Sunday, September 26, 2004

More links

Israel warned Syria, now it is following through. CNN reports that Israeli agents clipped a senior Hamas guy in Damascus this morning.

The World Tribune reports that US Army Intelligence believes that Saddam never abandoned his nuclear program. They think he sent the stuff to Syria in the months before the Iraq campaign started.

Con Coughlin of the London Sunday Telegraph reports that the Iraqi scientists who never worked on Saddam's nonexistent WMD program, who are now not in Damascus, are not the subject of talks re whether not to relocate them to Iran. ...

... Meanwhile, in The (Edinburgh) Scotsman,
Katherine Pfleger Shrader reports that one of those scientists Saddam did not have just wrote a book about how Iraq hid its nuclear program--part of it buried under his own lotus tree--and how close it came to success. (Hat tip to Ed Morrissey.)

DEBKA, the intriguing but occasionally-unreliable Israeli website, reports that the Zarqawi assistant killed by a US missile Thursday was the highest-ranking Palestinian in Al-Qaeda.

New York Daily News columnist
Zev Chafets sees something historic here: "Kerry is running the dumbest presidential campaign in modern history. ... [He] has dealt Bush every trump card - God, family, low taxes, optimism and victory."

The usually-liberal Washington Post columnist
Colbert King, who happens to be (a) black; and (b) a former Army officer; does not accept John Kerry's explanations for talking with the enemy in Paris and chucking his medals. He knows a lot of others who feel as he does--and they're not white right-wingers. This stuff is Kerry's worst nightmare. Well, perhaps not as terrifying as actually releasing his records ... (Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.)

Power Line loves Kerry: "Hindrocket," aka
John H. Hinderaker, wonders why Kerry feels compelled to look jocky; "The Big Trunk," aka Scott W. Johnson, suggests that "Kerry must be the worst major-party presidential candidate since George McGovern."

Washington Times columnist
Cal Thomas thinks it's quite simple, really: Pres. Bush is coherent; Kerry is incoherent. And the voters can tell.

Memo from US News & World Report columnist Michael Barone to debate organizers: ask both candidates "what they would do to encourage peaceful regime change in Iran and North Korea."

Columnist/bigot
Pat Buchanan occasionally has something to say that is more interesting than it is vile. Such as today's query: "Where's the outrage -- at CBS?" He continues: "Something is fishy here. And, indeed, the inexplicable absence of outrage suggests that there is more, much more, to this story."

Matthew Klam goes on and on about blogs in the cover story for the New York Times Magazine. No, not about blogs--about liberal blogs. The week after Power Line and Instapundit and Little Green Footballs and Hewitt made international headlines, Klam spends a most of his time with Wonkette. Who is cute, I suppose. But significant? Ah, yes: welcome to Timesworld.

Ann Althouse wonders whether the vicious anti-Allawi sneer was "Kerry's final mistake." She also provides a very good explanation from Christopher Hitchens about why the US voters appear willing to accept our Iraq casualties.

AP reports that CBS has abruptly shelved another anti-Bush hit piece, this one about the WMDs. Gee. Hmmm ...

Old-time liberal Washington Post columnist
David Broder feels compelled to equate the SwiftVets and Burkett--an instinctive defense mechanism--but his basic point is this: "We don't yet know who will win the 2004 election, but we know who has lost it. The American news media have been clobbered."