Top Items:
New York Times:
The War as We Saw It — VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population.
Discussion:
INTEL DUMP, Balloon Juice, Informed Comment, Prairie Weather, TIME: Swampland and Daniel W. Drezner
RELATED:
Washington Post:
How Rove Directed Federal Assets for GOP Gains — Bush Adviser's Effort to Promote the President and His Allies Was Unprecedented in Its Reach — Thirteen months before President Bush was reelected, chief strategist Karl Rove summoned political appointees from around the government to the Old Executive Office Building.
Atrios / Eschaton:
Is Tom Friedman a Bad Person? — All signs point to "pretty hideous human being, one which all good people should shun."
RELATED:
Digby / Hullabaloo:
Tripping On Crazy — Atrios has posted a YouTube of Tom Friedman from 2003 saying we needed to unleash hell on the first convenient middle eastern country to teach those bastards a lesson. It's a perfect display of the rampant lunacy that overtook most of the punditocrisy after 9/11, and Friedman in particular.
ABCNEWS:
The Iowa Debates — Tune In and Talk Back — ABC News Hosts Republican and Democratic Debates Aug. 5 and Aug. 19 — Welcome to the online home of ABC News' Democratic debate, the second of two presidential debates held this month on the campus of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
The Corner:
The Muslim Jesus Cont'd — Some interesting emails for late on a Saturday night. Here are a bunch, but I'll hide most of 'em behind one of those more links: … And: … And: … And, from my Middle East Guy: — Keep reading this post . . .
Discussion:
The Van Der Galiën Gazette
Mark Steyn / Orange County Register:
Speaking of sanctuary, where's ours? — At the funeral of Iofemi Hightower, her classmate Mecca Ali wore a T-shirt with the slogan: "Tell Me Why They Had To Die." — "They" are Miss Hightower, Dashon Harvey and Terrance Aeriel, three young citizens of Newark, New Jersey …
Ann Scott Tyson / Washington Post:
A Deadly Clash at Donkey Island — On a Routine Night Patrol Near Ramadi, U.S. Troops Stumble Upon a Camp of Heavily Armed Insurgents Poised to Retake the City — Staff Sgt. Norman Stark had never seen combat. Nor did the 32-year-old soldier from Baltimore expect it …
Katie Hafner / New York Times:
Seeing Corporate Fingerprints in Wikipedia Edits — Last year a Wikipedia visitor edited the entry for the SeaWorld theme parks to change all mentions of "orcas" to "killer whales," insisting that this was a more accurate name for the species. — There was another, unexplained edit …
Clark Hoyt / New York Times:
When the Issue Is War, Take Nothing for Granted — A front-page article 11 days ago prompted a flurry of e-mail accusing The Times of playing into what readers said were Bush administration efforts to gin up hostility toward Iran. — The article reported that attacks on American-led forces …
Observer:
The day reality hit home — The writer Andrew Anthony was a committed member of the liberal left - until the attacks of 11 September, 2001. A veteran of CND and Nicaraguan solidarity campaigns, he was astonished at the liberal left's anti-American reaction.
Jurassicpork / Pottersville:
FRANK RICH: He Got Out While the Getting Was Good — BACK in those heady days of late summer 2002, Andrew Card, then the president's chief of staff, told The New York Times why the much-anticipated push for war in Iraq hadn't yet arrived. "You don't introduce new products in August," …
Frank Rich / New York Times:
[TS] Op-Ed Columnist: He Got Out While the Getting Was Good — Karl Rove's departure was both abrupt and fast. The ritualistic "for the sake of my family" rationale convinced no one.
BREITBART.COM:
Climate protest 'will be contained' — Police were confident of being able to contain the expected climax of the climate camp at Heathrow Airport. — Protesters, buoyed by an influx of new arrivals, promised 24 hours of direct action, starting from midday on Sunday.