MSNBC is reporting that Thursday night’s bombing on a suspected Taliban leadership complex killed certain al-Qaeda leaders. Reports that Usama Bin Laden may have been among the dead or wounded can’t be confirmed until Special Forces can inspect the sight, though the attack was based on intelligence that Bin Laden had been spotted there: The strikes, which witnesses said were very heavy and continued late into the night, were a

In its “Washington Whispers” section this week, U.S. News and World Report had this interesting tidbit: The Pentagon won’t say who’s next in its war against terrorism, but we may have a lead. The holiday decorations on the door of the Joint Chiefs’ office for Middle East/Africa policy include a poster of Saddam Hussein, with a cotton-ball beard and a paper Santa hat. The thought-bubble reads: ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry

In light of Dan Issel’s firing as head coach of the Denver Nuggets, Debbie Schlussel questions the NBA’s double standard on racism: […] Minorities in the NBA can say and do whatever they want with apparent impunity, or in the worst case scenario, a slap on the hand. Whereas Issel apologized, was fined significantly, met with leaders of Denver

Quasipundit’s Tony A. offers some advice to Stephanie Salter, who — tired of speaking as God — is now apparently playing at Pope…

Flashback: Jonah Goldberg weighs in on the new Foxy, Greta Van Susteren, in a column reprinted from Oct. 26, 1998: Miss Van Susteren distinguished herself during the O. J. Simpson trial by muddying the waters of Simpson’s crystal-clear guilt by picking at procedural nits. This was a clever marketing tactic

It’s official: The Democratic Party has lost its everlovin’ mind. From The Washington Times: Democrats, in the name of tolerance, plan to demonize conservative Christians as being like the Taliban, according to an article in Newsweek. Democrats ‘are planning a daring assault on the most critical turf in politics: the cultural mainstream,’ political correspondent Howard Fineman writes. ‘The theory goes like this. Our enemy in Afghanistan is religious extremism and

John O’Sullivan engages in some geopolitical soft porn in this, er…strange National Review column.

On Wednesday’s WSJ Opinion Page Wednesday, Pete Du Pont argues persuasively against steel tariffs supported by the US steel industry, the US-ITC, and President Bush: Let’s be plain: Steel tariffs are a bad idea–bad for the steel industry; bad for governments that use steel in bridges and other public infrastructure projects (not to mention all the steel used by the military); bad for consumers, who will have to pay more

Nelson Mandela has — inexplicably, so far as I can tell — repudiated his earlier statement indicting Usama for the 9/11 terror attacks. Mandela said he regrets if “the manner in which we stated our position gave any offence to Muslims in South Africa and throughout the world.” Talk about backing the wrong (Arabian…?) horse…

From the WSJ Opinion Journal’s “Best of the Web”: The Lebanon Daily Star reports that at French insistence, the European Union did not include the anti-Israel terror group Hezbollah on its list of terror organizations. ‘Sources said the EU’s de facto defense of Hizbullah was a significant achievement in Lebanon’s effort to position itself well in the campaign against international terrorism,’ the Star reports. ‘But the sources declined to make