Here are the most important parts:

This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism…

At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, “Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.” The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Cheney et al. to bring military action to Iran as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, ‘You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.’ But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President”…

The revised bombing plan for a possible attack, with its tightened focus on counterterrorism, is gathering support among generals and admirals in the Pentagon. The strategy calls for the use of sea-launched cruise missiles and more precisely targeted ground attacks and bombing strikes, including plans to destroy the most important Revolutionary Guard training camps, supply depots, and command and control facilities.

I bolded the sentence about Pentagon support for this plan because that’s critical. I’m working on a piece about congressional opposition to an attack on Iran, and let me tell you, there is essentially none. The only thing that might stop Bush and Cheney is the military. It’s extremely significant if their resistance is weakening.

AND: Hersh will be on CNN’s Late Edition today (meaning at some point between 11 am-1 pm ET) talking about the article.

There’s been a lot of complaining about Democratic leadership (and the lack therof) lately. I could probably find a half dozen examples from this week alone. I’ll spare you a rehash of the standard “what’s wrong with ____?” post and just point to this powerful example of what happens when a politician is put in a position between following his heart and following the polls. Here’s the Republican mayor of San Diego (via waxy):

I’ll be giving a presentation at the Charles Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. According to their website

although special presentations are FREE with Museum admission, seating in the Auditorium is limited. Tickets will be available at the Museum cashier starting at 10am on Saturday, September 29.

The last time I was at the site was in 1992, to have lunch and talk about cartooning with Charles Schulz himself, who was extraordinarily generous with his time. Needless to say, it’s an honor to have been invited back. I’ve been putting a lot of time into the presentation, and I’ll be showing some stuff that’s basically never been seen. It should be a good event.

(After that I’ll be taking a little time off, but I’m sure my esteemed co-bloggers will keep you entertained…)

I’m not expecting many reviews of Who Hates Whom, since it’s just a small impulse-buy paperback, but I’ve just learned the New York Observer will have a kind review in Monday’s issue. Here’s a chunk:

Bob Harris is a brave man. Armed only with his irreverent sense of humor, boldly declaring his lack of expertise, he charges into the thick of the globe’s myriad simmering wars, coolly cataloguing the gripes of each antagonistic sect and faction. The result, Who Hates Whom—Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up: A Woefully Incomplete Guide (Three Rivers Press, $11.95), is hilariously relaxed about all the hate out there. See, for example, his remarks on the 2006 Tehran conference on the Holocaust: “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invited the world’s leading crackpots for a shindig of wrongitude…”

For the record, that first sentence makes me uncomfortable, but I’m including it to make the following point:

I am most assuredly not brave, and neither is Who Hates Whom. Not even close. Like way so very not.

Bravery would be writing a book like Who Hates Whom in about two-thirds of the countries it mentions.

Now that the inevitable crackdown has begun, with Buddhist monks being rounded up and protesters shot in the streets, if you’d like to follow what’s happening in Burma a little more closely — even after the next American celebrity gets in trouble with the law — bookmark Burma Digest.

We found out with Ahmadinejad how Columbia President Lee Bollinger introduces foreign leaders who are (1) unsavory and (2) Official Enemies of the United States. Bollinger doesn’t back down! He tells it like it is!

So, how does he introduce foreign leaders who are (1) unsavory and (2) Official Friends of the United States? John Caruso has the details.

So sad. According to David Brooks today, the influence of the netroots peaked last August and has been waning ever since. His evidence for this grim conclusion? The fact that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is doing well, despite the fact that some bloggers prefer Obama and/or Edwards.

The Keyboard Kingpin might as well shut his site down right now.

Brooks also helpfully explains that the “victory formula” for Democrats is to act in accordance with the beliefs of David Brooks (Greenwald has more on that here).

The column ends with this little anecdote:

Both liberals and Republicans have an interest in exaggerating the netroots’ influence, but in reality that influence is surprisingly marginal, even among candidates for whom you’d think it would be strong.

Several weeks ago, I asked John Edwards what the YearlyKos event was like. He couldn’t remember which event I was talking about, and looked over to an aide for help.

Actually, I wonder if the exchange didn’t go more like this:

(As always, readers interested in the relative veracity and insights of David Brooks are encouraged to read Sasha Issenberg’s classic “Boo Boos in Paradise.”)

If you happen to be near Palo Alto, Calif., Wednesday, you can attend a house party for Rudy Giuliani at the home of Abraham Sofaer, a Reagan-era State Department advisor and major Republican campaign contributor. The price of admission: $9.11, of course.

Here.

The horrible Kyl-Lieberman Amendment on Iran may be voted on in the Senate as soon as today. Its passage, particularly if it’s lopsided, would be a significant step toward war. Call your senator right now (Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121) to tell them to oppose it.

I don’t have any hope this will fail, but it would be nice for it not to be a shut out. Call now.

AND: You should write them, too. Get their contact forms at senate.gov or via Just Foreign Policy. A useful guide on writing to congress is here, although of course there’s no time to send something by mail.

Bob has inexplicably failed to stick the below post from his site here, so I’m taking matters into my own hands. As you see, it’s about what’s happening in Burma, what we (don’t) learn from TV news about Burma, and how this connects to Bob’s new book Who Hates Whom—which goes on sale today. (You should buy it, if you like things which are genuinely informative, genuinely insightful, and genuinely funny. But if not, avoid it at all costs.)

Okay, from this point forward it’s pure Bob Harris. I’m out!

Burma: Why I Wrote Who Hates Whom
Bob Harris

As you’ve probably already heard, about 100,000 of our fellow humans marched in peaceful opposition to a brutal regime yesterday, led by maybe 1000 Buddhist monks in full-on saffron gear waving six-color religious flags.

Burma may seem far away, but it’s not. Significant oil reserves, for example. Changes here, if nothing else, could affect how much you pay at the gas pump down the road. Also, it’s ruled by a thuggish dictatorship opposed by most of its own population, and we all care about that on principle, right? So, big story. Theoretically.

Obviously, we’ll root for the guys in burnt sienna togs holding pics of the Nobel Peace laureate, but nobody knows what happens next.

Thing is, for those relying only on TV news, nobody knows what already happened, either.

Out of curiosity, tonight I taped an hour each of two of CNN’s signature shows — the "Situation Room" (where the main situation usually seems to be Wolf Blitzer needing to speak in headlines! every third word!) and "Prime News with Erica Hill" on CNN’s Headline News channel. So just how much airtime did an unprecedented march against one of the world’s most despicable governments get?

Prime News with Erica Hill: zero minutes and zero seconds.

To anyone mistakenly relying on this program, the vast protest in Burma simply didn’t happen. Although there was time to mention Mike Tyson’s latest arrest, possible criminal charges against Britney Spears, a tapestry in Florida that kinda looks like the Virgin Mary, and — I kid you not — an extended discussion entitled "Does God Watch Sports?" Speaks for itself.

The Situation Room with Howlin’ Wolf: one minute, fifty-two seconds, total, including a pre-commercial tease.

After a half-hour of designated-enemy baiting (Ahmadinejad’s impotent idiocy contrasted with the speaking styles of Castro, Chavez, and Khruschev) and pointless yet heavily-hyped chat with Donald Trump (why? because he’s so terribly hard to find on TV?) — and only after reporting on a new study finding that (quoting CNN’s graphic) "Too Much, Not Enough Sleep Can Kill You" — one brief report on Burma, almost completely devoid of history or context.

Wolf tossed to a young lady named Abbi standing at a big TV showing a QuickTime movie downloaded from the internet, which she proceeded to point at, confirming that these were indeed monks in "MEE-ann-mar," and this was footage from the internet, and the Burmese government doesn’t like it. Back to you, Wolf!

(Think I’m exaggerating? Read the transcript.)

So. Aren’t you still a little curious about why tens of thousands of Burmese might join this monk-led protest? Or just how oppressive the Burmese government might be? Who exactly is this Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, now in her twelfth year of house arrest? And how is she descended from a key luminary in Burma’s independence struggle, and therefore inseparable with national identity for many democracy activists? Why is it called Myanmar by some people and Burma by others? What’s the difference? Where the hell is Burma, anyway, and why did the British and Japanese fight over it? What about the influence of China, and its oil companies, and those of other countries? Is it still a big source of opium? And what’s the deal with boycotting teak? Are we still supposed to do that?

That’s all in the Burma essay in Who Hates Whom. And it’s only five pages long. Including a map showing roughly where the major oil pipelines and opium producers are.

Who Hates Whom exists because today’s pattern was no exception. It’ll be repeated elsewhere tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. The sad reality: TV news shows generally are not there to deliver you information that you can use — they exist to deliver you… to the advertisers. You’re the product being bought and sold. And the most efficient way to do that is to inflame, to excite, to bring back recurring characters (Donald Trump, coming up next!), good guys and bad guys. It’s a news show, involving actual news, to about the same extent that Cheez Whiz involves actual cheese.

(If you need further proof, why else would a perfectly intelligent CNN anchor bother to conduct a lengthy segment rambling on about whether or not an unknowable infinite invisible deity is personally invested in televised sports, for f*** sake? It sure as hell ain’t for the news value.)

So last year, I was in my editor’s office, and we were bouncing around ideas for my next book. Not intending to pitch this, actually, I made one offhand comment about how it would be cool if there were a little guidebook, called, I dunno, Who Hates Whom or something, detailing most of the major conflicts in the world with little maps and photos and short essays, all crunched down short enough that you could bone up on Iran or Sudan in one trip to the can. Next time tens of thousands of people are pouring into the streets, or something blows up somewhere and you’re, y’know, a little curious what the hell is going on, and you’d like something that doesn’t involve Britney Spears being shot by Phil Spector, this book would be handy.

A year later, Who Hates Whom hits bookstores today. It ain’t perfect, mind you — wars are high-flux situations, books require months of lead time, and I’m neither infallible nor a real expert on anything — but it’s the best I could squeeze together, small enough to fit in your jacket pocket.

Meanwhile, let’s just hope that the Burma chapter in some future edition will have a very happy update. Instead of the messier one that the government decided on last time.

My good Trebekistan buddy David Madden, holder of the second-longest consecutive-game win streak in the history of Jeopardy!, is hiking the entire east coast of the U.S. — from Edmundston, New Brunswick just over the Canadian border all the way to Key West — while raising money for Fisher House, which provides temporary hospital-adjacent housing for families of wounded soldiers.

When I tell you over and over that Trebekistan is filled with incredibly cool people, this is what I mean.

And whatever you think of the war — and David and I think along pretty similar lines — there are now thousands of fellow Americans who were put in harm’s way as a result, and they and their families have to pull together now and find a way to get through it. This is a pretty amazing (for David) and easy (for us) way to help.

He’s got a blog up and running now, plus a couple of cool photo albums, if you’d like to see what it’s like to walk 3000 miles for charity.

Toss in a penny a mile, and that’s thirty bucks. Or throw in two pennies. Or three. Donations are tax-deductible and Fisher House gets absolutely top ratings from charity watchdogs.

Bright guy, David. Also, and more importantly, good.

Let’s do some good now, too.