THE KHOBAR TOWERS: A tenth anniversary retrospective.

MORE THOUGHTS on the Maliki reconciliation plan discussed below, from Mohammed at Iraq the Model.

GILLIARD-GATE: Jason Zengerle writes:

Steve Gilliard claims that he did not write the email I attributed to him in this post. After doing some further investigating, I’m afraid to say that he is correct. He did not write that email. I apologize to Gilliard for not checking with him before publishing my post, and I regret the error.

He provides some explanation on what happened, too.

TERRORISTS MURDER Russian diplomats.

ROBERT KENNEDY REDUX: “Despite the hype, the Times seems to have brought up the Rolling Stone article mainly to mock the lefty blogs. . . . We shall not let the NY Times paint with too broad a brush – although I am sure there were plenty of lefty blogs that rallied to Kennedy’s fantasy, plenty of other top lefties stayed away (Odd how the Times missed that in describing Kennedy’s critics – one might almost think they would like to discredit the lefty blogs as a class in order to preserve their own ascendancy in the liberal pantheon). ”

It’s almost as if there’s some sort of coordinated Big Media effort underway, or something.

“AXIS OF ABUSE:” Austin Bay is very unhappy about the New York Times’ close relationship with leakers of classified information.

So is Jim Dunnigan.

Hugh Hewitt is calling for Congressional condemnation.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: More revolving doors and close friendships:

When defense contractor Nicholas Karangelen launched a political action committee directed by the stepdaughter of the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, he added another dimension to a tight circle of Capitol Hill relationships that is under federal investigation.

The relationships revolve around Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, who leads the Appropriations Committee and has extraordinarily close ties to lobbyists Letitia White and Bill Lowery.

White worked for Lewis for 21 years before joining Lowery’s lobbying firm in 2003. Lowery, a former San Diego congressman who sat on the Appropriations Committee, is one of Lewis’ closest friends and his principal fundraiser.

Read the whole thing (via TPM Muckraker). Actually, the most damning part may be this statement: “A spokesman for the lobbying firm defended its work as typical of Washington advocacy in an era of explosive growth in earmarking.”

ANN ALTHOUSE: “I assume there is a conspiracy and a strategy to investigate Kos. And it’s so easy to do because it can succeed even if it fails to turn anything up, because it will provoke him, and when he reacts, they’ll all say he’s paranoid, belligerent. Escort that man back outside the gate.”

UPDATE: Rogers Cadenhead is digging deeper.

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.