We're a day late on this one, but you shouldn't miss this scathing evisceration of a corrupt, politicized prosecutor, Barry Krischer of Palm Beach County, Florida, who has been harassing Rush Limbaugh for, what? the last couple of years? by Andrew McCarthy and Mark Levin. Krischer's prosecution has finally fizzled out. McCarthy and Levin write:

From day one [Limbaugh] has maintained he is innocent of any crimes. That assertion has stood the test of time, and it stands today as this shameful investigation ends.

We are former federal government attorneys. We’ve collectively spent decades in law enforcement and believe passionately in its professional, non-political, non-partisan mission. Thus, it’s with outrage that we note that, rather than quietly dropping this embarrassment of an investigation, the state attorney, Barry Krischer—a politically active liberal Democrat—has insisted on filing a charge which he well knows will never be tried. Insisting, that is, on further media churning of an allegation of doctor-shopping that he’ll never prove.

Rush is entering a plea of not guilty. The case will be dismissed in 18 months, when Rush completes the treatment he undertook on his own. There is no reason to file a charge that is without foundation and will never result in a judgment of conviction. But, under Florida procedures, this means a person is “processed.” That is, by this petty maneuver, Krischer has arranged for a mug shot of Rush Limbaugh.

Krischer ought to be ashamed of himself, and the people of Palm Beach County ought to be frightened by what passes for law enforcement in their neck of the woods.

Krischer has indeed been disgraced by this politically motivated prosecution. It is a timely reminder of how much discretion is vested in our state and federal prosecutors, and how much peril we are all in when they abuse their public trust.

There probably are members of Congress who show greater deference to America's adversaries than does my representative, Chris Van Hollen, but there aren't many. In his examination of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton during hearings before a House committee (carried on C-SPAN), Van Hollen took the position that we are having trouble getting China and Russia to support tough U.N. action against Iran because the Bush administration cited prior U.N. resolutions when it went to war in Iraq. In espousing this convoluted argument, Van Hollen hit the leftist trifecta, combining "blame America first" syndrome, the left's apologist tradition with respect to Communist and other thugish regimes, and mindless Bush-bashing.

I wonder what evidence Van Hollen would adduce for the notion that, had we not invaded Iraq, China and Russia would be prepared to back tough action against Iran. Only someone too naive for public office, or a cheap shot artist, would suggest that the positions of China and Russia on important foreign policy issues are grounded in our conduct, not their own perceived self-interest.

But Van Hollen took things to a more craven level when he asked Bolton whether the Bush administration would assure the Russians and the Red Chinese that if they backed a U.N. resolution on Iran we would not later cite the resolution as support for military action against Iran. In effect, a member of Congress almost seemed to be acting as a self-appointed intermediary between one or more hostile foreign power and the United States government.

Bolton responded that the U.S. would not give Russia and China a say in our decisions about how to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Van Hollen claimed that this is not what he wants. But once we start trading assurances for U.N. votes, it's difficult to see how we don't end up with that outcome. And given Van Hollen's deep suspicion of American assertiveness and his corresponding lack of suspicion of the motives of our adversaries, it's difficult to believe that this is not the outcome Van Hollen favors.

I'm borrowing Michelle's post title to link to her two astonishing collections of photos from yesterday's pro-illegal immigration demonstrations. Here's one as a teaser, but you really should see them all:

That's where the prosecutor's case against one of the Duke lacrosse players charged with rape has gone. To see the surveillance video that appears to give the player an airtight alibi, go here.

Actually, the video could doom the prosecution's case against the second student, too. If the accuser picked one obviously innocent man out of a photo-lineup, it's hard to see how a jury can believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she got the other one right. Assuming that the alleged assault occurred at all.

Hugh Hewitt dissects New York Times editor Bill Keller's apologia in today's Wall Street Journal. It's a remarkable document. I don't see any way to read it other than as a declaration that the New York Times is above the law.

UPDATE: Hugh has more, following his radio show tonight, which was devoted to this topic.

Political junkies everywhere know Real Clear Politics, the go-to place for polls, talk show transcripts and links to news and commentary. But Tom Bevan and John McIntyre aren't just aggregators, they're also among the sharpest commentators on the web. So their blog, which includes occasional contributions by luminaries like Larry Kudlow, is this week's Blog of the Week.

The RCP Blog will be featured on Power LIne News, and we'll also link to individual posts from time to time. Like this one: "Hey Democrats...It's the Contempt".

Does Senator Reid have any sense of decency or regard for the truth? Not if Ed Whelan has it right in this post on Reid's comments about federal appeals court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Reid reportedly said of Kavanaugh, "Here's a person who has been involved in a lot of things dealing with torture, and his experience is nonexistent, basically — 41-years old. I'm not sure he's ever been in a courtroom."

Whelan responds, "I am reliably informed that Kavanaugh had zero involvement in Administration policy on detainees. And Kavanaugh has, among other things, argued cases in the Supreme Court and court of appeals."

The Washington Examiner calls Senator McCain to task for his statement on Don Imus's program that "I would rather have a clean government than one where, quote, First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I’d rather have the clean government." McCain's statement implies an alarming disrespect for the Constitution and for political freedom. If McCain truly means what he told Imus, then conservatives who doubt his fitness for the presidency may have a case. As the Examiner observes, "those who put their private political vision above everybody else’s essential freedoms cannot be trusted with the reins of power."

At FrontPage Jamie Glazov has posted his long, fascinating interview with Marine hero Scott Montoya: "Touch of the Dragon."

The first video filmed yesterday by Andrew Marcus in Los Angeles is now posted on Power Line Video, along with the coast-to-coast footage that we posted earlier this morning. It's a short segment that previews the finished work that Andrew will have available later today. Ultimately, he'll be putting together in a single video highlights of all of the footage that our readers shot yesterday in cities across America.

With the exception of interviews with a few left-wing journalists writing for congenial publications, John Mearsheimer and Stehen Walt have steadfastly refused to discuss their "Israel Lobby" paper. On Friday Robert Fisk devoted a column in the Independent to his interview with Stephen Walt; Fisk's column ran under the cover depicting the unlovely flag above, sure to warm the heart of "Israel Lobby" fan David Duke and others of his ilk on the left and the right. (James Taranto notes via David T. that a similar image appeared on a flyer from International Third Position, "a neo-nazi group founded by Nick Griffin.") Fisk's column was kept behind the Independent's subscription wall. It is now available here and elsewhere on the Internet.

In his column Fisk reports that the "Israel Lobby" paper was originally commissioned by the Atlantic four years ago. With characteristic sloppiness, Fisk darkly alleges:

[H]ow many people in America are putting their own heads above the parapet, now that Mearsheimer and Walt have launched a missile that would fall to the ground unexploded in any other country but which is detonating here at high speed? Not a lot. For a while, the mainstream US press and television - as pro-Israeli, biased and gutless as the two academics infer them to be - did not know whether to report on their conclusions (originally written for The Atlantic Monthly, whose editors apparently took fright, and subsequently reprinted in the London Review of Books in slightly truncated form) or to remain submissively silent.

Those Atlantic editors -- allegedly frightened off by the mighty "Israel Lobby" -- what do they have to say? I doubted the accuracy of Fisk's dark speculation and, having been a reader of both the "Israel Lobby" paper and the Atlantic, I thought that the paper had probably failed to meet the Atlantic's standards. Yesterday I placed calls to the Atlantic's managing editor, its deputy managing editor, and its communications director. The editors failed to return my calls; the communications director would state only that as a matter of policy the Atlantic does not comment on the basis for the magazine's rejection of articles.

As it happens, John Mearsheimer is quoted discussing the Atlantic's rejection of the "Israel Lobby" paper in last week's Nation article on the paper by Philip Weiss, with whom Mearsheimer spoke and corresponded for the article. Weiss reports:

Mearsheimer says by e-mail: "At the American Political Science Association convention in the late summer of 2002, I was talking to a friend about the US-Israel relationship. We shared similar views, and agreed that lots of others thought the same way. I said to him over the course of a dinner that I found it quite amazing that despite widespread recognition of the lobby's influence, no one could write about it and get it published in the United States. He told me that he thought that was not the case, because he had a friend at The Atlantic who was looking for just such an article."

The Atlantic had long hoped to assign a piece that would look systematically at where Israel and America shared interests and where those interests conflicted, so as to examine the lobby's impact. The magazine duly commissioned an article in late 2002 by Mearsheimer and Walt, whom Mearsheimer had brought in.

***

They turned their piece in to The Atlantic two years ago. The magazine sought revisions, and they submitted a new draft in early 2005, which was rejected. "[We] decided not to publish the article they wrote," managing editor Cullen Murphy wrote to me, adding that The Atlantic's policy is not to discuss editorial decisions with people other than the authors.

"I believe they got cold feet," Mearsheimer says. "They said they thought the piece was a terrible--they thought the piece was terribly written. That was their explanation. Beyond that I know nothing. I would be curious to know what really happened." The writing as such can't have been the issue for the magazine; editors are paid to rewrite pieces. The understanding I got from a source close to the magazine is that The Atlantic had wanted a piece of an analytical character. It got the analysis, topped off with a strong argument.

Could the Atlantic editors have been telling the truth when they told Mearhseimer and Walt that they found the paper to be terrible? Or were they fearful of the opprobrium that would follow from their publishing an article with the opinions expressed by Mearsheimer and Walt? Read the paper in its full pseudoscholarly form and decide for yourself.

I've asked the Atlantic to reconsider its policy of declining comment on its editorial decisions in connection with this matter, and to disclose why it rejected the "Israel Lobby" paper for publication. I've heard something somewhere about "the public's right to know." I'm not optimistic that the Atlantic will talk, but I'm confident that its decision derived from the shoddiness and charlatanry of the paper rather than the purported heterodoxy of the paper's opinions.

I can't imagine why the Nation itself, for example, would not proudly have published Mearsheimer and Walt's paper in a heartbeat. It would have followed up nicely on Gore Vidal's twenty-year-old Nation essay "The Empire Lovers Strike Back," casting aspersions on Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter as an "Israeli Fifth Column." Indeed, Vidal's essay is something like the template for the disgrace of the "Israel Lobby." Vidal's essay was published in the Nation's 120th anniversary issue in March 1986; the "Israel Lobby" paper by all rights was the work with which to celebrate the Nation's 140th anniversary last year. (Forgive Richard Samuelson for the pun in the heading.)

Don't miss Josh Gerstein's New York Sun article on the sentencing of University of South Florida professor of terror Sami al-Arian: "A judge stuns al-Arian with maximum time." Gerstein reports:

A federal judge yesterday lambasted a former Florida college professor, Sami Al-Arian, as a liar and "master manipulator," before sentencing him to nearly five years in prison for providing support to a Middle Eastern terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Under a plea deal finalized last month, Al-Arian, 48, agreed to admit guilt and accept a possible sentence of 46 to 57 months and eventual deportation from America. Prosecutors agreed to join defense attorneys in recommending a sentence at the low end of the range, but the judge, James Moody Jr., ignored those suggestions and imposed the maximum sentence allowed by the plea bargain.

Al-Arian has been in custody since he was accused of being the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in America and arrested in February 2003. A six-month trial overseen by Judge Moody last year resulted in Al-Arian's acquittal on eight charges against him and a hung jury on nine others. In a blow to the prosecution, none of the four defendants tried was convicted on any count and two of Al-Arian's co-defendants were acquitted outright.

The former University of South Florida professor's family and allies had hoped his guilty plea would lead to his speedy release and deportation, but the sentence imposed yesterday, when reduced by time served and other credits, means Al-Arian is likely to spend at least another year in jail before being handed over to immigration authorities.

At a court hearing yesterday morning, Judge Moody coupled the tough sentence with a stinging verbal rebuke of Al-Arian. The judge scoffed at many of the explanations and defenses Al-Arian has offered since news reports emerged in the mid-1990s alleging that the computer science professor and his Islamic studies think tank had ties to terrorism.

"You are a master manipulator. You looked your neighbors in the eyes and said you had nothing to do with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This trial exposed that as a lie," Judge Moody said. "The evidence was clear in the this case that you were a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."

When evidence emerged at the trial of Al-Arian's contacts with leaders of the terror group, his attorneys argued that he was involved solely in the group's nonviolent wing and that his fund-raising activities were charitable in nature.

Judge Moody also called that account "a lie." He noted that Al-Arian worked intensely to restructure Palestinian Islamic Jihad to preserve financial support from Iran. However, the judge said Al-Arian did nothing to oppose the group's terrorist acts and even laughed when discussing the suicide bombings in conversations secretly wiretapped by the FBI. "When it came to blowing up women and children, did you leap into action then?" Judge Moody asked rhetorically. "No. You lifted not one finger, made not one phone call."

Judge Moody faulted Al-Arian for condoning terrorist bombings in the Middle East, while raising his children comfortably in America. "Your children attend the finest universities this country had to offer while you raise money to blow up the children of others," the judge said.

Recall that al-Arian operated with impunity from his academic perch on American soil for years while American intelligence monitored his every move -- until the passage of the PATRIOT Act enabled his prosecution based on the intelligence work. Responding to al-Arian's presentencing statement to the court, Judge Moody said: "I find it interesting that here in public in front of everyone you praise this country, the same country that in private you referred to as 'the great satan.'" Al-Arian's friends at CAIR aren't accustomed to such bluntness:

A group of Al-Arian backers who were in the courtroom was stunned by the judge's verbal broadside. "That was shocking to hear that," a spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, Ahmed Bedier, said. "The judge's demeanor - he looked angry as he was delivering that, even his face was turning somewhat red."

Gerstein notes that Judge Moody was appointed to the federal bench in 2000 by President Clinton, and that he received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Florida and was a civil litigator before becoming a county judge in Florida in 1995.

I have previously written here:

The only war the Democrats really have their heart in is the war to undermine the Bush administration. Any incidental damage done to the national interest in furtherance of that war appears in their eyes to be for the greater good.

Considering recently fired CIA inspector general officer and former Clinton administration NSC staffer Mary McCarthy and her friends at the Washington Post and the New York Times, I have the same thought in reading StepThomas Joscelyn's excellent column for the Standard: "The New McCarthyism." Stephen Hayes's excellent article of the same name from the current issue of the Standard is unfortunately available to subscribers only; it also elicits the same thought.

Evan Coyne Maloney of Brain Terminal writes:

According to Nancy Kruh of The Dallas Morning News, veteran New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has been stuck in a rut for years. "For several months now," Kruh writes, "as I’ve read one Iraq war column after another, one thought always comes to mind: Um, haven’t I read this before? So, yesterday, I finally immersed myself in Lexis-Nexis to try to quantify and qualify this phenomenon."

What Kruh discovered is that many of Herbert's columns during the Bush presidency contain similar, interchangeable passages. She cites a number of examples that make it seem like your average Herbert column is just a random recombination of wording from earlier columns.

Given the paper's recent stock performance and rumblings from restless investors, I thought I'd help the Times find ways to put out the same product for less money. So I spent about fifteen minutes writing software that can generate Bob Herbert columns while using a minimal amount of our Earth's precious resources.

You can find the fruit of Evan's creativity and ecological concerns here.

The first installment of our coverage of yesterday's pro-illegal immigration demonstrations is up at Power Line Video. Consisting of video shot by our readers in cities from Portland to New York, this is the most unvarnished look at the "Day Without Immigrants" that you'll see anywhere--the good, the bad and the ugly, from American flags to Che Guevara, International ANSWER and Camp Casey,

There is lots more to come: coverage of the rally in Los Angeles will be posted shortly, and later today the finished product incorporating footage from still more locations should be available.

Paul wrote yesterday, on the subject of Iran:

There are only two horses in this race -- a nuclear Iran and an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities. Those who back a third horse -- be it U.N. involvement or "tough" sanctions -- are engaging in a Clinton-style evasion.

I don't disagree with this, but I would go farther. One option--the most aggressive one that anyone is discussing, as far as I know--is, as Paul says, a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. But suppose such an attack is successful, and assume that it sets back Iran's nuclear program by five to ten years. The mullahs, on that scenario, are still in power. And the theory behind the surgical strike option is, presumably, that their continuation in power is acceptable.

But how is this different from our policy toward Iraq between 1991 and 2001? The debate, as to Iraq, was between those who believed that regime change was necessary, and those who thought we could "keep Saddam in a box" through no-fly zones, sanctions, U.N. inspections, and so on. What happened in practice was that the U.S. government proclaimed a policy of regime change, but settled for the box. This changed, however, after September 11. The Bush administration concluded that the box strategy was no longer adequate, in large part because of the threat that Saddam's regime might supply WMDs to a terrorist organization.

How is this different from Iran in the aftermath of a military strike? Indeed, the situation in Iran will be much worse: no no-fly zones; likely no sanctions; and no U.N. inspections. As far as I know, Iran has concentrated to date on nuclear, not chemical or biological, weapons. But those weapons are far easier to make. If we bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, but leave its regime in place, isn't the risk of Iran's equipping terrorist organizations (several of which they sponsor) with chemical or biological weaons at least as great as it was in the case of Iraq? If it wasn't acceptable to try to keep Saddam in a box after September 11, why would it be acceptable to pursue the same strategy with respect to Iran?

It seems to me that the case for military action against Iran, designed not just to set back its nuclear program but to change its form of government, is at least as strong as it was with regard to Iraq. But it appears equally clear that the American people have no appetite for the sort of conflict it would require to bring about regime change there. So, by default, we seem destined--at best--for a policy toward Iran substantially similar to the "box" strategy that was deemed insufficient when applied to Iraq.

Blog of the Week Thomas Joscelyn comments on the State Department's "Country Reports on Terrorism," released last week, as it relates to Iran. Iran is making a considerable contribution to the terrorists in Iraq:

A multi-charged roadside bomb, developed by Hizbollah in Lebanon, is being used against British and American soldiers by Iraqi insurgents linked to Iran, according to military intelligence sources.

The device consists of an array of up to five armour-piercing "explosively formed projectiles" or EFPs, also known as shaped charges. They are fired at different angles at coalition vehicles, resulting in almost certain death for at least some of the soldiers inside.

The bombs are easier for insurgents to use because, unlike single EFP devices, they do not need to be carefully aimed and so can be planted beside a road within a few seconds. Their killing potential is also enhanced because more than one EFP is likely to hit a single vehicle.

Tom concludes:

[L]et’s be clear: There is much American blood on Tehran’s hands, in Iraq and elsewhere. The public debate over what to do about Iran should start with that fact.

Professor Stanley Renshon is the Political Psychologist. He is also a new blogger who shows the advantages of the medium. His latest post explains why Stephen Colbert bombed at the Washington press dinner on Saturday: "Being rude to the president and his wife is no joke." At RealClearPolitics Professor Renshon reflects on another grave matter: "On being a Bush apologist: The case of immigration."

Joseph Shahda has translated another Iraqi intelligence document, which appears to indicate that Iraq procured equipment to detect nerve gas in or about December 2000. This equipment is described as "prohibited" and as "similar to the required quality compared with the Russian equipments," which are described as having "expired." It appears that the equipment was tested in December 2000 and was found to detect "nerve agents" successfully. Which certainly seems to confirm that Iraq had some quantity of nerve gas as of early 2001.

We were in good company during this past Friday's cyberattack on our host company's servers by Saudi Arabian jihadists. The target of the attack has been identified by our host as Aaron's cc:, with which we share a server at Hosting Matters. We erroneously referred to Aaron's site as Israeli last Friday; he wrote to let us know he's 100 percent American and back in business. You might want to try to figure how Aaron got the jihadists so riled up. He must be good. He also has a roundup of the hundred or so sites affected by last Friday's denial of service attack.