The Atlantic has started a new feature called the Current. I gather it's something of a group blog for the magazine's staff, but so far it looks like it's mainly an outlet for the slightly off-kilter rants of the magazine's associate editor (and WEEKLY STANDARD contributor) Reihan Salam. Here's his take on Prince Harry:

...Perhaps the real trouble is that men of royal blood, by their nature, need new lands to conquer. Why not give Prince Harry a crack contingent of Gurkha fighting men and set him loose on some war-ravaged region, where he can establish his own princely state as a latter-day white rajah? Consider Canada, a nation torn by ethnic strife and religious hatred, where daily life has become a miserable struggle to survive amidst endless gun battles waged by rival gangs of crazed ice-dancing rebels and the soaring loonie has sent the economy into a tailspin. Only Prince Harry can restore order, and so he must.

You'll definitely want to bookmark that site.

Also, the American, house organ of the American Enterprise Institute, has just added a new feature to its website. It's called Americana. You'll want to check that out as well.

This video in response to Hillary's ad from earlier today:

It's true that judgment matters...but when has Obama ever had to make, or take, a tough call? Never. The man has never had to make a decision with life or death consequences. And he led the effort to secure loose nukes? What, was nobody doing that before Obama showed up in Congress all of three years ago? They make it sounds like he popped a terrorist in the face and stripped him of his briefcase bomb. In fact, the expansion of Nunn-Lugar that Obama singed on to has nothing to do with nuclear weapons:

"Lugar-Obama" expands the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles and anti-personnel mines.

And what does it say about his judgment that his strategy toward Iraq seems to boil down to this: retreat and then reinvade. I can't believe that the bulk of Amercians find that to be a judicious approach. Rather than push through to success and then draw down in Iraq, when the Iraqis are strong enough to take over more responsibility for security, he'd rather pull out quick, and then, if (and when) al Qaeda reconstitutes, send our forces back in? Is that a less costly strategy? Is that even a serious strategy?

HT: Hot Air

Northrop Grumman and EADS have somehow managed to defeat heavy-favorite Boeing in the battle to replace the Air Force's aging fleet of aerial refueling tankers. The initial contract for 80 aircraft is valued at $40 billion, and the service has plans to purchase as many as 100 more at an as yet undetermined cost.

The Northrop KC-30, which is based on the EADS Airbus A-330 passenger jet, had been considered the more capable aircraft. It's bigger, which means it can carry 20 percent more fuel, 20 percent more passengers, and 30 percent more cargo. It can also carry 45,000 pounds more fuel than Boeing's KC-767. But Boeing had pitched the smaller size of the 767 as a feature, rather than a handicap. However, the 767 is at the end of its commercial life. The military would have been the only customer for the airplane had Boeing won the contract, raising concerns about maintenance costs.

The KC-30 will be assembled in Mobile, Alabama, but much of the work will be done in Airbus's facility in Toulouse, France. There had been doubts as to whether the Air Force, and Congress, would award such a massive contract to a French firm, but a thaw in relations following the election of Nicolas Sarkozy may have eased concerns. Also Northrop claims that its aircraft will create 25,000 American jobs.

The Air Force's tanker acquisition program first received national attention in 2001, when Senator John McCain called into question a no-bid contract that would have seen the service lease, rather than buy, 100 tankers from Boeing. Upon further investigation, it became clear that Boeing had offered illegal inducements to Air Force officials in exchange for the contract. The ensuing scandal led to jail sentences for two Boeing officials, including the firm's CFO.

McCain has repeatedly noted his role in exposing the corrupt deal during this year's presidential election.

Another classic from the Tierney Lab:

If only the masses could understand the science of global warming, they’d be alarmed, right? Wrong, according to the surprising results of a survey of Americans published in the journal Risk Analysis by researchers at Texas A&M University.

After asking a national sample of more than 1,000 Americans how much they knew about global warming and how they felt about it, the researchers report that respondents who are better-informed about global warming “both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming.”

That surely explains why Laurie David is so hysterical. I've written before of the gap in perception on this issue between scientists and meteorologists (think Max Mayfield, formerly head of the National Hurricane Center and world renowned global warming skeptic). People who actually know something about weather and climate, but whose research and grant money don't depend on a deep and abiding faith in global warming, tend not to be too alarmist about changing weather. But this is an interesting new spin, and it turns out those who are best informed are the least concerned--and these are the folks who (unlike me) have confidence in the science:

Another unexpected result: “Respondents who showed a great deal of confidence that scientists understand global warming and climate change showed significantly less concern for the risks of global warming than did those who have lower trust in scientists.”

Tierney offers some speculation that this is because respondents who are confident in the science are also confident in the ability of science to respond to global warming. I'm dubious. There are a lot of great ideas floating around for how to cool the planet, but nobody's going to win an Oscar for showing how technology can save the world and your SUV.

I have always thought that Dick Morris was hit or miss -- that half his writing was quite insightful, but the other half was very weak. His latest column falls into that latter category -- and it makes me think he's looking for work with the Obama campaign:

The best evidence of Obama’s readiness to lead the nation is the ability with which he has run for president. After all, what is more difficult, complicated, or challenging than getting elected president? What other life experience better illustrates one’s qualification to hold the office than a manifest skill in seeking it?...

As we have watched Obama surmount the hurdles that lay in his path, we cannot help but be impressed with his judgment. Adam Wallinsky, who served on Bobby Kennedy’s staff, once singled out good judgment as JFK’s most salient characteristic. Obama has faced so many delicate questions and issues and seems always to have the right feel for how to handle them.

Will he be a good president? If he is half as skillful in serving as he has been in running, he can’t miss.

So the fact of having run a great campaign demonstrates one's readiness for the office? Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter ran strong, shrewd campaigns. Were they great presidents?

And winning the nomination is the best possible experience to prepare one for the Oval Office? Is it really better than serving as governor, or vice president, or Supreme Allied Commander Europe?

I think Morris' distaste for Hillary may have gotten the better of him this time.

There's a great story about General George C. Marshall, who--while posturing the nation for war--took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to hear out some gentleman from the automotive industry. After listening to them for about 5 minutes, Marshall nodded and said "Ok, do it."

And so the Army Jeep was born.

Different times, eh?

The Air Force's often-delayed announcement of which defense contractor will be awarded a multibillion-dollar contract to provide new aerial refueling tankers has been postponed until 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 29, a defense industry analyst said.

I've got my money on Boeing. But with a bureaucracy as impenetrable as the Air Force, it's anyone's guess. Updates after the announcement.

(For more on the competition, check out this piece comparing the two aircraft -- ed.)

The whole debate is absurd, but since they're still going at it over at the Corner, it's worth throwing up this gem from a Slate column earlier this month:

The Constitution's rule that the president be "a natural born citizen" focuses not on where a person became a citizen, but when. To be eligible, one must be born a citizen rather than naturalized at some later date. At the founding, a special constitutional clause provided that even those who had not been citizens at birth could nevertheless become president, if they were citizens circa 1787. Thus, Alexander Hamilton, born in the West Indies, was clearly eligible. All those already in America in 1787 could be trusted; but the framers fretted that an Old World earl or duke might someday sail across the Atlantic with a boatload of gold and bribe his way into the presidency. (Rumor had it that George III's second son, the Bishop of Osnaburgh, would soon head this way.) Thus, the "natural-born" clause's main target of concern was not immigrants generally, but wealthy European aristocrats who might wreak havoc in an America lacking strong campaign finance laws.

How do you like that...it's all about campaign finance.

Several head-to-head polls of likely voters now show McCain beating Obama, and McCain’s favorable/unfavorable ratings are each a couple points stronger to boot. There is also evidence that Obama might be incredibly vulnerable in several key battleground states. In spite of a dozen straight losses and weeks of bad news, Hillary Clinton continues to lead Obama by 5 points in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. Clinton’s victory in these primaries may not reverse her epic fall, but it might foreshadow a decisive victory for McCain in the general election. That the Keystone State is very much in play should also bolster claims that McCain is giving a strong look at Tom Ridge as a running mate.

Yesterday the Senate unanimously approved legislation to extend favorable tariff treatment to 4 Andean nations:

The Senate cleared legislation Thursday that would renew trade preferences for four South American countries, just a day before their scheduled expiration.

The measure (HR 5264), which passed by voice vote, would extend duty-free treatment for most goods from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru through the end of 2008. The current extension, enacted in 2007 (PL 110-42), expires Friday...

The Andean bill would reduce revenue from customs duties by an estimated $82 million in fiscal 2008 and $37 million in fiscal 2009, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

I thought that Senator Clinton favored a 'strategic pause' in trade agreements? I thought both she and Senator Obama were deeply concerned about the negative effects of expanded trade on U.S. workers? Why were they absent when the Senate voted to extend favorable tariff treatment to 4 countries, with low-wage workforces, all of which have trade surpluses against the United States?

The House of Representatives is likely to vote next week on a FISA extension, but not the bipartisan bill which passed the Senate by a wide margin:

“We don’t have agreement but ... I am very hopeful that we will have legislation on the floor next week, “ House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md., said on the floor Thursday in a colloquy with Minority Whip Roy Blunt , R-Mo...

The Senate version, which the White House helped to draft, would grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have been sued for their alleged cooperation with the administration’s warrantless surveillance activities after Sept. 11, 2001. The House measure includes no such liability shield.

Liberals in the House are unwilling to extend liability protection to telecommunications companies that facilitated surveillance on suspected terrorists operating abroad. Quin Hillyer looks at the lawsuits that House Democrats are insisting go forward:

Moreover, the suit defines the class of aggrieved citizens as “all individuals” who were customers of the phone company “at any time after September 2001” that the program was in effect. In this one suit, that class is identified as consisting of 24.6 million people. How all 24.6 million Americans could possibly be harmed by this program aimed at suspected foreign terrorists is a question perhaps best answered in the Twilight Zone...

Do the math: The total potential payout by AT&T for the first two categories of alleged violations is $49.2 billion. Meanwhile, at $100 per day for each day of the four years at issue after 9/11, the total potential liability for each of the two latter counts is $3 trillion, 591 billion.

That number times 2, plus the $49.2 billion, comes out to a potential grand liability of $7.243 trillion. That is half of the entire national economy! And that’s even before “punitive damages” are taken into account.

Don't worry, though. Speaker Pelosi is 100 percent certain that there's no national security risk for allowing FISA to lapse, or leaving telecom companies on the hook for cooperating.

Feel better now?

From the Washington Post: Walking on Eggshells, by Howard Kurtz.

From the Chicago Sun-Times: Hope Isn't a Foreign Policy, by Steve Huntley.

From the Long War Journal: Egyptian al Qaeda Leader Killed?, by Bill Roggio.

From Contentions: An Anti-War “Teach-In” at the CIA? by Gabriel Schoenfeld.

From the Economist: Hope and Fear.

Blogosphere consensus: nice of Hillary to be making commercials on behalf of McCain...

Still, there's another problem with this ad, mainly that Hillary seems to be just the kind of person who would want to micromanage a military situation. That's how she's run her campaign, and there's little doubt that's how she'd run the White House. If "something's happening in the world" that requires a 3 a.m. call to the White House and Hillary picks up the phone, how much you want to bet she's on the phone with her lawyers by 3:30.

Traveling the world in search of Condi's legacy:

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said on Friday he may go to Beijing at the weekend to meet his North Korean counterpart for talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs.

"I think we will have an announcement on that at some point," Hill told reporters in Bangkok. "We had some very good discussions with the Chinese. There is an idea we might try to arrange something this weekend."

We're always on the verge of a breakthrough with the Chinese. A cynic might call it chasing the dragon.

A wonderful story:

After completing two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Wayne Leyde won $1 million from a scratch-and-win lotto ticket on Tuesday.

Now that he's won, Leyde, a 26-year-old member of the Washington National Guard, says he's still going to volunteer to go back to Iraq for a third tour and won't spend any of the money in the meantime.

Later in the story:

"I was on my way out when the lady said, 'Do you have a lucky scratch coin?'"

"I said 'no, you gave me a dime and nickel back.'"

"She said 'no, try this,"' handing Leyde a penny.

I hope Sgt. Leyde keeps that penny in his pocket during his next tour of duty, and returns home safely. And in the unlikely event Hollywood executives read that story, perhaps they should consider making it into a movie instead of the preachy and predictable drivel like Stop Loss that we've come to expect.

Although proponents of campaign finance reform often proclaim too much money is being spent on politics, New York City’s new matching system might actually increase the total amount expended. For complying with certain caps, participant-candidates can receive $6 in matching funds for every $1 donated. That means a $175 check, which is the maximum amount the city will match, magically transforms into $1050--all courtesy of city taxpayers. Mayor Bloomberg signed the legislation into law this past summer, but is now expressing second-thoughts at the $90 million price-tag.

HT: New York Magazine

Jay Cost has some very interesting thoughts on the Democratic party's superdelegate problem, which he believes is indicative of the larger trend in American politics of neglecting the role of the political party:

It seems to me that the Democrats are in the midst of a robust, valuable debate about the future of their party. The fact that it does not involve sharp policy differences is a non sequitur. One need not discuss policy to be substantive. If the RCP average is any metric - it is an argument that neither side has won. And yet, lots of worried Democrats want it over. They doubt the capacity of the party organization to resolve the conflict. They are wise to have these doubts. Because they are unbound by rules of any kind, the fact that the super delegates will break the tie is a disaster waiting to happen.

But why are the super delegates so free? The Democrats have lousy rules that nobody cared to revise in the last quarter century because the best and brightest in American politics don't give a damn about the party organization. This is part of a decades-long trend in American politics. The party institutions have been taken for granted. They no longer play a vital role in daily American political life, so they are left to decay - until we need them. At which point, they are incapable of doing their job.

Americans like to think that strong parties are an impediment to democracy - and so, the weaker they are the better we are. They are wrong. Strong parties are an asset to democracy. The happenings on the Democratic side indicate what can happen when the parties are weak. The Democrats are in the midst of a animated discussion that many of the conversants want to end because the party organization is incompetent.

With Cost, you come for the math--but stay for the history!

Cat's out of the bag:

Prince Harry has been serving on the front line with his British army unit in one of Afghanistan's most lawless and barren provinces.

Harry is the first royal to serve in a combat zone since his uncle Prince Andrew flew helicopters during Britain's war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982.

British officials had hoped to keep the 23-year-old's deployment secret until he had safely returned, but they released video of Harry serving in Helmand Province after a leak appeared on the U.S. Web site the Drudge Report.

The planned deployment had been disclosed to reporters, with no specific date, but was not reported previously under a pool agreement between the Ministry of Defense and all major news organizations operating in Britain, including The Associated Press. The news blackout was intended to reduce the risk to the prince and his regiment.

This type of leadership impresses me to no end. Prince Harry didn't just request to be sent to the front lines, he demanded it. And equally impressive is the restraint shown by both the Ministry of Defense and the tabloid driven British media, sitting on a bombshell of a story for what appears to be all the right reasons.

But, for the same reason that Prince Harry was denied a deployment to Iraq, the Ministry of Defense will now be forced to separate the royal from his men. He's simply too rich of a target, and the knowledge that he's active in what is certainly the hottest combat zone in the CENTCOM AOR undoubtedly has the area's sizable Taliban and al Qaeda contingent licking their lips like hungry wolves. This doesn't just place Prince Harry at unnecessary risk, but his entire regiment.

Tragedy that it is to part an effective platoon leader from his troops, the MoD has little choice.

Yesterday’s airstrike in Pakistan’s tribal agency of South Waziristan, which killed 13 Arab al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban, has raised once again the question of whether last month’s airstrike in North Waziristan claimed the life of Adam Gadahn, the American traitor and al Qaeda propagandist. Rumors swirled last month that Gadahn was killed along with Abu Laith al Libi, a senior al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan. Gadahn was reported missing by associates, and he has not produced an al Qaeda propaganda tape since the January strike.

Rusty Shackleford, who closely tracks jihadi and al Qaeda’s propaganda operations at The Jawa Report, believes Gadahn died in the late January airstrike. “This week a trusted source revealed to me that he was hearing from Pakistan that Gadahn was most likely dead,” Shackleford said. “I asked him if his sources weren't the same as NBC? No, he replied, he had a different source of information.”

“Then why hasn't the U.S. confirmed Gadahn's demise?” Shackleford asks. “ Too many body parts,” his source said. “Very little left of any one on the ground. Could take some time, or we may never have confirmation.”

Perhaps. But al Qaeda would certainly know if one of its senior propagandists has been killed. Al Qaeda has been quick to announce the death of its leaders in the past, and has taken the opportunity to use their deaths as propaganda and recruiting tools. In the case of Abu Laith al Libi, al Qaeda released an announcement less than 48 hours after the airstrike. Several videotapes have been released addressing al Libi’s death, including one released yesterday by none other than Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second in command.

Al Qaeda likely would have capitalized on Gadahn's death as well given his unique status as an American member of the terror group. Al Qaeda could claim the cowardly Americans had to use remotely launched missiles to kill their own countryman (despite the fact Gadahn tore up his passport in a video released a few months ago).

Of course, there is the possibility that al Qaeda would hide Gadahn’s death to deny the Bush administration its own propaganda coup. Gadahn was indicted in a U.S. federal court under charges of treason and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization by making al Qaeda propaganda videos. He is the first American to be indicted for treason since 1952. But this seems unlikely, as covering up Gadahn’s death would run counter to al Qaeda’s history of quickly and publicly announcing the death of the group's senior figures.

Angelina Jolie writes in today's Washington Post:

As for the question of whether the surge is working, I can only state what I witnessed: U.N. staff and those of non-governmental organizations seem to feel they have the right set of circumstances to attempt to scale up their programs. And when I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq. They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible.

The article isn't really about the military situation, and she stipulates half-way through the piece that she is "not a security expert," but she's only saying what security experts have been saying for months now. If this analysis doesn't help her win an Academy Award, and it won't, it's an extremely effective piece of diplomacy. She pleads on behalf of the UNHCR "for $261 million this year to provide for refugees and internally displaced persons." Congress should give it to her.

She also asks each of the presidential candidates "to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy." McCain should be first in line to offer such a plan. The case for sustaining the U.S. presence there has always been based, in part, on the responsibility this country has to the people of Iraq. Let Obama explain how he's going to assure the safe return of refugees in tandem with a withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The Pew Research Center issued a new poll today highlighting some of Senator Obama and Senator McCain’s strengths and vulnerabilities as they both try to nail down their party nominations.

The survey gives the Illinois Senator a nine-point lead (49-40) nation-wide over Hillary Clinton among all Democratic primary voters. It also shows him ahead of John McCain by seven-points (50-43) in a head-to-head match up nationally among all registered voters.

But the survey finds reason for McCain optimism. First, the poll reveals public attitudes about the war in Iraq have turned more positive. “47% now favor keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until the situation there has stabilized, the highest percentage expressing this view in well more than a year,” the Pew poll reports.

The report also highlights some potential Democratic base fissures that could handicap Senator Obama. “Overall, 20% of white Democratic voters would vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee,” the poll shows--double the percent of white Democratic support McCain would get in a Clinton-McCain race. Indeed, most parts of Senator Clinton’s base (seniors, lower-income, less-educated Democrats) would support McCain at higher levels if Obama were the nominee.

It also reveals a majority of Americans (56 percent) believe Senator Obama has not provided enough information about his policies and plans. Only 37 percent say Senator McCain has not provided enough information.

Pew also highlights some McCain soft spots. As he moves closer to securing the nomination, McCain has improved among Republicans, but has lost ground among independents and Democrats. For example, McCain’s unfavorable rating among independents rose by 13 points in less than a month, according to Pew. The poll also argues McCain’s age is an issue. It notes about a quarter (26 percent) think he’s too old and that proportion rises to near a third (32 percent) when voters are told he is 71 years old.

Read the full report.

McCain opened today's call by expressing some satisfaction with recent polls giving him a lead in a head to head match-up against Obama. He also took the opportunity to hit Obama again over his comments in the most recent Democratic debate that he would consider moving troops back into Iraq if al Qaeda was establishing a base there. McCain said "not only might al Qaeda establish a base there, al Qaeda has a base there and in the words of General Petraeus it is now the central battleground in the struggle against radical Islamic extremism. I agree with him, and al Qaeda is one the run but they are not defeated in Iraq."

He then took questions. Geraghty always posts something resembling a transcript, so check that out if you want the minutes of the call. Of particular interest...

Powerline's Paul Mirengoff asked McCain if he had a response to today's George Will column, noting that Will had characterized McCain as a man of "towering moral vanity." McCain responded that "we will have to agree to disagree on this specific issue of campaign finance reform." Mirengoff also asked whether it was true that McCain had refused to shake hands with FEC commissioner Brad Smith. McCain didn't hesitate, "it's true...there was no reason to shake his hand, he had basically attacked my character...I'm certainly not ashamed or embarrassed that if someone attacks my character and integrity, no I'm not going to shake their hand."

I asked McCain whether he had any comment on the New York Philharmonic's North Korea tour and, more generally, on the status of the Six Party talks.

I have concerns, very grave concerns...the facility in Syria, according to published reports, had the earmarks of North Korean involvement. They continue some of the illicit activities around the world, and most offensively the abuse of the human rights of their own people. I wish some of the people who are barely surviving, if they're surviving, in the largest remaining gulag in the world would have had the chance to see the philharmonic perform, rather than a chosen 1,400 or whatever it was....

Next up was a guy whose name I can't get right even after listening to the tape a few times, but he had a hell of a question. It sounded like he was reading from a lengthy prepared text, but it boiled down to this: does John McCain know the difference between MySpace and YouTube. You'll all be delighted to know that he does. And he noted that YouTube is a reservoir of embarrassment--"John Edwards can attest to that (click it, you know you want to watch it again)." McCain would later remember that his campaign has a MySpace page.

Think Progress reports "McCain Rated As America’s Worst Senator For Children":

Today, the Children’s Defense Fund Action Council released its 2007 Nonpartisan Congressional Scorecard. CDF reports some positive news, particularly that average scores for members of Congress “improved from the previous three years with more Members scoring 100 percent than in 2004, 2005 or 2006.”

Many, however, did not fare so well. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) received a 10 percent rating — the worst in the U.S. Senate.

And, of course, the rankings of this nonpartisan group "weren’t divided by party," according to the folks at Think Progress. Well, take a look at the rankings and you tell me:

I always felt some of Bill Buckley’s best columns were his obituaries. When a friend or someone he admired died, Bill’s essay would evoke the person’s good nature and distinctiveness. He also managed to capture a person’s eccentricities. Consider his obit this past fall for Norman Mailer:

“This initiative brought him and his wife to our house in Stamford, Connecticut, and I took him out on my 36-foot sailboat. He could not believe it when I turned the wheel over to him, pointing out a course to the end of the harbor. It was very cold by the time we had finished dinner, but he ordered his wife Jeannie to the back of his motorcycle, and they zoomed off to Brooklyn.”

There have been some wonderful obits, but I doubt that anyone can resurrect Bill’s spirit the way he could bring about the memory of others. I will miss him.

From the New York Post: WFB, Transcendent, by John Podhoretz.

From NRO: A Neighborhood Reborn, by Pete Hegseth.

From the Long War Journal: Sunnis and States' Rights, by Bill Ardolino.

From Junge Freiheit: An Interview with Victor Davis Hanson.

From Time: African Journeys with George, by Bob Geldof.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Jim Ogonoswki, a Republican candidate who's seeking to face off against John Kerry in his Senate re-election bid this year. Last year Ogonowski waged a surprisingly strong special election campaign in Massachusetts' 5th Congressional district -- strong enough that state and national Republicans eagerly sought his entry into the Senate race this year.

The plain-spoken Ogonowski will offer a strong contrast with the patrician Kerry, whom Massachusetts voters seem eager to replace. Further, Ogonowski makes a strong case that Kerry is more a resident of Washington than of Massachusetts, and that he's ineffective and out-of-touch. He points out that Kerry wouldn't take a position on the Cape Wind project out of fear of alienating Ted Kennedy. Ogonowski says voters complain that they never see Kerry in the state, and rarely hear back from him on issues of concern. How effective is Kerry in getting things done for the state? In his 24-year Senate career, he has gotten 8 bills signed into law (two of which were World Population Awareness Week).

Ogonowski's message seems well-catered to the prevailing political climate. He complains that Washington doesn't work, and is unresponsive to the needs of the people. He tells me that when Kerry endorsed Barack Obama, and cited the need for change in Washington, he realized "there's one thing I agree with John Kerry on." He stresses the need to achieve energy independence ("35 years ago I sat in gas lines with my dad, and we still don't have a plan.") He believes that we went into Iraq with insufficient troop levels, but that the change of course is making a difference. He says we need to let our troops do their job, then bring them home. He stresses the importance of achieving border security. And only when I bring up the war on terror does he talk about how September 11 touched his life directly.

How good are Ogonowski's chances? It's s steep hill to climb -- there are few states bluer than Massachusetts, and Kerry has more than $10 million to spend on his campaign. At the same time, Ogonowski points out that 55 percent of Massachusetts voters are independents, that John McCain will do better than most Republicans in the state, and that he can tap an established web of state donors (as well as people nationwide who dislike Kerry) to fund his campaign. Further, Ogonwski is an attractive personality, who started from scratch in his Congressional race and nearly pulled off a surprise.

Plus, the results of a poll by Ogonowski's primary challenger Jeff Beatty show that voters in the state aren't just disappointed with Kerry in the abstract -- they're willing to vote for a Republican challenger, as well. That gives state Republicans a real chance to beat Kerry, even if it may be a longshot.

Nearly every conservative blogger has something to say about William F. Buckley Jr., who died yesterday morning at the age of 82. All agree that he had a profound impact on conservatism and the country--and that he was a profoundly great man.

Scott Johnson at Pajamas Media writes, "The death of William F. Buckley, Jr. deprives the modern American conservative movement of its founder, for Buckley was preeminently the founding statesman of the movement that gained its political expression first in Barry Goldwater and then Ronald Reagan. When Buckley founded National Review in 1955 at the age of 29, he lit the fire that sparked the movement."

More from Peter Suderman at the American Scene, who remarks, "He was not merely clever and smart; he was wise. Conservatism lost a great defender and advocate today, and the larger world of ideas and letters lost one of its greatest minds." And Captain Ed concludes, "Buckley will be missed, but his work will remain as lively and vibrant as ever. Few men and women can claim that kind of intellectual achievement and impact on society."

Yet Buckley, says John O'Sullivan, "took it all very humbly and even a little quizzically. It was as if he didn't quite believe that he had blown a trumpet and, lo, the walls of Communism had tumbled down -- 'literally,' to use a word whose misuse he occasionally denounced."

Buckley influenced many of our favorite bloggers, including Power Line's Paul Mirengoff, Blackfive's Uncle Jimbo, Hugh Hewitt, and Michelle Malkin, who says, "He was an engaged and engaging Renaissance man who joined conservatism and libertarianism, fought statism, and served the Lord."

The folks at National Review's blog The Corner have posted numerous tributes to their founder and former editor. Ramesh Ponnuru writes, "Bill's kindness and generosity of spirit really were remarkable. He was as interested in listening to the college senior to his left as to the former secretary of state to his right." And Mona Charen's tribute to "Bill's smile" is particularly touching: "Bill had the capacity to make everyone feel that they enhanced his life. If you ran into him on the staircase, he would make you think that you had just capped his day. It need hardly be said that few men are great. But even fewer great men are so good."

According to Military.com, the Iraqi army will be trading in its AK-47 for new M16A2 assault rifle. Says one U.S. official,

"We in the U.S. know that the M-16 is superior to the AK ... it's more durable," said Army Col. Stephen Scott, who's in charge of helping the Iraqi army get all the equipment it needs to outfit its forces. The Iraqis have embraced that ... and the fact that it is U.S. manufactured and supplied. They are very big on U.S.-produced [foreign military sales] materials."

This seemingly minor change could have significant long-term repercussions within Iraq. First, it will establish a common supply line with the U.S., so that we do not have to purchase the AK's 7.62 x 39mm ammunition from outside the U.S. logistic system. Moreover, because the M16 fires 5.56 x 45mm ammunition, it will not be so easy for Iraqi soldiers to sell their ammunition on the black market or smuggle it to al Qaeda and the insurgents. Gradually, the supply of AK-47 ammunition will begin to dry up (though this will take a long time, considering how much is lying around Iraq). Finally, because the M16's receiver is made as a sealed unit, it cannot be repaired easily in the field, but rather needs a skilled armorer with special tools. This would make the M16 of limited value to the insurgents, who do not have these resources. That the M16 looks and sounds very different from the AK-47 will also make it easier for U.S. and allied troops to distinguish between legitimate Iraqi troops and insurgents or impostors--not an insignificant factor on the urban battlefield.

There are some negatives. While the U.S. spokesman is right about the durability and accuracy of the M16 vs. the AK, the former is tolled to much finer tolerances than the latter, which means that it requires constant cleaning and care, especially in the dusty Iraqi environment. Unless cleaned regularly (and correctly), the M16 is prone to jamming (a problem it shares with the similar M4 Carbine). The AK, in contrast, was designed with very loose tolerances because it was meant to be used by poorly-trained conscripts. This makes it relatively inaccurate but very simple to maintain in the field, which is why it is beloved of guerrillas, terrorists, and many Third World armies. For the M16 to be a success with the Iraqi army, its troops are going to have learn habits of weapons care and maintenance on par with those of the U.S. Army--and it took a long time for us to learn to love the M16.

The Democratic contenders are stumbling all over themselves to show how disappointed they are with NAFTA, and how committed they are to changing it. Fact is, there's no reason to think that withdrawing from NAFTA -- if possible -- would help create jobs in the United States.

That's because the United States trade deficit -- the bogeyman that's caused a mere 95.1 percent of the workforce to have a job -- is not primarily with Mexico (or Canada, for that matter). In 2007, the United States ran its largest trade deficit with China. Our second-largest deficit was with Japan. Our third and fourth-largest bilateral deficits were with Mexico and Canada respectively. The deficits with Mexico and Canada together totaled about half the trade deficit with China.

So if you believe that trade deficits are robbing the United States of jobs and growth (and the data show the opposite to be true), then your chief complaint ought to be about China -- not Mexico (or Canada).

But what if you did repeal NAFTA? What if you took away the low tariff rates that give an incentive for American firms to locate their production in lower-cost Mexico? Why would you imagine that those companies would relocate production in the U.S.? It's entirely possible that they would relocate to a lower-cost manufacturing country --- such as Malaysia, Thailand, or China.

Not only would this not help create jobs in the United States, it would reduce them (at least in the short term). That's because our imports from Mexico have a much higher content of material originally produced in the U.S. (our exports to Mexico) than do our imports from China. So if we replace imports from Mexico with imports from another country, it harms our export base.

Lastly, the nation's largest trade deficits are with countries that we have no trade agreements with. The proper public policy for addressing such deficits then, isn't to get out of the ones that we have, it's to negotiate more:

“What jumps off the page is how small the deficit is with NAFTA and our other free trade partners,” Vargo said. “Together they account for only six percent of the manufactured goods deficit, meaning 94 percent of the deficit is with our non-free trade partners.

“Today’s data leaves you wonder why some in Congress remain so hostile to trade agreements,” he said. “If you wanted to solve our trade deficit, would you focus on 6 percent of the problem or 94 percent of the problem?

When Obama and Clinton attack NAFTA, they're simply playing politics. They're offering a prescription that couldn't be implemented (since Mexico and Canada won't renegotiate NAFTA along their lines) and would only make matters worse if it was.

In response to the ridiculous piece from the Times today about McCain's eligibility for the presidency, a friend writes in:

Of course, the argument is preposterous. A citizen is "natural born" in either of two ways: first, by being born of American parents; second, by being born on American soil. The former, a longstanding doctrine, is codified at 8 USC 1401.

But let's keep in mind the bottom line: Under the NYT-reported theory, children of servicemen stationed overseas would not be "natural born Citizens" and could not run for President, but the child born of an illegal immigrant who crossed the border for the sole purpose of having that child would not be so limited.

There's no doubt, it's preposterous. NRO's Bench Memos gives it a proper fisking, but the McCain camp ought to embrace this challenge if only to make sure that everyone knows that he was born in the Canal Zone. The more Americans learn about McCain's background and family history, the better he's able to frame his candidacy as being about service to the nation. And it's a nice contrast to Obama, whose candidacy seems to be about nothing so much as the transcendent power of himself.

Ron Paul's presidential campaign exceeded expectations--at least in the fundraising department. Now he's using his cash and donor lists to elect other Republicans who back a withdrawal from Iraq:

Murray Sabrin, a New Jersey Senate candidate who has been endorsed by Paul, is expecting a “moneybomb” from his own backers and Paul’s this Friday. Sabrin has raised $194,260 since launching his campaign last month, according to a calculator on his Web site...

Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones , a fellow Iraq war critic who faces a tough primary challenge in North Carolina coastal 3rd District, has rented access to Paul’s list of donors in the state...

Paul’s presidential spokesman said the campaign is still in the process of figuring out how best to make full use of its massive list of campaign donors.

“A likely use would be to help candidates for office who are running on a constitutionalist platform,” Jesse Benton said. “It will go to a good use.”

I wrote about Walter Jones here. Sabrin, an underdog in the New Jersey Senate race, has called the Iraq war a 'fiasco,' and warns darkly that George Bush may do something to check Iran's nuclear ambitions.

When Texas Republicans decide on Tuesday whether they want Ron Paul representing them in Congress, they ought to consider how he will use the platform they give him.

Over at CSIS, Anthony Cordesman has published his latest report on violence in Iraq. His assessment of Anbar:

My colleagues and I at the THE WEEKLY STANDARD wanted to express our condolences to our friends--and Bill's colleagues--at National Review, and above all to Christopher and the rest of the Buckley family. We'll all be publishing well-deserved tributes and appreciations. For now, I'd say just this: What a man! And what an achievement!

I met Bill Buckley while interning at National Review during the summer of 2001. When he later invited me to join him in Gstaad, Switzerland, to serve as his research assistant on Last Call for Blackford Oakes, I instantly agreed. I left a well-paying full-time job in Washington, D.C., to avail myself of this exceptional opportunity.

Bill and Pat were my two favorite people in the world. I told Pat that she was at the very top of the list, and Bill was second. She let me know that “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said in months.” Rhetorical gems of this sort were happenstance when hanging with the Buckleys.

Perhaps my fondest memory of our time together was when Bill and I headed off for lunch one day to discuss his book. Bill had many admirable talents, but I’m afraid driving was not one of them. That day as we drove to a restaurant in the center of Gstaad, Bill took a wrong turn off the road onto a cross-country trail. As the trail got narrower, Bill began banking the car into the snow on the passenger’s side--my side of the car!--to avoid plunging us into the shallow stream on the driver’s side. Later down the path, we eventually got stuck in a ditch. Bill suggested we abandon our vehicle and proceed to the restaurant, where we enjoyed a carafe or two of wine as skiers were forced to navigate around the forsaken car.

The Air Force, which needs all the help it can get on the public relations front, has banned access to blogs:

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."

Until recently, each major command of the Air Force had some control over what sites their troops could visit, the Air Force Times reports. Then the Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service's new "Cyber Command," took over.

Cyber Command, which is a bureaucratic construct of questionable necessity built around the need for effective network defense, has now expanded its mission from network defense to regulating internet usage within the Air Force's Major Commands. It seems reasonable, then, to ask whether time spent policing the internet habits of those in the service will, by diverting scarce resources, undermine the command's ability to defend against legitimate cyberattacks, and to return fire.

Also problematic is the fact that USAF bloggers have been among the most credible advocates for force-modernization plans, offering their strong support for the acquisition of the full fleet of 380 F-22s in particular. The Air Force has in one fell swoop discarded a valuable media asset, forcing the public to rely on cumbersome--and typically boring--USAF press releases instead.

Because Air Force public relations isn't so much an effective media campaign as it is a crawl from one PR disaster to another, the service needs bloggers now more than ever. Which makes this a strange and almost certainly counterproductive move.

Stolen directly from Geraghty, the latest Rasmussen numbers:

• McCain now leads Obama 46% to 43% and Clinton 48% to 43%.
• Obama is viewed favorably by 51% and unfavorably by 46%. McCain’s numbers are 55% favorable, 42% unfavorable. Clinton earns positive reviews from 47% of Likely Voters nationwide and negative assessments from 52%.
• McCain is trusted more by 55% of voters when it comes to National Security issues. Obama is trusted more by just 30% on this point. Just half (51%) of Democrats express more trust in Obama than McCain on national security. Unaffiliated voters prefer McCain by a two-to-one margin.
• On Iraq, McCain has a much smaller advantage—49% trust McCain while 39% prefer Obama.
• When it comes to the economy, 45% prefer McCain while 39% trust Obama more.

The general election is a long time away, but there's something going on here. Rasmussen explains "McCain has consistently held a modest lead over Clinton but he moved ahead of Obama only after publication of the controversial New York Times article last week." Captain Ed delves into those numbers--66 percent of respondents said the piece was a deliberate attempt to "hurt the McCain campaign." One wonders what Marilyn Thompson would make of all this.

A statement from McCain on the passing of Bill Buckley:

"I am profoundly saddened to hear of the passing of William F. Buckley Jr., and offer my deepest condolences to the Buckley family. Bill had many friends, including my parents, who he visited when they were stationed at the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii. My father and mother very much admired him and so did their son.

"With Bill's passing, freedom has lost one of its greatest defenders. Bill was a great American who helped change the course of history. When conservatism was a lonely cause, he bravely raised the standard of liberty and led the charge to renew the principles and values that are the foundation of our great country. A man of tremendous vision and big ideas, he founded the National Review in 1955 and through its pages and his other endeavors, as a lecturer, commentator, debater and author of dozens of books, inspired many and advanced an intellectual rigor that transformed American politics. Bill was an American giant who shall be missed."

We've posted some Buckley-related pieces from THE WEEKLY STANDARD archive here, and also worth your time is Roger Kimball's review of Buckley's "literary autobiography" here.

I've written before that House Democrats seem headed for a painful immigration debate that exposes the fault lines between the moderates elected in 2006 -- who want to protect their seats by passing legislation to get tough on illegal immigration -- and the lliberals and latinos who favor 'earned legalization.' Well, it looks like the depth of the split is already on display in the subcommittee that funds immigration enforcement:

...House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Price, D-N.C., and ranking member Harold Rogers, R-Ky., said ICE faces difficulty identifying all illegal immigrants among the millions of people held in about 5,000 federal, state and local jails across the country. Price said the jails hold about 600,000 criminal illegal immigrants but at its current pace ICE will take up to five years to deport them all...

"It's not acceptable to have people who we know are capable and willing to harm our citizens ... to be back out on the street," he said...

Tensions mounted during the hearing when some Democrats questioned how ICE conducts work-site raids and how the agency handles children and people who need medical care. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., accused ICE of acting like Nazi Germany's Gestapo when conducting raids. Myers defended ICE employees, saying she would not tolerate the accusation. "We are not the Gestapo," she said, interrupting Farr...

Congratulations Sam Farr, on being the first to prove Godwin's Law. But perhaps you ought to direct your anger at Chairman Price, who seems eager to see ICE get tougher on the illegal immigrants who are the target of worksite enforcement. Your message might get a more receptive hearing if the man who funds ICE wasn't sending the opposite signal.

Chairman Price offers an instructive lesson of how strong the feeling is about illegal immigration right now. He represents the research triangle of North Carolina, and taught at Duke. He has a career 'F' grade from the anti-illegal immigration group Numbers USA, and does equally poorly on the FAIR scorecard. But in the current political climate, even he wants to be seen as doing more to fight illegal immigration.

This incident presages what will likely be a nasty and unavoidable fight within the party later this year.

Texas law allows early voting in its primaries. And counties in Texas experiencing the largest increases in pre-election day balloting compared to four years ago are also those with demographic characteristics most likely to support Barack Obama. Polling shows the Illinois Senator does well among blacks, upper-income individuals and those with college degrees. Senator Clinton performs better among Hispanics.

Using data supplied from the Texas Secretary of State, City University of New York political scientist Brian Arbour shows more Texans are voting early in counties with higher concentrations of blacks, well-educated, and higher-income individuals in 2008 compared to the same time in 2004. Conversely, early voting is lower in counties with larger Hispanic populations--where Senator Clinton needs a big boost.

We don’t know how these people are voting yet--only that more voters are turning out early in what look like Obama strongholds. Election Day voting next Tuesday could shift the turnout in these counties as well. But in a race that looks like a statistical dead heat today based on the Real Clear Politics average, these early voting trends seem promising for the Illinois Senator.

Arbour agrees:

These numbers don’t prove anything yet. But, they would like these numbers better at Obama headquarters than at Clinton headquarters.

HT: The Monkey Cage

On Tuesday morning, a fierce Hillary Clinton was ready to throw the "kitchen sink" at Barack Obama. But by Tuesday night's debate, Hillary was again whiney and defensive. Bloggers say Obama won the debate--not due to the substance of his arguments, but because Hillary just plain blew it.

Susan Davis at the WSJ Washington Wire reports, "Clinton let her temper flare tonight over an issue no one anticipated: the fact that moderators tend to pose questions to her first more often than rival Sen. Barack Obama."

When asked a question about NAFTA, Hillary said, "In the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time. And I don't mind, I'll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious. And if anybody saw Saturday Night Live, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow." And the audience booed. Hot Air has the video.

This was a bad move. Swampland's Joe Klein says, "If you go there--which you shouldn't--you do it cleverly. She didn't." Duane Patterson at Hugh Hewitt's blog agrees: "Hillary should have relished the opportunity to go first. Explaining her position wouldn't even have been as important as using the opportunity of going first and framing the views of her opponent...Obama doesn't get into specificity, so Hillary could easily have put him on the defensive. She didn't." And Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades rightly asks, "This is presidential material? She doesn't think the president of the U.S. is always going to be faced with the tough questions before anyone else?"

Overall, bloggers agree that Hillary was shrill while Obama was rather calm. Vodkapundit Stephen Green remarks, "On the attack, she sounds rough, rehearsed, and yet somehow uncertain. On the defense, Obama deflects as smoothly as a very smooth thing having been recently resmoothed by a professional smoothing company."

Stephen Green also writes at Pajamas Media, "Clinton was at great pains to separate herself from her husband’s trade legacy. She was at great pains to separate herself from her Iraq War vote. She was at great pains to draw distinctions between herself and Obama. Mostly what came across was, Hillary Clinton was in great pain."

Mary Katharine Ham concludes that Hillary's problem is that she is "more substantive than Obama, but it doesn't matter most of the time. She outperformed him in multiple parts of this debate, but he parried with a smart line and the audience was laughing with him, at her."

Goldfarb already noted that Contentions liveblogged, with this great line from WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor John Podhoretz: "Hillary Clinton complains about her press treatment. And while she has a point, she does so with crazy eyes. The way this is going, she is going to wish she dropped out a week ago."

The Democrats aren't eager for the Denver convention to look like the Chicago convention of 1968:

Organizers acknowledge that their “Re-create ’68” moniker has been met with skepticism as they’ve toured the country to gin up support among fellow activists. “A lot of people of course associate it with the DNC of ’68 and react negatively,” said organizer Mark Cohen. But the point, Cohen said, isn’t to reproduce the violence associated with the 1968 convention, just the strong sense of countercultural protest that coalesced against the Vietnam War. “We don’t call ourselves ‘Re-create Chicago ’68,’” Cohen offered.

Leslie Cagan, head of United for Peace and Justice, an anti-war group that has organized large marches in the past, said her group has endorsed the planned demonstrations in Denver.

Cynthia McKinney, a former Democratic congresswoman now running as a Green Party candidate for president, will be expressing herself at the demonstration, said organizers. They also plan to reach out to Ralph Nader, who is running as an independent, third-party candidate. The coalition is seeking the support of ANSWER, an anti-war organization with a more radical approach to street protest than UFPJ’s...

If you're not familiar with ANSWER, check out this refresher from Byron York.

Whether the Democratic nominee is Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, there's little chance that the antiwar crowd will be satisfied with the candidate's position on Iraq. The protests will therefore be an embarrassment, and they may also be violent. If the Democrats are looking for a big post-convention bounce, Cynthia McKinney isn't likely to help.

From National Review: William F. Buckley, Jr., R.I.P., by the editors.

From Military.com: Obama and His Captain, by Christian Lowe.

From WEEKLY STANDARD Online: Al Qaeda's Resurgence, by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Kyle Dabruzzi.

From the New York Post: Mullah's in Space, by Peter Brookes.

From the Washington Times: Election Starts to Get Real, by Michael Barone.

I covered yesterday the reluctance of Senate Democrats to begin debate on an Iraq withdrawal resolution. The irony of the situation is that the withdrawal bill is cosponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid, who promised last year to bring it up. Democrats became even more angry when Senate Republicans voted to allow the Senate to debate the Feingold withdrawal bill. It led to a bizarre floor appearance by Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, complaining that Republicans -- by not shutting down the debate -- were forcing the Senate to waste valuable time. The Politico says:

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) accused Republicans of “obstruction,” even though the GOP had just voted to allow debate instead of blocking the Iraq bill. Twenty Democrats voted against taking up the Iraq bill.

“The real reason is they’re scared to death of the housing bill,” Durbin said...

Right. The terrifying housing bill. It's unclear at this time whether Durbin was aware that it was the Democratic leadership which called up the bill and forced a debate.

The Politico also captures some fascinating statements from Democrats and Republicans about the debate, which will likely continue through Thursday, at least:

“Our view is that there’s been so much improvement in the situation in Iraq, ... we’re happy to talk about the improvements,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “We welcome that debate...”

“The truth of the matter is, the surge completed the military effort, but the question is how do we get to a political settlement?” said Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “That’s really where the debate should be...”

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) who has made several trips to Iraq and is considered one of the Democrats’ top voices on military strategy, said he admired Feingold’s efforts but believes a 120-day troop withdrawal mandate “is just too restrictive.”

And Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) admitted the Democrats were gaining no ground by debating a doomed Iraq troop withdrawal measure that was so similar to previously unsuccessful proposals...

So Republicans welcome the invitation of the Democratic leadership to debate improvements in Iraq, while Democrats cite a variety of reasons that the bill cosponsored by Reid and called up by him doesn't make much sense. Do you wonder why people give Congress such poor ratings?

Obama at last night's debate:

"As commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if al-Qaida is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad."

McCain today on the trail in Texas:

"When you examine that statement, it's pretty remarkable," McCain told a crowd in Tyler, Texas.

"I have some news. Al-Qaida is in Iraq. It's called 'al-Qaida in Iraq,'" McCain said, drawing laughter at Obama's expense.

Of course, Obama doesn't say he'd send troops back into Iraq, only that he'd "act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad." It's a euphemism for 'I might not do a damn thing,' and it plays fine with a Democratic audience--but in the general? Maybe not so much...

McCain led Obama among likely voters in yesterday's USA Today/Gallup poll, and now the Los Angeles Times has McCain beating Obama among registered voters, "with voters giving McCain far higher marks when it comes to experience, fighting terrorism and dealing with the situation in Iraq." I tend to think this kind of back and forth will only serve to widen that gap in perception.

Update: McCain adds in a just released statement:

Where is the audacity of hope when it comes to backing the success of our troops all the way to victory in Iraq? What we heard last night was the timidity of despair. Our allies deserve better, our soldiers deserve better, and so do the American people."

William F. Buckley, Jr, died this morning at his home in Connecticut. Our friends at National Review already have posted some poignant reflections. There will be many, many more.

I didn't know him at all before I came to Washington, but I read everything he wrote. And he is one of the chief reasons that I'm a writer.

This is a great hour -- William F. Buckley on Charlie Rose, a retrospective.

R.I.P.

Based on turnout, Democrats are blowing the doors off Republicans this presidential cycle. For example, on Super Tuesday, 14.6 million Democrats cast ballots compared to only 9 million Republicans. But is a particular candidate causing the surge?

Many believe the boost is due to Hillary Clinton being the first woman candidate and Barack Obama’s appeal among young voters, African-Americans and independents. But which one of those four groups--blacks, women, younger voters, or independents--has witnessed the largest surge in primary turnout this year compared to 2004?

The answer: young people and women account for more of the surge in Democratic turnout than blacks and independents. University of Wisconsin political scientist Tom Holbrook provides some fascinating data comparing the four groups. He analyzes turnout among blacks, women, 18-29 year olds, and independents in 18 states with available exit poll data for 2004 and 2008 Democratic primaries. He compares the share of the overall electorate each group represented in 2004 and then reports how that changed in 2008.

Here is what he finds. Compared to 2004, the share of the overall vote represented by 18-29 year olds rose by a little over 4 percent, women surged just under 4 percent, blacks increased a little over 2 percent of the total, and independents stayed virtually the same. In other words, young people and women grew the most in their share of the Democratic electorate in 2008 primaries, blacks increased at a little lower rate, and independents stayed about the same.

So while we can’t say for sure if it's Barack or Hillary, young people and women account for the biggest gains in Democratic turnout in these exit polls in 2008--a trend that could hold big implications for the general election.

A friend tells me that I'm way behind the times, and everyone has already heard about the site Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle. Ben Smith mentioned it at Politico on February 14, so in Internet years (which are like dog years, except much shorter), it's already ancient. Still, I thought I'd call it to your attention.

The site offers a seemingly endless list of things Barack did for you that demonstrate just how swell he is:

Barack Obama held your hand when you were frightened.
Barack Obama thought you could use some chocolate.
Barack Obama folded your laundry.
Barack Obama sang you the happy birthday song on your voicemail.
Barack Obama gave you a puppy.

This is extremely clever. And the fawning over Obama is going to get annoying very quickly. But unfortunately for Senator Clinton, it won't be before next Tuesday.

And speaking of Ms. Clinton, if you visit Hillary Clinton is Your New Bicycle, you get this:

Hillary Clinton cut you off in traffic.
Hillary Clinton drank from your glass.
Hillary Clinton secretly hates your new haircut.
Hillary Clinton left the dishes in the sink.

It's so unfair, isn't it?

It's clear that a McCain/Obama presidential race would call into question some of the principles that we normally take for granted. One is that groups like Public Citizen would line up in lock step behind the Democratic candidate. Not true this year:

“Regardless of how many lobbyists are working on his campaign or raising money for him, John McCain has fought for 14 long, hard years for reforms that seriously limit lobbyists’ power,” Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said in a statement...

Claybrook said McCain has a record of standing up to powerful interests in Washington. “He has fought for campaign finance reform, limits on gifts and travel from lobbyists, and extensive public disclosure of lobbyists’ activities — all of which limit the influence of lobbyists and the companies that hire lobbyists in Washington, D.C.,” she said.

Public Citizen was founded by Ralph Nader in 1971, and has been run since 1982 by Joan Claybrook, a former official in the Carter administration. To say that Public Citizen rarely defends Republicans would be a huge understatement. Just another sign that 2008 will be a different sort of election.

John Podhoretz says the Kaddish for Hillary. It was a bad night for her.

The Contentions gang liveblogged the debate, so plenty more over there. It has gotten harder to watch these things, though, and it doesn't help that the Dems invariably open with 20 minutes of debate on the minute difference between their respective health care plans.

Hillary was outperformed again. She set him up perfectly on Farrakhan--only a Clinton would parse the difference between denouncing and rejecting. The faux outrage she mustered over what she and Tina Fey perceive as unfair treatment came off as pathetic whining (shouldn't she have embraced the other message from SNL?), and then there was the obfuscation on her tax returns, the BS response to how she wasn't able to conjure 5 million jobs out of thin air, etc. etc. Russert didn't make it easy on her, but then she hasn't made things easy on herself either.

The Obama/McCain debates will be a nice change of pace.

From the latest USA Today/Gallup poll:

In a poll taken Thursday through Sunday, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say by 2-1 that Obama has the better chance of beating the Republican in November. Republicans agree: By more than 3-1, they say likely GOP nominee John McCain has a better chance of beating Clinton than Obama.

That's true even though Americans are split, 46%-46%, over whether Obama, a first-term senator, has the experience to be president. In contrast, Clinton is seen as having enough experience by 2-1, McCain by 3-1.

People like Obama's chances, but the poll has them in a dead heat among likely voters. That half the country thinks he doesn't "have the experience to be a good president" is surely one reason. And this came on the same day as the Washington Times reports worries within the military "about Mr. Obama's commander-in-chief qualifications." Lefties were outraged by this "fresh and newly-minted Obama smear," but the military has every reason to worry.

Last week Foreign Policy released a survey of "more than 3,400 active and retired officers at the highest levels of command." The officers were asked about the impact of the surge "on the ultimate achievement of the US military's goals in Iraq." Surely these officers understand securing peace and stability as among the military's ultimate goals, and 88 percent said the strategy had had a positive effect (44 percent very positive, 44 percent somewhat positive).

Obama disagrees, but on what basis? The Iraq war has come to define the military. That he should be so out of step with the institution's leadership on so central an issue is reason enough to doubt his judgment, informed as it is by so little experience and so few qualifications. And those doubts are clearly shared by the public at large.

Segment #9 on the Rush Limbaugh Echo today:

Will John McCain choose Gov Sarah Palin as his VP? Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is the youngest to take that office, suggested as a VP for McCain. Mother of four, she is a 'babe', you have to notice. Her website is jammed up now; thanks to Rush.

Let us assure Rush--we noticed. So would having Palin's name on the ticket be enough to reconcile McCain and Limbaugh? She's only been in office for a year, her state only has three electoral votes, which McCain is almost guaranteed to get despite his stubborn refusal to consider drilling in ANWR, and before her election to governor the highest office she'd held was Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Still, Palin's got pizazz.

Sounds like the rumors of French forces bolstering NATO lines in Afghanistan were true:

France may send hundreds of ground troops to east Afghanistan where NATO-led forces are fighting al Qaeda-backed insurgents, Le Monde newspaper reported on Tuesday.

It said the move would be part of a new Afghan policy being worked out by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisers.

France has about 1,900 soldiers under NATO's Afghan command, most of them based in relatively calm Kabul, and Le Monde said the fresh troops would be deployed outside the capital.

Interesting. Back during the de Gaulle years, France caused an enormous shakeup in NATO by largely removing itself from the alliance. Forty-five years later, the Fifth Republic is on the verge of saving it. In any case, this quote almost had me spitting out my coffee:

"Their destination would be zones of potentially fierce fighting, preferably the eastern region of Afghanistan close to the tribal areas of Pakistan," it said.

I take back almost all of the nasty things I said about France. Almost.

From Daily Tech:

But now, that evidence [of global cooling] has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change every recorded, either up or down.

We've been covering this winter's wicked cold for a while now. Not only has Antarctic sea ice reached record levels over the last few years, much to the chagrin of Al Gore, but Arctic sea ice has made a remarkable comeback from last summer's record melt. It is covering a larger area, and it is 10-20 cm thicker, than in recent years. And there's a reason--it's cold outside.

Of course, it's not a consensus until Laurie David delivers her full report.

Arms Control Wonk reports from Oslo, where he is attending a conference titled "Achieving the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons," organized by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and the Nuclear Threat Initiative:

I heard two new ideas today that I found interesting, not least because they were, well, new.

Anyway, in both cases, the speakers suggested adopting successful ideas from other areas--one on efforts to combat climate change; the other to keep Antarctica for science.

(1) An Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change for nuclear disarmament.

The speaker knew how to play to the crowd, since Norway handed out a Nobel Peace Prize to the the IPCC along with Al Gore this year.

Recall, that the goal of the IPCC is to assess the “latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature” relevant to the challenge of climate change. Just replace “climate change” with “nuclear disarmament.”

Can you imagine? A proliferation of the IPCC...I say worse than loose nukes.

As regular readers know, the Senate has passed an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by a bipartisan vote of 68-29. The legislation is critical to ensuring that our intelligence agencies can listen to foreign terrorists abroad as they communicate with other foreign terrorists abroad, and without having to resort to a court order. The practical effect of the expiration of FISA surveillance authority?

The House's lack of action meant that at midnight on Feb. 16, the nation's terrorist surveillance law expired. At that moment, intelligence officials who spend their days listening in on phone calls between terrorists overseas were legally barred from following new leads without first following outdated and cumbersome warrant procedures — even if neither caller is calling from within the U.S.

The consequences of inaction are real. Today, if someone in a previously unknown terror cell calls an eager new recruit in London, our agents will have to hang up the phone, apply for a warrant and hope for the best.

Considering that there is a bipartisan majority in the House in support of the measure, one might have expected a vote of support when House Republicans attempted to force a vote on the Senate bill today. One would be wrong, as the House Democratic leadership whipped its Members into line to block a vote.

So to sum it up: the Democratic leadership threw its weight around to block a bipartisan majority from getting a vote on a bill they supported to allow surveillance of foreign terrorists.

Who says Democrats aren't credible on national security?

Above the Law figures just how much an Obama presidency will cost you (that is, if you are making over $164,000):

The effect is enormous. Betsy’s marginal tax rate goes up from an already ridiculous 42.5% to 51.4%—not including the new 6.2% marginal tax on your employer. Subject to how she structures her withholding, Betsy’s take home pay drops an average of $515 a paycheck—less in the early months of the year, but much more in the later months of the year. Add in the effects on her bonus, and Betsy loses nearly $20,000/year in take-home pay.

I added a third column: how big a pay cut would you have to take to receive the same take-home income? The answer is that Obama’s tax increases have a bigger effect on your income than a law firm cutting New York salaries by $34,000.

How does this effect me, you ask? Because I know one day the boss will see my true value to this company and offer me that $160k salary. I figure some time during Michelle Obama's second term.

Senator Lieberman on the floor of the Senate today:

Mr. President, it's been only a year since General David Petraeus arrived in Baghdad and took command of American forces in Iraq. But in these brief 12 months, he and the American Coalition troops under his command have brought about a tectonic shift in Iraq that has altered the course of the war there, and with the future of at least two great nations--Iraq and the United States of America--and the lives of hundreds of millions of people in those two nations and so many others threatened by violent jihadist terrorists in the Middle East and beyond.

Mr. President, when the surge first began a year ago, many doubted that the violence then raging in Iraq could be brought under control. Even as American troops began implementing this bold new counterinsurgency strategy, some opponents of the war inside and outside of Congress declared that the war in Iraq was already lost, that the surge had already been tried and failed, and that it mattered more, frankly, that we get out of Iraq than that we succeed in Iraq. They could not have been more wrong.

He goes on to say that al Qaeda is facing a humiliating defeat, and that "rather than admit the possibility that they [antiwar groups] had been wrong," they have shifted the debate to political reconciliation. And yet progress is now being made on that front as well, he says. He also called the Democrats out for hypocrisy--pointing out that they are trying to impose the very kind of national caveats on our troops in Iraq that we are trying to convince our European allies to lift from their troops in Afghanistan. And he did a riff on the Obama "just words" clause--citing JFK, Truman, and Roosevelt’s calls to defend freedom abroad. Go Joe!

More moderate Democrats are increasingly adjusting to the reality that the Iraq surge has been a military success, and that it is starting to create conditions for workable political compromise in Baghdad as well as Iraq’s provinces--see, for example, the air of desperation that has seized the hard-core anti-war crowd. Yet today’s Washington Post carries an op-ed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta clearly intended to intimidate Democratic candidates into sticking to their withdrawal pledges no matter what happens in Iraq. The article’s headline, "A War We Must End," is a hint of the pay-no-attention-to-the-facts nature of the argument.

And while Podesta has enlisted his Center for American Progress colleague Larry Korb and Ray Takeyh, an expert on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations, it’s about as obvious as a hand grenade in a bowl of oatmeal--to quote the eminent philosopher Foghorn Leghorn--that the op-ed is little more than a political threat. "There is unease among the party’s base," the three write, that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton might keep an open mind about the situation in Iraq, and that, should they be elected president, they might make a judgment based on the conditions of 2009 rather than 2006. They go on to say that the "concern" of "ardent activists" on the party’s left wing itself "demonstrates the necessity" of "ending a controversial war." That is, a Democratic president must put promises to MoveOn.org above the interests of the nation. This is a level of subtlety Tony Soprano might appreciate.

But there are aspects of the op-ed that are even more unsettling. To try to inoculate a Democratic president who sticks to the withdrawal-at-all-costs pledge from a stab-in-the back Republican "narrative," the Podesta Gang claims that Iraq will be lost--indeed, is already lost--in Baghdad, not Washington. Once again the left can only see Iraq as a replay of Vietnam: that "war was lost in Southeast Asia, not in the halls of Congress," they claim, but casting David Petraeus in the role of William Westmoreland will not work. And the attempt to do so only makes the stab-in-the-back narrative more credible, and threatens to exacerbate civil-military tensions.

No one can say with certainty what Iraq will look like a year from now; the fight there has indeed been a long, hard slog and even the most optimistic assessment would grant that there’s more slogging ahead. The next president may well come to the judgment that the gain is not worth the pain. But that would be a momentous decision based on something more than fear of "ardent activists" for whom an American defeat is an act of self-fulfillment.

She says 'yes,' she would consider running for national office, though she calls it an "impossibility this go around." Of course, that's precisely what Obama said in 2004. And with all due respect to Chris Cillizza, isn't the case for Palin stronger if Obama wins the nomination?

HT: Captain Ed

Things are looking ever worse for Hillary. A new USA Today/Gallup poll gives Obama a national double-digit lead, 51-39 percent, over Hillary. The outlook for next week's Texas and Ohio primaries is not good either: While Hillary still has the lead in Ohio, Obama is now ahead in Texas.

But Hillary is fighting back, the New York Times reports today:

After struggling for months to dent Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy, the campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now unleashing what one Clinton aide called a 'kitchen sink' fusillade against Mr. Obama, pursuing five lines of attack since Saturday in hopes of stopping his political momentum...

After denouncing Mr. Obama over the weekend for an anti-Clinton flier about the Nafta trade treaty, and then sarcastically portraying his message of hope Sunday as naïve, Mrs. Clinton delivered a blistering speech on Monday that compared Mr. Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience to that of the candidate George W. Bush.

Other attacks include criticizing "Obama on Monday for not distancing himself from outside groups running advertisements that promote his candidacy" and for his reaction to the photo of him in traditional Somali clothing.

Bloggers agree that this tactic isn't likely to work very well for Mrs. Clinton.

Tom Bevan at the Real Clear Politics blog explains: "[T]he Clinton campaign's biggest sin this cycle was buying into their own hype of inevitability early on and underestimating Barack Obama. They didn't attack him when they should have because they felt they didn't need to. Big mistake."

Allahpundit adds, "She can’t club Bambi now or else she’ll look desperate, but she couldn’t club Bambi last year when she was ahead or else she would have looked mean and … Hillary-ish."

Some bloggers remind us that "going negative" hasn't worked for Hillary in the past, either. Captain Ed says her demise began "when her campaign started discussing his kindergarten essays as evidence of his supposedly overweening ambition. Until then, she ruled the polls." And lefty blogger Kyle Moore at Comments From Left Field agrees: "From South Carolina to Wisconsin, going negative for Hillary has proven to be a technique that only backfires and blows up in her own face."

Attacks aside, Jules Crittenden remarks that this "kitchen sink" metaphor is kind of weird: "Never mind the mixing of domestic and martial metaphors, it’s awkward choice of words for someone engaged in 1960s feminism’s last stand."

From National Review: Lessons on the Long War, by Pete Hegseth.

From Time: Obama on Israel.

From the Middle East Journal: Guns in the Desert, by Michael J. Totten.

From the Wall Street Journal: Obama and the Power of Words, by Stephen F. Hayes.

From the New York Times: The Real McCain, by David Brooks.

A letter from Major General Robert H. Scales (Ret.):

Stuart Koehl’s piece "Fighting for the Army’s Soul" if left unanswered may cause harm to those of us who can claim to have an Army soul and who are deeply offended by his ill informed and cruel indictment of the Army officer corps.

Readers of defense literature know that I’m not an apologist for the Army. Over the past five years I’ve been very critical of many of the same policies and conditions that Mr. Koehl criticizes. But my criticisms are based on almost four decades of real experience rather than the apparent sole source of Mr. Koehl’s information: the dissatisfied soldier son of a friend who served in Afghanistan.

Koehl claims that the Army’s ills are caused by an excessively high proportion of officers to enlisted men and that the soul of the Army can be saved by cutting that number in half. First, let’s clear the air about proportions of officers. The ratio of officer to enlisted he cites is misleading. A very high percentage of the Army’s officers are not in combat units. Most perform duties unrelated to the Army’s core mission of fighting wars. If you take away the doctors, nurses, lawyers, chaplains, pilots, scientists, technicians, IT professionals, and administrators, the proportion of officer to enlisted in combat units is actually a bit less than in other Western armies.

He suggests that the experiential pyramid is inverted, that a combat experienced junior officer and enlisted force is being led by a group of inexperienced senior officers. Again, if you look at officers in the combat arms you will see that this is not true, that in fact senior officers, at least the ones that I know well from my visits to the combat zone are enormously well credentialed in combat. Many battalion and brigade commanders I’ve met in my travels have not only served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan but have accumulated combat time in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, Panama, Somalia and Desert Storm. If Mr. Koehl thinks the Army’s senior ranks are staying at home he should talk to some of their spouses and children.

Koehl wants to cut the officer corps in half presumably thinking that junior officers will appreciate the subsequent reduction in “chickenshit,” a euphemism for interference in their lives by senior officers who have no other purpose but to harass them. But is that what younger officers really want? After all, in a few years junior officers become senior officers. How would you tell them that their reward for service in Iraq is to be discharged because there are no places for them at the top? Young men and women in the Army are no different from those in other professions. They want some day to lead. They want to spend time with their families. They want to be rewarded for their service. Reducing the Army’s leadership by half would remove any prospect of promotion or hope that they will be able some time in their careers to get off the deadly treadmill of repeated deployments.

But they still can't have it:

Australia could be trusted with the United States' Lockheed F-22 Raptor fighter, US defence secretary Robert Gates says.

Currently an Act of the US Congress bars any foreign sales of the Raptor.

The aircraft is the US Air Force's most advanced fighter and its sale is prohibited to any foreign country, under a 1998 amendment to a budget bill moved by Wisconsin Democrat Congressman Dave Obey.

The production line will remain open until 2009, allowing for the next President to decide if we'll continue manufacturing the birds. If it's McCain, sympathetic ears may be willing to hear the Air Force out. Obama or HRC, maybe not. But the Raptor's current mission is as much about winning a war with China as it is about preventing one. In that sense, it's in our best interest to equip trustworthy Pacific rim allies with the world's most advanced fighter. If Australia gets access, so will the Japanese, which could mean as many as 200 allied F-22s in the theater.

The real problem: if the U.S. starts selling F-22s in the Pacific, it will come at the expense of the Joint Strike Fighter.

The Senate is preparing to begin a debate on several Democratic proposals to force a withdrawal from Iraq, but in contrast to last year -- when Democrats were eager to vote on Iraq over and over -- there is little enthusiasm for a fight:

Democrats privately said Reid was not enthusiastic about resuming the debate on Iraq at this point — he had hoped to put that fight off until the supplemental spending measure comes up later this spring. But Reid, who has become increasingly outspoken against the war, agreed to allow the votes in part because GOP opposition would likely defeat them, limiting the amount of time the Senate would debate the issue...

Republican Senators are aiming to put Democrats in the uncomfortable position of having to cast votes on a measure that links war funding to a scaling down of operations in Iraq. The proposal mirrors similar legislation that failed last year.

As one Republican aide put it: “It’s not as great a vote for them as it once was.”...

“This provides us with an opportunity to talk about the political progress and military progress we’ve seen in Iraq and [allow for a] demonstration of the remarkable split within the Democrat Congress,” said a Republican leadership aide.

Just a year ago, Congressional Democrats couldn't schedule enough votes on Iraq. They wanted to take every opportunity they could to tie Republicans to the president's policy. Now suddenly, they're shying away from a debate that splits their conference. The reason, of course, is the success of the surge -- which has taken away the salience of Iraq as an issue. Voters don't want to see Congress waste its time on Iraq when there are many more pressing issues that need attention.

What does this mean for the general election? Well, if Democrats seek to make Iraq a central point of debate, they better be prepared for Republicans to use it against them. Voters are unlikely to reward politicians for wasting time on the past.

In a very smart piece in today's New York Observer on Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, Steve Kornacki writes:

In the ’76 primaries, Carter’s Democratic foes at first ignored his trust theme and then—when it was too late—brayed against it, warning that he’d been maddeningly vague about what he’d actually do as president. Hillary Clinton’s warnings about Obama, it appears, have been just as tardy and futile.

But the ’76 example tells us that criticisms that don’t stick during the primary season can still work in the general election. Day after day in fall campaign, the Ford forces pounded away at the experience question and painted Carter as a political illusion, an affable-seeming politician who was terrified of expressing his opinion on any controversial topic.

This strikes me as mostly right. One quibble: I don't think Hillary Clinton's warnings about Obama have been tardy. She's been using the actions-not-words argument for months. It simply hasn't worked, in part because there are few major policy differences between the two candidates. Absent those contrasts, likeability becomes an even bigger factor than it usually is. Is anyone surprised that Hillary Clinton isn't winning a likeability contest?

It's easy to forget just how daunting the reelection prospects looked for Gerald Ford at the end of the summer. Here is how Robert Novak and Rowland Evans summed it up at the time in their widely-read newsletter: "The Republican ticket of President Gerald Ford and Sen. Bob Dole comes out of this cheerless GOP National Convention (with only 75 days until Election Day) even further behind the Democratic ticket of ex-Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter and Sen. Walter Mondale than Sen. George McGovern was behind President Richard M. Nixon at this stage in 1972. Although this huge gap is bound to narrow by November 2nd, it must be pointed out that no candidate in modern memory has ever close this large a margin."

Ford lost by two percentage points -- 50 to 48 -- and probably would not have gotten that close if he had relied on the advice of experienced political professionals, many of whom believed that he had no shot. Ford's team was led by then White House chief of staff Dick Cheney, 35, and was young and relatively inexperienced. Their plan was simple: Make the race about Jimmy Carter, not Gerald Ford. On the heels of a long and controversial war, with a shaky economy, Ford's advisers wanted voters to focus on whether Carter was really ready to be president. The more they asked the question, the less certain voters became. (The one famous hiccup came when in a debate when Ford told Max Frankel of the New York Times that "there is not Soviet domination of eastern Europe, and there never will be under the Ford Administration." Ford stubbornly refused to correct this laughable assertion for days and the contrast with Carter that he hoped to demonstrate was considerably less sharp.)

McCain will have to make the race about Obama and his readiness to be president, but it won't be enough for McCain to suggest this by assailing his hopeful rhetoric and hinting that he's a lightweight. Hillary Clinton has done that for months and she is on the verge of losing. McCain's advantage is that he can offer major policy differences that Hillary Clinton could not. Even on health care, which has taken up an inordinate about of time in their one-on-one debates, the differences are relatively minor. (If Obama's plan is marginally more market-friendly, it's because he wants to make it more politically acceptable. He has repeatedly said that he wants to end up with a government-run health care system not unlike hers.)

Another comparison, Obama as Reagan.

The conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel, defended his orchestra's commie concerto in the Wall Street Journal last week:

I have always believed that the arts, per se, and their exponents, artists, have a broader role to play in the public arena. But it must be totally apolitical, nonpartisan and free of issue-specific agendas. It is a role of the highest possible order: bringing peoples and their cultures together on common ground, where the roots of peaceful interchange can imperceptibly but irrevocably take hold. If all goes well, the presence of the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang might gently influence the perception of our country there.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Maazel intended to improve the perception of Americans in North Korea and keep his political opinions to himself. No such luck. The maestro spoke to reporters in Los Angeles just before his departure:

Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel caused more controversy with remarks suggesting that the United States shouldn't criticize North Korea's human rights record because of its own treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks, should they? Is our standing as a country -- the United States -- is our reputation all that clean when it comes to prisoners and the way they are treated?"

Political, partisan, and issue-specific. He's just on the other side.

HT: FP Passport

Mike Goldfarb is right that Tom Ridge will be among those John McCain's seriously considers as his runningmate. As Goldfarb notes, Ridge is from the electorally important state of Pennsylvania. McCain not only respects him, but he considers him a friend, and he was happy to have Ridge with him for a spell on the road during the primaries.

But there are other reasons Ridge would be a surprising choice. The fact that both would be perceived to have strong national security credentials would argue against a McCain-Ridge ticket. In some ways, they're too much alike, especially if one of McCain's biggest assets is his biography. In an interview back in November 2006, McCain told me that he thought it important to pick someone who would bring expertise in areas where McCain's knowledge might not be as strong. Maybe Ridge does this in some areas. But the fact that he served as George W. Bush's first Homeland Security director will create a perception that he, too, brings national security credentials first.

More important, perhaps, is McCain's view that the Republican Party is a pro-life party. During a discussion about Michael Bloomberg on McCain's campaign plane last month, a reporter casually suggested that Bloomberg might make a good runningmate. McCain, who otherwise had nice things to say about the New York City mayor, was skeptical and gave one reason: abortion.

"I don't know how you could nominate a pro-choice VP without a real backlash from the party," he said. McCain explained that a pro-choice vice presidential nominee would be problematic because the candidate would be at odds with a "fundamental" principle of the Republican party. McCain didn't rule out picking a pro-choice runningmate, but he came close. His comments suggest that the issue would be an important one.

A good way to measure how far apart the Americans (particularly the current administration) and the Europeans are these days is by reading Helmut Schmidt’s “twelve questions for the candidates” in the current Atlantic Times. The former German chancellor simply wants to know where the contenders stand on issues like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and the environment. Schmidt rightly calls some of the candidates’ positions “nebulous” and predictably so during an election year.

But then there are those few questions posed in such a way that we know precisely where Schmidt and his cohorts stand. Here are a few:

“Since a quarter of the world’s states are Islamic, would you fight for religious and cultural tolerance and work against a clash of civilizations with Islam?” I guess Schmidt never met Karen Hughes. But seriously, I hope Herr Kanzler isn’t suggesting allowing sharia law to be practiced on German soil. Is he?

“Do you agree that, besides the Middle East, ‘Russia is the other great challenge for global security’ (Zbigniew Brzezinski)? Or do you share our view that, since Gorbachev, Russia has never violated its borders militarily and is acting more peacefully now than at any time in its Tsarist and Communist history?” Our view? That must mean not only Schmidt but Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder. As for “acting more peacefully now than at any time in its Tsarist and Communist history,” well, that would be pretty hard to top.

“Do you accept the global political and economic role of China? Will you finally invite China to the G-8 and other global summits?” Indeed, doing so will encourage a liberalization of China’s markets leading to greater economic freedom leading to greater political freedom. But this has already been achieved by the Olympics.

I listened to this bit on NPR yesterday about the New York Philharmonic's trip to North Korea. It featured Zarin Mehta, the orchestra's president and executive director. He says:

I think it's going to mean a lot...our board has supported it, our musicians have supported it, I would say that 95 percent of opinion in New York and in American and around the world has supported it. Yes, there are a few people who think that we shouldn't have dialogue. I don't happen to believe that one shouldn't have dialogue in any circumstances.

He's like the Michael Barone of classical music. Count us among that 5 percent that thinks there isn't much to be gained from the country's most famous orchestra serenading Kim Jong-Il. And one wonders what, precisely, is the percentage of North Koreans who support the visit according to Mr. Mehta's polling? Between scrounging for tree bark to eat and trying to avoid being sent to slave labor camps, one might imagine that support is something less than 95 percent. That is unless an agent of the North Korean government is standing around when you ask, in which case I suspect support for the visit would be a whopping 100 percent.

I've heard from two different sources that Tom Ridge is at or near the top of the list to be VP.

This would not come entirely out of the blue, if it's true. McCain mentions Ridge frequently on the trail, and tactically it makes a lot of sense. Ridge was an extremely popular governor in Pennsylvania, and was widely believe to have been on the short list for the VP job in 2000. Also, Ridge is a combat veteran, like McCain. It would set up a strong contrast with a Democratic ticket that may not boast a veteran let alone a war hero.

I still think Fred Thompson makes the most sense, and regular readers will know well of this blog's fondness for Sarah Palin, but the rumor mill says Ridge.

In recent years, interest in religion and politics has spread like converts at a revival. Electoral analysts have long dissected the voting patterns of various belief groups, such as Protestants, Catholics and Jews. And at the end of the 20th century, the growing mobilization of the Christian right, represented by groups like the Moral Majority, also captured a lot of media and popular attention. But after the strong showing by President Bush among religious conservatives in 2000 and 2004, and the focus on so-called “values voters,” attention to how each party tried to attract the pious peaked again.

In 2006, Democrats embarked on a crusade to evangelize religiously-oriented Americans. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now regularly include scripture verses in their justifications for more spending and higher taxes. For their part, Republicans are trying to cling to these voters and keep them inside the party tent.

With this background in mind, it’s interesting that the most religious voters in 2008 don’t find a great deal of redemption in either party’s frontrunner. Frank Newport of the Gallup organization recently offered some analysis that underscores this point. In a recent post on his blog, Newport demonstrates that the most religious Democrats (those who attend church weekly) support Senator Clinton over Senator Obama 46 percent to 43 percent. Yet as Newport points out, these numbers are confounded because blacks support Obama by such overwhelming margins and attend church more regularly than white Democrats. Among the white, highly religious Democrats, Clinton leads by a lopsided 57 percent to 29 percent.

A similar pattern exists on the Republican side. In last week’s Wisconsin primary, while Senator McCain won handily among most voter groups, according to the CNN exit polling, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee prevailed among those who attend church more than once a week by a whopping 67 percent to 27 percent. A similar pattern emerged in the Maryland and Virginia contests the week before. Newport notes that Senator McCain leads nationally among those who attend church weekly, but by a much narrower margin than among less religiously-oriented Republicans. According to Newport, “In tracking over the weekend, to be sure, McCain wins over Huckabee among this group of highly religious Republicans, but by only about 10 points. McCain’s lead zooms to 40 and 50 points among Republicans who attend church less frequently.”

Religious voters will play a key role in deciding the next occupant of the White House, but for now it appears both party frontrunners need to do a better job proselytizing regular church goers to win these voters’ affections.

Who would have thought this, based on the current political debate?

Thirty-four percent (34%) of all voters say they will definitely vote for John McCain if he is on the ballot this November. Thirty-three percent (33%) will definitely vote against him while 29% say their support hinges on who his opponent is.

Barack Obama has the same number who will definitely vote for him--34%. But, more people are committed to voting against him than McCain. Forty-three percent (43%) say they will definitely reject him at the ballot box. For 18%, their support depends on his opponent.

For Hillary Clinton, 32% will definitely vote for her if she is on the ballot and 46% will definitely vote against. Core opposition to Clinton, the best-known of the candidates as the long campaign season began, hovered in the high 40s through most of the past year.

In other words, to the extent that poll respondents can be believed (and there's definitely a limit to that), a total of 52 percent of the electorate is either committed to Obama or can be swayed to back him. For McCain, that number is a whopping 63 percent! In other words, Barack Obama -- the fresh and exciting embodiment of a new and bipartisan approach to politics -- is almost as polarizing as Hillary Clinton. It's John McCain who has a strong base of support and a great opportunity to bring a broad swath of undecided Americans to back him.

From the New York Times: It's All About Him, by the boss.

From the Wall Street Journal: ElBaradei's Real Agenda, by Danielle Pletka and Michael Rubin.

From Powerline: Kissinger on Islamic Terrorism, by John Hinderaker.

From National Review: McCain's Veep Problem, by Byron York.

From the Long War Journal: Iraq: Reconciliation via Wealth Distribution, by Bill Ardolino.

Bonus Audio: Interview with Petraeus, from Military.com.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 04:14 PM
Required Reading | E-mail the author | E-mail article

Andy McCarthy has an outstanding deconstruction of the political grandstanding that resulted in this piece from top Democrats involved in intelligence and judiciary oversight. McCarthy points out that Jay Rockefeller, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, not long ago had the opposite view of the one he put forward in today's Washington Post.

The op-ed marks a dramatic shift for Rockefeller. The West Virginia Democrat championed the Senate bill, which was voted out of his committee by a 13-2 landslide. As recently as February 14, he was quite candid in acknowledging that the consequence of allowing the Protect America Act (PAA) to lapse, as it did a little over a week ago when House Democrats refused to act, would be “degraded” intelligence-collection capacity.

Now, however, with his fellow Democrats getting hammered as unserious about protecting American lives, it’s evidently time to close ranks. Rockefeller has suddenly joined the “Everything Is Beautiful” chorus that claims the sun’s setting on the PAA is really no big deal since any security gaps can still be filled by FISA — the ill-conceived, obsolete Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.

Rockefeller does this regularly. He did it on Iraq, and on surveillance. Yet he somehow manages to escape the kind of truth-squadding regularly visited on the Bush administration and others who hold more (consistently) hawkish views.

On surveillance, Rockefeller was one of a select group of congressional leaders notified about the National Security Agency's "Terrorist Surveillance Program," shortly after that program started. When the program was exposed in the New York Times back in December 2005, Rockefeller's office quickly released a handwritten letter he wrote to Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003. Rockefeller introduced the letter by claiming he was writing to "reiterate" concerns he had about the program. But those familiar with the briefings on TSP say Rockefeller had never before expressed any reservations.

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert recalled one briefing in which then-NSA Director Michael Hayden described the program and spoke of its benefits. Haster said that Cheney spoke next. "I remember him specifically saying, 'OK, we need your understanding to go forward. Does anybody have any objection? Do we need to do anything legislatively? It was a question Cheney asked. And everybody agreed: No, we don't need to do this in legislation. We need to let our intelligence go forward and do what they're doing. So he laid it out very specifically to everybody. I remember everybody was present at the time."

Another participant in those meetings put it this way: "It was [the Democrats'] unanimous recommendation that we continue the program and that we not seek legislative authorization. Jay Rockefeller was sitting at the table."

Senator Pat Roberts, who was then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said when the program was exposed that Rockefeller's opposition to it was something quite new. "On many occasions, Senator Rockefeller express to the vice president his vocal support for the program; his most recent expression of support was only two weeks ago."

On Iraq, Rockefeller's screeching u-turn came in public. Before the war, he spoke of the "unmistakable evidence" that Saddam Hussein was "working aggressively" on nuclear weapons and described the grave threat posed by Iraq's "existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities." After the war, Rockefeller went after the Bush Administration as "fundamentally misleading" for saying the exact same things.

In fact, Rockefeller went further than the Bush administration, calling the threat from Iraq "imminent."

There has been some debate over how "imminent" a threat Iraq poses. I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. It is in the nature of these weapons, and the way they are targeted against civilian populations, that documented capability and demonstrated intent may be the only warning we get.

And though Rockefeller voted in favor of the war, he said later that he did so based on inadequate intelligence. But before the war, he said he had all of the information he needed:

To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? We cannot!

So Rockefeller's latest reversal is part of a long pattern. He supports aggressive national security measures until they are politically unpopular. And yet he has the audacity to claim, as he did once again in today's op-ed, that it is the White House and Republicans who are playing "political games?"

Lorne Gunter of Canada's National Post says we should 'forget about global warming.' He compiles some interesting data, and suggests that the world may be headed for a new ice age:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them...

...Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

Gunter ought to stop making fun of global warming. Doesn't he know there's a consensus?

Besides. All this simply demonstrates that awesome power of man-made global warming. We knew it could cause high temperatures, droughts, and desert expansion, so how long until cold waves are blamed on global warming? Answer, not long: "Cold wave in India attributed to global warming."

This weekend, Ralph Nader announced on Meet the Press that he will run for president for the fifth time, as the Green party candidate. Nader was never much of a threat to candidates in past elections, and while bloggers agree that he has no chance of winning, they disagree about how his run will affect the race.

If Nader's run affects the race at all, bloggers say, it will hurt the Democrats. Abe Greenwald at Contentions says, "The Democrats’ change mantra, pacifist imaginings, demand for universal healthcare, anti-lobbyist fervor, environmental hysteria, and young voter turnout all spell good news for Nader...If Nader’s 2.7 percent of the national vote was enough to douse Al Gore in 2000, things could get interesting." Joe Gandelman at the Moderate Voice says that although Nader faces a different political landscape this year, "the most he will gain in 2008 would indeed be siphoning-off Democratic votes if it’s a razor-thin-victory-margin election."

And it seems that Nader would hurt Hillary more than Obama. Captain Ed tells us that while Nader "took more than the gap between George Bush and Al Gore in Florida" in 2000, "the Naderites of 2000 have aligned themselves enthusiastically with Barack Obama. Having Nader attack him from the Left won't hurt Obama's prospects in the middle." Allahpundit adds, "Nader won’t do a lick of damage to Obama, who’s liberal enough to please all but the greenest greens and charismatic enough to make Nader seem decrepit by comparison. He’d be dangerous for Hillary, though." Evidence? Shortly after his announcement, the Politico reported that Hillary "slammed" Nader, calling his run "a passing fancy." Obama, meanwhile, is "not concerned," the WSJ Washington Wire reported.

Still, other bloggers say his run is meaningless. John Hinderaker doesn't buy that Nader could help Republicans. He does the vote math and concludes, "many things could happen between now and November to tilt the landscape in the Republicans' favor. But Ralph Nader's candidacy is far down on the list." Lefty bloggers like Pat Paulsen at American Prospect's Tapped say his bid is a farce, and the Atlantic's James Fallows--who knows Nader personally and likes and respects him--says, "it suggests detachment from political reality...and, worse, narcissism. The fact that it won't make any difference in the outcome actually is sad." But you have to wonder: Are Democrats just a little bit worried?

The conventional wisdom is that the Democratic race is largely over. And indeed, it may be. But it's stunning to see the attempts among the Hillary faithful to tear down the Democratic frontrunner before the critical votes in Texas and Ohio. Interestingly, it seems that the Clinton team essentially has no qualms with Barack, they just fear what will happen to him when he gets exposed to the GOP attack machine. They list elements of Barack's history, and register little or no concern about the substance. They just worry what will happen once Obama meets the attacks of the GOP machine. Typical is this piece from the Huffington Post:

If you think for a minute that the Republican party -- who used Willie Horton on Michael Dukakis to devastating effect, who portrayed triple amputee and veteran Max Cleland as a bosom buddy of Osama Bin Laden, and convinced many voters that decorated combat veteran John Kerry was a fraud -- will give Obama a pass come the fall then you are in serious denial...

One of the tidbits on Obama's resume with which HuffPo has no problem? Recent ties to terrorists and PLO allies:

No, we are talking about William Ayers hosting a fundraiser for Barack Obama and actively working with him to secure Barack's first electoral victory in Illinois. But wait, there is more. Barack and Ayers also served on the board of the Woods Fund. And they worked together to give money to some other folks, including a group with ties to the PLO.

What makes Ayers so toxic is his own written record equating U.S. Marines with terrorists. Look at the beating that John Kerry took for tossing his medals over the White House fence. Ayers did not toss medals, he threw bombs. Real ones. Bombs that exploded.

Do you think that Republicans will ignore Obama's ties to Ayers? The two were serving on the same board in 2002. We are talking less than six years ago and the record will come out showing some questionable grants by these two characters. William Ayers, in the age of terrorism, will be Barack Obama's Willie Horton.

(While HuffPo doesn't link it, the reference to funds for PLO allies is apparently from this article at World Net Daily.)

Are the Huffington Post and other Clinton fans really unconcerned that the Democratic party may be on the verge of nominating a corrupt career politician from Chicago, who happens to have ties to domestic and international terrorism? One would think this might be a problem in and of itself, not just something to empower illegitimate attacks from the opposition.

Note: Taylor Marsh provides a roadmap for the anticipated Republican attacks. She says however, that 'it may not be right' to dredge up Obama's history -- but Republicans are sure to do it. (Guess that separates them from the Clinton backers who are writing these pieces.)

Does Afghanistan have enough combat troops to secure the country? Can Afghanistan be fixed merely by adding troops to conduct humanitarian missions? The Washington Post's William M. Arkin says yes to both questions. In an article titled "Afghanistan: America Wrong, Europe Right," he argues the "hesitant Europeans" are right in withholding combat forces in Afghanistan, because more reconstruction is needed, not more troops. Arkin sums up his argument in a brief paragraph:

Jump on the bandwagon if you like. I'm sure all three presidential candidates could happily articulate some version of Gates' lament on Afghanistan as diversion therapy. But the truth is that hesitant Europeans are right. More firepower isn't going to "win" the war in Afghanistan. It's not just because of the Pakistan back door, or because special operations and airpower -- not more boots on the ground -- are the keys to success. It's because what is really needed in the country is more non-military operations. In other words, hooray for the reluctant shooters.

Arkin's belief that combat troops are not needed in Afghanistan displays a woeful ignorance about the situation on the ground. Several of the arguments used by those opposed to the Iraq war to criticize the Bush administration and the military strategy there actually apply much better to Afghanistan. The primary criticism that applies here is force strength: there are too few troops on the ground to hold territory after it has been liberated from the Taliban, particularly in the south. Combat troops, and not provincial reconstruction teams, are needed to help hold ground to allow the PRTs do their work.

I embedded with the Canadian Army in Afghanistan in June of 2006 during the massive operation call Mountain Thrust, which was designed to clear Taliban forces from their strongholds in Kandahar, Uruzgan, and Helmand provinces. These operations were successful in killing over a thousand Taliban fighters and driving them from their redoubts, but only temporarily. There were not enough Afghan, Canadian, British, U.S., Dutch, and Danish forces to consolidate the successes. NATO and Afghan forces were forced to fight over the same territory during 2007.

If Arkin believes more reconstruction troops and less trigger pullers are needed, does he believe the NATO allies such as France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, who have failed to deploy to the hot regions in the east, southeast, and south, would happily deploy non-combat troops into these dangerous regions? These countries are reluctant to deploy more troops in the north, let alone take on a more risky mission in the south.

Arkin’s view contradicts everything learned over the past seven years of fighting small wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Security has to come first, then reconstruction.

One other note, Arkin wrongly lumps all of the NATO force under the "European" umbrella, thus making this a USA vs. Europe issue. It isn't. Arkin fails to note that several NATO allies have also called for an increase in combat forces. The deputy commander of the Canadian battle group called for a doubling of combat forces in Kandahar just last weekend. The Canadian and Dutch governments have been under enormous political pressure from their citizens as these countries have shouldered an inordinate amount of the fighting while larger allies shun combat for cushy peacekeeping gigs in the north.

In a conference call with reporters this morning, Barack Obama foreign policy adviser Richard Danzig admitted that the campaign did not know the backstory of the Obama photo allegedly circulated by Hillary Clinton's campaign. That lack of knowledge did not keep the campaign from denouncing it as "offensive" and "fear-mongering."

Said Danzig, in response to a question about the emailed photo's provenance: "I'm afraid we're not terribly well informed about it."

This is deeply revealing. Given a chance to position its candidate as the victim of a smear, the Obama campaign didn't even wait to find out if its candidate was, in fact, the victim of a smear. As we noted here, this is a problem for the McCain campaign.

On the other hand, Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams issued an odd statement in response to the flap, one that did not include a denial of claims that the campaign "circulated" the email.

Enough.

If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.

This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.

We will not be distracted.

Even if she's right that this is an attempt to create "diversions," it is odd that Williams didn't deny the basic thrust of the story. Who was "circulating" the email? Did the Clinton campaign send it to reporters?

Ben Smith has the goods on all of this -- go there and keep scrolling.

I wrote a few weeks ago that Mike Huckabee ought to strongly consider a Senate bid in Arkansas. The idea is gathering steam. David Freddoso wrote in support of the idea yesterday (noting -- correctly -- that 'there is no clearer path for him' to be elected president). Phil Kerpen plugs the idea today. Bob Novak recently wrote that Huckabee's strong standing among conservatives would be 'threatened' if he continues to refuse to run against Pryor.

Kerpen points out that while Huckabee was opposed by fiscal conservatives in the presidential race, he would likely earn their strong support against Pryor. As the Policy Director for Americans for Prosperity, Kerpen's view on the issues carries much weight.

But that's not the only opening for Huckabee -- Pryor also has a mixed record on abortion (with a rating of zero in this Congress), according to the National Right to Life Committee, giving Huckabee a strong opening among social conservatives. Similarly, his inconsistent record on business issues has earned him mixed grades from the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Federation of Independent Business.

As far as I'm aware, the last poll testing a Pryor vs. Huckabee race showed a narrow Pryor advantage -- with the incumbent Senator under the critical 50 percent re-elect. That poll was taken last summer -- before Huckabee's presidential bid took off. It would almost certainly be closer today.

This is a great opportunity for Huckabee. Pryor is a vulnerable Democratic incumbent, with no Republican opponent. Huckabee has a national profile, a positive image, and a deep national fundraising base. While his presidential bid split the Republican base, his Senate candidacy could easily unite the factions behind him. A win would give him the opportunity to establish a record on fiscal issues and national security issues that would help him in a future run for president. It would also earn him fans with the Republican establishment, eager to see the Democratic advantage in the Senate minimized or reversed.

Campaign reporters are buzzing this morning about a photo of Barack Obama splashed on the front page of the Drudge Report. Obama is "dressed," as Drudge puts it, in local garb in the photo taken on his trip to Africa in 2006.

Writes Drudge: "With a week to go until the Texas and Ohio primaries, stressed Clinton staffers circulated a photo over the weekend of a 'dressed' Barack Obama." Drudge quotes an email from a "campaign staffer" who wonders: "Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?"

No, we wouldn't. Still, there's little information about the email and how it was "circulated." Was it passed quietly to reporters? That's possible, but doubtful. It seems far more likely that a Clinton campaign staffer sent it to a friend or colleague to complain about the good coverage Obama has gotten. Bad taste? Sure. A dirty trick? No.

But Obama's campaign responded quickly, denouncing the photo and the "fear-mongering" it represents.

"On the very day that Senator Clinton is giving a speech about restoring respect for America in the world, her campaign has engaged in the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election. This is part of a disturbing pattern that led her county chairs to resign in Iowa, her campaign chairman to resign in New Hampshire, and it’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world."

But is it fear-mongering if it was never intended for a public audience? It's not. We'll likely get the bigger story -- and a response from the Clinton campaign -- in short order. And perhaps it will be the case that the photo was "circulated" with the goal of getting it out. In that case, the Clinton campaign will be hit with a full blast of outrage and her candidacy will be over (if it wasn't already).

It is instructive, however, that the Obama campaign did not wait for more details before condemning it as a deliberate smear.

This is one of several reasons why a general election campaign between Obama and John McCain, regarded as practioners of good-government politics, promises to one of the nastiest in recent memory.

Last week China’s ministry of education announced a pilot program that makes Peking opera a component of the music curriculum for grades one through nine. Scheduled to begin in March this year and to last until July 2009, each of the three cities and seven provinces selected for the program will designate 20 local schools to participate.

The repertoire consists of arias from 15 plays, more than half of which are drawn from the so-called revolutionary model operas (geming yangban xi) that dominated the stage and airwaves during the Cultural Revolution.

Revolutionary model operas, or model operas, were the brainchild of Mao Zedong’s late wife Jiang Qing, a one-time actress and infamous member of the disgraced “Gang of Four.” The plays invariably feature proletarian characters fighting heroically against the evil-doers of an oppressive feudal society. They contain melodies with such inspirational titles as “I won't quit the battle until all the beasts are killed.”

During his 1972 visit to China, Richard Nixon was treated to one of the best-known examples of the genre, The Red Detachment of Women. It is a ballet-opera that depicts uniformed women raising swords and rifles against a despotic landlord.

Since the announcement, a heated debate has erupted in Chinese cyberspace over whether Peking opera in general, and revolutionary model plays in particular, should become part of the standard curriculum.

Proponents of the program find the arrangement “highly appropriate.” They note that the syntax of model operas is contemporary and therefore easy for students in the lower grades to learn. One supporter argued that as “la crème de la crème of Chinese culture” Peking opera should be celebrated:

The Chinese people should love our own art. Woe to our nation if our people wear Western clothes, sing Western songs, and reject our own culture.

Opponents of the program countered by asking whether by the same logic preschoolers should be required to study martial arts and the oracle bone script, the earliest form of Chinese writing.

The biggest news of the week was undoubtedly John McCain’s smearing by the New York Times. While the senator may have gotten the best of it so far--even the Times’s public editor, Clark Hoyt, felt the newspaper shouldn’t have published the piece’s most scintillating passages--E.J. Dionne pointed out that the paper’s bumbling was something of a break for McCain, and that this story might not be over yet. "Sex is to journalism what the queen of spades is to a game of hearts, it overwhelms everything," Dionne said on This Week’s roundtable, but he thinks "short term, McCain had a good week because all of these conservatives rallied against the New York Times. I think long term this story hangs around because the core question . . . the sex kind of drove out the legitimate part of the story in the public’s mind, which is, ‘is this Saint John McCain?’"

The Democratic primary rumbles on. New Jersey governor Jon Corzine dodged a question as to whether or not his party’s "super-delegates" will decide the nomination, saying "we’ll see how March 4th comes out. I’m a lot more upbeat about Senator Clinton’s chances in that period. We have a big state in Pennsylvania still to vote." Knowing that those states probably won’t be enough to get his candidate, Hillary Clinton, over the top, Corzine ominously pointed out that his party "still [has] to sort out two very important elements, or states in our system, that is Florida and Michigan. How that ends up being decided, how those votes are taken into consideration."

Why does the Clinton camp need to break the rules and get Florida and Michigan’s delegates seated? Chuck Todd explained on Meet the Press:

"She'd have to do something impossible, which is win [in Texas and Ohio] by some 15 or 20 points. I mean, I sort of crunched some numbers from March 4th to see if she, she can win three of the four states, she could win Texas 52-48, Ohio 52-48, Rhode Island 52-48, lose Vermont, say, 55-45, and she will net all of three delegates in that scenario, because there's a couple things working against her. First of all, this Texas primacaucus, whatever you want to call it, where two-thirds of the delegates are going to be distributed by statewide vote in the state Senate districts and then a third of the delegates are decided later that night in a caucus."

Oh, and Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for president as well, taking up a full segment on Meet the Press to do so. I’ll be curious to see if Tim Russert grants Lyndon LaRouche equal time. The two will have about the same level of impact on the race this year.

Anthony Cordesman opens his op-ed in today's Washington Post:

No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are wars that can still be won. They are also clearly wars that can still be lost, but visits to the battlefield show that these conflicts are very different from the wars being described in American political campaigns and most of the debates outside the United States.

Cordesman is, in fact, far more optimistic about the situation in Iraq, where he says "al-Qaeda is clearly losing in every province," than Afghanistan, where "the Taliban is sharply expanding its support areas as well as its political and economic influence."

Part of the blame for this backsliding in Afghanistan surely rests with our NATO allies, who, with a few notable exceptions, have failed to commit the necessary resources to that fight. But the failure is also one of multilateralism. As we've seen in Iraq over the last year, effective counterinsurgency requires unity of effort and unity of command. Victory in Afghanistan will require more troops, more resources, and a commander like Petraeus who can direct the full weight of Coalition forces where they are needed most. Cordesman concludes:

We either need long-term commitments, effective long-term resources and strategic patience -- or we do not need enemies. We will defeat ourselves [in both wars].

John McCain ought to steal that line for his stump speech.

The truth about Castro:

Cuba features a universal health care system, a minuscule 1.9 percent unemployment rate, near-total literacy, complete political "unity" — and hundreds of thousands of people ready to risk their lives to get the hell out.

A B-2 bomber crashed out at Guam yesterday. Both pilots ejected safely. David Axe puts things into perspective:

[T]here were 21 B-2s. Now there are 20--a roughly 5-percent reduction in an instant. In terms of airframes, that’s the equivalent of 30 F-15s crashing at the same time, or 60 F-16s, or 6 F-22s. In terms of money, that’s equivalent to 20 F-15s, 24 F-16s or 10 F-22s.

Axe then suggests, rather cynically, that the Air Force will milk this for all its worth, using the crash to drum up support in Congress for the service's recapitalization plans. We should hope so. The Air Force currently has 85 B-52s, the last of which was built during the Kennedy administration, 65 B-1s, and now just 20 B-2s. That combined fleet provides plenty of firepower for low-intensity conflicts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, but only the stealth B-2 can penetrate and destroy the kind of integrated defense systems we might face in a war with China--or Iran. The Air Force had initially planned to purchase 132 airframes, but at $1.2 billion a pop, that was never really an option.

Now the Air Force is looking to build a new stealthy bomber 2018, but consensus opinion is deeply skeptical the service will be able to meet that deadline. So in the short-term, this does seem like another reason to invest more money in the only stealthy airplane currently in production, the F-22.

For more on the B-2, check out Robert Kaplan's piece, "The Plane that would Bomb Iran."

In Thusday night's debate, Barack Obama said:

You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon--supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.

And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

First ABC's Jake Tapper talked to the captain to verify his story. He found the captain credible and gave the all clear, despite the fact that the captain told him that there was no ammunition shortage in Afghanistan. NBC also spoke with the captain, but they weren't quite so quick to declare the case open and shut:

The captain told NBC News that he was talking about not having enough ammunition and no Humvees for training, but that his unit underwent a three-week crash course in Afghanistan before they saw combat.

The captain, who spoke on background because he's still active duty, said that his unit temporarily had to replace their .50-caliber turret-mounted machine gun with a weapon seized from the Taliban because they couldn't get a needed part fast enough.

Obama had claimed that U.S. forces didn't have ammunition for their fight against the Taliban as a consequence of the war in Iraq. There is no evidence that this is the case. Furthermore, U.S. troops weren't capturing Taliban weapons "because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief." They had a broken gun and they temporarily replaced it with a weapon that had already been captured. Big difference. And you know what...if Obama had misremembered this story because he'd spoken with the captain so long ago, it might not be such a big deal. But Obama had never spoken with the captain. His staff had. And so Obama mangled the story.

As an aside, the only other person who's weighed in to support Obama's claims is Phillip Carter. Talking Points Memo, Andrew Sullivan, and others link to Carter as though he's some kind of authority on the subject. He may be, but he's also "doing some work for the Obama campaign," a fact that Obama's supporters in the blogosphere seem all too happy to ignore.

Update: Carter is on Obama's Veterans Policy Committee. Shouldn't TPM note that when the quote Carter as saying Obama's story is "eminently believable"?

The captain to whom Obama was referring presumably belongs to a battalion of the 10th Mountain Division, which is stationed at Ft. Drum, and as one of the Army's few truly light infantry units, has been deployed more than almost any other formation outside of Special Operations Command. As Jake Tapper reported earlier, the captain was in fact a lieutenant at the time, so he obviously could have been a platoon leader.

But his story isn't quite Obama's story. Obama gives the impression that these guys were about to go to Afghanistan, and then half of his platoon was detached and sent to Iraq instead. The actual story is more prosaic and typical of Army practice in most conflicts, including World War II. Over a period of some months, individuals in his platoon were transferred (not detached) to other units, probably based on immediate operational requirements; e.g., a unit about to deploy to Iraq was short of MOS-11B (Combat Infantryman), and the unit was fleshed out with drafts from other units. Happens all the time, has always happened. In World War II, it was not uncommon for units still in training, or newly arrived in a theater of operation, to be poached for troops to round out another unit about to go into battle.

On going into battle shorthanded--it's normal. If you aren't shorthanded when you hit the ground, you will be shorthanded almost immediately thereafter, as your unit takes casualties or has to detach men for other duties. All rifle squads, platoons and companies in a combat zone are generally short anywhere from 15-25 percent of their TO&E (Table of Organization and Equipment) strength, and will remain so as long as combat intensity remains high and the unit stays in the line. On being pulled out for rest and recuperation, a unit will be fleshed out with replacements, who will receive some hasty orientation and training to augment the training they received beforehand. Then it's back into the line, and the unit will be under strength again. That's why a unit's combat readiness is inversely proportional to its employment: units that never see combat always have their full complement of men and equipment, hence are (on paper) always more ready than units which have been in combat for any substantial period. Does this mean that the unit with the higher readiness is more "combat effective" than the other one? Not necessarily--a combat-proven unit at reduced strength may be much better than a rookie unit at full strength. There's a tipping point, but defining it is a very complex subject.

Regarding the HMMWVs, at the time there was a critical shortage throughout the Army in M1114 Up-Armored HMMWVs due to shortages of armor plate. This would have happened, no matter what the Bush administration had done, simply because there was no surplus capacity to produce armor in the industrial base (we have since been importing armor steel from a number of sources, including Russia and Ukraine). Only having two or three operational vehicles ought to be considered par for the course. So is complaining about it. Using other vehicles to make up the shortfall? Also par for the course. In World War II, our troops, the most lavishly equipped in history, often used captured German transport--along with captured German weapons (for instance, the 88mm Panzerschreck and the disposable Panzerfaust anti-tank rockets were considered much better than the 2.76-inch Bazooka, and were picked up wherever they could be found).

On shortages of weapons and ammunition for training at Ft. Drum, again, this is typical of any army during a surge period. It has happened to our troops in every war. Our troops were, until well into 1942, forced to train with plywood mockups of tanks and dummy rifles. Heavy weapons such as the Mk.19 Automatic Grenade Launcher and the M2 Browning .50-cal machine gun are considered support weapons, and while it is nice to be able to train with them, I wouldn't call the inability to do so a crippling disability for an infantry unit. After all, neither one is actually on the TO&E of a rifle platoon.

Mounting a 12.7mm DShK in place of an M2 Browning? Not a particularly smart move, since the Browning has much better ballistics and is more reliable, but hey, with that big muzzle brake on the end, the Dushka really looks cool.

Jake Tapper may think the captain “backs up Obama’s story.” Not really--if the “story” is the story as told by Obama. His version is misleading as a reporting of what the captain said. More fundamentally, it was intended as an indictment of our management of the war. But in this respect it’s silly. In fact, the “story” here merely shows the operation of "real war," as opposed to "war on paper." That a presidential candidate would make something of it either shows a cynical attempt to score political points, or an appalling ignorance of military realities.

Senator John Warner sent a letter to Barack Obama this afternoon regarding his comments during last night's debate alleging ammunition and other equipment shortages in Afghanistan. Warner refers to Obama's comments as "a disturbing framework of factual allegations."

According to Jake Tapper's report earlier today, the unnamed captain to whom Obama attributed the account was deployed to Afghanistan in the summer of 2003. Warner was, at the time, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. As such, he explains that he has "a responsibility to establish where in the military chain of command rests the 'accountability' [for the shortfalls], depending of course, on the accuracy of the facts."

Warner informs Obama that he is working with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to determine the facts of the incident described in last nights debate, and that he intends to raise the issues next Tuesday when Secretary of the Army Pete Green and General Casey appear before the committee.

Further, he asks Obama to provide the "essential facts of when- the dates- the unit was deployed, to which brigade combat team, or other unit it was assigned, the name and current location of the captain, or other military personnel who shared the alleged facts with you, so that the committee staff can debrief them."

This comes just hours after Reuters reported doubts within the Pentagon as to the veracity of Obama's account.

Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson of the Washington Institute recently visited Bahrain, where the government has recently convicted five men on terrorism charges including "receiving explosives and weapons training, engaging in terrorism overseas, and terrorism financing targeting 'friendly countries.'" They received relatively light sentences for their crimes, just six months in jail. One of the defense lawyers explained, "the six-month jail sentence is nothing, and we consider this to be an acquittal."

But this isn't the real story. As Levitt and Jacobson report:

Lost in the coverage, however, was the important role Iran played, either explicitly or implicitly. According to Bahraini investigators, several of the cell members traveled from Bahrain to Afghanistan via Iran. First, they flew to Tehran and met up with several al-Qaeda-affiliated individuals at the airport. Al-Qaeda facilitators then passed the cell members along from "person to person" until their arrival in Afghan training camps. . . .

Bahraini authorities do not know whether the Iranian government actively facilitated the cell members' travel to Afghanistan. But given the regime's track record, Iran's possible involvement with the cell is worth exploring further.

Indeed, this story is worth investigating further--as are the possible ties between Iran and Hezbollah on the one hand, and al Qaeda’s 9/11 hijackers on the other. As I wrote in my latest piece, the 9/11 Commission found that Iran and Hezbollah may have facilitated travel for a majority of the 9/11 hijackers in a manner very similar to this Bahraini al Qaeda cell. The Commission called for further investigation into the matter, but we are still waiting. If any such investigation is ever begun, the story of this Bahraini cell should also be looked into. The pattern of behavior is very similar.

The AP reports:

The Obama campaign offered no details to support the captain's story, making it impossible to verify. A spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about who the captain was and when and how the candidate learned about the allegation.

ABC News said it talked to the unidentified captain, whose account of shortages in Afghanistan was for the most part accurately summarized by Obama, although not verified.

The captain said, however, that the unit did not go after the Taliban for the purpose of getting their weapons, but sometimes used those weapons when some were captured.

"For the most part" is a generous description. Aside from Tapper's faith in the captain as credible, the story remains unverified, and, in fact, "impossible to verify," since the Obama campaign has not released any detail that might corroborate the account. Even if one takes the captain's story at face value, there is a large discrepancy between the story he tells and the story Obama told in last night's debate (mainly that there was no ammunition shortage, and that the unit was equipped with a full compliment of weapons).

But at this point the captain's story cannot be taken at face value, and confirmation of his account cannot be left solely to Jake Tapper's assessment of the captain's credibility. Confirmation requires something beyond the word of an unnamed captain who found his way to a meeting with Barack Obama's staff at some unspecified date in the past. Obama has leveled a specific and unsubstantiated allegation that remains, by any objective analysis, "impossible to verify."

Reuters reports:

The Pentagon on Friday cast doubt on an account of military equipment shortages mentioned by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during a debate with rival Hillary Clinton.

During the face-to-face encounter on Thursday evening, Obama said he had heard from an Army captain whose unit had served in Afghanistan without enough ammunition or vehicles.

Obama said it was easier for the troops to capture weapons from Taliban militants than it was "to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief," President George W. Bush.

"I find that account pretty hard to imagine," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.

It is pretty hard to imagine, because that particular element of the story wasn't supported by the captain in his interview with Tapper. And while Obama did leave the impression that U.S. forces were serving "without ammunition or vehicles," that wasn't true either.

Now that the Pentagon has weighed in, it may be possible to get a fuller accounting of what exactly did happen. No doubt that Tapper felt the captain's story was credible, but the Pentagon can verify the details, and it should do so. Did the Pentagon poach members of the unit for duty in Iraq? If so, when did their replacements arrive? And was the unit really using Toyota pickup trucks to ride into battle? Given the liberties Obama took in retelling the story, these are fair questions to ask.

The Obama campaign put ABC reporter Jake Tapper in touch with the army captain Obama referred to in last night's debate. Go read Tapper's report of what the captain says. Unfortunately, his statements don’t justify the charges Obama made last night.

Once again, Obama said half the platoon had been "sent to Iraq,"

And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

Nothing the captain said supports Obama's accusation that soldiers in Aghanistan faced a shortage of ammunition. Nothing the captain said supports the (ridiculous) claim that American soldiers were capturing Taliban weapons "because it was easier to get Taliban weapons" than American ones.

What the captain said was that it was sometimes difficult to get parts in theater, and on occasion his soldiers used captured weapons. If Obama were running to be quartermaster in chief, this story might have some relevance. But Obama hasn't unveiled his plan to streamline the Army's logistics in Afghanistan. And his basic narrative of the commander in chief neglecting equipment needs in Aghanistan isn’t supported by this one account. Moreover, does Obama think (a distortion of) one captain’s anecdote is an appropriate basis for making broad claims about military matters in a campaign to become commander in chief?

The captain's name is withheld in Tapper's piece, but we have submitted a request to the Obama campaign for an interview. More on Tapper's report at Hot Air and Ace.

Ray Robison has an excellent piece on the media's disinterest in a major case of conflict of interest centering on Nancy Pelosi. Specifically, she has interceded on behalf of pharmaceutical company Amgen in an attempt to encourage expanded government purchasing of an HIV drug. Without her intervention, a change in Medicare rules was set to dramatically reduce the use of the same drug -- so her intervention meant the difference between a falling stock price and a rising stock price for Amgen. At the same time, she owns $500,000 worth of stock in Amgen, and the company employs two former senior staffers as lobbyists.

It's central to House ethics rules that a Member of Congress may not use his or her official position for personal gain. Ms. Pelosi was aware of her stake in the company. Rather than intercede on their behalf, it would have been more appropriate to divest her stake in the company. Instead, she used her office to push a policy that would fatten her wallet.

At the core, this is what the Keating 5 scandal was about: politicians using their official positions to change government policy to protect a personal interest. The elected officials involved are still tarnished for having been associated with it, and the matter is sure to be brought up again this year as Senator McCain seeks the White House. Will Pelosi be risisng to his defense?

Surely I'm not the only curmudgeon out there -- the only one who found Hillary's last answer at last night's debate... fulsome. I mean, just because conservative cynics like John Podhoretz and Jim Geraghty compliment Hillary for grace, gratitude, and perspective, doesn't mean that they're right and I'm wrong, does it?

Look at her answer again.

The last part -- the part that was clearly rehearsed -- was touching and well-recited. But how can you get past the first part? Hillary invites us to sympathize with her challenges and crises. She assures us that with 'all the challenges' she's had, they're nothing compared to those faced by ordinary people. That's obvious. And it's disingenuous to suggest that any reasonable person would think otherwise. What's more, her challenges and crises have been brought on by herself and her husband, and their unwillingness to speak truthfully.

Hillary is a child of privilege, and she's risen to the pinnacle of power in her party because she and her husband have mastered the art of brass-knuckle politics, demonization and personal destruction -- and they've gotten wealthy while doing it. They've spent their entire public lives playing the victim, and seeking sympathy for having to suffer criticism when they've sought self-advancement. The only reason Hillary is still in this race is because she's able to cry on cue.

And now she plays the martyr -- reassuring us that others face more serious challenges than she does? Please.

Cue the world's smallest violin.

The global warming scaremongers have hit rock bottom:

As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday.

The pythons can be 20 feet long and 250 pounds.

Only in the last paragraph do we learn “[t]he Burmese python is not poisonous and not considered a danger to humans.” No need to appoint Samuel L. Jackson the head of the National Guard . . . yet.

From the Washington Post: Democrats Dug In for Retreat, by Charles Krauthammer.

From the New York Times: Editors Defend the McCain Article.

From TWS Online: Carrier Cold War, by Reuben F. Johnson.

From the Times: Obama's a Dangerous Leftwinger, by Gerard Baker.

From Commentary: Reuters Disappears Sadr Story, by Abe Greenwald.

The report from Der Spiegel:

New simulations carried out by European Union experts come to an alarming conclusion: Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium to build an atomic bomb by the end of this year....

For one scenario, the JRC scientists assumed the centrifuges in Natanz were operating at 100 percent efficiency. Were that the case, Iran could already have the 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium necessary for an atomic device by the end of this year. Another scenario assumed a much lower efficiency -- just 25 percent. But even then, Iran would have produced enough uranium by the end of 2010.

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported on a new, more efficient centrifuge that the Iranians had installed in their facility at Natanz:

Experts said Iran’s design for the IR-2 centrifuge showed considerable technical creativity.

In an interview, a senior European nuclear official who monitors the Iranian program said the IR-2 was “more ingenious” than its predecessor, an unreliable machine called the P-1, with the “P” reflecting its Pakistani origins. The official insisted on anonymity because of the political delicacy of the issue.

It does not appear that this simulation accounted for these "more ingenious" centrifuges. As Eric Hundman explained at FP Passport, these new centrifuges are "not proof that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, [though] perfection of the IR-2 could make a nuclear 'breakout' scenario more feasible in the medium term."

There is a lot about Obama's story that makes no sense. Let us start with the opening line:

"You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon--supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq."

Well, captains command companies, not rifle platoons. A rifle platoon is normally commanded by a 2nd lieutenant, sometimes (if short handed) by a senior sergeant. So for starters, Obama betrays a woeful ignorance of military organization and the chain of command. Then he remarks that the platoon was under-strength because 15 of its men had been "sent to Iraq." Sorry, the Army doesn't work that way. Platoons are organic units, consisting of three rifle squads, a heavy weapons squad, and a headquarters section. You can't break it up. It is the smallest building block in the infantry that can conduct fire-and-movement tactics.

So, no matter what, if the Army needed to shift men from Afghanistan to Iraq, it would have done so either by detaching the whole platoon, or, more likely, an entire company from its parent battalion, because a company is an administrative as well as a tactical unit, and believe me, the Army would sooner fight with one hand tied behind its back than create administrative hassles for itself. Maybe the captain was commanding something other than a rifle platoon--perhaps a company headquarters unit, or an intelligence or communications unit, or some other small specialist unit, but in that case, the loss of troops is not nearly as critical as Obama's story implies. "High-Demand/Low-Density" specialists are always being moved around because there just aren't enough of them to go around. Period. It's a chronic problem not just in the military, but in civilian life as well. Obama went on:

And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

The idea that our guys were scrounging weapons and ammo because they were short is ludicrous. How much ammo you carry is done on a "per man" basis in the infantry--each solder carries a "basic load," which is backed up by reserve supplies at company, battalion, and above. It is possible to run out of ammunition, temporarily, in the midst of an intense firefight. Weapons like the M4 Carbine, the M16A3 rifle, and especially the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) can burn through ammo like fire through dry tinder. Since each man carries perhaps 200 rounds into a firefight (about six or seven magazines), he can easily expend it all in a matter of minutes (which is the reason the Army teaches fire discipline). If you can't get a runner back to the company supply train, then things might get dicey, and if you're out, and there's a Taliban guy lying dead at your feet with an AK-74 and a full bandoleer of ammo, what are you going to do?

Moreover, U.S. soldiers have always scrounged, and have always admired the other guy's weapons. In World War II, our guys picked up German MP-41 submachine guns and MG-42 machine guns, which were demonstrably better than their U.S. counterparts. In Vietnam, GIs seemed to prefer the rugged and reliable AK-47 to the high-tech M16 (while, perversely, the Viet Cong preferred the M16 because it was lighter and had less recoil). It would not surprise me if some U.S. troops "acquired" some ex-Taliban AKs--though they run the risk, especially at night, of being mistaken for the enemy because different types of guns have distinctive sounds.

To the best of my knowledge, no U.S. forces in either Afghanistan or Iraq ever ran out of ammunition for more than a few hours at most. When you consider that we were operating in Afghanistan at the tenuous end of a 8,000 mile supply line, that's pretty impressive.

As for not having enough HMMWVs, that's understandable, when you consider what it takes to get a HMMWV to Afghanistan and then to keep it up and running. Fact is, no unit ever has enough HMMWVs (in its own mind, at least), just as in World War II, no unit had enough Jeeps. Again, that we have managed to sustain our forces in Afghanistan so well is cause for congratulations not criticism.

Overall, I think Obama would be better sticking to his "message of hope"--hope that nobody will ever ask him to make any substantive statements on military affairs, ever again.

A few weeks ago, House Republicans announced the establishment of a new website: earmarkreform.house.gov, to promote their idea of a moratorium on new pork-barrel projects. Now that the effort has attracted some attention and put Democrats in a difficult position politically, they have told House Republicans that the site must be transferred to some generic URL -- due to an obscure rule that was previously unknown and unenforced. Roll Call ($) says:

House Administration regulations state that house.gov domains must “be recognizably derivative or representative of the name of the Member of the name of the office sponsoring the website.” The name of an official House.gov Web site also must not be a slogan or imply in any way that the House endorses a specific commercial product, commodity or service, the regulations state.

There's nothing in the House rules about House URLs. A source also confirms that Republican staff was told that the approval process for web addresses is now being changed, to establish that the Committee guidelines referenced in Roll Call apply to future website address requests. In the past, they had not. The handbook guidelines 'did not follow the committee handbook conventions.'

But if the House does not allow domain names that can be considered 'slogans,' then why is 'globalwarming.house.gov' permitted? That's a Democratic site set up to promote the Democratic leadership's 'select committee' on global warming. Democrats won't allow the creation of a 'select committee' on earmark reform, because they don't want to deal with the issue.

It's almost as if the Democrats were uncomfortable debating earmark reform, so they searched the rule books to try to find some way to shut down a website that had become inconvenient. But of course, Democrats promised to change Washington, so that's just impossible.

There's more from Rob Bluey here. Check it out.

Barbara Ehrenreich became a celebrity based on her book Nickel and Dimed, a personal memoir about how difficult and frustrating it can be to get by in America as a minimum wage worker. She later wrote about the 'futile pursuit' of the American Dream. Her writing led Adam Shepard to simulate Ehrenreich's experience as a low-wage worker with limited prospects and no recourse. His conclusions, however, are dramatically different from those of Ehrenreich. In his book Scratch Beginnings, he says that Ehrenheich's work was flawed from the beginning, and that the American Dream will never die. His experience says that raising the minimum wage won't help low-wage workers, and that opportunity exists for all.

Shepard has posted a video on YouTube about his experience:

Shepard's book seems well worth a read. Check out his website for more information. There's also a very good look at his experience in a New Hampshire paper here.

From the National Hurricane Center (via Anthony Watts):

A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.

“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”

If this is true for hurricanes, it's likely to be true for any other natural disaster. As you have more people living in more places, extreme weather will cause more property damage. The report concludes that "Even Hurricane Katrina is not outside the range of normalized estimates for past storms." And that's a consensus conclusion.

During tonight's debate, Barack Obama related this stunning anecdote:

You know, I've heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon--supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq.

And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition, they didn't have enough Humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

As soon as the Senator made the claim he looked as though he knew he'd gone too far. The Corner reports the campaign is already backtracking. After the debate Obama advisor David Axlerod told Stephen Spruiell,

That was a discussion that a captain in the military had with our staff, and he asked that that be passed along to Senator Obama.

So Obama never actually spoke with the captain, which means he can reasonably claim the tale was garbled in transmission. It is possible that an American unit was ill-equipped for combat, these things happen in the fog of war (as do bullshit stories), and they have happened with troubling frequency in this war as in every other. Which is not to diminish any failure on the part of the administration or the military leadership in providing U.S. forces with the equipment they need. But is this particular story true?

Our troops never rotate into theater before running through a series of inspections which ensure that they're properly equipped, and we've never heard a report of soldiers having to scrounge for ammo. If we did, we'd join the Senator in raising hell. In Obama's telling the blame lies with President Bush, but the story is perfectly vague and based on nothing but hearsay. We expect there will be a lot of folks that want to get to the bottom of this, whether the facts supports Obama's version or not.

More from Hot Air and Ace.

A friend sends this in and asks if this is the best YouTube of the campaign so far. It's definitely in the running. Other contenders...Hillary as Tracy Flick and Swift Kids for Truth. I have no idea where this video comes from, but it is, as our reader describes it, "priceless."

A new Fox News Poll asked Americans . . .

Who does Usama bin Laden want to be the next president? More people think the terrorist leader wants Obama to win (30 percent) than think he wants Clinton (22 percent) or McCain (10 percent). Another 18 percent says it doesn’t matter to bin Laden and 20 percent are unsure.

It’s interesting to note that Fox uses the Romanization of Osama Bin Laden. This spelling is consistent with their earlier polls and would seem less likely to be confused with Obama. One wonders whether Obama's ascendancy will lead media outlets to change style in favor of Usama. Not only would this make Obama’s campaign happy, it would comport with Osama’s wishes as well.

The poll does show Obama with a slight edge over McCain in a head to head matchup, but there is some good news here for the presumptive Republican nominee. Though conventional wisdom dictates John McCain is far less popular among Republicans than Obama is among Democrats, their favorables are actually pretty similar. Seventy-three percent of Democrats hold a favorable opinion of Obama just as 73 percent of Republicans hold a favorable opinion of McCain. Likewise, they have 17 and 19 percent unfavorable ratings within their own parties. Obama and McCain are also similarly matched among members of the opposite party and independents.

As if the New York Times story wasn't enough to drive conservatives into the arms of John McCain, Think Progress reports that the League of Conservation Voters today awarded the presumptive Republican nominee the lowest possible score for his environmental record in 2007--a big fat zero. Quoting the Sierra Club:

McCain was the only member of Congress to skip every single crucial environmental vote scored by the organization, posting a score lower than Members of Congress who were out for much of the year due to serious illnesses–and even lower than some who died during the term.

Do you hear that Rush? He'd score better if he were worm food. As Allah would say, second look at McCain!

China Matters catalogues Chinese concerns regarding last night's satellite shoot-down:

1. Asserting China’s qualifications as a space power on par with Russia and the United States.
2. Imputing hidden motives to the US for conducting the operation
3. Expressing resentment that the US did a better PR job than the Chinese did with their test
4. Hoping that the US will screw up.

The post notes a Chinese "news report that the United States will call on fellow space powers Russia and China for assistance in tracking the hulk if the shootdown fails." The Chinese shouldn't believe everything they read in the paper. That never would have happened. And the Chinese can impute away, but whatever the reason for the shootdown, the administration effectively sold it as a public safety measure.

And it is the PR coup that most impresses. It's hard to see how this plays bad for the United States at home or abroad--though critics will surely take a different view (will Obama? doubtful). If the Russians and Chinese are convinced that this is evidence of some new capability, which it isn't, that's gravy. And our allies, especially those states who are collaborating with the United States on missile defense (Poland, Czech Republic, Japan), can only take this as evidence that the system is for real.

Leaving aside the left's criticism of the Bush administration as diplomatically-challenged, conservatives have long lamented the administration's inability to advocate on behalf of its own policies. But by taking this course of action, the Bush administration has done as much to assure future funding and allied support for missile defense as anyone could have hoped. Missile defense is one Reagan legacy that George W. Bush has safeguarded.

And, of course, we didn't screw up. The test was a complete and unvarnished success--assuming the plummeting debris doesn't destroy the island of Midway.

HT: China Rises

The "habit" being the Indian Armed Forces' addiction to Russian military gear. I'd love to see the West drive a wedge between India and the Russia-China defense partnership, this seems to be a start:

India is likely to make a formal announcement on the awarding of a one-billion dollar contract to Lockheed Martin for six Hercules transport planes in the biggest military aircraft deal with the U.S. in five decades, defense officials said.

U.S.-based Lockheed is also in the race for a 10-billion dollar contract to sell 126 fighter jets to the Indian air force and the tenders will be handed out next month.

India is also in talks with BAE Systems for 40 Hawk trainer jets worth 872 million dollars in addition to 66 aircraft it purchased for 1.45 billion dollars in 2004 from the British company.

India may also announce a two-billion-dollar contract with U.S.-based Boeing for eight long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft during the event besides forging several tie-ups between the Indian private sector and global companies.

Russia is still learning the ins-and-outs of capitalism, in that it appears that some of the most obvious rules of the free market still escape them. Rule No. 1: if you push an inferior product, customers will look elsewhere.

Is it possible that Obama -- and to a lesser extent Clinton -- are sucking up the money available for other Democratic candidates? That's one explanation for this surprising deficit:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) raised more than twice as much money as the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in January. It was the strongest single-month fundraising performance so far in the 2007-08 election cycle by the RNC, which saw the gaping financial advantage it had long held over the DNC diminish sharply last year after the Democrats’ takeover of Congress in the 2006 elections.

The RNC reported raising $11.8 million in January, a figure that dwarfed the $5.8 million in receipts for the DNC — even though the latter total also was a one-month high for the Democratic committee in the current election cycle. These numbers were contained in updated campaign finance reports filed by the committees Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission...

Nonetheless, the RNC began February with $21.8 million left to spend and is debt-free. That figure assures Republicans that the committee will be able to make a maximum investment in its highest-priority role, helping promote the campaign of its presidential nominee — a title that Arizona Sen. John McCain now is strongly favored to win. The cash reserve that the RNC brought into this month exceeded the $19.2 million limit that a national party committee is permitted to spend on “coordinated expenditures” to assist its presidential candidate.

Obama and Clinton are spending as much as they can raise, while McCain and the RNC are banking their cash. And the RNC, in particular, has already saved all it can to spend on McCain's behalf. That means additional dollars raised will go to support Congressional candidates.

The other day I expressed surprise that Hugo Chavez had not spoken with Castro since he decided to leave public life. A friend who monitors Latin American politics suggested that the reason Chavez and Castro had not spoken might be that the two leaders are not as close as they once appeared. Cue the news today:

Nevertheless Fidel Castro's brother is quoted saying that Brazil “is a far more convenient associate than Venezuela’s Chavez”, for the transition period...

The Folha de Sao Paulo piece based on data allegedly disclosed by members of the Brazilian government delegation that visited Cuba with the Brazilian president, says that Raul also requested Lula da Silva to convince United States to end the economic embargo dating back to 1962, and which President Bush has made even stricter...

“In the words of one of the ministers, Brazil is one of few countries in the world capable of having a dialogue with the Cuban regime, with Chavez and with the US government”. Besides “he’s far more useful for that purpose than the conflicting Chavez who is at loggerheads with United States and Colombia”.

Raul Castro must recognize that the U.S. embargo is unlikely to be lifted without some sort of real change in Havana. The Bush administration has certainly been clear that Fidel's departure alone means nothing; substantive reforms must follow. Would Raul contemplate reforms?

This also demonstrates how Chavez's star is waning in Latin America: even the Cuban government views him as toxic.

When true rumors of Bill Clinton’s affair circulate, Newsweek quashes the story. When unsubstantiated rumors circulate about John Kerry having an affair, they get picked up by the Drudge Report, NY Post, and British tabloids. When unsubstantiated rumors circulate about John Edwards having an affair, they get published in the National Enquirer. Only when rumors, unsupported by any evidence, concern a Republican candidate for president does the NY Times pick up the story and publish it on the front page.

To be fair, the NY Times did run one article about the alleged affair involving John Kerry . . . five days after the story broke, on page 19, under the headline, “Subject of Campaign Rumor Denies She and Kerry Had an Affair.”

On February 7, I noted that Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army, was likely to extend the cease-fire rather than be blamed for rolling back the security progress and exposing his militia to the full weight of Iraqi and U.S. forces. Today, Reuters reported Sadr will extend the six-month ceasefire by another six months. The cease-fire, which was due to expire on February 23, is widely credited with helping to reduce the violence in Iraq. Sadr imposed the cease-fire after the Mahdi Army clashed with Iraqi security forces in Najaf in August 2007

Sadr’s decision was strongly influenced by U.S. and Iraqi pressure from both the military and political spheres. As noted in the beginning of February, U.S. forces began to step up operations against the Sadr-linked and Iranian-backed Mahdi Army to pressure Sadr to extend the ceasefire. U.S. forces raided Sadr City several days later, and then proceeded, along with Iraqi troops, to relentlessly target Special Groups cells in central and southern Iraq. Multinational Forces Iraq even blamed the Special Groups for a blast in Sadr City and rocket attacks throughout Baghdad.

The standard press reporting has focused in on how Sadr’s negation of the truce would affect Iraqi security and U.S. politics. While there certainly is plenty of truth to this perspective, Sadr would also incur significant costs for a decision to end the cease-fire. The Iraqi security forces today are not the same as they were in 2007--they are far better equipped to deal with Sadr, and have been deployed to do so. The U.S. military still has its “surge” brigades in theater for several months. The government can declare Sadr’s political movement and the Mahdi Army illegal for taking up arms against the government. And the Shia, who have increasingly grown tired of the corrupt and criminal behavior of the Mahdi Army, may further pull back its support from Sadr.

For more background on Sadr's decision to extend the cease-fire, head to the Long War Journal.

Let this be a lesson to potentially hostile North Korean and Chinese fishermen:

Experts sounded alarm on Feb. 20 over the Japanese military's ability to defend the country after one of its most advanced naval destroyers crashed into a fishing boat, leaving two missing.

The collision on Feb. 19 came as Japan steps up security to ensure safety during July's summit of the Group of Eight major industrial countries, to be held in the northern resort town of Tokyo.

"Japan's security cannot be ensured if an Aegis-equipped destroyer fails to avert a collision with a fishing boat," the top-selling Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said in an editorial.

Curious how this happened. Being a Navy brat, I've heard my fair share of sea tales. Most USN surface warfare officers will tell you that the "pucker factor" shoots up when you're steering a Navy ship within 5 or 6 miles of another vessel. Granted, we accidentally surfaced a nuclear attack submarine underneath a Japanese fishing boat a few years back, but that was a bit different, what with the whole no "eyes on" element.

Today, the New York Times unloaded this story about John McCain's supposed ethics issues and insinuates that he had a "romantic relationship" with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. The ethical issues are very old news, both McCain and Iseman have denied the allegations of an affair, and the McCain campaign issued a statement with facts the Times left out. Practically every blogger is on the story--and after dissecting the Times's painfully long rant (the Swampland has Cliffs Notes), many agree that the tale might not get the reaction its editors had hoped.

This morning, Richelieu made a few important points here. He asks, "No allegation of corruption, no favors, both sides deny an affair. Why is this even a story, and why is the timing so partisan?"

Most bloggers seem to agree with the Cardinal. Matt Lewis at Townhall says that although the Times might have more information, "the only people I can find who leveled allegations were 'two former McCain associates' who reportedly became 'convinced' (read: not 100% sure) something was going on."

Greg Pollowitz at NRO's Media Blog wrote, "With the McCain piece, the Times needs to answer why they held this piece until after McCain won the nomination, as well as the Times' endorsement before the New York primary. If the Times thinks eight-year-old allegations and innuendo are newsworthy, they had a duty to bring this up in their endorsement of McCain. " Allahpundit explains further: "A sex scandal that may not be a scandal tucked inside an ethics scandal that may not be an ethics scandal tucked inside an ethics scandal that was a genuine scandal 20 years ago, and for which McCain has begged forgiveness ever since. The Paper of Record."

How will this affect McCain? Mary Katharine Ham's post's title says it all: "What's the Quickest Way to Rally Conservatives 'Round McCain?"

Clay Waters at NewsBusters agrees: The story "promptly fizzled out among conservatives and liberals alike, who dismissed the story...as a strained mix of sex innuendo and old news...being attacked by the New York Times might accomplish what no conciliatory CPAC speech could: rally skeptical conservatives to John McCain's side." Proof: Even Rush Limbaugh is defending McCain, the Politico reported today.

This article mostly makes the New York Times look bad. Marc Ambinder says that the McCain campaign has had an effective, convincing response so far. And while some lefty bloggers say this article will hurt McCain, still others are skeptical of the story. Jamie Kirchik at the New Republic's Plank says, "If you had been wondering whether the Times was in the tank for Obama, well, here's your answer."

From the Politico: Right Rallies to McCain's Side, by Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin.

From the Wall Street Journal: Obama's New Vulnerability, by Karl Rove.

From Newsweek: The Eagle Still Soars, by Daniel Drezner.

From the Wall Street Journal: Islam at the Ballot Box, by Amir Taheri.

From the New Republic: The Long Run-Up, by Gabriel Sherman.

But of course it does! Almost every engineer who looked at the problem knew it was eminently possible to design an anti-ballistic missile system, once high-speed computers and miniaturized seekers were developed (not to brag, but I wrote something to that effect back in 1986). A ballistic missile (or a decaying satellite) is a very predictable object; it acts in accordance with basic laws of physics, so that, after tracking it briefly, one can extrapolate its state vectors and predict where it will be in space at any point in time. After that, it's equally easy to figure out where in space to aim your interceptor missiles. The trick comes in the end game, when small errors can result in significant miss distances. That is why, during the 1950s and 60s, U.S. and Soviet ABM systems relied on nuclear warheads. By the 1980s, miss distances had come down to the point that we could either use high explosive warheads throwing out large numbers of high velocity fragments, or, better still, use a "hit-to-kill" approach. Now, we have gotten to the point that hitting the bullseye at a combined velocity of more than 15,000 mph is becoming routine.

The difficulties of the missile defense problem have always been more operational than technical. We don't have to deal with one incoming warhead in isolation, but more likely with several to many coming in simultaneously and aimed at different places. That means detecting multiple objects, classifying them as threats, allocating missiles to each object, generating a fire control solution, launching the missiles, guiding them to the target, evaluating the end game, and re-engaging any targets that were missed. That takes a lot of computing power and RF bandwidth--but we can do it now, at least for small-to-medium sized attacks.

In the past, the main problem was the impossibility of defeating a large-scale attack by the USSR. Not only did the Soviets have so many missiles that at least some would get through, but most of them carried multiple warheads, so that we were dealing with tens of thousands of reentry vehicles. And the Soviets could have made the problem more difficult by deploying decoys (known as "Penetration Aids" or "PENAIDS") to further confuse the radar picture. While individually it is rather easy to discriminate between a PENAID and a live warhead (unless you want to make your PENAID almost as complex, expensive, and heavy as a real warhead), collectively they act like grit in the machine, slowing down defensive response times. The Soviets also experimented with "Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles" (MARVs) which could alter their course in flight, greatly complicating the defensive problem. Fortunately, MARVS were both heavy (cutting into missile payloads) and exorbitantly expensive. Still, on the balance, when dealing with a superpower adversary with a large missile force, the cost balance weighed heavily in favor of the attacker.

Today, of course, our potential adversaries have just a minuscule fraction of the Soviet Union's ballistic missile capability. And, with their smaller economic and technical bases, they certainly don't have the wherewithal to deploy thousands of missiles with multiple warheads and complex PENAIDS, so a relatively modest missile defense system can deter attack by small and medium-sized nuclear powers, or defeat an accidental launch or deliberate attack by a suicidal rogue state. It's a very worthwhile investment, on par with buying fire insurance for your house.

The recent successes of the Aegis/Standard III system have implications beyond forces afloat. Both the SPY-1 radar system and the Mk.41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) from which the Standard III missile is fired, are self-contained units. There is nothing that says they must be deployed aboard ships--they could just as easily be emplaced on land. Indeed, travelers up the Jersey Turnpike are familiar with the "Cruiser in the Cornfield"--the Lockheed Martin Aegis testbed at Moorestown, NJ. One could easily build similar facilities in Allied countries, connect them by fiber-optic link to a battery of Mk.41 VLS that could be buried in hardened concrete pits, and voila! Instant ABM system, capable of taking down short-to-intermediate range ballistic missiles. This would have a significant effect of extending U.S. deterrence to threatened friendly countries such as South Korea, Japan, Iraq, Israel (and, dare I say it?) Taiwan. It would go a long way to preventing nuclear intimidation by countries such as Iran and North Korea, and prevent the decoupling of the U.S. from its regional allies in times of crisis.

Over the last week Mrs. Obama has twice stated that she was never proud of America until her husband's recent surge in the polls. Her husband has said these comments were taken out of context, but in what context could her comments possibly be justified?

Though we would never question anybody's patriotism, the comments do seem to fit into a broader pattern of anti-patriotic views. Lest the gesture be misinterpreted, Obama made a big show of his decision to stop wearing the American flag lapel pin this past fall in protest of the Iraq war.

We have 160,000 troops in Iraq and more than 20,000 in Afghanistan. The guy who wants to be their next commander in chief refuses to wear the flag they fight under, and his wife has never felt their victories to be a source of pride.

It's attracted a lot of attention that as of the end of January, John McCain's presidential campaign was essentially broke. That may be true, but the good news for McCain is that having secured his party's nomination, he doesn't need to spend at the same rate as his Democratic rivals.

Obama spent more than $30 million in January, ending the month with about $24 million cash on hand, net of campaign debts. Hillary Clinton spent almost $29 million in the month, leaving herself with about $21 million cash on hand, net of campaign debt. During February, both Obama and Clinton are likely to burn through cash almost as quickly as they can raise it (though that may be less true for Obama).

But while McCain may trail badly in cash on hand, his fundraising is clearly picking up. And he has concrete plans to raise more. Further, Senator McCain is more or less finished spending money to secure the nomination. Clinton and Obama will be burning through millions into March, and quite possible through the end of the Democratic primaries in June -- or even beyond.

After all, if the primaries conclude with the nomination still a possibility for both candidates, why would they cease spending money? There are ads to be run and donations to be made that might yet sway the superdelegates. Neither of the candidates will want to sit on a campaign war chest, only to lose the nomination. If they think they can win the presidential candidacy, both will be spending. John McCain will be raising money for the general election, and deciding when and how to spend it.

As a result, this may be the worst that McCain's numbers will look through the end of the campaign.

Headline:

US: Bombers didn't have Down syndrome

Read further into the article and you learn:

"Both had recently received psychiatric treatment for depression and/or schizophrenia. From what we know now there's no indication that they had Down syndrome," Smith said, citing records obtained by the military.

Smith also said one of the women was married but that neither had criminal backgrounds. He said it was not clear how they were linked to al-Qaida in Iraq, which the military has said was behind the bombing.

The director of the Ibn-Rushd psychiatric teaching hospital in central Baghdad, Dr. Shalan al-Abboudi, said that one of the pet market bombers, a 36-year-old married woman, had been treated there for schizophrenia and depression, according to her file. Refusing to identify her, he said she received electric shock therapy and was released into the custody of an aunt.

There is a difference between using the mentally retarded as suicide bombers and using depressed, schizophrenic mental patients. But isn't the point that al Qaeda is unable to enlist jhadis bent on martyrdom to perform these missions, and instead must take advantage of those who are unable to reason properly?

A few thoughts from your Cardinal on Le Affair McCain. . .

1.) A 71 year old man . . . A 40 year old slinky blonde. I'm French. What's the big deal?

2.) McCain should thank the New York Times. The age issue is now gone.

3.) No allegation of corruption, no favors, both sides deny an affair. Why is this even a story, and why is the timing so partisan?

4.) Now that the matter of staff being worried about the perception of improper appearances between candidates and snazzy women is enough to spark a front page New York Times story, will the Times be soon publishing an exhaustive 11-part series on former President Bill Clinton? Just wondering . . .

5.) The Big Winner in all this? Obama. Hillary's last ditch Pantsuit and Bayonet charge now blown out of media for 72 hours.

6.) Biggest Loser? The New York Times. Embarrassing nothing-burger. Shame on them.

The fruits of missile defense:

The USS Lake Erie, armed with an SM-3 missile designed to knock down incoming missiles—not orbiting satellites—launched the attack at 10:26 p.m. EST, according to the Pentagon. It hit the satellite about three minutes later as the spacecraft traveled in polar orbit at more than 17,000 mph.

Because the satellite was orbiting at a relatively low altitude at the time it was hit by the missile, debris will begin to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere immediately, the Pentagon statement said.

"Nearly all of the debris will burn up on re-entry within 24-48 hours and the remaining debris should re-enter within 40 days," it said.

The use of the Navy missile amounted to an unprecedented use of components of the Pentagon's missile defense system, designed to shoot down hostile ballistic missiles in flight—not kill satellites.

The operation was so extraordinary, with such intense international publicity and political ramifications, that Defense Secretary Robert Gates—not a military commander—was to make the final decision to pull the trigger.

This is a major success for the Missile Defense Agency, the successor to Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, and it's going to be a tough pill for the program's critics to swallow. There have been two recent, successful tests of the missile defense system. In September 2007, the agency killed a dummy missile over the Pacific using one of its Ground Based Interceptors stationed in Alaska. General Renuart used the occasion to declare "that we have all of the pieces in place that, if the nation needed to, we could respond." There are up to 24 interceptors already deployed. And then in December the Japanese Navy knocked down a medium-range missile using the same, American SM-3 missile that was used in yesterday's strike.

Despite this good run, critics have effectively diminished the achievement by charging that the tests were rigged. This time was different. The administration bet big, and if the operation had failed, the program would have suffered a major, and possibly fatal, setback. Instead the bet paid off. It is the greatest PR boost the program could have gotten short of actually striking down a North Korean missile inbound to Hollywood.

The system will now be an easier sell to allies, and it should be a cudgel for Republicans in the fall. The "rogue" satellite cost more than a billion dollars. One suspects its destruction will be of greater value to this country than any mission it could have performed as a functioning spy satellite.

Check out the Danger Room for complete coverage of the operation. They've been all over it.

By now, everyone has seen the footage of that Obama-supporting Texas state senator freezing before Chris Matthews' demand that he name a single Obama legislative accomplishment. The left has chosen two reactions to deal with this latest embarrassment. The first has been to dismiss Mathews as a gaseous windbag. The second has been to document Obama's list of senate achievements.

As for the first defense, I won’t attempt to debate the irrefutable. As regards the second area of argument, it's a different story.

Barack Obama indeed has had a relatively splashy first few years in the senate. One of Andrew Sullivan's guest-bloggers has painstakingly compiled a list of Obama’s greatest senate hits that makes you wonder how the World's Greatest Deliberative Body ever got along before Obama arrived.

But the proper takeaway from last night's interview with the Texas legislator isn't that this individual's lack of facility with Obama's legislative legerdemain means Obama has never gotten anything done. What it does mean is that Obama's supporters, even the ones who get to serve as his surrogates on national network broadcasts, don’t support him because of these “accomplishments.” More often than not, they don't even know about these accomplishments. They support him as members in good standing of the cult of personality that has developed around the Obama campaign.

Would it be fair to say this characterizes many or even most Obama supporters? Well, let's put it this way: At the next Obama rally, it would be interesting to find out how many of the fainting and crying masses are there because they admire their hero's work on the Lugar-Obama Initiative.

There's a lot of interesting debate in the blogosphere about the future of the Air Force. In particular, my lefty friend Robert Farley has inspired a number of exchanges on the direction the service should take. I don't agree with hardly anything he says, but he always makes an interesting case. Today he argues in favor of F-35 instead of F-22.

It's unclear why we need the F-22 now in the numbers that the Air Force wants. It's also unclear why procurement right now should favor the Air Force instead of the Army. The F-35 seems to me to be a much preferable option; it has ground attack and air superiority capability, it's being developed with a number of other countries, and it has variants that the United States Navy and several foreign navies want.

See Noonan's argument in favor of more F-22 below. As far as F-35 vs. F-22, there are good points to be made in favor of each. F-22 is a real airplane, with a production line and a fixed, if excessive, cost. F-35 is a concept, with an industrial base so large it likely could not be killed no matter what problems it faces or what its eventual cost (it is now nearly two-thirds the cost of an F-22, and rising). But F-35 is the only viable option for keeping America's allies dependent on American aircraft (as opposed to Russian, Swedish, or Euro birds). It's also going to have a ground attack capability that the F-22 does not currently have, as well as all types of promised efficiencies in maintenance and scale (believe it when you see it). Which is a long way of saying that there is room for interested parties to have a serious, substantive debate. And it looks like the Atlantic's Matt Yglesias will not be participating:

Instead of finding a cost-effective solution to the problem of aging F-15s -- like building new, somewhat upgraded F-15s -- the Air Force decided to design an impractically expensive new air superiority fighter. Having done so, the country now can't afford these planes in the quantity the Air Force deems desirable. It'd be as if the NYPD first insisted that in the future it would only buy cars from Lexus and then wound up puzzled as to why they didn't have enough cars.

No, it's not like that at all. The "problem" isn't aging F-15s, though that has made the issue more urgent, and it isn't that the Air Force is just angling for some shiny new whips. The problem is China, and F-22 has become an important part of this country's strategy for deterring a conflict in the Pacific, just as it was intended to deter the Russians when it was first designed at the end of the Cold War. Farley likes to hate on the Air Force, but at least one senses in his work some appreciation for the complexity of the challenges the service now faces.

Okay, I'm stealing the headline from John Podhoretz's post earlier this week. Way back on Monday, Michelle Obama revealed that she felt no pride in her country prior to her husband becoming the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. Today she's gone and done it again. Dean just posted the quote:

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

Back up. Didn't Barack, just today, thusly explain why Michelle never liked America:

What she meant was, this is the first time that she’s been proud of the politics of America. Because she’s pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she’s not alone.

So for more than two decades, Michelle's been cynical. But when her husband is president, he will "demand" that we shed our cynicism. No. I will remain cynical. But then again, I hold my commander in chief to a higher standard. I expect him to at least suppress his cynicism while in public, which Michelle is apparently unable to do, even if her husband can. And it strikes me that no candidate in history has benefited more from this country's "uninvolved, uninformed" electorate than Barack Obama. Even his own supporters can't name a single legislative achievement in the man's record. If the American people had any idea how little Obama has done for his state and his country, they might have second thoughts. But they like his speeches, so they've gotten involved. They remain uninformed, and Michelle had better hope they stay that way.

There are increasing signs that the Democrats are getting ready to wage a good-old fashioned, big-government, tax-and-spend, centralized control, liberal campaign for president this year. The latest evidence comes in the form of a memo from Clinton friends James Carville and Stan Greenberg, arguing that Democrats can win this year by advocating a big tax increase:

According to the Democratic polling, when voters were asked whether they preferred all of Bush’s tax cuts to be made permanent or only those aimed at the middle-class -- excluding those "for the wealthy and big business" -- those surveyed said they would prefer the latter by a wide margin...

When given a choice between the Democratic argument -- raising taxes on CEOs and the very rich to pay for broad middle-class relief -- and the GOP argument -- raising taxes to pay for pet projects will hurt millions of individuals, investors and small businesses -- the Democratic argument won in a landslide even in GOP-held districts, the memo says.

You can read the full memo at the Democracy Corps site here. Carville and Greenberg are gaming the question of course. They claim to be testing the debate as it will be waged on the ground -- closing loopholes vs. rewarding the indolent wealthy. But Republicans won't attack that way; the debate will be whether we need the massive Rangel tax increase. Why didn't Carville & Greenberg test whether swing voters think taxes need to rise by $3.5 trillion? That's what the debate will be about.

It's not just Carville and Greenberg. Rahm Emanuel -- the Democratic party's chief strategist in the House -- is calling for a new 'New Deal.' Michelle Obama says her husband will never allow you to live your life uninvolved, but will force you to be better. Obama himself wants to increase spending by nearly $300 billion annually.

It's beginning to seem that Democrats have really convinced themselves that things have changed -- that Americans really want to dramatically increase the size and power of government. Conservatives should pray they don't come to their senses too soon. Most will happily pit the man who opposes expanded entitlements and pork-barrel projects against... well, the very caricature of a big-government liberal. That's a match we can win -- in a rout.

Michelle Obama + Microphone = Train Wreck:

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

Speaking just for myself, I cherish my cynicism. And that's to say nothing of my comfort zones. They don't call them comfort zones for nothing. I'm comfortable in them. And I don't want to push myself to be better. I prefer self-satisfied complacency over self-improvement every day of the week, twice on Sundays.

Most importantly, I don’t want my president worrying about my "comfort zones" or my "cynicism" or my willingness to push myself to be better. I have a team of gurus that focuses on all of these issues. I'd prefer the next president concentrate on defeating the jihadists and keeping taxes reasonable. Those things should keep him busy.

Is it just me, or is anyone else getting the unnerving sense that the Obamas are beginning to buy into their own Messianic gestalt? Quite frankly, I'd feel a lot better about them if I was sure they were cynics.

HT: Geraghty

John Noonan is quite right about the threat that the military bureaucracy poses to the long-term security of the United States. The situation he describe with regard to the 5th SFG in 2001 still pertains today, only the problem is more pernicious and extends well down into the chain of command. I have a friend whose son, now back from his fourth deployment to Afghanistan with the 75th Rangers, describes precisely the kind of burdensome bureaucratic regulation described by Kaplan, which Paul Fussell (in his book Wartime) so aptly described as "chickenshit":

Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige... insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances. Chickenshit is so called -- instead of horse -- or bull -- or elephant shit -- because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously. Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war.

One reason for the ubiquity of chickenshit in the modern U.S. military is the excessively high proportion of officers to enlisted men. In most armies, there are about seven officers to 100 enlisted men, or an officer-to-enlisted ratio of 7 percent (as low as 5 percent in the German army of World War II). In the U.S. Army today, that ratio stands at more than 15 percent (19 percent by some calculations).

This very high proportion of officers resulted from a deliberate decision made after World War II regarding future Army mobilization. Post-war analysis revealed that it was actually easier for the Army to raise new divisions from scratch using draftees, than it was to shake out National Guard divisions and bring them up to wartime standards (due to the prevalence at the time for state governors to use the Guard for patronage appointments, often of superannuated or incompetent officers, as well as the poor physical condition and training of Guard soldiers). Army planners believed that, if adequate officer cadres were available, the Army could actually mobilize faster by circumventing the National Guard and simply raising new divisions. Thus, in the wake of World War II, as the Army shrank back to its peacetime size, twice as many officers were retained on active service as were actually needed.

As Edward N. Luttwak pointed out in his 1985 book The Pentagon and the Art of War, this would not have been a problem had the Army merely placed the surplus officers on half pay, effectively keeping them "on the shelf" in case of need. But the Army instead kept these men on active duty, and therefore had to find gainful employment for them. Since, in the peacetime Army, there were not nearly enough legitimate command and staff positions for all the officers, new positions had to be created, for which new functions had to be devised. Thus, the military bureaucracy began to expand, especially with the proliferation of research and development (R&D) commands and liaison offices, the expansion of staff billets, and the invention of new duties basically intended to make work for the underemployed. At the same time, the Army recognized that these essentially bureaucratic positions did not prepare officers for combat command, so there arose an insistence on frequent rotation between staff, administrative, technical and line positions, ranging between 12 and 24 months. Officers had to "get their tickets punched" by serving in the widest range of positions in order to qualify for promotion (this is sometimes called the "Merit Badge Syndrome"). Officers passed over for promotion were normally required to retire (the "Up or Out" principle).

Over at HotAir, Allah has ended a post wondering whether Hillary will run again in 2012 or 2016. In case you're keeping score at home, Hillary will be 68 years old when Campaign 2016 rolls around.

My sense is assuming Hilary fails to draw the inside straight necessary to derail the Runaway Obama Train (mixed metaphor alert!), she will not run for president again. Yes, you read that correctly – this is in all likelihood the former First Lady's last presidential rodeo.

I think Hillary is likely to follow the Ted Kennedy path and try to be a groundbreaking senator who plays an instrumental role in shepherding an inordinate number of ruinous liberal legislative items into law. Kennedy lost to Jimmy Carter in 1980, but would have been the Democratic frontrunner in '84 and '88. He declined to run in either cycle, perhaps reasoning, "If I can't beat Jimmy Carter, who can I beat?" He hung around the senate, doing a lot of damage there (or good, depending on how you view things) over the ensuing decades.

Ted Kennedy had a fixed amount of negatives that made it impossible for him to someday become president. It's the same with Hillary. Besides, sort of like Kennedy's inability to defeat Carter, if Hillary can't prevail in a field where her two main opponents had a combined nine years of service in the senate, what kind of field will she be able to beat?

Yes, it's risky to be writing Hillary’s eulogy when she may still slink from the crypt once more. But I bet that once vanquished, she’ll go the Ted Kennedy route and concentrate on legislating from one of the senate's safest seats. From that perch, her personal life and certain bumptious relatives won't matter, and she can become one of her party's leaders. And just as Ted Kennedy created a legacy that stood alone and apart from that of his more gifted brothers, Hillary can achieve her own accomplishments and craft a reputation that doesn’t rely on her "experience" as First Lady.

Slate explains "why the Air Force doesn’t need more F-22s":

On Feb. 13, according to today's issue of Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, Gen. Bruce Carlson, chief of the Air Force's materiel command, told a group of reporters, "We think that [187 planes] is the wrong number" and that the Air Force would find some way to build 380 before the program's done. He joked that 380 is a "compromise," since the original plan calls for 381.

Gen. Carlson's rationale for this expansion: "Most people say in the future there will be a China element to whatever we do." In plainer words: He says we need more than twice as many F-22s than the secretary of defense says we need because of the future military threat from China.

Two things should be noted about this claim. First, by the Pentagon's own measure, the Chinese military has a long way to go before it constitutes a threat to U.S. forces. Second, even if it does become a threat, it's not at all clear that the F-22 would be the best weapon to deal with it.

Disagree. The Raptor--poor, misunderstood soul that it is--isn't so much a means of winning a war against Red China as it is a tool for preventing one. China's subsidization of Russia's advanced defense sector has allowed the two nations to develop (and field) some particularly nasty fighter aircraft. With U.S. forces spread thin, allowing for Chinese air superiority over the straits of Taiwan would be bad news bears. Airpower is the cornerstone of our strategy to win any state v. state conflict; if China believes that we're no longer capable of controlling the air (or the sea), our strategy collapses, and we're up the Yangtze without a paddle.

Feel free to insert a "if you want peace, prepare for war" quote at your leisure.

The Raptor is expensive, true. It's a Cold War relic, also true. But if we're serious about fighting small wars, and remaining strong against peer competitors, we're going to need advanced platforms like the F-22. It's the "two-militaries" solution that's slowly evolving in the post-Rumsfeld Pentagon, a plan that hinges on modernizing the "geriatric" Air Force.

During his speech last night, Obama said:

“We are going to lead by example, by maintaining the highest standards of civil liberties and human rights, which is why I will close Guantanamo and restore habeas corpus….”

Sounds great...but, like everything else about the Obama campaign, it's not clear what the actual change in policy will entail--beyond change for change's sake. If Obama closes Gitmo, moves the detainees to, say, Ft. Leavenworth, and gives them habeas corpus, does that mean he’s against the military tribunals and wants terrorists to have full access to U.S. courts? It isn't clear, but that's what it sounds like.

Such a move would, at the very least, immediately expand the rights of those prisoners, and it would bring their prosecution closer to something resembling the authority of domestic law enforcement. They might still be prosecuted under the current system--just in a different location--yet the implication seems to be that the current system does not meet the "highest standards of civil liberties and human rights." The problem is that if you keep giving them more and more rights, there is no logical stopping point.

If Obama is going to grandstand on this particularly complex issue, he ought to at least spell out exactly what kind of legal process he hopes to implement. He is a law professor, after all. Talking simply of the "highest standards" sounds vaguely like full legal protection. Is that really what he proposes?

In a little more than a month from now, President Bush will head to Bucharest, Romania for a major NATO summit. The gathering is being billed as a potential “make-or-break” moment for the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whose lackluster performance in southern Afghanistan has been a source of increasing tension within the alliance.

But South Asia won’t be the only thing on the agenda at Bucharest. The summit will also tackle the potentially divisive question of how much, and how fast, NATO should expand. Although three longstanding NATO aspirants--Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia--are widely expected to secure invitations to join the alliance this April, the bigger test case is likely to be Ukraine and Georgia, both of which are petitioning NATO for a “Membership Action Plan,” or MAP, at the summit.

Getting a MAP is no guarantee of future NATO membership for Ukraine or Georgia; on the contrary, it’s just an aid package that will help these countries’ democratically-elected governments tackle the various political, economic, and security reforms that, if successfully implemented, will help them qualify for NATO membership down the line.

The United States and most of its major allies are in favor of offering a MAP to Ukraine and Georgia, but several European states--most notably Germany--are still iffy. Their opposition isn’t substantive: rather, they are frightened first and foremost about pissing off Russia, which is loathe to see a closer relationship between NATO and its former satellites.

Despite Moscow’s saber rattling, a source tells the WEEKLY STANDARD that the vote count among NATO member states has gotten more favorable for Georgia and Ukraine in the past few weeks. What’s needed now is a strong diplomatic push on the part of the Bush administration--which, not so coincidentally, is precisely what Senator McCain, Senator Lieberman, and a bipartisan, bicameral group of Senators and Congressman urge Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to do, in a letter they sent to Foggy Bottom yesterday. Here’s the excerpt:

Normally I wouldn't throw such an enormous block quote out at the masses, but today I'm firing for effect.

Dear Ministry of Defense Bureaucrats,

It is worth remembering that on 6th June 1940 the evacuation from Dunkirk of the BEF had finished two days earlier, with the bulk of their equipment being left on the beaches behind them. On D-Day, 6th June 1944, only 4 years later, the Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy (American forces - 73,000.) on 6th June 1940. Ninety-five per cent of these soldiers had been civilians with no military training, experience or even any great desire to be soldiers.

11,590 aircraft were available to support the landings. On D-Day, Allied aircraft flew 14,674 sorties. All of these aircraft had been built in less than four years. Ninety per cent of their pilots had never flown in an airplane, much less piloted one, before Dunkirk and ninety-five per cent of the mechanics and other ground support personnel who maintained their engines and other systems had never set foot on an airfield.

Operation Neptune, the naval support operation for the Overlord landings, involved huge naval forces, including 6939 vessels: 1213 naval combat ships, 4126 landing ships and landing craft, 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels. Some 195,700 personnel were assigned to Operation Neptune - 112,824 of these were British, Nearly two thirds of the ships were from the Royal Navy. 70 – something % of those ships had been built since June 1940. Ninety percent of the seamen and eighty per cent of the officers manning those vessels of war had never crewed more than a rowboat before June 1940.

A pipeline was laid under the ocean to carry fuel and lubricants to the allied forces. Two pre-fabricated harbors had been designed, built and towed through one of the most treacherous bodies of water in the world and installed on the Channel coast of France while under enemy fire.

All of this, and more, done in four years. All of it done without electronic computers. All of it done without fax machines, without cell phones, without voice mail, all of it done with manual typewriters and mechanical calculators and reams of paper and legions of men and women filing and stamping and checking and rechecking and working as if their lives depended on it. As if!

And today, with all our wealth and technology, you, Ministry of Defence bureaucrats, tell us we cannot produce 12, count them, TWELVE Chinook support helicopters vitally needed by our forces in Afghanistan...

Nice to see that someone on that island is fed up with MoD's misappropriations and Labour's all-around neglectful towards Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

Sounds familiar right? Bureaucrats, folks, our own worst enemy.

It sometimes seems that Harry Reid's mouth runs far ahead of his brain:

“There are more jobs to be created in the green field than in the old standard fields,” said Reid, adding that the coal industry passes out fliers wherever he goes pointing out the senator’s opposition to coal and accusing him of wanting to raise utility rates. “But actually, it’s just the opposite.”

He accused the coal industry of using “the old Hitler lie — when you say things long enough people start believing them.”

The U.S. gets more than 50 percent of its electricity from coal. More than 100,000 Americans make a living mining the stuff. In what way are they like Hitler? And on a related note, why do Democrats even bother to claim that they oppose the divisiveness of American politics when they paint political adversaries in this way. Has Harry Reid ever compared al Qaeda to Hitler?

From the New York Times: Attack Iran, With Words, by Reuel Marc Gerecht.

From the Washington Post: A Card to Play for Cuba's Freedom, by Robert Kagan.

From NRO: Eternal Hero’s Return, by Jim Geraghty.

From ABC News: Petraeus 'Cautiously Optimistic' About Iraq, by Clarissa Ward.

From USA Today: Both Sides Must Agree, by Barack Obama.

Her husband attempts to "clarify" her earlier remarks:

Statements like this are made and people try to take it out of context and make a great big deal out of it, and that isn’t at all what she meant. What she meant was, this is the first time that she’s been proud of the politics of America. Because she’s pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she’s not alone. But she has seen large numbers of people get involved in the process, and she’s encouraged.

It's still the same creepy message. Apparently the only thing that might redeem this country in the eyes of Michelle Obama is the election of her husband as president of the United States. That's not good enough. This implies that the Obamas aren't running for office in order to serve the country that they love--because this country has, in fact, been so good to them--but in order to save the country from itself. The country has not been nearly so good to John McCain, who spent five years in a prison camp during a war I'm sure the Obamas think should never have been fought. And yet he isn't "cynical" about the political process. So what, exactly, does a woman like Michelle Obama have to be cynical about? Low turnout? That's the best they could come up with?

Do Barack Obama's wins in Wisconsin and Hawaii yesterday--now 10 primary/caucus wins in a row--mean that Hillary Clinton's campaign is nearly finished? Bloggers think so.

Richelieu wrote here last night, "This Wisconsin loss means that Obama's surging momentum will grow even more powerful. New polls showing Obama closing in Hillary's Texas redoubt provide more evidence." Read the entire thing.

At the Corner, Larry Kudlow echoes, "The Clinton Restoration is over. President Bill Clinton's political invincibility is over. Hillary's electability is over...As of tonight, the market has officially pulled the plug, terminating her campaign."

Similar words from Allahpundit: "She’s got a few weapons left -- brass knuckles at tomorrow’s debate, 527s taking off and strafing the Messiah in Texas and Ohio-- but that won’t roll back the advance." And Captain Ed: "Right now, it appears that the more she tries to press, the worse she performs. Negative attacks and ridiculous charges of plagiarism only dug the hole deeper. We are just about to the end of the Restoration."

Will Hillary drop out of the race soon? At Pajamas Media, Rick Moran says that her retreat may be inevitable: "[W]atch over the next two weeks as Obama begins to catch and then surpass Hillary Clinton in Ohio and Texas. A double loss in those states would almost certainly bring loud and persistent calls from leading Democrats for her to exit the race."

Before yesterday's contests, Hillary was expected to do better in Ohio and Texas, but Paul Mirengoff at Power Line says that "it's not immediately apparent what differences between the charactistics of Wisconsin and, say, Ohio would enable Clinton to make up a double-digit gap." More on that from the Fix's Chris Cillizza, who says, "The shape of the electorate in Wisconsin should have played to Clinton's strengths. Nearly six-in-ten voters in the Wisconsin Democratic primary were women; nine in ten were white; forty percent earned $50,000 or less; and 58 percent had no college degree. And yet, in each of those categories, Obama ran ahead or close to even with Clinton."

And Glenn Reynolds says that Hillary might know it, noting that in last night's speeches, "Hillary did a fine job, but she looked -- and sounded -- tired. Obama looks energized and happy. She gave a laundry list of policies. He's telling people to go vote for him in early voting."

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway rounds up similar opinions, but concludes "because of the rules by which the Democratic Party choses its nominee, the race remains essentially tied." And still, as Matt Lewis at Townhall remarks, "it's hard to write off the Clintons, because it's hard to write-off anyone who will do anything to win. "

Is this the end of Hillary Clinton's campaign? She might have a fighting chance if she can pull a win in Texas and Ohio, but it looks like the House of Clinton may be crumbling.

One of my pet theories about acting is that at least half of the work an actor does is with his voice. That's why the ranks of great leading men are filled with exceptionally powerful and wonderful voices (think George Clooney and Paul Newman and Russell Crowe and Alec Baldwin). British actors tend to use their voices to even better effect--probably because they pay more attention to the language. You show me a great Brit leading man and I'll show you a truly great voice. (See: John Gielgud, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Bernard Hill, Brian Cox, Geoffrey Palmer--you get the picture.)

Tolkien was obsessed with the power of voice throughout his Lord of the Rings series, particularly in the person of Saruman the White. Saruman's voice is so powerful, we're told, that it is able to suggest and shape the actions and thoughts of men. Here's Tolkien's description of "The Voice of Saruman":

low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment . . . it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire woke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves . . . for those whom it conquered the spell endured while they were far away and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them.

Listening to Barack Obama speak, for example at his victory speech tonight, it strikes me that this passage might just as easily describe him. I'd argue that at least half of Obama's power as an orator comes from his voice, which is, by any measure, a beautiful and powerful instrument. Don't get me wrong, he does a lot with cadence and timing (in addition to his message itself), but the native quality of his speaking voice is incredibly distinctive. I don't know that I've heard a better one in the realm of politics.

(And no, I'm not comparing Obama to Saruman because that would be silly. Because Saruman never actually beat Sauron. If he had, then maybe there'd be a parallel . . .)

Picking on Hillary Clinton while she's down may seem cruel and unnecessary. But it will also be fun, so let's do it anyway!

On Monday's episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, fashion maven Tim Gunn appeared. Most women know Tim Gunn as the amiable presence at the center of "Project Runway;" most men know him as the

amiable presence at the center of that annoying reality show that their wives are addicted to. Sitting next to O'Brien, Gunn assessed the fashion sense of a certain lagging presidential contender. His commentary was withering:

"When she was in the White House I really thought there was hope for her. And then she became the senator from New York and I thought 'hurray, hallelujah, she's from New York, she's representing us, her fashion will really be ramped up,' but I think she's confused about what her gender is. She'a so mannish in her dress, and I believe the suits are probably made out of Kevlar. I just don't get it. There is one Capitol Hill leader whose fashion I think can't be beat and that's Nancy Pelosi."

I found Gunn's observations made a nice pair with a front page Boston Globe story from yesterday titled, “Clinton's Struggle Vexes Feminists.” Granted, feminists are often easily vexed, but their vexation over Hillary's struggles is noteworthy for its especially out-of-touch with reality characteristics:

"A female candidate with a hyper-substantive career is now threatened with losing the nomination to a man whose charismatic style and powerful rhetoric are trumping her decades of experience. The style-vs.-substance clash is common to presidential contests, and has hurt wonky male candidates as well, women's leaders say. But they argue that Clinton has a peculiar burden in this year's contest because she never would have been able to reach the final stages of the nomination process unless she had spent her life emphasizing her professional record over stylistic abilities."

"Hyper-substantive?" Because she’s spent seven years in the senate? Then what term would one use to describe Hillary's erstwhile competitors in the presidential race, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, who between them have spent a combined 70+ years in the senate (although it's felt like longer*)? Mega-gigantour-super-hyper-substantive? And just for the record, precisely what massive “stylistic abilities” has Clinton eschewed emphasizing? See Tim Gunn's comments for instruction in that regard.

If we're supposed to accept the notion that Hillary's career truly is hyper-substantive, then we have to believe that she came by her hyper-substantiveness by dint of her spouse. I thought that was the kind of thing that feminists didn't like, viewing wives as mere appendages to their husbands. But the times I guess are changing.

Besides, if Hillary were really “hyper-substantive,” the race wouldn't have boiled down to who gives the best speech. But where does she have substance that Obama doesn't? Specifically, what policies does she propose that Obama opposes?

Combining Gunn's comments with the Globe's report on feminist anguish, it’s safe to say that Hillary's lack of fabulousness combined with her lack of real substance have doomed her campaign.

*Joke stolen from James Taranto
HT: Mary Katharine Ham for the Tim Gunn footage

Hugo Chavez seems to be Fidel Castro's biggest fan, and proudest disciple. Press accounts suggest the two talk regularly. Therefore, I was surprised not to see a reaction from Chavez early yesterday to the news that Castro was retiring from public life. Yesterday evening, he made a statement:

In his first official reaction to his friend and ally Fidel Castro's decision to withdraw from power, Venezuelan President said on Tuesday that 'Fidel is not resigning or giving up anything, but is moving on to take the place that is his in the Cuban revolution and the Latin American revolution'.

Calling Castro's decision 'a gesture that elevates him' rather than resignation, Chavez said the move was 'a lesson for all those who accuse men like Fidel of desperately clinging to power'.

Chavez added that Fidel 'has not completely recovered his health'.

He's 'moving on' to take his place in the revolution? He's been 'elevated?' He's not 'completely recovered' his health? Does Chavez know something he's not sharing yet? Has Castro joined Bolivar and Guevara?

Shouldn’t Obama’s flak be joking about this instead of lodging an official complaint and getting some peon at MSNBC in trouble?

“It happened during the opening of ‘Hardball’ Monday evening. Matthews was previewing a story on the controversy over Obama's use of another politician's words, and a picture of bin Laden briefly flashed on the screen beside him with the headline ‘Words About Words.’

“The Obama campaign immediately called NBC to complain, and Matthews apologized on the air a few minutes later. When ‘Hardball’ was rerun later that night, a picture of Obama replaced the picture of the terrorist leader. . . . Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor noted the apology and said the campaign had no other comment.”

Elsewhere in the article, it is noted that many spell checkers suggest Osama as a correction for Obama. I’d prefer to be in the camp of WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Reihan Salam--spellcheckers suggest his first-name be changed to Reagan.

Wow. A tough and iron-fisted Generalissimo of the totalitarian Left left the world stage yesterday . . . but enough about Hillary Clinton.

Sorry, couldn't resist an obvious Castro/HRC joke. Back in Wisconsin, though, Hillary's problem is as serious as Fidel's. This Wisconsin loss means that Obama's surging momentum will grow even more powerful. New polls showing Obama closing in Hillary's Texas redoubt provide more evidence. The race tilted decisively toward Obama after his wins last week in Maryland, DC, and Virginia.

With this Wisconsin iceberg now slamming into the Clinton campaign, I'm reminded of the scene in Cameron's Titanic where the ship's designer rushes to the bridge, unrolls the construction plans, and informs the Captain that despite the small shudder of the impact and the normal feeling on the bridge, the great ship is doomed. They're unrolling the plans tonight in Hillaryland. They'll be vicious infighting about various desperate Hail Mary plans -- like today's foolish trial balloon about trying to steal committed Obama delegates -- and lots of scapegoating top Clinton campaign officials. The former President will go ape, find a microphone, and embarrass himself somewhere in Texas or Ohio. But like water rushing into the Titanic's hull, the forces now flowing hard against the Hillary Clinton campaign are furious and the die is cast.

Paul Waldman has a very interesting piece on Obama's use of narrative. It includes this striking passage:

[I]f he should find himself facing Obama, McCain will discover that his own weaknesses fit in neatly with the story Obama tells. Where Obama is young, dynamic and optimistic, McCain is old, subdued, and prone to telling voters that things are likely to get worse before they get better.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, McCain offers no indication of where we as citizens fit into his story, what a vote for him is supposed to say about us. And this is precisely where Hillary Clinton has had trouble countering Obama, despite her prodigious policy knowledge and disciplined campaigning. [emphasis added]

It's striking not because I think it's necessarily right--I can envision a few ways in which a vote for McCain does become a personal statement--but because it does get at a very fundamental aspect of the Obama movement.

Maybe it was his CPAC speech? For the first time in the Republican primary, McCain has the support of a majority of his party nationwide. Indeed, nearly every poll in the last two weeks shows McCain at a point or two over 50 percent. Perhaps more remarkable is that 13 percent of Republicans are standing in solidarity with Obama supporters in Michigan--they’re voting “no preference.”

It’s unclear what more McCain can really do to persuade conservatives who are still on the fence or perhaps totally unconvinced. He holds their positions on the most important issues. He has whispered sweet-nothings into their ears. Perhaps he needs to let them know he is one of them by attacking the MSM, i.e. telling off color jokes like “the New York Times endorsed me, which is the only thing the Viet Cong and I have in common.”

Beyond this, the only thing left for McCain to do is select a Vice President movement conservatives will identify with. Vice Presidents are notoriously weak, but picking a really conservative one isn’t meaningless, even if it doesn’t foreshadow a more conservative McCain presidency. Given the likelihood, should McCain be our next commander-in-chief, that his deputy will eventually be the party’s nominee, a conservative pick amounts to a promissory note: “If you put up with me for 8 years, you’ll get this guy next.”

As Continetti noted here earlier, the decision by Fidel Castro to step down has occasioned lots of commentary about how many U.S. presidents and other world leaders he outlasted. Credit where it's due: there's at least one American politician (and as far as I can tell, only one) who has lasted in office longer than Castro: West Virginia Senator Bob Byrd.

Byrd was sworn into office on January 3, 1959 -- more than a month before Castro. And at 90 years young, Byrd is still rendering his energetic service to the good people of West Virginia.

Madison, Wisconsin
Last night a whole bunch of Clinton supporters gathered in the Monona Terrace convention hall. The campaign claims there were "more than 5,000" on hand. I'm not sure there were that many, but there were certainly more than a few thousand. It was a packed, super-energized crowd and Hillary Clinton gave a solid, and even at times charismatic performance.

Her lone misstep was a passage where she tried to tackle the issue of her likeability. She said:

Part of what this campaign is coming down to is a recognition that we need to know, as specifically as possible, what our next president intends to do. We don't need a leap of faith. We don't need to have a beer with the next president. We have that president. Although, you know, I'd be happy to have a beer, too . . .

Uh, sure.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin
One of the additional weirdnesses of yesterday's Michelle Obama event was that before the program began, they played the now famous Dipdive music video on a giant screen behind the podium:

It's a pretty amazing spectacle. Look at all the multi-racial, beautiful people who are for Barack. It's like a Benetton ad on HGH. But look more closely and you'll notice that these aren't just normal, multi-racial, beautiful people--they're famous, too! That makes them better than you and me.

I wouldn't presume to tell David Axelrod how to run a campaign, but it seems to me that if he rolled out Scarlet Johansson at rallies and had her do backup vocals for Obama, well (look closely for her in the video) it seems to me that's pretty unstoppable. The Clinton's would basically have to fold up shop.

Also, if you want to see what the luxuries of a $32 million January fundraising haul look like, in part they look like this gorgeous, super high quality poster (it's almost like a theatrical one-sheet) for $20 on its website. At the Madison rally, they were shoving them into the hands of attendees by the handful.

(P.S.: Don't let my sarcasm fool you--despite its creepiness, the "Yes We Can" video is a fantastic production. I defy you to watch it all the way and not find yourself tapping your foot in time by the end.)

When I was six, my life's ambition was to be this guy.

Most amazing detail in the post above: The man with the world's largest Star Wars figurine collection ... also has a girlfriend.

The big news of the day: Fidel Castro, Cuba's commie president since 1959, has resigned. Fidel, 81, has been sick with cancer and his brother Raul, 76, has been essentially running the government. Cuba's Council of State will meet on Sunday and is expected to keep Raul in power. Although it is unclear how much Cuba will change right now, bloggers agree that Fidel's resignation is good for Cuba.

Michelle Malkin was one of the first to round up the news from Cuba--and like most bloggers, she's not sad. Bryan Preston at Hot Air adds, "I say the Fidel Death Watch is on. I have a cigar waiting for that day." A Jawa Report blogger notes that "Castro rose to overlordship of Cuba largely through imprisoning and murdering any 'rising young leaders' who got in his way." And at the Corner, John J. Miller points us to information about Castro's "rotten legacy."

But what's next for Cuba?

Drew at Ace of Spades notes that while no one can be sure what is next for Cuba, "there are a lot of people in several US government agencies dusting off plans on what the US will do when Castro dies or the regime in Cuba falls. It will be a very happy but challenging time." And at Andrew Sullivan's blog, blogger hilzoy says that "change has begun."

But at the Corner, Otto Reich disagrees: "Fidel has not run the country since July of 2006 but as long as he is alive no Cuban will dare challenge his power. The average Cuban, as well as the leaders, are far too afraid of physical retaliation from Castro." Robert Farley at Tapped and Scott Hinderaker at Power Line agree. More on that from Captain Ed, who says, "If Fidel died, the machinery of the Cuban state might have decided to take another direction, but Fidel remains alive and a threat." Nonetheless, he says, the U.S. is in the prime position to steer Cuba toward democracy.

All Americans are hoping for a democratic Cuba. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain have issued statements in support of real democracy. Susan Davis at the WSJ Washington Wire reports on more Washington reaction.

Fausta rounds up blogger reactions and says, "The countdown to a transition officially begins today." And Glenn Reynolds adds, "Let's transition to a free, democratic Cuba soon -- I'd like to add it to my dive-destination list. . . ."

After Monday's elections, it looks like the writing's on the wall for the Pakistani strongman:

Two politicians close to Mr. Musharraf have said in the past week that the president was well aware of the drift in the country against him and they suggested that he would not remain in office if the new government was in direct opposition to him. 'He does not have the fire in the belly for another fight,' said one member of his party. He added that Mr. Musharraf was building a house for himself in Islamabad and would be ready soon to move.

On a conference call this morning, Council on Foreign Relations scholar Daniel Markey said that this week's elections "could be the end" of Musharraf's party, the Muslim League-Q. Most of the U.S. coverage of the Pakistani elections has interpreted the results as a "blow" or "setback" to the Bush administration, but Markey noted that "A lot of Pakistanis voted for reasons that had nothing to do with Musharraf's relationship with the United States." Moreover, the major Islamist party, the MMA, lost seats in the Northwest Frontier province. It is hard to argue that elections which promote civilian rule and deal a blow to Islamic extremists are a "setback" for the United States and liberalism.

During the conference call, Markey predicted a period of tumult in Islamabad as the election winners jostle to form a coalition government. That may mean, Markey went on, that in the "near term ... all of the Pakistani political leaders will be very distracted from issues that the United States cares about." It's worth asking, though: compared to whom? Because it is not as if the generals, the ISI, and Musharraf have paid much attention recently to the "issues that the United States cares about" either.

Of the head to head polls that have come out in the last week, none should be more startling to the McCain campaign than this one from New Hampshire: Rasmussen has McCain trailing Obama by 13 points (36 to 49) in the Granite State. McCain is behind Clinton too, but the gap is much smaller (41 to 43). Surely it’s a testament to an Obama-surge that he did not even win New Hampshire’s open primary, and yet he now fares much better than both Clinton and McCain. Notwithstanding New Hampshire’s minuscule four Electoral College votes, this is not a good sign. Fortunately, the "President of New Hampshire" leads Obama by 16 points (53 to 37) in Florida. There is even one good poll that puts Pennsylvania within reach. Recall that the Keystone State state only barely went to Kerry in ’04.

David Brooks:

"His Hopeness tells rallies that we are the change we have been waiting for, but if we are the change we have been waiting for then why have we been waiting since we've been here all along?"

Maybe we are the change we have been waiting for that now we can believe in?

Castro "resigns."

Is the surge working and how long should American troops stay in Iraq? These are the questions Americans want answered. But according to Damien Cave, who spent most of the last year covering the war in Iraq as a reporter for the New York Times, they are not the only questions to ask. Home for a little more than a month now, he spoke Friday at an event in New York City hosted by the Phillips Foundation. Cave said that the question Americans must ask is "what do we owe the Iraqis as people?" And he pointed to what he called a "lack of intellectual rigor" on this issue from across American society.

Americans have a "moral responsibility to the Iraqi people," said Cave, though he did not elaborate on what would be required of us in order to fulfill our obligation. In particular he highlighted the sacrifices made by Iraqis who work for the American government and American companies, and the millions of innocent Iraqis forced to leave their homes by Iraq's violence. He expressed some frustration that politicians, think-tanks, and foundations had spent so little time addressing the question of what can or should be done for such people. He offered as an example the corruption that pervades Iraqi government and society, and he noted that there seemed to be little effort to develop a strategy for dealing with the problem, which he said severely undermines faith in the Iraqi government. Cave did not speculate on why American civil society had failed to maintain an interest in the challenge of rebuilding Iraq.

In fact, he offered far more questions than answers in what was a largely informal discussion on the nature of reporting from a war zone, but he spoke at length about "how psychologically damaged the Iraqi people are after decades under Saddam's rule." One of the legacies of that regime, he said, was that "no one trusts anyone." As to whether the surge is working, he allowed that violence was down across the country, but he explained that there are "no simple answers." He pointed to the combined effect of the ceasefire called by Moktada al-Sadr, the Awakening movement's war on al Qaeda, and the new strategy and increased numbers of U.S. forces. Whether it was the Iraqi or American dynamic that was more dominant is an open question, he said, but he did emphasize that from the American point of view, he believed the change in strategy--the move out from large bases and into Iraqi neighborhoods, as well as the increase in money set aside for new American allies--was more significant than the increase in force levels.

Again and again he pointed to the "complicated, nuanced reality" of Iraq. It is "more complicated than anyone realizes," he said. And he added that this complexity also extends to Iraqi public opinion. Cave was dubious of public opinion surveys showing that Iraqis want American troops out of Iraq. They "resent the American presence but still expect a lot from it," he said, and he recounted conversations with Iraqis in which they would say they wanted Americans to leave the country immediately, only to demand that before they withdraw they repair this or that element of the infrastructure--no matter how long it takes. For many Iraqis, he said, this isn't simply a question of "either or."

Kosovo declared its independence yesterday and today the United States, Britain, and France all recognized the new government, despite the protestations of Serbia and Russia. Senator Lieberman just put out the following statement:

The declaration of independence on Sunday by the democratically-elected government of Kosovo represents the only just and sustainable outcome for the future of this unique territory, and for the stability of Southeastern Europe.

It's not every day that a new nation comes into being. And for all the talk about anti-Americanism, I think we can judge Kosovo a likely ally in the years ahead--at least that's what all the flag waving would indicate.

Still, It will be interesting to see how the Democratic candidates respond to this--given that it was a Democratic president that began our commitment in Kosovo (How would Ned Lamont have responded for that matter, given that the only mention I can find at the Daily Kos is "Serbia is not thrilled.") Will they summon the courage to acknowledge that the Bush administration--maybe, just maybe--did something right? Don't hold your breath.

How cold? Anthony Watts reports that the drop from January 2007 to January 2008 "appears to be the largest single year to year January drop for the entire GISS data set."

Of course, we're not likely to hear much about record breaking cold, but Watts goes on:

This is yet one more indication of the intensity of planet-wide cooler temperatures seen in January 2008, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, which has seen record amounts of snow coverage extent as well as new record low surface temperatures in many places.

Which has had the not surprising effect of restoring much of the sea ice lost last summer. The CBC reports:

Satellite images are showing that the cold spell is helping the sea ice expand in coverage by about 2 million square kilometres, compared to the average winter coverage in the previous three years.

"It's nice to know that the ice is recovering," Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, told CBC News on Thursday.

"That means that maybe the perennial ice would not go down as low as last year."

So what, Al Gore might say. The problem isn't the extent of the ice, but the thickness. Well...

The cold is also making the ice thicker in some areas, compared to recorded thicknesses last year, Lagnis added.

"The ice is about 10 to 20 centimetres thicker than last year, so that's a significant increase," he said.

I'm starting to think that the left only pays attention to the Arctic in the summer--when it's supposed to melt.

From the New York Times: Democrats Should Read Kipling, by the boss.

From the Middle East Journal: The Dungeon of Fallujah, by Michael J. Totten.

From the Washington Post: Why Torts Trumped Terrorism, by Robert Novak.

From Contentions: Winning Hybrid Wars, by Max Boot.

From Der Spiegel: Interview with Henry Kissinger.

Jonathan V. Last reports from Wisconsin:

[T]he Founders Day event also featured a new addition meant to counter the Clinton charge that it takes more than just words to be president.

As rebuttal, Obama thundered, "'I have a dream.' Just words. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' Just words. 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Just words."

It's a powerful passage and Obama's delivery is pitch-perfect. But it doesn't withstand even the most gentle scrutiny. The famous phrases Obama is cleverly aligning himself with were, of course, more than "just words." They were words connected with actions, ideals, and concrete goals; with soldiers and war and sacrifice and death.

Today the New York Times reports that those words were "adapted" from a speech given in 2006 by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. The two are friends, and David Axelrod, now Obama's chief strategist, advised Patrick as well. But the Clinton camp is accusing Obama of plagiarism, which seems like a bit of a stretch. After all, it's just words. More remarkable is the fact that, watching the video, it's clear Deval Patrick delivered the lines better.

John Noonan makes some very interesting and important points in his recent piece, "An Irregular Challenge." The Air Force does need to evaluate its role in low intensity conflict and must make the necessary investments to support that mission. John is also right in stating that the Air Force has yet to do that in a meaningful way:

"This is the accepted doctrine in Air Force circles. If you want to fight small, you've got to go big. Bulk up the force so that it can dominate peer/near-peer, and *poof* through the magic of air supremacy, we'll automatically be postured to effectively prosecute irregular wars. The problem, however, is that F-22 Raptors are not optimal IW platforms. Nor are Joint Strike Fighters, or B-1 bombers, or even older F-15s and F-16s"

And:

"I think what freaks Air Force types out about small wars talk (and equipping the force with short range slow-movers) is that they fear they'll go back to the days of subservience to the Army (shoot here, fly here). Zoomies are a proud bunch, and they take a certain satisfaction in the fact that they're our first line of defense against heavy hitters like Russia and China."

The problem for the Air Force, however, is that beyond some very secondary support function, it doesn't have much of a legitimate role in low intensity conflict (LIC). Airpower is about firepower. Firepower is almost irrelevant to low intensity conflict. Go to the AFA Daily Update, and look at the little box at the bottom, where it gives the daily number of sorties in Iraq by type. The vast majority are transport or tanker, with ISR and CAS/Armed Recon way back in the pack (and overall, the sortie rate is insignificant). When it comes to wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, the main role of the Air Force is trucking company, moving men and materiel from place to place. It can help, to a limited extent, by providing persistent surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, but systems like J-STARS, the U-2, or tactical reconnaissance aircraft can't really contribute much when the targets blend so well into the background.

As I wrote in an earlier article, the main role of the Air Force is, and must remain, deterring and if necessary, defeating any emergent peer competitor (read China). That's going to require significant numbers of the most advanced fighter, attack and sensor aircraft, complete with the most sophisticated air-launched weapons. The qualitative margin of the U.S. over the PLAAF is constantly diminishing as the Chinese acquire more top-of-the-line Russian aircraft and missiles, link them with state-of-the-art command and control systems, and begin learning how to use them. Yes, the U.S. will retain the edge in pilot quality for the foreseeable future, but the Chinese are constantly learning and improving, and there is only so much that pilot skill can do to redress numerical and performance inferiority. So, from my perspective, the Air Force does need its full complement of F-22s (particularly if we're not going to be able to bring back all the F-15s); on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, I'm not so sure--with the cost differential less than 33 percent between the "high end" F-22 and the "low end" F-35, I think I would prefer to have more F-22s and provide them with air-to-ground capability (it is always easier to transition from air-to-air to air-to-ground than vice versa).

The Jerusalem Post reports:

In an uncommon act of journalistic contrition, the BBC has apologized for equating former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh as "great national leaders."

The BBC took the unusual step after Don Mell, the Associated Press's former photographer in Beirut, lambasted the parallel, drawn by BBC correspondent Humphrey Hawkesley in a BBC World report last Thursday, as "an outrage" and "beyond belief."

American journalist Mell was held up at gunpoint by Mughniyeh's men as his colleague Terry Anderson, AP's chief Middle East correspondent, was kidnapped in Beirut in March 1985.

The BBC issued a statement Friday acknowledging that "the scripting of this phrase was imprecise."

That's one way to put it.

Chinese media have given minimal coverage to president Bush‘s week-long visit to Africa. While Xinhua ascribes the motivation for the five-nation trip to "strategic interests" that include military and energy security, it also acknowledges that the U.S. troop presence in Africa has been "tiny."

By contrast, Beijing seems much more concerned with Japan’s push into the continent, as evidenced by an article titled "Japanese diplomacy takes aim at Africa." The piece appeared in last Wednesday’s edition of Liberation Daily and was subsequently reprinted by Xinhua.

The article states that Tokyo has launched a new round of "diplomatic offensives" in Africa, beginning with last month’s visit to Tanzania by Japanese foreign minister Masahiko Koumura. During that visit, he unveiled a $260 million aid package to help African nations deal with conflicts and natural disasters.

The piece reports that Japan’s new diplomatic targeting of Africa includes the hosting of two major international conferences later this year. The first of these is the fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, to be held in Yokohama in May. The other is the G8 Hokkaido Summit in July. Host country Japan has invited 14 non-members to participate in the forum and fully half are from Africa.

The Liberation Daily article further states that these actions are motivated by three factors. One is that, as a formidable voting bloc, Africa could help Japan achieve its goal of becoming a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. This, in turn, would help transform the country from simply an economic power into a political one as well.

The second factor is the continent’s vast energy resources. And finally, the article explains the push as an attempt to counter China’s growing influence in the region:

The success of the 2006 Beijing Forum on China-Africa Cooperation gave China the upper hand. Green with envy, Japan launched a "diplomatic offensive" consisting of political courtship and economic aid. Japan competes [with China] and stands in [China’s] way wherever possible. Japan believes that if it succeeds in containing and countering China it will weaken China’s influence in Africa.

The main theme of the Liberation Daily piece echoes that of a number of other reports Chinese media ran recently on the inroads Tokyo has made in Africa.

One article’s caption reads "Why is Japan eyeing Africa more and more closely?" It finds especially noteworthy the visit to Botswana and South Africa this past November by Japan’s trade minister Akira Amari, during which Tokyo secured rare-metal exploration deals with both countries. While the report described Amari’s trip as "fruitful," it neglected to mention that Japan embarked on its hunt for rare metals in Africa because China’s increasing domestic demand for these minerals had led it recently to cut back on exports to Japan.

In chronicling Japanese aid to Africa, the report also noted that since the 1990s Japan has been the second largest donor country to Africa, behind only France.

In the end, however, Beijing’s apprehension over Tokyo’s overtures toward Africa may be unnecessary. The "Official Development Assistance Charter" adopted by the Japanese government in 1992 requires Tokyo to link its aid to the promotion of human rights, freedom, and democracy. Chinese aid to Africa, on the other hand, comes with no such strings attached.

Hillary Clinton’s continued troubles, and what she might do to right the ship, dominated the Sunday morning talk shows. George Will pointed out that Wisconsin could be rough sailing for the New York senator on This Week: "The way you stop losing is you start winning. And she has to start in Wisconsin. The problem is Wisconsin is an open primary, in that independents can vote there. There’s no fight on the Republican side, they’ll all vote on the Democratic side. Furthermore, they have same-day registration; that’s the wonderful system that gave us Jesse Ventura next door in Minnesota. Even before that . . . Democrats abroad will announce their result, they have 11 delegates . . . so that could be two more losses. Then it seems to me she has to spike, to kill this talk of winning with the super delegates. And, even worse, the Florida and Michigan delegates."

But the Clinton campaign is loathe to give up one of its few remaining advantages. Howard Wolfson invoked Howard Dean on Face the Nation in an effort to deflect the anger of the party’s left wing in the event of a nomination decided by superdelegates: "You know, I agree with Chairman Dean, who said that the superdelegates are supposed to vote their conscience, they're supposed to vote who they think will be the best person for the nation and for the party. That's why they were created, and that's what they're going to do. And I think that the reason so many of them are supporting us . . . Obama's campaign is vigorously attempting to secure their support--but the reason that so many support us is because they know that Senator Clinton is the candidate with the real solutions that we need to tackle our problems."

The Obama camp is understandably concerned. Obama supporter Dick Durbin was on Meet the Press to decry the possibility of superdelegates picking Clinton over his man. "That'd be a serious problem," he said, and he warned that it could spark a backlash. "You know, the voters will have the last word in November. The elected delegates should have the last word in Denver. Those are the delegates who have stood before the voters. I'm one of those superdelegates. . . . There are almost 800 of us. We've been involved in this party and given a lot of our lives to it. But let's be very honest about this. The final word has to be decided by elected delegates."

On a slightly different topic, Mike McConnell was on Fox News Sunday to point out just what is different as a result of the stalemate over FISA. "When the program was returned to the FISA court in January of ’07, initially we had coverage that we had asked for. But over time, because technology had changed, and the law of ’78 had not been changed, because technology had gone from a wireless world to a wired world, foreigners communicating in a foreign country, more than likely the communications would pass through the United States. Therefore the court said that if it touches a wire, consistent with the law, you have to have a warrant. Now, a warrant means probable cause, which is a very time consuming process to go through. So we were in that situation last summer, we passed the new act to improve our situation--that act has now expired."

Since this has been such a big year for political surprises and Crazy Ivan style last minute twists and turns, your Cardinal would be remiss in not noting the significant possibility of a Hillary Clinton upset win in Tuesday's Wisconsin primary. Now don't get me wrong. I've been predicting Obama will be the Democratic nominee for more than a year, often to the cackles of experts who would remind me about Hillary's unstoppable machine and fearsome "ground game" (whatever that is). I still believe he is likely to be the Democratic nominee. I'd peg his odds now at about 75-80 percent. But Wisconsin is a loose screw in the Obama surge machine. Polls show HRC only behind by 5-6 points which is nothing in a primary. Wisconsin's primary electorate is cheese loving and lily white, a disadvantage to Obama who while competitive with white voters always does better when he enters a primary with a monolithic hunk of the black vote locked in for him. That way he can lose to Clinton among everybody else and still win elections.

Much like New Hampshire, Hillary is again on the ropes and facing a possible electoral death sentence. In New Hampshire that led to a late dynamic of mercy and comeback. My head tells me Obama ekes out a Wisconsin win, but I think it is close. If she wins, she's still in big trouble but back in the game. If he wins, I think the long grind to the convention will be a death march for Das Clinton Apparat.

I've long felt that--after several decades of maintaining a peacetime military--Pentagon bureaucracy has become as great of