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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.
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What's Missing in this Column? — I agree with many, but not all, of the conclusions Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon reach in this NY Times column, but you really can't write a piece about the wae in Iraq and devote only two sentences to the political situation, which is disastrous and …

The really smart, serious, credible Iraq experts O'Hanlon and Pollack — (updated below) — What is the most vivid and compelling evidence of how broken our political system is? It is that the exact same people who urged us into the war in Iraq, were wrong in everything they said …
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Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed — Claims of Misstatements to Shield Bush Stretch Back a Decade — When Alberto R. Gonzales was asked during his January 2005 confirmation hearing whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants …
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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.
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Swedish Film Director Ingmar Bergman Dies at 89 — Ingmar Bergman, an Academy Award-winning Swedish writer-director whose name came to define an entire genre of stark movies about the human condition, such as "The Seventh Seal," "Wild Strawberries" and "Persona," has died at his home at the age of 89, Swedish media reported Monday.


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 …
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Heading Right, JammieWearingFool, Captain's Quarters, The Gun Toting Liberal™, Reason Magazine, The Heretik and Vox Popoli


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.

[TS] 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?

GLOBAL OPTIMISM, AMERICAN PESSIMISM — At Real Clear Politics, Michael Barone dissects the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey. There is some specific good news about attitudes in Muslim countries: … More broadly, what is striking is how much optimism is reflected in the survey, world-wide.
Discussion:
Argghhh!
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Study links more hurricanes, climate change — The number of hurricanes that strike each year has more than doubled over the past century, an increase tied to global warming, according to a study released Sunday. — "We're seeing a quite substantial increase in hurricanes over the last century …
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Clinton, Obama and the experience question — The Clinton-Obama dustup wasn't just the usual campaign sparring. It raised key questions about what 'experience' means when it comes to being president. — Does Barack Obama have have enough experience to be president?
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New York Times
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Who's Making What In The White House — President Bush's senior-most aides — staff members like Karl Rove who hold the coveted title of "assistant to the president" — received a $2,800 cost-of-living wage hike in the past year to earn a top pay rate of $168,000, according to an internal White House list …


A True Political Partner — John Edwards's Wife Has Helped Shape His Presidential Bid and Often Shares Its Spotlight — Aboard a small chartered jet, Elizabeth Edwards — lawyer, mother, author, cancer patient, candidate's wife — was flying recently from New Hampshire to Iowa.

Cream of the crop take note — Each morning in Washington, D.C., around dawn, three men wake up and concoct their versions of conventional wisdom for an audience of Beltway political professionals and junkies around the — country. — They are Rick Klein, the author of ABC News's pioneering tipsheet …


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 …


Is McCain back? The underdog fights on — McCain, now an underdog, likes where he finds himself. — John McCain has been campaigning in New Hampshire for months, but when he took the stage last week at a town-hall meeting in Keene, it felt like a reunion tour.


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.
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NEWS.com.au, Guardian, Right Wing News, Spectator, Pajamas Media, Barcepundit and Hennessy's View