HERSCHEL SMITH on the war over the wars.

A LOOK AT CZARS IN AMERICAN POLITICS: “We have other czars currently in the White House. There is the Drug Czar and most recently President Bush appointed the War Czar. Usually, czars are appointed to solve, or help monitor, nagging policy problems that just seem to fester. In reality, presidents don’t really want a czar, they want a wizard. Wizards can make problems go away with a puff of smoke. Czars never seem to.”

THE DISAPPEARING TV Critic.

FOR THE COOK WHO HAS EVERYTHING: An LCD cutting board?

SEAN WILENTZ: If the system made sense, Hillary would be far ahead. But could the system both make sense and satisfy the various interest groups involved?

BARACK OBAMA, the pro-gun candidate! Hypocrisy is the tribute, yada yada.

CBS IS FOLLOWING THE MURTHA MONEY: “According to the report, Murtha has used $2 BILLION taxpayer dollars since 1992 to fund his wasteful pork projects. All the while, he received generous campaign contributions from his earmark recipients. ” Video at the link, or below.

UPDATE: Yeah, it’s a good report, but it doesn’t mention that Murtha’s a Democrat. They do always seem to mention when it’s a Republican, don’t they?

THE NAVY/MARINE CORPS RELIEF SOCIETY: “Who wasn’t there? The intellectual/political/journalistic class.”

VIDEO: Wind-tunnel testing of the Chevy Volt.

IN THE MAIL: Gilbert King’s The Execution of Willie Francis.

ARNOLD KLING on inequality and excess in America.

A JUDICIAL REVIEW: “Polizzi reads less like a judicial decision than a 266-page book of opinion essays.” Actually, as a matter of policy I think I agree with Judge Weinstein, but I don’t think the law is on his side.

Some vaguely related thoughts on the role of juries here.

THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED THIS WEEKEND, if you were off having a life:

The mainstreaming of survivalism — with bonus zombies!

The deadly sport of blogging. We gladly run these risks for you, our readers. But maybe we should learn from this guy!

Free markets and their hard-to-find defenders: Hey, the political classes have nothing to gain from freedom.

Knifeblogging! For some reason, a perennial favorite.

Warmongering! Or not.

Cool photo stuff. More here.

And, finally, a State Department passport scandal that deserves more attention.

MORE ON THE COLOMBIAN FREE TRADE DEAL: This should be a walkover; that it’s not says bad things about the state of our politics.

ALAN GREENSPAN endorses John McCain.

COLLEGE: Not worth a million dollars?

FACING CULTURAL IMPERIALISM in Australia.

OH NOOOO! “We have nothing to fear but victory itself.”

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE:

I think a lot of conservatives’ otherwise puzzling support for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign can be explained for the most part by those conservatives’ opposition to the Iraq war. See, e.g., Andrew Sullivan and Doug Kmiec. So I’ll offer them a long bet: If Obama wins and pulls all US combat troops out of Iraq by the end of June 2010, they win. If Obama wins and there’s 50,000 or more US combat troops in Iraq at the end of December 2010, I win. Anything in the middle and bet’s off. Deal?

Well, I don’t think Andrew’s supporting Obama based on gay marriage. Though if so he’s likely to be disappointed there, too. Maybe I should offer a bet on whether a President Obama would push recognition for gay marriage by 2010. . . .

MORE EMBARRASSMENT FOR CHINA: “The Olympic touch was doused Monday in Paris as demonstrators protested China’s civil rights record and involvement [in] Tibet, police said.”

OH, THOSE 43RD DISTRICT DEMOCRATS:

At the mere mention of doing the pledge there were groans and boos. Then, when the district chair put the idea of doing the Pledge of Allegiance up to a vote, it was overwhelmingly voted down. One might more accurately say the idea of pledging allegiance to the flag (of which there was only one in the room, by the way, on some delegate’s hat) was shouted down.

On the other hand there was this touching display of party loyalty, from Hillary’s representative: “Should Obama get the nomination I will become a massive Barack Hussein Obama supporter.” You’ll recognize his name.

JOHN KASS: “The wounds inflicted on Barack Obama by the hateful speech of his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are serious and profound. Why else would ministers gather at Obama’s church in Chicago—Trinity United Church of Christ—to hold a news conference demanding a ‘sacred’ national dialogue on race?”

“Sacred?” Or “scared?”

UNPRECEDENTED EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY — Bad when it’s used to fight terrorists, but good when it’s used to fight “global warming!”

That’s the idea behind a new study from a team of researchers at the University of Colorado law school, who worked full time for nearly six months on a project that could help the next U.S. president make sweeping climate-change policies — fast. The new report probes the edges of executive orders and lays out the authority the next president could use to introduce global-warming policies without waiting for legislation to wind its way through the notoriously slow congressional machine.

“Given the extreme importance of climate change, this is a way for the next president to be able to take rapid action,” said Kevin Doran, a researcher at CU’s Center for Energy and Environmental Security. . . .

The report is part of a larger project, the Presidential Climate Action Project, which has created “a bold, comprehensive and non-partisan plan for presidential leadership rooted in climate science,” according to its Web site, www.climateactionproject .com.

Guess the days of worrying about the imperial presidency have come to an end.

ISOLATING SADR: Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish Parties Close Ranks Against Al-Sadr’s Movement in Iraq.

Iraq’s major Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties have closed ranks to force anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to disband his Mahdi Army militia or leave politics, lawmakers and officials involved in the effort said Sunday.

Such a bold move risks a violent backlash by al-Sadr’s Shiite militia. But if it succeeds it could cause a major realignment of Iraq’s political landscape.

I think that they’re less worried about such a backlash, post-Basra.