Ok, no one is looking. Go!

Classic Friday afternoon press release by the President. Minimal press (public) attention. Corner

On page 11 of the 533 page Friday afternoon document drop from the White House, a quote from an e-mail referring to the disastrous Air Force One flyby of lower Manhattan: "3 million New Yorkers did not have a need to know."

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Page 196:, from USAF Maj. Susan Romano, Director of Public Affairs at the Headquarters of 1st Air Force (AFNORTH): "Nothing like having everyone point the finger at someone else so we ALL look like a big bunch of buffoons... can you say, Moe, Larry & Curly!??!?!"

8000 Words

Crowley Helps Gates

Bush vs. Obama Pitchers Dual

The Sky is Blue

Victor Davis Hanson make an equally obvious statement. Although who else hears it?
The Corner:

Over the last eight years we saw Fahrenheit 911, Syriana, Redacted, Rendition, Stop Loss, Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, and a host of other movies released about the U.S. war on terror and the Iraqi conflict. The general theme was that George Bush lied and so destroyed the Constitution and put us into Iraq, where we are waging an amoral war, among other unmentionables.

Are there additional such movies in the pipeline? After all, U.S. policy under President Obama has largely adhered to the Petraeus/Bush plan in Iraq; Obama actually accelerated operations in Afghanistan where losses are spiking. Renditions and tribunals continue. So do Predator strikes, as well as wiretaps and intercepts. Guantanamo, while not in the daily news as before, remains open. Have suddenly, say, between November 2008 and today, the above policies changed in any measurable manner, or, was the furor simply that the policies per se were never the problem, just the person who implemented and oversaw them? Take him away, and presto, the same policies become fine — and thus no longer warrant the best and brightest in Hollywood to offer much needed exposés?

Michael Yon Photoessay in Afghanistan

Michael Yon. He's traveling in Afghanistan with Lithuanian troops. He does a masterful job of giving you a sense of the life he is traveling through. Enjoy and make a donation if you can. He is fully supported by donations.

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The base at Chaghcharan sits at nearly 7,500 feet above sea level, so at night the Milky Way hovers in magnificence above the clean, dry air. But come morning, the stars fade as the sun rises with blinding vengeance.

As we rolled to find the Kuchi nomads and their camels, the six vehicle convoy kicked up “moon dust,” which reflected the bright sun, causing instant blindness as if driving through white clouds. The convoy had to space out, else the vehicles would be driving dangerously close through the arid fog of dust. As we passed villages made of stone, mud, and straw, the white smoke from their cooking fires hung low, just above the villages, lightly blanketing their dwellings, as farmers were already heading to the fields. The Afghans are a hard-working lot. The cruel mountains must have killed off the lazy ones a long time ago.

Makes Me Sick

Look at this headline. This is great news! Half a million people lost their jobs! Thanks for the positive spin, AP.

565K new jobless claims, lowest level since Jan. (AP)

Courage vs. Leadership

The Sarah Palin experiment is over. And I, for one, am glad. She was never suited for president. Courage aplenty, but leadership, no. I credit her with opening the dialogue for the average Joe, and for showing that anyone who wants change should get off their butt and make the change themselves. But was she ready to lead the free world? Not a chance. Powerline has a fitting soliloquies:

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In all three scenarios, Palin is unfit for high office, and certainly unfit to be the vice president or the president of the United States. Moreover, Palin's resignation confirms how disappointingly reckless it was of John McCain to choose the then-untested governor to be his running-mate.

And what are we to make, in retrospect, of the euphoria that greeted McCain's selection of Palin -- a euphoria that made the Republican convention seem so strange to me that, for the first time in my life, I felt I had returned to the real world when I arrived back in Washington, DC? I imagine the euphora was founded on the desperation Republicans felt as we saw the presidency slipping away, having already lost control of Congress.

Politics over Country

No more troops for Afghanistan? But I thought Obama was going to send troops to the "real war"? Nope - won't look good to the liberals back home. Sorry, Marines...

Hot Air
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Now it appears that we have reached another Obama expiration date...

Now suppose you’re the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel?

Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing.

Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have “a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment.”

US Victory in Iraq

President Bush continues to see the successes of his leadership. The US has transitioned control of all major cities to the Iraqi government. Michael Graham puts the victory in perspective and calls out the media and the democrats.

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The good news is that 20 years from now, no one will remember the cowardice of American liberals or the cluelessness of their policies. All that will be important will be that the US helped plant the seed of democracy and changed the Middle East forever.

Congratulations to the US military for this amazing accomplishment.