705P ET: Introduction with regard the upcoming conversation on Afghanistan with MP Daoud Sultanzoy of Ghanzi Province and Ann Marlowe writing in the WSJ.  Also with ragrd the conversation with Douglas Feith on two critical months in the Iraq War, August 2003 and April 2004.

720P: Daniel Seaman, Director Israeli Government Press Office, re foreign media and the now demonstrably phony and staged French TV2  al-Durah blood libel, 2000.

735P: Roundtable professionals Vaughn Ververs CBS.com and Jake Schlesinger WSJ Bill re Obama sort-of takes command, re Bush in Europe, the last hurrah, the the opening polls show Obama 47, McCain 41, and should McCain be 21?

750P: Continued

805P: Larry Kudlow CNBC Kudlow & Company re the dollar vs the price of oil, re worldwide inflation, re the McCain economic plan that doesn't much exist, re drill drill drill.

820P: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, re Hamas continues to rocket the Negev, no Israeli answer, re the Iran threats grow and so do the IDF aims.

835P: Matthew Kaminski WSJ Europe re how NATO has prospered during the Bush Administration.

850P: Ann Marlowe and Daoud Sultanzoy of Afghanistan re Pashtun reluctance, Taliban resistance, the long war of counter-insurgency in Afghanistan.

905P: Stephen Fidler Financial Times re the decline and fall of Al Qaeda, almost.  Al Q has lost all but marginal support of Arabia and is in decline in Europe, even among the group of guys syndrome that produced the 5/05 strike in London.  A major crit is that Al Q slaughters women and children with their shahid ops in Iraq, Algiers, Morroco.  When confronted, No. 2 bump on his head Dr. Alzawahiri equivocates with routine hate-mongering moral equivalency:  "We have not killed innocents. In fact, we fight those who kill innocents: those who kill innocents are the Americans, the Jews, the Russians, the French and their agents. Were we insane killers of innocents, it would be possible for us to kill thousands of them in the crowded markets, but we are confronting the enemies of the Muslims and targeting them, and during this, an innocent might fall."

920P: Patty Kim, director, "Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story" PBS ,re the 13 year old Japanese schoolgirl abducted by North Korean ops in 1977 and kept hidden for 20 years until her parents learned her fate.

935P: Doug Feith, author, "War and Decision," re the Bush Administration and the brief, unhappy search for WMD, the blindness toward Oil for Food, and other mysteries.  Will focus on two critical months, August 2003 and April 2004, when the war turned from success to failure to catastrophe.  Studied luncheon remarks by Mr. Feith recently at a Hudson Institute event.  Exceedingly professorial, a large, friendly Wilsonian gentleman with a collegiate enthusiasm for making himself clear in animated footnotes. 

955P: Exeunt with report on Mars Phoenix Lander finding water ice, unconfirmed, and beginning sample testing of soil.