gerlado/oreilly unhinged

* glenn tees off on mark zaid, one-time lawyer for sibel and Able Danger's Tony Schaffer.

* soto:

"Even with the most benign explanation possible, that these deceptions were put out there by NORAD to cover up their ineptitude and mistakes that day, the fact still remains that an official inquiry without prosecutorial power was knowingly misled by the Bush Administration. That alone calls for a new congressional inquiry should the Democrats retake Congress next year, or a formal request for a Special Counsel to review the veracity of the information provided by the Bush Administration to the commission, and to determine if information was withheld."

* clemons:

"First of all, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, whom most give high marks for the manner in which he has stewarded the Dems in the Senate despite the absence of a clear Democratic Party chief, has sent private signals to Senator Hillary Clinton and other stalwarts of the party that he "would like to" step down from his post in early 2009. Reid has not stated definitively that he will -- but he apparently prefers "whipping" the Party from behind and the side rather than serving as commander-in-chief on the Senate floor.

What Reid is offering Senator Hillary Clinton is his total, robust support to succeed him as Senate Majority Leader if she elects not to pursue the Democratic nomination for President."

Harry Reid denies this. Clemons stands by it.

* via jeralyn:

"A federal judge has expressed doubts about the strength of the government's terror conspiracy case against Jose Padilla and others, ordering prosecutors to provide more evidence of alleged violent activities overseas. ....[The Judge] says the case against him appears ``very light on facts.''"

* Arkin:

"As of noon Sunday, since July 12, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has carried out 6,800 missions."

why do we keep hearing about the 200 +/- daily rockets from hezbollah?

* gerlado/oreilly unhinged

* Pape:

"ISRAEL has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won’t work either. The problem is not that the Israelis have insufficient military might, but that they misunderstand the nature of the enemy.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Hezbollah is principally neither a political party nor an Islamist militia. It is a broad movement that evolved in reaction to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. At first it consisted of a small number of Shiites supported by Iran. But as more and more Lebanese came to resent Israel’s occupation, Hezbollah — never tight-knit — expanded into an umbrella organization that tacitly coordinated the resistance operations of a loose collection of groups with a variety of religious and secular aims.

In terms of structure and hierarchy, it is less comparable to, say, a religious cult like the Taliban than to the multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960’s.
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But Israel must take the initiative. Unless it calls off the offensive and accepts a genuine cease-fire, there are likely to be many, many dead Israelis in the coming weeks — and a much stronger Hezbollah."