according to Robert Novak. We’re sure the trip — only his second to the state in the six months since Hurricane Katrina — has nothing to do with these.

John Hinderaker of Powerline has responded to my post last night. An excerpt:

One of the dimmest of the dimwitted left-wing web sites has tried to respond to this post… Sadly, I think a great many liberals are this stupid. Worse, I think that many liberals–like the proprietor of the hate site…are so far gone in hatred of President Bush that everything they say and do is said and done in bad faith. Like Jack Murtha, they have lost any ability to distinguish truth from fiction, and any desire to do so.

In my experience, when you respond to criticism with a string of insults it usually means you have a really strong argument.

Yesterday’s post documented five demonstrably false claims made by Hinderaker. He only defends one. Hinderaker concedes that Cheney did say Iraq possessed nuclear weapons but says it was only “a slip of the tongue.” That’s right, it was a just a “slip of the tongue” made on national television four days before the war. Cheney didn’t bother to correct it for six months.

Hinderaker appears to be a lost cause. But please contact other bloggers who are pushing around his misinformation as fact. Point them to our original post and tell them to correct the record for their readers. Contact information below: Read more

Experts monitoring the $1.6 billion levee reconstruction project in New Orleans “say large sections of the rebuilt levee system will be substantially weaker than before the hurricane hit.” They cite shortcuts in the construction process and “weak, substandard” building materials.

DHS Irony Level: Elevated. The Department of Homeland Security is “having difficulty safeguarding its own headquarters” because of “inadequate training, failed security tests and slow or confused reactions to bomb and biological threats.”

More than 90 percent of Sadr City residents suffer from psychological disorders, “including depression, insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD,” though only about 75 psychiatrists remain in the war-torn country.

“Detainees in Iraq are still being tortured, receiving electric shocks and beatings with plastic cables,” according to a new report by Amnesty International. Thousands of Iraqis continue to be held without charge or trial.

The White House is “quietly pushing” Dubai Ports World to “significantly restructure” and partner up with a U.S. firm to keep the port deal from sinking. The U.S. company “best equipped to partner with DP World”: Halliburton. Read more