Opinion - RealClearPolitics.com

There's more than a little irony in the fact that Maria Cantwell, who poured $10 million of her dot com fortune into the 2000 Senate race to upset Slade Gorton by roughly 2,000 votes, is now bracing for an infusion of personal cash by her Republican opponent, Mike McGavick.

1. The Time article asserts that our actions in Iraq have "emboldened" the rulers in Tehran and Pyongyang to obtain nuclear weapons. The implication is that North Korea and Iran would have taken a different path if the Iraq war had never happened.

Never underestimate Iran's treachery. As Hezbollah's "Sugar Daddy," Tehran is up to their necks in orchestrating war on Israel, using their terrorist toadies, Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The only interesting part of Lois Romano's frontpage rehash of voters' doubt about Hillary Clinton in this morning's Washington Post comes at the very end:

For the second time in three months, stories are once again circulating about the feud between Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chairman Rahm Emanuel.

There's a long, must-read editorial in the Jerusalem Post this morning, but here's the one sentence, Cliffs Notes version:

The gents at RedState and Ankle Biting Pundits are raging over a new video by the DCCC which uses an image of flag-draped coffins and another with a gun supporting the helmet of a fallen soldier. They're using words like "outrageous," "appalling," and "disgusting" to describe the Democrats' use of these images. I'm sorry, but I don't see it and, quite frankly, the outrage seems misplaced, if not a bit phony and hypocritical.

Sixty-one years after the end of World War II, Japan is on the verge of becoming a mature, responsible democracy.

A reader emails to point out a contradiction in Carville & Greenberg's immigration talking points:

Perhaps my least popular post ever here was a criticism of Sen. Rick Santorum. My problem with Santorum, however, isn't that he's a Christian conservative (though there are more than a few social positions of his to which I would take exception). What Santorum represents that is unhealthy for the GOP, in my view, is big-government social conservatism.

Watching the left attack Joe Lieberman has been an interesting and sometimes comical process. Take Paul Campos. The University of Colorado Law Professor and Rocky Mountain News columnist can often be one of the more intelligent voices on the left, but he went completely off the rails yesterday trying to take a swipe at Joe Lieberman.

On the occasion of Israel's 50th anniversary as a modern state, the political columnist Charles Krauthammer laid out the very bleak math on the future of the Jewish diaspora if present trends continue.

The new memorandum about the status of terrorist detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and elsewhere - signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England on Friday -- is being widely misreported. The memo, which is reproduced in full below, doesn't say that the terrorists are now POWs under the Geneva Conventions or that they will be afforded the full rights and protections of the Geneva Conventions.

Here's a question: Would the Washington Post grant op-ed space to Hitler?

Here's E. J. Dionne Jr. on "The GOP's Looming Battle." (linked on the main page)

In the current issue of The Atlantic, I lay out the core argument from one chapter of my forthcoming book, The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party. As some responses are popping up in various forums, I wanted to take the time to respond.

With the Georgia primary only one week away, things have gotten nasty in the Republican race for Lt.

This week, the White House will revise its fiscal year 2006 budget deficit estimate to roughly $300 billion, a significant reduction from its January forecast of $423 billion. This will continue the White House's pattern of very conservative estimates.

For those Americans who can't understand the potentially self-destructive behavior of Iran, North Korea, and the Palestinians, try thinking about the world as high school.

President Bush faces a major test of his integrity when, or if, he ever gets around to reappointing Patrick Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney in Chicago.

One of the greatest honors that the United States can confer on any foreign leader is an invitation to address a joint session of Congress. All 535 Senators and Congressmen gather in the chamber of the House of Representatives to listen to the speech.

The salvo of North Korean missiles fired last week rattled windows in defense ministries and foreign offices in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, Beijing and Moscow, plus those at the United Nations and U.S. military headquarters in South Korea, Japan, and the Pacific Command in Hawaii.

Ashkelon is one of Israel's primary vacation cities. The Palestinians this week lobbed a rocket into that city which exploded in a high school. Fortunately, the school was empty. Had it been occupied, dozens if not hundreds of Israeli adolescents would have been injured or killed.

What follows is an excerpt from Peter Beinart's new book The Good Fight : Why Liberals---and Only Liberals---Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, published last month by Harper Collins.

In the event you missed it last night, Cal Thomas asked the question "Can a Mormon Be President?" Meanwhile, David French at Evangelicals for Mitt calls my recent post (Romney's 37% Problem) "off base" and says he believes most Southern evangelicals will not have a problem with Romney's Mormonism. Furthermore, French thinks that attacks against Romney's faith will backfire:

Last month Melissa Bean's reelection bid in the 8th Congressional District in Illinois hit a rather sizeable bump in the road when the state AFL-CIO refused to endorse her - political payback for her vote in favor of CAFTA last year.

There was a time not long ago when a general would resign rather than follow an order he could not, in good conscience, obey.

When it was decided last year that Nato forces would take over from American troops in one of the more dangerous parts of Afghanistan, US leaders held their breath.