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As one International Atomic Energy Agency official said, if Iran's nuclear ambitions are only peaceful, why would they have moved the uranium? Don't expect answers later this month when IAEA governors meet to talk about Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA, an arm of the United Nations, is as feckless as the U.N. itself.

The most likely entity to take action against Iran is Israel, which helped the world avert an inevitable crisis when it disabled Iraq's Osirak atomic reactor with an air strike in 1981. The bold raid justly derailed Saddam Hussein's goal of developing nuclear weapons.

"Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what...

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There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration — and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today.

Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, he grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense."

Wrong.

Yes, Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know — while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the phenom who presumes to play on their stage.

Why can’t McCain e-mail? Boston Globe explained it in 2000; Update: So did Forbes

Open thread: Palin on ABC; Update: Gibson distorts Palin’s Iraq prayer; Update: Video of Iraq prayer comments included in segment

Totally untrue, but that’s what he gets for relying on the Associated Press, which took the liberty of bowdlerizing her quote mid-sentence in order to make it fit the narrative they were trying to build of her as some fundie who thinks she can read God’s mind. Here’s my post on the subject from last Thursday. Read it and see just how egregious the distortion here is.

Update: They’re also exaggerating what she said with their teaser, which makes it sound like she wants to unilaterally guarantee the security of Russian satellites. Read the excerpt linked above and you’ll see she simply means admitting Georgia and Ukraine to NATO and bringing them under the aegis of the all-for-one principle, which is McCain’s position. In the meantime, here’s what she says we should do: “It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.”

Whoopi to McCain: “Do I have to be worried about becoming a slave again?”

If Goldberg -- who in the past has shown clear ignorance about the Constitution -- would actually read the Constitution, she would know a strict constructionist would not return America to slavery. The 13^th Amendment to the Constitution states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Initially Senator McCain ignored Goldberg's question, but Whoopi expressed her enslavement anxiety again adding "there are certain things in the Constitution that you had to change." The "View" co-host should know that, unlike the legalization of abortion, slavery was abolished through a constitutional amendment, not a Supreme Court decision.

Another of our youngest presidents, Bill Clinton, was 46 when sworn in and became the first Democrat since FDR to serve two terms.

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Many people felt Carter was a good man who worked hard and meant well. But he was naive and incompetent in handling the enormous burdens and complex challenges of being president.

He wrongly believed Americans had an "inordinate fear of communism," so he lifted travel bans to Cuba, North Vietnam and Cambodia and pardoned draft evaders. He also stopped B-1 bomber production and gave away our strategically located Panama Canal.

His most damaging miscalculation was the withdrawal of U.S. support for the Shah of Iran, a strong and longtime military ally. Carter objected to the Shah's alleged mistreatment of imprisoned Soviet spies who were working to overthrow Iran's government. He thought the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, being a religious man, would make a fairer leader.

On the domestic side, Carter gave us inflation of 15%, the highest in 34 years; interest rates of 21%, the highest in 115 years; and a severe energy crisis with lines around the block at gas stations nationwide.

In 1977, Carter, along with a Democrat Congress, created a worthy project with noble intentions — the Community Reinvestment Act. Over strong industry objections, it mandated that all banks meet the credit needs of their entire communities.

In 1995, President Clinton imposed even stronger regulations and performance tests that coerced banks to substantially increase loans to low-income, poverty-area borrowers or face fines or possible restrictions on expansion. These revisions allowed for securitization of CRA loans containing subprime mortgages.

By 1997, good loans were bundled with poor ones and sold as prime packages to institutions here and abroad. That shifted risk from the loan originators, freeing banks to begin pyramiding and make more of these profitable subprime products.

Under two young, well-intended presidents, therefore, big-government plans and mandates played a significant role in the current subprime mortgage mess and its catastrophic consequences for the U.S. and international economies.

Hardest-hit by the mortgage foreclosures have been the citizens that Democrats always claim to help most — inner-city residents who fell victim to low or no down payment schemes, unexpected adjustable rates, deceptive loan applications and commission-hungry salespeople.

Now we're having to bail out at huge cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very agencies that were supposed to stabilize the system. In time, this should improve the situation. But the party of Carter and Clinton that midwifed our mortgage mess now wants to be trusted to take over and have the government run our entire system of health care!

The bipartisan "Gang of 10," led by Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota has grown into a "Gang of 16," with GOP Sens. John Warner of Virginia, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and John Sununu of New Hampshire the newest misguided Republicans.  A more apt nickname would be "The Gang That Couldn't Think Straight."

The "comprehensive" bill that these four, plus fellow Republicans Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Johnny Isakson of Georgia and John Thune of South Dakota, are joining with Democrats to push would exclude — permanently — the entire Pacific Coast from drilling. It would also limit a lot of the Atlantic Coast, and ban drilling anywhere within 50 miles of shore.

With Americans insisting the Democratic do-nothing Congress do something about their woes at the pump, it turns out that all Congress really has to do is: nothing.  On Oct. 1, the entire offshore would open up because drilling restrictions (routinely renewed by Congress each year) expire at the end of the fiscal year. 

So what these self-aggrandizing Republican senators are actually doing is helping Democrats "solve" a problem that is about to solve itself.

Uh, WaPo, Saddam’s been gone for 5 years