The Nightowl Newswrap

Five years ago today the idiot in the oval made his infamous "bring 'em on" swagger. In the time since he struck that idiotic tough-guy pose, 3900 American service personnel have perished in that hellhole - none of them related to Bush or Cheney, however.


This is gonna piss off a lot of wingnuts Here is the introduction to get your pump primed so you will go read the whole thing: The suppression of violence and the reduction in U.S. casualties in Iraq over the past year and a half was not U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker's or U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus' accomplishment. It was achieved by the Islamic Republic of Iran...Even worse, the much celebrated "cash for cooperation policy" implemented by Petraeus in the spring of 2007, which currently pays 90,000 of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgents nearly $300 million a year not to shoot at U.S. forces, is simply the latest chapter in a sad history of reinforcing Iranian strategic dominance by hardening the division of Arab Iraq into Sunni and Shiite states...It takes little imagination to see that Petraeus and Crocker are presiding over the division of Iraq into a small, impoverished Sunni area, a large, potentially oil-rich Kurdistan and an equally oil-rich Shiite-dominated state encompassing nine of Iraq's largest provinces. This is a strategic outcome that will dramatically extend Iran's influence inside Iraq and across the Middle East. But they are idiots and a lot of us tried to tell them that they were full of shit, and this was exactly how it was going to play out.



Jonah clumsily tries to ascribe a "patriotism problem" to Obama, and instead ends up owning a Larisa Alexandronova problem She basically just kicks his sorry ass from one end of the street to the other, and then she takes his lunch money. Behold the Mastress at work: When someone is critical of their country and especially when their country strays from its course, it does not mean the person is not patriotic. It means that the person loves their country enough to want only the best for it. They want it to be greater than what it already is or they want it to be as great as it once was. But criticism of a country is not akin to being un-patriotic. Only a rabid nationalist would make such an argument and only Goldberg manages to continue to do it this badly. After all, this is the same man who authored "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning" and in all seriousness. Read the whole thing.


Brian Beutler recovering after being shot in early-morning mugging Beutler, a popular progressive blogger who runs his own site and is also the Washington correspondent for Media Consortium, a network of leading progressive news organizations. Details are still sketchy, but here is what is known...last night Beutler and a friend left a bar in Washington's Adams Morgan neighborhood. The two were confronted by a man who demanded their cell phones, and in the confrontation Beutler was shot three times - twice in the shoulder and once in the trunk. His spleen was injured and he underwent surgery at Washington Hospital Center. He is expected to make a complete recovery, but we are sure that he, and all of his friends and family, appreciate your good thoughts right now.


Pick the most humiliating thing about the Bush administration that you can think of and see if it merits an entry on Alternet's 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency.


We wish we were surprised by this, but, sadly, we are not... During a segment of Fox & Friends co-hosts and twin towers of journalistic integrity Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade referred to New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe "attack dogs," Fox News featured photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe that appeared to have been digitally altered -- in the images Fox showed, both men's teeth had been yellowed, their facial features exaggerated. Reddicliffe's hairline was moved back on his head, and ghastly dark circles were added under his eyes.


So why is McCain in Colombia? In search of a message? A running mate? The endorsement of the Medellin Cartel? Here's a thought - maybe he doesn't want to be in the country on the 4th of July so the press won't pick up on the disparity in the sizes of crowds drawn by the respective candidates on the nation's birthday.


Rove Rage Not everyone is happy about KKKarl's invite to speak at the Texas Realtors Association’s convention in San Antonio in September. Realtors from the Galveston area have launched an e-mail campaign to persuade the association’s leaders to strike Rove from the speaker lineup at the convention, which is expected to draw about 2,000 members. Karen Derr, one of the realtors upset by Rove's inclusion said she fears that his detractors would disrupt a convention that’s supposed to be about selling property, market conditions and legislative issues affecting the industry. The association of which she is a former board member is nonpartisan, she said. “Our main goal is to promote property sales in Texas; we don’t need that kind of atmosphere at the meeting.”