BUSH’S SPEECH: A rather abrupt beginning, as Bush just walked into the frame and started talking. But it was a much better performance than his previous press conference. Bush looked rested, and firm.

The substance was no great surprise. He did a good job of stressing that the problem was the Security Council’s unwillingness to enforce previous resolutions, and of noting France’s expressed intention to veto regardless of the facts, but without mentioning France by name. Bush continues to be far kinder to his adversaries than they are to him, and he went out of his way to make nice regarding the United Nations. Was that wise? Probably, even if they don’t deserve it.

Bush’s repetition of promises to produce a free Iraq was good, too, as were his other comments aimed at the Iraqi people and military. Overall, one of Bush’s better performances, though that’s admittedly not the strongest standard. But it was entirely adequate to the occasion. The big question: if Saddam makes clear that he won’t step down, will we start before the 48 hours has expired?

UPDATE: Stephen Green was blogging the speech live.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s a transcript. Best line: “The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.”

Max Rosenthal liked the speech.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tacitus has a roundup of reactions.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Abrams emails from Nashville:

Last night I was at the Nashville Predators-Edmonton Oilers (NHL) game. The showed the president’s speech on the Jumbotron at the first intermission. Speech greeted with loud cheers and applause in many parts.especially the “we are not fragile” line.

No boos.

I’m not surprised.

HMM. MAYBE KOFI ANNAN has figured out who’s to blame:

Asked whether today was a very sad day for the UN and the world, he said: “In the sense that we are not able to do it peacefully, obviously it is a disappointment and a sad day for everybody. War is always a catastrophe. It leads to major human tragedy, lots of people are going to be uprooted, displaced from their homes and nobody wanted that and this is why we had hoped that the Iraqi leadership would have cooperated fully and would have been able to do this without resort to use of force. But the little window that we seem to have seems to be closing very, very fast. I’m not sure at this stage the Council can do anything in the next couple of hours.”

Indeed.

WAY BACK WHEN INSTAPUNDIT WAS NEW, I had this post on crime-lab scandals. Now there’s this story:

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than six years after the FBI crime laboratory was rocked by controversy, the Justice Department has identified about 3,000 criminal cases that could have been affected by flawed science and skewed testimony.

It is letting prosecutors decide whether to tell defendants about the problems.

I’m deeply skeptical of that approach, to put it mildly. As I wrote back before September 11, the FBI had serious problems. And it still does.

UPDATE: TalkLeft has more on this.

MEGAN MCARDLE writes about life in the closet. Come out, Megan! It’s the only way to make people drop their prejudices and accept you as a person.

FUNNY, I don’t recall anyone requesting Security Council authorization for this operation.

Somebody call Kofi Annan.

I STRONGLY DOUBT that this claim is true, but I liked it. (The other side says “Fast Free Wireless Internet Access!”). As I’ve argued elsewhere, wireless Internet service looks like a good way for businesses to attract customers.

It seems I’m not the only one who thinks this is the case. I hope we’ll see more businesses jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon soon.

I’ll drop by the Mellow Mushroom sometime in the near future and post a report on the service. And the pizza.

“OH, THOSE weapons of mass destruction. . . .”

UPDATE: Then, of course, there’s this:

An alleged terrorist accused of helping the 11 September conspirators was invited to a party by the Iraqi ambassador to Spain under his al-Qaeda nom de guerre, according to documents seized by Spanish investigators.

Yusuf Galan, who was photographed being trained at a camp run by Osama bin Laden, is now in jail, awaiting trial in Madrid. The indictment against him, drawn up by investigating judge Baltasar Garzon, claims he was ‘directly involved with the preparation and carrying out of the attacks … by the suicide pilots on 11 September’.

Evidence of Galan’s links with Iraqi government officials came to light only recently, as investigators pored through more than 40,000 pages of documents seized in raids at the homes of Galan and seven alleged co-conspirators.

Interesting.

I GUESS THIS was only a matter of time. . . .

“HOW EXACTLY WOULD LEAVING SADDAM HUSSEIN IN POWER PROMOTE PEACE AND JUSTICE IN IRAQ?” That’s the question that an Iraqi-American caller asks a “peace activist” on this KVI radio program. And it’s a question that she never answers.

Thanks to reader Anne Haight for the link. Here’s more information.

UPDATE: H.D. Miller doesn’t think that the caller’s really an Iraqi, though he is convinced that the peace activist’s befuddlement is genuine.

WHAT HATH CHIRAC WROUGHT? Some thoughts on French diplomatic efforts, and their likely impact on France’s position, over at GlennReynolds.com.

UPDATE: This piece on “European resistance to the French empire” is worth reading, too.

FUEL-CELL POWERED PDAS? Believe it or not, the answer is yes.

JOHN SCALZI SAYS “BRING IT ON” where war is concerned, but says that the Bush Administration has been guilty of diplomatic incompetence.

I think it was a mistake to go the Security Council route. But I think that France’s backstabbing surprised almost everyone, not just the Bush Administration. In retrospect, we probably should have recognized that self-aggrandizing yet self-defeating diplomacy is a French hallmark, and that we shouldn’t have believed French promises.

But you have to give Bush credit — though few will — in that he’s bent over backward to try to let the international system demonstrate relevance and competence. And by doing so he has made abundantly plain that the United Nations is a joke, and that France and Germany are not our friends, but (France, especially) our would-be rivals. And there’s value in that.

That said, I wouldn’t have gone to the Security Council at all. And you can bet that neither the United States, nor any other power, is likely to do so ever again.

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner offers a detailed postmortem and concludes:

A better effort would have left France more isolated in the Security Council and given the looming war a greater patina of multilateralism. Make no mistake, however, this ending is not that much different from a best-case scenario.

Yeah. The French made clear — by Chirac saying it — that no evidence whatsoever would change their position. This has given Russia and China cover to posture for the anti-American third-world vote, as has been their habit for decades.

PRESIDENT BUSH will address the nation at 8 p.m. this evening.

THE NEW YORK TIMES is finally admitting that Paul Ehrlich was wrong. Better late than never.

Say, they’re correcting all sorts of old errors lately. I wonder if it’s the power of the blogosphere at work?

UPDATE: Steve Verdon is looking out his window to see if there are any cats and dogs living together.

JUAN PAXETY has a Rachel Corrie obituary up. She’s the peace activist killed when she ran in front of an Israeli bulldozer.

UPDATE: Reader David Bernstein emails:

The New York Times properly identified Ms. Corrie and the group she works with as Palestinian sympathizers, which, from what I read about her in particular, is true. Real peace activist groups would sit in Israeli cafes and buses threatened with suicide murders (a much better phrase than “homicide bombers”) not just in Gaza homes. I hate to see you being more PC than the Times.

Well, that’s me — Mr. PC. Hey, what do you expect from a guy who writes for The Guardian?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bigwig has more, and is fact-checking some purported photos.

SPRING BREAK: Just had a two-hour committee meeting. Now I have to schedule a meeting for a new committee that I’m chairing. Woohoo! The carefree life of an academic on spring break.

JONATHAN ADLER is raising the question of whether the partial-birth abortion ban legislation is within the constitutional power of Congress, a question that was also raised here last week.

I think a lot of “fair-weather federalists” are ignoring this issue, and they shouldn’t be.

THIS SEEMS ABOUT RIGHT:

In the past few decades, a whole host of slimeballs have been thrown out of office as a result of outside military intervention without UN sanction. The list of ex-tough guys includes Idi Amin, chief clown of Uganda, deposed by the Tanzanian army; Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge band of merry men, sent packing after a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, and Mobutu Sese Seko, chief kleptocrat of Zaire, ousted by a coalition of the African willing.

None of these interventions provoked massive protest marches in London, Paris, Rome or Surabaya, and one is tempted to conclude that the non-reaction is explained by the belief that it’s ok to kick out the bad guys, as long as the kicker-outers are not Americans.

I think he’s right to note that the consequence of all the protest will be negative:

In other words, the result will be precisely that least desired by American critics: The UN will go the way of the League of Nations (perhaps even to the point of American withdrawal), and the US, instead of being a mere global cop, will become a global supercop.

I think that’s most likely. The other potential outcomes are worse.

SEX — SAFER THAN WE THOUGHT? There’s some evidence, at least, that AIDS among heterosexuals in Africa has more to do with dirty needles than with sexual practices.

How much credence should this get? I don’t know. Stay tuned.

WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS is a unilateralist, take-no-bullshit-from-diplomats, send-in-the-paratroops, guns-over-butter President — like Josiah T. Bartlett.

KEN LAYNE ASKS:

Is it a coincidence that fake Puma ads spread crazily around the Internet just as AdWeek announces Puma’s new & improved online presence?

You don’t think they’re trying to pull a “raging cow” do you? Actually, I think they already have. . . .

OH, THAT LIBERAL MEDIA:

When a group called the Young Conservatives of Texas was preparing to protest a Bill Clinton appearance in the state, Steve McLinden, a Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter, used the paper’s e-mail to send the group this message:

“Ah, the heartless, greedy, anti-intellectual little fascists are mobilizing again. (Let me guess. All you frat boys saved up your allowances and monies from your McDonald’s jobs for those Beemers you’ll be driving to the protest, and those new jackboots you’ll be sportin’ en route).”

Editor Jim Witt let McLinden go that day and apologized to the group. “Obviously, reporters have opinions,” Witt says. “But we expect our reporters not to express those opinions unless they’re columnists.”

What’s most notable, of course, is the juvenile, sneering, substance-free tone. When you send an email like this — especially if you’re a journalist — what, exactly, do you expect to accomplish here?

And can we trust this guy to honestly cover people he openly regards as greedy little fascists?

STAY TUNED Evan Coyne Maloney shot a new video this weekend. It’ll be up soon.

ANDREW SULLIVAN reports that support for the war is up, support for France is down, and anti-war protesters are calling for American troops to shoot their officers.

WILLIAM SAFIRE SAYS GET ON WITH IT:

President Bush should reward those countries whose leaders stand with us in stopping the spread of 21st-century terror. Example: move our 70,000 troops and their families from garrisons in pacifist Germany to more strategic, less expensive deployments in Bulgaria and Poland.

Our response to the quagmire of the U.N. Security Council should be to stop pretending it is a vehicle for collective security or moral authority. Presidents Chirac and Putin, who supported Saddam’s refusal to disarm for a decade, delivered the coup de grâce to that dreamy notion. However, we should continue charitable contributions to the U.N.’s humanitarian establishment, useful in postwar reconstruction.

NATO? Because France has long been half-out, America is in the Western alliance’s strong majority. We should urge the move of its headquarters from unstable Brussels to new-Europe’s Budapest. If Chirac carries out his threat to veto the entry of our East European allies into the European Union, we should object to any further military or economic integration with Putin’s Russia.

That brings us to Turkey, whose turnabout has been the unkindest cut of all. . . .Therefore, as Turkey presses its case for admission to the European Union to its newfound friends in France and Germany, we should say nothing. And we should base our judgment on loans to financially distressed Turkey from the International Monetary Fund on pure economic merit. Neither punitive nor supportive, Bush should treat the Turks’ requests as deliberately as they have treated ours.

It is no retaliation for us to provide arms to the free Kurdish forces in northern Iraq to fight Saddam, ending our foolish policy of demurring to Turkish paranoia about such help leading to an independent Kurdistan.

We should do the right thing. They’ll hate that.