One of the few downsides to living in Denver is that the lighthouses are so far away. Powerline may bemoan the Strib, but at least they have the Pioneer-Press. For national and internation coverage, the Post and the Rocky are more like the prairie dogs and the rats than we like to admit. So this morning's interesting headlines continue to come from the Washingtont Post.

First, it carries a story about the Dems' '04 Senate electoral problems. It does point out that this early, nobody really knows what they overall lay of the land is going to be 18 months from now. And it repeats the meaningless fact that if 35,000 votes had gone the other way, Tom Daschle would still be majority leader. There is a difference between strategy and tactics, between the party's overall message and its choice of specific races to focus on. That's why that 35,000 number is meaningless. And this is an article all about tactical advantages.

Another article by Robert Kaiser details the slow solidification of the Administration's pro-Israel policy, including some interesting comments by Rumsfeld about the results of the 1967 war. There are a few quibbles: 1) only very recently have Likud-types become more prominent in major Jewish organization, not over the last dozen years as Kaiser says; these organzations generally support whatever Israeli government policy is; 2) there is the obligatory quote by a Bush I administration official claiming that Sharon has manipulated Bush into this position; fortunately, it sits alone, and the rest of the article more or less demolishes this thesis; 3) James Zogby claims that the Republicans can't act as "honest brokers" because they're lining up with Israel. The fallacy here should be obvious: the US can't be an honest broker of anything while it's engaged in a war, and Israel is on its side in that war. There's nothing to broker.