GEITNER SIMMONS ON EUROPE:

When Gerhard Schroeder stands up for his country’s interests, he’s called a political pragmatist. When Jacques Chirac does the same for his country, he’s calmly regarded as just another French chauvinist. But when George W. does it, he’s derided as an out-of-control cowboy.

Read the whole post for the amusing context.

VIRGINIA POSTREL has some new posts up!

I MEANT TO BLOG SOMETHING on the attempted coup in Qatar the other day, but didn’t. Here’s a post from Rantburg. Were the Saudis behind it? He’s also got a good post on a convenient accident in Iran.

AN INTERNET DIGITAL CLOCK — but it’s the graphics that I like.

ALABAMA POLICE SUSPECT A THIRD PERSON may have been involved in an Alabama shooting by Muhammad and Malvo. The same gun was used as in the D.C. area killings, and witnesses place Muhammad and Malvo at the scene, but not as the shooter. Curious.

THE IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKET reflecting House and Senate races has shifted sharply toward the Democrats.

A GOOD PLUMBING IDEA, from the Italians. Well, they did give us the aqueducts, you know. And sanitation. And pizza. But what else have they . . . oh, never mind.

“ALGERIANS GET LIFE FOR PARIS BOMBINGS” — and I’ll bet the conditions won’t be any better than Guantanamo.

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT: An article on life among the internationalistas. I wonder why these guys haven’t brought peace yet? Too hung over, I guess.

Sounds a lot like old-time colonial society.

I HAD PLANNED to write something on the Clifford Chance story, which is pretty interesting, but I never got to it. Now Dahlia Lithwick has a piece on it. I especially like the conclusion, though the answer to her question is: you can’t really do that, and make the kind of money these people want to make.

INTERESTING STORY suggesting that the FBI may lose its counterintelligence mission to a new, MI5-like organization.

While new bureaucracies don’t thrill me, the FBI has done badly enough at this that the idea has some merit. And new bureaucracies usually do their best in the first five years of their existence, which — I hope — will represent the period when we need this the most.

IT TAKES GUTS to write a column like this in Australia. Read it, and admire the guy.

(Via Clayton Cramer).

KIM DU TOIT’S National Ammo Day website has received over 4 million hits since it was started three weeks ago, Kim reports. Pretty impressive. By way of comparison, MSNBC’s Rachel Elbaum seems to be impressed that the antiwar ANSWER website gets 100,000 visitors per week — less than a tenth the traffic.

Perhaps MSNBC will do a story on Ammo Day next.

UPDATE: By way of comparison with ANSWER, my sitemeter counter shows 92,180 pageviews and 73,125 visitors so far today (it’s just before 11:00 pm).

HERE’S ANOTHER FIRSTHAND BLOG ACCOUNT from the D.C. antiwar marches. It’s a bit different from Jim Henley’s.

BELLESILES UPDATE: The Federal Lawyer has retracted its positive review of Michael Bellesiles’ Arming America, and Eugene Volokh has copies of the review, and the retraction, up on his site, along with some comments.

Will the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and various other publications follow suit?

HERE’S A SPECIAL FOR ALL YOU INSTAPUNDIT PREMIUM^Tm SUBSCRIBERS: Which is, er, all of you. . . . Tomorrow’s FoxNews column is available now.

MICHAEL KELLY ON THE CHICKENHAWK SLUR:

Its power lies in the simplicity that comes with being completely wrong. The central implication here is that only men who have professionally endured war have the moral standing and the experiential authority to advocate war. That is, in this country at least, a radical and ahistorical view. The Founders, who knew quite well the dangers of a military class supreme, were clear in their conviction that the judgment of professional warmakers must be subordinated to the command of ignorant amateurs — civilian leaders who were in turn subordinated to the command of civilian voters. Such has given us the leadership in war of such notable “chicken hawks” as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Further, the inescapable logic of “chicken hawk”-calling is that only military men have standing to pronounce in any way on war — to advocate it or to advocate against it. The decision not to go to war involves exactly the same issues of experiential and moral authority as does the decision to go to war. If a past of soldiering is required for one, it is required for the other. Chicken doves have no more standing than “chicken hawks.” We must leave all the decisions to the generals and the veterans.

A great piece, though lacking a reference to Starship Troopers.

UPDATE: Matt Wech emails: “Incidentally, one of the core pre-conditions for post-communist countries to join NATO is that they establish *civilian* control over their militaries.”

My reply: “Where the hell is Layne?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tacitus points out that Lincoln did in fact serve, in the militia.

TIM CAVANAUGH WRITES on CampusWatch and McCarthyism, and does so quite well. But the most memorable part is the throwaway line about ” Robert Fisk, the war on terror’s Mr. Bill.” It’s even more fun when you follow the links!

BRIAN LINSE EMAILS:

Don’t miss Warren Zevon on the Letterman Show tonight. 11:30p eastern and pacific on CBS.

Warren will be performing several songs, and the entire show will be dedicated to him.

Watch it or tape it, folks. We won’t have him around for much longer.

A REVIEW OF THE GALLERY OF REGRETTABLE FOOD, and an interview with James Lileks. Fun.

MINNESOTAN MITCH BERG blogs his impressions of the Wellstone-themed campaign rally.:

If you don’t live here, it’s hard to describe. Maybe it’s like this elsewhere in the country. All I know is, it’s totally on the sleeve of this state, and showed in spades last night. It’s something that started as a vague sense of unease seven years ago, when I first started becoming active in politics in Minnesota. It grew to a more coherent notion in 2000. It whacked me over the head when the mob booed the assembled Republican senators.

Hatred of Republicans is part of the majority, *mainstream* DFL culture in Minnesota.

Not dislike. Not disagreement. Hate.

You see it in bits of day to day life in this state: women theatrically holding their noses when talking about Republican candidates at the coffee shop; people who put “No Republicans Need Apply” at the top of personal ads; a mob of 15,000 mainstream, work-a-daddy, hug-a-mommy Minnesotans baying at the moon at the recognition of Republicans.

This is not the lunatic fringe; it’s not analogous to the rantings of those Republicans who act from hate, the party’s loud but isolated homophobes, anti-immigrants, clinic-bombing-coddlers. This is the mainstream of the Minnesota DFL.

I’m not there, so my objection isn’t quite the same. To me, it was more like this.

UPDATE: TAPPED, by contrast, found the rally “inspiring.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: This piece by Will Saletan captures it well:

But the solemnity of death and the grace of Midwestern humor are overshadowed tonight by the angry piety of populism. Most of the event feels like a rally. The touching recollections are followed by sharply political speeches urging Wellstone’s supporters to channel their grief into electoral victory. The crowd repeatedly stands, stomps, and whoops. The roars escalate each time Walter Mondale, the former vice president who will replace Wellstone on the ballot, appears on the giant screens suspended above the stage. “Fritz! Fritz!” the assembly chants.

“Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning,” Wellstone declares in a videotaped speech shown on the overhead screens. “Politics is about improving people’s lives.” But as the evening’s speakers proceed, it becomes clear that to them, honoring Wellstone’s legacy is all about winning the election. Repeating the words of Wellstone’s son, the assembly shouts, “We will win! We will win!” Rick Kahn, a friend of Wellstone’s, urges everyone to “set aside the partisan bickering,” but in the next breath he challenges several Republican senators in attendance to “honor your friend” by helping to “win this election for Paul Wellstone.” What can he be thinking?

There’s a salutary practicality about many of the liberal clichés repeated and applauded tonight. But there’s a creepy arrogance about them, too. The ceremony’s closing speaker, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, says Wellstone “never took himself too seriously” and “never had to proclaim his decency.” Yet tonight, the men and women who purport to represent Wellstone’s legacy are taking themselves quite seriously and constantly proclaiming their decency. “We can redeem the sacrifice of his life if you help us win this election for Paul Wellstone,” Kahn tells the crowd. Somewhere, Wellstone must be turning on his cross.

Nice metaphor.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Wellstone’s campaign manager has apologized.

Now Robert Musil wonders if this is in response to overnight polling, and implies that it must be given that the apology pulls the rug out from under those who have been defending the rally.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: The Minnesota GOP Chair is demanding equal time.

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus emailed that I’ve used the word “tacky” a lot to describe this event. But I just saw DNC spokesperson Jennifer Palmieri use the same word in describing the behavior of people who booed Republicans there. Hey, it fits.

THE LAST UPDATE: John Cole predicts how this will play out over the next days and months.

THOSE WHO COMPLAIN THAT BLOGS aren’t up to the high fairness standards of professional journalism should read this.

(Via Romenesko).

UPDATE: Via a comment on Bill Quick’s blog, I note that Media Minded posted on this the other day.

DID TED RALL KILL PAUL WELLSTONE? I have not raised this question, but others have. . . .

MICHAEL MOORE IS PANNED IN CANADA:

It is instructive to watch Mr. Moore’s film.

He uses Canada, and Canadians, as a constant point of comparison to his own country and fellow citizens. He takes his camera to Sarnia, Ont., and to Windsor, and to Toronto — three cities I know well — and in each, he claims Canada is so safe, so without violence, that he routinely walks into unlocked front doors. He interviews a selection of dullards who burble that, why, of course there’s no need to lock a door! He asks about a slum in Toronto, and offers as the worst one a brief shot of a neat, mixed-income development — the Woodgreen co-op in the east end of the city, I believe, but I saw it only for a few seconds and was so shocked I could barely take it in.

His journalism, in short, on the subject of Canada and Canadians, is nothing short of shoddy, manipulative and untrue. The same can be said for his journalism on his own country, and indeed on the terrible and complicated issue he purports to adjudicate.

Read the whole thing.

INTERESTING ARTICLE on Al Qaeda disinformation from The New Republic. Bureaucratic ass-covering is making it more effective.