Michael Goldfarb

Secretary Clinton had nothing but glowing remarks for Malaysia’s leadership when she stopped there in November of last year.  “We already have a strong partnership based on common values like respect for cultural diversity, pluralism, religious tolerance… We know that Malaysia is a leader in this…

Not that long ago it looked like President Obama had Republicans right where he wanted them. As the debate over the 2011 budget played out on Capitol Hill, he threatened to veto the legislation if it cut one dollar more from defense spending than the budget request submitted by Secretary of Defense…

As Politico reports, today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will step forward to offer a list of procurement programs the administration is putting on the chopping block in the coming year. It won’t be the first time that Secretary Gates has moved to cut high profile programs that, in his…

J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami admitted this week that he had lied about the funding of his organization for years – but only after the lies had become so obvious, and the criticism so pervasive, that he had no other choice. Contrary to Ben-Ami’s claims, the group had taken a large amount of money…

The self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street has always insisted that its funding comes entirely from Americans, and largely from American Jews. The group has also made a point of knocking down speculation that it takes money from liberal financier George Soros, who has never been…

On the eve of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Hamas gunmen murdered four Israeli civilians, including a pregnant woman. Even for those who see nuance in terrorist attacks, this one didn’t leave a lot of room for argument. The PA condemned the attack and, reportedly, picked…

The quote from the Center for American Progress:

“The party and the viewpoint that we’re closest to in Israeli politics is actually Kadima.” -- J Street founder and president Jeremy Ben-Ami, October 28, 2009.  

When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went to Chicago last summer to make the case for killing the F-22 -- the world's premier air supremacy fighter and the only "fifth generation fighter" currently in production anywhere -- he argued that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would be a more…

Mayor Mike is coming for your guns, but not even this administration -- and this Congress -- is stupid enough to play along. Bloomberg appealed to Congress this week to address what is oddly being called the "terror gap," but which supporters of Second Amendment rights better describe as "secret…

A friendly reality check for exuberant Democrats on the first day of the Nuclear-Zero Pax Obama -- this treaty is almost certainly dead on arrival. I hedge only because the Democrats might try to jam it through using reconciliation. (Is it legal? The parliamentarian will decide!) Yes, Republican…

San Jose, Costa Rica

In an open-source assessment of Russia's Sukhoi PAK-FA, aka the Raptor Killer, Air Power Australia concludes, "once the PAK-FA is deployed within a theatre of operations, especially if it is supported robustly by counter-VLO capable ISR systems, the United States will no longer have the capability…

Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, lowers the boom on J Street:

A friend and I were joking the other day about the comedy of errors, and failures, that has come to define Democratic control of Washington. Of course the collapse of health care reform was the spark for this conversation; it is the most obvious and overwhelming failure of the Obama administration…

I don't know how Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector and left-wing hero, avoided jail the first time he got caught chatting up an underage girl on the internet (though you can read here the pathetic defense he offered at the time), but he did. Ritter is now a repeat offender. Laura Rozen…

Hilarious react from the hero of the anti-tree-hugging movement:

A new poll released by CBS News finds that:

Read Matt Labash's new advice column at the Daily Caller. And no, Labash is obviously not the person referred to in the column as "the sexiest man alive."

The latest web ad from Keep America Safe...

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It wasn't for lack of a good reason that the administration fought so desperately to avoid being pinned down on whether detainee transfers to Yemen would continue. Days before the Christmas Day attack, a "senior administration official" told the New York Times that the White House was "gaining…

Joe Biden makes the case for trains…about 150 years after the argument was settled.

Laura Rozen posts the list of some 51 NGOs, think-tanks, universities and human rights groups that have been designated as "subversive" by the Iranian regime, which will now forbid Iranian citizens from having any interaction with these organizations. As Rozen notes, "The New America Foundation,…

 A strong statement from the People's Governor:

"We're in the role of the supplicant." The Obama administration is already ready to cut a deal with the Christmas Day bomber. There were no U.S. combat deaths in Iraq last month. Nothing sells in Europe like an anti-Israel Holocaust survivor. Spencer Ackerman interviews an Iranian dissident who…

Debra Burlingame sends in a smart note about the TSA: We need to address the TSA's history of knee-jerk responses after terrorist plots are attempted or revealed which do nothing to increase security and which may, in fact, be counter-productive. I have heard passengers, after being put through…

Several months ago we warned that Tara O'Toole who recently became Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security would reward her friends resulting in millions of dollars in gifts to John Murtha cronies who supported her nomination. And it now…

An interesting piece from Politico's Ben Smith and Carol Lee examines the mentality inside the Hawaiian White House that led to the administration's inept response to the Christmas Day attack, but there's one line in particular that jumped out at me: Aides also say Obama wouldn't necessarily be…

Yesterday the Washington Post reported, three paragraphs from the end of a piece on the intelligence failures that led to the Christmas Day attack, that Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense…

Anyone who reads Tom Joscelyn's work here on the blog or in the magazine knows that he has a freakish, Beautiful Mind-like ability to connect the terrorist dots and recall the most bizarre details of any one terrorist's dossier. So when ABC posted a major scoop that that the Christmas Day bomber…

On Monday I posted a question from a friend and suggested Scott Rasmussen might want to put that question to the American public. Here's the question as it was emailed to me: Do you think most Americans prefer that this guy is A) Watching cable tv is a warm cell funded by taxpayers and enjoying his…

Obama doesn't like to challenge the legitimacy of despots, thus the repeated calls for a relationship with Iran based on "mutual respect" and the use of the regime's preferred name, the Islamic Republic. But Ray Takeyh, who served in the Obama State Department as an aide to Dennis Ross on Iran…

The AP's "analysis" pieces are the most feared pieces in Washington -- for good reason. Ambassador Huntsman sucks up to Obama in an interview with the New Yorker. If "reset" means resurrecting an arms race, I guess hitting the reset button has worked. Marc Thiessen beats up on Josh Marshall. Andy…

That's the way things seem to be headed. As we pointed out last night, administration officials have been saying (on background, of course) that the president "intends to demand accountability at the highest levels." Presumably, accountability means someone is going to get fired. And if someone got…

All of a sudden everyone is matter-of-factly pointing out that Gitmo detainees shouldn't be sent back to Yemen anytime soon, but nothing has changed in Yemen because of al Qaeda's Christmas Day attack. The attack has just highlighted what was already obvious to people who knew better but ignored…

Michelle Cottle makes a pretty strong case here that the president's golf habit is starting to get in the way of his job. Marc Ambinder wrote a ludicrous post over the weekend, now coming in for some much deserved ridicule, titled "Why the President Went Golfing Today." In it Ambinder defended,…

The AP reports: A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated…

Josh Rogin has the story at the Cable: Jide Zeitlin, the Obama administration's nominee to be America's point man for financial reform at the United Nations, has withdrawn himself from consideration for the job, an administration official tells The Cable. Zeitlin, a former Goldman Sachs executive…

The White House/DNC pushback against the mounting criticism of Obama's handling of the al Qaeda Christmas attack focuses on Shoe Bomber Richard Reid, and of course Bush, and how Bush got it easier than Obama and how come Bush didn't get raked over the coals for this, etc. etc. etc. Last night Keep…

Buried three paragraphs from the end of the report in today's Washington Post comes what ought to be the lede: Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense attorney, according to federal officials.…

Coming on the heels of a joint statement from Senators Lieberman, McCain, and Graham, this is another serious blow to the administration's plan to overcome a key hurdle to closing Gitmo, i.e. what to do with all the Yemenis who can't be tried and can't be resettled anywhere else than their home…

As soon as Obama came out for that second press conference, you knew that there were going to be some new revelations. Now the avalanche begins -- and so do the questions... "It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not…

So say the Iranians. Of course, they'd probably say anything right now to try and get back just a little bit of the international legitimacy that the regime has been bleeding with each video of Iranian protesters being murdered in the streets. Still, ever since Josh Rogin first floated the rumor…

John Yoo's interview with the New York Times is full of good one-liners. After explaining that he's never met either Bush or Cheney, the interviewer seems to think she's got the upper hand. "So you're saying you were just one notch above an intern, you and Monica Lewinsky?" Yoo's response, "She was…

Yes, he is a marginal figure even within his own party, and yes he's announced he's retiring in 2010 and will not seek another term, but this al Jazeera interview with Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) is another reminder that what anti-Israel sentiment exists in Congress is confined largely to the…

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AFP reports: Mr Obama began his golf round after a press conference earlier in the day, when he vowed an all-out pursuit of plotters of a failed Christmas Day bombing of a US-bound airliner, vowing "we will not rest" until they are captured and tried. HT: Keep America Safe

Politico's Carol E. Lee has an interesting story today on President Obama's "by-now familiar pattern...for dealing with unexpected problems." As best we can figure, the Obama damage control strategy consists of these 5 easy steps: Step 1: Deny seriousness of issue. Step 2: Deny any admin…

I don't know why this "senior administration official" needed to say it on background if the administration is so committed to closing GItmo, and if the official really believes what he's saying: Closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility remains "a national security imperative" despite a news…

Max Boot argues in the Washington Post today against what is fast becoming one of the most controversial restrictions on international forces in Afghanistan -- the 96 hour limit on holding prisoners before being forced to transfer them to Afghan custody. Boot says allied forces should opt-out of…

Gabe Schoenfeld writes in the Los Angeles Times: The case of the alleged Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being called a massive intelligence failure. And the evidence thus far does suggest a possible lapse in the government's management of terrorist watch lists. But if so, the blame…

The quote of the day, from Democrat Diane Feinstein: "I'd rather, in the interest of protecting people, overreact rather than underreact." An amused veteran of the Bush administration emails: Interesting--sounds like a pithy summary of the Bush approach to the War on Terror. I don't recall hearing…

After three days of radio silence from our Nobel laureate president on al Qaeda's attempted Christmas Day Massacre, President Obama finally felt compelled to get off the beach and make a statement. Nearly two hours before that, the White House issued a statement responding to an hours old news…

A friend emails a question Scott Rasmussen might want to poll: Do you think most Americans prefer that this guy is A) Watching cable tv is a warm cell funded by taxpayers and enjoying his right to remain silent (i.e, BHO reality); or B) At an undisclosed location being waterboarded to learn about…

I didn't get too worked up about the ridiculous appointment of Hannah Rosenthal to serve as the Obama administration's anti-Semitism czar because, frankly, nobody cares what the anti-Semitism czar says or does (unless they say or do something stupid, and of course Rosenthal has now done just that).…

CBS reports: CBS News has learned the State Department system designed to keep track of active U.S. visas twice failed to reveal Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been issued an active visa allowing him multiple entries into the United States. According to a law enforcement…

With three terrorist attacks against the homeland over the last year that trace back, at least partly, to Yemen, this recent report by Richard Fontaine and Andrew Exum at the Center for a New American Security is a must-read. Fontaine until recently was Senator John McCain's foreign policy adviser…

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on CNN yesterday: "One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked." And then with some slight modification on ABC: "[O]nce the incident occurred, the system worked." Well, perhaps Napolitano was told that if she'd like her direct deposit…

The Washington Post reported yesterday that "Abdulmutallab was charged Saturday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan with attempting to destroy an aircraft and with placing a destructive device onboard a plane, each of which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Paul…

The Iranian people are once again in what, at least to the outside world, seems just short of full-scale revolt. Some dramatic video out of Iran today, none more so than this violent four-minute clip showing a crowd of people cutting down three men that are being hanged in the street by some kind…

We've noticed some fairly bizarre twitterings from the official feed for the U.S. Army's Africa Command. Among them is a tweet sending @USArmyAfrica followers to an article on the website of truther in chief Alex Jones titled "Foiled Terrorist Bombing in Detroit: An Excuse to Expand the Bogus War…

The would-be bomber of Delta flight 253, Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, appears to have been acting in concert with al Qaeda elements in Yemen. The Obama administration's plan to close Gitmo hinges on sending some 100 Yemeni terrorists back to their country of origin where they will be…

About a month and a half ago we noted that President Obama's choice to serve as the administration's "anti-Semitism czar" was Hannah Rosenthal, a J Street board member who had herself been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League. Being rebuked by the ADL (and being a J Streeter) did not bode well…

Yo ho ho and an RPG: Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. "I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation," she…

Time's Joe Klein calls me "odious," but he can do better. I much preferred when he described me as a "Niagara of ignorance." In any case, he stands by his claim that "The Israelis have been difficult, as always: whenever [Middle East envoy George] Mitchell raises East Jerusalem in talks with the…

Less than a quarter of Democrats have a "very positive" of the Democratic party. "An already-enormous security breach is even larger than previously thought." "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b-button, a-button." Could Obama be a friend to Israel? Meg is in the driver's seat. The…

And of course, stories that Joe Klein makes up get recycled in Palestinian propaganda. Ben Smith reports: U.S. and Israeli officials are dismissing an eyebrow-raising claim from a prominent Palestinian activist and official, Mustafa Barghouti, in today's International Herald Tribune. "The Israeli…

You know what really wouldn't help Harry Reid meet his Christmas deadline for passing health care? Two to three feet of snow in Washington, DC. The forecast from THE WEEKLY STANDARD Weather Center...

Drudge is touting this floor statement by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: ‘And here's the most outrageous part: at the end of this rush, they want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the Majority Leader's conference room has even seen. That's right. The final bill we'll vote on isn't…

Twenty Republican senators have requested that the Senate Armed Services Committee launch an investigation into reports that the Obama White House threatened to close Nebraska's Offutt Air Force base unless Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson fell into line on health care. Those reports first appeared on…

President Obama has written a letter to the Dear Leader, aka the Tiny Tyrant. Could it be an invitation to the White House? Time is running out.... QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since. In the spirit of that type of…

Haaretz has a hard to believe report claiming that "the United States and Egypt, along with France, are planning a joint move to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks on the basis of the June 4, 1967, borders, territorial exchanges and a complete freeze of construction beyond the Green Line, including…

Jonathan Martin gets the quote from a "Lieberman ally": "They won't say it, but Joe is preventing them from taking a series of tough votes," said this Lieberman ally. "If I'm Blanche Lincoln, I'd consider converting to Judaisim just to thank Joe Lieberman for what he did for me."

While the Democrats appease Senator Lieberman, they still have to worry about other recalcitrant Democrats including Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. Though Lieberman has been out front in the fight against the public option and the Medicare buy-in, Nelson was critical of both. Now that those…

SCOTUS blog reports: The Court's denial of review of Rasul, et al., v. Myers, et al. (09-227) leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ten military officers are legally immune to claims of torture and religious bias against inmates who were at…

Andrew Breitbart's Big Government puts two and two together: Today, the Obama White House announced the nomination of Mari Del Carmen Aponte as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. It is not Ms. Aponte's first brush with an ambassadorship. In 1998, President Clinton nominated her to be Ambassador to the…

Tennessee Rep. Bart Gordon announced he's not going to run in 2010, the fourth such announcement this month. And so another safe Dem seat now looks likely to flip. Dave Weigel writes: There are going to be a number of deep red areas where, in 2010, prospective presidential candidates can happily…

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein asserts that Joe Lieberman is "willing to directly cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score."

Rasmussen reports that 51 percent of voters in Illinois oppose the Obama administration's apparent plan to move the detainees now being held at Gitmo to the Thomson Correctional Facility in Western Illinois. Just 39 percent of the state's voters support the plan. It's yet another item on the Obama…

A letter from 10 senators, led by Senators Nelson and Collins and ranging from Senator Feingold to Senator Inohfe, sharply rebukes the Turkish government for the "downward trend of relations between Turkey and Israel this past year." The senators point in particular to the Turkish government's…

ABC reports that the high-level al Qaeda operative killed in Tuesday's drone strike in Pakistan was Saleh al-Somali. According to ABC, U.S. officials believe al-Somali "was responsible for al Qaeda's operations outside of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and formed part of al Qaeda's senior…

Politico reports: The "time has come" for the world to condemn Iran's nuclear program, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a taped interview with Al Jazeera English. .... "We have spent time listening and working hard to create this common ground and these common interests, and we've done it…

In light of USA Today's bombshell report on the explosive growth in salaries among federal employees over the last 18 months (i.e. the 18 months in which the U.S. economy saw its worst collapse since the Great Depression), it's perhaps worth a flashback to January 21, 2009, when President Obama…

Before J Street's inaugural conference, the group's director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, gave an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg in which he stated flatly that U.S. aid to Israel should not be used as leverage in peace negotiations. "Military aid should not be on the table -- this is an absolutely essential…

Buried eight paragraphs down in a New York Times report on Eric Holder's trip to New York to brief officials there on arrangements that they must now make to accommodate KSM and his fellow 9/11 plotters comes this startling revelation: While the entire operation will be similar to the deployment…

The New America Foundation released a new poll today, conducted by J Street founding VP Jim Gerstein, that found -- surprise! -- Israelis are suddenly much better inclined toward President Obama than previous polls have shown. Noah Pollak explains how this happened: I was always skeptical of the…

Greg Sargent reports: In yet another sign that the writing is on the wall for the public option, Nancy Pelosi repeatedly refused to say today that a bill without one could not pass the House, backing away from a marker she'd laid down in the past. Asked directly at a presser about the current…

Adam Smith reports: We've struggled lately to get a clear answer from Marco Rubio on whether as governor he would have accepted money from the federal stimulus package about which he is so critical. Keith Cate on Tampa Bay's NBC affiliate got a clearer answer: "Ultimately I would have accepted…

When Michael Oren declined an invitation to appear at J Street's conference in October, the Israeli embassy put out a statement explaining the move as a response to J Street policies that "might impair Israel's interests." It was a devastating statement, but compared to the ambassador's latest…

To appease Red China, Obama passes on $4 billion foreign stimulus for high-tech and union workers in America. Noah Pollak expects the Obama administration is gearing up for a major effort to contain and deter...Israel. Obama really likes to threaten unilateral action when dealing with a…

An amusing release from Brad Dayspring in Eric Cantor's office notes the gradual, almost minutes-long evolution of the Obama administration's views on playing the blame game: 1:56 PM: "The American people have watched for decades people playing the blame game. If the blame game put people to work,…

Here's the lede, you decide: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) has once again inserted himself into the middle of an inflamed partisan debate, raising questions about his motives, his ego and his fickle allegiance to the Democratic Party, which forgave him after he supported Sen. John McCain…

Ben Smith reports on the recent reversals in the fight for "marriage equality": "It is a historical inevitability, if for no other reason than the old people will eventually die, and the young people are overwhelmingly in favor of it," said David Mixner, a veteran gay rights activist. To which I…

The People's Governor has a strong op-ed in the Washington Post calling for Obama to boycott Copenhagen -- complete with link to YouTube of Obama promising to make your energy prices skyrocket. Joseph Abrams catches the UN lying about how many bureaucrats and hangers-on will be attending: U.N.…

The AP puts out this video under the headline "Marines 'inspired, Informed' by Mullen's Speech," which seems like a pretty generous description of the attitude of these Marines as they leave Mullen's speech. Mullen says "there's no deadline, there's no end date, there's no exit strategy," but some…

Some people will believe anything, as Blake Hounshell shows: Percentage of Americans who believe in angels: 55 Percentage of Americans who believe in evolution: 39 Percentage of Americans who believe in anthropogenic global warming: 36 Percentage of Americans who believe in ghosts: 34 Percentage of…

Spencer Ackerman interviews J Street chief Jeremy Ben-Ami on that group's announcement that it will now back sanctions to cut Iran off from its supply of refined petroleum products. Earlier today Ackerman offered one possible explanation for the move: "The attacks on J Street have worked." I think…

RIA Novosti reports: Vietnam could become a key importer of Russian weaponry if several contracts on the purchase of diesel submarines and aircraft are signed in the near future, a Russian newspaper said. According to the Vedomosti business daily, Moscow and Hanoi are close to sign deals on the…

An entertaining smear of Teddy Roosevelt on the New York Times op-ed page this weekend makes for fun Pearl Harbor Day reading. Historian James Bradley blames TR for the attack on Pearl -- because it's always America's fault if you go back far enough. Bradley actually makes a pretty compelling case,…

An Army Colonel writes in response to this post over the weekend: This is an incredibly important battle that will bust up a HUGE Taliban supply base which is at the end of a Taliban infiltration. This route that starts in Pakistan and makes its way north to Now Zad. I served in this region back in…

I'm very confused this morning -- I wake up to find out that J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-Palestine, anti-sanctions organization, is now supporting the sanctions legislation making its way through the House. The White House recently asked that that sanctions bill, sponsored by Rep.…

From the very beginning, the Obama White House has been obsessed with the process by which national security decisions are made -- and with getting the press to treat that obsession as evidence that this White House is somehow more serious about national security decisions than its predecessor.…

The new numbers from Pew have support for torture at a 5 year high, with 19 percent saying torture is "often" justified when interrogating terror suspects and 35 percent saying it is "sometimes" justified. That's a majority of Americans who, unlike the president, understand that there are very real…

The AP reports: U.S. Marines and Afghan troops have killed at least seven Taliban fighters during the first U.S.-led offensive since President Barack Obama announced a new American war plan this week, Afghan officials said Saturday. American and Afghan troops have met little resistance since…

Tomorrow at noon, family members of the victims of the 9/11 attacks will join with first responders and others holding a rally in Manhattan to protest AG Eric Holder's decision -- made without consulting the President of the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Mayor of New York…

Barron YoungSmith and TNR keep up their (admirable) assault on Sudan envoy Scott Gration: Chairman Donald Payne, who originally convinced Congress to declare the situation in Darfur a "genocide," said that "for some, our policy is too focused on punitive measures. I beg to differ." He complained…

Laura Rozen reports: But almost a year later, neither Holbrooke nor Mitchell is looking as confident about his status in the administration or prospects for success. Holbrooke, who once seemed to relish his access to both Obama and Clinton and built a staff of more than two dozen aides while…

Greg Sargent pulls some fascinating numbers out of a new CNN poll, which finds support for Obama's surge at 61 percent. The administration can thank Republicans -- the loyal opposition -- for that impressive number. Without the support of nearly every major figure in Republican politics, surely…

A source on the Hill informs THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the US government Export-Import Bank is fighting the Banking Committee Iran Sanctions bill, passed out of committee last month on a unanimous vote and which is now sitting on the Senate calendar while supporters push for it to be approved by…

The irony seems entirely lost on our British allies, but one can understand why not all of them are so amused by the prospect of being in a foxhole with a stoned out Afghan. Still, watching this I can't help thinking that some American soldier in the First World War must have been looking at his…

Answer: Obama won't pose for a picture with either of them: When President Obama spoke to troops at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base last month, the unit there parked a shiny new F-22 fighter plane in the hangar. But according to multiple sources, White House aides demanded the plane be changed to…

You'd think that Eric Holder would check with the Secretary of Homeland Security before making a decision to send the man behind the 9/11 attacks back to the scene of the crime for an open trial in federal court. There are all kinds of national security implications that stem from Holder's…

Nobody drives the left nuts like Joe: Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), a member of the Armed Services Committee, praised President Obama today for disagreeing with Democrats over Afghanistan war strategy. "In making this decision, President Obama has respectfully disagreed with the majority of the…

The statement from Rumsfeld: "In his speech to the nation last night, President Obama claimed that ‘Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.' Such a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to…

In his prepared remarks before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, Secretary Gates does a much better job of explaining the relationship between fighting the Taliban and defeating al Qaeda than the president did last night. As the president first stated in March, and re-emphasized last…

Palin posts a statement: At long last, President Obama decided to give his military commanders much of what they need to accomplish their mission in Afghanistan. In the end, he decided to endorse a "surge" for Afghanistan, applying the counterinsurgency principles of "clear, hold and build" that…

Marc Ambinder: Obama's close buddy Durbin issues single sentence statement saying: Obama took months to make this policy, I'll wait to react to it. Contrast that with the statement from McCain.

ISAF posts the statement from General McChrystal: "The Afghanistan-Pakistan review led by the President has provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task. The clarity, commitment and resolve outlined in the President's address are critical steps toward bringing…

Listening to the conference call just conducted by two senior administration officials, one is struck by the extent to which this administration has now appropriated the tactics, the language, and the logic of the 2007 surge in Iraq for their own 2010 surge into Afghanistan. This senior…

The former veep gives an interview to not a real news organization Politico: In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president's "agonizing" about Afghanistan strategy "has consequences for your forces in the field." "I begin to get nervous when I see the…

"Why has the president's publicly expressed vision of a kinder, gentler Washington failed to materialize?" Answer here. The IRGC continues to consolidate its control and is now responsible for all Iranian naval operations in the Persian Gulf. Remember when we used to argue about who was really in…

Obama doesn't accept that there are tensions between the security of the American people and the ideals of our democracy, so it's not surprising that he would put the men behind the 9/11 attacks on trial in civilian courts and then guarantee the death penalty for the accused. But as the Los Angeles…

From the Times magazine profile of the least powerful vice president in history: The president and the vice president are very different men both temperamentally and generationally, and they move in different social circles. "Everyone wants this to be some kind of buddy movie - ‘Butch Cassidy and…

Jeffrey Goldberg on the administration's Middle East diplomacy: In fact, if the Obama Administration hadn't made such a hash of the peace process, the Palestinians would now be returning to the negotiating table, acknowledging that the Netanyahu settlement moratorium is, as Hillary Clinton said,…

Dubai's royal family has spent billions of dollars trying to develop an economic model for the emirate that will survive after the oil runs out -- or after the industrialized world finds an alternative to the fossil fuels that by some unfortunate coincidence aren't concentrated in that part of the…

The Politico reports on the first administration in history: The Obama White House is addicted to the "unprecedented." Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: "We begin this year and this administration in the midst of…

Watch the latest business video at FOXBusiness.com If Ed Begley's peers -- Hollywood liberals -- were to review his performance on Fox, they would probably give it a thumbs-up. I see a zealot who is having his faith tested and unable to keep his composure in the process. The emails in question…

They could've executed him in the desert and left him in a shallow grave for all I care, but the SEALs are professionals, and so they brought the man behind the 2004 murder of four American contractors in Fallujah to the Green Zone, where one SEAL told investigators that he "had showered after the…

Jonathan Martin reported yesterday on an interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in which Ana Navarro, a McCain campaign veteran, trashed Sarah Palin, saying Palin "does not understand issues concerning Hispanics and Latin America" and that the McCain campaign was forced to cancel an interview…

Richard Holbrooke was the man who would be king, with jurisdiction from India to Afghanistan, overseeing American diplomacy and foreign policy in a region that will make or break the Obama presidency. But almost from the beginning things didn't go as planned. The Indians sent a clear message to…

FP's Cable blog reports on NSC deputy spokesman Ben Chang, aka Hong Kong Hefner, fashion photographer and disc jockey extraordinaire. By day Chang controls foreign press access in the White House. By night, "dancefloor jazz, funky breaks, old school & classic hip hop, indie pop/rock, new wave,…

Eric Holder's decision to bring KSM and his fellow 9/11 plotters to New York City for the "trial of the century" became an issue today in the primary race between Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon who are battling for the chance to take Chris Dodd's senate seat from him in 2010. Simmons blasted out a…

The wires are starting to take an interest in the "landmark" deal that would see the French sell as many as three amphibious assault ships to the peace-loving regime in Moscow. As the AP reports, the Russians aren't being shy about what these ships would be used for: The head of the Russian navy…

In case you missed it, former Democratic staffer and Asia note-taker Chris Nelson, author of the eponymous Nelson Report, last week issued yet another missive that might as well have been written by the DNC press shop or an unhinged commenter at the Daily Kos. Blaming Washington "insiders" -- read…

I really enjoyed last week's WWII in HD mini-series on the History Channel. Ten hours of color footage from World War II, all of it digitally restored, and the series was narrated through the voices of soldiers, Marines, and journalists, all of whom had written books about their time in combat --…

With the release of hundreds of emails by scientists advocates of global warming showing obvious and entirely inappropriate collusion by the authors -- including attempts to suppress dissent, to punish journals that publish peer-reviewed studies casting doubt on global warming, and to manipulate…

It's a fair question from a man who lost his son on 9/11: Mr. Holder said that he and his boss had not spoken in person about this decision. This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of…

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has taken another shot at the administration's war on terror policies with a letter yesterday to AG Eric Holder and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates questioning the decision to put the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks on trial in federal…

Andrew Malcolm wrote this up yesterday, news from the last stop of Obama's Asia trip: Even President Obama himself during his just-concluded trip to Asia admitted that he was surprised to receive the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year without actually producing any peace. In fact, the rookie…

John Noonan is correct in stating that NORAD will be sorely stretched by the requirement to stand alerts against incursions by Russian bombers and reconnaissance aircraft (even if these pose only a minimal objective threat, air sovereignty must be maintained). He overlooked, I think, the…

Politico reporters will give right-wingers the kind of fair treatment that they can get almost nowhere else, but in this piece on McCain's shift on cap and trade includes a line that just drips with bias. Reporter Lisa Lerer, wrongly in my opinion, attributes McCain's shift on cap and trade to a…

Another fun email from the NIAC treasure trove...Given that J Street blasted Sarah Palin for her support for the official policy of the government in Jerusalem, and given that even ADL chief Abe Foxman is questioning J Street's "pro-Israel" bona fides as a result, it's worth taking a look behind…

The National Iranian American Council denies it engages in lobbying, yet the organization's internal emails tell a different story. The group calls itself the National Iranian American Council, but it's run by Trita Parsi, an Iranian national who didn't even have a green card when he started the…

When Sarah Palin offered her unqualified support for the Israeli government's policy of settlement expansion in Jerusalem and the West Bank, the self-described "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J Street blasted her for "pandering to her right-wing base . . . at the expense of the security of the State of…

A series of internal emails and documents from the National Iranian American Council, headed by Iranian national Trita Parsi, released as part of the discovery process in a lawsuit initiated by NIAC, reveal a major effort by the group to "clean house" at VOA's Persian-language service of Voice of…

The numbers in California: A new Rasmussen Reports survey in California finds next year's race for governor now a dead heat with Jerry Brown (D) and Meg Whitman (R) tied at 41%. In other match ups, Brown leads Steve Poizner (R), 43% to 32%, and tops Tom Campbell (R), 42% to 33%. And in Florida:…

This is the latest video from Keep America Safe and I think the best one yet. Justin Germany put this together after a trip up to Standish, Michigan, with KAS board member Debra Burlingame, who was all over the Holder hearings yesterday. It now seems unlikely that the detainees will end up in…

If bin Laden is captured, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee doesn't see any need at all to interrogate the al Qaeda founder and mastermind -- because we already have enough on him for a "conviction." If the U.S. captures Osama bin Laden, there's no need to interrogate him, the chairman…

Via Hot Air, the Washington Times unearths a quote from New York Senator Chuck Schumer in which, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Schumer mocks the idea that anyone would give the 9/11 plotters the same rights afforded to American citizens charged with pick-pocketing. There are also those…

Earlier this month, when Rep. Mark Kirk accused Trita Parsi, the Iranian national who heads the oddly named National Iranian American Council, of being a "regime sympathizer," NIAC accused Kirk of making a "slanderous allegation." Yet internal emails reveal that Parsi certainly did not see himself…

President Obama responds to a question from CBS about the Afghan policy leaks: "I think I am angrier than Bob Gates about it, partly because we have these deliberations in the Situation Room for a reason - because we are making decisions that are life-and-death, that affect how our troops will be…

Sarah Palin weighs in on settlements: Barbara Walters: Governor, let's talk about some issues. The Middle East. The Obama administration does not want Israel to build any more settlements on what they consider "Palestinian territory." What is your view on this? Sarah Palin: I disagree with the…

The White House realizes there are no settlements in Jerusalem -- and yet their position remains unclear. David Frum says it isn't enough to take Trita Parsi at his word. Russia gives Georgia the 411: We're annexing your sovereign territory. Ace examines the "diplomacy of deference." "He ought to…

As NIAC prepared its duplicitous campaign to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross as the Obama administration's envoy to Iran, Trita Parsi and his policy director, Patrick Disney, conferred with their allies on two separate listservs to devise a strategy. The date was January 7, 2009, and as the…

Israel has approved the construction of some 900 housing units in their own capital city, Jerusalem: ... Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said he refused to be part of a halt to Jewish and Arab construction in west or east Jerusalem. "Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews, or between…

Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling health care by a 49-47 percent margin, according to the latest Washington Post poll. Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of Afghanistan by a 48-45 margin. In April of this year 63 percent of Americans approved of Obama's handling of that…

Keep America Safe is joining forces with The Bravest and 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America to encourage people to attend AG Eric Holder's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. The hearing promises to be a major event, with Holder answering questions about…

Joementum, in Israel, says Iran "has failed the test." While Obama dithers on Afghanistan, Lang Sias asks what happened to the "fierce urgency of now." Steve Clemons says "the dark side has taken hold at the White House." Fact: It took 11 AP reporters to fact-check Palin's book. Jamie Kirchick asks…

Andrew Sullivan is digging in to defend Trita Parsi -- and to attack Parsi's critics: But it does reveal a classic neoconservative move. They are essentially trying to accuse Iranian-Americans who disagree with them of dual loyalty. Even as they rightly scream blue murder if that is ever applied to…

NIAC and J Street might seem at first an odd alliance. J Street is "pro-peace, pro-Israel" and NIAC is pro-engagement, pro-Iran. But J Street isn't all that pro-Israel, and NIAC will take any allies it can find in the fight against sanctions, so few and far between are such organizations in…

Earlier this week, John Limbert, who was held hostage at the American Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago, began his job at the State Department as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran. Limbert also served on the advisory board of the National Iranian American Council, which the Washington Times…

FS_Mistral_02.jpg As we noted here a week ago, the French are planning a major arms deal with Kremlin. Gary Schmitt delves deeper today with a piece for THE WEEKLY STANDARD website. Schmitt writes: In little over a week, a modern French warship is scheduled to visit St. Petersburg. If the Russians…

An email from Joe Bookbinder, the director of public affairs for the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, to reporters in Asia ahead of Obama's big speech tomorrow. Check out point number 3 below... When speaking about U.S. foreign relations, President Obama has said that "there must be a sustained…

Today the Washington Times prints a blockbuster expose on NIAC, the National Iranian American Council run by Trita Parsi that has long been suspected of acting as an unofficial, and unregistered, lobby for the Iranian regime. These suspicions seem to have been well founded. Here are the facts as…

Laura Rozen reported yesterday that the Obama administration was set to announce the appointment of a special envoy to monitor and combat global anti-Semitism. Per Rozen, rumor has it that the administration has settled on Hannah Rosenthal -- a Chicago lawyer who has precisely the kind of views…

ABC reports that Ft. Hood terrorist Nidal Hassan had his own business cards made: United States Army Major Nidal Hasan proclaimed himself a "soldier of Allah" on private business cards he obtained over the Internet and kept in a box at his apartment near Fort Hood, Texas.

A couple of interesting nuggets in the latest Quinnipiac poll out of Connecticut. First off, the numbers show little sign of improving for friend of Angelo and netleft hero Chris Dodd. He loses a hypothetical matchup against both Republicans in the race -- he trails Rob Simmons by 11 and WWE boss…

On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a group called KulturProjekte Berlin set up a virtual wall on which Twitter users could post their thoughts. The project seems to have been overwhelmed by Chinese Twitter users who took the opportunity to protest their lack of freedom. One…

The Center for American Progress has released a white paper calling on the administration to establish a new deadline for closing the detention facility at Gitmo now that it's clear the administration has no hope of meeting the original January deadline. The report recommends: Push back the closure…

The former New York governor will be giving a lecture tomorrow at Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. The talk is titled "From Ayn Rand to Ken Feinberg - How Quickly the Paradigm Shifts. What Should be the Rationale for Government Participation in the Market?" It's unclear…

It is always interesting to see how these two respond to the same event. In the case of the fall of the Berlin Wall, both Obama and McCain delivered remarks -- Obama, via video, to the assembled masses in Berlin, and McCain to the students at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International…

Tarek Fatah writes in the Ottawa Citizen: No one seemed to notice the significance of the attire that Maj. Nidal Hasan was wearing the morning of the killings. It was captured on a store surveillance video where he bought a coffee.... Hasan was wearing the "shalwar-kameez," the traditional attire…

ABC tries to figure out how the Ft. Hood shooter slipped through the cracks even as authorities were aware that he was communicating with known radicals and attempting to communicate with al Qaeda: "The general tenor of the communications were fairly benign and did comport with a research project…

It wasn't PTSD. It was a Muslim fanatic with ties to a radical cleric who tried to contact al Qaeda via the internet according to the report from ABC. The CIA was aware of these efforts and, it seems, failed to act on the intelligence. In May of 2008, Sen. Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee…

Andrea Saul, until last week press secretary for Senator Orrin Hatch, is heading to Tallahassee to serve as communications director for Charlie Crist's Senate campaign, as the Florida governor and early favorite for Florida's open Senate seat faces an increasingly serious primary challenge from…

What would you call a group that opposes sanctions on Iran, questions Israel's right to defend itself from terrorist groups firing rockets from Gaza, seeks to pressure Israel into making major concessions without regard to the views of the elected government in Jerusalem, and supports a…

"Unpleasant as it may be for the president to hear, his policy is objectively aiding the Tehran regime and harming the opposition in their ongoing struggle." Strategic Reassurance, we hardly knew ye. Vulnerable freshman Democrats abandoning ship on health care. Apparently they learned the wrong…

The Jerusalem Post reports that Netanyahu will be in Washington all next week. Guess who he won't be meeting with: As of press time, the Prime Minister's Office said no formal meeting had been scheduled with US President Barack Obama during the visit, which could last through the week. No departure…

Republicans send around these numbers from the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released today: From everything you have heard or read so far, do you favor or oppose Barack Obama's plan to reform health care? Oppose 53 Support 45 The numbers were the other way around in August: 50 percent…

It looks like the man who killed 13 soldiers and police at Ft. Hood was a Muslim radical who hated America, resented our occupation of Muslim lands, would not be photographed with women, and chanted "Allahu Akbar" before he launched a one-man terrorist attack, but according to CBS White House…

Ben Smith comes up with some pretty good stuff this morning comparing General Jones's prepared remarks for the J Street conference last week with the remarks as delivered. Jones pledged then that the administration would send a representative to all future conferences held by J Street. It was the…

How weak? Carteresque weak. Hey, you know what turned out to be a really bad idea? Calling for a settlement freeze. Chris Dodd, progressive hero and friend of Angelo, goes after the administration over Swine flu incompetence. Z Street cuts right through J Street. Politico finds at least two…

The media just doesn't seem as troubled by the Obama administration buying favorable coverage in foreign newspapers as it was when the Bush administration propagandized. Still, I'm surprised this story isn't getting more attention. There's something for everyone here -- an administration buying…

The New York Times reports on comments by the French foreign minister: On Iran, Mr. Kouchner said that the violence of demonstrations on Wednesday was very important, another sign that the Iranians "are losing time, not gaining time" by their refusal to deal seriously with the Security Council and…

From David Corn, in response to John Boehner tweeting a story from the AP titled "Thousands rally to protest Pelosi healthcare": And hundreds of millions don't. Good point, Corn. Just like the hundreds of millions who didn't march on Washington for civil rights or to end the war in Vietnam. Or the…

Just two weeks ago we had a little fun with Nation columnist and Columbia journalism professor Eric Alterman, who had, over the course of a year, recycled the same attack, practically word for word, into three separate columns for three different publications. For example, on January 15, writing in…

A new poll from Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research takes the temperature of California Republicans: Former eBay executive Meg Whitman has opened up a wide lead in the Republican race for governor, according to the latest Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research poll. About a third of Republicans and…

The Senate approved Tara O'Toole's nomination as Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security via voice vote last night. As we pointed out the day before, this should be of concern to anyone interested in making sure that billions in taxpayer…

The New Republic has kept up a steady drum beat against President Obama's disgrace of an envoy to Sudan, General Scott Gration. Gration has embarrassed himself and the United States repeatedly with statements on the situation in Darfur that range from the delusional to the merely naive. Now the…

A major national ad campaign is set to launch tomorrow tying the Obama administration's failure to provide the flu vaccine on time and in quantity to fears of a government takeover of healthcare. The American Future Fund has produced and plans to put significant money behind the ad that is set to…

The amendment was introduced a month ago and is expected to come to the floor today. The text of the amendment reads, Purpose: To prohibit the use of funds for the prosecution in Article III courts of the United States of individuals involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As a…

Europe rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that they provide and then questions the manner in which they provide it. "Iran's decision to expand mining and milling at Bandar Abbas seems to validate the suspicions of those who think it was the main uranium site for a covert…

A source tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the hold has been lifted on Tara O'Toole's nomination to serve as Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. The nomination could move on the floor as early as tonight, I'm told. Background on O'Toole,…

It's like Battered Wives Syndrome, except President Obama is the bride with the black eye and Ayatollah Khameini is the abusive husband. And Obama keeps coming back for more. Yesterday the Supreme Leader publicly ridiculed Obama's repeated diplomatic overtures, saying that talks with the United…

From the Los Angeles Times: Democrats score congressional victories in California, New York The GOP fares better in Virginia and New Jersey as both states elect Republican governors.

Almost everybody. Only three Republicans voted against the resolution, introduced by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Howard Berman (D-CA). One of them, of course, was Ron Paul. But there were 33 members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the resolution condemning the anti-Israel, UN…

New Jersey and Virginia Follow Historical Trend, Democrat Captures NY 23 for First Time in More Than 100 Years after GOP Civil War Erupts Between Moderates and Conservatives That's the headline on the statement from current Virginia governor and DNC chief Tim Kaine. It will also be the narrative…

The final tally on the House resolution condemning the report by Judge Richard Goldstone alleging war crimes by Israeli forces in Gaza is a lopsided 344 to 36 -- as it should be. Normally nothing much would be made of these numbers, but this vote, coming so quickly on the heels of J Street's…

Gibbs says no vaccine for detainees. Pentagon to Gibbs: You lie! Bear kills two militants in Kashmir. DC cabbies are backing McChrystal. Obama administration now actively appeasing the Burmese junta. J Street poet: "I am not a Zionist" Harvard boasts the largest number of MoH recipients outside of…

Harry Reid says he's "not going to be bound by any time-lines," when asked if health care reform can be completed by Christmas. Depending on the results tonight, Blue Dogs may get a frightful glimpse of what their own races will look like in 2010, and the polling on health care reform -- the…

The Eurasia Daily Monitor reports: The French government and, apparently, the Élysée Palace are moving fast to sell at least one Mistral-class helicopter carrier to Russia, possibly for deployment in the Black Sea. Such a sale would endow Russia with a modern naval and amphibious warfare…

Tara O'Toole is a name most Americans have never heard before, but on Capitol Hill, she's causing a lot of problems for Jack Murtha and Harry Reid. O'Toole has been nominated for a senior post at the Department of Homeland Security, specifically the Under Secretary for the Science and Technology…

According to a release this morning from Judicial Watch, the most recent CIA docu-dump regarding its detainee interrogation program turns up a couple of new nuggets showing just how vital this program was to national security. JW highlights the CIA's official confirmation of what many have known…

Either that, or Hillary's going rogue, but I'm betting on the former, since this administration traffics in appeasement. The Secretary of State will be appearing on "not a legitimate news network" at 10 pm tonight for an interview with Greta. Maybe Hillary is just playing to her base...

Remember when the Bush administration announced that "space supremacy" was the official goal of the United States military? The Obama administration came into office promising to cool the rhetoric and work through multilateral institutions to oppose various agreements that would prevent the…

Here's the list, per a release from Rep. Mike Pence's office. My personal favorite -- #108, the "Program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims and perpetrators." Personally, I kind of like Gov. Jindal's program for the treatment of child sexual abuse perpetrators. I am curious, though, as to…

The boss writes at the Washington Post: The moderate-conservative divide in the GOP was never more evident than in 1976-1980. Ronald Reagan challenged President Gerald Ford for the nomination in 1976, conservatives knocked of Republicans in Senate primaries in 1978 in New Jersey and in 1980 in New…

Ben Smith writes on Clinton's latest meddling: To keep this straight: Clinton leaned harder on Israel than the administration intended, infuriating the Israelis while putting the Palestinians far out on a limb. Then she sawed off the limb. The early questions about her role in Middle East politics…

A twofer from Joementum this morning. First, a source who was present at the scene reports: In the stakeout after Face the Nation, Joe Lieberman excoriated the decision to give the vaccine to GITMO terrorists and not to pregnant women. And second, from the Hartford Courant, a Lieberman op-ed…

Steve Hayes and Andrew Hayes correct the record on Brett Favre. Bibi shouldn't take it personally, Ben-Ami thinks his own father is a terrorist." What he meant to say. Former Secretary of State George Shultz on communicating with Iran: People say we didn't communicate with Iran, but we did. When…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained a document authored by Judge Richard Goldstone that is now being circulated on Capitol Hill. The document was written in response to HR 867 -- the resolution sponsored by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard Berman condemning Goldstone's report on Israeli war crimes in…

The Obama administration's diplomatic efforts on North Korea have stalled, the peace process is going nowhere fast, and now the negotiations with Iran have collapsed entirely. The Telegraph reports on the Obama administration's now failed attempt to talk the Iranians out of their nuclear materials:…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported last week on a Congressional resolution sponsored by Reps. Howard Berman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen that would strongly condemn the Goldstone report and call "on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of…

The bill that passed out of Dodd's committee yesterday was built on the legislation crafted by these three. For more background on how this went down in committee yesterday, see here. And with the Iranians thumbing their collective nose at Obama over the shipment of uranium to Russia, the timing of…

Earlier today the FinanceBanking Committee debated amendments to the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2009, a piece of legislation that is built around the Bayh-Kyl-Lieberman Iran sanctions bill that has garnered some 76 cosponsors in the Senate. Dodd's bill, which…

The Democratic National Committee makes the kind of stupid mistake we've come to expect from their Republican counterparts -- promoting an ad that features...the desecration of the American flag. Politico's Jonathan Allen reports: One of the 20 finalists in health care video contest run by Barack…

US News reports that J Street will allow it's university affiliates to drop the "pro-Israel" label and remain affiliated with the J Street organization: "The student groups don't need to say they are explicitly pro-Israel so long as their programming and outreach operate from the premise that the…

Yesterday the Republican Jewish Coalition was taunting its Democratic rival, the National Jewish Democratic Council, over the appointment of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to serve a co-chair of the President's National Intelligence Advisory Board. As the RJC was quick to point out after…

Josh Rogin reported today that former Senator Chuck Hagel will serve as co-chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. Hagel was also the keynote speaker at last night's J Street gala dinner. Naturally, Hagel is not a big supporter of Israel (this seems to be a theme among J Street…

From Jeff Flake, in response to questions about why he voted against a bill "honoring the 2560th anniversary of the birth of Confucius and recognizing his invaluable contributions to philosophy and social and political thought." "He who spends time passing trivial legislation may find himself out…

An interesting story from the Republican primary in Connecticut, where the front-runner has flip-flopped on the public option in the wake of Joementum's announcement that he would vote against cloture on any bill that has a public option like the one currently being pushed by embattled Senate…

Students explain how to write a cover letter that will get you that dream job working for Carlos Slim at the New York Times. The lesson seems to be, "if you bash Fox News, you might land an unpaid internship at Mother Jones."

The AP reports: Former Vice-President Dick Cheney will throw his support behind U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's campaign for governor. The Hutchison campaign confirmed Wednesday that Cheney will endorse the Texas Republican's March primary challenge of Gov. Rick Perry at a fundraiser next month.…

A good little hit from the Senate Republican Conference:

In the tradition of Walter Duranty, Herbert Matthews, and Joe Klein, Steve Clemons interviews the mass-murderer Khaled Meshaal. One hard-hitting question from Clemons: "[Are you] a Palestinian patriot or a Muslim patriot?" See it to believe it ...

Obama national security adviser Jim Jones spoke today to the assorted Zionists, anti-Zionists, and social justice advocates who had assembled for J Street's inaugural conference. Genuine supporters of Israel would find little to object to in Jones's speech. There are two possible explanations for…

Is he the greatest senator ever? He fought for victory in Iraq, he's fighting for victory in Afghanistan, and he's fighting to save us all from Obamacare. Who needs Olympia Snowe when you've got Joementum?

I suspected J Street wasn't pro-Israel in any meaningful sense of the term, and the conference seemed to confirm my suspicions, but never did I imagine that J Street would drop the pretense on the final day of their conference: J Street's university arm has dropped the "pro-Israel" part of the…

The Playbook reports: Vice President BIDEN today 'will travel to Wilmington, Delaware. Vice President Biden will be joined by Governor Jack Markell and other Delaware officials to make a major announcement about the future of the former General Motors Boxwood Plant.' An administration official:…

The "independent" blogger panel at J Street's conference can only be described as clownish. The panel consisted mostly of crackpots and self-described anti-Zionists and "one-staters" (J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami calls the one-state solution a "nightmare," but it seems to be the dream of many…

I made my way over to the J Street conference today to see for myself just how "pro-peace, pro-Israel" the organization really is, and there can be no doubt, J Street is pro-peace. But while the leadership of J Street may be pro-Israel, the conference they've organized was at times openly…

In early 2008, a week after his defeat in the New Hampshire primary, Barack Obama sat down with the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle. "The problem is," Obama said about global warming, "can you get the American people to say this is really important and force their representatives to…

An authoritative source informs THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the Democratic Senator from North Carolina, Kay Hagan, has asked J Street to remove her name from the host committee for its inaugural Israel-bashing conference this weekend featuring anti-Semite Salam "Zionism is Nazism" Al-Maryati. This is…

In the course of an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg this morning, J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami says that his organization is "refusing to embrace the Goldstone report." Is that the same as condemning the report? No, it's not. J Street has released two statements on Goldstone and neither one…

Yesterday Andrew Sullivan defended Human Rights Watch from a growing chorus of critics including HRW's founder, who took to the op-ed page of the New York Times this week to castigate the organization for its obsession with Israel at the expense of real human rights abusers in the Middle East like…

National Journal reports: A handful of centrist senators from both parties met this morning to discuss withholding their votes to send a healthcare overhaul bill to the floor if it includes provisions they disagree with, such as a public option. Their concerns might undermine Democratic leaders'…

wiesel.jpg Elie Wiesel chooses CUFI.

A surprisingly strong editorial on Afghanistan from USA Today. Rogin says the American embassy in Baghdad is a disaster -- and he's not even reporting on Chris Hill. Rubio's making a move. Pelosi says it's "undignified" for Cheney to 'call 'em out' -- but a sitting president... Paging Scozzfava…

Another speaker on J Street's "independent" blogger panel rises to the defend his copanelist Helena Cobban, whose advocacy on behalf of Hamas and disdain for Israel was detailed here earlier today: Another strike against Cobban, making her deserving of expulsion from our session, is that she…

The anti-Israel poetry slam is back on: WE WILL NOT BE SILENT: POETRY ON PALESTINE AND ISRAEL with Kevin Coval and Josh Healey Sunday, October 25 4:00-5:30pm Busboys and Poets, Langston Room 2021 14th St, NW (near U Street Metro station) Washington, DC This past week, Kevin Coval and Josh Healey…

And by consensus, I mean a consensus among the American people: There has been a sharp decline over the past year in the percentage of Americans who say there is solid evidence that global temperatures are rising. And fewer also see global warming as a very serious problem - 35% say that today,…

When J Street canceled a scheduled poetry slam at their inaugural conference, J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami told Politico's Ben Smith that "as J Street is critical of the use and abuse of Holocaust imagery and metaphors by politicians and pundits on the right, it would be inappropriate for us to…

Steve Clemons is very excited that Kadima Party chief Tzipi Livni has sent "a knock-the-ball-out-of-the-park...letter of affirmation to J Street, recognizing potential differences but affiriming a shared strategic vision for the best interests of Israel." No doubt this is a momentous occasion in…

John Kyl says we need to test our nukes. Donnelly goes on counter-attackerman. Another former detainee killed in a shootout. Marty Peretz goes to town on HRW and J Street. Ludacris at the National Press Club? Just say no to blasphemy laws. Momentum in the Virginia race going all in one direction.…

JTA's Washington bureau chief has become the latest name to disappear from the J Street program in advance of next week's conference. Kampeas was to moderate a panel titled "What does it mean to be pro-Israel?" When I called Kampeas for comment, he referred me to JTA editor in chief Ami Eden. Eden…

Kentucky Republican Rep. Geoff Davis had not signed on to J Street's host committee for their conference kicking off later this week, but he was, as of yesterday, listed as a participant in a panel discussion titled "View from the Hill: Congress and the U.S.-Israel Relationship." You can see the…

Look how serious the UN is about the threat from terrorism: A report by U.N. Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin that is awaiting approval by the United Nations General Assembly says that security measures taken to detect terrorists "risk unduly penalizing transgender persons whose personal…

Kevin Coval and Josh Healey, the two poets cut from the J Street conference for what J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami described as "the use and abuse of Holocaust imagery and metaphors," put out a statement: When he called My jaw dropped, my eyes welled and I found my pen. Welcome to the new…

Another congressman has pulled his name from J Street's host committee -- Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-CA). Bilbray's office called THE WEEKLY STANDARD last night to say they were dropping their support for the event, bringing the total number of congressmen to bail to a dozen even. I've spoken with…

Senator Lamar Alexander is set to deliver the following remarks on the floor of the Senate in just a few minutes, pleading with the president to take a less adversarial approach in his dealings with Congress, the media, and American industry and banks. "As any veteran of the Nixon White House can…

Pakistani Taliban in the crosshairs. The problem with half-measures in Afghanistan. The long road to indecision on Afghanistan. Lenny Ben-David has some questions for Jeremy Ben-Ami. Is Ron Kampeas saying J Street is an obstacle to peace?

Regarding the large number of senators and representatives who seem to have ended up on J Street's host committee without their knowledge (a not insignificant portion of the dozen or so who have now pulled their names off the list), the group's spokesmen have offered a fairly consistent defense. We…

Cable guy Josh Rogin quoted J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami last week on the controversy surrounding the group's inaugural conference that kicks off next week: "We are at the center of debate and controversy after only 18 months, and this is a real impact and a success," he said, adding, "We are…

The Israeli ambassador has turned down an invitation to speak at J Street's anti-Israel conference because of -- well, "concerns over certain policies of the organization that may impair the interests of Israel." In other words, Oren isn't at all convinced that J Street is pro-Israel. And…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has confirmed that North Carolina Republican Howard Coble has become the latest member of Congress to have his name pulled from the host committee for J Street's inaugural conference. Coble spokesman Ed McDonald said that when Coble was first asked whether he would add his name…

Yesterday a source close to Secretary of Defense Gates told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that Gates didn't get so much as a heads up from Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel before Emanuel went on CNN to declare that "it would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop level if, in fact, you haven't done a…

Why is J Street cancelling an anti-Israel poetry slam at their conference? Could it be White House pressure? According to a statement from J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami to Ben Smith, the poetry slam was cancelled because, as J Street is critical of the use and abuse of Holocaust imagery and…

Last week we noted the appearance of "poet" Josh Healey on the list of speakers for J Street's conference next week. We also posted the video of Healey performing his poem "Queer Intifada," which declares that "Guantanamo is Auschwitz" and "Anne Frank is Matthew Shepard." Healey authored another…

Haaretz explains http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121716.html In Israel, there is concern that AIPAC will interpret participation as an act against it. "You don't turn your back on someone who has acted in your favor for decades," said a senior Israeli official. "Certainly not in favor of an…

Credit to the Washington Post, which reports this story with all the context necessary to demonstrate how truly cynical and pathetic this Nobel laureate-led administration is on the issue of human rights: After lengthy debate, the Obama administration has settled on a policy toward Sudan that…

The entire pro-Israel community, ranging from Republicans to Democrats, from Middle East hawks to peace-processing doves, has been (quite properly) united in condemning the Goldstone Report as fundamentally biased and extraordinarily reckless and irresponsible. Everyone except J Street. J Street…

The names of Reps. John Salazar (CO-03) and Ed Towns (NY-10) have been scrubbed from the list of congressmen serving on the host committee for J Street's inaugural conference. That brings to ten the number of congressmen, Republicans and Democrats, senators and representatives, who have bailed on J…

The anti-Israel organization J Street has been hemorraghing sponsors for its conference as Senators and Congressmen learned of its true agenda. Just in the last few hours, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Leonard Boswell (D-IA), have asked to have their names removed…

The statement from Senator Lincoln's office to THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Senator Lincoln did not personally know her name was put on the list and when she learned of it, asked that it be removed. It's clear that some of these names were only on J Street's list because of confusion among staffers who…

The statement from Cochran's office: "Sen. Cochran will not be co-hosting the event." That makes five members of Congress who've yanked their support for the conference in less than 12 hours. When was the last time a conference had that kind of problem? How many more will drop out tomorrow? What…

The floodgates have opened. As members of the House and Senate either learn for the first time that their names are on the list of J Street's host committee or learn for the first time just what being "pro-Israel" means over at J Street, they're heading for the exits. Ben Smith reports: One more…

Satire alert: A friend emails with a sneak peak at the first day's schedule for the J Street conference: J street schedule of events. 8:00 AM: Should Israel join the Arab League? How a Jewish demographic majority in Palestine hinders Israel's regional diplomacy. Daniel Levy 9:00 AM: Panel…

We reported this morning that Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, the front-runner for that state's open Senate seat in 2010, had withdrawn his name from the host committee for J Street's inaugural conference later this month -- his staff insists that Castle himself was "totally unaware" that his name had…

The Washington Post reports: Human rights groups and lawmakers are ratcheting up pressure on the Obama administration this week over its approach to ending violence in Sudan, saying the White House and the State Department are treading too cautiously in dealing with the government in Khartoum. A…

J Street has lined up more than a hundred members of the House and some 30 members of the Senate to serve on the host committee for its inaugural conference later this month. Among the few Republicans on the list was Rep. Mike Castle, who has already thrown his hat in the ring for the race to fill…

The Examiner on the latest polling from Gallup: Obama's favorable rating has fallen most markedly among Republicans: In January, 60 percent said they had a favorable impression of him, versus just 19 percent today. More ominous for the president's political prospects is the fact that he is also…

"President Obama looks to have been taken to the cleaners by the Russians." Daniel Inouye, head of the all-powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, backs McChrystal. Leader of "reality-based community" says Biden should resign in protest over Afghan escalation. Reuel Gerecht on the "neo-Taliban."…

Eric Alterman in the Nation on January 15: And yet even this criticism--misguided in my view--sounded positively Gandhi-esque compared with that of Peretz's assistant and informal mini-me, James Kirchick, who termed J Street an American Jewish "Surrender Lobby." The Weekly Standard's Michael…

The AIPAC release: AIPAC applauds the House of Representatives' passage of the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009, authorizing state and local governments to divest from companies investing in Iran's petroleum and natural gas sector or doing business with Iran's nuclear industry. The bill also…

Reuters reports: Clinton said she would have liked to have seen Putin but that their agendas did not coincide. Putin left for a trip to the Russian Far East and China before her arrival in Moscow. That isn't humiliating at all. The Russian strong-man would rather go visit Siberia than meet with the…

No real surprises here from one of the architects of the Iraq surge at an HASC hearing this morning: "A loss of Afghanistan is a win for the Taliban and the Al Qaeda in Pakistan with potential serious consequences for Paksitan…It is not about how many Al Qaeda fighters are in Afghanistan but how…

The Examiner's Tim Carney reports: As the White House dismissed the insurance lobby's critiques of the Senate health care bill as self-serving corporate disinformation, President Obama used his weekly radio address to laud four former Republican officials for supporting the push for "reform." But…

Reuben Johnson writes for the website today on the ChiCom parade two weeks ago celebrating Mao's victory over Chiang. He notes that "the female troops were all marching in miniskirts and fancy leather 'these boots were made for walkin' boots." Indeed, it's not clear the women of the People's…

The lede from the Washington Post report: A prominent Democratic fundraiser and ally of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) is attempting to secure a lobbying contract with the pariah regime in Sudan, which has embarked on an aggressive effort to enlist U.S. support against allegations of genocide and war…

McClatchy reports: WASHINGTON -- As the Obama administration reconsiders its Afghanistan policy, White House officials are minimizing warnings from the intelligence community, the military and the State Department about the risks of adopting a limited strategy focused on al Qaida, U.S.…

The Democratic party is ruling all kinds of things anti-American these days -- protesting unpopular legislation, mocking the president, rooting against the Olympic bid of a corrupt city -- so it was only a matter of time before they stumbled upon something that was actually anti-American and wasn't…

During the online-only portion of yesterday's Fox News Sunday panel discussion, the boss makes the point that the Obama administration, if it continues to fight the war in Afghanistan but fails to adequately resource the commanders there, may be setting the country up for another Blackhawk…

The AP reports: President Barack Obama pledged to end the ban on homosexuals serving openly in the military in a speech Saturday, but acknowledged to a cheering crowd that the policy changes he promised on the campaign trail are not coming as quickly as they expected. "I will end 'don't ask-don't…

Eli Lake reports: Human rights groups are beginning to question President Obama's commitment to their issue as the administration engages authoritarian regimes, retains the option of sending terrorist suspects abroad to places where they might be tortured and puts off a presidential meeting with…

A good story from the TNR archive by Peter Beinart argues that there are two kinds of Nobel Peace Prize winners -- the diplomats and the dissidents. Among the former are the men who pushed disarmament in the 1920s and 1930s, the men who negotiated the peace in Vietnam in the 1970s and the peace in…

The statement from the DNC this morning: The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize. If that's true, than an awful lot of liberals -- from Ezra Klein to Peter Beinart to…

Tom Donnelly explains the difference between McChrystal and Shinseki. The DNC says support for Polanski is just like Scientology, or rooting for the Redskins. Obama's going to Asia -- and snubbing our Aussie allies just like Clinton. Shocker: French minister likes sex with young boys. The House…

Remember when Obama declared that America was one of the largest Muslim countries in the world"? Guess what, it's not. A new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life that is being billed as the most comprehensive of its kind puts the number of Muslims living in the United States at 2.45…

The text of an amendment just proposed by Senator Graham: (a) PROHIBITION ON USE OF FUNDS FOR PROSECUTION OF 9/11 TERRORISTS IN ARTICLE III COURTS.-None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available for the Department of Justice by this Act may be obligated or expended to commence or…

So the Obama administration is sending an openly gay man to serve as America's ambassador to New Zealand. This is apparently meant to be a statement to the world of Obama's deep commitment to gay rights both at home and abroad, coinciding as it does with what is being billed as a major speech by…

In a bizarre and confused attempt to defend the Obama administration's new policy of "strategic reassurance" (read: appeasement of Red China), a blogger for the New Yorker argues that the president's refusal to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama is an eminently reasonable concession to the…

CBS reports: Gen. Stanley McChrystal wanted to ask President Obama for 50,000 more troops for Afghanistan on top of the 68,000 already stationed there, but he was convinced to lower the request to 40,000, reports CBS News White House correspondent Chip Reid. Sources tell Reid that McChrystal, the…

The release from Joementum: Bipartisan Group of Senators encourage Senate Leadership to Impose "Aggressive and meaningful" Sanctions on Iran WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of six U.S. Senators have written to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell encouraging…

A well-informed friend emails: This is just truly surreal: "..warned that the Taliban remain linked to al-Qaeda...." My Allah in Heaven, they are more linked today than they were in 2001. They are more linked to Pakistan's militants than they were in 2001. Pace Jeffrey Goldberg's odd ruminations…

It takes four New York Times reporters to tell us what we already knew: the Obama administration is completely disconnected from reality. "President Obama's national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the…

Tom Donnelly explains why Afghanistan's Nuristan province is prone to such bloody battles: But it is important to remember why U.S. units ended up in such far-flung valleys: It is an extension of the larger success they have enjoyed in "Regional Command-East," the official designation of the…

A huge heel turn by Linda McMahon -- the wife of WWF/WWE founder Vince McMahon and newly-minted Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut -- this afternoon as her campaign sends out a release that includes the email addresses of hundreds of people. Whether all the emails on the list are "real"…

As Obama's Hamlet like performance on Afghanistan continues, as General Biden pushes his "plan", and Jim Jones minimizes the Taliban threat, a friend emails this quote from Candidate Obama in New Hampshire on August 14, 2007: "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough…

A must-read on last night's mayoral debate in Memphis, Tennessee: Of all the mayoral debates and forums that have been held so far this campaign season, perhaps the most bizarre was the one sponsored Tuesday night at the University of Memphis' Rose Theatre by the NAACP. Three of the 12 candidates…

CNN reports: President Obama is turning to a handful of Hollywood stars to judge a contest that asks grassroots supporters to create a television commercial promoting health care reform. Musician Will.I.Am, actor John Cho, actress Rosario Dawson, actor Dulé Hill, "Family Guy" creator Seth…

The New York Times reports on the White House meeting with members of Congress: Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden made it clear that the option Mr. Biden had proposed was not a pure counterterrorism alternative, relying only on drones and Special Forces to track down leaders of Al Qaeda. Instead, Mr. Biden's…

It means never having to say "regime" again: Today marks the Obama administration's first foray into discussion of its Iran policy before the Congress. Stuart Levey, Undersecretary of the Treasury (and not incidentally the single most effective U.S. official to confront the Iran threat in either…

The DNC, which has spent some $6 million on the VA governor's race, targets McDonnell with a web ad that looks like it could have been done by a couple of 12-year-olds on an Apple IIGS. Meanwhile, Republican Deleware Rep. Mike Castle is set to announce he will make a run for Deleware's open senate…

From Bret Stephens's "news analysis from the near-future": Mr. Netanyahu also provoked the administration's ire after he was inadvertently caught on an open microphone calling Mr. Obama "worse than Chamberlain."

While Nancy Pelosi is busy attacking the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Secretary Gates has made it pretty clear that he supports McChrystal's request for more troops. Gates said last night, "Because of our inability, and the inability, frankly, of our allies, (for putting) enough troops…

As the DNC throws more money at Virginia, McDonnell widens his lead. Marty Peretz diagnoses Obama. Hugh Hewitt blows out the Sacramento Bee for sloppy, poorly sourced "agenda journalism." "The Olympics is not a terribly important event in the life of this nation; losing a war, however, is." Andrew…

When Under Secretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 24, she said that in order for Secretary Gates to support the new missile defense architecture in Europe, he had to be reassured that "we are going to continue the development of the…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Blog reported this three weeks ago, but today we read in the Washington Post that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been unceremoniously barred from the White House until President Obama travels to China in November. Sinophiles in the White House are in Nirvana having successfully…

Following up on our post this morning about continued Congressional recalcitrance on the administration's (non-existent) plan to close the detention camp at Gitmo, Republicans send around this report from the Hill that finds it's not just the White House that's in complete disarray on this issue:…

Following up on our post this morning about continued Congressional recalcitrance on the administration's (non-existent) plan to close the detention camp at Gitmo, Republicans send around this report from the Hill that finds it's not just the White House that's in complete disarray on this issue:…

The Hill reports that Congress is once again jamming Gitmo provisions into spending bills -- at least five different bills between the House and Senate. This on the heels of the administration finally conceding that they are nowhere near meeting the January 22 "deadline" for closing the detention…

A friend emails to point out that Jones is "finally doing what he was hired to do -- going after McChrystal and Petraeus and providing the president cover to go against his commander's advice. This is why he will keep his job. He's irreplaceable." This is the fundamental rationale for the Jones…

Last week John McCain accused his old, dear friend Jim Jones of playing politics with the war in Afghanistan. On the floor of the Senate, McCain charged that in counseling the president, Jones was trying a little too hard not "to alienate the left base of the Democrat Party." Today Jones replied on…

Obama's national security adviser skipped his Sunday bike ride to do interviews on CBS and CNN, where he assured viewers that contrary to the assessment of General Stanley McChrystal, Jones doesn't "foresee the return of the Taliban and I want to be clear that Afghanistan is not in imminent danger…

Republicans have always loved Rio. Donnelly says the president was "gambling with America's reputation, not just his own." Newsweek profiles McChrystal. Abu Muqawama blows out senior administration official for insulting McChrystal on background. "Moscow was spoiling for a fight, preparing for a…

Yesterday everyone was all excited that the Iranians were going to ship some of their enriched uranium to Russia. Today the AP reports the Iranians denying any such deal was made. Maybe they decided to ship it to Rio: Western officials at the session said the Islamic republic had also agreed to…

Barack Obama staked his entire campaign for the presidency on the premise that the world doesn't have to be the way it is. Obama promised a new brand of "direct, presidential diplomacy" that would resolve the conflicts between the United States and its adversaries and he promised to remove the…

When people gripe about the U.S. sanctions regime now in place in Burma, they tend to point out the fact that sanctions have been in place for more than a decade but the junta remains in power -- ergo, the sanctions are a failure. But this kind of misses the point. Sanctions were never intended to…

The release from Boeing: Fyi, attached is newly available video of the in-flight Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) aircraft precisely firing its laser at a stationary ground vehicle target during an Aug. 30 test at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. As you can see, the laser damaged the vehicle. (Video is…

As Think Progress notes, last night the boss floated a very well-sourced rumor that Secretary Gates will be out by the end of the year and replaced by Chuck Hagel, who the boss described as an "advocate of retreat everywhere." Indeed Hagel is not only an advocate of retreat everywhere, he is set to…

Carl Levin has been on the floor of the Senate this afternoon, reiterating his case against sending the additional combat troops to Afghanistan that General McChrystal says are needed to execute a properly-resourced counterinsurgency strategy. Instead, Levin argues, the U.S. should focus narrowly…

The president at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh: It is time for Iran to act immediately to restore the confidence of the international community by fulfilling its international obligations. We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran to address the nuclear issue through the…

Joementum talked Iran this morning at an AEI/Brookings event on the Hill this morning. Lieberman is skeptical, to say the least, of the prospects that any real progress will be made on the nuclear issue at today's P5 +1 meetings: I have supported President Obama's decision to make a good faith…

The New York Times writes up the general's speech under the headline "McChrystal Rejects Lower Afghan Aims." The lede: "The top military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, rejected calls for scaling down military objectives there on Thursday and said Washington did not have…

Per Michael Crowley, Marc Lynch asks: "What's wrong with muddling through in Afghanistan?" ...what's so terrible with muddling through for a while, giving the new tactics a chance to work at the local level while preventing the worst-case scenarios from happening? Why choose between escalation or…

On Tuesday Florida Rep. Alan Grayson got into trouble for saying, on the floor of the House, "If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly." Grayson also brought a helpful chart that read: "The Republican Health Care Plan: Die Quickly." To mere dabblers in politics…

Remember how the uncouth behavior of the Republican rank and file at the August town halls was supposed to scare off independent voters. More than that, their radicalism and racism and generally uncivilized conduct -- or at least that's how MSNBC and the DNC described it -- was supposed to drive…

John and Elizabeth Edwards are more vile than you could possibly have imagined. Ferguson on the president's "high-handed refusal to be high-handed" at the UN. Michelle Obama says the "gloves are off" in the fight for Chicago's Olympic bid. But even David Corn has to ask "Is President Obama serious…

Credit to Kurt Campbell. At today's Burma hearing he acknowledged that State has handled the Burma policy review very poorly. Last Friday, two senior state officials briefing Hill staff on the results ran into a buzz saw of complaints over the process State used in rolling out their review. The…

Obama's special envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, said this week that in dealing with rogue states like Sudan, "We've got to think about giving out cookies...Kids, countries, they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement." So, in that spirit, Ben Smith reports that…

The AP reports: Iran's foreign minister made a rare visit to the U.S. capital Wednesday on a visa granted with unusual speed by the State Department one day before the start of nuclear talks in Geneva. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley played down the significance of the U.S. decision to…

Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) has begun his 2:30 pm hearing on Burma and a friend emails to report that the room is "packed with Burmese democracy supporters. Taking up the front row are 15 saffron robed monks who traveled from New York and are led by U Pyinya Zawta" -- one of the leaders of Burma's 2007…

In Osama's latest audio recording, he says: There is a lesson for you in the situation of your sister Georgia. Its people were bombed and humiliated, so they asked for help from America, to restore sovereignty over what had been seized from them, but the latter provided them with nothing but empty…

JTA's Eric Fingerhut reports: A new survey shows that a majority of American Jews would support a U.S. military strike on Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons -- a significant increase from a year ago. Fifty-six percent of American Jews would support the "United States taking military…

Senator Jim Webb is holding his much-anticipated hearing on the Obama administration's Burma policy today and Burma's democratic opposition is crashing the event in a likely futile attempt to shame the Virginia senator for his coddling of the junta. The press release says that "In a sign of protest…

That's the view of a couple retired generals who've been trotted out by Human Rights First. They do not blame Greg Craig or Barack Obama for the failure to meet the January 22nd deadline to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. They also don't blame the ninety senators who voted to deny the…

Yesterday's Washington Post piece on Scott Gration and his milk and cookies approach to dealing with the indicted war criminals that rule Sudan and have committed genocide in Darfur has prompted push-back from the White House. "This article wildly misrepresents the policy discussions that have…

The New York Times quotes a senior administration official on General McChrystal's troop request and how the numbers are being viewed inside the administration: "The figure of 40,000 would be what one official described as the ‘we're in this to win' option, which would include ambitious goals for…

AFP reports: New York's iconic Empire State Building will light up red and yellow Wednesday in honor of the 60th anniversary of communist China. The Chinese consul, Peng Keyu, and other officials will take part in the lighting ceremony which will bathe the skyscraper in the colors of the People's…

Scott Gration, Obama's gaffe-prone special envoy to Sudan, boils it down: "We've got to think about giving out cookies," said Gration, who was appointed in March. "Kids, countries, they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement." This from the man who took it upon…

So far unremarked upon in Obama's about face in deciding to go to Copenhagen to press for Chicago's Olympic bid is the potential fallout for U.S. relations with Brazil. Brazil is an emerging regional power (one of the BRIC countries), and critical for efforts to balance the subversive leftism of…

Nobody took more guff from the left for backing the surge in Iraq than Michael O'Hanlon -- though O'Hanlon, of course, turned out to be right on the money in his analysis of the war there. Today O'Hanlon co-authors an op-ed with Bruce Riedel, the man who oversaw the Obama administration's first…

What is it about the Burmese junta that Jim Webb just can't get enough? After traveling to Burma to meet with the junta's top brass in August, he ran over to the Burmese embassy in Washington last weekend to meet with Nyan Win, the junta's foreign minister whom Webb helped secure a visa for a jaunt…

A Republican emails this morning: Is Obama really jetting off to Copenhagen to lobby for a giant 2016 send off party in Chicago just as Iran's testing nuclear missiles? Amazing... Personally, I don't think I'd mind as much if the beneficiaries of this lobbying campaign by the president were not his…

Magnanimous praise and shrewd advice from an unlikely source: President Bush made a courageous decision in the summer of 2006 to reverse direction, but not the reversal sought by Congress (including then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden), the American public, the overwhelming majority of the press…

Texas Governor Rick Perry came to Washington last week and I had a chance to hear him talk for about an hour on a wide range of issues before a small number of journalists. Perry is engaged in a tough primary battle against Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has much of the Texas Republican…

These are the original sponsors of the Iran sanctions bill now before the Senate: "The discovery that Iran has been hiding a secret uranium enrichment facility adds fierce new urgency to the collective, comprehensive effort to stop Iran's nuclear breakout. "For years, Iran has cheated and lied to…

Rep. Howard Berman, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and one of Congress's most vocal advocates for sanctions on Iran's gasoline imports, releases a strong statement as predicted here this morning: "The news that Iran has been secretly constructing a second uranium enrichment plant…

Chas Freeman couldn't have said it any better: The Egyptian candidate who lost a bid to head the U.N. culture and education body after a row over remarks last year that he was ready to burn Israeli books has blamed the United States and Jewish lobby for his defeat.... "The campaign against me in…

In 2005, Karl Rove told an audience in New York that "In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11 liberals believed it was time to submit a petition." He went on, "I am not joking.…

1) Iran has a covert, underground nuclear enrichment facility, yet knowing this -- as the United States apparently has for years -- Obama has continued to insist that Iran might have a legitimate need for nuclear power ("Without going into specifics," Obama said this summer, "what I do believe is…

Senator Cornyn proposed an amendment this evening that would require any amendment voted on in the Senate Finance Committee to be scored first by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Tax Committee with the estimates made publicly available on the web 24 hours before the vote. The amendment…

Obama is going to keep the prison at Gitmo open at least a little while longer: With four months left to meet its self-imposed deadline for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration is working to recover from missteps that have put officials behind schedule…

Obama is giving $400,000 in cash (your cash) to the Qaddafi family. Really. Administration officials to Politico: we've got the Israelis and Palestinians right where we want them. Scientists have "lost" all the data that no on has ever seen and which proves global warming is real. Hannah Giles has…

The Cable points to a report in Roll Call quoting the new ranking Republican on HASC, Buck McKeon: House Armed Services ranking member Howard McKeon (R-Calif.) said Wednesday that Gates told him on a July trip to Afghanistan that Obama "wasn't inclined to send troops over there." McKeon said Gates…

Bibi's speech today at the UN was unapologetic in tone and uncompromising in its substance. The Israeli PM questioned the legitimacy of a United Nations that says and does nothing in the face of terrorism against Israel but passes resolutions and launches inquiries at the mere prospect of an…

In my last post on Burma, I reported the second meeting in as many months between Senator Jim Webb and Nyan Win, the foreign minister for the Burmese junta. This time the meeting was in Washington, which required that Win be granted a visa waiver (he, like the rest of the junta's senior figures, is…

Yesterday the Obama administration held a conference call in which a "senior administration official" assured the participants that the Obama administration would not allow the Goldstone Report, a work product of the UN's Human Rights Council that indicts Israel for war crimes in Operation Cast…

"Are we not friends of the persecuted Coptic Christian in Egypt? Are we not friends of the North Koreans enslaved in the gulag? Are we not friends of the repressed Cuban or Iranian democracy activist?" Those were the questions asked by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) on the floor of the House yesterday. But…

Anyone who's been following this story should have noted by now the major difference between Manuel Zelaya, the ousted former president, and Roberto Micheletti, the current president. It isn't that Zelaya is a communist and Micheletti a liberal democrat (though that much seems clear). No, the real…

Yesterday Sarah Palin delivered a major speech with what Rogin says "included some of the most critical statements about the Chinese Communist Party by a American political leader in years." She talked bluntly about China's massive military build-up and the threat it poses to America's allies and…

In May, Hillary Clinton gave an interview with al Jazeera in which she laid out the administration's position on Israeli settlements. "We want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth -- any kind of settlement activity," Clinton said. By all accounts, that position…

ABC's Jake Tapper, from the United Nations: so far, people more polite than @CongJoeWilson during POTUS speech: Chavez, Qadaffi, Mugabe. Kudos. gents!

With the eyes of the world focused on President Obama's handshakes at the UN, that crafty, secretive cabal of neocons gathered in Washington in a dark basement at the W Hotel, where the Foreign Policy Initiative held its 2009 forum on "Advancing and Defending Democracy." You can check out the…

According to Reuters, Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win "has arrived in New York after being granted permission to visit the Burmese embassy in Washington, a US official said yesterday." The unnamed source quoted by Reuters stated that Nyan Win "made a side trip" to the embassy in Washington, but…

Hey, he's been working this thing for eight months and he wants to see some results: President Obama's central message to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York today was simple, a U.S. official said: He's running out of patience. "The President of the United States is impatient," said the…

At the Atlantic, D.B. Grady offers a really smart take on the current state of play now that the McChrystal report has leaked. First off, Grady is dubious that the administration is having trouble deciphering the assessment: The Obama administration is still "reviewing the document," according to…

A senior administration official points the finger at McChrystal. A Pentagon spokesman says Gates doesn't believe that's true. Spencer Ackerman suspects Admiral Mullen, but is dissuaded by one of his sources. Ben Smith offers a fanatastic scenario in which an Obama loyalist leaked the document "to…

This is how one of the world's most odious regimes treats students who challenge its authority: RFE/RL: When did the rape take place? Sharifi: The fourth day, when they said they were going to execute me -- it was a mock execution they subjected us to. I protested and said: "What is this? If you…

Josh Rogin sat down with Senator Jim Webb last week and tried to get some answers on Burma. According to Webb, everything that's been written about his botched Burma diplomacy is wrong, a lie, a distortion, or a misunderstanding. But there is one incontrovertible fact: Webb's meddling has gotten…

General Stanley McChrystal's classified assessment of the situation in Afghanistan has been obtained by the Washington Post. According to the Post's report, McChrystal warns that without the deployment of additional U.S. forces, the war "will likely result in failure." McChrystal has already put…

In 2007, the Bush administration held a conference in Annapolis that brought together the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. This was the first time all sides were able to agree on a two state solution as the path toward a lasting peace…

In a little noticed interview with the Daily Beast (presumably little noticed because serious people don't read the Daily Beast), Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Barack Obama do more than just refuse to support an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites -- the American president must give the…

Our Secretary of State gives a lengthy interview to the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler that includes some remarkable exchanges. The bizarre contradiction in this administration's approach to authoritarian Iran on the one hand and democratic Honduras on the other is offered by Clinton without any…

The New York Post reports on the victims of a false rape allegation at Hofstra: "My name is forever tarnished," said 19-year-old Stalin Felipe. Via JWF.

With democracies from Israel to Eastern Europe to Honduras scratching their heads about U.S. foreign policy it's probably not the worst time in the world to hold a conference on democracy and American policy. On Monday September 21 through Tuesday September 22, FPI is hosting their 2009…

Robert Kagan writes at the Washington Post on the passing of Irving Kristol: He was a truly great man, a great intellectual, and a great, patriotic servant to his country. He was also a unique inspiration, to me personally, and to untold thousands of other young people for whom he provided a model…

This is a bipartisan group, including Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet, John Deutch, Jim Woolsey, William Webster, and James Schlesinger. As they note at the beginning of the letter, these men have served presidents in that role for more than 35 years, and they "respectfully urge [Obama]…

The Nobel Prize winner unloads on Obama: "Americans have always cared only about their interests, and all other [countries] have been used for their purposes. This is another example," Mr WaÅ‚Ä™sa told TVN24. "[Poles] need to review our view of America, we must first of all take care of our…

Health care, which the president acknowledges is not a crisis, requires us to act and act now. It's urgent and if people don't pass his plan (whatever that is) "people will die." That's what President Obama said before a joint session of Congress the other day. War, apparently, is different. Obama…

Max Boot says Obama is giving off a pretty heavy weakness vibe. Heritage is making a missile defense movie...just in time for awards season. "Every book gets the readers it deserves." Pletka thinks she finally understands the president's strategy and vision. Creigh Deeds is going to raise your…

The senators write Harry Reid to "request that you immediately instruct the appropriate Senate committee chairs to open investigations and hold public hearings concerning the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)." The document notes the videos that have blown up this week…

A letter from Van Jones to his supporters urges people to buy his book (or check it out from the library -- so much greener) and join online groups including "I Stand With Van Jones and I Love Van Jones." However, it turns out Jones is not quite as delusional as his supporters, like Arianna…

You can be sure he would have picked up the phone for Bill, and he might even have picked up the phone for Hillary if he thought that she was willing to "channel" her husband and offer his view of the Obama administration decision, but when Hillary calls at 3 AM -- well, unless you're married to…

Joe Klein writes: I do hope that this anti-missile move has a Russian concession attached to it, perhaps not publicly (just as the US agreement to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey was not make public during the Cuban Missile Crisis). The Obama Administration's diplomatic strategy is, I…

Tom Donnelly goes big picture on the administration's missile defense capitulation at the new Center for Defense Studies blog(which is THE WEEKLY STANDARD blog's new favorite blog) under the apropos headline "A Bad Day for Freedom." He leads with a quote from former Czech PM Mirek Topolanek, this…

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius held a White House press conference today to announce a series of demonstration projects as part of Obama's heath care reform. These projects would include "$25 million in grants to states for a pilot program that would seek to lessen the…

On the same day the Obama administration caves to Kremlin pressure and undermines our NATO allies in Poland and the Czech Republic, we learn via Vlad Socor's precise analysis that the Russians remain active in their illegal occupation of Georgia. Russia just signed 49 year military cooperation…

McCormack is down on the Hill at her presser and sends in these quotes: "I think this is brilliant." ... "bilateral relationship with Russia is very, very important." ... "I congratulate the administration." I have 2010 campaign ads dancing in my head...

The White House has put out a "fact sheet" on their policy of Russian appeasement/missile defense surrender. The fact sheet says that the new approach -- focusing on SM-3 and sea-based systems (presumably in Turkey) -- will "augment our current protection of the U.S. homeland against long-range…

The statement from Joementum: "This deeply regrettable decision sends the wrong message to Tehran, Moscow, and our European allies at a critical time in our effort to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program," Lieberman said. "Moreover, it means that we will have a less capable missile defense system to…

Here's the statement from Jon Kyl, the Republican leader on missile defense: "The decision announced today by the Administration is dangerous and short-sighted. Not only does this decision leave America vulnerable to the growing Iranian long-range missile threat, it also turns back the clock to the…

Update II: The AP confirms our report and adds that Secretary Gates will announce the administration's missile defense plans on Thursday morning at 10 am. A source tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the team in the air to Europe will be making stops in Warsaw, Prague, and Brussels. It sounds like the…

AEI launches the Center for Defense Studies today. Bookmark it! A leading Iranian dissident tells CBN he's "disappointed" in President Obama. Jon Stewart shames the media for getting scooped on ACORN by a couple of kids. Hannah Giles. Gilad Shalit to spend another Rosh Hashana in Gaza -- a "triumph…

I emailed Fred Kagan for his take on the administration's metrics for progress in Afghanistan, first reported by FP's Josh Rogin earlier today. Here is his response: The most important thing about the metrics leaked from the Obama Administration today is that they indicate a continued commitment to…

The Asia Times has notable piece published today in the commentary section by Georgetown University's David Steinberg, a faculty member in Georgetown's Asian Studies School of Foreign Service. Steinberg steps forward to defend the recent August visit of Virginia Senator Jim Webb (D) to Burma where…

Per our post earlier today on cap and tax, Jim Jeffries sends over this statement from Senator Lamar Alexander, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate: "The current administration claims to be the most transparent in American history, yet it's been hiding a report showing its cap-and-trade energy plan…

Josh Rogin gets the administration document containing the various metrics they plan to use in determining their own success or failure in the war in Afpak -- and the document does indeed have metrics for both sides of the Durand Line: The three-page paper, which is marked DRAFT but is…

Anthony Cordesman writes: What Senator Karl Levin proposed in his speech on September 11, 2009 is a narrow approach to the war that can only lose it. It is not a strategy, but rather an effort to avoid a commitment of more US troops and resources by rushing the development of Afghan forces as a…

In April, China warned President Obama not to meet with Nobel laureate the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of Tibet. Of course, dictating who a foreign leader can meet would usually be considered interfering in a sovereign country's internal affairs -- something the Communist…

CBS reports: The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent. A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the…

This might be the most interesting exchange from yesterday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with Admiral Mullen (though Mullen's insistence that additional Afghan forces will not be sufficient to defeat the Taliban or even slow the deterioration of security conditions there has gotten the…

The New York Times reports: The Justice Department has declared that President Obama can disregard a law forbidding State Department officials from attending United Nations meetings led by representatives of nations considered to be sponsors of terrorism. Based on that decision, which echoes Bush…

Democrats censure Joe Wilson -- can you feel the bipartisanship that Obama brought to Washington? Taiwan is waiting for its F-16s, but for Obama it's just not a good time to send arms to Free China. In fact, Obama doesn't have much time for any of our allies in Asia. Matt Labash dissects Mad Men…

Secretary of State Clinton will be delivering several speeches and attending three swearing-in ceremonies today including Kurt Campbell's, the new Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs. I have written previously of Campbell's trials and travails in making it through the…

Andrew Breitbart has nearly finished the job...a few more shovelfuls of dirt and one more smile from Miss Hannah Giles and this whole thing should be over, leaving the organization a mere shadow of what it once was and permanently severing its relationship with the federal government. Here's my…

Ben Smith reports on a new letter urging Obama to give up on Afghanistan. The signatories are the usual suspects of so-called foreign policy realists. We noticed on the list two of Osama bin Laden's favorite authors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, and wonder whether or not the letter to our…

As the left tries to lay the groundwork for an alternative to sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Carl Levin and others in the Senate have proposed an increased focus on training and deploying indigenous forces to compensate for inadequate U.S. force levels. Here is the key exchange today…

Rasmussen reports: n what is currently a difficult political climate for Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid trails two potential Republican challengers seeking to unseat him as he faces reelection next year in Nevada. The first Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of the 2010 race…

Via Glenn Thrush, the Democratic Congressman shows Joe Wilson a thing or two about civility: Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif), was getting the tea party treatment at a meeting with seniors in Fremont when a 65-plus guy in the audience launched into a diatribe about the public option. The man, to the hoots…

You know how the Obama administration's most dire economic forecasts turned out to be far too optimistic? Well, that's actually great news for the environment. As Climate Progress reports, it's "the perfect storm: a weak economy, low natural gas prices, state renewable energy standards, and a…

In an interview with CNBC yesterday, President Obama rejected any comparison of the war in Afghanistan to Vietnam and made clear that he understands the importance of having boots on the ground as part of any war against al Qaeda and their Taliban allies (and credit to CNBC for even asking about…

Every time we try and capitulate, they slap us around some more: Asked about reports that the US has offered selling Boeing planes to Iran and what the media called the "Boeing diplomacy", Javanfekr noted, such offers by the US signals its demagogical and deceiving approach. "The offer for an…

They both recommend you read The Israel Lobby and U.S Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Osama also recommends that you read Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid and warns Americans that their government is still being controlled by the dread neocons. Now the left can…

Marc Garlasco, Human Rights Watch's senior military analyst, is shaking things up in the human rights community. It wasn't always cool to wear Nazi insignia while drinking beers with your fellow anti-Israel activists. Some in the human rights community even frowned on that kind of behavior. But not…

Earlier today William Daroff, vice president of the United Jewish Communities, a massive umbrella organization for the country's Jewish federations and communities, offered some harsh truths about J Street, the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian lobbying group which describes its primary mission in a New…

Earlier today William Daroff, vice president of the United Jewish Communities, a massive umbrella organization for the countries federations and communities, offered some harsh truths about J Street, the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian lobbying group which describes its primary mission in a New York…

A GOP aide emails: During his remarks this afternoon, President Obama seeking to stress bipartisanship, noted that his Administration was working "closely" with leaders in the House and Senate. Apparently not closely enough, since the President went off script and referred to Congressman Spencer…

Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's East Asia and Pacific Affairs subcommittee, has taken a real interest in the Obama administration's approach to dealing with Burma's military junta. Earlier this year, he placed a "hold" on the nomination of now-confirmed…

The Jerusalem Post reports that Congress is gearing up to move ahead with new sanctions on Iran in the event that the Iranians do not offer a serious response to the Obama administration's diplomatic overtures. And the Iranians have not offered a serious response to the Obama administration's…

The memo being circulated by Republicans on the Hill: The Columbia Law School this week announced that Professor Sarah Cleveland has been appointed Counselor in International Law with the State Department Legal Adviser's Office, in which "she will advise the State Department and the executive…

The statement from McCain: "The Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, my friend Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), today articulated his desire to significantly accelerate the growth of the Afghan security forces. In this, I agree, and have called for several years now for aggressive measures to…

Today is quite a day for Obama foreign policy: We see the benefits of the "reset" with Russia as Lavrov shuts the door on real sanctions. While Obama is pressuring Israel on settlements and reaching out to Damscus, we learn that Syria has more nuclear sites. Hariri has given up on trying to form a…

Senator Webb continues to make -- or try to make -- news on Burma. Yesterday his office issued a press release to "announce his intention to hold a hearing on the impact and effectiveness of United States Policy towards Burma." Webb's policy foray into Burma has so far been extremely successful --…

Human Rights Watch is in the bunker, imagining that their legions of supporters are out in the field just awaiting new orders, but the end is near. HRW's latest feeble attempt to push back on the true story of how they came to hire a wanna-be Nazi as their senior military affairs specialist…

Well, yes, and we know that because as Fred Barnes pointed out on the night of the speech, Obama did nothing to reach out to Republicans and everything to rally wavering members of his own party in his address to Congress. Further evidence of the White House's preference for pushing health care…

Read all about it in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly's news blog.

After running about a dozen stories in print and more than two dozen items online about Bob McDonnell's 20-year-old socially conservative graduate thesis, the Washington Post has decided to focus like a laser on revelations that Creigh Deeds expressed shockingly similar views on homosexuality…

Joe Wilson offered the most succinct and effective Republican response to Obamacare since Sarah Palin attacked Obama's "death panels" -- and, like Sarah, he did it in just two words: "You lie." It is also incontrovertibly true that Obama was lying. Illegal immigrants will get health care for free…

This story just keeps getting better. As noted here earlier this week, another member of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division has found himself in a compromising situation. This isn't the HRW staffer who praised "the achievement of the Munich action" in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 11…

We have known for a long time just how much Barack Obama wants to reach out to the terrorist regime that rules Iran. After all, during the campaign, he repeatedly stuck to his stated desire to meet unconditionally with Ahamdinejad, even in the face of criticism from other Democratic candidates such…

Kill it and start over: But isn't health care a crisis? No. Indeed, the president acknowledged it isn't: "But we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future -- and that is the issue…

The boss hears from two sources that Hillary Clinton is considering stepping down as Secretary of State this fall in order to run for Governor of New York.

As I wrote in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Senator Jim Webb has made a real mess of things with his foray into Burma last month -- or as Webb calls it, in deference to the ruling junta, Myanmar. After emerging from a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Burmese democracy…

Mickey Kaus takes on Marc Ambinder, who wrote yesterday on "why Obama won August" (more victories like that please), and Andrew Sullivan, who claims to agree with David Brooks even though Sullivan has, per Kaus, taken "pretty much the exact opposite" position as Brooks on the core point. In another…

As Radio Free Europe reports, a piece in the new issue of GQ, "Vladimir Putin's Dark Rise to Power," will not be available online and was not included in the magazine's Russian edition. The author, Scott Anderson, sits down for an intereview with RFE/RL: RFE/RL: Did the editor in chief of American…

If the president walks away from the public option and caves in to the smears and lies of the Republican super-minority in Congress, I think there's really only one choice for the progressive left: a Van Jones primary challenge in 2012.

The Washington Times reports on the Obama administration's use of the state secrets privilege: "This administration is continuing to use the enlarged executive powers of the Bush-Cheney administration," said Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, who oversaw the report. ... "In cases…

I don't think we should jump to any conclusions over this: Marc Garlasco, HRW's "senior military analyst" and a frequent critic of Israel...as disclosed by Omri at Mere Rhetoric, has an interesting avocation: he writes about and collects Nazi paraphernalia. He has contributed almost 8,000 posts to…

Before today's speech, Obama was asked by a student "if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?" The president replied: "I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine." I would have thought the president would want to dine with Lincoln, but Lincoln was such…

Skimming through the text of President Obama's Labor Day speech yesterday in Cincinnatti, a few days before the anniversary of 9/11 and with the president facing a decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan, I was struck by Obama¹s failure to mention the war, or our servicemen and women.…

Arianna Huffington joins a parade of other lefties who've come to the defense of Van Jones now that the war is over and the battlefield already lost. Huffington's take is that the left owes a great debt to Glenn Beck, who should "have done everything in his power to keep Van Jones right where he…

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, appearing Sunday on ABC's This Week, reiterated that "the president thanks Van Jones for his service in the first eight months." "His service?" What service? I trust Gibbs will explain on Tuesday just what services Jones did as "green jobs czar." That he…

Last week I speculated as to which member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) might have been the source of a leak of classified information that, as first reported by the Washington Times, the CIA has now referred to the Department of Justice for further investigation.…

"Who's the real terrorists? Uncle Sam." That according to a record put out by Freedom Fighter Music, a label created by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which Van Jones founded. There are a number of different voices on the record, including that of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal and…

Eli Lake and Sarah Carter have a big scoop this morning on news that the CIA "has asked the Justice Department to examine what it regards as the criminal disclosure of a secret program to kill foreign terrorist leaders abroad." As a result of those leaks, the head of the firm formerly known as…

Yesterday Meg Whitman, the Republican candidate for governor in California and former eBay CEO, got caught up in the growing controversy over the statements made by White House green jobs czar Van Jones. A tape surfaced of Whitman praising the "marvelous job" Jones had been doing in his…

A classic from the Post (via the Newseum), "Mazel-tough guys gunning for terrorirsts":

Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Asia subcommittee. Webb, whose "hold" on the nomination of now-confirmed Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell was so strong a North Korean nuclear detonation could not break it…

Aaron Keyak, the press secretary for the National Jewish Democratic Council (the Democratic counterpart to the Republican Jewish Coalition), takes to the Huffington Post to ask that eternal question: "Why is Pat Buchanan Defending Hitler?" (Michael Moynihan has tried to answer that one on numerous…

The DNC sends around E.J. Dionne's column in today's Washington Post, called "The Real Town Hall Story," and note this key point: "There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television's point of view 'boring')…

A member of MoveOn.org bites off the finger off a conservative protester and MoveOn responds by calling the incident "regrettable." The group's spokesman also says that "MoveOn condemns violence in all forms." Which is no doubt true, but also a deeply revealing statement from a group that was --…

You expect it from Time and Newsweek, but this is from the official White House photo stream:

Jonathan Cohn has a piece in the new issue of TNR that makes a rather serious allegation. Specifically, Cohn accuses PhRMA (the drug industry group that happened to buy the ad space on the back page of TNR this week) of extortion: It's the kind of quid pro quo that generally raises eyebrows, as…

Via the AEI blog, the Journal runs a piece by Richard Fisher looking at China's efforts to acquire a fifth-generation fighter. As Fisher points out, the F-22 was killed by the Obama administration on the grounds that, per Secretary Gates, by 2020 "nearly 1,100 [combat aircraft in the U.S. Air…

Don't say you weren't warned. When Obama appears simultaneously in every class room around the country to tell students about...what? The smears and lies his opponents are spreading about health care reform? The right-wing mob that's trying to destroy his presidency? The illegal Israeli settlements…

The Chicago Tribune reports: With little fanfare, a deal is moving forward to direct billions in U.S. tax dollars to an unlikely beneficiary -- the giant British liquor producer that makes Captain Morgan rum. Under the agreement, London-based Diageo PLC will receive tax credits and other benefits…

Republicans point to a deep contradiction remarks by DHS chief Janet Napolitano this morning: This morning on the Today Show, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, was asked about the decision of Attorney General Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to re-investigate certain matters…

Ben Smith quotes from a release put out by Archdiocese of Washington backing a ballot initiative that would let the District's resident's have a say on the question of gay marriage: "A ballot initiative will give voters in the District of Columbia a voice on this critical issue. Earlier this year,…

It's shameful. An ad by the World Wildlife Fund that tries to turn 9/11 into...something that has to do with animals -- and not the animals who flew those planes into the World Trade Center. The text on the ad reads, "The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally…

From the New York Times Opinionator Blog's write-up of reaction on the web to news that the lovely and talented Jenna Bush will be working as an occasional correspondent for the Today Show: Kind of amazing that you run all these comments about Jenna Bush, but none of the[m] squawk about the 4th and…

Boeing announces a successful test of the Advanced Tactical Laser: he Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] and the U.S. Air Force on Aug. 30 defeated a ground target from the air with the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) aircraft, demonstrating ATL's first air-to-ground, high-power laser engagement of a…

The release from the number two Dem in the House: "As Congress considers legislation to provide greater health care stability for all Americans, I believe that an open and thorough discussion, including the experiences and views of my constituents, is critical," stated Rep. Hoyer. "Health care has…

David Brooks warns the president: Obama's challenge was to push his agenda through a Democratic-controlled government while retaining the affection of the 39 percent of Americans in the middle. The administration hasn't been able to pull it off. From the stimulus to health care, it has joined…

A new survey from Quinnipiac: Democratic incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine is losing the battle of the attack ads in his campaign for reelection and now trails Republican challenger Christopher Christie 47 - 37 percent among likely voters, with 9 percent for independent candidate Christopher Daggett,…

As the Chicago Sun-Times reports today, President Obama was involved in a very similar fight over health-care reform in 2004, when he was still a state senator in Illinois. Then, as now, Obama accused Republicans of "fear-mongering" and unfairly branding his proposal a form of "socialized…

J Street, the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian lobbying group, is having a conference this October that will feature a wide range of speakers -- from Salam Al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council to Bernard Avishai, author of The Tragedy of Zionism and The Hebrew Republic…

Only 4 percent of Israelis believe President Obama is pro-Israel according to a poll done last week by the Jerusalem Post. (The poll's margin of error was larger than that at 4.5 percent.) Part of the reason Obama might be having trouble convincing even a few Israelis that he is a true friend is…

Laura Rozen has broken a lot of news over the last six months from her perch at the Cable blog on the website of Foreign Policy magazine. Last week it was announced that she'd been hired by Politico. Her replacement at Foreign Policy was announced this morning, and it's a name that will be very…

The polling data: A poll by The Israel Project of 800 registered voters, jointly conducted by Republican Public Opinion Strategies and Democratic Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, found that 81 percent of those surveyed believe Iran poses a "very" or "somewhat" serious threat to the United States,…

Cheney will be on Fox News Sunday this weekend. Should be very entertaining television for those who would rather hear about Barack Obama's war on the intelligence community instead of syrupy tributes to Ted Kennedy:

I didn't think it was possible to go lower than 6 percent, but Barack Obama's done it. Just 4 percent of Israelis believe Barack Obama is pro-Israel according to the latest poll from the Jerusalem Post. A majority of Israelis think that Barack Obama is pro-Palestinian (51 percent). Could 96 percent…

A friend emails: After a summer of dithering, this is the month of Iran. The Admin faces a real test. Now is the time they have ordained for decision and action. SO: NU? What comes next? When are the decisions being made? Who will be in the room? What will be done to sqeeze Iran with "crippling…

Yukio Hatoyama, the man who would be sworn in as Japan's next prime minister should his Democratic party overcome the country's long-ruling Liberal Democratic party in elections this Sunday, penned an extremely provocative, borderline anti-American, and just plain creepy op-ed in the New York Times…

The Huffington Post has major news -- with maps and everything -- on which parts of the country will be hardest hit by climate change just 100 years from now. Ryan Grim reports "Small Midwestern States To Be Hit Hardest By Climate Change" per a study from the Nature Conservancy (it's the ignorant,…

Some great reporting from the Danger Room's Noah Shachtman. Marine snipers taking heavy fire and killing bad guys -- it's the best thing I've read all day. A sample: They reached the intersection, and saw one man in the distance to their left. Luckily, he didn't see them in the alleyway. Then, a…

Atlantic reporter Matthew Cooper, formerly of Time and Talking Points Memo: It feels a bit like 9/11 on Martha's Vineyard. End-of-summer weather is achingly beautiful but the mood is melancholy because of Teddy. Via Exurban League

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

They seem kind of hostile to the president. First there was Uncle Charlie, who Obama claimed had liberated Auschwitz (he'd helped liberate Buchenwald). And when Charlie was asked, months later, about Obama's visit to Buchenwald, he took a rather cynical view of the president's motives: SPIEGEL: Mr.…

Maybe it was the fact the latest revelation that the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division, Joe Stork, had praised the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics that finally forced some introspection at the organization, but two members of the Human Rights…

A friend emails in response to reports of Hassan Nemazee's arrest: This story is worth more scrutiny. In the mid 1990's Helms killed his nomination as Ambassador to Argentina (with Biden's quiet acquiescence). From what I remember, Nemazee helped Kennedy illegally when he needed the money at a…

Obama's public approval has, according to Pollster.com's Poll of Polls, for the first time slipped across that magical 50 percent line (see the graph below). It's not a good sign for the president, and it's not a good sign for Democrats looking at midterm elections last year. Presumably Dem numbers…

Via Geraghty, the numbers from the very credible polling firm Public Opinion Strategies: Latest poll on how the public feels about health care, from Public Opinion Strategies, finds... well, more skepticism: 15 percent strongly favor Obama's proposed health care plan, 10 percent somewhat favor, 5…

Further evidence that America is moving in a conservative direction: Bob Dylan puts out a Christmas album.

The Guardian reports on a possible deal to restart peace talks between Israel and the Arabs: Obama has pencilled in the announcement of his breakthrough for either a meeting of world leaders at the UN general assembly in New York in the week beginning 23 September or the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on…

Glenn Thrush quotes freshman Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.): Freshman Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.) - who has bucked Dem leadership on the stimulus and climate change - told a town hall back in north Alabama that he doesn't plan to back Nancy Pelosi as speaker again, saying she's too divisive. "I…

From Ha'aretz, the top foreign policy Democrat in the House of Representatives acknowledges what, privately, many inside the administration are themselves increasingly admitting: namely, their approach to the peace process over the past several months has been a train wreck: The chairman of the…

"Dead silence about human rights, smiles at dictators. That's the norm." -- An interview with Elliott Abrams.

So shady: Hassan Nemazee, chairman of Nemazee Capital Corp. and a fundraiser for President Obama and Hillary Clinton, was arrested on charges that he tricked Citigroup Inc. into lending him as much as $74 million using phony documents. Ben Smith adds: Nemazee was central to a large portion of the…

House Republicans circulate this statement from freshman Rep. John Adler, (D-N.J): "The bill that's coming through the House, with or without the public option, isn't good for America," Adler said matter-of-factly. "We have Congressional Budget Office projections of a trillion-dollar increase in…

Glenn Beck blows this thing wide open: Update: A former Bush White House official tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD, "this guy couldn't even have gotten a tour at the Bush White House with that arrest record."

Ben Smith gets some great quotes from Rep. Peter King: "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an…

After all, his entire approach to foreign policy is premised on his ability to negotiate directly with -- and extract concessions from -- the heads of terrorist regimes. Maybe direct, presidential diplomacy can be used to extract confessions, too. The Obama administration has already stripped the…

Rasmussen takes a look at the ever-diminishing support for closing Gitmo: Seventy-five percent (75%) of U.S. voters are at least somewhat concerned that dangerous terrorists will be set free if the Guantanamo prison camp is closed and some prisoners are transferred to other countries. Fifty-six…

...of how a terrorist was released! Imagine that, investigating bad guys instead of the people defending the country. Lieberman says that the suggestions "that there was an intermixing here of Megrahi's fate with British interests and oil exploration in Libya are shocking." He went on, "I don't…

That seems to be the Obama administration's strategy for the war on terror overseas contingency operations against al Qaeda. The IG report, the independent prosecutor, taking the CIA out of the interrogation business, releasing Mohammed Jawad back into the wild, and that's all just in the last 24…

That's the title on a Republican memo now being circulated on the Hill: DATE: August 24, 2009 SUBJECT: release of CIA IG report confirms effectiveness of CIA interrogation program A redacted version of the CIA Inspector General Report on the CIA interrogation program was released today. Media…

Apparently I overestimated Leon Panetta and underestimated Denis Blair. The Washington Post reports that Panetta has all but lost his turf war with Blair, while ABC reports that Panetta threatened to quit over administration plans to go after CIA operatives for interrogations that went beyond what…

For the first time since the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Command closed in 1979, U.S. Marines have taken up positions on the island of Taiwan -- as part of the relief effort in the wake of Typhoon Morakot. Yes, they're there as part of rescue and relief operations, but that won't make the ChiComs any…

On some level this shouldn't surprise anyone: the terrorist president of Iran has appointed a terrorist defense minister. But it is the final nail in the coffin of Obama's appeal for fist unclenching. The Ahmadinejad government begins with the absence of domestic legitimacy. Now it is flouting the…

The ad from Rick Scott, and his group Conservatives for Patients' Rights, to air on Boston TV and in Martha's Vineyard during Obama's vacation, including on NESN during four Red Sox-White Sox games (which Obama will surely be watching). The size of the buy is reported at 150k:

Some choice quotes from his interview with President Obama:

Michael Rubin puts together a nifty little chart to help us figure out what kind of prison time the world's worst mass murders would face in Scotland, where the going rate is about 11.5 days for every man, woman, or child slaughtered:

Huckabee on Israel (via Ben Smith):

The New York Times reveals the awful truth about the secret air war against high value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan -- the drones are being armed by evil government contractors. And while the paper felt comfortable suppressing any news of the capture and confinement of one of its own reporters…

The president whined today on Michael Smerconish's show:

Pelosi said today, "there is no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option." Does she mean it? Is she using the public option as a bargaining chip or do the internal politics of her caucus demand that any health care package include a public option? One senior GOP…

Continetti takes Joe Klein to task for his patently false claim that "There is no Republican health-care alternative in 2009." It's the kind of "intellectual dishonesty" of which Klein and others on the left so often accuse Republicans. But Klein isn't just intellectually dishonest. He's plain…

Roll Call reports:

How bad are the numbers on health care for the administration? So bad that Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring can one on one an analysis by the Plum Line's Greg Sargent:

A deep point from Erick Erickson at RedState in response to Obama's statement to some 1,000 rabbis yesterday that "We are God's partners in matters of life and death":

The Washington Post reports on the administration's efforts to release and resettle Gitmo detainees:

Obama leaves for Martha's Vineyard this weekend -- a visit that may coincide with the arrival of Bill:

Remember when Obama thought that questions of religious import were "above my pay grade"? Or when the left thought that an American president shouldn't presume to act on behalf of the Lord? Not any more:

From a just posted piece by Elliott Abrams:

What Would Rove Do? James Carville took a shot Sunday:

Look around, the left has already tired of multilateralism, compromise, negotiation -- they want action, with or without the help of potential allies. The Huffington Post has a banner headline "Ignore This Man," a reference to this piece in the Hill about liberal activists pressuring Senate…

A few weeks ago Human Rights Watch made news when it was revealed in the Wall Street Journal that the group had sent representatives to Saudi Arabia to tout HRW's battles with "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations" as part of a fund-raising pitch to…

Greg Sargent reports:

In his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned "against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." Last month, John McCain invoked that warning as he fought alongside the Obama administration and Senate Democrats to strip a…

DOD Buzz's Greg Grant reports that "for all the talk about irregular and hybrid warfare, the driving force in the QDR strategic review currently underway is the High End Asymmetric Threat, or HEAT, team." That would be the folks studying how the Red Chinese will go about keeping the U.S. Navy and…

From the very beginning, J Street's strategy has been to claim that it would represent a very large and very underserved segment of American Jewish opinion -- a moderate middle that has somehow been marginalized by groups like AIPAC. Yet it seems this mythical group of Jews who were heretofore…

The statement from the DNC:

Democrats in the House order eight G5 Gulfstream jets for $550 million that will be used by the Pentagon to ferry around VIPs in Congress -- even though the Pentagon says it does not need or want the planes. The response from the White House is silence. Democrats in the House make a down payment on…

Did the White House know anything about Mary Robinson before she was selected for the nation's highest civilian honor -- the Presidential Medal of Freedom? There's no rule that says an administration can't choose a controversial figure to receive the honor, but it's hard to believe the…

J Street, the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian, anti-Joe Lieberman lobbying group, has joined with Americans for Peace Now, Churches for Middle East Peace, Brit Tzedek, and a bunch of other peacenik groups to pressure Democrats in Congress not to sign a letter to the president calling on him to pressure…

Reuters reports:

Democrats are accusing industry groups, Republicans, and anyone else who opposes the president's health care reform health insurance reform effort of "astroturfing" -- creating the appearance of grass roots opposition when grass roots opposition fails to materialize organically. The DNC puts out a…

Think Progress explains:

The anti-EFCA forces send around quotes from two pro-EFCA Dems who seem to understand that a secret ballot does in fact have some value. In particular, a secret ballot allows people to vote their conscience instead of being beholden to the political consequences of their vote. That's a good thing…

Health reformers ought to be beating the bushes for ideas about reining in health costs. Here's one, hidden in plain sight among today's op-eds: Give the patient a stake in health savings.

The White House call for people to inform on anyone spreading "disinformation about health insurance reform" didn't sit well with a lot of people -- Obama isn't running a political campaign anymore, he's supposed to be running the country (and in the event even those who spread video clips of the…

Apparently this has been making the rounds, but I only saw it today--and it's awesome. The friend who emailed it to me says, "Just when you think America is headed in the wrong direction, you realize that there are too many people like this wonderful man who won't let it happen."

The BBC reports:

Jen Rubin reports:

The statement from the DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse:

Quoth Gibbs on A'jad: "He's the elected leader."

An email from Pounder in the GOP House Whip's Office:

The Obama administration's decision to award a Freedom Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor, to former Irish PM and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has left many in the Jewish community dumb-founded. How could the administration honor someone whose signal achievement at…

Mike Allen reports: TOP STORY -- Former President Bill Clinton was presented with a large bouquet as he arrived this morning in Pyongyang, North Korea, on a mission to win the release of two women journalists who have been detained since March 17. EXCLUSIVE BACKSTORY: North Korean officials told…

Mary Robinson does what her kind always do when questions are raised about their past statements and conduct vis-à-vis Israel -- play victim. Maybe Obama can get Chas Freeman to hang the Freedom Medal around her neck: But Ms Robinson hit back yesterday at what she described as allegations "totally…

Spencer Ackerman writes in response to today's NYT piece on the Iran sanctions moving through the Senate: Why would Russia and China agree to such a package? And why would, say, the United Nations agree to a move that would push the Iranians to dare the international community to confront it…

Greg Sargent reports: An internal poll conducted for House Dem leaders, which I've obtained, tested a range of Dem and GOP messages and concluded that the anti-insurance industry line is the most convincing of all messages from either side.... The survey - taken in 60 battleground districts - found…

I enjoy Jeffrey Goldberg's constant attacks on Roger Cohen -- because they're funny and true. Today he offers this handy little synopsis/translation of Cohen's piece in the Times magazine for those who have neither the time nor the inclination to read the piece for themselves: The Making of an Iran…

So says David Sanger in the New York Times today, echoing reports late last week from Ha'aretz that the administration is weighing throwing its support behind Joe Lieberman's bill (S. 908) that would impose gasoline sanctions against Iran: The Obama administration is talking with allies and…

This is kind of an amazing statement by Isabel Kershner writing in the New York Times: Separately, in Tel Aviv on Sunday the police continued hunting for a gunman who fled after killing two Israelis and injured 10 others at a center for young gays and lesbians on Saturday night. The shock over the…

That's the lead story from Ha'aretz today, whose plugged-in diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid writes that, in meetings this week in Israel, National Security Adviser Jim Jones told the Israelis that the Obama administration has begun thinking about imposing tough new sanctions on Tehran, if the…

Chomsky on Iran: "Putting aside the details of the election, about which we don't know much, the whole structure of the regime is oppressive and authoritarian, and undermines basic civil and other human rights. Protest against it is not only honorable but courageous, because it faces extreme…

Obama's always talking tough...he's from Chicago, he brings guns to knife fights, he was editor of the Harvard Law Review, etc. But it seems not everyone inside his campaign was terribly convinced that Obama had what it takes to survive the rough and tumble of a national political campaign. From…

Francisco Toro writes at TNR: More than one month after the coup in Honduras, the Obama administration's quiet-but-canny diplomacy is starting to pay off. The New York Times reports that de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, has agreed, for the first time, to restore the…

There are a bunch of reports out suggesting that the recommendations of a review done by General McChrystal and an as yet unidentified group of ten or so civilian advisers (including Anthony Cordesman, who made his participation public earlier this week) will include a request for more troops. The…

"Susan Rice is one of my dear friends. There are few women in the world that I would say, 'I love you' to, and Susan is one of them. I love Susan Rice," he added. That was Scott Gration, the Obama administration's envoy to Sudan, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The response came…

The New York Post reports: Mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson sat by silently as a guest at a campaign event loudly called City Council Speaker Christine Quinn a "whore" who could "kiss my ass," The Post has learned. The slur was made by Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett, the co-owner of the restaurant Tea and…

Bill Sweetman reports on US Strategic Command's symposium on deterrence, where our new undersecretary for arms control was talking about a "path to zero," which she said would be "one of the leading accomplishments of the 21st century." The rest of the delegates then proceeded to talk seriously…

Japan Today reports: Japan will continue to collect information on the U.S. F-22 fighter jet as a candidate to succeed its aging F-4EJ fighter fleet, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Friday, despite the U.S. House of Representatives' decision to ditch funding for the aircraft. Katashi Toyota,…

Jennifer Rubin has the details on Mary Robinson, the former Irish PM who went on to serve as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and who will soon be awarded the nation's highest civilian honor -- the Freedom Medal -- by President Obama. Robinson presided over the Durban conference that passed…

The Washington Post's Jeffrey Smith reports: House Seems To Be Set on Pork-Padded Defense Bill The Democratic-controlled House is poised to give the Pentagon dozens of new ships, planes, helicopters and armored vehicles that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says the military does not need to fund…

Yesterday we wrote about the stimulus we might want or wish to have, and today Fox News reports on the stimulus Obama and Pelosi gave us. The federal government is now funding pornography and even a live production of Perverts Put Out: The NEA was given $80 million of the government's $787 billion…

See below for some excerpts of the testimony that is being given this morning before the Senate Banking Committee, which is holding hearings on possible economic and financial sanctions against Iran, including sanctions against companies that sell refined petroleum products to Iran. These sanctions…

As the Washington Times reports, the Department of Justice's already-infamous decision to drop charges against Black Panthers who menaced Election Day voters in Philadelphia was approved by the DOJ's number three official, Thomas Perrelli. But Perrelli's no stranger to controversy. In 2005, he…

Just a few minutes ago the Senate Banking Committee began what should be an interesting hearing on options for economic and financial sanctions against Iran. Pressure in Congress at last seems to be building for the kind of tough-minded actions that, just a few months ago, seemed unlikely --…

It looks like spending right away on defense requirements really does put people to work: Truck maker Oshkosh Corp. last month won a $1.05 billion contract to produce military vehicles built to withstand the rugged terrain of Afghanistan. The hitch: The Pentagon wants 2,244 of them ready by year's…

Michael Gerson writes: Six months on, how fares the Obama doctrine? Concerning North Korea and Iran, the doctrine is on its deathbed. North Korea responded to administration outreach by testing a nuclear weapon, firing missiles toward U.S. allies, resuming plutonium reprocessing and threatening the…

This is the same Barack Obama who asked the entire federal government to come up with $100 million in savings over the next year and couldn't deliver on deadline. Yet the military, actively engaged in two hot wars and fighting a global war on terror, or counterinsurgency, or contingency operation,…

The New York Times reported last week: Hamas Shifts From Rockets to Culture War even months after Israel started a fierce three-week military campaign here to stop rockets from being fired on its southern communities, Hamas has suspended its use of rockets and shifted focus to winning support at…

Some very sympathetic police officers are going after the president on national TV, and what a surprising coincidence, Joe Biden has suddenly decided to make a donation to the Fraternal Order of Police -- for $1 billion: BREAKING -- "Philadelphia, PA - Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General…

One-man RNC Joe Pounder, whose releases frequently appear on this blog, is leaving the Whip's office to join Kay Bailey Hutchison's campaign along with Jeff Sadosky, another McCain alum, who now works for KBH's Senate office. It's a testament to Cantor having a good team that other Republicans are…

From the New York Times report on the gang of six: Often a single topic can consume an entire day or more. On Wednesday of last week, it was Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for low-income people that was likely to be expanded but was also a major factor in the legislation's high cost.…

A friend emails in response to this Washington Post story on the F-22 (which Noonan wrote up below): [I]t contains an amazing error that, I think, reflects the way the playing field is tilted against defense; all the more remarkable because Greg Jaffe, who's a good defense reporter, contributed to…

From National Review's August 10, 2009, issue's "The Week" columns: "In 2001, Robert Fisk, the hard-Left, jihad-sympathetic British journalist, was attacked by Afghan refugees along the Afghan-Pakistani border. He wrote that ‘young men ... Began smashing stones into my face and head. I couldn't…

This following comes from Senator Lieberman's floor statement on the Lieberman-Sessions Amendment, which was adopted by voice vote into the National Defense Authorization Act yesterday afternoon. If you want to know why the Senate voted unanimously in favor of the amendment, expressing the sense of…

From a Reuters report on U.S. economic diplomacy with China: "China is committed to growth, growth and growth and, in that circumstance, anything that looks like caps on emissions, or whatever, is going to be seen as something boxing them in and as a luxury that they can't afford," said Dan…

The Danger Room's David Axe reports on some cool new kit: "The ability of the [NLOS-LS] missile to defeat a moving target is a first for the U.S. Army," said Col. Doug Dever, the Army project manager. He said Missiles in a Box will give soldiers the ability to "precisely engage moving targets" on…

Read Ed Morrissey's description of the show here. It is, as he says, "the best show you're not watching." The video below is an episode that has host Adam Ciralsky and his team tracking down the the founder of Ansaar-al-Islam, who was living the good life in Norway. Watch and find out what happens…

Bill Sweetman runs down the seven memes that dominated the arguments against F-22. And then he explains why they are all based on "assumptions that are, at best, unproven." Meme No. 1 is my personal favorite: The F-22 hasn't been used in Afghanistan or Iraq. In itself this is a statement of the…

CQ's Josh Rogin has a massive scoop that has the potential to upset administration plans to kill the F-22 after a Senate vote earlier this week seemed to seal the fate of the air supremacy fighter. According to Rogin, "An internal Pentagon oversight board has found that the F-35 Joint Strike…

The Senate just passed the missile defense amendment to Defense Authorization -- unanimously on voice vote. The Lieberman-Sessions Amendment would: Deploy Effective, Affordable Missile Defenses to Europe This amendment would express the sense of the Senate that while the administration reviews its…

We've had two posts since yesterday on Hillary's attempt to articulate a coherent policy on that rogue of rogue states, Burma. If it was not such a serious issue it would almost be comical. She called for ostracizing the notorious military regime -- "Kick them out of ASEAN" -- and the next day…

The Tripoli Post reports: Farrakhan: Congress Must Side with US President Not The Israeli Lobby Despite the sincerity of his heart, the United States President Barack Obama's ambitious Middle East Policy will fail unless the American Congress sides with the American President instead of siding with…

One of the administration's key arguments in killing F-22 was that the F-35 was coming down the pike soon enough and it would have much of the capability of F-22 but at a much lower cost. Apparently not everyone in the Air Force is convinced that F-35 is an adequate substitute. Aviation Week's…

Spencer Ackerman reports: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opened the door for the first time Thursday to the prospect of a U.S. military presence in Iraq after the December 2011 deadline for troop withdrawal set by last year's bilateral accord - something President Obama appeared to rule out…

After finally pulling off her symbolic burqua as part of the 2009 ASEAN Asia Tour Relaunch, Secretary of State Clinton yesterday gave a long, diplomatic French kiss in the form of investment incentives to Burma's military regime if they released one of the world's most famous political prisoners --…

A friend emails about the Obama/Maliki press conference yeseterday: The President again failed to utter the words 'democracy' or 'terrorism.' Note that Maliki mentioned both, and also stressed our joint efforts to combat Al Qaeda. The full transcript can be found after the jump.

Tom Shales on last night's presser: Though polls show his popularity in slight decline, Obama did nothing at the news conference -- other than preempt or delay some prime-time shows -- that would seem potentially harmful to his image. About the most justifiable criticism that could likely be made:…

Yesterday Hillary Clinton talked about the Obama administration's concerns over North Korean proliferation of nuclear technology to Burma. And yet today...she's talking about easing sanctions against the regime: The release of Suu Kyi is "critical" to easing the strained relations between Burma and…

There are a few, and one of them is reading Matt Welch as he adjusts his aim to the left.

Christians United for Israel has been holding its annual conference in DC this week. There's good coverage of events at JTA's Capital J blog, including a quote from Las Vegas Rep. Shelley Berkley, who was so pleased with the reception that she declared "If I wasn't so Jewish, I'd think about…

queen-noor-crop.jpg

So much for the special relationship: Hague's speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies was billed last night as the Tory leadership's most significant overview of its approach to foreign policy as it prepares for government. Hague aims to show that a Conservative government would…

The JPost reports: US lawmakers from both the Democrat and Republican parties stepped up pressure on President Barack Obama to level tough new economic sanctions on Iran in the event that Teheran fails to freeze its nuclear program by late 2009, AFP reported on Monday. Republican Senators Jon Kyl…

They're getting out ahead of the F-22 decision, and they still have their editorial independence.

One defense expert emails his thoughts: Clearly the White House and Gates were able to strong-arm wondering Dems, like Kerry in particular. I would say prospects in conference not good; House provision was weaker and so are the House politicians involved. At a little higher level, this is what…

The final vote is 58 to 40. With that victory the Obama White House has eliminated the last major threat to the largest and most expensive defense program in history, the F-35, and guaranteed the elimination of thousands of jobs throughout the country. If there is any consolation to be had here it…

An amusing write-up of Britney's Russian tour from the Moscow Times: Spears may be well-versed in outrunning the paparazzi, juggling frappuccinos and attempting to revive a career whose unraveling will go down in the history books of pop culture. Navigating Russia is another story. The singer, on…

Senator McCain, whose acted as a key administration ally in President Obama's war against the F-22, doesn't seem terribly confident that his amendment, introduced last week but pulled once already for a lack of support, will pass if it's put to a vote today (though Politico reports that the tide…

In perhaps the ultimate example of the media's if-a-Republican-had-said-it double standard, New York Rep. and Senate hopeful Carolyn Maloney apologized today for using the n-word: "I apologize for having repeated a word I find disgusting. It's no excuse but I was so caught up in relaying the story…

Apparently Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish isn't the only blog they read at the White House.

Fred Barnes writes in today's WSJ on how the Dems got bogged down (for now at least): He made a rookie mistake early on. He let congressional Democrats draft the bills. They're as partisan as any group that has ever controlled Congress, and as impatient. They have little interest in the compromises…

Statement from Lieberman's office: Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) today lauded the decision by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to increase the Army's active duty end strength by 22,000 soldiers over the next three years. "I commend Secretary Gates for making this…

The new numbers from Gallup: A new USA Today/Gallup poll puts President Obama's approval rating at 55 percent, which ranks him 10th among 12 post-World War II presidents at the same point in the survey. His approval is down from 61 percent in late May. This comes on a day that Rasmussen shows…

FP's Laura Rozen had a must-read over the weekend that takes another look at Obama's meeting with the Saudi King. According to Rozen, a very plugged-in lefty, says "the meeting did not go well," and she quotes one source saying that "It was the first time that President Obama as a senator,…

A Marine emails: "The troops are tired, the American people are pretty tired." Pretty insulting. Not something you like to hear from the second highest link in the chain of command when you have buddies fighting, getting wounded, and dying overseas. And everything I've heard directly contradicts…

CQ's Josh Rogin reports: It took more than a decade for the Clinton and Bush administrations to negotiate agreements with Japan to reduce the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, including relinquishing a Marine Corps airfield on the crowded southern end of the island. Now some influential members of…

The Washington Post reports that the Iraqi government has placed restrictions on U.S. forces that have "startled American commanders and raised concerns about the safety of their troops." These restrictions include an end of joint patrols in Baghdad and an end to running resupply convoys during…

Fox News reports: The House Intelligence Committee will launch an investigation to determine whether the CIA broke the law by not informing Congress earlier about a secret plan to train teams to kill Al Qaeda leaders abroad. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Tex., chairman of the committee, announced the…

The American Conservative Union gets caught in flagrante delicto -- and not for the first time. What's really amazing about this story is that anyone thought they could pull a fast one on Fred Smith, who was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam…

Joe Biden in Virginia yesterday: "To those who say that our economic decisions 'have not produced jobs, have not produced prosperity, and simply have not worked' I say, take a look around." Joe Pounder on Virginia today: A day after the Vice President touted the success of the stimulus in Richmond,…

File under innovations we can't believe President Clinton didn't come up with: When President Obama left the White House on Thursday for Andrews Air Force Base, the Marine One helicopter that lifted off from the South Lawn was piloted by the first female helicopter aircraft commander in Marine One…

Slate's Juliet Lapidos delves into the neocon view of assassination: Of course, a neocon might argue that if the CIA kills a terrorist in a foreign country (even if that country does not condone our presence), it's kosher because it's a form of self-defense, where the "self" in question is the…

Ben Smith links a new report from CAP on the Obama administration's strategy for moving the peace process forward: The communications campaign cannot only be directed toward the Arabs and Palestinians. The Obama administration will achieve its goal of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian…

Michael Shear reports: Vice President Biden plans a political broadside this afternoon in the home district of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), accusing the senior Republican lawmaker of joining in his party's smear of the $787 billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act. "To those who say that our economic…

For the second time in just the last month California Senator Barbara Boxer has embarrassed her state and herself with he condescending approach to those who come to testify before her committees. Last time it was Boxer telling Brigadier General Michael Walsh to call her "senator" instead of mam.…

Our Senate source pointed to "the ambivalence of Air Force testimony and other communications to Congress this year" as the fuel for Congressional concern about the administration's decision to kill the F-22. If you're wondering what "ambivalence" this aide was referring to, here are some of the…

Gary Schmitt sees Obama on the verge of repeating some of the worst mistakes of the last administration: In an AP wire report from late yesterday, President Obama signaled that his long-term plan for Afghanistan is in fact a short-term hope to get out as quickly as possible. Having committed…

Both sides expect that Carl Levin will, later this week or next, reintroduce an amendment that would strip F-22 funding from the Senate's defense authorization bill, but so far, despite support from both the administration and Senator McCain, Levin has been unable to corral enough votes to strip…

The Wall Street Journal reported the hard to believe facts of the story earlier this week and now Jeffrey Goldberg has confirmed that report in an exchange with HRW's executive director. Goldberg's takeaway: In other words, yes, the director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division is…

Politico reports: The effort to strip $1.75 billion from the defense authorization bill to fund F-22 Raptors has stalled. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has pulled the amendment he and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) co-sponsored that would have yanked funding for the controversial jet fighter, Levin's…

When Obama met with Jewish leaders at the White House earlier this week, he was asked about the perceived imbalance in his approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict -- the perception that he has made explicit demands on the Israelis while putting no real pressure on the Palestinians or their Arab…

A source reports that a new Kyl-Lieberman amendment urging "crippling" Iran sanctions will be introduced in the Senate shortly, and that an attempt will be made to attach it to the Defense Authorization Act, which is currently on the floor.

The Washington Post reports: Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) introduced a resolution today to rename Girard Park in Columbia Heights "Barack Hussein Obama Park." The recent renovated park, located at 14th Street and Girard, features a basketball court and play equipment. "The park is a jewel,"…

Senators Hatch and Inhofe cobyline an op-ed in the Desert News pushing back against last week's Washington Post piece that was itself pushback against Congressional efforts to overturn the administration decision to kill the program. The senators attempt to rebut the allegations made in the…

AFP reports: Two Israeli navy ships made a rare crossing of Egypt's Suez Canal on Tuesday, headed from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, a port source told AFP. One of those ships is the INS Hanit, which was hit by an Iranian-supplied, shore-to-ship missile during Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah.…

I think all us feminists can agree on one simple principle: equal pay for equal work. So THE WEEKLY STANDARD decided to take a second look at the salaries of employees at the White House with an eye toward any possible discrimination against the fairer sex. During the campaign Obama was knocked…

This via the sports blog Hugging Harold Reynolds, a 2002 clip of "baseball's Chief Justice" Bob Costas blowing out Sonia Sotomayor over her ruling ending the baseball strike. As HHR notes, Costas would make an interesting witness at Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. And of course, Sotomayor's…

I was underwhelmed by the initial New York Times report on this controversy, which failed to identify the nature of the CIA program in question, reported that the program never became operational, and then hyped the fact that Congress was never briefed on this unindentified, non-operational…

Yesterday John McCain took to the floor of the Senate to make the administration's case on cutting F-22. He asked Carl Levin when there would be a vote on the amendment stripping F-22 funding from the defense authorization. Levin replied that the Senate would vote by noon today. A source on the…

CQ reporter Josh Rogin reports on Obama's agreement with the Russians on new cuts to the nation's nuclear arsenal -- cuts that face considerable opposition in the Senate and for which the president might not be able to muster the necessary two-thirds super majority required for ratification: "It…

One of the big races for Republicans next year will be the primary battle between Kay Bailey Hutchison and two-term incumbent Rick Perry. Whoever wins the primary will most likely have a sure thing in the general, and KBH is gearing up (and staffing up) for a major fight. Her campaign just blasted…

The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Monitor reports: Obama had a "Russian style" working brunch with Putin with smoked beluga and black caviar. At present, the commercial production, sale and consumption of beluga or black caviar is illegal in Russia to protect endangered species. It was speculated…

Scott Gration, the Obama administration's envoy to Sudan, recently returned from that country to declare that the genocide was over, and that what remained were mere "remnants of genocide." This despite the fact that Obama's ambassador to the United Nations had just two days earlier described the…

Which sounds better, Senator Cheney or President Cheney? The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that running for political office is on her horizon. "It's something I very well may do," said Elizabeth "Liz" Cheney, a lawyer and State Department appointee who has worked on two…

It looks like we're well on our way. According to iCasualties.org, the number of coalition troops killed in just the first two weeks of this month is no less than forty. Roughly half of those killed have been Americans, the other half largely a mix of British and Canadian troops. Prior to this…

Here's how you know that a reporter doesn't have anything new to report: he tells you he's conducted a bunch of interviews and he tells you what those interviews mean -- because you might be confused or dubious that there is anything fresh at all in those interviews if you weren't told ahead of…

The outlook for cap and trade in the Senate is bleak: President Barack Obama's plan for climate change legislation faces an extraordinarily tough climb in the Senate. For proof, look no further than to some of Obama's closest allies. "We've got to be very careful with what we do with this…

Senator Dick Durbin yesterday on the "secret Cheney program": "To have a massive program that was concealed from the leaders in congress is not only inappropriate, it could be illegal." Senator Dick Durbin today on Morning Joe: "I don't know that it was a massive program..."

A twitter from Senator John McCain: Heading to the floor to manage, for the Republicans, the Department of Defense Authorization bill.

A statement from McConnell spokesman Don Stewart in response to the President's op-ed on the stimulus: Noticeably absent from the President's op-ed on the stimulus today are the words "save or create 3.5 to 4 million jobs." In their place, a new definition of success for the stimulus: "it will…

In a Friday afternoon news dump, the administration quietly announces that my sister Rachael Goldfarb will be serving as Counselor to the Undersecretary for Agriculture. Meanwhile, over at NewMajority.com, the appointee's father has written a devastating critique of the Obama health care plan.

When President Obama first announced his Afghan strategy, John McCain warned that the failure to commit enough troops to the fight would inevitably lead to a "Lyndon Johnson-style" incremental escalation. Indeed, in early June the Pentagon "quietly" sent an additional 1,000 special operations…

It looks like the administration is pushing back hard in the face of Congressional efforts to maintain the F-22 production line despite a veto threat from the White House. Both House and Senate subcommittees put money back into the defense authorization for as many as 12 F-22s, seven of which would…

The DNC sends out a letter from Joe Biden to their own list as well as Obama's Organizing for America. The full letter follows after the jump, and it's pretty standard stuff -- Sotomayor's been the subject of unfair attacks, we need your help, blah blah blah. It is interesting though that the…

Yesterday Haaretz claimed that Bibi was privately referring to Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod as "self-hating Jews." You knew it wasn't true because 1) Haaretz, like most foreign papers, reports a lot of things that aren't true (see last month's reporting in the same paper on the imminent release…

The other day we described Joe Pounder as a "one-man RNC." Apparently that was enough to prompt Politico to do a mini-profile of the Cantor spokesman, along with some very similar praise from the ubiquitous Kevin Madden: "He's a machine," says Republican communications consultant Kevin Madden, who…

The Hill catalogues the spelling errors made by the White House this week, prompting one commenter to suggest: Maybe the President should appoint a spelling Czar.

Alec Baldwin attacked Jack Cafferty today with a level of invective he usually reserves for his own daughter, hitting the CNN anchor for "being convicted of leaving the scene of an accident in which you struck a cyclist and then ran two red lights while you were pursued by the police." I was…

Obama moved against Israeli settlements without regard for Israeli public opinion and while at the same time making grand gestures to the Arab world. The result, as has been pointed out here several times, is that Obama has lost his best leverage in dealing with Bibi: Israeli public opinion. A vast…

There's certainly a sense that Republicans may have bottomed out and at least started to look for a way out of the wilderness. We've thought as much before only to see the party rocked by some ridiculous sex scandal or to watch helplessly as Obama's numbers climb in tandem with the Dow, but…

An instant-classic from yesterday's New York Times letters page: The solution to binge drinking problems on campuses is simple: college curriculums need to be more rigorous. If college programs required their students to put in a significant number of hours per week doing work related to their…

Rasmussen does the breakdown: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is the top choice for those Republicans who put national security first and ties Romney for first among voters who list economic issues alone as the priority. In a perfect world national security conservatives would probably choose Cheney as…

Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring points to this this report from AFP: G8 plans for deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions began unravelling on Wednesday shortly after leaders signed on to the deal as Russia rejected a key plank as "unacceptable". G8 leaders agreed to bear the brunt of steep…

National Journal's Erin McPike reports: House Democrats are starting to worry that Republican efforts to put a dent in the support of newer members who voted in favor of climate change legislation are having an impact, in part because allies on the left have left them hanging. "This is a troubling…

The latest in a never-ending series of gaffes from the RNC chairman: Having already lost control of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008, the party has been battered in recent months with admissions of infidelity by two prominent party members -- South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Nevada…

Per Gary Schmitt and Tom Donnelly a little after noon today: On Monday, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a "Joint Understanding" on the parameters for a follow-on to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires this December. The White House press release…

CQ reports: The director of the Air National Guard, in a statement that has added afterburners to the case in Congress for continued production of F-22 fighters, has told lawmakers that the jet is the optimal choice for replacing aging aircraft that patrol U.S. airspace on homeland security…

Taro Aso gives the Pope a Sony video camera. As a friend points out, better to have a camcorder than an iPod with Obama's speeches on it.

The AP reports: U.S. Marines trapped Taliban fighters in a residential compound and persuaded the insurgents to allow women and children to leave. The troops then moved in - only to discover that the militants had slipped out, dressed in women's burqa robes.... On Monday, images from a Predator…

At least that's one view from Tehran: AFTER weeks of efforts to find someone to blame for the post-election insurrection, the Khomeinist regime in Tehran has finally found the ideal culprits: Liz Cheney and George Soros. Never mind that the financier and Dick Cheney's daughter are on opposite ends…

(Greenwald-style update below - Update II) The Obama administration has been forced, once again, to make a false choice between our ideals and our security, and like President Bush before him, Obama chose security. In January White House counsel Greg Craig was telling reporters that this…

The music is sad...because the Democrats are ruining the country. According to Greg Sargent, the "footage of Franken is actually of him delivering a tribute to the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone." Sargent suggests this is problematic because Republicans were beat up for using the same…

Dan Blumenthal writes on the latest crackdown on Chinese dissidents, this time ethnic Uighurs: The death count is at 156, while the Chinese security forces have arrested more than a thousand protesters. Beijing's response has been true to form: block Internet access, keep reporters out, put down…

The left is going bananas because Palin said: If she were in the White House, she said, the "department of law" would protect her from baseless ethical allegations."I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged…

Cantor spokesman Joe Pounder is like a one-man RNC (which is nice because the real RNC doesn't even bother sending me emails anymore -- I'm looking at you Gail Gitcho). He sends out a release noting the multiple fronts on which different White House players seem to be pulling in opposite…

If you like watching baby seals get clubbed, then you'll love this post by Reason's Matt Welch. Michael Moynihan piles on here.

Don't fault Biden, he was just sticking to the same script politicians have used for decades with regard to friendly allied countries who are threatened by hostile authoritarian regimes. But Obama has now entered the fray to correct the record -- the United States will no longer sit idly by as a…

New York Times reporter Nelson Schwartz finds the French are doing a better job of spending stimulus money than their counterparts in Washington. It's a fascinating story of how bureaucrats who've perfected the art of government waste got an extra $34 billion to fritter away, but Schwartz focuses…

A memo circulated by Republicans on the Hill in response to Obama's joint statement with Russian President Medvedev today follows. The author notes that Obama's expectations for the speed at which the new treaty on arms reductions will be ratified does not conform to precedent. Obama says that…

Seven U.S. troops were killed in Afganistan today. You can read about it at the Huffington Post under if you scroll deep enough, following about 20 other stories, including two stories about Michael Jackson, a banner headline on Social Security numbers, the outrage (outrage!) at a National Review…

I don't have any deep insight into why Governor Palin decided to step down, but I think there is at least one possibility that we can rule out: Max Blumenthal. The blogger takes credit for her decision in a column for the Daily Beast: On July 1, CBS reported that a story authored by me and…

Unfortunately, this doesn't really come as much of a shock: Mr. Emanuel said he knew the Obama-mania was waning in his household when he told his son recently that they would again be savoring father-son bonding time at the White House on a Saturday. The 12-year-old did not jump for joy. He set…

Forbes reports on Wal-Mart joining forces with SEIU and the Center for American Progress: As for the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, it has an added incentive to welcome Wal-Mart into polite company. While the left has shunned the corporate behemoth for years, according to its Web…

Jeremy Scahill tweets: i heard joe biden tried to pay the Post $25k to have access to the obama administration Mike Allen has the report on the Washington Post's new lobbying business.

The Washington Post reports on Obama's "town hall": "The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a…

This seems reasonable: Defense Secretary Robert Gates for the first time is outlining potential Obama Administration plans to selectively enforce the "don't ask don't tell" ban on gays in the military so that some gays could serve. Gates says he is now looking at ways to make the ban "more humane"…

Cheney's role, real and imagined, in managing U.S. policy in Iraq earned him the title of most powerful vice president in U.S. history. Now his successor, Joe Biden, has been officially handed handed the Iraq portfolio and with it responsibility for a theater of operations that is host to two to…

Leon Wieseltier goes nuclear on President Patience: His worst moment came when he hid behind Martin Luther King, Jr.: "What we can do is bear witness and say to the world that the incredible demonstrations that we've seen is a testimony to--I think what Dr. King called the arc of the moral…

I realize the dust has pretty much settled on the whole Pitney-Obama-Milbank brouhaha over whether the White House planted a question from a friendly HuffPo blogger, but I'm sort of amazed that in all the back and forth over this, no one to my knowledge has pointed out that this whole mess was…

A new poll from Rasmussen on cap and trade: As for the bill itself, 37% of all Americans at least somewhat favor it, while 41% are at least somewhat opposed to it. Twenty-two percent (22%) are not sure what to make of it. But there's more intensity on the "no" side: Only 12% strongly favor the…

Yesterday I spoke with Otto Reich, President Bush's Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, about the latest developments in Honduras. Reich, who was in Panama when President Zelaya was ousted, was accused by Venezuela's representative to the OAS of being involved in the coup…

A legal eagle friend writes in: There's been a lot of good blog coverage of the Supreme Court's Ricci/discrimination decision and its effect on the Sotomayor nomination. Perhaps it would be worth pointing to the blog posts of National Journal's Stuart Taylor, who points out that Sotomayor's…

From Obama's presser today with Uribe: Over the last several years, I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, even if the results don't always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable to the United States…

Editor's note: The following letter was submitted by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who serves as Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, in response to this blog post by Thomas Joscelyn. Despite the court rulings declaring the…

Eli Lake provides some more background on Mousavi in the new issue of TNR: True, Mir Hossein Mousavi and the people directly surrounding him are known quantities in the U.S. intelligence community. Both Mousavi and his most powerful ally during the campaign, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were key…

Apparently some are having trouble telling the difference: Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to former President Jimmy Carter, is convinced this signals "the beginning of the end for the Iranian equivalent of the neocons, the radical ayatollahs who see the world as a battle…

Haaretz reports: Unlike his predecessors, the newly appointed Israeli negotiator to win Shalit's release, Hagai Hadas, is employed as an external consultant and is being paid by the Prime Minister's Office, Channel 10 reported yesterday. The contract for his employment is for a year, starting this…

That's what Paul Krugman calls me and the 70 percent of Americans who don't think "dealing with global warming" should be a top priority for the United States government: Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn't it politics as usual? Yes, it is - and that's why it's…

In the course of Donald Morrison's review of Au Revoir to All That by Michael Steinberger, we learn that McDonald's is the largest private employer in all of France, which is sort of like being the largest provider of health insurance in North Korea, but nonetheless, it feels like a major triumph…

Col. Reuesser won: Retired Marine Corps Col. Kenneth L. Reusser, called the most decorated Marine aviator in history and was shot down in three wars, has died at age 89. Reusser flew 253 combat missions in World War II, Korea and Vietnam and was shot down in all three, five times in all. His 59…

The Senate Armed Services Committee followed the lead of its House counterpart late last week and added money to the defense authorization bill for additional F-22 fighters -- in defiance of a White House veto threat. As CQ's Josh Rogin reported, the Senate version of the bill "would permit the…

Rice and Axelrod make clear their intention to stay the course: The legitimacy of the government, while questioned by the people of Iran, is not the critical issue for the U.S. goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability, Rice said. "It's in the United States' national…

Here's the view of one senior House GOP staffer who just emailed me: "Tonight, 50 Democrats lost their jobs and this bill is dead in the Senate."

Ben Smith does a good job trying to get to the bottom of Dennis Ross's move to the NSC, but it's still far from clear just what this means for administration policy toward Iran or Israel. Dan Senor offers some speculation, telling Smith that the move will bolster the position of those inside the…

The Washington Post reports on the view among Arab democracy activists of events in Iran: The frustration comes against a backdrop of deep-rooted skepticism among pro-democracy activists that U.S. policies under President Obama will help transform the region, despite his vow to engage the Muslim…

Glenn Greenwald has a two-part Britney Spears-style meltdown because this blog expressed concern about the conditions under which Gilad Shalit has been imprisoned for the last three years by the terrorist group Hamas. Apparently Greenwald thinks I'm guilty of applying a double standard -- concern…

Andrew Shearer, who served as national security adviser to former Australian PM John Howard, goes nuclear on Obama: Barack Obama came to office full of lofty rhetoric and promises to restore American leadership. As street protests begin to peter out, ground into Tehran's pavements by thugs…

From Chad Johnson, aka Ocho Cinco, a classy walkback: Okay, first Mrs. Fawcett now Mr. Jackson, please tell me that this is a mistaken rumor, if not this is just as sad as 9/11...about 4 hours ago okay not as bad as 911, its sad period, both situations my goodness people, they just said he is okay…

The neocons are the bad guys, pressuring Obama to take a tough stand against tyranny and murder in Iran with the aim of emboldening Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. At least that's what I keep reading at the Huffington Post and Think Progress. Meanwhile, the realists advising Obama are the great heroes…

Haaretz reports: European diplomatic sources said Thursday that kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit will be transferred to Egypt in the coming hours or coming days. This information has yet to be confirmed by Israeli officials. Shalit was abducted three years ago to the day. One…

Politico reports the threat from the White House. I'm not buying it. The Senate Armed Services Committee is in a closed door mark-up of the defense authorization bill, and the White House is obviously concerned that they're going to follow the lead of the House Armed Services Committee, which…

Just as the Dems are trying to nationalize healthcare, within the Ways and Means Committee Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) is out with a new effort to highlight the rampant waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid -- and just how bad an idea it would be to simply create a far bigger…

Lieberman, McCain, and Graham held a presser announcing new Iran legislation they intend to introduce. It will increase funding for Radio Farda and Voice of America, both of which have been critical at keeping Iranians informed of what's happening in their own country and reporting those events to…

It's a little long for my taste, but given that only 24 percent even know that cap and trade is environmental legislation, Republicans have some explaining to do if they want to build any real resistance to the measure. Add to that the fact that video of Democrats admitting electricity rates will…

Noemie Emery sends in reasons this scandal is better than others: 1. He's a name, not a number. 2. No hookers crossing state lines to hotel assignations. 3. No one comes out as one more ‘Gay-American.' 4. No Israelis on payrolls as security experts. 5. No one has cancer, or is not in remission.…

An incredible video shows an Apache helicopter in action against Taliban militants.

A friend emails in response to the news that Obama has rescinded Fourth of July invitations to Iranian diplomats: Maybe the White House is just embarrassed that none of the Iranians RSVP'ed! How humiliating to be throwing a party that no one wants to come to!

We're told that Obama's policies are really far more pro-Israel than those of George W. Bush, who didn't have the foresight to see the demographic weakness of the Jewish state, and didn't have the courage to pressure its citizens into painful concessions -- for their own good. But the Israeli…

CNN airs an interview with another Iranian necon, this one a girl who just witnessed a "massacre" in the heart of Tehran. The video follows, but at one point she tells the CNN correspondent (starting at about 2:05): "This was exactly a massacre. You should stop this, you should help the people of…

From today's briefing: The White House has rescinded its invitation to Iran diplomats to attend its July 4 festivities. None of them RSVP'd, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. But, he added, "I don't think it's surprising that nobody's signed up to come given the events of the past days," Gibbs…

The boss forwards an e-mail from a friend who's been watching Mark Sanford's press conference in disbelief: Everyone's been advising the Republicans to broaden the tent, to get beyond the narrow moralism that has allegedly bedeviled the party. Now the fates have conspired to give the GOP an easy…

Reihan Salam writes at the Daily Beast: And though Obama couldn't bring himself to acknowledge McCain's influence, or even that his script has changed at all as events have unfolded, it's clear Obama has come around to a darker view of Iran's rulers. Just as Obama was hilariously reluctant to…

You thought his outreach to the Iranians was a disgrace: Variety's David Cohen saw the latest "Transformers" movie --- "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" --- and filed this report on its reference to President Obama, but not, at least in his eyes, in a good way. Cohen writes, "So as usual in…

I peg this at about 60 percent bias and 90 percent bull (unverified transcript from CNN): BROWN: Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm going to beat the dead horse to try to get an answer to this question. We're watching this violence unfold and yet you're administration has told embassies around the…

This is Russia invades Georgia redux. Obama flails for a few days and finally gets the rhetoric where it should have been from day one. If speaking forthrightly is right today, why was it not right four days ago? If speaking forthrightly would endanger allegedly greater interests, why speak today?…

So the Iranians are charging the families of those murdered by the basij $3,000 for the privilege of burying their children. Barack Obama is paying $12 million per Uighur to any country that will take them. If Obama is to sit across from A'jad or Kamenei or whoever Joe Klein thinks is in charge of…

Bill Sweetman has the scoop: This Sunday, June 28, National Geographic TV airs Hitler's Stealth Fighter. Set your TiVos or just kick the rest of the family off the TV, because this one should be good. Back when stealth was very, very secret, a few people quietly advised me to take a look at the…

The editors at the New York Times line up with Joementum on a matter of national security: The Bush administration planned to increase the Afghan Army from 90,000 troops to 134,000. That still won't be big enough to secure a vast, rugged country with a larger population than Iraq's. American…

Politico's Josh Kraushaar goes after Marco Rubio: Twitter hasn't always been a politician's best friend - see Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra's comparison of House Republican floor rebellions to the uprising in Iran or Newt Gingrich calling Sonia Sotomayor a "racist." Florida Senate candidate Marco…

Andrew Sullivan links to a poll on U.S. public opinion, which finds that 43 percent of Americans believe that the level of support President Obama has provided for Iranian demonstrators has been "about right," while 35 percent believe he has not been aggressive enough. Sullivan claims that this…

While the regime murders its own people in the streets, the Obama administration reassures Iranian diplomats that they're still welcome at Fourth of July barbecues at U.S. embassies across the world -- it's all good: "There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State…

From a CNN interview this morning with a man described by CNN as an Iranian student protester in Tehran: Mohammad: Americans, European Union, international community, this government is not definitely - is definitely not elected by the majority of Iranians. So it's illegal. Do not recognize it.…

While the Iranian people took to the streets last week to confront their tyrannical regime, S. 908 -- the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, introduced two months ago by Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Evan Bayh (D-IN), and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) -- was picking up steam on the Hill. As of Friday, the…

I'm sure that's the question our readers were asking as they watched events unfold in Tehran, and thanks to the communications revolution, Twitter gives us an answer: Considering how well fighting 4 freedom in Iraq went, I dont know that we should B jumping in2 this Iran deal. I think that truly…

The AP reports: The Supreme Court has upheld a federal government permit to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby lake, even though all its fish would be killed. By a 6-3 vote Monday, the justices say a federal appeals court wrongly blocked the permit on environmental grounds. A friend…

Check out this sharp analysis from the MSNBC crew: From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro *** Ramping up the rhetoric: As the violence and protests escalated in Iran on Saturday, President Obama stepped up his criticism about what's happening there. "The Iranian government must…

The Wall Street Journal reports on the German firm's shady dealings with the Iranian regime, which included helping the country develop "one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online…

AEI's IranTracker posts a call for a general strike in Iran on Tuesday for "all workers and government and non-government workers, except workers of hospitals, health centers and fire-fighting agencies." The letter is posted with the disclaimer that the site's editors can't vouch for its…

Washington Times editor Barbara Slavin writes to Steve Clemons: steve, iran ceased being an islamic republic a week ago. now it's just another military dictatorship. Clemons concurs without hesitation. It's ironic then that Obama became the first American president to say otherwise just three…

From Poilitico44 (and note this has been posted since well before today's statement by the president, which one can at least argue is tough on Iran):

The most dramatic video to emerge from Iran today can be seen below and comes with a strong content warning:

Dan Senor and Christian Whiton write for Time: As for the notion that American silence is unhelpful to reformers, this simply contradicts historical experience. Successful movements to alter authoritarian and totalitarian regimes almost always depend on internal dissent backed by strong…

CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller has been doing some in-depth reporting on the president's trip to an ice cream parlor this afternoon. He reports that "Obama had vanilla frozen custard in a cup with hot fudge and toasted almonds." He reports that "Sasha had a Brownie sundae: vanilla…

An update from Radio Farda: - People have started to chant " Aloha Akbar" from roof tops. - Our Hot Bird Satellite is totally jammed in Iran . We are using three different sat. to reach our audience. - Confirmed reports say security forces are following demonstrators to the nearby houses and…

If I had any doubt about the need for a tougher approach to Iran, this has relieved me of it: "It's an ironic moment in history when I say I agree with Pat Buchanan, but I agree with Pat Buchanan," McCaskill said. "The president is being very smart and strategic here. Sometimes it's more important…

The GOP whip's office sends around this report from the Hill: House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on Friday said climate change bill negotiators are heading back to the drawing board after discussions between Democrats "blew up last night." A meeting between chairmen drafting the…

I posted earlier on the increasingly paranoid and anti-Semitic writings of Andrew Sullivan, and now his colleague at the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, has keyed in on the same disturbing post. Goldberg is obviously troubled by the not-so-subtle insinuations Sullivan continues to make about AIPAC and…

The White House says that the House resolution on Iran is "very consistent" with the message coming from the president this week. But, nobody really believes that. The White House worked to tone down the House resolution and turn it into something that would not embarrass the White House by…

Yesterday both the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Cesar Perales, the president and general counsel of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), asking him "to provide documents related to [Sonia Sotomayor's] membership" in that…

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his first public statement today on the week-long protest sparked by the fraudulent electoral victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He blamed "media belonging to Zionists, evil media" for fueling divisions in Iran. Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan -- who…

From today's Krauthammer column: Even from the narrow perspective of the nuclear issue, the administration's geopolitical calculus is absurd. There is zero chance that any such talks will denuclearize Iran. On Monday, President Ahmadinejad declared yet again that the nuclear "file is shut,…

U.S. Forces Afghanistan press release: Afghan National Army Commandos, assisted by Coalition forces, uncovered a drug cache and captured two known militants during a search of an enemy fighter safe haven in Ghorak district, Kandahar province, June 17. After receiving credible information regarding…

I know that the protesters in Iran don't want the United States to interfere with their efforts in any way. I know this because John Kerry says it's true, and because every Democrat in government and the media is telling us that the people of Iran want the United States to keep quiet and not…

Reza Aslan discusses the Iranian election with Washington Times reporter Eli Lake and makes a rather startling assertion -- that Iran's electoral system provides "greater diversity of religious and political thought" than the American electoral system. The bizarre praise for Iranian democracy comes…

The statement: "The human tragedy continues in Iran. Around the world, people are inspired by the courage of the Iranian people fighting for free elections, using new media tools like Twitter to ensure their voices are heard by all of us. America has a moral responsibility to stand up for these…

Lieberman and Graham got the Senate to vote on their photo amendment again, and again the Senate voted unanimously in support of the measure that would prevent the release of detainee photos that serve no purpose other than to put American troops in danger. CNN reports on the day's events, which…

Remember when the Iranians left blueprints for a nuclear warhead lying around, and then told the IAEA inspectors that the regime "received them inadvertently while purchasing its nuclear equipment on the black market decades ago"? Well, accidents will happen: Iran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog…

The Washington Post reports that President Obama's envoy to Sudan has declared an end to the genocide: President Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, said Wednesday that the Sudanese government is no longer engaging in a "coordinated" campaign of mass murder…

The Wall Street Journal reports: A House committee threw a wrench in the Obama administration's plans to end Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-22 Raptor fighter program, voting instead to add $369 million in extra funding to keep production of the Air Force's most advanced jet alive. Mr. Gates thinks the…

CNN reports: Republican Rep. Mike Pence, criticizing President Obama for not saying more in support of protestors in Iran, said Wednesday that he is taking another step to show solidarity for the dissenting citizens of the country. "I appreciate the fact that the president said the protesters have…

Daytime MSNBC anchor David Shuster apologizes to Joementum: "Tamaran , an update now on a story we did earlier this week. On Monday we did a Hypocrisy Watch segment on Senator Joe Lieberman, his office points out that on some of the issues we mentioned Monday, there are no longer major differences…

A friend emails: Obama's tireless defenders have spent the past two days explaining that Obama's relative silence in the face of the Iranian crisis was actually aimed at helping the Iranian opposition. Anything he said, they claimed, would be cited by the Iranian government as unacceptable American…

Via Ace, Reuters reports: The State Department strongly rejected claims that the U.S. was interfering in the disputed June 12 election, pointing out that diplomats from other countries had also been summoned. "I suspect we are in good company. As the president has said, we are not interfering in…

Obama said yesterday to CNBC: The difference between Ahmedinejad and Moussavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised. Either way we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has cause some…

Politico's Manu Raju reports that the GOP is "struggling to find its pitch on Iran." Maybe - Max Boot suggests Ben Smith may have overstated any rift - but so is the left. Andrew Sullivan is demanding "no recognition of Ahmadinejad" as "the first and absolute requirement of all Western…

The AP reports: State TV: Iran accuses US of "intolerable" meddling in its internal affairs. Quoth Bill Kristol: "If only."

Matthew Cooper, now over at the Atlantic after a brief stint at Talking Points Memo, uses Marc Ambinder's blog to attack my colleague Steve Hayes for "buffoonery," for not being "genial," and for impugning the president's motives vis-à-vis Iran: It's not enough, though, for Neocons to disagree…

Upper East Side Rep. Carolyn Maloney met with the editorial board of the New York Daily News as she prepares to mount a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand. When Gillibrand was first appointed, she told reporters she kept not one but two guns under her bed for self-defense (she says she's since…

The House passed the supplemental yesterday by a vote of 226-202, with 32 Democrats voting against. Last month 51 Democrats voted against the spending, but since then the conference has added funding for the IMF and stripped out a Senate amendment that would have prevented the release of photos…

A new Q-poll: Mayor Michael Bloomberg tops City Comptroller William Thompson, his chief Democratic challenger, 54 - 32 percent among New York City voters, who also say 62 - 28 percent that they'd rather chat with the Mayor at a July 4th picnic, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released…

Joe Klein returns from Iran and attacks McCain and the "neoconservatives" instead of the thugs who stole the election.

American journalism's most prominent Iranian apologist writes: It's one thing to steal an election, another to steal it with the effrontery and ruthlessness apparent here in recent days. Translation: It's one thing to offer a ludicrous defense of a regime that's deeply hostile to human rights,…

Ben Smith takes a stab: It's been suggested, variously, that this is a demotion for the hawkish Ross or a sign that (relative) doves have won the internal battles; that it's a promotion for Ross, and a sign that he has Obama's ear; that it reflects Iran's refusal to negotiation with a Jew (which…

Is it possible that the Iraqi election experience had something to do with Iranian expectations of an election? If critics of the war can for just a moment move beyond their own deeply held opinions about the invasion of Iraq -- that this was a war of choice fought on false premises to lower gas…

Harry Reid releases a letter to the president offering his support for the administration's "decision to make the Middle East a priority." But amidst all the praise, the intended audience will spot numerous attempts by Reid to distance himself from the the president. 1) The administration has made…

MSNBC's journalistic standards are, shall we say, somewhat flexible. Even by its weak standards, however, David Shuster today issued a report that was breathtaking for its mendacity. Simply put, Shuster lied--brazenly, knowingly, on the air. The subject of Shuster's piece was the left's all-purpose…

Greg Sargent reported today: In a move that could spark another fight with the GOP over CIA intelligence and secrecy, House Dems are quietly preparing to make major changes to the ways the CIA briefs Congress on covert actions, by broadening the pool of members of Congress who will have access to…

A friend emails: Remember when McCain suspended his campaign and Obama said a president has to be able to do more than one thing at a time? Yet, today health care rollout is all he can do. He appears to be afraid of alienating the Ahmadinejad forces that stole the election because he wants to offer…

That's the headline in the Tehran Times, and the paper quotes a State Department official to back it up: he U.S. will pursue dialogue with Iran whether incumbent President Ahmadinejad or his rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, emerges as winner, a State Department official says. "The president's decision…

The CIA walks back Panetta's comments on the former VP: "The Director was simply expressing his profound disagreement with the assertion that President Obama's security policies have made our country less safe. That's all there is to it. Everyone understands that al-Qaeda and its allies are a…

Iran apologist Roger Cohen in today's Times: I've argued for engagement with Iran and I still believe in it, although, in the name of the millions defrauded, President Obama's outreach must now await a decent interval. I've also argued that, although repressive, the Islamic Republic offers…

It's been more than 20 years since James Hansen first warned America of impending doom. On a hot summer day in June 1988, Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, came to Washington to announce before a Senate committee that "the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is…

Yesterday Marc Ambinder reported that "White House officials say they worry about the stability of Iran during a protracted post-vote period of uncertainty." The people of Iran might hope for a little more from the administration than concerns about stability. The NIAC blog reports: According to…

Much stronger than anything coming out of the White House: "Over the last six months, we have witnessed free and fair elections in Iraq and Lebanon, in which millions of people peacefully went to the polls, and in both cases, the Iranian-backed forces of extremism were decisively rejected at the…

Radio Free Europe has some excellent material on the mood in Iran: One e-mail from Iran reads: "It's a day of mourning today. Helpless Iranians are in mourning." Another refers to "the death of democracy and hope." Another: "I offer my condolences to the people for the June 12 coup d'etat and the…

Abbas Djavadi, with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, has been on the phone all night with people in Iran. He e-mails: An Electoral Coup in Iran It was a night of fundamental change of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was, however, not the change the overwhelming majority of the electorate…

Fred Kagan emails: Iranian media outlets have started calling the election for Ahmadinejad. Mousavi also claims victory, but I strongly suspect that Ahmadinejad has won the election-at least the first round. Irantracker.org will have continuous updates tonight and over the weekend for anyone who's…

And it may well be necessary, which could force our lefty friends to choose between Obama and the ACLU: House-Senate negotiators reached agreement late Thursday on a $105.9 billion wartime spending bill after last-minute assurances from President Barack Obama that he will use all his powers to…

Andrew Sullivan describes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's opponent in the upcoming Iranian presidential "election" as a "reformist candidate," who represents a "Pawlenty-style conservatism," but Mousavi's record suggests he's slightly more sinister than the Mullet from Minnesota. In 1981, when Mousavi first…

Jake Tapper tweets: statement of fact: in the last few days both James von Brunn and Rev Wright have claimed POTUS is controlled by Jews. Of course, the president only considered one of them like a father until about a year ago.

By a vote of 267-152, the House has passed a non-binding motion "to instruct conferees on H.R. 2346, the war supplemental, insists that the House conferees." The language of the motion includes this: Maintain the House's higher level of Defense spending ($81.3 billion); Not exceed the Senate's…

President Obama has ordered the Justice Department to appeal the decision by a lower court that ruled in favor of the ACLU and ordered the release of photos allegedly showing detainee abuse. Whether that ruling will be overturned is unclear, but Senators Graham and Lieberman have been fighting for…

From the moment Sonia Sotomayor was nominated, Democrats have pointed to her academic pedigree as evidence that she is highly qualified for the job. Some conservatives doubted whether those credentials were, on their own, evidence of anything other than the success of liberal social policies like…

Rev. Wright on whether he's spoken to Obama: "Them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter, that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office. ... "They will not let him to talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. ...…

The Obama administration has allowed U.S. forces in Afghanistan to begin reporting enemy body counts -- something the Bush administration went back and forth on -- as U.S. forces ramp up in the south of the country. On the one hand, the Bush administration got raked over the coals by the left when…

Pete Wehner follows up on his earlier takedown of Newsweek editor Evan Thomas. Thomas, you'll recall, made a comment last week that would, in less extraordinary times, be fatal to a journalist's career. Chris Matthews didn't even bat an eye: Matthews:...Evan, you remember '84. It wasn't 100 years…

Senators Lieberman and Graham have just concluded a press conference held in response to a still unconfirmed move by the Democratic leadership in the House to strip from the supplemental appropriations bill an amendment that would bar the release of detainee photos. That amendment, the Detainee…

Rasmussen reports: Sixty-two percent (62%) of U.S. voters say Iran should be required to stop developing its nuclear weapons capabilities before a meeting is allowed between the Iranian president and the president of the United States, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.…

What does Carlos Slim have against Michael Bloomberg anyway? The New York Times did all it could to boost the mayoral candidacy of Anthony Weiner, but it wasn't enough and Weiner opted not to run. Now the Times has moved on to boosting city comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., this time with with a…

ABC describes the prison system in which two U.S. journalists will be held: The prisons are vast and gloomy work camps in which inmates are routinely beaten, starved, executed - or forced to watch family members executed, according to eyewitness accounts. The deeply secretive dictatorship does not…

The AP reports: The White House is defending the overly optimistic economic models it used to justify the historic stimulus plan. Four months after the stimulus was passed, unemployment is far higher than expected and continuing to rise. It is even higher than the White House predicted it would…

The NRCC and the NRSC may not appreciate her, but she makes Giuliani smile.

Sonia Sotomayor breaks her ankle and Dave Weigel tweets: I would hope that a wise Latina woman's ankle, with its richness of experience, can heal faster than a white male's ankle.

As we reported here late last week, the Democratic leadership is moving to strip the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act, which passed the Senate unanimously and with White House support, from the supplemental appropriations bill in order to appease liberals in the House. The amendment was…

Rick Richman flags this from Martin Kramer on Obama's Cairo speech: Some of the influences on Obama bubble to the surface. There is the Third Worldism: Muslims are victims of our colonialism (Obama has read Fanon) and the Cold War (has he been reading Khalidi again?) The primacy of the West is…

Only Israelis could generate these poll numbers: 53% believe Obama's policies are bad for Israel 56% think Netanyahu should give into Obama's demands 52% favor freezing settlements HT: TA

Yesterday the New York Times stated as fact that Sotomayor "benefited from affirmative action policies" at both Princeton and Yale. Today William Bowen, the president of Princeton during Sotomayor's undergraduate years, praises Sotomayor effusively and says that Sotomayor would have succeeded…

From the Hot Air Green Room, an alternate, and much less apologetic, version of Obama's Cairo speech: I will not waste your time by carefully selecting quotes from the Koran, in a misguided attempt to tell you what your religion means. I am here to tell you what membership in the community of…

Reuters reports: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report said Iran had increased its rate of production of low-enriched uranium (LEU), boosting its stockpile by 500 kg to 1,339 kg in the past six months. Iran's improved efficiency in turning out potential nuclear fuel was sure to fan…

Fox News reported yesterday: The Pentagon is sending 1,000 more special operations forces and support staff into Afghanistan to bolster a larger conventional troop buildup, and is revamping the way Army Green Berets and other commandos work to rid villages of the Taliban. John McCain at an FPI…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership is moving to strip the Lieberman-Graham amendment blocking the release of detainee photos from the supplemental appropriations bill now in conference. The Lieberman-Graham amendment, formally named the Detainee…

After Obama's speech in Cairo yesterday, he arranged a roundtable with eight journalists. Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli paper, was invited to send a correspondent as were several Arab papers. Nahum Barnea reports (translation): After Obama's speech yesterday at Cairo University, we gathered, six…

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week: As you know, our government is not always of one mind with the Government of Israel on the issues of the Middle East. But friends, I am very troubled by the degree to which opposition to the Government of Israel has become, in some circles, an…

Powerline posts the exchange between Brokaw and Obama: BROKAW: What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald? And what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians? OBAMA: Well, look, there's no equivalency here. Brokaw should be ashamed of himself, but we'll take what…

The picture below, by the AP's Eyad Baba, was posted at Time's White House Photo Blog with the caption, "Tough Audience: Members of Hamas, wearing masks to conceal their identity, watch President Obama's speech at their training base in the Gaza Strip." It was subsequently reposted at Time's…

Florida Rep. Robert Wexler's constituents will be much relieved to learn that their congressman is not standing by a comment he made just a few hours ago in support of President Obama's statement that "America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we…

It's a theory of World War II that one can also find in the pages of the American Conservative: As the Kremlin presses a campaign to recast Russia's 20th century history in a more favorable light, a research paper published Thursday on the Defense Ministry's Web site blamed Poland for starting…

On the supplemental, which Democrats have tried to stuff with $100 billion in IMF funding: House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is doubling down on his charge that $108 billion in proposed loans to the International Monetary Fund could aid terrorists. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) earlier…

Rep. Robert Wexler, one of Obama's most important and visible surrogates during the campaign on the issue of Israel, offers Greg Sargent his take on the president's speech: Wexler told me he thinks that Obama's promise to "say in public what we say in private" to all parties was "one of the…

Joe Klein, who has in the past boldly declared himself "not a big fan" of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, sits down with the terror group's commander in chief for an interview in the wake of Obama's speech: Meshal refused to make concessions on any of the points Obama mentioned--renouncing the use of…

Steve Hayes makes the key points in his criticism of the speech -- the president rejected American exceptionalism, diminished the achievement of U.S. arms in Iraq, and invoked numerous strawmen -- all of which seemed an attempt to reframe the course of history and the current friction between Islam…

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) unloads on President Obama (emphasis mine): "President Obama's recent comment in support of Iranian nuclear power is both shocking and reckless. Supporting Iran's "legitimate [nuclear] aspirations" ignores all recent history and smacks of the same naive and misguided…

Greg Sargent reports she made an almost identical remark in 1994: "Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that "a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion in dueling cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes the…

So Obama showed off a little Arabic in his meeting with the Saudi King: KING ABDULLAH: (As translated.) I thank you, Mr. President, for the kind words and the kind sentiments expressed within them. I am not surprised, given the historic and strategic ties between our two countries, I believe that…

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Eli Lake and Sara Carter report for the Washington Times: The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) published last month a detailed 268-page dossier disclosing the addresses and specifications of hundreds of U.S. nuclear-weapons-related facilities, laboratories, reactors and research activities.…

As we noted earlier, and as ABC now confirms, Obama's speech in Cairo will focus on his Muslim roots and the unique perspective it provides him. Obama also teased the contents of the speech in an interview with a French television station: What I want to do is to create a better dialogue so that…

Joe Biden on the stimulus: "There are going to be mistakes made," said Biden. "Some people are being scammed already."

Scott Horton, crusader for terrorist rights and wanna-be national security reporter, has been caught with his pants down -- again. Last week, Horton wrote in response to "revelations" in the British press that the photographs President Obama had suppressed contained images of rape and sexual abuse.…

A strong statement from Governor Palin: The stories of two very different lives with similar fates crossed through the media's hands yesterday - both equally important but one lacked the proper attention. The death of 67-year old George Tiller was unacceptable, but equally disgusting was another…

Cheney won this round: Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to closing the detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay and moving some of the detainees to prisons on U.S. soil, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds. By more than 2-1, those surveyed say Guantanamo shouldn't be closed. By…

Ahead of his trip to the Middle East, President Obama is making clear that he won't budge an inch from his demand that the Israelis freeze all settlement construction, on both sides of the fence, and even in Jerusalem proper -- what Obama once called the undivided capital of Israel when he was…

Brought to you by NPR: The eight a.m. NPR news update today included word of the fatal shooting of one soldier and the wounding of another outside an army recruiting station in Arkansas. The news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have "religious…

Politico reports that "President Obama today will appoint Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) as Secretary of the Army, according to an administration official." McHugh is one of the best Republicans in the House. As ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, he's been a vocal advocate for the troops and…

Ed Whelan finds a disturbing inconsistency in the Sotomayor life-story as told by President Obama: As part of his effort to curry favor with baseball fans-"Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball" by her injunction ending the 1994-1995-Obama presented Sotomayor as "a lifelong Yankees fan." But…

Laura Rozen writes on the Obama administration's hard line on Israel: "Over the past 15 years, settlements have gone from being seen in Washington as an irritant, to the dominant issue," says Georgetown University Middle East expert Daniel Byman. He pointed out that key figures in the Obama…

The editors at the Times will presumably offer MoveOn a special rate for the full page ad: General McChrystal, who goes before the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, built an impressive reputation as commander of the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations teams in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2003 to…

Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, the boss made the case for "targeted air strikes to show the North Koreans - instead of always talking about, Gee, there could be consequences, to show that they can't simply keep down the - keep going down this path." The left is outraged! How dare anyone suggest…

Reuters reports: The U.S. military is rigging up satellite television service and distributing Sudoku puzzles in Guantanamo prison cells even as the Obama administration works towards a goal of emptying them of detainees. The amusements are aimed at providing mental stimulation for the 240…

You'll recall Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC almost a year ago to the day. "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," he said, only to later clarify that Jerusalem would instead remain a "final status issue." But a campaign adviser clarified Thursday that Obama…

How soft are we getting on detainees? This soft: All 17 Uighurs are now allowed to order fast-food, and they're getting laptops so they can practice sending email. They can't email outsiders but this type of training is, no doubt, vital for their post Gitmo lives. Of course, the last type of…

It turns out the Obama administration isn't quite as keen as its supporters to let al Qaeda-trained Uighurs settle in the United States. NRO's Andy McCarthy reports on the latest developments: The Obama Justice Department told the Supreme Court this evening that the Uighurs have no right to be…

I know there are sixteen intelligence agencies, but I could only name eight before I had to turn to Google. Then again, I'm not the President of the United States. Ben Smith reports: On his trip to get a burger with Brian Williams at Five Guys this afternoon, the President appears to have learned…

Obama's uncle Charlie on why the president is heading to a concentration camp in Germany next week: SPIEGEL: Mr. Payne, early in June your great-nephew, President Barack Obama, will visit the former concentration camp Buchenwald, which you helped liberate at the end of the war. Will he be…

From the boss's latest editorial posted here: So Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declared, "I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they've decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation." Not just…

Stuart Taylor digs up another example from Sotomayor's Princeton days: In October 1974, Princeton allowed Sotomayor and two other students to initiate a seminar, for full credit and with the university's blessings, on the Puerto Rican experience and its relation to contemporary America. I went to…

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The Huffington Post banner headline reads: Dem Senators Open To Allowing Innocent Chinese Detainees To Live In U.S. But read Ryan Grim's (very fair) piece and you'll see that these Dem Senators say nothing of the sort. Asked whether he'd be open to letting the Uighurs "live" in the U.S., Dick…

Pam Hess reports: The nation's two intelligence chiefs are locked in a turf battle over overseas posts, forcing National Security Adviser James L. Jones to mediate, according to current and former government officials. The jockeying between CIA Director Leon Panetta and National Intelligence…

Below is a video that purports to show the Academic Ensemble of Moscow Military District performing a musical mocking Europe and the Ukraine for their dependence on Russian natural gas. They joke that if Ukraine joins NATO, they'll just cut the gas. If Russia doesn't win Eurovision, they'll just…

Playboy journalist Mike Guy got himself waterboarded last month but I missed the video -- probably because it doesn't confirm everything the left already knew to be true and thus has very little news value. On the assumption that many other folks didn't get the chance to see this, watch the video…

The Washington Post corrects the record (via CQ): A May 22 editorial on Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial primary incorrectly stated that Terry R. McAuliffe had described himself as a "huckster." In his autobiography, Mr. McAuliffe described himself as a "hustler."

Gallup shows support for gay marriage declining since 2007, when it stood at 46 percent. That number is now just 40 percent, with 57 percent opposed to legalizing gay marriage. More important politically is the fact that just over half of Democrats favor gay marriage (55 percent), and fewer than…

TNR digs up another instance in which Sonia Sotomayor de Noonan appears to have received preferential treatment: A large Washington law firm-Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge-has been forced to apologize to a Yale Law School senior after a student-faculty tribunal found one of its partners had…

John Yoo says she's not a threat to the revolution: Obama had some truly outstanding legal intellectuals and judges to choose from-Cass Sunstein, Elena Kagan, and Diane Wood come immediately to mind. The White House chose a judge distinguished from the other members of that list only by her race.…

Just as the Obama administration and its allies in Congress try to ram through cap and trade legislation, European countries are moving to exempt entire industries from the regulation lest they simply relocate their operations to more business-friendly nations. The Financial Times reports: Berlin…

Jeffrey Goldberg embarrasses Fareed Zakaria here and smacks Roger Cohen here.

The New York Times did its best to carry water for the potential Bloomberg challenger, but after telling the paper that Mayor Mike was smearing him with push polling and negative stories and that the strategy was only pushing him towards running ("I don't walk away from a fight," he said) Anthony…

Anthony R. Dolan, former chief speechwriter to President Reagan and special advisor in the offices of Secretaries of State and Defense in the Bush administration, writes THE WEEKLY STANDARD in response to Paul Kengor's "Duped at Notre Dame" from the May 18 issue: Gratitude is due Paul Kengor for…

I wonder why this was released the same day as Sotomayor was nominated: The Pentagon says about 5 percent of terror suspects released from the U.S. navy prison at Guantanamo Bay so far have returned to the fight against the U.S. and its allies. Data released Tuesday suggests that an additional 9…

After launching a public campaign to force Princeton University to hire faculty and administrators of "Puerto Rican or Chicano heritage," Sotomayor finally got her way. But she wasn't finished complaining. Despite being appointed to a student advisory board that would counsel the University on the…

Sotomayor was a tireless crusader for Latino affirmative action while at Princeton University. She was at war with the administration over what she told the student newspaper was a "lack of commitment" in hiring "Puerto Rican and Chicano administrators." In 1974 Sotomayor wrote an ope-ed in the…

And then goes golfing: His remarks in the Rose Garden today were inserted into his schedule and were an escalation of yesterday's statement, calling North Korea's reported nuclear and missile tests "a great threat to the peace and security of the world." (Yesterday, he said the region.) Although…

The boss asks who else will step forward, and what will happen if no one does: Both Cheney and Gingrich have the background and stature to address credibly national security issues. Here's an interesting question: Will any Republican whose career lies mostly ahead of him -- or her -- step up to…

For many on the left, even Khalid Sheik Mohammed has become little more than a victim of Bush administration abuse, his role in the attacks of 9/11 overshadowed by the rough treatment to which he was subjected after his capture. But it turns out that even the return of the rule of law can't help…

Yesterday Obama offered this critique of waterboarding: "I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the…

The press release: WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate unanimously passed an amendment last night introduced by U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) which establishes a procedure to block release of the detainee photos. Last week, after consulting with General Petraeus, General…

I hope that President Obama is enjoying this debate, and one certainly hopes that he will continue to embrace it, because it is a debate that he has been asking for since he decided to run for president. From a series of reckless positions on national security while serving as a United States…

The Times reports: Iran test-fired a sophisticated missile on Wednesday that was capable of striking Israel and parts of Western Europe, adding to concerns that Iran's weapons-development program is fast outpacing the American-led diplomacy that President Obama has said he will let play out through…

Delivered by Slate's John Dickerson: Obama just called space shuttle astronauts who've repaired Hubble. Asked them to use its high power lens to find him a policy for Guantanamo

Politico reports on a very public clash among administration officials: The Pentagon No. 3 official, Michele Flournoy, said the only way the United States can get European nations to accept some of the 240 detainees at the military prison is by agreeing to bring some of them to the United States as…

Greg Sargent reports that all three cables will carry Cheney's speech tomorrow morning live directly after the president makes his speech. The Democrats have developed a bad habit of elevating Cheney without engaging the substance of his attacks -- the hope being that his low public approval…

Think how easy it will be to track them in the snow: Carl Levin , chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said that construction and staffing at a new maximum-security prison in Michigan could help his cash-starved state. "If the governor and the local officials are open to it, that's something…

The view from AEI on the coincidence that Obama will be speaking on the same issue at the same time as Cheney: The announcement of the former Veep's address went out officially from AEI on May 12, though he had been asked to give a talk a couple of weeks before. (We asked him because this is one of…

A day after Harry Reid took a hardline against the relocation of terrorists now being held at Gitmo to prisons inside the United States, FBI director Robert Mueller goes up to the Hill and shares his concerns: "The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the United…

The White House announces: Who: President Obama to Deliver Major Speech When: Thursday, May 21, 2009...10:10 AM Wonder why the president chose that time?

Ben Smith's profile today of Charles Krauthammer contains this quote from Joe Klein: "There's something tragic about him too," Klein said, referring to Krauthammer's confinement to a wheelchair, the result of a diving accident during his first year of medical school. "His work would have a lot more…

A victory for gun rights certainly helps wash down the sour taste of a credit card reform that shifts costs away from irresponsible borrowers and onto the backs of those who pay their debts on time and in full: To the frustration and discouragement of many Democrats, House and Senate lawmakers and…

A statement after my own heart from Rummy aide Keith Urbahn: The slides in the "World Intelligence Update" were prepared on a daily basis by military personnel serving on the Joint Staff, which reported to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, not the Secretary of Defense. The report was briefed…

Her next column comes tomorrow and inquiring minds are eager to hear how, precisely, the Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times columnist managed to "inadvertently lift" an entire passage from a blog post and insert it into her Sunday column. Slate's Jack Shafer credits Dowd for her quick response…

It's amazing what a little accountability will do for you: President Barack Obama's allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison next January, a top Democratic official said Tuesday. With debate looming on Obama's spending request to cover military and diplomatic…

It's amazing what Google turns up these days. Here is Haass on the Charlie Rose show in September 2003, two months after he left the administration to become president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Presumably free to speak his mind, and at a time when the war in Iraq was already going badly,…

CIA officials tell the Washington Post that the administration is making us less safe: The Obama administration's decisions to close the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, make public Justice Department memos sanctioning harsh interrogation, and ban techniques authorized by the…

It's fun watching Richard Haass preen about his vociferous "dissent" before the Iraq war: Haass says it's painful to hear the list of all the policies that he was against -- including the Iraq war and U.S. policy on Afghanistan. "I believed in diplomacy, I believe in multilateralism, I believe in…

Via the FPI Overnight Brief, Yonhap reports: North Korea executed its pointman on South Korea last year, holding him responsible for wrong predictions about Seoul's new conservative government that has ditched a decade of engagement policy toward Pyongyang, sources said Monday. Choe Sung-chol, who…

Said President Obama: We should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether they are moving in the right direction and whether the parties involved are making progress and that there's a good-faith effort to resolve differences. Leave aside how silly it is that the President seems…

And why not: Arrested Somali pirates who are now in the Netherlands on trial for their deeds say they would like to stay in the Netherlands. "It's a good life here." Suspected pirate Sayid will stand trial on Monday with four of his countrymen in the first Dutch pirate trial. "I want an education…

From the Onion: BREAKING: Pelosi Alleges CIA Failed To Tell Her Democratic Party Would Be Opposed To Waterboarding

The only thing that surprises me about this photo is that Helene Cooper isn't sitting there taking notes for her next story on Israel. She must have been just outside the shot with Chas Freeman, Rashid Khalidi and Ali Abunimah.

Andrew Breitbart writes a fantastic column today owning up to a misguided but well meaning attempt to confront some anti-war protesters. They were, as Breitbart had suspected, anti-war protesters -- they just weren't protesting the Iraq war, or the Afghanistan war, or the war on terror, or the war…

It was that kind of day-and it has been that kind of presidency: Barack Obama, moving as he wishes to move, and the world bending itself to him. That from Jon Meacham's "exclusive" interview with President Obama. What's most disturbing is that Meacham likely believes this, despite all evidence to…

Calderone gets another statement from the Times: Maureen had us correct the column online as soon as the error was brought to her attention, adding in the sourcing to Marshall's blog. We ran a correction in today's paper, referring readers to the correct version online. There is no need to do…

Maureen Dowd plagiarized (or in the parlance of the Huffington Post, "inadvertently lifted") the work of a partisan left-wing blogger, reproducing it word for word, and then offering this bizarre explanation: i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make…

Or more specifically, what is not torture. In the 1980s, Toensing started the Justice Department's Terrorism Unit where she "supervised the legality of apprehending terrorists to stand trial." Her standard, she says, was that the treatment of terrorists could not "shock the conscience of the…

When the Obama White House authorized the release of the so-called torture memos, the Washington Post report noted that the release was, at least in part, a response to criticism from the former VP, Dick Cheney: A source familiar with White House views said Obama's advisers are further convinced…

Greg Sargent gets a statement from Nancy Pelosi: We all share great respect for the dedicated men and women of the intelligence community who are deeply committed to the safety and security of the American people. My criticism of the manner in which the Bush Administration did not appropriately…

When TPM asked me for a comment on the news that my former colleague and good friend Brian Rogers was going to be working for Al Gore Alliance for Climate Protection, I couldn't help having a little fun. Here's how it got played by TPM: Earlier today, Ben Smith reported that McCain research…

James Kirchick revives an earlier, more Freemanesque, delusion from former Colin Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson. Kirchick describes Wilkerson as "a third-rate conspiracy theorist and a borderline bigot," and he pulls this quote Wilkerson gave to Robert Dreyfuss (one of Chas's most…

Not only are the Huffington Post's contributors so wealthy that they're willing to do it for free, but the people who normally do it for free, the interns, are so wealthy they're willing to pay for the chance to not edit copy for the illiterati: How bad is the job market for media types? A charity…

Warren Kozak has a great piece in the Journal on the man who "ordered the deaths of more civilians than any other man in U.S. history." Most of our readers are probably pretty familiar with LeMay's achievements, but since the left hasn't yet dragged LeMay's name through the mud in this latest round…

Lieberman sends out a statement: "I am very pleased that the President has decided that the military commissions are the proper forum to try prisoners captured on the battlefield in the war against those who attacked America. By taking this action, President Obama has reinforced that we are at war,…

Politico reports: Democrats on the House intelligence committee said Thursday that CIA officers broke the law in 2002 if they told Nancy Pelosi then that they had not yet engaged in waterboarding. "If they make a false report, absolutely it's illegal," said Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the…

I know we're supposed to have great confidence in the effects of global warming as conveyed to us by our betters in the scientific community, but it appears that the consensus view of how much sea levels would rise were Antarctica's western ice sheet to melt has just been cut in half: A new…

Last week, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District paid $75,000 for Tom Friedman to spend "about two hours with the group, including answering questions and autographing copies of his latest book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded." This week Friedman can be booked for roughly the same length of time at…

The AP headline: Pelosi says Bush team misled her on waterboarding I thought Pelosi was flailing about accusing the entire government of perpetrating a massive conspiracy (including even Jon Stewart) to make her look complicit in the policies of the Bush administration: "At the same time, the Bush…

That's what Tom Ricks claims: I am told that General Odierno's objections to the timing of the release of a new round of photos of detainees being abused in Iraq were decisive to President Obama's decision Wednesday to reverse himself and decide against the release of those photos. Ricks says this…

A bipartisan group of Senators led by Kay Bailey Hutchison has signed a letter to Senators Dorgan and Bennett, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, urging them to increase funding for a 2005 program that would provide loan guarantees for…

Our Democratic Congress moves to attach restrictions to funding for the closure of Gitmo: None of the [$50 million] could be spent until 30 days after Defense Secretary Robert Gates has provided a detailed plan for where the funds will go, according to a summary provided by a congressional source…

Dan Balz can't find a single Republican to knock the vice president on record, but he still writes a story about how Cheney's current role is making Republicans "wince." Rather, it's "Republican political strategists" who are wincing on background, keenly aware that the people who pay them are…

Republicans in the House are keeping up the pressure on Pelosi by pushing for answers about what she knew and when she knew it, emailing this report from Rick Klein (whose made it his job to jam up Pelosi on her continued backpedaling): Pelosi told reporters today that she won't answer questions on…

From his statement on the photos: He described abuses "carried out in the past by a small number of individuals." It's hard to spin this as anything but a major blow to the left's push for terrorist rights.

Dowd on May 2: This was precisely Condi's problem. She simply relayed. She never stood up against Cheney and Rummy for either what was morally right or what was smart in terms of our national security. Dowd today: W. admired Cheney's brass (he used another word) but grew increasingly skeptical of…

The senators praise Obama's decision: "We applaud the President for making the right decision for our troops and our country to fight the release of the photographs of the detainees. The publication of those photographs would only endanger the safety of our troops who go into harm's way in defense…

There's no memo that could ever justify this kind of abuse.

Obama's made a habit of reversing himself on key national security issues when the politics shift. He flipped on telecom immunity after promising to filibuster the provision. He flipped on military commissions for detainees -- or at least reports in the Washington Post and New York Times indicate…

There's a mild controversy in Philadelphia where Will Bunch, a leftist scourge at the Daily News is attacking the Inquirer for its hiring of John Yoo as a once-a-month columnist on its op-ed page. This move has pushed Bunch into hysterics, prompting him to demand that "Last Sunday's column by Yoo…

For the second time in two days we write in praise of Barack Obama. Yesterday he took the necessary step of replacing his commander in Afghanistan ahead of schedule in an attempt to regain the initiative in that war. Today we learn that the Obama administration sent a letter to the British…

Throw your boss under the bus: Interrogation Probe Should Include What Pelosi Knew, Hoyer Says House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said Tuesday that investigations into the Bush administration's use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects should look into what…

It was only a month ago that the Times exposed for all the world the existence of (gasp) a political campaign being run right out of the campaign offices of Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Today we get the second installment in the series -- the Bloomberg campaign may actually be feeding negative information…

One left-wing blogger feels it: The argument against torture is slipping away from us. In fact, I'm getting the sinking feeling that it's over. What was once taboo is now publicly acknowledged as completely acceptable by many people. Indeed, disapproval of torture is now being characterized as a…

A knowledgeable and well informed friend writes in on the change in command in Afghanistan: Earlier today, Defense Secretary Bob Gates unexpectedly announced that he had asked for the resignation of General David McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan. For most Afghan policy insiders, this…

He says he's already seen them, and he says they show Pelosi knew about and approved of the EITs: "The American people should be given the full picture on what was known and agreed to on Capitol Hill on a bipartisan basis about the enhanced interrogation program," Hoekstra said. "I think the…

Boehner: Our fight in Afghanistan is critical to the security interests of the American people, and I support the President's strategy to dismantle al Qaeda and other transnational terrorist networks and stabilize the country. I appreciate General David McKiernan's service as Commander of both our…

A little success in Afghanistan: Maftah is the first private school in Afghanistan's northern Parwan Province. But its history is brief, having opened its doors only two months ago. Enrollment fees, at $15 per month, are beyond the reach of most Afghans, but the presence of 300 children at the…

Gibbs momentarily forgets just how egregious the numbers are.

The Washington Post reports: Last October, as the Bush administration was touting a dramatic drop in the number of suicide bombings in Iraq, four young Tunisian men left their homes for Libya and then headed to Syria. There, they were met at the Damascus airport and taken to a safe house. Six…

Elliott Abrams had a must-read in the Journal Saturday on the coming White House meeting. He offers guidance on how to interpret the language, the statements, the subsequent leaks, etc. And he offers this interesting assessment of what may be the most important issue on the table next week:…

John Yoo offered some advice to the president (and hopefully nobody puts him in jail for it): With solid majorities in Congress, Obama's policies face little meaningful Republican opposition. Therefore, he should seek judges who will give the bills of his Congress as little trouble as possible,…

Taipei

"Decision Points" is not just the title of George W. Bush's memoir -- it's also the Obama administration's Gitmo strategy. Which is to say, after announcing the closure of Gitmo, the administration has, according to National Security Adviser Jim Jones, not made a single decision about how to…

Germany has almost certainly benefited more from the NATO alliance than any other country. But the Germans seem already to have forgotten what it was like to be always vulnerable to Russian aggression.The current NATO exercises in Georgia, scheduled in January of 2008, began last week and will run…

Passed to a friendly reporter at the Washington Post late on a Friday afternoon is news that President Obama will continue the system of military commissions he railed against as a candidate. The administration will make a few minor tweaks, but as Andy McCarthy points out at the Corner in a post…

Another hit from the Elena Kagan archive: an article she wrote for the Daily Princetonian a week after Ronald Reagan's victory in the 1980 election. The final graph of that piece contains her hope that the 1984 election will bring in a "more leftist left" than the Carter administration: Looking…

The Post reports that Obama's address to the Muslim world will be made in Cairo, not Indonesia as was first expected. It's a shame the President didn't have the courage to make his speech from the capital of a free and democratic Iraq. Indonesia, too, is a vibrant democracy. But Cairo is the heart…

Greg Sargent reports: GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra is upping the stakes of the torture fight in response to Nancy Pelosi's claims that she wasn't briefed on the use of waterboarding. His office tells me that he's seen documents that will prove this isn't true. Hoekstra spokesperson Jamal Ware says that…

That's the suggestion in this latest piece in the Hill: Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the top Republican on House Intelligence, in an interview Friday said the document proves that Pelosi knew waterboarding occurred but has denied is because of political pressure from the liberal base of her party.…

The environmentalists aren't going to be happy about this, but Obama has sided with the Bush administration and decided to "uphold a George W. Bush-era rule under the Endangered Species Act that prevents linking greenhouse gas emissions from facilities to degradation of the polar bear's habitat,…

Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin add some more depth to the story of Jim Jones' difficult transition to the job of National Security Adviser and the dueling profiles that came out this week in what seems, at least to the authors, like an administration effort to bolster the general's standing in the…

According to the CIA, Pelosi was briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) that were used on Abu Zubaydah. Pelosi's defenders are parsing the report, asking whether this includes waterboarding, which is mentioned specifically as it relates to other briefings but not for the briefing…

Debra Burlingame, the director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation, has an op-ed in today's Journal. At a White House meeting shortly after his inauguration, the president promised Burlingame and others whose family members had been killed by al Qaeda that there would be "swift and…

Pelosi on April 23, parsing the difference between whether the techniques could be used or would be used: "In that or any other briefing…we were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that…

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) spoke at AEI this morning on the Obama administration's defense budget and his concern that it reflects "the wrong budget priorities for our country. Cornyn said that "when you look at the Administration's blueprints for both the base budget and the supplemental, you see…

When the best the left can come up with in response to the growing opposition to closing Gitmo and moving the terrorist to a neighborhood near you is the absurd suggestion that the GOP is, by extension, disparaging corrections officers... ON GUANTANAMO, GOP DISPARAGES MEN AND WOMEN WHO KEEP OUR…

Republicans pounce on a ridiculous statement by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): "I think we can use the Uniform Code of Military Justice in the military courts which are very much a home-court advantage and we can held up to the rest of the world that we're giving these detainees the same due process we…

It's a great name for a bill, and it will make great fodder for 2010 campaign ads -- who wants to be the guy who voted against keeping terrorists out of America? The bill was announced at a press conference this morning with the ranking members of each House committee present. It would require the…

The Danger Room reports on the nomination of Tara O'Toole as DHS under secretary for science and technology: "This is a disastrous nomination. O'Toole supported every flawed decision and counterproductive policy on biodefense, biosafety, and biosecurity during the Bush Administration," Rutgers…

In hockey it's called the third-man-in rule -- the third man in to any fight gets thrown out of the game. I was never a fan of that rule. If your teammate needs help in a fight -- even if he started it -- you're pretty much expected to join in. So it's not surprising that Rasmussen found:…

You know you've got a problem when John Kerry is calling your approach to the world weak and feckless. Yet that's precisely where Congressman David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, now finds himself. On Monday, Obey suggested that President Obama had a year to turn around…

Those who were concerned that a former four-star general might not be a great fit for the job of National Security Adviser, which is essentially a staff job, will have their fears confirmed in two profiles of Jim Jones today -- one in the New York Times and the other in the Washington Post. From…

I always knew he was with us: "I usually side with the minority, so my sympathy would be more the Republican side" -- the Dalai Lama, to the NY state Senate

Josh Rogin, who covered the cybersecurity beat for FCW before becoming the defense reporter for CQ, knows this issue as well as anyone. Yesterday he dropped a major piece on the growing cyber threat from China, which is in "constant attack mode" and almost certainly responsible for the "dramatic…

A majority of Americans approve of waterboarding and oppose investigations into the Bush administration's use of such techniques according to a new poll from CNN. The report: A new national poll indicates that most Americans don't want to see an investigation of Bush administration officials who…

Republicans send around this NIMBY Gitmo story featuring a quote from Senator Max Baucus (D-MT): "I understand the need to create jobs, but we're not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country - no way, not on my watch," said Sen. Max Baucus, a Democrat. Meanwhile, Harry Reid is demanding specifics…

Jonathan Chait writes: First, there's no such thing as a government policy of "torturing terrorists. " There's only a policy of torturing people the government thinks are terrorists. Many of the suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, subjected to agonizing stress positions, turned out not to be…

Eli Lake has another big scoop: President Obama's efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel's nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists…

Earlier this week, President Obama called Republican Senator Orrin Hatch to discuss the vacancy on the Court left by Justice Souter. According to Hatch's office, the president "assured Hatch...that he would appoint a pragmatist, not a radical, to this important position." Among the names considered…

Washington Whispers reports and Marc Morano sends it around: He admits that it's counterintuitive, but Gallup Poll Editor Frank Newport says he sees no evidence that Al Gore's campaign against global warming is winning. "It's just not caught on," says Newport. "They have failed." Or, more bluntly:…

AFP reports: A US senator said Tuesday he would soon introduce legislation aimed at blocking the release on US soil of any detainees currently held at the Guantanamo Bay facility for suspected terrorists. "I intend to introduce legislation in the next few days to make sure that we establish a…

From the CQ blog: In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) said he hopes Norm Coleman (R) prevails in his Senate recount court fight against Al Franken (D) in Minnesota. Said Specter: "There's still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm…

The New York Times, which discussed the Taliban's military strategy with a "logistics tactician" for the group "over six months of interviews," gets a quote describing U.S. drone strikes as extremely effective: The one thing that impressed him were the missile strikes by drones - virtually the only…

The Hill reports: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) is the most partisan Democrat in the House, while her deputy, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), is one of the most bipartisan lawmakers in the lower chamber, according to a survey conducted by The Hill.... Pelosi has developed a reputation for…

Statement from the Office of Senator Orrin Hatch: In a phone conversation today, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) urged President Obama against choosing a judicial activist for the Supreme Court vacancy. He advised the president to choose a nominee who is more in step with mainstream America and would…

Andrew Malcolm posts the video: Now, thanks to the ubiquitous cameras of C-SPAN, comes official videoed word from Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to the President for Arts and Culture and a key White House for Disability Policy. At the 1:51 mark of this video Dale candidly reveals the new GCA…

A friend suggests a series called: "Who said it: Weiner, Rahm, or Ari Gold?" "Hey, I got my name on my tie," Weiner said, pulling the deep-blue garment from inside his coat. Given to him by an Annapolis grad, the tie was embossed with large gold "N." See that N," said Weiner. "It stands for Not to…

Barack Obama on April 29, 2009: We have rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals, by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and banning torture without exception. The Washington Times five days later: House Democratic leaders Monday dropped President Obama's request for…

Just eleven days according to General Ataollah Salehi, general commander of the Iranian army: "The truth is that Israel does not have the courage to attack us. If we are subjected to any attack by Israel, I do not think we will need more than 11 days to wipe Israel out of existence."

Fox News reports: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday he is "gravely concerned" about the "crisis" Pakistan is facing as Taliban militants fight their way past the army toward the capital of Islamabad. Adm. Mike Mullen, who visited Pakistan and Afghanistan last week, added that…

Jeffrey Rosen gets some negative feedback: Over the past few weeks, I've been talking to a range of people who have worked with her, nearly all of them former law clerks for other judges on the Second Circuit or former federal prosecutors in New York. Most are Democrats and all of them want…

Also, Ben Smith has a story up examining expectations for the relationship between Netanyahu and Obama: Speaking to some 6,500 assembled for the conference, Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned of "the potential for a deep disagreement…

Jen Rubin has a write up of the speech here and you can see video of the speech here. Some key quotes: The essence of his address was a refutation of the engagement approach to Iran. He bluntly stated, "We need to recognize that there are some regimes we will never be able to cut a deal with…

Noah Shachtman reports: Iranian aircraft attacked three villages inside Iraq over the weekend. The airstrikes - Iran's first on Iraqi soil since the U.S. invasion - could complicate the Obama administration's efforts to normalize relations with Tehran. "The bombardments appeared to have targeted…

From this morning on Fox News Sunday: KRISTOL: You know, just thinking about -- Juan called him a football player, which reminds me of a story. Joanne Kemp, his wife, a wonderful woman, took one of the daughters, I think, to the Senate gallery, and Jack was giving a speech on economic policy.…

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I rarely read her column but since this one triggered my Weekly Standard Google alert... Has Dowd given up on doing her own research -- or even staying informed on current events -- in favor of listening "raptly when President Obama plays the constitutional law professor"? Dowd tells her readers…

Ben Smith asks the White House about a borderline legible and obviously classified document that appeared in the White House photo feed. The response he got from Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "Uh oh. Please don't tell me that the enemy is now going to know what our fax coversheets look like. (That…

To his credit, Jon Stewart acknowledges how "stupid" and "dumb" it was to accuse Harry Truman of war crimes his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan. As we noted yesterday, the charge came in the middle of an interview with Cliff May, head of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,…

His first priority for a Supreme Court nominee remains "empathy," which translates into someone who will help the court "stand up" for the murky and vaguely communist concept of "social and economic justice" as David Axelrod once put it. It's not enough to interpret the laws correctly, Obama's…

Via Ben Smith: The White House has subtly shifted from supporting repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' to backing "changing Don't Ask Don't Tell in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security."

Our nation's most precious cargo will be in an enclosed space for a solid nine hours: The Vice President will travel to Southeastern Europe the week of May 18th and visit Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo. During the visit, the Vice President will meet with the political leadership in all…

Yesterday we posted the text of the letter, which calls on Secretary Gates to maintain production of the F-22 and the C-17 "until the final publication of the next Mobility Capabilities Study and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review can be reviewed and studied." The push-back is being organized by…

Andy McCarthy was invited to participate in the President's Task Force on Detention Policy, but as he explains in a letter to AG Holder, he will not be used as a prop, and he fears giving his unvarnished advice to the President only to be prosecuted later for suggesting a course of action the left…

An unusually long column today from Krauthammer that makes several important points. First off, it's all well and good to hold a deep and principled objection to torture, but "you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation." Second,…

ABC runs a report showing the names and faces of two CIA contractors who may have had a role in the waterboarding of KSM and Abu Zubaydah. The network apparently outsourced this report to a freelancer named Matthew Cole, whose record in Nexis includes just three bylines -- two stories for Salon…

J Street has drawn a line in the sand: you're either with the President or against him. There's only one problem. J Street, accidentally one imagines, have put themselves in the against him camp. Ami Eden has the story at JTA, where he notes a statement the pro-peace, pro-Palestinian group put out…

President Obama invoked Winston Churchill last night as an example of a leader who refused to resort to torture no matter the threat. Obama said he "was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British during World War II, when London was being bombed to…

Tonight President Obama said he was "absolutely convinced" that he had made the right decision in putting an end to the use of the harsh interrogation techniques employed by the Bush administration. After eight years of President Bush, it certainly is refreshing to have a leader who doesn't let…

It comes at about the 5:50 mark. Cliff May asks Stewart whether Truman's use of the atomic bomb was a war crime, Stewart ruminates and then responds with an unequivocal "yes." He's certainly not the only American who would take that view, but it's a useful reminder that the most vocal and popular…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has obtained a letter now circulating among members of the Senate and calling for Secretary Gates to maintain production lines for both the F-22 and the C-17 "until the final publication of the next Mobility Capability Study and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review." The push…

The New York Times reports: President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan announced on Wednesday that Beijing officials had dropped their objections to Taiwan's participation as an observer at a United Nations body, a step forward in Taiwan's effort to win greater international recognition.... Mao Qunan, the…

First, some credit to President Obama. The AP reports: Australia announced Wednesday it will increase by almost one half its troops in Afghanistan to about 1,550 as part of the U.S.-led surge of international forces to bolster the faltering fight against Taliban insurgents. Prime Minister Kevin…

Joseph Abrams reports for Fox: The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The "183 times" was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world. It was…

Between Arlen Specter, swine flu, and runaway trucks, it's hard to remember those quaint issues of yesterday like Iran trying to get a nuclear weapon. Nonetheless, they still are - and a few people are still trying to stop them. The Bayh-Lieberman-Kyl legislation was introduced today with a quarter…

The boss says Specter's defection is good news: I wonder if today's Arlen Specter party switch, this time to the president's party, won't end up being bad for President Obama and the Democrats. With the likely seating of Al Franken from Minnesota, Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate, giving…

You know you're in trouble when you start a sentence with "as bad as the Nazis were." Another sure sign you're headed in the wrong direction is when you must stipulate from the outset that you don't know what you're talking about, as in "I'm no military historian, but..." Today Christopher Orr, the…

The New York Sun is back, or at least the editorial page is. The editors write in response to Ross Douthat's first column in the Times: "Cheney for President" is the headline today over the first column by the New York Times's newest op-ed regular, Ross Douthat - a delightful debut suggesting that,…

Joe Klein can't believe that the editors of the Los Angeles Times would allow someone as "overwhelmingly limited" as Jamie Kirchick to criticize Barack Obama in their pages. In particular, Kirchick's limitation seems to be a failure to grasp the moral imperative that all nations be treated equally:…

Joe Klein can't believe that the editors of the Los Angeles Times would allow someone as "overwhelmingly limited" as Jamie Kirchick to criticize Barack Obama in their pages. In particular, Kirchick's limitation seems to be his Klein writes that because of the unilateralism and warmongering of the…

New York Times reporter Brian Stelter puts on a clinic this morning with a front-page story about John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who claimed in a 2007 interview with ABC (available here) that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah "disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks." Kiriakou…

Quoth Allahpundit: Next Obama "photo op": An unannounced overflight of Pearl Harbor by 200 or so unmarked fighter/bombers.

Jamie Kirchick writes in the Los Angeles Times: At a stop on his grand global apology tour this spring, President Obama was asked by a reporter in France if he believed in "American exceptionalism." This is the notion that our history as the world's oldest democracy, our immigrant founding and our…

With Iran sanctions legislation pending in Congress, Iran's nuclear program continuing to draw headlines, and U.S. Iran envoy Dennis Ross headed to the Persian Gulf to attempt to assuage concerns about negotiations with Iran, the folks at AEI have set up a useful website for tracking the latest…

A majority of Americans (55%) say that the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques was "justified," which according to the nattering nabobs of the net-left means that more than half of all Americans are un-American torture apologists. I was struck by a line in Paul Krugman's…

Joementum delivered a speech at AEI this afternoon previewing new bipartisan legislation for tighter sanctions on Iran specifically targeting the country's dependence on imports of refined petroleum products. The full text of the speech is after the jump, but the key excerpt: To be clear, I am not…

Politico's Patrick O'Connor has a story up today on the early delays in climate change legislation in the House. O'Connor quotes John Dingell, who was unceremoniously pushed aside as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year, calling for a more transparent regulatory scheme:…

Over the weekend I caught the latest episode of the FX series Rescue Me, which features a discussion of PNAC, the defunct think-tank at the heart of so many conspiracy theories about the Bush administration. The scene features one of the show's characters explaining that 9/11 was an inside job --…

In case you missed it yesterday, Jordan's King Abdullah appeared on Meet the Press where he accused the United States of engaging in torture and praised Barack Obama for the transparency with which his administration was dealing with Bush-era interrogation techniques. Gregory, to his credit, notes…

The Los Angeles Times reports: Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration, already on treacherous political ground because of its outreach to traditional adversaries such as Iran and Cuba, has opened the door a crack to engagement with the militant group Hamas. The Palestinian group is…

Ben Smith digs up an amazing video from the Obama archives: Samantha Power appealing to the Armenian community on behalf of her candidate in February 2008. Power praises Obama's "forthright statement" on the Armenian genocide, tells us he's never afraid to "call a spade a spade" and assures us that…

So Obama has broken another campaign promise. As a candidate, Obama pledged in no uncertain terms to call the Armenian genocide just that. The statement that appeared on his campaign website: "The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely…

Following up on Joe Klein's statement against interest yesterday regarding the apparently tenuous position of Jim Jones as National Security Adviser, Laura Rozen also hears that Jones isn't exactly meshing with the rest of the Obama team: Several sources have in recent weeks described Jones as…

When you rely on somebody named "emptywheel" for your news, you're unlikely to get a straight story. But when emptywheel "reported" that KSM had been waterboarded 183 times, he/she failed to convey what precisely that meant. In response, Cliff May reports the rules of waterboarding: According to…

On the front page of today's Washington Post we can see the outline of what may become a devastating narrative for the Obama administration and the left. Yesterday's brutal attacks in Iraq, which left more than 80 dead, are tied directly to President Obama's push for a hasty withdrawal: Two large…

The Washington Post's front-page report on internal deliberations over the release of the top-secret memos detailing Bush-era interrogation techniques notes that one of the Obama administration's primary motivations was entirely political: A source familiar with White House views said Obama's…

That's what we ought to call the men and women who interrogated the worst of the worst. For those most committed to the ridiculous crusade for terrorist rights, "enhanced interrogation" is not only immoral and illegal, it's ineffective. That argument, like Khalid Sheik Mohamed, doesn't hold water.…

In the most daring piece of journalism since FDR was elected, Joe Klein writes about how Obama is the greatest president since Caesar and has accomplished more in his first 100 days than God did in seven, but amidst the fawning and preening and numerous synonyms for stupendous comes one interesting…

Bill Sweetman reports at Aviation Week's Ares blog that U.S. demands that the Netherlands uphold their obligation to purchase two Joint Strike Fighter test aircraft this year may well bring down the current government. The Defense Minister has made his case to the Dutch Parliament in favor of the…

Barack Obama used to rail against the use, and misuse, of supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Except now he's submitted his own supplemental and it looks an awful lot like the Bush supplementals. Nathan Hodge details some of the more questionable items. Among them, four more…

CNN covers the bow:

A few weeks ago CQ reporter Josh Rogin noted the discrepancy between statements by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair on the question of whether Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon. Mullen takes the view that they obviously are…

As late as Friday last week, few in Washington had any idea that the Obama administration was going to end production of the F-22. The administration had defended hundreds of millions of dollars to re-sod the national mall as part of their stimulus spending, who would've thought they would halt…

Roger Cohen continues his credulous defense of the Iranian regime today in the pages of the New York Times, alleging that Israel has "cried wolf" over the threat, and the imminence, of a nuclear Iran. Cohen assures us that Iran will not obtain a nuclear weapon for at least "a couple of years,"…

Remember when candidate Obama said "Presidents need to be able to do more than one thing at a time." It would be nice if we had a president like that -- a president who could deal with, say, pirates and housing issues at the same time. Instead we have Barack Obama:

Ben Smith appears to be the first reporter to ask the White House why Barack Obama bowed before the King of Saudi Arabia, a violation of more than two centuries of tradition and protocol holding that American presidents never bow before royalty. The answer the White House gave Smith: "It wasn't a…

Liberal poll watcher Nate Silver takes exception to my statement that "Democrats in Congress will be hard pressed to side with the District [of Columbia's] Council on gay marriage when such measures have been soundly rejected in solid blue states like California." As evidence he produces some…

Rand Beers has been nominated to serve as undersecretary for National Protection and Programs in the Department of Homeland Security. Beers has a long history in government, but resigned in 2003 to protest the invasion of Iraq. He subsequently served as an adviser to the Kerry campaign and in 2008…

That's how Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt describe the result of decisions by the Obama administration to terminate the F-22, reduce the size of the Navy's surface fleet, "restructure" the Army's Future Combat Systems, and gut missile defense. The announcement that the Air Force's procurement of…

This may be an ongoing series: US Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday the new Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be "ill-advised" to attack Iran, but stressed that it was unlikely to do so. "I don't believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that. I think he would…

Israeli missile defense system not so unproven or untested. Being President Obama means always having to say you're sorry. Chas Freeman finally finds his audience. Rahm fu**ed up. Anne Applebaum and Bill Kristol mind-meld on Obama's talk of a world without nukes.

The champion of climate change realists blasts the Obama administration for cutting the defense budget in a time of war, which amounts in his words to "a budget to disarm America." Inhofe makes clear that he'll be using his seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee to push back on the announced…

The District of Columbia's Council voted today to recognize gay marriages performed in other states, setting Republicans on the Hill up for a great opportunity to hit an issue that polls well. As the Washington Post puts it, "The unanimous vote sets the stage for future debate on legalizing…

Lieberman puts out a statement (in addition to yesterday's letter on missile defense) hitting Gates over cuts to FCS and other modernization programs. Joe wants more troops and he wants them to have equipment, too. Obama campaigned on increasing the Army's end strength and vowed "a sacred…

The New York Times has an earth-shattering report today uncovering the existence of a massive political campaign being run by the city's mayor right under the noses of regular New Yorkers. The paper accuses Michael Bloomberg of push-polling, or rather it allows others to make the allegation and…

The Center for American Progress concedes "the fact that Obama briefly bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia." Nobody there is terribly troubled by it, but just the fact that they are willing to concede it happened seems like kind of a big deal. I don't read too much into the bow, but it's the…

Contrary to early reports quoting sources close to DoD's budgeting process, Secretary Gates announced today that the Obama administration plans to terminate production of the F-22 this year, capping the total number of aircraft at just 183. Ending production of the F-22, a far more capable air…

Jackson Diehl asks if Obama is pragmatic or just weak. TNR's Sahil Mahtani assembles some Nork propaganda giving us our sentence of the day: "Saying that our army, which is playing a key and leading role in kindling the flame of a great revolutionary upswing, is performing miracles and…

When Obama bowed before the Saudi King, it was only slightly more unseemly than Bush's romantic, hand-in-hand walk with the same monarch, but unlike Bush's bromance with Abdullah, Obama violated protocol. American presidents do not bow before foreign dignitaries, whether they are princes, kings, or…

The effort to scuttle Chris Hill's appointment as Ambassador to Iraq has been spearheaded by Senator Sam Brownback, who claims that Chris Hill lied to him, and by extension the United States Senate, in hearings last summer on the course of the Six Party talks. On Friday Brownback, along with…

The arms control expert has an op-ed on the Nork missile test: North Korea's thinly disguised missile test violates U.N. resolutions and should be condemned. But it is not a serious threat to the United States, nor does it justify a crash program to deploy an expensive, unproven anti-missile…

Tomorrow's Washington Post column goes online today: In Prague on Sunday, President Obama committed his administration to putting us on a "trajectory" towards "a world without nuclear weapons." Of course, we had a world without nuclear weapons not so long ago -- say, in 1939. The war that began in…

Republican Senators Murkowski, Sessions, Inhofe, and Kyl joined Democratic Senators Lieberman and Begich in sending a letter to President Obama calling on him "to sustain the ability of the Missile Defense Agency and the military services to develop an integrated, layered defense against the threat…

Newt, defender of Western civilization, continues his assault on the administration: The U.S. is at greater risk of terrorist attack because of the Obama administration's actions, Newt Gingrich said Monday. In a chat with POLITICO readers, Gingrich also called the administration's response to the…

Our friend Tom Cotton, currently serving in Afghanistan, emailed us his thoughts on this article in the Washington Post describing a public ceremony honoring our fallen at Dover Air Force Base: The article quotes soldiers in my home unit, Charlie Company of The Old Guard, about a ceremony known as…

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says he was the one who woke the president at 4:30 a.m. yesterday. Michael Crowley wonders whether the president needed to be disturbed at all. I'm struck that it fell to Gibbs to wake the boss up. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel would presumably be the first to get the…

WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor Reuel Marc Gerecht sends an email to Jeffrey Goldberg in response to a post that sought to clarify just what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meant when he threatened to wipe Israel off the map: It matters not whether it's from a map or from our memories, it's the verb that…

You can read about the mayor in 12 languages, including Haitian Creole, Hindi, Arabic, and Yiddish. The site also features a blog by Howard Wolfson. Wolfson's first entry is about the political diversity of the staffers hired for the Bloomberg reelect: On most campaigns this exercise is similiar --…

Just days after Chinese warships harrased an unarmed U.S. naval vessel, the USNS Impeccable, in international waters off the coast of China, Barack Obama's Secretary of Defense is set to announce massive cuts to the U.S. naval fleet. Just days before the expected launch of a North Korean missile in…

On March 31, Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn-in as Israel's new Prime Minister. His speech to the Knesset has garnered much attention here but it provides some additional insight into just what his return to power will mean for the peace process and for the standoff over Iran's nuclear weapons.…

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I don't often weigh into health care issues on this blog because I don't understand the subject well enough. Sometimes I get the sense that bloggers who do write frequently on the subject also don't understand it well enough to offer any real informed commentary. As a test case I sent the following…

Contrary to what you might have read in other publications, Chris Hill's appointment as Ambassador to Iraq remains stalled by Senator Sam Brownback, as it has been from the outset. Leadership is expected to bring the nomination to the floor today, but Brownback will object as Republicans continue…

An amusing exchange from yesterday's SASC hearing with General Petraeus: MCCAIN: General Petraeus, an individual who is, I understand, a young Taliban leader named Masood. PETRAEUS: Baitullah Masood, Pakistani Taliban leader. MCCAIN: He said that he would orchestrate -- he would arrange an attack,…

The names may have changed, but the U.S. government is still serving up the same great neocon policies that kept the country safe for the last seven years. The New York Times says that "for all the shifting words, Mr. Obama has left the bulk of Mr. Bush's national security architecture intact so…

Speaking of neocon sleeper cells, Eli Lake reported yesterday that "U.S. military, intelligence and financial specialists are continuing to target the finances and operatives of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in part to gain leverage for diplomacy, U.S. officials and analysts say."' Is this the work…

It's April Fool's Day, and the country is consumed by news that President Obama gave the Queen of England an iPod. What little news there is out of Iraq seems to be bad news. The New York Times reports that Iraqi militants are showing "new boldness" in their campaign of terror, which "like bubbles…

Only Sy Hersh believes that neocon sleeper cells are controlling U.S. foreign policy, but yesterday's launch of the Foreign Policy Initiative has captured the imagination of several writers. The New Yorker's George Packer wrote that FPI was the "ideological descendant" of the Project for the New…

The letter (available here) is signed by all 41 GOP senators. They urge House and Senate leadership (and the Chairmen and ranking House and Senate Budget Committee members) not to use budget reconciliation in the healthcare process and that doing so would "make it difficult, if not impossible, to…

Carl Levin warned today that the "Pentagon budget will include large, painful cuts." At least that was the paraphrase from the AP. It's not yet clear what weapons systems may be on the chopping block, but as John McCain said at today's inaugural FPI conference, the Obama administration is going to…

Sy Hersh "reports" on NPR: HERSH: I'll make it worse. I think [Cheney's] put people left. He's put people back. They call it a stay behind. It's sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you've driven out the, you know, you've lost the war. You leave people…

Chas Freeman last month: "The Taliban is not a direct military threat to the United States." The headline in today's Los Angeles Times: Pakistan's Taliban leader threatens attacks in the U.S. So how would a "contrarian" like Freeman assess this report if he were, as Blair still wishes, head of the…

Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) weighs in on the fight over Chris Hill's appointment at his Foreign Intrigue blog: Senator Sam Brownback is leading the opposition to Hill's nomination. Brownback feels that Hill misled him during congressional testimony last year about pressing North Korea on human rights,…

The few discussions I've had with Israeli officials, I've always been amazed at the gap between our understanding of the threat from a nuclear Iran and theirs. For instance, I've heard numerous Israeli officials describe Iran as deterrable. One Israeli nuclear official suggested that while the…

Joe Klein writes in a post titled "Terror's Next Wave": Our enemies may have increased motivation now that President Obama has focused on the Taliban safe havens in Northwest Pakistan, and has also decided to put increased pressure on Pakistan--especially its Army and intelligence services--to stop…

Is corruption better if it's transparent? "If I'm corrupt, it's because I take care of my district," Mr. Murtha said.

Tomorrow he will be sworn in as Prime Minister of Israel -- for the second time. With that in mind, a glimpse of how, more than 30 years ago, he saw the same problems he will contend with as Prime Minister. The description from YouTube: 28-year old Benyamin Netanyahu, calling himself Ben Nitay,…

The state is considering a law that would allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus. The quintessential liberal reaction from Karen Tumulty: Nearly spit out my coffee when I saw this one down at the bottom of A21 of the New York Times. According to the AP, there isn't a single state in…

The video below is the subject of some controversy. It appears to show Chinese police beating Tibetan prisoners during last year's protests. The Chinese government claims the video is a fake, and shut down access to YouTube for some time last week in order to prevent access to the tape. The tape…

It's tough to keep fit when you smoke a pack a day, start drinking cocktails in the early afternoon, and subsist on a steady diet of red meat and Golden Oreos, so after last year's historic election, I felt like maybe it was time for some change. My goal wasn't necessarily to "stay fit" (the moment…

Gates says "a flourishing democracy in Afghanistan" remains the long-term goal, but in the short-term the administration will focus on "making headway and reversing the Taliban's momentum and strengthening the Afghan army and police, and really going after Al Qaeda as the President said." Holbrooke…

Some conservatives have been cheered by the announcement of Obama's Afghanistan policy (see Kristol and Kagan) but Tom Donnelly criticizes the counternarcotics component of the strategy in a post below, John McCain told the Washington Times that Obama's plan was "not enough," and a Republican…

The video from the Huffington Post: But buried within the hours of debate in the Senate on Thursday is an exchange you'd be more likely to hear in a locker room than a congressional hearing. Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) was on the receiving end of this one, after telling Sen.…

The letter is signed by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Chairman of Armed Services, and the Chairman of the House Intel Committee. It's a serious group of people, and they warn Obama: Engagement must be serious and credible, but it cannot be…

Bob Kagan weighs in on Obama's speech: Hats off to President Obama for making a gutsy and correct decision on Afghanistan.... It is also evidence that the president is pragmatic in the best sense of the word. He and his key advisers, such as Richard Holbrooke, understand that better and more…

I asked the boss for a reaction to the Afghan speech. He said he would have framed a few things differently, but his basic response was: "All hail Obama!"

Last week Politico's Michael Calderone wrote a piece about the left-wing "Journo-list" listserv set up by the American Prospect's Ezra Klein. There are several hundred members, including left-wing bloggers, mainstream reporters, members of the administration, and their hangers-on. The…

Mike Allen quotes an administration official on Obama's new Afghanistan policy to be announced tomorrow: President Barack Obama plans to announce an escalation in Afghanistan in a speech at the White House on Friday morning, committing 4,200 more troops and hundreds more civilians, and embracing a…

Via Abe Greenwald, anti-semitic propaganda now appearing in the Washington Post...

Ash Carter, Barack Obama's nominee for Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, was on the Hill today answering questions about his qualifications to serve as the Pentagon's top weapons buyer. Carter has no real experience in this field, as John McCain kindly pointed out for the committee. But…

Just in time for Obama's Afghanistan speech, a new report has been released on the war in Afghanistan: The addition of 17,000 U.S. combat troops and military support personnel by summer 2009-bringing U.S. troops to 55,000, their highest level to date-may be sufficient to freeze the security…

The gun-grabbers are at it again, or at least they were until Eric Holder's call for a new assault weapons ban ran into a wall of bipartisan opposition in Congress. The administration told him to pipe down and talk of an assault weapons ban has died with it. But the coverage of all this is amusing.…

It's been more than ten years since Bill Clinton order strikes against the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in response to the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Then the United States was acting on information that tied Sudan to both al Qaeda, which was said to be using the…

Senator Brownback took to the floor of the Senate today to tell his colleagues, and the president, "I do not acquiesce to this nomination." That would be the nomination of Chris Hill to serve as Ambassador to Iraq. This is likely to catch some on the left by surprise, as both Petraeus and Odierno…

Eric Fingerhut reports: Seventeen Jewish organizations are among 32 faith-based groups which have signed a letter to Congress opposing "in the strongest terms" any amendment to the Washington, D.C. voting rights bill that would "undermine the District's ability to regulate firearms." The letter,…

Washington's newest think-tank, the Foreign Policy Initiative, will be hosting an event next week titled "Afghanistan: Planning for Success." The timing couldn't be better as Obama plans to unveil his plan for Afghanistan this Friday. Speakers at the conference include Bob Kagan, John Nagl, Lt.…

Ben Smith reports: Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is "open" to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar, but which Geithner described as more…

The boss notes that during tonight's press conference Obama seemed to have dropped the audacity that characterized his campaign rhetoric in favor of a new incrementalism and persistence on everything from the economy to energy to education. Obama also said he was only seeking "steady progress" in…

J Street exists because its organizers believed it was "time for the broad, sensible mainstream of pro-Israel American Jews and their allies to challenge those on the extreme right who claim to speak for all American Jews in the national debate about Israel and the Middle East--and who, through the…

Ted Bromund writes at Contentions: ...a friend pointed out an interesting item in the February 26, 2009, New York Review of Books: a petition calling on the U.S. to withdraw immediately and totally from Afghanistan. One signatory, predictably, was Norman Finkelstein. Another, equally predictably,…

Apparently they still haven't shown up in Washington: Pressed Monday on the button incident, [Clinton aide Philippe] Reines denied that he'd ever blamed McFaul, and sent over a joking statement taking responsibility for the gaffe. "Ultimotely [sic], this was my soul [sic] risponsibility [sic],…

I saw this last night, and I'm surprised there's not more of a stir about it. The war on terror is from this day forward to be referred to as an "Overseas Contingency Operation." It's an interesting choice of words. According to Wikipedia: In philosophy and logic, contingency is the status of…

Harold Hongju Koh, dean of the Yale Law School and a vocal critic of the Bush administration, has been nominated as legal adviser to the State Department. It's an odd pick by the administration, if only because of Koh's view that the war in Iraq was not only wrong, but a violation of international…

According to Richard Holbrooke, Richard Holbrooke is essentially this country's top diplomat -- Hillary Clinton is merely his "pupil. This despite the fact that Holbrooke has hit the trifecta of shady business dealings over the last few years: a member of AIG's board with more than $800,000 in…

Eli Lake reports that Senator Sam Brownback is committed to "doing everything I can to hold up" Christopher Hill's appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Yesterday the Pentagon put Petraeus and Odierno on the record in support of that appointment in a move that seemed orchestrated to avoid another…

While President Obama laid an egg with his crack about the Special Olympics last night, it's worth watching this video that Governor Palin taped just a few weeks ago and which was shown during the 2009 Special Olympics in Boise. Right now President Palin is sounding pretty good, and it's not like…

He was on the board of AIG from 2001 to 2008, leaving just two months before the company imploded but not before executives had set the bonuses that have sparked bipartisan outrage. He received more than $100,000 in compensation annually, but according to the White House, "Mr. Holbrooke had nothing…

Laura Rozen has the Pentagon going on the record in support of Chris Hill's nomination, dealing a serious blow to the campaign against his appointment. Brownback can fight it, but now he's fighting Crocker, Petraeus and Odierno. Too bad. A friend writes: Chris Hill's gonna get rolled by Iran like a…

As the Obama administration completes its strategic review, it's no secret that some Democrats in Congress and the Administration are suddenly growing nervous about actually committing resources to, what not so long ago, they insisted was "the war we must win." One of the favorite talking points of…

Like every other office in America, THE WEEKLY STANDARD is busy putting the final touches on the brackets for our NCAA pool. This year, however, we've added a new wrinkle: An entry into the pool for President Obama, reflecting his picks. The only question is: What do we do with the pot if President…

You can't stop her, you can only hope to contain her: Images of wolves being hunted from the air were one of the more macabre entries in the presidential campaign, and now Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is at odds with the federal government over wolf hunting. The National Parks Service has complained…

The Washington Post: Russia Signaling Interest in Deal on Iran, Analysts Say And the Associated Press: Reports: Russia confirms Iran missile contract The deal the Washington Post refers to in the headline, in case you're wondering, was a deal with the United States on managing Iran -- not a deal to…

Josh Rogin gauges the opposition to Chris Hill's nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and gets some choice quotes from Senator Sam Brownback, who is leading the charge against the appointment: Brownback, who spearheaded the letter, said in an interview that he is considering placing a…

Josh Rogin reports for CQ (subscribers only): President Obama's soon-to-be-released Afghanistan strategy places too much emphasis on Pakistan, endangering the chances that the plan will succeed, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said in an…

The signatories include Senators Ensign, Brownback, Bond, Kyl, and Inhofe, though interestingly no Republican from the Foreign Relations Committee. The complaints echo those made by Senators Graham and McCain last week, mainly that Christopher Hill, nominee for the post of US Ambassador to Iraq,…

As we approach the three two month mark, a quick tally of the Obama administration's foreign policy accomplishments: Mexico now has sanctions against the US for NAFTA violations, the Colombia FTA is on ice, the EU is outraged at trade protectionist, buy-America provisions signed into law by Obama,…

Obama will be the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1885 to skip the dinner during his first year in office. As one friend said in an email, "For all the media did to get President Obama elected last year, showing up every day to help his candidacy, you would think the least he could do…

Noah Pollak writes: Andrew Sullivan flags an aside from my last post in which I refer to the American Conservative as being un-American and un-conservative. I wonder if Andrew feels a similar incredulity at the headline of Pat Buchanan’s latest column: “UnAmerican Activities: The Israeli Lobby's…

Throwing skilled workers out of a job in the middle of a deep recession... ...Gates is preparing the most far-reaching changes in the Pentagon's weapons portfolio since the end of the Cold War, according to aides. Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Gates will…

From the new issue of (where else?) the American Conservative, which features Freeman on the cover: As for himself, at 66, having severed his institutional connections, Freeman has a chance to "redefine myself." He doesn't expect to have any role in government, directly or indirectly, "but one…

And the left goes nuts. Ben Smith has the quote: "We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I use my fingers as quotation marks, is part of the cooling process." This statement is true, no matter what the anti-science global warming folks say. Find…

Who said it couldn't work? Dramatic advances in public attitudes are sweeping Iraq, with declining violence, rising economic well-being and improved services lifting optimism, fueling confidence in public institutions and bolstering support for democracy. The gains in the latest ABC News/BBC/NHK…

In his February 24 address to Congress, President Obama asked for "legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution." But don't assume that this administration, in contrast to its predecessor, is overly concerned about the threat to humanity from global warming.

Walter Pincus files another story on the withdrawal of Charles Freeman from consideration of NIC chair, this one reporting the view in newspapers across the Middle East. Pincus begins his round up with this: A commentary in Abu Dhabi's the National, a newspaper owned by an investment fund…

The New York Times reports that the Obama administration is considering health care benefits. To the paper's credit, the lede notes just how thick the hypocrisy is on this. Obama attacked McCain relentlessly during the campaign for proposing a health care reform that would have done the same thing,…

Yesterday the Journal published a piece by pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen examining the decline in Obama's approval rating since his inauguration. They write: It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude…

Ron Kampeas demolishes Freeman's context defense. Update: And Matt Welch demolishes the editors of the Los Angeles Times in response to their editorial yesterday that drew only one conclusion from the Freeman affair (we need a more open debate on Israel) and was also the paper's only mention of the…

Joe Klein writes that he disagrees with both opinion pieces in the Times today (one by Boot and the Kagans and the other by Leslie Gelb). Klein criticizes Boot et al for focusing too heavily on Afghanistan -- the place where U.S troops are fighting and dying. He criticizes Gelb for imposing a…

Barack Obama has nominated Christopher Hill to serve as the United States Ambassador to Iraq. The post had first been offered -- by Jones, Clinton, and Biden -- to General Anthony Zinni, but the offer was subsequently withdrawn in embarrassing fashion at what many assumed to be the insistence of…

The kids picked Katie Couric as their class day speaker. It wasn't the kind of pick that gives one great hope for the future of the country, but it could have been worse, and it often is. University President Shirley Tilghman, on the other hand, has made the decision to invite General Petraeus to…

Josh Rogin reports for CQ: President Obama's top military and intelligence advisers disagree on the question of whether Iran is intentionally pursuing nuclear weapons, leaving lawmakers confused about what to believe. Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a hold-over…

The AP reports that Chicom premier Wen Jiabao has "expressed concern" about the security of loans made by the People's Republic to the U.S. government: "We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little…

The Hill went and asked members of Congress whether they'd been "lobbied" by the "Lobby" on the appointment of Charles Freeman. Unlike the New York Times, the editors at the Hill felt compelled to ask the question before asserting the answer. The story includes statements from Republican Senators…

American pilots rarely get to shoot anything out of the sky anymore, but the Danger Room reports that "an American fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone as it was flying over Iraq" last month. Unfortunately there's not much detail in the account -- it's not clear where the drone was or what it was…

That's the charge Fred Kaplan levels against Chas Freeman's critics: Chas Freeman is a high-profile figure. He became one by his own design, through public speeches, some of them deliberately provocative. Making him NIC chairman would-unjustly but unavoidably-hurl all intelligence, and all policy…

Mickey Kaus says that the Freeman story proves "you can no longer be a well-informed citizen if you just read the Times and Post print editions." True, but the beginning of the end for Freeman came from Eli Lake's devastating reporting in the Washington Times on Freeman's foreign financial ties.…

Hayes writes below on Times editor Doug Jehl's explanation for ignoring the Freeman controversy until after the appointment had been withdrawn. It's a lousy explanation, but Calderone gets an even more ridiculous answer from Dean Baquet, the Times Washington bureau chief: The bureau chief argued…

Newsweek has a piece on Freeman's exit that jibes pretty well with how I understand things to have played out. Pelosi was reportedly dismayed by the pick, and though she didn't object publicly, there were rumors that she might if the appointment wasn't withdrawn. That's the gist of the reporting in…

If there was ever any doubt that Chas Freeman is exactly what his critics claimed--an intemperate man with poor judgment and bizarre views, unsuited to the position for which he was selected--we now know that's what he is. Freeman was convicted by his own mouth, and it's good he's not going to be…

The statement from the DNI: Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair announced today that Ambassador Charles W. Freeman Jr. has requested that his selection to be Chairman of the National Intelligence Council not proceed. Director Blair accepted Ambassador Freeman's decision with regret.…

Greg Sargent has been all over this story (though I would dispute his insistence that opposition to Freeman comes from the "pro-Israel lobby and the neocons," which leaves out some of Freeman's most prominent critics like Chait and Goldberg) and now reports that Freeman is meeting with the full…

Greg Sargent reports: Dianne Feinstein Bringing In Chas Freeman For Chat With Senators Okay, another key development in the war against Charles "Chas" Freeman, Obama's pick for National Intelligence Council chief, who's taking heavy fire from neocons and the pro-Israel lobby over his views on…

CQ's Josh Rogin reports: The White House has given the Pentagon guidance to delay procurement of aerial refueling tankers by five years and cancel plans for a new long-range bomber, according to three sources close to the discussions. No final decisions have been made, and the recommendations are…

Freeman made another remark that is not easily explained by context during a panel he was moderating at his Middle East Policy Council. Freeman manages in the very same breath both to insult the democratically elected president of the United States and heap praise on the Saudis, whom he credits…

It's ridiculous for Dennis Blair to claim that context can explain away the many troubling and provocative statements of Charles Freeman, but I will take one Freeman quote out of context and I challenge any of his defenders to find a context that would make it a reasonable remark -- a context that…

Scott Ritter, the former U.N. weapons inspector who was arrested "after allegedly communicating with an undercover officer posing as a 16-year-old girl," has joined six other fairly fringe figures to endorse Dennis Blair's appointment of Chas Freeman. (A source told CNN that "Ritter had arranged in…

Reps. Israel and Kirk who first requested an investigation into Freeman's financial ties to Saudi Arabia and the People's Republic of China have sent another letter to the inspector general in response to a letter Dennis Blair sent to members of Congress last Friday. The Blair letter apparently…

The Washington Post has finally reported on the controversy surrounding the appointment of Charles Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council. It seems that the Post also spoke to Charles Freeman, though they don't have any on the record quotes from the appointee. According to the paper,…

Eli Lake reports on the letter from Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee promising increased scrutiny of the Obama administration's intelligence analysis owing to their complete lack of confidence in the selection of Chas Freeman to head the NIC. Lake also reports that Rep. Wolf, a…

The Huffington Post reports: One new development, revealed here for the first time, which is likely to further damage Freeman's already battered standing is that the former ambassador advocated creating a national identity system in the US as a part of the war on terror. During a 9/11 Commission…

Glenn Greenwald wants his Al Manar TV: So absolute has the Israel-centric stranglehold on American policy been that the U.S. Government has made it illegal to broadcast Hezbollah television stations and has even devoted its resources to criminally prosecuting and imprisoning satellite providers…

As noted earlier, Senator Snowe was the one Republican from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence whose name did not appear on a draft letter to Dennis Blair expressing serious concerns about his appointment of Charles Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council. However, an email from…

Greg Sargent reports that six Republican Senators have joined the growing chorus on the Hill calling for Dennis Blair to withdraw his appointment of Charles Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council. The letter has not yet been sent to Blair, but Sargent obtained a draft that had already…

Martin Kramer quotes Chas Freeman, in 1998, explaining al Qaeda's rationale for violence: Mr. bin Laden's principal point, in pursuing this campaign of violence against the United States, has nothing to do with Israel. It has to do with the American military presence in Saudi Arabia, in connection…

Matt Welch digs up this quote from the irrepressible Chas Freeman: Mao Zedong had a force and energy which none but men of equally great spiritual conviction could withstand. His animal appetites, we now know, matched his intellectual vigor. He was an object of adulation to his subjects and of…

This afternoon 87 Chinese dissidents sent a letter to President Obama asking him to reconsider the appointment of Chas Freeman as head of the National Intelligence Council. Freeman's financial ties to the People's Republic of China, including his role as a member of the international advisory board…

JTA's Eric Fingerhut reports that Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has sent a letter to President Obama listing, in detail, his objections to Chas Freeman's appointment as head of the National Intelligence Council. Wolf has built a reputation as one of the Hill's leading advocates for human rights, and…

The former Secretary of State appeared on Morning Joe and was less than enthusiastic about the selection of Chas Freeman to head the NIC. Asked her view of the pick, Albright repeatedly refuses to endorse Freeman before struggling to extricate herself from the conversation. The transcript (via the…

Mark Hemingway revisits James Baker's The Politics of Diplomacy and finds two references to Chas Freeman. The first has Freeman pleading with Baker to lay off the Saudis as Baker lobbies for more Saudi money to fund U.S. operations as U.S. forces began their buildup in the Gulf as part of Desert…

I think everyone can agree that the Obama administration has yet to score a major diplomatic victory. It's early yet, and the administration is only beginning to send out its many envoys and special representatives and special advisers and the like, but it is clear that the election of Obama alone…

I hardly expected her to be moved to tears by this story, but the the AP's Pamela Hess really phoned this one in: Republicans on Thursday also asked for a review of Freeman's relationship with China and Iran. Freeman has served on an international advisory board of the government-owned Chinese…

Another note from Freeman to the China Security Listserv, this one giving greater detail of his views on the threat posed by China and Beijing's brutal response to the protests at Tienanmen Square. Note in particular paragraph (2) -- which makes clear that the previous Tienanmen e-mail wasn't…

We started this on February 24 with a note Freeman sent to a listserv asserting that China's "unforgivable mistake" during the Tienanmen massacre was "the failure to intervene on a timely basis," and added that "the Politburo's response to the mob scene at 'Tian'anmen' stands as a monument to…

I just spoke to Rep. Mark Kirk, who along with Rep. Steve Israel has requested another investigation into Charles Freeman's finances -- this time focusing on his role as a member of the advisory board of the Chinese state-owned oil company CNOOC. Asked if Freeman's appointment will stand, Kirk…