memeorandum: House Call — Political expediency and the nonbinding resolution. (Martin Peretz/Opinion Journal)

1:10 AM ET, February 19, 2007

Top Items:

Hindrocket / Power Line:

THE DEMOCRATS' DILEMMA — Investors Business Daily has a hard-hitting editorial denouncing the Congressional Democrats and their "slow bleed" strategy. It begins: … And that's not the hard-hitting part! More important, IBD has a poll that highlights the danger the Democrats face:

Discussion: The American Street, Booman Tribune, Wake up America and PrairiePundit

Robert Farley / Lawyers, Guns and Money:
In Full Gear — The stab-in-the-back narrative is now in full gear.

Discussion: Gateway Pundit, INSTAPUTZ, Democracy Project and Whiskey Fire

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:
Do Americans Want To Cut And Run?

Discussion: Blue Crab Boulevard and TBogg

Think Progress:
Hume: Murtha Is Senile, Doesn't Have 'The Foggiest Awareness …

Discussion: News Hounds and Crooks and Liars

SusanUnPC / NO QUARTER:

Brent Budowsky: Dear Editor, Washington Post — From Brent Budowsky — Mr. Kaiser, I am forwarding below the note I wrote to Messrs. Graham and Hiatt about Outlook's Victoria Toensing piece today. — With all due respect, I have long admired your work, but that piece today …

Discussion: TPMCafe blogs

Larry Johnson / NO QUARTER:
Washington Post Enables Toensing's Delusions

Discussion: Firedoglake, The Huffington Post, The Sideshow, Liberal Values and Washington Post

Larry C. Johnson / The Huffington Post:
Washington Post Enables Toensing's Delusions

Discussion: Winds of Change.NET

Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute:
Rashofitz - Where We Are In The Scooter Libby Trial

Discussion: Macsmind

Pachacutec / Firedoglake:
Barbara Comstock Named Washington Post Editor?

Discussion: The Huffington Post

New York Times:

Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power — Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border …

Discussion: AMERICAblog, A Blog For All, PrairiePundit, Macsmind, CorrenteWire, Jules Crittenden, Liberal Values and Middle Earth Journal

farsnews.com:

Terrorists Use US-Gifted Arsenals — TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Following a Saturday report about the use of US manufactured weapons in the recent terrorist operations in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan and Balouchestan, a security official provided FNA with a photograph of the said weaponry.

Discussion: Flopping Aces

Little Green Footballs:

Iranian Fauxtography Bust — LGF readers tipped me off to a blatant Photoshop fraud at Iran's Fars News Agency, in an article claiming to have discovered US weapons in Iran: Terrorists Use US-Gifted Arsenals. (Beware. The Fars News site resizes your browser window without asking, and may attempt other more sneaky things.)

Discussion: NewsHog, A Blog For All, Riehl World View, Hot Air, PrairiePundit and TigerHawk

Mahmoud Habboush / NY Daily News:

Killer's daughter admits it was political — GAZA CITY - Ali Abu Kamal's relatives say they are tired of lying about why the Palestinian opened fire on the observation deck of Empire State Building, killing a tourist and injuring six other people before committing suicide.

Discussion: Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin, A Blog For All and Jihad Watch

Jim Davenport / Associated Press:

McCain: Roe v. Wade should be overturned — SPARTANBURG, S.C. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain (news, bio, voting record), looking to improve his standing with the party's conservative voters, said Sunday the court decision that legalized abortion should be overturned.

Discussion: The Right's Field and CorrenteWire

Washington Post:

The Hotel Aftermath — Inside Mologne House, the Survivors of War Wrestle With Military Bureaucracy and Personal Demons — The guests of Mologne House have been blown up, shot, crushed and shaken, and now their convalescence takes place among the chandeliers and wingback chairs …

Discussion: Democratic Underground and Blog of the Moderate Left

John / AMERICAblog:
It's time to fire Major General George W. Weightman, now

Discussion: MyDD, My Left Wing, Taylor Marsh, Off the Kuff, Debsweb, Pottersville, The Democratic Daily, DownWithTyranny!, Burnt Orange Report, Wake up America, The Huffington Post and The Impolitic

WSMV-TV:

Cabbie Runs Down Students — Religious Argument Leaves One Hospitalized — NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A local cab driver allegedly tried to run over two customers after a fight over religion became heated. — The incident happened early Sunday morning on the Vanderbilt campus and left …

Faiz / Think Progress:

True 'Fair And Balanced' Coverage: Wallace Calls Out Feith For Lying On Fox News — Last week on Fox News Sunday, former Rumsfeld aide Douglas Feith told Chris Wallace, "Nobody in my office ever said there was an operational relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda. It's just not correct.

Discussion: TigerHawk and Eschaton

John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Chris Wallace shoots down Feith's claims

Discussion: driftglass and The Impolitic

Tom Bevan / TIME: Real Clear Politics:

Sullivan's Rewrite — Andrew Sullivan has been slinging the word "Christianist" about with sanctimonious ease for some time now. He never misses a chance to point out a news story and filter it through the "Christianist" lens. He's written a book on the subject.

Discussion: Hot Air, Liberal Values and The RBC

CBS News:
Poll: Giuliani Leads McCain For GOP Nod

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, New York Times, PrairiePundit, The Moderate Voice and race42008.com

Martin Peretz / Opinion Journal:

House Call — Political expediency and the nonbinding resolution. — Our political imagination of evil is impoverished, and nowhere is it more impoverished than in Iraq. Even today, when the blood of innocents flows so richly and regularly, we do not seem to grasp its origins, or its power.

Discussion: Blue Crab Boulevard and Decision '08

Nibras Kazimi / Talisman Gate:

Insurgents' Dirty Laundry on Air — I was wondering how the current spate of jihadist-on-jihadist strife is going to be revealed to the public at large, but I never contemplated that it will be done on a jihadist satellite station, Al-Zawra, and through the person of the slimy nutcase who owns it, Mishaan al-Jebouri.

Discussion: The Belmont Club, alphabet city and PrairiePundit

Harry / Crooked Timber:

You Can be The Ethicist — I was posed this problem by someone in a very highly ranked research department in one of the social sciences (not Philosophy, not Madison), and post with permission. — Graduate Admissions Committee for the department in question is deciding whom to admit.

Discussion: Daniel W. Drezner and Discourse.net

Jeff Jacoby / Boston Globe:

Irreconcilable positions: support troops, oppose war — WHAT DOES IT mean to support the troops but oppose the cause they fight for? — No loyal Colts fan rooted for Indianapolis to lose the Super Bowl. No investor buys 100 shares of Google in the hope that Google's stock will tank.

Discussion: Liberty Street, The Mahablog and PrairiePundit

Bill Maxwell / St. Petersburg Times:

White House delivers surge in lies, hypocrisy — The hypocrites, mostly conservative Republicans, are at it again. Led by President Bush, they are spewing nonsense about Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and anyone else who opposes Bush's order to "surge" 21,500 U.S. service personnel into Iraq.

Discussion: The Democratic Daily and Crooks and Liars