National Review Inc.

National Review editor Rich Lowry posted a brief indictment Wednesday of the editors at The Washington Post's Book World for deciding not to review a recently published book about the run-up to the Iraq war by former Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith. The book, War and Decision, came out from Harper on April 8, and Mr. Lowry found it "outrageous" that the Post had not run a review of it. "Apparently," he wrote, "it's OK to heap every failure in Iraq on Feith's head, but then to turn around and pretend he's a figure of no consequence when he writes a book."

Book World editor Marie Arana (who, incidentally, took a buyout from the paper recently and will be leaving her job) could not be reached this afternoon, and her man in charge of nonfiction coverage, Alan Cooperman, declined to comment.

According to Mr. Feith, who has been at Georgetown since leaving the Pentagon in 2005, the reason his book was not reviewed had to do with the fact that Post reporters Thomas Ricks and Karen DeYoung had written about it in the paper's news pages back in March.

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Sorry again for the delay. Here's a very late and severely abbreviated Morning Read.

Iowa Democrats start the chatter that Hillary will back out of the race if Barack Obama jumps in: something Hillaryland dismisses.

In National Review Online, Rich Lowry explains "The genius of Obama is that he has a pure liberal voting record -- a 100 percent rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action in 2005 -- at the same time he appeals to independents and avoids seeming noxiously partisan."

John McCain crashed a meeting of the governor's association headed by possible 2008 opponent Mitt Romney.

Paul Craft of the Stanford Review warns against getting too excited about McCain.

And here's McCain's new website.

-- Azi Paybarah

The National Review likes Eliot Spitzer's stance on public money for private schools.

Hilllary Clinton's support of an upstate company's use of recycled car tires has lead to a warning about pollution in the early presidential primary state of New Hampshire.

ReformNY looks at Nick Spano's condemnation of alleged voter intimation tactics.

Despite the improvements, Streetsblogs is still frustrated with the Department of Transportation.

The newsroom of the future is revealed.

Polit.bureau learns not to call the prospect of a long-shot Steve Harrison win over Rep. Vito Fossella "an upset."

NBC has exclusive video of 9/11 terrorist Zacarias Missouri [added].

And above is a clip from RNN, posted on YouTube, in which they interview themselves about YouTube.

-- Azi Paybarah

Who is the bottle blonde on the cover of the current issue of National Review?  read more »

A couple days ago I did my most successful item, counting by serious comments: about the vanishing progressive Jewish presence in public life, from my viewpoint as an assimilating Jew. Later that day I opened my email to discover a message from a "John Podhoretz." It was titled "Look Out!"

I don't know John Podhoretz. I opened the note, and it said, "We know where you live!" That was all.

I was disturbed by the note and I emailed the guy back: "Huh? Who are you? What does this mean?"

He wrote back, "AN EVIL NEOCON JEWBOY! Let's see if you can figure it out...."

I felt pretty sure it was John Podhoretz, the New York Post columnist and a regular contributor to the National Review Online. NRO has a conservative community blog called "The Corner." John Podhoretz is often on there, and when you click on his name, you get the same email address from which the notes came to me: jpod@sprynet.com. And looking around, I saw that Podhoretz refers to himself as Jpod.

I called a few of my rabbis. One of them knows Podhoretz and said he felt sure that it was he who had emailed me. The guy has a pattern of sending weirdly antagonistic emails to people he disagrees with, sometimes accusing them of antisemitism. Another described Podhoretz's emails as "acrimonious." Later I saw that paleo-conservative Steve Sailer talks about Podhoretz's emails on his blog, saying that they show him to be a "moron."

I wanted to be sure the emails had come from Podhoretz. First thing this morning I emailed him at his Post address, jpodhoretz@gmail.com, to ask about the emails from the other address. It's 1. I haven't heard from him. I'm pissed off. I'd ask my readers what I asked "John Podhoretz." Who is he and what does this mean?

Is Condi Rice's warm-and-fuzzy opening to Iran, after President Ahmedinejad's man-to-man letter to President Bush, a signal of a sharply soft turn in an Administration desperate to shore up public trust, not just in Europe but in the U.S.A.? I think so. The Secretary of State came off as lovely, thoughtful and transparent in interviews on two network shows last night, the News Hour then Hardball. ( Would that her predecessor had been so empowered three years ago.) Maybe this is the twilight of the cabal, which never set any value, pace Leo Strauss, on transparency. Note neoconservative Michael Rubin's 5:56 a.m. apprehension on the National Review website..

Michael Novak on National Review Online perpetuates the false claim that The Da Vinci Code is the product of secularists. But people who want to reinterpret Christ aren't secular; they want to believe, and find meaning in their lives, but in new ways. As for secularism, here is a neat definition from Nathan Glazer, in American Judaism (1957):

Scientific technology creates a world filled with material wealth, which offers to every individual the possibility of satisfying his material needs and to every nation the prospect of becoming great and strong. When the fulfilment of life is seen by individuals and nations as the acquisition of possessions, they have abandoned their traditional religions—regardless of what they do on Sunday or how many churches they build.

This is the online news cycle: John Podhoretz already has a couple paragraphs up at the National Review's blog, The Corner, with his take on John Spencer's suggestion that KT is a Hillary pawn.

I assure you the Clintons don't care a whit about what's happening in the imploded New York state Republican party. I think what's going on with the McFarland candidacy is very simple: Some political-consultant folks think by putting her up and getting her press, she can raise some anti-Hillary money nationwide that they can then pocket by running a "grassroots" campaign, television ads and direct mail. Significant percentages of the expenditures will go to the consultants. Don't waste your money on this race. It's a done deal.

The New Republic has a new group blog, The Plank, that seems modeled on National Review's The Corner, only lefter, and is off to a funny, confrontational start. Here's their invitation to procrastination.  read more »

For the first time in more than 40 years, a Catholic politician is about to be nominated for Preside  read more »

All decent people sympathize with the people of Madrid, but New Yorkers can speak with knowledge.  read more »

Buckley brat is right wing's flapper in the city; 'normal' American 'guy,' dates vegetarian.Rich Low  read more »

Al Sharpton will forever be his own biggest fan, blithely forgiving himself every trespass against t  read more »

There's a reason why some words or phrases simply are not acceptable in polite company.  read more »

The calamity that turned the nation toward militaryconfrontation is also revealing the character of  read more »

Larry Kudlow was running late for his own dinner party. Itwas Tuesday, June 26, and Mr.  read more »

Perhaps the most compelling untold story of the Giuliani years is how the Mayor, despite his reputat  read more »

Gov. George W.  read more »

After five years as the No.  read more »

After seven years of charm, toughness, late hours and high spirits, John O'Sullivan steps down as ed  read more »