Captain's Quarters -

Condoleezza Rice revealed in a speech yesterday that a consortium of nations, including the US, stopped nuclear material from reaching Iran as well as other rogue nations over the last nine months. The participating nations of the Proliferation Security Initiative have quietly cooperated on eleven interdictions during that time, at least one of those directly involving Teheran:

The U.S. and its allies in a program to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction prevented Iran from obtaining material for its nuclear weapons program within the past nine months, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

``The trans-shipment of material and equipment bound for ballistic missile programs in countries of concern, including Iran'' was blocked as was the transfer of ``equipment used to produce propellant'' to a ``ballistic missile program in another region'' of the world, Rice said. ...

Rice gave no details but said that the U.S. and 10 of its partners in the initiative have cooperated on 11 successful interdiction efforts over the past nine months. Iran was the only nation interdicted that she cited by name.

``PSI partners, working at times with others, have prevented Iran from procuring goods to support its missile and WMD programs, including its nuclear program,'' she said at the State Department in Washington.

Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker said the U.S. is withholding details of the interdictions to ensure continued cooperation from countries that do not want their participation made public.

This announcement puts even more pressure on the EU-3 to contain the nuclear threat that Iran represents. If Iran has attempted to import banned technology, it demonstrates a desire to turn its so-called peaceful nuclear energy program into something more sinister. And notice that Iran, who must have expected that shipment to arrive, never publicly demanded its release once held up. Those who believe that Iran needs such a program when it sits on top of one of the world's largest oil reserves should rethink their position in light of this news.

Many people still believe that the war in Iraq provides a distraction from other (and arguably more) important global security issues. Perhaps it does for them, but the Bush administration once again appears more than capable of dealing with more than one strategy at a time.

UPDATE: Who was the man who made the diplomatic arrangments to get over 60 nations involved in PSI? Why ... none other than that hardass meanie, John Bolton. Go figure. (h/t: The Kid)

The newly elected government of Iraq has requested an extension of the US mandate for providing their security from the United Nations, telling the world body that arbitrary timetables should be put aside and the Iraqis themselves should determine when the US presence would no longer be necessary. The Shi'ite Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jafaari, emphasized that American forces are not occupying Iraq but serve as "friendly forces" assisting the newly elected democratic government:

Iraq's month-old transitional government announced Tuesday that it had asked the United Nations Security Council to extend the mandate of the American-led forces here beyond the end of this year, and said Iraq's need for outside military assistance, not pre-set deadlines, should determine when American troop withdrawals should start. ...

Mr. Jaafari said Iraq's need for outside military assistance, not pre-set deadlines, should determine when American troop withdrawals should start.

"The multinational forces are not occupying forces, they are friendly forces, and they are helping us to establish security, carrying out missions in the interests of the Iraqi people, and under the authority of the government," Dr. Jaafari said. The government, he said, wanted an extension of their mandate "until we have defeated terrorism and restored security across the country."

The UNSC immediately and unanimously extended the mandate into 2006 as a result of Jafaari's request.

This development will surprise those who assumed that radicals like Muqtada al-Sadr spoke for the Iraqi majority -- a forgivable impressions for Americans who rely on the American media to inform them. Sadr gets a lot of press, but has only a small minority of the Shi'ite population behind him, especially since he lost Najaf and Karbala so badly during his own fight against the Americans. Sadr's vacillation between politician and warlord has mostly revealed him to be equally inept in either role. (See here for John Burns' own evaluation of Sadr from last year.)

Regardless, many Americans still see ourselves as an oppressive occupying force that creates strife in Iraq. Now we have two successive Iraqi governments, this one elected by the Iraqis directly, who have told us otherwise. They understand that American and British power stands between them and complete chaos while they complete the process of de-Baathification and rebuilding of a reliable and subservient security force that will enforce the law and defend their elected government. The Coalition doesn't create the violence in Iraq, and an early withdrawal would only encourage the terrorists there to step up their efforts to topple democracy and install a Taliban-like oppression across Iraq.

Jafaari doesn't want that, and his stand against it demonstrates once more that the secularists have taken charge in Iraq -- probably strengthened by the fanatical nuts like Zarqawi who insist that Islam demands the indiscriminate murder of Iraqis by the hundreds. We need to stay until the job is finished and Iraq can stand on its own as a democracy, able to defend itself against internal terrorists and external enemies. The Iraqis themselves know this and want us to stay. We should listen to them instead of the defeatist voices of our own media.

Indonesia warned Australians that their protests on behalf of Schapelle Corby, the young woman sentenced to twenty years for drug smuggling, will drive a wedge between the neighboring countries at a time when cooperation in the war on terror is most needed. It also threw a bit of cold water on the notion of a prisoner exchange:

Calls for a tourist boycott of Bali to protest an Australian woman's 20-year sentence for smuggling marijuana onto the Indonesian island are driving a wedge between the two countries, an Indonesian official said Monday.

Several travel agents have advocated the boycott, along with relatives Schapelle Corby, 27, who was convicted and sentenced last week for smuggling 4.1 kilograms of marijuana onto Bali in October.

Many Australians believe Ms. Corby's tearful claims of innocence.

Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa warned against a boycott, with negotiations to start next week on Australia's push for a prisoner transfer agreement that could let Ms. Corby and 13 other Australians in Indonesian prisons serve their sentences at home.

“With the greatest respect -- and the greatest sympathy, also, even for the feelings of Australians to Miss Corby's case -- using this case [to] drive a wedge between the two peoples and two governments is ... not advisable,” Mr. Natalegawa told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. ...

Australia hopes to expedite a prisoner exchange treaty following the Corby verdict. But Mr. Natalegawa said the process would likely to take longer than Australians hope -- if an agreement is reached at all.

Indonesia would oppose an interim deal tailored for Ms. Corby, he said.

Far be it from me to complain about heavy penalties for drug traffickers. I have no idea if Ms. Colby actually did try to kite 4 kilos of pot through Bali customs, or if it was planted on her as she claims. All I know is that giving a 20-year-old woman a twenty-year sentence for smuggling pot while giving the mastermind of the bombing that killed over 200 people -- scores of them Colby's fellow Aussies -- a 30-month sentence amounts to a slap in the face to the so-called friendship between Indonesia and Australia.

Indonesia should take that into account when deciding on Ms. Colby's fate, whether or not she was framed. Australians should also take that into account when making their vacation plans.

I'm spending the morning at the hospital while the First Mate undergoes a regularly-schedule maintenance procedure related to her kidney transplant. The wireless connection at the hospital is unusually slow today, which means my posting will be limited. I'll try to catch up on a huge backlog of e-mail and work on a couple of speeches I have scheduled, while keeping an eye on the wire services for breaking news.

In the meantime, here are a few items that might interest CQ readers:

* If you are looking for greeting cards, motivational knick-knacks, and original gift ideas, give The Stickmans a visit. It's a new outfit (partly owned and operated by my uncle, the Tenor Saxman) with unique and whimsical merchandise. Tell them the Captain sent you.

* Don't forget about our Not One Dime logo contest. All of the Not One Dime posts and my reporting on the judiciary can be found in my Judiciary category.

* King catches Strib columnist and Air America host Nick Coleman in another dishonest misrepresentation, but notes that complaining to the Strib about it is utterly pointless.

* Fraters Libertas notes that Minnesota will not have a poet laureate, nor a state mime. Thank God and Tim Pawlenty for both, although I would nominate Nick Coleman for the latter if he'd accept.

* Radioblogger has a transcript from a Hugh Hewitt interview with Senators Santorum, Ensign, and Talent -- all of whom support the constitutional option if the Democrats filibuster any more judicial nominees.

* Mike Krempansky has been working hard on the response to the FEC at Redstate, while Scared Monkeys asks, "Should blogs trust the FEC?" Michelle Malkin (and I) both say no.

* Jon Henke announces the release of the latest edition of The New Libertarian. If you don't already know this, Jon is the most rational and convincing proponent for Neolibertarianism in the blogosphere. I read QandO every day, and so should you.

* For updates on the Canadian situation, be sure to check out Stephen Taylor, Newsbeat 1, and Angry in the Great White North.

Back later with more ...

Fresh on the heels of the French rejection of the proposed EU charter, the Dutch have driven a stake through its heart with an overwhelming 'nee' to match the Gallic 'non' of Sunday:

Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected the European constitution in a referendum Wednesday, exit polls projected, in what could be a knockout blow for the charter roundly defeated just days ago by France.

An exit poll projection broadcast by state-financed NOS television said the referendum failed by a vote of 63 percent to 37 percent. The turnout was 62 percent, exceeding all expectations, the broadcaster said.

Although the referendum was consultative, the high turnout and the decisive margin left no room for the Dutch parliament to turn its back on the people's verdict. The parliament meets Thursday to discuss the results.

The Dutch turned out in much greater numbers than anticipated, thanks in part to an assertion by Dutch politicians that they would not consider a referendum failure binding on their decision process unless the turnout exceeded 35% and the Nee vote got at least 55%. If the exit polling holds up, both of those thresholds not only got met but far exceeded. The Dutch have made an unequivocal, 2-1 statement of defiance to the EU and the architects of this Byzantine constitution.

The EU will need to regroup. No one expects the alliances to fall apart, but the nations of Europe have to ask themselves if they want a homogenous entity on the Continent with top-down sovereignty -- or if they shouldn't try to build a model closer to that of the United States, with states' rights built into a united federal system with a concise and limited constitution for use as a framework for a limited but sovereign federal government.

The current efforts of the EU to define itself looks more like our original Articles of Confederation than anything approaching unity. The results this week look similar to what they were here as well. Eating one's cake and having it too is a pipe dream, a Holy Grail of politics that winds up either as comedy or tragedy. Thankfully, so far, it has only been the former.

UPDATE: Mitch in the comments points out correctly that the proposed constitution itself doesn't resemble the Articles at all -- it's all about setting up bureaucracies upon bureaucracies, and of course, he's right. Conceptually, however, the EU nations have lived in a fantasy that they can meaningfully unite under one government structure while retaining their own complete and individual sovereignties -- which is one of the reasons why the mind-boggling document looks the way it does. It's a way of creating a federal government that gives the appearance of sovereignty without any nation actually giving theirs up.

Our forefathers tried that and it failed. They didn't have the foresight to try binding sovereign states together by means of unelected and unaccountable bureaucracies. Of course, the designers of the EU constitution had the advantage of coming after the establishment of the United Nations, and this looks like the exact same kind of abortion. In fact, that may really be the better analogy.

Todd Foster of the News-Virginian writes today that he had the Deep Throat story three years ago, and would have published the explosive secret three years ago in People Magazine. However, several factors led People to decline the scoop -- mostly the family's demand for money, as well as the mental incapacity of Felt himself:

I've been waiting three years for what happened Tuesday: That W. Mark Felt would be named "Deep Throat."

Actually, he was outed as Deep Throat by relatives and an attorney who began pitching me the story in June 2002, when I was a regular contributor to People magazine. ...

Ultimately the story died because of money. The Felt family and their attorney wanted a lot of money, and People magazine - with my blessing - backed away in what would have been a case of "checkbook journalism." Reputable news organizations don't pay a penny for news. This also was during the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal at The New York Times. The ethical meters at news organizations were tuned to full alert, or should have been.

That wasn't the only reason Foster backed off of the Deep Throat exclusive that he had carefully cultivated. After People decided to walk away, Foster shopped the concept to HarperCollins as a book project. That would allow the family to take part in the proceeds without compromising journalistic standards or Foster's sense of ethics. He hired a co-writer to help out with the legwork and had high hopes of making the biggest splash in national politics and journalism in recent memory.

However, once he and his partner actually worked with Mark Felt, they quickly found out that he no longer had the capacity to make that decision himself. Foster describes some of their experiences with Felt, and how his story changed repeatedly due to his dementia:

Jess made three trips to Santa Rosa in late 2003 and sent me transcripts from his taped interviews with Deep Throat and the Felt family.

Ultimately, Jess advised me that we could not in good conscience go through with this book. The contract with the book publisher stated that our information had to be bulletproof, that we had to be able to prove Felt was Deep Throat.

It could not be done then and it cannot be done now, unless Woodward himself can produce documentation.

Even Felt himself claimed during several sections of the taped interviews that Woodward made up the source Deep Throat.

"I just thought he was making it up," the then 90-year-old Felt told my partner. ...

The problem with Felt is that three summers before, he had suffered a stroke and briefly was sent to recuperate in a convalescent home. ... On Nov. 8, 2003, Felt told my writing partner when asked if he wanted to come forward: "You can tell them that I am Deep -- that I was Deep Throat. The only thing is that Deep Throat is a little different than you probably have in mind. Deep Throat was not anybody real inside that was furnishing information. It was somebody confirming information."

Then Felt described his motive for coming clean then: "I guess I want some money for my family."

Earlier in that same interview, Felt said he didn't remember anything about Deep Throat, even saying at one point: "Well, I wasn't a Deep Throat."

Of Woodward, he said: "I don't think I ever provided information to him."

Later, Felt said: "I thought Deep Throat was another source entirely."

It was only after prodding and coaching from his daughter and the family's attorney, John O'Connor of San Francisco, that Felt even gave his lukewarm admission.

This puts an entirely different spin on Felt's admission and the hesitation of Woodward and Bernstein to confirm it. If Foster's report is correct, then Mark Felt has no capacity to make that decision for himself -- and it looks like his family engineered the admission for some financial gain. Given that Vanity Fair eventually broke the story, one has to wonder what they paid the Felt family for the exclusive.

It also becomes more understandable why the two Post reporters initially stated that they would wait until the source died to confirm the identity. Woodward had visited Felt several times over the past few years and must have known of Felt's incapacity. No doubt when he heard that Felt had announced his identity as Deep Throat, he and Bernstein must have questioned the veracity of the news, as Felt sounds incapable of making that decision, and probably the two must have known that it was out of character for a man who felt as conflicted as he reportedly did over his role.

Foster's article suggests that this revelation is nothing more than perhaps the last tawdry event in a tawdry scandal, where eventually no one was a hero and Felt's admonition to "follow the money" applied to everyone involved. (via Romanesko)

UPDATE: MS-NBC reports that Vanity Fair denies paying the Felt family for the story ... but it looks like they'll collect their money nonetheless:

The family of W. Mark Felt, the former FBI deputy director whose alter ego as Deep Throat has been revealed, appears ready to cash in on his newfound fame.

And if money is what they want, Felt’s family stands to reap a huge financial windfall, according to literary agents, who estimated Wednesday that a book deal could be worth up to $1 million.

“That is assuming he has a compelling story to tell,” said Glen Hartley, president of Writer’s Representatives LLC, based out of New York. “A book could easily be valued in the six figures.”

As news broke that Felt was indeed the secret source who guided two young Washington Post reporters as they uncovered the Watergate scandal, Felt’s family offered to sell family photographs — the first in an apparent flood of money-making opportunities.

Yeah, well, down the hatch.

Mike Krempansky at Redstate has posted the response from the Online Coalition to the Federal Election Commission about their proposed regulation of Internet activity during elections. Mike has made it available in PDF and HTML format. The credit for this goes to Mike himself, who has been a lion in this fight. I am honored to have been asked to be a signatory to this effort.

Please make sure you read the response, and drop Mike a comment thanking him for his hard work.

Nicole Winfield reports in the Associated Press that the Kim regime has begun a mass relocation effort, driving millions of citydwellers to the countryside in what looks to be a desperate effort to fend off a catastrophic famine. Food-distribution NGOs report that despite the lack of significant weather or agricultural incidents, what little production Pyongyang gets out of its farms may drop so precipitously that millions may face starvation:

North Korea is sending millions of people from its cities to work on farms each weekend -- another indication that the risk of famine is particularly high this year, a U.N. official said yesterday.

The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) is the only aid organization that has a presence outside the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and its officials have reported the movements of the North's people from cities to farms, said Anthea Webb, spokeswoman for the Rome-based agency. ...

The WFP recently launched a new appeal for food donations, saying the supplies that let it feed 6.5 million North Koreans were dwindling and forcing it to cut off aid to children and the elderly. That followed a WFP request to governments for 500,000 tons of food for North Korea this year.

Of the $202 million that the agency appealed for this year, it has received about $72 million -- and practically all of it has been consumed, Miss Webb said.

"Unless something happens very soon, by the end of August, the only people we'll be feeding are 12,000 children in hospitals," she said.

She said a combination of factors was making 2005 particularly at risk for famine. Although the harvest was not any worse than expected this year, it is combined with declining WFP food aid, government reforms that have driven up prices and cuts in government rations, she said.

According to that description, it appears that the famine has been artificially induced, to an even greater extent than Stalinist agricultural systems naturally produce them. At a point in time where rumors have flown for months about the stability of the Kim regime, such an artifical result has to beg the question: is Kim deliberately touching off a famine?

What would Kim gain by doing so? First, he could use the impending catastrophe to squeeze more aid out of Western countries. Already, donor nations suspect that, like dictators before, Kim reroutes the aid to his military and political leadership while leaving the peasants to starve. Aid donations have tailed off significantly over the past year because of the lack of verification on their use, and that may be causing Kim some problems with his military.

Even more sinister, reports coming from Pyongyang noted that Kim faced unprecedented criticism in the streets of the capital, although it remained mostly anonymous. A series of incidents, including a massive explosion at a train station, has analysts wondering if Kim may be facing significantly organized opposition for the first time in his life. Emptying the cities may not have anything to do with a bad harvest or food shortages, but may be a defensive measure designed to keep his enemies from banding together to topple his regime.

If the famine is legitimate, it still means serious trouble for security in the Korean Peninsula region, as well as an obvious humanitarian disaster. Whether or not the North Koreans starve in the cities or in the countryside, famines cause irrational behavior on the part of the starving and the dictatorships that preside over it. In order to distract his people from their misery, Kim could decide to launch an attack on South Korea or on American or Japanese assets in the region, if events get desperate enough in North Korea.

What to do? Donating food and resources that only go to bolstering the regime are counterproductive in the extreme, but the Western world can't sit back and let millions starve, either. Kim may be bluffing, but if so, he knows what stakes get the most results from the West. The best solution will be to insist on on-the-ground verification that increased aid will go to the millions that Kim has used as pawns, instead of blank checks that his army and Politburo will greedily cash.

What issue could possibly draw conservative Republicans and the Congressional Black Caucus into a legislative alliance? This morning, the Washington Times reports that the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act's provisions on campaign limits hit sour notes with both groups, as traditional African-American outreach efforts got starved in favor of the massive influence of George Soros' 527 strategies in 2004:

Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are teaming up with conservative Republicans to push for the first major changes in the 2002 campaign-finance reform bill, most admitting that they made a mistake in voting for the bill three years ago.

"If I had the chance to vote again, I wouldn't vote the way I voted," said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, New York Democrat, who along with most of the CBC supported the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act after they were promised by Democratic leaders that the bill would not harm their constituents or funding bases in order to garner their support.

Wait -- the BCRA's sponsors weren't completely honest about the bill's effects? Stop the presses! However, unlike most, the CBC's concern remains mostly with the financing rather than the free-speech issues that the bill's other components created:

Three years and a failed presidential election later, black politicians saw their political grass-roots organizations starved for funds under the new rules, as so-called "527s," private political groups so named for the Internal Revenue Service code provision under which they are organized were able to raise unlimited amounts of money for partisan purposes, subsequently siphoning off the cash. ...

In the 2004 presidential election, many of the black civic groups were supplanted by 527s, which attempted to turn out the black vote on their own, a strategy that Rep. Albert R. Wynn, Maryland Democrat, said had proven to be inadequate. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, who was expected to surpass his 2000 predecessor Al Gore, received 85 percent of the black vote, compared with Mr. Gore's 90 percent.

Remember how John McCain, Russ Feingold, and the rest of the BCRA apologists told us that their bill would remove the big money from politics and allow for better grass-roots activism? It didn't turn out that way, and at least the CBC recognizes it and wants to do somthing about it, as inadequate as their response might be. They swallowed the notion that a bill sponsored by two politicians and championed by a political-action organization that gets its funding from Soros and other heavy hitters actually wanted to reduce the influence of the very people who funded it.

In fact, they bought that notion so well that they sold out the First Amendment to ensure it became law -- and the White House lacked the guts to protect freedom of speech and veto it.

It's telling that the first corrections that Congress wants to consider to the BCRA focus on getting more money into their pockets instead of restoring protections to political speech. Someone once wrote that no man's liberty or property was safe while Congress is in session -- and the BCRA is just the latest example of the truth contained in that proverb. This might be a good time to remind this new bipartisan alliance that the entire BCRA should be scrapped, instead of trimming it at the edges.

Larry King had Bill Clinton on as his guest for last night's show, and the talk-show host asked Bill Clinton about his assessment of Mark Felt in his role as Deep Throat. Clinton delivered a jaw-dropping response that dripped with irony:

KING: ... What do you make of the Mark Felt story? Is he an American hero?

CLINTON: I think he did a good thing. And I think it's -- it was an unusual circumstance. I think Felt believed that there was the chance that this whole thing would be covered up. Ordinarily, I think a law enforcement official shouldn't be leaking to the press because you should let criminal action take its course.

When he did that, he obviously believed there was a chance that the thing would be covered up. And there was some evidence -- we now know that there was also a problem with trying to use the FBI, and the IRS, and other agencies of the federal government for political purposes back then. So there's some reason to believe he was right.

I don't think that -- he always felt ambivalent about it, apparently. And I think that's good. Because, on balance, you don't want law enforcement officials leaking to the press, even the truth, much less some vendetta or something that's not true. But under these circumstances, I think he did the right thing.

What we know is that Felt took part in those efforts in Hoover's FBI to use the bureau for political purposes. Felt at one point immediately after Hoover's death had possession of Hoover's Official/Confidential files, the supersensitive political dossiers that Hoover used to retain power for almost 50 years. Felt eventually got convicted of illegal break-ins of the same sort as Watergate, receiving a pardon from Ronald Reagan. Pretending that Felt, one of Hoover's most trusted aides, somehow stood apart from the corruption at the Bureau flies in the face of both history and common sense.

If Felt wanted to act heroically, he could just as easily have retired or quit from the FBI and gone public with the information. Alternately, as the #2 executive of the nation's premier law-enforcement agency, he could have started his own investigation of Watergate publicly and openly. Instead, he chose to hide in the shadows and dole out only that information that targeted his enemies in the White House who had passed him over (and other Bureau stalwarts) for the top job in order to give it to an outsider. That doesn't make Felt a traitor, but it certainly doesn't make him much of a hero. As I wrote yesterday, it provides a microcosm of the corruption in Washington in both the White House and the FBI in which Felt was very much a participant.

But the irony comes from Clinton's track record with inside sources revealing wrongdoing. Linda Tripp blew the whistle on his tawdry affair with Monica Lewinsky not because she objected to the sex, but because the White House tried to pay off Lewinsky with a job at Revlon the same way they did with Web Hubbell, who mysteriously stopped cooperating with investigators after getting a few hundred thousand dollars in consulting work at Revlon through Clinton crony Vernon Jordan. She had attempted to get law enforcement involved earlier and had been labeled a crank by the White House staff. She saw how Clinton's staff stalled an ongoing criminal investigation and tried to stop it.

Taping personal conversations between herself and Lewinsky doesn't make Tripp a hero either. However, she at least came forward publicly and didn't hide behind a "Deep Throat" persona (which may have been a more appropriate code name for the Lewinsky scandal anyway). Does Clinton now believe that Linda Tripp "did the right thing"? Good Lord.

Nor was that the last of the silliness from Bill Clinton on Mark Felt:

KING: You think it's good that it came out now?

CLINTON: Yes, sure, while he's alive. I just think -- you know, apparently his family encouraged him to do it. I'm just reading between the lines, but he looked pretty sprightly and pretty spiffy there, you know, at 91.

The sprightly and spiffy Felt has suffered from dementia for years after a stroke and often doesn't know what year it is. Todd Foster, who had the scoop in 2002, described Felt's regression in a nursing home where he would knock on doors in the middle of the night, believing that he was still in the FBI doing investigations. Three years ago, he was unable to commit to an admission of being DT because his mind kept playing tricks on him, and he continually made contradictory statements. Felt is alive and ambulatory, but he's hardly sprightly or spiffy.

Sometimes one has to wonder what color the sky is in Bill Clinton's world.

The tapes that Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal took of conversations between himself and Liberal Party leaders have been spliced and edited to mislead listeners, Ujjal Dosanjh protested today. Dosanjh claimed that Grewal has altered evidence to make the Liberals appear to have offered a quid pro quo in return for Grewal's support or at least his abstention:

As the New Democrats filed an official complaint with the Commons Ethics Commissioner calling for an inquiry and the Conservatives insisted that senior officials in the Liberal government had tried to buy an MP's vote, Mr. Dosanjh charged that the recordings are not only badly translated but pieced together from different conversation and edited to cut out sections.

In a written statement he issued yesterday, he alleges, for example, that it appears there are "two obvious cuts" where the phrase "cabinet is quick" is spliced into a recording to make it appear as though the Health Minister is indicating Mr. Grewal could expect a quick cabinet appointment.

In another case, according to the statement, it appears the word "deniability" had been spliced in from another conversation, where Mr. Dosanjh suggested that Mr. Grewal might get an appointment as a parliamentary secretary, as current Public Works Minister Scott Brison did initially when he defected from the Tories in 2003.

The Tories did not let that accusation sit too long:

"Was it spliced on the grassy knoll? Where's their evidence for this? Do they just say these things?" asked Tory MP Monte Solberg. "I think the evidence points to them trying to buy a vote."

This latest defense presents a danger to the Liberals. Up to now, they've all insisted -- from Paul Martin down -- that nothing on the tapes amount to evidence of criminal behavior. Dosanjh's new charge appears to acknowledge just the opposite: that the transcripts clearly show Dosanjh and Martin's chief of staff Tim Murphy did their best to convince Grewal that specific rewards would await him if he crossed the aisle in advance of a confidence motion. Otherwise, why would they have been edited?

That pits the Liberal defense on the chance that someone can prove deliberate editing of the tapes. After having played chicken once and lost, it's surprising to see Dosanjh try it again. If they cannot prove that edits have been made, or can conclusively prove that no edits took place, Dosanjh will have given away the game.

Another component of Martin's defense came under attack, this time by BQ leader Giles Duceppe. Martin has claimed that the tapes show only that Grewal tried to sell his vote rather than the Liberals attempting to buy it. But as Duceppe pointed out, that explanation creates the question of why the Liberals never reported this ethical and criminal lapse on Grewal's part:

Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe said the Liberals' defence is crumbling.

"They say an MP wanted to sell his vote," he said.

"Why didn't Mr. Martin immediately notify the RCMP, and say, listen, there's an MP who approached us who wants to sell his vote?"

Why indeed? Either Martin and Murphy had no qualms about listening to the sales pitch, if you believe the Liberals, or the offer came in the other direction. No third option exists. It appears that the Liberals have begun to run out of arguments with which to defend themselves, and like any organization reaching desperation, have switched to the shotgun-excuse method to see what sticks.

The Duke at Pekin's Prattles received a letter from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, sounding a curiously desperate note in their efforts to raise money this month. Frist claims that new funds are necessary to ensure that all of Bush's judicial nominees get their up-or-down votes:

Dear Friend,

I need your help.

I ask that you immediately make an online contribution of $25, $50, $75 or even $100 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). To make a contribution on their secure server, please click here.

As Senate Majority Leader, I want to assure you that, if the Democrat's campaign of judicial obstruction resumes, I will not hesitate to use the Constitutional Option.

We must ensure that President Bush's qualified judicial nominees get the up-or-down votes they deserve.

That's why we need to counter the Democrat's attacks and misinformation - including the multi-state, multi-million dollar advertising by liberal special interest groups like Moveon.org and People for the American Way.

I have asked the NRSC to spearhead Republican efforts to support President Bush's judicial nominees as we bring them to the floor of the Senate for fair up-or-down votes.

To prepare for these battles, NRSC Chair Senator Elizabeth Dole has set a goal of raising $50,000 for the month of June from fellow online Republicans.

This money is essential to our efforts to fight back against the obstruction of Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, and John Kerry.

And so I urge you to support the NRSC immediately with a contribution of $25, $50, $75 or even $100. To make a contribution, please click here.
We need your support today!

June will be a defining month for President Bush and the Republican Senate Majority.

I have asked the NRSC to be prepared to support President Bush's nominee if there is an appointment to the Supreme Court.

We must be prepared to support the President's nominee to the Supreme Court should a vacancy open.

I am counting on you to help the NRSC prepare for what is likely to be one of the toughest and most consequential debates in recent memory.

Help us deliver on the principle of up-or-down votes for the President's judicial nominees.

Our need is urgent and our cause is just.

Sincerely,

Bill Frist, M.D.
Senate Majority Leader

P.S. To support the NRSC and make a contribution of $25, $50, $75 or even $100 today, please click here.

No doubt the NRSC would like to improve its fundraising, but to claim it needs more money from Republicans to force a vote on the floor of the Senate defies common sense. All the GOP needs to get a vote is the spine to demand it. We already funded their current majority; it already exists.

Claiming, as Frist does, that the NRSC needs $50K to counter "multimillion-dollar advertising" doesn't make much sense at all. PFAW and MoveOn have access to lots of George Soros' money, granted, but fifty grand simply won't have any effect at all. Besides, what's the point of advertising at this stage? The only reason it has any effect is because the GOP leadership dragged their feet in getting to this issue, waiting months while PFAW and MO polluted the issue by smearing Bush's nominees, with only a tepid response from the Republican leadership.

Tell Senator Frist that he doesn't need to empty our pockets to call for a vote. He needs to simply fulfill the campaign pledge made by the NRSC in 2004 by insisting on a vote for every judicial nominee that gets approved by the Judiciary Committee. Until he takes action to ensure that, Not One Dime.

The Globe & Mail updated its report on the Grewal tapes a short time ago with the news that an audio expert says that the tapes show an "abnormality" that could indicate tampering:

Stevan Pausak analysed a 46-second segment of the recordings and says there's a break in it that indicates a portion may have been cut out.

He says the abnormality occurs in a recorded phone chat between Mr. Grewal and Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh in which they discuss future job prospects for the MP in exchange for crossing the floor.

He says there is a discontinuity in the audio file, what he calls a “zero-signal gap” of about 0.3 seconds. The signal goes abruptly to zero in that interval, and afterward it continues.

I'm not an audio expert, but I do work with audio files as part of my job. The zero-signal artifact could mean that an audio sample has been cut or erased, as Pausak states. However, on voice-activated recording equipment, which one frequently finds in telephone recording systems, zero-signal artifacts are common. They occur when the voice levels drop so low as to deactivate the recording, and then the machine senses the someone speaking again. It's the bane of investigators everywhere, precisely because it makes the sound on the audio appear artificially choppy. It's one reason I switched to a system that sensed an off-hook condition for automatic recording instead of the voice activation system.

I would suspect that such a short dead-air space indicates the equipment had trouble sensing the voice rather than any foul play. Of course, other artifacts may be found that drive investigators to another conclusion, but if that's all they find unusual about these tapes, it doesn't sound like much of a problem to me.

One question I would ask is whether the tapes that Grewal produced were the original tapes from the recording or whether he copied the conversations off to another media. If it's the former, it's almost impossible to alter source tapes in the manner that Martin and Dosanjh suggest. If the latter, anyone with a digital editor could have accomplished it.

The unequivocal rejection of the new EU constitution by two of its founding nations have left members of the EU elite profoundly shaken, the Guardian reports today. Even though polling numbers in France and the Netherlands have predicted substantial losses for weeks now, apparently no one prepared a Plan B. As a result, confusion has broken out at Brussels:

Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister who holds the rotating EU presidency and who was said to have been on the verge of tears when he heard news of the Dutch vote, summoned Gerhard Schröder for emergency talks. As the German chancellor travelled to the Grand Duchy, the Elysée Palace announced that Jacques Chirac would fly to Berlin tomorrow to discuss the crisis.

Such stalwarts of Old Europe, who issued bleak statements on Wednesday night after 61% of Dutch voters said no to the constitution, are still insisting in public that ratification must continue.

As he prepared to fly home, Mr Schröder tried to calm the atmosphere: "Ratification must continue. We must decide what to do at the end of that process. Every form of overreaction at this stage is wrong."

But the first cracks in this front appeared yesterday when Jose Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, pointedly refrained from calling for ratification to continue. "We're in a period of reflection," he said.

His officials went even further in private as they expressed sympathy with Britain, which wants to postpone its referendum. "A pause is very realistic, we have to recognise the realities," one official said.

The proposed constitution and the existing EU charter both require unanimous ratification among all member nations for any new constitution to be approved. Therefore, it would seem that insisting on holding votes in the rest of the EU states amounts to nothing more than an exercise in futility.

Germany's insistence on continuing with the vote even though the Dutch have rejected it by almost a 2-1 margin send an odd message. Europeans might interpret the Germans as saying that they will impose the constitution on member-nations despite their vote, or simply that the Germans and others who run the EU have a substantial hearing problem when it comes to listening to their electorate. Neither conclusion will improve the EU's chances of avoiding further rejections, especially in Britain, where it faces an already skeptical population.

The elite's only hope is for a revote in the two countries that rejected the pact. In France, that might work, as the reasons for the rejection had more to do with the leadership of Chirac and his team than the pact itself. For the Dutch, however, it would be out of the question. Their referendum had the highest turnout seen for a Dutch election in years and the overwhelming landslide against the Constitution shows that the Dutch have no desire to integrate themselves any further into an EU that is moving in its current direction. Demanding a second vote -- or worse, ignoring the referendum and having their parliament approve the constitution -- would be political suicide.

It's back to the drawing board, or maybe even a warning signal to EU wonks that entrenched national interests will not allow for the kind of political union that they envision. The EU might need to settle for remaining an economic alliance and give up what appears to be a fantasy of a European political confederacy.

Today's Washington Post reports (on page A19) that the Iraqis, far from viewing Americans as an occupying force manipulating their politics and security, instead believe that we have withdrawn too much from both. The new government's foreign minister met with top US officials to request that the US involve itself more closely with efforts to get their permanent constitution written and to provide more leadership on security:

To prevent the breakdown of Iraq's troubled transition and a potential civil war, Iraq's new government appealed to the Bush administration yesterday to take a much more assertive role, particularly on four key political and military issues, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

In talks with Vice President Cheney yesterday and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari requested greater U.S. and coalition help in crafting a new constitution. The deadline is now less than three months away, but deliberations have been slowed as Iraq still works on the composition of a constitutional committee.

With time running out for writing the constitution and then holding elections in December for a permanent government, Zebari warned that the United States has withdrawn too much, leaving the new government struggling to cope and endangering the long-term prospects for success.

Specifically, Iraq wants the US to get around to confirming President Bush's nominee for John Negroponte's replacement as ambassador. Bush named Zalmay Khalilzad to the post last March, when he picked Negroponte for the new national intelligence czar post. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Dick Lugar and Joe Biden, have yet to hold hearings for Khalilzad despite the strategic and pressing nature of the appointment. The Post reports that Khalilzad will get his hearings next week, three months after his selection. That's because the SFRC was finally able to get past the higher-priority ambassadorial postings of the Slovak Republic, Malta, and Luxembourg in their last session.

By the way, expect to see some mild fireworks at Khalilzad's hearing. The Village Voice already alerted the Left that Khalilzad has -- gasp! -- worked for an oil company before. The nominee represented Unocal during the Clinton-era negotiations with the Taliban that hoped to establish a pipeline across Afghanistan to gain greater access to oil production in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The Ted Rall/Michael Moore contingent have long claimed that this effort was the true motivation behind the Afghanistan phase of the war on terror. This will give the Democrats an opportunity to show how far they've slid to the radical Left. If this thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory plays any role at Khalilzad's hearing, we'll know the lunatics have seized control of the asylum.

Iraq's efforts to bring Americans closer to the political and security processes of the new government shows that far from being oppressive occupiers, we probably have been too sensitive to the appearance of becoming that. We should quit worrying about appearances and make sure that the mission is successful.

Rumor #279b on the Zarqawi circuit now has it that the mastermind of the Iraqi al-Qaeda network has died on the operating table -- and is currently six feet under the Iraqi soil that he has bloodied so badly (via Mystery Achievement and CQ reader Soccer Dad):

The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq - died on Friday and his body is in Fallujah's cemetary, an Iraqi Sunni sheikh, Ammar Abdel Rahim Nasir, has told the Saudi on-line newspaper Al-Medina. He claims that gunfights which broke out in Fallujah in the last few days involved militants trying to protect the insurgency leader's tomb from a group of American soldiers patrolling the area.

During a telephone conversation from the city of Fallujah with the Saudi newspaper, Nasir said al-Zarqawi was taken there after being injured in the city of Ramadi around three weeks ago, and may have been treated by two doctors who had worked with his aides in Baghdad. He said the two doctors had stopped a serious haemorrhage in al-Zarqawi's intestines, but that after his condition worsened last week, the militant died on Friday.

Nasir adds that in his will the insurgent leader left the order that no funeral should be held for him and the right to announce his death should be left to the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden.

The Al-Medina newspaper reports that it also called the headmaster of a school in Fallujah, who preferred to remain anonymous, but confirmed that many people in the city were aware of the fact that al-Zarqawi had recently been taken to the city.

I certainly hope this report is true. I also hope that the information in it leads Iraqi and American forces to locate his tomb, and to use a particular, natural method to soften the ground before exhuming the body for identification. However, these reports leave me pretty skeptical. Faking one's death makes it more convenient to move around, for one thing. For another, if he's really dead, that $25 million reward for bringing in his body would prove almost irresistable, I think, for some of the people involved in his funeral.

Despite the Democrats' best efforts to paint controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff as a GOP tool -- especially in relation to Tom DeLay -- further investigation by the Washington Post shows that Abramoff put significant money into the coffers of leading Democrats as well. In fact, two of Abramoff's biggest winners were the present and former Senate Minority Leaders:

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff and an associate famously collected $82 million in lobbying and public relations fees from six Indian tribes and devoted a lot of their time to trying to persuade Republican lawmakers to act on their clients' behalf.

But Abramoff didn't work just with Republicans. He oversaw a team of two dozen lobbyists at the law firm Greenberg Traurig that included many Democrats. Moreover, the campaign contributions that Abramoff directed from the tribes went to Democratic as well as Republican legislators.

Among the biggest beneficiaries were Capitol Hill's most powerful Democrats, including Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) and Harry M. Reid (Nev.), the top two Senate Democrats at the time, Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), then-leader of the House Democrats, and the two lawmakers in charge of raising funds for their Democratic colleagues in both chambers, according to a Washington Post study. Reid succeeded Daschle as Democratic leader after Daschle lost his Senate seat last November.

Democrats are hoping to gain political advantage from federal and Senate investigations of Abramoff's activities and from the embattled lobbyist's former ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Yet, many Democratic lawmakers also benefited from Abramoff's political operation, a fact that could hinder the Democrats' efforts to turn the lobbyist's troubles into a winning partisan issue.

Of course, this is the danger of playing holier-than-thou with baseless ethics complaints. The Democrats have targeted Tom DeLay not because he's committed crimes, but because of his political effectiveness. Ronnie Earle has chased DeLay for years, and still hasn't filed an indictment despite his highly partisan effort to get him behind bars. Howard Dean claims that's where DeLay belongs, and both he and Nancy Pelosi have used Jack Abramoff as a chief reason for their ire.

Now, all of a sudden, the Democrats have become very, very silent. Those that have commented claim no knowledge of Abramoff's involvement with the six Indian tribes that donated tens of thousands of dollars to their campaigns between 1999 and 2004 through Abramoff's recommendations. While the biggest winner in this handout festival was Republican Conrad Burns ($141K), one-third of the largest recipients were Democrats. Here's a list of a few of them:

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

The Democrats all of a sudden have discounted the link between donations and supposed influence-peddling by Abramoff:

A spokesman for Kennedy said the congressman's donations from the tribes "have nothing to do with Abramoff." Kennedy traces the money's genesis to his family's long-standing commitment to Indian causes, to the fact that he co-founded the Congressional Native American Caucus in 1997, and to his personal relationship with Mississippi Choctaw Chief Philip Martin, whom Kennedy met in 1999 on a fundraising trip for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "They just became close friends," said Kennedy spokesman Sean Richardson. ...

Daschle was familiar with another of Abramoff's Democratic lobbyists, Michael Smith. According to Steve Hildebrand, who was Daschle's campaign manager last year, Smith "helped with a lot of Democratic campaigns." In addition, Daschle was a favorite of Indian tribes and received donations from 64, including five Abramoff clients. "We took about $150,000 in this last election cycle from Indian tribes around the country," Hildebrand said. "Tom is viewed as a champion of Indian issues. We have nine tribes in South Dakota, and they worked hard for him."

But by far the most difficult effort to distance himself from the Abramoff story will be that of Harry Reid. The Post reports that not only did Reid get in excess of forty grand from Abramoff's clients, but that Abramoff hired one of Reid's political aides, who simultaneously helped raise funds for Reid:

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

That tasty revelation occurs below the jump in the Post article, but it should send a message to the rabid anti-DeLay forces in the House and at the DNC. Blowing ordinary lobbying efforts and sloppy paperwork into hysterical charges of corruption and ethics violations could hurt Tom DeLay, but it could absolutely cripple the current Democratic leadership.

As I said earlier, glass houses. Stones. Bad idea.

Dan Rather appeared on Larry King Live last night to discuss the outing of Mark Felt as Deep Throat. King couldn't resist the urge to compare the Watergate story to that of the disgraced 60 Minutes II report on George Bush's TexANG service, and Rather couldn't resist the urge to once again claim that no one had proven the Killian memos as fraudulent:

KING: Well, I don't know another word. You might still believe the story, by the way.

RATHER: Well, without getting into that because the panel, this panel that was chosen by CBS to look into it, they issued their report. CBS adopted the report. I said at the time and I say now, I read the report. I absorbed it. I carried forward in my work. Anybody wants to know the panel's version of what happened should read the report.

The situation that we had and still have is the last line of this has not been written. I will be very interested to see the last line of this story (INAUDIBLE) written. But, you know, I've acknowledged that we didn't do it perfectly. I wish we had. Others may say, well, you didn't do it well. They're entitled to that judgment. ...

Now, the documents were a support for those and an important support, and when questions were raised, well, how do we know that documents are true? We had some problems. However, I do want to point out, and I -- listen, anybody who wants to castigate this or fuss with this, have at it. I will point out that the panel, which was headed by a President Nixon, Reagan, Bush family supporter and a journalist who said that George Bush one was one of the greatest people he ever met -- this panel came forward and what they concluded, among the things they concluded after months of investigation and spending millions of dollars, they could not determine that the documents were fraudulent. Important point, that we don't know whether the documents were fraudulent or not.

KING: Are you saying the story might be correct?

RATHER: Well, I'm saying a prudent person might take that view.

A prudent person might take that view? A prudent journalist would have taken into account the recommendations of the document examiners who looked at these memos before publication. Every one of them warned CBS of serious questions about their authenticity, except for the one that only looked at the signatures on the memos.

Furthermore, Rather flat-out lied about the findings of the Thornburgh-Boccardi report. Peter Tytell, the man hired by the panel, reported unequivocally to Thornburgh and Boccardi that the Killian memos had been created by a computer. This excerpt comes from Page 1 of Appendix 4 of their final report:

Tytell concluded, for the reasons described below, that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle . Tytell acknowledged that deterioration in the Killian documents from the copying and downloading process made the comparison of typestyles "to some extent a subjective call." However, he believed the differences were sufficiently significant to conclude that the Killian documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.

The report lists in detail all of the discrepancies found by Tytell between known examplars of true TexANG documents and the Killian memos produced by CBS and their rabidly partisan source, Bill Burkett. That information has been in the public record for over four months. To go on national TV and claim that the CBS report does not render a judgment on the authenticity of the Killian memos is false -- and given Rather's proximity and interest in the issue, one must presume that the falsehood is deliberate.

Does anyone at CBS have an issue with one of their featured journalists appearing on national television and lying to the American public? So far, the answer appears to be no.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Ian at the Political Teen has the video in question. And Brainster cuts to the heart of the entire issue with this observation:

You see the problem? When he says nobody's proven the documents false or not, he's demanding extraordinary proof of their falsity. But of course, a real newsman should be in the business of demanding extraordinary proof of their validity. That's supposed to be the difference between CBS News and the National Enquirer.

One of my favorite columnists and bloggers, Michelle Malkin, writes a must-read column in today's Washington Times about the mythology of Guantanamo's Camp X-Ray being the equivalent of the Soviet gulag, as Amnesty International accused earlier this week. This is how the Americans have mistreated the poor dears at Guantanamo:

Erik Saar, an army sergeant at Gitmo for six months and co- author of a negative, tell-all book titled "Inside the Wire," inadvertently provides us more firsthand details showing just how restrained, and sensitive to Islam -- to a fault, I believe -- detention facility officials have been.

Each detainee's cell has a sink installed low to the ground, "to make it easier for the detainees to wash their feet" before Muslim prayer, Mr. Saar reports. Detainees get "two hot halal, or religiously correct, meals" a day in addition to an MRE (meal ready to eat). Loudspeakers broadcast the Muslims' call to prayer five times daily.

Every detainee gets a prayer mat, cap and Koran. Every cell has a stenciled arrow pointing toward Mecca. Moreover, Gitmo's library -- yes, library -- is stocked with Jihadi books. "I was surprised that we'd be making that concession to the religious zealotry of the terrorists," Mr. Saar admits. "It seemed to me that the camp command was helping to facilitate the terrorists' religious devotion." Mr. Saar notes one FBI special agent involved in interrogations even grew a beard like the detainees "as a sort of show of respect for their faith."

I won't belabor the historical illiteracy of Amnesty International, already pointed out by many others, in comparing this to the system of slave-labor camps that sent millions to their deaths in the Soviet Union. I will point out that the people at Camp X-Ray were captured on fields of battle, out of uniform and carrying weapons in opposition to our armed forces. If Amnesty International wants us to hew to the Geneva Convention, we could have just had them shot on capture.

Make sure you read the entire column, and let's make sure people understand that this is a war, not a juvenile-crime prevention initiative. The terrorists in Camp X-Ray fought on behalf of the same people who killed 3,000 unarmed and defenseless American citizens on 9/11. While I don't want them abused, I could frankly care less about their detention otherwise. Let them rot and die there. Better that than releasing them and having to fight them a second time.

I will be speaking at a monthly meeting of Twin City conservatives tonight, from 7-9 PM, on the New Media and its effects on politics and news. The meeting will take place at Park Tavern in Saint Louis Park. I want to thank the folks at Townhall for the invitation; I'm looking forward to the speech and an opportunity to discuss blogs and politics afterwards.

UPDATE: I'm at the Park Tavern and blogging away with the laptop while waiting for my early-bird sirloin steak dinner -- just $4.95. I don't live or work near here, but if I did, I'd probably drop by for a meal often.

In fact, the steak just arrived -- and it's not bad.

Hopefully, I will be able to post a video clip of my speech later tonight. I'm taping it for another project.

UPDATE II: I think everyone involved had a great time, especially me, in my debut speaking engagement. I met a lot of new friends last night and caught up with some existing ones, like Jane Bustad at the excellent real-estate blog Twin Cities Real Estate. Todd from Kowabunga has been a MOBber for a while now, and a couple of the folks from the Anti-Strib also made it, including Darrel (sp?), who originally offered me the opportunity to speak.

I'll be working on the video later this evening -- and maybe I'll post a good excerpt or two from the presentation, if it turns out OK. If not, my next speaking gig will be at the University of Minnesota on June 15th, sponsored by CFACT at Coffman Union. I'll post more details later on. If you're in town, I hope you can plan on being there.

Two Belfast men have been arrested in the murder of Robert McCartney, the man whom suspected IRA terrorists killed in a pub brawl and then covered up through threats and initimidation. The killings threw the Northern Ireland peace process into a crisis and badly tarnished the Sinn Fein (NI) party:

Two Belfast men were charged Friday in the IRA-linked knife slaying of a Catholic man and the injury of his friend outside a pub earlier this year, the first breakthrough in a case that has overshadowed Northern Ireland's peace process for months.

A 49-year-old man will face a charge of murdering Robert McCartney, while a 36-year-old man will be charged with the attempted murder of Brendan Devine, police said. The arraignment was set for Saturday in Belfast Crown Court.

McCartney's sisters — who have taken their campaign to the White House and the European Parliament — said they were stunned by the news — but emphasized that their mission for justice still had a long way to go.

"We hope it will lead to further arrests, because there were more than two people involved. We still have a long way to go in terms of a trial and convictions," said Catherine McCartney. "We are happy this has happened, but we know it is by no means over."

Two Sinn Fein politicians had been present in the pub when the murders occurred but claimed to have seen nothing. Sinn Fein and the IRA initially insisted that they had nothing to do with the murders, but then the IRA offered to kneecap those responsible as an apology to the McCartney family -- an offer the appalled McCartneys refused. The case revealed the extent to which paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland still control the daily lives of citizens, similar to Mafia families in the immigrant neighborhoods of a few decades ago here in the US.

Congratulations and admiration go out to the brave McCartneys, who stood up to the cowards and terrorists that killed their brother and terrified people into silence. Hopefully this will start a process that will take the guns, bombs, and knives out of Northern Ireland's political processes for good.

Not everyone in the Liberal Party has joined Paul Martin's defense of his Chief of Staff and the Health Minister. Saying that the Grewal tapes "made my skin crawl," MP Roger Galloway demanded that Martin suspend Tim Murphy and Ujjal Dosanjh until the completion of an investigation into the tapes:

A senior Liberal MP wants the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Tim Murphy, and Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh suspended from their posts until an investigation takes place into the growing scandal over the secretly taped negotiations between the two men and a Tory MP who was considering crossing the floor.

Sarnia MP Roger Gallaway says the situation is "totally odious" and "it shows the underbelly of politics that I think is quite unacceptable."

"[Conservative Leader Stephen Harper] will have to deal with [Tory MP Gurmant Grewal, who made the tapes], but we have to deal with our own," Mr. Gallaway said. "The use of the words 'Senate' and 'foreign posting,' even if no offer was made, is totally odious. There are several MPs who are remaining silent but who think Murphy and Dosanjh have crossed the threshold of acceptable political discourse."

Galloway says that his office has received numerous calls from constituents expressing their dismay over the tapes. Other Liberal MPs, talking off the record, confirm that Canadian voters have become outraged, and that they too would like to see Martin take some action against the two men. Absent that, they fear that Martin will have silently endorsed the sale of positions for political purposes:

Another senior Liberal MP in effect dared the PM to suspend the two men: "If the Prime Minister feels it is necessary for his Minister of Health and his chief of staff to step aside, then he should do it. If he remains silent about it, it means he really doesn't have any concerns about it."

Martin may have avoided a no-confidence motion in Parliament, but he may soon face a revolt from his own backbenchers if he stands on his assertion that Murphy and Dosanjh did nothing wrong. Dosanjh himself undercut that argument by claiming that the tapes were heavily edited to show wrongdoing. Given the revelations of Liberal embezzlement and corruption that has just come to light from the Gomery Inquiry, Martin's obstinacy sounds more like stonewalling than a defense, and other Liberals may soon have to decide whether Martin has become too much of a millstone around their neck to retain him as PM.

In other news, the experts who claimed that the tapes had been edited did not inspect the source tapes, but a CD created from the originals. After claiming that zero-signal gaps showed that the tapes had been manipulated, Steven Pausak admitted that "manipulation" may just have been the transfer of the files to CD audio format:

Stevan Pausak, a former Ontario government expert and forensic scientist who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said a 46-second audio segment containing a chat between Mr. Grewal and Mr. Dosanjh about an unspecified reward for joining the Liberal party contains an unexplained dead air gap of 0.3 seconds.

“Two seconds into the recording there is this continuous gap and the signal is missing for 0.3 seconds,” he told globeandmail.com. “The missing signal definitely shows the copy [provided to him by The Canadian Press Thursday] is altered.”

Conservatives say the gap occurred when the master tape was transferred to CD. Mr. Pausak acknowledged “it is possible” such a transfer process could produce the gap.

“If it was done on purpose or by accident, I have no idea,” said Mr. Pausak.

The original tapes have been turned over to the RCMP, I believe, and they will need to authenticate the reliability of the recordings. If the originals exist, why bother to inspect copies?

Because he has been in the Senate for five decades, Robert Byrd has the reputation of being unbeatable if he chooses to run for re-election, even though West Virginia went for George Bush twice. A new poll suggests that this reputation may be seriously overblown, as he has come up in a dead heat against a Republican who hasn't even announced an intention to run in 2006 (via Don Surber):

A new poll shows Sen. Robert Byrd and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito would run neck and neck in a possible campaign for the Senate seat now held by Byrd.

An RMS Strategies Poll released today reports that 46 percent of 401 registered voters in West Virginia would vote for Byrd if the election were held now.

A total of 43 percent picked Capito, R-W.Va., though she has not announced her intention to run.

And 11 percent said they were undecided -- a percentage that could sway the vote either way.

It's not supposed to be this way. Byrd, so the argument goes, brings home the pork -- and then sticks his name on every building that benefits from it. West Virginians supposedly revere Byrd's historic role in the Senate, don't want to lose his influence and leadership, and want to allow the old man to retire on his own terms rather than turn him out of office. Even with the strong red-sta