Hewitt Blog

Ward Churchill: Call your office. While you still have an office.

James Joyner rounds up the critical health news of the week.

Now, if we can only find that single malt increase longevity and cigars impede dementia, the work of science will be done.

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma just returned from his 11th trip to Iraq. I concluded an interview with him moments ago which will play on the program tonight. Among the highlights:

The new minster of defense in Iraq, Abdul-Qadir Muhammed Jasim, told Inhofe: "I hate CNN."

and

Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee is blocking Endangered Species Act reform. Steve Laffey's campaign should grab the audio from Radioblogger.com when it is posted later and run it 24/7 in every market in Rhode Island. Lincoln Chafee has got to go.

In fact, the single greatest thing any proponent of ESA reform can do is contribute to Steve Laffey's campaign. So long as Chafee stays in the Senate, property owners and farmers will never get a fair shake.

UPDATE: Re: Lincoln Chafee, see my interview this week in Human Events.

It is going to be hard to top this, from DemocraticUnderground:

71. This doesn't make sense
Is it possible that Rove was actually indicted on May 12 like truthout reported, but somehow Bush got involved to stop it? Maybe Bush told Fitz that he was going to pardon Rove so Fitz dropped it. Or maybe Rove has some dirt on Fitz so Fitz dropped it.

That's. It. Eaxctly!

UPDATE: Also from DemocraticUnderground, on the president's trip to Baghdad:

16. What a patriot!
Maybe he's there to fulfill his patriotic duty to the country; after all, he never completed his military service in the National Guard years ago. Dan Rather was right!!

I hope Bush is on the losing end of an IED.

Thus the left, a left embraced by the Democratic leadership, who will disavow nutters like this one, but not the swamp from which they come.

The fetching Mrs. Hewitt has been up most of the night reading "Miracles on the Water" by Tom Nagorski.

She doesn't often enthuse about a book this way, and hearing the outline of the story makes it certain I will read it as well, as no doubt most of you will too. It seems almost certain to be made into a compelling film as well. Heroism has a charisma all its own.

Thus are bestsellers made, the old-fashioned way: Word-of-mouth from reader to reader. "Miracles on the Water" isn't on the list yet, but by June's end...

Talk about your head-fakes.

At this point al Qaeda must be doing a collective Yosemite Sam.

Talk of "turning points" is always more hopeful than objective, but a stretch that saw Zarqawi dispatched, the key Iraqi cabinet posts filled, and the president in Baghdad is a very good week indeed.

Details:

Mr. Bush departed Andrews Air Force Base shortly after 9 p.m. Monday after secretly traveling by helicopter from Camp David, where he was in the middle of a two-day Iraq summit with members of his cabinet and senior military officials. He was accompanied by senior aides like National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, White House counselor Dan Bartlett, Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagan and White House spokesman Tony Snow.

It landed at Baghdad International Airport at 4:08 p.m. Baghdad time this afternoon.

Mr. Bartlett told reporters aboard Air Force One that the trip was planned over the past month by a small group of six White House aides he described as a "very, very close circle of people." He said that Mr. Bush had wanted to come to Iraq as soon as the final positions in Mr. Maliki's government — the ministers of Defense and Interior — were chosen.

Had those posts been filled sooner, Mr. Bush would have made the trip several months earlier, Mr. Bartlett said

That's the headline in the Washington Post.

Please submit the most-over-the-top reaction on the left that you come across to hugh@hughhewitt.com.

June 13th, 2006. A day that will live in infamy in the fever swamp.

UPDATE: And now the president is in Baghdad. Somebody get some valium over to DailyKos.

UPDATE 2: JustOneMinute has a great round-up and summary explanation for those who grew bored long ago.

From New Scientist: "Alzheimer's vaccine shows success in mice."

The president of the University of North Dakota puts the NCAA on notice of forthcoming litigation.

Bravo.

(HT: FratersLibertas.)

UPDATE: King B. has some background on this "debate."