Short Takes: Worth Reading, 07/21/08

Short takes is my way of cramming a lot into a small space for you..kind of like the young gentleman above is doing! Here's a brief rundown of some of today's items of interest for Joshua's Army:

*The War is Over. We Won - Michael Yon pens another gem, reflecting on our victory in Iraq.

*The New York Times rejected John McCain's op-ed response to Barack Obama's op-ed in it's pages on the grounds that anything McCain writes should "mirror Obama" in the words of the NYT editorial editor David Shipley. 'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'

So much for journalistic integrity, eh Mr. Shipley? While Shipley said he'd be willing to look at another draft, the McCain campaign, to its credit essentially told him to get bent.FTR, I once had a similar experience with the minions of the Paper of Refuse, who wanted to publish an op-ed of mine on the Middle East - provided I would allow them to edit it in such a fashion as to change the meaning and political stance of the piece 180 degrees. I declined the opportunity, to put it politely.

*To those of following the Olmert soap opera in Israel, the latest is that the Olmert's Kadima party has approved a September primary, which will involve picking a candidate when the country goes to new elections, most likely in November. The falling out of thieves is continuing within Kadima, with Olmert calling Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni a backstabbing liar and Livni saying Olmert is corrupt and must step down. Fascinating how they both seem to know each other so well...

*Politics, Chicago style...in apparent payback for last week's satirical magazine cover the Obama campaign denied a NEW YORKER writer a plane seat on the current international dog and pony show. I suppose with an entourage of over two hundred media flacks, make up and wardrobe people, camera men and who knows what, they were just a little short of space and of course that satirical cover last week had nothing to do with it. The writer, Ryan Lizza was the same person who wrote that very interesting article about Obama's background in Chicago machine politics that sparked the cover. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

*A Strategy For McCain - Rich Lowry & Ramesh Ponnuru from the National Review have some interesting reflections on possible strategies for McCain to win in `08.

*UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown addressed the Israeli Knesset today, becoming the first British Prime Minister to do so.He proclaimed himeself a `longtime friend of Israel' in good times and bad,who's father supposedly spoke Hebrew and was on his local church's Israel Committee.

Of course, it would have been downright rude to ask the Prime Minister why such a true friend was avidly advocating the re-division of Jerusalem and the uprooting of thousands of Jews from their homes simply because they're Jews 'for peace'...or why Britain still maintains an arms embargo against Israel, even when it comes to parts for pilot ejecters simply designed to save Israeli lives.

Rude yes...but also quite revealing.

*US Attorney General Michael Mukasey has asked Congress to write new rules on 'detainees'(I prefer the term POWs)in view of the recent 5-4 Supreme Court Boumedianne decision allowing incarcerated POWs the right of US citizens to habeus corpus to challenge the US government's right to hold them. Mukasey is rightfully concerned that such trials will become what he termed 'a smörgåsbord of classified information' for our enemies.