Al Qaeda Reaches Out to Democrats

They know how feckless and craven Democrats are. They roll over easy.

Al Qaeda has sent a message to leaders of the Democratic party that credit for the defeat of congressional Republicans belongs to the terrorists.

In a portion of the tape from al Qaeda No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri, made available only today, Zawahri says he has two messages for American Democrats.

"The first is that you aren't the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost. Rather, the Mujahideen -- the Muslim Ummah's vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq -- are the ones who won, and the American forces and their Crusader allies are the ones who lost," Zawahri said, according to a full transcript obtained by ABC News.

Zawahri calls on the Democrats to negotiate with him and Osama bin Laden, not others in the Islamic world who Zawahri says cannot help.

You just know John Kerry thinks he can have dialogue with these animals.

Iran Owes $254 Million for Khobar Towers

The Iranian government financed a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia and must pay $254 million to the victims' families, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth allows families of the victims of the Khobar Towers bombing to seek their compensation from assets that have been seized from the conservative Islamic regime in Tehran.

On June 25, 1996, a truck bomb exploded in a military housing area known as the Khobar Towers dormitory near Dhahran. U.S. authorities have long alleged that the bombing was carried out by a Saudi wing of the militant group Hezbollah, which receives support from Iran and Syria.

Though Lamberth has previously ruled that a survivor of the blast could seek payment from Iran, Friday's ruling was the first time Tehran has been blamed for the deaths of the Americans in the bombing.

"The defendants also provided money, training and travel documents to Saudi Hezbollah members in order to facilitate the attacks," Lamberth wrote. "Moreover, the sheer gravity and nature of the attack demonstrate the defendants' unlawful intent to inflict severe emotional distress upon the American servicemen as well as their close relatives."

More background here and here.

This was an incredibly shamful moment during the Clinton Administration. And they did nothing about it. More at Hot Air and NRO.

Rape Charges Dropped in Duke Case

This case has been a sham from the outset, and while now rape charges are being dropped, the spiteful and vindictive DA Nifong continues to drag this out. He is a despicable human being.

Prosecutors dropped rape charges Friday against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a stripper at a team party, but the three still face kidnapping and sexual offense charges, a defense attorney said.

Joseph Cheshire and attorneys for the other players have said for months the woman told several different versions of the alleged assault.

Cheshire said Friday that the accuser now says she does not know if she was penetrated, which he said led District Attorney Mike Nifong to dismiss the rape charges.

Nifong did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The accuser, a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University, has said three men raped her in a bathroom at a March 13 team party where she was hired to perform as a stripper.

The players -- Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann -- all say they are innocent. Their attorneys have consistently said no sex occurred at the party and have cited a lack of DNA evidence in the case as proof of their clients' innocence.

"It's highly coincidental," Cheshire said, that the charges are being dropped a week after the director of a private DNA testing lab acknowledged that he initially, with Nifong's knowledge, withheld from the defense test results showing none of the players' DNA was found on or in the accuser's body.

Others blogging: Michelle Malkin, Stop the ACLU, La Shawn Barber, Hot Air, and Betsy Newmark, who opines:

She doesn't know now if she was penetrated. How can she not be certain as to whether or not she was raped? Especially after she was pretty graphic with her original report to the investigators about being raped both vaginally and anally. Now, she's not so certain. Sure.

But I don't see what Nifong gains by maintaining the charges of kidnapping and sexual assault. She will stay have to take the stand and testify as to what happened and all her former statements will still be fair game. As will the information revealed last week of the multiple men's DNA found inside her, none of which matched the three defendants or her purported boyfriend. Her veracity and her ability to identify the men she's now not certain raped her will still be open to cross-examination. Neither the prosecution nor the defense will be able to depend on the other stripper's story since she has changed her story and been public about her desire to make money off the story. So, it will all come down to this alleged victim's credibility. If these defense lawyers can't raise a reasonable doubt from that, they should turn in their licenses.

Iowahawk Spoofs WSJ Pinhead

When I posted this piece the other day from the Wall Street Journal's Joseph Rago, I almost thought it was a parody at first.

Well, who better than Iowahawk to weigh in on the matter?

Blogs are very important these days. Oh, so very, very important. There isn't a day that goes by when I don't get some apocalyptic scaremail from Dow Jones management about blogs this, and blogs that, and how we need to be more bloggy, and how "bloggers don't expense $40 lunches" when management knows damn well that was a legitimate business meal for my last column. Why, even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one, and were it available in 1938, Hitler himself would have had his own page on MeinKampfSpace. The invention of the Web log, we are told, is as transformative as Gutenberg's press; nay, the phonetic alphabet, maybe even the Cro-Magnons' discovery of fire. "Look Kronk! Og blog! Og blog Gooooood!"

The ascendancy of Internet technology did bring with it innovations. Information is more conveniently disseminated, often with eye-catching dancing hamsters, and there's more of it, especially when you turn your Google "adult content" filter off. What's more, anybody can chip in. Yep, just any-old-body, from good old senile Aunt Gertie to the local early-parole molester. So I guess there's more "choice"--and in a sense, more "democracy," and "fact checking," if you have a hard-on for that sort of "thing." Folks on the "WWW," conservatives especially, boast and crow about how the alternative media corrodes the "MSM," for mainstream media, often with a sneering "LOL," for laughing out loud, as they type frantically into their anonymous "PCs," for personal computers. To this, we must ask: "WTF?", for what the fudge?

Read the rest.

Miss Nevada Gets the Ax

As we noted Wednesday, Miss Nevada Katie Rees apparently was quite the wild child, and photos of her kissing other girls (and doing some other, um, stuff) were circulating.

Well, she got the ax.

Red-faced beauty pageant bosses yesterday stripped Miss Nevada Katie Rees of her tiara after naughty photos surfaced on the Internet showing the toothsome 22-year-old stripping off something else altogether.

"I saw some horrendous pictures," said pageant honcho Donald Trump. "I'm not shy when it comes to pictures, and these pictures were far beyond the scope of what she should be doing - there was no question.

"What she did was very serious, wrong," said Trump, who concurred with Miss Universe Organization officials in their decision to bounce Rees.

The photos of Rees, which she claims were taken when she was 17, show her flashing her breasts, French-kissing other women and simulating oral sex on girls and boys.

Can Giuliani Win Over Conservatives?

As jockeying for the 2008 presidential race heats up, the GOP candidates for the most part are flying under the media radar, especially with the nauseating fawning over The Pantsuit and Obama.

I've been of the belief for some time that Rudy Giuliani's fairly liberal social positions won't necessarily harm him in the primaries, considering the current state of affairs in the world. I could care less about his positions on abortion or gun control when the survival of our nation is at stake. In the Washigton Times today, Ralph Z. Hallow says Giuliani's star power may be enough to win over conservatives.

Social conservatives -- contrary to conventional wisdom -- will seriously consider supporting the Republican presidential aspirations of Rudolph W. Giuliani even though he's a pro-choice, anti-gun New Yorker, political analysts and operatives say.

Republicans in the early primary states in the South and the West may disagree with Mr. Giuliani's stance on abortion and gun control, but they admire his response to the September 11 attacks and, more importantly, they think he can win in November.

Scott Malyerck, executive director of the Republican Party in South Carolina, an early primary test, said voters recognize Mr. Giuliani as a strong, decisive leader and a decision maker.

"John McCain and Mitt Romney have been working hard in South Carolina over the past year," Mr. Malyerck said. "Even though Rudy Giuliani has not formally gotten his campaign up and going, he has been treated like a rock star across the state at rallies and fundraisers alike."

Mr. Giuliani leads every other Republican -- including Mr. McCain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- in national and many state presidential preference polls of Republican voters.

Others, meanwhile, aren't so sure.

Giuliani skeptics admit he's their party's top attraction for 2008, but some remain adamant in their opposition.
"If Rudy Giuliani -- who is wrong on all of the social issues as well as the Second Amendment and is a blank slate on most other important issues such as judges, taxes and size of government -- is the Republican presidential nominee, I would expect a mass exit of most conservatives from the Republican Party in 2008," warns Richard A. Viguerie, a prominent conservative-movement fundraiser and author.

"Which means if the Republican Party continues to move away from being the party of small government and traditional values, they will cease to be a viable alternative to the Democratic Party, and a new conservative party will certainly arise to be their replacement."

Read the rest. I believe when push comes to shove and were Giuliani the nominee, those on the right will look beyond niche issues and realize we cannot have another disastrous Clinton presidency.

Thursday Night Football

Tonight it's another NFL Network game few will see. Possibly Brett Favre's last game at Lambeau Field. We'll see about that.

PACKERS -3 over Vikings: Vikings were thrashed by the Jets Sunday, and are playing a rookie QB. Should be an emotional scene and with a win, the Packers are actually still alive in the NFC Wildcard chase. Packers 30-17.

Back later in the week with the rest of Week 16's games.

Where's Jamil Hussein?

As noted here last week, Michelle Malkin had taken Eason Jordan up on the opportunity to help locate the mysterious Jamil Hussein. Well, no luck so far, and the AP stonewalling continues.

They can obfuscate all they want and question the motives of those who doubt his existence, but they need to realize unless they produce him, their credibility as a news organization--on shaky ground already--is completely shot.

Unhinged Democrat Hurls Rocks At GOP Headquarters

I'm so happy the new age of civility promised by the Democrats is bearing fruit.

Authorities arrested a man on Tuesday who, they said, was caught on camera throwing rocks at the Republican Headquarters building in Columbus.

Officials said windows at the headquarters on South 5th Street have been broken nearly a dozen times, NBC 4's Erin Tate reported.

They also said staff members have nearly been pelted with thrown objects.

Republicans said they thought the vandalism would die down after the recent elections, but that wasn’t the case.
...

“We just got tired of it,” McClelland said. “So we, with the help of Columbus police, did a few stakeouts of our own and happened to catch this guy the other night.”

Police arrested 58-year-old Kenneth Dwayne Thomas in connection with the incident.

He is currently being held at the Franklin County jail and police said he will face criminal damaging charges, Tate reported.

According to investigators, Thomas also made threats toward President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Officials said he will be investigated by the Secret Service because of those comments, Tate reported.

“I know there are people out there who don’t like Republicans,” McClelland said. “But to say that we’re a cancer and should be exterminated, according to what he said to police, that’s a little over the top.”

A little over the top, perhaps, but certainly not out of the mainstream of modern Democrat thought.

Iran's Oil Projects Suffering

While Mahmoud talks trash, there are some sobering realities hitting home in Iran.

Iran’s oil minister on Wednesday admitted that Tehran was having trouble financing oil projects, in a rare acknowledgment of the economic cost of its nuclear dispute.

“Currently, overseas banks and financiers have decreased their co-operation,” Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh told the oil ministry news agency, Shana.

The statement underlined the impact of de facto financial sanctions on the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ second biggest oil producer. As the controversy over Iran’s nuclear programme has escalated, the US has applied pressure on European banks and financial institutions to curb dealings with Tehran.

The fact that the UN Security Council could soon impose the first – even if mild – sanctions against Iran has compounded the political uncertainty and risks of doing business with Tehran. Iranian officials insist there is international interest in investing in Iran’s oil industry and European executives play down any impact on companies seeking deals in Iran.

The National Iranian Oil Company has signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s CNOOC to develop the North Pars gas field. The memorandum, if it turns into a final deal, would bring $16bn worth of Chinese investments for the initial part of any deal, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Wednesday.

But western officials hope the financial squeeze’s effect on the oil industry, the backbone of Iran’s economy, will help raise domestic pressure for a change of policy and persuade the regime to heed international calls for a suspension of its uranium enrichment programme.
...
“There’s a growing awareness that de facto sanctions are beginning to hurt and everyone understands the future of the economy depends on the development of oil and gas,” said a western diplomat. “Banks are not lending, partly because of US pressure, but the banks are also drawing their own conclusions.”

Meanwhile, in Iran’s Tectonic Elections, Hossein Askari notes how poorly Ahmadinejad fared.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his thorough trouncing, was the headliner of Iran’s midterm elections last week. But while much attention, and glee, has been focused on the president and his defeat, there appears to be a more preponderant, slower moving back-story to the vote: a potential tectonic shift in a real center of power—the Assembly of Experts and, by association, the selection of the next Supreme Leader and in turn the Guardian Council.

In the elections for city council, which vote on cities’ mayors, Ahmadinejad fared poorly across Iran and, most significantly in Tehran, a bellwether indicator for the country. In Tehran, Ahmadinejad’s opponents took a clear majority of the seats and, by electing the next mayor of Tehran, will select an important player in Iranian national politics. The election clearly signals a weakening of support for Ahmadinejad after less than two years in office, but as tempting as it may be for the West to attribute that to a backlash against Ahmadinejad’s “inquest” into the Holocaust, lambasting of the United States and Israel, etc., the souring of public sentiment is more connected to local, pragmatic concerns.

Ahmadinejad ran on a populist platform of economic reform: better services for the poor, job creation, and the reining in of corruption. He has delivered little except for talk. The poor are still poor; the rich are getting richer and corruption is still rampant. Iranians clearly want better economic performance and with more widespread benefits for the poor, the base for Ahmadinejad’s political support. Ahmadinejad now apparently risks losing re-election to one of his principal opponents, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf—whose supporters did very well in the elections.

Read the rest. I have a feeling the little guy's days in power may be few.

MADD Cuts Ties With Miss Teen USA

We've now reached critical mass in this national crisis. The underage party girls are out of control. Time for an intervention

Miss Teen USA Katie Blair, above right, with Tara Conner, center, and Miss Universe Zuleyka Rivera, has apparently has come to enjoy adult beverages.

The reigning Miss Teen USA's official biography says she loves hiking, water sports and apples — "only cold, red ones!"

But allegations of less innocent extracurricular activities — underage drinking and carousing with Miss USA Tara Conner — led the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving to sever ties with 18-year-old Katie Blair.

The day before, Conner had tearfully admitted drinking as a minor at New York nightclubs. She turned 21 on Monday.

"In the past, MADD has teamed with Miss Teen USA to raise awareness about the serious and often deadly consequences of underage drinking," said Heidi Castle, a spokeswoman for MADD, in a statement. "However, we do not feel, at this time, that Ms. Blair can be an effective spokesperson on underage drinking and will not ask her to represent MADD in future initiatives."

A message left for a representative of Blair, an 18-year-old from Billings, Mont., wasn't returned Wednesday.

Fresh Miss USA Scandal

Geez, we just get past Tara Connor, now this? How much more must we suffer?

Shocking photos of a Miss USA contestant have come hot on the fashionable heels of a scandal that rocked reigning Miss USA Tara Conner.

The raunchy pics show Katie Rees, Miss Nevada 2007, exposing her breasts, passionately kissing other young women, and simulating oral sex with females and a male.

Of course, I urge viewer discretion.

More here.

Ahmadinejad: Iran Now Nuclear Power

But wait. What about dialogue?

During a speech delivered in the Western Iranian province of Javanroud, Ahmadinejad said: " The Islamic Republic of Iran is now a nuclear power, thanks to the hard work of the Iranian people and authorities."

The announcement of Iran as a "nuclear power" is bound to significantly escalate tensions between the West and Iran, and marks a dramatic stage in the Islamic Republic's nuclear campaign.

In recent days, the US military has begun to build up forces around the Gulf, in what is being seen as as a warning to Iran.

Ahmadinejad was also reported to have announced that "Iranian young scientists reached the zenith of science and technology and gained access to the nuclear fuel cycle without the help of big powers."

The Iranian president began the speech by saying that "the powerful Iranian nation resists bullying powers and will defend its rights, including the right to pursue peaceful nuclear technology," the IRNA said.

Remember, this is the guy liberals prefer to their own president. Hey, we can talk to him!

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has predicted that Britian, Israel and the United States would eventually disappear from the world like the Egyptian pharaonic kings.

"The oppressive powers will disappear while the Iranian people will stay. Any power that is close to God will survive while the powers who are far from God will disappear like the pharaohs," he said Wednesday, according to Iranian news agencies.

Whoa. Sounds like crazy religious talk. And we know how much the left hates organized religion. Liberalism is their religion.

"Today, it is the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime which are doomed to disappear as they have moved far away from the teachings of God," he said in a speech in the western town of Javanroud.

"It is a divine promise."

Ahmadinejad's comments were the latest salvo by the deeply religious president against the West and Israel. He has repeatedly predicted that Israel is doomed to disappear.

Meanwhile, as Iran planned our destruction, Lerch and the Sandwich King were busy licking Assad's boots over in Syria.

Profiling Petulance: The Flying Imams Hustle

Walter E. Williams cuts through the nonsense like few people do. He's always a refreshing listen when he fills these shoes. Here he takes the rational approach to the necessities of profiling.

Charges of racial, religious and ethnic profiling swirl in the wake of US Airways' removal of six imams. According to police reports, the men made anti-American statements, were praying and chanting "Allah," refused the pilot's requests to disembark for additional screening and asked for seat-belt extensions for no obvious reason. Three of the men had no checked baggage and only one-way tickets.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), five of the men have retained lawyers and will probably bring a discrimination lawsuit against the airline.

Racial profiling controversy is nothing new. For a number of years, black Americans have made charges of racial profiling by police and store personnel who might give them extra scrutiny. Clever phrases have emerged, such as "driving while black" and now "flying while Muslim," but they don't aid understanding much. Let's apply some economic analysis.

God, or some other omniscient being, would never racially profile. Why? Since He is all-knowing, He would know who is and is not a terrorist or a criminal. We humans are not all-knowing. While a god would have perfect and complete information about everything, we humans have less than perfect and incomplete information. We must use substitutes such as guesses and hunches for certain kinds of information. It turns out some physical attributes correlate highly with other attributes less easily, or more costly, observed.

...

It is clear, whether we like it or not, or want to say it or not, that there is a strong correlation between committing terrorist acts and being a Muslim, and being black and high rates of crime. That means if one is trying to deter terrorism and in some cases capture a criminal, he would expend greater investigatory resources on Muslims and blacks. A law-abiding Muslim who is given extra airport screening or a black who is stopped by the police is justifiably angry, but with whom should he be angry? I think a Muslim should be angry with those who've made terrorism and Muslim synonymous and blacks angry with those who've made blacks and crime synonymous. The latter is my response to the insulting sounds of car doors locking sometimes when I'm crossing a street in downtown Washington, D.C., or when taxi drivers pass me by.

Sandy Burglar's Trailer Trash

When you think of the Clinton Administration and trailer trash, the possibilities are endless. When you realize a disgraced criminal is throwing classified documents under a construction trailer, you wonder why he is a free man.

Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday.

The report was issued more than a year after Berger pleaded guilty and received a criminal sentence for removal of the documents.

So why are we getting this information more than a year later?

Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that when Berger was confronted by Archives officials about the missing documents, he said it was possible he threw them in his office trash.

The report said that when Archives employees first suspected that Berger - who had been President Clinton's national security adviser - was removing classified documents from the Archives in the fall of 2003, they failed to notify any law enforcement agency.

Great.

Berger, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents, was fined $50,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and was barred from access to classified material for three years.

So when his three years are up, he's free to be appointed in the Rodham Administration. Lovely.

Berger, with the authorization of former President Clinton, was reviewing National Security Council documents on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, Sudan, and related presidential correspondence. The review was to facilitate Berger's impending testimony before the House and Senate intelligence committees.

How convenient.

Michelle Malkin has more, including past archives. Also see Power Line.

More Insufferable Media Arrogance

Joseph Rago, the assistant editorial features editor at the Wall Street Journal, has decided today would be a good time to insult the blogosphere. His piece is so laden with insufferable arrogance, it almost comes off as parody. Maybe it is, but I can't find any punchlines. It really is difficult to comprehend the level of ivory-tower hubris that one man can have.

Blogs are very important these days. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has one. The invention of the Web log, we are told, is as transformative as Gutenberg's press, and has shoved journalism into a reformation, perhaps a revolution.

The ascendancy of Internet technology did bring with it innovations. Information is more conveniently disseminated, and there's more of it, because anybody can chip in. There's more "choice"--and in a sense, more democracy. Folks on the WWW, conservatives especially, boast about how the alternative media corrodes the "MSM," for mainstream media, a term redolent with unfairness and elitism.

The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.

I have news for you, Joe. The print media no longer is as significant as you would like to believe. Which is why blogs are so widely read.

The blogs must be timely if they are to influence politics. This element--here's my opinion--is necessarily modified and partly determined by the right now. Instant response, with not even a day of delay, impairs rigor. It is also a coagulant for orthodoxies. We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought--instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition. The participatory Internet, in combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate, appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior.

Get ready, Joe. You're about to find out the mob doesn't take too kindly to insults.

Because political blogs are predictable, they are excruciatingly boring. More acutely, they promote intellectual disingenuousness, with every constituency hostage to its assumptions and the party line. Thus the right-leaning blogs exhaustively pursue second-order distractions--John Kerry always providing useful material--while leaving underexamined more fundamental issues, say, Iraq. Conservatives have long taken it as self-evident that the press unfavorably distorts the war, which may be the case; but today that country is a vastation, and the unified field theory of media bias has not been altered one jot.

I've figured it out. We're missing the nuance.

Tara Conner: The Saga Continues

I'll admit I have a soft spot for the poor girl. After all, she's just a naive country girl overwhelmed by the big city (OK, I'm being sarcastic; just play along). But since we're always told not to be so judgmental, who are we to deny Tara a second chance? So this comes off as a big Trump PR scam. What do you expect from him? Now, if someone could just send Trump to the Hair Club for Men, or at least a barber. Dude, you're filthy rich. Get a haircut already.

Anyway, back to Tara. Andrea Peyser in the New York Post pulls out the long knives and rips her to shreds. How mean-spirited.

WITH her delicate breast heaving softly and her tears scattering like rose petals, Miss USA vowed that - from this day forward - she'll keep her nose clean.

And her urine sweet.

And - to employ my current favorite euphemism - her cooch untouched by human hands.

Miss USA has been saved. God bless Donald Trump!

Tara Conner, who just turned 21, will be allowed, after all, to keep her platinum- and jewel-encrusted Miss USA tiara. That is, provided she can keep on the majority of her clothes.

In a deal brokered between Trump and the strumpet, Tara will take a cleansing route that has been traveled by the likes of Courtney Love and Mel Gibson.

She's going into rehab.

"I have an open heart!" Tara burbled, as she stood before hundreds of the nation's finest media minds, and even more camera-toting tourists, in the glittering Trump Tower atrium.

Unfortunately, her heart is not the organ in need of closing.

But who am I to judge? Oh, right.

Tara was sold to us yesterday as a small-town creature who hit it big on the pageant circuit - only to fail to get out of bed once she'd been seduced by the big city.

Read the rest.

Al-Qaeda Leader Nailed in Iraq

Forget dialogue and diplomacy. Kill or capture more bad guys.

U.S.-led forces captured a senior al-Qaida leader who was responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths and housed foreign fighters who carried out suicide bombings, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The leader, who was not identified, was arrested in a raid in Mosul on Dec. 14, the military said in a statement.

"The terrorist leader was attempting to flee from the location when Coalition Forces chased him across a street and detained him," the statement said.

It said the suspect served as al-Qaida's military chief in Mosul in 2005, and then took up the same job in western Baghdad.

"During that time, he coordinated car vehicle-borne improvised explosives device attacks and kidnap for ransom operations in Baghdad," the military said. It cited reports that said he organized an attempt to shoot down a U.S. military helicopter in May this year.

"After a few months he fled Baghdad due to Coalition Forces closing in on him," the statement said.

The military said the capture would lead them closer to Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who took over as leader of al-Qaida in Iraq after his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi government's national security adviser, said this month that 60 percent of al-Qaida in Iraq's leadership has now been captured or killed.

White House Press Corps Hits New Low

Michelle Malkin has an account of the badgering of Tony Snow by the esteemed White House press corps following the announcement First Lady Laura Bush had a skin cancer tumor removed in November.

The insanity is being stoked at the New York Times, which is suffering full-blown Laura Bush Derangement Syndrome, and in the hyperventilating British press.

These people need serious help.

I wish the First Lady a full and complete recovery. You can send your good wishes here:

first.lady@whitehouse.gov

I don't ever recall The Pantsuit being the subject of such an interrogation, even when there were investigations and grand jury appearances during the myriad Clinton scandals.

Even at the height of the Lewinsky affair, we were repeatedly told it was a private matter.

So if the media is so concerned with full disclosure of health records, let them shows theirs.

Dingy Harry's Cut and Run Plan

Listen to what they say one day. Then watch what they do the next. Duplicitous, lying weasels.

Gateway Pundit has the details. Now guess which insane asylum this snake chooses to announce his terms of surrender from?

Frankly, I don't believe that more troops is the answer for Iraq. It's a civil war and America should not be policing a Sunni-Shia conflict. In addition, we don't have the additional forces to put in there. We obviously want to support what commanders in the field say they need, but apparently even the Joint Chiefs do not support increased combat forces for Baghdad. My position on Iraq is simple:

1. I believe we should start redeploying troops in 4 to 6 months (The Levin-Reed Plan) and complete the withdrawal of combat forces by the first quarter of 2008. (As laid out by the Iraq Study Group)

2. The President must understand that there can only be a political solution in Iraq, and he must end our nation's open-ended military commitment to that country.

3. These priorities need to be coupled with a renewed diplomatic effort and regional strategy.

I do not support an escalation of the conflict. I support finding a way to bring our troops home and would look at any plan that gave a roadmap to this goal.

Yes, he is simple. To a twerp like Harry Reid, surrender is the only option.