring that "vigorous debate," "America at its best," etc., etc.

Johnson's analysis:

Columbia and President Bollinger are a disgrace. They welcome to their campus a man who is a ringleader in the seizure of American hostages, a terrorist, the president of a terrorist regime, and the representative of a regime responsible at present for the deaths of American soldiers on the field of battle. Columbia's prattle about free speech may be a tale told by an idiot, but it signifies something. And President Bollinger is a fool who is not excused from the dishonor he brings to his institution and his fellow citizens by the fact that he doesn't know what he is doing.

Ace flies a new flag for a nation that has reached "an iconic turning point...remembered as the moment at which America either fought back or yielded." He's also posted a battle hymn for this brave new republic...go read it.

Remarks just delivered on the floor of the Senate by Senator John McCain:

Madame president, I think we ought to understand what this amendment is all about. In the view of the secretary of defense, he says, "as drafted, the amendment would dramatically limit the nation's ability to respond to other national security needs while we remain engaged in Iraq or Afghanistan." He goes on to say that the amendment would impose upon the president an unacceptable choice between accelerating the rate of drawdown significantly beyond what General Petraeus has recommended, which he and other senior military commanders believe would not be prudent and would put at real risk the gains we've made on the ground in Iraq over the past few months, and resorting to force management options that would damage the force and its effectiveness in the field. That's what this amendment is about. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the president of the United States is deprived of the authority to decide when and where to send troops in time of war. Nowhere--nowhere in the history of this country have such restrictions been imposed or privileges assumed by the Congress of the United States. We have one commander in chief and one only, and to somehow assume that we would begin with Congress--535 commanders in chief--I think would reduce our ability to ever fight another war effectively.

But let me sum up, madame president, by saying clearly the message I'm getting from the troops in the field is not that 'the war is lost,' as the majority leader of the senate stated last April; we are succeeding and we are winning, and with the enactment of this amendment, we will choose to lose. This is setting a formula for surrender, not for victory. And I'm hearing from the troops in the field, madame president, three words. Three words. 'Let us win.' They've sacrificed a great deal, as the majority leader just described very dramatically. Now give them a chance to win. That's what they want. They don't want that sacrifice to be in vain. This amendment would do exactly what the secretary of defense says as well as other interested observers. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, allow this new strategy and this great general who the American people had a great opportunity to see last week as he spoke to the Congress and the American people. Madame president, reject this amendment and let us win.

Update: And the Webb Amendment fails.

Pete Wehner puts the puzzle together over at Contentions and comes to this conclusion:

MoveOn.org--an angry, far-left, antiwar group--views the modern Democratic Party and its leadership as its cat’s-paw, and there’s little reason to dispute this judgment. The problem for many Democrats is that a Great Unmasking is taking place. For one thing, it’s difficult to say they oppose the war but support the troops when they train their fire on the commanding general of the troops, whose main transgression appears to be that he’s helping America succeed in an epic struggle against radical Islam.

Go read the whole thing.

HT Instapundit

The wise and mighty deciders at the New York Times editorialize on the plight of pro-American Iraqis:

Welcoming Iraqis into the United States as refugees is not cost-free. It draws skilled people out of a country that desperately needs their talents and makes it increasingly likely that they will never return home. Washington, however, has a profound moral obligation, especially to those Iraqis who have risked their lives on America’s behalf. If America abandons them now, it will mean even more suffering and more shame for the United States from this shameful and disastrous war.

Washington has a profound moral obligation...to take a few thousand Iraqis back to the United States and abandon the rest to al Qaeda? How do the editors fail to make the obvious connection? Do they care nothing of what comes of all the other Iraqis they would have America abandon? Will it not mean more suffering and more shame for the United States if we leave them at the mercy of our enemies? The editors at the Times have lost all sense of decency if they believe their pleas on behalf of a few thousand insulate them from responsibility for pushing the abandonment of an entire country to the worst brutality imaginable.

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Bashar's Bad Judgment, by David Schenker.

From the Wall Street Journal ($): The Real Bush Record, by Dick Cheney.

From the Washington Times: Al Qaeda's Third Defeat, by Claude Salhani.

From Michael Yon Online: Hunting Al Qaeda, by Michael Yon.

From Foreign Policy: John Bolton Explains the World.