A War We Just Might Win  —  VIEWED from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal.  The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility.

Inslee to introduce Gonzales impeachment tomorrow.  —  Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) is introducing legislation that would require the House Judiciary Committee and the House of Representatives to begin an impeachment investigation into Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in the wake of his damaging testimony last week.

PM hails Bush's leadership  —  Tee cosy ... Brown & Bush in Camp David golf buggy  —  GORDON Brown last night praised George Bush for leading the global war on terror — saying the world owed America a huge debt.  —  The Prime Minister vowed to take Winston Churchill's lead and make Britain's ties with America even stronger.

Fred's funds raise fear of flop  —  Fred Thompson plans to announce Tuesday that his committee to test the waters for a Republican presidential campaign raised slightly more than $3 million in June, substantially less than some backers had hoped, according to Republican sources.

weak tea indeed: democratic leaders water down ethics & earmark reform bill  —  Porkbusters obtained the latest version of the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007'', and as expected, the Democratic leadership has worked some funny business to dilute some of the Act's key provisions.

Ingmar Bergman, Famed Director, Dies at 89  —  Ingmar Bergman, the "poet with the camera" who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died today on the small island of Faro where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said.

Bill O'Reilly Says He Will "Destroy" Daily Kos Today  —  Today, Father Coughlin — er, sorry, frog in my throat — Bill O'Reilly is planning another in his ongoing attacks against Daily Kos and YearlyKos.  Fox News has apparently been emailing the Democratic campaigns asking them for "comment" …

Taliban: Male hostage shot dead  —  KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) — Taliban kidnappers shot dead a male South Korean hostage on Monday, a spokesman said, accusing the Afghan government of not listening to rebel demands.  —  "We shot dead a male captive because the government did not listen to our demands …

The Meta-Go-Round  —  Sam Boyd notes the media's bizarre flip-flops and double-reversals on the subject of the Obama-Clinton debate spat.  The pathology he's identifying is the exact one James Fallows focuses on in the piece I plugged this morning — a pathological aversion to talk about the substance of things.

Baghdad Raid Night  —  BAGHDAD - "We want to use you as bait," Sergeant Eduardo Ojeda from Los Angeles, California, told me before I embedded with his unit on what was shaping up to be a night raid.  —  "Excellent," I said.  "That's why I'm here."  —  This is what passes for black Army humor in Baghdad.

Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support  —  Majority of Americans Favor Extra Safety Factor of Cameras  —  Crime-fighting beats privacy in public places: Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras — a measure decried by some civil libertarians …

Bush's Turkish Gamble  —  The morass in Iraq and deepening difficulties in Afghanistan have not deterred the Bush administration from taking on a dangerous and questionable new secret operation.  High-level U.S. officials are working with their Turkish counterparts on a joint military operation …

[TS] Op-Ed Columnist: An Immoral Philosophy  —  What kind of philosophy says that it's O.K. to subsidize insurance companies, but not to provide health care to children?

Hitchens on Pace U prosecution: "This has to stop, and it has to stop right now"  —  MM has a copy of the complaint.  Turns out the newspaper reports were wrong: he hasn't been charged with any counts of aggravated harassment, just two counts of fourth-degree criminal mischief (one for each Koran he flushed).

Abolish Tenure  —  Should we eliminate academic tenure?  Yes.  I have no principled objection to tenure.  Under the right circumstances, it can function as intended, to protect the marketplace of ideas.  Unfortunately, in the hands of political ideologues, tenure turns into an incredibly efficient tool …

Congress eyes pay raise for itself  —  WASHINGTON — After raising the minimum wage by 70 cents an hour this week, many members of Congress are ready to give themselves a pay increase of roughly $4,400 per year.  —  That would take their annual salaries to nearly $170,000.