ED MORRISSEY will be liveblogging Bush’s speech. No time-travel involved.

UPDATE: More liveblogging here: Just scroll up.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Saw all but the first couple of minutes. A good job, I thought, though Bush’s delivery is never impressive. (And he had that “Jeezus I can’t believe I have to explain this stuff again! — don’t you guys read Den Beste?” expression from time to time. Okay, I was kidding about the Den Beste part. Kind of.) He made the key points, though, and — which is more important — I suspect that the Administration will keep making them in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Mickey Kaus has an observation on deadline-fever.

MORE: Ian Schwartz has the video of the President’s speech.

STILL MORE: Lorie Byrd: “I agree with Mort Kondracke that tonight’s was one of George Bush’s best speeches. (Transcript here.) It was clear and concise, and obviously heartfelt. The President made a strong, if familiar, case for the importance of the Iraq War to the general war on terror. He also made a good case for the contention that we are making progress and we will prevail.”

Donald Sensing: “Overall, I don’t rate this speech very high – no better than a ‘B’ and maybe B-minus. . . . The speech reads betters than it hears. I think that Bush’s delivery, never stellar, was below even his par tonight.”

John Hinderaker: “There was nothing in it that we and our readers didn’t already know, but the message is one that many rarely hear.”

Brendan Loy, on the other hand, was considerably less impressed.

MORE STILL: Smash liveblogged it, too. And Hugh Hewitt observes:

That is the key point in the speech, the key point in the debate, and the president’s clarity in making it made it a very successful speech. Over and over again he and his Administration, his supporters and the military must make that point again and again: It is all one war.

Reportedly, David Gergen is offended at the mention of 9/11. Perhaps if Gergen’s media friends mentioned it more often, Bush could mention it less . . . .

Kaus, on the other hand, thinks that Bush’s speech was “too Presidential.”

FINALLY: Thoughts on Jefferson and Trotsky.

THIS WEEK’S GRAND ROUNDS IS UP, including Dr. Tony’s unusual encounter in the E.R.

AUSTIN BAY, just back from Iraq and Afghanistan, will be on Hugh Hewitt’s show shortly.

UPDATE: Austin’s thanking his readers.

TOM MAGUIRE FINDS THIS BURIED TREASURE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Senators Laud Treatment of Detainees in Guantánamo

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: June 28, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 27 – Senators from both sides of the aisle competed on Monday to extol the humane treatment of detainees whom they said they saw on a weekend trip to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. All said they opposed closing the center.

“I feel very good” about the detainees’ treatment, Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said.

That feeling was also expressed by another Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

On Monday, Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, said he learned while visiting Guantánamo that some detainees “even have air-conditioning and semiprivate showers.”

Another Republican, Senator Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, said soldiers and sailors at the camp “get more abuse from the detainees than they give to the detainees.” . . .

One senator, Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, has come under criticism and apologized repeatedly for comparing reported abuses at the camps to treatment in Soviet gulags or Nazi concentration camps.

Buried, that is, on page A15. I wonder why? Maybe because good conditions at Guantanamo are old news?

A LAPHAMIZATION SIGHTING for the AP on Bush’s speech.

IT’S HARD TO KEEP good capitalists down: Kelo mugs and t-shirts.

IT SEEMS THAT PRESIDENT BUSH’S STRATEGY ON IRAQ IS MORE POPULAR than a lot of people seem to think:

As President Bush prepares to address the nation about Iraq tonight, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that most Americans do not believe the administration’s claims that impressive gains are being made against the insurgency, but a clear majority is willing to keep U.S. forces there for an extended time to stabilize the country.

The survey found that only one in eight Americans currently favors an immediate pullout of U.S. forces, while a solid majority continues to agree with Bush that the United States must remain in Iraq until civil order is restored — a goal that most of those surveyed acknowledge is, at best, several years away.

52% think our presence in Iraq is good for America. That’s up 5% since earlier this month. Interestingly, this coincides with a major outbreak of Vietnam nostalgia from the left. Or maybe it’s not a coincidence. Whenever the war opponents start talking, Bush seems to do better. Somewhere, Karl Rove is smiling.

JONAH GOLDBERG: “Thank goodness this country still produces heroes like me.”

Indeed.

HEH:

Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter’s land.

Justice Souter’s vote in the “Kelo vs. City of New London” decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by the new owner.

On Monday June 27, Logan Darrow Clements, faxed a request to Chip Meany the code enforcement officer of the Towne of Weare, New Hampshire seeking to start the application process to build a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road. This is the present location of Mr. Souter’s home.

Clements, CEO of Freestar Media, LLC, points out that the City of Weare will certainly gain greater tax revenue and economic benefits with a hotel on 34 Cilley Hill Road than allowing Mr. Souter to own the land.

The proposed development, called “The Lost Liberty Hotel” will feature the “Just Desserts Café” and include a museum, open to the public, featuring a permanent exhibit on the loss of freedom in America. Instead of a Gideon’s Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Did I say “heh?” I hope the project moves ahead.

JAMES LILEKS PAYS ATTENTION TO WOODY ALLEN, so that you don’t have to.

REDSTATE has coverage of the FEC hearings on blogs and internet political speech.

JUST HAVING IT ON IN THE BACKGROUND was almost a sort of Gitmo-level torture for me, but the Insta-Wife and Insta-Daughter — who came with me on this trip — watched this on pay-per-view in the hotel and liked it. More proof that you can love people whose taste differs from yours!

UPDATE: Lorie Byrd says I’m wrong. Maybe it’s a woman thing.

43 FAKED SOURCES BY ONE COLUMNIST at the Sacramento Bee?

A newspaper investigation of a former columnist for The Sacramento Bee could not verify 43 sources she used in a sampling of 12 years of her work.

Diana Griego Erwin resigned May 11 as she came under scrutiny about the existence of people she quoted. She has denied making up information, but Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez said the Bee should have been able to locate the people named in the stories.

As Neverdock observes:

Main stream media sneer at bloggers, claiming that we are unregulated, out of control and no one checks our work like their editors do theirs. Yet time and time again we find it is MSM who are faking it.

The whole high-horse act needs to be given a rest.

GREG DJEREJIAN: “There is an obsession with ‘deadlines,’ isn’t there, among the Democrat camp of late?”

He thinks that Kerry is giving bad advice to Bush. Kerry’s advice is unlikely to do any harm, but it does provide a useful diagnostic.

UPDATE: Arthur Chrenkoff: “Who said that politics is a cynical game?”

MICHAEL YON has more interesting war reporting posted. Don’t miss it.

UPDATE: Yon sends this email:

It’s apparent that the insurgents are getting better and better at what they do. It’s becoming a race between getting the ISF/government on its own steam faster than the insurgents are able to improve. It’s imperative to keep people at home from running out and leaving unfinished business. Otherwise, we will simply be teaching terrorists that terrorism pays.

I agree. I also think we need to be tightening the screws on Syria and Saudi Arabia. who are funding and supporting the insurgency.

NANOTECHNOLOGY, CHINA, AND UNOCAL: Some thoughts from Mike Treder.

GERHARD SCHROEDER was met by demonstrators protesting his anti-American rhetoric in Washington, D.C. yesterday.

MICKEY KAUS says a stiff judicial confirmation battle is just what Bush needs.

ROGER SIMON OFFERS PERSPECTIVE.

MIKE GODWIN has comments on the Grokster decision:

As a technical matter the content companies won MGM v. Grokster; the decision remands the case to a trial court for further factfinding as to whether defendants “induced” infringement. But it’s clear that they didn’t win anything like what they had been asking the Supremes for—a rule that would penalize any company that made money off a product widely used for infringement, regardless of what the company intended. And though the technical companies and consumer groups are troubled by the outcome in this case, there’s still much to encourage them.

Forget piracy. I think that Big Entertainment will try to use this to shut down anything that looks as if it might become an alternative distribution system. Meanwhile Chris Nolan observes: “If Hollywood’s lawsuits are persistent and ugly enough – if it keeps going after 20-year-olds – consumers could quickly and easily be brought to the tech community’s side. The iPod is a cherished device. So is TiVo. It’s not that hard to think of ways to use those innovations in smart consumer-oriented campaigns to change the law to protect inventors and innovators.”

Here’s the SlashDot discussion.

UPDATE: Ernest Miller has much more on Grokster.

KELO BLOWBACK: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has introduced eminent-domain reform legislation.

I’m kind of surprised to hear that Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. is endorsing the decision.

Meanwhile, here’s a liberal objection to the decision.

THREATENING MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL to hurt George Soros? Doesn’t this seem a bit petty, even by Washington standards?

EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN says that the New York Times violated its own ethical rules to run an anonymous-sourced piece attacking Peter Jackson.

Meanwhile Tom Maguire looks at efforts to fix the Times.

UPDATE: Tim Blair: “The New York Times has a ‘Credibility Committee’?”

JOE GANDELMAN has a roundup of reactions to the Ten Commandments decisions. He thinks that the Court has inflamed the political battle. Meanwhile, Mark Daniels offers a Christian perspective:

The cause to which every Christian is called to be committed–sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and their power to give new life to all who follow Him–is not something that we are to “farm out” to the government. Each follower of Christ is to embrace this as part of their personal mission.

For we Christians to insist that tax dollars be used in what often is an act of proselytization not only violates constitutional principles, but Biblical ones as well.

Read the whole thing.

ANDREW SULLIVAN SUPPORTS Karl Rove!

UPDATE: Richard Posner weighs in.

So does Michael Barone: “One reason that the Democrats are squawking so much about Rove’s attack on ‘liberals’ is that he has put the focus on a fundamental split in the Democratic Party — a split among its politicians and its voters.”

(Somewhat) related item here.