Tony Blair: “What sustains a government at this point is self-belief.”

Not much to go on, but if it’s all you got . . .

In response to the post below, TPM reader DS correctly notes, among other points, the chicken/egg conundrum:

I see your point . . . and will go you one further.

First, the US has pretty much said that our allies can do virtually anything when it comes to fighting terrorism. Wiretapping, check. Library and Bank records, check. Detention without charges our trials, check. Torture, check. Bombing and war without provocation, check.

As usual, the US is setting the tone for what is acceptable world-wide.

On the other hand, while it may be inflammatory for Israel to go over-the-top here, this situation was likely caused by Palestinians being inflamed by the war.

Bush has put Israel in a no-win situation. Terror attacks will increase because of the War in Iraq, yet an Israeli response to the terror attacks will feed the insurgents in Iraq as well as attacks on Israel.

Damned if they do and damned if they don’t. And with a US president who thinks they are all damned anyway!

In a remarkable piece of enterprise journalism, trumpeted above the Sunday fold, the LA Times reports:

Now, in the face of increasing violence in Iraq and eroding public support for the war at home, Republicans are turning again to the theme of toughness — with gloves off.

. . .

But the Democrats’ response so far has been less unified, less pointed and less memorable than the Republicans’ attacks.

As if on cue, the article goes on to offer tough-talking quotes from Republicans and insipid, navel-gazing quotes from Democrats.

And so begins another campaign season of trail-blazing political reporting.

The Air Force is venturing forth into the virtual blue yonder with $450,000 in funding for a three-year project entitled “Automated Ontologically-Based Link Analysis of International Web Logs for the Timely Discovery of Relevant and Credible Information.”

That’s right. The Air Force is studying blogs. All part of Rumsfeld’s military transformation, I suppose. Here’s some of what the Air Force has deduced so far:

“It can be challenging for information analysts to tell what’s important in blogs unless you analyze patterns,” [senior scientist Brian] Ulicny said.

He must be talking about these guys.

One of the problems analysts may have with blog monitoring, Ulicny noted, is there is too much actionable information for the analyst to properly analyze.

I’ve always said that about Wolcott’s blog–too much actionable information.

“Blog entries have a different structure,” Ulicny said. “They are typically short and are about something external to the blog posting itself , such as a news event. It’s not uncommon for a blogger to simply state, ‘I can’t believe this happened,’ and then link to a news story.”

Busted.

“The fact that the web is a vast source of information is sometimes overlooked by military analysts,” Kokar said. “Our research goal is to provide the warfighter with a kind of information radar to better understand the information battlespace.”

I could not agree more.

So Jack Abramoff wanted a federal prosecutor fired, the prosecutor was demoted, but Abramoff didn’t have anything to do with it, huh? Over at TPMmuckraker, we finally got our hands dirty with the Justice Department’s recent IG report on U.S. Attorney Frederick Black’s demotion.

Are the Russians calling our bluff?

At the Thursday meeting of G8 foreign ministers in Moscow, someone forgot to turn off the audio feed from what was supposed to be a private luncheon. Reporters were able to listen in on what turned out to be, in diplo-speak, “frank discussions” between Condi Rice and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

Toward the end of the back and forth, came this pointed jab from Lavrov, as described by Glenn Kessler in the WP:

The two continued to squabble when Lavrov threw out a new concept — that the new Iraqi government had to answer questions about former president Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction because last week Republican lawmakers in the United States had said there was evidence of chemical munitions.

“I think it’s serious,” he said. “While we want to support this government, we also believe that this government has something to do to finalize the leftovers of the past, which is basically nonproliferation concerns.”

This line of conversation riled Rice, but once again other ministers suggested a compromise that mentioned the idea without endorsing it.

I’ll confess I had missed this exchange until an astute TPM reader pointed it out to me. But it appears that the Russians, as skeptical as the rest of us of claims from some in Congress that WMD really was found in Iraq after all, is telling the Bush Administraton to put up or shut up.

If what members of the President’s party are saying is true, then it logically follows that the international community will need certain assurances, such as guarantees that all such weapons and weapons capabilities are destroyed and commitments by the new Iraqi government that it will not pursue any such capabilities.

It’s not clear from the WP piece exactly what a “riled” Rice said in response, but as Laura Rozen put it:

The Russian government anyhow seems to be taking Hoekstra/Santorum/Weldon’s Iraq WMD concerns seriously. The Bush administration, not so much. What’s wrong with this picture?

(Thanks to TPM Reader GP)

When exactly did the NSA start monitoring domestic telecommunications traffic, after September 11–or before?

In a post last night I waded into the soup of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I figured, why not? I’m only guest posting. If I leave carnage in my wake, Josh will be the one who gets to clean it up.

For the most part, the email response was temperate and quite thoughtful, but by no means was there a consensus, as these two TPM readers demonstrate:

From TPM Reader SS:

I couldn’t disagree more with your post regarding the so-called “disproportionate” Israeli response to the kidnapping of one of its soldiers.

First, to frame the debate as you did–a response over the kidnapping of a single soldier–is disingenuous. Israel’s response is not over the kidnapping of a single soldier. It concerns the elevation of a terrorist organization into political power–in Israel’s own backyard.

Hamas has vowed, and continues to vow, to destroy Israel. In the same incident in which a soldier was kidnapped, two others were murdered and one seriously injured. Qasam rockets rain into Israel regularly.

I do not understand why Israel does not have the right to self-defense and self-preservation. Regardless of how you view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict–and I for one believe in a negotiated two-state solution–it is impossible to negotiate with an entity that predicates its existence upon Israel’s complete destruction.

The United States attacked and destroyed the Afganistan political establishment because it harbored terrorists. Everyone applauded. Israel has been living side-by-side with a people that harbored a substantial number of people who supported its destruction, and tacitly went-along with (or at a minimum refused to condemn or attempt to stop) these terrorists. Now they control the government. I think that Israel’s response to having a people call for its destruction has been remarkably constrained. I don’t think, in fact, we could find a more restrained response in history.

Then again, from TPM Reader JB:

The “kidnapping” of the Israeli soldier in a daring commando raid, an Israeli military disaster btw, was the pretext for this operation, which very likely was planned well-before the soldier was seized.

Discussing what the Israelis are doing as though it were really in reaction to this incident is to buy into Israeli propaganda. What they are really up to is simply to destroy the (democratically-elected) Hamas government and prevent the formation of a viable government in Palestine as part of PM Olmert’s “Convergence Plan.”

If anything, Israel’s kidnapping of the eight Palestinian civilian cabinet members and the shelling of their civilian PM’s offices is probably in reaction to the joint statement agreed to recently by both Fatah and Hamas pledging to reduce violence and by implication recognizing Israel’s
right to exist. Oops. The one thing Israel cannot countenance is peace.

Doesn’t look like I’ll be unleashing world peace during this guest posting stint. Maybe next time.

As Josh has rightly noted, the current wave of public corruption cases is largely the result of GOP machine politics.

It’s easy to get distracted by the baubles and the booty. Scottish golf trips. Persian rugs. Limousines and hookers.

But personal aggrandizement is not the sum total of these various cases. That’s just the carrying charge, the price of doing business.

The GOP machine is built on the nexus of earmarks, lobbying fees, government contracts, and laundered monies. Aboveboard campaign contributions (i.e., corporate cash) play a part, but the under-the-table money fuels the machine.

That’s why a Jack Abramoff has access to the White House. It’s why a Tom Delay rises to become House majority leader. It’s why the revolving door keeps spinning.

Machine politics subordinates ideology to the exigencies of keeping the machine running. Thus you have out-of-control federal spending under professed small-government conservatives. You have conservative foreign policy elites wary of foreign entanglements suddenly proclaiming the good news of nation-building.

Independents and honest Republicans recognize the threat that machine politics poses to democratic institutions. It trumps party, ideology, and competent government. It also trumps God, flag, and country.

So, in the 2006 elections, are you with the machine or are you against it?

News Flash: Longtime Hillary pollster and consultant Mark Penn says Hillary can be elected president.