A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
Victor Davis Hanson writes Mr. Bush’s Communication Problem “Just when former supporters of the Iraq invasion and the wider so-called war against terror are proclaiming doom and gloom, other commentators conclude that we have already defeated the jihadists! Nostalgia even abounds about returning to the 1990s, when the United States occasionally swatted bothersome terrorists with cruise missiles and indictments. This unbalance in the media reflects — or has helped cause — a public unhappiness over Iraq that has brought the president’s poll ratings to less than 40-percent approval. Yet again, for all the efforts of the Left to demonize Mr. Bush as either incompetent or diabolical — or both — the American people hardly think we have lost — or won — the war, much less that the threat posed by Iraq, or the necessity of fighting Islamists abroad, was trumped up in Crawford, Texas.” (read more)
Kobayahsi Maru writes Check or Checkmate? Death by Cop on the Global Stage “It's finally hit me: we're stuck. Seriously stuck. We have been for years and are only starting to realize it - and only at the margins. In a very real sense, we've been check-mated by Islamofascism, and specifically Iran. Let's play out a few scenarios, albeit from 50,000 feet:” (read more)
Allahpundit of Hot Air writes Carter: Blair is Bush’s Poodle “Jimmy Carter criticizing a western leader for “timidity” is like Jackie Passey criticizing other women for being plain. ‘We now have a situation where America is so unpopular overseas that even in countries like Egypt and Jordan our approval ratings are less than five per cent. It’s a shameful and pitiful state of affairs and I hold your British Prime Minister to be substantially responsible for being so compliant and subservient…’” (read more)
Jay Tea of Wizbang writes A New Definition of ‘Neutrality’ “Under the current version of the plan for peace in Lebanon, the lead is to be taken by UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon. It is under their ‘umbrella’ that the multi-national force will operate to secure the ceasefire. They are to be the neutral third party that will keep the two sides at bay. So why don't we take a look at just how ‘neutral’ they have been?” (read more)
Dafydd writes Disconnections “To most of us, the following two statements seem somehow, you know, connected: Deaths of American, Coalition, and Iraqi soldiers, along with civilians, have risen somewhat in the past week or so; The Iraqi Army, with U.S. air support, initiated a major offensive against the mighty al-Mahdi militia of Muqtada Sadr in the past week or so. But to elite, new-school journalists, these two observations are completely discrete from each other; there is no connection, and the first is only explicable by concluding that we must be losing (or have already lost) the war. Why, what other possible explanation could there be?” (read more)
Captain Ed writes Economic Simplemindedness Of The Wal-Mart War “The war Democrats have declared on Wal-Mart on behalf of the poor will make that constituency worse off, Sebastion Mallaby concludes in his Washington Post column today. Not only does the cost savings at Wal-Mart and other big-box discounters allow poor families to save 25% on their food bills, it provides a better economic safety net than food stamps:” (read more)
Mohammed of Iraq the Model writes Sticking to the essence of the plan… “I've been reading and hearing a lot about options "other than democracy" for Iraq being considered by Washington. I couldn't find the time to search for the original report but I found this recent article that mentions the report and comments on it: But last week came the new nugget: an anonymous ‘military affairs expert’ attended a White House briefing and reported: ‘Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy. Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect, but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.’” (read more)
Streiff of RedState writes How Dangerous Is Service In Iraq? And why W. C. Fields might change his mind “A University of Pennsylvania demographer has an op-ed in today's Washington Post. It differs from the casualty analysis that we've grown accustomed to seeing because the Penn professor uses numbers. Anyone familiar with military history won't be too surprised but there are a couple of items that make this war unusual.” (read more)
Cassandra writes NY TimesWatch: The Agony! The Irony! “Sacre bleu! Can anything be more delicious than watching L'Affaire Plame unravel? Unless, perhaps, it would be watching the New York Times twisting in the wind? At the beginning of this month we reminded the readership of the Times' perfidy in this sordid affair: how, when Val Plame's "secret" identity first came out, the Times was in the vanguard of those clamoring for a special prosecutor. How they demanded Robert Novak reveal his source, though journalists from time immemorial have claimed the right to shield their sources from scrutiny, citing a non-existent federal shield law.” (read more)
SeeDubya of Junk Yard Blog writes Reuters Van Hit by...Something...in Gaza “I just watched the video posted at Hot Air of the armored Reuters truck they say was hit by an IDF rocket. By now you’re tired of bloggers saying, oh, that looks suspicious, but… That looks suspicious. Inside the truck there’s no scorching; the windshield is intact, the upholstery is undamaged, and some overhead equipment was knocked down (but appears intact). Also notice what appears to be a small-arms bullet hole above the driver’s side headlight. The hole in the top looks like a jagged tear inside a round depression, as if a bowling ball had crashed into the roof.” (read more)
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