NARN On The Air Today

The Northern Alliance is on the air right now -- and we will be discussing the new documents just being translated from the Iraqi Intelligence Service. Join us at the stream at AM 1280 The Patriot and call us at 651-289-4488 to join us on air.

More Connections Between Saddam And Al-Qaeda

Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard has long pressed for the release of millions of Iraqi intelligence documents captured by the US when Baghdad fell. He argued for years that the trove of correspondence would shed light on critical disputes about the Iraq war and the actual threat presented from Saddam Hussein and his genocidal regime. Hayes gambled that the IIS hid much more than the American media reported -- and it turns out that Hayes has won his bet.

New documents released show that the Iraqis funded the Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the Philippines, a band of bloodthirsty Islamists with strong ties to al-Qaeda:

ON JUNE 6, 2001, the Iraqi ambassador to the Philippines sent an eight-page fax to Baghdad. Ambassador Salah Samarmad's dispatch to the Secondary Policy Directorate of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry concerned an Abu Sayyaf kidnapping a week earlier that had garnered international attention. Twenty civilians--including three Americans--had been taken from Dos Palmas Resort on Palawan Island in the southern Philippines. There had been fighting between the kidnappers and the Filipino military, Samarmad reported. Several hostages had escaped, and others were released. ...

The report notes that the Iraqis were now trying to be seen as helpful and keep a safe distance from Abu Sayyaf. "We have all cooperated in the field of intelligence information with some of our friends to encourage the tourists and the investors in the Philippines." But Samarmad's report seems to confirm that this is a change. "The kidnappers were formerly (from the previous year) receiving money and purchasing combat weapons. From now on we (IIS) are not giving them this opportunity and are not on speaking terms with them."

Samarmad's dispatch appears to be the final installment in a series of internal Iraqi regime memos from March through June 2001. (The U.S. government translated some of these documents in full and summarized others.) The memos contain a lengthy discussion among Iraqi officials--from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Iraqi Intelligence Service--about the wisdom of using a Libyan intelligence front as a way to channel Iraqi support for Abu Sayyaf without the risks of dealing directly with the group.

At the same time that leftists would have us believe that Saddam was safely in a "box" and contained by UN sanctions, he had corrupted the UN's aid program and plundered his own nation for billions of dollars. Obviously, some of this went to Abu Sayyaf until they got a little too notorious and the Iraqis had to pull back. Before that, however, they showed some enthusiasm for not only giving the Islamists money but also smuggling arms into the Philippines for their use.

And these aren't just local Islamists, either, as the Center for Defense Information noted in March 2002:

Abu Sayyaf was founded by Abdurajak Janjalani, an Islamic scholar and mujahedin in the Afghan-Soviet war, after he, like the contemporaries that formed his initial recruiting crop, returned from studies in Saudi Arabia and Libya determined to fulfill the Muslim ideal of an Islamic state. ...

In its inchoate stages and while under Janjalani's leadership, Abu Sayyaf was plugged into the international network of Islamic militants that received the support of Osama bin Laden. Abu Sayyaf-al Qaeda links are strong. Many of its fighters claim to have trained in Afghanistan, including as many as 20 who were in the graduating class of a Mazar-e Sharif camp in 2001; the titular group leader, Janjalani's brother, refined his terrorist skills in Libya. Zamboanga City, a Mindanao Islamic hotbed, was frequented by members of al Qaeda. Yet the best indicator of al Qaeda's influence is the relationship Janjalani forged with Saudi Arabian businessman Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden's brother-in-law. Khalifa's network of Islamic charities and university in Zamboanga were both used to bankroll extremists. His main organization, the International Islamic Relief Organization, has an office in Zamboanga, as does a bin Laden foundation. Abu Sayyaf received training and money funneled through Khalifa's network. It was during this time of close association with Khalifa and the al Qaeda network that Abu Sayyaf began plotting its two biggest endeavors — assassination of the Pope during a visit to the Catholic Philippines, and a plan to hijack and blow up 12 U.S. civilian airliners in a single day. After these plans were foiled (by an accidental fire in Ramsey Yousef's apartment), authorities began to see Abu Sayyaf as a major threat to security in the Philippines — and as a true threat to international security.

CNN also notes the AS/AQ connection in its section on Asian terrorists. Time reported it in November 2002 in a profile on Abu Sayyaf and its operations. Those connections between Saddam and Islamist terror, specifically al-Qaeda, look a lot more significant with this new information.

The people who argued that waging war on Saddam Hussein constituted a "distraction" from the war on terror will have a lot of backpedaling to do.

ADDENDUM: This also puts a much different light on the sudden decision by Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi to give up his nuclear program and start cooperating with the US and UK on fighting terrorism. The Libyans acted as Saddam's middleman on funneling arms and money to Abu Sayyaf, a fact which Gaddafi must have assumed we would discover as we exploited the IIS documentation -- and especially after we captured Saddam Hussein in his spider hole. Libya would have jumped to the top ranks of terror-enablers and would have provided an even less difficult target than Syria, especially given Abu Sayyaf's attacks on Americans in the Philippines.

When Gaddafi told Italy's Silvio Berlusconi that he didn't want to end up like Saddam, he wasn't just engaging in hyperbole.

ADDENDUM II: Here's a provocative passage from another document, this time outlining Iraqi connections to al-Qaeda that channeled through the Sudan. This summarizes a meeting of Saddam's "Reform and Advice Committee":

A. During the visit of the Sudanese Dr. Ibrahim al-Sanusi to Iraq and his meeting with Mr. Uday Saddam Hussein, on December 13, 1994, in the presence of the respectable, Mr. Director of the Intelligence Service, he [Dr. al-Sanusi] pointed out that the opposing Osama bin Laden, residing in Sudan, is reserved and afraid to be depicted by his enemies as an agent of Iraq. We prepared to meet him in Sudan (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the results of the meeting in our letter 782 on December 17, 1994).

B. An approval to meet with opposer Osama bin Laden by the Intelligence Services was given by the Honorable Presidency in its letter 138, dated January 11, 1995 (attachment 6). He [bin Laden] was met by the previous general director of M4 in Sudan and in the presence of the Sudanese, Ibrahim al-Sanusi, on February 19, 1995. We discussed with him his organization. He requested the broadcast of the speeches of Sheikh Sulayman al-Uda (who has influence within Saudi Arabia and outside due to being a well known religious and influential personality) and to designate a program for them through the broadcast directed inside Iraq, and to perform joint operations against the foreign forces in the land of Hijaz. (The Honorable Presidency was informed of the details of the meeting in our letter 370 on March 4, 1995, attachment 7.)

C. The approval was received from the Leader, Mr. President, may God keep him, to designate a program for them through the directed broadcast. We were left to develop the relationship and the cooperation between the two sides to see what other doors of cooperation and agreement open up. The Sudanese side was informed of the Honorable Presidency's agreement above, through the representative of the Respectable Director of Intelligence Services, our Ambassador in Khartoum.

D. Due to the recent situation of Sudan and being accused of supporting and embracing of terrorism, an agreement with the opposing Saudi Osama bin Laden was reached. The agreement required him to leave Sudan to another area. He left Khartoum in July 1996. The information we have indicates that he is currently in Afghanistan. The relationship with him is ongoing through the Sudanese side. Currently we are working to invigorate this relationship through a new channel in light of his present location.

All The News That Fits Our Mindset

The New York Times issued a correction today about their blockbuster story about the man they claimed was the subject of the infamous Abu Ghraib photo, wearing a poncho and connected to wires. The Times had reported that Ali Shalal Qaissi was the victim of American abuse and ran a lengthy profile about his efforts to ensure that Americans would no longer torture innocent Iraqis. Well, Qaissi isn't quite that innocent -- he lied about his identity as the man in the picture (see update):

A front-page article last Saturday profiled Ali Shalal Qaissi, identifying him as the hooded man forced to stand on a box, attached to wires, in a photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2003 and 2004. He was shown holding such a photograph. As an article on Page A1 today makes clear, Mr. Qaissi was not that man.

The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph. Mr. Qaissi's account had already been broadcast and printed by other outlets, including PBS and Vanity Fair, without challenge. Lawyers for former prisoners at Abu Ghraib vouched for him. Human rights workers seemed to support his account. The Pentagon, asked for verification, declined to confirm or deny it.

Despite the previous reports, The Times should have been more persistent in seeking comment from the military. A more thorough examination of previous articles in The Times and other newspapers would have shown that in 2004 military investigators named another man as the one on the box, raising suspicions about Mr. Qaissi's claim.

The Times also overstated the conviction with which representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International expressed their view of whether Mr. Qaissi was the man in the photograph. While they said he could well be that man, they did not say they believed he was.

In other words, the Times didn't bother to do its own research; it relied on the "independent" reporting of PBS and Vanity Fair -- wait, I can't even write that with a straight face -- to identify Qaissi as the man in the photograph. Oh, wait, that's a bit unfair. Qaissi also had this evidence to show the Gray Lady:

Oh, so he had a business card! Well, no wonder the Times made this mistake.

The correction, quite frankly, stinks. First, it appears in its Saturday edition when the fewest readers will be likely to see it. Second, when reading the actual text of the correction, the Times only takes partial responsibility. It starts out by accepting responsibility for shoddy research, but then blames everyone else for getting suckered. PBS reported it first. Vanity Fair did the same thing. The Times even blames activist attorneys who would have been delighted to get any bad press against the US military on the front page of the Times -- instead of scolding itself for using them as a corroborating source from the beginning.

But the worst part of this correction comes when the paper blames the military for not doing the reporter's research for them. "The Pentagon, asked for verification, declined to confirm or deny it." It then says it should have been "more persistent" in getting an answer from the Pentagon, but in the same paragraph notes that the military named the correct detainee two years ago -- and that the Times reported it!

Is it the Pentagon's fault that the original reporter, Hassan Fattah, is too incompetent to do a search through the archives of his own newspaper?

One last problem comes in the original article, which the Times links at the end of its correction. Instead of noting that the entire story has been revealed as a hoax, the Times just puts a bold-type notice at the top that says, "Editors' Note Appended". Readers have to read the entire article -- which involves clicking to a second page -- before reading the appended correction at the end. The Times does not state at the beginning that the entire article is a waste of the reader's time; they get that information only after having read through all the lies. I can imagine that researchers who later purchase this article from the paper's archives (readers with more sense than Fattah) will not be terribly pleased to find that they've literally bought into a journalistic hoax.

As usual, great work from the Paper of Record. When do they bring Jayson Blair back as the managing editor?

See also Michelle Malkin and Power Line for more on this subject

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers!

UPDATE II: Tom Maguire rightly notes that Qaissi was at Abu Ghraib, although he faked being the man in the picture. I've corrected the text above.

Russia Says 'Nyet' To Quick Action On Iran

Russia announced yesterday that it opposes any fast-tracking of the progress reporting on Iranian nuclear ambitions at the UN Security Council, joking that an expedited progress would only get expedited bombing. The other permanent members want the report in two weeks so that negotiations on the best way to stop the nuclear progression of Teheran can begin in earnest, but Russia and China prefer to wait:

Russia's U.N. ambassador on Friday rejected proposals for the U.N. Security Council to demand a quick progress report on Iran's suspect nuclear program, saying — only half in jest — that fast action could lead to the bombing of Iran by June. ...

A key sticking point for Russia is a proposal asking Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, to deliver a progress report in two weeks on Iran's progress toward clearing up suspicions about its nuclear program. Russia and China say two weeks is far too soon.

"Let's just imagine that we adopt it and today we issued that statement — then what happens after two weeks?" Denisov told The Associated Press. "In such a pace we'll start bombing in June."

Denisov chuckled after he made the remark, but it reflected Russia's fears that the international community has not yet decided how to respond if Iran continues to resist demands that it make explicitly clear it is not seeking nuclear arms.

Russia still wants to play at its Great Game pretensions in the Middle East, even though it has consistently failed to demonstrate any influence on the players in the region. In this case, Vladimir Putin has gone out of his way to protect a regime that materially contributes to the insurgencies raging in the Caucasus rather than take a hard line and back the mullahcracy down. Perhaps Putin thinks that the Islamists that get their funding and orders from Teheran will only attack Israel and the US with its nuclear weapons once they have them in hand. Perhaps he's right, but Putin knows that Islamists haven't exactly been a model of honorable combat in Russia. It would appear that Putin is willing to sacrifice the small enclaves on his southern border just to give Russia a fading patina of its former superpower glory, a pathetic and vain effort indeed.

If Russia and China continue to run interference for Teheran, we need to make clear that we will not stand idly by while Iran arms itself with nuclear weapons. If the UNSC can make itself part of that solution, so much the better for Turtle Bay and the nations involved. If not, then we can demonstrate yet again why the UN is just the League of Nations with a blue flag.

Operation Swarmer Not Intended As 'Torch II'

Sometimes the press demonstrates such incompetence as to be actually dangerous. The coverage of the latest effort in Samarra in clearing out the terrorists is just the latest example. Operation Swarmer is a significant operation in its scope but mostly for its composition; the Iraqi forces comprise the main battle group of the contingent of 1500 troops and have performed well under the lead of the 101st Airborne.

Since its beginning, however, the press has both hyped the operation and attempted to tear it down as a publicity stunt by the White House. Described as the biggest air assault in three years, the press completely misunderstood this as the biggest air strike since the beginning of the war. As Dafydd ab Hugh reports on his Big Lizards blog, the two are completely different military terms:

In an article in today's Time Magazine, Brian Bennett and Al Jallam claim that Operation Swarmer -- the operation just undertaken by the Iraqi Army and the 101st Airborne -- "fizzled," simply because it did not live up to the exciting fantasy that Time mistakenly expected.

Evidently, Time anticipated a spectacular fireworks show that could make a four-color cover, with missiles and Willie Pete and maybe a couple of MOABs (or at least puny, little Daisy Cutters).

But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war.... In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op. What’s more, there were no shots fired at all and the units had met no resistance, said the U.S. and Iraqi commanders.

Time complains that planes and helicopters didn't come screaming in like a World War II strafing run. But this operation was never supposed to be an airstrike; it was an air assault, a fact that even Time itself supposedly understood. The part I clipped out above with the elipses is this parenthetical explanation:

("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.)

In other words, Time already knew that we weren't planning a huge, Clintonian barrage of missiles all over the place, blowing up wedding parties and Boy Sprout jamborees with glorious abandon. Operation Swarmers was, according to Wretchard of the Belmont Club, a cordon and search operation... which is exactly what the Iraqi Army and the Americans did.

Air assault is just another method of bringing troops to bear on a point. Sixty years ago, Americans understood what an amphibious assault meant, and this is similar. When Marines landed on islands in the South Pacific and did not face withering fire (a rarity), or when the British landed in Normandy on D-Day at points with no resistance and no battle, neither amounted to a military defeat, an obvious point to everyone except certain journalists at Time Magazine, apparently.

I hadn't written anything about Swarmer to this point because the coverage already seemed out of joint with the reality. American and Iraqi troops have conducted raids like this for two years, and while the scope of this operation is larger than others, it has the same purpose. If anything, it demonstrates that the intelligence coming from Iraqis has become more dependable and more forthcoming. The results of the operation so far prove both:

In Operation Swarmer, described as the biggest helicopter-borne operation in three years when it began on Thursday, the joint U.S.-Iraqi force captured six people, not further identified, allegedly responsible for the killing last month of al-Arabiya television journalist Atwar Bahjat, her cameraman and a technician, the Iraqi government reported.

About 80 suspected insurgents overall had been detained as of Saturday, and 17 were released after questioning, said Lt. Col. Edward S. Loomis, a 101st Airborne Division spokesman. He said the search teams turned up 15 weapons caches, containing 352 mortar rounds, 84 rocket-propelled grenades and a "significant amount" of material for making improvised roadside bombs, among other items.

At the same time, another contingent of Iraqi security forces staged another raid on an insurgency position near Baqouba. They killed two "gunment" and captured 18 insurgents, including a Jordanian, along with computer records of radical imams and their fatwas ordering the assassination of Iraqi police.

Once again the hysterical press has built a strawman for the strict purpose of discrediting the administration when their false reporting gets exposed. Swarmer has been a success in its intended scope. It isn't the failure of the armed services or the administration that the national media is so illiterate on military matters that it turned an interesting tactical use of helicopters into some fantasy D-Day.

ADDENDUM: Let's take a look at the actual statement announcing Swarmer from the DoD:

Iraqi Security Forces and their Coalition partners launched the largest air assault operation since Operation Iraqi Freedom I today in southern Salah Ad Din province to clear a suspected insurgent operating area northeast of Samarra.

Operation Swarmer began this morning with soldiers from the Iraqi Army’s 1st Brigade, 4th Division, the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team and the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade conducting a combined air and ground assault to isolate the objective area.

Attack and assault aircraft provided aerial weapons support for the operation and also delivered troops from the Iraq Army’s 4th Division, the Rakkasans from 1st and 3rd Battalions, 187th Infantry Regiment and the Hunters from 2nd Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment to multiple objectives. Forces from the 2nd Commando Brigade then completed a ground infiltration to secure numerous structures in the area.

More than 1,500 Iraqi and Coalition troops, over 200 tactical vehicles, and more than 50 aircraft participated in the operation.

Initial reports from the objective area indicate that a number of enemy weapons caches have been captured, containing artillery shells, explosives, IED-making materials, and military uniforms.

The operation is expected to continue for several days as a thorough search of the objective area is conducted.

The tactics and the scope were what made this a significant operation, but not the overall mission. Too bad some journalists can't read well enough to know the difference.

Is Becky Lourey The Last Minnesota Voice For Free Speech?

The Minnesota state legislature took up the offensive spectacle of the funeral protests staged by Fred Phelps, the self-described minister whose flock regularly cheers the death of American soldiers at their funerals. Often singing "God Hates America," they claim that the deaths of American soldiers came as a judgment from God for allowing gays to live openly among us, among their barely-coherent rants.

These protests embarrass and outrage every community where they occur, as the should. Those who give their lives in defense of our country deserve a respectful farewell, and their families deserve peace and space to mourn. These ghouls use their right to free speech to act like mindless hyenas.

However, they do have the same right to free speech, a small technicality that both houses of the state legislature appears to have forgotten in their eagerness to provide a legal solution to a poverty of the soul. The House already passed a ban on funeral protests and today the Senate followed suit, 58-1, on a similar bill. The lone vote against the ban came from a surprising source:

With a lone dissenting vote from Sen. Becky Lourey, the Senate approved restrictions Thursday on funeral protests such as one that marred the burial of a fallen soldier last month in Anoka.

The vote of 58 to 1 came a week after the House unanimously passed similar, but not identical, legislation. A conference committee will probably have to work out differences between the two bills.

Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, a candidate for governor and the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, said she opposes the bill as an infringement of the free-speech right her son died to protect. No protesters showed up for the burial of Army helicopter pilot Matthew Lourey last June at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, but the senator said even that would not have changed her mind.

"If it had happened, I would have had to endure that," she said. "This is very emotional because the speech we're addressing is very ugly, but we can't repeal the Bill of Rights because of it."

Lourey, a DFL member who had planned on demonstrating with Cindy Sheehan before the media star left her campout in Crawford, is the only member of the Senate to understand what this ban means. Her son died in Iraq as part of an effort to bring democracy and liberty to an oppressed people, an effort Lourey opposed then and now. But she is correct in pointing out the bitter irony that Minnesota will impose speech restrictions in a heartfelt but misguided effort to honor the sacrifice of those who fought for freedom.

The law carries a ninety-day jail sentence for anyone who intentionally disrupts a memorial service or funeral. It also bars protestors from any demonstrations at the houses of the families. All of these sound reasonable, but it represents a government restriction on speech and organizing that finds no parallel elsewhere in law. The Supreme Court just ruled similar restrictions on abortion clinic protests unconstitutional. As John Hinderaker noted earlier at Power Line, the urge to solve every dispute through legislation only creates a community less free to express itself and more bound by government restrictions. That hardly seems like an appropriate manner in which to honor our fallen heroes.

Hopefully our legislature will heed the words of a Gold Star mother and rethink their reaction to the disgusting provocations of Fred Phelps. In the end, Phelps is a bug, and we shouldn't make him important enough to merit the loss of our speech rights.

The Great Blogger Degaussing Of 2006 (Updated)

Apparently the folks at Blogger have done a pretty horrible job of supporting their customers. Betsy Newmark had her entire site wiped out mysteriously by their system, and then experienced a boatload of frustration when she tried to correct the situation. Her URL also appeared to have been hijacked as well, but now seems like it's back on line.

She vented to Glenn Reynolds:

My blog disappeared from Blogger some time Tuesday. All I ge is a message that my blog wasn't found on their server. When I go to my Edit page, it doesn't show Betsy's Page as one of my blogs anymore. It's as if my identity was erased.

I just get this very irritating message
"The blog you were looking for was not found." It doesn't show up on my dashboard at all.

Now, somebody has started a blog using my address and hijacked it. This is not me, but it is my URL. How despicable is that?

http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/

I have been writing Blogger for the past two days and all I get are the irritating auto-generated messages. What does it take to get a personal contact from those guys?

They put up those deceptive notes on their Status Page saying that they are doing maintenance on the server and now everything is fixed. http://status.blogger.com/

IT IS NOT FIXED. They are either deceived or are deceiving people. Viking Pundit and DJ Drummond of Stolen Thunder and Polipundit have experienced the same thing, though DJ was somehow able to get his back.

Glenn's posting apparently did the trick -- someone at Blogger must have evicted the squatter and restored Betsy's blog. However, that kind of sloppy work and the horrid customer service rendered to Betsy should warn current and potential clients of Blogger to select another provider for their blogs. I've had great service from Hosting Matters, both in uptime and in customer support when things went wrong. I'm sure that there are many other blog hosts out there who could fill the need for Betsy and the many who were also affected by the outage.

Failures happen. It's what providers do to correct the situation that differentiates them, and of all industries, the blogging services should understand that most.

UPDATE: Betsy's back ... well, sort of. You can see her latest post here, but her domain still brings up a blank page otherwise.

UPDATE II: Jason from Generation Why? writes to inform me that his blog has suddenly succumbed to the giant Blogger sucking sound:

No sooner had I emailed Betsy Newmark to give her some advice on how to resolve her missing blog issues, then my own blog, Generation Why?, vanished from the face of the blogosphere. So, I've decided to permanently relocate my blog to: http://www.texasrainmaker.com

I was fortunate to back up all of my archived posts, but unfortunately, because Blogger/Google trashed the cache of my site, I have to manually load them into the new site, which is beginning to look like a major undertaking.

Adjust your blogrolls accordingly -- and keep an eye out for other Blogger victims.

We Club Seals Because We Hate America?

One of my Canadian readers directed me to a CBC report about an exchange of letters between an American family protesting the harvesting of baby seals and a senator who used the occasion to let her anti-Americanism fly. After the McLellan family of Minnesota wrote to Canadian politicians that they would not spend vacations with our northern neighbors because of what they see as approved animal cruelty, Céline Hervieux-Payette wrote back that the McLellans had no business criticizing the hunt because Americans execute blacks and kill Iraqi civilians:

A Liberal senator has replied to a family in Minnesota upset about Canada's seal hunt with a letter denouncing the United States for executing prisoners at home and killing people in Iraq.

The McLellan family had written to Canadian senators to say they cancelled a vacation in Canada because of the hunt, which they called "horrible" and "inhumane," Montreal's La Presse reports.

In her response, Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette said that what she finds horrible is "the daily massacre of innocent people in Iraq, the execution of prisoners – mainly blacks – in American prisons, the massive sale of handguns to Americans, the destabilization of the entire world by the American government's aggressive foreign policy, etc."

She said Americans are not in a position to criticize others. "They must start to look at their own behaviour, the permanent heightening of the planet's insecurity since the election of Bush," she told La Presse.

Well, look, I have no portfolio for clubbing baby seals over the head with sledghammers or the death penalty. I don't claim to be an expert at the former, and I'm not a supporter of the latter. On the other hand, neither keeps me awake at night. For more information on the seal hunt and the arguments for and against its continuation, visit the CBC's in-depth FAQ on the subject.

However, I do find it fascinating that instead of responding to the specific criticism of the hunt, Hervieux-Payette attacked America and Americans in such a knee-jerk liberal fashion. Honestly, it creates quite a bit of dissonance to hear someone decry American intervention in Iraq, gun rights, and the death penalty -- in defense of clubbing baby seals and skinning them! Putting aside the complete non-sequitur of the senator's response -- which indicates that she has no intellectual defense for her position -- hunting baby seals with clubs doesn't exactly fit with the rabid leftist rhetoric she uses in her rebuttal.

The return letter appears to be just an excuse for Hervieux-Payette to vent her barely-latent hostility towards the US. The reference to daily "massacres" of Iraqi civilians at the hands of US forces is not only unsupportable but a nasty and libelous smear against our troops. Playing the race card on the death penalty also reveals her to be a hypocritical boor. Would it be OK if only Caucasians and Asians got the death penalty, and if not, why not just object to the entire concept of the state taking the lives of criminals? And it is hard to take Salty Céline seriously when she criticizes gun ownership in the US while arguing for the seal hunt on the basis of "tradition".

The other Canadian senators simply ignored the McLellan's letter, and judging from Hervieux-Payette's response, she would have been better off doing the same.

Gitmo Study Nears Completion

I have received most of the surveys back from the blogswarm that undertook a review of the newly-released documents regarding the Guantanamo Bay detainees. Most of the study's volunteers have remarkably similar comments about the information provided in the documents. The Denbeaux study which prompted this blogswarm reached a number of conclusions that appear now to be highly subjective assumptions. For instance, the Duke wrote after his review:

There is simply little information here on actual evidence to determine many of these. I feel the "something major is missing" syndrome in play in almost every one of them. I am attaching my CSRT review, however, I am doubtful that we are actually proving anything here without more information. If the information contained in these brief interviews is the basis for the recent report on these, then it is woefully inadequate for such purpose.

Some found some strange stories in the testimony, such as this from Commander Salamander:

496: "Brokeback Hindu-Kush?" "Midnight Taliban?" "My Own Private Kandahar?" Don't know. Claims to have worked for Taliban Intel as a cook (again)...but the story is much better. A few quotes, "I was a pretty boy." "they told me I didn't have enough of a beard and that I was a pretty boy." I asked them what kind of friendship or cooperation did they want? They wanted me to take care of their friends and prepare food and cleanup. I told them I would do this instead of going to court (he owed money). I was young and they were looking for boys like me an paid good money." "When my boss saw my brother and nephew, my boss asked me who they were and why are they here? I am telling you this very hesitantly and this is something that has to be kept a secret because this is a shame in the Afghan culture to disclose this type of information. There were no other motives or anything else going on besides what I am telling you." "There were rumors between the workers that I was the new boss' lover." "I can't exactly tell you what they wanted, but you should have been able to figure it out by now. I know they had a reason to treat me so well."

Some questioned the efficacy of the tribunal and their questioning, as did Katie Carroll:

I am working on my assignment but, after reading the transcripts, it became very clear that the questioning was abysmal. I don't know if the questions were asked by lawyers, but they were along the lines of "What were you doing in Afghanistan?" and "How did you get there?" There were no hard questions, no follow-ups and no corroboration. For example, my 3 guys were all, apparently, itinerant do-gooders from Saudi wandering the roads and goatpaths of Afghanistan giving out money. None of them spoke anything other than Arabic. No one asked them how they communicated. No one asked how they decided how much money to give each recipient. No one asked them for names or addresses of recipients or where exactly they went. It is virtually impossible to reach any well-founded conclusion. Preliminarily, I would say that all three were jihadist Al-Qaeda guys, but this is not based on any standard approaching "beyond reasonable doubt" or even "more likely than not." Rather, they all had the same story and it seemed just stupid. Any terrorist with 5 minutes training could make up a story... and these guys have had 3 years to do it. If the other transcripts are like mine, I don't know how anyone can conclusively say that the detainees are really a threat or not. I should also add that I support the War on Terror and our actions in Iraq so I'm really looking for a way to agree that the detainees should be held. The transcripts don't provide it.

These are not a monolithic group of bloggers looking to provide a kangaroo court for the Gitmo detainees, but honest Americans that one would hope to find for any jury. The results have been interesting, and quite a bit different from the Denbeaux study. Hopefully we can get the last of the surveys back this weekend and have some results to report.

The CQ Blogswarm Study Group consists of these volunteers:

ARB Factors, Vol 1: Shawn Beilfuss, Bob L, Laura Curtis (Dummocrats and Gitmo Cookbook)

ARB Factors, Vol 2: Jon from Canada, Dixie68, Slightly Loony at JamulBlog

ARB Factors, Vol 3: Thomas Morrissey (no relation!), Rodney Graves, Freeper Bad Company

ARB Transcripts #1: Russ Emerson
ARB Transcripts #2: Jason
ARB Transcripts #3: Gary Gross
ARB Transcripts #4: CQ reader Ed

CSRTs --

Set 1: Jay
Set 2: CQ reader BD
Set 3: Arthur Kimes
Set 4: Christian Johnson
Set 5: Kaitian
Set 6: Anonymous2
Set 7: KGS59
Set 8: Duke DeLand
Set 9: Stephen St. Onge
Set 10: Texas Cowgirl
Set 11: David Chapelle (MD NG Ret.)
Set 12: Yetanotherjohn
Set 13: GM Roper
Set 14: Antarctic Lemur
Set 15: Robert Byers
Set 16: Anonymous1
Set 17: Richard Campbell
Set 18: Weight of Glory
Set 19: Mary Beth Buckner
Set 20: Ric James
Set 21: Streiff
Set 22: David Zincavage
Set 23: Greg McComas
Set 24: Pete Peterson
Set 25: Nathan Bradford
Set 26: Suitably Flip
Set 27: St. Wendeler
Set 28: Dafydd ab Hugh
Set 29: Thomas Morrissey
Set 30: Levi from Queens
Set 31: Mick Stockinger
Set 32: Gina Cobb
Set 33: Matt Adinaro
Set 34: Allen Thorpe
Set 35: Rodney Graves
Set 36: Rick Calvert
Set 37: David Zincavage
Set 38: Pierre LeGrand
Set 39: Suitably Flip
Set 40: David Zincavage
Set 41: Kane Rogers
Set 42: Crusader Rabbit
Set 43: Fred Fry
Set 44: Commander Salamander
Set 45: Katie Carroll
Set 46: Steve Schippert
Set 47: Rodney Graves
Set 48: Thomas Morrissey & Rodney Graves
Set 49: Thomas Morrissey
Set 50: Thomas Morrissey
Set 51: Chuck Allen
Set 52: Chuck Allen
Set 53: Chuck Allen
Set 54: Streiff

Lá Fhéile Phádraig Sona Dhaoibh!

That's original Irish for Happy St. Patrick's Day! Some of you will celebrate with green beer, others with green milkshakes from that ubiquitous Irish-named restaurant, while others will just wear the green in happy solidarity. For my part, I intend on relying on Bishop Flynn's dispensation tonight and enjoying an artery-plugging helping of corned beef. (Fellow Catholics should note that I intend on forgoing the cabbage as my substitute sacrifice.)

For a story about a St. Patrick's Day celebration to remember, check out Mitch Berg and his cautionary tale of starting a wee bit too early. Don't forget to have a designated driver or a taxi on hand when the beers get you a little too green.

Hamas Double-Talks As Fatah Takes A Powder

The new prime minister for the Palestinian Authority, Hamas activist Ismail Haniyeh, hinted at recognition for Israel but only if it gave up Jerusalem and returned to the 1948 borders -- but had earlier said that the Palestinians would only support a long-term truce under those conditions and not a lasting peace. Meanwhile, Fatah has decided to let Hamas run the government on its own, opting out of any power-sharing agreement:

Asked in an interview with CBS News aired Thursday if he could foresee a day when he would be invited to sign a peace agreement with Israel, Ismail Haniyeh replied: "Let's hope so."

But Hamas, which won Palestinian parliamentary elections in a landslide in January, has rebuffed Israel's conditions for talks, namely, that the group disarm and recognize the Jewish state's right to exist.

Haniyeh told CBS that Hamas wouldn't meet those conditions for talks unless Israel "recognized a Palestinian state within the boundaries of Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem." ...

In a published interview last month, Haniyeh said Hamas would establish "peace in stages" if Israel would withdraw to its boundaries before the 1967 war. But he immediately distanced himself from those remarks by saying Hamas was interested in a long-term truce with Israel, but did not seek peace with it.

Hamas uses Haniyeh as its most moderate face for the terrorist group, but even Haniyeh can't pull off this kind of double-talk. The PA has signed treaties and made agreements with Israel and the Quartet, and the terrorists refuse to honor them. Until they commit to following the agreements already made, Palestinian statehood is a dead letter. When the Palestinians start electing statesmen instead of terrorists, then we can get serious about negotiating for their independence, but not by stripping Israel of its defenses.

Fatah has seen this and is taking the smart strategy of allowing Hamas to ruin itself all alone. Hamas could not be bothered to assist Fatah politically while Arafat ran the PA, and Fatah has little inclination pull Hamas' bacon from the fire, so to speak. Why should they shoulder the blame that will come when the entire enterprise implodes from the isolation and sanctions that will come from Hamas' insistence on open warfare with Israel? Better to let that policy play all the way out and stand as a rational alternative to the Islamist nutcases of Hamas.

Unfortunately, that will result in a lot more death and misery, mostly for the Palestinians themselves. It's hard to feel much sympathy for their plight when they continually choose their fate freely, and by most accounts, cheerfully. They want war, they vote for war, they support terrorism -- and they should bear the full costs of those choices.

Charity Begins At Home

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has split after an internecine fight between Democrats on how funds have been allocated to candidates. Six members of the caucus have disassociated themselves from their fundraising committee after its chair, Joe Baca (D-CA), directed its PAC contributions to the campaigns of local races instead of federal races -- and the local candidates in question just happen to be Bacas:

Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., who chairs the Building Our Leadership Diversity Political Action Committee, or BOLDPAC, defended the decision to give $3,300 each to Joe Baca Jr., a member of the California Assembly who's running for state Senate, and to Jeremy Baca, who is running for California Assembly.

"We should not discriminate against any member who has a family member who wants to serve in public office, whether it's mine or anyone else's," said Baca. He said the decision to give to his sons was made by a seven-member board of lawmakers that oversees the political action committee's expenditures. Baca said he did not vote.

In a letter to Baca, the six lawmakers said BOLDPAC needed to focus on federal candidates and boost Democratic efforts to retake control of the House. In interviews, several also said Baca Jr. is running against another Latino candidate, Assemblywoman Gloria Negrete-McLeod, in the Democratic primary.

The people who donated to BOLDPAC must be delighted to know that their contributions have not only gone to oppose Hispanic candidates like Negrete-McLeod, but have been used as the Baca family piggy bank. Baca gave over six percent of all funds raised last year to his own family. Now Baca wants to sell the idea that the allocation came from the board, not from him -- that BOLDPAC suddenly felt like funding local candidates and the only politicians that qualified were named Baca. What a coincidence!

Baca will likely get drummed out of this position in the next few months, although with the ridiculously protected districts in California's apportionment scheme, none of the Bacas will suffer for this petty corruption where it counts most. The root of the problem lies in the lack of oversight that the caucus has given BOLDPAC, and the legislators who walk away do nothing to solve the problem. If Loretta Sanchez, Dennis Cardoza, and the others want to put an end to the corruption, they need to stick around and force Baca out of his position. It's easy to walk away from a problem; it takes work to fix it.

Minnesota DFL Leader Lied About Conversation With State Supreme Court

State Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson has had to fall back on Roget's Thesaurus in order to describe his allergy to the truth regarding his conduct in a recent appearence. Following a claim that three of the seven sitting justices on the state Supreme Court would not rewrite Minnesota law and order gender-neutral marriage legalized, the DFL leader has had to backpedal in embarrassment when the Chief Justice called Johnson a liar:

Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson said Thursday that he "embellished" a conversation he had with a state Supreme Court justice to placate clergy who challenged his assurances that the court wouldn't overturn a Minnesota law and allow same-sex marriages.

Johnson sought to explain a recorded conversation with clergy in January, when he described an earlier discussion he had with Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz about the state's marriage law. In the recording, Johnson says Blatz told him, "We're not going to touch it."

In an interview Thursday, Johnson said he overstated the justice's comments. He wouldn't identify the justice.

"I embellished it to say the judiciary doesn't seem too interested in overturning this," Johnson said.

Minnesota currently is debating a constitutional amendment to identify marriage as between one man and one woman as several states have either already done or are considering in the wake of the Massachussetts Supreme Court's decision to force their legislature to recognize same-sex marriages. Johnson has opposed the action as unnecessary and had met with clergy to reassure them that new legislation was superfluous. One of the meetings got recorded by a minister, and the recording captured Johnson as insisting that he had spoken with three justices about their position on the matter, and that they had promised Johnson that they would not impose a Massachussetts-style decision on Minnesota's legislature.

If what Johnson had said was true, it constituted a gross breach of ethics on the part of the Supreme Court. Jurists are forbidden from committing to a position without hearing a case on the topic, and having three justices on the court that would categorically say such a thing to a member of the state senate would demonstrate significant political corruption on the panel. Chief Justice Russell Anderson sent out an immediate and angry statement that said in no uncertain terms that Johnson and the truth were at best casual acquaintances:

"I take any suggestion of judicial impropriety very seriously. I have spoken with every member of my court and my predecessor and I can say with confidence that no member of the Supreme Court has made any commitment to Senator Johnson on this matter."

After Anderson's statement, Johnson started moving in reverse. At first, after having been exposed as a liar, Johnson blamed the minister who taped his remarks. "I have no respect for professional clergy who conduct themselves in this manner," Johnson said, apparently speaking with the moral authority of a politician who would lie to clergymen about fantasy conversations with Supreme Court justices.

Johnson tried telling Minnesota Public Radio yesterday that he had a "casual conversation" with one justice "some months ago", and that the justice told him that the Court would not touch it because in Minnesota, voters have to reaffirm them to the bench on a regular basis. He wouldn't name the justice nor get specific about when and where this conversation occurred. Later in the day, he acknowledged that he "embellished" his argument against the proposed legislation.

Proponents of the amendment have called for Johnson's resignation. His response? The suggestion is "mean spirited". Most Minnesotans would call it accountability. If Johnson feels fine with telling these kind of whoppers to ministers and priests, Lord knows what he thinks about telling his constituents the truth.

How Bad Is The Bush Slide Anyway?

Several national polls have declared George Bush's approval rating to have collapsed into the mid-30s, dropping downwards preciptously during the Dubai Ports World debate. However, at least some of these have had questionable methodology, especially the CBS poll that had a 13-point disparity between Democrats and Republicans in their sample. Yesterday, Rasmussen Reports put out a little-noticed press release stating that their daily tracking poll shows a much different story:

Forty-two percent (42%) of American adults now approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That's just two points above the lowest level ever measured by Rasmussen Reports.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) disapprove.

The President earns approval from 44% of men and 40% of women.

That's not great news, of course, and a 15-point deficit between approval/disapproval would not get anyone elected. However, Rasmussen does not show the dramatic erosion that other polls have claimed, and a review of the past 21 days -- in the heat of the DP World debate -- his numbers have not moved much at all.

How accurate is the Rasmussen poll? In 2004, they predicted a Bush victory in the popular vote by 50.2% to Kerry's 48.5%. The final numbers tallied to 50.7%/48.3%, an extraordinarily close result. Rasmussen uses an automated, digitally-recorded voice for asking their questions, ensuring that all respondents hear the same question in the exact same manner, eliminating the variables that come from using boiler-room telemarketing for their polling.

Hovering in the low- to mid-40s isn't a great place for any elected official, but it's much different than the picture being painted by much of the media. Republicans inclined to panic should reconsider their plans for sackcloth and ashes.

Feingold Jumps The Shark (Updated)

How can a leftist politician tell when he's gone too far? If Minnesota senator Mark "Brave Sir Robin" Dayton criticizes him as a grandstander, that says something pretty significant about the credibility of the politician:

Sen. Russell Feingold's move to censure President Bush caused a bout of shyness among some Democrats this week, but Minnesota Sen. Mark Dayton is not among them.

On Thursday, he called the resolution irresponsible and dangerous, and accused Feingold of grandstanding.

"I thought it was premature and overreaching and primarily motivated by his 2008 presidential candidacy rather than the best interests of our caucus and the nation," Dayton said of the measure introduced by his colleague from Wisconsin that would formally rebuke Bush for his domestic spying program.

Dayton said Democrats were "blindsided" by the move. "I think it's very dangerous territory for the democracy that we have in this country to be playing around with those kinds of resolutions and without any consultation from his colleagues," he said.

Senator Dayton knows grandstanding. In October 2004, he surprised everyone in Washington, including a number of his colleagues in the Senate Democratic caucus, by fleeing the nation's capital after being briefed on the latest threat analysis. He claimed that a terrorist attack on DC would come before the election and that he had to close his office and flee to save the lives of his staff. Oddly enough, he returned the day before the election, but not before fellow Democrats called him "paranoid" and "ill-informed".

Under the circumstances, Feingold has to wonder how much worse it will get. When Mark Dayton calls a fellow Democrat self-centered and dangerous, that has to hurt.

UPDATE: Feingold now says he's a voice of moderation:

Mr. Feingold said he had received "a massive response on the Internet" to his censure proposal. Some members of Congress and many liberal activists are pushing for impeachment of Mr. Bush. Mr. Feingold yesterday repeated his view that Mr. Bush's actions were "in the area of an impeachable offense."

However, the senator said he does not view impeachment as a prudent course. "The Constitution does not require us to go down that road. I hope that in a sense I'm a voice of moderation on this point," he said. "It may not be good for the country in a time of war to try to remove the president from office even though he's surely done something wrong, but what we can't do is just ignore the wrongful conduct."

Denial ... it's not just a river in Egypt.

Death To Protestors In Belarus

It has the reputation as the last dicatorship in Europe, and this week Belarus and its throwback Soviet-style government demonstrated why. With its upcoming elections seen as a sham, the opposition to Belarussian strongman and Kremlin favorite Aleksander Lukashenko had planned to hold rallies to protest the rigged polls. That has brought a warning from Lukashenko's KGB chief that protestors would be considered terrorists and subject to the death penalty:

OPPOSITION supporters in Belarus were warned yesterday that they could face the death penalty if they took part in a protest after the presidential election on Sunday.

Stepan Sukhorenko, head of the KGB secret service, accused the Opposition of planning to use the rally to stage a coup against Aleksander Lukashenko, the President, who has ruled the former Soviet republic since 1994.

"We will not allow the seizure of power under the guise of presidential elections," Mr Sukhorenko told a news conference.

"For those who take the risk of going out into the street and try to destabilise the situation, their actions will be qualified as terrorism" — a crime, he added, that can result in life in prison or the death penalty.

These kinds of threats normally mean that the government itself is terrified, not terrorized, by the potential for widespread protests after the polls close. Threatening death for simple speech always demonstrates the last stages of any dictatorship. When the people lose their fear of individual consequences, the dictatorships escalate the threats to include anyone who even is seen with dissidents, hoping to scare people into keeping quiet and staying home.

Does it work? Not for long.

Lukashenko has big problems. On one side he sees Poland, a nation known for its love of liberty, and a significant amount of people in Belarus are ethnic Poles. Warsaw wants democracy to develop in Belarus for the sake of these cousins but also because failing dictatorships can cause a lot of damage when they collapse without any plan to replace the tyrants. Lukashenko has Vladimir Putin on his side -- but that didn't help the Luddites that lost Ukraine or Georgia, and Putin would risk losing his position in the G-8 if he is seen to intercede too much on Lukashenko's behalf. The G-8 already has major reservations about Russia's continuing membership due to his flirtation with Hamas and the imposition of autocratic rule that Putin seems eager to press. He cannot afford to rig elections in Belarus, at least not indiscreetly as he did in Ukraine.

This threat by Lukashenko should be seen for what it is: one of the last acts of the truly desperate. Confident and stable dictatorships do not need to issue threats such as these, because their subjects already fear them. Having to remind people of one's omnipotency indicates that it only exists in the mind of the dictator. Expect Belarus to fall to a velvet revolution within months.

Unlocking History At Leavenworth

The documents released by John Negroponte and hosted on a military website at Leavenworth promise to rewrite the long history of Iraq and its place in the war on terror. Just the first few documents have shown links between Saddam's regime and terrorism, including a strong reference to the 9/11 attack by Saddam's own intelligence service. ABC News has begun their own translation of the key documents, as have others in the blogosphere.

Let's start with the document that mentions 9/11, a report from the IIS regarding a conversation with a Taliban official:

Our source in Afghanistan No 11002 (for information about him see attachment 1) provided us with information that that Afghani Consul Ahmad Dahestani (for information about him see attachment 2) told him the following:

1. That Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan are in contact with Iraq and it that previously a group from Taliban and Osama Bin Laden group visited Iraq.

2. That America has proof that the government of Iraq and Osama Bin Laden group have shown cooperation to hit target within America.

3. That in case it is proven the involvement of Osama Bin Laden group and the Taliban in these destructive operations it is possible that American will conduct strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4. That the Afghani Consul heard about the subject of Iraq relation with Osama Bin Laden group during his stay in Iran.

5. In light of this we suggest to write to the Commission of the above information.

Please view… Yours… With regards

Signature:……, Initials : A.M.M, 15/9/2001

Foot note: Immediately send to the Chairman of Commission

Immediately after 9/11, the US suspected that al-Qaeda had masterminded the attacks, confirming it within days. Until the 20th, when Bush made his speech, the government had not clearly and publicly stated its position to the Taliban. However, the IIS reported four days after the fact that the Taliban believed the US had proof of cooperation between Iraq and Osama bin Laden to attack American targets. The Taliban went out of its way to warn Saddam that the US would retaliate against Iraq when we got the proof together. That explicitly shows cooperation between the two governments. Moreover, the same people who sheltered and sponsored Osama bin Laden turned immediately to Saddam after the attacks for coordination on their response. They would have had no reason to do so -- except knowing that Osama and Saddam had a working relationship in fostering terrorist attacks against America.

Another document of note is the review of French campaign contribution regulations, provided on request by the IIS. Given the penetration of the Iraqis into French politics as seen by the massive graft of the UN Oil-for-Food program, this document shows that the bribery was a calculated scheme to blunt any effort to enforce UN Security Council resolutions. By buying off French politicians, including some still in charge, Saddam meant to secure the French veto on American and British insistence on enforcement. It would not surprise me to find similar analyses about Russian politics, while the Chinese Communist autocracy would have been much simpler to navigate (and buy).

One final document reviews the procedures demanded by Saddam to thwart UN inspections, written in 1997. One year later, Saddam would throw them out of the country altogether, which resulted in a few missiles shot at Baghdad -- and nothing else. They would not return until the end of 2002, when Saddam agreed to the inspections to put off the proposed military action by the US and UK. It would have been unlikely that Saddam would have changed the rules from 1997:

* Removing correspondence with the atomic energy and military industry departments concerning the prohibited weapons (proposals, research, studies, catalogs, etc.).

* Removing prohibited materials and equipment, including documents and catalogs and making sure to clear labs and storages of any traces of chemical or biological materials that were previously used or stored.

* Doing so through a committee which will decide whether to destroy the documents.

* Removing files from computers.

This demonstrates that the orders to block and stymie the weapons inspections came from the top and represented government policy. When Saddam could not make this policy work effectively enough, he stopped even pretending to cooperate and ended the program. In the intervening four years, he had plenty of time to hide information and falsify records. By the time the inspectors returned, Saddam had cleaned up -- and even at that, Hans Blix reported that the same efforts were made by the Iraqis to keep the inspectors from doing their jobs.

All of this emphasizes that Iraq had plenty of connections to terrorism, had secret contacts with the Taliban about al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's efforts to coordinate attacks on America with Iraq, conspired to corrupt at least one of the permanent members of the UNSC, and built elaborate ruses to defy the UN and the cease-fire agreement which kept Saddam in power. Just these few documents show all the reasons why any war on terror had to include toppling Saddam Hussein ... and there are plenty more to come.

See also Power Line for some excellent posts, as well as Michelle Malkin.

Ken Mehlman Visit - The Live Blog

RNC chairman Ken Mehlman and GOP e-Campaign Director Patrick Ruffini have flown to Minnesota to conduct a roundtable conference on the latest in Republican efforts for the midterm elections and 2008 presidential campaign. A gaggle of bloggers have come to the state Republican headquarters in St. Paul, where we will live-blog the conference and the Q&A afterwards.

We're about to get started ...

5:25 PM - Ron Carey, Minnesota GOP chair, is introducing everyone. After a brief welcome and an affirmation of the importance of blogging for getting the Republican message past the mainstream media, Patrick spoke about the commitment to technology.

5:27 - Mehlman talks about the movement from mass marketing to mass customization and then to mass collaboration. He considers this the future of political communication and organization.

5:29 - Ken sets out the stakes. He also notes that bloggers serve as "umpires" -- we make sure that people are held accountable for their actions and rhetoric. If we care about winning the war on terror and providing economic freedom, we need to maintain that role and increase the debate. He feels confident that the GOP has the right message and needs the bloggers to help get it out.

5:33 - They plan to expand the role of technology and bloggers for the 2006 and -08 campaigns. Look towards a much larger engagement in the '08 convention, and bloggers will have much more leeway in finding creative ways to frame the message.

5:36 - Ken says that the GOP needs to make sure elections are about choice and not referendums. We need to push people to communicate their plans for correcting what they complain about. Good point; he says that a referendum would make it a tough election.

5:37 - On Iran, the GOP needs to press for immediate action through diplomacy and economic sanctions to try everything short of war first to stop the Iranian bomb.

5:39 - Ken says that most Republican incumbents will stand by the President and that the GOP will hang onto their majorities in both houses. He believes that Dayton's seat is the best chance for a Republican gain in November.

5:42 - On budget, I pressed Ken on the lack of budgetary discipline shown by the GOP-controlled Congress. He says that budget-cutting will be a higher priority, but also wants to emphasize that the Democrats have pressed for even more discretionary spending than that passed by the Republicans in control. Again, this comes down to a choice. He also wants to emphasize that we need better management of entitlement spending, since that will cause the greatest stress on future deficits.

5:47 - Tired WH staff: Ken isn't as concerned about that as our own senator, Norm Coleman. He says that Bush is an active manager of his staff -- a very down-to-business manner.

5:49 - Katherine Harris: "A strong candidate ... She has won every office she ran for."

5:51 - Ken pointed out that 2006 will feature five or six African-American candidates for national office, and the majority will be Republican.

5:52 - Howard Dean still is avoiding a debate with Ken.

5:54 - Every Democrat who has won the presidency in the past 40 years (see update) have been a Southerner who ran as more conservative than the party as a whole. He thinks that Hillary still could win, however, having the energy of being the first woman to top a major party ticket.

5:57 - Patrick's typical day revolves around serving the blogging community -- working on getting the facts and message out every day, developing new technology.

We're wrapping up now -- it's been an excellent Q&A session, a good opportunity for us to ask questions and get a sense of the direction of the party.

UPDATE: Ken said 40 years, and I mistyped it. Mea culpa, mea maxima typographical culpa.

Not Another Independent Commission ...

Congress, having learned nothing from the debacle of the 9/11 Commission, has launched yet another independent investigatory body in an effort to avoid political responsibility. The latest effort in futility will focus on the war in Iraq and even comprises some of the same people from the laughably inept panel on 9/11:

Congress unveiled an independent panel on Wednesday assigned to study the U.S.-led war in Iraq and to make policy recommendations for both Capitol Hill and the White House.

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group -- led by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton -- is designed to focus "fresh eyes" on the war debate from people who "love their country more than their party," said Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, during a Capitol Hill news conference. ...

"Our purpose is to undertake a bipartisan, forward-looking assessment of the current and prospective situation on the ground in Iraq and its impact on the surrounding region, and its consequences on United States interests," said Baker, who served as the country's top diplomat in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

The group will focus on the political, military, security and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

Uh-huh. Let me get this straight. The panel's leaders consist of the man who helped the US stop the ground war in Iraq in 1991, allowing Saddam to remain in power, and the man who co-chaired the Commission that managed to ignore Able Danger, arrests of Iraqi intelligence agents in Germany during the period when three of the four 9/11 pilots flew back to Hamburg , and numerous other vital facts and developments. And the panel should come up with a fair and unbiased look at the war in Iraq?

Color me highly unimpressed.

If Congress wants to investigate the Iraq war, then Congress itself should do so. Appointing people with no public accountability for the conduct of their investigation does not free them to tell the truth -- it allows them to pursue their own agendas without hindrance. One only needs to recall the inclusion of Jamie Gorelick on the 9/11 panel to recall how the most signiificant barrier to information sharing got almost completely ignored by that commission, and how critics that demanded her replacement got ignored.

This is just another cowardly political evasion, one designed to give the impression that Congress does something significant while its members run for cover. The result of this effort will result in the same hackery that the 9/11 Commission produced, and once again we will spend years afterward finding everything that they missed. The American electorate gave their judgment on the Iraq war in 2004 and will have another opportunity to do the same in 2006 and 2008. Why not just let the voters speak on this issue if Congress wants to avoid its reponsibilities?

Russ Feingold -- Karl Rove's Secret Weapon

Just a week ago, George Bush appeared to be on the political ropes. Thanks to conservative disappointment, his approval ratings had sunk to the dreadful level of the mid-30s, and his own party had administered a legislative rebuke on a national-security matter. The Democrats had the rare opportunity of having the GOP at war with itself rolling into the midterm elections and for the first time had considered the possibility of retaking control of the House after twelve years of minority status.

And then along came Russ Feingold:

Republicans, worried that their conservative base lacks motivation to turn out for the fall elections, have found a new rallying cry in the dreams of liberals about censuring or impeaching President Bush.

The proposal this week by Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, to censure Mr. Bush over his domestic eavesdropping program cheered the left. But it also dovetailed with conservatives' plans to harness such attacks to their own ends.

With the Republican base demoralized by continued growth in government spending, undiminished violence in Iraq and intramural disputes over immigration, some conservative leaders had already begun rallying their supporters with speculation about a Democratic rebuke to the president even before Mr. Feingold made his proposal.

"Impeachment, coming your way if there are changes in who controls the House eight months from now," Paul Weyrich, a veteran conservative organizer, declared last month in an e-mail newsletter.

The threat of impeachment, Mr. Weyrich suggested, was one of the only factors that could inspire the Republican Party's demoralized base to go to the polls. With "impeachment on the horizon," he wrote, "maybe, just maybe, conservatives would not stay at home after all."

John Conyers has talked impeachment for months, even ginning up a silly "congressional panel" to issue pretend impeachment documents. However, Conyers hasn't been considered a party leader and potential presidential candidate, and until this week Russ Feingold has. He helped push through the BCRA, the favorite legislation of the Exempt Media, and has been hailed by the activist left as their alternative to Hillary Clinton. Feingold hasn't been considered part of the lunatic fringe, at least not until now.

With his attack on the President and his foolish censure motion, Feingold has changed the tone of the midterms single-handedly. Impeachment no longer contains itself to the fringe of party politics, but now has moved front and center to Democratic politics. Feingold has drawn a line in the sand and dared Democrats to cross it and wants to contest the midterms on this proposal.

The GOP could not ask for a better weapon against the Democrats. This will ignite the base, which had been mightily disappointed in Bush for his spending and his lack of focus on border security. The normal sixth-year jockeying for political advantage and the low approval ratings it brings will be forgotten. The conservative base will not stand idly by while the Democrats try to exact a little revenge for their string of electoral losses.

But the damage will not be limited to firing up the GOP base. Swing voters who may have wanted to give Democrats more leverage against the White House to get more of their legislative concerns addressed will not support giving Democrats a majority while they threaten impeachment during a time of war, especially not for taking action in defense of the nation. The far-left Democrats have tied themselves in knots over George Bush that they cannot comprehend how such a move will be viewed by moderates. The American electorate will not vote for impeachment, not when America remains under threat of attack.

Democrats should ask themselves this: do they really think that moderates will vote to support putting Dick Cheney in the Oval Office? Don't get me wrong -- I like Dick Cheney and would sleep well at night having him run the nation. However, with all of the demonization done by the Left about the VP, they're not going to sell the moderates on taking action that would directly result in him taking power. The Democrats might be tempted to say that they will impeach both the President and the Vice President -- which would be an unprecedented and frightening attempt at a coup d'etat, and one which would consign the Democrats to the same fate as the Whigs.

Feingold has the Democrats boxed in. If they proceed with censures and impeachment talk, they lose in November, and lose big. If they back off, they will lose their activist base, which has waited for years to push them into this position. Karl Rove and the Republican team must be breathing huge sighs of relief. Who knew the cavalry would appear in the form of Feingold to rescue the Republican midterms?

Hillary Benefactor Tied To Korean Slush-Fund Scandal

Hillary Clinton has attended fund-raisers for her Senate re-election campaign that were hosted by a South Korean businessman tied to a slush-fund scandal in Seoul, Meghan Clyne reports in today's New York Sun. The accusations involve the use of a cultural-exchange program aimed at improving relations with Pyongyang but actually operated as an illegal funding source for South Korean politicians:

The contributions in question come from a New York-based real estate investor, Hyung Young "Daniel" Lee. According to records on file with the Federal Election Commission, Mr. Lee, 44, donated $4,100 to Mrs. Clinton's 2006 Senate re-election campaign through Friends of Hillary in May 2005. His wife, Eva, donated $5,100 in four separate contributions between August 2004 and May 2005. FEC documents show that the Clinton campaign refunded Mrs. Lee $1,000; FEC regulations cap donations to a candidate at $4,200 for an individual contributor during an election cycle.

According to a fund-raising invitation obtained by The New York Sun, Mr. and Mrs. Lee also hosted a "Korean Americans for Hillary" fund-raiser at their home in Great Neck on May 22, 2005. One of the organizers of Lees' event and a Queens-based businessman, John Park, said earlier this week that "around 60 or 70 people" attended the $1,000-a-head fund-raiser, including Mrs. Clinton.

Lee is an American citizen but has a significant interest in the World Culture Open center, which is listed as a foreign not-for-profit corporation. WCO's founder, Hung Seok Hyun, had been an ambassador to the US briefly in 2005 until he resigned over his involvement in the slush-fund scandal. A government wiretap captured his accounting of how he helped set up a slush fund through WCO in 1997 to influence South Korean politicians. He also had to pay $3.2 million in tax-evasion fines in 1999. His case on the slush-fund scandal is still pending after an appearance in court last November.

The South Korea Times first raised the question about Lee's connections to Hong and the bribery scheme. Lee, for his part, claims that his ties to WCO are only those of a volunteer or "temporary advisor", and that his staff filled out paperwork incorrectly that shows otherwise. About Hong he says that he doesn't know him ... "that much". In the meantime, he is staging another Hillary fundraiser at a building he recently purchased in Flushing.

The Clintons seem to attract a strange breed of financial backing. In 1996 we had Johnny Chung; in 2000 she had Peter Paul. Now we have Daniel Lee and his connections to Korean electoral shenanigans. I don't think anything will stop New Yorkers from re-electing her to the Senate and maintaining the Clinton "magic", but the rest of the country should recognize that the magic consists solely of cheap and shopworn sleight of hand and showmanship.

ADDENDUM: Speaking of Peter Paul, what ever happened to the FBI investigation of the Clintons regarding Paul and his attempt to get consideration for a presidential pardon?

Iraq Papers: Al-Qaeda In Iraq In 2002 In Recruitment Drive

John Negroponte has finally begun releasing the captured Iraqi Intelligence Service papers that the US has held since Baghdad fell almost three years ago, after pressure from the White House and Congress. In one of the first releases by the intelligence chief, the papers reveal that not only did al-Qaeda exist in Iraq before the invasion but that they had an active and successful recruitment program to bring new Iraqi fighters to Afghanistan:

The Bush administration Wednesday night released the first declassified documents collected by U.S. intelligence during the Iraq war, showing among other things that Saddam Hussein's regime was monitoring reports that Iraqis and Saudis were heading to Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks to fight U.S. troops.

The documents, the first of thousands expected to be declassified over the next several months, were released via a Pentagon Web site at the direction of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Many were in Arabic _ with no English translation _ including one the administration said showed that Iraqi intelligence officials suspected al-Qaida members were inside Iraq in 2002.

The Pentagon Web site described that document this way: "2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between IRS members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover, it includes photos and names."

So we have established, at a minimum, that AQ had established itself in Iraq long before our March 2003 invasion. Moreoever, we have established that they had actively recruited fighters to attack Americans in Afghanistan. Both of those conditions would have warranted our invasion of Iraq as a continuance of the war on terror. After all, we had pledged to go after AQ wherever they had established themselves, and equally as important, we would have to cut off the flow of new fighters into the Afghanistan theater.

What this doesn't suggest -- and we can bet we will see this spin -- is that Saddam Hussein was complicit in either effort. If the Mukhabarat had to go investigate AQ's penetration and recruiting in Iraq, it suggests that the Iraqi intelligence structure was unaware of the situation. It really doesn't much matter. As AJ Strata notes, with AQ active in his country and the US driving the UN Security Council towards actually enforcing its own resolutions in a massive use of force in the winter of 2002, Saddam would have been looking for means of transferring his WMD stock out of his hands and also arranging for the guerilla warfare he adopted after April 2003.

What Saddam doesn't do -- and which would have gained him a great deal of clout at the UNSC -- is turn the AQ cells over to a third party. It would be impossible to imagine the US invading Iraq after Saddam had surrended the AQ terrorists. Politically, the invasion would have been seen as an attack on a state willing to help eliminate al-Qaeda and a sign that the long sanctions regime and our threatened use of force had worked to "reform" Saddam. Yet Saddam did not choose this rather obvious strategy. Why? Because he wanted AQ to be a proxy in his fight against the US.

Interestingly, for those who consistently deny that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Iraq and working for AQ before the invasion, the document itself has numerous pictures of the bloody terrorists. These were collected by Iraqi intelligence in connection with their investigation of AQ in 2002. That is a strong indication that Zarqawi had indeed operated in Iraq and that the Iraqis considered him a significant component of AQ.

Did Pakistan Buy The 9/11 Commission?

Jeff at Protein Wisdom found a report in the India Telegraph claiming that a Pakistani newspaper bragged about the nation's payoff of the 9/11 Commission. The Friday Times reports that their foreign office paid lobbyists "tens of thousands of dollars" to ensure that the final report painted Pakistan in the best possible light:

The Pakistan foreign office had paid tens of thousands of dollars to lobbyists in the US to get anti-Pakistan references dropped from the 9/11 inquiry commission report, The Friday Times has claimed.

The Pakistani weekly said its story is based on disclosures made by foreign service officials to the Public Accounts Committee at a secret meeting in Islamabad on Tuesday.

It claimed that some of the commission members were also bribed to prevent them from including damaging information about Pakistan.

The magazine said the PAC grilled officials in the presence of foreign secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan and special secretary Sher Afghan on the money paid to lobbyists. ...

The Pakistan foreign office defended the decision to hire the lobbyists, saying it was an established practice in the US.

It would be quite a provocative claim, if there was any way at all to substantiate it. The only claim that can be easily addressed is the last one quoted above; lobbyists represent anyone with enough money for a retainer. The initial claim could just refer to the Pakistanis hiring a PR and lobbying firm to spread the word on Pakistani cooperation in the war on terror. The Saudis launched a $5M ad campaign in 2003 attempting to do the same thing with the American public.

However, the Friday Times claims that commission members took bribes to cut out any information that would paint Pakistan in a bad light. That seems difficult to prove, and from what I see of the Telegraph's report, they offer little besides this unsupported assertion. The allegation would generate laughter under normal circumstances, but the omission of a number of important facts from the 9/11 Commission's work assists in making this story more credible. Normally I would not ascribe to corruption that which can be explained to incompetence, but the amount of items missed by the panel has begun to look very strange indeed.

In looking through the commission's executive report, Pakistan only comes up five times in 31 pages. All of those references are fairly straightforward, the last of which is a recommendation to engage Pakistan more closely as a partner in the war, if possible. The full report has 311 references to Pakistan. If they wanted to keep Pakistan out of the final report, it's hard to see how they succeeded, although nothing in the report implicates Pakistan in the 9/11 plot, either.

The simplest explanation would be that some members of the Pakistani foreign service padded their personal accounts, and when they had to explain the difference, told their bosses they spent it on bribing American politicians. I'm not inclined to believe that the sins of the 9/11 Commission include bribery among incompetence and arrogance.

Misleading AP Headline A Political Attack?

It's hard to understand how the AP (and MS-NBC, which hosts this story) could have possibly come up with a headline "Mass. Governor Offers Gay Adoption Bill" when the report describes action taken by GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to allow Catholic Charities to operate its adoption service without violating its religious beliefs. Later, the headline changed to "Mass. governor proposes bill on gay adoption", a slight variation but still one that leaves an impression at odds with the reporting:

Republican Gov. Mitt Romney proposed legislation Wednesday that would allow Catholic Charities to refuse to arrange adoptions for gay couples.

The Protecting Religious Freedom bill would exempt religious groups from a state anti-discrimination law that requires them to consider gay couples when placing children for adoption and foster care.

Catholic Charities, the social services arm of the Boston Archdiocese, has been finding adoptive homes for children for a century but announced recently that it will stop doing so because placing children with gay couples would violate church teachings.

This is just an attempt by Romney to correct an injustice created by the Massachussetts legislature, which required public and private adoption agencies to process adoption requests from couples regardless of orientation. Catholic Charities places many children in stable homes, and has an excellent track record of placing older and special-needs children with loving couples. As a religious organization, it has to adhere to the teachings of the Church, which forbids homosexual relationships. However, CC usually refers gay couples to other adoption agencies as a courtesy.

The Democratic legislature has announced that they will fight Romney's exemption for religious organizations. They want to dictate through legislation how religions should operate their private outreach groups. Not only is this an unconscionable infringement on religious freedom, it also hurts the children that the Massachussetts legislature claims to cherish.

I understand that Massachussetts has agreed to allow gay couples to adopt, and quite frankly I don't see anything wrong with that. A stable home with gay parents beats the heck out of foster homes. However, the government should not dictate the terms of religious outreach -- and forcing a group with such a strong record of sensible and loving adoptions to close its doors rather than violate their religious beliefs benefits no one except short-sighted politcians. Catholic Charities has wonderfully served the Massachussetts community and plenty of other agencies exist to serve those who do not fall within CC's guidelines. (via Michelle Malkin)

It's An Honor To Be Nominated

Earlier today I learned that the media magazine The Week has nominated me for their Blogger of the Year award. The Week provides an excellent review of the major news stories and opinion pieces from around the world each week and annually honors those who have provided the best in journalism and editorial writing. Last year, my good friends at Power Line were recognized for their excellent and influential work in the blogosphere in 2004, especially for their deconstruction of the Killian memo fiasco at CBS.

Four other bloggers have also been nominated for the 2005 award:

Michelle Malkin
John Aravosis at Americablog
Brendan Loy
Arianna Huffington

It's wonderful to have been nominated with all of these bloggers, but especially so with Michelle, one of the nicest people and best media bloggers in the 'sphere. John Aravosis and I have traded a couple of e-mails and once appeared together (via satellite) on CNN. We may not agree often on politics, but John is a good blogger and a good guy. I haven't met Brendan or Arianna, but both have done excellent work on their blogs.

The winners will be announced in April.

Western Firmness Undermining Ahmadinejad?

The New York Times reports that the hard line espoused by George Bush and the West against Iran may have caused a significant rift in Iranian domestic politics, undermining the hyperbolic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the clerics that installed him as president. The Iranians apparently did not expect to see a unified opposition to their attempt to build nuclear weapons and have been most disturbed by a lack of Russian diplomatic support:

Just weeks ago, the Iranian government's combative approach toward building a nuclear program produced rare public displays of unity here. Now, while the top leaders remain resolute in their course, cracks are opening both inside and outside the circles of power over the issue. ...

One senior Iranian official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the delicate nature of the issue, said: "I tell you, if what they were doing was working, we would say, 'Good.' " But, he added: "For 27 years after the revolution, America wanted to get Iran to the Security Council and America failed. In less than six months, Ahmadinejad did that."

One month ago, the same official had said with a laugh that those who thought the hard-line approach was a bad choice were staying silent because it appeared to be succeeding. ...

Reformers, whose political clout as a movement vanished after the last election, have also begun to speak out. And people with close ties to the government said high-ranking clerics had begun to give criticism of Iran's position to Ayatollah Khamenei, which the political elite sees as a seismic jolt.

Our enemies -- and that obviously includes Iran -- see us as weak and vacillating, an impression we definitely left with the mullahcracy after the 1979 sacking of our embassy and hostaging of our diplomatic corps. Our policy of retreat and appeasement in the decades following that incident (through administrations of both parties) cemented that analysis. We have reaped the bitter fruits of those policies, and only now have our enemies detected a change in our will to defend ourselves and our allies. The mullahs have miscalculated, and wiser heads in Iran have finally noticed. We need to keep the pressure on Teheran to ensure that they fail.

The Vanishing Democrat

Dana Milbank manages to eschew the orange stocking cap today in order to bring us a delightful look at the rarest of species -- Democratic politicians with nothing to say:

Democratic senators, filing in for their weekly caucus lunch yesterday, looked as if they'd seen a ghost.

"I haven't read it," demurred Barack Obama (Ill.).

"I just don't have enough information," protested Ben Nelson (Neb.). "I really can't right now," John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters -- an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (Md.).

"Ask her after lunch," offered Clinton's spokesman, Philippe Reines. But Clinton, with most of her colleagues, fled the lunch out a back door as if escaping a fire.

What caused this sudden outbreak of shyness among a caucus known for its hysterical shrieking and ill-advised broadsides? The press wants to know their position on SR 398, otherwise known as the Russ Feingold Motion For Perpetual GOP Majorities. None would go on record, not even the reliably voluble Chuck Schumer, who protested that he had nothing to say now and could not say when he'd have something to say. He even stopped a press conference when CNN's Ed Henry asked about the censure motion. When was the last time we saw Chuck Schumer deliberately stop talking when the cameras were rolling? (Perhaps Michael Steele can answer that.)

To describe the Democrats as "in retreat" underestimates the backtracking going on in DC. This is The Full Murtha, another ridiculous notion that Democrats were forced to abandon as soon as the GOP forced them to cast a vote on it. Even Harry Reid, who's supposed to be leading these people, couldn't come up with an answer. Only Tom Harkin would go on record in support of Feingold's measure, bringing the number of supporters to a grand total of ... two.

In case anyone wondered what motivated the Wisconsin senator, Feingold made it clear:

Feingold, seeking liberals' support for the 2008 presidential nomination, said he wasn't motivated by politics. But then he slipped. "If there's any Democrat out there who can't say . . . the president has no right to make up his own laws, I don't know if that Democrat really is the right candidate," he said of his likely primary opponents.

So. Any Democrat ready to endorse Feingold's nakedly political ploy to undermine Democratic candidates for the 2008 nomination? Hillary, could you quit cowering behind Mikulski and answer the question?

Saddam's Standup Routine Slays 'Em

Saddam Hussein took the stand in his own defense today, calling the trial a "comedy" while admitting most of the allegations surrounding the destruction of Dujail and the deaths of scores of its residents:

Saddam Hussein formally took the stand in his trial for the first time on Wednesday after earlier acknowledging in court that he gave orders which led to the killing of 148 Shi'ite men in the 1980s.

He called the court a "comedy against Saddam Hussein and his comrades." ...

During his last appearance on March 1, Saddam said he had ordered the 148 to be tried but justified the sentences as entirely legal, saying: "Where is the crime?."

He also acknowledged razing farmland around Dujail owned by those alleged to have carried out the attack on him.

Saddam took his comedy act on the road, however, when he tried to speak about the current wave of violence occurring in conjunction with the seating of the new National Assembly. The presiding judge cut him off, directing him to stop making political speeches. When Saddam protested that he was the head of state for Iraq, the judge curtly told Saddam that he used to be the head of state but is now a defendant in court and subject to its rules.

The new judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman, has a much firmer grip on the trial and it shows in the actions of the defendants and their lawyers. Before, Saddam would have been allowed to pontificate at will, and if challenged would have staged a demonstration that would have quickly spread to his co-defendants and their counsel. The court would have engaged in hand-wringing about how to convince them all to return. However, under Abdel-Rahman's leadership, the court has made clear to the defense that their presence is not necessary for the continuance of the trial -- and that has them in court, working within the rules, and keeping disruptions to a minimum.

This has allowed the evidence and testimony to finally speak louder than the antics designed to distract from them. Saddam lost this trial when he lost his first, more pliable judge. He no longer controls even this aspect of his environment and must face the judgment of the new Iraq and the world -- and he obviously cannot stand that. The comedy is over for Saddam, and he knows it.

When Reform Just Means Changing Names

The US will vote against Kofi Annan's plan to reform the Human Rights Commission at Turtle Bay after the initial proposal got watered down to please the abusers it meant to keep from the council. The US position will force an actual vote rather than approval by consensus, opening the floor to amendments and debate:

The United States will call for a General Assembly vote on the proposed Human Rights Council on Wednesday, and vote against it, a senior Bush administration official said Tuesday.

"We tried very hard to see if we could support this, but in the end we just didn't think this initiative met the very high bar we set for an effective council," said R. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs. "The U.N. needs a stronger body to fight human rights abuses in places like Darfur and Burma." ...

Jan Eliasson, the General Assembly president, who negotiated the final text, had hoped to submit it for approval by consensus, which would have forestalled actions by objecting nations.

But that plan was upset by the American decision to vote no, announced by John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador, on Feb. 27.

Until now, other nations and the UN had been lobbying the US to change its position. Human-rights organizations had campaigned globally in an effort to soften our position, and the EU promised to use its leverage to keep abusers off the new panel, now named the Human Rights Council. Somehow those pledges didn't work to keep the necessary language in the proposition itself, prompting the US to have little faith in EU pledges to meet some unwritten guidelines in the future.

After having the text significantly weakened, the new proposal gives nothing but window dressing to what is essentially just a name change. The number of nations seated on the newly-reminted Human Rights Council drops from 53 to 47, but membership still can be gained by a support of a majority of the General Assembly rather than the two-thirds that constituted the original bar to membership. In the present composition of the Assembly, it would be too easy for the abuser states such as Cuba, Iran, and others to gain access to the panel. The General Assembly does not consist in large part of democracies, where voters hold leaders accountable for their actions, but autocracies and kleptocracies that cannot be trusted to judge the protection of human rights at home, let alone globally.

The UN needs real reform, not just window dressing. The US should continue to hold a hard line on so-called reform that does little more than create excuses for press releases. If we do not demand real change at Turtle Bay, it will never come at all.

The End Of The Culpepper Era

An era of promise and disappointment came to a close yesterday in Eden Prairie as the Minnesota Vikings traded Daunte Culpepper to the Miami Dolphins. When Culpepper started seven years ago, he replaced Brad Johnson and now it looks like Brad Johnson will replace Culpepper for the 2006 season:

Chances are the smile returned to Culpepper's face Tuesday for the first time in months, when the Vikings quietly traded him to Miami for a second-round pick in next month's NFL draft. The move closed another dark chapter in the franchise's turbulent history, sending Culpepper to a plum destination and leaving the Vikings with little to show for their seven-year investment in a 29-year-old quarterback they believed would lead them into the next decade.

The Vikings confirmed Tuesday night that they will receive the Dolphins' No. 51 overall pick, three spots after their own second-round choice.

One of the most immediate problems leading to the trade was Daunte's insistence on renegotiating his contract despite having a disastrous season. In the first half of the season, Daunte threw twice as many interceptions as touchdowns and renewed his penchant for fumbling the ball. He looked lost on the field until blowing out three of the four ligaments in his right knee in game 7, giving the Vikes a 2-5 start in which the entire team looked as though it had signed off for the year.

When Johnson returned, the Vikings looked like a different team. He may not have Culpepper's physical skills, but Johnson knows how to win, having done so with Tampa Bay all the way to the Super Bowl. He managed to go 7-2 with the same team Daunte led to a 2-5 record and almost made the playoffs.

Even after that, Daunte insisted on getting a raise from the Vikings despite having renegotiated his contract by holding out the previous summer. He publicly demanded more money and bailed out of a scheduled meeting with his new coach to emphasize his efforts. Culpepper also refused to rehab locally as the team requested so they could monitor his progress. In the end, Culpepper forced the trade, and it is a measure of his value that the best the Vikings could get for him was a second-round draft pick.

Culpepper has shown flashes of brilliance and has undeniable physical skills at quarterback. However, Culpepper has never protected the football well, fumbling and tossing interceptions at progressively higher rates. He also hasn't proven himself much of a field general. It isn't his effort -- he always plays hard -- but he doesn't have the chemistry, focus, or leadership to get the most out of his teammates and himself. In a way, it is reminiscent of Jeff George, another undeniably talented quarterback who couldn't make the Vikings click either. When Randy Cunningham took over for George after a poor start, he turned the team into a contender and then led them the next season to a 15-1 record and the NFC championship game. Culpepper reminds me of George, without the attitude problems.

Johnson will get his chance to emulate Cunningham in 2006, but the Vikings need to find a good QB in the next draft for their future. They could trade up for Leinart, Young, or Cutler, or they may try to find some hidden gem later in the draft, but they had better start working on the solution.

Feingold Isolated By Angry Caucus

Senator Russ Feingold has discovered the key difference between leadership and grandstanding. The former involves motivating a group of people to follow your lead by engaging the group's enthusiasm for your direction. The latter involves making decisions for others without bothering to consult them. Democrats have made clear that Feingold is a party grandstander and not a leader:

Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold accused fellow Democrats on Tuesday of cowering rather than joining him on trying to censure President Bush over domestic spying.

"Democrats run and hide" when the administration invokes the war on terrorism, Feingold told reporters.

Feingold introduced censure legislation Monday in the Senate but not a single Democrat has embraced it. Several have said they want to see the results of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation before supporting any punitive legislation.

Republicans dismissed the proposal Tuesday as being more about Feingold's 2008 presidential aspirations than Bush's actions. On and off the Senate floor, they have dared Democrats to vote for the resolution.

Feingold's fellow caucus members have watched as the presidential hopeful pushed them into an embarrassing Hobson's choice. On one hand, they could follow Feingold and fight to censure George Bush for taking action to protect America from terrorist attack -- measures that have found approval by two-thirds of American voters -- and reinforce the widely-held belief that the Democrats have no stomach for taking the necessary steps to protect the nation. The censure would never work, however, since the Democrats only have 45 votes in the Senate, and not even all of those would ever agree to support it.

The Democrats chose the only other option, which was to run away as fast as possible from the Wisconsin senator. That made them look craven and disorganized while allowing Feingold to roar with righteous indignation at their failure to support him. That posturing may sell well with the far-left netroots but it won't with his colleagues. Raw Story has apparently spoken with staffers on the Hill and discovered that Feingold never bothered to consult with any of his caucus before launching this ridiculous effort:

While mainstream media outlets have pounced on the fact that Democrats blocked an effort by one of their own to censure President Bush over his warrantless wiretapping program, RAW STORY has found that Senate Democratic offices are fuming. The proposal to censure the President was introduced on a Sunday talk show by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI).

Though all say they believe the program warrants "more investigation," several Senate aides rebuked Feingold for proposing censure. They say that his move had the potential to derail Democratic efforts to strengthen the party's image on homeland security issues, noting that a large part of the country believes the eavesdropping program should continue. Bush has defended the program, calling it a "terrorist surveillance" program, and has used aides to defend its legality.

Strikingly, some of the criticism came from liberal Senate offices.

One longtime Senate aide was particularly scathing.

“Feingold’s grandstanding screwed the pooch and played into Bill Frist’s hands," the aide said. "Thank God Dems punted this down the field. Frist was going to force Democrats to vote on a resolution Feingold had kept a big secret and he would’ve split the caucus on an issue that needed time to get the whole caucus to support. Russ Feingold had only one persons’ interests in mind with his Sunday bombshell, and those were his own. He practically handed a victory to a Bush White House that desperately needs a win.”

Frist doesn't plan to let up, at least not at the moment, although Jon Kyl told Hugh Hewitt that the Senate needed to focus on more pressing matters. Frist put a statement on his blog that makes his intentions clear:

Yesterday I attempted to bring Senator Feingold's resolution to censure President Bush to the Senate floor for a vote. That moment was a great chance for the Democrat Party to stand on their "principles" and vote. The Democrat Minority objected.

Why? Because they don't want a vote.

Senate Democrats hoped the Republican leadership would block a vote. Better to score points with the far left and throw sand in the eyes of the American people so Americans could not see what this resolution really means: the Democrats are incapable of leading America.

I am determined to put the Democrats on the record. I want a vote. I want to know where Hillary Clinton stands on this censure? How about John Kerry? What about their leader Harry Reid? More importantly, I want the American people to know.

Amazingly, the Democrats don't like the idea of a vote for Feingold's motion. None of them want to go on record either for or against censure, arguing as Raw Story noted that they prefer to say that the matter needs more investigation. A vote for censure would alienate the voters who want the government to track international calls from suspected terrorists and don't see a need for a warrant during wartime to do so. A vote against censure would alienate the netroots and threaten the money supply during the midterms. Small wonder that Frist wants to force them into a roll-call vote on the motion as soon as possible.

Feingold may think that he's some sort of crusading avenger for the Democrats, but his caucus has a significantly different impression. He may have just turned himself into the Dennis Kucinich of 2008, even if the original Kucinich runs again. He'll be lucky to get a handshake on the campaign trail after the primary debates.

GOP Weakening On Spending Cuts

The Washington Post reports that the Republicans have run into trouble in maintaining their drive for fiscal sanity, with moderate members balking at budget cuts during an election year. Jonathan Weisman writes that several Homeland Security priorities will get more funding than their initial budget requests, putting pressure on Congress to raise taxes:

House and Senate Republicans will seek this week to increase spending on port security, homeland defense, health care and education in a clash with GOP leaders struggling to regain the mantle of fiscal discipline for their party.

With the Senate taking up a budget blueprint for 2007 and the House voting on a $91 billion emergency spending bill, lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol will face key tests of their budget-cutting mettle in the coming days. The federal budget deficit is expected to reach $371 billion this year, despite robust economic growth. But GOP leaders insist they can bring down the deficit without increasing taxes if lawmakers are willing to make tough decisions on federal spending. ...

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) conceded yesterday that a coalition of moderate Republicans and Democrats may block the adoption of the spending limits in his budget plan. Facing an election-year revolt, Gregg has already dropped the centerpiece of Bush's budget-cutting efforts for 2007, a $37 billion reduction in the growth of Medicare. And he opted against using in the budget resolution parliamentary language that would have helped Bush extend his first-term tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date.

"For the great majority in my conference, they'd like to do some aggressive things on spending," he said. "But we need 51 votes. You might have 48 votes, but that's not 51, and it's as simple as that."

In other words, we can thank the same "moderates" who helped bring us the Gang of 14 for this exercise in federal growth, as well as a few others. For instance, Arlen Specter apparently has been reading a little too much of Tom DeLay's press releases. He told the press that Congress is now "beyond cutting the fat and beyond the bone. We're down to the marrow." Specter wants to introduce more expansion in health care, education, and worker safety (by "billions of dollars above the president's request") along with the higher spending on security issues.

Let's look at that fat/meat/bone/marrow analogy a little closer, shall we? The Heritage Foundation has the numbers which make that assertion look entirely asinine. The federal budget has escalated from $1.46T in 1994, when the GOP first came to power in the House, to an estimated $2.77T for this year, almost double in spending. Discretionary spending in that period has increased from $541B to $969B, and even in 2001 only came to $649B. That means that discretionary spending has increased almost 50% in the time when the GOP controlled both the House and the White House.

Did that spending go to defending the nation? Some of it did. Between 2001 and 2006, defense and security spending rose $231B, a 76% increase, but defense is hardly alone. One of Specter's priorities, education, increased a whopping 137% in the same period. Medicare rose 58% and Medicaid 49%. Health research went up 78%. Unemployment benefits increased 27% in a period where unemployment has actually dropped from 2001 levels.

This is the marrow? What would we have seen without the cuts that Specter and others decry so bitterly? In fact, what these politicians criticize as cuts are in reality a lower rate of expansion than they would like. Only a lunatic or a politician could possibly look at these numbers and talk about having cut the federal budget to the meat, bone, or marrow, and only an electorate who believes in a free lunch would resist the urge to tar and feather the purveyors of such idiocy.

I have no problem in spending money on national defense, as that happens to be one of the few Constitutional duties receiving federal largesse. Rather than spending even more of our money and scheming to get their hands on it in greater quantities, Congress should revisit the spending binge of the past fifteen years to pay for our defense. Don't talk to us about cuts to the marrow while feasting on pork.

Addendum: Speaking of pork, did you know that there are seven different species of earmarks? I didn't, until Mark Tapscott played Charles Darwin for me.

UPDATE: Washington Post, not New York Times. Thanks to the several readers who pointed out the error.

Armitage The Plame Leaker? Maybe ...

Matt Drudge leaked a portion of an article appearing in the new Vanity Fair which quotes Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee as confirming that Richard Armitage, the right-hand man to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, was the first government official to leak Valerie Plame's status to the press. Armitage has been one of the prime suspects for those who, like Tom Maguire, have followed the case closely. However, Bradlee's own paper delivers quite a walkback in today's report from Jim VandeHei:

In an article to be published in the magazine today, Bradlee is quoted as saying: "That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption." Armitage was deputy secretary of state in President Bush's first term.

In an interview yesterday, Bradlee said he does know the identity of Woodward's source and does not recall making that precise statement to a Vanity Fair reporter. He said he has no interest in unmasking the official who first told Woodward about Plame in June 2003.

"I don't think I said it," Bradlee said. "I know who his source is, and I don't want to get into it. . . . I have not told a soul who it is."

This calls the entire Vanity Fair article into serious question. Under normal circumstances, a person quoted in a news report would not have much credibility when claiming to be misquoted. However, when the person in question has the experience in news reporting that Bradlee has, one has to think that he would have been very careful in response to questions about sources. He confirms that he does know the source (although Bob Woodward, curiously, insists that he never told Bradlee the name of the leaker). Why, then, would he have gone through the elaborate rhetorical device of saying that Armitage was "a fair assumption"?

Vanity Fair says that the article's author, Marie Brenner, was not available for comment. If VF wants to retain its credibility, then Brenner better have that quote on tape and in the context of a revelation, and not just some spitballing about various theories on the leak's identity. If it comes down to a he said/she said routine, Bradlee will win that tussle. He kept Mark Felt's identity as Deep Throat a secret for over 30 years, and it's doubtful that a VF reporter would have bested him in this instance.

That said, Armitage is a fair assumption, for all the reasons that Tom Maguire has posted at Just One Minute. If that assumption proves correct -- and Bradlee didn't deny it -- then it turns the episode on its head. The assumption from the Left has been that the government leaked it to attack Joe Wilson for opposing the Bush foreign policy agenda, especially on Iraq. Armitage, however, is not known for his slavish devotion to the Bush White House. In fact, he has been rather bitter and open about his dislike for the administration, and certainly wasn't Joe Company in 2003 when this occurred. Given that the Left has demanded prosecution and long jail times for Scooter Libby and his boss, Dick Cheney, for their alleged roles in this leak, will that demand continue for Armitage and St. Colin of Powell, the darling of the Left during the first Bush term?

If Armitage is truly the leaker, don't expect this case to go much further. It would kill any attempt to cast the leak as a political attack in defense of George Bush, frankly because Armitage would be more likely to have been on the side of Joe Wilson and the Iraq War's critics than manning the political front lines for Bush. This will fade into obscurity as yet another hysterical attempt by the Left to attack a president they could not defeat at the polls.

AQ #2 Seen In Lodi Before 9/11

An informant for the prosecution in the case of the alleged Lodi al-Qaeda cell says that AQ's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited in the Lodi area in the late 1990s as the local mosque established itself as a center for radical Islamists. Naseem Khan, the prosecution witness that has testified to the activity inside the mosque, picked out the Egyptian doctor-turned-terrorist leader from a photo during his initial interrogation:

In a surprising twist, the FBI informant in the terrorism case against a Lodi man and his father said in federal court Monday that he encountered Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader in the small Central Valley farm town a few years before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Defense attorneys for Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer, said outside court that the statement by the government's key witness raised serious questions about the informant's credibility. And a former president of the Lodi mosque said terrorist leader Ayman Zawahiri was never there.

Naseem Khan, a convenience store manager turned government informant, said he told the FBI in late 2001 that he spotted Zawahiri at a Lodi mosque in 1998 and 1999.

"Every time I would go to the mosque, [Zawahiri] would be coming or going," Khan said, according to the Sacramento Bee on Monday on its website. Khan, who said he lived in Lodi at the time, testified that he spoke to Zawahiri, but never had a conversation with him. ...

Recounting Khan's testimony in court Monday, Griffin said that Khan said in an early interview with FBI agents that he was asked if he knew Osama bin Laden. Khan told them he did not know the Al Qaeda leader, but had seen a photo of him on the news with Zawahiri, who he recognized from Lodi.

Does this sound a bit fantastic? I thought so as well, but a similar report from Fox News carried this bit of information:

Al-Zawahiri is known to have traveled to the United States in the years before the terrorist attacks, as did members of the Taliban. Federal officials and news accounts say he passed through northern California on fundraising missions during the late 1980s and early 1990s, travels that included visits to mosques in the San Francisco Bay area, Stockton and Sacramento.

He may have lived in the Sacramento area for an undetermined period in or around 1995 while visiting area mosques, according to an FBI agent in Washington, D.C., who spoke Monday on condition he not be named.

Quite frankly, I found this surprising. One would have expected this information to have received much wider attention than it has apparently gotten. At the very least, the 9/11 Commission should have investigated Zawahiri's travels through the US, but the final report carries not a single mention of the AQ leader ever having been inside the US. The Commission had been tasked with investigating and reporting all of the ways in which American defenses failed in the run-up to the 9/11 attacks, and having the terrorist leader raising funds and proselytizing inside the US should have been a highlight of the report, if the panel claims any competence at all.

The defense has gone on the attack in this case to undermine the testimony, complaining that the judge blocked them from questioning Khan's credibility. They claimed that the Pakistani ex-pat community in Lodi would have noticed an Egyptian like Zawahiri had he started attending the mosque, and the mosque president and other officials do not have any recollection of Zawahiri attending their services. It seems a bit far-fetched to me that the people at the mosque would have required attendees to state their ethnicity prior to entry, and that assumes that the mosque officials are being sincere in their remarks. If that's the best defense that Hayat's attorneys can muster, no wonder the judge ruled their objections out of order.

Michelle Malkin has more on this story, and AJ Strata wonders if this may have been the big secret that the Pentagon wants to keep from being revealed in the Able Danger story. Perhaps -- but I think that a revelation of Zawahiri traveling through the US as late as 1999 wouldn't be as embarrassing as having identified Mohammed Atta in 2000 as a potential Islamist terrorist.

Chef Gets Huffy, Leaves South Park

Isaac Hayes has left South Park and his role of Chef, one of the original characters in the series. Hayes says that he disapproves of the religious mockery that has long been part of the show, but the show's creators have declared shenanigans on Hayes:

Isaac Hayes has quit "South Park," where he voices Chef, saying he can no longer stomach its take on religion.

Hayes, who has played the ladies' man/school cook in the animated Comedy Central satire since 1997, said in a statement Monday that he feels a line has been crossed.

"There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins," the 63-year-old soul singer and outspoken Scientologist said.

"Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored," he continued. "As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices."

After nine seasons of foul-mouthed riffs on God, religion, molesting Catholic priests, the Mormon testament, and the Jews, Hayes has suddenly discovered that poking fun at religion is disrespectful? Has he even watched the show?

Matt Stone, one of the two creators, says that Hayes never mentioned any reservations about participating in this satire -- at least until the satire hit too close to home:

"South Park" co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology... He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians."

Last November, "South Park" targeted the Church of Scientology and its celebrity followers, including actors
Tom Cruise and John Travolta, in a top-rated episode called "Trapped in the Closet." In the episode, Stan, one of the show's four mischievous fourth graders, is hailed as a reluctant savior by Scientology leaders, while a cartoon Cruise locks himself in a closet and won't come out.

That episode was easily one of the best of the series, with a number of laugh-out-loud moments. The funniest part of it was the credits at the end, which changed all the names of the cast and crew to either John Smith or Jane Smith after Stan defiantly told the Scientologists that they didn't scare him. I wondered at the time whether Stone and his partner Trey Parker would receive any real threats or complaints. I never expected to hear one of their own cast members, one who had delightfully joined with Stone and Parker in satirizing a whole range of faiths, complain about their humor.

It seems that Chef can't take what he dishes out.

Ask No Questions Of Your Superstar Journalists

Jim Walsh of the Courier Post learned an important lesson last week, one he relates to his readers in his column today. After listening to former CBS anchorman Dan Rather speak to a Cherry Hill audience about the need for improvement in reporting, Walsh took an opportunity to ask Rather to talk about a specific instance where media failed -- and wound up censored for his efforts:

Here's the scene: Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather is in Cherry Hill, giving a speech about the need for journalists to do better.

"What's gone out of fashion is the tough question and the follow-up," he tells an admiring audience of about 600 people at Cherry Hill's Star Forum.

So how can I, the guy covering Rather's remarks, just sit there?

When he finishes, I hurry to a floor mike to ask Rather about an issue that will be part of my story.

"Mr. Rather," I say. "Great suggestions. But you left the anchor desk last year after your report questioning President Bush's military service was discredited. Key memos could not be authenticated. Do you think the failure to ask questions then affects your credibility now?"

Rather responds with civility -- if not clarity. He notes, in part, that an independent review "couldn't determine whether the documents were authentic or not."

Eager to please, I follow up: "The Courier-Post won't run something if we're not sure it's authentic. Are you saying it's OK . . ."

But my microphone goes dead -- and the audience stirs to life.

Some people jeer. Others glare and scowl (I can now distinguish between the two). This continues outside as I call in my story.

So let's get this straight. Dan Rather spent his time in Cherry Hill lamenting the dearth of the tough question and the follow-up. When Walsh got an opportunity, he attempted to provide Rather with exactly what he demanded from the media -- a tough question and a follow-up when the first answer evaded the issue. How did Rather and his handlers reward him? They cut off his microphone and made sure he couldn't finish his follow-up.

And after listening to Rather talk about the supposed spinelessness of the media, how did the audience react to this obvious and hypocritical effort at stifling Walsh's inquiry? They booed him. Quite obviously, both Rather and his audience engaged in mere posturing instead of truly supporting aggressive reporting.

Has there ever been a major journalist as egotistical and hypocritical as Dan Rather?

Twin Cities Needs A New Publisher

The Twin Cities suffered a setback for diversity in the news media with the announcement that McClatchy would purchase Knight Ridder for $4.5 billion. McClatchy already owns the dominant broadsheet in the area, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, with its decent stable of reporters and its frequently-unhinged editorial and opinion writers. With the purchase of KR, they will briefly control the only other significant newspaper in the market, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press. Editor & Publisher notes that the control will be short-lived:

McClatchy said it will now sell 12 KR papers, including the two Philadelphia papers and former flagship San Jose Mercury News. The company said in a statement that these papers are located in cities that "do not fit the company's longstanding acquisition criteria, chiefly involving growing markets."

The other papers to be divested by McClatchy are: the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal; Wilkes Barre (Pa.) Times Leader; Aberdeen (S.D.) American News; Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald; Ft. Wayne (Ind.) News-Sentinel; Contra Costa (Calif.) Times; Monterey (Calif.) Herald; and Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune. The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press is to be sold due to anticipated anti-trust concerns involving McClatchy's Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

This post isn't intended to proclaim this as a blow for independence in media. The Pioneer Press had long been a Strib Lite, providing little difference in editorial outlook, while committing less resources to actual newsgathering. Over the past two years, however, KR allowed the paper to diversify its editorial position and open itself to more conservative and libertarian voices. This appeared to promise a real choice for Twin Cities residents, if the Pioneer Press allowed its experimentation to continue.

However, that now comes under significant risk as McClatchy looks for a buyer for its local competition. E&P doesn't mention any potential buyers, but on a national level one could expect players such as Tribune, Gannett, and Freedom to take a look. Of the three, only Freedom has a record of more conservative editorial traditions. It owns the Orange County Register, a newspaper that has existed in the shadow of the dominant Los Angeles Times, and has long espoused a libertarian/conservative perspective. It also has a few Pulitzers on its shelf despite the long shadow that Tribune Co.'s Times casts over it. A similar situation exists with the PP here in the Twin Cities, and a publisher like Freedom would have the kind of experience at countermarketing in the manner needed here.

We certainly need a publisher who understands the Twin Cities market and wants to offer a real alternative to the Strib's far-left tilt. We need, at a minimum, a publisher who understands that military families offering their opinions in support of the war effort in Iraq aren't "un-American". (Had I won that $365 million Lottery not too long ago, I'd seriously consider bidding for the PP myself.) The Twin Cities deserves a conservative/libertarian political voice and a good old-fashioned editorial war across the Mississippi River.

The For Sale sign is out. Any takers?

Feingold Goes Off The Reservation

Senator Russ Feingold attempted to start his 2008 presidential campaign with a bang. In a move anticipated for the past few days, the Wisconsin Senator followed his opposition to the Patriot Act with a motion to censure George Bush for his approval of the NSA intercept program that has helped keep America safe from attack since 9/11. As soon as he introduced the motion, he fled the well of the Senate as the Republicans attempted to schedule an immediate vote on the censure:

Democrats distanced themselves Monday from Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold's effort to censure President Bush over domestic spying, preventing a floor vote that could alienate swing voters.

A day of tough, election-year talk between Feingold and Vice President Dick Cheney ended with Senate leaders sending the matter to the Judiciary Committee.

Republicans dared Democrats to vote for the proposal.

"Some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy," Vice President Dick Cheney told a Republican audience in Feingold's home state.

If anyone expected the Democrats to make significant gains against the GOP, which has seen its popularity buffeted by scandals the past few weeks, that analysis obviously excluded the capacity for Democrats to shoot themselves in the foot. Only an idiot would attempt to make a president the enemy during wartime, especially for an action that he performed in defense of the country. In fact, the 9/11 Commission specifically scolded the Bush and Clinton administrations for not allowing the NSA to do its job and surveil international communications. The Republicans would be happy to have that debate, especially with someone who wouldn't vote to continue allowing counterterrorism agents to use the same legal tools provided to investigators in racketeering and child-pornography cases.

Fortunately for the Republicans, Feingold demonstrated that he is that big a fool. Other Democrats were not as sanguine about the proposal, sensing that scolding a president over a program supported by a solid majority of the electorate would fall flat with swing voters. After Bill Frist scheduled an immediate vote, Democrats objected, and when he scheduled a vote for tomorrow morning, they complained that Harry Reid had not been consulted on the motion. That sent a clear signal that Feingold had gone off the reservation, as no one who read a paper or watched the national news could have missed Feingold's highly-telegraphed move.

The notion of censure is silly on its face. The administration has a solid case for its argument that the authorization for use of military force carries with it the implicit duty to monitor the communications of the enemy. If Congress wanted to challenge its legality, they could take the administration to the Supreme Court for a ruling. However, the result could well strangle FISA in its attempt to override clearly Constitutional duties for the commander in chief. Instead, Congress has just decided to pass another regulation like FISA rather than challenge Bush's effort -- because most members understand that only does Bush have a case, but that the Supreme Court would likely strip FISA of its pretensions in dictating how a wartime president can surveil the enemy.

Feingold may think this will put his presidential campaign on the map, but in reality it shows that even his fellow Democrats find it hard to follow him. Good luck in 2008, Russ.

Yale's Response To Alumni Critics: 'Retarded'?

John Fund wrote about the former Taliban official now enrolled at Yale, Sayed Ramatullah Hashemi, last week in an article critical of Yale's admission of the Islamist. After Fund wrote about the subject, others openly criticized Yale for its acceptance of a man who participated in one of the most brutally oppressive governments in recent history, and some of those critics are alumni of Yale. In response, Yale Law School's assistant director of giving (which means, in the Orwellian lingo of academia, receiving) sent an e-mail to two alumni asking them if they had suffered brain damage:

Mr. Surovov, a Yale alumnus who has worked in its development office for three years and is on the board of the Yale Club of New Haven, wrote Mr. Taylor and Ms. Bookstaber at their private email addresses with the subject heading: "Y [sic] do you hate Yale." Here is his email in its entirety: "What is wrong with you? Are you retarded? This is the most disgraceful alumni article that I have ever read in my life. You failed to mention that you've never contributed to the Yale Alumni Fund in your life. But to suggest that others follow your negative example is disgusting."

Intrigued that someone had looked up his wife's giving record, David Bookstaber, a Yale computer science graduate, used Columbia's publicly accessible IT account database to trace the anonymous email. The trail led straight to Mr. Surovov's Yale office. On Thursday Mr. Taylor phoned Mr. Suvarov, who told him he was angry because the furor over the Taliban official was hurting fund raising and could lower Yale's rankings in the next U.S. News & World Report college survey. He also accused Mr. Taylor and Ms. Bookstaber of "terrorist tactics," which when challenged he amended to "terror tactics."

I called Mr. Surovov Friday morning for a candid 30-minute conversation. Why had he sent his blistering attack anonymously? "I'm not sure," he replied. But he nonetheless stood by a subsequent email he had sent Mr. Taylor using his own name in which he said "I regret nothing" about his previous attack. He did reluctantly concede to me he had made "a poor choice" of one word--"retarded." When asked if a day earlier he had verbally accused Mr. Taylor of "terror tactics" he paused for several seconds and said "I don't recall." He did tell me he viewed their protest as "a reactionary stunt."

I suppose the use of that term might be fair, since most of us believe that Yale's admissions department suffers from moral retardation in this case. It seems rather revealing that Alex Surorov would send such a barely-literate screed anonymously, which is an admission that no one wants to stand by Yale's decision. Instead of arguing the facts, Surovov descended into schoolyard namecalling, an interesting bit of information about the culture at Yale, as indicated by his employment there. Surovov cheerfully admits that his primary concern as the assistant director of giving is to keep the flow of money coming into Yale and its law school. He apparently isn't above intimidation to ensure his pipeline of cash, either.

Even better, Surovov claims to only have a vague awareness of the Taliban and its policies. It could be true that Yale exists on some existential plane that separated from reality in the 1990s, but otherwise, this admission is so embarrassing to the Ivy League institution as to shame everyone associated with it. Has Surovov and Yale been under a complete ban of information for the past twelve years? It's bad enough that many high-school graduates can't identify Afghanistan on a map, but this is ridiculous.

Read Fund's entire essay. If Surovov still works at Yale by the end of the month, I'd be surprised, and Yale should be humiliated.

Rice: India 'Unique'

Condoleezza Rice responds today to critics of the new treaty that George Bush signed recently with India, guaranteeing access to their nuclear facilities while bolstering their production of nuclear energy for domestic uses. Some questioned whether the deal would undermine efforts to confront Iran and North Korea on proliferation, but Rice writes that India presents a unique opportunity to strengthen those efforts:

Our agreement with India is unique because India is unique. India is a democracy, where citizens of many ethnicities and faiths cooperate in peace and freedom. India's civilian government functions transparently and accountably. It is fighting terrorism and extremism, and it has a 30-year record of responsible behavior on nonproliferation matters.

Aspiring proliferators such as North Korea or Iran may seek to draw connections between themselves and India, but their rhetoric rings hollow. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism that has violated its own commitments and is defying the international community's efforts to contain its nuclear ambitions. North Korea, the least transparent country in the world, threatens its neighbors and proliferates weapons. There is simply no comparison between the Iranian or North Korean regimes and India.

The world has known for some time that India has nuclear weapons, but our agreement will not enhance its capacity to make more.

This essay provides a reality check, not just for American critics but for the two rogue nations as well. India not only has the world's largest democracy, but also represents the biggest potential for economic expansion in Asia. Aligning ourselves with India allows us to make clear that we are not alone in the neighborhood of these two countries. India has as much interest in ending nuclear weapons development in both countries as we do, given their support for Islamist terror (Iran) and their willingness to sell weapons to anyone (North Korea). India has its own issues with Islamists in India, especially over the Kashmir territory. Having one billion Indians on our side, along with its acknowledged nuclear capacity, changes some calculations in the region -- including those made by Russia and China.

As Rice also notes, the IAEA and its chief, Mohammed ElBaradie, like this treaty for the precise reason of non-proliferation. India never signed the NPT and has never submitted to inspections. Under the terms of this treaty, India will submit to inspections of most of its facilities -- an improvement, if not an outright win. They will also agree to inspections on new facilities, and with eight reactors currently planned for construction, we may also have an opportunity to create jobs in the US for building and supporting their domestic energy production.

This also promotes democratization in very real terms, in keeping with the foreign-policy objectives of the Bush administration. It's no coincidence that Bush refused to give the Pakistanis the same offer he made India. He sent a message to the non-aligned countries thinking about their future energy needs. If a country wants to generate its own electricity independent of Arab sheikhs, the only way to achieve that will be to democratize. We're not going to trust the nuclear cycle to dictators or autocrats, but only to those nations which have transparent elected governments that accepts the basic values of liberty and freedom.

Lastly, on a geopolitical basis, this deal makes absolute sense if we are to ever confront Iran over its nuclear weapons. India needs oil coming through the Straits of Hormuz in order to keep its economy going. With an increase in nuclear power, that dependence diminishes. Not only does that help the environment (as Rice points out), but it lessens the leverage that Iran has over the world in this game of nuclear chess that Teheran insists on playing. Having India on our side, or at least less dependent on Iran, bolsters our own leverage in the coming showdown.

Congress starts its review of the treaty this week. Both chambers will have involvement as laws will need amendments in order to fully implement the deal. Hopefully this will sail through without the bitter partisanship that has become so much a part of our political process the past few years.

De Villepin's Dance Goes Badly

French prime minister Dominique De Villepin finds himself drowning in political waters after the ugly student protests and their forced end at the Sorbonne that resulted from his reform plan to solve youth unemployment. With over 20% of young French out of a job, DeVillepin attempted to give employers more leeway in terminating employees so that they would take more risks in hiring young workers, but the students wanted their guarantees more than the jobs themselves:

Dominique de Villepin, France's prime minister, was fighting for his political survival last night after a week of protests over his flagship youth employment scheme, culminating in students occupying the Sorbonne for the first time since May 1968.

Facing his sternest test since taking up office last June, Mr de Villepin said on France's main television news programme last night that his Bill "will be applied" but intimated that it could be tweaked.

His words came a day after 1,200 riot police stormed the Sorbonne and evicted around 200 students who had been staging a sit-in in Paris's historic university - the centre of the student riots of May 1968.

The students were calling on Mr de Villepin to drop his First Employment Contract (CPE) - a youth job scheme aimed at cutting France's woeful youth unemployment rate by making it easier to hire and fire young recruits in their first two years in a company. They argue that the scheme - a personal initiative of the prime minister - simply increases job insecurity.

Last Tuesday, half a million secondary school pupils and university students took to the streets to protest against the CPE. Half of France's 84 universities are at least partially on strike. More demonstrations are expected this week in a move that student unions and the French Left hope will force Mr de Villepin into an embarrassing U-turn and resignation.

This reaction shows exactly why France will not reform its socialist economy -- too many people have invested themselves into the notion that government force should dictate terms of employment. Under these conditions, foreign investment will be more difficult to procure, as corporations will not want to subject themselves to funding a nanny state where workers cannot be terminated regardless of their work habits. The students who protest against high unemployment have kneecapped themselves and all but guaranteed that their problems will only worsen.

De Villepin had the right idea, or at least the right start to the right idea. His modest proposal would have allowed French firms to take chances on younger workers, usually less reliable than those with more responsibilities. With so many looking for work, these employers do not want to waste a position on someone lacking a track record of reliability, especially since they can't get rid of an employee once hired. Why should employers take risks like that with students and new graduates, especially with their attitude of entitlement as expressed in the protests at the Sorbonne?

The irony of the event is that the man who ordered the storming of the Sorbonne, Nicolas Sarkozy, will benefit from De Villepin's political woes. While De Villepin danced around the conundrum of French economics, Sarkozy took direct action to end the petulant ranting of the latest generation of French layabouts. In truth, neither man dares to tell the French what they really need to hear: they have consigned their nation to long-term decline and ruin in their demands for perpetual welfare. In a global economy, French investment will simply flee France and find better returns -- and better workers -- elsewhere.

Until the nation completely collapses, the French will never change.

Harper Hangs Around In Afghanistan

The new Canadian Prime Minister paid a visit to his troops on the front lines in Afghanistan, defying security concerns in staying overnight in order to show his solidarity with the Canadian contingent of the Coalition. Stephen Harper told his soldiers that although some at home might question their mission, Canada would not cut and run on his watch:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent his second day in turbulent Afghanistan on Monday with a clear message to doubters back home that Canada won't be a pushover.

"You can't lead from the bleachers. I want Canada to be a leader," he told about 1,000 Canadian soldiers at the base of the multinational mission led by a Canadian general.

Harper's surprise visit to Afghanistan, which began on Sunday, is meant to lend support to troops facing twin problems: a stubborn insurgency that has claimed the lives of 12 Canadians since 2002 and a public back in Canada that has shown wavering support for the mission.

Harper's lengthy stay impressed his troops and provided a boost for morale. That boost was tempered by the news that Canadians at home appear to be wavering in their support of the mission. The Canadian Press quotes one enlistee as saying that the lack of support "burns me," noting that Canadians didn't have a problem with their missions in Bosnia or Kosovo. For Harper's part, he told the media that the debate was over on the deployment:

"The debate over deployment is over. I think it's over for most of the Canadian people. We've got men and women there and we're going to support them."

Mr. Harper did say there will be time for debate in the future, when Canada must decide whether to extend its tour in the area. The Canadians give up command of the force in August, while the country's military commitment runs out in the new year.

"There will be obviously fence posts in the future where we will make future decisions about deployment, but as long as we have troops, police, diplomats, development officials, we're going to support them."

Harper hasn't taken the poll-watching route of leadership, quite obviously, and he has more vulnerability to shifts in public opinion than an American president. This show of resolve will not just boost Canadian troop morale, but also the morale of Canada's allies in this effort.

Family Reunion

Tonight HBO airs the first episode of the last season of The Sopranos. It starts at 9 pm ET with Episode 66, "Members Only", a title with more than one point of reference. Since this season is the assured valedictory for one of the best television series ever aired, no character is safe from the button man -- or the writers. In that spirit, CQ offers readers a poll to predict who gets the rest of the season off:

At the end of last season, the final two characters to make their curtain call were Adriana LaCerva and Tony Blundetto, killed by consigliere Silvio Dante and the big boss himself, respectively. This season promises a lot of early exits as Tony Soprano faces his doom and those of his two families.

UPDATE: Looks like a lot of you think Finn will get the early hook. I wish I knew if you were right, but a storm just rolled in over my house about thirty minutes before the show started and has cut off my satellite reception. This has not been my weekend, let me tell you .....

Going To War With New Hampshire

The urge of Democrats to tinker with their primary season continues unabated. The Rules and Bylaws Committee has decided to schedule more caucuses ahead of the New Hampshire primary, which by their rules has to hold the first primary election in the party's presidential run. The introduction of more caucuses will dilute the impact of New Hampshire's primary, leading to a threat of escalation by the Granite State:

The Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee yesterday dealt a blow to New Hampshire Democrats hoping to keep their coveted place in the presidential nominating schedule, agreeing by voice vote to a plan that would place one or two caucuses between the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 14, 2008, and the New Hampshire primary eight days later.

The proposal, which grew from recommendations by a commission studying how to make the nominating process more diverse both racially and geographically, would also add one or two primaries after the New Hampshire contest but before Feb. 5 -- the date after which any state is free to schedule a vote. ...

New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner has threatened that if a state caucus is added between the Iowa and New Hampshire events, he will simply move up the date of the Granite State vote -- a power granted him by state law. Should Gardner go that route, the DNC could refuse to seat delegates from his state at the 2008 national party convention.

This kerfuffle exemplifies the silliness of the primary system. Both parties front-load their primary system with states like New Hampshire and Iowa, two of the smallest states in terms of population. The egotistical state governments insist on their roles as screeners for the rest of the nation on the validity of primary candidates. Meanwhile, the other 99% of the nation watches as the field narrows artificially.

Rather than directly challenging the ridiculous nature of this system, however, the Democrats make it worse by scheduling one or two caucuses between Iowa's poll and the New Hampshire primary. Why not just declare the entire system broken and replace it with something that makes more sense? Under the circumstances, New Hampshire has a right to be annoyed. After all, the Democrats aren't attempting to reform the system to get a broader participation in the primary process. They want to put another caucus in that first week in order to get better press in the South or the West, or possibly both.

The better effort would be to hold one primary election day for the entire nation. Have all the caucuses anyone wants before then, but the results should not be binding. Schedule the primary for June or July and hold the conventions immediately afterward, giving the candidates and their parties plenty of time to mount a general-election campaign. That way, no one state gets to tank anyone's run for office. Not only will that give all candidates plenty of time and access to nationwide campaigning, but it will also create less pressure for early campaigning. If one national primary day doesn't work, then schedule four regional days in four consecutive weeks.

Otherwise, when states get fed up with Iowa and New Hampshire dictating the slate of candidates for the rest of the nation, we will get the threatened escalation we have now. New Hampshire will move its primary to an earlier date in January, other states will follow suit, and before we know it we'll have to kick off presidential campaigns before the prior midterm elections.

Or perhaps we're already there.

Iran Turns Down Russian Enrichment

So much for the Russian initiative in the Iranian crisis. This morning, the Iranian Foreign Ministry declared that the Russian compromise to avert a Security Council showdown was no longer under consideration, delivering a slap in the face to Vladimir Putin and the naive Westerners who thought Iranian consideration of it sincere:

Iran said Sunday it had ruled out a proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, further complicating the international dispute over the country's nuclear program.

Russia has sought to persuade Iran to move its enrichment program to Russian territory to allow closer international monitoring. The U.S. and the European Union had backed the idea as a way to ensure Iran would not misuse the process to make nuclear weapons.

Iran had insisted that the plan was negotiable and reached basic agreement with Moscow, but details were never worked out.

"The Russian proposal is not on our agenda any more," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

The Russian proposal allowed Iran to stall for time, hoping to avoid the UNSC showdown and the imposition of sanctions for its nuclear ambitions. Now even the Russians have egg on their face, as their vaunted re-entry into superpower politics has come up empty for a second time. The Iranians have made Putin look foolish and impotent, following on the heels of the Hamas visit that resulted in absolutely no softening of the terrorists' hard line on Israel. Putin has discovered that a bankrupt former superpower that appears to be sliding backwards into autocracy and kleptocracy hold very little persuasive power in diplomacy, especially in the Middle East, where people are highly attuned to real power and the will to use it.

The Iranians, so far, have shown the will to use the power in their hands. They have explicitly threatened to choke off their oil supplies if the UNSC slaps them with economic sanctions. Iran controls the traffic through the Straits of Hormuz, a vital passage for a significant amount of the world's oil exports. If the Iranians shut down the strait, the price of oil could explode, shaking the world economy and perhaps even touching off trade wars and other conflicts.

By the way, the country that shares the sovereignty of the Straits of Hormuz is the United Arab Emirates. And one of the reasons why the US felt that Dubai is such a strong ally is because the UAE allows the US Navy to base its operations for the security of that passage in the UAE. That alliance may soon become critical in defending the flow of oil from other sources in the area; hopefully it will survive long enough for us to face down Iran in the Straits.

It should be clear to everyone, including Russia and China, that Iran will not give up its nuclear program, and that the program has nothing to do with domestic energy production. In fact, given its instransigence and the likely economic penalties it faces for it, Iran will shortly have all the oil it will ever need for its domestic energy supply. The world needs to show the will necessary to shut down Iranian ambitions for the bomb, and failing that, the West needs to act in its own best interests regardless of whether Russia or China wants to come along.

UPDATE: I typed Iraq where I meant Iran; thanks to Stankleberry who pointed out the error.

Insurgent Split Into Gang Warfare In Anbar

I missed this report yesterday in the London Telegraph, but it bears repeating -- especially since it didn't get any attention from the American media today. Native insurgents and Iraqi civilians have apparently declared war on the al-Qaeda insurgents led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. They have achieved significant victories against the foreigners, driving them out of Anbar and forcing them back to the border ... the Iranian border:

Insurgent groups in one of Iraq's most violent provinces claim that they have purged the region of three quarters of al-Qa'eda's supporters after forming an alliance to force out the foreign fighters.

If true, it would mark a significant victory in the fight against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'eda in Iraq, and could partly explain the considerable drop in suicide bombings in Iraq recently.

Wait! Suicide bombings in Iraq have dropped considerably? Our media hasn't told us this. I wonder why.

The claims were partly supported by the defence ministry, which said it had evidence that Zarqawi and his followers were fleeing Anbar to cities and mountains near the Iranian border. ...

In reaction, the insurgent groups formed their own anti-al-Qa'eda militia, the Anbar Revolutionaries. The group has a core membership of 100 people, all of whom had relatives killed by al-Qa'eda. It is led by Ahmed Ftaikhan, a former Saddam-era military intelligence officer.

It claims to have killed 20 foreign fighters and 33 Iraqi sympathisers. Many more are said to have fled. The United States has confirmed that six of Zarqawi's deputies were killed in Ramadi.

This reaction could easily have been predicted, and should surprise no one. The AQ terrorists received welcomes from Iraqis who either supported the Saddam regime or resented the invasion of foreign troops into their country. They worked together to attack Americans and their Coalition partners. However, when even the insurgents saw that the country had transformed to democracy in a wave of purple fingers, the calculation changed for both sides. Zarqawi saw that attacking Americans not only was difficult but also ineffective; the Americans weren't leaving and had managed to protect themselves well enough to keep casualties lower than Zarqawi wanted. Meanwhile, the native insurgents saw that their suppression of Sunni participation in the new government had badly marginalized themselves, and pressed for complete Sunni engagement in the next election.

These two issues caused a huge split between the erstwhile allies. Zarqawi began targeting Iraqis instead of Americans, running up large death tolls in order to convince America of the futility of its mission. At the same time, the Sunnis pressed for greater participation -- and wound up making targets of their own people, especially in Baghdad where Sunnis and Shi'a mix. The AQ terrorists ran up a large debt of honor in their indiscriminate killing of Iraqis, and that finally reached a tipping point in February after the Askariya shrine bombing. Instead of touching off a civil war between Sunnis and Shi'ites, Zarqawi touched off a gang war between AQ and the native insurgencies -- a gang war he is now losing, and apparently badly.

Zarqawi, meanwhile, has headed towards Iran, a rather revealing direction. It is reminiscent of the tactics used by AQ in Afghanistan; rather than stand and fight, they ran away into the hills and decided to make videos while others fought for them. Will Zarqawi be the next video star?

Romney Stuns In Straw Poll

In the first event of the 2008 presidential run for the GOP, Bill Frist won the Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll as expected, with 36% of the vote going to the Tennessee native in Nashville. However, instead of supposed frontrunner John McCain or southern favorites George Allen or Mike Huckabee grabbing the second spot, Governor Mitt Romney of Massachussetts rolled in right behind Frist with 14%:

Frist won 36.9 percent of the 1,427 ballots cast here by delegates to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

The shocker of the evening was that Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney placed second, besting far better-known rivals Arizona Sen. John McCain and Virginia Sen. George Allen. Romney finished with 14 percent of the vote.

Third place was shared by Allen and President Bush, each of whom won 10.3 percent of the ballots cast. Bush, who of course is not eligible to run again for president, was the write-in candidate that McCain was pushing through the weekend.

I am somewhat surprised that Frist did as well as he did, even with the home-turf advantage. He has not provided the kind of tough leadership that many expected when he took over for Trent Lott. The long delay in moving judicial nominees in 2005 allowed momentum to build for Harry Reid's obstructionism and McCain's defection on the solution to it. He has appeared weak and indecisive in battling Reid, and made the lightweight replacement for Tom Daschle look like a genius at times in comparison.

Let's not oversell this win for Frist, who alone of the contenders actively politicked for votes from the delegates. Of the 526 votes he won, all but 97 of them came from Tennessee delegates. He had no other home-state competition. He remains terribly popular in his own back yard, but even in this preliminary wind-tester, he doesn't have much legs anywhere else.

If Frist's finish surprises, then Romney's stuns. No one expected Mitt Romney to show up in GOP calculations, at least not at the SRLC. George Allen, who finished four points behind and tied with the solidarity write-in vote for George Bush for third place, should have done better than Romney. After all, this is the Southern straw poll, and it was expected to raise the profile of candidates below the Mason-Dixon Line. Allen should have benefitted from that. He has served as both governor and senator, has great name recognition, and has been more stalwart in support of the Bush administration than Bill Frist.

The big loser, of course, is John McCain. After sticking his finger into the Nashville wind, McCain realized that he couldn't win earlier this week. Having been built up by the media as the presumptive nominee for the Republicans -- in much the same way Hillary has for the Democrats -- McCain knew that he could not afford to get beaten badly. As I wrote on Friday, he engineered the Bush write-in vote to appear selfless and a party stalwart while hoping to make the entire event irrelevant.

McCain only succeeded in making himself irrelevant. He could only convince ten percent of the 1427 delegates to write in Bush's name. McCain himself only got 66 votes out of 1427, a stunning rebuke for a man who has had his face on TV more than Madonna since the 2004 election. It demonstrates a gaping weakness in the South, perhaps a fatal weakness, if he expects to win the nomination. It also shows that his efforts to suck up to conservatives and Bush supporters has largely failed. And lastly, his humiliation in Nashville rebukes the media players who had built McCain into a Republican juggernaut.

What's next? This straw poll will launch Romney into the top tier of Republican candidates and start attracting the most effective organizers to his campaign. His record in Massachussetts will get more scrutiny, but he will also get more media exposure. Romney holds a governor's seat, a better launching pad for presidential campaigns than a Senate seat. George Allen, who has held both, will need to explain his weak showing in his own neighborhood if he wants to push for the nomination, but don't be surprised if people start thinking about a Romney-Allen ticket. It would link two sections of the country and create a team of likeable conservatives for the 2008 campaign.

Let the games begin ...