LOOKS LIKE A BIG WIN FOR BUSH on the war. The Democrats may wonder, when this is done, why they didn’t get this over with in August. Their base is unhappy with their support for the war, but the delay and kvetching has probably cost them votes with people who favor war.

UPDATE: The resolution has passed the House 296-133.

ANOTHER UPDATE: My Congressman, “Baghdad John” Duncan, voted against the resolution. No explanation given. I called his office, and they said that they didn’t know why he voted that way. Weird, as he’s said nothing that I’ve seen to suggest that he was opposed to the President’s position on this.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails me a statement of Duncan’s from July, saying that we shouldn’t turn the “Department of Defense” into the “Department of War.” Boy, this hasn’t gotten any local coverage that I’ve seen. And no, nobody’s actually calling him “Baghdad John” — though I imagine that he’ll get some criticism over this one.

MONTANA HOMOPHOBIA ALERT: Poryhrogenitus asks: “When Is Playing on Homophobia OK? when it’s done by Democrats.”

Here’s a link to the story from the Billings Gazette, which reports:

State Sen. Mike Taylor, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, will withdraw from the race this afternoon, saying a Montana Democratic Party television ad has destroyed his campaign.

Taylor, who has scheduled a press conference in Helena for 2 p.m., said the ad, which he said insinuated that he was a gay hairdresser, had pushed his poll numbers through the floor.

Unconfirmed rumors have Taylor being replaced by former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, who is now chairman of the Republican National Committee.

That seems fair, though I think that Taylor should just call in SpongeBob for an endorsement. Here’s the report of Taylor’s withdrawal. MTPOLITICS.NET is posting regular updates.

UPDATE: Here’s more from Sean Hackbarth.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Cole has the Democratic response drafted.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Adam Bonin sends this link to the commercial (streaming video, courtesy of The Smoking Gun) and remarks: “I don’t see the ‘gay’ thing at all. Just cheesy ’70s stuff.”

The confusion there is understandable. . . . I looked at the commercial and I’d say that the gay thing is there. They maintain plausible deniability, but the shots of Taylor massaging around the guy’s eyes, etc., look to me like they’re going for gay. It’s certainly gayer than SpongeBob. You can watch the video and decide for yourself.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader writes:

The commercial is indeed implying that Taylor is gay. I work in the film and television industry and every clip, every moment that you see on television, with few exceptions, is heavily scrutinized. I know that they intended the shot to imply that Taylor is gay for the following reasons:

1) Taylor made several television appearances on this show, over a long period of time. All or many of which deal with hair and skin maintenance It is not a mistake that the clip of him massaging another man’s face was the one chosen for this commercial.

2) The commercial talks about Taylor owning and operating a school and a beauty salon, yet the clip shows him giving a facial. Now, while this may be a service offered at many salons, the overall teaching curriculum and services in beauty schools and salons focuses on hair cutting and style, the commercial does not show him at any time cutting hair, they chose to focus in on his skin to skin contact with another man.

3) Facials by nature are relaxing, pampering, and indulgent, now while some would say that this clip was used to highlight his “indulgent and corrupt business practices,” I would say that the clip plain and simple showcases one man pleasuring another.

Yeah, I saw it the same way.

ONE MORE UPDATE: Josh Marshall has looked at it, and says his reaction is “equivocal.” Meanwhile Kathryn Jean Lopez asks what people would be saying if a Republican had run this ad about a Democrat.

REALLY, THIS IS THE LAST UPDATE: Ted Barlow has posted a lengthy analysis.

AN INTERESTING REPORT ON WHAT AL QAEDA HAS LEARNED about fighting Americans, from StrategyPage.

THIS CASE LOOKS LIKE A LOSER TO ME. California is suing the federal government over its prosecution of users of medical marijuana, which is legal under California law. As a staunch advocate of states’ rights, I naturally tend to look on this with favor, but I think the real function is to embarrass the advocates of federalism within the Bush Administration. Which seems fair to me.

HOW TO PRODUCE TECHNO: A primer. Heh.

MORE EVIDENCE in support of the “cut their pay and send them home” approach. Obviously, there’s not enough work to do to justify a full-time position.

CATHERINE SEIPP writes that “Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton just played the race card against Hollywood and lost.”

Yeah, I think that Harry Belafonte is in the process of doing the same thing with Colin Powell. That stuff has been overused to the point that it just doesn’t work anymore. Big question: will Trent Lott still share star billing with Belafonte at this fundraiser?

UPDATE: Vinod Valloppillil draws some lessons from development economics and asks: “What this incident also calls into question is the continuing legitimacy of “group leaders” in an environment of (generally) rising political enfranchisement.”

THE GOOD NEWS is that there are promising developments in protecting troops from chemical weapons. The bad news is that they won’t be ready in time to help us with Iraq.

MORE ON THE MORAL STANDING OF MULTILATERALISM:

A senior Kremlin official indicated yesterday that Russia would demand a high price for its support in the campaign against Iraq but that it would not ultimately stand in America’s way.

With Tony Blair due in Moscow this afternoon, the Kremlin’s senior spokesman said Russia would adopt a “pragmatic” position over Iraq, shorthand for a demand that it must receive substantial financial compensation.

See, Russia is worried that the price of oil might fall — which would be bad for Russia, though good for a lot of poor countries elsewhere — and wants guarantees that that won’t happen.

Yeah, good thing we’re not going about this in a self-interested, unilateral manner. Because then it would be, you know, all about oil.

RAVE ACT UPDATE: Talkleft reports that Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has introduced a House version of this dumb bill. And it may move fast.

Don’t they have anything better to do? If Congress thinks it should be focusing on this crap in wartime, I say, “Cut their pay, and send them home.”

IS IT 1984 IN AMERICA? Some people will say so in response to this indictment. But as a reader points out: “Check the photo.” It’s got to have his defense lawyers worried.

UPDATE: Another Airbrush Award Nominee? The photo — which showed the defendant in traditional garb brandishing an AK-47, no longer accompanies the story. In fact, there’s no record that it was ever there, or explanation of why it was removed. I’ve emailed the Post to ask why.

AN0THER UPDATE: Still no word from the post, but reader Michael Kuhl forwards this link to Yahoo, where the picture is still available at the moment. It seems to have disappeared from quite a few places, but there’s no explanation of why. If there were an obvious reason — say, if it weren’t actually him — shouldn’t there be a correction to that effect?

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Daniel Drezner reports (at the end of an interesting post on terrorist financing) that the Defense position is that the person on the photo isn’t the same guy. With that in mind, here’s a link to a slideshow from a German newspaper that also identifies the picture (it’s #5) as the defendant Enaam Arnaout. There are quite a few photos showing him in compromising positions (one with Osama bin Laden). Presumably, the Defense will argue that none of these are Arnaout, and of course I can’t possibly say. In some cases, maybe nobody will be able to — some of the pictures are pretty indistinct. Others are pretty clear, so presumably there will be a definitive answer forthcoming.

LILEKS ON BLOGGING:

Shortly thereafter Internet access went out for the entire building.

I felt cut off from the world. It was as if my window had been bricked up. I needed to know what was going on out there.

Keep in mind that I had this feeling in a newspaper, where I had access to every wire service on the planet.

That’s actually rather telling. I’ve come to depend on the krill-filtering mechanisms of blogs and news sites, because they’re far more interesting than the wire feeds. I read a wire story, and that’s that. A wire story consists of one voice pitched low and calm and full of institutional gravitas, blissfully unaware of its own biases or the gaping lacunae in its knowledge. Whereas blogs have a different format:

Clever teaser headline that has little to do with the actual story, but sets the tone for this blog post.

Breezy ad hominem slur containing the link to the entire story.

Excerpt of said story, demonstrating its idiocy (or brilliance)

Blogauthor’s remarks, varying from dismissive sniffs to a Tolstoi-length rebuttal.

Seven comments from people piling on, disagreeing, adding a link, acting stupid, preaching to the choir, accusing choir of being Nazis, etc.

I’d say it’s a throwback to the old newspapers, the days when partisan slants covered everything from the play story to the radio listings, but this is different. The link changes everything. When someone derides or exalts a piece, the link lets you examine the thing itself without interference. TV can’t do that. Radio can’t do that. Newspapers and magazines don’t have the space. My time on the internet resembles eight hours at a coffeeshop stocked with every periodical in the world – if someone says “I read something stupid” or “there was this wonderful piece in the Atlantic” then conversation stops while you read the piece and make up your own mind.

I’m serious. I was sitting at a terminal at a major American daily, and I thought: I feel so uninformed!

I know what he means. And I think the point about how the link changes everything is key. I get the occasional complaint from old-line journalists about my “bias” in the way I characterize something I link to. But that’s the difference: unlike old media, I link to it. Readers don’t have to take my word. They can make up their own minds. My comments are like the chatter of the guy at the newsstand as he hands you the paper: “Those bums are gonna blow the pennant again, looks like.”

Okay, actually that mostly happens in old movies. But, like his comments, mine are at no extra charge (“extra” charge?). They may send you to a different newsstand where you like the comments better, or they may bring you back. Your call. The story’s the same regardless. And you can make up your own mind who’s going to win the pennant.

HERE’S A STORY FROM TIME EUROPE on the trial of the 1995 subway bombers in Paris:

Boualem Bensaïd was standing just meters away from people whose lives he is accused of tearing asunder in a 1995 bombing campaign in the Paris Métro. He showed no feeling save contempt. The alleged Islamist terrorist from Algeria — on trial last week with co-defendant Smaïn Aït Ali Belkacem for three blasts in which eight people died and more than 200 were injured — dismissed both the charges against him and those in court who “claim to be victims of an attack.” Insisting that “We are not the extremists here,” Bensaïd, 35, refused to explain his illegal entry to France just before the bombing spree began. “That’s none of your business,” he told the court. “I do as I please.”

Hey, where are the critics of “unilateralism” now?

UPDATE: Hey, criticism of unilateralism in the terror world has gotten results!

MERYL YOURISH RESPONDS to a Harvard Crimson piece in favor of divestment from Israel. She’s not impressed.

BORDERS IS RETURNING TO LOWER MANHATTAN, according to this report on Blogcritics. My local Borders still has a picture of the World Trade Center store up on the wall, marked R.I.P.

HERE’S A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT of a brush with the DC Sniper investigation.

FBI AGENTS ACCUSED OF THEFT FROM WTC INVESTIGATION. Boy, this fills me with confidence. I know you find bad apples everywhere, but once again this seems to suggest that Homeland Security isn’t exactly a well-oiled machine.

“I SUPPOSE THIS OFFICIAL U.N. REPORT MEANS NOTHING TO YOU?”

NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I was going to say that the issue was settled by the fact that Spongebob wears tighty-whities, but a quick Google search demonstrated that those weren’t quite as stereotypically straight as I’d assumed. Live and learn.

I CONFESS that I haven’t followed the Tom White / Paul Krugman / Jason Leopold story very closely at all. But for those who have, Leopold has posted his side of what went on. That it’s on a site operated out of New Zealand may indicate that he’s having trouble getting his message out — or, in this age of transglobal communication, may not. At any rate, though I don’t know enough about this matter to make a judgment, those who have been following it more closely may find this interesting.

UPDATE: Brian Carnell — who’s no Leopold fan — posts what he calls a condensed version of the history on this matter, with links.

MAIL: Jeez, I post that I’m going to be offline a while, and you folks send more mail than usual. It was, er, rather a lot more than the measly 65 unread emails that Eugene Volokh was complaining about the other day. Sorry if responses are slow or nonexistent; I’ll do my best.

UPDATE: At least I was missed.