HISTORY, for those who think it started in 2001.

UPDATE: More history, from Jon Henke. And Tom Maguire looks at some more recent history.

MORE: TM Lutas asks what’s different since the Clinton years.

BUSH DOUBLES DOWN: I just watched Bush’s speech. Nothing new there for anyone who’s been paying attention to the speeches he’s been giving over the past couple of weeks. But one big thing struck me: In this national televised speech, Bush went out of his way to take responsibility for the war. He repeatedly talked about “my decision to invade Iraq,” even though, of course, it was also Congress’s decision. He made very clear that, ultimately, this was his war, and the decisions were his.

Why did he do that? Because he thinks we’re winning, and he wants credit. By November 2006, and especially November 2008, he thinks that’ll be obvious, and he wants to lay down his marker now on what he believed — and what the other side did. That’s my guess, anyway.

UPDATE: Ian Schwartz has video of the speech. Here’s the transcript. (Part Two here). And here is a reaction, and advice for Bush, from Lorie Byrd of PoliPundit.

And, yes, the hounds don’t seem to have made an impression.

Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey and Michelle Malkin were liveblogging the speech. And read this from RealClearPolitics, too.

More here from GayPatriot.

Still more here. And proud Bush-hater Jonathan Chait writes: “I am not, to say the least, a fan of President Bush. But a portion of his speech tonight genuinely moved me and made me think more highly of him.”

Gateway Pundit: “After Only 1,000 Days, Bush Takes Credit for Iraq.” See the timeline.

MORE: Hmm. “Sunnis say they want to work with U.S.” Best quote: “‘We now believe we must get on good terms with the Americans,’ Hemaiym said.” Do tell.

STILL MORE: Here’s a big roundup of blog reactions from PJ Media.

And more reactions are here.

MEDIA BIAS: It’s worse than you thought, according to a new UCLA study. (Via Dan Riehl).

UPDATE: Reader Michael Schrage sends more evidence in support of the study’s conclusion, in the form of this unbylined AP “analysis” of Bush’s speech. [LATER: The story runs here under Ron Fournier’s byline.]

And here’s more on the topic, from Ed Driscoll.

SCIENCE FICTION RECOMMENDATIONS: As promised, here are some. I’m not including fantasy or alt-history here — maybe I’ll do that later. Just real science fiction.

Anyway, in no particular order:

Joe Haldeman’s Camouflage: It’s not anything like the Forever War, and as I noted earlier the ending is a bit abrupt, but I liked it.

I liked Peter Hamilton’s Pandora’s Star enough that I ordered the sequel, though it hasn’t come yet.

Series often run dry, but the Larry Niven Ringworld-derived Man-Kzin Wars series has gotten a new lease on life with installments X and XI which are pretty good. The Kzin have always been one of my favorite alien species.

The Heechee are another, and Fred Pohl’s new book, The Boy Who Would Live Forever was very good. His AI-Chef hero is pretty fun, too.

John Birmingham’s Designated Targets, sequel to the Hillary-Clinton-inspired Weapons of Choice, is very good. I’m not sure if I should score it as alt-history or science fiction, but I’m putting it here since there’s interdimensional travel involved.

It’s been a big Scalzi year for me: I liked Old Man’s War, and its sequel, Ghost Brigades. And Agent to the Stars was fun, too.

It’s also been a big Charles Stross year, with Accelerando coming out. And you might also like his Iron Sunrise, which features a warblogger hero. You can read Accelerando free on his website.

Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs novels, Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies are all very good. On the other hand, I couldn’t get through Market Forces: I just found its premise impossible to swallow.

Well, that’s a pretty fair assortment. Here’s an earlier post with science fiction recommendations, and here’s one with alt-history recommendations. And here’s another along those lines. Meanwhile, here’s a post from last year with lots of other book recommendations. That should be enough to get you going!

But don’t forget, you can get a lot of excellent science fiction books, many quite recent, for free online at the Baen Free Library. And don’t miss the introductory essay by Eric Flint.

GOOD NEWS YOU MIGHT MISS: Afghanistan’s first elected national assembly in 30 years is meeting. Murdoc Online has more, and observes: “If, at the end of September 2001 you had said that both Iraq and Afghanistan would have elected new democratic national governments by the end of 2005, I would have said you were a bit too optimistic. I’m glad to be proven wrong. Why are some people so disappointed that things are going so well?”

Why, indeed?

MY BROTHER’S BAND, COPPER, is apparently more appealing than “America’s Hottest College Girl:”

Jake: (More hyperventilating) What’s the least romantic thing a guy has ever done to you?

Allie: I got asked out on a date to a Copper concert. He met me at the door, he paid my way in, he bought me 3 or 4 shots of tequila, as soon as Copper walked out onto the stage, he disappeared.

Jake: Rough…

You gotta focus on the band! Rough for her. Cool for Copper! Thanks to reader James daSilva, who spotted this.

BOY, the Big Media coverage of Katrina — which so many media folks were congratulating themselves on at the time — isn’t looking very good now that we know what actually happened. More here: “The New York Times and Los Angeles Times both put forth front-page stories this weekend that dramatically contradict much of their own coverage of the disaster.”

Hmm. Bogus reporting that inflames racial tensions. This could be as damaging to society as violent videogames. We need Congressional hearings!

UPDATE: More here from Keith Milby.

THIS SOUNDS DUMB:

Yesterday a trio of Democratic senators with presidential ambitions introduced federal legislation that they believe can pass constitutional muster.

The legislation, unveiled at a press conference by Democratic senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Evan Bayh of Indiana, would essentially codify the industry’s current voluntary rating system. It assigns games letters from “EC,” meaning appropriate for early childhood, to “AO” for “adults only.” Retailers who sell games rated “mature,” “adults only” or “ratings pending” to children under 17 could face fines of $5,000 per violation.

My TCS Daily column will explore this at more length, but did I mention it’s dumb?

UPDATE: More criticism from Seven Deadly Sins and Entropy Manor, where we get this observation: “While I don’t like the increasing level of mature content in today’s video games, I don’t think making it a federal crime to sell them to children is the answer. While I deplore the increasing levels of violence and sex in our culture, I deplore government intrusion into a role which is properly that of the parents.”

A NEGATIVE REACTION to Time’s People of the Year choices, with some suggested alternatives. I think it was a pretty dull and uninspired choice on Time’s part. Ed Morrissey agrees.

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis observes: “this is one more indication how we are reentering an age of leadership by the very rich . . . should the millions who gave billions after the tsunami have been the cover subjects, perhaps?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch emails:

I’ve had my disagreements with Jeff, but he’s right about this. Funny, the MSM has become much more pro super-rich folks since the super-rich became movers and shakers in the Demorcatic party. Wonder why?

No, not really.

DICK CHENEY makes a surprise visit to Iraq.

THE INSTA-DAUGHTER is celebrating Christmas vacation with a marathon viewing session revolving around the Simpsons seventh season DVDs, which came on Friday. I’ve watched a couple of them with her, and wish I had time to watch them all.

When I was a kid I would have loved being able to do that. Also the computer games, car-mounted DVD players, etc. Today’s kids have it good in some ways.

ERIC UMANSKY:

My understanding from talking to a liberal law professor and reading a relevant case is that–contrary to much of the chatter–the constitutionality of the NSA spying is actually unclear.

Yes. As I note below, many people think the Constitution provides far more protection for privacy in communications than it actually does under existing caselaw.

STRATEGYPAGE on the Iraqi elections:

This relentless progress of democracy is causing quite a commotion throughout the Arab world. While it is fashionable to denounce the American presence in Iraq, and what the Americans were doing, the Arab language buzz on the net is going in unexpected directions. Because of al Jazeera and the Internet, young Arabs everywhere are not only able to observe what it happening in Iraq, but to discuss it with young Iraqis. These discussions are not noted much in the West, because they generally take place in Arabic, and often via email and listservs. The non-Iraqi Arabs are impressed at the proliferation of media in Iraq, and the eagerness of Iraqis to vote, and make democracy work. The economic growth in Iraq is admired, and is already attracting entrepreneurs from other Arab countries. The more cynical non-Iraqis believe that it will all come to nothing, and that another Saddam will eventually emerge and shut down all this democratic nonsense, as is the case in most of the Arab world. But the pessimists appear to be in the minority. Arabs are tired of dictators, economic stagnation, the corruption and living in a police state. Moreover, there’s a nimble quality in Arab thinking that allows them to simultaneously blame the Americans for going into Iraq, and praising the result.

Read the whole thing.

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS: “World Trade Organization negotiators approved an agreement Sunday requiring wealthy nations to end farm export subsidies by 2013, a support system that poor nations say puts them at a competitive disadvantage.” They’d hoped to accomplish much more, though. Daniel Drezner has more, and reports that the EU officials are “grumpy.”

THE INSTA-WIFE HAS ADVICE on dealing with family during the holidays, as well as some thoughts on why it matters.

SOUNDS LIKE THE ARMY IS blowing it with bloggers:

That is, they seem to have been given a highly negative sense of the blogosphere, and were discouraging soldiers from posting anything that might affect anything. Which to me is sass-akwards. Milbloggers, in my non-humble opinion, have done more for the war effort and more to correct misleading reports than the entire Army Public Affairs Branch has (note: this is not a slam on them, but praise for the MilBlog community). The Army should be encouraging troops to give *more* information on their first-hand impressions and how things are going, not less. “Winning the War” begins at home – we’re not going to be defeated here, but may have to pull out because of people’s impressions at home, which in my opinion seem to be shaped by misleading reports of what the overall picture here is. (Note again – I’m writing less from my own direct experiences than from the impression I get second-hand, both talking to people who have direct experiences and reading what I consider to be reliable sources). This attitude towards soldier-bloggers, which might be limited to just the 4th Division, seems to be another example of the Army shooting itself in the foot – making its mission harder.

That seems right to me. I understand concerns about operational security, but this seems more like a (doomed) effort to regain lost control over information flow. Given the ready market for it in big media, damaging information will still flow freely — this will just make it harder for the helpful stuff to get out.

SOME ODD BEHAVIOR BY THE CIA seems to be explained by Colin Powell:

THE US administration was never told of doubts about the secret intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday night.

Mr Powell, who argued the case for military action against Saddam Hussein in the UN in 2003, told BBC News 24 television he was “deeply disappointed in what the intelligence community had presented to me and to the rest of us.”

“What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced to us,” he said.

(Via Mark in Mexico who has further thoughts). And read this Claude Rains reference from Powell, too.

I’M NOT SURE IF THIS IS A REAL SCANDAL, but it doesn’t look very good:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful’s nonprofit. . . .

World of Hope gave $3 million it raised to charitable AIDS causes, such as Africare and evangelical Christian groups with ties to Republicans _ Franklin Graham’s Samaritan Purse and the Rev. Luis Cortes’ Esperanza USA, for example.

The rest of the money went to overhead. That included $456,125 in consulting fees to two firms run by Frist’s longtime political fundraiser, Linus Catignani. One is jointly run by Linda Bond, the wife of Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo.

On the other hand, it may not be that unusual:

“One of the things people who are running for president try to do is keep their fundraising staff and political people close at hand. And one of the ways you can do that is by putting them in some sort of organization you run,” said Larry Noble, the government’s former chief election lawyer who now runs the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics that studies fundraising.

Nonetheless, it seems a bit iffy, to say the least.

UPDATE: Reader Justin VanNingen is skeptical:

The AP story about Bill Frist’s charity giving money to groups with “Republican Ties” makes this look more like a hit piece than decent reporting.

First off, a simple Google search on “Esperanza USA” shows (3rd listed!) that Howard Dean met with Esparanza USA’s head Rev. Cortes and endorsed them. This happened just over one month ago.

Second, Samaritan’s Purse is an Evangelical group whose head is Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham — a Democrat. SP does not have a track record of getting into politics like Focus on the Family or CBN.

If this is what counts as a scandal in DC these days, the country must be doing alright. Either that, or the AP is desperate.

Either of those is possible, of course. Joe Gandelman, meanwhile, is more critical, and has a big roundup on the subject. Lots of politicians have semi-captive nonprofits, though they’re more often think-tank-like operations. To some degree, of course, this is just more evidence that the nonprofit sector needs more scrutiny; whether there’s more to this story, well, we’ll see.

WE KNEW IT ALREADY, but it’s still news that he’s saying it:

The chief U.N. investigator into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said in remarks published Saturday that he believed Syrian authorities were behind the killing.

It was the first time that Detlev Mehlis has unequivocally accused Syria of responsibility for Hariri’s assassination since opening the U.N. probe in June.

Stay tuned.

TOM MAGUIRE has questions for the New York Times.

UPDATE: Lots more here. And there’s this: “I cannot remember the last time, or first time, this newspaper reported a leak that was helpful to our war effort.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Much more here. Plus, “Frog-marched to the hoosegow?”

And Sen. John Cornyn is criticizing the Times rather harshly. In a later post, Tom Maguire finds some other members of Congress “annoyingly hypocritical,” and observes:

News flash – we are still a representative democracy, despite the evident unwillingness of our opposition party to bestir itself. If this secret program was so outrageous, the Senate and House Democrats who had been briefed on it should have spoken up. Instead, we get profiles in courage as, per the Times, Reid, Rockefeller, and others are unavailable for comment.

My take: This story was bad for Bush on Friday, but it’ll be bad for a lot of other people by next week. My earlier post on this topic is here.

MORE: Glenn Greenwald says that the Cold Fury post to which I link above misquotes the statute. [LATER: Al Maviva of Cold Fury says that Greenwald is misquoting him.]

I’m still hoping for a lengthier analysis by Orin Kerr. I’ve taught FISA in the past, but it’s been a couple of years and I’m busy grading Administrative Law exams. Of course, Orin’s probably got his own stack of bluebooks. In the post of Orin’s that I linked to before, he noted that the area is very complex and unclear, and suggested that people read this District Court opinion. But note that it’s only a District Court opinion.

It’s also worth noting that there are two distinct issues here: Whether the wiretapping (or other interception) was legal, and whether the leak was legal. The leak almost certainly violated the law. The wiretapping is not so clear: Most people fail to appreciate how limited their protection against government surveilliance is, both under statutes and under constitutional law. And that’s doubly so where international communications are concerned. (And, except for the small possibility of a constitutional-tort action, the main remedy for unconstitutional surveillance can be found in the exclusionary rule, which only comes into play if someone is prosecuted and the government tries to introduce the surveillance into evidence — meaning that, as with the exclusionary rule in general, the remedy is worthless if you’re never charged with anything, say because you’re innocent.) Nor is this a phenomenon that can be blamed on the Patriot Act or the Bush Administration, particularly — the protections are just quite limited indeed, and prone to technical parsing on such questions as whether the communications were “stored,” even momentarily, en route. (For a non-FISA example of that kind of parsing, read the Steve Jackson Games opinion from 1994, long before the Patriot Act). You may find these legal interpretations offensive — I do — but they’re the law as it is.

And this observation seems to be correct: “What is clear is that this is not some Watergate-type rogue operation, as seemingly hoped by some. In addition to repeated congressional notification, the program has been heavily lawyered by multiple agencies, including the Department of Justice and NSA and White House, and is regularly reviewed. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of State Condi Rice have both insisted that program is legal. The fact that some might disagree with whatever legal advice and conclusions the president has received does not make them right or the program illegal. But at this point, we, the public, don’t really know what these news stories are really about, do we?”

MORE: Dafydd Ab Hugh has more questions for the Times. I think that there will be a lot of those.

FINALLY: Matt Rustler has advice for people on the left and right.

CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAY ADVICE to blog readers: Don’t do this here, as I don’t need it, but go to one of your favorite blogs and make a donation or send an appreciative email. Especially one of the smaller blogs, where the attention is especially likely to be noticed and appreciated. There are a lot of blogs out there, and the bloggers with low traffic often work just as hard as the ones with big numbers. Let ’em know if you like their work.

DO IRAQIS WANT DEMOCRACY? David Adesnik looks at the polls.

UPDATE: This report sounds like good news, too:

Although no official vote figures have been released, authorities estimate just under 70 per cent of Iraq’s 15 million registered voters cast ballots Thursday.

The big turnout – particularly among the disaffected Sunni Arab minority that boycotted the election of a temporary legislature last January – have boosted hopes that increasing political participation may undermine the insurgency and allow U.S. troops to begin pulling out next year.

Democratization is a process, not an event. But it’s a process that seems to be moving ahead.

SOME INTERESTING NOTES on the spread of democracy in the mideast.

WTO UPDATE:

Protesters opposed to lowering trade barriers swung bamboo sticks at police Saturday and tried to storm a convention center where World Trade Organization delegates were negotiating a global accord on farming, manufacturing and services. At least 70 people were injured.

Security forces scattered the crowd with tear gas and pepper spray, and 900 people were detained after the worst street violence in Hong Kong in decades. The injured included 10 police officers.

The protesters included South Korean farmers, Southeast Asian groups and activists from the United States and Europe. They are concerned that WTO efforts to open up global markets will enrich wealthy nations at the expense of poor and developing countries.

Actually, of course, they have this exactly backwards.

Daniel Drezner is blogging from the middle of all this: “The result is that I’ve spent this evening looking at policemen sheathed in protest gear — gas masks, body-length Plexiglas shielding, truncheons, etc. — while drinking and dining at the hotel buffet along with a healthy number of WTO delegates. It’s more than a bit surreal.”

He adds, however: “The truly bizarre thing is that, having ventured out earlier in the evening, I’m quite certain that the number of curious onlookers outnumbers the actual protestors, the press contingent outnumbers the protestors, and the police most definitely outnumber the protestors. The Korean protestors are certainly causing inconveniences beyond their numbers, but this is a much smaller contingent of activists than were present at either Seattle in 1999 or Cancun in 2003. And any press report suggesting otherwise is full of it.”

Nice to know. And as Drezner notes, Hong Kong blogger Simon World has much, much more on the topic.

MORE: Stephen Spruiell was there, and reports of the protests: “It was one of the most appalling things I’ve ever witnessed.”

GREG DJEREJIAN chides me on the torture issue, and I have to say that he makes a strong case. As my uncharacteristically heated response to Andrew Sullivan the other day illustrated, Sullivan’s needling long ago got my back up, and has led me, consciously and unconsciously, to affirmatively avoid writing about this topic in response, as Djerejian suggests. That no doubt represents a flaw in my character, but then, I am not without flaws.

UPDATE: I somehow thought that Arthur Silber had stoppped blogging, but he emails this rather lengthy post.