An open letter to the Iowa GOP from Alexander J. Madison and sent out by the Hunter campaign. As one friend describes it, it's "the most conservative statement ever." Enjoy...

Dear Iowegians,

Every presidential election season, your state has the opportunity to help shape the election going forward. Unfortunately, too many times, you have selected a dud during the Iowa Caucuses. In 1976, you picked Gerald Ford, proponent of the ERA and abortion rights, over a very conservative Ronald Reagan. In 1980, you chose a very moderate Bush over Reagan. And twice you picked a milquetoast named Bob Dole. Granted, the choices are sometimes between dud and duddier, but this year is different. This year you have a chance to select a rock-ribbed conservative Reaganite to make up for not choosing the original Reaganite when you had the chance. The name is Duncan Hunter.

Congressman Duncan Hunter is a representative from California's 52nd legislative district. Mr. Hunter put his college career on hold to volunteer with the 173 rd Airborne Rangers to fight the communists in Vietnam. Like Reagan, Hunter believes that war was not only very winnable, but was indeed a "noble cause". And the killing fields that followed our departure from that conflict are a bold testament to their vision over the head-in-the-sand lack of vision (which continues to this day) from the defeatist democrats and RINOs.

Not long ago we learned that the State Department had facilitated arrangements for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to travel to North Korea. It’s a terrible idea, of course, to reward Kim Jong Il’s bad behavior--indeed, his bad nature--by sending cultural envoys with the blessing of our top diplomats. (See Powerline’s Scott Johnson on the subject here.)

But it would be something just short of disastrous if our top diplomat herself--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice--were to go along, no? That is just what she is planning to do, according to a report from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, in an appearance on The Chris Matthews Show. According to Mitchell, whose reporting consistently reflects access to very good sources at the highest levels of our diplomatic bureaucracy, Rice will be going to North Korea with the philharmonic when it travels to the dark nation in February.

George W. Bush included North Korea in the Axis of Evil some six years ago. And he famously told Bob Woodward: "I loathe Kim Jong Il. I’ve got a visceral reaction to this guy because he is starving his people."

But more recently, Bush sent a letter to the man he once derided as a "pygmy," in an effort to get the North Korean leader to made good on his disarmament commitments--a triumph of hope over experience, as Samuel Johnson once said in a different context. Bush was even said to have addressed Kim Jong Il as "Mr. Chairman" in the letter, suggesting a softening of his earlier views.

A letter is one thing. But a cultural exchange featuring America’s top diplomat is quite another.

Will Bush let her go?

Mike Huckabee announced this afternoon that he will not be airing negative ads on Mitt Romney in the closing days of the Republican battle in Iowa. Then, he showed one of those ads to reporters and explained his decision not to air it. (As he spoke, Huckabee was surrounded by placards highlighting his attacks on Romney. See Jonathan Martin's characteristically smart take, here.) According to Martin, Huckabee made the decision not to air the ads shortly before the press conference and by then it was too late to cancel the event.

Hmmmm. It's an old campaign ploy--to share attacks on your opponent with journalists in the hope that they include them in their reporting. The politics of paralipsis again: Here are the negative charges I'm not going to air. The Huckabee camp is probably hoping not only to give life to his attacks on Romney, sort of a political bank shot, but to get credit for staying positive.

But let's assume Huckabee is telling the truth. Why was he even considering running these ads? He promised nearly two weeks ago that he would not run negative ads against Romney and, indeed, said he was betting his campaign on it.

In an email to supporters on December 20, Huckabee wrote:

What is also apparent, as I campaign and talk with voters, is that other Republican candidates in this race have been bombarding Iowans with negative attacks and they are TIRED of it! I believe, in fact I am betting the farm on it, that our commitment to not run negative attacks, will show undecided Iowans a clear contrast in styles and will sway them to our side.

On Friday I covered the interim population estimates recently issued by the Census Bureau, and their implications for the elections of 2012 and beyond. Political consultant Soren Dayton wrote a response at his excellent blog eyeon08, where he threw a dash of cold water on my optimistic assessment.

Dayton does not dispute that many of the states gaining Congressional seats (and hence electoral votes) are currently red states. He points up, however, the importance of where population is added within a state, as well as who's doing the redistricting. Thus, seats gained in Florida, Texas, or Nevada may not turn out to be Republican seats. Similarly he says, it may wind up being Republican seats that are eliminated from blue states.

Dayton concludes:

Indeed, the challenge for the GOP is going to be fighting back against the intra-state trends. In Virginia, southeastern Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, the GOP needs an agenda that is more relevant to the suburbs. In the West and Florida--and nationwide--we need better Hispanic numbers. And in the rust-belt, we need a response to irresponsible Democratic anti-globalization demagoguing...

In conclusion, I think that Brian is right in some sort of static analysis. But the world isn’t static. The Reagan and even Bush coalitions are basically gone. It is very, very dangerous for the GOP to look at 2012 with anything but great apprehension. That’s why we need a candidate at the top of the ticket in 2008 who has something different to offer. And that’s why we need a Congressional party that is willing to substantially address some of our flaws. And I am not seeing it.

His points are well taken--in particular his comments about the importance of who ends up drawing Congressional boundaries. Go read his whole post.

According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, Democrats currently control the state House, Senate, and Governorships in 15 states. Republicans have control in 9. If this were a redistricting year, Republicans would be political targets in the first 15 blue states; Democrats in the 9 red ones.

This demonstrates the importance of the 2010 elections, when 36 states will elect governors and state legislatures. In 18 of the 36 states, governors will be stepping down due to term limits. The 18 (or more) new governors will be the ones who preside over the drawing of new district lines. Thus the public verdict on the next president's first two years in office may have a critical influence on who controls the House of Representatives from 2012 to 2022.

A nascent narrative has developed that suggests Hillary Clinton wasn't really a co-president serving alongside her beloved husband, but in truth performed the more traditional First Lady roles of running pointless goodwill missions and publishing chocolate chip cookie recipes in Parade Magazine. Obviously, the Clinton campaign, reliant as it is on its candidate's purported “experience,” can't take this charge lying down. To rebut this slander, Team Clinton has released a harrowing tale of Hillary's heroism:

(Clinton argued) she risked her life on White House missions in the 1990s, including a hair-raising flight into Bosnia that ended in a "corkscrew" landing and a sprint off the tarmac to dodge snipers.

"I don't remember anyone offering me tea," she quipped. (Aaah, the gallows humor of the remarkably brave!)

The dictum around the Oval Office in the '90s, she added, was: "If a place was too dangerous, too poor or too small, send the first lady."

It turns out that Clinton wasn't quite flying solo into harm's way that day.

She was, in fact, leading a goodwill entourage that included baggy-pants funnyman Sinbad, singer Sheryl Crow and Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, then 15, according to an account of the March 1995 trip in her autobiography "Living History."

As the plane approached the runway, the pilot ordered the Clintons into the armored front of the plane, Clinton writes.

What' not clear is whether Sinbad or Crow were invited to the cockpit or had to brave it out in the unprotected rear.

Upon hearing this remarkable anecdote, assorted questions rush to mind:

1) Does it jeopardize Bill Clinton's legacy that he so cavalierly put his beloved bride in harm's way?

2) What does it say about Hillary that, by her own (admittedly fanciful) telling, she knowingly put her daughter in harm's way, taking a special Mom-and-daughter (and Sinbad) trip to a place that was “too dangerous?”

3) Can America forgive Hillary for jeopardizing the life of national treasure Sheryl Crow?

All of you who have seen The Simpsons movie will immediately recognize what this looks like. It appears to be a near copy of the manure silo for the Simpson family pig that Homer dumped into Lake Springfield. If you all remember, the Lake was already on the verge of ecological meltdown due to excessive pollutants, and all dumping was forbidden. Homer ignored the local ordnance and dumped the bin into the lake because he was on his afraid the free doughnuts being given out at the local shop would be gone by the time he reached it.

The "Spiderpig," Homer named him, manure storage bin was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The EPA had to be called in and the city of Springfield was isolated from the rest of the world by a giant glass dome in order to shut down the spread of the ecological disaster.

Ironically, the spot where this container washed up was on the Poll Na Crann beach near Griminish, which is also known as Stinky Bay (with a name like this it would be logical to assume it was a pig manure container), in west Benbecula in Scotland’s Western Isles.

A number of those who rang the BBC thought they could identify the object. Some thought it could have been a special storage tank for chemicals used in special aircraft paints. Another suspected it might have been one of the meteorological rockets that were launched nearby in the 1960s and 70s.

Appropriately for 31 December, the container turns out to have been a beer fermentation tank. For all of you out there tonight, Happy New Year and all the best in 2008.

Full text of the BBC story can be found here.

In a slightly related story an alarmist review of The Simpsons movie on an Australian website puts more warning labels for this film than you find on the walls at the average nuclear power plant. The Tipper Gores of the world have nothing on this site, Young Media Australia, which appears to be the modern-day, western political correctness incarnation of Cold War-era North Korean social conduct propaganda, but with a new and improved culturally sensitive Smurfland thrown into the mix. It claims the film is shot full of violence, nudity, coarse language, substance abuse, and sexual innuendo and situations.

Among the more egregious scenes recounted in this laborious dissection of the film is one of "animated violence" in which "the Head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) throws his binoculars at his second in charge. They miss, hit their vehicle, bounce back, hit the wall of the dome, then bounce off to hit him in the head."

Gee, I hope these people never get to review "Rush Hour 3."

You can read their list of horrifying Simpson treehouse of horrors discoveries here.

From the New York Post: Interview with Petraeus, by Ralph Peters.

From Townhall: Lessons from the Surge, by Michael Barone.

From the New York Post: Reality Chech, by Stephen Schwartz.

From the New York Daily News: Well done, soldiers, by General George W. Casey Jr.

From THE DAILY STANDARD: State of the Race, by Dean Barnett.

From Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Surface Combat in WWII, by Robert Farley.

Marine milblogger "Slab" reports from western Iraq:

As for my personal end of this little fracas, it's been distressingly quiet. I'm certainly pleased about our progress in this little slice of the province, but ANGLICO is an organization that specializes in delivering large quantities of firepower, and our services are not in as much need as I would like. We'll continue to make whatever contributions we can, and we'll remain the "break glass in case of TIC (Troops in Contact)" organization. I guess, looking outside of my own personal views, it's a good thing when a group that specializes in spectacular kinetic effects of the sort produced by 500 lb bombs is feeling under-utilized. In this kind of fight, that means progress.

Earlier this year, Slab's wife asked him what he wanted for Christmas. His reponse? "Insurgents."

National Defense reports:

The Marine Corps and the Army have decided to curtail their orders for mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, ostensibly because they foresee fewer roadside bomb attacks in Iraq. But there are other reasons, such as the impracticality of operating these vehicles off-road and in urban areas. A Marine Corps official says the 60,000 to 80,000-pound vehicles create significant logistics impediments that would make them hard to deploy, not just to Iraq, but to almost any other war zone.

“Seventy-two percent of the world’s bridges cannot hold the MRAP,” says Brig. Gen. Ronald Johnson, assistant deputy commander for plans, policies and operations. Transporting the vehicles to combat zones also is tough for Marines because the trucks cannot fit aboard the amphibious ships that carry Marine equipment and supplies. “You can’t put an MRAP on a maritime pre-positioning force ship,” Johnson says.

The need for the vehicles has diminished greatly over the last six months, but should that trend be reversed, the MRAP will clearly remain a problematic solution to the IED problem. And it seems clear that the Pentagon has doubts as to whether the vehicles will have any relevance outside of, or after, Iraq. But I'm sure Joe Biden has already thought long and hard about these issues and is prepared to show the military why they've got it wrong.

Remember Black Sunday? You can check out the Ron Paul Blimp here.

What will they think of next, you ask? Watch Ron Paul's Time Machine Mega Money Mania!

HT: Hot Air

You can read it at the Campaign Standard. The key quote:

The last DMR poll appeared a month ago, and had Huckabee at 29 and Romney at 24, followed by Giuliani at 13, Thompson at 9, and McCain and Paul at 7. What poll results tomorrow morning could affect the outcome Thursday night? Two results in particular could be interesting. If Romney has caught up to or passed Huckabee, that would presumably legitimize, so to speak, further defections from Huckabee waverers. And if McCain has moved into third ahead of Giuliani and Thompson, that could give him more momentum and enable him to secure third in Iowa--and perhaps even to pull closer to second (especially if a new New Hampshire poll out tonight shows, as is rumored, McCain leading in New Hampshire).

Polls are supposed to predict election outcomes. But, as everyone knows, they can also affect the outcome. This is especially the case in multi-candidate primaries or caucuses. For one thing, some voters don't want to "waste" their votes on laggards. For another, some voters who are more-or-less undecided among two or more candidates (and there are many such in primaries, since candidates within a party often don't differ that much on issues) can see a candidate pick up momentum, and that can push them off the fence or strengthen an inclination to jump in a certain way.

The final Des Moines Register poll is supposed to appear on line tonight, and in the paper tomorrow morning. The last DMR poll appeared a month ago, and had Huckabee at 29 and Romney at 24, followed by Giuliani at 13, Thompson at 9, and McCain and Paul at 7. What poll results tomorrow morning could affect the outcome Thursday night? Two results in particular could be interesting. If Romney has caught up to or passed Huckabee, that would presumably legitimize, so to speak, further defections from Huckabee waverers. And if McCain has moved into third ahead of Giuliani and Thompson, that could give him more momentum and enable him to secure third in Iowa--and perhaps even to pull closer to second (especially if a new New Hampshire poll out tonight shows, as is rumored, McCain leading in New Hampshire).

Or perhaps the DMR poll won't matter at all.

Yesterday Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda wrapped up his first visit to China since taking office in September. Chinese media hailed the trip as a perfect conclusion to the series of bilateral exchanges between the two countries during the past year. In the words of Fukuda and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, the four-day visit heralded the "arrival of spring" to Sino-Japanese relations.

In Beijing, Fukuda met with the top three Chinese leaders: president Hu Jintao, premier Wen Jiabao, and Wu Bangguo, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.

On Saturday, at the gymnasium of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Fukuda and Wen played catch. The carefully staged photo op showed Wen in the same baseball jersey that he wore this past April while playing ball with students of Kyoto’s Ritsumeikan University during his visit to Japan. The back of the uniform bore the number 35, highlighting the fact that this year marks the 35th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the two countries.

The trip also took the Japanese leader to the northeastern port city of Tianjin, a magnet for Japanese investment and a growth engine for north China.

But what appealed to Chinese cultural pride most was Fukuda’s visit to Qufu, a city in the eastern province of Shandong famed for being the birthplace of Confucius. Chinese media noted that the pilgrimage was initiated by the Japanese side, and credited it with giving "depth" to Fukuda’s itinerary. Liberation Daily regarded it as a gesture by the Japanese leader to "show respect" and "to stress the common bond among East Asian civilizations."

That Fukuda happens also to be well versed in The Analects of Confucius did not go unnoticed by Chinese media, which reported that the Japanese prime minister not only sprinkled his speeches with quotes from the Chinese sage, but that during his stay in Qufu he wielded a brush pen and demonstrated his calligraphic skills. It was noted in particular that Fukuda penned the phrase wengu chuangxin (creating things new through learning things old), a slight modification of the famous Confucian maxim wengu zhixin (gaining insights new through learning things old). People’s Daily interpreted this to mean that the two countries are to "take a lesson from history while at the same time looking toward the future."

While coverage given by Chinese media to Fukuda’s visit was overwhelmingly favorable, a discordant note was sounded in an article titled "Japanese prime minister paying respects to Confucius; has Japan absorbed the essence of Confucianism?" The article has been circulating on the websites of various Chinese media outlets, including the Japanese edition of People’s Daily.

Around this time every year, the staffers at the Weekly Standard provide their individual lists of recommended reading. This year, Bill Kristol implored everyone to read “anything by P.G. Wodehouse.” Shortly after this recommendation appeared, we learned that Wodehouse-mania is sweeping Russia, which is the best news to come out of Russia since Vladimir Putin appointed himself Czar.

Also, Scottish journalist Alex Massie, in a blog post titled "The Wodehouse Primary," showed how Wodehouse characters can provide useful guidance in observing the presidential campaign:

In my sourer moments I find myself persuaded that Bertie Wooster's verdict on aunts also applies to politicians: "It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof."

Never is this more the case than during a Presidential campaign. The sheer ghastliness of the front-runners is something to behold. Or not, as the case may be.

Try as I might, for instance, I find it hard to warm to Hillary Clinton even as I acknowledge that some of the hysteria surrounding her is absurdly overblown. And yet, there's something to it too. This story in today's Washington Post about Hillary's struggle to appeal to male voters won't have pleased the campaign much, (it's pretty anecdotal for one, and, for another, she is doing slightly better with white men than might be imagined). Still, it's undeniable that there's something about Hillary's demeanour that puts people off. It's not as simple as her being a woman, though that doubtless disqualifies her in some folks' eyes, but that she's a particular type of woman.

As always Wodehouse is an invaluable guide to matters of the heart. Dipping into The Inimitable Jeeves last night, it struck me that, for a certain kind of chap, Hillary is the Honoria Glossop of the presidential campaign. It's not just that Hillary's now infamous "cackle" is dangerously reminiscent of Miss Glossop's laugh "that sounded like a squadron of cavalry charging across a tin bridge."

No, it's more that Hillary too often gives the impression of sharing Honoria's horrifying determination to mould a fellow. To wit, one can easily imagine Hillary addressing a chap, thus:

"I think" she said "I shall be able to make something of you, Bertie. It is true yours has been a wasted life up to the present, but you are still young, and there is a lot of good in you...It simply wants bringing out."

But what if you don't want bringing out? Opting out ain't an option with this sort of girl.

Read Massie's entire outstanding post, if only to enjoy the funny British spellings he occasionally uses. And for goodness sakes, read Wodehouse!

Reason has posted an interview with Roger Stone, whom Matt Labash profiled for THE WEEKLY STANDARD a few weeks ago. You can read the excellent Labash piece here, and below is the video from reason.tv.

On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked the Roundtable for their predictions for the Iowa caucuses:

WALLACE: All right. Enough talk. Yepsen ducked it, but I'm not going to let you guys duck it, except for Brit Hume, who will do what he chooses to do.

So starting with you, Juan, top three finishers, Republican, in Iowa.

WILLIAMS: Well, I think Romney has the bullets and he has the people on the ground, but I wouldn't put aside the idea that people will say, "You know what? Huckabee is the guy." So I would say Huckabee, Romney, McCain.

WALLACE: Really? And McCain gets the third, which would help him in New Hampshire.

WILLIAMS: I think McCain is the guy coming right now from behind.

WALLACE: Bill Kristol.

KRISTOL: Romney wins, I think, pretty comfortably. Huckabee fades. McCain gains on Huckabee. And I think it wouldn't be totally out of the question for McCain to sneak past Huckabee into second. But I think McCain is a strong third.

LIASSON: Yeah, I think Romney, Huckabee, McCain.

WALLACE: Romney, Huckabee...

LIASSON: Romney by a hair. I disagree with Bill on that. Romney by a hair, Huckabee, McCain.

WALLACE: And this is going to be the big surprise. Mr. Hume, what have you got to say for yourself?

HUME: Howard Dean all the way.

And for the Dems:

WALLACE: All right. Let's go and get the videotape rolling.

Juan Williams, less than a minute left. What's going to be the order of finish, first, second and third in Iowa?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think it's Clinton, Edwards, Obama. I think, you know, when people look back on Obama saying, "Oh, let's have cross-border raids and go get bin Laden," I don't think that stuff helps with experience.

WALLACE: You can't run out the clock here.

Bill Kristol?

KRISTOL: Edwards wins, I think. Obama second. Clinton third. The second choice supporters of the other candidates go to Edwards and Obama.

WALLACE: Mara?

LIASSON: Obama, Clinton, Edwards.

WALLACE: And...

HUME: No idea.

WALLACE: Well, at least you're consistent.

The Sunday Telegraph carries this story today:

The critics said it couldn't be done, but the vision and determination of General David Petraeus have brought greater security and cause for optimism to the people of Iraq. He is The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year.

The piece is worth reading, and the award is well deserved. It's nice to see that the current success in Iraq is finally getting through in the British press. And if you haven't yet read the boss's editorial in this week's issue, here it is: Gen. David Petraeus, Man of the Year.

Back in July, when Iran first launched Press TV, a state-subsidized, 24 hour, English-language news network, Louis Wittig wrote a piece for THE DAILY STANDARD analyzing some of the station's early reporting. His conclusion: "Press TV broadcasts a guy in a collarless shirt telling the story the Iranian government wants us to hear."

But Press TV also has a website, and like most internet propaganda from that part of the world, the people that put it together are often pretty lazy about where they pull their images from--which, on occasion, leads to a phenomenon commonly referred to in blogosphere geekspeak as "pwning." We've covered this here before, but I always find the result amusing. So here's the latest from a site called The People's Cube. It's a screen capture of a Press TV story about how Iranian Jews have denounced foreign press reports that they were helping some of their own get out of the Islamic Republic in order to emigrate to Israel. Whoever is getting their news from these clowns must have been a bit startled by the accompanying photo...

HT: Jawa Report

Surely one of the most important thing Republican primary voters are evaluating in these final days before they begin casting votes is a candidate's views on the size and scope of government. And on that subject, these voters will want to pay careful attention to the words of Mike Huckabee from Meet the Press this morning.

Host Tim Russert pointed out that the Cato Institute had given Huckabee poor grades for his fiscal management of Arkansas during the time he was governor there and noted that Huckabee had raised taxes several times over the course of his tenure. Huckabee did not back down. He noted that he raised taxes and fees to pay for education and to improve roads and boasted of the results.

And then he said something very un-conservative about the role of government today.

"That's what being a governor is all about," he said. It's about creating opportunities for the people of your state."

Is that what being president is all about? Creating opportunities--by raising taxes and increasing the size of government--for the people of your country?

We are down to the last 100 hours in Iowa. On the Democratic side the big factor to watch is support for John Edwards in the stretch. If he stays in the hunt, he could either win by an inch or simply pull enough anti-Hillary vote away from Obama to give the former First Lady an comeback win. If he fades a bit, my guess is Obama will win with a decent margin. My gut tells me that Edward's latest inching up in Iowa polls is an result of the big third party television spending on his behalf, and will not be there for him on caucus day. But this Democratic Iowa race is very tight now, and just about anything could happen.

Meanwhile I now think Mitt Romney has a better than 50/50 chance to beat Huckabee in Iowa and John McCain will beat Fred Thompson for third place. Good chance Freddie then drops out; probably to endorse McCain. N.H. is going to be a whopper of a race.

Here at the Weekly Standard, we honor excellence. Thus, I am sure that all my colleagues, even the

embittered Philadelphia Eagle fans amongst them, share my enthusiasm for the New England Patriots' perfect season and have enjoyed watching history develop nearly as much as I have.

Speaking as the Standard's resident Patriot fan, I can tell you that the Patriots' sustained run of brilliance this decade still stuns longtime supporters of the team. It wasn't always like this. For decades the Patriots were the worst run and most pathetic professional sports franchise in America. In the lead-up to Super Bowl XXXIX, I wrote a lengthy piece titled, “A Not So Brief History of the New England Patriots.” Highlights of the Patriots’ checkered past included:

1969 – The Patriots once again change their home for the third time in their nine year existence, this time moving to Boston College's campus in the leafy suburb of Chestnut Hill. Things continue to go poorly for the star-crossed franchise as Coach Clive Rush nearly fatally electrocutes himself at a press conference when he grabs an ungrounded microphone. Press wags joke that if there had only been a few more amps, he would have gotten off easy.

1976 – Monday Night Football visits the Patriots at their fifth home, Schaefer Stadium, for the first time. Things don’t go well. Over 60 inebriated fans are arrested as a virtual drunken riot breaks out in the stands. Two fans die due to heart attacks brought on by the chaos.

1990 – As the team plods along in sub-mediocre fashion, off-field disaster strikes once again when several naked Patriot players verbally harass Boston Herald reporter Lisa Olson in the locker room. New owner Victor Kiam handles the crisis in a fashion so maladroit it calls to mind longtime prior owner and notorious imbecile Billy Sullivan. At a speaking engagement, Kiam asks his audience what Lisa Olson and the Iraqis (then fighting America in Gulf War I) have in common. Answer: They’re both seeing a lot of Patriot missiles. Ba-da-bum!

This is perhaps an unwise tack for Kiam to take since his principal business, Remington Razor, sells many of its products to women. The scandal and the resulting boycott eventually do enough financial damage to Kiam that he has to sell the team to Robert Orthwein who intends to relocate the franchise to his St. Louis home.

That’s what it was like for the Patriots before Bill Parcells came to town in 1993 and turned the Patriots into a bona fide professional franchise. Most Patriots fans loathe Parcells, but those of us with long memories know he changed the direction of this team.

On the one hand you have the Feiler Faster Thesis, which holds that in our era of rapidly churning news cycles, seemingly major stories vanish quickly and alter the political landscape for a shorter period than one would think. The Feiler Faster thesis suggests that by the time Iowans fill their buggies with ethanol and head out to caucus on Thursday, the disturbing events in Pakistan will have long since receded from the public's mind.

And on the other hand, you have what my barista at Starbucks told me yesterday.

Yesterday, my wife and I headed into Starbucks for her daily afternoon rendezvous with a grandé 2% latte with an extra shot. As is her custom, she bent down to purchase a New York Times. (I keep telling her they give it away for free on the internet, but does she listen?) But there were no copies of the Times in the bin, a rarity for this southern Florida Starbucks. She asked the barista where the Times was, and he told us, “Everyone wanted to read about that thing in Pakistan. We were sold out by noon. That never happens.”

The assassination of Benazhir Bhutto may have a significant impact on the American electorate. This isn't because the typical American habitually follows the Pakistani political scene with painstaking diligence. I highly doubt the average American could find Pakistan on a map. As we’ve seen, even some presidential candidates appear to have a bit of trouble in that regard.

But the symbolism of what happened on Thursday is powerful. Jihadist thugs murdered an attractive, westernized woman in cold blood. The attack had the shock value of a major act of terrorism. Obviously its impact doesn't compare to 9/11, but its impact is significant. Sometimes much of the public forgets how pitiless and dangerous our enemies are. Thursday's events provided a jolting reminder to the greater public on this score. This story wasn't just for news junkies.

Of course, the media's preferred narrative regarding Bhutto has had an impact. Friday’s elegiac media coverage of Bhutto completely ignored the more, shall we say, nuanced aspects of her life. Ralph Peters of the New York Post served as a strident one man truth squad regarding Bhutto's actual life as compared to the instantly spawned media mythology. Peters's efforts notwithstanding, the public's perception of Bhutto’s life and death is clear.

So will this impact the presidential race in general and specifically the Iowa caucuses? On the Democratic side, the answer is no. Democrats have spent the last four years convincing themselves that the biggest (and only) threat to the world is George W. Bush. It will take something seismic to shake them from that view.

A Reuters report on Iraq today carries the ridiculous yet entirely accurate headline "Iraq gains are "reversible": Petraeus." Of course the gains are reversible, but that was hardly the key message Petraeus was delivering in his letter to the troops. But more interesting is that after reporting that--according to Petraeus and unchallenged by anyone--"the number of attacks in Iraq had fallen by 60 percent since June and the number of civilian deaths had fallen by 75 percent since a year ago," the story adds this nugget:

But figures supplied at Petraeus's briefing also showed a slight rise in suicide car and vest bombs since October. At least 33 people were killed by two suicide bombs on Christmas Day, and 10 people died in a Baghdad car bomb on Friday.

The left has already pounced. Think Progress says "Rate of suicide bombs rises in Iraq." And the Huffington Post runs the story under the same header. But take a look at the graph in question:

That tiny rise, from what appear to be 18 month lows, is the story the left has latched on to. Meanwhile, the total number of high-profile attacks is down sharply--and "December is on track to be the least deadly month for U.S.-led forces in Iraq." Funny how HuffPo and Think Progress didn't find that newsworthy.

Liz Cheney that is, and the one-two punch comes from the Washington Post's top ten opinion stories of 2007 by pageviews:

2. Why Bush Will Be a Winner by William Kristol, published July 15.

A rousing (and controversial) defense of the president's legacy. The rebuttal, Why Bush is a Loser by David Corn, was also high on the most-popular list. But the top spot goes to:

1. Retreat Isn't an Option by Liz Cheney, published Jan. 23.

Cheney's piece was excellent ("We will have to fight these terrorists to the death somewhere, sometime. We can't negotiate with them or "solve" their jihad. If we quit in Iraq now, we must get ready for a harder, longer, more deadly struggle later."), and Kristol's...well, it prompted my lefty mother in-law to call on a Sunday morning and ask 'he doesn't really believe this, does he?' I love my mother in-law, but I've yet to come across a more certain validation for any piece of intellectual work.

From North Shore Journal:

Sometime on December 27, 2007, in a fierce gun battle in Al Kut, a milestone was reached.

The 20,000 AIF [Anti Iraqi Forces] terrorist was killed by our troops.

Says Ace: "Cowards, Murderers Hardest Hit."

With a new ad in New Hampshire, Romney's gone after McCain for his failure to support the Bush tax cuts and his support of the failed immigration reform/amnesty. But as Slate's John Dickerson reports, the McCain campaign is apparently toying with a response that comes from...Mitt's own people. Dickerson:

The ad hangs Romney with his own words—he advocates for a woman's right to choose and gun control, gets tongue tied on his own hunting practices, and distances himself from Ronald Reagan). What makes the ad particularly powerful for the McCain team, though, is that it was produced by media wizards who now work for Romney. Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer are veterans of the Bush campaign, which so effectively used John Kerry's words against him. They moved from Bush to McCain, but left and moved to Romney after the McCain operation imploded. When they were McCain guys, though, they helped put together this ad and pushed for running it, according to McCain aides and advisers. "Russ and Stuart were very animated in several meetings about attacking Romney," says a McCain ally.

Here's the video from Slate, which includes both ads:

While I believe in the infallibility of divine insight, your Cardinal is only human, not to mention French and reactionary, so I, um, could be wrong on many of the opinions I've been expressing about the primary race.

I doubt it. Still, I thought I'd show a little humility in this Holiday season with a special "I could be wrong" posting. This will not be a frequent occurrence.

Still, some things your Cardinal may be wrong about:

Barack Obama. I've predicted he will win the Democratic nomination for some time. But perhaps Hillary Clinton can manage a magnificent comeback in Iowa and roll on like a steamroller to lock up the nomination. Iowa is close. Maybe she will win. Or perhaps John Edwards will win, dent the Obama bubble and give HRC an opportunity to comeback in NH and beyond. I'm doubtful, but such an occurrence is not impossible. I'm a Cardinal, so I do have to believe in miracles.

Mike Huckabee. I could be wrong about his fast decaying half-life and perhaps he will surge out of Iowa to finish in the top two in New Hampshire and then potentially win S.C. and even Michigan. Then he'd be in business all the way. Though I still think it is only 50/50 that he wins Iowa.

Rudy Giuliani. A muddled finish in the early states, with Huckabee winning Iowa, McCain winning New Hampshire and Romney winning Michigan sets up a Rudy comeback in Florida, where the Mayor has been outspending everybody else on TV and still leads the polls. He also has the support of many of Miami's Cuban GOP bosses and a strong base of former NY voters in Broward county so he has real assets in Florida. I could turn out to be totally wrong about early state momentum and the Rudy wait and kill strategy actually works. Rudy soars to the nomination. If this happens, I'll eat my red hat, but again... I could be wrong.

Within one day of the Bhutto assassination in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi, there are multiple contradictory reports on how Benazir Bhutto was killed. The Pakistani government has changed its portrayal of her death three times in the 24 hours since her death. First she was reported to have been shot in the head and chest with AK-47 gunfire, then she was reported to have been killed by ball bearings from a suicide blast, and finally she died after suffering a skull fracture from hitting her head on the sunroof after the suicide bomber detonated.

The Daily Times, one of Pakistan's most reliable newspapers, reported that Bhutto was killed by gunfire after she poked through the sunroof to great her supporters.

*Benazir Bhutto was leaving Liaquat Bagh after addressing the rally when her vehicle, a Black Lexus bulletproof vehicle, stopped near the venue's gate where PPP workers were shouting party slogans.

* Benazir came out from the sunroof of her vehicle to respond to her supporters' slogans when a motorcyclist opened Kalashnikov fire on her.

* Benazir fell inside her vehicle after receiving bullet injuries on her head and neck.

* The attacker blew himself up after firing the shots.

This report is consistent with statements from two Bhutto aides, who said Bhutto was shot and bleeding once she got back inside the car. "Rescuers found Bhutto lying in pool of blood on the back seat. A senior party official, Amin Fahim, who had been sitting beside her, said he heard 'between three and five shots,'" the Guardian reported. "Amir Qureshi, a bodyguard from Bhutto's youth wing who had been jogging alongside her vehicle, said she was shot first in the neck, then in the head... Doctors administered open heart massage but Bhutto died from a bullet that severed her spinal cord, one medic at the Rawalpindi hospital said."

"She was hit in the neck and slumped back in the vehicle," the Herald Sun reported. "Blood poured from her head, and she never regained consciousness." A Pakistan Peoples Party spokesman also stated Bhutto "fell inside the vehicle after receiving bullets in her head and neck."

This account matches that of multiple police officers and eyewitnesses on the scene, including John Moore, a photographer from Getty Images, who was 20 yards from Bhutto during the attack. Moore clearly states that Bhutto went through the sunroof prior to the explosion:

"I ran up, got as close as I got, made a few pictures of her waving to the crowd," Getty Images senior staff photographer John Moore told CNN's online streaming news service, CNN.com Live, in a phone interview Thursday from Islamabad, Pakistan.

"And then suddenly, there were a few gunshots that rang out, and she went down, she went down through the sunroof," he said. "And just at that moment I raised my camera up and the blast happened. ... And then, of course, there was chaos."

Last evening, the Pakistani government changed the story. News reports indicated that nvestigators told a top-level meeting, led by President Pervez Musharraf, that Bhutto was killed by shrapnel from the suicide bombing. "The initial report that was submitted to the high-level meeting disclosed that Benazir Bhutto was hit by the ball bearings of the suicide bomber's jacket that hit and cut her jugular vain," the paper stated. "It caused her excessive internal and external bleeding. As a result, she died in no time. The report was submitted before the post-mortem was performed on her body. The exact nature of the wounds would be determined by the post-mortem report."

The folks at Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading weekly newsmagazine, displayed a remarkable lack of judgment and timing in picking "The Koran: The World’s Most Powerful Book" as their cover story right before Christmas. While it is certainly true that the world’s most dangerous terrorists as well as their growing base of radical sympathizers feel inspired by the Koran’s radical interpretations, this does not necessarily turn it into the world’s "most powerful" book.

Furthermore, the timing of the article’s publication just days before Christmas (which is Christianity’s second most important religious feast) could easily be misinterpreted as a declaration of surrender or appeasement by Europe’s biggest news magazine. It does not make much of a difference that Dutch author Leon de Winter, who wrote an essay about Muslims in Europe as part of Der Spiegel’s cover story, comes to this rather bold conclusion:

Some social scientists are warning of the dawn of "Eurabia", i.e. an Islamized Europe. In fact, everything points in the opposite direction: Europe is not being Islamized, but Islam is being Europeanized.

De Winter, unfortunately, fails to back up his wishful-thinking scenario with hard facts. However, by describing the Koran as the world’s most powerful book, Der Spiegel certainly hedged its bets and at least made sure that it would not be attacked by Muslims, verbally or otherwise, the way that Jyllands-Posten was in the wake of the 2005 Danish cartoon controversy. In fact, a cursory look at recent Internet chat room discussions about the article among German-speaking Muslims indicate a great deal of surprise that such a "left-wing magazine," which some users suspected of "Jewish connections," would publish such an article in the first place. We're surprised, too, but for different reasons.

The Pakistani government has directly implicated the commander of the newly created Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema claimed the government intercepted a phone conversation between none other than Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, and Maulvi Sahib, one of Mehsud's underlings.

The Telegraph has the transcript of the alleged recording. Baitullah congratulates Sahib, who explains the attack was carried out by three of their own operatives.

Maulvi Sahib: Congratulations, I just got back during the night.

Baitullah Mehsud: Congratulations to you, were they our men?

Maulvi Sahib: Yes they were ours.

Baitullah Mehsud: Who were they?

Maulvi Sahib: There was Saeed, there was Bilal from Badar and Ikramullah.

Baitullah Mehsud: The three of them did it?

Maulvi Sahib: Ikramullah and Bilal did it.

Baitullah Mehsud: Then congratulations.

Yesterday, Mustafa Abu al Yazid, al Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan, boasted to a Pakistani journalist that al Qaeda was behind the attack. "We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen," Yazid said in a phone call to Syed Saleem Shahzad.

The Pakistan government's claim that Baitullah Mehsud is behind the attack and al Qaeda's claim of credit for the strike are not mutually exclusive. The Bhutto assassination also was very likely carried out with support from inside the police, military, and intelligence agencies.

So Glenn Greenwald got his knickers twisted over Peggy Noonan's column today, which attempted to distinguish the "reasonable" candidates from their "unreasonable" competition:

John Edwards is not reasonable. . . . .[W]e can't have a president who spent two minutes on YouTube staring in a mirror and poofing his hair. Really, we just can't.

To which Greenwald responds:

So Peggy Noonan is a "grown-up." She goes on ABC News and MSNBC and writes for the Wall St. Journal in order to opine and is widely respected by our media elite as a mature political commentator. She knows that "the next American president will very likely face another big bad thing, a terrible day, or days." America therefore needs a President with "knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world."

John Edwards, however, is disqualified, because four years ago, he was caught red-handed brushing his hair before a television appearance -- "poofing," in Noonan's words, which isn't really a word at all, but rather, a British epithet for a male homosexual -- "Slang: Disparaging and Offensive" -- a synonym for "faggot." Noonan is making the same point Ann Coulter made: Edwards can't possibly be President because he's a faggot. And to make her "grown-up" case for this, she cites one of our national media's most talked-about political stories of both 2004 and again in 2007: Edwards' brushing of his hair.

Is Greenwald reading too much into Noonan's choice of words? Dan Collins at protein wisdom think so, and he offers a number of examples that would seem to back up his charge. Personally, I'm agnostic--maybe Noonan was questioning Edwards's manhood. Regardless, this is a most welcome opportunity to trot out that YouTube sensation. Without further ado, John Edwards poofing:

HT: Instapundit

Andrew Roth points to Business Week's expert projection of key economic indicators for 2008. The consensus is for 2.1 percent growth on the year, with growth of 2 percent and 2.4 percent in the second and third quarters. To the extent that voters' perceptions of the economy affect their votes in November, it will be the second and third quarters that define those views. Thus, despite the constant media harping on challenges to economic growth, the nation's business leaders think we are likely to continue on much the same course that we have been on for years -- one of steady growth.

Of course, these projections could be wrong. They'll almost certainly be off to some degree. Further, there are no guarantees that perceptions of the economy will match the macro numbers. That's another reality that has been plain for years. Further, the Democratic candidate--whoever he or she is--seems likely to continue to try to convince the American people that the this country is on the edge of a major recession. Still, it is comforting to know that those who actually make a living at this are optimistic about where the nation is headed.

This week the Census Bureau released new data on population shifts from the 2000 census through today. The New York Times reports that while the subprime mortgage crisis has slowed the population shift away from states such as California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, the trend for the decade is clear: the red states are gaining people and electoral votes while the blue states are losing them:

If nearly decade-long trends endure, Texas will gain as many as four Congressional seats and Florida’s delegation will grow by two, while New York and Ohio will lose two seats each, said Andrew A. Beveridge of Queens College of the City University of New York.

“Seventy percent of the decade has passed,” Dr. Beveridge said, “and there would have to be massive reversal of population trends for this not to happen.”

There are several different projections available, based on the census data. A political data consulting firm known as Polidata is consistent with Beveridge, projecting a very challenging scenario for Democrats:

• The biggest gainers are: Texas, up 4 to 36 seats*; Florida, up 2 to 27; and Arizona, up 2 to 10.

• Other gainers are: North Carolina, up 1 to 14 (new); South Carolina, up 1 to 7(new); Georgia, up 1 to 14; Utah, up 1 to 4; Nevada, up 1 to 4; Oregon, up 1 to 6.

• The losing states losing the most would be New York, down 2 to 27 and Ohio, down 2 to 16.

• Other losers are: Massachusetts, down 1 to 9; New Jersey, down 1 to 12; Pennsylvania, down 1 to 18; Michigan, down 1 to 14; Illinois, down 1 to 18; Minnesota, down 1 to 7; Iowa, down 1 to 4; Missouri, down 1 to 8; Louisiana, down 1 to 6; and California, down 1 to 52(new).

This would represent a shift of eight seats from Kerry states to Bush states. A Democratic candidate who held all of Kerry's states would also need to win Florida, or a similar combination of smaller states, to gain the presidency.

A letter from General David Petraeus to American troops in Iraq:

28 December 2007

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, and Civilians of Multi-National Force-Iraq:

As 2007 draws to a close, you should look back with pride on what you, your fellow troopers, our Iraqi partners, and Iraqi Coalition civilians have achieved in 2007. A year ago, Iraq was racked by horrific violence and on the brink of civil war. Now, levels of violence and civilians and military casualties are significantly reduced and hope has been rekindled in many Iraqi communities. To be sure, the progress is reversible and there is much more to be done. Nonetheless, the hard-fought accomplishments of 2007 have been substantial, and I want to thank each of you for the contributions you made to them.

In response to the challenges that faced Iraq a year ago, we and our Iraqi partners adopted a new approach. We increased our focus on securing the Iraqi people and, in some cases, delayed transition of tasks to Iraqi forces. Additional U.S. and Georgian forces were deployed to theater, the tours of U.S. unites were extended, and Iraqi forces conducted a surge of their own, generating well over 100,000 more Iraqi police and soldiers during the year so that they, too, had additional forces to execute the new approach. In places like Ramadi, Baqubah, Arab Jabour, and Baghdad, you and our Iraqi brothers fought—often house by house, block by block, and neighborhood by neighborhood—to wrest sanctuaries away from Al Qaeda-Iraq, to disrupt extremist militia elements, and to rid the streets of mafia-like criminals. Having cleared areas, you worked with Iraqis to retain them—establishing outposts in the areas we were securing, developing Iraqi Security Forces, and empowering locals to help our efforts. This approach has not been easy. It has required steadfastness in the conduct of tough offensive operations, creative solutions to the myriad problems on the ground, and persistence over the course of many months and during countless trying situations. Through it all, you have proven equal to every task, continually demonstrating an impressive ability to conduct combat and stability operations in an exceedingly complex environment.

Dean Barnett has some interesting analysis on the WWS of the latest poll from the Los Angeles Times:

There's another interesting aspect of the poll. It appears the LAT labeled 90% of the polled Republicans as likely voters. Given that adding the 10% of unlikely voters to the pool swelled Huckabee’s lead from 8% to 14%, it looks like the non-voting public absolutely adores Huckabee. One could infer from this result that Huckabee's support is strongest with the members of the public least engaged in the process and, more importantly, least likely to vote. This strange result may mean that as voting time nears and the “polling sample” narrows from 90% of Republicans with telephones to the relative sliver of the Iowa population that actually caucuses, Huckabee's support will further erode.

Analysis of Lieberman's influence among Republicans here.

Gertz reports that the Dems are "hurting morale" in Iraq:

Marine Corps Cpl. David Goldich, a University of Virginia graduate who spent two tours of duty in Iraq, says Democratic attacks on the war undermined troop morale.

Cpl. Goldich, who returned from Anbar province in November after about 300 combat patrols, stated in a candid account that negative comments by Democrats had "a dramatic effect on morale, especially on troops who are otherwise indifferent and disdainful of politics in general."

"I cannot tell you how many times I have overheard Marines and soldiers talking about various inconsiderate comments made from the likes of [Sen.] John Kerry [Massachusetts Democrat], [Rep. John P.] Murtha [Pennsylvania Democrat], [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [Nevada Democrat], and [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [California Democrat] about how we cannot win, how we should be brought home, etc.," he said.

Dissent may be patriotic, but defeatism isn't. The Marines I know are almost uniformly apolitical--they beat it out of them at OCS and Basic. But nobody likes to be told they can't do their job, and their job is to win. Of course, the Marines have done just that. They're stationed almost exclusively in Anbar, where al Qaeda has been routed and the insurgency quelled--there have been just four Coalition casualties in Anbar in the last three months. I'm sure they'd appreciate a pat on the back from the leadership in Congress, but they shouldn't hold their breath.

The headline from the AP, "Troops Seeing Victories Over Militants":

U.S. forces said they waged successful battles against both Sunni and Shiite extremists in the north and south of Baghdad, and announced Dec. 27 they had seized two men possibly linked to the capture of three American Soldiers earlier this year.

The battles came as the military seeks to take advantage of the improving security situation in Iraq to carry out targeted operations against extremist groups and the foreign-led al-Qaida in Iraq.

In recent weeks, the Americans have been fighting al-Qaida extremists in the area around Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of the capital. The battle against insurgent groups has steadily moved away from Anbar province and Baghdad, and is now focused on the fringes of Diyala province.

"Coalition forces killed 12 terrorists, detained 37 suspects and freed one hostage during a multi-day operation from Dec. 22 to 25 to disrupt al-Qaida networks near Muqdadiyah in the Diyala River Valley," an announcement said.

In another operation targeting a Shiite extremist group southeast of Baghdad, U.S. military forces killed 11 militants on Thursday. They were reportedly members of an extremist group that had broken away from radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

The article goes on to say that Sadr has promised to sever ties with any elements of his militia that do not keep the cease fire with Coalition forces--which confirms what we've heard from the commanders on the ground that there is no evidence Sadr plans to resume hostilities. And the trend continues...

From Slate: Iraq Starting to Feel Like Home, by Lawrence Kaplan.

From the New York Post: Surge & Denial, by Michelle Malkin.

From the Washington Times: Gordon England's War, by Frank Gaffney Jr.

From the Wall Street Journal: When Principle Trumped Partisanship, by John Fund.

From the Washington Times: Climate Rallies and Realities, by Paul Driessen.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 12:58 PM
Required Reading | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Arianna Huffington has posted a rather moving elegy for her late and long-time friend Benazir Bhutto:

The world is debating the political fallout from Benazir Bhutto's assassination -- from fear of chaos in Pakistan to the impact of her death in Iowa. There is already no shortage of analysis about the national security implications of her death, but I want to write about the young woman I met in England before she became a player on the world stage.

She was at Oxford. I was at Cambridge. And by a strange coincidence I became president of the Cambridge Union and she became president of the Oxford Union. The anomaly of two foreign women heading the two unions meant that we ended up debating each other around England on topics ranging from British politics to broad generalities about the impact of technological advance on mankind.

I'm struck by how many Americans have offered these kind of personal anecdotes as a testament to Bhutto's character. She had written a diary at Slate, a blog at the Huffington Post, and apparently kept a correspondence with Mark Siegel--and this is the tip of the iceberg I'm sure. Christopher Hitchens offers a more even account, but he's no less troubled by her death (he, too, had personal history with Bhutto). Of course, not everyone is sad to see her go, but for all her faults, she was right on what mattered most--she was an ally in the war against Islamic extremism.

James Kirchick had a piece in yesterday's New York Daily News that noted this interesting result from a recent poll:

According to a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released last week, Lieberman's endorsement makes only 15% of independents more likely to vote for McCain, yet it persuades 25% of Republicans. But the polls only tell part of the story.

Here are the full results of the question:

Kirchick's larger point is that Lieberman's support may help McCain deeper into the race than most analysts had predicted, contrary to the conventional wisdom that the crossover endorsement would play well among New Hampshire's independents but not South Carolina's Republicans. Kirchick argues that the religious right has embraced Lieberman as one of their own--and that he may well end up as a real asset to McCain in his bid to win over evangelicals. It's a compelling argument.

Consider this: while Lieberman makes 15 percent of Independents and 25 percent of Republicans more likely to vote McCain, the same poll shows that only 15 percent of Republicans would "pay attention" to their spouses when deciding who to vote for. Only 11 percent of Republicans would listen to their religious leaders, and 7 percent would pay attention to newspaper endorsements.

Oprah's influence? 13 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of independents were more likely to vote for Obama as a result of her endorsement. But Oprah's endorsement made larger numbers of each group less likely to vote for Obama--22 percent of Dems, 29 percent of Republicans, and 19 percent of independents.

Across the board, Lieberman has support, and Kirchick's logic only makes a McCain-Lieberman ticket more appealing.

The L.A. Times conducted a widely discussed poll of Iowa and New Hampshire voters. In Iowa, the Times had Huckabee leading Romney 37%-23%. In her write-up of the poll results, Times staff writer Janet Hook oddly neglected to mention that the results among likely voters are much closer. Counting only the likely voters, Romney trailed 36%-28%.

Ms. Hook’s story on the poll reported Huckabee’s fourteen point lead as definitive. Why, even Hugh Hewitt didn’t notice the discrepancy between the “likely voters” result and the Times’ coverage of its own poll. To find the difference, you had to crack the poll's internals and scan all the way down to Question 34. Was it merely a sloppy write-up on Ms. Hook’s part or agenda journalism at work? I report, you decide.

There's another interesting aspect of the poll. It appears the LAT labeled 90% of the polled Republicans as likely voters. Given that adding the 10% of unlikely voters to the pool swelled Huckabee’s lead from 8% to 14%, it looks like the non-voting public absolutely adores Huckabee. One could infer from this result that Huckabee's support is strongest with the members of the public least engaged in the process and, more importantly, least likely to vote. This strange result may mean that as voting time nears and the “polling sample” narrows from 90% of Republicans with telephones to the relative sliver of the Iowa population that actually caucuses, Huckabee's support will further erode.

Of course, it's impossible (as the above analysis implies) that an unlikely voter pool of only 10% of the total could so dramatically impact the ultimate result. In defense of my obviously faulty analysis, the poll's internals regarding these figures are utterly inscrutable. If anyone can make sense of Questions 33 and 34 and figure out exactly what they're saying, please email me (soxblog@aol.com) or do a post on it. While you're at it, try to make sense of the LAT coverage of its own poll. You'll have mine and the blogosphere's eternal gratitude. I'm not promising anything, but if you do a real good job of it, I may even get you a Weekly Standard coffee mug as a belated Christmas gift.

Regardless of what's going on in Questions 33 and 34, the larger point seems to hold: Huckabee does significantly better among unlikely voters than likely voters. That could be portentous. Or maybe I’m a Romney supporter grasping at straws. You'll have to wait until Jay Cost comments to find out what the discrepancy really means.

In other Iowa polling news, Strategic Vision shows Huckabee leading Romney by two points, 29% - 27%. I regret to report, but feel obliged to do so nonetheless, that Strategic Vision's polling history does not jibe with my theory of the Iowa race being extremely fluid. SV has conducted four polls since December 6. Huckabee has led in all of them. His largest lead was six points in their December 18 poll. His smallest is the two point lead registered yesterday. One could view this as a trend, but given the small movements, statistical noise is a distinct (and more likely) possibility.

Nevertheless, I'm sticking to my guns – I still sense Huckabee’s support sliding away.

Judicial Watch has named its ten most corrupt political figures of 2007, and the list may surprise. It includes a number of very well-known politicians who have received little attention for their questionable business deals. Among them are:

• Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA): ...Feinstein reviewed military construction government contracts, some of which were ultimately awarded to URS Corporation and Perini, companies then owned by Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum...

• Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR): ...“[Huckabee’s] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office...”

• Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): ...n 2007, more reports surfaced of deeper and suspicious business and political connections It was reported that just two months after he joined the Senate, Obama purchased $50,000 worth of stock in speculative companies whose major investors were his biggest campaign contributors. One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation Obama pushed...

• Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): ...snuck a $25 million gift to her husband, Paul Pelosi, in a $15 billion Water Resources Development Act recently passed by Congress. The pet project involved renovating ports in Speaker Pelosi's home base of San Francisco. Pelosi just happens to own apartment buildings near the areas targeted for improvement, and will almost certainly experience a significant boost in property value as a result of his wife's earmark...

• Senator Harry Reid (D-NV): ...over the last four years, Reid has used his influence in Washington to help a developer, Havey Whittemore, clear obstacles for a profitable real estate deal. As the project advanced, the Times reported, “Reid received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Whittemore.” Whittemore also hired one of Reid’s sons (Leif) as his personal lawyer...

Don't draw conclusions before reading the whole list. I've highlighted Huckabee and Obama (among presidential candidates) because their cases have received less scrutiny to date. It's worth noting however, that Mayor Giuliani and Senator Clinton earned places on the list as well. What's notable to me is that most Americans are quite familiar with the accusations against Scooter Libby, Rudy Giuliani, and Larry Craig (for example), but are unlikely to have read anything about the cases of Speaker Pelosi, Senator Feinstein, Senator Obama, or Senator Reid. I wonder why that is?

The accusations against Mayor Giuliani have been well-aired at this point. Judicial Watch's summary of the charges against Giuliani is relatively brief -- centering on alleged misuse of city resources to hide his affair, and on the misdeeds of friend and confidante Bernie Kerik. (One wonders if Judicial Watch has considered this rowback from the New York Times.)

Lisa Myers of NBC news looked at the Huckabee accusations here. In general, they involve a failure to disclose otherwise legal gifts; the receipt by Huckabee of a large number of gifts (valued at twice his annual salary one year), and Huckabee's appointing of some gift givers to unpaid state commissions. Huckabee's defense -- both on his site and to Fox News -- is that he was being hounded by Democrats upset at having a Republican finally win a statewide office in Arkansas. One conservative critic characterized Huckabee's actions as 'Clintonesque.'

The voters of Iowa and New Hampshire will let us know soon enough whether they take these accusations seriously--on either side of the aisle.

For those of you who were wondering how long it would take ranking Democrats to blame the Bhutto assassination on the Bush administration and the Iraq war, wonder no more. Russ Feingold has done the honors:

The focus on Iraq has been a real disservice to focusing on this part of the world where a great, frankly somebody who had great leadership and following, has been killed.

It’s not immediately apparent from Feingold's comment how our “focus” could have prevented today's crime, but what's that matter? In the fever swamp, all that is wrong with the world inevitably traces its origins to some sort of Bushian malfeasance.

Kudos to Senator Feingold – he even managed to outdo the Daily Kos today. I’ve been trolling the Kossacks' lair, waiting for the screed insisting that Bush practically pulled the trigger himself. But the reactions over there have been considerably more mature than the silly senator's.

HT: Brian Maloney, Radio Equalizer

The Iraqi Army claimed to have captured the minister of defense of the Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s political front organization. Ahmed Turki Abbas was captured after being wounded in a skirmish near Mahmudiyah and “claimed the rank of defense minister,” Qassim al Moussawi, Iraq's military spokesman told Reuters.

Confirmation on the arrest of Abbas, which is also likely a nom de guerre, has not been given by Multinational Forces Iraq at this time. The Iraqi government has made claims of killing and capturing Abu Omar al Baghdadi several times this year, which turned out to be false reports or cases of mistaken identity.

Abu Ayyub al Masri, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, is officially listed as the minister of defense for the Islamic State of Iraq, according to a press release put out by the terror group in April. But over the summer, it became known the Islamic State of Iraq was the invention of al Masri, who serves as the emir, or leader of the group. Abu Omar al Baghdadi is actually a fictional character played by an Iraqi actor named Abu Abdullah al Naima. This information was revealed after the captured of Abu Muhammad al Mashadani, the former Minister of Information for the Islamic State of Iraq.

With al Masri serving as the emir of both the Islamic State of Iraq and al Qaeda in Iraq, the portfolio of defense minister was delegated to Abbas, a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal.

After learning of the arrest of Abbas, Marvin Hutchens of ThreatsWatch.org agreed with that assessment. “For purely pragmatic reasons, Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq need as many Iraqi names in leadership posts as possible,” said Hutchens in an interview. “They are selling their legitimacy as the Iraqi state and having al Masri known as the Minister of Defense hides his real role as the foreign leader of an illegitimate insurgent state.”

If Abbas’ capture is confirmed, he would be the third member of the cabinet of the Islamic State to be captured or killed this year. Muharib Abdul Latif al Jabouri, the Minister of Public Relations, was killed during a major battle between the Anbar Awakening and al Qaeda in the town of Dhuluiya in neighboring Salahadin province last May.

U.S. and Iraq forces continue to target the Iranian-backed Special Groups in southern and central Iraq. The latest raid in Al Kut in Wasit province resulted in 11 Special Groups fighters killed, Multinational Forces Iraq reported. Al Kut, a logistical hub for the Special Groups and center of power for Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army, has seen an uptick in activity over the past two weeks.

Today's raid in Al Kut targeted "a Special Groups criminal element member reportedly responsible for attacks against Coalition forces and supporters of Coalition forces" who "was also reportedly an associate of criminal element leaders involved in attacks on Coalition forces."

Coalition Special Forces teams, likely the hunter-killer teams of Task Force 88, took fire as they approached the objective, "returned fire, and called for supporting aircraft to engage." Multinational Forces Iraq estimated 11 Special Groups fighters were killed in the strike.

The Iraqi Army has been reported to have moved into Al Kut in force, according to Voices of Iraq. Muqtada al Sadr's office in Al Kut stated that U.S. forces fought the Mahdi Army in the city, and four Mahdi fighters were killed and three wounded.

The incident highlights the fractured nature of the Mahdi Army, and the interconnectedness of Mahdi Army forces and Iran's Qods Force, which support Sadr and elements of his Mahdi Army. The Special Groups are made up of elements of Sadr's Mahdi Army, which trains, arms, and funds the attacks inside Iraq. Sadr called for a cessation of fighting after fighting in Najaf which resulted in over 50 dead during a religious festival.

Multinational Forces Iraq has repeatedly offered Sadr and his Mahdi Army an outlet to end the fighting and join the political process. In the Multinational Forces Iraq press release on the incident, Major Winfield Danielson pointed to Sadr's ceasefire while warning "criminal elements" that they would be pursued. "We commend all those who honor al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr’s ceasefire pledge," said Danielson. "Significant progress has been made in the fight for a secure and stable Iraq, but dangerous criminal elements still exist." A similar warning follows every press release where Special Groups forces are targeted.

Al Kut is known to be a strategic distribution hub for the Special Groups supply lines from Iran into Iraq. Weapons, such as the deadly explosively-formed penetrator land mines, rockets and mortars are stored by the Special Groups in Al Kut and other cities, to be pushed forward to tactical depots to be used in attacks in Baghdad and the Shia South.

According to the US Census Bureau, approximately 35,000 New Yorkers (out of a total population of slightly more than 8 million) claimed Pakistani ancestry in the 2000 Census. That amounts to about 0.4 percent of the entire population of the city.

So why is New York City Mayor Bloomberg so fast to issue a statement on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto?

"Today all New Yorkers, including the more than 100,000 who can trace their heritage to Pakistan, are saddened to learn about the assassination of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Hers was a voice for democracy, and the silencing of it — by such brutal means — is a shock to us all. Ms. Bhutto's death — and the deaths of the many other Pakistanis who were killed today simply for expressing their views — is a great loss for friends of democracy and for everyone who is united in the fight against terror. It's also a grim reminder that many people consider the freedoms we cherish a threat. The perpetrators of this violent act must be brought to justice, and it is my hope that President Musharraf will follow through on free and fair elections in January as a testament to Ms. Bhutto's legacy."

Obviously there's no overriding reason for the Mayor not to react, but this all sounds a little outside the purview of the mayor, vaguely presidential even.

In the wake of the tragic and disturbing news out of Pakistan, most of the presidential candidates rushed out pro forma statements of condolences and concern with varying skill. Only Bill Richardson had the temerity to go further. Richardson considered the immediate, chaotic aftermath of a potentially destabilizing act of violence the opportune time to propose dramatic policy actions. Quoth the man who bases his candidacy on his foreign policy expertise:

The United States government cannot stand by and allow Pakistan's return to democracy to be derailed or delayed by violence.

We must use our diplomatic leverage and force the enemies of democracy to yield: President Bush should press Musharraf to step aside, and a broad-based coalition government, consisting of all the democratic parties, should be formed immediately. Until this happens, we should suspend military aid to the Pakistani government. Free and fair elections must also be held as soon as possible.

Surprisingly for a candidate who so often proclaims his seriousness bona fides, Richardson doesn't address the practicalities of what will happen between Musharraf's immediate resignation and the free and fair elections that will happen “as soon as possible.” Is the pragmatic foreign policy veteran actually envisioning fundamentalist Jihadists co-governing with people who had a woman as their standard-bearer?

In effect, Richardson wants to kick a jihadist-infested country with nuclear weapons that’s teetering on the edge of absolute chaos over that edge. For this clumsy effort to distinguish himself from the presidential pack, Richardson wins Campaign ‘08’s “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt” award.

Congratulations Governor!

The Bhutto assassination has already prompted reaction from most of the candidates. Not surprisingly, the statement by Mike Huckabee has drawn the most criticism. Here's CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes:

He made a bad choice of words when saying the U.S. needs to consider “what impact does it have on whether or not there’s going to be martial law continuing in Pakistan.” He should have said whether or not martial law will be reinstated – it was lifted nearly two weeks ago. A minor slip, maybe, but not a subject he wants to mess up on when he is already considered weak in the area of foreign policy.

To which Ambinder responds:

It's not the mistake itself that will raise eyebrowses -- it's Huckabee's lack of intellectual ease, his lack of felicity, with foreign policy at a critical moment when everyone is paying attention.

Indeed, observers have tied Huckabee's rise to "Iraq's slide" off the front pages, and while the situation in Iraq continues to improve (casualties this month are likely to be the second lowest since the start of the war), the rapidly deteriorating situation in Pakistan once again moves foreign policy issues to the fore.

If tomorrow's funeral is followed by rioting and more violence, Pakistan may stay on the front pages, and one has to assume that the beneficiary would be McCain. Or at least that's the thinking at Red State, where Erik asks, "In light of recent troubles in Asia, compounded by a growing threat from China, and pending civil war (it seems) in Pakistan after the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto, does America need John McCain as President?"

Perhaps all this blows over in a few days (obviously not in Pakistan, but as a concern of the voters in the early primary states), and people return to the issues that have dominated the campaign up to this point. But as McCain surges, momentum begets momentum--and he is the only candidate who can say that he knows Musharraf well, that he knew Bhutto, that he has been to Waziristan, and that he has the foreign policy experience to deal with these issues. And while some candidates are petulantly calling for Musharraf to resign, and others are putting out slightly bizarre statements, McCain has offered a measured and sensible response.

In response to my earlier post, Matt Rhoades, communications director for the Romney campaign, has responded:

"Often in this campaign the foreign policy debate has been dominated by Iraq. Events like today remind us that there are other dangerous places in the world, and they are connected to the same struggle that we face in Iraq."

One week to go and while almost anything can still happen, the GOP race seems to have settled into a 3-way battle. Romney vs. McCain vs. Huckabee.

Some thoughts: Rudy is fading fast. He's channeling his GOP mayoral predecessor John Lindsey's ghost from the '72 Democratic primary and pinning his hopes on a late miracle showing in Florida. Ask President Lindsey how that strategy works out. Rudy's plan was flawed from the start. The primary process isn't static and it won't wait. You can't bank support in later states if you lose the early ones.

Meanwhile one of my Iowa seminarians tells me Fred Thompson is scaling back his TV in Iowa. This is a likely sign of money trouble in Fred- land, which wouldn't surprise me since the buzz on Fred has been bad for a while and bad buzz kills finance. The stakes are high for Thompson. He needs third place in Iowa to survive. He's on a bus tour there now making the effort in Iowa he needs to make, but he'll need all that to hang on to third place. Private polling shows McCain narrowly edging him out for third at present.

Romney is rising in Iowa and now may indeed beat Huckabee who may have reached his half-life. But that is far from certain. Any Romney loss in Iowa -- even a narrow one -- will provide the Romney disliking media a chance to work him over as the big loser in Iowa. In N.H. the old McCain magic appears to be back, and the Rudy/Thompson decline means that McCain might be able to pull of a third place showing in Iowa. That would be big and give McCain some extra momentum into New Hampshire.

So the 5-way race of a month ago has morphed into a three-way brawl, with a big Romney vs. McCain showdown in N.H. looking like the pivotal battle for the nomination.

Most of Mitt Romney's statement on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was the kind of rhetorical fluff one expects from politicians responding to a developing crisis. But then there is this bizarre line: "For those who think Iraq is the sole front in the War on Terror, one must look no further than what has happened today."

Ummm, who would that be? Is this another flare-up of Romney's recent skirmishing with John McCain? Is it a Huckabee-like criticism of the Bush Administration?

We've emailed Romney's campaign and will post whatever clarification they provide. Here is the entire statement:

We are still learning the details of today's tragic events in Pakistan, but this is a stark reminder that America must not only stay on high alert, but remain actively engaged across the globe. Pakistan has long been a key part in the war against extremism and radical jihadists. For those who think Iraq is the sole front in the War on Terror, one must look no further than what has happened today. America must show its commitment to stand with all moderate forces across the Islamic world and together face the defining challenge of our generation--the struggle against violent, radical jihadists.

At this difficult time, our thoughts and prayers go to the family of Benazir Bhutto, and to all the people of Pakistan who are fighting against extremist forces that would commit such heinous acts as the whole world has witnessed today.

NRO has just posted a forum titled "After Bhutto" with some good analysis.

Jonathan Foreman writes that Musharraf is likely to be "badly damaged at least in the short term," and that "this could easily grow into widespread civil unrest, especially in the wake of her funeral tomorrow." He holds out some hope that the assassination will have the effect of forcing the country's political and military elite to take the threat from Islamic extremism more seriously--though one would think that the nine attempts on Musharraf's life, the complete loss of control in the tribal areas, and the frequent attacks on Pakistani military installations would have already done as much.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross says this will give a boost to Nawaz Sharif, as he is, by default, now Pakistan's top opposition figure. And Victor Davis Hanson writes:

Our relations were always based on the flawed idea its Islamic and autocratic essence made it a good bulwark against communist Russia and socialist India. But the world has changed, and we should too. It is long past time to smile and curtail aid — and quit arming it with weapons that are more likely to be used against our friend India as bin Laden.

More there from Roggio, Henry Sokolski, Stanley Kurtz, and others.

Al Qaeda's central command is taking credit for today's successful assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. A senior al Qaeda military leader in Afghanistan has contacted Syed Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani journalist for the Asia Times and Adnkronos International with close connections to the Taliban and al Qaeda, and bragged about killing Bhutto.

"We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen," Mustafa Abu al Yazid, al Qaeda's commander in Afghanistan, told Shahzad.

"It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October," Shahzad als reported. "Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto."

Mustafa Abu al Yazid has long been the leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. In May, Yazid was officially appointed al Qaeda's military commander in Afghanistan.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangavi and other indigenous Pakistani terror groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammned and Lashkar-e-Taiba (which is now Jamaatud Dawa) essentially serve as muscle for al Qaeda in Pakistan. Based on the sophistication of the Bhutto assassination, al Qaeda and the Taliban were very likely assisted by infiltrators and sympathizers in the Pakistani military and Inter Services Intelligence agency.

Over at Hot Air, Bryan writes:

What does “justice” mean in the context of jihad, if jihadists perpetrated this attack? When they’re caught, tried and imprisoned in some countries, they remain unapologetic enemies of the rest of the world and they tend to get early parole. If they’re not allowed to escape by allies in strategic government positions. When we capture them and hold them at Guantanamo, “human rights” groups agitate for them and the ACLU goes to bat for them while the MSM reports their fabricated accusations against our personnel as truth, all while the political opposition works to grant them full habeas corpus rights. So what does “justice” mean when these assassins, whoever they may turn out to be, could well have touched off a civil war in a nuclear country?

It should be emphasized that Pakistan has become the main front for al Qaeda not only because of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the compromises of Musharraf with the radicals, but because al Qaeda in Iraq is being beaten and they are seeking a more vulnerable front. Pakistan has been the second bloodiest theater in the GWOT after Iraq for years now. So while it's all well and good to say that the perpetrators, almost certainly members of al Qaeda, must be brought to justice, as Bryan points out, there is no justice for terrorists. The only good terrorist is a dead terrorist.

Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistani People's party, has been assassinated while campaigning in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi. Bhutto, who was a favorite to be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan, was killed along with at least 20 of her supporters and security detail in a shooting attack and suicide bombing as she was exiting the campaign procession in her vehicle.

The first accounts of the assassination indicate the shooter and the suicide bomber were the same person. "Party supporter Chaudry Mohammed Nazir said that two gunshots rang out when Bhutto's vehicle pulled into the main street and then there was a big blast next to her car," the AP reported. "The man first fired at Bhutto's vehicle," Rawalpindi police officer Mohammad Shahid told Reuters. "She ducked and then he blew himself up."

Bhutto was taken to Rawalpindi General Hospital and was treated for "serious head injuries besides bullet injuries in the neck region," Safdar Abbasi, Bhutto's aide said. She was reported shot in the neck and chest, but Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Cheema said "It may have been pellets packed into the suicide bomber's vest that hit her."

The mode of attack suggests a level of training, discipline, and expertise of a military organization. If bullets penetrated Bhutto's vehicle windshield, which no doubt was bullet proof, the shooter was using armor-piercing rounds and had good aim. There is the possibility a sniper was placed elsewhere and aided the assault, although this has not been confirmed. The shooter also had the discipline to detonate his suicide vest after the confusion of firing into her vehicle.

Today's attack occurred in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi, which the Pakistani military presumably controls. This was was the fifth bombing targeting military and political leaders in Rawalpindi since July.

This was the second strike against Bhutto since her return to Pakistan in mid-October. The first attack also showed a level of sophistication, training, and discipline typical of a military operation. In the October attack on Bhutto's return processional in Karachi, snipers, suicide bombers, and a car bomb were coordinated among a blanket of security. The attack came close to killing Bhutto. Over 132 Pakistanis were killed and upwards of 500 wounded.

Bhutto supporters have begun to blame President Pervez Musharraf for her death. The sophistication of the attack, the governments reported refusal to provide adequate security, as well as the location of the bombing, have created distrust among Bhutto supporters.

But this attack was most likely carried out by the Taliban and al Qaeda. Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the newly united Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, threatened to kill Bhutto upon her return in October. The Taliban and al Qaeda manage training camps in Pakistan's tribal areas and have trainers and recruits from the Pakistani military in their ranks.

"My men will welcome Bhutto on her return," Baitullah told a former senator. "We don’t accept President General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto because they only protect the US interest and see things through its glasses. They’re only acceptable if they wear the Pakistani glasses."

Bhutto was believed to be the frontrunner as the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. She returned to Pakistan after significant pressure on the Musharraf government was applied by the United States. Bhutto promised to rid the tribal regions of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Elections are to be held on January 8, 2007.

If you haven't already checked out the Holiday Reading suggestions from the staff at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, take a look. The boss, sticking with his selection from 2004, wrote:

Anything by P. G. Wodehouse.
Anything by Leo Strauss.
Anything by Donald Westlake.

Then we see this over at the Corner:

It seems that the latest Moscow literary fashion is P.G. Wodehouse.

According to here, his books were banned by Stalin in 1929--and to be fair, there is a Stakhanovite quota of deviationism in them--and permitted again only as late as 1989. Today, in addition to his books being translated and widely read again, there is a P.G. Wodehouse society that puts on plays based on them. (There are at least two Drones Clubs in existence--one in London, the other in New York.) One of his admirers says that, if you've had the experience of living in the Russia of the last century, the "English heaven" of Wodehouse's books is irresistible.

I will now have to check with Iain Sproat--the former Tory MP who helped clear Wodehouse's name of the taint of collaborationism--on the evidence for a related story. Sproat has long maintained that an early Wodehouse short story was on Tolstoy's bedside table the night he died. From one heaven to another, I suppose.

It's obvious that Ivan's been paying attention to what we post here at the STANDARD. Next up: Donald Westlake in Russian!

News that a “spy plane” was discovered by Iraqi troops in the southern city of Basrah, where Iran is attempting to exert its influence with the various Shia militias, is certain to stir up a controversy. Earlier today, the Iraqi newspaper Voices of Iraq reported "a spy plane, heavy weapons and documentaries" were found in the southern city of Basrah. AFP ran a photo captioned "An Iraqi policeman holds a small drone during a press conference in Basra," in the Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat.

So the question is whose "spy plane" is this? Is it an Iranian miniature Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (not a "drone" or a "spy plane") of the type used in Lebanon and flown into Israel? Perhaps this is an old, leftover UAV from the Saddam Area?

Looking at the photo provided by AFP, the answer looks to be much simpler. The UAV held by the Iraqi photo appears to be a direct match of the US made RQ-11B, or Raven B, a hand-launched, remote-controlled UAV with a range of six miles. In both images, the top wing of the Raven is detached.

Shia insurgents likely found a lost Raven, put it in their stockpiles, and forgot about it until the Iraqi troops uncovered the cache. The real question is how did this Raven not make it across the border into Iran for inspection?

We snot-nosed elite media types may not be too high on Mike Huckabee, but it's not like the governor lacks for fans. He's apparently knocking them dead in Iran. Iran's Fars News Agency highlighted Huck’s infamous "bunker mentality" comment, and went on to note his insatiable appetite for diplomacy. Under the headline "Top Republican Candidate Wants Dialog With Iran," Fars reports:

Regarding the conduct of Huckabee in the White House, there is a lot we do not know. Like another governor from the same state, Bill Clinton, Huckabee has little experience in foreign affairs. Nonetheless, last week he dropped a bomb in an article he published in Foreign Affairs, where all the other candidates have contributed articles. He wrote of "urgent concerns" regarding Iran's nuclear program and its support for militants, saying that he does not discard the military option. But he was critical of the Bush foreign policy, which he described as "arrogant bunker mentality."

In the Iranian context, his policy is being interpreted as a change, calling for bringing to the table non-military options as well. Huckabee is of the opinion that relations with Iran deteriorated following Bush's "axis of evil" speech. In many points his message on Iran is more akin to that of the Democrats: there is a need for dialogue with Iran, and more diplomacy is needed. He quoted the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, who authored The Art of War 2,500 years ago: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Incredible. Even in sophisticated Persia, they don't know the difference between Sun Tzu and Michael Corleone.

On another Huckabee related front, I've noticed a trend regarding the hate-mail that Huck-a-bashing generates. A mere mention of Ron Paul tends to trigger an avalanche of angry emails from the amalgam of left wing cranks and right wing cranks (not to mention Andrew Sullivan) who think Paul would be a great president. By the way, my dear Ronulans, did you catch Paul's latest salute to federalism in which he blasted Abraham Lincoln for fighting the Civil War?

Regarding Huckabee, the mail that comes in from his supporters is every bit as detached from reality as the typical Paul email. Allow me one example for your edification:

I thought very highly of THE WEEKLY STANDARD and other conservatives until I saw how they treat a Republican not in the "in" group.

Everything Mike Huckabee stands for is almost identical to Ronald Reagan. We could turn back the clock and hear the same Reagan is unqualified crap back then.

First you call Mike the village idiot and then talk about what a slick person he is. Make up your mind is he stupid or smart.

If you actually studied him instead of just attacking him because he is not mainstream you would know that 90% of the thinks being said about him are not true or distorted and the other 10% he fully admits were mistakes.

Boy how odd a person running for president who will admit when he is wrong.

When you attack Mike you attack the last good president we had. You attack Reagan. But then again when he first ran he was getting the same kind of attacks.

You remind of the people that are calling Mike Gomer Pyle. We want one of us for president and not one of the upper class snobs.

So much for my nascent "Draft Goldfarb" movement. Anyway, my point here is that the amount of pro-Huckabee emails has slowed dramatically. I think this phenomenon buttresses the theory I put forth Monday--that most Republican voters are deciding that Huckabee's not the fella they're looking for. All he's going to be left with is a bunch of folks who think a tax-raising, clemency giving, foreign policy wimp is the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan. In other words, he'll have people who operate on their own little planet where reality doesn’t much figure into the equation.

And since Ron Paul has already locked up the crazy vote, the Huckabee supporting segment ultimately can’t be very large.

Perhaps others have called attention to this item from the Des Moines Register's David Yepsen. Bob Dole copied the Register on a letter he wrote to Mike Huckabee criticizing the governor's recent article in Foreign Affairs.

The nugget from Dole:

"As a veteran, I worry about the future security of the good people of Iowa and all other Americans. We are engaged in a global war on terror which will not disappear because you imply a willingness, without any preconditions apparently, to sit down with the enemy. Sure we can all find fault with President Bush and his Administration on policy matters and phases of the Iraq policy. I doubt however Iowans will applaud second guessing more than five years after the agony of 9-11, particularly since you have been either silent or supportive during the interim as far as I can determine.

"The Foreign Affairs piece is a perfect example of 20-20 hindsight, and wishful thinking in most instances. You make knotty foreign policy issues sound so easy if we would just change our ways. I never was a foreign policy expert though I followed it closely for nearly three decades under Democrat and Republican Presidents.

"The great majority of Americans regardless of party, place liberty, freedom and security as top priorities. I'm certain you do too but I am troubled about some of the statements attributed to you in the Foreign Affairs article."

Dole won Iowa in 1988 and in 1996.

I got this email from the Huckabee campaign late in the morning of Chirstmas Eve. The text reads:

Today and tomorrow, as we celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with friends and family, let us bow our heads and also give thanks for the brave men and women serving overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq or wherever our soldiers stand watch protecting our freedom.

Let us also pray for their families and the families of the fallen. May God bring them peace and comfort in their time of need. If you have a moment today or tomorrow, I encourage you to leave a comment on our campaign blog thanking the men and women serving in the armed forces.

God bless them and may God continue to bless America.

With deep gratitude,

Mike Huckabee

Then, below that message, is an especially helpful message for would-be Huckabee contributors who had not realized they could give to the campaign via regular mail.

Attention: You can also contribute by mail for the December Challenge, click here to print the form.

Huckabee for President, Inc.
124 W. Capitol
Suite 1200
Little Rock, AR 72201
United States

Not content to pull out of Basrah before the security situation there could be settled, it seems the British have again sought to conduct negotiations with the Taliban, the group that sheltered al Qaeda prior to and after September 11.

On December 11, This is London reported that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was set to tell Parliament that "negotiation [with the Taliban] is the only way to bring peace to the war torn country." This report was not substantiated by the major British news outlets, and in fact the next day Prime Minister Brown stated there would be no negotiations with the Taliban.

But it appears the British have already conducted negotiations with the Taliban. The Telegraph reports:

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.

An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban." ...

MI6's meetings with the Taliban took place up to half a dozen times at houses on the outskirts of Lashkah Gah and in villages in the Upper Gereshk valley, to the north-east of Helmand's main town.

The compounds were surrounded by a force of British infantry providing a security cordon.To maintain the stance that President Hamid Karzai's government was leading the negotiations the clandestine meetings took place in the presence of Afghan officials.

"These meetings were with up to a dozen Taliban or with Taliban who had only recently laid down their arms," an intelligence source said. "The impression was that these were important motivating figures inside the Taliban."

According to the paper, the Tory opposition is now looking into the report to determine if Prime Minister Brown misled them during the December 12 question and answer session in the House of Commons.

It should not be surprising that the British are willing to sit down with the Taliban to conduct direct talks. The source for the This is London report [which is no longer available online] stated that the British government does not view the Taliban as "united force," but a "disparate group of tribesmen infiltrated by foreign fighters." The same source held up Musa Qala as a success story:

"Musa Qala was a good example of what we are planning - once the town was stabilized people were ready to appoint judges, local police chiefs, start laying on service and start putting in power lines. But the Afghan government has got to demonstrate they can deliver and alternative strategy."

The British view of Musa Qala is quite different from what really occurred in the district over the past year. In October of 2006, the British withdrew from their small outpost in the district center after negotiating with who they claimed were "tribal elders" not aligned with the Taliban. Within days, the Taliban ran up the al rayah, the black banner of the terror group, in the district center.

Michelle has a must-read post up looking back at the story that defined 2007--the surge:

For me, what happened in January defined the rest of the year. We rang in 2007 with vehement Democrat opposition to the “surge” in Baghdad. In the ensuing 12 months, Democrats tried and failed repeatedly to sabotage and undermine this military campaign. Their poisonously partisan allies at MoveOn attempted to smear Gen. David Petraeus. Their fellow travelers in the MSM fought tooth and nail to obscure the successes of the counterinsurgency tactics with their relentless “grim milestone” drumbeat. But by year’s end, even anti-war Democrats and adversarial media outlets alike were forced to acknowledge that undeniable military progress and security improvements had been made.

She reminds readers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's early opposition to the surge, which included this humdinger from Joe Biden: "...a surge in ground troops … is the wrong way to go, and I believe it will have the opposite--I repeat--opposite effect the president intends."

I'm shocked--I repeat--shocked that the Biden presidential campaign never got off the ground. Meanwhile, things are looking up for surge's most vocal supporter and rightly so.

As Michelle says, there's no doubt that the success of the surge has been the story of 2007, and it's worth taking the trip down memory lane just to see how misguided, and at times vile, the opposition to it was at the beginning of the year.

Last Tuesday (18 December) a Brazilian actor dressed as Santa Claus (known as Papa Noel in Brazilian Portuguese) had a slightly unpleasant incident en route to a large children’s party in the Rio de Janeiro favela of Nova Mare. While passing over another favela, Vilo do João, the helicopter that the Rio Santa was flying in came under fire from drug traffickers who thought the chopper was part of a police raid.

The helicopter pilot was able to return to base, but two bullet holes were found in the fuselage of the aircraft. Police spokesmen in Rio state that it is only a matter of luck that no one on board was struck or killed by a stray round.

Favelas exist in almost every city and town in Brazil, but the most famous of them are in and around Rio, which has over 700 of them scattered throughout the city’s metropolitan area. Drug trafficking and other criminal gangs remain the center of life in many of the favelas, a Portuguese word that means "slum" or ‘"shanty town," but those English phrases do not quite capture the meaning of the word and its connotations in terms of Brazilian culture and society.

These sprawling and constantly expanding settlements are perhaps Brazil’s greatest social problem. Their existence and the plight of the inhabitants has been the subject of such famous films as a Cidade de Deus (City of God) and a documentary called Bus 174, which is named for one of the bus routes that skirts the areas of a favela in Rio.

The favelas themselves are for the most part unauthorised settlements of squatters who bootleg electricity off of the power grid and have no title to the land that their one-on-top-of-the-other brick and corrugated tin homes are built on. The city administration has almost no authority inside of these neighbourhoods, and the Rio police only will make forays into these "danger zones" in large numbers and with near-military force that many times includes--as can be seen from last week’s shooting--helicopter gunships.

Their growth has been accelerating over the past ten years. In the 1990s numerous Rio residents of Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon migrated to a more distant but chic suburb called Barra de Tijuca located in the Zona Oeste, which is sometimes referred to as "Carioca (a slang word meaning a resident of Rio) California," in order to escape the crime and other problems brought on by the nearby and ever encroaching favelas. Unfortunately for them the favelas have kept up a steady growth in their direction to the point where many of the residents are almost as close to one of these shanty towns as they used to be back in Ipanema.

The issue of how to cope with the favelas goes on and, as one American friend who lives and works in Rio told me one day as we sat at sidewalk café, "it is not going to be solved in our lifetime." There is a semi-happy ending to the helicopter story, however.

Upon his return to the helicopter pad the Brazilian Santa took a car (generally considered to be much more dangerous a method for travelling to a favela than by helicopter) and arrived at the Christmas bash to distribute gifts to the more than 1,000 children and their parents who had been waiting for him. The president of the resident’s association described the children as somewhat crestfallen "as they had expected Santa to arrive by helicopter."

If planning a similar event for your Rio Christmas party, it may be safer for Papa Noel to come in an armoured Range Rover. Otherwise you might want to paint your helicopter red and write "Papa Noel On Board" on the underside of the fuselage. In the meantime, Feliz Natal and Feliz Ano Novo to everyone.

The current issue of Vanity Fair carries a very fine piece by Sebastian Junger chronicling the efforts of the 503rd Infantry Regiment (airborne) to get some sort of control over the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. The story has some finely observed moments of infantry life:

Sure enough, daylight brought bursts of heavy-machine-gun fire that sent the men diving into the shallow trenches they had just dug. They fought until the shooting stopped and then they got back up and continued to work. There was no loose dirt up there to fill the sandbags, so they broke up the rock with pickaxes and then shoveled pieces into the bags, which they piled up to form crude bunkers. Someone pointed out that they were actually "rock bags," not sandbags, and so "rock bags" became a platoon joke that helped them get through the next several weeks. They worked in 100-degree heat in full body armor and took their breaks during firefights, when they got to lie down and return fire.

Junger also does well in the strategic mode, doing his best to explain clearly the tortured politics and economics which support the insurgency:

Insurgent operations in the valley are run by an Egyptian named Abu Ikhlas al-Masri, who married locally and has been fighting here since the jihad against the Soviets. Ikhlas is paid directly by al-Qaeda. He shares responsibility for the area with an Afghan named Ahmad Shah, whose forces in 2005 cornered the navy-seal team and shot down the Chinook helicopter. Competing with them for control of the area--and al-Qaeda financing--is an Arabist group called Jamiat-e Dawa el al Qurani Wasouna. The J.D.Q., as it is known by American intelligence, is suspected of having links to both the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments, as well as to Pakistan's infamous intelligence services. Both groups are thought to pay and train local Afghan fighters to attack coalition forces in the area.

There is no need to quote it here, but Junger also does a fine job of explaining how the valley's thriving and ancient timber industry plays a key role in the fighting. And the frank descriptions of furious violence should be enough to disabuse anyone still possessed of the notion that the war in Afghanistan is somehow Iraq-lite. Especially moving is the report, appended to the end of the piece, that Sergeant Larry Rougle, with whom Junger has a rare discussion about politics (most of the infantrymen avoid or seem uninterested in the topic; Rougle, a Utah Republican, intends to vote Obama) was killed in combat soon after Junger left the valley.

J'Accuse! Talented Super Blogger and sharp observer of all things political Mickey Kaus smells a conspiracy of former McCain aides to create a phony spin-driven sense of momentum on behalf of Sen. John McCain. Your Cardinal is suspected by the perspicacious Mr. Kaus of being in cahoots with this well entrenched conspiracy. Humbug! Your Cardinal is in the tank for none other than the Glory of the French State. We call it as we see it and have advanced possible winning scenarios for Huckabee, Rudy, and Romney. We're still trying to come up with one for Fred Thompson.

As for the speculation regarding the identity of your Cardinal, all I can say is there's a good chuckle here at the Cathedral every time we hear the latest guess. I'd elaborate, but I have to get back to organizing my large collection of books about the McKinley administration.

Meanwhile three of the last four public polls in New Hampshire show McCain pulling within 3 points or closer to frontrunner Mitt Romney. The fourth poll has Romney 7 points ahead. Not bad for a non-existent surge being foisted upon innocent journalists by deceptive agents of a McCain Comintern.

Merry Christmas.

"Character matters most": I could see how someone down in, say, Little Rock, who clicked on those words might ask for equal treatment. Here are the pages that someone might insist on. And this page, too. Doesn’t it take some will power to put down that fork?

Be sure to check out Joel Achenbach's more-serious-than-not thoughts on robot love in the Washington Post.

From Christopher Caldwell's recent column on religion in American politics:

Thanks to constitutional limits on government's right to meddle in religion, churches are the surest refuge from overweening government. Mr Smith's church is safer from regulation than Mr Smith's hardware store. Unsurprisingly, many new secular institutions are now organised religiously. 'Church' is an inadequate description of some of the all-purpose alternative communities that have cropped up in the American Bible belt, with cinemas, libraries, gyms, coffee shops and so on. What we call 'religion' in America can be as much a political secession as a spiritual revival.

It is always legitimate to want information about a candidate's bedrock beliefs, whether they are religious or not. If Americans are pressing for such information more urgently in recent elections, the reason is not that they are turning into fanatics. It is that, when basic institutions and social rules are in flux, convictions about first principles matter more than they once appeared to.

Caldwell contrasts our time with Kennedy's: "John F. Kennedy's view that a president's religious views ought to be 'his own private affair' ... was a workable ideal when American laws and institutions - from churches to unions - were stable enough that the private convictions of politicians could not affect them. But it is a different country now."

In a rapidly changing world, in other words, character matters most.

The staff of the WEEKLY STANDARD's recommended Christmas reading can be found here.

For what it's worth, here are the best books I read in 2007:

Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Stephen King's Misery.

Tom Wolfe's Hooking Up.

Harvey Mansfield's A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy.

Why I Turned Right, edited by Mary Eberstadt.

Andrew Ferguson's Land of Lincoln.

According to the Real Clear Politics average, John McCain has moved into third position in the Iowa GOP caucus. While a lot of attention has been paid to McCain's New Hampshire surge, less notice has gone to the Arizona senator's Iowa rebound. But McCain's campaign seems to have noticed - the senator is returning to Iowa this week. As Cardinal Richelieu has long argued, a surprise third-place finish in Iowa would give McCain a fresh burst of momentum and prepare the ground for a New Hampshire upset. The question is: Will McCain be able to finish third in Iowa on free media alone?

There's an amusing front-page story in Sunday's Washington Post, by Michael Shear and David Broder. The headline and first two sentences say it all. The headline: "Splintered GOP Seeks Unifying Presence; Dispirited Party's Harmony Elusive." The lede: "For three decades, the Republican presidential nominating contest has served to unify the national party's coalition of social, economic, and foreign policy conservatives in advance of a general election fight with Democrats. This year, it is ripping that coalition apart."

Perhaps this year's contest is less harmonious than others in the last three decades (though does anyone remember Pat Buchanan wounding George H. W. Bush in 1992, or the bitterness of Bush-McCain in 2000?). Perhaps Republicans today are more dispirited than usual (though does anyone remember Bush trailing Dukakis by 17 points in 1988?). But notice the first words of the article: "For three decades..." That would bring us back to...1980. That year featured a truly divisive primary fight, with one of the candidates, John Anderson, leaving the party to run as an independent, Bush attacking Reagan's "voodoo economics", desperate attempts to save the party with a proposed Reagan-Ford ticket at the Detroit convention, etc. But gee--didn't Republicans win that election, defeating an incumbent Democratic president for the first time in a century? Is there in fact any correlation between wide-open and vigorously contested primaries, and general election outcomes? And how many similar articles lamenting the GOP's dire fate did the Post publish in 1979 and 1980?

In this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Bill Kristol writes:

One additional point: Petraeus's counterinsurgency stands out not just for its conceptual ambition and the skill of its execution but for its humanity. There were those who argued that the U.S. military could not succeed in counterinsurgency because Americans were not tough and bloodthirsty enough. They said that brutality was essential in subduing insurgents and our humanity would be our downfall.

According to Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld, insurgents usually win because the counter-insurgents get demoralized; time works for the insurgents in that way. According to Martin, there are only two approaches that work by deliberately circumventing the process of demoralization. The first was the British approach in Northern Ireland of defending the population against the insurgents by interposing the troops between the bad guys and the civilians. This takes tremendous forebearance, political will and military discipline. At the other end of the spectrum is Hafez Assad's massacre in Hama back in 1982, in which he pounded the city into rubble then sent in his troops to kill anything that survived (end of insurgency). Martin insists that the first method is beyond most armies, the second not politically acceptable except to totalitarian regimes. Most countries choose a middle course, which, like all half-measures is doomed to fail.

Prior to Petraeus, the U.S. was pursuing just such half-measures, as characterized by our two offensives against Falluja and our whack-a-mole approach to pacifying the country. Conservatives who claimed we were not ruthless enough chose one of two approaches. Petraeus' counter-insurgency doctrine adopted the other. Petraeus' great achievement is not only formulating the doctrine, but training a force capable of implementing it, and then overseeing the operations that did implement it. To military historians, this was a most unexpected outcome, given past U.S. history in counter-insurgency operations, and the Army's historical proclivity for firepower-based solutions to tactical and operational problems ("Never send a man where you can send a shell").

After Petraeus, all credit is due to the troops and to their commanders at the company, battalion and brigade level. This is, without a doubt, the finest, best motivated, most highly trained army in the history of the United States. People will look back on this with awe.

At THE DAILY STANDARD we've posted the English translation of an interview with General Petraeus by Urs Gehriger and Matthias Rub that first appeared in the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche. Some highlights:

Gen. Petraeus: "[W]e have seen progress in about every different respect and in almost every area of Iraq..." "[T]he trajectory is never consistently up. It's sort of up in bumps and downs and sometimes it's a pretty big down and then we'll recover. What you're hoping to do is keep it generally on a positive trajectory. And I think that's generally true. I think if you look at, for example, attack trends. It really has been pretty steadily downward ever since June."...

"[W]e are actually almost on a two-and-one-half year low in terms of violence." "What we have seen now for a sustained period of five or six months, since about mid-June, has been a steady reduction in violence. There was a little up-tick during Ramadan. There have been a couple of up-ticks in the past, say, ten weeks, but we've generally had a period of about ten weeks of levels of violence that have not been seen on a sustained basis like that since the late spring of 2005."...

"The Iraqi surge has been much greater than our surge. And actually, it is being felt." "Yes, there's an uneven quality to Iraqi forces but they brought in some over 160,000 this year in terms of police, soldiers, border police and other assorted Iraqi security force members. That's huge. … There are certainly concerns about sectarian allegiances of some of them still, although a number of them have been cleaned up over the course of the past six months as well. There are, for example, national police units that are really quite good in our estimation. … So there is movement in these areas."...

Go read the whole thing, and don't miss the boss's editorial: "Gen. David Petraeus, Man of the Year."

Well worth watching - more moving than any campaign spot has any right being.

A few weeks ago, Entertainment Weekly compiled a list of the "50 Smartest People in Hollywood." Checking in at number five was Will Smith, the star of the current hit "I Am Legend." Smith was the highest ranked performer on the list, edging out the sixth ranked Meryl Streep. After Streep, you had to go all the way down to thirteen to find another purported Hollywood brainiac who does their work in front of the cameras. (That would be Northern Kentucky University dropout George Clooney, in case you were wondering.)

Smith must feel some pressure now that Entertainment Weekly has crowned him the smartest actor in Hollywood. Thus, he has taken to giving pronouncements on historical matters while he expands on his philosophy of seeing the good in everyone.

“Even Hitler didn't wake up going, ‘Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good.’ Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.”

What a canny student of humanity! It’s quite a comfort that the Hollywood community has so forcefully weighed in on all matters regarding the war with radical Islam. Those actors sure have a lot to offer.

Assuming this comment reaches a wide audience, Smith will have to submit to extensive sensitivity training as well as a highly public display of cross cultural rehabilitation. Abe Foxman, please call your office after sundown.

A well informed (and in the proverbial loop) friend of the WWS emails regarding Condi Rice's recent criticism of Mike Huckabee:

Ok, so I'll be the first to admit that I really don't like Huck. Frankly he annoys me more than Ron Paul. Nevertheless, what Condi just did annoys me even more. She has remained silent for years as Bush has been ripped from one end to the other by the Dems. She's never answered a single threat, accusation, slur or innuendo...until today and she breaks her silence to slam Huck...who did nothing more than repeat Clinton, Obama and Pelosi's talking points. So the only politician she has ever slammed - ever - is a Republican.

Not necessarily pertinent exit thought: If Ron Paul were at 20% in the polls, he'd be much more annoying than Huckabee.

Courtesy of K-Lo at the Corner, above is a clip of Ronald Reagan's seminal "Time for Choosing" speech.

What I find most remarkable about the speech beyond its extraordinary content is the simple, straight forward language and the appropriately spare delivery. There were no clumsy applause lines, no laundry lists of silly promises meant to purchase the votes of certain citizens. Instead, it was just one man talking sense, honestly and from the heart, clearly without the guidance of either pollsters or focus groups.

Current candidates, please take note - the audience loved it. And 43 years later, it's part of history. Even the most moving paen to ethanol won't be so recognized.

Jonah Goldberg has penned a fantastic column on Hillary Clinton's Christmas advertisement. Here's the ad, provided by Campaign Circus:

Here's Goldberg:

The implication is that the only thing standing between you and Hillary's trinkets is a president who doesn't want you to have 'em. This is monarchical thinking; good ruler throws loaves of bread to the peons and asks for nothing but love in return.

The truth, as Clinton knows very well, is that it's not so easy. To govern is to choose. 'Give' the people X and it will come at the expense of Y. Indeed, until recently, Clinton's whole schtick has been to emphasize that change is hard work, requiring sacrifice and compromise. She'd lecture Iowa audiences that real change comes from fighting for it. Now that she's on the ropes, it's all yours for the asking.

It's a profound commentary on the state of our political culture that Huckabee's ad is the controversial one. Huckabee promises nothing, Hillary everything.

Goldberg also references one of the best books on American politics ever written. That Clinton is running for nanny-in-chief of the nanny state was a point made yesterday in this post by Bill Kristol. My question is this: What's the return policy on Clinton's "gifts"?

In entertainment news, Sacha Baron Cohen has decided to retire his most famous creation, Kazakh "journalist" Borat Sagdiyev. Sagdiyev was of course the eponymous star of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, in which he tried, among other things, to throw a burlap sack over Pamela Anderson. He will be missed by all, with the likely exception of the Kazakh government.

Approaching the end of the year, there have been a number of stories about the edge Democrats have had in fundraising for 2007. There's no question that they have had the advantage of a base motivated to end the war, and of lobbyists eager to curry favor with new leaders they had ignored for years. (Although given the disappointment with the performance of Democrats in Congress so far, it's unclear whether either of those will help them in 2008.)

Under the circumstances, it's no surprise that the Democrats have a fundraising advantage. But at least for the formal partisan campaign committees, it's not as large as some believe. For purposes of this piece, I'm going to look at how much money those committees have on hand -- rather than how much they have raised or spent to date. The cash on hand figure (net of outstanding debt), gives a better sense of where the committees stand today.

Going into this month, the Republican National Committee had an edge of $15.7 million to $1.3 (after subtracting the debt still held by the DNC). That's a Republican advantage of $14.4 million. The DCCC had an edge over the Republican House campaign committee of almost exactly $30 million -- again, after accounting for debt currently held by each committee. The Democratic Senate committee has an edge over its Republican counterpart of just about $13 million.

All told, the three Democratic campaign committees have an advantage of about $26 million over their Republican opponents.

Republicans in the House however, are taking steps to ensure that their candidates will have the resources to compete in 2008. A number of incumbents recently came together to donate $3 million from their own campaign accounts to the NRCC. Those funds will be targeted to defeat Democratic incumbents -- and more such donations are expected. The primary focus is likely to be on the Freshman House Democrats, many of whom were elected in marginal or Republican-leaning districts. As I've pointed out before, Republicans will have more targets in the House next year than Democrats, if only because there are currently 61 Democrats sitting in seats carried by George Bush in 2004, against just 8 Republicans in districts carried by John Kerry.

Further, House Republicans will also look to their retirees to contribute to the 2008 campaign. Much has been made of the fact that significantly more Republicans are retiring from the House than Democrats. The flip side is that most of those retirees do not intend to seek other offices, leaving them largely free to donate their cash reserves to other Republican candidates and committees. Republican sources expect that this will ultimately yield millions more to spend on promising candidates.

Jim Saxton for example, reported having approximately $1.4 million in cash on hand at the end of September. Mike Ferguson had $760,000. Dave Hobson had just short of $1 million. Jim Ramstad (who may be running for re-election after all) reported more than $830,000 to spend. Terry Everett had just about the same.

In the months ahead, many Republican retirees will make donations to the NRCC or to Republican candidates. Republican sources expect such transfers to total in the millions -- moving House Republicans into a far better competitive position than they are in today. Combined with expected improvement in NRCC fundraising, House Republicans will see their financial condition improve dramatically in advance of the 2008 elections.

The Pakistani Taliban continues their terror campaign in the Northwest Frontier province. The latest suicide attack targeted former Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao while he conducted Eid prayers at a mosque in the town of Aftab Sherpao in the settled district of Charsadda in the Northwest Frontier Province. Sherpao survived the assassination attempt, but over 50 Pakistanis were killed and over 200 wounded in the blast. Sherpao's son and nephew were among the wounded.

This is the second attempt against Sherpao this year. The Taliban targeted Sherpao while he was addressing his political party, the Pakistan Peoples Party (Sherpao Group) on April 28. Over 28 were killed in the suicide attack and scores more wounded, including Sherpao, his son, who was a minister in the NWFP assembly, and several other lawmakers and security officials. Taliban commander Abdullah Mehsud was behind the assassination attempt. Abdullah was killed by Pakistani security forces in July.

Sherpao has been a target of the Taliban and al Qaeda due to his stand against the rise in extremism in the Northwest Frontier Province and beyond. As Interior Minister, Sherpao led one of the few institutions the consistently stood up to the Taliban and al Qaeda. He was on the forefront in warning about the rise of the Taliban in the Northwest Frontier Province. Sherpao was a lone voice in the Pakistani government detailing the fall of the settled districts and tribal agencies to the Taliban in 2006.

This is the fourth suicide bombing in the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan since December 13. Twelve soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Kohat on December 17. A suicide bomber killed five and wounded 11 in an attack on a military check post in Nowshera on December 15. Two suicide bombers killed 16, including 11 police in Quetta in Baluchistan province on December 13.

A host of attacks have also occurred throughout the Northwest Frontier Province over the past week. The largest attacks include a series of Taliban ambushes in North Waziristan which resulted in 15 soldiers killed and 38 wounded, the kidnapping of two army captains and two soldiers while traveling from Dera Ismail Khan, and the beheading of a soldier in Khar in Bajaur agency. Numerous military patrols were ambushed and bases were rocketed, while music, Internet, and computer shops were bombed up and down the Northwest Frontier Province.

The Pakistani Taliban recently united to coordinate operations inside Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. On December 14, a shura, or council, of 40 senior Taliban leaders established the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan -- the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan -- and appointed powerful South Waziristan Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud its leader. Baitullah has been directly implicated in a series of suicide attacks on military and government officials throughout the course of 2007. The Taliban declared a ceasefire for Eid but clearly are not abiding by it.

A reader sends along this link to a blog that has found four books that say George Romney supported and/or "marched" with Martin Luther King Jr.

No question George Romney advocated civil rights. I guess it all comes down to what the meaning of "march" is.

A new study commissioned by the German interior ministry about the increasingly radicalized religious and political beliefs of the country’s more than three million Muslims has triggered a political earthquake and much soul-searching about how to confront the rising security threat posed by home-grown Islamic terrorists. The key findings of the 510-page report--which is based on almost 2,000 phone interviews conducted by criminology experts, and had already been initiated under the previous left-wing Red-Green government--are rather disturbing.

First, the study reports that 40 percent of all Muslims in Germany are “fundamentally oriented”. While this label does not necessarily make them hard-core Islamic fundamentalists, it nonetheless means that there are 1.2 million Muslims who practice their faith very strictly “with a tendency to exclude moderate Muslims, to glorify Islam, and to look down on Western / Christian-oriented cultures”. Second, 12 percent of all Muslims in Germany can be described as anti-Democratic, “Islamic-authoritarian”; they harbor very hostile attitudes towards Western societies and are strong believers in meting out the death penalty and other harsh forms of corporal punishment in full accordance with Sharia law. In this context, the experts also believe that there is the potential for “an Islamic-connotated radicalization” in the range of 10-12 percent of all Muslims in Germany.

Third, 6 percent of Germany’s Muslims -- equivalent to about 180,000 people -- have an “affinity to violence” in the sense that they either tolerate or support religiously or politically motivated violence, i.e., terrorism, in the name of Islam. Fourth, radical Islamist ideas in Germany are equally common among both poor, un-educated Muslims and their better-educated, more wealthy, and, supposedly, better-integrated co-religionists. Finally, and probably most worrisome, is the study’s finding that young Muslims--including many second or third generation children of immigrants who were born and raised in Germany and have German passports--are especially prone to embrace violence, radical Islamist beliefs as well as anti-semitism. In essence, most of these radicalized youth embrace a simplistic “single narrative” and believe that world events today are driven by a vast Jewish-Christian campaign of aggression and persecution against Islam. A comparison with France is certainly instructive since the majority of anti-semitic attacks there are now carried out by young, radicalized Muslim thugs, and no longer by racist neo-nazis.

Roll Call reports that the House Ethics Committee has quietly issued a new interpretation of the house gift "ban" which allows lobbyists to throw lavish parties for Members of Congress at national party conventions:

The ethics committee's guidance last week said that while lobbyists or lobbying groups cannot host events that honor individual Members at convention parties, it's OK to throw events that honor a state delegation or caucus. In other words: Party on.

The Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Democracy 21, League of Women Voters and Public Citizen signed on to a letter Tuesday saying they believe it is “incumbent” for the committee “to immediately withdraw this guidance and to issue new guidance that properly reflects the meaning, purpose and spirit” of the new ethics legislation...

"Look, here’s where we are now,” [Wertheimer] said. “Lobbyists can’t spend $25 to buy a Member of Congress a meal, but under this interpretation lobbying organizations can spend $100,000, or more, at the national conventions to pay for lavish parties.”

Anyone who has attended a political convention knows the type of party being addressed here. Firms and lobbyists pay for expensive bashes to honor a member of Congress. The lobbyists and the member determine who's invited (sometimes thousands are). The lobbyists get the chance to do something for a member of Congress, and to rub elbows with others who attend the party (or parties).

USA Today reported on a bevy of such events at the Democratic convention in 2004, honoring Harry Reid, Max Baucus, Steny Hoyer, Charlie Rangel, and many others. The problem with the new guidance by the Ethics Committee is that it will allow such parties to continue with little or no change. That's in direct conflict with the claim of Speaker Pelosi that Democrats have banned gifts and severed the ties between lobbyists and lawmakers.

The reform coalition identifies the problem with this interpretation in their letter here. Specifically:

• The rule prohibits parties that honor a specific member, but allow tributes to a delegation or caucus. Thus, a party in honor of John Dingell is prohibited, but a party honoring members of the Energy and Commerce Committee is A-OK. The same is true of a party for the House Blue Dogs or Hispanic Caucus.

• The new ethics guidance allows lobbyists to circumvent even this mild restriction by setting up a shell entity that they fund, strictly for the purpose of throwing an otherwise prohibited tribute bash.

• A Member of the House can be listed as a host of the party, as long as there is at least on other host who is not a Member of Congress. So lobbyists can pay for a party hosted by Chairman Conyers (for example), as long one other person (probably the lobbyist who donates the most) is listed as a host as well.

• The House Ethics Committee -- which has advised members that the gift ban is written 'broadly' adopted a narrow interpretation that differs from the one adopted by both the Senate and the clerk of the House of Representatives.

The cumulative effect is that there's essentially no restriction of lobbyist-funded parties at the Democratic and Republican conventions.

Is this how Congress drains the swamp?

The New York Times has looked into the accusations that Rudy Giuliani's office paid for travel to the Hamptons to see then-mistress Judith Nathan through "burying" the expenses into reimbursements paid by obscure city agencies. The Times found that "all eight of Mr. Giuliani's trips to the Hamptons in 1999 and 2000, including the period when his relationship was a secret, were charged to his own mayoral expense account, according to the documents." So it would appear any accusations of financial impropriety on the mayoral office's part during this period are unfounded.

What made the Hamptons story cause trouble for the mayor's campaign, however, weren't accusations of financial impropriety. Trouble was, the story reminded folks of Giuliani's infidelity. It came on the heels of bad Bernie Kerik news. It drove the storyline that Giuliani's personal judgment would become a major (and perhaps losing) issue if he won the GOP nomination. And it coincided with the beginning of Hillary Clinton's decline in prominence on the Democratic side.

The latest Strategic Vision poll has Thompson placing third in Iowa. Meanwhile, in addition to Rep. Steve King's endorsement, Thompson has the support of Bill Salier, who used to support Tancredo.

Timothy Carney of the Evans-Novak Political Report recently wrote a dispatch from Iowa in which he labeled Thompson the major x-factor in the caucus race. If Huckabee fades - a big if - you'd think those voters are more likely to go to Thompson than to Romney.

The Politico reports that rank and file Congressional Democrats recognize that a relentless focus on retreat in Iraq hasn't helped the party in 2007, and would hurt them more if it continues in 2008:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, despite their pledges to continue pushing to end the war in Iraq, face growing pressure from their rank-and-file Democrats to focus more attention on domestic, “pocketbook” issues in the upcoming election year.

Junior Democrats describe an “Iraq fatigue” setting in among some members after dozens of successful withdrawal votes failed to drive a wedge between Republicans and President Bush on the war strategy...

"Iraq fatigue” is a real possibility facing Democrats, however. Recent polls indicate public concern over the war has waned, as the economy, health care and other domestic issues grow in importance. Even many Democrats have tired of the constant focus on the war, noting that party leaders will have even less leverage to force Bush to change direction in his final months in office.

“The reality is that, as the weeks slip by for this president, we all know that Iraq policy is going to change in ’09 anyway,” said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), arguing that 2007, not 2008, was the year for the Iraq policy struggle and that Congress should move onto other “kitchen table issues.”

“Trying to do it [change Iraq policy] in ’07 makes more sense then trying to do it in ’08,” he said.

As has been pointed out here before, Congressional Democrats have for some time been pitching different messages to different audiences on Iraq. They've told the antiwar base that they're holding the president's feet to the fire, and that they are committed to doing whatever it takes to end the war. At the same time, Democratic leaders have promised that they would never fail to fund the troops. They gave the Defense Department flexibility to shift among defense accounts so that the war could continue, in the hopes of putting off a vote on specific funding. Expect the hypocrite shuffle to continue.

It's been clear for some time that Democrats concerned about victories at the polls have wanted to turn away from Iraq. People close to the party's presidential candidates, as well as strategists like Rahm Emanuel are eagerly talking about the move to issues that help Democrats. Iraq by contrast, has crippled Democrats in Congress.

And if the situation on the ground in Iraq continues to improve, look for Democrats to try out more 'nuanced' messages. Some Democrats will emulate Steny Hoyer, and say that they always believed we needed more troops to prevail in Iraq. Others will point to the Democratic win in 2006 and the new pressure they brought on the administration as the cause for adoption of the surge. They will argue in fact, that victory could not be achieved without them.

Also be sure to check out Ed Morrissey's take on the Democrats' dilemma.

Noonan posted earlier on the "superb memo from retired General Barry McCaffrey." It's worth reading in full, but it's also worth noting that the recommendations made by McCaffrey are nearly exactly in line with those made by Fred Thompson, and for many of the same reasons.

You can read Thompson's plan for revitalizing the Armed Forces here.

As he mentioned the other day, Mitt Romney graduated at the top of his class at BYU with a degree in English.

Yet his favorite novel is the L. Ron Hubbard potboiler Battlefield Earth.

Hmm. Romney spent at least two years studying the vast canon of Western literature and his favorite book is third-rate sci-fi pulp from the author of Dianetics? Not Stendhal? Faulkner? Shakespeare?

Why isn't this a campaign issue?

Michael Corleone, Mike Huckabee, Uncle Remus (Not pictured: Tom Friedman)

My parents were enormous admirers of the child-raising techniques of B.F. Skinner. Stuck as I was in a Skinnerian box until the age of 30, beloved childhood figures like Uncle Remus are therefore unfamiliar to me. I extend my most sincere gratitude to the dozens of readers who emailed me to explain Mike Huckabee’s reference to America as “Brer Fox” and Osama bin Laden as “Brer Rabbit.” It all makes perfect sense to me now.

Elsewhere on the Huckabee foreign policy front, one of his most trusted foreign policy advisors has jumped ship. A week ago, Huckabee claimed conservative Frank Gaffney as one of his foreign policy advisors along with the New York Times’ Tom Friedman. Apparently, the Huckabee-Gaffney relationship isn’t particularly tight.

In a radio interview with my friend Hugh Hewitt, Gaffney expanded on his role in the Huckabee campaign after Hugh played a tape of Huckabee saying, “We haven’t had diplomatic relationships with Iran in almost thirty years, most of my entire adult life. And a lot of good it’s done. Putting this in human terms, all of us know that when we stop talking to a parent or a sibling, or even a friend, it’s impossible to resolve the difference to move that relationship forward. Well, the same is true for countries.”

“I think that’s cockamamie,” Gaffney began, “and in fact, I had an hour and a half, I think, conversation with Governor Huckabee a couple of months ago over breakfast, and this was one of the main points on which I tried to educate him, that this is not a sibling that you just aren’t having a good time with. This is a country run by megalomaniacs bent on an apocalyptic outcome, who believe that bringing about a world without America is their god-given obligation. And you know, just talking with them, you know, can’t we all get along, Rodney King style, is not a prescription for a serious foreign policy, I’m afraid.”

With Gaffney apparently no longer on the team, Huckabee’s foreign policy advisory committee apparently exists of Michael Corleone, Uncle Remus and Tom Friedman. Hey – at least he’s not relying on Brent Scowcroft.

No one set to replace the 1600 man contingent yet, either. From the AFP:

The Netherlands announced that Dutch troops would leave Afghanistan from July 2010, though it remained uncertain whether other nations would send enough soldiers to replace them.

"I do not have assurances that other countries will be ready to replace Netherlands troops, but I am certain that Dutch troops will leave in 2010," Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told journalists.

"I indicated that in writing ... to the NATO secretary general, who has confirmed it.

The Netherlands government decided last month to prolong its Afghanistan deployment by two years to December 2010 and the parliament approved the measure late on Tuesday.

Dutch troops are stationed in the southern province of Uruzgan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Some 1,600 Dutch soldiers have been stationed in Uruzgan since July 2006. The mission, which was initially set to end after two years, is set to be reduced to between 1,100 and 1,200 soldiers in that region, with 250 troops in Kabul and Kandahar.

The Canadians are wavering, too. France has promised more troops, but they will likely be restricted to a training mission. The Aussies have expressed a willingness to fill the hole in NATO lines, but they can't stand in for both the Canadians and the Dutch. Poland is already committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, so are the British. The rest of NATO is squabbling over whether or not their constitutions allow them to fight, despite the fact that they unanimously invoked Article V of the alliance charter (collective defense) after the 9/11 attacks.

The failure of NATO to competently perform its most basic function could mean the end of the alliance, says Reuters:

The 38-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is already hobbled by restrictions that mean most European nations only allow their troops to fire in self-defence and bar them from the more violent south.

U.S. appeals for 3,500 more military trainers, more helicopters and ground troops have largely fallen on deaf ears.

The shortage of troops means NATO, in the words of one analyst, "is left chasing the pieces round the chess board".

Some now question the validity of an alliance that won the Cold War, but is struggling against a rag-tag lightly armed militia. Failure in Afghanistan might damage NATO beyond repair.

Ultimately, we're going to have to fill these gaps ourselves. And there's only two ways to make that happen: pull troops out of Iraq and send them east, or vastly increase the size of the military.

Just posted at Michael Yon's website is a superb memo from retired General Barry McCaffrey on the state of affairs in Iraq. You won't find a more honest assessment that better summarizes what went right and what went wrong in 2007. Read the whole thing here.

While the focus of the memo is justly centered on the Iraqi theater of the war, I found that McCaffrey's frustration with the current state of the U.S. Armed Forces was more effective in addressing the roots of our problems in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bottom line up front, the military is inadequately equipped, under funded, over tasked, and simply too small to meet America's global commitments. While there exists a growing movement in the Pentagon to undo 16 years of uninterrupted budget and manning cuts to the Armed Forces, McCaffrey is the highest ranking officer (retired or active duty) to properly communicate the seriousness of the situation. Here are his specifics:

The Army needs more BCTs:

An active counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq could probably succeed in the coming decade with twenty-five US Brigade Combat Teams. (Afghanistan probably needs two more US combat brigades for a total of four in the coming 15 year campaign to create an operational state--given more robust NATO Forces and ROE). We can probably sustain a force in Iraq indefinitely (given adequate funding) of some 10+ brigades. However, the US Army is starting to unravel.

To the Men and Women of the United States Armed Forces

On behalf of a grateful Nation, Laura and I send our best wishes for the holidays.

In this season of giving, we remember our duty to others, and we see that sense of duty fulfilled in the men and women who wear our Nation's uniform. Our country owes you a debt of gratitude for your courage and resolve to serve the cause of peace. Americans are proud of your dedicated service, and I am proud to be the Commander in Chief of the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world.

Our Nation is thankful for the many sacrifices you and your families make every day. During the holidays and throughout the coming year, we ask the Almighty to bestow His protection and care on you and your loved ones. We pray for your safety and for liberty, justice, and peace on Earth.

Laura and I wish you a joyful holiday season. May God bless you, and may God continue to bless America.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Des Moines, Iowa
This New York Times story is getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere. It's a good look at Huckabee in Iowa. A couple of additional details suggest Huckabee's use of Christmas has been even more effective than the article implies.

At his speech in Des Moines on Wednesday, Huckabee complained, as he did in the speech featured in the Times piece, about the reaction to his mention of Jesus Christ. "If I had used the name of Jesus Christ in vain, and blurted it out in profanity, nobody would have talked about it," he said.

And as he has done at each stop over the last couple days, Huckabee ended his speech this way: "I know this is probably a very controversial thing, but may I say to you, Merry Christmas!"

Of course, saying "Merry Christmas" to Republicans in Iowa is hardly a risky thing to do. But Huckabee has effectively adopted as his bogeymen the secularists' waging so-called "War on Christmas," and he plays his willingness to say "Merry Christmas" as the ultimate act of defiance. (Is it really? On CNN's American Morning today, the two hosts signed off by saying "Merry Christmas.")

The crowd loves it. After the speech, Huckabee waded out into the crowd to shake hands of his would-be supporters. I watched for maybe two minutes and every single person he greeted looked him in the eye and said, with a knowing look, "Merry Christmas!"

I asked Dave Leeper, of Norwalk, Iowa, about his support for Huckabee. He said he'd been a Huckabee backer since the Iowa Straw Poll back in August. Why? "Because of his being a Baptist minister, being a Christian. That's been a big issue here, but we're Christians and he's one of us. We home-schooled our kids and he's not against home-schooling - he supports it!"

I asked Leeper what issue he thought was most important in determining his vote. "Illegal immigration," he said without hesitating. "We have a huge Hispanic population here and I'm not against that. But we have an illegal problem, too. There has to be background checks."

What about Huckabee's willingness to grant tuition breaks to the children of illegal aliens? "I know they say he's soft on immigration," says Leeper. "But I think that's not soft, it's just compassionate."

Soren Dayton:

The whole Mitt Romney/Martin Luther King thing just gets weirder and weirder. He told the Detroit Free Press:

'You know, I'm an English literature major as well. When we say, "I saw the Patriots win the World Series," it doesn't necessarily mean you were there - excuse me, the Super Bowl. I saw my dad become president of American Motors. Did that mean you were there for the ceremony? No, it's a figure of speech.'

Then there's this:

But Romney continues to elide the fact that there seems to be only one (since called into question) recorded reference to George Romney marching with Martin Luther King Jr. So Romney is saying he figuratively saw something that may not have happened at all. Watching Romney spin is like watching M.C. Escher in action. It borders on the surreal.

Des Moines, Iowa
Is Huckabee boxing himself in?

Last night, Mike Huckabee accused Mitt Romney of putting his political interests before the interests of his constituents by refusing to grant any pardons during his time as governor.

"My opponent says there's something about judgment," he said. "I'll put mine up against his any day. Because my judgment is, you act in the best interest of the people who elected you, not in your own best interest."

In an email to supporters this afternoon, Huckabee once again decried the attacks from his opponents. He also said that he would avoid doing the same:

What is also apparent, as I campaign and talk with voters, is that other Republican candidates in this race have been bombarding Iowans with negative attacks and they are TIRED of it! I believe, in fact I am betting the farm on it, that our commitment to not run negative attacks, will show undecided Iowans a clear contrast in styles and will sway them to our side.

Does this mean that Huckabee will not run any negative ads after Christmas? Romney's contrast ads seem to have had an effect. Does Huckabee think that they have done more damage to Romney than to him?

There have been persistent rumors that Team Huckabee has been preparing to counterattack Romney on the air (TV specifically). Does this mean those plans have been shelved?

Does President Bush intend to stick the knife in with a smile? He complimented Congress today on passage of an end-of-year spending bill with some funding for U.S. troops in Iraq, as well as an energy bill and legislation to address the subprime mortgage problem. Regarding the omnibus spending bill, this is what he had to say (in part):

Congress reached agreement on a spending bill to fund the day-to-day operations of the federal government. They passed this bill without raising taxes. They eliminated many of the worst policy riders that would have never been approved through the ordinary legislative process. I appreciate that they included a down payment on the funding request for our troops on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq without an artificial timetable of withdrawal. These brave men and women are risking their lives to protect us and they deserve the full support of the U.S. government.

But Andrew Roth of the Club for Growth notes some surprising comments regarding pork-barrel projects in the bill, which have attracted so much attention in the last days of the session just ended. Roth puts two and two together and comes up with...

This is president-ese for "through an executive order, I might tell the respective agencies to ignore the earmarks and to spend the money on higher priorities."

This is a HUGE deal. With his signature, Bush could effectively wipe away almost all of this year's earmarks. It would easily be the biggest achievement on wasteful spending of all time. And it would set a wonderful precedent for the future that would deter the abuse of earmarks by members of Congress.

This is certainly a plausible interpretation of the president's remarks. The vast majority of all pork-barrel projects are contained in committee reports, which do not have the force of law. The executive branch is not bound to accept them.

But while such a move would be completely legal, most members of the House and Senate would regard it as dirty pool if the president elected to disregard earmarks with little or no warning. While few Republicans would complain publicly about such a move, many still regard earmarks as one of the perks of office, and as an almost essential part of moving legislation on Capitol Hill. It is one of the Congress's fundamental "unwritten laws."

At the same time, eliminating earmarks with one bold stroke would earn the president great praise from fiscal conservatives -- including more than a few on Capitol Hill. It also might dramatically improve the damaged republican "brand," at least as far as spending goes.

President Bush has shown a willingness to gamble. I wonder if he's feeling lucky.

Des Moines, Iowa
Tom Tancredo endorsed Mitt Romney at a press conference at the Mariott Hotel in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, today. Tancredo said that he met with Romney this morning and that he is convinced the former Massachusetts governor is committed to securing the borders and ending sanctuary cities.

The conventional wisdom is that endorsements don't mean much, but I think this one might be helpful for Romney. A recent AP-Pew Research poll found that illegal immigration was the most important issue for 18 percent of Iowa Republicans. Based on my discussions with Republicans here, that seems low. Virtually every voter I've spoken to over the last couple of days has raised the issue without prompting, and each time they say they're looking for someone tough on immigration.

It's true that Tancredo has been consistently polling at only one or two percent here. But in a tight race, those caucusgoers will matter if they move in a block. More important, Tancredo's endorsement could have the effect of easing the concerns some voters have about Romney on immigration. In laying out the case for Romney, Tancredo said that his new candidate will do three things to stem the tide of illegal immigrants.

"First, he will secure our borders. Second, he will prosecute employers who create the magnet that draws several million illegal aliens into the country. Third, he will require those who are presently here illegally to return home."

He gave Romney cover on an issue that has nagged him on the campaign thus far. "He is also, I think, committed to the idea that sanctuary cities should be stopped and penalized and dealt with importantly."

Tancredo hinted in his opening remarks that the timing of his endorsement was meant to slow the rise of Mike Huckabee and confirmed this later in response to a question. "It was important in making a decision," he said. "You bet your life it was."

I missed this, but Democratic consultant and Fox News contributor Bob Beckel made an excellent point regarding Joe Lieberman's recent endorsement of John McCain:

It's hard to imagine that Joe Lieberman would have endorsed a Republican for president if he remained a Democrat in good standing in the U.S. Senate. Lieberman points out that one reason he endorsed McCain rather than a Democrat is that no Democrat asked for his endorsement. If Lieberman had been re-elected to the Senate as the Democratic nominee (rather than as an Independent), one of his colleagues might have sought his endorsement.

If McCain finishes strong in New Hampshire, he might have to send a thank you card to MoveOn.

Here's some evidence to back up Richelieu's insight that "John McCain could indeed win the nomination." (We Americans occasionally try to provide evidence to support assertions, something foreign to the Gallic mind of Richelieu.)

1. Look at the new Fox national poll: McCain continues to trend up nationally (from 12 percent two months ago to 17 percent last month to 19 percent now), which jibes with his upward trend in Iowa and New Hampshire surveys.

2. But look especially at the candidates' favorable/unfavorable numbers, which often are suggestive as to whether they do or don't have a good chance to pick up more support in the future:

Rudy's favorable/unfavorable has declined, among all voters, from 55-33 in September to 47-40 today (62-25 among Republicans, 47-40 among independents). Like Rudy, Thompson is also trending down, from 31-24 in September to 30-32 today (45-17 among Republicans, 32-32 among independents). Romney is stable, moving from 24-32 in September to 30-36 today (46-23 among Republicans, 30-34 among independents). Huckabee (who wasn't inlcuded in the poll in September) is at 30-28 (46-15 among Republicans, 30-29 among independents). McCain, who was at 49-30 in September, is at 53-29 today (69-19 among Republicans, 58-22 among independents).

So: McCain is the only candidate (including the three leading Democrats) whose overall favorable/unfavorable has improved (a bit) in the last three months. And among both Republicans and independents (who can vote in some Republican primaries), he has the best favorable/unfavorable ratio. If he can snatch third (or second?) in Iowa, then win (or run a close second?) in New Hampshire - the underlying national numbers are good enough for McCain that he could win the nomination.

From John Harwoord's Republican-race-is-wide-open piece in today's Wall Street Journal:

Indeed, the serial erosion of support for Messrs. McCain, Romney and Giuliani has alarmed some longtime Republicans about the prospect of disarray persisting until next summer's Republican National Convention in Minneapolis. While that might produce the sort of attention-grabbing suspense that some political reformers have pined for, modern electoral strategists place far more value on rapidly uniting party constituencies for the general election battle ahead.

Somebody has to win in the end. Right?

Reading Steve Hayes's post on Romney and ordinary Americans, I'm surprised that this hasn't yet caught up with the former Massachusetts governor. Particularly with moments like this from a couple weeks ago:

At times, the wealth of the Romney family clashes with voters' more modest circumstances. During a luncheon in rural Nevada, Josh [Romney], his nose peeling from a recent surfing trip to Costa Rica, tried to poke fun at the frugality of the campaign. The drinks they had ordered never arrived, and Josh suggested with a chuckle that if people were thirsty, they get some water out of the tap. A woman, with her daughter clutching her knee, spoke up. 'Oh, that's OK,' she said. 'That's how we do it around here.'

The most disturbing bit of Richie Romney-ism came back in 2005 in Sridhar Pappu's excellent profile of the candidate:

As governor of Massachusetts he draws no salary at all. A lesson he says his father taught him is that one shouldn't get involved in public life until it is a question of service rather than employment.

I've never seen anyone else bring up that bit of Romney family wisdom. I wonder why.

Beware the false Gospel ... of heathens and worse yet ... bad polls. The new ARG polling out today on Iowa and N.H. looks off because it near-certainly is. How can polls be wrong? It's easy, and more likely in a crazy environment like the present. First, some polls - rarely - hit a bad sample. Second, polling in primaries and caucuses is not easy, since voters are relatively rare and thus hard to find and poll. Third, polling right now in Iowa and New Hampshire is a technical nightmare. Every three minutes the average voter's phone rings with somebody coaxing them to trudge out into the snow and attend an Edward's meeting, go to a coffee with one of Romney's sons, or sign up for a Huckabee prayer circle. Not to mention the endless pre-recorded "robo-call" phone messages from various crank interest groups grinding their axe on some issue. With your phone ringing two dozen times a day with a political call, it is not easy for the 35 different media and private pollsters each trying to get a sample done each night.

Voters don't answer the phone or refuse to play along when they do answer. Which means response rates go way down, samples tilt away from a statistically reliable random frame of the population, and results go bad. (Imagine the fun the campaigns are having each night with their bouncing tracking polls.) Another reason why most campaigns and those who cover them benefit in the final days from using less polling and more good common sense to figure out what is going on.

Bill Kristol notes the oddness of Hillary Clinton speaking as if she had been co-president during the 1990s, but it's actually odder than the boss knows. I spent the early part of the week following Clinton around Iowa and was struck by two formulations she used to talk about her role as first lady. Talking to a crowd in Des Moines about her pursuit of government healthcare in the early '90s, Clinton said,

And when I was fortunate enough to go to Washington to be part of my husband's team, we tackled one of the hardest problems we have: healthcare. And I was glad to tackle it because if it was easy, anyone could do it. ...

In Davenport she said,

We knew how hard it would be. But why run for office if you're not willing to tackle the hard problems. So we tackled them.

Except that Hillary didn't run for office and that she "went to Washington" to be "part of the team" only in the sense that she was married to the man elected president.

Jane's has the scoop on the Army's new iPod-based tactical aid:

Elements of the US Army's 10th Mountain Division are deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan equipped with new one-way translation devices based on video models of the Apple iPod personal entertainment system.

Called Vcommunicator Mobile, the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems are being provided by Vcom3D (Orlando, Florida). The company is delivering the devices under contract to the US Army Program Executive Office for Simulation Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI).

In April 2007 the 10th Mountain Division submitted an Urgent Need Statement to PEO STRI for a one-way language translation device.

The resulting 'sources sought' announcement noted: "10th Mountain Division units have a requirement for a multifunctional, multimedia language and culture learning device. The identified system must provide one-way translation and cultural knowledge for both the Iraqi Arabic and Iraqi Kurdish languages. Primary use for the device will be at the squad/team/individual level allowing small unit leaders the ability to provide directions and guidance to the local populace during the conduct of operations.

DAILY STANDARD contributor Christian Lowe caught a glimpse of the new kit at a trade show last fall. On the tactical advantage:

You’re at a checkpoint and you need the Iraqi to get out of the vehicle and open the trunk. Scroll the iPod wheel over to “Vehicle Checkpoint” mission library and it’ll show a list of phrases: “peace be upon you;” “we need to search your vehicle;” “turn off your car;” “open the door;” etc. The iPod will show the words in phonetics and in Arabic so you can try the phrase yourself or show it to an Iraqi to read.

Useful, but kind of a let down. I pictured 10th Mountain boys melting insurgent faces with Whitesnake tracks, not an Arabic speak and spell.

Photo Courtesy of Defense Tech.

Scott Rasmussen has released today’s national tracking poll, and Rudy Giuliani has slipped all the way down to 13%. It’s now official – a graph of Rudy’s polling fortunes resemble a ski slope. Two questions spring to mind: How did it happen, and can Rudy bounce back?

Taking them in order, I think Rudy's fall traces back to two scandals that popped at once – Bernie Kerik's indictment and Judith Nathan's security detail. Both of these indignities simultaneously attacked Rudy's biggest strength and his biggest weakness. Rudy's biggest strength is his success as a mayor. The stuff with both Bernie and Judy brought Rudy's reign over the-city-so-nice-they-named-it-twice into question.

The scandals also raised some uncomfortable questions about Rudy's morality. Rudy’s biggest weakness is his checkered personal life. Americans like to believe the person that they're voting for is a good one. Why, even Bill Clinton had to make a “60 Minutes” appearance on the eve of the 1992 New Hampshire primary to assure worried Democrats that whatever pain he had caused in his marriage was something he deeply regretted and was permanently in his rearview mirror. His adoring wife sat by his side that night, launching snide ad hominem attacks on country singer Tammy Wynette and women who bake cookies.

Can Rudy come back? I doubt it, but he does have one chance. Suggesting the unlikelihood of a Rudy renaissance, it appears the Republican electorate has decided that it doesn't much care for America's mayor. But perhaps Rudy could pull the McCain gambit. Maybe he'll stay out of the spotlight, and the negatives of the three guys still slugging it out (Huckabee, Romney, and McCain) will all rise. And maybe their negatives will all rise higher than Rudy's currently stratospheric negatives.

I know it sounds trite, but this truly is the political year where anything can happen.

"People talk about poverty in this campaign. Well, we lifted more people out of poverty in the 1990s than during any time in our history."

That was Hillary Clinton yesterday, in Iowa, taking a shot at big-talker John Edwards - but more important, raising two fundamental questions about her candidacy:

1. What do you mean by "We lifted people out of poverty. ..." Not: "We helped people rise from poverty. ..." Not: "We established conditions in which people were able to succeed. ..." No. "We lifted people out of poverty." Does any statement better exemplify the vaunting pretension and the condescending arrogance of nanny-state liberalism at its most off-putting?

2. What do you mean "we," Hillary? Were you co-president? Will Bill be co-president if you win? Is what you are offering America a backward-looking Clinton-couple restoration?

Instead: How about one president, and no nanny state?

Indianola, Iowa
For ten minutes Thursday morning, Lanae Price was a media star. Moments earlier, the homemaker from Winterset, Iowa - a forty-minute drive from the Indianola Country Club - told former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney that she worried about how "so many American politicians cannot relate to the problems of average Americans," like gas prices. It seemed like a gotcha question, given Romney's privileged upbringing and personal wealth.

And Romney didn't handle it well. He spoke of the origins of his plan to revamp the health care system in Massachusetts. It all started, he explained, when his friend, Tom Stemberg, dropped by to tell him he should try to insure all of the uninsured in the state. Stemberg was the founder and former CEO of Staples, Inc., probably not the average American Lanae Price had in mind.

Romney explained that at Stemberg's urging, he put together a group of advisers to discuss his options. Romney ticked off their credentials: A professor from M.I.T., an investment banker, the head of a consulting firm, and a friend Romney had made running the 2002 Olympics. All impressive, of course, but not exactly average Americans. If anything, Romney's answer made him seem more out of touch.

After the session, nine journalists gathered around Ms. Price and peppered her with questions. Price, 37, was wearing a "Mitt Romney for President" sticker on her lavender winter coat. Reporters wanted to know what she thought about Romney's answer. Price acknowledged that Romney did not exactly speak to her concerns, but said that's okay. "I don't see any other candidate that I see who understands the concerns of average Americans." She said she considered voting for Rudy Giuliani, but has problems with his views on social issues, and likes some of the things Mike Huckabee says, but not enough to support him.

So what does she find appealing about Mitt Romney? She thinks he's competent and can get things accomplished. Plus, she likes the fact that he has a background in business. A reporter asked if she plans to support him on January 3. She does.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad answer after all.

Unable to enact any meaningful legislative accomplishments, Congressional Democrats are eschewing substance in favor of a new slogan:

...the majority party signaled that they would shift their top focus from trying to cut off funding for the Iraq War to the economy and health care in the new year, acknowledging that Senate Republicans and President Bush likely will continue to prevent them from forcing any real changes in troop levels or war strategy.

Saying "Faith in the Future” will be their theme going forward, House and Senate Democrats began pushing full-force their new message that they have accomplished a lot this year, but they still need voters to elect more Democrats in order to achieve the lasting change the party believes Americans voted for in November 2006 when they handed Democrats a majority in Congress for the first time in 12 years...

"Faith in the Future." How does that grab you? If it doesn't work, Democrats may try such maxims as "Progressive Policy: Oh What a Relief It Is," "Democratic Leaders are Mmm, Mmm, Good," and "Congress Freakout." Like Dilbert's pointy-haired boss, Congressional leaders seem to think that a good slogan is as effective as a record of accomplishment. Dilbert helpfully provides a new mission statement as well:

Our mission is to continue to synergistically integrate progressive paradigms and competently customize high-quality sources

If that phrase isn't sufficiently vacuous to run a Congress on, simply click again for a new one.

But even as they shift their focus to health care, the environment, and the economy, Democrats insist that they won't lose sight of Iraq:

Despite shifting their focus, Democratic leaders insisted they would not move the Iraq War to a secondary status in the next session.

"We’re not going to back off,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, adding that he would bring the issue back up in his chamber again and again in 2008 as he did this year.

There's no reason to think that repeatedly bringing up Iraq will help Democrats next year any more than it did this year, when a ceaseless focus on retreat has driven Congressional ratings to historic lows. Rahm Emanuel says that the Democratic effort on Iraq is a "qualified success," because "this is the first time the president made a request for the war and didn’t get full funding." It's pretty clear that absent a significant change however, it's only a matter of time before Congress does precisely that.

As for the focus on new issues, Congressional Republicans claim to be prepared to engage on health care and the economy. Will 2008 bring another rude awakening for Democrats in Washington, as they find that their leaders are unprepared to deal with the shifting electoral terrain?

WWS pal and frequent DAILY STANDARD contributor Christian Lowe had an excellent piece on the M4 Carbine at Military.com on Wednesday. The crux of it:

The primary weapon carried by most soldiers into battle in Iraq andAfghanistan performed the worst in a recent series of tests designed to see how it stacked up against three other top carbines in sandy environments.

After firing 6,000 rounds through ten M4s in a dust chamber at the Army's Aberdeen test center in Maryland this fall, the weapons experienced a total of 863 minor stoppages and 19 that would have required the armorer to fix the problem. Stacked up against the M4 during the side-by-side tests were two other weapons popular with special operations forces, including the Heckler and Koch 416 and the FN USA Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle, or Mk16....

"This isn't brain surgery -- a rifle needs to do three things: shoot when you pull the trigger, put bullets where you aim them and deliver enough energy to stop what's attacking you," the staffer told Military.com in an email. "If the M4 can't be depended on to shoot then everything else is irrelevant."

The staffer offered a different perspective of how to view the Army's result. If you look at the numbers, he reasoned, the M4's 882 total stoppages averages out to a jam every 68 rounds. There are about 30 rounds per magazine in the M4.

Lowe also notes "some grumbling about the stopping power of its 5.56mm round." Since Mogadishu, the M4 has been criticized for its lack of stopping power ("Like stabbing a guy with an icepick") which was detailed in Black Hawk Down, among other places. Little known fact: with the exception of the Browning Automatic Rifle and the M1 Garand Rifle, U.S. infantry weapons have uniformly sucked since the end of the First World War. Almost every decent weapon we have or have ever fielded is in fact derivative of some foreign weapon. The M249 SAW, for instance, is a Belgian FN Minimi. The M60 machinegun is a dumbed-down version of the German MG42 (a weapon that was panned by Aberdeen Proving Ground back in 1943--after it had killed about 10,000 American troops in North Africa and Sicily). I don't know what it is, but there is something about the Army's small arms development process that promotes mediocrity.

The British MoD reports that the MQ-9 Reaper has taken to the air in Afghanistan:

The RAF's first Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Britain's most sophisticated unmanned surveillance system, has taken to the air in Afghanistan. Although there are only 3 of them, and they are yet to be armed. The Reaper UAVs were purchased as an MOD urgent operational requirement to provide an all-weather, persistent Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) capability 24 hours a day over a wide geographical spread.

Reaper will give troops on all operations a better picture of activity on the ground. The first British Reaper arrived in Afghanistan in early October, just 15 months after the initial requirement was received.

Apparently the RAF is fielding three MQ-9s in Afghanistan, with--presumably--more on the way. That doesn't sound like a whole lot, but keep in mind that the USAF only has nine in their inventory right now. Interesting that the RAF's press release emphasized the Reaper's ISTAR capabilities instead of its killing power. MoD made it sound like nothing more than the next evolution of Predator drones, instead of a new UAV class that emphasizes destructive power over surveillance functions.

When the Brits eventually do arm their new toy, it will be able to shoulder a 3800lb ordnance load (eight hellfires and two PGMs) on four external hardpoints. That, coupled with the Reaper's impressive battlespace loitering ability, makes the MQ-9 an excellent close air support platform. The RAF is making the smart move here by deploying it early on.

With a sharp reduction in the deadly landmine attacks used by the Iranian-backed Shia terrorists known as the Special Groups, a debate has raged over whether Iran has worked to reduce the number of attacks inside Iraq. The newly released report "Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq" refutes the notion that Iran has eased the pressure. In fact, the report states that Iran has continued to fund, arm, and train the Special Groups fighters bound for Iraq, despite a pledge by Iran's president.

In late September, Iranian President Ahmadinejad pledged to Prime Minister Maliki to help cut off weapons, funding and other militia and insurgent support that crosses the Iranian border. There has been no identified decrease in Iranian training and funding of illegal Shia militias in Iraq. Tehran’s support for Shia militant groups who attack Coalition and Iraq forces remains a significant impediment to progress towards stabilization. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) provides many of the explosives and ammunition used by these groups, to include Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM). Although Sadr’s late August 2007 freeze on JAM activity is still in effect, some elements continue to attack Coalition forces with Iranian weapons. The GoI (Government of Iraq) and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq have made it clear to the Iranian Government that IRGC-QF’s lethal activities must cease.

Multinational Forces Iraq goes on to attribute the reduction in attacks to efforts to target Iranian networks, trainers, and ratlines. "This reduction may be attributed to effective interdiction of EFP networks, death or capture of EFP facilitators, seizure of caches and other factors."

Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces began heavily targeting the leadership of the Ramazan Corps in late 2006. Numerous commanders, including a Ramazan Corps regional commander, a senior Hezbollah leader assigned to establish the Special Groups, and several regional Special Groups commanders have been captured or killed. Numerous raids have been conducted against local leaders, facilitators, and cells. Most recently, Coalition forces have targeted Ramazan Corps trainers inside Iraq.

Iran's Qods Force created the Ramazan Corps as a command designed to specifically conduct operations in Iraq. Split into three sub-commands, the Ramazan Corps recruits, trains, arms, and funds the Special Groups, which include elements of Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army.

A host of senior generals, diplomats and policy experts believe Iran has effectively cut support for the Iranian cells operating in Iraq. Major General James Simmons, the Deputy Commander for Multinational Forces Iraq, Iraqi spokesman Ali al Dabbagh, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, and the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlonhave all stated that the Iranian government has dialed back the attacks inside Iraq.

But military commanders engaged in the fight against the Iranian networks disagree. Major General Rick Lynch, the Commander of Multinational Division Central, Colonel Don Farris, the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division based in the heart of Sadr City in Baghdad, Colonel Mark Mueller, the commander of the border transition team in Wasit province, and Colonel Peter Mansoor, an adviser to General David Petraeus, have all expressed skepticism that Iran has cut its activities in Iraq.

Read Iran's Ramazan Corps and the ratlines into Iraq for a detailed account of Iran's activities in Iraq.

West Des Moines, Iowa
In a speech he gave at the Center for Strategic and International Studies back in late September, Mike Huckabee briefly described his plan to improve U.S. intelligence.

“As president," Huckabee said, "I'd like to beef up our human intelligence capacity, both the operatives who gather the information as well as the analysts who figure out what it means. I'd rather have more people in Langley so we can fewer in Baghdad."

But virtually everyone who has studied the U.S. intelligence community and its deficiencies believes that one of its most serious problems is that we have too many analysts at Langley and too few intelligence gatherers in places like Baghdad. The result has been that for years we've had an army of analysts poring over very little information. And what information they had, particularly on the nation's most determined enemies, often came from sources who were not in a position to know what they were talking about.

At his press conference yesterday outside a mall here, I asked Huckabee about this.

Q: In your CSIS speech you called for more human intelligence. And then you said we want more people at Langley than we want in Baghdad. A lot of intelligence experts would say that's the opposite of what we want. Could you clarify that?

Huckabee: "What I mean by that is that our intelligence obviously has flaws. If you look at the NIE report we clearly have issues where sixteen different agencies contributing to the report and there wasn't any clarity as to when that program of nuclear enrichment started or stopped and there still isn't, I guess, a clear picture of where the Iranians are in regard to nuclear enrichment. There's also a rivalry between military intelligence and the CIA and I think we have to make some major changes in revamping our intelligence agencies so that they work together rather than competitively. Um, that has to be a priority of the next president."

Q: But most of the human intelligence is actually out in the field, not at Langley, no?

Huckabee: "Well, I think what I’m saying is you certainly have the intelligence - if you read the rest of that speech I talk about that we would be better off if we had embassies in some of these places where we pulled them out. I'm clearly not contradicting that. I'm saying that ultimately that intelligence would be processed at Langley. But I make the very point that I think you're going to, which is that we need more diplomacy going on, we need to have more as I say, the exact phrase I used in the speech as well as the article was, we need more wingtips on the ground before we put boots on the ground."

UPDATE, 11:01 a.m.: A former intelligence officer emails: "Assuming for a second that [Huckabee]'s half-coherent at this point, he's saying more fake diplomats collecting more disinformation at cocktail parties ... wow, where do I sign up? Of course he's not coherent, which leaves me to wonder: who is advising him on these matters? Maxwell Smart?"

At a Mike Huckabee event yesterday afternoon, three sixty-something women, all of them undecided, were discussing the Republican candidates and their possible preferences. The discussion turned to John McCain, torture, and interrogations. Here is a rough transcript of their conversation:

Woman Number One: "John McCain is with the Democrats on that. He's not for torture! It's war!"

Woman Number Two: "Are you for that waterboarding?"

Woman Number One: "Sure, if it will get the information we need for our military men. It's war."

All three women nodded in agreement.

The most surprising part of the exchange came when the first woman declared: "He's not for torture!" She said it with the same incredulous tone of voice you might expect if she had said: "He's really a woman!"

John McCain could indeed win the nomination. First, he upsets Rudy and Thompson to win third in Iowa and bounces into McCain-fertile New Hampshire as the big surprise of the Iowa caucus. While McCain is still campaigning in Iowa, that means little unless he invests some money in real Iowa TV. We'll know in the next few days. Without TV support, his chances of an upset are slim. But Iowa polling does show McCain within striking distance of third in Iowa.

But there is another way for McCain to win. McCain finishes fourth in Iowa, but still ahead of the rapidly fading Rudy Giuliani. McCain will still get a small bounce out of that, and he's been climbing steadily over the last four weeks in New Hampshire. Rudy's decline - rumors abound that the Giuliani machine has run out of money - is a godsend to McCain in New Hampshire. Perhaps McCain can upset Romney and Huckabee there and start surging into Michigan and South Carolina.

Rudy could be more than a mere spectator in all of this. Here is a farfetched but not impossible scenario you can use to wow your friends at cocktail parties: Rudy continues to drop in the polls. His campaign is indeed broke. The media continue to hammer him on ethics. He finishes a dismal fifth or even sixth in Iowa. Polls show him third or worse in New Hampshire. With his campaign broke and without money to run TV ads, Rudy faces a stark choice. He can either run and badly lose the next four contests - NH, MI, SC, NV - and then collapse in Florida. Or he can make huge brazen move to capture the entire race.

On the Saturday after the Iowa caucus, Rudy Giuliani drops out of the race and strongly endorses John McCain. McCain surges and wins New Hampshire. A national McCain surge accelerates. McCain campaigns with Rudy at his side, who is obviously the frontrunner now for vice president on a McCain/Giuliani security-and-competence ticket. In 24 hours Rudy goes from doomed to Superman. With McCain likely to only serve one term, Vice President Giuliani enters 2012 as the GOP frontrunner. You can argue a similar scenario for Romney, but the McCain scenario is more plausible. The two are friends, and McCain's age makes him more likely to serve just one term.

Crazy? Sure. Rudy hates to quit. But he also has a big card to play, and if the next two weeks don't break his way, a very big move may not be so dumb after all.

Des Moines, Iowa
Kevin Madden, spokesman for Mitt Romney's campaign, has responded to this post on Fred Thompson and campaign finance reform. Thompson accused Romney of flip-flopping on campaign finance reform. "Governor Romney supported McCain-Feingold," Thompson said at a press availability after a town hall in Cedar Rapids. "He's changed his position on that just as he has so many other things. He supported public financing in Massachusetts, which no one who supported McCain-Feingold even goes that far. So, I think we need to have him answer a few questions about what he really believes."

Says Madden: "Governor Romney has supported transparency and accountability, but he wholeheartedly agrees with conservative activists across the country that the McCain-Feingold-Thompson campaign finance legislation authored by Fred Thompson was an abomination that restricted the First Amendment rights of conservative advocacy groups who wanted their voice heard in the political process.

"Governor Romney will not relent in his disagreement with Fred Thompson's legislation that hindered the conservative movement's role in the political process."

Baghdad's Rashid district has long been one of the city's most violent quarters (see Jeff Emanuel's report for THE DAILY STANDARD in May of this year for more background), but from my conversation this morning with Col. Ricky Gibbs, Commander, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, it's clear that the Army has made tremendous progress in this particular area of operations.

The last time we spoke with Gibbs, it was about Scott Thomas Beauchamp, who was under Gibbs's command at Forward Operating Base Falcon. But Beauchamp didn't come up in today's conversation, and in contrast to the picture Beauchamp painted of Falcon, Gibbs told of a dramatic improvement in security in the area, and high morale amongst his troops.

Gibbs said "things have been going, and continue to be going, very very well." His command had only seen one casualty in the last three months. They'd gone two and half months without out a single casualty he said, but just in the last two weeks he'd had one soldier killed in action and another suffer wounds from and IED blast. He described the incident as an "unfortunate, but lucky, stray round that killed one of our soldiers."

The decline in violence was attributed to a number of factors, but primarily the fact that, as Gibbs said, "we have defeated al Qaeda in Rashid, and what little that are here, are low level soldiers that are without leadership or supply." He said they'd "taken out all of those leaders," and that he's "not worried about al Qaeda anymore." On the other hand, Gibbs did say that Shia extremists groups were a serious concern. But he qualified that statement by saying even there the violence has been kept to a minimum:

The people are tired of the violence, and whenever it comes up, they very quickly, within 24-48 hours, tell us who did it, where they're at, and we go in and get them.

These tips are a major contributor to the reduction in violence, he said, but he was quick to point out that just as important was the Coalition's targeting of senior insurgent leaders.

Other "really good news for us," Gibbs said, was that the people of Rashid have "embraced reconciliation." I asked him how he would respond to the charge that any reduction in violence might be attributed to massive ethnic cleansing, which has segregated Baghdad's neighborhoods. His response:

I dispute that claim that ethnic cleansing is already done. We have lots of mixed areas, we do have some Sunni only areas--and when I say Sunni only I mean 80 percent Sunni, the rest is Shia and others--but we're not seeing any violence in those mixed neighborhoods. And that's attributable to the reconciliation efforts we have ongoing here.

Another theory I bounced off him, which was put forward in a recent issue of Newsweek, was that the Iraqis are merely getting better at hiding the bodies (Iraq's Marlo Stansfields as FP Passport put it). Gibbs's response:

We have pretty good techniques for finding bodies--and again, dead bodies equal violence, and the people are telling us about the violence when it happens, and we're getting in there very quickly to confirm or deny those reports.

Gibbs also described a "great decline in IED events," though they did have one soldiers seriously wounded last week. But when he first got to Iraq in Feb. 07 (for his third tour), he said his men were hitting two, three, and sometimes four or more IEDs a day. Now he says the frequency is about once every two weeks.

More after the jump...

The New York Times paints a disturbing picture of Senator Harry Reid's view of President Bush:

In private conversations about Mr. Bush with friends and Senate colleagues, Mr. Reid has even used the word “hate,” though he clarifies that it is political not personal hatred that he feels...

“I fear that the Bush years will be known as a rare, even dark time,” he said Friday on the Senate floor.

Washington, of course, can be a blustery, hot-tempered town. But not since 1919, when Henry Cabot Lodge called Woodrow Wilson “the most sinister figure that ever crossed the country’s path,” has a Senate majority leader appeared to harbor such deep and utter disdain, even loathing, for a president, as Mr. Reid does for Mr. Bush...

With Senate Democrats holding a razor-thin majority, Mr. Reid’s sour feelings for Mr. Bush are more a symptom than a cause of Congressional gridlock. No bill has stalled solely because they do not get along.

Instead, the relationship is emblematic of the profound partisanship and distrust at each end of Pennsylvania Avenue and the latest fight over separation of powers, a tug of war nearly as old as the Constitution.

Still, Mr. Reid faults the president as making it almost impossible to pass legislation, recently accusing him of “pulling the strings on the 49 puppets he has here in the Senate...”

Senator Reid sees the president as stubborn and uncompromising. To an extent, that's certainly true. Senator Reid of course, has been just as inflexible as the president:

• He refused to compromise on an expansion of children's health insurance, instead passing the same expansion twice--and having it vetoed twice. He now refuses to discuss an expansion, insisting that it must wait until 2009.

• On the Alternative Minimum Tax, Reid refused to allow a vote on a fix that did not include a tax increase until after Thanksgiving. The refusal of Reid and House leaders to budge will force delays in the tax refunds of millions of taxpayers.

• Reid has consistently refused to budge on Iraq--calling the war lost, and pushing for troop withdrawals regardless of the situation on the ground. When the president changed course--first implementing the surge, and then starting a drawdown once the surge had succeeded in tamping down violence--Reid was a constant drumbeat for retreat.

The New York Times reassures us that no bill was stalled because of Reid's hatred for the president. The assertion is silly. There has been no expansion of SCHIP because Reid refused to allow consideration of a compromise--even though Senate sources are confident that there was a bipartisan majority for such a move. What other compromises might have been possible if not for Reid's enmity toward the duly elected president of the United States?

Scott Rasmussen has pulled a fresh batch of steaming hot polls from the oven, and don't look now but the race has changed yet again. In Iowa, Mitt Romney has pulled within one point of Mike Huckabee,

and now trails Huckabee 28-27. Meanwhile, John McCain checks in at a reasonably solid third place with 14% of the vote. Rudy and Fred lag back in the pack at 8%.

In New Hampshire, McCain's the guy making the move. Rasmussen's latest Granite State poll shows him trailing Romney by only four points, 31% to 27%. Giuliani's at 13% and Huckabee at 11%. Thompson is at 3% which is only good news in the sense that in Rasmussen's last poll he was at 1%. Fred's support has tripled! At this rate, he'll shake free of the margin of error when next week's numbers come out.

In Rasmussen's national tracking poll, Huckabee still has the lead at 21%. Romney has tied Rudy for second at 16%. McCain checks in at 13% and Fred registers at 12%. In case any Ron Paul supporters have stopped following the progress of the Ron Paul Blimp and stumbled onto this site, as a courtesy I'll report that the good doctor has 6%.

So what’s this all mean for the individual candidates? Let’s take ‘em one by one.

Huckabee – Oh, the could have beens! If Huckabee had only been ready for his close-up when the election gods zoomed in on him. Instead, he came across (and continues to come across) as a not-ready-for-primetime player.

Romney – Romney’s in the catbird seat right now, but that’s only because his position is less weak than everyone else's.

Rudy – Sinking like a stone. The “Sex on the City” scandal seems to have been the bridge too far inasmuch as his personal peccadilloes were concerned. His support is cratering right now across the board.

McCain – Senator Maverick is making an impressive comeback – no question about it. I'm even beginning to get concerned that McCain took all those things I wrote on the Hugh Hewitt blog seriously. Come on, Senator – you can take a joke, right? Right? Hello? Is this thing on? Anyway, if McCain wins New Hampshire, he'll have one last chance to make his case to the Republican electorate, and he may just pull it off.

Thompson – Fred has been campaigning brilliantly since he reengaged a couple of weeks ago, Actually “engaged” would make more sense than “reengaged .” Regardless, if Huckabee plummets and a solid chunk of his 28% in Iowa goes up for grabs, Fred is poised to claim his share and reintroduce himself to the country. It may ultimately not matter much, but right now Fred Thompson is running the strongest campaign. If he gets the kind of second chance that McCain is getting (which in McCain's case is actually more like a 12th chance) Fred could be a very dangerous man.

Gallup editor in chief Frank Newport asks: "Just how dissatisfied are Americans?"

Newport's answer: It depends on what you are talking about. If you are talking about how satisfied Americans are with the state of the nation, the answer is: not much. Only 27 percent of respondents report being satisfied with the state of things in the Gallup poll. The record low, Newport writes, was 12 percent satisfaction with the country recorded in July 1979.

Yet Americans' personal satisfaction is relatively high, standing at 84 percent in the Gallup poll, just three points below the all-time record 87 percent satisfaction recorded several times over the last 20 years.

Newport warns the presidential candidates not to take their "change" messages too far, as these data suggest it's unclear just how much change Americans really want. But what's interesting about this piece is the vast disparity between public perceptions of the nation and of personal status. The world is going to hell in a handbasket; overall things are pretty swell for me right now. It's enough to make you think that voters can be irrational.

This much:

A Chinese government website set up for the public to complain about corruption crashed within a day of launching under the volume of cases reported.

McClatchy's Tim Johnson reported on another element of China's pervasive corruption a few weeks ago:

a law professor in Beijing is proposing a new category of crime – sexual bribery. This is supposed to combat the prevalent practice among corrupt officials of taking mistresses.

The article says Fang believes that 95 percent of officials exposed as corrupt have taken mistresses, and that obtaining sex for influence may be common. But the criminal code does not penalize this kind of sexual coercion as a crime.

One suspects this practice may be quite prevalent in the USA, as well, but 95 percent?

Interesting new numbers from Scott Rasmussen on the Republican race in Iowa. In a poll of likely caucus participants taken earlier this week, Mike Huckabee is at 28 percent, Mitt Romney is at 27 percent, and John McCain is at 14 percent. Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani remain in single digits, tied at 8 percent.

Among the findings is what could be the beginning of a Huckabee slide: "Among those likely to take part in the Iowa Republican caucuses, 67 percent now have a favorable opinion of Huckabee. That's down from 81 percent a week ago and 76 percent in late November. The number with a Very Favorable opinion has fallen from 51 percent to 38 percent over the past week."

The only good news for Fred Thompson, who is in Iowa now and will remain here through the caucuses on January 3 (with a day off at home for Christmas), is that many of the undecided voters say he is their second choice. (Huckabee is popular with this group, too.) Writes Rasmussen: "Among those who say there's a good chance they could change their mind, Thompson and Huckabee top the second choice list." Several Iowans I've talked to at Thompson events over the past couple of days say that they would have counted themselves likely Huckabee supporters a week ago or a month ago. As their presence suggests, they have migrated to Thompson. If that's the beginning of a trend, it is not showing up in Rasmussen's numbers.

Thompson is not the only candidate who has decided to spend more time in Iowa. John McCain is planning to be in Iowa on December 26 and December 27, looking to capitalize on his recent endorsement by the Des Moines Register.

The Edwards campaign is trying hard to generate a sense of momentum in Iowa. I recognize a few trusty old dodges, mirrors, and other tricks from the spinmeister's toolbag in their spiel; they are pulling record (even Goldwater-esque) crowds, internal metrics like web visits, sign-ups, bumpersticker hand-outs, and my favorite of all "volunteer calling" all show growing support, etc., etc. (The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder falls hook, line, and sinker for it here.)

I'm more doubtful. It reminds me of Howard Dean's 41,000 committed and identified supporters on the eve of the last Iowa caucus. Still, an Edwards surprise win in Iowa is not impossible. Polls show him in the hunt, and he did well there in the past. He is a good campaigner. Hillary is on the rocks. But it is easy to mistake the final enthusiasm of your supporters, especially if they suspect the end is nigh, for a surge. We'll see what the world looks like right after Christmas.

Meanwhile, my gut tells me the Huckabee surge is fading now in Iowa. It might not be so bad for Romney after all. A narrow loss will look like a comeback after the original Huckabee polling leap knocked Romney's out-of-control expectations back down to earth. Plus, my Iowans tell me the new Romney comparison spots are starting to have an effect.

Today McCain conducted another in his series of blogger calls. More to come later, but in response to Time snub of General Petraeus in favor of Vladimir Putin as Man of the Year, McCain had this to say:

Time has named Vladimir Putin as their Man of the Year and of course you know he has named his successor. We knew the puppet show was going on, we just didn't know who the puppet was. And my nominee for man of the year would have been one David Petraeus. I think he clearly deserved it because of his success.

Earlier today, the Boston Herald reported earlier comments by McCain on the Russian president and soon to be prime minister that played off Bush's famous remark in 2001 that he'd looked into Putin's eyes and gained "a sense of his soul." McCain sees something different:

“I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B."

He elaborated on that in his call today:

Putin is going to cause us a lot of difficulties...I don't think it's going to be a return to the cold war, they don't have the population...anything that would bring around the kind of military might that they once had, even with the petrodollars....but they are trying to reassert the Russian empire...and they are going to be a thorn in our side.

From Newsmax:

Santa Claus has been brought down somewhere over the South China Sea in an apparent collision with a Chinese fighter jet.

The collision occurred while St. Nick was flying his sleigh on a return trip from Hong Kong to the North Pole.

“Our pilots were flying within a reasonable distance when one of them was blinded by the lead reindeer’s nose. This caused him to lose control of his jet and accidentally fire two heat-seeking missiles that collided with the sleigh,” stated the Chinese foreign minister.

Very funny, worth reading the whole thing.

Update: Not funny: "Drug traffickers in a Rio slum opened fire on a helicopter carrying a Santa to a children's party, apparently mistaking it for a police helicopter." Via Danger Room.

Israeli Air Force to Lockheed: Hurry it up:

Israel plans to keep its aerial domination of the Middle East intact, and that includes buying Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, accelerating its first deliveries, and deciding whose advanced equipment will be packed into the stealthy strike aircraft.

A senior Israeli air force (IAF) official says those major areas of concern appear to be on the right track because of an "understanding" with the U.S. officials. Washington's representatives are more ambiguous, saying that there has been no official change to Israel's F-35 program.

"The plan is that we will get the F-35 as soon as it's possible," the senior IAF official says. He says the service will end up with more than 100 F-35s, but he would not confirm the size of the purchase or that Israel is asking that the initial delivery date be accelerated by two years to 2012. The IAF wants the JSF "the minute it is available."

"Israel has a unique requirement, it doesn't operate in a coalition, [and it has a] different kind of strategic relationship" with the U.S. than the other F-35 partners," says Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin's vice president and general manager for the F-35. However, he says the overseas release of the first export aircraft will be no sooner than 2014.

Another "unique requirement" is that Israel has to penetrate integrated air defenses without the advantage of stealth technology. Stealth is the primary reason that the USAF has made Russian-built IADs their bit&* these past two decades. The air defenses that the United States overcame in Serbia and Iraq are similar to the ones fielded by Israel's enemies. While the IAF is skilled enough to pull off gee-whiz raids like Operation Orchard with bulky Strike Eagles, they have to beat radar coverage with sophisticated hacks or Wild Weasel missions. The JSF, with its shortcomings noted, fits the IAF's profile perfectly: slip in, break stuff, slip out.

Somewhat surprising though, is how hot the IAF is for these news birds. Israel has always been first in line for the latest American jets, but this time around their rhetoric sounds awfully urgent. The easy answer is that they want a stealth asset capable of sneaking into the hell that is the airspace surrounding Iran's nuclear facilities. But their requested timeline of 2012 for the first deliveries doesn't sync up with Mossad warnings that Iran could have the bomb by 2010. They might be giving Iran some wiggle room on the estimate, they might be worried that Russia closed the radar loophole that they exploited during Orchard, or they may just be sick of their F-15s and F-16s.

Motives aside, it will be most interesting to see what new tricks the always innovative IAF will pull off with the stealth advantage.

From Defense News: Roosevelt's Navy, 100 Years On, by Donald C. Winter.

From the New York Post: The Sergeant's War, by Ralph Peters.

From the National Review: Free Steyn! by the editors.

From the Wall Street Journal: Bali Who?, by Pete Du Pont.

From the Financial Times: The Atlantic Becomes a Little Wider, by Richard Haass.

USA Today reports on the latest Gallup poll:

As President Bush and Congress battle on the budget, homeland security and the war in Iraq, Americans blame both Republicans and Democrats for the impasse.

By more than 2-to-1 margins, they give the president, congressional Democrats and congressional Republicans unfavorable ratings in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll released Monday. While Bush's ratings have been poor for most of the past two years, the two parties in Congress hit new lows in the poll.

"The American people just decided that Washington is either incompetent or irrelevant," said Frank Luntz, who has conducted polls for Republicans. "Republicans made promises they didn't keep, and Democrats made promises they couldn't keep. And now it's a pox on all their houses."

A look at the actual poll data offers bad news for both parties--but more for the Democrats. That's because while Americans disapprove of the job done by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, the approval for Democrats is in free-fall. In February, voters disapproved of Congressional Democrats by a margin of 9 points (41%-50%); now the margin is 34 points (30%-64%). That's comparable to the rating for Republicans, who've lost much less ground.

In effect, Congressional Republicans and Democrats are starting from zero again. That's a huge loss for Democrats in comparison to where they started the year.

Whichever party does a better job of rehabilitating its image will strengthen its hand significantly for 2008.

After much blogosphere speculation, Time has unveiled the 2007 Man (Person?) of the Year, Russian president Vladimir Putin. The article is long, but if you can get past the first page (detailing Putin's blue eyes, how he drinks his wine, and his love of classical music), it might be worth reading. I'm not sure.

We're a little shocked, too, especially since he beat General David Petraeus (and my favorite author, J.K. Rowling, though an explanation for her presence on the list is a bit beyond me).

Here he is, the Man of the Year. (Thanks to Vic Matus for the witty photo caption, featured in the last issue's Scrapbook.)

Also, see Dean Barnett's "Petraeus Doesn't Rank" at THE DAILY STANDARD for more on the tyrant/irrelevant biped of the year.

The Democrats continue their march toward complete surrender...to President Bush.

Last night, the Senate passed a $70 billion Iraq and Afghanistan funding package--without any restrictions or timetables. The package is expected to pass in the House on Wednesday.

Fred Barnes analyzes the vote at the CAMPAIGN STANDARD, noting "the 70-vote approval of the war by the Senate represents the breathtaking dimension of [the Democratic party's] failure."

John Hinderaker at Power Line also explains: "The military portion of the bill passed easily, 70-25, perhaps reflecting growing popular awareness of progress in Iraq. Thus, some observers hailed the vote as a victory for President Bush."

Michelle Malkin has more on how the Democrats chose to "roll over," including the very interesting roll call vote. Presidential-hopeful Senator John McCain managed to make it to the Hill to vote for the package, yet Senators Biden, Dodd, Clinton, and Obama weren't present. They aren't on the record as supporting the war, yet no one can say they don't support the troops, right?

Ace agrees that the Democrats just love to surrender: "Funding approved by the Democrats, who at least prove they are consistent in waving the white flag. They don't discriminate as to their opponents."

Looking at the comments on lefty blogs, the liberal base isn't too happy.

And from the files of I-couldn't-have-said-it-better-myself, one Daily Kos blogger quotes the West Wing: "This administration doesn't even need an opposition party, we do fine ourselves."

We'll find out today how the House will vote. But since Bush OWNS the Democrats and they just love to surrender, expect the package to pass.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa
In an appearance in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, that just concluded, Fred Thompson defended his vote in favor of campaign finance reform and took a direct shot at Mitt Romney for flip-flopping on that issue and others: "Governor Romney supported McCain-Feingold. He's changed his position on that just as he has so many other things."

In response to a question from the audience, Thompson offered a meandering defense of McCain-Feingold. After laying out his rationale for seeking to eliminate soft money, Thompson said: "I still believe that today." But he also conceded that the regulation of spending on issue ads by third parties was a mistake. "That was an error," he said. "I was wrong. I wouldn't do that again."

After the hour-long town hall, Thompson was asked about the fact that advisers to Mitt Romney have been raising questions about his votes on campaign finance reform. "Mitt Romney not only was for campaign finance reform and McCain-Feingold, he supported public financing. So I'd love to have a little discussion with him on it."

Thompson then took what was to have been one final question, this one on his rationale for starting his campaign in eastern Iowa. He noted that he was headed to western Iowa tomorrow and quickly dismissed the question. As reporters began to pack up their things, he returned to Mitt Romney.

"You know, it's going to be interesting. If you need a little more background on that we can furnish it. Sometimes these staffs put information out without thinking their positions through. Governor Romney supported McCain-Feingold. He's changed his position on that just as he has so many other things. He supported public financing in Massachusetts, which no one who supported McCain-Feingold even goes that far. So, I think we need to have him answer a few questions about what he really believes."

Asked why he would be the subject of such criticism from the campaign of a candidate who is polling better that he is, Thompson responded: "They have plenty of money to run all kinds of special polls and do special research. I think they know what's going on here."

I had thought that George Allen's Senate loss to Jim Webb would spare the American electorate from endless, hokey football metaphors. Little did I know, however, that Allen would wind up advising Fred Thompson. And now Thompson's caught the bug! He makes a fourth-quarter reference at around the two-minute mark in this interview on Hannity and Colmes.

The tired metaphor is soon followed, however, by what has to be the best line of this news cycle: Thompson saying "Saddle me up!" to all those conservative who have identified him as, in David Yepsen's formulation, their "horse to ride."

Iran Kicks off War Games in 7,000-Mile Persian Gulf Area:

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran began four-days of war games in the Persian Gulf Monday, designed to ensure it can protect the nation's territorial waters, islands and coastlines, as well as neighboring countries, from foreign threats.

According to Press TV, the war games will be held in three stages in an area that encompasses northern parts of Iran's coastal province of Bushehr and the southern region of Aslouyeh. During the games the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will use a variety of weaponry.

The goal is to make sure the IRGC's state of the art equipment is working well so it can guarantee security in the Persian Gulf region for itself and neighboring states against future threats from foreign powers.

The war games will cover 7,000 square miles and employ hundreds of launching vessels, torpedoes, marines and divers.

Iran has a token force of a few frigates, subs, patrol craft, and missile boats, but those would quickly disappear in the event of a shooting war with the US-British-Australian fighting ships that patrol the gulf. The only value in Iranian symmetrical assets seems to be for PR purposes, which is evident in the silly, canned state-run news story quoted above.

However in asymmetrical warfare, the Iranian navy shows its fangs. Their primary mission is area denial, keeping enemies off of their islands and coastlines by using an aggressive swarming tactic. Iran has hundreds of small craft at its disposal, designed to overwhelm larger destroyers, frigates, and even carriers. A navy buddy of mine compared it to biplanes attacking King Kong. Because we're vulnerable to this, the occasional show of force in the contained waters of the Persian Gulf is an indicator that the threat of war with Iran is low, not high. It's when we sortie our carriers into the open blue of the Indian Ocean that's the real precursor to potential combat ops.

Democratic leaders in the House have decided to take a vote today on a one-year fix for the alternative minimum tax. In a nod to reality, they have at last decided not to use this legislation as a pretext for raising taxes, instead electing to take up the legislation that passed the Senate by a strong bipartisan majority. That bill does not include a tax increase.

But it simply wouldn't be the Democratic party didn't concede this while looking to raise other taxes instead. So with that in mind, it seems that Congress will trade this fix for a tax increase to be named later:

“I think it’s a pipe dream,” said Cooper of his leaders proposal to add revenue-raising measures to a future package of tax relief extensions in exchange for Blue Dog support on the AMT.

At a closed-door meeting earlier on Tuesday, Democratic leaders made a peace offering to the centrists by proposing to pay for a $53 billion AMT relief bill with tax increases next year. Democratic leaders proposed adding revenue-raising measures to a package anticipated in 2008 that would extend various expiring tax cuts.

I discussed yesterday why the Blue Dog argument on this is full of holes. Democrats are grasping at the AMT as a flimsy excuse for raising taxes. Even today, when the united opposition of Congressional Republicans is forcing them to simply correct an error, they're still promising to return next year to attempt to raise taxes again.

Rudy Giuliani may be stalling in New Hampshire and peeking over his shoulder at Mike Huckabee, who is gaining ground nationally. His campaign may have lost some momentum, and he may be hounded by questions regarding his personal judgment. However: Santa Claus appears with Giuliani in new web-only and New Hampshire advertisements. And really, who can be against Santa?

You can watch the web ad below. Follow the above link to watch the 30-second spot that will air in New Hampshire. You may notice that while Giuliani says "Merry Christmas" on the web ad, he says "Happy Holidays" in the television spot (see UPDATE below). You may also notice that Giuliani is perhaps the only political figure in America who can seem agitated over fruitcake.

An astonishing turnaround occurred in the Senate on Tuesday: 70 senators voted to fund the Iraq war with a fresh $70 billion and no strings attached. Think about this a moment. Last winter, after Democrats captured the Senate and House, it seemed likely they'd succeed in limiting or ending the Iraq war, probably by setting a firm timetable for withdrawal of American troops. After all, both President Bush and the war itself were highly unpopular. The Democratic triumph in the election made that clear, even to those who doubted opinion polls. And Democrats made the anti-Iraq crusade their top priority in the new Congress. Now, the 70-vote approval of the war by the Senate represents the breathtaking dimension of their failure.

For much of 2007, the question was whether Democrats would get 60 votes to halt Senate debate, pass an anti-war measure, and send it to the president. And Democrats came close to achieving that. To belabor the point, they had in the neighborhood of 60 senators ready to vote against the war. Compare that with the 70 votes in favor of the war on Tuesday. That's a historic shift on a high visibility issue that has strongly emotional opposition. Do the math. You don't see turnarounds like this very often, especially in a Congress as polarized as this current one.

Last summer, Republican leaders figured that Democrats finally had the 60 votes. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell informed the White House of this. Veteran Republican senators - Richard Lugar, Pete Domenici, John Warner - were jumping ship. More were expected to. Democrats had come up with a clever proposal for restraining the war. It was the proposal by Senator James Webb of Virginia to lengthen the time soldiers had to remain at home before redeployment to Iraq. Warner, in fact, endorsed it, but he changed his mind after military officials told him the Webb scheme was unworkable. The proposal lost.

But what if one of the anti-war measures had passed? True, Bush would have vetoed it and chances are Senate Republicans would have mustered the 34 votes to sustain his veto. But congressional passage of a bill limiting the war would have been politically disastrous even if it didn't go into effect. It would have undercut the president, galvanized the opposition, and most likely prompted a stampede of congressional Republicans away from support for the war.

Everything changed, of course, when General David Petraeus, the Iraq commander, testified before Congress in September. He said there had been measurable success in reducing violence in iraq, including a sharp drop in American casualties. Since January, Petraeus had been carrying out the new Iraq policy that Bush had announced in January to add troops - the so-called surge - and implement a new counterinsurgency strategy. By the time the Senate voted on Tuesday, the decline in violence in Iraq had become more dramatic.

Credit for keeping anti-war measures from reaching the White House goes to a number of senators. Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Democratic ally Joe Lieberman were able to persuade queasy senators from voting against the war at critical times. McConnell, once worried that the war would drag on and damage Republican senators running in 2008, was key to holding the line. So was Trent Lott, the Republican whip. And the president never flinched.

To be fair, all of the 22 Democrats who voted for the $70 billion haven't suddenly become backers of the war. Rather, some merely wanted to pass the omnibus budget bill, which Republicans said they'd block if Iraq money weren't passed first. Still, 70 votes is 70 votes, and this majority included Carl Levin, one of the war's chief Democratic critics.

Ad Age blogger Ken Wheaton isn't impressed with the new Romney attack ad on Huckabee: "The spot itself seems lacking in focus. It starts with a pro-life, anti-gay-marriage message (to establish his religious bonafides, no doubt and possibly to give the appearance that this isn't an attack ad) before calling Huckabee soft on crime."

He's right! Romney seems to be caught in a trap: He wants to court Huckabee's constituency by emphasizing that he shares the governor's policy positions, but also is afraid that those voters will be turned off by an attack on their guy. The ad tries to remind them of Huckabee's problems in the most gentle manner possible. It seems almost ... calculated or something. ... Romney probably ought to commit to one side - either run pro-life message spots or single-minded attack ads.

You can watch Romney's ad below.

Tony Blankley joins those who are predicting a possible brokered GOP convention in 2008. Best line: "It is as if each faction of the Grand Old Party feels a stronger passion to defeat its intraparty rival factions than to defeat the Democrats in November."

Bill Kristol just called from the road to tell me the news that Time magazine has selected ... um, Vladimir Putin as 2007's person of the year. "Time's man of the year may be Vladimir Putin," Bill said, "but America's man of the year is General David Petraeus."

Over at the Foreign Policy blog, Joshua Keating has a fascinating brief on the Bolivian provincial autonomy crisis. (Never thought you'd read the words "fascinating" and "Bolivian provincial autonomy crisis" in the same sentence, did you?) Earlier this week four Bolivian provinces declared their autonomy to protest the policies of Chavez protege President Evo Morales. Morales said the move was "illegal." The standoff continues.

Tyler Cowen asks: "What does Bolivia need to do to make the front-page?" Good question.

The Taliban and al Qaeda continue their relentless attacks against the Pakistani security forces. Since December 13, Taliban and al Qaeda suicide bombings and conventional attacks have claimed the lives of 43 soldiers, paramilitary soldiers, and policemen.

The numbers obtained are from open source reporting from Pakistani news outlets. The Pakistani military has proven to be unreliable with casualty numbers, and has repeatedly under reported the numbers of those killed, wounded, or captured during operations.

Twelve soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing that targeted trainees at a soccer match in Kohat on December 17. Also, the Taliban beheaded a soldier in Khar, Bajaur. Four soldiers were killed during a suicide attack at a military base in Nowshera on December 16. A suicide bomber killed eleven security personnel at a checkpoint in Quetta on December 13. Fifteen soldiers were killed and 38 wounded in a series of Taliban ambushes on military convoys in North Waziristan.

Many of these attacks are occurring inside or along the border of the Northwest Frontier Province. The Pakistani military has much of its nuclear weapons infrastructure in this region.

The Pakistani military is fighting an insurgency that is far more effective and violent than that being waged in Iraq. The Pakistani military is losing more troops in a single week than the U.S. military will lose in Iraq for the entire month, or more.

The Taliban have united under the command of Baitullah Mehsud, the able Pakistani Taliban leader from South Waziristan. Mehsud has beat off multiple military incursions into South Waziristan, most recently at Mir Ali this fall. Called the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan--the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan--this new organization unites the Taliban of the seven tribal agencies of North and South Waziristan, Khyber, Orakazi, Bajaur, Mohmand, and Kurram, as well as the settled districts of Swat, Bannu, Tank, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohistan, Buner, and the Malakand division.

The Hill reports:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) hinted Tuesday that Congress may not be able to stop a big tax increase from hitting 23 million Americans.

Hoyer, pressed on whether Congress would resolve disputes over the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), said, “Maybe.”

His remark came as a surprise, since it has widely been assumed that Democrats will give up their effort to “pay for” the AMT patch and go with the Senate plan to load the cost onto the deficit.

Hoyer's comments may be nothing more than a warning to his fellow Democrats. It's long been assumed that the House would eventually yield and approve the AMT fix that passed the Senate. This public comment from Hoyer may be no more than a signal to House Democrats that the stubbornness of the Blue Dogs may spur a huge tax increase that will be laid solely at the feet of the Democrats.

The Alternative Minimum Tax will raise taxes about $51 billion in 2008, if it is not 'fixed.' The crux of the argument comes down to this: Republicans oppose a tax increase to 'pay' for the AMT fix because the AMT has only expanded due to an error when it was created. Republicans and Democrats universally agree that it was never meant to hit the millions of taxpayer it is slated to affect next year. And if the Treasury never intended or expected to collect the money, why do Democrats consider the revenue to be 'lost?'

In effect, the question is whom to hold harmless: the taxpayers or the treasury.

Legend holds that Hernan Cortes burned his ships after landing near Veracruz in 1518, eliminating retreat as an option for his troops. While Ron Paul may want to do the federal bureaucracy what Cortes did to the Aztecs, he apparently wants to ensure that even if he doesn't win the GOP nomination, he will live to fight another day. At least, that seems a reasonable conclusion given that he's decided to file for re-election to Congress next year:

Paul plans to file for re-election to his 14th district seat in advance of Texas’ Jan. 2 filing deadline, his Congressional office confirmed Monday — despite the fact he is in the midst of a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination that has turned the career House backbencher into a national figure.

“Congressman Paul intends to file for re-election to his Congressional seat,” Paul’s Congressional spokeswoman Rachel Mills told Roll Call in an e-mail. “He will probably do so closer to the deadline.”

I thought Ron Paul's appeal was that he was 'different' from the rest. Is it possible he's just another career politician? After all, if Paul is re-elected to the House and serves out his term, he will be approaching 20 years in the House of Representatives.

One thing is clear: Paul does not believe in term limits.

Bill Sweetman has a post over at Ares on the roll out of the F-35B, the STOVL (short takeoff, vertical landing) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter. But, according to Sweetman, after nearly 50 years of effort to produce a STOVL fighter that could fly supersonic, It's like Ricky Watters said--for who? For what?

But the world has changed and so has the STOVL fighter - because nobody, back then, expected that it would be the size of an F-4. Also, some realism has entered the calculations.

Going off-base with an F-35B is probably not too practical: it takes at least one CH-47 to deliver enough fuel for one sortie, and I would really question whether the jet would be stealthy after one landing on anything except clean, FOD-free concrete. Anti-access threats are different today: in expeditionary warfare, the attack's more likely to be aimed at troops and accommodation than at the runway.

The USAF flirted with the idea of a STOL or STOVL F-35B a few years ago, but is no longer interested. It may have occurred to them that the day when an F-35B can perform a vertical landing in Kabul (5900 feet) with a useful payload is a few engine upgrades away.

Go read the whole thing for yourself, but I've never found the rationale for STOVL very convincing. The Marines want to be able to operate from remote bases close to the battle, but a first-class Navy ought to be able to seize and build landing strips, position aircraft carriers, refuel in mid-air, etc., so as to obviate the need for STOVL. Our allies, the British and the Italians specifically, operate small carriers that rely on STOVL aircraft. So it makes a lot of sense as an export. But the added cost in R&D is substantial, and it has long since become a serious drag on an already expensive program.

If the Marines ever get into a situation where they are dependent on STOVL for close air support, we will have already lost the battle.