DON’T MISS THE IRAQ ROUNDUP over at Winds of Change.

MICHAEL O’HANLON of Brookings writes:

The Democratic Party as a whole, and most of its presidential candidates, are making three consistent mistakes in their otherwise generally fair critiques of Bush administration policy in Iraq. These mistakes should be corrected. If they are not, Democrats will be less effective as constructive critics of President Bush now, and will probably fare worse in national elections next fall.

The first mistake is to argue that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were not a serious concern before the war. The second is that somehow Bush administration unilateralism has been the principal cause of our current problems on the ground in Iraq. And the third is the assumption, explicit or implicit, that the Iraq mission will remain just as difficult as it is today right through general election time next year.

Read the whole thing, especially if you’re a Democratic strategist.

I SHOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING: “PETA to NPR: Reject McDonald’s ‘Blood Money’ Bequest.”

Heh. Be sure you read the whole thing.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING STORY from the Star-Tribune, showing positives and negatives in Iraq in a surprisingly balanced way. (Via Steve Gigl.)

UPDATE: Robert Tagorda discovers that the subject of the article is a blogger.

CORI DAUBER looks at coverage of the Democratic strategy memo on intelligence and sees some spinning going on, observing:

The memo is mentioned, and quoted, but what seems to me to be the absolute guts of the memo — that an independent commission will be timed for political advantage — is never mentioned, just does not appear in the article, a startling omission.

Dauber, a Professor of Communication Studies and Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina, has a lot of interesting observations on the way this scandal is being covered, spun, or ignored.

UPDATE: There’s more on how this is being treated here.

IN RESPONSE to Kim du Toit’s essay on manhood, which I linked earlier, I just want to note two things: First, that it’s come back to me already via multiply-forwarded email from all sorts of friends and acquaintances who don’t seem to realize where it originated, suggesting that it’s taking on a life of its own, and second that I actually think the strongest part of his essay was his reflection on how television and advertising reflexively denigrate men — and especially fathers — nowadays (sort of the Berenstain Bears syndrome writ large).

I also want to note that my enthusiasm for cooking increased when I realized that cookware is just another kind of tool. . . .

UPDATE: Mitch Berg has more:

In advertising, the “Fred Flintstone” archetype has taken complete hold; Fred was impulsive, stupid, lost to his self-centered and wrong-headed desires. Wilma was the inevitable voice of wisdom and reason. It’s gotten to the point where kids today accept that as the norm (the fathers on Lizzie McGuire, Boy Meets World, Even Stevens and so many other kids’ shows follow that model.) It wasn’t always that way; compare fathers on TV produced in the fifties and early sixties (Andy Griffith, Robert Young, even Hugh Beaumont – all of whom were on a level field with their TV wives and girlfriends) and TV set in the fifties and early sixties (Tom Bosley’s ridiculous father in Happy Days, or the impotently tormented Dan Lauria in Wonder Years). You’re talking about two drastically different samples of men. Why is that? I think Kim has it right.

Education is, if anything, worse.

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile reader Michael Anderson agrees with me:

I also want to note that my enthusiasm for cooking increased when I realized that cookware is just another kind of tool. . . .

Huge, glittering, extremely sharp knives, billowing open flames, hunks of raw meat, gratuitous beer-and-wine drinking during preparations…what could be more manly?

Yep. If this isn’t manly, I don’t know what is. . . .

Reader Les Meade, meanwhile, sends this:

Your link to the Berenstain Bears syndrome reminded me of something that my son (now 24) commented upon years ago about why he wouldn’t watch the TV show Home Improvement. He said it was because every show was exactly the same; “the Dad is an idiot and screws everything up until Mom puts him back in line.” I think he was only 13 when he pointed this out to me. What boy wants to grow up with such low expectations for his future?

And what happens to the ones who do?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Dan Mallon emails:

What bothers me more is the way men and fathers are depicted in advertisements. They can’t cook, clean, or care for themselves when they’re sick.

In my house, I cook and shop. My wife does most of the cleaning as she doesn’t like how I do it. We both do laundry, both changed diapers and cared for sick kids.

Imagine putting an advertisement on that showed a woman saying, “Can you balance the checkbook, honey? You know I can’t do math.”

They’d be lynched. I wonder, though, if this phenomenon doesn’t go part of the way toward explaining why network TV is losing so many male viewers.

Reader Barbara Skolaut emails:

A reader wrote to you that his then-13-year-old son said he wouldn’t watch Home Improvement because “every show was exactly the same; “the Dad is an idiot and screws everything up until Mom puts him back in line.”

I wouldn’t watch it either, for exactly that reason. And I’m a now-57-year-old woman. I’m sure other women noticed it, too, but loved the concept. I didn’t; I’ve always hated it when women as a group are denigrated (and having grown up in the the 50’s, I can assure you I was on the receiving end of plenty of it) and think if it’s wrong for men to do it to women, the reverse is also true.

The answer to the age-old question “what do women want?” is respect. Well, if we want it, we need to give it. It’s just as wrong to say “all men are [fill in insult of your choice]” as it is to say “all women are [insult du jour].

Yes. I think that advertisers, TV programmers, etc. are way behind the curve on this and don’t realize how angry this makes a lot of men, and many women, and how much it’s costing them.

And how much it’s contributing to what Jeff Jarvis calls the citizens’ media revolution.

MORE: Shell comments: “It isn’t the Battle of the Sexes. It’s a battle of ideologies. Not left vs. right or Dems vs. Pubs, but Socialism vs. Individual Responsibility. And there are women, and men, on both sides of the divide.”

Jonathan Gewirtz emails: “Dude, I’ve got two favorite tools: my Glock and my Cuisinart. And I’ll bet there are women who would make the same statement.”

STILL MORE: Other comments are in the “Extended Entry” area. Hit “More” to read ’em.

(more…)

REPUBLICAN VICTORY SECRETS: Polipundit reports an unprecedented mobilization of volunteers.

That seems right. Quite a few of our law students went to work for Haley Barbour in Mississippi last weekend. Two things struck me about that: that they were getting volunteers from so far away, and that so many students were volunteering on behalf of a Republican candidate.

MATT WELCH has a piece on fires and insurance in California. It’s a good piece, but I wonder if one partial solution would be for insurance requirements to be more intrusive.

About ten years ago, Buzz Aldrin’s neighborhood in Laguna Beach was swept by fires. Buzz — being a smart guy — had removed flammable vegetation from the immediate vicinity of his house, and quite some distance on the downslopes. His neighbors hadn’t. When the smoke cleared, stately Aldrin manor was still standing, while his neighbors’ homes were, um, toast.

In the TV footage that I saw, the burning homes were hard up against burning trees. I wonder if people shouldn’t be required to take Buzz-like precautions if they want fire insurance. Seems like a reasonable requirement to me.

AN ARAB NEWS COLUMNIST WRITES that he was wrong to oppose the war with Iraq.

ZEYAD AT HEALING IRAQ has a post that you should read.

THE STAINLESS STEEL MOUSE:

BEIJING – The “stainless-steel mouse” is her cyber nom de plume. Her name is Liu Di, and in the one picture available, she has a young face and a wide, shy smile. Until the authorities tracked her down a year ago Friday, she was one of the most famous Internet web masters in China.

A third-year psychology student at Beijing Normal University, Ms. Liu formed an artists club, wrote absurdist essays in the style of dissident Eastern-bloc writers of the 1970s, and ran a popular web-posting site. Admirers cite her originality and humor: In one essay Liu ironically suggests all club members go to the streets to sell Marxist literature and preach Lenin’s theory, like “real Communists.” In another, she suggests everyone tell no lies for 24 hours. In a series of “confessions” she says that China’s repressive national-security laws are not good for the security of the nation.

But since Nov. 7, 2002, when plain-clothes police made a secret arrest, Liu has not been heard from. No charges have been filed; her family and friends may not visit her, sources say; and, in a well-known silencing tactic, authorities warn that it will not go well for her if foreign media are informed of her case.

Hmm. A bit late for that. I don’t think I care to buy any more Chinese goods (especially, you know, computers and electronics) while this sort of thing goes on, and I suspect a lot of others may feel the same way, which should worry some people.

Perhaps someone should ask these folks, or even these folks, if China is an appropriate supplier.

UPDATE: Reader John Wetherbie suggests that McDonald’s should top giving away Chinese-made toys with happy meals, in favor of toys made in the democratic countries of Eastern Europe.

If I were McDonald’s, I’d want to do that, if possible.

FIRST ALLAH, and now Yahweh has a blog. Er, aren’t they supposed to be the same guy?

ANOTHER APPEARANCE by Miss Afghanistan.

ANOTHER HOWARD DEAN GAFFE:

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean told a Tallahassee audience today that southerners have to quit basing their votes on “race, guns, God and gays.”

In other news, Dean told a group of American Indians that “you have to quit voting based on who gives you the most liquor on election day.”

Okay, actually the last was the comment of the reader who sent this link. But the stereotyping is just as bad in the real example.

UPDATE: Hey, maybe it’s not a gaffe — he’s picked up a coveted endorsement because of it.

ZELL MILLER WEIGHS IN on the Democratic intelligence memo scandal:

“Heads should roll!”

HAROLD KOH will be the next Dean of the Yale Law School.

ERIC SCHEIE has thoughts on the culture wars. “In modern America, the debate over where men ought to be placing their penises has become a colossal national trainwreck of religion and politics.”

UPDATE: This post by Donald Sensing is sort of related.

BRUCE ROLSTON amusingly tracks the evolution of a word.

I DON’T VISIT DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND very often. Thus, I miss stuff like this.

UPDATE: Pejman Yousefzadeh has comments.

MAYBE THIS ANSWERS MICKEY KAUS’S QUESTION about why former Clinton officials aren’t criticizing Bush on the Iraq war. Reader Bob Conyne sends this interesting statement by Richard Gephardt:

Could you explain your vote authorizing the President to take action against Iraq? What is you[r] disengagement plan?

Rep. Richard A Gephardt: I supported the resolution because I gained information from the CIA and other former Clinton security officials that Iraq either had weapons or components of weapons of mass destruction. I have been severely critical of President Bush’s inability or unwillingness to get more international UN help in Iraq. Getting that help is the only way we can succeed.

(Emphasis added). This would seem to undercut the “Bush lied about WMD” argument, wouldn’t it?

UPDATE: Dodd Harris has more.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES is up. Don’t miss it!

A MAJOR ETHICAL LAPSE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES? An anti-debt-repudiation oped by a guy who isn’t disclosed as representing creditors of Iraq?

THEY’RE ON A ROLL, over at The Volokh Conspiracy. Just keep scrolling.

And Stephen Green has post-election advice for both Democrats and Republicans.

THIS MEMO on politicizing intelligence inquiries will unfortunately confirm a lot of people’s worst fears about the Democrats’ seriousness on national security matters.

Here’s the text of the memo.

UPDATE: Sen. Jon Kyl comments. And Steven Den Beste points out a historical analog.

I wonder if this story will get as much play as the Rumsfeld memo? It should.

I SHOULD HAVE LINKED THIS DAVID BROOKS COLUMN YESTERDAY:

There, in front of her children and mother-in-law, two men grabbed her arms while another pulled her head back and beheaded her. Baath Party officials watched the murder, put her head in a plastic bag and took away her children.

Try to put yourself in the mind of the killer, or of the guy with the plastic bag. You are part of Saddam’s vast apparatus of rape squads, torture teams and mass-grave fillers. Every time you walk down the street, people tremble in fear. Everything else in society is arbitrary, but you are absolute. When you kill, your craving for power and significance is sated. You are infused with the joy of domination.

These are the people we are still fighting in Iraq.

Read the whole thing.