CNN is repeating the comment, attributed to "Lebanese government officials," that the massive fighting that has broken out in Tripoli is the fault of "Al Qaeda"*. By eerie coincidence our friend Juan Cole has some very profound observations just today, about this "organization" we call Al Qaeda:

Another important impetus to al-Qaeda's survival is that it has taken the place of the Communist Party as radical response to the status quo. Al-Qaeda's top leadership is rich, not poor, and it is a movement of the Right, not the Left. But it is a radical, populist Right that can attract the dispossessed.

This cannot be too often repeated, because it is one of those say-whaaa?? sort of things that takes many repetitions and a good deal of thought to soak in. But look at the longer version of Cole's post on the subject and it's really been there in front of us all along:

Qata, Lebanon: Image courtesy of AFP & the BBC, Israel, the Bush administration, and to some extent, Hizbollah

Amazing!

It's taking a shorter and shorter time for the Bush/Cheney/Kristol foreign policy to crash and burn.

George Stephanoupolos and friends spent the morning spelling out the administration's greatest failure thus far, excepting Iraq, of course, although North Korea is certainly a close third, then again, there's Syria, and ohmygosh, Iran, but hey, those last two are part of the Lebanon disaster...

Hard to keep track, isn't it?

Because this woman isn't.

Harsh?

Yes.

Unfair?

Perhaps. I could have featured other smiling men:

This one, for instance.

Or this one.

Or other smiling women.

Let me tell you about the woman in the picture first, and then you be the judge.

This Sunday in Tyre Lebanon
Image courtesy of Tyler Hicks, NYTimes
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

No, not the Bolton with the big, bushy mustache.

Josh Bolton is George Bush's clean-shaven, intelligent, softly-spoken chief-of-staff, but like all members of this administration, however intelligent, however conversant with facts, he is all talking points, all the time, which makes him boring to listen to, of course, but far worse, dangerously deficient in the area of reality-testing.

Thus, quite a perfect spokesperson for this administration. BTW, this was Bolton's first network interview since taking over for Andrew Card, an exclusive for Timmeh.

Nothing exclusive about the topics up for discussion, and God knows, nothing exclusive about what the Bush administration has to say on any of them - damn those talking points.

Just asking.

And doesn't that question remind you of another question?