Brief News

I'm not usually a big fan of polls, but this one showing that Muslim support for terrorism is on the decline world-wide is encouraging. Now, my skepticism about polls isn't because they're often discouraging, but because I don't find them compelling given what I know about statistics. But assuming this one is correct, this is exactly the kind of change that will lead to the end of terror. When support is down the terrorists will find it hard to recruit new fanatics. And that means less people to strap bombs to, which hopefully means less bombings. It could mean more desperate measures, though, so things might get worse before they get better. But at least we're moving in the right direction, it seems.

I didn't want to comment at all on the whole Rove thing -- if you want a lot of coverage Hugh Hewitt has it -- but the media seems intent on keeping it in the headlines. The only thing I would point to is this brief (taken from Hugh Hewitt) put forth by almost all major media outlets making the case that Plame was not covert in any serious sense . They make this case to say that they can not be held responsible for exposing a covert operative. From page ii: "In this case, there exists ample evidence in the public record to cast serious doubt as to whether a crime has even been committed under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (the "Act") in the investigation underlying the attempts to secure testimony from Miller and Cooper. If in fact no crime under the Act has been committed, then any need to compel Miller and Cooper to reveal their confidential sources should evaporate." For them to turn around now and try to stick the charges to Rove that they so adamantly fought is nothing short of reprehensible -- they claim there is no way a law is broken when its their necks on the line, but now that its someone they don't like they ignore everything they said before. Also, Rove issued a waiver months ago releasing anyone from keeping his involvement anonymous. That means that Cooper could have come out with this long ago, and also that Judith Miller could have said that Rove was her contact without compromising a confidentiality agreement. Since she decided to go to jail the only assumption that makes any sense is that there is another contact out there that leaked...