IN WHICH I DEFEND THE NEW YORK TIMES AND OTHER MEDIA: Quite a few commentators (e.g., Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn) are criticizing the New York Times and other media outlets for playing down the Islamic angle to the U.N.C. terrorist attack of Mohammed Taheri-azar.

There’s no question that this angle is being downplayed. But it’s arguable that the papers are doing this to reduce the likelihood of copycats. This doesn’t appear to have been any sort of organized attack, just a lone-wolf effort by a guy who’s not too sharp. It’s still terrorism, of course, of a sort — after all, Eric Rudolph was a lone-wolf guy who wasn’t too sharp, though he seems to have been considerably sharper than Taheri-azar — but in some ways it’s more like the school shootings of the 1990s than real Al Qaeda type terrorism. Hyping those shootings led to copycats, and made the killers look like martyrs to disturbed potential imitators. There’s a pretty good argument that the same applies here, and that it’s more responsible to address this in fairly muted tones.

GREGORY SCOBLETE: “To be honest, I’d trust Dubai with my ports before I trust Congress with my wallet.”

MARK STEYN WAS ON HUGH HEWITT’S SHOW (guest-hosted by Jed Babbin) and talked about the Dubai ports deal, the Tarheel Terrorism issue, and more. Transcript and audio are here.

As always, it’s a must-read (or must-listen), especially if you work at the White House, the Pentagon, or the State Department.

HUGO CHAVEZ’S GOVERNMENT threatens bloggers. More on that here, and an overview at Publius here.

THE ECONOMIST SEEMS TO LIKE An Army of Davids.

I’M HOME AND PRETTY TIRED, but just got an email from CNN saying that the Dubai Ports deal is off. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript they included:

SEN. JOHN WARNER (R), VIRGINIA: … that what I had to say might bear on your remarks. Mr. President, I have had the opportunity to work very closely with the White House and the administration, with our distinguished leader, Bill Frist, and others in the Senate, several of the senators, on this question. And I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with representatives of the DP World company, who came to the United States for the purposes of really acknowledging to the world the importance of this contract and their perspective.

I shall not recount the events that have occurred here in the last few days, but i’ve just been contacted by Edward Bilkey, chief operating officer of DP World, and in an effort to get this message to all interested parties as quickly as possible, I indicated a willingness to read a press release that is now being issued by DP World and Edward Bilkey.

It reads as follows, “Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States, and to preserve that relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the U.S. operation of P&O Ports North America to a United States entity. This decision is based on an understanding that DP World will have time to effect the transfer in an orderly fashion, and that DP World will not suffer economic loss. We look forward to working with the Department of Treasury to implement this decision.” End statement.

His highness Shaikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, prime minister of UAE, has advised the company that in the interest of the UAE, the nation, and the United States, that this action is the appropriate course to take in the future.

Stay tuned. If Halliburton gets the deal, will people think the whole thing was a sucker-punch?

A JOINT LETTER FROM KOS AND KREMPASKY in support of online freedom of speech. More on this later, but I’m about to board a plane.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES is up!

IS ISLAM COMPATIBLE WITH DEMOCRACY? A report on what sounds like an interesting program at the University of Wisconsin law school

FIGHTING OVER INTERNET WINE SALES in Arizona. I agree that this is mostly (okay, almost entirely) a case of wholesalers trying to prevent disintermediation.

J.D. JOHANNES EMAILS:

A group similar to Progress for America got tired of Moveon.org running ads about Iraq, and the legacy media.

So, they decided to get the message out the old fashioned way: Buying it.

Some of the ads are non partisan, me and some soldiers talking about Iraq.

A few are openly partisan. I didn’t do any of the partisan ads.

You can see it here.

http://www.amermaj.com/

I’ll be giving a speech at the National Press Club tomorrow (Thursday) about the ad series and make the following predictions:

A. We will be generally ignored

B. Some member of the Legacy Media will say, “JD Johannes is a partisan by doing ads for Bush.”

C. They will fail to realize that in the ads I appear in, there is no partisan angle. I either say unflattering things about the media or just talk about what I saw in Iraq. Part of the deal was I would do the ads, but would not do a partisan ad.

D. The legacy media is so screwed up they equate an attack on them with an attack on the Democrats/liberals.

E. At some point they will try to discredit me, Rich Gibson, Lawrence Indyk, and the few people behind Americas Majority. We all know how unreliable bloggers are….

At any rate, it should be kinda fun.

Let’s see if these predictions pan out. Perhaps J.D. will be pleasantly surprised.

DON SURBER is advocating abortion rights for men.

A POST KIDNEY-DONATION BLOG POST from Virginia Postrel, with pictures of her and Sally Satel. Both seem to be doing well.

DAVE KOPEL: “If I were in Congress, I would have voted against the Patriot Act and its re-authorization. Although the Act does provide important anti-terrorist tools, I believe it is extremely overbroad, in part because so many of the special anti-terrorism powers are not limited anti-terrorism, but can be used to enforce any federal law.” I agree with that. As I predicted way back when, it’s more about bureaucratic wishlists than antiterrorism.

REVIEWS OF REVIEWS OF REVIEWS? Michael Malone emails:

I’m enjoying the hell out of watching you cover the reviews of your own book (including mine). I’m curious: is this a first? Has any author ever before reviewed his reviewers in real time? Care to share with us your feelings about this as you go along? As the author or co-author of a dozen books (and 60K words into my new one) I’ve experienced every possible human emotion reading reviews of my books – from sheer shouting elation to hiding under a blanket with a bottle. How do [you] stay so restrained?

I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve really been reviewing the reviewers — my response to Malone’s review was more a self-criticism — but that’s interesting. I rather doubt that anyone wants to hear the whole experience in first-person anyway. Now I’m not terribly happy with the trolls posting Amazon reviews that call the book “right wing trash” and the like, as they’ve pretty clearly not read the book — or even the positive blurbs from those notorious righties Joe Trippi and Arianna Huffington — but that sort of thing is par for the course nowadays, alas.

UPDATE: Hey, there’s more from Arianna here (“You know Reynolds has hit on something when John Podhoretz and I agree that ‘Army of Davids’ is a must-read.”) though the commenter on her blog who thinks I have aspirations to be a political candidate is sadly misinformed. That’s kind of like the occasional emailers I get who think I’m angling for a federal judgeship. Anyone who reads InstaPundit regularly should know that I’m neither interested in — nor in the slightest degree viable as — either one. Which is just as well for me, and, no doubt, for the country. And I’d probably have to give up the blog, which makes it a nonstarter anyway.

Now there’s a slogan: “Keep Glenn blogging. Right for Glenn — Right for America!”

Well, it’s a better slogan than this one!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Okay, Michael, here’s one from Joel Johnson at Gizmodo:

I’m glad I didn’t skip the parts about blogging and citizen media, though, in large part because Reynolds discusses a lot of blogs in the political sphere that I just don’t have much familiarity with. And as much as we tech bloggers like to toot our horns about breaking hot gadget news, there’s no question that the work of people like J.D. Johannes—who is telling the story of a single platoon of Marines on a shoestring budget using cheap, modern tech—is immeasurably more important than any given iPod rumor. . . .

Anyway, this is a weak endorsement—I haven’t even finished the damn thing—but as someone who makes his living operating blogs that sit literally on the intersection of corporate and citizens’ media, An Army of Davids has already given me a lot to think about.

If I can tell Joel Johnson anything new, I’m pretty happy.

STILL MORE: Hmm. I never thought of it this way: “An Army of Davids is a romantic book.”

Though one guy told me he read it out loud to his wife in the hot tub.

JIM BENNETT: India is “The elephant in the Anglosphere’s living room.”

HARVEY MANSFIELD ON MANLINESS: A podcast interview.

HARRY SHEARER: “The Democrats borrowed their new slogan from John Kerry, and they’re spending the early part of this election year arguing about its syntax. Case closed.”

Not that the Republians are doing very well, either. Ana Marie Cox said that Washington is like the Special Olympics of sex. It’s starting to look like the Special Olympics of politics, too.

BAD MOVE: The House Appropriations Committee just voted to block the Dubai ports deal by a whopping 62-2 margin. I’ve come to believe that the deal isn’t a threat, though I grant that reasonable people disagree with me. But I can’t help but think that this vote isn’t driven by reasonable concerns as much as political panic.

That also makes me wonder — as discussed in this podcast interview with Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Stewart Baker — whether (1) This isn’t really backlash stemming from the Cartoon Wars “tipping point” effect; and (2) Whether that wasn’t the intent all along, to divide us from Arab/Muslim allies.

Perhaps it won’t matter, and the UAE will just suck it up, attribute it to politics, and move on. Perhaps they’ll still cut a reasonable deal. But just possibly, we’re being had. The White House, whose handling of this whole matter has been deeply bumbling and inept, deserves its (sizable) share of the blame, but I wish that everyone else would take a deep breath and think harder. At least, if it’s really port security they’re worried about, there’s a lot more reason for concern than the Dubai deal.

I don’t know, but I’m very unhappy with how this is going, and this lopsided vote has made me unhappier.

REVIEWS OF CRASHING THE GATE by Kos and Jerome Armstrong: Josh Trevino didn’t like it that much (“But there’s one thing they cannot take pride in: a single electoral victory. Crashing the Gate is exculpatory as much as prescriptive.”), but it gets a positive review at Slashdot. (“For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised.”)

THE CARNIVAL OF HOMESCHOOLING is up!

CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY thinks that Tom Delay is vulnerable in the general election despite his easy primary victory.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE notes that some people seem to have trouble getting quotes right.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE:

According to a new report (PDF) by the [Congressional Research Service], 95% of all pork projects are not legally binding. The report concluded that only 543 out of 12,852 earmarks were actually written into the text of the last year’s appropriations bills. As for the remainder, the report states, “Earmarks that appear in committee reports and the statements of managers do not legally bind agencies…”

This means that if Bush is serious about cutting pork, he doesn’t have to wait for a line-item veto.

UPDATE: Duane Oyen emails:

Back when I was a lowly contracts guy for DoD, the only thing that got more attention than “the General is on the floor!” was “I’m responding to a Congressional Inquiry!” The lowliest Constituent Service clerk in a congressional office only needed to send a note over to any agency and (s)he was Queen/King for A Day. It was like “The Jet Song” from West Side Story- “When you’re a staffer, you’re the swingingest thing, little boy, you’re a man, little man, you’re a KING!” Any reference in any comnmittee, conference, or floor report was treated as gospel law, unless a top agency exec was following the issue and decided that the battle was worth fighting.

This almost never happened- why? Because what goes around…… and there was/is always a way to nail someone next time if your pet language was ignored. So, compulsory or not, if there was language there advising a directed grant/procurement, you needed to write a non-compete determination & findings (D&F) to justify the exception to competition open competition, and you attached a copy of the language to the D&F when you sent it up to the Head of Contracting Activity for signature.

Never ever got questioned on one of those. The entire GC/JAG was there helping write the sole source justification.

So, the real answer still is enhanced recission authority, kill the original impoundment act, get rid of current services baseline, and so on. In fact, it is hard to imagine any reform that would be more
important than dumping the CSB.

I agree that agencies will almost never ignore those directions on their own initiative. But if the President pushes it, as part of an announced anti-Pork program, then I think things are different. Plus, even the threat of that sort of thing would likely encourage Congressional action.

NEW JERSEY’S DUMB INTERNET ANTI-ANONYMITY BILL will reportedly be withdrawn. Credit is given to “a Reynoldsian Army of Davids.” Since it’s book launch week, I’m happy to see people using the phrase, but I think it has more to do with this threat: “Assemblyman Biondi: My name is Jeff Jarvis. I live in your state. In fact, I live in your own district. What a coincidence, eh?”

Nice little political career you’ve got there, Assemblyman. Shame if anything were to happen to it . . . .

A smarter legislator would have noticed the sling-wielders close to home sooner, anyway. Especially the ones with hot tempers and big stones!