A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Pelosi talks to Assad with no authorization by the U.S. “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held talks with Syria's leader yesterday despite White House objections, saying she pressed President Bashar Assad over his country's support for militant groups and passed him a peace message from Israel.” (READ MORE)
Obama exhibits monetary might “Sen. Barack Obama's campaign raised $25 million in the 2½ months after announcing his exploratory committee with contributions from nearly 100,000 donors -- sending a clear message that Mr. Obama's campaign is a powerful force...” (READ MORE)
Bush bypasses Senate to name fundraiser an envoy “President Bush issued a recess appointment yesterday enabling Republican fundraiser Sam Fox to become U.S. ambassador to Belgium, despite objections from Senate Democrats who blocked his nomination last month.” (READ MORE)
A Shoo-In For 'Regular Person' “Where are they? That was the question circulating among the 1,200 people in the gym at Concord High School on a cold, drizzly, sunless day this week as they waited for John and Elizabeth Edwards and their three children. After a National Merit finalist extolled the Edwards clan and loudspeakers blared the Foo Fighters for a rockin' intro, the crowd turned its attention to a set of doors, begging, pleading, for an entrance....” (READ MORE)
Pelosi Meets Syrian President Despite Objections From Bush “House Speaker Calls Talks With Assad 'Very Productive' - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Syria's president in a hilltop palace in Damascus on Wednesday in a visit that came despite the Bush administration's objections and appeared to underline Syria's gradual emergence from years of international isolation.” (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Omar: Heavy Armor's Here. “’Evacuate all houses in the area around the Americans’ base for we shall attack it soon… Those occupiers will soon be gone from this land. Who will protect you then?’ These were roughly the words in a leaflet the ‘mujahideen’ distributed in Adhamiya a few days ago. A distant relative who lives there received one. This message reveals that terrorists and insurgents were planning attacks on some of the joint security stations that American and Iraqi forces have established in that section of Baghdad.” (READ MORE)
Outside the Wire: Karmahgeddon Redux “Specialist Jason Stegall knew something was wrong. The white tanker truck stopped on the dusty ribbon of asphalt south of OP Omar, then crept forward past the warning signs and into the serpentine twists of concrete barriers. A second later Stegall fired a sustained burst from the 7.62mm machine gun mounted in OP Omar's tower number 2. The next thing he knew he was laying on his back staring at the ceiling. BAD KARMAH” (READ MORE)
IraqPundit: From Snark to Syria “The New York Times found some shopkeepers in Baghdad who didn't think things had gotten any better for them. Of course, McCain's running for president, and has been an unwavering supporter of the effort in Iraq. It makes sense for him to focus on those aspects of the surge that appear to be working. What's Michael Ware running for?” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
Cal Thomas: Surrender Syndrome “Portstewart, Northern Ireland - Everywhere one looks in Europe there are signs that free people are prepared to surrender without a fight to those who would place them in bondage.” (READ MORE)
Jon Sanders: The Christians are coming! The Christians are coming! “Well, imagine for a moment the confused frustration of being a leftist academic. You've spent your entire academic career warning friends, family, colleagues, and anyone else unfortunately in earshot of the dangers posed by fundamentalist religious zealots. You've been haunted by the nightmare of theocratic fanatics taking over your schools and letting kids pray, wish folks merry Christmas, and stop believing that they're essentially upgraded monkeys (a sort of DarwinSoft Primate™ 6.0).” (READ MORE)
Matt Barber: CWA to Feds: It’s Time to Investigate Fake "Hate Crimes" Reports “Negligible ‘hate crimes’ numbers notwithstanding, liberal lawmakers remain poised to push the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (H.R. 1592) through Congress due to intense political pressure from the powerful homosexual lobby. But evidence continues to mount indicating that an alarming percentage of the already small number of ‘hate crimes’ allegedly motivated by sexual preference may have been fabricated by homosexual activists in an attempt to create a political atmosphere ripe for passage of federal ‘hate crimes’ legislation.” (READ MORE)
Cliff May: Opting for Failure? “This week, the White House sent around a memo titled: ‘Senator Harry Reid, Then & Now.’ It quoted Reid back in November saying: ‘We're not going to do anything to limit funding or cut off funds’ for Iraq. It then quoted Reid a few days ago saying he would co-sponsor a bill to cut off exactly such funding.” (READ MORE)
Donald Lambro: A game of chicken, with a side of pork “If you're wondering what happened to all that sound and fury from the Democrats over its troop-withdrawal bills, they took off for an Easter break, leaving their unfinished business behind them. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was touring the Middle East, pretending to be Secretary of State. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were off in search of more campaign money to bankroll their presidential ambitions. Most of the other Democrats were back home boasting about all that pork they stuffed into the emergency defense supplemental bill that is supposed to provide money just for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.” (READ MORE)
George Will: On rising gas prices “They come with metronomic regularity, these media stories about ‘soaring’ gasoline prices and the causes thereof, news stories which always identify the same two culprits, supply and demand. The stories always give various reasons why supplies are tight -- more often, why prices include a risk premium based on fears that supplies might become tight -- or why demand is higher than it is ‘should’ be, given supposedly high prices.” (READ MORE)
Marvin Olasky: How Some Conservatives Hurt Conservatism “When a student at a recent Young America's Foundation conference here asked what he could do to combat the left, I suggested that he tutor a child who had fallen behind in school. Those favoring small government need to show that Americans can deal with social problems without enlarging the state.” (READ MORE)
WSJ Opinion Journal: Mahmoud's 'Gift' “The right way to exploit any fissures in the Tehran regime. Having kidnapped 15 British sailors and marines in Iraqi waters and paraded them before the world making ‘confessions,’ Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now says he is pardoning them as a ‘gift’ to the British people. As we go to press, Iran's news agency reports the Brits will go home today. While we can be grateful for the captives' release, no one should conclude from this episode that the Iranian government is taking a new peaceful turn, or that its President has become Mahmoud the Munificent.” (READ MORE)
Daniel Henninger: The Democrats' Surge “Will they thwart a military success, or will success thwart them? Carried aloft on the gassy fumes of politics, the congressional Democrats may be overshooting on Iraq. Six months from now, they may wish they had been more temperate. Helped finally by the right U.S. military strategy, the Iraq nightmare might be ebbing. Then what?” (READ MORE)
Robert Mayer: A Gentler, Softer Iran “Now that Iran is planning to release the 15 captures British sailors, the blogosphere's post-mortem is already beginning. It's necessary to look back over the past few weeks and ascertain just exactly how this began, what was went wrong and right throughout, and especially what should have been done instead. Austin Bay, for example, takes a look at this in the context of the intelligence operations wars between the United States and Iran.” (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson: The Twenty-Five Hundred Years’ War “If a no-nonsense Greek infantryman holding the pass at Thermopylae were to be told that, 2,500 years in the future, Western constitutional states would still be facing an apocalyptic struggle with a totalitarian government in Persia, he would hardly be surprised. Persians, or Iranians as they’re called today, have been at odds with both the West and neighboring Asians since antiquity.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: (Video) The sailor who didn’t smile “Derb’s taking heat from the usual suspects for suggesting that the stiff upper lip shown by some of the sailors while in Iran might have been a jot stiffer. I suspect he won’t be the last Englishman to make that point now that they’re home safe and out of harm’s way; in fact, the Telegraph’s already taken a gentle swipe in passing in today’s lead editorial.” (READ MORE)
The Lasso of Truth: Leaping toward the precipice “One event which propelled me forward was the abduction of 15 British soldiers off the coast of Iraq by their incendiary neighbor, Iran. Its not just that the Iranians had the nerve to take allied soldiers hostage in a war zone or that they had the stupidity to publicize the coordinates where the ‘interlopers were intercepted in sovereign Iranian waters’ only to retract and regroup with wholly new coordinates, once it had been revealed that the originals were in fact in Iraqi waters.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Dems: Do As We Say, Not As We Said! “Our commenter Tomy directed my attention to this breath of fresh air on the Iraq supplemental funding bill... an opinion piece in today's Washington Post. What is most astonishing is that it came from the pen -- word processor -- of former Bush-41 Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the fellow who successfully fought the Florida election debacle in the Supreme Court on behalf of his old boss's son, the current president. Oh yes, and the co-chair of the Iraq Study Group.” (READ MORE)
Captain Ed: Lovely Parting Gifts Included “The 15 Royal Navy personnel held captive by the Iranians for a fortnight returned home today on a British Airways flight. Less than 24 hours after their ‘pardon’ from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the sailors and Marines flew business class, with parting gifts from the Iranian mullahcracy:” (READ MORE)
Greyhawk: Dress for Success “A pair of images has sparked a bit of controversy at polar opposite ends of the blogosphere. The first, John McCain in Baghdad: The second, Nancy Pelosi in Syria: The point of contention: their chosen attire. Let's acknowledge up front that their clothing choices aren't random. They are in fact calculated, and to some degree a ‘propaganda’ effect is intended. Likewise, both images are intended to demonstrate solidarity with a local population.” (READ MORE)
John Hawkins: The Parents, Not The System Are At Fault For Splitting Up The Families Of Illegal Immigrants “Newsday wrote a sob story about the children of illegal immigrants who are forced to either go back home with their parents or stay with friends/relatives/foster parents when their parents are deported. ‘Twelve-year-old Adrian Ramirez huddled with his two sisters on a bench and tried to find the words to describe his feelings about their mother's pending deportation to Mexico.’” (READ MORE)
Cassandra: Reign of Confusion “Is there no limit to Democrat hypocrisy? Evidently they will defend any degree of overreach by their own party while vehemently denouncing the President for exercising even powers explicitly granted him by the Constitution. Witness Josh Marshall's response to Nancy Pelosi's blitheringly incompetent meddling in foreign policy:” (READ MORE)
Dan Riehl: Pelosi Got Played “Speakerette San Fran Nanny Pelosi has embarrassed the United States by misrepresenting important details of her visit to the Middle East and allowed herself to played like a strung out pole dancer in a sleazy night club not even on the main strip. The Prime Minister's Office has strongly denied that Israel relayed a message to Syria, accepting its calls to renew peace negotiations. In a special statement of clarification, the bureau stressed that Olmert had told Pelosi that Israel continued to regard Syria as ‘part of the axis of evil and a party encouraging terrorism in the entire Middle East.’” (READ MORE)
Bill Roggio: The Diyala Campaign “U.S. and Iraqi forces are preparing the battlefield in Diyala province - The Battle of Diyala has been taking shape since about 700 soldiers and 100 of their Stryker combat vehicles from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division moved into Baqubah from Baghdad in mid March, and fought pitched battles against al Qaeda in the city.” (READ MORE)
McQ: God save us from meddling amateurs (update) “Certainly the case can be made that the diplomacy of the Bush administration has been less that fruitful or even that it has been very well done. But the one thing that can't be argued is that Constitutionally, its the executive branch's job. Enter the ‘Damascus Diva,’ Nancy Pelosi, and her attempt at doing something for which she has not authority or experience and you get precisely what you would expect. It’s so bad that even the Washington Post is less than kind to her:” (READ MORE)
Jules Crittenden: Divide and Conquer Here! “This one’s so good it deserves a mini-moronocy roundup all its own. Matt Stoller at MyDD: ‘Pelosi is acting as a real Secretary of State or President would in foreign affairs. She is negotiating and representing an America that offers itself as a trusted partner for peace and collective security.’” (READ MORE)
ShrinkWrapped: Lessons from History and Neuroscience “I frequently write about how difficult it is for people to question their own assumptions and change opinions that are emotionally held. Many of our current political disputes arise from just such resistance to entertaining new data which might bring deeply held feelings and beliefs into question. For just one particularly glaring example, consider Global Warming. The science that underlies the arguments over Anthropogenic Global Warming are poorly understood by the vast majority of people who argue the points yet the passion with which the argument is engaged suggests that many people have a powerful emotional investment in their beliefs.” (READ MORE)
Right Wing Nut House: Nancy Pelosi, Peacemaker or Klutz? “Now we know why Pelosi was wearing that head scarf in Damascus yesterday. It wasn’t in deference to Muslim tradition. It was to keep her brains from dribbling out of her ears: Obviously, she should have tied the scarf a little tighter given the copious amounts of gray matter that must have oozed out during her visit to the Middle East. Or perhaps she should have used a tin foil hat:” (READ MORE)
The Anchoress: Terrorism on Ten Speeds “Oh, these tolerant, tolerant folks…shining beacons of noble, enlightened, compassionate and concerned humanity, who live to tell the rest of the world how tolerant they are, and to label everyone else intolerant ‘fascists.’ Those ‘free-spirited’ imps! They don’t have a problem terrorizing you or your children if they don’t like what you’re driving.” (READ MORE)
TigerHawk: Nancy Pelosi and the road to "peace" “Who, pray tell, is Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel? He is Speaker of the Majlis, the Iranian parliament. Haddad-Abdel went to Islamabad today, and broke bread with Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf. He is obviously doing this to blunt American influence in Pakistan. There is no evidence that Haddad-Adel is visiting Pakistan over the objections of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. At a superficial level, Haddad-Adel is following the example of the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.” (READ MORE)
Amy Proctor: CNN War Correspondent Agrees With Bush “Bottom Line Up Front: CNN war correspondent Michael Ware, who has been in Iraq for 4 years, agrees ‘absolutely’ when President Bush says a date to withdraw US troops from Iraq emboldens America’s enemies. After a report on the difference in rhetoric between Pres. Bush and D-Sen. Harry Reid yesterday on war funding, CNN’s The Situation Room host asked war correspondent Michael Ware in Baghdad if he agreed with the President’s assertion that setting a troop withdrawal date emboldened our enemies. His detailed reply might surprise you.” (READ MORE)
See-Dubya: Skeikhs Tattle and Roll Al Qaeda in Al-Anbar “There’s a long piece by a father and son team at Opinionjournal about the implementation of the Patriquin Plan (they don’t call it that) in Anbar province, Iraq. That’s the plan, of course, where the sheiks get involved on behalf of the US against the insurgents, leveraging one of the few solid civil-society networks still functioning there. The sheiks provide information about al-Qaeda infiltrators, and the U.S. scoops ‘em up. Patterico’s been pushing this plan quite a while, as has Teflon Don.” (READ MORE)
Most Certainly Not: Wednesday Already? “Somewhere between the Easter candy and the sporting goods, it hit me. I realized why I was feeling so weird...I'm blaming it on the media. Watching the news coverage of the Iranian President's decision to ‘pardon’ the British sailors really threw me for a loop. The multi-media, multiple orgasms were enough to make me seriously question my sanity. Where in the world are we headed when someone can be labeled magnanimous for having a moment of lucidity? If this situation weren't so deadly serious it would make me laugh out loud.” (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.
No comments:
Post a Comment