Saturday digest

- Despite what you may hear, the US economy is booming - and good thing, too, because entitlement spending, which no one seems to want to speak about with honesty, depends on it.

- Understatement of the year: "Bush fatigue has set in".

- More here on the Glasgow cabbie who kicked a burning terrorist in the nutsack last weekend.

- Speaking of al-Qaeda, how about this article (excerpt below)?

Most Iraqis I talk with acknowledge that if it was ever about the oil, it’s not now. Not mostly anyway. It clearly would have been cheaper just to buy the oil or invade somewhere easier that has more. Similarly, most Iraqis seem now to realize that we really don’t want to stay here, and that many of us can’t wait to get back home. They realize that we are not resolved to stay, but are impatient to drive down to Kuwait and sail away. And when they consider the Americans who actually deal with Iraqis every day, the Iraqis can no longer deny that we really do want them to succeed. But we want them to succeed without us. We want to see their streets are clean and safe, their grass is green, and their birds are singing. We want to see that on television. Not in person. We don’t want to be here. We tell them that every day. It finally has settled in that we are telling the truth.

Now that all those realizations and more have settled in, the dynamics here are changing in palpable ways.

Since my reporting of the massacre at the al Hamari village, many readers at home have asked how anyone can know that al Qaeda actually performed the massacre. The question is a very good one, and one that I posed from the first hour to Iraqis and Americans while trying to ascertain facts about the killings.

No one can claim with certainty that it was al Qaeda, but the Iraqis here seem convinced of it. At a meeting today in Baqubah one Iraqi official I spoke with framed the al Qaeda infiltration and influence in the province. Although he spoke freely before a group of Iraqi and American commanders, including Staff Major General Abdul Kareem al Robai who commands Iraqi forces in Diyala, and LTC Fred Johnson, the deputy commander of 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, the Iraqi official asked that I withhold his identity from publication. His opinion, shared by others present, is that al Qaeda came to Baqubah and united many of the otherwise independent criminal gangs.

Speaking through an American interpreter, Lieutenant David Wallach who is a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al Qaeda united these gangs who then became absorbed into “al Qaeda.” They recruited boys born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons, including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al Qaeda. These boys were used for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people.

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

Anyone out there still interested in debating whether these "combatants" still deserve the full protections afforded by the American legal system?

- The French intelligentsia is upset because Sarko is a jogger. Not only that, but he wears an NYPD T-shirt while doing so. I suppose they'd prefer it if he spent his free time sitting around hacking butts, eating butter croissants and reading Foucault.

- Scooter Libby was Marc Rich's lawyer. Who knew? While I'm on the office of the Vice-President, here's a week-long Washington Post series on his role within the Administration. I haven't read it all, but have put it up for those who may be interested.

- I am very impressed with Mitt Romney, and while it's too early to tell where he'll finish, it's looking like he'll end up doing better than McCain when all is said and done on the GOP side. Here's a look at the race in both parties from across the pond.

- The latest from another great Yankee pol, here.

- I tuned in to Live Earth last night and saw a bunch of young twenty-somethings on stage playing trumpets and decked out in T-shirts that said "Say No to Nuclear Energy". I wonder if they could explain the position they seem to have taken? I doubt it. Here's an article which reminds us to be skeptical when fame and public policy collide.

- This thoughtful article suggests that there would be much less cynicism and suspicion of the press if its members were more forthcoming about who they are and what biases they may bring to their reporting.

- Finally, brand-new Philadelphia Flyer and Quebec native Daniel Briere is being accused of selling out because he spurned an offer from the Montreal Canadiens. Perhaps the reason why Briere did that is because he appreciates a fan base that wants the best players on their team rather than just the best tribesmen.