The Dish

Publius unpacks the analogy:

Here’s a man whose daughter – daughter – was viciously slandered by the GOP political machine in South Carolina, which included the social conservative hierarchy. Here’s a man who endured unspeakable torture. Here’s a man who, for better or worse, came to prominence through high-profile dissents from party orthodoxy. And in the past three years, he’s abandoned it all …

McCain’s soul-selling will be remembered (forever) in one of two very different ways. On the one hand, it could be remembered as the shrewd political calculation that won him the nomination and then the presidency. More likely, it will be remembered as pathetic hypocrisy that will accompany his permanent, eternal humiliation. He will soon go from media darling to "pathetic loser." Dukakis: Welcome to the club.

I think that’s too severe. I think he has tried to do the right thing and his politicking in the environment he’s in – the toxic state of the GOP – was about as minimal as he could muster. Yes, I’m still a sap for the guy, for all his faults.

Members of Karl Rove’s base defend their recent display of raw bigotry in the Congress:

Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god. The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ. This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.

"Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood. They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There were three in the audience with the courage to stand and proclaim, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ They were immediately removed from the chambers, arrested, and are in jail now. God bless those who stand for Jesus as we know that He stands for them" – Rev. Flip Benham, Director, Operation Save America/Operation Rescue.

If your iPhone destroyed your computer, as it just did for a friend of mine, this might be good therapy:

Science has demonstrated how it’s done. Now for therapies that could help veterans. (Hat tip: 3QD.)

Ambers reports from New Hampshire.

Mark Kleiman suggests another tack to rein in the veep.

Matt hits paydirt at the WSJ. Money quote:

At this point, one needs to think that letting Rupert Murdoch destroy the WSJ news pages might be better for the world than letting the WSJ news pages’ credibility continue to provide a "halo effect" to the editorial page.

Iraqi troops fighting alongside Americans set the GIs up, in an incident last January. Five Americans were killed. The attackers were helped by Iranian forces:

The investigation reveals several new details about the assault, including:

•Iraqi police suddenly vanished from the government compound before the shooting started.

•Attackers, evidently briefed on how U.S. forces would defend themselves, bottled up more than three dozen soldiers in a barracks and headquarters complex using a combination of smoke and fragment grenades and satchel charges to blow up Humvees.

•Gunmen knew exactly where to find and abduct U.S. officers.

•Iraqi vendors operating a PX and barbershop went home early.

•A back gate was left unlocked and unguarded.

This is salient, it seems to me:

It’s worth noting that Army officials disclosed none of this when Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a former White House aide, briefed the press this month. Bergner failed to mention that an internal Army investigation had found that the Iraqi police the US troops are supposed to be training and cooperating with played a direct role in the ambush.

Instead, Bergner blamed Iran. "The Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, helped plan and direct it with Iraqi militants, said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman," USA Today reports.  "The Quds Force, he said, supplied Shiite militias with weapons and up to $3 million a month in aid."

Most lies in wartime are designed to trick the enemy. Bush’s lies of omission are designed to trick the American people. If you can blame it all on Iran, you don’t have to concede the fact that Iraq’s military forces and police are extensions of sectarian militias. That would be off-message. Grrrr.

Jon Rauch has another great column detailing again how statist George W. Bush has been in the White House. The picture, however, is a little more complicated than the crude indicators above:

According to the Mercatus-Weidenbaum report, the bulk of the increase in regulatory spending and staffing is for homeland security: such functions as airport screening (the creation of the Transportation Security Administration alone accounts for 80 percent of the staffing increase under Bush, though only 29 percent of the spending increase), maritime and border enforcement, new air-cargo rules, and so on. Subtract homeland security, and Bush turns out to be as tight a regulator as Reagan was, with annual growth of regulatory spending and staffing at rates of 2.6 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively, through 2006. Prepare, then, for a shock of recognition: On regulation, as on everything else, the Bush administration’s war on terrorism is driving an expansion of government.

Are we getting our money’s worth from Bush’s security-driven burst of regulation? The answer, unfortunately, is that no one knows.

Their dissection of his – and the GOP’s – violation of the strict prohibition of torture under Catholic doctrine.