Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

One of the undying memes of this election cycle has been the supposedly Trojan-horse Democratic campaign for John Kerry, which is designed to lose so that Hillary Clinton can run in 2008 without running against an incumbent in either party. Such a notion is ludicrous, not the least because neither national party would consider passing up a chance for the White House. No doubt, though, Senator Clinton would normally make a formidable opponent in any national campaign, especially with all of the energy she brings to her public life, and her husband's legendary motivation:

On second thought, perhaps she's just too tired to run for national office. I doubt this picture of her and her husband at Reagan's funeral will convince too many centrists to support her. (via Michelle Malkin's new blog and Power Line)

Northern Alliance Radio Network Logo Contest!

We've finally boiled down the many outstanding submissions for our new Northern Alliance logo to six finalists! We'd like your feedback on the finalists -- your votes will count along with our own to determine the selection of our new logo. Make sure you get your votes in before Friday, June 18!

No Means No, Even For Senators (Sometimes)

John Kerry continues to embarrass himself by making passes at John McCain, fellow Senator and Vietnam veterran, trying through intermediaries to seduce him into joining the Democratic ticket as a VP choice. The AP reports this afternoon that McCain has now categorically told Kerry that he won't consider running on Kerry's ticket, no matter how much the Democrats beg:

Republican Sen. John McCain has personally rejected John Kerry's overtures to join the Democratic presidential ticket and forge a bipartisan alliance against President Bush, The Associated Press has learned.

Kerry has asked McCain as recently as late last month to consider becoming his running mate, but the Arizona senator said he's not interested, said a Democratic official who spoke on condition of anonymity because Kerry has insisted that his deliberations be kept private. A second official familiar with the conversations confirmed the account, and said the Arizona senator made it clear he won't change his mind.

We're now entering the third month that speculation surrounding McCain has overshadowed all of the other potential Democratic veep choices. Major news organizations continue polling on the proposed ticket, showing that Kerry gains fourteen or so points when paired with McCain. Why should that surprise anyone? Pair Bush up with McCain and I suspect he gains about the same amount. McCain remains popular with the centrists because he represents them more closely. All this demonstrates is that Kerry would do better to select a well-known and admired centrist for his VP nominee. Too bad he can't find one from his own party, which is the definite message all of this McCain promotion from prominent Democrats like Bob Kerrey sends.

And then the AP discovers humor:

Both officials said Kerry stopped short of offering McCain the job, sparing himself an outright rejection that would make his eventual running mate look like a second choice.

If anyone doesn't think all this eye-batting from the Democrats and all of the categorical refusals from McCain over the past three months doesn't already give the impression of "outright rejection", then either they never dated much or they've been asleep since the Super Tuesday primaries. The Democrats should never have talked about this idea publicly, especially for attribution, without getting some sort of indication that McCain would consider the proposal. Not only will the eventual VP nominee obviously be a second choice, the Democrats have made sure that everyone understands that anyone but McCain will be a liability.

Don't the Democrats have any grown-ups in the Kerry campaign?

UPDATE, 6/12: Apparently the spin machine at the Washington Post has been working overtime on this story. Jim VandeHei and Dan Balz make the ridiculous argument that all of this foreplay on Kerry's behalf actually helps the campaign:

It could be advantageous for Kerry to make known his interest, aware that McCain would turn it down, strategists say. Hailing from one of the most liberal states in the nation, Kerry has spent the general-election campaign trying to position himself as a centrist who is strong on national defense and a hawk on deficits, two positions the Bush campaign has repeatedly challenged. Kerry frequently mentions McCain in his stump speech, as a way of putting a bipartisan stamp on his work, and has included images of the two men together in his television ads.

It is unclear how seriously Kerry has considered a unity ticket. Aides described Kerry as intrigued but not committed to the idea, even if McCain were seriously interested, which he has made clear he is not.

Chasing after McCain doesn't make Kerry more centrist; it only gives him superficial veneer of centrism, which in its way provides the perfect encapsulation of Kerry's politics. He has spent the last year running away from his lengthy record as a highly liberal, anti-defense politician who suddenly wants to claim otherwise by making a few stump speeches. Unfortunately, Kerry's record speaks for itself, and will no matter how many times the Post or the New York Times mentions the personal friendship between Kerry and McCain, and that's getting to be a weekly installment at both papers.

Any possible political advantage that Kerry might get from this public courtship and rejection would immediately be overtaken by the knowledge that whoever ends up at the bottom of Kerry's ticket is a consolation prize. Not only does that damage the campaign, but the tacit acknowledgement that only a Republican can provide credibility on defense and national security simply confirms everything that the Republicans have been saying throughout the entire election cycle.

I guess I wonder now if the Post has any grown-ups on the political desk, either.

Michael Soussan: UNSCAM "Deal With The Devil"

Today's London Telegraph runs a fascinating interview with Michael Soussan, a Dane and the former coordinator for the UN Oil For Food program. Soussan recently testified before Congress regarding the scandal and made clear that the rampant fraud found at the end of the war had been well-known during most of the program's operation (thanks to CQ reader Diana Sebben, a British ex-pat living in Texas):

During his years at the United Nations, monitoring sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf war, critics called Michael Soussan a baby killer. One said the oil-for-food programme administered by the UN amounted to "overseeing genocide". To Mr Soussan's dismay, the most vocal critics worked alongside him at the UN. The genocide charge was levelled by an assistant secretary general in charge of humanitarian work in Iraq.

His colleagues blamed the Security Council - especially the United States and Britain - for the suffering of Iraqis, ignoring evidence that Saddam was stealing food from his own people's mouths.

They could hardly ignore the wickedness of Saddam's regime. Foreign UN staff could sense the terror in Iraqis they met, and saw for themselves the gilded excesses of the Ba'athist elite. But somehow that wickedness was taken as a given, then promptly smothered in a warm soup of moral relativism.

Moral relativism at the UN? I'm shocked! Why would anyone think that an organization composed primarily of autocracies and dictatorships would discount the evils of Saddam Hussein in order to line their pockets with Iraqi oil wealth? I agre with Soussan, but really, blaming moral relativism almost lets the crooks off the hook. It ony provides a cheap philosophical excuse for the money-grubbing actions taken by people in power at the UN and elsewhere to feed at Saddam's trough.

If you doubt that the kickbacks motivated silence, read on:

UN staff did not speak out when Saddam refused to buy high protein foods recommended by UN experts, or spent oil-for-food millions on sports stadiums, or broadcasting equipment for his propaganda machine.

The UN turned a blind eye to signs that Saddam was bribing cronies at home and abroad with black market oil vouchers, and was skimming billions from funds meant for food and medicine, demanding secret, 10 per cent "kickbacks" on humanitarian contracts.

The UN recently claimed it "learned of the 10 per cent kickback scheme only after the end of major combat operations" in 2003.

A lie, said Mr Soussan, recalling the hapless Swedish company that called in 2000, seeking UN help after being asked to pay kickbacks. The Swedes' plea was quickly lost in red tape and inter-office turf wars. After a "Kafka-esque" flurry of internal memos, the Swedes were told to complain to their own government.

Soussan says that UN workers, eager for high-powered careers at the UN or back in their home countries, needed to maintain good terms with "key countries" on the Security Council in order to achieve those aspirations. The Telegraph notes that France, Russia, and China all opposed sanctions anyway, and implies that their reluctance to enforce them may have led the OFF staff to allow the program to run wild. Soussan makes it clear that the UN knew full well about the fraud and corruption on both sides of UNSCAM. Read the entire article.

Perhaps The Gray Lady Will Be Reincarnated As Compost

You really have to hand it to the New York Times -- they have a talent for bias that other newspapers only hope to achieve. Whether a reporter writes about sports, the weather, or certainly this week the obituaries, the Times will find a way to editorialize about the election or the war. Today's example can be found in an otherwise innocuous article about a reincarnated Buddhist saint who currently serves on a mission in Russia at the Dalai Lama's behest.

While interviewing Erdne Ombadykow, believed to be the latest reincarnation of Telo Rinpoche, about his efforts to restore Buddhism in the predominantly Mongol enclave of Kalmykia, the Times managed to sneak this into the story above the jump (on the web site):

"We are all reincarnations," said Mr. Ombadykow, who has been Mr. Ombadykow for 32 years.

"As I see it, every human being and every animal is a reincarnation," he said. "If George Bush dies - with so many good things in this life - when he dies you would want to bring him back so he can make peace through the whole world."

Then, tangled in his own logic and with Iraq in mind, he laughed. "Of course, that won't happen," he said.

Ha ha! There's nothing like a defrocked Buddhist monk to use for passing moral judgements on Presidents, I tell you. I give this effort an eight. It doesn't quite reach the pinnacle of Gray Lady bias, which came when a story about how the Army reached out to Iraqi youth by providing soccer equipment wound up buried in the Sports section. So far, the Times has refrained from inserting its editorial bias into its Food and Classified sections, but perhaps an alert CQ reader might find something I've missed.

Al-Sadr Blinks?

Moqtada al-Sadr surprised followers and opponents alike today when he used his Friday sermon to endorse the American plan to hand sovereignty to the Iraqi interim government:

Radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has reportedly backed for the first time US moves to gradually hand powers over to an interim Iraqi government. The change of heart came in a sermon at Friday prayers in the town of Kufa, two weeks after the government was formed.

Mr Sadr, a firebrand whose militia has fought US forces since March, called for a new start and an end to conflict, according to witnesses. ... Mr Sadr called upon the interim government to work to end the occupation according to a timetable set by Iraqi officials, reported a correspondent for Voice of Mujahidin radio present at the sermon.

Mr Sadr added that the formation of the government was a good opportunity to bury past differences and "forge ahead toward the building of a unified Iraq".

Even Sadr's conciliatory speech couldn't suspend the fighting near the holy shrines, but it demonstrates that Sadr finally realizes that the nature of his conflict has changed. When he began his armed insurgency, he decided that the Americans would not give up the occupation on their own. Now that the Iraqis have formed a government without him but with the qualified support of his biggest rival, Ali al-Sistani, Sadr knows he missed the boat. Unfortunately, he's lost hundreds if not thousands of his followers in conducting what appears to be little more than suicide missions against a vastly superior force, meaning that he has lost almost all credibility with Iraqis outside the al-Mehdi "army".

Sadr now wants to get what he can before all opportunity to rise to leadership disappears in the new Iraq. While that ship has already sailed, the Iraqis would be wise to jolly him along until his militias get out of the shrines. Perhaps they could still merge into Iraqi security forces, but somehow I doubt that al-Sistani nor the new Iraqi government would feel terribly secure with them around.

First Mate Update -- Back To School?

Today the First Mate and I went to Transplant School -- two hours of instruction on medications, aftercare, and follow-up. Since this is our second transplant, most of the information we already knew, but it was very helpful to have it presented to us in a coherent manner. The UM transplant program insists on a much more organized approach for transplant patients; we're expected to keep log books of lab results, and so on. The First Mate, long acquainted with both my organizational skills as well as my legendary capacity for procrastination, kept shooting cynical looks at me during the classes.

If I had feelings, they'd be hurt.

The U does have another great feature, though. One of the big headaches of a transplant is keeping up with the myriad prescriptions necessary to stay healthy. Transplant patients have to take anti-rejection medication for life in order to keep the organs functioning, and in the first few months, the dosages get jockeyed around a lot. Needless to say, this plays hell with insurance carriers, who wind up rejecting refills for being too early or for improper dosages, etc. The Transplant Center has its own pharmacy, though, and they take over all the refill efforts for you, as long as your insurance has them on their list, which mine does. The pharmacist came over to the hospital this afternoon to pitch their services and brought the FM some free goodies, including a digital blood pressure meter and a digital thermometer, just for signing up. (They had me at 'hello'.) They'll coordinate with the doctors and nurses and automatically send us refills when needed.

The FM, meanwhile, is anxious to get the hell out of Dodge. It turns out she may be released tomorrow, which seems a bit early to me, but not a moment too soon for her. She has had great experiences with the staff there (with one exception, but that's life), but I could tell from the moment I got there today that she's had enough. The higher doses of Prednisone has caused her some weight gain, which should fall off quickly once the Prednisone goes away, but in the meantime she's understandably uncomfortable. Laying in bed away from home with no privacy and strangers poking you day and night doesn't help, either.

Better still, her kidney output is now free of blood and still going strong, almost unbelievably so. Her creatinine is now 1.5, which I think is the same as yesterday, but they expect it to drop even more. The incision is healing nicely, and her energy has returned to some extent, although the stairs at the house may be a bit too much for her for the next couple of days.

I'll update you as we go along ... but it's all looking good for now!

Nick Coleman Eulogizes ... Corporate Logos

I normally don't read Nick Coleman, either for elucidation or for unintentional humor, until I see him get fisked by the guys at Fraters Libertas, especially St. Paul's terrific pieces. However, for some reason, I decided to take a look at Coleman's piece today, entitled "It'll always be Dayton's to us." Unbelievably, the man of the little people spent his column space shedding tears for the demise of a corporate image!

We're still not over Dayton's.

Dayton's dropped its century-old name in 2001, switching to Marshall Field's after parent company Target Corp. bought Chicago-based Field's. The new owner, May Department Stores Co., says it'll keep the Marshall Field's name, but who cares?

It's still Dayton's to us.

See, this is the problem with people who want to imbue business concerns with all sorts of emotional baggage. They never understand that business has little to do with emotions; they either succeed or fail to meet customer expectations. In fact, in any other context, Coleman likely would rail against the meat-grinder of corporate greed and unfettered capitalism that Dayton's would represent to Coleman and his audience. After all, the hundred-year history of Dayton's propelled the family to a fabulous fortune (borne on the backs of their workers, right, Nick?) and floated the scion of the empire to the US Senate.

So why is Dayton's preferable to Marshall Fields, or (heaven forbid) May Co.? Because it started in Minnesota rather than Chicago or St. Louis, which Coleman describes graciously as a place "where bales of muskrat pelts still sit on the docks," while mourning the loss of the Dayton's logo as "classy".

Obviously, that Dayton's classiness never rubbed off on Coleman.

However, Coleman reaches a nadir of rhetoric when he compares the rebranding of a too-damn-expensive-for-the-common-man department store to the loss of picturesque wilderness. No, unfortunately, I'm not joking:

I feel like I did when I used to go fishing with a friend named Howard, who was 50 years older than me. Howard liked to tell me about all the great hunting and fishing that existed when he was young. The giant flocks of geese and ducks, the huge stringers of fish and bulging creels of trout.

He was talking of a vanished world, one I would never know. Someday, we can tell young whippersnappers about Dayton's. It is gone, with the wind [emph mine].

[strike up Tara's Theme] RHETT COLEMAN: Frankly, my dear, I give way too much of a damn.

But why does Coleman have such a jones for the Dayton name and bitterness for the brand that replaced it, Marshall Fields? It turns out that their collection department has improved its efficiency, much to Coleman's chagrin:

I have had a Dayton's/Marshall Field's credit card for 30 years. There were times I owed more than I made in a month. And times I was a month or two late with my payments. But "Dayton's" always waited patiently for me. Until last month.

Last month, I was late with a $32 payment, in part because my wife was unsuccessful in returning a jacket I had purchased. It still had the tags attached, but she would have had to undergo DNA testing to be allowed to return it for me. She gave up.

The next week, every night, I got a phone call during dinnertime demanding my $32.

No wonder Nick has such a problem with Marshall Fields! Bring back Dayton's, where business decisions like carrying debt for customers who paid late fits Coleman's style. It may also explain why management, and the logo, changed.

Putin: I Scoff At Your Moral Outrage

Russian President Vladimir Putin dipped his toes into American politics yesterday after being asked about Russia's presence at the G-8 summit. Obviously, Putin has no qualms about swimming in deep waters, as he used the question to dive into Democratic objections to the Iraq War, revealing barely-submerged resentment over a previous Democratic administration's decision to go to war without UN approval:

Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped into the U.S. political campaign on Thursday, saying the Democrats had "no moral right" to criticize President Bush over Iraq. The Kremlin leader, answering a reporter's question in Sea Island, Georgia, suggested that the Democrats were two-faced in criticizing Bush on Iraq since it had been the Clinton administration that authorized the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia by U.S. and NATO forces. ...

He went on: "I am deeply convinced that President Bush's political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq because they did exactly the same. It suffices to recall Yugoslavia. Now look at them. They don't like what President Bush is doing in Iraq."

Remind me again -- which party supposedly holds the high moral ground in working with the international community? Which executive acted "unilaterally" and "defied international law"? I don't think that Putin intends on endorsing Bush with this statement -- after all, he no more approved Bush's actions in Iraq than he did the bombing of Yugoslavia -- but he points out a tremendous hypocrisy among the opposition this year, especially from the Madeline Albright-William Cohen crowd.

The Democrats seem to have a real amnesia about Yugoslavia, and it's one they keep repressing, and for good reason. In Yugoslavia, we acted on behalf of France and Germany, who lacked the will and the firepower to do much about Milosevic. At the time, both countries had not one objection to the lack of UN approval for the military action -- in fact, because of Russia's certain veto, they actively recommended avoiding the UN. And for those who complain that Bush had no plan for the end of the war, I'd remind everyone that Iraq will have its sovereignty back in less than three weeks, while to this day no one involved in Kosovo can decide whether it should even be independent. Nine years after our Balkan adventure began, we're still there, and we still have no plan to get out of the area. By the Clinton standard, Iraq practically looks like Grenada.

Too bad that it takes a Russian politician to remind Americans of their own recent history.

Lech Walesa: Two Kinds Of Politicians

Lech Walesa, the former President of Poland and most famously the leader of Solidarity, an underground movement that helped free Poland, eulogizes Ronald Reagan in today's OpinionJournal.com. While his essay highlights the best of Ronald Reagan's fight for freedom, Walesa makes a stunning point in the middle of the article that describes not only Reagan in the 1980s but highlights a crucial difference in today's politics:

I distinguish between two kinds of politicians. There are those who view politics as a tactical game, a game in which they do not reveal any individuality, in which they lose their own face. There are, however, leaders for whom politics is a means of defending and furthering values. For them, it is a moral pursuit. They do so because the values they cherish are endangered. They're convinced that there are values worth living for, and even values worth dying for. Otherwise they would consider their life and work pointless. Only such politicians are great politicians and Ronald Reagan was one of them.

Politicians who fall into the second category become known as statesmen for an outlook that goes beyond their personal gain. Abraham Lincoln had a vision for America, and even though he could have compromised with the Southern states (and tried to do so within that vision), he ultimately chose the most difficult course instead for the sake of liberty and what America could one day become. George Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, and others could have maintained their private fortunes and simply compromised with the British, and in fact that was what they wanted at first. Instead, they risked their lives and their security to gain freedom. FDR led the nation out of its worst and longest economic crisis by defying conventional wisdom and acting creatively. While some may disagree with his solutions now, at the time he walked a careful tightrope between the forces of fascism and communism, both of which appeared ascendant at the time, to preserve American liberty.

I agree with Walesa that Reagan also embodied this same style of leadership -- a man who stood for freedom and fought against tyranny with subtlety and craft, instead of taking the more politically expedient course of focusing on domestic handouts. But what strikes me is that we again are faced with the same choice this election. Do we choose the man who risked his office by fighting for freedom, in this case both Iraqi and Afghani liberty from tyranny as well as our freedom from Islamofascist terror, or do we choose the man who fits Walesa's first description of the politician who fights only for his own tactical gain?

I suspect that I know Walesa's choice. I hope that I guess correctly about the American people's choice.

Reagan Remembered: Antidotes For Saccharine Gloss

While I have always been interested in politics and current affairs -- I avidly read newspapers even in grade school -- I came of political age during the Reagan Administration. I remember how thrilled I was when he decisively beat Jimmy Carter and had the opportunity to put his philosophy of limited government to work. I also remember the bruising political wars that Reagan's election inspired, and while I think that the bitter partisanship that erupted ultimately finds its roots in Watergate, there is no doubt that the Reagan Era gave us a battle of philosophies unmatched since FDR.

In that regard, most of the eulogies presented in the media this week at the passing of Ronald Reagan have been unsatisfying. They recall a Reagan transcendent who somehow won his triumphs without much battle at all. Daniel Henninger today writes more of an effective remembrance of the Reagan Era rather than of Reagan himself in today's OpinionJournal.com:

Next to Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan was perhaps the most divisive president in the nation's history. Lincoln ended a way of life for the American South. Reagan said that he was ending a way of life for American liberalism. As with Lincoln, the challenge Reagan posed to his opposition was not merely political or economic. It was profoundly moral--and so worth a death-struggle. The tensions and bitterness evident in the body politic today, and in the current presidential campaign, arrived in Washington in 1981 with the 40th president. This quiet week of remembrance is a temporary truce. ...

On hearing the Reagan inaugural in January 1981--a radical's blunt challenge to establishment Washington orthodoxy--the liberals mounted a counteroffensive. To any who were there, the first Reagan term was bloody. ... The air burned with political antipathy. I recall in 1985 attending a confirmation hearing (another heavy weapon) for Edwin Meese to be attorney general. The confirmation was a long ordeal whose details are forgotten. But on this day Sen. Joe Biden ended a long, dramatic denunciation of Mr. Meese by intoning, twice, that the nominee was "beneath contempt." There was a sound in the silent room. It was Mr. Meese's wife seated behind him, sobbing violently. The Bork confirmation, this war's most famous assassination, was two years away.

That recalls the Reagan Era more clearly than anything else I've read so far this week. Whenever anyone dies, of course, focusing on their best qualities and their achievements is considered the polite and respectful course to take, even though a few moonbats on the left couldn't bear to keep still for a single day before violating that tradition. However, Henninger's piece reminds us that the man's term of office was largely innocent of either politesse or respect, especially from the media and what we would call now the MoveOn crowd. Mostly it resembled a bare-knuckle prizefight, and many times we wondered whether the GOP had the stomach for that kind of battle. Mostly it didn't, but Reagan did, and mostly that was enough.

Make sure you read the entire Henninger piece. For another antidote, you couldn't do better than Charles Krauthammer in today's Washington Post, who believes that the saccharine focus on Reagan's optimism intentionally disregards his accomplishments:

Rarely has a president been so quickly and completely vindicated by history. The Berlin Wall came down 10 months after Reagan left office. His policies of unrelenting toughness won the Cold War and brought a new peace. That is because Reagan understood that the key to peace was never arms control. Security had nothing to do with the number of weapons; it had everything to do with the intention and power of those who possessed them.

Accordingly, Reagan put relentless pressure on the possessors of that power, the Soviet commissars, through his nuclear hard line, military buildup, Strategic Defense Initiative and the Reagan Doctrine of supporting anti-communist guerrillas everywhere (especially Nicaragua). Ultimately, that pressure brought about the collapse of the overextended Soviet empire. The result was the most profound peace the world had experienced in 60 years -- since the very beginning of the totalitarian era in the early 1930s.

This success is an understandable embarrassment to the critics who opposed his every policy. They supported the freeze, denounced the military buildup, ridiculed strategic defenses, opposed aid to the Nicaraguan anti-communists and derided Reagan for telling the truth about the Soviet empire.

So now they praise his sunny smile. Normally, people speak well of the recently deceased to honor the dictum of being kind to the dead. When Reagan's opponents speak well of him now, however, they are trying to be kind to themselves.

As I posted last weekend about John Kerry's otherwise classy valediction to Reagan, I suspect that Kerry intends to take the mantle of optimism for the remainder of the campaign, and probably spent the week retooling his advertising to do just that. I don't find anything wrong with that. However, optimism without a plan consists of nothing but empty gestures -- the very criticism Kerry and his party repeatedly made against Reagan, and as Krauthammer points out, they were wrong. Reagan had a plan, and he was on the right side of history.

New York Continues Slide Towards Autocracy

A judge in New York has dismissed charges against a mayor who performed same-sex marriages, ruling that the state didn't show that the underlying law he violated was constitutional:

A judge dismissed criminal charges Thursday against a small-town mayor for marrying gay couples, saying the state failed to show it has a legitimate interest in banning same-sex weddings.

New Paltz Town Court Justice Jonathan Katz also ruled that prosecutors failed to prove the law New Paltz Mayor Jason West was charged with violating was constitutional.

While I tend to take a more libertarian point of view of gay marriage -- I don't think it will cause the collapse of civilization that my friends do -- I am adamantly opposed to the rise of autocratic rule that this issue has promoted. Gavin Newsom also took the law into his own hands in San Francisco, overruling the state Legislature and effectively passing his own laws in defiance. Jason West did the same thing. Now Justice Katz has legitimized this arrogation of power by a local executive over a state legislature, and the result is dangerous for our representative democracy.

Americans have carefully built a hierarchical structure of laws, and a separation of legislative and executive powers at each level, in order to maintain both public order and the rights of the citizenry to self-government. When we endorse the notion that one man can redefine the law, for whatever purpose, we lose the accountability that the legislature provides. Laws in our country are promulgated by the legislature, and signed or vetoed by the executive, and when necessary checked by the courts to determine constitutionality -- but only using due process.

In defying the state legislature, the local mayor broke the law, regardless of whether the policy is wise or foolish. Mayor West, if he disapproved of the law, could have filed a lawsuit to challenge it, instead of grandstanding by performing illegal marriages. Judge Katz endorsed lawlessness by dismissing the charges. Apparently the judge doesn't feel that enforcing state law is a legitimate interest of the state, an odd position for a state judge to take, surely. In his decision, Katz is just as bad as West, and maybe more so; he has decided which laws he likes and which he doesn't, instead of applying the law as decided by the people's representatives.

The case of Jason West and Jonathan Katz provides a microcosm of our poliical and legislative process at the national level for the past 40 years. Public officials have turned our country farther and farther towards the rule of a few men and women in robes who are beyond the natural reach that elections provide. Meanwhile, the legitimate representatives of the will of the electorate -- the legislatures -- see their power to pass the laws that bind us emasculated. Unless people enjoy the thought of an Iranian-style government that passes laws all day long that are routinely ignored while an unelected and lifetime Supreme Council makes all the important decisions affecting the electorate, we need to quit endorsing the behavior of the Wests and Katzes and insist on the proper execution of powers under our Constitution.

A Big NoKo Hello To Juneau

You can file this under the 'Well, this can't be good' category -- the London Telegraph reports that the North Koreans have testing a new ICBM with a range that includes Alaska:

North Korea has tested an intercontinental ballistic missile engine capable of hitting the United States, according to a South Korean report. The potential range of the missile was established by American intelligence from scorch marks and other traces of the engine test, the newspaper Joongang Ilbo said, citing diplomatic sources.

It could reach up to 3,700 miles, enough to hit Alaska.

The Telegraph concludes their report with the laughable notion that the US had ignored the Korean Peninsula because of the war in Iraq -- as if Washington DC consists of a few guys hanging around a fax machine who can only work on one problem at a time. Not only that, but missiles don't just get designed and built in a year; they take years to develop and manufacture, especially prototypes which need a significant number of new parts, and therefore new dies for casting the metal. This missile is the product of a well-entrenched program to develop WMD that specifically threatens the US and Japan, a program that has been going on for years.

First Mate Update: Big Improvements

The First Mate's doing a lot better today -- sitting up and doing a little walking, feeling much less pain, and the kidney continues to improve its function. Her creatinine (for you kidney wonks out there) has dropped to 1.5, and the kidney's output has continued increasing. Tomorrow the donor will go home, but the FM will probably stay until at least Sunday and most likely Monday.

IAEA Discovers Orders For Thousands Of Centrifuges: Reuters

Reuters reports this evening that the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog for nuclear non-proliferation, has discovered evidence that Iran intended on building thousands of centrifuges for weapons-grade nuclear fuel:

The U.N. nuclear watchdog has found indications Iran wanted to equip thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges, enough to produce bomb-grade material for several warheads per year, diplomats say. ... At a closed-door meeting on Iran, a senior inspector from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the agency's governing board a private Iranian company had expressed interest in "tens of thousands" of magnets for advanced P-2 centrifuges from a European intermediary, said a diplomat who attended.

The IAEA said last week in its latest report on Iran that the company had expressed interest in 4,000 magnets from a European intermediary -- enough for 2,000 centrifuges -- and had added it might buy in "higher numbers" to get a lower price.

Iran said it only bought 150 sample magnets from an Asian firm. But one diplomat told Reuters "tens of thousands" meant the Iranian firm was considering buying at least 20,000 more.

Since two magnets are required for a single centrifuge, which purifies uranium for use as fuel for power plants or weapons by spinning at supersonic speeds, this would have been enough for at least 10,000 P-2 centrifuges, diplomats said on Thursday.

Iran has led inspectors by the nose for some time, and now the IAEA finally has unequivocal indications of Iranian intentions. The mullahs have maintained that their nuclear program was only designed to produce electricity for domestic consumption. Then, after P-2 centrifuges were discovered at an Iranian Air Force base, Teheran insisted that they were experimental and unconnected to any military effort. Now the IAEA has evidence that they wanted to order over 20,000 magnets, and since each centrifuge only uses two magnets, the IAEA can no longer ignore Iran's intentions on producing large amounts of weapons-grade nuclear fuel in violations of its non-proliferation agreements.

Now the question will be Europe's intentions. European leaders have made no secret of their belief that the US has taken too hard of a line with the mullahs. How will they react now that the Bush administration has been correct all along?

UPDATE 10 PM CDT: Fox now has the same story, but I don't see anything on CNN or the AP. I wonder why?

Coming out of the meeting, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA, Amir Zamaninia said his country had attempted to clarify "a number of misunderstandings on the part of ... mainly the United States."

But another delegate present said members of the Iranian and U.S. delegations had clashed on a number of issue at what was supposed to be a technical meeting, likening their deep differences on the nature of Iran's nuclear program to a chasm between "two worlds."

It reminds me of the differences between political parties here in the US, or between the US and Europe. Some people continue to claim that Iranians mean no harm even though the evidence now clearly stares them in the face -- and even the Iranians seem to be saying, "Who are you going to believe, us or your own lying eyes?"

Consider The Source

Yes, I read all about how the Los Angeles Times shows Kerry leading by seven points in the national race. Their poll also reports that adding Nader to the mix actually increases Kerry's lead by one point. Does that make sense to you? It should -- if you read the LA Times on a regular basis.

Here's the LA Times poll less than four weeks before the California recall election last October:

California voters are almost evenly split on whether to recall Gov. Gray Davis, and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante retains a narrow lead over Arnold Schwarzenegger in the tightening race for a successor, according to a new Los Angeles Times poll.

Likely voters in the Oct. 7 election support the ouster of Davis by 50% to 47%, with just 3% undecided, the poll found. The result, a statistical tossup, is virtually unchanged from an August Times poll. ...

More volatile than the referendum on Davis is the contest for a replacement. Bustamante, the only well-known Democrat in the race, leads with 30%, followed by two Republicans: Schwarzenegger with 25% and state Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks with 18%.

Davis lost the recall election by 10 points, and Schwarzenegger beat Bustamante by 16 points. If I were John Kerry, I would take very little comfort in this poll.

John Kerry's Depression

The only possible explanation for John Kerry's continued talking about the Great Depression is that he's discussing his own state of mind. The new unemployment numbers came out today, and instead of affirming Kerry's charge that this is the worst jobs market since the FDR presidency, the Labor Department that the number of people receiving unemployment benefits has dropped to its lowest level since May 2001:

Even though the Labor Department reported a slight rise in first-time jobless claims, the market wasn't alarmed, given that claims are still far lower than a year ago, and the number of people currently receiving unemployment insurance is at a three-year low. ...

The Labor Department said there were 352,000 first-time unemployment claims last week, up 12,000 from the week before but down from 424,000 in the same week a year ago. In addition, the number of people drawing unemployment insurance fell by 106,000 to 2.88 million for the week ending May 29 — the lowest level since May 2001.

Since the beginning of the year, we've added almost a million new jobs to the economy and kept unemployment under the average of the 1990s. In fact, the economy and the jobs picture look better now than at the beginning of the Bush presidency, and that was before the enormous economic damage caused by the 9/11 attacks and the disruption in transportation. The US remains on track to add another million jobs by the time the election rolls around.

Just remember that when Kerry talks about great depressions, he's watching the economic indicators through the filter of this election -- and the poor man can't bring himself to enjoy American success. When he bets short and it goes long, small wonder he's depressed.

No War For Oil

The No War for Oil crowd should be very pleased -- it turns out that we didn't go to war for oil after all, according to the BBC:

Iraq's new Oil Minister Thamir Ghadhban has reportedly said that all coalition advisers will leave Iraqi ministries after the 30 June handover. Quoted by the UK's Financial Times, he said that the ministry would reassert full control over the country's lucrative oil industry. ...

"When sovereignty is regained it means that there will be no more US advisers, not only in the ministry of oil, but in every ministry in Iraq," he was quoted as saying in Thursday's edition of the FT.

Of course, the whole "war for oil" meme never had any intellectual heft, anyway. Economists and oil-industry analysts repeatedly told anyone who would listen that we could easily have secured lucrative contracts with Saddam had we allowed him to shrug off the sanctions, especially early on, at much less (financial) cost than going to war. Indeed, doing so would also have ingratiated ourselves with the Europeans, notably France and Germany. A scaleback of our military posture and a free flow of oil from Saddam would also have lowered the price of crude, although we can hardly keep pace refining the oil we buy now.

But now we see the true folly of that anti-war chant. We're returning sovereignty to Iraq and they're sending the American advisors home. A free Iraqi state now makes the decisions on oil leases, and instead of the money going to Saddam's pockets in order to perpetuate a genocidal tyranny, it's funding a representative government and giving all Iraqis an incentive to pull together in support of it. Very soon, the full measure of Iraqi oil production will once again be on the market, only this time all Iraqis benefit, not just the al-Tikriti tribe.

It looks like Bush really meant to free the Iraqis instead of seizing their natural resources. Surprise! But like Jon at QandO, I'm not waiting for an apology, even after the Washington Post pointed out that the UNSC resolution that we wrote specifically keeps us from exploiting their oil fields without getting a lease like everyone else.

Hospitals: A Great Place To Smoke

I few weeks ago, I weighed in on a St. Paul proposal to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, pointing out that regardless of whether such a ban was good public policy, the city and state had the authority to regulate behavior in public places -- and then half-heartedly endorsed the proposed ban. The hue and cry that post brought rivalled anything I'd written before, and I received some especially fierce (but good-natured) ribbing from the gang at Fraters Libertas. I hadn't realized that they were part of the tobacco cabal, although the Elder does remind me of the Marlboro Man at times, sans horse.

Today, then, even as Atomizer weighs in on the difficulty of being a smoker and a bird lover, the Star Tribune reports on a major victory in their battle to keep the environment friendly to nicotine addicts:

Irwin Kester, a patient committed to the psychiatric unit at Hennepin County Medical Center, has a powerful need to smoke. On Wednesday, a judge agreed to let him. Kester won a legal battle that gives him and other patients the right to smoke in, of all places, a hospital. They can light up only in ventilated rooms.

This small victory for a special set of smokers comes as other area hospitals are adopting property-wide smoking bans.

Yes, indeed -- a local judge has decided that psychiatric wings in hospitals must provide committed patients an area in which to smoke, at least for now while the legal challenges behind smoking bans are sorted out. For the Hennepin County District Court, the guiding philosophy seems to be that it you're crazy enough to keep in a padded room, you may as well smoke 'em if you've got 'em.

This decision, no doubt, will delight the Fraters guys. If you read them or hear them on the air, you know they're certifiable. Now the trick will be to find out how to open bars and restaurants in the HCMC psych ward, or to simply designate all of St. Paul a mental hospital. If you've driven the streets, you'd know that the task sounds more difficult than it is.

Next week, the Hennepin County District Court takes up the rights of arc welders to practice their professions while receiving oxygen-tent treatments for emphysema. That should be a blast.

UK To Throw Out Viable Transplant Organs?

With the First Mate receiving her new kidney this week, organ-transplantation stories catch my eye rather easily. Unfortunately, this disturbing story from today's London Telegraph clashes with the buoyant joy we've all felt from the FM's success:

Shortages of consultants are threatening a crisis in transplant surgery with the possibility of donated organs having to be discarded. Senior consultants met officials from the Department of Health and the NHS yesterday to call for changes to working conditions to encourage more young doctors to go into transplantation.

The problem is particularly acute in renal medicine, and there are fears that it is only a matter of time before viable donated kidneys have to be discarded because no-one can be found to perform an operation.

While to Americans the notion of throwing away life-saving organs seems utterly ludricrous, especially after years of public-service announcements supporting organ donation, the crisis in the UK is far too real. Doctors do not go into transplantation, which this article blames on the long hours required for specialists. After all, organs come available at all times of the day and night, and in order to get the best possible use of the transplant, surgeons should get the organ into the patient as soon as possible. However, especially for kidneys, it doesn't have to be immediate -- we were told that we needed to be available at all times to confirm our readiness to receive a kidney from the list once one matched, but that the surgery itself could be conducted within 24-36 hours after the kidney was harvested.

I suspect that the true reason that British doctors show so much reluctance to specializing in renal transplants, and transplants in general, is that the socialized health system doesn't incentivize them to do so. If doctors receive no better compensation for transplantation than normal surgery, especially elective surgeries, then why go through the extensive extra training required for it? Transplants require extra work in the operating room and a great deal of follow-up care on behalf of the physician. Other surgeries require much less training and follow-up care, and as the article states, more regular hours in most cases.

If the UK destroys perfectly viable kidneys due to a lack of resources, then the NHS should be ashamed of itself for allowing their medical care to deteriorate to such a state. Americans should consider this when debating the benefits of socialized or "single-payer" medical systems. Wage and price controls invariably reduce choice and opportunity on all sides of the market -- and health care is no different. Only deadlier.

Addendum: Just so you understand the issue from my perspective, in the US, there's an average five-year wait for a cadaver kidney from the list. If we hadn't had a friend volunteer to donate her kidney, the First Mate probably would not have survived to see her name come up on the list. To hear that the UK actually projects that life-saving organs will be tossed out like garbage simply because they don't have the capacity to do the surgeries outrages me, on behalf of all the people with kidney failure in the UK.

Another Good Reason For Saudi Cooperation

The Saudi royal family has presided over their Wahhabist kingdom for eighty-plus years now, spreading their firebrand fundamentalism throughout Southeast Asia and beyond. While they've cooperated and done business with the West, their mosques also inspired terrorist groups by spreading hatred, somewhat schizophrenically, against their business partners. Over the past year their chickens have come home to roost as the terrorists led by a scion of a wealthy Saudi family have increasingly attacked royal assets and foreigners. Now the New York Times reports that Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi also wanted to decapitate Saudi leadership:

While the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was renouncing terrorism and negotiating the lifting of sanctions last year, his intelligence chiefs ordered a covert operation to assassinate the ruler of Saudi Arabia and destabilize the oil-rich kingdom, according to statements by two participants in the conspiracy.

Those participants, Abdurahman Alamoudi, an American Muslim leader now in jail in Alexandria, Va., and Col. Mohamed Ismael, a Libyan intelligence officer in Saudi custody, have given separate statements to American and Saudi officials outlining the plot. ... Mr. Alamoudi's statements were offered in plea negotiations with federal prosecutors that are not complete. He was indicted last October in the United States District Court in Alexandria accused of violating United States sanctions by traveling to Libya and receiving money from Libyan officials.

Of course, Qaddafi earlier agreed to renounce terrorism and WMDs in response to seeing fellow strongman Saddam Hussein pulled out of a rathole near Tikrit with nothing but his beard and some rags. Qaddafi has proved cooperative on WMD research, and his nuclear program wound up being much more advanced than initially thought. Perhaps Qaddafi qualified his anti-terrorism pledge, in his own mind, as anti-Western terrorism. However, since the Saudis (mostly the ruling contingent of the royal family) remain friendly to the West, any attempt to decapitate the government there would only have the effect of throwing more radical elements to power, dangerously destabilizing not only Saudi Arabia and its oil supply, but also the military situation for the United States, UK, and Israel.

Bush seems well aware of this:

A senior Bush administration official said that the emergence of convincing evidence that Colonel Qaddafi ordered or condoned an assassination and terror campaign could cause a "180 degree" change of American policy toward Libya.

President Bush has conveyed to the Saudi royal family that he is going to find out what happened in the alleged conspiracy, according to a diplomat.

You may recognize the name Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi's previous gig was as a founder and spokesperson of the American Muslim Council, an Islamic special-interest group that spread the message of Islam as a religion of peace. The group took such a middle-of-the-road approach that the State Department often sent Alamoudi abroad to preach American tolerance -- yet another boneheaded decision in State's glorious history of picking the wrong horse:

Mr. Alamoudi, an American citizen living in Falls Church, Va., has been a longtime spokesman for Muslim views in America as founder of the American Muslim Council.

The State Department paid him as a consultant to travel overseas and advocate tolerance and reconciliation among Jews, Christians and Muslims, but was thereafter accused of making statements in support of terrorism.

Looking at this, one supposes that Prince Abdullah would want to reconsider his partnership with a country that hires assassins as spokespeople, but looking around his area, he'd be hard pressed to find a country that doesn't, and at least we don't do it on purpose. Abdullah could also be forgiven if he wanted the US to take a hard line once again with Libya, but for now, he prefers to continue engaging Qaddafi to isolating him. Perhaps now that the Libyan colonel sees how badly this operation unraveled, he will be loath to try something newer and instead settle for re-engagement as an end rather than a means.

Stupidity In Marketing

Let's say you want to promote a new film -- or, more accurately, a new remake of a classic sci-fi thriller that probably should have been left alone. Seeing as how the film stars top-drawer talent, including the beautiful Nicole Kidman in a lead role as well as Bette Midler and Glenn Close, how would you go about attracting people to the box office? Would you try to show us a sexy Nicole, or some scenes with Close, Midler, or perhaps Christopher Walken or Matthew Broderick?

I'd bet you wouldn't strip Condoleezza Rice to the waist and put Hillary Clinton in a swimsuit holding a plate of cookies:

Some people are saying the way Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice are portrayed in an ad for the new "Stepford Wives" film is distasteful, even outrageous. The spot shows an image of Rice made to look nude from the waist up, and a picture of Clinton that morphs into what looks like a cookie-baking Stepford wife.

The pictures move across the screen very quickly, but they caught the eye of a Kansas City woman, who recorded the spot to make sure of what she was seeing.

I have no idea what went through the minds of the marketing team when they put this spot together. I could almost see the Hillary spot -- during the first Clinton campaign for president, Hillary made a dismissive statement that she didn't think staying at home and baking cookies made for a fulfilling life, causing a minor kerfuffle but did no real damage. However, Rice isn't married at all, and while conservatives often talk about how attractive she is, it's usually in the context of her future in politics and not a future in Playboy. Both women's careers stand for making it on their intellect and education, not by either flaunting their bodies nor by acting in expected gender roles.

Up to now, I'd thought I might want to see this film, even though the all of the surprise that made the first film a classic has been lost. Now I'm not so sure. I have no patience for idiotic marketing, and this is pretty damned stupid. I can't say I'm offended or terribly surprised, but buying a ticket for the movie now almost feels like endorsing the advertisement. (via Wonkette)

First Mate: Healing Up Slowly

I just got home from the hospital and wanted to let you know that the First Mate continues to improve. I spent the entire day at the hospital today; I had originally planned on stopping there in the morning and going to work for a few hours midday, but instead I just hung around. Her doctors discussed her progress and went over her labs with us. For those of you who know about kidney function, her creatinine level is down to 1.9, which is closer to normal than she's seen in years (normal is ~1.0). She got up and walked a few steps twice today, although it made her nauseous both times.

Right now, she's still feeling very sore and very tired. The massive steroids that she's taking for the next few days have swollen some of the soft tissue in her face, giving her a look sometimes called "moon-face", which she's been dreading. Since she'll be off the steroids rather quickly, probably within a couple of weeks, it should just be temporary. Needless to say, though, she's not terribly keen on visitors at the moment, and the swelling makes her more uncomfortable than she otherwise would be.

However, she's also very happy with the results of the surgery, and especially with the remarkably quick recovery of the donor. We're thinking she'll be out Monday, which will work out nicely as my father will be coming out Sunday to help me when she comes home, and my sister will come the week after that. With the FM, the trick isn't to keep up with her requests -- you have to watch her like a hawk to keep her from doing chores. For instance, when she came home from the hospital after her first transplant, on the third day I caught her sneaking into the garage to do laundry. She got furious when I stopped her and made her go back to bed, mostly because I was yelling and laughing at the same time. I anticipate having a couple of the same kind of conversations, although she may not pull that stunt with my family around. (Hell, even if she did, they'd blame it on me.)

So now I'm back home, missing her but happy that it'll just be a few days until she's home and healthier than she's been for at least a year.

9/11 Commission Members Still Looking To Blame People

The AP reports this morning that while the 9/11 commission wants to avoid pinning blame on individuals in either the Bush or Clinton administrations, some commission members still hold out hope of inserting finger-pointing language in editorial notes:

Hoping to avoid partisan attacks, the Sept. 11 commission has drafted a final report that avoids placing blame on individuals in the Bush or Clinton administrations but sharply criticizes the FBI and intelligence agencies for missteps prior to the catastrophe. ...

Democratic commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste said members remain hopeful they can produce a unanimous report, although some are holding out the option of inserting editorial notes if commissioners disagree on certain points or want to flag a particular individual as blameworthy.

"The failure to thwart the 9/11 catastrophe was in part the result of the failure to communicate both internally and externally about information collected by our intelligence agencies," he said. "Had there been effective use of the information, the possibility exists the 9/11 plot could have been disrupted."

Of course Ben-Veniste wants to blame people. He's been one of the worst of the partisan attack dogs on the committe, which became apparent when public testimony began. I doubt that he's looking at fellow commissioner Jamie Gorelick, even though she wrote the legal interpretations that kept law-enforcement and intelligence-gathering agents from collaborating on national security. Nor, I doubt, will Ben-Veniste use the occasion to celebrate the Patriot Act, which eliminated the artificial barriers that Gorelick helped to strengthen in the mid-90s.

Does anyone remember what the original mission of the 9/11 Commission was? They were to investigate why we failed to stop the attacks and make recommendations to improve our ability to recognize these threats in the future in order to keep us safe. They weren't convened to publicly attack individuals or to assign blame. However, after some mutual manipulation between the Ben-Veniste partisans and the small leftist contingent of the 9/11 families, they turned the entire exercise into a rehash of the Spanish Inquisition and turned themselves into media celebrities, putting national security at a tertiary concern, at best.

Quite frankly, while the committee's specific recommendations for improvements might be very useful, the causes for our failure to recognize and stop the 9/11 attacks are already well known. First, we put artificial barriers in place to keep the FBI and CIA from working across intelligence and criminal efforts. That's been addressed through the Patriot Act. Second, we decimated the CIA's humint operations, starting in the late 70s at almost the same time Islamofascism first reared its head. Congress has started to address this, but it will take years to rebuild the humint operations, especially in the Middle East where we have serious deficiencies in interpreters and boots on the ground. Third, until 9/11, America refused to acknowledge that war had been declared against us by the Islamofascists and therefore kept using a law-enforcement approach -- for instance, debating the legality of capturing Osama bin Laden instead of killing him when we had the opportunity, and letting him slip away.

Those problems were the direct cause of our 9/11 losses, and they are not partisan issues. Playing the blame game only demonstrates the empty partisan nature of the 9/11 Commission.

Classic CQ: The Midnight Blog-Court

While the First Mate recovers from her surgery, posting may be a bit light, depending on how much Internet access and time I have. In the meantime, I thought I'd repost a few older items from my blog that some of you may have missed. This post was written on orders from Hugh Hewitt in order to join the Society of the Master of the Horse ... and I had a blast with it. Hope you do, too!

As part of my trial for acceptance into the Society of the Minnesota Master of the Horse, the second task given by Hugh Hewitt was to write an epic poem, mentioning at least ten blogs, including that of the Lord High Commissioner himself, as well as taking swipes at FratersLibertas and the Elder, and one at James Lileks, too.

I decided to proceed, despite the inherent dangers of taking on so many veteran bloggers, by writing an epic poem based on the Gaelic poem Cúirt an Mheáin-Oí­che (The Midnight Court). This poem can be found in both English and Irish here, for those who want to see how poorly I satirize fine literature. The poem is a great example of an aisling, a dream-vision poem, and in fact is one of the classics in Irish literature.

For my purposes here, I took out most of the 1000 lines or so, the sex, the humor, and the talent, and what's left is below. Just click on the link below to read Cúirt-Blog an Mheáin-Oí­che, or the Midnight Blog-Court.

Cúirt Blog an Mheá¡n-Oí­che, or The Midnight Blog-Court
(with apologies to a long-dead Brian Merriman)

As I surfed the Blogosphere, wandering far and near
I spied a restful site ahead.
The Twilight Café©, where I got drunk,
and dreamt this dream, where thoughts are thunk.

A dazzling court, with loud report,
My weary eyes and ears beheld.
'Lord High Commissioner Presides,
Hugh Hewitt,'
with other weblogs at his sides.

On his right, to my delight,
sat The Sophorist and Power Line,
The Volokhs too, and the RantingProf,
(but Lileks took December off).

But my hopes were cleft, for on his left,
were Gary Farber and Mickey Kaus,
Romanesko, and the Commissar's site
(who sat left but leaned oddly right).

No friends behind did I find,
not DC, Jon, nor Brant,
But only the bailiffs, FratersLibertas,
with the Elder on the sidelines in a cast.

[oops -- wrong epic poem! Apologies to Don McLean.]

I cried out, 'What's this about?
What crime has been accused?'
Lord Hewitt's eyes flashed with rage,
'You write too little to fill a page!'

'If you start a site, you are cursed to write
Posts from dawn to midnight,
A roundup there and a blogroll here
Does not serve the blogosphere!

'Captain's Quarters has new orders,
Your keyboard will know no rest,
These orders given you must obey:
Your postings must fill your day.'

'I have a job!' I began to sob,
'A family to support.
A constant blog, I cannot fund it,
Do you think that I am Instapundit?'

Gasps were heard at these fell words,
From friends and foes alike.
Hewitt intoned, 'You have no shame
For mentioning the forbidden name!'

'You shall be cursed, in prose and verse,
Blogs will purge you from their rolls!
Your name is mud, it shall be last,
Lower than FratersLibertas!!

I flew awake, my hands aquake,
Had I escaped this fate?
I ran straight home and without delay
Began to post throughout the day!

UPDATE: The Elder reacts: "If there were still any questions about the disastrous consequences of drinking Hugh's Kool Aid, they should be addressed by this "Epic" poem." Is that what I was drinking? No wonder ...

Also, Atomizer has a new action figure for sale, although what it has to do with Hugh Hewitt, I have no idea.

Captain's Caption Contest Winners!

We have the winners from this week's Captain's Caption Contests! Many were entered, but in the end, few were chosen, and they were chosen by Peyton and Debbie Randolph, two long-time readers of Captain's Quarters! Just to give you another look at the menu, here's the picture:

You all hit almost every theme imaginable for this -- the only one I thought got missed was, "You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant." Thank goodness, too -- that was pretty damned lame. (Now you know why I host these instead of enter them.) Without further ado, I'll serve up the winners:

Captain's Award! (First among several with a great idea. Kerry is so not John Candy) -- MDatek:

Who wants an orange whip? Orange whip? Orange whip? Three orange whips!

Report to sick bay, on the double! (No lawsuit about the bill?) -- Paul B:

So me and Teddy are at Scores in NYC the other day. We are sitting in the V.I.P. room as always and Teddy's tanked, big newsflash. Well I'm getting a lap dance and I look over and who is getting one next to me? None other than bin Laden! That's right and he tells me he wants me to win in November. Boy he can party. Crazy thing I don't know how he smuggled the goat into the joint for the lap dance?

You have the conn #1! (The Product Placement category) -- Roninranger:

A tense moment develops, as Senator Kerry notices a patron defiantly using ketchup not made by the Heinz Corporation.

You have the conn #2! (Not a ritzy restaraunt in New York, but...) -- The Nose:

Hey ... are you a foreign leader?

You have the conn #3! (The cunning "Every-man" imitation) -- Stephen Macklin:

So that door that says "Men" is a bathroom. And any guy who wants to can go in there and do his business? Oh, that's just sick.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and congratulations to the winners! Remember, here at CQ, everyone's a winner -- just some of us have higher winning percentages than others. Comments on this post will remain open, as usual, in order for the winners to gloat, the others to disparage Peyton's and Debbie's intellect and/or my parentage, and for any other entries submitted just for the sheer enjoyment of amazing your friends and confounding your enemies.

Send me a photograph or an e-mail with a link to a great picture you think should be the subject of our next Caption Contest, and let me know if you'd like to be the guest judge! I'll have another picture for Friday -- so be sure to come back then for the next contest.

UPDATE: We accidentally identified the wrong person as the winner! MDatek actually entered the first "Orange Whip" entry. Sorry, MDatek! For the record, Flipper's entry was "John Kerry, in an effort to win over the deaf/mute voters, inadvertantly orders a side of broiled tractor to go with his chicken salad sandwich."

Japanese Hostage Sues Own Government For Abduction

Perhaps legal idiocy doesn't exclusively occur within the United States after all. One of the Japanese hostages taken in Iraq by Islamofascist and/or Fedayeen remnants has sued the government of Japan for making the bad men angry at him, and he wants $46,000 for his mental anguish:

A Japanese activist who was briefly held captive in Iraq has sued his own government, saying its decision to send troops to the region angered his kidnappers and was to blame for his ordeal. Nobutaka Watanabe, 35, is seeking the equivalent of $46,000 for mental and physical hardship he suffered during his four days as a hostage, his lawyer Masatoshi Uchida told The Associated Press Wednesday.

"Mr. Watanabe believes his kidnapping was the result of Japan's military presence," said Uchida. "His captors told him that he had been taken because he was from a country that had sent troops to Iraq."

I suppose next we'll see lawsuits against the police for robberies, since law enforcement makes burglars angry, or perhaps torts against the UN for the mental treatment of nutcase militia types here, since the 'black helicopters' make them crazy. Don't think it's not a political statement, either. Take a look at the backdrop for the latest plaintiff to play Legal Lottery -- the sign says "US Go out -- Japan Soldiers Come Back", and in English rather than in Japanese.

Somewhat lost towards the bottom of this story is the fact that the Japanese government specifically warned its citizens not to travel to Iraq during this period of time, precisely to avoid what happened to Watanabe. Their defiance caused such an embarrassment for the Japanese that Tokyo charged them each for the flight home after their rescue, which Watanabe wants rescinded as well. Watanabe wants neither to accept any responsibility for his own actions nor to place any responsibility for the crime on its perpetrators. Instead, he wants to blame his government for all his ills and wants to cash in with a lawsuit, using the same system his government safeguards -- all because his government believes that Iraqis should have the same opportunities as Watanabe.

This guy sounds like an American to me.

Kurds May Pull Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

Winston Churchill once said that one of his great regrets after World War I was the failure of the Great Powers to establish an independent Kurdistan out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. In the 80 years since the settlements from the Great War, the Kurds have been instead relegated into minority status in a number of countries, including Iraq, and most of them dictatorships (Turkey is the only exception). As a result, Kurds rarely achieve any political power, partly due to their fierce independence and unwillingness to assimilate, but mostly due to the attitudes of the dominant cultures in each of these countries.

In Iraq, the Kurds have enjoyed a level of self-government the past twelve years never experienced in their history. Due to the cease-fire arrangements, the US and UK kept Saddam from exercising any authority in Northern Iraq, where Iraqi Kurds instead established an autonomous representative democracy. Due to this twelve-year experience, the Kurds fought strongly to retain their autonomy in the Irqai Governing Council's debates to draw up an interim constitution, guaranteeing a federal system with certain vetos for the Kurdish provinces that annoyed the Shi'ite majority.

Now, however, some Kurds want to throw away all of their political gains and established goodwill with the West simply because the UNSC resolution doesn't explicitly endorse the interim constitution under which the newly legitimized Iraqi government runs:

Kurdish members of Iraq's government will resign if called upon to do so by their leaders after the failure of the latest U.N. resolution to recognize Kurdish autonomy, a senior Kurdish minister said Wednesday. "If the leadership calls on us to withdraw from the government, then we will do so," Public Works Minister Nasreen Berwari told Reuters.

"All the struggles we made last year have been lost...we've seen how democracy can be usurped," she said in reaction to the Security Council resolution, unanimously passed late Tuesday. ...

Before the U.N. vote, Talabani and Barzani, who lead the PUK and KDP parties respectively, threatened to withdraw Kurdish officials from the interim government, said Kurds would not take part in national elections next year and would "bar representatives of the central government from Kurdistan."

Not to hit this with a rhetorical sledgehammer, but the Kurds have to have lost their minds if they believe that this deliberately general resolution has any meaning at all towards their negotiated status. The resolution does endorse a "united federal republic" for Iraq, which is what the Kurds wanted and received. Moreover, the UNSC resolution recognizes the new interim governmeant as constituted, and expresses no new conditions for it to meet except to hold elections as soon as possible. It doesn't even spell out when foreign forces have to depart, leaving that for the Iraqis to work out with the CPA.

Fortunately, not all Kurds have succumbed to the dog-in-the-manger strategy. The new Iraqi Foreign Minister, a Kurd, acknowledges the UN's position that the UNSC resolution recognizes the de facto arrangements in their constitution:

Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, the first Kurd to hold the post, said he had lobbied unsuccessfully for the interim constitution to be acknowledged in the resolution during his meetings with the Security Council last week.

But he said he was satisfied that the "spirit of the Transitional Administrative Law" was there.

The Kurds have reached new heights of self-government and are on the brink of being real players in a united an federal Iraq. Their political parties, however, may take them off a cliff if they don't drop the all-or-nothing tactics they currently exhort. The Kurds' best hopes can only be realized through representative, democratic republics in a federal system that allows for autonomous provinces, and they can only hope to have that system succeed in Iraq by retaining their friendships with the West as the Iraqi system becomes permanent.

In that sense, the UNSC resolution is irrelevant; the UN will recognize just about any permanent government in Iraq that has the backing of the Shi'a there, simply because they comprise 60% of Iraq. The Kurds would do better to work within the system they've already built than to take their ball and go home now. Otherwise, they will isolate themselves and probably wind up very displeased with the results. Their history instructs them to avoid engagement, but in this case their history does not apply.

Catch The Reagan 'Biography' on A&E

I just finished watching Biography's review of Ronald Reagan on A&E, and I would highly recommend watching it on its later showing if you missed it on the 9 PM EDT slot. A&E treats the subject with respect even when reviewing the more controversial aspects of Reagan's presidency. For a one-hour show, I found it comprehensive and actually quite touching.

Bush Wins At The UN

As I predicted yesterday, the Bush administration scored another foreign-policy victory in an arena where they are supposedly "inept" -- at the UN:

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a resolution on the June 30 transfer of power in Iraq.

The U.S.- and British-backed resolution gives additional international support to the new interim Iraqi government and adds more international support for the U.S.-led coalition force.

All 15 members of the council voted for the resolution.

Not only did Bush avoid a veto, not only did he avoid a single No, he didn't even get an abstention -- even Syria voted for the resolution. He didn't bend to French and German demands to allow Iraq to have a veto on American command of the CPA, although he pledged to work with the interim government on missions, which we would undoubtedly do anyway. (After all, the last thing we need is the new Iraqi government constantly bad-mouthing the security forces there.) Now that the Iraqi government has been recognized by the UN, the agreement with the Iraqis to keep the CPA on hand for security also has been legitimized, and the occupation has ended. The Iraqis understand the necessity of keepin the troops where they are:

On subject of the need for coalition or multinational forces in Iraq, Zebari said: "We need these forces. It is an Iraqi need, more than an American or coalition need. The consequences would be catastrophic."

Zebari said "withdrawal would create a vacuum and we, the Iraqis, are not ready to fill it. There would be the possibility of a junior Saddam coming up again."

It's a lesson one would hope the leftists who constantly demonstrate for retreat would learn, but I suspect the unreconstructed Stalinists behind International ANSWER want exactly what Zebari fears.

UPDATE: Jettison at Blogs for Bush asks: "BTW, now that we have the U.N.'s blessing, will Spain be sending it's troops back in, like it said it would?" Don't alter your breathing habits waiting for their return, Jet.

Captain's Caption Contest #13!

It's Friday, and what time is it? No, dammit, it's not lunchtime -- it's time for another Captain's Caption Contest!

Or ... maybe it is lunchtime ...

At the very least, it's time for a break from all of your hustle and bustle and enjoy some good fellowship. Just take a cue from John Kerry's dining buddy there on the right, and relax -- or else!

Give us your best caption for this picture and win the hearts and minds of the American electorate -- or at least of longtime reader Peyton Randolph, who doesn't blog but posts lots of great comments on CQ. You have until Tuesday, June 8 at 6 PM CDT to enter your best captions in the Comments section of this post. (NO e-mail -- e-mailed entries will be shredded, toasted, tossed over a plate of escargot, and swallowed by Michael Moore in one smooth motion.) Enter as often as you like, no purchase necessary, tax and title belong to CQ, winners need not be present, and as always, bribes are most welcome ...

Since Peyton doesn't need the link-love, check out these bloggers who've sent me pictures we may use later: Ann Haker and Candpeez. Don't forget that if you'd like to guest-judge, drop me an e-mail with a great photo (or its URL) that we can use for a future contest!

BUMP 6/5: Great entries so far! Keep 'em coming ...

BUMP 6/6 ...

BUMP 6/7: I'll probably not post much tomorrow until after the surgery is over. I'll leave this at the top. Have a blast -- Peyton has his work cut out for him! ...

COMMENTS CLOSED: Peyton, it's all up to you!

First Mate Update -- Great News!

Okay, I know some of you have been waiting for this, and I'm ecstatic to deliver -- the First Mate has her new kidney and it's functioning already! I spoke to the surgeon in charge about a half-hour ago, and he was very pleased. No complications, she was stable throughout surgery, and while she was still getting closed up, he thought the whole thing went very well. She'll stay in recovery for a couple of hours, and assuming she has no reaction to the anaesthesia (she usually gets sick), she won't even need to go to ICU.

Our friend who donated the kidney, Mary, is already in her room and looking great. She says she doesn't feel much pain, but she's still got the surgical medication in her, so that may change. She's perky, thrilled for the success, and she and her husband Roger are making the phone calls. Let me tell you, this couple is amazing for their strong marriage and their giving spirits, and we already were blessed with their friendship. Now we're doubly blessed.

I'll keep you updated as we go along. Sorry it took so long to post a message, but I had to make a few phone calls, and then it took me a bit to sniff out an Internet connection on this side of the facility.

And thank you for all your prayers!

UPDATE: I finally got to see the FM around 4:30 or so, and she was about as good as you'd expect someone to be after major surgery. She was in a lot of pain and nauseous (damned anaesthesia!), but her color was good and her kidney had produced quite a bit of urine, mostly blood-free. Everyone seemed very pleased, except for the FM herself. She drifted in and out of sleep and after a while told me to go home. [I have always had that effect on women -- C.E.] I'll check in with the nurse's station before hitting the sack, and I'll see her tomorrow.

Bush About To Score Another Diplomatic Victory At UN?

The much-maligned foreign policy of the Bush Administration may be about to score another foreign-policy coup, according to the AP and the BBC. Edith Lederer (AP) reports that the UN Security Council, according to German and French sources, may wind up passing a US resolution on Iraq on legitimizing the interim government -- unanimously:

The United States and Britain made a last-minute addition Monday to their Iraq resolution that appeared to satisfy French and German demands to spell out Iraq's "security partnership" with U.S.-led forces. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said he expects the Security Council to approve the resolution on Tuesday afternoon, and council diplomats said the vote could be unanimous.

The French and German delegations had demanded that explicit language be included in the resolution giving Iraq command over any security forces in the country. However, American negotiators apparently have overcome that obstacle:

The text now welcomes the exchange of letters between Iraq's new prime minister and Secretary of State Colin Powell and their pledge to work together to reach agreement on "the full range fundamental security and policy issues, including policy on sensitive offensive operations." It also notes "that Iraqi security forces are responsible to appropriate Iraqi ministers, that the government of Iraq has authority to commit Iraqi security forces to the multinational force to engage in operations with it."

While the new language doesn't mention an Iraqi veto, France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said "there are a lot of improvements" and "the text is going in the right direction now." ...

Germany's U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger said the French amendment was "much clearer, but the new (U.S.) text reflects our concerns ... and we can live with that. I think we have reached a stage where the resolution has a very good text," he said. "My feeling is we have found a compromise."

So once again, Bush has gone to the UN, played some hardball and a little Let's Make A Deal, and pulled out an agreement that basically looks like what we wanted in the first place -- and may wind up with unanimous consent, just as with 1441. Bush gets to stick to his June 30 timetable and continue to keep security forces in Iraq under Anglo-American command, legitimized by the UNSC and the new Iraqi government. Once again, the chances for a representative government succeeding in Iraq at least doubled.

Weren't these guys supposedly unable to work with the international community?

The Gore Fire Spreads

Al Gore's comments over the weekend, calling the Florida Democratic candidate for Senate Alex Panelas "the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with" during the 2000 election, has resulted in a strong riposte from current Florida Senators Bill Nelson and Bob Graham. Both Democrats scold Gore for injecting "slash-and-burn" politics, possibly damaging the candidate Gore endorsed:

Sen. Bill Nelson questioned Gore's decision to inject himself into the race, saying it hurts the party's ability to keep retiring Sen. Bob Graham's seat and threatens a key state for presidential candidate John Kerry. Graham called Penelas, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, "a good Democrat."

Both Graham and Nelson have said they will not endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary but that they felt compelled to come to Penelas' defense in light of Gore's remarks. "This slash-and-burn politics has gotten us to the point that it is causing gridlock in America," Nelson said.

Several Democrats spoke on Penelas' behalf after Gore issued a statement to The Miami Herald published on Sunday praising one of Penelas' two main rivals, Rep. Peter Deutsch.

Deutsch may learn how effective a Gore endorsement can be in the upcoming primary. With the former VP's attack on Panelas, many Florida Democrats who otherwise would have stayed clear of the primary now feel obligated to defend Panelas' honor. After all, Panelas still represents Democratic leadership in a slightly Republican area, thus showing some crossover ability that Democrats need in November, at all levels of the ballot. Panelas' defenders also neuter the hoary canard of the stolen election in 2000 that drives the madness of Prince Albert, implicitly acknowledging that not only did Panelas have little hope of affecting the result of the recount, and not only did the recount eventually still show that Bush won, but that had Al Gore done what every single winner in Presidential history did and simply carry his home state, he would be President now, and the argument would be moot.

How long before the Democrats understand what a destructive force Gore has become and cut him loose?

Hours To Go

Today is the day prior to the First Mate's transplant, and we are spending most of the day at the Fairview University Medical Center's Transplant Unit, talking with the surgeons and nurses who will be involved in the surgery tomorrow. Once again your intrepid Captain has found a way to hijack a network connection in order to maintain a little bit of sanity during the waiting periods between conferences.

The First Mate's tests all check out good, as did the donor's; she's on her way home now, but we still have a few tests to go. We've met with the primary surgeon, nephrologists, nurses, and we're waiting on the anaesthesiologists now. The FM and I will head home about mid-afternoon, it appears, and show up at 5:30 AM tomorrow morning to prep for the surgery itself. I'll be posting more as the day goes on, but right now it all looks pretty good.

Fingers crossed, this time tomorrow we will be watching both donor and recipient recover from successful surgeries!

UPDATE: Well, we're still on track, but only after we almost ran into a roadblock this afternoon. Shortly after posting the above, we met with the nephrologist that will handle the FM after the surgery, at least at the hospital. He almost single-handedly derailed the entire process by recommending that because of her TIA last week, her transplant should be postponed until a definite cause could be determined. This came after everyone else involved had already reviewed her test results and decided that the surgery provided no elevated risk for another attack, and that waiting might be more of a risk. I wanted to scream, "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US THIS LAST WEEK?", but instead just acknowledged that he was trying to act in her best interests.

Anyway, after all of the other doctors consulted with him over the next 90 minutes, he finally signed off on the surgery after making a minor alteration to the FM's schedule. Instead of waiting a couple of days to remove the dialysis shunt, they'll remove it just prior to the surgery tomorrow to minimize the chance that clotting around the shunt will cause another TIA to appear. Right now, the FM is back home prepping for tomorrow; we'll be getting up around 3:30 AM for the 5:30 arrival time at the hospital.

Thanks for all your prayers and best wishes. I read your comments to the FM and she's amazed how much support she gets from the blog. I'm humbled, but not surprised. I know how great all of you are.

Shields Learned Nothing From History, Lectures Bush

Mark Shields takes George Bush to task in his regular CNN column for not being sufficiently respectful of his father. Shields notes that Bush 43 considers the ending of the 1991 Gulf War to be a mistake, and one he doesn't intend to repeat now:

If the foregoing was simply insensitive, George W. Bush's comparison of the first U.S. war against Iraq, when his dad was commander in chief, and the current U.S. war against Iraq is damning. In "Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry and the Bush Haters" by Bill Sammon of The Washington Times, George W. Bush states: "I think freedom will prevail, so long as the U.S. and its allies don't ... do what many Iraqis still suspect might happen, and that is cut and run early, like what happened in '91."

That is nothing less than a slur on George H.W. Bush by his own flesh and blood, the current leader of the free world.

That doesn't sit well with Shields, who suddenly has developed a high sense of protectiveness for Bush 41, a sense that he notably lacked during 41's presidency. Shields huffs:

This is not ancient history. We are talking about 1991. George W. Bush's ignorant contempt for or potential ignorance of his own father's successful political and military leadership 13 years ago in Desert Storm is as distressing as it is disturbing. Does the 43rd president have serious, unresolved "issues" with the 41st president?

No, he doesn't have "issues" (using the pseudo-psychology-speak that so many clueless people have adopted) with 41. Unlike Shields, however, 43 learned something from history, and so did the people that Shields uses to prop up 41's political decision to let Saddam off the hook. Our coalition partners hemmed us in with what turned out to be a half-assed objective: rolling back the agression without doing anything to address the aggressor. Instead of recognizing that Saddam would be a long-term threat to stability in the region and that his WMD programs (well-documented at the time) presented a clear danger to the US and the West, Bush 41 and his advisors stuck with that inadequate mission even when Saddam's regime stood on the brink of collapse and the road to Baghdad was wide open.

At the time, people worried the coalition might fracture, but all that demonstrates is the folly of adapting strategic thinking for the sake of the coalition, rather than forming coalitions that meet strategic thinking. What did the resolution of the first Gulf War bring the West? Did it increase the love in the region for us? No; when it became apparent that Saddam wouldn't abide by any of the terms of the cease-fire except the extraction of his shattered forces from Kuwait, the UN slapped on a sanctions program that did nothing but enrich Saddam and impoverish his subjects. For years we heard that sanctions killed 5,000 children a month, and now we've learned that it succeeded wildly at propping up Saddam's genocidal tyranny. When the Shi'ites attempted to rise up in the South, thinking that the Americans would support them, Saddam ruthlessly crushed them. National Geographic estimates in this month's issue that as many as 7 million Shi'ites "disappeared" since what Shields describes as a success.

In the end, 41's caution and overwhelming concern for coalition maintenance condemned the US and UK -- and the Iraqi people -- to a twelve-year quagmire while Saddam feasted and built connections to various terror groups. 41 himself wound up being targeted for assassination by Saddam as payback for his measured response. And when we finally resolved to bring the circus to an end, some of our friends wound up abandoning us anyway (the ones who sold out to Saddam) and the Arab nations wound up on the sidelines, just as they would have in '91 had 41 simply pushed forward. The twelve years cost us billions enforcing a sanctions regime in which everyone but the US and UK cheated, led hundreds of thousands to early deaths from starvation, millions more dead at the hand of the man who started the problem in the beginning. It also eroded our credibility as a world power, giving the impression that the US would not conduct ground combat for any extended period of time if we ran any risk of casualties, a lesson we would reinforce in Mogadishu in 1993.

Is this what Shields considers a victory?

In further irony, although not as Shields supposes, he continues by scolding 43 for not following his father's strategy and praises Kerry for being heir to the 41 mantle:

One irony of this 2004 election campaign is that the Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, through his emphasis on coalition building, enlisting the United Nations and improved relations with allies, sounds much more like George H.W. Bush than does Bush's own son. In fact, in leaving Yale as a young man to join the Navy and to face combat and death in a U.S. war in the Pacific, John Kerry has led a life that closely mirrors that of George H.W. Bush.

Well, both were in the Navy, and both were injured, but that's where the similarities end. That's a post for another time, but the irony is that Shields holds Kerry up as an example for 43 to follow -- by pursuing the same failed strategy that landed us in the twelve-year Iraqi quagmire in the first place! All of which proves that Shields either slept from 1991 to 2003 or he has completely lost the ability to analyze military and strategic thought. For Shields, as with Kerry and to some extent 41, coalitions trump security and strategy. For 43, protecting Americans dictates the strategy and the coalitions. Take a look at the former policy's fruit in Iraq, 1991-2003, and decide which you think works better.

INDC Journal Interviews Michael Berg

Bill from INDC Journal took an afternoon to attend an International ANSWER rally this weekend and has posted excerpts from a speech given there by Michael Berg. Bill had an opportunity to participate in an interview with Berg after the speech -- actually, Bill pushed the envelope on blogging vs journalism by getting himself in the middle of the traditional media representatives for the Q & A. Berg's incoherence comes through during his speech and his press conference, which Bill captures in words and photographs:

INDC Journal: "Well, you think that we need to pull troops out now, correct?"

Michael Berg: "Yes."

INDC Journal: "Without providing some sort of alternate security?"

Michael Berg: "No, I think we need to … I think we need to trade our troops for a truly international …"

INDC Journal: "And how should they go about doing that?"

Michael Berg: (Becoming animated) "I don’t know how to do it! I’m not a politician! I’m not a militarist! I’m not a strategist! I don’t know how to do it, but I think that it can be done if … I think that if the American people let their will be known, that that’s what they want to be done, get out of there now, stop the killing now, that’s what will happen!"

You have to go read the entire post -- and this is only Part 1. Part 2 comes tomorrow, I believe.

Rumsfeld, Filtered

Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech to a security conference in Singapore yesterday which was reported by the Chicago Sun-Times as critical of the US stance on the war on terror. The headline of the Sun-Times reads, "Rumsfeld fears U.S. losing long-term fight against terror," and the text of the article by Robert Burns supports the header:

The United States and its allies are winning some battles in the terrorism war but may be losing the broader struggle against Islamic extremism that is terrorism's source, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday.

The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists -- whom he termed ''zealots and despots'' bent on destroying the global system of nation-states -- are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.

''It's quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this,'' Rumsfeld said at an international security conference. His remarks showed a level of concern about the long-term direction of the U.S.-led global fight against terrorism that Rumsfeld rarely addresses in public.

Sounds pretty damning; as Burns notes directly afterwards, Rummy usually sounds off supportively in public about US efforts, praising the troops and the overall plan. Unsurprisingly so, since Rumsfeld himself is one of its chief architects. So why would Rumsfeld decide to criticize the administration, of which he is a key member, by going overseas to complain at an international security conference?

The short answer: he didn't. Rumsfeld didn't complain about the US effort -- he said that the international effort was incoherent, as this report in the Singapore-based Straits Times makes clear:

UNITED States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed accusations that Washington had a go-it-alone attitude as he called for the region to 'collectively' go on the offensive in the war against terrorism. 'Despite a great deal of progress, the reality is that today we remain closer to the beginning of this struggle than to its end,' he said, warning of more attacks. ...

Echoing a point made by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong when opening the meeting on Friday, Mr Rumsfeld conceded that the anti-terror coalition did not have a 'coherent approach' to tackling all challenges posed by terrorism.

Some religious schools, for instance, were drilling 'young folk' in the doctrine of hatred and techniques of suicide bombing instead of 'productive' skills in mathematics and science.

'I'm certain we have not been successful, as the Prime Minister mentioned... the civilised world doesn't have an answer to that question,' Mr Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld specifically mentions those countries which cooperate at the higher levels of government but where children and poorer classes continue to be indoctrinated into rabid anti-Americanism and radical jihadism. The Sun-Times cherry-picked Rumsfeld's words, twisted the context, and while never quite misquoting him delivered a completely different meaning to what he said. Rumsfeld, far from questioning US strategy, instead questioned the resolve and desire of some so-called "partners" in the anti-terror effort to truly stamp out its root causes.

Up to now, I never thought that the Sun-Times had a particularly egregious record in media bias. I guess they've stepped up to the Maureen Dowd/Dana Milbank threshold on this story.

UPDATE: Cori Dauber at RantingProfs has an even better dissection of Rumsfeld's remarks. And you can read them yourself, verbatim, at DefenseLINK.

Arafat Rolls Dice, Blinks On Purpose

Yasser Arafat has made his calculations and decided not to call Egypt's bluff but Israel's instead, agreeing to Egyptian demands that he reform the structure of Palestinian security forces throughout the occupied territories. Arafat decided not to buck his Arab neighbor and guarantor any longer, shifting the onus to the Sharon government to fully evacuate Gaza:

Yasser Arafat told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak he accepted his demand for Palestinian security reforms as a condition for Egypt to help stabilize Gaza if Israelis withdraw, officials said Monday.

The Palestinian president was responding by letter to Egypt's mid-June deadline to agree to security overhauls or risk losing Cairo's offer to promote order in Gaza after a pullout, which the Israeli cabinet approved in principle Sunday.

"Arafat has accepted the Egyptian ideas and is now awaiting the Israeli response. This will help the Egyptians take steps to retrain our police force and send their security experts to the Palestinian areas," a senior Palestinian official told Reuters.

By making his agreement contingent on the full Israeli withdrawal, Arafat shifts the pressure off of himself and onto Sharon. Sharon, who tried to get his Likud party to back just that solution, has run into formidable obstacles in his governing coalition, even though polling shows the plan to be popular with Israeli citizens. In fact, Arafat gambled that Sharon simply cannot deliver a full withdrawal, giving him the excuse necessary to retain his grip on power.

One thing is absolutely clear: Arafat will not relinquish power, neither nominal nor practical, unless under duress from his benefactors, and even then he intends on playing the string out as long as possible. Egypt's ultimatum worked to pin Arafat down to a clear decision, which was rather unusually helpful for Egypt in recent days. However, unless Sharon can push through the full withdrawal he originally wanted -- and recent news shows that Likud won't accept anything except a watered-down version, preferring to stay in Gaza until final negotiations -- nothing much will have changed, except that dialogue has been reopened. Perhaps that will spark more fruitful negotiations in the near future, but until the PA does something about terrorists within and without its own structure, it's unlikely. It's more likely that nothing much will have changed.

Republican National Convention Is On Line

The Republican National Convention has a new web site for those of us who want to keep close tabs on the events in New York this summer -- for whatever reason. I received an e-mail from the GOP this morning announcing its launch:

While the convention will take place inside Madison Square Garden, people all over the nation will take part in the events through our Web site.

Leading up to the first day of the convention on August 30, the site will be your source for convention news; web chats with special guests, convention staff, and New York City officials; delegate information and profiles; as well as logistical information for media covering the convention.

When the gavel drops, the site will host live webcasts, broadcast video web chats, and provide programming between convention sessions. Our web team is also planning to launch interactive content that will break new ground in Internet convention coverage. Stay tuned for more information on these special content pieces throughout the summer. It is going to be an exciting week in convention history.

I've added the link to my blogroll; be sure to keep checking in to catch up on what's going on in the RNC planning and events.

More Success For Interim Iraqi Gov't, CPA

Iyad Allawi, the new Iraqi Prime Minister, announced this morning that the new interim government has reached agreement with most of the organized insurgencies to disband and return to civilian life:

Nine of Iraq's major militias have agreed to disband, the country's interim prime minister said Monday, but the deal does not cover radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia.

"I am happy to announce today the successful completion of negotiations on the nationwide transition and reintegration of militias and other armed forces previously outside of state control," Iyad Allawi said in a statement.

Well, it's amazing how unsuccessful this transition has been, isn't it? And doesn't it seem that democracy has a lot more attraction for Iraqis than it does to certain elements of the American political scene? As CNN put it yesterday, the Iraqis took control of their government and since then good things keep happening. All that the Iraqis want is to control their own destiny, now and in the future, and that doesn't mean ceding control to a strongman with the biggest militia. It means establishing and supporting a representative government, of by and for Iraqis.

What a shame some politicians here don't seem to value democracy as an end result in Iraq the way Iraqis do.

Burning Down The House

Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, which had claimed to protect the sacred mosques of Shi'ite Islam, instead may have seriously damaged one of them this morning. The al-Mahdi army used a mosque in the "holy city" of Kufa to store ammunition which caught fire, causing an unknown number of injuries and damage:

Explosions rocked the compound surrounding the Kufa mosque on Monday after ammunition used by fighters loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr apparently caught fire, witnesses and Shiite militia members said. At least nine people were hurt.

Flames and smoke rose above the building. Firefighters and ambulances raced to the site, where fighters in al-Sadr's al-Madhi army had been holed up.

One of the terrorists holed up in the mosque told reporters that he heard a "whooshing" noise and blamed Americans for shooting a missile at the compound. US forces deny they were anywhere near the mosque and note that Iraqi police called to the scene took small-arms fire when they approached. Sadr's militia tried to keep journalists from reporting on casualties, threatening them at the hospital:

At the Furat al-Awsat hospital in Kufa, Mohammed Abdul-Kadhim, a nurse, said that nine people were brought in with injuries from the explosions, mostly burns. The injured included both civilians and militiamen, he said. However, the number of the injured may be higher since the al-Mahdi militia is known not to take their injured to the local hospitals.

One of the militiamen in the hospital shouted at reporters and officials, threatening them if they released any information.

Had it been the Americans who attacked the compound, I doubt that the terrorists would suppress that information. In fact, they would insist that reporters spread the word on casualties, especially among civilians, in order to maximize the public-relations power of such an assault.

Not only does Sadr want to keep silent on casualties, I suspect that he wants to keep quiet the extent of the damage his army has done to the mosque. Other Shi'ite clerics, like Ali Sistani, have called for Sadr to leave the mosque compounds for weeks now to avoid exactly this situation. Now, instead of uniting the Shi'a against the CPA, Sadr now risks inflaming the entire region against him and his militia. His failure to abide by terms of the cease-fire arranged by the clerics and his refusal to leave the compounds put the onus for the damage squarely on Sadr. If the damage is significant -- which seems likely -- Sadr has committed a political and military blunder of the first order.

Perhaps Sadr will convince some locals that the Americans attacked the mosque, creating some space in the confusion for him to continue his inept insurgency. However, Sistani and other Shi'ite leaders made it clear that they wanted Sadr out of the mosques well before now, and his militia have not only stayed but have used the mosques as bases for attacks despite the cease-fire. The other Shi'ite leaders had not been happy to have an upstart like Sadr eclipse them. Now they have a perfect excuse to turn Shi'ites against him, and they will not hesitate to marginalize him -- at the least.

Gore Continues His Self-Immolation

Al Gore lashed out at a fellow Democrat earlier today for not enthusiastically supporting his attempt to steal the Florida election. Gore, campaigning for Senate candidate and current Congressman Peter Deutsch in Florida, told the Miami Herald that Deutsch's opponent in the primary was the "single most treacherous and dishonest person" involved in the 2000 campaign:

Al Gore harshly criticized U.S. Senate candidate Alex Penelas, saying his fellow Democrat was "the single most treacherous and dishonest person" he dealt with during the disputed 2000 presidential campaign. ...

"One of the other candidates in this race became in 2000 the single most treacherous and dishonest person I dealt with during the campaign anywhere in America," Gore told the newspaper after praising Penelas' opponent, U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch.

Penelas is not mentioned by name in the statement. But a Gore aide confirmed Sunday he was not referring to former state education commissioner Betty Castor, considered the only other viable Democratic candidate.

Alex Panelas is the mayor of Miami-Dade County and helped Gore win the county in 2000 despite its slight Republican tilt. However, apparently Panelas failed to cheerlead sufficiently for Al Gore -- even though Gore decided to win the election by filing lawsuits, a strategy that needed lawyers rather than mayors. Panelas shot back at Gore:

"I've been a faithful and loyal Democrat for many years. ... I was proud to support Gore," he told The Associated Press. "We delivered Miami-Dade for Al Gore."

Penelas added that if Gore had won his home state of Tennessee, he would be in the White House.

Gore has gone on quite a bender during this election cycle. First he stabs his former running mate, Joe Lieberman, in the back by endorsing Howard Dean. After Dean imploded, Gore apparently lost what was left of his mind. He associated himself with what may be, if the critics are correct, the biggest unintentional comedy since Battlefield Earth in The Day After Tomorrow. Immediately afterwards, he gave another in a series of screaming speeches designed to appeal to the leftist lunatic fringe, demanding resignations from half of the Cabinet.

Now he has gone nuclear, attacking a Democrat for personally betraying him even though Panelas could have had no effect on the outcome of Gore's attempted hijacking of Florida's vote. It's an indication of the corrosion of Al Gore, who has become a pitiful shadow of the man who came within 600 votes of the Presidency. Gore has turned that sliver-close vote, verified by three separate recounts and an independent media investigation, into a world-class conspiracy of destruction aimed at him personally. For four years, he dragged the Democrats into his psychosis. Now that he's accusing Democrats of being in on the plot, especially one who could deliver the 2004 election for Democrats in another razor-thin contest, perhaps the national party will finally divorce itself from the madness of Prince Albert and put him, and the 2000 election, in the can once and for all.

Bush: June 11 To Be Day Of Mourning

Below is President George Bush's proclamation of Friday, June 11 as a national day of mourning for the death of President Ronald Reagan.

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES:

It is my sad duty to announce officially the death of Ronald Reagan, the fortieth President of the United States, on June 5, 2004.

We are blessed to live in a Nation, and a world, that have been shaped by the will, the leadership, and the vision of Ronald Reagan.

With an unshakable faith in the values of our country and the character of our people, Ronald Reagan renewed America's confidence and restored our Nation. His optimism, strength, and humility epitomized the American spirit. He always told us that for America the best was yet to come.

Ronald Reagan believed that God takes the side of justice and that America has a special calling to oppose tyranny and defend freedom. Through his courage and determination, he enhanced America's security and advanced the spread of peace, liberty, and democracy to millions of people who had lived in darkness and oppression. As America's President, Ronald Reagan helped change the world.

President Reagan has left us, but he has left us stronger and better. We take comfort in the knowledge that he has left us for a better place, the shining city that awaits him.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, in honor and tribute to the memory of Ronald Reagan, and as an expression of public sorrow, do hereby direct that the flag of the United States be displayed at half-staff at the White House and on all buildings, grounds, and Naval vessels of the United States for a period of 30 days from the day of his death. I also direct that for the same length of time, the representatives of the United States in foreign countries shall make similar arrangements for the display of the flag at half-staff over their Embassies, Legations, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and stations.

I hereby order that suitable honors be rendered by units of the Armed Forces under orders of the Secretary of Defense.

I do further appoint Friday, June 11, 2004, as a National Day of Mourning throughout the United States. I call on the American people to assemble on that day in their respective places of worship, there to pay homage to the memory of President Reagan. I invite the people of the world who share our grief to join us in this solemn observance.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-eighth.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Steyn: Why Was Tenet Still Around?

Mark Steyn writes a powerful indictment against the CIA and Congressional Democrats in his latest column on the resignation of George Tenet. Writing for the London Telegraph, the always-acerbic Steyn wonders why Tenet held off resigning so long after the debacle of 9/11 and even after it was made clear that the CIA had failed miserably to provide adequate intelligence to George Bush. Steyn focuses on the PDB for which the 9/11 Commission demanded declassification as his prime evidence:

Everything that is wrong with the agency was made plain a few weeks ago with the much-anticipated release of a classified CIA "Presidential Daily Brief" from August 6 2001. This was supposed to be the smoking gun which would reveal that Bush knew 9/11 was coming. It turned out to be far more damaging than that. It revealed somewhat carelessly that the CIA - the most sinister acronym in the world, the all-knowing spooks behind the dirty tricks in a thousand Hollywood thrillers - crib most of their info from television shows and foreign intelligence services.

Under the headline "Bin Ladin [sic] Determined To Strike In US", the most lavishly funded intelligence agency in the Western world led off its analysis with its top piece of "classified" "intelligence": "Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and 'bring the fighting to America'."

Terrific. Your crack CIA operative knows how to go into deep cover in his living room and pose as an average American couch potato by switching on the television. Then, just when the rest of the country is settling in for the Friends rerun, he surreptiously flips the remote to the Osama interview on CNN.

Steyn capsulizes all the reasons why Tenet's exit allows the US to fix its intelligence service, adapting it to the new threats we face, and how the necessary changes weren't likely to be made under Tenet. Read the whole thing.

Reason: He Was Right

In honor of Ronald Reagan's passing, Reason made available Glenn Garvin's review of Peter Schweizer's book, Reagan's War, which takes a narrow look at Reagan's career as an anti-communist. I have not read the book, but the review is outstanding. It explains what I wrote earlier about Reagan -- how he used defense spending as a weapon in the Cold War, and in fact as the ultimate weapon he knew would end it:

As early as 1963, Reagan argued that the arms race should be not reined in but accelerated. "If we truly believe that our way of life is best, aren’t the Russians more likely to recognize that fact and modify their stand if we let their economy come unhinged, so the contrast is apparent?" he asked in a speech that year. "In an all-out race our system is strong," said Reagan, "and eventually the enemy gives up the race as a hopeless cause."

He wanted to use American technology to leverage an arms race that would force Moscow’s wheezing command economy into a Hobson’s choice between guns and butter. Either way, Reagan believed, the Soviets would lose: They could never keep up with the United States in an arms race, but abandoning it would be suicidal for a state that conducted all its business at gunpoint.

That doesn't quite jibe with the image of Reagan as an "amiable dunce," as Clark Clifford once called him. Garvin takes plenty of shots at people who publicly 'misunderestimated' Reagan. None among them are Reagan's former Soviet Bloc adversaries, who understood all too well his genius and his strategy, and how successful it would eventually become.

The primary weapon, Garvin makes clear, for destroying the Soviet Union was the Strategic Defense Initiative, scoffed at by the chattering classes here in the US and ridiculed as the "Star Wars Defense." The idea of a missile shield made leftists laugh, when they weren't complaining about its cost and all of the more useful tasks to which its funding could be dedicated. Far from fantasy, the idea of the weapon itself made the Soviets fear that their economy would be destroyed just in keeping up with American technology and they did all they could to stop it:

Whether SDI will ever work (20 years later, it’s still mostly theoretical) and whether, even if it does work, it’s a wise strategic choice in a world where America’s most implacable enemies are not superpowers with hundreds of ICBMs but terrorists with suitcases, are arguments for another time. But what has largely been overlooked in the debate is that the Soviets had no doubt whatsoever that it would work.

At arms summits, Gorbachev frantically offered increasingly gigantic cuts in strategic missiles -- first 50 percent, then all of them -- if Reagan would just abandon SDI. Schweizer, mining Soviet archives and memoirs still unpublished in the West, shows that Gorbachev’s fears echoed throughout the Politburo. SDI "played a powerful psychological role," admitted KGB Gen. Nikolai Leonev. "It underlined still more our technological backwardness." Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko understood exactly what Reagan was up to: "Behind all this lies the clear calculation that the USSR will exhaust its material resources before the USA and therefore be forced to surrender." Most tellingly of all, the East German-backed terrorist group known as the Red Army Faction began systematically murdering executives of West German companies doing SDI research.

It's a terrific review and probably an excellent book, and if I didn't already have four books on my desk right now to read, I'd pick this one up in a heartbeat. Most striking are Garvin's inclusions of the dismissive (and in hindsight, idiotic) criticisms that Reagan's domestic oppostion gave at the time. Arthur Schlesinger, in particular, defied his intelligent image by stating that the Soviet Union was economically strong and very productive -- in 1982, seven short years before its complete collapse:

Arthur Schlesinger, just back from a trip to Moscow in 1982, said Reagan was delusional. "I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street -- more of almost everything," he said, adding his contempt for "those in the U.S. who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink."

Not only does Garvin's review, published six months before Reagan's death, reaffirm Reagan's genius for clarity on communism, but it also demonstrates how little the Left has changed its rhetoric or strategy in the twenty-plus years since. Once again, they paint a Republican executive as an idiot who couldn't tie his shoes without illustrated instructions, and again they argue for peaceful coexistence with an enemy who wants to not just crush our way of life this time but to kill as many of us as they can in the process. Make sure you read the whole thing.

D-Day Memories at NRO

National Review Online reprints an article written by William McGurn 10 years ago for the 50th anniversary of D-Day, a remembrance sparked by his visit to the first town liberated by the Allies, St. Mere-Eglise. I found it to be oddly satisfying in that it not only honors the memories of all those who died to free Western Europe, as well as those who lived through it, but points out that political cluelessness may always surround D-Day anniversaries:

Smack-dab in the middle of the little town that bears its name stands the thirteenth-century church of Ste-Me`re-Eglise, as proud and sturdy as the people who built it. As such there is little to distinguish it from the many other stone churches that crowd the Norman landscape. Except for this: a special, stained-glass Madonna and Child that I have always found more engaging than all the glories of Chartres. For the Madonna of Ste-Me`re-Eglise is surrounded by American paratroopers descending from the heavens. ...

Like the original invasion, too, this year's hasn't been without its flaps. Dame Vera Lynn, the British "Forces Sweetheart" who gave the troops "Yours" and "The White Cliffs of Dover," nearly brought down John Major in a tiff over ceremonies at New Hyde Park. Chancellor Kohl let it be known he felt snubbed by the lack of an invitation. And the French government, bent on a stupidity that I hitherto had thought reserved for the Republican Party, canceled private hotel reservations made by Canadian D-Day vets (they were ultimately restored, but only after a huge stink).

Today will provide many kinds of remembrances of the Allied sacrifice at D-Day and beyond, but McGurn reminds us that too often, those memories only surface on June 6. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: The Milbloggers do a great job with D-Day memorials. Blackfive has a comprehensive set of links.

The Kerry Response: Classy, And Something More?

John Kerry responded to the passing of Ronald Reagan with class and restraint yesterday, even deciding to allow for a pause in his campaign schedule to attend a Reagan memorial today and possibly for a few days more. Kerry, speaking about the opposition's greatest inspiration for generations, said this in a press release shortly after the news of Reagan's death went public:

Even when he was breaking Democrats hearts, he did so with a smile and in the spirit of honest and open debate," Kerry said in a statement. "The differences were real, but because of the way President Reagan led, he taught us that there is a big difference between strong beliefs and bitter partisanship.

Another quote in the same release, however, has Kerry's political fingerprints all over it, and points towards a possible strategy for Kerry to use to attract swing voters with lasting affection for the 40th president:

Kerry, who had previously scheduled Saturday off from campaigning, urged political leaders to look to Reagan's example.

"Today in the face of new challenges," Kerry said, "his example reminds us that we must move forward with optimism and resolve. He was our oldest president, but he made America young again."

Let me say that I'm not scolding John Kerry for using Reagan's death for political gain. He hasn't done anything like that yet, and besides, I think it's inevitable that both sides will try to co-opt Reagan as much as possible in this election. The Reagan legacy is far too attractive to leave alone. Despite generating some bitter partisanship during his terms in office -- let's not forget that Borking began with Democrats during Reagan's presidency -- he has become an avuncular figure in politics, because for the most part he's remembered for his personality and not his policies. Now that he's passed on, memories of Reagan among a large bloc of the electorate may get almost saintly.

To me, it looks as though Kerry wants to make his case for being the natural heir to the Reagan mystique, but in that same superficial manner. Kerry wants to lay claim to that optimism and resolve without doing anything except talking about it. Reagan was a man of words and action, while all Kerry offers in contrast to George Bush is a lot more talk. He wants to talk more before doing anything -- he wants to talk to the UN, to France and Germany, to Arab kleptocracies and mullahcracies before taking any kind of action. In a way, Reagan's nickname, The Great Communicator, does him a bit of injustice. Reagan was also the Great Doer.

It's instructive to see how John Kerry reacted to Reagan's deeds when they took place instead of his well-intentioned platitudes now. Newsmax had posted a number of such Kerry responses to Reagan's actions back in March of this year. (While Newsmax isn't a very good source for breaking news, it's adequate for this kind of review.) For instance, in Reagan's response to terrorism in the 1986 retaliatory strike on Libya for the German disco bombing that killed American GIs, Kerry said the following:

Admitting that the evidence tying Tripoli to the disco bombing was “irrefutable,” the U.S. had failed the proportionality test, Kerry argued:

“It is obvious that our response was not proportional to the disco bombing and even violated the Administration’s own guidelines to hit clearly defined terrorist targets, thereby minimizing the risk to innocent civilians. ...

“There are numerous other actions we can take, in concert with our allies, to bring significant pressure to bear on countries supporting or harboring terrorists.”

Sound familiar? In fact, it's the exact same rhetoric used by John Kerry today, 18 years later, in combating terrorism. And Kerry was spectacularly wrong -- Reagan's actions forced Gaddafi to give up terrorism, just as Bush's capture of Saddam Hussein forced him to give up his WMD programs.

Next, Kerry on Reagan's defense budgets:

The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed ‘window of vulnerability,’ which we now know not to exist. And Congress, rather than having the moral courage to challenge the Reagan Administration, has given Ronald Reagan almost every military request he has made, no matter how wasteful, no matter how useless, no matter how dangerous.

The biggest defense buildup since World War II has not given us a better defense. Americans feel more threatened by the prospect of war, not less so. And our national priorities become more and more distorted as the share of our country’s resources devoted to human needs diminishes.

Using his defense build-up as a tool of economic war against the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan bankrupted their empire and caused it to collapse from within. Five years after Kerry spoke these words, the Berlin Wall crumbled, and with it the entire Iron Curtain. And yet Kerry didn't learn anything from that experience. To this day, Kerry continues to argue that despite our dismantling of two of the worst terrorist-supporting tyrannies in the world, we are no safer than we were on 9/11.

Kerry may well pass up the opportunity to wrap the Reagan legacy around his campaign, but I suspect that eventually his staff will focus on "optimism" as a campaign strategy. The difference is that Reagan gave specific policies and philosophies that supported his optimism; he stood for his ideas and became legendary for sticking to them. Kerry offers little but a distant echo of Reagan in voice, and a parody of him in practice.