Captain's Quarters -

The dispute between Russia and Ukraine over natural-gas pricing has resulted in a cut-off of supplies to the West-leaning Ukraine, a development that started today as that nation refused to accept a quadrupling in price as a result of their closer poltical alliance with Europe. And since Russian supplies to Europe have to pass through Ukraine to get there, the spigot has run empty to the rest of the Continent despite Russia's insistence that the dispute would have no effect on its exports:

In a move that could hit fuel availability across Europe this winter, the state-controlled Russian firm Gazprom started reducing pressure in the gas pipeline to its neighbour before the deadline for agreement, set at 10am local time, had passed.

Gazprom supplies 25 per cent of western Europe's gas, much of which comes via Ukraine.

The company said today that deliveries to western Europe would not be affected, but the Italian oil and gas firm Eni said it had been warned by Gazprom that supplies could be disrupted.

Poland now confirms that the disruption has moved beyond the theoretical. Their gas company, PGNiG, announced within the hour that they expect to lose 14% of all their natural-gas supplies:

Supplies of natural gas to Poland have been hit by cuts imposed by Russia on the amount of gas entering the pipeline system in neighbouring Ukraine, Poland's gas company PCNiG has said.

"Today at 11:00 am (1000 GMT), PGNiG was informed by the National Gas Directorate of a fall in pressure at the connection point at the Polish-Ukrainian border at Drozdowicze," PGNiG said in a statement. "This indicates a fall in supplies originating in Ukraine and is a consequence of the decision by Russia's Gazprom to restrict deliveries of Russian gas to Ukraine."

The restrictions on Russian supplies to Ukraine would affect 14 percent of the overall volume of natural gas used in Poland, the statement added Sunday.

Ninety percent of the natural gas imported into Poland comes from the east.

Perhaps Russian diplomats truly are naive, or else they thought that the rest of Europe would be stupid enough to believe that Russia could cut off gas supplies to Ukraine while still transiting gas across Ukrainian pipelines to its other customers. Viktor Yuschenko has called the Russian bluff on this little game of chicken that Vladimir Putin has suddenly decided to play.

The reason that Russia can transit gas to customers across the continent is that Ukraine allows them to use their land. In return for that access, through which Gazprom makes its profits, it has given Ukraine steep discounts on their use of natural gas. Yuschenko had expressed a willingness to pay more for it, an increase of about 60%, without getting into a diplomatic/economic war over it. Russia refused to budge, but still told its European clients that it could deliver natural gas without a problem even if the Ukrainian defiance did not change. Apparently, the Russians expected people to believe that Ukraine would sit back and allow their taps to run dry while gas got pumped across their land to Gazprom's other customers. Not even the Russians believed that, however.

And Yuschenko holds the next ace card, too. The Russians need Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea for its navy. So far, Yuschenko has not yet threatened to evict the Russians, probably because they spend good money while docked there. However, if the winter gets much colder there, expect the stakes to get hotter.

In the meantime, Europe has a big problem with energy this winter. The decline in supply will either force them to do without or to replace the supply with other sources of energy. That could push petroleum prices higher in the short run, and it will surely drive natural-gas pricing through the roof in Europe. The European economy, which hasn't been a big performer anyway, will not absorb this blow easily. Expect rationing and a handful of stories about the destitute freezing to death this winter if neither Russia nor Ukraine blinks. My prediction? Russia already regrets pushing it this far; expect them to rethink their pricing structure before Ukraine takes an axe to the trans-national pipeline and permanently cuts Russia off from its Western money supply.

A pattern appears to have developed among hostage-takers in the Middle East -- a growth in market-based decisions, if you will. Yemeni tribesman have discovered that it pays to kidnap people whose governments cut deals with terrorists in order to free hostages. The latest example comes just hours after the Germans negotiated the release of a former diplomat and his family. Now tribesman have kidnapped a group of five Italians and expect the Yemeni government to negotiate their release:

Tribesmen kidnapped five Italians in northern Yemen on Sunday, a day after the government negotiated the release of five Germans held hostage, security officials said.

The Italians were kidnapped just hours after Yemen's president pledged to hunt down the "outlaws" taking hostages.

The Italians were seized in the northern province of Ma`rib, security officials said. The kidnappers belonged to the al-Zaydi tribe and wanted the government to release eight tribal members detained in connection with disputes with another tribe, police and tribal officials said.

Italy's Foreign Ministry said it had activated "all useful channels" to verify the kidnappings. Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini was monitoring the developments.

The abductions came a day after the release of a former top German diplomat and his family, who were held along with three Yemeni assistants for three days in eastern Shabwa province. The kidnappers had demanded that the government release five members of their al-Abdullah bin Dahha tribe who are standing trial for allegedly killing two members of the rival tribe in October.

Let's recall the history of both nations when it comes to dealing with kidnappers and terrorists. Germany just negotiated with Iraqi terrorists to win the release of Susanne Osthoff. It turned out that Osthoff didn't exactly pine for the safer havens of Germany, and opted instead to stay in Iraq. Meanwhile, they gave Hezbollah terrorist and murderer of American naval diver Michael Stethem, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, a free flight to Beirut instead of the US. What did Germany get for its trouble? It won a reputation for being a soft touch and saw more of its citizens get targeted as a result.

As for the Italians, while they have been resolute in keeping their commitment with troops in Iraq, they have proven much less resolute about eschewing negotiations with terrorist kidnappers. The Italians paid off the Iraqi terrorists with a reputed multi-million-dollar ransom to free leftist reporter Giuliana Sgrena, who then got shot when the Italians failed to coordinate her extraction with the Americans or even with each other.

Now both nations have to deal with the inevitable lesson that they taught the terrorists -- that when it comes to attacking German and Italian civilians abroad, crime pays, and so do they.

The New York Times leads with yet another update on its NSA-intercept program, which has shown more holes than substance once subjected to review. Its latest installment proves no different, as the paper attempts to pump a bit of adrenaline back into the story with the breathless headline, "Justice Deputy Resisted Parts of Spy Program". It sounds very damning, until readers make it through the entire article -- and realize that Eric Lichtblau and James Risen once again fail to even allege a single act of wrongdoing.

Here's the core of the story:

A top Justice Department official objected in 2004 to aspects of the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and refused to sign on to its continued use amid concerns about its legality and oversight, according to officials with knowledge of the tense internal debate. The concerns appear to have played a part in the temporary suspension of the secret program.

The concerns prompted two of President Bush's most senior aides - Andrew H. Card Jr., his chief of staff, and Alberto R. Gonzales, then White House counsel and now attorney general - to make an emergency visit to a Washington hospital in March 2004 to discuss the program's future and try to win the needed approval from Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, the officials said.

The unusual meeting was prompted because Mr. Ashcroft's top deputy, James B. Comey, who was acting as attorney general in his absence, had indicated he was unwilling to give his approval to certifying central aspects of the program, as required under the White House procedures set up to oversee it. ...

What is known is that in early 2004, about the time of the hospital visit, the White House suspended parts of the program for several months and moved ahead with more stringent requirements on the security agency on how the program was used, in part to guard against abuses.

The concerns within the Justice Department appear to have led, at least in part, to the decision to suspend and revamp the program, officials said. The Justice Department then oversaw a secret audit of the surveillance program.

Hmm. We have Ashcroft going to the hospital for a serious medical condition in 2004 after having signed off on the NSA intercept program every 45 days since 9/11, and after ranking members of Congressional intelligence committees from both parties had received numerous briefings on the efforts. With Ashcroft in the hospital, the administration went to James Comey, who had some concerns about the program. The White House went to Ashcroft afterwards, who concurred with Comey. The White House then voluntarily suspended the program and worked with the DoJ to revamp the program to satisfy their concerns and once again get the necessary sign-off for its resumption, and the DoJ then started doing regular audits to ensure that its concerns remained addressed.

So what's the problem? It doesn't appear that the White House did anything remarkable. They followed the FISA law in getting the certification of the Attorney General, and when that couldn't be done, they stopped the program. They proved willing to make adaptations that would satisfy the AG, who then certified the program for a restart. The administration continued briefing Congressional committees on the program and its progress, and except for one note from John Rockefeller, never received any objections. To this day, not one of the people briefed on the NSA intercepts has called for cancellation of the program.

Lichtblau and Risen continue to push this as a major criminal enterprise without producing even the hint of a crime. They want to paint the White House as an imperial Presidency, running roughshod over the law, when their own account shows the White House following procedure, maintaining the necessary approvals, and suspending the program when it couldn't secure the approvals. So far, the only story here is that the New York Times has apparently gone into business to shill books written by its reporters, and that the editors of the paper won't even hold themselves accountable to their own ombudsman, let alone their readers.

This meme has become pathetic.

CQ reader and commenter Coldwarrior left some interesting comments in this thread regarding the possible origin of the leak. His information centers around disaffected Air Force personnel who had an axe to grind for the prosecution of an AF officer in a vandalism case; the officer defaced cars with pro-Bush bumper stickers. It doesn't have anything to do directly with whistleblowing but rather just an attempt to embarrass the White House. He predicts that we will see this resolved very quickly -- perhaps within a week.

In the second non-scandal today, the Washington Post runs a Walter Pincus revelation that the NSA intercerpts from Bush's program have been shared with law-enforcement agencies and other intelligence services in order to track people deemed threatening to the security of the US. Once again, we have another would-be exposé that fails to include even a general allegation of any wrongdoing, instead relying on the readers to supply their paranoia to what amounts to a success story for American defense in the war on terror:

Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.

The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.

At least one of those organizations, the DIA, has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further. Spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, declined to comment on the use of NSA data.

Does Pincus give us any indication that this data has been abused, or that the agencies involved have either used it illegally or conducted wholesale invasions of privacy with it? No. Instead, Pincus reminds people that forty years ago, the Johnson and Nixon administrations spied on domestic political opponents in a complete non-sequitur:

Since the revelation last month that President Bush had authorized the NSA to intercept communications inside the United States, public concern has focused primarily on the legality of the NSA eavesdropping. Less attention has been paid to, and little is known about, how the NSA's information may have been used by other government agencies to investigate American citizens or to cross-check with other databases. In the 1960s and 1970s, the military used NSA intercepts to maintain files on U.S. peace activists, revelations of which prompted Congress to restrict the NSA from intercepting communications of Americans.

Pincus refers to "today's controversy over domestic NSA intercepts" in one part of the story, even though the supposed scandal involves the international intercepts performed without warrants. Domestic intercepts have been performed with FISA warrants, according to the Times reporting. Pincus tries again in that paragraph to tie the NSA program to the abuses from forty years ago, but again provides not one single case to prove his point.

Instead, as Instapundit points out, it only demonstrates that the Bush administration learned from the 9/11 disaster. It has made sure that its alphabet-soup of law enforcement and intelligence agencies have learned to share data and to work together on investigations and analysis. This meets the demand made by Congress and the 9/11 Commission. This story actually confirms that the NSA intercept program authorized by Bush has developed good intel on terrorist assets within the US, and that the program has allowed the FBI and other agencies to shadow them and develop even more information on their threat profile and domestic contacts.

No wonde, then, that Bush's polling numbers go up every time the Post and the NYT attempt to smear him with baseless charges of imperialism and Orwellian behavior. The only point they keep making is that Bush has worked within the law to ensure that everything possible has been done to keep us safe. The Pincuses, Lichtblaus, and Risens of the Exempt Media have done a wonderful job proving that four years of terror-attack-free life has been no fluke, no coincidence at all.

UPDATE: Make sure you take a good look at Joe Gandelman's round-up of opinions on this story.

Melchior at Simplicius Redivivus has begun translating the entire Die Zeit interview with former CIA operative Michael Scheuer, and has posted part one of five at his blog. Melchior has read the entire interview and alerts me that the DZ chat gives a significantly different view of the rendition program than what has been reported by the American media:

ZEIT: Who invented the system of "extraordinary renditions"?

Scheuer: President Clinton, his security advisor Sandy Berger, and his terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tasked the CIA in Fall 1995 with destroying al-Qaida. We asked the President: what should we do with the people we've apprehended? Clinton: that's your concern. The CIA objected: we aren't prison guards. We were again told that we should solve the problem somehow. So we developed a procedure, and I was a member of this task force. We concentrated on al-Qaida members who were wanted in their home countries or who had been convicted there in absentia.

ZEIT: How did you decide who should be apprehended?

Scheuer: We had to present a huge amount of incriminating evidece to a group of lawyers.

ZEIT: Lawyers? In the intelligence services?

Scheuer: Yes, lawyers everywhere. In the CIA, in the Justice Department, in the National Security Council. We developed our list of targets under their supervision. Then we had to catch the person in a country that was prepared to cooperate with us. Finally, the person had to come from a country that was prepared to take him back. A terribly cumbersome process for a very limited group of targets. ...

ZEIT: Did the interrogations take place in the destination countries?

Scheuer: We always submitted our questions in writing.

ZEIT: The CIA was never present at the interrogations?

Scheuer: Not that I ever heard. The lawyers forbade us from that.

Melchior will have more to come. Now we can understand why the US wanted to adapt the rendition program, too. We needed to interrogate these people and get reliable information about their contacts. That's why we wound up finally giving the CIA the resources to detain and interrogate captured terrorists -- so we wouldn't have to rely on recalcitrant "allies" to interrogate terrorists, even if they were inclined to do so.

Mike Tice has never been one of my favorite coaches -- his tenure as head coach for the Vikings has had a lot more to do with his cheap contract than any success on the field for any of his teams. He should have been fired after the revelation that he had set up a ticket-scalping operation involving his players over several years, but the new ownership elected to keep Tice and his cheap salary around, even after the Love Boat scandal earlier this year.

After all of that, and after Tice led the Vikings back into respectability in the second half of the season and thumped the Chicago Bears at home today, owner Zygi Wilf couldn't even wait until tomorrow to announce that he had fired Tice:

The Minnesota Vikings fired coach Mike Tice after Sunday's victory over Chicago.

Owner Zygi Wilf announced he would not renew Tice's contract in a statement less than an hour after the Vikings' 34-10 win over the Bears in the regular season finale. Tice, who compiled a 33-34 overall record -- including a 1-1 record in the postseason -- had already addressed the media before the move was made public. The announcement came via press release after most players had left the Metrodome.

"I don't know who was more shaken by it, him or me," Tice said of what he called an emotional meeting with Wilf.

I'm not disputing the decision. I think the Vikings need better leadership on several levels. However, the coach just won a game in a rout against a division rival -- against their second-stringers, but a big win nonetheless -- and finished the season with a winning record after a 2-5 start. In my opinion, that earns Tice a couple of days to enjoy the victory and hang out with his players as something other than the man cleaning out his office.

It shows that the current ownership will extend an unfortunate streak of classlessness for the foreseeable future. I guess it can't all be blamed on the players.

Predictably, the Palestinians have called an end to the "truce" with Israel as the latter has continued to respond to the provocations supplied by Islamic Jihad. In this case, however, the notorious triangle strategy of the Palestinians has backfired on Mahmoud Abbas, as his own al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade has betrayed his leadership and aligned itself with Islamic Jihad:

Palestinian armed groups ended a year-long truce with Israel yesterday in a move which could lead to new violence and derail elections in the West Bank and Gaza already threatened by lawlessness and political infighting.

The so-called "cool down" by militants has been frequently interrupted by rocket attacks launched from Gaza, and Islamic Jihad has continued to carry out suicide bombings on Israeli targets.

From the Israeli side, the "cool down" or truce has been non-existent. IJ terrorists have launched rockets from Gaza since Fatah and Hamas supposedly agreed to stop the violence. As I have often remarked, this classic triangle strategy allows the Palestinians to claim that Israel victimizes them whenever they try to achieve peace through negotiations, but the Israeli pullout from Gaza shows how ridiculous that argument has been all along. Now Abbas has to explain how he couldn't even control his own faction in upholding the truce.

I've said it before, and the Palestinians keep proving me correct: they want an all-out war with Israel, and they keep demanding leadership that will give it to them. One of these days, the West will finally allow Israel to give them what they want, and Egypt and Jordan will need to start preparing the refugee camps now for that day.

The Russo-Ukrainian gas crisis that threatens to engulf Europe escalated this morning as Gazprom's customers noticed a significant drop in deliveries. That prompted Russia to accuse Ukraine of diverting the flow of Russia's production -- which comes as no surprise, since the gas transits across Ukrainian pipelines and Ukrainian territory:

Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly on Monday accused Ukraine of diverting about $25 million worth of Russian gas intended for other European countries, a day after Moscow halted deliveries to Kiev in a price dispute.

Ukraine in turn accused Russia of trying to undermine its economy, calling for a resumption of gas price negotiations, this time including international experts.

Russia's OAO Gazprom halted gas deliveries to Ukraine on Sunday after Kiev balked at paying quadruple the amount it previously paid for Russian gas, which accounts for about a third of the consumption in the country of 48 million people.

Ukraine denies siphoning off any gas from Gazprom. They claim that they have switched to using strategic stores of their own natural gas and imports from the Bizarro land of Turkmenistan, where they recently reconfirmed pricing with Sapurmurat Niyazov, the narcissistic Stalinist that runs Turkmenistan as a personality cult. In truth, Ukraine will not long allow the transit of gas production across its country unless Russia gives them deep discounts on imports. The Ukrainians will eventually disrupt the deliveries by openly dismantling the pipeline in the final instance and evicting the Russians from their Black Sea naval bases.

The Russians, already cash-strapped as they are, cannot afford to allow this to continue for a long period. European nations will start making other arrangements for natural gas if the situation does not stabilize in the next few days; they cannot afford to have people freezing in their homes just to wait out the crisis. Yuschenko appears ready to play this game of chicken to the bitter, freezing end, and Putin had better decide whether his pocketbook can take the strain, as well as the loss of economic prestige just as he takes over the presidency of the G-8.

One wonders whether his new Gazprom director, Gerhard Schroeder, was supposed to smooth this path from the beginning. We have yet to hear from the former German Chancellor about the crisis.

The media revolution of the past three years has introduced a level of empowerment to the consumers of mass media unlike anything that has ever existed before, and that empowerment comes primarily through the blogosphere and the Internet. The New York Times' Katherine Seelye explores some of the impact felt by journalists and editors at having to make themselves accountable to their readers:

Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, or so goes the old saw. For decades, the famous and the infamous alike largely followed this advice. Even when subjects of news stories felt they had been misunderstood or badly treated, they were unlikely to take on reporters or publishers, believing that the power of the press gave the press the final word.

The Internet, and especially the amplifying power of blogs, is changing that. Unhappy subjects discovered a decade ago that they could use their Web sites to correct the record or deconstruct articles to expose what they perceived as a journalist's bias or wrongheaded narration.

But now they are going a step further. Subjects of newspaper articles and news broadcasts now fight back with the same methods reporters use to generate articles and broadcasts - taping interviews, gathering e-mail exchanges, taking notes on phone conversations - and publish them on their own Web sites. This new weapon in the media wars is shifting the center of gravity in the way that news is gathered and presented, and it carries implications for the future of journalism.

Seelye gets close to the nature of the revolution without ever quite getting it into her sights. The difference between now and twenty years ago has to do with the Internet and the blogosphere, but she misses the manner in which they're used to emulate a "mirror media", if you will. What the technology allows people like me to do is to become our own newspaper, our own media outlet, with the entire blogosphere acting as oversight to my posts. It takes the same basic activities that reporters perform -- fact-gathering, quote-gathering, interviews on occasion, and publication -- and then subjects the result to a peer-review process that the media long since gave up.

It's that crucial component that Seelye misses in her article, and that the media misses when it considers the impact of the blogosphere. Blogs get their assumptions wrong and facts incorrect as well, but the natural peer-review process exposes it pretty quickly -- and our credibility suffers if we don't acknowledge it. The Exempt Media doesn't bother to do peer review or act in any kind of competitive manner at all, except in narrow geographic areas where newspapers and local TV stations compete for consumer attention. Competition keeps all actors in any activity accountable -- and it's that accountability that journalists resent the most from the revolution of the media consumer.

Seelye even unconsciously displays this in this statement:

But the power of blogs is exponential; blog posts can be linked and replicated instantly across the Web, creating a snowball effect that often breaks through to the mainstream media. Moreover, blogs have a longer shelf life than most traditional news media articles. A newspaper reporter's original article is likely to disappear from the free Web site after a few days and become inaccessible unless purchased from the newspaper's archives, while the blogger's version of events remains available forever.

Well, there's a remedy for that -- quit charging consumers for access to archived stories! The Times and other newspapers can argue that the storage of such data costs money, but we know that data storage does not actually cost very much at all. Hard drive costs have plummetted over the past decade. The Times sells advertising on its Internet editions, and the archives would carry the same ads as their more recent articles. If the newspaper truly feels that the archiving of stories gives bloggers an unfair advantage, then adapt to the new reality. Either that, or emulate the dodo bird and go out of business.

Seelye includes more cluelessness from those opposed to public accountability for their public performances:

Interview subjects are "annoyed that they're quoted out of context, or they did a half-hour interview and only one sentence got used. Or sometimes they're just flattered that a reporter called them," [Rebecca MacKinnon] said. "If you're one of a growing number of people with a blog, you now have a place where you can set the record straight."

Danny Schechter, executive editor of MediaChannel.org and a former producer at ABC News and CNN, said that while the active participation by so many readers was healthy for democracy and journalism, it had allowed partisanship to mask itself as media criticism and had given rise to a new level of vitriol.

"It's now O.K. to demonize the messenger," he said. "This has led to a very uncivil discourse in which it seems to be O.K. to shout down, discredit, delegitimize and denigrate the people who are reporting stories and to pick at their methodology and ascribe motives to them that are often unfair."

Schecter should be the last person complaining about partisanship. I receive his newsletter on a regular basis but find it almost unreadable as it regularly indulges in partisan sniping on the war, Hurricane Katrina, and so on. Where else would one continue to read the paranoid rantings of Wayne Madsen, the man who wrote about George Bush's "Christian Blood Cult"? Who else has a website that claims as its mission this statement:

With the Bush administration on the defensive, with rationalizations for the war fading, with public opinion shifting, with talk of troop withdrawals all the buzz even as the Pentagon hardens "permanent" bases in the mess it has made of ‘Messopotamia,’ it's time for those who oppose the war to think about where our pressure and protest might hasten the war's end.

If Seelye wanted to make a point about partisanship in the media, she should have picked a better source to discuss it. It's this kind of activity that created the need for the blogosphere in the first place. Papers like the NY Times select sources without revealing their own biases and in this case, their own vitriolic approach to politics. Instead, Seelye uses Schechter to attack the people who would hold her accountable. In truth, MacKinnon hit the nail on the head, and Seelye just gave an unintended demonstration of how right she was.

Seelye's article shows that the Exempt Media has awakened to the new reality. It also shows that it doesn't understand it very well.

Other NFL shoes started hitting the carpet today, a day after the official end of the 2005 season. As expected, Mike Martz lost his position with the St. Louis Rams today after missing most of the 2005 season with a heart ailment. Mike Sherman unexpectedly joined him on the unemployment line, fired after his first losing season in seven years with the Green Bay Packers:

Just one day after completing the franchise's worst season since 1991, the Green Bay Packers on Monday dismissed head coach Mike Sherman, ESPN.com has confirmed.

The move, which will be announced at a morning news conference, came despite the fact the Packers awarded Sherman a two-year contract extension worth about $6.4 million last summer. It also fuels speculation about the future of quarterback Brett Favre, who said several times during the season that he would not return in 2006 if Sherman was not retained by Packers officials.

Green Bay concluded the '05 season with a victory over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday in a game that might have been Favre's swan song. There was also speculation it might have been the finale for Sherman as well, and general manager Ted Thompson apprised the head coach Monday morning that he would not return.

This shows rather clearly that the Pack wants to start over in 2006, clear of both Sherman and Favre, whose inherent wildness escalated as the injury list grew and his reliable teammates got replaced with journeymen and inexperienced rookies. The chants of "one more year" during the Seahawks game yesterday afternoon apparently had little effect on the Packers' front office.

The next move with come from Brett Favre. If he decides to return even after Sherman's firing, the Pack can hardly refuse to take Favre back. Their fans would eat them alive if they treated their greatest player in a generation with anything but effusive respect and affection. However, it would be hard for Favre to miss this message. Most people would probably have given Sherman a pass for 2005 after having to deal with the deluge of injuries that crippled Green Bay's effort this year. My guess is that Favre takes the hint and retires with his dignity intact -- but that the Packers will not be able to count on Favre for much in the way of public support from this point forward. He has too much class to air this publicly, but Favre will look at this as a slap at him and his worth to the club ... and he'll be right.

Martz, on the other hand, will not be shocked to see the pink slip. He has been on the outs all year with Rams management, who have not been satisfied with the team's direction for a while. He probably needs to assess his own health to determine whether he can withstand the rigors of more years as an NFL head coach, or whether he might do better in a less-consuming role as a TV analyst or booth color man. Martz has a good track record for either direction.

Note that these teams found it unnecessary to announce within an hour of their final games -- all victories -- that they were firing their head coaches. It seems that some teams still have a sense of class about the timing of such announcements.

UPDATE: Should have been Mike Sherman, not Ray. And now we can add Jim Haslett (Saints) and Dom Capers (Houston Texans) to the unemployment line. That leaves seven openings for head coaches with the earlier retirement of Dick Vermeil (KC), and the firings of Mike Tice and Steve Mariucci (Lions). Norv Turner might make it eight today after he hears from The Prince of Darkness, Al Davis (Oakland) today.

The AP notes with an overindulgence of respect the continuing efforts of John Kerry to run for president -- in any election that will tolerate him:

It's almost as if Sen. John Kerry never stopped running for president. He still jets across the country, raising millions of dollars and rallying Democrats. He still stalks the TV news show circuit, scolding President Bush at every turn.

His campaign Web site boasts of an online army of 3 million supporters.

The Massachusetts Democrat, defeated by Bush in 2004, insists it is far too early to talk about the 2008 race, but some analysts assume he has already positioning himself for another shot at the White House.

He still appears on national TV, but he still talks in the same lawyerly, noncommittal way about his own policies -- a habit that lost him the 2004 election. Kerry still hasn't formulated a coherent war policy, despite having over two years to do so now. He might increase troop strength, or he might start withdrawing troops. At one point, he proposed doing both, and so on. Blah, blah, blah.

The army of 3 million supporters? That's his e-mail list from 2004, a fact that the AP neglects to explain. Most of those will support whoever wins the Democratic primary; most have no particular attachment to John Kerry.

He still hasn't explained to those supporters and his fellow Democrats why he wound up the campaign with $15 million still left in the war chest. He still hasn't explained how he managed to lose to the most polarizing figure in politics, one that Democrats assumed would easily get defeated through the fanning of irrational Bush-hatred that energizes their own party. Until Kerry can give clear and precise answers on what changes he can make to turn himself into a winner and to overcome the negatives that emerged during his presidential campaign, the Democrats will stick with Hillary or perhaps Mark Warner.

Kerry can run all he wants. The Democrats will not provide a finish line for his lonely race.

I've started this a bit late -- I kept falling asleep waiting for the game to start when I was going to prep for this post.

4:10 PM CT - Two minutes into the game, and the Irish have driven the field for an impressive score. Brady Quinn got a couple of chances to air it out, and the Irish topped it off with a long run off-tackle for the score. 7-0 Irish, 12:59 left in the first quarter!

4:15 - OSU picks up a first down, but only after all the receivers got covered ...

4:17 - Troy Smith hits a wide-open receiver (Ginn) for six points. Tied up at 7-7, 10:02 left Q1. Looks like a shooting match here today, folks.

4:27 - So far, the difference to me is that the Irish have been able to run the ball -- and they've stopped the Buckeyes on the ground. We'll see if that continues.

4:30 - OSU holds at about midfield - first punt of the day fair-caught at the 10. ND needs a three-and-out.

4:31 - The Nokia commercial about the "lady" who gets offended by a man offering his number for her cell phone is ... weird, man. What's that supposed to teach us about Nokia -- it's for losers?

4:34 - The Irish need a spy on Troy Smith. They did a nice job picking up the screen on the next play, though.

4:38 - The Irish get the first break of the game -- Troy Smith fights off a sack he should have taken and winds up coughing up the ball. The Irish live off these turnovers and they have ony 15 yards to go for a TD.

4:40 - OSU defense stiffens, forces a 4th down ... and the Irish fail to convert. Bad move. Should have taken the easy points at this stage of the game.

4:41 - I was wondering what Hugh was doing, but he doesn't appear to be live-blogging the game. His co-blogger, the lovely and talented Mary Catherine Ham, is spending today learning about good winterizing and the virtues of wood-burning fireplaces, and the limits of influence that a blog award brings.

4:45 - OSU has started running the ball a bit more effectively now, but they commit a stupid penalty after getting a first down.

4:51 - Ginn starts off the second quarter with reverse for 68 yards and a TD. He almost hot-dogged it too early, but made two remarkable cutbacks to fake out the pursuing Irish defenders and stumble into the end zone. OSU 14-7. Dang.

4:58 - Notre Dame gives up a three-and-out -- not a good way to answer the score. A good punt still gives OSU decent field advantange. The Irish have to continue to run the ball -- it's worked so far during the game. Why they used three straight passes on this series is kind of baffling.

5:03 - Note to Krum: it's always the retaliation that gets called. IOW, stop being stupid and FOCUS ON THE GAME, not the trashtalking.

5:09 - The option is really effective against the Irish defense. If they can't get a turnover here, OSU could really put them behind the eight-ball.

5:10 - As I was writing that, the option pitch coughs up the ball and the Irish recover.

5:17 - Yeah, I wouldn't believe me either, but it was the truth ...

5:17 - Brady tosses it deep as a reminder to OSU not to get to comfortable coming in close on defense.

5:20 - Weis has spotted something on the slant; it seems to have suddenly opened up for the Irish.

5:25 - Good punt coverage puts the ball on the two. The Irish need a defensive hold here.

5:27 - I've never heard of that before -- the ref stopped play and used the public address system to scold ABC for its camera placement! OSU gets the first down, and then scores on the next play. Not looking good for God's Team.

5:37 - OSU wants to go in for the kill at the end of the half. They own the big play today, no doubt ...

5:43 - The Irish block the chip-shot field goal to take something positive into the halftime locker room. HALFTIME.

5:57 - That was a great moment during halftime when Tostitos brought Lt Vera home and surprised his girlfriend -- and then he surprised her again by proposing on national TV. Good thing she said "yes". It brought a tear to my eye, but who among us didn't have a moment of thinking, "What if she says 'No'?"

6:11 - The Irish finally force OSU to punt after Brent Musberger noted that the Buckeyes had converted all of their third downs in the first half.

6:16 - Can we stop talking about Brady Quinn's sister being AJ Hawk's girlfriend? Brady's sister is cute, but I didn't wait six weeks for this game just to live it vicariously through her angst.

6:26 - "Can Baby Brother and the Quarterback Guru regroup?" BLEAGH. I have always despised Brent Musberger, and now I remember why. The Irish special teams, however, come up big with a second blocked kick to keep it to a two-touchdown gap.

6:31 - Going back to the slant, it's still working ...

6:35 - The Irish take advantage of the short game that OSU allowed and drove the field for a TD. The Irish blew the PAT, but still stay within a TD and a 2-point conversion despite getting thoroughly outplayed so far. 21-13.

6:42 - Is it a fumble or an incomplete? Looks like a fumble to me, but I'm biased. The Irish defense is still playing with some heart ...

6:46 - No fumble, and the Buckeyes get a FG finally on their third try. 24-13. We're still in it, but I'm not sure we deserve to be. OSU has outplayed the Irish on both sides of the ball, and only through some scrappy play and turnovers have we remained in the game.

6:53 - Last quarter, and the Irish can still come back, but they'd better play better than the first three if they're going to do it.

7:07 - OSU adds a field goal, but that only puts the game out to 14 points -- still a two-TD game. Unfortunately, I may have to run out before the game finishes. I have a dinner date with my granddaughter, of which she just called to remind me. ("Grandpa, when are we going to eat pizza?") I may have to catch this on the radio the rest of the way.

7:13 Samardziaj finally pulls one in and puts the Irish back into the long game...

7:22 - Gotta run. Granddaughters trump the Irish. It looks like the Irish may be ready to score, and I'll be listening on the radio. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

The Not One Dime campaign's first endorsed candidate, Stephen Laffey, has generated quite a bit of interest in his bid to unseat Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island. The New York Sun profiles Laffey in a Josh Gerstein article today, noting that Laffey's pro-Israel stance has helped boost his visibility:

The mayor of Cranston, R.I., Stephen Laffey, 43, is hoping to unseat Lincoln Chafee, a Republican who was appointed to the Senate in 1999 after the unexpected death of his father, John Chafee, and who won election to his father's former seat the following year.

The main fund-raising arm for Senate candidates, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is coming to Mr. Chafee's defense. About 11 months before the September 12 primary, the committee launched a series of television ads attacking Mr. Laffey's record on taxes and tarring him as a "slick" ally of the oil industry. The latter charge is taken as a slur by many environmentally conscious Rhode Islanders.

Mr. Chafee, 52, has made enemies of some political activists, though, with his votes against President Bush's tax cuts, against the Iraq war, and against a law authorizing sanctions on Syria. In 2004, the senator flirted with leaving the Republican Party and pointedly declined to vote for President Bush. Mr. Chafee told the Providence Journal that he wrote in the name of President George H.W. Bush as a "symbolic protest."

Those moves have produced support for Mr. Laffey.

"We've certainly hit a nerve," Mr. Laffey said of the intervention in the race by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "They obviously are very, very nervous."

And it's why Republicans should say Not One Dime! to the NRSC and instead contribute directly to GOP campaogns. I've already sent a donation to Laffey's campaign to make up for the fact that a national GOP organization would go on the attack against Republican primary challengers. To me, that's worse than supporting Chaffee, the most unreliable GOP caucus member of the Senate. Since when should our contributions go to attacking other Republicans?

Chaffee has done almost nothing for the GOP in this session of the Senate. He has proven himself a hurdle for George Bush's legislative agenda, frequently voting against tax cuts and the Bush foreign policy initiatives. No one knows why the NRSC has decided to attack Republicans on Chaffee's behalf, but we should make sure that we put an end to it. It looks like Chaffee might not be such a slam dunk after all, and our focus should be on finding and supporting those Republicans that will act like they belong to the same party. If nothing else, the NRSC should have kept its hands off the Rhode Island primary once a credible GOP challenger had been found to Chaffee.

UPDATE: Lincoln, not John; I made that mistake two times. Thanks to Jim for the heads-up.

The growth of political dealmakiing grows in Iraq, as the largest Sunni group announced that it had reached preliminary agreement with the Kurds to create a framework for a coalition government, one they could implement as soon as the election commissions review the voting process from last month' elections. The move would provide either a sizable addition to a coalition government, or a stable opposition bloc to the Shi'ite plurality within the National Assembly and could induce the insurgency to recede as Sunni influence in the new government grows:

The largest Sunni Arab political group in Iraq unexpectedly moved toward agreement with Kurdish leaders Monday on a broad framework for a coalition government. The group, the Iraqi Consensus Front, said it would abandon claims that national elections last month had been rigged once international election monitors finish their review of the allegations.

The move drew a rebuke from other Sunni Arab political leaders who accused the Sunni consensus party of violating an agreement to press ahead with claims of Sunni disenfranchisement during the vote on Dec. 15 and to not bargain on their own for a role in the new government. ...

A Sunni consensus party official, Ahmad Rushdi, said that meetings in Iraqi Kurdistan between the party and the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani yielded "an agreement that the results from the international monitoring committee" - which is examining the vote - "would be approved." After results are final, he said, "discussion will continue about the formation of the upcoming government."

If the Kurds and Sunnis eventually did reach a political agreement, any deal to ultimately be part of a coalition government would be shaped by the dominant Shiite political alliance, which is expected to control nearly half the seats in parliament.

This surprising development promises something more -- a first agreement between the Kurds and the Sunni on political alliance shows a remarkable shift between the former oppressors and the people they oppressed. If the Kurds feel comfortable partnering with the Sunnis, it shows that decades of enmity can be set aside in a new democratic process -- and it proves to the Sunnis that they will comprise an important part of Iraqi politics. That kind of inclusiveness will motivate even further Sunni participation in Iraqi politics and discourage the destabilizing insurgencies that already appear to have lost the imagination of the Iraqi people.

The Conservative Party has jumped out to a slight lead in the election campaign in Canada, according to polling taken mostly after the RCMP announcement of a criminal investigation for the insider-trading allegations surrounding current Finance Minister Ralph Goodale. For the first time, Ipsos reports that the Tories now lead the Liberals on a national basis:

With the federal election now entering 2006 and its final stage, a new national Ipsos Reid survey, conducted on behalf of CanWest News Service/Global News, shows that while the Conservative and Liberal parties are in a virtual tie when it comes to vote support the underlying dynamics suggest that it is the Conservative campaign which has traction and momentum.

According to the survey, if a federal election were held tomorrow, 33% of voters would cast their ballot in support of the Conservatives (+1 point from last week’s survey), 32% would vote for the Liberals (32%, -1 point), 18% would vote for the NDP (+2 points), and 5% would vote for the Green Party (unchanged). In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois attract more than half of federal votes (52%, -2 points).

Currently four in ten Canadians (42%, +5 points) agree with the statement “I'd be comfortable voting for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives to form the government in the next election because we'll probably have another minority which will keep them in check” - 44% of Ontarians agree with this statement.

The news gets worse for the Liberals and PM Paul Martin. For the first time, the Grits may be losing Ontario. The new Ipsos polling shows for the first time that support for Liberals has fallen behind that of the Conservatives. The Tories have a razor-thin 2-point lead in the province that normally provides the Liberals their base of support. Absent that, they have leads in the Maritimes and BC, but without Ontario they have no hope of winning a large enough plurality to control the Commons.

The Grits have three weeks to turn things around, and with a brand-new investigation hanging over them like some Sword of Damocles, I doubt that even Martin is slippery enough to pull the wool over the eyes of Canadian voters one last time.

Markos Moulitsas has lost it -- and the candidates who pay him for his services might have some explaining to do about their views on national security in the future. Kos wrote today that Republicans want to protect the United States out of a sense of cowardice (h/t: The Corner):

When our nation was founded, we had men of real character and courage fighting for their nascent America, one in which liberty and freedom trumped the authorative tendencies of the monarchy. Patrick Henry gave words to those efforts:

"Give me liberty or give me death!" ...

These blowhards pretend they are macho even as they piddle on themselves in abject terror from every "boo!" that comes out of Osama Bin Laden's mouth. They like to speak about how tough they are, even though they send others to fight their battles and couldn't last a day in places like Iraq, or Sudan, or the El Salvador of my youth, or any other war-torn nation....

The breathtaking cowardice of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists knows no bounds. They hide behind the American flag and our genuinely brave men and women in uniform. It's bad enough that they wouldn't deign to join the boots in the ground in Iraq. But now they make a mockery of our Constitution, for the very values that motivated our Founding Fathers to put their lives on the line to combat the unchecked powers of the British monarchy.

Patrick Henry, however, did not utter those words to urge Americans to withdraw from the world or to "redeploy" to a horizon position. He gave us that grand mission by urging Americans to rise up and fight the British to shake off the bonds of the monarchy that held us without representation in Parliament and without recourse to the very liberties Moulitsas accuses us of giving up. Nor did Henry say, "Let any man who agrees with me but does not fire a weapon be called a chickenhawk." Henry believed in civilian control of the government, not a military dictatorship where only soldiers and those who had served could enter the world of self-government.

In other words, the allegory is drizzly Kos bulls**t.

Kos loves freedom of speech when that speech agrees with him. He loves civilian control of the military when those civilians belong to MoveOn, but not when they belong to the Republican Party. In fact, Kos doesn't like American values at all -- he only uses them when convenient to his argument, but in fact would rather have a Starship Troopers (the movie) government made up of military bureaucrats making all of our decisions for us. He has no respect for those who did go to Iraq to help with security -- recalling his infamous "Screw 'em" to the civilians who did believe in the mission enough to go over and help out, smearing them as "mercenaries" -- and then calls those who stay home and support the mission 'cowards'.

I will pray every night that Howard Dean and the rest of the Democrats take Kos' advice and adopt this as their meme, because I'm sure people feel like they would rather not see New York nuked than to take action within the law to defend this nation. Even most of the Democrats in this country would have a problem with candidates adopting the "Let DC Burn As Long As International Calls Don't Get Checked" platform. I, for one, would rather have the NSA checking on valid leads on al-Qaeda terrorists here in the US than to have my granddaughter vaporized by Islamofascists at the Mall of America. And if Markos doesn't like the fact that I use my freedom of speech to make that clear, then Markos can kiss my entire ass. Screw him and anyone who supports him.

UPDATE: Clarified my reference to Starship Troopers, and removed reference to Heinlein -- not quite the same thing.

Pssst ... do you want to know a dirty little secret about Markos Moulitsas' hero du jour, Patrick Henry? The man that Kos notes approvingly in terms of character, writing that "When our nation was founded, we had men of real character and courage fighting for their nascent America, one in which liberty and freedom trumped the authorative tendencies of the monarchy. Patrick Henry gave words to those efforts: 'Give me liberty or give me death!'"

It turns out that Henry never served in the Revolution -- and even when given a commission and a command, he declined to serve:

1775 August 26: Although Henry had no military experience, he was elected colonel of the First Virginia Regiment and commander-in-chief of the Virginia militia.

1776 February 28: Henry resigned his military appointment.

Wow -- who knew that Kos would celebrate such a chickenhawk!

Of course, that slur would be ludicrous to use on Patrick Henry. Instead of picking up a gun and commanding an army, Henry relied on his better skills and went into politics and rhetoric to fight for freedom. He urged the armed uprising as one of the leading pundits of his age, from his seat in the Virginia Assembly and as governor of the independent Commonwealth of Virginia. His proclamation for liberty or death did not mean that he intended on grabbing his pistol and run out into the nearest battle he could find. It did mean that he made liberty, freedom, and democracy his life's work -- and in doing so, he helped form the basis of the mandate of Americans to throw off the British monarchy and engage in the world's greatest experiment in self-rule. His contribution to American freedom is no less honorable for his refusal to serve in the Revolutionary Army, and no less important.

All Kos did with his screed is demonstrate that he has nothing more than a facile understanding of both American history and the nature of civilian-based democratic government rather than military juntas.

UPDATE: Roger Ailes and CQ reader Duckman rightly point out that Patrick Henry did take part in one engagement, a raid to secure powder a few days after Lexington in May 1775 -- before he received his commission, in fact. Mea culpa. However -- and this is my point -- Patrick Henry's worth to the American Revolution has little or nothing to do with this one uncontested military effort on Henry's part. If that qualifies Henry as a hero in Kos' eyes, then why wouldn't flying two years of defense missions in a notoriously unreliable jet protecting the homeland qualify as well? Especially since the latter person requested a transfer to combat while the former resigned his commission just as the war started to heat up? Rather than "denigrating" Henry, as Duckman says I did, I pointed out that Henry's greatness had nothing to do with whether he served in a combat position at any point in his life, but in the work he did to push for the creation of this nation of freedom and liberty. He used his best skills to the fullest extent to perform great work. That isn't validated by his presence at one single engagement just as it isn't invalidated by his resignation of his commission after the war started -- as I argued.

The nitpickers get one fact right (and I got one wrong, of course) while managing to miss the entire point. Debating war policy based on the worthiness of one's prior service to the nation is a stupid, juvenile exercise, very much akin to measuring genitalia to determine manliness. Try focusing on the policy itself rather than the military experience of those who debate it.

Congratulations should come from all Americans to Department of Justice prosecutors who got lobbyist Jack Abramoff to agree to a plea deal by acknowledging a years-long string of corrupt activity in Washington DC. The prosecutors got Abramoff to plead guilty to a wide range of offenses, guaranteeing that he will either cooperate to the bitter end or spend the rest of his life in prison:

"I plead guilty, your honor," Abramoff said in flat, unemotional tones, accepting a plea bargain that said he had provided lavish trips, golf outings, meals and more to public officials "in exchange for a series of official acts."

In one case, he reported payments totaling $50,000 to the wife of a congressional aide to help block legislation for a client. The aide worked for DeLay, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Public corruption aside, Abramoff admitted defrauding four Indian tribes and other clients, taking millions in kickbacks from a one-time business partner, misusing a charity he had established and failing to pay income taxes on millions of ill-gotten gains.

He is expected to plead guilty to additional charges on Wednesday in Florida in connection with charges stemming from the 2000 purchase of a fleet of gambling boats.

At the Justice Department, officials said they intend to make use of the trove of e-mails and other material in Abramoff's possession as part of a probe that is believed to be focusing on as many as 20 members of Congress and aides.

Regardless of which politicians get proven corrupt -- and that means proven in court, not just allegations and indictments -- both Republicans and Democrats will be well rid of them. Since the Republicans have controlled Congress for the past decade or more, we can fully expect this to ensnare more GOP politicians than Democrats. Money always finds its way to those whose power runs highest and whose ethics run lowest. And even if an honest and fair investigation and prosecution only convicts Republicans -- I'm still looking forward to the housecleaning. Politicians enriching themselves on the public trust deserve to spend some quality time at Club Fed.

However, if Democrats think this might provide them with the Fitzmas they failed to get late last year, they will be somewhat disappointed. Abramoff, like any good lobbyist, has members of both parties in his Rolodex (or Blackberry -- betraying my age on the Rolodex comment, I think). CQ readers should already be familiar with the cast of Democratic characters likely to be conferring with counsel tonight:

* Reps James Clyburn (D-SC) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) - Longtime House ethics rules that applied to the 1996 and 1997 trips to the Northern Mariana Islands have strictly prohibited lawmakers and their staffs from accepting any congressional trips from lobbyists or their firms. The records state Preston Gates [Abramoff's lobbying firm] paid hotel and airfare for Thompson and Clyburn for travel to the island in January 1997. The two lawmakers filed reports to Congress saying a private, nonprofit group, not Abramoff's firm, paid the travel.

* Indian tribe money, which appears to be at the center of Abramoff's conviction today, went to many Republicans -- but also made its way into the following Democratic pockets:

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

* Harry Reid has a special problem with Abramoff, as the above link detailed last June. 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. As the Post article reported in June:

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.

* Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) had been the ranking member on the Senate oversight committee that should have caught Abramoff's influence peddling. Instead, Dorgan drank deep from Abramoff's glass:

New evidence is emerging that the top Democrat on the Senate committee currently investigating Jack Abramoff got political money arranged by the lobbyist back in 2002 shortly after the lawmaker took action favorable to Abramoff's tribal clients.

A lawyer for the Louisiana Coushatta Indians told The Associated Press that Abramoff instructed the tribe to send $5,000 to Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record)'s political group just three weeks after the North Dakota Democrat urged fellow senators to fund a tribal school program Abramoff's clients wanted to use.

The check was one of about five dozen the Coushattas listed in a tribal ledger as being issued on March 6, 2002, to various lawmakers' campaigns and political causes at the instruction of Abramoff, tribal attorney Jimmy Fairchild said Monday.

When we're talking about systemic corruption, we have to remember that it rarely, if ever, happens on a partisan basis. The idea that one party has a "culture of corruption" is ludicrous. Power corrupts, and regardless of current status, both parties wield power in Washington. The corruption will have followed both in proportion to their power. Expect to see enough takedowns to thoroughly embarrass everyone.

But regardless, as I wrote earlier, let the chips fall where they may. The DoJ has done a good job thus far at keeping it professional and balanced, and I trust them to continue to do so. And for a great round-up of reaction, check out Michelle Malkin, who says the same thing. If you love your country, you have to demand prosecution of the corrupt, even if they share your political viewpoints.

Despite recent protestations of Congressional outrage over the NSA program to intercept international communications from known and suspected al-Qaeda assets inside and outside of the US, it turns out that more members of Congress were told of the program than have let on. General Michael Hayden briefed members of both intelligence committees in October 2001 specifically to detail how the NSA would expand its reach in regards to FISA -- and the only concern given at the time was whether the NSA had gotten the proper presidential authority to proceed:

Congressional intelligence committees had at least a hint in October 2001 that the National Security Agency was expanding its surveillance activities after the 9/11 attacks, according to a letter released Tuesday by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The California Democrat had raised questions to Gen. Michael Hayden, then the NSA director, about the legal authority to conduct the eavesdropping work.

In the October 2001 letter, Pelosi said she was told in a briefing that month that the agency "had been operating since the Sept. 11 attacks with an expansive view" of its authorities "to the conduct of electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related statutes, orders, regulations and guidelines."

"I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting," Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, wrote Hayden. ...

But it appears that Hayden may have at least alluded broadly to the new surveillance work with a wider audience of House and Senate intelligence committee members during the classified October briefing. According to Pelosi's letter, Hayden spoke about the agency's new posture to expand its operations.

Hayden, who is now the nation's No. 2 intelligence official, told Pelosi he wanted to clarify ambiguities. "In my briefing, I was attempting to emphasize that I used my authorities to adjust NSA's collection and reporting," he wrote on Oct. 18, 2001.

Now we know that the intelligence committees had full knowledge of the NSA plan and its relationship to the FISA regulations and presidential authority. According to Pelosi's own letter, the only real issue that Congress had was whether the President himself had authorized the NSA to expand its intercepts -- an explicit acknowledgement that the authority remained within the President's scope of power, especially given the war-powers resolution Congress had just passed.

The outrage we hear today from people like Howard Dean should get directed to the members of Congress who have long known of this program and declined to object. Even today, we hear no voices from the intelligence panels that want this program to end. That shows that they understand the necessity and the legality of this crucial part of the American defense against al-Qaeda and other Islamofascist terrorists who will kill Americans by the thousands if they are given the opening to do so.

UPDATE: Actually, this story gets even better. It turns out that Hayden operationally took responsibility for expanding NSA operations in the wake of 9/11, and Pelosi wanted to ensure that Presidential authorization took place:

Ms. Pelosi, then the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said, "I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting."

The answer, General Hayden suggested in his response to Ms. Pelosi a week later, was that it had not. "In my briefing," he wrote, "I was attempting to emphasize that I used my authorities to adjust N.S.A.'s collection and reporting."

It is not clear whether General Hayden referred at the briefing to the idea of warrantless eavesdropping. Parts of the letters from Ms. Pelosi and General Hayden concerning other specific aspects of the spy agency's domestic operation were blacked out because they remain classified. But officials familiar with the uncensored letters said they referred to other aspects of the domestic eavesdropping program.

Bush administration officials said on Tuesday that General Hayden, now the country's No. 2 intelligence official, had acted on the authority previously granted to the N.S.A., relying on an intelligence directive known as Executive Order 12333, issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. That order set guidelines for the collection of intelligence, including by the N.S.A.

"He had authority under E.O. 12333 that had been given to him, and he briefed Congress on what he did under those authorities," said Judith A. Emmel, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "Beyond that, we can't get into details of what was done."

Once again, the Times mischaracterizes the program as a "domestic" operation. All of the Times reporting indicates that the warrantless NSA intercepts concerned international communications, not domestic -- which would under FISA have to both originate and end within the US. But more importantly, it again shows that Congress explicitly acknowledged the authority of the President to approve this expanded program. It also shows that the Democratic leadership had no problem with the program itself, but rather that it received the proper authorization from the President before proceeding much farther.

And again, note that none of the people involved in this briefing ever bothered to object to the expanded NSA effort until after the Times published its story.

In the game of chicken Kyiv that Viktor Yuschenko has played with Vladimir Putin over natual gas, the Russian autocrat finally blinked and settled for the limited price increase that Yuschenko initially offered to pay. In order to save face, the state-dominated Gazprom hid behind a middleman to meet Ukraine's demands:

Russia and Ukraine reached a deal Wednesday to resume gas shipments to Ukraine under a complex price scheme, ending a standoff that raised fears of long-term shortages in Europe. ...

Under the agreement, Russia's Gazprom will sell gas to a trading company for $230 per 1,000 cubic meters and Ukraine will buy gas from the company for $95. The trading company, Rosukrenergo, can charge Ukraine lower prices because it receives cheaper gas from Turkmenistan.

"We are fully satisfied with the agreement," Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said.

Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said the agreed price was $230 as of Jan. 1 but that it would fluctuate with the market. He did not indicate how often the price would be adjusted.

Yeah, it gets "adjusted" often enough. Expect an adjustment to come within weeks of the initial sale, and bank on the price coming a lot closer to the $95 resale mark. Every business model that comes to mind does not support a $230 product being profitable when resold for $95, no matter how much one cuts it with another source.

Obviously, Putin caved, and for obvious reasons; Yuschenko held the ace cards. Not only does Yuschenko control the territory that Russian gas has to transit to reach the vast bulk of its customers, but he also has their political support -- and Ukraine controls the warm-weather ports for the Russian Black Sea navy. As long as Russia tried to send gas to its other customers, Ukraine could tap the supply, which they admitted to doing late yesterday. Ukraine could also have started dismantling the pipeline or turned it off, which would have made the Russians lose one of their few reliable sources of hard currency.

Chalk up another win for the Ukrainian upstart against his former Russian masters. Yuschenko may have his faults, but a lack of nerve isn't among them.

The story of the thirteen trapped miners ended in cruelty and tragedy this morning, after a mistaken announcement left family and friends celebrating what they thought had been a miraculous rescue of twelve miners. Instead, rescuers only found one man barely alive, and the others all dead:

Great joy turned suddenly to deep sorrow Wednesday morning when stunned family members were told that 12 of the 13 miners trapped 13,000 feet into a mountainside since early Monday were dead rather than alive, as they, and the world, had been told hours earlier.

The first announcement, of a "miracle," was the result of a "miscommunication," a company official said.

The new announcement came at roughly 3 a.m., interrupting and then silencing celebratory church bells in this small town and leaving relatives of the miners in shock, grief and anger.

The new announcement, officially made by Ben Hatfield, CEO of the International Coal Group, was that one miner was alive, in critical condition at a local hospital. He was found near a vehicle in the mine, somewhere near the site of an apparent explosion Monday.

Our prayers are with the people of Sago and Tallmansville this morning. This news comes about as cruelly as anyone could have contrived. When I went to bed last night, unfortunately very late, the news had come across the wires that the men had been located alive but in need of medical attention -- not surprising, under the circumstances. The television showed pictures of the families and communities celebrating with tears of joy, and it was easy to join them. How that could have gotten screwed up remains to be seen, but they are now irate as well as devastated by their loss -- made double by their celebrations.

How awful. Keep them in your thoughts