During his address to the joint session of Congress, President Obama declared: "Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." Does the current House bill's language conflict with Obama's pledge? At today's White House press briefing, Robert Gibbs wouldn't say.

Obama is endorsing the House bill, which Nancy Pelosi wants to vote on this weekend, but the House bill currently allows the public option and federally subsidized plans to cover elective abortions. Today, Gibbs danced around questions from ABC's Jake Tapper, who asked why the House is still debating about coverage of abortion and providing coverage for illegal immigrants when Obama's made himself clear.

Later, another reporter asked Gibbs:

Q: Is [Obama] urging [Pelosi] to compromise on the abortion issue, seeing as that is where the holdout Democrats are?

MR. GIBBS: I don't know when the last time they spoke so -- I know that there's discussions about that going on, on Capitol Hill.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD followed up to ask if President Obama believes the current language is acceptable:

TWS: Does the President believe that the current language -- some Democrats have argued that the current language does bar federal funding of abortion because it would theoretically be through private [segregated] funding. Does he believe that that language fulfills his pledge or --

GIBBS: I'm not going to get involved in those --

TWS: Or does he think it needs to be changed in some way?

GIBBS: I'm not going--

TWS: He doesn't have a position?

GIBBS: I'm not going to do the negotiating here.

So the White House press secretary is unwilling to say if the bill's current language on abortion--which has been in the bill since it passed the Energy and Commerce committee this summer--fulfills Obama's pledge to ban funding elective abortions. But he was clear about his bottom line: "The president wants the House to pass this," Gibbs said. Even if the White House doesn't seem to be entirely clear about what "this" is.

From Major Garrett's exchange with Gibbs today:

Garrett: Getting back to what Jake (Tapper) was asking about earlier, there are still some unresolved issues, so I'm just curious if the president supports it in its unresolved form or its resolved form?

Gibbs: The president wants the House -- the president wants the House to pass this. The president wants the House to pass health care reform. ...

Gibbs: I'm glad we got to... six questions to get to the fact that the president would travel from here to the House to say, "Pass the bill."

"Unpleasant as it may be for the president to hear, his policy is objectively aiding the Tehran regime and harming the opposition in their ongoing struggle."

Strategic Reassurance, we hardly knew ye.

Vulnerable freshman Democrats abandoning ship on health care.

Apparently they learned the wrong lesson from the Deeds Disaster in Virginia.

Oh wait, two more Dems just bailed on the health care vote.

Hoyer isn't sure they have the votes yet, the vote may get pushed to Sunday or next week.

ACORN offices raided by the police, Hannah Giles not found.

10.2 percet unemployment = success beyond their "wildest dreams"

The Jerusalem Post reports that Netanyahu will be in Washington all next week. Guess who he won't be meeting with:

As of press time, the Prime Minister's Office said no formal meeting had been scheduled with US President Barack Obama during the visit, which could last through the week. No departure date has been set.

Netanyahu and Obama last met in New York in September on the sidelines of the opening of the United Nation's General Assembly session.

Obama plans to speak at the UJC event on Tuesday, in what will be his first speech to a Jewish audience at a public event since his election a year ago.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor told The Jerusalem Post that nothing had been planned in terms of a Netanyahu-Obama sit-down while the prime minister is in town. "There is no scheduled meeting," he said.

No direct, presidential diplomacy? Or is that just for our enemies? Of course they will, ultimately, have a meeting -- not even the deep hostility this administration harbors for the Israeli government blinds them to the political fallout that would come from such a diplomatic diss. This president has already stirred fears among otherwise liberal, yellow dog Democrat Jews. And he's already convinced the Israeli public that he is not a friend -- his favorable rating in Israel hovers somewhere around 5 percent. The White House doesn't need any more trouble on this front.

Bibi knows the White House will call, though maybe not before they spend another couple days digging the hole a little deeper. Presumably this stall is some kind of "smart power" play, part of some hidden, grand strategy that will see Iran and North Korea give up their nuclear programs, Hamas lay down its arms, and China sign on to cap and trade in a win-win-win-win four-way trade (remember, this isn't a zero-sum game!). But it fits a general theme: Obama likes to treat his friends like enemies and his enemies like friends. While the White House gives Bibi the cold shoulder, State Department officials are on their way home from meetings with the Burmese junta.

And why do they keep sending Vietor to deliver the bad news?

Today, Robert Gibbs lamented some of the offensive signs at Bachmann's anti-health bill rally (of which there were some, but not enough to even fill out HuffPo's 12 Most Offensive slideshow):

"I will continue to say what I've said before. You hear in this debate, you hear analogies, you hear references to, you see pictures about and depictions of individuals that are truly stunning, and you hear it all the time. People -- imagine five years ago somebody comparing health care reform to 9/11. Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler.

Hopefully we can get back to a discussion about the issues that are important in this country that we can do so without being personally disagreeable and set up comparisons to things that were so insidious in our history that anybody in any profession or walk of life would be well advised to compare nothing to those atrocities."

Let's help Gibbs out with this in particular:

Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler.

Let's see if we can imagine that, Bob. Click here, and just keep scrolling.

Or, here. You will be scrolling for a solid five minutes to exhaust the Hitler images employed by the left for eight solid years against Bush, and that's in just two blog posts. They were ubiquitous; far more prevalent that Nazi imagery in the Tea Party movement. Saying what Gibbs said, or repeating it credulously, requires an incredible amount of dishonesty.

Hmm, let's try a search on Flickr, just so we're sure I'm not cherry-picking.

Looking for something more recent? How about Alan Grayson's health-care Holocaust in America crusade, by which Gibbs was markedly less "stunned" despite the fact that Grayson's an elected official making Holocaust comparisons on the floor of the House. Imagine.

Before Gibbs took leave of his senses and all sense of history today, the White House had a more petulant response to the gathering, at which actor Jon Voight spoke. Yesterday, Gibbs very kindly stopped himself from making a "Deliverance" joke about the attendees. Considerate.

I would argue that the White House Press Secretary implying a joke about how protesters are rednecks prone to anal rape would fall into the category of "stunning" and "personally disagreeable," but I digress.

I guess this is what they meant by "audacity."

What’s the honorable thing for a father to do after he’s murdered his daughter in an “honor killing?” Faleh Hassan Almaleki, an Iraqi immigrant to the U.S., ran his 20-year-old daughter down with his car a couple of weeks ago because she’d become “too westernized,” and then tried unsuccessfully to flee the country. He is now—after learning that she died of her injuries this week—on suicide watch in a Phoenix jail. Interesting. Is he so remorseful over her death that he’d kill himself? Or is it the remorse of certain prosecution? Mr. Almaleki and his family have been living in this country for over a decade. We cannot know for sure why they chose to come here rather than remain living under the Husseini tyranny, but it’s not unreasonable to speculate that this western society offered them something—freedom?—they couldn’t have there or in any other equally repressive society. That he offered his daughter this freedom and then took her life in that most inexplicably horrifying act of primitiveness for accepting it is what’s shameful, not the “shame” she brought on her family by having a boyfriend not of her father’s choosing. This is America, not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, where such things are all too common.

Republicans send around these numbers from the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released today:

From everything you have heard or read so far, do you favor or oppose Barack Obama's plan to reform health care?
Oppose 53
Support 45

The numbers were the other way around in August: 50 percent supported and 45 opposed.

The suspect is at large:

Eight people have been shot, two of them fatally at an office building at 1000 Legion Place in dowtown Orlando. Police are looking for a suspect wearing a blue shirt and blue jeans. A witness tells FOX 35 the shooter is a former worker who was employed in the building.

He is 40-year-old Jason Rodrigues, driving a Silver 2002 Nissan SUV.

Update: The gunman has been arrested. He is reported to be a disgruntled ex-employee of a company in the building on which he opened fire. He was fired in 2007.

Asked by a reporter outside the police station why he did it, Rodriguez replied: "Because they left me to rot."

Mike Bernos, spokesman of the engineering firm Reynolds, Smith and Hills, said Rodriguez was an entry-level engineer who was fired in June 2007 after working there for a year.

"His performance wasn't up to our standards, so we terminated him," Bernos said. There had been no contact between the company and Rodriguez since then.

In an interview with FOX News' Shepherd Smith, a woman who identified herself as Rodriguez's former mother-in-law described the suspect as a tremendously jealous and paranoid individual.

"He was a little unpredictable. Very jealous. He would imagine things sometimes, like for example: 'People are after me, people are looking for me, they hate me,'" recalled the woman, who did not give her name.

"He was under medication...to help his mind,"

"If I am not mistaken, they had him in a mental [facility] about six months ago,"

"I know he had mental problems,"

"He was crazy. He was crazy,"

It looks like the man who killed 13 soldiers and police at Ft. Hood was a Muslim radical who hated America, resented our occupation of Muslim lands, would not be photographed with women, and chanted "Allahu Akbar" before he launched a one-man terrorist attack, but according to CBS White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, Obama wants to know what really made him do it:

Obama said he met today with FBI Director et al to discuss "what caused one individual to turn his gun on fellow servicemen and women.”

It's hard not to be reminded of Obama's famous post-9/11 remarks, which first came to light in the New Yorker last summer. This from a speech the week after the attacks in which he likewise wanted to know, what would cause a bunch of Muslim fanatics to fly airplanes into American buildings:

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

You have to wonder: Will Obama still find that the fundamental tragedy was not the murder of 13 Americans at the hands of a terrorist, but the failure of our society to address his grievances before he was forced to turn to violence? Are we still to blame for our indifference to poverty, ignorance, helplessness and despair?

Ben Smith comes up with some pretty good stuff this morning comparing General Jones's prepared remarks for the J Street conference last week with the remarks as delivered. Jones pledged then that the administration would send a representative to all future conferences held by J Street. It was the best received line of his speech, and it was also the line that made the most news -- but it was not in his prepared remarks.

Smith also flags this passage, which Jones seems to have freelanced:

[O]f all the problems the administration faces globally, that if there was one problem that I would recommend to the president that if he could do anything he wanted to solve one problem, this would be it," he said, in a passage that's not in his prepared text, then continued: "Finding a solution to this problem has ripples that echo, that would run globally and a affect many other problems that we face elsewhere in the globe. The reverse is not true. This is the epicenter, and this is where we should focus our efforts and I’m delighted that this administration is doing so with such enthusiasm and commitment and I hope that it will bare the fruits of that labor will be visible in the near future."

The announcement by Abbas that he will not seek another term as president of the PA, Smith says, is "a mark of the trouble currently at the 'epicenter,' and how far off that near future is now looking." Yes, the peace process is a mess, and Obama actually must take the blame for some of the current trouble -- things are worse than they were when Obama came into office, and they are worse mostly because of the arrogance with which this administration approached the conflict.

Still, though Jones's comments were troubling, this view -- that the Arab-Israeli conflict is our most pressing foreign policy challenge -- has been repeated again and again by the president and his chief of staff. Jones may have gone off text, but it is almost certainly the consensus view inside the White House that the Arab-Israeli conflict is, as Obama once said, the "constant sore" that "infect[s] all of our foreign policy."

"It seems quite odd to place the conflict ahead of Afghanistan, Iran, and China, among other White House priorities," Smith says in a follow-up. And of course the reverse is true, contra Jones. Solving the Iran problem -- imagine what the peace process would look like if Israel didn't feel an existential threat from Iran and if Hamas didn't have a state sponsor -- would have "ripples that echo" across the Middle East and beyond.

IAEA seeks explanation from Iran on nuclear weapon implosion device:

The Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has requested a response from Iran in regard to evidence that the country has experimented with the creation of advanced implosion devices designed for use in nuclear weapons.

The report, which was compiled by using the data of numerous intelligence agencies over an extended period charges that Iranian scientists have been working on creating the components in a “two-point implosion” device. Such a device is used to bring about the chain reaction in a nuclear fission warhead. Furthermore, the device would be smaller than other nuclear implosion devices, which would in turn give Iran the ability to create much smaller warheads and therefore require a smaller missile system to deliver it to its target.

This is huge. Conventional wisdom was that Iran would first try to build a working bomb, then move on to more advanced designs to shrink and fit on to one of their ballistic missiles. Now we learn that Iran is skipping that step and moving directly to a compact, fully deliverable weapon.

More concerning is what comes after solving two point implosion: the Teller-Ulam bomb, more commonly known as the hydrogen bomb. The Iranian regime has been very clever in its development of a nuclear weapons program. Using a horizontal model where they first lined up all the necessary "ingredients" for advanced nuclear weapons --heavy water plants, experimental reactors, plutonium refining plants and uranium enrichment facilities -- means that they can shoot directly for a thermonuclear device instead of toying around with a Fat Man or Little Boy like we did in the 1940s. North Korea's program was vertical, doing just enough to create some sort of functional device. It was a dud. Iran's will not be.

This is bad news. It means that as soon as Iran successfully tests a bomb (if they even test one, remember the first time we detonated a uranium gun-barrel type bomb was over Hiroshima, so reliable was the design) they will immediately be able to mate the weapon to one of their Shahab missiles, capable of reaching Israel. If Iran develops a solid-fueled rocket as well, they'll have a potential thermonuclear launch-on-warning capability just like the five members of the Security Council.

It's a flash from MSNBC, with no details yet: Dem leader says House health vote may be delayed due to lack of support

Update:

A House leader says Democrats haven't yet lined up enough votes to pass their health care overhaul bill.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland says the vote that House Democrats had scheduled for Saturday could slip to Sunday or early next week.

Hoyer acknowledged to reporters Friday that Democratic leaders don't yet have the 218 votes needed to pass President Barack Obama's historic health overhaul initiative.

He said he still expects passage Saturday night. But he added that some Democrats are still "looking to get a comfort level" with the bill.

Let's take a look at Obama's near-term grand aspirations for his "Overseas Contingency Operations." He wants to remove 90k troops from Iraq while at the same time increasing Army and Marine end strength by 22k troops. Presumably the president also plans to increase troop strength in Afghanistan, though by how many troops remains...unclear. All three are deeply expensive propositions, so where exactly is the money going to come from? The president's budget for Iraq and Afghanistan was $130 billion. That, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is a decrease from last year of approximately 10 percent, or $14 billion. It's an even sharper decrease from 2008, when President Bush signed a wartime supplemental of $188 billion to support the surge in Iraq.

The largest pieces of the defense pie are manpower and logistics, in that they require the most sustainment resources. In 2010, there will be more men and machinery in motion than at any time since the positioning phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom -- that is, more manpower and vastly more logistical demands than we've seen in years.

The funding numbers simply don't add up. There's no adjustment for inflation. The administration has not asked for additional funding to support, sustain, or equip the influx of 22,000 new troops. No one seems to know where the money to move troops out of Iraq is coming from, and with Secretary Gates confirming that military expenditures will essentially be "flat" for the next five years, the US military cutting procurement and delaying the reset of equipment already in service. The effects will be felt in both theaters of war.

In order to turn White House directives into reality, the Joint Chiefs have put in for a $50 billion war supplemental for FY2010, which is precisely the way the president said he wasn't going to fund the war. Unfortunately for Obama, he may have to choose between extending his egress timetable in Iraq or severely under-equipping CENTCOM forces. This is exactly why you don't make bold foreign policy decisions/campaign promises until you've got all the facts in front of you.

And stop talking about what a lousy hand you were dealt by your predecessor. You’re the president of the greatest nation on earth, now, not he. “One year ago Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see.” You don’t happen to be the future I wanted to see, but okay, you asked for this job and you’ve got it. "We had record deficits, two wars, frayed alliances around the world." So? We still have record deficits, two wars, and frayed alliances around the world. And 10 percent unemployment for the first time in 26 years--on your watch. So? We know this job is terribly hard: we have only to look at the graying of presidential heads over time—your own included—to get it. So? Time to stop acting like a hipster recoiling in offended disgust over someone else’s embarrassing blunders. Stop taking your orders on Iran from the U.N. Be manful and do your part with the minimum of accusation. All too soon all the blame will rest on your own elegant shoulders.

Army officials say the suspect, "the lone shooter" for this tragic incident, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, is currently on a ventilator at a nearby civilian hospital and the police officer who gunned him down, Kimberly Munley, a civilian Fort Hood police officer, is in stable condition.

She's a civilian officer:

Munley, who had been trained in active-response tactics, rushed into the building and confronted the shooter as he was turning a corner, Cone said.

"It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer," Cone said.

Munley was only a few feet from crazed Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when she opened fire.

Wounded in the exchange of gunfire, Munley was reported in stable condition at a local hospital...

Cone said Munley's aggressive response training taught her that "if you act aggressively to take out a shooter you will have less fatalities."

"She walked up and engaged him," he said. He praised her as "one of our most impressive young police officers."

She's apparently conscious, and spent the night calling fellow officers to let them know her condition, and checking up on the other wounded.

All of the other wounded are in stable condition, which is far better news than I expected, with so many wounded.

The Evansville Courier & Press reports on the "furious backlash" against Democrat Brad Ellsworth--who up until now has had a solidly pro-life record--for sponsoring a phony abortion compromise amendment that would require the HHS secretary to hire private contractors to handle the money to pay for Obamacare abortions:

Eighth District U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Ind., might have expected that his amendment to the health care reform bill, which he says will ensure no federal funds are used to provide elective abortions, would be opposed by Planned Parenthood.

The abortion rights group weighed in with a statement of opposition on Tuesday.

But the Ellsworth amendment, which House leaders have said they may incorporate into the bill, also has sparked a furious backlash among national, state and local anti-abortion groups who typically support Ellsworth.

Pitted against the Ellsworth amendment are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Right to Life Committee, Indiana Right to Life and Vanderburgh County Right to Life.

"It was a bayonet in the back from someone who said he was on our side," said Doug Johnson, Washington, D.C.-based legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee.

"The pro-abortion side is using Ellsworth's phony language to undercut the real pro-life amendment, which is Congressman Bart Stupak's amendment. Mr. Ellsworth is allowing himself to be used to, perhaps, score brownie points with House Democratic leaders."

Evansville is one of the most pro-life places in the country. If Ellsworth wants to keep his job--or, for that matter, if he wants to live up to his stated principles--he should stand behind Bart Stupak's amendment to ban federal funding of elective abortions through Obamacare. Mike Pence of Indiana spoke out against abortion funding in the Pelosi bill yesterday. Read his remarks after the jump:

Shot:

Unemployment rate tops 10 percent for first time since 1983; 190,000 jobs lost in October

Chaser:

Some Democrats from more conservative districts, like Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, Representative Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Representative Jim Marshall of Georgia and Representative Bobby Bright of Alabama, made it clear they would oppose the measure.

“The worst thing we could do in a recession is raise taxes, and this bill does just that,” said Mr. Boren, who also said he feared the proposal would lead to a single-payer national health care system. “Finally, I do not believe that the possibility for taxpayer-funded abortion has been clearly and emphatically removed from this legislation.”

On September 25, Speaker Nancy Pelosi's spokesman accused Rep. Joe Wilson of using "misleading rhetoric" for suggesting that Pelosi wouldn't put the final health care bill online for at least 72 hours before the House votes on it.

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly took issue with Wilson's claim. Asked Thursday by the Weekly Standard whether she supports putting the final House bill on health-care reform online for 72 hours before members vote on it, Pelosi replied: "Absolutely. Without question."

"Republicans have had ample chance to read the different versions of the House health insurance reform bill, which have all been online for months," Daly said. "And if they read the newspapers and blogs, including the conservative Weekly Standard, they would know that Speaker Pelosi said yesterday she 'absolutely' will put the health care bill online for 72 hours before the House votes on it. But as usual, they don't let facts get in the way of their misleading rhetoric."

Yesterday, Pelosi's spokesman said the speaker wouldn't keep her pledge. Perhaps an apology is in order. Or, even better, Pelosi could still honor her transparency pledge.

At a thoroughly surprising evening press conference, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone at Fort Hood told media gathered that the shooter in today's attack, Malik Nidal Hasan, is not dead but in stable condition at the hospital. Cone said there was a "confusion at the hospital" and an officer had been with Hasan since his arrival at the hospital.

The female police officer who reportedly shot Hasan, who was originally reported dead, is also alive, but injured.

Hasan may be a man flagged by federal investigators six months ago for suspicious Internet postings in which he lauded suicide bombers. There was no official investigation opened:

Federal law enforcement officials say the suspected Fort Hood, Texas, shooter had come to their attention at least six months ago because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings and other threats.

The officials say the postings appeared to have been made by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was killed during the shooting incident that left least 11 others dead and 31 wounded. The officials say they are still trying to confirm that he was the author. They say an official investigation was not opened.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

One of the Web postings that authorities reviewed is a blog that equates suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades.

Hasan, whom early reports claimed was a convert to Islam, apparently was a lifelong Muslim, according to his cousin, interviewed by Shep Smith, below:

In another interview with a former Hasan colleague, Shep Smith learned this:

The colonel heard Hasan say that “maybe the Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor” in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also heard Hasan comment that he was “almost sort of happy” about a shooting at a Little Rock recruitment center.

The Washington Examiner spoke to the head of Hasan's mosque in Silver Spring, Md., where he was an attendee for six years, while he was stationed at Walter Reed:

Ishtiaq Chughtai, the president of the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, said Hasan attended prayers daily, often in his uniform, and showed no signs that he was conflicted about being deployed.

"It's very sad for our people, the American people," Chughtai said. "This is a tragedy that's going to stay in the back of our minds for a long time."

Hasan attended the Muslim center for about six years and seemed like a good person, Chughtai said. He gave people rides home and sometimes the money from his pocket.

But things appeared to go wrong for Hasan near the end of his time at Walter Reed. He received a poor evaluation while there.

Hasan, a psychiatrist, was promoted to Major and moved to Fort Hood, where he reportedly became upset about the possibility of being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan:

My colleague James Dao has spoken with Nader Hasan, a cousin of the suspected gunman who said that the military psychiatrist had recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, his cousin said.

“He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.”

Nader Hasan also told a local Fox affiliate that his cousin said he heard “horrific things” from soldiers who had served in combat, and that he had been “dealing with harassment from his military colleagues.”

There have been reports that Hasan had gone so far as to hire a lawyer to deal with the harassment his cousin mentions.

There is one eye-witness report of Hasan yelling in Arabic during the shooting:

James Hunt, 27, serving with the 510th Combat Engineers, was with his platoon at the base’s Soldier Readiness Center where soldiers who are about to be deployed undergo medical screening. He is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in January.

But because James had broken his foot several weeks ago, he was sent outside and told to get some extra paperwork that would clear him for deployment. James was waiting in the parking lot of the center when the shooting started, his father said.

“Everybody started running and shouting, and he saw the wounded come out,” Tom Hunt said. “He didn’t hear the shooting, but he said it was ‘a bloody mess.’”

Hunt said his son told him he loaded up many of the wounded and drove them to the hospital. The wounded relayed what they saw inside when the shooting happened.

“They were telling him that one guy was shouting something in Arabic while he was shooting,” Tom Hunt said. “He couldn’t say much more than that.”

Gen. Cone alluded to stories of men and women ripping off their uniforms inside the Soldier Readiness Center to treat their fellow soldiers. Many of them are trained as combat medics.

The L.A. Times does not mention the shooter's religion at all, and many mainstream media outlets chose to speculate about stress of repeated deployments (Hasan's would have been his first) and possible PTSD.

Remember the 2004 GOP convention? When delegates from the floor roared "flip-flop" at every mention of John Kerry's name? It's hard to imagine a politician in recent days who had such a well-deserved reputation for waffling. Recall his position on the war supplemental in Octobe 2003: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

Florida governor Charlie Crist seems eager to give Kerry contest -- only he hasn't yet acknowledged the flip-flop. Which, in a way, makes it worse.

Crist was a well known supporter of Barack Obama's $787 stimulus bill. He spoke out in favor of it. He backed it in media appearances. He said he would have voted for it. He even appeared with the president at an event to tout the measure.

But Crist is running for Senate. And with a strong primary challenge from a rising-star conservative in Marco Rubio, Crist abruptly changed his position.

"I didn't endorse it," Crist said in an appearance on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. "I -- you know, I didn't even have a vote on the darned thing. But I understood that it was going to pass and I wanted to be able to utilize it for the benefit of my fellow Floridians."

It's fair for Crist to say now that he wished he hadn't endorsed it -- and given the increasingly dubious claims of actual stimuli in the stimulus, that might be the wise course. But he cannot say he didn't endorse it.

This comes from a letter Crist signed (PDF available at www.flarecovery.gov) on February 3. It is addressed to President Obama.

We are writing to express our support for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which passed last week in the House and is under consideration currently in the Senate. As stewards of the economies of our respective states and regions, we urge the Congress to reach prompt resolution of all outstanding differences and you to sign the bill when it reaches your desk.

Why would Crist support Obama back in early February and seek to distance himself from the president now? Perhaps because conservative Republicans won gubernatorial races in two states Tuesday that Obama had won convincingly? Or was it Obama? According to the Gallup daily tracking poll, Obama's job approval from February 1-3 was 65 percent, with only 20 percent disapproving. Today, Obama's approval is down to 52 percent, with 42 opposed, and in that time Republican approval of Obama has dropped from more than 40 percent to just 18 percent.

Rather than pretending he didn't support the stimulus, Crist would be much better off just being honest with voters. John Kerry might put it this way: "I actually did support the stimulus before I came out against it."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the speaker will not allow the final language of the health care to be posted online for 72 hours before bringing the bill to a vote on the House floor, despite her September 24 statement that she was "absolutely" committed to doing so.

House members are still negotiating important issues in the bill--whether it will provide taxpayer-funding for abortions, for example. Pelosi is pushing for a Saturday House vote, and a number of big changes will be introduced, likely less than 24 hours before the vote takes place (if in fact it does). The Rules Committee hasn't yet released its resolution, or rule, that must be passed before the bill can move from committee to the floor. The rule will set the terms of debate and determine what amendments are in order.

It seems likely that the rule will allow very few, if any, up-or-down votes on amendments on the House floor. Rather, the rule will include a series of amendments that will all be adopted at once if the rule passes.

On September 24, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that she was "absolutely" committed to putting the text of the final House bill online for 72 hours before the House votes:

TWS: Madam Speaker, do you support the measure to put the final House bill online for 72 hours before it's voted on at the very end?

PELOSI: Absolutely. Without question.

But tonight, when asked if Speaker Pelosi will leave the bill online for 72 hours after we see what's in the rule, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly replied in an email: "No; [the] pledge was to have manager’s amendment online for 72 hours, and we will do that."

Apparently Pelosi's agreement to leave the "final" bill online "at the very end" of the process wasn't such a straightforward pledge.

How weak? Carteresque weak.

Hey, you know what turned out to be a really bad idea? Calling for a settlement freeze.

Chris Dodd, progressive hero and friend of Angelo, goes after the administration over Swine flu incompetence.

Z Street cuts right through J Street.

Politico finds at least two remaining Democratic members of the reality-based community:

Former Senator Bob Kerrey: "Every Dem who is up in either 2010 or 2012 knows that last night was big."

Senator Mark Warner: "We got walloped."

Horrible news out of Ft. Hood today where 12 11 soldiers and the gunman were killed and 31 wounded in an attack. ABC News has identified the suspected gunman as Major Malik Nadal Hasan, and reports: "The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said."

The media just doesn't seem as troubled by the Obama administration buying favorable coverage in foreign newspapers as it was when the Bush administration propagandized. Still, I'm surprised this story isn't getting more attention. There's something for everyone here -- an administration buying coverage that is laughable on its face, a respected institution of journalism prostituting itself for the U.S. government, an Iraqi politician declared "Global Personality of the Year for 2009." Rogin reports:

U.S. taxpayer money that was supposed to be used for emergency purposes in Iraq was spent to buy a special advertising issue for an Anbar businessman in a British trade magazine, a U.S. government investigation has found.

FDI magazine, a bimonthly print publication and website owned by the Financial Times, nearly simultaneously showered Anbar Governor Qasim Abid Muhammad Hammadi Al Fahadawi with positive coverage, praising the dangerous Anbar province as "a hot place to invest in" and giving the businessman an award as "Global Personality of the Year for 2009."

FDI's award was announced three days before the "Special Report" on Anbar, entitled, "Bridge to the Future," was published on its website. The award was immediately praised by the U.S. military in Iraq, without mention of the U.S. funds spent on the supplement, and the website makes no mention of it having been paid for by the American government. Then again last month, FDI magazine Editor Courtney Fingar handed the governor another award naming Anbar province one of FDI magazine's "standout regions of the year."

Reached by The Cable, Fingar confirmed the U.S. government had spent "in the neighborhood of $50,000" on the special supplement but denied her magazine's content had been bought and paid for, calling the report on Anbar "balanced and accurate."

If this had happened in 2006 -- well, Anbar has come a long way since 2006 thanks to the determination of U.S. troops and the surge of forces implemented by Bush and Petraeus over the objections of Obama -- the left would have screamed bloody murder and mocked the propaganda program for weeks on end. When Obama does it it's no big deal. No calls for a special investigations into the administration's use of federal tax dollars to buy favorable coverage. No calls for a retraction and explanation from the Financial Times. No nothing.

Only one year after Barack Obama captured the hearts, minds, and votes of an entire generation of young Americans, those same voters proved that they are not a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. Looking at election data from this week’s statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia, it seems that the loyalty of young voters may only have been to one man -– Barack Obama –- not a party or an ideology, presenting a real opportunity for the GOP despite calls of extinction after 2008.

According to The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), turnout among 18-29 year olds was 19% in New Jersey and only 17% in Virginia. This compares with 53% and 59% young voter turnout in the 2008 Presidential elections in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively. Even considering the typical drop-off during an off-year election, turnout only in the teens is alarmingly low.

The young people who were the driving force of the Obama campaign stayed home in 2009. Claims that President Obama won a generation of young Americans to the Democratic Party were vastly exaggerated. The power of Obamamania, it seems, was personality politics -- not an actual commitment to the Democratic Party or principles.

Perhaps more amazing and disappointingly under-reported by the media is the fact that 18-29 year olds in Virginia voted for Bob McDonnell over the Democrat 54% to 44%. McDonnell proved that a dynamic candidate with the right ideas, an active youth outreach program, and strategic use of new media technologies, Republican candidates can win the youth vote. The McDonnell campaign deserves credit for its text messaging program, the Young Professionals coalition that leveraged both fundraising and grassroots organizing, and the energy that his daughters brought to the election.

The GOP needs to wake up and take note. Bob McDonnell did not invent a new way of campaigning. He was the right candidate with the right message who refused to cede Virginia’s youth to the Democrats and actually reached out to them. Republicans should take this week’s election results as a sign that the Grand Old Party still has a real opportunity to appeal to young voters.

The New York Times reports on comments by the French foreign minister:

On Iran, Mr. Kouchner said that the violence of demonstrations on Wednesday was very important, another sign that the Iranians “are losing time, not gaining time” by their refusal to deal seriously with the Security Council and the West on the issue of nuclear enrichment.

He said that there would be no discussion of new Security Council sanctions against Iran until the end of the year at the request of Washington. “Our American friends ask us to wait until the end of the year,” he said. “It’s not us.” The Obama administration wants to see if Iran will respond to an offer of negotiations, Mr. Kouchner said. “We’re waiting for talks, but where are the talks?”

Kouchner spilled the beans. The Europeans are pressing for some kind of action on Iran, but the White House, it seems, has asked them to wait until the end of the year -- there are more humiliating overtures to be made before the White House makes some concession to the reality of Iranian recalcitrance. Still, we can take some comfort from the fact that Obama's diplomacy may not be open-ended but may in fact have a deadline of some sort -- or at least the Europeans seem to think that's the case.

The cargo, en route to Syria:

· 566,220 7.62 calibre rifle bullets

· 20,100 F1 fragment grenades

· 5,680 60 mm mortar shells

· 2,316 81 mm mortar shells

· 774 120 mm mortar shells

· 690 122 mm rockets

· 106 artillery shells

· 2,125 107 mm rockets

· 685 rocket fuses

From David Corn, in response to John Boehner tweeting a story from the AP titled "Thousands rally to protest Pelosi healthcare":

And hundreds of millions don't.

Good point, Corn. Just like the hundreds of millions who didn't march on Washington for civil rights or to end the war in Vietnam. Or the hundreds of millions who didn't take to the streets to protest the Iraq war. Or the hundreds of millions who didn't vote for Barack Obama. The silent majority strikes again!

Just two weeks ago we had a little fun with Nation columnist and Columbia journalism professor Eric Alterman, who had, over the course of a year, recycled the same attack, practically word for word, into three separate columns for three different publications. For example, on January 15, writing in the Nation, Alterman wrote, "The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb chimed in by calling J Street "obsequious" to terrorists and "hostile" to Israel..." Then on October 6, in Le Monde, he wrote, "Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard said it was obsequious to terrorists and hostile to Israel." And again on October 15, this time in the New York Times, Alterman wrote, "Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard said it was obsequious to terrorists and hostile to Israel." You can see the side by side comparison here -- in each case the whole paragraph is recycled nearly word for word.

At the time I merely remarked that "Alterman is lazy." I didn't make a federal case out of it, but for a journalism professor, this kind of thing really does set a bad example, assuming that his students read his columns, which I doubt they do. But still, for a guy who was accused of being lazy...I feel like he kind of proves my point with his response, which comes in the form of an attack on my colleague Matthew Continetti's latest book, The Persecution of Sarah Palin (order your copy today!). Alterman concludes his column, which is just a series of personal attacks on me, Continetti, and a bunch of other American patriots, with this...

Is this new generation of conservative journalists really this sloppy and lazy? You betcha...

Yes, the 'I'm rubber, you're glue' defense...a lazy journalist would never fall back on that one.

Update: A reader emails:

If a student in Alterman's class submits an assignment that had been submitted previously in another course at Columbia, they could be in real trouble... [Note this is for college of which the journalism school is not technically a part of]

Academic dishonesty may be intentional or unintentional and most commonly includes but is not limited to:

Submitting work for one course that has already been used for another course

Nice work professor...

A new poll from Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research takes the temperature of California Republicans:

Former eBay executive Meg Whitman has opened up a wide lead in the Republican race for governor, according to the latest Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research poll.

About a third of Republicans and decline-to-state voters who said they intend to vote Republican said they favor Whitman, who has a 3-to-1 edge over rival contender Tom Campbell, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner remains stuck in a distant third, with 5.5 percent of Republican support.

The numbers show a significant increase in recent weeks for Whitman that reflects her prodigious spending. Already, seven months before the primary and full year before the general election, Whitman has spent more than $19 million. The level of spending is remarkable, even in a state accustomed to multimillion-dollar campaigns.

It's nice to have money. It didn't help Corzine, and Bloomberg spent a fortune to win by the smallest of margins, but in these tough economic times, both parties will be on the look-out for plausible, self-financing candidates. The primary is a long way off, but Whitman looks likely to be a formidable opponent, having overcome some controversy over her voting record, or lack thereof, and her YouTube praise of Obama's commie green jobs czar Van Jones. Poizner's campaign hasn't been able to do any damage with those stories, all of which bodes pretty well for Meg.

The Senate approved Tara O’Toole’s nomination as Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security via voice vote last night. As we pointed out the day before, this should be of concern to anyone interested in making sure that billions in taxpayer dollars do not get funneled to a bio-security boondoggle brought to you by O’Toole and her close and corrupt ally John Murtha, who is currently under investigation for ethics violations.

Under O’Toole’s jurisdiction now falls the decision concerning the Murtha-supported effort to make the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) “the world’s leading facility for manufacturing vaccines by 2013, potentially a $1 billion venture.”

Mysterious players in private equity, pharmaceutical, and lobbying worlds have been working for years to get to the point where one of their own -- a fellow Murtha supporter and contributor like O’Toole -- can reward them with huge federal contracts. As someone affiliated and closely aligned with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the conflict of interest before O’Toole is clear, but will she really be able to resist the pressure to reward Murtha’s cronies with millions upon millions in taxpayer-funded, government contracts?

The Murtha-backed effort surrounding UPMC now has the support of another Pennsylvania Democrat, Arlen Specter. Sources tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the Philadelphia Democrat is looking for a way to ingratiate himself with powerbrokers in western Pennsylvania and believes he has found it by supporting the billion-dollar UPMC venture.

Prediction: coming soon to western Pennsylvania with the support of Harry Reid, Arlen Specter and of course, Tara O’Toole, will be the John Murtha Center for Biosecurity to go along with the John Murtha Airport and the John P. Murtha Institute for Homeland Security.