Today’s edition of quick hits.
* More discouraging economic news: “The number of new people signing up for unemployment benefits last week shot up to the highest level in more than two years, fresh evidence of the damage to a national economy clobbered by housing, credit and financial crises.”
* Why did the Maliki offensive in Basra go so poorly? According to a fascinating NYT piece, Maliki “overestimated his military’s abilities,” “underestimated the scale of the resistance,” acted “impulsively,” refused to send enough troops, and rejected good advice from others. (There’s a very good reason Bush and Maliki get along so well….)
* I’m not surprised; there are a lot of crazies out there: “Obama’s church has faced threats of violence since the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s comments on race and on America became national news, an official of a church council with which it’s affiliated said.”
* This one has to be read to be believed: “‘If you’re going to start taking pictures of me, you’re liable to get shot,’ the chairman of one of the country’s biggest coal mining companies, Don Blankenship of Massey Energy, told an ABC News reporter before grabbing the reporter’s camera. The incident this week, in the parking lot of a Massey Energy office in Belfry, Ky., is just the latest chapter in the saga of Blankenship’s controversial relationship with the West Virginia Supreme Court, which is hearing appeals that could cost his company hundreds of millions of dollars. Photographs recently emerged showing Blankenship vacationing on the French Riviera with the state Supreme Court Chief Justice Elliott ‘Spike’ Maynard.”
* John McCain insists that Iran and al Qaeda are in cahoots. Ayman al-Zawahiri, AQ’s second in command, offers a very different perspective. (Remember, according to Bush, Cheney, McCain, and their allies, it’s imperative that we listen to what al Qaeda’s leaders tell us about their strategies.)
* We don’t hear about this as much as we used to, but we’re still sending troops to war with untested body armor.
* When Clinton donors threatened Speaker Pelosi over her superdelegate comments, the whole effort seemed to backfire. Not only did Pelosi maintain her position, but DCCC donations spiked in response to the hardball tactics.
* Former Pentagon official Doug Feith, who “played a major role in developing the interrogation policy for Guantanamo Bay,” thinks only “assholes” care about torture. He wasn’t kidding.
* It’s hard to believe how worked up the right gets about Jane Fonda.
* I’m trying to imagine what would happen if a liberal Democrat had said this: “The California congressman who called the Sept. 11 attacks ‘simply’ a plane crash ran for cover Wednesday under a barrage of ridicule from fellow Republicans, first responders and victims’ families. San Diego GOP Rep. Darrell Issa was under siege for suggesting the federal government had already done enough to help New York cope with ‘a fire’ that ‘simply was an aircraft’ hitting the World ‘Trade Center.”
* Agreed: “I think the whole ‘earmark’ discussion is stupid. One can ask for more transparency in the process, and a better process, but basically we’re just talking about Congress specifying how money should be spent instead of having the Awesome Executive make those decisions. But I’m enough of a ‘to the winners go some of the spoils’ guy to wonder just how it is that in a Democratic Congress, conservatives are the worst earmark ‘offenders.'”
* It looks like I can safely skip Lee Siegel’s new anti-web book, “Against the Machine.”
* If James Kirchick had only clicked on the link, he wouldn’t have known not to publish his cheap and misleading shot at Jane Hamsher.
* I wonder who the Wall Street Journal will endorse?
* And finally, you know how there was some odd campaign to get everyone, everywhere to name everything after Ronald Reagan? A new effort is underway to get a sewage plant in San Francisco named after George W. Bush. Seems like a reasonable idea.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.