Al Qaeda: We're On The Ropes, But We'll Be Successful Once The Americans Leave

A letter from Bin Laden's number Two, Aymen al-Zawahiri, to his chief thug in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was intercepted and reveals the state of the enemy and their future plans.

It's a long document, provided in .pdf format by Foxnews here. Once you filter through all the "Allah be praised/the prophet/the Caliphate/blessing on top of blessings" gobbledigook, there are some interesting nuggets of information here.

First, an acknowledgement of failure in Afghanistan:

"The Summer started hot with operations escalating in Afghanistan. The enemy struck a blow against us with the arrest of Abu al-Faraj, may God break his bonds. However, no Arab brother was arrested because of him. The brothers tried-and were successful to a great degree-to contain the fall of Abu al-Faraj as much as they could.

However, the real danger comes from the agent Pakistani army that is carrying out operations in the tribal areas looking for mujahedeen"

How's that for damage control, huh? This guy's spinning is a match for most American political handlers. more...

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Rove To Dobson: Some Candidates Took Themselves Out Of The Running

The Washington Times is reporting that James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, is revealing the "sooper sekret" things that Karl Rove told him about Harriet Miers. Here's the most significant:

"Well, what Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list," he said, according to a transcript obtained last night. "They would not allow their names to be considered because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn't want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it."

It probably didn't help that they had good reason to believe that the seven GOP members of the "Gang of 14" in the Senate wouldn't have stood up for them.

Nice. If this is true then it sheds a little bit of light on this situation.

Update: 10:00am
AJStrata noticed this same juicy bit and weighes in.

Folks, if this is true there are going to be some really red faces on the Hill, at NRO and at Redstate. If they went out on a political lynching because their heros decided not to get pummeled - instead pummeling George and Laura plus Harriet - then those of us who were being cautious will be completely vindicated. I had heard or read somewhere the Janice Rogers Brown, my preferred nominee, had declined since she had just been through the brutal confirmation process and had no interest to drag her family through it again. I doubt she is looking kindly on the anti-Miers crowd right now.

I've seen many of the Big names in the 'sphere look at this Washington Times story and all they seem to be focusing on from Dobson's comments is that Rove told him Bush was looking for a female replacement for O'Connor. They are strangely silent on this other point (about judges opting out of consideration). Although it shouldn't come as any real surprise since many of them would look foolish if this turns out to be the case.

Update II: 1:15pm
It is true, White House confirms.

"the White House acknowledged that some of the people the president considered for the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor didn't want to go through the grueling confirmation process, and asked that their names be withdrawn."

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Tolkien Geek Update

Fellowhip of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter Nine is posted.

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I Wasn't Trying For This I Swear

You are Sam the Eagle.
You are patriotic and devoted. And extremely anal.

HOBBIES:
Patriotism, Being appalled at what everyone else is
doing.
FAVORITE MUSIC:
The National Anthem of America

FAVORITE MOVIE:
"An American In....America"

LAST BOOK READ:
"Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,
Eagles are from America"

QUOTE:
"Please stop that now! It's un-American!"


What Muppet are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

H/T: Zaphriel's Blog

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Chipmunkz Wit Attitude

This is just wrong. The Chipmunks, gangsta rap style. (NSFW)

Hat Tip: MadFish Willie

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New Bond Is Blonde

Huh? A toe-headed James Bond? That's right, Daniel Craig has been tapped to play the British Secret Agent in the upcoming "Casino Royale".

Look as far as I'm concerned 007 has been going down hill since Roger Moore left the franchise (although Connery is still my favorite). But this looks like a bigger bonehead move than the Miers pick. Ian Fleming must be turning in his grave!

But, hey. What do I know? I didn't think I could get used to a blonde Daisy Duke.

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Oh Please, Please, Please Let This Be True!!!

"Insiders" are saying the Al Gore is planning to run again in 2008.

Is Al Gore coming back? If allies we talked to have their way, the former veep will be the next president. "It's Gore Time," says a political strategist and fundraiser who is opening a bid to get Gore into the race. Gore friends see his recent political and business moves as proof he's preparing to run. Allies say that in speeches, Gore has found his voice to address domestic and world issues. And in raising money for his Current TV network, which targets the critical youth market, Big Al has built an issue base and donor network that's competitive with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's. Our source--a top aide in the previous Bush administration--is planning meetings with Gore's team to push an early entry while Clinton runs for re-election in New York. It doesn't end there: The Gorebots want him to pick Sen. Barack Obama, the youthful Illinois African-American, as his No. 2.

Gorebots? Hah! I love that! It's better than Deaniacs! Go, Al, Go!

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All We Are Saying...Is Give Peace A Chance

Rick Moran of Right-Wing Nuthouse puts the Miers debate in the context of prior Republican in-fighting in his contribution to The American Thinker today. And he takes a cold, hard look at the potential long-term damage that could result.

For the conservative “true believers” however, this is the crisis of the Bush presidency. No amount of stroking by Bush aides is going to assuage their disappointment. In this respect, it remains to be seen if these disappointed activists will fall on their swords once again in a futile gesture of defiance by staying home on Election Day, 2006. If they do so, and if they hand the election to the Democrats, there could be a real bloodletting among conservatives that could split Republicans for a generation and perhaps even give impetus to the creation of a third party.

Any way you look at it, the President has his work cut out for him. And if Harriet Miers falters or comes up short in any way, the coalition that has elected 3 out of the last 4 Presidents could finally collapse in flurry of recrimination and anger.

Can you hear the newscast teaser from four years from now? "Coming up, President Hillary Rodham Clinton met with members of the Democrat-controlled Senate today to discuss the potential replacement of retiring Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy..."

Ugh.

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Excellent!!!

World Series 2005 with NO Red Sox and NO Yankees!!!!!

I have to tell you, at first I felt good for long-suffering Red Sox fans when their team finally won the World Series after 86 years. But over the last year, they have become impossible to live with. Many acquired the cockiness that they so disdain in other fan bases. And the Yankees fans have been...well, Yankees fans. They never change. They're always obnoxious.

Now they can all shut their cake-holes until April. Oh, and that nail-biter pennant race in the AL East that grabbed everyone's attention? It means absolutely nothing now - zip, zero, zilch, nada, buh-bye. Have a nice winter.

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Tolkien Geek Update

Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter Eight is posted.

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Eeeewww! French Hygiene Habits Revealed!

We go from Germany now over to France, where a new survey shows that the term "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys" should be amended to "Filthy Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys".

"Only one-in-10 of our continental cousins regularly uses soap and one-in-25 never takes a bath or shower.

To make matters worse, one-in-33 never brush their teeth, according to a special report by the weekly magazine Le Point, which quizzed 10,000 people.

Rather than have a good wash, many French people simply use perfume and cosmetics to mask their smell.

Despite this, adults manage to spend between 48 and 56 minutes in the bathroom every day.

Of these, 14% make telephone calls, 8% sing and 6% smoke - and 1% admitted to eating there."

Troubling, to say the least.

Link courtesy of NealeNews

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Happy Columbus Day!

That crazy Eye-talian explorer! Did you know he has a legacy "steeped in blood, violence and death", not to mention "cultural imperialism"?

Here's a site put up by a Colorado-based group of Left-wing loons, The Tranform Columbus Day Alliance, to repeal recognition of this wonderful municipal holiday and "build a better future for all of our children". How they intend to accomplish the later isn't all that clear.

Hey, Christopher Columbus should be honored as a hero. If it weren't for him you'd still have Indians foraging off this resource-rich continent and hogging it all for themselves. Instead you have an economic powerhouse that produces more food, more advanced medicine, more technology - not to mention foreign aid - for other parts of the world that would otherwise be starving, sick and living in poverty.

Why do these moonbats have to be so damn selfish?

h/t: LMC posted at Llama Butchers

UPDATE: James S. Robbins has a more "serious" defense of Columbus here - not that I'm not serious about my own comments, mind you.

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Good News From Germany (Beyond Oktoberfest, That Is)

Herr Gerhard is outen! Frau Angela is in!

It seems all the hullabaloo over the razor-thin Parliamentary election victory of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat Party has subsided, and a deal has been reached. Merkel will be the new Chancellor of Germany.

Under the agreement, which ends a three-week political deadlock, Merkel would have to give most of the seats in the new Cabinet to Schroeder's Social Democrats as the price of governing, including top jobs such as foreign minister.

Merkel also said good relations with the United States — another possible sticking point with Schroeder's party — would be a priority.

"I am convinced that good trans-Atlantic relations are an important task and that they are in Germany's interests," she said.

Well, a weak and ham-strung Pro-American German ally is better than nothing.

Hat-Tip To Jonah Goldberg, and Andrew Stuttaford who says "the stein remains half-empty" in his opinion.

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The Miers Debate

At the risk of seeming stuck on this one topic, I wanted to post this excellent site that lays out every single argument for and against Harriet Miers including the sources of most of them. They're even broken down into "solid" arguments and "questionable" arguments.

If you're inclined to invest the time, be advised that both lists are extensive.

Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for featuring this resource.

UPDATE: 12:00pm
Pundits and Bloggers aside, it looks like the rank and file "base" is supporting the nomination - albeit cautiously.

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Karl Rove: Political Genius or Careless Moron?

Karl Rove has my head spinning here. Love him or hate him (count me among the butt-smoochers), he is quite possibly the most disciplined political operative since Mark Hanna engineered a Republican realignment for William McKinley in 1896. Now the Wash Times is reporting - in an article that highlights dodgy support for Miers in the Senate, at best - that James Dobson of Focus on the Family got assurances from Rove about Miers:

James Dobson -- founder of Colorado-based Focus on the Family and an influential social conservative -- endorsed Miss Miers after a conversation with Bush political strategist Karl Rove. Such conversations have raised concerns that the White House is making assurances as to how Miss Miers would rule on certain cases -- a situation that many think would compromise her independence if she was confirmed to the court.

Senate Democrats, assisted by the always unreliable Arlen Specter, are now calling for Dobson to testify at Miers hearings as to exactly what Rove told him.

OK, based on what we know of how Karl Rove likes to set traps for Democrats that they always seem to fall into, is this recent turn of events by design or purely accidental? Honestly, Rove had to know that Dobson, as the leader of huge lobby group with his own radio show and an inflated sense of self-importance, would open up his big mouth. This kind of sloppiness is extremely out of character for him.

Maybe I'm giving him way too much credit here, but I have to agree with Robert the Llama Butcher that this whole nomination as it's playing out seems to be part of a larger strategy.

I mean, c'mon. Rove feeds assurances to Dobson and Dobson in turn publicy tries to sooth his doubtful followers, prompting Democrat suspicion? It's just TOO easy.

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A Great Week For The Giants

They didn't lose! Well, they did have the Bye this week.

But the division results were exactly what a Giants fan would have hoped for. The Dallas Cowboys humiliated the Philadelphia Eagles. Well, someone had to win. But better that it was the 'Boys so now both teams are 3-2. And the Foreskins - they lost to Denver, making them 3-1.

So that puts New York in 1st with a comparable 3-1, except that the Giants have outscored Washington by 74 points.

So, not having even played a division game, the Giants are in a position to hold it or blow it. Next week: Big Blue goes to Big D.

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Realities Facing Bush

Alexander McClure at Polipundit examines some of the political realities in the Miers case that probably led to this pick. My favorite: "We have placed ourselves in the same litmus test world as the Democrats have, but from the opposite end. This is not good."

Check out the whole list here.

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"Splitting" Of Conservatives Into Factions Is Troubling

The Anchoress looks at the divisions over the Miers nomination, using the old boxing analogy.

I think Miers is a punching bag meant to strengthen the backs and spines of the GOP, in order to get ready for a big match. I don’t think Bush, managing things from the corner, expected his trainers to take the sparring to a TKO level. If they knock her out, the GOP Senate will not have been strengthened - they will continue to cower and duck and bobble and weave - but everyone else will have been weakened; the president, the next “acceptable” nominee, the conservative pundits who have sneered at their own audience, the conservative movement as a whole…and ultimately the nation.

I heartily agree that the rumbles on the Right mirror an elitism usually reserved for the hard Left. The feelings and emotions of those upset by who was not picked and can certainly understand. But the whiny foot-stamping that clearly only helps the Democrats I cannot.

It should be interesting to look at the Sunday morning show round-up.

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Tolkien Geek Update

Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter Seven is posted.

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Is Bush Trying To Make The Senate GOP Put It's Money Where It's Mouth Is?

Baldilocks has an interesting theory about the President's nomination of Harriet Miers.

I'm betting that President Bush is doing what he usually does: call people out. Why should he put a Janice Rogers Brown up to be savaged by the Democrats if the Senate GOP isnÂ’t willing to stand with him and give Brown cover? If they can't hang, then whose problem is that? The president might as well put me up for nomination.

My predictions: if Harriet Miers is lucky enough to make it through the judiciary committee, she will be voted down by the full senate. Then what? Following the rejection, President Bush makes a phone call to Senator Frist and asks: “now are you willing to fight for the type of candidate that you claim to want?”

Then again, I could be wrong. :-)

Hey, it's as good as any theory I've heard yet.

Also, on a related note: Robert Bork doesn't even like Miers. Sheesh!

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