Why, immediately destroy the connection by leaking its existence it to Fox News, of course.

Just hours after “two senior officials” in the White House received the info, somebody chose the forgettable 24-hour partisan advantage of saying, whee, lookee what we got! over the obvious national security interest in keeping this backchannel surveillance of Al-Qaeda, which required years to set up, secret and functioning. There are children with better long-term judgment.

My appall-o-gland was exhausted long ago, but this made it twitch like it was 1999 again.  Oh, to be young again and not living under the thrall of these idiots.

Once again, as if it bears repeating for the 237th time: to this bunch, their own political advancement trumps national security, your safety, or any other concern.

First, if you haven’t read the full text of Barack Obama’s October 2, 2002 speech in opposition to the Iraq war — given nearly six months before the invasion began, while most of the country’s leaders in both parties were still in full smoke-’em-out mode — go take three minutes and read it.  Seriously.  Go.  You’ll see it wasn’t based on a knee-jerk opposition to war on principle, but because of the specific facts of the situation, plainly visible in advance.

You may be blown away by how clearly, accurately, and wisely an American politician can actually speak, at least when he’s not yet particularly well-known.  (Lately, not quite so much.  Obama not even showing up to vote against the Kyl-Lieberman Iran amendment was disappointing.)

In retrospect, Obama (in 2002, at least) displayed both foresight and political courage.  How do you discredit that?

Simple — by bizarrely equating factual correctness with weakness, as Fred Barnes did on Fox News over the weekend.  (Hat tip Media Matters, Atrios, and TPM.)

If knowing the facts = weakness, then the contrapositive case — not being weak = not knowing the facts — is the logical equivalent.  Compare and contrast:

Of course, this may have just been a slip of the tongue.  I mean, the ruling party in 1984 constantly preached against sex, saw perpetual war as an inherently stabilizing force, engaged in torture in a series of secret prisons, and were completely obsessed with domestic surveillance.  Um.  Hmm.

Maybe I should get this out of the way while I can:  Do it to Julia!  Do it to Julia!

OK, there.  We’re cool.

From 1948, during his early fame, when he described himself as a "bleeding liberal":

This was before his film career petered out, he sold his soul to GE to keep the money flowing, and then spent the rest of his life reciting the facile maxims he first learned to repeat as G.E.’s hired shill.

Jarring thing to listen to.  (Hat tip the Red State Son.)

That would be like, I dunno, hearing Bush decry the idea of using the military in nation-building, warning against overextending the army because it hurts morale, and insisting that the exit strategy should always be obvious.

Oh, wait.  Right.

Hey, some actual good news in international politics.

"Nuclear Deal Reached With North Korea," says an actual NY Times headline today:

As I’ve mentioned, you may not have heard about the deal when it happened, because it came the same day as Anna Nicole Smith’s death. And we all know what the media considers truly important.

Not to be too much I-told-you-so, but here’s a bit of the North Korea chapter in my new book Who Hates Whom, just released last week (and Juche, btw, is the ruling party’s philosophy of absolute national self-reliance, particularly insane in a small, poor country with limited resources):

North Korea is even freakier than I’d realized. Did you know they have their own calendar, placing the beginning of time at Kim Il-Sung’s birth? In Pyongyang, it’s not 2007; it’s 96. And the anthem to Great Leader opens with imagery of blood-soaked hillsides. Ewww.

My favorite tidbit in this chapter: Kim Jong-Il once kidnapped a prominent South Korean actress and her film director husband, hoping to kick-start the North Korean movie industry. The result: a monster movie in which a lizard-shaped rice ball turns into a giant beast that eats iron. He brings peace to a village but then eats the heroine and dies. The end.

I have got to put that in the Netflix queue.

And if that sounds like a fun read, I hope you’ll grab a copy of Who Hates Whom.

The Cleveland Indians won 8 more games than I thought they would, finishing with the Central Division title and tied for the best record in all of baseball.

Nobody remembers that stuff in two years, of course, unless you win the World Series.  But still.  If you’re an Indians fan, it’s kind of a big deal.

Fun season.  The team got off to a seriously hot start, then played only about .500 ball for a couple of months, eventually slacking of to pace that would have bullseyed the 88-win level.  But in late July, they acquired Kenny Lofton, not realizing that his skills have begun to erode significantly with age, and batted him near or at the top of the lineup, thinking this might add some pop.

Umm… no, as became obvious pretty quickly.  When Lofton batted either first or second, the Indians went 6-11, scoring an average of 3.4 runs per game, down a full run and a half from their previous output.  Suddenly this above-average team started looking like they might struggle to break .500 by the end..

Finally, on August 25, the team figured out the problem, dropped Lofton and Casey Blake down in the order, and gave more playing time to promising youngster Franklin Gutierrez.  Boom.  Offense instantly returned, and the team went on an immediate eight-game win streak, going 26-9 the rest of the way.

As to Lofton, I’ve never seen a well-respected player have such a measurable negative statistical impact on a team.  Almost everything about his game has declined.  Steals?  A 40% success rate with the Indians.  Defense?  Range factor numbers show that Lofton doesn’t get to as many balls as even an average-speed player.  (Btw, in August, I guessed that he’d wind up his stretch in Cleveland with a benchwarmer-level OPS of ".720ish."  He ultimately clocked in at .714.)

Also in August, the Indians tried giving the second base job to a poised 21-year-old named Asdrubal Cabrera, who has been a huge upgrade both at the plate and defensively.  His minor league numbers don’t indicate he’s quite the B+ hitter yet that we’ve seen this season — batting between two All-Stars tends to get you some extra hittable fastballs — but his defensive stats indicate that he may well hold second base in Cleveland for several years.  After which, he’ll become an expensive free agent and go play in a big city somewhere.  Yerrrgh.

So what’s next for the Indians?  A five-game playoff series against New York, starting tomorrow.  It’s a short series, and the Indians have the home field and two quality starting pitchers, so they’ve got a shot.

However.

The Indians are 0-6 against the Yankees this year.

And even if they do get a lead, there’s trouble.

The Indians’ closer, Joe Borowski, has a truly bad 5.07 ERA with eight Blown Saves.  Nine more of his 45 Saves would have been Blown Saves if he’s only had a one-run lead.

More to the point: against the Yankees, Borowski is 0-2 with a 15.43 ERA for his career.  This season, the Yankees’ lineup is batting a combined .379 against him.

Uh-oh.

Next year, though, the Indians should have a definite shot at the whole thing.

PS — getting this in before the first pitch in a few hours: the numbers say Boston is by far the best team in the AL.  Not so clear in the NL, which is a weak field.  I’ll pick Colorado, but it’s only by a hair.  Boston should win the World Series this year.