WALL STREET JOURNAL: The IRS Loses Lerner’s Emails: And other news that the Beltway press corps won’t cover.

TIM CARNEY: Eric Cantor loss gives Republicans chance to become people’s party.

FOUAD AJAMI: The Men Who Sealed Iraq’s Disaster With a Handshake: Obama’s rush for the exit and Maliki’s autocratic rule ensured that much hard-won progress would not last. Both men are lousy leaders; their people chose poorly in electing them, and are paying the price.

NIKKI FINKE: Why I’m Going It Alone.

BECKET ADAMS: A brief and painful reminder that Washington is filled with flippant and incompetent halfwits.

As the situation in Iraq grow increasingly volatile, and the Obama administration’s response increasingly vague, critics have voiced frustration at what they perceive to be a lack of leadership in the White House.

Yes, Iraq is imploding, threatened by a well-armed and highly motivated terrorist organization, and the White House’s critics are upset.

And this is on top of the president’s terribly unpopular decision to trade five Taliban leaders for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl (who may or may not have deserted his post in 2009 to join the Taliban), the growing scandal involving the Department of Veterans Affairs and, of course, the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

Each of these events involves several dead Americans, some in the line of duty, some waiting for medical attention and some waiting for reinforcements that would never come. Very little has been done to find and punish those responsible for these events.

So along comes Tommy Vietor, he of the “dude, that was two years ago” fame, to inform the unwashed masses on Friday that their anger is very much misplaced and that they’re croaking on about nothing.

It’s hard to imagine that this White House could be unserious about things.

RON FOURNIER, NATIONAL JOURNAL: Did The IRS Really Lose Lois Lerner’s Emails? Let a Special Prosecutor Find Them: Obama needs to address this ‘phony scandal’ and the public trust with real transparency.

The problem is that (1) No, it wasn’t an accident; and (2) Eric Holder’s job is scandal-goalie, so he won’t appoint a Special Prosecutor unless the pressure becomes overwhelming — and, if he does, he will appoint a loyal apparatchik who will run out the clock.

METAPHOR ALERT: Ready For Hillary? Her Tour Bus Isn’t.

SHOCKING DISCOVERY: Tea Party Movement Full Of Educated People.

JUSTICE: Rape charge against Newark man dismissed after woman admits to lying. Note, however, that the story gives the name of the man falsely accused, but not of the woman making the false charge.

OPERATION CHOKE POINT UPDATE: “Greater transparency from all financial regulators could result from a congressional probe involving the payday lending industry’s fight with the FDIC, credit union industry attorneys said.”

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Dads Are The New Moms.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is America on the brink of economic and social collapse?

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: James O’Keefe Endures Death Threats and Filthy Hipsters.

PETER WEHNER ON OBAMA: My God, He’s Even Worse Than We Thought.

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LOIS LERNER’S “LOST” EMAILS: “Government email servers are backed up every night. So if she actually had a hard drive fail, her emails would be recoverable from the backup. If the backup was somehow also compromised, then we are talking about a conspiracy.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT YESTERDAY, A NEW VIDEO FROM REMY: God Bless the USA (VA Scandal Edition).

WHEN JOURNALISTS THINK THE PHRASE “MONOPOLY OF VIOLENCE” IS SOME WEIRD IDEA, RATHER THAN A REFERENCE TO MAX WEBER, blaming the education system is an incomplete response. The truth is, most journalists don’t know much.

And, on a related note, let me quote Sandy Levinson on the notion:

Such analyses provide the basis for Edward Abbey’s revision of a common bumper sticker, “If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns.”[67] One of the things this slogan has helped me to understand is the political tilt contained within the Weberian definition of the state–i.e., the repository of a monopoly of the legitimate means of violence[68] –that is so commonly used by political scientists. It is a profoundly statist definition, the product of a specifically German tradition of the (strong) state rather than of a strikingly different American political tradition that is fundamentally mistrustful of state power and vigilant about maintaining ultimate power, including the power of arms, in the populace.

Any reasonably literate journalist — that is, one who stayed awake during an introductory political science class or two — should recognize both the Weberian approach and the American tradition.

WHY EARTH’S ROCKS CONTAIN AN OCEAN OF WATER.

PSYCHOLOGY: Extroverts Could Cause Problems On A Mission To Mars.