US Ends Combat Operations In Iraq

The AP reports:

As their convoy reached the barbed wire at the border crossing out of Iraq on Wednesday, the soldiers whooped and cheered… Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama’s Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there.…

Howard Dean Wrong On Mosque

The former DNC chairman told WABC radio that he wants the Islamic center to be moved to a different location, and even claims that keeping it at the proposed location would be an affront to Muslim victims of the 9/11 attacks.

He also doesn’t seem to realize that the mosque would not be ”at Ground Zero,” but at a former Burlington Coat Factory two blocks away, saying, “That site doesn’t belong to any particular religion, it belongs to all people of all faiths.”

HOST: Governor, what is your position on the controversy surrounding the mosque at Ground Zero?
DEAN: I gotta …

Palin: Feminists Are “A Cackle Of Rads”

On this 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and women’s suffrage, Sarah Palin has taken to the Twitter to renounce the woman’s movement. (via Gawker).

It’s unclear what “a cackle or rads” is, but that just gives Palin another opportunity to compare herself to Shakespeare.…

On Wednesday’s Radio Show…

Guest host Sam Greenfield fills in for Alan.…

Ted Olson On NYC Islamic Center: “The President Was Right About This”

Conservative lawyer Ted Olson, the Solicitor General in the Bush 43 administration who lost his wife Barbara on 9/11, believes the president is correct to defend the building of an Islamic center in lower Manhattan. (via Think Progress)

OLSON: I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices or structures, places of religious worship or study where the community allows them to do it under zoning laws and that sort of thing. And that we don’t want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for …

David Plouffe: GOP “The Party Of Limbaugh, Beck, And Palin”

White House adviser David Plouffe’s book is out in paperback at the end of the month with some added material from its hardcover edition. (h/t Glynnis MacNicol). And Plouffe signals what might be the re-election playbook, given that Obama’s harshest critics are the conservative media.

Apart from underlining how few actual political candidates the GOP has in its line up, this appears to be an admission that Obama see his main opponent to be the (admittedly very powerful) conservative media. Of course, in the real world this is exactly who Obama is battling, but it’s strange to see it …

Republicans’ Shameless Attacks On The Ground Zero “Mosque”

By Yashwanth Manjunath

I could talk about how Republicans like Newt Gingrich are comparing the Muslim-Americans trying to build the Park 51 community center to Nazis, as he did when he said, “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington.” I could talk about how Sarah Palin called the construction of Park 51 a “stab in the heart to Americans” and a “slap” to 9-11 victims. She completely fails to acknowledge that 59 Muslim-AMERICANS died on 9-11 and fails to realize that her refusal to acknowledge them as real Americans is …

Rick Lazio Shamelessly Uses 9/11 Footage To Bash Mosque And Promote His Campaign

New York gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, who is facing New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in November’s race, urges Cuomo to investigate the money trail for the downtown Islamic center by using footage from 9/11.  Greg Sargent notes how it was considered insensitive to use this kind of imagery for years after the attacks, and Lazio at once thinks that’s acceptable, while arguing that the mosque is in a too-sensitive location. Sargent adds:

More broadly, the war over the Islamic center shows the battle over the legacy of 9/11 remains unsettled nine years after the attacks. Those who …

Phony Rebels Without A Just Cause: Anti-Islamic Forces Making EVERYTHING Up To Support Unjust (Bigoted, Fear-Mongering) Cause

by Bruce Friedrich

Dowd makes a slate of salient points, including castigating Obama for moral vacillation on the issue and calling on GWB to pull out his bullhorn (he could echo his former chief speech writer, in the Post two days ago). Writes Dowd:

Some critics have said the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9/11 hijackers would be to allow a mosque to be built near ground zero. Actually, the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9/11 hijackers is the moral timidity that would ban a mosque from that neighborhood. Our enemies struck at our heart, but did they also warp our identity?

…

Gingrich fancies himself an intellectual, a historian, a deep thinker — the opposite number, you might say, of Sarah Palin. Yet here is Gingrich attempting to out-Palin Palin on Fox News: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington.” There is no more demagogic analogy than that. Have any of the screaming critics noticed that there already are two mosques in the same neighborhood — one four blocks away and one 12 blocks away. Should they be dismantled? And what about the louche liquor stores and strip clubs in the periphery of the sacred ground?

Feds May Sue Arizona Sheriff Arpaio For Lack Of Cooperation

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is not cooperating with a federal investigation into whether he discriminates against Latino residents, and now the Department of Justice may sue him.

Justice Department officials in Washington have issued a rare threat to sue Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio if he does not cooperate with their investigation of whether he discriminates against Hispanics. The civil rights inquiry is one of two that target the man who calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff.” A federal grand jury in Phoenix is examining whether Arpaio has used his power to investigate and intimidate political opponents and whether …

Sarah Palin Endorses Sharron Angle

By Yashwanth Manjunath

If her opposition to abortion in all cases including rape and incest was not enough of a reason to vote against her; if wanting to eliminate the Department of Education, the EPA, Social Security, and Medicare was not enough, there is yet another reason to vote against Sharron Angle. Angle has just received the fatal Sarah Palin endorsement, meaning that not only should no one vote for her, but no one will. Apparently Palin likes Angle because “she’s got GUTS and is putting up with more crap than she deserves because the libs don’t know what …