Instahoglets Sunday Edition

By Cernig

More linky goodness.

- Steve M, No More Mister Nice Blog: the guy who threw his shoes at Dubya was angry at atrocities committed by US troops in Iraq, including religious bigotry and the rape of a 14 year old followed by the murder of her and her whole family. But somehow the righty-tighty Cretindens of the world think that means he can just be written off as an extremist, not in any way symbolic of real Iraqi feelings.

- Larisa notes that the White House are saying they'll take quite a while to find out if they can recover thousands of missing emails that everyone has known were missing since 2005, because they've only just started looking. And she notes that it's going to be more difficult to find out what's really going on since the guy who set up the White House alternate system has died in a plane crash.

- Joe Gandelman on the birth of the professional Obama haters. Since almost two thirds of even Republican voters think Obama's doing a good job in his transition so far and are optimistic about his future presidency, "is the GOP’s long term goal audience share — or future electoral majorities?"

- Today is the 20th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, when a US-bound jet carrying 259 passengers and crew was blown up over a Scottish town. And there are still unanswered questions over whether the right man was jailed for the attack or whether senior figures in United States intelligence wrote the script to incriminate Libya for the bombing.

- The excellent Spencer Ackerman. "Marisa Taylor, you will never pay for a drink as long as I am at the same bar." Now that's punk.

- The equally excellent Travis Sharp notes that Gates told Charlie Rose that there will be "several tens of thousands of American troops" left in Iraq after 2011. How does that square with Biden on This Week today saying "We will be out of Iraq in -- in the same -- in the -- in the way in which Barack Obama described his position during the campaign. That will happen"? There's a massive disconnect between Gates and Biden here, unless you assume that they're going to majorly parse "withdrawal" to mean "residual forces" of at least 10 brigades.

- Shaun Mullen: General Motors & Chrysler Get A Lifeline, But Do They Remember How to Swim?

- James Joyner notes Russia's offer to trade American missile defense plans for their next generation of nuclear missile designs and writes: "This would be a win-win. Neither Russia nor the United States need to spend huge sums on systems that one hopes would never be used. And NATO-Russia cooperation would likely be more effective in dealing with Iran and North Korea than a theoretical missile shield."

And there's always Memeorandum, for more.