“REALLY, THOUGH, THIS IS ALL JUST A COINCIDENCE:” John Cole posts a Ra^therGate / “Operation Fortunate Son” timeline.

This NPR report features talking-heads saying that this story — which involves the release of forged documents in order to influence a Presidential election, and back-channel conversations and what sure looks like collusion between a major television network and a political campaign — isn’t all that important.

No doubt the nabobs of the journalistic ethics establishment would be giving Fox News and the Republicans the same benefit of the doubt, were the facts reversed.

FREDERICK TURNER ON RA^THERGATE:

A week or two before the issue of the supposed National Guard memos on President Bush’s military service came up, I speculated on this site about the emergence of a new cyber-public in response to the discrediting of many of the traditional news media. Luck made me a prophet: the exposure of the memos as forgeries was a textbook example of what I had been talking about. . . .

What we saw was an extraordinary example of what chaos and complexity theorists call spontaneous self-organization. Out of a highly communicative but apparently chaotic medium an ordered, sensitively responsive, but robust order emerges, acting as an organism of its own. Suddenly a perfectly-matched team of specialists had self-assembled out of the ether.

Read the whole thing, which is very interesting. (But InstaPundit is “venerable?” In Internet years, yeah!) It’s also worth reading this piece by Cathy Young from the Boston Globe, and this essay by Andrew Sullivan from Time.

Pajamas are mentioned in all three.

I ALMOST FEEL SORRY for the tag-teamed Nick Kristof. I am actually acquainted with Yoshi Tsurumi, having edited one of his articles back when I was on the Yale Law & Policy Review in law school. While he was pleasant enough to work with, I wouldn’t bet the farm on him. On the other hand, these quotes sound out of character — and I wouldn’t bet the farm on Kitty Kelley, either. . . .

IT’S NOT ABOUT IRAQ OR DAN RA^THER: Perhaps reason enough to check out this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists?

IRAQI BLOGGER ALI RESPONDS TO ROBERT NOVAK:

What does Mr. Novak know about Iraq and the decision makers in the USA? If his information about how decision makers in America are thinking, is similar to his information about Iraq, then I guess we are safe and there’s no need to worry.

Read the whole thing. I’m with Ali on this one.

UPDATE: Greg Djerejian has more thoughts, which are very much worth reading.

ANOTHER UPDATE: So is this column by Jonah Goldberg. And read this post from Soxblog.

AND WE WANT THESE GUYS IN IRAQ?

Twelve French soldiers on peacekeeping duties in Ivory Coast have been arrested in connection with a bank theft there last week.
The troops had been assigned to protect a branch of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) and were charged with stealing $120,000 (100,000 euros).

French military spokesman Colonel Henry Aussavy said the accused soldiers were being sent home to face French justice.

More than 4,000 French troops are serving alongside UN peacekeepers.

Sigh.

WHERE NEXT FOR THE BLOGOSPHERE? Pejman Yousefzadeh has some thoughts.

ANOTHER SUCCESS FOR DIPLOMACY?

Syria’s ambassador to Washington said yesterday his country’s forces in Lebanon will begin a major redeployment toward their own border this morning.

The diplomat also said Syrian and U.S. troops will partake in joint security operations along the Syrian-Iraqi border, although State Department officials contradicted that claim.

“This is official,” said Imad Mustapha, Syria’s ambassador to Washington, speaking by telephone from the Syrian capital. “Tuesday morning there will be a major redeployment of Syrian forces in Lebanon toward the border.” . . .

A senior State Department official disputed the ambassador’s statement last night.

“We are looking for Syria to take certain action to protect the border. That action has not been taken yet. We’ll be working to improve Syria’s performance,” the official said. “At this point, that does not include joint actions with American troops.”

Hmm. Stay tuned.

TOM MAGUIRE is checking Joe Wilson’s travel schedule.

MICKEY KAUS IS ON FIRE, with posts on everything from Ra^therGate to polling.

KERRY ON GUNS, IN OUTDOOR LIFE:

OL: Are you a gun owner? If so, what is your favorite gun?

Kerry: My favorite gun is the M-16 that saved my life and that of my crew in Vietnam. I don’t own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle.

Reader Kevin O’Kelley has some questions:

1. How did you acquire this assault rifle? Is it an illegally imported, untraceable souvenir?

2. Is it a fully-automatic weapon or a semi-automatic?

3. Where is the gun now? Is it legal for it to be kept there?

4. How can you support a law that forbids other people owning a weapon that you already own?

Good questions, all.

Inquiring minds want to know.

UPDATE: Yeah, yeah, inquiring minds also want to know if there’s any question — any freaking question at all — that Kerry can answer without mentioning Vietnam.

THE BELMONT CLUB looks at the dark side of American involvement in Iraq:

I cast about in vain for some way to estimate whether the level of corruption in the Iraqi government, which is a proxy for efficiency and just governance, was increasing or decreasing. It is the one area for which I truly fear, not in the least because few Americans have any idea what a distorting gravitational force normal levels of American prosperity and largesse have in a Third World country. The sheer capability of America can create a dependency even in richer societies. One wonders whether the new Iraqi Army will have any concept of operations constrained by their true resources, without implicitly assuming American support. Sixty years of America in NATO have arguably weakened indigenous military capability in a continent which once dominated the world. Sometimes a quagmire is when you are too damned good.

Perhaps this is how we will, ultimately, convert the whole world into a bunch of diplo-speaking social-welfare pacifists, one quagmire at a time. . . .

But there’s an upside. Evan Coyne Maloney parses John Kerry’s positions on Iraq and concludes:

But if we can’t decipher Kerry’s plans, neither can al Qaeda. Therein may lie the true strategic brilliance of John Kerry: after four years of Kerry in the White House, Osama bin Laden will be so damn confused, he just might forget who his enemy is.

Now there’s a campaign slogan.

Arthur Chrenkoff is less amused.

And finally, Mongai looks at the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in Iraq, with links to reports and photos.

JEFF JARVIS: “It’s bigger than Dan Rather. It’s bigger than CBS. It’s about journalism and Big Media and their relationship with the citizenry and democracy. It’s about sharing authority with the people.”

That’s what’s got ’em scared.

UPDATE: Read this, too.

CROSSING OVER INTO BIG MEDIA, the Power Line guys have written this piece on Kerry in Vietnam and Cambodia, and this piece on Kerry’s anti-war activism. And here’s another piece on the subject by Mack Owens.

MAPES TO BURKETT TO LOCKHART? Power Line wonders what’s going on.

Meanwhile there’s this new development:

FORT WORTH, Texas – (KRT) – The son of a late commander in the Texas Air National Guard said Monday that CBS owes his family an apology for airing documents – now believed to be false – that purportedly were of his father criticizing President Bush’s service as a young man in the Guard. . . .

Gary Killian, a Houston businessman who once served in the Guard with his father, said he initially questioned the validity of parts of the memos, then later became convinced they were all fakes.

Killian said he is angry with both CBS and Burkett.

“Do I take it personally? Yes,” he said, adding: “I think, first of all, CBS and Dan Rather owe my deceased father and my family an apology.”

For starters.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt:

Wow. A senior Kerry aide phoning the forgery-passer at the request of CBS? CBS is advising the Kerry campaign? And the Kerry campaign is following the advice? Fire them all.

My guess is that Kerry won’t be meeting with reporters tomorrow either.

Somebody should ask him about all this.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on CBS/Kerry Campaign collusion here.

Shouldn’t CBS just register as a 527 and have done with it?

EUGENE VOLOKH is guestblogging over at GlennReynolds.com.

Meanwhile, on his own blog, he’s offering religious instruction to Jimmy Swaggart.

I’M WATCHING KEITH OLBERMANN ON MSNBC talking about blogs being “infiltrated.” Boy is he clueless and behind the times. First, Hugh Hewitt already wrote about this stuff in the Weekly Standard months ago. Second, it’s rather convenient that this issue only comes up elsewhere now, when Big Media’s looking bad and is obviously in bed with a campaign, rather than back when David Brock’s operation was busy hiring lefty bloggers. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that — but there is something wrong with not noticing it while making a big deal about a chatboard post on FreeRepublic that, shockingly, comes from a Republican.)

Olbermann is really an embarrassment here — not least because he seems to think that you need to have some sort of specialized insider information to notice something as unbelievably obvious as the CBS document forgery. Maybe if you’re Olbermann, you do. . . .

UPDATE: Ernest Miller has related thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s someone else who was watching.

And Patterico has thoughts on transparency and reciprocity.

MORE: Reader Wayne Seibert emails: “Why should you care about Olbermann – you have 3x as many viewers as he does.” Heh.

And a few readers think I’m “brave” to criticize MSNBC when I write for them. If you knew how little they pay me, you’d think less of my courage — but in fact, I made clear up-front that signing up with them wasn’t going to change my blogging, and they had no problem with that.

DONALD SENSING is on hiatus. He’ll be missed.

In what I’m sure is a coincidence, so is Belle de Jour.