A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention.
In the News: (Registration may be required to read some stories)
Iraq Pullout Would Lead To Bloodbath, Bush Warns - President Bush warned Thursday that pulling out of Iraq too soon would trigger a bloodbath akin to that of the Cambodian killing fields of the 1970s, while Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid declared that it is too late to stay because the war has already been lost. (READ MORE)
Gates Warns Iraq Leaders That 'Clock Is Ticking' on U.S. Presence - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in Baghdad on Thursday to convey a blunt message to Iraq's leadership three months after the United States began an increase of more than 28,000 troops in the country. "The clock is ticking," he said. (READ MORE)
Justice Dept. Given 2 Weeks to Weigh Use of Classified Data in Espionage Case - The Justice Department yesterday was given until May 2 to determine how it wants to proceed in the controversial prosecution of two former pro-Israel lobbyists charged with violating the 1917 Espionage Act after the federal judge in the case turned down prosecutors' attempt to close from public... (READ MORE)
House votes to give D.C. a seat - The House yesterday approved congressional voting rights for the District of Columbia, granting the D.C. delegate a vote for the first time in the nation's history and adding a seat in Utah to increase the size of the chamber to 437 members. (READ MORE)
Reid says Bush told Iraq war lost cause - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday declared the United States had lost the war in Iraq, a conclusion he said he communicated to President Bush at a meeting Wednesday. (READ MORE)
Ultranationalist fervor hits Europe - Deep anxieties over security and unemployment have fed a sharp shift to the right across Europe, forcing mainstream politicians to embrace policies that just a few years ago would have seemed the exclusive terrain of ultranationalist forces. (READ MORE)
Sunni militants name al Qaeda chief 'minister of war' - A Sunni insurgent coalition posted videos on the Internet yesterday naming the head of al Qaeda in Iraq as "minister of war" and showing the execution of 20 men it said were members of the Iraqi military and security forces. (READ MORE)
From the Front:
Badger6: Commo Check “Home Front this is Badger 6, how copy over? Home Front, Home Front this is Badger 6, how copy over? Any station this net, any station this net prepare to copy.” (READ MORE)
Michael Fumento: Forward Operating Base Lagman, Afghanistan “After three embeds in Al Anbar, what was once the forgotten part of Iraq, it was time to visit the ‘Forgotten War.’ Afghanistan. A commercial flight brings me to Kuwait International Airport, then a short ride to Ali Al Salem Air Force Base (AFB), and the very next day a relatively comfortable C-17 cargo jet brings me to Bagram AFB in Afghanistan. I'm waiting at the Pat Tillman USO center (named after the football star who gave up almost everything after 9/11 to become a Ranger and then did give up everything when he lost his life in Afghanistan.” (READ MORE)
On the Web:
John Hawkins: Why Did The Shooter Do What He Did? “After we read about a serial killer or mass murderer, the first question people always ask is, ‘Why?’ What set him off? Why did he kill all those innocent people? Unfortunately, no matter how many different ways you try to fill in the blanks, there's never going to be a satisfying answer.” (READ MORE)
Chuck Colson: Something Horribly Wrong “Less than seventy-two hours have passed since the shootings that killed thirty-two innocent people and injured another thirty at Virginia Tech. Americans can relate to what Virginia Tech President William Steger said immediately after the killings: ‘I'm really at a loss for words to explain or to understand the carnage that has visited our campus...’” (READ MORE)
Lorie Byrd: The Price of Freedom “The phrase ‘the price of freedom’ is often used when referring to the sacrifices of soldiers in battle to defend America’s freedoms. There is another price of freedom though. We paid it most recently in a very big way in Blacksburg, Virginia, but we have paid it many times previously, as well.” (READ MORE)
Oliver North: Confronting Evil “This week, while the masters of America's mainstream media were probing the carnage perpetrated by a deranged, lone gunman in Blacksburg, Va., Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in Israel, discounting the threat posed by an irrational government intent on acquiring nuclear weapons. Neither act makes any sense.” (READ MORE)
David Limbaugh: The Ginsburg Worldview “Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart illustrates the moral depths and quagmires of irrationality to which the political and cultural left in this country have descended.” (READ MORE)
Charles Krauthammer: Silence is a virtue “What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less.” (READ MORE)
Victor Davis Hanson: Imus, Nifong Meet Their Match in God Nemesis “In the past week, Don Imus was fired, all charges against the Duke University lacrosse players were dropped, and almost everyone has offered a sermon about the racial and class issues involved in both cases. But we need look only to the Ancient Greeks for the best insight. The Greeks believed that insolence naturally leads to bullying, or hubris. This arrogance induces a mad behavior called ate . Finally, that recklessness earns well-earned destruction unleashed by the god Nemesis.” (READ MORE)
Michael McBride: I love paying taxes too “Patrick Ruffini uncovered a gem a couple of days ago when he linked to Matt Sotller's Pollyanna romance novella where Matt announces to the world how much he loves to pay his taxes. And in true lib fashion, instead of espousing his love for taxes in isolation, he chooses to include a thrashing of "right-wingers" and presumably regular conservatives in the process, because they don't love paying their taxes quite so much.” (READ MORE)
Jon Sanders: Obama, the humanity! “Hours after the Virginia Tech massacre, Barack Obama spoke at a campaign stop in Milwaukee. Obama could have shown compassion unalloyed with politics, what one hopes to find in a leader when disaster strikes. But he didn't. In the grand tradition of leftist orators, Obama repackaged the awful news of the day to ‘reflect’ on his own political themes.” (READ MORE)
Robert B. Holland III: The Real World Bank Scandal “Those interested in the success of the World Bank should be under no illusion as to what is really motivating the staff revolt now playing out and what the consequences are likely to be. Many are opposed to Mr. Wolfowitz's anti-corruption emphasis, some on the good faith basis that he is placing disproportionate emphasis on the issue at the expense of other development priorities. Others, however, are opposed on the selfish basis that elevating anticorruption and governance considerations will result in lower lending levels and more difficult negotiations with borrowing governments.” (READ MORE)
Peggy Noonan: Cold Standard “I saw an old friend on the Acela on the way to Washington, and he told me of the glum, grim faces at the station he'd left, all the commuters with newspapers in their hands and under their arms. This was the day after Virginia Tech. We talked about what was different this time, in this tragedy. I told him I felt people were stricken because they weren't stricken. When Columbine happened, it was weird and terrible, and now there have been some incidents since, and now it's not weird anymore. And that is what's so terrible. It's the difference between ‘That doesn't happen!’ and ‘That happens.’” (READ MORE)
Kimberly A. Strassel: Competence Man “Republicans won a big victory this week, shooting down a Democratic plan for more government-run health care. The GOP victors, and free-marketeers, might send their thank-you notes to Dr. Mark McClellan.
Dr. McClellan is the 43-year-old internist who, until recently, held the thankless job of running Medicare. He was handed the further thankless task of designing and implementing Congress's tepid 2003 Medicare reform.” (READ MORE)
A Soldier's Mind: An Ordinary Day Spent Wth Extraordinary Soldiers “Senior Leaders downrange spend a lot of time compiling percentages, tracking trends and numbers in the daily reports that they have to generate in order plan missions and battleplans. One Senior though likes to take time away from his desk and the daily mundane tasks to get up close and personal with the Soldiers under him. The top NCO at the Multi-National Division Command in Baghdad, CSM Philip Johndrow makes it one of his priorities to visit with his soldiers who are recuperating at the 28th Combat Support Hospital about 3 times per week.” (READ MORE)
Andi: Bush-Bashing Over Walter Reed Visit and a General I'm Becoming Less Fond of By the Day “President Bush paid a visit to troops at Walter Reed on Friday, something he's done may times in the past. In their quest to pin all things wrong on President Bush, media outlets and liberal-leaning blogs have, not surprisingly, chimed in. The implications and charges range from, surely President Bush should have known things were broken as many times as he's visited Walter Reed to what took President Bush so long to get over to Walter Reed after the WaPo story broke? to this was a mere photo opportunity for President Bush. Each of these complaints are silly, partisan and reveal much more about the authors of this garbage than they do about President Bush.” (READ MORE)
DJ Drummond: Begone to Nothingness “The mass murder this week at Virginia Tech was a horrible, inhuman act by a madman. The suffering was made worse, however, by the mercenary and stone-hearted decision by the media at large to broadcast everything they could find about the killer. What started as a reasonable effort to provide news and relevant information, soon devolved into a vulgar circus to see who could make the victims' families experience the worst anguish.” (READ MORE)
Austin Bay: Harry Reid Declares War Lost — sort of “But then he carefully squiggles, weaves, and pedals: ‘”The (Iraq) war can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically, and the president needs to come to that realization,”’ Reid said.’ What a slickee boy. It’s lost, but can only be won, if…Hmmm. There are (and have been) four lines of operation in Iraq: security (military ops,building Iraqi defense capabilities), governmental (political participation and structure building), information (intel, media, and political perception), and economic (economic development, infrastructure creation).” (READ MORE)
RagingAnura: Virginia Tech: We Are All Responsible, Don’t Ya Know? “In the beginning, there was Ward Churchill; a fake Indian, phony disillusioned Vietnam combat vet, and the only tenured professor in an American university to only hold a Master’s degree (even a joke like Cornel West at least has a PhD, even though I won’t gloss over how he is unremittantly giving all PhD holders across the world a pathetically bad name). We all remember his comments about the “little Eichmanns” who deserved to die on 9/11, as well as his richly deserved fall from unearned academic and public grace.” (READ MORE)
Dafydd: Into Every Life, Some Reid Must Fall “Today's lily-livered belly crawling by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 95%), flatly announcing that ‘this war is lost,’ should disqualify him from the ‘leadership’ position he now occupies, say I... since he is no longer leading but deserting. Reid triumphally pronounced defeat in a press conference he called shortly after leaving the White House and his discussion with President Bush. Reid particularly singled out the counterinsurgency strategy -- which of course he belittled as ‘the surge’ -- as having been an abject failure... because there were some big bombings yesterday:” (READ MORE)
ROFASix: How Congress Defunded the War “ As the perfumed princes of the Potomac continue to babble, the war continues unabated in Iraq. While members of Congress have always said they would never put our fighting force in harms way, which is exactly what they have done with the recent funding bill that President Bush has promised to veto. The politicians fiddle, like little Nero's, while our soldiers fight. Congress knows the fallout of the Congressional defunding of the war will end up in the President's lap. It was a superbly executed move by war opponents and few seem to have noticed what really happened here. Remarkably, there is only silence in the media over the fact that this was a de facto funds cut-off for our Army.” (READ MORE)
Don Surber: Lib disses arrogant libs “Look at Richard Reeves’s photo. Dapper. Well-groomed. He exudes Manhattan liberalism, as well he should. Which is my way of saying that liberal elitists are in trouble. Big time. For years, rich Democrats have gotten away with portraying Republicans as the party of the rich. Never mind that the richest senators and the richest congresswoman all have bank accounts that would put King Solomon — or even King Tut — to shame.” (READ MORE)
McQ: EU: Creeping authoritarianism “This tendency in the EU continues to grow: ‘The European Union on Thursday made inciting racism and xenophobia crimes throughout its 27 member states in a landmark decision tempered by caveats to appease free speech concerns. The new deal specifies one- to three-year prison terms be available for incitement to violence or hatred ‘against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.”’” (READ MORE)
Greyhawk: Slaughter “With 60% of the surge troops in place, do you think al Qaeda feels a sense of urgency? They can't stop the surge, but I do believe they believe they can get others to do so. Almost 200 hundred dead in Baghdad. This isn't ‘sectarian violence’ - though it may ignite that fuse. Given recent developments, these attacks were the work of al Qaeda and any groups with wich they remain allied. But it does stand (as the media describes it and as the attackers intended) as one of the bloodiest days of the war - certainly since the March 24 attacks.” (READ MORE)
Neptunus Lex: Order from chaos “It is manifestly true that there weren’t enough sheepdogs in the vicinity of the VaTech campus on the morning 16 April, 2007. But I am increasingly persuaded that this doesn’t mean that there were too many sheep - indeed, that there were any sheep there at all. Given time to internalize the unthinkable, brave professors and students alike rallied to the barricades as best they could, even to the extent of interposing their vulnerable selves between danger and their colleagues.” (READ MORE)
Baron Bodissey: Report on the Counterjihad Summit “The UK and Scandinavia Counterjihad Summit gathered last Saturday under tight security on an unusually warm spring day in Copenhagen. We met first at the Workers’ Museum (red flags and a statue of Lenin!) so that SIAD security could check everybody out. When all the participants were assembled, we followed Anders Gravers and the SIAD contingent to the meeting place a few blocks away. There were at least twenty Danes present, several Swedes and Norwegians, with two British representatives and two American representatives of Vigilant Freedom. Paul Belien was originally scheduled to attend, but a wildcat air strike in Ostend the previous day had left him stranded in Brussels. His presence was sorely missed.” (READ MORE)
The Middle Ground: Information War: Mass Murder and the Media “An interesting thing happened on Monday, April 16, Iraq, Afghanistan, suicide bombings and terrorists disappeared from the headlines for two days in the wake of a national tragedy. On Friday, April 12, Islamic terrorists managed to set off a small suicide bomb inside the parliament killing eight people and wounding many others. In the scheme of death and destruction usually perpetrated in Iraq by the terrorists, it was only remarkable due to the location.” (READ MORE)
Allahpundit: (Video) Palestinian parliament speaker calls for extermination of Americans “He’s only the acting speaker, so, you know, don’t read too much into it. Apparently this ‘sermon’ was delivered during his trip to Sudan, a day before he was received by the butcher of Darfur and told of his abiding support for Palestinian rights. I’m linking this not because it’s exceptional but because it’s so unexceptional:” (READ MORE)
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