THE “PIVOT” HAS NOW GONE A FULL THREE-SIXTY: “Democratic Rivals Caution Against Swift Iraq Pullout.” Not that I’m complaining.

UPDATE: More from Hillary:

Clinton acknowledged that new tactics have brought some success against insurgents, particularly in Iraq’s al-Anbar province.

”It’s working. We’re just years too late in changing our tactics,” she said. ”We can’t ever let that happen again. We can’t be fighting the last war. We have to keep preparing to fight the new war.”

I agree. Sounds like she and McCain are on the same page.

UPDATE: Reader Mark Thompson emails: “I think you mean one-eighty. Three-sixty would return it to its original heading.” No, that’s exactly what I meant: the “pivot” reference is to Democrats who voted for the war trying to seamlessly shift to opposing it; now that they’re switching back to support, they’ve gone full-circle — hence three-sixty, not one-eighty. It’s really two one-eighties that add up to a three-sixty . . . .

Meanwhile, reader John Hench emails: “With success in Iraq facing squarely at the Democrats, expect the next talking point to be along the lines ‘If it weren’t for the pressure that the Democrats put on Bush to change tactics in Iraq, we would never have seen the success that we are now seeing there.'” And they might be right.

ANOTHER UPDATE: These troops have already “redeployed.”

WHILE THERE’S ALARMISM ABOUT CIVIL LIBERTIES, I have to say that things have actually gone better than I feared nearly six years ago. So it’s interesting to read this from Geoffrey Stone:

The legislation amending FISA is unwarranted, reckless and possibly unconstitutional. Nonetheless, the overall state of civil liberties in the US, viewed in historical perspective, is surprisingly strong. There are no internment camps for American Muslims, no suspensions of habeas corpus for American citizens, no laws prohibiting criticism of the war in Iraq. This might not seem like much, but in light of past episodes, the intrusions on civil liberties since 9/11 have been relatively modest.

Stone has certainly warned about dangers to civil liberties — but warning about potential dangers is different from proclaiming that the Constitution has already been abandoned and that we’re living in a police state now. And I think the over-the-top rhetoric that we often see on this topic does more harm than good. In that, I think I do disagree with Stone, who thinks that alarmism has actually helped. Perhaps, but there’s a major “crying wolf” problem, too. (Via Jonathan Adler). Meanwhile, a point I made a while back: “I’ll add this comment, which is only somewhat on-topic: Not so much nuanced discussants like Posner and Stone, but press coverage and political rhetoric generally, tend to suggest that there’s a ‘trade-off’ between national security and freedom. But that’s misleading. You don’t buy national security by getting rid of freedom; you may, in fact, wind up less secure. (This is a point I was making back on September 13, 2001). Nor is it necessarily the case that improvements in national security burden freedom. They may, in fact, have no impact at all, or even result in more freedom in some ways. It just depends. Programs have to be judged on their merits.” Trade-offs sometimes exist, but the notion that they necessarily exist and that less freedom necessarily produces more security or vice versa, is a lazy journalistic cliche, not a fact.

BRUCE BAWER LOOKS AT THE PEACE RACKET: “We need to make two points about this movement at the outset. First, it’s opposed to every value that the West stands for—liberty, free markets, individualism—and it despises America, the supreme symbol and defender of those values. Second, we’re talking not about a bunch of naive Quakers but about a movement of savvy, ambitious professionals that is already comfortably ensconced at the United Nations, in the European Union, and in many nongovernmental organizations.” I think he doesn’t like them, and I hope that he’s exaggerating the problem.

VIDEOTAPING COPS BREAKING THE LAW: We should have more of this.

A LOOK AT POTENTIAL HILLARY RUNNING MATES: Obama doesn’t get much traction, but among the others there’s “no one who sets the pulses racing.” Richardson would be good, I think. I like Mark Warner (our podcast interview with him is here) and any list of Southern Democratic governors who can attract Republican votes should include Phil Bredesen.

MORE THOUGHTS ON TNR AND THE BEAUCHAMP SCANDAL, from Bob Owens.

A QUESTION FOR ROBIN WRIGHT, from Roger Simon.

IN THE MAIL: The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

TAXTROTURF: A “grassroots” gun-control group run by government officials. Shouldn’t they at least get the folks from Pew to launder things?

SOME KIND WORDS FOR DDT — in the New York Times, no less. “Today, indoor DDT spraying to control malaria in Africa is supported by the World Health Organization; the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and the United States Agency for International Development. . . . Even those mosquitoes already resistant to poisoning by DDT are repelled by it.”

The debate over DDT is over. There’s scientific consensus. Anyone who disagrees is a DDT denialist and a mouthpiece for Big Mosquito.

GOOD NEWS: “Grand Cayman has escaped what was feared might be a direct hit from Hurricane Dean as the category 4 storm passed some 100 miles to the south of the island on Monday morning.” Things don’t look so good for Mexico, though.

UPDATE: InstaPundit’s Cayman Islands correspondent John Thompson emails: “We’re getting some strong winds and gusts right now, but that’s about it. Little rain, if any. I think we will be all right.”

THOUGHTS ON GENERAL PETRAEUS AND IRAQ METRICS, from Austin Bay.

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED, if you were out having a life or something over the weekend: Advice on disaster preparedness. Your Congressional representatives at work. And the final round of knife-blogging. Plus, Stephen Green on the Democratic debate. Follow the links, or just scroll down.

THE KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL WEBSITE made the top ten among newspaper websites. I agree, now that they’ve dropped the lame and buggy registration scheme.

Another case of I told you so. But better late than never!

BROOKLYNBLOGGING: A pilgrimage to 3d Street. She should get together with Melissa Schwartz!

MORRIS DAVIS: In defense of Guantanamo Bay. In the Yale Law Journal “Pocket Part.”

RICHARD MINITER: How The New Republic Got Suckered.

DANIEL DREZNER LOOKS AT the netroots’ foreign policy calculus. Plus, Atrios on “that patchouli stinking Greenwald.”

MORE ON DEAN, from Brendan Loy.