DAVID BROOKS IN THE LONDON TIMES



Bush's "certainty" alarms his critiques, who would rather pontificate at length on the current Crisis in Iraq (cue dramatic CNN bumper music):

The United States is in the midst of the certainty crisis. Time magazine is disturbed by �The blinding glare of his certainty�, as one headline referred to Bush�s unwillingness to go wobbly on Iraq. �A questionable certainty� was the headline in the Los Angeles Times. �This kind of certainty worries Bush�s critics,� noted US News and World Report. �Moral certainty, for the most part, is a luxury of a closed mind,� observed William Lesher, a Lutheran school of theology professor, who presumably preserves a subtle open-mindedness about the Holocaust and other such matters.

You can check out the entire article here.

WHY SHOULD WE LIBERATE IRAQ?



Here is one reason why we should.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF KHALID SHAIKH MOHAMMED (KSM)



Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online interviewed Robert Baer, a former CIA officer. Here is what Mr. Baer had to say on the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed:

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's arrest is the most important counterterrorist arrest, ever. In all the attacks against American targets in the Seventies and Eighties, we haven't seen a success like this. Not only can he tell us who paid for 9/11 (a state?), he can tell us where the other cells are, should there indeed be others. Still, the most important is state sponsorship. Maybe Iraq? Maybe Iran? Potentially his interrogation could be history making.

Educated in the United States, KSM was apparently the cause of our recent "Orange" level terrorism alert. We trust that the CIA will interview Mr. Mohammed very, well, carefully.

MIKE FARRELL V. FRED THOMPSON



Mike Farrell and Fred Thompson debated each other on Meet the Press last week. Farrell (of M.A.S.H. fame) made the oft-heard tired and lame argument that we should continue with endless inspections in Iraq, particularly now that Iraq has demonstrated a willingness to "destroy" some of their irrelavent weapons. Farrell then went on to say that we should focus on Osama bin Laden, or, to paraphrase Farrell, "Osama bin Forgotten" -- implying, of course, that the Administration has taken their collective eyes off the terrorist ball.



Farrell said this, of course, while Pakistani and US officials put the smack down on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the operations leader for Al Qaeda. The US continues to press the war on terrorism with great success. The eye has stayed on the ball.