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.

Cheney Hails His Pal Al  —  VP Says He's A "Big Fan" Of Embattled Attorney General  —  (CBS) Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he is a "big fan" of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.  —  In a interview with CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller …

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bill O'Reilly, hatemonger  — by Dave  —  So Bill O'Reilly is supposed to go on air this afternoon to "destroy" Kos.  Or, as he put it on his show: … Well, it may interest O'Reilly to know that the people whose work it is to monitor hate groups in this country …

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 …

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?

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.