Once again, the truth threatens to undermine President Bush’s grotesque attempts to spin the Iraq War in the direction of his peculiarly faith-based sense of reality. For it looks like those Iraqi security forces in whom we have been told to trust, those wonderfully well-trained forces who will take over for the U.S. when Bush withdraws American forces for partisan political purposes and shifts the war in a new and as yet ill-defined direction. From the AP, via Editor & Publisher: The...

On Monday, John Kerry called on President Bush to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary, according to The Raw Story: “The President owes it to our troops serving in Iraq to remove Secretary Rumsfeld and replace him at the Pentagon with a Defense Secretary who understands the situation on the ground in Iraq and who will advance, not undermine, American values around the world.” Well, sure. I would wholeheartedly support Rumsfeld’s long-overdue removal. But is it possible...

Stressed? Need to relax? Why not visit a wine spa?

It’s not quite marriage, but the U.K. has finally recognized same-sex partnerships under the new Civil Partnerships Act, according to the BBC. It’s a huge step in the right direction. (Here are posts on same-sex marriage in Canada and South Africa.)

Call it what you want: jihadism, Islamofascism, Islamic radicalism… But it isn’t Communism. My take on Zbigniew Brzezinski’s excellent op-ed piece in The Washington Post is here.

In yesterday’s New York Times, Ted Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger wondered what JFK would have done about Vietnam. It’s all quite speculative, of course, but they knew first-hand what JFK was planning to do — that is, withdraw from Vietnam before it turned into a quagmire, an unwinnable war. But Sorensen and Schlesinger are also right about this, in response to Bush’s speech at the U.S. Naval Academy last week: We did not hear that the war in Iraq, already one of the costliest...

And what a grand failure it is, both as a wholly un- and anti-scientific theory and, increasingly, as a faith-based political movement. It still gets quite a bit of attention, but: Behind the headlines, however, intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies… On college campuses, the movement’s theorists are academic pariahs, publicly denounced...

Over the summer — like Steve Clemons, Jeremy Dibbell, and many other bloggers out there — I wrote a great deal about John Bolton’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N. (and his subsequent recess appointment when said nomination stalled in the Senate). I vehemently opposed Bolton’s nomination (see here) and I objected to his recess appointment (see here). (For background, links to all my Bolton-related posts may be found here.) But when his appointment was announced,...

Skippy (of Bush Kangaroo fame) has a good post on the necessity (or, rather, non-necessity) of Maureen Dowd. Like Skippy, I wonder why she’s an op-ed columnist at arguably the most important newspaper in the world. I’ve previously written about her, unfavourably, here and here. (I’ve given her a chance time and time again, but, aside from a few moments of witty perspicacity, I just don’t find much to like anymore.) Here’s a little game: Whom would you remove from the...

Another attack in Iraq, “one of the deadliest in recent months”. CNN reports here. The Left Coaster: “On the same day that the New York Times is reporting that the Pentagon admits they are fighting a decentralized nightmare now of nearly 100 insurgent groups in Iraq who are able to operate independently of each other and who weren’t there before we toppled Hussein, the Pentagon also releases the news that ten Marines were killed in just one incident yesterday from a roadside...

Over the summer, Canada became the fourth country to legalize same-sex marriage — a great milestone in Canadian history. Now South Africa has (almost) done the same: South Africa’s highest court ruled on Thursday that gays and lesbians have a right to marry, and it gave the national parliament one year to change the words “husband” and “wife” to “spouse” in its marital laws. Under the ruling, which was greeted by jubilation by gays and lesbians and...

Alas, we neglected to mention that yesterday was World AIDS Day. About 40 million people around the world are infected with HIV. Half of them live in Africa. For more information, a good resource is the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

Media Matters is reporting that folk-leader Bill O’Reilly has taken to attacking what he calls “a very secret plan” by secular progressive to “diminish Christian philosophy in the U.S.A.” Now, this is misguided on so many levels, but let me mention three. 1) There is no such thing as Christian philosophy. Theology yes, philosophy no. This may be a somewhat controversial assertion on my part, but religion is very much the antithesis of philosophy properly understood...

For your amusement and edification, I’ve done a fairly long round-up of reaction to yesterday’s twin events of Bush’s speech at the U.S. Naval Academy and the appearance of the unclassified document called the “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” over at The Reaction. I call my round-up (which includes a bit of commentary from the rounder-upper): Spinning Iraq: The Orwellian scope of Bush’s self-justifying self-delusion I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to add...

Once again, a somewhat gullible Tony Blair has learned that the U.S. isn’t serious about tackling the problem of climate change: The US has dismissed a suggestion from UK Prime Minister Tony Blair that it may be prepared to sign up to binding targets to tackle climate change. Speaking at UN climate talks in Canada, the US chief negotiator said his nation would not enter talks about fixed curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases. Mr Blair told UK business leaders on Tuesday that he believed...

SI.com is reporting that “Sen. Arlen Specter on Tuesday backed off a threat to have a Senate subcommittee investigate whether the NFL and the Philadelphia Eagles violated antitrust laws in their handling of Terrell Owens.” But what was the point to start with? Only the day before, Senator Specter had “said it was ‘vindictive and inappropriate’ for the league and the Eagles to prohibit the All-Pro wide receiver from playing and prevent other teams from talking to him”....

On Monday, I reported on Ayad Allawi’s assertion that in terms of abuse things are just as bad in Iraq now as they were under Saddam. Well, now there’s more — and it isn’t pretty: Shiite Muslim militia members have infiltrated Iraq’s police force and are carrying out sectarian killings under the color of law, according to documents and scores of interviews. The abuses raise the specter of organized retaliation to attacks by Sunni-led insurgents that have killed thousands...

Should a man be allowed to sit next to an unaccompanied child on a plane? No? Believe it or not, that’s the policy on Qantas and Air New Zealand. Is it political correctness or a sensible policy?

From the AP: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday defended her vote to authorize war in Iraq amid growing unease among liberal Democrats who could determine the potential 2008 presidential candidate’s future. “I take responsibility for my vote, and I, along with a majority of Americans, expect the president and his administration to take responsibility for the false assurances, faulty evidence and mismanagement of the war,” the New York senator said in a lengthy letter to thousands...

It’s a truism across time and space. But has it gotten worse? And who’s to blame? See here.

Here’s an update to yesterday’s post (check it out for some excellent reader comments). Again from The Globe and Mail: What’s already looking like a long and nasty winter election campaign slid downhill quickly Tuesday with Liberal Leader Paul Martin comparing Stephen Harper to a sinister and ambitious Scrooge and the Conservative Leader describing Mr. Martin as the head of a criminal government that steals tax dollars. Day One of the long campaign — the election date was...

Or, all the lies that are fit to spread.

Make sure to read Seymour Hersh’s latest at The New Yorker — on Bush, Murtha, and where the Iraq War is headed. As usual, he cuts through all the White House spin and reveals what’s really going on. I’d pick out a few key passages, but it’s all good. Okay, here’s one: “Current and former military and intelligence officials have told me that the President remains convinced that it is his personal mission to bring democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious...

While President Bush spins himself silly rewriting history and otherwise avoiding responsibility for his own messes, Prime Minister Blair, who weekly stands before a raucous House of Commons during Question Period, is about to face perhaps his biggest political challenge — and he may not survive.

From The Globe and Mail: The short-lived 38th Parliament met its demise on Monday night, setting the stage for the longest election campaigns in two decades, as the Liberal government was defeated in a no-confidence vote at the hands of all three opposition parties and the country was launched into official election mode. The Liberals lost the vote in the House of Commons 133 to 171, beginning a series of events that will propel voters toward the ballot boxes, likely on Jan. 23. Prime Minister...