Quoted: President Bush has set a record he'd presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the Gallup Poll.

When prosecuting the 'war on terror', the administration doesn't let niggling details like whether what they are doing is legal or constitutional (or moral or proper for that matter) slow them down. But when it comes to investigating private guards suddenly they have to be sure there really is a law that covers these guys before they can do a thing.

Quoted: Agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians found that all but three of the shootings were unjustified, officials said.

Ruh Roh.

Quoted: Tensions mounted today as the Turkish government sought parliamentary approval for military action in northern Iraq.

Say it again, brother...

"Americans think their danger is terrorists," said Roberts. "They don't understand the terrorists cannot take away habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution. ... The terrorists are not anything like the threat that we face to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution from our own government in the name of fighting terrorism."

Ouch,

Quoted: The U.S. went to war in Iraq to remove an evil and dangerous political adversary from power. Now that we have done that, the American troops must remain in Iraq until the country is a fully functioning democracy, able to spark change throughout the entire Middle East. While I find this obvious, there are still a lot of people in our country who fail to grasp it. I support Bush-administration foreign-policy goals, but I stand firmly against the individual men and women on the ground in the Persian Gulf.

An excellent article by Peter W. Galbraith. In essence, a summary of Galbraith's new book (which I need to read).

Quoted: While the Bush administration professes a commitment to Iraq’s unity, it has no intention of undertaking the major effort required to put the country together again.

Oww. The most damning indictment of Bush I have ever heard.

As America remains mired, both physically and mentally, in Iraq, the rest of the world marches on.

Quoted: As President Bush toured Asia, he spoke publicly of a free trade zone in the Pacific and focused private meetings on disarming North Korea.

Snip snip.

Quoted: The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Cheney's residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the "cakewalk" Adelman predicted. Cheney and his guests raised their glasses, toasting President Bush...