Milbank To The Woodshed

After Dana Milbank's much-noted and roundly criticized appearance in blaze orange hunting gear on Keith Olbermann's cable show last week, people waited to hear some response from his employer, the Washington Post. Bloggers complained that his mocking appearance demonstrated a clear bias on the part of the "reporter" and wanted clarification on his classification at the newspaper. In Sunday's ombudsman column, Deborah Howell provides the answer:

Dana Milbank can be controversial with readers. The Post reporter has his fans -- and I can be one of them -- but I think his appearance on MSNBC last week was a mistake in judgment. ...

Liz Spayd, assistant managing editor for national news, said Milbank's column, patterned after similar columns in British newspapers, "observes and reports about the theater of politics. He is a genius at capturing an element of how this city works in a voice that is original and delightful to take in. His column is not ideological. He doesn't take a stand on issues or pass judgment on policy. In that role, he has a little more freedom than a conventional staff writer might." ...

Spayd said she felt Milbank "crossed the line" on his TV appearance. "What he intended as a playful joke was viewed by many as mocking and unprofessional, and understandably so." Suffice it to say that he has been taken to The Post's version of the woodshed and told not to do that again.

This is the second time that Milbank's remarks on that show have caused a row. In October, he spoke in a fake Iraqi accent, which many readers felt was over the line. Milbank said he has appeared on the show -- which he describes as "half news, half shtick" -- wearing a Santa hat, brandishing a cigar and having an anvil dangled over his head.

The Post wants to reassure its readers that its news journalists take their work seriously and perform in a non-ideological manner. Howell assures conservative readers of Milbank's supposed lack of bias by using one of the hoariest mechanisms -- claiming that on occasion, liberals have complained about his reporting, too. That excuse doesn't wash. Milbank has a clear bias in both his reporting and his opinion pieces, and not even the Post can tell the difference. As Howell herself points out, the print version of the Post lists him as a news reporter while the web version refers to him as an opinion writer.

Maybe the Post needs to get its editorial staff together and decide exactly why Milbank gets paid, especially after this debacle.

As I wrote before, unlike many conservatives, I like Milbank's columns; they're entertaining and fun to read. That being said, he clearly traded his credibility for a cheap laugh, and as he himself admits, it isn't the first time he's done it. While the Post's public scolding of Milbank and his trip to the virtual woodshed sends a clear message of disapproval of his antics, the fact that he has a track record of this behavior should lead readers to the conclusion that these tactics don't have much effect on Milbank's judgment.

If I were Howell or the Post management, I'd keep an extra bottle of aspirin handy, perhaps in a blaze-orange bottle marked "MILBANK". They'll need it for the headaches and embarrassment Milbank will likely bring in the future.

Bad Girls Deserve Abuse? Italian Court Says 'Si!'

The Italian supreme court handed down an inexplicable decision in a sexual assault case, saying that the jury should have been told about the sexual history of a 14-year-old girl when considering the guilt of her stepfather for forcing her to submit to oral copulation. The decision paves the way for a reduction in the 40-month sentence of the abuser and has caused an explosion of angry criticism in Italy:

exually abusing a teenager is less serious a crime if the girl is not a virgin, Italy's higher court said on Friday in a controversial ruling that immediately drew a barrage of criticism.

The court ruled in favor of a man in his forties, identified only as Marco T., who forced his 14-year old stepdaughter to have oral sex with him after she refused intercourse.

The man, who has been sentenced to three years and four months in jail, lodged an appeal arguing that the fact that his stepdaughter had had sex with men before should have been taken into consideration during his trial as a mitigating factor.

The supreme court agreed, saying that because of her previous sexual experiences, the victim's "personality, from a sexual point of view, is much more developed than what would be normally expected of a girl of her age".

"It is therefore fair to argue that (the damage for the victim) would be lower" if the abused girl was not a virgin, Italian news agencies quoted the court as saying.

So now the Italian justice system wants to set up a degree of varying damage to women who are sexually abused based on their own sexual experience. It seems to me that a 40-month sentence already seems rather light for a stepparent who abused a young girl under his care. Now the court wants to set an even shorter span depending on whether the victim has engaged in consensual sexual activity. Why? Does the Italian justice system believe that good girls don't deserve to get raped, but somehow bad girls ask for it?

Their court has embarrassed Italy, and for good reason. Their notion of sexual predation belongs to the nineteenth century, not the twenty-first, and Italian women should consider themselves under siege by their own justice system. The Italians have unwittingly taken a step closer to the Islamist position that women corrupt men and push the burden for sexual crimes onto the female victims instead of the male perpetrators. Can the burqas be far behind?

Hamas Claims Its Terrorist Mandate

At today's swearing-in ceremony for the new Palestinian parliament, President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to honor previous agreements with Israel and commit to negotiations for settling the dispute between the two peoples. Hamas, despite the Western gloss as having a mandate for social programs and austerity, responded by declaring a different mandate:

In a speech at the opening of parliament, Mr Abbas said the new government must recognise past peace deals with Israel and commit itself to pursuing statehood through talks, but he stopped short of setting conditions for forming a cabinet.

He said: "The presidency and the government will continue to respect our commitment to the negotiations as a strategic, pragmatic political choice.["] ...

Mr Abbas's words won applause from Fatah lawmakers but not from Hamas members.

"We were elected on a different political agenda," said Mr Haniyeh as sessions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, joined by video link, broke off for Muslim prayers.

A different political agenda -- this is the mandate which the West has ignored and about which Hamas has been perfectly clear. They do no t want negotiations for peace with Israel; they want Israel annihilated and its people dead or driven out of the Middle East.

Why has the West avoided dealing with reality? It reminds one of the rise of the Nazis in 1932, another political movement explicitly dedicated to the eradication of Jews in its vicinity. The Western powers told themselves for years that the Germans just wanted the trains to run on time and to distance themselves from a corrupt and inefficient Weimar government. Now they want to believe that the Palestinians elected the most radical group of terrorists on the ballot for their stand on ethics in government. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

At least we're consistent. When they start the war, Israel had better make sure that the West doesn't force them into the role of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Drug Ring Within Air Marshals?

The New York TImes reports that federal air marshals have been charged with drug smuggling, and one of those indicted has indicated that a much wider drug ring operates within FAMS:

Testimony on Thursday at the arraignment of two federal air marshals charged with using their credentials to engage in a cocaine smuggling conspiracy suggested that the case might involve other marshals as well.

Stuart Maneth, an agent with the inspector general's office of the Homeland Security Department, testified that one of the suspects had told the authorities that after their arrest last week, he was warned by his co-defendant against "giving up other F.A.M.'s."

The accused — Shawn R. Nguyen, 38, and Burlie L. Sholar III, 32 — were taken into custody after an informant delivered to Mr. Nguyen's home in Houston what the authorities described as 33 pounds of cocaine, to be smuggled to Las Vegas, and $15,000 as partial payment for the job. ...

Mr. Nguyen, a former agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told investigators that once in custody, Mr. Sholar warned him that his life "wasn't worth anything" if he disclosed information about other air marshals, Mr. Maneth testified on Thursday.

This comes as a shock. FAMS has almost-complete run of all airports and apparently can bypass the security checks put in place to secure them. It makes sense that drug smugglers would attempt to penetrate FAMS, given the heightened post-9/11 security procedures that has increased the amount of searches of passengers, luggage, and packages flying. It's difficult to believe they could have been this successful.

The two defendants appear to be at odds with one another now that they have been caught, with Nguyen claiming that Sholar has threatened to kill him if he talks. Hopefully, if more marshals have succumbed to the temptation provided by their "golden badge", as Nguyen called it, the race for both of them to cut a deal will expose them. These agents besmirch the reputation of the vast majority of FAMS agents who risk their lives for our safety every day. Perhaps FAMS should consider instituting some security screening for its agents that will remove the temptation for corruption that might exist now.

Congress Wants An Escape Hatch

Having tried and failed to shut down the NSA surveillance program -- a failure due to the American public's desire to track the international communications of suspected terrorists with or without warrants -- Congress has had to settle for an encroachment onto what has always been executive wartime powers. Due to the current political climate and a desire to move on with the program, the White House has signalled that it will respect reasonable oversight conditions of Congress. Now, however, Congress has decided that the political cost of owning the surveillance program might be too high and has decided to punt the entire responsibility to a group of appointed secret judges instead:

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, breaking ranks with the president on domestic eavesdropping, says he wants a special court to oversee the program.

Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan., said he is concerned that the secret court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act could not issue warrants as quickly as the monitoring program requires. But he is optimistic that the problem could be worked out.

"You don't want to have a situation where you have capability that doesn't work well with the FISA court, in terms of speed and agility and hot pursuit," Roberts was quoted as saying in Saturday's New York Times.

Roberts said he does not believe much support exists among lawmakers for exempting the program from the control of the FISA court. That is the approach Bush has favored and one that would be established under a bill proposed by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio.

I still think either approach is superfluous; the executive has always had the ability to perform warrantless searches for those who cross international borders, including luggage and persons, and that's in peacetime. Where FISA demands that the executive bow to Congress in wartime espionage, the statute is clearly not only unconstitutional but also defies 200 years of precedent in the allocation of war powers.

Now, however, Congress wants to eat its cake and have it too. They want to take executive powers, and instead of making themselves politically responsible for the consequences, they want to pawn it off to a court. This is no different than their stated interpretation under FISA, except that Roberts is proposing an expediting process that clearly doesn't exist now. In fact, Roberts wants to create another appointed court to supercede the FISA jurists, and who share with them the complete lack of accountability for their actions.

This is nothing more than a cowardly dodge, an attempt to keep this power dispute between Congress and the executive from reaching the Supreme Court -- which will likely rule against Congress and strike down the wartime provisions of FISA. It also is another attempt to force a wartime role onto the judiciary, which has never before been propsosed and for which they are completely unsuited. Congress either needs to accept the oversight responsibility that the Administration has offered or drop the entire debate altogether.

Good Thing We Kept The Receipt

The Bush administration has stuck to its hard line against Hamas and the terror group's insistence on opposing Israel's existence and support for terrorism. In a rather unusual move, the US requested and received a refund on the American aid held in escrow for the Palestinian Authority:

The Palestinian Authority has agreed to return $50m (£28.7m) of American aid following a request from Washington.

The US State Department said that it did not want the money going to a Hamas-led government that refused to recognise Israel.

The US has already said that it is reviewing all aid to the Palestinians in light of Hamas' election victory.

As proof that it is serious, it has asked for $50m of aid to the Palestinian Authority to be returned.

A small portion of the money had already gone towards economic activity in the territories, but the Palestinian Authority agreed to send back what remained in the bank. This comes on top of the expected Israeli cessation of tax transfers, putting the incoming Hamas government in a serious financial bind in its opening days.

Bush intended to send a message with this request, although whether he expected to get the money back is anyone's guess. However, the State Department announced today that it would still direct aid to ordinary Palestinians, but the US has now demonstrated that they do not wish to fund the government those people elected. I'm not sure that this strategy will be viewed as coherent. It might make the Left in the US happy that we want to help out the downtrodden as opposed to the terrorists, but if the US views the Palestinian elections as valid -- and they have said that all along -- then why do they want to reward the people who elected annihilationists to govern them?

The world insists on treating the Palestinians as children with no responsibility for their actions or choices. They have supported and demanded violence on their behalf for decades. They have never formed any significant movement for peaceful coexistence with Israel. In a free and fair election, they chose a radical Islamist terror organization as their preferred government. What more can they do to underscore their preference for armed conflict over settlement -- refuse to refund our money without a receipt?

Liberating The RCMP

Canada's new government has begun scrapping their controversial gun-registration program, and the incoming minister of Public Security warns his countrymen that the total cost of the program will shock them. However, the program had hidden, non-monetary costs that may only become apparent when viewed in a wider context:

Canadians will be shocked by the true cost of the federal government's ill-fated gun registry, says new Public Security Minister Stockwell Day.

Day told The Canadian Press that figures bureaucrats have shown him during briefings for his new portfolio are much higher than previously thought. He would not divulge what the tab is, but said it's upsetting. ...

When the Liberals added the registry to the federal gun control program in 1995, they said it would cost taxpayers no more than $2 million. But the most recent estimates put the figure in the hundreds of millions of dollars, bringing the total cost of the gun program to more than $1 billion.

At last estimate, the gun program was said to be consuming $90 million a year to maintain.

While Dan Dugas at the Canadian Press includes quotes from incoming officials of the new Tory government that talk about freeing resources for actual law enforcement with the savings, he misses one subtle but important point. The RCMP did not get the full funding necessary for the registration program, in part because the Liberals kept insisting that it didn't cost as much as it did. In order to run the registry, the RCMP had to eat up internal resources to keep up with the registry's mandate. This has been an issue that Newsbeat1 has followed for several months.

Why is that so significant? Americans may not relate to this, but in Canada's parliamentary system, the government only gets checked by the Commons and the RCMP, which has the power and resources to investigate government malfeasance -- under normal circumstances. However, the government exists because it controls either a majority of seats or the support of a coalition of parties that comprise a majority. Unless and until that majority decides that the government has acted so egregiously that MPs are willing to throw their own party or coalition out of power, the only political check comes at mandated election times.

The RCMP, as the national law-enforcement agency, can act independently to investigate corruption and malfeasance. However, it needs the time and resources to do that. A government that wanted to avoid having the RCMP looking into its actions -- say in Adscam or other hidden scandals -- could handicap the agency by burdening it with a populist but massive new program, selling it as a low-cost civic safety program, and then underfunding it so that it ate up all of the agency's resources. That would leave the agency with no time and no people for other efforts, including political investigations.

When Canadians calculate this massive bill that Day warns will upset the electorate, they should also consider these non-monetary costs as well. (Alphecca has more thoughts on the general uselessness of registration programs in general, via Instapundit.)

Is This Our New Security Initiative?

Michelle Malkin points out a disturbing turn of events in the war on terror: the surrender of port management to Arab-based firms. A little-known oversight panel at Treasury has approved a $7B deal which will put the state-owned Dubai Ports World in charge of six major American ports:

The Bush administration on Thursday rebuffed criticism about potential security risks of a $6.8 billion sale that gives a company in the United Arab Emirates control over significant operations at six major American ports.

Lawmakers asked the White House to reconsider its earlier approval of the deal.

The sale to state-owned Dubai Ports World was "rigorously reviewed" by a U.S. committee that considers security threats when foreign companies seek to buy or invest in American industry, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, run by the Treasury Department, reviewed an assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies. The committee's 12 members agreed unanimously the sale did not present any problems, the department said.

"We wanted to look at this one quite closely because it relates to ports," Stewart Baker, an assistant secretary in the Homeland Security Department, told The Associated Press. "It is important to focus on this partner as opposed to just what part of the world they come from. We came to the conclusion that the transaction should not be halted."

The unusual defense of the secretive committee, which reviews hundreds of such deals each year, came in response to criticism about the purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

The world's fourth-largest ports company runs commercial operations at shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, a collection of authoritarian regimes considered friendly to the US and the West. However, UAE has had its troubles with Islamists in the past, as Michelle points out. In fact, the 9/11 Commission notes UAE involvement in Islamist terrorism in several spots.

Page 138: "Even after Bin Ladin’s departure from the area, CIA officers hoped he might return, seeing the camp as a magnet that could draw him for as long as it was still set up.The military maintained readiness for another strike opportunity.160 On March 7, 1999, [Richard] Clarke called a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and Bin Ladin.Clarke later wrote in a memorandum of this conversation that the call had been approved at an interagency meeting and cleared with the CIA." [This involved Clarke blowing a cover on a covert operation.]

Page 167: "In early 2000,Atta, Jarrah, and Binalshibh returned to Hamburg. Jarrah arrived first, on January 31, 2000.97 According to Binalshibh, he and Atta left Kandahar together and proceeded first to Karachi, where they met KSM and were instructed by him on security and on living in the United States. Shehhi apparently had already met with KSM before returning to the UAE.Atta returned to Hamburg in late February, and Binalshibh arrived shortly thereafter. Shehhi’s travels took him to the UAE (where he acquired a new passport and a U.S. visa), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and one or more other destinations."

Page 171: "Bin Ladin relied on the established hawala networks operating in Pakistan, in Dubai, and throughout the Middle East to transfer funds efficiently."

Page 216: "On June 20, Hanjour returned home to Saudi Arabia. He obtained a U.S. student visa on September 25 and told his family he was returning to his job in the UAE. Hanjour did go to the UAE, but to meet facilitator Ali Abdul
Aziz Ali.62"

Page 224: "The Hamburg operatives paid for their flight training primarily with funds wired from Dubai by KSM’s nephew,Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. Between June 29 and September 17, 2000,Ali sent Shehhi and Atta a total of $114,500 in five transfers ranging from $5,000 to $70,000."

Page 236: "After training in Afghanistan, the operatives went to a safehouse maintained by KSM in Karachi and stayed there temporarily before being deployed to the United States via the UAE. ... Ali apparently assisted nine
future hijackers between April and June 2001 as they came through Dubai. He helped them with plane tickets, traveler’s checks, and hotel reservations; he also taught them about everyday aspects of life in the West, such as purchasing clothes and ordering food. Dubai, a modern city with easy access to a major airport, travel agencies, hotels, and Western commercial establishments,was an ideal transit point."

In fact, many of the 9/11 hijackers transited through the UAE, and a significant amount of al-Qaeda cash came through UAE-based accounts. If they run their own country's borders so poorly, why would we trust them to run ours? The White House needs to deep-six this deal, or cancel the contracts and re-bid them. Putting our ports in the hands of Arab authoritarians isn't just putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, it's tantamount to cooking him eggs for breakfast every morning and bringing him KFC for supper every night.

Does The University Of Minnesota Discriminate Against Conservatives?

According to the president of Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, the University of Minnesota has decided to starve conservative action groups into non-existence at their Twin Cities campus. Bill Gilles heads CFACT and has worked to maintain a balance on campus politics and give conservative students a voice at the university. Gilles claims that UM has deliberately defunded the few conservative groups that exist while increasing funding to a plethora of liberal groups, a claim that appears to have some merit based on an initial look at the numbers and at the arguments in the subcommittee recommendation.

Gilles compiled a spreadsheet showing the effect of the university's funding decision for student groups in the next term:

Liberal Groups...........This Year..............Next Year
American Indian.......$15,500.00............$14,138.00
Muslims....................$58,000.00............$55,900.00
Africans...................$10,000.00............$20,000.00
Asians......................$53,200.00............$55,200.00
Black Student Union..$53,900.00...........$49,300.00
Atheists.....................$8,500.00..............$6,000.00
Alternative Theatre...........$0.00............$15,000.00
Disabled....................$28,000.00...........$28,000.00
La Raza....................$36,400.00...........$42,600.00
International Students..$59,000.00........$42,700.00
MPIRG...........................$88,000.00.......$80,000.00
Queer Student Center...$29,000.00.......$37,000.00
Voice..............................$5,000.00.........$7,000.00
The Wake (liberal paper)..$91,000.00..$100,000.00
Women's Collective..........$25,000.00....$28,500.00
The Daily...................$497,000.00.......$550,000.00

Liberal total.............$1,057,500.00....$1,131,338.00

Conservative Groups
Family Values................$5,000.00.................$0.00
CFACT.........................$85,000.00.................$0.00
MN Republic (paper).............$0.00........$24,000.00
Conservative Club................$0.00........$15,000.00

Conservative................$85,000.00.......$39,000.00

Liberal Advantage...............12 to 1..............30 to 1

It looks to me like a pretty good prima facie case can be made for a liberal bias just on the basis of those numbers. It gets better when one reviews the report issued by the subcommittee on student organization fees for the reason CFACT gets defunded in this cycle. According to the unanimous opinion of the five members of the subcommittee:

The Student Organizations Fees Subcommittee recommends that Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) be denied funding through the Refusable / Refundable fee. Attendance at CFACT’s events does not justify the fees revenue the Refusable / Refundable mechanism provides. The sub committee felt that the argument that the mechanism allows choice by the students and thus reflects a 40% support for the organization is flawed. The committee was not convinced that CFACT truly reached out to students to change minds or contribute to the marketplace of ideas.

I think that the subcommittee fears that CFACT actually does change minds and contributes to a marketplace of ideas. The committee, based on its disbursements, appears to want a marketplace with fifty brands of the same product instead. It seems to me that if the subcommittee was that concerned about promoting a broad diversity of opinion for students at UMTC, they would spend their money in something more equitable disbursement than a 97% - 3% split between its liberal and conservative action groups.

One other rationale given by the subcommittee doesn't look very substantial, either. They claim that the U denied funding because half of their funds go to paying executive salaries, some off-campus. The CFACT application shows that of the $89K they requested, $46K went to salaries, and another $7K went to benefits and taxes. However, La Raza, the leftist Latino support organization that has campaigned for the secession of the American Southwest, also shows in its application for $42K expenditures for $17K in salaries and $1200 for benefits and taxes. (It looks like CFACT has better benefits for its workers than La Raza.) The proportions do not seem out of line between the two chapters of national groups, and yet CFACT gets denied any funding while La Raza gets all of their request.

Odd, isn't it?

The subcommitte chair, Henry Hewes, responded to a CQ inquiry earlier today about their decisions:

The Committee has a set list of viewpoint neutral criteria developed by the University to make funding decisions. In order to recieve funding student groups must demonstrate that their organization satisfies every aspect of the criteria. If a student group is denied funding it is fair to assume that in their presentation to the Committee they were unable to demonstrate ability to satisfy some aspect of the viewpoint neutral criteria. However, if groups are unsatisfied with the process they have the opportunity to meet with the Committee a second time to re-evaluate their application and they also have the opportunity to appeal the decision at the end of the process to the Univeristy itself.

These checks and balances are in place to ensure nuetraility and fairness in the fees allocation process.

A funding ratio of 97-3 equates to "neutrality and fairness" in the world of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities -- the school where I currently have my son enrolled. David is a mathematics genius, and perhaps he could explain to the subcommittee what this ratio really represents.

Stay tuned. I plan to invite Bill Gilles on the air with us a week from Saturday to review this story. In the meantime, you can send your own inquiries to the Student Activities Office at this link.

Sumos And Nostalgic Fun (Product Review)

I grew up in the 1970s, a strange decade where plastic seemed everywhere all at once -- we wore it, we ate and drank from it, we lived in it, and for a little while we sat in it. One of the more enjoyable gifts I recall receiving were beanbag chairs from my parents, one each for my sister and I. Mine was blue and hers was red, I believe, and we dragged them out whenever we watched TV. They were comfortable and made for slouching, a favorite teenage pastime, but mostly they were just wildly odd.

I used mine as often as possible, which eventually was its downfall. The plastic bag itself just couldn't hold up to the strain, and the styrofoam pellets started leaking everywhere. Duct tape got deployed in a last-ditch effort to save my teenage recliner, but to no avail. Eventually both bags met their doom, at the insistence of our parents, who didn't sign up to turn their house into a snowscape comprised of little styrofoam balls ... with static cling to spare.

When Andrew at Sumo Lounges offered to send me one of their new line of supersized chairs for free in return for posting my honest opinion, I was somewhat skeptical, especially with a granddaughter and two dogs around. He sent it anyway, promising that the duct tape would not be necessary, and a couple of weeks later, I came home to an enormous box sitting in the living room. (First good sign: it was not marked Fragile.)

So how is it?

It's a big improvement over my last beanbag. The material is much sturdier, as promised; I've been plopping into this for several days, and no problem. The Little Admiral has had a couple of chances to use and likes it, although I'm not sure she really grasps the concept; she put it on our bed to sit in it and watch TV. I put it in a more traditional setting, as you can see here. I put my Sony Vaio laptop in it so you can get a sense of the dimension. (Click on the photo for a larger look.)

It's been a fun new addition to my blogging. I sit and relax, and it provides just the right level for my computer so that my hands find the keys easily. The FM has mostly been amused about it, and hasn't tried it out yet. That may be because she was around when I made another, less pleasant discovery: I'm no teenager any more.

Getting into the Sumo Omni Bag is a snap. Being in the bag is a blast. Getting out of the bag ... well, that's been a humbling experience. I seem to recall easily snapping to my feet when I had my first beanbag chair, vaulting upward with nary a strain. Now when I try to get up and out of my Sumo, I have to roll out onto my hands and knees and slowly pick myself up off the ground. Cory, the FM's retired guide dog, inevitably makes the mistake of trusting me when I'm sitting in the bag and curls up right where I need to land. The exit usually irritates the dog and doesn't do much for my ego, either.

All in all, though, I liked and recommend the Sumo Omni Bag for those who have more of their youthful agility -- or those who, like me, just like to wax nostalgic for it. They're on sale at the Sumo Lounge website, and they have pictures of more attractive people than Yours Truly demonstrating them.

Note: I mentioned it above, but in the interest of full and clear disclosure, this was given to me free of charge by Sumo Lounge. I'm planning on thanking them for it, too.

Also, the above pictures were taken by me with a new Fujifim FinePix 5200 digital camera. I lost my old Canon A70, which I loved, and went for a little bit of an upgrade to a 5 megapixel model. I paid for the camera myself, and when I get a chance to learn more about it, I'll let you know what I think.

Another Success Story

The Washington Post has an excellent article on the adaptations made by the US military to gain ground against the insurgencies in Iraq. Unfortunately placed on page A14, this in-depth look at the adjustments made by the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tall Afar shows that the US military has conducted thoughtful analysis of their successes and failures and continue to adapt tactics and strategies as a result:

The last time the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment served in Iraq, in 2003-04, its performance was judged mediocre, with a series of abuse cases growing out of its tour of duty in Anbar province.

But its second tour in Iraq has been very different, according to specialists in the difficult art of conducting a counterinsurgency campaign -- fighting a guerrilla war but also trying to win over the population and elements of the enemy. Such campaigns are distinct from the kind of war most U.S. commanders have spent decades preparing to fight.

In the last nine months, the regiment has focused on breaking the insurgents' hold on Tall Afar, a town of 290,000. Their operations here "will serve as a case study in classic counterinsurgency, the way it is supposed to be done," said Terry Daly, a retired intelligence officer specializing in the subject.

U.S. military experts conducting an internal review of the three dozen major U.S. brigades, battalions and similar units operating in Iraq in 2005 privately concluded that of all those units, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment performed the best at counterinsurgency, according to a source familiar with the review's findings.

So what changed? The unit commander, Colonel H.R. McMaster, changed the focus of the unit from simply fighting all comers to integrating a "hearts and minds" strategy to win the trust of ordinary Iraqis. He trained the unit in Arabic, Iraqi history, and customs in order to change their presence from menacing to respectful. He met with local tribal and civic leaders, even those sympathetic to the insurgency, and listened to their concerns. The 3rd ACR brought Iraqi soldiers into their operations and encouraged more to join them. Mostly they changed their tactics to confound the insurgents by taking advice from the local leaders.

When the time finally came to retake Tall Afar from the lunatics, they found that they had already captured most of them in the preparation phase. McMaster devised new battle tactics to flush out the rest without exposing American and Iraqi soldiers to IEDs unnecessarily. The result? Tall Afar's liberation came at a far lower price in both US and Iraqi lives and assets.

Read the entire article. Thomas Ricks' effort should not get lost on A14.

George Will, Misrepresenting

Normally I enjoy George Will's columns; he isn't exactly a hard-line conservative, but he usually covers the center-right well enough. In today's effort, though, Will starts off on a rant that not only goes far off the tracks, it doesn't even start on them. He argues that the Bush administration has become "monarchical" in its handling of the war and his argument is primarily based on a misinterpretation of FISA:

But, then, perhaps no future president will ask for such congressional involvement in the gravest decision government makes -- going to war. Why would future presidents ask, if the present administration successfully asserts its current doctrine? It is that whenever the nation is at war, the other two branches of government have a radically diminished pertinence to governance, and the president determines what that pertinence shall be. This monarchical doctrine emerges from the administration's stance that warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency targeting American citizens on American soil is a legal exercise of the president's inherent powers as commander in chief, even though it violates the clear language of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was written to regulate wartime surveillance.

This is patently untrue. FISA came into being to regulate peacetime surveillance by the federal government, as an antidote to Nixonian abuses of power that had nothing to do with the conduct of war. In fact, Jimmy Carter's attorney general Griffin Bell made that very argument in promoting the legislation before Congress in 1978, the year after Carter had authorized warrantless surveillance on an American citizen for a simple espionage case involving Vietnam (US v Truong and Humphrey). He told Congress that FISA would not affect the powers of the presidency under the Constitution, and it doesn't, as only a Constitutional amendment can change the enumerated powers.

The authority to conduct wartime surveillance on one's enemy, regardless of whether one terminus of the communication was located in the US, has never been questioned until now. The NSA program used speed as an advantage in tracing and monitoring international calls on phones and from people suspected to have ties to terrorist organizations to uncover the sleeper cells everyone believes still exist in the US. How is that different from listening in on a call from a suspected Nazi agent in Spain to a member of the German-American Bund in 1942? Does Will argue that FDR would have had to have secured a warrant before monitoring that call to see if the Germans had plans to sabotage American industrial facilities?

It's a ludicrous argument, and one that gets worse when Will challenges the Bush administration to really violate the law:

Immediately after Sept. 11, the president rightly did what he thought the emergency required, and rightly thought that the 1978 law was inadequate to new threats posed by a new kind of enemy using new technologies of communication. Arguably he should have begun surveillance of domestic-to-domestic calls -- the kind the Sept. 11 terrorists made.

They did make those calls, but only after conducting a bunch of overseas calls to gain entry into the US and set up their terrorist plot. Had we had the AUMF in place after the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya and allowed the NSA to do its job, we may have prevented the 9/11 attacks altogether. Unfortunately, we had an administration who operated under the same assumptions as George Will -- that war should be conducted as a law-enforcement operation instead of ... well, war. And the Constitution makes clear that the President conducts the war that Congress declares, not the Congress or its legislation.

In the end, Will doesn't even argue for an end to the program, but for Congress to write a new law making it "legal". If that winds up being the will of Congress, then why argue that it didn't come through the initial AUMF in the first place? Will wants to set a precedent where Congress winds up conducting wars instead of the Presidency, a sure-fire way to lose any future conflict we enter. Congress needs to exercise care in its authorization for military force, and then let the American people exercise their check on the presidency by voting the "monarch" out of office. That's the way the Constitution is structured, not to have 535 individuals micromanaging activities that clearly fall under the normal operation of war.

Note: I had a coding error in the first line that didn't reproduce the "hard-line" modifier for "conservative" earlier. I do think Will is conservative, but in more of a center-right kind of way. BTW, I do like Will's work, which I didn't make very clear in this post. Mea culpa.

UPDATE: Andrew McCarthy takes Will apart at the National Review today, as several CQ readers have pointed out:

Specifically, the Court divined in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export (1936) the "delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the president as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of foreign relations." (Emphasis added.) The Court reaffirmed the point a half-century later in Navy v. Egan (1988), observing that it had long "recognized the generally accepted view that foreign policy was the province and responsibility of the Executive" (internal quotation omitted).

The Court has not rested this view solely on the president's status as commander-in-chief but on all the powers vested in him under Article II. This includes all of the executive power itself which, as the Framers well understood, needed a far wider berth in the international arena if the Nation was to be secure. Will, however, curiously contends that this concept cannot be squared with the Constitution the framers bequeathed us which, according to Will, "empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws 'necessary and proper' for the execution of all presidential powers." ...

It is also, no doubt, why, in United States v. Brown (1973), the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in upholding the president's inherent Article II authority to conduct warrantless wiretaps for foreign intelligence gathering, asserted that "[r]estrictions upon the President's power which are appropriate in cases of domestic security become artificial in the context of the international sphere." It is why, when FISA became law in 1978, President Carter's attorney general, Griffin Bell, stressed that FISA did not (and, indeed, could not) vitiate the president's inherent authority under Article II. It is why, in 1994, President Clinton's deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, testified that the president maintained his inherent Article II authority to order warrantless searches even when FISA was expanded to regulate such searches. And it is why, even after a quarter-century of FISA, the highest and most specialized court ever to review that statute, the Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, observed in 2002: "[A]ll the other courts to have decided the issue [have] held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information... We take for granted that the President does have that authority."

A number of new commenters have taken to posting their own legal analysis, and we welcome that. However, I'm going to rely on McCarthy and his experience prosecuting terrorists like the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center attack. Perhaps Will should as well.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald rebuts me, and rather effectively at least on the text of FISA. No doubt Congress did intend to stake out territory in wartime surveillance. However, it's telling that even the Democratic administrations of Carter and Bill Clinton didn't think it applied (Jamie Gorelick argued that international surveillance did not fall under FISA either), and courts have ruled in that direction. But Glenn's right in that Congress clearly intended this to apply to wartime as well.

AP/AOL Poll: Rice 2nd Most Important Black Leader

Despite the best efforts of the leftists and some in the media to discount conservative African-Americans as lackeys and house slaves, their own community has begun to recognize them for their leadership. An AP/AOL poll released yesterday shows that blacks selected Bush administration officials as two of their three most important leaders, and has Condoleezza Rice in the number-two position:

Jesse Jackson and Condoleezza Rice get the top support among blacks asked to name the nation's "most important black leader," according to an AP-AOL Black Voices poll. Next come Colin Powell and Barack Obama.

Many blacks question whether any one person can wear the leadership mantle for such a large and diverse group of people. At the same time, two-thirds in the poll said leaders in their communities were effective representatives of their interests.

When blacks were asked to come up with the person they considered "the most important black leader," 15 percent chose Jackson, a civil rights activist who ran for president in the 1980s, while 11 percent picked Secretary of State Rice, 8 percent chose former Secretary of State Powell, and 6 percent named Obama, a freshman Democratic senator from Illinois.

About one-third declined to volunteer a name.

Two of the four mentioned most often — Rice and Powell — are from a Republican administration that is unpopular with most blacks.

That last statement may be true, but it also may be too static in its thinking. After five years of people like Harry Belafonte questioning their authenticity as African-Americans, these conservatives have withstood this blatantly racist criticism -- that anyone who departs from the groupthink cannot be "authentic" -- and have emerged as influential and respected leaders.

Interestingly, the poll shows that only 5% of the respondents identified themselves as Republicans, indicating that the 19% who chose either Rice or Powell represents at least some GOP penetration into either the independent or Democratic black vote already. Only 62% identified themselves as Democrats, while a good portion stay independent. The poll does not include historical data on this dempgraphic, but it seems to point out a potential for softness in what had been a solid Democratic lock. When leaners are included, Democrats lead 76-11; the GOP number is closer to the election returns of 2004, but the lower Democratic number shows that the Republicans may have some room to erode that key base for national Democratic hopes.

The most significant block of support in the poll goes to "none of the above", indicating a growing dissatisfaction with the notion of national leaders altogether. Of the top leaders, the one with the most support (Jesse Jackson) only gets 15%, a virtual tie with Rice, while 34% have either no selection or are unsure. Barack Obama, whom the Democrats and media have heralded as the new spokesman for the black community, only garners 6% of the respondents. Al Sharpton can't even rise above a dead man in this poll, with his 2% trailing Martin Luther King's 3%, despite his run for the presidency; he can't even beat a near-lunatic like Louis Farrakhan, who doubled Sharpton's support (4%).

All of these responses would be considered fringe in any other kind of poll. The Democrats have to look at this and worry, as the leaders to whom they defer on the national stage have little real resonance, save Jackson. Obama may yet rise to the level of Jackson, but he's only in the first two years of his first national office. These people do not monopolize the political thought of black Americans, nor does any one leader or philosophy in the post-Civil Rights era. The Republicans understand this and have reached out to moderates and conservatives, offering them an opportunity to express themselves politically, while the Democratic establishment continues to insist on playing follow-the-leader with people that only they anoint in that position. It's a long-term loser of a strategy, and this poll shows the folly of that thinking.

'The Factories Are In Our Minds'

The report by ABC News met the expectations set by its earlier report, which I linked earlier. While what they aired did not mention any transported WMD, the partial transcripts released by ABC certainly suggests that Iraq had intentions of deceiving inspectors and reconstituting its programs at the earliest possible moment:

As for the nuclear, we say we have disclosed everything but no. We have undeclared problems in nuclear as well, and I believe that they know. There are teams working with no one knowing about some of them. ...

I go back to the question of whether we should reveal everything or continue to be silent. Sir, since the meeting has taken this direction, I would say it is in our interest not to reveal. Not just out of fear of disclosing the technology we achieved, or to hide it for future work. No. The game has gone on for too long. And now it has become clear to many officials of countries that are coerced to work with America…

The tapes revealed an odd, banal quality to these debates among Saddam and his advisors. They chat in the dull tones known by many middle managers at business conferences. I've had staff meetings with more energy than the droning voices of these tapes. It's just a reminder that evil doesn't require fire and brimstone to be deadly; it can have the cold, flat monotone of cruel efficiency to be just as effective, if not more.

The most humorous aspect of the tapes will be the Exempt Media reaction. CQ readers have already noted that some media outlets have headlined their reports by noting that Saddam warned the US of impending terrorism -- as if no one here had ever conceived of the prospect. It was the primary reason for stripping Saddam of his WMD programs in the first place. It's just another example of the media's ignorance of historical context, a condition that has progressed to the incurable face.

Cheney Owns Up

One of the advantages of having satellite radio is the ability to tune in network news broadcasts when they have a noteworthy event. Tonight, Fox's Brit Hume interviewed Dick Cheney about the hunting accident that wounded his friend and hunting partner, Harry Whittington, and the raging controversy over the method the news was released.

First, however, Hume asked Cheney to talk about the accident itself:

HUME: There was just two of you then?

CHENEY: Just two of us at that point. The guide or outrider between us, and of course, there's this entourage behind us, all the cars and so forth that follow me around when I'm out there -- but bird flushed and went to my right, off to the west. I turned and shot at the bird, and at that second, saw Harry standing there. Didn't know he was there --

HUME: You had pulled the trigger and you saw him?

CHENEY: Well, I saw him fall, basically. It had happened so fast.

HUME: What was he wearing?

CHENEY: He was dressed in orange, he was dressed properly, but he was also -- there was a little bit of a gully there, so he was down a little ways before land level, although I could see the upper part of his body when -- I didn't see it at the time I shot, until after I'd fired. And the sun was directly behind him -- that affected the vision, too, I'm sure.

But the image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind. I fired, and there's Harry falling. And it was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life, at that moment.

In the news and in the blogs, debate has raged over whether Cheney or Whittington should have responsibility for the shooting. Some said that Whittington, having separated himself from the party, needed to announce himself on his return. Others say that the responsibility lies with the man who pulls the trigger. Cheney took the latter view in his interview:

HUME: Now, you're a seasoned hunter --

CHENEY: I am, well, for the last 12, 15 years.

HUME: Right, and so you know all the procedures and how to maintain the proper line and distance between you and other hunters, and all that. So how, in your judgment, did this happen? Who -- what caused this? What was the responsibility here?

CHENEY: Well, ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry. And you can talk about all of the other conditions that existed at the time, but that's the bottom line. And there's no -- it was not Harry's fault. You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. And I say that is something I'll never forget.

Now, please put yourself in Cheney's shoes. You've gone out hunting with a good friend, having a nice time getting away from the pressures of the job, and all of a sudden the vacation and the job disappear when you look at the friend you've just shot lying on the ground. Telling the press isn't the first thought on your mind under the circumstances. Getting your friend to the hospital and making sure that his family gets notified is the priority, and that obviously occupied Cheney for the next several hours.

So far, I think Cheney did an admirable job in the interview. Cheney took responsibility for the shooting itself. He went over the steps taken at the hospital to care for Whittington and some of the efforts taken to notify his family. His explanation sounds quite reasonable, and his actions appear to be understandable under the circumstances. That takes him to Sunday morning, and the decision to have the ranch owner -- who witnessed the shooting -- release a statement to the local press, through a reporter she knows personally. Cheney makes this explanation convincing in the sense that it expresses the truth about how he made his decision:

HUME: Had you discussed this with colleagues in the White House, with the President, and so on?

CHENEY: I did not. The White House was notified, but I did not discuss it directly, myself. I talked to Andy Card, I guess it was Sunday morning.

HUME: Not until Sunday morning? Was that the first conversation you'd had with anybody in the -- at the White House?

CHENEY: Yes.

HUME: And did you discuss this with Karl Rove at any time, as has been reported?

CHENEY: No, Karl talks to -- I don't recall talking to Karl. Karl did talk with Katherine Armstrong, who is a good mutual friend to both of us. Karl hunts at the Armstrong, as well --

HUME: Say that again?

CHENEY: I said Karl has hunted at the Armstrong, as well, and we're both good friends of the Armstrongs and of Katherine Armstrong. And Katherine suggested, and I agreed, that she would go make the announcement, that is that she'd put the story out. And I thought that made good sense for several reasons. First of all, she was an eye-witness. She'd seen the whole thing. Secondly, she'd grown up on the ranch, she'd hunted there all of her life. Third, she was the immediate past head of the Texas Wildlife and Parks Department, the game control commission in the state of Texas, an acknowledged expert in all of this.

And she wanted to go to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, which is the local newspaper, covers that area, to reporters she knew. And I thought that made good sense because you can get as accurate a story as possible from somebody who knew and understood hunting. And then it would immediately go up to the wires and be posted on the website, which is the way it went out. And I thought that was the right call.

HUME: What do you think now?

CHENEY: Well, I still do. I still think that the accuracy was enormously important. I had no press person with me, I didn't have any press people with me. I was there on a private weekend with friends on a private ranch. In terms of who I would contact to have somebody who would understand what we're even talking about, the first person that we talked with at one point, when Katherine first called the desk to get hold of a reporter didn't know the difference between a bullet and a shotgun -- a rifle bullet and a shotgun. And there are a lot of basic important parts of the story that required some degree of understanding. And so we were confident that Katherine was the right one, especially because she was an eye-witness and she could speak authoritatively on it. She probably knew better than I did what had happened since I'd only seen one piece of it.

I don't think that this sounds false or deceptive at all, but I do think Cheney made a mistake with this decision. If he wanted Armstrong to release the statement, that makes sense, but he should have probably involved his media team to release it directly to the national media rather than wait for the story to make it through the wires. A seasoned politician should know better. However, two mitigating factors come up in the interview. The first is that none of his media team had accompanied him on this trip; the second was the obviously distressed mental state he experienced this weekend. Cheney made a poor decision about the method of publishing the news, but he didn't intend on hiding it from anyone.

Cheney just couldn't bring himself to admit that, however. He said he knew it would be a national story, but that he felt the best way to handle it was to release it to the local press and let the national desks pick it up for themselves. When Hume gave him an opportunity to review the decision in hindsight, Cheney stuck to his initial analysis, saying that Armstrong had the best look at what really happened and could give the most accurate report. He leaned on accuracy as a driving measure, but Armstrong could have been just as accurate with the AP and the networks. He passed on an opportunity to end the argument by simply agreeing that he could have handled it differently, but it looks like the lunatic reaction of the White House pool has Cheney's hackles up. He's obviously not in the conciliatory mood with the DC gaggle, and that also affected his judgment here.

Overall, though, Cheney did a good job in giving a reasoned and rational rebuttal to the wild accusations flying around about this shooting. For an example of the nuttery one can find among what used to be considered opinion leaders, listen to Hugh Hewitt's interview with an unhinged Lawrence O'Donnell. With absolutely no evidence whatsoever, O'Donnell spins a paranoid fantasy of drunken binges, local police conspiracies, and other wild-eyed assumptions. The man gives another fresh dimension to the label "creepy liar".

Quick Links

A few nuggets from friends and fellow bloggers ...

A reader tells La Shawn Barber how a black female should view the world. A white, male reader. And yes, Damien King uses the N-word in scolding La Shawn for hating blacks. Oh, the irony ...

Bruce Kesler has highlights of today's hearings on American corporations enabling Chinese efforts to censor the Internet. I wish I could have watched the debate myself, but alas I have to earn some cash ...

Speaking of hearings, Vi at QT Monster has the entire audio for today's Able Danger hearings. I've not had a chance to catch up to the latest efforts of Rep. Weldon, Col. Shaffer, and others to finally get the program's findings revealed to the public, but AJ Strata has done an excellent job in covering it this week. Be sure to check out his entire site...

More later ...

Blogs Bogging Down?

Mark Tapscott links to a Gallup survey that suggests that the blogging explosion has plateaued. After experiencing exponential growth in readership and exposure for two years, blogosphere penetration in the general population flattened in 2005, showing no growth at all:

However, according to recent Gallup data, it seems the growth in the number of U.S. blog readers was somewhere between nil and negative in the past year," Gallup said.

The data upon which that statement was based was drawn from Gallup's annual Lifestyle survey conducted Dec. 5-8 2005, which found nine percent of internet users saying they read blogs frequently, 11 percent read them occasionally, 13 percent read them rarely and 66 percent never read them.

Those figures are virtually unchanged from the results of the same survey one year ago, according to Gallup. Although the response options varied slightly on the two surveys, Gallup said the results were so similar that "it is reasonable to draw some inferences. The main inference is that blog readership did not grow in 2005.

Mark questioned whether we may have seen the last of the ground-floor days, where bloggers could count on double-digit growth, bringing new readers and greater influence to citizen journalists. If so, that could portend dark days for blog alliances and individuals who based their ventures on the ability to attract more and better advertisers to fund their ventures. The flattening of the growth curve certainly suggests that.

However, the data look more pessimistic than reality. It doesn't take the context of that growth into consideration, a particularly important point in assessing the potential of the blogosphere. In 2003, the first year of explosive growth, we had begun a war in March, driving many across the political spectrum to take advantage of the new technology. In 2004, we had a presidential election on top of the ongoing war, an election that somehow missed the summer vacation that such contests normally take. These events drove both bloggers and readers to the blogosphere.

In contrast, 2005 did not introduce any particularly new events. The war continued, and its partisans (yours truly included) continued their debate. The Iraqis held three open elections, but only the first really engaged the public at large. The year had its share of big stories, but not singular new events or political campaigns. And yet, the blogosphere managed to maintain its interest to American readers. The percentage stayed the same, but in an off-year, one should have expected a significant fall-off of traffic. That did not occur.

Now with a new election cycle to fight, people will take a renewed interest in the blogosphere. I predict that we will see significantly more penetration into the general public -- perhaps not as dramatic as the growth from 02-03 or 03-04, but bet on a noticeable expansion.

Saddam Tapes To Air On Nightline

ABC News will review the Saddam tapes that prompted the House Intelligence Committee to re-open its investigation into the WMD programs in Iraq last month. The late-night news show Nightline will broadcast a special report, bumping a scheduled broadcast on premature births. Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz report that Bill Tierney has provided the tapes and the translations that he personally performed on them:

ABC News has obtained 12 hours of tape recordings of Saddam Hussein meeting with top aides during the 1990s, tapes apparently recorded in Baghdad's version of the Oval Office.

ABC News obtained the tapes from Bill Tierney, a former member of a United Nations inspection team who translated them for the FBI. Tierney said the U.S. government is wrong to keep these tapes and others secret from the public. "Because of my experience being in the inspections and being in the military, I knew the significance of these tapes when I heard them," says Tierney. U.S. officials have confirmed the tapes are authentic, and that they are among hundreds of hours of tapes Saddam recorded in his palace office.

One of the most dramatic moments in the 12 hours of recordings comes when Saddam predicts — during a meeting in the mid 1990s — a terrorist attack on the United States. "Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before August 2 and told the British as well … that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction." Saddam goes on to say such attacks would be difficult to stop. "In the future, what would prevent a booby-trapped car causing a nuclear explosion in Washington or a germ or a chemical one?" But he adds that Iraq would never do such a thing. "This is coming, this story is coming but not from Iraq."

These tapes do not necessarily provide the "smoking gun" that some have speculated, at least not from ABC's initial report or the analysis provided by Charles Duelfer. The recordings show that Saddam and his henchmen actively hid their WMD programs from UN inspectors, and also show that he had no intention of getting rid of them if he could help it. Duelfer notes that the tapes demonstrate Saddam's commitment to retaining or rebuilding his capacity to strike with the world's deadliest weapons, which makes the containment strategy something of a band-aid even without the extensive cheating proven from Syria, Germany, France, and Russia that had rendered it a sham.

I will be watching Nightline carefully tonight. If nothing else, this shows the importance of translating the mounds of extant papers and recordings captured in the liberation of Iraq. Hopefully, the Exempt Media will start covering this more extensively -- and kudos to ABC for breaking away from the pack and giving this high-profile exposure.

Dream City

Michael Totten visited the Kurd region of Iraq and took some pictures that may surprise people. I know what I picture in my mind when I think of the region, and it's nothing like Totten depicts:

In no country are Kurds closer to realizing their dream of freedom and independence than they are in Iraq. They are wrapping up the finishing touches on their de-facto sovereign state-within-a-state, a fact on the ground that will not easily be undone. And they’re transforming the hideously decrepit physical environment left to them by Saddam Hussein – a broken place that is terribly at odds with the Kurdistan in their hearts and in their minds – into something beautiful and inspiring, the kind of place you might like to live in someday yourself.

I wouldn't mind living in the house that he photographed. Be sure to check out what freedom has meant for Iraqi Kurds. Perhaps this will help spread democratization throughout the Middle East, once people see how the Kurds have improved their standard of living.

Class Act

I think that all of the CQ community knows that I am a rabid Pittsburgh Steeler fan by now and have been since I was a kid. One of the pleasures of that long history of fanaticism is that I got to focus not only on some great Steelers players like Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris (and today's greats like Jerome Bettis, Hines Ward, and many others) but also on the outstanding players that lined up on the other side of the ball. I'd root against them, of course, but it's hard not to respect and enjoy players like Chris Collinsworth, Earl Campbell -- was there ever a running back like Earl? -- and one of the classiest men on the field, Cleveland Browns quarterback Brian Sipe. Sipe may have been the one NFL player I recall from that generation that most deserved a shot at the championship but never got there, in part because of the Steeler dominance and in part due to some cruel twists of fate.

Hugh Hewitt found Sipe in San Diego, living a successful life and giving back to his community. Read all of the interview here at Radioblogger.

Addendum: I'd run my favorite picture of Hugh here, but I don't want to disillusion Brian Sipe, just in case he stops by and reads this post. Shhhh .....

NSA Probe Losing Steam On Capitol Hill

Congress has lost its taste for a protracted political battle with the Bush administration over the NSA intercept program and may kill a proposed investigation into the controversial effort. According to Charles Babington at the Washington Post, a fierce defense of the project by George Bush and a wider briefing of Congress has blunted the knee-jerk antagonism for the program:

Congress appeared ready to launch an investigation into the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program last week, but an all-out White House lobbying campaign has dramatically slowed the effort and may kill it, key Republican and Democratic sources said yesterday.

The Senate intelligence committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a Democratic-sponsored motion to start an inquiry into the recently revealed program in which the National Security Agency eavesdrops on an undisclosed number of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents without obtaining warrants from a secret court. Two committee Democrats said the panel -- made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats -- was clearly leaning in favor of the motion last week but now is closely divided and possibly inclined against it.

They attributed the shift to last week's closed briefings given by top administration officials to the full House and Senate intelligence committees, and to private appeals to wavering GOP senators by officials, including Vice President Cheney. "It's been a full-court press," said a top Senate Republican aide who asked to speak only on background -- as did several others for this story -- because of the classified nature of the intelligence committees' work.

Key GOP Senators such as Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel have apparently reconsidered their earlier demands for an investigation. Both cite the full briefing given the joint Intelligence committees last week as a sign of progress. Neither want to support an investigation if the probe has a "punitive' purpose, as Hagel put it in a statement to the Post, and the other Republicans that had voiced opposition to the program appear to agree.

Another reason for the ebbing of outrage by Congress, although unspoken and unreported by Babington, has to be the reaction of the American people. Having been informed that the administration authorized warrantless surveillance on international communications between people with ties to al-Qaeda and people in the US, the American electorate ... yawned. Most had probably presumed that such efforts had been underway all along, as the 9/11 Commission made clear that the US needed more aggressive counterterrorism of this explicit type. Over 60% of Americans favor this kind of surveillance, with or without warrants at all.

Those kind of numbers have killed the momentum for high-dudgeon hearings, especially after the Alito confirmation hearing turned into such an abomination. No one wants to sit through that again. Most members of Congress from both parties now express a desire to continue the program, as long as they can add in legislation giving Congress more oversight, mostly as a way to justify all of the rhetoric already spent on the issue. By the end of the month, the NSA program will not even rate a mention in the paper.

UN Psychic Network On Human Rights

The United Nations recently circulated a draft report from its Commission on Human Rights regarding the detention of terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, a report that supposedly finds abuses and demands the closing of the facility. It sounds as though the report would embarrass the US and put pressure on the government to close the camp. However, the New York Sun does mention one minor detail that may mitigate the report's impact ... the fact that the people who wrote it refused to go to the camp to see it for themselves:

Authors of a report commissioned by the U.N. claiming that detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being tortured by American military personnel failed to visit the prison, despite an invitation from the American authorities.

"Any report that they may be writing would certainly suffer from the opportunity that was offered to them to go down there and witness firsthand the operations at Guantanamo," a Department of Defense spokesman, Bryan Whitman, told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday.

The U.N. representatives declined the invitation to visit Guantanamo because they were told that they would not be able to interview detainees during the visit, Mr. Whitman said. The 500 suspected terrorists, who are being kept without trial after being captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere, are regularly interviewed by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, which does not report on the treatment of prisoners.

Members of investigation, who will deliver their report later this year to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, have spent 18 months investigating conditions at Guantanamo and have relied for information about the condition of prisoners upon anecdotes provided by released detainees and family members and lawyers of those who are or have been detained from France, Spain, and Britain. Information has also been gleaned from the Department of State.

Yes, I can see where the confusion at Defense lies: they did not realize that the panel came from the highly regarded Psychic Friends Network, sent out by telepathic orders and able to visualize conditions anywhere from as far away as a five-star hotel in Miami. (Room service acts as a force multiplier in these conditions.)

Can anyone take the UN seriously any more, especially on human rights? This report comes from the same organization that has a serial sexual predator problem in most of its refugee camps and has taken few steps to stop it. Its human-rights commission has UN members of such stature as Cuba, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, and Congo to judge the conduct of nations. Now its panel on Guantanamo wrote a report rehashing the complaints of former detainees and their lawyers and family (who weren't at Guantanamo, of course), added a dash of rebuttal from the State Department, and think they've come up with the truth -- even though they have never set foot at the facility itself.

The UN insists on demonstrating its incompetence and uselessness at every turn. This provides yet another example in a tiresome string that demonstrates not only the organization's unserious approach to terrorism and conflict, but also a stunning hypocrisy that should have jaws dropping around the world. Perhaps once the UN gets its paedophiles and sexual predators under control at its own camps, we might find their long-distance perspective worth at least a laugh.

Kinsella Sues Canadian Blogger

Tom Maguire notes that Warren Kinsella, the self-styled "lawyer, consultant and Liberal Party spin-doctor," has filed a libel suit against Mark Bourrie, the proprietor of the Canadian blog Ottawa Watch. The lawsuit, which Bourrie reproduces on his website, involves two actions on Bourrie's part which Kinsella claims "have brought him into hatred, ridicule and contempt[.]" The suit claims:

4. Mr. Bourrie's entry on Ottawa Watch at 4:15 a.m. on January 14, 2006 read, in part:

And they remember Kinsella was executive assistant to Pulis [sic] Works minister (sic] David "I'm entitled to my entitlements" Dingwall. Kinsella was the guy who foisted Chuck Guite on the bureaucracy. He was a key actor in the sponsorship kickback scandal. And that scandal is about half the reason Paul Martin is on the skids.

Kinsella also accuses Bourrie of editing a Wikipedia entry to further libel him:

13. Mr. Bourric has also taken to vindictive tactics. In particular, but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Mr. Bourrie went to the web site Wikpedia.com which is an on-line encyclopedia that allows viewers to modify entries. The purpose of Wikpedia is to do nothing more than provide readers with relevant background information on various subjects. Mr. Bourrie modified the plaintiff's biography to, inter alia, include the following in relation to the plaintiff's politics.

"Kinsella had his lawyer write a letter threatening libel action against Mark Bourrie, an award-winning; Ottawa Journalist, author and doctoral student, in January 2006, when the journalist published on his blog that Kinsella, when he was a political staffer, was instrumental in the Chretien government's hiring of Chuck Game [note: should be Guité], a key figure in a later political kickback scandal, to run the government's ad system.["]

In regards to the allegation in paragraph 4, it appears that the entire fuss centers on the pronoun he and whether it refers to Guité or to Kinsella. Kinsella argues that Bourrie intended on defaming him as a "major player" in Adscam, but any reasonable reading of the passage appears to clearly reference Guité, not Kinsella, as such. And it isn't as though Kinsella had nothing to do with Adscam or Guité's role in it, although it was more minor. As the Gomery Report notes in one of its seventeen references to Kinsella, he arranged one of the more notorious meetings that made clear that Guité needed to cater to powerful Chrétién cronies (page 284):

As an example of the general impression that Mr. Corriveau was a person of great importance, Mr. Guité recalls an incident in 1994 or 1995 when he was summoned to the office of Mr. Dingwall, then Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, by the latter’s Executive Assistant, Warren Kinsella, who said Mr. Dingwall wanted Mr. Guité to meet someone.2 On arrival, Mr. Dingwall told him that he was going to meet a gentleman named Corriveau who was “a very very close friend of the Prime Minister,” adding, “if ever you find somebody in bed between Jean Chrétien and his wife, it will be Jacques Corriveau,” and that Mr. Guité should “look after him.”This message was repeated on other occasions: “look after this guy” and “look after this firm,” referring to Mr. Corriveau’s business.3

It is interesting to note that when Mr. Guité was introduced to Mr. Corriveau a few minutes later, he was in the company of Jean Lafleur,4 although both Mr. Dingwall and Mr. Kinsella testify that they have never met Mr. Lafleur.5
Mr. Guité has no reason to mislead the Commission about this incident, and his version of it is accepted. It is interesting to speculate about what Mr. Corriveau and Mr. Lafleur may have been discussing, and it is also
interesting to wonder why Mr. Dingwall wanted Mr. Guité to “look after” Mr. Corriveau. Whatever the reasons, Mr. Guité took care to follow Mr. Dingwall’s instructions.6

Nor was that the only effort on Kinsella's part to get Guité more control over advertising monies. On pages 159-161, Gomery reviews a memo that Kinsella wrote trying to throw his weight around and get Guité put in total command of all government communications:

On November 23, 1995, Mr. Kinsella, the Executive Assistant of Mr. Dingwall, who was then Minister of PWGSC, wrote a surprising memorandum to Messrs. Quail and Stobbe, which to be appreciated must be reproduced in full ...

This communication was rightly taken by Mr. Quail to be a highly inappropriate attempt by political staff to interfere in the internal administration of PWGSC, which is entirely within the jurisdiction of the Deputy Minister. The reference to unidentified persons in the PCO and PMO gives the impression that the proposed reorganization of government
communications under Mr. Guité was desired by persons at the highest level. To his credit, Mr. Quail resisted the temptation to take offence ...

The matter died there. Mr. Quail decided that Mr. Kinsella’s memo was a mistake by an inexperienced political staffer who did not know better than to attempt to give direction to a senior public servant on how to organize his department. Mr. Dingwall testifies that he does not remember the incident, but assumes that he must have instructed Mr. Kinsella to write the memo.64 As to why he would have wanted Mr. Guité to be given important new responsibilities, the record is unclear.

But we do know that Mr. Guité and his personnel at APORS were given the whole responsibility for the management and administration of the Sponsorship Program when it came into being in the spring of 1996.
Sponsorship contracts were considered by all concerned to be a form of advertising, and were so defined in Appendix Q , and Mr. Guité was the government’s expert in advertising matters.

When CCSB was created in November 1997, it constituted almost exactly the consolidation of functions that had been advocated by Mr. Kinsella two years previously.

In other words, Kinsella stepped way out of line in attempting to order Quail to put Guité in charge of the advertising for the Sponsorship program -- and Guité eventually became one of the major players in the fraud that wiped out millions from Canadian taxpayers. It may not make Kinsella a major player in the controversy, but it hardly follows that tying Kinsella to Guité creates a libelous situation. Perhaps he didn't push to hire Guité, but the Gomery Report shows that Kinsella spent some effort in promoting him for the top spot.

I expect that Kinsella will regret filing this lawsuit. His role in this scandal appears to have flown under the radar until now, and Bourrie's defense will have a field day answering Kinsella with these quotes.

Another Split For Labor

The American labor movement suffered another blow today as more unions left the AFL-CIO, citing ineffective management, a lack of focus on organizing, and bloated budgets. Over a million members will leave the tottering alliance, leaving the union movement more politically fractured than ever:

The national labor movement suffered a new split yesterday when two major construction unions — the laborers and the operating engineers — announced that they were quitting the Building and Construction Trades Department of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

The unions also said they would soon announce the creation of a rival building trades group, the National Construction Alliance, that would include the carpenters, the bricklayers, the iron workers and the Teamsters. The new group, officials from the two unions said, would have more than 1.5 million members and would be more vigorous than the Building and Construction Trades Department in unionizing construction workers.

"We cannot stand idly by, tied to a past that promises only further decline for construction workers," said Terence M. O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers International Union of North America, which has 700,000 members. He indicated that his union would soon quit the A.F.L.-C.I.O., following five other unions that have left the federation in the past year.

Mr. O'Sullivan and Vincent J. Giblin, president of the International Union of Operating Engineers, said the Building and Construction Trades Department had been ineffective in stopping a decline in construction union membership. The percentage of construction workers who are unionized has plunged to 13 percent today from 40 percent in 1973.

When the other unions left the alliance earlier, they had many of the same complaints. They also protested that the AFL-CIO had spent far too much of its energy and money in attempts to influence elections instead of organizing workers. The decline in union influence has continued for decades and still accelerates. The lack of penetration into today's labor market creates political conditions where union necessities like closed-shop laws can get overturned and states can pass right-to-work legislation that allows workers to withhold dues from unions regardless of their representation in the workplace.

Part of the issue for unions is that in many industries, they have become an anachronism. The dangers of the workplace now get addressed by government watchdogs like OSHA, and the salary supports come from miminum-wage legislation and local living-wage requirements. Only in areas with inherent dangers do unions make sense, as with coal miners, where the workers cannot wait around for an OSHA inspection to remediate safety issues. In most other areas, unions have lost their grip as government took over protection functions. As a result, unions represent the lowest level of workers in the workforce in decades and have seen their political impact drop dramatically.

The AFL-CIO approach to solving the problem focused on spending more and more money on political campaigning, hoping to elect politicians that would push through labor-friendly legislation. That approach has resulted in fewer wins and more marginalization, with the corresponding decline in membership. The breakaway unions aim to change that dynamic by focusing on increasing membership first, and therefore building more political impact. Neither strategy really deals with the lack of real benefit in organization for most industries and job classes, but the latter approach at least has more hope of success than the AFL-CIO strategy over the last two decades.

In the meantime, the labor split will do nothing to improve their political influence, and will likely damage Democrats' hopes to mount effective Congressional races in those districts that will be competitive this year. The labor vote will be neutered, rendering one of their key constituencies a non-factor in 2006 and perhaps 2008 as well.

Canada Talks Tough To Palestinians

Stephen Harper has already made an impact early in his term as Prime Minister on foreign affairs. Distancing himself from Europe in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Harper steered Canada towards the American position on further engagement with the PA:

Future Canadian aid to the Palestinian government will depend on its support for three key benchmarks, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The government of President Mahmoud Abbas must renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements, Harper told the Palestinian leader Tuesday during a telephone conversation.

“Future assistance to any new Palestinian government will be reviewed against that government's commitment to the principles of non-violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations,” Mr. Harper said in a statement released after the phone call.

This common-sense position should surprise no one; as the Canada Press article notes, it follows the same line as the UN Security Council did in its demand to Hamas. However, after Russia's invitation to Hamas for diplomatic exchanges and France's endorsement of their overture, it appears that even the UNSC members cannot abide by those guidelines. It's refreshing to see Canada stand up against terrorism and hold to a tough line with the incoming Palestinian government. After a long interlude where Canadian and American approaches have diverged, this common line promises a new period of partnership.

One Year Ago Today (First Mate Update)

It was a year ago today that the First Mate received a pancras transplant that cured her diabetes. That surgery went tremendously well, and for almost an entire year she has not needed an insulin injection or had to test her blood sugars. After more than forty years of living with that dreaded disease, the transplant gave her a new lease on life with complete food independence.

Unfortunately for the FM, she cannot celebrate it much tonight. Her kidney transplant is rapidly failing and it looks as though, barring a miraculous recovery from a polyoma infection, she will need dialysis again soon. Her doctor wants to try one more massive shot of antiviral therapy next week, but after that he says she will need to start planning for a new transplant. Unfortunately, the wait for a cadaver donor in this area takes four to five years on average, which means she will have to hold up through a long trial of dialyzing three times a week.

We had hoped for better news, but unfortunately it is what it is. On the plus side, the polyoma virus does not affect the pancreas, and the FM has been spared that complication. She's feeling down tonight; we couldn't do much for Valentine's Day except eat dinner together and then just relax. She feels all your prayers and wants to thank everyone who's offered them, as well as the kind thoughts and lovely comments.

Note: I also want to send out prayers to John O'Neill, whose wife Anne passed away after a long struggle with chronic illnesses. He sent me some kind words last month of optimism and hope from his experience living with that struggle, and it broke my heart to hear that she passed away last week. Bruce Kesler writes a moving post about Anne on his blog. Her service is tomorrow, and my thoughts and prayers will be with the entire O'Neill family.

Poetic Justice?

Saddam Hussein attempted to disrupt his trial yet again, in another of his tiresome and pathetic antics in today's session. This time he interrupted the court to announce that he has started a hunger strike to protest the injustice of being held accountable for his crimes:

Saddam Hussein told the court during the latest session of his trial Tuesday that he was on hunger strike to protest tough stances by the chief judge.

The former Iraqi leader shouted his support for Iraqi insurgents, yelling "Long live the mujahedeen," as he entered the courtroom and immediately began a heated exchange with judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman.

"For three days we have been holding a hunger strike protesting against your way in treating us — against you and your masters," Saddam told Abdel-Rahman.

This statement didn't provide all of the comic relief, however. Saddam's co-defendant and half-brother, Barzan Ibrahim, has taken to wearing nothing but underwear to show his contempt for the court. Who knew that Barzan would have so much in common with Larry Flynt?

Apparently, Saddam thinks that starving himself will shock the conscience of the world and garner him some sympathy. Considering all of the children that starved while Saddam pocketed the money intended to feed them, this sounds more like poetic justice. Can we make sure that no one talks Saddam out of his new strategy, please?

Harper's Ratings Soar In Good Start

Despite a rocky week from David Emerson's party switch to join his cabinet, new Canadian PM Stephen Harper has jumped out to a good start with Canadians in the first weeks of his government. His approval ratings have risen well above the percentage of votes collected by the Tories and has crossed over into a majority:

The Conservatives were elected on January 23rd with the support of 36% of Canadian voters. Now, less than three weeks later, a majority (54%) of Canadians say they approve of the new government’s performance so far under the leadership of Stephen Harper. This includes two-in-ten (18%) Canadians who “strongly” approve and 36% who “somewhat” approve. One-in-three (32%) Canadians disapprove of the performance of the Conservative government so far (14% “strongly”, 18% “somewhat”).

The approval does not limit itself to the Tory powe base of Alberta, either. All regions of Canada show a significant spike upwards in approval, notably Quebec (61%), Sasketchewan/Manitoba (57%), and even Ontario (49% approval against 37% disapproval). Even in British Columbia, where two-thirds believe that Emerson should face a new by-election after turning Tory to join Harper's government, the new PM gets a 45% approval rating. Harper wins majorities in all age classes and from both genders as well.

He has a mandate for moving forward. In fact, he may have the most well-supported federal government in recent Canadian history. It will be fascinating to see what Harper can accomplish with it, and how the Canadians react. Stay tuned.

Dionne Has A Point

Today's column by E.J. Dionne looks at a place that many consider mythology: the middle ground on abortion. The effect of Roe v Wade has created such polarization that absolutists have held rhetorical attention for years. Only recently have people on both sides attempted to reach out for a pragmatic solution that allows everyone to maintain their political positions while cooperating on reducing abortions, a development that Dionne challenges both sides to support:

[T]here is a new argument on abortion that may establish a more authentic middle ground. It would use government not to outlaw abortion altogether but to reduce its likelihood. And at least one politician, Thomas R. Suozzi, the county executive of New York's Nassau County, has shown that the position involves more than soothing rhetoric.

Last May Suozzi, a Democrat, gave an important speech calling on both sides to create "a better world where there are fewer unplanned pregnancies, and where women who face unplanned pregnancies receive greater support and where men take more responsibility for their actions."

Last week Suozzi put money behind his words. He announced nearly $1 million in county government grants to groups ranging from Planned Parenthood to Catholic Charities for an array of programs -- adoption and housing, sex education, and abstinence promotion -- to reduce unwanted pregnancies and to help pregnant women who want to bring their children into the world. Suozzi calls his initiative "Common Sense for the Common Good" and, as Newsday reported, he was joined at his news conference by people at both ends of the abortion debate.

This new strategy allows the political debate to continue on abortion while government and private resources get used to save the lives of babies in the meantime. It's not the perfect solution, or more accurately, not the perfect resolution both sides want in the long term. In the short term, however, it helps reduce the heat and makes the choice for abortion less common.

Dionne acknowledges that this will not satisfy partisans on either side. As a near-absolutist on pro-life side (I can see exceptions for rape and incest), it doesn't go far enough for me, either. However, it does show progress, and if it saves the lives of babies while the grown-ups sit around and debate the issue, that sounds like a worthwhile effort to me.

As Dionne points out, the end of Roe will not mean an end to abortion. Practically speaking, all it will mean is that abortions will be legal in all states until their legislatures debate and issue new legislation. Most states will probably keep abortion legal, if restricted by age and the stage of pregnancy. Congress could even take up the issue on a federal level. For many, the greater issue for Roe is the corrosive effect of an overly-activist Supreme Court and not the specific issue of abortion, and leaving the latter to the legislatures suits us fine.

If we really want to end abortion, we need to provide support and incentives for pregnant women to keep their children. Surely reasonable people from both sides of the debate can come together to acknowledge that much and gear existing programs and funds towards that goal. Perhaps we can one day make the abortion debate strictly academic.

The Cost Of Silliness

Today's Washington Post reviews the cost associated with the turnover created by the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that protects gays in the miltary as long as they keep their mouths shut about their orientation. The Post reports on a UC Santa Barbara study that compares the cost estimates of the GAO and their own research, and determines that the GAO underestimated the cost by about 50%:

The financial costs to the U.S. military for discharging and replacing gay service members under the nation's "don't ask, don't tell" policy are nearly twice what the government estimated last year, with taxpayers covering at least $364 million in associated funds over the policy's first decade, according to a University of California report scheduled for release today.

Members of a UC-Santa Barbara group examining the cost of the policy found that a Government Accountability Office study last year underestimated the costs of firing approximately 9,500 service members between 1994 and 2003 for homosexuality. The GAO, which acknowledged difficulties in coming up with its number, estimated a cost of at least $190.5 million for the same time period. The new estimate is 91 percent higher.

Although it did not take a stance on the effectiveness of the policy, the California "blue ribbon commission" -- which included former defense secretary William J. Perry and 11 professors and defense experts -- found that the military has put millions of dollars into recruiting and training new soldiers and officers to replace those who were removed from their jobs in the services because they were openly gay. The report also cites the costs of losing service members to premature discharge, because of the loss of training "investment."

In short, it appears that the UCSB study considered the costs in the same manner as any corporation would when reviewing its turnover. Hiring costs always include recruitment, orientation, and all training conducted to bring a new hire to a fully functional level. When employees get culled out for any reason, the cost of replacement includes all of those tasks, and whether one accepts the GAO number or the UCSB number, it adds up quickly.

Interestingly, the number of people drummed out of the service during the ten years under review, around ten thousand, is less than half of the number of those who leave due to pregnancy, and less than a third of those who can't make weight. The commission that conducted the study use the data to argue for an end to the current policy and the rejection of homosexuals in the service, but I do notice that they do not use this same data to argue for an end to the induction of women. Nor do they mention any endorsement for tightening weight requirements for new recruits.

Nevertheless, I think the panel has a point about gays in the military. As Barry Goldwater remarked in his later years, the only requirement for soldiers should be whether they shoot straight. It seems like a foolish and irrational burden for the armed services to carry, one perhaps understandable when homosexuality was considered a mental disorder but hard to justify now. The costs really aren't the issue as much as the disruption caused when someone gets outed. I'm sure a few of those ten thousand may have claimed a gay orientation as a quick way out of the service, but most appear to have wanted to serve their country honorably. Without a doubt, many more remain closeted in the military now, doing their jobs without causing a problem but unable to provide the testimony to prove it.

The arguments against lifting the ban seem not only a reach, but also quite reminiscent of arguments used to delay the integration of the services. Putting gays in the ranks will break down discipline -- but no one can explain why we seem to do just fine as long as they keep quiet about their orientation. Recruitment will fall off if gays are allowed to serve -- and many said the same thing about integration, especially about gaining recruits from the South. Well, the South still serves our armed forces, continuing their long tradition of defending the nation, and the resultant integration provided a model for the rest of our country to follow.

Worst of all, the current policy is based on rank hypocrisy. It says, "We're glad to have you as long as you don't tell us what we don't want to know." It acknowledges that gays can serve effective and honorably, as long as they lie about themselves. It seems a rather twisted sense of honor would produce such a formulation. And that's no reflection on the military, but on the political leadership that forced this particular silliness on them.

Let's end the hypocrisy and admit that gays have made good soldiers, sailors, and airmen in the past and present and could contribute to our national defense in the future.

Addendum: I expect to get pilloried on this one, so feel free to fire away in the comments section.

Playing Hardball With Hamas

The US and Israel plan on undermining the Hamas-led Palestinian legislature with a series of actions, including embargoes, cessation of aid, withholding of tax receipts, and throwing as much red tape as possible in order to grind economic activity to a halt in the territories. They aim to force a collapse in Hamas' popularity and cause a new election:

The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.

The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

The officials also argue that a close look at the election results shows that Hamas won a smaller mandate than previously understood.

The officials and diplomats, who said this approach was being discussed at the highest levels of the State Department and the Israeli government, spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

They say Hamas will be given a choice: recognize Israel's right to exist, forswear violence and accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements — as called for by the United Nations and the West — or face isolation and collapse.

Fatah took a more direct approach -- they pushed last-minute legislation transferring most of the power to the presidency, allowing Mahmoud Abbas to rule in effect as a dictator. This is not a new concept for their parliament; it served as a rubber stamp for Yasser Arafat but had taken back its enumerated power after Arafat's death, on the insistence of the Quartet. Hamas protested the new laws and swore to overturn them once they take their seats, but the rules require a two-thirds vote to reverse the action and Hamas falls short in their new majority. It would fall to their high court for a final judgment, but the new law allows Abbas to select the jurists for the court.

The Fatah action will probably make the most difference. Hamas will likely just take over the government regardless of the law, effectlvely created a terrorist coup and either forcing Abbas out or making him irrelevant. If Fatah resists, the action will bring immediate civil war between the two bloody factions. That may help Israel in the short run; both sides will be too busy killing each other to kill Israelis, and the war would thin both ranks and clarify the power structure of its main enemy, that being whichever faction survives.

Outside of that, the notion of undermining the Hamas majority in the parliament does not hold much hope for success. The actions contemplated as part of that strategy are all appropriate in and of themselves; we should not provide aid or economic engagement to terrorists under any circumstances. However, the people turning this into a grand strategy are either naive or hopeless optimists. The Palestinians may have tired of Fatah's corruption, but they didn't elect Hamas to get the trains to run on time. They could have formed a peace party if that reflected the will of the people. The Palestinians elected Hamas knowing full well what that meant on the international stage. Causing a collapse would only make them dig their heels more deeply in their support.

But let's assume it works the way State hopes. Even if it led to Fatah's resurgence, why would that cause Fatah to be "chastened"? What lesson would Fatah have learned -- that they can rip off their people by embezzling the aid we provide, allow their own lunatics to continue their terrorist attacks on Israel, and still get Western support to push them back into power? Well, that's a great strategy. Let's reward both terrorism and corruption!

The best approach is to cut off the Palestinians completely and make it clear that the West washes its hands of them until they grow up and elect responsible leadership. Until the Palestinians insist on having political choices between Terrorist A and Terrorist B, they provide no reason to continue engagement.

Dems Push Hackett Under A Bus

Remember Paul Hackett? He's the Iraq War veteran who got backing from the Democrats and a good chunk of the liberal blogosphere to run in a special election for a Congressional seat and made a respectable showing in a strong Republican district. He announced his candidacy for the Senate race and expected to make a hard run against Mike DeWine in a state that has had its share of GOP scandals. However, Hackett finds himself out of the race and out of politics, the victim of a Democratic campaign to push him out in favor of Sherrod Brown:

Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and popular Democratic candidate in Ohio's closely watched Senate contest, said yesterday that he was dropping out of the race and leaving politics altogether as a result of pressure from party leaders.

Mr. Hackett said Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Harry Reid of Nevada, the same party leaders who he said persuaded him last August to enter the Senate race, had pushed him to step aside so that Representative Sherrod Brown, a longtime member of Congress, could take on Senator Mike DeWine, the Republican incumbent.

Mr. Hackett staged a surprisingly strong Congressional run last year in an overwhelmingly Republican district and gained national prominence for his scathing criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. It was his performance in the Congressional race that led party leaders to recruit him for the Senate race.

But for the last two weeks, he said, state and national Democratic Party leaders have urged him to drop his Senate campaign and again run for Congress.

Hackett, who once said that GOP leaders had a lot in common with Osama bin Laden, now finds out that Democratic leaders have a lot in common with Machiavelli. He told the New York Times that Reid, Schumer, and others undermined his campaign by convincing donors to withhold contributions to his campaign. When he objected, the same leaders pressed him to break his pledge not to run for the House race, which he refused to do.

Democrats actively sought out Iraq war veterans to run for office in an apparent attempt to bolster their national-security credentials. Once again, they show the superficial concern they have for both national security and the veterans they courted in their clumsy attempt to cut Hackett off at the knees, especially considering the high profile he gave their program last November. Hackett found out a little late that Democrats only pay lip service to veterans and the concerns of national security. I wonder how many of these veterans will stand by and watch their peer get pushed under the bus.

Sherrod Brown, who capitalizes on the torpedoing of Hackett's campaign, had nothing to say about the interference run on his behalf by Reid and Schumer.

UPDATE: The take at DailyKos, which supported Hackett in last year's special election? It's Hackett's fault for not deciding to run until after Labor Day. Of course, he had just worked all year for the Dems running for OH-02, and the election itself took place at the beginning of August. I guess if you can't make up your mind 30 days after an election about your future plans for office, the Dems feel free to walk all over you.

Cheney Shoots Attorney, Reporter Gets Brain Damage

Unlike many of my friends on the starboard side of the blogosphere, I enjoy Dana Milbank's contributions at the Washington Post. In his non-reportorial mode, his snarky and fun analyses often brighten up some dreary topics. Unfortunately, his snarky writing often finds its way into his news reporting as well, and his biases shine through just about everything he writes.

Today's contribution to the MS-NBC show Countdown with the dreadfully egotistical Keith Olbermann brings Milbank to a new nadir in his career, however (via Michelle Malkin):

No, this isn't a tryout for America's Worst-Dressed Nerds; it's Milbank trying to be funny and only succeeding at being funny-looking. Since when do serious journalists pull stunts like this? Heck, most bloggers I know wouldn't be dumb enough to dress like this on national TV even as a joke, not if they wanted to maintain any credibility.

Memo to the Exempt Media: it was an accident. Report it and get over it, and then shut the hell up so that we can listen to the real comedians make fun of Dick Cheney. Anyone want to guess how much higher the ratings for Jay and Dave will be tonight?

And while we're at it, can we all just calm down about the White House waiting all of eighteen hours to release the news of the shooting? When the shooting occurred, I for one am glad that the first thought through Cheney's mind wasn't "Gee, how soon do I need to put out a news release?" I understand that the White House press pool feels put out because the story got covered by a local Corpus Christi newspaper instead of the courtiers in DC, but all this fuss over eighteen hours is sheer silliness. It's not a cover-up, people. It's not even a crime to have a hunting accident, and it's certainly not a crime not to report it to the Exempt Media, no matter how mad it makes them.

Besides, while they're whining about eighteen hours, the same media outlets who stand outraged at the blackout have spent the last ten days hiding the Prophet cartoons from their readers and viewers. I'm less than impressed with their whining about the public's right to know about a hunting accident under the circumstances.

The Traveling Imams

CQ reader Peter A in Denmark sends a translation of a new Jyllands-Posten article that delves into the origins of the Cartoon Wars that have raged around the world for the past two weeks. The true reasons for the manufactured outrage turn out to have more connection to other Danish actions than just the cartoons. The proper context shows that the Muslims in Denmark and elsewhere have much more of an agenda than simply protecting the Prophet from satire and their religious sensibilities from criticism. Be sure to read it all.

JYLLANDS-POSTEN Sunday, February 12, 2005: THE TRAVELLING IMAMS

They said they would send delegations on a tour of the world to convince Moslem countries to participate in a "defense" of the prophet Muhammed. Instead it turned into an attack. The Danes were described as "infidels", who would neither recognize Islam or allow Mosques to be erected. Since, the battle cry "Death to Denmark" has sounded in many cities in the Middle East. Most of the persons who participated in the tour are Danish Citizens. Even so, they believe they did the right thing when they became The Travelling Imams.

THE MUHAMMED CRISIS
By Orla Borg and Lars Nørgaard Pedersen

The evening of Novemer 18, 2005 was when they finally decided. All Danish channels were showing a smiling Anders Fogh Rasmussen opening the doors of Marienborg [ED:Downing Street No 10 in Denmark] to the Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

To the Imams and other representatives of Moslem organizations, who for several weeks had been protesting the Muhammed cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten, it felt like a kick to the face:

So, the Prime Minister welcomed her - this /woman/ who had written the manuscript for "Submission Part 1", a film highly critical of Islam. But the ambassadors of 11 Moslem countries who had asked so pleadingly to meet him regarding the caricatures of the prophet Muhammed, were not granted an audience.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back.

The inflamed Danish Moslems who had organized in the network "Moslems for the Prophet in the Media" decided to enter phase two: The international phase with travelling delegations to the Middle East, since their first strategy - national actions within the borders of Denmark - had led them nowhere.

Since October 2, 2005 - two days after the publication of the drawings - they had tried to make the Jyllands-Posten and the Danish government apologize for the drawings and ensure that there would be no repetitions. They had collected 17000 signatures. They had organized a demonstration numbering more than 3000 on Rådhuspladsen in Copenhagen. They had written to the Ministry of Culture from which they had not even received an answer. And lastly 11 ambassadors had co-authored a letter asking to meet the Prime Minister to discuss the matter.

All in vain.

DEFENSE TURNED INTO AN ATTACK

The 27 organizations called for an emergency meeting where it was decided to put together delegations who would "visit the Islamic World in order to inform them of the danger inherent in the situation and convince them to join
in the defense and the support of our prophet," as the published mission statement of the delegations had it.

But this defensive action evolved into an attack on Denmark - with the connivance of the diplomats of Moslem countries in Denmark.

In the middle of November representatives of the Moslem organizations first met the Moslem ambassadors in Copenhagen. Mona Omar, the Ambassador of Egypt - who was later elected spokesman of the 11 ambassadors - in November received a handful of representatives of the Moslem organizations. They presented to her the plan of sending delegations to the Middle East. The embassy approved of the idea and arranged for them to meet in Cairo
Muhammed Shaaban, an advisor to the Egyptian Foreign Minister, former Ambassador and a member of the board of the Danish-Egyptian institute for Dialogue in Cairo. The Egyptian embassy also helped with visas and provided contact to the League of Arab States in Cairo.

Two main delegations were sent in the first round. The first delegation of five landed in Egypt on December 3, 2005 and returned December 11, 2005. The second delegation comprising four Danish Moslems travelled to Lebanon December 17, 2005 and returned to Denmark December 31, 2005. During that time, Imam Ahmed Akkari from the Lebanon delegation visited Syria to present their case to Grand Mufti Ahmed Badr-Eddine Hassoun. Furthermore a smaller delegation travelled to Turkey while individuals visited Sudan, Morocco and Algeria.

The fact that the two main delegations were sent to Lebanon and Egypt, Imam Ahmed Akkari ascribes to several factors: The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs supports 'The Arab Initiative', designed to improve cooperation in the
Middle East, and specifically on Lebanon. Furthermore they noted that Lebanon, in spite of civil war, had diverse religious communities, which might increase the likeliness of their being understood. And when Nicholas Sarkozy specifically had visited the Grand Mufti Muhammed Said Tantawi in Cairo during the debate over hijabs - headscarves - in France, it had made a great impression on them. And finally, several of the members of the delegation descend from the two countries: The businessman Ahmed Harby and Nour-Edin Fattah of the first
delegation are of Egyptian descent while Raed Hlayhel and Ahmed Akkari of the second delegation are of Lebanese descent.

43 FULL PAGES

According to Ahmed Akkari, one of the goals of the delegations was to avoid "a new Van Gogh-case" - referring to the Dutch director who was murdered by an Islamist extremist in 2004. "The trip to Egypt was needed to create a response to be used in Denmark," Ahmed Akkari says.

The delegations brought stacks of a document 43 pages long containing pages of text and photos. The document contained the 12 cartoons from the Jyllands-Posten, 10 cartoons from the Weekendavisen and 4 derogatory photos, which according to the Moslems had been sent anonymously to Moslems in Denmark.

The delegation to Egypt achieved a great impact. It was headed by Abu Bashar of The Community of Islam and amongst the leaders were also leaders of Pakistani and Turkish organizations. During the meeting with the League of Arab States, which took place on December 11, 2005, the Danish Imam Abu Bashar showed the photo depicting the prophet as a pig.

Alaa Roushdy, the first secretary of Amr Moussa, participated in the meeting. The two Danish-Moslem representatives described the pig photo. They also talked about an announced movie critical of Islam, to be produced by Denmark, says Alaa Roushdy. The alleged movie was later to be one of many untrue
rumours to circulate in the Middle East.

The delegation also met the presidentially appointed Grand Mufti Muhammed Said Tantawy, who is also the leader of Al Azhar University, one of the world most renowned institutes for higher learning in the Sunni Moslem world.

THREAT OF A FATWA

The Grand Mufti released a statement condemning the cartoons. A fatwa to boycot Danish goods was threatened unless the drawing were withdrawn. And more important: The Egyptian Foreign Minister promised to raise the issue during the coming islamic conference when the 57 countries of the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) was to meet at the end of December. Symbolically, it was to be in Mecca - the home of Muhammed - that things
took a turn.

The second delegation got the Lebanese Foreign Minister, Fawzi Salloukh, to contact his Egyptian counterpart in view of a common response. The third and lesser delegation travelled to Turkey. Led by Zeki Kocer of DMGT - a union of Turkish immigrant organization - it is unknown with whom they met.

In none of the countries visited by the delegations did demonstrators take to the street. But a meeting in Mekka set wheels in motion.

The 57 Moslem countries of the OIC met in the home city of Muhammed in December. The Egyptian Foreign Minister brought the 43 pages from the Danish Delegation. The cartoons of Muhammed circulated in the corridors and became THE topic of conversation during the conference. In the final communiqué, the OIC noted that the 57 countries were worried about the growing hatred against Islam and condemned "the latest incident where the media of some countries have desecrated the holy prophet Muhammed."

Now the case had gained traction.

The end of January saw protests against Denmark erupting volcanically. First came the boycot of Danish products in Saudi-Arabia and Kuwait beginning January 26, 2006 - a boycot which quickly spread to other Islamic countries. After that, the cartoons became the theme of the Friday Sermon everywhere. The same weekend Moslem protesters burned down down the Danish embassy in Syria, attacked the offices of the Danish deputation in Beirut and since then death threats have been made against Danes in several Moslem countries.

Thursday the ninth, the beginning of the Ashura holidays in the Shiite world, the cry went out "Death to Denmark" in Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon.

THE INFIDEL DANES

In Denmark criticism of the delegations has grown. They have been accused of showing false cartoons and spreading disinformation. But the 43 pages the delegations brough with them contained a text that has gone unnoticed so far.

The text labels the Danes as "Infidels"

"Though they are nominally Christian, secularization has submerged them to a degree where to say that they are infidels would not be a lie." Furthermore the text contains to specific disinformations.

* Of the situation of the Moslems in Denmark: "Those of the true faith are opressed in a number of ways, mainly the
Islamic faith is not officially recognized in Denmark."

* Of mosques in Denmark: "Which brings about a series of problems; most significantly permissions to build mosques are not granted and Moslems thus have to reuse old commercial properties and storage facilities as places of worship."

This information is wrong:

* The Ministry of Religion recognizes 19 Islamic denominations in Denmark.

* No Moslems are prevented from building Mosques. That it has not happened is caused by fraternal dissent in the Moslem communities: Agreement can not be reached as to who is to run the Mosque and thus sufficient money has not been raised for the building of a mosque.

The debate about the delegations runs high. Few defend them. Some do, including one of the 11 ambassadors which thePrime Minister declined to meet. The Ambassador wishes to remain anonymous but says: "We encouraged none of the actions the delegations took, nor did they encourage us. They made their own choices and none of the ambassadors participated in any of their meetings. People are now trying to pin it on the delegations but it was already an issue when they left for Egypt."

Alaa Roushdy, First Secretary of the influential leader of The League of Arab States in Cairo defends the delegations too: "I have been following the discussion as to whether the delegations hold responsibility for what is happening in the Middle East. But the truth is that the real reaction came one and a half month after their visit." Roushdy adds that the issue would have exploded under any circumstances once the League of Arab States and the OIC had been informed.

Many criticised the delegations. One of their sharpest detractors is Ben Haddou of Moroccan ancestry, a former City Councillor in Copenhagen for the Centrist Democrats and later the Conservatives. He calls the delegations "half treason" and thinks that the delegations and protests have been staged to attract money from the rich Arab Gulf States. "They are fighting for their own Kingdom in Denmark and their own Mosques. Why does the Community of Islam call press conferences? Why do they so want to go with Danish Industry [ED: Umbrella Organization for Danish employers in the indutrial sector] to the Middle East? Why do they want public servants on the trip? Because it will give them a rubber stamp of approval. If they go to the Middle East with Officials of the Danish State, it will be seen as an official mark of approval and then the flow of money from the Gulf States will
be without end."

NOT OUR FAULT

The members of the delegations reject the claim that they carry the main responsibility for the attacks on Danish interests. Most members refuse to comment and refer to spokesman Ahmed Akkari. He has no regrets. "We never wanted this development or the violent actions which we have distanced ourselves from" (SIC).

On the matter of whether the delegations haven't achieved the exact opposite of what they set out to do, if the goal of the delegations was to strengthen the Islamic position in Denmark, answers Ahmed Akkari: "We will not accept that it was our responsibility. When Bush goes to the Middle East it often causes new riots, but nobody tells him not to go. We feel stigmatized as second- or third-class citizens."

Do you feel as a second- or third-rate citizen? "I feel that the public discourse in Denmark is harsh towards the
Muslims and that our voice is not heard. That goes for me personally as well."

But you HAVE been heard the last couple of weeks, haven't you? "When finally we do get our say, we are portrayed as villains. We want to be represented properly," says Ahmed Akkari.

He predicts two endgames for the prophet-case: Either Moslems will be properly and fully recognized in Denmark or else portrayal of them as villains will be intensified. "I believe in the former. I am an optimist."

=======

So it isn't just a case of a few supposedly inflammatory cartoons appearing in Jyllands-Posten that set this off. This has been a deliberate provocation by Danish Muslims to inflame Islam against Denmark specifically and the West in general -- and it would have happened eventually even without the cartoons.

Hillary, You Are No Bill Clinton

The London Times reviews the performance of the presumed front-runner for the Democratic ticket in 2008 and finds her performance wanting. Gerard Baker, the editor for its American desk, notes that Hillary Clinton not only cannot connect well in her appearances but cannot even escape the long shadow cast by her husband and most potent political asset:

Few deny that Mrs Clinton is razor-sharp and politically savvy. But even supporters worry about her personal skills, at least before a large audience. She is a somewhat wooden speaker with a hectoring style at times more reminiscent of Al Gore than her husband. And unlike Bill, she projects a lofty, distant air that has been likened to the Queen of Sheba in a power suit.

Last weekend Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman, homed in on Mrs Clinton’s personality, saying that she was too angry. His aim was both to pinpoint her weaknesses and to needle her, and it seems to have worked. ...

The hope in her camp is that people will believe that Mrs Clinton has her husband’s political strengths and none of his weaknesses. The growing fear is that she incites the same level of loathing and suspicion as her husband always did, but has none of the charm and personality to deflect it.

Hillary has always come across as a scold and a cold fish on the stump, where Bill may only truly find himself in that setting. He has always had a grace and flow to his appearances that served him well on most occasions. His charm finds its best and most productive outlet there, while Hillary usually sounds rather tight and forced. The comparisons will not make her look any better, and if she has Bill at the same events with her, he will continue to upstage her every time. That only plays into the suspicion that Hillary will run as an end-around to the 25th Amendment to garner Bill his third term in office.

Democrats need to find a national candidate with less baggage than Hillary. Almost half of the electorate doesn't want anything to with the Clintons ever again, and about half of what's left doesn't think Bill is worth casting a vote for Hillary. Rasmussen's last poll demonstrates that Hillary might win in the primaries, but she will get shellacked in a national election and probably would be the biggest get-out-the-vote incentive for the GOP in years. When the London Times plays Lloyd Bentsen to Hillary's Dan Quayle, her negatives no longer can be portrayed as Republican wishful thinking.

Democrats Backpedal On NSA Program

Having failed at turning the NSA program to surveil international calls connected with suspected terrorists into a "domestic" spying scandal, Democrats have reversed course and now want the program to continue but under new Congressional rules. The reversal has shown that President Bush's offensive against the critics, starting with his immediate acknowledgement of authorizing the program, has once again damaged the Democrats on national security and has pushed them to settle the issue quickly:

Two key Democrats yesterday called the NSA domestic surveillance program necessary for fighting terrorism but questioned whether President Bush had the legal authority to order it done without getting congressional approval.

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) said Republicans are trying to create a political issue over Democrats' concern on the constitutional questions raised by the spying program.

At the same time, the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence committees -- Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), who attended secret National Security Agency briefings -- said they supported Bush's right to undertake the program without new congressional authorization. They added that Democrats briefed on the program, who included Harman and Daschle, could have taken steps if they believed the program was illegal. All four appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Roberts said he could not remember Democrats raising questions about the program during briefings that, beginning in 2002, were given to the "Gang of Eight." That group was made up of the House speaker and minority leader, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and the chairmen and ranking Democrats of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

At the briefings, Roberts said, "Those that did the briefing would say, 'Do you have questions? Do you have concerns?' " Hoekstra said if Democrats thought Bush was violating the law, "it was their responsibility to use every tool possible to get the president to stop it."

The Democrats started their response to this controversy by proclaiming George Bush to be the Second Coming of Richard Nixon and spent their political capital assailing him for spying on "ordinary Americans". However, shortly after the revelation of the top-secret program by the New York Times, George Bush did the unexpected: he used his weekly radio address to not only admit to authorizing the program, but angrily insist that he had the authorization and the responsibility to do so. That took everyone by surprise, as did the fact that Democratic leadership had been briefed on a regular basis about the program since its inception -- and had only questioned its authorization once.

That revealed the Democrats as less than honest about their sudden outrage and appeared to take the wind out of their sails for a moment. Later, they attempted to argue that the nature of the program kept them from expressing their concerns, but that doesn't fly. As Hoekstra notes, they never objected or even questioned the authorization during the briefings themselves, when they could speak freely and discuss the program. They never questioned the program during closed-door sessions of the Intelligence Committees, either, when the ranking members would be free to speak among themselves, at least.

The electorate didn't get fooled by the rhetoric, either. A clear majority supported the surveillance, with or without warrants, and believed it to be within the war powers granted to the President by the AUMF. After all, in what war have we ever required the executive branch to get warrants for espionage against the enemy? And as non-wartime precedents became more well known, especially US v Truong and Humphrey involving Jimmy Carter's warrantless wiretaps in peacetime, the public has not budged in its support for the NSA surveillance.

Now Democrats need to make the NSA program and their hysterical attacks against the President ancient history. They now want people to think that they've supported the surveillance all along, but just want to craft legislation to support it. In truth, all they had to do was to propose that legislation when the Times published the existence of the program, but Democrats instead chose to use it as a political club to beat up the Administration. That effort backfired, and now they need that legislation to avoid being seen as lacking seriousness against terrorists -- a judgment that they have only reinforced in this latest kerfuffle.

Western Standard Risks Hate-Speech Prosecution

The Canadian magazine Western Standard decided to reprint the Prophet cartoons to give its readers the oppotunity to see what has caused all the fuss, an opportunity few Western media outlets have given their own readers. In response, Muslim groups in Canada plan to push authorities into prosecuting the Standard's editors for hate speech:

The Western Standard, a political magazine based in Calgary, will today reprint eight of the 12 Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that have caused riots and controversy around the world, and one Canadian Muslim leader warns that hate-crime charges may follow.

Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant, a former Reform and Canadian Alliance activist, calls the cartoons "innocuous" and accused Canada's "mainstream media," including The Globe and Mail, of failing to stand up for free speech for refusing to print the images.

"I was prepared to see the most outrageous, depraved, blasphemous cartoons," Mr. Levant said in an interview yesterday. "I was surprised by how tame they were."

But the leader of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed Elmasry, warned yesterday that his organization will seek to have charges laid against the magazine under Canada's laws against distributing hate literature.

"It's unfortunate," said Mr. Elmasry, who had urged Mr. Levant not to republish the images. "I think he really goes against the will and the values of Canadians by this provocative action."

If Elmasry really thought that the publication of the images went against the "will and values" of the Standard's audience, or Canada in general, then he would trust the marketplace to deliver that verdict. Elmasry, in fact, fears the exact opposite: that Canadians, having been robbed of the context on which to judge this controversy, will flock to the Standard's publication of the cartoons in order to make up their own minds about them.

This shows the folly of hate-speech legislation, especially in countries that supposedly support free speech. Truly hateful speech should be met with more speech, not government prosecution, nor the threat of bombings and beheadings. When the latter presents themselves, defenders of free speech need to give up the nuance that leads them to the "pox upon both houses" approach and instead come down foursquare for the right to speak and criticize on principle. It's that nuanced approach that leads to the passage of hate-speech and campus speech codes and creates protected classes of people whom legislators feel should never be criticized.

That, in fact, is exactly the point for which Muslims around the world have demonstrated. They want to create a special class for themselves and their religion that will bar anyone from questioning its tenets and its insistence on temporal supremacy. These rioters do not protest against all religious satirization, but only for that which involves Islam or Mohammed. Their own newspapers produce cartoons about Jews of the type pioneered by Julius Streicher, and yet they seem unfazed by that satirization of religion.

Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons in part as a test exercise into the support of free speech in the Muslim world. Instead, it has become a test of that support in the Western world, a test that most media outlets have failed miserably. The Western Standard, in its insistence on informing its readers of the context in perhaps the year's biggest controversy, has passed that test. Will the Canadian government fail it and prosecute the magazine's publishers for hate speech over a series of tame editorial cartoons that criticizes the very intolerance that Elmasry and other Muslims have demonstrated?

Al Gore Sells Out To The Saudis

Earlier this week, I pointed out that the Jeddah Economic Forum had disinvited the Danes after their publication of the Prophet cartoons. Arab News reported that Al Gore and Steve Forbes had agreed to appear at the JEF prior to Denmark's exclusion, and several bloggers wondered whether they would endorse the Saudi position and attend after such a move.

Not only did Gore attend, but he sold out the US in order to suck up to the Islamists:

Former Vice President Al Gore told a mainly Saudi audience on Sunday that the U.S. government committed "terrible abuses" against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and that most Americans did not support such treatment.

Gore said Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" and held in "unforgivable" conditions. The former vice president said the Bush administration was playing into al-Qaida's hands by routinely blocking Saudi visa applications.

"The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake," Gore said during the Jiddah Economic Forum. "The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States."

I'm stunned almost to speechlessness. We held mass roundups of Arabs? When? Where? What exactly were the "unforgivable" conditions of which Gore speaks? And as far as the visas go, when exactly did Saudis have a right to enter the United States at whim without any consideration of security? Perhaps the former VP has forgotten, but most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.

In truth, Gore sold out the United States and any notion of freedom by appearing after Denmark got barred from attending an economic forum for the publishing decision of one of its privately-owned newspapers. Just showing up was bad enough. To make accusations about some mythical internment program for Arabs in the US just plays into the hands of the conspiracy-addicted Arabian press.

Thanks, Al. You've gone from a respectable politician to a Saudi suck-up in one of the worst political meltdowns in American history.

UPDATE: Tigerhawk notes that "[t]his business of prestigious American politicians attacking the United States from abroad is repellant, because it serves no legitimate purpose. It is one thing to attack our policies in front of American voters -- that's how the system works -- and quite another to do it from deep into the heart of Wahhabism." Read the rest of his scathing critique as well.

For me, that is a major part of the sell-out, but not all of it. Al Gore could have said this in New York and I would still call it a sell-out and a betrayal of his nation. He spouts the worst conspiracy-theory garbage, without any supporting evidence, which feeds into the propaganda of our enemies. The fact that he did it on stage in Jeddah in a forum which had already booted the Danes for daring to stand up to Islamists only emphasizes the craven and self-involved character of the former VP.

Can We Find A Worse Picture?

I wasn't going to comment on Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident this weekend; I figured enough people would hyperbolize this that another voice would be superfluous. However, as CQ reader Alan Blake pointed out in an e-mail, the AP had to have dug deep in their photo library to find a picture of Cheney with this scary look on his face:

Austin attorney Harry Whittington survived being hit with the shotgun blast from Cheney, only suffering some lacerations and bruises from the pellets. Cheney has a medical staff and an ambulance on standby wherever he goes, and Whittington got immediate medical attention. Even though Whittington is no spring chicken -- he's 78 -- he's expected to make a full recovery.

I'd expectg a lot of Dick Cheney jokes in the next few days, and perhaps the AP started with this selection for the wire-service report.

CQ On The Air Tonight

I'll be appearing on Pundit Review Radio tonight at 8:30 pm Central time tonight. I'll be talking with Kevin for about a half-hour, if he can dig himself out of the foot-plus of snow that hit Massachussetts this weekend. Be sure to tune in!

How To Marginalize Yourself (In One Foolish Step)

In an appearance during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the always-provocative Ann Coulter did what she does best: infuriate, provoke, and amuse. In doing so this time, however, she crossed a line that reflects poorly on conservatives in general, and she deserves the criticism she's received.

When we oppose a group of people, there is a temptation to give them a demeaning nickname or slur to make them a little less human. That's unfortunate, and in this case -- as it often is -- it's inaccurate. "Ragheads" is a slur that could refer to a number of Arabic and non-Arabic people; Sikhs, for instance, wear turbans and are not Arabic or Muslim. Not all Arabs are Islamofascists, nor are all Islamofascists Arabic. Using that term is not only rude and childish, it's entirely off the mark. And attempting to bury the humanity of Islamofascists in terms like "ragheads" is to assign them a status that strips them of the responsibility of their actions.

I don't think that Coulter should get tarred and feathered for this bad choice of rhetoric, but it does serve as a reminder that the slack can only get cut to a point, even with our favorite provocateurs. When the line gets crossed by one of our own, it becomes our responsibility to point it out and insist that it doesn't happen again.

UPDATE: I should have noted that I picked this up from Michelle Malkin's outstanding post. Be sure to read it all.

'We Are Being Pissed On'

CQ reader Peter A in Denmark sends this rather sharp editorial from the Danish newspaper at the center of the Prophet cartoons controversy, and also translates it into English for us. It speaks to the voices of moderation that extol free speech while at the same time scold Jyllands-Posten for exercising it. The author, Per Nyholm, wants the world to know that if freedom of speech has to come with a huge "but" attached to it, it's not freedom at all.

I'm posting the translation in its entirety:

We are being pissed upon by Per Nyholm

I think it was the long departed H.C. Hansen, one of last century's great Danish statesmen who once - while the communists were demonstrating in front of Christiansborg [Ed: the seat of parliament] - threw his gaze across the palace square and remarked: "I will not be pissed upon."

Then he did what was necessary.

I feel that currently my beloved country is being pissed upon rather too much. Denmark has not been neglecting its duties on the international stage. We have supported poor people with acts and advice, we have worked for peace, we have sent soldiers, policemen and experts to all the far flung corners of the world. We have democracy, a state of law and a welfare state. Not all is perfect, but we harbor no malice to our fellow man.

And yet Denmark is being pissed upon. The spokesman of the US State Department is pissing on Denmark, the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs is pissing on Denmark, the President of Afghanistan is pissing on Denmark, the Goverment of Iraq is pissing on Denmark, other Moslem regimes are pissing on Denmark. In Gaza, where Danes for years have provided humanitarian relief, crazed Imams encourage people to cut off the hands and heads of the cartoonists who made the caricatures of Mohammed for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Excuse my choice of words, but all this pissing is pissing me off.

What's happening? I am not so much referring to the threats against Danish citizens and Danish commerce. Nor are the burnt down Embassies what occupies my mind. I am thinking of a word that keeps popping up whenever the Mohammed cartoons are mentioned.

That word is BUT. A sneaky word. It's used to deny or relativize what one has just said.

How many times lately have we not heard people of power, The Formers of Opinion and other people say that of course we have freedom of speech, BUT.

They have said it, all of them, from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General to our own Bendt Bendtsen [ed: Danish Politician]. Once we had to be sensitive of the easily hurt feeling of the Nazis, then came the communists, now it is the Islamists. The reason I say 'Islamists' is that I don't for a moment believe all the world's Moslems are pissing on us. I think we are dealing with thugs, fools and misled people. Those are the ones we have to deal with, and then the chickenshit politicians.

The cartoons are no longer something the Jyllands-Posten can control. They have already been manipulated and misrepresented to the point that few know what's going on and fewer know how to stop it. This affair is artifically kept buoyant in a sea of lies, suppressions of the truth, misconceptions, lunacy and hypocrisy, for which this newspaper bears no blame. The only thing the Jyllands-Posten did was that it with a pin-prick made a boil of nastiness explode. It would have happened sooner or later. That it happened more than four months following the publication of the cartoons, raises a question of its own.

Are we dealing with random events or with a staged clash of civilizations? One might hope for the former yet expect the latter.

That's why I say: Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech. There is no but.

Initially I was doubtful of the timeliness of publishing the cartoons. Later events have convinced me that it was both just and useful. That they are consistent with Danish law and Danish custom seem to me less important than this: that we now know that remote, primitive countries deem themselves justified in telling us what we can do. Unfortunately we also have to recognize that governments close to us agree with them in the name of expedience.

The just is in the offensive this newspaper has launched in the name of Freedom of Speech, the useful in our newly acquired knowledge. Welcome to a brave, new world, where even our Prime Minister - in spite of his laudable firmness - must gaze out upon a scorched political landscape. It's true, as is custom, his friend in Washington, George Bush, condemns the torching of our embassies, but his Department of State alludes to us being the guilty ones in this case. The suggestion that Danish troops might benefit the democratization is buried under the charred remains of our diplomatic representations in Beirut and Damascus.

Perhaps it's time we started mopping up this mess. Perhaps Editor-in-Chief Carsten Juste ought to remove his apology which has gone stale sitting so long on the front page of our internet edition and which does not seem to interest madmen. Perhaps our government ought to announce to Mona Omar Attia, the strange Ambassador of Egypt, that she is persona non grata.

Perhaps it ought to be announced to the ambassadors that have been called home to fictive consultations in the Middle East that they may spare themselves the cost of the return ticket.

To the degree it is possible, The Lying Imams ought probably to be expelled. And then we ought to make an effort for the Moslems who in a difficult situation have proven themselves to be true Citizens.

We, for our part, have no wish to be a burden for the arab governments. We will happily withdraw our soldiers, policemen and diplomats. If they think our money smells, we will stop our aid. Our trade must make do as well as it can. We promise to not bear a grudge and, in time, we will be glad to return, but we are through with the hypocrisy. We have better things to do than being pissed upon at our own expense.

Turn down our activity in the Middle East. This world holds other opportunities.

I have a couple of responses to this. One, we here in the US understand that the State Department has its own agenda, and in this case their agenda was set by the Arabists at Foggy Bottom. They want to make nice and try to be seen as moderate. Can one be moderate in defense of free speech? Per Nyholm doesn't think so, and I agree with him.

Second, if Denmark feels that it has been pissed upon despite all of its efforts to assist Arabs in general and Moslems in particular, welcome to the club. We helped free Balkan Muslims from a genocidal aggressor in Serbia, and we got rewarded by 9/11. In other words, Demark, we feel your pain -- been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I think Nyhom's response is the correct one; cut off the aid and the support and let the countries promoting these violent demonstrations get along without Danish assistance.

If only all of Europe could show such steel in response.

UPDATE: Yes, that should have read "without Danish assistance." Thanks to the several readers who alerted me to that error!

Your Aid Dollars Bolster The Economy

After all of the debate and effort to give aid and debt relief to poor African nations, some people still did not believe we went far enough. We tied assistance to true political reform as a prerequisite for this relief, and many thought that such requirements were too harsh. In the end, the results satisfied few on either side of the question.

Of the few, however, the Congolese president must have been the most satisfied, if his spending habits give any indication. The London Times gives us a look at the Lifestyles Of The Rich And Subsidized:

THE leader of one of Africa’s poorest countries paid more than £100,000 in cash towards a £169,000 hotel bill run up by his entourage during last year’s United Nations summit in New York, according to court documents obtained by The Sunday Times.

Aides to President Denis Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo startled staff at the Palace hotel on Madison Avenue by pulling out wads of $100 notes to settle a bill for 26 rooms.

Sassou-Nguesso, who is chairman of the African Union, representing all the continent’s governments, is negotiating with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cancel many of his country’s debts on the grounds that it cannot afford to repay them. Yet the president spent a week last September in the Palace hotel, one of Manhattan’s most prestigious addresses.

He paid $8,500 (about £4,875) a night for a three-storey suite with art deco furniture, a Jacuzzi bathtub and a 50in plasma television screen. His room service charges on September 18 alone came to more than £2,000.

I suppose if one was to negotiate an end to debt, the smart option would be to run it up to the max before presenting the bill to one's deliverers. And the stress of asking for money must have weighed terribly on the Congolese president, especially on September 18th. It sounds like he needed quite a bit of food to relieve the tremendous pressure of asking for money, since he paid almost $4,000 in room service that day.

By the way, if you're keeping score, that $4,000 comes to the amount of money made by about 3200 of his citizens in the same time period. At least it does for some of his citizens, although it probably doesn't apply to the butler, his personal photographer, his wife's hairdresser, and the rest of the entourage that took up 25 rooms at the five-star hotel in New York.

The best part? President Daniel Sassou-Nguesso has held his office since the end of a civil war in 1997, but had originally come to office in 1992. As a Marxist. How many Marxists pay their $177,000 hotel bill in cash?

Last year, I supported the debt-relief initiative for African nations that cleaned up their corruption and reformed their governments through open elections and democratic institutions. If this demonstrates the effectiveness of that reform, then I suggest that the G-8 send Sassou-Nguesso back home, along with his bill, and tell his constituents that they still have a mortgage to pay.

Getting Serious With Iran?

According to the London Telegraph, the United States has begun serious planning for a military strike on Iran that will incapacitate its nuclear program. This game-planning appears more serious than just a normal update of security options, and the revelation of the planning will most likely create a further polarization of the mullahcracy from the rest of the diplomatic world:

Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.

Central Command and Strategic Command planners are identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an operation, the Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

They are reporting to the office of Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, as America updates plans for action if the diplomatic offensive fails to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear bomb ambitions. Teheran claims that it is developing only a civilian energy programme.

"This is more than just the standard military contingency assessment," said a senior Pentagon adviser. "This has taken on much greater urgency in recent months."

The prospect of military action could put Washington at odds with Britain which fears that an attack would spark violence across the Middle East, reprisals in the West and may not cripple Teheran's nuclear programme. But the steady flow of disclosures about Iran's secret nuclear operations and the virulent anti-Israeli threats of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has prompted the fresh assessment of military options by Washington. The most likely strategy would involve aerial bombardment by long-distance B2 bombers, each armed with up to 40,000lb of precision weapons, including the latest bunker-busting devices. They would fly from bases in Missouri with mid-air refuelling.

The Democrats have recently taken up the argument that Iran poses the worst national-security threat in the world at the moment, and that has allowed the White House much more room to consider military options. Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton both have called for immediate action to keep Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, although the latter has been more vague about the action requested. Politically, it would appear that George Bush has enough bipartisan clearance -- I wouldn't call it support -- to launch a limited strike on Iran that targeted known nuclear facilities, at least domestically.

What would the international reaction be? Had Ahmedinejad not gone public with his genocidal rants about Israel, Bush would have immediately isolated himself. Even Britain would probably have declined to openly support such an attack, no matter what the pre-emptive value might be. However, with the Iranian leadership regularly issuing such hostile and irrational statements, along with its long history of supporting Islamofascist terrorism, that may no longer be the case. Certainly we would damage our relationship with Russia and China, but since they have proven rather useless in the war on terror (especially China), the loss may not be terribly significant. Western Europe can be counted on to object, but Eastern Europe will understand that they live within easy range of the Shahab-3 rockets at the mullah's command. They may not cheer the decision, but they will understand it.

All of that aside, will that bring us closer to our goal of democracy throughout Southwest Asia? It's doubtful. Iran has a large population that wants closer ties to America and more openness and freedom in Iran. They do not want America to invade Iran to bring it to them, but they want the support and assistance needed to overthrow the mullahcracy. Bombing their nation will do more to inflame anti-American sentiment than to bolster the democrats. I'm afraid, and we may lose a golden opportunity to inspire yet another velvet revolution.

The bombing plans may serve to push the Iranian democrats into action; if so, then they will have served their best purpose. The US may be signalling the activists that the time has come to rise up and topple the regime -- and if they can't, we will take the steps necessary to ensure that the mullahs' evil remains within Iranian borders from now on.

As our good friend Michael Ledeen often pleads .... faster, please.