Morning Report

Debka is reporting that Iyad Allawi is optimistic that his anti-terror units in Iraq are getting close to nabbing Zarqawi. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, Bill Sammon at the Washington Times tells us how freedom is on the march in the Middle East. With the recent fall of the pro-Syrian regime in Lebanon and Egypt's recent announcement that they will be holding free and direct presidential elections for the first time, it's clear that the impact of the Iraqi elections in the region has been swift and positive -- much swifter than anyone dared predict. An excerpt:

In Lebanon, Druze opposition leader Walid Jumblatt, a frequent critic of the United States, credited Mr. Bush for the recent trend toward democratization.

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," he told columnist David Ignatius of The Washington Post last week. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world."

He added: "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

This must be especially irksome to the Michael Moores of the world who have been cheering for the forces of terror in this fight. It must also be rather embarrassing to Tim Robbins who recently declared in bumper-sticker parlance that "You can't create democracy at the point of a gun."

Meanwhile, will Syria be the next domino to fall? Or will it be Iran?

Roger Simon shows us how the liberals are having to grudgingly admit that positive things are happening as a result of the war in Iraq. It seems the liberal take on all of this is to chalk it up to pure serendipity and quickly change the subject.

Shifting gears a bit, in light of the Supreme Court's recent death penalty ruling, Iowa Hawk via Glenn Reynolds is keeping us abreast of how the Supreme Court is getting a bit carried away with citing foreign authority. An excerpt:

WASHINGTON, DC - In a far-reaching decision that will likely create complicated consequences for the American livestock and wedding-planning industries, the Supreme Court this morning ruled 5-4 that all US marriage dowries "must include three non-diseased oxen."

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy cited "the weight of the expansive penumbra surrounding the historically emerging and prevailing opinions of tribal shamans from Lesotho to Myanamar" in issuing the historic ruling in American Cattleman Association vs. Modern Bride, Helverson, et al.

Justice Scalia's dissent is priceless, but you'll have to link the story to read it -- We here at Rumpus are sensitive to the fact that children may be reading.

And finally, let's go from the absurd to the sublime.