First Mate Update And Prayers For The Anchoress

Before I give my update on the First Mate, I want to send my condolences and prayers to The Anchoress, whose family has suffered another loss. Her beloved brother-in-law and lifelong friend died, leaving her bereaved sister alone. This follows on the heels of the loss of her brother, a double blow to both sisters. Please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers tonight.

Our news is somewhat better. The FM still cannot keep any food down, but seemed a little better today. We have my sister, the Admiral Emeritus, and his wife in town for the double-birthday celebration of our son and our granddaughter tomorrow. We all went to the hospital to visit the FM today, and we spent an hour outside in the courtyard enjoying the beautiful day, which perked the FM up a little more.

I found out more about the CMV infection. This has the potential for being life-threatening, so it's good we caught it when we did. The doctors doubt that they can beat it while the FM continues on her immune suppression medication, so they're taking her off of it. Normally that would risk a rejection of her pancreas transplant, but the doctors feel that her immune system is so suppressed that the medication isn't going to make a difference anyway. We'll keep a close eye on her bloodwork to make sure that we avoid a rejection, if possible.

Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers. They give the FM comfort, and she says to give you all her thanks.

Finally, let me send my best wishes to my friend King Banaian. King could not make the radio show this afternoon due to a medical emergency. He's at home now, resting comfortably and only slightly the worse for wear. We missed him today, but we'll be seeing him later this week.

A Disintegration In Party Branding?

A number of us have debated over the last couple of weeks whether conservatives can get true representation within the Republican Party. The debate has caused many to despair over the upcoming midterm elections, fearing that the infighting in the GOP may hand Democrats control of the House. However, the Los Angeles Times reports that Democrats have similar internal stresses that may leave them unable to take advantage of the opportunity this fall:

The liberal challenge to Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) escalated Friday when the political arm of MoveOn.org, an influential online advocacy group, endorsed the political newcomer opposing his bid for renomination.

Gaining the support of MoveOn's political action committee was Ned Lamont, a businessman who wants to unseat Lieberman largely because of the veteran lawmaker's staunch support for the war in Iraq. The group announced its backing after polling MoveOn's members in Connecticut.

MoveOn has emerged as a leading voice for left-leaning activists, and the endorsement marks the first time that its PAC has sought to unseat an incumbent Democratic senator.

I recall when MoveOn first posed as a centrist organization, scolding the nation for its attack on Bill Clinton and urging us to "move on". Now MoveOn has become a central organization for the far-left, and its influence has increased as a result.

Does this portend the erosion of the two-party system in the US -- and if it does, will that destabilize American politics? I'll write more on this topic later, but I'd like to hear your comments.

They're Baaa-aaack!

A day after pulling their armed forces off the streets of Gaza while attempting to negotiate with Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas sent their militia back again, raising the prospects for a bloody fight with Fatah for control of the Palestinian territories. They intend to take fixed positions in the streets and begin "patrols" immediately:

The Hamas-led government sent its private militia back into the streets of Gaza on Saturday, a day after withdrawing the force to help calm an increasingly bloody standoff with forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas officials said the move wasn't meant as a provocation. But Abbas' Fatah movement said the deployment raised the chances of new fighting. Fatah officials also said the move threatened negotiations on the president's ultimatum to the militants to accept a plan that would implicitly recognize
Israel.

The 3,000-strong Hamas militia has been at the center of the Palestinian infighting, and Hamas' decision to withdraw the black-clad force on Friday was widely seen as a conciliatory gesture.

The report from the London Times makes the original withdrawal sound more like a momentary retreat. It appears that Abbas' insistence on either their recognition of Israel or a referendum on that point caught them "wrong-footed", as the British say. They may have pulled back to regroup and see if the Palestinian people reacted to the news. Apparently, little enough changed for them to put the forces back onto the streets, regardless of negotiations.

I doubt that Abbas will get the opportunity to hold that referendum. With Hamas in the streets, the chances appear slim for direct democracy to take place.

UPDATE: The reappearance probably has some connection to this defiant stand by Hamas:

Hamas on Saturday rejected a deadline set by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to accept a plan that indirectly calls for recognition of Israel, which he has threatened to put to a referendum.

Abbas had stunned the Islamist militant group, which won an election in January, by giving it 10 days to accept the plan, and talks had been expected to begin on Saturday.

However, Sami Abu-Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said they would be delayed, adding:

"There is no need for the 10-day idea. As long as we are talking about dialogue, there shouldn't be any dates set."

Hamas will play the string out as along as possible, keeping Abbas on a diplomatic hook of his own making while pretending to be reasonable. That reasonableness will end as soon as Hamas feels the time is ripe to take power from Abbas by force.

A Cheer For Bill Frist

We have not shied away from offering criticisms of the Republican leadership in Congress when they have failed to deliver on the GOP agenda. Fairness dictates that we recognize their effort in delivering victories as well. Senator Bill Frist deftly navigated a large amount of hostility towards two Bush appointees while getting them confirmed. Brett Kavanaugh heads to the 4th Circuit and General Michael Hayden will take over the CIA after Frist pushed their nominations through the Senate. On Kavanaugh, Frist managed to avoid the filibuster than some had threatened:

White House aide Brett M. Kavanaugh won Senate confirmation as an appeals judge yesterday after a three-year wait, a new victory for President Bush in a drive to place a more conservative stamp on the courts.

Bush said Kavanaugh who was confirmed 57 to 36, will be "a brilliant, thoughtful and fair-minded judge."

Kavanaugh had been praised by Republicans but opposed by Democrats who briefly threatened to filibuster his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was opposed by Maryland Democrats Paul S. Sarbanes and Barbara A. Mikulski and approved by Virginia Republicans John W. Warner and George Allen.

Kavanaugh had plenty of problems getting through an obstructionist Democratic minority in the Senate. His work with Kenneth Starr on the Clinton impeachment guaranteed a high level of animosity from Democrats, and they did not disappoint. Other Democrats resented his participation in the Florida recount in 2000, a strange objectuin considering that the Democrats filed lawsuits first; did they expect Bush not to hire attorneys to represent his campaign in response, and did they expect him to hire bad ones? For these rather petty reasons, Kavanaugh got caught up in the obstructionist spree of the first Bush term, and his status remained unclear after the Gang of 14 deal that appears to have thrown Henry Saad under the bus. Frist made sure that the same fate did not befall Kavanaugh, and it could not have been easy.

The second nominee had an easier time passing through the Senate, and that is a story unto itself. Hayden's nomination had generated a lot of anger and opposition from some Democrats, who wanted to use Hayden as a whipping boy for George Bush and the NSA programs he ordered Hayden to conduct. After polling showed that Hayden as well as his programs had solid majorities in approval, they seem to have changed their mind. The New York Times, however, puts its own unique spin on these results:

The 78-to-15 vote showed that General Hayden's popularity on Capitol Hill as an articulate advocate for the spy agencies outweighed doubts about the legality of the eavesdropping program he ran as director of the National Security Agency. The only Republican to vote against confirmation was Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who has said he believes the program violates the law.

Some senators suggested that they had set aside concerns about the program in part because they believed that General Hayden could restore morale and purpose at the C.I.A. after the tumultuous 19-month directorship of Porter J. Goss. Mr. Goss, a former Republican congressman, was forced to resign after failing to recover from a rocky start in 2004, when his top staff members clashed with agency veterans.

By the time of the vote, the propriety of having an Air Force general on active duty take charge of the civilian spy agency, while initially questioned by several Republicans, had virtually disappeared as an issue.

Rubbish. The 78-15 vote showed that the Democrats not only discovered that the programs had a solid legal basis, but that beating up a man whose only crime in most eyes was successfully defending the nation from further terrorist attacks would do significant damage to them in November. Besides Arlen Specter, the Nay votes mostly comprise the far left of the Democratic caucus, a minority unto a minority:

Bayh (D-IN)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Obama (D-IL)
Specter (R-PA)
Wyden (D-OR)

That list includes some presidential hopefuls, who may have to do some explaining about their opposition to a man of Hayden's stature and experience. Hillary Clinton needed to cast this vote to appease the Left, which has started to stridently oppose her nomination. Feingold could not afford to alienate his only national constituency, and with the exception of Barack Obama and Byron Dorgan -- whose red-state constituency may have the last word on this in 2010 -- the rest were never expected to vote any differently.

Frist did manage to corral some senior Democrats for Hayden, including Pat Leahy, Joe Biden, Robert Byrd (who has voted more often in support of controversial Bush nominees now that he faces a GOP challenge this fall), Carl Levin, and Chuck Schumer. Schumer's inclusion is a big surprise, considering the sputtering he has done about the NSA programs and their invasion of privacy. That puts a bright red bow on Hayden's confirmation and shows just how badly the Democratic objections dissipated in the face of strong argumentation from the White House and GOP leadership, excepting the perpetual exception of Arlen Specter.

Even the New England contingent of RINOs (Chaffee, Snowe, and Collins) voted for Hayden. How much arm-twisting did Frist have to do to get that?

Yesterday was a big victory for the Senate Majority Leader, one he should savor and one which we all should note. Hopefully it leads to more and larger victories for the Republican agenda.

Hastert Grabs The Lifesaver As Gonzalez Threatens To Quit

George Bush has successfully quelled the Congressional grab for perpetual immunity from criminal prosecution as well as a potential rebellion at Justice, deftly using a cooling-off period to allow both sides to climb down from their hard-line positions. House Speaker Denny Hastert, having presumably checked his In box and re-read the Constitution, now agrees that the FBI can conduct searches of Congressional offices when armed with a valid search warrant:

House leaders acknowledged Friday that FBI agents with a court-issued warrant can legally search a congressman's office, but they said they want procedures established after agents with a court warrant took over a lawmaker's office last week.

"I want to know exactly what would happen if there is a similar sort of thing" in the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Friday, shortly after summoning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to his office.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., concurred: "I am confident that in the next 45 days, the lawyers will figure out how to do it right."

Gonzales was similarly optimistic. "We've been working hard already and we'll continue to do so pursuant to the president's order," he told The Associated Press.

That apparently comes as a change in tone for the Attorney General. According to the New York Times, Gonzalez, FBI director Robert Mueller, and some of their staffs threatened to walk off the job if the President ordered the return of the seized materials to Jefferson:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, and senior officials and career prosecutors at the Justice Department told associates this week that they were prepared to quit if the White House directed them to relinquish evidence seized in a bitterly disputed search of a House member's office, government officials said Friday.

Mr. Gonzales was joined in raising the possibility of resignation by the deputy attorney general, Paul J. McNulty, the officials said. Mr. Gonzales and Mr. McNulty told associates that they had an obligation to protect evidence in a criminal case and would be unwilling to carry out any White House order to return the material to Congress. ...

It is not clear precisely what message Mr. Gonzales delivered to Mr. Bush when they met Thursday morning at the White House, or whether he informed the president of the resignation talk. But hours later, the White House announced that the evidence would be sealed for 45 days in the custody of the solicitor general, the Justice Department official who represents the government before the Supreme Court. That arrangement ended the talk of resignations.

Until now, Gonzalez has always appeared to be a moderate, get-along-to-go-along political appointee. However, this shows that the AG has serious backbone and integrity to spare. He and Mueller both understood the stakes involved in this standoff and refused to participate in creating a political class insulated from law enforcement. Without the power to enforce and execute duly authorized subpoenas and search warrants, members of Congress could hide evidence of corruption in their offices with no fear of exposure or prosecution. It would create a taxpayer-funded sanctuary for crooks, and the top officials at Justice sent the message that they would not become accessories to that system.

Bush already knew this but wanted Hastert to come to that conclusion on his own, or at least allow Hastert the opportunity to appear to have done so. Before anyone made the kind of bold public gesture Gonzalez threatened, he simply froze the status quo for six weeks, giving time for everyone to reach their own conclusions rather than get embarrassed by a Supreme Court decision that would undoubtedly have painted Hastert and Pelosi as obstructors of justice.

Given this time out for his obstinacy, Hastert and his colleagues have busied themselves with goalpost-moving and backtracking. Before, they claimed a Constitutional privilege of freedom from search warrants and subpoenas from the executive branch, even though Congress regularly issues subpoenas without judicial approval against members of the executive branch. Now Hastert has acknowledged that Congressmen are subject to the same laws as everyone else, but have modified their complaint; now they say the issue is that Jefferson and his attorney were not allowed to be present at the search. That's a far cry from the phony Constitutional crisis they declared earlier this week, perhaps a more reasonable issue and certainly one that didn't require Hastert's intercession. He could have kept his mouth shut and let Jefferson's attorney raise that question when the evidence got submitted for trial -- just like any other defendant in a criminal case.

The denouement of this kerfuffle demonstrates two very important points. George Bush still holds the power in Washington and in the GOP, and this controversy shows that he and the people at Justice remain the adults in charge of the day care center. Hastert has severely damaged himself politically in two ways. No one in the GOP will ever give Hastert the same level of trust again after this attempt to pervert the Constitution, and Republicans will remain furious with him for taking the focus off of William Jefferson and his cash-cow business in selling his vote.

Dowd to GOP: Stop Worrying And Love The Reform

Matthew Dowd, the RNC senior strategist who has proven himself prescient on campaigns and issues in the past, has told GOP leadership that rank-and-file Republicans overwhelmingly support comprehensive immigration reform, combining border security with normalization for existing illegals already inside the US. National Journal's Hotline reports that Dowd has reviewed the results of a number of media polls, and concluded that the Senate's CIRA will not only get support from Republican voters but also bring Hispanics to the party:

RNC senior adviser/BC04 senior strategist/Ron Fournier co-author Matthew Dowd urges Republican Nat'l Committee members to favor a "comprehensive" solution to immigration, which the public believes is is "unifying -- not polarizing." ...

Dowd's memo says that an internal RNC poll conducted by Jan Van Louhuzen finds that "pverwhelming support exists for a temporary worker program. 80% of all voters, 83% of Republicans, and 79% of self-identified conservatives support a temporary worker program as long as immigrants pay taxes and obey the law."

More, from the RNC internal poll: "When voters are given the choice of other immigration proposals, strengthening enforcement with a tamper-proof identity card (89% among all voters, 93% among GOP), various wordings of a temporary worker program (the highest at 85% among all voters, 86% among GOP), and sending National Guard troops to the border (63% among all voters, 84% among GOP) score the highest among both all voters and Republican voters."

Also: "Voters don't consider granting legal status to those already here amnesty."

Dowd concludes: "Finally, when discussing immigration reform, tone and language are extremely important. To continue to grow the party, we must conduct this debate with civility and respect for our nation's heritage -- as the President has said, we are both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. That is why the American people favor a balanced plan that secures the border, improves enforcement, enhances immigration avenues AND deals compassionately and equitably with those who are already here."

That may explain the votes cast by Senate Republicans, including conservative stalwarts Larry Craig (ID) and Mitch McConnell (KY). It certainly flies in the face of traditional conservative policy, and it contradicts what many conservative voices have argued over the last several weeks.

Most of all, Dowd warns against doing nothing. American voters, he says, already sees illegal immigration as a problem ignored for too long by succeeding administrations and Congresses, especially one would think after 9/11. Support for any kind of reform package beats deliberate inaction, according to media and internal polling, and the vast majority want to see some kind of normalization.

Make sure to read Dowd's memo in full. I won't say Dowd has a perfect political ear, but he's very good at what he does. He was a key member of the Bush re-election team and won plenty of respect for his clear-eyed analytical work. The policy implications may surprise, and it tends to support the notion that the GOP leadership may be listening to their base on this issue.

UPDATE: Oops -- added the link!

UPDATE II: Let me emphasize that Dowd worked from more than one internal poll to derive this analysis. He included several media polls as well as his own internal poll to reach his conclusions. I will grant that popularity does not equal truth, and that principles have value beyond beauty contests. However, I also challenge people to consider their assertions that the GOP has stopped listening to its constituents in this matter, which has been the main complaint of those opposed to any kind of normalization for illegals. At least that has been the justification used for leaving the party over this issue in particular.

Dafydd at Big Lizards has more to say about Dowd's work.

Haditha Makes Abu Ghraib Look Like A Picnic (Update)

When the story on Abu Ghraib broke, the coverage and hyperbole regarding the supposed "atrocities" at the notorious prison blew the abuses far out of proportion. As many remarked at the time, no one died from wearing panties on their heads, and the pathetic perpetrators of the abuses found themselves tried, convicted, and sentenced to justifiable prison terms. Abu Ghraib was an embarrassment arising from a lack of unit discipline.

Haditha, on the other hand, turns out to be a real atrocity, the kind of shameful event that will justifiably haunt the US for years:

Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found.

An administrative inquiry overseen by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell found that several infantry Marines fatally shot as many as 24 Iraqis and that other Marines either failed to stop them or filed misleading or blatantly false reports. ...

Looking for insurgents, the Marines entered several homes and began firing their weapons, according to the report.

In its initial statement to the media, the Marine Corps said the Iraqi civilians were killed either by an insurgent bomb or by crossfire between Marines and insurgents.

But after Time magazine obtained pictures showing dead women and children and quoted Iraqis who said the attack was unprovoked, the Marine Corps backtracked on its explanation and called for an investigation.

This makes me physically ill. We can say it happens in every war, and that would be accurate, but it doesn't excuse it in the least. Our military has the reputation of high discipline and morale, and 99.9% of our troops live up to that standard. As with Abu Ghraib, only on a much less serious scale, the actions of one undisciplined unit will reflect horribly on those who have done their best to protect Iraqi civilians, especially the children. Those 99.9% of our troops provide the best possible security for the United States. If these men turn out to be war criminals of the most despicable variety, they will have damaged the work done by our armed forces immeasurably.

I keep hoping that this report will say something different when it gets publicly released, but I know it won't.

Needless to say, every Marine involved in this atrocity must face court-martial, and their command has to answer for the brutal murders of people that we took under our protection. Those court-martials must be public and thorough. Nothing should be held back. The men charged should receive the best defense possible in order to ensure that justice is done. If the report turns out to be accurate and the men involved are found guilty, they need to get the full punishment due them under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

We need to demonstrate that we stand for something better than Haditha, and we need to show the world that we will hold all those responsible accountable for their crimes. Justice will provide cold comfort to those who have died and those who mourn them, but we owe the victims and the Iraqi people as much justice as we can provide.

Addendum: This post isn't about John Murtha, but I know people want to discuss it, so the comment section is open for that topic as well. I will note that in my original post, I acknowledged that Murtha may have had the story correct -- but that he should have held his commentary until it came out, and that he should not have used it as fodder for his anti-war rhetoric. Murtha politicized it, which was wrong. He also accurately described the conclusions, and that is unfortunate, and I'm sure that Murtha feels the same way about that.

Others blogging this story:

* Hot Air
* Politburo Diktat
* Confederate Yankee
* My Pet Jawa
* QandO
* Just One Minute

UPDATE: We (me included) need to keep in mind that the Marines accused have a right to a presumption of innocence; that's what I meant about making sure that they get the best defense possible, but I didn't say it very well. The report is just the prosecution's case, and like any criminal investigation, we have to wait until the witnesses and evidence gets tested in court, in this case a court-martial.

I disagree that this is just an administrative review, however. This report will come from the Navy Criminal Investigative Service, not a board of inquiry. These people perform real criminal investigations just like any police department, and they're pretty good at what they do. If the report recommends charges against these Marines, that has real weight.

I hope that this turns out to be false; I'm sure all Americans do. The men and women of our armed forces are real heroes, and my wife and I pray for them every day. If it turns out to be true, then we need to vigorously pursue justice for the victims -- and we cannot remain on the sidelines and pretend the event never happened.

UPDATE II: Longtime CQ reader The Yell provides this correction:

From MarineTimes.com stories this week, and the story you posted above, the report coming out this week from Maj. Gen Bargewell is an administrative review. That's what's been discussed with Congressional oversight committees.

The NCIS findings are due out in June--late June. That's the criminal probe.

I stand corrected. Thank you.

UPDATE III: Michelle Malkin agrees that this looks very bad, but reminds us of the case of Lt. Ilario Pantano and his being falsely accused. However, Michelle's reporter's instinct picks up on something I noticed earlier, too. There seems to be a number of high-level leaks on this story talking to a number of different outlets. That at least suggests that the Pentagon wants to get the story out ahead of the report. These leaks look too coordinated to be an accident.

If the Pentagon is trying to get the story out early, why? To prepare us for the worst?

Does Congress Even Read What They Pass Into Law?

I'm doing a little lunchtime browsing, and this story almost made me spit out my sandwich. The Wall Street Journal reports on the hysteria brewing in the halls of Congress over the raid on Rep. William Jefferson's office, rehashing mostly what we already know. Later in the article, however, Jeanne Cummings and Brody Mullens tie the story to the expansion of the FBI's public integrity unit to underscore the discomfort members of Congress feel right now. The report quotes a Republican close to the House caucus that apparently reveals a strain of illiteracy among our elected representatives:

Frustration between the House and the Justice Department stems in part from the probe of lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Mr. Abramoff in January pleaded guilty to trying to bribe members of Congress, and has been cooperating with federal investigators. Much of the evidence that has emerged suggests Mr. Abramoff curried favor with lawmakers by shoving cash from his clients into their campaign accounts, providing flashy accommodations for fund-raisers, such as his own downtown restaurant or skyboxes for football or basketball games, and paying for expensive trips abroad.

For many lawmakers, the investigation seems to be moving from the most egregious practices of a few members to criminalizing some basic fund-raising and lobbying techniques. "There is widespread belief on the Hill that the Justice Department is out of control with this idea that campaign contributions equals bribery," noted one Republican close to the caucus. [emphasis mine -- CE]

Thus far, government attorneys haven't made such a claim in a case against a lawmaker. But several have been forced to publicly explain how campaign donations didn't affect their official acts and to turn over documents to the FBI to prove it.

Congressmen are shocked, shocked! to discover that the FBI equates campaign contributions with bribery! Where could they have gotten this idea?

Er ... perhaps here?

On March 27, 2002, President Bush signed into law the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), Public Law No. 107-155. The BCRA contains many substantial and technical changes to the federal campaign finance law.

You could have fooled us, too. We thought political speech was protected by the First Amendment, but the same boobs who profess such shock at the DoJ's interpretation of campaign contributions as potential bribes made political speech equivalent to campaign contributions.

Blair's Next Project: UN Overhaul

Tony Blair has decided that the next Anglo-American project will be the overhaul of the United Nations, whose own reform efforts have been undermined by corruption and scandal. Blair will announce at an appearance today that the UN no longer functions as an effective organization in the post-Cold War era and must transform to retain any relevance:

Prime Minister Blair, whose close friendship with President Bush was forged in the heat of the war on terror, on Friday will urge radical reform of the United Nations, the culmination of that other great Anglo-American war partnership, between President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill.

Mr. Blair will argue that the various world institutions, set up 60 years ago to better facilitate a peaceful resolution of conflicts between states, are no longer suited to the present world's needs. He will question the role and membership of the Security Council and will plead for a major overhaul of the council to rehabilitate the United Nations in the eyes of the world.

He will tell an audience at Georgetown University that the lofty ideals that inspired Roosevelt and Churchill to set up the United Nations at the end of World War II are being betrayed today by small-mindedness, narrow national interests, irrelevant politicking, and corruption. The much-touted "reform" of the world body suggested by Secretary-General Annan has made minimal progress, yet until true reform is carried out, the United Nations will remain a mere talking shop with little influence and no power.

Mr. Blair has turned to U.N. reform - and the reform of world bodies like the International Monetary Fund and the G8 - because he feels it is time for America and Britain to move beyond the war in Iraq, a country he has said has been transformed by the democratic elections and Prime Minister Maliki's coalition government of many faiths that has followed.

At this point, about the only point on which the nations of the world can find agreement is the need for reform at Turtle Bay. With the Oil-for-Food debacle and the shameful ongoing degradation of women and young girls in UN refugee camps, the UN provides a smorgasbord of items for critics of all stripes.

Before reforming the UN, however, the world community has to decide what the UN represents. Its only real success has been as a platform for multilateral humanitarian efforts like UNICEF, although even those get distorted by politics and petty rivalries. It also serves as a convenient setting for multilateral debate, a world stage where heads of state and diplomats must converse openly in front of all the people.

It fails utterly, however, as a world government, for at least two fundamental and related reasons. The UN does not offer truly democratic representation of the world's population. Most of the nations represented at the UN have heads of state who seized power, through force of arms or hereditary means, who repress to some degree the people they claim to represent. While the US, UK, Indonesia, India, and others have representation at Turtle Bay that truly extends the prevailing desires of their people, too many others represent the interests of a tiny fraction of their populace, the ruling clique that exploits their subjects.

That leads to basic structural flaws within the UN itself. Its leadership mechanism reflects that of the majority of its members. Although the Secretary General serves finite terms of office, he or she has to provide no accountability for job performance. As we have seen in the OFF and prostitution scandals, the General Assembly has no method to remove a corrupt or incompetent Secretary General. That allows the SG to fill UN positions as sinecures for cronies without any oversight from any panel or committee within the UN. The SG becomes a term-limited dictator whose latitude approaches that of the most autocratic ruler represented within the UN.

This lack of accountability and democratic impulse within the organization leads to the multitude of abuses and embarrassments we have seen at Turtle Bay. Only an institution withot accountability would name Cuba and Saudi Arabia to a panel that supposedly exists to protect human rights. Only such an organization would continue to study the "problem" of its staff forcing refugee girls into prostitution in order to get food and water, more than two years after it was first revealed.

Until the world understands these basic reasons for failure at the UN, any attempts at reform will remain superficial at best and counterproductive as a rule. Tony Blair may well regret attempting this leviathan task as his swan song. It will take much more than just two leaders of the Anglosphere to put Turtle Bay into turnaround.

Galloway: Assassinations Justified

George Galloway told an interviewer for the magazine GQ that an assassination of Tony Blair would have justification considering Blair's political positions and decisions, providing the latest in a series of embarrassments for the British Parliament. Galloway also embraced Cuba's Fidel Castro on Cuban television, pronouncing the dictator as a lion among monkeys:

The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.

In an interview with GQ magazine, the reporter asked him: "Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber - if there were no other casualties - be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"

Mr Galloway replied: "Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it - but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq - as Blair did."

Galloway left his critics dumbfounded with this endorsement of violence over electoral politics. One PM called him "disgraceful and truly twisted", while the Minister for Armed Forces said that he had "dipped his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood." Even a leading anti-war group in the UK found it necessary to distance itself from Galloway's appalling proclamation.

Bear in mind that all of this got reported last night by the British newspaper The Independent, which is known for its support of radical-leftist causes. Galloway could normally expect sympathetic treatment by this particular newspaper, but excusing assassinations of democratically elected leaders goes beyond the pale even for the Independent.

The shock is not understandable. Galloway practically made a career of supporting brutal dictators, and he hasn't changed a bit. Galloway pimped for Saddam Hussein for years, and only recently have investigators at the UN and in the US shown that Saddam paid him well for those efforts. His appearance on state-run Cuban television took viewers by surprise when he launched into heavy praise for the island's dictator. He referred to Castro's political opponents as "monkeys", and put a coda on the moment by "[l]ooking approvingly into each others' eyes" before embracing Castro.

Galloway has made a long career supporting brutal tyrants; it comes as no great shock that he endorses their methods as well. The voters of east London should be ashamed of themselves for sending such a sick man to represent them. The only true constituency for Galloway wears long, wraparound sleeves and resides within padded walls.

Abbas: Let's Vote On Peace

Mahmoud Abbas gambled what remains of his power and influence yesterday on the Palestinian desire for peaceful coexistence with Israel, demanding that Hamas either recognize Israel or put the matter to a plebescite:

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, said Thursday that he would call a referendum on a proposal for a Palestinian state that would recognize Israel, if the governing Hamas party failed to accept the plan within 10 days.

In laying down his challenge, Mr. Abbas seems to be gambling that he can force his Fatah party, Hamas and some smaller factions to agree on a broad framework for dealing with Israel, which Hamas now refuses to recognize. But he runs the risk of provoking a political showdown at a moment when the Palestinians are already plagued by infighting and a worsening financial crisis. ...

"We are not afraid of a referendum," said a Hamas legislator, Salah Bardawil. "The election was a referendum, and the majority of the people chose us." He was referring to the vote in January in which Fatah, which previously dominated Palestinian politics, lost its parliamentary majority and Hamas, a radical Islamic group, came to power.

Indeed. Most Westerners discount this, preferring to believe that the benighted Palestinians voted for Hamas because of Fatah's corruption and incompetence. However, polls showed that Palestinians overwhelmingly approved of terrorism even before electing Abbas as president. The terrorists understand their constituency better than Abbas, which is not coincidentally the reason why they hold the majority in the Palestinian legislature.

The referendum will hold little real value in any event. The proposal that Abbas wants to present contains a poison pill for Israel: the right of return. It essentially renders the border meaningless, regardless if drawn at pre-1967 lines or along the path of the wall today. The influx of Palestinians would destabilize Israel and create a fatal security meltdown similar in concept to that of the rump of Czechoslovakia in 1938. Israel cannot agree to this and survive as a nation; it would function as the one-state solution that Arafat threatened in his last months, which would have required Israel to give the vote to Palestinians in one contiguous state.

Abbas needs a dramatic change of momentum, however, and demanding a policy change as part of a political ultimatum allows him to achieve two key goals. First, a referendum burnishes his credentials with the West and Israel as a moderate and a potential partner for peace. Second, it gives Abbas one last try to connect to the Palestinian electorate that soundly rejected him and his party in the last elections. As am incentive, he will offer them an illusory choice of a proposal that has no chance of winning agreement.

The Palestinians might respond to Abbas under those circumstances; they have ever been a people prone to illusions. What happens when they do, and Israel rejects the right of return? Abbas will then either have to join the war effort that Hamas has already set its mind to pursuing, or he and Fatah will get crushed in the civil war that such a rejection will produce.

This referendum is only a cynical play for a little extra time and one last means to pressure Israel into suicide. The real risk is that the West will take this peace plan seriously and attempt to force in on Israel. Olmert should resist; this would be nothing more or less than another Munich, with Olmert cast in the role of Masaryk and people falling all over themselves to play Neville Chamberlain.

A Note On Consultation (Updated)

Like many in the conservative blogosphere, I am generally unhappy with the final version of the Senate comprehensive-reform plan that will now head into conference committee, where hopefully the House will strip it of its silliness and present something respectable to the joint session. One particular amendment, offered at the last minute by Senator Chris Dodd has caused an uproar, seemingly giving Mexico a veto on the construction of border barriers:

(a) FINDINGS--

(1) There are currently between 10-12 million illegal immigrants in the United States in 2006.

(2) As many as 70% of such migrants are citizens of Mexico.

(3) More than 1 million illegal migrants are apprehended annually in the United States southern border area attempting to illegally enter the United States, with an additional 500,000 entering undetected.

(4) Despite Operation Gatekeeper which began in 1994 with the construction of fencing in urban crossing areas and other efforts to stem the flow of illegal immigration, the flow of such migration has continued at high levels.

(5) Migrants have continued to cross into remote rural areas where difficult terrain and climate conditions have caused the deaths of some 2500 migrants over the last decade.

(6) Communities on both sides of the border will be impacted by the construction of additional fences and security structures.

(7) Illegal immigration cannot be permanently resolved or contained without the cooperation of Mexico and other countries that are the source of such migration.

(8) After some years of turning a blind eye to the migrant problem, Mexican authorities have recently acknowledged their responsibility for addressing illegal migration by Mexican citizens.

(9) It is in the interest of the United States to have the full cooperation of Mexican authorities in tackling illegal migration and other border security issues.

(b) CONSULTATION REQUIREMENT.--Consultations between United States and Mexican authorities at the federal, state, and local levels concerning the construction of additional fencing and related border security structures along the United States-Mexico border shall be undertaken prior to commencing any new construction, in order to solicit the views of affected communities, lessen tensions and foster greater understanding and stronger cooperation on this and other important issues of mutual concern.

First, this isn't quite the last-minute amendment it's made out to be. It was introduced three days ago on May 22nd, and the amendment found two co-sponsors: Republican Dick Lugar and Democrat Ken Salazar. The introduction of this amendment understandably got somewhat lost in the flurry of attachments that came at the immigration bill in the final days of its consideration.

More importantly, it pays to carefully read what this amendment says and what it does not say. Consultation between nations on border issues regularly occurs, even if one side often does not like the outcome of the talks. Nowhere in this amendment does it give Mexico a right of refusal on any construction that the US might perform on our side of the international boundary, nor does it pretend to require their permission. It only requires the federal government to discuss the project with Mexico before breaking ground on the barrier, a rather polite and ordinary process.

Let's put it another way. If you want to build a fence between your property and your neighbor, friendly people would give the neighbor a call to discuss the composition of the wall or fence. That should be true even if the homeowner intended to build the fence on his own property and cover the entire expense himself. He doesn't have to abide by his neighbor's objections, but at least the conversation can make the process smoother.

If that doesn't satisfy, then let me use an example from a movie made about twenty years ago called Sweet Liberty. The film, which starred Alan Alda and Michael Caine, centered on an author (Alda) who sold a historical review of a Revolutionary War diary to a major Hollywood studio -- which wanted to turn the scholarly work into an American Pie of 1776. Alda discovered that he had a clause granting him consultation rights, which he insisted on enforcing with the director of the movie. After airing out all of his complaints, the director asked Alda, "Is that all?" When Alda affirmed he was finished, the director told him, "Okay. You've had your consultation," and proceeded to change absolutely nothing.

This bill has plenty of bad planning and unworkable legislation in it without us getting hysterical about something completely innocuous and non-binding. Even the hardest hard-liner should recognize that we will have to work with Mexico to get a lasting solution to our immigration problem. All this amendment does is require that we keep the lines open.

UPDATE: At least one commenter claims that the word "shall" gives a stronger binding resolution that "will". This is incorrect. In legal terms, when the words are interpreted differently (which they usually are not), "will" is the more binding term.

Others claim that this clause allows Mexico to exercise some kind of pocket veto if they refuse to participate in consultations. That also doesn't wash. Courts recognize that a spurned offer of consultation will nevertheless meet any legal requirement in law. If, for instance, I am required to arbitrate a dispute with a contractor before filing a lawsuit, the contractor cannot veto my grievances by refusing arbitration. All that is necessary is that I attempted to follow that clause of the contract, exhausting the legal remedies of the agreement before going to court. Not only is this established law, it's common sense.

Again, there are plenty of objectionable provisions in this bill without losing credibility by attacking its meaningless provisions. Let's keep our eyes on the ball.

UPDATE II: Withdrawn -- the amendment did make it into the bill. I'll have more later.

NARN Loses A Friend

The Northern Alliance Radio Network owes a lot to a number of people for the success we have had over the last 27 months, including just about everyone who works or has worked at AM 1280 The Patriot. One of those people has passed away, Mitch Berg tells us, and he shares a few good stories about the NARN's first producer:

I worked with Joe twice - at KDWB-AM, back in 1990-92, and again for the first year when he was the engineer/producer for the Northern Alliance. He's most familiar to people in the Twins, of course, as Tom Mischke's producer "The Jackal", and especially as Jason Lewis' longtime producer and foil. ...

Joe had already been a "road warrior" when we met at KDWB-AM in 1990; he'd worked all over Minnesota. Contacts had gotten him a job as a board operator at KDWB-AM - a miserable,slumming gig, watching the needle bob and playing commercials during satellite-fed oldies programming from LA. It kept Joe in the smokes and drinks, barely. He was irrepressible, of course - the guy could drink Atomizer under the table and have room left over for another Frater of your choice - but he was a happy (if extremely boisterous) drunk, as I remember (and having been to a couple of KDWB Christmas parties, I do remember).

But it was there that Joe met Steve Konrad, program director at KSTP from 1991 to today (with a six-odd-year break in the middle). Joe was nothing if not a solid journeyman board operator, something KSTP hadn't had many of in years of hiring twinks just out of Brown Institute. Joe got Mischke started, and then moved over to any journeyman board jock's dream gig; producing Jason Lewis. The relationship was reportedly one of those that you dream about when you're plugging away at crap jobs like KDWB-AM - Joe had a solid role in the show's success, he was rewarded (by producer/engineer standards) well for it, and he developed a solid personal relationship with Lewis himself, truly a rare thing in the back-biting world of talk radio.

I met Joe the night I filled in for Bob Davis in 2003. It had to have been a personal peak; the money - for once in the straitened career of a road warrior - was mighty good, and the Lewis show was in peak form. Like all things in radio, it could not last.

The final segment for Joe Hanson apparently aired this week. For us, the relationship ended when the Patriot terminated his contract, but that business was mostly between the station and Joe. We all felt very fortunate to have been given our start with a man of Joe's talent for producing a talk-radio show, and while we've had good luck with our producers since then, Joe set a standard that was hard for anyone to top.

Thanks for taking us out of the break, Joe. We know that you're in a better place, but we miss you. Godspeed.

Bush Provides Ladder For Congressional Climbdown

George Bush tossed a lifesaver to Denny Hastert and the rest of the imperial Congress today by temporarily sealing the evidence seized from the legislative offices of Rep. William Jefferson, the target of an FBI corruption investigation. Sealing the records gives both branches more time to work out their differences, Bush said, but made clear that prosecutors would eventually gain access to the material:

President Bush personally ordered the Justice Department today to seal records seized from the Capitol Hill office of a Democratic congressman, marking a remarkable intervention by the nation's chief executive into an ongoing criminal probe of alleged corruption. ...

In a six-paragraph statement, Bush said he issued the order to give the Justice Department and angry lawmakers more time to work out an agreement on how to resolve the conflict. The materials, which have been described in court filings as two boxes of documents and copies of computer files, will be held by Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who is not involved in the Jefferson probe, Bush's statement said. ...

"Those who violate the law--including a member of Congress--should and will be held to account," Bush said. "This investigation will go forward, and justice will be served."

Yesterday, Hastert and Pelosi asserted that the Justice Department must cease reviewing the documents and ensure that their contents are not divulged. Once the papers are returned, "Congressman Jefferson can and should fully cooperate with the Justice Department's efforts, consistent with his constitutional rights," the statement said.

This gives all sides in Congress an opportunity to step down from the ledge and save their credibility before the White House pushes this to the Supreme Court -- where Hastert, Pelosi & Co will get derisively shot down for asserting that the Capitol grants sanctuary from law enforcement of any kind. Bush made clear in his statement that he created this 45-day period only for the purpose of dialing down the rhetoric, and not to surrender evidence collected by a valid subpoena authorized by a federal judge. This is often called a "cooling-down" period in union negotiations, but in this case it allows Hastert, John Boehner, and the rest of the GOP leadership an out from their hysterical public statements.

That blantantly dishonest hysteria is evidenced in this latest statement. The notion that Jefferson would cooperate if the materials were returned to him boggles the imagination. He had eight months to release that evidence to prosecutors, which is when the subpoena was first served. Why would he turn the data over to the FBI if Hastert and Pelosi successfully bully the executive branch into declaring Capitol Hill a sanctuary for corrupt politicians?

The responsibility for the raid falls squarely on House leadership, not the FBI. They have known of this matter for months, and the House counsel actually started to collect the material before eventually refusing to comply with the subpoena and the FBI investigators. If the FBI had not acted in opposition to this defiance, the executive would have ceded any authority to enforce corruption laws, now and in the future. Hastert, Pelosi, Boehner, and everyone else demanding the return of the materials argue explicitly for that result -- and the American people should not stand for it.

Will Hastert grab the lifesaver Bush has tossed him? Any smart man would. Two weeks ago, I would have put Denny Hastert into that category. Now I'm not so sure.

Senate Passes Immigration Bill

The Senate has passed the comprehensive immigration reform bill championed by George Bush and ushered into existence by John McCain and Ted Kennedy. Both support and opposition for the bill were bipartisan affairs, with the 62-36 final tally a victory for the centrists:

The 62-36 vote cleared the way for arduous summertime compromise talks with the House on its immigration measure focusing on border enforcement with no guarantee of success. Republicans and Democrats said energetic participation by Bush would be critical. ...

In more than a week of debate, the Senate made a series of changes in the legislation. Still, the key pillars were preserved when opponents failed to knock out the guest worker program or the citizenship provisions. A new program for 1.5 million temporary agricultural workers also survived.

To secure the borders, the measure calls for the hiring of an additional 1,000 new Border Patrol agents this year and 14,000 by 2011, and backs Bush's plan for a short-term deployment of National Guard troops to states along the Mexican Border. The bill calls for new surveillance equipment as well as the construction of 370 miles of triple-layered fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers.

The new guest worker program would admit 200,000 individuals a year. Once here, they would be permitted for the first time to petition on their own for a green card that confers legal permanent residency, a provision designed to reduce the potential for exploitation by employers.

A separate new program, a compromise between growers and unions, envisions admission of an estimated 1.5 million immigrant farm workers who may also apply for permanent residency

Even supporters of the bill conceded the three-tiered program related to illegal immigrants was complicated.

Complicated? It's ridiculous, and I doubt it will survive the conference committee. This bill reminds me of the BCRA, which not so coincidentally had one sponsor in common with this bill. Rather than just set up a streamlined normalization regime, the authors placed politics above common sense and created a bureaucracy that will cost American voters a fortune, and one that will probably go mostly unenforced as a result.

And in the end, all three of these paths carry an option for permanent residency and a green card. The notion that any of the people admitted under this program can be described as "temporary" is hopelessly naive. The Senate made sure of that by wringing their hands over the potential for employer exploitation of migrant temps without considering that any employer-enforced temp program will open the door for abuses regardless of the temporary status of the workers.

I suspect that the conference committee will simply chuck the temporary-worker programs and come up with one single program that all current illegal immigrants can follow, and boost the numbers of annual immigration from Mexico to compromise on the influx. Not only will that remove the obvious hypocrisy from the so-called "temporary" status, it will also remove the necessity of creating an entirely new enforcement agency to track down temps who don't leave. That way we can have an honest accounting of how many immigrants we will allow into the country.

Of course, I also expect a real border security solution, one that creates more than 375 miles of border barriers to slow the flow of illegals. The argument from the Senate has been that a barrier alone will not solve the problem, but without a credible and contiguous barrier and the security to back it up, no one will bother to enter the helpful new programs that require illegals to cough up cash and pay back taxes in order to join. Border barriers are force multipliers; they increase the efficiency of the border patrols by narrowing the areas which require acute supervision. It also forces the flow of illegals into those narrow areas. The Senate bill also contains provisions for 14,000 new Border Patrol agents, an improvement in the numbers from earlier, which will make that border barrier even more effective if deployed properly.

My hope is that the conference committee ensures that border security comes first before any normalization plan. I'd trade some rational form of normalization for solid and credible border security -- but as I wrote yesterday, I don't yet believe this bill contains either in its present form.

First Mate Update

I just returned from visiting the First Mate, and she sends her greetings to everyone and thanks you all for the kind thoughts and prayers. She is still feeling poorly and it appears she will be in the hospital for a few days.

We had some good news and bad news today. The hospital did CT scans of her head, chest, and abdomen, and they found nothing unusual in terms of abcesses or infections. That resolved the big worry about an acute infection that could overwhelm her system; it looks like that isn't the case.

The bad news -- and it's not that bad -- is that she has a cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. This is not unusual among transplant patients when their immune systems get overly suppressed. Many people carry CMV but while healthy will never develop symptoms. This is far more dangerous for babies than it is for adults, but it still feels like a really bad case of the flu when symptomatic. Unfortunately, the "cure" is two weeks of IV treatments, followed by up to three months of anti-virals, and the immune suppression drugs have to get cut back -- which can put the FM's pancreas at risk if not watched very, very carefully.

Bottom line: she probably will be in the hospital all weekend, which will put a severe damper on the Little Admiral's birthday party this weekend. I'll keep everyone in the loop until then.

Post: Congress Hysterical (Update: Someone's Listening)

The Washington Post scolds Congressional leaders for their hysterical overreaction to the execution of a duly authorized search warrant on the offices of William Jefferson, and underscores the point by noting that the subpoena hardly came as a surprise to anyone on Capitol Hill:

THE UPROAR over the FBI's search of Rep. William J. Jefferson's congressional office is understandable but overblown. A demand yesterday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that the Justice Department return the papers it seized goes way too far. Constitutional provisions designed to protect lawmakers from fear of political retribution, such as the speech-and-debate clause, counsel restraint and caution in circumstances such as these. They do not transform congressional offices into taxpayer-funded sanctuaries.

No one wants to have FBI agents pawing through lawmakers' files. Prosecutors and agents need to exhaust other avenues of obtaining evidence before doing so. If a search is required, they must take care not to trample on lawmakers' privileged activities.

It's not yet possible to make determinations about whether these principles were followed in the apparently unprecedented search of Mr. Jefferson's office. But the material for which agents searched had been under subpoena for eight months; Mr. Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat, resisted complying. Under those circumstances, seeking judicial approval for a search warrant is more reasonable. And while the "Saturday night raid," as Mr. Hastert called it, sounds melodramatic, it's less disruptive than having FBI agents in the House during normal business hours.

Mr. Jefferson was, according to the search warrant affidavit, caught with cold, hard cash: Agents videotaped him taking $100,000 in $100 bills from a Northern Virginia investor working undercover and then found $90,000 of it in his freezer. This was no fishing expedition.

In my opinion, the Post is too easy on Congress. I don't even think the uproar is "understandable". Jefferson resisted that subpoena for eight months without Congress making any effort to force him to comply. If the rule of law truly applies to everyone, then the FBI had to seek a search warrant to seize the materials that Jefferson and the Congress refused to cooperatively release.

Clearly, the leadership of both parties in the House played chicken with the FBI on the Jefferson subpoena, and now want to cry foul after the FBI ran into them head-on. Their cries of indignation appear to be some sort of ersatz distraction from their responsibility in obstructing the Department of Justice probe into serious corruption on Capitol Hill. They will quickly find out that the American people have no sympathy for those who sell us out for bribes, and little for those who protect them from detection.

In case House leadership is too dense to figure even that out, let me be more blunt: this argument is a loser. Drop it now, or risk being seen, justifiably, as an arrogant enabler of public corruption.

UPDATE: Voices of sanity have now surfaced, finally, in Congress:

Some lawmakers are warning of a voter backlash against members of Congress "trying to protect their own" if party leaders keep escalating a constitutional dispute over the FBI's raid of a representative's office. ...

The confrontational approach by Hastert, R-Ill., and Pelosi, D-Calif., did not sit well with some colleagues.

"Criticizing the executive and judicial branches of our government for fully investigating a member of Congress suspected of criminal wrongdoing sends the wrong message and reflects poorly upon all of Congress," Rep. Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo., said in a statement. "They should not expect their congressional offices to be treated as a safe haven."

A GOP colleague, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, said the public "will come to one conclusion: that congressional leaders are trying to protect their own from valid investigations." ...

The House Judiciary Committee chairman, GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, announced a hearing next week, "Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?"

But Vitter released a letter to his own GOP Senate leaders asking them to stop saying that the FBI raid violated the Constitution.

"For congressional leaders to make these self-serving arguments in the midst of serious scandals in Congress only further erodes the faith and confidence of the American people," Vitter wrote.

Vitter has emerged as a voice of reason and conservative values in the immigration debate. It might behoove GOP leadership to start listening to what the Senator from Louisiana has to say. And while I normally like James Sensenbrenner, his Congressional hearing will only reveal the extent of Congressional arrogance and wind up putting egg on his face when the answer to his question is a resounding No!

UPDATE II: Andrew McCarthy is as incensed at GOP foolishness on this issue as I am.

California Bests France, Again

Thirty years ago, a blind taste test horrified French wine aficionadoes when they selected California wines as the superior varieties. The Times of London reports that the French finally got their rematch yesterday -- and still selected California wines as the victor:

The nose-off began in 1976, when Steven Spurrier, an Englishman who owned a wine shop in the French capital, invited a panel of French experts to a blind tasting of some of their own classic vintages against some Californian reds. To the horror of the entire French wine industry, the Americans won hands down.

Last night Mr Spurrier and a group of British, French and American tasters took part in the 30th anniversary re-enactment to discover whether the shocking defeat for what was then the undisputed world leader in viticulture could be reversed.

A simultaneous sampling of the same wines was staged in the Napa Valley, California’s main wine-producing area, and at Berry Bros & Rudd wine merchants in London.

Despite the French tasters, many of whom had taken part in the original tasting, “expecting the downfall” of the American vineyards, they had to admit that the harmony of the Californian cabernets had beaten them again. Judges on both continents gave top honours to a 1971 Ridge Monte Bello cabernet from Napa Valley. Four Californian reds occupied the next placings before the highest-ranked Bordeaux, a 1970 Château MoutonRothschild, came in at sixth.

Congratulations to my native state. They may have screwed up government and business to the point of disaster, but at least we can salute the debacle with the world's best wine. For those who have never been to California, excellent wineries can be found throughout the state. The most storied are found in Napa Valley, but the Central Valley also has a number of formidable wineries, as seen in the film Sideways (a very entertaining movie). Newer vineyards in Southern California, in the Temecula area, also produce excellent and affordable varieties.

FBI Ramps Up Public-Integrity Investigations

The FBI has added more than 200 agents to their task force on investigations of public corruption, an increase of 50% over 2004, in preparation for the upcoming midterm elections. The Hill reports that an explosion in such cases in the last national election has convinced them to add more staff to focus specifically on election law:

Illegal fundraising schemes appear to have grown in number and sophistication as candidates have needed to raise more and more money to be competitive. Several members of Congress have recently found themselves caught up in fundraising controversies.

In the past year and a half, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has reassigned nearly 200 agents to the problem of public corruption, bringing to 600 the total number of agents working on public-integrity cases.

While the Justice Department’s increased focus on public corruption has been talked about in Washington, the FBI’s elevation of such crimes among its priorities is less known. Even less noticed has been the FBI’s new focus on violations of election law, which for years law-enforcement officials considered minor crimes, lawyers specializing in the field said.

But that is changing as candidates and their supporters have become bolder and more creative in skirting fundraising and election law. Furthermore, legislation Congress passed in 2002 making many election-law violations felonies has given law-enforcement officials greater incentive to investigate and prosecute.

You'd better watch out ... you'd better not lie ... you'd better not sell out, or I'll tell the FBI ...

Seriously, the escalation of these investigations provide some deterrent in the short run, but the longer view is more problematic. Many of these cases will involve the mischaracterization of funds, a problem more based on Byzantine campaign-finance regulation than on true corruption. The cases which have demonstrated the latter -- Randy Cunningham and William Jefferson come to mind here -- have little to do with taking an extra $1,000 in campaign contributions but instead show corruption in the old-fashioned way: personal cash bribes for legislative action.

If the FBI planned to apply more resources in pursuit of that kind of corruption, that would be a tremendous boost for public integrity. According to The Hill's report, however, the additional agents will focus on the felonies and misdemeanors created by the BCRA (McCain-Feingold). This demonstrates the problem of creating an overwhelming regulatory regime in any process; it creates crime where little or no intent to harm is involved. By forcing contributors and politicians to create ever more fanciful corporations with ever more barriers to accountability, the transition and use of the funds becomes so opaque that practically any use appears criminal, and all of it requires forensic accountants to ensure compliance within a labyrinth of laws.

The best solution is the elimination of the regulatory regime altogether and its replacement with instant-disclosure laws. In the age of the Internet, political candidates and their parties have the ability to quickly reveal their donors and the extent of their contributions. That would make those whom the voters select the most accountable for their fundraising and the message their funds produce. We can then eliminate the 501(c)s, the 527s, the PACs, and all of the other artificial creations that obfuscate responsibility and create criminals where they would otherwise not exist. Once that happens, then the FBI can concentrate on real corruption in government instead of becoming the executive branch's version of Price Waterhouse Cooper.

Hamas Losing Arab Support?

Accoridng to the Washington Times, Hamas has damaged relations with key states in the Middle East, a development that could mean difficulties in their offensive against Fatah and their desired war on Israel. Jordan and Egypt have both determined that Hamas has masterminded plots against them, and now seek to curtail their operations:

Two recent events deserve considerably more attention then they have been receiving thus far: Jordan's announcement last month that it had uncovered a Syrian-backed Hamas plot to attack the kingdom; and Egypt's announcement on Tuesday that the terrorists who carried out the April 24 bombings that killed 24 people in Dahab, a Sinai resort town trained for the operation in Gaza.

Hamas' most serious problem is with Jordan, where security forces last month arrested 20 of its members. Amman accuses Hamas of smuggling detonators, rocket launchers and explosives into the country from Syria, and of attempting to recruit Jordanians to send to Iran and Syria for "military training." Authorities said they believe that Hamas was planning attacks against unspecified targets in Jordan. "The foiled plots by Hamas elements against officials and installations in Jordan were in the final stages of execution," Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Joudeh said. "Interrogations of suspects proved that they received instructions from a Hamas leader...who is now in Syria." ...

Egypt has yet to say officially which Palestinian organization in Gaza was to blame for the Dahab attacks, but officials speaking on background have accused Hamas and a Hamas-linked group called the Popular Resistance Committees of providing shelter for one of the planners. Egypt has asked the Palestinian Authority to arrest this person.

In a time when the Palestinians already have isolated themselves from the West by electing terrorists to government, one would expect the terrorists to choose their battles more carefully. After all, without funding from the West, they need to find revenue from somewhere, and the Arab nations would be the only market for their brand of hatred. They may have considered Jordan and Egypt more palatable targets for other Arab and Muslim nations, especially Iran, since both have diplomatic relations with Israel. However, both also have influence in the banking industry, and with the moratorium on transfers through banks with terrorist customers (and with their immediate proximity to the West Bank and Gaza, respectively), one might have thought that Hamas would focus more on their civil war with Fatah instead of attacking fellow Arabs.

Egypt and Jordan have a more clear-eyed view than the New York Times, apparently (see below). Jordan has extensive experience with the traitorous nature of Palestinian terrorists, having hosted the PLO until 1971 when Yasser Arafat tried undermining the Jordanian monarchy. The Egyptians have been stung a number of times by Islamist suicide bombers and want nothing less than to see an Islamist group take political and military control of territory on its border. The influence of both nations in the Arab world is not negligible, and Hamas has made a serious mistake in alienating them.

Hamas Plans 9/11-Style Attack On Israel While Gray Lady Wants Engagment

The duly elected political party of Hamas has started planning the purchase of aircraft for suicide missions against Israeli skyscrapers, their "resistance" commander revealed yesterday. The New York Sun reports that Abu Abdullah, the commander of Hamas's Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, told a WorldNet Daily interviewer that all targets within their "dear Palestine" were legitimate for suicide attacks using airplanes as guided missiles, and that Hamas had already started investigating the necessary purchases:

Hamas is seeking the ability to attack Israel using small airplanes laden with explosives to be flown September 11-style into important targets, possibly Tel Aviv skyscrapers, a leader of Hamas's so-called military wing, Abu Abdullah, told World Net Daily yesterday. ...

Mr. Abdullah said Hamas would fly the planes into Jewish targets, possibly Tel Aviv skyscrapers.

"The goal is to have these planes carry maximum quantities of explosives and that they will be able to hit the targets that are fixed for its operation at a high level of accuracy. All the Zionist goals in our dear Palestine are legitimate. I estimate that this tool will not be used against regular targets. We will choose precious targets and I do not want to speak about strategic or any other targets. ...We know that the enemy is building new and high buildings in Tel Aviv."

The terror leader listed possible military targets, as well.

The solution to the immediate problem for the Israelis will probably come in an order to shoot down all aircraft entering Israeli airspace originating from the West Bank or Gaza Strip. That order may need to come soon, as other sources indicate that Hamas has already acquired three small airplanes from dealers in Eastern Europe and have had pilots trained for the mission in Syria, Sudan, and Iran.

Hamas needs to prepare for its war on Israel after it wrests control from Fatah in their brewing civil war. They have sought to supplant all instruments controlled by the PLO under Arafat through violence, both latent and actual. Hamas has used their position in Parliament to replace the security agencies of the Palestinian Authority, even though those functions fall under the authority of the directly-elected president, in this case Mahmoud Abbas. Like the Nazis before them, they exploited an election in order to gain legitimacy to establish a highly illegitimate and violent dictatorship, and they have done so in the same manner -- by undermining the executive branch.

One would hope that Western voices would not be silenced through the exploitation of an election, but the New York Times never fails to disappoint in its capacity for capitulation. Today, the Gray Lady issues another missive demanding that the West respect the democratic choice of the Palestinian people and engage Hamas, even while the terrorists have obviously undertaken a coup against the PA:

Mr. Bush handed Mr. Olmert the perfect welcome-to-Washington gift on Tuesday: conditional support for Israel's plans. Mr. Olmert wants to go ahead with Ariel Sharon's misbegotten plan to unilaterally redraw the borders of what could eventually be Palestine. The key word here is unilaterally, because the Israelis are prepared to do this without any input from the Palestinians. They would be left to try to cobble together a country out of whatever remained behind.

To a significant degree, the Palestinians put themselves in this spot by electing Hamas to run their government, and the Bush administration is right to refuse to legitimize a government dedicated to the destruction of Israel. But Mr. Bush should not punish the Palestinian people by endorsing any unilateral proposal — doing that would punish them for exercising their democratic right to vote.

Our refusal to engage Hamas has more basis than their anti-Israeli stance, although that would be enough. We refuse to recognize terrorist groups as legitimate political entities, and for good reason. Giving legitimacy to Hamas only encourages the formation of more terrorist groups making more demands and creating more havoc. Whether or not a terrorist group has enough popularity to gain seats in an election has no bearing on that policy -- in fact, it arguably makes it more necessary than ever.

Groups that buy planes as a means of replaying 9/11 and targeting civilians on a mass scale do not deserve recognition. The people who elect such terrorists deserve marginalization, and that isolation serves to deliver a strong message that we have no interest in engaging terrorists or their enablers. Terrorists do not make partners for peace in any event, a lesson the Paper of Record should have learned from the long and frustrating reign of Yasser Arafat in the West Bank and Gaza.

When the Palestinians want peace, they will elect statesmen rather than terrorists to office. Until then, Israel has every right to make unilateral decisions about their borders and their interaction with a population who elects terrorists to represent them.

Great Minds, Thinking Alike

George Bush won support for his immigration policies tonight, but the odds of this brightening the President's evening appear rather small. The support came from former President Jimmy Carter, a public statement that Bush' conservative opponents on immigration reform will not fail to note:

Former president Carter, a Democrat and frequent critic of President Bush, sees eye-to-eye with him on immigration.

Carter on Wednesday called the Republican president's commitment to immigration reform "quite admirable," saying he agrees with Bush's support of a system that would eventually grant citizenship to some illegals. ...

The law should secure the nation's borders while "at the same time treating those who are here with respect and giving them some hope for the future," Carter said.

Somehow I don't see this as making it any easier to get the House to support the administration's policy on amnesty/earned citizenship and a guest-worker program.

Post: Hastert, Boehner Have No Clue

The Washington Post provides an analysis of the Congressional privilege asserted by Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader John Boehner which finds no grounds for their objections to the search warrant executed by the FBI earlier this week. In fact, as Charles Lane points out, the Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution cannot shield members from legitimate investigations into corruption:

"An official legislative act is immune, but interference with anything beyond that" is not covered by the constitutional provision that shields Congress from executive and judicial branch interference, said Michael J. Glennon, a former legal counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who teaches at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

The precise materials sought in the raid were blacked out in a publicly released copy of the search warrant, but Jefferson (D-La.) said in a court filing yesterday that FBI agents took two boxes of documents and copied computer hard drives.

Both the search warrant for Jefferson's office and the raid to execute it were unprecedented in the 219-year history of the Constitution. In that sense, they violated an interbranch understanding rooted in the separation of powers -- and, indeed, in the events of 1642, when King Charles I burst into Parliament and attempted to arrest five members of the House of Commons, triggering the English Civil War.

But the taboo against searching congressional offices was a matter of tradition, not black-letter constitutional law.

"It's really a matter of etiquette," said Akhil Reed Amar, a professor of constitutional law at Yale University. "I don't see any constitutional principle here."

It increasingly appears that the only principle at stake in this debate is the silly pursuit of any and all privileges that any tradition might grant legislators. The assertions by Congressional leadership would set lawmakers above the laws they impose on the citizens of the nation and ensure that they remain safe from detection and accountability of corruption. That would guarantee an explosion of bribery and schemery on Capitol Hill, fueled by our tax dollars and protected by a ridiculous interpretation of the Constitution.

If leaders of either party believe that the American electorate would stand for such an assertion of privilege, then they have overstayed their term on Capitol Hill and left rationality and common sense behind. They had better start understanding that subpoenas approved by judges apply to all citizens, and that when the respondent refuses to cooperate with a subpoena, law enforcement will apply it nonetheless.

In this case, the assertion of privilege has not only been legally bankrupt, but more so a strain of political stupidity that simply boggles the mind. The Democrats have spent the last few months foolishly trying to paint Washington corruption as a strict GOP franchise. When Jefferson's bribery gets spectacular coverage, what does the Republican leadership do? Do they keep quiet and let the media report the case itself? No! They leap to falsely accuse the FBI of powermongering and the White House of violating the Constitution. Not only are both charges baseless, but now Hastert and his crew have made themselves the proponents of protecting corrupt lawmakers from justice. Instead of allowing Jefferson to become the new face of corruption, they have distracted everyone by making themselves the new faces of arrogance and ignorance.

If the GOP loses the House in November, they should look back at this week and draw the appropriate conclusions.

UPDATE: Of course, now they want Justice to return the evidence collected by a valid subpoena:

The constitutional clash pitting Congress against the executive branch escalated Wednesday as the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House demanded the immediate return of materials seized by federal agents when they searched the office of a House member who is under investigation in a corruption case.

The demand, by Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, underscored the degree of the anger generated among members of both parties on Capitol Hill by the search on Saturday night at the office of Representative William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana, who has been accused of accepting bribes.

"The Justice Department was wrong to seize records from Congressman Jefferson's office in violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers, the speech or debate clause of the Constitution, and the practice of the last 219 years," Mr. Hastert and Ms. Pelosi said in a rare joint statement.

The correct answers to the assertions in the latter paragraph are no, no, no, and the lack of such a search warrant over that time does not make search warrants illegal. At least we have bipartisan unity on stupidity and base arrogance, if that can be seen as an improvement.

Hamas Attempts Slow-Motion Coup

After winning control of the Palestinian parliament, the terrorist group Hamas has now resorted to its traditional strategy to remove the executive branch from the proto-state. The third assassination attempt in the last two weeks netted Hamas its second Fatah scalp, this time a security commander in Gaza, athough Fatah certainly provided the provocation:

A security force commander loyal to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was killed in an attack on his car in the Gaza Strip yesterday, sharpening tensions between Hamas and Fatah that have now claimed 10 lives this month and prompted warnings of civil war.

Nabil Hodhod, the commander for the central region of the Gaza Strip for the elite Preventive Security Service, was killed by an explosion that was suspected to be either a hand grenade thrown into his vehicle or a bomb planted under it.

Two of his colleagues were wounded. The PSS and other Palestinian security forces remained under the authority of Mr Abbas, the president and Fatah leader, even after Hamas won control of the Palestinian government in January's election.

Shooting broke out at Gaza City's Shifa hospital between Hamas and Fatah gunmen after Mr Hodhod's body was taken to the morgue there.

There was no claim of responsibility for the killing but suspicion fell on Hamas after it held the PSS responsible for an incident earlier in the day in which masked and armed men abducted three Hamas activists outside a mosque in Khan Yunis, shot them in the legs and stomachs and dumped them at a petrol station. One of the men died of his wounds in hospital.

Once again, we see the results of voting for terrorists of any stripe for elective office. Neither group has a monopoly on the use of violence for political advancement. Both Fatah and Hamas use terrorism to control the population and to try to bully Israel into capitulation.

However, Hamas seems more intent on using their electoral victory as a springboard to wipe out Mahmoud Abbas' hold on power, which provides the only check on Hamas' ambitions for conquest. They have been the aggressor in the dissolution of what civil society the Palestinian Authority pretended to support, pushing ever closer to a civil war which they seem sure they can win. The Hamas-led parliament started this battle by sending its Islamist militia into the streets in opposition of the executive's police forces in defiance of a veto by Abbas. That initiated an escalating series of clashes, culminating in the three assassination attempts on PA security officials, two of them successful.

The Palestinians voted for war against Israel when they elected Hamas. Instead, they will have effectively declared war on themselves as they now reap what they have sown. Perhaps this will finally encourage them to form real political parties that operate on the basis of rational negotiations with peace and tolerance as the goal.

Hospiblogging - The Revenge

Several CQ readers have been asking about the First Mate, and today's a good time for an update. She has had continuing issues with her anemia and energy level while on dialysis, and last week she needed two units of blood for a transfusion. That went well and her hemoglobin levels rose, but over the weekend she started feeling pretty poorly. After fighting what looks like the flu for the past three days, her doctors had her admitted to the hospital at the U of M. It looks like she may have picked up a case of the flu from the transfusions.

She will probably stay there for the next couple of days, and that means my blog productivity may slow until after the weekend. Thanks for your understanding in advance.

Ed Meese On Immigration

I just finished a conference call arranged by the Heritage Foundation with former Attorney General Edwin Meese regarding the immigration debate. Gen. Meese wrote a column in today's New York Times noting the similarities between the current Senate proposal and the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act, which granted amnesty and failed to provide the border security it promised. He reminds us of what that amnesty demanded:

In exchange for allowing aliens to stay, he decided, border security and enforcement of immigration laws would be greatly strengthened — in particular, through sanctions against employers who hired illegal immigrants. If jobs were the attraction for illegal immigrants, then cutting off that option was crucial.

Beyond this, most illegal immigrants who could establish that they had resided in America continuously for five years would be granted temporary resident status, which could be upgraded to permanent residency after 18 months and, after another five years, to citizenship.

Note that this path to citizenship was not automatic. Indeed, the legislation stipulated several conditions: immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible. Sound familiar? These are pretty much the same provisions included in the new Senate proposal and cited by its supporters as proof that they have eschewed amnesty in favor of earned citizenship.

The difference between 1986 and now, as Gen. Meese points out, is that we called this amnesty in 1986. Today, people get very unhappy when that label is applied to essentially the same approach. The only difference appears to be the requirement to pay back taxes, hardly a differentiator that would lead reasonable people to conclude that this is not a repeat of Simpson-Mazzoli.

I'll add my notes from the conference call later on. I'll be taking the FM to the hospital this morning (which is why I was available for the conference call), and I should be able to review the conversation at greater length then. In the meantime, Michelle Malkin, Power Line, Right Wing News, and Mary Katherine Ham from Hugh Hewitt will have updates on the call shortly.

UPDATE: I forgot Freeman Hunt!

UPDATE II: I also forgot Jon at QandO; my bad. I will let the rest of the participants have the last word on this. I've spent most of the day at the hospital trying to get the FM squared away, and she'll be there for the next day or so. Gen. Meese has some interesting insight into the immigration mess, given his proximity to the Simpson-Mazzoli debacle. I have tremendous respect for his perspective, and if he says that he's getting a sense of deja vu, it behooves us to listen. I still would trade some limited normalization program for effective border security, but unless the conference committee makes some significant changes to the Senate approach, I fear we will get neither.

Earmarks Take Relief From The Needy

Don't say we didn't sound the alarm early on pork-barrel politics and their destructive potential to GOP midterm hopes. The Washington Post has an article that shows how victims of Hurricane Katrina remain homeless while the Republicans in the Senate pork up the emergency relief bill with hundreds of millions of dollars for their corporate pals:

BILOXI, Miss. -- This city's east side remains largely abandoned, a bleak panorama of empty lots and abandoned homes left behind by the tradesmen, shrimpers and casino workers who once lived here.

Hundreds had little or no insurance. For people such as 83-year-old Elzora Brown, a retired dry-cleaning presser whose little frame house was waterlogged up to the eaves, there's not enough federal disaster aid for repairs. "Whatever the Lord sees fit, that's what I'll have," she said.

Just down the coast in Pascagoula, defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. similarly didn't have enough insurance to cover hurricane losses at its shipyards. But the company isn't awaiting divine intervention.

It has an ally in the U.S. Senate and is slated to receive $140 million for rebuilding.

I wrote about the shameful bailout of Northrup Grumman three weeks ago. Trent Lott insisted on keeping the cash outlay to Northrup despite its own failure to insure its facility, opting to gamble on good weather rather than pay for insurance. Lott and the rest of the Senate now wants to indemnify Northrup against stupidity with our tax dollars. That's not just outrageous, it also removes the incentive for large companies to get insurance at all, harming that industry and making them more reliant on tax subsidies for their existence. And it's not as if Northrup would go bankrupt if they had to face the consequences of their own bad decision; they made a record profit of $2.4 billion in 2005 on an operating income of 7.1%, even with the loss from Katrina.

Nor is that the only ridiculous earmark in this package, as the Post notes. While Katrina victims must rely on volunteers to slowly repair or rebuild their homes, the home of Jefferson Davis will get $38 million for its restoration -- the same Jefferson Davis who rebelled against the United States because of undue government interference in the South. How's that for rich irony? At least we know the rich part is accurate. That comes along with the previously derided "Railroad to Nowehere", for which we will pay $700 million to relocate train tracks that we just spent $250 million to repair after Katrina, thanks to Lott and fellow Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran.

It's not just the Republicans, either. Ken Salazar (D-CO) has hijacked the emergency appropriations bill for Katrina and Iraq in order to open a new war -- on the bark beetle. This insect has attacked Colorado's pine trees, but rather than propose this expenditure in, say, Colorado, Salazar instead piggybacked the pork onto Katrina relief. Ted Kennedy tossed in $15 million for New England shellfisherman to assist in the economic impact of a red tide in 2005. Bear in mind that the Gulf Coast's fishing industry has been almost wiped out by Katrina. Kennedy will exploit their utter loss in order to buy a few Gloucester votes.

The Republicans, however, are in charge -- and they campaigned for control of Congress twelve years ago by deriding cynical, exploitive legislative techniques like these. They have proven themselves, with some notable exceptions, as corruptible as their Democratic counterparts when left around the money too long. As long as they continue to defend these abuses of the taxpayers they represent, then they leave themselves open to the inevitable juxtapositions of suffering constituents and pork-rich supporters. And they deserve every pixel and inkblot of it.

ACLU: Now We Like Speech Codes

In a development that really plumbs the depth of hypocrisy, the American Civil Liberties Union now wants to impose speech codes on its own board while decrying restrictions on free speech everywhere else. Under new guidelines that the ACLU has taken under serious consideration, directors will be urged to make happy or keep their mouths shut:

The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration.

"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.

"Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising," the proposals state.

This comes from the organization that would file a blizzard of lawsuits if any other corporation attempted to enact such a policy. Can anyone imagine the ACLU defending a similar policy at Enron, Global Crossings, or the NSA? Perhaps they would. Susan Herman, a current ACLU board member and a Brooklyn Law School professor, justifies the speech code based on the "fiduciary responsibilities" of the board. Using that logic, any corporation can take action against dissenters and whistleblowers on the basis that their statements might hurt stock prices.

ACLU flacks claim that this entails no punitive measures, but their members aren't buying that explanation. Nat Hentoff, the respected Village Voice reporter and a longtime ACLU member, wondered if Dick Cheney had drawn up the guidelines himself. He also referred to the "guidelines" as nothing more than a gag order intended to suppress dissent. Former ACLU board member Muriel Morisey told the New York Times that the policy constructs a framework for punitive action. After all, if board members do not adhere to these guidelines, at some point action has to be taken or the guidelines themselves are meaningless.

Even if no action is taken, the new instructions make a statement about the organization. The ACLU says by its consideration of this proposal that it cannot withstand dissent, an odd position for an organization that based its existence to protect dissent elsewhere. They seem to say that some dissent is tolerable and others are not, and that the highest authorities hold the privilege of deciding which is which. It's interesting and terribly convenient that they would only apply that philosophy to themselves.

UPDATE: The New York Sun blog, It Shines for All, weighs in with another example of hypocrisy from the New York chapter of the ACLU in 2005:

Hypocrisy is on show in a Manhattan courtroom today. The New York Civil Liberties Union will argue for the second day before Judge Richard Berman that the city's subway bag search policy is an "unjustifiable erosion of the privacy rights of the American public." Yet take a walk into the NYCLU's Manhattan headquarters - which it shares with other organizations - and you'll find a sign warning visitors that all bags are subject to search.

If you haven't yet checked out ISFA, do so now and tell Daniel Freedman that CQ says hello. It's one of the best media-based blogs and underscores The Sun's commitment to the blogosphere.

UPDATE II: The Influence Peddler waxes nostalgic for 1994.

Subpoenas Not Enough?

The corruption case of William Jefferson took a strange turn yesterday when several Republican members of Congress objected to the execution of a subpoena on the uncooperative subject of the investigation. House Speaker Dennis Hastert questioned the constituionality of the FBI search, and House Majority Leader John Boehner predicted that the Supreme Court would have to decide the issue:

Justice Department and FBI officials yesterday vigorously defended a weekend raid on the Capitol Hill office of Democratic Rep. William J. Jefferson (La.), arguing that the unprecedented tactic was necessary because Jefferson and his attorneys had refused to comply with a subpoena for documents issued more nine months ago in a bribery investigation. ...

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) complained directly to President Bush yesterday about the FBI raid, while House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) predicted a constitutional showdown before the Supreme Court.

"My opinion is that they took the wrong path," Hastert told reporters after his meeting with Bush in the White House. "They need to back up, and we need to go from there."

This can't be the same Congress that issues subpoenas for all sorts of probes into the executive branch and the agencies it runs. Does Congress really want to establish a precedent that neither branch has to answer subpoenas if issued by the other, even if approved by a judge -- which this particular subpoena was?

The FBI had a valid subpoena for the information in Jefferson's office. He refused to provide it. The FBI had little choice but to go in and take it, and from the description given in the Washington Post, they took extraordinary care not to confiscate legitimate data relating to his legislative responsibilities.

Congress already has enough problems with corruption and scandal without adding even more arrogance to top it. If the leadership wants to argue that their status as elected officials somehow gives them the ability to disregard subpoenas and court orders, then the American people may want to trade that leadership to ensure that Congress understands that it operates under the same laws as the rest of us. Hastert and Boehner do not argue against an imperial presidency, but rather they are arguing for an untouchable political elite, where our elected officials risk nothing by taking bribes and selling their votes to the highest bidder. After all, the evidence of those transactions will almost always reside in their offices -- and if they can ignore duly executed subpoenas and search warrants, then they can sell themselves at will.

Hastert and Boehner had better reconsider this fight. Not only is it a loser legally, but it's also political suicide. They shouldn't need the Supreme Court to laugh them into oblivion to comprehend the magnitude of this mistake.

UPDATE: Dafydd at Big Lizards takes the example to their logical conclusions. He also notes the clause of the Constitution that members of Congress from both parties are invoking:

United States Constitution ~ Article I ~ § 6 ~ ¶ 1:

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

In the strict constructionist view that the GOP supports, this should mean what it says: members cannot be arrested while in attendance of a session or while traveling to or from said session. They also cannot be prosecuted for their speech while in session. That's it. It's a very narrow immunity, and it has to be in order to preserve public accountability for elected officials.

I find it troubling and not just a little hypocritical that Hastert and Boehner now want to use a "living Constitution" model in order to defy valid court orders.

Saddam The Populist

The defense continued today at the trial of Saddam Hussein, but not without a stern warning from the chief judge about courtroom dramatics. That did not keep Saddam from once again challenging the court's authority, although more briefly this time than before, but it did keep the defense attorneys from engaging in hysterics:

Chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman opened the session with a sharp warning to the defense lawyers and eight defendants that he would not allow insults to the court. In the previous session, Abdel-Rahman threw out a woman defense lawyer when she tried to speak after he warned her not to.

"From the beginning, we have said that this court is a transparent one and the defense team and defendants are allowed to express their attitude in a democratic way. No one is allowed, whoever he is and under any name, to attack the court, its employees and the Iraqi people," he said.

The defense immediately tested that resolve when Saddam's fellow defendant and half-brother Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Takriti stood up and complained that the judge was being too harsh on the defendants and their attorneys. He scolded Abdel-Rahman for failing to understand the scope of the case and for insulting a woman, an attorney he had bodily removed earlier this week when she refused to stop disrupting the trial. Abdel-Rahman warned Barzan to stop once, which Barzan ignored -- until the guard entered the dock, when the defendant sat down.

However, Saddam popped up himself at this point:

"Do you want to shut people's mouths this way?" Saddam spoke up from him seat.

"Quiet. You are a defendant," Abdel-Rahman yelled.

"I am Saddam Hussein, your president, and you did elect me," Saddam shouted back.

Saddam must be referring to two plebescites he conducted during the final years of his dictatorship, when he won election by 99.2% and 100% of the vote, respectively. I had no idea Saddam set such a store by elections; after all, he came to power in an armed coup and consolidated his power through a bloody purge. In fact, Saddam was so popular that he ran unopposed in those two elections. Well, not quite; officially, the choices for voters -- who were watched while they cast their votes -- were either Saddam Hussein or Death To You And Your Entire Family. Since the 0.8% who cast their votes for the latter the first time apparently no longer existed on the voter rolls for the second election, Saddam's unanimous victory was a foregone conclusion.

The defense called Tariq Aziz to the stand once the histrionics ceased. It's unclear why Saddam's team wants to have Aziz speak about Dujail, and the AP does not include any of his testimony. They do report that Aziz is in poor health, and his family wants him released so that he can seek medical attention elsewhere. I'm sure they must have gotten that idea from the regime Aziz served and helped run. After all, one has to believe that the torturers and the rapists in Saddam's jails always allowed their victims to be released to seek medical attention during their "investigations".

UPDATE: The AP has updated the story at the same link, and Aziz has some problems getting his story straight. On one hand, he testified that the defendants had nothing to do with the Dujail atrocity, arguing that it fell to lower-level functionaries to handle the aftermath of the assassination attempt. On the other hand, he also testified that the regime had to strike back at the town for the insult to Saddam, and told the court the victims should be on trial now:

A former Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister testified for the defense in Saddam Hussein's trial, saying the regime had to strike back with a crackdown on a Shiite town after a 1982 assassination attempt on the former Iraqi leader. ...

He turned the accusations around, saying members of the Shiite Dawa Party — which carried out the shooting attack on Saddam — should be put on trial. He pointed to Dawa leaders who, since Saddam's fall, have become leaders of Iraq's first elected governments: current prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Speaking in a hoarse voice, he said the Dujail attack was "part of a series of attacks and assassination attempts by this group (Dawa), including against me." He said that in 1980, Dawa activists threw a grenade at him as he visited a Baghdad university, killing civilians around him.

"I'm a victim of a criminal act conducted by this party, which is in power right now. So put it on trial. Its leader was the prime minister and his deputy is the prime minister right now and they killed innocent Iraqis in 1980," he said.

In other words, Saddam's signature on 148 execution orders has no significance to the case, but the fact that the Dawas back then tried to assassinate Saddam means that anyone associated with the Dawas should be tried now. That makes sense -- under Saddam's notions of justice. One has to wonder why, if Aziz and Saddam believe that al-Maliki and al-Jafaari were responsible for the assassination attempts, did they execute 148 men, women, and children from Dujail instead?

What The AP Discarded

The AP ran an earlier story on the Osama bin Laden tape that included an admission implicating two Gitmo detainees in the 9/11 attack. However, the the AP later ran "excerpts" of the Bin Laden tape, that admission curiously went unreported -- even though it would have a significant impact on the debate over the fate of Gitmo detainees.

This is what ran in the original piece by Maamoun Youssef, which I have also cached here:

The terror mastermind did indicate that two suspects had links to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon: "All the prisoners to date have no connection to the Sept. 11 events or knew anything about them, except for two of the brothers," bin Laden said [emphasis mine -- CE]. But he did not provide names or elaborate further and it wasn't possible to determine if or where they were held.

However, that passage cannot be found in the AP excerpts. It does, however, include this:

"And then I call to memory my brothers the prisoners in Guantanamo — may Allah free them all — and I state the fact, about which I also am certain, that all the prisoners of Guantanamo, who were captured in 2001 and the first half of 2002 and who number in the hundreds, have no connection whatsoever to the events of September 11th..."

Note the strategic appearance of the ellipses at the end of the quote in the later article. The AP wants to cut off Osama before he admits that Gitmo holds two accessories to the 9/11 attacks. One would think that a news organization might have found that somewhat, oh, newsworthy.

Moscow Waning

The Kremlin has suffered a major blow to its prestige, as four of the former Soviet republics have now repudiated their membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States. The rebelling members will form their own alliance, which will emphasize democracy:

ONE of the last vestiges of the Soviet Union appeared to be crumbling yesterday, when four former republics signalled that they were pulling out of the organisation established to keep the Kremlin connected with its lost empire.

At a meeting in Kiev the leaders of the pro-Western states of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine pledged to form their own association to promote democratic values. They also hinted that they would leave the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which was created 15 years ago as a group representing most of the former Soviet republics. ...

Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President, said: “Our citizens are giving us a mandate to develop strong democratic and successful states.” The move is seen as a huge snub to Moscow, which has not been invited to join. It faces the prospect of being left in a CIS of eight states, including Belarus, regarded as the last dictatorship in Europe, Armenia, and the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The splits within the CIS ranks have been growing in recent months. Moscow, which backed Mr Yushchenko’s opponent in the Ukrainian elections, clashed with Ukraine this year when it suspended gas sales, causing an energy crisis across Europe in the middle of winter.

The Kremlin has also rowed openly with Tbilisi over Russian support for two breakaway regions in Georgia and its reluctant withdrawal of troops from the country. Moscow’s recent decision to ban the import of Georgian and Moldovan wine has strained ties further.

This has little to do with trade disputes. The split between Russia and especially Georgia and Ukraine have grown more pronounced as the breakaway republics sought democracy, while Vladimir Putin rolled it back. These former Soviet subjects know Putin better than the West, and they can see the new imperialism returning in Putin's autocracy. Moscow tried mightily to interfere with the internal politics of its neighbors, and the Yushchenkos and Nogaidelis of the area understand that this impulse will grow stronger unless they take steps to separate themselves from Putin and Russia.

Putin now faces another diplomatic disaster on the eve of the G-8 summit. While his electorate might be impressed with his economic outreach to the West, they will probably care more about their cousins in these republics taking such pains to distance themselves from Russia. The Russians already have a well-known inferiority complex; watching as allies achieve escape velocity from Russia's orbit will not make them any more confident about their place in the world.

Of course, that was the only function of the CIS anyway. The organization had no real power or even purpose, other than to make Russia feel better about losing her empire. Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin had hopes for transforming it into a version of the British Commonwealth, a collection of independent states that still gave at least nominal recognition to Moscow as the center of their universe. That dream faded years ago when Russia proved barely capable of governing itself, but none of the members apparently cared enough about the CIS to leave it -- until now, when Russian mischief made it impossible to stay.

Eight states remain in the CIS. Do not be surprised if that number drops significantly by the end of the year.

White House Wins The Staredown

For those who thought the Bush administration had run out of steam, they may want to check the gauges again. Despite an outcry over his involvement in two controversial NSA surveillance and analysis programs, the Senate Intelligence Committee approved General Michael Hayden's appointment as Director of the CIA. In the end, only three Democrats opposed the appointment, a stunning victory for the White House after being accused of doubling down on the NSA programs by nominating the man who ran them:

Gen. Michael Hayden moved a step closer Tuesday to becoming the nation's 20th CIA chief, where he will take over a spy agency looking for a leader to steer it through troubles ranging from al-Qaida to Washington politics.

The Senate Intelligence Committee recommended confirmation, 12-3, with three of the panel's seven Democrats voting against him. If the Senate approves him before Memorial Day, as expected, Hayden could be sworn in by the end of the week. ...

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., joined Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Evan Bayh of Indiana to vote against Hayden. "General Hayden directed an illegal program that put Americans on American soil under surveillance without the legally required approval of a judge," Feingold said in a statement.

Unfortunately for Feingold, he turned out to be a minority even in his own party, a development that does not bode well for his expected presidential run in 2008. He had promised a tough fight when Bush nominated him, but his fellow Democrats on the committee failed to share his enthusiasm. Dianne Feinstein went on national television the day of his official nomination and sang his praises to Fox News, making a split in the ranks obvious. When someone at the NSA leaked the story about the phone-call database, it looked like the dire predictions of most people would come true and create a nightmarish scenario where Hayden would be forced to answer a lot of tough questions about both programs.

That never transpired. Surprisingly, the Democrats never mounted any kind of coordinated attack on Hayden like they did with Samuel Alito or John Bolton. After fueling the outrage of their base by painting Hayden as a yes-man for Donald Rumsfeld -- an absurd characterization and a complete misreading of the dynamic in play with Hayden's nomination -- the hearing itself turned out to be a complete fizzle.

Why? As the White House predicted, the Democrats eventually realized that they would lose a national debate about using the NSA to protect the United States. A large majority of people already supported the NSA's terrorist surveillance program, and polling showed that two-thirds of Americans supported the datamining efforts on phone transactions once they learned that the actuals calls went unrecorded and unheard. The Democrats once again faced the daunting task of playing hardball over a program that has helped keep the country safe from attack since 9/11, this time with a highly-regarded and articulate military commander as their foil.

The Democrats wisely retreated, except of course for Feingold. He will win the lunatic Left as his power base -- and will wind up doing as well as Howard Dean did when the primaries roll around in less than twenty months. In the meantime, the Bush administration has sent its own message about playing hardball and still having enough juice left to win.

Moussaoui's Character Witness

A new tape from al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden hit the internet earlier today, and the Tall Sheikh apparently wants everyone to know that he's keeping up with the news. In fact, he decided to offer testimony, albeit belatedly, in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui. Osama announced that Moussaoui had no connection to the 9/11 plot, and if Osama thought Club Fed's latest guest had any knowledge of their plans, he would have cancelled the operation immediately:

Osama bin Laden purportedly said in an audio tape Tuesday that neither Zacarias Moussaoui — the only person convicted in the U.S. for the Sept. 11 attacks — nor anyone held at Guantanamo had anything to do with the al-Qaida operation.

"He had no connection at all with Sept. 11," the speaker claiming to be bin Laden said in the tape posted on the Internet. "I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers. ...

"Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events, and if he had known something — even very little — about the Sept. 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohammad Atta, and the others ... to leave America before being discovered," Bin Laden said.

That doesn't sound like the greatest endorsement of Moussaoui's credentials as a terrorist -- but then again, Moussaoui made his lack of skill fairly clear in his clumsy attempts to take flying lessons here in Eagan, MN. He managed to make himself the only AQ terrorist to get captured before the attack, even if the FBI didn't quite know what they had at the time. Osama only underscores the point by his attempt to provide reasonable doubt for an idiot who already confessed.

Osama also made an unusual claim about the inmates at Guantanamo. He insisted that the roundup of Muslims served only to justify the cost of the war, proving that bin Laden spends time at International ANSWER's website. The AP does not make clear whether Osama actually names Halliburton in his statement, but he does insist that the existence of Gitmo is a ruse to explain the "hundreds of billions of dollars" spent by the DoD and other government agencies. One would think that the 9/11 attacks provided plenty of justification, attacks for which Osama himself takes credit in this tape as in others before it.

But even while he repeated the memes of the left, he made one disclaimer that should raise some eyebrows. While stating that the Gitmo detainees have no connection to 9/11 (a strawman -- no one claimed they did), he admitted that two of the prisoners did have some connection to the plot. "All the prisoners to date have no connection to the Sept. 11 events or knew anything about them, except for two of the brothers," bin Laden said, although he did not make clear how much they knew.

If Osama is to be believed, Gitmo holds two accessories to the 9/11 attacks.

One other interesting point about this tape: it will be the third this year, if it is proven authentic. That has some significance. Until recently, Osama seemed comfortable with allowing Ayman al-Zawahiri to tape statements for release, preferring to remain more mysterious and to give the rare public statement from himself more impact. Why all of a sudden has Osama become more involved in PR? It may be that this is the only method left to him to have any real impact on global terror. The US and its allies have done heavy damage to AQ command and control, and some analysts have wondered whether Osama retains any operational control at all.

If Osama gets energized by defending Zacarias Moussaoui, it's good prima facie evidence that he has little else occupying his time.

Troop Withdrawal To Speed Up: Guardian

The British newspaper The Guardian reports that Tony Blair and George Bush will shortly announce a schedule for an expedited troop withdrawal from Iraq. The coalition leaders plan to hand over entire provinces to the newly-installed Iraqi government and their security forces, perhaps in as many as 16 of the 18 provinces comprising Iraq:

George Bush and Tony Blair are to discuss in Washington this week a programme of troop withdrawals from Iraq that will be much faster and more ambitious than originally planned.

In a phased pullout in which the two countries will act in tandem, Britain is to begin with a handover to Iraqi security forces in Muthanna province in July and the Americans will follow suit in Najaf, the Shia holy city.

Other withdrawals will quickly follow over the remainder of the year. Officials in both administrations hope that Britain's 8,000 forces in Iraq can be down to 5,000 by the end of the year and that the American forces will be reduced from 133,000 to about 100,000.

Yesterday Nuri al-Maliki, the new Iraqi prime minister, told a joint press conference with Mr Blair in Baghdad that Iraqi forces could take over from the US-led coalition in 16 of the country's 18 provinces by the end of the year.

Maliki actually called for this process to begin next month, a date that got immediately adjusted to July by the British. However, the plan appears to be more solid that before, and the order of provinces due to be transitioned has already been discussed.

Two provinces that will definitely not see a transition in 2006 are Basra and Anbar. Both have continued to give the Coalition forces headaches, the former with the rise of Shi'ite militia and the latter from insurgencies, both native and foreign. If the Iraqis can handle a transition in other provinces and provide security, then the Coalition will have more ability to concentrate in Basra and Anbar to end the terrorism that has plagued both areas. Those provinces also provide strategic points from which the Americans and the British can quickly respond to support the Iraqi Army when needed.

Still, with the violence in the area, the Coalition has to take care not to leave too soon, or else we will only wind up having to return in force if the Iraqi Army does not stand up to the task. That would wind up being more costly than simply showing some patience and making sure that the time for transition has arrived.

Center Right Candidate Surges In Mexico

A shift has taken place in the lengthy presidential campaign in Mexico. The center-right candidate from Vicente Fox's party has suddenly surged to the lead after retooling his campaign to emphasize more centrist concerns. Felipe Calderón's new message appears to have resonated with Mexican voters, leaving his leftist opponent sputtering about polling samples after having led the same polls for most of the campaign:

After six months in second place, Mr. Calderón has surged past the front-runner, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with a stream of attack advertisements portraying him as a dangerous and violent leftist who will bankrupt the country.

Now, a month before the vote, the race is a contest between Mr. Calderón, a free-trade advocate backed by business leaders, and Mr. López Obrador, a leftist who draws most of his support from poor people who feel that free-trade policies have failed to help them.

For his part, Mr. López Obrador, 53, who was mayor of Mexico City until last year, dismisses the recent polls as "propaganda" and claims the numbers have been massaged to undercount working-class voters. Under his stewardship, Mexico City's finances remained solid. As for the charge that he is dangerous, he calls it simply ludicrous. ...

Mr. Calderón, of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party, has outspent Mr. López Obrador two to one on attack ads that, among other things, link the left-leaning candidate to Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's anti-American president. He has also deftly played on the perception that Mr. López Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, has an authoritarian streak and a reputation as a rabble-rouser because of raucous protests against election fraud he led over a decade ago. Mr. Calderón's ads call his rival "a danger to Mexico."

Calderon may not be the best choice we could get as a partner across the Rio Grande, but Lopez Obrador looks even worse. Latin America has begun a new fascination with socialism despite its long record of misery in this hemisphere. While the current economic situation has serious issues (which lead to the immigrant flood that has grabbed our national attention lately), turning Mexico into a Socialist state would make those problems exponentially worse. If Lopez Obrador follows Mexican precedent and starts nationalizing business, foreign investment would disappear and with it any hope of creating enough jobs to keep Mexicans at home.

However, the real long-term solution for Mexico is a housecleaning, an expulsion of the corruption that has made an oil-rich nation a desperate Third World blight. That solution will eventually be found by growing the Mexican middle class and returning power, both economic and political, to their hands. Neither candidate or party really stands for that cause. Calderon initially started campaigning on a more conservative background, promising to lower taxes and cut government spending -- and therefore government corruption and abuses of power. Mexicans reacted poorly to his clear-eyed conservatism, so he jettisoned it and promised an expansion of the welfare state, which resulted in his new polling boost.

That does not bode well for external solutions to the immigration problem at the border. Both candidates oppose the American initiative to build a wall on the border, but both candidates offer policies that make it more necessary than ever. If they do not want a wall built, then they should tend to their own house. We note with amusement that we're not trying to keep Americans from fleeing into Mexico by the hundreds of thousands each year, and until Mexico fields a candidate who wants to take responsibility for the desperate straits of their own people, they had better get used to an armed and secure border.

Veterans Victimized By Bureaucrats

After risking their lives and health to defend their nation, one would expect that the Department of Veterans Affairs would take care of the records of our fighting men and women. However, one would have to acquire a Pollyanna-ish faith in bureaucracies to be shocked to learn that an analyst had the sensitive indentity information of over 26 million veterans in his home -- and that burglars inadvertently stole it:

The federal government is warning every living veteran discharged since 1975 to watch banking and credit card statements closely after sensitive personal data on all 26.5 million of them was stolen this month.

Monday, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson acknowledged the information was stolen from the home of a department analyst who wasn't authorized to remove it from the office.

Privacy experts say the theft is one of the largest breaches of identity security ever. The stolen data include Social Security numbers and birth dates. Information on some veterans' spouses was also compromised. ...

Nicholson said the analyst took the data home to work on a project. He offered few details because of the ongoing investigation. He didn't name the analyst, say where the employee lived or what form the data were in. The analyst has been put on leave.

The data also include information on veterans who filed claims before 1975, said Matthew Burns, a Veterans Affairs spokesman.

I'll need to alert the Admiral Emeritus, who served in Korea in 52-53 and who may have applied for benefits in, oh, the the last thirty years.

People complained about the NSA surveillance programs, especially the database of phone call records they use for datamining and determining potential terrorist patterns. At the time, I said that while I see the reason for the use of such data, that the collection and retention of the information should be understood as a sacrifice and watched carefully for potential abuses. One point I failed to mention was that the abuse might not come in the form of intentional malfeasance but simply bureaucratic idiocy.

This gives a great example of why we do not want sensitive personal information in the hands of civil servants. It's not necessaily any fear of Big Brother, it's the fear of Big Idiot Brother-In-Law.

This release carries the obvious potential risk for all of those whose credit might be exploited by thieves, but that's hardly the only risk. With the information gathered in this database, people can create new identities for other purposes than just a phony credit card. If terrorists wanted to make themselves American, all they would need is this information to build themselves a fairly bullet-proof identity, and they could even pass as American veterans. If they took care not to create a credit trail, they would be almost undetectable -- until it was too late.

If the government needs to create these kinds of databases, then they need to start treating them as classified data. That means the analyst who unilaterally decided to take the information home shouldn't just be placed on leave, but should have been fired immediately and perhaps even placed on trial for violating security protocols. Right now it looks like the only charges he could face are criminal stupidity, which would put half of the federal bureaucracy behind bars ... not necessarily a bad idea at that.

The Tory Revolution

Stephen Harper has led perhaps the quietest revolution in Anglosphere poliitics. In just four short months, he has vaulted the Conservative Party -- only a couple of years past a difficult merger with Reform -- into a movement that now threatens to swamp even the Bloc Quebecois in the fractious province of Quebec. A new Ipsos poll shows that the Tories now have enough voters to get a majority in Parliament if elections were held today:

According to a new Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of CanWest/Global, the current Conservative Party government is enjoying their highest levels of federal vote support in nearly 20 years, since Brian Mulroney’s majority in November of 1988.

Currently, 43% of federal voters support the Conservative Party (+5 points since a mid-March Ipsos Reid poll), giving them an impressive 18-point lead over their chief federal rival, the Liberal Party (25%, -3 points). The NDP (15%, -4 points) trail the Liberals, while the Green Party (5%, unchanged) remains much further back.

The poll holds bad news for all of the Conservative rivals. Liberals, who held power for the past thirteen years, now trail the Tories by almost twenty points nationally. Part of this may be the extended transition of Liberal leadership, but undoubtedly it has something to do with the exposure of their previous smear jobs on Harper as falsehoods. The Grits under Paul Martin continually painted Harper as an extremist with a "hidden agenda", but Harper has proven them liars with his straightforward, center-right governance.

Nowhere has this phenomenon shone through better than Ontario. The seat of power and a longtime Liberal stronghold, the Tories now lead by four points, just within the margin of error. The gain comes from the Liberals but more from Harper's parliamentary partner, the NDP, which has seen its support halved, losing eleven points to fall to 11%. Considering the usually leftward bent of the government bureaucracy in Ontario, this result should stun politicians in the province.

The Conservatives now lead in every demographic category, including young voters, as well as in every province but Quebec. However, even here the Tories show their strength. BQ had long enjoyed majority support within its home province, which caused worry about separatist intent. Now BQ only leads the Tories 38-33, demonstrating not just Tory momentum but a significant shift in support for the Canadian Union. Liberals, who usually picked up the few remaining non-BQ seats in the province, now have fallen behind the struggling NDP in fourth place.

Harper appears to be uniting Canada behind the Tories and setting a course for long-term center-right rule. The Liberals have only been saved so far by a lack of choices for the thinning ranks of Tory opponents in Canada. If these numbers continue to show this kind of strength, the Tories may want to hold elections soon to get a majority government in Parliament.

Israel Captures Their Top Enemy

The Israelis dealt Hamas a significant blow and perhaps a fatal loss of prestige when they captured the top commander of its terrorist wing this morning. Ibrahim Hamed surrendered without firing a shot when the IDF surprised him in a pre-dawn raid on his apartment building, forcing him to strip to his underwear and capitulate rather than get buring in the destruction of the building:

Ibrahim Hamed emerged from the building before dawn and troops told him over a loudspeaker to strip to his underwear, witnesses said. Hamed complied, was cuffed and taken to a nearby building. Army officials said Hamed was armed and alone at the time of his capture.

The army said Hamed, 41, masterminded attacks that killed 78 Israelis and wounded hundreds.

Hamed has been on Israel's wanted list since 1998, frequently evading capture. Hamed, a university graduate and influential leader, became the West Bank's commander of Izzedine al Qassam, the Hamas military wing, in December 2003.

Hamed apparently awoke to the sound of an IDF bulldozer knocking on his front door, literally. They destroyed the entry to the ground-floor shop below his apartment and told him in Arabic that if he did not surrender, they would bring the building down with him inside. Hamed meekly complied, but only after the Israelis made sure he had no suicide bombs on him by having him strip down to his underwear before venturing outside.

The IDF does that in order to secure themselves against attack, but in this case it carries a little more significance. After all, Hamas has sent teenagers and other zealots to their death by convincing them of the honor of suicide bombing attacks on unarmed civilians. Hamed himself masterminded such attacks on Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an outdoor cafe, and a pool hall, according to the AP. If suicide by terrorist bombing carries such a great honor, Hamed had the chance to go out with high honor indeed, attacking the hated IDF directly. Instead, he demonstrated the curious hypocrisy of terrorist leadership by taking a pass on killing himself and instead submitting ... to a bulldozer.

Hamed's surrender gives the terrorists both tactical and strategic problems. Obviously, any operations in which Hamed had any role will have to be considered blown. Any resources for which he has knowledge will have to be reassigned and moved, and that carries its own increased risk of detection, even if Hamed can keep his mouth shut longer than he can hold out against a bulldozer. But beyond that, Hamas will have difficulty in recruiting more pawns for its attacks. They will have a lot of explaining to do to its constituency, especially those families who have already given sons to the cause because they believed people like Hamed when they spoke of honor.

The Israelis won more than just a tactical or strategic victory today. They won a powerful propaganda victory as well, showing that Hamas not only is vulnerable on every level but also by robbing them of their veneer of bravery. In the end, when faced with guns rather than unarmed civilians, Hamas shows their true level of courage and honor.

Sharpton, The Voice Of Democratic Reason?

How sad is it when Al Sharpton has the moral high ground among Democratic politicians?

Alabama Democrats should get rid of a candidate who denies the Holocaust and another who has advocated killing illegal immigrants, activist Al Sharpton said Monday.

While state party officials say they are powerless to remove the pair from the ballot because the June 6 primary is so close, Sharpton said: "There's no room for these two men in our big tent."

Larry Darby, seeking the party's nomination for attorney general, denies the Holocaust occurred and recently spoke at a gathering of National Vanguard, which describes itself as a "pro-white" organization.

Harry Lyon, who wants to become the Democrats' gubernatorial candidate, has advocated killing illegal immigrants as a way to keep them out of Alabama.

Every party attracts its share of lunatics. It wasn't that long ago that Republicans had to disavow David Duke, and a decade before that California Democrats did the same with Tom Metzger. Rarely has one party managed to attract two of them in one primary campaign, however, and both of them rather virulent lunatics at that.

The Democrats find themselves in a tough spot. If either one wins the primary, they will likely have to endorse the GOP candidate in order to distance themselves from the damage. On the other hand, they appear reluctant to do much distancing so far, which is why Sharpton took them to task this evening. And when the man who exploited the Tawana Brawley hoax to launch his political career serves as the voice of reason in any group, one has to wonder just how lost they truly are.

Quick Links

After a long interview, here are a few links to other bloggers working late into the night:

Lorie Byrd has found a new home at Wizbang! She has her first welcome post up there now. I think they're both lucky to have each other, and Wizbang! looks more and more like the happening group blog these days ...

The Anchoress finds herself writing about politics again, despite her better judgment. She takes fingers to keyboard in defense of George Bush, reminding Republicans of a few things we may have forgotten ...

Michael Yon notes the sacrifice of time and energy by underrated actor Gary Sinise on behalf of veterans. Sinise has a rock band named after his Forrest Gump character, the Lt. Dan Band, and he has performed many hours for their entertainment and benefit. If you want to see why Gary Sinise might be one of the best actors you don't recognize, see his Of Mice and Men with John Malkovich ...

Newsbeat1 has lots of great links today -- just start at the top and scroll down ...

Politburo Diktat has the latest in money-grubbing flies ...

Blackfive outs a Ranger wannabe, or more accurately, a Ranger neverwas ...

Virginia blogger Jon Henke counts the ways he doesn't love his Attorney General, Bob McDonnell, and explains what Folk Marxism means ...

Ever wonder how to find a great restaurant in a new city? If the city has a National League baseball franchise, then you can follow the advice of Tommy Lasorda. Hey, laugh if you will, but Tommy knows two things -- food and baseball, but not necessarily in that order ...

CQ Interview: Bernard Goldberg

Bernard Goldberg has a new paperback edition of his book, The 100 110 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37), coming out tomorrow and available now through Amazon and through his own website. He has added ten new entries to his list, expanded his opening comments, and discussed some of the experiences he had last year when promoting the book the first time around.

CQ readers will remember that I interviewed Bernard last year on the first release. I just concluded a terrific interview with him this evening and will be posting a long article based on the interview. (Podcasting will not be possible due to some technical problems with the recording.) Stay tuned!

Bernard Golderg Interview

When we started out, I knew that Bernard would have some time constraints. He had very graciously allowed me to reschedule to the evening while still giving me the first interview of his promotional tour. I thanked him for that at the start of the interview, but he told me that he wanted to make sure that we could connect. "You were the first person I spoke to a year ago," he explained, "and the buzz it created is still appreciated to this day."

The new version adds ten more people to the list, as I noted above, and I asked Bernard if that meant that we were ten percent more screwed up than last year. "No," he replied with a laugh, "what it means is that I wanted to update the book, and I did it in two way. I wrote an extended introduction which told about some of the insane things that happened to me since the book came out ... and the second way I did it was to add the names of people who have done things since the book came out. I wanted to freshen up the book by writing about some of those people."

Bernie and I talked about the "insane things" that happened to him on his first promotional tour for the book last year. I asked him which experience was the most insane, and he answered as I suspected: his appearance on the Donny Deutsch show, The Big Idea. I covered that story in these posts last year, when an inside source tipped me to the brouhaha. It would be hard to imagine a more insane experience on a promotional tour than that. "There were five people yelling at me," he said, "all of whom had not read the book. I was the only one on the show who actually read the book." However, Bernard also says that most of his media experiences were positive and that he enjoyed promoting the book, for the most part.

So who made the addendum to the Top 100? You have to read the book, of course, but Bernard spoke about three of the new additions. The first person on his mind was Ramsey Clark, the defender of many tinpot dictators and torturers, with Saddam the latest in a long line of miscreant clients. Bernard acknowledges that every defendant deserves a defense, but he points out that Clark has a long pattern of defending America's enemies. "I'll grant you, Saddam Hussein deserves a lawyer," he told me. "Over the last twenty years -- let me just go over a quick list [of Clark clients]."

1980 - "While Americans were being held hostage in Iran, Ramsey Clark flew over to Teheran and attended what they called a Crimes of America Conference."

1984 - "He defended a Nazi concentration camp boss. They were trying to deport this guy, and Clark defended him.

1986 - "After the United States bombed the terrorist training facilities in Libya, Ramsey Clark got on an airplane to Tripoli to console Gaddafi."

1986 again - "When a civil suit was filed against the PLO for the Achille Lauro hijacking ... where the PLO killed Leon Klinghoffer and threw him over the side because he was Jewish ... Ramsey Clark took the case for the PLO."

That isn't all. Clark also represented the defendants of the first World Trade Center attack when they came to trial in 1995. He also represented Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague in his war-crimes tribunal. His last client before Saddam was a Rwandan pastor who assisted in the genocide that took place under the nose of the UN. "This guy is a terrorist ambulance chaser," Bernard says. "You have to really hate America to take on the clients he has taken on." He says that taking any one case would be understandable, but that this pattern shows a deeper antipathy towards America.

Speaking of antipathy, the second entry on his new batch highlights the Graede twins, Lamb and Lynx. If the names do not sound familiar to you, you may know them as Prussian Blue, the neo-Nazi teenage singing sensations. ABC News called them "the Olson twins of the white nationalist movement", a description echoed by Bernard. "They're impossibly cute, and they remind you of the Olson twins. The Gaede twins are the neo-Nazi version. ... They sing at fun events like Holocaust denial events, white-supremacist meetings, and they sing songs honoring people like Rudolf Hess." Saying that "it's almost like a Mel Brooks movie," Bernard described how they give little sieg Heil! signs during their performances, which get mirrored back by the men in the audience. "You can make a case that the real villains are not the Gaede twins -- after all, these are just pathetic little girls -- but the stage mother, April, who really is the white-supremacist grown-up in the family." Their inclusion will hopefully revulse enough Americans to put an end to their career, but it's probably wishful thinking at best.

The third entry revealed by Bernard are the five justices who voted to uphold the Kelo decision. He makes the distinction that the five contribute positively to America as individuals, but in this case they did real damage to the most basic of our freedoms: property rights. Souter, Breyer, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Kennedy took the Constitution and turned it on its head by making the government the arbiter of the value of the private use of property. "I can't believe Jefferson meant that," he exclaimed, "I can't believe that for a second."

At the end of the book in its first release, Bernard asked readers to send him suggestions for others who might qualify for the list I asked him if he took his additions from reader input. Not directly, he replied. "The people on the list got mentioned by readers," he says, "but I didn't count the entries to make my decision." The additional entries came from his own judgment of them, but he did enjoy the input. I asked him if he would make this an annual event, but he seems inclined to let this be the last word. He has given his agent permission to take violent action if Bernard even suggests that he might write another book on the culture wars.

I asked Bernard about the heavy tilt towards liberals on his list, and he acknowledges that. However, he points out that liberals control most of the cultural communications, and that most of the intolerance and rage comes from the Left. (If you doubt that, watch the Donny Deutsch show again.) Bernard points out that he used to identify as a liberal until recently and still considers himself more of a libertarian than anything else. He feels that liberal anger from the election of 2000 drives most of the irrationality coming from liberals, and that the only cure might be losing more elections. He reminded me that conservative Democrats used to exist, and used Joe Lieberman as an example of why they have become such an endangered species. Bernard also thinks that Hillary Clinton is smart enough to avoid the problem in 2008.

We also spoke of his experiences at HBO and CBS. Bernard has reported for HBO for seven years on Real Sports, and the first season he worked for both companies. I asked him if he felt more able to do the kind of reporting that he prefers at HBO. Bernard recast the question in terms of the cultural differences. At HBO, he says, colleagues root for each other to succeed in their ventures inside and outside of the network. At the Tiffany Network, it's very different: "At CBS News, correspondents rooted for other correspondents -- to get hit by a truck. ... The atmosphere at CBS News was pathological. Only after I left, Ed, did I realize how liberating that decision was."

He plans to continue at Real Sports for the foreseeable future, good news for fans of the show and of Bernard's reporting. He has won six Emmys for his work at CBS News and one at Real Sports, but also added a Columbia-du Pont award last year for a story in which he takes particular pride. He revealed the abuse of young boys in the United Arab Emirates by forcing them to become camel jockeys -- and earned the first du Pont award for a sports journalist.

The paperback comes out tomorrow morning. Be sure to add it to your reading list. My review of the original release can be found here.

UPDATE: Thanks, Glenn, for the link and for pointing out the formatting problems!

Kurtz: The Truth Is Out

After announcing that Karl Rove had been indicted, Jason Leopold at TruthOut has insisted that the story is true even after a week has passed since he claimed the indictment would be announced. As the details of Leopold's story fail to connect, Leopold has increasingly relied on a blame-Fitzgerald approach, stating that the prosecutor has no obligation to publicize the indictment -- although no one can figure out any benefit for keeping it secret. Howard Kurtz takes a look at Leopold's credibility and finds more reasons to dismiss his predictions:

The claim that President Bush's top political strategist had been indicted in the CIA leak investigation was written by a journalist who has battled drug addiction and mental illness and been convicted of grand larceny. That didn't stop more than 35 reporters -- from all the major newspapers, networks and newsmagazines -- from calling Luskin or Rove's spokesman, Mark Corallo, to check it out.

The reports appeared on the liberal Web site Truthout.org, run by Marc Ash, a former advertising man and fashion photographer in California. Jason Leopold, the author of the stories, directed inquiries to Ash, who says that "we stand by the story. We have multiple points of independent confirmation of what we originally reported. Our problem is, the prosecutor's office is under no obligation to go public."

Leopold acknowledges in a new book, "News Junkie," that he is a past liar, convicted felon and former alcoholic and cocaine addict. An earlier version of the book was canceled by publisher Rowman & Littlefield last year.

Salon retracted a 2002 piece by Leopold involving Thomas White, then secretary of the Army. The online magazine apologized, saying it had been unable to confirm the authenticity of an e-mail that Leopold attributed to White. Leopold, a onetime reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones, accused the online magazine of being "wimpy" and caving to pressure.

Leopold could still be telling the truth, in that sources may have told him everything that he has claimed. However, as it appears at the moment, someone lied, and the one person with that kind of track record is Leopold. Kurtz makes a pretty good case that Leopold is not only untrustworthy but not particularly stable, either.

Thanks to Leopold and less particular mainstream reporters, Rove's lawyer has busied himself with issuing sharp denials for the past week. Luskin has told reporters over and over that no meeting between his team and Fitzgerald's ever took place, and that even the reporters have begun to be embarrassed by their calls on this subject. Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo believes that Leopold has attempted to impersonate reporters in order to get a statement, specifically Joe Lauria of the Sunday Times. The Daily Kos has already outed Leopold for some sock-puppetry, and it doesn't take much imagination to think that Leopold would not have shied from misrepresenting himself.

The problem for Leopold and the rest of the fringe Left is their obsession with Fitzmas. It hasn't delivered, turning from a political Santa Claus to a Great Pumpkin right before their eyes. Instead of waiting for the Fitzgerald inquiry to end, Leopold apparently either felt compelled to make stuff up or fell prey to those that did. This should serve as a cautionary tale for partisans who feel that their cause is worth more than their own credibility. Once that decision is made, neither cause nor credibility can ever be easily retrieved.

Conservative Angst A Product Of Unrealistic Expectations?

The Washington Post ran a column yesterday by Richard Vigurie titled "Bush's Base Betrayal" that listed the bill of particulars of conservative outrage. Vigurie appears to have left nothing off the list in his attempt to nail his theses to the virtual Witenburg Castle Church as he advances the argument for a philosophical split within the GOP. Unfortunately, Vigurie lets conservatives off the hook with a bit of revisionist history:

Republicans were desperate to retake the White House, conservatives were desperate to get the Clinton liberals out and there was no direct heir to Reagan running for president. So most conservatives supported Bush as the strongest candidate -- some enthusiastically and some, like me, reluctantly. After the disastrous presidency of his father, our support for the son was a triumph of hope over experience.

Once he took office, conservatives were willing to grant this Bush a honeymoon. We were happy when he proposed tax cuts (small, but tax cuts nonetheless) and when he pushed for a missile defense system. Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and conservatives came to see support for the president as an act of patriotism.

Conservatives tolerated the No Child Left Behind Act, an extensive intrusion into state and local education, and the budget-busting Medicare prescription drug benefit. They tolerated the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. They tolerated Bush's failure to veto a single bill, and his refusal to enforce immigration laws. They even tolerated his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul, even though Bush's opposition to that measure was a key reason they backed him over Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in the 2000 primaries.

In 2004, Republican leaders pleaded with conservatives -- particularly religious conservatives -- to register people to vote and help them turn out on Election Day. Those efforts strengthened Republicans in Congress and probably saved the Bush presidency. We were told: Just wait till the second term. Then, the president, freed of concern over reelection and backed by a Republican Congress, would take off the gloves and fight for the conservative agenda. Just wait.

We're still waiting.

If conservatives really want to understand where we are, we need a much better understanding of how we got here. Later in his piece, Vigurie compares the relationship between the GOP and conservatives as that of an unfaithful husband and a wronged wife, a not-so-subtle reference to getting screwed that permeates the entire piece. However, if the above really represents conservative thought, then a better comparison would be found in Al Green's soul classic "The Snake", in which a woman dies from being bit by the snake she helped rescue regardless of the obvious risks.

First off, let's get rid of the notion that we ever thought George Bush was a conservative on anything but right-to-life and tax issues. The reason Dick Cheney is the vice president is because Bush needed a staunch conservative on the ticket in order to get the conservatives to come out and vote, a fact that many seem to have forgotten. This wasn't a "triumph of hope over experience," it was the political calculation that we needed a moderate-sounding candidate to beat the sitting vice-president of a popular president. George Bush ran for office on the promise of increased spending on education and a Medicare prescription plan; weren't conservatives paying attention?

We can also jettison the statement that conservatives supported Bush after 9/11 out of a sense of patriotism. A significant number of conservatives wanted a change in foreign policy from the Kissinger/Scowcroft "realist" school that prized stability over democracy. Stability brought nothing but the radicalism that comes from oppression, a radicalism that our so-called friends in the Middle East turned against us rather than their own kleptocracies. Paleocons like William F. Buckley preferred realism, but the increasing terrorist attacks on American assets provoked conservatives to demand the Wilsonian foreign-policy vision that Bush gave us. Many of us still support it as the only long-term solution to Islamofascism.

In truth, George Bush has hardly moved at all. He has always prided himself on his more center-right approach. If conservatives ever thought of Bush as one of their own, they fooled themselves on the basis of his tax cuts and his promise to appoint conservative judges. With the exception of the Harriet Miers mistake, he has come through on those promises. Otherwise, he's been the big-government moderate he's always been.

Vigurie stands on more solid ground when he castigates Congress. Our elected representatives have made a mockery of the Contract with America that delivered the House to the GOP twelve years ago. They have pursued pork as though they somehow had been called to the Last Cosmic Luau. The Senate in particular has shown a reluctance to engage in fiscal sanity while at the same time refusing to unify behind the judicial appointees of Bush. The blame for the greatest increase in spending belongs to them as well as a president who refuses to veto the appropriations.

We all know the indictments. The question is what to do about them.

Vigurie argues that the conservatives should balk at the harness in 2006, and apparently also in 2008:

But unhappy conservatives should be taken seriously. When conservatives are unhappy, bad things happen to the Republican Party.

In 1948, conservatives were unhappy with Thomas E. Dewey's liberal Republican "me too" campaign, and enough of them stayed home to give the election to Harry S. Truman. In 1960, conservatives were unhappy with Richard M. Nixon's negotiations with Nelson A. Rockefeller to divide the spoils of victory before victory was even achieved, and John F. Kennedy won.

In 1974, conservatives were unhappy with the corruption and Big Government policies of Nixon's White House and with President Gerald R. Ford's selection of Rockefeller as his vice president, and this led to major Republican losses in the congressional races that year. By 1976, conservatives were fed up with Ford's adoption of Rockefeller's agenda, and Jimmy Carter was elected with the backing of Christian conservatives.

In 1992, conservatives were so unhappy with President George H.W. Bush's open disdain for them that they staged an open rebellion, first with the candidacy of Patrick J. Buchanan and then with Ross Perot. The result was an incumbent president receiving a paltry 37 percent of the vote. In 1998, conservatives were demoralized by congressional Republicans' wild spending and their backing away from conservative ideas. The result was an unexpected loss of seats in the House and the resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

Well, let's recap what happened with those elections. After 1948, we got caught with our pants down in the Korean Peninsula, forcing us into a brutal war of attrition against the North Koreans and then the Chinese. After 1960, the US botched a counterrevolution against Fidel Castro and got us stuck in Viet Nam after an ill-advised coup. In 1976, conservative ennui put Jimmy Carter in the White House and gave us four years of economic misery and allowed the Islamists to gain a toehold in Iran -- and presented the world with an example of American impotence that directly led to 9/11. In 1992, after we made our point in the Gulf (albeit incompletely), we failed to respond to a series of provocations that again directly led to 9/11. (In 1974, in case Vigurie doesn't remember, the conservatives could have run George Washington in every Congressional race and we still would have lost 40 seats. It's the natural reaction when the party leader disgraces his office and resigns the Presidency.)

When conservatives stay home, bad things happen to the country, not just the GOP. Do we really want to have another Jimmy Carter style presidency in order to gain some perspective?

And let's not forget that only one of those examples resulted in a movement conservative taking the White House. Eisenhower governed as a moderate, spending freely on infrastructure and warning about the military-industrial complex. Nixon may have been the most liberal Republican president ever, inmposing wage and price controls and establishing the confiscatory EPA and the Endangered Species Act. Bush has been Bush, after all. Only Reagan managed to get himself elected after a conservative withdrawal, and that was due to the utter incompetence of the Carter administration. Why? Because conservatives abstained, and the GOP wouldn't trust them with power after their acts of petulance.

The history of our strikes should demonstrate the necessity of our continued engagement. We need to take one piece of advice from Vigurie: stop donating to party-leadership committees. No money to the RNC, the Republican Senatorial or Congressional Campaign Commitees, until that leadership proves its responsiveness to conservatives. We need to redirect those funds to conservative candidates instead, loosening the power that current leadership has on our representatives. If they do not fear the cutoff of electoral funding, they will be less inclined to follow in lockstep behind the spendthrifts. It's this activism that will enable conservatives to take control of the GOP, instead of abandoning it to the people who spend like drunken sailors.

Others blogging on this topic:

Israel And Fatah Meet In Egypt

Mahmoud Abbas met yesterday with Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni in Egypt to find some manner in which to restart peace talks as the Palestinian protostate came closer to civil war. Abbas also announced that he would begin talks with Hamas to calm the tensions in Gaza after the ruling party attempted two assassinations on government officials from Fatah:

MAHMOUD ABBAS, the Palestinian President, met Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, yesterday in the first high-level contact between the two sides since Hamas, the Islamist group, won the Palestinian elections in January.

The meeting, in Egypt, came amid increased tensions in Gaza, where assassination attempts on two Palestinian security officials prompted Mr Abbas to warn against civil war between his secular Fatah and its Islamist rival. ...

Mr Abbas said that he would begin talks with Hamas this week. “We have to look for a solution,” he said, warning that civil war was “a red line that nobody dares cross, no matter which side they are on”.

After their 45-minute meeting at the World Economic Forum in Sharm el-Sheikh, Ms Livni maintained Israel’s stance that the new Hamas Government must not be given international recognition. But she confirmed that her Government would use $11 million (£6 million) of Palestinian taxes to send medical supplies into the Palestinian Territories. The money is part of $220 million collected by Israel for the Palestinian Authority, but withheld since Hamas’s victory.

Abbas needs to find a way out of the death spiral that the election of Hamas started in the territories. As everyone expected, the terrorist group has used its popularity as a mandate for an armed revolution against the secular, corrupt Fatah establishment as well as to repudiate all agreements made between the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and the West. The resultant embargo by the PA's partners has destabilized an already-crumbling society, providing even more momentum to the terrorists on both sides.

This is what happens when people elect terrorists to office, and when they produce no choice other than terrorists or crooks.

Abbas knows that Hamas has better organization, popularity, and international support than Fatah, and so the only path he has left is to conclude some agreement with Israel that will reinvigorate Fatah and discredit Hamas. He mostly needs time to keep the Islamists from overrunning his power base within the PA. Hamas has shown little patience for democratic negotiations, and the members of his own faction have begun to respond in kind. The only way out of the cycle is to achieve some grand victory that will kneecap the Hamas movement and reopen trade with the outside world.

Israel has agreed to extend some charity in the form of medical supplies rather than cash from their Oslo-agreed tax receipts. Israel continues to hold those receipts rather than distribute them, the result of the Hamas rejection of the Oslo accords. The West has apparently convinced Israel that bypassing the government altogether -- including the Fatah faction -- and delivering aid directly to Palestinian citizens will keep them from radicalizing and joining in a civil war between political factions. Perhaps. However, that ignores one inconvenient fact: the same Palestinian citizens voted for the terrorists to take charge. It's unlikely that penicillin and blood transfusions will cure that disease.

Abbas had better produce something of substance from these meetings. It looks like Fatah's days are numbered in Gaza especially unless he can deliver them from their misery in a real and lasting manner. That means the Israelis finally have some leverage on Abbas, and that means a deal could possibly take shape. Whether a settlement between the two sides will be enough to sideline Hamas politically and discredit further terrorism remains to be seen.

'I Am Above All'

The trial of Saddam Hussein resumed this morning, with fireworks launched from the start. The presiding judge had a defense attorney bodily thrown out of the courtroom after readmitting her moments before, and Saddam earned himself a sharp rebuke after proclaiming the court beneath him:

The squabble began when chief judge informed defense lawyer Bushra Khalil that she would be allowed to return to the court after being removed from a session in April for arguing with the judge. But when she tried to make a statement, he quickly cut her off, saying, "Sit down."

"I just want to say one word," she said, but Abdel-Rahman yelled at guards to take her away. Khalil pulled off her judicial robe and threw it on the floor in anger, then tried to push the guards who were grabbing her hands, shouting, "Get away from me."

As she was pulled out of the court, Saddam objected from the defendants' pen, and Abdel-Rahman told him to be silent.

"I'm Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq. I am above all," Saddam shouted back.

"You are a defendant now, not a president," the judge barked.

This is the reason that defense attorneys do not like having their clients testify in court; one never knows what they will say. In this case, Saddam's statement revealed his attitude about himself and his relation to Iraqis since the first day of his rule. No one ever doubted that Saddam considered himself "above all", and no one doubted that Saddam did everything he could to make that statement true. Mass graves and uncountable victims of torture and rape attest to that fact.

The testimony continued to prove that after the courtroom disruptions ceased. The defense started its presentation with Murshid Mohammed Jassim, an employee of the Revolutionary Court. Jassim testified that the judge in the Dujail case, now defendant Awad al-Bandar, was a fair and just man. However, Jassim did not work for the court in 1984 when the 148 Dujail residents -- including children -- all received death sentences in reprisal for the assassination attempt on Saddam. He also did not explain that Saddam's prosecutors managed to get 148 confessions before trial, and that the trial of 148 people only lasted 16 days.

Western observers might wonder how one court could convict nine people a day for 16 days. Saddam has helpfully explained it to us: Saddam was "above all", and his diktat was the law during his brutal reign. It may be the most honest testimony Saddam will ever give.

Caught Red-Handed (Update: Jefferson's National Guard Story Connected?)

Video killed the radio star, the song tells us, and it holds its dangers for politicians on the take as well. The AP reports that the FBI has video of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) taking bribes, the latest in a series of setbacks to Democratic attempts to paint corruption as a one-party problem:

A congressman under investigation for bribery was caught on videotape accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with the lawmaker also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday. Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.

At one audiotaped meeting, Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa.

As Jefferson and the informant passed notes about what percentage the lawmaker's family might receive, the congressman "began laughing and said, 'All these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're talking, as if the FBI is watching,'" according to the affidavit. ...

As for the $100,000, the government says Jefferson got the money in a leather briefcase last July 30 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington. The plan was for the lawmaker to use the cash to bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official — the name is blacked out in the court document — to ensure the success of a business deal in that country, the affidavit said.

All but $10,000 was recovered on Aug. 3 when the FBI searched Jefferson's home in Washington. The money was stuffed in his freezer, wrapped in $10,000 packs and concealed in food containers and aluminum foil.

I've heard of cold, hard cash before, but I didn't think that politicians took that literally.

Jefferson has not yet been charged with any wrongdoing, but the FBI's investigation of Jefferson has been widely known for weeks. The FBI searched the Capitol Hill offices of both Jefferson and Robert Ney (R-OH) this weekend in relation to parallel probes, and the affadavit that accompanied the Jefferson search revealed much about the government's case. None of it looks good for Jefferson, especially the part where he takes a suitcase full of cash out of an informant's car and loads it into his own, himself.

Jefferson may not yet be charged, but if the AP report is correct and the feds found that cash inside his freezer, charges won't be long in coming.

UPDATE: CQ reader Douglas S notes that another Jefferson story might have some bearing on this search:

Sept. 13, 2005 — Amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, a congressman used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings — even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops, ABC News has learned.

On Sept. 2 — five days after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast — Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who represents New Orleans and is a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was allowed through the military blockades set up around the city to reach the Superdome, where thousands of evacuees had been taken. ...

The water reached to the third step of Jefferson's house, a military source familiar with the incident told ABC News, and the vehicle pulled up onto Jefferson's front lawn so he wouldn't have to walk in the water. Jefferson went into the house alone, the source says, while the soldiers waited on the porch for about an hour.

Finally, according to the source, Jefferson emerged with a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator, which the enlisted men loaded up into the truck.

I noted this story when it first appeared. At the time, most people considered this an example of petty corruption and tremendous arrogance. It does not surprise in the least that one who indulges in petty corruption also engages in it on a much more ambitious scale. It certainly seems tempting to believe that either the suitcases or the mysterious mini-fridge-sized box might have something to do with the bribery.

Did Jefferson hijack the relief effort to get his cash out of the flood? Perhaps Jefferson might one day tell us.

Able Danger Documents Discovered?

The Able Danger blog has news from a FOIA request filed by Scott Malone of NavySeals.com and Christopher Law of PublicEdCenter.org that has produced an interesting response from the Pentagon. When they demanded the release of all information regarding the Able Danger project, the DoD rejected the request after a bit of bureaucratic misdirection. However, they acknowledged the existence of over 9500 pages of documentation -- apparently the same paperwork that they told Congress no longer existed:

In two possibly related developments in the past week, the Pentagon denied access to almost 10,000 pages of classified documents relating to a top-secret intelligence program senior officials have three times previously testified were destroyed or unable to be located. And the attorneys for the secret team members who disclosed the existence of the data-mining counter-terrorism program, called ABLE DANGER, have argued in a new court filing that they be “cleared” to review such files.

The Defense Department’s Inspector General’s office (DoD-OIG) and the joint Special Operations Command (SOCOM) have amassed some 9,500 pages of documents on a program that senior DoD and 9/11 Commission officials have stated repeatedly were destroyed or can no longer be located.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, “The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, has determined that approximately 9,500 pages of these collected documents are potentially responsive to your FOIA request.”

That news should stun those who have been following the Able Danger story for the past year. The official story has had all documentation being destroyed in a particularly aggressive form of housekeeping that took place after Col. Tony Shaffer revealed the existence of the program to the 9/11 Commission. The missing documentation proves, according to Shaffer, that the intelligence community identified Mohammed Atta and the other members of the core 9/11 cell prior to the attacks as potential al-Qaeda agents.

The assertion that 9500 pages of evidence still exists at the Pentagon will no doubt surprise members of Congress that received little from their investigations into the program. Hopefully this will pique their curiosity once more. Be sure to read all of the links at the Able Danger blog.

Saudis Renege On Reform

After 9/11, the Saudis publicly acknowledged that their education system promoted radicalism in Islam and indoctrinated hatred among their children from the earliest days of their schooling. The Saudis promised to reform their system, spending millions of dollars on expensive advertising campaigns in the US to paint themselves as friends to America and the West and promoting an image of reform and moderation. President Bush held hands (in the Arabic tradition) with a Saudi prince in order to help promote that image of friendship.

Did they actually reform that system? According to the Washington Post, nothing changed in the slightest:

A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, has worked aggressively to spread this message. "The kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education," he said on a recent speaking tour to several U.S. cities. "Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan." The Saudi government even took out a full-page ad in the New Republic last December to tout its success at "having modernized our school curricula to better prepare our children for the challenges of tomorrow." A year ago, an embassy spokesman declared: "We have reviewed our educational curriculums. We have removed materials that are inciteful or intolerant towards people of other faiths." The embassy is also distributing a 74-page review on curriculum reform to show that the textbooks have been moderated.

The problem is: These claims are not true.

A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels").

Instead of reviewing the texts of translations provided by the Saudi government, the Post and Freedom House received books smuggled out of the actual schools by Shi'ite, Sunni, and discontented Wahhabis. The books came through the Institute for Gulf Affairs, a think tank focusing on democratization in the Middle East. It demonstrates that the Saudis still plan on using obfuscation and misdirection in order to avoid responsibility for creating and maintaining the Islamist hatred that has inflamed the region and killed thousands of people around the world.

How else can one explain these passages from their educational curriculum?

The Saudis intend on teaching hatred, bigotry, and religious intolerance to its children. With this kind of indoctrination in its schools -- as well as in its academies in other nations, including the US -- it is no wonder that so many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis and that Saudis continue to take part in Islamist efforts around the world. The House of Saud has long been split between pro-Western and anti-Western factions, but these textbooks reveal that the anti-Western faction appears ascendant where it counts.

If the Saudis do not cease their brainwashing of children in an effort to transform them into bigots and worse, the US and other Western nations should take steps to close their academies within our borders. They can raise their children to commit suicide and murder, but we should bar them from doing the same to our own children. When they quit teaching the next generation to hate us, then we may consider them our friends, but it's impossible to embrace them while they corrupt their children against us.

Germans Try Taxing Their Way To Prosperity

Faced with spiraling deficits and a moribund economy, Germany has once again decided that the government provides the answer to financial stress. The Bundestag passed the largest tax increase in post-war history and targeted the tax on retail transactions:

Parliament passed Germany's largest postwar tax hike on Friday. The country's value-added tax (VAT) will rise from 16 to 19 percent in January to help cut the deficit. But there are worries it will hit the already weak growth of the world's third largest economy.

Hoping to control a spiralling budget deficit, Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, on Friday passed the biggest tax increase in the country's postwar history. The new package calls for a 3 percentage point jump in the value added tax -- from 16 to 19 percent. Proponents want to raise about $25.5 billion more per year starting in 2007, but critics say the hike will dampen the nation's sluggish economy, which has begun a moderate recovery in 2006.

Germany faces pressure from its European partners to meet EU targets that the Germans have violated for the past four years. They need to bring their deficit under control in order to do this. Rather than wait for their modest recovery to increase tax revenues, or lower taxes on investment mechanisms, the Merkel government has decided to pull more money than ever out of the economy.

Taxes are nothing more than government confiscation. Governments require revenue in order to deliver the services desired by their citizens, but the withdrawal of funds from a market gives the market less resources to expand. Germans require a large number of expensive services, an entitlement scheme that puts more and more pressure on their economy as time goes on and fewer Germans contribute to it. The smarter move would be to encourage more investment in their economy rather than taking those funds out of it. Using the VAT as a mechanism for this effort gives a double penalty to the economy; it penalizes consumption, forcing people to keep their money out of the market and encouraging them to put money into static savings instead.

The Germans will likely regret their short-term solution to their long-term problem. The additional taxes will almost certainly grind their recovery slowly to a halt, and the Merkel government will once more be forced to find more revenue to make up the shortfall. Germans, thus far, show little willingness to consider a decrease in spending as the most obvious deficit remedy.

It's Nagin In New Orleans

Ray Nagin managed to win re-election as mayor of New Orleans despite his record of incompetent decisions in the immediate run-up and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina after one of the most polite campaigns the city has ever seen. Nagin, who described himself as "humbled" often in his campaigning, will lead the city in its rebuilding efforts after the worst American natural disaster in decades:

C. Ray Nagin, the unpredictable mayor who charted a sometimes erratic course for his city through Hurricane Katrina and after, won a narrow re-election victory here Saturday.

Mr. Nagin, who will now lead the city through four crucial rebuilding years, fended off a strong challenge from Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, the scion of one of Louisiana's leading political families, in a vote that see-sawed all night. With all of the city's 442 precincts reporting, Mr. Nagin had 52 percent of the vote, while Mr. Landrieu received 48 percent.

Mr. Nagin, an African-American, won about 21 percent of the votes of whites, as well as over 80 percent of the black vote, according to a local elections analyst and political consultant, Greg Rigamer. Mr. Landrieu appeared to have lost black votes that he picked up in last month's primary, Mr. Rigamer said in an interview.

The election proved a fascinating look at a city still trying to decide who it is and what it wants. In his first election, Nagin had been considered the more moderate candidate, a businessman who would bring reform and a friendly face to enterprise in the corrupt Big Easy. Landrieu came from a political family with a long history in Louisiana, representing the political insiders that have always run New Orleans and the state as a whole.

In the end, New Orleans chose reform in Nagin rather than history. Before Katrina, Nagin had made headway in reforming the city's government and enticing business, but not enough to counter the angry and incompetent image he hung on himself during and after Katrina. His failure to follow his own emergency plan contributed to the human disaster of his city, an act of incompetence that would have forced almost anyone else in almost any other city back into the private sector.

Oddly enough, it seems that Big Easy residents came to view Nagin somewhat like most people saw Rudy Giuliani after 9/11, warts and all. They knew that he had screwed up, but they saw him on television fighting for the city. He didn't shy away from the White House and FEMA, trying to get the best possible deal for his town, alternately ferocious and accommodating as the need arose. Even his campaign screw-ups endeared him to the voters. The pledge to make New Orleans a "chocolate city" produced slack jaws everywhere but among the city's voters, and he even referred to his more outrageous statements when he proclaimed himself a humble man in front of his supporters, who stuck with him despite his mouth.

Fittingly for a community searching for its identity and unity, the campaign lacked the normal vitriol of elections these days. While both candidates criticized each other's policies and track record, neither made it personal, and both emphasized the finer qualities of their opponents. The tone was somewhat reminiscent of national politics in the first weeks after 9/11 that disappeared forever after the invasion of Afghanistan. In some ways, it should set an example for general elections everywhere. Nagin capped it off by thanking George Bush in his acceptance speech for all of the assistance he has given New Orleans after noting that the two of them have become "the most vilified politicians in the country".

Nagin has his second chance. Hopefully he will make the best of it and use his skills at reform and enterprise to make New Orleans ascendant and more hurricane-resistant than ever before. Voters will certainly not forgive another bout of incompetence.