The Corner posts the transcript from today's press briefing:

Q Why should we depend on him?

MS. PERINO: Because he is the commander on the ground, Helen. He's the one who is making sure that the situation is moving --

Q You mean how many more people we kill?

MS. PERINO: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position, bestowed upon you by your colleagues, to make such statements. This is a -- it is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.

Perino's good, and certainly better looking than Tony Snow, but here's a classic response from the Snow archive that I like even better. July 18, 2006, one week into the month-long fight between Israel and Hezbollah:

Q The United States is not that helpless. It could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon. We have that much control with the Israelis.

MR. SNOW: I don't think so, Helen.

Q We have gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.

MR. SNOW: What's interesting, Helen --

Q And this is what's happening, and that's the perception of the United States.

MR. SNOW: Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view,...

The Western media was abuzz over the past few days over an Iraqi journalist’s accusations that his extended family of in Baghdad was executed by a death squad. “Dia al-Kawwaz, editor of Internet website Shabeqat Akhbar al-Iraq (Network of Iraqi News), said militiamen sprayed his relatives with bullets after storming into his house on Sunday,” AFP reported earlier this week. Various international human rights and journalist organizations jumped to Kawwaz’s defense. But the Iraqi government denied the claims, and stated it has spoken to members of the local police and even the family, all eleven of whom denied the accusations.

Today, Gateway Pundit provided visual evidence that the family was indeed alive. Kawwaz’s family appeared on Iraqi television, smiling and waving.

The international media is quick to jump at claims such as this, without providing a critical eye on the sources. The media should have looked at who was behind this. AFP has it right in their report:

Several Iraqi officials, including Sunni MPs Saleh al-Mutlaq and Hussein al-Falluji, attended the service along with hardline cleric Hareth al-Dari, the head of Iraq's Sunni Muslim Scholars Association who lives in Amman.

Hareth al-Dari and the Association of Muslim Scholars openly support the insurgency and covertly support al Qaeda. Saleh al-Mutlaq is notorious for his support of the insurgency, and U.S. forces have raided his offices in the past. Mutlaq purportedly approached the CIA to mount a coup against the Iraqi government earlier this year.

In my first hand experience, the media is far to willing to print stories based on bad sources. When I was embedded with the Canadian Army in Kandahar in June of 2006, a Taliban stringer fed a wire service the false news that two Canadian soldiers had been kidnapped. The Canadian reporters, with the exception of two, were all too eager to go to press. The leak was timed to hit Canada just in time for the evening news.

Two other reporters and I attempted to dissuade the reporters from going to press, stating that this was highly likely a Taliban information operation, and the army would do a head count and know in an hour or two. The reporters printed due to pressure form their editors, and hours later the story was confirmed as false.

Update: Dia al-Kawwaz recants. Blames it all on the Maliki government.

There are certain numbers that for a Boston sports fan have a talismanic quality. 16 – The number of Celtics championship banners hanging from Boston Garden. 4 – The number that Bobby Orr wore. 58 – Grady Little's IQ. Among such figures is 86 – The number of years Boston fans had to wait for their Red Sox to win a championship between 1918 and 2004.

Thus, it came as something of a shock to hear Mitt Romney say during Wednesday's YouTube imbecile parade that Red Sox fans had waited 87 years for the championship drought to end. Some excitable bloggers, aware of my passion for the Red Sox, suggested that I would formally endorse Fred Thompson because of this faux pas.

Of course, I'm not going to formally endorse Thompson, but I will try to explain Romney’s seemingly inexplicable blunder. The Romney family is not a collection of casual sports fans. They're serious fans. They have a few third base box seat season tickets to the Sox; over the last few years, Sox fans grew used to seeing Mitt's head over a right handed batter's shoulder about thirty times a telecast.

Now, Romney may not be a Sox fan who lives and dies with the team. He certainly wasn't born a Sox fan, and you can't be a full member of Red Sox Nation unless you’re born into it. But he was a fixture around here in 2004. If memory serves, he was governor of Massachusetts at the time. And during the 2004 season and post-season, the media pounded the “86 years” theme into our collective skull without mercy. The only Bay State resident who didn't become irrevocably familiar with this figure is the guy who lives down my street who boasts about not owning a TV and vaguely smells of mothballs.

So why did Romney say “87 years” at the debate? He misspoke. He does that sometimes, especially when he's dealing with a topic that he wasn't expecting. Will Red Sox fans forgive him? We are nothing if not a forgiving lot. Multiple world championships tend to mellow a fan base.

The raids on the home and offices of Adnan al Dulaimi, leader of the Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, highlight the real need to hold elections in Iraq. After discovering weapons and a car bomb near Dulaimi's offices on Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi troops conducted a follow-on raid at his home on Friday turned up another car bomb. Dulaimi’s son was arrested along with 29 others. One of Dulaimi’s bodyguards held the keys to the car. Reuters has the details:

Seven people were arrested on Thursday at Dulaimi's office and 29, including Dulaimi's son Mekki, were seized in a raid early on Friday at Dulaimi's house, said Brigadier General Qassim Moussawi, security spokesman for Baghdad.

"We have also found quantities of weapons and uniforms of the army and police at the home of Dr. al-Dulaimi," he told Reuters. "Dulaimi's bodyguards are suspected of having links to car bombs and killings. There are confessions against them."…

Moussawi said the car bomb was found when security forces chased a suspected fugitive involved in a shooting into Dulaimi's compound.

The U.S. military said one of Dulaimi's guards had a key to the car that was rigged as a bomb. Two bystanders were hurt when one of the guards escaped, and five American soldiers and one bystander were hurt in the controlled blast when the car was destroyed, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Dulaimi, who is immune from prosecution due to his status as a member of parliament, may have his immunity lifted if he is found to be directly linked to the car bomb, weapons, and uniforms. "No one is above the law. Dr Adnan al-Dulaimi has immunity, but this does not exempt him from questioning and accountability," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said according to Reuters.

This isn’t the first time Sunni members of parliament have been implicated in working with the insurgency and al Qaeda. Accordance Front member Naif Mohammed Jasim was arrested on October 4 for sitting in on a meeting with leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq. Mishan al Jabouri, a former member of the Iraqi parliament and leader of the Sunni Arab Front for Reconciliation and Liberation, left the country in 2006 after being charged with corruption for embezzling government funds and supporting al Qaeda. Jabouri formed al Zawraa TV, a propaganda arm of the Islamic Army of Iraq.

Sunni parliamentarians and their bodyguards have been implicated in smuggling weapons into the Green Zone. A car bomb targeted Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, then the parliament’s speaker, in October 2006. Muhammad Awad, a Sunni member of parliament, was killed in an al Qaeda bombing in April of 2007. In March of 2006, al Qaeda nearly pulled off a mini-Tet offensive by infiltrating the Green Zone and getting bombs into the secured areas. Sunni parliamentarians and their bodyguards have been accused of being behind these plots.

Sunni groups such as the Association of Muslim Scholars, which has provided support for al Qaeda, advocated a Sunni people boycott of the 2005 elections, and then put up their own candidates for office. The current crop of Sunni politicians by and large do not represent the Sunni people. In Anbar province, the Awakening movement is believed to a serious challenger to the Sunni Accordance Front. New elections may clean out the current crop of corrupt, criminal, and in some cases, terrorist supporting Sunni politicians.

On 2 November 2007, an F-15C Eagle air superiority fighter of the Missouri Air National Guard disintegrated in mid-air, the pilot managing to eject safely from the stricken aircraft. As recounted here on 6 November, the cause of the accident was not immediately apparent, and the entire fleet of F-15s was grounded for precautionary inspections, pending completion of the accident investigation. An astute reader with hands-on experience believed that de-bonding honeycomb structures on the tail and ailerons could be at fault, with potentially grave implications for the airworthiness of the entire F-15 fleet. As it turned out, there were systemic problems, but from an entirely different cause.

The precautionary inspections having failed to reveal any systemic faults in the aircraft, on 21 November the F-15s were cleared to fly once again. According to a message sent by General John D.W. Corley, Commander, Air Combat Command (ACC) to all F-15 pilots and their families:

We evaluated the grounded fleet. First, we focused on the F-15Es. They are the newest F-15s and have been exposed to less stress. They are structurally different than the A-D models. Problems identified during years of A-D model usage were designed "out" of the E-model. Given these differences, and after consultation with Warner Robins ALC and the AIB, we returned the F-15E fleet to flying status following successful inspections.

Next, we concentrated on the remainder of the grounded fleet. The AIB is now focused on the area just aft of the cockpit and slightly forward of the inlets. Warner Robins ALC mandated a thorough inspection and repair of all structural components in this area. I have directed each F-15 aircraft be inspected and cleared before returning to operational status. Today, ACC issued an FCIF and Warner Robins ALC issued an Operational Supplemental Tech Order to further direct and guide your pre-flight and post-flight actions.

However, on 27 November, analysis of the accident investigation revealed what USAF Air Combat Command called "possible fleet-wide airworthiness problems." As detailed in an official ACC press release,

The new findings from the Accident Investigation Board indicate possible fleet-wide airworthiness problems with F-15A/B/C and D aircraft. These findings, based on a metallurgical analysis of the mishap aircraft, have drawn attention to the F-15's upper longerons near the canopy of the aircraft that appear to have cracked and failed. The longerons are major structural components that run along the length and side of the aircraft.

Although the longeron area was covered in general by previous inspections as a result of the Nov. 2 mishap, technical experts with the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Georgia, are recommending a specific inspection technique for the suspect area based on the yesterday's findings.

Manufacturer simulations have indicated a catastrophic failure could result in this particular area. In addition, cracks were discovered along the same longeron area during two recent inspections of F-15C aircraft. These aircraft were immediately grounded based upon the inspection findings and are awaiting further engineering instructions.

To understand the seriousness of this finding, one must understand something of how the F-15 was designed. For ease of manufacturing and maintenance, the aircraft is constructed in seven major subassemblies: the cockpit and forward fuselage; the fuselage center section; the engine compartment and aft fuselage; the wings; and the tail assembly. These are held together with a series of high-strength titanium bolts. This method of construction allows for the rapid maintenance and repair of the aircraft (e.g., a damaged wing can be unbolted and replaced with the wing of another plane), as well as allowing for distributed manufacturing of the subassemblies.

Noah Shachtman has some good follow-up at the Danger Room to his latest piece on Iraq for Wired. I noted the piece earlier this week, particularly the efforts of one Sergeant Joe Colabuno and his psy-ops campaign in Fallujah. Here's some of what Shachtman writes today, picking up on a problem he first noted when he got back from Iraq--or at least what he believes is a problem:

"For 7 or 8 months," Colabuno tells me, "all we hear about is 'Iran is doing all [of the attacks], Iran is behind everything.' There was frustration from them [Fallujah's locals] because we wouldn't 'admit it.' Like maybe the U.S. was conspiring with Iran."

"We'd stress in our SITREPS [situation reports] that in order to get these people on our side, we've got to play into their fears abut Iran," he adds.

Then, in January, "the White House suddenly got involved," talking tough about how Tehran was stoking instability in Iraq. "That overnight changed the attitudes of the people towards us. They took it as almost an apology," he adds.

In local newspaper articles, in radio and loudspeaker broadcasts -- and in talks on the street -- Colabuno started playing up "operations against Shi'a militia." He played up how the U.S. troop "surge" was silencing Shi'a leader Moktada "al-Sadr's yipping and yapping."

Shachtman worries, "How can the U.S. encourage country-wide reconciliation -- while riding a wave of sectarian hate?" Fair enough, but as I noted the first time Shachtman brought this up, in the words of Billy Joel, 'we didn't start the fire.' "Sectarian hate" predated the American invasion of Iraq, and we'd be foolish not to exploit it, when possible, to further our own ends. This is how empires effectively managed unruly provinces for centuries. Noah's not all wrong, it's certainly a dangerous game. But it seems that the strategy, for now, is showing obvious signs of success. Down the road it may cause problems, but back in January, everyone expected down the road to be all out civil war--so this seems like a good problem to have.

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Cameron's Conservatives, by Tim Montgomerie.

From the New York Post: Winning Baghdad, by Ralph Peters.

From the Washington Post: CNN Admits Holes in Screening of Questioners, by Howard Kurtz.

From the Telegraph: Interview with John Bolton, by Con Coughlin.

From Shanghai Daily: What? No Mistresses? by Wang Yong.

There's an interesting story in today's New York Times regarding Rudy Giuliani's highly creative relationship with the blizzard of impressive statistics he often cites about himself as mayor of New York City. It is not uncommon for pols to maintain a extensive mental library of triumphant statistical achievements that are at a minimum exaggerated, but Rudy seems to have taken this history-inventing to a whole new level.

When he originally entered the race, conventional wisdom was that Rudy's liberal social policy positions would turn out to be his great Achilles heel in the Republican primaries. Now, with the Bernie Kerik scandals, the "who pays the bodyguards while Rudy goes a' courtin'" kerfuffle, and this apparent weakness for making up impressive statistics about himself, it would seem that character, not ideology, is becoming Rudy's big vulnerability in these critical final days. I wonder if his rivals will overtly move their criticism in that direction. I'd guess the first hint will be when you start hearing the code word "cronyism" from his rivals. That'll mean the shivs are out.

Former HuffPo contributor Barry Sanders is at it again. Last month Sanders wrote a horribly misinformed article for the Huffington Post on "the military's addiction to oil." The piece was riddled with factual errors, and when the WWS and others pointed a few out, Arianna threw the guy under the bus with an editor's note canceling the series and saying of Sanders's defense, "it confuses as much as it clarifies."

At the time Sanders apologized for his failure "to reach an absolutely authoritative [read factually accurate] version of this essay" by explaining that he was "not a mathematician, not a military person, not a trained climatologist." Yet despite that epiphany, he's still at it, peddling bogus statistics about the fuel consumption of the U.S. military. But this time it's worse. Now he's feeding the same bad numbers that got him dumped from HuffPo to journalism students. Mollie McWilliams, a staff writer for the Golden Gate [X] Press, a publication run by the San Francisco State University Journalism Department, has interviewed Sanders for a piece called "Pollution and war meet in the Green Zone." She writes:

The idea for the essay came on a lark, Sanders said, who thought to himself one morning, the use of war vehicles, bombs and ammunition in guns must leave behind erasable traces of radioactive material on the ground and release chemicals into the air. Afterwards, he decided that war, as polluter, needed to be researched and presented to the public.

“I want there to be clamp put on America’s greatest polluter—the American military,” Sanders said.

What he found was the U.S. military used 40 million gallons of oil in the first three weeks of combat, more than what the Allied Forces used during all four years of WWI and about 80 times the amount spilled in the San Francisco Bay. Sanders said he also discovered that bombs, like the 15,000-pound “Daisy Cutter,” contain high amounts of uranium.

I don't know how Ms. McWilliams, after noting concerns about "some number inconsistencies" in his work for HuffPo, failed to check this one. In 2004, the U.S. military consumed 144 million barrels of oil. And in 2005 the military did use about 1.7 million gallons of fuel a day in Iraq--so maybe Sanders isn't too far off the mark for the first three weeks of the invasion in 2003. But he's way off on the recent spill in San Francisco Bay--it was not 500,000 gallons of oil, it was 58,000 gallons--so he's off by just a factor of ten. The ship in question, the Cosco Busan, could hold 1 million gallons of oil, but to put that in perspective, the Exxon Valdez spilled roughly 11 million gallons of fuel into Prince William Sound. The Valdez was carrying 53 million gallons of oil when it hit the reef. So Sanders seems to be saying that in the First World War--a war in which the allies "floated to victory on a wave of oil" as Lord Curzon famously remarked--the entire alliance consumed significantly less oil than we now transport in a single supertanker.

As to the Daisy Cutter and other "bombs" containing high amounts of uranium, it's absurd, but I'm not surprised a student at SFSU would believe the U.S government was lacing American munitions with "erasable" radioactive material. Still, if the San Francisco State University Journalism Department knows how to print a correction, this feels like a teachable moment.

Congressman Norm Dicks traveled with Representative John Murtha on his recent trip to Iraq. Upon his return, he adopted the same line that many Democrats are using nowadays:

"There is a sense of normalcy you didn't see before. In that sense, the surge is being successful," Dicks, D-Bremerton, said. "But there is no success on political reconciliation. From that standpoint, it's not working."

But Dicks's comments were tempered with a dose of realism when it comes to assessing the Iraqi government--and the U.S. Congress:

He reminded Maliki and his ministers that they need to pass legislation on sharing oil revenues and power among Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis.

"But I felt kinda embarrassed telling the Iraqis they had to get their act together and pass legislation when we can't do it back here," he said.

Dicks also had nice things to say about one of the Republican contenders for president:

While in Iraq, Dicks and the other Democrats bumped into a group of pro-war Republicans led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is running for president.

McCain had argued for a much bigger troop presence from the start. Now, Dicks said, the escalation's impact on insurgent attacks shows that the Pentagon's initial failure to use overwhelming force "was a deadly mistake that they and the president compounded."

"You have to give McCain credit," Dicks said, adding with a laugh, "I hate to do that."

Is that an endorsement?

I can't say this is a surprise:

Congressional Democrats are reporting a striking change in districts across the country: Voters are shifting their attention away from the Iraq war...

First-term Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.) – echoing a view shared by many of her colleagues – said illegal immigration and economic unease have trumped the Iraq war as the top-ranking concerns of her constituents.

Here's the key quote -- which tells you how far off the deep end Democrats have gone on Iraq:

Cooper, who represents a moderate Nashville-area district, said Democrats should "we shouldn't be against good news" [sic] in Iraq.

Cooper is one of the saner of the House Democrats. His comment calls to mind Congressman Jim Clyburn's acknowledgment earlier that good news in Iraq is bad news for Democrats.

The huge fall in Iraq as a priority for voters was made clear in the Pew poll released earlier this week. Simply put, as the news from Iraq gets better, voters are turning to more pressing issues. Given that the voters seem largely satisfied with the Iraq drawdown plan proposed by the Pentagon, it's unlikely that Iraq will be a cutting issue for Democrats in the 2008 election -- unless things there turn markedly worse.

This is why it's almost certain that Democrats will cave on the current Iraq funding fight. While they bravely claim they won't provide any more money before Christmas, Democratic leaders are signaling compromise. Even John Murtha is eating crow and outlining a possible deal:

Democratic Representative John Murtha said he is "optimistic'' that House Democrats and President George W. Bush can agree on Iraq war funding after an earlier $50 billion proposal linked to troop withdrawals was blocked in the Senate.

"Congress wants to come up with an agreement,'' Murtha, chairman of a House subcommittee on military spending, told reporters in a video conference from his office in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. "Leadership may be willing to compromise'' on the time line for withdrawing troops from Iraq, he said...

Murtha said that because of the number of troops in Iraq and the amount of support equipment in the country, a full withdrawal could take as long as two years. Still, Congress should press for troop withdrawal dates to put pressure on the Iraqi government and limit the American commitment, he said.

Murtha is hoping that the White House will bite: Iraq funding with a two-year goal for troop withdrawal. He recognizes that Democrats risk a huge black eye if the Pentagon begins furloughing civilians, or if American troops suffer, because of the disagreement between Congress and the White House over funding for the war on terror. Will the public get angry when furlough notices are sent out, or will they be patient until the furloughs actually begin? Whom will they blame?

And more importantly for Congressional Democrats, why take the risk? They contend that they've made it possible for DoD to jump through hoops to fund the war through February, at least. They say that Secretary Gates and the Pentagon are being disingenuous when they claim they're being forced to lay off civilians. But if their goal was to fund the war, why not actually fund it?

If the current situation in Iraq holds or improves, the Iraq war may come to resemble the Gulf War--an issue that seemed all-encompassing in the year before the presidential election, only to disappear during the campaign. George H. W. Bush was unprepared for the dramatic shift in terrain, and suffered politically. Will Congressional Democrats make the same mistake in 2008?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent meeting with the Dalai Lama at her official residence in Berlin has caused a strong political backlash, not only from Beijing but also, more surprisingly, from Merkel’s left-wing SPD coalition partner as well as Germany’s business community. The Chinese, for their part, reacted immediately by canceling a bilateral human rights conference and calling off a number of senior political bilateral meetings, including one between German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi at the UN General Assembly in New York. After the diplomatic fall-out with Beijing it was Steinmeier--a deputy SPD party chairman who was also made vice chancellor two weeks ago--who attacked Merkel in rather harsh terms, accusing her of pursuing short-sighted "display-window policies" vis-à-vis China that, in essence, harmed Germany’s long-term strategic and economic engagement with Asia’s key power. Finally, Germany’s leading business federation, BDI, called for "a return to constructive dialogue" after "the irritations of recent weeks" between Berlin and Beijing. Several German top CEOs had expressed concern that the Dalai Lama visit would negatively affect their business with China.

Foreign minister Steinmeier also recently criticized Merkel’s Russia policy, arguing that the Chancellor was always "looking fearfully at how newspaper headlines back home" would view her relationship with President Putin, whom she has criticized repeatedly for the increasing violations of human rights and press freedom in Russia. To top it off, former SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made a very controversial statement in which he indirectly attributed Merkel’s "emotional," human rights-based foreign policy to her upbringing in former Communist East Germany. The rather hard-nosed "realpolitik" approach proposed by Messrs. Steinmeier and Schroeder was backed up this week by veteran left-wing SPD politician Erhard Eppler, who published an op-ed titled "Europe can’t afford to antagonize Russia and China" in Munich’s influential daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. In essence, 80-year old Eppler, who served as German Development Minister from 1968-1974 and has long retired from elected office, argues that Europe and Germany must prepare for the advent of a multi-polar world in which countries such as Russia and China are on the rise while America is in decline.

No one knows what will happen to the United States, to their economy, to the US dollar, to their foreign policy. The only certain thing is that they are no longer a moral world power. It is also certain that the rest of the world will not put up with what the neocons consider a "Pax Americana". The Americans will not rule the world. The globe will have several poles. One of them will be China, the other one Russia. Both will have that role regardless of whether they conform to our ideas of democracy or not. Unfortunately, one does not yet know for sure whether Europe will be a pole. If the Europeans manage to become on of the poles they will need to develop a thriving relationship with Russia and China. If the Europeans can’t get their act together, it will be even more important for the Germans to have close relations with these two countries.

The good news for Merkel so far is that, in general, more than 70 percent of the German population approve of her values-based foreign policy, which also puts a premium on environmental issues such as fighting global climate change. It remains to be seen whether the SPD party and Foreign Minister Steinmeier, a potential challenger to Merkel in the next federal elections to be held by the fall of 2009, can effectively attack the Chancellor’s foreign policy record, which until recently appeared to be unassailable and arguably her biggest trump card. However, it is certainly interesting to note that new opinion polls indicate Steinmeier’s political fortunes are on the rise. Since last week, for the first time ever, he’s now viewed as Germany’s "most important" politician; a position he wrestled from his boss Chancellor Merkel who dropped sharply in the ratings. Upcoming regional elections in several German state next spring and fall will provide a good indication of the relative strength of the conservative CDU/CSU parties and their current left-wing SPD "grand coalition" partner. In the meantime, Chancellor Merkel has vowed to hold true to her principled, value-based foreign policy. In a speech to the Bundestag on Wednesday she made her intentions very clear: "I will continue to chose the guests I meet and the places I visit based on what I see as being correctly in Germany’s interests."

The QOTD(SF!) comes from today's David Brooks column, in which the intrepid columnist visits China:

Tired of the bureaucracy, [Chinese businessman Edward] Tian resigned from Netcom and has founded China Broadband Capital. It funds firms that are using cellphones as the next information technology platform, and it owns part of MySpace China. He sits alone in a beautiful office in the middle of the park where the Qing Dynasty emperors came to worship the sun. His office was the emperor's dressing room.

With his lingering insecurity, with his fierce determination to prove and reprove himself, he is in some ways typical of the Cultural Revolution generation elite. But he is also a cultured man, and in that he is atypical. The Cultural Revolution swept away much of the old Chinese culture. It was followed by the wave of commercialism and materialism. Dignity is now defined by money and French and Italian luxury goods.

The spiritual vacuum left by the Cultural Revolution has yet to be filled. Some set of values - good or bad - will eventually fill it, and at that point, the final aftershock of the hell will be finally felt.

Brooks never mentions nationalism as a set of values that could fill the "spiritual vacuum left by the Cultural Revolution." Another set would be what you might call "regionalism" - the ongoing effort by provincial authorities and ethnicities to assert their autonomy from Beijing. Neither set probably would be conducive to Chinese stablity.

A parody video from the mad geniuses at The Onion:

Having outlined a possible winning scenario for Mike Huckabee, let's look at a big problem potentially standing in his way.

While the national parties don't exactly have Star Chambers complete with powerful insiders wearing monk's hoods and pulling party strings from a candlelit secret chamber under either the AFL-CIO or Halliburton (depending on the side in question), there is a leadership elite within each party. It is mostly felt on the finance side with big fundraisers and bundling lobbyists buzzing among themselves. These people are mostly pragmatists and many are in DC's professional influence business.

The talk now will be about Huckabee and it won't be good. Most Republican mega-donors don't like Christian candidates. Such candidates have a bad tendency when nominated to bring both general election wipe-outs and problems with big donors' wives, who tend to be pro-choice and socially closer to the local country club than the neighborhood fundamentalist church. Huckabee, with his purist's stand on social issues and a half-baked tax plan with little appeal outside GOP primaries, doesn't look like a winner in a general election, especially at a time when the Republican party is beset with terrific image problems. This is a tough-minded crowd that would rather shoot a slow horse than ride one out of the convention.

While these forces cannot for certain stop Huckabee if he is able to catch fire beyond Iowa, they can make his task much harder. They can fund brutal waves of independent 527 TV ads, for example. The Wall Street-centric Club for Growth has diddled around with this tactic against Huckabee in the past, but their effort was puny and under-funded. If the complete Star Chamber decides to seriously mobilize against him now, Mike Huckabee will find that surging to real victory is far harder than it looks.

The Obama-Bloomberg breakfast this morning raises the obvious thought: isn't Obama-Bloomberg a logical 2008 Democratic ticket? Bloomberg brings executive experience, maturity, resources, and some bipartisanship (he is a nominal Republican) to an Obama candidacy, while being acceptable on fundamental issues to the Democratic base. It would be an interesting campaign, in accord with our interesting times, to have both parties running "national unity" tickets - Obama-Bloomberg vs., say, Thompson-Lieberman.

More than a month after the Taliban took over the settled district of Swat, once the most visited tourist spot in Pakistan, the Pakistani Army has yet to dislodge the Taliban from the scenic valley. The Pakistani military, beset by problems with poor morale and a poor counterinsurgency strategy, have made few gains since launching their ground offensive after weeks of bombarding civilian centers.

Asia Times's Syed Saleem Shahzad, who closely follows the Taliban movement in Pakistan and Afghanistan, states the vaunted Pakistani Army is no closer to defeating the Taliban than when it started offensive operations.

Intensified military operations over the past 10 days in the Swat Valley have not yielded any significant results. The army did succeed in recapturing a few districts but was in no position to force the militants' surrender. This means the army will not be able to consolidate its gains for any prolonged period in the valley - the militants will be back.

Shahzad also claims the Taliban seek to keep the Pakistani military from conducting operation along the tribal regions on the border, where al Qaeda and the Taliban have established training camps throughout the region and openly rule the tribal agencies.

The aim of the militants to date has been to engage the Pakistani security forces in the Swat Valley, forcing them to reduce their presence on the border. This in turn has allowed militants to cross freely into and out of Afghanistan in support of the Taliban's insurgency there.

The Pakistani military is losing an insurgency in the Northwest Frontier Province and the tribal regions (see "The Fall of Northwestern Pakistan" at The Long War Journal and "Is the NWFP Slipping out of Pakistan’s Control?" at The Jamestown Foundation for more details.)

Shahzad states the appointment of General Kiyani, Musharraf's successor as chief of staff of the Pakistani army, has increased the likelihood the Pakistani military will cut a deal with the Taliban in the long run. While Kiyani is not viewed as sympathetic to the Islamists, he will be under great pressure from the Pakistani military to halt the fighting. This will only embolden the Taliban and create a buffer for al Qaeda to continue cranking out terrorists to fight in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iraq and throughout the Middle East.

As al Qaeda in Iraq attempts to reestablish its networks in the Northern provinces, the Iraqi military and Multinational Forces Iraq have been shaping the battlefield in the north for a showdown with the terror group. Iraqi and U.S. forces received a big boost the past week when a significant number of Iraqis formed a Concerned Local Citizens group in the region. Meanwhile, the Islamic Army of Iraq in Mosul has vowed to dig in and fight the Coalition.

Iraqi and U.S. forces have been focusing on the northern region--delineated by the provinces of Ninewa, Tamin, Salahadin, and Diyala--since major counterinsurgency operations began this summer. Operation Lightning Hammer II was launched Mosul, Tal Afar, and in the Za'ab Triangle region in September. This was a corps-sized operation, with over 26,000 troops committed to the fight. The Za'ab region, roughly outlined by the intersections of northern Salahadin, southwestern Tamin, and southeastern Ninewa, contains some of the toughest cities in Iraq, including Baiji and Hawija.

On November 5, U.S. and Iraqi forces launched Operation Iron Hammer, a division-sized operation, in the city and regions surrounding Kirkuk. Kirkuk sits just northeast of the Za'ab Triangle region. Iron Hammer consisted of elements from four Iraqi Army divisions and three U.S. brigades. Over 200 insurgent suspects were captured, including three high-value al Qaeda leaders. A large amount of explosives and numerous weapons caches were also found.

Iron Hammer was followed by Operation Raging Eagle, another division-sized operation that also focused on Kirkuk and the surrounding regions. Over 50 al Qaeda operatives were captured during the operation.

In the north, U.S. and Iraqi forces will look to push the battle away from the major cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, and Kirkuk's vital oilfields. "They want to go north into Kirkuk and wreak havoc there, and that's exactly what we're trying to avoid," said Army Major General Mark Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq, in an interview with the Associated Press. Over 200 al Qaeda in Iraq fighters are believed to have taken shelter in the towns and villages in the Hawija region.

As the fight shapes up in the Za'ab Triangle region, Iraqi and U.S. forces caught a major break by receiving reinforcements from Iraqis in the region. On November 28, the Associated Press reported over 6,000 Iraqis joined the Concerned Local Citizens movement in the Hawija region. The Concerned Local Citizens are typically tribal groups and former insurgents who form local auxiliary police units to fight al Qaeda in Iraq and protect their local communities.

The number of 6,000 Concerned Local Citizens in Hawija may be inaccurate, however. In response to an inquiry from the The Long War Journal to Multinational Forces Iraq, Colonel Don Bacon stated that the actual number in the Hawija region is 2,500, with the possibility that 6,000 was the number of recruits pledged by tribal leaders.

The provinces of Ninewa, Tamin, Salahadin, and Diyala have seen a spike in participation in the Concerned Local Citizens movement. Tamin now has over 8,000 Concerned Local Citizen; Salahadin 4,000; and Diyala 10,000, according to data obtained by The Long War Journal. Ninewa has only 1,500 participants, but "there is a large Iraqi Army and Police presence which may mitigate against a large CLC [Concerned Local Citizens] program in this province," according to a source in Multinational Forces Iraq who wishes to remain anonymous.

Iraqi and Coalition efforts to move the fighting from the major cities may be difficult to achieve, however. The Islamic Army in Iraq in Mosul has vowed to continue the fight in the northern city. Upset that some of its groups have broken with the insurgency and are supporting the government in Concerned Local Citizens movements, the Mosul branch has formed Al Fatih Al Mubeen. Elements of the Islamic Army in Iraq have sided with al Qaeda and joined its Islamic State of Iraq.

Yesterday it looked like the Chinese explanation for changing their minds about the Kitty Hawk's port call to Hong Kong was going to be nothing more than that it was a "misunderstanding."

Now, via Murdoc, they appear to be singing a different tune:

China hinted Thursday that Congress' honoring of the Dalai Lama and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan led it to cancel a U.S. Navy visit to Hong Kong, an incident that could open a new rift in military relations that had warmed in recent years.

That's pretty much what Tim Johnson had speculated, but I'm surprised the Chinese would be so straightforward about the whole thing. Of course, they aren't being straightforward at all. The Chinese now deny not only that the decision was the result of a misunderstanding, but that it was their decision at all:

"Reports that Foreign Minister Yang said in the United States that it was a misunderstanding do not accord with the facts," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference.

"China approved the visit of the Kitty Hawk group to Hong Kong based on humanitarian reasons. The decision made by the U.S. later was up to them." He did not elaborate.

Rep. Randy Forbes put out a statement this morning in response to all these conflicting reports, and I think he pretty much nails it:

The duplicitous statements coming out of Beijing are emblematic of the way the Chinese conduct their brand of diplomacy and should serve as a cautionary statement to policymakers when dealing with Chinese leaders.

In other news from Red China:

Thousands of military academy students in central China’s Anhui province are rioting after news spread that the government wouldn’t recognize diplomas awarded to the fee-paying students, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports....

A teacher at the academy, surnamed Ren, denied that rioting had occurred but added, “It could happen to any school. There are always some students who do not want to study. Right?”

“The majority of the students are good students. Those [who do not like to study] will be severely dealt with. What do the students know? Including the seniors. They have not even gotten their diplomas yet.”

“Only a small number of students with their own agenda were fanning the fire. I have told you too much already. If you are a reporter, I advise you not to touch things related to a military academy,” Ren said.

Can't wait for those Olympics...

Another day, another poll showing Americans are changing their views on the war in Iraq:

The latest Rasmussen Reports tracking poll finds that 47% of Americans now say the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror (see crosstabs). That’s up from 43% a month ago and reflects is the highest level of confidence measured since December 2005...

The 47% who believe the U.S. and its allies are winning is up significantly from earlier in the year. During the first nine months of 2007, the number believing that the U.S. fell as low as 33% and reached the 40% level just once...

In what may be just as significant a finding, only 24% of voters now believe the terrorists are winning. That’s down from 30% a month ago and represents the lowest level of pessimism recorded since 2004.

The Rasmussen Reports telephone survey also found that 35% of all American voters expect things to get better in Iraq over the next six months while 32% expect the situation to get worse. That’s the first time in years that a plurality has given a positive assessment on the situation in Iraq. The recent increase in optimism is substantial. Just four months ago, in July, 49% of American voters offered a pessimistic assessment of the situation in Iraq and only 23% expected things to get better...

Overall, 36% now believe the American mission in Iraq will ultimately be judged a success while 44% say the history books will judge the long engagement a failure. In July, the view was decidedly more pessimistic. At that time, just 27% thought history would consider the mission a success while 56% took the opposite view.

It seems intuitive that views of the war in Iraq should greatly affect the overall rating for President Bush, and for the Republican party. So far however, the president and the GOP are seeing marginal improvements, at best. It may be that those ratings are 'lagging' indicators, or it could be that voters are dissatisfied on other fronts. Or it could be that the public has simply decided that regardless of how well or how poorly the war may be going, they're ready for it to be over.

If that last one is the reason, Republicans shouldn't expect 'credit' for Iraq, regardless of how the war may go between now and the presidential election. It may be that the best they can hope for is for the public to continue to look to downgrade the importance of Iraq as the drawdown of troops continues.

As predicted, the latest purported bin Laden tape blames American foreign policy (that is, his conspiratorial notion of America’s foreign policy) for al Qaeda’s terror. The Associated Press has reported translations of excerpts of the tape, which were broadcast on Al-Jazeera. Bin Laden says he was the "only one responsible" for the 9/11 attacks. Moreover:

The events of Manhattan were retaliation against the American-Israeli alliance's aggression against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, and I am the only one responsible for it. The Afghan people and government knew nothing about it. America knows that.

Bin Laden wants free reign inside Afghanistan again, so he calls upon European nations to abandon the U.S.-led effort there:

Europe went along with it (the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan) because they had no other alternative, only to be a follower.

It is better for you [European citizens] to stand against your leaders who are dropping in on the White House, and to work seriously to lift the injustice against the believers.

Of course, this is fairly typical of al Qaeda’s propaganda. In the group’s messages to the West, they claim that their terror is merely a "Defensive Jihad," waged as retribution against the West for its alleged conspiratorial assault on Muslims. In its messages to fellow Muslims and in laying out the Islamic justifications for their attacks, however, al Qaeda argues strenuously for an "Offensive Jihad" waged against the West because we are infidels who refuse to follow their strict sharia laws and offend Allah’s supposed will.

More later when a full transcript of the tape becomes available.

When the Army-Navy game goes down on Saturday, Navy is a two touchdown favorite to win its sixth straight Commander in Chief Trophy. But according to this college football blog, Army has already pulled off a win of its own--kidnapping Navy's goats. A 'cadet-team-sized element' reportedly infiltrated Horizon Organic Farm in Gambrills, Maryland, at 0200 hours on November 18.

In fact, Army even made a YouTube video to document their brazen raid:

While there's no shame in getting your goats stolen, it does raise questions about security procedures. Shouldn't the Naval Academy be protecting not only the goats, but even the location of the facility where they're kept?

Worse still is the Navy response:

It's a good thing the Middies are (reasonably) good at football; their trash talking leaves much to be desired.

From the BBC:

The Iranian government has announced a campaign against rap music which it considers obscene. The Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance said illegal studios would be closed and rap singers "confronted".

An official condemned rappers for using very vulgar words, but it was not clear if the whole genre was being banned.

Is there such a thing as Hip-Hop solidarity? Maybe the Factor can have Cam'ron back on to discuss the crackdown now that the elusive rapper has resurfaced.

Via Instapundit, Bob Krum remarks on CNN's failure to vet the questioners at last night's debate--at least three of whom turned out to be declared supporters of Democratic candidates or outright plants from Democratic campaigns:

I'm not the biggest media bias basher out there by any stretch, but this is crystal clear evidence that CNN has hired the New Republic to do its fact checking. Do check out the link to see just how many of the questions were obvious and easily discovered plants.

At least CNN cut out Kerr's question in the replay last night, and Cooper apologized, if half-heartedly. TNR still hasn't taken a definitive position on Beauchamp after more than five months--their "investigation" continues.

According to the Associated Press, when John Edwards started a poverty think tank at the University of North Carolina in 2005, he gave the university a 'ticket wish list.' One would presume that Edwards can afford to buy his own tickets, but then again, you'd think he could afford his own haircuts.

The point seems moot in any case, since (according to the University) Edwards did not receive any tickets, nor any 'promise of tickets' in connection with his university employment.

But if there's nothing to this, then why is Edwards refusing to release the details of his request?

"While e-mails concerning pre-employment contract negotiations will not be released, the outcome of these discussions is and has been public and can be found in Senator Edwards' employment agreement with the university,'' said Edwards spokeswoman Colleen Murray, who said the former North Carolina senator ''inquired about the possibility of continuing to purchase, in the future, season tickets as he has for many years.''

The university and the Edwards campaign also declined to release an attachment to a January 2005 e-mail from Lackey that appears to detail his compensation request.

It's hard to conceive of anything nefarious here; it's just basketball tickets, right? (Perhaps even tickets devalued by the Tarheels' embarrassing NCAA Tournament loss to my alma mater in a memorable game last March.) But if it is so innocent, why hide it? It's sure to get every conspiracy theorist and blogger searching for the next embarrassing Silky anecdote.

So if you have any guesses as to what's so embarrassing about a simple ticket request, send it in.

Mark Steyn captures the feelings of many current and former Fred Thompson enthusiasts in this post over at The Corner:

I wrote about the Republican and Democrat presidential candidates last weekend, and got a lot of mail from Fredheads and others demanding to know why I hadn't mentioned Senator Thompson. The reason is I've no handle on what it is he thinks he's doing. Every time I see a Fred policy plan, he seems to have by far the best ideas, and the necessary zeal for reform, on taxes, Social Security and much else. But every time you see him in these TV debates he has the listless air of a bored grandparent at a dreary school play.

And seeing him live in person isn't that easy to do. I get campaign e-mails about New Hampshire appearances by John McCain and Mrs Clinton and lots of others. Mitt's guys clogged up my in-box with so many urgent releases in the hours after last night's debate that it's seriously impacting my ability to order generic Viagra and e-mail my bank details to Nigerian dictators' wives. But nary a word from Fred.

What's the strategy here? Why does he have great ideas but no campaign?

I thought Thompson was better last night than he has been. His critiques were sharp, but thoughtful. His detailed answer on gun control, after Rudy Giuliani made a reference to "the Parker decision" without seeming to know what it involved, was excellent.

But Steyn is right that Thompson's campaign is, um, lacking. Each morning I have delivered to my inbox "First Read", an excellent collection of news and nuggets about the 2008 election compiled by NBC political director Chuck Todd. Among many other features, First Read includes a candidate-by-candidate preview of the day's campaign events. As often as not, there is no mention of Fred Thompson. On some of these days, he is off doing private fundraisers. But there is little question that Thompson does far fewer public events than any of the other serious presidential candidates. Which is odd.

When I first spoke to Thompson advisers last spring, I asked about his reputation for being "lazy." They explained that such charges were unfair and likely the result of Thompson's laid-back demeanor. Fair enough. In any case, they continued, such a reputation would be easy to overcome. "All he has to do is campaign hard," said one Thompson adviser. Hmm ...

The Army's strategic vision for their own UAV force has been more or less in motion for the past few years. First they wanted four classes of unmanned vehicles, each tasked with supporting a unique level of command (platoon, company, battalion, brigade). Smelling redundancy, Army leadership burned two of the classes late last year. Now the Army's grand UAV strategy is sublime in its simplicity: buy a big, stinkin' mess of 'em. Aviation Week reports:

About the only speaker at a London conference on unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) this week who was in favour of the US Army's plans to operate a massive fleet of armed Sky Warriors was General Atomics-ASI's Steve May. And so he should be: "The Army is now as large a customer for us as the Air Force," May said.

According to May, the Army is looking at acquiring as many as 45 complete Sky Warrior systems once full-rate production starts in 2011 - each with 12 air vehicles, 540 UAVs in all. The Sky Warrior resembles the USAF MQ-1L Predator but is heavier and more powerful, routinely carrying eight Hellfire missiles.

The Air Force is absolutely besides itself, of course. Not only is the Army moving in on fiercely guarded turf, they're sacrificing a few of the Air Force's most sacred cows in the process.

Aircrew training is proving a major challenge for the Air Force as it expands its own Predator fleet. Sustaining one Predator orbit takes four aircraft and 80 people, 50 of them deployed forward, says Col. Chris Chambliss, commander of the USAF's 432d Wing. The wing aims to convert 240 students in 2007, and has extended its tours (three years for pilots, four for sensor operators) to reduce the training load as the USAF expands from 19 to 21 total orbits - well ahead of schedule - and has accelerated the deployment of the MQ-9 Reaper. The Army's answer is to adopt a new ground station, provide the Warrior with automated take-off and landing and assign non-pilots to fly the aircraft. Sky Warrior Block 0 aircraft--pre-production versions--will be operational in February 2008, flown by Army aviators. Later aircraft, though, will be flown by non-pilot warrant officers.

Hands off landings? "Non-pilot" warrant officers? It's enough to cause widespread hair loss at Air Force golf courses everywhere.

HT: Danger Room

This New York Times bestseller list from January 10, 1943, is fascinating to read, especially when you consider that several of the books on the list (none of which I've ever heard of) were adapted into movies (none of which I've ever seen). As one Times commenter puts it, "What a wonderful illustration of the fleeting nature of fame."

This reminded me of several fantastic essays of Anthony Lane's, in which he reads the books on bestseller lists of Times past. You can find those essays in his collection Nobody's Perfect.

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Debate Wrap-up, by the editors.

From the Christian Science Monitor: Where to Find Progress in Iraq, by Jon P. Dorschner.

From Foreign Policy: Should the U.S. Abandon Pervez Musharraf? by Daniel Markey and Husain Haqqani.

From Real Clear Politics: A Few Good People, by Victor Davis Hanson.

From the Los Angeles Times: The Autonomous Warbird, by Peter Pae.

Secretary Gates recently warned that because Congress has not passed legislation to fund the war on terror in fiscal year 2008 (which began October 1), the Department of Defense is being forced to plan furloughs for civilian personnel. To that end, Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody has ordered top officers at all Army bases to provide detailed plans on how to trim excess spending and replace civilians with troops. Cody directs the bases to work under the assumption that furloughs will begin on or about February 23. Since civilian employees are entitled to 60 days advance notice, they'll get their furlough warnings on December 25--more or less.

Fedblog reprints the text of the memo.

This is a planning effort, repeat, a planning effort to reduce OMA funded operations to the minimum mission essential level. Your initial plans will identify the weekly cost to continue those OMA funded minimum mission essential activities allowable under Feed and Forage after 23 February 08 and will include the amount of OMA funds available for return to the Department when all other services and functions are discontinued...

Include these assumptions in your plans:

a. On or about 22 February 08, all distributed Operation and Maintenance, Army (OMA) funds will be fully obligated or committed.

b. On 23 February 08, installations and commands will move to a "warm base" status and all OMA funded activities will cease except those noted in paragraph 4 below...

Civilian Personnel. Identify the number of minimum mission essential (Life, Health and Safety) and non-mission essential civilian personnel funded through direct OMA appropriations. You should anticipate that the Department will issue furlough notices to civilian employees with sufficient lead time to implement a furlough on or about 23 February 08. For foreign national personnel, provide the equivalent of furlough procedures under the respective Status of Forces Agreement. Identify the weekly payroll cost of mission essential civilian personnel. Furlough dates will be provided for US Civilian personnel by G1.

Congress will be under the gun in the days before Christmas to pass the normal fiscal year 2008 appropriations bills, energy legislation, a FISA reauthorization, and other priorities. There will be no greater pressure however, than to pass legislation to fund the war on terror. And considering that the Democratic defense amounts to saying 'but we already funded it,' it's hard not to imagine them backing down on this one.

Nevertheless, expect war opponents in Congress and the MoveOn crowd to scream like stuck pigs. As a result, the war on terror funding is likely to be added as late as possible, in broad omnibus legislation that's hard to oppose.

Meanwhile, how are things going in Iraq? Glad you asked: 6,000 Sunnis Join Pact with U.S., Convoy of Returning Refugees Arrives, UB, Iraq University Sign Deal.

The only real question is whether the legislation to fund the war will be accompanied by a return to reality on the part of Congressional Democrats.

The Cardinal has posted an interesting 200 scenario this morning over at the Campaign Standard. In response to the boss's declaration that now, more than ever, the Republican race is a five way battle, Richelieu deigns to agree:

I see my good friend, the distinguished neo-Jacobin Monsieur Kristol, has broken into his ample wine supply again and insulted the monarchy. A weekend chained to the cheap seats at an Alabama tractor pull would seem fitting punishment for my rabble loving friend's imprudence, but alas, we aristocrats no longer rule. Curse us then, and enjoy your bowling alleys. On the larger point, however, I agree more than disagree with his argument that the race is wider than a simple 2-way. It indeed is possible that any of the five major candidates can win, I just don't believe they all have the same chance.

Go read the rest for his upset scenario.

This recent Soren Dayton post on Mike Huckabee makes a salient point in light of Fred Thompson's recent attacks on Huckabee's tax record:

I suspect that the continual attacks on Huckabee aren't going to be so threatening. First, his voters probably don't care. As Richard Land said about Duncan Hunter, 'A lot of evangelicals are probably sympathetic to his protectionist arguments.' Second, his response that he spent money on school and roads can be pretty compelling to a bunch of Iowa farmers, if he manages to get his message out. And third, I wonder how many of the super-rich Club for Growthers are left? How many i-bankers participate in Iowa caucuses anyways?

Now, this has focused on Huckabee's economic message. There is an interesting question about Huckabee's message on moral issues. My gut is that Huckabee follows the breezes in the evangelical community.

Of course, any successful politician "follows the breezes" to some degree. Because a politician's job is to get 51 percent (or a winning plurality) of the people to like him (or her) at any given time. Huckabee's decision to sign Grover Norquist's anti-tax-hike pledge, coupled with his advocacy of the "fair tax," probably will inoculate him from further attacks on the tax issue, primarily because, as Dayton suggests, Huckabee's core voters aren't concerned with supply-side economics anyway. Besides, maybe moralistic Christian-toned reformism is where most of the GOP is headed. Which would mean that the candidate who best represents that political tendency may have an extremely good shot at the Republican nomination.

There's a ruckus in the blogosphere over the plan of the Virginia Republican party to require voters in its primary to sign a statement saying they 'intend' to support the party's presidential nominee in 2008.

Tracy Mehan of the American Spectator writes:

What is pretty clear is that the SBE [State Board of Elections] is going to lose the inevitable lawsuit on this matter, and it should. This oath is an unconstitutional infringement on any GOP voter's right to vote given that it extracts a promise to vote in the general election for candidates unknown and unknowable as of the primary election day. Even if the oath is construed to require simply "loyalty," rather than an actual vote, it is an affront to private thought and conscience.

Moreover, it probably violates the voter's First Amendment rights for a host of reasons. But try this one on for size: suppose a Catholic Republican, i.e., me, has to face the choice of voting for the former Mayor of New York City or the Senator from the State of New York. Given that both candidates have, well, let's just say problematic positions on the right to life and the integrity of the family, the moral imperatives may demand writing in another worthy candidate for president.

At the Corner, David Freddoso calls it 'deeply troubling' and 'totally absurd.' But this isn't the first time an oath has been required:

In 2000, Republicans asked state election officials whether they could require voters to sign an oath that they would support "all of the Republican Party's nominees in the next election." The State Board of Elections rejected that pledge but did allow the party to require GOP primary voters to sign a form stating they would not also participate in the Democrats' nominating contest, which was held on a separate date.

Virginia law now permits either party to request that primary voters state their intention to support the eventual nominee in the general election.

So in 2000 the GOP was not allowed to require that primary voters pledge to support the full Republican slate, but was permitted to require that primary voters not also vote in the Democratic primary. In 2008, the pledge will require voters to state their intent to vote for the Republican nominee. The Post article seems to imply that the legislature changed the law after 2000 to permit the stronger oath, but I can't confirm that. (The relevant portion of the Virginia code is here, for those who may be interested.)

There are plenty of states that have open primaries and there don't seem to be all that many instances where opposing partisans cross over in sufficient number to influence the outcome. Despite extremely low turnout in the Jim Webb-Harris Miller Democratic Senate primary of 2006, it doesn't seem that Republicans influenced the outcome in any way. Why is the Virginia Republican party making itself up as an object of ridicule over a pledge that's essentially meaningless anyway?

In a state that does not allow registration by party, and which mandates open primaries, it seems that only the honor system can prevent voters from crossing lines to participate in the opposition primary. But if there's no apparent problem, why fight it?

Gabe Schoenfeld had a post up yesterday at his Commentary blog Connecting the Dots about a recent visit by Natan Sharansky to the magazine's offices. Schoenfeld challenged the one time Soviet dissident to a game of chess. Perhaps I found this more interesting than most--when I was at school, I spent most of my time shooting pool and playing chess--but Shoenfeld was actually able to play Sharanksy to a draw. Sharansky once played Gary Kasparov to a draw, which by Shoenfeld's logic seems to mean that he, too, might be able to play Kasparov to a draw. If I'd managed the same feat, I'm sure I'd be thinking the same way:

In our second game, I had the black pieces. I steered into one of my favorite lines of the rock-solid Caro-Kann. Before too long, I was able to exchange off some of Sharansky’s most actively placed pieces and then I managed to win one of his central pawns, obtaining a very strong position. On his 24th move, Sharansky made a blunder and gave up a second pawn. The game was now all but won.

But my opponent proved to be nothing if not resourceful, and unfortunately, through inaccurate play, I helped him along. As I pushed my pawns forward he managed to maneuver his rooks onto the seventh rank, whereupon I agreed (prematurely, it turns out) to a draw. At a score of 1/2 to 1 1/2, I ended up with the same result against Sharansky that Garry Kasparov had obtained against him, a score that left me immensely satisfied that I had been able to lay a finger on this remarkable Russian, Israeli, Jewish hero.

If you're a fan of the game, you'll certainly enjoy Schoenfeld's piece.

Update: The video, via Jewcy's Cabal...

I pass this along from a friend who favors Thompson:

Read Fred's op-ed in today's Des Moines Register, 'Reclaim greatness: Lower taxes. Enforce laws.' It's excellent. Watch the Thompson campaign's new 2-minute web video, 'Revolution,' at http://fred08.com. It's terrific. Think about the alternatives to Fred. Really ... does the Republican party, a principled conservative party, at a time when the nation's at war, want to nominate a moderate one-term governor who's trying to buy the nomination, a temperamental liberal New York City mayor, or a smooth-talking governor-preacher with no foreign policy experience? If McCain can't make it, serious Republicans will end up going with a grown-up, experienced, knowledgeable, and consistent conservative - Fred. Watch for his numbers to move in December.

Without endorsing his unfair jabs at the others, I'd say: My friend could be right. If you can get good enough odds, bet McCain or Thompson.

Last night's CNN / YouTube GOP presidential debate has occasioned many fine letters to the editor. Here's my favorite, from a reader in Cedar Rapids, Iowa:

My big question is how come the GOP candidates did not know that this was [bad] idea in advance? It took me exactly 20 seconds after the start of the 'debate' to realize this. Are they that out of touch with the Internet?

Thank God that HBO had 'Inside the NFL' on.

As a Green Bay Packer season ticket holder I was able to hear about my team's trip to Dallas Thursday and purge my mind of CNN's rancid aftertaste.

To answer your question, dear reader: Yes, the candidates probably are that out of touch with the Internet.

Just one thing to note in addition to Noonan's post. F-22 Raptors from Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska conducted their first ever intercept of Russian bombers on Thanksgiving day. There was a similar incident over the summer--disputed by the Pentagon--in which Russian officials claimed that their long-range bombers had overflown Guam and "exchanged smiles" with the American fighters that intercepted them. That earlier incident received far more attention than the incident off the coast of Alaska, despite the fact that the latter incident actually took place--and just off America's shores.

As Noonan says, we're seeing a resurgent Russian military, buoyed by high oil prices and foreign military sales. And the Chinese aren't far behind. As the reliability of an aging fleet of F-15s is called into question, the value of the F-22--an aircraft already in production--has become increasingly apparent. Earlier this week, Defense News reported that Congressional support for extending the program was growing--the 2008 appropriations bill suggests that the service redirect $526 million in its 2009 budget from closing down production "to support procurement of an additional 20 aircraft.” It's clear we will need at least that many more.

I'm not generally what you might call a bias sniffer (life is too short!), but John Podhoretz is right about CNN's so-called "standards" for questioners during last night's GOP debate:

The scandalous aspect last night is that three Democratic operatives were allowed to pose as 'unaffiliated voters' asking questions specifically designed to embarrass the entire Republican party, not just the candidates on stage. Given the fact that it took bloggers all of 12 seconds to figure this out, one has to ask how on earth CNN producers didn't think to do the elementary spade work of simply Googling the names of the questioners to ensure they met the 'unaffiliated voter' standard CNN and YouTube had set out.

It's easy to see why CNN's producers liked their questions. It's because those questions echoed the partisan prejudices of CNN producers. This sort of liberal media bias would have been far less of an issue if we were talking about a debate between the Democratic and Republican nominees for president, because in those circumstances both candidates are seeking to govern all Americans, even those who don't vote for them. But in a Republican primary debate, when it is GOP members who are trying to determine which candidate should best represent their party, an overwhelmingly Democratic institution like CNN needs to be specially conscious of the way its biases might play into question selection.

What CNN did last night was annoying, but it's worth remembering that Republicans have won six of the last nine presidential elections, media biases notwithstanding.

The Norwegians are reporting that Russian submarine and bomber sorties jumped in the latter half of 2007. While this isn't exactly breaking news, the "hey, it's cool guys" reaction from the Norwegians--a nation that once postured its entire military against Soviet land, air, and sea incursions--is surprising.

The second half of 2007 has seen an increase in submarine activity out of Russia's Northern Fleet Base (NFB) in Murmansk, according to fresh "tracking" reports produced by the Norway Armed Forces' Military Intelligence Unit (MIU) for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) The increase in submarine activity mirrors a rise in scheduled and unflagged exercises by Russian air Force in the North Atlantic and off Norway's western coast, the report observes.

However, the report notes that Norway's territorial waters and airspace have not been violated by the increase in Russia's air and naval operations in the region. The report explained the increased activity as "Russia's need to display its renewed military strength" to NATO.

"Norway is not overly alarmed over the higher number of aircraft and submarine operations," said Espen Barth Eide, state secretary at the MoD. "Russia appears to be displaying both its intent and ability to be a superpower to be reckoned with."

"Ability" is still questionable, the Russian military took an awful pounding during the 90s. Which might explain Norway's relatively sanguine attitude towards the fact that Murmansk is once again becoming a real beehive of air and sea activity. Cool with it or not, the Norwegians should--at the very least--be reevaluating their own post Cold War force reductions.

And so should the United States.

Just recently, Canadian interceptors had to shoulder the NORAD air defense emergency load while U.S. Air Force officials investigated why our F-15s are falling apart in mid-air. With all due respect to the Canadian Air Force, leaving our northern flank relatively undefended would have never happened during the Cold War, and should never happen in this modern age of airline hijackings.

Unfortunately, this is the new dichotomy of war that has been forced upon our military: strategic provocations from Russian bombers and Chinese subs, and tactical threats from terrorists who operate outside the bounds of the nation-state. I've given the Air Force their share of grief for sucking up a kingly share of resources that need to be distributed amongst the ground pounders, but that's a problem that needs to be solved by a Congress that is grossly underfunding the force, not the blue-suiters who are struggling to keep their planes flying.

There was a time when U.S. forces obsessed over their ability to fight two different wars in two different theaters. Today, they must fight two completely different types of wars in myriad theaters. Unfortunately, they may not have the cash to do either.

I see my good friend, the distinguished neo-Jacobin Monsieur Kristol, has broken into his ample wine supply again and insulted the monarchy. A weekend chained to the cheap seats at an Alabama tractor pull would seem fitting punishment for my rabble loving friend's imprudence, but alas, we aristocrats no longer rule. Curse us then, and enjoy your bowling alleys. On the larger point, however, I agree more than disagree with his argument that the race is wider than a simple 2-way. It indeed is possible that any of the five major candidates can win, I just don't believe they all have the same chance.

Washington conventional wisdom has long pegged Huckabee as the Iowa upsetter to look out for. Now the question is, could the Arkansan actually be nominated? I think he could, and his chance now is better than Thompson's and rivals McCain's, being somewhere between a long- and medium-shot.

Let me sketch one potential scenario: Huckabee wins the Iowa caucus (which is what would happen if the election were today). Romney is second. Rudy is third and Thompson fourth. Huckabee surges into New Hampshire and his communications skills help him ride the wave perfectly. But Romney has some success in framing the New Hampshire race as a choice between a regular Republican from the Northeast and a southern Christian conservative. He tickles New Hampshire's secret "screw Iowa" appetite and with McCain retaining some strength in New Hampshire Giuliani finds it hard to surge. The results are muddy. Huckabee narrowly wins New Hampshire by fewer than 900 votes over Romney. McCain is third, closely followed by Giuliani. Thompson is fifth and drops out.

The next week Romney narrowly beats Huckabee, now fueled by enough Internet money to run television, in Michigan. McCain runs a distant third. The media labels Huckabee's close second place finish a "win" in a state where he has no organization. Huckabee beats the wounded Romney four days later in South Carolina. McCain drops out after a second disappointing third place finish, narrowly ahead of Giuliani, whose campaign announces they are making a final make or break stand in Florida, as they have always claimed in their brilliant Master Plan. Seeing Romney as his main opponent in Florida for the regular Republican vote, Giuliani uses his final cash on hand to launch a very tough television attack on Romney, featuring former Massachusetts governor and Rudy supporter Paul "DeNiro" Cellucci. McCain endorses Rudy. Romney interjects another $5 million in personal funds into his campaign and launches a blistering TV counterattack on Rudy. Ten days later, Huckabee wins the Florida primary, dominating north Florida and showing surprising strength in Pinellas, Orange, and Broward counties. Romney finishes second. Rudy, now lagging in every February 5 state poll except New York, drops out, refusing to endorse either remaining GOP candidate. On February 5, Huckabee sweeps, losing only Connecticut, Utah, and Delaware to Romney, who then leaves the race.

On February 7, presumptive nominee Mike Huckabee pledges a campaign of "compassion, comparison, and civility" against presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama. New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg announces the formation of an exploratory committee for an independent presidential
campaign. Rumored budget: $1.5 billion. The cover of TIME magazine screams: "Tsunami 2008: The Year of the Upset."

The hall hosting the first ever GOP YouTube debate was big and raucous. At the start of the broadcast, Anderson Cooper promptly informed the audience that "the questions all came from you." I can't remember ever having felt so empowered.

The prelude to the questions was a topical two minute folk song delivered via YouTube. And to think, I was worried the format would lack dignity. The best thing I can say about the format is that it allowed for a lot of close-ups of Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris could single-handedly solve the illegal immigration problem. We all know that.

The worst part of the format came when a retired brigadier general sporting an oddly flamboyant wristband asked the candidates about gays in the military. It turned out that said brigadier general with the oddly flamboyant wristband was not only in the crowd, but out of the closet. After the candidates answered the general's YouTube question, Cooper surprised everyone by turning the proceedings over to the gay general, who seized the moment and hectored the candidates for about two minutes.

For what it's worth, I still felt empowered. The candidates had to answer questions from people just like me! For once, the candidates had to deal with ordinary Americans - red blooded, Bible-touting, Confederate flag-waving, gun-firing, Mars exploring gay generals. Read the Internets - the YouTube debate was a smashing success!

So was this a seismic night? I'll give that one a big yes. Tonight heralded the arrival of Mike Huckabee as a force in this race. Not a spoiler, not a wildcard, but a force. Huckamania is still running wild.

It was a very strong night for the campaign's "it" candidate. I thought the "What would Jesus do?" question about the death penalty might trip him up. Shows you what I know. By the time he was done, I was staring at the TV agape. Oh my, is he a smoothie and a charmer.

Then he did the almost unimaginable - he got even stronger when he got the chance to discuss the Bible. Yes, he had a home court advantage on the question, but he exploited it brilliantly. The line about finite man not being able to comprehend an infinite God touched even this non-Christian. If Huckabee should become president, that will be his "I paid for this microphone" moment. The man connects. I can imagine a lot of people, especially a lot of Iowan Republicans, heard that skillful answer and their minds snapped shut. They found their candidate.

A personal note to all my sophisticated East Coast friends: Don't wait for the Christmas rush - stop underestimating Huckabee now. Unless the other guys can be a lot more effective at landing some leather on him than they were last night, he may win Iowa by 20 points.

P.S. - Did Fred Thompson attend last night's debate?

You can get your fill at the Campaign Standard, where Fred Barnes, Bill Kristol, Richelieu, Steve Hayes, and Terry Eastland have all weighed in. For my part, I'm with Fred:

When the CNN-You Tube debate among Republican presidential candidates began with a guy named Chris Nandor playing a guitar and singing, my wife Barbara exclaimed, "This is humiliating. This is really bad." Of course she was right. And then things got worse. This debate not only was mortifying to the candidates. It also should have been embarrassing to the viewers, especially Republican voters who might have been watching.

I don't know if the folks who put the debate together were purposely trying to make the Republican candidates look bad, but they certainly succeeded.

The whole thing was an embarrassment, with CNN picking questions guaranteed to make the party look out of touch with American voters. I had the same reaction to the Chris Nandor song--he took a wicked jab at Romney. And why the big stink about gays in the military, which just isn't a major issue within the Republican party. All the candidates share what is basically the same position, and it turns out of course that Brig. Gen. Kerr is closely affiliated with the Clinton campaign--"a co-chair of Hillary Clinton's National Military Veterans group," according to the Politico. For all Kerr's complaining about don't ask, don't tell, he still seems to live by it. And he didn't do his cause any favors last night.

And here's Cooper's lame apology. Shorter version: if I'd know he was part of the Clinton campaign, I would have asked the question myself.

Update: Just got Dean's reaction up on the DAILY STANDARD, I think he puts it pretty well:

The worst part of the format came when a retired brigadier general sporting an oddly flamboyant wristband asked the candidates about gays in the military. It turned out that said brigadier general with the oddly flamboyant wristband was not only in the crowd, but out of the closet. After the candidates answered the general's YouTube question, Cooper surprised everyone by turning the proceedings over to the gay general, who seized the moment and hectored the candidates for about two minutes.

For what it's worth, I still felt empowered. The candidates had to answer questions from people just like me! For once, the candidates had to deal with ordinary Americans--red blooded, Bible-touting, Confederate flag-waving, gun-firing, Mars exploring gay generals.

Update II: So it wasn't just the general that was playing don't ask, don't tell with party affiliation. Michelle is keeping a running tally of questioners from last night who are also affiliated with Democratic campaigns. Nice work CNN. And what about YouTube? It's owned by Google--one might think they would have the same investigative resources as Michelle, i.e. Google, and find this stuff out before hand. I wonder if I'm the only conservative who thinks Google is starting to look an awful lot like a monopoly...

Richelieu, being an aristocrat, indeed a French aristocrat, may scorn the "vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes" that we saw asking questions tonight, courtesy of CNN and YouTube. We Americans don't dare scorn our fellow citizens (at least not publicly). We recognize that parade as ... the electorate.

In any case, what did we learn from how the five major Republican candidates dealt with the electorate tonight?

That there are five major candidates. Based on what we saw tonight, I don't expect the two front-runners, Romney and Giuliani, to pull away from the field. Either could of course win. But what was on display in this debate were Romney's and Giuliani's weaknesses more than their strengths. It's a fact that Giuliani is the most liberal of the major Republican candidates. One saw tonight how easy it's going to be to remind people of un-conservative aspects of Giuliani's record, on issues such as guns and immigration, over the coming weeks. It's a fact that Romney has the thinnest record of the major candidates, and a somewhat inconsistent record at that. One saw tonight how his rivals will be able to highlight this.

Both men are in many ways impressive - but tonight the other three performed better than the top two. McCain seemed by far the most plausible commander-in-chief. Thompson reminded people that he is a steady, consistent, and thoughtful conservative. Huckabee showed off his considerable candidate skills, including his sense of humor and his ability to seem sincere. Each has a decent chance to gain ground in the next few weeks (Thompson and Huckabee in Iowa, McCain in New Hampshire), at the expense of Romney and Giuliani, while those two engage in some heavy-duty mutual assured destruction. McCain, Thompson and Huckabee each has a chance - in my view, not that much less of a chance than Romney or Giuliani - to be the Republican nominee.

The best performance wasn't turned in by one of the candidates. No, the Oscar goes to that Thompson ad. It doesn't introduce Thompson - he doesn't even speak.The ad features Mitt Romney when he was pro-abortion rights, and Mike Huckabee when (as governor of Arkansas) he was agreeable to increasing various taxes. The ad closes by pitching Thompson as the authentic conservative in the race. It's a well-done ad, and it indicates how Thompson believes he can pull off a top-three finish in Iowa: attack Romney and Huckabee (the two are atop the Iowa polls) where they have evident vulnerabilities; get them on the defensive; force them to explain themselves. Notably, the CNN moderator, Anderson Cooper, picked up at the end of the ad by going to Romney and Huckabee to get their responses.

Unfortunately for Thompson, Romney and Huckabee both turned in generally strong performances. Romney also went after Huckabee, observing during an exchange on immigration that talking with Huckabee was like talking to a liberal in Massachusetts (ouch!). Huckabee - engaging throughout - offered a thoughtful defense of the death penalty while fending off a silly question - what would Jesus do about the death penalty - with a touch of humor: "Jesus was too smart to run for public office."

The debate leaves some questions about the Republican race - whether Thompson is cranking it up too late to break through, whether Huckabee will ever be slowed by the suggestion that he is a liberal or that he is not a true conservative (it has not happened so far), and whether Romney, his bid for the nomination predicated on winning Iowa, will realize that goal - the efforts of Huckabee and now Thompson notwithstanding - on January 3.

When the CNN-You Tube debate among Republican presidential candidates began with a guy named Chris Nandor playing a guitar and singing, my wife Barbara exclaimed, "This is humiliating. This is really bad." Of course she was right. And then things got worse. This debate not only was mortifying to the candidates. It also should have been embarrassing to the viewers, especially Republican voters who might have been watching.

I don't know if the folks who put the debate together were purposely trying to make the Republican candidates look bad, but they certainly succeeded. True, the candidates occasionally contributed. For the first few minutes, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney continued their debate over their records on immigration and did so with the kind of intensity that this trivial matter didn't warrant. These are two fine candidates who have only themselves to blame for looking petty.

But it was chiefly the questions and who asked them that made the debate so appalling. By my recollection, there were no questions on health care, the economy, trade, the S-chip children's health care issue, the "surge" in Iraq, the spending showdown between President Bush and Congress, terrorist surveillance, or the performance of the Democratic Congress.

Instead there were questions - ones moderator Anderson Cooper kept insisting had required a lot of time and effort by the questioners - on the Confederate flag, Mars, Giuliani's rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, whether Ron Paul might run as an independent for president, and the Bible. The best response to these questions was Romney's refusal to discuss what the Confederate flag represents. Fred Thompson discussed it.

The most excruciating episode occurred when Cooper allowed a retired general in the audience to drone on with special pleading in favor of allowing gays in the military. This was a setup. The general had asked a question by video, then suddenly appeared in the crowd and got the mike. The aim here could only have been to make the Republican candidates, all of whom oppose gays in the military, squirm. As it turned out, they didn’t appear to. The general turns out to be a Clinton supporter, by the way.

By my count, of the 30-plus questions, there were 6 on immigration, 3 on guns, 2 on abortion, 2 on gays, and one on whether the candidates believe every word in the Bible. These are exactly the issues, in the view of liberals and many in the media, on which Republicans look particularly unattractive. And there were two questions by African Americans premised loosely on the notion that blacks get nothing from Republicans and have no reason to vote for them.

These questions would better be asked of Democrats at one of their presidential debates. After all, the biggest news so far at a Democratic debate was when Hillary Clinton muffed a question about illegal immigrants and drivers' licenses.

My impression was that Ron Paul, the libertarian, got considerably more attention than he usually does in debates and far more than he deserves as a marginal candidate. At least Paul's harping on the need to keep American troops at home prompted one good exchange. John McCain's response to Paul was that he'd been with the troops on Thanksgiving and their message was, "Let us win. Let us win. Let us win."

Nonetheless, it was a good night for Paul if only because he was treated as a major political figure rather than as the Republican version of Dennis Kucinich. The other candidates, with the exception of Mike Huckabee, were losers. They came off as a bunch of squabbling cousins.

Huckabee, though, knows how to conduct himself in TV debates. He’s genial, funny, extremely likable, and not very substantive. He seems to understand that a CNN-You Tube debate is not a serious forum at which serious people discuss serious issues. So he doesn't get worked up, and this posture works.

At the end of the debate, I was left with one question. Why would Republican candidates with a chance of actually winning the presidential nomination subject themselves to two hours of humiliation? I wish the candidates had been asked that. It would have the highlight of the evening.

Rudy Giuliani is probably the strongest debater of the group, but he botched the question on gun control that was directed to him. The question asked why someone who supports the 2nd Amendment would say what Giuliani said in 2000: "Anyone wanting to own a gun should have to pass a written exam."

Giuliani gave a halting response, saying that gun laws must be enforced "aggressively," rattling off statistics about crime in New York City, and claiming to be a supporter of the 2nd Amendment. Huh? Stumbling over his words, he then cited "the Parker decision" without really explaining what the Parker decision was. It was a bad answer, chiefly because it came across as insincere. Giuliani is strongest when he simply speaks his mind. When he waffles, he often gets specific. He did this in one of the early debates when asked about abortion. He dove into the weeds by talking about the "Hyde Amendment," something known only to strong pro-life voters who were never going to support Giuliani anyway. This seems to be an emerging pattern. When Giuliani equivocates, he falls back on specifics he probably heard in debate prep. But he comes across as something of a poser, like the high school kid who tries to fit in by talking about baseball and complains about the ref. It's an old political cliche, but Rudy should just be Rudy.

Fred Thompson clearly sees Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee as his main competition. He chose to use his 30-second YouTube spot to show old footage of Romney supporting abortion rights and Huckabee backing tax hikes. It was incredibly effective, mostly because of the way Thompson handled himself afterwards. When the video was finished, Anderson Cooper asked: "What's up with that?" Thompson laughed heartily and said: "Just wanted to give my buddies a little extra airtime." Then everyone else laughed.

Romney - who was shown saying "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country" - responded with a cringe-inducing attempt at a joke. "I'm not sure who that young guy was in the beginning of that film," he said with a chuckle. Silence.

Huckabee helped himself considerably with his answer to a question on religion. The questioner held up a Bible and demanded to know whether candidates believe the words it contains literally. Huckabee, who is running as the religious conservative in the race in Iowa, allowed that some passages in the Bible are allegorical and quoted scripture. The words rolled off of his tongue and he sounded very natural doing it. I suspect that churchgoing voters found it appealing. He closed with this: "There are parts of it that I don't fully understand, but I'm not supposed to because the Bible is the revelation of an infinite God and no finite person is ever going to fully understand it. If they do, their God is too small." It came off as thoughtful, not preachy.

John McCain was strong on Iraq, as he always is, though he reached a bit by trying to engage Ron Paul on the issue. His answer on waterboarding will probably resonate with even those people who disagree with him.

What a depressing debate. CNN's long slide into mediocrity accelerates. Is this what running for president of the greatest democracy in the world has become? Standing in front of CNN's corporate logo in a hall full of yowling Ron Paul loons and enduring clumsy webcam questions from Unabomber look-a-likes in murky basements?

I feel lucky to be from an earlier century where your own founding fathers knew that the secret to government is to protect it from the daily mob. Clearly the boundless paranoia of middle-aged media executives about the kids and their mysterious "Internet" has led them to stoop to this kind of pandering foolishness. They should feel shame tonight.

So, a good night for for the lowest denominator, a bad night for the GOP. America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

The latest South Carolina poll confirms some disturbing news for Rudolph Giuliani's presidential campaign: According to pollster Charles Franklin and friends, Giuliani's trend-lines in Iowa, Michigan, and South Carolina are all downward, while his trend in New Hampshire remains steady at around 20 percent support. The one bright spot? Florida, where Giuliani's support is at about 31 percent and trending upward. Plus, according to The Hill, Giuliani has solid financial support in Florida. He has a real shot of winning the state, in other words. Which means that he can't afford to allow early-state losses to damage his Florida numbers. And that he's likely to be a major target during tonight's debate, taking fire from rivals who would like to see his Florida support trend downward once again.

So let me deconstruct this thing for you, since I doubt you've been following the recent intramural skirmish among liberal pundits. Joe Klein, representing the old guard, has been single-handedly duking it out with the glitterati of the progressive blogosphere including Markos Moulitsas, Glenn Greenwald and “the tenacious” Jane Hamsher.

The whole thing started when Klein wrote a characteristically banal piece in Time magazine lamenting what a bunch of wimps the Democrats are when it comes to national security. This article included a couple of paragraphs on the congressional wrangling surrounding FISA reform. Klein apparently didn’t get all the details right; in a subsequent sort-of correction he published on Time's blog, Klein confessed, “I may have made a mistake in my column this week about the FISA legislation passed by the House, although it's difficult to tell for sure.” Time's editors also said something about his original reportage, but I’ll be damned if I remember what it was.

The area of substantive disagreement is that Klein reported that lclkecerv5tg5oghg0vff0oldwldlf4ogoj3-fpdnmwcm-f3-f4mv4-celkwkdgwifeofero – I’m sorry. I feel asleep at the keyboard. A possible error in a widely ignored Time magazine article is not significant enough to get into.

Whatever happened, the left wing blogopshere went crazy over Klein's piece; collectively, they haven’t gone this far off the deep end since the vultures began circling John Edwards' erstwhile bloggers. Glenn Greenwald has written about nothing other than the Klein dust-up for the past week, except for one brief post where he gloated over John Howard’s downfall. Meanwhile, Daily Kos front pager Kagro X (if that’s his/her/its real name) noted the fearsome, destructive power of Time magazine:

That's the story -- and a pretty damned big one at that, I'd say -- that Time's readers and the nation at large are missing out on, all for the sake of the egos of the petty tyrants at Time, who'd rather stick it to some bloggers than tell the country their Constitution is going down the toilet.

The petty tyrants at Time and their egos are the reason the public is so misguided? Who knew? Maybe I should master the details of the story. On second thought, never mind. Left unanswered by Kagro X is the nagging question of whether the Constitution going down the toilet is triggering riots in River City the way the Koran going down the toilet triggered riots in Riyadh. Wait a second--that erroneous report came from Markos Moulitsas' new employers at Newsweek. Besides, upon further reflection, Kagro X is probably speaking figuratively. But I digress.

Like I said, the substance of the story is too boring to pay attention to. FISA is important; Joe Klein’s multiple pratfalls in trying to nail down his story and Glenn Greenwald's Javert-like quest to nail down Klein are not. Then again, we could have used these lefty bloggers during Rather-gate. They are indeed tenacious.

It's too bad the left wing bloggers didn’t pay attention to the Beauchamp affair. If they had, they wouldn't have been so unpleasantly mugged by the reality that reporters, writers, and magazines sometimes make enormous errors and don’t show any noticeable zeal in addressing those errors. Mind you, I'm not saying that Klein made any enormous errors; on the substance of the matter, I remain determinedly, blissfully ignorant.

The fact that this has become the dominant focus of progressive bloggers the past week just shows what a really odd place the blogosphere has become. They pose as the voice of the people, but guess what? The people don’t give a hoot about Joe Klein writing on FISA. Not the people who have lives, anyway.

There’s a presidential campaign going on. I wonder how many people think the “petty tyrants at Time” and their reportage of the intricacies of FISA reform are a major issue.

President Musharraf has officially stepped down as chief of staff of Pakistan's army. Tomorrow he will be sworn in as the president of Pakistan. According to Pakistan's attorney general, Musharraf may drop the Provisional Constitution Order in the next several days. Pakistan's Daily Times reports:

The AG said, “General Musharraf’s oath as civilian president on November 29 would be taken under the 1973 Constitution and not under the PCO. He added that the upcoming general elections would also be held under the 1973 Constitution. Under the PCO some Articles relating to fundamental rights and the higher judiciary were suspended while provisions dealing with the presidential office remained intact, he said. He said the government had been considering lifting emergency rule but the recent terrorist acts had delayed the decision.

Musharraf declared the state of emergency at the beginning of November, which allowed him to suspend the 1973 constitution and replace it with the Provisional Constitution Order. Musharraf essentially imposed martial law, and was then able to replace members of the Supreme Court who refused to back his election as president. Musharraf was in violation of the constitution by serving as both president and chief of staff of the armed forces.

Musharraf stated his main reason for suspending the constitution was to fight the growing rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda. But if the 1973 constitution is restored prior to any attempts to clear the Taliban from its strongholds up and down the Northwest Frontier Province and the tribal areas, it is clear Musharraf's real intent was to preserve his own position in the Pakistani political power structure.

WWS contributor Jennifer Chou sends along a link to this story that just hit the wires:

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told President George W. Bush on Wednesday that Beijing's refusal to let a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier into Hong Kong was a "misunderstanding," the White House said.

There's no additional explanation offered, but it strikes me that the Chinese are being more than a little reckless. "Misunderstandings" involving aircraft carriers are, by their nature, dangerous for all parties involved. At the beginning of the year, Bill Gertz reported on another Chinese "misunderstanding" that involved the Kitty Hawk:

The admiral in charge of the U.S. Pacific Fleet pressed Chinese military leaders to explain why an armed submarine challenged a U.S. aircraft carrier in the western Pacific by sailing within five miles of the warship, U.S. defense officials said.

The Chinese responded by claiming the Song-class submarine that surfaced near the USS Kitty Hawk on Oct. 27 was there by accident, and that it did not shadow the warship before making its presence known, the officials said.

Defense officials familiar with reports of closed-door military meetings in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhanjiang privately doubted the Chinese explanations and said it is more likely the Song-class diesel electric submarine was practicing anti-aircraft carrier operations.

A few months earlier, Larry Wortzel, chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and a leading expert on Chinese military policy, spoke on China's military ambitions in space at the National Press Club:

With respect to the goal the PLA has set of attacking a U.S. aircraft carrier battle group at sea, we don’t know, from their writings, whether their war plans--believe it or not, we all have war plans--are for a conventional, a nuclear or a high-altitude electro-magnetic pulse burst. But the PLA sees the goal of attacking a deployed American carrier battle group as realistic and achievable. Think of the implications of that! The Enterprise docked in Norfolk just before Thanksgiving and there are 5,000 people on the Enterprise alone. The casualties at Pearl Harbor reached only 2,400. The World Trade Center wasn’t much more than 2,400. Thus, when PLA officers routinely talk about being able to attack and sink an American aircraft carrier, they aren’t thinking really hard about what comes back at them after that.

I would argue that one of the implications of what seems to be serious research and writing in China is that the United States ought to be engaged in equally serious defense talks with the senior PLA leaders on what the red lines are in warfare. The anti-satellite programs that I talked about affect our strategic warning. The Chinese need to understand that we are very sensitive about interference with our strategic warning and about the ability of the United States to gather indications of hostility. When another nation interferes with that capability, we tend to take that as an indication that the nation may want to attack us. If you have been in the strategic warning system awhile, you know that the United States talked to the Soviets about this at great length. We still talk to the Russians about it. Senior American defense and foreign policy leaders have not had this dialogue with the Chinese. The PLA won’t even get serious about a dialogue with the Pacific commander about naval incidents at sea, to make sure that the next time a Song submarine broaches the surface, it doesn’t do it under the Kitty Hawk carrier battle group and bump into it. The PLA has avoided such discussions despite repeated requests from the U.S., and we need to talk to them about these matters.

The Chinese seem to think that putting these incidents off to mere "misunderstandings" is sufficient, but the behavior is in fact unbelievably reckless. They have no sense of what our red lines are, and this latest snub of the Kitty Hawk is unlikely to reduce the chance of escalation the next time we have a misunderstanding at sea.

"Mitt Romney, meet Willie Horton!" enthused Chris Matthews on Hardball, about the commotion created by the news that Romney, when governor, appointed a judge who let a murderer out of jail without supervision, a murderer who went on to kill, in this case two people, again. And there is the end of a great urban legend, still cherished by those on the left.

Willie Horton, you will recall, was the convicted murderer let out of jail in Massachusetts on an unsupervised furlough, on which he raped and assaulted some people in Maryland, on a program defended by Michael Dukakis, who was running for president back in 1988. Picked up as an issue by George Bush 41 as a way to define Dukakis as soft on crime, on criminals, and on predators of all sorts domestic and foreign, the attack was both extremely effective and denounced by the left as a nefarious tactic. No one cared, the left said, that Horton had stabbed a nineteen-year-old boy to death with multiple knife wounds, no one cared that he raped a young woman and stabbed her fiance; no one cared that Dukakis had been indifferent to the complaints of the victims and their survivors, and remarkably solicitous to the feelings of killers; all they cared was that the killer was ... black.

Race was the only reason voters had to object to Dukakis. Why else would they mind having a governor who put the convenience of murderers ahead of the safety of citizens, a governor who refused to meet crime victims (or their survivors) while commiserating with the families of prisoners; why else would they mind having sociopaths moving freely among them? No one would object to being stabbed, raped, or having his relatives killed by someone of his own ethic background or melanin quotient. The answer would have to be race.

Then, along comes Daniel Tavares Jr., a convicted killer released by a judge in, again, Massachusetts, and the public erupts in a Horton-esque furor, blaming the public officials responsible, not knowing it isn't supposed to be bothered, as the killer is - hold your hats, people - white. Imagine that. A 'person of pallor,' as James Taranto would put it, and people still think this was wrong. So, it was the crime after all that made people turn on Dukakis; the crime, not the looks of the criminal, not 'white' fears of 'black' crime, but fears of crime, period; not fear of what some people look like, but fear of what some people do.

Apologies to Bush 41 doubtless will be coming in shortly. It's the crime, stupid. It was the crime all along.

The wonders of nuclear fission never cease. Discharge from nuclear power plant turns Lake Anna into hot springs:

MINERAL, Va. -- As fisherman Roger A. Hanna Sr. sped across Lake Anna one morning this month, the air temperature hovered barely above freezing. But his digital water gauge registered a balmy 72 degrees.

On the Louisa County shoreline, the North Anna nuclear power plant draws on the man-made lake for coolant to condense steam inside the plant. The water, heated during the cycle, discharges into three lagoons and then returns to the lake, creating a hot springs of sorts here in central Virginia.

The result is a 13,000-acre reservoir with two parts: a cold one fed from the west by the North Anna River and a smaller, hot one near two reactors Dominion Generation uses to produce electricity via uranium fission. For those in the know, the hot part offers an extended resort season. Even as leaves were changing and homeowners were cutting firewood for the winter on a chilly Saturday, boaters, swimmers, jet skiers and water boarders in wetsuits took to the lake.

"Stick your hand in the water," Hanna said as his speedboat passed over schools of fish. Largemouth bass reproduce in larger numbers in the hot part, an attraction to year-round fishermen. Their habitat felt like bath water to the touch.

It is common to find boaters on the water through November. Some celebrate at Christmastime on the lake.

Authorities and locals stress that the lake, which straddles the Spotsylvania-Louisa county border, is perfectly safe.

"It's so regulated by everyone and anybody," said Irene Luck, who lives near the power plant and is a reporter for the Central Virginian, a weekly newspaper.

So when will Greenpeace show up and ruin everyone's fun?

The USS Kitty Hawk and its task force were supposed to spend Thanksgiving in Hong Kong, at the invitation of the Chinese. Because the Kitty Hawk is the lone carrier stationed overseas, many of the families of the sailors and Marines on board took the relatively short trip from Japan to Hong Kong to spend the holiday with their active duty love ones. But the Chinese scuttled the visit, without any apparent reason, leaving families stranded in Hong Kong, and the sailors stuck aboard their ships in the South China Sea.

At FP Passport, Mike Boyer points to one possible reason for China's bad manners--a live-fire exercise off the Chinese coast that would have "have put U.S. ships (and their prying eyes) in a position that Beijing would consider too close for comfort." Boyer also links a piece by Tim Johnson, who speculates this may be payback for Bush's chummy visit with the Dalai Lama.

On Johnson's blog, China Rises (bookmark it!), he also posts a transcript of a press conference with Admiral Keating, which shows the level of frustration at the Pentagon with the Chinese decision:

ADM. KEATING: ...This is perplexing. It's not helpful. It is not, in our view, conduct that is indicative of a country who understands its obligations of a responsible nation. There is little strategic benefits to it. There's a lot more downside than upside. So it's hard to characterize it in anything but a at least perplexing, if not troublesome, light.

I have had no conversation with any Chinese officials. We are in dialogue with OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) and State, and I've got a phone call in to our ambassador there. I've not yet been able to connect to Amb. Randt.

So, perplexing, troublesome. No direct contact with the Chinese. Would certainly hope that this is not indicative of future repeated denials. We'd like to get into Hong Kong. We want to engage in even discourse. I'm hoping to go to China in January. As you know, Secretary Gates was just there a couple of weeks ago. He had a good visit. So this denial in the very late stages of port visit planning is -- came as a surprise and it's of some concern to us.

Keating later complains of a Chinese affront to the Navy far worse than the Kitty Hawk fiasco--China's refusal to grant two U.S. minesweepers safe harbor in Hong Kong after being caught in a dangerous storm:

ADM KEATING:...Those two minesweepers were engaged in an operation, not against China but out in international water, and a storm blew up and they needed to get into a place of refuge. And, you know, Hong Kong's nearby and that's a great place to go. So for the Chinese to have denied those two ships, in particular, small though they may be, that is a different kettle of fish for us and is, in ways, more disturbing, more perplexing than the denial for the Kitty Hawk's port visit request.

As it turns out, both the Patriot and Guardian remained unaffected. They suffered no damage. But this is a kind of an unwritten law among seamen that if someone is in need, regardless of genus, phylum or species, you let them come in; you give them safe harbor. Jimmy Buffett has songs about it, for crying out loud.

Okay, so they're busting the Navy's chops a bit with the Kitty Hawk visit. It's bad form, but I suspect these are the kind of silly games that the Soviet and U.S. military played for decades. But rejecting a request for safe harbor in a storm--as Keating says, this pretty much destroys any good will or trust that has been built between the Navy and the Chinese since the 2001 spy plane incident.

For good measure, Johnson adds that while the Chinese media has made little mention of the dust up over the Kitty Hawk, the official press has been flooding the zone with coverage of "the arrival of the Chinese missile destroyer Shenzhen in Tokyo for a four-day visit, casting it as a sign of 'new vigor' in relations between Beijing and Tokyo."

EMILY's List recently launched a website called You Go Girl! to convince Iowa women that "Caucusing can be fun!" - and to caucus for Hillary Clinton while they're at it.

The website features a step-by-step guide to caucusing, along with information about Hillary, video testimonials (from women just like you!), and simple, sugar-coated language to entice women who may have no interest in politics whatsoever. As you roll over turquoise, Iowa-shaped buttons, you begin to think the Spice Girls will pop out any second to tell you what they really, really want. The website even warns, "Don't caucus on an empty stomach ..." and provides handy casserole recipes to share with your fellow caucus newbies.

The best feature, however, is "10 Great Reasons to Support Hillary," which the website suggests you print and take with you to the caucus. But it seems EMILY's List could only come up with nine "great reasons," since number 10 says, "Her husband's great, too!"

If that doesn't convince you to vote for Hillary, well, I guess nothing will.

Jay Cost on how to watch tonight's Republican debate:

Don't worry about who is winning the debate. Don't play the same meaningless game the press plays. Instead, watch to see how the five top candidates go after one another. Who attacks whom? What are the lines of attack? Do they wait until they are attacked by somebody else, until they are prompted by the moderators, or do they just go for it without provocation?

Those are wise words. You also may want to create a "GOP Debate Attack Chart" so you can keep visual track of who attacks whom, and how many times an attack occurs. If you do make such a chart, however, I wouldn't tell any of your friends about it, because they may look at you with puzzled, slightly disturbed expressions. Trust me on this.

The Pew Research Center has released the results of its latest poll on Americans' views on Iraq and the state of the nation. The dramatically improved view of the situation in Iraq has attracted a great deal of attention--and rightly so. But Pew soft-pedals the good news in its summary, and you only get a sense of the depth of the change in opinion when you consult the full result.

Perhaps most telling of all is a question Pew doesn't mention in its summary. When given an open-ended question--'What one word best describes your impression of the situation in Iraq these days'--the number one answer is 'improved/improving.' Just two months ago, the top answer was 'mess.' It's clear something big is happening.

Looking further, Jules Crittenden relies on the summary, and points out that there has been an 18 point swing in favor of the Iraq war since February. But a look at the poll data from November 2006 shows a swing of 32 points. That's because in that poll, just 32 percent said things in Iraq were going well, against 64 percent who said things were not. Today the figure is 48 to 48.

Similarly, support for a timetable for withdrawal has fallen dramatically--from 19 percent support in January to just 11 percent today. Remember that the next time a Democrat claims that the American people support their approach.

Another interesting finding: Americans increasingly believe that we are succeeding in preventing Iraq from being used as a base for terrorist attacks against the United States. In November 2006, respondents said by a margin of 39 to 49 that we were not: today, 51 percent say that we are--against just 36 percent who are skeptical. That's a 25 point swing in favor!

On preventing a civil war and defeating the insurgents, there are similarly huge shifts. Across the board, the data show a significant growth in confidence about how the war is being waged.

What of the lack of movement in support for bringing the troops home? On that, I think Crittenden gets it exactly right:

Count me in that 54 percent. I want the troops to come home, too. After we win these wars. After their tours as part of the ongoing US-Iraqi strategic alliance are up. Much as troops come home every day from Germany, Japan and Korea. Who are these people who don’t want soldiers to be able to come home anyway?

The end result of all this improvement? The poll shows Americans have dramatically downgraded Iraq as a priority. In the detailed summary, Pew breaks down the top priorities of voters based on whether they relate to foreign policy or the economy. In January, foreign policy led the economy by a margin of 50 to 15. Today it's just 40 to 31. The percentage of voters identifying Iraq as the most important issue has fallen from 42 to 32. The rising issues include the economy, health care, and unemployment.

The poll also includes interesting data on domestic politics. Most notably, Congress is almost exactly as unpopular today as it was before the 2006 election. In October 2006, 35 percent approved of the job Congress was doing, compared to 53 percent who disapproved. The result today is nearly identical: 35 to 50. This is yet more proof of the continued inability of Congress to deal with issues of importance to Americans.

Republicans have also seen a significant rebound in partisan identification. When voters were asked a year ago--right before the Democratic sweep--to state whether they considered themselves Republican, Democrat, or Independent, they answered Democrat by a margin of 25 to 36. Now, the edge is just 28 to 33. The Democratic edge has been reduced by more than half.

If this poll is accurate--and there's nothing in it that seems out of line with other polling data--there has indeed been a dramatic improvement in the public's views of Iraq and the Democratic leadership in Congress.

Does Hillary Clinton have a new campaign theme song? If she continues to let her husband campaign for her, she just might.

Despite the slew of reports of progress and increased security in Iraq, Bill Clinton thinks it is wise to insist (at Hillary's campaign events) that he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. But the New York Times reports:

During a campaign swing for his wife, former President Bill Clinton said flatly yesterday that he opposed the war in Iraq “from the beginning” -- a statement that is more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003.

Before the invasion, Mr. Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war. A week before military action began, however, he did say that he preferred to give weapons inspections more time and that an invasion was not necessary to topple Saddam Hussein.

At the same time, he also spoke supportively about the 2002 Senate resolution that authorized military action against Iraq.

Advisers to Mr. Clinton said yesterday that he did oppose the war, but that it would have been inappropriate at the time for him, a former president, to oppose -- in a direct, full-throated manner -- the sitting president’s military decision.

Bloggers on both ends of the spectrum have found (by simple web searches) that Clinton is lying about both opposing the war and openly opposing Bush. Not only does this reflect badly on Clinton, bloggers say, but it is also bad news for the now-floundering Hillary Clinton campaign.

Captain Ed explains the truth about Mr. Clinton's stand on the war:

In the early days of the war, Bill had no problem climbing onto the Bush bandwagon, claiming support for the war. Now that it has proven as unpopular as it is, Bill wants to rewrite history and claim that he always opposed it, despite his record of public support. He will say anything to match up with the public sentiment of the moment, showing himself as a man completely without reliable principles.

And what does this mean for the campaign?

Mary Katharine Ham explains: "She's worked so hard to get voters who haven't been paying a lot of attention to the point where they can pick literally any Iraq position out of a hat and convince themselves she's had it at some point and may still. And, Bill comes along, grabs the political tightrope she's walking and just shakes the ever-lovin' hell out of it, fueling a day or two of negative coverage."

Marc Ambinder chimes in: "Remember: The last two times Mr. Clinton campaigned for his wife, well, there were messaging issues. He used the word 'Swift Boat' in conjunction with opponents' attacks and then, in South Carolina, fueled a few days worth of coverage by noting how those boys were getting tough on her."

Allahpundit outlines Mr. Clinton's various stances over time and asks, "True or not? The beauty of the Clintons, my friends, is that the answer to that question can be, and usually is, "both.'"

Jules Crittenden gets a little snarky!: "Bill now wants us to believe he opposed it back when his wife was supporting it. Of course, Hillary would also like people to believe she opposed it back when she was supporting it, so I suppose that’s OK."

Don Surber notes, "My point is not about Hillary trying to renege on her authorization of this war. My point is merely that under another President Clinton we will get more lies by any administration since Josef Stalin passed away."

Even the left finds Clinton's claims to be ludicrous.

With primaries looming in the near future, Hillary had better rein-in her husband (ha!). Macsmind says it best: "The question for Hillary is, 'Do you really want this guy stumping for ya?' Don’t answer, it too will be a lie."

After nearly a two month lull in videos released by Al Furqan, al Qaeda in Iraq's primary propaganda arm, two new videos of attacks on U.S. forces have been released over the past three days. Al Qaeda in Iraq is attempting to reestablish its propaganda presence in Iraq, while Multinational Forces Iraq is seeking to dismantle the network.

"Despite the recent loss of numerous cells across Iraq, the media wing of al-Qaeda’s Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) has produced a second video product, which the al Fajr Media Center posted Tuesday night on the main Jihadi message boards," Nick Grace of Threatswatch reported. "The one minute video, called 'Destruction Of An-American Hummer Vehicle,' is the latest in the ongoing ISI [Islamic State of Iraq] media series 'Roman and Apostate Hell in al-Rafedain Land' and, according to the accompanying Web statement, shows an IED attack on a hummer in the az-Zobayer bin al-Awaam region of Diyala Province." The first video released showed the brutal execution of nine Iraqis, purportedly Shia who served in the Interior Ministry’s police commando unit in Diyala province.

Multinational Forces Iraq began to heavily target al Qaeda's media apparatus over the summer of 2007. The capture of Khalid Abdul Fatah Da’ud Mahmud Al Mashadani, a senior al Qaeda in Iraq and Islamic State of Iraq leader and close associate of Abu Ayyub al Masri, al Qaeda’s commander, was the first major blow against al Qaeda's media network. Mashadani, also known as Abu Shahed, was al Qaeda's media emir. He confirmed that Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the purported leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, is an imaginary figure created by himself and al Masri.

After al Masri's capture, the Coalition began rolling up numerous al Qaeda media cells and operatives of Al Furqan. "Since the surge began, we’ve uncovered eight separate al Qaeda media offices and cells, have captured or killed 24 al Qaeda propaganda cell members and have discovered 23 terabytes of information," said Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, the chief Public Affairs Officer for Multinational Forces Iraq during a press briefing at the end of October.

Since the briefing at the end of October, several more cells have been dismantled and scores of al Qaeda media operatives have been killed or captured. During the month of November, Special Forces teams killed two media operatives and captured 44 suspected associates of the cells.

On November 12, Coalition Special Forces hunter-killer teams captured the media emir of Diyala province. In a separate operation in Samarra, the Special Forces teams "targeted an al-Qaeda media headquarters and safe house, also believed to be used by foreign terrorists." One terrorist was killed after reaching for a suicide vest, while another seven were captured. Six days later, Special Forces "captured one wanted individual and detained 10 other suspects while targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq's media network" in Baghdad and Samarra.

The city of Samarra and the surrounding regions have become a hub of activity for al Qaeda in Iraq's propaganda outlets. From November 22 - 25, Coalition Special Forces' hunter-killer teams conducted multiple raids against al Qaeda's media and courier networks in the Samarra region. One member of al Qaeda's media network was killed and 25 captured during a series of raids over the course of four days.

The flurry of activity began on November 22, when the Special Forces teams killed one member of a propaganda cell and captured two. In follow on raids the next day, the teams captured seven members of al Qaeda's media network. "One of the targeted buildings is believed to be used as a propaganda production facility and meeting location for senior leaders," Multinational Forces Iraq reported.

From the Financial Times: Iraq Must Seize this Precious Chance for Peace, by Anthony Cordesman.

From Real Clear Politics: Al Qaeda's Emerging Defeat, by Austin Bay.

From the Washington Times: Peace Through Confusion in Taiwan Strait, by Paul Greenberg.

From National Review: The 'Empire' Strikes Back, by Jonah Goldberg.

From Contentions: The Passion of Eric Alterman, by James Kirchick.

Press reports indicate that a new tape from Osama bin Laden is about to be released. This account from Adnkronos International (AKI) provides an interesting detail about how the video will be distributed:

A new al-Qaeda video containing Osama Bin Laden's latest message "must be posted to Western websites," the terror network's media arm as-Sahab has ordered cyber jihadists.

"You must spread the new message from Sheikh Osama bin Laden in every way, especially via Western websites," said As-Sahab, which produces al-Qaeda's videos and audiotapes.

In a web message announcing the imminent posting of bin Laden's new message, entitled "To the European people", As-Sahab also gives instructions on how best to distribute the new video.

"Any means of distributing the video should be used in order to get the truth across to them about their war which they are losing and reveal to them the reality which they ignore," said As-Sahab. …

That is, al Qaeda is giving explicit orders for how its propaganda should be spread. But we shouldn’t accept any part of it at face value.

This seems obvious enough, but still many commentators and analysts are citing al Qaeda’s propaganda as if it says something meaningful about our nation. This is especially true when it comes to our foreign policy. How many times in the wake of the September 11 attacks and the conflicts that followed were we told by pundits that America’s foreign policy was to blame? This school of “thought” is propounded by people like former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who reads bin Laden’s statements and takes at face value polling done in the Middle East (while ignoring that Arab regimes pump out propaganda of their own on a daily basis to demonize America and America’s “policies,” thereby shaping public opinion) and concludes: “We need to acknowledge that we are at war, not because of who we are, but because of what we do. We are confronting a jihad that is inspired by the tangible and visible impact of our policies.”

Al Qaeda is happy to play along. For more than a decade now, bin Laden has repeatedly pointed out our supposed flaws and that his terror is really all our fault. I am sure the latest tape will have a healthy dose of this rhetoric as well as the usual conspiratorial nonsense. (Remember, for example, that bin Laden told us back in September how President Kennedy was assassinated because he wanted to end the Vietnam war and this “angered the owners of the major corporations who were benefiting from its continuation.”)

But while bin Laden and al Qaeda say one thing to us, they say something entirely different in their missives to Muslims. This is the essential lesson of Raymond Ibrahim’s excellent book, The Al Qaeda Reader. Three key paragraphs from Ibrahim’s Foreword explain this difference:

The effort to stop the Iraq war seems to be falling apart. Democratic leaders in Congress are trying to extend funds without incurring the wrath of war opponents, polls show the American people recognize the improvements on the ground in Iraq, and now an Iraq war veteran and leader of the anti-war movement says that that the organizations which claim to be fighting to end the war are really just Democrat schills.

The veteran in question is John Bruhns, whom I wrote about when he quit the anti-war group AAEI over a month ago. Bruhns was a Marine Corps reservist on September 11, who has said that he switched to the Army infantry in the hope of being sent to serve in Afghanistan. Instead, he found himself in Iraq. After being honorably discharged, Bruhns eventually came to serve as the leading spokesperson for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. He recently left the group 'on good terms.'

But his recent piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer--entitled "The Anti-War Phonies"--hasn't received the attention it deserves. In it, he says that the anti-war lobby is a front for an effort to tear down Republicans, even as Democrats make no real effort to end the war:

I traded my convictions for "special interest" groups who sometimes seem to be in place simply to smear those who disagree with their political agenda. But the agenda is not anti-war. The war is used by these organizations as ammunition against political foes - primarily Republicans. They are the enemy despite the fact that many Democrats vote the same way...

We watched as legislation that had no substantial impact on ending the war was debated. There ARE anti-war resolutions still floating out there that call for a real end to the war, but the groups I worked for wouldn't spend one dime to promote legislation considered out of the mainstream of the Democratic Party...

We threatened Republicans with "political extinction" if they didn't change their votes on Iraq. It was a partisan tactic that got us nowhere fast.

When I worked with these organizations, I did nothing to actually stop the war. I only put on a good show that would catch the attention of the media. We focused on America's desire for entertainment rather than the core issue of ending the war.

Our troops are still being killed on a daily basis and the main agenda of these well-financed anti-war groups, I think, is nothing short of the prolonged character assassination of all those who disagree with their message. In my eyes, it's just as bad as those who fight for a continuation of the war, and I'm no longer able to distinguish between the two sides.

I didn't commit eight years of honorable military service to this country to be an indirect proxy of one political party...

Bruhns is right that many involved in this effort care only about doing political damage to Republicans. The improved security situation in Iraq, combined with the shift by the Pentagon to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, has substantially lowered the temperature on the issue of the war. The Democratic presidential candidates are gradually changing their tone on the war as well. The only reason for Democrats to continue to force votes on Iraq is to score cheap political points. The question is whether it will come back to haunt them.

And to think that Democrats complain that Republicans have politicized the war.

Here's a secret I can share after years of working on Capitol Hill: many people who call Congressional offices do not get calls back. With thousands of people calling each day, it's hard to return them all. And if you're calling to give the representative or senator a hard time over a vote or policy move, the press people might decide that there's nothing to be gained from speaking to you--that's even true if you work for an august institution such as the Huffington Post.

The press staff hopes you don't get in a snit about it, but sometimes the caller takes it personally:

Well, here it is. Thanksgiving has come and gone and Senator Harry Reid's staff never called me back about the lack of a Mukasey filibuster. They kept saying they would. I called them - in DC - three times, and each time they dutifully took down my information... "Steve Brant... wrote about there being no Mukasey filibuster in The Huffington Post... wants to know why Senator Reid didn't call for a 'cloture vote' that would have permitted a filibuster... your phone number is... got it... we will get back to you."

Nice young guy on the phone each time. Always spoke in such a way that I believed I'd get a call back. And I'm not blaming him. Maybe the message to call me got lost. Three times. Maybe that's what happened.

I'm sure that must be it.

Wired has just published a piece by Danger Room editor Noah Shachtman titled "How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social--Not Electronic." After reading the piece, I'm not sure the title really works--no doubt it's about the bad that can come of relying too extensively on technology, but what struck me was the story of one Joe Colabuno, a sergeant doing psychological operations in Iraq:

But an alligator-recruiting drive yesterday in the Askeri district, in the northeastern corner of town, didn't go so well. The marines got less than half of the 125 they were looking for. So Colabuno hops into a Humvee to find out why.

We pull up to a narrow, unpaved street alongside the Askeri recruiting station. A group of seven men sit on the gravel, beneath a set of drying sheets. In the middle of the crowd, leaning on a cane, fingering prayer beads and dressed in white, is a rotund, bearded man. He's clearly the ringleader. Colabuno and his wire-thin interpreter, Leo, approach him. In every other district, they've recruited plenty of alligators. "Why not in Askeri?" Colabuno asks the ringleader.

The money's not good enough, he answers. An alligator makes only $50 a month; day laborers get $8 a day — when there's work, that is.

"That's the weakest argument ever," Colabuno says. The men looked stunned; Americans don't normally speak this directly — they're usually deferential to the point of looking weak, or just condescending.

"Do you remember Sheikh Hamsa?" Colabuno asks. Sure, sure, the men nod. The popular imam was killed more than a year ago by insurgents, but they're a bit surprised that Colabuno knows who he is. Most of the US troops here have been in town for just a few months. "Well, Sheikh Hamsa told me that weak faith protects only so much.'" The ringleader stares down at the ground and fingers his beads. Colabuno has hit a nerve. "You know, I looked in the Koran. I didn't see anything about Mohammed demanding a better salary before he'd do God's work," Colabuno says, jamming his forefinger into his palm.

A skinny man at the back of the pack speaks up, telling Colabuno that the Americans are just here to take Iraq's oil. "Yeah, you're right. We want your oil," Colabuno answers. Again eyes grow big with surprise. "We want to buy it. So you can pay for jobs, for water, for electricity. Make you rich." The men chuckle. Everyone shakes hands. Askeri's alligator quota is filled by the next morning.

Shachtman tells the story of a couple wonks who came up with the idea of network-centric warfare, and how the idea spread through the military, becoming something of a religion, with Rumsfeld as head priest. But it's clear that network-centric warfare, as critical as it was to the invasion of Iraq, isn't the key to counterinsurgency, and Shachtman observes men like Colabuno, and Petraeus, building a new strategy for a victory based on interaction with the local population. All of which is a long way of saying that this is a story of how we might win the war in Iraq just as much as it's a story of how technology almost lost us that war. Go read the whole thing.

According to this MediaBistro report, TV Guide recently asked the top presidential candidates in both parties to name their favorite television shows. The candidates' (admittedly frivolous) replies are nonetheless interesting, because they reveal something about the sort of frivolity each campaign favors. For example, Hillary Clinton named Grey's Anatomy among her favorite television shows, and while I'm not sure about much in life, I am sure that Clinton probably hasn't seen more than a couple of episodes of Grey's Anatomy, if that many. And yet Grey's Anatomy also happens to be the sort of show that women who like Hillary Clinton are inclined to enjoy, and the sort of show viewers of which are people whom Clinton would like to like her too.

John Edwards named Boston Legal one of his favorites, which is clever, since he's a lawyer. And Fred Thompson named Sportscenter, which is probably true, but also probably happens to be the favorite show of many guys who are inclined to like Fred Thompson.

The two strangest replies, which suggest they truly came from the candidates themselves, were Barack Obama's choice of SpongeBob Squarepants and Mitt Romney's choice of Lost. Obama may enjoy watching television with his kids, as he tells TV Guide, but that doesn't necessarily mean he has to enjoy the programming itself. Part of the fun of watching TV with kids is ... watching it with kids. Yet Obama truly seems to enjoy SpongeBob.

Romney's choice of Lost, meanwhile, confirms that he's a closet science fiction fan.

John Dickerson has a concise summary of the ongoing war between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Here's Dickerson: "Giuliani's essential charge is that Romney changes positions. Romney's is that Giuliani doesn't tell the truth." Sounds right to me!

Dickerson also touches on something important in this paragraph:

In this uneven exchange, Giuliani is also hitting on Romney's essential weakness - that he doesn't have core convictions. Romney's punches, even if they land, don't go directly to Giuliani's core vulnerability. Nor do they diminish Giuliani's best attribute - his reputation as a tough leader. As Bill Clinton famously said about George Bush, voters prefer a candidate who is strong and wrong to one who is weak and right.

One of the more fascinating things about Romney's candidacy is that, in the end, Romney's political philosophy is his lack of conviction. Romney appears truly to be a postideological pragmatist interested in turning around troubled enterprises, whether those enterprises are businesses or the federal government. In other words, to Romney, a lack of conviction is a strength - it helps you analyze data and get things done. We're about to find out how many people agree with him about that.

Mike Huckabee's new TV ad is only his second, and it's dramatically different from his first. That ad, which had Chuck Norris endorsing Huckabee, virtually mocked the very idea of such an ad (though maybe that's the only way the ad could have been done).

The new ad has no humor. It means business. It pitches to the kind of voters mostly responsible for Huckabee's surge into second place in recent Iowa polls - evangelical and Catholic conservatives. And it does so by offering Huckabee as a man of faith who will not - in contrast to unnamed others running against him - compromise on life and marriage issues. "Faith doesn't just influence me," is how the ad begins, with Huckabee talking. "It really defines me. I don't have to wake up every day wondering, 'What do I need to believe?'" And what he believes, as the ad makes clear, is that life begins at conception and that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.

Over at NRO's Media Blog, Tom Gross has the completely unsurprising story of Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas official and occasional op-ed contributor for the Washington Post and New York Times. Yousef was able to get both papers to run pieces "defending [Hamas's] policies in Gaza" (this according to a Reuters report under the headline "Hamas scores publicity coup in U.S.") on the same day last summer, shortly after the group seized control of the Gaza strip from the Palestinian Authority.

Yesterday, Gross reported on this statement, which came just ahead of the Annapolis summit:

Israeli officials have warned that Hamas may try to disrupt the conference with more intense rocket fire. Gaza militants, including Hamas members, have fired hundreds of crude, homemade rockets at Israeli border communities in recent years, killing 12 people and disrupting life along the border.

In a statement sent to reporters, [Ahmed] Yousef said that the rockets currently being fired have limited effect because they don’t carry lethal enough warheads.

“They can be developed in a short period to create sufficient terror and fear and make the Israelis live in pain no less than what our people live through because of the repeated incursions into our villages and cities in the West Bank and Gaza,” wrote Yousef, an adviser to deposed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh.

The editors at the Times and the Post described Yousef as a "political adviser" last summer. A more appropriate and transparent byline might read, "Ahmed Yousef is a terrorist living in Gaza."

Crotch Crisis Cripples Army is the headline:

The Army is retrofitting 1 million uniforms to bolster pants that have been tearing during the rigors of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Soldiers in Iraq began reporting "crotch durability problems" with their combat uniforms in July 2005, according to the Army. Jumping into Humvees, hopping from helicopters and scrambling after insurgents have popped inseams on the baggy pants.

Rougher terrain in Afghanistan prompted complaints this past August from soldiers who said their uniforms gave out quickly.

It could be worse. At least their uniforms don't glow in the dark after being washed with a certain brand of detergent.

Back in the Paleolithic era of this presidential campaign (a.k.a. last summer), there was an intramural dustup in the conservative blogosphere over whether the Republicans should agree to a YouTube debate as their Democratic counterparts did. Proponents for the debate argued that not engaging in a YouTube debate would relegate Republicans to Luddite status, ignoring crucial technologies to their own great detriment.

Opponents said that a debate should be about substance not gimmickry, and that a YouTube debate would inevitably be several magnitudes worse than those citizen Q&A sessions like the one in 1992 where a middle aged man beseeched President Bush, Governor Clinton and Citizen Perot to treat the voters as their children. Virtually the entire conservative blogosphere supported the idea of a YouTube debate. The lone detractors/voices of reason were my blogging partner Hugh Hewitt and I.

Last night, Hugh had YouTube's “director of news and politics,” Young Steve Grove, on his radio program. It's an interview that has to be heard to be believed. Young Steve showed an unusual mastery of the new left’s rhetorical tics; he mindlessly repeated his talking points, while evading such simple questions like where he went to school and how old he was.

In a way, it's sad that this most important of Republican debates will descend into demagogic idiocy. Expect the same kind of purportedly heart-tugging rubbish the left faced, e.g. hospital patients asking about health care reform and school teachers inquiring about No Child Left Behind with a brood of smiling tykes in the background. Of course, it will probably be worse than that. Let your mind run wild, picturing wounded vets and grieving widows.

The good news for the candidates is with all this stupidity running amuck and wildcards being dealt, there's a golden chance for some candidate to have a real “I paid for this microphone” moment. Tonight's format will likely reward the bold.

And hopefully tonight will serve as a teachable moment for Republicans regarding technological flash vs. political substance.

The AP reports:

Hundreds of Iraqi refugees boarded buses for home on Tuesday in the first convoy from an Iraqi-funded effort to speed the return of families that fled the country's violence and insecurity.

Many Iraqis have headed back on own their own from Syria and elsewhere as extremist attacks have fallen sharply in Baghdad and other areas. But now the Iraqi government is hoping to accelerate the flow — and draw more attention to the recent drop in violence — by offering to pay for trips home.

The program also seeks to win favor from neighboring countries such as Syria and Jordan that are struggling with an estimated 2.2 million Iraqi refugees. Syria has tightened visa rules for Iraqis in hopes of forcing people to return home and blocking new refugees.

"Baghdad, you are victorious," chanted some Iraqis as they headed for a line of 20 buses that would carry about 800 refugees to the border. From there, Iraqi buses are scheduled to bring them to Baghdad on Wednesday, said according to Mohammed Ali al-Budairi, a coordinator for displaced Iraqis in Syria.

Of course, the United Nations is prepared to do whatever it can to exacerbate the situation:

Sybella Wikes, press officer for the UNHCR in Syria, said the agency doesn't "think it's time" yet for a massive refugee return.

"We certainly can't define the situation as being safe in any area in Iraq," she said.

Really? Nowhere in Iraq is safe? The people actually reporting from what was once the most violent area in Iraq might disagree.

The 2008 Republican primary campaign was quiet today, probably because the candidates are prepping for tomorrow's CNN / YouTube presidential debate. The fun starts at 8 p.m. Wednesday evening. Look for the Giuliani-Romney spat to dominate most of the opening round of questions. Look for McCain to discuss his Thanksgiving trip to Iraq. Something tells me the debate will be great fun for people who like attack politics (in other words, people like me). Rudy probably will be the biggest target, though Romney may take a lot of punches as well. Still, I have two questions: How much time will go by before Anderson Cooper gets around to asking Tancredo, Hunter, or Paul a question? (Forty minutes sounds about right.) And will Billiam the Snowman make a return appearance?

The Washington Post reports today on the unholy alliance between House Democrats and Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez. You may remember recent remarks by the retired general in which he berated the Bush administration's Iraq strategy as "catastrophically flawed," leaving out that little bit about how he was the man that oversaw said strategy. At the time, we thought it was unlikely that the Dems would adopt Sanchez--again, because of his central role in the "catastrophically flawed" strategy that guided the U.S. war effort from 2003-2006. But as the Post says, "in partisan Washington, the enemy of one's enemy can quickly become a friend."

Still, I think the Danger Room offers the best response to this recent turn of events:

Dear Democrats,

Getting in bed with the general who let the Iraq insurgency grow under his watch--not to mention Abu Ghraib--is an extremely dumb idea.

Love,
DANGER ROOM

The Democrats would be wise to take this unsolicited advice.

The F-16 in the picture is painted in the classic manner of U.S. Army Air Corps pursuit (fighter) aircraft of the 1920s--blue fuselage, yellow wings and empennage, red, white, and blue stripes on the control surfaces (except, in this case, no stripes on the horizontal stabilizers, because the bird has an all-moving slab tailplane, rather than elevators). Note especially the old-fashioned national insignia, with the red center in the star, and no bars. We had planes in this color scheme almost to the eve of World War II.

Though olive drab above and gray below became the standard paint scheme in deference to tactical realities, the star in the circle with the red dot remained the national insignia--along with striped rudder surfaces--until the second half of 1942. It seems that the red dot could be mistaken for a Japanese meatball in the heat of a dogfight, so that was painted white. Then, because our Navy and the ground pounders tended to shoot at everything that flew, they made the insignia HUGE. When that didn't work, they added a white bar, first with a yellow outline, then with a red one, and finally with a blue one. The red line in the bar was added in 1947, when the Air Force was established. Colors went away in the 1980s, when aircraft and insignia were all gray. But there were always specially painted birds for special occasions, like anniversaries, Tiger Meets, unit disbandments, and aircraft final flights.

I happen to think this bird is pretty handsome, myself.

Today, the New York Times reports on the Clinton campaign's efforts to woo elderly women. It's clear that the campaign is scrambling for female supporters at campaign events, the Times reports, using those who do show up as "welcome set pieces, visibly demonstrating the candidate's effort to highlight her sex and her overtures to female voters, whom the campaign is counting on to propel her to the Democratic presidential nomination." Although Clinton has polled better among women than men, Obama is now nearly tied with her among women in some polls, which surely ought to make her campaign nervous.

And the women who do support her? They are nothing like her, as the Boston Globe reported last week:

The backbone of her support, going back to her first US Senate race seven years ago, remains among those who resemble her the least - blue-collar and working-class women, as well as black women. Analysts say she connects with working-class women emotionally by presenting an image as a fighter who has overcome obstacles in her life, and appeals to them politically by offering proposals that would help their pocketbooks.

The Globe also notes that, according to polls of primary voters in New Hampshire and elsewhere, "Clinton has higher support among Democratic women without a college degree than among better-educated women."

Reading between the lines, it is clear that women who are most like Hillary Clinton are not supporting her in droves. Why?

From CNN, Bride, groom stopped in Iraq actually terror suspects:

Soldiers manning a checkpoint near Baghdad stopped a wedding convoy to find that the purported bride and groom were wanted terror suspects, an Iraqi Defense Ministry official said Monday.

The army set up the checkpoint last week in the Taji area, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of Baghdad.

The soldiers became suspicious of the convoy because its members -- save the "bride" -- were all male and because one of the cars in the convoy did not heed orders to stop, the official said.

Also, soldiers said, the people in the car seemed nervous and the groom refused to lift his bride's veil when soldiers asked him to, according to the official.

Soldiers ordered everyone out of the car, the official said.

Upon inspecting the convoy, soldiers found a stubbly-faced man, Haider al-Bahadli, decked out in a white bride's dress and veil.

Bahadli was wanted on terror-related charges, as was his groom, Abbas al-Dobbi, the official said.

HT: Neptunus Lex

With the withdrawal of British forces from the heart of Basra and an overall reduction of British forces in the south, the security situation in the largely Shiite city has come into question. Critics of the British move believe those forces have essentially surrendered the strategic city to the militias, particularly the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army. Some Iraq watchers are awaiting a showdown between the Iraqi Army, which has been moved into Basra to fill the void left by the Brits, and the Mahdi Army. IraqSlogger indicates the Iraqi Army may be preparing for such a showdown.

"A major confrontation between the Iraqi Army and the powerful Mahdi Army appears to be brewing in the southern city of Basra," IraqSlogger reported today. "'Well-placed military sources' in Basra have said that military forces continue to arrive in the city to reinforce the 14th Division troops (known as the Mustafa Forces) stationed at the entrance to Zubayr, outside Basra city."

Iraqi troops from the newly forming 14th Division are reported to be moving towards Basra from neighboring provinces. "All evidence points to a big deployment of Iraqi Army forces in all areas of Basra in preparation for the next battle with the Mahdi Army, including digging trenches, stockpiling ammunition, and preparing "worst-case" battle plans," IraqSlogger reported.

Both the Iraqi Army and the police deny reports that the Army is preparing to strike at al Sadr's milita. The chief of police in Basra went on the record to deny such an operation is pending.

Speaking at a press conference in the police headquarters on Tuesday, General Abdul Karim Khalaf said "reports being circulated in the city which assert that our forces will wage attacks on some groups after bringing in new forces are void of truth."

"We are about to receive the Basra security file and we need some additional forces to foster our forces to watch borders and impose the law, but this does not mean that we are planning to attack anyone," he added.

"The city's crime rate has decreased by 50% since the beginning of November," the general added, noting that murders and assassinations operations have been decreasing since last June. "Only 75 murders have been registered in Basra since June," he said. "Basra police forces arrested during this month many gangs, freed more than 10 captives, seized two tankers for oil smuggling and arrested drug dealers," Khalaf continued.

"There is an agreement with all political parties, officials, and tribes to cooperate in order to realize security and stability in the city," he noted.

The Mahdi Army in Basra is certainly concerned over the rumors of an Iraqi Army operation, as well as reports of a fledgling Awakening movement being formed in the south. Muqtada al Sadr's local office in Basra released a statement ordering its members to halt attacks and cooperate with the security forces. Sadr's office also warned tribal leaders not to cooperate with the forming Awakening movement in the south.

Gregg Easterbrook, in his capacity as "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" columnist for ESPN.com's "Page 2", has waged a long, bloody war against NFL teams punting on fourth-down-and-short-yardage situations. The statistics don't add up, Easterbrook claims. Rather than punting and delivering the ball to your opponents (one of which may be Devin Hester, who will probably run it back for a touchdown), you should go for it and see what happens. But NFL coaches never seem to listen.

Some high school coaches do listen, however, as Easterbrook writes in a recent column:

I first heard about Pulaski [high school in Little Rock, Ark.] from Peter Giovannini of Morrilton, Ark., a high school football official who wrote me to report in astonishment that he had just worked a conference championship game in which the winning team never punted, even going for a first down on fourth-and-6 from its own 5-yard line early in the game. 'As a devotee of TMQ, I thought you might like to know at least one coach in the vast football universe has experienced the epiphany and refuses to punt the ball away,' Giovannini wrote.

That team was Pulaski - 9-1-1 after having just won its opening-round game in the Arkansas 5A playoffs. Coach Kevin Kelley reports that he stopped punting in 2005 - after reading an academic study on the statistical consequences of going for the first down versus handing possession to the other team, plus reading Tuesday Morning Quarterback's relentless examples of when punting backfires but going for the first down works. In 2005, Pulaski reached the state quarterfinals by rarely punting. In 2006, Pulaski reached the state championship game, losing by one point - and in the state championship game, Pulaski never punted, converting nine of 10 fourth-down attempts. Since the start of the 2006 season, Pulaski has had no punting unit and never practices punts. This year, Pulaski has punted just twice, both times when leading by a large margin and trying to hold down the final score. In its playoff victory Friday night, Pulaski did not punt, converting three of four fourth-down tries.

'They give you four downs, not three,' Kelley told TMQ. 'You should take advantage. Suppose we had punted from our own 5. The odds are the opposition will take over at about the 35, and from there the stats say they have an 80 percent chance of scoring. So even if you only have a 50 percent chance of converting the first down, isn't that better than giving the other side an 80 percent chance of scoring?' For fourth-and-short attempts, the odds of converting are a lot better than 50 percent.

Except if you're the Washington Redskins and your coach decides to run the ball from the backfield on fourth-and-short even though your quarterback is 6' 5", 230 lbs., and could easily have done a quarterback sneak.

But I digress.

According to this article, posted at the Drudge Report, YouTube suspended the account of an Egyptian "anti-torture" activist whose videos included Egyptian police violence against anti-government protesters:

Wael Abbas said close to 100 images he had sent to YouTube were no longer accessible, including clips depicting purported police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations. YouTube, owned by search engine giant Google Inc , did not respond to a written request for comment. A message on Abbas's YouTube user page read: "This account is suspended."

"They closed it (the account) and they sent me an e-mail saying that it will be suspended because there were lots of complaints about the content, especially the content of torture," Abbas told Reuters in a telephone interview. Abbas, who won an international journalism award for his work this year, said that of the images he had posted to YouTube, 12 or 13 depicted violence in Egyptian police stations.

Abbas was a key player last year in distributing a clip of an Egyptian bus driver, his hands bound, being sodomised with a stick by a police officer -- imagery that sparked an uproar in a country where rights groups say torture is commonplace.

That tape prompted an investigation that led to a rare conviction of two policemen, who were sentenced to three years in prison for torture. Egypt says it opposes torture and prosecutes police against whom it has evidence of misconduct.

I wonder if they'll shut down this video? Or this one? Or this one?

There are hundreds of similar videos now available on YouTube. The ones above include nudity, abuse, and graphic photos of dead people. Are the Egyptian videos really more graphic? Or is there a double-standard?

Marc Ambinder gives us six reasons Mitt Romney should be worried about the Iowa caucuses. Support for Romney is less intense than support for Huckabee; so far the Iowa press has gone easy on Huckabee; a large portion of the social right is beginning to determine that a Huckabee victory in Iowa would prove its relevance; Huckabee is "a more compelling, more engaging public personality than Romney" (ouch!); at the moment the expectations game works to Romney's disadvantage (his eminence would probably disagree with this one); and lastly the clock is working against Romney.

All six points are worth considering, though I'm far less certain than Ambinder is that "the race in Iowa ends before Christmas." Last I checked the caucuses remain scheduled for January 3, 2008.

Who would have guessed?

And who knew Last Call with Carson Daly was still on the air?

As the presidential campaign unfolds, it's striking to note that the main Democratic storyline is the rejection of Clintonism. Even as the party seems poised to nominate the wife of the former president, the Democratic candidates are rejecting Bill Clinton's tone and policies. Where Bill Clinton campaigned in 1992 on welfare reform, law enforcement, tax cuts for the middle class, tax cuts to spur economic investment, and cuts in federal spending, the candidates in 2008 are essentially ignoring all those ideas. It's almost as if Clinton was not the only Democratic president since FDR to be elected twice. You would think the candidates would be tripping over themselves to embrace Clinton's policies. Instead there's lip service to the Clinton legacy, combined with an attempt to emulate Howard Dean's failed 2004 bid.

Writing in the Politico, James Kirchick, assistant editor of the New Republic, points out that in their rush to reject Clinton (and George Bush), Democrats such as Ned Lamont are now embracing the 'realists' that they criticized for decades:

As if further evidence were needed that the party is rejecting its past, Lamont’s own column embraces the worst elements of coldhearted GOP “realism,” the sort of foreign policy that Clinton and Gore derided when they ran for the White House and the antithesis of everything that progressive internationalists should stand for.

Lamont is hardly alone. So-called progressives look with great reverence to Scowcroft and Baker, erstwhile bugbears of Democratic Party talking points.

But tyrants the world over have no better friends in the American power elite than these two men.

So why are liberals warming up to them?...

What the Clinton and Gore speeches of the early 1990s demonstrate is that it was not so long ago when Democrats actually campaigned with stronger foreign policy credentials than Republicans.

Even in 2000, Gore was the preferred candidate of foreign policy hawks over the isolationist George W. Bush.

How times have changed.

While military action is the most costly and least desirable way to resolve international conflicts, it is one that the nation must keep 'on the table.' When they recoiled against the Iraq war, Democrats didn't just say Iraq was a mistake; they've become unwilling to take military action against any bad international actor. That's simply reckless. How long will it take Democrats to rebound from the 'Bush hangover,' and can their candidate win the presidency while the party is still in detox?

What in the name of Katharine Graham has happened to Beltway high society? According to this New York Times article, DC swells are throwing parties where they force their guests to consume food that hails from--you better sit down--Costco.

Actually, the Times story displays a wonderful ignorance regarding Costco and what it brings to the table, as it were. As most people know, Costco is a wholesale shopping “club.” Few people know, however, what “club” means in this context.

If you pay Costco's membership dues, you get to buy stuff "at cost;" Costco's profits are limited to its membership dues. In other words, the company doesn’t make any profit on the products it sells. This business model requires an unusual amount of discipline. Markups are limited to cover only operating expenses. Costco, unlike retail stores, doesn't sell its products at the highest price the market will bear. This is the main reason why you can find some amazing bargains there.

Costco's business model has attracted consumers from every end of the economic spectrum. The chain's constituency is not limited to put-upon housefraus looking to save a few bucks on paper towels or seeking a great price on sixteen pounds of nutmeg. Value appeals to everyone. A couple of years ago, I interviewed Costco's former CFO for a book project I was contemplating, and he glowed when he spoke of the upscale demographics of Costco's clientèle. Costco also sells some very pricey products; it's currently the world’s largest diamond dealer.

So what of these DC parties where Costco is supplying the grub? Costco offers high quality. You can go to a Costco butcher and get Niman Ranch prime beef, just like the best stuff that better butcher shops carry. (The best butchers carry dry-aged prime beef, but that’s for special occasions.) For what it's worth, you can't get prime beef at most Whole Foods markets.

None of this means that the DC party-makers doing their prep work at Costco will be springing for the good stuff. Nevertheless, neocon overlord Richard Perle manages to find some nice product there. “I just bought chanterelles there the other day,” Perle stated, “and they often have fresh shiitake mushrooms.”

But as we all know, when the Grey Lady latches onto a narrative it sticks with it, regardless of what the facts show:

Catering by Costco is a style statement, like drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

“Reverse chic is a very powerful phenomenon in status-oriented circles,” said David Kamp, the author of “The United States of Arugula” (Broadway, 2006), a book about the American fine-food revolution. “I think Costco is the same thing. It gets discovered.”

Chanterelles indicate reverse chic? Who knew?

Albeit 3,300 years ago. The New Scientist asks, Were Cursed Rams the First Biological Weapon?:

Ancient written texts from the Middle East may reveal that the use of biological weapons dates back more than 3300 years, according to a new review.

The historical documents hint that the Hittites – whose empire stretched from modern-day Turkey to northern Syria – sent diseased rams to their enemies to weaken them with tularemia, a devastating bacterial infection that remains a potential bioterror threat even today, says the review.

Experts caution that more evidence is needed to firmly establish that the Hittites intended to spread disease using the animals. But they add that if this proves true, it might represent the earliest known use of biological warfare.

Tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, can pass from animals such as rabbits and sheep to humans through various routes, most commonly through insects such as ticks that hop between species. The bacterium responsible for tularemia, Francisella tularensis, causes symptoms ranging from skin ulcers to respiratory failure.

Interesting bunch, the Hittites. When they weren't busy with their robust bio-weapons program, they developed one of the first constitutional monarchies. In 1550 BC, they successfully sacked Babylon, located in what is now southern Iraq--possibly to prevent the Iraqis Babylonians from developing WMDs of their own.

From the Middle East Journal: An Edgy Calm in Fallujah, by Michael J. Totten.

From THE DAILY STANDARD: Columbia's Concern, by John McCormack.

From the New York Times: Following the Fundamentals, by David Brooks.

From the Kansas City Star: Military Planners Mull Possibility of Cyber War, by Dave Montgomery.

From the Wall Street Journal: On the Jewish Question, by Bernard Lewis.

In more underreported news, rioting in Paris goes over the top and is downright scary. The AP reports:

Rampaging youths rioted for a second night in Paris' suburbs, firing at officers and ramming burning cars into buildings. At least 77 officers were injured, a senior police union official said Tuesday.

The overnight violence was more intense than during three weeks of rioting in 2005, said the official, Patrice Ribeiro. He said that "genuine urban guerillas with conventional weapons and hunting weapons" were among the rioters.

The riots were triggered by the deaths of two teens killed in a crash with a police patrol car on Sunday in Villiers-le-Bel, a blue-collar town in Paris' northern suburbs.

Residents claimed that officers left the crash scene without helping the teens, whose motorbike collided with the car. Officials cast doubt on the claim, but the internal police oversight agency was investigating.

Rioting first erupted in Villiers-le-Bel on Sunday night. It grew worse and spread Monday night to other towns north of Paris. Rioters hurled stones and petrol bombs at police, authorities said.

But the two teenagers were by no means innocent victims. Gateway Pundit tells us more about them: "Riots broke out in Paris last night after two "youths" were killed when they collided with a police car... on their stolen moped."

The Van Der Galien Gazette chimes in: "In case you’re wondering whether the two youths who died had done something wrong: yes. They didn’t wear helmets and they stole the moped."

And what of the rioters? Bloggers agree that these are not simply hormonal and immature "youths" (dear alma mater). Van Der Galien calls them "street terrorists." Little Green Footballs refers to it as the "French Intifada Flare-Up," and Nidra Poller at Pajamas Media calls it "punk jihad," noting that "the insurgents are using firebombs, iron rods, baseball bats, and firing buckshot. Journalists are attacked, their cameras are stolen." More on this from Redstate.

What is it about the youth of Paris? Michelle Malkin has flashbacks to similar events and Gateway Pundit has photos of the creepy mobsters.

These kids are not alright.

Not as honorable as you might think.

STATEN ISLAND (CBS) ― A man who dresses from head-to-toe as a ninja, complete with samurai-style weapons, and burglarizes homes in mostly upscale areas of Staten Island, has struck again, police believe, twice over the weekend.

That would bring the total houses that police say the so-called "ninja bandit" has struck to 18....

Police say the suspect struck a home on Jefferson Avenue on Sept. 6. That's where a frightened Phil Chiolo saw the intruder dressed in black, holding a pair of nunchaku, and striking Chiolo on the collar bone and the head.

"And there, standing facing me, was a ninja, a guy dressed like a ninja," said Chiolo at the time.

The Las Vegas Review Journal carries a blunt editorial today on the latest poll demonstrating the growing unpopularity of Majority Leader Harry Reid among Nevada voters:

More evidence surfaced over the holiday weekend that Democratic Sen. Harry Reid's dalliance with the MoveOn.org crowd is costing him support in the state he was elected to represent...

A poll released last week by the Reno Gazette-Journal found that 49 percent of those asked disapprove of the job Harry Reid is doing as a U.S. senator.

That tracks well with a Review-Journal survey conducted in October that put Sen. Reid's unfavorable rating at 51 percent...

"He's got to turn the numbers around," Democratic strategist Dan Hart of Las Vegas told the Gazette-Journal.

No kidding. But that's going to be hard to do as long as Sen. Reid insists on being a mouthpiece for his party's hyperleftist wing.

Reid won't seek re-election until 2010, but in a conservative state such as Nevada he's almost guaranteed a tough race if he's associated with the liberal agenda of Senate Democrats. The next Congressional term is unlikely to be any easier for him, as he'll either be carrying water for a liberal Democratic president, or trying to block the agenda of a conservative. Sessions like this don't help, either.

Reid was last challenged seriously in 1998, when he defeated John Ensign by 401 votes. He seems likely to draw a strong challenger again in 2010. If he does stand for re-election, it's sure to influence his management of the Senate agenda.

Today's Roger Simon story in the Politico has the headline "Buzz Eludes McCain Despite Efforts." Which efforts are those? Well, the article mentions two: McCain's new television spot and a lunch McCain hosted for some political reporters at his Crystal City, Virginia, headquarters the other day. That latter "effort" figures more heavily into the story, which figures, since the story would not have been written if McCain's campaign hadn't made in the first place the "effort" to corral and feed a bunch of reporters. Which means that, actually, this "effort" did succeed in generating some "buzz," if a story in the Politico counts as buzz, which I (and Simon, presumably) think it does.

The more important "effort" here is the television ad, which may, in the end, achieve something much more important than "buzz": getting people to vote for John McCain. And we won't know whether that effort is or is not a success until January 8, 2008.

A more accurate headline would have read: "McCain Trying to Become the 44th President of the United States." Of course, no one would have read that story, because it isn't news. So the true worth of the story, the headline writers suggest, is that McCain has failed to get the media behind him like he did in 2000. But this isn't exactly true, either, as the article itself proves, since Simon still wrote, and the Politico still published, a more or less sympathetic portrait of McCain.

What would we do without political journalists? (Wait. Don't answer that!)

Glenn Greenwald has been waging his own little war against Time columnist Joe Klein for more than a week now owing to what Greenwald says was a "factually false" description of the FISA legislation in the House in Klein's latest piece.

According to Greenwald, the error lies in Klein's claim that the bill "require[s] the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court." Klein responded to Greenwald here, but apparently didn't go far enough to satisfy his critics, and it's been back and forth for a few days now. Klein allowed that he might have misinterpreted the Democratic position, and "If I did, a correction will appear in the print magazine next week. This only got him into more trouble with his friends on the left, ultimately leading to this gem from Klein:

I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right.

Klein, not content to stop digging after five updates (remind you of anyone?), would later add after that sentence, "(ADD: about this minor detail of a bill that will never find its way out of the Congress)."

Kos himself has since joined the pile on, here, and now Greenwald has kicked it up a notch, teaming up with the "tenacious" Jane Hamsher to go after Klein's editor.

The whole thing is a bit ridiculous, but, like a battle between the Giants and Cowboys, it's fun to watch and root for injuries.

Jay Cost weighs in on the ongoing debate over whether or not there is such a thing as "electability." Cost's conclusion:

All of this .. means that perceptions of electability are probably manipulable. This would explain why candidates - and not just analysts - are participating in the conversation. These strategy memos are not designed to elucidate the true state of the race for us. They are designed to do what all campaign actions are designed to do: persuade voters. Candidates have an incentive in creating the impression that they are electable - and the subjectivity of electability means that they might be able to create that impression.

Here's how Andrew Ferguson put it in his classic 2004 essay "The Pomo Primary":

In the pomo primary everybody was thinking like a pundit, especially voters. How else to account for the instant cliche of the season, 'electability'? Since the first seeds of self-government sprouted in the Agora, this is surely the strangest rationale yet devised for choosing one candidate over another. Voters voted for someone because they thought voters would vote for him. It is second-order reasoning, a meta-rationale, a judgment about a judgment about a judgment. It will make your head hurt if you think about it too long.

I agree! Thus, a solution to the problem of thinking about "electability": Let's not think about it.

Are you one of those people who wait until the last minute to shop for Christmas? Do you never know what to get that special someone in your life? Are you tired of the same-ol'-same-ol' shirts, slacks, jewelry, socks, fruitcake, incredibly expensive yet slightly discounted consumer electronics, gift certificate routine?

Well, this is a lucky day. Because according to this Wall Street Journal Washington Wire item, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has unveiled its new "UltiMitt Holiday Gift Guide," which is ready to supply all your holiday needs. A $50 contribution buys "official Mitt Romney mugs" or a "signed Romney Christmas photo." A $100 contribution buys a "Romney for President 2007 ornament" or a signed copy of Ann Romney's winter recipes. And a $250 contribution buys the "Romney Fleece Blanket" or, for a truly special gift, a "downloadable phone message of Mitt Romney answering your voicemail using your name."

There are moments in life when you say to yourself, "Okay, I'm ready for the punchline now." This is one of those moments. Except it's not a joke.

Move over, Graeme Frost . Over at Politico, Ben Adler reports on the plight of Jeff Traylor and his girlfriend Amanda Caffall, who may be the new faces of the movement for universal government-run health care. In the year between graduating from college and attending law school, Traylor found himself working as a waiter who didn't receive health insurance from his employer:

'I had to go to low-income clinics,' said Traylor, now a second-year student at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore.

'That's $130 for a visit to get antibiotics for a sinus infection, plus the cost of the drug. I could afford it. But some people cannot.'

More recently, Traylor's girlfriend - Amanda Caffall, 25, a service industry worker who hopes to start law school next fall - delayed treatment for ringworm for a month for the same reason: She had no health insurance and couldn't afford a visit to the doctor.

The couple decided to turn lemons into socially conscious lemonade:

Spurred by his own experience and by his concern for the uninsured, Traylor created a group on the social networking site Facebook to promote universal health care.

His is one of more than 20 groups on Facebook dedicated to advocating expanded government health coverage, and many of them have hundreds of members.

Interesting. Surely Googling for health insurance is no more difficult than creating a Facebook group, right? Because no one wants to live with ring worm, here's some advice for Amanda and Jeff: Google the words "health insurance." The first web site to pop up will be eHealthInsurance.com. For as little as $38 per month a young man or woman right out of college in Portland can purchase a high deductible plan that requires a $25 copay for visits to the doctor and a $20 copay for prescription drugs. And there are plenty of better plans for less than $100 per month - which is also less than many drifting pre-yuppies spend drinking at bars each month.

A friend sends along a link to this Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial on Harry Reid's sliding poll numbers. The editorial is based on a recent Reno Gazette Journal poll which found that Reid's approval rating has sunk to around 39 percent and his disapproval rating is at an impressive 49 percent. The editorial also discusses an October poll conducted by the Review-Journal which found Reid's favorability rating at 32 percent and his unfavorable rating at 51 percent.

The editorial further notes that Reid "has never been Nevada's most popular politician. The last time he had a serious Republican opponent - 1998, when he faced John Ensign - he limped to victory by just a few hundred votes." In 2004, Reid trounced Republican challenger Richard Ziser. winning 61 percent of the vote. Ziser was not a serious challenger, however.

Reid isn't up for reelection until 2010, by which time these numbers may improve. But they may not improve, and in fact probably won't, because there seems to be a direct correlation between being a Democratic Senate leader from a red state who speaks conservatively while at home but pursues a liberal agenda while in Washington, and seeing your approval rating plummet.

Harry Reid, meet Tom Daschle.

When the Republican party suffered its disastrous (though long overdue) comeuppance at the ballot box in November ’06, I knew what the voters were saying. They were telling the Republicans, in no uncertain terms, that they wanted more Trent Lott. Thankfully, Republican senators heeded the country’s anguished cry and returned Trent Lott to a position of leadership and the prominence he had lost when he publicly praised a wizened segregationist specifically for his segregationist policies.

Once again, we Republicans are forced to contemplate a Lott-less future. This time, it’s even worse. Last time at least, Lott remained in the senate where his silky baritone and voracious appetite for pork provided a reassuring presence. This time, the United States government will have to trundle on without Trent Lott, who is apparently K Street bound where great riches await.

There will be a lot to miss about Senator Lott: The even-handed way he dealt out wasteful government projects to the entire country, the solid way he anchored the Singing Senators, the way he served as a veritable poster-child for political smarminess.

But what I’ll miss most is his hair. Aah, that wonderful, impenetrable helmet of a head of hair. I think it would make a moving tribute to the outgoing Senator if conservatives everywhere adopted the helmet-head look for at least a fortnight. As the image accompanying this post shows, the look will flatter virtually all men. Tell me Justin Timberlake couldn’t bring the sexy back even more effectively than he already has if he ditched his trendy ‘do and made like Trent.

It’s true that Trent Lott is leaving us. But must his hair leave us as well?

Reuters reports U.S. Navy steps up fuel deliveries to Gulf forces:

The U.S. military has stepped up chartering of tankers and requests for extra fuel in the U.S. Central Command area, which includes the Gulf, shipping and oil industry sources say.

A Gulf oil industry source said the charters suggested there would be high naval activity, possibly including a demonstration to Iran that the U.S. Navy will protect the Strait of Hormuz oil shipping route during tensions over Tehran's nuclear programme.

The U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command (MSC) has tendered for four tankers in November to move at least one million barrels of jet and ship fuel between Gulf ports, from Asia to the Gulf and to the Diego Garcia base, tenders seen by Reuters show.

It usually tenders for one or two tankers a month to supply Gulf operations, which include missions in Iraq.

The MSC, asked for comment, confirmed the tenders and said there was nothing abnormal about current requirements in the Gulf, where it has a large military presence and which is home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.

Fuel demands, particularly in a war zone, are always in motion. So I'd ignore the Reuters subtext here--that this is some sort of indication that an attack is imminent. If I were a betting man, I'd say that the Navy is replenishing after the major exercise held earlier this month or--if you're absolutely convinced that there's treachery afoot--preparing to respond to the coming flurry of Iranian naval activity.

HT: The Tank

There has been a lot of talk recently about a "a quiet process of apparent concessions and small gestures of approval between the United States and Iran in Iraq" as it was described today by Iran expert Gary Sick at FP Passport. Go read the whole post to see evidence of this courtship, most of which will be well familiar to our readers. Still, there's very little evidence that any thawing in relations between Iran and the United States has produced improvements on the ground in Iraq--just a lot of empty promises. Last time we spoke with General Bergner, back in October, he explained that despite Iranian commitments to reduce the flow of weapons and fighters,

We haven't seen that yet, and that's something that we hope they actually do follow through on. And there is -- there becomes some sort of statistically significant discernible improvement.

In the meantime, we do continue to conduct the operations that are targeting the networks and the facilitators -- and most recently, Mahmoud Farhadi, a Qods Force officer detained in northern Iraq a couple weeks ago -- because that's our mandate. That's our responsibility, to take the necessary actions to improve stability and security here -- so more to follow -- more to be seen on that front.

Now comes a report from Stars and Stripes that there is still no "discernible improvement" vis-à-vis Iranian men and materiel flowing into Iraq:

A U.S. commander in Baghdad said he has seen no signs that Iranian-backed Shiite extremists are curtailing their attacks against coalition forces....

“While the violence is down, I remain very concerned in our sector about these special groups,” Farris said. “They’re very lethal. They’re organized. They’re sophisticated, and I have not seen that their operations have declined or diminished in any way shape or form here in the last several months.”...

Iran has reportedly promised the Iraqi government that it will stem the flow of weapons into Iraq, but Farris said Monday that he still sees evidence of Iranian activities in his sector.

“In the last six weeks, we have captured two Iranian operatives, we’ve captured two Iraqis: One was significant because he admitted to receiving training in Iran in building and employing these explosive formed projectiles, and another was — admitted working as an agent for somebody or some group in Iran,” Farris said.

Unfortunately, it seems that a halt to Iranian attacks on U.S. forces is not among the "apparent concessions and small gestures" being made between the two countries.

The new 30-second ad that Mike Huckabee has put on the air in Iowa represents a quite remarkable step in presidential politics. Maybe my memory betrays me, but I don't recall a major presidential candidate who made such an unabashed, unambiguous appeal for support on the basis of religious faith. Huckabee, of course, is an ordained Baptist minister. And according to some estimates, roughly half of the attendees at the Iowa Republican caucuses will be Christian conservatives.

The Huckabee ad, entitled "Believe," begins with Huckabee's emphasis on the importance of his faith. "Faith doesn't just influence me," he says. "It really defines me." A few seconds later, the words "Christian Leader" are emblazoned on the screen. Even TV evangelist Pat Robertson, a leader in the emergence of Christian conservatives as a major bloc in Republican politics, didn't appeal to voters with such a strong emphasis on his personal religious faith when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988 - and finished second in Iowa.

What's striking is that it's not until the end of the Huckabee ad that the words "Authentic Conservative" pop up on the screen. As a result, I don't think it's a stretch to say that, at least in this ad, Huckabee has made his political views secondary to his religious beliefs. Perhaps this is what Christian conservatives in Iowa want to hear. But Huckabee may be risking a backlash.

For one thing, the mainstream media that has covered his presidential bid lovingly may be turned off. Reporters tend to be intensely secular. And so may Republican voters who think a candidate's political views, not his religious faith, should be front and center. Then there's New Hampshire, an unusually secular state whose first-in-the-nation primary comes five days after the Iowa caucuses are held on January 3. It's not likely to be fertile ground for Huckabee.

The former Arkansas governor is concentrating his entire campaign on Iowa, where he aims to defeat Mitt Romney, the current favorite, or come in a strong second. Either of those outcomes would keep his campaign alive until the South Carolina primary on January 22. Huckabee surely won't air the "Believe" ad in New Hampshire. But we may see it again in South Carolina, a Bible Belt state, absent a backlash from its airing in Iowa.

Newsweek has a fascinating look at the investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old British coed killed this month while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. Using Skype and Facebook, caribinieri were able to identify and trace the location of suspect Rudy Hermann Guede, a 20-year-old native of the Ivory Coast who immigrated to Italy as a child, who was on the lam in Dusseldorf. (There are also two additional suspects, an American student who lived in the same cottage as Kercher; and this American student's Italian boyfriend. Every suspect denies any involvement.)

This gruesome story is tabloid-ready, but like many tabloid stories it may also be representative of the age in which we live. Look at the elements: the Internet, social networking applications, globalization, technological surveillance, the rise of study-abroad programs and American out-migration (if only presumably temporary in this case), immigration from the global south to the global north. ... No wonder people are fascinated by it.

Inside the Air Force reports in their latest issue:

Army infantry units should be equipped with laserguided mortar rounds, according to recommendations from the first phase of a larger Army precision fires capabilities study, sister publication Inside the Army reports.

The recommendation comes out of a broader study launched to address requests from infantry commanders for a precision-strike weapon to replace traditional mortars, which tend to cause “unacceptable amounts of collateral damage,” according to an Army spokesman at the service’s Training and Doctrine Command.

Back in May, the WWS quoted security expert Stuart Koehl, now a regular contributor here, and globalsecurity.org's John Pike on the Army's Excalibur precision artillery system, which had just seen its first use in Iraq:

Koehl says the Army ought to be focused instead on developing a precision mortar capability. The war in Iraq is being waged by small infantry units in urban areas and in close combat. Precision mortars would give much needed firepower and flexibility to those units--"a 5-pound mortar bomb on the roof does the trick, and with a lot less collateral damage than even a 100-pound GPS-guided projectile." Pike was also eager to see mortars upgraded with a precision capability: "Having [precision guided] mortars in direct support of a small unit, you can't get any better than that, because that's organic fire support. The time on target is short relative to field artillery, you don't have the elaborate fire support planning that goes into tube artillery, and you have a face-to-face relationship between the mortar team and the other people who are in the fight. So by all means...let us put GPS guidance on our mortar rounds as well."

Well, this new system isn't guided by GPS, but "It has demonstrated accuracy to within 2 meters of a target from just over 7 kilometers away." It's a good start.

and I'll tell you who you are--so the old saying goes. By that measure, Mike Huckabee is an unlikely up-and-comer in the Republican presidential primary. Bob Novak's column calling Governor Huckabee a 'false conservative' has attracted a great deal of attention today. Less noticed is this complimentary piece about Huckabee's economic record:

Huckabee claims to have cut taxes "almost 94 times" while Governor. (An odd construction, but whatever.) He adds that he saved "the people of Arkansas almost $380 million." That's true. Huckabee cut taxes 90 times from 1997 to 2005, reducing state revenues by $378 million.

But Huckabee also presided over 21 tax increases, none of which he mentions on the stump. And those tax increases totaled much more than $378 million. According to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, the "net tax increase under Huckabee's tenure was an estimated $505.1 million," adjusted for inflation.

Spending did go up under the Huckabee regime—the state budget was $10.4 billion in his first year as Governor (again, adjusted for inflation), while it was $15.6 billion in 2006. So he is, technically, a tax-and-spender. But Huckabee balanced the Arkansas state budget every year he was governor (balancing the budget is a requirement under Arkansas state law) and in the end, Huckabee had a positive effect on the state ledger: He faced a $200 million deficit in 2002, but ended his term with a $844.5 million surplus. That's a billion dollar turnaround, taxing-and-spending be damned.

Where does this complimentary review come from? Mother Jones.

AP reporter Matthew Barakat details the ongoing controversy surrounding the Islamic Saudi Academy, a K-12 school with campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax, Virginia, that is owned by the Saudi embassy and accused of promoting Islamic extremism:

The academy opened in 1984 and stayed out of the spotlight until the Sept. 11 attacks. Criticisms were revived in 2005, when a former class valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was charged with joining al-Qaida while attending college in Saudi Arabia. He was convicted on several charges, including plotting to assassinate President Bush, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Most recently, the religious freedom commission--an independent federal agency created by Congress--issued its report, saying it was rebuffed in its efforts to obtain textbooks to verify claims they had been reformed.

The commission recommended that the academy be shut down until it could review the textbooks to ensure they do not promote intolerance.

Since the commission's report, the academy has given copies of its books to the Saudi embassy, which then provided them to the State Department. The commission is waiting to get the books from the State Department.

On Nov. 15, a dozen U.S. senators, including Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., wrote a letter to the State Department urging it to act on the commission's recommendations. And on Tuesday, Reps. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Steve Israel, D-N.Y., introduced legislation to write the commission's recommendations regarding the academy into law.

The Washington Post has already chastised the government panel for failing to ask enough times to look at the textbooks. The school's director says that the textbooks have been cleaned up, but after the Saudi government similarly claimed to have modified its textbooks in 2006, Nina Shea at Freedom House reported that those textbooks still included passages such as these:

SIXTH GRADE: Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power.

EIGHTH GRADE: As cited in Ibn Abbas: The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.

TWELFTH GRADE: Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts, which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God.

The real problem then is not that a religious school is asserting that it's religious claims--even hate-filled claims against other religions--are true, but that particular teachings compel believers to wage war on unbelievers.

As much as the Washington Post editorial page and U.S. political leaders would hate to admit it, even if the textbooks of the Saudi academy were scrubbed of intolerance, a literal interpretation of certain passages in the Koran would still promote violence. After all, when bin Laden and friends issued their 1998 declaration of war, they weren't quoting from a textbook when they wrote: "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)."

By my count, since Saturday the Romney campaign has released 11 emails that directly attack or counterattack statements Rudy Giuliani has made. During that same time, I count three emails the Giuliani campaign has released that attack or counterattack statements Mitt Romney has made. Absent from this count, of course, is the scathing attack on Romney unleashed by Giuliani himself in an interview in today's Politico. A sample:

Using some of the toughest language of his campaign, Giuliani, in an interview with Politico, slammed Romney on health care, crime and taxes. At the same time he portrayed the one-time moderate as a hypocrite on a host of social issues who lives 'in a glass house.' It was easily the most sweeping attack Giuliani has delivered against Romney in this campaign.

'He throws stones at people,' Giuliani said in an interview on his campaign bus. 'And then on that issue he usually has a worse record than whoever he's throwing stones at.'

The response from the Romney campaign was that Giuliani is "nasty."

What is going on here? Both candidates spent the weekend in New Hampshire, where Romney leads and Giuliani and John McCain are about tied at second. With a little over a month before primary day, more than half of New Hampshire Republicans remain undecided. The resources that all three campaigns are pouring into New Hampshire suggest that Giuliani's so-called "Feb. 5 strategy" of minimizing Iowa and New Hampshire and playing up Florida and other big states is no more; the compacted primary schedule really has increased - not minimized - the importance of the first two contests.

Something else may also be at work. Romney's lead in New Hampshire remains stable, but his lead in Iowa is unstable. More, the chances that someone who is not Hillary Clinton will win the Iowa Democratic caucuses are increasing. Further chances are a second-place Romney finish in Iowa, or a close Romney victory in Iowa, or even a decisive Romney victory in Iowa will be completely overshadowed by an Obama or Edwards victory in the Democratic caucuses. Which means Romney needs a strong showing in New Hampshire just as much as Giuliani or McCain.

So far the fight between Giuliani and Romney hasn't spilled over into paid tv attack ads. But it will. And probably sooner rather than later.

You may not have heard much about the November 16 cyclone in Bangladesh that killed hundreds, possibly even thousands, and destroyed entire towns. Even if you heard about the cyclone, you probably haven't heard about the good work that U.S. Marines are doing to help the devastated country.

Soon after the storm, bloggers reported that Islamist terrorist groups would provide considerable assistance to the victims, and some worried that the United States wouldn't do enough to help the victims. On November 18, Counterterrorism Blog reported that, although the U.S. was sending Marines and other assistance, "The Islamists will take advantage of the tragedy to funnel money from rich donors around the world into the area to expand their existing social services while attracting grateful recruits. The U.S. and other Western countries will need to continue to deploy more assets and aid to counter the Islamists."

Although the tragedy has been covered very little in the mainstream media, bloggers aren't ignoring the Marines' efforts in Bangladesh.

Marine Corps News has the details:

Friday, the MEU’s relief effort began with the delivery of 700 gallons of bottled water to the hands of Bengali soldiers aboard a small airfield in Barisal, Bangladesh.

“Today’s mission was essentially a humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, mission to start providing the necessary materials needed for the Bengali people,” said Capt. Andrew M. Traynor, a CH-46E Sea Knight pilot with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 261 (reinforced), who flew in the day’s mission.

More from UPI and Breitbart.

Although some Islamists were protesting the arrival of U.S. troops, Gateway Pundit has photo evidence that "the victims of the devastating cyclone did not seem to mind that the supplies were coming from the US."

It is important to note that the Marines' goal is to truly help the people of Bangladesh, while the Islamist strategy seeks to gain recruits. According to 3rd World View, "we see that Hizbut Tahrir Bangladesh, a Branch of Hizbut Tahrir is protesting the arrival of US navy ships in Bangladesh. Hizbut Tahrir is an international, Sunni, pan-Islamist vanguard political party whose goal is to unite all Muslim countries in a unitary Islamic state or caliphate, ruled by Islamic law and headed by an elected head of state." In short, the Marines aren't the enemy--and the people of Bangladesh know it.

Milibloggers Blackfive and Castle Argghhh! have more great coverage of our Marines' assistance. As one commenter at Argghhh! remarked, "We as a country, or more properly our military, do amazing things, especially in these humanitarian efforts."

Beijing
Intelligence sources and other observers both here in the capital of the PRC and elsewhere in Asia are stating that they project a possible collapse of the North Korean regime within six months time.

Although there have been similar dire predictions made in the past, those analyzing the current situation point to several factors that indicate that the regime may finally be unraveling.

Recent activity by both Kim Jong-Il and other DPRK officials suggest that the Dear Leader is in the process of moving around the financial resources of Pyongyang’s international banking empire in order to make sure he is taken care of should he have to go into exile. This includes a recent visit to the United States by North Korean finance officials who were visiting to learn about the international financial circulation network.

Ostensibly, this visit was preparatory work that would allow the country to re-join the international financial system. This is the next, anticipated step for Pyongyang once the regime has negotiated its removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. The DPRK are also seeking an end to their being subject to the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act first imposed during the Korean War by President Harry Truman.

But, there are others who suggest that this is also part of a contingency plan in order to make Kim’s assets “portable.”

While the Dear Leader is engaged in financial matters, other reports state that there are movements of U.S. and South Korean military units and equipment to the DMZ in what appears to be a pre-positioning exercise in anticipation of some internal upheavals in the north.

Indications that the regime is possibly losing its grip and that Kim may be failing to maintain control over events are seen in what happens both inside--and how people are managing to get outside of--the country.

A recent article in the Washington Post details how it has become far easier and more common for North Koreas to find ways of getting out of their country. How much money you have determines how arduous and circuitous your escape route might be.

The key factor to watch is how rapidly the numbers of people fleeing are increasing. Only 41 North Koreans were able to reach the South in 1995, but the rate of those escaping has grown each year and last year it reached 2,000. What makes these multiple escape routes out of the country possible is that there are a growing number of DPRK border guards and secret police officials who are willing to take bribes to allow their fellow countrymen to escape.

North Korea watchers regard this as a telltale sign of the regime losing its control. Part of the motivation for these border control officials’ desire to collect bribes is that the centrally-controlled economy has ceased to function and the food distribution system is nearly as broken. But, the other side of the coin, they say, is that those accepting these under-the-table payments do not fear the punishment of higher-ranking authorities as much as they once did.

Equally indicative of how little Pyongyang can now affect the outward flow of asylum seekers is how harsh the retributions have become for the relatives left behind.

As the 2008 Republican primary campaign turns ugly, have you noticed that each pair of combatants - Romney and Giuliani in one ring, Huckabee and Thompson in the other - comes from the same region? Romney and Giuliani are squabbling for the opportunity to represent the GOP's (steadily shrinking) northeastern contingent, while Huckabee and Thompson both want to speak for the party's (ever-expanding) southern wing. Meanwhile, the only western candidate in the top tier is on his own, sometimes entering the fight by taking a swing at Giuliani, most of the time preparing to reap the benefits if the other candidates take each other down fighting.

China's lunar probe, Chang'e-1, has sent its first image back to earth:

During the celebration work staff at a hall in the BACC where the picture was unveiled, played greetings and music decoded from the data transmitted back to Earth via the satellite.

"I come with greetings from China," said a female voice that was programmed into the Chang'e-1 probe to salute the moon.

The music broadcast included "The East is Red", which was also played in 1970 by the country's first man-made satellite, "Ode to the Motherland," a tribute to the country's power and prosperity, and some moon-themed songs, such as Chinese pop diva Faye Wong's rendition of a famous Song Dynasty (960-1127) poem.

The program cost some $187 million--though apparently nobody thought to include a color camera.

From the New York Post: Beyond the Drop in Violence, by Amir Taheri.

From Human Events: The Second Amendment Wedge, by Jed Babbin.

From Michael Yon Online: Thanksgiving with Petraeus, by Michael Yon.

From UPI: China seeks new Russian technology, by Andrei Chang.

From the Sunday Times: Gordon's Whiff of Cordite.

The internets have been buzzing about Fred Thompson's appearance on Fox News Sunday yesterday. The big news was Thompson lashing out at Chris Wallace for giving an anti-Fred! slant to his horserace analysis and then claiming that Fox News is against him.

Generally speaking, politicians probably shouldn’t provide their own in-game analysis and instead stick to the tried-and-true “I'm just communicating with the American people –they'll be the ones to decide.” What's more, whining about media bias seldom evidences the kind of gravitas that a presidential candidate needs.

Nevertheless, yesterday's little spat with Wallace was a good thing for Fred. Even if it was an odd choice of terrain, Fred will benefit from showing the kind of fire in the belly seen in the clip above. People, even his supporters, question his energy and desire. This clip will help address those concerns. It was a bit like that spat Mitt Romney had with that Iowa radio host cretin who insisted on lecturing Romney on the tenets of Mormonism. It's usually a good thing for politicians when the veil slips a bit and you see some toughness residing underneath.

In other campaign news, Mike Huckabee has released his first serious campaign ad. As Allah notes, “Chuck Norris is a tough act to follow, which is why for ad number two Huck’s gone straight to the top.” With all the subtlety of sledgehammer, Huckabee pretty much declares himself God’s candidate.

In case Huckabee talking about the importance of his faith didn't make things obvious enough, the ad's first caption reads, “Christian Leader.”

But wait – there's more! Huckabee says in the ad, “I don't have to wake up everyday wondering, 'What do I need to believe?'” This is obviously the standard flip-flop charge aimed at Romney. What takes this spot into unexplored territory is the fact that the term “Christian Leader” pops up during this seemingly shopworn attack. Was the term “Christian Leader” supposed to draw a contrast between Huckabee and another candidate, maybe the Mormon one he was referencing when the term swept onto the screen?

What's most disturbing about this spot is it hits the Mormon angle with the same kind of elusive slickness that John Edwards used to go after Dick Cheney's daughter. The Huckabee campaign has the same kind of plausible deniability with this ad that Edwards had after his debate with Cheney.

Perhaps I'm just paranoid and all of this is just a strange coincidence. After all, the Huckabee team is new to running TV ads. Then again, it would be a very strange coincidence.

There are some new television ads today. Here's Mike Huckabee's appeal to Iowa values voters:

It's worth watching the above ad after reading today's Novak stem-winder. Huckabee's candidacy truly tests the power of the social right in the Republican party.

Meanwhile, John McCain's new ad is running in New Hampshire. Here it is:

With all the ads McCain has been running in New Hampshire, it looks more and more likely that he has rejected his eminence's counsel and is focusing on winning New Hampshire.

After a month of overt Taliban control over the settled district of Swat in Pakistan's turbulent Northwest frontier Province, the Pakistani military announced that it has begun the ground assault to retake the district. The Daily Times reports:

Security forces backed by gunship helicopters and artillery have begun a ground offensive against pro-Taliban militants, killing at least 35 of them and losing two soldiers, the military said on Sunday.

It was the first time ground troops had been used in the Swat region, said army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad. He said the troops had gained control of mountaintops overlooking three militant-held villages near Mingora in an operation that was launched late on Saturday, reported AP. The troops controlled all entry and exit points to these villages, he added. He said 15 soldiers were also wounded.

“The strongholds of militants are being hit. Troops have demolished their bunkers and destroyed a checkpost,” Arshad said.

Prior to the beginning of this ground offensive, the Pakistani military relied on artillery and air strikes to target Taliban positions. The military claims over 150 Taliban were killed in the past month, but the Taliban puts the numbers below 20. The Pakistani military is notorious for inflating enemy casualties and deflating its own.

After one month of fighting in Swat, the government can claim some small success. The military is touting the retaking of checkpoints and hilltops overlooking towns. This is a poor counterinsurgency strategy and speaks volumes about the military’s inability to wage war against the Taliban within its own borders. The military has also blockaded food, medical supplies, and other vital aid to the regions controlled by the Taliban, punishing civilians caught behind Pakistani lines. The military has only now started to jam Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah's jihadi radio channel, which has incited supporters to fight the government.

Despite the start of this long awaited offensive, the government has signaled throughout the standoff it was willing to cut a deal. The provincial government is forming a "peace jirga"--or tribal meeting--to resolve the situation. The governor has repeatedly said force was the option of last resort--he is looking for a political solution.

But most importantly, the government released Sufi Mohammed, one of the most dangerous Taliban leaders in the Northwest Frontier Province. As head of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM - the Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law), also known as the "Pakistani Taliban," he sent over 10,000 fighters into Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces during Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001. Sufi was jailed by the Pakistani government after the TNSM was banned.

Pakistani military leaders believe Sufi's release will appease the Taliban and end the fighting. Sufi's release was endorsed by General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the director general of military operations in the region. "Shuja calls [Sufi's release] part of the 'political effort' needed to accompany the military campaign," Time reported the day Sufi was released. "Brute use of force alone would only take us backwards," said Shuja.

If the government's past actions in the Northwest Frontier Province are any indicator, the government's likely course of action will be to claim some sort of military success in Swat and then sit down with the Taliban and cut a "peace deal," as it did in North and South Waziristan and Bajaur.

Historically, when nations shift from a peacetime to a wartime footing, defense spending and force size increase. But in the United Kingdom, forces and spending have actually shrunk since 9/11.

The Telegraph reports British Forces Underfunded and Overstreched:

General Lord Guthrie, Admiral Lord Boyce and Marshal of the RAF Lord Craig, together with former foreign secretary Lord Owen, today launch the UK National Defence Association to press for a major increase in defence spending.

With British troops committed on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the patrons argue that the Armed Forces are spread too thinly and are working with “outdated” equipment.

They also point to the “unnecessary casualties” brought about by over-tasking and under-resourcing.

Ditto for U.S. forces. The post Cold War force reduction and BRAC efforts should have ended on Sept 12, 2001. But the Rumsfeld Transformation concept kept both alive and well. Mack Owens nailed the costliness of this policy back in 2003.

The problem that we face today is not the result of the emphasis on transformation, which is necessary if the United States is to be prepared for the likely emergence of a competitor in the future, but the attempt to achieve transformation "on the cheap." Two administrations essentially bet the farm based on the assumption, or hope, that the sort of situation we now face in Iraq and North Korea would not occur.

This approach was on display during the Clinton administration, which paid lip service to readiness and transformation while under funding both. Unfortunately, it has continued under the Bush administration. Until 9/11, OMB refused to provide money to fund both current readiness and transformation, forcing Pentagon planners to choose between them. Most of the increase in defense spending since 9/11 has gone to the war on terrorism and to pay for personnel costs. It has not for the most part gone to increase U.S. capabilities.

Now it cannot be denied that the U.S. military is far more capable now than it was only a decade ago when it routed Iraq in the one-sided Gulf War of 1991. The networking of forces is close to enabling military units from all services to share a common operational picture. This means that missions can be planned and executed in a fraction of the time that it took during Desert Storm and even the more recent action in Kosovo. The accuracy of U.S. weapons has improved by magnitudes. This means that a smaller force can achieve a favorable outcome.

But while quality matters, it is still necessary to provide the U.S. military with enough of what they need to execute their missions. The best military aircraft in the world can only be in one place at a time.

Because of cuts in force structure and the "procurement holiday" that occurred during the Clinton years, the U.S. military is stretched thin. This is especially the case with so called "high-demand, low density" (HD/LD) platforms: aerial refueling aircraft; strategic lift — both air- and sea-lift assets; surveillance aircraft (AWACS and Joint STARS); unmanned aerial vehicles such as Predator and Global Hawk; and the star of the war in Afghanistan — Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), an inexpensive guidance kit that, when attached to a conventional "iron bomb," turns it into an all-weather precision-guided weapon.

That was four years ago, but Owens's column could have been written yesterday with the same level of accuracy. If we plan to see this long war through, we need to properly fund the fight.

From this weekend's Wall Street Journal story on Venezuela's anti-Chavez student left:

Ivan Stalin Gonzalez, who prefers to be called just plain Stalin, is president of the student body at the Central University of Venezuela, or UCV, Venezuela's biggest public university. During the past few weeks, Mr. Gonzalez and other student leaders here have organized protest marches by tens of thousands of students opposed to a constitutional referendum set for Dec. 2. The proposed changes would dramatically expand Mr. Chavez's power and allow him to seek perpetual re-election.

'Historically, students have represented the hope and conscience of Venezuela,' says Mr. Gonzalez, who, unlike his bushy-moustached and sinister-mannered Soviet namesake, is scruffy-bearded and laid-back.

"Sinister-mannered" versus "laid-back"? Well, I guess that's one way to put it. But what about the fact that, unlike his "Soviet namesake," Gonzalez presumably is not also a ... you know ... paranoid homicidal maniac responsible for the deaths or imprisonment of millions upon millions of people?

Andrew Sullivan has written a very interesting piece for the Atlantic in support of Barack Obama's candidacy. He also appeared on This Week yesterday to discuss it, an appearance I missed because I was watching Fred Thompson jump ugly on Chris Wallace on another network. (More on that incident in a bit.) Sullivan's thesis is that the Boomers have so distorted our political dialogue, only the shock-therapy of an Obama presidency can heal our internal wounds. President Obama would have the added benefit of instantly “rebranding” us to the rest of the world.

There's much there to agree with. Anyone familiar with my oeuvre knows I'm always up for a little Boomer bashing. Yes, David Petraeus and countless other Boomers are fantastic people, but as a generation? Yeesh! My brother and I had a hopeful dream back in 1996 that Bob Dole would defeat Bill Clinton, serve eight years, and then a young Kennedy-type would follow Dole making Clinton the only president to ever hail from the Baby Boom generation.

But I digress. Sullivan correctly argues that the Baby Boomers continue to poison our politics with their Vietnam fixation and their petty hostilities. He leaves out the fact that the Boomers are laying in wait to bankrupt the rest of us with their demands that we lavishly fund their golden years.

In Sullivan's telling, a uniting, post-Boomer president like Obama purportedly will be, will mend our domestic divides and cause the world to view us differently. “Consider this hypothetical,” Sullivan writes. “It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America's soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm.”

Put aside the fact that “exponentially” would have made more sense than “a logarithm.” Sullivan is quite correct that the next president will have as his two most pressing duties leaching the crippling bile from our body politic and winning the battle for hearts and minds that is such a vital part of the war on terror. It's unclear how many of the current Oval Office aspirants understand these pressing tasks, especially the former. Given the non-stop angry rhetoric in the Democratic race coming from everyone but Obama, the hopes of a uniter rather than a divider emerging from the Democratic party other than Obama are slim. On the Republican side, I can’t recall a candidate addressing this concern, let alone making it a priority.

While the idea of an Obama presidency has its appeal, the success of a potential Obama presidency will depend on whether or not Obama has the skills to execute while in office. That's where Sullivan and I part company. We've tried the “rebranding” thing before; Jimmy Carter's unfortunate ascension rebranded an America tarnished by Nixonian paranoia and corruption. Too bad Carter was a small, petty man who lacked any of the talents necessary to be even an adequate president.

As I've written before, Obama strikes me as a good and decent man. But his judgment and potential CinC skills are questionable. His promise to take a Diplomacy-palooza tour to schmooze with our enemies is hopelessly naïve. His support for issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, something that 90% of the country opposes, suggests he might not be the healing force some suspect. His often indifferent campaigning, scandalously low level of experience and his generally not-ready-for-primetime ways imply that he might not competently carry out a president’s awesome responsibilities. Worst of all, his Carter-like emphasis on decency and reflexive pacifism raise the fear that he may not be up to handling a word full of thoroughly indecent malefactors.

Andrew Sullivan's conception of Obama is better than the candidate himself. But Sullivan's conception itself is important, and hopefully something that the winning candidate will be mindful of and perhaps shoot for.

Last Friday's David Brooks column on "The Real Rudy" contains some Giuliani quotes that are sure to make it into a Romney attack ad (if they haven't already!). But I think Brooks overstates the extent to which Giuliani has tacked right on the immigration issue. Here's Brooks:

At the moment, Giuliani and fellow moderate Mitt Romney are attacking each other for being insufficiently Tancredo-esque. They are not renouncing the policies they championed as city and state officials, but the emphasis as they run for federal office is all in the other direction. In effect, they are competing to drive away Hispanic votes and make the party unelectable in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Florida and the nation at large.

Thing is, Giuliani may have opposed the Senate compromise immigration plan earlier this year, but he still supports some sort of non-amnesty amnesty for illegal immigrants who are not criminals and who come forward and register for a "tamper-proof ID card" once the "border is secure." It's Romney who opposes non-amnesty amnesty, though he was open to it back in 2006. The "Real Rudy" probably still agrees with most of the quotes in Brooks's column. Which is to say: The "Real Rudy" is the, um, one stumping in New Hampshire. It's just that he's made a decision to emphasize the border enforcement-side as he runs in the GOP primary. If he's the nominee, Giuliani probably will simultaneously talk tough on the border while also emphasizing, perhaps to a much greater extent, the benefits immigration brings to the United States.

The Washington Times reports on Michael Franc's "New Political Demography" research. Franc used IRS data to find the congressional districts in which the richest Americans live. And what do you know? As he wrote in the Financial Times in early November: "Democrats now control the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. More than half of the wealthiest households are concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats."

I take this as further evidence to support the thesis that today's politics primarily are driven by identity and cultural issues, not economic ones.

As the candidates prepare to enter the final month of pre-election campaigning, today's Michael Barone column provides a noteworthy summary of the current state of the presidential race . Here's Barone:

Six weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, the presidential race looks more uncertain than ever. Only last week did the schedule of contests become certain: The day before Thanksgiving, New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner set the state's primary on Jan. 8, and the day before that, the state Supreme Court ruled that the Michigan primary can proceed on Jan. 15. Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani continue to lead the competitions in national polls and in the large states, but on the Democratic side, there is a virtual three-way tie in Iowa, and on the Republican side, Mitt Romney leads in Iowa and New Hampshire. As for the general election, national polls show Democrats generally doing better than Republicans, but recent Rasmussen and Mason-Dixon polls show Hillary Clinton trailing in what was, in 2000 and 2004, the key state of Florida.

It's worth noting that Barone sides with Bill Kristol on the whole question of whether or not all five of the top GOP candidates conceivably could get the nomination. (Fred Barnes and John Podhoretz argue that the race is a two-man contest between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.)

Because it's been the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, things have been a little slow around here. But fear not - I have been poised to pounce on any news in need of further dissemination. For instance, I spent hours deciding whether or not to post on this critical story from Sky News regarding a teenager who had a ten pound hairball surgically from her stomach. Yes, the hairball was composed of her own hair, and yes, she does have a psychological condition for which she is receiving treatment.

Elsewhere, the Politico has discovered that Fred Thompson is not the most energetic of presidential candidates. “Even his own aides and advisers acknowledge privately that there are days when he seems disinterested in running for president at all,” Jonathan Martin reports. “At times, Thompson seems almost invisible and irrelevant to the hour-by-hour combat that candidates like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney have waged for months.” Diehard Fred Heads can take some solace in the fact that John Kerry wasn't exactly setting the world on fire six weeks before Iowa in ’04. Fred also sounds really good when he talks on the issues. Other than that, the Fred-related optimism cupboard is pretty bare.

In Iraq, it has been a rough two days. This morning, a bomb in a Baghdad pet market killed thirteen people and wounded dozens more. Yesterday, a brazen Al Qaeda attack killed two Iraqi soldiers; the attackers then used the slain soldiers’ Humvees to kill eighteen more Sunnis. The only solace we can take from all this carnage is that not long ago, over 100 innocent Iraqis were meeting such gruesome fates each day. Moreover, incidents like this should serve as a sobering and perhaps necessary reminder that there remains much work to be done in Iraq, and that our soldiers serving there are most definitely in harm’s way.

There was a piece of good news from Iraq. 600 Shiite sheiks signed a petition blasting Iranian meddling in Iraq. 300,000 regular Shiites also signed the petition. For those concerned that Iraq would inevitably become an Iranian client state, this is welcome news. Of course, the American media treated this as an enormous development. The Washington Post reported it on Page A-25.

Here's one piece of good news consistent with the “giving thanks” theme of the weekend. A group of musical artists led by all around good guy John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting have put together a CD that thanks the troops. The CD, titled simply “For the Troops,” features prominent contributors such as Billy Joel, the Fray and Montgomery Gentry. The artists, their publishers and their labels have all licensed the songs on the CD gratis, and the songs include the artists’ biggest hits like Joel's “Scenes from and Italian Restaurant,” Ondrasik's “100 Years,” and The Fray's “How to Save a Life.”

Making the gesture especially noteworthy, the CD is literally “for the troops.” Military members can download it at no cost at www.aafes.com with a valid military ID, and 200,000 copies have shipped to military outlets around the world. The album is exclusively for members of the military, their families and veterans, all of whom will receive it for free. If you don't fall into any of these categories and want to get your hands on the CD, my best advice is to befriend a soldier. There are worse things that you could do.

US Airways apparently has little interest in befriending any US soldiers. In the past, many airlines offered special military fares so active duty soldiers could afford to make their way home for the holidays. Just like sexy stewardesses and courteous service, that airline practice has also gone the way of the dodo. 9/11 and the generous government bailout of the faltering industry that quickly followed was a long time ago, and the airlines apparently have short memories.

19 year-old Marine Reservist Adam Hinckley wanted to make his way home to Boston from Camp Lejeune, NC, but the best fare he could find was an unaffordable $650 on US Airways. Big-hearted Bostonians read of Hinckley’s predicament in the Boston Herald, and without any solicitations flooded his grandparents with donations to cover the airfare.

I spoke with Valerie Wunder, spokesperson for US Airways, regarding her airline’s new found parsimony. She told me that since U.S. Airways merged with American West, mush-minded things like helping members of our military and bereavement fares are no longer on its agenda. (To be fair, those weren't her exact words.)

Having such a policy is certainly US Airways' prerogative. Strictly speaking, the airline industry is part of the private sector, except of course for the regular occasions when the industry mismanages itself into a spot where it needs government intervention to stay afloat.

Nevertheless, there would seem to be an opening for an airline wishing to score a public relations coup in this area. What's more, I bet a lot of people like most of the readers of this magazine would be inclined to favor an airline that was willing to devote some of its profits to helping the members of our military in such a concrete and valuable way. I’'ll come out and say it – the airline that's Johnny-On-the-Spot in terms of getting the members of our military home for the Christmas Holidays in an affordable fashion will get the bulk of my business in 2008.

And I can't imagine I’m the only person who feels that way. If you feel the same, email me at Soxblog@aol.com, and I’ll bring your message to the airlines' attention.

Chris Hedges of the Nation seems to fancy himself a reincarnation of Henry David Thoreau. Only Thoreau was protesting a war that actually existed. From his latest, "Hands Off Iran":

I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran. I realize this is a desperate and perhaps futile gesture. But an attack on Iran--which appears increasingly likely before the coming presidential election--will unleash a regional conflict of catastrophic proportions. This war, and especially Iranian retaliatory strikes on American targets, will be used to silence domestic dissent and abolish what is left of our civil liberties. It will solidify the slow-motion coup d'état that has been under way since the 9/11 attacks. It could mean the death of the Republic.

That one paragraph gives us much to chew on. Each sentence boasts its own exquisite paranoia. But I couldn't help but to focus on Hedges' casual suggestion that military action against Iran would cost us "what is left of our civil liberties."

If I had the resources, I'd sponsor an essay contest challenging "What Civil Liberties Have You Lost Since 9/11?" For all of the Left's assurances that a vote for a Republican is a vote for the death of democracy, I can't think of a single right or freedom that I have lost since President Bush took office. And to be honest? I can't see someone turning "I can't call my al Qaeda cousin in Pakistan without the NSA listening in" into a convincing argument that the Republic is ready to draw its last breath.

Still, I'd love to be enlightened.

P.S.: The Corner notes of Hedges, "Not only was he a New York Times reporter for 15 years, he was its Middle East bureau chief in the 1990's. Yikes."

Austin Bay has an interesting article on UAVs at Townhall.com, but his conclusion may be a little off base:

UAVs also present the United States with potential strategic problems. Since the end of World War II American military planners -- and for that matter, most of the planners in the rest of the world -- have assumed the United States would quickly obtain air superiority. We not only had the technology, we had an edge in pilot quality.

Robotic fighter aircraft cropping up in the air fleets of adversaries could change that assumption. Software for robotic aircraft is improving. The United States must get prepared to face a robot "fighter ace" -- one that will challenge American air dominance.

I am not nearly so sanguine as Bay about the prospects for "UAV aces." Air-to-air combat is simply too unpredictable and multidimensional to be performed successfully by UAVs. Two factors in particular make the development of an effective UAV fighter unlikely: the problem of situational awareness, and the fact that the best fighter pilots often succeed by pushing their aircraft beyond the envelope. No variety of sensors, even if linked to the most powerful computer, can evaluate and respond to the complex, rapidly shifting, multidimensional time/motion problems involved in air-to-air combat. The human brain does quickly and well what a computer does slowly and badly.

A UAV could be used as a beyond-visual range missile platform, which means it might do well as an anti-bomber interceptor (with the ultimate option of ramming the incoming bomber), but against small, agile targets in a dogfight, I do not see a real role for UAV, even given their potential for pulling double-digit G turns.

UCAVs will thus be limited to strike missions for the foreseeable future. As I've noted here before, UCAVs are developing along two separate tracks. One is a high-performance platform intended to penetrate sophisticated air defenses, a kind of reusable cruise missile (and what is a cruise missile but a UAV with a bad attitude?). The other is a low-speed, high-endurance platform intended for use in benign air defense environments such as pertain in COIN and other low-intensity conflicts.

Though the initial focus was on the high-performance UCAV, the high-endurance type is likely to have more impact, since the majority of conflicts fought by the United States will fall at the lower end of the spectrum. Since air support in low-intensity conflict consists mainly of surveillance and on-call close-air support, rather than strike/interdiction, the bulk of air missions can easily be performed by UAVs such as Global Hawk and Predator, thus taking the burden off of the over-stressed U.S. fighter/attack aircraft force. These, in turn, can be reserved for (and train for) high-intensity combat operations such as we would face in the event of a conflict with China, North Korea, Iraq (or even a resurgent Russia).

From the AP, Hailstorm Sets Off Bomblets:

BEIRUT — The season's first hailstorm Tuesday was a blessing in disguise for cluster bomb-infested parts of southern Lebanon, triggering blasts from previously unexploded bomblets. No injuries were reported.

After a long dry spell across Lebanon, hailstones as big as walnuts hit villages and struck undiscovered bomblets scattered across the landscape, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Dalya Farran, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Center (MACC), confirmed that many cluster bombs exploded when they were hit by hailstones in villages near the town of Marjayoun.

More than 30 people have been killed by cluster bombs in southern Lebanon since last year's war between Hezbollah and Israel.

That's a wonderful story. Minus the AP's obligatory blame Israel meme.

The United Nations and human rights groups accuse Israel of dropping about 4 million cluster bomblets during the war. Up to 1 million failed to explode and now endanger civilians in the area.

In lieu of divine intervention, one of the most aggressive efforts to clear southern Lebanon of unexploded ordinance has been conducted by the United States.

HT: Danger Room

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it seems like we have our 2008 primary calendar falling into place. The New Hampshire primary will be held on January 8, 2008, as many expected. That's five days after the January 3, 2008, Iowa caucuses. In between the two will be the Wyoming GOP convention on January 5, 2008. The Michigan primary will most likely be held on January 15; the Nevada Republican caucus on January 19; the South Carolina primary on January 22; and Florida on January 29. And that's when things may get really interesting.

On that note, have a happy Thanksgiving! The blog will be closed until Monday, November 26, when regular posting will resume. Until then ...

This Time magazine package on "One Day in America" features less interesting statistics than you may expect. One factoid in the piece is that Washington, D.C., has the second-worst traffic in America (the first is L.A.). No surprise there.

However, did you know that "the average U.S. household has more televisions (2.73) than people (2.6)"? That a greater percentage of Americans watch prime-time basic cable (more than 30 percent) than the networks (slightly under 30 percent)? That Americans spent $24.4 billion on DVDs and DVD rentals in 2006, while spending only $9.4 billion going to movie theatres? When you consider some of the latest releases put out by Hollywood, though, you can't really blame folks for not wanting to leave the couch.

If Iraq recedes as an issue over the next year, voters' perceptions of "the economy" will likely become more important. Which means you should probably read this Martin Wolf column in the Financial Times on the increasing likelihood that the United States is already experiencing a "growth recession." The article is technical at times, but that shouldn't stop you from reading it. Here's Wolf's conclusion:

A plausible view of the future, then, is that the US will experience a lengthy period of sluggish growth in domestic private demand, partially offset by fiscal expansion and an improvement in net exports. It is via the latter effect, moreover, that monetary policy should have its principal impact, since households are unlikely to borrow much more while their houses decline in value.

This is the great unwinding. So what does it mean for the rest of the world? It means that the rest of the world will adjust either by increasing demand, relative to potential supply, or by reducing its supply relative to demand. The former adjustment is clearly the more desirable.

Translation: "The rest of the world - and the emerging markets in particular - must now become the demand engines of the world economy." Or: The rest of the world needs to be ready to buy American. And no one knows whether or not that will happen.

First Read's Domenico Montanaro has a timely list of what each top-tier presidential candidate ought to be thankful for. But his list of things for which Giuliani ought to give thanks is slightly puzzling. "For Giuliani," writes Montanaro, "it's giving thanks for the image many Americans still have of him after 9/11, the division among social conservatives, the fact that oppo-researchers haven't yet begun the onslaught that will eventually come, and Hillary Clinton."

What made me scratch my head was that part about how "oppo-researchers haven't yet begun the onslaught that will eventually come." Really? Seems like almost every day we're discussing either Giuliani's immigration heresies, or his relationship with Bernard Kerik, or his pro-choice position in a pro-life party, or the fact that some New York City firefighter unions don't like him, or his marriages, or his kids ... At this rate, what will be left to expose by the time the "onslaught" begins?

In this post, John Podhoretz sides with Fred Barnes on the question of whether the GOP primary contest is a fight between two men - Giuliani and Romney - or five - Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Thompson, and Huckabee. (Bill Kristol argues that the race is wide-open for all here.) Here's Podhoretz:

Romney has a coherent plan for victory: He is fighting like mad to win early states in the hope that those victories will catapult him into the big primary as the leader. So he is leading in polls in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina but is trailing badly in national polls.

Giuliani has a coherent plan for victory: Use his persistent standing at the top of the national leader board and his deep popularity in Florida (land of ex-New Yorkers) to his advantage by allowing him to bypass the earlier, smaller, more eccentric states where he has less of a chance to prevail.

Who's in a stronger position at the moment? Here's Podhoretz again:

I think Giuliani is, and I do not say this as an advocate. In all three states where Romney is leading, he is facing distinct challenges. Huckabee is gaining on him in Iowa. McCain has advanced in New Hampshire even as Giuliani has faded some. And he is in a statistical dead heat in South Carolina with Giuliani and Thompson.

Under these conditions, Romney might win in all three, but do so in a less than commanding fashion that allows the media to focus attention on those who come in second - Huckabee, McCain, and even Giuliani. After all, the only time a win isn't a win is in primary politics. (Quick - which Democrat won New Hampshire in 1992? No, it wasn't Bill Clinton, the self-declared 'Comeback Kid.' It was Paul Tsongas.)

We will now relatively soon whether or not Romney's theory of the race is true - that is, if he wins Iowa and New Hampshire, then that should raise his national numbers and put him into strong contention in Michigan and South Carolina. All of which contests will be held by January 22, 2008.

It will take longer for us to disprove Giuliani's theory of the race. He seems committed to the idea that he will remain in the contest through at least the national primary day on February 5, 2008, at which point several contenders - including Romney - may have already dropped out.

Fred Barnes's post "Herd Journalism, Iraq Edition" has sparked a lot of great letters to the editor. One letter writer, a State Department type in Baghdad, tells this story:

A high civil servant I know, a very, cultured and well respected man, who is also a lecturing professor at Baghdad University, is neither a fan of the invasion nor of the continued presence of Coalition Forces in Iraq. Once, like the character, Tim O'Leary in the movie Ryan's Daughter, he answered my question whether there was anything I could do, he replied, 'Just get out of my country.'

Two months ago, he said that people had resumed traveling about the city, shops and restaurants in his neighborhood had re-opened and people in the Ministry generally feel safer. He said he believed that Iraqis had just reached a point where they have had enough and were willing to cooperate with the Coalition and stand up to the thugs.

One month ago he traveled by car from Syria to Baghdad without stopping to spend the night. According to him, six months ago a car would have to be off the western route by 3 p.m.

It's a safe bet that we will hear more stories like this in the coming weeks.

A reader offers this take on the latest Iowa polling:

To the extent that he can re-ignite, isn't Thompson's best route to try to push Romney down to third in Iowa (which would really damage him) rather than taking down Huckabee now? Thompson can worry about Huck later, when having money and seeming presidential will count for more. The fact that Romney has sunk all the time and money into Iowa and can't shake Huckabee shows he hasn't won over people's 'hearts and minds.'

Seems to me that Huck-Fred going 1-2 in Iowa would marginalize Romney and set up a Huck-Fred contest in South Carolina for the anti-Rudy role.

And the guy in the anti-Rudy role has a pretty good shot.

In other words, if I'm Thompson I don't try to burst the Huck bubble; I would let the two of them both look genuine compared to robo-Mitt.

This seems like good advice to me, but apparently Thompson disagrees and wants to take on the Huck-ster now:

Thompson called it 'very interesting' that Huckabee is second - within the margin of error of first - in recent Iowa polling. 'I wonder who will lead it next week and the week after that and the week after that,' Thompson said. 'It's a fluctuating situation in Iowa as always, you know, everybody's just going to have to do the best they can do and see how it turns out in the end.'

Thompson was just warming up, as he went on to imply that Huckabee's surge may be short-lived. 'Well he is, he's kind of new to the first tier I guess you might say, and so they probably don't know him as well as they know some of the rest of us,' Thompson said. 'But that's a situation that will be cured shortly. That's the reward you get for doing well in a poll. You start getting attention, and I'm sure that'll happen with regard to him as it's happened to all of us.'

A third-place finish for Romney in Iowa would be a serious blow to the governor's candidacy - but it may also position him for a strong showing in New Hampshire and the inevitable "comeback kid" stories that would follow.

Jeffrey Feldman over at the Daily Kos, one of the site's most prominent and astute “diarists,” published an interesting essay over the weekend. In it, he suggested that the Kossacks revisit the way they “frame” the Iraq issue. Feldman looked to Basra and came up with four magic words that would surely have George Lakoff smiling down from heaven if he wasn't in fact still alive. The four words are, “Troops leave, violence drops.”

Obviously, Feldman’s four words are meant to suggest a causality that should force any sane American to demand that all of our troops return from Iraq immediately. If the troops leaving actually does cause the violence to drop, then something dramatic like removing all of our troops simultaneously may cause not only peace to break out throughout Iraq, but Sunnis and Shiites to hold interfaith Seders next Passover with any Jews they can find lurking about.

Putting aside the sheer idiocy of his “reframing” effort, Feldman still deserves plaudits for recognizing what most on the left refuse to acknowledge. The situation in Iraq has improved, and that will be a political reality that progressives will have to deal with rationally in '08 if they want to win the White House. Feldman won’t get any help in this regard from the master of the Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas. In his latest Newsweek column, Moulitsas was still singing from the last campaign cycle's hymnbook, calling Iraq “an unwinnable quagmire.” Actually, that may have been 1968's hymnbook.

There's something even more problematic with Feldman's formulation. His “reframing” suggests that our troops are the problem. Not content with the usual progressive's role of dismissing the progress and sacrifices our military has made in Iraq, Feldman actually seems to be suggesting that they are and have been the problem all along. I don't think any of the military people I know will have a fondness for this theory. I know Feldman would say he's Blaming Bush (trademark pending), but those who have bled in Iraq won't like their accomplishments being dismissed. Nor should they.

Of course, Jeffrey Feldman isn’t exactly one of the left’s leading strategists. But Markos Moulitsas is. Their differing approaches to dealing with Iraq, both equally obtuse and offensive in their own unique ways, provide a handy look at the kind of trouble the Democratic nominee is going to have talking about Iraq cogently or even coherently.

Germany’s demographic time bomb is compounded by the fact that those children who are born increasingly grow up in impoverished families hampered by a lack of education, bad nutrition, and poor health.

According to advance excerpts from the Kinderreport 2007, which will be officially released by the well-known NGO Children’s Charity of Germany this Thursday, the number of children living on welfare in Germany now stands at about 2.5 million, more than twice the number three years ago. Today, 1 out of 6 children needs welfare support while back in 1965 it was only 1 out of 75 children. The rise in German child poverty, which has taken place against the backdrop of decades of economic expansion, is staggering.

In this context, it is above all children from poor, often Muslim, immigrant families whose parents frequently refuse to integrate into German society for religious or cultural reasons that are hardest hit. Young adults are also affected. In Berlin, for example, about 40 percent of young Turks under the age of 25 are now unemployed. A scary figure. According to Juergen Borchert, a social affairs judge who was one of the Kinderreport’s co-authors, the rate of child poverty has doubled every ten years during the past four decades. Borchert describes Germany’s demographic problems in truly dramatic terms:

“Germany is a colossus on the verge of collapse. Economically, this country is heading down the tubes fast because the children are no longer there.”

“Germany, the home of the Kindergarten, is now the worst developed country in which to raise children. This individualistic attitude goes back to the post-war period as society took a stand against the Nazi era. Family policy still suffers from the fact that Hitler adopted a specifically pro-family policy for the soldiers.”

“People simply are not used to dealing with children any more. They are seen as a nuisance.”

Children in Germany are fewer, poorer, increasingly Muslim, and increasingly less likely to find employment--they are likely to become more than just a nuisance.