President Barack Obama is like a guy who sneaks onto a marathon race course a mile or so from the finish line and pretends he ran the whole thing.

In his speech Tuesday night commemorating the return to the United States of the last American combat brigade in Iraq, Mr. Obama patted himself lustily on the back for not screwing up the timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces that President Bush had worked out with the Iraqi government before Mr. Obama’s inauguration:

Have you noticed that many in the political class are absolutely shameless in trying to protect themselves and their colleagues from legitimate inquiry into their activities? For instance, Congress has passed a number of whistle-blower statutes, including the "financial-reform bill," to protect government and private-sector employees from retaliation when reporting the misdeeds of their superiors. Yet, the staff of members of Congress - precisely the people who are most likely to know about political corruption - enjoy no such protection.

Congress, under the guise of "campaign-finance reform," has repeatedly tried to find constitutional ways of limiting the free speech of real and potential opponents. What is even more remarkable, some members of Congress are not content with just trying to protect themselves, but have gone so far as to try to protect corrupt foreign leaders from those who may wish to expose their wrongdoing.

Talk show host Glenn Beck held an ecumenical revival meeting on the mall in Washington D.C.  Saturday (8/28). A lot of people came. The Rev. Al Sharpton held a counter demonstration in the same city the same day.  Not many participated. The turnout for Mr. Beck’s rally was comparable to the 200,000 or so who heard Martin Luther King Jr. make his “I have a dream” speech on the same spot on the same date. Mr. Beck is trying to “hijack” the civil rights movement, said the Rev. Al Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton played no role in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.  Dr. Alveda King did.  She thinks her uncle would have been pleased to have 200,000 plus mostly white folks endorse his goal and cheer his name at the place where he made his “I Have a Dream” speech. “If Uncle Martin could be here today, he would surely commend us for giving honor where honor is due,” Ms. King said.  “He would encourage us to lay aside the divisive lies that cause us to think we are part of separate races.  We are one human family."

In Gallup's annual survey of confidence in institutions last month, Congress ranked dead last, with an all-time low of 11 percent of Americans expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in our federal lawmakers.

A Rasmussen survey, also in mid-July, indicated only 23 percent of voters think the federal government today rules with the consent of the governed. Sixty-two percent said it does not.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Congress -- the House of Representatives especially -- represented the views of mainstream Americans. That time has clearly passed. How might we bring it back?

Who replaced Willie Mays in center field for the Giants?  I don’t know, either.  But I feel like that guy, whoever he is, filling in for Jack as he treks through the wilds of Tajikistan and some other places we haven’t heard of.  The Half Full Report won’t be the same without him, but I hope you’ll find it entertaining. Last week’s HFR would more accurately have been called the “Cup Runneth Over Report,” because the news was so good for our side.  It isn’t quite as good this week (how could it possibly be?) but this is still an MFR – Mostly Full Report.  Let’s start with the primary elections in Alaska, Arizona and Florida.

Istanbul.  There was a full moon last night that turned the Bosphorus - the strait that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean upon which Istanbul resides - into a sheet of moonlight.  It is a memorable sight, and I had time for a glimpse of it on my way to Central Asia.  So I only have a moment to provide a glimpse of what is happening here in Turkey.  For the history of what is now called Turkey, see Asia Minor (Part One) and Asia Minor (Part Two) from May 2007. Turkey is now run by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Recip Tayyip Erdogan (air-do-wan).  This is a very dangerous man.  He is a radical Islamist clothed in "Islamic moderation."  He is purging the Turkish military of officers devoted to the secularism of modern Turkey's founder, Kemal Attaturk, and replacing them with Islamists.  His goal is to recreate the Ottoman Caliphate, where the ruler of Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) was recognized as the Caliph or ruler of all Moslems.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised eyebrows and ruffled feathers Aug. 9 when he announced plans to shut down Joint Forces Command, a headquarters in southeastern Virginia at which more than 6,000 military personnel, civilians and defense contractors work.

The closure will devastate the economies of the Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Hampton Roads area, so Mr. Gates’ announcement brought the predictable squeals from Virginia’s politicians.

There is something that doesn’t seem right about cutting defense spending when we’re in the midst of two wars.  But even though I look askance at how the administration circumvented the rules with regard to base closing, I can’t be critical of the decision itself.

Our military is, by far, the most efficient part of the federal government.  But that is, alas, damning with faint praise.  The Department of Defense, too, is bloated by bureaucracy.

Joint Forces Command does some useful things.  But it does them at considerable expense.  I suspect it exists more to provide billets for otherwise superfluous senior officers than to fulfill a vital defense need.  (Since 2001, flag officer positions in the military have increased by more than 100; senior civilian slots in the Department of Defense by 300.)

We’re in a fiscal emergency.  We have to watch what we spend even on vitally important things.  So the question isn’t: Why cut defense spending?  It’s why cut ONLY defense spending?  Why aren’t the other Cabinet secretaries scouring their departments for cuts?

After all, the Constitution requires the federal government to “provide for the common defense.”  Nothing in it requires the federal government to bankrupt farmers in California’s Central Valley on behalf of the delta smelt.

A sweetheart deal between a corrupt French president and Saudi Arabia has hurt the U.S. defense industry.

Former French President Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) is almost certain to be accused of overcharging Saudi Arabia for French military equipment. The Saudis overpaid for 100 French military helicopters through a deal worked out by a Saudi fixer, Khalid Bugshan of the Bugshan Group. The overpayments apparently were spread liberally to French politicians.

The trial is likely to provide at least a partial open window to some of the corrupt practices in international arms dealings. Khalid Bugshan and his group had their agreement with the French, and their contacts included French government officials and some in the inner circle of the Saudi ruling family. One of the interesting questions is: “How much did the Saudi ruling family know about the overpricing - or was Bugshan primarily running a rogue operation?”

If the Saudi royal family knew, were they doing it to purchase political influence and/or tilt French foreign policy?