O’Reilly opened up his show with a poll that showed that while 66% of Americans thought we were winning the war in January, now only 40% do.

Not surprising to me but I think that his diagnosis was utterly wrong.

He said that it was because we a) hadn’t captured Osama and b) we were still getting terrorist threats.

Those may be factors, but I think he missed the biggest one.

We have quit fighting the war.

Even if the White House and the State Department don’t seem to recognize it, I think that many Americans are smart enough to know that when you tell Israel to negotiate with terrorists, and when you allow these delaying tactics in Israel and in Kashmir to put things on hold, and when you have leaks from the Pentagon saying that the brass doesn’t think they can handle Iraq, and when the President says that he doesn’t have a plan to invade Iraq, and there’s no hint as to the urgency of changing the regime there, and when everyone except the White House can see that Riyadh is not a friend, but an enemy, it’s no wonder that many think we’re losing the war.

What’s amazing to me is that forty percent still think we’re winning it.

O’Reilly opened up his show with a poll that showed that while 66% of Americans thought we were winning the war in January, now only 40% do.

Not surprising to me but I think that his diagnosis was utterly wrong.

He said that it was because we a) hadn’t captured Osama and b) we were still getting terrorist threats.

Those may be factors, but I think he missed the biggest one.

We have quit fighting the war.

Even if the White House and the State Department don’t seem to recognize it, I think that many Americans are smart enough to know that when you tell Israel to negotiate with terrorists, and when you allow these delaying tactics in Israel and in Kashmir to put things on hold, and when you have leaks from the Pentagon saying that the brass doesn’t think they can handle Iraq, and when the President says that he doesn’t have a plan to invade Iraq, and there’s no hint as to the urgency of changing the regime there, and when everyone except the White House can see that Riyadh is not a friend, but an enemy, it’s no wonder that many think we’re losing the war.

What’s amazing to me is that forty percent still think we’re winning it.

It’s a good thing we have those “professional” federalized screeners at the airports.

Moody’s has downgraded their government bonds–they’re now equivalent to those of Latvia and Poland.

The writer of this article is a brave man.

Today, as a Muslim and as an insider, I would like to hold a mirror to Islam; if the Muslim community does not like the reflection in the mirror it is not the fault of the mirror. You can call it a soul-searching of a concerned Muslim.

Cathy Seipp has a nice (long) piece on blogging/bloggers in American Journalism Review.

Jonathan Last says that, even in the wake of September 11, Hollywood remains too PC to make real contemporary war movies, and that “The Sum Of All Fears” is a disastrous proof of his thesis.

When we can’t depict terrorists as Muslims in a movie, the terrorists have won.

Peggy Noonan has a disturbing piece in today’s Opinion Journal. It’s particularly disturbing that it’s coming from her.

She is asking the question seriously: was the FBI failure in 911 merely incompetence? Or something worse?

While few hold the FBI in lower esteem than I do, I have trouble believing that this was a deliberate effort to prevent the lower-level agents from thwarting the attack. Not because I believe the FBI incapable of such coverups and deliberate inaction–we saw plenty of it during the Clinton years, after Judge Sessions was fired and replaced by the more pliant Louis Freeh–but that they would do so for a foreign power (as opposed to a corrupt White House) is a new and frightening possibility.

The FBI was unable, or unwilling, to connect the dots that would have shown the pattern that resulted in the deadly attack of last fall. But now Peggy connects some dots herself, within the agency, and the picture isn’t very pretty.

Any real probe will take this as an opportunity to air all of the agency’s dirty laundry, going back to the Clinton years, and all the evidence tampering and obstruction that went on during that time. Because the dots from such an investigation may show the much bigger picture of government malfeasance that the kneepad press largely ignored, out its adoration for the man it put in the White House in 1992.

Cynthia McKinney is in trouble in her own district.

A brave Palestinian “freedom fighter” was shot and killed after throwing hand grenades into a nursery in a West Bank settlement. Fortunately, no one (who mattered) was injured.