Hewitt Blog

Schwarzworld is like a royal court, a phenomenon not uncommon in Hollywood, replete with vying courtiers and scheming poseurs.

That's one sentence from Bill Bradley's look at Arnold's excellent adventure in the new LAWweekly.

The most interesting line in the close look at the gov's new chief of staff:

She pushed the scandalous Oracle software deal.

Hmmm. That's interesting. Did Arnold know that?

Does Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet ever look around his newsroom, lousy with staff, and ask why the paper can't get even one article half as informative as this one at least annually?

"We're 90 per cent sure that this was a new species of carnivore."

You figure it out.

The Mirror on speculation about Harry's demise and Elton's wedding plans.

My friend John Mark Reynolds is a philosophy professor at Biola University, and a happy and effective warrior in the culture wars. The honors program that he leads hosted the first GodBlogCon in October, and Professor Reynolds delivered the opening address, Part I of which is now available online. I was not there to hear the address, but I very much like the opening, but given this paragraph, of course I would:

Anyone who has lived through Internet revolution has to worry about falling for the Next Big Thing. Now Hugh Hewitt, himself Renaissance like in his work as both a legal scholar and radio host, has written a book comparing blogging to the invention of movable type. Is it rational to be this excited about blogging or is Hewitt just falling for more Internet hype? Whenever I read big claims about new technology, my assumption is that these claims are quite mad or that someone is trying to sell me a book. Of course, this is remotely possible! Hewitt is a sober person, but he is in the entertainment industry after all. He would not gain listeners by comparing blogging to the invention of the disposable lighter. However, I would actually like to defend Hewitt's general contention. I actually think that he's right.

Give yourself some time to read the whole thing. Professor Reynolds is on to something.

Fred Barnes writes in this week's WeeklyStandard on the president's return to the public opinion wars over Iraq:

WE NOW KNOW WHAT WAS behind President Bush's mysterious refusal for so many months to respond to Democratic attacks on his Iraq policy--a refusal that came at great political cost to himself and to the American effort in Iraq. It wasn't that Bush was too focused on Social Security reform to bother. Nor did he believe Iraq was a drag on his presidency and should be downplayed. Rather, Bush had made a conscious decision after his reelection to be "nonpolitical" on the subject of Iraq. It is a decision he now regrets. And has reversed.

Here's how a senior White House aide explains the decision not to answer criticism of the administration's course in Iraq: "The strategic decision was to be forward-looking. The public was more interested in the future and not the past, since it was just hashed over during the election." The president didn't ignore the subject of Iraq entirely. He delivered a half-dozen speeches on Iraq and the war on terror, including an evening, prime-time address, in the first 10 months of 2005. He just didn't rebut partisan attacks.

Harm was done. "Obviously the bombardment of misleading ads and the earned media by MoveOn et al. had an impact," the Bush aide says, "and culminated during the Libby indictment and the [Democratic] stunt of the closed session of the Senate" on prewar intelligence. "That's when we pivoted."

Pivoted, and began marching forward. This is a strategy that needs to be maintained, day in and day out, for the year ahead.

UPDATE: Austin Bay wants more.

A suggestion to the White House staff: Ask Colonel Bay to drop by for a half-day conversation about framing the war. The man knows of what he speaks.

Read Daniel Pipes' FrontPage column from today.

From Reuters today:

Iraq wants multinational forces to stay until it has built up a military that is capable of maintaining security in the country, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said on Tuesday.

In a news conference during a visit to Japan, Jaafari also praised the conduct of the court handling the trial of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, saying it was democratic and just.

"We don't want this withdrawal to happen before we fully have established our armed forces and they are capable of maintaining security and peace in Iraq," Jaafari said through an interpreter, referring to multinational forces in Iraq..

"We hope that the process of withdrawal of multinational forces from Iraq will be planned and executed together with the Iraqi government," he said.

Nancy Pelosi, leader of the cut-and-run Democrats, six days ago:

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday embraced a call by a prominent member of her rank-and-file to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, two weeks after she declined to endorse it.

"We should follow the lead of Congressman John Murtha, who has put forth a plan to make American safer, to make our military stronger and to make Iraq more stable," Pelosi said. "That is what the American people and our troops deserve."

He's very good. If you haven't already bookmarked him, you should. It is a lousy URL, I agree. But the content is first class. Except for the sports. He is undeclared on the ND-OSU clash of the titans.

It is that time of year again, and the Wizbang awards for best blogs across a variety of categories are open for your voting.

I especially like All Things Beautiful in the best new blog category.