...But the work of the contractor, the Lincoln Group, was not a rogue operation....

Lincoln says it planted more than 1,000 articles in the Iraqi and Arab press and placed editorials on an Iraqi Web site, Pentagon documents show. For an expanded stealth persuasion effort into neighboring countries, Lincoln presented plans, since rejected, for an underground newspaper, television news shows and an anti-terrorist comedy based on "The Three Stooges."

--New York Times

"Hey, Moe -- I can't get this IED to woik!"

"Why, you knucklehead...!"

Good Lord, are people still whining about the decision by The New York Times to put that can't-get-out-the-door photo sequence on the front page?

I guess so. Go to the latest Public Editor column and scroll down to "Bush and the Locked Door" for three angry letters. A sample:

Oh, please. No more disingenuous explanations for The Times's delight in making President Bush an object of scorn or mockery. The Times conducts its own three-card monte political game, and you shill the suckers. What unworthy employment.

This is ridiculous. How often does the Times run a front-page, above the fold photo aggrandizing the president -- any president -- in a way that would bring a smile to the face of Goebbels? Once a month maybe? The president walking manfully with world leaders at a summit? The president forcefully speechifying with rows of uniformed soldiers ranked behind him? Or the president rendered magisterial, photographed from below, to the accompaniment of a poll-tested catchphrase? That's what was on the front page of the December 1 Times, which I'm looking at right now. The photo used was the first one here, but the online version doesn't do it justice -- in print it was 8 1/2 inches wide and 5 3/4 inches tall; it covered most of the front page above the fold. It looked a lot like this.

My question for the whiners is: How many of those does the Times have to run before it earns the right to show the president as a mortal, flawed human being?

****

UPDATE: Here's that front page. (Thanks to MeanMrMustard in comments.)

From a New York Times Week in Review puff piece on Charles Krauthammer:

Now, firmly part of The Weekly Standard orbit and a regular commentator on Fox News, he claimed the neoconservative mantle in an unconventional manner, shunning it at critical times - such as during the intervention in Bosnia.

Most neoconservatives would say they believe in the use of American military force to spread democracy around the globe. But Mr. Krauthammer says there must also be a compelling strategic interest for the United States to warrant intervention...

You mean, like the presence of a Republican in the White House?

Lieberman. Lieberman. Lieberman. He and his "Help me hug the president!" campaign are everywhere -- Slate yesterday, The New York Times and The Washington Post today.

The Times/Post two-fer is interesting. Thirty years ago, when a then-unknown Bruce Springsteen made the covers of Time and Newsweek simultaneously, at least we knew there was a record-company publicity machine involved. Who's priming this pump?

I don't think it's Lieberman himself. Obviously it's the White House, which increased its stroking and courting of him at just about the time the ongoing Bush comeback effort got under way. (Floating rumors of a cabinet appointment -- nice touch!) The Republicans love to have a disillusioned Democrat on board -- cf. Zell Miller and Ron Silver. I'm sure White House operatives are scripting Lieberman's lines; I'm sure they wrote (or at least line-edited) his Wall Street Journal op-ed. And I imagine he's cool with that -- I'm sure he sees himself as Frank Capra making gung ho films for the government during World War II.

But, of course, he's not doing anything of the sort -- what he's doing is helping Bush get back up in the polls, to save the GOP in the '06 elections.

But I'm not wild about the Democratic leadership's response to Lieberman -- usually I'm up for a good scrap, but I think attacking him has played into the Bush administration's hands. Beltway journalists like Lieberman and hate unashamed liberals; they're eager to portray Joe as an embattled, principled anti-liberal maverick -- look, he's being criticized by people who sound like that icky Michael Moore! So expect a lot of finger-wagging op-eds in the near future about the "intolerance" of Democratic "ideologues." (My response to those op-eds consists of two words: Harriet Miers.) In a rational world, sure, you'd go after Holy Joe head-on, but this isn't a rational world; in this case I think a patronizing dismissal would have been more effective, something along the lines of "Well, I'm sure Joe is happy to be getting more face time with the president. I know that sort of thing means a lot to him." For God's sake, don't take him so seriously -- it helps make the whole stinking enterprise seem principled and noble.

Apologies for the light blogging today (though I liked the damn Matt Lauer post, even if none of the rest of you did). In any case, I've been meaning to update the blogroll (in some cases with sites I should have added years ago), so here goes: I'm adding Daai Tou Laam Diary, Fafblog, Feministe, First Draft, Jesus' General, Making Light, Memeorandum, Nitpicker, Nur al-Cubicle, pesky'apostrophe, The Rude Pundit, and You Forgot Poland! Go. Read.

Clap louder....

Iraq Set to Pump Less Oil Than Last Year

Despite President Bush's optimism on Iraq's reconstruction, the country appears set to pump less crude in 2005 than last year's disappointing showing and far less than under Saddam Hussein.

...attacks [on infrastructure] have made it all but impossible to attract foreign expertise needed to rejuvenate Iraq's rusty oil infrastructure, drill new wells or take any number of steps toward increasing production or exports.

Legal disputes between Iraq's provinces and central government about ownership of oil is also keeping investors away, said Jamal Qureshi, an oil analyst with PFC Energy in Washington.

... analysts say daily production this year will average about 1.8 million barrels per day, about 10 percent less than 2004 levels of about 2 million barrels -- and just over half 1990 levels.

Analysts say 2006 looks just as gloomy...

--AP

(Via Antiwar.com.)

THESE PEOPLE ARE NUTS

From NewsBusters.org, a product of Brent Bozell's Media Research Center:

...Was Matt Lauer wearing a Palestinian support scarf this morning?

Alright, I can already hear some folks out there chuckling at the notion.

But before you dismiss this as the product of the over-active mind of an MSM-bias hunter, consider:

These so-called "Palestinian support scarves" have become items of radical fashion chic. Check out this web-site which advertises "Palestinian support scarves," explaining:

"The traditional Palestinian headdress has become a symbol of support for the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation. From political rallies to talk shows, supporters of the Palestinian cause have begun donning this traditional scarf as a show of solidarity." [emphasis added]

Lauer was out on a snowy Rockefeller Plaza this morning, reporting on the winter storm sweeping the East Coast. He was bundled up in an overcoat and hat, and very visible around his neck was a boldly-checked, black-and-white scarf with a design similar to the little number Arafat liked to sport, as here.

So, was this a subtle statement by Matt, or just pure coincidence? Another media 'wardrobe malfunction,' perhaps?

You be the judge on Keffiyeh-gate!

Here's Lauer's secret terrorist America-hating scarf:



Here's Arafat's keffiyeh:



Do these two items look at all alike to you?

Never mind the fact that Lauer is wearing his around the neck and Arafat is wearing his on his head?

It's a blurry picture, but Lauer's scarf looks like the classic herringbone -- not a pattern usually worn in solidarity with oppressed peoples.

At AskAndyAboutClothes.com, we're informed that Matt Lauer mostly wears Zegna -- a clothier based in Italy (a Coalition partner!). And Yahoo! TV Entertainment News & Gossip tells us that Lauer

reportedly visited the swanky men's clothing store Richards in Greenwich, Conn., on July 20 to buy new clothes.

The Richards Web site (which is also the site of Mitchells in Westport, Connecticut) says:

We strive to bring you the finest merchandise from the world’s top designers. From the top mills in Italy to the runways of Paris, we search the world to offer you the finest mens and womens clothing and accessories. At Mitchells and Richards, you will find international style, with local character.

Ah -- Paris! "International style"! "Local character"!

Must be a terrorist front.

ABOUT THE SHOOTING OF RIGOBERTO ALPIZAR

Time quotes a passenger on Alpizar's flight, John McAlhany:

"I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked, 'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says. "That's what they called it."

And let me answer the right-wingers in advance by pointing out that, yes, McAlhany is questioning the official story, but not because he's some violence-averse granola-eater:

McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just in case he needed to take evasive action. "I wanted to make sure if anything was coming toward me and they were killing passengers I would have a chance to break somebody's neck," he says.

Hope that clears that up.

Now me, I'm not prepared to pass judgment on what the air marshals did -- but I think I understand now why this ABC News "exclusive" appeared sometime before the Time story:

...Federal law enforcement sources told ABC News they had been on the alert for a possible shoe bomber when a federal air marshal opened fire at the Miami International Airport yesterday....

Officials said a 50-year-old Egyptian man was stopped a week ago at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport. Sources said he had a suspicious pair of shoes that tested positive five times for the explosive substance TATP on the interior of his shoes between the heel and sole....

After holding him overnight, airport security in New York released him. The FBI was notified after he was released and put out a nationwide alert. FBI officials confirmed that the man's story was true and that he was not a threat.

Do you believe that? Do you believe they had an Egyptian guy whose shoes showed traces of TATP (which is "called the 'Mother of Satan' by Islamist extremists," as Michelle Malkin has gleefully pointed out) and they've just let him go on his way? He's not being waterboarded in Poland this very minute? Er, I don't think so. I don't believe this guy exists. I think the administration is preemptively trying to head off criticism with this cock-and-bull story.

Interestingly, the story, written by Brian Ross and Chris Isham, didn't even appear on this evening's World News Tonight, even though it's on the WNT part of ABC's Web site. Maybe Ross and Isham's on-air editors also sense the story's a White House-generated crock.

(Stories via Memeorandum.)

So first I learn that some California Republicans want to run Mel Gibson for governor, then I see that in Pennsylvania the gubernatorial candidacy (also on the GOP line) of Lynn Swann, an utterly unqualified former NFL superstar, is now official.

Why won't those damn Dixie Chicks just shut up?

Susie and Julia and I recently told you about a 19-year-old Catholic kid in Michigan, up on a marijuana charge, who was compelled to participate in a program meant to convert him to fundamentalist Protestantism; the program was disguised as drug rehab, even though it had no drug counselors.

I'd like to be able to tell you that that was an isolated case. Apparently it's not. I'd like to be able to tell you that only small local operations like the one in Michigan cross the church-state line blatantly with the government's blessing -- but that's not true, either.

The good folks at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have a similar story to tell you, involving a guy you might have heard of:

A select group of inmates at central Iowa's Newton Correctional Facility has been learning some controversial things lately.

They're being told that the Bible ordains men to run households; that homosexuality is a sin; that non-Christian religions are "of Satan" and that only persons baptized as adults can get into Heaven.

Thanks to the Iowa legislature and officials at the Iowa Department of Corrections, the inmates are learning all of this courtesy of the taxpayers....

Newton, a medium-security institution with about 900 inmates, has been sponsoring a controversial evangelical Christian indoctrination program called the InnerChange Freedom Initiative since 1999. Founded by ex-Watergate felon Charles W. Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries, InnerChange seeks to rehabilitate prisoners by converting them to one ultra-conservative form of Christianity....

Ah, but surely a program associated with a worldly sophisticate like Chuck Colson will avoid the tackier practices sometimes associated with Protestant evangelism. Right?

Er, wrong:

One inmate reported during discovery that an InnerChange staffer told him, "Catholics aren't really Christians." Another inmate wrote in his journal, "Today we had some serious Catholic bashing in class. It hurt me very deeply. Never before had I heard serious criticism toward my faith. Spent the rest of the day trying to sort it out in my...mind and put away the bitterness."

At trial, inmates testified that InnerChange personnel likened the pope to Hitler and to the Antichrist. Other inmates testified that InnerChange staff asked Catholics not to read from their version of the Bible. A manual used in the program advised readers to be wary of "pronouncements of church officials such as bishops, cardinals, popes."...

Another InnerChange book goes beyond Catholic bashing and includes a "Spiritual checklist" of groups to be wary of. Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, Unitarianism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, New Age, Buddhism, Bahaism and Native American faiths all made the roster.

And the inmates are really encouraged to play along:

InnerChange inmates, for example, have access to separate private bathrooms instead of unscreened toilets in their shared cells. They have keys to their cells and enjoy greater mobility within the unit. Inmates taking part in the program live in a wing that was once an "honor unit" designed to reward inmates for good behavior.

Inmates enrolled in InnerChange receive guaranteed prison jobs and are paid for taking part in the program. They get special visits with family members and, unlike other inmates, have access to a computer room and a music room.

Perhaps most significantly, InnerChange inmates can more easily get credit for treatment classes that give them a much better chance at parole than other inmates.

InnerChange inmates' parole chances are also increased by lax disciplinary procedures that keep misconduct by program inmates from showing up on their records.

And this is all taxpayer-supported.

Oh, and despite that, the program is allowed to reject job applicants who aren't religiously correct.

Americans United filed a lawsuit; the trial is proceeding. Consider throwing AU some cash if you think lawsuits like this are a good idea.

More on the prison program here, from its Web site.

The new New York Times/CBS poll shows Bush's job approval up (from 35% to a whopping 40%; he still faces more than 50% disapproval). The Times story about the poll attributes the improvement to more optimism about the economy, but there's also more support for the war in Iraq. On that subject, Oliver Willis makes a good point:

The only increase in support for the war in the poll was among Republicans

-- which, according to the CBS story about the poll, is true:

...48% of Americans think taking military action against Iraq was the right thing to do, up from 42% in October. An equal number thinks the U.S. ought to have stayed out of Iraq....

The rise in support for the war can be traced to an increase among members of the President’s own party; 83 percent of Republicans now think going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do, up from 74 percent in October. Support for the war remains unchanged among Democrats (22 percent) and Independents (43 percent).

I wonder if the same is true for optimism about the economy. Alas, I can't find a party breakdown for economy opinions in either of the two stories or in the complete results (PDF) at the Times site.

I don't think the economy or the war is really the reason for the improvement. The last poll was conducted from October 30 through November 1, a period when the hated Harriet Miers nomination had just been withdrawn. Samuel Alito was nominated midway through that polling period, but I think the anger on the right was still fresh -- righties weren't inclined to circle the wagons in Bush's defense with quite their usual dogged unanimity. That moment has passed, so Bush's polls are up. He may never get above 50% again, but he'll never go below 40% unless he does something else that ticks off the base like the Miers pick.

MORE COMFORT AND JOY

From an open letter to Jerry Falwell by Reverend Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State:

...Since I debated you about the Christmas issue on Fox News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor," I have received 66 nasty e-mails, including two death threats. Observed one of my correspondents, "Hope you die soon. Merry Christmas." ...

Charming.

You know that William Donohue of the Catholic League is having a hissy fit because the White House card celebrating the season refers to the "holiday season" rather than "Christmas" -- but just in case you're not absolutely sure what Donohue thinks, ABC News asked him for a clarification:

In fact, when asked if a Jewish president should send out cards saying "Merry Christmas" every year, Donohue said, "Absolutely."

This is not a joke. This is how these people think.

Bush cites progress in Najaf, Mosul


Progress in Mosul? I'm sure that would be of interest to Susane Osthoff, assuming we ever see her alive again.

Yesterday, in a special election in California's 48th congressional district -- one of the most Republican districts in the country -- the GOP candidate, John Campbell, won with a mere 45% of the vote.

Good news? Not really -- the Democrat barely came in second, at 28%.

Taking most of the rest of the vote was Jim Gilchrist -- a founder of the immigrant-huntin' Minuteman Project. Gilchrist got 25% -- even though he was regarded as a one-issue candidate, and even though, as The New York Times noted a couple of days ago, his views and Campbell's on that issue "are effectively the same."

I think this is a possible preview of the race for the GOP presidential nomination in '08.

The smart set has already figured out who's going to dominate that race -- Rudy, Condi, McCain, Allen, yada yada yada. I think they're mostly right, but I think they may be leaving out one name: Tom Tancredo.

Yup, that guy -- the Colorado congressman who fantasized about bombing Mecca if America is the victim of another terrorist attack. Immigration is his obsession -- check out the site of his Team America PAC ("A Political Action Committee Dedicated to Securing Our Nation's Borders"); The Boston Globe reported in June that he promises to run for president if no other candidate addresses the immigration issue to his satisfaction.

I think Tancredo could be to 2008 what Pat Buchanan was to 1992 -- the surprise #2 in the primaries who stirs up more passion than the top vote-getter. (By the way, Bay Buchanan, Pat's sister, is the chairman of Team America PAC.)

It'll be, er, a lively campaign. As The New Republic has noted,

When The Denver Post profiled an illegal immigrant high school student with a 3.9 grade point average, Tancredo tried to have the boy deported.... In one recent speech to activists in Washington, D.C., Tancredo averred that the Chinese government is "trying to export people" as a "way of extending their hegemony."

The Boston Globe article shows him in equally temperate form:

He said federal prisons overflow with illegal immigrants, some of whom aim to har[m] people.

"And they need to be found before it is too late. They're coming here to kill you, and you, and me, and my grandchildren," he said, pointing at people in the audience. "It's just despicable."

Why is this such a hot-button issue right now? To some extent, after 9/11, we worry about who's coming across the borders (even though the 9/11 hijackers didn't cross the border on the run in the dead of night). Also, there's a lot of economic anxiety in America, and, obviously, people direct it at "the other" even when "the other" is doing a job the anxious people wouldn't take. (We've been carefully trained not to direct our anxiety and anger toward employers who'd rather hire non-American workers -- overseas or here -- than hire us.)

But I think a big reason for the recent rise in anti-immigrant feeling is conservatives' burning need to be self-righteously, all-consumingly angry at someone -- anyone. Now that overt bigotry is less socially acceptable, conservatives have a harder time blaming everything that's wrong in the country on an entire group of people. Oh, they can bypass bigotry and turn liberals into the new niggers/spics/kikes, but a lot of conservatives know some liberals -- we aren't other enough. But if they blame everything on immigrants, it's almost as satisfying as racism (they're bashing mysterious dark-skinned others who don't really even speak their language), but they get to say they're criticizing behavior, not race. It's as close as they can get to the good old days.

Let's be glass-is-half-full about this: In one way, at least, the Iraqi security forces seem to be "fully operational," and not in need of any U.S. training:

After a US raid on a secret Iraqi government jail last month revealed some detainees were tortured and abused there, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr insisted abuse claims were exaggerated and that torture will not be tolerated in the new Iraq.

US soldiers and some Iraqi officials disagree. They say not only is prisoner abuse widespread, but that much of it is carried out by Mr. Jabr's subordinates....

Major R. John Stukey, a US Army doctor who served in Baghdad from January to June, frequently visited Interior Ministry facilities on the east side of Baghdad to assess the health of prisoners. He says he personally treated about a dozen men who had been tortured....

In one case on May 3, a prisoner was "being severely tortured, the MPs could hear the screams,'' says Stukey. They took custody of the man and the equipment he was being tortured with....

The British are currently investigating allegations that the Iraqi police tortured two men to death with electric drills in the southern city of Basra. In Baghdad, this reporter met with four survivors of police custody who bore injuries consistent with their alleged torture with electric shocks and other implements....

So remind me again: Apart from redistributing the electrodes in Iraq, what have we accomplished exactly?

LA LA LA WE'RE NOT LISTENING

Joe Lieberman has a brilliant idea:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman ... today called on the White House and congressional leaders to form a special "war cabinet" to provide advice and direction for the war effort.

The Connecticut Democrat's "Bipartisan Victory in Iraq Administrative Group," designed to take some of the political edge off the war debate, would be modeled after similar panels during the Vietnam War and World War II....

Lieberman said he had not yet figured out details of how his cabinet would work. It would probably meet weekly and discuss conditions in Iraq, and perhaps recommend policy....

Yes, it's just brilliant -- because, as we know, this administration really, really values fresh input:

...[Representative John Murtha] said ... the Bush administration ignored his efforts to open private discussions on devising a bipartisan course change.

A letter on Iraq that Mr. Murtha said he sent to Mr. Bush last year did not get a reply until five months later, and then from a underling at the Pentagon, he complained.

"I deserve more respect than that," he said....

--New York Times, 11/22/05

[Brent] Scowcroft's colleagues told me that he would have preferred to deliver his analysis privately to the White House. But Scowcroft, the apotheosis of a Washington insider, was by then definitively on the outside, and there was no one in the White House who would listen to him....

According to friends, Scowcroft was consulted more frequently by the Clinton White House than he has been by George W. Bush's....

Scowcroft was appointed chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the first term, but he was not consulted on plans for Iraq. "He's not the only person to be frozen out," one colleague of Scowcroft's from the first Bush Administration told me -- a clear reference to James Baker and a number of other officials....

--New Yorker, 10/31/05

President Bush feels betrayed by several of his most senior aides and advisors and has severely restricted access to the Oval Office, administration sources say.

...The sources said Mr. Bush maintains daily contact with only four people: first lady Laura Bush, his mother, Barbara Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. The sources also say that Mr. Bush has stopped talking with his father, except on family occasions....

--Insight on the News, 11/15/05

Yeah, Bush loves this kind of thing. Thanks, Joe! Don't call the White House about this -- the White House'll call you!

(Via Memeorandum.)

****

You know, after a typical rock show, the members of the band go back to the hotel with young ladies whose role bears more than a passing resemblance to Joe Lieberman's role with respect to the White House. Like those young ladies, Lieberman thinks the Bushies actually like him; in fact, they merely crave the services he can provide (Bushies have a fetish for turncoat Democrats -- see Zell Miller, Ron Silver, Ed Koch, etc.). Lieberman's like the protagonist of the old Carpenters song "Superstar" (written by rocker Leon Russell and alternately titled "Groupie"): Don't you remember you told me you loved me, baby? I don't know if I believe the rumor that Lieberman might replace Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, but even if it happens, Lieberman will only be there to be a yes-man and a Democratic fig leaf -- he won't be part of the inner decision-making circle. Why marry the bipartisan cow when you can get the milk for free?

Joseph Hanas of Michigan was 19 when he pleaded guilty to a marijuana charge. The Detroit News tells us what happened then:

... [he] was placed in a diversion program for young, non-violent offenders.

Upon the recommendation of a probation officer, Judge Robert Ransom sentenced Hanas to the state-sponsored rehabilitation program -- the Inner City Christian Outreach Residential Program, run by a Pentecostal church.

Hanas said the program did not offer drug treatment or counseling, nor did it have any organized program other than reading the Bible and attending Pentecostal services.

He said his rosary and prayer book was taken from him and his religion was denounced as "witchcraft." Hanas said he was told his only chance of avoiding prison and a felony record was to convert to the Pentecostal faith.

Hanas got legal help -- some of it from the ACLU -- and filed a lawsuit, which is still pending.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, claims Ransom acknowledged the failings of the center but ruled that Hanas did not satisfactorily complete the program and sentenced him to three months in jail, three months in a boot camp, and placed him on a tether for three months. Ransom also placed Hanas on four years probation, which he continues to serve....

When this story first broke last year, Bartholomew's Notes on Religion dug up some of the ACLU's legal papers (PDF), which pick up the story:

Christian Outreach ... prohibited Mr. Hanas from seeing his priest. (See Exhibit I, Affidavit of Diane Kropelnitski attached to defendant's Motion for Reassignment, p 2). In fact, when Mr. Hanas' aunt called Christian Outreach to try to make arrangements for his deacon to visit him, the director of Christian Outreach, Pastor Rottier, told the aunt, that Mr. Hanas "gave up his right of freedom of religion when he was placed into this program." ... The deacon further said that he had spoken with Judge Ransom several times about this issue and that Judge Ransom knows that he "won't have any other religious clergy in here."

... Mr. Hanas was required to study the bible for seven hours a day. (Exhibit H, p 29; Exhibit F, p 19). He was also given tests on Pentecostal principles. (See Exhibit J). When Mr. Hanas unwittingly violated one of the church's rules, he was forced into a three-day "word fast" during which time he was required to remain silent and read the bible continuously. (Exhibit H, p 28). Initially, Mr. Hanas' mother was not able to speak with him except when she attended Pentecostal church services, but she was later told that she could not even attend the services. (Exhibit H, pp 30-31).

At one of the Wednesday night religious services, Pastor Rottier told Mr. Hanas and the other participants in Christian Outreach that in order to successfully complete the program they would have to go up to the altar and declare that they were saved. (Exhibit F, pp 11-12). In fact, the pastor repeatedly threatened that Mr. Hanas would be "washed of the program and go to prison" if he did not do what the pastor said. (Exhibit F, p 14; Exhibit H, pp 32-33).

According to the Detroit News story, Judge Ransom, who's now retired, stopped sending prisoners to Inner City. But no one's ever made amends to Hanas, so he's still suing.

Gee, and I thought the secularists had taken over this country.

(Via DU.)

WE ARE GOLDSTEIN

It's bad enough that nearly half of all Americans think there's a "war on Christmas," but now Fox News commentators are rousing the rabble with warnings that a successful war on Christmas will destroy our economy by curtailing Christmas shopping -- and Easter may be next.

The fact that this is utterly ridiculous (even we atheists haven't stopped shopping) doesn't make it any less creepy. We really are in Protocols of the Elders of Liberalism territory now, folks.

We all know that those who downplay our many successes in Iraq are just terrorist-loving traitors who hate freedom and don't want democracy and stability to come to the Iraqi people. Well, apparently that group includes an Iraqi vice president, one who's seeking a seat in Parliament on the same ticket as Iyad Allawi, our former handpicked prime minister -- or so I would have to conclude from this AP story, which was flagged by Juan Cole:

The training of Iraqi security forces has suffered a big "setback" in the last six months, with the army and other forces being increasingly used to settle scores and make other political gains, Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer said Monday.

Al-Yawer disputed contentions by U.S. officials, including President Bush, that the training of security forces was gathering speed, resulting in more professional troops.

... al-Yawer said recent allegations that Interior Ministry security forces -- dominated by Shiites -- have tortured Sunni detainees were evidence that many forces are increasingly politicized and sectarian. Some of the recently trained Iraqi forces focus on settling scores and other political goals rather than maintaining security, he said.

...He said the army -- also dominated by Shiites -- is conducting raids against villages and towns in Sunni and mixed areas of Iraq, rather than targeting specific insurgents -- a tactic he said reminded many Sunnis of Saddam Hussein-era raids.

"Saddam used to raid villages," using security forces, he said. "This is not the way to do it."...

Meanwhile, in terms of actual war-fighting, a story in yesterday's New York Times suggests that there's still a Keystone Kops element to the performance of Iraqi soldiers:

Last month's operation near the Syrian border was a crucial test for the fledgling Iraqi Army in Anbar....

To this reporter embedded with the assault force, the Iraqis often seemed disorganized, complacent and undisciplined. On the north side of the river, where the Iraqis had a chance to take the lead because they outnumbered the Americans, house-to-house clearing operations were sloppy. The troops moved unsystematically from house to house, sometimes giving buildings nothing more than a glance or, worse, bypassing them altogether.

Some soldiers demonstrated unorthodox uses for their weapons, including two soldiers who used their Kalashnikov assault rifles to swat a ball around as if they were playing field hockey, according to American soldiers who witnessed the scene, and several who used their rifles to pry metal security doors off their hinges.

Field hockey.

Guess we won't be "standing down" anytime soon.