Three Must Reads From Powerline

Sometimes Power Line just has too much good stuff. This is one of those days.

Great takedown of Michael "Bin Ladin is Admirable" Scheur. Bonus points for both taking him down, then using his words to take down Richard Clarke:

Scheuer thinks Clarke is a risk-averse poseur who didn't do enough to fight bin Laden prior to September 11, 2001. ... Scheuer said that on 10 separate occasions his unit, codename "Alec," provided key policymakers with information that could've lead to the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden. "In each of those 10 instances," Scheuer said, "the senior policymaker in charge, whether it was Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, or George Tenet," resisted taking action, afraid it would result in collateral damage or a backlash on the Arab street.

A little snipe at the increasinlgy whiny and hysterical Andrew "No Offense Taken" Sullivan. Sullivan does little except parrot the liberal conventional wisdom these days-- and currently he's flogging the liberal whining about Bush appointing cronies and yes-men to cabinet posts.

Brit Hume actually laughed at Juan Williams, quite derisively, this Sunday, as Williams struggled to make a similar point. When exactly did it come to pass, Hume wondered, that the State Department and CIA were made the fourth and fifth co-equal branches of government, with an adversarial and independent relationship to the executive akin to the role played by Congress? Hume reminded Williams of the civics class basics of the executive branch-- everyone works for the President, and they're supposed to carry out his policies. He is, in case Sullivan and Williams have forgotten, the chief foreign policy organ and the Commander in Chief of the US. When you elect a President, you elect his foreign policy, subject only to the advice and consent of the Senate.

Not the consent of the State Department or CIA, notice.

Finally, they score the hat-trick by digesting liberal media coverage of Bush's rescue of his Secret Service agent. Apparently Bush "smirked" shortly thereafter, and a Chilean journalist thinks he behaved (wait for it...) like a "cowboy."