memeorandum: Re: Lebanon & "The Tank" (The Corner)

8:25 PM ET, December 2, 2007

Top Items:

And now for some shoddy war reporting...from an NRO milblogger — Ugh. This is bad on many levels. W. Thomas Smith, Jr., a former Marine and milblogger who writes at National Review Online's The Tank (and whose work in Iraq I've praised and linked to here), posts a long-winded defense of bogus …

Discussion: The Corner, The Atlantic Online, Op For, The Tank, Right Wing Nut House, BitsBlog, Blue Crab Boulevard, Chuck Adkins, Flopping Aces, Sister Toldjah, Confederate Yankee, Little Green Footballs, Daily Pundit and doubleplusundead

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

National Review reporter caught fabricating; where is the "liberal media"? — Update II — NR on notice six weeks ago) — National Review reporter Thomas Smith has been exposed as a fabulist for plainly fictitious claims he made in two separate NR posts in September regarding Hezbollah's …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Angry Bear, The Sideshow, Macsmind, The Carpetbagger Report, Death, Talking Points Memo, Free Frank Warner, Roger Ailes, Mercury Rising, A Blog For All and GINA COBB

The Corner:

Re: Lebanon & "The Tank" — I was going to wait until a decent hour on Monday morning to bring readers' attention to "The Tank" Lebanon issue again but since everybody is working for the weekend, I'll weigh in tonight. Delay does no one any favors, especially the truth.

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:
The Retraction At The Tank

Discussion: The Jawa Report and GregsOpinion.com

Gateway Pundit:

Doing the Marxist Slide— Venezuela Votes on Chavista Rule... Update: CHAVEZ WINS! — CHAVEZ WINS!!! (4:30 PM CST) — Aljazeera reports: … Reuters reports that "Government Sources" have confirmed that Chavez has won. — Ahmadinejad ought to be calling soon for congrats.

Discussion: Reuters

Aljazeera:

Chavez 'wins Venezuela referendum' — Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, is heading for victory in a referendum on allowing him to remain in power as long as he keeps winning elections, two government-linked sources said citing exit polls. — Three exit polls showed Chavez won …

Discussion: Hot Air

The Devil's Excrement:

Chronicle of a No vote in the Venezuelan referendum — I went around and there are some small lines left, not worth taking pictures of them. Then I decided to go and vote at 2 PM, the time when reportedly the stduents were planning to go out. Below, the chronicle of my vote:

Daniel / Venezuela News And Views:
The election day post: the doomsday vote

Discussion: The Newshoggers, Associated Press, Wake up America, Fausta's blog, Power Line, The Devil's Excrement and The American Pundit

Mark Halperin / The Page:

More on Romney Religion Speech — The venue is not a surprise, since Romney has given a previous major address (on defense policy) at the Bush library, and the two families are very close. And Texas, of course, was also the venue for John F. Kennedy's famous speech on religion in 1960 …

Discussion: TownHall Blog, Taylor Marsh, Riehl World View and Hot Air

Jonathan Martin / Jonathan Martin's Blogs:

Romney to give The Speech Thursday at Bush Library — Looks like that PowerPoint that leaked back in February was spot-on. — Halperin has the big news: Mitt Romney will take to to the Bush Library in College Station, Texas, on Thursday to give a long-anticipated, much-debated speech …

Discussion: The Swamp, The Corner, The Page, CNN Political Ticker, The Caucus and The Stump

Liz Sidoti / Associated Press: Romney to give Mormon speech

Patrick Healy / The Caucus:

An Attack, From the Candidate's Mouth — CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - At a news conference here just now, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton expanded her attacks on Senator Barack Obama by suggesting that he has a character issue because of his assertions that his health insurance plan covers all Americans …

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blogs and TIME: Swampland

Liz Sidoti / Associated Press: ANALYSIS: Both Iowa contests tight

Byron York / The Corner:
The GOP Race: Huge Changes In Iowa

Discussion: Des Moines Register, Riehl World View, Stop The ACLU, Donklephant and Vox Popoli

David Yepsen / Des Moines Register:
Candidates' time runs short, but opportunities remain

Discussion: MyDD, The Democratic Daily and Pollster.com

John Amato / Crooks and Liars:

Jay Leno turns traitor: Fires his writers — I guess passing out some donuts while wearing his Republican lapel pin to striking writers was as far he was willing to go. What a putz. … Bob Cesca says:

Discussion: skippy the bush kangaroo, Variety, BBC, Ian Schwartz and Bob Cesca's Goddamn …

Atrios / Eschaton:

Jeb'd — state of Florida. … Don't know if Siedle has information or if he's just making a guess, but I too suspect that the last gasp of Big S**tpile involved finding marks in state and local governments.

Discussion: Discourse.net, Middle Earth Journal and Hullabaloo

Forbes:

Where Was Jeb? — A government money market debacle unfolding in Florida is raising questions about former governor and presidential brother Jeb Bush's possible involvement in the mess. — Florida froze withdrawals from a state investment fund earlier this week when local governments withdrew billions …

Discussion: Chuck Adkins, The Next Hurrah and Brilliant at Breakfast

Dan Popkey / Idaho Statesman:

More gay men describe sexual encounters with U.S. Sen. Craig — Allegations made since news of the Minneapolis case broke lend weight to rumors about Craig. … David Phillips. Mike Jones. Greg Ruth. Tom Russell. — Four gay men, willing to put their names in print and whose allegations …

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, DownWithTyranny!, Pandagon, BuzzFlash.org, The Carpetbagger Report, Wonkette, The Swamp, Clayton Cramer's BLOG, Slog, Political Radar, Salon, On Deadline, Daily Kos, WTF Is It Now?!? and The American Street

David Leppard / Times of London:

US says it has right to kidnap British citizens — AMERICA has told Britain that it can "kidnap" British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States. — A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens …

Discussion: Silent Running, Big Brass Blog, The Newshoggers, The Impolitic, Prairie Weather, Wolf Howling, The Agitator, The Sideshow, Angry Bear, Iain Dale's Diary, Group News Blog, The Heretik, LewRockwell.com Blog, Suburban Guerrilla and Vox Popoli

Mark Steyn / The Australian:

A loss for civilisation — ACCORDING to my Oz-watching pals in Britain and the US, John Howard is not a failure but a victim of his own success. He made Australia safe for the Labor Party: or, at any rate, safe enough that a sufficient number of bored electors were willing to take a flier …

Discussion: Solomonia

Associated Press:

Fire Dept. Suspends Apprentice For Noose, Note — The Baltimore Fire Department has suspended a paramedic apprentice who admitted placing a threatening note and a rope shaped like a noose inside a firehouse. — Fire officials say the paramedic, Gary Maynard, is the one who initially reported finding the note and the rope.

Discussion: The American Pundit

Sudhir Hazareesingh / Times of London:

Israelis hit Syrian 'nuclear bomb plant' — Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Michael Sheridan in Seoul — ISRAEL'S top-secret air raid on Syria in September destroyed a bomb factory assembling warheads fuelled by North Korean plutonium, a leading Israeli nuclear expert has told The Sunday Times.

Discussion: Hot Air, Wake up America, The Newshoggers, The Glittering Eye, The Strata-Sphere and The American Street

Richard Fausset / Los Angeles Times:

Huckabee: 'a different kind of Jesus juice' — The Republican's idiosyncratic agenda in Arkansas — a health plan, taxes for parks — was always driven by faith, he says. — LITTLE ROCK, ARK. — In 2005, a Republican state senator named Jim Holt introduced a bill to deny public benefits …

Discussion: DownWithTyranny!, Washington Post and TownHall Blog