Liberty Files

A Tale of Two Foleys

2006-10-05T11:21:00.000-05:00

Mark Foley is not the first Foley to create problems in the House of Representatives at a time when a shift in party power seemed to be looming.

Tom Foley (D-WA) was the House Speaker in 1994, and was amid a series of very relevant controversies which Republicans used very effectively to communicate that there existed a system in Congress where abuse of power was the norm and where the needs of the American people came second to the individual member's desire for privilege.

Specifically, Foley fought term limits. And when the State of Washington passed a law limiting terms, Foley sued to overturn it in what became an very useful development for Republicans and a PR disaster for him and a symbol of all that the Republicans were saying was wrong: "Tom Foley v. The People of the State of Washington".

Coupling that with the check-bouncing scandal, the disaster of the House Bank, a Congress that seemed filled with out of touch self-servants, dissatisfaction with the Clinton Administration, a Republican minority that publicly offered a very appealing plan to Americans, and any number of local factors, Both Foley and the Democrats were tossed.

Twelve years later, we see something not all that different. A President who allowed himself, through years of ineffective PR management to fall prey to what would have been feckless attacks against a much better organized communications team, rendering him a liability to his party, a Republican Congress no less disciplined than its Democrat predecessor of a dozen years before which has gladly allowed spending and government to continue to grow, a Congress that appears too cozy with lobbyists, including one who was paying off some of its members, a House Speaker with a hands-off management style, and now, another Foley who has touched on a very relevant issue of the day: pedophilia.

By itself, Foley's acts are his own, with the consequences being likewise. But along with the constellation of other difficulties the Republicans are dealing with this election cycle, this is one more unneeded complication. And rather than hitting the party, the Dems have gone after Speaker hastert, who is unquestionably the most high-profile weak link in this matter.

Part of the problem is that nobody but Hastert knows what the real story is. And the Hugh Hewitt take on the matter seems the most appropriate (focusing on the Dem's double standard in these matters, and the fact that this is several years old, with the IMs only surfacing on the eve of an election--the media's concern for the youths involved would be more believable if this had come out right away). But if Hastert's staff bungled the handling of this, it still creates problems for him, as the principal is liable for the failures of the subordinate.

And it's a big deal if it looks like Hastert ignored the acts of a pederast congressman, or at the very least gave an ineffective response. But regardless of what really happened, the Dems need to be careful here, because their behavior differes from that of their successors 12 years ago.

The Republicans of 1994 were much more effective than those today in their message, delivery, and sincerety. But the Democrats really haven't gained much in the way of credibility since then, and have very obviously been a very angry party out of power who seem to have a tin ear when it comes to the major issues of the day, and who have actually fought efforts to secure the nation from terrorism. And while it is a remarkably effective tactic to play Hastert as being careless in his duties, it is quite the opposite to go the usual hysterial route that they have been going, alleging intentional misbehavior, conspiracies and the like. It's the tactic of Nancy Pelosi, which is just as effective as having a "Twin Peaks" San Francisco Congresswoman at the top of the party's leadership.

And it's just like every other missed opportunity they have had over the past six years. They upped the populist rhetoric, accused Republicans of being conspirators of evil, and downplayed the threat of enemies in order to worship at the altar of political correctness, and generally gave Americans reasons to look to other candidates. They offer nothing other than "We're the least worst party." Not a winning strategy, but it may win them enough to secure a bare majority, and enough time to remind Americans why the Democrats of the 21st Century are a party best ignored on election day.

And perhaps the removal of a few Republicans might be a good thing. Because the 1994 revolution wasn't about party, but rather a movement. That movement died in 1998. And it may take a very cold two years to correct some unfortunate attitudes.

One Foley was part of the end of the Democrats. This Foley might be part of the end of the Republicans for a while. But we need not worry. A Congress of Republicans who now behave like the Democrats they ousted is likely one not worth keeping anyway.

No Apology Will Suffice for the Islamist World

2006-09-19T08:26:00.000-05:00

We all know by now that Pope Benedict XVI made a series of remarks, quoting a text from the Middle Ages which was critical of Islamo-Jihadism.

We also know that many Muslims took offense to those remarks. This BBC link has a series of the kind of responses that the Islamist world felt were appropriate. Protests are fine--responses in kind in a battle of ideas. But the church burnings and the threats to Christians, including the murder of a nun as retaliation are likely not what the "Religion of Peace" needs right now if it is to improve its image.

And after the Pope apologized for whatever misunderstanding his remarks may have created, the Middle Eastern Islamist population was not satisfied. They are demanding even more apology. Which is interesting given the fact that the Prime Minister of Malaysia, which chairs the Organization of the Islamic Conference found the apology from benedict acceptable. Notwithstanding that, the Prime Minister's acceptance of the apology was less than comforting. In part, he stated,

I think we can accept it and we hope there are no more statements that can anger
the Muslims

In other words, the problem is getting these people upset by disagreeing with them publicly. And while this is technically an acceptance of the Pope's apology (which in truth was an apology for their overreaction and inability to behave in a civilized manner, not for his choice of words), the Pope need not waste further effort apologizing to a people who have no intention of accepting anything short of a capituation and surrender. And to a significant degree, the Islamist reaction to the Pope's remarks more or less proved the point of the words he chose.

They responded to what they interpreted as an accusation of barbarism with...well, barbarism. And their demand for apology after apology indicates that Islamism is possessed of a peculiar arrogance. If you disagree with them, you will feel their wrath. You cannot offend even their least sensibility for fear of becoming their next target.

So what good will further apology do? It will simply reward the medievalist behavior and show that the West can indeed be intimidated by their anti-civilization agenda. And it's yet another example of the stakes in the global terror war.

Because Kristallnacht is happening all over again. And the signs don't just read "Juden" anymore. We ignore the implications and attempt to appease this enemy at our own peril.

Blogging Paradigm Shift

2006-08-18T12:59:00.000-05:00

Anyone who visits this blog more than once in a blue moon will note that my blogging frequency has dropped off in the past month. There are reasons for that that are personal to me, including a very busy month or two with work, family obligations--first things first, of course--but also what I would describe simply as a complete disconnect between what I was doing and what I had been wanting to do with the Blog.

I began this blog with a very serious mission: I wanted to call out leftism in America, because I believed then, and believe even more so now that it infringed upon the liberties of the free world in general and upon Americans in particular, while conferring no benefits of any kind on the people upon whom such policies are inflicted. Just ask anyone who lived in the Soviet Union. I also wanted to advance the conservative movement, as I believe that it is the key to personal prosperity and individual freedom.

I also believe in originality, and became very concerned that the blog was, in order to lend the appearance of activity, merely parrotting what was already floating around. There's nothing worse than not having the time to hew out original thoughts about the problems facing the world, and in that regard, I have begun to feel like today's Democrat leaders, but that is beside the point, of course!

But beyond anything else, I have dealt with a major dissatisfaction with the Israel/terror question, and I am most concerned that the good guys in this most important battle have been dealt significant setbacks in the past month, to the point that if I were a jihadist, I'd be quite jubilant. Nothing sets one back like a significant disappointment, and perhaps even a feeling of betrayal. In short, I have been quite depressed to the point of wanting to give up, for fear that nobody was listening, that the good fight that we are fighting is being set aside in favor of easy answers and momentary comfort, and that there was nothing to be done about it.

But giving up isn't really in my blood.

I'm a fighter. And to that end, I am proposing to deliver a better product to my readers. Posts will be less frequent, and fewer per week, but I hope to put up posts that are significantly more insightful and cutting. And I hope that you all continue to read.

Thanks for your patience with me, and your support is always.

As Goes Lieberman, So Go the Dems

2006-08-09T10:08:00.000-05:00

Joe Lieberman lost the Democratic primary last night to the Kos-netroots far left wing of the Democratic party by nominating the anti-security candidate Ned Lamont. And while they are celebrating the defeat of a candidate whom they believe was disloyal, for failure to reflexively oppose anything George Bush does, in killing their Senator from their ticket, the Dems may have done the same to themselves for a number of reasons.

First, when Lieberman wins in the general as an Independent, that's one less Senate seat for the Dems. And given that Lieberman's fellow Connecticut Senator, Chris Dodd is now pulling a turncoat operation and supporting Ned Lamont in the general election, Lieberman may very well spend his next six years as an independent without switching party affiliation. It's the loss of a seat that the Dems simply can't afford in a year when they need every single race to retake the Senate.

Second, it tells moderate Democrats like Lieberman, Evan Bayh (IN), Bill Nelson (FL), Ben Nelson (NE), Tim Johnson (SD), Max Baucus (MT), Mary Landrieu (LA), and perhaps even the up-and-coming Bob Casey (PA) and Harold Ford (TN) that they are not welcome in the party unless they goose-step with the rest of the Kos-acks. It will have the effect of electing more and more far left candidates from among the Dems.

Third, this will embolden other such cannibalistic efforts to bump off other office holders in primaries such as the persons mentioned in the above-paragraph if they tinker enough with the impossibly intolerant left by daring to think independently. The net will be, as above, the rise of a much more pink Democratic party with candidates who are more and more outside the American mainstream, reminding most voters why they have kept that party out of power for the better half of a decade.

Lastly, and probably much less likely is the demographic effect that this could have. American Jews are currently at a political crossroads. They tend to be socially liberal for the most part, but economically conservative, and for obvious reasons are pro-national security in general and pro-Israel in particular. And in many respects, the far left has abandoned those causes. The rising left tends to support Islamism over Israel, every tinpot dictator over the United States, and has a less and less restrained anti-Semitic streak running through it. In very many ways, the Dems have done their best to push away Jewish voters. The question is whether their abandonment of an observant, likeable and apparently very pious Jewish Senator will be the thing to either keep them home or switch them to a Republican party that is ardently pro-Israel, pro-security, and whose members are Jews, Christians and others alike.

The Dems did significantly more than they think by ousting Lieberman. The problem for them is that, even if one assumes that they did nothing to aid the Republicans in this effort, they almost certainly harmed themselves, all in an effort to purify their ranks in a display of political cleansing.

UPDATE

By way of my final point regarding anti-Semitism and the Democrats, I missed this little tidbit: Lamont is campaigning today with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and both were on his victory stage last night. Everyone will remember Jesse Jackson's "Hymietown" remarks of the 1980s, and Sharpton's "Jew bloodsucker" remarks and the fact that he presided over the destruction of a Jewish business in New York where employees inside were killed.

And while many may blow off the significance of this, I find it chilling and just a little odd that the Democrats missed the irony: A prominent Jewish Senator is slandered so that a far leftist can pick him off the ticket. Then, the winner parades around with two of the most prominent anti-Semites in American politics today in order to gain momentum for the general election.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the far left seems to be sending a pretty clear message about how welcome (or otherwise) Jews are in the party.

Bad News for Congress, but Does it Mean Anything?

2006-08-08T15:37:00.000-05:00

Ryan Sager at RealClearPolitics offers this rather ominous post, citing to WaPo poll that indicates that people's favorable feelings toward their own Member of Congress has fallen seven percentage points in three months to 55%--a significant drop.

And while Sager notes that that number doesn't translate into anything significant for the Democrats either, the biggest issue to me is whether it translates into getting people to the polls.

In 1994, Americans responded very favorably to the Contract With America. It was a positive offering to the nothing that the Democrats in power were offering, and it was a smashing success. Republicans were swept into office by voters who had the hope of specific things better. People had a reson to get excited. But general ennui and disregard does not necessarily translate into a vote for some other guy. More often than not, it translates into someone who chooses not to vote. Major things move people to vote, not what seems to be an alternativeless contest in the eyes of many voters.

Is less satisfaction enough to shift control of Congress? If you're a Democrat, it had better be.

Predictions: Incumbents Lose Today

2006-08-08T08:38:00.000-05:00

The two big races for today involve the but liberal but admirable Joe Lieberman and the execrable but hopelessly ineffective Cynthia McKinney.

Lieberman will lose his Democratic primary race to Kos-ack far leftist Ned Lamont. He will lose because he was not completely pure in his leftist ideology, because he had the audacity to take an independent view of the Iraq War. And if he loses, it's a good thing for conservatives and Lieberman and a disastrous thing for the Dems.

For conservatives, it will show that the Democrats are little more than a strictly orthodox, far left enclave led by the netroots crowd. Worse yet, it may alienate some Jewish voters. The Dems have not done much to welcome more moderate Jews, and in fact, have done their best to alienate them. The far left is significantly pro-Islamism and anti-American, which generally also means anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. So in all, this is a fairly shortsighted approach on the part of the left that will indeed energize the granola crowd, but which will push away swing voters. Lieberman will win as an independent in the general election, proving that he has enough political mojo that he doesn't need the party of Cynthia McKinney to give him legitimacy.

And speaking of the insane Congresswoman from Georgia, McKinney will repeat her primary disaster of 2002. Her constituents would rather have a respectable representative who brings positive attention to their Atlanta-area district rather than embarrassment. But her removal is unfortunate for a number of reasons.

McKinney was ardently defended by the Congressional Black Caucus after all of her obnoxious behavior, just as the CBC was doing the same for Rep. William Jefferson who is now under investigation in a bribery scandal. The lesson was that the CBC is little more than a good-old-boys network that defends its members regardless of what they have done, based solely upon those members' complexion and wingnut ideologies. It also showed that people like McKinney, who embrace Cindy Sheehan as an effort to get votes, who make fools of themselves on camera by filibustering when interviewed about allegations that she struck a police officer who was trying to protect her, and who was critical of a staffer while the microphone was on really do represent the party that the Democrats are trying to become in the 21st Century.

Lieberman Might Deny the Dems a Majority in the Senate

2006-08-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

This year the Dems have high hopes that they can win the Congress. And while their tide isn't particularly high, as they have offered no alternative to the Republicans, the Republicans aren't doing so well nationally either. The problem for the Dems is that House elections are not decided nationally, but rather locally, and people tend to have a fairly decent level of approval of their own Member of Congress, saving their disapproval for everyone else's. That's why Congressional turnover is so rare. But the Senate is much more susceptible to political sway, and this year could be a year of significant pickups for the Dems, but as with everything they try, they may have outsmarted themselves this time.

The Senate seat division is pretty straightforward with Republicans at 55, Democrats at 44, with one independent. The Independent will remain, with Jim Jeffords leaving and socialist whacko Bernie Sanders coming in. So the Dems need seven seats to switch the Senate. But there's more to the math than that. The Republicans may make two pickups in the race, meaning that the Dems will have to take nine seats if the math is right. They have reason to hope for wins in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Tennesee, and maybe Montana, Minnesota, and possibly Missourri. And while they have hopes in Virginia, Ohio, and Arizona, those seats are likely to remain in Republican hands, so a Democrat Senate is unlikely. But let's presume that the Dems score some surprise upsets, given that these same seats broke almost completely in favor of the Dems in 2000. They still must make some surprise pickups and cannot afford even one seat's loss.

And that's where Connecticut comes in.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman is in the primary fight of his life. In an attack from the Kos-sack left, a leftist by the name of Ned Lamont is challenging Lieberman in the Democratic primary, because Lieberman has chosen to take a different opinion on the Iraq war than the far left of his party, never mind the fact that Lieberman has an overwhelmingly liberal voting record.

The problem for the Dems is that if Lieberman loses the primary--as it appears he might(H.T. RealClearPolitics)--he will run as an independent, and likely hold on to his seat. The problem is that the Dems will be left with two independents rather than just one. And so if they do score a miraculous sweep, they may indeed place themselves just one seat out of reach of a working majority, simply because of their own insistence upon dogmatic leftist orthodoxy.

The wheels are running too fast to stop now. The problem is that the Dems may find themselves underneath them.

Some Perspective on Qana

2006-08-03T08:10:00.000-05:00

A Primer on Quana- Its a village on the Israeli-Lebanon border, on the Lebanon side. Israel believed that it was a Hezbollah stronghold, and so appropriately targeted it. The Israelis warned civilians to get out, because the place was going to be targeted. They didn't leave, and they died in the attack that followed. But rather than the story being that these people for some reason wanted to be foolish human shields, and willingly risked their children and themselves for terrorists, the story became the many that Israel had killed. And the death toll rose. 54. 63. Women, children, etc. Murdered by Israel. And then there were calls fromt he Arab world for an immediate cease-fire.

But here's the truth.

Only 28 people died. And while that's not great no matter how big the number, the point is that the numbers were inflated.

And the numbers were also not that different from a garden-variety suicide bombing targeting commuters or women and children in the markets in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

And after those suicide bombings, whose targets were intended to be women and children, never did one single Arab country call for any peace process to begin. Never was Hamas or Fatah or Hezbollah called to stand down. After Israeli children were killed in Katuysha rocket strikes in this present conflict, not a peep was heard from a single Islamo-Arab capital. But when a few people die, despite the fact that Israel had the courtesy to endanger its own forces to warn an essentially enemy civilian population to leave because an attack was imminent, smacks of a particularly filthy hypocrisy, and lays transparent the fact that the Islamo-Arab nations of the world have no respect for the lives of peaceful people, but only armed brigands and those who support them.

Qana is a non-issue and is not even close to a basis for a cease-fire. If it were, the Arab world would have forced peace after the first weeks of the initial Intifada started by the Palestinians years ago. If anything, Qana is the window through which we can see the transparent evil of the medieval Islamofacism that grips the Arab world.

Sick and Vacationing

2006-08-03T08:09:00.000-05:00

Sorry about sporadic posting. Vacation and minor illness have kept me down. But I'll throw a couple up today.

Nothing He Can Say Wrong-Nothing She Can Say Right

2006-07-26T11:20:00.000-05:00

Rep Cynthia McKinney is now in the fight of her political life--again. After a primary defeat in 2002 (and return to office in 2004), she seems to be flirting with another primary nightmare in 2006.

After surviving the first primary vote last week, where she garnered 47% of the vote to her nearest competitor's 44%, she seems poised to return to the Atlanta area emptyhanded. So to prevent that, she has agreed to debate her remaining primary opponent--something she refused to do prior to the runoff. She missed several televised debates, presuming that she was going to coast to victory. It now seems that that arrogance comes with a cost.

The problem facing McKinney is similar to the one facing John Kerry in the fall of 2004 when he refused to discuss issues with Bill O'Reilly. He knew he was his own biggest liability and that his only shot at staying afloat was to keep away from individuals who might require him to deal with facts rather than the easy mantras that defined his campaign. Similarly, McKinney had a choice to make before the primary: should she appear at a series of debates, giving her two opponents a free opportunity to beat her up in person where her personal behavior was the biggest issue, or should she fail to show, thus avoiding the appearances that she had anything to defend and that her opponents possessed any electoral credibility? Hard choice for one in McKinney's position. But now she has no choice. If she fails to show, she communicates little more than arrogance, and gives her opponent an unrestricted pulpit from which to thrash her and advance his own candidacy. But again, she places her own behavior in issue and is forced to react to relevant personal attacks.

It is never good when an incumbent loses in a primary, and as any political scientist could tell you, McKinney is in real trouble. When the two anti-McKinney candidates take about 56% of the vote (and make no mistake, this primary is about McKinney, not issues), the Congresswoman has things about which she ought to be very worried. But the most ominous problem for her is the sheer predictability of this outcome. She has a very recent history (2002) of a primary loss in this district with these same voters when her own personal conduct was the biggest issue facing voters. When all of these factors come together, she has a very real shot to lose her seat again.

Bottom line, history is repeatable and Ms. McKinney has much to fear. Her removal will be no significant loss to the people of Georgia and to the Congress.

Democrat Kettles Call Al-Maliki "Black"

2006-07-26T09:18:00.000-05:00

Congressional Democrats don't like Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Because he is not pro-Israel. Because he really isn't denouncing Hezbollah, and because he is not really doing what they think he ought to be doing in the war on terror. They really think that he ought not be allowed to speak in front of the Congress today. And if they really believe that, they are really, hopelessly lost.

Because al-Maliki, while certainly not a politically sharp guy, probably has enough in the way of pull with his own people and enough good will with the Administration that he can probably afford to drop some much more significant charges on the Dems.

He can inquire as to whether the Dems really support the removal of terrorists from his nation or just abandoning his people to an al-Qaeda-contrived civil war. He can ask whether they support freedom in his nation or another Islamist state occupying the center of the Middle East. Because their incessant demands for pullout timetables promise the very disasters that would destroy his nation and re-enslave his people.

Because whatever unfortunately-ingrained backward cultural attitudes he holds towards Israel which are a function of the collective Arab intolerance, he is not going to act on them to Israel's detriment. But the Dems are serious about and regularly advocating for a pullout timetable that would create a humanitarian disaster in Iraq, would embolden al-Qaeda and regimes like Iran, Syria and North Korea, would lose us any respect as a military force in the Arab world, and would signify such complete moral and physical weakness, the likes of which we have not displayed since the most memorable Carter years.

So if the Democrats wish to apply this standard to the political cleanliness of persons addressing the Congress, then I would consent to canceling Prime Minister al-Maliki's address to the Congress if it meant that their standard could be applied to their behavior as well. It would mean that Democrats like Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Russ Feingold, Carl Levin, Dick Durbin, Tom Harkin, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, and pretty much the entire Congressional Black Caucus should be expurgated from the Capitol. They are remarkably soft on terror, hard on America, and lack the vision required to maintain the kind of security we need as a nation. They harbor the tried and failed leftist anti war and socialist economic philosophies of the 1960s. Their time has passed.

At least Prime Minister al-Maliki has a positive vision for peace and security that accepts his region's realities and extends beyond whatever he may believe about Israel.

Mideast Struggle Cannot Be Successfully Resolved With Diplomacy

2006-07-24T11:14:00.000-05:00

Condi Rice is now in the Middle East to attempt to resolve the shooting war between Israel, Hezbollah, and potentially Lebanon and Syria, with Iran waiting in the wings. But the effort at diplomacy, if U.S. policy remains that Israel has a right to defend itself (which presumes that it has the right to exist in the first place), will be either ineffective or unnecessary.

I am praying that this is little more than the Bush Administration's effort to be seen doing something to avoid the accusation from the left that it allowed the Levant to turn into another Katrina. Because diplomacy can't solve the current problem, but if allowed time, Israel might.

The current parties to any talks to resolve this matter are, of course, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, with the outside possibility of Iran. And with that understanding, the talks are DOA. Israel and Lebanon, a democratic nation and one desperately wanting to be, respectively, both would have a reasonable shot at working the whole matter out if they were the only parties involved. But the whole problem is that a terror group living in Lebanon with its blessings started it. And given that the terror group is funded and directed by Syria and Iran, explaining their involvement, it is hard to see how any diplomatic result could result in a lasting peace.

Hezbollah, who has no rightful place at any negotiating table, started this by firing weapons from Lebanon into Israel. Hezbollah is a terrorist group with the objective of eliminating Israel. Lebanon, while not blameless, insofar as they condone the presence of Hezbollah in their nation thus making them responsible for the aggressive acts of their guest, really can't stand up to Hezbollah. Their military has no legs, and they are therefore subject to the whims of this very well-armed terrorist gang. Both Syria and Iran are global terror sponsors who want Israel's destruction, the provocation therefor being that Israel wants to peacefully exist where it is (granted, things are looking down for Syria, but I see this as nothing more than a temporary setback for them). Which makes one wonder what objectives Condi Rice hopes to achieve, beyond simply the appearance of peace-making.

But to leave the matter alone, and support Israel may indeed be the solution.

Israel is by far the most effective and deadly military in the region. Hezbollah continues to exist only because Israel is showing undeserved gentlemanly respect for Lebanon by not simply annihilating the border towns that harbor the Hezbollah guerrillas. Conversely, Hezbollah cares not who or what it hits. It just wants to kill Jews. But if Hezbollah is wiped out, Lebanon has a real shot at being a nation in its own right rather than one held hostage to a foreign-funded group of thugs. It also leaves Syria without a proxy hand, as it does Iran. They would both have to do their own dirty work rather than paying a toady to do it, which means direct attacks on Israel. And neither Syria nor Iran have the capacity to deal with the Israeli military. Damascus would be raining missiles and Iran's nuclear program would no longer need to be the subject of UN debate.

Conversely, if we stop the shooting before Hezbollah has been thoroughly eliminated, we are doing nothing other than aiding Hezbollah. It will give them time to recoup their losses, rearm and repeat the same acts of war that began the conflict we have now, because these terrorists have no peaceful objectives.

And while I am not hoping for a wider Middle East war involving Syria and Iran, I do think that it is about time that we allow Israel to mete out justice on a gang of terrorists who, for too long, have served as the tool of terror-sponsoring states and who have impeded the emergence of real peace along the Eastern Mediterranean.

Olmert Offers Adult Solution to a Group of Children

2006-07-17T12:25:00.000-05:00

Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert's offer of a cease fire in the battle against Hezbollah and Lebanon is remarkably simple and reasonable: 1. a return of the two soldiers who were kidnapped by Hezbollah guerrillas, 2. a cessation of cross-border rocket attacks, and 3. a deployment of Lebanese troops along the southern border to prevent Hezbollah from doing as they have done. But it won't work, (at least not yet), for some very simple reasons.

Israel made a very mature and reasonable offer. Stop attacking us (because we weren't attacking you), give us back our men who were wrongfully taken, and police your border like a responsible neighbor. But Lebanon really has very little control over the acts of Hezbollah, so controlling them in a straightforward fashion is unlikely.

But more to the point, the nations involved, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, are all still thinking like the adolescent bullies they are. In their minds, Israel needs to be destroyed, if for no other reason than the fact of its presence. And while it does not attack its neighbors as a first aggressor, its Islamofacist opponents regard its very existence as provocation. And against such opponents, Israel's efforts at rational negotiation have no hope. Which is why the military option may help the growing up process along.

There is nothing like a good schoolyard licking to set a bully straight, and the same works on the international level. Some nations will only learn to be peaceful if the cost of belligerence is too high. In this case, Hezbollah has some popularity in the nation. Take away the popularity and you take away the power. And so by wrecking the Lebanese infrastructure little by little, the Lebanese then have reason to reevaluate their tolerance of such a thugocracy operating in their nation. And so while they may still not have the slightest scintilla of love for their neighbor to the south, at the very least, they now know the price of unnecessarily angering them.

The choice now falls to Lebanon. Will they finally decide to grow up and rein in, expel, or destroy (as Jordan's King Hussein did) the terrorists, or will they continue on the same foolish path they have for the past 60 years, by remaining the tool of Syria's Bashar Assad and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while being pummelled by an Israel that wants nothing more than to be left alone?

Lebanon Held Hostage

2006-07-14T08:46:00.000-05:00

I didn't think that this was the way things were going to play themselves out, but it makes so much sense. The Middle East is on the brink of all out war. Israel has been attacked by Hezbollah terrorists, and are now invading Lebanon in return. Iran, Hezbollah's chief benefactor and puppet master is taking Israel's response as a first-strike fairly personally (because of the Islamist position that it is their right to harass Israel and kill Jews free from any response). Add to that the fact that Syria is right next door, is as much a contributor to Hezbollah as Iran, and you have the makings of an all-out war.

The Lebanese government is a very curious creature. It is now technically free of years of Syrian control, but it remains effectively under the control of Hezbollah, which is essentially a separate nation operating within Lebanon. While the leaders, such as they are, of Lebanon favor a pro-western and anti-Syrian stance, they are powerless to control Hezbollah, which is somewhat popular among Shiite Lebanese who for decades have been marginalized by Christian and Sunni elements. In other words, Hezbollah is holding the tiny nation hostage.

And after the series of rocket attacks into Israel, the Israelis are making the government of Lebanon pay for failing to police their southern region. But Lebanon, in a fairly ignorant display of irresponsibility towards its neighbors (and thus its own citizens), has historically refused to rein in Hezbollah activity on their southern border with Israel, regarding such action as an undeserved gratuity to a neighbor for whom they care not a bit.

But now they have reason to care, given that Israel is making very clear that there is a price to be paid for housing terrorists and failing to control them. Unfortunately, while Israel is right to make things unpleasant for the Lebanese government for failing to control aggressive activity within its borders, it may also be risking war with Syria and Iran. But in a sign that neither rogue nation wants to pick a larger fight, Iran's bombastic president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated that invasion of Syria would trigger a wider conflict. Put differently, this is a sign that while they hate Israel, neither really thinks that it is worth it to invite a strike from a clearly very angry, motivated, and militarily superior Israel.

Coupling that with the fact that the Bush Administration will not pressure Israel to stop shooting, (to do so would be to undermine his whole philosophy in the war on terror), it seems that the very green Lebanese government has its first very big challenge on its hands.

The fact that the government allows a terrorist organization to operate within its own borders says very little for its sovereignty, and as noted, there may be very little that Lebanon can do. But there is very much that Israel can do to make Lebanon wish it had done something. Which puts it at a crossroads--does it continue to repeat the mistakes of the past, playing the same old Islamist anti-Israel game, despite the fact that Israel will make Lebanon pay a price for being the staging ground for terror attacks into Israel, or will it decide to do the difficult and courageous thing and behave responsibly as Jordan did, making Syria the only remaining safe haven for terrorists?

If it chooses the latter, it will be a hard road indeed, but it is the only hope for a truly free and democratic Lebanon. If it chooses the former, its government will continue to be ineffective and little more than a hostage of Hezbollah.

FCC Picks on Sports

2006-07-12T16:51:00.000-05:00

It all started when Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake introduced to us the all too familiar "wardrobe malfunction". And now, the FCC wants to regulate televised sports, punishing broadcasters for the vulgar remarks of fans (H.T. Drudge). It's a step too far.

Readers of this site will know that I refrain from the use of vulgarity because I feel that it has no place in the kind of discourse that I try to have here. But I can control what gets said here. Live programming is something quite different.

It is one thing to punish a broadcaster for indecent language in a sitcom. It is premeditated, can be edited out, and really has no effect on the final outcome. It's quite a different thing to control live broadcasts where a loose-lipped fan whom nobody can control lets slip a loud comparison between a referee and an excretory organ or product, inquiries into his parentage, or some other vulgar comment designed to express dissatisfaction with the official's ruling.

The problem is that while the effect on Hollywood may indeed be positive--discouraging premeditated and entirely preventable crudeness that they have been trying for years to cram down our throats--it may actually have a chilling effect on live sports because it is altogether impossible to predict and prevent the transmission of all inappropriate fan behavior. And the fact that there are complaints rolling in means that the whiny prude crowd is afoot, looking and listening in for any indication of naughtiness broadcast over public airwaves and then reporting even the least indication of it.

Yes, the acts of Janet and Justin were truly inexcusable. But the law was not designed to cater to the puritan who wishes to punish the network whose microphone picks up someone in a crowd running their mouth.

I think indecency on TV and radio is entirely disgraceful. There is no place for it and no need for it. It lessens us. But planned vulgarity is entirely different from an unplanned remark that was never intended to be aired.

The FCC is there to perform a service for the American people by punishing broadcasters who knowingly and willingly allow inappropriate material to be aired. It's not there to apply the rule so strictly as to make it impossible for sportscasters to bring us live coverage of games because fans may end up saying too much.

There's regulation and then there's over regulation. This is the latter. it would be nice if the bureaucrats in Washington took the time to understand the difference.

The Plame Game Endgame

2006-07-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

Tonight on Special Report with Britt Hume, columnist Robert Novak may reveal who his primary source was in the release of the name of Valerie Plame as the individual who recommended her husband, Joseph Wilson, IV for a trip to Niger in 2002 to investigate whether Saddam Hussein was attempting to acquire uranium from that nation in violation of the 1991 cease-fire and UN Security Council resolutions.

By way of recap, Joe Wilson went to Niger at the behest of the CIA to investigate the issue. He hung around for about a week and found nothing, other than the results of a few conversations with a like-minded ambassador whose understanding of the situation seemed to support the story he later told in a New York Times opinion piece in 2003 after the Iraq invasion. In that piece, he claimed that he was sent to Niger at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney, and that after he reported his findings, the Administration blew off his concerns because they did not fit the tail-wagging-the-dog fact pattern that he claims the Administration was trying to construct. At that point, the question likely floating around the White House was, "Who the *heck* is this guy?" to offer the polite version. And in an effort to correct the record, it was released to Novak that it wasn't Cheney requesting Wilson's services, but rather his own wife who was a desk officer at the CIA. What fell from that was Wilson crying foul, claiming that his wife was a CIA operative and that the White House blew her cover, endangered national security by doing that, and put him through "27 months of hell" where he was given tons of adoring media attention, wrote a book, appeared in a gigantic photo shoot and profile with Vanity Fair, and even had shots taken of Valerie in her knickers for Time magazine. Ignoring the fact that the vast share of the hideous exposure that put the Wilson-Plames through "hell" was done voluntarily by the braggart Joe Wilson, using his wife as his stepstool to political fame and quasi-relevance, a victim never had it so good. Then came a federal investigation which seems to have netted only one person on a dubious perjury charge.

But now it seems that Bob Novak is prepared to release the name of his chief informant. He has already made known that Karl Rove was a confirming source, after Novak called Rove and relayed the story he later broke. And there are a few things that can be garnered from this:

1. Patrick Fitzgerald has not brought any charges against that person (H.T. Drudge). It would be public information if he had, that person's name is already known to him, and the time would have long passed for him to do so. The point being that no crime was committed in releasing Plame's name, as Wilson has long claimed.

2. Per the above-linked Novak piece, the source was not a "political gunslinger" which may indicate that the person had no ax to grind, other than letting the truth be known.

This is really the final nail in Joe Wilson's political coffin. No crime committed and no wrong done--other than blowing the lid off of his false righteousness and emotional claims of harm done to his family--as he paraded them before reporters' cameras for his own political purposes.

It is important that we know the details of this story, mainly because nothing about it appears classified, but also because the Administration's honesty and those of it's vociferous critics are at issue. If we have a liar in our midst, it would be helpful to know who it is. The left, led by Wilson has never ceased to claim that that President and Vice President are liars.

But the facts that have emerged from this investigation, namely a debunking of that op-ed piece and the excoriation of Wilson's book by a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report have done the same damage to Wilson and his supporters that they intended to do to the President. And I can't imagine the release of this source's name being anything particularly helpful to Wilson's already embarrassingly discredited cause.

Does McKinney Intend to Coast to Re-election?

2006-07-11T14:15:00.000-05:00

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), now well known for being a belligerent, unintellectual troublemaker is now reported to have blown two televised debates between the candidates running for the Democratic nomination for her congressional district, reports Drudge.

So either her scheduler got it wrong twice, so she can publicly blame her staffer (and we know that she has no problem doing that), or she is so arrogant that she thinks that she has no need to participate in a debate of the national issues affecting her district (as well as her own behavior), because she believes that she is guaranteed the nomination and re-election.

And while I'm betting on the latter, either way, McKinney continues to show Atlanta voters just how unfit for office she really is.

The Left and Close Elections

2006-07-10T15:29:00.000-05:00

What do you call a very close election where a Democrat wins? A victory for the Democrat. But what do you call it when a Republican wins? The product of fraud, racism and reason for court challenges and calls for re-votes, of course. Ask any Daily Kos-er and they'll tell you that they expect the Republican to concede, because in their arrogance, the left believes that holding the reins of power is their birthright. But after watching Mexico's recent election, it is most relieving to see that the United States does not have a monopoly on leftist nuts.

By all reasonable accounts, it appears that Felipe Calderon, the conservative won the election by just under a quarter million votes out of about 41 million over the leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (or as I like to call him, "Lopez Algore"). Lopez Obrador's first order of business as the guy falling behind in the court is to ask for a recount. And after the recount didn't put him over the top, he is now mounting a challenge in the courts, which he will maintain until he wins or runs out of options. But the problem is that this is not how fair play is supposed to work.

Elections are held, and the result comes down to a number. The side with the biggest number wins. That number is determined by a finite number of votes properly cast. It is certainly legitimate to order a recount of ballots in a very close election. But once the number is determined, that's all the contoversy that there needs to be. The side with the smaller number needs to throw up their hands and concede, or at the very least if ego and sour grapes prevent an appropriate concession, just a simple exit from the scene. But leftists have made a habit of contesting close elections, appealing to racial politics, accusing the other side of fraud and all sorts of horrible acts that turned the election ever so slightly their way. In other words, it's not about winning the vote--unless that's how they happen to win fairly--it's just about winning, period, regardless of the tactic.

But in Mexico, things are a tad different. It tends to have a much more homogenous population than the United States, so the race card won't be that effective an approach. It also recently updated its election system which very nicely ensured the integrity of their votes. And by some accounts I have seen, their system is superior to ours, which says much about our commitment to avoid another Florida 2000 or Washington Governor 2004. So the Mexican Al Gore is left to argue, as he probably meant to argue all along, that the election is the product of fraud, with the fact of his loss being the compelling (and probably only) evidence thereof. Which is the core of the problem.

There are times when an election result can be legitimately contested such as in 1960 when widespread fraud under the supervision of Mayor Dailey in Chicago likely turned Illinois, and the election to Kennedy. Or any of a number of cute things that Democrats pulled in 2004, none of which ended up winning them the election. But the now-habit of preparing court challenges any time that an election is close and it's the liberal losing is becoming a hallmark of the arrogant left. And if anyone wants a clue as to how fair the left is, just observe what happened in Washington State, where they used court challenges to change the outcome of a very close election. In short, a combination of cooperative judges and fake ballots kept emerging until the vote count put the Democrat, Christine Gregoire ahead. And the instant that happened, the lost ballots stopped emerging and the court challenges ended--certainly a coincidence that nobody searched for any more lost ballots... The will of the voters was discerned! And we know it was discerned at that stage, because the Democrat came ahead--evidence in and of itself of a proper outcome, if you ask the left.

So please pay attention, as we have another election coming this November. The evidence of fraud boils down to the fact of a Republican victory, or one for the Mexican conservative. Because when a leftist wins, the mantra of "count every vote" seems to disappear.

Understanding Separation of Powers

2006-07-06T09:10:00.000-05:00

There has been much talk of late about "separation of powers". We hear it most recently in the context of anything covert that the Bush Administration is doing to combat terror. The left feels that anything the President does to fight terror that is not plain and in the open is an executive overreach. They claim that "separation of powers" needs to be respected. And then they'll resort to their default whining about impeachment or something like that. But as with every other can of worms the left unwarily opens in moments of false righteousness, it misdefines the issue while completely ignoring how little regard it has for those same admirable principles.

Separation of powers is a vitally important concept to our freedom. It prevents one branch of government from acquiring too much power, and thus acting by fiat. It requires the different branches of government to assent to the ultimate acts of the others, preventing one from becoming independent of any of the others and getting out of control. And it is now the excuse being used by the far left to justify espionage.

The media, led by the New York Times, justified the exposure of two classified programs over the past six months under the notion that separation of powers needed to be observed, meaning that the executive needed oversight from the other branches. And in theory, this is a completely correct principle.

But this excuse for breaching our security misses the point that the President advised the appropriate Congressional oversight committees on these various programs. In other words, the people's elected representatives in the other branch of government were on board and able to take whatever action they felt appropriate. They took none, as the people of the United States have elected a legislature comprised of people of both major parties that is much more likely than not to cooperate with this President in the war on terror. And so the argument fails that the Administration was usurping power it did not have or hiding activities from those with the power to oppose it. Just because it was done without the consultation of the NYT editorial board does not mean that it was not done in keeping with the Constitution. So the separation of powers concern does not exist.

And taking a very generous leap by presuming that the left is engaging in this debate in good faith, rather than using it as a pretext to attack the Administration it so pathologically despises, it is then fair to say that they are incorrectly defining and applying the term "separation of powers". But based upon their posturing, it is probably fair to say that they are using the term "separation of powers" to mean something more akin to "partisan balance."

They disagree with this President, regardless of what it is that he is doing, and are insisting that their minority viewpoint be given equal consideration in all matters of state concern. But our Founders saw no need to ensure a system of political parity between those of differing views. And it is rather arrogant for them to presume that their vociferous opposition should translate into relevance. Because the Founders were very clear about one thing: those who gain power under our system do so only because they are elected by the people.

So the whole "separation of powers" argument, as offered by the media-left is a no-go. But interestingly, these same folks would have been wise not to raise the separation of powers issue, because it opens the door to a discussion about their efforts to legalize their social agenda, and how their strategy by its very terms requires a violation of the principle they claim to watch and guard so closely.

The courts have long been the far left's substitute legislature of choice. And the power which the courts are granted (and by Marbury v. Madison, granted themselves) have enabled individuals and groups with agendas that had no prayer of passing through any legislature in this nation, to petition the courts, demanding special rights, and claiming that a denial of their demands violated some provision of the Constitution. Of course, this requires a very broad and frankly twisted reading of the Constitution, but certain politician-judges have no problem making new laws from the bench by adopting convoluted legal theories that have no basis in American jurisprudence. And when judges make up brand new law to fit their subjective view of the way the law ought to be evolving, that is a violation of the separation of powers.

Courts exist to ensure that laws are applied to contoversies between individuals. They also exist to ensure that the legislature and the executive do not take acts that are unconstitutional. But to be clear, it is not their job to remake laws they don't like, or to make ones they do. And it is not their job to read more meaning into the laws and the Constitution than is actually there. In other words, their job is one of a dispassionate referee, one who brings things back to the objective standard found in the laws on the books, not to a subjective concept of the way things ought to be. But when judges step beyond those limits, as the left expects them to every time they litigate a case for gay rights, striking of abortion regulations, restricting religious speech or any other of their pet causes, they are usurping the power of the legislature to write laws and the executive to approve them, thus violating the separation of powers. But in that case, the left cares not, as the separation of powers benefits them.

So when the left speaks of the concept of separation of powers, it is important to be clear about what they mean: They really aren't concerned at all about whether each branch of government is operating within its Constitutionally-prescribed limits, because the current system hasn't given them much success. They want to be the final backstop in the legislative and political process. In other words, separation of powers is the exact opposite of what they want. They want union of power. And they want to be the ones holding it.

Kim Makes Things Unpleasant for His Handlers

2006-07-05T08:18:00.000-05:00

While the rest of us were watching the Discovery launch and enjoying fireworks, Kim Jong Il decided to have his own display in North Korea. Of course, there was no coincidence in timing. It was a direct thumb of the nose at the U.S. But that should surprise nobody. Nor was I astounded by the fact that the ICBM seemed to be more of a model rocket, expiring after an embarrassing 40 seconds, and probably landing the rocket scientist who designed it in a nice North Korean jail. But the most interesting aspect of it all is who else was upset by the launches.

Kim meant to mess with the U.S. insofar as timing and the fact of launch are concerned. He also rattled South Korea and Japan, its free regional neighbors who have the most to lose from any type of attack. But Kim also is going to be hearing it from China and Russia, because they both came out of the launches with a major loss of pride.

One would expect the U.S., Japan and South Korea to have a fit over this matter. And they indeed have, with Japan taking the lead. But most surprisingly, the Russians are apoplectic. To a very significant degree, Russia is to blame for the fact that North Korea can launch launch missiles, given that its missile program is SCUD-based. That fact is encouraging, only in the sense that SCUD systems are largely junk, meaning that North Korea is going to have a hard time being anything but a regional problem. But that is small comfort when two of our best trading partners and allies--South Korea and Japan--are easily within the known range of the North. But none of this has anything to do with Putin's Russia becoming any more of a responsible member of the world community. Because while having a crackpot missileman on their border is not a pleasant thing, Russia is more concerned about its pocketbook and prestige than regional peace.

As Russia's business interests have expanded, so have its vulnerabilities, and it's not great for business to have an unhinged little troublemaker threatening shipping interests in the Sea of Japan and the Western Pacific. And while the North is good at keeping a strategic and economic competitor in the form of the U.S. busy, it's not all that great for them when Kim sees nothing wrong with troubling the interests of Moscow. This was an unneeded complication.

Which brings us to China, who is not-so-strangely silent on the matter. We've all seen the parents, seething over the behavior of their children in public, longing for the moment when they could bring a little justice to their children's lives in private. So at this moment, a likely embarrassed and furious Beijing is preparing to take the naughty little Kim to the woodshed, for all the good it will do. And while diplomats put on a socially polite face and appear to ignore the realities of international politics, the current chief diplomat of the United States is no fool, nor are her counterparts in Russia, Japan and China.

To a significant degree Kim exists for the pleasure of the People's Republic of China. He functions as little more than a convenient toady who, as with the Russian calculus, is able to keep the U.S., South Korea and Japan busy as China goes about flexing its economic muscles and securing access to energy resources to fuel its growing economy. And China looks almost responsible whenever it periodically deals the North a paddling to keep it in check for another month or so. But how useful is a toady when the other kids finally get tired of him and beat him up?

The problem China faces is not that North Korea is behaving in an unneighborly fashion, but rather that it is behaving in an unnecessarily provocative and dangerous manner, for China couldn't possibly care less how irritating the North is for its neighbors or for the U.S. Because it really exists only to run interference for the Chicoms as noted above. But when the little lackey decides to come into his own, and tries to put himself in the same league as the big boys, he often takes the beating for which he had been begging, causing his own benefactor to become distracted as he tries to clean up the mess.

And while we once had the comfort of being able to look to China to control an unruly Kim Jong Il, it seems that Kim has left the ranch, which may mean that he will end up dealing with a rather motivated group of nations who now have fewer concerns about putting him in is place--or perhaps taking him out of it.

So in a very real sense, the monster they created has become a significant liability for them, causing them to spend as much time and energy dealing with the North as they had intended the West to do. Kim was meant to be nothing more than an itch for the U.S. to scratch. Instead, China and Russia let their brat kid play freely in their gun cabinet, and allowed him to spurn their discipline. And now it seems that little Kim's antics may leave him dealing with the lawmen. And if that happens, and the U.S., South Korea and Japan must do some dirty work, it will only serve to increase their regional influence to the detriment of the local totalitarian powers who would be left looking stupid in the wake of such events.

And nobody needs an even more aloof China and Russia.

North Korea's Convenience Store Hold-Up Moves Us to DEFCON 3

2006-07-03T08:39:00.000-05:00

Anyone who remembers the movie War Games will remember that after hacking into a military computer at NORAD and playing a little "Global Thermonuclear Warfare", Matthew Broderick's character brought us from a nice happy DEFCON 5 to a less than comfortable DEFCON 4, meaning something's up and we're not really all that happy about it.

But Kim Jong Il has worked us up to about a DEFCON 3. (H.T. Drudge)

NORAD actually uses a four-tier system, and right now, we are at a "Bravo-plus", meaning that we're thinking that the conditions for somebody making an ill-advised decision are ripe.

And when we have rhetoric from North Korea of the type that speaks in terms of nuclear war, with missiles capable of reaching the United States preparing for testing, it's the kind of thing that gets our military a little jittery. And it's the kind of talk that really has no place in international discourse unless one is really itching for a fight.

And while the Cold War was a uniquely unpleasant time, and while the Soviets were an ambitious and cruel bunch, they ultimately sought to dominate the world by conventional means. They likely wouldn't have invaded Afghanistan to move south towards a warm water port otherwise. They understood that the world isn't worth dominating if it is an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland, and the hand on the trigger was almost always a steady one. But Kim's calculus is a little different.

Kim cannot seriously aspire to world domination. The nation under his rule is the most closed state on earth. His people are starving while he lives richly and while his nation operates a nuclear weapons program. And his nation is so underdeveloped that he needs to blackmail the civilized world to obtain the supplies he wants. But like a guy holding up a convenience store, he wants real-world relevance and respect. And by threatening a test launch of a missile capable of reaching the U.S., he is doing the equivalent of making a demand for a suitcase with a million dollars, a ride to the airport and a private plane to take him to Mexico. The downside of such a deal is that police generally take a dim view of robbers, and if the opportunity for a shot on the gunman comes, they will often take it to end the standoff, with the troublemaker's blood being on his own hands.

In this case, though, the world community treats outlaws like misbehaving little children who need a time-out, rather than the grown up and dangerous individuals they are. Granted, Kim's threat of nuclear war is pretty laughable. It's one thing to build a nuclear device. It's quite another to mate it to a missile and make it work properly--having rocket science and nuclear science doesn't necessarily mean that you can get them to work together. But it's very easy to imagine that they could use lower tech means of delivering such a device to our ally South Korea. Which means that the gunman in the store has a hostage he really doesn't care about killing. Because the gunman himself is more than just a little crazy.

And while the world and the Bush Administration continue to talk about talks that won't happen, which will have zero affect even if they did, and propose various undeserved and ridiculous concessions that do nothing but reward Kim's blackmail, one hopes that the Administration has a significantly different plan for the resolution of the Kim Jong Il problem.

Because the police aren't afraid to have a sniper take out the gunman to end the standoff. Nor do we owe any particular courtesies to a nation that threatens South Korea, North Korea, Japan, and now our own soil.

And while Kim threatens retaliation in the face of a preemptive strike, a few things are a little hard to ignore: Kim won't be able to respond to any kind of first strike launched by the United States because he won't see it coming, and after a preemptive hit he won't have anything left with which to shoot. But it's a harder thing to stop him once he is in the business of launching missiles. And THREATCON Bravo plus is not the position we want to be in, as we wait for Kim to make the first unpredictable move.

We've been winning the War on Terror because we've managed to address the threats in the places from which they materialized. To treat Kim as anything more than a terrorist, regardless of the technical fact that he is a head of state, is foolishness.

Timetables: The Key to a Temporary Peace

2006-06-30T08:54:00.000-05:00

I'll be the first conservative to state it: a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq will indeed promote peace. And by peace, I mean that bombings will taper off over a period of maybe 2-4 months. Anti-Iraqi and native insurgent elements will seem to vanish, and Iraq will indeed appear to have benefitted from a pull out of U.S. troops.

It's like taking a knee in the 4th quarter in a football game. One team, eager to prevent the other from gaining an advantage in the last few minutes of a game will run out the clock and at the last second to snap the ball, will do so, and then the quarterback will take a knee, keeping the clock running, but taking away every hope that the other team has for a last-minute turnover. Because the clock is a powerful substitute to complete effort.

In this situation the insurgents, by their own admission through their now deceased leader, were doing poorly before his death. But in order to have any hope of victory, they must keep pressure on the coalition forces. Failure to do that means that funding and physical support may dry up--nobody wants to support the losing side. But if al Qaida in Iraq has a timetable, it will know that there will come a time when it will be largely unopposed.

There will be a few bombings here and there for effect once a timetable is implemented, but it will taper and eventually expire. But once withdrawal is complete, they will re-emerge, much better rested, better equipped, and ready to make trouble for an Iraqi military that was left to figure out for itself how to combat a determined clandestine terror organization operating and shielding itself among civilians.

And those calling for a pullout will be able to watch from the comfort of their living rooms how the peace that seemed so clear as we pulled out before achieving our goals, so suddenly and so curiously crumbled. A poor way to repay the Americans, Iraqis, British and others who gave their lives for a free and peaceful Iraq.

But that is of little concern to those who have no understanding or appreciation of the very hard work we are doing in that critical nation.

The Free Speech Red Herring

2006-06-28T16:27:00.000-05:00

The New York Times' recent defenses of its actions in exposing classified information are invoking debates about the power of government, specifically the separation of those powers and the rights of free speech and freedom of the press. I will deal with the separation of powers in my next post, but for now, let's explore the really misunderstood right we have to freedom of speech and of the press.

The First Amendment to our Federal Constitution is possibly the single most important engine for change that we have in this nation. We can say whatever we like about the government and its officials and criticize them to the point of cruelty without fear of any criminal sanction. We have that right because our Founders knew well that freedom to say what one pleased about government was one of the most important tools for keeping the state honest and accountable to the people it served.

And from that right, a rather gigantic private media enterprise has developed, which has never shown much reluctance to be critical of government. And while idea competition and criticism makes life unpleasant for state officials, we have come to accept and expect that same is part of the game for those who choose to involve themselves in government. If you can't stand the heat...

And there is nothing wrong with doing that. Free speech is one of the greatest engines for the generation of ideas that are great and for the rejection of those that aren't, and it is the responsibility of citizens to make their government operate in a proper manner by applying unwelcome pressure. And while political speech is beyond the reach of the state to control or punish, the right to it comes with moral and legal responsibilities as well.

The right carries the responsibility and the social expectation of honesty. It's one thing to make sincerely believed but factually incorrect statements. In that case, one only looks foolish. But it's quite another to deceive. And for a newspaper to pretend that it is being objective and trying to assist the public when its true objective is to play a game of political one-upsmanship against an administration which it opposes at the expense of the safety of the people, that is an abuse of the right. Dishonesty of this nature should obviously carry no criminal sanction of any kind, but it must carry an incalculable social cost with the punishment being ostracism in the form of cancelled subscriptions and denial of access to its reporters among other things. Lying to people about your political objectives, while pretending to be objective is morally reprehensible and inexcusable.

The right also presumes that people will not use their speech to endanger innocent people, as free speech does not include the right to commit acts that imperil others. Just as one cannot scream "fire" in a crowded place to create a gratuitous panic for some laughs, one cannot release state secrets in the middle of a war, regardless of whatever false benevolent objective is used as a justification.

These kinds of things get people killed. In this regard, I certainly agree that things have become harder for terrorists when it comes to the security of their financial activities. But thanks to the New York Times' efforts over the past six months, things have also become safer for terrorists. They know that their accounts are compromised. They will deal in cash. Much harder, much more cumbersome, but now they know how to avoid our scrutiny. They also know that it might be wise to physically move their operation, as transactions already known may lead authorities to their location. And the smart terrorists are the ones that pull off the successful operations that we so want to avoid.

The release of such information as the Times has done is not only immoral, but also cozies up very close to criminal activity, even if it doesn't exactly meet the definition.

So when you hear the defense of freedom of speech and of the press, understand that those freedoms do not mean that acts taken are in any way socially acceptable, honorable, or moral. Mean nothing more than the fact that one can't go to jail for such speech. And I would hope that those of the media-left would remember that respectable journalism means way more than just staying out of jail, and includes a respect for the nation as a whole and forbearance in reporting of matters that are better kept secret.

Which New York Times Do You Believe?

2006-06-28T11:06:00.000-05:00

It seems the more journalists talk about their lack of bias, the more they expose the fact that they are biased.

Recall the Rathergate events of September 2004. Dan Rather and Mary Mapes did a story on 60 Minutes II using false documents to allege that the President got preferential treatment in the Texas Air National Guard in order to influence the 2004 presidential election. But when the authenticity of the documents became very clearly doubtful in the following days, Rather ran a number of stories defending the original one and attacking critics of the documents which formed the foundation of his story. But with each defensive segment he ran, a few things became clear. First, he made no serious effort to determine whether the documents were what they appeared to be on first glance. Second, it appeared that Rather rushed the story to air in an effort to harm Bush politically and advance John Kerry's candidacy, given the fact that Rather offered a circular basis for his confidence in the documents--that they were authentic because of his subjective belief in the story they supported. Lastly, Rather appeared confused and unprofessional, given the fact that he could not see past the fact that he was holding recently-created documents.

That said, which New York Times do you believe? This one or this one? The first link was Sunday's attempted justification for releasing the Swift story, where Executive Editor, Bill Keller explained his rationale for releasing the story, stating that he believed it to be in the public interest to know about this program, and to have it properly debated in the open--in other words, we will publicly debate the efficacy of classified programs in specific terms. The Times isn't that stupid, and it is unfortunate that they thought we were as well.

I discussed the matter and indicated that his rather smarmy reasoning belied a desire to take a politically-motivated swipe a the Bush Administration, regardless of the risk to the nation of releasing such information. And despite Keller's ineffective efforts to dispel any notions of partisanship, the second linked article does away with everything he tried to do.

That piece's core admission nicely puts us in tune with the NYT editorial board's mind:

From our side of the news-opinion wall, the Swift story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against terrorism and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government. It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role.
The Swift program, like the wiretapping program, has been under way for years with no restrictions except those that the executive branch chooses to impose on itself or, in the case of Swift, that the banks themselves are able to demand. This seems to us very much the sort of thing the other branches of government, and the public, should be nervously aware of. [snip]
The free press has a central place in the Constitution because it can provide information the public needs to make things right again. Even if it runs the risk of being labeled unpatriotic in the process. [italics mine]

The italicized Freudian slip is striking. Despite the fact that the Times gives some passing credit to this program it now renders useless, and notes quite correctly that there were no complaints about it by any aggrieved individuals or organizations, its editorial board wants "to make things right again." And given that they have already very clearly passed on criticism of the program, they raise concerns of separation of powers, public nervousness that ought to be there (but isn't), and "making things right again," it seems equally clear from this op-ed piece that this whole charade was an effort to undercut the Bush Administration.

And while there is nothing wrong with opposing political officials, there is everything wrong with putting people in danger to do it. Which makes the clever but disingenuous ending to the Times' op-ed piece about being "labeled unpatriotic" nothing more than a cheesy piece of self-righteous demagoguery.

So whichever Times you choose to believe, understand that they don't believe the defense that they keep offering, no matter how it's packaged.

The NYT Suicide Bombs Our National Security

2006-06-24T11:10:00.000-05:00

We are fairly well acquainted with the term "suicide bomber" in this age of the War on Terror. A suicide bomber is one who, out of hate for others--generally civilians--and in order to destroy them, makes themselves the delivery device for a bomb, killing themselves in the process, feeling that the destruction of others whom they hate was worth their own death. Unfortunately, the New York Times has adopted that same philosophy when it comes to our national security.

Once considered the newspaper of record, the Times has over the past 15 years moved from a respected publication to become little more than an outpost for the distribution of leftist yellow journalism, masquerading as sober reporting inside the cloak of its old reputation. And in the past six months, The Times has made a point of releasing state secrets essential to the maintaining of our security in the war on terror.

They began last December by revealing the fact that NSA was listening in on telephone calls between suspected terrorists and persons in other nations. The Administration asked them not to do it in 2004, before the election, and so they waited a year, only because they knew that John Kerry would have probably been shortsighted enough to take the ACLU stance, just when he was desperately trying to establish some national security credibility in an election that hinged on the issue. So they released it a year later when Bush was attempting a political recovery after the Katrina disaster and other complications.

And when they released it, The Times let the NSA program be cast as a violation of our civil liberties and an indicator, however false, that the Bush Administration had overstepped its boundaries under the Constitution. But in so doing, they allowed terrorists to know how we track them and helped them adapt to our efforts to protect ourselves. Al Qaida had few greater friends than the Grey Lady.

And now again, The Times has released information on yet another classified program which monitors financial transactions and enables them to track accounts of suspected terrorists. The Administration again asked the Times not to report on the matter. But citing their opinion that to do so was "in the public interest", the Editor, Bill Keller decided to release the story anyway, again letting our enemies know that their financial histories were monitored and probably compromised. And Keller's incredible and self-contradictory apologetic (H.T. Hugh Hewitt) sets forth a really silly defense of what was plainly and foreseeably a devastating decision to our national security.

Most revealing is the real core of Keller's argument:

It's not our job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective,but the story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is the case. While some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and while some bank officials worry that a temporary program has taken on an air of permanence, we cited considerable evidence that the program helps catch and prosecute financiers of terror, and we have not identified any serious abuses of privacy so far. A reasonable person, informed about this program, might well decide to applaud it. That said, we hesitate to preempt the role of legislators and courts, and ultimately the electorate, which cannot consider a program if they don't know about it. [emphasis mine]

In a nutshell, it's a great program that catches the bad guys, is not the source of any complaints, and is probably legal, but [snicker] we think that the whole thing ought to be decided in the public square--making the program useless. And if anyone believes this snide rationale as anything but a mask for pure partisan venom, they are simple.

Because more folks than just the Administration demanded that this information not be released. The Chairmen of the 9/11 committee, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton recommended that this not be released. As did Jack Murtha of all people. The argument that Keller offers falls flat.

The only explanation that makes sense in light of all of these facts is that the Times "suicide bombed" this program. Out of pure hate for the Bush Administration, they exposed secrets that protect us and them, but in an effort to cause trouble for the President, (and by all accounts, this is killing the Times, not Bush), they took away a valuable tool in the war on Terror.

Now to the consequences.

This was nothing if not pernicious, so perhaps a prosecution is in order, and Gabriel Schoenfeld offers a great peek into the means of prosecuting the Times, not for leaking, as they didn't do that, but for divulging information in a way that would help enemies. It's an option.

And while would not ordinarily favor prosecution, leaving this just to the court of public opinion, as reporting is almost always a 1st Amendment issue, I can't do that here. The Times' politics got in the way of national security, and they used it to make us less safe as a nation in a very real and measurable way. That needs to come at a price.

The next option is for all but the Ward Churchill left to drop their subscriptions. Stop buying it on the street, don't even give it a second look.

And for that matter, perhaps the White House should revoke their press access, leaving the Times's White House correspondent to sit outside the fence with the rest of us whom they made less safe. Freeze them out, give them nothing, no interviews, and leave them with no sourcing.

And so while Bill Keller may not have considered these things in his snarky little letter, perhaps the degrading of his paper, the shutting out of his reporters and the loss of his readers, and perhaps even his own prosecution may be helping him reevaluate his decision in hindsight.

Too bad. Because the Americans don't like the kind of arrogance that makes these kinds of decisions affecting our safety in order to score a worthless political jab.

Europe and the Crazy Missile Men

2006-06-22T08:28:00.000-05:00

I love when George Bush goes to Europe. Because despite all of the mistreatment we get over there from the abundant Euro-Berkeley crowd, Bush has a way of making the Europeans agree with his policies, absent any compromise.

And it happened again yesterday. He got widespread agreement from the European leaders about holding the line on Iran and North Korea. He even got away with giving a non-answer about changing anything at Gitmo by stating that he was awaiting Supreme Court action on the matter, meaning that he will do nothing. And when it came to questions from Euro-media critics that the U.S. was the greatest source of terror in the world, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel came to Bush's defense. And Bush also got the Europeans to agree to hold Iran to a deadline for response to the "incentives" package offered to get it to drop its nuclear program and a hard line on North Korea on missile testing. Bush could not have dreamed for better.

And with that, we move on the game being played by Iran and North Korea.

A few sources have written me about the psychological issues that must be going on in the mind of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs what run that country, but none was so instructive as this piece from fellow blogger and psychoanalyst, Stanley Renshon who opines at his blog "Political Psychology" that Iran is on a quest for dignity, not security. In other words,

The development of missiles capable of hitting Israel, parts of Europe and eventually parts of the United States, coupled with the push to develop nuclear war heads, along with aggressive rhetoric has little to do with dignity and everything to do with threat. The Iranians frame their military quest as a matter of dignity at their own risk with an administration seared by 9/11.

Meaning that in order to be a legitimate player, Iran feels that it needs to be able to threaten the rest of the world. But per this analysis, it seems that what many of us have been thinking about Ahmadinejad may be accurate: he is a neophyte buffoon who wants to grip international power and to do so is playing a very dangerous game whose rules he just does not understand. But he is a less significant problem at this stage.

The real worry is North Korea. And I believe that the North is possessed of much the same psychological needs as described above, but with two distinctions: they may actually have a nuclear device, they actually have flying missiles, and their leader, Kim Jong-Il, rather than being a blustery buffoon, is a paranoid and unstable crackpot.

North Korea is planning a missile launch at some point in the next few days just to show the United States and the rest of the world that it can reach out and touch them. And while the North probably doesn't have anything close to the technology to mate a nuclear warhead to a missile, that's not the point. The point is that they are attempting to reach out and touch someone, and that much simpler things can be put atop that missile that can do significant damage. In any case, if they launch the thing, the Bush Administration would be remiss not to give an appropriate response, in the form of a defensive interception of the missile, or perhaps an offensive hit on the missile launch complex.

The idea of a missile intercept is indeed an exciting one, as it would be the ultimate checkmate to the North's posturing. The matter has been discussed at length (H.T. RealClearPolitics), and it is not at all clear just how effective our missile defense system is. It will almost certainly be up and running in two years, but to launch an intercept to North Korea's test and have it fail would indeed be a humiliation and would reduce its deterrent value. And I do not expect the Bush Administration to risk such an embarrassment if it believes that there is any chance that our defensive system would fail.

But in an interesting offering from an equally interesting source, former Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry suggests a submarine-launched Tomahawk strike against the Taepodong missile launch site in North Korea to destroy the launchpad and thereby, North Korea's ability to launch missiles altogether if they refuse to drain the fuel from the missile and return it to the warehouse. It's certainly an option, and likely one that would generate very little international outrage--the destruction of a couple of acres of an aggressive, nuclear-armed nation's launch pad, making that region of the planet a heck of a lot safer for a time versus an increase of regional tensions that may lead to war and the loss of millions of lives. This from an Administration that paid blackmail to North Korea which caused the very situation we now have, rather than taking the advice ten years ago that it offers only now--but I digress.

Stephen Hadley has dismissed the notion of such a strike, indicating that diplomacy is the route we are choosing. But how serious can the White House be about negotiation with a dictator who already lied to us once?

My fervent prayer is that this Administration is buying time to prepare to squash Kim's regime by insisting on the six party talks, which were doomed to failure from the moment they were conceived. And the same with Iran. It seems that Condoleeza Rice is playing Ahmadinejad's game--offering incentives that are very reasonable but which he cannot accept because they force Iran to abandon their nuclear weapons program--in an effort to force Iran into a corner with many fewer incentives and many more imperatives with most serious consequences for failure to comply. Because to do anything else is to give in to the demands to two of the original members of the Axis of Evil, and to surrender the high ground taken after 9/11.

The Senate Immigration Bill is Dead

2006-06-21T11:45:00.000-05:00

So says Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics here, and here. And this is something to celebrate. We really didn't need immigration reform. We needed Executive Branch-only action.

Now, to be clear, I do not oppose, and even somewhat favor a guest worker plan. It benefits our economy, and works to the benefit of others who are willing to work for a lower than standard wage because the economies of scale in Mexico make such work quite lucrative for Mexicans. But I doubt that the program that the Senate was crafting was more for Americans than it was for foreign nationals. And it makes little sense to set up a program that would attract vast amounts of immigration before we set in place a means to control access to our border.

The United States already has laws that prohibit unlawful immigration. Until now, though, we have done nothing about it. And it seems that having a real presence on the border is a very real discouragement to illegal immigration. It's what the American people have been wanting, but which politicians, fearful that they may offend or get bad press have avoided. And while such a move may generate flack from the MSM, enforcement of the laws we already have is what Americans have wanted for some time. And perhaps the White House is starting to learn that while the Clintonian paradigm of governing by windsock is certainly ill advised, it is likewise a mistake to ignore polling entirely. Because Americans have been making very clear that they are offended by foreigners who violate our laws by illegal border entries and who compromise our national security by doing so. And they are unwilling to help people who will not first respect our laws.

Which is why the House bill was all about enforcement. The people who are up for reelection every two years have a better feel for the national pulse than those in the Senate who sit for six years. And while the House version does not call for a guest worker program, it does not preclude one either. In a nutshell, the House wanted to make certain that the people's concerns were met now, allowing room for reasonable proposals for handling temporary residents later, without one watering down the other. A longer process to be sure, but one that more likely would handle the problem.

But the Senate version--the one that was the dealbreaker--in an effort to please everyone, seemed almost an apology to illegals for the fact that we wish to limit access to our border and for the fact that their own economy is in a voluntary state of decay. It seems that the authors of the final product tried to say, "We're sorry that life is so difficult for you. Please pull up to the federal trough and we'll slop you along with the rest of the voluntarily dependent." It was the usual Washington nightmare--gifts for all, solutions for none. At least none who are Americans.

And while I can respect the attitude of many Senators in wanting a bill that helps as many people as possible, it got lost in the process of throwing more money and red tape at the problem, aiding foreigners, but not the Americans who want to prevent foreigners from entering the nation to plug into our social welfare system.

And so perhaps the kindest thing that the House of Representatives can do for themselves and the people that all 435 of them will face in the coming year is to kill this bill which the public won't like, which could get said politicians tossed from the House, and which fixes no problem, save those of the people who broke our laws in the first place.

Silence on Butchery, Whining at Guantanamo

2006-06-21T08:05:00.000-05:00

This morning reports are that the two missing U.S. soldiers who were kidnapped in Iraq were found dead, and "butchered" before their deaths. Army Pfc. Thomas Tucker and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca are good men, and now their families are heartbroken over their loss and the unimaginable torture they experienced before their deaths.

Fox News' E.D. Hill offered an even more graphic description this morning which I have not yet been able to find anywhere posted on the web, but if her account is even close to accurate, it involved the most unimaginable and barbaric acts possible. These men's bodies were destroyed prior to their deaths to the point that they could not be identified.

But what does the anti-war crowd have to offer? Guantanamo Bay. As President Bush sits in Vienna, he is pressured by hand-wringing Europeans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The concern of these Europeans is over not the conditions at the prison, where numerous terrorists captured in the War on Terror are being held, but over the flap that is being made by anti-war groups like Amnesty International and the terrorists themselves who are "unhappy" with the fact that they are being detained, as evidenced by a coordinated suicide two weeks ago by three of them.

And prominent anti-war voices like Jack Murtha, who never met a U.S. soldier in the line of fire whom he wouldn't second-guess, are strangely silent at the news that their own soldiers were kidnapped, torn to pieces and only then murdered by al Qaida in Iraq terrorists.

Where is their outrage?

It's been established unapologetically that Gitmo is not Club Med. It is not a fun place, and the military is making every legitimate effort to extract information from these terrorists about al Qaida. But neither is it a place where terrorists are tortured. They receive three very good meals each day, and have access to genuine spiritual advice. These people, not being members of the military of any established nation-state, but rather illegal, non-national combatants who tend to operate in clandestine fashion, are not entitled to even the most basic courtesies under the Geneva Convention. But they are not short of leftist western advocates from the self-loathing and freedom-embarrassed camp in Europe and the United States.

But the fact that the same voices who scream outrage any time a terrorist's infinitesimal sensibilities with regard to a guard's handling of the Koran are insulted (despite the fact that it's ok when it's the terrorists desecrating the Koran in their cells) offer not a peep of objection when two soldiers are kidnapped, disarmed and put through unimaginable torture before being murdered by anti-civilization terrorists, speaks much of how filthy their characters have become. Because if they are to have any authority on the humanitarian treatment of people, they need to decry torture and pursue to the punishment of ALL torturers, not just those with whom they politically sympathize.

And I would be delighted if these two men suffered only what the terrorists suffer at our hands.

Would that these two young men were treated like the terrorists at Gitmo. Would that they were treated like the al Qaida in Iraq brigands at Abu Ghraib. Would that they were just given three hots, a cot and all the religious catering they could want. Would that they only were threatened by angry dogs. Would that they only were made to stand for hours and made to think that they were going to be electrocuted. Would that they were only stripped naked and forced into some ridiculous cheerleader pyramid.

But they weren't. Their bodies were ripped to shreds while they still lived. They were humiliated in ways that no human being (save for the kind who would do such a thing) deserves. They were our boys.

The silence of Rep. Murtha and Amnesty, in the face of the torture and desecration of those who provide them the freedom to be the fools they are reflects the emptiness of their position and their lack of morality and reveals the fact that their prior cries of outrage were rooted in nothing more than politics rather than honest advocacy.

Murtha's Bought Himself A Challenger

2006-06-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

Had Jack Murtha only kept his mouth shut, he would have won this November's election with no problem. He would not have been a lightning rod, he would not have generated much in the way of press, and would have remained a fairly conservative Democrat in the minds of voters in Pennsylvania's 12th District.

But in a strategic decision, he chose to betray the United States Military in which he once served, as a means of personal ascent and possibly to cover his own backside. That kind of unpatriotic talk may fly in Alameda (ask Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Boxer), but it won't in PA-12.

That district is way more conservative than the voting trend of the state as a whole. And while the tide tends to favor the incumbent, that's only if the incumbent avoids bombastic behavior, visits constituents at various district functions, and sends home the typical selective list of good things done in Washington to make their constituents happy and proud. And making the national news on a regular basis is a very risky thing unless the coverage is glowing. But it is downright suicidal if the news is of a congressman in a fairly moderate to conservative district turning on men and women in the military in time of war, accusing them of murder, and demanding their pullout, to of all places, Okinawa, when we are actually winning.

And so Murtha's efforts to become a household name have generated for him a serious general election contender in the form of Washington County Commissioner, Diana Irey. Interestingly, Irey doesn't waste much time on her website ripping into Murtha, but rather, spends more time talking about what she offers. Mrs. Irey is a distinguished member of her community and was championed by the likes of former Pennsylvania governor and former Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge. Her ethical standards won her the honor of being the distinguished ethics speaker at Duquesne University in 1998.

And given that admirable ethics have been woefully missing from Pennsylvania-12's Member of Congress, perhaps it's time for a change.

Murtha Embarrasses Himself On "Meet The Press"

2006-06-19T13:25:00.000-05:00

Ann Althouse has a marvelous digest of Jack Murtha's completely disasterous performance on Meet the Press on Sunday.

The problem she identifies is Murtha's inability to communicate why he believes what he does about the Iraq War. And his unbelievably inconsistent comments. For example, in one breath he claims that as a result of our efforts in Iraq, there are now 15,00 insurgents there, but he opines just a moment later that he believes that there are but 1,000 insurgents and that if we pull out, the Iraqis will rid their nation of them. He also noted that defending American interests creats enemies. Does he suggest that we not do it in that case? Of course, the suggestion that we redeploy from Iraq to Okinawa, Japan and that our aircraft can still reach Iraq from there was quite rich, and apparently Tim Russert thought so too, based on his comments.

The problem is that the Dems have no suggestions on the Iraq War. And based upon the really embarrassing performance of Murtha, it seems they have no facts either. It's really just a series of mantras, based on 1960s anti-American slogans that this group of aging and clueless baby boomers never got out of their heads and never discovered to be the failures that history proved them to be.

And I'm glad that a guy with so little intellectual heft as Murtha was able to show the emptiness of the Dems' non-position to the nation.

"Abu Musab, Say It Ain't So!"

2006-06-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

I caught something remarkable at the end of last week. Democrats began some murmurings that the documents collected by coalition forces in Iraq as they were pursuing Zarqawi to his death, you know, the ones where the enemy in Iraq evaluated their own condition as "gloomy" and where they were devising other plans to spark other conflicts to distract coalition forces from rooting out al Qaida in Iraq, were fakes created by the U.S. I didn't find it remarkable that they did it, of course, just that they did it publicly. And given that Bob Beckel, one of the Democrats' most talented and reasonable defenders had to come out on Friday on John Gibson's show on Fox to defend his party, and was only able to do so on a halfhearted basis (a credit to his intellectual honesty), it shows that the Dem's anti-American antics are starting to turn against them in an election year when they can't afford any setbacks.

I understand a little bit skepticism, and such is a healthy thing. But the Democrats have no basis to believe that the documents are fake. The only thing upon which they can base such an assertion is their own politics: their vociferous opposition to this war and their determination that the War can only exist as a stick to be used against George W. Bush and the Republicans, and a desire to trash anything, no matter how accurate which may harm their ability to use the it against the President. So what that leaves us with is a series of very uncomfortable conclusions about what the Democrats' goals for and views of the Iraq War are.

Nobody likes to lose a critical issue upon which they can campaign, but to express irritation and disappointment when the enemy--a terrorist group that kills our soldiers and beheads defenseless people, and generally engages in acts of brigandage across Iraq--reveals an attitude towards one's own military and nation that needs to be explored and exposed.

If defeat for the enemy means the same thing for the Democrats (and likewise for victory), the viability of Democrats as a political party need to be very seriously reevaluated. Because a thing of this kind goes way beyond raising questions about one's patriotism, which can fairly be presumed to be dead. This borders on treason, because there is no other motivation for disputing the veracity of these documents other than some Democrats wanting to see their own soldiers and country fail so that Democrats can be advanced in their quest for power.

So as I said, I'm not surprised that some noisy Democrats want to disbelieve that al Qaida in Iraq is collapsing under the weight of our military's efforts to isolate and destroy them, just surprised that a party so power-hungry and absent any morality would be so obtuse as to let their disappointment in the failure of a terrorist organization to be publicly known when airing their anti-American attitudes can cost them dearly in an election year where they had hoped to make gains.

Congressional Debate Over Iraq Speaks of Rovian Strategy

2006-06-16T09:07:00.000-05:00

It's never a particularly kind thing to dangle a juicy piece of meat in front of a dog. Because the dog is an animal and a creature of instinct he will probably be unable to pull himself away from the treat he believes will be his, and he will probably ignore everything else, because just about every dog thinks with his stomach.

And what we are now seeing in Congress, where the Republicans are forcing a vote on a non-binding resolution praising our troops, associating Iraq with the global war on terror, and refusing to set some artificial date for withdrawal is an equally cruel act. It forces the Democrats into a real position, off of the false dichotomy of supporting our troops but not their mission, and forces then to address Iraq in the wake of several weeks of major successes, and all in an election year when they hoped to use the same issue against Republicans in order to gain a majority in Congress.

But this is not an isolated act. This is classic Karl Rove preparing at the very least to hold Congressional losses to a minimum, prevent losses altogether and possibly even to gain more ground in November like he did in 2002.

It is a settled issue that the Bush presidency stands or falls on the success of the war and the peace in Iraq. And given the reports of the past week, the terrorist elements have been dealt a death blow with the killing of Zarqawi and subsequent raids staged on his associates based upon information he had with him. Bush's new media team, led by the apparently more than capable Tony Snow have been able to play it all to the President's advantage, bringing his approval ratings to about 40%, proving that the public ties Bush to Iraq, as they ought.

But the successes of the past week put the Democrats in a tough position: they must acknowledge them for the successes that the Iraqi government considers them to be, thus alienating their base, find some hybrid position that acknowledges them as victories but then retreats to the tried and failed mantras of the 2004 election about Iraq being a distraction, a lie, etc. making them sound stupid, or the unabashed leftist position which regards the death of Zarqawi as a stunt. In any case, the last two positions open them to the accusation that they are not serious about terror or national security, but only crank politics and personal bitterness.

It's hard to quantify what the results will be, but the Republicans have nothing to lose by this.

"The Gloomy Present Situation"

2006-06-15T15:18:00.000-05:00

Much to the disappointment to the left, that was al Qaida in Iraq's assessment of their status immediately prior to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the 452 raids conducted since his death based upon information that Zarqawi had with him when he was killed.

The documents detail a situation where the insurgents were dealing with increasingly limited options due to problems with arrests of key personnel, discovery of weapons caches, internal divisions and restricted access to hard currency, among other things, as a result of coalition efforts.

The documents also revealed plans to set the Shiites against the Americans and to spark a shooting war between Iran and the U.S. in order to shift the focus off of the al Qaida operations.

The bottom line is that they detailed an organization that was becoming increasingly desperate in the face of U.S., British and Iraqi pressure. And while this doesn't end our business of cleanign up the security situation in Iraq, it marks what is likely a fatal blow to the coordinated terrorist effort. Cells will begin to act independently, and without the external support they need, they will begin making stupid mistakes. They'll be caught, killed, and they will lead us to more of their warrens.

And so with almost 1,000 insurgents captured or killed in the past seven days, along with the capture of all of the weapons, money and information that they carried with them, I can only imagine that week brought few improvements for the terrorists.

And just to make clear to friends on the left: the enemy thought we were winning when you didn't. So now that we're winning, do you want to bail?

Progress in Iraq as Viewed By the Cranky Left

2006-06-15T12:44:00.000-05:00

Peter Daou over at the Huffington Post offers this really embarrassing post about the way Bush addressed a reporter at yesterday's Rose Garden event. To be clear, the embarrassment is to himself and the "Post".

The President has had a banner few weeks. Karl Rove is cleared in the ridiculous Plame case. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is introduced to the Reaper, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force, Bush makes a surprise visit to Iraq and meets with the new Prime Minister, and the fruits of Zarqawi's strike leads to 452 raids against terrorist elements across Iraq that have apparently brought al Qaida in Iraq to a point of desperation. The very things we had been hoping for in Iraq are finally happening. Bush's promise of determination and perseverance in that nation are beginning to pay off.

But all the left can focus on is a jovial and unintentionally politically incorrect comment which the President made yesterday to a reporter who was wearing sunglasses and posing questions to the President. Little did the President know that the reporter needed the sunglasses because of a serious vision problem. But the only people who seem to care are various liberal reporters. And if this is the kind of thing that they find worth reporting, coequal with the content of that conference, the media and the left have completely missed the boat.

Thankfully, the American people have not.

Iraq Death Toll and the Popping of Media Champagne Corks

2006-06-15T08:52:00.000-05:00

I can now report that the 2,500th U.S. soldier has died in the Iraq War. And I can also report that 2499th American soldier died immediately before him. Both terrible losses, both of equal significance to their families and their nation, both people who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the protection of American interests, the protection of freedom for the people of Iraq and the enhancement of global stability. We should offer prayers for their souls, we should offer prayers for the comfort of their families and we should pray that the Iraqi military is soon able to defend the nation and prevent terrorist takeover in our absence, and eventually squash the filthy remnants of al Qaida Wahabism from Iraq. And we should not recognize one over another simply because of the order of their deaths.

But most unfortunately, this soldier's blood and name will be yet another excuse for the media to once again wonder aloud whether reaching this round figure means that we need to reevaluate our commitment in Iraq. And so in an effort to inaugurate the next Cindy Sheehan, the media will run to the door of that soldier's family, praying that they will blame their son's death on George W. Bush, denounce the war, the awful Bush Administration, and blame him for all that is wrong in Iraq. Because the media and the Democratic leaders very badly want what we are doing in Iraq to fail.

It's quite simple, really. They never got over Vietnam. It was a war we were winning. But because the media reported nothing but the blood, deaths, costs, pain, hardship and destruction our soldiers faced, and the suffering of the Vietnamese at the hands of our soldiers (thanks to the efforts of folks like John Kerry), the work to prevent a communist takeover was in vain. But the media didn't think that Sino-Russian Communism was that bad a thing--they believed that we were. And so the media and the Communists got what they wanted. And their baby-boomer successors have retained their loathing of the United States Armed Forces and their work, content to let anti-Americanism reign as their philosophy of choice.

They seem to harbor this belief, which they will not openly voice, that 9/11 took place in response to something awful that the United States did. But the problem that terrorists have with us is not our military, not our foreign policy, not our prosperity and not our culture, while all of those make fine excuses. Their real objection is to our existence--just like with Israel.

But the media and their brethren on the Democrat far left are still so hopelessly trapped in 1960s and 1970s politics--35-40 years later--and still hepped up on the vitriolic hatred and viciousness of their now discredited cause that they miss the threat that our enemies pose and the motivation for their opposition to us.

And so they will use what ought to be an un-numbered, solemn, and private occasion for one family and attempt to run it up their own shameless flagpole for their own political purposes.

And I find it remarkably ironic that these leftists, who detest those who voluntarily fight and die to preserve their right to be the wingnut fools they are, value our soldiers only after their deaths, when they become a number of some political utility.

Feeling the Pain of the Gitmo Prisoners

2006-06-14T10:35:00.000-05:00

I really don't know why I have to bother with this post. But because--once again--the terror-loving crybabies on the left feel the pain of terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and are troubled by their suicides, it is important to understand what prison is supposed to be all about.

The people at Guantanamo Bay are there for a few major reasons. They are in a place where they cannot be sprung by their buddies as would be the case were they penned up in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or any other place where a Wahabist might be able to reach. The prison is safe from attacks. The prisoners, are people who, like hungry jackals in their cages, are eager to resume their life of terrorizing western civilians and effecting 9/11 style attacks. They belong in a place from which escape is more or less impossible. And they are in that place in order to provide information about known terror operations and methods.

But the whiny voices of the far left are once again feeling sorry for people who want to slit their throats. A few lawyers playing psychiatrists claim that there is a "stench of despair" and "hopelessness" pervading Gitmo. I have no doubt of that. But let's take a step back and in true Kindergarten style, we will repeat this truth until we actually believe it: "These are prisoners who want to kill us. Prison isn't supposed to be happy." Repeat as often as necessary until it makes sense to you.

Prisons are bad, bad places. They are places of despair. It's why I was pleased with the life sentence for Moussaoui. His prison experience would be bleak. But setting aside for just a moment the conditions reported at Gitmo and the really undeservedly kind and deferential treatment that these prisoners receive there, it is not the purpose of a prison to be uplifting or to restore energy to the miscreant's soul. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Prisons are supposed to be places that detain dangerous individuals, and give them time to consider the wages of their criminal behavior. And there is nothing pleasant about such a humility lesson for the arrogant terrorists who live there. But a delegation of U.S Congressmen visited and found it to be a decent place. And most recently, a group of Afghans, whose nationals are also held there, likewise found the place to be a humane. The reason? Because the conditions are so much better at Gitmo than the conditions these terrorists would face were they repatriated.

These terror prisoners tend not to like repatriation. And while some Saudis have kicked up quite a bit of dust about the suicides of these prisoners, the prisoners know better than to wish for a return to their homeland. Because dictatorships like the Saudis, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, and others really hate terrorists. Not for the same reasons we do, of course, but because terrorists hate them as much as they hate the U.S. , and they forbear against nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia and others because those nations finance them just enough to make it not worth their while to topple those states--just yet. But they are a destabilizing force, and no dictator likes to have his people organized against him. So the treatment these people can expect is real torture. No, not readings of Harry Potter, sleep deprivation, loud music, uncomfortable positions, being forced to lay in their own excrement, etc., although I'm certain that those modalities are not excluded from the average dictatorial regime's torture handbook. I'm talking killing someone slowly. Destroying them little by little in a physical sense by means that I don't even want to consider. That's what "home" means for these people.

But what I found interesting is that one of these suicides was by a man who may have been on his way back home to Saudi Arabia. And as I said above, home is not all that happy a place when you are a terrorist. Torture is almost a certainty.

So I don't buy this bunk about the fact that Guantanamo Bay is not a "happy prison". I'll concede that it's not. It need not strive to be that either. And the idea that these people are hopeless and despairing really strikes no chord of sadness for me. They are killers. They want to harm people who want nothing from them. And the fact that they have been stripped of their freedom and are sad about it was a choice they had before they joined al Qaida.

Murtha's Ethical Past and Present

2006-06-13T20:52:00.000-05:00

Much is made by the media and the Democrats about Jack Murtha's heroic service in Vietnam, and his newfound and allegedly principled anti-war stance. Yesterday, I dealt with some of the likely motivations behind Murtha's recent fiery denunciations of the Iraq War, our soldier's morale and then his knee jerk accusations that our soldiers had murdered civilians in Haditha. Today, an astute reader, Lauren, provides a link whose sourcing from whom I liberally borrow, which may shed further light into the Congressman's motives for his posturing--as it appears that ethical problems may have caused him to generate a smokescreen.

Murtha's family ties to lobbying interests are now under investigation in the House after the 2005 appropriations bill, partially authored by Murtha, granted at least $9.5 million to at least four clients of a lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, where a former Murtha staffer and Murtha's own brother, Robert "Kit" Murtha are principals. And it matters because Murtha is the ranking member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, in prime position to dole out pork to individuals in the defense industry who have the right connections.

The first signs of trouble for Murtha came this time last year with this L.A. Times article copiously detailing KSA clients, their contacts with Murtha, and awards to them with Murtha's prints on them. And given that he believed that he was looking at the convening of an ethics probe per this article (which goes into further detail about Rep. Murtha's colorful ethical past), Murtha apparently decided to avoid an embarrassment, and work a very effective PR end-run in November by adopting a bombastic leftist stance on the Iraq war that made him wildly popular with the media. Politically clever and morally reprehensible, and were that the sum of Murtha's problems, it would be enough to disqualify him from opining as to the morality of the Iraq War. But we're not even close to being done, as Murtha's hands are unclean at least as far back as 1980.

Murtha was one of the several Members of Congress whose name became associated with the Abscam scandal. Abscam was an FBI sting which caught several Members of Congress and one Senator accepting bribes in a sting operation. Murtha was one of those targeted by the sting. And while he escaped prosecution, his refusal of bribe money was quite equivocal. In the FBI video that the CNS article links, Murtha can be heard saying "I'm not interested. I'm sorry--at this point." Then the CNS article notes that Murtha further states on a portion of the tape not provided that, "You know, we do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't."

For those who aren't too clear on this, the right response when offered a bribe is an unambiguous refusal, not a wishy-washy response. The next thing is to walk out and pick up the phone to the FBI and report what just took place, which he also appears not to have done. But Murtha escaped prosecution and was cleared of House Ethics Committee punishment chiefly because of the work of former Rep. Don Bailey (D-PA) whom Murtha later faced and defeated in a primary challenge caused by redistricting.

Bailey declared himself to be Murtha's savior on the House Ethics Committee in 1980. But in 2002, Bailey wrote a letter to Murtha and then published it after Murtha's surrogates accused him of lying when Bailey revealed to a third party a few disclosures Murtha had made to him years before surrounding Absam and other ethical shortcomings. The bottom line of the letter is that Murtha admitted to Bailey (after Bailey defended him in the Ethics Committee) that he did not escape prosecution for Abscam because there was a belief in his innocence, but because he agreed to cooperate with the FBI. Further, Bailey implies that Murtha did not immediately and voluntarily report the bribe attempt to the FBI. But the major thrust of the letter deals with Murtha's award of two Purple Hearts. And Bailey claims that, based on Murtha's admissions to him, that the Hearts were improperly awarded.

The letter details a conversation where Murtha, in a moment of humility and relief after fearing for his legal and professional posterior, had a get-real moment with Bailey, admitting that at least one of his two purple hearts was undeserved, and that he went through improper channels to get them. That's a pretty heavy charge to level against someone, but very easy when the charge comes in the form of an admission in a very emotional expression of honesty.

Forgetting for just a moment that this calls into question Murtha's integrity, this account of allegedly unearned Purple Hearts strikes at the very heart of that which makes him most valuable to the Democrats--his record as a decorated veteran.

Bailey's motivation to lie is missing. Murtha was not a lightning rod in 2002. Further Bailey seems interested in clearing the air and the record after Murtha called him a liar (about Murtha's own record) rather than Bailey covering his own rear. These men were once friends. And it makes much more sense that Bailey is offering a sobering account of Murtha's ethical failures than Murtha being wrongly accused. And if Bailey is lying, then Murtha should not hesitate to produce every last document supporting the award of those Purple Hearts. Failing to do it, he is stripped of his political usefulness to the Democrats, left as just one more angry anti-war crank trying to generate some selfish political momentum and a smokescreen to minimize or avoid altogether publicity and damage from an embarrassing ethics inquiry.

So we have a man with a checkered ethical past. Most unfortunately, such a thing is not a rare find in Washington. But what I find most astounding is that this man, with an ongoing record of ethical troubles, puts himself on the front page of every national newspaper, using a military career with decorations of questionable merit as his platform, and inveighed against what he claims is someone else's dishonesty and failures. It speaks of breathtaking arrogance, stupidity, or a disturbing lack of shame as he looks upon his own anything-but-admirable record of professional misdeeds.

And if Murtha's war opposition and disgraceful accusations toward our soldiers were indeed done to put himself in a Majority Leader position and to squelch news of an ethics probe, as I believe they were, and if the claims which I mention here are as accurate as Don Bailey and CNS report, Rep. Murtha has much in the way of apologizing to do as he cleans out his office, dismissed for moral and ethical unfitness to hold it, capped off by a betrayal of American soldiers in harm's way in order to cover himself and get ahead within his party.

Murtha Tries to Get Ahead By Selling out Soldiers

2006-06-12T10:28:00.000-05:00

Everybody loves Jack Murtha (D-PA)--that is if everyone dislikes the military and wishes to talk them down and leave Iraq immediately.

I have not been kind or gentle to Murtha, given the fact that he has not been kind to our soldiers. When he cries for retreat from Iraq, which was the topic of a House vote where he was humiliated, and describes them as "broken" and "worn out" I have very little sympathy for him. My brother-in-law is over there in Samarra, one of the least happy places in that nation, and reports nothing of the sort that Murtha does. And most recently, when Marines were accused of effecting My Lai in Haditha, Iraq, Murtha was quick to accuse them of "murder" of civilians and covering it up without bothering to consider the other side. In all respects, Murtha is no longer pro-military, given that he has turned his mind over to the far left wing of his party, and has bought into the notion that U.S. forces are the problem, not the solution.

But now we may know why Murtha has come unhinged: he wants to be in the leadership of an unhinged party.

Murtha announced that if the Dems retake the House this fall, that he will run for Majority leader with Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) running for speaker. And so it makes one wonder if Murtha's eagerness to use his authority as a retired high-ranking military official to rip American soldiers who are risking their lives in Iraq is part of his greater plan to advance his own political fortunes. That kind of message resonates with most Democrat voters, and it certainly put him on the front pages. It also made a few of us wonder if he was coming unglued, but this development puts it all in a very sensible logical context.

Put simply, he had to use his influence to talk down the war and then directly trash U.S. soldiers as murderers and general troublemakers. And for taking such a huge risk, I hope voters deliver for Murtha a marvelously high political price for the unjustifiable and immoral lengths he has gone to promote himself.

But that aside, the chilling combination of Pelosi-Murtha could prove to be something of a boon for Republicans to run on in tight races, which would follow much the same effect as a Hillary Clinton candidacy for president.

Certain candidates, while interesting to their base, often do more to energize the other side's voters and to elect their opponent by their very presence in a race. The aforementioned Sen. Clinton could be one such candidate. Howard Dean might have been another, had he won the nomination in 2004.

But this move is a serious political miscalculation. Americans are generally not thrilled with the developments in Iraq, and being a society expectant of instant results, the hard slog that is Iraq no longer produces the shock and awe that we saw in its first days. But to simplistically assume that dissatisfaction with Iraq will translate into the disgust for the military that many Democrats today hold is a mistake with potentially devastating results for their party. Putting a San Francisco leftist as their leading candidate for Speaker and an opportunistic military turncoat as Majority Leader, gives the Republicans the free gist of being able to declare that they need not accuse the Dems of being anti-family, anti-military and anti-American, but that Americans need only listen to the Dems themselves to discover it.

And while I didn't expect the Dems to retake either house of Congress this year, a move like this is bound to assure it if the Republicans play it right.

And perhaps the voters in Murtha's district might want to consider the moral and ethical character of the person they are sending to Congress, because much like former Congressman, now jailbird, Duke Cunningham, Murtha voluntarily traded his status as a war hero for that of an American disgrace in order to benefit himself. Because what Murtha has done over the past 7 months is to kill our soldiers morale, scandalize them without any investigation--and now he intends to use their empty helmets as his own political stepping stones.

The Moonbats Have Their Say on Zarqawi

2006-06-09T08:58:00.000-05:00

It seems to the moonbat Democrat crowd that even clear successes in Iraq are only so much silliness. Michael Berg, the father of Nick Berg, the contractor captured and beheaded by Zarqawi believes that Zarqawi's death will only cause more trouble in Iraq. Of course, in the interests of full disclosure, Mr. Berg is a Green Party candidate for Congress in Delaware, and apparently never met an anti-American cause he didn't like. Pete Stark (D-CA) and advocate for the "Department of Peace" (why hadn't anyone thought of that before????), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) find this to be nothing more than a distraction.

From what, you ask?

Well, it's a distraction from all of the bad news that the far left needs reported on Iraq, as well as a positive for Bush in the Iraq War. And if you ask these two wingnuts, they believe that it is morally wrong for Iraq to be about anything other than civilian deaths (deliberately caused by the Gestapo U.S. soldiers, of course) Abu Ghraib, deaths of U.S. soldiers (because the jackboot U.S. soldiers are all of a sudden a concern to these worthless people once they are statistics that can be used against the President), mistreatment of terrorists, Halliburton, and any other minuses you can think of.

So if any question remains in your mind about what the far left is all about, let this erase all questions from your mind.

Death of a Murderer--Successor a Foreigner

2006-06-09T08:35:00.000-05:00

I suppose the first question to enter the mind of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was, "Where the heck are the virgins, and who the heck is this guy poking me with a pitchfork?" He is dead, the result of tips from courageous locals, good planning by Iraqis and Americans, and an excellent execution by two pilots dropping the ordinance that allowed the terrorist to directly learn God's real feelings about his life's work.

Even better is the fact that Fox News is now reporting that Zarqawi was alive, conscious, and aware of the fact that he had fallen into Iraqi/U.S. hands just before he died of the injuries caused by the bombing, given the fact that he tried to roll off the gurney in a hopeless attempt at escape. And there is something very satisfying about that. He didn't die oblivious to his plight. He died knowing that he was captured.

A few points though. The strike couldn't have happened but for Iraqis who turned Zarqawi in. Meaning that the terrorist movement in Iraq is not a grass roots thing, but rather something imposed upon the people which survives because the locals are too afraid of reprisals to turn them in. It also shows that the Iraqis are in this fight for themselves. They have tired of jackboot politics and thugishness. They have tasted freedom and they want more of it.

Also, these terrorists are not rationalists, but rather are a group of zealots. Their business is not the kind that allows them to eventually close up shop and put up their feet at a Mediterranean resort when they get tired of it all. They will be hunted men for the rest of their lives, and therefore have no motivation to stop, slow down, relax, or let up in any way, as doing so means the end of all for which they have worked. So the loss of their leader will likely not bring them to immediate ruin, and there will be more in the way of violence in Iraq until this movement and all of its directors are extirpated.

And the new successor to Zarqawi is believed to be Abu Al-Masri, an Egyptian--further lending to the inconvenient appearance that the U.S. is trumpeting--that this is a foreign-based, foreign-imposed effort to put down the Iraqi people under a Wahabist government who desperately need to force their will on the Iraqi people if their cause is to have any practical hope of surviving.

But the value of the death of Zarqawi cannot be understated either.

Put simply, the world is a better place without him. Iraq is a better nation without him. And replacing the effectiveness of his leadership in maintaining terror operations will not be easy for al-Qaida. It will be quite the task for his successor to continue his work with the same cohesiveness and operational effectiveness. But the political value of his death is immense. And absent a superior leader to replace him, the movement will likely lose steam.

So in that regard, yesterday was likely the beginning of the end of this insurgency. Much like D-Day was not the end of World War II, but rather the begin of its decline, this is much the same. There is more fighting to come. Things will still seem nasty--as not even the final day of war is bloodless or pleasant--but this is the path to peace. It began with the death of that devil.

As Goes Lieberman, So Go the Democrats

2006-06-06T12:12:00.000-05:00

There are few things more revealing about intraparty struggles than primary challenges to incumbents and the really ugly battles that are peculiar to those races. Such unwelcome things bring very little benefit to the party. They are rarely successful, and most often result in an incumbent with few resources and less energy heading into a general election. They provide a general election opponent with free and early bad press on the incumbent and they are the hammer that the other party can use to show that the sitting politician is out of touch, not just with the voters but with his own insular gang.

And such is the lot of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) who may be engaged in the primary battle of his life. Nobody has ever accused Lieberman of being a Kennedy socialist nor a Kerry secularist. He is a moderate politician who is guided by and remains true to his Jewish faith. Lieberman often holds attitudes different than those of his own party mainly because he lets facts, not mantras determine his course. In just about every way, he is an independent-minded and fair individual. Having been called "the conscience of the Senate", Lieberman brings to the table a certain set of qualities that transcend the usual political sniping that characterizes Washington.

But the primary battle now before him results from the fact that he supported and continues to support the Iraq war because, upon invesigation, he believes that we are there on a good mission and that that mission must be accomplished. The left, of course, cannot tolerate any across the aisle cooperation--unless it's the Republicans capitulating to them, so as punishment, they are trying to decapitate Lieberman.

And if they are successful, they will set a course for their party's implosion.

Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont is a fairly radical guy who is adored by this crowd. Beating Lieberman would send the very obvious message that the Dems are not interested in reasonable people, but rather far leftists as their elected members. But it would also have the effect of turning the party in such an obviously and publicly leftward direction that Americans would begin to realize that the party is so completely out of touch with America that it can no longer be trusted with handling the business of the American people.

It is nothing new that the Democrats are the party of the far left, just that they are more open about it. And dogmatic openness that unseats a very respected, ethical and honorable member of the U.S. Senate because he chose to remain true to what he believes is right, rather than remaining obedient to the Reid-Pelosi-Dean drumbeat will be just the kind of thing that over a few years time clues Americans into the fact that today's Democrats are promoting the same brand of ideas that we fought and defeated in the Cold War.

Senate Misses the Boat on Illegal Immigration

2006-06-06T09:15:00.000-05:00

There are two bills moving through the Houses of Congress to address the now critical illegal immigration problem. There's the House bill which seems to be taking an incremental approach. The first step is enforcement. We stop the flow of illegals and prosecute those who prospectively choose to violate our laws. Guest workers, paths to citizenship, and other things which are indeed important, still come second. Our laws are our laws.

The Senate bill is a little different. And if it could only be cast as amnesty, it wouldn't be so bad. But the Senate bill tries to please everyone--presuming that "everyone" means all illegal immigrants and every liberal group who believes that these people need to be rewarded for being lawbreakers. And while initially well-intentioned, it promises to be a windfall of welfare to people because they of their status as lawbreakers. But if you don't believe me, listen to the words of the bill's biggest sponsor, Ted Kennedy:

"We can build miles of fences, but the fact remains that immigrants will still come because employers need workers and immigrants want jobs," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who fought for a guest-worker program. "It's far better for American jobs and wages to have a practical, common-sense policy of legal immigration, than to continue leaving millions of immigrants underground and underpaid."

Besides the willing misunderstanding of illegal immigration that this comment reflects, it also should signal to all Americans that the Senate really has no clue as to how to solve this problem. By Kennedy's reckoning, we'll ignore enforcement because they're going to break the law anyway. But more to the point, the guest worker plan that Kennedy is promoting is a new welfare program in disguise.

But this immigration dilemma will not be resolved by the standard Democrat answer of creating yet another wasteful spending program that does nothing more than promote state dependence for subsistence. In such a way, we would be worsening the lot of those who came here for a better life, not improving it and we would be worsening things for Americans by shackling them to the problems of foreigners, simply because those foreigners have the ability to bring their problems to our doorstep.

First, it creates a need for larger government and thereby government spending to administer the program. Then, it requires more in the way of direct federal handouts that are certain to go across the border, rather than being spent here. Third, it creates the obvious disincentive to work which is why a guest worker program is under consideration in the first place. But most obviously and ominously, it is a handout for foreign nationals whose government is and has historically been too incompetent, corrupt, and lazy to care for them. And if anyone thinks that we can abolish such a misbegotten entitlement program once its failure becomes apparent, they are foolish. There has never yet been any entitlement program which has been enacted that has ever been repealed.

The point of furthering a guest worker program is not that it benefits others. It's because it promises to ultimately benefit Americans. These workers really do confer a nice benefit to our economy. They are willing to accept lower wages for certain jobs because the economies of scale between the U.S. and Mexico make the wage worthwhile. And those low wages keep producer costs and thereby consumer prices down. Everybody wins.

But Kennedy's offering, rather than addressing guest workers, promises to worsen the very problem which sparked the immigration debate in the first place. Because for every hard working illegal, there are just as many who cross the border to have babies and live off of welfare and to traffic in drugs. It feeds the thing we are trying to stop

Somewhere along the way, the Senate bill, in trying to create a guest worker program, got lost among tried-and-failed socialist policies of the 1960s. And it needs to be shredded in the conference committee. It doesn't solve the problem of illegal immigration--it promises to reward it and create an even bigger burden to Americans, conferring them no benefit in return.

The House bill, however, solves the problem that most concerns Americans--that of stemming the tide of the illegal immigration. And while it doesn't address the guest worker issue, it limits the problem of border access, allowing us then to deal with the illegals we have. And perhaps it is better to view the problem in that way. Because while we do not want to create a new entitlement program and give out favors to illegals who are in this nation and contributing, we don't want to clobber them either.

But that issue is for tomorrow, and perhaps the House is on to something. They may be holding the belief that if we don't get serious about border security now, we won't in the future, and we will tend towards the same harmful feel-good efforts into which the Senate has bought. And so in an effort to avoid a mediocre omnibus immigration package, perhaps it is best if we focus on the details one at a time.

Once we can prevent new crossings, we can address these other issues in a meaningful and logical way.

But it's never a bad place to start with the respect of our own laws, as our prosperity does not translate into a duty to fix Mexico's unwillingness to take care of its own people. And we should not be so obtuse as to think that the easy answer of throwing money at the problem will work for this most serious of matters.

The Costs of the NSA Exposure and Demagoguery

2006-05-31T11:49:00.000-05:00

NSA is a heck of a place. I live just up the road from it, and for years, we have all joked that the acronym stands for "No Such Agency", because its existence was officially denied for so long. But when road signs off of 95 and 32 announce the exits for it, the half-hearted efforts to feign its secrecy became comical. Nonetheless, while everyone on earth knew it was there, we still didn't know exactly what went on there. Sure, we knew that it was the home of electrical intelligence gathering, cipher makers and breakers, and all sorts of technological cool stuff. And I have known many friends who worked there who could not tell me what they did for a living. Because that's the place that enables us to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. The less we know, the better.

But now, we have a bigger problem. We actually know what is going on there. We first heard that calls with one point outside the country were being monitored. We then learned that of those calls, there was a spiderweb-like matrix of telephone number sources created. And then we learned that NSA may be keeping a listing of each and every telephone number and the calls it makes and receives. We learned that these were the methods they used to track and tighten the net on terrorists and their operations within and without our nation.

Setting aside the emotional implications that the release of information like that might create for those of us who think that such a release of information is dangerous and for those who believe that the collection of such information is a violation of our civil liberties, it's important to first take a dispassionate view of the issue.

The first point is that NSA exists to protect us from our enemies by using technology to our advantage and to their disadvantage. But the critical element of that function is that the sources and methods used must remain undisclosed, to the point that we really don't even talk about the fact that we are even trying to undermine unfriendly folk. So when we have the kind of revelations that the past year has provided, those seeking to destroy us are able to adapt away from our efforts at interdiction. And then we need to spend all the more time and effort to find new ways to reliably detect them. To get a flavor of the cost of resuming the now lost chase, after the Walker spy ring was broken up, it cost us approximately one billion dollars to replace coding systems and military hardware which the Walkers had exposed. That was about 20 years ago. I can't imagine what it will cost for us to get back in the terrorists' baffles again today.

The second point is that it gives the terrorists some benchmark as to what is known or knowable by us. They now know that their international calls are compromised. They also know that we can track them and their compatriots by their use of telephones. So they probably just stop using them. They'll use intranational communications that can't be monitored. They'll use low tech and harder to monitor methods. They'll use the mail. They'll operate by old fashioned cold-war signals with predetermined meanings. A broken window. A skidmark on a curb, whatever. These people are not stupid. They make a point of exploiting perceived weaknesses. Now, we've tipped them off to our strengths.

And they don't give up. Because more to the point of that benchmark, they can now know which plans to abandon and can start anew on another plot. And let's presume that this puts a significant damper on a bigger attack and moves them to a point of desperation, instilling a fear that if they do not act soon, they will be caught before they can execute something spectacular like 9/11. Perhaps, then, they will resort to a series of attacks that are much smaller, but greater in number that require minimal effort, but will have the effect of unleashing untold terror at the personal and local level. Attacks on local gathering places for example. The kind of things that will cause people to react with abject fear in their daily lives. And we would be none the wiser.

But to bring it to a point, those doing the leaking of these secrets and those publicizing them under the guise of protection of civil liberties are endangering the lives of the people whose liberties they claim to be protecting by empowering the terrorists who were hoping that they would do just that.

With respect to the act of leaking, there have been several justifications offered for same, namely that in each instance a single individual feared that laws were being violated, and took the law into his or her hands and illegally disclosed state security secrets. As I stated in a prior post, there are legitimate paths to take in order to blow a whistle but maintain security--offices of Inspectors General, the Attorney General, or even Members of Congress and the Senate once clearances have been checked--excellent places to go to make classified concerns known, while maintaining secrecy. But going to the New York Times and The Washington Post are not. And by the terms of the law, doing so is a crime.

And it strikes me as peculiar that people are willing to put their freedom on the line in order to make some point about their political disagreement with the Bush Administration's efforts to fight terror. I don't mean to say that this is the sole cause of these leaks, but I do mean to imply that it is a chief cause, as it is fair to say that arrogance with a smaller measure of stupidity also play their own roles.

Because the people who know about these programs know full well that they are not about finding out what's for supper tonight, grandma' health, or hearing people's kids screaming in the background. They know it is all about fighting terrorism, and they have made absolutely no credible allegation that the program was being used to spy on Americans, meaning that the dangers they feared were of a phantom nature. And so to throw the program open for the enemies it targets to evaluate and adapt to it is, apart from the criminal aspects of leaking, completely devoid of any justification or reason, save for those offered above.

But I am more concerned about the message that this sends terrorists. It shows that our security can be very easily compromised by people who, for ideological reasons, adopt the ACLU standards of privacy and see no problem with breaching security in order to stick a barb in the side of the President and our security apparatus. Worse yet, the notion that the media is sculpting, that the NSA is actually a public enemy rather than a protector is a destructive one. And the basis for that presumption is that they have the ability to illegally harm the American people just as much as lawfully help them. But that same logic applies to our highly respected military, and nobody would ever seriously entertain the idea that they would ever attempt to do us harm. It is pure misinformation, conspiracy talk, and demagoguery.

Interestingly, however, that same logic can be very easily and sensibly applied to the leakers and the media who publish classified information leaked to them.

The leakers offer the excuse that they are whistleblowers, however misinterpreting the law, but trying to protect Americans. But they have blown the lid off of effective efforts to protect Americans and shown terrorists their exposure. They didn't grasp the Constitutional law which they claimed to be advancing, and apparently didn't take seriously enough the statutes which direct that classified material is not to be disclosed without proper authorization from the President or Vice President. And they get to be a hero in the media for a few moments.

The media is perhaps even more culpable. In their quest to advance their own political agenda, they are willing to report information known to be protected by a state security classification and add their own spin in order to cause problems for the President by casting such programs as Big Brother efforts to spy on Americans (presumably because the President is interested in what we are cooking for dinner or how long the kids played at the playground). They know the risks, but nonetheless release such information, ignoring the harm it may cause Americans in favor of the help it may bring their own political cronies.

For both, responsibility is ignored in favor of personal political gain. And there ought to be a consequence for all three. For the leakers, there need be no mercy shown, despite the fact that they put on the false clothing of a "whistleblower". They need to be prosecuted for breaking the law and for exposing state secrets. Send them to jail in a cell next to Robert Hanssen and the Walkers, and end any potential incentive that a misguided leaker may have to endanger the rest of us.

The media needs to be held to the same standard, and source protection needs to be abolished when it comes to the unauthorized disclosure of state secrets. In other words, the media needs to become part of the backstop so that there is no longer any benefit to the acts of the leaker. Only punishment. And publication of secrets needs to be treated with the same severity as the initial leaking. We know the media can keep secrets about their sources. They can do the same about the State. So for every Pulitzer Prize that a news outlet is hoping for, there needs to be the promise of a criminal sanction to create the appropriate incentive to obedience to the law.

Because keeping state secrets and maintaining a place like NSA, while sounding very cloak and dagger is what keeps us safe. And it's why our legislators are kept in the loop by the Administration. And if we distrust the government, we can overthrow it every 2-4 years, electing people with whom we may agree more.

But the business of exposing and tearing down our security apparatus for purely political reasons must stop. Because it's just what our enemies were hoping we would be stupid and naive enough to do.

New Treasury Selection Is a Real Opportunity

2006-05-30T11:04:00.000-05:00

It seems that the Bush Administration has room for but one Snow, that being White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. Because Treasury Secretary John Snow is out. As of Friday, the President knew nothing about it. As of today, he's already named a replacement. Which seems a bit odd for someone who was surprised by the announcement, but I digress.

Snow was by no means a bad Treasury Secretary. But in this environment, where Bush's very successful economic agenda is overshadowed by a controversial foreign policy, Bush needs an exceptional Treasury Secretary.

The biggest issue facing this president is Iraq. Not New Orleans/Katrina, not immigration, not wiretaps, and not even the economy. Iraq. His legacy stands or falls on it.

Iraq is a hard, painful slog. And while it is progressing, with a new unity government, a military that is growing in aptitude, requiring less and less assistance from the United States forces, and a civilian population that can see the difference between the terrorists and their own elected government, clearly preferring the latter, it is portrayed as Vietnam in the desert by overzealous journalists and Democrats. The result is an America that, for reasons that really have no logical basis, believes that much is wrong, just because they see difficulties in Iraq.

Which brings me back to the Treasury Secretary appointment. In an era where unemployment is a very low 4.7%, and where the stock markets are flirting with record highs, and all of this in the wake of the huge loss of employment caused by Katrina and exorbitant fuel prices, we ought to be celebrating this remarkable achievement and our prosperity, not looking down in the mouth. But the media spillover from negative Iraq reporting is having the effect that the left intends--it is keeping attention away from the good which would buoy Bush's politcal fortunes and those of his party. It is the job of the Treasury Secretary to advance the Administration's economic policies, but also to trumpet economic successes. And in this department, the Administration has been lacking.

Paul O'Neill was the last person Bush needed as Treasury Secretary. His head was not in the game, he lasted for but 2 years because of it, and so after his dismissal, he wrote a "tell-all" that was so well received by Americans that it didn't even finish its first printing before the unpurchased copies were pulped for consumption by American dairy cattle. John Snow was a decent guy, but he didn't sell the economy effectively. It wasn't for want of effort but rather an inability to hold people's attention.

But Hank Paulson is a little different. As head of the most prestigious of investment houses, Goldman Sachs, he carries with him quite a good deal of respect in the financial community. Similarly, his ability to communicate will enable the Administration to tout the very obvious economic successes we have seen over the past five years. In other words, if there is anyone who can cut through the media's false flood of negativity on Iraq that has drowned out positive stories and soaked through unrelated issues to create in the American mind the false image of a bad overall picture, it's Paulson.

And it will enable Bush to open up a new front for Republicans in November, and to put Iraq in a little more context. Because a good economy tends to cure many wrongs, whether perceived or real. And while I don't see Bush being able to effectively correct the record on Iraq in time for it to have any significant effect for November, record correction need not be his only strategy. Because if Paulson is effective enough, a real belief in a strong economy may have its own unquantifiable spillover back into Iraq. Perhaps Americans will begin to see it for the good work it really is, or at the very least, see it as less of a concern to them than their nation's good economic position.

It's wishful thinking given the PR disaster that Bush has allowed during his second term, but it must be his Administration's goal.

ACLU Favors Political Censorship

2006-05-24T15:45:00.000-05:00

One of the few things that has never ceased to amaze me is the unforgiving orthodoxy of the American left. They claim to be tolerant, but only of their lassiez-faire moral philosophies. They claim to support Americans, but not their right to be protected from terrorists. They support people's right to practice religion, but only in the confines of their own homes. And they support free speech, especially belligerent Anti-American speech--because those ideals square with their own. In no uncertain terms, they are the law firm of the American far left.

But the notion of free speech is not something that they are willing to afford their board members. According to a series of proposed standards for their directors, if a director disagrees with the majority of the board, he needs to keep his disagreement to himself. Per the guideline:

"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"

So if political disagreement arises, keep it to yourself because it might make us look more stupid and backward than we already are and may choke off cash flow.

Now, I'll grant the ACLU the fact that it is a private organization with stated objectives and goals, and that they have a right to set internal policy in order to maximize their progress towards them. But it strikes me as just a little odd that an organization which claims to be the defender of America's free speech rights would want to stifle public expression of political opinions.

But the other side of that observation is the nature of the opinions being censored. If anyone believes that the ACLU board would ever adopt any policy which meets the ideals of main street America, namely such quaint social conventions as permitting public expressions of faith, allowing parents to make decisions about their children's education over teachers, allowing terrorists to be treated as illegal combatants rather than pickpockets, or supporting our nation's right to defend itself from terrorists who want to destroy it, they are nuts. The policies about which no dissent can be had are the leftist ones that the Board will surely adopt.

Because behind all of the silly rhetoric about supporting all Americans' civil liberties, they are really only about expanding the ideals of the far left to the exclusion of the rights of the rest of us. And just so you don't miss it, their claim that orthodoxy of message equates to a continuing cash stream should be a clue to anyone that the ACLU is above all a political organization which receives its donations from the individuals whose political causes it advances. And if those folks on the left see anything but strict ideological compliance, the ACLU fears that checkbooks will begin to close.

So take this as a lesson: the ACLU is certainly about the protection of civil liberties. Just not yours.

The Truth of Katrina--You Won't Hear it from the White House

2006-05-23T12:35:00.000-05:00

The horrid mess that Hurricane Katrina wrought across the Gulf Coast remains. It was truly a devil of a storm that flooded a major U.S. city, killed thousands, and destroyed billions upon billions of dollars in property. And while its physical effects are going to be felt for years to come, history does not have to be marred by false tales of alleged first responder incompetence which are alleged to have taken place in its aftermath.

This account by RealClearPolitics's Lou Dolinar sets the record straight. And while he notes that FEMA's response was nothing sterling, and that Ray Nagin's behavior was nothing short of flaccid as he sat in a hotel suite away from the action, he notes that the National Guard, Coast Guard, local police and firefighters and others were on the job as they ought to have been. He also states that rescue operations began nearly immediately, and as soon as they were safe for the rescuers to commence. The post is an excellent, although lengthy read, but certainly worth the venture.

But the final point made is the one that was echoing through my head all along--why the heck didn't the White House make these facts very clear as they became known? Why did they cede control of the story to the mainstream media who got nearly everything wrong, and to the Democrats who were using it as a cudgel to instill in the public their belief that President Bush is careless and incompetent? Why do they still allow themselves to be beaten up by the left when they know that the left does not have the facts to support their accusations?

One will never know. But it seems to me that this is one department where the White House needs to cure its reputation, and quickly. Because reports that we have another hurricane season coming which may be about as awful as the last one revive memories of New Orleans. And those memories recall the apparent lack of response to the disaster which the media and left blamed on the President. And the kind of tool that the Dems were looking for--a sort of time-release political poison--is just what they have created whenever the mentions of New Orleans, levees, Katrina, Gulf Coast, and hurricanes have created in the minds of many.

It is meaningless for conservatives to defend the President on this issue. His popularity has never recovered since Katrina, and unless he goes back on the offensive, which the new communications team doesn't seem to be doing yet, he won't. He can't let this go. He must set the record straight.

No Red Meat, Just Serious Policy

2006-05-16T08:05:00.000-05:00

President Bush's speech wasn't an earth shattering news-maker, but it was certainly better than early reports from the White House yesterday afternoon led us to expect.

But now, because of the speech, the President can state that he's the only person on record with a real immigration reform plan that is strong on enforcement, and which recognizes that we can't load all illegals up in a dumpster and roll them off in Tijuana. He also very appropriately cast the National Guard involvement as temporary until we get a permanent border security force to replace them. And it shows that Tony Snow had a hand in crafting the speech when Bush blunted the near-certain Democrat criticisms that using National Guard troops would affect the war on terror, Iraq, Afghanistan or anything else they may use as ammo in their ever-present desire to be against anything Bush does.

The call for English to be learned was equally important, although he stopped short of calling for it to be the national language which would have been a coup for conservatives.

And the path to citizenship he described was an excellent way of dealing with those on the right who want to employ the aforementioned dumpster strategy. Amnesty means that we reward lawbreaking. The path to citizenship means that illegals must pay and then get at the end of the line if they want to be part of the program.

It's a very good middle ground strategy, but in this environment, it's hard to have a successful moderate strategy when one is upsetting one's own base. It's a problem that Hillary Clinton will have to deal with, and which ultimately bit John Kerry in 2004.

But Bush is not so much up to a moderate strategy as he is getting real and effective immigration reform. And he may just get it, but he needs to be wary of the Democrat snakes waiting in the weeds. Because while Ted Kennedy is touted as one of the leaders on immigration reform, Ted has never tacked anywhere close to the center in the last 25 years unless there was a bottle of Chivas there for him. And if Bush gets too cozy with these people who reward kindness with backstabbing in their insatiable quest for more and more state power for their own use, he will suffer his father's fate back in 1991 where cooperation with Democrats meant a betrayal of his base and one of his biggest political promises.

It was a very good start. But he needs to remain focused and very publicly engaged. He needs to be seen doing something on this issue, because its success or failure depends completely upon how he personally pushes this issue.

Is Bush Preparing to Touch the New Third Rail?

2006-05-13T09:34:00.000-05:00

Monday night, President Bush is preparing to lay out an immigration plan, which leads me to believe that Karl Rove is planning yet another coup.

I said last week that it seems that Rove is positioning the pieces on the political chessboard to have the Dems deliver for themselves an election year embarrassment by reminding voters that they are only interested in appointments of ACLU judges to the federal bench, and that they favor abolishing terror-preventing national security programs in favor of ACLU standards of privacy for such terrorists by setting up the possibility of contentious confirmation hearings for former NSA head Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA director.

But is Rove planning a bold move to corner the immigration issue as well?

It's hard to imagine that he could score a reversal on the Dems, as immigration seems to be their strongest card at this point. But one of the first rules anyone should learn about Rove is that he should never be underestimated.

If the President comes out with a umpteen prong plan to fix the immigration problem, the speech is dead on arrival, and it will be marked as Bush's last stand. If his plan depends in any significant way upon action from Congress, ditto.

But if this is Rove genius at work, regardless of what Bush believes about guest workers and paths to citizenship, his big pitch will be enforcement--something he needs ask no permission to do.

The laws we have on the books at this point to combat illegal immigration are good enough. It is the Executive Branch's duty to enforce them with no further input from Congress. So the President needs to come out against border-crossers, drug smugglers and the like. He needs to make clear that he is doing this because a permeable southern border is a significant vulnerability in the war on terror because the Government of Mexico, which is unwilling to do anything to abate drug smuggling or illegal border crossing, but rather seems eager to assist in both (almost legalizing possession and use of drugs and printing how-to manuals for crossing the border), is an irresponsible neighbor and cannot be trusted to behave in anything but a treacherous manner. He needs to come down hard on enforcement of the laws we have, as they penalize nobody but those who seek to break our laws and enter our nation for their own self-interest, and likely to endanger our citizens. He also needs to make clear that we welcome people who wish to immigrate from Mexico to become U.S. citizens, and that nothing is ever going to change in that regard. And then we need a wall, a fence, whatever--some imposing physical barrier that actually prevents illegal border crossings.

With respect to a guest worker program or amnesty, he needs to remain largely silent. Americans really don't care a heck of a lot about helping people who want to take dollars south and who are here for the benefits but none of the social responsibilities of citizenship. And the protests over the past months as well as the national anthem being rewritten and translated into Spanish have done much to erode any good will that the illegal immigration lobby may have ever had. Bush need not pander to these folks, as he does so at the peril of the conservative base that won him 2000, 2002 and 2004.

And in a spinning dagger attack, Bush may wish to plunge one in the heart and then back of Harry Reid by dropping the very subtle veiled suggestion that the Senate Democratic leadership is all about blanket amnesty. It's a bit of a dirty trick, but there is little question that the left ultimately wants to forgive lawbreaking and punish those who have and continue to trudge through the system because they want to be U.S. citizens. So in yet another Rove Catch-22, this would be Bush's chance to make the Dems very publicly commit themselves to a position. It would have the effect of putting the Dems on the defensive for a change, by forcing them to either 1) demagogue the issue and call Bush a racist for not favoring some form amnesty--thereby implying that they do--sounding absolutely silly, leaving them open for easy attack as being pro-amnesty, and positioning them very poorly for November in tight races, or 2) disavowing amnesty altogether thus alienating the Che Guevara elements of their base whom we saw protesting in past weeks.

And it would position Bush on top of the biggest issue in the minds of Americans, potentially staying ahead of the Dems on security and the judiciary as well. Which are just the issues his party needs foremost in the minds of voters for 2006.

Nothing else will work. If Bush goofs it with a typical Washington response, this new third rail will zap him for the rest of his presidency. But if he plays it right, the power coming off that rail can really energize his party at a time when they badly need it.

Debunking the Westboro Hate Group

2006-05-12T11:17:00.000-05:00

If anyone is not familiar with the Westboro Baptist Church, here is a link to their site, which I place for information purposes only. They claim to offer the Gospel. In reality, the offer the veneer of Christ packed with nothing but good old-fashioned evil and hate. They have made a point recently of attending funerals for U.S. servicemen and women who have died in the line of duty, claiming that 9/11 and other international problems we now experience are the result of homosexuality in America. Their displays are repugnant--signs that declare that "God Hates America", "Thank God for 9/11", "God Loves Dead Soldiers" (presumably emphasizing the "dead"part), "Thank God for IEDs" and others. Enjoy their photo montage.

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill limiting their putrid displays at federal cemetaries by blocking their access to the sites. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (D) is likewise about to sign a bill that would have the same effect in her state. It's probably the best thing that can be done without creating a huge ACLU 1st Amendment controversy.

But their protests have sparked others to do acts of true love. A group of bikers called the Patriot Guard Riders who get between the Westboros and the grieving families at the gravesite to block the hateful displays, often with large American flags are making their mark of silent and respectful love. So in response to evil, love and goodness can abound.

But as a Christian, there is a particular offense I take to the use of my God's name to advance a hateful agenda. So let's get one thing straight. God loves gays. He's not thrilled at all with their lifestyle and practices. But like a parent who loves a child whose choices are not the ones they would make, so God loves gays.

And the salvation of Christ is open to gays. It's open to anyone on earth who will ask, regardless of how innocent or guilty they think they are, and regardless of how seemingly repugnant or venial their sins may appear.

And I direct the Westboro folks and all who sympathize with them to John 8:1-11. And once done with that, feel free to check Psalm 59:12.

Homosexuality is not a good thing. I fervently disagree with it, and I believe God does also. But God does not hate homosexuals. The blood of Christ was freely spilled for them as well. But what are we to say of the pride-filled and haughty? Those whose own righteousness--apart from Christ--is their delight? I turn you to Christ's admonitions to your predecessors who opposed him in his day.

There is more hope for the penitent gay than for them.

And for any who disagree, I invite you to post here, but I will delete all disparaging posts whose authors do not have the guts to leave return contact information.

Is Rove Laying Some Election Year Traps?

2006-05-08T09:20:00.000-05:00

Many conservatives and astute liberals love to speculate when Karl Rove is playing around with the political chesspieces. And today will likely spawn about the same kind of thing, because Rove seems poised to feed the Democrats some raw meat, and it looks quite a bit like they are ready to jump into whatever traps he is laying if just to get in one more anti-Bush remark as we head into an election season.

If there are two areas where Democrats are weak, they are the judiciary and national security. And if Rove can get any two issues above the front page fold by October, it would be those two, which still retain a good deal of the public's interest after the other hot-button issue, immigration, which he would sooner have disappear, unless the Dems choose to run on an amnesty platform.

So in order to get national security at the top of the agenda, President Bush today named Gen. Michael Hayden to replace CIA director Porter Goss. And if you thought the Alito hearings were nasty, the Dems will be lobbing their best stuff at Hayden for his confirmation hearings as DCI.

Hayden was formerly the director of the National Security Administration and was one of the architects of the wiretap program that upset many ACLU Dems. Expect the hearings to be contentious, especially given the fact that its membership includes such left wing partisans as Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Carl Levin (D-MI), and 2008 presidential candidate Russ Feingold (D-WI) who wants to censure the President for the wiretap program. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is already on record as being fairly supportive of the program, and Evan Bayh (D-IN) is a fairly conservative Democrat, but may very well need to put on a show, as he is listed as a contender for the presidency in 2008.

The questioning will be largely uninteresting and will cover much already-tilled ground about the wiretap program. The only part that may get our attention is the acerbic nature of the exchanges and the likely demagoguery by Rockefeller, Levin and Feingold as they try to portray an effort to protect the American people as a violation of those same people's civil liberties--which is just what Karl Rove wants.

The Dems want nothing more than to make the wiretap program appear as Bush's Big Brother reaching into America's homes, gathering civilian intelligence to enrich Halliburton, the Carlisle Group and any other whipping boy they can devise. But in such a transparent effort of selfish political gamesmanship, they will once again communicate to the American people that they are not at all serious about nor can they be trusted with securing the nation from terrorist and other threats--contemporaneously with their request that America to turn the Congress over to them.
And that leads to their agenda for a Democratically controlled Congress. If anyone can tell me what that is, I will gladly make an addendum to this post. But to pare down all of the language in which they will cast any proposals they offer, their plans are to impeach the President as retaliation for that of Bill Clinton, for 2000, 2002, and 2004, they plan a tax increase, and to put the brakes on any further judicial nominations. In other words, they continue to offer the same old bitter stuff they ran on in 2002 and 2004--"elect us because we're mad that we're out of power and because Bush is humiliating us."

And speaking of judicial nominations, the Republicans managed to get Bill Frist to behave like their Majority Leader and he is now pushing two judicial nominees who have heretofore been stalled by Senate Democrats. The Democrats are promising another unpleasant set of hearings for Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Given that he is a Bush staffer and a former member of Ken Starr's staff, the Dems will use the same political criteria to judge him as they have other Bush nominees. They are also all but promising a filibuster on Judge Terrence W. Boyle who has also been appointed for an Appeals Court position. And on this, there is no win for the Dems.

Both judges are indeed mainstream conservatives, but if that's all the Democrats can throw at them, they will have a very hard sell to the Gang of 14 who will likely not find any of this to be an exceptional circumstance enough to trigger their joining a filibuster.

But the show will be great in the summer and fall, and will be an excellent reminder to Americans why they have left the Democrats as the party out of power. And it seems all the more clear that the Democrats need us and our votes way, way more than we could ever need them.

Preferred Status

2006-05-05T11:43:00.000-05:00

What's in a name?

Sure, it's an old Shakespearean question, but there is much validity to it. It stood for the proposition in Romeo and Juliet that one need not be shackled to relatives and traditions which they have outgrown. Of course, the flip side would be what we get when we look at young folks who insist on living under the family shadow, writing checks against age-old good will accounts into which such young people have never made a penny of a deposit.

To wit, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). Congressman Kennedy got himself in a spot of trouble early this morning as he drove his mustang in a reckless fashion up to the Capitol at 2:45 this morning, claiming to be rushing to a vote, and ultimately striking a construction barrier. He seemed intoxicated at the time, but claims that he was taking an anti-nauseant and the sleep drug Ambien. There are, of course, the hearsay accounts that there was an odor of alcohol on him, and the fact that he is a Kennedy brings a few snickers to many of us, knowing that that family's penchance for motor vehicle mayhem combined with substance abuse is legendary. But we really don't know what took place, although it is quite suspicious that Patrick claims that he was going to a vote (Members of Congress cannot be arrested on their way to a vote) when he was stopped. But there really has to be a vote, rather than his mistaken claim that there was one.

And while I've never had much regard for this rather whiny Cindy Sheehan look alike, whatever happened happened. Nobody got hurt, his car was banged up, and he'll have to pay to get it fixed.

But my major concern is the reason why this Kennedy didn't get a breathalyzer. Why wasn't he subjected to field sobriety tests? Why were the police directed just to take him home? And why does this kid's status give him carte blanche to commit an act which would have put any if the rest of us in jail for the night? Why dies his name get him treatment that the rest of us don't get?

The issue is over. And if he was drinking and driving, or combining with the meds, it doesn't matter anymore. The evidence of it is gone, and he will face no sanction.

But his family never does. And it seems that the good-will account from which this little boy writes his checks is getting depleted. He can thank his father's own problems for that.

Our Drug-Supporting Enemy To The South

2006-05-04T11:47:00.000-05:00

Imagine if the United States, in an effort to focus our efforts at eliminating child molestation and porn rings, legalized the possession of small amounts of child porn, so that the need to chase after the little guy is eliminated, allowing us to chase after the real offenders and eventually stop them. In other words, we let demand run wild so that we can go after supply. But in the meantime the market for that peculiar filth grows, more players enter the market in an effort to make an extra buck, resulting in the exploitation of children.

It makes about as much sense as stopping the illegal immigration problem by granting a blanket amnesty to all illegals, rather than making them jump through hoops and get to the back of the line. But given that that is the position of the increasingly uncooperative government of Mexico when it comes to their citizens who emigrate to the United States by dark of night, it makes sense that they would employ a parallel logic in their effort to fight drugs--surrendering to criminals in a pretend effort to fight them.

Until yesterday, the Mexican government was planning to legalize possession of small quantities of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and peyote. The reasoning was that legalizing small quantities would clear the courts and enable the government to more vigorously pursue the kingpins.

But the only people stupid enough to believe that are Fox and his allies in the Mexican Congress.
And I wonder just how giddy the drug cartels were, knowing that possessing and using their wares would be perfectly legal. It would take all fear out of using for those to whom jail was the only deterrent, and it would only help the current users to be all the more intrepid in their search for the next high. And it would encourage drug tourism. Rather than going to Cancun just for some inexpensive beachside fun, you could also go to do some perfectly legal lines of cocaine or to smoke a joint. Because anyone with a brain knows that if you end the demand, supply becomes unprofitable; conversely if you open the market, people will find a way to exploit it.

Rudy Giuliani knew this to be true, when rather than dismissing the occasional turnstile-hopper or pickpocket, he busted them, under the theories that 1) big criminals also commit little crimes, and that's an effective way to get them off the streets, but also, 2) getting the little troublemakers off the street often limits the market to which the big troublemakers play.

A failure to understand the principles of supply and demand, however, makes Vincente Fox guilty of nothing more than being kin to a Democrat in the United States or a socialist in Europe. But a failure to address crime in a meaningful way puts the criminals in the driver's seat. And it makes one wonder very seriously if the sovereignty of Mexico is not imperiled by the operational strength of drug syndicates.

Fox has remarked that there is little he can do to prevent the illegal immigrant and drug trafficking that the United States wants stopped. So either he is lying and supporting the cause of illegals (and there is significant evidence to that effect), or he is also influenced by the drug kingpins who want to get his population drugged for some pocket change, but more importantly to clear a path through Mexico into the United States.

Whatever the case, the fact that Fox and the Congress of Mexico even considered such a thing is astounding. So while it seemed five years ago that the Bush-Fox friendship would lead to a new era of cooperation and civility between the nations, it seems that Fox is about little more than letting his nation become a direct threat to the national security interests of its most important neighbor by allowing his nation to become a conduit for drug traffic into the United States and dumping his economically disadvantaged population onto the American taxpayer.

Adios enemigo.

Brinkema's Appropriate Closing

2006-05-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

We all knew that Moussaoui got one final shot to prove what a disgrace he is to his own existence at the formal sentencing. But the day's winning remark was for a judge who has been professional and patient with this cretin for years.

So sayeth Judge Leonie Brinkema:

"Mr. Moussaoui, when this proceeding is over, everyone else in this room will leave to see the sun ... hear the birds ... and they can associate with whomever they want," she said.
She went on: "You will spend the rest of your life in a supermax prison. It's absolutely clear who won."
And she said it was proper he will be kept away from outsiders, unable to speak publicly again.
"Mr. Moussaoui, you came here to be a martyr in a great big bang of glory," she said,
"but to paraphrase the poet T.S. Eliot, instead you will die with a whimper."
At that point, Moussaoui tried again to interrupt her, but she raised her voice and spoke over him.
"You will never get a chance to speak again and that's an appropriate ending."

Enjoy the long, interminable night which will be the rest of your life Mr. Moussaoui.

Mr. Moussaoui Goes to Azkaban

2006-05-04T09:25:00.000-05:00

Zacharias Moussaoui, now sentenced to life in prison is going to get a treatment that may very well make proponents of the death penalty a little less disappointed with life sentences.

Our French terrorist friend is being sent to a place that is probably about as pleasant as the hell-prison of Harry Potter fame referenced in the subject line.

The Supermax prison is brand new, opened in 1994, and designed with the obnoxious prisoner in mind. Its cells are dimly lit, allow some sunlight through a slit window high in the ceiling, and is completely constructed of concrete, right down to the desk, stool and bed. There is no escape. But more than being a place of confinement, it is a place that will likely humble the obnoxious Moussaoui. For a peek into the daily life that he can be expected to enjoy,

most individuals are kept for at least 23 hours each day in solitary confinement. They are housed in a 7-by-12 foot (3.5-by-2 meter) soundproofed room, built behind a steel door and grate. The remaining free hour is spent exercising alone in a separate concrete chamber. Prisoners rarely see each other, and inmates' only human interaction is limited to that of the prison guards. Religious services are broadcast in from a small chapel.

Most cells' furniture is made almost entirely out of poured concrete, including a desk, stool, and bed covered by a thin mattress. Each chamber contains a toilet that shuts off if plugged, a shower that runs on a timer to prevent flooding, and a sink missing a potentially dangerous tap. Rooms may also be fitted with polished steel mirrors bolted to the wall, an electric light, a 13-inch black and white television, and a cigarette lighter. Windows in rooms are small, set high up in the wall, and point towards the sky, confusing the prisoner as to his specific location within the complex.

The prison as a whole contains countless motion detectors and cameras, 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors, and 12 foot high razor wire fences. Laser beams, pressure pads, and attack dogs guard the area between the prison walls and razor wire. The facility is built into the side of a mountain, and visitors and prisoners enter through the same heavily-guarded tunnel.

And to get a flavor for the effect that spending the rest of one's life in this paradise will have, read the following input from a prison psychology expert:

Prisoners "become extremely depressed and lethargic -- sleeping, lying on their bunks, staring at the ceiling, declining to go out and exercise,'' he said. They begin to lose memory, can't concentrate and suffer severe panic attacks, he said, or become uncontrollably enraged over insignificant things.

In short, the sensory deprivation and the cold hard contents of the cell, as well as a lack of any meaningful human interaction whittle away the psyches of persons who have shown that they cannot be trusted to have contact with the outside world.

Sure, he'll rattle off his invecta on his concrete desk for a year or so, but soon after that the thoughts of al-Qaida and their aborted political revolution will blissfully escape his mind, as he relegates himself to obsessing over dust particles in his cell.

Finding the Silver Lining in the Moussaoui Jury's Verdict

2006-05-03T16:53:00.000-05:00

The jury gave him life.

I am quite disappointed but there is some degree of peace in this result. Those of us who wanted to see Moussaoui meet a grim end in a sterile prison death chamber are indeed upset that this man gets free medical care, free cable, free meals and free recreation for the rest of his miserable life, all on us.

But if anything, part of the relief is the finality. He is being jailed. He will never get out no matter how good he pretends to be. And his appeals are over. He will no longer have a courtroom as a world stage to make his noxious beliefs known. He will now be known as a number; irrelevant and silent.

But this also tells us something somewhat comforting about our judicial system that is a lesson to the rest of the world that mocks us. Outcomes of trials are not predetermined. The State doesn't always get everything it demands. And the ultimate decision-makers are average citizens. The jury considered the evidence, and apparently even Judge Brinkema, who played no role in the decision, seemed to believe that Moussaoui was more of a misfit tag along than a player.

But a system, imperfect though it is, which relies on citizens to determine guilt or innocence and of punishment has stood the test of time. Yes, there are dumb juries, bad judges, and dirty litigants. I have seen them in action and it is a disgrace. But the system--despite the fact that it is a "system"--is still the best thing going. It still works.

Tomorrow is a new day, and we have more important work than dissecting this verdict.

Moussaoui lost. Regardless of the punishment he got, the people of the United States of America won.

Let's move on.

Verdict in on Moussaoui

2006-05-03T15:08:00.000-05:00

We now get to find out if the Zacharias Moussaoui jury decided to let him meet the fate his victims faced or bought into the defense's silly reverse psychology that putting him to death gives him what he wants in the form of martyrdom.

Whether he wants it or not, a crime which kills over 3,000 Americans which could have been prevented.

And I don't buy the whole martyr thing anymore than I have for the likes of Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh died with few tears being shed, and of course, his zealot buddies would use him as a martyr whether he was put to death or not. And that should not be a concern of ours--fear of punishing crime. Rather, it should be a solemn duty that makes no distinction between the perceived political influence or lack thereof of any criminal.

Let's pray the jury made a decent call. Give Moussaoui what he says he wants. I don't want to pay for him to watch Jerry Springer on cable for the rest of his life.

Illegals Plan to Set Back Their Cause

2006-04-28T14:03:00.000-05:00

The illegal alien lobby is about to once again do a phenomenal job of setting itself back in the hearts and minds of Americans. So to get there, they are staging walk-outs, and are threatening to shut down U.S. cities on Monday. The original idea was to walk out of work to show how important the illegal community is to our economy.

But presuming that all 11 million did walk out, which is highly unlikely, how would it be any different than Yom Kippur or Columbus Day when many do not work? Certainly some businesses would be slower and there are some that would be halted for a day. The response, however, would be to fire those who didn't show for work, as there are other Mexican immigrants with less political goals who would gladly take their place on a moment's notice. The protesters would return on Tuesday to find themselves replaced by fellow Latinos.

But if they are going to protest by not participating in the economy to show what would happen if they were not in our country, they may want to make the picture all the more complete by failing to take advantage of our welfare system and other legal benefits of which they regularly avail themselves. Don't pick up AFDC checks or food stamps, don't use Medicaid, don't apply for such assistance, don't allow others to cross the border on that day, don't give birth to children who will automatically become citizens, and pay for everything out of your own wages that day. Consistency in such a noble goal would indeed be unpleasant, though, so they won't.

But a protest on behalf of lawbreakers who are not Americans, with the goal of shutting down American cities and cramming the Mexican flag down our throats won't further the cause of illegals. The basic gist of their protests is that because they broke the law, they are entitled to special rights. That doesn't resonate with too many people. And the idea of clogging American cities to make such a statement isn't all that welcoming. When Americans seem eager to stem the flow of illegal immigration, something like this will likely make a penalty-oriented bill more appeasing than a hybrid guest worker/border fence proposal.

It's one thing to take an affirmative action approach, but the day of that type of appeal is also passing. It is quite another to come from a foreign land, demand access to free health care, tax-free jobs and demand squatters rights like a spoiled and ungrateful bunch of brats.

We have folks who are here illegally who want nothing more than just to work and better themselves. Their status and mode of entry are bad, but for hard workers with good attitudes, America has room. But if these illegal activists pull a stunt as planned for Monday, they will do a great disservice to the notion of a generous immigration system with Mexico.

Duke's Tawana Brawley

2006-04-28T08:34:00.000-05:00

Everyone remembers the story of New York teen Tawana Brawley who made racially charged accusations that she was raped by six cops and left for dead. And she made good money off of the story, per the linked article. But the legal system didn't believe her. The story didn't add up, and the political angle just added that extra taint to make the story incredible.

Fast-forward to 2006. Three Duke lacrosse players have been charged with raping a stripper at a party. They were accused of hurling racial epithets at her, beating her and robbing her. From the other side of things, there are reports that she agreed to have sex with one of the players, who offered her $300 to do it, but when she didn't follow through and the player demanded his money back, she refused and demanded $1,500 or she would report a rape. Two separate sets of allegations--neither compatible with the other.

In the practice of law, there is an old saying: There are three sides to every story--your side, my side, and the truth. And I think that among these allegations, there exists some scintilla of the truth, but I think that most of it is sensationalized stupidity.

The rape claim is beginning to unravel just like the Brawley case. From allegations of inconsistent statements/unmade accusations by the accuser at critical junctures to independent accounts (HT RealClearPolitics on both) that several of the accuseds were nowhere near the scene at the time of the alleged act, the accusations seem more and more curious. Add to that the fact that this accuser made a similar accusation 10 years ago, and has a recent criminal past.

The past allegations may tend to show that this person is a chronic wolf-crier, which might have a small impact on the strength of her claims. But the issue of past crimes is highly relevant. If one has a history of committing what are known in the practice as "infamous crimes" which involve theft, fraud, embezzlement, perjury, conspiracy to commit crimes, etc., what I like to call "crimes of sneakiness", that person's testimony in court can be impeached by showing that they have a history of untrustworthy behavior.

And speaking of trustworthiness, the validity of this woman's claims has not been helped in the court of public opinion by the presence of the near automatic credibility-destroying involvement of Jesse Jackson. Upon entering any kind of fray like this with an black alleged victim and white alleged perpetrators, the sympathy for the accuser is almost always immediately diminished, as the Rev. Jackson is the king of the racial shakedown. He is not interested in justice, but rather, money. And it often takes a big check--payable to him or one of his charity fronts--to make that guy go away, lowering the "justness" of the accuser's cause to that of Jackson's.

And if that was where the problems ended for the accuser, that would be enough, but one of the biggest problems for the case is the guy prosecuting it. Michael Nifong is the local state's attorney, and is in the re-election race of his life. He looked to be dead before this scandal, but now is pushing this case in the most indiscreet manner possible in order to generate support among the people of Durham. For a bit of perspective, Duke is not loved in Durham. So any effort to make life more difficult for it plays well among the locals. Nifong is simply stirring the voters in his direction. But to vigorously and belligerently push a prosecution based on questionable facts simply because race is involved and because the Defendants are part of a disfavored organization in a transparent attempt to get votes on the eve of a tight election calls into question the prosecutor's ethics and sullies whatever remaining image of justice this whole proceeding may have had.

And while we are on the topic of ulterior motives and ethics, the other stripper has had a recent epiphany when it comes to what she believes took place on that night. She initially did not take the story seriously. But given that she has an open issue or two of her own with the Durham prosecutors, she offered to help, and even e-mailed a PR firm in New York to ask how she can best spin this for her own self interests. She openly states that she intends to profit from it. Take from that what you will.

And while I find the accusations against the lacrosse players increasingly suspect with each new report, to the point that I now believe that the charges are probably bogus, I am not going to argue that the students are angels either.

Throwing an out-of-control party with strippers and alcohol flowing freely is not the behavior of responsible or moral individuals. And it had been a matter of concern for some time that the Duke lacrosse team partied a little harder than they should. It was the responsibility of the coach to get his players under control and to establish consequences for poor conduct. He didn't, and the school now has this as the fallout. They lost their lacrosse season--the whole reason some of these kids chose Duke as their college. Which means that because the actions of a few, the many are punished. And it will be a very expensive lesson for Duke and other institutions that the party scene needs to be brought under control.

And with respect to the individuals involved, Collin Finnerty one of the accused lacrosse players is now facing older charges in D.C. for assault. So he is also not the kind that a mother wants her daughter bringing home.

I think the net is that a group of morally and ethically challenged people willingly met together in an environment conducive to debauchery and misogyny with one or both groups taking full advantage of the opportunities for selfish gain that were presented. The only problem is that one party is suffering because of the political nature of the other's charges, and because prosecuting such charges, regardless of merit, work to the benefit of an opportunistic local politician.

And if these charges are false, Duke has learned its lesson for failure to control its students' behavior, and a group of youths with execrable moral standards have learned that they cannot control their conseqences when they make dumb choices. But for the accuser and her witness who have made very serious and specific charges about which there really can't be much ambiguity, and for the politician who advanced them in order to survive an election, there needs to be a similar consequence.

Because the age of the Tawana Brawley racial shakedown needs to end, and there need to be consequences for those who make such socially devastating false accusations which follow people all their lives.

Bush's Snow Job

2006-04-26T13:53:00.000-05:00

President Bush may have made his best staff selection so far, aside of Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice. He chose Tony Snow to speak for him, and that choice implies that perhaps more than a few changes are about to take place.

Tony Snow is a rare find for an administration whose PR inaptitude may be driving it into the ground. And someone like Tony comes to this job with way more pull than Tory Clark or Dan Senor, who were the other candidates for the job of White House Press Secretary.

He is taking a substantial pay cut to be Press Secretary. He is also an respected figure in the media industry, so he doesn't need this in order to further his career. But most importantly, the White House really wants him and knows that they are in a heap of trouble without a new and functional communications machine.

Which means that Snow can dictate terms. And in his position as a commentator, parsing for the public what politicians put out, Tony is able to identify the communication problems plaguing the Bush Administration and correct them.

And probably first among the things to be corrected is the degree to which Snow has direct access to the President and to the kind of information he needs in order to effectively deal with the issues that the Press Corps will throw at him. That was one of Scott McClellan's biggest weaknesses. The Administration didn't tell him what he needed to know. It became clear that he did not have a decent stream of information or appropriate confidence from the top when, after dismissing the possibility of it, Karl Rove was called to testify about the Plame matter. McClellan's credibility never really recovered, and it was surprising at that point that he didn't resign on the spot, as the Administration did him a huge disservice. To prevent that from recurring, Tony Snow will insist that he have complete access and complete disclosure on all matters which might require public comment. He didn't come to the job just to be a mouthpiece, and I doubt that he would stay in it if that's what things came to.

Thereafter, Snow will develop a communications strategy. It's a novel concept, and it worked for the 2004 campaign. It's why John Kerry was very often on the defensive during the campaign. Failing to employ one for the second term is why we find the President's popularity exploring new depths.

Snow needs to make life complicated for the Democrats, in other words, he needs his position to be a newsmaking one which generates response, rather than simply responding to whatever easy allegation Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, or Nancy Pelosi drops. In fact, he needs to keep the Congressional minority so busy that they don't have time to lob the kinds of cynical accusations at the Administration that they have had the luxury of doing over the past 18 months.

Instead of a "culture of corruption" among Republicans in Congress, the Dems would have to be dealing with the bombastic comments and juvenile behavior of Rep. Cynthia McKinney, and minimizing the damage done to their 2006 election effort by Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), the ranking member of the House Ethics Committee now facing serious allegations of corruption.

Snow will also tell the President that when the blame game is played, he needs to join in and give some very hard assessments of his critics. Which means that former FEMA head Michael Brown would have gone down with Mayor Ray Nagin who told New Orleans residents without transportation that they were on their own if they wanted to get out of the city, and with Gov. Kathleen Blanco who also escaped scrutiny after delaying federal aid that the President offered.

Imagine how things would be if Bush actually came out of most of these controversies looking good. But when he will not set the record straight in an effective manner, he gives the microphone to the Dems to freely do whatever damage their accusations can inflict.

The bottom line is that the President, in order to be successful, must win the news cycle every single day. Because the damage he suffers is cumulative for every day he fails to do it.

If he listens to Tony Snow and does as he says, we will see a return of the very nimble and believable Bush we saw in 2004. Failing that, Snow will resign, a sign that the Administration intends to miss the boat on the art of successful communication, and to set the Democrats up nicely for unearned victories in 2006 and 2008.

The Left Caused Higher Gas Prices

2006-04-25T12:55:00.000-05:00

(Please note, this post was changed from its original. I released it too soon in draft form. My apologies for anything that was more incomprehensible than usual!)

President Bush has announced a new investigation into the cause of the astronomically high gasoline prices from which we now suffer. The investigation is going to center around loose allegations of anticompetitive behavior among the various petroleum retailers and distributors, and while there may be something to that it doesn't address the real problem.

If anything, it shows that Bush is responding to pressure from within the party and probably from his new Chief of Staff to be seen doing something--anything--on gas prices. Mind you, this will likely go nowhere, as the oil and gas suppliers aren't stupid enough to do any gouging in the open, especially in an environment where it might be caught. And the president is really powerless to deal with the price of oil. It is a market-controlled price. But an investigation into the big bad oil companies looks good, and like Bill Clinton's idea war room that pumped out a new feel-good proposal every week which generally went nowhere but sounded nice, it seems that Bush is buying into some of that fluff politics for the sake of his political viability.

Notwithstanding what I just said about the likelihood of the success of such an investigation, the fact that Exxon Mobil is reporting that its profits last year hit a new high and were of a "record" variety, after Katrina's wrath damaged our refining and distribution infrastructure in the Gulf, raises some serious questions. It stands to reason that higher costs of the raw material (because OPEC wants it that way) and of its refining (because Katrina and Rita scored big hits on our refining abilities) would translate into higher costs at the pump. That's painful, but it has no moral component. But by that same reasoning, the higher costs should not translate into significantly greater profits, as the margin between cost and profit wouldn't/shouldn't change. That margin would "float" on top of the costs, largely unchanged. That's just how business works.

But it becomes something different if, after passing on costs to us, the petroleum supplier hits us again, and uses the excuse of high oil prices to justify the higher pump price to score a huge opportunistic profit. And if that is really going on, (I have a very hard time believing that it's not--if anyone can explain to me how their profits can soar in the face of such costs in a way other than I have suggested, please let me know) a price needs to be paid for profiteering from anti-market behavior.

But that is not nearly so much the problem as having OPEC in the driver's seat. And for that, we need to thank the left. Because whatever we think of petroleum companies, OPEC an organization comprised of mainly unfriendly dictator-run nations whose only positive is that they have reserves of petroleum within their borders, can dictate terms to the rest of the world as to what it will cost us to use energy to keep our nations running. And we've seen the effects of having OPEC commanding the international oil market. The gas shortages of the early 1970s, those under Jimmy Carter, interminable gas lines, and the economic ramifications that come with exorbitant energy prices and lack of access to energy sources are the fruits of OPEC's cartel control of the market. And with Iran's running mouth, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stating that oil is undervalued, things are not looking up.

So in a very real way, the left has placed us under the government of dictators because we depend upon such people's nations to provide us with the fuel we need to remain operational.

Because of environmental regulation, the last time a refinery was built in the United States was 30 years ago. The result is that we cannot really modernize our refining capacity, must rely on less efficient 1960s and 1970s technology, further preventing us from protecting our energy production infrastructure by moving facilities inland. It not only is more pollutive, which one would think the enviro-left would oppose, but dangerous. The danger is that it increases the relevance of people like Ahmadinejad, the Saudi Royal Family, and Hugo Chavez by allowing them to dictate energy terms to us, and by giving them the cash for their oil. In such a way, we are buying from them the rope by which they will hang us.

And because of environmania, the left has prevented domestic exploration of energy sources such as those to be found in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But the fear by a myopic but noisy few with poor science on their side that caribou would be upset or displaced by exploration, is inhibiting the growth of our national economy and requiring us to beg for mercy from dictators who have no reason to offer any. So because of a misbegotten concern that an animal might not like it, (and evidence suggests that caribou tend to thrive in the warmer environment of a drilling station), we have placed ourselves at the mercy of the OPEC robber barons.

But a series of other environmental restrictions enacted by Executive Order fiat during the Clinton Administration have restricted access to natural gas (while promoting its use), thus making it nearly unaffordable, requiring different gas formulations in different areas of the nation, and promoting unnecessarily restrictive environmental regulations have not advanced the cause of energy independence and efficiency.

So while the likes of Harry Reid complain about the cost of a gallon of gas, blaming the problem on the Bush Administration, they really have no room to do so. Because their party's radical environmental policy has wreaked havoc on our economy and exposed us on the national security front by promoting dependence on other nations whom we might otherwise consider enemies to meet our energy needs. The environmental overregulation is a body of law whose time has passed. Technology permits cleanliness without a loss in production, and we should be permitted to pursue that for our own national well-being.

Of course, the left is more interested in orthodoxy, not innovation. And they are not interested in any economy-growing energy policy that doesn't pay homage to their environmentalist philosophies. This is evidenced by the Cheney-Halliburton demagoguery (because Cheney was head of a very wealthy oil and gas servicing company, that's a very bad thing), and the bashing of Bush whose history in the Texas oil and gas business was used similarly as an unpleasant rather than a positive quality.

These men have the industrial experience and knowledge to formulate a very economically beneficial and environmentally safe energy policy which would enable us to improve our infrastructure and increase our ability to deliver energy in a cheaper way and with less environmental impact.

But tell that to the left, who view industry and our economy with suspicion and loathing, and whose misbegotten environmental policies promise to perpetuate a system that enriches expansionist dictators who oppose our political objectives and who export terror to our shores.

Because one does not have to go to the length of actively supporting terrorism in order play a role in weakening our national security.

McKinney's McGoof

2006-04-25T09:55:00.000-05:00

Cynthia McKinney remains a fool.

In an interview with a local TV station, Congresswoman McKinney was asked a number of questions about her run-in with the Capitol Hill Police officer whom she is alleged to have struck, among other issues surrounding that incident. But then McKinney got nasty in an off camera, but apparently on-record moment claiming that the reporter broke a deal not to broach that topic, and calling her staffer who set up the interview "a fool". It's good to know that the Congresswoman hires like-minded people. Then, of course, she demanded that anything she said off-camera was "off the record", which is like saying that she wanted to un-ring a bell. If you say it prior to an agreement, it's off-record. Anything else is free for the pickings.

First, this episode is just another in a pattern which shows remarkably intemperate behavior on the part of a Member of Congress. It also shows what a poor leader she is to criticize a staffer in public.

Second, it shows that the Congresswoman is remarkably arrogant, abysmally stupid, or more likely some tragically synergistic combination of the two. To illustrate what I mean, let's consider what any reporter might want to discuss with Cynthia McKinney at this point in time. Certainly it is not serious news that she qualified to be placed on the Democratic Primary ballot. 435 other candidates did the same in their districts, and I could do the same in mine of I wanted to. So could you. It would only be news if she didn't. It was not a cooking segment where the Congresswoman was going to share her Georgia peach cobbler or vidalia onion soup recipes. The only news relevance this person has ever had in Congress is her value as a figure of public curiosity. Between her issuing of bombastic and conspiracy-centered comments, and now an alleged act of violence against a police officer, McKinney has only been newsworthy as a result of outrageous and obnoxious behavior. So for her to presume that the interview was about anything other than the embarrassing and potentially criminal controversy in which she now finds herself, shows a remarkable lack of introspection and understanding of just how unimportant she is on a substantive level.

Lastly, it shows a lack of political sophistication. For McKinney to go back on the record and demand that her statements not be used because she was too obtuse to remove her microphone, besides being futile, shows that she has no idea how real life works. Candid comments are reported comments, absent prior agreements, and to presume that she could dictate terms when she had absolutely no cards to play is to reveal one's naivete.

Her record is one of juvenility and vulgarity. That's why she makes the news and that's why she may ultimately pay a significant legal price. She is just too arrogant and simple to see it.

Happy News

2006-04-25T08:52:00.000-05:00

My brother in law, Frank, has returned from Iraq for vacation. His wife, Jennifer, was having difficulty maintaining self-control in the airport as she saw his plane coming in.

I'll see him tonight, but if you have the inclination, please raise a toast for both of them tonight. They put their first year of marriage on hold so that we could be safer. A very hard, but marvelously American thing to do.

Thanks Frank, and thank you Jenn for bearing up here at home. We love you both.

Derelict Blogger

2006-04-25T08:11:00.000-05:00

I've been busy about the important stuff, leaving little time to opine. I have a few thoughts to pass along today regarding the gas prices, Iran, Duke, and perhaps a few other things that interest me.

Thanks for reading and for being patient.

Immigration Insurrection

2006-04-21T10:09:00.000-05:00

The Administration's failure to act and establish a fence along our border with Mexico is generating a pretty significant attack from the right. The Minutemen who have made a point of interdicting illegal border crossings, to the chagrin of the ACLU and other criminal enablers are now promising to do something similar on private lands bordering Mexico if Bush won't. And the fence promises to create at least some political blowback for an Administration that really can't afford another hit to its credibility.

If the fence goes up on a private basis as a form of protest, the Administration will look foolish. If it somehow seeks to block people from erecting anything, then the President appears to favor illegal foreign nationals to his own people who are trying to protect their own lands from foreign incursions. Either way, he loses.

But the damage may already have been done. Because while any fence built on private property will have limited value at best when it comes to securing the entire border, it sends the message that the White House is missing the boat on one of the biggest issues of popular concern, and the President is losing the opportunity to restore some credibility, instead trading for the likelihood that he will end up looking weak on national security, just in time for the election.

I really have no suggestions for the President other than to seal off the border to unauthorized crossing. Certainly no method will absolutely prevent all illegals from crossing into the U.S.; there are a few who will get through, but the vast majority will be stopped, such that the influx of Mexicans who enter our nation to get what they can and go home is stopped, and likewise, the trafficking in drugs and terrorists.

So if the President can offer a reason for not sealing up the leaks from Corpus Christi to San Diego, I'll hear him. But if the excuse is in any way rooted in garnering the Hispanic vote, the rationale is hopelessly flawed.

The President's approval rating has dropped to an all-time low of 33%. He can't afford any more losses in public confidence if he is going to remain a vaible political force. Those of us who rooted, worked, and voted for him are tremendously disappointed at what he has allowed his second term to become. And if he punts on this issue, leaving it to private individuals to protect their own lands with a border fence, he can likely kiss his presidential relevance goodbye.

Problems with the Generals Criticisms of Rumsfeld

2006-04-17T09:46:00.000-05:00

We've all heard the maxim about too many cooks, but it seems that it could be equally applied to former Generals. Likewise with the always relevant "sour grapes" test of Washington critics which I think will ultimately undercut this effort.

It is now old news that a group of retired generals has made a significant point about trying to get Don Rumsfeld to resign. And based upon some reports, including this comment buried in this New York Times article, there seems to have been an effort on the part of the various retired generals to recruit others into the ranks of the disgruntled:

Current and former officers said they were unaware of any organized campaign to seek Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster, but they described a blizzard of telephone calls and e-mail messages as retired generals critical of Mr. Rumsfeld weighed the pros and cons of joining in the condemnation.

This is fairly telling, as it undercuts the entire appearance that the generals are attempting to create of independent and candid criticisms of the Secretary. But dismissing that for a second, the criticisms being leveled at Rumsfeld are conclusory. He is charged with being incompetent, not building "a strong team", but more than anything for having a tough leadership style. The impression with which I am left is that these criticisms have very political rather than military underpinnings. We don't know the facts supporting these opinions, and we don't know what advice Rumsfeld denied, or whether it was even really offered. But Gen. Batiste's comments about not building a strong enough team are particularly interesting, given the fact that it sounds like he is returning to the whole "unilateral" argument--a very political one which has nothing to do with the work of the Secretary of Defense.

But these generals took a significant hit to their cause when they were--officially or otherwise--joined by the General and once and future presidential candidate, Wesley Clark. If they wanted to avoid the appearance that their opposition to Rumsfeld had a basis in anything but politics, which is becoming a harder and harder thing for them to do, Clark probably ended any remaining hope they had. Clark knows nothing about Rumsfeld's leadership, as he never served under the guy. And his record of praising the Administration and the Iraq War effort, and waffling when it became politically necessary to do so makes any statements that he offers on the topic suspect, especially given the fact the he will almost certainly aspire once again to be a second-tier candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008. So no matter how this gets spun, this was not a helpful development for the generals.

But the one gripe that seems to really be making headlines was that Rumsfeld had a tough leadership style. He was critical. As one supportive retired general stated this morning, there were a couple of times that Rumsfeld ate him for lunch when that general was for some reason not prepared to advise him on whatever issue was at hand. But that's life. We all have had hard bosses who demanded much and weren't happy when they didn't get it. We have also had bosses who rejected our advice in favor of another's input. We have been snubbed, blown off, had our feelings hurt, etc. But these are matters of personal chemistry and thickness of skin rather than competence. And it sounds a heck of a lot like these were the generals whose advice was not nearly so favored as that of other generals. And so as I stated earlier, those sour grapes produce a particularly bitter whine.

And this creates another very real perception problem for this disaffected group. Because when the most resonant cry can be reduced to an accusation of hurt feelings, the push for Rumsfeld's resignation carries significantly less urgency and relevance.

The other matter is that Rumsfeld is trying to do something a heck of a lot more controversial than any of his predecessors: he is trying to modernize the military. To put it succinctly, he is throwing out much of the old and trying to bring the military into the 21st Century. That kind of thing will rub the old guard wrong. And agents of change are generally unpopular with their contemporaries who are just fine with the system as it is.

But more to the point, the Editors over at the Wall Street Journal encapsulate the arguments beautifully. And their criticisms center around the notion that some of these generals, most notably the very vocal Anthony Zinni, just don't get it when it comes to the war on terror. Zinni thought that an attack on Iraq would destabilize the Middle East. But his view ignores the fact that 9/11 was the result of over 10 years of Middle East "stability". And these calls also ignore the fact that while some thin-skinned generals may not like Rumsfeld, other rogue nations such as Iran, North Korea and Syria like him even less.

And apparently being a whit more practical and smarter than some of these philosophical former generals, dictators know that it's game over for them if their regime is toppled. Just ask Saddam who now lives in a cell and whose daily highlight is washing his own drawers before he gets a death sentence.

Rumsfeld is the tip of Bush's spear. And he isn't trading it in for anything.

Immigration is Fine--So Is a Wall

2006-04-12T11:25:00.000-05:00

Today, House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) offered to the nation that they do not intend to have illegal immigrants exposed to felony punishment (H.T. Drudge).

I have not been able to find any clarity on this, but it remains an open question as to which illegals we are talking about--the ones already here or the ones to come.

I have been very clear that I favor a guest worker program in this nation. With unemployment at 4.7%, it's a hard argument to make that Mexican illegal immigrants are siphoning off jobs. And based upon that figure, I really don't buy the argument that if the wages were higher, Americans would go flocking to the jobs which Mexicans are doing. There is no evidence that these folks are keeping Americans from employment.

But I have also been clear that security and the rule of law are more than bywords, and that if we overlook either, we do so at our own peril.

Immigrant workers are here to stay, but just the same, we need to set up a system that permits legal entrance into our nation after various examinations to ensure that they aren't bringing anything unhealthy or unlawful into our nation. As a point of reference, my children's pediatrician advised that we have our children vaccinated for hepatitis-A because the disease can be passed by infected migrant workers in the fast food industry to customers. Likewise, drugs and other problems need to be interdicted at the border. About such things there can be very little wrangling. These are reasonable restrictions.

On the other hand, there is room to discuss penalizing illegals--after all, they broke the law. I'm in favor of fines or other civil penalties for illegals who are already present, but as with anything else, how do we enforce it? Will the promise of a penalty dissuade workers already here from getting legalized? Probably so, as there is really no disincentive at this point to being an illegal worker. The other side to the enforcement coin, however is putting the burden on the employer to hire only documented workers, severely penalizing those who employ unauthorized workers, thus creating the incentive for current illegals to register, pay the piper and go on working. The question is whether this is a form of amnesty.

But "amnesty" is not per se a bad thing. However, as it is applied in this debate, it means one of two things: forgiveness for crimes committed and/or an encouragement for future lawbreakers that the law will remain unenforced.

The first one is, unfortunately a given in this debate. We felonize 11 million people, round them up, jail them, and/or deport them all. I'd love to see how that would work logistically. Part of the difficulty is that we have let the problem go on this long, making enforcement a nightmare. And it would miss the entire point of a meaningful immigration bill. A civil sanction is about as far as we can reasonably go with the folks we have.

But a system that provides severe criminal penalties to those who illegally enter our nation in the future would do the trick of discouraging illegal entry, as would a system that causes employers who hire such folk to hemorrhage cash.

And so having established something on that order--a program that legally processes immigrant workers, ensures that they are not bringing contraband or illness into the nation, and authorizing them to work in a legal capacity, we also establish a wall on the border, as all of the legitimate concerns about immigrant access will have been addressed.

Because at that point, if anyone opposes a wall to prevent unauthorized immigration, they are advocating for drug trafficking, an open door for terrorists, and unrestricted access to our welfare system. And the "Berlin Wall" demagoguery misses the entire point of this program. That wall was meant to contain East Germans and restrict influence from the West. This one permits Americans and Mexicans alike to pass freely through. It permits the enforcement of our laws and allows easier detection and interdiction of criminal elements. And who could argue with that--other than criminals?

What we need is a bill that addresses these realities and gives us a reasonable place from which to start. Because neither punishment of 11 million people nor leaving an open border is in our best interests.

Will 2008 Involve Two Marriages of Convenience?

2006-04-10T13:11:00.000-05:00

Handicapping the 2008 election is at this point a little tough, as certain things, known as 2006, 2007 and 2008 need to take place in order to better shape the environment of those contests. But ignoring the whole "events" necessity, there are a few things that can be reasonably calculated, and at this stage, I can only imagine that both Democrats and Republicans will each engage in a marriage of convenience in the selection of their nominee.

And with the mention of a marriage of convenience, it is appropriate to begin any discussion with the Democrats' current favorite, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-?). The Democrats love her because they know who she is, and they know that she is probably the most savvy liberal to enter politics in a very long time. She plays to the middle of late, but nobody other than the most obtuse are in any way affected by the charms of the architect of Bill Clinton's health care takeover plan of 1994. And it is rare that we get as decent a glimpse into how one would behave in the White House as we have had with Hillary Clinton.

Hillary is nothing short of a megalomaniac. Instead of having photos of the President and Vice-President adorning the atriums of federal buildings, during at least the early days of the Clinton Administration, it was the President and Hillary. And as the first ever First Lady to testify before a grand jury, Sen. Clinton seemed to be rolled up in scandal and ethical controversy at every available opportunity. Among the asterisks on her glowing resume are Travelgate where she bounced out White House employees in favor of cronies to run the White House Travel Office, her involvement in the Whitewater scandal which brought down a savings and loan and numerous friends of hers, resulting in the suicide of another and the hasty removal of related files from his office, as well as the concealment of the billing records that her firm generated as it represented the savings and loan, and even the campaign finance issue where her Senate campaign underreported $800,000 of in-kind campaign contributions, leading to the indictment (and in all fairness, later acquittal) of her campaign finance director, but where the campaign still paid out a $35,000 fine to resolve the matter.

So as much as the left loves Hillary, she possesses many of the same qualities that they despised in Richard Nixon. They will likely nominate her if they continue to divorce themselves from the political realities of the American electorate. But if Tom Bevan is right, she may not survive the primaries. His reasoning is insightful, he's got a very good point, but I pray that he is wrong. And he probably prays the same thing. Because a general election without Hillary is potentially a scary thing for Republicans.

If Even Bayh or Mark Warner runs in the general election and keeps a very conservative tack on national security, such a candidacy will carry tremendous credibility, provided that the candidate doesn't have any significant or unrequited skeletons in his/her closet. But I still think that a left-wing candidate has a better than average shot.

Much is made about the fact that Howard Dean peaked about 3 weeks too early in 2004 and then crashed and burned in Iowa, sealing the deal with his intemperate concession speech. But John Kerry was no less of a leftist; he just appeared to be more grown-up than Dean. Similarly, John Edwards who pretended to be a southern conservative but was in the same ideological camp as Kerry seemed just that much more responsible, despite the "Breck Girl" perception. So a left wing candidate like Hillary or Russ Feingold has some very significant potential if they can turn media buzz into votes, which is, after all, the only thing that matters in the end. And while I agree with Tom Bevan that low recognition now for the likes of Bayh and Warner has no bearing on what they will look like in 2008, a "who's more progressive?" battle between Hillary and Feingold could obscure media exposure for the rest of the field.

And in a similar vein, the Democrats had the choice of a couple of very credible moderates in 2004 and rejected them. Certainly, Dick Gephardt was a guy who could have generated a good deal of appeal in the general election, was (and would have been) infinitely more likeable than John Kerry, and was on the right side of the national security issue. Joe Lieberman, an aisle-crossing and personally very likeable man with impeccable moral credentials and a true centrist outlook was an equally compelling choice. But the Dems passed on electability and went for a leftist.

So if a Warner or a Bayh is to be considered for the presidency, the Dems would have to collectively decide to set aside a number of their more controversial political objectives and select a candidate whom they might not love, but who nonetheless has a real shot at getting them in the door of the White House. That is a very tall order but still possible, as electoral losses tend to be a very powerful lesson. But if the Dems rise to that level of maturity, unseen since 1992, the Republicans will have a very real fight on their hands.

And with respect to the GOP, the prenups are already being drafted. John McCain is the frontrunner, bar none. Condi Rice does not seem interested in running, but much can happen in two years. Nonetheless, while McCain had a shot in 2000, he seems the heir apparent for 2008. And that has some conservatives unnecessarily but in a strange paradox, understandably concerned.

Republicans have bought into the notion that because McCain is a media darling that he cannot be trusted. There is more than just a passing validity to that point of view. We all know where the media stands, and we all know that everyone loves fawning media coverage. The problem becomes when the media glow becomes addictive and politicians read their own press. Because the media has a remarkable neo-Pavlovian behavior conditioning system for politicians that gets results for those who fall into their web. They simply punish with bad press and reward with good.

And John McCain has appeared to be swayable by press. Between McCain-Feingold to swearing off coercive methods of interrogation of terrorists, McCain has confounded conservatives by seeming to be a maverick. But while a maverick he is to a degree, he is likely no more independent than President Bush whose illegal immigration policy is regarded by many conservatives as an amnesty program and whose efforts at creating Medicare Part D are among the greatest spending measures in our history. But McCain's loyalty to the party, including to a President with whom he has had a tepid relationship, has been better than anyone might have hoped. His speech before the Republican National Convention in 2004 was nothing short of magnificent as he did a perfect job of deconstructing the left's attack on the Bush and was remarkably magnanimous, given the fact that he and Bush had made no secret of their differences. And when it comes to major issues, McCain's Senate voting record is more or less solidly conservative.

So conservatives need to see McCain through something other than Campaign Finance Reform glasses. Because McCain is likely not the John Anderson or Jim Jeffords he has appeared to be. But as with many things, the press isn't fawning over McCain for no reason, and it needs to be understood that perhaps the media wants McCain to run in the same way that Republicans relished the idea of a Dean candidacy.

If anyone recalls the early 2000 primaries, the Dems were encouraging their voters in states with open primaries (where anyone from any party can vote for another party's candidate--a stupid idea to be certain) to forget about the nonexistent Gore-Bradley battle and vote for McCain, knowing that if he beat Bush, that they could take McCain apart in a general election, much more easily than they could the much better politically equipped Bush. And I think that same strategy underlies at least some, if not all, of the press honeymoon with him.

McCain has a temper, and it shows through. And if 2004 tells us anything, spouses and children are fair game in the Dems' playbook, meaning that his wife Cindy's issues with mental health and the ethnicity of his adopted children will come into play. Because in 2004 the John Kerry and John Edwards crossed the taste barrier a number of times by making shameless and tacky references to the sexual orientation of Dick Cheney's daughter followed by a rude comment by Elizabeth Edwards who accused Lynne Cheney of being ashamed of that daughter. So 2008 will be a nonstop effort to bait McCain and his family and to show just how low this party has decided to go.

And while a McCain candidacy may involve no small degree of grace among Republicans, it will involve nearly no surrender with respect to policy differences as it will on the Democrats' side. McCain is as much a conservative as he always was. He just seems disagreeable, but is actually more of a team player than the perceived-conservative Chuck Hagel (R-NE), who has no national security credentials and yet pontificates on the matter, specifically his disagreements with the President, to the delight of the anti-war media who flocks to his doorstep for every such pronouncement.

And while I seem to be saying that the nomination is all but McCain's it needs to be understood that the likes of Bill Frist (R-TN) or George Allen (R-VA) may also be in the game. Count Frist out. He votes conservative, but he is one of the least effective and most flaccid Senate Republican leaders in modern American history. If you are ever behind him, take note that you will see the shoeprints of both Tom Daschle and Harry Reid on his suit jacket. I don't think he has a spine of which we can speak, which puts him out of the contention. You need to be able to stare down an opponent as President. And if you can't do that to the largely powerless Senate Democrats, you won't be able to do it to Iran, Syria,China or North Korea.

Allen is different. He is a solid conservative, but his qualities are not known very well, and it will be hard to catch up to McCain's notoriety. And expect McCain to make himself significantly more palatable to conservatives over the next 18 months.

And expect it to be his race to lose if he wins the nomination.

Bob Woodruff Getting Back to Business

2006-04-06T16:04:00.000-05:00

In spite of all the crummy things that get reported every day, sometimes some really amazing and wonderful things happen. Bob Woodruff is going home and will return to the hospital for outpatient treatment.

He seems to weight a bit less, but it is really good news that this guy is back where he belongs, being a father and a husband.

Good for him, and remember his family with a prayer of thanksgiving.

McKinney is Sorry for Being in Trouble

2006-04-06T11:33:00.000-05:00

When someone publicly behaves like a complete posterior, it is expected that they will be forced to endure the public wages of such choices, such as the whispering, snickering and various forms of scarlet-lettering that usually take place in our society.

And Cynthia McKinney is no exception. The episode where she is alleged to have struck a Capitol Police Officer has turned most grave. It is now the subject of federal grand jury proceedings. And a grand jury is serious business. There were two charges they were considering. The misdemeanor assault, and the felony assault of a police officer. If they are bringing it before a grand jury, they are trying to indict her on the felony charge. This went from a goofy story to one that that has some not very funny consequences.

But if there is anything funny, it is this: Rep. McKinney just offered an apology on the House Floor. But the delay in apology--until the day that a grand jury is presented evidence that could lead to her indictment and arrest--is patently hollow. It would have been different if she had apologized at the scene and avoided the week of celebrity photo ops, the rabid race rhetoric, and the truly disgusting appearances on the morning news shows where she filibustered and appeared proud of what she had done.

I will not bother to dissect her exact words, because I think that given her behavior over the past week, her words could convey the perfect message and still have no value. She reveled in race hysteria and "guilty of being a black woman in Congress" rhetoric, and accused the officer of being a racist. So when she claims to have had a 180 degree change of heart, coincidentally on a day when a grand jury meets to make decisions that will have a significant effect on her future, her epiphany is just a tad suspect.

Her recent statements make it highly unlikely that she regrets the act of striking the officer because the doing of such an act is legally and morally wrong. Rather, I'd feel pretty safe stating that she regrets the potential consequences of her actions, as opposed to the actions themselves. There is no penitence in regretting the consequence--only in regretting the act--and there is something rather insulting in her presumption that we would buy the apology after her truly boorish behavior that made headlines this week.

As unpleasant as it is, the work of the grand jury needs to go forward. And the prosecutor should use the text of the apology as an admission before the grand jury. There is a cost to abject stupidity and immorality.

DeLay's Resignation Signals a Healthier Party

2006-04-05T10:49:00.000-05:00

Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), the former House Majority Leader decided to call it quits. Good for the Republicans, and good for him. Because while he has been indicted by Ronnie Earle in what is nothing more than a political witch hunt, he has most ominously had two staffers caught up in a criminal investigation to which one copped a plea and agreed to help in the investigation. One can only assume that some of it is pointing to DeLay.

The good for DeLay is that this is his opportunity to focus his attack on the charges against him, and to exonerate himself--as opposed to acquitting himself--so that he can restore credibility to himself. It also sends a message that DeLay is more concerned about his reputation than his hold on power. And if he is able to turn the tables on his accusers, he will be of even more value to the party than he was before, as a wrongly accused man who is the victim of a political hit and who clears his name emerges as a hero.

But one who is dirty is a political liability to the rest of his brethren until he is removed. And as we learned in 1994, it is a much worse thing for politicians when voters have to do the removing.

After the check bouncing scandal and various other disgraceful revelations about the House of Representatives, a general perception that Democrats had been abusing the privileges that come with leadership, and that they could no longer be trusted to lead, voters had had enough and expurgated Democrats from the Congress. Certain Democrats chose not to run again, but others put up the fight and lost. And those who didn't returned in January to a Capitol where their relevance was much less than it had been only a few months before.

And if Tom DeLay was involved in illegal activity, he did the responsible thing by bowing out, as the Congress is not a place for people who have problems respecting the law.

But most importantly, a party that can police itself can retain public trust. There will always be renegades. But when they can be identified and removed, regardless of the power and influence they wield and the apparent cash benefits they can bring to the party, it increases the credibility of the rest of the party.

We'll see how this plays out, but it was a good move for all, depriving the Democrats of the opportunity to use the issue.

McKinney Sets Back the Race Clock

2006-04-05T08:06:00.000-05:00

It's an early lesson in life that crying wolf in the long run bears fewer consequences for certain wild canids than it does for the criers. More to the point, Rep. Cynthia McKinney's (D-GA) recent behavior, along with her history of making every issue a race issue is arguably turning back the clock on race relations in this nation, possibly making it easier for racist behavior to take place, largely because the term "racist" has been so overused and the act so over-accused that it is losing its relevance in American society, to the point that only the most egregious acts of overt hate are challenged for what they are.

McKinney didn't want to go through security upon her entrance to a House Office Building. But the Capitol Hill Police not recognizing her, especially after a recent appearance change, required that she go through the screening like everyone else. And in response, she is alleged to have struck the officer. It's a charge she hasn't denied. But her claim was that the officer "profiled" her, presumably excusing an unnecessary act of violence. From that falls the usual demagogue tropes that she was guilty of being a

And all of it is complete hogwash. Because if all of the allegations are true, we have a Member of Congress whose arrogance and belligerence got the best of her. She expected the police to recognize her despite the fact that she was displaying no form of identification, but in any case, to except her from the rules that applied to everyone else because of the political implications of her racial and gender identification. In other words, she is blaming the officer for not having the same comically inflated opinion of her that she does of herself.

But the charges of racism, profiling, and other concerns, while completely frivolous charges in this instance, may not be in others, and the practice of making such charges every time someone is inconvenienced fans the flames of racial intolerance and actually makes subtle acts of true racist wrongs easier to commit. Because racism is something that still exists.

African Americans are owed a huge apology from the likes of Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Al Sharpton, Kweisi Mfume, Charles Ogletree, Julian Bond and the NAACP, Cornell West, and the Congressional Black Caucus for their behavior over the past twenty years. Because during that time, among other wrongs they have done to their constituents, their overuse of the term "racist" has turned it from a serious charge with moral and legal implications into an easily made and dismissed grievance that causes eyes to roll. The result is a disastrous twofold.

First, it deepens the interracial distrust that already unfortunately exists between people of different skin tones and ethic origins in this nation. When one fears that another will drop a cruel label on another because of a simple civil disagreement--a label easily flung about, but sometimes not as easily cured without significant cost and embarrassment to the accused--there exists an unfortunate arm's length distance between people who look different but who are equally American. Lincoln's admonition that a nation divided against itself cannot stand remains as valid now as it was during the Civil War. And that won't go away until people accept common disappointments as such and move on to the next opportunity. And while this divide is a serious concern, it is the least of the two.

Because when one cries wolf enough, the real wolf is eventually able to attack with impunity. Racism still exists, because stupidity still exists among humans. But if one is clever enough to disguise racist behavior in the appearance of legality, or more likely people are just too jaded to care, injustice begins to reign. And we already have evidence of that in our society.

Certainly, a display by a hate group will be challenged by any American community, but hate groups operate on the fringes and their crude displays can often be unifying to those of us of all ethnic backgrounds who abhor such vulgarity. But they are not the problem because their effects on our society are grossly limited. Their message is so clear, so extreme and so wholly unacceptable, that they and their members are most properly and easily shunned from polite society. The problems are the disgraceful things that we accept as normal.

We have a permanent urban underclass that is self perpetuating. Our welfare system which is often a way of life among many urban blacks presumes that they cannot achieve economic independence on their own. It is a system that rewards single-parent families by presuming that fathers are no more than paycheck generators, to the point that it is now not at all surprising when fathers are allowed to abandon their children and their mothers to the detriment of both. Failed schools in the cities presume that young blacks don't care about their education, can't achieve, and aren't entitled to opportunities anyway. Systems of excuse whereby crime is justified as the natural and uncontainable overflow of anger as a result of alleged racial and economic disadvantage ignore the clear choices made by the wrongdoer and the sophistication of his infractions, thus encouraging deviant behavior. Worse yet, such pleas insult the law-abiding citizens of his neighborhood whose economic status has not stopped them from living respectable and good lives. As such, racism runs unnoticed, unchecked, and is even welcomed by those who are its victims.

So when the race card is played regularly by the likes of Rep. McKinney, ignoring the fact that she was the wrongdoer, not someone trying to ensure the security of our leaders, the cumulative effects have consequences far more serious and systemic than making just one irresponsible and opportunistic Member of Congress look even more foolish than she already did.

Feingold: Less Debate, More Politics

2006-04-03T13:18:00.000-05:00

Russ Feingold's (D-WI) appearance on Fox News Sunday (transcript courtesy RealClearPolitics) was one that, from his perspective, was best avoided. Feingold was posed some tough questions about his censure proposal, and his unfortunate comparison of Bush to Richard Nixon, but he managed to dodge each of Chris Wallance's questions, showing that his focus was less about the issue's substance, than the politics surrounding it.

Feingold couldn't seem to understand that nobody needs to be punished when the President and the Congress have a disagreement over the interpretation of the law and powers granted to the president to fight terror. He couldn't get past the fact that Bush briefed members of Congress, the Senate, and the Intelligence Committees of both houses before doing anything. He also seemed eager to equate a program designed to protect Americans from terrorist attacks with Nixon's Watergate break ins and the list of enemies he intended to punish for sedition. But when asked about how much he knew about the program, Feingold indicated that he had not yet received a full briefing on the matter that Rep. Jane Harmon (D-OH) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) had, leading them both to laud its merits. In other words, Feingold is not allowing the facts to get in the way of the politics of this censure effort.

But more to the point, he allowed a tiny little Freudian slip to get out, revealing what this whole thing is about:

FEINGOLD: [snip] We have a terrible problem that we have a Republican president and two houses of Congress run by the Republicans, who are intimidated by this White House, even to the point of not standing up for the right of Congress...

WALLACE: But Senator, and we're running out of time...

WALLACE: ... you make that sound like it's a coup. I mean, that's the result of the election. Elections have implications.

FEINGOLD: Well, there's nothing wrong with it from the point of view it was inappropriate. It's just that maybe the country wants to turn this here to a little more balanced government, where you have at least one house of Congress saying, Mr. President, you can't just make up the law.

What the Senator meant to say was, "Elections aren't so bad when they result in Democrat wins." And as Michael Barone will tell you, the best evidence of what the electorate wants can be seen in the most recent election data. And a Democrat House or Senate isn't it.

But tell that to Feingold who is using this as free press for 2008. It gets him on TV, gets him recognized for Iowa, which is very near Wisconsin, and much closer than Chappaqua, New York or Little Rock, Arkansas (whichever), and may make him a contender for the Democratic Party's nomination for president. The only thing that Feingold didn't consider was that authoring a censure resolution and then stating on national TV that he doesn't have all the facts as did his colleagues who praised the program, makes him look stupid.

But I stand with the Senator in hoping that he does get his vote on the resolution. And I pray that other Democratic Senators in tight races in 2006 vote for it, believing that it will help them in the general election.

Afghanistan Needs to Grow Up, Amnesty Needs to Speak Up

2006-04-03T08:43:00.000-05:00

Abdul Rahman Jawed, a resident of Afghanistan, committed the serious crime of converting from Islam to Christianity. In most of the Western world, such an act would be ignored, as it is generally regarded as one's own business what faith one chooses to practice, and how they choose to practice it.

But not in the new Afghan Republic. There, Jawed was put on a fast track to the death penalty. Having converted to Christianity in 1990, and having survived the wrath of the Taliban government, the people of the successor democratic state want to put him to death for what they consider the crime of "apostasy".

Islamism remains a very powerful force among the Afghan people, and the government under Hamid Karzai, recognizes this, as well as his countervailing responsibility to the law and the expectations of a free world. Karzai is in a very tough position, and his dilemma is one that should cause the West some serious concern.

Democracy is a powerful thing. It allows people to consent to their own government, and at appropriate times to revoke that consent. But it is inconsistent with the medieval attitudes that the Afghan people seem to be retaining. To be certain, nobody could expect them to abandon those attitudes overnight, and certain things will likely never completely pass away. But to seek to bring the force of law against someone because he changed religions is antithetical to freedom. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the Afghans not liking this man's choices, even though I think that the intolerance that this behavior reflects is unfortunate. And while it is a bad thing to have religious strictures as the governing law in a free society, the people of free societies can shape and enforce community standards by doling out peaceful social consequences for those who engage in entirely legal, but socially unwelcome behavior.

In our society, it is perfectly legal to be a racist and to express racist attitudes, but likewise, most Americans refuse to socialize with racists. Similarly, O.J. Simpson lives freely in America, as he was acquitted by a jury of his peers. Nonetheless, most Americans believe that O.J. committed the acts for which he was tried and as a result he remains a social outcast. So while it is not appropriate to legislate our own faiths, we can still shape mores by making clear that we will not welcome individuals who violate our sensibilities.

But the thing that gets me is that the Afghans did not want ostracism--they wanted an execution, to wit this comment from a man in Afghanistan as reported in the Salt Lake Tribune:

"I thank my God that I am a Muslim," said Ahmad Farhad, 25, who sells car parts
in a Kabul market. "We hate people like Abdul Rahman. He should be killed. If
they give him to me, I will cut him into small pieces with a knife."

Rather than expurgating the man, they wanted to get him back to make him suffer. It is just this kind of barbaric attitude that makes one wonder if the people of the Muslim world can rise above medievalist attitudes to make democracy work and to become a respected member of the international community.

But there were a few voices that were remarkably silent, namely the folk who relentlessly complained about nonexistent human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay. Amnesty International cried for months, until their accounts were debunked, about mistreatment at the prison, while terrorists enjoyed the jail equivalent of white glove service. We feared offending their hostile sensibilities for reasons that still remain unknown. But here, Afghanistan threatens to take a man's life for having nothing more than a difference of opinion, and these human rights groups remain silent.

So, I suppose the question becomes whether they are concerned about the rights of people, so long as those people are the enemies of the United States. There was no hesitation to apply the strictest standard to the world's biggest peacekeeper, donor and nose-wiper, when anti-civilization terrorists complained about the slightest nuance, but they felt safe ignoring the the very life of a man who was being persecuted for his religious beliefs by a people who hold differing and extremist religious views. Their silence speaks much about their politics.

What we are left with are two things: a nation that needs to grow up, to let people live peaceably, and to accept a more civil notion of treatment of others, despite differences. Put simply, they need to step up to gain international credibility. Conversely, we have human rights groups who have lost theirs by their failure to apply the same standards to the Islamic world that they do to the West, confirming that humans have rights, only if they are the right humans.

We can only hope that the lesson of Abdul Rahman Jawed is not lost on the people of the world, nor on those in Afghanistan.

McKinney - A True April Fool

2006-04-01T14:53:00.000-05:00

I am delighted to be writing this post on April Fool's Day about Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), a complete and utter fool.

To put it simply, McKinney is an unintellectual leftist nut. She is known for little more than making various hysterical anti-American comments such as this and this, which suggest in true Michael Moore form that 9/11 was a conspiracy to bring direct profit to President Bush and his family, and this little jewel, where she suggested that there was a government conspiracy to assassinate black leaders.

And it turns out that she is a physically belligerent nut as well. This week, the Congresswoman struck a Capitol Hill Police officer for doing his duty. McKinney, in her arrogance strolled into the House Office Building, expecting to be recognized. But with 435 Members of Congress, sometimes everyone is not recognized. McKinney entered without her House Member lapel pin that usually identifies Members of Congress to security, and refused to respond to three calls that she stop and be identified. Her response? She punched the officer in the chest. And now she is facing charges for it.

The funny thing about this is the arrogance which reeks out of the Congresswoman and others of her ilk. She spent the past day or so at scripted press conferences enlisting the help of the likes of Harry Belafonte who likes America's enemies, and Danny Glover who is not much different. Ignoring what the company she keeps may say about her, McKinney's grandstanding and demagoguery, which is all she really seems able to do, misses the point of this incident.

The crux of her carping, is that the officer's stopping of her was a racist act, and that he should have recognized her, despite the fact that she recently changed her appearance. He didn't know who she was. But she knew who he was when she committed a criminal act by hitting him.

I don't know where to start deconstructing this event and McKinney's behavior, but let's try this: former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK) who is black, refused to join the Congressional Black Caucus, which is comprised of many folks with the same attitudes as McKinney. He called them a bunch of "race-baiting poverty pimps", which adequately describes this thoughtless band who abandon discussion and debate and have resigned themselves to making every issue a race issue. I hate being stopped at airports and being searched. It is completely irritating. But I do it because there is nothing that makes me more or less important than the person in front of or behind me who didn't get searched. But for one to claim that she is above the law and security procedures because her skin is of a different tint is disgraceful. Similarly, for this congresswoman to claim that a greater amount of melanin in her skin justifies her abandonment the simplest fetters of socially mandated self-control, permitting her to use physical violence against a law enforcement officer because she is frustrated with the fact that she must comply with security procedure is intolerable.

And whatever comments I have made of Ms. McKinney's colleagues in the House and Senate Democratic leadership, those individuals who express equally hysterical ideas do not resort to physical violence to express disagreement.

The Congress should not fear this woman's hysteria. She should be charged and treated just as James Traficant (D-OH) was treated. She needs to be expelled from Congress.

Her district deserves and certainly can pick better people to represent them in Congress. And this will hopefully begin to correct the unfortunate but similarly divisive and evil messages that self-appointed "black leaders" and their white racist counterparts have been peddling for years: that skin color justifies different standards of behavior, and that it should divide us.

Lazy French Protest Their Right to Collect

2006-04-01T13:26:00.000-05:00

France is awash in rioting. You may recall about six months ago that rioting broke out after two Muslim youths who fled from cops got themselves electrocuted when they made the brilliant decision to hide in a power substation. Now, French youth have come out again to riot about the fact that they actually have to work.

A new proposal allows employers to terminate young employees within a two year probationary period. What that means is that France's anti-business labor laws will become just a bit more business-friendly. And it also means that hiring of young people may become more attractive, given the fact that employers would not be shackled with a dud employee for his entire vocational life.

But the French are beside themselves. For some reason, merit-based retention remains a truly odd thing for the Gauls. And the riots should make clear to employers that their reluctance to hire French youth remains a wise decision.

But this kind of thing, and the need for such a law is completely foreign to Americans. Firing and layoffs are very common occurrences here. Employers retain people based on merit, and those who deserve to be booted are often shown the door in favor of someone who does a decent job. And such a disparity in the treatment of the lazy partially explains why the United States standard of living is much greater than that of Western Europe.

I must credit the Chirac government for offering such a bold proposal. But given that the latest news Chirac, in true French form, is surrendering his position just a tad, by allowing the probationary period to be 1 year only. But the notion that socialism is bad for business seems to be getting through. Interestingly, the French seem to fear that competition from India and China will outclass them, which it very well might. But if they allow a capitalist system that doesn't punish private enterprise for doing what it does best, they may actually find themselves prospering.

Socialism is a fine plan if one wants misery spread out equally. But I wonder if the French are preferring a certain level of misery that they know over a capitalist boom that they don't.

The Bolton Shakeup--It Seems to Be for Real

2006-03-30T12:22:00.000-05:00

Most of the reading I have done about Josh Bolton's appointment as White House Chief of Staff seems to suggest that this is little more than a rearrangement of the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. But per this report, it seems that Bolton is not afraid of meaningful change.

The economy is in excellent shape. With unemployment at 4.8%, but a population that still doesn't believe that the economy is in good shape, (and most economists believe that the minimum possible unemployment level is probably around 3.5%), and the Fed raising interest rates because of concern that the economy might be getting too hot, it seems that were are dealing with a significant inability to communicate successes. And failure to communicate it to a public that is far more fascinated with whomever wins on Survivor, American Idol or whatever easily manufactured game show Hollywood has devised, means that the success didn't happen. So the suggestion that the Treasury Secretary be replaced is not extraordinarily surprising. Note that I said the suggestion, not the actual replacement. I still think replacement is unlikely, although by no means impossible, as Bush's loyalty to his economic team is not as strong as it is to his foreign policy team.

And remarks from Scott McClellan to the effect that Bush loves Treasury Secretary John Snow don't hold much water. And to a degree, I think that McClellan has some vicarious fear when staff shakeups are mentioned, because unlike the nimble Ari Fleischer, he seems unable to do more than simply react to the media, and seems unable to stay above the press room fray. Granted, it was most satisfying to watch McClellan get the best of media brat, David Gregory who threw a tantrum after he was accused of playing to the cameras. But a single moment of satisfaction is no substitute for keeping the President's agenda on front pages, as opposed to responding to the latest media-contrived conspiracy theory.

But most interesting are these disagreeing remarks from McClellan and Bolton being simultaneously broadcast. Very few things leak from this White House, as leaking is regarded as political treason by this White House, and it is even less likely that leaks would disagree, as they value staying on message. So when two conflicting messages come from this White House--one through somewhat unofficial channels-- it lends to the impression that there is more than just a little displeasure among the existing White House staff over Bolton's effort to effect what apparently is perceived within the White House as a revolution. And I think that this is potentially a very positive thing in the long run for the Administration.

Because if the existing staff is expressing some level of discomfort with the ideas of the new Chief of Staff, it indicates that this is probably the shakeup that the Administration has been needing. They won't get grouchy about it if they feel safe in their positions.

And while I have no idea how this will play out, as we are only getting leaks and the story is just a few days old, it seems at the very least that Bolton is about to inject some new energy into an Administration that desperately needs it.

Sharon's Vision Survives the Election

2006-03-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, former Likud party member, now a member of the new Kadima Party formed by Sharon received the apparent mandate that he needed to continue Sharon's vision of a unilateral drawing of Israel's borders. The electoral switch is a bit of a change, reflecting the viability of third parties in Israel, but more than anything reflecting the fact that the patience of the average Israeli are exhausted with the Palestinians.

Bill Clinton spent almost all of his Administration forcing the Israelis and Palestinians to sit down and talk and to work out borders so that a Palestinian state could be formed and coexist with Israel. Israel was always willing to work, but the Palestinians under Yasser Arafat were never really willing to do anything except agree to the extinguishing of the State of Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000 conceded to almost every request of the Palestinians, and accepted nothing (as nothing was offered) in return. And in the last days of the Clinton Administration, Arafat indicated that he would not accept the deal, sparking a new wave of terrorist violence against Israeli civilians. Because nothing had changed at all. The Palestinian leadership had never disavowed their intention to destroy the nation of Israel, and fully intended to keep that as the cornerstone of their policies.

But unlike his predecessors, and learning from Arafat's backstabbing, Sharon decided that there was never any real possibility that the Palestinians would negotiate in good faith, that doing so only harmed the people of Israel, and that terror was going to continue, unchecked by the Palestinian Authority. The only option in that case would be to give the Palestinians some land, draw hard borders and free them to do whatever they wanted, free from any influence on Israel. And while the Palestinians will be unhappy with just about any plan conceived by the Israelis, they had their chance to participate in good faith, they failed to take it, and they failed to behave in a manner consistent with peaceful objectives. They blew the numerous opportunities they were offered over twenty years, and in a final signal to the world that they intend to continue on the same irresponsible track, confirmed that they consent to and approve of terror by freely electing Hamas--a terrorist organization--to lead them.

But the choices of the Palestinians leave Olmert with no options. He is obligated to defend his people by excluding a populace that condones and supports the murder of his women and children.

It is comforting to see that the Israeli people are through with the "negotiations" because sometimes good fences do make for good neighbors, as it seems that concrete walls will be the only way to ensure that the Palestinians learn the first thing about civility.

Andy Card Takes One for the Team

2006-03-28T12:51:00.000-05:00

Andy Card has chosen to resign. And to be very clear, the only person who is happy about it is probably Mrs. Card, who gets to find out what Andy looks like in the daylight. Andy kept unbelievable hours, from opening up shop at about 5:30 in the morning to leaving around 9-10 at night. But those of us who have been calling for a major shakeup in the Administration are quite glad that the White House now has an opportunity to take control again.

The chief of staff job is a complex one, but in Navy terms, he is the XO (Executive Officer) of the White House. He reports to the President, but everyone else (excluding the Vice-President, of course) reports to him. He sets the drumbeat, and he gets the President's orders done. And for the first four years of the Bush presidency, he was masterful. Bush's White House was a very tight ship. Between successful execution of new tax policy in the first days of the Administration, to the hideous surprise of 9/11 and the war on terror, all the way to the 2004 election victory, Andy Card scored win after win for the President.

But something happened in 2005, and rather than being able to dodge the silliness of the press, the communications apparatus failed, allowing the media to get a little bit of traction as they tried to spin up weekly scandals. Granted, the "scandals" never got anywhere, but they did have the effect of preventing the message from getting out. So while the President was doing what the American people elected him to do, they had no idea about it because endless discussions about Valerie Plame, the now discredited 9/11 Commission, Harriet Miers, Guantanamo Bay, and whatever Harry Reid wanted investigated that day crowded the news, and prevented real outgoing positive communication.

And so it seemed that there was something lacking in the White House's ability to respond to the news cycle, but more importantly, its ability to control it and to set agendas. That is the job of the Chief of Staff, and it is not surprising that after a very successful run, the Chief burns out. But the replacement of chiefs of staff is not an unusual thing. Ronald Reagan had 4, George Bush 41 had 3 in his single term, and Bill Clinton had 4. And the fact that Bush 43 has had but one chief of staff speaks volumes about the effectiveness of Andy Card. But longevity with a chief of staff is not always a good thing.

As with many things, the grind gets to you and you lose sight of the big picture. I don't know what happened, but my guess is that it is much like any pitcher who throws a great first half of a game but is winded by the top of the 6th and is pitching a few more balls than the pitching coach and the fans are comfortable with. He needs a closer. And in this case, with three years left, and a whole lot more policy to implement, Bush needs someone who can be as intense as Andy Card was during the first term to push the remainder of his agenda, because Bush does not intend to coast out the remainder of his Administration.

It's not that Andy Card failed, as he will probably be a success at everything he does, but 18 hour days for five years straight during two simultaneous wars and with a heavy domestic agenda will wear a guy out.

I'll guarantee that this is not the end of Andy Card with the Bush Administration, as his input is still valued, and will likely be even more valuable when he is able to be a bit more detached. But this change is probably the first of many. We will almost certainly see a much more campaign-oriented communications team, a new communications director, and there is even some murmur about a new Treasury Secretary, and even a replacment of Don Rumsfeld, both of which I think are unlikely, but at the very least this change will do Bush much good.

Congress Gets it Half Right, Protestors Get it All Wrong

2006-03-28T10:45:00.000-05:00

Los Angeles was clogged over the past several days by these folks, protesting the House and Frist proposals to address illegal immigration.

Those proposals--if enforced--create such a significant disincentive to employers who hire illegals, penalties for smugglers of illegals and such significant penalties to the illegals themselves, that it would become unprofitable for them to illegally cross the border to do otherwise legal things in this nation. Those proposals are one side of the coin which address the security aspects of immigration. But a program that allows these people to legally cross and do work in this nation is equally important. And it is very difficult to imagine an America that did not welcome immigrants.

Because many of the Mexicans who cross the border are the kind who want to do nothing more than work, and work very hard. Because as long as there is daylight, by and large, these people put in the hours and produce good results for their employers. And it is a work ethic like that which has made America great. And their willingness to accept a lower wage (which is great money when they return home) keeps costs down here. Put another way, it is the hard working Mexican who accepts a lower wage because of diseconomies of scale in his own nation that makes our costs lower. So yes, their efforts are important, and they are a vital part of our economy. Which means that the Congress and the President need to respect the double-issue on immigration--admitting people to legally work here, while securing our border from those who would cross to cause problems. And likewise, we need to be certain that we are protected from certain problems that are unintentionally brought by well-intentioned workers.

Pediatricians are recommending Hepatitis-A vaccine for kids again, largely because the food service industry hires many Mexicans who bring with them the illness which is much more prevalent south of the border. As part of a guest worker program, these people's health need to be examined and certified as safe. And I am certain that there will be numerous private institutions, including the corporations that currently hire illegals and would even more gladly hire guest workers that would be more than willing to pay for these folks to get their shots before entering the nation to work. Additionally, citizenship rights need to be changed, so that the children of those who are present as permanent residents only become citizens at birth. Because the problem of "anchor babies"--children born to illegals in the United States who are citizens by accident of birth circumstance--who allow otherwise deportable people to remain in violation of our laws. If one wants a child to be a citizen, sign up to be a permanent resident. Heck, sign up to be a citizen and vote. But the incidentals that come along with border crossings need to end.

Likewise, we need to favor those who behave with respect towards our laws, meaning that there can be no amnesty. Those who wish to legally immigrate should receive all of the rewards of doing so, with no blessings to those who blithely short circuit the law.

Which brings me to the protestors. A bunch of high school kids played hooky in order to protest in favor of illegal immigration. They blocked traffic and generally caused havoc within the city, but there was something remarkable about their protest--they were carrying Mexican flags. There was nothing wrong with doing that, of course, but it sent a very wrong message. The presence of that flag in that setting communicates belligerence, rather than encouraging tolerance. It says of the immigrants who would enter our borders from the south, "We are Mexicans. We will enter your country as we please, to do what we please, to benefit as much as we can, and then take what we got and return back to Mexico." But America has no duty to Mexicans or Mexico, other than those established by treaty. And there is no treaty whereby we are obligated to let people cross our borders at any time and for any reason. There is no obligation for us to provide and pay for the health care of foreign nationals who have entered this nation illegally. There is no requirement that we employ them. But the pressure from the left on this issue because they want America to pay for every last world problem, and the concern by the President that this is a real opportunity to score the Hispanic vote for the Republicans has led to a security gap.

And no amount of foreign arrogance, pink philosophy or Republican opportunism can allow us to ignore the fact that our borders may indeed end up being our life.

There are two sides to the coin. Ignore one or the other, and the opportunity to reward law-abiding immigrant workers while ensuring our own protection is lost.

The Media Gives Bush An Opportunity

2006-03-22T09:18:00.000-05:00

The media saw an opportunity yesterday to hit the President--an opening to whack the man they hate so much, and they took it. The problem is that when Bush is engaged in candid conversation about the things in which he believes most strongly, despite the lack of a silver tongue, he can hold his own.

Helen Thomas, the leftist journalist turned leftist columnist had a shot at the president yesterday in his press conference, and rather than asking pointed questions, shot accusations at the President. Here's a clip of their exchange:

Q You're going to be sorry. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, let me take it back. (Laughter.)

Q I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -- your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -- what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil -- quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?

THE PRESIDENT: I think your premise -- in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist -- is that -- I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect --

Q Everything --

THE PRESIDENT: Hold on for a second, please.

Q -- everything I've heard --

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, excuse me. No President wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true. My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We -- when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life.
And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.

Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that's why I went into Iraq -- hold on for a second --
Q They didn't do anything to you, or to our country.

THE PRESIDENT: Look -- excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained --

Q I'm talking about Iraq --

THE PRESIDENT: Helen, excuse me. That's where -- Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans. I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences --

Q -- go to war --

THE PRESIDENT: -- and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.

Q Thank you, sir. Secretary Rumsfeld -- (laughter.)

Q Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: You're welcome. (Laughter.) I didn't really regret it. I
kind of semi-regretted it. (Laughter.)

Q -- have a debate.

Very nicely handled by the President, and then this from Fox News's Carl Cameron:

Q Thank you, sir. On the subject of the terrorist surveillance program --

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q -- not to change the tone from all this emphasis on bipartisanship, but there have been now three sponsors to a measure to censure you for the implementation of that program. The primary sponsor, Russ Feingold, has suggested that impeachment is not out of the question. And on Sunday, the number two Democrat in the Senate refused to rule that out pending an investigation. What, sir, do you think the impact of the discussion of impeachment and censure does to you and this office, and to the nation during a time of war, and in the context of the election?

THE PRESIDENT: I think during these difficult times -- and they are difficult when we're at war -- the American people expect there to be a honest and open debate without needless partisanship. And that's how I view it. I did notice that nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist
surveillance program. You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program. That's what they ought to be doing. That's part of what is an open and honest debate.
I did notice that, at one point in time, they didn't think the Patriot Act ought to be reauthorized -- "they" being at least the Minority Leader in the Senate. He openly said, as I understand -- I don't want to misquote him -- something along the lines that, "We killed the Patriot Act." And if that's what the party believes, they ought to go around the country saying we shouldn't give the people on the front line of protecting us the tools necessary to do so. That's a debate I think the country ought to have.

An excellent job by the President. Excellent in the sense that he got out and actually communicated his basis for doing as he is. He had to do battle with a media that was itching for a fight. In all fairness, of course, I think Carl Cameron is a significantly warmer audience for him than the likes of Helen Thomas, but two pretty significant things came out of these exchanges: Bush knows why he is in Iraq and truly believes that we ought to be there, and the Democrats continue to demonstrate in very ominous ways that they cannot be trusted with this nation's security.

Helen Thomas probably needs to hang it up. Because while Bush didn't like her snide remarks and the "Secretary Rumsfeld" thing, he finally had the opportunity to hash out his Iraq position and to candidly and sincerely discuss his belief that what we are doing in Iraq is good, without handlers and speechwriters getting in the way. Thomas's interest in having, per her comments, a "debate" with the President, rather than just asking him questions shows that she is agenda rather than story driven, which makes her seem like little more than Cindy Sheehan with a press pass. But an honest exchange like this is not harmful to Bush, who can communicate very well when he actually gets down to doing it. He needs to send Helen Thomas a thank you note today for giving him the opportunity to make an honest policy declaration and defense for the world to see.

The remarks generated by Carl Cameron's question, however, were a refreshing display of offense tactics. He directed the Democrats to add to their platform that we ought not have a terrorist surveillance program if they really dislike the NSA wiretap program. Campaign on it. And then, finally putting the burden of Harry Reid's recent remarks back on his own shoulders, dared he and his ilk to campaign on a similar platform that we ought not equip those who protect us from terrorists with the tools to do so.

Simple arguments, but they get to a significant point: The Democrats do not have the nerve to campaign on their real beliefs, but in an effort to seem in some way relevant, are trying to score some points against Bush himself. They would not dare to suggest that we expose ourselves to terrorists, especially in an election year. But in order to gain some traction, they throw out partisan measures designed to harm the President individually, but not to stop the NSA wiretap program which is the gravamen of their complaints. And so if the Dems will not step up and attack the programs themselves--the ones that actually protect people from terrorism--all of this censure and impeachment talk becomes more and more clearly the product of nothing more than political sour grapes.

The President has much work to do in order to restore public faith in his work, but exposure like yesterday is the very kind of thing Bush needs to keep doing in order to get public backing behind him. It helps offensive momentum and it is the very kind of thing that, if sustained, can cause real problems for Harry Reid and Howard Dean in November.

ADDENDUM

Tom Bevan's take is much the same, and worth the read. Bush can't afford to be anything less than he was yesterday.

Durbin: The Dems Are Planning a Coup

2006-03-21T09:25:00.000-05:00

Impeachment.

Whereas Bill Clinton's perjury--a felony--did not "rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors", a media and Democrat created phrase that induced vomiting in just about every American who saw the lying under oath for what it was, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) dropped the suggestion that protecting the American people might get Bush impeached.

Put another way, the Democrats are mad that Bill Clinton was impeached for obstructing justice and lying under oath, and they are even more mad that George Bush has beaten them in three elections and consistently beats them on national security. And those drubbings are grounds for impeachment for these Democrats, because Bush has failed to recognize that these Baby Boomer elite leftist Democrats believe that holding power over we the unwashed is their birthright. This is what happens when the flower children get elected. The excuse they are using is that the wiretap program can be made to seem illegal. And that's an important distinction. True illegality versus the media and the left's effort to make it sound illegal.

So I cannot strongly enough impress upon anyone reading this blog the importance of the upcoming elections. If the Democrats win, they will make every effort to Remove Bush and Cheney from power and conveniently install a Democrat House Speaker as President in a neat and clean little coup. Because they Dems, out of pure insane rage, feel that they are entitled to score an impeachment after having one scored against them.

So please pay attention to the people running the show from your state. If your state sends a Durbin, Reid, Boxer, Schumer, Kennedy, Levin or Rockefeller, you are sending dangerously ambitious people to Washington who care nothing about you, but only about personal power.

And so I don't use the word "coup" lightly. Remember, these are the same people whose judges rewrite laws from the bench. These are the same people who favor terrorists' rights over yours. These are the same people who accused Bush of lying his way into Iraq. These are the same people who likened our soldiers to Nazis. These are the same people who were quick to try to understand what wrong we did to provoke 9/11, as opposed to reaching the very easy conclusion that it was a bunch of murderers who are part of an anti-civilization terrorist group that want to bring the world under the control of radical islamist beliefs. These are the same people who were aghast when Ronald Reagan challenged the Soviet Union as an "evil empire". These are people who are consistently on the wrong side of history and who consistently believe and act upon the belief that there is nothing great about America.

Our nation makes room for irresponsible fools such as these. Our laws protect them. But we need to be discerning and responsible enough not to elect them. Because for all the President's foibles in dealing with his own popularity and perception, he is looking out for America, and he really doesn't care how history regards him, so long as the United States continues to make history rather than becoming it.

Dirty Harry's Non-Strategy

2006-03-20T11:34:00.000-05:00

Drudge is reporting on the Democrats' latest plan--such as it is--to get attention to their candidates. Harry Reid gave his caucus homework to do in preparation for the elections. He proposes that they meet with first responders to show how poorly funded they are by the feds, points of entry to show how poor our security is, hold town hall meetings with local Democrat officials and a national guard unit to show the hard impact by long deployments and how that plays into the inability to respond to disasters like Hurricane Katrina, factories that produce military equipment to show how poorly armored our soldiers are, and families who have had to purchase body armor for their soldiers, to name just a few.

But let's talk about how the Dems' record in these areas. They opposed the formation of the Homeland Security Department unless unionized federal workers had rights above ours as citizens to hire and fire employees as the Department heads deem appropriate. They applauded the Clinton-era Pentagon funding slashes that require the current long deployments, the one-time need for families to purchase body armor--my brother-in-law was provided his by Uncle Sam well over a year ago and before the Rumsfeld "military we have" speech. They oppose the current wiretapping program that listens in on conversations between al Qaida operatives and foreign agents. They opposed the DPW deal for political purposes only, as they still oppose profiling of Middle Eastern men at security checkpoints. But when there were Guard units aplenty to assist in New Orleans, the Dems' New Orleans Mayor and Louisiana Governor respectively left people in New Orleans to fend for and drown by themselves and blocked assistance to the City after it was offered by the President and when the conditions there were known to be dire.

But my comments there aside, this is the same old thing they have been offering against the President. Nothing but nitpicking. They criticize the programs that are there, but fail to offer something as an improvement. So it's not as if they are saying that they would do something different, but in true Eyore form, just state that the affairs of things are bad.

So this is nothing more than an attempt to lower the dialogue and stay negative, when their own policies were a significant cause of the things about which they currently complain. And things like that are important to remember when dealing with this party and the national security issue. They have been on the wrong side of it since at least 1972 and are eager to put their own thirst for power above the security of the American people. Because a plan like this is about nothing more than political gamesmanship in order to get personal power, rather than anything meaningful to enhance the security of the American people.

But I doubt that this effort will have much of any impact. Because despite the president's falling poll numbers, the Dems seem completely incapable of capitalizing on it.

Ginsburg Defends Use of Foreign Law, Blames Republicans for Encouraging Death Threats

2006-03-16T16:35:00.000-05:00

It is rare that Supreme Court Justices make public statements about the way they like to decide cases (outside the written opinions themselves, of course), and even rarer when they make a point of attacking the other branches of government. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has just gone after Republicans in Congress for trying to limit the ability of she and other liberal members of the Supreme Court to use foreign law to illegally shape U.S. policy. And perhaps the time is ripe for such a discussion, because last year, the Supreme Court generated no small degree of controversy over the rulings it handed down.

The New London v. Kelo decision (where the Court held that the government can procure private property through eminent domain powers for private contractors who can improve the property and the tax base) and the Roper v. Simmons decision (holding that the death penalty was unconstitutional if used against minors, freeing such misguided scamps as D.C. sniper Lee Malvo from the penalty a jury had imposed for his depraved heart crimes) were breathtaking acts of jusdicial activism that deserved the criticism they received. But Roper was most surprising because the Supreme Court relied on foreign law to reach their decision. The majority of the Court, eager to bring the United States closer in line with the legally chic Europeans presumed that Europe's law was actually a step forward, and with a few strokes of a pen, five people dragged the remaining 280 million of us along with them.

And so to combat the efforts of some Justices to change state policy enacted by Congress and the states, several bills have been proposed in Congress to prevent the federal courts from referring to foreign law as a basis for their decisions. And, per the Constitution, it is the prerogative of Congress to limit or expand the powers of the federal courts--if they are to be expanded--beyond the enumerated terms of the Constitution. But Justice Ginsburg, in a posting on the Supreme Court website, defends the use of foreign law. And she is entitled to her opinion. But she crosses the line of polite discourse when she accuses Republicans who are offering such legislation of encouraging death threats against her.

After describing the bills that have been offered, Justice Ginsburg continues:

These measures recycle similar resolutions and bills proposed before the 2004 elections in the United States, but never put to a vote. Although I doubt the current measures will garner sufficient votes to pass, it is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support. And one not-so-small concern - they fuel the irrational fringe. A personal example. The U.S. Supreme Court's Marshal alerted Justice O'Connor and me to a February 28, 2005, web posting on a "chat" site. It opened:
Okay commandoes, here is your first patriotic assignment . . . an easy one. Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use [foreign] laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases.
This is a huge threat to our Republic and Constitutional freedom. . . . If
you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week.
Nearly a year has passed since that posting. Justice O'Connor, though to my great sorrow retired just last week from the Court's bench, remains alive and well. As for me, you can judge for yourself.

It's a neat little bootstrap argument: disagree with me and you bear the responsibility for encouraging and inciting to violence the antisocial nuts who may also disagree with me. It's designed to thwart disagreement, which is the hallmark of the ACLU left from which Ginsburg hails. Dissent against the left encourages hate, dissent against the far to the nth power right enhances choice and freedom.

Now to be fair to the former ACLU chief counsel turned Supreme Court Justice, the use of foreign law is not an unusual thing in America. We've done it for centuries. And comparative studies are certainly helpful to those of us who practice. We use holdings in other states to encourage similar holdings in our own. We compare statutes from other states and how other American courts have treated them. It's a legitimate means of persuasion, but that's all it is. It has no binding effect. But in order to use foreign law for comparative purposes, we need to pay attention to the laws being compared and the societies where such laws arise.

Europe is not like America, and that's a very good thing. We have a much more market-driven economy, and theirs is much more regulated. Our mores are different than theirs which many Americans find to be uncomfortably lassiez-faire. We have different values than they do. We are a more ecclesiatical people than they are. Put bluntly, all those pretty churches over there don't get nearly as much use as the really run down ones here--they are a secularized people. And that's the reason we are separate nation-states with separate legal systems. It's also the reason that state borders within our nation still have relevance. The states are separate sovereigns from the federal government--subject to it's supremacy, but free to make social structures of their own. Which is why Massachusetts law and Utah law would be irreconcilable depending upon the area of law we're talking about. Which is why the Roper decision, among other reasons, just doesn't make sense.

Rather than comparing similar statutes and saying that other courts in other nations have interpreted their laws on the same point in a particular manner, they simply said that this is the law in those nations, implied that there was something better about those legal systems than this one, did some new factfinding with regard to psychological studies (appellate courts cannot do new factfinding that the trial courts didn't do below), and then concluded that it was time to bring ourselves more in line with Europe. Which is a lot like saying that since the Soviets were able to ensure uniform health care and market opportunities that we need to take a step forward to be more like them--ignoring the fact that those health care and market opportunities were uniformly worthless.

So in an effort to be more secularist, there are few better models than western Europe. And don't for a second think that Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn't want a more secularized America and a place where immorality becomes the new morality. And now she is mad that her tool--comparing our laws with the Europe she so envies--is under attack.

But the justice might want to remember that Europe has for the past 100 years been the most fertile ground for anti-semitism, and was the home of the Nazi and Soviet holocausts.

So the Justice may want to be reminded that she is not on the Supreme Court to change our laws, but rather to apply them as they are written. We have a Congress to change law. We don't need a dictatorial ACLU lawyer violating her mandate and making new laws by replacing ours with laws made by people half a world away who don't vote in our elections and who don't share our values.

And going back to that wonderful continent for which the Justice yearns, and the not so wonderful death threats against her, it was also state policy to stifle criticism by associating the opposition with criminal activity. And likening the legal and Constitutional acts American people's elected representatives in Congress with extremist criminal activity in order to thwart their efforts to oppose her anti-democratic and illegal means of changing our law is deplorable.

There comes a time when people become so old and stuffed with notions of entitlement to power that they behave in such a disingenuous manner. Given the Justice's affliction, it's time for her to retire.

When Norm Coleman Says It...

2006-03-15T17:03:00.000-05:00

...Take it seriously. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) expressed his concerns about the inability of the White House to communicate a vision this week. Citing repeated concerns about a political tin ear, Coleman's criticisms are probably the most significant ones to be aired so far. Coleman is a Bush ally, and such on-the-record remarks are an indication that Republicans are no longer comfortable with a White House that seems increasingly unable to keep pace with events.

The fact that these kinds of things are being said by Coleman ought to get White House attention, and ought to scare them into action. Coleman is not the kind who likes to go for cheap political stunts. He is fairly reserved in his media comments, and usually doesn't make opinion statements without facts to back them up. In other words, this is a very careful person who takes very seriously his public statements. So the fact that this made the media should indicate to the White House that this is not a matter which they ought to take lightly.

But the response from Scott McClellan, however was a further sign of the problem. The media jumped on the remarks a number of times, with McClellan stating that it is simply a sign of that the media is playing some game when he is trying to talk policy. And there is some truth to that. They are first and foremost, a band of jackals eager to exploit any weakness they perceive. But McClellan's response ignores the problem and worse yet, is reflective of it.

He was short and grouchy with the media--the surest sign to them that they are controlling him, not the other way around. It also indicates that the Administration is purely on the defensive, which is not the posture that a sitting president ought to be taking when he has an agenda to advance.

While Bush is fiercely loyal to his people, he needs a fresh set of hearts and minds to take over. And he needs to determine whether personal loyalty is more important the success of his Administration. Loyalty is important, but something is clearly not working, and the nation will not be able to get behind an Administration that cannot muster enough energy to move past carping with the media.

Senate Dems To Republicans: Please Don't Put Our Words In Action

2006-03-14T09:23:00.000-05:00

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), who is trying to position himself as the challenger to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race for president offered a resolution to censure the President for the NSA wiretap program which is designed to track and interdict terrorists operating in our nation. And this is typical below-the-fold stuff that happens nowadays in Washington with Democrats.

But following the lead of the House Republican Leadership who forced an embarrassing vote on Rep. Jack Murtha's (D-PA) pro-terror pull-out plan which only three House members supported, the Senate Republicans called the Dems' bluff and scheduled the resolution for a vote. Because that's what the resolution called for, right? Actually, wrong, if you ask the Dems.

The Democrats blocked a vote on the proposal. So what does that mean? Does it mean that they don't believe in censuring the president whom they pathologically hate with a passion that makes a pack of klansmen seem like a group of Peace Corps workers dutifully laboring in Africa? Or does it mean that they fear going on record in front of the American people with their hysteria and demagoguery?

But Feingold wants hearings. In other words, he believes the President is bad, but a vote on it isn't enough. And "hearings" will keep this in the news cycle to harm the President and to advance Feingold's own political fortunes.

But when his proposal could attract no co-sponsors and his own party blocked a vote, Feingold stepped his rhetoric up a notch. He accused the Democrats of cowering. Again, beautiful. It's rare that a sitting Senator will go out of his way to advertise his extremism and save his opponents the trouble.

But the biggest problem is the fact that the Democrats blocked a vote on their own party's proposal. We know that they fear voters, but it's two sets of them that they fear: the American people and the freakshow to whom they cater in order to get their party's nomination.

There really is no right answer for the Dems on a censure resolution. Fail to support it and primary support from their leftist base will be hurt. Support it, and the general public will brand them an extremist in a much more costly general election defeat. However, I think that this explanation is just a little too simplistic. Certainly it creates a problem for those Senators looking forward to a near-term presidential bid. But not nearly so much for those who plan to return to their states for reelection this year. Many of them are fairly safe. But how about if 25 to 35 of them vote for it on impulse? That might create problems for Democrats in somewhat unsafe states if the voters begin to take a more national outlook on the issues. And a more national outlook--with emphasis on national security--is exactly what a real vote on Feingold's resolution would create.

Bush would immediately go on the offensive, defending the eavesdropping program and describing the kinds of threats it has uncovered and stopped. And then Democrats are left to tragically argue that a program that keeps us safe from a devastating terror attack is still somehow a bad thing because it doesn't keep to the letter of their ACLU vision of the law (which was somehow ok when Bill Clinton did it).

But perhaps Feingold's effort to bring this to a set of hearings may just be what the doctor ordered for Bush. Because if the true nature of the program makes its way to the public as a result of the hearings, and the people see the risk of danger to them from terror outweighing the risk that conversations about dinnertime plans might be overheard, the Dems will again be caught on the wrong side of the national security issue just in time for an election. And if it costs them more seats, Feingold will get a good deal of the credit for putting the spotlight on his party's woeful national security record. And I wonder just how generous his fellow Democrats will be with him when he calls for their support in 2008. They may find that it is more agreeable to for themselves and their checkbooks to "cower" in the shadows of Bill and Hillary Clinton, rather than championing the cause of a Howard Dean acolyte in the bitter cold of Des Moines.

Straw Poll Results: Frist is Not DOA

2006-03-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

A straw poll was conducted over the weekend among delegates to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Tennessee to see who they would likely support for president in 2008--3 years before we get there. The result was that Tennessee's senior senator, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) won. And no surprise, as it was packed with locals from Tennessee. Following Frist was Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the term-limited George W. Bush, and then John McCain.

What all of this means is that Frist is not dead on his home turf. Which as Al Gore will tell you can make the difference between a victory speech and an embarrassing effort to split hairs on votes in another state. If nobody else is going to say it, though, I will: the Bill Frist we see in the Senate is unelectable. He is possibly the second most ineffective Republican Senate Majority Leader, right behind his predecessor, Trent Lott, who never met a Democrat demand which he didn't try to meet, and who never learned after six years as Majority Leader that this crop of Democrats neither remember nor repay kindnesses, are only interested in accumulation and consolidation of power, and are only too glad to stomp those who get in their way. Frist seemed to have followed his lead, presuming that a 55-44 seat advantage was not enough to stand up to a minority party that offered no ideas, save failed tax, foreign and social policies.

So falling from that, how would a President Frist deal with a bullyish China or a crackpot North Korea? How would he deal with Putin's thwarting our efforts to hold the feet of rogue nations like Iran to the fire to preserve Russia's commercial dealings with those nations? And how would he deal with a nuclear-armed Iran? How would he deal with a direct attack on Israel? My experience in seeing him in action and word of mouth from those who know is that Frist doesn't stand up to opposition. He goes weak. And this is not an age for Neville Chamberlains. Maybe he'd be great, but I have zero reason to believe it.

And so while this allegedly conservative Senator may win a straw poll, it is little more than a straw-man. If it was conducted anywhere else, he wouldn't have stood a chance. And when Mitt Romney of Massachusetts comes in behind him with such a strong showing, it says much more about Romney's viability than it does anything positive about Frist.

Bush Gets A Break, Courtesy of the UAE

2006-03-10T09:14:00.000-05:00

Very rarely do potentially ugly showdowns end so cleanly. DP World said that it would back out of the deal that would turn over to it control of operations at the major East Coast and Gulf ports.

Now the discussion turns to the aftermath. Threats like this, (H.T. Drudge) to pull American contracts with the UAE are the kinds of things that get said in the heat of frustration and anger. But the statement that they may not be so helpful in the war on terror in the future makes one think that perhaps the death of the deal is not that bad a thing. A real friend doesn't need stroking to participate in an effort to undercut international terrorist activity. And we don't want someone like that with a foot in our ports.

But that digression aside, the President was spared an unholy showdown with Congress which would possibly have resulted in the issuing of his first veto and the likely overriding of it in a year when the President and Congress very badly need to appear united. But all of this talk of Republican disunity will soon be forgotten. The DPW deal will not be diffused for November. The Dems won't be able to use it effectively. And tantrums thrown by the likes of Trent Lott, whose first show of any strength was this little fit at his own president, despite having let Tom Daschle walk all over him for years when he was one of the weakest Majority Leaders on record, and the show of force by outgoing Majority Leader Bill Frist who I am certain needed a framing stud taped to his spine to prevent him from reverting to jelly, are all for naught. Republicans really do crave unity and find such unfortunate disagreements on detail issues such as this to be remarkably uncomfortable.

So now, it is time to repair relations. Doing so won't be too hard. The president signed off on a reauthorization of the Patriot Act yesterday--a major victory for him. The next step is making the tax reductions permanent. They have proven to increase economic activity, thereby increasing the Treasury's take, but they are set to expire, because some in Washington feel weird about Americans keeping more of the money they earn. Bush will win on this one also. What legislator wants to get caught raising people's taxes in an election year? Couple that with a leaner budget that meets more of America's and less of Washington's prerogatives, and Bush and the Republicans can take to the voters a 2006 full of nationally popular and beneficial legislative successes. Keeping you safer, helping you keep your money, and keeping down silly spending.

The Democrats hope to get a win on national security by prohibiting foreign proprietary involvement in ports, etc., but when we had to fight them on the Patriot Act, listening in on terrorist communications, profiling by demographics, and failing to kowtow to terrorists' excruciating intolerance at Guantanamo Bay, any such bill will appear to most voters as the transparent political canard that it is.

But I somehow doubt that the Dems will let the DPW deal go, irrespective of the fact that it is a dead issue. One would hope, for their sake, that they would have learned that trying to resurrect issues whose damage value is gone actually does real harm to them. Dwelling on the irrelevant makes the dweller similarly out of touch. We can only hope that they keep up the rhetoric into the fall.

We can also only hope that the Administration appropriately blunts it.

Is Dean Rescuing the Republicans in 2006?

2006-03-09T11:41:00.000-05:00

They elected him. And conservatives couldn't be happier. Last year the Democrats' choice of Howard Dean as DNC chair was almost as beautiful a sight in the eyes of conservatives as their ultimate hope of having him as the party's nominee for president in 2004. And now it turns out that it was a much better option having Dean run the party for four years rather than just having him run his party's ticket in the ground in a one shot deal.

Because this week we learned that the Democratic Congressional Leadership is most dismayed about their party chairman's misuse of party funds. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are understandably apoplectic, given that The Democrats have raised $50.1 million with $5.8 million cash on hand, compared to the Republicans' $103 million raised and $34 million cash on hand. Dean's plan is pretty simple. He is trying to bolster the party's ground efforts to make it competitive in all 50 states. It's a nice vision statement, but an abominably shortsighted and stupid thing to actually try given the party's limited resources, especially when Dean is probably tragically misreading the political tea leaves.

There are a number of things that don't work against the sitting Republican Members of Congress and Senate. Campaign Finance Reform was an excellent bit of strategery on the part of the White House. It makes it harder for challengers to mount an attack on incumbents, and while I believe it to be unconstitutional, the Supreme Court disagreed, and it will likely be the law of the land for a little while.

And while there exists a significant dissatisfaction with Congress as a whole--and there almost always has--remember that Congressional turnover is a very rare thing. Because as Jay Cost over at RealClearPolitics could tell you, more often than not, my generic dissatisfaction with Congress applies to your Member of Congress, not mine, whom I have met at Fourth of July parades and seems like a nice guy/gal.

So in that vein, there is little to speak of as far as the House races are concerned. It isn't changing hands as there aren't enough interesting races to make a power switch possible at this stage. And in the Senate, while there is a good opportunity for the Dems to capture a seat or two, they may be looking at a wash at best, as the Republicans will likely take just as many or more Democratic seats.

The seats where the Democrats stand a real chance for scoring turnovers are those of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R?-RI). Likewise, The Republicans have a shot at unseating Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and scoring pickups of open seats in Minnesota and Maryland. There also is an outside chance that Sen Bill Nelson (D-FL) can be unseated, but of that I will not be convinced until there is a heck of a lot more movement towards his likely opponent, Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) And per the Washington Post's scorecard, there exist nine competitive races (and as stated before, I think Maryland and Florida need to be in the mix there). At this stage, the Senate seat count is 55-44-1. The Independent "1" is likely to stay that way as retiring Senator James Jeffords (I-VT) will very likely be replaced by independent Socialist Bernie Sanders. Which means that to win control of the Senate, the Democrats must hold all of their open seats, win each of the races where their incumbent is at risk, and must win each and every one of the competitive races where Republicans are trying to hold seats. And while in any given election this would be statistically unlikely, this year, it's largely an impossibility that they would have a shot at getting even halfway there.

They aren't offering anything new. With Pelosi and Reid keeping the message a little too far left of center to be attractive, keeping an irritating plaintive tone, and jumping on every negative story like a bunch of chimpanzees on crack bouncing on a trampoline, they give no incentive for anyone to pull their party's lever, punch the chad, whatever. But the real problem is the money. Because with Dean wasting away the party's cash and not bringing in enough to justify his boondoggle, the party is unprepared and in a world of hurt going into this election.

Pelosi and Reid know that the party is being spread way too thin, and that Dean's effort to rebuild the party precinct by precinct across the nation is potentially disastrous. The Dems have a few strongholds in cities and in leftist enclaves like those found in northern California, the upper West Coast, the New York metropolitan area, and some locales throughout the industrial Midwest and southwest. But that's largely it, and it explains why they have had significant electoral troubles since the 1980s. Their support is limited and localized.

It would make sense if Dean was attemtping to shore up his party's organization in competitive jurisdictions. In fact, that would be the wisest thing he could do. Targeted strategies directed at getting out the vote in critical precincts and having people accountable for doing so is an excellent way to improve a ground plan. But trying to do it across the nation is probably one of the worst non-strategies he could have devised. And I'd dare say that it's just the strategy that a Republican would have a Democrat follow.

Elections, especially the close ones, are very often won and lost by the availability of cash to the campaigns. Given that this season will have more than a few close elections, the Republicans will be better positioned to finance their candidates than cash-strapped Democrats who will suffocate under the weight of Dean's party-building plan which will be ironically destructive.

Because Dean's biggest miscalculation is that his party can afford the temporary drubbing that a lack of cash will create. But the problem with that notion is that such a setback would be temporary or affordable. The Democrats get donations precisely because they still retain some power. Let them take a significant hit in an off year election where they should have picked up some seats and the perception that they are becoming less and less electable will become reality. The reality part finds its truth in terms of fewer future donations based upon the perception, thus repeating a cycle of losses.

It probably won't be that bad, but the Democrats can't afford any disappointments at this stage of the game. They are behind. Getting further behind isn't the way to winning.

Dean need only follow his genius plan through 2008--if he even lasts that long.

Time for Congressional Republicans to Make Up With Bush

2006-03-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

I have been very hard on the President's communications apparatus, such as it is, along with his immigration policy, such as that is. And I have no qualms about expressing displeasure over the wisdom and political effects of the Dubai Ports World deal, the veto threat and other matters. But whatever Congressional Republicans think of these matters as they approach the midterm election, they might want to add this to their calculus: they distance themselves from the President at their own peril.

Indeed these are unpleasant times for the Republicans, as they are disunited, have a president with sagging poll numbers, and Democrats seem to be able to successfully mask their lack of relevancy by blaming Republicans for everything that is not perfect with the world.

But there are a few things that cannot be ignored. Bush can draw a crowd of fundraisers, he can get them to write checks, and he can get the faithful out to vote. He put his own reputation on the line in 2002, which no president has ever done, and posted Congressional gains in both that year and 2004. And Bush's popularity was nothing stellar in 2004 either, where he posted the greatest gains. The short of it is that this is just part of another news cycle, and Bush has survived them and thrived past them before. Per Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics.com:

As I have written time and again, the political landscape is not such that we can expect the Democrats to retake the House. The economy is too strong, there are too few open seats, and Bush is not sufficiently unpopular. Pundits on both sides tend to extrapolate from a given point in time under the assumption that things will stay as they are. So, any time BushÂs numbers go down, the talk instantly turns to a Democratic recapture of the House. Wait a month. BushÂs numbers will go back up, and then the talk will be about how the Democrats blew their chances. We have already been through one iteration of this inane process, and it looks like weÂre in for another spin.

Mind you, all of this is despite the fact that seat changes in the House occur because of much more stable processes than the news cycle. God help us all if that were the case!

The point is that Bush is not as radioactive as he looks at this point, and that the Democrats can only get minimal traction on any of these issues, most notably national security, because even though this story has been a giant liability for the White House, Republicans remain ahead of Democrats on the National Security issue. If anything, it means that whatever damage the Republicans have suffered from this, the Democrats still have a credibility gap on the most important issue to voters. The party that cries foul about racial profiling in the terror war and wants to see granny strip searched at the airport while a group of young Middle Eastern men goes by without so much as a second look, just can't be taken seriously when they reflexively jump on the profiling bandwagon for nothing more than to seize a temporary political opportunity. So as much as Harry Reid thinks that this is an opportunity, it is yet another opportunity to show that he is little more than a crank and a political heckler whose party offers nothing more than "elect us, we're the other guys".

And as stupid as the Democrats like to think Bush is, the smart ones will remember that they have been thrice beaten by him in elections when they thought they could destroy him. This is a president with a surprising comeback ability. Bush is aware as anyone that this election is just as critical as any other to his efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East and to fight terrorism. He knows that if the Democrats get a foothold on power for the final two years of his presidency, he will be unable to successfully position his successor to carry on the policies he has enacted, which would presume that they would not be reversed by the Dems. He knows the stakes.

The problem is in the waiting for him to fix it all.

But Bush will be ready for the fall. Only a fool or someone with a guaranteed victory would distance themselves from him.

Academia Loses to the Military

2006-03-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Supreme Court has just unanimously ruled that colleges and universities that accept federal money must also allow on-campus military recruiting. This case arose when already military-hostile universities, used a First Amendment free association argument to exclude military recruiters because the military discriminates against gays by the "don't ask don't tell" policy. Under that theory any interaction with the military which the universities must endure would somehow intellectually harm them and their pro-gay stance.

Of course, the military does things beyond just discriminating against gays. It also defends our nation so that idiots like the people running these universities can be free to be the complete fools that they are. And it helps their recruiting in wartime to have access to young college graduates. And that's what the court found.

It doesn't matter that you don't like it, Congress can force universities--with or without the threat of yanking federal funds--to allow on-campus recruiting.

So perhaps these exclusionary enclaves of higher education will now get to practice themselves the virtue which they think everyone else ought to possess: tolerance of those with whom they disagree.

Iran and Presidential Popularity

2006-03-06T12:51:00.000-05:00

RealClearPolitics has a few excellent pieces here and here on the Administration's position on Iran. And notwithstanding the very harsh remarks I leveled last week against the Administration and their subpar communications department, they seem to play their cards very wisely when it comes to a showdown.

Which brings me back the issue if Presidential popularity and a chicken and egg question.

Bush has allowed himself to take a pummelling on Iraq. An unnecessary pummelling, because there is positive news to report, positive progress overall, but it's his job to make sure that it gets reported. Now he is taking us again to the brink with Iraq's neighbor, Iran, and promises military action if Iran doesn't let go of it's nuclear program. And we're not "alone" on this one as the left claims we were on Iraq. But does the President's popularity need to be something more than it is in order to have the support to maintain an engagement with Iran, or will such an engagement be just the thing his poll numbers need, thereby breathing new life into the Administration?

Hard call. If Iran is simply a couple of JSOWs and a wrecked nuclear program with a livid but now flaccid Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it's a success. If it turns into a popular uprising that overthrows the theocracy, and turns into a democratic state on its own, it will go down as Bush's finest hour. And that's by no means out of the question. The Iranians are significantly more educated and more hungry for self-rule than their neighbors in Iraq ever were. If there is anyplace that democracy is yearning to flourish, it's there. Because the Mullahs are not a popular government, nor is Mahmoud the Mouth an adored figure. And perhaps a moronic extremist and terrorist like Ahmadinejad is just what the Iranians needed to wake up and decide that they would like to be a respected member of the world.

But if it involves another hard slog that requires patience and perseverance by the American people, I can't see Bush with the support to pull it off, nor can I see support for it lasting anywhere near the length of time it takes to actually achieve the mission's stated goals.

There really is no turning back at this point. Either Iran surrenders or it doesn't. And if the U.S. backs down, it will be all the more provocative to regimes like that of Iran and North Korea who will realize that the U.S. has reached its limit on international engagements. So this will have a discernible termination point. The only question is whether it involves an embarrassment for the Iranian government by diplomatic or military means.

And then the biggest issue is what falls from that. Will they embargo oil shipments? Not likely, as they need to eat as well, and an act of emotional bitterness will harm them more than us. But perhaps economics won't figure in. Perhaps this crackpot government will indeed make such a self-destructive decision.

And if it does, what does that mean for Bush and his ability to have the public behind his leadership?

So far, very little. Bush continues to lead, showing no signs of any fatigue caused by low polls. He doesn't believe in the lame duck presidency. Certainly a president is no lame duck with the winds of popular opinion to his back, but that's different if he can't get them behind him on national security if the burdens of it become too heavy over too short a time.

Make no mistake, the President is doing the right thing by working to pacify Iraq and by standing up to Iran, irrespective of the things with which Iran may threaten us. My only fear is that the potential costs in opening up another front with Iran (higher energy prices, and possibly another lengthy military engagement) may be more than the American people are willing to support, with a media and entertainment industry doing their best to hamper our efforts at national security, and folks like John Murtha, in true John Kerry fashion, never missing an opportunity to talk down the armed forces in which he once served, knowing that his efforts are aiding the enemy and putting our own soldiers in danger.

Perhaps the next front he needs to open up is the one on the people who purport to open the news. Because good things don't happen when you allow your ideological opponents to cast your successes as defeats. And we've had enough of that.

Let's hope for the sake of his very positive and bold agenda that President Bush has as well. Our long-term security depends on it.

Movies Nobody Bothered to See

2006-03-06T09:16:00.000-05:00

And so much like Earth Day and Canadian Thanksgiving, the Oscars come and go with little notice.

And according to Drudge, the Oscar market share was pretty low last night.

Conversely, more bourgeois American Idol continues to monopolize its time slot. But why?

I think this is the beginning of a serious disconnect between Hollywood and the American people they so disrespect. This year, we were regaled by a story of two gay cowboys, a reporter fighting a crazy Republican Senator, the story of a great but flamboyantly gay writer who investigated a murder for a story and gets a weird sexual fixation on one of them, and a story about racism. Wedged in there in another category was another picture glorifying acts by suicide bombers in Israel and Palestine. Between productions that increasingly smother us with leftist values, to off screen behavior that goes way over the top in terms of political preaching that is often directly at odds with American values, the Hollywood elite are alienating the commoners whose humble money they so desperately need to maintain their lavish lifestyles. And it seems that we, the unwashed masses are making choices that reflect our values as well.

Anyone recall what the biggest movies of the last year were? Star Wars III--Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and The Chronicles of Narnia--The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Interestingly, Narnia grossed $284,792,443, Revenge of the Sith grossed $380,262,555 and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire grossed $288,870,728. Blockbuster movies to be certain. Each one-on its own--grossed more than the $235,568,359 that the Best Picture nominees made combined. So why did the box office losers get such acclaim from the American Academy?

It's not that there was anything wrong with Narnia, Harry Potter or Revenge of the Sith, as they also got technical nominations. But the problem was that their storylines, each of which dealt in their own way with significant moral struggles and tough choices being made by the characters--the kinds of moral choices and consequences that people want their kids to witness--really don't resonate with the Hollywood elite. In Harry Potter, Harry was forced to grow up quickly and to make some very difficult choices in the face of evil, all the while recognizing that his relationships with his friends were changing, but getting all the stronger. The children in Narnia experienced the gift of unmerited sacrificial death and forgiveness, resulting in the destruction of the evil that thought it had triumphed. And in a decades-expected twist, Anakin Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith struggled with moral choices and ultimately made the wrong ones with devastating consequences for himself and everyone else in the galaxy. All stories about good versus evil and all with very appropriate allegorical messages about people as individual moral agents with very real consequences facing them for each of their choices. It still sells. But to Hollywood, it's been done.

Crash played the race card. Brokeback Mountain glorified homosexuality, and Capote had its gay overtones as well--always a welcome component in Tinseltown. And of course, any anti-Israeli cause is welcome. And I would not call Munich a pro-Israeli movie. It's not great when Spielberg puts Israelis and Palestinians on roughly the same moral plane, and leaves plenty of room for uber-moron and the best friend Islamist terror ever had, Kofi Annan to claim that:

While recognizing Israel's right to defend its citizens, targeted killings place innocent bystanders at grave risk and amount to executions without trial.

Because suicide bombings don't? And isn't a "targeted killing" by definition the kind of thing that won't harm bystanders? What a complete idiot and friend of evil Annan is, but I digress. The movie left the impression that eliminating terrorist murderers was a crime in itself, getting it the Best Picture nomination in an era when eliminating terrorist murderers--before they murder again--is increasingly viewed by the Hollywood left as barbarism. They are trying to push values on a nation that is already pretty comfortable with the ones it already has. And Americans are increasingly regarding Hollywood as a place of unabashed and belligerent moral standardlessness which holds the ideals of most Americans in contempt and is eager to cram its misbegotten version of truth and goodness down our throats. But people aren't going to pay for an expensive ticket and overpriced popped corn and soda to support the mocking of their beliefs.

Conversely, Americans turn to the three blockbusters mentioned above because they really focus on the struggle between good and evil and highlighting the best of things.

And with respect to the sometimes gaudy American Idol, one of the entertainment industry's greatest recent successes, the show, whether intentionally or otherwise, appeals to a vast number of Americans because it resonates with the values that most of us hold. A bunch of generally penniless contestants come to the show with nothing more than their hearts and voices and do their best to win a record contract. We develop relationships with them as we see them try to outdo one another in a competition of raw talent and character. And each of them carries a story of trying to achieve the American dream. The arrogant often fall, as we saw last week with one young lady who was way too big for her britches, but the talented humble usually win and win big. And all of the winners have been southerners with more or less boring traditional values. Kelly Clarkson is from Texas, Ruben Studdard from Alabama, Fantasia Barrino from North Carolina and Carrie Underwood from Oklahoma. Fantasia speaks openly about dumb choices made earlier in life, but about how her faith has changed her outlook and has been the source of her success. She has a lot of panache, but her success is a story of a humble young lady's redemption. And Carrie Underwood's most recent overwhelmingly popular chart topper is an unabashedly evangelical song called "Jesus Take the Wheel". The ratings don't lie.

And it's funny how cheap values come and go but the old, trite and dusty traditional values still attract people as if they're brand new. The "cutting edge" stuff that Hollywood loves really is just a flash in the pan. Good still matters. And while he isn't winning any Oscars either, Jesus is still more famous than the Beatles.

How Brownie Got His Groove Back

2006-03-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

Let's get some thens and nows straightened up about Hurricane Katrina.

Then:
The Democrats and media declared that Michael Brown:

has repeatedly exercised poor judgment and has failed in his basic responsibilities. His continued presence in this critical position endangers the success of the ongoing recovery efforts.

It is not enough to remove Mr. Brown from the disaster scene as Secretary Chertoff announced today. The individual in charge of FEMA must inspire confidence and be able to coordinate hundreds of federal, state and local resources. Mr. Brown simply doesnÂt have the ability or the experience to oversee a coordinated federal response of this magnitude. [snip]

Leaders of this crucial federal agency should not be little more than political appointees honored for their political service.

"Brownie" was an incompetent.

Now:
Today, the media is playing him as a scapegoat. Why? Because he is firing charges at his former boss, Homeland Security Chief Mike Chertoff. And irrespective of the validity of the finger-pointing, it's more than just a little disingenuous to rip the man six months ago as a fool and now to rehabilitate him as he might be useful in causing more damage to the Bush Administration.

But I must go back to the states, as we now know that Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D) who received a pass from the media and the Democrats was clueless as to the state of the levees, while the ruptured seawalls allowed the city to rapidly flood, despite the fact that they were publicly reported to have ruptured and spilling water into the city earlier that morning. Oops. This was also the person who told the President not to send anyone into New Orleans until she had a good 24 hours to think about it. Who's incompetent?

And now Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (yes, D), who sobbed his eyes out on the radio begging for help as he left his citizens to their own lack of devices to escape the city and/or languish in the Superdome and the unequipped Convention Center is likewise given a pass.

So here is the standard to which the Administration is being held: The incompetence of the locals in getting their residents out of harm's way in the first place is irrelevant. The Administration should have been able to overcome the local failures, to preserve the levees, and to evacuate the horribly damaged city with no loss of life. It would be like Ted Kennedy blaming the paramedics and police for not being able to rescue Mary Jo Kopechne.

This is pure partisan carping.

How History Repeats Itself

2006-03-03T10:34:00.000-05:00

One of the most disastrous problems in politics is the failure of a politician to defend himself or herself from charges which he or she claims is baseless. And here we go again:

We have a politician who is accused of poor leadership by certain segments of the media whom he accuses of political bias and by those who once served under him whose accusations he claims are little more than personal sour grapes. But rather than coming out swinging and responding with specifics and facts, he circles the wagons, clams up, and offers little more than token conclusory statements that the accusations being leveled are wrong. His surrogates try to minimize the damage, but because they have their own liabilities, their efforts come to naught. When a demand for proof of his defense is requested, he stonewalls, telling the nation to believe him at his word, and that he will provide details in due time. His opponents won the news cycle. And the result is easy to predict. The life's work of the politician gradually tumbles apart because he cannot effectively communicate a vision and cannot communicate the means he is using to get there. So not only is it a failure for him, but also for his party who lost a significant number of Senate seats to their significant detriment.

No, not George W. Bush dealing with Katrina post-mortems and the DPW port controversy. John F. Kerry amid the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth attacks in late August 2004. Kerry's response to the Swifties was flaccid. He either had nothing with which to hit them because the allegations were generally correct, or his communications team was inept. I think it was a combination of both, but in all fairness to his campaign staff, they were a very talented bunch who had very little to work with on the issue. He failed to release his military record even when presented with the form to do so by Tim Russert on Meet the Press. And using Max Cleland to try to deliver a letter to the President's ranch directing him to stop the attacks, which he had no power to do, was perceived as nothing short of the petty and stupid stunt that it was. The lack of response from Kerry allowed the public to adopt the allegations by the Swifties and to irreparably harm the Senator's reputation in the few months before the election. He lost, and the Republicans took a largely unexpected gain of 55 seats in the Senate.

And now history repeats itself. We have a President with a "thank you sir, may I have another attitude". We know he has the facts to back up his defense. Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco, the two inept local leaders-in-name-only did nothing to use available local resources to get people out of New Orleans. The Feds were actually mobilizing, but because of impediments created by Blanco, were barred from entering New Orleans when they were ready to do so. Any knowledge of a breaching levee would have done no good if they could do nothing about it because of local impediments. And the DPW deal--it has its merits as many have offered, but the President's silence let it be portrayed as a major national security bungle.

Likewise, Kerry's "they're questioning my patriotism" non-response had a double effect: It allowed the Swifties to have their version of the facts stand without significant dispute. It also refocused the campaign back on national security, allowing Kerry's now somewhat tarnished military service to become his only national security credentials in an election where relevant national security experience was everything.

Bush benefited richly from his opponent's fatal mistake. Now, the Democrats appear poised to receive a reciprocal gift just in time for 2006.

The President has time to fix it all. Fire the communications team. Fix the problem, and stay ahead of the stories. Because if he fails and he loses more allies in the Senate and House, any hope for any agenda beyond January 2007 will be dead.

The Failure of the DPW Deal Will Be Good for the Middle East--And the White House

2006-03-02T13:31:00.000-05:00

The DPW deal gets deeper, and for the White House, much worse. For an Administration whose hallmark was national security, they seemed to have ignored a huge vulnerability by having a UAE owned company working the place.

And based upon a report last night on Fox News, the folks at the Port of Baltimore don't see this as the nightmare that Congress does. It's just about taking cargo containers off of ships, and really not much more. Customs and the Coast Guard ensure security. From what I gathered from the report, the two have nothing to do with one another.

And if that's true, which the people who work there say it is, then why didn't the White House blitz us with these facts and dispel this whole unbelievably stupid thing? Read the post below for my thoughts on that.

But that aside, killing the deal has two effects: It will put the story on the back pages, which will spare the White House more embarrassment. But it will also send a powerful message to the UAE and other Arab nations: we aren't comfortable yet with nations that don't have clean records in the terror department. Coziness with Iran, recognition of the Taliban, and failure to recognize Israel among other things are the very things that make this deal unacceptable to the American people. Those aren't peaceful positions, nor are they responsible, and each of them is directly opposed to stated U.S. positions. And until the UAE can bring themselves a little more in line with the world community, we can't entrust them with such a huge responsibility. Nothing personal, just business. And that's the point.

The argument that this will turn off the UAE and that they will throw a tantrum with serious consequences to our relationship is ridiculous. If they do, then it was just the right decision not to award the contract and they were not an ally at all. But if they behave responsibly, they will discover that there is a relationship between politics and commerce and that certain policies carry expensive consequences.

Let's face it, hating Jews as a state policy is simply barbaric. Let's keep repeating that line again and again and again until we believe it. Once more: "It's not ok to hate Jews, and it's not ok for that to be state policy." So why give a gift contract to someone who does?

Killing this contract will send a message that Jew-hating and commerce don't go together. Likewise for keeping company with terrorists and the nations that support them. The lesson being that they need to have grown-up state policies if they want to do business with the United States. With money comes responsibility.

And if the deal goes through, it remains a viable issue for the 2006 elections, allowing the Democrats an opportunity they have heretofore not yet had--an opportunity to finally score a credible hit on Bush in the area of national security. The result would be a tragedy for conservatives.

So what is more important, preserving a very unpopular deal with the UAE that confers no benefit on the Administration but because of its lack of communication now appears to be one of the most ill advised decisions possible, or to cut some losses, admit a mistake and teach an "ally" that it's time to grow up?

You're #$%*@ Right I Ordered the Code Reds!!!

2006-03-02T12:04:00.000-05:00

So says Saddam. The former Butcher of Baghdad essentially admits being the one who ordered executions and destruction of land of people who were somewhat near the location of some characters who tried to have Saddam killed. Certainly, the attempted assassins met a nasty fate, but so did their families and neighbors. Torture, murder, imprisonment, all for knowing a bad guy or living near him. Which is a lot like imprisoning the people in this nation who always refer to criminal wierdo neighbors as "quiet, kept to himself, reserved..."

But all humor aside, this is bad for Saddam. He essentially admitted to doing the bad things for which he is charged, and challenging the court with a "so what?" attitude. Which I think underpins Saddam's whole attitude problem with this trial.

He doesn't think he did a thing wrong, and like Col. Nathan R. Jessup quoted above in A Few Good Men, Saddam is so egomaniacally deranged that he honestly believes that he will get the chance to return to his palaces to rule the people of Iraq once the trial court realizes that there was nothing bad about killing a bunch of innocent people he didn't like. But that's the good thing about narcissistic bad people. They often make the cases against themselves by admitting the act under the theory that there was nothing wrong with doing it.

Thank you Mr. Hussein. You made the job of the prosecutors and the court much easier, and you may have saved yourself from the trouble of trials for other acts. Because when you swing for this one, they'll let you off of the other charges.