Engineers are smarter and cooler than everyone else. Or that's how this engineer reads it.

Okay, so it hasn't died down there. And, I note, that he is following a pattern that I have seen in the past - when any Republican takes some position that is not absolutely pro-gay, he goes negative on Bush.

I suppose that this bolsters a point that he often makes, that as long as there are social conservatives in the Republican party, gays will be of the Left. When even a self-proclaimed man of the Right goes negative on a conservative President, then there would be no hope for getting moderates, much less the hard core gay Lefties, to vote Republican.

If this is so, then that means that Republicans - ALL Republicans - must become social Libertarians in order to get the votes of the gay community. Which again points out the fundamental unfairness of the "mean-spirited" campaign against Republicans. One Republican's position becomes the reason for rejecting the entire party. David Duke, who was rejected by the Republican Party, is still used to tar Republicans as racists.

This never happens to Democrats. Noone ever says "I can't vote for Joe Lieberman because Al Sharpton said such-and-such." Noone ever says whenever a member of the Black Caucus argues against the Pledge of Allegiance that all Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot, or squandering their electoral power on trivial issues.

Yeah, I know. Life isn't fair. But I thought I'd just point it out.

Cold Fury has gratuitous plane pics, too.

An Egyptian sailor dies from anthrax he was carrying in a suitcase to Canada. But the Canadians think it's all good:

"There is absolutely no criminal or terrorist threat to Canada," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector Dan Tanner said from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Unfortunately, not enough time to give it full frontal, so just a side shot while rolling out of bed:

Eerie Silence in Hollywood as Anti-War Stars Vanish

Garofalo, working hard on her upcoming ABC sitcom, did not respond to interview requests for this story. But she told the Washington Post last week that her anti-war stance had been a "positive" experience that had helped her career.

"Before this I was a moderately well-known character actress," she told the paper. "Now, I'm almost famous."

So then you haven't been blacklisted afterall. And you got what you wanted. Why such a poutyface then?

Farrell said that the ability of U.S. troops to topple Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime in relatively short order has not softened his opposition to the war.

"An illegal war is an illegal war no matter what the result. We'll never know now what could have been achieved through peaceful means."

Umm, yeah we do know what could be achieved through peaceful means. Children's prisons stay in business, people continue to get their tongues cut out, their wives raped, and terrorists get supported and trained, and Hussein would have kept his WMD around to threaten people or to use.

Once again, just exercising my First Amendment right here: Mike Farrell is a moron.

Spotted at Instapundit. Jeff Bezos has a rocket company. There's plenty of people in the race now. May the best rocket win!

Bezos has joined up with other people that are "into" rockets, like Neal Stephenson, author of Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon. Even better. Scifi writers in on the real deal, even though Stephenson's fiction is not terribly optimistic - but it is very well written. I loved both books, though it took forever to get through Cryptonomicon.

There is so much going on, and I've wanted to write about, I just can't get to them all bloggy style, so I'll do an old school Larry King...Hussein and bin Laden working together. Who knew?...I hate the Tim Russert show. Russert reads a critical op-ed (for a conservative, the NYT, unless he can get a juicy one from the Washington Times or WSJ, a liberal usually has to respond to an ad from a conservative group, or maybe a clip from Ari Fleischer or the President), then asks, "how do you respond to that?"...And then he always tries to force someone to commit to running for President or not, years in the future....Russert had Bill Richardson on, who, like all Clintonites, seems convinced that capitulation to the North Koreans is our only choice. These people had 8 years to screw us in the world, now they should just shut it...More barrels of chemicals in Iraq. Could be more bug spray. Or not...King Abdullah II, neocon? Those dang Jews have their fingers everywhere!...Iraqis blow up Hussein weapons dump in a neighborhood. It's all America's fault!...Santorum story has died down, even at Andrew Sullivan's...How come there are people who say that Santorum's remarks are the reason why they couldn't ever vote Republican, but Biden's RAVE act or Hollings on Digital Rights Management never gets a "that's why I could never vote Democrat"?...George Voinovich said on Russert's show that he can't go for more than $350B in tax cuts because it is not fiscally responsible to borrow money for a tax cut. But then he claims we'll have to borrow the money for the tax cut he supports...Why is it that the Arab world expects us to butt out of Iraq, but we have to solve the Palestinian thing?...I thought Jean Chretien thought the UN was all that....Fox News ad campaign says freedom of the press doesn't mean you should be a lapdog for tyrants, attack dog against America...If you get spam for a surefire moneymaking scheme, does the fact it comes from dirtydog98@hotmail.com convince you its legit?

LT Smash asks "why should I boycott actors, or musicians, just because they oppose what I’m doing?" Good question, I guess. I think back to the music I listened to back in the Big 80's. It isn't all that hard to figure out the politics of The Communards, and Morrissey wanted Margaret on the Guillotine. I still like Sinead O'Connor's early stuff (didn't she quit music before, anyway?), and Bono still rocks. And I listened to that stuff when I was at West Point.

And the 80's stuff makes Romy and Michele a cool movie, even with Janeane Garofalo.

I wouldn't buy a Dixie Chicks album in the first place, and don't watch The West Wing, and don't like most of the things Susan Sarandon is in (but I think The Shawshank Redemption is still a great film, even after you know the ending).

So I'd have to agree with LT Smash. I want these people to speak out. It lets us know who the morons are. And they can learn about opinions, too. Like I think there is a lot of airbrushing going on here. I mean A LOT. On one of them, anyway.

With a slew of new posts.

I'm thinking that at some level, just like James Taranto, blaster gets results!

A new post at No Replacement for Displacement. Makes a good point on perp walks - we need to see these Ba'athists surrounded by beefy Marines with big guns, and holding their heads down in shame as they get pulled in. Kinda like that lovely picture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed - a reminder to the rest of the baddies out there, we got something for you.

Work makes the blogging go in stutters sometimes. So I click through my blogroll and find folks who haven't posted in a couple of weeks. Like tacitus. And No Replacement for Displacement - where MT plays a dirty trick since there are no posts this month. Just wondering.

A meme is a contagious idea, a fancy word for what some call "pack journalism" for the Big Media (with their editors and all!). Like the "Neocons planning to take over the world" meme. A meme of the moment is "How come Colin Powell isn't getting slammed?" The impetus for this is Newt Gingrich's speech yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute. In that speech, Gingrich never mentions Colin Powell by name, and only once to the Secretaty of State as a position. Yet, the meme is, Powell is a Teflon Man, never accountable for his tragic mistakes. 1 2 (Okay, 2 might be slim for a meme. Keep looking for it.)

I think this is just an extension of the neo-con meme, though. While I think the "neo-con" cabal business is just plain wrong, there is a philosophical divide between people within the administration, and there does appear to be a coalescing of folks around Powell and Rumsfeld on either side of that divide. Since Gingrich is on the Policy Review Board for Defense, some read his speech as an outrider making a criticism that the principal, Rumsfeld, cannot make for himself in public. Because, you know, the Policy Review Board is a haven for neo-cons, and it is how they exercise their control over Rumsfeld, and by extension, the President, in getting their way on ruling the world. A lot of folks seem to be reading a lot into this speech by the former speaker. I am seeing and hearing the point made that criticism of Powell is tantamount to criticizing the President - heard it on Laura Ingraham's show last night, and an unnamed official said it in the Post yesterday.

There is also the possibility that it isn't all a big conspiracy. That people in Washington may actually say what they think. Gingrich has been pilloried for doing just that in the past. Or, perhaps, instead of assigning an inimical intent, they are what were called in Clinton days "trial ballons," where ideas are floated before the public in a way that is unaccountable to the administration, and public opinion can be gauged. Back then, it was thought to be very clever, but that of course would clash with the "George Bush is a moron" meme.

I think that the Teflon meme, though, does a disservice to Colin Powell. It says that he is getting a pass for criticism because the doves think he is one of them, or more insidiously, as a form of affirmative action (though race never kept Justice Thomas from criticism). I think that Colin Powell is a good soldier, in all the meanings of that term, and that he is working to what he thinks is best, and to what the President wants him to do. As Powell once joked, the President told him "Republicans want me to fire you, Democrats think you should resign. That's just where I want you to be."

It also distracts from the real issues - Gingrich wasn't launching a Rummy v. Powell salvo, but an actual critique of what is going on within the State Department, which is certainly bigger and more permanent than the transient Secretary of State. There is a need for change there, and turning that into a petty squabble between personalities belittles the argument. I think the meme needs to change from the focus on Secretary Powell (in other words, it isn't about whether he is Teflon or weak), to a focus on what State is and does. Now that is the infection I would like to spread.

What we know as the "McCarthy era" is so ingrained into us that I don't know that we'll ever correct history on it. It is a hard thing, defending McCarthy, because he was a lot of the bad things that those who opposed him said he was. And of course, the Left will never forgive him, because even though he was cruel and reckless, he was also right. He exposed the Communists that riddled the State Department. But it was a Pyrrhic victory, because now those who "bravely stood up to the blacklist" are honored as heroes, and the name of the man who tried to ferret out the security risks within our government is practically an epithet.

Jill Serjeant of Reuters wrote that Hollywood actors raise McCarthyism specter on Iraq. It contains this paragraph:

SAG said suggestions that "well-known individuals who express 'unacceptable' views should be punished by losing their right to work" was a "shocking development" which recalled the 1950s House Committee on Un-American Activities under Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Now wasn't that Glenn Reynolds who got asked about how bloggers get by without editors? Why yes! It was. One might think that something as obviously wrong as saying that a Senator was running a House committee would be, well, obviously wrong. But there it is. The error in history that we will never fix. Because McCarthy never went after Hollywood. His targets were the State Department, and fatally, the Department of the Army.

HUAC did go after Hollywood. The Hollywood 10 were jailed for contempt of Congress, for failing to answer whether they belonged to the Communist Party (they all did) before the committee in 1947 and 1948. McCarthy made his famous speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1950. And yet, it is McCarthyism that they decry.

UPDATE: I know, I should have titled this entry Exhuming McCarthy.

For those who made the argument that we should do nothing about Iraq because North Korea is a much bigger, much more dangerous threat, the SecDef has something for you:

A secret Donald Rumsfeld memorandum calling for regime change in North Korea was leaked yesterday, opening a fresh foreign policy split in the Bush administration.

The classified discussion paper, circulated by the defence secretary, appears to cut directly across State Department plans to disarm Kim Jong-il, the North's dictator, through threats leavened by promises that his regime is not a target for overthrow.

You would think that the "North Korea is a bigger threat" crowd would applaud this development, but I am just going to guess that they won't

Though I will also guess that this is like a lot of the "secrets" that made their way to the front pages of big time newspapers - not exactly true.

I'm a flappy bird.

Now its honor making a comeback (spotted at Instapundit). I guess for the pessimistic, honor means nothing crowd, W is the worst President ever.

I made this point over in the comments on a thread over at Patrick Ruffini's. The latest fad among the capital "L" Left is to point out the neocon cabal, with a "secret plan" to take over and democratize the Middle East. First of all, its not like that's a bad idea. And of course you can read in our National Security Strategy, which is on the White House website (not exactly secret), the following paragraph:

Finally, the United States will use this moment of opportunity to extend the benefits of freedom across the globe.We will actively work to bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world. The events of September 11, 2001, taught us that weak states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states. Poverty does not make poor people into terrorists and murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within their borders.

I guess right now, the highest profile proponent of the "secret plan" theory is Josh Marshall, who says that he doesn't say that it's a secret plan, just a massive Presidential deception. Whatever.

So I would ask Marshall, and Paul Kennedy, about Public Law 105-338 (PDF). The short title of that law is "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998." Here is the summary of the law: "Declares that it should be the policy of the United States to seek to remove the Saddam Hussein regime from power in Iraq and to replace it with a democratic government."

1998. Hmmm. If it is a Public Law, your civics lessons should have taught you that this requires the signature of the President. In 1998, the President, as we should well remember, was Bill Clinton. But the Congress had been siezed by the Republicans at the time, surely the neocons steamrolled him, right? Well, according to the roll call vote in the House, 157 Democrats and 1 Independent (that would be Bernie Sanders, socialist from Vermont) voted Yea. In the Senate, it was voted under unanimous consent, which essentially means noone opposed. Senator Bob Kerrey (not to be confused with Senator John Kerry) said of the bill:

This bill, when passed and signed into law, is a clear commitment to a U.S. policy replacing the Saddam Hussein regime and replacing it with a transition to democracy. This bill is a statement that America refuses to coexist with a regime which has used chemical weapons on its own citizens and on neighboring countries, which has invaded its neighbors twice without provocation, which has still not accounted for its atrocities committed in Kuwait, which has fired ballistic missiles into the cities of three of its neighbors, which is attempting to develop nuclear and biological weapons, and which has brutalized and terrorized its own citizens for thirty years. I don't see how any democratic country could accept the existence of such a regime, but this bill says America will not. I will be an even prouder American when the refusal, and commitment to materially help the Iraqi resistance, are U.S. policy.

So if this democracy in the Middle East deal is a neocon cabal, Bill Clinton is in on it. Now that is one heck of a conspiracy.

UPDATE: I guess it is true that great minds think alike. Patrick Ruffini tracks down some Democrats neoconning Syria.

While everyone else was busy with the war, Burt Rutan - look at the picture, who else could it be - plans to launch a private space venture. Now that is the kind of optimism I am talking about. In the face of a war on terrorism, a Space Shuttle disaster, and a still bumpy economy, someone just plunges forward toward the future, expecting that things will be better. Thank you Mr. Rutan.

Spotted at Winds of Change. And, no, the gratuitous plane pics are not designed to steal traffic from Political Lomcevak - even though his front page doesn't have any....

A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said. And there is more. It is hard to tell how much of the story told by the scientist is true, and whether it applies to any part of the program beyond the one he worked in, but the precursor materials are evidence of 1) a program to develop WMD and 2) in violation of the UNSC resolutions. I expect we'll see more of this in the coming weeks.

Spotted in The Corner.

My mother-in-law brought me a translation of Sun-Tzu's Art of War and said, "you should read this, it exactly explains the war in Iraq." I was familiar with Sun-Tzu, but hadn't read the text, which is surprisingly short. And she was right. I guess those CNN generals should have picked up on this.

When doing battle, seek a quick victory.

A protracted battle will blunt weapons and dampen ardor.

If troops lay siege to a walled city, their strength will be exhausted.

If the army is exposed to a prolonged campaign, the nation's resources will not suffice.

When weapons are blunted, and ardor dampened, strength exhausted, and resources depleted, the neighboring rulers will take advantage of these complications.

Then even the wisest of counsels would not be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

Therefore, I have heard of military campaigns that were clumsy but swift, but I have never seen military campaigns that were skilled but protracted.

No nation has ever benefited from protracted warfare.

---

Therefore, one who is skilled in warfare principles subdues the enemy without doing battle, takes the enemy's walled city without attacking, and overthrows the enemy quickly, without protracted warfare.

---

To march over a thousand li without becoming distressed, march over where the enemy is not present.

---

Therefore, your strategy for victories in battle is not repetitious, and your formations in response to the enemy are endless.

The army's formation is like water.

The water's formation avoids the high and rushes to the low.

So an army's formation avoids the strong and rushes to the weak.

Water's formation adapts to the ground when flowing.

So then an army's formation adapts to the enemy to achieve victory.

---

Therefore, the army is established on deception, mobilized by advantage, and changed through dividing up and consolidating the troops.

Therefore, it advances like the wind;

it marches like the forest;

it invades and plunders like fire;

it stands like the mountain;

it is formless like the dark;

it strikes like thunder.

Therefore, an army does not have constant force, or have constant formation.

Those who are able to adapt and change in accord with the enemy and achieve victory are called divine

---

The essential factor in warfare is speed.

To take advantage of the enemy's lack of preparation, take unexpected routes to attack where the enemy is not prepared.

Generally, the Way of invading is when one has penetrated deep into enemy ground, the troops are united;

the defender will not be able to prevail.

---

If one then concentrates his strength on the enemy, killing his general a thousand li away, this is called achieving objectives through wit and skill.

---

What enables the enlightened rulers and good generals to conquer the enemy at every move and achieve extraordinary success is foreknowledge.

Foreknowledge cannot be elicited from ghosts and spirits;

it cannot be inferred from comparison of previous events, or from the calculations of the heavens, but must be obtained from people who have knowledge of the enemy's situation

I thought we had hashed this business out 140 or so years ago. This may be a good reason to revisit it. "Berkeley isn't America, and neither is San Francisco or Oakland." Spotted in The Corner.

From the Telegraph:

Saddam Hussein's regime was linked to an African Islamist terrorist group, according to intelligence papers seen by The Telegraph. The documents provide the first hard evidence of ties between Iraq and religious terrorism.

Secret dossiers detailing the group's discussions with the Iraqi Intelligence Service were found in the spies' Baghdad headquarters, among the detritus of shredding.

And the WMD are "supposed," too. Just wait.

I just don't get some people. I understand that people will have different opinions about things, and that reasonable people can differ. But what I don't understand is how often I see the same kinds of people (let's just face it - the Left) make the same arguments time after time about facts. I agree everyone can have their own opinionl. I think everyone whould work from the same set of facts, though.

What brings this up was a Richard Cohen column in the Post today. In it, he wrote the following sentence:

The answer this time cannot be about presumed weapons of mass destruction or fictive links to al Qaeda or the vile nature of the regime.

The word fictive describing "links to al Qaeda" means that he thinks that they are made up, a sham. I run into people in the real world and online that believe just that. One of the first arguments is that al Qaeda is religious, and Saddam secular, so the two must hate each other. One might think that having a "Saddam Mosque" built or the call (supposedly) from Hussein to Muslims around the world to rise up in Jihad against the US to put that silly thing to rest. Or maybe the fact that Hussein was quite open about about the millions of dollars he sent annually to Hamas, which is also religious. He didn't mind writing them a check, and they didn't mind - they in fact celebrated - cashing them. If the religious and secular can get together there, why is it out of the realm of possibility that Hussein and al Qaeda could work together?

Another angle is that "even the CIA" doesn't believe there are links between al Qaeda and Hussein. Of course, normally the CIA is a target of abuse for being dishonest, but on this, they have absolute faith. Of course, it just isn't true. The idea comes from the open part of a briefing that CIA Director George Tenet gave. Since there was obvious misunderstanding of what was said, the Director released a memo discussing what should be said in unclassified terms about his briefing. This letter is often described as being at odds with Administration policy. But this is what it says regarding links between Iraq and al Qaeda:

Regarding Senator Bayh's question of Iraqi links to Al Qaeda. Senators could draw from the following points for unclassified discussions:

o Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

o We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

o Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.

o Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

o We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

o Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda. suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.

Doesn't sound to me like the CIA doesn't think there are links between Iraq and al Qaeda. I must be reading it wrong. But if you want to read the original, this "peace activist" website has a PDF of the original.

And then there is the whole "the Czech Republic has reputiated the reports of Mohammed Atta meeting an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague." That's the problem with the New York Times and its anti-war stance. It reported that, but it just isn't true. But you just can't tell some people this.

Liek the thing about the Project for a New American Century being some sort of proof of the neocon/Zionist cabal to take over the US government to establish hegemony. I mean, please. Read the dang thing.

The painfully named Belly Flop. Check it out.

I spent the last few days at Whiteman AFB in Missouri. Besides not having broadband or local AT&T dial-up numbers, it is the home of the B2 bomber, which called the "Spirit." I had never really heard it called by its name, though, just the B2 Bomber. But there is no question it's the Spirit - the main drag on Whiteman is called Spirit Avenue. Each aircraft is named as the Spirit of a state of the Union - the first operational one was "The Spirit of Missouri." I actually saw one take off. If you've seen pictures, you haven't really seen it. I heard it taking off, and when I first saw it, I didn't know what it was. Even though every place on the base has a model of one, including the Burger King. Most images of the plane are sort of a plan view, where the striking angular shape makes a strong visual impression. Like this:

When it was taking off, though, the angle was such that I was looking at it straight on from behind. And it just didn't look like an airplane. All I could see was a thin slash with a raised bubble in the middle. And it didn't look black, it looked kind of silvery. To get an idea, it was sort of like this, but the wheels were up, and it was from behind.

Plus, it was hard to see it against a grey rainy sky - not only stealthy to radar, but visually stealthy. American know how at its best.

Just real quick - in the middle of Missouri with low access. Watched Brit Hume, and during the panel session, they took on CNN's confession about altering its reporting on Iraq. Brit noted that this has not gotten much attention from the rest of the media. He noted that their reporting of the last Iraqi "election" was rather straight-faced - but that they were not alone in that. Fred Barnes agreed, and noted that a lot of reporting from the Soviet Union, and Cuba, and China has been soft. I think that taking this on in such a head-on way, Fox has set a stake in the ground - they will look pretty bad if they have played this same game. Let's hear from the rest.

So that bad news came out on Friday. Looks like the blogosphere is doing a good job of keeping up the sound level on that issue.

I don't see a way out of this for CNN if people stay focused on it. They can't just go and certify that they are not influenced in their reporting of other tyrants. Many have posted on The New Republic's article from last October, where they said then that CNN altered their reporting in order to obtain access, and then they - and specifically Jordan - denied it. And hwo does that square with this?

CNN, already available to those few Iraqis with satellite dishes, has declined to participate. "We didn't think that as an independent, global news organization it was appropriate to participate in a United States government video transmission," the network said in statement.

From the NYT, via The Boston Phoenix, via Instapundit.

And then there is the question of whether this occurs at other news organizations. There are those defending CNN in the comments at LGF, with the typical "everybody does it" defense, asking, how do you know Fox doesn't do this? Good question, I say. Seems like a good opportunity for them all to clear the air on this. Let's hear it.

This is not the Rummy from Frank's world. Well, probably not. Perhaps.

Seen at AndrewSullivan.com.

I think that op-ed in the post below is something that needs serious attention. People on the way left like to say that the media is just corporatist shills for the United States propaganda. But it is demonstrably true with that op-ed that CNN was a shill for a tyrant. For Saddam Hussein, They willfully concealed the truth about his regime so that they could continue reporting from there. Reporting something not entirely true.

How many people thought "surely if this country, this dictator was that bad, I would have heard something on the news about it?" How many missed the truth because CNN, and no doubt others, refused to tell it? The credibility of the mass media has been in doubt for a while - it has been losing to more direct reporting and the internet for a while. And this is why. Because for all of their journalistic integrity, and big budgets, and international reporters - they simply cannot tell the truth about a tyrant.

Seriously, what else are we not being told? Who else is threatened with death, and where, for daring to report the truth? Is there a lesson? Are all those stories about China, like the forced abortions and execution vans, that are reported by non-mainstream sites, not reported by mainstream media so they can maintain access? Is it still true that CNN is the only US news service with a bureau in Havana? What can we trust of that news, knowing that a tyrant rules there? Maybe the overall media quiet about Castro isn't ideological - maybe they are just afraid.

I am still dumbfounded by that op-ed - that CNN bowed to pressure like that. For a dozen years.

What else aren't we being told?

UPDATE: HobbsOnline has a good roundup of zone flooding. Missed are Michele, Rachel Lucas, Glenn Reynolds 1 2, Winds of Change, VodkaPundit, Mike Hendrix, Bill Quick, SGT Stryker - will add more as I find them. Journalistic Enron, you bet. You remember what happened to Enron, right?

Just a minute to dash this off. You have to read this op-ed in the NYT (spotted in The Corner). So now it can be told? How many other stories will we hear with the passing of other brutal tyrants? More on this later.

Doubt and fear in Arab world

Meanwhile, some Egyptians fear their country may be next if Washington has a list for intervention.

The editor of the Cairo Times, Hisahm Kassem, said: "Today is a benchmark in Arab history. This is the fall of the first authoritarian regime, or what has become knows as a stable regime supported by the United States.

"I think it is going to have a domino effect throughout the Arab region."

Well, Hisahm, I think you are starting to get it. Unfortunately, it seems to elude CNN's Sheila McVicar:

MacVicar added: "The notion of what happens next is very much on people's minds. The question is what does the U.S. want?"

It was deliberate. Frank has proof with this transcript!

VOICE1: Hey, there is that hotel full of journalists.

VOICE2: Let us fire at it and kill some.

VOICE1: What an excellent idea.

(sound of tank firing)

VOICE1: I bet that killed some.

VOICE2: Hooray!

Once al Jazeera gets a hold of this, there will be a reckoning!