WELCOME HOME, Marines.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Roger Simon reports on corruption in the Palace of Justice.

CHARLES STROSS attains posthuman status. There were warning signs that this was coming . . . .

AUSTIN BAY WRITES that the Volcker Report is the beginning, not the end of U.N. reform:

The scandal has deeply damaged the United Nations as an institution. For many critics, this doesn’t matter. They already argue the United Nations is a facade masking coalitions of the corrupt — a forum where cynical international elites romp in a champagne sewer greased by the planet’s Saddams, mafia thugs and rogue corporations. They point to the United Nations’ dismal record in Bosnia, the Congo and Sudan’s Darfur.

Why should such an organization continue to suck dollars and dither?

Such an organization shouldn’t — that’s why it needs massive reform.

Or, perhaps, it can just be allowed to twist in the wind.

HUGH HEWITT ON THE POPE:

With Reagan and Solzhenitsyn, John Paul II represents the three forces of opposition to communism that shattered the evil empire, the Soviet Union –the American-led West, the Eastern European resistance, and the Russian dissident movement. They also represented the three spheres of opposition: political, artistic and spiritual. Each man came into the field of his greatness later in life, and each has endured hard circumstances in their later years. I hope Solzhenitisyn is able to and inclined to write about his colleagues in the struggle that triumphed.

Video here.

LANCE FRIZZELL has a must-read report from Iraq.

NATIONAL JOURNAL: “‘Blog Swarm’ Stings the FEC.” Nice roundup of the issue, and it’s a free link.

CONTEXT AND HISTORY: John Cole has a Sandy Berger roundup.

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM IRAQ:

Another major Shia religious festival, which lasted from 29-31 March, ended without incident. The government made a major effort to provide security for the large gatherings of Shia Arabs attending religious ceremonies. Sunni Arab terrorists, especially al Qaeda, consider these ceremonies a major insult to Sunni religious beliefs. The government deployed a security effort on the same level as the one rolled out for the January elections. Coalition troops deployed mostly as back up and quick reaction forces. Al Qaeda tried to use suicide car bombers, but none of them got through to large assemblies of Shia Arabs. In one incident, a car bomb went off and killed five people, which was the most any of the attacks were able to do.

Another reason the attacks were not successful was that, in the days before March 29th, police arrested hundreds of Sunni Arabs and foreigners suspected of being terrorists. Many were, and this is because an increasing number of Sunni Arab religious leaders have changed their minds about armed resistance to democracy, and coalition forces. This has made it easier for Sunni Arabs to pass on information to the police. The Sunni religious leaders have done the math and concluded that they were backing the losing side.

This sounds like a major success, and one that deserves a lot of attention.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up!

THE NEW WEBB WILDER CD has arrived. I’ll post a review later.

RYAN SAGER writes that libertarians have been cuckolded by conservatives.

UPDATE: John Weidner responds.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Interesting discussion in Weidner’s comment thread, one that would make interesting fodder for any journalist/pundit writing on this topic. Lots of small-l libertarians and fiscal-conservative types feeling left out, and lots of social-conservative types delighting in heaping scorn on them, which strikes me as a poor way to maintain a coalition.

PUBLIUS has a Zimbabwe roundup.

SANDY BERGER UPDATE: Really, a rather sordid story of deliberate misconduct that deserves close attention:

The terms of Berger’s agreement required him to acknowledge to the Justice Department the circumstances of the episode. Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business.

The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an “after-action review” prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration’s actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration’s awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil. . . .

Berger’s archives visit occurred as he was reviewing materials as a designated representative of the Clinton administration to the national commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The question of what Clinton knew and did about the emerging al Qaeda threat before leaving office in January 2001 was acutely sensitive, as suggested by Berger’s determination to spend hours poring over the Clarke report before his testimony.

So Berger stole, and destroyed, classified documents as part of a politically motivated coverup. Let’s just be clear about that. Criminal penalties, aside, the man’s career in public life should be over, and he certainly should never have access to classified documents again. Unfortunately, the penalty he’ll actually receive looks rather light — certainly lighter than most folks who stole and destroyed classified documents would undergo. That makes it all the more important that the details of his misbehavior get plenty of attention, and that they’re remembered long-term. (Via Expertise).

UPDATE: A reader emails:

Why did Martha Stewart go to jail for lying to investigators?

Berger now admits he did exactly the same thing. But he’ll get off with a fine and an admission of “his mistakes”.

Can one honestly say Martha’s lies were more damaging than Bergers? I don’t think so.

There are differences, I guess, but the big one is that Berger’s one of the insiders. Still, Jim Geraghty is right to ask: ” Just what do you have to do to get your clearance pulled permanently?”

He also wonders: “Do any Democrats want to confront the unpleasant truths of how the Clinton White House handled terrorism? Because there were some facts out there that were so damning, Sandy Berger was willing to break the law to make sure the public never saw them.”

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Patrick Hynes emails:

Berger did not destroy (or even attempt to AFAIK) all of the copies of the Clarke report, so what he was trying to expunge can’t be anything Clarke said in the report. Must it not be true that Berger was after the marginal notations made on the report by officials who read the particular copies of the Clarke report Berger shredded? Do we know which officials reviewed the copies Berger destroyed? Can Archives tell us?

Someone should ask them.

SANDY BERGER’S GUILTY PLEA leaves some people unsatisfied.

TODD ZYWICKI offers thoughts on why campus intellectual diversity matters.

TOUR THE INDIAN BLOGOSPHERE: This week’s Blog Mela is up!

READER STEVE OR TANYA — it’s one of those joint email accounts, so I don’t know which one sent it — writes:

I was looking forward to your perspective on the death of Terry Schiavo. Are you feeling uncomfortable with your previous ideas regarding her situation?

Although I’ve always tried to be pleasant to the Christian Right folks even where we disagree, I really think it’s best if I don’t weigh in right now. I turned down a slot on Hugh Hewitt tonight because I was afraid I’d use words that would get him an FCC fine. But I’ll refer interested readers to this post-mortem at Blogs4God, and these thoughts on federalism from Right-Thinking. And Bill Ardolino is right about the Hillary 2008! implications of a lot of this stuff. And, if you’ve got a strong stomach, you can read this.

UPDATE: But here’s the good side, from reader David Prentice:

I saw you on Kudlow’s show with Hugh H. and John H. last week and had intended to write earlier. I have just learned about your hate mail (and your wife’s) from some the right and wanted to give you some encouragement and thank you for what you do.

After I watched the show I had wanted to say how much I appreciated the dialogue you all had on that show because it showed by example how you could debate very opposite sides of an issue without rancor and bring light to it. I am what Andrew Sullivan would derisively call a right wing religious zealot. Full disclosure: I disagreed with your position on this matter, but I do so appreciate your spirit in putting forth your ideas, I always have appreciated your writings even when I disagree.

I love your blog, have been reading it for about a year now along with Powerline and Hugh Hewitt (You are my bookmarked 3!). I appreciate all of your view points and most of all your civility and the ability to find good information.

I am very disturbed to hear about the mail you have received from others who believe as I do. It is shameful and despicable and belies what they (myself included) claim to believe. I apologize for their horrible judgment, and want to encourage you to keep your weblog going strong in spite of all the nastiness.

Thank you again, you are appreciated by some of us “religious zealots” out there.

Well, I always hope that people can disagree without being disagreeable. The people who can’t usually wind up losing. Some people certainly get this: Hugh does, and John Hinderaker — who’s been the target of moonbat assaults from the Left himself — certainly understands the difference. Not everyone does. Those people are the fringey minority, for the most part, though I have to say that I was taken aback, and disappointed, by the Jonathan Last assault I mention below.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I’ve gotten a whole lot more emails along the lines of David Prentice’s, for which I’m quite grateful. You know that the nasty folks are unrepresentative, but they’re so damned energetic about it that it’s hard to keep that in mind at times.

IT’S PAYBACK TIME for Megan McArdle.

MOLECULAR MANUFACTURING, step-by-step: The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology notes that it’s closer to reality than we might think.

A SANDY BERGER GUILTY PLEA:

WASHINGTON — Former national security adviser Sandy Berger (search) will plead guilty to taking classified material from the National Archives, a misdemeanor, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Berger is expected to appear in federal court in Washington on Friday, said Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra.

(Via Joe’s Dartblog).

IN THE MAIL: No god but God, by Reza Aslan. Looks interesting, though it will no doubt be controversial.

I’M ON THE RADIO WITH JEFF & BILL NOW.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CLEARS SELF OF ANTISEMITISM: But this doesn’t sound kosher:

In an effort to manage favorable coverage of its investigation into the complaints, the university disclosed a summary of the committee’s report only to the Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper, and the New York Times. Those newspapers, sources indicated to The New York Sun last night, made an agreement with the central administration that they would not speak to the students who made the complaints against the professors.

The Sun obtained a copy of the report without the permission of the university administration. Last night, when a reporter from the Sun came to Low Library, the central administration building, for a copy of the report, a security guard threatened to arrest the reporter if she did not leave the building.

According to one student, senior Ariel Beery, one of the campus’s most outspoken critics of the professors, a Columbia spokeswoman told him that students were not being shown the report yesterday “for your own good.”

That’s not very impressive.

UPDATE: The Columbia Spectator story — at least the one that’s on the web now — does quote some of the students.

I’LL BE INTERVIEWED ON THE RADIO by Jeff Goldstein and Bill Ardolino in just about an hour — it’s supposed to start at 3:10 Eastern. Details here. It should be a subdued and decorous affair, with those two in charge.

UPDATE: Gerard van der Leun has liveblogged it, “Without Any Regard for Accuracy.” Looks fairly accurate to me, actually, with due allowance for snarkiness — but the Godwin’s Law violation didn’t originate with me; I was responding to one.