One of Ours

...the players did not clash. Despite some sniping and testiness, the surprising theme was unity.

Democrats and Republicans alike -- past and present secretaries and deputy secretaries of state and defense -- spoke little of Clinton vs. Bush and lots about Before vs. After...

...former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, insisted that before the "megashock" of 9/11, stronger action against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden was nearly impossible. "Diplomatic backing would have been virtually nonexistent" for a manned military strike at bin Laden's sanctuaries in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan...

...the first witness, former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, insisted that before the "megashock" of 9/11, stronger action against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden was nearly impossible. "Diplomatic backing would have been virtually nonexistent" for a manned military strike at bin Laden's sanctuaries in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, she said.

Her successor, Colin L. Powell, emphatically agreed. The region in which bin Laden was operating was a powder keg of feuding, struggling and extremist states that might have blown up had the United States acted more forcefully before the terrible provocation of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon...

...When commission member and former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) argued that the U.S. military should have put commandos into Afghanistan to wipe out bin Laden's bases before 9/11, Cohen argued heatedly that America's allies, Congress and public would never have gone for it.

Later, Kerrey warned Cohen's successor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, that he was about to pose the same question. Rumsfeld smiled his tight little smile and parried: "I'm going to give you the same answer, because I thought he did a good job."...

...There was "a daily coordination phone call meeting" of senior officials, Powell continued, and "we formalized regular luncheons." Ultimately this resulted, a week before the attacks, in "NSPD-9," the new U.S. plan for dealing with terrorism...

...Powell bristled when a commission Democrat, former representative Timothy J. Roemer (Ind.), brandished Clarke's book and read a passage in which the author described a briefing at which he warned Powell of al Qaeda's reach. It was Dec. 20, 2000, and one of the PowerPoint slides prepared by Clarke reportedly said of the terrorists, "They're here" in the United States.

"At the time that he gave me the briefing, I was not the secretary of state, this administration was not in office," Powell answered. "If they were aware that al Qaeda representatives were already in the country running around . . . why hadn't they done something while they were preparing the PowerPoint presentation?"...

...Nationalization may no longer be in vogue in the large economies of continental Europe. But a strong sense of nationalism still pervades these governments' attitudes toward capitalism. And it's ironic. The Eurozone has a single currency—the euro—and a single central bank largely because Germany and France wanted them. But when it comes to the private sector, the nations most invested in European economic integration are the ones most unsettled by its implications...

President Bush seems to be running his re-election campaign on the basis of the Powell Doctrine: Go in with overwhelming force from the start, and strike a blow from which the enemy can never recover. Like the United States in Iraq, the Bush campaign has superior fire power and far more money...

...The purpose of a phony statistic like this one isn't really to persuade people of its own accuracy. The purpose is to trap your opponent in a discussion he doesn't want to have (in this case about his past votes about taxes), bog the discussion down in silly details that few people will follow, and leave a general impression that where there is smoke, there must be fire...

Doctors report promising results using huge doses of a potent chemotherapy drug to treat autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis, though only a handful of patients have been treated so far and one MS researcher said far more study is needed before any victory is declared...

It's amazing how many partisan Democrats and disgruntled former employees working under cover as career civil servants, spies and military officers have betrayed this president. It just seems to happen again and again and again. I mean, just think of the list: Rand Beers, well-known partisan Democrat and hack, Richard Clarke, self-promoter, disgruntled former employee, and "self-regarding buffoon", Karen Kwiatkowski, conspiracy theorist and all-around freak, Valerie Plame, hack and nepotist, Joe Wilson, partisan hack, self-promoter and shameless green tea lover. When will the abuse end?

Madeleine Albright, testifying before Congress today, says the Clinton administration "did everything we could, everything we could think of" to fight al-Qaeda during their time in office.

This, of course, is the party line for everyone, but you know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see just one person fess up and admit that, in retrospect, we obviously didn't take them seriously enough.

...Judith Miller is one of the NYT's most senior journalists. A Pulitzer Prize winning writer and regarded expert on Middle East issues and WMD, Miller has written extensively on Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network.

In the run-up to the Iraq War, Miller became a key reporter on that country’s supposedly documented WMDs. She wrote many articles relayed around the globe on the Bush administration’s doomsday reading of Saddam’s regime. She painted a terrifying picture of his arsenal with apparently sound intelligence sources to back her claims.

However, it emerged that the vast majority of her WMD claims came through Ahmed Chalabi, an indicted fraudster and one of the leading figures in the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the group keen to militarily overthrow Saddam. Miller relied on untested defectors’ testimonies (usually provided by Chalabi) to write several front-page stories on this information...

...John Derbyshire is a columnist, author, mathematician, uncredited thug, general curmudgeon, and one writer at National Review I wouldn't try and replace. He's decidedly as non-PC as they get, and often sports controversy because of it (he once put up a math problem about monkeys and it scared me)...

Q. So what's it like writing for National Review? Is it fun fun fun everyday, or is it your own private hell that you suffer with dignity and grace?
A. A laff riot, except for those times they call you up and say: "Can you give us 1,000 words on energy policy by 4 o'clock?" That's when you try desperately to forget the combination code for the handgun safe.

Q. You seem to court controversy a lot more than other writers at National Review (one of the quotes for your merchandise is about how you have some opinions that aren't "respectable"). Is that because you're more daring or because everyone else is a pansy?
A. I think mostly it's just that I'm older. Grew up in the age before PC. Never internalized the necessary restraints. The NR people have only recently weaned me off saying "Negro."...

...Sheikh Said Siam, another senior functionary of Hamas, earlier gave Maariv Online the first official confirmation for reports that appeared recently in the Arab press that the United States offered the organization's leader Sheikh Ahmad Yasin immunity from attempts on his life in return for a stop to terrorist attacks.

This immunity, according to Sheikh Siam, would have applied only to the political wing of Hamas and not to its armed wing, the Iz a-Din el-Kassam Brigades. The offer was relayed to Yasin by intermediaries, but he rejected it saying "the blood of Hamas leaders is no dearer than that of a Palestinian child."...

We hear that Wonkette is also barred from NIH and the Smithsonian. That must really suck for the two readers effected. But if you or someone you know can't get to Wonkette because of a workplace web filter and yet still feel comfortable getting caught reading it, try out this tip from a fellow Wonketteer:

Just a quick note to say that many filters can by bypassed via Alta Vista's translation services: http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Just use the Babelfish to translate the target site from Japanese to English. It won't find any Japanese and will leave the existing English alone, returning basically the same page...

The White House has just released the letter Richard Clarke wrote to President Bush upon his resignation from the administration...

...We can imagine, for instance, the first draft of Clarke's resignation letter:

I will always remember the courage, determination, leadership and out-of-control bloodlust you demonstrated on September 11th, first on the video link from STRATCOM and later that day in the PEOC and the Situation Room, when you accosted me and humiliated me. I sort of got off on that.

Clarke may be a hypocrite, but who doesn't kiss a little ass on the way out the door?...

"The White House begun airing their TV commercials to re-elect the president, and the John Kerry campaign is condemning his use of 9/11 in the ads. He said, it is conscionable to use the tragic memory of a war in order to get elected, unless of course, it's the Vietnam War." - Jay Leno

"John Kerry has promised to take this country back from the wealthy. Who better than the guy worth $700 million to take the country back? See, he knows how the wealthy think. He can spy on them at his country club, at his place in Palm Beach, at his house in the Hamptons. He's like a mole for the working man." - Jay Leno

"According to a new study, Botox injections can help back pain. So you see, that's why John Kerry had all that Botox - his back was killing him from all that flip-flopping on issues." - Jay Leno

"John Kerry said today that he wants to get rid of tax cuts for the rich and his wife said, 'Hey, shut up! What's the matter with you?! Are you nuts?!'" - Jay Leno

"They had a profile of John Kerry on the news and they said his FIRST WIFE was worth around $300 million and his SECOND WIFE, his current wife, is worth around $700 million. His intern (with whom he supposedly had an affair) was worth several more million. So when John Kerry says he's going after the wealthy in this country, he's not just talking. He's doing it!" - Jay Leno

"In his speech last night, John Kerry said this was the beginning of the end of the Bush administration. I agree. Sure, it will probably take another five years, but this is it." - Jay Leno

After a flurry of last-minute negotiations (which included Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer flying to Brussels for a sit-down with European Union regulators) failed, the EU will tomorrow announce a fine of 500 million (around US$617 million) as well as additional sanctions against the Redmond, Washington based software giant...

The American project to build a stable democracy in Iraq has encountered many obstacles. But perhaps the most elusive enemy is an old phantom called rumor.
Less than 24 hours after a bombing in central Baghdad that tore the facade off the Mount Lebanon Hotel, the rumors began circulating in the marketplaces and teahouses: that the hotel was demolished not by a bomb, as the Americans maintained, but by an errant American missile...

...Those are just a few of the rumors collected by the staff of The Baghdad Mosquito, a daily intelligence document that chronicles the latest street talk in the Iraqi capital, however ill founded, bizarre or malevolent...