Alito's Former Pupil Defends Him In The NYT

Liberal trial attorney Caren Dean Thomas has some advice for her fellow Democrats regarding the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, advice she offers in the opinion pages of the New York Times today:

The president took the high road on this nomination. He juggled his politics and his public relations, and while I don't like either, I have to be grateful for the quality of lawyer, and individual, who emerged as the nominee.

We have to decide whether the unfortunate tradition begun with Robert Bork's nomination should be continued indefinitely or whether, with the wisdom of hindsight, we exhume it only when absolutely warranted. Liberals among us have got to get real - to press for the finest jurists a conservative administration is willing to offer, and to spend our capital in that pursuit.

Unlike the nutcases like Stephen Dujack that Democrats have scraped out from under the rocks to represent their opposition to Alito, Thomas actually knows what she's talking about. Thomas knew Alito during his days at Yale Law School, along with a cute couple named Bill and HIllary. She also had Robert Bork as one of her professors, and explains why she believes that the Democrats were correct to attack Bork while being way off the mark about Alito:

Professor Bork coupled a distaste for the Bill of Rights with a devotion to the Commerce Clause that made it the centerpiece of our entire semester. The privilege against self-incrimination, we were told, should have been limited only to cases of physical intimidation and torture - certainly it should not be invoked to protect a defendant from verbal self-incrimination on the witness stand. Charming and articulate, Professor Bork told us that he had left the practice of law to pursue the more intellectual aims of teaching because, frankly, he just didn't care that much about people. ...

When I finished law school I clerked for Leonard P. Moore, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The contrast with Professor Bork was stark. Judge Moore checked his ego at the courthouse door. He was politically conservative, but his great integrity, restraint and personal devotion to the law made him a fair and sensitive jurist. He hired clerks irrespective of their political views - indeed, he relished the exchange of ideas with clerks whose ideas were different from his own. He was open-minded in his discussions with us and weighed all viewpoints carefully.

Sam Alito's character suggests he'll follow the tradition of Judge Moore. In our class Sam was respected for his intellectual ability. He was quiet, but when he did speak his remarks were thoughtful and to the point. He wasn't showy or pretentious. He listened to others. I can't recall Sam prejudging an issue or reaching arbitrary conclusions. He worked hard and was never ashamed of that, even at a school that favored the appearance of effortless brilliance.

I disagree with Thomas about Bork; I still think he was treated terribly by people who couldn't carry Bork's briefcase in terms of ethics and intelligence, especially Ted Kennedy, who masterminded the first "borking". However, her support of the block thrown at Bork makes her defense of Alito all that more compelling -- as does her description of Bork the professor, actually.

Thomas wants the Democrats to come to the understanding that they risk losing their credibility if they cannot come to grips with the fact that elections have consequences, and that turning every judicial confirmation into a proxy election harms political and judicial processes. Too bad the Judiciary Democrats have chosen instead to take counsel from people who equate meat eaters with genocidal Nazis.

Saddam Trained Terrorists By The Thousands

Stephen Hayes continues his signal work on behalf of Americans, pressing a recalcitrant government to fully disclose the millions of documents uncovered in Iraq that paint quite a different picture of the Saddam regime than the media has reported. Finally able to gain access to the data but not the documents, Hayes writes in this week's Weekly Standard that the US has plenty of evidence that Saddam had deep connections with terrorists -- having trained thousands of them himself:

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S.
intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq war.

Even now, Hayes tells us, only 2.5% of these documents have been translated, and even those rarely get used to investigate anything but the failure to find WMD. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has expressed frustration that the only response he gets when he demands to know the status of expoiting these documents is "we're getting around to it". Yesterday, he got an additional response from John Negroponte, the new Intelligence czar -- it's at the top of Negroponte's list. And that check? Yeah, it's in the mail, Pete.

Read the whole essay by the indispensable Hayes, and then be sure to press your Congressmen and Senators to put pressure on the supposedly-now-nimble intelligence services to get their resources in gear now.

DeLay Steps Down

Tom DeLay officially made clear what the House Republican caucus had already begun to realize -- that current political conditions make it impossible for him to return to his leadership position regardless what happens with his legal issues in Texas. In a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who may also be replaced soon, DeLay officially and permanently resigned from GOP leadership:

"During my time in Congress, I have always acted in an ethical manner within the rules of our body and the laws of our land," the Texas lawmaker told fellow Republicans in a letter informing them of his decision.

Still, referring to criminal charges he faces in his home state, he added, "I cannot allow our adversaries to divide and distract our attention."

DeLay temporarily have given up his leadership post after he was charged, but always insisted he would reclaim his duties after clearing his name.

His turnabout cleared the way for leadership elections among Republicans buffeted by poor polls and by lobbyist Jack Abramoff's confessions of guilt on corruption charges in connection with congressional wining and dining.

Most Republicans, including me, had readily stood by DeLay while Ronnie Earle pursued one of the most partisan public kneecappings of all time. However, the sudden plea deal from Jack Abramoff makes DeLay's position untenable. DeLay and Hastert share responsibility for the access given to Abramoff as part of their K Street makeover plan, a good idea gone bad with Abramoff's admitted offenses creating a crisis for the party. That, more than anything else, justified ending DeLay's run at the helm; he rightly took responsibility for putting the Republicans in their current position.

As much as the resignation might annoy us because of the delight it will cause Earle, the GOP needed DeLay to leave the field open for new blood. Dafydd disagrees with me, and writes about how regional considerations might play a role in the sudden welcome of DeLay's resignation. Others may protest that DeLay has not been found guilty of anything and should not need to resign at all. However, leadership positions are all about politics, not legal status; if one is reduced to saying "I haven't been convicted", there's already a problem, especially when the power broker that politico introduced to everyone as his good buddy suddenly pleads out to numerous felonies regarding corruption in multiple courts.

The AP says that Hastert's grip on power is secure, but I wouldn't take that bet. Not too many people have been impressed with Hastert's run as Speaker, and the K Street project involved him almost as much as DeLay. The GOP should be focusing on cleaning house and electing legislative leadership that Americans can trust to do so. I don't think Bill Frist and Denny Hastert have household names for anti-corruption efforts. We need a Giuliani of the House and Senate to lead by example and bring ethics back to the forefront of GOP legislative reform.

Ramblin' Man Bares All

The First Mate and I completed the first leg of our Judiciary Tour today, flying into Washington DC and driving to Philadelphia to report on the Justice Sunday III rally nearby on Broad Street tomorrow evening. I'll be live-blogging the event while the FM soaks up the atmosphere inside. We're going to try to squeeze in a visit to Independence Hall and the Betsy Ross House tomorrow morning, if possible, but it's going to be tight.

In the spirit of full disclosure, CQ readers should know that my flight and my room expenses have been covered by the Family Research Council. I'm neither rich enough nor fortunate enough to travel without checking the finances first, and they want to have bloggers play a major role in debating the effectiveness of their approach. No one has asked me to endorse or shade my opinions in return for this -- in fact, they've treated me all along as though I was doing them a favor by being here -- but just as with the last time, you are entitled to know where the money originated. I am not being paid for my blogging, and I will reimburse the FRC for the FM's flight when I return. I'm paying for my own rental car, and I was lucky enough to get a free upgrade to a Jeep Cherokee, too. Very nice ride from DC, thanks to Enterprise ...

As far as the live-blogging event for the committee hearings themselves, that has been arranged by Patrick Ruffini at the Republican National Committee. The RNC will not be covering any expenses on this trip, so that portion of the trip comes right out of my pocket -- really, just the hotel and the car rental, since we're flying in and out of DC for the JSIII event. No one at the RNC has asked me to slant my coverage at all in return for access at their HQ.

Have I covered all the disclosures? Hmmm ... no animals were hurt in the filming of this blog. Now I think I'm finished. Back to work.

Alito Colleagues Come To His Rescue

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary may have bitten off more than they can chew in their attempts to smear Samuel Alito. In a surprise move, Alito's colleagues on the appellate bench will testify on his behalf as character witnesses, expecting to rebut a series of witnesses that do not know Alito but will attempt to hijack (or is that Dujack) the confirmation hearing in its final days:

In an unusual move, several federal appeals court judges intend to testify as Republican-sponsored witnesses next week at Senate confirmation hearings for their fellow jurist, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

"They will testify about his approach to judging, as to whether he has an agenda, whether he is ideological, whether he pushes any specific point of view," Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., said Friday. Specter will wield the chairman's gavel at the Judiciary Committee hearings. ...

Republicans disclosed their list of witnesses for the hearings as IndependentCourt.org, a group of abortion rights, civil rights and other organizations opposed to Alito, announced new commercials that criticize him as a threat to individual rights.

"Your rights. Your privacy. Can Samuel Alito be trusted to protect them?" the commercial asks.

Recall the deer-in-the-headlights performances of the Democrats during the last confirmation hearing when they attempted to square off against John Roberts. Now try to picture them debating ethics with a gaggle of legal experts who have forgotten more about ethics than Joe "The Plagiarist" Biden, Ted "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy, and Chuck "Credit Record" Schumer have demonstrated in their entire careers.

I wish I'd taken two weeks off for this one now ...

Anti-Alito Witness Backs Off

One of the Democrats' key character assassination witnesses has suddenly withdrawn his name from the list expected to be called after Judge Samuel Alito testifies for his confirmation hearings, Fox News is reporting. Stephen Dujack had been expected to testify that Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a group in which Alito noted his membership on a resume, had leadership that exhibited racism, sexism, and "dirty tactics". However, Dujack's other writings may have led to a major credibility crisis:

A key witness to the character of Judge Samuel A. Alito has been removed from the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats' testimony list, FOXNews.com has learned.

Stephen R. Dujack, editor of The Environmental Forum magazine and fellow Princeton University alumnus, was expected to testify about a controversial student organization that counted Alito as a member. Dujack confirmed to FOXNews.com late Friday that he was no longer testifying, but said he could not elaborate.

A spokesman for Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a committee member, said he had been notified of the list change shortly before 7 p.m. EST. Earlier on Friday, Cornyn's office circulated a 2003 Los Angeles Times editorial in which Dujack compared animals killed for food to victims of the Holocaust. Whether the editorial factored into the decision to drop Dujack from the witness list was not clear. ...

If Dujack is not replaced by another witness familiar with CAP, Democrats opposed to Alito's confirmation may have lost some ammunition. Phone calls to Kennedy's and ranking Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy's offices were not immediately returned.

Dujack apparently had no knowledge of Alito participating in or endorsing racist or sexist behavior, and the CAP platform had a broad political reach; Alito supposedly joined over a concern about Princeton freezing out the ROTC but never became active within the group In short, Dujack intended on smearing Alito by association. However, since Dujack would then have to explain his own political screeds written just two years ago equating steak with European genocide, someone finally thought better of the notion that he should deliver this testimony.

The Anchoress noted the strategy earlier today:

Frankly, I think if the Dems try this, Alito will eat them for lunch.

But that’s besides the point. This is downright indecent. Yes. Indecent. To try to destroy someone on something this flimsy, in the name of partisan politics is, finally, INDECENT.

And it hypocritically smacks of the sort of “McCarthyism” the Democrats are SUPPOSED to deplore. Think back to all of those stories you read about writers in the 1930’s, (and again in the 1950’s) who joined the Communist party because they wanted to impress a girl, or because they wanted a business contact, or simply because they just were attracted to its ideals - and had their careers ruined, unjustly, over those associations. We’ve been told for years that those people had been treated unjustly - that they were victims of an out-of-control ideology, remember? We were told that such victimization was a BAD thing, an ugly thing that weakened the very fabric of America and made a mockery of the Bill of Rights. Back when I was a Democrat, such stories were routinely held out as examples of “small-minded mob mentalities,” and fascist-leaning conformists. Now, suddenly, fascist tactics are acceptable? As long as they are politically expedient?

In the last analysis, all this demonstrates is the depth of desperation anti-Alito forces are feeling tonight. They have fifteen years of judicial opinions and records, and they can't find anything to disqualify Alito. The ABA unanimously voted him "well qualified" in all areas, including ethics and temperament. The only people they can find to sling mud at Alito are the kind of lunatics that equate eating meat with the genocide of six million Jews. That should tell them something about their chances of stopping Alito, and should convince them to admit that Bush has nominated a well-qualified jurist who deserves confirmation.

Why The RCMP Got Interested In Cold Case

One of the questions regarding the sudden re-emergence of the Options Canada scandal is what suddenly prompted the RCMP to take another look for the missing $4.8 million. We assumed that the upcoming release of a new book on the controversy over Liberal management of government money, The Secrets of Options Canada by separatist journalist Normand Lester, might have put pressure on them to at least review their data. A source within political and media circles, however, says that the RCMP received more information indirectly from Lester's own investigation.

The book, which will only publish in French, includes juicy details about the apparent theft of $300,000 by somebody who had acted as a bookkeeper to Options Canada, and an attempt to cover this up. Apparently, the bookkeeper and Options Canada signed a hush-hush agreement which allowed the bookkeeper to keep the money as long as he (or she) remained quiet about its origins. Lester got ahold of a copy of this agreement, and somehow, a copy of it was leaked back to Heritage Canada bureaucrats late last year. It was these bureaucrats who, in a CYA move, decided to call in the RCMP.

In other words, the thieves at the top needed to keep the thieves at the bottom from blowing the entire scam -- and foolishly committed an agreement to paper. If this bears out, it would almost certainly mean at least one criminal investigation for corruption, and perhaps another for conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Stay tuned ...

Confirmation Follies To Reach Their Crescendo This Weekend

We can expect the circus surrounding the nomination of Judge Sam Alito to the Supreme Court to pick up the intensity over the weekend. That may already have begun to some small extent with a warning from the loudmouth of the Democratic caucus on the Judiciary Committee, Chuck Schumer, explaining that Alito has to give more complete answers than anyone else:

Alito's hearing before the Judiciary Committee, scheduled to begin Monday, will last a week if it tracks last year's confirmation process for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. A Democratic member, Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), said yesterday that senators will ask extensive questions and insist that Alito answer them fully -- even if it means pushing the hearing into the following week.

All judicial nominees are required to respond to senators' queries, Schumer said in a speech in Washington. "The obligation, however, is greater for some nominees," he said. "It is greater when a nominee has taken a clear position on a legal matter."

Well, wait a minute. Wasn't Schumer one of those who argued that John Roberts had a greater requirement because he hadn't generated a public track record? The entire Democratic caucus made that argument repeatedly, both before and during Roberts' confirmation hearing. They complained about Roberts being a "stealth" candidate, devoid of any substantive judicial track record or public writings, and so demanded not just an overabundance of candor during his testimony before the committee but access to documents covered under attorney-client privilege. Now Democrats want to argue that the same holds true for a candidate with fifteen years of experience as a federal appellate jurist and a long track record of public writings.

Not that anyone expects Democrats to make sense or remain consistent in anything but knee-jerk antagonism for this administration, but one would think that the contradiction would be so apparent even to the slow-witted Democrats on Judiciary that such an argument would embarrass them. Apparently not.

In the meantime, both Schumer and his colleague Ted Kennedy maintained their pre-hearing sense of balance and open-mindedness. Kennedy told the press:

"We here in the United States are not going to stand for monarchial tyranny," he said, protesting Alito's support for "unfettered, unlimited power of the executive." He faulted Alito for belonging to a group that was "anti-black and also anti-women." Kennedy wondered if "the average person is going to be able to get a fair shake" under Alito.

Briefly, Kennedy rewrote the outcome of the 1964 election. "This nominee was influenced by the Goldwater presidency," he said. "The Goldwater battles of those times were the battles against the civil rights laws." Only then did Kennedy acknowledge that "Judge Alito at that time was 14 years old."

A questioner pointed out that Kennedy sounded like a sure bet against Alito. "I haven't reached a final conclusion," the senator demurred.

So Kennedy would be OK supporting an allegedly anti-black, anti-women nominee that argues for monarchical tyranny ... under exactly what circumstances? If a Clinton nominated him or her?

As I mentioned earlier, the First Mate and I will be traveling to Philadelphia this weekend to cover the action at Justice Sunday III, the event held by pro-Bush evangelicals the night before a Supreme Court nominee faces his or her Judiciary Committee hearings. Several bloggers will be on hand for the event, including La Shawn Barber, Stacy Harp, and Right Wing Sparkle, with Charmaine Yoest providing the coordination. We're hearing that Planned Parenthood and ACT-UP both plan to protest at JSIII, which should provide a bit more spice than the rather tepid (but well-mannered) protest at JSII in Nashville last fall. Afterwards, we will go to DC to cover the first couple of days of the hearings themselves, hopefully getting a chance to speak with some of the principals themselves but at least visiting a few good friends while we're there.

Look for a short but intense burst of dish-throwing from the Left to grab a few headlines. I doubt that it will amount to much else.

Buyer's Remorse

The Democrats in Congress who have repeatedly been briefed on the NSA program on warrantless international intercepts appear to have contracted some weird kind of buyer's remorse. After more than four years of updates, during which they raised few objections to the program and issued no requests for its termination, suddenly one such member wants her money back. Jane Harman made headlines yesterday by writing a letter to the White House calling the program "illegal", a charge which mystified her Republican counterpart at many a briefing in the past:

In a sign of growing partisan division over domestic eavesdropping, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday defended the Bush administration's limited briefings for Congress on the secret program and accused the committee's top Democrat of changing her position on the issue. ...

The Intelligence Committee chairman, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, was responding to a statement Wednesday by Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, that the law requires that the full House and Senate Intelligence Committees be informed of the N.S.A. program. By briefing only the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses and of the committees, the administration violated the law, Ms. Harman wrote in a letter to the president.

In a letter to Ms. Harman, Mr. Hoekstra said the briefings were in compliance with the National Security Act of 1947, which says the committees should be informed of intelligence activities, though "with due regard for" the need to protect secrets.

"The committee has been informed, in good faith by the president of the United States," through briefings he and Ms. Harman attended, Mr. Hoekstra wrote.

He said he was "surprised and somewhat bewildered" by Ms. Harman's letter because she had not previously complained about the briefings. Mr. Hoekstra told Ms. Harman that he found her letter to the president "completely incongruent" with her previous position. "In the past," he said, "you have been fully supportive of this program and the practice by which we have overseen it."

Harman certainly never called for an end to the program, and even in her letter now doesn't actually demand that the NSA stop reviewing warrantless intercepts. Like so much of what the Democrats say on national security, they want to complain about the sausage-making process while gorging on the bratwurst that results. Since the New York Times revealed the program's existence weeks back, Congressional Democrats have produced only two letters expressing any kind of reservations about the program -- and one of them endorses the White House view that presidential authorization was the only approval needed for it to continue.

In the meantime, since the story appears to have gone nowhere in terms of damage to the administration -- if anything, it's helped bolster his image as a wartime president protecting America -- the Democrats and the media want to start going on a fishing expedition. Earlier, Andrea Mitchell suggested that the NSA might have spied on a CNN reporter using a cell phone overseas without explaining what evidence gave rise to that hypothesis. Yesterday, perennial Congressional crackpot John Conyers got 26 other paranoids in the House to join him in demanding to know whether the NSA listened to international communications involving politicians or media:

Also Thursday, 27 House Democrats sent a letter to President Bush asking for information about the National Security Agency eavesdropping program, including whether communications from or to members of Congress and journalists were intercepted. ...

The security agency's program, disclosed last month in The New York Times, involves eavesdropping without court warrants on the telephone calls and e-mail messages of people in the United States who officials say have been linked to terrorism suspects overseas. ... Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, released the 27 Democrats' letter. It asks for copies of all legal opinions on the spying program; the numbers of Americans singled out; and the names of agencies getting the information the agency collected.

The Times report has been specific about the kinds of communications captured and shared by the NSA under the program, reporting that the communications involved at least one end being outside the United States and involving people who have been linked to al-Qaeda or other recognized terrorist organizations by another source. Once that information came through, NSA has shared the data with other intelligence and law-enforcement agencies such as the DIA and the FBI -- just like the 9/11 Commission and Congressional reviews of 9/11 scolded the intelligence services for not doing prior to the devastating attacks. Not one of the people who have been briefed on this program for the last four years has reported or suggested even once that the program deviated from those very limited parameters, and even the Times reported that the NSA sought warrants on anything else.

Conyers and his fringies want to change the terms of the debate on the NSA program by misrepresenting it. Having failed to convince Americans that Bush should get impeached for using the NSA to keep track of international communications involving known or suspected Islamofascist terrorists, he wants to make everyone believe that the overworked NSA really used its limited resources to spy on Congress for George Bush. That's the purpose of these grandstanding letters to the White House and the press references to "domestic" spying, when the warrantless intercepts involved only international communications. It's a dodge, a flim-flam, an outright lie and a vicious smear -- but coming from Conyers, whose long list of paranoid conspiracy allegations almost outstrips his re-election record, it won't surprise anyone.

This kind of tail-chasing is what the New York Times has done for the security of the nation during a time of war. They may not have directly given aid and comfort to our enemies, but they have played enabler to the paranoid screwballs at the fringes of our politics. Perhaps that makes them feel proud, but it seems an awfully strange mission statement to me. (CNN link from Just One Minute)

The Syrian Tipping Point

The tipping point for Syrian tyranny may have come yesterday as former regime vice-president Abdul Halim Khaddam announced publicly that he wants to lead a popular revolution to oust the Bashar Assad dictatorship and to see the former opthalmologist in prison for the murder of Rafik Hariri. Meanwhile, he made clear, he remains available to the UN if it really wants to investigate Syrian crimes:

Former Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam wants to oust President Bashar al-Assad through a popular uprising, he told an Arabic newspaper.

Mr Khaddam told the Pan-Arab al-Sharq al-Awsat that the pressure for change had to come from within Syria.

On Thursday, he said Mr Assad should go to prison for complicity in the murder of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri. ...

Mr Khaddam said he had not asked other nations to help Syria's opposition.

"I did not contact anybody because change has to come from within. If the main vector for change is external, then the interests of the country are harmed."

Earlier, when democratic protests had first appeared in the streets of Beirut, some stirrings of domestic protest had been rumored in Damascus as well. They never coalesced into the kind of revolution seen in Lebanon or even in Egypt, where strongman Hosni Mubarak had to make some concessions to remain in power. The lack of a central figure inspiring loyalty could have been a missing ingredient in Syria -- and now anti-Assad forces may well have found one. Unfortunately, Khaddam is somewhat of a cipher. Is he expressing a desire to free Syria and introduce democracy, or does he just propose to replace Assad while keeping the same mechanisms of Syrian oppression at his own fingertips?

Unfortunately, we won't know that for sure until we see Khaddam in action. Considering Syria's track record on everything from interference with our mission in Iraq, funding for Hezbollah, threat to Israel, and the new strategic alliance with Iran, he could hardly be worse than Assad is now. Besides, if he isn't serious about democracy, then he should beware calling for a popular uprising. Those tend to get away from people who want to use them merely for a different brand of oppression.

At any rate, Khaddam's outspoken rhetoric may well spark a flame that will spell the end of Assad and his henchmen. Expect Assad to overreact and attempt to kill Khaddam, making him that much more of a martyr and causing an explosion of anger and protest that will make the Cedar Revolution look like an Easter parade.

The Next Liberal Scandal Breaks

As I noted earlier today, the Globe & Mail reports that the RCMP has opened another review into Liberal Party management of government finances. This investigation makes the second major criminal inspection of Liberal governing during this election cycle, both focusing on the abuse of government funds for personal gain, and counting Adscam, the third serious circumstance of widespread corruption among Liberal leadership:

The RCMP is looking into a controversial $4.8-million grant that was awarded to a pro-Canada group at the time of the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty, officials have told The Globe and Mail.

The money went out more than 10 years ago in three disbursements to a little-known group called Option Canada, which has since been disbanded.

On Dec. 23, 2005, the RCMP quizzed two officials at the department of Canadian Heritage about the 1995 expenditure. It remains unclear to how the entire grant was used, but a source said that there are questions surrounding the distribution of an amount, believed to be $300,000.

The pending release of a book on the Options Canada financial scandal apparently jolted the RCMP into action, after more than five years of letting the issue remain dormant. Options Canada also figures into the Adscam investigation; the Gomery report notes that advertising agency BCP received $2.6 million of the funds from OC for "media and advertising related services". BCP also got $160 million of government money in 1997 and 2000, according to the Gomery Report, and made over $120,000 in donations to the Liberals in return. BCP never signed a contract for their work in handling all media contacts for the Sponsorship Programme, which Gomery says suggests that "favouritism was involved".

Now, with that important connection to Adscam and the supposed limits of that scandal to Jean Chretien, the Options Canada scandal breaks out in earnest once more, and once more we have government money flowing through a Canadian government program designed to keep Quebec in the union to the advertising group BCP. Only this time, the instrument of that money is not a Chretien crony but a Martin associate, Claude Dauphin. Dauphin claims that even though he headed Options Canada and later its descendant organization, Council for Canadian Unity, that he had nothing to do with the day-to-day management of either group. That makes it very convenient for Dauphin, since he later worked for Paul Martin during his tenure as Finance Minister -- again, very coincidentally, at the same time that Adscam took millions of dollars out of the Canadian treasury and into Liberal Party coffers and the pockets of Liberal supporters.

During this election season, that may be three coincidences too many. Options Canada could very well provide the bridge from Adscam to Paul Martin whose existence the current Prime Minister has always denied. It also will prove that rather than a limited fluke, Adscam is part of a greater pattern of Liberal corruption that includes Options Canada and the income-trust insider trading. The RCMP has its work ahead of them to keep up.

Another Liberal Scandal On The Horizon?

A source within Canadian political and media circles informed CQ earlier this afternoon that the media will break a story on an almost-forgotten scandal involving Options Canada, where $4.8 million disappeared without much oversight from the Liberal government in 1995. The money came from the Heritage Canada office, which disbursed the grant in three rushed payments on the eve of the 1995 referendum on autonomy for Quebec. The Ottawa Citizen reported in 2000 that the Liberal government had buried the scandal and closed its investigation without ever determining what happened to the millions of dollars given to Options Canada, which later merged into the No campaign on the referendum:

The federal government has quietly closed the books on a controversial $4.8-million grant to an obscure Montreal federalist group, but how the money was spent is still a mystery.

The grant, made in three hastily arranged payments to Options Canada by Heritage Canada on the eve of the 1995 referendum, violated most of the department's key accounting rules.

An internal Heritage audit was launched two years ago after reports about the grant began appearing in the Montreal media. The audit noted that the money had been issued on an "urgent" basis and found that it had been handed over in a way that "lacked the rigour and scrutiny one would expect for such large sums of money being given to a new unproved client."

The internal auditor's report said the grant had been processed with unusual speed. "In most cases, it was a matter of several days to receive (applications) and approve funds with little justification being asked for in regard to the funds already advanced," said the report. "In all, only thirty-three days were needed to receive, consider, recommend and approve three submissions totaling $4,810,000 ... the whole process suffered from a lack of sufficient attention to detail." ...

When the controversy over the grant first broke in the media three years ago, it was suggested that Options Canada was a front for the Council for Canadian Unity, a well-established organization that stood to lose its favourable tax status if it engaged in openly partisan politics.

Interestingly, Claude Dauphin ran Options Canada in 1995, and went from there to run the Council for Canadian Unity, according to this biography (en Francais, je le regrette). Claude Dauphin also worked for Paul Martin in 1997, two years after the $4.8M went to Dauphin's group, as "Senior Advisor for Quebec to Finance Minister Paul Martin" and has been rumored to be an active political advisor to Martin since.

All of that is the background. Watch the news for more recent developments in the next couple of days -- especially, I'm told, the Globe & Mail -- on the Options Canada grant money.

Anti-Alito Forces Get Personal In Desperation

The desperation of the anti-Alito forces has become obvious in their eleventh hour. They have released their pre-hearing advertising designed to convince Americans that Judge Alito should not get confirmed to the Supreme Court. Thanks to the ABA's unanimous decision yesterday to give Alito its highest rating -- "well qualified" -- the only avenue left to PFAW and AJ is character assassination:

The battle over the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. turned personal Wednesday with the announcement of new commercials that sharply escalated liberal attacks on him, moving beyond his legal views to attack his character and credibility instead. ...

Separately, the American Bar Association on Wednesday rated Judge Alito "well qualified" for the court, its highest rating, as expected. His supporters hailed the rating. Liberal groups said their complaint was his judicial philosophy, not his professional qualifications.

A commercial by one of the liberal groups, MoveOn.org Political Action, depicts Judge Alito as an actor receiving makeup and coaching.

Liberal groups have now admitted that the only opposition to Alito comes based on his politics, but instead of attacking those in advertising -- a sure turnoff for what most people still want to have handled in a non-partisan fashion -- they attack Alito's character instead. Not even the New York Times buys this approach, as David Kilpatrick skewers their insinuations:

The "job application" mentioned in the commercial refers to a 1985 memorandum Judge Alito wrote as a lawyer for the Reagan administration seeking a promotion. Judge Alito did express disagreement with the constitutional right to abortion, but the closest thing to the "excuse" described in the commercial is a statement attributed to Judge Alito by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, after they met.

"He said, 'I was an advocate seeking a job,' " Mrs. Feinstein recounted. " 'It was a political job. That was 1985. I am now a judge.' " She said he added: " 'It is very different. I am not an advocate. I don't give heed to my personal views. What I do is interpret the law.' "

In the same memorandum, Judge Alito said he was a member of Concerned Alumni of Princeton, a defunct conservative organization that the commercial asserts "wanted to restrict African-Americans admissions to your college."

The group never explicitly sought to limit admissions of black students, but it did oppose the school's affirmative action admissions policies and urged the admission of more children of alumni.

There is no other record of evidence of Judge Alito's involvement besides the 1985 memorandum. In answering a Senate judicial questionnaire, Judge Alito wrote that he had "no recollection of being a member."

In other words, MoveOn and its allies want to fight Alito's nomination, for which the ABA notes he is eminently qualified, with half-truths and outright lies. And yet these people want us to question Alito's character?

Politics is like dating. When people start catching the stench of desperation, it turns off everyone but the weirdoes. That sounds like a perfect description of MoveOn and its allies in the mudslinging against Alito.

Kennedy Stays Bought

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) has decided to buck the current fashion of donating the money given to him linked to Jack Abramoff clients to charity, while the rest of Kennedy's colleagues distance themselves from Abramoff-directed contributions as fast as possible. Kennedy insists that he has nothing to hide -- since he's been taking Indian gambling money for ten years and acting on their behalf for, coincidentally, the same amount of time:

Rep. Patrick Kennedy, citing his support for American Indian causes, says he has no plans to return any of the $42,500 he took from tribes represented by GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"He's proud to have their support," Kennedy chief of staff Sean Richardson said Wednesday. "He's got direct personal relationships with tribes. ... He looks at it as a human and civil rights issue, the fact that they're still not treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."

Kennedy, D-R.I., was the top congressional Democratic recipient of Abramoff-linked funds, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign watchdog group that analyzed contributions from 1999 to 2005. He was eighth overall among members of Congress. ... The congressman has received contributions from 110 tribes and visited about a dozen reservations, Richardson said. Kennedy has accepted donations from Indian gambling interests since he first came to Congress a decade ago.

Well, one has to respect a man who stays bought once the money gets into the bank, but it seems a rather risky way to make a point. Kennedy claims that Abramoff never lobbied him on behalf of the tribes in question but that they donated to him outside of Abramoff's direction. Why? Kennedy says that he already delivers on their needs -- in effect, admitting that he acts on their behalf as long as the donations keep coming. His spokesman made clear that Kennedy has actively gone forth to ask for those donations.

It takes some imagination, however, to believe that Abramoff controlled these tribes to such an extent that he defrauded them, but they then retained so much of their autonomy from his advice and control that they threw even more money at politicians that Abramoff didn't bother to even visit. The amount isn't a drop in the bucket; Kennedy ranks eighth among all politicians for contributions from the Abramoff client list.

Kennedy wants to bluff his way through by claiming that contributions don't equal influence, while his peers want to argue the exact opposite for GOP contributions and actions. It's a bluff that should get called soon.

UPDATE: Buma and Rocketman wonder why I think the money should get returned or donated to charity if it didn't get used to bribe someone. Rocketman says that the politicians should stand up and say that they weren't bought at all. The problem is that Abramoff has admitted in court to defrauding clients out of their money and using it to buy influence. At best, the money that the politicians refuse to unload are likely the results of fraud and deceit.

And yes -- if the White House has donations from Abramoff's clients involved in the fraud, then they should cough it up right now.

Clinton Pleads Out In Paul Fundraiser Case

Avoiding the coming rush on contribution cases coming with the Abramoff plea deal, Hillary Clinton struck a deal of her own yesterday, quietly settling the Hillywood Fundraiser albatross for the moderate sum of $35,000:

A fund-raising committee for Senator Clinton's 2000 campaign has agreed to pay a $35,000 civil penalty and to concede that reports it made to the federal government understated by more than $700,000 donations to a California celebrity gala held to benefit her Senate bid.

The agreement between the committee, New York Senate 2000, and the Federal Election Commission ends the campaign finance regulation agency's inquiry into a complaint filed in 2001 by an entrepreneur who financed the fund-raising concert, Peter Paul.

"The civil payment assessed to New York Senate 2000 resolves the question of underreported in-kind contributions, and there will be no further action on this matter," an attorney for the fundraising committee, Marc Elias, said.

The conciliation agreement, ap proved at a Federal Election Commission meeting last month, has not yet been made public. However, three sources with knowledge of the terms outlined the deal to The New York Sun. Under the agreement, the committee will amend its public reports to show that Paul's in-kind gifts to the fund-raising concert were understated by $721,895. The committee and its treasurer, Andrew Grossman, agreed that there was probable cause to believe that the filings violated federal campaign finance law. However, the committee claimed that it relied on "reasonable processes" to verify the data it filed.

This provides partial vindication for Paul in his quest to get a court remedy for the pounding he took after the fundraiser. He is currently working with federal investigators on this issue, and the resolution appears to back his contention that the Clinton campaign was aware of the discrepancies and hid them from the FEC in order to claim that they only realized $57,000 from the multi-million-dollar fundraiser. Given the current political climate on the Hill, the FEC finding of malfeasance doesn't help Hillary's image much either, but right now she's not even facing anyone of significance for her re-election bid.

In the end, this probably doesn't hurt anyone too much, but it should remind voters of two important issues. One: the Clintons always seem to trod through the outer fringes of election law when it comes to raising money. Two: These Byzantine rules for designating cash in elections only delight attorneys and accountants, and in that order.

Which Tragedy?

The USA Today headline speaks volumes about the sad state of today's American media in on-the-spot recording when it states, "Media forced to explain inaccurate reports on tragedy" -- and we're forced to ask, "Which tragedy?" In this case, USA Today is speaking about the tragic reporting that gave a nation false hope that twelve miners had miraculously survived an explosion in another tunnel:

Newspapers, wire services and cable news networks all failed in one degree or another to do their jobs properly when they reported that 12 men had survived the coal mine disaster in West Virginia, media critics and chastened editors say.

The collective failure was most apparent Wednesday morning on front pages across the nation. Headlines, including in about 45% of USA TODAY's 2.2 million copies, proclaimed the miners were alive. Other newspapers that put similar reports on their front pages in at least some editions include The New York Times, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and The Washington Post. ...

Few of those stories raised doubts about the report's credibility. Most did not make clear to readers, for instance, that the news was based on secondhand accounts from family members of the trapped miners just before midnight ET Tuesday. Officials from the company that owned the mine had not confirmed that the men were alive. ...

"The job of reporters and editors is to stop and say 'we've got some possible good news, but it's not confirmed yet,' " Mitchell said later Wednesday in an interview. "That really didn't happen."

Mitchell thinks reporters and editors "got carried away" by what appeared to be miraculous news. Newspapers were also under deadline pressure, he said. Many were in the process of printing Wednesday's edition as the news was breaking.

What happened? A foreman heard a report from the rescue team on the squawk box and misunderstood what was meant by the report. He then called relatives by cell phone, who happened to be at the church with other family and friends of the lost miners, and word of the "miracle" spread like wildfire. The families told the reporters, who forgot that they are supposed to verify rumors before putting them on air as fact. Some even heard from the mine company that they would not confirm that anyone had survived but reported the miracle anyway. As the Anchoress noted, the reporters again showed a preference for emoting rather than reporting -- a tactic they celebrated during their so-called "reporting" of Hurrican Katrina.

And that's where the headline could just as easily have applied. Let's recall the number of myths reported by the Exempt Media during Katrina and the aftermath, a collection of disproven memes that still cloud the actual facts of what happened during the worst natural disaster in at least twenty years:

* Children getting raped and killed in the Superdome: urban legend
* Black people turning cannibal to survive: myth started by Randall Robinson
* Toxic flood waters that kill on contact: never happened
* Levees overflowed: myth
* The poor and black died disproportionately: false
* Snipers on a bridge targeting rescuers: shot down

So again, I ask in response to USA Today's headline -- which tragedy requires the explanation of media incompetence? I'd say both.

UPDATE: Lori Byrd explains why we won't get any explanations about Katrina reporting.

Palestinian Gratitude

After having their daughter give her life in a misguided attempt to assist Palestinians in keeping their weapon-transit tunnels open, Rachel Corrie's parents might have labored under a perception that the Palestinians might have some gratitude for their sacrifice ... or at least prove themselves worthy of her death on their behalf. Instead, to show just how civilized they can act when they have their own territory, members of the ruling Fatah faction tried to kidnap the Corries as they also blew up part of the Gaza-Sinai border, killing two guards:

PALESTINIAN society disintegrated further yesterday as gunmen from the ruling Fatah movement tried to kidnap the parents of an American activist who died trying to halt the demolition of Gaza homes, while other militants destroyed part of Gaza's border wall with Egypt - killing two guards.

Both actions, and the takeover of seven government offices in the town of Rafah, were undertaken by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in order to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to release a militant arrested on Tuesday for alleged involvement in the kidnapping last week of the British human rights worker Kate Burton and her parents, Helen and Hugh.

Spokesmen for the gunmen appeared on al-Jazeera television unmasked and announced that there would be no voting in Rafah on 25 January, the day of parliamentary elections, unless the suspected kidnapper, Alaa al-Hams, is released.

It now looks like Ariel Sharon may have struck the most devastating blow against Palestinian statehood by allowing them to have Gaza all to themselves. Sharon, who may be dying at this very moment, gave the world a fishbowl for the Palestinians to demonstrate the endgame of their nihilism. They have now made a ruin of Gaza, attacked Egypt, kidnapped the parents of one of their own folk heroes, and turned the territory into a gangland instead of a state. Egypt has yet to respond to the murder of its guards, but one doubts that Cairo will react with brotherly love to a government that it insisted be given this golden opportunity to prove it could run Gaza as a state.

Even the PA now admits that the statehood project has been a catastrophe and that its failure has little to do with Israel, according to The Scotsman. The Palestinian people have used democracy to repeatedly validate a mandate for war. The political factions involved in the territories have refused to disarm. The Palestinian Authority, an oxymoron if ever there was one, has proven itself impotent without the old terrorist Yasser Arafat at its head. The lack of law and order has reduced the entire area to little more than a free-fire zone and terrorist's delight -- and the only authority that could possibly control the violence has no more incentive to intervene, thanks to decades of scolding for providing that service without any recognition of its necessity.

If Sharon passes away tonight, he can go with a satisfaction of forcing the Palestinians themselves to prove themselves unworthy of the world's concern.

UPDATE: AP also reports that Corrie's parents were the target of the attempt, but that their identity eventually saved them from capture:

Elsewhere, Palestinian gunmen burst into a Rafah house early Wednesday and tried to kidnap the parents of Rachel Corrie, who was killed in 2003 as she protested the impending demolition of a house in the southern Gaza town, according to a witness.

The five gunmen appeared to be affiliated with the Fatah movement, according to Samir Nasrallah, the Corries' host. The gunmen eventually relented after being told who their targets were, he said.

The Egyptians had to withdraw a half-mile from the Rafah crossing until orders finally came to fire on the hundreds of Palestinian gunmen swarming over the border. They have cut the electricity to Rafah now. Do you suppose they have an inkling what Israel had to tolerate now?

Quick Hits

A few notes from around the blogosphere while I catch up on the news of the day ...

* Mark Tapscott notes that the tiny Baltic nation of Estonia can teach the world about the advantages of free-market capitalism. Mark, who does great work at the Heritage Foundation and has been tremendously supportive of CQ, has links to tons of economic data.

* Speaking of economic data, King at SCSU Scholars (and a good buddy of mine) has plenty of background for the new Russian-Ukrainian compromise on natural gas. King spent time working with Viktor Yuschenko several years ago and knows the Ukraine like no one else. On economics as in politics, King is a must-read.

* And speaking of must-reads, my friend the Anchoress has a lengthy, gentle, but firm scolding for the press over the botched reporting on the Sago mine disaster. In my mind as well, this is the fruits of the emotionalism that the press congratulated itself for displaying during its Katrina coverage -- while getting almost all of the facts wrong on the ground. Instead of trying so hard to make themselves stars, perhaps the reporters should start focusing on getting the facts of the story straight first.

* Professor Bainbridge sums up the challenge of removing corruption from government particularly well. Want to get the money out of politics? Get it out of government. If we limit the federal government the way the founding fathers intended, the lobbyists would have no reason to buy federal legislators. They instead would flock to the states, but then the states could put more effective law-enforcement resources on the problem. Or, perhaps, they would also see the value of limited government -- but the decision would be theirs.

Back to the news feeds ...

Tories Open A Gap On Grits: SES

According to SES Research, whose polling usually tends towards the Liberals, Paul Martin now finds himself in deep trouble with less than three weeks to go before the election. The Tories have now opened up a gap nationwide on the Liberals, and outside of Quebec enjoy a nine-point advantage and poll over 40%. Even in the Liberal bastion of Ontario, where Martin and his party has to do well in order to gain the plurality needed to retain power, the Conservatives have actually pulled slightly ahead.

SES polling among decided Canadian voters shows the national breakdown:

CP 36% (+7)
LIB 33% (-4)
NDP 15% (NC)
BQ 13% (-1)
GP 4 (-1)

However, 17% of all respondents say that they have not yet made up their mind, giving the Liberals some hope for a rescue. The trend, though, points towards voters abandoning the Grits and deciding to support the Tories. After taking Quebec out of the equation, where Tory ally Bloc Quebecois will win the majority of seats and Liberals will likely take most of the rest, the gap almost puts Stephen Harper into majority-rule territory. The Tories now lead the Liberals 43-34, a six point gain for Harper and a five point drop for Martin since December 1st.

The momentum seems to have shifted strongly to Harper and the Tories. With financial scandals breaking out all around the Liberals, it now looks like Canadians have decided that Harper and his supposed "hidden agenda" doesn't scare them nearly as much as Paul Martin's continued access to the public purse.

Predictions Of Fallout From Abramoff

With the plea deal in place and the prospect of decades of hard time staring him in the face, Jack Abramoff has little choice but to cough up as many of his co-conspirators in the halls of power as he must in order to minimize his prison time, and to make that time as comfortable as possible. I doubt he will err on the side of discretion when calculating what he has to do to ensure his future life outside of the federal penal system, and so we can expect that all of the Abramoff skeletons will come tumbling out of the closet. That will lead to a strange season in national politics, with the Congress reeling from the scandal and the executive holding the field by default rather than by design.

What does this mean for 2006 and 2008? Right now, here's how I see it:

* All politics are local -- I agree with Dafydd that the scandal is unlikely to affect the balance of power in Congress all by itself, except for those specific legislators that get nailed for corruption -- and even then, the lack of real competition will still mean a different Republican or Democrat will replace the one removed for malfeasance. Only if Abramoff never implicates a single Democrat -- unlikely, given the circumstances -- will the House roll to the Dems in '06. If so, the GOP will deserve it for not cleaning their own house first.

* Alito and other nominees get through -- The Abramoff scandal so far completely involves Congress and not the executive. When the complete list of legislators tainted by connection to Abramoff gets reported by the DoJ instead of the Washington Post and New York Time, thought to be as many as 300, these politicians will busy themselves with scouring their reputations through positive public works, not negative partisan attacks. Congress will lose much of its influence in the coming weeks thanks to Abramoff and this investigation, and its popularity will descend even further than once thought possible going into the 2006 elections.

* No insiders for President in 2008 -- The most significant development from this scandal will be the almost-certain disqualification for serious Presidential runs by anyone currently on the Hill, including Hill(ary) herself. Abramoff's stench will touch everyone currently noted for front-runner status, except possibly the most radical of Democrats, such as John Kerry -- who isn't going to get a second chance anyway. The next President of the US will be someone in a governor's seat now, and someone who hasn't served in Congress before. It could very well be Mitt Romney against Bill Richardson or Mark Warner.

We'll see how it develops, but if the Abramoff corruption goes as deep as prosecutors say, look for an unprecedented series of power shifts in the next two cycles -- not partisan, but demographic, as American voters start looking for fresh choices.

Alito Opposition Fails To Find Any Traction

On the brink of his confirmation hearings, Judge Samuel Alito still has the backing of the American people for his selection to the Supreme Court according to every major poll, the Washington Times reports today. With the nation's political attention diverted by the NSA intercepts and the Abramoff plea, it's unlikely that Alito opponents will get much media oxygen to reverse it before testimony begins next Monday:

Despite a major coordinated campaign, liberal interest groups have failed to convince the American public that the Senate should reject Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Every major poll indicates that far more voters think Judge Alito should be confirmed than think he should be rejected. Though that support generally is lower than it was for John G. Roberts Jr. before his confirmation for chief justice in the fall, it is on par with the public support for Supreme Court nominees during the past 20 years.

"Since the nomination of Samuel Alito, left-wing groups have lashed out at him through a number of avenues in an attempt to derail his nomination," conservative activists Sean Rushton and Joseph Cella said in a memo to supporters. "The left's campaign has involved television, radio, print and Internet campaigns, public statements, the issuing of reports, and a van-based road tour. In all these media, the left failed to generate any substantive opposition to Judge Alito."

A poll conducted by The Washington Post just before Christmas, for instance, found 54 percent in favor of Judge Alito's confirmation, compared with 28 percent opposed. A CNN poll last month similarly found 49 percent favoring Judge Alito and 29 percent opposed.

I will be attending the first couple of days of the hearing, along with the First Mate, after live-blogging Justice Sunday III as a blog-reporter. Unless the hearings produce a Harriet Myers moment, I doubt that anything said while Alito testifies will change any minds at all. His opponents needed to make their case before the start of the hearings, and it isn't as if they didn't have ample time to drum up whatever they could. The extended scheduling of the confirmation hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee gave every nutcase an extra four weeks to gin up the most ludicrous charges, all of which have fallen away from Alito.

Most humourously, the so-called Rolling Justice tour has been a spectacular flop. The touring protest organized by People for the American Way and the Alliance for Justice has attracted ... almost no one. The Washington Times reports that its impact "was not clear", but what was clear was the massive throngs of people who declined to show up when they arrived in any town. PFAW's Ralph Neas still claims that the anti-Alito forces comprise the "most formidable progressive coalition" since Robert Bork got pilloried, not exactly a great touchstone for comparison.

People have gotten tired of the PFAW/AJ circus every time Bush nominates someone to the appellate court or above; most of them recognize his prerogative to nominate qualified conservatives to the bench as he sees fit and understand that elections have those kinds of consequences. Neas still hasn't caught up to democracy, but the Alito confirmation may finally make it clear.

One Final Cruelty In The Mines Of West Virginia

The story of the thirteen trapped miners ended in cruelty and tragedy this morning, after a mistaken announcement left family and friends celebrating what they thought had been a miraculous rescue of twelve miners. Instead, rescuers only found one man barely alive, and the others all dead:

Great joy turned suddenly to deep sorrow Wednesday morning when stunned family members were told that 12 of the 13 miners trapped 13,000 feet into a mountainside since early Monday were dead rather than alive, as they, and the world, had been told hours earlier.

The first announcement, of a "miracle," was the result of a "miscommunication," a company official said.

The new announcement came at roughly 3 a.m., interrupting and then silencing celebratory church bells in this small town and leaving relatives of the miners in shock, grief and anger.

The new announcement, officially made by Ben Hatfield, CEO of the International Coal Group, was that one miner was alive, in critical condition at a local hospital. He was found near a vehicle in the mine, somewhere near the site of an apparent explosion Monday.

Our prayers are with the people of Sago and Tallmansville this morning. This news comes about as cruelly as anyone could have contrived. When I went to bed last night, unfortunately very late, the news had come across the wires that the men had been located alive but in need of medical attention -- not surprising, under the circumstances. The television showed pictures of the families and communities celebrating with tears of joy, and it was easy to join them. How that could have gotten screwed up remains to be seen, but they are now irate as well as devastated by their loss -- made double by their celebrations.

How awful. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Russia Passes On Gas War, Uses Middleman

In the game of chicken Kyiv that Viktor Yuschenko has played with Vladimir Putin over natual gas, the Russian autocrat finally blinked and settled for the limited price increase that Yuschenko initially offered to pay. In order to save face, the state-dominated Gazprom hid behind a middleman to meet Ukraine's demands:

Russia and Ukraine reached a deal Wednesday to resume gas shipments to Ukraine under a complex price scheme, ending a standoff that raised fears of long-term shortages in Europe. ...

Under the agreement, Russia's Gazprom will sell gas to a trading company for $230 per 1,000 cubic meters and Ukraine will buy gas from the company for $95. The trading company, Rosukrenergo, can charge Ukraine lower prices because it receives cheaper gas from Turkmenistan.

"We are fully satisfied with the agreement," Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said.

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the agreed price was $230 as of Jan. 1 but that it would fluctuate with the market. He did not indicate how often the price would be adjusted.

Yeah, it gets "adjusted" often enough. Expect an adjustment to come within weeks of the initial sale, and bank on the price coming a lot closer to the $95 resale mark. Every business model that comes to mind does not support a $230 product being profitable when resold for $95, no matter how much one cuts it with another source.

Obviously, Putin caved, and for obvious reasons; Yuschenko held the ace cards. Not only does Yuschenko control the territory that Russian gas has to transit to reach the vast bulk of its customers, but he also has their political support -- and Ukraine controls the warm-weather ports for the Russian Black Sea navy. As long as Russia tried to send gas to its other customers, Ukraine could tap the supply, which they admitted to doing late yesterday. Ukraine could also have started dismantling the pipeline or turned it off, which would have made the Russians lose one of their few reliable sources of hard currency.

Chalk up another win for the Ukrainian upstart against his former Russian masters. Yuschenko may have his faults, but a lack of nerve isn't among them.

Congress Told Of Expanded NSA Efforts In 2001

Despite recent protestations of Congressional outrage over the NSA program to intercept international communications from known and suspected al-Qaeda assets inside and outside of the US, it turns out that more members of Congress were told of the program than have let on. General Michael Hayden briefed members of both intelligence committees in October 2001 specifically to detail how the NSA would expand its reach in regards to FISA -- and the only concern given at the time was whether the NSA had gotten the proper presidential authority to proceed:

Congressional intelligence committees had at least a hint in October 2001 that the National Security Agency was expanding its surveillance activities after the 9/11 attacks, according to a letter released Tuesday by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The California Democrat had raised questions to Gen. Michael Hayden, then the NSA director, about the legal authority to conduct the eavesdropping work.

In the October 2001 letter, Pelosi said she was told in a briefing that month that the agency "had been operating since the Sept. 11 attacks with an expansive view" of its authorities "to the conduct of electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related statutes, orders, regulations and guidelines."

"I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting," Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, wrote Hayden. ...

But it appears that Hayden may have at least alluded broadly to the new surveillance work with a wider audience of House and Senate intelligence committee members during the classified October briefing. According to Pelosi's letter, Hayden spoke about the agency's new posture to expand its operations.

Hayden, who is now the nation's No. 2 intelligence official, told Pelosi he wanted to clarify ambiguities. "In my briefing, I was attempting to emphasize that I used my authorities to adjust NSA's collection and reporting," he wrote on Oct. 18, 2001.

Now we know that the intelligence committees had full knowledge of the NSA plan and its relationship to the FISA regulations and presidential authority. According to Pelosi's own letter, the only real issue that Congress had was whether the President himself had authorized the NSA to expand its intercepts -- an explicit acknowledgement that the authority remained within the President's scope of power, especially given the war-powers resolution Congress had just passed.

The outrage we hear today from people like Howard Dean should get directed to the members of Congress who have long known of this program and declined to object. Even today, we hear no voices from the intelligence panels that want this program to end. That shows that they understand the necessity and the legality of this crucial part of the American defense against al-Qaeda and other Islamofascist terrorists who will kill Americans by the thousands if they are given the opening to do so.

UPDATE: Actually, this story gets even better. It turns out that Hayden operationally took responsibility for expanding NSA operations in the wake of 9/11, and Pelosi wanted to ensure that Presidential authorization took place:

Ms. Pelosi, then the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said, "I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting."

The answer, General Hayden suggested in his response to Ms. Pelosi a week later, was that it had not. "In my briefing," he wrote, "I was attempting to emphasize that I used my authorities to adjust N.S.A.'s collection and reporting."

It is not clear whether General Hayden referred at the briefing to the idea of warrantless eavesdropping. Parts of the letters from Ms. Pelosi and General Hayden concerning other specific aspects of the spy agency's domestic operation were blacked out because they remain classified. But officials familiar with the uncensored letters said they referred to other aspects of the domestic eavesdropping program.

Bush administration officials said on Tuesday that General Hayden, now the country's No. 2 intelligence official, had acted on the authority previously granted to the N.S.A., relying on an intelligence directive known as Executive Order 12333, issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. That order set guidelines for the collection of intelligence, including by the N.S.A.

"He had authority under E.O. 12333 that had been given to him, and he briefed Congress on what he did under those authorities," said Judith A. Emmel, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "Beyond that, we can't get into details of what was done."

Once again, the Times mischaracterizes the program as a "domestic" operation. All of the Times reporting indicates that the warrantless NSA intercepts concerned international communications, not domestic -- which would under FISA have to both originate and end within the US. But more importantly, it again shows that Congress explicitly acknowledged the authority of the President to approve this expanded program. It also shows that the Democratic leadership had no problem with the program itself, but rather that it received the proper authorization from the President before proceeding much farther.

And again, note that none of the people involved in this briefing ever bothered to object to the expanded NSA effort until after the Times published its story.

Let The Chips Fall Where They May

Congratulations should come from all Americans to Department of Justice prosecutors who got lobbyist Jack Abramoff to agree to a plea deal by acknowledging a years-long string of corrupt activity in Washington DC. The prosecutors got Abramoff to plead guilty to a wide range of offenses, guaranteeing that he will either cooperate to the bitter end or spend the rest of his life in prison:

"I plead guilty, your honor," Abramoff said in flat, unemotional tones, accepting a plea bargain that said he had provided lavish trips, golf outings, meals and more to public officials "in exchange for a series of official acts."

In one case, he reported payments totaling $50,000 to the wife of a congressional aide to help block legislation for a client. The aide worked for DeLay, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Public corruption aside, Abramoff admitted defrauding four Indian tribes and other clients, taking millions in kickbacks from a one-time business partner, misusing a charity he had established and failing to pay income taxes on millions of ill-gotten gains.

He is expected to plead guilty to additional charges on Wednesday in Florida in connection with charges stemming from the 2000 purchase of a fleet of gambling boats.

At the Justice Department, officials said they intend to make use of the trove of e-mails and other material in Abramoff's possession as part of a probe that is believed to be focusing on as many as 20 members of Congress and aides.

Regardless of which politicians get proven corrupt -- and that means proven in court, not just allegations and indictments -- both Republicans and Democrats will be well rid of them. Since the Republicans have controlled Congress for the past decade or more, we can fully expect this to ensnare more GOP politicians than Democrats. Money always finds its way to those whose power runs highest and whose ethics run lowest. And even if an honest and fair investigation and prosecution only convicts Republicans -- I'm still looking forward to the housecleaning. Politicians enriching themselves on the public trust deserve to spend some quality time at Club Fed.

However, if Democrats think this might provide them with the Fitzmas they failed to get late last year, they will be somewhat disappointed. Abramoff, like any good lobbyist, has members of both parties in his Rolodex (or Blackberry -- betraying my age on the Rolodex comment, I think). CQ readers should already be familiar with the cast of Democratic characters likely to be conferring with counsel tonight:

* Reps James Clyburn (D-SC) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) - Longtime House ethics rules that applied to the 1996 and 1997 trips to the Northern Mariana Islands have strictly prohibited lawmakers and their staffs from accepting any congressional trips from lobbyists or their firms. The records state Preston Gates [Abramoff's lobbying firm] paid hotel and airfare for Thompson and Clyburn for travel to the island in January 1997. The two lawmakers filed reports to Congress saying a private, nonprofit group, not Abramoff's firm, paid the travel.

* Indian tribe money, which appears to be at the center of Abramoff's conviction today, went to many Republicans -- but also made its way into the following Democratic pockets:

Rep. Patrick Kennedy: $128K
Senator Harry Reid: >$40K
Senator Tom Daschle: >$40K
Rep. Dick Gephardt: $32.5K

* Harry Reid has a special problem with Abramoff, as the above link detailed last June. Not only did Reid get in excess of forty grand from Abramoff's clients, but that Abramoff hired one of Reid's political aides, who simultaneously helped raise funds for Reid. As the Post article reported in June:

James Patrick Manley, Reid's spokesman, also asserted that Reid's connection to tribes was remote from Abramoff. He said that Reid does not know Abramoff. But Abramoff did hire as one of his lobbyists Edward P. Ayoob, a veteran Reid legislative aide. Manley acknowledged that Ayoob helped raise campaign money for his former boss. Lawyers close to the Abramoff operation said that Ayoob held a fundraising reception for Reid at Greenberg Traurig's offices here.

* Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) had been the ranking member on the Senate oversight committee that should have caught Abramoff's influence peddling. Instead, Dorgan drank deep from Abramoff's glass:

New evidence is emerging that the top Democrat on the Senate committee currently investigating Jack Abramoff got political money arranged by the lobbyist back in 2002 shortly after the lawmaker took action favorable to Abramoff's tribal clients.

A lawyer for the Louisiana Coushatta Indians told The Associated Press that Abramoff instructed the tribe to send $5,000 to Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record)'s political group just three weeks after the North Dakota Democrat urged fellow senators to fund a tribal school program Abramoff's clients wanted to use.

The check was one of about five dozen the Coushattas listed in a tribal ledger as being issued on March 6, 2002, to various lawmakers' campaigns and political causes at the instruction of Abramoff, tribal attorney Jimmy Fairchild said Monday.

When we're talking about systemic corruption, we have to remember that it rarely, if ever, happens on a partisan basis. The idea that one party has a "culture of corruption" is ludicrous. Power corrupts, and regardless of current status, both parties wield power in Washington. The corruption will have followed both in proportion to their power. Expect to see enough takedowns to thoroughly embarrass everyone.

But regardless, as I wrote earlier, let the chips fall where they may. The DoJ has done a good job thus far at keeping it professional and balanced, and I trust them to continue to do so. And for a great round-up of reaction, check out Michelle Malkin, who says the same thing. If you love your country, you have to demand prosecution of the corrupt, even if they share your political viewpoints.

Patrick Henry's Dirty Little Secret

Pssst ... do you want to know a dirty little secret about Markos Moulitsas' hero du jour, Patrick Henry? The man that Kos notes approvingly in terms of character, writing that "When our nation was founded, we had men of real character and courage fighting for their nascent America, one in which liberty and freedom trumped the authorative tendencies of the monarchy. Patrick Henry gave words to those efforts: 'Give me liberty or give me death!'"

It turns out that Henry never served in the Revolution -- and even when given a commission and a command, he declined to serve:

1775 August 26: Although Henry had no military experience, he was elected colonel of the First Virginia Regiment and commander-in-chief of the Virginia militia.

1776 February 28: Henry resigned his military appointment.

Wow -- who knew that Kos would celebrate such a chickenhawk!

Of course, that slur would be ludicrous to use on Patrick Henry. Instead of picking up a gun and commanding an army, Henry relied on his better skills and went into politics and rhetoric to fight for freedom. He urged the armed uprising as one of the leading pundits of his age, from his seat in the Virginia Assembly and as governor of the independent Commonwealth of Virginia. His proclamation for liberty or death did not mean that he intended on grabbing his pistol and run out into the nearest battle he could find. It did mean that he made liberty, freedom, and democracy his life's work -- and in doing so, he helped form the basis of the mandate of Americans to throw off the British monarchy and engage in the world's greatest experiment in self-rule. His contribution to American freedom is no less honorable for his refusal to serve in the Revolutionary Army, and no less important.

All Kos did with his screed is demonstrate that he has nothing more than a facile understanding of both American history and the nature of civilian-based democratic government rather than military juntas.

UPDATE: Roger Ailes and CQ reader Duckman rightly point out that Patrick Henry did take part in one engagement, a raid to secure powder a few days after Lexington in May 1775 -- before he received his commission, in fact. Mea culpa. However -- and this is my point -- Patrick Henry's worth to the American Revolution has little or nothing to do with this one uncontested military effort on Henry's part. If that qualifies Henry as a hero in Kos' eyes, then why wouldn't flying two years of defense missions in a notoriously unreliable jet protecting the homeland qualify as well? Especially since the latter person requested a transfer to combat while the former resigned his commission just as the war started to heat up? Rather than "denigrating" Henry, as Duckman says I did, I pointed out that Henry's greatness had nothing to do with whether he served in a combat position at any point in his life, but in the work he did to push for the creation of this nation of freedom and liberty. He used his best skills to the fullest extent to perform great work. That isn't validated by his presence at one single engagement just as it isn't invalidated by his resignation of his commission after the war started -- as I argued.

The nitpickers get one fact right (and I got one wrong, of course) while managing to miss the entire point. Debating war policy based on the worthiness of one's prior service to the nation is a stupid, juvenile exercise, very much akin to measuring genitalia to determine manliness. Try focusing on the policy itself rather than the military experience of those who debate it.

The New Democratic Meme: Self-Immolation

Markos Moulitsas has lost it -- and the candidates who pay him for his services might have some explaining to do about their views on national security in the future. Kos wrote today that Republicans want to protect the United States out of a sense of cowardice (h/t: The Corner):

When our nation was founded, we had men of real character and courage fighting for their nascent America, one in which liberty and freedom trumped the authorative tendencies of the monarchy. Patrick Henry gave words to those efforts:

"Give me liberty or give me death!" ...

These blowhards pretend they are macho even as they piddle on themselves in abject terror from every "boo!" that comes out of Osama Bin Laden's mouth. They like to speak about how tough they are, even though they send others to fight their battles and couldn't last a day in places like Iraq, or Sudan, or the El Salvador of my youth, or any other war-torn nation....

The breathtaking cowardice of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists knows no bounds. They hide behind the American flag and our genuinely brave men and women in uniform. It's bad enough that they wouldn't deign to join the boots in the ground in Iraq. But now they make a mockery of our Constitution, for the very values that motivated our Founding Fathers to put their lives on the line to combat the unchecked powers of the British monarchy.

Patrick Henry, however, did not utter those words to urge Americans to withdraw from the world or to "redeploy" to a horizon position. He gave us that grand mission by urging Americans to rise up and fight the British to shake off the bonds of the monarchy that held us without representation in Parliament and without recourse to the very liberties Moulitsas accuses us of giving up. Nor did Henry say, "Let any man who agrees with me but does not fire a weapon be called a chickenhawk." Henry believed in civilian control of the government, not a military dictatorship where only soldiers and those who had served could enter the world of self-government.

In other words, the allegory is drizzly Kos bulls**t.

Kos loves freedom of speech when that speech agrees with him. He loves civilian control of the military when those civilians belong to MoveOn, but not when they belong to the Republican Party. In fact, Kos doesn't like American values at all -- he only uses them when convenient to his argument, but in fact would rather have a Starship Troopers (the movie) government made up of military bureaucrats making all of our decisions for us. He has no respect for those who did go to Iraq to help with security -- recalling his infamous "Screw 'em" to the civilians who did believe in the mission enough to go over and help out, smearing them as "mercenaries" -- and then calls those who stay home and support the mission 'cowards'.

I will pray every night that Howard Dean and the rest of the Democrats take Kos' advice and adopt this as their meme, because I'm sure people feel like they would rather not see New York nuked than to take action within the law to defend this nation. Even most of the Democrats in this country would have a problem with candidates adopting the "Let DC Burn As Long As International Calls Don't Get Checked" platform. I, for one, would rather have the NSA checking on valid leads on al-Qaeda terrorists here in the US than to have my granddaughter vaporized by Islamofascists at the Mall of America. And if Markos doesn't like the fact that I use my freedom of speech to make that clear, then Markos can kiss my entire ass. Screw him and anyone who supports him.

UPDATE: Clarified my reference to Starship Troopers, and removed reference to Heinlein -- not quite the same thing.

Tories Pull Ahead In Canada

The Conservative Party has jumped out to a slight lead in the election campaign in Canada, according to polling taken mostly after the RCMP announcement of a criminal investigation for the insider-trading allegations surrounding current Finance Minister Ralph Goodale. For the first time, Ipsos reports that the Tories now lead the Liberals on a national basis:

With the federal election now entering 2006 and its final stage, a new national Ipsos Reid survey, conducted on behalf of CanWest News Service/Global News, shows that while the Conservative and Liberal parties are in a virtual tie when it comes to vote support the underlying dynamics suggest that it is the Conservative campaign which has traction and momentum.

According to the survey, if a federal election were held tomorrow, 33% of voters would cast their ballot in support of the Conservatives (+1 point from last week’s survey), 32% would vote for the Liberals (32%, -1 point), 18% would vote for the NDP (+2 points), and 5% would vote for the Green Party (unchanged). In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois attract more than half of federal votes (52%, -2 points).

Currently four in ten Canadians (42%, +5 points) agree with the statement “I'd be comfortable voting for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives to form the government in the next election because we'll probably have another minority which will keep them in check” - 44% of Ontarians agree with this statement.

The news gets worse for the Liberals and PM Paul Martin. For the first time, the Grits may be losing Ontario. The new Ipsos polling shows for the first time that support for Liberals has fallen behind that of the Conservatives. The Tories have a razor-thin 2-point lead in the province that normally provides the Liberals their base of support. Absent that, they have leads in the Maritimes and BC, but without Ontario they have no hope of winning a large enough plurality to control the Commons.

The Grits have three weeks to turn things around, and with a brand-new investigation hanging over them like some Sword of Damocles, I doubt that even Martin is slippery enough to pull the wool over the eyes of Canadian voters one last time.

Sunnis And Kurds Near Political Arrangement

The growth of political dealmakiing grows in Iraq, as the largest Sunni group announced that it had reached preliminary agreement with the Kurds to create a framework for a coalition government, one they could implement as soon as the election commissions review the voting process from last month' elections. The move would provide either a sizable addition to a coalition government, or a stable opposition bloc to the Shi'ite plurality within the National Assembly and could induce the insurgency to recede as Sunni influence in the new government grows:

The largest Sunni Arab political group in Iraq unexpectedly moved toward agreement with Kurdish leaders Monday on a broad framework for a coalition government. The group, the Iraqi Consensus Front, said it would abandon claims that national elections last month had been rigged once international election monitors finish their review of the allegations.

The move drew a rebuke from other Sunni Arab political leaders who accused the Sunni consensus party of violating an agreement to press ahead with claims of Sunni disenfranchisement during the vote on Dec. 15 and to not bargain on their own for a role in the new government. ...

A Sunni consensus party official, Ahmad Rushdi, said that meetings in Iraqi Kurdistan between the party and the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani yielded "an agreement that the results from the international monitoring committee" - which is examining the vote - "would be approved." After results are final, he said, "discussion will continue about the formation of the upcoming government."

If the Kurds and Sunnis eventually did reach a political agreement, any deal to ultimately be part of a coalition government would be shaped by the dominant Shiite political alliance, which is expected to control nearly half the seats in parliament.

This surprising development promises something more -- a first agreement between the Kurds and the Sunni on political alliance shows a remarkable shift between the former oppressors and the people they oppressed. If the Kurds feel comfortable partnering with the Sunnis, it shows that decades of enmity can be set aside in a new democratic process -- and it proves to the Sunnis that they will comprise an important part of Iraqi politics. That kind of inclusiveness will motivate even further Sunni participation in Iraqi politics and discourage the destabilizing insurgencies that already appear to have lost the imagination of the Iraqi people.

Not One Dime's Candidate Gaining Ground

The Not One Dime campaign's first endorsed candidate, Stephen Laffey, has generated quite a bit of interest in his bid to unseat Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island. The New York Sun profiles Laffey in a Josh Gerstein article today, noting that Laffey's pro-Israel stance has helped boost his visibility:

The mayor of Cranston, R.I., Stephen Laffey, 43, is hoping to unseat Lincoln Chafee, a Republican who was appointed to the Senate in 1999 after the unexpected death of his father, John Chafee, and who won election to his father's former seat the following year.

The main fund-raising arm for Senate candidates, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is coming to Mr. Chafee's defense. About 11 months before the September 12 primary, the committee launched a series of television ads attacking Mr. Laffey's record on taxes and tarring him as a "slick" ally of the oil industry. The latter charge is taken as a slur by many environmentally conscious Rhode Islanders.

Mr. Chafee, 52, has made enemies of some political activists, though, with his votes against President Bush's tax cuts, against the Iraq war, and against a law authorizing sanctions on Syria. In 2004, the senator flirted with leaving the Republican Party and pointedly declined to vote for President Bush. Mr. Chafee told the Providence Journal that he wrote in the name of President George H.W. Bush as a "symbolic protest."

Those moves have produced support for Mr. Laffey.

"We've certainly hit a nerve," Mr. Laffey said of the intervention in the race by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "They obviously are very, very nervous."

And it's why Republicans should say Not One Dime! to the NRSC and instead contribute directly to GOP campaogns. I've already sent a donation to Laffey's campaign to make up for the fact that a national GOP organization would go on the attack against Republican primary challengers. To me, that's worse than supporting Chaffee, the most unreliable GOP caucus member of the Senate. Since when should our contributions go to attacking other Republicans?

Chaffee has done almost nothing for the GOP in this session of the Senate. He has proven himself a hurdle for George Bush's legislative agenda, frequently voting against tax cuts and the Bush foreign policy initiatives. No one knows why the NRSC has decided to attack Republicans on Chaffee's behalf, but we should make sure that we put an end to it. It looks like Chaffee might not be such a slam dunk after all, and our focus should be on finding and supporting those Republicans that will act like they belong to the same party. If nothing else, the NRSC should have kept its hands off the Rhode Island primary once a credible GOP challenger had been found to Chaffee.

UPDATE: Lincoln, not John; I made that mistake two times. Thanks to Jim for the heads-up.

Fiesta Bowl Live Blog

I've started this a bit late -- I kept falling asleep waiting for the game to start when I was going to prep for this post.

4:10 PM CT - Two minutes into the game, and the Irish have driven the field for an impressive score. Brady Quinn got a couple of chances to air it out, and the Irish topped it off with a long run off-tackle for the score. 7-0 Irish, 12:59 left in the first quarter!

4:15 - OSU picks up a first down, but only after all the receivers got covered ...

4:17 - Troy Smith hits a wide-open receiver (Ginn) for six points. Tied up at 7-7, 10:02 left Q1. Looks like a shooting match here today, folks.

4:27 - So far, the difference to me is that the Irish have been able to run the ball -- and they've stopped the Buckeyes on the ground. We'll see if that continues.

4:30 - OSU holds at about midfield - first punt of the day fair-caught at the 10. ND needs a three-and-out.

4:31 - The Nokia commercial about the "lady" who gets offended by a man offering his number for her cell phone is ... weird, man. What's that supposed to teach us about Nokia -- it's for losers?

4:34 - The Irish need a spy on Troy Smith. They did a nice job picking up the screen on the next play, though.

4:38 - The Irish get the first break of the game -- Troy Smith fights off a sack he should have taken and winds up coughing up the ball. The Irish live off these turnovers and they have ony 15 yards to go for a TD.

4:40 - OSU defense stiffens, forces a 4th down ... and the Irish fail to convert. Bad move. Should have taken the easy points at this stage of the game.

4:41 - I was wondering what Hugh was doing, but he doesn't appear to be live-blogging the game. His co-blogger, the lovely and talented Mary Catherine Ham, is spending today learning about good winterizing and the virtues of wood-burning fireplaces, and the limits of influence that a blog award brings.

4:45 - OSU has started running the ball a bit more effectively now, but they commit a stupid penalty after getting a first down.

4:51 - Ginn starts off the second quarter with reverse for 68 yards and a TD. He almost hot-dogged it too early, but made two remarkable cutbacks to fake out the pursuing Irish defenders and stumble into the end zone. OSU 14-7. Dang.

4:58 - Notre Dame gives up a three-and-out -- not a good way to answer the score. A good punt still gives OSU decent field advantange. The Irish have to continue to run the ball -- it's worked so far during the game. Why they used three straight passes on this series is kind of baffling.

5:03 - Note to Krum: it's always the retaliation that gets called. IOW, stop being stupid and FOCUS ON THE GAME, not the trashtalking.

5:09 - The option is really effective against the Irish defense. If they can't get a turnover here, OSU could really put them behind the eight-ball.

5:10 - As I was writing that, the option pitch coughs up the ball and the Irish recover.

5:17 - Yeah, I wouldn't believe me either, but it was the truth ...

5:17 - Brady tosses it deep as a reminder to OSU not to get to comfortable coming in close on defense.

5:20 - Weis has spotted something on the slant; it seems to have suddenly opened up for the Irish.

5:25 - Good punt coverage puts the ball on the two. The Irish need a defensive hold here.

5:27 - I've never heard of that before -- the ref stopped play and used the public address system to scold ABC for its camera placement! OSU gets the first down, and then scores on the next play. Not looking good for God's Team.

5:37 - OSU wants to go in for the kill at the end of the half. They own the big play today, no doubt ...

5:43 - The Irish block the chip-shot field goal to take something positive into the halftime locker room. HALFTIME.

5:57 - That was a great moment during halftime when Tostitos brought Lt Vera home and surprised his girlfriend -- and then he surprised her again by proposing on national TV. Good thing she said "yes". It brought a tear to my eye, but who among us didn't have a moment of thinking, "What if she says 'No'?"

6:11 - The Irish finally force OSU to punt after Brent Musberger noted that the Buckeyes had converted all of their third downs in the first half.

6:16 - Can we stop talking about Brady Quinn's sister being AJ Hawk's girlfriend? Brady's sister is cute, but I didn't wait six weeks for this game just to live it vicariously through her angst.

6:26 - "Can Baby Brother and the Quarterback Guru regroup?" BLEAGH. I have always despised Brent Musberger, and now I remember why. The Irish special teams, however, come up big with a second blocked kick to keep it to a two-touchdown gap.

6:31 - Going back to the slant, it's still working ...

6:35 - The Irish take advantage of the short game that OSU allowed and drove the field for a TD. The Irish blew the PAT, but still stay within a TD and a 2-point conversion despite getting thoroughly outplayed so far. 21-13.

6:42 - Is it a fumble or an incomplete? Looks like a fumble to me, but I'm biased. The Irish defense is still playing with some heart ...

6:46 - No fumble, and the Buckeyes get a FG finally on their third try. 24-13. We're still in it, but I'm not sure we deserve to be. OSU has outplayed the Irish on both sides of the ball, and only through some scrappy play and turnovers have we remained in the game.

6:53 - Last quarter, and the Irish can still come back, but they'd better play better than the first three if they're going to do it.

7:07 - OSU adds a field goal, but that only puts the game out to 14 points -- still a two-TD game. Unfortunately, I may have to run out before the game finishes. I have a dinner date with my granddaughter, of which she just called to remind me. ("Grandpa, when are we going to eat pizza?") I may have to catch this on the radio the rest of the way.

7:13 Samardziaj finally pulls one in and puts the Irish back into the long game...

7:22 - Gotta run. Granddaughters trump the Irish. It looks like the Irish may be ready to score, and I'll be listening on the radio. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

A Plaintive Cry For Relevancy

The AP notes with an overindulgence of respect the continuing efforts of John Kerry to run for president -- in any election that will tolerate him:

It's almost as if Sen. John Kerry never stopped running for president. He still jets across the country, raising millions of dollars and rallying Democrats. He still stalks the TV news show circuit, scolding President Bush at every turn.

His campaign Web site boasts of an online army of 3 million supporters.

The Massachusetts Democrat, defeated by Bush in 2004, insists it is far too early to talk about the 2008 race, but some analysts assume he has already positioning himself for another shot at the White House.

He still appears on national TV, but he still talks in the same lawyerly, noncommittal way about his own policies -- a habit that lost him the 2004 election. Kerry still hasn't formulated a coherent war policy, despite having over two years to do so now. He might increase troop strength, or he might start withdrawing troops. At one point, he proposed doing both, and so on. Blah, blah, blah.

The army of 3 million supporters? That's his e-mail list from 2004, a fact that the AP neglects to explain. Most of those will support whoever wins the Democratic primary; most have no particular attachment to John Kerry.

He still hasn't explained to those supporters and his fellow Democrats why he wound up the campaign with $15 million still left in the war chest. He still hasn't explained how he managed to lose to the most polarizing figure in politics, one that Democrats assumed would easily get defeated through the fanning of irrational Bush-hatred that energizes their own party. Until Kerry can give clear and precise answers on what changes he can make to turn himself into a winner and to overcome the negatives that emerged during his presidential campaign, the Democrats will stick with Hillary or perhaps Mark Warner.

Kerry can run all he wants. The Democrats will not provide a finish line for his lonely race.

The NFL Starts Playing The Head Coach Shuffle

Other NFL shoes started hitting the carpet today, a day after the official end of the 2005 season. As expected, Mike Martz lost his position with the St. Louis Rams today after missing most of the 2005 season with a heart ailment. Mike Sherman unexpectedly joined him on the unemployment line, fired after his first losing season in seven years with the Green Bay Packers:

Just one day after completing the franchise's worst season since 1991, the Green Bay Packers on Monday dismissed head coach Mike Sherman, ESPN.com has confirmed.

The move, which will be announced at a morning news conference, came despite the fact the Packers awarded Sherman a two-year contract extension worth about $6.4 million last summer. It also fuels speculation about the future of quarterback Brett Favre, who said several times during the season that he would not return in 2006 if Sherman was not retained by Packers officials.

Green Bay concluded the '05 season with a victory over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday in a game that might have been Favre's swan song. There was also speculation it might have been the finale for Sherman as well, and general manager Ted Thompson apprised the head coach Monday morning that he would not return.

This shows rather clearly that the Pack wants to start over in 2006, clear of both Sherman and Favre, whose inherent wildness escalated as the injury list grew and his reliable teammates got replaced with journeymen and inexperienced rookies. The chants of "one more year" during the Seahawks game yesterday afternoon apparently had little effect on the Packers' front office.

The next move with come from Brett Favre. If he decides to return even after Sherman's firing, the Pack can hardly refuse to take Favre back. Their fans would eat them alive if they treated their greatest player in a generation with anything but effusive respect and affection. However, it would be hard for Favre to miss this message. Most people would probably have given Sherman a pass for 2005 after having to deal with the deluge of injuries that crippled Green Bay's effort this year. My guess is that Favre takes the hint and retires with his dignity intact -- but that the Packers will not be able to count on Favre for much in the way of public support from this point forward. He has too much class to air this publicly, but Favre will look at this as a slap at him and his worth to the club ... and he'll be right.

Martz, on the other hand, will not be shocked to see the pink slip. He has been on the outs all year with Rams management, who have not been satisfied with the team's direction for a while. He probably needs to assess his own health to determine whether he can withstand the rigors of more years as an NFL head coach, or whether he might do better in a less-consuming role as a TV analyst or booth color man. Martz has a good track record for either direction.

Note that these teams found it unnecessary to announce within an hour of their final games -- all victories -- that they were firing their head coaches. It seems that some teams still have a sense of class about the timing of such announcements.

UPDATE: Should have been Mike Sherman, not Ray. And now we can add Jim Haslett (Saints) and Dom Capers (Houston Texans) to the unemployment line. That leaves seven openings for head coaches with the earlier retirement of Dick Vermeil (KC), and the firings of Mike Tice and Steve Mariucci (Lions). Norv Turner might make it eight today after he hears from The Prince of Darkness, Al Davis (Oakland) today.

Journos Reckon With Empowered Readership, Still Mostly Clueless

The media revolution of the past three years has introduced a level of empowerment to the consumers of mass media unlike anything that has ever existed before, and that empowerment comes primarily through the blogosphere and the Internet. The New York Times' Katherine Seelye explores some of the impact felt by journalists and editors at having to make themselves accountable to their readers:

Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, or so goes the old saw. For decades, the famous and the infamous alike largely followed this advice. Even when subjects of news stories felt they had been misunderstood or badly treated, they were unlikely to take on reporters or publishers, believing that the power of the press gave the press the final word.

The Internet, and especially the amplifying power of blogs, is changing that. Unhappy subjects discovered a decade ago that they could use their Web sites to correct the record or deconstruct articles to expose what they perceived as a journalist's bias or wrongheaded narration.

But now they are going a step further. Subjects of newspaper articles and news broadcasts now fight back with the same methods reporters use to generate articles and broadcasts - taping interviews, gathering e-mail exchanges, taking notes on phone conversations - and publish them on their own Web sites. This new weapon in the media wars is shifting the center of gravity in the way that news is gathered and presented, and it carries implications for the future of journalism.

Seelye gets close to the nature of the revolution without ever quite getting it into her sights. The difference between now and twenty years ago has to do with the Internet and the blogosphere, but she misses the manner in which they're used to emulate a "mirror media", if you will. What the technology allows people like me to do is to become our own newspaper, our own media outlet, with the entire blogosphere acting as oversight to my posts. It takes the same basic activities that reporters perform -- fact-gathering, quote-gathering, interviews on occasion, and publication -- and then subjects the result to a peer-review process that the media long since gave up.

It's that crucial component that Seelye misses in her article, and that the media misses when it considers the impact of the blogosphere. Blogs get their assumptions wrong and facts incorrect as well, but the natural peer-review process exposes it pretty quickly -- and our credibility suffers if we don't acknowledge it. The Exempt Media doesn't bother to do peer review or act in any kind of competitive manner at all, except in narrow geographic areas where newspapers and local TV stations compete for consumer attention. Competition keeps all actors in any activity accountable -- and it's that accountability that journalists resent the most from the revolution of the media consumer.

Seelye even unconsciously displays this in this statement:

But the power of blogs is exponential; blog posts can be linked and replicated instantly across the Web, creating a snowball effect that often breaks through to the mainstream media. Moreover, blogs have a longer shelf life than most traditional news media articles. A newspaper reporter's original article is likely to disappear from the free Web site after a few days and become inaccessible unless purchased from the newspaper's archives, while the blogger's version of events remains available forever.

Well, there's a remedy for that -- quit charging consumers for access to archived stories! The Times and other newspapers can argue that the storage of such data costs money, but we know that data storage does not actually cost very much at all. Hard drive costs have plummetted over the past decade. The Times sells advertising on its Internet editions, and the archives would carry the same ads as their more recent articles. If the newspaper truly feels that the archiving of stories gives bloggers an unfair advantage, then adapt to the new reality. Either that, or emulate the dodo bird and go out of business.

Seelye includes more cluelessness from those opposed to public accountability for their public performances:

Interview subjects are "annoyed that they're quoted out of context, or they did a half-hour interview and only one sentence got used. Or sometimes they're just flattered that a reporter called them," [Rebecca MacKinnon] said. "If you're one of a growing number of people with a blog, you now have a place where you can set the record straight."

Danny Schechter, executive editor of MediaChannel.org and a former producer at ABC News and CNN, said that while the active participation by so many readers was healthy for democracy and journalism, it had allowed partisanship to mask itself as media criticism and had given rise to a new level of vitriol.

"It's now O.K. to demonize the messenger," he said. "This has led to a very uncivil discourse in which it seems to be O.K. to shout down, discredit, delegitimize and denigrate the people who are reporting stories and to pick at their methodology and ascribe motives to them that are often unfair."

Schecter should be the last person complaining about partisanship. I receive his newsletter on a regular basis but find it almost unreadable as it regularly indulges in partisan sniping on the war, Hurricane Katrina, and so on. Where else would one continue to read the paranoid rantings of Wayne Madsen, the man who wrote about George Bush's "Christian Blood Cult"? Who else has a website that claims as its mission this statement:

With the Bush administration on the defensive, with rationalizations for the war fading, with public opinion shifting, with talk of troop withdrawals all the buzz even as the Pentagon hardens "permanent" bases in the mess it has made of ‘Messopotamia,’ it's time for those who oppose the war to think about where our pressure and protest might hasten the war's end.

If Seelye wanted to make a point about partisanship in the media, she should have picked a better source to discuss it. It's this kind of activity that created the need for the blogosphere in the first place. Papers like the NY Times select sources without revealing their own biases and in this case, their own vitriolic approach to politics. Instead, Seelye uses Schechter to attack the people who would hold her accountable. In truth, MacKinnon hit the nail on the head, and Seelye just gave an unintended demonstration of how right she was.

Seelye's article shows that the Exempt Media has awakened to the new reality. It also shows that it doesn't understand it very well.

More Russian Hot Air Over Ukrainian Gas

The Russo-Ukrainian gas crisis that threatens to engulf Europe escalated this morning as Gazprom's customers noticed a significant drop in deliveries. That prompted Russia to accuse Ukraine of diverting the flow of Russia's production -- which comes as no surprise, since the gas transits across Ukrainian pipelines and Ukrainian territory:

Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly on Monday accused Ukraine of diverting about $25 million worth of Russian gas intended for other European countries, a day after Moscow halted deliveries to Kiev in a price dispute.

Ukraine in turn accused Russia of trying to undermine its economy, calling for a resumption of gas price negotiations, this time including international experts.

Russia's OAO Gazprom halted gas deliveries to Ukraine on Sunday after Kiev balked at paying quadruple the amount it previously paid for Russian gas, which accounts for about a third of the consumption in the country of 48 million people.

Ukraine denies siphoning off any gas from Gazprom. They claim that they have switched to using strategic stores of their own natural gas and imports from the Bizarro land of Turkmenistan, where they recently reconfirmed pricing with Sapurmurat Niyazov, the narcissistic Stalinist that runs Turkmenistan as a personality cult. In truth, Ukraine will not long allow the transit of gas production across its country unless Russia gives them deep discounts on imports. The Ukrainians will eventually disrupt the deliveries by openly dismantling the pipeline in the final instance and evicting the Russians from their Black Sea naval bases.

The Russians, already cash-strapped as they are, cannot afford to allow this to continue for a long period. European nations will start making other arrangements for natural gas if the situation does not stabilize in the next few days; they cannot afford to have people freezing in their homes just to wait out the crisis. Yuschenko appears ready to play this game of chicken to the bitter, freezing end, and Putin had better decide whether his pocketbook can take the strain, as well as the loss of economic prestige just as he takes over the presidency of the G-8.

One wonders whether his new Gazprom director, Gerhard Schroeder, was supposed to smooth this path from the beginning. We have yet to hear from the former German Chancellor about the crisis.

The Triangle Strategy End Game

Predictably, the Palestinians have called an end to the "truce" with Israel as the latter has continued to respond to the provocations supplied by Islamic Jihad. In this case, however, the notorious triangle strategy of the Palestinians has backfired on Mahmoud Abbas, as his own al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade has betrayed his leadership and aligned itself with Islamic Jihad:

Palestinian armed groups ended a year-long truce with Israel yesterday in a move which could lead to new violence and derail elections in the West Bank and Gaza already threatened by lawlessness and political infighting.

The so-called "cool down" by militants has been frequently interrupted by rocket attacks launched from Gaza, and Islamic Jihad has continued to carry out suicide bombings on Israeli targets.

From the Israeli side, the "cool down" or truce has been non-existent. IJ terrorists have launched rockets from Gaza since Fatah and Hamas supposedly agreed to stop the violence. As I have often remarked, this classic triangle strategy allows the Palestinians to claim that Israel victimizes them whenever they try to achieve peace through negotiations, but the Israeli pullout from Gaza shows how ridiculous that argument has been all along. Now Abbas has to explain how he couldn't even control his own faction in upholding the truce.

I've said it before, and the Palestinians keep proving me correct: they want an all-out war with Israel, and they keep demanding leadership that will give it to them. One of these days, the West will finally allow Israel to give them what they want, and Egypt and Jordan will need to start preparing the refugee camps now for that day.

A Classless Exit Staged By Low-Rent Ownership

Mike Tice has never been one of my favorite coaches -- his tenure as head coach for the Vikings has had a lot more to do with his cheap contract than any success on the field for any of his teams. He should have been fired after the revelation that he had set up a ticket-scalping operation involving his players over several years, but the new ownership elected to keep Tice and his cheap salary around, even after the Love Boat scandal earlier this year.

After all of that, and after Tice led the Vikings back into respectability in the second half of the season and thumped the Chicago Bears at home today, owner Zygi Wilf couldn't even wait until tomorrow to announce that he had fired Tice:

The Minnesota Vikings fired coach Mike Tice after Sunday's victory over Chicago.

Owner Zygi Wilf announced he would not renew Tice's contract in a statement less than an hour after the Vikings' 34-10 win over the Bears in the regular season finale. Tice, who compiled a 33-34 overall record -- including a 1-1 record in the postseason -- had already addressed the media before the move was made public. The announcement came via press release after most players had left the Metrodome.

"I don't know who was more shaken by it, him or me," Tice said of what he called an emotional meeting with Wilf.

I'm not disputing the decision. I think the Vikings need better leadership on several levels. However, the coach just won a game in a rout against a division rival -- against their second-stringers, but a big win nonetheless -- and finished the season with a winning record after a 2-5 start. In my opinion, that earns Tice a couple of days to enjoy the victory and hang out with his players as something other than the man cleaning out his office.

It shows that the current ownership will extend an unfortunate streak of classlessness for the foreseeable future. I guess it can't all be blamed on the players.

Scheuer-Die Zeit Interview Translated

Melchior at Simplicius Redivivus has begun translating the entire Die Zeit interview with former CIA operative Michael Scheuer, and has posted part one of five at his blog. Melchior has read the entire interview and alerts me that the DZ chat gives a significantly different view of the rendition program than what has been reported by the American media:

ZEIT: Who invented the system of "extraordinary renditions"?

Scheuer: President Clinton, his security advisor Sandy Berger, and his terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tasked the CIA in Fall 1995 with destroying al-Qaida. We asked the President: what should we do with the people we've apprehended? Clinton: that's your concern. The CIA objected: we aren't prison guards. We were again told that we should solve the problem somehow. So we developed a procedure, and I was a member of this task force. We concentrated on al-Qaida members who were wanted in their home countries or who had been convicted there in absentia.

ZEIT: How did you decide who should be apprehended?

Scheuer: We had to present a huge amount of incriminating evidece to a group of lawyers.

ZEIT: Lawyers? In the intelligence services?

Scheuer: Yes, lawyers everywhere. In the CIA, in the Justice Department, in the National Security Council. We developed our list of targets under their supervision. Then we had to catch the person in a country that was prepared to cooperate with us. Finally, the person had to come from a country that was prepared to take him back. A terribly cumbersome process for a very limited group of targets. ...

ZEIT: Did the interrogations take place in the destination countries?

Scheuer: We always submitted our questions in writing.

ZEIT: The CIA was never present at the interrogations?

Scheuer: Not that I ever heard. The lawyers forbade us from that.

Melchior will have more to come. Now we can understand why the US wanted to adapt the rendition program, too. We needed to interrogate these people and get reliable information about their contacts. That's why we wound up finally giving the CIA the resources to detain and interrogate captured terrorists -- so we wouldn't have to rely on recalcitrant "allies" to interrogate terrorists, even if they were inclined to do so.

Connecting Dots Alarms The Washington Post

In the second non-scandal today, the Washington Post runs a Walter Pincus revelation that the NSA intercerpts from Bush's program have been shared with law-enforcement agencies and other intelligence services in order to track people deemed threatening to the security of the US. Once again, we have another would-be exposé that fails to include even a general allegation of any wrongdoing, instead relying on the readers to supply their paranoia to what amounts to a success story for American defense in the war on terror:

Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.

The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.

At least one of those organizations, the DIA, has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further. Spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, declined to comment on the use of NSA data.

Does Pincus give us any indication that this data has been abused, or that the agencies involved have either used it illegally or conducted wholesale invasions of privacy with it? No. Instead, Pincus reminds people that forty years ago, the Johnson and Nixon administrations spied on domestic political opponents in a complete non-sequitur:

Since the revelation last month that President Bush had authorized the NSA to intercept communications inside the United States, public concern has focused primarily on the legality of the NSA eavesdropping. Less attention has been paid to, and little is known about, how the NSA's information may have been used by other government agencies to investigate American citizens or to cross-check with other databases. In the 1960s and 1970s, the military used NSA intercepts to maintain files on U.S. peace activists, revelations of which prompted Congress to restrict the NSA from intercepting communications of Americans.

Pincus refers to "today's controversy over domestic NSA intercepts" in one part of the story, even though the supposed scandal involves the international intercepts performed without warrants. Domestic intercepts have been performed with FISA warrants, according to the Times reporting. Pincus tries again in that paragraph to tie the NSA program to the abuses from forty years ago, but again provides not one single case to prove his point.

Instead, as Instapundit points out, it only demonstrates that the Bush administration learned from the 9/11 disaster. It has made sure that its alphabet-soup of law enforcement and intelligence agencies have learned to share data and to work together on investigations and analysis. This meets the demand made by Congress and the 9/11 Commission. This story actually confirms that the NSA intercept program authorized by Bush has developed good intel on terrorist assets within the US, and that the program has allowed the FBI and other agencies to shadow them and develop even more information on their threat profile and domestic contacts.

No wonde, then, that Bush's polling numbers go up every time the Post and the NYT attempt to smear him with baseless charges of imperialism and Orwellian behavior. The only point they keep making is that Bush has worked within the law to ensure that everything possible has been done to keep us safe. The Pincuses, Lichtblaus, and Risens of the Exempt Media have done a wonderful job proving that four years of terror-attack-free life has been no fluke, no coincidence at all.

UPDATE: Make sure you take a good look at Joe Gandelman's round-up of opinions on this story.

More Desperation At The Gray Lady

The New York Times leads with yet another update on its NSA-intercept program, which has shown more holes than substance once subjected to review. Its latest installment proves no different, as the paper attempts to pump a bit of adrenaline back into the story with the breathless headline, "Justice Deputy Resisted Parts of Spy Program". It sounds very damning, until readers make it through the entire article -- and realize that Eric Lichtblau and James Risen once again fail to even allege a single act of wrongdoing.

Here's the core of the story:

A top Justice Department official objected in 2004 to aspects of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and refused to sign on to its continued use amid concerns about its legality and oversight, according to officials with knowledge of the tense internal debate. The concerns appear to have played a part in the temporary suspension of the secret program.

The concerns prompted two of President Bush's most senior aides - Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House counsel and now attorney general - to make an emergency visit to a Washington hospital in March 2004 to discuss the program's future and try to win the needed approval from Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the officials said.

The unusual meeting was prompted because Mr. Ashcroft's top deputy, James B. Comey, who was acting as attorney general in his absence, had indicated he was unwilling to give his approval to certifying central aspects of the program, as required under the White House procedures set up to oversee it. ...

What is known is that in early 2004, about the time of the hospital visit, the White House suspended parts of the program for several months and moved ahead with more stringent requirements on the security agency on how the program was used, in part to guard against abuses.

The concerns within the Justice Department appear to have led, at least in part, to the decision to suspend and revamp the program, officials said. The Justice Department then oversaw a secret audit of the surveillance program.

Hmm. We have Ashcroft going to the hospital for a serious medical condition in 2004 after having signed off on the NSA intercept program every 45 days since 9/11, and after ranking members of Congressional intelligence committees from both parties had received numerous briefings on the efforts. With Ashcroft in the hospital, the administration went to James Comey, who had some concerns about the program. The White House went to Ashcroft afterwards, who concurred with Comey. The White House then voluntarily suspended the program and worked with the DoJ to revamp the program to satisfy their concerns and once again get the necessary sign-off for its resumption, and the DoJ then started doing regular audits to ensure that its concerns remained addressed.

So what's the problem? It doesn't appear that the White House did anything remarkable. They followed the FISA law in getting the certification of the Attorney General, and when that couldn't be done, they stopped the program. They proved willing to make adaptations that would satisfy the AG, who then certified the program for a restart. The administration continued briefing Congressional committees on the program and its progress, and except for one note from John Rockefeller, never received any objections. To this day, not one of the people briefed on the NSA intercepts has called for cancellation of the program.

Lichtblau and Risen continue to push this as a major criminal enterprise without producing even the hint of a crime. They want to paint the White House as an imperial Presidency, running roughshod over the law, when their own account shows the White House following procedure, maintaining the necessary approvals, and suspending the program when it couldn't secure the approvals. So far, the only story here is that the New York Times has apparently gone into business to shill books written by its reporters, and that the editors of the paper won't even hold themselves accountable to their own ombudsman, let alone their readers.

This meme has become pathetic.

CQ reader and commenter Coldwarrior left some interesting comments in this thread regarding the possible origin of the leak. His information centers around disaffected Air Force personnel who had an axe to grind for the prosecution of an AF officer in a vandalism case; the officer defaced cars with pro-Bush bumper stickers. It doesn't have anything to do directly with whistleblowing but rather just an attempt to embarrass the White House. He predicts that we will see this resolved very quickly -- perhaps within a week.

Open Season On Hostage Appeasers In Yemen

A pattern appears to have developed among hostage-takers in the Middle East -- a growth in market-based decisions, if you will. Yemeni tribesman have discovered that it pays to kidnap people whose governments cut deals with terrorists in order to free hostages. The latest example comes just hours after the Germans negotiated the release of a former diplomat and his family. Now tribesman have kidnapped a group of five Italians and expect the Yemeni government to negotiate their release:

Tribesmen kidnapped five Italians in northern Yemen on Sunday, a day after the government negotiated the release of five Germans held hostage, security officials said.

The Italians were kidnapped just hours after Yemen's president pledged to hunt down the "outlaws" taking hostages.

The Italians were seized in the northern province of Ma`rib, security officials said. The kidnappers belonged to the al-Zaydi tribe and wanted the government to release eight tribal members detained in connection with disputes with another tribe, police and tribal officials said.

Italy's Foreign Ministry said it had activated "all useful channels" to verify the kidnappings. Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini was monitoring the developments.

The abductions came a day after the release of a former top German diplomat and his family, who were held along with three Yemeni assistants for three days in eastern Shabwa province. The kidnappers had demanded that the government release five members of their al-Abdullah bin Dahha tribe who are standing trial for allegedly killing two members of the rival tribe in October.

Let's recall the history of both nations when it comes to dealing with kidnappers and terrorists. Germany just negotiated with Iraqi terrorists to win the release of Susanne Osthoff. It turned out that Osthoff didn't exactly pine for the safer havens of Germany, and opted instead to stay in Iraq. Meanwhile, they gave Hezbollah terrorist and murderer of American naval diver Michael Stethem, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, a free flight to Beirut instead of the US. What did Germany get for its trouble? It won a reputation for being a soft touch and saw more of its citizens get targeted as a result.

As for the Italians, while they have been resolute in keeping their commitment with troops in Iraq, they have proven much less resolute about eschewing negotiations with terrorist kidnappers. The Italians paid off the Iraqi terrorists with a reputed multi-million-dollar ransom to free leftist reporter Giuliana Sgrena, who then got shot when the Italians failed to coordinate her extraction with the Americans or even with each other.

Now both nations have to deal with the inevitable lesson that they taught the terrorists -- that when it comes to attacking German and Italian civilians abroad, crime pays, and so do they.

A Cold Winter In Europe

The dispute between Russia and Ukraine over natural-gas pricing has resulted in a cut-off of supplies to the West-leaning Ukraine, a development that started today as that nation refused to accept a quadrupling in price as a result of their closer poltical alliance with Europe. And since Russian supplies to Europe have to pass through Ukraine to get there, the spigot has run empty to the rest of the Continent despite Russia's insistence that the dispute would have no effect on its exports:

In a move that could hit fuel availability across Europe this winter, the state-controlled Russian firm Gazprom started reducing pressure in the gas pipeline to its neighbour before the deadline for agreement, set at 10am local time, had passed.

Gazprom supplies 25 per cent of western Europe's gas, much of which comes via Ukraine.

The company said today that deliveries to western Europe would not be affected, but the Italian oil and gas firm Eni said it had been warned by Gazprom that supplies could be disrupted.

Poland now confirms that the disruption has moved beyond the theoretical. Their gas company, PGNiG, announced within the hour that they expect to lose 14% of all their natural-gas supplies:

Supplies of natural gas to Poland have been hit by cuts imposed by Russia on the amount of gas entering the pipeline system in neighbouring Ukraine, Poland's gas company PCNiG has said.

"Today at 11:00 am (1000 GMT), PGNiG was informed by the National Gas Directorate of a fall in pressure at the connection point at the Polish-Ukrainian border at Drozdowicze," PGNiG said in a statement. "This indicates a fall in supplies originating in Ukraine and is a consequence of the decision by Russia's Gazprom to restrict deliveries of Russian gas to Ukraine."

The restrictions on Russian supplies to Ukraine would affect 14 percent of the overall volume of natural gas used in Poland, the statement added Sunday.

Ninety percent of the natural gas imported into Poland comes from the east.

Perhaps Russian diplomats truly are naive, or else they thought that the rest of Europe would be stupid enough to believe that Russia could cut off gas supplies to Ukraine while still transiting gas across Ukrainian pipelines to its other customers. Viktor Yuschenko has called the Russian bluff on this little game of chicken that Vladimir Putin has suddenly decided to play.

The reason that Russia can transit gas to customers across the continent is that Ukraine allows them to use their land. In return for that access, through which Gazprom makes its profits, it has given Ukraine steep discounts on their use of natural gas. Yuschenko had expressed a willingness to pay more for it, an increase of about 60%, without getting into a diplomatic/economic war over it. Russia refused to budge, but still told its European clients that it could deliver natural gas without a problem even if the Ukrainian defiance did not change. Apparently, the Russians expected people to believe that Ukraine would sit back and allow their taps to run dry while gas got pumped across their land to Gazprom's other customers. Not even the Russians believed that, however.

And Yuschenko holds the next ace card, too. The Russians need Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea for its navy. So far, Yuschenko has not yet threatened to evict the Russians, probably because they spend good money while docked there. However, if the winter gets much colder there, expect the stakes to get hotter.

In the meantime, Europe has a big problem with energy this winter. The decline in supply will either force them to do without or to replace the supply with other sources of energy. That could push petroleum prices higher in the short run, and it will surely drive natural-gas pricing through the roof in Europe. The European economy, which hasn't been a big performer anyway, will not absorb this blow easily. Expect rationing and a handful of stories about the destitute freezing to death this winter if neither Russia nor Ukraine blinks. My prediction? Russia already regrets pushing it this far; expect them to rethink their pricing structure before Ukraine takes an axe to the trans-national pipeline and permanently cuts Russia off from its Western money supply.