Here be good readin'

Carefully hand-selected for your reading consumption, a cornucopia of vignettes designed to enlighten the open-minded and infuriate the liberal:

Victor Davis Hanson, writing in National Review:

...The old debate whether Saddam Hussein was involved with al Qaeda is now calcified. Liberal conventional wisdom denies any such linkage since there is no firm evidence that Saddam knew of, or was involved in, the September 11 attacks. Thus most on the left ignore entirely that Ansar al-Islam was doing Saddam's dirty work in fighting the Kurds, that Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas resided in Baghdad, that Saddam openly harbored Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmed Hikmat Shakir who were connected to the effort in 1993 to blow up the World Trade Center and various anti-American plots, and that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi fled Afghanistan to the sanctuary of Iraq. No matter. That was then, this is now — and there is no denying that al-Zarqawi is conducting al-Qaedist operations in Iraq, or that the sort of people who attacked us on September 11 are the sort of people now flocking to the Sunni Triangle and often dying at the hands of U.S. military forces. Everyone can agree on that. The "flypaper" exegesis — that Iraq has become a magnetized burial ground pulling in wannabe al Qaedists — is widely dismissed as unsophisticated and yokelish. But we saw the same phenomenon on the Afghan border in late 2001 where the Pakistani madrassas thinned out as jihadists went over the mountains to the Taliban's aid — only to be bombed to smithereens, the survivors limping back to warn others to give up such a holy trek....

And today's Urban Legend, courtesy of SRT's collection of said legends:

URBAN LEGEND: The President and his administration intentionally misled the country into war with Iraq--and the "16 words" that appeared in the 2003 State of the Union are the best proof of it. In the words of Senator Ted Kennedy, "The gross abuse of intelligence was on full display in the President's State of the Union ... when he spoke the now infamous 16 words: 'The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'.... As we all now know, that allegation was false...." REALITY: On July 14, 2004--after a nearly half-year investigation--a special panel reported to the British Parliament that British intelligence had indeed concluded that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium from Africa. The Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, chaired by Lord Buffer, summarized: "It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium.... The statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."

Oh, but I'm sure Saddam's uranium was intended for peaceful purposes. Shhhhh. No one tell the Mediacrats. They can't be bothered with this story, because Tom Delay's alleged involvement in a trumped-up fund-raising tussle is really, truly more important.

Speaking of which: George Will recently described a surefire solution to poverty in America. And it's one that is certain to be ignored -- in every respect -- by the Mediacrats.

...last Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois's freshman Democrat, [had] the requisite lament about the president's inadequate "empathy" and an amazing criticism of the government's "historic indifference" and its "passive indifference" that "is as bad as active malice." The senator, 44, is just 30 months older than the "war on poverty" that President Johnson declared in January 1964. Since then the indifference that is as bad as active malice has been expressed in more than $6.6 trillion of anti-poverty spending, strictly defined. The senator is called a "new kind of Democrat," which often means one with new ways of ignoring evidence discordant with old liberal orthodoxies about using cash - much of it spent through liberalism's "caring professions" - to cope with cultural collapse. He might, however, care to note three not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: Graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, don't marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal....

I saw a great sign over at SRT. It was a sign held by a counter-protester, possibly in one of the Sheehan media-circus events.

It simply read:

WE WON THE WAR ON SLAVERY WITHOUT YOUR HELP. WE WON THE WAR AGAINST HITLER WITHOUT YOUR HELP. WE WON THE WAR ON COMMUNISM WITHOUT YOUR HELP. GET THE PICTURE??

You could also list the war on poverty (e.g., the Welfare Reform act of 1996, utterly successful by every measure and egregiously opposed by the Mediacratic leadership) as well as a host of other issues.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to question the Left's litany of failures over the last half-century. Which begs the question: why are they still using the same play-book? No matter, here are some results. Courtesy of PoliPundit, witness the progression of Democratic power in Congress, "ever since the high water mark of the FDR-era coalition":

...(for the US Senate)... 68 seats - 1965. 61 seats - 1975. 47 seats - 1985. 48 seats - 1995. 44 seats - 2005. ...(and for the House of Representatives)... 295 seats - 1965. 291 seats - 1975. 253 seats - 1985. 204 seats - 1995. 202 seats - 2005. That’s despite the media, the FDR-era voter blocs, the public-sector unions, non-voting conservatives, the Democrat money machines, those bogus “opinion polls,” bogus “exit polls,” and those 18-22 year-old “librulz,” who get whipped up into frenzies by the Ward Churchills and Paul Krugmans of the world, and who then march off to the wrong precincts to vote against those evil conservatives... Furthermore, here are two numbers you won’t see if you’re getting your political analyses from people who tend to get fawning interviews by the Pravda-Media: 9. 65. A grand total of nine incumbent Republican House members have lost re-election bids since the 2000 election cycle, *inclusive*... Ever since the re-apportionment of the U.S. House following the 1990 Census... the Democrats have lost a grand total of 65 net House seats. 9. 65. Just keep those raw numbers in mind when next August rolls around, and the usual suspects begin screaming and shouting the media is poised to re-take the House.