UPDATE II:

OK, I do business and I can tell when one is heading for disaster. From what I read about the history of the effort at Dennis the Peasant and the state of the matter at Poliblogger I can see OSM is not going to make it. The site is a disaster and plans to be redundant with memeorandum, Powerline and a host of other sites. The only difference is it seems to want to add a Time-Select angle to really choke off traffic?

Anyway, the actions and responses show a lot of amateur entrepeneurship. And the business model – what I can make of it – seems pie-in-the-sky. And it is not doing what you want to do with the blogosphere – which is build a consortuim of sites to garner traffic but leave them to be the independent operators they are.

OSM went for the command central corporate model. I have a better model, one I could be interested in talking to others about 😉

UPDATE:

I linked to Lorie Byrd’s theory previously that Mad Murtha and the dems were simply trying to garb credit for the pending troop withdrawls coming early next year. I too felt that was the motivation behind all the cries for troop withdrawls since the dems have no ideas, their last resort is to steal anyone else’s they can find.

Lorie updates that theory here, with some links, indicating the theory seems to be holding up.

Also Check Out Open Source Media II (Don Surber) here. My opinion is OSM is not going to do well at all. And I hate saying that because there are some bloggers near and dear to my heart participating in it. Don has lots of links to the chinks in the OSM.

END UPDATE

Sorry folks, can you tell I had a busy day? Enough time for a late in the day Fly By. This is going to random blogs and news sites in no particular order – except some stuff I have open pending time to post.

First up is this interesting post from Tom Maguire on Novak’s use of the word ‘operative’ in his historic article revealing Valerie Plame’s co-conspirator role for Joe Wilson and the Kerry campaign. People seem unwilling to take Novak at his word he just grabbed the word for some subconscious reason, not that he knew Plame was undercover (which she obviously wasn’t). But Tom also alludes to an Andrea Mitchell report dated July 8, 2003 – 6 days before Novak’s piece – that also discusses ‘CIA operatives’

MITCHELL: Well, people at the CIA say that it’s not going to be George Tenet; and, in fact, that high-level people at the CIA did not really know that it was false, never even looked at Joe Wilson’s verbal report or notes from that report, didn’t even know that it was he who had made this report, because he was sent over by some of the covert operatives in the CIA at a very low level, not, in fact, tasked by the vice president.

What seems reasonable is Novak is preparing his piece, reads/hears the Mitchell piece, and uses the same phrase (consciously or not). The funny thing is Mitchell is talking about CPD and possibly not just Valerie. Of course, Mitchell is also tipping her hand here if she is alluding to Valerie – and most of us are convinced Mitchell knew about Valerie, her CIA job and her role in sending Joe.

Did Zarqawi meet God with the rest of the AQ leaders taken out yesterday? Still no firm word:

Iraq has no confirmation but is checking reports Jordanian militant Abu Musab al Zarqawi may have been killed during fighting in northern Iraq, Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said.

Mr Zebari said senior militants were present in a house in the city of Mosul when US and Iraqi forces stormed it on Saturday, causing some of those inside to blow themselves up but it could not yet be determined if Zarqawi was among those killed.

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, speaking to reporters in Iraq, said he did not believe Mr Zarqawi had been killed.

The Foreign Minister told Reuters during a visit to Moscow: “We don’t have confirmation.

“In my view, I would say there must have been some key leaders of the insurgency, especially the fundamentalists – Al Qaeda type of people – so I would not be surprised if he could be one of those who blew himself up.

“We know that American and Iraqi forces … surrounded a house where there was fierce resistance and when the American and Iraqi forces jointly tried to storm the building the occupants blew themselves up, they committed suicide.

“They believe there must have been some key leaders from the terrorists, from the fundamentalists who committed suicide instead of handing themselves up.”

The US ambassador sounded a note of caution.

“I do not believe that we got them,” Mr Khalilzad said. “Of course the days are numbered, we are after him, we are getting closer to that goal but unfortunately … we did not get him in Mosul.”

There is honest confusion on this matter – which bodes well in my opinion:

Hoshyar Zebari told Jordan’s official Petra news agency during a visit to Moscow that Iraqi authorities were testing DNA samples from several corpses of insurgents killed in a weekend gunfight in Mosul.

“American and Iraqi forces are investigating the possibility that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s corpse is among the bodies of some terrorists who died in the special military operation in Mosul,” he said.

State television carried the urgent news in a scrolling newsbar at the bottom of the screen during regular programming, suggesting that Jordanian officials likely believe the report.

But I understand why the WH is setting expectations very low.

Mac Ranger has brought a new personality into the ‘who is/ar the Woodward/Novak sources’ game (and I am still interested in the Knight Ridder CIA source). Mac posits an old Nixon-era curmudgeon named Roger Morris for his candidate. I would think the source would have to be well in touch with the current CIA to have the details the source had so quickly as the Wilson saga exploded from May to July. Most reporters and sources aligned with the anti-war crowd were buying into the Niger forgeries and the debunking of the pre-war intel. So I doubt Morris fits this mold.

The Armitage possibility holds up fairly well, as our friend Academic Elephant explains relying in the recent Evan Thomas/Michael Isikoff article in Newsweek.

I am still leaving open the Rand Beers option since he fits all the pieces quite well. He has a well established record as a non-partisan gunslinger, he knew the CIA really well with current knowledge of contacts to get the information, and he too was part of the Kerry campaign. He was anti-war, but strikes me as the type of person who is not prone to exaggeration or misinformation. The source did not buy into the Niger forgeries, and Beers would not have bought into to them either since he was involved up to the last moments of his federal career in their exposure. My guess is he would put out the honest assessment of the Wilson game to be true to the kind of decorum he felt was needed in foreign affairs, and to remove the hotshot, hip-shooting Joe Wilson from any serious role on the Kerry NSC team.

That kind of knee-capping of Wilson by a rival in the fledgling Kerry campaign would also make sense with Wilson’s calls to investigate Woodward. Woodward’s source would not be an ally to the anti-war crowd like Wilson and Moore if Wilson is calling for prosecutorial scrutiny on the source. The Beers scenario fits that angle really well.

Michelle is back from her book tour and shelacks Chris Mathew’s recent comments here. Chris is all bummed because the post 9-11 period has not been good for liberals! And he rightfully blames Bush. He wrongfully concludes this is bad for America.

Madman Murtha is having a mental moment when he claims Americans want to surrender on the brink of victory in Iraq

.S. Rep. John Murtha, a key Democrat on military issues, on Monday defended his call to pull U.S. troops from Iraq, saying he was reflecting Americans’ sentiment. “The public turned against this war before I said it,” Murtha said. “The public is emotionally tied into finding a solution to this thing, and that’s what I hope this administration is going to find out.”

Somebody stop the man from making a complete fool of himself. Everyone in the country would like the troops home as soon as possible – that doesn’t mean they want to cut and run. That is like because everyone would like to deal with less stress in their lives it means they would prefer to be controlled and ‘taken care of’ by the state so they didn’t have to face reality at any level, spoon fed if you will…

Oh yeah, democrats actually believe that garbage too.

Interesting change in the Blogosphere. My West-by-Golly friend Don Surber now comes through as a link from OSM! Wild. Just make sure I don’t get hit for referring to your posts Don! I have read there is some confusion on that matter. I leave it to OSM to warn off unwanted links and trackbacks. In the meantime, Don has this excellent comment re Zarqawi:

Zarqawi: Still Not Dead

Priceless.

A lot of bloggers are taking it on the chin with the flu. Ed Morrissey is recouping I see and The Anchoress has been waylaid as well. But this post of hers on WMDs being found in Iraq (at some point) is a must read.

The cold medication seems to have caused strange behavior over at Stop The ACLU, which goes to show drugs and blogging don’t mix well. Now alcohol and blogging – that’s a different story!. Anyway, I am an honest about my link cravings and will take advantage of someone occasionally to help my evolution in the TTLB.

On a more serious note, Stop The ACLU has the story on Biden’s recent hint/threat/brain hiccup regarding a possible Alito filibuster. If Biden is trying to threaten the reps it will backfire – reps want the nuclear showdown. If Biden is trying to threaten the gang of 14, it will backfire because they gang wants a tangible fatal flaw in a nominee to support a filibuster. And if he is trying to feed is liberal base, it will backfire when the filibuster never happens. In other words Biden is executing his typical lose, lose or lose scenario.

Finally, Paul at Wizbang has this excellent comparison between Fitzgerald and Starr. If you look at products (indictments) per dollar spent Fitzgerald is abysmal.

Hope you all have an excellent week heading towards a wonderful Thanksgiving!