Lorie Byrd writes about the media myth that won’t die, in the Plame/Wilson affair:

For almost four years now, the public has been fed a steady diet of Joe-Wilson-truth-teller exposing President Bush

Lorie Byrd writes about the media myth that won’t die, in the Plame/Wilson affair:

For almost four years now, the public has been fed a steady diet of Joe-Wilson-truth-teller exposing President Bush

Once Nancy and Harry hear about this, and whine to CNN management, Michael Ware may be looking for a new job:

JIM CLANCY: “The Democrats are pressing for a deadline, be it at the end of 2007, 2008 to bring all U.S. troops home. How is that going to affect General Petraeus, the Iraqi government and the Iraqis themselves?”

MICHAEL WARE: “Well, Jim, certainly in terms of the Iraqis and the war that’s being fought in the streets and the deserts of this country, I mean, what’s happening over there, what the Democrats are saying about timetables may as well be happening on the planet Pluto for all that it counts, to the bloodshed and endless combat that we’re seeing day in, day out. All that it does, anyone setting time frames like that without real pre-conditions, anyone trying to put artificial deadlines upon this conflict is only aiding the enemies, so-called, of America, al Qaeda and Iran. It allows them some leverage to know when to put the pressure on, to know that the clock is ticking and to know where the pressure points are.

“So, in terms of the battle, day-to-day here, General Petraeus isn’t looking more forward than five or six months. He’s trying to make this surge work. But in terms of the broader strategic framework, it serves only America’s enemies.”

Quite the faux pas, to tell the truth. As Finklestein notes, actually being on the ground in Iraq can be quite clarifying. Between this, and Brian Williams’ cautious optimism, perhaps the MSM is coming around, even if the Dems aren’t.

I think the copy editor was having trouble with the concept. As a long-time aficionado of paper-wrapped gunpowder, I wouldn’t want to be in the same county as an eight-mile firecracker.

I’m listening to Wolf Blitzer talk to Senator Dodd. Wolf plays a tape of the president saying that if we leave Iraq before the job is done, that it will be a disaster in the war on terror. Dodd’s response? This isn’t a transcript, but it’s pretty close. “There are terrorist attacks all over the world. I don’t know how the president can think that by staying in Iraq, we will end them.” Wolf follows up, and he says something similar again.

In other words, President: “Leaving Iraq prematurely will worsen things.”

Dodd’s strawman version of President: “Staying in Iraq will solve the problem.”

I can see why he’d like to knock down a foolish statement that no one made, since it’s a lot easier to do that than to actually respond to the question of what will happen if we leave. I was disappointed (well, that’s not the right word, because it was, after all, Wolf Blitzer) that he wasn’t called on it. You know he would have if he’d been of a different party (speaking of which, Russert let Murtha get away with a disgusting amount of nonsense this morning–he never followed up, but just went on to his next sound clip each time).

[Update in the afternoon]

I will give credit to Murtha for having more class than Russert in this exchange. I was shocked, in fact, because it’s the first time I’ve seen a Democrat decline to cloak themselves in faux victimhood for their beliefs (they generally do it unprompted, but Russert couldn’t drag it out of Murtha today).

That’s the ratio of potty words on “left,” as compared to “right” blogs. Based on my own reading of both kinds, it doesn’t shock me. I wonder if it says something about relative emotional maturity?

I know that this is conventional reporting wisdom, particularly at the WaPo, but I think that there were many other reasons for the Republicans losing the Congress last fall:

Swept into power by voters clamoring for an end to the war, Democrats have seen their efforts stymied under realities more complicated than they found on the campaign trail.

Emphasis mine. In fact, if that were the case, the Dems wouldn’t be having so much dissension in the ranks, and difficulty in coming up with a politically palatable position. If the voters really wanted to simply end the war, then the Dems could simply defund it. But despite reporter Julie Davis’ breezy assertion, the Republicans lost for lots of reasons, some of them war related, some not, and it’s politically perilous to make such assumptions about what the voters wanted, other than that they were tired of Republicans.

The Donks’ problem was in fact nailed by the President in the State of the Union, in which he noted that while he wasn’t sure what the voters had voted for, he was confident that they weren’t voting for failure. Yet that is exactly what the Dems seem to want, or at least accept as a fait accompli.

While I agree with Don Imus that there’s “something wrong with” Chris Matthews, I’m amused to see that no one pointed out the obvious. Imus isn’t upset about the F-bomb on his show. He’s upset because he owns a ranch.

And I love this:

Imus: “If you were on

While the New York Times (unlike most of the media), manages to actually criticize Edwards’ choice of campaign bloggers, it can’t resist bashing bloggers (or, as I now prefer, bloggists):

Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do

Christopher Hitchens isn’t very impressed with the New York Times theater critic’s latest blast at George Bush:

Now, “truthiness” is a laugh-word invented by Steven Colbert who (along with his friend Jon Stewart and the other heroes of Comedy Central) is the beau ideal of what Rich considers to be the ironic. In this book and in his regular column, he gives “truthiness” a workout whenever he can. He clearly wishes he had coined it himself, and he has kept it going for perhaps a touch longer