EVELYN NIEVES HAS ANOTHER PUFF PIECE ON THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT, in tomorrow’s Washington Post. Once again, as with this earlier piece, it seems to rely on movement supporters for all the key quotes, and is completely lacking in any sort of skepticism. My favorite quote:

“I said that all mothers should automatically be against war,” Reed said. “It was against their nature to be violent instead of nurturing.” Maybe, she said, it was time to start a movement — Mothers Against War.

Reed is a “retired Hampshire College drama teacher” — not exactly evidence in support of Nieves’ largely unsupported assertion that the antiwar movement is expanding beyond the usual suspects.

Is it “creeping Rainesism?” I hope not. Even staffers at The New York Times are weary of Raines’ biases.

MERDE IN FRANCE has an Al Qaeda leadership scorecard. Rather a lot of them are dead or in captivity.

ZACH BARBERA writes on political correctness at U. Mass.

MICHAEL MOORE SAYS HE’S BEEN BLACKED OUT ON AMERICAN TV. Tim Blair responds with Nexis research that shows that isn’t true at all.

Maybe Tim should write a book entitled Michael Moore is a Big Fat Liar. I’d buy it!

EVEN A FLATWORM TURNS AWAY FROM PAIN: And apparently there are some Palestinian leaders who are smart enough to do the same.

I DIDN’T REMOVE LETTER FROM GOTHAM from my blogroll because I knew she’d be back. I was right. Heh.

KEVIN PHILLIPS says that the Democrats are in trouble — losing ground with blacks, latinos, and working-class whites — because of their pursuit of big-money donors. And he identifies a particularly damaging constituency:

In California, for example, it is Democrats who are favored by the state’s largest and richest industry: communications and entertainment. Davis had so much money this year that he might have been better named Green Davis. Much of this moola, however, comes with the same price tag that usually accompanies GOP money: fealty to those who contribute it and diminished interest in the day-to-day concerns of ordinary working Americans.

Some entertainment industry money is, in a sense, worse, because it mixes fat-wallet economics with liberal chic, the kind of cultural politics caricatured in Middle America by jokes about Concerned Citizens for Humane Lobster Traps or epitomized by the decision in San Francisco last year to allow city employees to have sex-change operations at public expense. Hollywood combines both Democratic weaknesses in one Gucci briefcase.

And the Gucci briefcase belongs to Jack Valenti. Or maybe Hillary Rosen.

(Via Armed Liberal).

SUMAN PALIT has some thoughts on Islam in India.

U.S. MUSLIMS ARE BEGINNING TO QUESTION SAUDI DONATIONS:

“For too long we’ve depended too often on overseas financing to keep our institutions alive. This comes at the price of our intellectual independence and integrity,” said Mairaj Syed, a UCLA graduate student in Islamic studies.

His comments sparked an online debate about the donation on San Francisco-based AMILAnet, a Muslim-oriented discussion group. . . .

Saudi Arabian donations have helped finance more than 1,700 mosques, Islamic centers and schools around the world. The kingdom has fully or partially financed Islamic centers in Los Angeles; San Francisco; Fresno; Chicago; New York; Washington; Tucson; Raleigh, N.C.; and Toledo, Ohio.

I think that they’re right to question the money, which is in support of an agenda that is, quite literally, anti-American.

UPDATE: Here’s a longer version of the story from the L.A. Times. Excerpt:

Some Muslim scholars have argued that such leanings are fundamentally intolerant and, taken to their extreme, are used as a religious justification for the terrorism of Osama bin Laden and others.

“The main reason we lack legitimacy among many Americans is because we don’t take a critical look at the theological orientations within the Muslim community that could produce ugly acts like 9/11 or the Taliban regime’s destruction of Buddhist statues in Afghanistan,” Syed said in an interview.

Others argued that acceptance of foreign donations could prevent American Muslims from criticizing the human-rights records of Muslim states.

“Saudi Arabia is a corrupt, dictatorial, fascist state that is an embarrassment to Islam and Muslims,” wrote Sarah Eltantawi, communications director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. Accepting foreign donations from such regimes “could set us back decades, or keep us in the ‘straddling the fence’ posture vis-a-vis Muslim dictators and oppressors that we seem to be shamefully stuck in today,” she wrote.

In his own posting in the online debate, Aslam Abdullah, the editor of Minaret magazine in Los Angeles, called on Muslims to reject all donations from Persian Gulf monarchies because they constitute “immoral money” earned off oil revenue and other sources that rightfully belong to the people of the Gulf countries, not to their kings.

Bravo. A lot of bloggers have been calling for moderate Muslims to take this kind of a stand. Now some are doing it. Let’s support them.

THE MYSTIC CHORDS OF MEMORY: Rachel Lucas has a project in mind.

OKAY, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY THE LAST WORD on the whole subject of “de-linking.”

IS AL QAEDA IN A CANNIBALIZATION PHASE? Dave Roberts emails:

I’ve seen a few reports, still unconfirmed, that one of the suicide bombers in Kenya was Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah. If it’s true it indicates that Al Qaeda isn’t just burning up recruits but is actually consuming the seed corn, the leadership team. Here’s a blurb on Abdullah from CNN: link

The name Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah is well-known to authorities and terrorism

experts.

Abdullah, also known as “Saleh,” is the al Qaeda leader of East African cells and a member of al Qaeda’s leadership group, the shura council, according to federal prosecutors. The name Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah is well-known to authorities and terrorism experts.

More recent reports link make it clear the identification isn’t firm yet, but the implications are interesting.

Maybe the supply of African suicide bomber recruits is zero, so the Arab leaders had to do it themselves. Maybe Al Qaeda is so shattered and hunted that the leaders are willing to suicide rather than be captured and miss out on all those virgins. In any case, if the identification turns out to be true, it’s a good sign for the anti-terror campaign.

Stay tuned.

I’M FEELING GUILTY because I missed seeing my brother’s band play last night. But — having had multiple houseguests for a week, and knowing that I’d be in the office writing my Administrative Law exam (early, for the benefit of a couple of students who need to take it early) I just couldn’t get up for it. The curse of responsibilities.

OKAY, IS THE “STEVE CARTER” WHO WROTE this letter to Salon about “black male nerds” the Steve Carter I think he is?

JOSHUA FERGUSON HAS A THEORY about the recent phony bin Laden tape. I think he’s right.

SECTION TWO is a blog featuring former Spinster Gena Lewis, along with some other people. It leans left, and anti-war.

MOIRA BREEN EMAILS to ask if I know of a fund for the benefit of Kenyan survivors of the Al Qaeda attack in Mombasa. I don’t. If anyone reading this does, please let me know and I’ll post the information.

UPDATE: Here’s a post asking the same question by Andrea Harris.

IMAO SAYS THAT THE AMERICAN COMPANIES WHO AID COMMUNIST CHINESE CENSORSHIP are accessories to murder.

I haven’t followed this issue as closely as I should have, but anyone who is helping the Chinese censor the Internet deserves to be criticized. Savagely.

THE SAUDI TERROR CONNECTION STORIES JUST KEEP ON COMING:

As FBI agents in Chicago pursued an investigation into alleged terrorist financing in 1998, they ran across a curious money trail that soon led them into a diplomatic swamp. A local chemical firm that was suspected of laundering money for Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, had received a $1.2 million cash infusion from the International Relief Organization, the U.S. branch of one of the world’s biggest Islamic charities. Determined to “follow the money,” they traced some of the charity’s funding to a surprising and sensitive source: the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

THE MONEY FLOW from the Saudis set off alarms in Washington. Investigators were told by top Justice officials to move carefully, according to sources familiar with the case. Some Justice higher-ups appeared worried that any inquiries into the operations of the Saudi Embassy could jeopardize U.S.-Saudi relations. “There was a concern about national security,” said one investigator. The agents did as they were told. A court affidavit spelling out $400,000 in money transfers to the organization was carefully edited—to omit any reference to the Saudi cash. Instead, the document referred blandly to funds from an unidentified “embassy of a foreign government.” The president of the chemical firm was later convicted of fraud. But charges were never filed against the Saudi-financed charity. Investigators complain they were actively discouraged by Justice Department brass from pursuing the group’s possible links to terrorism.

This just proves that softness on the Saudis precedes the current Administration, which is hardly news except maybe to Ted Rall. What’s interesting is that this stuff is coming out now.

PUNDITWATCH IS UP!

MEDIA BIAS: Jack O’Toole finds Rush Limbaugh’s response to Tom Daschle’s whining as unimpressive as he found Daschle’s whining itself. I caught part of the interview, and I’m inclined to agree.

MULLAHS RUNNING SCARED? Tom Holsinger emails two interesting articles. This one announces a letup on religious-policing efforts aimed at young lovers:

TEHRAN, Nov 29 (AFP) – Iran’s police is not authorised to arrest young unmarried couples seen in the streets anymore, the government-run Iran newspaper reported Saturday.

“The police forces are not allowed to stop and question young boys and girls seen together in the streets, as in the past, unless there is a private complaint filed against them”, a Tehran judge was quoted as saying by the government daily Iran.

He also points out this Jeff Jacoby column, which points out that, like the Iranian mullahs, the State Department appears to be finally recognizing the unpopularity of the current regime in Iran. “What prompted the change I don’t know. But if the Department of State is finally prepared to support President Bush’s policy on Iran, it can only be good news for the war against radical Islamist terrorism.” I think it means that the State Department now sees regime change as inevitable.

MORE “RIGHT WING BIAS” AT THE NEW YORK TIMES? Check out this story about FoxNews:

LESLIE H. GELB, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, watches international news obsessively, skipping from channel to channel. “I never watch a commercial,” he said.

He now considers Fox News Channel often to be a more reliable news source for international reporting than CNN or the nightly network news. Fox, he said, provides a “fairer picture, a fuller version of the different parts of the arguments” over world affairs.

Mr. Gelb said he makes a distinction between Fox’s news coverage and its opinion programs, like “The O’Reilly Factor,” which he considers biased. But even here, he finds himself drawn to Fox. “CNN’s commentary tends to be less biased and less interesting,” he said.

A lot of other people who do not fit comfortably into the right-wing stereotype of Fox viewers apparently agree.

Of course, in the listing of right-wing hosts, the Times omits the decidedly non-right-wing Greta von Susteren. But still, it’s obvious that Howell Raines has been bought off by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. And I’m sure we’ll be hearing that from some quarters, shortly. . . .

UPDATE: I think it’s a grassroots revolt. Sort of like what’s happening in Iran, only without the dancing.

JOHN ASHCROFT — NOT-SO-SUPER GENIUS: This sounds like a dreadful idea to me:

The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects — U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike — may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system, lawyers inside and outside the government say.

It is sadly true that there’s some legal authority for such an approach, stemming from the Civil War and World War II. But it’s still a terrible idea, and in particular anything that breaks down the protections of American citizens is a terrible idea because it raises the potential for politically-motivated abuse of power in a way that a system aimed at non-citizens does not.

KARL ROVE — SUPER GENIUS? Looks like it. At least, I just turned on This Week and George Stephanopoulos is characterizing the “Is Islam Evil?” debate as one between a tolerant George Bush and an intolerant Pat Robertson. Heh. Looks like triangulation to me. I mean, I think both Bush and Robertson are sincere in their positions, but casting the debate this way has got to help Bush, both at home and abroad. And I kind of doubt it’s an accident.