The Dish

Tay Zonday of Chocolate Rain fame has a new single. Only on YouTube, of course. The original got 9 million viewings.

An interesting nugget that the right isn’t talking about. No wonder Mark Levin is worried.

Comedy-writers from Colbert, Stewart, Conan, Letterman and Maher all got to produce clips introducing their staff at the Emmys last night. Pretty damn hilarious. I’d say my friends at Real Time won what they call the "clip-off", although the award went to Conan’s peeps.

Money quote:

An abrupt withdrawal from Iraq will not end the war; it will only redirect it. Within Iraq, the sectarian conflict could assume genocidal proportions; terrorist base areas could re-emerge.

Under the impact of American abdication, Lebanon may slip into domination by Iran’s ally, Hezbollah; a Syria-Israel war or an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities may become more likely as Israel attempts to break the radical encirclement; Turkey and Iran will probably squeeze Kurdish autonomy; and the Taleban in Afghanistan will gain new impetus. Countries where the radical threat is as yet incipient, as India, will face a mounting domestic challenge. Pakistan, in the process of a delicate political transformation, will encounter more radical pressures and may even turn into a radical challenge itself.

That is what is meant by "precipitate" withdrawal — a withdrawal in which the US loses the ability to shape events, either within Iraq, on the anti-jihadist battlefield or in the world at large.

He wants troops there indefinitely to stabilize the three different de facto mini-states; and much more diplomacy. Fareed echoes some of this today – urging a drastic drawdown but maintaining residual forces to capitalize and help any regional political deals. A lot of one’s judgment on this is bound up with how much interest one believes the West still has in protecting oil supplies. But unlike Alan Greenspan, I’m not so sure that a major disruption to the oil fields in the Middle East would be such a bad thing – and a major disruption is what a swift US withdrawal would lead to. But that relates, in turn, to a judgment call about the importance of climate change and the salience of the Middle East to Western interests in the long run. On this, I think Luttwak has an extremely worthwhile point. More Luttwak stimulation here.

(Photo: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty.)

WaPo’s humor-free Len Downie kills an "Opus" cartoon because he thought it would offend Muslims. Muslims, it appears, were not offended:

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights and advocacy group, wasn’t offended. " ‘Opus’ poked fun at the strip’s characters, not Muslims or Islam. I see hundreds worse on the Internet every day," he said.

Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic studies at American University, also wasn’t offended. He said there is a strong Muslim tradition of satire and self-deprecation. "I think there is a danger of us becoming so politically correct that we end up by blunting the critics’ bent and the satirists’ wit. Muslims need to be sensitive to the fact that in Western culture there is a healthy tradition of not taking things too seriously."

That’s how terror works, doesn’t it? Eventually the craven self-censorship makes real censorship unnecessary.

"Even giving substantial weight, as I do, to the President’s statement in the June 9 Order that Padilla is "a continuing, present and grave danger to the national security of the United States" and that his detention "is necessary to prevent him from siding with al Qaeda in its efforts to attack the United States," there has been no fact presented to me that shows that the source of that danger is the possibility that Padilla will transmit information to others through his lawyers.

By contrast, Padilla’s statutorily granted right to present facts to the court in connection with this petition will be destroyed utterly if he is not allowed to consult with counsel. On the facts presented in this case, the balance weighs heavily in Padilla’s favor," – Judge Michael Mukasey in a 2002 ruling in the Padilla case.

I’m not a lawyer but it seems to me that Mukasey is a superb choice for attorney-general. He is a rock-ribbed conservative, which is to say he believes in the rule of law, and stood up for it when others did not. He may be to the right of me on some issues, but his dedication to impartial justice is what we need right now. We’d be lucky to have him.

Mainz, Germany, 4.10 pm.

I try to make sense of the war goals in the Sunday Times:

Let us review the stated objectives of the Iraq war chronologically:

2002: to disarm Saddam Hussein of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and create a breathing space for democracy in the Middle East (the WMDs were not there; the breathing space became anarchy).

2003: to allow chaos in order to create a “fly-paper” for every jihadist in the world to come and get slaughtered by the US (“Bring it on!”).

2004: to create a new democratic constitution (achieved on paper, but at the price of creating sectarian voting blocs that actually intensified the ethnic and religious divisions pulling the country apart).

2005: to protect Iraq from a powerful and growing Sunni insurgency and disarm the Shi’ite militias (failed).

2006: to quell surging sectarian violence, target a new and lethal Al-Qaeda in Iraq and restrain the passions unleashed by the bombing of the Samarra mosque (failed).

2007: to prevent genocide and a wider regional war and create enough peace for a settlement in the centre (the surge has reduced violence to levels of summer 2006, and no agreement in Baghdad has been reached).

And so the question becomes: what will the objective of the Iraq war be next year?

Over 1,000 more dead young Americans, and well over $100 billion to get to the same force level of a couple of years ago, with no prospect of a political settlement in Iraq. Lindsey Graham added it up:

We’re spending $9 billion a month to stay in Iraq. . . . So you’re saying to the Congress that you know that at least 60 soldiers, airmen and Marines are likely to be killed every month from now to July, that we’re going to spend $9 billion a month of American taxpayer dollars, and when it’s all said and done, we’ll still have 100,000 people there. You believe it’s worth it in terms of our national security interests to pay that price?

Petraeus said yes. But it’s not his decision. It’s the president’s and the Congress’s.

"I can only speak for myself and I’m a registered Republican, but last year I voted a straight Democratic ticket. First time in my life. The Republicans have kind of lost touch with reality," – Bob Elderkin, 68, who heads the town of Rifle’s chapter of the Colorado Mule Deer Association, a hunting group that has made common cause with environmentalists against drilling.