ALEX JONES writes that press credentials don’t turn bloggers into “journalists.” True enough. Of course, neither does a paycheck from the New York Times or NPR.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has a well-thought-out and even-tempered commentary on Jones’s oped.

MORE: Matt Welch’s commentary is less even-tempered, but fun to read. And right.

STILL MORE: It’s worth reading this post (“The next generation of journalists will start as bloggers”) from Ernest Miller, too.

MORE STILL: Jeff Jarvis: “What, as if major media aren’t the No. 1 juicy target for manipulation? Jeesh. Wake up and smell the breath of the PR guy and the political spinmeister whispering in your ear, Alex.”

AND YET MORE: Patrick Belton: “Alex Jones of the Kennedy School of Government manages to do precisely what he accuses blogs of: making vituperative arguments driven by emotion rather than fact, and marked by remarkable lack of engagement with facts or evidence, or an understanding of the subject matter at hand. . . . Blogging, as I’ve experienced it, is characterised by polite running conversations, backed up by evidence. I have to respond to friends on my left such as Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias, and ones to my right such as the Winds of Change. Maureen Dowd doesn’t.”

I STILL MISS WILL VEHRS’ “PUNDITWATCH,” but Silent Running has a roundup of the Sunday talk shows posted.

And don’t miss their report on official anti-semitism in New Zealand.

MORE ON BLOGS AND POLITICS:

While scores of political blogs don’t go beyond gossip and bickering, many are quite influential, analysts say. Some feature political commentaries, such as the liberal instapundit.com or the conservative electionprojection.com. . . .

It is impossible to obtain a precise figure for the number of political blogs, but they number in the thousands at least, according to the blog community.

It is uncertain whether these blogs will generate enough cash and attention to make a difference in the November elections and beyond.

But analysts say bloggers should not be ignored.

“Many people don’t take into account how influential bloggers are,” said Carol Darr, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University. “Blogs are getting an increasing readership. People who are going to those blogs are real political junkies who can then reach everybody else.”

Indeed.

UPDATE: Some readers are amused at seeing InstaPundit called “liberal,” when so many journalists have called it “conservative.” One’s just about as accurate as the other, I’d say.

YESTERDAY, I linked to a piece by Jim Glassman saying that today’s younger generation is smarter, healthier, and more conservative. My own column for next week looks at why that might be. But, silly me, I forgot to consult important French literary theorists, or I would have realized that the answer was Harry Potter:

On the face of it, the world of Harry Potter has nothing in common with our own. Nothing at all, except one detail: like ours, the fantastic universe of Harry Potter is a capitalist universe. . . .

The underlying message to young fans is this: You can imagine as many fictional worlds, parallel universes or educational systems as you want, they will still all be regulated by the laws of the market. Given the success of the Harry Potter series, several generations of young people will be indelibly marked by this lesson.

He says that like it’s a bad thing. Of course, it’s possible to imagine a post-capitalist world, but we won’t get there by magic.

UPDATE: More thoughts in response to Glassman, here:

Although Democrats should be shaking in their boots about how this could change things for the next decade or so, traditional Republicans cannot take these young people for granted either. They do not trust institutions that abuse power, whether it be governments or large corporations. But they do embrace the system of free enterprise and they long to build stronger families that will last. The Republican shift back toward moderation may not resonate with this group for very long.

Yes. Today’s two parties are split along historical interest-group lines, but I believe that divide is less and less reflective of how people actually think.

ANDREW STUTTAFORD: “Incredibly, the Senate, which was, I naively believed, controlled by the GOP, has voted to subject tobacco to the FDA. . . . Big government meddling and big government spending – all in one fat package.”

“A LITTLE LITERARY FLAIR:” Here’s more on Joe Wilson’s credibility problems.

UPDATE: Joe Wilson was just on CNN. Here are some observations:

Wilson essentially recycled the defense presented in the Washington Post and Salon. However, new ground was broken when Wolf Blitzer asked him about the misleading information given by Wilson to the Washington Post. Wilson’s explanation to the Senate staff was that he “mis-spoke”. His new explanation to Wolf Blitzer is that he had not read the stories the staffers were asking about; he see now that they have several sources, so he actually mis-spoke to the Senate staff – he should have said that he was “misattributed”.

Our thought – oh, please. The Senate staff had (we imagine) supporting evidence, and possibly statements from the reporters themselves (Wilson’s role in this had already been reported by the WaPo). For Wilson to change his story now, when we the people can’t see all the evidence, is a bit slim.

Follow the link for more. And there’s more here, too.

UPDATE: Greg Djerejian says that Josh Marshall is beginning to admit the seriousness of Wilson’s problems — but only beginning.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A transcript of Wilson’s appearance is now up, and Tom Maguire has further observations on Wilson’s blame-shifting efforts directed at Walter Pincus of the Washington Post.

MORE: I said this on Hugh Hewitt’s show the other night, and it’s probably worth mentioning here, too: The fact that Wilson appears to be deeply untrustworthy and of doubtful competence doesn’t, by itself, make the Plame “outing” scandal go away — though to the extent that evidence comes from Wilson, it is of course less compelling. (And the likelihood that any revelations involving Plame came in this fashion — Q: “Why did we send someone untrustworthy and of doubtful competence, on an important mission to Niger?” A: “Oh, that. His wife pulled strings.” — undercuts the “revenge” motive that many were bruiting about).

However, the main point for which Wilson has been used as a source — the argument that Bush’s State of the Union Speech about Iraq trying to buy uranium in Africa was disproved by Wilson’s report — seems pretty thoroughly undercut by Wilson’s credibility implosion. (And, of course, the whole Niger bit, as The Daily Howler noted, never made sense). For extra clarity, here’s a quote from The Howler:

First, Bush’s “sixteen words” said that Saddam had sought uranium from Africa. Bush didn’t say that Saddam obtained it. But Wilson’s report stressed the opinion that, due to international oversight, it would have been very hard for Saddam to obtain uranium from Niger. This may have been valid (we simply don’t know), but it didn’t address the question at hand—had Saddam been seeking uranium? And, as noted in Catan’s report, when Wilson interviewed Mayaki, the Nigerien official specifically said he got the impression that Iraq was interested in seeking uranium. Clearly, Mayaki’s impression wasn’t dispositive. But it tended to support, not debunk, Bush’s controversial sixteen words.

Second, Bush’s sixteen words said that Saddam was seeking uranium “from Africa.” Even if Wilson somehow showed that no such approach was made in Niger, that obviously couldn’t, by itself, debunk Bush’s wider claim.

Yet many in the media — whose credibility is suffering here as much as Wilson’s is, since they should have known better — took the opposite position. Wilson’s credibility implosion hurts them, too.

A WHILE BACK, I wrote that if Kerry is elected he’ll probably wind up like Jimmy Carter: The “anybody but Bush” constituency will evaporate as soon as he’s sworn in, leaving him weak and subject to attacks from within his own party. For the barest glimpse of what a Kerry presidency might look like, read this Maureen Dowd column. And note this comment on Kerry from Garry Trudeau: “Like most Americans, I’ve been forced to unambiguously take sides, and I’m not particularly happy about it.”

Not exactly a strong base of support, but it’s what happens when you nominate a weak candidate, and unify your party around hatred for the incumbent.

UPDATE: Matt Welch wonders if Bush in 2000 was different. Well, we didn’t have poisonous Michael Moore anti-warism.

As for his Hillary comments — I’d much rather see Hillary at the top of the Democratic ticket. She’s better on the war, and seems to have much more backbone in general. No Carter, she.

ANN ALTHOUSE is striking fear into terrorists.

WILSON-LIED MEDIA SPIN UPDATE: The New York Times initiates another quasi-rowback with this story on the Niger / Uranium flap. But look at the headline, and note what’s left out. Or read Tom Maguire’s discussion of the Times coverage, and non-coverage:

Some of Mr. Wilson’s credibility problems are cited. However, the Times remains sphinx-like on the Senate report finding, undisputed by Mr. Wilson, that the Ambassador gave “misleading information” in anonymous leaks to the Washington Post and by extension, Nick Kristof of the NY Times. They also mention that Mr. Wilson’s credibility is challenged by the news that his report to the CIA included information about an Iraqi trade delegation, but they fail to mention that Mr. Wilson omitted this key fact from his famous NY Times op-ed, and they slide past the fact that George Tenet disputed this part of the Wilson op-ed a year ago.

We also note that the Times gives one sentence to the Senate finding that Wilson lied about his wife’s involvement, and four sentences to Wilson’s response, thereby giving space to Wilson to rebut a case the Times never presents. Bah.

Read the whole thing. You’d think they were more interested in swinging the election than reporting the news, or something.

UPDATE: Powerline notes that the Kerry campaign has a Joe Wilson problem. (“Apparently Kerry not only was too busy to receive a briefing on terrorism, he was also too busy to read the Senate Intelligence Committee report.”) Somebody should ask them about this. I wonder if anyone will.

ANOTHER U.N. PEACEKEEPER SCANDAL:

London – South African soldiers have been accused of involvement in a massive sex abuse scandal in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where they are on peace-keeping duties.

The allegations include a staggering 50 cases of sex attacks on minors over the past year, carried out by Monuc, the United Nations mission to the DRC, in Bunia in the north-east.

More here.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENT:

Gunmen burned down offices of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority in Gaza Sunday, as anger spread over the Palestinian leader’s overhaul of his security forces that many saw as falling short of genuine reform. . . .

Dozens of militants belonging to an extreme offshoot of Arafat’s Fatah movement stormed an office building in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis shortly after midnight to protest Arafat’s appointment of his cousin, Moussa Arafat, as chief of security.

Some people are speculating that this is a good time to get rid of Arafat. Apparently, some palestinians agree. More here.

UPDATE: Reader Harry Shepler emails: “Your recent posts regarding the situation in Gaza and the PA highlight the inevitable as the intifada comes to an end, with the help of the security fences and targeted assassinatons. At the end of most ‘wars’ the losing regime loses power.”

DAVID WARREN has thoughts on jihad. The Belmont Club has observations in response.

UPDATE: Somewhat related thoughts from Mark Steyn.

RAND SIMBERG is liveblogging John Young’s speech from the Return to the Moon conference. And he’s got other conference posts, too — just go here and scroll.

WHAT IS CONSERVATISM for the younger generation? Interesting article from the New York Times, which might profitably be read together with this piece by Jim Glassman.

I certainly agree with this statement by Ramesh Ponnuru: “There is a serious possibility that the libertarian wing of the conservative movement goes off in its own direction, either breaking off or allying with the Democrats.” The Democratic party, in its current configuration, is in decline. But the split between libertarians and social conservatives is likely to determine the shape of politics over the next decades.

UPDATE: More interesting thoughts here. Excerpt: “If we were not at war right now, the pressures in the Republican Party would be much, much closer to the surface than they are right now; we would have have seen real primary challengers and possibly even serious ones.”

TOM MAGUIRE has suggestions regarding The New York Times:

The Times recently ran a very positive review of Joseph Wilson’s book, “The Politics of Truth”.

Since then, they have devoted just a few paragraphs to the follow-up on Wilson’s credibility, buried in a larger story; shouldn’t we expect more? Surely the question of how both sides approached the debate on our use of intelligence is newsworthy.

For example, missing from the Times rowback in the James Risen piece is any mention of the book review or the two Nick Kristof columns or the NY Times op-ed that launched Mr. Wilson’s balloon. (Subsequent sourcing info in the WaPo.)

For a sense of how the media storm built, let’s re-print the lead from the second Kristof column.

Read it all.

MICKEY KAUS is pining for Adam Nagourney. It’s just not the same without him.

UPDATE: Robert Tagorda says it’s not the same, but it’s not better, either.

MARK STEYN:

Well, the week went pretty much as I predicted seven days ago:

BUSH LIED!! Not.

BLAIR LIED!!! Not.

But it turns out JOE WILSON LIED! PEOPLE DIED. Of embarrassment mostly. At least I’m assuming that’s why the New York Times, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, PBS drone Bill Moyers and all the other media bigwigs Joseph C. Wilson IV suckered have fallen silent on the subject of the white knight of integrity they’ve previously given the hold-the-front-page treatment, too. . . .

But before he gets lowered in his yellowcake overcoat into the Niger River, let’s pause to consider: What do Joe Wilson’s lies mean? And what does it say about the Democrats and the media that so many high-ranking figures took him at his word?

He also quotes Roger Simon approvingly. The Los Angeles Times’ Tim Rutten on the other hand — still spinning for Wilson — uses the same quote, but isn’t as happy about it. No word from Rutten on the L.A. Times’ own accuracy problems. It’s a “sea of malice, mendacity and misrepresentation,” all right. And Wilson is one of the fish.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire — who’s on a roll — has more on Rutten’s piece, “which continues the pattern established by Josh Marshall and picked up by Wesley Clark’s former press spokesperson at Salon — begin with name-calling and derogation of the other side.” It pretty much ends there, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More from The Ombudgsgod, here. Excerpt:

So thorough was Wilson’s discrediting that the media’s “Bush lied” narrative came briefly to a halt. Wilson’s name nearly disappeared from print, except in the columns of a handful of conservative pundits who pointed out what had happened. Even Jim Romenesko, who normally covers media controversy like a rash, was totally silent, despite having provided plenty of coverage to Wilson’s earlier claims.

Now, like Imhotep in the Mummy Returns, Wilson is attempting to bring himself back to life.

I think he’s coming unwound.

IT’S NOT JUST DICK CHENEY! Rumors that Kerry may drop Edwards from the ticket are picking up! Someone tell the New York Times!

(Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t talk.)

UPDATE: More breaking news! Kerry has a replacement in mind, according to this report.

And there’s more support here: “But naming Mr. Edwards did not immediately win over any substantial number of voters for the Democratic ticket, and the campaign between Mr. Kerry and President Bush remains statistically deadlocked.”

BLOGGERS IN THE NEWS: Begging to Differ gets some ink in the Charlotte Observer.

KIMBERLY SWYGERT writes on logical fallacies among critics of testing.

TIME IS REPORTING that the 9/11 Commission will spell out a connection between Iran and Al Qaeda:

Next week’s much anticipated final report by a bipartisan commission on the origins of the 9/11 attacks will contain new evidence of contacts between al-Qaeda and Iran—just weeks after the Administration has come under fire for overstating its claims of contacts between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 “muscle” hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001.

Will those who said that it was wrong to invade Iraq because there wasn’t enough evidence of such a connection now weigh in in favor of invading Iran?

JOE WILSON has sent a letter defending himself. Tom Maguire is unimpressed.

UPDATE: Tom’s commenters are even less impressed with Wilson’s version of events. Samples:

And on the substance Wilson has never had a case, even on the surface, even before any investigations. His WaPo letter just brazenly asserts a non-fact — nothing about any uranium reports from anywhere have been “discredited.” The SOTU reference was to a Brit assessment on Africa, Africa has more than one uranium source, the Brits stood/stand by their assessment, which was not based in any war on the forged documents, and nothing Wilson says/said touches the matter, except — as the SSCI noted — to strengthen it somewhat by reporting the suspected approach by an Iraqi official in 1999. We knew enough on July 6, 2003 — and so did the WH, or could have with two phone calls — to have dismissed Wilson without any fuss. Some of us did.

———-

Amidst all his assertions, much is ignored, left unsaid.

It reminds me of the guy who truthfully said that his grandfather died in a concentration camp. The full truth was that the guy fell out of a guard tower.

Ouch.

UPDATE: More on Wilson here:

Wilson now makes no attempt here to claim that his wife didn’t tout him for the job. That is quite telling. . . .

Indeed, Wilson freelanced that Bush was a liar about the Yellowcake story when he clearly didn’t have all of the facts. That much is still obviously true. Whether or not Wilson’s report bolstered the case that Iraq sought Uranium from Niger or not is an important question insofar as it would help demonstrate the degree of Wilson’s dishonesty, but not the fact that he has been deeply dishonest.

You’d think this would be bigger news.

YET MORE: A lengthy analysis of Wilson’s letter from Kronology, a blog I haven’t read before.

LOS ALAMOS SHUT DOWN: That’s what DefenseTech reports. And here’s a Wired News story by DefenseTech’s Noah Shachtman.

UPDATE: More from The New York Times, here.

ANNIE JACOBSEN, author of the “Terror in the Skies” story linked below, will be on the radio tonight according to reader Sandy Pedersen: “Jacobsen is going to do an interview with John Carlson on KVI in Seattle at 16:00 PDT today (16 July). They have an internet feed at 570kvi.com.”

UPDATE: Liveblogged here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: So what does all this mean? Beats me. Jacobsen’s story appears to be true, but the authorities say that the mystery Syrians check out. Assuming they’re right about that — which they may not be, but they’re in a better position to know than I am — the upshot is that we’ve got an object lesson in potential problems with security, in time to do something about it. It’s also a useful reminder to the rest of us that we need to keep our eyes open, and not slip back into a September 10 mindset. Is there more to this? I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out with further inquiry. Odds are that this incident doesn’t amount to anything — but note the other stories in the post linked below. It’s time to pay more attention to this stuff.

MORE: Hugh Hewitt:

I hope someone has pushed this story in front of Tom Ridge, John Ashcroft, and yes the president and vice president, along with a cover memo saying: “Boss, if a similar situation develops and a ‘Syrian band’ takes an airplane down –or worse, commandeers it in a replay of 9/11– the fact that this was a widely reported and discussed incident will be a damning indictment of the government’s incompetence or worse, indifference. We need a detailed policy on such situations that is agreed upon and communicated throughout the aviation network, and we need it yesterday. We still haven’t got such a policy on the suitcase drill, but this one is even more urgent as we control this issue and we can’t dictate to every city what to do if empty suitcases start turning up. Not to respond rapidly, effectively, and formally will be on all of our heads, appropriately so, if this sort of thing really does turn out to have been a ‘dry run.'”

He’s right. I hope the right people notice.

STILL MORE: This piece by Bruce Schneier on handling terrorist subjects is, sort of, related. And worth reading. And note that the earlier post has been updated quite a bit.

MORE STILL: Patterico says that the government is making the problem worse, not better.

EARLIER, I MENTIONED that Peggy Noonan had responded to Austin Bay’s email on taking a “time out” from the war. Now Austin (still in Iraq) sends this commentary on Noonan’s response:

Glenn,
Peggy Noonan and I completely agree on the raison d’etre for fostering democracy— doing so creates more peace and less war. Empirical evidence supports the connection, folks. It ain’t theory.

Frankly, I could use “less war” at this very moment. What I could really use is a shot of single-malt followed by another hour of sleep.

Iraq has such potential –water, people, source of capital (oil). Twenty years from now the pessimists will be as discredited as…well, as Ambassador Joe Wilson is, to pluck a current blogosphere for-instance. But that’s twenty tough years of hard, slow, grinding work. That’s a difficult story, so complex and intricate– gosh, you have to know something about Babylon as well as the International Monetary Fund. Fostering democracy requires patience and a long, broad time horizon. Our 24/7 news mavens focus on the quick hit of glitz, gotcha, and gore. This project isn’t quick.

Noonan’s right. It takes leadership to focus the nation on the genuine rewards of that deeper horizon.

…but I sure could use another hour of sleep…

If only I could email those.