It's worth noting that Don Senor ("Mr. Mr."?), like a commentator or two here, thinks Glenn wants to abandon the Middle East. I heard him say quite plainly that the US should offer support, humanitarian aid, etc., to countries like Afghanistan that are battling against terror and other threats to world security.

It's a sign of how binary our thinking has become that if one doesn't want to invade and occupy countries militarily, there are no other options than just good old-fashioned American isolationism.

When I see footage of American soldiers, in their weird uniforms that seem to invoke nothing as much as Star Wars Storm Troopers, traipsing around little farming communities half-way around the world, challenging the residents to expose themselves to danger retributions from the Taliban, I think this cannot possibly be viable.

One must ask, as McNamara did in Fog of War, if our objectives are defensible if other nations with whom we broadly share common values, do not see things our way. In other words, if Afghanistan presents such a threat, where are the other nations: surely Pakistan, India, China and Russia are threatened as much as the US is. Where are they?

I like seeing Glenn on my tee vee, but fear that the cable newser may be a format that simply cannot accommodate anything like a coherent thought (Rachel notwithstanding).

It's often tempting to point out that criticism is easy but fixing the problem is hard. The President did a version of this with his mopping analogy.

But in the case of Afghanistan, the solution isn't hard to discern. I think any rational, sane and humane person would begin with stopping the aerial bombing. Second, we need to stop having American GI's "patrolling" and "occupying" territory. Finally, we should address the very real security and humanitarian concerns by using other, non-military resources.

Bascially, it boils down to, "If you're doing something counter-productive, the solution is to stop doing it." This one ain't hard, folks. We simply have no business invading and occupying lands we do not need to occupy.

I had a professor who liked to point out that "the grades you get are only as significant as the people who gave them to you."

I think the award says volumes about the Nobel committee. Not so much about the President.

I thought the most interesting aspect of the Shane piece in the NYT today (other than the obvious projection of "fool-me-once" from itself onto an "anti-war" movement, which wasn't fooled even for a minute) was the way Glenn was introduced as a left-leaning columnist at Salon who's noted the parallels between the Iraq was build-up and the current secret-Iranian-nuclear-facility contretemps.

It's obvious (to me, any way), that Glenn's cogent analysis and crystal-clear writing has gotten under the skin of a lot of media elites, certainly including reporters and editors of the NYT. The reason for this is that Glenn is right, and they know this.

So rather than run with Glenn's story (with credit), pointing out all the breathless gullibility of people like the NYT's reporters, the poor writer is reduced to a sort-of "state of the anti-war left" piece. It helpfully includes an inoculation against charges that the NYT mindlessly abetted the agenda of certain pro-war hawks in the government, much like the NYT did in the Iraq war run-up, when it would present counter-vailing points of view on page A18.

Shane's piece is something of an improvement. Unfortunately, it's like moving the counter-vailing point-of-view from page A18 to page A16. Undeniably better, but not by much.

With so much ignorance ingrained so deeply amongst so many, it's hard to know what to address and what to ignore for the time being. I think that's the hardest challenge facing thinkers like Glenn.

My own judgment would be to leave to the side for now the egregious record of Israel and the US in terms of violent aggression and nuclear threats, focusing instead on the patent falsehoods of the anti-Iranian charges. I'd focus on the question no war-lover likes to hear: how did we learn of this facility any way? I'd also focus on the nature of Iranian political power (hint: their President ain't as powerful as ours), and I'd confront head-on the stupid canard about the "stated goal" being the destruction of Israel. And I'd do it without also pointing out Israel's own sins in regards to the Palestinian people.

Oh -- and as petty and childish as it seems, the lovely new studio will help a ton, too.

It's a great day for our country when Glenn's voice -- mocked, cut-off, mischaracterized, jeered at, etc. -- is heard on a broader outlet. Such a thing was unthinkable just a year or two ago. (And I know Glenn's been doing tv for some time, but the point is that having a voice like his on, in the spirit of "Rush to War In Iraq: Never Again," is truly change I can believe in.)

I fear that in the not-too-distant future Friedman and Brooks, repudiated for their lack of "clarity," will be replaced by Glenn Beck and former Secretary of State Palin as the leading thinkers of our establishment elites. It's not like Brooks and Friedman and Krauthammer represent some sort of floor below which we cannot go...

Also. What does Joe the Plumber think about bombing Venezuela? I think a lot of opinion-makers would like to know...