A must-read from Christopher Hitchens:

The punishment visited on Sen. Hillary Clinton for her flagrant, hysterical, repetitive, pathological lying about her visit to Bosnia should be much heavier than it has yet been and should be exacted for much more than just the lying itself. There are two kinds of deliberate and premeditated deceit, commonly known as suggestio falsi and suppressio veri. (Neither of them is covered by the additionally lying claim of having "misspoken.") The first involves what seems to be most obvious in the present case: the putting forward of a bogus or misleading account of events. But the second, and often the more serious, means that the liar in question has also attempted to bury or to obscure something that actually is true. Let us examine how Sen. Clinton has managed to commit both of these offenses to veracity and decency and how in doing so she has rivaled, if not indeed surpassed, the disbarred and perjured hack who is her husband and tutor.

Hitchens is outraged, and eloquently so as always--it's definitely worth reading through. Still, I'm surprised that anyone can be surprised by the Clinton's lies anymore. Frankly, I find them rather comforting in comparison to Obama's new kind of politics, which best I can tell seems to be the same old politics in a new self-righteous package. All politicians lie, and the Clintons more than most. I can't imagine that voters haven't already internalized this reality--which is why I tend to think the explanation for Hillary's plummeting poll numbers must lie elsewhere. Samantha says it's the whining, which is as good an explanation as any.

Long before the start of the Iraqi offensive against the Mahdi Army and the associated Iranian-backed Special Groups in Basra, pundits had been bending over backwards to claim Muqtada al Sadr is an Iraqi nationalist with no ties to Iran. As Matthew Duss wrote, "the repeated attempts by conservative defenders of Bush’s Iraq policy to dispute Sadr's nationalist credentials and treat him as an Iranian puppet indicate a real and troubling lack of knowledge of the Iraqi political scene, and of Sadr’s place within it." Such claims have been made despite the fact that Sadr is sheltering in Qom to study the Iranian strain of theocratic Shia Islam known as wilayet al-faqeeh. Sadr’s Mahdi Army has also been caught red-handed with Iranian made weapons, and there's ample evidence that Hezbollah and Iran’s Qods Force have trained his militia.

Today, McClatchy Newspapers pens an article that should blow the doors off any notion that Sadr is not in the Iranian sphere of influence. Sadr was apparently persuaded to issue yesterday’s order to end hostilities after Iraqi lawmakers lobbied the commander of Qods Force and accused Sadr of inciting the violence and using Iranian-made weapons to attack the people of Iraq.

The backdrop to Sadr's dramatic statement was a secret trip Friday by Iraqi lawmakers to Qom, Iran's holy city and headquarters for the Iranian clergy who run the country.

There the Iraqi lawmakers held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.

Ali al Adeeb, a member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's Dawa party, and Hadi al Ameri, the head of the Badr Organization, the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, had two aims, lawmakers said: to ask Sadr to stand down his militia and to ask Iranian officials to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq.

Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, who has been accused of receiving his marching orders from Iran, refuses to abide by the Iranian diktat. Maliki has said Iraqi security forces will continue operations to target anyone who fails to comply with Sadr’s order, and has demanded that the Mahdi Army surrender its medium and heavy weapons. The Iraqi military, for its part, is moving more forces to Basra. The Mahdi Army has taken significant casualties in Baghdad, Basra, and the greater South after seven days of fighting.

Obama chooses his words very carefully in this exchange with a reporter at a gas station (?) press conference:

What I said is I would have a strike force in the region, perhaps in Iraq, perhaps outside of Iraq, so that we could take advantage of--or we could deal with potential problems that might take place in the region. That's very different from saying we're going to have a permanent occupation in Iraq...

Allah is shocked (shocked!) that Obama continues to distort McCain's position. I think that misses the point. Obama is saying he will maintain a troop presence in the country, a "strike force," and he refuses to say for how long. A strike force means combat troops. How many troops? He doesn't say. He does say that these troops will be used to "deal with potential problems."

Surely there will be plenty of potential problems to deal with if only a small contingent of U.S. forces remaining in Iraq, but what are these troops meant to do about it? If things go south, will this small contingent "strike" at insurgents in Ramadi? Baghdad? Basra? And to what end? This has Black Hawk Down written all over it--or are they going to drive into battle from their desert redoubt? If so we must be talking about a fairly large number of troops.

Obama has layed out a plan for an indefinite troop presence of undetermined size, and yet he mocks John McCain for saying he would keep U.S. forces in Iraq indefinitely and at undetermined levels. If nothing else we now know what the general election pivot will look like. And Allah does ask the right exit question: How does Obama define victory in this scenario? My guess: our guys not getting mauled in a fight with AQI when reinforcements are delayed by the trip from Kuwait.

Update: I deleted the video here, I think it was causing problems on the site. Click through the Hot Air link above to see the video that originally accompanied this post.

Many pollsters and pundits pointed to Republican underperformance among independent and moderate swing voters as the cause of their mid-term congressional demise in 2006. Winning those voters back must be on the minds of many in the McCain high command and among GOP congressional election strategists. And while surveys still show the GOP lagging in party identification, the makeup of the electorate in the primaries to date tells a slightly different story.

This post by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political scientist Tom Holbrook breaks down the Republican and Democratic primaries (through Mississippi) and demonstrates the two parties are near mirror images of each other so far this year in attracting independent voters to their primaries. This is surprising given all the attention in the media surrounding the appeal of Barack Obama to these non-aligned voters.

According to Holbrook, "About 76% of the votes in each of the parties' primaries have come from their own partisans, 20% from independents and around 4% from the other party. The bottom line is that neither party is doing a better job attracting independents or rival partisans. Once again, this finding is a bit at odds with the common perception that the Democrats have been more successful at drawing independent voters."

Next Holbrook looks at the primary electorate from the standpoint of ideology, showing a different picture. Democratic primary voters break down 47.4% liberal, 39.8% moderate and 12.8% conservative. GOP primary voters are 54.8% conservative, 26.5% moderate and 8.7% liberal. He suggests the Democratic primaries so far this year may be more "ideologically heterogeneous." Probably true at one level. But "liberal" may still be somewhat of a pejorative among certain Democrats. So many of the "moderates" here may indeed be "liberals" in disguise. They just don’t choose that label with pollsters.

Since 2005, Barack Obama has donated three times as much as Senator Clinton to Democratic superdelegates:

The study found that the presidential candidate who gave more money to the superdelegates received their endorsements 82 percent of the time. That's based on a review of elected officials who are serving as superdelegates and who'd endorsed a candidate as of Feb. 25.

In cases where superdelegates received money from Obama's Hope Fund but none from Clinton's PAC, Obama got the superdelegates' support 85 percent of the time. And in cases where superdelegates received money from Clinton's Hillpac but none from Obama's PAC, 75 percent backed Clinton.

If 82 percent of the superdelegates are endorsing the candidate who donated more to them, that's indicative of something other than a belief in 'the audacity of hope.' It sounds more like good old-fashioned bribery.

Last week I wrote about the three dozen or so Democratic challengers running on a platform to withdraw all troops from Iraq. Implicitly or explicitly, these candidates are telling the voters that the Democratic leadership in Washington is ineffective (at best) or hypocritical (at worst). That message has not been lost on Democratic leaders in Washington:

“They’re very upset about it,” the Democratic operative said. “When they found out that there were a lot more people signing on, they were getting worried. I don’t know exactly what their problem is...”

“You can see these candidates are pushing the envelope a little bit, and perhaps that’s why organizations like the DCCC would be getting a little nervous,” said the operative...

Burner said that whenever possible, the plan points out existing legislation that accomplishes the group’s goals. When asked about the DCCC’s reaction to the challengers’ proposal, Burner said it was never their intention to look inside the Beltway for support.

“The answer is that they have certainly done nothing to hurt us,” Burner said in a conference call Thursday afternoon. “But as a I said before, this has not been an effort that is drawn from inside the Beltway.”

Even Democratic challengers recognize that Pelosi and Reid are too unpopular to allow them to run as defenders of the status quo. Instead, they're arguing that the Democratic Congress has failed, and that voters need to elect real change agents to Congress. You can bet that Republicans in competitive races against Democrats will repeat this charge. That will make it even harder for Democrats in Washington to navigate a path that pleases the base while addressing the priorities of moderate voters.

Obama's endorsements are piling up, and the cries for Hillary to exit the race are getting louder. But even if you're not a Hillary fan, the claims that she alone is dividing the party seem ludicrous--certainly the Rev. Wright fiasco is as much to blame. Yet Hillary seems to determined to squander what little chance she has left of winning the nomination with her phony feminist outcries.

Hillary played the gender card again over the weekend. According to a New York Times report, "Mrs. Clinton told aides that she would not be 'bullied out' of the race. In a conversation with two Democratic allies, she compared the situation to the 'big boys' trying to bully a woman, according to interviews with them." Sorry, honey--that's politics.

Are women getting tired of her "poor little bullied woman" rhetoric? Although she still leads Obama by as much as 27 points among white women, her favorables are falling even among this group of core supporters. According to last week's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, "women voters with negative views [of Clinton] narrowly outstrip those with positive ones, 44% to 42%. That compares with her positive rating from 51% of women in the earlier March poll.” She should probably cut the pathetic "poor little me" act--if women aren't buying it, who will?

The liberal blogger who put together this video, a Clinton supporter at the prominent left-wing site MyDD, darkly warned:

If we choose Obama as our nominee, we are locked-in to this narrative. There is no going back, no bogus NBC polls to save the day. No Anderson Cooper softball interviews or phony charges of racism that will rescue us.

The opponent doesn't care. All the thoughtfulness and restraint of a Democratic adversary will be gone.

Yes, the thoughtfulness and restraint of Clinton and her supporters have historically been very impressive. Once Obama has to deal with those Republicans, who will do anything to win, God knows what will happen.

Vladimir Putin will propose an underwater tunnel linking Russia to Alaska--two places no one in the world wants to go--in a meeting with President Bush next week. Tsar Nicholas II initially proposed the tunnel in the early 1900s. One imagines if constructed, hoards of Russians will infiltrate Alaska a la Red Dawn. Only instead of imprisoning freedom-loving Americans, they’ll simply demand the $1,600 annual subsidy paid to each resident for living on the real-world set of Waiting for Godot.

The tunnel would cost $66 billion. No word on whether Russia will pay this entire sum, or expects America to go Dutch on this frivolous project. In any case, this is only slightly dumber than another underwater tunnel idea to emerge in the last few months. A private real estate developer is pushing for approval to build a $10 billion tunnel connecting Long Island and Westchester. Under his plan, commuters would pay $25 each way for the benefit of using the private road. At least this tunnel has the benefit of being privately paid for and not a deceased tsar’s vanity project.

Former vice president Al Gore is back in the media spotlight, and the blogosphere is buzzing about what's next for everyone's favorite sore loser. The weekend news was Gore's $300 million campaign "to try to push climate change higher on the nation’s political agenda." The Politico reported yesterday:

The three-year campaign by the Alliance for Climate Protection will begin Wednesday with network television advertising that will include “American Idol” and other non-traditional shows that reach a non-news audience...

Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton just filmed an ad for the We Campaign, sitting on a couch on the beach...

The campaign is being paid for in part with profits from Gore’s global-warming book and movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and with the prize money from his share of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he matched.

As blogger McQ at QandO notes, "for a guy who just said in an interview that skeptics are a 'tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they're almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat,' he sure is behind spending a lot of money to convince the world there's a 'climate crisis' problem."

And of Gore's ad choices, Ed Morrissey says, "What other strange bedfellows can Gore pair for his campaign? Jeremiah Wright and David Duke? Eliot Spitzer and Ashley Dupre?" Michelle Malkin also finds it ludicrous.

The launch of the campaign coincides perfectly with a Telegraph report that some Democratic party bigwigs are discussing the possibility of a Gore nomination in hopes of uniting the party. Conservative bloggers tend to find this idea equally laughable.

Gateway Pundit snarks, "It looks like Al Gore has already saved the planet from warming as evidenced by the record snow and low temperatures this past year and scientific data proving the planet is cooling...Can Al Gore save the Democratic Party, too?" And PoliGazette's Michael van der Galien imagines Gore's stump speech: "'I invented the Internet and I won the Nobel Peace Prize (which I also may have invented); elect me president!'"

Clearly the Democrats are panicking, as Ed Morrissey says, "Desperation leads the unwise to folly, and this is perhaps the best example yet seen." Jules Crittenden adds, "I think my favorite part … aside from the whole thing, that is … is the idea that replacing the Hero of Tuzla and the change-hoping bigot buddy with an exaggerating doomsayer somehow gets this train back on the rails."

Most bloggers think a Gore nomination would not be the best idea--for the Democratic party, or democracy in general. Dave at the Political Machine thinks this could never happen: "Both sides would have to be convinced that Gore is an acceptable alternative to their candidate winning in their own right. And we're not there yet at all. Barack has a lead in the delegates, and Hillary still thinks she owns the nomination." And Mark Levin at the Corner explains exactly why a Gore nomination would be bad for the Democrats, concluding, "It seems to me that a Gore nomination creates serious problems for the Democrat Party. So, I would encourage the Democrats to do it."

Politico reports:

Among the debts reported this month by Hillary Clinton’s struggling presidential campaign, the $292,000 in unpaid health insurance premiums for her campaign staff stands out.

Al Franken was reported to have the same problem a few weeks back. No wonder Democrats want the government to cover health care. They don’t want to do it themselves. Or could it be they’re just hypocrites? No way!

From the New York Times: Biography Isn't Enough, by the boss.

From TWS Online: McCain's Democratic Realism, by Joseph Loconte.

From U.S. News: Hillary Can Win the Popular Vote, by Michael Barone.

From Newsweek: How to Win a Knife Fight, by Karl Rove.

From the New York Post: Patriot Games, by Kirsten Powers.

Update: Another RedLasso video deleted. Apologies.

Obama is apparently one terrible bowler. He scored a mere 37 at a Pennsylvania campaign event on Saturday. If there had been a children’s birthday party going on simultaneously, one fears a 4th grader or two would have bested the Democratic frontrunner.

"My economic plan is better than my bowling," Obama told fellow bowlers Saturday evening at the Pleasant Valley Recreation Center.

"It has to be," a man called out.

Bad bowling may be an omen. After all, there is some historical connection between bowling and the White House. President Truman opened up an alley in the West Wing. In 1955, President Eisenhower moved it to the basement of the Old Executive Office Building. This is actually where the photograph of President Nixon was taken. The alley was closed after 9/11.

Given this weekend’s performance, it seems doubtful that Obama will undo the Bush administration’s biggest blunder and reopen the bowling alley. In fact, earlier this month, Obama said if elected, he would install a basketball hoop on the White House grounds. Maybe if the ceiling is high enough, he could fit a whole court where the bowling alley once was and then invite MTV Cribs in for a tour.

The fighting in Basra might rightfully be seen as Iraq's critical and long-awaited "Altalena Moment." This refers to an incident in Israel's 1948 War of Independence, shortly after Israel proclaimed its statehood. Newly elected Prime Minister David Ben Gurion declared that all Jewish militia groups either had to turn in their guns, or accept amalgamation into the newly formed Israel Defense Forces (IDF), built around the pre-Independence Haganah. The Irgun Zvai Leumi, the militantly nationalist militia (in reality a terrorist group) led by Menachim Begin, did not accept this decree. Instead, it had a load of weapons and ammunition shipped from Europe to Israel on a converted LST renamed the Altalena. When Ben Gurion learned of the Altalena's arrival off Haifa, he ordered all the armaments aboard turned over to the IDF. Begin refused, unless the Irgun got its cut and was allowed to remain independent. Ben Gurion ordered the Altalena to remain offshore and instructed the IDF to stop any attempts to offload the cargo.

Begin had the Altalena run up on the beach at Haifa, and Irgun members began unloading the weapons. IDF troops then cordoned off the beach and ordered the Irgun both to stop unloading and to put down their arms. A firefight broke out, and Ben Gurion ordered the IDF to sink the Altalena. It was a seminal moment in the history of Israel: would the IDF refuse to fire on fellow Jews (a very sticky proposition, given that the Holocaust ended just three years earlier)? If they would not obey the order to fire, would Israel be able to establish itself as a modern nation state, a state in which military power resided exclusively with the legitimate government?

The IDF obeyed orders. The ship was shelled, caught fire, and sank. A number of the Jewish crewmen were killed or wounded. More members of the Irgun were killed and wounded in street fighting throughout the beach district of Haifa. Most of the survivors, including Menachim Begin, were arrested. For a while, Ben Gurion's name was mud. But he had made his point: the government of Israel would continue to exercise civilian control over the military. Jewish militias would not be allowed to compete for power. Authority was vested in the political process, and not in violent action. Israel would survive, and thrive, as a democratic state.

This stands in marked contrast to the experience of the Palestinians, who have, throughout their tragic history, been unable to transcend the tyranny of the gunmen. Mahmood Abbas proved unwilling or unable to disarm the factions--not merely Hamas, but his own Fatah militia as well. The security forces of the Palestinian Authority remain impotent against these and other armed militias, and thus the PA itself is incapable of wielding authority against the will of the gunmen. Had there been a Palestinian "Altalena Moment" (e.g., if Abbas had taken action against Hamas rocketeers firing into Israel), there might be more hope for peace between Israel and Palestine today. At least, the Israelis would actually have someone with whom to negotiate a settlement.

In Iraq, there was always the danger that Malaki's government would only take action against Sunni factions, and not against fellow Shi'ites. In particular, there was the strong possibility of Sadr setting himself up as a state-within-a-state, and thus a constant conduit of unrest and Iranian interference. By taking strong action against Sadr and other Shi'ite intransigents, Malaki is demonstrating to some extent that he places national above factional interests. If he succeeds in suppressing the Mahdi Army--by far the most numerous and dangerous of the Shi'ite private armies--this will go a long way to establishing the credibility of the Iraqi Security Forces, and thus, the legitimacy of the Malaki government and its successors. In short, it could be a decisive turning point in the political as well as the military struggle, the moment at which Iraq's transition to a functioning representative democracy and a legitimate nation-state became irreversible.

The Guardian reports:

For years now, Nato nations have been committed to reach a minimum defence spending target of 2% of GDP. Yet 20 of them, including Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, have fallen far short. Among the six that have reached the target, the shares of four (including Britain and France) are in decline. Inevitably, that means the US carries ever more of the load and becomes ever more sceptical about taking Europe seriously....

The experience of Iraq, coupled with Europe's increased role in the Balkans, has tempted some Eurocentrics to say that Nato is outmoded and that an enhanced military role for the EU should replace it. This is fantasy land. If there is one thing that would be even worse for Europe than fighting a war with the Americans as allies, it is fighting a war without them. While it is true that Europe spends too little on defence because it knows it can rely on the Americans, it does not follow that European nations would be keen to spend more if Nato broke down.

The Bucharest Summit pings my interest on two fronts. First, I'm curious to see how Sarkozy--who seems to be taking his role as Chef des Armées of Europe's largest military seriously--will lay out his plans for French involvement in Afghanistan. He's hinted that the French army will be relieving the beleaguered Canadians, but there's been no firm announcement on proposed troop strength.

Second, I'd like to see if France's strong leadership role in the European Union inspires more NATO nations to follow their example. Big changes *could* be coming to an alliance near you, but the United States, Canada, France, and Great Britain can't make that happen on their own.

In the end, the Guardian is right. NATO can preach reforms until they're blue in the face, but unless European nations start shouldering the burdens of their own defense, the alliance's purpose and utility will continue to be called into question

China seems determined to ascribe the unrest in Tibet to a concerted effort aimed at sabotaging the Beijing Olympics.

The world community, meanwhile, has demonstrated that it has little appetite for a boycott. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) clearly prefers "silent diplomacy." None of the 27 foreign ministers of the EU, meeting in Slovenia this past weekend, favored a boycott of the Games as a whole and none even "wished to speak about" boycotting the opening ceremony.

Not without irony, the handful of world leaders who have so far declined invitations to attend the opening ceremony--German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Czech president Vaclav Klaus, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves and prime minister Andrus Ansip--are all from former Eastern bloc countries that experienced life under communist rule.

That sports and politics should not mix was a theme voiced frequently by Beijing even before Tibet focused world attention on the Games. This past February, for example, after Steven Spielberg cut ties with the Beijing Olympics over the Darfur crisis, China criticized the famed director’s decision as "naïve and simple-minded," adding that it was "unacceptable" to link politics to sports.

The Save Darfur Coalition has noted how China itself has had a long history of politicizing the Olympics--from its bullying of Taiwan within the IOC to its own participation in the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

For decades, China used the Olympics as a political weapon against Taiwan. In 1956, it pulled out of the Melbourne Games one day before they were to start to protest the presence of the Taiwan delegation. It was not until 1979 that the "two-China problem" was settled by the IOC and Beijing agreed to participate.

In February 1980, China took part in the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. In May that year, it joined the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In July 1980, Chinese athletes, along with those from 28 other nations, took part in the Liberty Bell Classic in Philadelphia, organized as an alternative to the Moscow Games.

Reasonable people can disagree as to whether China’s crackdown in Tibet merits an Olympic boycott of any kind. Indeed, even the Dalai Lama has said that a boycott is not the answer. Beijing’s righteous indignation in suggesting that the Olympic Games should not be linked to politics, however, is clearly disingenuous, if not outright hypocritical.

From the Obama campaign:

With more than 56% of the results tallied from today's 284 Democratic district conventions across Texas, Senator Barack Obama currently is projected to earn a 38-29 pledged delegate win in the Texas caucuses, exactly as projected on the day after the March 4th precinct caucuses. The nine delegate margin in the caucuses means Obama will gain a net margin of five pledged delegates from Texas because Senator Clinton narrowly won the Texas primary by only four delegates, 65-61.

To which the Daily Kos frontpager BarbinMD reponds:

Now let's see how long it takes for the media to catch onto the fact that Obama won Texas.

Savor the flavor on that. He lost the popular vote--by 4 points!--but because of some bizarre and arcane electoral rules, he walks away with a win. How long will it take the media to catch on? Who knows. It's been more than seven years and the Kos Kids still can't wrap their heads around the fact that Bush won the 2000 election despite losing the popular vote. Apparently the result is more important than the process, or the ends justify the means, or something like that.

Like Obama, I don’t want to suggest I’ve absorbed all of the facts, but a couple of thoughts.

First, it's too soon to tell the outcome. As Roggio pointed out on Friday, "this operation needs to develop before it can be called a success or failure, and that will take weeks or even months." We and our Iraqi allies were going to confront these militias at some point. Ever since al Qaeda was routed from Anbar, critics of the war pointed to the remaining Shia militias as the insurmountable obstacle to victory. Now we're finally seeing some action on that front--it's not clear that this particular action will be successful, but at least there's movement, and from the Iraqis.

Anthony Cordesman says the fighting "is better seen as a power grab, an effort by Mr. Maliki and the most powerful Shiite political parties to establish their authority over Basra and the parts of Baghdad that have eluded their grasp…" That doesn't sound so bad to me.

Faced with an intractable problem, Maliki bet big and confronted the most powerful militia in Iraq. When one looks at the rest of the Middle East, it's not at all apparent that the region's more problematic regimes are inclined to do the same. Take Pakistan, where broad swaths of the country are controlled by militias, the Taliban, al Qaeda. If only Musharraf had the resolve to violently confront these threats to his government's sovereignty. It's the same in the Palestinian territories, where Mahmoud Abbas must rely on the IDF to keep him in power. Abbas might be willing to confront Hamas, but he is unable. And in Lebanon, a weak central government lacks the resolve to strike at Hezbollah. It strikes me as a good thing that Maliki can and will go after those who directly challenge his government--even to the New York Times it looks like progress:

For starters, the Shiite rebels are fighting mainly Iraqi soldiers, rather than Americans. Their leader, Moktada al-Sadr, is not defending against attacks from a redoubt inside the country’s most sacred shrine, but is issuing edicts with a tarnished reputation from an undisclosed location, possibly outside the country. And Iraq’s prime minister, a Shiite whom Americans had all but despaired would ever act against militias of his own sect, is taking them on fiercely.

Finally, Allah links this quote from a former political adviser to the American military in Baghdad: "The Sadrists will likely view their survival as victory." If we were to leave Iraq, surely they'd set their sights higher.

Update: And as Roggio notes in his latest, a lot of them aren't surviving.

The Democratic primary drags on, and the debate rages within the commentariat as to what Hillary Clinton should do in the face of overwhelming odds against her success. David Brooks showed up on Meet the Press and described just what Clinton’s continued campaign is doing to her party.

"Is this what the Democratic Party really wants? What happened this week? Her approval ratings are now at their seven-year low. This has begun to hurt her, in particular, but it's begun to hurt the entire party. Barack Obama used to lead among independent votes against John McCain. Now, according to some polls, John McCain leads among independent voters."

Brit Hume, on the other hand, pointed out the problems the tough primary has created for Obama in his inevitable race in the general against John McCain during Fox News Sunday’s panel:

"Let me just make this point: Those polls are mainly a reflection of Obama’s continuing strength among Democrats. It was always the case, I think, that the Reverend Wright controversy was going to hurt him much less with Democrats than it would with the broader general electorate, to include Republicans and Independents. And there is polling data that indicates that among Republicans and Independents he has been hurt."

Joe Lieberman, the independent Democrat from Connecticut, explained just how the party has changed over the last decade, and why it will cause problems for the Dems in ’08. "The Democratic Party today was not the party it was in 2000," he explained to George Stephanopoulos on This Week,

"It’s not the Bill Clinton-Al Gore party, which was strong internationalists, strong on defense, pro-trade, pro-reform in our domestic government. It’s been effectively taken over by a small group on the left of the party that is protectionist, isolationist and basically will--and very, very hyperpartisan. So it pains me. I’m a Democrat who came to the party in the era of President John F. Kennedy. It’s a strange turn of the road when I find among the candidates running this year that the one, in my opinion, closest to the Kennedy legacy, the John F. Kennedy legacy, is John S. McCain, a reformer, somebody who understands 'ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country' and remembers the other part of the Kennedy inaugural, which said that we will bear any burden, pay any price to assure the survival and sustenance of liberty. That’s John McCain."

As Michael Scherer says of Lieberman's performance, "nearly two years after being rejected by his lifelong party in the Connecticut primary, it appears that Lieberman has only begun his effort to exact revenge."

Theatre critic-turned-pundit Frank Rich of the New York Times recounts the story of Hillary Clinton’s lie regarding Bosnia, asking the question that’s been on the lips of all of her fans in the press:

Why would so smart a candidate play political Russian roulette with virtually all the bullet chambers loaded?

Let’s see. Lies about Bosnia, Northern Ireland, where Chelsea was on 9/11, being a Yankees fan and even how she got her name . . . The legendary healthcare fiasco . . . Questionable investments . . . Not so subtle racism . . . Crying when votes don’t go her way . . . Embarrassing herself by putting up with a husband that any other woman would have kicked to the curb eons ago . . . Assuming a presidential coronation, then staying on as the guillotine gets sharpened . . .

Somebody help me here. Where did this "Hillary is so smart" meme get started?

This morning on Face the Nation, Gov. Bill Richardson explained the differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Nothing surprising--Obama asked for his endorsement in a series of personal phone calls while the Clintons used "hundreds" of surrogates to strong-arm him. That kind of thing.

It wasn’t until Richardson went into deeper detail that he said something that really caught my ear. Obama, he said, possesses "judgment, temperament, and patriotism."

Well, it’s no secret that Hillary--and Bill, come to think of it--have a problem with judgment and temperament. But patriotism? This sounds like Richardson is either reassuring us that, despite the ties to Rev. Wright, Obama indeed loves his country . . . or, more interestingly, Hillary Clinton doesn’t.

I think the Governor of New Mexico might have ratcheted the nasty factor in the Democratic campaign up a notch.

Thanks, Bill!

Jeffrey Lewis flags some interesting testimony from a recent hearing on the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). Here's Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, apparently unaware that the Pentagon was not responsible for the program, or maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile in general:

MR. ENGLAND: So Mr. Hobson, I guess I was not aware that we were not paying for these programs —

REP. HOBSON: You’re not.

MR. ENGLAND: — with Department of Energy, because — okay, I guess that’s a surprise to me. I mean, I always thought we were funding those development programs and funding the DOE labs to do work for us. So I though there was a money transfer to DOD (sic) to do this. I guess I’m surprised —

That's like finding a couple billion in your pocket, right? Maybe it's even enough to convince England that the Air Force can afford a few extra F-22s.

Hugh Hewitt links a 1995 profile of Obama in the Chicago Reader. It's worth reading in full. He shares his views on black churches and the Christian Right, and he makes clear his preference for "collective action" over individualism. And at the end, after discussing his participation in Minister Farrakhan's Million Man March:

"But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build."

It doesn't seem like Barack had any real problem with cursing out white folks or making anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements, it's just not as productive as he'd like. It's the same when he discusses the "wonderful preachers" in Chicago. "As soon as church lets out," he says, "the energy dissipates." You see it's not enough to just say "God Damn America" on Sunday, you have to organize your community and get on with the damning come Monday.

Update: Since Hugh's linked back here...in response to his question ("Did many mainstream Dems join that march?"), the short answer is no. Only two members of Congress attended, as did a couple of mayors (including Marion Barry), Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. President Clinton gave a speech endorsing the goals of the march, but condemning its organizer.

At the time Clinton said "One million men are right to be standing up for personal responsibility, but one million men do not make right one man's message of malice and division." He did not refer to Farrakhan by name, but in retrospect this looks like pretty strong stuff compared to Obama's "Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up." And of course Clinton didn't actually attend the march.

Also check out Matt Labash's reporting on the march from the October 23, 1995 issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The front page story on Hillary Clinton in today's Journal includes this gem:

Heather Arnet, a Clinton supporter who runs a Pittsburgh organization that lobbies for more women on public commissions and corporate boards, recently surveyed the Internet and found more than 50 anti-Hillary Clinton sites on Facebook. One of them, entitled "Hillary Clinton Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich," had more than 38,000 members.

"What if one of these 38,000 guys is someone you, as a woman, have to go to and negotiate a raise?" she asks.

I see the group now has more than 43,000 members. Maybe young people really are reading newspapers. Also it looks to me (just clicking through a few pages) like 40 percent or more of the group is female--it's certainly not all "guys." And most of the members, male and female, are probably Obama supporters. After all, Republicans want Hillary to keep running...and make us a sandwich.

MTV’s antiwar picture, Stop-Loss, bombed at the box-office, taking in only $1.6 million on its opening day. This comes in spite of near universal fanfare and loads of free-media. A studio exec dismisses the poor showing anyway, saying, "No one wants to see Iraq war movies." That’s not quite right. What people don’t want to see are preachy antiwar movies about how awful their country is. At least not while we have 150,000 troops in Iraq.

During World War II, plenty of war-films did extremely well, and they did so by telling inspiring stories about the very best our country and allies had to offer. Hollywood’s most talented directors made films about U.S./British moral superiority, not its equivalence. One of my favorites is William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver, which Winston Churchill called, "propaganda worth 100 battleships." After completing the film, Wyler even enlisted despite being eligible for an exemption. Mrs. Miniver reached the screen in the same year as Casablana.

Even the Vietnam War, which inspired some great work, can be distinguished from Stop-Loss and the like. The antiwar movies of that era--most notably, Apocalypse Now, Born on the Fourth of July, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Good Morning, Vietnam, and Platoon--all followed the conclusion of hostilities. What we’re seeing today, with Hollywood actively tearing this country down from within, is quite unique.

Jim Gerghaty of the National Review Online found an interesting tidbit in the magazine's archives:

On January 5, [2003] Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's former personal pilot dropped a bombshell that has been ignored by just about every major U.S. news organization: The Venezuelan president, according to the pilot, gave al Qaeda a substantial sum of money following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Memo to Joe Kennedy: How goes that little oil business with your buddy Hugo? Any idea if Osama’s getting his cut?

A photo in today’s New York Post features two men in Basra. Both wear masks that completely cover their faces. One stands with an assault rifle in his hand and what appears to be electrical cord in the other. His comrade-in-arms is hunched over a bucket and what appears to be a rock. The caption:

Shiite thugs prepare a roadside bomb in Basra yesterday, where government forces have ratcheted up their campaign against the terrorists.

It would be nice if the unidentified photographer (the credit goes to AFP/Getty Images) gave a heads-up to the proper authorities. However, I’m betting journalistic objectivity takes precedent. Somebody’s got to look out for our way of life, after all.

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell spoke yesterday at his alma mater, Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. The whole speech is worth a read. Perhaps the most entertaining moment comes when McConnell shares his personal email and that of his assistant with the crowd. In classic DNI fashion, this bit of information has been redacted for the version sent out by his office. Hilarious.

The most important moment of the speech came in response to a question about the greatest current threats to the U.S. For those who took comfort in last year's misleading NIE on Iran, McConnell provides a welcome wake-up call.

My biggest worry at the moment: nuclear weapon in Iran. If the Iranians are successful in achieving fissile material, which they are pursuing, and if they turn it into a nuclear weapon, the dynamics in the Middle East will change literally overnight. We will have a nuclear-arms race because if the Iranians have them, my guess is all of the surrounding nations would immediately attempt to secure nuclear weapons and now we’ve got a situation where we have to have access to energy and not only is in destabilized in the current politics of what we all know about, you have the risk of weapons of mass destruction added to it.

China’s brutal crackdown on Buddhist protesters in its annexed Tibet province has sparked a heated discussion in Europe about whether or not to boycott (at least parts of) the upcoming Beijing Olympics, which are set to begin with a grandiose opening ceremony on August 8. So far, the 27 EU countries currently meeting at the foreign minister level in Slovenia have failed to agree on a common approach on how to deal with this thorny issue.

Among the big three EU powers, French President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be most open towards considering various potential Olympic boycott options. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in contrast, has already announced his intention to participate at the games. Finally, Germany just announced today that President Horst Koehler, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will not be attending the games. However, Merkel’s spokesman was eager to stress that this was nothing unusual and that none of the three had ever planned to go to the Olympics in the first place. Foreign minister Steinmeier also reiterated his government’s view that a complete boycott of the games should be avoided. Germany is certainly treading very carefully as it just weathered a dramatic deterioration in its bilateral relations with Beijing following Chancellor Merkel’s controversial meeting with the Dalai Lama at her official residence in Berlin last September.

France is already emerging as a key player in shaping Europe’s response to the Tibet crackdown. President Sarkozy, after all, will hold the rotating EU-presidency at the time of the Olympics this summer. Political leaders in Poland and the Czech Republic, for their part, have already announced that they will personally boycott the games and are urging other European politicians to do the same.

In this context it is interesting to draw a comparison between Europe’s response to developments in Tibet and Darfur. For example, previous attempts by U.S. human rights activists like Mia Farrow and others to effectively bill the Beijing games as "The Genocide Olympics." (because of "China’s role as business partner, diplomatic protector and underwriter of Sudan’s campaign of ethnic destruction in Darfur") have had only a very limited if negligible effect on international public opinion. For sure, the U.S. human rights campaigners scored some relatively minor points back home, as evidenced by Steven Spielberg’s recent resignation as an artistic director of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

In response to the ad McCain released this morning (see the Cardinal's take here), Howard Dean puts out this statement:

"The American people have been waiting for a president who understands the challenges they face, not another out of touch Bush Republican who promises four more years of the same failed leadership. John McCain can try to reintroduce himself to the country, but he can't change the fact that he cast aside his principles to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush for the last seven years. While we honor McCain's military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn't understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years."

McCain put out an ad that makes no mention of the Democrats, an ad that is 100% positive, and Dean rants "blatant opportunism!" Could it be that the McCain ad was effective because it highlighted the difference between McCains record of service and, yes, demonstrated patriotism with that of another candidate who shall go nameless here and went nameless in the ad? Perhaps Dean thinks his guy particularly vulnerable on this point to get so heated in his response.

Then again, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes a Dean Scream is just a Dean Scream.

Glenn Reynolds has posted a fresh interview with Michael Yon. I just listened, but Glenn sums it up nicely:

(1) It's likely to get worse before it's better; (2) No one seems to doubt Iranian backing for the violence; (3) This isn't about religion, it's about money and power; and (4) Unlike Al Qaeda in the north, this isn't so much a fight to the finish as violence as a negotiating tactic.

Go listen to the whole thing, and if you missed it be sure to check Roggio's post from earlier today, "Give War a Chance." Roggio just got back yesterday from a few weeks in Iraq, and he adds some fresh reporting from MNF-Baghdad as well.

And the title of this post, good stuff from this album.

In the first sermon Obama ever heard preached by Jeremiah Wright, the reverend proclaimed that "white folks' greed runs a world in need."

In Dreams from My Father, Obama recalls listening to this sermon by Wright entitled "The Audacity of Hope." Obama writes: "And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House."

While Ben Smith, Rich Lowry, Mickey Kaus, Hugh Hewitt, and Sean Hannity have drawn attention to this passage, a search in Nexis of the terms "Wright" and "white folks' greed" yields a whopping 11 results--none of them from national newspapers or network news programs.

Over at the Washington Post's Trail blog, Perry Bacon Jr. <