John Batchelor

Puzzle if the American public was educated to see the commander-in-chief as an unambiguous warrior long before the soap-opera slow and unusually claustrophobic “24.” Note “Air Force One”, the 1997 Harrison Ford thriller, as a brief for omniscient presidential powers…

Jerusalem source reports that Hamas chief and Damascus-Tehran chimp Khaled Meshal is close to a deal with Cairo to transfer his operation back into Gaza City. Egypt Secret Police Chief Suleiman, the heavy duty factotum of aging, despairing, betraying Mubarak…

Spoke with Walid Jumblatt, leader of the British connected and MI-6 blessed Druze of Lebanon. Jumblatt condemns the al-Assads of Damascus as terrorists and says that they are playing a waiting-out Bush game — stalling the UN in hopes of…

Iran President Ahmadinejad remains out of sight and unlocated by routine signals intelligence at the beginning of the second week of mystery. Meanwhile the Basiji, the bully boy militia attached to the revolution, begin national defense exercises in Khuzestan, the…

Bump on the noggin rapper Dr. A Zawahiri is back on air with talking points for Pelosians and Deaniacs. Am eager to see this crosscut with Sheehan campaign against less than limber Dianne F. in California. The puzzle for historians…

Have walked Nativity Square wearing a flak jacket and a mobile phone during the siege of ’02, have ridden in a HUMVEE without armored doors on the Philadelphi route in Gaza during Hamas/Islamic Jihad attack, have darted along the alternate…

Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority means endless trouble going forward, and the grotesque, apocalyptic scenario of a Hamas link up with the Muslem Brothers to take over Cairo at Mubarak's death — but most especially right now it means…

Senate source reminds that Snowe of Maine has never and does not vote for filibuster — that is, against cloture. She may vote no on Alito, but not with Kerry and the filibuster crew.

Choral member Democrats falling in line, D-Day Minus 1: Obama indicates he will vote for cloture and asks a sensible question: why would any Democrat vote yes for cloture if he or she aimed to vote no on the Alito…

Reverse engineering intelligence gathered from the Democrat blog sites, informed by the report of a delightfully frantic phone call by Ted Kennedy to the so-called netroots with regard whom among his colleagues he doubts, the Alito filibuster fight centers around…