JACK SHAFER says that Howard Kurtz missed the real story:

Look, kid, I know you got a big scoop here, but the story isn’t journalists’ reluctance to give money to politicians, and it ain’t the fact that media company policies vary, as you put it in your hed and subhed. The real story is that most of the media people you nabbed in your database dragnet gave to Democrats! And that the overwhelming majority of the guilty are reporters! Doncha see? Let me write you a lede that says something meaningful, like, “A Washington Post survey of campaign donations indicates that when reporters make campaign donations, they’re more likely to give to Democrats.” From there the story writes itself.

I’m guessing that Kurtz didn’t think that was news.

BILL HOBBS WRITES that the “jobless recovery” isn’t, in fact, jobless. Meanwhile this report from the Joint Economic Committee says the economy is continuing to improve, and notes a great disparity between the employer and household surveys on employment.

Your guess is as good as mine regarding what this means (I’m not much of an economic forecaster — and, as far as I can tell, neither is anyone else!). But it’s hard to see it as bad news.

MORE HATE CRIMES IN EUROPE:

STRASBOURG, France, Jan 20 (Reuters) – A van used as a schoolbus by a Jewish school in this eastern French city has been firebombed in what a community leader has called an apparent anti-Semitic attack, local police said on Tuesday.

The van was attacked on Monday before dawn, 24 hours after unidentified assailants pelted a nearby synagogue with stones during the night, they said. There was no sign who was behind the two incidents.

A local Jewish leader linked the two attacks to marches on Saturday protesting against a planned ban on Islamic veils in school led by an anti-Zionist Muslim leader from Strasbourg.

Then there’s this:

VANDALS desecrated a Holocaust memorial near Vienna with an electric saw and spray-painted the German word for “lie” over an informational plaque describing Nazi-era crimes, a news agency reported today.

The attack was discovered yesterday at the site of a Hitler-era concentration camp in Hinterbruehl, a village 10 kilometres south of Vienna, the Austria Press Agency reported. Police were notified but had not yet found the vandals.

Sigh. And yet the tendency in Europe is still to deny that they’ve got a problem. You’d think these people would have learned.

HELP THE MARINES! BE ON TV! Meet blog-stars LT Smash and Armed Liberal! All at Camp Pendleton, tomorrow.

THE REAL INTERNET CANDIDATE: Lots of people are saying that Dean’s Iowa performance indicates that the Internet doesn’t do much for candidates. But it’s possible that Internet users just didn’t support Dean as much as the hype indicated. At least, these figures from CNN indicate that Kerry did much better than Dean among Internet users.

CRUSHING OF DISSENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA: “This is not the first time, however, that critics have questioned the commitment of Alabama’s public universities to the spirit of free and open inquiry that is supposedly the hallmark of academic life.”

(Via the History News Network’s Liberty & Power blog).

HEH: “Dean Flop Threatens Internet, Bloggers Hardest Hit.”

CAST YOUR VOTE in the Bloggies if you’re so inclined. InstaPundit is nominated in the “Best Weblog About Politics” category. As with last year, though, I don’t find the nominations especially, well, representative overall.

MICKEY KAUS: “The Kerry victory in Iowa reminds me, not unsurprisingly, of Gary Hart’s come-from-behind victory in New Hampshire in 1984.”

Andrew Sullivan: “The Iowa voters – not exactly centrists – picked Kerry and Edwards to be the anti-Dean candidate, and the shrillness of the Dean-Clark message (the shrillness that so appealed to Paul Krugman) was just as soundly rejected.”

Jeff Greenfield: (on Edwards) “This guy makes a speech that’s a coherent argument, not a collection of sound bites.”

Jonah Goldberg: “Dean reminds me of the Hulk in that interim stage just before Bruce Banner turns green and starts to rip his clothes.”

Jeff Jarvis: “Did blogging hurt Dean? . . . Did it become so loud inside that room that it became hard to hear the noise outside, where the voters were?”

Josh Marshall: “Stunning. Actually, stunning doesn’t really do it justice.”

Ed Cone: “Another Internet bubble popped.”

Matt Welch: “Boy, That Dean’s a Crazy Sonofabitch Ain’t He? But not necessarily in a bad way! …. I kind of like the idea of a crazy man running for president, but my tastes have long been unsound.” He has a link to audio of Dean’s speech, too. I think that speech may have done for Dean what a similar speech (“How long, Lord, how long?”) did for Frank Clement. Then again, attention spans are shorter, these days — and Matt Welches are more common.

Will Saletan: “Dean’s answer to every gaffe or unpleasant revelation was to trot out another endorsement from the establishment. But he was right: The establishment proved impotent, and tonight it was thrown aside.”

Daniel Drezner: “Howard Dean is not going away anytime soon — he’s still got the money and the national organization. I’m sure the press is thrilled by this fact.”

James Lileks: “This was not a rejection of the Dean message. This was a rejection of the messenger.”

Kevin Drum: “Basically, this means that Dean, Clark, Kerry, and Edwards remain serious candidates, which in turn means that we’re in for a stemwinder of a primary season.”

Matthew Yglesias: “I’m watching Wes Clark on television right now explaining that he has no regrets about skipping the Iowa caucus. In light of tonight’s results, that’s a bit hard to believe.”

David Frum: “Have the Democrats gone sane? Yesterday Iowa Democrats administered a brutal drubbing to Howard Dean and the far left of the Democratic party generally, opting instead for the two most sensible candidates on the ballot.”

Roger Simon: “The voters of Iowa clearly chose the only two candidates–Kerry and Edwards–who seem to have the ability to compete seriously for the Presidency in November.”

Robert Tagorda: “If the three candidates shared the same message, and Dean came out last, what does that say about his image? Basically, the public dislikes the messenger.”

UPDATE: Several readers note that Mark Steyn had the Hulk line nailed down before last night:

By contrast, when Howard Dean, shortish and stocky, comes out in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, he looks like Bruce Banner just before he turns into the Incredible Hulk, as if his head’s about to explode out of his shirt collar.

Yeah, but he looked even more that way last night. . . .

THIS ATLANTIC MONTHLY REVIEW of Dr. Laura’s new book (by Caitlin Flanagan) is only moderately interesting in itself, since I don’t really care much about what Dr. Laura thinks about marriage. But this passage stood out:

Our culture is quick to point out the responsibilities husbands have to wives—they should help out with the housework, be better listeners, understand that a woman wants to be more than somebody’s mother and somebody’s wife—but very reluctant to suggest that a wife has responsibilities to her husband.

This is largely true, but you couldn’t have said it until recently. Couple it with stuff like this Amy Alkon / Matt Welch discussion and I wonder if there isn’t something of a realignment going on.

IOWA UPDATE: Lots of news over at the Command Post election page, so I won’t be blogging a lot on this — especially as the outcome illustrates that no one who thought they knew what was going on two weeks ago actually did, suggesting that the same applies now. . . .

But here’s my favorite bit of current punditry: “CNN TV analyst attributes Dean’s loss in Iowa to the capture of Saddam Hussein.” Sure. Why not?

UPDATE: Okay, a few comments from watching the candidates on TV.

Gephardt: You have to feel bad for the guy. It’s like Charlie Brown and the football — it gets snatched away every time. He’s a decent guy, and he deserved better and I feel kind of bad for him.

Dean: He’s mad as hell, and he thinks he was robbed. Two things really struck me about his speech — the way that as he thanked Tom Harkin and the AFSCME, they seemed to visibly deflate, and just how mad he really was. I think he feels he’s been screwed by the media and by the Democratic Party. Also, as I channel-surfed and listened to the commentary, I got the sense that the press people really hate him. I’m pretty sure that the feeling is mutual. (Read this commentary by Taegan Goddard, too.)

Edwards: Missed most of this, but he seemed classy and smart.

Kerry: National health insurance? This is the time to talk about national health insurance? The overall tone of Kerry’s talk suggested that he thinks Edwards is the guy to worry about. But he would have done better if his talk had been shorter. A lot shorter. Short enough that Hardball wouldn’t cut away for a far-more-entertaining grilling of Chris Lehane, about which I expect Mickey Kaus will have more shortly. . . .

Overall, I’d say that this is good news for the Democrats, and for the country, and bad news for Bush and the Republicans, who would have much preferrred a smashing Dean victory.

And was I wrong to criticize the Des Moines Register poll for showing Clark at only 2%, behind Kucinich’s 3%? Yes and no — Clark’s showing 0.1% now (he’s tied with “uncommitted”). Well, it’s within the margin of error! And, giving the Register credit where credit is due, he did finish behind Kucinich, who’s showing 1.3%. I admit it: I was wrong, they were right.

SHOWSTOPPERS: This article from the Weekly Standard on why special forces weren’t used against Al Qaeda before 9/11 seems pretty damning to me. Essentially, despite considerable pressure to do so (including pressure from high officials in the Clinton Administration), the military brass found ways to drag its feet and prevent things from happening.

The price was thousands of Americans dead, and a far more serious war on our hands. I keep asking, but why hasn’t anyone been fired over this?

UPDATE: Austin Bay emails:

I agree with you completely. I just read the Weekly Standard article you linked to, ie, Showstoppers. This looks like a very, very important article. . . .

Here’s a critical point: Pete Schoomaker is a straight shooter. I’ve known him for several years. Here’s one caveat: I do know the military fears being “left hanging” by the civilians. Still, special ops has counter-terror as a mission. It is a tool we should have used, and this article indicates Clinton wanted to use it. We need to follow reaction to this story.

Indeed we do.

UPDATE: Donald Sensing comments:

When soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines come under fire and are killed and wounded, they have the right to expect that their services’ leadership will demand retribution. All of these acts, particularly the attacks on Cole and the Khobar barracks, were by any definition acts of war and should have been treated as such. And the chiefs of staff should have seen it that way and pressed for it. Their fundamental obligation to protect their troops demanded it. In this they failed and failed morally, the worst failure a military officer can commit.

At the end of the day, though, the fault wends it way diffusely through many agencies and individuals until all the diffusion coalesces in the Oval Office. If Clinton believed the danger was as real as Schultz indicates he did, then he surely was obligated to do more than merely sign presidential findings. Firm orders to execute missions, not merely plan them, never came from his pen. They should have, even if he had to fire some people to make it happen.

Why wasn’t anyone fired? Because the will to follow through was lacking in the only man who absolutely had to have it, the president of the United States.

Actually, both Clinton and Bush should have fired people. And neither one did.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: In a not-really-related development, Ralph Peters is praising Clinton’s performance as an ex-President:

I NEVER thought I’d give Bill Clinton a standing ovation. But last week in Qatar I did just that.

Our former president gave the most perfectly pitched, precisely targeted speech I’ve ever heard to a hall filled with Muslim intellectuals and officials. And they listened.

Go figure. Read the whole thing.

DON’T MISS THE CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS, a weekly collection of business- and economic-related posts. Since I don’t do much econoblogging, you shouldn’t rely on InstaPundit for that sort of thing.

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT: AllahPundit appears to have been banned from CafePress. That wouldn’t surprise me — back in September of 2001 they took down a store featuring pictures of Osama bin Laden with superimposed crosshairs within a few hours. As I wrote at the time: “Personally, I don’t see what’s so controversial about pictures of Osama Bin Laden with a bullseye superimposed on his face. But hey, maybe that’s just me.” But maybe it’s just a glitch.

STEVEN DEN BESTE has more thoughts on the Glenn Kessler story from the Washington Post that I mentioned here earlier:

They say, “Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity,” but we seem to have gone beyond any possible stupidity now.

Indeed. Follow the link for a point-by-point analysis. Meanwhile David Adesnik of OxBlog observes: “If the NYT ran this article, I wouldn’t have bothered post[ing] anything. It’s what you expect from them. But the WaPo? I expect better.” That’s got to hurt.

OXBLOG’S PATRICK BELTON has an roundup of the interesting happenings in Pakistan, which aren’t getting a lot of attention in the United States because of the election news.

IOWA POLITICAL BLOGGER DAVID HOGBERG has more on the Iowa caucuses, including a roundup of other bloggers’ predictions.

NORM GERAS notes U.N. obstructionism on Iraqi elections. Still more reason to look into where that oil-for-food money went!

ALL OF A SUDDEN, Howard Dean can’t catch a break:

Presidential candidate Howard Dean’s attempt Monday to attend a ceremony honoring the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. left many in the audience unhappy and complaining that the former Vermont governor was trying to overshadow the event.

The Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans hosted the 15th annual event, held at the Iowa Historical Building in Des Moines.

“That’s not for him,” said Seville Lee, 26 of Des Moines. “This was nothing but a conniving way for him to sneak in and take up a vote from the African-American community.”

Maybe Sullivan is right — it’s the Gore Curse!

UPDATE: More here.

RECOVERING BLOGGER SUSANNAH BRESLIN is interviewed by Xeni Jardin over at the SuicideGirls website. Susannah has a book out, and she talks about it, and about what she’s doing now that she’s not blogging.

INVITATION? What invitation?

THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIBLE NANOTECHNOLOGY now has a blog. And don’t forget journalist Howard Lovy’s NanoBot blog. Here, by the way, is an interesting video interview with Philip Bond, Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology, by Dan Farber, which I found via Lovy’s blog.

ROGER SIMON is still hot on the trail of the missing U.N. “oil-for-food money” — which should worry some people, since he writes detective novels. One thing we know — the missing money isn’t going to feed starving North Koreans, as the U.N. has dropped the ball there, too.

THIS ARTICLE BY GLENN KESSLER IN THE WASHINGTON POST contains an amazing howler in the very first sentence:

The Bush administration’s inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq –after public statements declaring an imminent threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — has begun to harm the credibility abroad of the United States and of American intelligence, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.

Kessler has apparently been reading too many Howard Dean press releases. Otherwise he’d know that Bush said we should strike before the threat became imminent. Perhaps he should try reading USA Today instead, which gets it right:

The word “imminent” is key to differentiating Dean’s policy from the president’s decision to invade Iraq, said Jeremy Ben-Ami, policy director for Dean’s campaign.

Bush “sold the war on the basis of an imminent threat to U.S. security, and that has now been shown to be false,” Ben-Ami said. Since the threat from Iraq was not imminent, the administration could not properly justify the war, he said.

However, when Bush laid out the case for the war in his 2003 State of the Union address, he said the United States should not wait for an imminent threat.

“Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent,” Bush said. “Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein … is not an option.”

(Emphasis added). Really — how hard is this to understand? Too hard, apparently, for a bigshot reporter at the Post. I think that this error is big enough that the Post needs to run a correction — and on the front page where this embarrassing mistake occurred.

UPDATE: Powerline says that Kessler is misquoting Bush to support his storyline. Follow this link and see what you think — it looks pretty damning to me.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Don Williams sends this link to a White House transcript where spokesman Scott McClellan uses the term imminent threat. But Kessler’s story specifically invokes Bush’s State of the Union address from last year, which he then, according to the Powerline post linked above, proceeds to misquote.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jim Brenneke emails: “As I read the transcript of McClellan, I believe the “Imminent Threat” referred to is a threat to Turkey, not to the U.S. Have I misinterpreted something?” I don’t think so. And reader Todd Burri sends this:

Your reference to the WaPo Glenn Kessler story reminded me of a piece by Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson, which ran in the Milwaukee paper a couple days ago. He makes basically the same “Bush Lied” argument about WMDs and imminent threats.

I think the administration could have been more forthright making its case for war, but still… Once More With Feeling: the 1991 armistice agreement made it Hussein’s responsibility to verifiably disarm. A string of Security Council resolutions reiterated it was up to Hussein to verifiably disarm. It was not our task to prove he had these weapons; it was his task to prove he didn’t.

Phrases like ‘no solid/concrete/irrefutable evidence,’ when used by the ‘Bush lied’ crowd, are an attempt to return to Hussein the benefit of the doubt. He forfeited the benefit of the doubt a long time ago He may have disarmed, but he didn’t prove it. I am surprised that no WMDs have been found, but I am not terribly dismayed. That failure means one of two things: either Hussein hid them prior to the war, or he had in fact disposed of them. If the former, they’ll turn up. There’s a lot of searching to do yet. If the latter, then we’re stuck with the strangest possible scenario: Hussein rid himself of WMD but declined to convince the UN that he had done so, thus permitting sanctions to stay in place when he could have had them lifted. Why do you suppose he’d do that? To get rich on illegal oil sales and skimmed humanitarian aid? To continue keeping his people down by funneling resources to his most favored (a la Kim Jong-il)? To keep other Muslims inflamed by making the West out to be the bad guy?

It seems like the “Bush Lied” story is a sort of hot potato that gets passed around a group of like-minded writers, and everybody gets a turn at doing it.

Yes. And everybody gets a turn refuting it, apparently!

GIMLI’S GOT IT: Some people are picking on John Rhys-Davies for saying things like this:

The fact that a minister of the French government has to fly to Cairo to talk with one of the religious heads in one of the mosques to get his approval for a ban on headscarves can be seen in two ways.

One, is how wonderfully culturally sensitive. The other, it seems to give an authority to a wholly unelected figure well outside Europe’s jurisdiction. . . .

When we are prepared to overlook certain things because we don’t want to rock the boat, this is wrong.

The greatest act of racism is to expect that other people will not behave according to your values and standards. . . .

I do not want to see a society where, should I ever have any, my granddaughters have their fingernails pulled out because they are wearing nail varnish.

But while they pick on Rhys-Davies, the news from France seems in accordance with his fears:

France’s drive to better integrate its five million Muslims looked shaken on Monday after a weekend of protests against a looming ban on Islamic veils and a bomb attack on the car of a senior public official of Muslim origin.

The veiled schoolgirls chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater) in marches across France and the bomb that destroyed the car of the newly appointed prefect for the eastern Jura area have cast doubt over the policy of winning support among moderate Muslims..

Call me crazy, but I think he has legitimate reason for concern.