Peggy Noonan on Iraq

In her column today, Peggy Noonan charges the president with, in her words, "patriotic grace." It's a kind of "bipartisan forbearance," she says. The president ought to cut his opponents some slack, credit them with good motives and actual wisdom. The president should be humble, graceful and ask for help. That would "break through the clutter" and it would make news.

No question. It would make news. The president's opponents and the news media would interpret it as weakness. They would argue he knows he's defeated. They'd say he's finally recognizing what they have known for years: Iraq is lost and so is he.

Noonan says it's the president's fault that his opponents misinterpret what he says. She says that when the president argues that "precipitous withdrawal [from Iraq] will create a vacuum that will be filled by killing and that will tip the world to darkness," what his opponents hear is "I got you into this, I reaped the early rewards, I rubbed your noses in it, and now you have to save the situation."

Noonan credits the president with being right about the dangers of leaving Iraq too soon. She says his warnings are realistic. But she apparently thinks he ought not issue warnings. He ought instead to soften his message so it doesn't make his opponents angry. If he would do that, she seems to suggest, Harry Reid would stop saying the war is lost.

LAT on prime borrowers

In today's business section, the LAT has a piece about how difficult it is for even prime borrowers to get loans nowadays. The example they use is a man and his daughter who have good credit and who own a rental residence worth $1.6 million which has an existing $600,000 mortgage. The pair want to refinance with a 10-year interest-only mortgage and are having trouble finding such a loan at reasonable interest rates. Well, duh!

LAT promotes left-wing group

LAT reporter and Democrat propagandist Noam Levey promotes a left-wing, anti-war group on the front page of today's LAT. In what way this is front-page news isn't demonstrated, but it seems routine, something the LAT just does: promote liberal ideology.

Mickey Kaus on the LAT

Here's another take on the LAT.

LAT touts Chemerinsky

According to the LAT today, Erwin Chemerinsky is a top candidate for dean of the new UCI law school. Chemerinsky is a radical left-wing law professor at Duke who has novel ideas about what the U.S. Constitution says and means. Hiring him would be a poor start for the new law school.

Reno v Gonzales

As between Janet Reno and Alberto Gonzales, the latter was preferable.

The LAT on Gonzales

According to the LAT, "Gonzales wrote a memo saying that anti-torture laws and the Geneva Convention could be waived for some prisoners. He approved or oversaw the drafting of rules for military tribunals that limited the rights of detainees, and he pushed for expanded government power to engage in domestic spying. Then came the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006."

Hanging first, trial later.