Today on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Democratic Representative Jack Murtha stated his view that Americans should leave Iraq immediately at the three-year mark. He said,

“We have to say to the Iraqis, ‘This is your war. This is no longer our war. You’ve got an elected government. This is up to you now to settle this thing,’ ”

Nowhere does the article mention the time line of the two most successful American efforts to build a new nation on different principles, on the wreckage of a former government. Those two nations were Germany and Japan.

In Germany, the reconstruction began with a few elected (non-Nazi) governments in cities. Konrad Adenauer, later to become the first leader of post-war Germany, was one of those mayors. It was not until five years after the surrender in May, 1945, that Germany had its first post-war national election. And it was after that, that the security of the reconstructed nation was turned over entirely to German police forces.

I lost a lot of respect of David Gregory over the hunting issue. And he constantly calls into the Imus show...He's become somewhat of a joke, not someone who should be covering the Preisident of the United States.

Larry T. Doughty

Brewer, Maine

On the subject of blogging on this morning's edition of The Chris Matthews Show, panelist David Gregory says that he is a big fan of AndrewSullivan.com and called it "one of the best places on the web". Andrew Sullivan is a blogger who claims to be conservative, however shares many liberal viewpoints. He voted for George W. Bush in 2000, but voted for John Kerry in 2004.

DAVID GREGORY: It's the ability to take an issue and how to proliferate on the web and therefore get more traction than it would through other means. AndrewSullivan.com is one of the best places on the web and I'm sucking up to him because I love it and I am a big consumer of it.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Who's this guy again?

GREGORY: Because he is intellectually spontaneous, but he may devote attention to an issue that's not getting a lot of play otherwise, that's the power here.

You may say it is ironic that Gregory praises Sullivan for devoting "attention to an issue that is not getting a lot of play", because he himself is known for devoting a lot of attention to one issue and ignoring news that should be getting attention. A perfect example would be his obsession of the Cheney hunting incident.

Video link follows.

Michelle Malkin has a nice roundup of reports on how the New York Times messed up in its attempt at yet another juicy Abu Ghraib story. Does this correction from the Times give you confidence about the media's professionalism?

A front-page article last Saturday profiled Ali Shalal Qaissi, identifying him as the hooded man forced to stand on a box, attached to wires, in a photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2003 and 2004. He was shown holding such a photograph. As an article on Page A1 today makes clear, Mr. Qaissi was not that man.

The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph. Mr. Qaissi's account had already been broadcast and printed by other outlets, including PBS and Vanity Fair, without challenge. Lawyers for former prisoners at Abu Ghraib vouched for him. Human rights workers seemed to support his account. The Pentagon, asked for verification, declined to confirm or deny it.

In the season finale of Battlestar Galactica, the Cylons sent an emissary in the form of a religious minister genetically engineered to look human (that in and of itself an apt metaphor for many of today’s churches) to the Galactica crew claiming the annihilation of the colonies of man had been a mistake and that from that point forward this cybernetic society of robots, cyborgs, and clones would no longer harass, to use Lorne Greene’s words from the original series, “the ragtag, fugitive fleet”.

In light of this development, the newly elected president, Gaius Baltar --- himself a Cylon puppet seduced by the enemy’s lusty fembot --- decided to settle upon a habitable planet. An entire year elapses and it seems the Cylons have proven good on their word; however, one day from out of no where the Cylon fleet appears out of hyperspace.

The Washington Post reported yesterday on A-6 that the Food and Drug Administration announced two more women have died from infections after using the RU-486 abortion drug cocktail. Marc Kaufmann's story offered some balance, pairing Vanessa Cullins of Planned Parenthood with Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America:

The agency's handling of the seven deaths of women who had undergone medical abortion was criticized by opponents of the drug.

"The FDA has pulled other drugs that have caused fewer deaths and less severe complications than RU-486," Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said in a statement. "Why the double-standard for an abortion drug that is now linked to the deaths of seven healthy women and over 800 other reported complications?"

John in California noted yesterday that Associated Press reporter Jennifer Loven has found news in the idea that "Bush Uses Straw-Man Arguments In Speeches." (Or as she's known on Power Line, "Jennifer Loven, Democratic Operative." Tom Blumer has pointed out her husband has worked on environmental issues for Bill Clinton and John Kerry.) Loven argues -- not reports, but argues:

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.