THOUGHTS ON FRIENDSHIP AND ISOLATION, over at the Insta-Wife’s blog.

ANDY ROTH looks back to 1896, and a speech that got less attention than William Jennings Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” effort.

MALIKI INTRODUCES HIS NATIONAL RECONCILIATION PLAN FOR IRAQ:

The 24-point plan offers an amnesty to some insurgents, but not those from groups who have targeted Iraqi civilians, such as al-Qaeda.

It outlines plans to disarm militias and beef up Iraqi security forces ahead of a takeover from coalition forces. . . .

But the BBC’s Jim Muir in Baghdad says there are concerns that the plan will not work as it does not seek reconciliation with those at the heart of the insurgency – the radical Islamists, many of them foreigners, who want Iraq to be the centre of a new Islamic empire.

Muir doesn’t seem to provide suggestions on how you achieve reconciliation with those guys. But the Sunnis seem to be on board with this deal, and if the native Sunni part of the insurgency drops out, the foreign terrorists will be left pretty isolated, I expect.

UPDATE: Arthur Chrenkoff emails:

Not only that, but notice the moving goal-posts – hasn’t the media been telling us in the past that “at the heart of the insurgency” there are the native Sunni nationalists who want the foreign occupiers out of the country, and that “the radical Islamists, many of them foreign terrorists” are merely a marginal phenomenon? Is that because there’s a chance that the new strategy of reconciliation will actually work to diminish the insurgency, so the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government have to be set up for failure according to a new and more demanding (if not an impossible) standard? On the positive side, it’s good to see that the BBC finally acknowledges that at least some of our enemies want to create “a new Islamic empire”.

Indeed.

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION VIOLATES antitrust consent decree.

AN ARMY OF PHOTOSHOPPERS: Hey, catchy phrase.

DAVID BROOKS enters the blog wars.

SGT. T.F. BOGGS writes a letter to the New York Times.

JEWS INFILTRATING AL QAEDA?

PATTERICO is cancelling his subscription to the L.A. Times.

A REPORT FROM BONNAROO by Jack Neely, Jack Rentfro, and Tracy Jackson.

ROBERT MAYER OF PUBLIUSPUNDIT is reporting from Mexico on the runup to the elections.

A MARTIN PERETZ VS. DAILY KOS SMACKDOWN:

Forgive me. But I never read Daily Kos until today. Well, now that I’ve read it, the first thought that came to me is how illiterate Kos is, just plain illiterate. . . .

And his rant against us, well, borders on a nut case’s. When a high-minded or, rather, high-strung moralist is accused by The New York Times of journalistic hanky-panky and then by TNR of running an ideological censorship bureau, reminiscent of the old Catholic Legion of Decency, he will go off the rails. And he did. “This is what The New Republic had evolved into–just another cog of the Vast RIGHT Wing Conspiracy.” An old professor of mine once warned me against writers who use capital letters for emphasis. Good advice she gave me. Capital letters suggest some imbalance in the mind of their employer. In whose interests has TNR sought “to destroy the new people-powered movement”? Kos answers his own question: “for the sake of its Lieberman-worshipping neo-con owners; that it stands with the National Review and wingnutosphere in their opposition to grassroots Democrats.” Don’t look at Kos’s grammar. He’s ranting.

Despite this, however, Peretz doesn’t really understand the game, and tries to refute charges of being right-wing by pointing out his positions on issues like gay marriage or abortion. Trust me, that doesn’t work.

Blue Crab Boulevard is still unsatisfied, though: “The other day I said this was like watching professional wrestling only with no ring girls. Now it’s more like heavyweight boxing, although there are still no ring girls.” (Via the TTLB aggregator page).

Plus comedy gold! [LATER: But see this item by Jason Zengerle, or just follow the link for Tom Maguire’s update.] This was, when it started — as I said at the time — a pretty minor story. It’s the Kos Krowd’s over-the-top response that has turned it into a bigger one.

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Don Surber and Lindsay Beyerstein. And Kevin Drum writes: “Is it really a shocker that Kos acts like an activist and TNR acts like a magazine? Should I consider myself insane because I read and enjoy both?”

And there’s this: “Kos and Kompany may be sustaining some long term damage here to their credibility with the mainstream media . . .. The longer they keep up the full attack mode, the more shrill and out of control they will be seen by more people. I don’t think that will be a winning strategy.”

I agree, though I hope that this behavior won’t relect badly on the blogosphere as a whole.

Meanwhile, here’s a sober take on the Jerome Armstrong stuff, at DailyKos. And some people are enjoying this altogether too much.

Other people see poetry.

And still others see more Clinton connections.

Or P.T. Barnum, whatever.

And here’s a roundup from the National Journal’s “Beltway Blogroll. It all started with an article in Salon, proving that the right-wing conspiracy is even bigger than I thought!

Also, Wizbang is leveling charges of airbrushing archives, and Jeff Goldstein is piling on. Plus, rumors of what you get with a Townhouse Premium membership!

Bill Quick says there’s no news here.

Sing along with the Saturday night karaoke at Tom Maguire’s!

BUSH’S EXECUTIVE ORDER ON TAKINGS gets a negative review from Ilya Somin: “On the surface, the order seems to forbid federal agencies from undertaking economic development condemnations. But its wording undercuts this goal. . . . Bogus reform efforts such as this one create a danger that the public will be falsely persuaded that the problem has been solved; indeed, I suspect that in some cases that is part of their purpose (though I have no evidence of the Bush Administration’s motives for issuing this order). Sometimes, a bogus reform is worse than no reform at all.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY:

Sen. John Kerry has spent a career taking the side of America’s enemies. His call last week for a pullout from Iraq was the latest evidence he is unfit to serve in the Senate — never mind the White House.

Kerry’s proposal to withdraw us completely from Iraq by July of next year was resoundingly defeated in the Senate by a vote of 86 to 13. And just days before, he said the deadline should be the end of this year.

But Kerry’s idea is the exact opposite of what he was calling for in late 2003 while running for president. Back then he was accusing President Bush of planning to prematurely withdraw from Iraq.

“I fear that in the run-up to the 2004 election the administration is considering what is tantamount to a cut-and-run strategy,” Kerry told the Council on Foreign Relations. He said it would be “a disaster and a disgraceful betrayal of principle” to allow “a politically expedient withdrawal of American troops.”

That’s one of but many Kerry flip-flops, but he’s been consistent over the years in siding against the U.S. in war.

Kerry will have his Iraq position all figured out by, say, 2016. This is one of many reasons why Democrats should be embarrassed that he was their nominee — and why Republicans should be embarrassed that he came so close to winning.

JONAH GOLDBERG offers advice to the lefty blogosphere: “If the Democrats take back the Congress and the White House in 2008, the impact and relevance of the leftwing blogosphere will plummet, I guarantee you. The ones with staying power will be those that actually have something interesting to say beyond mere ‘winning.'”

A LOOK AT THE MOLECULAR BASIS OF AGING suggests that diet and exercise will take you only so far. More on this at FightAging.org.

A LOOK AT COMPROMISING NATIONAL SECURITY as a marketing strategy.

YESTERDAY’S DECK CHAIR POST produced some emails suggesting a cheaper version available at Lowe’s. I don’t know if it’s the same chair — it looks more like this chair, I think — but reader C.G. Browning says he bought one and liked it enough that he went back and bought more. And at less than half the price, it might be worth a try.

BATTLING REVIEWERS: Now this is kind of cool. Frank Wilson, who reviewed An Army of Davids for the Philadelphia Inquirer when it first came out, has now posted a response to the TNR review by Christine Rosen that I mentioned earlier this week.

It occurs to me that TNR has managed to attack both me and Kos from the right this week, which is no small achievement. Hey, maybe Kos is telling the truth about them going all conservative . . . .

A NICE ARTICLE ON THE MICKEY KAUS /ROBERT WRIGHT Bloggingheads.tv vehicle, from Jon Fine in Business Week. “It turns out that the nontheatrical is theatrical, and a serious political conversation between two poorly dressed bloggers is, yes, weirdly compelling.” (Via the Huffington Post).

A KELO-RELATED Executive Order: “It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.”

I’M ON HUGH HEWITT’S SHOW with Ed Morrissey, talking about the New York Times’ latest publication of classified information. You can listen live here.

Nobody from The Times was willing to talk, but you can see what others are saying here.

UPDATE: A reader who has lots of experience working for SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Transfers, the entity involved in the financial surveillance program in question) emails:

What has not been stressed is that SWIFT is not used for individuals. It is used for processing money transfers, stock transfers and bond transfers from companies, governments, banks, insurance companies and NGO’s. What we essentially had on file was the holdings for almost all our clients and the clearance data for these transactions dating back for years. We had to keep all this on file to satisfy all the governmental regulations on taxations, etc.

What the NY Times has essentially done is open up to the terrorists the trails of all their transactions and how the banking procedures of money laundering was done for them by the system. They have essentially stopped dead the ability to track this money and keep it from being put in the hands of our worst enemies. Whether the terrorists might have guessed that their money was being transferred is a moot point. The NY Times had told them that their worst fears have been realized and that they need to find another way to move money around the world. They know it for sure now. Thank you, Bill Keller, and when the nice young man or woman from down the street is killed by one of these terrorists I can thank you for that as well.

When big companies dump toxic waste into rivers to enrich themselves, they’re criticized by the press. But this is the same kind of thing — self-serving profiteering at the public’s expense.

Meanwhile, a humorous take: “If anti-terror officials are allowed to access banking records now, then how long before the IRS has access to them as well?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: King Banaian has a much more thorough description of what’s going on with SWIFT.

THE TRUTH IS OUT: I’m a Leninist ally of Hillary Clinton.

And I tried so hard to conceal it!

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More on Mollohan:

Representative Alan Mollohan helped funnel at least $179 million in U.S. government contracts over the last six years to companies that gave to the West Virginia Democrat’s family-run charity, tax records and other documents show.

The money went to 21 companies and nonprofit groups that contributed $225,427 to the Robert H. Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation in 2004 — almost half of the charity’s revenue, according to the documents. The congressman, an Appropriations Committee member whose finances are under federal investigation, is the secretary of the foundation, which is named for his father.

The charity, which distributes scholarships to West Virginia students, raises most of its money from corporate sponsors of an annual golf tournament attended by Mollohan, 63. The event gives company executives an opportunity to meet with him in a casual setting without having to report the donations as lobbying expenses.

“They are buying time, they are buying access, they are buying goodwill for their particular corporate needs,” said Rick Cohen, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a Washington-based group that advocates strict ethical standards for charities.

(Via PorkBusters.org).

THE MIAMI TERROR ARRESTS are apparently all about changing the focus from John Kerry.

You need a reason to change the focus from John Kerry?