memeorandum: The Thinking Behind Blair's Iraq Decision (Gerard Baker/Real Clear Politics)

10:20 AM ET, February 22, 2007

Top Items:

PELOSI CALLS BUSH TO COMPLAIN OF CHENEY'S COMMENTS ON DEMOCRATS' IRAQ STRATEGY — WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday phoned President Bush to air her complaints over Vice President Dick Cheney's comments that the Congressional Democrats' plan for Iraq would "validate the Al Qaeda strategy."

Discussion: Hot Air, QandO, Jules Crittenden, Riehl World View, The Gavel, Gateway Pundit, MyDD and alphabet city

Gerard Baker / Real Clear Politics:

The Thinking Behind Blair's Iraq Decision — Tony Blair's announcement Wednesday of the planned withdrawal of about 1,600 UK combat troops from Iraq has been greeted with predictable gloating and derision on both sides of the Atlantic. — Most of the commentary in Britain …

Discussion: Blue Crab Boulevard and QandO

Washington Post:

Ally's Timing Is Awkward for Bush — As the British announced the beginning of their departure from Iraq yesterday, President Bush's top foreign policy aide proclaimed it "basically a good-news story." Yet for an already besieged White House, the decision was doing a good job masquerading as a bad-news story.

Discussion: AMERICAblog

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:

Blair: We'll Go Back If Needed — Critics of the Iraq war have painted Tony Blair's decision to draw down the British troop levels as a repudiation of the war and an end to the Coalition in Iraq. Democrats wasted no time in pointing out the supposed incongruity of a British withdrawal …

Kim Murphy / Los Angeles Times:
Why the British are scaling back in Iraq

Discussion: Washington Post, The Carpetbagger Report and Informed Comment

Terence Hunt / Associated Press:
Cheney slams Iraq plan advocated by Dems

Discussion: Hullabaloo

New York Times:

In Both Parties, 2008 Politeness Falls to Infighting — The sun was not yet up yesterday, and members of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign team were confronted with the kind of attack that most infuriates them: one questioning the character of Mrs. Clinton and her husband.

Discussion: NewsBusters.org, Wonkette, Althouse and Editor and Publisher

William Saletan / Slate:

The War on Error — HILLARY CLINTON'S SORRY NONAPOLOGY. — Five years ago, Hillary Clinton supported a Senate resolution authorizing President Bush to use force in Iraq. So did I. It took me four years to admit this was a mistake. I've been wondering when Clinton would admit it.

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Brendan Nyhan and Middle Earth Journal

Washington Post:

Clinton, Obama Camps' Feud Is Out in the Open — An increasingly acrimonious competition between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to enlist the Democratic Party's leading fundraisers and operatives burst into the open yesterday, overshadowing what was billed as the presidential campaign's …

Discussion: The Hillary Spot and workingforchange.com …

Mike Allen / The Politico:
Cheney Chastises McCain

Discussion: DownWithTyranny! and American Spectator

CBS News:
Hillary On The Hot Seat

Discussion: Associated Press, Hotline On Call, Sirotablog, CNN Political Ticker and Hot Air

democracyinaction.com:

Tell Democrats to Freeze Out Fox News — The Nevada Democratic Party is working with Fox News Channel to host a debate with all the Democratic Party presidential candidates in August. This is, to put it mildly, insane. Fox News is a partisan Republican propaganda outlet, not a news station …

Discussion: The Political Pit Bull, Las Vegas Gleaner, Reno and Its Discontents, Pajamas Media, The Huffington Post and Cliff Schecter

Kos / Daily Kos:
Hey Harry, look at what Fox did the last time they hosted a debate

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, Taylor Marsh, The Anonymous Liberal, AMERICAblog, MyDD, The Carpetbagger Report, Reno and Its Discontents, thepetitionsite.com and Hullabaloo

Myrna the Minx / Reno and Its Discontents:
MoveOn.org Organizing Campaign Against Airing Nevada Democratic Fox News Debate

Discussion: Crooks and Liars and Daily Kos

Michelle Malkin:
Fox News Derangement Syndrome Alert

Discussion: Don Surber, Macsmind and Sister Toldjah

New York Times:

Iraq Insurgents Employ Chlorine in Bomb Attacks — A truck bomb that combined explosives with chlorine gas blew up in southern Baghdad on Wednesday, and officials said it might represent a new and deadly tactic by insurgents against Iraqi civilians. — It was at least the third truck bomb …

Discussion: The Jawa Report, the talking dog and Daily Kos

Brian Murphy / Associated Press:
Iraqi insurgents use 2nd 'dirty' bomb

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, Blue Crab Boulevard, On Deadline, Decision '08, CorrenteWire and New York Times

CNN:
General: Enemy fire might have downed U.S. copter

Discussion: The Impolitic and THE CUNNING REALIST

David S. Cloud / New York Times:

National Guard May Undertake Iraq Duty Early — The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their time between deployments to meet the demands of President Bush's buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday.

Discussion: The Heretik, Think Progress, PoliBlog (TM), This Modern World, Obsidian Wings and State of the Day

Christiane Amanpour / CNN:

Iranian official offers glimpse from within: A desire for U.S. ally … TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — As I sat down recently with a senior Iranian government official, he urgently waved a column by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times in my face, one about how the United States and Iran need to engage each other.

Discussion: Unqualified Offerings, Jules Crittenden, The Glittering Eye, Political Animal, TPMmuckraker and Power Line

Edward Jay Epstein / Opinion Journal:

The Spanish Connection — What the 9/11 Commission didn't consider. — The 9/11 Commission relied on information derived from two captured al Qaeda perpetrators for much of its picture of the conspiracy leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Discussion: protein wisdom and PrairiePundit

Thomas Sowell / Real Clear Politics:

Obama's Worn-Out Economic Ideas — Senator Barack Obama recently said, "let's allow our unions and their organizers to lift up this country's middle class again." — Ironically, he said it at a time when Detroit automakers have been laying off unionized workers by the tens of thousands …

Discussion: PrairiePundit and Decision '08

Donald Lambro / Washington Times:

GOP 'darlings' slow to sign tax-cut pledge — The two front-runners for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination — Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani — have not signed an anti-tax-increase pledge that has been embraced by several of their rivals.

Discussion: PoliPundit.com

The Big Trunk / Power Line:

REMEMBERING THE INDISPENSABLE MAN — Today is the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington's greatness was the rarest, the most necessary, and, at this remove in time, the hardest to understand.