Category: The Dish

A judge loses it. I know the feeling.

Since when did the federal Congress have the right to micro-manage what school-kids get from snack machines?

Pieter Dorsman blogs:

John McCain is in all likelihood the only man who can soft-land the Bush agenda in calmer waters by taking the sharper edges (think torture, think measurable milestones in Iraq) off a legacy that was not flawed in principle, but flawed in its execution.

A reader dissents:

My problem with McCain is that he has said over and over again that even if we knew there were no WMD in Iraq he would still have invaded.

The plain truth is that invading Iraq was wrong. Iraq posed no imminent threat. You can’t go around killing people or nations just because you think they MIGHT do something. There has to be an imminent threat before you can use force. That principle applies to people as well as nations.

Rudy’s latest ad. Yep: it’s a parody.

Ouch. Her Majesty’s assault on Obama’s character gets him particularly pissed off:

I just don’t get it. If there’s anyone in the race whose history shows unique courage and character, it’s Barack Obama. HRC’s campaign, by contrast, is singularly lacking in conviction about anything. Her pollster, Mark Penn, has advised her to take no bold positions and continuously seek the political center, which is exactly what she’s been doing.

All is fair in love, war, and politics. But this series of slurs doesn’t serve HRC well. It will turn off voters in Iowa, as in the rest of the country. If she’s worried her polls are dropping, this is not the way to build them back up.

Some troubling signs that Iraq is not heading for political reconciliation – the key objective of the surge – any time soon:

Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, using unusually strong language, told Iraqi state television late Sunday that the contracts signed by the self-rule Kurdish region were illegal.

"No region has the right to go it alone and sign a deal," he said. "This will lead to the breakup of Iraq … oil is the business of the federal government and any attempt at extracting oil without the approval of the federal government is tantamount to smuggling."

That’s what the government intelligence agencies are reporting:

The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate that represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, states that Tehran’s ultimate intentions about gaining a nuclear weapon remain unclear, but that Iran’s “decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs.”

“Some combination of threats of intensified international scrutiny and pressures, along with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program,” the estimate states.

Cheney allegedly tried to stop the report coming out sooner.

One option in the sad and troubling case of soldier Elizabeth Whiteside. Phil Carter is flummoxed.

Norquist welcomes Huckabee.

Know hope:

Television preaching in the Middle East was once largely limited to elderly scholars in white robes reading holy texts from behind a desk, emphasizing the afterlife over this life, and sometimes inciting violence against nonbelievers. But as TV has evolved from one or two heavily controlled state channels to hundreds of diverse, private satellite offerings, Masoud and perhaps a dozen other young men — plus a few women — have emerged as increasingly popular alternatives.

Masoud and others promote "a sweet orthodoxy, which stresses the humane and compassionate" as an alternative to "unthinking rage," said Abdallah Schleifer, a specialist in Islam and electronic media at the American University in Cairo.

The tone of this message is as striking as its content:

More video here. The spiritual humility is what is so encouraging.