InstaPundit Round-Up

InstaPundit is probably my favorite blog and it has several interesting links to some stories I would like to touch upon.

First, much has been made in MSM about Bush "raising the threshold" in whether he will fire any aide involved in leak of Valerie Plame when he said yesterday, "If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." (see the AP report here and the Washington Post story here). Many in the MSM seem to believe that Bush is going back on his pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak of Valerie Plame even if the leak was not a crime. However, as I explained last week and Tom Maguire explained yesterday, Bush has only pledged to fire the leakers if the leak was criminal. Someone might want to explain that to the MSM before they run another breathless page one story on this so-called scandal.

Second, Morgan Spurlock, who is trying to become the next Michael Moore, with his movie Super-Size Me, his book Don't Eat This Book and his new TV show 30 Days. While Spurlock has enjoyed some success with all three projects, he seems to have the same problem that Moore has in his movies and books, which is getting his facts right.

Finally, I will end this post with my third installment of the Overblown Political Rhetoric of the Week. While the first two winners, Eleanor Norton Holmes and Dick Durbin have been both Democrats, it was only a matter of time before a Republican said something really, really dumb. Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo said the following during a radio interview in Florida when asked what the U.S. should do if terrorists use nuclear weapons against civilians on U.S. soil:

"Well, what if you said something like -- if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites."

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell [the radio host] said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

Huh? So using Tancredo's logic, if I get mugged by some red-headed Irishman, I might want to think about desecrating a Catholic Church. If you want every single Muslim in the world to hate you and not just a few hundred thousand radicals spread out throughout the world, then you bomb Mecca. The U.S. has to be tough in the war on terror and be more than willing to use military force against terrorists, but the U.S. can't be stupid about it. If terrorists were to attack the U.S. again, then the U.S. should attack military targets in response, not something like Mecca which to my knowledge has little military value. If Rep. Tancredo has any sense what so ever, he will apologize for these comments immediately.