MATT DRUDGE: The Walter Cronkite of our times? That could be so, which says a lot about Drudge, our times . . . and Walter Cronkite.

STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS are beginning to take a hand in immigration law enforcement.

RAMADAN RIOTING in Brussels. Just in time for the elections.

THE NIE HAS BEEN DECLASSIFIED: Go here for the “Key Judgments.”

Bill Frist comments here. And John Podhoretz has a question for the NYT editors now that we know what the NIE actually says.

It’s late but I’ll add one more thought: While we should fire the leakers on general principles, we should probably also fire whoever wrote this — for producing a meaningless document full of empty bureaucratic twaddle. If the jihadists win, they’ll have more prestige! And they will probably use the internets! Do tell. Jesus Christ, if this is the quality of intelligence we’re getting, no wonder we haven’t won yet.

UPDATE: Here’s a roundup of reactions.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Carl Bridges emails:

You’re on target in your scorn for the NIE assessment as released in nonclassified form. It sure contains a lot of “coulds,” “likelies,” and “mights.” As for what the US government is supposed to do, it reminds me of those sportcasters who, whenever someone misses a pass, says, “You’ve got to catch those.” Uh, yeah.

Yes, it doesn’t inspire confidence.

MORE: Reader Dale Harkey suspects a Rovian plot, given that the full document actually says that we’re doing pretty well:

The set-up is oh so beautiful. Rove (it has to be Rove, right?) has the worst-case-scenario portions of a generally favorable NIE leaked to a gullible and traitorous media salaciously eager to run with it. The left-wing nuts explode in glee and establish their bonafides with all manner of stupid utterances. And since it is easily observed to be a politically motivated leak, (here comes the left hook the appeasers have leaned into because they can’t see it coming) what more justification can there be than to de-classify the original so the whole picture is available (and oh by the way, get the good stuff out there before the elections.) They sure couldn’t just hand the media a copy of the NIE and say, “hey, check this out, it says we’re doing okay,” could they? A dirty trick inside a dirty trick that turns the passion of the Bush-haters onto itself.

Is Karl Rove really that smart?

MORE STILL: Maybe so, as John Wixted notes that — the post-leak critics having built up the NIE into a document of vast importance and implicit reliability — they have to cope with this angle:

On the plus side for President Bush, it says that if United States military forces withdrew anytime soon from Iraq, then al Qaida would use that perceived victory to recruit new members. That’s bad news for any congressional Democrats who advocate removing troops in the near term.

He notes that this is sinking in (the quote above is actually from Tim Noah) and observes: “In other words, that vague little 3-page snippet from the NIE completely undermines the only substantive suggestion that Democrats have brought to the table with regard to Iraq (namely, a timetable for withdrawal).”

And no, I don’t really think that Karl Rove is smart enough to have set this up. But, really, with the opposition he faces, he doesn’t have to be.

ARE WE MORE OR LESS SAFE? Robert Kagan writes:

For instance, what specifically does it mean to say that the Iraq war has worsened the “terrorism threat”? Presumably, the NIE’s authors would admit that this is speculation rather than a statement of fact, since the facts suggest otherwise. Before the Iraq war, the United States suffered a series of terrorist attacks: the bombing and destruction of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the Iraq war started, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks against the United States. That doesn’t mean the threat has diminished because of the Iraq war, but it does place the burden of proof on those who argue that it has increased.

Probably what the NIE’s authors mean is not that the Iraq war has increased the actual threat. According to the Times, the report is agnostic on whether another terrorist attack is more or less likely. Rather, its authors claim that the war has increased the number of potential terrorists. Unfortunately, neither The Post nor the Times provides any figures to support this. Does the NIE? Or are its authors simply assuming that because Muslims have been angered by the war, some percentage of them must be joining the ranks of terrorists?

As a poor substitute for actual figures, The Post notes that, according to the NIE, members of terrorist cells post messages on their Web sites depicting the Iraq war as “a Western attempt to conquer Islam.” No doubt they do. But to move from that observation to the conclusion that the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat requires answering a few additional questions.

The NIE will apparently be released soon, so maybe we’ll get some answers. Or maybe not.

BASHIR GOTH: “If it takes a village to raise a child in Africa, it takes a community to kill a writer, artist and a journalist in the Muslim world.”

MY EARLIER COMPLAINTS ABOUT AIRLINE SERVICE reminded me of this article by James Fallows on how new technology might lead to a “mesh network” approach to air travel, with lots of small planes, as opposed to today’s big-plane hub-and-spoke approach.

It sounds good to me — and there are obvious homeland-security benefits to an approach that uses planes too small to serve as manned missiles. And I notice from USA Today that Honda is getting into the game with an inexpensive small jet carrying 6 or 7 passengers. NetJets for the masses? I like the idea, if it can be made to work.

BUSH’S TAX CUTS: Bad for the rich?

The 2003 tax cut was the third in three years, but the tax code still remains highly progressive. The average tax rate ranges from 2.97 percent of income for the bottom half of the earning spectrum to 23.49 percent for the top 1 percent.

The top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $60,041) earned 66.1 percent of nation’s income, but they paid more than four out of every five dollars collected by the federal income tax (84.9 percent). The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $328,049) earned approximately 19 percent of the nation’s income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 36.9 percent of all federal income taxes.

What’s more, TaxProf notes that people in the top half of the income distribution are paying the highest share in decades.

A SAVE THE ACLU CAMPAIGN from supporters who feel the organization has become excessively politicized.

UPDATE: Ron Coleman emails:

Glenn, maybe I’m missing something here. I thought perhaps the idea was to move the ACLU toward the center while retaining its civil liberties focus. This seems to be an attempt to move it further to the left! The only polilcy (as opposed to personnel) specifics I see complained about on the website are dissatisfaction with the ACLU’s “acquiescence” to the Patriot Act and the CFC “blacklist.”

Well no, it’s not an effort to move it to the center. I guess I should have used a different word (“factionalized?”), though the real problem is a species of office politics, the tendency of organizations to be run for the convenience of the insiders.

ATTENDED THE BILL SIGNING for S. 2590, the “Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act,” and then a followup meeting with Clay Johnson, Deputy Director of OMB, about implementation.

I’ll have a full report later, but what struck me at the signing was the fully bipartisan nature of the bill’s support, with lots of people from the left and right in favor. (It was also interesting that most of us in the anti-pork coalition had never met in the flesh before). That bipartisan character showed in the Senators and Representatives who showed up, too, with Rep. Henry Waxman showing up late, and President Bush joking that the affair had now become “fully bipartisan.”

I was a little worried about follow-through here, but I’m now pretty confident that OMB will implement the bill properly, especially as there seems to be strong and continuing support from Sens. Coburn and Obama.

UPDATE: Here’s a picture of Bush signing the Bill, flanked by its bipartisan array of sponsors.

Here’s an article from the Washington Times, and here’s a post by Danny Glover, in which Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo) sounds a bit churlish. That may be unfair, as this timeline from Blunt certainly gives bloggers credit.

This was a beginning: A small step along the road to less waste and more accountability, not a giant leap. But it’s a good start, and we’ll have to keep paying attention to these things so that more steps, big and small, will follow.

I thought about shooting video, but I’m glad I didn’t bother, as it’s already up along with a transcript and background information, at the White House site. And here’s an AP story about the bill.

On implementation, the OMB folks are soliciting input from bloggers on what sort of information ought to be available, and in what forms. One thing stressed by several bloggers at the meeting was the importance of making the entire database public and available in raw form, so that people can analyze it in whatever fashion they think most helpful. It sounds like they’re going to do that, and that’s a very good thing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More pics and coverage from Tim Chapman.

MORE: Bill Frist credits the blogosphere, left and right, for the bill’s passage.

MORE STILL: TPM Muckraker, which played a vital role in the passage of the bill, didn’t get invited. That’s just wrong. The White House should have invited them, and one of the Democratic sponsors of the bill should have made sure it happened. The Sunlight Foundation people were invited, though.

A LOOK AT the leaky CIA.

HOMELAND SECURITY: Have the terrorists scored a victory? If having us act unwisely is a victory, then yes:

But the increase in air transportation security has had an impact. Fewer people are flying. The airlines don’t like to discuss this, but customer satisfaction, and travel, surveys show that people, especially business flyers (the most lucrative kind of passengers) are flying less. The reason is the increased, and seemingly irrational, screening methods. These antics also have a negative effect on the security personnel. There are now 2,100 air marshals (versus 33 on September 11, 2001), and half of them are unavailable (all or part of the time) because of health issues caused by too much time in the air. The air marshals work a heavy schedule, averaging twenty flights a week. Not that it’s doing much good. Until this Summer, air marshals had to fly wearing suits, despite the fact that most passengers go casual. Thus the air marshals stick out, giving any potential bad guys an easy way to identify, and take down, the law.

While the air marshals can now blend in, most flight personnel realize that it is more likely that a mob of enraged passengers is the best defense against any hijackers. Air marshals only fly a small (classified) number of flight, there are many passengers on each flight who are willing to risk all to take down hijackers. The airlines don’t like to encourage that sort of thing, but there is it. And the terrorists know it as well, which is why they stay away from air transportation.

Security was no problem for me yesterday, though. It was just the usual degree of delay and irritation. But this stuff is cumulative.

CHESTER LOOKS AT THE THAI COUP and the Muslim insurgency in the south.

BLOGS AND POLITICS:

In reality, it is hard to measure the precise impact of bloggers on such events. But the idea of an insurgent grass-roots movement, energised by folk tapping away at their computers, appeals to the romantic, anti-elitist strain in US politics. Many politicians in America and elsewhere clearly feel the need to pay their respects to the blogosphere – if only as a precaution.

It is not self-evident, however, that the blogosphere’s influence on politics is all for the good. A political consultant once complained that his bosses’ reliance on focus groups handed power to people who were prepared to sit around for hours talking about politics with strangers, in return for a free sandwich. Similarly if politics is increasingly shaped by the blogosphere, it will mean more power and influence for a sub-section of the population willing to waste hours trawling through dross on the internet.

That’s not a bug, it’s a feature!

WHILE I’M IN WASHINGTON, Jonah Goldberg is headed to Knoxville. Hope his flight’s better than mine was.

MICKEY KAUS: “WaPo’s Chris Cillizza and Jim VandeHei visited Ohio’s GOP-leaning 1st District and were surprised, they say, to discover that immigration is the hot issue, even though there isn’t a ‘huge’ illegal problem in the area. Why?”

JUST GOT TO THE HOTEL. More blogging tomorrow.

AZNAR ON APOLOGIES: “It is interesting to note that while a lot of people in the world are asking the pope to apologise for his speech, I have never heard a Muslim say sorry for having conquered Spain and occupying it for eight centuries.”

“APPARENTLY, THERE’S ANOTHER PROBLEM:” I left home for the airport at 2. If I had left for Washington then, I’d be halfway there by now. So far, Toyota is looking better, and U.S. Airways is looking worse.

UPDATE: I’ve watched over two hours of CNN nonstop, too, which only serves to remind me why I don’t do usually do that.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Still on the ground, with another revised boarding time passing. If this flight doesn’t go off, they say they’ll put me on another that will get me to DC by 10:38 — later than I would have gotten there if I’d started driving at 2, when I left to come to the airport.

I’m beginning to think that air travel is overrated.

A LOOK AT COMBAT REPORTING, from StrategyPage.

JONAH GOLDBERG: “I can hear the whispers: polygamy is the answer to the shortage of good men.”

I SHOULD HAVE DRIVEN: Now my flight’s delayed past 5:30.

IS IT THE AUTUMN OF THE PARTISANS? “The base may still nominate but in an era when it doesn’t elect does the hyperpartisan still get to serve?”

THE BROTHEL OF THE FUTURE: It’s reportedly a success.

A FIRST DAY OF COLLEGE REPORT, from “Semi-Diversity U.”