President Bush Discusses Fourth Anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom  —  THE PRESIDENT: Good morning.  Four years ago today, coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom to remove Saddam Hussein from power.  They did so to eliminate the threat his regime posed to the Middle East and to the world.

In hospital  —  As earlier mentioned in the comments section, my mother is in the hospital.  The doctor says that right now they're just making her comfortable.  She's sedated, with painkillers among other things.  Lungs collapsed so right now we just want to make sure she has dignity and is not in pain.

Today's Must Read  —  It's becoming one of the central rules of the U.S. attorney purge scandal: whatever "performance related" complaint the administration claims as the justification for a U.S. attorney's firing, it's actually an area of performance for which that U.S. attorney was lauded.

The Blame-America-First Crowd  —  "They always blame America first."  That was Jeane Kirkpatrick, describing the "San Francisco Democrats" in 1984.  But it could be said about a lot of Americans, especially highly educated Americans, today.  —  In their assessment of what is going on in the world …

A New Power Rises in Iraq  —  ERBIL, IRAQ - What a difference a year makes.  —  Fourteen months ago I flew to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, from Beirut, Lebanon, on the dubiously named Flying Carpet Airlines.  Flying Carpet's entire fleet is one small noisy plane with propellers, cramped seats, and thin cabin pressure.

Presidential candidate bungles speech in Miami  —  People chuckled when presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Mormon raised in Michigan and elected in Massachusetts, bungled the names of Cuban-American politicians during a recent speech in Miami.  —  But when he mistakenly associated Fidel …

Get Out of DOJ  —  Should Gonzales resign?  Plus KSM's confession and more.  —  Paul Gigot: This week on "The Journal Editorial Report," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is under fire for what Democrats are calling a political purge.  But how unprecedented was the dismissal of those eight U.S. attorneys?

'The Age of Individual Jihad' in Suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia?  —  We are now in the age of individual jihad.  How do we know?  Al Qaeda sympathizers have recently declared it so.  Further, these al Qaeda fellow-travellers have produced a series of 'how-to' videos for the individual jihadist.

Pelosi calls for new attorney general  —  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) added her voice to the growing chorus of discontent over the Justice Department's firing of eight federal prosecutors, saying today, "I believe we need a new attorney general.''  —  In a meeting with The Chicago …

Power to the People  —  I could tell right away this wasn't going to be your average Washington D.C. antiwar protest.  —  For months, the antiwar coalition International A.N.S.W.E.R. had been publicizing its plans to hold a major antiwar rally in the nation's capital on Saturday, March 17.

TEACHERS UNIONS....It's funny how I keep getting dragged into writing about education, even though it's a topic I generally prefer to stay away from.  (Why?  Lack of knowledge, basically.)  But I was struck this morning by Megan McArdle's latest plea for liberals to support a voucher system:

So, Mr. Hitchens, Weren't You Wrong About Iraq?  —  HARD QUESTIONS, FOUR YEARS LATER.  —  Four years after the first coalition soldiers crossed the Iraqi border, one can attract pitying looks (at best) if one does not take the view that the whole engagement could have been and should have been avoided.

Obama the 'Magic Negro'  —  The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.  —  AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president.

John McCain Rips the Club For Growth  —  John McCain has taken some hits for not attending certain conservative events.  With CPAC, he says it was a simple schedueling conflict.  But he will not be speaking at the upcoming conservative Club For Growth meeting either.  Why not?

Study finds one-third in D.C. illiterate  —  WASHINGTON - About one-third of the people living in the national's capital are functionally illiterate, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia.  —  Adults are considered functionally illiterate …