The Political Chase

Trent Lott

Trent Lott rising to the top again or GOP spin and strategy for the absence of Frist?

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Hunter on Ann Coulter

Hunter at Daily Kos justifiably gives Ann Coulter a beyond scathing response to this article and Coulter’s history.

It is a perfect example of what one learns in law school. 

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Power Line: The limits of theory

John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff at Power Line run an interesting blog; better stated, a safe blog. A primary element of a blog is interaction. Power Line does not provide a facility to communicate with them - no comments, contact or email us. It certainly provides protection from debate with posts like this.

Victor Davis Hanson reviews some of the evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. He also cites the Clinton Justice Department’s 1998 indictment against bin Laden, which stated:

al-Qaida reached an understanding with the Government of Iraq that al-Qaida would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al-Qaida would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

The evidence pointed in the same direction in 2002, when Clinton-appointee George Tenet told the Senate:

We have solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida going back a decade.

The argument that Saddam and al Qaeda did not cooperate, and that there was no risk of cooperation, is based not on evidence but on theory.

Maybe they’re smarter than I give them credit. It forces others to post entries on other sites (like this), which boosts their referral links and we know what effect that has on revenue.

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Scotty

Arianna has a good post for Saturday morning humor.

Sometimes, his talking points are so mutually contradictory you get the feeling that his hard drive is about to crash, and Helen Thomas will have to step up and reboot him.

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Iraq and Vietnam

Interesting comparison from Gareth Porter:

As a historian of the Vietnam War, I agree that Iraq is very different from Vietnam. Prospects for overcoming the insurgency in Iraq are much worse.

Read it all.

Hat tip to John Robb.

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Decisions, decisions…

It must just be one of those nights. Is the moon full? I’m zooming through the feeds and there is an abundance of humorous one liners.

Republicans of all stripes want to cut taxes, but rarely have they been in so much disarray about whose to cut.

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Waning Support

It’s starting to look like Saturday’s editions of the major outlets decided to focus on the human interest side. 

From tomorrow’s edition of the NYT:

Leesa Martin never considered President Bush a great leader, but she voted for him a year ago because she admired how he handled the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Then came the past summer, when the death toll from the war in Iraq hit this state particularly hard: 16 marines from the same battalion killed in one week. She thought the federal government should have acted faster to help after Hurricane Katrina. She was baffled by the president’s nomination of Harriet E. Miers, a woman she considered unqualified for the Supreme Court, and disappointed when he did not nominate another woman after Ms. Miers withdrew.

And she remains unsettled by questions about whether the White House leaked the name of a C.I.A. agent whose husband had accused the president of misleading the country about the intelligence that led to the war.

"I don’t know if it’s any one thing as much as it is everything," said Ms. Martin, 49.

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Joke of the Day

Paul at Power Line has a post discussing MSM coverage of Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Court. Can you say FOX?

[W]hen it comes to judicial nominations, these major news outlets are simply the mouthpieces of liberal interest groups.

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An Upset Congressman

I won’t begin to summarize or comment on this article in The Seattle Times other than to say  Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) is one upset and troubled man. Dicks has a long history of being a defense hawk.

Read the article.

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