Dick Cheney's dream of an imperial vice presidency lording over all the world's oil fields is now officially dead.

President Barack Obama snuffed it out during his first formal interview on Arabic TV. He did it with Al-Arabiya, not Al Jazeera, but it's a stunning change from the bellicose Bush regime, as this excerpt from the AP proves:

You mean not all Muslims are bomb-throwers? And you can blast the ones who are while still pressuring the ones who aren't? And you can even put pressure on Jews to start making nice? What an unusual thing for a U.S. president to say.

Slow on the uptake this morning was the New York Times, this country's version of Al Jazeera. Several hours after the rest of the world noted the Obama interview on Al-Arabiya, the Times makes it truly official with "Obama Interview Signals New Tone in Relations With Islam."

Now, if Obama's people could start working quietly behind the scenes to get U.S. media goniffs to start carrying Al Jazeera on their cable systems.

Then, he could actually do an interview on Al Jazeera, and most Americans could watch it.

While you're waiting for the cable guys, start clicking...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

N.Y. Times: 'Layoffs Spread to More Sectors of the Economy'

N.Y. Daily News: '"Stalker" grilled in slaying of Eddy Curry's ex'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Firefighter blames memory-loss on "mind-altering" drugs'

N.Y. Times: '"Crack Babies": The Epidemic That Wasn't'

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama's EPA Move Likely to Spur Fight'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'J Street's Disappearing Gaza Statement'

ABC: 'Obama Chooses Arab Network for First TV Interview'

Wall Street Journal: 'College Endowments Plunge'

N.Y. Times: 'In Midtown, the Return of a Barfly's Paradise'

N.Y. Post: 'OBAMA & CONGRESS BLAST CITI OVER JET'

N.Y. Times: 'At $235 Million, Bloomberg Was Biggest Giver in U.S.'

Wall Street Journal: 'Caterpillar to Cut 20,000 Jobs'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Blago: I considered Oprah for Senate'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Commodities trader arrested after trying to start a fire inside 7 World Trade Center'

Wall Street Journal: 'Democrats Subpoena Rove, Testing Their Clout and Obama'

N.Y. Daily News: '"It's horrible ... I want out," Rikers guard held in beating cries from her jail cell'

N.Y. Post: 'CELL THIEVES RIDING RAILS'

N.Y. Times: 'Queens Man Dies in House Amid Disarray and Flames'

CityFile: 'Your Tax Dollars at Work: Citi's $50 Million Jet'

N.Y. Post: 'RACIST BRUTE PLEADS GUILTY'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Grifter claims NYPD officer paid him $5,000 to kill ex-wife'

Wall Street Journal: 'Afghan Guards Confound U.S. Forces'

Jewish Daily Forward: '"Schmooz Me Timbers!": John Derbyshire's Jewish Pirate Lexicon'

N.Y. Post: 'CEO'S "$100" PAD IS A TOUGH SELL: FOES RIP LEHMAN BIG'S SNEAKY $14M ESTATE DEAL'

CityFile: 'Lower East Side: Now Featuring One Hotel Per Block'

N.Y. Post: 'SHUL BE SORRY, TORAH THIEF'

'Bernie Cheated at Golf, Conference Goers Say'

From Clusterstock's Henry Blodget:

N.Y. Post: 'CONGRESS TO GRILL SEC BIGS OVER MADOFF'

N.Y. Daily News: 'LI has its very own "Madoff," feds charge'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Celebrity side dish'

Financial Times (U.K.): 'Lawyers plan global action on Madoff'

Wall Street Journal: 'Madoff Questions Dog Santander's Botín'

Wall Street Journal: 'Madoff's Firm Lays Off Dozens'

Jewish Daily Forward: 'Discussing Madoff'

America is fortunate that Weyrich was born too late, because what he could have done with the Internet, oh Jesus!

The D.C.-based Weyrich has been out of the mainstream news for years now, but he was a very big deal before and during the Reagan era's Great Leap Backward. In those glory days, he was a combination of cruise director and mailroom supervisor for the religious right, a behind-the-scenes guy who liked to think of himself as a thinker.

Energetic and argumentative, Weyrich was known, especially to himself, as someone who was right about every issue. He spent his whole life networking with others to prove it.

Before everybody went web-mad, Weyrich was exploring every opportunity to fight God's battles electronically. Take a look at my February 1994 story "Passing on the Right: Conservative strategists gear up for the information highway." Miraculously, you can find the long, long ago piece online. (You can tell how old the story is by my incessant use of the phrase "information highway," for which I apologize.)

Writing at the time for the Denver alt weekly Westword, I stumbled upon a coven of religious-right folk having some embryonic satellite broadcasts beamed into their brains by one of Weyrich's creations: an electronic conservative video/TV network.

I talked with Weyrich at some length about his new network — it sounded staggeringly boring and wonky. Here's how I started the piece, which was only slightly less so:

Many people will remember Weyrich for his having founded — with millions in beer money from Coors — the Heritage Foundation.

I'll remember him for producing some really bad TV.

America's royal family, the Kennedys. But Caroline Kennedy for the Senate? First we had to put off with Hillary Clinton, the nouveau riche of politics, suddenly becoming senator in the nation's second most populous state.

The wife of a president landed her magic carpet and Vuitton bags in a fancy suburb north of the city and was practically appointed to the Senate — when Rudy Giuliani dropped out, she got to face a candidate who was so weak that you've already forgotten his name.

Sitting somewhat obediently in our civics classes, we were told that people invented this country, at least in part, because they were tired of monarchies. Doesn't look as if we're that tired of kings and queens and princesses.

So now we're going to replace Hillary Clinton with Caroline Kennedy? And we're not even going to elect Kennedy; we're going to appoint her? At least Hillary Clinton went through the electoral process. However, don't tell me about Hillary's brains and savvy. She's been a mediocre senator, far less skilled at both arm-twisting and hard-won-consensus politics than the likes of Chuck Schumer, Chuck Hegel, and Chuck Grassley or battle-worthy non-Chucks like Dick Lugar, Barbara Boxer, Bob Dole (not his wife, Libby), even that schmuck Joe Lieberman — you name 'em.

Excepting a few celeb pols like Ted Kennedy (who's been busy and serious for three decades since Chappaquidick drowned his chances for the presidency), look past the Clintons and Kennedys and you'll see a better breed of American political family entering the Senate, a family whose bent comes closer to "public service" and "common good" than practically all others. (Notwithstanding Jackie Kennedy Onassis's truly noble and lasting achievement: She used her celebrity to lead the successful fight to save wondrous Grand Central Station from destruction.)

You want a political family that deserves royal-like admiration without fawning? Try the Udalls, whom I wrote about yesterday. After Stew and Mo worked their asses off in the House and Interior Department, now we have their sons Mark and Tom, who traded on more than their last names during their climb up Capitol Hill to claim Senate seats next month.

Now don't turn the Udalls into celebrities. Read about your usual celebs — including the Kennedys and Clintons — worship them and envy them if you want, be amused and/or disgusted by them, but don't elect them or appoint them to run your lives because they're celebrities. Camelot? I'll take Spamalot — without Clay Aiken, thanks. No more American idols, please.

Other items on a (relatively) slow (so far) news day ...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

N.Y. Daily News: 'Ticketed while giving out gifts'

N.Y. Post: 'FIRETRUCK HIT HURTS 30'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Caroline Kennedy can lock in Senate seat by saying she'll run in 2010'

N.Y. Post: 'BARBIE'S FOR THE BIRDS'

Times (U.K.): 'Fed stuns the world with rate cut to "virtually zero"'

Wall Street Journal: 'Fairfield Group Forced to Confront Its Madoff Ties'

N.Y. Post: 'SICK WORLD OF "BABY HITLER": NAZI-NAMING PARENTS IN NJ'

N.Y. Daily News: 'N.Y. sounds off on iTax plans'

N.Y. Times: 'Bush Prepares Crisis Briefings to Aid Obama'

International Herald Tribune: 'Prison for nuke engineer who took software to Iran'

Reuters: 'Madoff fraud could burn early pullouts'

Reuters: 'Iraq shoe-thrower inspires Bush-bashing Web game'

AP: 'NY gov proposes tax on drinks, downloaded music'

N.Y. Times: 'Fixing Interior'

N.Y. Daily News: 'SEC: We blew it'

Chicago Sun-Times: 'Who's next for Obama's basketball dream team?'

N.Y. Times: 'Obama Team Has Forged Another Link With Clintons'

Washington Post: 'A Longer Race to Run'

The crusade against BrickArms's tiny terror toy is all the rage in the Brit tabloids. Naturally, one of Rupert Murdoch's papers, the Sun, has the best headline: "Osama bin Lego."

But no news outlet is as consistently droll as the Brit techie Register, which for this story blares:

The Register story adds:

Everything is "disgusting" to Shaffiq. Remember those Danish cartoons? "Disgusting," Shaffiq said in March 2007. Or The Jewel of Medina? "I am disgusted at the novel," Shaffiq said in November 2008.

Meanwhile, BrickArms, a family business in Redmond, Washington, is molding plastic and young minds. Check out Will Chapman's charming history of his small company.

But more importantly in this country, the Obama victory was a victory for white people.

Outlets ranging from ESPN to the BBC automatically scurried to black people for their reaction to Obama's win. It would be more telling if they focused on the reaction from white people, because that was the real story.

It looks as if Obama did better with white voters than Bill Clinton did. Remember Toni Morrison's "trope of blackness" foolishness in 1998 when she called Clinton "our first black president"?

Claptrap. Not backed up by the facts — like Clinton's embrace of such separate-but-unequal policies as the Glass-Steagall repeal, which heaped more misery on poor blacks and poor whites by worsening the subprime scam.

Ten years later, we really do have a black president, and reporters are besieging black people in Kenya and the NBA for quotes about Obama's victory. What do you think they'll say? Of course they like it.

The fact, though, is that an astounding number of white people not only voted for Obama but actively supported him and cried tears of joy when he won — a landmark in America's racial history and a severe blow against tokenism.

The images from Grant Park of Obama and Joe Biden and their families — white people and black people, young and old — holding hands and hugging were unforgettable. Unforgettable because for the first time on the highest national stage the black man and his kin weren't relegated to supporting roles.

Recall Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 speech, when he and other black people were on the outside of the White House looking in, and he talked about transforming "the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood":

He tried to convince us that civil rights is as much of — or more of — a white issue as a black one.

The current phase of black people mostly relegated in white eyes (and their own) to dreams of success as sports gladiators, actors, and rappers may be ending. Tokens? No longer.

The only tokens you see in New York City subways these days are the faces on the ads plastered in each car. Look at the ads that feature the casts of the season's new TV shows: Each cast is either all black or it consists of four or five whites and a token black and maybe a token person of Asian descent.

Marketers still blitz us with those apartheid-like images. Our pop culture's portrayals of mixed-race couples are mostly white men with black women — The Wire's naked coupling of Lance Reddick's black-cop character atop his white lawyer girlfriend the exception that proves the unwritten rule among marketers to not offend whites.

And now we have a mixed-race president. In his grave, Theodore Bilbo must be growling about "mongrelization."

Segregation and segregationists are cancer cells, and Obama's victory will help flush that infection out of the American mainstream.

Think about another landmark event in America's racial history. The color barrier that Jackie Robinson ran through in 1947 was not a black barrier; it was a white one. And popular Dodger shortstop and team captain Pee Wee Reese's white arm publicly draped over his black teammate's shoulders was arguably more significant than the expected joy felt by other black people at Robinson's feat.

Racism was once commonly called "the Negro problem." In this white-ruled country, it's always been a white problem.

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

Wall Street Journal: 'Obama Turns to Building Leadership Team'

Village Voice: 'Wall Streetwalkers: the Sleazy Lehman Brothers Subsidiary'

Bloomberg: 'ISM Services Index in U.S. Slumped to Record Low'

Election Law (Ohio State University): 'Post-election contests: Four states to watch'

Election Reform Project (Brookings): 'New Jersey's DRE Problem'

Fox News: 'Karl Rove on the Ins and Outs of the Transition from Bush to Obama'

L.A. Times: 'Gay rights backers file 3 lawsuits challenging Prop. 8'

N.Y. Daily News: 'City paid $50G to settle excessive-force suits against same officer in subway sodomy case'

VOA: 'Taiwan President Meets With Senior Mainland Official'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Time's short for GOP to lick wounds'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Barack Obama election victory drives US newspaper sales surge'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Ed Dept. plans 50% slash in new seats for students'

Sin Chew (Malaysia): 'Inheriting The Bush Legacy Of Mess'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Palin goes out with a whimper'
"Vanquished VP nominee Sarah Palin wanted to address the nation on Election Night, but a top Mac aide nixed her request."

Washington Post: 'First-Ever Mapping of Cancer Patient's Genome'

N.Y. Post: 'SEX FIEND STARING AT 165 YRS. IN STIR'

Washington Post: 'In a Heated Race, Obama's Cool Won the Day'

N.Y. Post: 'Bamelot: Plenty Kennedys on Cabinet List'

You can only pray that Tuesday's election won't be bollixed too severely by ridiculous voter-ID rules and other GOP-driven schemes designed to thwart democracy. That is voter fraud, not the "voter fraud" that Republican operatives are braying about.

What's scarier than the election shakes, the continuing financiopathic mood swings, a staggering loss of jobs ("Layoffs Sweep From Wall St. Across New York Area," New York Times), and the hoarding of billions of dollars by hedge funds? A new wave of bomb blasts and bad behavior across the planet:

• L.A. Times: 'Suicide bomber penetrates Afghanistan government ministry, killing 3'

• Irish Times (Dublin) 'At least 29 die in bombings across northern Somalia'

• BBC: 'Chaos grips major DR Congo city'

• Voice of America: 'Serial Bomb Blasts Rock India's Assam State'

And to top it off, we find out that many hospitals are doing a poor job of easing our pain. As McClatchy's Robert S. Boyd reports, in "Adequate pain care sorely lacking for patients":

Back to election bellyaching: Just the latest of many warnings come this morning not only on the macro level — L.A. Times: "Vote watchdogs warn of troubles on election day," — but also on the local level — Evansville (Indiana) Courier & Press: "Voter registry concerns emerging." Dateline Evansville:

The "accuracy of new registrations"? Some reporters mistakenly assume that the GOP-driven "fraud" propaganda points to a huge problem, but the second part — whether local election officials are doing all they can to encourage voting — is the real concern.

Meanwhile, some people even fear an assassination attempt on Barack Obama (cf. Martin Luther King Jr.). Paul G. Buchanan's essay — "Campaign Rhetoric As An Invitation To Violence" — via the New Zealand news site Scoop may be bloviated claptrap, but it's interesting bloviated claptrap:

Speaking of the devils, the Presidential Prayer Team — given God's well-known sense of humor, He/She definitely does not listen to entreaties from this donation-hungry crew — reminds us:

Don't get off your knees yet:

If not, you can do this from home:

Yes, best wishes, Laura. Now get outta here. Seriously. Leave.

The rest of you? Keep clicking . . .

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

China Digital Times: 'Experience the Censored Chinese Internet at Home!'

Washington Post: 'Early Voters Breaking Records: Poll Shows 59 Percent of Ballots Already Cast Are for Obama'

Slate: 'The Liberal Media and How To Stop It: You can't. But these days, how much does it matter?' (Jack Shafer)

N.Y. Post: 'REV. ELVIS LOVED ME TENDER: CONFESSIONAL A SEDUCTION CHAMBER -- SUIT'

Scoop (New Zealand): 'Campaign Rhetoric As An Invitation To Violence'

N.Y. Post: 'FDNY WIFE "TOO BLITZED" '
"A Staten Island mom accused of killing her fire-marshal husband was so drunk after the shooting that statements she made to a EMS captain should be thrown out, her lawyer told a judge yesterday."

Guardian (U.K.): 'Chancellor demands cheaper petrol as Shell posts record profits'

Washington Post: 'Treasury, FDIC Near Deal on Mortgage Aid'

McClatchy: 'Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis'

N.Y. Times: 'Government Said to Be Discussing Plan to Aid Homeowners'

Guardian (U.K.): 'The Triumph of Ignorance: Why morons succeed in US politics'

N.Y. Times: 'Aggressive Fed Cuts Key Interest Rate by a Half-Point'

McClatchy: 'Fed slashes rate again, nearing uncharted waters'

N.Y. Post: 'SNOOPY DIDN'T HAVE TO DIE: DRUNK HUBBY KILLS WIFE'S BEAGLE -- COPS'

IRIN: 'Israel tries to block Gaza health conference'

N.Y. Post: 'MIKE BENCHES STEPH IN OPENER'

Hurriyet (Turkey): 'U.S. embassy in Syria shut over demo threat'
"The U.S. embassy in Damascus said it will be closed on Thursday due to the threat of demonstrations over a deadly American helicopter raid on a village near the Iraqi border."

New Yorker: 'Red Sex, Blue Sex: Why do so many evangelical teen-agers become pregnant?'

N.Y. Times: 'A Question for A.I.G.: Where Did the Cash Go?'

N.Y. Post: 'BEN'S BOOMERANG: MARTS GO DOWN, THEN UP, THEN DOWN ON FED RATE CUT'
"Ben Bernanke's wild-pitch rate cut bounced off Wall Street with a thud."

New Yorker: 'Odd Man Out: Chuck Hagel’s Republican exile'

New York: 'Time Inc. to Restructure, Lay Off 600 Workers'

Guardian (U.K.): 'Hedge funds contemplate safer climate in US'
"A new front is opening up in the battle between London and New York to be the world's dominant financial centre.

"Hedge funds, and the thorny question of where they decide to do business over the coming months, could mark a turning point in the delicate balance of power between the two market capitals.

"Despite widespread fears that hundreds of funds are poised to collapse, any shake-out in the industry will still leave hundreds of healthy firms with billions to invest."

Financial Times (U.K.): 'Outlook is bleak, say US chief finance chiefs'

Times of London (U.K.): 'Hedge funds fear bankruptcy after Porsche squeeze'

Financial Times (U.K.): 'Shock: Drudge loses his grip on US media!'

N.Y. Times: 'Army and Agency Will Study Rising Suicide Rate Among Soldiers'

BBC: 'Blind S Korea masseurs win case'
"A South Korean law which states that only the visually impaired can be licensed masseurs has been upheld in the country's Constitutional Court."

Times of London (U.K.): 'US presidential rankings -- numbers 32 to 22'

BBC: 'China toxic egg scandal spreads'

BBC: 'Second Gaza activist voyage docks'

Take the money and run the banks — after the bankers ran them into the ground. That's the tragicomic second act of the Great '08 Bailout.

As newly crowned Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman put it nearly a year ago in one of his many prescient columns, "Heads they win, tails we lose."

The context of Krugman's comments was, and is, right on the money: On November 23, 2007, he wrote in his New York Times op-ed column, under the head "Banks Gone Wild":

And now Wall Street executives' poor decisions have earned its biggest banks $125 billion in cash money from U.S. taxpayers, the Treasury announces.

The Washington Post's Binyamin Appelbaum breaks it down in his front-pager this morning, "Treasury Invokes Patriotism In Pitch to Bank Executives":

Yes, Hank Paulson's crew had to pressure the banks to take the money, because the banks didn't like the terms.

The banks just wanted the government's money — without the government's interference. Miraculously, the government insisted on taking equity stakes.

But what are the banks complaining about? The government is reportedly getting preferred stock, which, as the Wall Street Journal notes, typically doesn't come with voting rights.

And now the taxpayers — without voting rights — will be directly shelling out part of the outrageous executive pay in all these institutions. The bailout plan calls only for "appropriate standards for executive compensation."

What's "appropriate" is not detailed, as the Washington Post, among others, points out. And this comes despite the Democrats' supposedly having control of Congress. As the Wall Street Journal says:

It's not as if there wasn't evidence of profligate pay. Bloomberg's Christine Harper and Ian Katz pointed out just this past March 7 when reckless Wall Street execs had already jumped the tracks on their way to a big crash:

And now Paulson, Goldman's ex-CEO, is handing over millions in cash to his old firm. There's no plan to take back those unjustifiable bonuses to help defray the cost of the bailout.

Ordinarily, you'd say that the big banks now owe their souls to the company store. But most of these institutions — including Goldman Sachs — have been deep into predatory subprime lending since the Clinton administration's repeal of the Depression I-era Glass-Steagall Act.

So it's unlikely that they owe anything.

Any second now, Bible-thumper James Dobson will weigh in on Batman's arrest for allegedly assaulting his mom and sister.

I can see it now. The fervently anti-gay Dobson (about whom I've written reams, including this long-ago story) will grab his big microphone with both hands and connect the dots between Batman's possibly gay lifestyle and his violence toward women. No matter that it's really Christian Bale who's in trouble.

Just another part of what the Colorado Springs Cromwell calls the "homosexual agenda."

Dobson's been recently concerned about Californica and its pro-gay-marriage stance.

So I'll forestall his toe-tapping about Batman by pointing out the obvious that gays aren't any more violent than other people.

As to Batman's supposed gayness because of the presence of his young ward Robin in an all-male household, check out this panel discussion, "Is Batman Gay?," on comicsbulletin.com. Various artists and others in the comic-book industry weigh in. From writer/artist Terry Moore:

Moore may be onto something there. The Joker was played by the late Heath Ledger, and wasn't he one of them there queer cowboys in Brokeback Mountain?

Don't remind Dobson.

Inside the crazed gunman's target: Colorado megachurch Faith Bible Chapel, an outpost of fanatical support of Israel

Terrible tragedy over the weekend at the suburban Denver church Faith Bible Chapel, where two young missionaries-in-training were gunned down.

A very strange event at a very strange church, one of whose main missions is fanatical support of Israel. Pastor George Morrison is a self-confessed former dope dealer who claims that God personally saved him from a drug bust.

Read "God's Own Party," my May 1997 story in Westword, for deep background on the church — keep in mind that I wrote it a decade ago and that it also contains Colorado political stuff about powerful religious-right Republican pols who belonged to the church that you can feel free to skip over.

You won't find this background, which is not out of date, on the church anywhere else, so check it out. And listen to Morrison — a friendly, voluble huckster without the hard edge of more well-known pro-Israeli preacher John Hagee — tell his own story of salvation from drugs. Morrison's fun to listen to.

Israeli government envoys travel to Arvada to pay homage to these several thousand Christians who fly the Israeli flag behind the pulpit and even incorporate a bowdlerized version of Hebrew into their devotion to Jesus.

Their vocal support of Israel — the church has sent numerous groups there to celebrate the Jewish state — comes with a price for Jews that Israel's right-wing regime refuses to deal with in its desperate search for supporters. Faith Bible Chapel knows that Israel's continued existence is necessary for Biblical prophecy, that in the end a limited number of Jews will be converted to Jesus and the rest will perish during the Rapture.

So strong is the church on missionary work and conversion that I personally witnessed the pastor's wife, Cheryl Morrison, and other church members talking among themselves with glee before a Sunday service about how they were converting a young Jew to Christ and hiding him from his family.

Publicly, of course, the church denies that it proselytizes Jews, and it has gotten strong support even from influential Orthodox Jews in the Denver area. Go the church's website to see how much these Christians fawn over Jews. As the church points out, one of its missions is: "Love the Jewish people and the nation of Israel." Yeah, love us to death.

In any case, if you spent this past weekend in a cave, here's what happened yesterday, according to the Denver Post:

This came in the wake of a shooting in July at a nearby Burger King. And now this. The story added:

If that's the case, why does the church so fervently support the armed camp that is today's Israel? To bring everyone in the world to Christ, obviously.

Bad news on the global terror front: Unstable Pakistan will become even more shaky when its former leader (and Musharraf's enemy) returns home this week.

As Benazir Bhutto prepares to return to Pakistan later this week from her Dubai exile and becomes a target of strongman prick Pervez Musharraf's assassins, we can only recall how tragic it was for the U.S. to pull back from that volatile region more than five years ago.

Back in 2002, the Bush-Cheney regime abandoned the full-fledged hunt for Osama bin Laden and duped Congress and the country into invading Iraq.

Pakistan was where it was at. Bin Laden was hiding there and in neighboring Afghanistan. As the Soviets found out, you can't fight rebels in Afghanistan without somehow, some way also fighting them as they scurry across the border into Pakistan, where they have even government support.

Officials of Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI — widely credited with co-opting the Taliban and, along with the Saudis and Reagan administration, arming them — were sympathetic to bin Laden as long as he didn't destabilize their own country.

Recall that Porter Goss and Bob Graham, chairs of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, were having breakfast on the morning of 9/11 with Mahmood Ahmed, the Pakistani ISI official who later turned out to be hijacker Mohammed Atta's bagman. It was also Ahmed who had sent $100,000 to Atta on orders from the guy who later kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. You can't make this shit up.

Yes, we left Pakistan in 2002. Big mistake.

We invaded Iraq. Bigger mistake.

We inflamed the Shia-Sunni schism in Iraq, widening everywhere else that ancient rift between Islam's main sects. Take Pakistan. Unlike in Iraq, the Sunnis are the majority. Please remember that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and despotic monarchy Saudi Arabia is ruled by Sunni fanatics.

There has long been sectarian violence in Pakistan — see this October 2004 BBC backgrounder. Add to that the return to the country of Benazir Bhutto, whose daddy, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was Pakistan's prime minister in the '70s before he was executed by the country's military. Later, Benazir Bhutto — nearly a dead ringer for Andrea Martin/Edith Prickley's version of another South Asia strongwoman, Indira Ghandi — became prime minister, and then she was driven from Pakistan amid corruption charges.

Pakistan was a bigger threat to world stability after 9-11 than Iraq was. Yes, Iraq was a bigger threat to Israel and always a danger to Kuwait, but Pakistan's instability was a much more dangerous threat to the U.S., no matter what the Bush regime's propagandists have drummed into our heads.

Now's the perfect time to recall that the hunt by Musharraf and the ISI for bin Laden was half-hearted at best. Our reaction has been to step up arm sales to Musharraf, as I noted in April 2005.

Don't be surprised if that well-armed Pakistan government sends more Lockheed fighter jets swooping down on Bhutto than it sent to look for bin Laden.