Decision ‘08 » 2006

Archive for December, 2006

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

A Postponed Date With History

A big night for my Texas Tech Red Raiders, as a national TV audience, Dick Vitale, Jerry Tarkanian, and numerous other luminaries came to Lubbock to watch Bob Knight become the winningest Division I basketball coach, replacing the great Dean Smith.
Unfortunately, it ain’t gonna happen. Tech is down by 15 with 12 minutes left…a letdown, […]

No Comments » - Posted in Celebrities / Pop Culture / Sports by Mark

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

A Demonstration Of Why I’m In The Second Tier

Wretchard of the Belmont Club puts the pretenders like me to shame with this long, definitive, learned, epochal post on the blogosphere at war. Comment from me would be superfluous…

4 Comments » - Posted in Navel-Gazing, In Praise Of by Mark

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Some Good News, For A Change

Some of you may be surprised (though it’s mentioned in the comments of a thread elsewhere, from the Israel/Hezbollah war this summer) that I count among my good friends a quite liberal anti-Zionist (but not anti-Semitic: I concede there is a difference) Palestinian.
You shouldn’t be: political agreement is not a necessary precondition for friendship. Indeed, […]

No Comments » - Posted in Israel, Foreign Affairs, In Praise Of by Mark

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Congratulations To Sometimes Sparring Partner Glenn Greenwald…

…on what is undeniably a pretty huge deal: a new book, from a big publishing house (Crown, in fact). I came across it on Amazon, and it’s titled A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, and due for release in mid-June (I’m not even sure the title and release […]

4 Comments » - Posted in POTUS, In Praise Of by Mark

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

The “Man Of Peace”

There is, perhaps, no greater indignity in the world of honorifics than the bestowing of the Nobel Peace Prize on the richly undeserving Yasir Arafat. A newly released State Department document shows this absurdity in gruesome detail:
In the early evening hours of 1 March 1973, eight Black September Organization (BSO) terrorists seized the Saudi Arabian […]

1 Comment » - Posted in Israel, Radical Islam / GWOT, Foreign Affairs by Mark

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

More Remembrances Of Gerald Ford

Today seems to be the day that people have come to terms with the death of the late President, and written more reflective pieces. From the Wall Street Journal editorial board:
The abiding cliché about Gerald Ford–who died Tuesday at age 93–is that he was a decent man who steadied the country but held the White House […]

2 Comments » - Posted in POTUS, Elephants, Celebrities / Pop Culture / Sports by Mark

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

The Late President Ford On Iraq

Lots of buzz about a newly released Bob Woodward interview with President Ford, available for the first time on the unfortunate occasion of the latter’s death:
Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. “I don’t think I would have gone to war,” he […]

2 Comments » - Posted in POTUS, Dick Cheney, Radical Islam / GWOT, Iraq by Mark

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

The Bizarro World Of Noam Chomsky

From an interview with everyone’s favorite America-hater regarding the Iraq Study Group’s DOA flop:
KA: The report points at the connectedness of the Iraq crisis with the Arab-Israeli conflict, recommending a more spirited US role regarding the latter. What are the chances that this will happen?
NC: The Report refers to Bush’s “commitment to a two-state solution,” […]

1 Comment » - Posted in Israel, POTUS, Iraq, Progressive Nonsense / Nutroots® by Mark

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

A-Ha, So THAT’s Why All The John Edwards Searches Are Heading My Way!

I blogged below about the weird amount of traffic I’m getting (from a most unusual mirror of my site) off of the Google search “John Edwards ‘08″. Well, it appears that Edwards had to take his website down after an early head start:
Former Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards is running for president for a second […]

1 Comment » - Posted in John Edwards, Navel-Gazing, 2008 News, Democratic Candidates by Mark

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Interesting…

…to no one but me, perhaps, but hey, maybe you’ll find it diverting.
I’m getting a lot of traffic today from people looking for info about John Edwards and his ‘08 blog (does such a thing exist? This inquiring mind is not too concerned). In fact, a Google search for John Edwards ‘08 lands with my […]

3 Comments » - Posted in John Edwards, Navel-Gazing, 2008 News, Democratic Candidates by Mark

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Hitchens Visits Iraq…

…(and not for the first time, of course) and reports on the frustrating combination of progress and regression:
The distance between hope and despair, meanwhile, is measurable in vertiginous minutes. I flew to Baghdad from the northern city of Erbil, by the ordinary means of buying a local Iraqi Airlines ticket, boarding a plane that made […]

2 Comments » - Posted in Hitchens the Great, Radical Islam / GWOT, Iraq by Mark

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

John Kerry: Friend Of The Common Man

This is absolutely priceless…all I want for Christmas (a little late, I know) is for John Kerry to stay in the 2008 race! Run, John, run!…

11 Comments » - Posted in John Kerry, Democratic Candidates, Election 2008 by Mark

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

The Biggest Turkeys Of 2006

There’s something quite entertaining about reading up on colossal failures at the box office. Variety presents, for your edification, the biggest losers of the past year…

No Comments » - Posted in Celebrities / Pop Culture / Sports by Mark

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Do We Have The Appetite For ‘The Surge’?

Jack Keane and Fred Kagan argue that the much-discussed troop infusion must be big and lengthy, or it will fail:
Reports on the Bush administration’s efforts to craft a new strategy in Iraq often use the term “surge” but rarely define it. Estimates of the number of troops to be added in Baghdad range from fewer than 10,000 […]

13 Comments » - Posted in POTUS, Donkeys, Iraq by Mark

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Remembering Gerald Ford

I’ll update this post throughout the day with items of interest. To get it started, here are a couple of items:
The Washington Post obituary…
The NY Times obituary…
Pajamas has a roundup, as does Michelle Malkin…
As always, memeorandum is exhaustive…
A good symposium at National Review…
Newsweek has a collection of quotes…

1 Comment » - Posted in POTUS, Elephants by Mark

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Death of a President

The list of living ex-Presidents is now down to three:
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America’s history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
“My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald […]

3 Comments » - Posted in POTUS, Elephants by Mark

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Saddam To Be Executed In January…

…, most likely, barring a stay of some sort, which seems highly unlike, since it’s the high court that set the time frame:
Iraq’s highest appeals court on Tuesday upheld Saddam Hussein’s death sentence and said he must be hanged within 30 days for the killing of 148 Shiites in the central city of Dujail.
The […]

1 Comment » - Posted in Iraq by Mark

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Here’s The Top Twenty Stories Of 2006…

…as chosen by John Hawkins of Right Wing News. Forgive the light blogging lately, but it’s that time of year, and I’ve got a bit of traveling to get under my belt today, so I’ll talk to you guys later this afternoon or evening. Hope you all had a healthy, prosperous, Merry Christmas!…

1 Comment » - Posted in Domestic Affairs, Foreign Affairs by Mark

Monday, December 25th, 2006

Senate Intelligence Panel Rejects Able Danger/Atta Claim

When Curt Weldon left Congress, one nail was placed in the Able Danger coffin. Now, another (final?) nail has been driven home:
The Senate Intelligence Committee has rejected as untrue one of the most disturbing claims about the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes — a congressman’s contention that a team of military analysts identified Mohamed Atta or […]

No Comments » - Posted in Radical Islam / GWOT by Mark

Monday, December 25th, 2006

Merry Christmas To You And Yours…

…and hope you’re having a wonderful holiday. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hasn’t taken a holiday break, unfortunately, from his extremist rhetoric:
Iran vowed Sunday to press ahead with uranium enrichment despite U.N. economic sanctions aimed at forcing a rollback in its nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that the penalties would hurt the West more […]