Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

The New York Daily News apparently doesn't pay attention to the news. In its story about Fred Thompson's Iowa campaign swing, the paper attacks Thompson for saying “an Al Qaeda smoking ban was one reason freedom-loving Iraqis bolted to the U.S. side." Left-wing bloggers, naturally, echoed the attack - check out these links at Talking Points Memo, Carpetbagger Report, Think Progress,  Digby, Oliver Willis, and No More Mister Nice blog, for example.

The NY Daily News begain its story this way:

Fred Thompson puzzled Iowans yesterday by insisting an Al Qaeda smoking ban was one reason freedom-loving Iraqis bolted to the U.S. side. 

The Daily News mocks it but Fred was right. As Newsbusters reports today, embedded blogger Michael Yon was reporting this very fact months ago.

…the Muftis would order the severance of the two fingers used to hold a cigarette for any Iraqis caught smoking. Other reports, from here in Diyala and also in Anbar, allege that smokers are murdered by AQI. Most Iraqis smoke and this particular prohibition appeared to have earned the ire of many locals. After an American unit cleared an apartment complex on the 23rd, LTC Smiley, the battalion commander, reported that residents didn't ask for food and water, but cigarettes. In other parts of Baqubah, people have been celebrating the routing of AQI by lighting up and smoking cigarettes.

AQI is Al Qaeda in Iraq. 

Perhaps the Daily News hadn't read Yon's excellent reporting from Iraq - excellent because he actually reports from the war rather than the Green Zone. That's no excuse for the Daily News, however, as the Washington Post reported the same fact just yesterday:

“Why the sheiks turned remains a point of debate, but it seems clear that the tribes resented al-Qaeda's efforts to ban smoking and marry local women to build ties to the region.”  

For more, see Newsbusters.org.

While Democrats in the U.S. see smoking as something to be taxed and regulated - taxed to raise more money for Democrats' Big Government and regulated so that Big Government has more ways to control individuals lives - Iraqis see smoking as freedom.

They also came to see Al Qaeda as a threat to their freedom, and have lately been working with U.S. military forces to clear Al Qaeda from Iraq. While Fred Thompson is telling the truth, the left-wing attack bloggers dismiss it just as they seek to dismiss the Iraqis' hopes for freedom by demanding an early retreat from Iraq.