This report suggests that Democrats are getting closer to the 11 Republicans they need to pass a defeatist resolution.

My interview with House GOP Deputy Whip Eric Cantor doesn't give much grounds for confidence with those Republicans either.

When the bottom falls out of RNC/NRCC/NRSC fundraising, they won't be able to say they weren't warned.  the insainty is that the only way some senators could lose in 2008 is by going defeatist on the war and embracing "benchmarks."

The  contact list in the Senate:

Senator McConnell: Phone: (202) 224-2541 Fax: (202) 224-2499E-mail here.

Senator Lott: Phone: 202-224-6253 Fax: (202)-224-2262 E-mail here.

Senator Kyl: Phone: (202) 224-4521 Fax: (202) 224-2207 E-mail here.

Senator Ensign: (202)-224-6244 Fax: 202-228-2193. E-mail here.

Senator McCain: Phone: (202)-224-2235 Fax (202)-228-2862. E-mail here.

Senator Warner: Phone: (202) 224-2023 Fax: (202) 224-6295. E-mail here.

Senator Cornyn: Phone:202-224-2934 Fax: 202-228-2856. E-mail here.

Senator Smith: Phone: 202-224-3752 Fax: 202-228-3997. E-mail here.

Senator Coleman: Phone: 202-224-5641 Fax: 202-224-1152.E-mail here

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold was my guest today.  His riveting new book on the attempt to discredit the historical truths of the City of David is The Fight For Jerusalem: Radical Islam, The West, and The Future of The Holy City.

You need to read this book.

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive responds to the WaPo's William Arkin's slam at active duty military speaking their mind about the war.  Arkin, very representative of the anti-war MSM, wants to shut down military speaking about the war --it gets in the way of the defeatism overwhelming the Beltway.

Uncle Jimbo does use traditional military language, so the faint hearted are forewarned..

Here's the original Arkin column.  Keep in mind that Arkin is the Post's national and homeland security columnist.  Arkin's bottom line: Shut up and serve.

Powerline's John Hinderaker has more.

Here's a piece I wrote on Arkin from early 2003.

I will replay an October 16, 2003 interview with the old leftist Arkin on today's program so the audience can hear how he sounds.

More from Op-For

Instapundit on Slow Joe Biden --God's gift to pundits.

1) FOR SOME REASON, I CAN’T get myself all riled up over the fact that Joe Biden has yet again revealed himself to be a few Jews short of a Minyan. We don’t call him “Slow Joe” around these parts for nothing. Lost in all the ballyhoo of what he said about Obama, it should not be lost to history that in the same interview he also took shots at his other Democratic rivals (giggle) for the nomination:

On Hillary:

“From the part of Hillary’s proposal, the part that really baffles me is, ‘We’re going to teach the Iraqis a lesson.’ We’re not going to equip them? O.K. Cap our troops and withdraw support from the Iraqis? That’s a real good idea.”

The result of Mrs. Clinton’s position on Iraq, Mr. Biden says, would be “nothing but disaster.”...

On Edwards:

The interview excerpts are stolen from the TPM café, where a thousand Josh Marshalls bloom. Thanks are due to Josh’s minions for slogging through the Observer piece where Biden dropped all these bombshells so the rest of us don’t have to.

2) J-POD QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Somehow, this e-mail to Andrew Sullivan was diverted to me, so I'm publishing it. Because Andrew would.

Thank you so much, Andrew Sullivan. You are the light that illuminates the path to reason. You are, in fact, the reason that the light shineth at all. Because of you, I have come out of the closet. Because of you, I oppose outing. Because of you, I voted for Bush. Because of you, I voted for Kerry. Because of you, I supported the war in Iraq. Because of you, I oppose the war in Iraq. Because of you, I have sleep apnea. Because of you, I have cured my sleep apnea. Because of you, I believe in a conservatism of doubt — although because of you, I must of necessity doubt the conservatism of doubt that represents the doubtful provenance of my conservatism. Because of you, I have entirely jettisoned my sense of humor, as it gets in the way of my self-regard. I owe it all to you. Or, should I say, You.

3) IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE Iraq war and its larger context, this Fouad Ajami piece from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal is must reading. It’s nothing short of brilliant. In addition to having insights into the Middle East that few others have, Ajami has the additional gift of being a wonderful prose stylist. The piece was worth every one of the 55 column inches the Journal dedicated to it.

4) HOW DID I KNOW IT WAS 55 COLUMN INCHES? Because I watched this really neat video of the Wall Street Journal board convening. While watching the video, two things struck me: First, I couldn’t believe how young everyone in the room was besides Camp Counselor Paul Gigot. I’m 39, and I’m pretty sure I would have been the oldest guy there besides Gigot.

The other thing is I’m pretty sure I spied Joe Rago sitting there. Rago (or the guy I think was Rago) was disappointingly silent. I kept praying for him to leap up and say, “Don’t you understand!? What’s wrong with you people? You’re not refracting today’s events through the prism of history!!”

5) MATTHEW YGLESIAS IS A GIFTED WRITER, but he also seems to be dedicating a portion of his efforts to serve as living proof of the maxim, “You can always tell a Harvard man; you just can’t tell him much.” Follow the link, and be sure to read the comments following Matthew’s post to see how just ill-informed he was, and how blissfully unaware and unconcerned he was with the fact that he was ill-informed.

6) THE WEEKLY STANDARD HAS installed Michael Goldfarb as its in-house blogger. Mike has pictures and YouTubes and everything else a blogger needs at his disposal. The Standard has found its own Geraghty. Within three months, everyone will be punching up Mike’s blog three times a day. I suggest you go there right now and scroll down to read Mike’s dead-on observations on the Iraq Study Group’s latest incarnation.

7) LASTLY, AND CERTAINLY LEASTLY, I have a story on the ABC News website about the potential for a Curt Schilling/John Kerry Senate race. I think you’ll enjoy it – Kerry bashing and Schilling worshipping both never grow old.

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.

From the Marine Corps Times' report on this morning's debate:

A group of Senate Republicans is mounting a fierce campaign against any bipartisan resolutions opposing the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy, saying a nonbinding measure can only hurt the U.S.

Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, David Vitter of Louisiana and Jim DeMint of South Carolina see an opportunity to block the Senate from voting on any of the growing number of resolutions that find fault with the Bush plan — already underway — to send an additional 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq, most of them to Baghdad, in an effort to get sectarian violence under control.

DeMint said every injured soldier he has spoken with has had the same view. “The only thing I have had soldiers ask me is to win this thing, to just win,” he said.

“We all know the Iraqis are not ready,” he added, predicting the collapse of the Iraqi government unless U.S. troops levels in Baghdad are beefed up.

Starting tomorrow, conservative blogger extraordinaire Rob Bluey can be found at the Heritage Foundation. 

Bluey's primary goal will be to build a conservative coalition that is capable of countering the left.  As you may know, the general consensus is that the liberal blogosphere (net-roots) is currently better organized than the conservative blogosphere (the right-roots).  Bluey hopes to change that.

As a co-founder of the weekly conservative blogger meetings which take place in DC every week, Bluey is uniquely prepared to take on this task. 

He will also focus on helping to make sure Heritage's message is reaching the blogosphere and influencing the public policy debate.

Among conservative bloggers, it would be hard to find one who is more well-liked or more influential to his peers.  Congratulations to the Heritage Foundation for landing a true conservative rising star.

Having already reviewed “Dreams from My Father,” I wasn’t planning on offering a review of Barack Obama’s other book, “The Audacity of Hope.” Unlike his first book, “The Audacity of Hope” isn’t a serious book, and as such it doesn’t warrant being dealt with seriously. Besides, the incomparable Andy Ferguson has gone through the bother of reviewing it for us.

If you’ve read Obama’s “Dreams from My Father,” the politician that emerges on the pages of Obama’s more recent effort is predictable - cautious, introspective, a cipher who tries to reflect the views of everyone while having only a vaguely defined sense of himself and what he really stands for.

Here’s how Ferguson sums up the Obama we see in his current bestseller.

“I am new enough on the national political scene,” he writes in the book's prologue, “to serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” “The Audacity of Hope” can best be understood as an extended effort on the part of the first-term Illinois senator to keep that screen as blank as possible.

The one place I differ with Andy is that I don’t think Obama is really making an effort to keep the screen blank. I think the screen actually is blank. My impression having read both of his books is that by the scale applied to leaders, Obama is not a man of action and not a man of deep conviction. When he equivocates on the value of religion or the intrinsic worth of self-reliance and independence, he’s not doing so to effect a political straddle or to keep all his political doors open. Rather, his ambivalence on such fundamental matters is a reflection of who he fundamentally is. Obama is by nature a witness, not a player. When he enters the ring, he does so only half-heartedly and with one foot remaining on the outside.

Obama may well have the politician’s pathological need to please, and that might explain why he seldom risks saying anything that might offend anyone. Still, I have a feeling based on having curled up with over 800 pages of his ramblings, Obama’s just a compulsively non-judgmental and non-combative guy.

Before reading the following, bear in mind that I’m the guy who thought the Republicans would hold the House and Senate last November: Obama doesn’t have what it takes to be a successful politician at the presidential level. I predict that the Obama campaign won’t even make it to the Iowa caucuses. And if it does, it will have become a carcass of a campaign long before Iowans assemble at their little coffee klatches to anoint the next presidential nominees.

(Programming note: I have no intention of reviewing every book I read. I am, however, going to offer one review a week of books that I think are topical or timely. Hopefully, some of these books will even be good. These reviews will typically run on Sundays. Special note to publishers – feel free to send me free books! But be careful what you wish for!)

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.

Arm yourself for your next dinner party:

Myth #1: Tax revenues remain low.
Fact: Tax revenues are above the historical average, even after the tax cuts.

Myth #2: The Bush tax cuts substantially reduced 2006 revenues and expanded the budget deficit.
Fact: Nearly all of the 2006 budget deficit resulted from additional spending above the baseline.

Myth #3: Supply-side economics assumes that all tax cuts immediately pay for themselves.
Fact: It assumes replenishment of some but not necessarily all lost revenues.

Myth #4: Capital gains tax cuts do not pay for themselves.
Fact: Capital gains tax revenues doubled following the 2003 tax cut.

Myth #5: The Bush tax cuts are to blame for the projected long-term budget deficits.
Fact: Projections show that entitlement costs will dwarf the projected large revenue increases.

Myth #6: Raising tax rates is the best way to raise revenue.
Fact: Tax revenues correlate with economic growth, not tax rates.

Myth #7: Reversing the upper-income tax cuts would raise substantial revenues.
Fact: The low-income tax cuts reduced revenues the most.

Myth #8: Tax cuts help the economy by "putting money in people's pockets."
Fact: Pro-growth tax cuts support incentives for productive behavior.

Myth #9: The Bush tax cuts have not helped the economy.
Fact: The economy responded strongly to the 2003 tax cuts.

Myth #10: The Bush tax cuts were tilted toward the rich.
Fact: The rich are now shouldering even more of the income tax burden.