The perfect storm in today's articles from Maria

The sum and substance of this thumbnail sketch on the Haditha claims is that it follows so closely the template for the TANG and Plame stories.

Women Join Iraqi Police

Why I Left the Left:

In response, the left offered bumper-sticker-type arguments like, Bush lied and thousands died. But Bush never lied. He, like Clinton and Gore and Kerry and the United Nations and the British and French and Israeli intelligence services, affirmed that Saddam’s WMD were a vital threat–a threat, that post-9/11, could not stand. An overwhelming number of Democrats voted for the war–but now the left says they were “scared” into their votes by Bush. What does it say about Democrats if the “dummy” they think Bush is can scare them so easily?

No Wonder Our Intelligece Is So Sparse

George Will explains Why Gore Will Run: he’s got a world to save. I prefer to think Gore will run so he can provide us bloggers a bottomless lockbox of material.

Loathsome Anne Coulter’s raking in the money; Kevin McCullough’s grammar suffers: Liberal infallibility: What Ann Coulter is right

America’s smartest cities: Seattle??
Was Einstein happy?

Thanks E.J. Dionne, for explaining it all to me

Thanks EJ Dionne, for explaining to me that I’ve been used again. The entire week surrounding the vote on the Marriage Amendment, social conservatives were treated to liberal commentary like yours claiming that Republicans were cynically distracting the country from more important issues, like Social Security and repealing the estate tax. According to you and your liberal colleagues, I shouldn’t care about social conservative issues, like gay marriage or abortion. I should really care about George Bush selling me out for issues like “privatizing Social Security and cutting taxes on rich people.”
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we social conservatives know perfectly well what our interests are. We are capable of thinking beyond the next election cycle and of doing elementary arithmetic. We’ve known for some time that Social Security needs reform, and that Democrats have blocked every meaningful attempt at reform.

And let me explain something else to you. I have no prospect of receiving a large inheritance. A lot of us don’t feel it necessary to attack the rich, because we have hopes of joining them someday. But even if I personally am unable to leave my children a dime, I could care less about Bush repealing the estate tax. I’m not worked up about the rich passing their wealth on to their children, because most of that wealth was already taxed as income. Even if the federal government took every last nickel from “The Rich” it wouldn’t be enough to pay the government’s bills.

Car Thieves Target Escalades

World’s Smallest Political Quiz

One for the cat owners: When the fur flies

The Danish Soul of That Town in ‘Sideways’

And a recipe: Watermelon gazpacho shooters

At the blogs:
Fidel and Zarqawi, Brothers under the skin.
The Man Who Wasn’t There: Cole in the Wake of Zarqawi

US District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. dismissed a lawsuit brought by activist and atheist Michael Newdow seeking to have the words “In God We Trust” removed from our money.

Today’s video
Full throttle with the Blue Angels