SPANNING THE GLOBE. Whoops! At PowerLine:

Our friend Mac Owens writes:

I don't know if you saw this. I think it's a pretty good analysis of the president's Iraq strategy document. [Note] my last paragraph in which I refer to the Copperhead faction of the Dem Party (most of them, led by Murtha-Pelosi) and the Copperhead-lite alternative (Kerry and Hilary). I thought of the link when I read [Paul's] reference to "defeatocrat-lite"..."

No, no, Big Trunk or Trunkrocket or whatever you're calling yourself this month! Owens' note was obviously meant to be private! He was just explaining how you should frame his story because you're a little dense and need that sort of prompting. When you show a guy talking so lovingly about his own column, it makes him look like an idiot.

Which Owens is. So nevermind.

Here's a bonus citizen soldier! Nine-Star General Ralph "Blood 'n' Guts" Peters, one of my favoritest cartoon characters, sounds off about Howard Dean's claim that we can't win in Iraq. The General mocks Dean not only because he "encourage[s] our enemies to kill American troops" (all in a day's work for us traitorous Dems!), but also because Dean "never bothered to serve in uniform" and for "his ignorance of military history." One imagines Jonah Goldberg standing behind the General, shaking his GI Joe at Dean and yelling "Burn! Wicked burn!"

As always with the General, lots of entertaining froth, such as this:

Consider this: Not one of us would consider looking over a neurosurgeon's shoulder and directing an operation. Yet a colonel in our military has more years of formal education — and far more varied hands-on experience — than any surgeon.

Fucking pussy surgeons. I can cut good's they can. (Drunkenly unsheathes his Ka-Bar.) Hold nice 'n' still.

Great fun, but the General grows tedious by pretending to wish fervently for a non-treasonous "responsible and strong Democratic Party." I direct him, yet again (does his adjutant not relay my communiques?), to my Perublican Party Manifesto.

Oh, I mentioned Jonah Goldberg, didn't I? Then I guess I have to mention his latest. It is, as usual, the stupidest thing ever written, and will remain so until he writes something else. Sample quote:

In "Patriot Games," Harrison Ford shot a man in the kneecap to get the information he needed in a timely manner. In "Rules of Engagement," Samuel L. Jackson shot a POW in the head to get another man to talk.

And the audience is expected to cheer, or at least sympathize with, all of it. Now, I know many will say, "It's only a movie" or "It's only a TV show." But that will not do. Hollywood plays a role in shaping culture, but it also reflects it. It both affirms and reflects our basic moral sense (which is one reason why it dismays some of us from time to time).

No person, not even Goldberg, could speak those lines aloud and believe that they made any sense.

To end on a unreasonably high note, here's Free Republic's Friday Toons, made by people who are as crazy as our other subjects but so much more fun, bless them. In fairness, I must point out that some of the cartoons are actually funny, and a few diverge from the Freeper party line. But for the most part it's the usual:

I note with interest that "State of the Union" now features Jeff Jacoby.

This fellow hates newspaper publishers so much, he makes them turn black! (BTW, this isn't racist, why would you think that? You must be racist yourself.)

I'll let this guy wrap things up -- he sure can write a punchline!