Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Another Michael Yon photo essay from Iraq. More here.

Today the civil-military relationship has righted itself, yet soldiers like me who believe that Iraq can be stabilized face a bitter irony. On one hand, the military is finally making meaningful adjustments to the complex fight. On the other, the politicians are finally asserting themselves. The tragedy is that the two groups are going in opposite directions.

-- OWEN WEST

The bitter fight over the latest Iraq spending bill has all but obscured a sobering fact: The war will soon cost more than $500 billion. . . . That's about ten times more than the Bush administration anticipated before the war started four years ago, and no one can predict how high the tab will go.

-- RON HUTCHESON

The National Review’s William F. Buckley has generally bucked his far-right brethren on the war in Iraq. A year ago, Buckley labeled the war in Iraq a failure and concluded, "There will be no legacy for Mr. Bush. I don’t believe his successor would re-enunciate the words he used in his second inaugural address because they were too ambitious. So therefore I think his legacy is indecipherable."

Now, however, Buckley is taking a few steps further. Not only is Bush’s presidency ruined, but the conservative icon is wondering whether the Republican Party itself can withstand such a disaster.

-- STEVE BENEN

Thus far, the breathless anti-Obama screeds by the right have not been impressive. But perhaps they'll get somewhere, if they can resist not snickering like second grade school children over his middle name for the next 15 months (though nothing would make me happier).

-- DAVID SCHRAUB

If you needed further convincing that Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling -- the two young Justice Department aides who have resigned due to their roles in the U.S. attorney firings -- were major players at the Department, Murray Waas has it.

In March of 2006, Waas reports, Alberto Gonzales signed a secret order that gave Goodling and Sampson the authority to hire and fire senior political appointees at the department -- the decisions only required Gonzales' authorization. It cut out other members of the department's senior leadership from the hiring and firing process.

-- PAUL KIEL

Possible Republican President candidate Fred Thompson has really got everybody in a tizzy. He's such a talented tease. Even the NYTimes is eager for the "Law & Order" candidate to formally declare. . . . I've already made it clear that I like Fred Thompson. I think of him the same way I think of Obama. Obama is to the left of me and Fred is to the right of me, but there is something genuine and trustworthy about both of them that draws me to them. I think if Thompson got the Republican mantle, neither Obama nor Hillary would have a chance. He may have his own issues (isn't his wife like 12 or something?), but he has none of this adminstration's funk on him.

-- ANGELA WINTERS

There’s a whole lot of bill padding going on ─ according to a just-completed billing survey . . . by William G. Ross, a professor at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law who specializes in billing ethics.

Ross [found that] . . . 54.6% of the respondents (as compared with 40.3% in 1995) admitted that they had sometimes performed unnecessary tasks just to bump up their billable output. . . .

And then there is the matter of “double billing,” an oft-debated topic. Here’s the issue: A New York lawyer travels to Pittsburgh to attend a hearing for Client A, billing the client for her travel time. But on the plane she also bills Client B for reviewing a brief in B’s case.

-- NATHAN KOPPEL