(no subject)

Not where I expected to find this, but Talking Points Memo has a good take on how Teh Media treated the Edwards campaign

the collegial Republican primaries

What's happening in Afghanistan

A 23-year-old journalist in Northern Afghanistan was sentenced to death in municipal court last week for downloading and distributing allegedly blasphemous material.

Today, members of Afghanistan's upper house of parliament issued a statement affirming the legality of the sentence:

Now the Afghan Senate has issued a statement on the case - it was not voted on but was signed by its leader, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, an ally of President Hamid Karzai.

It said the upper house approved the death sentence conferred on Mr Kambaksh by a city court in Mazar-e-Sharif. [BBC]

The statement also criticized the various governments and organizations that have denounced the sentence. The Senators resent the input of the international community for attempting to pressure Afghan judges as they crack down on blasphemy.

The journalist was charged and sentenced to death for downloading and distributing information about the status of women in Islamic societies. He never got a lawyer.

What Our Fearless Leader had to say about Afghanistan in the SOTU

In Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies and 15 partner nations are helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their country. Thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al-Qaida is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built and people are looking to the future with new hope.

"These successes must continue, so we are adding 3,200 Marines to our forces in Afghanistan, where they will fight the terrorists and train the Afghan Army and police. Defeating the Taliban and al-Qaida is critical to our security, and I thank the Congress for supporting America's vital mission in Afghanistan.

New York politicians who cordiallly loathed Giuliani endorse someone else with conspicuous reluctance

New York’s Republican establishment rushed to embrace Senator John McCain on Wednesday, with party leaders expressing confidence that his appeal to independents could help fend off a Democratic sweep that might cost them the State Senate in November.

Party leaders warmly praised their vanquished favorite son, Rudolph W. Giuliani, but coupled their compliments with scathing rebukes of the strategy that they blamed for his implosion.

Following the lead of former Mayor Giuliani, who endorsed Mr. McCain on Wednesday, Giuliani supporters were also gravitating to Mr. McCain in New Jersey, if not as uniformly, and in Connecticut, which Mr. McCain carried in the 2000 primary against George W. Bush...

“I think McCain wins New York,” said Michael Long, the state Conservative Party chairman [who hates Giuliani's guts with a blinding passion, and] who is still undecided on a candidate. “I don’t see any real opposition.”

A WNBC/Marist Poll released last week gave Mr. McCain the lead in New York State among virtually every category of voters, except in New York City and its suburbs, where he was about even with Mr. Giuliani. The poll showed Mr. Romney tied for a distant second with Mr. Giuliani, behind Mr. McCain.

“The expectation might be that there would be a logical transfer to McCain,” said Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

Kieran Mahoney, a Republican strategist [best known for being politically dependent on George Pataki, the used condom of NY Republican politics, who was more or less invented as a counter to Giuliani], agreed. “McCain was ahead and is the second choice of Giuliani voters in New York,” he said.

In New Jersey, former Gov. Thomas H. Kean, a McCain man, expressed confidence that most Giuliani supporters would follow the former mayor’s lead and join the McCain campaign. “They’re friends, and they care about the same issues, have a lot of similarities in terms of temperament, so it seems like a natural transition,” Mr. Kean said.

Thank you, Senator Edwards.