March 1, 2007
Don't miss the update below! I missed this yesterday while I traveled to Washington DC for the CPAC conference, but John McCain explicitly announced that he would run for President in 2008. One might think that CPAC would have provided a good platform for that event, but instead he chose Late Night with David Letterman: Setting aside any doubt, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona announced Wednesday he would seek the presidential nomination. McCain, who had a presidential exploratory committee, made the declaration on the "Late Show with David Letterman," taped earlier Wednesday. "We are going to formally announce it in early April," John Weaver, a top adviser to McCain, told CNN. Obviously, Letterman's show has national reach, but it seems more than a little strange in two ways. First, it reminds people of Arnold Schwarzenegger's announcement on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, but with little of the surprise....
The Taliban have a new commander and a new public face for their terrorism. Mullah Dadullah has become the new rock star of the jihad in Waziristan, and his emergence could portend an especially tough spring for Afghanistan and its NATO defenders: If Osama bin Laden likes being in the global spotlight, he's likely a bit depressed in his hideout these days. The leader of the al-Qaida terrorist organization hasn't made an appearance on the evening news for quite some time. What's more, the Taliban no longer need bin Laden as a figurehead. Western intelligence agencies warn that the Taliban now have "their own star" in their struggle against Western soldiers and the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai. The new nightmare from the Hindu Kush Mountains is called Mullah Dadullah. He sports a pitch black beard, always wears a military jacket and these days, he is omnipresent in the...
In 2002, the US discovered evidence that North Korea bought at least 20 uranium centrifuges from Pakistan, through the AQ Khan network, even though Pyonyang had agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons. The US accused North Korea of reneging on the Agreed Framework, as it determined that the Kim regime would use the purchases to develop their own program for highly-enriched uranium (HEU). Kim's government rejected the charges, and the US suspended oil shipments to the energy-poor North. Less than a year later, Pyongyang admitted that they have been working on plutonium-based weapons for years and refused to negotiate an end to that program, a decision that resulted in last year's nuclear test and an arsenal estimated at between six to fifteen nuclear weapons. Now, new intelligence shows that the Kim regime may not have done much with the centrifuges they bought from Pakistan, and the New York Times and...
Normally, committee assignments get approved by voice vote with no opposition. The political parties have plenty of incentives to allow themselves to police their own, and confrontation will breed more confrontation later. However, the Republicans have decided to risk it in order to force individual Democrats in the House to cast a vote approving the assignment of William Jefferson to the Homeland Security Committee, despite an ongoing corruption probe: House Republicans plan to force a floor vote on the appointment of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), who is the subject of a federal bribery investigation, to a seat on the Homeland Security Committee. The decision to put Jefferson on the panel was made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), and House Democrats endorsed the move at a private meeting Tuesday night, but his appointment must be confirmed by a vote on the House floor. Such an action would normally be a...
I've managed to make it to CPAC's Blogger Row, sponsored by Townhall, and it's looking pretty sweet. We're at one end of the exhibition hall, and we get a great view of the people passing through the hall. CPAC has set us up with a closed-circuit television for watching some of the events down here, rather than hiking up to the conference rooms. I've met the blogger behind See Jane Mom, a delightful Southern mom with a great sense of humor. Robert Bluey, who's blogging at Heritage, just arrived, and we have a few others starting to trickle into the area. I've alreay heard that Mitt Romney will be meeting with us later this morning for a chat. I'm hoping to post a few pictures later, but at the moment, the camera won't transfer pictures to the computer. I'm going to work on that, and start making plans on which...
Senator Jim DeMint stopped by Blogger Row, in part to speak to his support for Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination. DeMint spoke for just a few minutes, but made the case that the federal government needs a strong CEO to straighten out the chaos and confusion of the bureaucracy. He likes what Mitt did in Massachussetts to find creative solutions that can gather bipartisan support, and feels that talent would be put to good use in the White House. He covered a few other issues as well. I asked him to comment on the administration's apparent reversal on negotiating with Iran and Syria on Iraq's security. He responded that he had not heard of any reversal, but that he didn't see a problem in attending a conference which included both nations and still excluded direct negotiation with Iran. After all, he said, we deal with a lot of bad...
I have a new essay up at American.com, a project of the American Enterprise Institute, about the new agreement on oil revenue in Iraq. The agreement opens the door to eventual reconciliation and a success for the US in the Middle East: With most of American politics focused on the troop surge and partisan maneuverings over its implementation, another story has gotten lost: The Iraqis themselves have made important progress in a basic economic issue that has fueled the sectarian divide. ... Over the past three years, the politicians were unable to settle on an equitable and secure revenue-sharing plan that still allowed the Kurds and the Shi’ites to manage their own resources. But now things have changed. The Kurds, who had held out the longest, agreed to share their oil revenues on a basis that had already won support from the Shi’ites and the Sunnis. Two days later, the...
So far, we've spent most of our morning getting to know one another and prepping for some of the more anticipated events scheduled for later. I've been sitting between Jane and Mary Katherine Ham while I've prepped for my interview with Mike Huckabee, which means I'm having way too much fun. However, we're not the only ones getting silly. So far, we've seen someone in a dolphin costume handing out anti-Mitt literature, someone else handing out Mitt flip-flops, and a line of men about a mile deep to see Michelle Malkin. I'm hoping to get pictures of the lighter moments, and I'll post them back here when I do....
Bill Simon paid a visit to Blogger's Row here at CPAC in his new role as missionary for the Rudy Giuliani campaign. Simon once ran for governor in California, losing to Gray Davis, which helped set the stage for the historic case of buyer's remorse that resulted in Davis' recall and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He struck me as a warm and friendly person who has focused on his new mission to win the nomination for Giuliani. I had not been aware of his professional connection between Simon and Giuliani, but the two worked together in the US Attorney's office in New York 22 years ago. I asked him what he learned about Rudy in the time the two worked together, and he said that he found teamwork, leadership, and accountability. Simon found Rudy to be a loyal but tough leader in the civil and criminal casework that his...
I'm at CPAC's final event of the night to watch Dick Cheney address the CPAC conference. 7:45 PM ET - Thanking the people who introduced him. He also acknowledged the people he met on his last trip, mentioning Bagram specifically, and encouraging all of us to remember and honor them. The conference's chair has a daughter who just finished a tour in Iraq. 7:47 - "I'm probably the last non-candidate you'll see this weekend." Good laugh. Too bad John McCain didn't say it. 7:51 - Reviewing the economy in the context of what has happened in the last six years. GDP has risen over 16%, an amount equal or greater than the entire economy of Canada. This shows the fallacy of economics as a zero-sum game. This has come from the tax breaks that allowed the economy to thrive. 7:53 - Revenues have risen by $520 billion in the last...
Show starts at 10 pm ET! I've completed my interview with Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, one of the presidential contenders in the GOP that has not garnered as much attention. It's not for lack of intelligence and commitment, as listeners will hear on tonight's show. Huckabee makes the case for a principled conservative, answers some of his critics, and insists that the Republican Party should nominate a Republican for President. Be sure to check out Mike Huckabee's website for more information on his campaign. In the second half of the show, I'll be joined by NZ Bear to discuss CPAC and the Victory Caucus. We'll also be taking your calls at 646-652-4889. Remember, the show airs live at 10 pm ET, and podcasts within minutes of its end....
March 2, 2007
The US has sent a message back to Vladiimir Putin after his eruption at Poland and the Czech Republic for considering the installation of American missile-defense infrastructure. After the Russian president's threat to start aiming medium-tange missiles at eastern Europe, the Missile Defense Agency answered by adding the Caucasus as another desired site for their system: The director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said Thursday that Washington wants to base an anti-missile radar in the Caucasus, a move that could provoke a further rift with Russia. Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering declined to specify which country the long-range radar could be installed in, but noted that "it would be very useful for the anti-missile system." Speaking on a stop at NATO headquarters in Brussels, he said "we would like to place a radar in ... the Caucasus." The United States has said the planned defenses would not be aimed...
I have questioned the use of supplemental appropriations to fund the Iraq war and the general war on terror for quite some time. That approach opens the funding process to even more shenanigans as the bills move through Congress, and it leaves the effort exposed to attacks from the anti-war Democrats, especially now that John Murtha controls defense spending in the House. The Democrats may have retreated on the latter issue for the moment, but Representatives have not lost their taste for pork: As House Democrats wrangle over details of a $100 billion war spending bill -- including whether restrictions should be placed on troops sent to Iraq -- some members want to add significant money for agricultural relief, Hurricane Katrina reconstruction and other nonmilitary projects. Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.), who chairs the Agriculture Committee, said yesterday that rural states hit hard by floods, droughts and snowstorms in the...
A little pressure from the United States seems to have refocused Pakistan on their end of the war. Within days of the highest-level visit by the US in a long time, Pervez Musharraf's security forces captured a major Taliban figure -- in a city where Pakistan had insisted that al-Qaeda and the Taliban had no organization: The former Taliban defense minister was arrested in Pakistan on Monday, the day of Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit, two government officials said Thursday. He is the most important Taliban member to be captured since the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The man, Mullah Obaidullah, was a senior leader of the Afghan insurgency, which has battled American and NATO forces with increasing intensity over the last year. He is one of the inner core around Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader. The leadership is believed to operate from the relative safety of Quetta,...
It's not often I disagree with my friend John Podhoretz at The Corner, but today's post on John McCain and CPAC struck me as rather odd. In response to a post by Kathryn Jean Lopez that scolded McCain for skipping both NRI and CPAC, John said that McCain was right to stay away: If I were a McCain adviser, there's no way I would recommend he attend CPAC. The stakes are simply too high. It's a total sandbagging opportunity for people who want to derail him. The last thing he needs is a headline like "Conservatives boo McCain," and you know people attending CPAC know it and would love nothing more than to provide that headline. Anything less than a performance that wowed his enemies on the Right would only do him injury. I understand John's analysis, but all this does is confirm that McCain has no business running for...
The administration has had to fight for its policies on the war for the last several months, if not longer, a task that got tougher after the announcement of the surge in Baghdad and Anbar. The Republicans in the Senate, and to a lesser extent in the House, have had to battle the Democrats on a series of efforts to cripple the surge and defund the war, with varying degrees of unity. On that score, the White House seems determined to make itself clear on its direction: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has tapped Eliot A. Cohen, a prominent writer on national security strategy and an outspoken critic of the administration's postwar occupation of Iraq, as her counselor, State Department officials said yesterday. Cohen would replace Philip D. Zelikow, a longtime Rice associate who left the administration earlier this year to return to teaching history at the University of Virginia....
The Hillary Clinton campaign will have a few more questions to answer about her husband's tenure in office after MS-NBC reported this morning that his administration demanded the suppression of her senior thesis at Wellesley: "I got a call from someone at the White House — I don't remember who — shortly after the inauguration, saying the Clintons had decided not to release her thesis," professor Alan H. Schechter told MSNBC.com. "I said, 'Why? It's a good thesis.' I got some mumbo jumbo about how they were beginning to work on health care and she had criticized Sen. Moynihan in the thesis, and didn't want to alienate him.'" In fact, the thesis from 1969 contains not a negative word about Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic senator from New York, and Schechter allows that the real source of fear must have been the subject of the academic paper: Chicago radical organizer...
Normally, I'd be posting about visits here on Bloggers' Row as they occur, but they have been so overwhelming that it's been almost impossible to get the opportunity to actually write blogs. So far today, we've spoken with Newt Gingrich and Duncan Hunter, as well as news reporters from various networks. Newt came through first, and he drew quite a crowd -- the biggest entourage outside of Michelle Malkin. He spent about 20 minutes speaking with us on the same issues we covered in my earlier interview on CQ Radio. He looks very relaxed and confident, and with the number of people insisting on having their picture taken with him, it's not hard to understand why. When he announces late in the year, the other candidates had better be prepared for a bleed-away of a portion of their support. Duncan Hunter, who has already announced the official opening stages of...
Rudy Giuliani is speaking now at the CPAC conference, and he is drawing huge crowds -- not only in the Regency Ballroom where he is appearing, but also around every monitor in the exhibition hall. He's keeping the CPAC attendees riveted, and the place is otherwise as quiet as I've seen it since my early morning arrival. George Will introduced him to the CPAC audience by noting that only three Presidents have served as mayors previous to their national election: Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and Calvin Coolidge, the latter being the last President with whom Will completely agreed. Will noted that the mayoralty of New York City carries specific challenges, calling it "liberalism's laboratory" and a center for "learned dependency". He spoke about Giuliani's conservative instincts -- such as when he declared fatherhood the best social program, or raising taxes a "dumb, stupid, idiotic, and moronic idea". Will assured the...
Sam Brownback is just coming to the stage now, after we have just fixed our connectivity issues. Serendipity or coincidence? You make the call. I'll live-blog it either way ... 2:01 - Brownback pays homage to Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. Reagan spoke at CPAC on twelve occasions, and he will get a lot of references today. 2:02 - Now he's honoring people like Phyllis Schlafly, who are appearing at this year's CPAC. 2:03 - "I'm taking the yellow brick road to the White House." Er, that's kind of strange, isn't it? Yes, I know he's from Kansas ... 2:04 - First topic is the war on terror, which he says is a misnomer. He says we have to name our enemies -- the extremists who want to impose totalitarianism on the West. 2:06 - Kind of a strained transition to immigration and border enforcement. "A fence is not sufficient"...
Sam Brownback paid a visit to Blogger Row after his speech in the hall. NZ Bear and I interviewed him, with his sizable Brownies trailing behind him. It's noisy, and NZ had to tell them to keep the cheering down at one point, but he sounded better in this interview than I think he did in his speech. Take a listen to the podcast for yourself. UPDATE: CPAC named NZ Bear its Blogger of the Year! A great decision about a great blogger....
Mitt Romney is speaking now to the CPAC conference. I'm going to appear on Kevin McCullough's radio show in a few minutes and unable to watch all fo his remarks, thanks to a seriously delayed schedule for the speakers. He's talking about the necessity of conservatism, and how this country needs it more than ever. So far, it's an entertaining and engaging speech, and it's getting a similar reaction as Giuliani's in the hall. That's somewhat less surprising, since the Romney campaign has really pushed to get its activists all over the hall. If one had to guess the frontrunners in this race based on signage and stickers, Romney and Brownback would outstrip all others. Like Giuliani, he's talking about his application of conservative fiscal values in one of liberalism's laboratories. He just committed to holding non-defense discretionary spending to current levels after inflation, minus 1%. He says that will...
Governor Mitt Romney just paid a visit to Blogger Row, and a number of the CPAC bloggers got a chance to interview him on the fly. I've podcasted our portion of the interview, and you'll hear NZ Bear and Philip Klein from The American Spectator on this segment. Mitt comes across very well in person -- warm, funny, informed, and engaging. You'll catch some of that in this podcast, I think. I wanted to ask him if he would insist on a repeal of McCain-Feingold -- he came out in opposition to it in his speech -- but he had to move on before I could get the question out. One more note ... the Brownback crowd shows a lot of enthusiasm for their candidate, and that's great. However, his followers tried drowning him out with Brownback cheers when he was talking to some of the bloggers. These campaigns need...
March 3, 2007
Ann Coulter is speaking at the moment, and drawing a huge crowd -- with longer lines than those for the Rudy Giuliani. She's definitely one of the stars here at CPAC, and I listened to the audio stream for a bit while she opened her speech. I had to take a phone call, though, and I missed a critical, and infuriating, throw-away line. Michelle Malkin reports (from two chairs down): "I'd say something about John Edwards, but if you use the word 'faggot', you have to go to rehab." Yeah, that's just what CPAC needs -- an association with homophobia. Nice work, Ann. At some point, Republicans will need to get over their issues with homosexuality. Regardless of whether one believes it to be a choice or a hardwired response, it has little impact on anyone but the gay or lesbian person. We can argue that homosexuality doesn't require legal...
CQ readers have had plenty of moment-by-moment coverage of the Conservative Political Action Conference, but how has CPAC played to the national media? With the exception of the convergence of Republican presidential hopefuls, it has mostly flown under the national radar. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times mostly reported on the speeches from Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, and the absence of John McCain. The Gray Lady focuses almost entirely on the two GOP frontrunners, while using a picture of Sam Brownback: Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York are both Republican presidential candidates who have been voted into office by largely Democratic electorates. They both have a history of taking liberal positions on social issues. And both are viewed warily by conservative Republicans who are integral to the party’s presidential nominating process. Mr. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Mr....
The termination of seven US Attorneys resulted from a lack of performance to the priorities of the Bush administration and at least in one case was prompted by a complaint from a Republican Senator regarding that issue. Sources within the Department of Justice made clear that the political appointees fell out of favor when they did not meet the policy goals of the White House on immigrations and firearms, among other issues: The White House approved the firings of seven U.S. attorneys late last year after senior Justice Department officials identified the prosecutors they believed were not doing enough to carry out President Bush's policies on immigration, firearms and other issues, White House and Justice Department officials said yesterday. The list of prosecutors was assembled last fall, based largely on complaints from members of Congress, law enforcement officials and career Justice Department lawyers, administration officials said. One of the complaints...
The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line's John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I hit the airwaves for the second shift from 1-3 pm CT, and King Banaian and Michael Broadkorb have The Final Word from 3-5. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot, or on the station's Internet stream if you're outside of the broadcast area. I'm out of town at the CPAC conference, which I can also say about our governor, Tim Pawlenty. He'll be speaking at 2 pm ET, or 1 pm CT, when our show starts. Mitch will have to go it alone for the first hour, but I'll probably join him remotely for at least some of hour 2. I'll update...
We're just getting underway here, but the energy level seems to have dialed down. We're about to head into some of the headlining events this morning, but the exhibition hall has barely awoken: Blogger Row is pretty quiet, too. Some have already left, and the rest of us have spent most of the morning chatting over the events of yesterday. We're also working on strategies for the Victory Caucus and reviewing notes and photos for later posts. I've fixed my problems with my camera, so I will be posting more photos today and tomorrow from the entire conference. I'll have more later. I'm looking forward to Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich, and I'm trying to see if we can get Pawlenty here for an interview. Keep checking for updates!...
It remained rather quiet here until just a few moments ago, when Mike Stark showed up and tried to provoke an argument here on Bloggers Row. In case you didn't read about this on Hot Air, Stark showed up yesterday to get an autograph from Michelle Malkin and then started haranguing her about CPAC attendees not enlisting in the military. He videotaped the incident on his cell phone, and then Huffington Post for some reason gave him a forum to brag about his ohso-courageous intrusion on an event open to the public. He brought his weak-assed crap to me and started going into his schtick. I stopped him and told him to go back to Huffington Post. He looked taken aback to be greeted with nothing more than tired disgust, and said, "I thought we were peers." Uh, no, Mike, we're not peers. You're a provocateur and a self-involved assault...
The buzz here on the final day of CPAC doesn't have anything to do with policy, but with the dress code for Presidential candidates. Should they wear ties, or open-collar shirts with sport coats? Or, perhaps, a feather boa: Rudy Giuliani's liberal stance on abortion, guns and gays wasn't his biggest problem yesterday as he addressed a conference of conservative activists - it was his having dressed in drag. A whisper campaign targeting the front-running GOP White House contender's cross-dressing stunts at gala political dinners in New York and on "Saturday Night Live" was the hot topic among right-leaning activists. "A lot of people are talking about it. It's not respectable. They use it as a way to highlight all of his other shortcomings," Las Vegas conservative Bruce Feher told The Post. Giuliani, who addressed the key gathering yesterday, may top national GOP presidential polls, but conservatives already uneasy with...
CPAC continues to wind down, just before Tim Pawlenty takes the stage for his appearance at the conference. Exhibitors have started disassembling their booths, and the attendees have mostly left the exhibition hall. A couple of exceptions are Major Eric Egland and Muhammad Ali Hasan. Major Egland has been walking the hallways to publicize his effort to get the American public to support the war, in both the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters (here with Mary Katharine Ham): He's going to have a book published later this month, and will be attending the Eagle Summit on March 17th. Muhammad Ali Hasan represents Muslims for America, which supports many (but not all) of the conservative agenda. They're backing Newt Gingrich for President, and may be the only organization to endorse both George Bush and Keith Ellison. He introduced himself to all of us and presented an intriguing enough platform that I though...
Less than a day after Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot" at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the three leading Presidential candidates denounced Coulter for her insult: Three of the leading Republican presidential candidates on Saturday denounced one of their party’s best-known conservative commentators for using an antigay epithet when discussing a Democratic presidential contender at a gathering of conservatives here. The remarks by Ann Coulter, an author who regularly speaks at conservative events, were sharply denounced by the candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona, Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Their statements came after Democrats, gay rights groups and bloggers raised a storm of protest over the remarks. ... Of the major Republican candidates, only Mr. McCain did not attend, but he denounced her remarks on Saturday morning. “The comments were wildly inappropriate,” said his spokesman, Brian Jones. Mr. Giuliani said, “The comments...
March 4, 2007
In my pre-blog days, before CQ literally ate all my other hobbies, I studied the Irish language and had become a conversational speaker of an Gaeilge. Is Gaeilgeoirí mé, or at least I used to be, and there was a sense of mission in helping to keep a threatened language from dying altogether. Irish is only spoken by a million people altogether, and much fewer than that as an everyday language; for more information, Gaeltacht Minnesota's website is a great resource. The Catalan language is similarly threatened, in this case by Spanish. However, I don't think that the Irish would have approved the Catalonian approach to saving their, er, tongue: It is homage to Catalonia as never seen before. A Spanish pornographer has been given nearly £10,000 of public money to make a series of blue movies, promoting the Catalan language. Pro-separatist authorities in the Catalan region of north-east Spain...
The US and Iraqi armies began their sweep of Sadr City in force today, tackling the toughest nut of the new Baghdad surge strategy. First indications show that the Mahdi Army has melted away: Hundreds of U.S. soldiers entered the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Sunday in the first major push into the area since an American-led security sweep began last month around Baghdad. Soldiers conducted house-to-house searches, but met no resistance in a district firmly in the hands of the Madhi Army militia led by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Lt. Col. David Oclander. The move into Sadr City came following negotiations with political leaders in the neighborhood. Al-Sadr had withdrawn his militia under intense pressure from the government, but there were worries that a large-scale military push without political clearance could bring a backlash and jeopardize the entire security effort. "The indication that we are getting is...
The Iranians have a plan if the West attacks them over their nuclear program, and they will not restrict themselves to military action. The London Telegraph reports that the Iranians have sent sleeper cells throughout the Gulf states -- and elsewhere -- and will activate them for revenge terrorist attacks if attacked themselves: Iran has trained secret networks of agents across the Gulf states to attack Western interests and incite civil unrest in the event of a military strike against its nuclear programme, a former Iranian diplomat has told The Sunday Telegraph. Spies working as teachers, doctors and nurses at Iranian-owned schools and hospitals have formed sleeper cells ready to be "unleashed" at the first sign of any serious threat to Teheran, it is claimed. Trained by Iranian intelligence services, they are also said to be recruiting fellow Shias in the region, whose communities have traditionally been marginalised by the...
Several people e-mailed me the link to the report at ABC's The Blotter about a supposed attack on an al-Qaeda stronghold in Afghanistan over the last few days. The attack targeted an unnamed member of AQ leadership, and some speculated it might be Osama himself: For the past two days, U.S. and NATO forces have been conducting a major attack against a compound in a remote area of Eastern Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden or another senior al Qaeda leader may be hiding, ABC News has learned. According to eyewitnesses and local reporters in Kunar province, Coalition forces launched a fierce attack on a small enclave in the village of Mandaghel, approximately 17 miles from the border with Pakistan, on Friday afternoon. Warplanes pounded the positions ; U.S. special forces and Afghan National Army soldiers moved in shortly afterwards. The assault appeared to meet stiff resistance from militants at the...
Governor Mitt Romney won the straw poll results at the CPAC event, one of the last stories of the conference. He outstripped Rudy Giuliani and left John McCain in the dust, but CPAC attendees will understand the real story behind those numbers: Mitt Romney won the most support for the Republican presidential nomination in a straw poll of GOP activists attending an annual conference. Despite his record of inconsistency on some social issues, the former Massachusetts governor got 21 percent of the 1,705 votes cast by paid registrants to the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference. They were asked who their first choice would be for the Republican nomination. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor whose moderate stances on social issues irks the party's right wing, was second with 17 percent. Here are the full set of results from the poll: Romney – 21% Giuliani – 17% Brownback –...
I got back this afternoon from my CPAC adventure, tired out and glad to be home, but happy with the weekend's work. I'll be grateful for my own bed after the rather unpleasant stay I had at the Washington Plaza Hotel in DC. The place looks like a million bucks from the outside on Thomas Circle, but it looks like $1.50 on the inside. It has unique balconies that are shared for the entire floor, which means anyone can wander by your room. The balcony door only has a normal doorknob (the main room entrance is from the interior hallway), and mine fell off in my hand the first night I arrived. I asked twice the next morning for them to fix it, but when I got back to my room the next night, it was still broken. After listening to a bunch of foul-mouthed, loud lunatics on the balcony...
March 5, 2007
One of the eight federal prosecutors terminated in the last three months lost his job after a Republican Senator told the Department of Justice that his state needed a replacement. Pete Domenici admitted yesterday that he requested the change from the DoJ after a long period of frustration with the speed of prosecutions in New Mexico: Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, said Sunday that he had urged the Justice Department to dismiss the state’s top federal prosecutor, who in December was one of eight United States attorneys ousted from their jobs. In addition, Mr. Domenici said in a statement that last year he called the prosecutor, David C. Iglesias, to ask about the status of a federal inquiry in New Mexico. The case centered on accusations of kickbacks in a statehouse construction project in which a former Democratic state official was said to be involved. “I asked...
The Chinese plan their largest jump in military spening in five years, Beijing announced yesterday. They will increase spending by 18% in order to hasten the modernization of weapons and defense systems, and also set themselves up as potential arms suppliers. However, the large increase still leaves their defense budget far behind that of the US: China announced its biggest increase in defense spending in five years on Sunday, a development that quickly prompted the United States to renew its calls for more transparency from the Chinese military about the scope and intent of its continuing, rapid arms buildup. Jiang Enzhu, a spokesman for the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party-controlled national legislature, said China’s military budget would rise this year by 17.8 percent to roughly 350 billion yuan, or just under $45 billion. “We must increase our military budget, as it is important to national security,” Mr. Jiang said...
The Democratic win in last year's midterms gave more credibility to the anti-war wing of Congressional Democrats, who spent most of 2006 trying to get reporters to show up to press conferences, and mostly unsuccessfully. With the new majority, these members of the so-called Out of Iraq Caucus have received much more attention and regularly get their message into the mainstream. However, they have begun to discover that all of the seats they won in November came from districts that don't appreciate a cut-and-run policy: Now, with a change in power in Congress and a new military strategy to increase the number of American troops in Iraq, the members of the group — most of them liberals — are suddenly much in demand, finding themselves at the center of the debate over the war. Yet even with a majority of Americans opposing the war, the caucus is struggling to overcome...
The Mecca agreement between Hamas and Fatah supposedly gave the warring Palestinian factions a basis for a unity government, one that would satisfy Western concerns and allow for aid to resume to the Palestinian Authority. The latter certainly proved false when Hamas refused to allow the PA to recognize Israel and honor its past agreements with the West as the basis of that aid. Now it looks like it won't even produce the unity government it promised, as Hamas and Fatah have begun accusing each other of undermining the pact: Differences over the identity of Fatah and Hamas ministers in the coalition cabinet are threatening to torpedo the Mecca agreement, a top Abbas aide told The Jerusalem Post. He also said "some differences" had sparked disputes between the two parties over the interpretation of the Mecca agreement, particularly regarding the status of previous agreements with Israel and recognition of United...
The Pentagon has not discussed an alternate strategy for Iraq if the surge does not produce the desired results, the Washington Post reports. Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs chairman, parries such questions with the response that "Marines don't talk about failure," and that "Plan B is to make Plan A work": In the weeks since Bush announced the new plan for Iraq -- including an increase of 21,500 U.S. combat troops, additional reconstruction assistance and stepped-up pressure on the Iraqi government -- senior officials have rebuffed questions about other options in the event of failure. Eager to appear resolute and reluctant to provide fodder for skeptics, they have responded with a mix of optimism and evasion. Even if the administration is not talking about Plan B, the subject is on a lot of minds inside and outside the government. "I would be irresponsible if I weren't thinking about what the alternatives...
Note: This letter will appear simultaneously on a number of conservative blogs this morning. It has been scheduled in advance for that purpose. My personal remarks will appear below. Conservatism treats humans as they are, as moral creatures possessing rational minds and capable of discerning right from wrong. There comes a time when we must speak out in the defense of the conservative movement, and make a stand for political civility. This is one of those times. Ann Coulter used to serve the movement well. She was telegenic, intelligent, and witty. She was also fearless: saying provocative things to inspire deeper thought and cutting through the haze of competing information has its uses. But Coulter's fearlessness has become an addiction to shock value. She draws attention to herself, rather than placing the spotlight on conservative ideas. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2006, Coulter referred to Iranians as "ragheads."...
I wanted to write something about the degenerative effects of incivility in politics in the wake of the comments and commentary today. Instead, a CQ reader sent me a link to a speech three years ago by Heritage Foundation president Dr. Edwin J. Fuelner. In speaking to the graduating class of Hillsdale College on May 8, 2004, Dr. Fuelner warned the young men and women that our democracy depends on the healthy exchange of ideas and arguments -- and that incivility degrades the social compact on which that debate depends: This is the real danger of incivility. Our free, self-governing society requires an open exchange of ideas, which in turn requires a certain level of civility rooted in mutual respect for each other's opinions and viewpoints. What we see today I am afraid, is an accelerating competition between the left and the right to see which side can inflict the...
March 6, 2007
After over a year of supervising two of the most controversial programs adopted by the Bush administration after 9/11, a review panel has given both a clean bill of health on civil-rights protections. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board will announce next week that the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program and the Swift banking transaction monitoring operation contain enough checks and balances to ensure that Americans will not fall victim to their own government: A White House privacy board is giving its stamp of approval to two of the Bush administration's controversial surveillance programs — electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking — and says they do not violate citizens' civil liberties. ... After operating mostly in secret for a year, the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Board is preparing to release its first report to Congress next week. The report finds that both the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program and the...
It's no secret that the Bush surge strategy has a narrow political window to show success, and that the pressure mainly falls on the man who now commands the troops in Iraq. David Petraeus has carved out enough political support to get most of what he wants in the short term, and he has the fortitude to do whatever he feels necessary to win -- or to pull the plug: Petraeus's willingness to kick out against authority is the untold story of an otherwise orthodox career - and offers a clue to what may happen next in Iraq. He has surrounded himself in Baghdad with a team of officers described as "defence dissidents". His intellectual restlessness is typified by his now famous quizzing of an embedded reporter during the 2003 march on Baghdad. "Tell me how this ends," he repeatedly demanded. Now he has a chance to answer his own...
A disturbing trend towards a shorter average life span has begun to afflict a certain small group of people. They have no connection through ethnicity or environment per se, but instead have one very specific point in common -- all of them have criticized the government of Vladimir Putin. The latest mysterious death dropped onto the street from his fifth-floor flat in Moscow: A senior Russian journalist who embarrassed the country's military establishment with a series of exclusive stories has been found dead outside his flat in mysterious circumstances. The body of Ivan Safronov, 51-year-old defence correspondent for the newspaper Kommersant, was discovered on Friday. He apparently fell from a fifth-floor window. Although prosecutors say they suspect that Safranov committed suicide, his colleagues yesterday insisted that he had no reason to kill himself. They said he was the latest in a long line of Russian journalists to die in unexplained...
The Iranians seem to have misplaced one of their intelligence-service generals. Ali Reza Asgari, last seen in Turkey last month, has not phoned home for the last few weeks, and the Iranians blame the US for his disappearance: The mysterious disappearance of an Iranian general in Turkey in early February has led to speculation he either was kidnapped or defected. Iran has reportedly asked Interpol to investigate the general's disappearance. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by Iran's news agency today as saying that a foreign ministry official was currently in Turkey to investigate the disappearance and has asked the Turkish government "to inquire into the issue and give explanation on Asgari's whereabouts." One respected analyst with sources in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard says Gen. Ali Reza Asgari has defected and is now in a European country with his entire family, where he is cooperating with the U.S. Other...
The much-anticipated spring offensive by the Taliban just found itself eclipsed by the late-winter offensive of NATO. The West launched a large operation that aims to push the Taliban out of Helmand province, where the Taliban have scored their only success at regaining territory: NATO-led troops launched an offensive against Taliban militants Tuesday in a volatile southern Afghan province where hundreds of militant fighters have amassed. The operation, which will eventually involve 4,500 NATO troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers, was launched at the request of the Afghan government and will focus on the northern region of Helmand province, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. "Our first maneuver elements reached their positions at approximately 5 a.m. this morning," said Maj. Gen. Ton van Loon, ISAF's southern commander. Dubbed Operation Achilles, the offensive is NATO's largest-ever in the country. But it will involve only half the number of soldiers who fought in...
The Democrats in Congress have come up with yet another proposal to end the war in Iraq. After the non-binding resolution foundered and the John Murth slow-bleed plan blew up in their faces, the Democrats have hit on their latest strategy -- making President Bush certify troop readiness or allow him to waive the requirements: Senior House Democrats, seeking to placate members of their party from Republican-leaning districts, are pushing a plan that would place restrictions on President Bush's ability to wage the war in Iraq but would allow him to waive them if he publicly justifies his position. Under the proposal, Bush would also have to set a date to begin troop withdrawals if the Iraqi government fails to meet benchmarks aimed at stabilizing the country that the president laid out in January. The plan is an attempt to bridge the differences between anti-war Democrats, led by Rep. John...
The conversion of Europe to the multinational Euro currency appears to have created a black market in local currencies, at least in Germany. Carlos, Urstromtalers, Kann Wasses, and Nahgolds have pushed out the continental stanard in twenty-two areas of Germany as a form of barter, and thirty-one more may follow: The system works like this. Pietsch uses Urstromtaler to pay for her purchases at, say, the health food shop. Its owners then use the same bills to pay the local cheese-makers, who pass those same bills along to the carpenter who repaired their goat stable. The ideal scenario is that a closed loop develops, boosting the regional economy and preventing money from being drained from the area. Twenty-two such regional currencies are already in use in Germany, and 31 more are in preparation. They're called "Kann Was" ("Can Do"), "Nahgold" ("Near Gold"), "Carlo" or "Volmetaler" -- and their transactions are...
Rudy Giuliani appears to be all in for the 2008 Presidential campaign, and he's got the receipt to show it. Giuliani divested his lucrative investment-banking business for an undisclosed sum, widely seen as a necessary step to his candidacy: An Australian-based firm bought Giuliani Capital Advisors LLC for an undisclosed amount. A source close to the Republican candidate who spoke on condition of anonymity said the sale is intended to free Giuliani from distractions as he pursues the White House. "This enables him to sustain his intense focus on his candidacy," the source said. Others viewed the sale as Giuliani's first step away from the lucrative private-sector career he built during the years he spent outside the public spotlight. Eric Abrahamson, a Columbia Business School professor, said he thinks Giuliani will have little choice but to start building a higher wall between his campaign and his business activities. ... The...
I'm hospiblogging at the moment, as the First Mate has had problems today with her blood pressure, so I'm just catching up to the news that Scooter Libby got convicted on four of the five charges he faced in his trial: A federal jury today convicted I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of lying about his role in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, finding the vice president's former chief of staff guilty of two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice, while acquitting him of a single count of lying to the FBI. The verdict, reached by the 11 jurors on the 10th day of deliberations, culminated the seven-week trial of the highest-ranking White House official to be indicted on criminal charges in modern times. Under federal sentencing guidlines, Libby faces a probable prison term of 1 1/2 to three...
March 7, 2007
Talks with North Korea have begun on a positive note, chief negotiator Christopher Hill told the Los Angeles Times. During the 60-day preliminary period, Hill expects the Kim Jong-Il regime to make honest attempts to meet its obligations and to attempt to bridge the diplomatic divide. However, the tasks get increasingly more difficult as both sides progress through various stages, Hill warned, likening the process to a video game: American negotiator Christopher Hill said Tuesday that two days of talks with his counterpart from North Korea had been "very good" and that the plan to dismantle the country's nuclear program and normalize ties with the United States was "on the right track." Hill met with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan on Monday and Tuesday in New York to discuss the legal and political hurdles to establishing relations between their two countries, which have never made peace since...
John McCain wants to get rule changes passed in California that will allow independents to vote in the Republican presidential primaries in order to defend against Mitt Romney, the Washington Times reports today. The "stealth" campaign would benefit McCain, his campaign believes, belying his stance that McCain represents the true conservatives in the primary: Sen. John McCain's campaign is mounting a stealth effort to change Republican presidential nomination rules in California to allow independents to vote in the Feb. 5 primary, party and campaign officials in the state have told The Washington Times. The impact could be huge -- and potentially damaging to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, currently the most acceptable to traditional-values voters among the three top-tier Republican presidential candidates. "If California changes its delegate selection rules to allow independent voters to participate in the Republican primary, it would be very helpful for McCain and for Rudy Giuliani,...
Speaking of pardons, Al Kamen of the Washington Post has a contest to pick the date when Scooter Libby will get his from George Bush: U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton has set June 5 for sentencing. He has discretion to order Libby immediately to prison or let him stay out until his appeals are exhausted. So, assuming that Bush -- who could pardon immediately if he wanted -- won't allow Libby to spend time behind bars, he might need to act then. If not, the next likely pardon time would be when the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit announces its decision on Libby's appeal. That can take many months. The court recently has been averaging about 15 months from appeal to decision. By that schedule, it could rule on Libby's appeal in September 2008, right before the election. If Libby loses the appeal, Walton may decide then...
Analysts and Democrats waited only moments after the conviction of Scooter Libby before tying the case around the neck of Vice President Dick Cheney. Following Patrick Fitzgerald's comment in his summation that a "cloud" hovers over the Vice President, many claim that Libby's conviction means the end of Cheney's influence in American policy, and perhaps the start of a process that would end in his removal from office: With Tuesday’s verdict on Mr. Libby — guilty on four of five counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice — Mr. Cheney’s critics, and even some of his supporters, said the vice president had been diminished. “The trial has been death by 1,000 cuts for Cheney,” said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. “It’s hurt him inside the administration. It’s hurt him with the Congress, and it’s hurt his stature around the world because it has shown a lot of the inner workings...
Michael Yon has returned from his embed assignment in Iraq. Be sure to read his excellent report. Don't forget to hit the tip jar while you're there. Posting will be light today here at CQ today....
At the same time as the Ann Coulter dustup, Bill Maher came under criticism for saying on his HBO show that "more people would live" if radical Islamist terrorists had succeeded in killing Dick Cheney. Maher, who lost his last show by favorably comparing the relative courage of the 9/11 terrorists to American pilots in Yugoslavia, regularly makes outrageous statements like this, and predictably the same people who celebrated Cheney's blood clot found nothing wrong with his endorsement of vice-presidential assassinations. However, this time Maher has gone too far. Earlier today, I got a press release from Playboy (a press release I read only for the articles, I assure you) announcing the magazine's latest installment of their storied Playboy Interview. Maher was asked about Barack Obama, and he used the "a" word: On Barack Obama: “Barack Obama is exciting. Everyone says he’s a rock star, which is one of the...
A former Navy sailor and recent convert to Islam has been arrested for espionage, ABC News is reporting tonight. Paul Hall, now known as Hassan Abujihaad, sent information about Navy warships in the months following the attack on the USS Cole -- an attack that killed 17 of his former fellow sailors: A former U.S. Navy sailor has been charged with allegedly passing military secrets about U.S. Navy movements through waters in the Middle East to al Qaeda-related Web sites during the spring of 2001, just months after the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen. Hassan Abujihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, allegedly passed information about U.S. Navy warship movements in the Straits of Hormuz in April 2001 while he was a member of the Navy. The information passed along contained details about vulnerabilites of U.S. vessels -- including susceptibility to small boat attacks by terrorists. Abujihaad was arrested...
After the OJ Simpson jury's post-trial remarks, I honestly thought I'd never hear anything less intelligent from a juror. Apparently, I was wrong. After having voted to convict Scooter Libby on four felony counts, Ann Redington told Chris Matthews that she wants George Bush to pardon Libby and effectively reverse her decision: Saying “I don’t want him to go to jail,” a member of the jury that convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case called Wednesday for President Bush to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff. The woman, Ann Redington, said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that she cried when the verdicts against Libby were read Tuesday. She said Libby seemed to be “a really nice guy.” ... “He seemed like a ton of fun. ... I didn’t want to see him and his wife and say...
March 8, 2007
The Oil-for-Food Program continues to generate convictions against corrupt United Nations officials. The latest comes against Russian diplomat Vladimir Kuznetsov, who chaired a UN budget committee and used the procurement process to take in more that $300,000 in bribes: Kuznetsov helped Alexander Yakovlev, who worked in the UN's procurement office, pocket illegal payments from foreign companies seeking UN contracts. Yakovlev pleaded guilty in 2005 to soliciting more than $1m in bribes and co-operated with authorities. He testified against Kuznetsov. The procurement officer was the first UN official to face criminal charges over the scandal-hit oil-for-food programme to Iraq. Kuznetsov could get 30 years in prison for his corruption, although he will likely get much less. The sentencing has been scheduled for June, which gives him plenty of time to spend what's left of his bribe money on some character witnesses and sob stories. Kuznetsov first got entangled in the OFF...
The Guardian takes a poke at American immigration enforcement from across the pond, going weepy over the arrests of illegal aliens at a defense-industry manufacturer in Massachussetts. Included among over 300 people employed by Michael Bianco Inc were, shockingly, some mommies and daddies: About 100 children were left stranded at schools and day care centres after their parents were rounded up by federal authorities in a raid on a factory where hundreds of illegal immigrants worked to produce supplies for the US military. About two-thirds of the 500 employees working at leather maker Michael Bianco Inc in New Bedford, Massachusetts, were detained on Tuesday by immigration officials for possible deportation as illegal immigrants. Most of the employees were women and, as a result, many of their children were not picked up from school or day care that day. Corinn Williams, director of the Community Economic Development Centre of Southeastern Massachusetts,...
Perhaps it is too early to grant General David Petraeus rock-star status, but he has garnered some good press of late. USA Today reports on Petraeus' philosophy of war and its application in Baghdad, as well as early indications of success: Twenty years ago, David Petraeus, then a young Army officer, wrote a Ph.D. dissertation for Princeton University, saying many of the lessons U.S. military leaders learned from the Vietnam War were wrong. Generals had become hesitant to commit forces except when they could win conventional battles with superior American firepower. "The senior military have universally been more cautious since Vietnam," Petraeus wrote. That hesitancy posed a problem in Petraeus' view. The U.S. military was turning away from the very fight — insurgencies — that it would likely confront. The United States' enemies had also learned from Vietnam and would not want to confront U.S. military might head-on. Now the...
President Bush quashed speculation that he would issue an immediate pardon for Scooter Libby after his conviction for perjury and obstruction of justice. He told reporters yesterday that he will wait for Libby's legal options to be exhausted before he looks into a pardon: President Bush said yesterday that he is "pretty much going to stay out of" the case of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby until the legal process has run its course, deflecting pressure from supporters of the former White House aide to pardon him for perjury and obstruction of justice. Libby's allies said Bush should not wait for Libby to be sentenced, and should use his executive power to spare Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff the risk of prison time for lying to a grand jury and FBI agents about his role in leaking the name of an undercover CIA officer. But the prospect of a...
Iranian intelligence general and former Foreign Ministry official Ali Reza Asgari is among friends, the Washington Post reports, and enjoying the conversation. The Iranians had asked Turkey to help locate Asgari after he disappeared from there in February, but now US officials confirm that "Western intelligence agencies" have been meeting with Asgari and discussing Iran's ties to terrorism: A former Iranian deputy defense minister who once commanded the Revolutionary Guard has left his country and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran's ties to the organization, according to a senior U.S. official. Ali Rez Asgari disappeared last month during a visit to Turkey. Iranian officials suggested yesterday that he may have been kidnapped by Israel or the United States. The U.S. official said Asgari is willingly cooperating. He did not divulge Asgari's whereabouts or specify who is questioning him, but made clear that the information...
First we had the strikingly pale Bill Clinton proclaimed as America's First Black President by Toni Morrison as an odd reward for pandering to identity politics. Now, the New York Sun reports that the First Woman President may well have a Y chromosome, if John Edwards wins the White House: Toni Morrison famously dubbed President Clinton America's "first black president." With that barrier broken, the comments of a prominent feminist are provoking debate about who may lay a similar claim to the title of America's first woman president. The candidate being touted as a torchbearer for women is not Senator Clinton, but one of her former colleagues, John Edwards. At a rally near the University of California, Berkeley campus this week, a veteran of the abortion-rights movement, Kate Michelman, asked and answered the question she gets most frequently about her decision to back the male former senator from North Carolina....
One finds many colorful characters here in the Upper Midwest, especially when the heavy snows hit and people start getting a bit of cabin fever. The vast majority of intelligent, erudite Northerners will use that time to do constructive projects or perhaps participate in some creative work. The tiny minority of mouthbreathers attempt to sterilize themselves so that that minority continues to decline: Attempts to do a movie stunt landed one man in the hospital with burned genitals and another facing criminal charges. The men were trying to do a stunt from one of the "Jackass" movies, in which a character lights his genitals on fire. Jared W. Anderson, 20, suffered serious burns to his hands and genitals, according to the criminal complaint. Randell D. Peterson, 43, who sprayed lighter fluid on Anderson and lit him on fire, was charged with felony battery and first-degree reckless endangerment Tuesday in Eau...
I decided to do a little lunchtime blogging, and the first item I see is this Examiner column by Charles Hurt outlining the Democratic priorities on national security -- relaxing visa requirements to enter the US. Harry Reid took all of about six weeks after capturing the majority for the first time since the 9/11 attacks to demonstrate his party's understanding of security priorities, and a few Republicans appear to be supporting him, including George Bush: The Senate’s anti-terrorism bill would relax visa requirements for foreign travelers coming to the United States, a move that some worry will leave the country more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. “Nineteen murderers got into the U.S. because of lax scrutiny of their visas,” Rosemary Jenks of the nonpartisan Numbers USA said, referring to the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “Now the Senate wants to eliminate visas for millions more people.”...
The Democrats unveiled their latest version of Cut and Run, which will demand a total withdrawal from Iraq by no later than the fall of 2008 -- just in time for the Presidential election. The plan forces President Bush to certify that the Iraqi government has met a series of benchmark tests, and any failure will trigger an immediate and early withdrawal: House Democrats today unveiled a plan for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of August 2008, introducing legislation that attaches a complex series of conditions to military spending requested by President Bush. The plan, described in a Capitol Hill news conference by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, would require Bush to certify that the Iraqi government is meeting military, political and economic benchmarks. If he cannot, it would move up the U.S. withdrawal to as early as the end of this...
Tonight, CQ Radio will air at its normal time, between 9-10 pm CT, and we'll be talking about Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, pardons, appeals, and more. We'll also have Charles Hurt from the Washington Examiner on the show to discuss the expansion of the Visa Waiver Program. You can listen live at the above link, and even join in the conversation by calling 646-652-4889. We may have more to discuss between then and now, and I'll be keeping the agenda wide open in case any breaking stories catch our attention. Yesterday, Always On! ran an interesting article on Blog Talk Radio, and I'd be remiss if I didn't point it out: What sets BlogTalkRadio apart from similar services is its clever and easy-to-use implementation without needing any special equipment. The secret is that all audio input is via the telephone. Podcasters get a private dial-in number to the service,...
March 9, 2007
With the world focused on two potential nuclear proliferators and an ongoing Islamist terrorist threat, one might believe that nations with nuclear materials would take security a bit more seriously these days. Unfortunately, one would be wrong, at least in Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo arrested its nuclear chief after the government found 100 bars of enriched uranium missing from their stocks: The head of the Democratic Republic of Congo's dilapidated and poorly guarded nuclear reactor plant has been arrested on suspicion of illegally selling enriched uranium, following the disappearance of large quantities of the material. The commissioner general for atomic energy, Fortunat Lumu, was detained on Tuesday along with an aide. Congo's state prosecutor, Tshimanga Mukeba, said Mr Lumu was being questioned about the disappearance of unspecified quantities of uranium in recent years. Mr Mukeba said Mr Lumu was suspected of "orchestrating illicit contracts to produce and sell...
Senate Republicans have turned on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales after his explanations over the dismissals of eight US Attorneys failed to convince the Senators that Justice had good reasons for their termination. Normally staunch GOP defenders of the administration like Jon Kyl of Arizona scolded Gonzales yesterday in a hearing, and the White House has begun to retreat on interim replacement powers as a result: Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales agreed yesterday to change the way U.S. attorneys can be replaced, a reversal in administration policy that came after he was browbeaten by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee still angry over the controversial firings of eight federal prosecutors. Gonzales told Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and other senior members of the committee that the administration will no longer oppose legislation limiting the attorney general's power to appoint interim prosecutors. Gonzales also agreed to allow the committee to interview five...
One of the most effective strategies for defusing potentially damaging information is to have the person it damages release it early, before his opponents have the chance. It works equally well in litigation as well as in politics, if it gets out very early. Newt Gingrich knows this full well, and yesterday employed the strategy in dealing with a messy chapter in his own life: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, he acknowledged in an interview with a conservative Christian group. "The honest answer is yes," Gingrich, a potential 2008 Republican presidential candidate, said in an interview with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to be aired Friday, according to a transcript provided to The Associated Press. "There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards....
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational commander of the 9/11 attacks, gets a hearing to determine his status at Guantanamo Bay today. The US will review his case to determine whether he should remain in custody and face a military tribunal under the process approved by Congress last year: Hearings begin today at Guantanamo Bay for a group of 14 terrorist suspects including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged September 11 mastermind. No lawyers or reporters will be present at the hearings so the only account of the outcome will come from the US military. Also going on before the hearings panels include Abu Zubaydah, a senior aide to Osama bin Laden, and a man known simply as Hambali, who is alleged to have orchestrated the 2002 Bali bombings. ... The Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is organising the defence of hundreds of Guantanamo detainees including Khan, said it was "outrageous" that...
With the deal between Pervez Musharraf and the Waziris widely acknowledged as a problem for the US and NATO in Afghanistan, some forget that Pakistanis also suffer from its effects. The Los Angeles Times reports on the ascendancy of the extremists and terrorists in Pakistan since Musharraf signaled a retreat on his prosecution of the war on terror, and what that means for moderates opposed to jihadism: For weeks, there had been whispers that Akhtar Usmani, a young teacher at a Muslim religious school, was speaking out against the growing presence of Islamic militants in his home in the tribal area of Waziristan. Then one day last week, the schoolteacher's corpse, with the head severed from the torso, was found in a bloody sack dumped beside a desolate road. A note on his mutilated body called him a spy for America. Such grisly reprisal killings have become a recurring feature...
The US has sent CIA special operations units into Pakistan to hunt down fresh leads on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, the London Telegraph reports. The action comes just a few weeks after American officials presented Pervez Musharraf with evidence of AQ's growing presence in Waziristan and demanded action to destroy them: America is stepping up its hunt for Osama bin Laden by dispatching additional CIA operatives and paramilitary officers to Pakistan to kill or capture the al-Qa'eda leader. US officials said that the mission is intended to intensify the pressure on the terrorist leader, who turns 50 tomorrow, and perhaps force him into making a mistake. He is widely believed to be hiding in the region bordering Afghanistan. Satellite photographs and details of communications intercepts were given to President Musharraf of Pakistan last week by Stephen Kappes, deputy director of the CIA, as part...
... I will run for President in 2008: Nebraska's Chuck Hagel, the Senate Republican most outspoken in opposition to President Bush's March 2003 decision to invade Iraq, is expected to announce Monday that he will make a bid for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. ... The question on nearly every Republican's lips yesterday was whether Mr. Hagel can raise the $100 million-plus that campaign analysts say will be needed by the end of this year to be a serious 2008 nomination contender. Bwa-ha-ha! Stop it, you're killing me! Oh, wait ... he's serious? The big question isn't whether Hagel can raise $100 million for a credible campaign. The question is whether Hagel can beat Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo for last place. (via Power Line)...
Iraq and the US scored a big victory today when it rolled up the leadership of an al-Qaeda affiliated group in Iraq. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who has taunted Americans in press releases in the past, wound up in our custody after a series of raids: The shadowy leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida-inspired group that challenged the authority of Iraq's government, was captured Friday in a raid on the western outskirts of Baghdad, an Iraqi military spokesman said. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was arrested along with several other insurgents in a raid in the town of Abu Ghraib, said Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, spokesman for the Baghdad security operation. U.S. officials had no confirmation of the capture and said they were looking into the report. Al-Moussawi said al-Baghdadi admitted his identity, as did another "of the terrorists" who confirmed "that the one in our hands is al-Baghdadi." Hot...
The lead singer of Boston, one of the most talented bands of the 1970s, has died unexpectedly. Brad Delp, 55, died alone in his house, and police say no foul play is suspected: Brad Delp, the lead singer of the 1970s and '80s rock band Boston was found dead at his home in southern New Hampshire on Friday, local police said. Delp, 55, apparently was home alone and there was no indication of foul play, Atkinson, New Hampshire, police said. With Delp's big, high-register voice, Boston scored hits with "More Than a Feeling," "Long Time," and "Peace of Mind." Boston always took its sweet time in releasing new albums, but fans could not argue with the results. Any band that produced "More Than a Feeling" would have its place in rock history, but Boston had a string of well-written, evocative hits. Whether Boston tried love songs like "Amanda" or went...
March 10, 2007
The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line's John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I hit the airwaves for the second shift from 1-3 pm CT, and King Banaian and Michael Broadkorb have The Final Word from 3-5. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot, or on the station's Internet stream if you're outside of the broadcast area. As always, we will have plenty to discuss. It looks like the US and Iraqi forces may have started turning a corner in both Anbar and Baghdad, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed turned a corner, too -- right towards the military tribunals in Gitmo. It was Baggage Week for the Republican presidential contenders this week, with Mitt Romney being thankful...
The runors have flown for weeks that Hollywood celebrity and two-term Senator Fred Dalton Thompson might decide to run for President -- not on The West Wing but in the Republican primary. Yesterday, The Hill reported that the rumors may have more substance than first thought: Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) is contacting powerbrokers in the Republican Party to build support for a 2008 presidential campaign by his one-time protégé, former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.). Baker, who Wednesday made a visit to the Senate, was asked by several Republicans about his involvement on Thompson’s behalf. “He said, ‘I am making a few calls and I think it’s a great idea,’” said one Senate Republican who heard Baker discuss his efforts to advance Thompson’s prospects. One Republican who discussed a possible bid with Thompson described his interest and Baker’s queries as “a friendly exploration.” Baker is a close friend...
Hamas now says that they want to end the months-long kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. They have agreed in principle to release Schalit as part of the process towards a unity government in the Palestinian territories, with the staged release of "several hundred" Palestinian prisoners by Israel: The release of kidnapped IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit affair depends on the establishment of a unity government in the Palestinian Authority, Hamas faction head Halil Alhaya said Saturday. According to Israel Radio, the head of Hamas's armed wing, Abu Obaida, corroborated Alhaya's statement, but stressed that even if no agreement on Schalit's release was reached, it would not prevent the PA from setting up a unity government. Abu Obaida added that Hamas wanted an end to the Schalit affair, and said that Egyptian envoys had asked Hamas to move forward on negotiations in the next few days. ... According to defense officials,...
The focus of blame for the deplorable conditions of a portion of Walter Reed Army Medical Center has now fallen on the Army's decision to privatize its maintenance workforce. After the canning the Secretary of the Army and the commander in charge of Walter Reed, critics blame a contract with a KBR subsidiary -- and a sister of Halliburton -- for the poor state of the facility: The scandal over treatment of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has focused attention on the Army's decision to privatize the facilities support workforce at the hospital, a move commanders say left the building maintenance staff undermanned. Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned the decision to hire IAP Worldwide Services, a contractor with connections to the Bush administration and to KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary. Last year, IAP won a $120 million contract to maintain and operate Walter Reed facilities. The decision reversed a...
FBI Director Robert Mueller had to concede that his agents had broken the law in obtaining personal information from American citizens and residents. He took responsibility for the incidents in front of a hostile Senate committee that condemned the sloppiness at Justice: Bipartisan outrage erupted on Friday on Capitol Hill as Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, conceded that the bureau had improperly used the USA Patriot Act to obtain information about people and businesses. Mr. Mueller embraced responsibility for the lapses, detailed in a report by the inspector general of the Justice Department, and promised to do everything he could to avoid repeating them. But his apologies failed to defuse the anger of lawmakers in both parties. “How could this happen?” Mr. Mueller asked rhetorically in a briefing at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Who is to be held accountable? And the answer to that...
Dr. Helen notes that the magazine Cosmopolitan has broken a mild taboo -- talking about the detrimental effects of male bashing on relationships in general. They refeence it in terms of how it damages women, of course, but the magazine hits the problem head-on otherwise: The advice is good and direct, such as telling women to stop telling their dates they are not like the jerks they usually date. "You're actually broadcasting for the most part, you think dudes suck." To break the habit, the author suggests when your girlfriends start guy trashing, you change the subject. Or, "if a girlfriend says that guys never commit, ger her to see how silly it is to make such broad statements by making one about women, like, 'I know, and women start shopping for a wedding dress after the third date.'" Cosmo gives suggestions (but should you really need this advice after...
Do the Democrats really want to end the war, or only look like they want to end the war? Their bills say "retreat", but their words say "pose", as Kathryn Jean Lopez notes at The Corner: [Senator Carl] Levin described a relatively modest goal, sayin he would be comfortable if the resolution received at least 40 votes. He allowed that such a plan would backfire if the measure received several votes fewer than previous resolutions critical of Bush’s policy. Apparently, the entire point of these resolutions is to tally how badly they fail in the Senate. The new definition of victory - for the Democratic majority -- is to garner more than 40 votes. Now the Democrats want to define victory in Iraq as defeat, and defeat in the Senate as victory. And Democrats wonder why people don't trust them with national security?...
People kept insisting that we could solve all of our problems with Iran if we just started talking to each other. Newspapers around the world scolded us for not entering into direct talks, even though our last diplomatic contact with the Islamic Republic came when they sacked our embassy in Teheran and took our staff hostage for 444 days. Talk will bridge all gaps, critics insisted. They should be happy today. We've started talking: In their first direct talks since the Iraq war began, U.S. and Iranian envoys traded harsh words and blamed each other for the country's crisis Saturday at a one-day international conference that some hoped would help end their 27-year diplomatic freeze. ... During the talks, U.S. envoy David Satterfield pointed to his briefcase which he said contained documents proving Iran was arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq. "Your accusations are merely a cover for your failures...
Democratic actiivists have rejoiced this week in the cancellation of a presidential campaign debate in Nevada, arranged by the state party to air on Fox. They demanded that the candidates reject the debate even before Fox executive Roger Ailes made a controversial joke about Barack Obama, but the effort gained so much steam afterwards that all of the candidates acquiesced. Nevadans who had hoped to host an important party function are now outraged over the end of the event, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal has special derision for the activists who screeched with outrage over Fox's involvement: Hard-core liberals can't stand the Fox News Channel. Passing a television that's tuned to the conservative favorite forces many of them to close their eyes, cover their ears and scream, "La la la la la la la la la!" Then they dash to their computers and fire off 2,500 e-mails condemning the outlet,...
March 11, 2007
After eight years of dawdling and paper shuffling, the UN finally resolved to do something about Kosovo's status. It elected to keep dawdling and shuffling paper: A year of contentious talks on the future status of Kosovo ended Saturday in a bitter deadlock over a U.N. plan that would set the disputed Serbian province on the road to independence. Serbia's nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, warned of "the most dangerous precedent in the history of the U.N." if the Security Council -- which will have the final say -- approves the plan. Kostunica said the blueprint, which would grant Kosovo supervised statehood and elements of independence including its own army, flag, anthem and constitution, could encourage other independence-minded regions around the world to break away. Serbian President Boris Tadic said he found the idea of parting with the province "unbearable." Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999, when NATO...
The defection of Iranian intelligence officer Ali Reza Asgari did not represent a recent flip of a spy chief as first presumed. The Times of London reports that Asgari worked as a mole for years, passing information to the West, until he could get his family out of Iran and escape: AN Iranian general who defected to the West last month had been spying on Iran since 2003 when he was recruited on an overseas business trip, according to Iranian sources. This weekend Brigadier General Ali Reza Asgari, 63, the former deputy defence minister, is understood to be undergoing debriefing at a Nato base in Germany after he escaped from Iran, followed by his family. A daring getaway via Damascus was organised by western intelligence agencies after it became clear that his cover was about to be blown. Iran’s notorious secret service, the Vavak, is believed to have suspected that...
The Iranians, rich in oil but poor in refining capacity, has imposed a gasoline-rationing program and increased the prices for fuel as a result of its continuing economic collapse. The decline comes in part from increasingly effective international sanctions, but mostly result from the economic lunacy psuhed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to achieve Iranian self-sufficiency: Iranians are bracing themselves for a fresh round of belt tightening after their government voted to impose petrol rationing coupled with sharp rises in the price of fuel. The rationing system will limit Iranians to 22 gallons (100 litres) of petrol a month, two full tanks for a typical family car. It is a direct result of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's adherence to an economic model, based on Iranian self-sufficiency, that has caused housing and other living costs to soar. The basic price of petrol will rise by 25 per cent, but Iranians who need to use...
The Washington Post, among other news outlets, made a stink last week about the lack of a publicly-stated Plan B in the event the surge strategy failed to make a difference in Iraq. However, with preliminary indications showing success, Robert Kagan wonders whether journalists have a Plan B for themselves: Leading journalists have been reporting for some time that the war was hopeless, a fiasco that could not be salvaged by more troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy. The conventional wisdom in December held that sending more troops was politically impossible after the antiwar tenor of the midterm elections. It was practically impossible because the extra troops didn't exist. Even if the troops did exist, they could not make a difference. Four months later, the once insurmountable political opposition has been surmounted. The nonexistent troops are flowing into Iraq. And though it is still early and horrible acts of violence...
Newt Gingrich has reviled the extended primary season, calling it a jobs program for political consultants. Although widely expected to run for the presidency himself, he insists he will not make any announcements until autumn. Observers believe that this could be a brilliant strategy to allow the current front-runners to tire themselves out and jump into the race as a white knight just before the primaries. It seems that Gingrich may not be the only Republican thinking along those lines: WALLACE: There's been a lot of buzz, as we said, in Republican circles that there's no true conservative in the GOP presidential field. Now some top Republicans, including your friend former Tennessee senator Howard Baker, are putting out trial balloons about you possibly entering the race. Question: Are you considering running for president in 2008? THOMPSON: I'm giving some thought to it. Going to leave the door open. WALLACE: Well,...
March 12, 2007
It's a question that Ehud Olmert almost made moot last year, after an inartful public statement referred to Israel's nuclear capabilities, but one with even greater strategic implications now. Should Israel reveal its nuclear weapons capability and spell out the terms for its use -- namely, that a strike on Israel by Iran would get a response in kind? Some apparently believe that a Middle Eastern MAD scenario could cool Iranian ardor for their own nukes: Israel should pursue a strategy of "open nuclear deterrence" towards Iran if international attempts to curtail Teheran's nuclear ambitions fail, a London think tank argues in a report to be released Monday. Openly declaring its nuclear weapons stockpile and laying out the conditions of their use in the event of an Iranian attack is an option worth considering, a report published by the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) stated, "if it is...
Michael Bloomberg, New York Citry's billionaire mayor, will consider a run for the Presidency as an independent if he feels the two major-party nominees are too extreme, according to a key ally. His deputy mayor also keeps talking up an outsider bid, even though Bloomberg won the mayor's office as a Republican: Mayor Bloomberg is 80% likely to launch a bid for the White House if the two major candidates come from the "extreme wings" of their party, one of his first-term advisers said. The comment from a Columbia University professor, Ester Fuchs, keeps alive the notion that Mr. Bloomberg is mulling the possibility of entering the 2008 race even as the Democrats and Republicans who have already declared are traveling the country and campaigning. According to ABC News, which reported the comment on its Web site, Ms. Fuchs said it was "80% probable" that Mr. Bloomberg would run as...
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has begun taking fire from both Democrats and Republicans for the actions of the Department of Justice. While Senator Chuck Schumer called for his resignation yesterday over the firings of eight US Attorneys and the errors made by the FBI in domestic surveillance, Republican Congressman Thomas Davis accused Gonzales of stonewalling on dropped leak cases: The top Republican on the House's main investigative committee, Rep. Thomas Davis of Virginia, is charging the Justice Department with stonewalling his inquiries about the FBI's assertion that it closed several leak investigations because of a lack of cooperation on the part of other government officials. In January, Mr. Davis asked the Justice Department about a report in The New York Sun that at least three leak inquiries were shut down after officials at the "victim agency" ignored phone calls and canceled meetings with FBI agents assigned to the probes. The...
Robert Novak points out some inconsistencies in Hillary Clinton's proclaimed personal history on the campaign trail. The woman who famously claimed to have been named after Sir Edmund Hillary after his ascent to the top of Mount Everest -- which happened when she was eight years old -- has attempted another bit of revisionism, this time on civil rights. After her attempt last week in Selma to drawl out her teenage epiphany from listening to Martin Luther King in 1963, Novak notes that she supported one of King's opponents: While Hillary Rodham Clinton came out second best to Barack Obama in their oratorical duel at Selma, Ala., a week ago, the real problem with her speech concerned her claimed attachment to Martin Luther King Jr. as a high school student in 1963. How, then, could she have been a "Goldwater Girl" during the following year's presidential election? The incompatibility of...
CAIR will hold an event in a tony venue tomorrow in the DC area, a panel discussion on the effect of global attitudes towards Islam on American policy. The venue? A conference room in the Capitol building, courtesy of New Jersey Democrat Bill Pascrell. The organization got access to the room despite the history of CAIR leadership in support of terrorism: A House Democrat has arranged for a conference room in the Capitol building to be used tomorrow by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group criticized for its persistent refusal to disavow terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The District-based group also is singled out by other Democratic lawmakers and some law-enforcement officials because of financial ties to terrorists. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., New Jersey Democrat, reserved the basement conference room for CAIR's panel discussion Tuesday titled "Global Attitudes on Islam-West Relations: U.S. Policy Implications."...
The Los Angeles Times visits the bubbling controversy over Rudy Giuliani's judicial appointments to the municipal bench while mayor of New York City, an issue that has some conservatives concerned over his presidential aspirations. Giuliani has sworn to nominate strict constructionists to the federal appellate bench if elected President, but the Times finds four appointments -- out of 127 -- that fail to fit that mold. And Tom Hamburger and Adam Schreck manage to miss a critical fact about judicial appointments in their supposedly comprehensive look at Giuliani's appointments: Rudolph W. Giuliani, in an effort to temper his support for abortion rights and his other socially liberal stances, has been assuring conservatives that as president he would appoint "strict constructionists" to the federal bench, in the tradition of Supreme Court jurists Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and John G. Roberts Jr. But now, some prominent conservatives are...
Who would have guessed that of all the candidates in the Democratic presidential primary race, Dennis Kucinich would show the most testicular fortitude? The man who demands a Department of Peace and the establishment of "peace math", etc, called out his fellow Democrats for redeploying over the debate horizon after left-wing extremists demanded that they pull out of a debate televised by the Fox News Channel: “If you want to be the President of the United States, you can’t be afraid to deal with people with whom you disagree politically,” Kucinich said. “No one is further removed from Fox’s political philosophy than I am, but fear should not dictate decisions that affect hundreds of millions of Americans and billions of others around the world who are starving for real leadership.” Kucinich said “the public deserves honest, open, and fair public debate, and the media have a responsibility to demand that...
With the growing rumors of a Fred Dalton Thompson run at the GOP nomination for the 2008 presidential race, it was only a matter of time before he started lining up endorsements. The first appears to be Bill Frist, his Tennessee colleague and friend, who announced on his blog that he wants to see Thompson jump into the race: I believe Fred Thompson should run for President. I've not talked with Fred personally about a potential run, so I am basing my thoughts simply on knowing him well, having worked with him in policy and politics everyday for 8 years, and knowing the people across America want a genuine leader who represents them. Fred understands real people and they understand him. He understands the legislative process and has a strong bipartisan appeal, though he is a real conservative. He has the experience of government service with a real appreciation for...
One of the few highlights of the 2006 election came in the form of renewed discussion of the corrosive power of pork-barrel spending. Both parties, despite having long histories of pork production, promised to champion earmark reform and new sunlight on appropriation processes in Congress. The Democrats won the majorities in both chambers, and those of us who demanded earmark reform hoped that we might finally see progress. Unfortunately, we see cloudiness on a Sunshine Week, as Mark Tapscott pointed out today: When I heard last week from Hill sources that the White House congressional liason staff was pressuring OMB Director Rob Portman to not release all of the earmarks requested by Members of Congress to executive agencies under the FY2005 budget, I called the OMB press office. When I asked for a copy of the earmark database and copies of all correspondence between OMB and executive branch officials and...
March 13, 2007
For decades, Albert Speer insisted that he knew nothing of the planning of the Holocaust. He escaped the hangman's noose at Nuremberg in a convincing performance of contrition, and survived his 20-year sentence to achieve respectability as the example of a good German caught up in madness, bereft of insight during the reign of the most calculatingly brutal regime in history. While his contrition might have been real, his cover story apparently was a lie. A letter written by Speer in 1971 makes clear that Speer had explicit knowledge of the plans for the extermination of the Jews of Europe: A newly discovered letter by Adolf Hitler's architect and armaments minister Albert Speer offers proof that he knew about the plans to exterminate the Jews, despite his repeated claims to the contrary. Writing in 1971 to Hélène Jeanty, the widow of a Belgian resistance leader, Speer admitted that he had...
Remember last week, when the Pentagon's failure to publicly discuss its Plan B to the surge indicated a lack of due diligence by military planners? At the time, we said that if the DoD was foolish enough to discuss other contingency plans openly, the media would cast that as a lack of confidence in the surge plan. Bingo: The Pentagon is actively considering a series of fallback positions for Iraq in the event that President George Bush's plan of expanding the US military presence fails. Among the options are adoption of the El Salvador model, which would see Washington withdraw most of its 150,000-plus troops and replace them with a few hundred, or few thousand, military advisers. A more drastic option also being looked at is to retreat inside Baghdad's Green Zone and the heavily fortified airport on the outskirts of the city. ... An adviser familiar with discussions inside...
The Washington Post excoriates the Democratic leadership for exploiting the appropriations process on war funding to pander for votes in a scorching editorial this morning. Calling Cut and Run/Slow Bleed 3.0 nothing more than a "trick" meant to impose an impossible timeline on a troop withdrawal, the Post blasts the Democrats for thinking about nothing more than their electoral prospects in 2008: The Democratic proposal doesn't attempt to answer the question of why August 2008 is the right moment for the Iraqi government to lose all support from U.S. combat units. It doesn't hint at what might happen if American forces were to leave at the end of this year -- a development that would be triggered by the Iraqi government's weakness. It doesn't explain how continued U.S. interests in Iraq, which holds the world's second-largest oil reserves and a substantial cadre of al-Qaeda militants, would be protected after 2008;...
I didn't blog about this yesterday, probably because (a) I was laughing too hard, and (b) how does one write about a non-event? Dana Milbank does a pretty good job answering the latter in his look at Chuck Hagel's much-ballyhooed press conference yesterday, when the nation's news organizations met to see the Senator show why he isn't qualified for an executive position: The 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a giant in the field of logic. The 21st-century philosopher Chuck Hagel? Not so much. The Republican senator from Nebraska, flirting with a 2008 presidential run, scheduled "an announcement on my political future" for yesterday morning in Omaha. Media types flew in from across the country. The state's governor and attorney general, along with 15 television cameras, crowded the room. Cable networks carried the event live while pundits went wild: Would Hagel jump into the race? Run for reelection?...
The start of the process that eventually saw seven US Attorneys fired last December (and another earlier) began with Harriet Miers, the White House counsel who had briefly been a Supreme Court nominee, according to the Washington Post. Unhappy with a lack of progress in fighting voter fraud, Miers requested through aides that Alberto Gonzales fire all 93 prosecutors at once after the 2004 elections, a move the Attorney General considered too disruptive: The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today. The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in October that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations, according to a White House...
The new counterinsurgency strategies of David Petraeus have shown remarkable initial success. USA Today reports that the US and Iraqi forces now employing the Baghdad security plan have captured thousands of insurgents as well as large numbers of Mahdi Army militia members -- and Moqtada al-Sadr has yet to poke his head above ground: Coalition forces have detained about 700 members of the Mahdi Army, the largest Shiite militia in Baghdad, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Monday. The militia, which is loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and has clashed with U.S. troops in the past, has mostly avoided a direct confrontation with American and Iraqi government forces, Gen. David Petraeus said in an interview with USA TODAY. Some of the militia's top leaders have left the capital, and Iraqi government officials are negotiating with al-Sadr's political organization in an effort to disband the militia, Petraeus said. "I...
Hillary Clinton has returned to her "vast right-wing conspiracy" theme, a development that will keep Beth blogging for at least another four years. She used her favorite bogeyman on the campaign trail this morning while speaking with municipal officials in New York City: Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told Democrats Tuesday the "vast, right-wing conspiracy" is back, using a phrase she once coined to describe partisan criticism. Speaking to Democratic municipal officials, the New York senator used the term to hammer Republicans on election irregularities. ... On Tuesday, she asserted the conspiracy is alive and well, and cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and a third was convicted. "To the New Hampshire Democratic party's credit, they sued and the trail led all the way to the Republican National Committee," Clinton...
Due to some acute complications in the First Mate's medical condition, I'm at home today, as I was yesterday. She has less than three weeks before her transplant, but her kidney failure has reached a critical level where it has become inadvisable to leave her alone for more than a few minutes at a time. We're trying to find people who can stay with her while I'm at work, and we have coverage arranged for everything but this week. I'm hoping to resolve that today, so that my very accommodating employer can start getting some work out of me. Since I have some down time, I figured I'd try hosting a Blog Talk Radio show today at 1 pm ET to discuss the stories of the day. Just as on Thursday evenings, simply call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation. The show gets streamed live to the Internet, and is almost...
Rasmussen has conducted another poll for the 2008 Senate race in Minnesota, and to no one's great surprise, Norm Coleman still handily beats Al Franken. Following a month after a local poll showed Coleman far outstripping the comedian, the gap has narrowed, but not because Franken has gained any support (via Memeorandum): Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman (R) knows he is high on the Democrats’ wish list this cycle and the first Rasmussen Reports Senate poll for Election 2008 shows the incumbent starting off below the 50% level of support. A survey of 500 Likely Voters finds Coleman leading Al Franken (D) 46% to 36% with 10% saying they’d vote for a third party option. Generally speaking, incumbents who poll below 50% are considered potentially vulnerable. Coleman is a freshman Senator who won his seat in 2002 by just two percentage points. Coleman replaced Paul Wellstone (D) in the Senate. Wellstone...
March 14, 2007
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has fallen into a tough spot, either through his ignorance or by his own machinations. Gonzales testified to Congress that the White House had no involvement in the firings of eight US Attorneys, but a series of memos and e-mails show that his aide planned the terminations with senior White House staff: Emails between White House aides and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff show an orchestrated effort to fire several U.S. attorneys, counter to Mr. Gonzales's previous assertions that the firings weren't instigated by the White House. The emails released yesterday appear to conflict with statements Mr. Gonzales and other top Justice Department officials made to members of Congress in testimony and letters explaining the prosecutor dismissals. Some lawmakers and former Justice Department officials say Mr. Gonzales, a longtime friend of President Bush who previously served as White House counsel, seems to be acting...
The agreement reached between Pervez Musharraf and the tribal leaders of Waziristan appeared to allow the Pakistani leader to back away from the war on terror. Unfortunately, Islamist terrorists don't have the habit of respecting boundaries, and now they have begun to use their new autonomy for attacks in Pakistan rather than Afghanistan: Along the Afghan border, not far from this northwestern city, Islamic militants have used a firm foothold over the past year to train and dispatch suicide bombers against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. But in recent weeks the suicide bombers have turned on Pakistan itself, carrying out six attacks and killing 35 people. Militant leaders have threatened to unleash scores more, in effect opening a new front in their war. Diplomats and concerned residents see the bombings as proof of a spreading “Talibanization,” as Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, calls it, which has seeped into more...
Democrats promised in the midterm elections to immediately implement the remaining recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which they claimed the Republicans ignored. Yesterday, the Senate passed the bill Democrats introduced to meet that obligation, even though it missed one key provision and added unionization for Homeland Security workers, which the Commission never included in its recommendations: The Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation yesterday to implement many of the remaining reforms suggested by the Sept. 11 commission, answering its three-year-old call for better emergency communications; more money for cities at high risk of terrorist attacks; and tighter security for air cargo, ports, chemical plants and rail systems. In a sign of how far the politics of homeland security have shifted since the Democrats seized Congress, senators voted 60 to 38 -- with 10 Republicans and no Democrats crossing ranks -- to force a fresh national security confrontation with President Bush, who has...
The Minnesota legislature will debate a proposal to require sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses and Internet chat identities, a move under consideration in several other states. Proponents claim that it will make it easier for prosecutors to link the offenders to these profiles when they need to charge them with future sex crimes: Sex offenders already have to tell Minnesota authorities where they live, work, attend school and vacation. Soon they might also have to provide their e-mail addresses. With children playing on the Internet as much as in the neighborhood park, lawmakers here and in at least 13 other states want to protect them from predators. They're considering bills that would make sex offenders register e-mail, instant-messaging and other addresses used to communicate on Web sites. A similar bill has been introduced in Congress. A Minnesota House panel approved the proposal Tuesday after narrowly rejecting an attempt...
With the recent remarks of General Peter Pace regarding homosexuality still reverberating through the national media, former Republican Senator Alan Simpson weighs in on the ban on gays serving in the military. One of the original supporters for the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, Simpson has changed his mind: As a lifelong Republican who served in the Army in Germany, I believe it is critical that we review -- and overturn -- the ban on gay service in the military. I voted for "don't ask, don't tell." But much has changed since 1993. My thinking shifted when I read that the military was firing translators because they are gay. According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 300 language experts have been fired under "don't ask, don't tell," including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. This when even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently acknowledged the nation's "foreign...
Who can take tomorrow, dip it in a dream? The candy man, baby: The commander of U.S. troops in Iraq wanted some sweets, and nothing was going to stop him. Not even the fact that he was tramping through a neighborhood that only days ago had been teeming with snipers and Al Qaeda fighters who would love nothing better than to say they just shot Gen. David H. Petraeus. With soldiers casting anxious glances along the desolate dirt road, the four-star Army general made a beeline for a tiny shop and helped himself to a bite-sized, honey-coated pastry proffered by the owner. Oblivious to the flies buzzing around his head, Petraeus chatted briefly with a man who said his cafe had been damaged in recent battles between U.S. forces and insurgents. Then, after promising compensation for the cafe owner, Petraeus hiked on. "Tell him the next time I come back...
The New York Times runs a remarkable article today on the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), painting the group as a victim of bigotry and anti-Islamist fear. Neil MacFarquhar uses the latest controversy over Democratic Congressman Bill Pascrell's arrangement for the use of a House conference room by CAIR to cast criticism of the group as wholly unfounded: With violence across the Middle East fixing Islam smack at the center of the American political debate, an organization partly financed by donors closely identified with wealthy Persian Gulf governments has emerged as the most vocal advocate for American Muslims — and an object of wide suspicion. The group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, defines its mission as spreading the understanding of Islam and protecting civil liberties. Its officers appear frequently on television and are often quoted in newspapers, and its director has met with President Bush. Some 500,000 people receive the...
Today I received Hugh Hewitt's new book, A Mormon in the White House?, his new campaign biography of Mitt Romney. Hugh structured the book by discussing "10 things every American should know about Mitt Romney," which is also the subtitle of the book itself. It's not the normal authorized campaign biography, which should come as no surprise for anyone who knows Hugh and reads his books. Mormon talks about Mitt's involvement in the marriage debate in Massachussetts, his lack of military service, the evolution of his stance on abortion -- and of course, Romney's religion. It should make for a great read, and be sure to get your copy ASAP. It should also serve as an excellent reference guide for the upcoming primary fight....
The military tribunal of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed turned into a brag-fest, as the captured terrorist took credit for almost every attack al-Qaeda has attempted. His admitted work goes back to 1993 and the first attack on the World Trade Center, and extends to planning assassination attempts against world leaders from Pope John Paul II to Jimmy Carter (via Hot Air): Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a string of others during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon. "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement that was read during the session, which was held last Saturday. Mohammed claimed responsibility for planning, financing and training others for attacks ranging from the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center to the attempt by...
The Democratic plan to lose the war in Iraq has been transcribed by NZ Bear at The Victory Caucus. NZ also has a link to a PDF scan of the document, but the gist of the bill is captured in his transcription. The heart of its unconstitionality can be found in Sections 1902 and 1903: Sec. 1902 (a) Congress finds that it is Defense Department policy that Army, Army Reserve and National Guard units should not be deployed for combat beyond 365 days or that Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve units should not be deployed for combat beyond 210 days. Congress may also find that the executive branch sets that policy and its parameters for implementation. The Constitution gives Congress no authority to either deploy troops or to undeploy them, only to give the executive the authority to conduct war and the power of the purse to end it....
March 15, 2007
The main powers at the UN Security Council have agreed on increased sanctions against Iran for its intransigence on nuclear proliferation. The five permanent members and Germany will vote to expand the penalties that already has Iran's economy near a free-fall, a move that could destabilize Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Ambassadors from six world powers reached agreement in principle on a proposed new package of sanctions against Iran and expect to introduce a resolution to the UN Security Council on Thursday if their governments give a green light, the US ambassador said. Approval by the governments of the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany would be an important first step. The package would still need to be considered by the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council who are elected for two-year terms and have not been part of the negotiations. Nonetheless, an agreement by the five veto-wielding permanent...
... or perhaps a better title for this post could be, "Vegetarian Pork To Fight Radical Islamists". The Democratic leadership in Congress has had to add some farm subsidies to the supplemental for our troops in Iraq in order to convince their caucus to support them. Which crops will get the subsidies? See if you can finish this lyric -- "I'm strong to the finish, 'cause I eats me --": This just in from Congressman Jon Porter (R-NV): The US Congress is preparing to vote on legislation to provide additional funding for our troops in Iraq. In order to persuade many of their colleagues to vote for the measure, the Democrats have loaded the supplemental with language to provide resources for unrelated projects including aid to salmon fishermen, dairy subsidies and $25 million for spinach producers. Nice. Setting aside the facts that a) agricultural subsidies suck monkey bums and...
Responding to Turkey's complaints about PKK involvement in Kurdish guerilla attacks, the US has quietly pressured the Iraqi government and the Kurdish sector in Iraq to throttle support for the terrorist group. The issue threatened to bring Turkish troops streaming across the Iraqi border in retaliation for attacks and destabilizing the one portion of Iraq that has rebuilt itself: The United States is dealing with Turkish complaints about Kurdish separatists operating in northern Iraq and has not ruled out military action against the rebels, the U.S. official assigned to handle the problem says. Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, a special envoy tasked with countering the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, said Wednesday in an Associated Press interview that U.S. pressure has resulted in moves against the group's operations by Iraqi and European authorities. Turkish officials repeatedly have accused the United States of insufficient efforts to prevent attacks into...
Apparently, Tom DeLay has some small amount of bitterness over his change in fortunes. According to Robert Novak, DeLay will blast Newt Gingrich as morally flawed, ineffective, and dishonest when DeLay's book hits the shelves next week -- setting back Gingrich's presumed plans to run for President: Newt Gingrich's attempted phoenix-like rise from his own political ashes to a presidential candidacy will run next week into a harsh assessment by his former House Republican colleague Tom DeLay. The former majority leader's forthcoming memoir assails Gingrich as an "ineffective" House speaker with a flawed moral compass. Gingrich is not the only erstwhile political ally to feel DeLay's wrath. In "No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight," DeLay is even more critical of his predecessor as majority leader, Dick Armey, and assails George W. Bush as being more compassionate than conservative. Even the man DeLay handpicked to succeed Gingrich as speaker, J....
Hillary Clinton made an astonishing statement on her policy for Iraq if elected President, in an interview with the New York Times yesterday. She refused to commit to total withdrawal from Iraq, saying that she would keep American troops in Anbar to fight terrorists, a stance that will not endear her to the anti-war Left in her party. At the same time, she said she would refuse to send troops back into Baghdad, even if a genocide took place: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced but significant military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military. In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office, Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain in Iraq...
The White House has threatened to veto the new Democratic bill to limit his options in Iraq, which would double the number of vetoes in the Bush administration. No one expects the measure to pass in Congress, but the President wants to leave no doubt about its fate if it does: In the face of determined opposition from the Bush administration, the Senate on Wednesday began an impassioned debate over an exit strategy from Iraq, headed toward a vote on a Democratic resolution aimed at a pullout of American combat troops in 2008. Underscoring the mounting tensions between the Democratic Congress and the White House, administration officials immediately issued a veto threat, even though the measure is considered unlikely to win final passage. The administration’s statement denounced the Democratic plan in forceful terms, declaring that it would “embolden our enemies” and “hobble American commanders in the field.” In the House,...
A report by The Scotsman on the shock experienced by American troops on their first forays into Sadr City reveal an opportunity that we can seize to push the militias aside. Basic services such as sewage and trash removal do not exist, and although the residents of the slums have so far given the American surge a chance, success will depend on replacing those services provided by the militias: In a capital where public services barely function and five straight hours of electricity is a cause for celebration, Sadr City stands out. Some 2.5 million people, nearly all of them Shiites, live in the northeastern Baghdad community. Many of them lack running water and proper sewerage. Hundreds of thousands have no jobs and subsist on monthly food rations, a throwback to the international sanctions of the Saddam Hussein era. Streets in some parts of Sadr City run black with sludge....
Senate Republicans turned back an effort by Harry Reid to set a fixed withdrawal date for US troops in Iraq. Reid lost by a thin margin, 50-48, as three Democrats defected to the opposition for this measure: Democrats aggressively challenged President Bush's Iraq policy at both ends of the Capitol on Thursday, gaining House committee approval for a troop withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008, but suffering defeat in the Senate on a less sweeping plan to end U.S. participation in the war. In the Senate, after weeks of skirmishing, Republicans easily turned back Democratic legislation requiring a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days. The measure set no fixed deadline for completion of the redeployment, but set a goal of March 31, 2008. The vote was 50-48 against the measure, 12 short of the 60 needed for passage. Senate Democrats promptly said they would try again to force a...
CQ Radio will be back on the air tonight, at its regularly scheduled time, 9 pm CT. Tonight we'll be discussing the latest version of Cut and Run and its progress through Congress, as well as the rare veto threat coming from the White House. We'll also talk about Hillary Clinton's interview with the New York Times, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession at his military tribunal, the controversy over the firings of eight US Attorneys, and much more. We'll be talking with Colonel Austin Bay, noted author and military expert, about the new Democratic plan and Hillary Clinton's latest bombshell on her Iraq strategy. NZ Bear from the Victory Caucus will also join us. In the second half of the show, California prosecutor Patterico will join me to discuss the terminations of the eight federal prosecutors. Don't miss this opportunity to join in the debate! You can listen live at...
March 16, 2007
US and Iraqi generals pointed to sharp declines in both attacks and deaths in the month since the new Baghdad security strategy has been implemented as a sign of its success. Civilian deaths declined by 80%, and 2,000 displaced families have returned to their homes: Iraqi and US generals have hailed a fall in insurgent attacks as proof that the Baghdad “surge” plan is begining to show results one month into the operation. Yet despite an apparent fall in the number of kidnappings and murders, the scourge of car bombs and roadside bombs has not abated and most officers caution that the crucial bench-mark will be Baghdad’s death toll in the coming months. General Qasim al-Mussawi, spokesman for the Iraqi operation, said that the number of civilians killed in the past month had fallen to 265, compared with 1,440 from mid-January to mid-February. But there was no way to verify...
With new memos fueling the fire over the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors and a botched job of explaining them to Congress, the Bush administration needs some professional assistance in cleaning up the mess. Recognizing this, the White House has reached out to one of the GOP's best political consultants to start negotiating behind the scenes with Congress to smooth the tension over Alberto Gonzales' poor handling of the issue: It was hardly a social call when Fred F. Fielding, the new White House counsel, turned up Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill. He had come to negotiate with Democrats, who are investigating whether politics played a role in the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors and demanding testimony from Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush. But Mr. Fielding’s real task is even bigger and more delicate: to serve as the point man for the White House as it...
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's declaration of involvement in dozens of al-Qaeda attacks, actual and planned, comes as no surprise to those who have followed his career. The London Telegraph paints a picture of a man who joined the jihad for fun rather than faith, and whose life is filled with examples of excess: In contrast to most of al-Qa'eda's senior leaders, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed liked to indulge in the sins of the Western civilisation that his movement is devoted to wiping out. In the mid-1990s, while plotting the hijacking and bombing of a dozen US airliners and, to a lesser extent, the assassination of Pope John Paul II, he frequented nightclubs and pole-dancing bars in Manila with some regularity. In Kuala Lumpur he reportedly buzzed a high-rise building in a helicopter where one of his numerous girlfriends was staying, ringing her from the cockpit and telling her to look out of...
A court in Mosul, staffed by anonymous judges who operate courts that exclude Westerners as observers, has set an example for an independent judiciary in Iraq. Carefully guided by American military advisors but only after the adjudication of cases, the tribunal has established itself as a clean and impartial standard by which other courts can pattern themselves: Last year, the criminal justice system here had nearly ground to a halt. Intimidated judges were refusing to hear trials. Some judges were allowing suspected insurgents to go free. Then American advisers in this northern Iraqi city made a proposal: The Iraqis should bring in judges from Baghdad who would serve anonymously. And local officials and the chief judge in Baghdad agreed. Now U.S. military officers and State Department officials here tout the Mosul program as a major success and a model for the rest of the country. But the Americans also acknowledge...
China has passed its first law explicitly protecting the right to private property, a major departure from six decades of varying degrees of Communist rule. The move comes as a two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance, as its passage came along with onerous press restrictions on the law itself: After more than a quarter-century of market-oriented economic policies and record-setting growth, China on Friday enacted its first law to protect private property explicitly. The measure, which was delayed a year ago amid vocal opposition from resurgent socialist intellectuals and old-line, left-leaning members of the ruling Communist Party, is viewed by its supporters as building a new and more secure legal foundation for private entrepreneurs and the country’s urban middle-class home and car owners. But delays in pushing it through the Communist Party’s generally pliant legislative arm, the National People’s Congress, and a ban on news media discussion of the proposal, raise questions about...
Hamas and Fatah have formally created the unity government that has eluded them ever since Hamas unexpectedly won a majority of seats in the Palestianian Authority parliament. Palestinians hope that the new government will achieve two goals -- to end the civil war that has bubbled below the surface, and to restore the Western aid that keeps the PA afloat. It has not succeeded in the second: The Hamas-led Palestinian government, boycotted by the West since its election more than a year ago because of Hamas’s support of terrorism, announced Thursday a unity coalition with the more moderate Fatah movement in hopes of ending the boycott. But the political document guiding the new government does not fulfill the international community’s three demands — to recognize Israel, forswear violence and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements — and Israel announced that it would therefore not deal with the new government or any of...
Has Kent State defended a history professor with ties to the Klan and a website calling for the murder of African-Americans? Mike Adams, a conservative college professor who defends free-speech rights for conservatives on college campuses, takes Kent State to task for continuing to employ a professor who allegedly ran a Klan website called Kill The Negroes: Kent State University now has another problem on its hands. A member of the Ku Klux Klan who just recently was found operating a hate website has now been identified as a history professor at Kent State. The site has been closed but the controversy still looms because of some comments the professor has posted on blogs under the name “Lover of Anglos” while using his Kent State email address. ... And, finally, here is what a Kent State spokesperson had to say about Piner: “Julius Piner was not actually linked to the...
Just a little over three and a half years ago, I began this blog as a creative writing outlet and a chance to hone my skills. When I launched Captain's Quarters, I had no idea how it would grow, that it would attract this wonderful community of readers and commenters across the political spectrum, or that it would change my life. Today, with the support of family and friends, I made the transition from hobbyist to full-time worker in the New Media. I have accepted a position as Political Director of Blog Talk Radio, an exciting new venture known to the CQ community but one which I hope to help expand exponentially. It's a chance to work full time in the field which I have grown to love, and an opportunity to help others literally discover their voices. Why Blog Talk Radio? After weeks of interaction with the owners and...
March 17, 2007
Peggy Noonan writes about the widespread impulse to act politically out of personal loyalty rather than agreement on policy on the part of American voters. In today's Wall Street Journal (subscription only), she decries the superficiality of brand loyalty, but interestingly, she doesn't extend that past candidates and campaigns. She recounts speaking with a friend who told Noonan that he supported Hillary because he had known her for years, and he was a "loyal person": I was puzzled. You're loyal. So what? You have a virtue, good. But that doesn't mean the person you're loyal to should be my president. That's not enough. And I said this, in a more polite and less concise way. Which made him defensive. "You should talk," he said. "You were loyal to Reagan." "No, I wasn't," I said. "I agreed with him." I didn't know Reagan when I went to work with him; I...
The explanations keep shifting on the firing of eight federal prosecutors, creating a sustained firestorm out of what should have been a nine-day wonder. Karl Rove may now have to testify before a Senate committee to answer questions about the genesis of the plan to cull out those US Attorneys the administration felt did not support their policies: “The first rule of damage control is get to the bottom of it, figure out what the worst is, conduct an internal investigation, collect all the evidence and then dump it out in one fell swoop,” said David R. Gergen, who has advised presidents of both parties. “Instead, they have made the mistake in this prosecutor story of apparently not knowing themselves what they had.” Indeed, the administration’s changing explanations for the dismissals seem to be at the heart of the current clash, which both Republicans and Democrats say could cost Attorney...
Fred Dalton Thompson's flirtation with a presidential run has conservatives hopeful for a white knight in a field of compromise candidates in the GOP. The man whose career has spanned both Washington and Hollywood, and who has championed both conservatism and clean government, has a resumé that would make for compelling political theater. However, one issue in particular dogs every mention of his potential, and that is his support for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or McCain-Feingold -- the main reason conservatives distrust John McCain and have not supported his own presidential campaign. That may be changing. John Fund interviewed Thompson for the Wall Street Journal, and Thompson acknowledged the futility of the BCRA's approach: On issues, he addresses head-on the major complaints conservatives have about his record. He was largely stymied in his 1997 investigation of both Clinton-Gore and GOP campaign fund-raising abuses: Key witnesses declined to testify or...
You know it's Saint Patrick's Day in the Twin Cities when green makes its way onto the breakfast table: It tasted pretty much like a normal bagel, but somehow my Irish eyes were smiling the entire time ......
Moqtada al-Sadr has played his hole card in his high-stakes game against the US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad. Sadr skipped town as the Coalition gathered its strength for the new surge stratgey to secure Baghdad, taking a powder east to Iran to consult with his sponsors. His whereabouts still unknown, he ended his silence by issuing a statement to fuel an anti-American rally in Sadr City: Residents of the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City on Friday showed signs of growing resentment toward the presence of U.S. troops in the area, chanting "No occupation!" and "No America!" in a march demanding the removal of a U.S. base there. The protest came as U.S. military officials cited Sadr City, stronghold of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr, as a success story in a month-old effort to improve security in Baghdad. It also coincided with an announcement that the Pentagon is speeding up the...
The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line's John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I hit the airwaves for the second shift from 1-3 pm CT, and King Banaian and Michael Broadkorb have The Final Word from 3-5. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot, or on the station's Internet stream if you're outside of the broadcast area. It's Saint Patrick's Day, and we'll have a bit of the Irish (music) for today's show. In between the craic, we'll talk about the stories of the week, including the latest in Democratic attempts to do everything to lose the war except the one option open to them, the apparent progress being made in Iraq, Hillary Clinton's shifting positions...
In preparation for the job change, I decided to get a spare laptop to use in case my main computer goes down. I bought the Sony Vaio PCG-7M1L last summer at Best Buy, along with the 3-year, drop-in-in-the-ocean-and-we'll-replace-it warranty, so a failure would get repaired for free. However, it would also be gone for up to 3 weeks if that happened, and that would mean 3 weeks of using my old, slow desktop -- not a good option, especially if I have to go on the road for Blog Talk Radio. I went back to Best Buy and looked for an inexpensive yet serviceable laptop. I had originally looked at the Gateway MT6828 system on their website, as Best Buy had it on sale from $899 to $749. Unfortunately, the store and the site were out of stock, and instead I decided on the Gateway MT3705. Only $599, it had...
March 18, 2007
Americans have heard for decades about our reputation as travelers abroad -- encapsulated by the monicker, "the ugly American". The term, which actually came from a more complex novel than the name implies, now gets used to describe American foreign policy, especially regarding the war in Iraq. John McCain told the Sunday Telegraph that he wants to change how our allies and enemies abroad view us: John McCain, formerly the leading Republican presidential contender, has told The Sunday Telegraph that restoring America's sullied reputation abroad will be "a top priority" if he wins the White House. The Arizona senator, an Iraq war hawk, was talking aboard the revived Straight Talk Express - the vehicle that made his name during the 2000 presidential election and that he hopes will revive his faltering fortunes this time round. The bus ferried the senator, his aides, and journalists, to a series of public meetings...
The Times of London conducted a major poll of Iraqis to determine their state of mind a month after the beginning of the surge, and it finds the Iraqis rather optimistic. Four hundred pollsters went door to door to speak to over 5,000 Iraqi adults, and found that almost a majority of them preferred life now under the democracy of Nouri al-Maliki rather than the oppression of Saddam Hussein: The poll highlights the impact the sectarian violence has had. Some 26% of Iraqis - 15% of Sunnis and 34% of Shi’ites - have suffered the murder of a family member. Kidnapping has also played a terrifying role: 14% have had a relative, friend or colleague abducted, rising to 33% in Baghdad. Yet 49% of those questioned preferred life under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, to living under Saddam. Only 26% said things had been better in Saddam’s era, while 16%...
All customer-service professionals share at least one common experience: the apology. The ability to execute an apology makes or breaks careers. If it comes out too rote and lacking empathy, it will serve to enrage the customer. If a representative makes too many of them or gives away too much as penance, their employer will not trust them to look after the company's interests. As someone who has spent almost two decades in customer service management, I can tell you from long experience that this one aspect of customer service may be the most critical piece of customer retention. Mistakes will be made -- how companies react to them is what customers value most. With that in mind, it makes sense that apologies would become their own industry. Not surprisingly, it has started with the industry that probably has the greatest need for professional apologizers: Airlines are getting serious about...
At the start of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, France sent word through secret channels that it would support Israel in the war if Ehud Olmert attacked Syria and deposed Bashar Assad. Chirac wanted Israel to attack the root of the problem in Lebanon and eliminate Hezbollah's lines of support (via Michael Ledeen at The Corner): French President Jacques Chirac told Israel at the start of the war in Lebanon that France would support an Israeli assault on Syria, it was reported on Sunday. Army Radio reported that in the message, which was delivered by Chirac to Israel via a secret channel, the French president suggested that Israel invade Damascus and topple the regime of Bashar Assad. In exchange, Chirac assured Israel full French support for the war. ... "Former prime minister Ariel Sharon had explained to the French in the past that Iran is the main one responsible...
Joel Mowbray, the syndicated columnist whose writing occasionally appears at Power Line (and who I met at CPAC), has an article in today's OpinionJournal that reports on how an American-financed Arabic television channel has started broadcasting jihadist content. Al-Hurra, which started off as an Arabic equivalent to Voice of America, has shifted its perspective towards Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah rather than the moderation we expected: Fighting to create a secular democracy in Iraq, parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi had come to rely on at least one TV network to help further freedom: U.S. taxpayer-financed Al-Hurra. Now, however, he's concerned. The broadcaster he had seen as a stalwart ally has done an about-face. "Until now, we were so happy with Al-Hurra. It was taking stands against corruption, for human rights, and for peace. But not anymore." Stories that he believes cry out for further investigation, such as recent arrests of those accused of...
After the release of the transcript from the Guantanamo tribunal of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, many people expressed skepticism about his claims of involvement in so many terrorist plots. Some even postulated that Mohammed had fallen prey to American torture, even though he denied acting under duress during the hearing, or that he had gone insane during his American detention. However, the one Western journalist to have interviewed the al-Qaeda mastermind believes that Mohammed understands he has come to the end of his run as a terrorist, and now wants to establish a record of his legacy as a reaction to his current impotence: He lived for this spotlight, the chance to say: “Look at this spectacular operation I pulled off against the most powerful nation on earth.” But he is not a fantasist. KSM is a guy who enjoys plotting and being in the field. He could be the head...
Michelle Malkin has a great round-up on the Gathering of Eagles counterprotest yesterday in Washington, DC: It was a breath-taking, historic, and emotional day in Washington, D.C. You won't know it if you tune in to the usual MSM channels. But new media--bloggers, conservative documentarians, Internet activists, FReepers (giant thread here), citizen journalists, photojournalists, and talk radio hosts--turned out in full force to participate and cover the Gathering of Eagles counter-protest. Thousands upon thousands turned out despite freezing temperatures and hairy travel conditions. We met bikers who drove up all night from Huntsville, Alabama; a retired NYC firefighter who arrived here at 2am; college students who traveled from Massachusetts; a Vietnam veteran's wife who bought plane tickets at the last minute from San Francisco; and countless participants who arrived as part of Move America Forward's cross-country caravan. A pure, grass-roots effort, the Gathering of Eagles' volunteers matched the massive Soros-funded...