Josh Marshall's TPM Cafe is now open for business, and unsurprisingly enough, it's first-rate, a Huffington Post for smart people Democratic policy wonks (though I have to say that the ocean of civil, moderate opinion you'll find over there begins to make your rightly humble correspondent feel a tad superfluous, particularly when he considers it alongside the similarly outstanding commentary that Kevin Drum already provides each and every day at WM -- more on that issue, and The O'Toole File's half-baked plan to address it, later). Nice work, folks -- congrats to all involved.

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Okay, I promised (threatened?) puppy blogging, and here it is. Say hello to Molly O'Toole.

POSTSCRIPT: No, I don't plan to make a habit of this. Unless, of course, you consider once a week a habit. . . .

I'm at home today babysitting the newest member of the O'Toole family, a six week old chocolate Lab named Molly. Look for fresh blog posts (and pictures, of course) some time this weekend.

UPDATE: Okay, make that Tuesday. See you then.

One of the interesting disconnects between the left and right sides of the blogosphere is the often (well, sometimes anyway) genuine bewilderment that our conservative friends express as they contemplate the anger that pours so, well, liberally from any number of lefty keyboards. After all, they say, President Bush and the Republicans have done some pretty "progressive" things over the last four years, from pushing through a huge new prescription drug entitlement to engineering what amounts to a federal takeover of public education. What's so right-wing about that stuff? And, in a sense, they're right. President Bush and the GOP leaders in Congress have been anything but doctrinaire conservatives.

That said, politics isn't just a bloodless tally of position papers and issue scorecards. And if our conservative compatriots were to read Jim VandeHei's piece in today's WaPo -- and I mean really read it, as opposed to simply scouring the text for errors and errata that might be useful in trying to knock it down -- on the ways in which Republicans have fundamentally "changed how the business of government gets done" in DC in recent years, they might be a little less puzzled by all the lefty vituperation. Fact is, when you find yourself on the losing end of one battle after another because the other guy keeps changing the rules, you don't just feel disappointed. You feel cheated. And, frankly, you have a right to.

One of these days -- and perhaps sooner rather than later -- the GOP is going to be in the minority again. And if they've managed to turn virtually every Democrat in this country into a Delay or a Frist or a Dobson by that point, the reckoning for all this nonsense is going to be unpleasant, indeed -- and they'll have no one but themselves to blame when there aren't any moderate Dems left to stop the new gang in town from choosing justice over mercy.

Though I actually agree in a roundabout way with some of what John Leo has to say here -- the paucity of military experience among this generation of journalists is problematic (just as it is for CEOs and congressmen and teachers and salesmen and bloggers, as a matter of fact) -- this graf doesn't pass the giggle test:

In all my years in journalism, I don't think I have met more than one or two reporters who have ever served in the military or who even had a friend in the armed forces. Most media hiring today is from universities, where a military career is regarded as bizarre and almost any exercise of American power is considered wrongheaded or evil. [Emph added]

Really, now. An entire generation of journalists was under arms in World War II, and John Leo, who isn't exactly a cub reporter, has only met "one or two" with military experience? Hell, I've met more than that -- and it seems pretty safe to assume that Mr. Leo enjoys a wider journalistic acquaintanceship than yours truly.

So, what gives? Why would a respected conservative columnist tell what appears to be such a transparent untruth? I dunno. But I sure hope Chatterbox is paying attention.

In today's WaPo, former Clinton and Bush 41 Mideast envoy Dennis Ross lays out the backbreaking problems currently facing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas -- joblessness, widespread frustration with his inability to deliver freedom of movement for the Palestinian people, a resurgent Hamas -- and notes with dismay that the international community, including the US, isn't doing much to help.

All this should be an alarm bell for the Bush administration and the world. Abbas believes in secular governance, the rule of law, nonviolence and coexistence with Israel. If he cannot make it, if he cannot demonstrate that his way offers a future for the Palestinian people, what message does that send? Who do we think will take his place? The possibility of Hamas's winning elections, tying his hands and eventually supplanting him is not a fantasy.

Photo opportunities will not provide him much help. And while Abbas must press harder against those resisting change, including in the security area, he needs more than rhetorical encouragement -- he needs real help from the outside. Material assistance must be provided -- not just pledged. Last December, donor nations pledged $1.2 billion to the Palestinians. Six months later, less than 10 percent of the money has materialized. And the money that has been provided -- as important as it is -- is not going to meet the urgent needs created by unemployment. Per capita income in the West Bank and Gaza was $1,800 a year in 2000 and is down to $1,000. Jobs are urgently needed; labor-intensive projects must be financed and launched now.

The international community acts as if a business-as-usual approach will suffice in providing the assistance that has been pledged. That could mean that by the time the money begins to appear, it will be Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, making the calls on how it is spent. It's time for the Bush administration to make a major push to get donors to deliver. The Abbas visit should provide the catalyst for such an initiative.

Yep, it should. The Bush administration's policy of not-so-benign neglect toward the PA probably made sense at the tail-end of the Arafat era. Today, it's just crazy; you don't let the man who represents the best chance for peace we're likely to see in our lifetimes slowly twist in the wind. Abbas' government needs substantial and sustained assistance. And it's past time for President Bush to assemble a real coalition of the willing to provide it.

Economics, medicine, a brilliant young scientist, and a hundred million missing women. Some stories just have it all.

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Jeff Thigpen is compiling a master list of elected officials in the US and abroad who blog. If you know of any in your area (or elsewhere), he'd appreciate your assistance.

[Via Ed Cone.]

I remember being genuinely shocked the first time I read about the almost biblical nature of the catastrophe that would befall New Orleans in the event of a direct strike by a Category Five hurricane. (We Charlestonians pay attention to these things, particularly post-Hugo.) Today, over at the Prospect, Chris Mooney takes a look at the issue, and tells us what the government could -- and should -- be doing about it.

Nick Kristof says that, after more than half a century, the Chinese Communist Party has finally met its match -- bloggers.

For some reason, Howard Dean's smart, sensible, moderate statement on abortion during his Sunday sit-down with Tim Russert isn't getting the attention it deserves. Here's an excerpt:

I'm not advocating we change our position. I believe that a woman has a right to make up her own mind about what kind of health care she gets, and I think Democrats believe that in general. Here's the problem--and we were outmanipulated by the Republicans; there's no question about it. We have been forced into the idea of "We're going to defend abortion." I don't know anybody who thinks abortion is a good thing. I don't know anybody in either party who is pro-abortion. The issue is not whether we think abortion is a good thing. The issue is whether a woman has a right to make up her own mind about her health care, or a family has a right to make up their own mind about how their loved ones leave this world. I think the Republicans are intrusive and they invade people's personal privacy, and they don't have a right to do that.

Let me tell you why I think we ought to--why I want to strike the words "abortion" and "choice." When I campaigned for this job, I talked to lots of Democrats. And there are significant numbers of pro-life Democrats in the South. And one lady said to me, you know, "I'm pro-life. I don't like abortion. I would never have one. I would hope my daughter would never have one. But, you know, if the lady next door got herself in a fix, I'm not sure I should be the one to tell her what to do." Now, we call that woman pro-choice, but she thinks of herself as pro-life. The minute we start with the "pro-choice, pro- choice, pro-choice," she says, "Well, that's not me."

But when you talk about framing this debate the way it ought to be framed, which is "Do you want Tom DeLay and the boys to make up your mind about this, or does a woman have a right to make up her own mind about what kind of health care she gets," then that pro-life woman says "Well, now, you know, I've had people try to make up my mind for me and I don't think that's right." This is an issue about who gets to make up their minds: the politicians or the individual. Democrats are for the individual. We believe in individual rights. We believe in personal freedom and personal responsibility. And that debate is one that we didn't win, because we kept being forced into the idea of defending the idea of abortion.

Dean's right. There's a huge difference between taking the principled position that this difficult, often painful choice should ultimately rest with the woman involved, and trying to make the utterly fatuous argument that giving birth and getting an abortion are, in the main, morally equivalent actions that demand equal respect from the public at large. They aren't and they don't. And the only way that we Dems are going to be able to successfully defend the first proposition -- the Constitutional Option, if you will -- is by explicitly rejecting the second.

That's going to be an unpleasant rhetorical shift for some of our most committed supporters, particularly those who somehow, somewhere got it into their heads that we have an duty as Americans to celebrate people's choices rather than simply to tolerate them. But shift we must. And Dean deserves a great deal of credit for looking the base of our party in the eye and saying so.

The Senate's centrists struck a deal tonight to table the nuclear option, and it looks like a pretty good one. In essence, the president gets up or down votes on three of his nominees, and then the Senate returns to its regular programming. Under the circumstances, everybody should be relieved, though I suspect the activists on both sides will be screaming sellout in the morning.

More tomorrow.

Here's a brief exchange between Tim Russert and Howard Dean, from yesterday's Meet the Press:

[Mr. Russert:] Do you really hate Republicans? Do you consider them evil?

DR. DEAN: I don't--well, actually that was a little out of context. But I don't hate Republicans as individuals. But I hate what the Republicans are doing to this country. I really do. I hate deficits, as you know. When I was governor, I really was very tough on fiscal responsibility. Deficits in the long run aren't good for the country, and they do lower our standard of living. Every American family knows that you have to pay your bills. I hate the dishonesty, you know, the idea that you'd put a program through Congress without telling people what it costs, I think that's wrong. Some of the things that the president said on our way into Iraq, they just weren't true, and I don't think that's right. So...

MR. RUSSERT: Such as?

DR. DEAN: Such as the weapons of mass destruction, which we have all known about, but the...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, you said there were weapons of mass destruction.

DR. DEAN: I said I wasn't sure, but I said I thought there probably were. But the thing that really bothered me the most, which the 9-11 Commission said also wasn't true, is the insinuation that the president continues to make to this day that Osama bin Laden had something to do with supporting terrorists that attacked the United States. That is false. The 9-11 Commission, chaired by a Republican, said it was false. Is it wrong to send people to war without telling them the truth. And the truth was Osama bin Laden was a very bad person who was doing terrible things, but that Iraq was never a threat to the United States. That was the truth. It was underlined by the 9-11 Commission, headed, again, by a Republican, a well-respected group of people. I don't think you send American men and women to war, first of all without properly equipping them, and secondly without telling the truth to their parents about why it is we're asking them to make that sacrifice. So those are the kinds of things that I think are very bad about the Republicans.

Now, the second that Dean misspoke -- the very instant he opened his mouth to say "Saddam," and "Osama" fell out -- I thought about firing up the browser and offering a prize of some kind to the first O'Toole File reader who caught a conservative blogger ripping that exchange out of context in a puerile effort to score a few cheap points at the good doctor's expense. But then I thought: Nah, the right side of the blogosphere isn't that childish.

Oh, well. Another illusion shattered.

[Via Instapundit, who didn't exactly distinguish himself with his post on this subject, either.]

Over at TNR, Joel Kotkin makes a pretty compelling case that most of what we think we know about the so-called urban renaissance of recent years is wrong.

In some respects, of course, the last ten or so years have been a good time for American cities. Most urban areas, particularly New York, became safer and cleaner than they were in the '80s. And, certainly, we are no longer living in the dark days of the '70s--an era symbolized by the 1981 cult classic Escape from New York. These trends have made urban life more attractive to some and thereby stimulated residential construction as well as slowed--and in some cases reversed--the flight from cities of jobs.

But these developments notwithstanding, the renaissance of American cities has been greatly overstated--and this unwarranted optimism is doing a disservice to cities themselves. Urban politics has become self-satisfied and triumphalist, content to see cities promote the appearance of thriving while failing to serve the very people--families, immigrants, often minorities--who most need cities to be decent, livable places. The myths that have grown up surrounding the urban renaissance are now often treated as fact. As an urban historian who lives in a major city, I believe that recognizing these myths for what they are is a critical first step towards the redemption of urban America.

What myths? Kotkin identifies three:

• Cities are again gaining people. Urban boosters say yes, but the numbers tell a different story. In fact, relative to suburban, exurban and rural areas, most major American cities are still losing population at a fairly alarming rate.
• Cities are where the successful people are. Not really. According to Kotkin, "Sixteen of the country's top twenty counties in terms of percentage of college educated people are now suburban; only three, Manhattan (New York County), San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., are cities."
• Cool cities attract the best jobs; uncool cities don't. Again, no. "The areas that have experienced growth in new-economy jobs--such as business and financial services--have not been the pillars of cool," writes Kotkin. "In fact, since 2000 these jobs have been leaving the likes of Boston and San Francisco, while accumulating in church-going, conservative areas like Boise, Phoenix, Reno, Salt Lake City, and southwest Florida."

So, assuming one thinks that all this is a problem (a debatable point for some, I would guess), what to do? Honestly, I dunno. Kotkin talks about the need to begin with an urban reality check, which would at least force city officials to recognize the true nature and scope of their problems -- "lost jobs, dysfunctional schools, and crumbling infrastructure." But I'm afraid his Big Idea -- an "urban New Deal" that would shift city resources away from high-profile "bread and circuses" projects aimed at hipsters and the well-off, and toward basic services for the middle class -- sounds a bit fanciful in the current political climate, particularly given the fact that the middle class seems pretty enamored of the bread and circuses in question (stadiums, shopping districts, and the like).

Anyway, I hope Kotkin's right and I'm wrong. And to give his argument the full and fair hearing it deserves, read the rest here.

What's the latest tactic that large corporations are using to deal with skyrocketing health insurance prices? They're shifting a higher percentage of the costs onto their employees by moving them into high deductible plans -- a trend that could, according to the LA Times, "reshape the medical insurance landscape and sharply redistribute costs, risks and responsibilities for many of the 160 million Americans with private coverage."

With the high-deductible plan, workers pay lower monthly premiums and their employers commonly help them build up a special savings account to cushion the impact of a larger annual deductible. The accounts are controlled by the employees, which has led insurers and employers to label the plans "consumer-directed."

Even if high-deductible plans offer immediate relief for many workers, and big cost savings to employers, the allure may not last. And the plans may do little or nothing to solve the basic problem of soaring health costs.

"You're beginning to see a lot of growth in these plans, not because they're going to solve America's healthcare challenge, but because it's a way for employers to cut their out-of-control benefit costs," said Robert Laszewski, a consultant to health insurance companies. "Any time an employer can raise deductibles from $200 to $1,000, it is going to reduce their costs. But will it reduce U.S. health costs generally? The jury is still really out on that."

The reason, he said, is that 10% of the people — the sickest Americans — account for 70% of total healthcare costs. "Once the sick people have gone through their deductible, they're back to a regular health plan — the incentives for them don't really change," Laszewski said.

"This is a cost shift device, and not a means to fundamentally control healthcare costs."

Moreover, the willingness of workers to sign up for less generous plans may change over time, as workers and their families get older and more likely to encounter serious medical costs.

"To make these plans truly work, they have to work for the sickest population — it can't be a plan that only works for the healthy," said Joe Walshe, a principal with the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. "It's very difficult, but that's where the challenge is."

In the meantime, the short-term appeal of high-deductible plans is easy to see. Employees get a bit more take-home pay. Employers get some relief from higher healthcare costs.

High deductibles, minimal coverage, and no real cost savings? Clearly, our nation's best HR minds are just fresh out of good ideas when it comes to protecting their employees from the depredations of a hopelessly dysfunctional healthcare system. Nice to see they haven't lost their touch with the soothing corporate euphemism, though.

Consumer. Directed. Plans.

Take that, Jacques!

MORE: Via Tapped, physician and author Robin Cook explains why human genome research will speed "the inevitable movement to universal health care" here in the US.

"McCain hates me."

--Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, on why he's "getting dragged into" the Senate investigation of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff

In this morning's WaPo, VA Sen. George Allen tells us all about the supposed deficiencies of the No Child Left Behind Act, but almost nothing about the legislation he's introduced to address those problems. Why? Because he's understandably hesitant to have you know that his bill would essentially gut the original act, and leave us with a whole new federal education policy here in the United States: Only Minorities and Special Needs Kids Left Behind. And that's just a terrible idea, despite the fact that many of my fellow Democrats (and, sadly, a growing number of Republicans) would support it.

Frankly, President Bush is right on this, and he has been from day one. Every child in this country has a right to a decent education, and the rest of us have a right to know they're getting it. That means testing, and it means reporting the results of those tests in a way that doesn't mask failure. Despite its shortcomings, NCLB delivered those things. We'd be foolish to let anyone take them away now.

POSTSCRIPT: For the record, I'm not saying that NCLB can't be improved. Like just about anything else, it can be. But Sen. Allen's legislation doesn't represent progress in that direction. And we Dems shouldn't pretend otherwise just because it gives us a chance to stroke our political allies and to bash the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I'm afraid this site is starting to read like one long mash note to conservative blogger John Cole, but what to do? Pretend he's not producing some of the most serious, incisive commentary in all of Blogdom (and beyond, frankly) on the prisoner abuse scandal? I can't very well do that because, you know, he is. And I can't simply ignore it, either; that wouldn't be fair to you. (Though it's interesting to note how few of John's fellow conservatives seem to share that concern for their readers.) So I guess that's a risk I'll just have to take, huh?

Anyway, enough with the vamping already. Here's John.

Charles Colson is right. We should never allow an entertaining fiction like Inherit the Wind to so overshadow real life that we forget what its historical counterpart, the Scopes Monkey Trial, was really all about. So, as a service to O'Toole File readers, here's a quick reminder:

PUBLIC ACTS

OF THE

STATE OF TENNESSEE

PASSED BY THE

SIXTY - FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1925

________

CHAPTER NO. 27

House Bill No. 185

(By Mr. Butler)

AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

Section 2. Be it further enacted, That any teacher found guilty of the violation of this Act, Shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction, shall be fined not less than One Hundred $ (100.00) Dollars nor more than Five Hundred ($ 500.00) Dollars for each offense.

Section 3. Be it further enacted, That this Act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it.

Passed March 13, 1925

W. F. Barry,

Speaker of the House of Representatives

L. D. Hill,

Speaker of the Senate

Approved March 21, 1925.

Austin Peay,

Governor.

That, friends, is what the real Scopes trial was all about. And we should be grateful to Mr. Colson for insisting that we remember.

[Colson link via CCC.]

Earlier this week, the Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum took his share of guff (and then some) from our side of the ’Sphere for calling the New York Times "the best newspaper in the world, bar none." Today, the Gray Lady rather eloquently rises to Mr. Drum's (and her own) defense with eight powerful, affecting, meticulously-reported pages on the mistreatment of detainees in Afghanistan.

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

I know I've linked to it before, but John Cole's pointed question to the bury-the-bad-news crowd bears repeating here: "Which would be worse in the war on terror in the long run -- suspicions of abuse and sacrilege running rampant for years, or said abuses acknowledged, apologized for, and punished?”

Folks, the answer to that question is so clear, so unambiguous, so self-evident at this point that I'm truly beginning to wonder whether those who can't or won't acknowledge it even realize that there's a war on. And that our side really needs to win it.

POSTSCRIPT: I can think of more enjoyable ways of having spent the first twenty minutes or so of my 39th birthday, but few more valuable ones. Seriously, set aside a little time and read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman gets it just right. "[A]llegations of this kind of behavior must be investigated and if proven true prosecuted to the absolute fullest extent of the law - including up the chain of command if necessary. Those who try to defend it or dismiss it as soldiers blowing off steam or minimize the gravity of it deserve nothing but contempt from those from both parties who militantly believe in and cherish long-held American ideals."

Hear, hear.

In today's NYT, several military leaders, including theater commander Gen. John P. Abizaid, offer their rather sober assessments of the situation in Iraq (“I think that this could still fail," says one. "It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail."). And, thus far, at least, the right side of the blogosphere has chosen neither to question their patriotism, nor to worry openly about the possible need to abridge their constitutional rights.

As the president would say, we're making progress!

As Ronald Reagan said in 1988, I have no desire to improperly raise the always-sensitive issue of mental health (actually, Mr. Reagan put it a bit more colorfully, as I recall), but really, now, this just isn't sane:

Big media’s melting down. Movies are in a slump. Why? The media’s losing money because contemporary secular liberalism is really a kind of religion. Liberals don’t want to make money. They’re out to win souls. Oh sure, within the acceptable parameters of their secular religion, liberals are pleased to make a profit. No doubt Hollywood and MSM do plenty of market research and such. But it’s obvious that the media would rather “make a difference” (i.e. gain converts to secular liberalism) than make money. It wouldn’t be hard for the big newspapers and magazines to attract reporters and writers from all sides of the political-cultural spectrum. In fact, a news magazine that truly covered stories from both the left and the right would excite interest, buzz, loyalty–and make money. Readers would also be more disposed to forgive mistakes. But big media doesn’t do this because, for secular journalists, making the culture more liberal is the mission that gives meaning to life.

I guess John Edwards was right. There really are two Americas -- one that gets up in the morning and quietly goes about its business in what we might be so bold as to call the real world, and another that's consumed with wacky conspiracy theories about the dark intrigues ("Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous," crows a rudely stamped Bill Keller, rubbing his ink-stained hands together with evil glee. . . .) being hatched every day by the MSM against ordinary people of faith like me and (perhaps) thee. Which would actually be okay, I suppose -- to each his own, you know -- if the latter bunch weren't pretty much running the show in Washington these days. But they are. And that, my friends, is a worrisome state of affairs, indeed.

Via Jim Romenesko, here's the normally interesting Russ Smith using 1209 words -- seriously, 1209 words -- to make the blindingly original observation that earnest liberal wonkery, such as that regularly found in Slate, is less entertaining than the kind of rabid, right-wing, f-you-and-the-PC-horse-you-rode-in-on folderol that made Mark Steyn every conservative blogboy's favorite pin-up. Gadzooks! What a penetrating insight. Why, next thing you know, Mr. Smith will be telling us that the first Star Wars trilogy was superior to the current one. Or that a good big man beats a good little man every time. Or that music was just, well, better when he was young. Or . . .

The NYT's David Brooks -- whose column is scheduled to take up life behind a subscription wall in September -- examines the torrent of Internet bile that has spewed forth in response to Newsweek's Koran-flush blunder, and observes, "Maybe it won't be so bad being cut off from the blogosphere."

Hard to argue with that.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, Brooks tries a bit too hard to make his piece an even-handed indictment of both right and left, when, clearly, his beef is primarily with the former. (Let's see, now. On one side, Brooks condemns the behavior of the Bush administration, large chunks of the conservative commentariat, and virtually the entire right side of Blogdom; on the other, he wags his finger at . . . The Nation. Oh, and some number of unidentified but scary-sounding "leftish web sites." Equipoise, indeed.) Still, it's worth a read.

Barry Ritholtz calls Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Harvey S. Rosen's op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal "either appalling or amusing, depending upon whether you are a 'glass half-full or half-empty' type of person." Which, as you'll realize after reading Barry's comprehensive takedown, is actually a rather kind assessment.

Alright then, thinly-sourced anonymous stories are now verboten. And good riddance, I say. But, uh, what about this guy? I mean, unless you happen to be one of those left-wing crazies who just insists on believing that our friends on the right aren't being completely sincere in their denunciations of Newsweek's journalistic practices in this case, you have to expect the man whose name is synonymous with irresponsible Internet gossip to come in for all sorts of conservative criticism now, right?

Right?

UPDATE: Just to be clear: I'm not trying to let Newsweek off the hook here. They screwed up. Period. Still, all that Newsweek lied, people died stuff is more than a little hard to take when so much of it is coming from folks who penned not a word about the deaths in question until the precise moment that they became politically useful. Cynical stuff, that. And we shouldn't allow ourselves to be bullied or browbeaten into pretending otherwise.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Cole rebukes the would-be censors, and asks an important question. "The media was wrong for reporting a false story, but had the story been accurate, they were well within their rights and, IMHO, obligated to report this sort of thing. Which would be worse in the war on terror in the long run- suspicions of abuse and sacrilege running rampant for years, or said abuses acknowledged, aplogized for, and punished?"

PoliticsOnline: "By Election Day it was apparent that the internet hype would have little to do with the outcome. Quite simply the internet failed to be an effective tool for gathering support and getting votes. In retrospect the internet flop wasn't necessarily because UK campaigners failed to use proper tools in the online arsenal, it's more likely that they just failed to have a candidate like Howard Dean."

Via Ed Cone, here's Carolina Christian Conservative raising an interesting question:

In recent years, Christian conservatives have firmly aligned themselves in large numbers with the Republican Party. As a former registered Democrat, I know I have. But is that necessarily a good thing?

Click over and give the post a read. As Ed rightly says, "There are all kinds of opportunities for the Dems to open dialogue with people they sometimes write off. That means listening as well as talking."

Just about everyone in Washington agrees that the Alternative Minimum Tax needs reform. The hard part is finding the money. So where does President Bush intend to look for it? Well, where he always does, of course -- in the pockets of the middle class.

Eliminating the increasingly unpopular alternative minimum tax could require even more unpleasant tax changes, such as reducing deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions and health care costs, the leaders of President Bush's tax panel warned Tuesday.

Lovely.

With the Ds and Rs practically at each others' throats in DC these days, Dana Milbank finds an emerging bipartisan consensus on one issue at least: with regard to matters budgetary, the United States is turning into Argentina.

Wrote lim'ricks 'bout judges quite bad,
Their radical views,
I hear on the news,
Suggest an impaler named Vlad.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, like being president, dashing off a limerick link at 5:30 in the morning is hard work. . . .

In the spirit of blog civility, let me just note for the record that Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds is a thoroughly decent guy who has done more for this medium than any other twenty bloggers combined. Nonetheless, he's tragically, dangerously, mind-bogglingly wrong here:

When you go out of your way to report the bad news, and bury the good news, when you're credulous toward critics (remember the Boston Globe porn photos?) and treat all positive news as presumptive lies, and when it's clear that the enemy relies on press behavior in planning its campaigns, then you've got a problem. Huffing and puffing in response isn't constructive. . . .

Despite Matt's implication, I don't get up in the morning trying to figure out how to destroy freedom of the press in America. Instead, I keep trying to persuade the folks at Newsweek, CBS, etc. not to flush free expression down the toilet through their irresponsibility and bias. [Note: Reason link added]

Well, of course the enemy "relies" on our freedoms in planning his campaigns. He always has, from Lexington to Pearl Harbor to the dark and sometimes dangerous alleys of East Berlin. And while I understand that some conservatives choose to believe that this strategy was successful on one occasion -- that the war in Vietnam was lost due to the free and fearless exercise of American liberty -- all the right-wing revisionism in the world can't alter the simple truth that our policy in Southeast Asia was a noble mistake; nor can it obscure the fact that today, America stands as the world's only superpower, while Vietnam slowly and painfully struggles to find its way. Truth be told, the ash heap of history is littered with the mouldering remains of despots who believed that America couldn't be both free and strong, and I can't for the life of me imagine why Glenn would want to associate himself with that strange and oft-discredited notion.

As to Glenn's second point, I certainly accept his sincerity. None of us wants to see liberty flushed down the toilet. But I'm confused and more than a little disheartened by his seeming unwillingness to stand up for the American experiment. It's been quite a success, I hear, allowing an industrious and talented mix of mutts and castoffs to tame a continent and remake a world. That's not a bad record, friends. And it's more than deserving of our heartfelt and enduring devotion.

E. J. Dionne has found a rare pol, indeed: one who's genuinely committed to making abortion safe, legal, and rare.

Nothing is more hopeless or courageous in politics than seeking an authentic middle ground on the abortion issue. That makes Thomas R. Suozzi a hopeless case or, as I would insist, one brave politician -- and especially so as the United States Senate tears itself apart over judicial nomination battles in which discord about abortion has played such a central role.

The 42-year-old Nassau County executive is a churchgoing Catholic who believes that abortion should remain legal. He is also a Democrat who thinks that government should take concrete steps to make it easier for women to choose against abortion. He's proposing that his suburban jurisdiction on Long Island spend some serious money to make that happen. . . .

"As a Democrat, I do not often find it easy to talk with other Democrats about our need to affirm our commitment to the respect for life and how we need to emphasize our party's firm belief in the worth of every human being," he said. "As a Catholic, I do not often find it easy to talk with other Catholics about my feeling that abortion should and will remain safe and legal, and that we should instead focus our efforts on creating a better world where there are fewer unplanned pregnancies and where women who face unplanned pregnancies receive greater support and where men take more responsibility for their actions."

Dionne calls that kind of talk "brave," which is both accurate and deeply weird. In a properly functioning republic, forthrightly articulating the majority position on an issue like abortion shouldn't put you in the running for a Profile in Courage Award. But that's precisely where we find ourselves these days. And until we can figure out a fair but effective way to make our political system a little less hyper-responsive to the folks with the mailing lists and the megaphones, it's going to continue to be frustratingly unresponsive to the needs and values of the rest of us.

WorldNetDaily avers that the United States, despite its overwhelmingly Christian population, "is becoming increasingly un-Christian and even anti-Christian with every passing year." And Ed Cone explains why they're wrong.

The conservative blogosphere appears to be quite taken today with Austin Bay's description of Newsweek's maybe-maybe-not Koran-flush screwup as "the press’ Abu Ghraib," which must be real relief to the magazine's editors and senior staff. No resignations or firings required. Whew!

At the risk of appearing to bite the hand that's been kind enough to feed me not once, but twice recently, I'd like to take issue with John Cole a bit here. An administration that can be plausibly presented as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Oil just can't conduct official business with industry reps in an off-the-record setting. It's bad public policy and, frankly, bad politics, as well, for just as most Republicans would never take a Democratic president's crime proposals seriously if they knew he'd secretly hammered them out in a back room with Barbra Streisand and a gaggle of lawyers from the ACLU, we Dems can't be reasonably expected to give President Bush's energy initiatives a fair hearing when they appear to have been presented to the veep on stone tablets at the top of Mount Exxon.

As I'm sure this president knows better than most (since it's an area of special interest to him), any successful effort to change the tone in Washington will require a veritable boatload of the kind of trust that can only be built on a foundation of real transparency. Which is why a little more of it would be so greatly appreciated by those of us who share his concerns about both the nation's energy woes and the angry partisan divide in Washington.

According to USA TODAY, beer makers are going for an image makeover in an attempt to lure upscale young professionals away from the competition's trendier wares -- which at least sounds a little more sensible than Miller's recent marketing efforts aimed at the other end of the suds spectrum.

Right from the start, President Bush has loudly and proudly made the case that, due to certain demographic realities, African Americans would benefit disproportionately from his Social Security proposals.

According to the WaPo's Terry Neal, African Americans aren't buying it.

Today's LA Times is reporting that the LA mayor's race is ending on a sour note for most voters.

Marc Cooper would seem to agree.

I rather studiously ignored Newsweek's Koran-flushing story all last week -- all week, dammit! -- and, finally, on Sunday, I used a Sullivan post on the subject to make a larger point about the Bush administration and the man who leads it. And what do I wake up to this morning? This.

Thanks, Newsweek.

UPDATE: Hmmm. . . . Perhaps I spoke too soon.

In a recent speech at the Stanford University Institute for International Studies, State Department Counselor Phil Zelikow gave us a name for President Bush's foreign policy: Practical Idealism.

Now, why does that phrase sound so familiar?

[Via Think Progress]

Why isn't the VA's fully developed and apparently first-rate electronic medical information system being adopted as the national standard? Mark Kleiman has a theory.

I've been a pretty consistent, if grumpy, supporter of the country's legal response to 9/11, but TalkLeft's report on White House foot-dragging in regard to the creation of a congressionally-mandated Civil Liberties Oversight Board is disturbing. C'mon, guys, just cut the BS and get it done.

One of the reasons I've always been so fond of James Carville is that he knows the difference between reaching out to the other side and pandering to its worst instincts. Sadly, his fellow Southern Democratic political consultant, Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, seems to be far less sure-footed in that area.

Before getting into this, I should probably note for the record that I am, despite a measure of personal squeamishness, implacably c