This is a very good article on the issue of torture. Not on whether it is right, but what is actually happening.

Barbara Boxer decided to go full kook and object to the Ohio slate of electors. Well that was worthwhile, wasn't it?

Surprisingly enough, she was all alone in the Senate, though the House saw many Congressional Black Caucus members voting to reject. Evidently, Rep. Maxine Waters thought to thank Michael Moore, and Rep. Conyers called him a truth teller.

Hello! Did you guys miss that bin Laden was using Moore talking points right before the election? Not a winning position.

And on the theme of blogs being better, Powerline posts a review of the much lambasted Columbia Journalism Review article that defends Dan Rather on the forged documents.

They quote a paragraph that when I read it, just made my jaw drop:

It classifies Burkett as a member of the “loony left,” based on his Web posts. In these, Burkett says corporations will strip Iraq, obliquely compares Bush to Napoleon and “Adolf,” and calls for the defense of constitutional principles. These supposedly damning rants, alluded to in USA Today, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, are not really any loonier than an essay in Harper’s or a conversation at a Democratic party gathering during the campaign.

Emphasis mine. And that is supposed to be a defense of Burkett. But in reality, it is what the blogs have been saying - that the Democratic party, and their pals in the house organ media, are so caught up in the tinfoil hattery, that they couldn't spot the obvious forgeries.

posted by blaster at 07:49 AM | Comments (0)

Not patting myself on the back, here, I am not doing any groundbreaking. But I read at Michelle Malkin's blog (and she links to others) something I haven't seen in any other news sources - that the suicide bomber in Mosul, recently identified as a Saudi medical student, is named Ahmed Said Ahmed al-Ghamdi - and that "three of the 9/11 hijackers also carried the surname 'Al Ghamdi.'"

That would be news, wouldn't it?

I've been stingy on this, I guess, since everybody else has it covered better. But an interesting angle. Driving home from Christmas vacation, the local talk radio show was hosted by Geoff Metcalf, and he made an interesting point on the UN and the United States (currently he has a written article about it on the front page of his site). First, he talked about the Proliferation Security Initiative, which is a program that countries, led by the United States, participate in to counter WMD proliferation. It is how we got Khadafy to capitulate, and it is how we caught those North Korean Scuds packed under concrete that were going to Yemen. It is a successful program, it supports US securit needs, and it has nothing to do with the United Nations.

Now, with the campaign for relief in South Asia, the US has formed a "core group" of donors. And countries want to be part of that effort. (Start at that Belmont Club post and scroll down.) Metcalf had the story, then, of the accusation that the "core group" was being decried as an attempt to undermine the UN, and his response was that he hoped that it was.

As wretchard notes, the UN realizes it is losing "legitimacy" as it is shown to be impotent. We aren't doing that on purpose, it is just the way it is. As Metcalf puts it:

Continue to ‘undermine’ UN inefficiency by doing their job better and more effectively.

Metcalf also suggests - as the blogosphere has recommended - replacing the UN with an organization devoted to democracy. If you think about it, in each of these cases, the United States - and President Bush - has assembled a "coalition of the willing" to get things done.

It is starting to sink in. The UN is in trouble. But Ace shows us the real danger, quoting from a column by former Law & Order prosecutor (not Sherlock Holmes nemesis) Michael Moriarty - "leader of the pack - soon-to-be United Nations Secretary General William Jefferson Clinton."

No wonder the Bush administration is "not going to draw the sword against Kofi."