ARE THE WHEELS COMING OFF the anti-war bus in Congress?

DEFENDING the indefensible.

UPDATE: Tom Smith on Eric Hobsbawm: “It just goes to show, if you are very smart, reasonably dishonest, and don’t care about the sufferings of actual humans, your opportunities to promote evil are really quite good, and you may come to be greatly admired.”

RESOLVING THE GOLDSMITH CONTRADICTION: “In sum, Goldsmith believes that the War on Terror has been hobbled by excessive legal constraints, but also argues that the Bush Administration’s response to the problem was both legally dubious and politically counterproductive. In my view, he is largely correct on both counts.”

That’s accurate. And I think Goldsmith is largely correct on both counts too. Plus, I agree with the commenter who says that The Goldsmith Contradiction would make a great Robert Ludlum title.

INDEED:

The surge was not going to work. But the surge has worked.

Everybody from the Brookings Institution to the Washington Post has gotten around to admitting that. Even such an inveterate war opponent as Rep. Brian Baird, who voted against virtually every bill supporting the war, has reversed his stance to accept the simple, undeniable fact that the surge is working.

But that doesn’t matter anymore.

Of course not. Plus, this:

Seibel goes on to explain that the story was pegged on the Pentagon’s assertion earlier this summer that U.S. casualties would likely increase with the surge of troops.

“Pentagon officials and the White House had predicted that U.S. casualties would rise, especially since the U.S. forces had launched major offensives in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, and Babil province, to the south,” the response said. “One of the most recent restatements of that premise came in the White House’s July 12 assessment of progress in Iraq on Pages 3 and 4.

“So what happened?” Seibel wrote. “Not what had been predicted. U.S. deaths caused by enemy action peaked at 120 in May, before the surge reached full strength or Operation Phantom Thunder was launched. Combat casualties then fell consistently for the next three months, reaching a low of 56 in August. That’s the lowest number of combat casualties all year. You have to go back to July 2006 to find combat casualties at that level.”

The result? Angry emails from lefties. It’s like they want the news to be bad. (Via Newsbeat1).

Or, as you might put it: “In another war, all this progress would be cause for bipartisan rejoicing.” Or in another country.

SEXIER THAN KEITH OLBERMANN AND TUCKER CARLSON COMBINED: The latest Corn & Miniter Show is up!

JOEL GARREAU INTERVIEWS Wiliam Gibson. Gibson: “The geezer of the future will have more plugs and jacks — will be more into that, probably, than younger people — because he’ll need it.”

AIRING FRED THOMPSON’S family laundry.

HATE TALK FROM THE HEARTLAND: I await the outrage of the New York Times editorial board.

WELL, THAT HURTS: Osama slams Democrats for not ending war.

UPDATE: Kos does some slamming of his own.

Meanwhile, Jeff Goldstein has some thoughts, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A Bin Laden roundup.

Plus, this observation about Osama: “Further proof that he is just another multi-millionaire who hates America.”

A BAD DAY FOR FRED THOMPSON? I don’t like this proposal for a federal marriage amendment — if state judges need to be kept in line, it should be done by state legislatures. And Andy Roth says that Fred just misrepresented his position on McCain-Feingold on Laura Ingraham’s show.

UPDATE: More on Thompson’s gay marriage proposal, including video, from Ryan Sager.

ECO-HYPOCRISY UPDATE: Al Gore goes Gulfstream again.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: So much for promises that the new Democratic Congress was going to be different:

Move over Bridge to Nowhere. Congress is back in town, and clearly back to business even uglier than usual.

It takes hard work to come up with an earmark more egregious than that infamous Alaskan bridge, but California’s Dianne Feinstein is an industrious gal. Her latest pork–let’s call it Rambo’s View–deserves to be the poster child for everything wrong with today’s greedy earmark process.

The senator’s $4 billion handout (yes, you read that right) to wealthy West L.A. (yes, you read that right, too) is the ultimate example of how powerful members use earmarks to put their own parochial interests above national ones–in this case the needs of veterans. It’s a case study in how Congress uses the appropriations process to substitute its petty wants for the considered judgments of agency professionals. And it’s just the latest proof that, no matter how much outrage the American public might display over these deals–and no matter how often Congress promises to clean up its act–the elected have no intention of reforming the process. . . .

Given the recent uproar over Walter Reed, and Congress’s many calls that we do more for the men and women returning home wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan, you’d think no elected representative could possibly have the chutzpah to impede the VA’s considered attempts to inject efficiency into its facilities and provide better care for its constituents. Think ever so much again. It turns out the well-to-do in West L.A. consider the veteran’s center grounds their own little rolling, personal park, and they want it to stay that way–thank you very much.

Meet the new boss, yada yada.

THOUGHTS ON VIOLENCE AND MASCULINITY: “If the authors’ theory is correct–that traditional masculine socialization leads to violence–then why was it that in years past, when we had more traditional masculine socialization, fewer guys were shooting up schools?”

HU’S ON FIRST?

STEVE CHAPMAN on Putin and Stalin.

IN THE MAIL: Laura Ingraham’s new book, Power to the People

THE LONDON TIMES REPORTS: “Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to ‘shed blood’ for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.”

SOME COOL FAMILY PHOTOS, from Mr. Bingley.

“LIVING WAGE” HYPOCRISY in Maryland.

AUGIE’S QUEST: A video on Lou Gehrig’s disease. Every view raises a dollar for charity, and it comes recommended by John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting. (Our podcast interview with Ondrasik can be heard here).

AN INTERVIEW WITH BILL ARDOLINO in Fallujah.

MICHAEL LEWIS: “So right after the Bear Stearns funds blew up, I had a thought: This is what happens when you lend money to poor people.”

MORE ON THE SURGE: “An independent commission created by Congress said Thursday that U.S. forces in Iraq could give a larger role to the Iraqi Army by early next year, if the Iraqi forces continued to improve. . . . Congressional Democrats expressed immediate skepticism, saying in a hearing that they feared the Bush administration would selectively use this, parts of other recent reports and much-awaited assessments due from senior U.S. officials in Baghdad next week – including a major congressional briefing Sept. 11 – as part of a campaign to press for still more patience.”

So they set up an independent panel to dilute the impact of the Petraeus Report. Then when it reports something that doesn’t fit the talking points, they express “immediate skepticism.”

As Don Surber comments: “That loud gulp you heard is from the 49 Democratic senators, independent Bernie Sanders and Republican Chuck Hagel. Remember, the No. 3 House Democrat, James Clyburn of South Carolina, said in July that good news from Iraq is ‘a real big problem for us.’ . . . Sabotaging their own report does not help Democrats.”

EX-LAW PROFESSOR? Andrew Keen knows as little about me as he does about the things he writes about. Which hasn’t stopped him from spamming me for attention. All he had to do was look at the bio in this review of his book — but maybe he didn’t read that far.

A PETITION TO SUPPORT THE SURGE: They re-sent their iFrame gizmo and promise that it will work this time. Here goes: