Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Awful news out of Iraq from Reuters: “At least 175 people were killed when three suicide bombers driving fuel tankers attacked a town, home to an ancient minority sect, in northern Iraq on Tuesday in one of the worst single incidents in the four-year-old war. Iraqi army Captain Mohammad al-Jaad said at least another 200 people were wounded in the bombings in separate Yazidi neighborhoods in the town of Kahtaniya, west of Mosul.”
* Gen. George Casey, the former top commander in Iraq and now the Army Chief of Staff, at the National Press Club today: “Right now, there’s so much residual mistrust left over from the time under Saddam Hussein that they’re not quite ready to go forward. But they have an educated population, they have oil wells, they have water, they have some of the most fertile land I’ve ever seen. In a decade or so, this will be a remarkable country, if we stick with it.” Yes, he really did say “a decade or so.” Ready for another 20 Friedman Units?
* Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican House Speaker in the chamber’s history, is calling it quits: “After less than a year as a rank-and-file House member, former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is expected to call an end to a political career that made him the longest serving Republican Speaker in the history of the House of Representatives. Several Illinois newspapers, including the Aurora Beacon News and the Chicago Tribune, reported Tuesday that the Illinois Republican has scheduled a Friday announcement…. [H]e is expected to announce that he will not run for a 12th term in 2008, according to Republican sources.” Hastert will be best remembered for his work on … or maybe his leadership during … or perhaps his commitment to … well, I’m sure he’ll be remembered for something; I just don’t know what.
* Following the blogs’ lead, the New York Post picked up on Chris Matthews’ creepy on-air treatment of CNBC anchor Erin Burnett today, quoting Matthews as saying “he was only fooling around with Burnett because the camera lens had already made her appear closer than usual.” The article then quoted Matthews saying, “It was this weird fishbowl look . . . I was just kidding around.” I don’t think that counts as an apology.
* Last week, Rudy Giuliani committed what should have been a humiliating gaffe when he insisted that he was one of the 9/11 rescue workers who had spent as much time at Ground Zero, if not more, than the clean-up and recovery teams who spent 40 hours a week there for a year. Greg Sargent raised a great question: what kind of coverage did Giuliani’s obvious lie generate among the political pundits? The answer: not much.
* No one can accuse Pat Leahy of failing to try: “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), at the urging of the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), on Tuesday requested a meeting with President Bush to hammer out a deal that would allow key White House aides to testify before the panel on the firing of several U.S. attorneys. Leahy indicated that this is a last-ditch effort, saying that his previous efforts to get the White House to cooperate have failed to yield results.” This one could fail, too, but Leahy’s is taking his due diligence seriously.
* Reuters: “Lobby groups must ensure they get their facts straight, Britain’s advertising watchdog has warned after finding that the Save Darfur Coalition could not substantiate its claim of 400,000 deaths in the Sudanese region. Made up from dozens of faith-based and advocacy organisations and backed by celebrities such as Mia Farrow and George Clooney, the US-based Save Darfur Coalition has been credited with drawing international attention to the situation in Sudan’s war-torn west. But Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority said in a ruling last week that recent adverts saying that 400,000 people had died in violence that the coalition blames on the Sudanese government went too far.”
* I don’t think prominent neoconservative Victor Davis Hanson knows what a “paper tiger” is.
* Right-wing personality John Gibson mocked Jon Stewart today on his radio show. If we’re really lucky, Stewart will respond on The Daily Show.
* Arianna Huffington think the media is neglecting a vital part of the Utah mine collapse story.
* NYT: “Five reporters must testify about their law enforcement sources in a former Army scientist’s lawsuit against the Justice Department, a federal judge in Washington ruled yesterday. The suit, filed by Steven J. Hatfill, a bioterrorism expert, contends that the government violated the federal Privacy Act by providing journalists with information about him in the F.B.I.’s investigation of the deadly anthrax mailings in 2001.”
* New man-crush for Chris Matthews: “On the August 13 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, during an interview with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, host Chris Matthews said: ‘Let me ask you about Mitt Romney. You know, I watched him on the today show this morning. He looks like a million bucks. Everything is perfect. Everything about him is perfect.’ As examples, Matthews cited Romney’s ‘look,’ his ‘manner,’ and his ‘shirt.'”
* And finally, the “macaca” story broke exactly one year ago today. And with it, the YouTube era was born.
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.