A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
'We must not fail in Iraq' “President Bush pleaded with Congress last night to give his new strategy for victory in the struggle in Iraq a chance because ‘America must not fail in Iraq.’” (READ MORE)
Guests speak louder than words at Capitol “Presidents use their State of the Union speeches to send a message to Congress, but lawmakers are increasingly using their guest tickets to send a message right back at him.” (READ MORE)
GOP urges Berger lie test “Eighteen House Republicans have urged the Justice Department to proceed with a polygraph test for Samuel R. Berger, the former national security adviser who agreed to take the test as part of a plea of guilty of stealing documents from the National Archives.” (READ MORE)
Candidates court Israel, cite Iran risks “Presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, John Edwards and John McCain all detoured through Israel on the way to New Hampshire this week, seemingly competing to see who could be strongest in defense of the Jewish state.” (READ MORE)
Bush Urges Congress, Nation To Give His Iraq Plan a Chance “Politically weakened and increasingly isolated, president confronts first Democratic-ruled Congress in a dozen years in his annual address.” (READ MORE)
The State of The President: Beleaguered “Upon delivering his State of the Union address, Bush tried to revive his presidency against what may be the greatest odds any chief executive has faced in a generation, yet he was anything but defensive.” (READ MORE)
U.S. Stages 2nd Airstrike in Somalia; Ethiopians Leaving Capital “A U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship staged an airstrike against suspected al-Qaeda operatives in southern Somalia on Monday, the second such attack this month, U.S. officials said Tuesday.” (READ MORE)
News From the Front:
Bill Roggio writes Inside the MTTs in Anbar “KHALIDIYA, IRAQ: In The Iraqi Army and the MTT in Khalidiya ,we looked at the successes and setbacks with the Iraqi Army in the Habbaniyah region. This post will focus on the challenges facing the Military Transition Teams in Anbar province.” (READ MORE)
Omar writes The Kerbala attack: An inside job. “These days have been terribly bloody for both the American military and the Iraqi civilians as large-scale sweeps in Baghdad are being prepared. While most attacks have much in common when it comes to their goals and the destruction and pain they leave, some attacks are of a quality that suggest some messages that are more dangerous beyond the immediate harm they cause.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Iraq War Today writes What It's All About “Of the Gettysburg Address, Edward Everett, who'd preceeded President Lincoln speaking that day, wrote ‘I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as close to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.’ Well, this month marks my 2 year blogiversary here at IWT, and can truly say, I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as close to the central idea of this blog in two years of posting, as Amy did in the piece below (sent by her father):” (READ MORE)
Ruth Marcus writes The Knee-Jerk Opposition “If George W. Bush proposes something, it must be bad. Such is the knee-jerk state of partisan suspiciousness that when the president actually endorses a tax increase -- a tax increase that would primarily hit the well-off, no less -- Democrats still howl.” (READ MORE)
Hugh Hewitt writes ‘So Let Us Find Our Resolve, And Turn Events Toward Victory.’ “First principles plus the resolve to defend them are the mark of great presidents, and it has always been so in the history of the country.” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin writes The Coming Amnesty Disaster “Last month, President Bush signed off on a few dog-and-pony illegal immigrant employment raids. Whoop-de-doo.” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay writes The Quest for Kosovo's ‘Final Status’ “After 16 years of war and peacekeeping, the Great Yugoslav War of Devolution has entered a new, promising phase. But don't call it finished, and don't call it peace -- at least not quite yet.” (READ MORE)
Walter E. Williams writes Minority View “Political commentator Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) warned that ‘The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.’ The Weather Channel has taken up that task with its series ‘It Could Happen Tomorrow.’” (READ MORE)
Michael McBride writes Killing the All Volunteer Force “I suppose I come from what’s left of America?s warrior class. Not the 'noblesse oblige' style warrior of the Civil War or World War II, but a working class stock of martial warrior who serves for a sense of individual purpose, and who coincidentally comes from a line of previous warriors.” (READ MORE)
Ian writes Video: Wes Clark calls for talks, Ahmadinejad calls for destruction of America “Here he is complaining that George Bush is more interested in threatening Iran than talking to them. Oh, and in other news, Ahmadinejad said today that the U.S. and Israel will soon be destroyed:” (READ MORE)
Dymphna writes Self-Interest, Fear, and Honor “In talking with Manda Zand, the founder and director of The Alliance of Iranian Women, I learned that after the takeover of the Iran government by fundamentalists, many Iranian intellectuals and supporters of the Shah fled the country, knowing they would be killed. She was among those who left.” (READ MORE)
Anchoress writes FAITH AND REASON AND FORCED CONVERSIONS (Reposted) “It is the rarest of days when I disagree with my favorite blogfather Ed Morrissey, but after mulling over this post of his as well as others, and after thinking quite a lot about the forced conversion of Fox News’ Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig while under the guns and knives of their Islamofascist captors, I find that I do disagree with him.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber writes Bush delivers too little too late “In his State of the Union, President Bush was like the captain of the Titanic throwing everything overboard as fast as he can to keep from sinking another 5 minutes. The Democrats, realizing he is a dead lame duck quacking, were kind and trotted out B-teamer Jim Webb out to answer Bush.” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped writes Future Imperfect: Part II “It might be helpful to review several points raised by commenters yesterday before going on to describe what I see as the ‘Best Case Scenario’ for the near to moderate term in the War on Islamic Fascism cum terrorism.” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden writes SOTU “Some sugar coating up front. Something that was even starting to look like a strange bi-partisan lovefest. Then, the hard truth. Quiet determination and confidence from a president who, battered, tired and increasingly isolated politically, showed that he intends to fight and called on Congress and all of us to stand with him in this ‘generational struggle.’” (READ MORE)
Scott Johnson writes The moral vanity of the disassociated left: An update “In ‘The moral vanity of the disassociated left,’ I discussed the stink raised by nine University of Minnesota Law School professors in connection with the invitation to University of St. Thomas Law School Professor Robert Delahunty to teach constitutional law at the University of Minnesota Law School this semester. The nine professors more or less indicted Professor Delahunty as a war criminal unfit to teach for having co-authored with John Yoo the January 9, 2002 memorandum on the law applicable to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees captured in Afghanistan.” (READ MORE)
Michelle writes Carter: "our country has no reason to be afraid" “Terrorists targeting our country and plotting another 9-11, that is not a reason to fear. And I know that if the terrorists were Christian, I would like them better, how about you? Is it any wonder that this man is considered one of the worst presidents in our nation's history.” (READ MORE)
Chickenhawk Express writes Who Is In Charge of This Country? “I must admit that I am sitting here seething and my blood pressure has got to be shooting through the roof. I just read the text of Jim Webb's Democratic Response on Drudge and it is without a doubt the most disgusting piece of drivel that ever came outta the mouth of a SOTU responder.” (READ MORE)
Dan Riehl writes Webb's Disappointing Rebuttal “Obviously unable to control themselves on even a purely ceremonial night, the Democrat Party, having recently secured but a slim Congressional majority, opted to breeze through any areas for potential common ground in three short introductory paragraphs via spokesperson Jim Webb, so as to get immediately to points of contention between the two parties. If the Bush administration is looking for compromise, they'd be wise to read that sign.” (READ MORE)
Major Z writes The Enemy within “...in the last 200 years, we've forgotten our history, the lessons learned by our forefathers, and lost the hard-won dominance we once posed over the muslim world. We gripe about the cost of war, cheese-eating surrender monkeys harp on the idea of appeasement, of cut-and-running, making nice with the murderers, despots, tyrants, and islamists.” (READ MORE)
Andi writes The Perils of Wimpdom “I'll never forget the day I found out that my husband was going to deploy. After he broke the news, his lips kept moving, but I didn't hear much else. The lump in my throat seemed to move all the way up to my ears. Later that night, I said to my husband, ‘I'm a hypocrite.’ He asked why I would say something like that.” (READ MORE)
Cassandra writes Time For A Gut Check, America “What is this nation made of? What is so hard to understand about radical Islamofacism? We have been warned by friends. We have been taunted by enemies.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins writes Glenn Greenwald Is Mad At Joe Lieberman Because David Petraeus Told The Truth. “Joe Lieberman had the audacity to ask Gen. David Petraeus, ‘if Senate resolutions condemning White House Iraq policy would give the enemy some comfort.’ Then Petraeus answered honestly and lefty blogger Glenn Greenwald got all upset. Here's part of his commentary:” (READ MORE)
Michelle Malkin writes Nurse deployed, then fired “Debra Muhl, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, is a military nurse who has served in combat zones for 30 years. She works for Sutter Health, a health care provider in the Bay Area, as administrative director of the joint cardiac program. Or rather, she used to work for Sutter Health.” (READ MORE)
Captain Ed writes Petraeus: Baghdad Can Be Secured “General David Petraeus testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday in his confirmation hearing to replace General Casey as the top commander in Iraq, telling the Senators that the situation in Baghdad could be resolved with the extra troops and the new Iraqi commitment to security. He faced skepticism from both sides of the aisle, but insisted that a concerted "clear and hold" strategy with Americans in place to hold neighborhoods could give the Iraqi government the room it needs to turn the corner in the capital:” (READ MORE)
Quid Nimis writes Can We Talk? “I have to say, on a personal level, that I am deeply deeply deeply irritated that Hillary Rodham (Clinton) is finally, at long last, a nearly official candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Why am I irritated? Because I've been blogging for two years and have managed to write less about her than about Paris Hilton.” (READ MORE)
Robert Mayer writes Democracy As Foreign Policy Dying, But Not Dead "During his 2005 State of the Union address, President Bush set forth a bold plan to to make the advancement of freedom and democracy the cornerstone of America’s foreign policy. Under liberal democracies, the Islamic terrorist and statist authoritarian threat would practically vanish from the face of the earth." (READ MORE)
Have an interesting post or know of a "must read?" Then send a trackback here and let us all know about it. Or you can send me an email with a link to the post and I'll update the Recon.
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