Khamenei in a coma? I know, I know — it’s serious.

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On today’s Trifecta, Bill Whittle wagers that last Friday, the four most-said words were, No, Kidding, What, and For.

There might have been a Nobel Prize and some serious ego involved — but whose?

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Nikon’s upgraded the D3 to the D3s. Only changes I can see from the press release is a video mode, the inclusion of a dust-shaker, and a higher MSRP. The D3 is Nikon’s pro body, but I wonder how many pros need or will use the video function?

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Camille Paglia answers reader mail.

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I participated in a blogger’s conference call this afternoon RNC Chairman Michael Steele and New Media Director Todd Herman, to announce the beta launch of the New! GOP.com. It was so exciting, that Scott Ott, Bill Whittle and I felt absolutely compelled to shoot a fourth Trifecta segment, just to poke fun at it.

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Matt Welch on the forgotten anniversary of the Revolutions of ’89.

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On the new Hair of the Dog, we’re trying something totally new — the BullShot Meter. And, yes, of course we used it to gauge how the pundits responded to President Obama’s Nobel Attendance Prize.

Also on the show, an Afghanistan roundtable roundup and Diane Feinstein [CORRECTED!] sends a thrill up my leg.

No, really. Check it out.

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Because I’m speechless, is why.

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Couldn’t have happened to a nicer crook:

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will face a 2010 primary challenge from one of his own former campaign directors.

Vince Morgan, a New York banker who once worked for Rangel as a special assistant and subsequently as a campaign director, announced Monday that he would challenge Rangel for reelection.

If everybody followed my example — or at least half-plus-one of everybody — and almost never voted for incumbents, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

So is Morgan any good? Hell if I know. But he couldn’t possibly be any worse, unless he ends up using the congressional cloakroom to store dead hookers. And even then…

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Somewhere in Switzerland, the world’s smallest violin can be heard:

Director Roman Polanski is feeling depressed two weeks after his arrest in Switzerland to face U.S. extradition for a 1977 case involving the rape of a 13-year-old girl, his lawyer was quoted as saying on Sunday.

“I found him to be tired and depressed,” Herve Temime told the Sonntag newspaper, one of two newspapers he talked to after visiting the Oscar-winning director in a Zurich prison.

“Roman Polanski, who is 76, seemed very dejected when I visited him,” Temime told another newspaper, NZZ am Sonntag.

“Polanski was in an unsettled state of mind.”

So much for my image of jail being a happy fun place.

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Once again, there’s hot and fresh PJM Political for your weekend enjoyment. I’d do the usual show summary to tease you into listening, but right now I’ve got five (six?) Sunday chat shows to sit through. So just trust me when I tell you it’s a good one.

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Did we just retreat in Afghanistan — after a couple extra combat brigade teams have arrived? President Bush seems to have handled this mess better, with fewer troops.

Makes you wonder if this “necessary war” should necessarily be waged by our current commander-in-chief.

UPDATE: Check out the comments — things aren’t as bad as they seem. They rarely are, but it’s getting harder to remember that.

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Isn’t (s)he beautiful?

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As seen on TV — er, PJTV — it’s the picks from the new Week in Blogs:

I don’t know art, but I know what I like. I think.

David, may I sleep with Treacher?

Never straight but gayly forward, someday, eventually, maybe.

Officer, they both looked kinda like Darth Vader.

Is that even a word?

It was my understanding that there would be no math.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Keep your hands to yourself.

I’m almost positive that one isn’t a word.

Spot the looney!

Now see what it all means on PJTV.

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So the President very nearly met face-to-face with his hand-picked man-on-the-scene in Afghanistan:

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of American and allied forces in Afghanistan, presented his request for more troops directly to President Obama on Friday as the White House moved closer to settling on a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

General McChrystal discussed his proposal via a video feed from Kabul beamed into the Situation Room in the White House, where Mr. Obama gathered with his national security team.

I don’t want to sound too blasé, but I was more excited when I managed to use six hyphens in the single sentence linking to the story.

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It’s not often someone so cynical and jaded gets to say this: But here’s a campaign I could support.

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Would have linked these yesterday, only my muscles and joints were all so sore, I could barely watch TV, much less blog. Anyway, have two new Trifecta segments for you. On my turn to host, I ask the most difficult question ever asked on television — and it’s only four words. And then on the last one for the week, Scott Ott plays host and wonders what a political party is good for, anyway.

The answers might shock you! Or maybe not. But at least we amuse.

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Will it take an extra 100,000 troops to wage a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan?

Obama: Jimmy Carter, with just a touch of LBJ. Or is it the other way around?

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So very, very wrong. And there’s lots more wrongness just like it, here.

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Ever had a bad reaction to a flu shot? Me, neither — until about 1AM Thursday morning. All I can say is: Ouch. Oh, and: Glad that’s over.

Anyway, I’m back in the game and writing up the script for tomorrow’s Week in Blogs. Meanwhile, I’m all over the Peace Prize thing on Twitter.

UPDATE: The problem, Nick, is your use of the word “principle.”

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What happens when you combine Ed Driscoll with Iowahawk and a TV studio?

Uh…

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“Tax the rich” is so stupid, even a tax-and-spend liberal can learn the lesson:

I suppose it is cold comfort to New Yorkers that [Governor] Paterson is now giving his political enemies the “I told you so” treatment. Speaking to reporters recently in Albany, Paterson noted that revenue from tax increases was running 20 percent below projections and that, in particular, the wealthy were not paying up. So far, the state had only collected about half of an expected $1 billion in income tax revenues from the state’s wealthiest residents. “You heard the mantra, ‘Tax the rich, tax the rich,”‘ Paterson said. “We’ve done that. We’ve probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state.”

But I’m sure it will work just fine at the federal level. Juuuuuust fine.

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Bill Quick adds a lot to the discussion. Read it.

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If 3PM isn’t too early to clean the kitchen, why is it too early for a martini?

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It’s a special impromptu Trifecta, where Scott Ott, Bill Whittle and I just go ahead and admit to the FTC all the free stuff we’ve been getting to promote on our blogs.

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Since not everyone has the time to listen to PJM Political, here are my notes to Saturday’s rant. If Afghanistan is important enough for the President to dawdle over for most of a year, it’s important enough to discuss on a blog. If it’s a little too conversational, well, it was written for radio.

It’s the start of October, so it must be time for a new Afghanistan strategy. The big news last weekend was the leak of General McChrystal’s memo to the President. He says he needs 10,000 to 40,000 additional troops, or Afghanistan is lost. Meanwhile, Vice President Biden says we should be reducing our numbers and concentrating on a simpler counter-terrorism strategy.

And let’s be fair to the President, this isn’t an easy decision to make — big footprint, a surge if you will. Or go small, with just enough soldiers to gather intel and aim rockets at the bad guys.

I’m inclined to agree with Biden on this one. Afghanistan is a lot like Somalia or Haiti. It’s not so much a country as it is a spot on the map where other countries aren’t. There’s no there-there, if you will. If you’re going to nation-build, it helps to have a nation to start with.

Bear with me here, because this gets complicated. But we’ve got to talk a little Grand Strategy.

(more…)

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