Former NH Congressman Charlie Bass has this op-ed piece in the Boston Globe this morning about how the GOP can come back to power. In essence, he argues that middle-of-the-road Republicans and independents have been turned off by radical policies and by incompetent management and thus they, quite rationally, fired the GOP last November. While I think that is part of it, I think that the most powerful motive last November was the Iraq War and the highly unpopular Bush Administration. Since people couldn't vote the President out of office, or vote directly to end the war, they did the next best thing, which was to vote against Republicans across the board. If I am right, then Charlie's prescriptions won't do much good in the next election.

We are now getting some details on how the Iranians really treated those British sailors and marines, and it isn't pretty. Still, many soldiers have been treated far worse, and for a far longer period, and still refused to engage in propaganda, so I'm not sure this will rehabilitate their image too much, at least for some of us.

Here is an example of one British columnist who still isn't happy about how they behaved. Ralph Peters has even stronger words for them, calling them cowards. I wouldn't go that far, not knowing how they have been trained to behave (or even if they have been trained) under those kinds of circumstances.

Caroline Glick pulls together the hostage story and the Pelosi visit to Syria in this article in which she asserts that the Iranians, Syrians and their Hamas and Hezbullah allies are preparing for war against the U.S. and Israel this Summer.

Kathleen Parker says that while President Ahmadinejad is a lying, Jew hating, holocaust denying thug, he is right about one thing.

This bit of reporting, about a Pakistani insider's intelligence briefing of American officials, by Arnaud de Bourchgrave, is really scary.