Anne Gearan clamors for the moral high ground as she questions Bush's commitment to democracy in the Middle East. Calling it a "rhetorical cornerstone," she accuses Bush of using the goal of establishing an Arab democracy as window dressing for his war in Iraq. What has Bush done to earn Gearan's scathing assessment? Apparently, he had the audacity to throw his support behind Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who "evicted Hamas radicals from his government over the weekend and is now the sole elected figure running the Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank." Abbas' actions were prompted by a bloody coup in which Hamas took control of Gaza. Gearan adds that Abbas was trying "to consolidate power and avert all-out civil war with his Islamist Hamas rivals." The evicted Hamas leaders were elected in January of 2006, when Hamas took 76 out of 132 seats in the Palestinian parliament.:"(Wikipedia)": Gearan tries to paint Bush as a hypocrite who supports democracy at all costs in Iraq, but quickly defends the supposedly un-democratic actions of Abbas. Shame on President Bush for not realizing that civil war in Iraq is bad (so bad that we should get our troops out of there before one breaks out), but civil war in Palestine is good, especially when it is perpetrated by a militant Islamic terror organization such as Hamas. Elected or not, Hamas does not deserve the sympathy of those who would have us believe that the U.S. and Israel are to blame for all the trouble in the Middle East. Credited with hundreds of suicide bombings, rocket attacks against civilian targets, and frequent calls for Muslim attacks against Americans, Hamas has no right to claim legitimacy as a political party.

In an article entitled "Look Back in Anger--The Unmooring of Chuck Hagel," The New Republic interviewed a number of people about the Hagel Hound's favorite target. Here is what the worst President in history's National Security Advisor had to say about Chuck: Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski says of Hagel, "I like the guy, and I admire his views. We see eye-to-eye on the majority of issues. I won't say we see eye-to-eye on every issue, but if you ask what we don't agree on, I wouldn't be able to answer." Cindy Sheehan also sees eye to eye with Chuck on most issues. Yikes.

Former President Jimmy Carter made headlines last weekend for stating that the Bush administration "administration has been the worst in history." He has since tried to back away from his comments, calling them "careless" and clarifying that he wasn't "comparing this administration with other administrations throughout history but just with President Nixon's." Right. Because "the worst in history" isn't a comparison to other administrations throughout history. Perhaps the reason for Carter's backpedaling is that he would prefer to avoid an active "Whose administration was the worst ever" debate because of how often his name might come up. The Chicago Tribune has already thrown their ...