VIRGINIA POSTREL notes the kind of reporting we need from Iraq.

RESPONDING TO MICHAEL MOORE: A must-read post from Junkyard Blog.

RATHERGATE UPDATE: Here’s the speech Les Moonves ought to give. Also, articles on bloggers and Big Media in the International Herald Tribune, the Sydney Morning Herald, and Wired News. All of them mention pajamas, but the Wired News article by Adam Penenberg has the best bit: “My first thought was if bloggers had no credibility then why was this guy on my television, defending CBS?”

UPDATE: More here: “I’m glad Dan Rather has apologized. But I’d rather he would explain.”

I’d be happy if he would resign. Meanwhile, Charles Paul Freund says that CBS and Rather are acting like politicians, not journalists. He observes:

The continued wellbeing of establishment journalism requires trust. That trust is exactly what CBS’ bizarre behavior has been undermining.

Yes.

A WHILE BACK, I linked to some very cool photos taken by a Marine aviator over Afghanistan and Iraq.

He’s now returned from his second deployment in Iraq, and he’s posted a bunch of new photos.

They’re also worth a look.

A SMALL REACTION TO A BIG SPEECH: The Belgravia Dispatch is deeply unimpressed with Kerry’s response to Allawi’s speech:

Kerry looks, er, very small today. I mean, was this statement for real? In its discombobulation, utter lack of grace (all but calling Allawi a liar), near absurdities (“Let me tell you, if the 4th Infantry Division and the diplomacy had been done (ed. note: whatever “done” means) with Turkey, you wouldn’t have had a Fallujah”), pleading tone (“And ask the military leaders. Go ask the military leaders”)–it reads more like a bona fide Deanian (or Goreian?) meltdown than a serious policy statement/press conference.

What I don’t get is that Kerry’s big claim is that he’ll get us allies, but it seems that whenever you turn around he’s dissing somebody on our side. Last week it was Australia, and then there were those remarks about a “fraudulent coalition” in Iraq. This seems to me to be no way to win friends, though I suspect that it may influence people.

UPDATE: Roger Simon asks: “[W]hat if Kerry wins using this rhetoric? What will he do when confronted with decisions to make on Iraq?” You know, the more I look at the new, Dean-channeling Kerry, the more I think that he doesn’t expect to win. He’s given up trying to convince swing voters that he’s serious on the war. I think this is about firing up the base to protect down-ticket candidates as much as possible.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jason Van Steenwyk, recently returned from Iraq, is also unimpressed with Kerry’s remarks. “Ok. So you want other nations’ leaders to expend political capital and treasure and send their lads to risk their lives . . . . So why don’t you act like it? Why aren’t you trying to sell the deal?”

Related item from Ralph Peters here: Ouch.

MCAULIFFE KNEW! I’m waiting for the bumper stickers.

Meanwhile, Cathy Seipp has still more on RatherGate, in a piece called “A Typist’s Tale.”

UPDATE: Actually, it seems McAuliffe didn’t know. With a speed that Dan Rather should envy, Jim Geraghty has retracted the McAuliffe report above: “Again, I blew this one, folks. My bad.”

See, Dan, it’s not that hard. (And, by the way, Jim Geraghty also sent an email to people to be sure they’d notice the update and correction, and offered another apology. Very handsome. I think the New Media are serving as a role model for the Old, here. Or should be.)

POLIPUNDIT: Black Gay Republicans put Bush in the White House!

JEEZ, I’M TOTALLY OUTCLASSED in the “minions” department, by this Nathan guy. My minions aren’t “everywhere.”

In fact, they’re not really anywhere. [What about me? — Ed. That’s my point.] I guess I’m not trying hard enough to recruit. . . .

MYSTERY POLLSTER is a polling-related blog by one of Kaus’s secret sources. It’s full of interesting information on, yes, polling.

Plus, scroll to the bottom to find out Wonkette’s dirty little secret.

I HAVEN’T PAID MUCH ATTENTION to the whole Cat Stevens brouhaha. But Eric Olsen has some thoughts.

HERE’S A TRANSCRIPT OF IYAD ALLAWI’S SPEECH today.

UPDATE: I agree that Kerry’s response to Allawi’s speech was ill-considered. Somebody call the brand manager!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Dart Montgomery emails:

Arrgh – Kerry’s speech was “ll-considered???”Are you running for office on the Upper West Side?

How about Arrogant, Awful, Divisive, Dishonest, Destructive, Horrible, Terrorist-Inspiring etc., etc., etc.?

Actually, as other people get more inflamed about the election, I’m making an effort to become milder, though I was chided by a colleague the other day for being insufficiently snarky of late. And, of course, there are those who claim that I lack fire.

CATHY SEIPP has more thoughts on RatherGate and the cocoon.

UPDATE: Another story in the CBS-affiliate-backlash category.

HOW BERKELEY CAN YOU BE? Amusing photos, though not entirely work-safe. (“There was no shortage of Bush/pubic hair jokes.”)

UPDATE: More pics here.

TODAY I OPENED MICHAEL KELLY’S POSTHUMOUS BOOK, Things Worth Fighting For, and came straight to this passage:

I used to watch television news, but at some point between the time CBS married Westinghouse, NBC married General Electric, and ABC married Mickey Mouse, I sort of lost interest.

I don’t think that corporatization was the only thing to hurt TV news, but I don’t think it helped.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Nolin emails:

It took almost a full year before I stopped thinking first thing every Wednesday morning, “Oh good, it’s Michael Kelly column day.” He was great. He would have been all over Rathergate.

I think that’s right.

SCOTT KOENIG will be debating the war on public radio in just a few minutes. Follow the link for audio-streaming and call-in information.

BURNING ANNIE, an indie movie that I like, will be showing at the Silver Lake Film Festival in Los Angeles this Sunday.

INTERESTING THOUGHTS on terror-cell size and social dynamics, over at The Belmont Club. Read the whole thing.

I’VE UPDATED THE KERRY DRAFT POST, below, which seems to have involved AP misrepresentation of Kerry’s remarks, though to be fair that misrepresentation was perhaps understandable in light of things that other Democrats have been saying. And read Tom Maguire’s post on the subject, “From Fake Boos to Fake News,” for more.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE CRITICIZES KERRY ON IRAQ, saying that he is “channelling Howard Dean:”

After his 2002 Senate vote to authorize the war, Kerry often characterized disarming Hussein as “the right decision.” In May 2003, Kerry said on ABC that while he “would have preferred” more diplomacy before going to war, “I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.”

As recently as last month, Kerry was sticking by that principle, stating that even if he had known the U.S. wouldn’t find unconventional weapons in Iraq or prove close ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, he still would have voted to authorize the war. But succeeding weeks have confronted Kerry with two harsh realities: His presidential candidacy has ebbed in public opinion polls, and Iraq has grown bloodier.

So it was bizarre, although not exactly shocking, to hear Kerry veer left during a speech on Monday: “We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure …” he said. “Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions, and if we do not change course, there is a prospect of a war with no end in sight.”

Kerry, who knows a few things about changing course, evidently believes he and his Senate colleagues were right to give President Bush the authority to wage war, but that Bush was wrong to use the authority.

Ouch.

UPDATE: On the other hand, SpinSwimming says that Kerry is channelling C3PO.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This is interesting: “While leaving the House floor, did you see Allawi kiss Senator Lieberman on the cheek? and couple minutes later kiss Paul Wolfowitz on both cheeks? And we’re worse off today than under Saddam rule?”

I HAVE A COLUMN ON RATHERGATE and what it means for the media, worldwide, in The Australian today.

UPDATE: Yes, somehow Microsoft and Linux got reversed. I’ve asked them to fix it.

JAYSON BLAIR ON RATHERGATE: “It’s really sad to see what’s happening to Dan Rather and CBS, and no one knows like me what its like to lose their credibility. I would give anything to have it back.”

A PROPOSED LAW AGAINST “RECKLESS SEX:” “To convict, prosecutors would need to show beyond a reasonable doubt (i) a first-time sexual encounter between the defendant and the victim; and (ii) no use of a condom. The defendant would then have the opportunity to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the victim consented to the unprotected sex.”

UPDATE: Er, no, I’m not uncritically repeating proposals from the religious right. Follow the damn link. More commentary here: “Starting off, however, it is pretty clear from past experience (say AIDS/HIV) that the criminal law is a paticularly crappy way to deal with health problems (and health issues have to motivate here or there would be little point to required use of a condom). In adddition the suggested correlation of first time encounters without condoms and coercive sex is (a) speculative and (b) too poor a relation to support use of the criminal law.” I’m inclined to agree, though I haven’t read the paper in question.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A law student offers a counter-proposal.

And here’s another counter-proposal, designed to deter unplanned pregnancies.

MORE: I think Clayton Cramer likes the idea, though.

WHY THE BLOGOSPHERE is like Voltron.

UPDATE: Of course, the Borg metaphor remains popular.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, the “minions of Skeletor” reference seems like an outlier.

GREG DJEREJIAN IS DEBUNKING AFGHANISTAN MYTHS, and wonders whether this rather positive report on Afghanistan in today’s New York Times will get the attention it deserves, especially from Bush’s critics on the Left. He says that Kerry’s got it wrong, too.

Meanwhile StrategyPage reports:

While al Qaeda manages to set off one or more suicide bombs a day in Iraq, it finds itself losing the war it is waging. The bombs are killing mainly Iraqis, and the Iraqis have noticed this. . . . Al Qaeda will fight on until the last of their members is rounded up by Iraqi police. But al Qaeda have already lost their war in Iraq.

I certainly hope so.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Stephen Green thinks that Bush is blowing it on Iran.

IRANIAN BLOGGERS ARE PROTESTING CENSORSHIP:

Hundreds of Iranian online journals have been protesting against media censorship by renaming their websites after pro-reformist newspapers and websites that have been banned or shut down by the authorities.

Many of the websites, known as blogs or weblogs, have also posted news items from the banned publications on their websites.

The protest was started by blogger Hossein Derakhshan, a student at Toronto university in Canada.

He told the BBC that although he felt the action was symbolic, he wanted to show Iranian authorities “that they would not be able to censor the internet in the same way as they have managed to control other media”.

He said he was delighted with the response.

The hardline Iranian press has published a personal attack on him, he said, “which is proof that the authorities must be worried by the bloggers’ protest”.

Kind of like when Dan Rather’s defenders started talking about pajamas.