9/11 Suspect, On The Run, Surfaces Via E-Mail

The London Telegraph reports that the last of Mohammed Atta's Hamburg al-Qaeda cell to be alive and outside of custody has surfaced long enough to e-mail his wife in Germany, prompting a new effort to track him down:

Said Bahaji, 29, a German of Moroccan origin who is alleged to have been the link between the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell - which masterminded the attacks - and Osama bin Laden, is believed to have been hiding in Pakistan and Afghanistan ever since the attacks.

In an email to his wife, Nese, who still lives in Germany, Bahaji revealed that he was being well looked after despite being on the run. Addressing her as "My Rose", Bahaji wrote: "The people here love Arabs. The simplest of people welcome us. Their wives can't wait to cook and do our laundry for us."

German Federal Police (BKA) revealed last week that they have intercepted 14 emails and a number of telephone conversations between Bahaji, his wife, and other friends and relatives.

Hopefully Bahaji can be found quickly, but forgive me if I hope he winds up in our custody rather than Germany's. Germany couldn't prosecute the one AQ member they tried, allowing the defendant to be sprung due to a lack of evidence. Perhaps it is this track record that inspired Bahaji's wife to beseech the terrorist to turn himself in to Germany, but he has refused to allow "infidels" to humiliate him.

Pakistani authorities say that terrorists are using satellite phones to make their calls from the mountainous border regions, which should allow intelligence services to track them down. However, the internet connections for the e-mails originated in Lahore and Islamabad, which indicates that Bahaji and his cohorts move around Pakistan fairly easily. That might indicate that Pakistani security forces may not be as enthusiastic about chasing Bahaji down as we'd like.

At any rate, we now know he's alive and hiding with the rest of the AQ gang.

Northern Alliance Get-Together A Rousing Success!

The first Northern Alliance social get-together at Keegan's Pub in Minneapolis was an absolute blast! We were fortunate enough to have James Lileks join us and the rest of the Twin Cities blogging community this evening. I got to meet Jay Reding, DC from Brainstorming, as well as some great CQ readers such as Pinkmonkeybird and Don. I met Dave from Dave's Picks for the first time -- he's one of the original Twin Cities bloggers, and he and I kept the bar from falling down for a while. Thorley Winston from Tacitus was there, as well as the Warrior Princess, whose link escapes me at the moment.

I couldn't stay long -- the back was killing me -- but I did get some pictures, which I will post later. I'm probably going to take the rest of the evening off to rest it. Don't forget that next week we'll be out at Diamond Bluff on our first live remote at the Patriot Picnic. There will be lots of free food and your favorite radio hosts on hand to entertain you. Hope to see you there!

UPDATE: I almost forgot about Shawn Sarazin from the American Mind, a great blog, whom I met tonight at the party. He's already posted his thoughts on it here.

Captain's Caption Contest #20 - Hard/Soft Edition!

It's Friday, so it must be time for another Captain's Caption Contest -- our 20th edition! It's getting pretty danged hard to keep up with John Kerry's flip-flops. This morning, Kerry's campaign is pushing the notion that they'll sell a softer, gentler Kerry in the leadup to the convention:

This is an emotional side of Kerry that he rarely shows publicly. At campaign stops he often asks voters personal questions about their health, their age and even their income, but he doesn't reveal much about his own feelings or share personal stories. He usually leaves that duty to people who campaign with him, including his children, his wife and his former Navy crewmates from the Vietnam.

But don't think he's gone all wussy on us, either (thanks to my partner Whiskey, who sent this ahead of a half-dozen others):

Guest judging this week will be Chumley Wonderbar from Plastic Hallway, a fine blog and a loyal reader of CQ who may regret being ineligible to win this week. As always, leave your comments on the comments page, and as always, put your best caption entries in the comments section -- NO e-mail, please! (E-mailed entries will be specially marked by CQ Archives security personnel and shoved down Sandy Berger's pants.) The contest will remain open until 8 pm Sunday, July 25th, at which point the comments will be closed and Chumley will pick the winners.

Let the games begin!

COMMENTS CLOSED: Another great slate of entries, everyone! Chumley has already made his decisions, and I'll post the winners shortly ...

North Korea: We're Not Libya

North Korea rejected an informal proposal by senior US officials that Pyongyang could enjoy economic aid and better relations if it gave up its nuclear ambitions as did Libya:

Senior US officials have urged North Korea to follow the example of Libya, which has seen most sanctions against it lifted after it gave up its weapons of mass destruction.

But Pyongyang dismissed the US proposal as "a sham offer not worthy of further discussion".

"The US is foolish enough to calculate that such mode imposed upon Libya would be accepted by [North Korea] too," a spokesman was quoted as saying.

Pyongyang has said it will freeze its nuclear facilities, perhaps leading to their eventual dismantling, but only after the US provides energy aid, lifts economic sanctions and stops accusing it of sponsoring terrorism.

In other words, Kim Jong-Il is determined to play chicken right down to the inevitable crash. Faced with a starving and oppressed population, Kim would rather ensure his isolation than liberalize his policies and accept aid. Unfortunately, he doesn't even have to face that choice, as the BBC reports that we're sending 50,000 tons of food aid anyway. It appears that Kim understands nuclear blackmail all too well and enjoys playing the game.

Speaking of the BBC, their expert analyst assures us that the rhetoric means nothing, nothing at all:

The BBC's Jonathan Head says although North Korea's tone sounds ominous, such statements are not unusual and do not mean it will abandon talks on its nuclear programme.

Sure. And Hitler only wrote Mein Kampf to 'energize his base'. He didn't really mean any of that rhetoric about using military force to gain Lebensraum in Eastern Europe and Russia ...

UPDATE: Corrected spelling of 'lebensraum', with a hat tip to Xrlq. Dammit, I even googled it to double-check my spelling, and somehow I missed it.

Meet The Whole Northern Alliance Gang Tonight!

One more reminder for everyone about tonight's social hour with the Northern Alliance at Keegans, tonight at 5 pm in Minneapolis! If you're a blogger, a blog reader, or even someone who's reading this because someone played a joke on you, you're invited.

It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is -- so I expect to see Miles and Arne there ... right, guys? Let me put it to you this way -- if you keep me occupied there, I can't be here converting liberals to conservatism, can I? Can you resist that challenge?

Come on by and meet the crew. Let's take an evening off and have a few laughs together. When you see me walking this afternoon, I guarantee the first chuckle.

And They Should Know

Reader Mark Warner points me to this Washington Post article that details the Polish reaction to the launch of Fahrenheit 9/11 in their country. [Lazy day, today, Captain? -- I prefer to think of it as being responsive to the CQ community...] The Poles are unimpressed with Michael Moore's film, as they get a strange sense of deja vu:

"Fahrenheit 9/11" opened Friday in Poland - a U.S. ally in Iraq - with some critics comparing director Michael Moore's style to totalitarian propaganda. ... A critic for Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's largest daily newspaper, condemned the movie as a "foul pamphlet" too biased to be considered a documentary and said it reminded him of methods used by Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.

"In criticizing Moore, I have to admit that he has certain abilities - Leni Riefenstahl had them too," reviewer Jacek Szczerba said.

The Rzeczpospolita newspaper wrote that, "Michael Moore will not convince Poles with his film. People are very sensitive to aggressive propaganda, especially when it pretends to be an objective documentary or a work of art," the paper wrote.

The article gives a balanced view of Polish response, noting that Poles are not happy with their participation in Iraq and may be more sympathetic to the film as a result. On the other hand, after having lived for decades under the brutal reign of two truly genocidal regimes -- the Nazis and the Soviets -- one can safely assume that Poles can smell bad propaganda from a far distance, and the reek coming from F-9/11 has them warned.

Genocide, Genocide, Who's Got The Genocide?

Two stories at CNN this morning make it clear that we have a real problem defining genocide in our world today, and that the word itself has become little more than a political tool -- a shameful legacy that demeans the millions of victims that died at the hands of true genocidal maniacs.

First off, Mexico wants to prosecute its former president for genocide stemming from a single incident, where troops shot and killed eleven student protestors:

A special prosecutor has requested the arrest of former President Luis Echeverria and other senior officials accused of genocide for allegedly ordering the killing of student demonstrators in 1971, Echeverria's attorney said Friday. ...

In the June 10, 1971, attack a government-organized group attacked student protesters and 11 people died.

I am not minimizing the mass murder of eleven students, but unless the eleven were a significant percentage of an ethnic enclave or religious sect, then it's not genocide. Genocide is the mass murder of a significant amount of people of an ethnicity or religious affiliation in the cause of annihilation. By the Mexico standard, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy were genocidal. It's a laughable assertion and amounts to wild overreaching. And it's worth noting that the Mexican government opposed the removal of Saddam Hussein, who was busy trying to oppress the Shi'ites, murder all the Kurds he could find -- 5,000 gassed in Halabja alone -- and draining the central marshes to dislocate and disband the Marsh Arab society.

On the other hand, some people tend to be too slow to use the term genocide, especially when its use would require them to take action in defense of thousands of human lives:

Sudan's foreign minister has rejected a U.S. Congressional declaration that bloodletting in the country's western region of Darfur amounts to genocide. Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail insisted his government was doing all it can to end the conflict in Darfur which so far has killed 30,000 people and forced a million to flee. ...

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said last month he was not ready to describe the situation in Darfur "as genocide or ethnic cleansing" but he did call it "a tragic humanitarian situation" and raised the possibility of international intervention.

Arab militias have killed up to 30,000 people in Darfur, most of them black Africans, and driven over one million from their homes since the conflict began last year.

By any standard of the word, what is happening in Darfur is most certainly a genocide, and we should insist that the UN start applying that term. However, again, the Congressional Black Caucus seemed highly antagonistic in applying the term to the situation in Iraq, when Kurds and Arabs were the victims. Where were their protests in front of Iraqi delegations to the UN (Iraq had no embassy in the US)? I only recall their protests on behalf of a genocidal tyrant, insisting that we had no business removing Saddam, as he was no danger to the US. Well, neither are the Sudanese, and using the same criteria, even less so. They aren't gathering billions of dollars by a UN-approved and administered kickback scheme, and they weren't actively pursuing chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. And Saddam killed a lot more people in his genocidal ambitions.

I suppose it's too much to ask for consistency, but it makes me awfully cynical about the CBC and their concern for humanity.

A Premonition Of Things To Come?

Alert CQ reader -- do we have any other kind? -- William Sauer sent me this item earlier today on Clinton-era efforts to safeguard national-security data. In a foreshadowing of events to come with his NSA, Sandy Berger, Clinton forced Congress to remove key language from a bill in November 2000 that made leaking government secrets a felony:

The House gave in to President Clinton on Monday and removed language from a major intelligence spending bill that would have made leaking of government secrets a criminal act.

The president vetoed the bill, which authorizes an estimated $30 billion in spending by the CIA, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies, because he disagreed with the provision on classified data leaks. ...

The crackdown on government officials' leaking of classified material had some support within the administration. Attorney General Janet Reno said it would have no dramatic increase in the number of prosecutions and would close what she called a "very narrow gap" in existing laws.

The language drew criticism from news organizations, however. They said it could jeopardize seriously their ability to obtain information vital to the public.

Four of the nation's largest news organization -- CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Newspaper Association of America -- appealed to Clinton to veto the bill.

The provision would have extended penalties that now exist for leaking classified national defense information to the leaking of nondefense classified data that could harm the United States if made public or given to foreign governments.

The bill would have made it easier to prosecute people like Berger, because the government would no longer need to prove damage to national security -- a process that in itself exposes more clandestine and classified information, this time in open court. It would have allowed the government to rely on the classification itself as prima facie evidence that the person knowingly intended to damage national security. It would have elevated the crime from a misdemeanor to a felony, with prison time likely.

One has to wonder whether Bill Clinton foresaw a day when his admittedly sloppy National Security Advisor would have to contend with this provision of the law, and so decided to oppose Congress and his own Attorney General when he vetoed the originial bill. One also has to wonder about the pleas from the national news media to veto the provision, especially given their remarkable capacity to raise eyebrows over "timing" on certain leaks but yet celebrate others as "whistleblowing", something Clinton specifically mentioned when vetoing the bill the first time around.

At any rate, it demonstrates the pattern of the Clinton administration's "sloppiness" in handling sensitive material, such as the 900 or so raw-data FBI personnel evaluations that disappeared into the White House as well as Berger's heavy lifting at the National Archives. Just remember, as John Kerry promised, if you liked the Clinton presidency ... you're gonna love the Kerry presidency. Joe Wilson and Berger promise you that.

Terror Or Panic On Northwest 327?

Anne Jacobsen turned the blogosphere upside down one week ago with her harrowing recounting of her flight from Detroit to Los Angeles on Northwest 327. At the time, I remarked that

I felt that cold nugget of fear in my guts, telling me that this flight was fortunate to have arrived at its destination. However, several details about the story bother me. For one, the flight attendants shouldn't have acted the way the did in Jacobsen's account, especially divulging the air marshals' presence on the plane. I also doubt that there were "several" air marshals on one flight. Lastly, if the pilots knew of the disturbances early in the flight, they should have put the plane on the ground immediately, not risked the long journey to LAX (especially LAX, as the potential for ground destruction is more pronounced).

Nor was I the only one who questioned some of the details of the story. Donald Sensing, for one, thought that the details were so fantastic that Jacobsen had to have exaggerated the story. Redstate came out even stronger than that and claimed it was a hoax, which soon was debunked by FBI and other sources that confirmed that at least the framework of what Jacobsen wrote was true. Early this morning, however, as Michelle Malkin noted in an update to her post about the Syrian musicians carrying expired passports, the federal air marshals involved on Jacobsen's flight insisted that the only danger on Northwest 327 came from Jacobsen herself, as her overreaction to the presence of a group of Arabs threatened to cause the marshals to take action to restrain her and blow their cover:

Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, “overreacted,” to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS. The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service. ...

Jacobsen and her husband had a number of conversations with the flight attendants and gestured towards the men several times, the source said. ...

The source said the air marshals on the flight were partially concerned Jacobsen’s actions could have been an effort by terrorists or attackers to create a disturbance on the plane to force the agents to identify themselves.

Air marshals’ only tactical advantage on a flight is their anonymity, the source said, and Jacobsen could have put the entire flight in danger.

Tonight, my good blog-friend the Commissar at Politburo Diktat wrote a provocative post, Jumping At Shadows, which makes a lot of good points in chiding his fellow American comrades for allowing their fears to carry away their common sense:

We are freaking out. Panicking. Overreacting. Getting jumpy. For Chrissakes, GET A GRIP, comrades. We (I mean Ms. Jacobsen) are, by the words of our federal air security officials, a creating a danger in the air. What if some jumpy asshole, inspired by Ms. Jacobsen, had decided to "move on the cabin?" Comments like "eject them midair" were made. (Now there's a thought.)

The war on terror will be long. And hard. Courageous soldiers are dying in Iraq as part of that war. Courage. Hemingway defined courage as "grace under pressure." We gotta show a little of that too, comrades.

I tend to agree with the Commissar here, to a degree, but I think the problem here is that Americans have little confidence in an airline screening system that concerns itself with political correctness more than passenger security. We have invented silly rules to ensure that everyone's feelings are hurt equally rather than focus on the profile of the people that make war on us by hijacking airplanes and driving them into buildings. Even the 9/11 Commission executive summary couldn't overcome the paradox, arguing on one hand that Islamofascists comprise only a microscopic fraction of Muslims, and then arguing that defeating Islamofascism is difficult because it appeals to millions.

So instead of profiling people from primarily Muslim countries for transportation security reviews, we penalize airlines for putting more than two Muslims through the more stringent screening processes for flights. Instead, we force old ladies, former Medal of Honor winners, and children through screening just so we can say we've demonstrated our egalitarian spirit. And we let 14 Syrian musicians with expired passports to get on an airplane together rather than inconvenience them by forcing them to update their paperwork before accessing the same system that was used to destroy the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon, and (by the way) kill 3,000 people.

Under these circumstances, I can understand why Anne Jacobsen may have overreacted, although -- and I say this very firmly -- that overreaction could be just as deadly as any actions terrorists might have tried on the plane. Remember that Jacobsen didn't know about the marshals until well after she got panicked. She had no idea that any other authority but the flight staff was on board, and the flight staff seemed reluctant to challenge the group to follow flight rules about congregating and (later) walking around when the seatbelt sign was on. But if we had confidence in the screening process to protect us from the terrorists, confidence in flight crews (highly underpaid for security work, BTW) to control the situation once in the air, then passengers like Jacobsen wouldn't get freaked out by a dozen or so swarthy-looking dudes sitting in coach and talking with each other.

The Commissar is right about getting jumpy and overreacting, and the inherent dangers of panicking passengers mid-flight trying to take matters into their own hands. The air marshals shouldn't have to risk having their cover blown just to restore order and prevent needless vigilantism. However, American air passengers need a security screening process that gets serious about defending us from the real enemy and concerns itself much less with being PC.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin, who deserves a lot of credit for staying on top of both the story and both sides of the reaction to it, answers those who consider Jacobsen to have overreacted:

Who's freaking out? The unnamed marshals who spoke to KFI are popping veins over the Jacobsens for having merely discussed their concerns with the flight crew and "gestured towards the men." The couple didn't jump up and scream "We are going to die!" They didn't faint or have heart attacks. And they didn't confront the 14 Syrians while they all stood up before landing, went to the bathroom, and congregated in the aisles in violation of security regulations. (No one confronted them, for crying out loud. That is the problem.) ...

The message that the alarmed and panicked marshals are sending out is that if and when we view suspicious behavior, we should all just sit tight in our seats, shut up, and do nothing until it's too damned late lest we possibly risk blowing their cover.

Meanwhile, Tom Ridge and Norm Mineta ask us all to be vigilant, buy our duct tape, hand over our nail clippers and knitting needles, keep our lips sealed, and relinquish complete control and responsibility for homeland defense--and self-defense--to The Professionals.

Two words: Hell, no.

Michelle also links to a republication of the Flight 93 story from the 9/11 Commission report -- an excellent narrative by the commission, by the way -- and urges us to remember that had the passengers from 93 followed that advice, we'd probably be rebuilding the White House or Capitol building today. However, I would add that if 93 and the other three flights had armed air marshals on board, we may have had 19 dead hijackers and 3,000 or so of our fellow Americans still alive. Again, if we had transportation security that instilled confidence, passengers like Jacobsen and her family would not have had to "freak out".

John Kerry, Jet-Set Deadbeat

I'm sure you've all heard that when royalty travels, they never carry cash and in most cases assume that the honor of serving them compensates the peasants in full. Either John Kerry considers himself royalty, or his campaign fundraising hasn't gone as well as he says:

When the biggest plane to ever land on the island touched down with U.S. Sen. John Kerry and his entourage, airport manager Al Peterson never imagined he would have trouble getting paid. ... But a caterer who bought food on the island for Kerry's campaign jet ducked one bill and haggled over another.

"Apparently they don't feel like he needs to pay fees to the airport," Peterson said. "I gather the senator objects to that because his aide quoted him as saying that he already pays taxes on the island."

Peterson is out $847 from the two visits Kerry has paid to the island since he became the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Really, how inept is the Kerry campaign, which obviously can't go a week without demonstrating a new angle for their tone-deafness? While Kerry didn't do the dine-and-dash himself, the people with which he's surrounded himself appear to be the most hopelessly inept staff, from his senior policy advisors all the way down to the bill-paying flunkies. After raising nearly $100 million for their campaign, they stiff a small businessman for $847.

It's been one hell of a week for Kerry aides. First Joe Wilson gets outed as a covert liar, then Kerry discovers that Sandy Berger has a double life, and that his good buddy Bill Clinton knew about it for months and neglected to inform him. (With friends like this ...) Now his accounts payable staff clumsily fumble a nickle-and-dime bill, first trying to pressure the man into dropping his price and then simply refusing to pay it altogether.

Perhaps instead of "Bring It On" as their campaign theme, it should be "I Haven't Got A Clue".

Bush Guard Records Found: AP

One more Leftist meme may have bitten the dust this afternoon, as the Pentagon resolved a numbers-index confusion and found George Bush's National Guard payroll records, the AP reports:

The Pentagon on Friday released payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, saying its earlier contention the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."

The two computerized payroll record sheets cover July through September of 1972, when Bush was working as a campaign volunteer in Alabama. The future president had been transferred from the Texas Air National Guard to the Alabama unit so he could stay in Alabama. ... The Pentagon had said that the payroll records for that time period had been inadvertently destroyed.

"Previous attempts to locate the missing records at the Federal Records Center had been unsuccessful due to the incorrect records accession numbers provided," the Pentagon's Office of Freedom of Information chief C.Y. Talbot said in a letter Friday to The Associated Press.

No word in the AP's report as to whether the records verify Bush's service during that period of time, but I rather suspect that had they shown otherwise, the headlines would have looked much, much different.

UPDATE: The new records don't add up to anything much, which sort of puts lie to the idea that the White House hid them from anybody:

Like records released earlier by the White House, the newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months.

The records do not give any new information toward determining whether Bush kept his National Guard commitments during 1972, when he transferred to the Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend.

In other words, they say pretty much the same thing as all of the other records unearthed in this wild-goose chase. Hey, people -- "honorable discharge" means he fulfilled all of his obligations to the satisfaction of the Pentagon at the time.

What a waste of time this story is ...

UPDATE II: I noticed this biased and misleading statement in the Reuters report on the story:

Bush moved to Alabama in May 1972 to work on a political campaign and, he has said, to perform his Guard service there for a year. But other Guard officers have said they had no recollection of seeing him there.

Well, yeah. But what Reuters doesn't tell you is that other Guard officers do remember him being there:

Speaking on the phone Friday from Daytona Beach, Florida, John B. "Bill" Calhoun said he commanded Bush and that Bush attended four to six weekend drills at Dannelly Field in Montgomery. He said Bush was with the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Alabama in 1972. ...

Joe LeFevers, a member of the 187th in 1972, said he remembers seeing Bush in unit offices and being told that Bush was in Montgomery to work on Blount's campaign. "I was going in the orderly room over there one day, and they said, 'This is Lt. Bush,'" LeFevers said Tuesday. "They pointed him out to me ... the reason I remember it is because I associate him with Red Blount."

My earlier post has other references as well.

UPDATE ZILLIONTH: Or at least it seems like it on this, the most reported non-story of this election cycle. The Washington Post writes its own report on the recovered files, and agrees that they add and subtract absolutely nothing to what we already knew:

Bush moved to Alabama in May 1972, and his payroll sheet for July through September of that year shows no payment for those months, indicating no military service. But this lack of payment was apparent in pay records covering all of 1972 that the White House released in February along with a batch of Bush's other military files.

In other words, we already had records for that period of time, and they showed no payment. Move along, folks ... nothing to see here.

9/11 On Iraq: A Lot More Than You've Heard

I wanted to peruse the full report from the 9/11 Commission to check out their final say on Iraq and how that compared to all of the rhetoric during the past year, while the Left did their best to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Fortunately, Jon from QandO (one of the best blogs out there) has already done his homework. What he's found in the 9/11 report should devastate the memes repeatedly pushed from the left.

For instance, did you know that Bush is the one who took Iraq off the table following 9/11 (page 335)?

President Bush told Bob Woodward that the decision not to invade Iraq was made at the morning session on September 15. Iraq was not even on the table during the September 15 afternoon session, which dealt solely with Afghanistan.69 Rice said that when President Bush called her on Sunday, September 16, he said the focus would be on Afghanistan, although he still wanted plans for Iraq should the country take some action or the administration eventually determine that it had been involved in the 9/11 attacks.

Or, did you know that Bush told the military to stand down on Iraq after 9/11, as he wanted to focus on Afghanistan (page 336)?

Franks told us that he was pushing independently to do more robust plan ning on military responses in Iraq during the summer before 9/11—a request President Bush denied, arguing that the time was not right. (CENTCOM also began dusting off plans for a full invasion of Iraq during this period, Franks said.) The CENTCOM commander told us he renewed his appeal for further military planning to respond to Iraqi moves shortly after 9/11, both because he personally felt that Iraq and al Qaeda might be engaged in some form of collusion and because he worried that Saddam might take advantage of the attacks to move against his internal enemies in the northern or southern parts of Iraq, where the United States was flying regular missions to enforce Iraqi no-fly zones. Franks said that President Bush again turned down the request.

Don't take my word for it -- Jon has links back to the specific citations from the report itself, and a bunch more revelations that should radically alter the national debate. Go now. Read. It. All.

Kerry/Edwards Flip-Flop On Edwards' Looks

The Kerry/Edwards campaign would like all of us to quit focusing on John Edwards' fabulous good looks and focus on his qualifications, while promoting their VP candidate as the nation's sexiest politician. Connie Cass reports for the AP that the campaign seems of two minds on the one-term politician's looks and its affect on their electoral chances:

[I]t appears Edwards isn't above capitalizing on sex appeal. At campaign rallies, he often walks on stage in a suit, then slowly removes his coat and proceeds to roll up his shirt-sleeves slowly, almost teasingly, drawing "ooohs" of approval from women in the audience. "He's hot!" is a commonly heard phrase.

At a joint appearance, Kerry followed Edwards on stage and mimicked his coat-off, sleeves-up routine, to hearty laughter from the crowd. ...

Edwards sometimes acknowledges the issue with self-deprecating humor. He opened his remarks to a dinner for journalists and politicians with the line, "I know what you're thinking. He's better-looking in person." But he dismisses any suggestion that looks could kill his credibility. "The American people are good judges of character. I think they go right past the superficial," Edwards told CNN's Larry King.

At least the serious Americans go right past the superficial. However, the Kerry/Edwards campaign doesn't seem to be able to get past it, treating the campaign trail more like a Monkees reunion tour with just Peter Tork on stage. I suppose the stump slogan could be, "Not Just Another Pretty Face," although with only three years in the Senate to his credit before mostly dropping out of sight to run for President, it would be difficult to point to anything else he might be.

I love the note at the bottom of the article most of all:

EDITOR'S NOTE — Connie Cass has reported from Washington for The Associated Press for 11 years.

What is that -- a disclaimer? Connie Cass has reported from Washington for the AP for 11 years, and has never before filed such a lightweight article for us. Or, perhaps, Connie Cass has reported from Washington for the AP for 11 years, and can't believe that after all that time, she's on the middle-age political version of Tiger Beat Magazine. Or, possibly, Connie Cass has reported from Washington for the AP for 11 years, but she lost a bet with her editors and has to watch John Edwards strip for the next four months to pay it off.

Height Of Hypocrisy

The press continues to focus on the least egregious leak in the entire Trousergate scandal surrounding Sandy Berger, as the Democrats play a little sleight of hand in pushing the focus onto the White House instead of Sandy Berger:

A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that some National Security Council officials knew Berger -- who has resigned from his position as informal adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry -- was suspected of mishandling National Archives documents that were being sought by the commission. ...

Former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart, who is serving as a spokesman for Berger during the controversy, said the expanding circle of officials who the White House acknowledges knew of the criminal investigation heightens his suspicion about the timing of the disclosure that Berger is under investigation. "This is the third day in a row that the story has changed," Lockhart said. "Did the political operation know? Did [adviser] Karl Rove know? I think it's time for them to come clean, say what they knew, when they knew it, and what role if anything they had in leaking it."

So again, the Democrats prove themselves completely unserious by defending what Berger did -- committing serious and deliberate security breaches, even by his own description -- as harmless, even though top-secret data is now missing and unaccounted for, and possibly out in the open. On the other hand, hacks like Lockhart keep jumping up and down screaming about someone leaking the fact that Berger had been under investigation for months for violating security at the National Archives, as if that were supposed to be more important than the top-secret codeword information he stole.

And what's today's revelation? That the National Security Council knew about the investigation? Well, color me shocked! The National Security Council has to be kept informed of major security breaches, if for no other reason than to make a proper assessment of the damage done to National Security. And believe me, when specially compartmented information (SCI -- "codeword") data gets into the open, that is a major security breach.

So the people who needed to know, knew. What a revelation. Here's a much better question -- why did Bruce Lindsey know? What government position did Lindsey fill in 2003 that got him placed at the top of the notification list when Berger stole the files? Why did Bill Clinton know, for months? Who told him? If Berger told Bill Clinton, why didn't Berger tell John Kerry?

Something smells, all right, but the stink isn't coming from Pennsylvania Avenue.

Watcher's Council Picks CQ Post Weekly Winner

The Watcher's Council has spoken this week ... and they've selected my post, Gray Lady Spins It Hard For Kerry, Berger as the non-Council post of the week! I was up against some tough competition from Allah and Michelle Malkin (in fact, how the heck does anyone top those two?), among other great selections. The Council winner was Smarter Cop for Government Health Hell Care, which edged out entries by Patterico and Four Right-Wing Wackos.

Make sure you check out all of the nominated posts at the Watcher of Weasels ...

Executive Summary: Balanced And Disappointing

In reading the Executive Summary, one gets the impression that a lot of effort went into writing a document that maintained a level of professional detachment that, unfortunately, gets a bit lost in the earnest but often odd recommendations at the end. The recommendations start off by defining the enemy a bit more clearly than others have, but not quite as clear as one would hope from a commission that has studied this problem so thoroughly:

The enemy is not just “terrorism.” It is the threat posed specifically by Islamist terrorism, by Bin Ladin and others who draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within a minority strain of Islam that does not distinguish politics from religion, and distorts both.

The enemy is not Islam, the great world faith, but a perversion of Islam. The enemy goes beyond al Qaeda to include the radical ideological movement, inspired in part by al Qaeda, that has spawned other terrorist groups and violence. Thus our strategy must match our means to two ends: dismantling the al-Qaeda network and, in the long term, prevailing over the ideology that contributes to Islamist terrorism.

Quite frankly, this politically correct gobbledygook is part of the problem America has in facing our enemy honestly. Earlier in the summary it talks about how seductive Islamofascism is to Muslims who see the world through the prism of nine centuries of failure. Now in this section, we are told that Islamic culture is a "great" movement perverted by a just a few fascists. Let's be honest with people and quit pussyfooting around -- the Islamic world has a large percentage that boils over with pent-up frustration at their lot and gravitate towards Islamofascism, because their existing political structures don't allow for individual political action or dissent to resolve their frustrations.

Instead of identifying this as a root cause of terrorism, the commission makes more mealy-mouth recommendations instead:

• Define the message and stand as an example of moral leadership in the world. To Muslim parents, terrorists like Bin Ladin have nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death.America and its friends have the advantage—our vision can offer a better future.
• Where Muslim governments, even those who are friends, do not offer opportunity, respect the rule of law, or tolerate differences, then the United States needs to stand for a better future.
• Communicate and defend American ideals in the Islamic world, through much stronger public diplomacy to reach more people, including students and leaders outside of government. Our efforts here should be as strong as they were in combating closed societies during the Cold War.
• Offer an agenda of opportunity that includes support for public education and economic openness.

Support for public education? Again, this list reads more like a guide for the politically correct, "standing" and providing "support" all of the acceptable causes, but taking no action whatsoever to create an improved atmosphere for oppressed Muslims. What they propose is the UN approach -- talk, talk, talk while New York burns. It's a recipe that looks remarkably similar to the twelve-year Iraqi quagmire. The only sensible suggestion in the entire section is to recast our relationship with Saudi Arabia based on other interests than oil, but since the terrorist incidents in the Kingdom began occurring last year, that's already in progress.

They do better in suggestions for preparing for and protecting against future terrorist attacks, especially in their insistence in developing biometric security protocols for quick identification and screening. They also note that 90% of transportation security funds goes to air transport, a key issue. While the last attack took place with commercial aircraft -- and the next one could, as well, if we relax -- aircraft are not the only guided missiles available. We share highways with gas tankers every day, for instance, one of which could easily kill as many as one of the airplanes did on 9/11 did, under the right circumstances. They also insist on sending funds to the areas most at threat, New York City and Washington DC, rather than allowing security funds to be used for pork-barrel politics -- and we wish them every bit of luck in achieving that particular goal.

After this, the summary goes into sloganeering with a vaguely Orwellian chant of "Unity of Effort" leading off each section that outlines a massive reorganization of the intelligence, law-enforcement, and defense agencies involved in fighting terrorism. It's not exactly a centralization of effort, as it proposes to leave CIA functions in the CIA, FBI functions in the FBI, and so on. It appears to be more of an overlay than a reorganization, drawing new lines between already-existing units.

The chart on Page 23 is much more coherent than the bullet points that supposedly explain it. The commission proposes a new position called the National Intelligence Director, a deputy-Cabinet-level position that reports only to the President. Under that new position would be three subordinate positions (deputy NIDs), and only under the DNIDs would be the heads of CIA, FBI, NSA, and so on. I understand why the commission wanted to put these organizations into discrete categories -- foreign intelligence, defense intelligence, and homeland intelligence -- but rather than pushing the actual intelligence farther from the President and burying it under two new layers of bureaucracy, why not just reorganize the alphabet soup of agencies into three and skip the two levels of bureaucrats, all of which would require Senate approval? It has the potential of throwing months of misdirection into our anti-terrorism efforts every four years.

It amounts to a good effort, especially at piecing together the chronology of events leading up to and including 9/11. But in terms of analysis and recommendations, we wound up with nothing better than we should have expected from career bureaucrats in the age of political correctness -- a simple (but lengthy) mouthing of multicultural platitudes and a platform of expanding bureaucracies when we should be streamlining them and making them more responsive.

Lehman: 9/11 Commission "Mugged" By Viacom, Richard Clarke

Now that their work has been completed, 9/11 Commissioners will hit the road to promote the publication of their report, although none of them will profit from its release. One of the first revelations from the freedom of commissioners to speak out comes from former Navy Secretary John Lehman, and he wasted no time singling out the culprits who politicized the Commission's work -- Richard Clarke and Viacom, parent of CBS and publisher of Clarke's book:

It is a day of 9/11 Commission unanimity, but one commissioner, looking back at its public work, is remembering the partisan past. "We were mugged by Viacom," Republican commissioner John Lehman says, referring to the owner of the publisher of Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies, and the owner of CBS, which broadcast a long, loving segment devoted to Clarke just prior to the release of his book.

"I think we were mugged by Viacom," Lehman told NRO in a phone interview on Thursday afternoon. "Because they changed the release date of the book and geared up 60 Minutes to launch his book to time them with his testimony and they edited his book to take out all of the criticisms of Clinton from his [original private] testimony. Because they wanted to make it a jihad against Bush."

Who, besides Clarke and Viacom, wanted a jihad against George Bush?

Lehman says that Clarke's original testimony included "a searing indictment of some Clinton officials and Clinton policies." That was the Clarke, evenhanded in his criticisms of both the Bush and Clinton administrations, who Lehman and other Republican commissioners expected to show up at the public hearings. It was a surprise "that he would come out against Bush that way." Republicans were taken aback: "It caught us flat-footed, but not the Democrats."

Clarke's performance poisoned the public hearings, leading to weeks of a partisan slugfest. Lehman says Republican commissioners felt they had to fight back, adding to the partisan atmosphere. "What triggered it was Dick Clarke," says Lehman. "We couldn't sit back and let him get away with what he wanted to get away with." He adds, "We were hijacked by a combination of Viacom and the Kerry campaign in the handling of Clarke's testimony."

Despite the politicization, Lehman says he's proud of the eventual product, calling it fair and its recommendations far-reaching. However, the politicization that Lehman bemoans already has drowned out much of what the commission wants to communicate, and its decision to hold public hearings has to be held partly responsible. During that phase, we saw several commissioners grandstanding for the cameras, turning what should have been a sober and calm review of all available data and testimony into the governmental equivalent of the OJ Trial. The hostility displayed towards witnesses such as Condoleezza Rice guaranteed that no useful information would receive a fair hearing, even if anything useful could have been added in open session that they hadn't already received in the hours of in camera proceedings that had already occurred.

Clarke and Viacom, and the Kerry campaign, all took advantage of this serious and fundamental mistake made by the commission. As Lehman says, Viacom moved up the publication date of Against All Enemies, but until now we had no idea that Clarke changed his testimony between the private session and the public session. Unfortunately, that bell cannot be unrung. Declassifying portions of Clarke's testimony might be very helpful, but that would lead to tit-for-tat demands from all sides. At least Lehman made an effort to clear the record.

As I said earlier, the executive summary is surprisingly unemotional and even clinical, as opposed to the overheated rhetoric and grandstanding that we experienced during the public testimony. Perhaps that may be enough to rescue the Commission from the self-inflicted wounds to its credibility. However, Clarke and Viacom should answer for their conduct during the spring, taking advantage of the process and hijacking the process for their own material gain while deliberately perverting the work of the commission.

Executive Summary: 'We Believe We Are Safer. But We Are Not Safe.'

For those who wish to review the 9/11 Commission's work without immediately tackling the 500+ pages of the full report, I would recommend reading the Executive Summary. Most of the gist of their work, and all of their recommendations, can be found in there. I spent my lunch break reading through it but do not have time to break it down at the moment. I will say that the summary seems to be an evenhanded and sober product, and its recommendations appear sound.

Just before it launches into recommendations for "unity of effort", it makes this statement which should resonate with Americans everywhere:

Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security,we believe we are safer today. But we are not safe.

Both parties and all branches of the government intend, and have worked, to make this country safer, but anyone in their right mind should already know that we are not safe, nor can we expect to be 100% safe as long as we have our freedoms intact. We need to balance what can be done with what we refuse to give up, and make ourselves as safe as can be given those limitations, and then we should suck it up and quit whining about it.

I'll post more tonight on the commission's specific recommendations.

Kerry Demands Security Leadership While Oblivious To Berger's Status

Short take on a John Kerry hypocrisy of the day ... Kerry, approached today on the 9/11 Commission Report, had this to say about his proposed approach on terrorism and security (via Drudge):

"If I am elected president and there has still not been sufficient progress on these issues, I will not wait a single day more. I will lead," he said in the statement.

John Kerry, last night with Tom Brokaw (via Hugh Hewitt [buy his book]):

John Kerry to Tom Brokaw tonight:

Brokaw: "Did you know that [Berger] was under investigation?"

Kerry: "I didn't have a clue, not a clue."

Brokaw: "He didn't share that with you?

Kerry: "I didn't have a clue."

John Kerry in May, regarding executive responsibility and Bush's supposed inability to acknowledge mistakes:

"The chain of command goes all the way to the Oval Office," Kerry said. "Harry Truman did not say 'the buck stops at the Pentagon.'"

OK, Senator ...

9/11 Download Complete

I've downloaded my copy of the 9/11 report and will read it in its entirety before commenting on it in my blog. However, if you'd like to see some interesting commentary on the report, check out The Corner at NRO, as they are tearing through it right now. One passage that they excerpt seems to demolish Richard Clarke as a credible commentator on security issues:

We apparently identified bin Laden at a camp, but held off an attack partly because of worries that a member of the UAE royal family was there too. But we hoped bin Laden might return to the camp and we would be able to target him then. Enter Richard Clarke and here is the commission's narrative:

“Even after bin Laden’s departure from the area, CIA officers hoped he might return, seeing the camp as a magnet that could draw him for as long as it was still set up. The military maintained readiness for another strike opportunity. On March 7, 1999, Clarke called a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and bin Laden. Clarke later wrote in a memorandum of this conversation that the call had been approved at an interagency meeting and cleared with the CIA. When the former bin Laden unit chief found out about Clarke’s call, he questioned CIA officials, who denied having given such clearance. Imagery confirmed that less than a week after Clarke’s phone call the camp was hurriedly dismantled, and the site was deserted. CIA officers, including Deputy Director for Operations Pavitt, were irate. ‘Mike’ thought the dismantling of the camp erased a possible site for targeting bin Laden.”

It seems that Sandy Berger isn't the only Clinton-era national-security professional who got sloppy. More later.

'A Failure Of Imagination'

The 9/11 Commission report, being released today, will avoid blaming either the Bush or Clinton administrations and instead talk about a "failure of imagination" in developing new approaches to fight al-Qaeda and terrorism, the AP reports:

The Sept. 11 commission concludes that a "failure of imagination," not governmental neglect, allowed 19 hijackers to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history. The panel calls for an intelligence overhaul to confront an al-Qaida organization intent on striking again.

While faulting institutional shortcomings, the bipartisan report being released Thursday does not blame President Bush or former President Clinton for mistakes contributing to the 2001 terrorist attack, Bush administration officials familiar with the findings said.

The report will be released at 11:30 EDT on the Commission's website, which I imagine will only rival the Starr report's bandwidth requirements today. The release will not put a halt to genuinely stupid commentary, such as that from Richard Clarke yesterday, who complained that the commission didn't stray far from its assigned mission:

Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar in the Clinton and Bush administrations and now an ABC consultant, said on the network's "Good Morning America" the commission avoided controversy. "To get unanimity they didn't talk about a number of things, like what effect is the war in Iraq having on our battle against terrorism. Did the president pay any attention to terrorism during the first nine months of his administration? The controversial things, the controversial criticisms of the Clinton administration as well as the Bush administration just aren't there."

Iraq was not within the purview of the commission, as Clarke should know, and as commissioner Bob Kerrey momentarily forgot when questioning Condoleezza Rice. Reactions like this just underscore the partisan nature of players like Clarke, who saw this commission as a vehicle for literary and television stardom, and who still can't deal with limelight withdrawals.

NY Daily News: Berger Allowed Phone Calls When Reading Top-Secret Documents

The New York Daily News reports that "Soxy Sandy" (love the tabs, man) distracted security monitors at the National Archives by taking a number of bathroom breaks and convinced them to give him more privacy:

Former national security adviser Sandy Berger repeatedly persuaded monitors assigned to watch him review top secret documents to break the rules and leave him alone, sources said yesterday.

Berger, accused of smuggling some of the secret files out of the National Archives, got the monitors out of the high-security room by telling them he had to make sensitive phone calls. ... Berger also took "lots of bathroom breaks" that apparently aroused some suspicion, the [senior law-enforcement] source added. ...

Asked if guards left Berger alone in the classified reading room while he made calls, archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper replied, "I'm not going to say I haven't heard that."

Let me get this straight. The former NSA, who actually had no official standing at the time he reviewed the documents, was allowed to make unattended phone calls while looking at codeword-classified documents? No wonder Denny Hastert has called for public hearings into this fiasco; either someone pulled some mighty big strings for Berger to do that, or the National Archives has become completely incompetent at safeguarding classified information and should have its clearance revoked.

Who did Berger call? Bill Clinton? John Kerry? Osama bin Laden? If records of these phone calls exist -- and I doubt they do -- they should be immediately made public so that we can see who Berger called, if anyone at all. It's more likely, of course, that Berger simply used that as an excuse to get the monitors out of the room, an overt act which destroys any argument of 'inadvertence'. However, the fact that security staff allowed Berger to make unattended calls from a secure room boggles the mind.

The Daily News, along with CNN and other media sources, also confirm again that Berger stuffed his socks with notes and/or documents when lifting material from the facility, in opposition to what Berger's lawyer asserted earlier.

Addendum: Actually, phone calls fit rather nicely into an effort to hide relevant documentation from the 9/11 Commission. When better to get advice as to which versions of documents to lift? Berger calls someone and says, "I have this copy with Bill Clinton's notes in the margin, which say [fill in blank]. Should I leave that one in or take it with me?"

So who was on the other end of the line?

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers ... I've created a new category for Trousergate posts. For all categories, check out the right sidebar (or scroll down farther on the left sidebar if you're using the Buccaneer skin).

Hollywood To Dominate Democratic Convention

Agence France-Presse reports that the Kerry campaign has invited a number of entertainment celebrities to Boston to help John Kerry overcome his "overly intellectual and pedantic" image:

US presidential hopeful John Kerry will get star backing from the likes of Ben Affleck at the Democratic Party's convention, but most activists from liberal California are saving their energy to protest against President George W. Bush. ... Some of the stars will extol the virtues of Senator Kerry and running mate Senator John Edwards to gathered party faithful, while others will simply bring glamour through their presence. ...

Celebrities leaving the firmament of Tinseltown for Beantown also include Bianca Jagger, Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper, actor Sean Astin, actresses Christina Ricci, Ellen Burstyn and Janeane Garofalo, the rock group Red Hot Chili Peppers and super producer Harvey Weinstein, according to the non-partisan industry non-profit group Creative Coalition.

Bianca Jagger? Yes, the Republicans tremble at the very thought. Bianca's success, being based solely on her sexual association with someone who actually produced something, can remind everyone how John Kerry acquired his quality of life. At least, with this lineup, he's avoiding one of the risks of swamping his nominating convention with celebrities -- that he will be outshone, looking wan and disinteresting by comparison. It's impossible to look disinteresting when paired with Bianca Jagger -- also difficult to look stupid, too -- just like it's impossible to look classless (and ugly) when standing next to Flea, and impossible to look unfunny when sharing a stage with Janeane "Doomed, DOOMED!" Garofalo.

Another interesting point this article makes is that most of the street organizations that support Kerry won't make an appearance in Boston, instead aiming at New York and the Republican convention:

Groups such as United for Peace and Justice, the Coalition for World Peace and Baring Witness will not send representatives, preferring instead to keep their powder dry to protest at the the Republican convention in New York at the end of August.

"I don't know of any activist groups going to Boston," said Douglas Mattern, president of the San Francisco-based Association of World Citizens, which is calling for US nuclear disarmament. "Many peace groups are in protest mode over the war in Iraq and prefer to do that in New York."

This further confirms that whatever passion exists on the left is limited to Bush hatred, rather than any more than lukewarm enthusiasm for John Kerry. Their ABB rants fit perfectly with their strategy to only focus on protesting Republicans rather than supporting Kerry. Not all activist groups will be absent from Boston, though:

Only the women's group Code Pink and the anti-war International Answer Coalition are sending activists to Boston, but not to support Kerry -- the 25 supporters intend to protest against the candidate's policy on Iraq.

"It is clear that the Democrats are not for the end of the occupation," said Answer spokesman Richard Becker. "We understand that many people are horrified by Bush's policies and that they feel they have to support Kerry. But they should know who they are voting for as well," he said.

The Democrats should make sure that some of their celebrity invitees don't end up on the picket line outside the convention -- Garofalo, for one, is a public supporter of the neo-Stalinist organization.

Sloppiness Turns To Suspicion

Sandy Berger's preferred excuse, one that Bill Clinton himself has publicly endorsed, that his "sloppiness" led to the pilfering of classified documents from the National Archives takes another body blow in today's Washington Post. John Harris and Susan Schmidt report that National Archive staff had become so suspicious of Berger's conduct that they implemented a special coding system to, in effect, sting him for his repeated security violations:

Last Oct. 2, former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger stayed huddled over papers at the National Archives until 8 p.m. What he did not know as he labored through that long Thursday was that the same Archives employees who were solicitously retrieving documents for him were also watching their important visitor with a suspicious eye.

After Berger's previous visit, in September, Archives officials believed documents were missing. This time, they specially coded the papers to more easily tell whether some disappeared, said government officials and legal sources familiar with the case. ...

A government official with knowledge of the investigation said Archives employees took action promptly after noticing a missing document in September. This official said an Archives employee called former White House deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey, who is former president Bill Clinton's liaison to the National Archives. The Archives employee said documents were missing and would have to be returned.

Under this version of events -- which Breuer denied -- documents were returned the following day from Berger's office to the Archives. Not included in these papers, the government official said, were any drafts of the document at the center of this week's controversy.

The documents that Berger has acknowledged taking -- some of which remain missing -- are different drafts of a January 2000 "after-action review" of how the government responded to terrorism plots at the turn of the millennium. The document was written by White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke, at Berger's direction when he was in government.

According to this chronology, Berger took the missing documents at issue in September, not October, and returned to take even more documents after that security breach. Not only does this tend to indict NA security officers -- who never should have let Berger back in after the first security lapse, but obviously politics played a part in that decision -- but it demolishes any notion that Berger's supposedly legendary sloppiness led to an inadvertent theft, a notion ridiculous on its face. As I've described before, classified documents have brightly-colored covers indicating their level of classification, and in any case SCI-classified (codeword) material is never supposed to leave the Archives.

So what happened when Berger returned on October 2? Berger fell into the trap that National Archives security staff set up for him:

The government source said the Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.

At the end of the day, Archives employees determined that that draft and all four or five other versions of the millennium memo had disappeared from the files, this source said.

This source and another government official said that archivists gave Berger use of a special room for reviewing the documents. He was examining the documents to recommend to the Bush administration which papers should be released to the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said that employees closely monitor anyone cleared to review classified presidential materials.

And now we get to the crux of the problem, besides the obvious and purposeful security breaches that Berger committed. This description of the material makes clear that while the documents themselves in their original form were copies of a memo, they had handwritten notes on them that made each one unique. It also acknowledges his role in selecting documents for the 9/11 Commission to review as part of its investigation.

What exactly did Clinton Administration officials write on those after-action draft memos that Berger and others didn't want the 9/11 Commission to see?

We'll probably never know now, thanks to Berger's theft and the unwillingness of the National Archive's security staff to enforce its procedures.

Arafat's Grip On Power Slipping Away

In what could present the best opportunity to finally achieve real progress towards peace in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Parliament took an unprecedented step towards independence. The Washington Post and AP report that the assembly demanded that Yasser Arafat accept Ahmed Qureia's resignation and form a cabinet that can address the deteriorating security situation in Gaza:

The Palestinian parliament passed a resolution Wednesday calling on Yasser Arafat to accept the resignations of his prime minister and Cabinet, stepping up pressure on the Palestinian leader to relinquish some of his power. In a rare show of independence, the legislature asked Arafat to form a new Cabinet better equipped to handle the internal unrest after a week of turmoil in the Gaza Strip. ...

Rauhi Fattouh, speaker of the Legislative Council, said the legislature will hold an emergency session Thursday to decide on further action. Lawmakers are considering a monthlong strike or weeklong sit-in to protest Arafat's refusal to grant more authority to the Cabinet and parliament.

"Every one of us is responsible" for failing to deal with the security crisis in Gaza and the instability of the Palestinian government, Cabinet minister and lawmaker Qadoura Fares said. "Arafat is the most responsible for the failure. President Arafat failed and the Palestinian government failed, the Palestinian political factions failed," he told The Associated Press.

Arafat has played the intifada out to the end of its string, and the Israeli wall has checkmated him and his murderous strategy to push the Jews into the Mediterranean. In the end, the Israelis outlasted Arafat's bombthrowing, and now the Palestinians have begun acting out the end game of all dictatorships when their populace no longer has an external target for their rage -- the anger that a totalitarian regime creates eventually doubles back on itself and snuffs out the regime itself.

Now, all Arafat can control will be the method of his exit from power in the Palestinian Authority. Will he take this opportunity to transfer real authority to a cabinet that has little or no subservience to Arafat? Or will he, instead, attempt to stuff more of his family members into positions of power and set off another round of violence, taking his people and his proto-state down in flames, like Wotan in Valhalla?

My guess is that Arafat tries having it both ways, appointing a new cabinet without actually transferring real power (the security apparatus) to their control. If that's what he tries, expect to see Arafat replaced by force within weeks or even days of the attempt. The civil war that follows will determine the fate of the West Bank: haven for radical Islamists, or a second Arab democracy. In effect, the Israelis have nothing to lose, as the latter would almost certainly allow for reasonable negotiations on a final settlement, and the former would be exactly what they have now.

UPDATE: The New York Times adds its own reporting on the rare show of assertiveness from the Palestinian parliament:

The lawmakers voted 43 to 4 for a nonbinding measure that also called on Mr. Arafat to form a new government that would have greater control over the security forces and the authority to introduce political reforms and combat corruption. ...

The Palestinian parliament is one of the livelier legislatures in the Arab world, a region where lawmakers rarely challenge national leaders. Still, it is unusual for legislators to take a position directly opposed to Mr. Arafat, who has refused to accept the resignation by the prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, on Saturday.

It's unusual for Palestinian lawmakers to do anything significant that doesn't amount to a rubber stamp for Arafat, "lively" or not. Someone needs to report Greg Myre to the PC Police at the NYU J-school.

Keep Linda Happy -- Refund Your Tickets Now!

In keeping with Linda Ronstadt's assertion that she can't enjoy her concerts whenever Republicans or "fundamentalist Christians" are in her audience, I've launched Operation Thrill Linda -- a service to keep Ronstadt's job satisfaction high as she goes through the twilight of her career. How can you help? If you have tickets to a Linda Ronstadt concert in any of these cities in the next week, be sure to cancel them and get your money refunded:

7/22 - Livermore, CA (Wente Vineyards)
7/23 - Saratoga, CA (Montalvo)
7/24 - San Rafael, CA (Marin Center)
7/27 - Seattle, WA (Summer Nights At The Pier)

Don't forget, you're not just avoiding an evening of lackluster performance and forgettable music, you're helping make a less fortunate, aging, scatterbrained entertainer happy. 100 people in Los Angeles made the sacrifice for Linda -- won't you do your part, too? (Brought to you in coordination with Sharp As A Marble and Ipse Dixit)

UN Proves Useless In Iraq -- Again

The Los Angeles Times offers an analysis of the UN's ongoing non-efforts to support the nascent democracy in Iraq. After loudly demanding an end to the CPA occupation of the country and pressing for elections at the earliest possible moment, the United Nations has not done much about getting member states to assist with electoral security:

When the U.N. Security Council voted six weeks ago to authorize a protective force, it expected contributors to step forward. But countries have balked at taking part in a force expected to include 1,000 troops and several dozen bodyguards. Diplomats said many nations were hesitating because of the dangers — including a wave of kidnappings — and costs as well as the continuing unpopularity of the U.S. invasion. ...

The U.S. considers a U.N. mission in Iraq an important step toward making the reconstruction a more international effort. But U.N. officials, still traumatized by the bombing of their organization's Baghdad headquarters in August, said they couldn't remain in Iraq for long unless they had protection for their personnel and their facilities.

If other countries are unable to provide the troops, the job will fall to the U.S.-led coalition now patrolling the country. That outcome would be embarrassing for the Bush administration, which has been struggling all year to show it has international support for rebuilding Iraq.

Some diplomats feared that protection by U.S. troops would make U.N. officials more likely to be attacked by insurgents. U.S. officials contended that insurgents would attack anyone — including U.N. officials protected by foreign troops — involved in reconstruction efforts.

Paul Richter does his best to keep laying the blame for member-states' reluctance on the Bush administration's decision to bypass the UN when it went to war in Iraq. However, the US and UK have since quickly complied with UN demands in structuring the occupation and the transfer of sovereignty, and the UNSC unanimously accepted the resolution establishing the transfer of power on mostly UN terms. The UN has stubbornly or lazily (depending on your point of view) refused to do anything to help out, even after their demands were met.

In truth, the UN realizes that it has no will to defend its own mission in Iraq, let alone take any offensive action in defending the Iraqis as they struggle to build their electoral infrastructure. While Richter would like Times readers to draw the conclusion that Bushs intransigence is to blame, instead the article provides a microcosm of the entire UNSC-Iraq quagmire since 1991 and the status of the UN as an organization. The UN only has the will to pass resolutions: resolutions for disarmament, resulotions for inspections, resolutions demanding compliance with other resolutions, resolutions demanding transfers of sovereignty, and so on. They lack any will whatsoever to lift a finger to transform their resolutions into reality. Passing resolutions costs little money and no immediate risk, whereas action ... well, that can get messy.

So now we see in Darfur the same situation the UN faced in Rwanda, and what does the UN do? Debate about using the word 'genocide' while thousands of people die in the Sudan. The UN demands Iraqi sovereignty and free elections, and what do they do when it comes time to provide security for both? Shrug their shoulders and ignore it. Why this should come as a surprise to anyone who watched the UNSC issue resolution after resolution (sixteen times over) to Saddam Hussein, and then act offended when the nations bearing the military cost of enforcing the status quo demanded action, is completely beyond my comprehension.

The only argument for the UN is as a world-class debating society and a good place to stuff Peter-Principle diplomats, where little harm can come from their folly.

Sense From The NYT's Op-Ed Section

Now that the "Bush Lied!" meme has been thoroughly debunked and its proponents running for the hills, Stephen Sestanovich, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, injects a little reality into the debate about going to war with Iraq. He uses an experience from his State Department days to show the imperfection of intelligence and how to use it strategically:

When policymakers have imperfect information about a serious problem (which is almost always), what should they do? The answer, then as now, is to shift the burden of proof to the other guy. If we had been denied that meeting with Mr. Yeltsin, it would hardly have proved that he was dead. But we would have canceled the trip all the same. Russian uncooperativeness - not our poor intelligence - would have left us no choice.

Going to war and canceling a trip are vastly different matters, but what the Bush administration did with Saddam Hussein in the run-up to war followed the same rule: it challenged him to prove that American intelligence was wrong, so that the responsibility for war was his, not ours. ...

Some may object that this approach treated Saddam Hussein as guilty until proved innocent. They're right. But the Bush administration did not invent this logic. When Saddam Hussein forced out United Nations inspectors in 1998, President Clinton responded with days of bombings - not because he knew what weapons Iraq had, but because Iraq's actions kept us from finding out.

Read the whole thing. It reminds readers why we could not afford to let Saddam fester in the region, and why waiting risked our credibility not only regionally, but globally.

Unless Sandy Berger Works There, In Which Case It's All Political

The Washington Post reports that ongoing security breaches at the nation's top weapons development lab have shut down operations and may result in a criminal investigation:

Failure at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to follow security procedures is widespread and the highly secretive nuclear facility lacks an effective system to prevent employees from removing classified material, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a toughly worded statement yesterday that threatened firings and left open the possibility of a criminal investigation.

Missing computer disks, classified information sent out via e-mail and an accident involving a summer intern injured in the eye by a laser forced Los Alamos to stop nearly all of its operations over the weekend, including weapons research and field testing, as a major investigation into serious security breaches and accidents got underway.

Los Alamos promises to start firing people to get the message across after several incidents at the laboratory have failed to change the behavior of veteran "cowboys" at the facility. It sounds like Animal House to me. The firings should have taken place when disks first went missing, and we already should have had the FBI investigating the security lapses at Los Alamos.

We are at war, people. It's way past time to get serious about security at our classified facilities.

Democats Block Seventh Judicial Nominee

Senate Democrats hauled out their filibuster for the seventh time to block a Bush nominee from a fair floor vote for confirmation, this time unhappy with the nominee's environmental record. William Myers is the latest nominee sent packing by the Democrats, who this time didn't even bother arguing that Myers would endanger the Constitution, their heretofore consistent argument against Bush nominees:

The vote on Myers, who was accused by Democrats of hostility to environmental causes, was 53 to 44, seven short of the 60 needed to force action on his nomination to the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. He was the seventh Bush choice for the federal bench to be stopped by a Democratic filibuster. ...

The vote was less about Myers than "a reflection of special interest group disdain for policies favored by farmers, ranchers, miners, the Bush Interior Department or anyone else who advocates balanced uses of western lands," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).

Previous filibusters have centered around Constitutional issues regarding abortion rights, equal protection, and free-speech decisions or opinions cited by Democrats in their unprecedented use of filibustering nominations. This time, the issues were nakedly partisan and strictly political. Such a display of naked politicization of the judicial nomination process should shame the Democrats, who have turned this session into the most radical Senatorial opposition to any American executive in the history of our nation, excluding the Civil War. It's now quite clear that Democrats will never allow any nominee to pass through the Senate until they subject him or her to policy litmus tests -- an abhorrent and corrupting practice which forces judicial nominees into the unethical position of committing to ruling in certain ways before ever hearing a case.

Is this what the Democrats think of an independent judiciary?

Fortunately, in November, we have the opportunity to correct this perversion of the Constitution. Identify those Democratic Senators who are up for re-election, like Tom Daschle, Barbara Boxer, and others, and help their opponents unseat them. You can find links to the requisite sites through Hugh Hewitt's website.

Moving The Goalposts

This morning, I received an e-mail from a fairly new blogger (archives only going back a few weeks) who claims to be offering $200 for any proof that Joe Wilson lied. I won't link to him, nor will I excerpt anything from his site, but his top post expressed frustration that he had been sent nothing but unsupported assertions from other bloggers about Wilson, and that his $200 appeared safe.

Scrolling down, I read his 'rules' for the contest, which insisted that anyone applying for the cash had to supply URLs from testimony under oath showing Wilson committed perjury.

Nothing like moving the ol' goalposts, eh?

Here's my reply:

This is the weakest blog promotion I've seen yet. You want definitive proof of perjury. Great. I expect that you, then, fully supported Bill Clinton's impeachment and removal from office, since you seem to consider perjury the gold standard of disqualification.

Wilson lied. Lies do not have to be perjury to be lies. Great example of goalpost-moving, though. Don't need your $200 or your little contest, either.

Note to new bloggers: if you want to engage people in an honest debate, don't offer cash, and don't insult our intelligence. If you don't already know that lies don't necessarily require perjury to be lies, then you should take up another hobby. I suggest working (openly) for the Kerry campaign.

WaPo: Wilson Lied

Even the Washington Post, in an editorial that had to hurt, has decided that the notorious 16 words from the State of the Union speech in 2003 have turned out to be true, despite Ambassador Joe Wilson's assertions to the contrary. While the WaPo doesn't actually come out and call Wilson a liar, it comes close enough for the Kerry campaign to reassess its association with yet another embarrassment in its advisory council:

A year ago this month official Washington was convulsed by a controversy over whether President Bush had knowingly twisted the truth about Iraq to persuade the country to go to war. A former U.S. ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, made that charge. As evidence he cited Mr. Bush's statement in his January 2003 State of the Union address that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," a finding that seemed to support the conclusion that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was active. Mr. Wilson suggested that the White House should have known this was not true, because he himself had traveled to the African state of Niger at the request of the CIA a year before the speech and debunked the intelligence. ...

But over the past 10 days two major official reports, by the Senate intelligence committee and a special British commission, have concluded that the claim in the "sixteen words" may, after all, have been justified. Britain's Butler report called it "well-founded"; the bipartisan Senate investigation said the conclusion was a reasonable one at least until October 2002 -- and that Mr. Wilson's report to the CIA had not changed its analysts' assessment.

The Post considerably weakens the actual language and reporting, which found that Niger's prime minister felt that Iraq had tried to establish a connection for uranium with his country and subsequent intelligence by the British and French indicated similar feelers with other African nations. Niger's PM told Wilson directly that he was confident that Iraq's trade delegation wanted to purchase uranium ore. Even so, the editorial marks an important milepost in Wilson's journey from media darling to discredited partisan hack.

The Post has this to say about Wilson and those who rely on his prevaricating testimony to make wild claims about liars in the administration:

The failure to find significant stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons or an active nuclear program in Iraq has caused some war opponents to claim that Iraq was never much to worry about. The Niger story indicates otherwise. Like the reporting of postwar weapons investigator David Kay, it suggests that Saddam Hussein never gave up his intention to develop weapons of mass destruction and continued clandestine programs he would have accelerated when U.N. sanctions were lifted. No, the evidence is not conclusive. But neither did President Bush invent it.

The only question remaining regarding Wilson is why the Kerry campaign employs Wilson as a consultant on foreign affairs, now that he has been shown to be dishonest and incompetent.

Trousergate Timing Gets More Curious

The New York Times, in its update on the Sandy Berger debacle known as Trousergate among bloggers, raises even bigger questions regarding the timing not of the revelation of the investigation but of Berger's association with the Kerry campaign:

For months, Mr. Berger has consulted regularly with Mr. Kerry on the Iraq war, Middle East relations, terrorism and other foreign policy matters, helping to formulate speeches, prepare op-ed articles and brief reporters on the candidate's positions, campaign officials said.

"Sandy Berger is my friend, and he has tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction," Mr. Kerry said Tuesday in a statement. "I respect his decision to step aside as an adviser to the campaign until this matter is resolved objectively and fairly."

Associates said he would probably try to rejoin the campaign after the Federal Bureau of Investigation had concluded an investigation that began in earnest in January after the National Archives discovered that classified material Mr. Berger had reviewed was missing. ...

Mr. Berger spent about 30 hours over three days in the summer and fall of 2003 reviewing classified material in a secure government reading room, his associates said. ... Officials at the National Archives realized late last year that several documents were missing and turned the matter over to the F.B.I., which later searched Mr. Berger's home and office, officials said. Mr. Breuer said that Mr. Berger had returned two of the documents, but that he had apparently discarded several others inadvertently.

So this investigation has been ongoing since January -- since before Kerry became the frontrunner in the Democratic primaries. Berger himself knew of this investigation at that time. One would presume that the Justice Department knew about it. The Clintons knew about it, thanks to the call early on to Bruce Lindsey from National Archives staff members.

So when did Kerry know about it? Did his "good friend" Sandy Berger keep it a secret from him? Nothing in Kerry's statement mentions when this matter was brought to his attention. Someone had to be aware of it, or else Berger had another way to access classified information for reviewing the data for Kerry. Either Berger kept the whole thing secret from Kerry (which seems like an odd thing to do to a friend), or Kerry has been promoting Berger through his campaign knowing that he breached security on multiple occasions when reviewing highly classified terror-related materials.

So when did Kerry know his friend and national-security advisor broke security laws?

One other point about timing. Many people, including Bill Clinton and several other prominent Democrats, have accused the current administration of leaking this now to deflect attention from the 9/11 Commission report. But if Berger was under investigation for security violations since January, wouldn't it have been better (for the Bush administration) to have leaked it during Berger's public testimony? Besides, with the news that the commission report will wind up without concluding that the attacks were avoidable and the Senate about to issue a report supporting the WMD claims made by the administration, Bush didn't need the Berger debacle at all.

Ask yourself this: who benefits from a Kerry implosion before the convention?

Democrats Outsource Effort To Discredit Nader's Petitions

In another twist on the Democrats' attempts to push Nader off the Michigan ballot, the AP reports that they have hired an outfit to vet the petition signatures that has outsourced the work to India:

Republicans said Mark Grebner, of Practical Political Consulting in East Lansing, has sent digital copies of Nader's petitions to a data entry firm in India. Grebner declined to comment on the allegation.

But Greg McNeilly, executive director of the state GOP, called the move hypocritical. "Michigan Democrats are so intolerant of minority perspectives at the ballot box that they'll outsource Michigan jobs in order to protect a two-party duopoly," he said in a statement. "They are paying a firm in India for work that could be done by Michiganders."

Hypocritical? You bet. The Democrats have been inveighing against outsourcing as the evil of the new economy and part of a Bush conspiracy to dismantle American labor, using that rhetoric to induce Nader to leave the race -- or at least attract his supporters to Kerry. However, when the Democrats need a job done cheap, it appears that they are reluctant to turn to Michigan's union workforce. Why?

State Democratic Executive Chairman Mark Brewer has said the party is checking every signature, and it turned to Grebner to help meet Thursday's deadline.

Grebner said he has used foreign workers in the past in countries such as Bangladesh for work that can't be done by his U.S. staff of about 15 full-time workers. That includes work for Republicans as well as for Democrats, he added.

"This really is work that you can't do in the (United States) because it just doesn't make economic sense," Grebner said of the work he sends overseas. "I can't hire people to do some things here."

Hmmm. You mean that there are valid economic reasons for outsourcing? Color me surprised. Of course, Republicans have been noting this all along.

Remind me again which party lies to the electorate ...

UPDATE: Fred Schoeneman has some thoughts on the Democratic platform plank on outsourcing, too.

UN Admonishes Israel Defence While Ignoring Palestinian Terror

Proving once again its uselessness as a partner against terrorism, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to push Israel into dismantling its defensive perimeter wall, the one non-lethal tactic against Palestinian terrorists that has actually worked to reduce civilian casualties:

Israel must obey a World Court ruling and tear down its West Bank barrier, the U.N. General Assembly demanded in a resolution adopted by an overwhelming vote on Tuesday.

The vote in the 191-nation assembly was 150-6, with 10 abstentions, to adopt the measure aimed at dismantling the 370-mile barrier that Israel says is needed to keep out suicide bombers but Palestinians see as a land-grab aimed at dashing their hopes for eventual statehood.

Demonstrating their usefulness against terrorists, the EU voted as a block for the demand that Israel strip its defense against Palestinian terrorism, all without a word of any resolution telling the Palestinians to stop bombing civilian targets within Israel. As my friend and colleague at Power Line, John "Rocket Man" Hinderaker puts it:

Does anyone seriously doubt that most of the 150 countries who voted in favor of Israel's extinction would likewise condemn any vigorous action the United States may take to combat terrorism? There are those in this country who would rely on the U.N. to play a major role in our own security, and who would defer, in foreign relations, to the judgment of the very nations who hammered out the condemnation of Israel's effort to provide for its own security with the Arab aggressors. May those misguided politicians never come to power here.

Here's a list of the six countries that voted No against the tidal wave of Munich spirit at Turtle Bay:

United States
Israel
Australia
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Palau

The vote will force the issue in the Security Council, where the US will undoubtedly veto any proposal to enforce the ICJ's ruling. I'd like to think that our British allies would join us in that, but since they also saw fit to support the General Assembly vote, I think that we'll be on our own at the UNSC.

Gray Lady Spins It Hard For Kerry, Berger

The New York Times reports on the resignation of Sandy Berger from John Kerry's presidential campaign following reports of the theft of documents from the National Archives. The Gray Lady's David Stout and Mark Glassman throw away any pretense at objectivity as they spin their article hard to port:

Mr. Berger's mishandling of the documents, which were related to terrorism and which he took from the National Archives in preparation for his testimony before the 9/11 commission, seemed today to become a bigger problem for the Kerry campaign almost by the hour — and at the worst possible time, as Mr. Kerry is hoping to gain a big lift by next week's Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Mr. Berger, no stranger to the knees and elbows of Washington, apparently bowed to the political reality that "if you have to explain it, don't bother." ...

While Democrats had seemed inclined to give Mr. Berger the benefit of the doubt and accept his explanation that the incident with the documents was inadvertent, Republicans were decidedly less charitable.

Berger didn't "mishandle" anything -- if he took notes from classified documents out by hiding them in his clothing, he knowingly bypassed security protocols that at one time he shared responsibility for enforcing. If Berger took classified documents out from a secured facility into an unsecured environment, he committed a crime, as anyone who has undergone a security briefing for a clearance can tell you. Further, the issue has nothing to do with the "knees and elbows" of Republicans; it has to do with potentially criminal behavior by a senior member of the previous administrations' national-security team, and that in the middle of an investigation.

As I have made eminently clear throughout my postings over the last two days, everyone with a security clearance knows how to handle classified material. No one takes off with secret documents "inadvertently" and then destroys them "inadvertently". Hiding notes in one's clothing to avoid security review would be enough to face criminal charges for anyone working at a defense contractor, even at the lowest classification level. For a former NSA to claim he did it by mistake not only insults the intelligence, but it sets a terrible precedent for everyone who works hard at securing the nation's sensitive information.

If this is how the political appointees treat security procedures without any legal consequences, expect many more problems at lower ranks in the future. If this is how the New York Times treats national security, it only indicates their lack of seriousness and complete bias in their reporting.

UPDATE: Instapundit has a relevant statute from the federal criminal code:

Sec. 793. - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

(f)

Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense,

(1)

through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or

(2)

having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer -

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Inadvertence is no defense against this law; as a clearance holder, the individual is tasked with preventing illegal release of any and all classified material within their control. As has been made clear by Berger's repeated violations (National Archives security personnel had to specially mark documents Berger accessed in order to verify his second theft of materials from the facility), Berger didn't just make one absent-minded mistake. He may not deserve ten years, but he deserves prosecution.

UPDATE II: In a development which explains a lot about the 900 "lost" FBI files during his term and the weak effort against terrorism during his administration, Bill Clinton tells the Denver Post that he considers Berger's actions a joke (via Drudge):

Former president Bill Clinton defends his embattled national security advisor as a man who "always got things right," even if his desk was a mess.

"We were all laughing about it," Clinton said about the investigation into Sandy Berger for taking classified terrorism documents from the National Archives. "People who don't know him might find it hard to believe. But ... all of us who've been in his office have always found him buried beneath papers."

He also is much more concerned that the American public knows about Berger's security violations than the violations themselves. Typical.

UPDATE III: Welcome to Hugh Hewitt readers, and Instapundit readers as well. I'd suggest looking through several entries today, as I've posted several times on different angles on this story. Hope you enjoy and return again! And now this post has been nominated for the Watchers Council weekly roundup ... make sure you read the rest of the nominees.

UPDATE IV: Sean Hackbarth includes this in his weekly House of Ketchup compilation, so if you're finding me from that post, great! Don't forget to check out the Trousergate link in the sidebar for more coverage of the Berger story.

Kerry Gives Berger The Boot

The Kerry campaign acted with uncharacteristic haste to distance itself from the debacle of Sandy Berger's breach of security at the National Archives, as Berger announced his "resignation" from a position that both Kerry and Berger now say didn't officially exist:

Former national security adviser Sandy Berger, the subject of a criminal investigation over the disappearance of terrorism documents, stepped aside on Tuesday as an informal adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

The investigation had threatened to become a political problem for Kerry a week before his nominating convention in Boston in which he hopes to persuade voters that he is ready to be commander in chief. The cornerstone of Kerry's argument against Bush is that he used faulty intelligence and poor judgment in waging war against Iraq.

The question now is when did the Kerry campaign find out about the security breaches at the National Archives? These thefts happened in October 2003, and Berger served the Kerry campaign since he started sweeping the primaries in February, at least. Bruce Lindsey had been notified at the time the documents disappeared. Not only that, but in order to receive security briefings during the campaign, Berger would have to either have retained his clearance or applied for a new one. While under this kind of investigation, that clearance had to have been cancelled or suspended -- something that the Kerry campaign had to know.

The question is what did Kerry know, and when did he know it?

Tone-Deafness Continues On The Campaign Trail

The New York Times notes that the tone-deafness of the Kerry campaign continues even when the candidate himself is on a short hiatus. Speaking for John Kerry in New Mexico was his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who didn't wow them down Albuquerque way:

The crowd was cheering wildly as John Kerry, John Edwards and their spouses danced around one another on the open-air stage at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Then Teresa Heinz Kerry took her turn at the microphone and said, "I am an immigrant, too," clearly making a bid for the many Hispanics in the audience.

This time the applause was lukewarm and there was some head-shaking; many Hispanic families have been in New Mexico for generations and some take a dim view of immigrants.

The Kerry campaign's advance unit seems to be falling down on the job, or Teresa is ad-libbing on the stump again. Perhaps if they picked Bill Richardson for the #2 spot, they would have already known that illegal immigration is a sore spot for New Mexico residents. In fact, Democrats at the rally made some comments for the record that would have had them screaming "bigotry!" at Republicans under similar circumstances:

"You know what the problem is with this state?" said Erlindo Castillo, a librarian in Santa Fe, in an interview afterward. "Too many Mexicans."

"They come here for the free services and to take our jobs, and then they send all the money back across the border," said Ms. Castillo, an American flag in one hand, a Kerry poster in the other.

In a state that Bush lost by a mere 366 votes in 2000, mistakes like this could make the difference. (via Kerry Spot)

It's Just Trousergate, According To Clintonites

CNN, which had earlier reported that former Clinton Administration National Security Advisor Sandy Berger had stuffed his notes on classified documents in his socks to get them past security at the National Archives, now reports that Berger's associates vehemently dispute that detail:

[L]aw enforcement sources told CNN that some of the papers he is said to have taken from the National Archives were stuffed into his socks as well as other parts of his clothing. That allegation drew sharp responses from two of Berger's associates. President Clinton's former spokesman, Joe Lockhart, said Berger "categorically denies that he ever took documents and stuffed them in his socks.

"That is absurd," said Lockhart, who is now advising Berger. "And anyone who says that is interested in something other than the truth."

Former Clinton aide Lanny Davis challenged any unnamed official who accuses Berger of stuffing documents into his socks to come forward and level that charge publicly.

"I suggest that person is lying," he said. "And if that person has the guts, let's see who it is who made the comment that Sandy Berger stuffed something into his socks."

We'll see soon enough, I suppose; I'd assume that the area where Berger viewed the files had video surveillance. However, longtime CQ reader and funnyman Peyton Randolph reminds me that transmitting classified information is acceptable as long as the correct container is used:

Today's Hollywood Consistency Moment

The San Diego Union-Tribune brings us today's Hollywood Consistency Award Winner, Linda Ronstadt, in an article pre-dating her unceremonial boot from the Aladdin Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. Ronstadt discussed her penchant for dedicating "Desperado" to Michael Moore in her encore during her current tour with reporter George Varga, which led to this eye-crossing logic from the singer:

"My career has befuddled other people, and it's befuddled me," admitted Ronstadt, 58, who finds her fans are polarized by her nightly on-stage salute to "Fahrenheit 9/11" filmmaker Michael Moore.

"I've been dedicating a song to him – I think he's a great patriot – and it splits the audience down the middle, and they duke it out," she said.

"This is an election year, and I think we're in desperate trouble and it's time for people to speak up and not pipe down. It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know."

Do you understand all that? She takes people's money and lectures them on how they should think -- but she'd prefer not to have the same thing done to her for free. Finding out that Republicans might be in the audience is a real buzz-killer for her, but when she uses her stage to announce her own political views, that's somehow supposed to be entertaining for her audience. It's this kind of thinking that made us Californians think her a perfect fit for her once-beau, former California governor and current Oakland mayor Jerry Brown. You can call it a reversal of Laura Ingraham's dictum -- "Shut Up And Listen", as it were.

As far as getting bummed out having conservatives in her audience, I think we can help her out with that ... (via Drudge)

UPDATE: Betsy's on board. Who else?

Why Trousergate's Timing Matters, But Not How You Think

On both this blog and on my cross-post at Oh, That Liberal Media, commenters have questioned the timing of this leak (via Jon at QandO) to the press and the seriousness of the damage done by Sandy Berger's theft. Some have suggested that Bush operatives within the FBI deliberately let this leak out just before the release of the 9/11 Commission's report in order to dilute its impact, too.

Let's take the last issue first. A family friend has been visiting the past few days, and we discussed this at breakfast this morning. (Well, in between my grunts as I moved around ...) She also questioned the timing and made the same assumption about the leak. Possibly, she's right. However, let me ask this -- when would people prefer to have the information that the 9/11 Commission was denied access to highly classified material relating to the Clinton Administration's response to terrorism -- after the report came out, or before? For that matter, when would the commission itself prefer to find this out? I'd say it's better to have this information in the public eye now, especially since the commission made such a show about public testimony, including that of Sandy Berger. If they publish a report based on incomplete evidence, I want to have that information in hand before assessing its credibility.

In terms of the potential damage done by Berger's actions, it's not likely that the commission would leave innocuous documents highly classified if no damage could be done by their release. In fact, the commission has publicly demanded other documents to be declassified, including the unprecedented release of a presidential daily briefing on threat assessments. If that can be declassified, the retention of classification on these documents indicates that they could be highly damaging to national security, which is (after all) the reason for their classification in the first place.

Small wonder that even Democratic lawmakers consider this to be an extremely serious problem:

Although lawmakers didn't want to make a judgment call on Berger's fate until all the facts are known, they agreed that the situation doesn't look good for Berger, or even for Kerry.

"There's an ethic here -- that is of strict discipline, of not letting the fact you're working on a political campaign start to color your actions when it comes to national security," Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told FOX News on Tuesday.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., called the news "surprising" and said that "unless we learn otherwise, I have to assume that what Sandy said was right -- that any removal of documents was inadvertent. But it is serious."

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said, "we need more information -- obviously the timing of it is not good" for Kerry. "From now on, until the election, everything like this will have a spotlight put on it, examined very carefully," Lott continued.

For one last pass at why this information came out now, I'd say that it had more to do with the investigation being passed to the Justice Department than anything else. However, I'd remind you that the investigation was well known to many parties -- and that one of the first person contacted on the document theft was Bruce Lindsey, Bill Clinton's counsel. If people want to assume conspiratorial motives to Bush, it's just as plausible to assign them to the Clintons as well, who might wind up benefiting from a Kerry collapse. (I think it's a silly argument, but I also think the Bush argument is equally silly.)

On the notion that this is just a mistake on Berger's part, this update seems to discredit that notion, too (emphasis mine):

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

Nothing about this story adds up to an innocent mistake on Berger's part. He wanted to sneak the material out from its secured location. Motive will be important, but the search for why should not obscure the already-known what.

Why I'm So Prolific Yesterday And Today

In case you're wondering, the back is still very much out, and it's all I can do to get out of bed. Right now I'm sitting up in a recliner, doing some stretching exercises at regular intervals, and trying to get well enough to go back to work tomorrow. In the meantime, I can use my laptop and wireless connection to keep up with things.

Like I said ... in case you're wondering. Thanks for the get-well messages some of you have sent -- I hope I do, and soon!

Kerry To Repay Self From Campaign Donations

Today's Boston Globe reports that John Kerry has finally decided to repay last year's personal loan to his campaign using donations collected this year -- in effect, as Hugh Hewitt points out, "effectively tricking 2004 donors into paying for 2003 expenses":

John F. Kerry is poised to take federal campaign money once he is nominated for the presidency next week, according to top campaign finance advisers, a move that will allow him to disburse millions of dollars in leftover campaign cash to Democratic Party operations, effectively augmenting the $75 million he will receive in federal funds.

Aides expect the Kerry campaign committee to end up with enough money to make sizable transfers to the Democratic National Committee, state Democratic committees, and possibly the committees working to elect a Democratic Congress. The aim would be to have the committees, especially those in battleground states, air television ads on Kerry's behalf this fall, and finance get-out-the-vote operations on Election Day. ...

Kerry also plans to repay himself for a $6.4 million loan he gave to his cash-strapped organization last December, according to one adviser. "The loan will be repaid," the adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said yesterday. "The question is when." A campaign spokesman, Michael Meehan, said Kerry has yet to make a final decision.

How nice. I wonder if the people who put that $6.4 million into Kerry's campaign would have been so enthusiastic had they known it would wind up in Kerry's bank account -- when he and his wife are worth between $500 million and $3 billion between them. Perhaps Kerry can afford to buy another villa in Italy, now that he's getting the money back from his donors.

Actually, and somewhat contradictorily, the Globe reports that Kerry had considered self-financing his entire campaign instead of taking government funds. However, raising $75 million in hard money with a cap of $2,000 per donor -- many of which had already reached that cap -- in a three-month period would be highly unlikely. One of the problems self-financing would have solved is the six-week gap between the Republican and Democratic conventions, during which Bush can continue to raise and spend private funds. Kerry has decided to essentially go dark during that period to start September on equal footing:

From July 29, Kerry will have a 20-day period in which he must decide whether he wants to use campaign funds to repay his personal loan to the committee. If he does not take the campaign money during that window, the campaign must log the loan as a contribution and Kerry must repay the $6.4 million bank loan himself.

The campaign has been making the monthly loan payments. Bush, however, will be free to continue raising and spending money from private donors until his nomination on Sept. 2. He has raised more than $215 million. A second top adviser said Kerry plans to husband his $75 million until Bush receives his own allotment, gambling that potential voters will be distracted by vacation, two weeks of Olympics coverage from Greece, and a week of TV coverage of the Republican convention in New York, which begins Aug. 30.

One wonders if the implosion of Kerry's foreign-affairs advisors Joe Wilson and Sandy Berger may force a change in that strategy, in order to combat the possible fallout from the scandals.

Trousergate: Just An Encore?

Instapundit links to an interesting revelation in the AP update which seems to indicate that not only was this not Berger's first incident of "sloppiness", but that security officers took an unusual step in its handling of the breach:

In the FBI search of his office, Berger also was found in possession of a small number of classified note cards containing his handwritten notes from the Middle East peace talks during the 1990s, but those are not a focal point of the current criminal probe, according to officials and lawyers.

Breuer said the Archives staff first raised concerns with Berger during an Oct. 2 review of documents that at least one copy of the post-millennium report he had reviewed earlier was missing. Berger was given a second copy that day, Breuer said.

Officials familiar with the investigation said Archive staff specially marked the documents and when the new copy and others disappeared, Archive officials called Clinton attorney Bruce Lindsey to raise concerns.

The discovery of earlier classified material could conceivably corroborate Berger's supposed sloppiness, the call to Bruce Lindsey rather than escalating the problem through the relevant security structure appears highly suspicious. After all, Lindsey by this time had been in the private sector for over three years, and could hardly be described as an uninterested third party. Concerns should have been raised with the facility security officer, and after that with DoD investigators or the FBI.

It's not just Berger that has some explaining to do; the security group guarding these documents have plenty to explain as well.

UPDATE: My good friend Jon at QandO has his doubts:

It will be difficult to explain to anyone's satisfaction why Berger felt the need to stuff notes from sensitive documents down his pants.

Why would that be difficult to explain? I can't speak for Sandy Berger, but my pants are where I keep my pockets. The cited story says Berger stuck "them in his jacket and pants", which doesn't really indicate whether he had put them in pockets or not....but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable assumption, unless we have specific information to the contrary.

We'll have to wait for more information, but I doubt this will be the scandal it first appears. I'm most reminded of the Paul O'Neill mini-drama with classified documents, in which he was eventually cleared.

I understand what Jon says here, but it's important to remember the context. First, Berger had his leather case with him -- why would he stick things in his pockets? Could it be that normal security procedures at secure facilities call for all briefcases to be inspected? Also, when does a man with a briefcase stick papers in his jacket and pants pockets instead? It doesn't make much sense.

If Berger took any classified material outside of a secure facility without permission and without taking proper steps to ensure their containment, he committed a crime. It looks now like he's done it on multiple occasions. The motive may be interesting -- but it won't mitigate the crime itself.

Boston Police Plan To Picket, Regardless Of Arbitration

Yesterday's decision by the Massachussetts Labor Relations Board to fast-track Boston police and fire union issues into arbitration in order to keep the pickets from the convention backfired, with the union chief promising to picket no matter what and raising questions about collusion between national labor management, the MLRB, and the Democratic Party:

The Massachusetts labor board's decision to send the city's conflict with its police union to immediate arbitration before the beginning of the Democratic National Convention reflects a schism in the previously unified labor front that has the local union president saying he is more determined than ever to picket next week's political gathering.

Last week, the leader of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Paul Birks, was the member of the board who fought most ardently against an expedited process. On Monday, Birks made the motion to resolve the conflict through arbitration by 2 p.m. Thursday.

"Over the weekend something happened," said Lou DiNatale, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts. "Somebody on that board got noogied. I think the national unions must have talked to someone."

If the MLRB and the national unions intended on tamping down the controversy before the cameras showed up, they badly misjudged the situation, again demonstrating the incompetence the Democrats have displayed during this entire election cycle. The sudden shift of their previously staunch defender on the panel smells like a back-room deal, and the police (who have no other leverage) do not appear likely to take this lying down ... unless it's lying down in front of the convention doors. The union even suggested that any previous deals to exempt the convention itself may have been jeopardized by the MLRB's surprise move:

After Monday's decision, union officials vowed to step up their efforts and might reconsider their promise not to picket at the FleetCenter itself.

"We're absolutely going to picket, now more than ever," said police union president Thomas Nee. "It's going to be worse now than it was before because we're calling on everybody. I'm telling you, they're coming in from around the country."

Mayor Thomas Menino, meanwhile, is delighted by the MLRB's decision. So, presumably, are John Kerry and John Edwards. Whether the arbitrators can force the union to accept a contract without provoking even wider demonstrations remains to be seen, but unless the union gets its 17%, I doubt that Menino and Kerry will be anywhere near as sanguine about it next week.

Trousergate, Cont'd

The Washington Post essentially recaps the AP story last night on Trousergate, Sandy Berger's theft of classified documents from a secure room last October, although they manage to leave out the trousers from their article. However, the story has shifted into a more muted tone in the hands of Susan Schmidt and Dan Eggen:

The FBI is investigating Clinton administration national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger's removal of classified documents from the National Archives, attorneys for Berger confirmed last night.

Berger inadvertently took copies of several versions of an after-action memo on the millennium bombing plot from the Archives last fall, said his attorney Lanny Breuer. The lawyer said one or more of the copies were then inadvertently discarded. ...

Berger discovered several versions of the classified memo in a leather portfolio he had taken to the Archives, his attorney said. He returned them and papers on which he had taken notes about materials he had reviewed. Those notes, Breuer said, were not supposed to have been removed from the Archives without review by employees there. Berger's actions, said Breuer, were the result of "sloppiness" and were unintentional.

For my money, that's at least one "inadvertently" too many, and that is not a literary criticism. Perhaps this explanation will fly for those who have never worked around classified documents, but since I spent three years producing such material, I can tell you that it's impossible to "inadvertently" take or destroy them. For one thing, such documents are required to have covers -- bright covers in primary colors that indicate their level of classification. Each sheet of paper is required to have the classification level of the page (each page may be classified differently) at the top and bottom of each side of the paper. Documents with higher classifications are numbered, and each copy is tracked with an access log, and nowadays I suppose they're tracking them by computers.

Under these rules, it's difficult to see how anyone could "inadvertently" mix up handwritten notes with classified documents, especially when sticking them into one's jacket and pants. Furthermore, as Clinton's NSA, Berger would have been one of the people responsible for enforcing these regimens, not simply subject to them. The DOD makes these rules crystal clear during the clearance process at each level of access, and security officers (which Berger clearly was) undergo even further training and assessment on security procedures. "Inadvertent" and "sloppiness", in the real context of secured documentation, not only don't qualify as an excuse but don't even register as a possibility.

Schmidt and Eggen also try to tone down the potential damage Berger's theft could do to national security:

The missing copies, according to Breuer and their author, Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism chief in the Clinton administration and early in President Bush's administration, were versions of after-action reports recommending changes following threats of terrorism as 1999 turned to 2000. Clarke said he prepared about two dozen ideas for countering terrorist threats. The recommendations were circulated among Cabinet agencies, and various versions of the memo contained additions and refinements, Clarke said last night.

Breuer said that Clarke had prepared a "tough review" and that the document was something of a critical assessment of what agencies did well and what they failed to do in the face of the millennium threat.

Clarke said it is illogical to assume Berger would have sought to hide versions of the memo, because "everybody in town had copies of these things." He said he could not recall most of the recommendations, but one that he did remember -- having FBI field offices send wiretap material to Washington for translation instead of translating it locally -- still has not been accomplished.

Now we have another excuse -- that the material isn't important and shouldn't be considered a problem. After all, everyone knew what was in the memo, right? Unfortunately, as the article does state elsewhere, there were several versions of the memo during its development, and each had different information and recommendations. It would appear that at least one memo had information and/or recommendations that received no action, and its release might embarrass the Clinton administration's national-security team. Besides, the NSA or DOD still considered the data to be highly sensitive, and its loss means that the information it contained has either been destroyed, or if you believe Berger, may be lying intact in a Virginia landfill, waiting to be discovered.

I find it highly suspect that the first expert the Post found to speak on this is Richard Clarke. How many of the partisans will come out of the woodwork? Next, we'll have Joe Wilson come out and claim that the documents never existed in the first place.

Clarke and Berger may spin this all they want, but the truth is that Berger stole classified files that related to the worst act of mass murder/terrorism ever experienced by Americans, and indeed the worst attack on our territory since the Civil War. That theft by a member of the opposition party's Presidential campaign calls into question the motivations of not only the administration Berger served, but also the administration he proposes to serve.

UPDATE: The New York Times' Mark Glassman doesn't just spin the story, he sanitizes it. Here's the description of the event from Glassman:

Mr. Berger removed at least two versions of a memorandum assessing how the government handled intelligence and security issues before the millennium celebrations in 1999, his lawyer, Lanny A. Breuer, said. He also removed notes he took about classified documents, the lawyer said. ...

Mr. Berger returned all of the documents and notes to the archives in October, within a week of his learning they were missing, his lawyers said.

Glassman doesn't find Berger's lawyer's admission (in the Post story) that one or more of the documents were lost (see above) to be at all newsworthy, for some reason.

Milbank: A Day Late And A Dollar Short

Dana Milbank may already be regretting the column he wrote for tomorrow's Washington Post, in which he claims that one word -- Halliburton -- will trump any argument that Bush/Cheney campaigners may put forward:

"Halliburton," says Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton, "will always be the fire Dick Cheney can't put out." That is certainly the Democrats' hope, as they try to portray the oil services company once run by Vice President Cheney as a metaphor for all things anti-Bush.

When Cheney spoke about health care yesterday in Toledo, Kerry forces held a counter-rally featuring signs saying "Health Care, Not Halliburton." Explaining that apparent non sequitur, the campaign said in a news release that health care costs would be lower if Cheney spent "as much energy on lowering health care costs as getting Halliburton their no-bid contracts."

Likewise, when the Bush campaign last week demanded video footage of an event where Whoopi Goldberg delivered a crude anti-Bush message, the Kerry campaign had a ready response: The Bush campaign should release correspondence about Halliburton's contracts.

Milbank later (paragraph 10) finally reports that no evidence of any wrongdoing has ever been produced, nor have the Democrats ever substantiated their allegations of war profiteering against the VP. Cheney had already given up his financial interests in Halliburton, at a considerable loss, when he took office. His pensions were locked in at the rates in play at the time of divestiture, as required.

Now, however, Milbank may have published a day too soon. The word with which the Republicans can answer back: Berger. And Wilson, too, for that matter.

Clinton NSA Stole Notes, Documents From 9/11 Commission

The AP reports that the FBI has been investigating former Clinton-era National Security Advisor Sandy Berger for theft of classified documents at the time of his 9/11 Commission testimony:

President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.

Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants. Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing.

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.

It will be difficult to explain to anyone's satisfaction why Berger felt the need to stuff notes from sensitive documents down his pants. Such an act demonstrates rather clearly that Berger knew he was committing a crime at the time he did it. The documents he "inadvertently" stole were the "highly classified" report on the millenium terror threats as well the Clinton Administration's efforts to secure American ports against attack and identify their specific vulnerabilities.

All of this begs the question: what was in those reports, and why would Berger feel the need to take and destroy them, as it appears he did? One can presume that either the contents of the reports were highly unfavorable to the Clinton administration, or Berger has another use for the information. The FBI surely must be investigating all of Berger's contacts to see if those reports were actually destroyed or wound up somewhere else ... somewhere where their information could damage American security.

Is it possible to have a Watergate in an administration after it leaves office?

UPDATE: Jeannebee points out that the reports covered airport security as well as seaport security. What exactly does the Clinton aide not want us to find out? Meanwhile, Stefan at our group blog Oh, That Liberal Media notes that Berger is now the chief foreign policy advisor to John Kerry for the campaign. Could there be something in the report that references the Senator, too?

UPDATE II: From John Kerry's blog on restoring confidence in our intelligence and foreign relations:

As president, I will restore the credibility of our intelligence community by ensuring the basic integrity of the intelligence process. ...

Those who seek to lead have a duty to offer a clear vision of how we can make Americans safer and America more trusted and respected in the world.

Well, they're off to a fine start, by stealing documents from an investigative commission.

UPDATE III: Josh Marshall at TPM acknowledges that this is bad news -- it's really hard to dispute that -- but asks about the rules for taking notes (and keeping them):

I would imagine they are quite strict and that you're not allowed to just take such notes with you except under the most limited of circumstances, if at all. Obviously, if you can write down the contents of classified documents and then take your notes with you then basically you're taking the document itself -- since the issue is not the physical document but its contents. Again, though, I simply don't know.

It's been well over a decade since I worked on such material, but I can tell you the rules even now. It's not just the document itself nor the data that's classified -- it's both, together and separately. If you jot down classified information in the form of notes, they're just as classified as the source material, and even in case of any doubt, you have to treat them as the same classification level until the proper authority can review them. What's more, as a former NSA, Sandy Berger damned well knows this. You cannot take notes from a classified document and just walk out with them in an unsecured and unapproved manner -- and since Berger stuffed them down his pants, I suspect he is well aware of this.

Remember, the Democrats had American national security in this man's hands (and his pants, apparently) for eight years, and Kerry promises more of the same. Chilling, isn't it?

Democrats Self-Destruct In Georgia

The Republicans who hope to take over retiring Senator Zell Miller's Georgia seat have to feel a bit more confident after watching the debacle of the Democrats' primary debate:

In a freewheeling debate televised statewide Sunday night, the candidates mostly bickered among themselves. One even lashed out at the reporters asking the questions, and another was accused of threatening to hire a hit man to kill his ex-wife. That candidate, millionaire entrepreneur Cliff Oxford, laughed off the assertion and the moderator called it "over the line." ...

Emory University political scientist Merle Black called the Democrats' chances grim for holding on to Miller's seat. About their Sunday debate, Black said, "Pathetic. That was amateur hour."

So far, the best candidate for the seat appears to be current Rep. Denise Majette, best known for unseating one of the notorious nutcases of the last session of Congress, former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who intends on running for Majette's seat in November. Majette has a finance problem from her late decision to enter the race, and the lack of a clear frontrunner has fueled the hardball politics being played out by the Georgia Democrats.

Whoever wins, they will be well schooled in the politics of personal destruction. It appears they've been learning from the national party over the past year.

The Slippery Slope?

Hey, maybe we shouldn't have been so hard on Whoopi Goldberg -- it turns out that even the mighty Instapundit can't resist an R-rated pun at Bush's expense:

Hugh Hewitt's new book, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It, -- and, taking what I think is probably a very different view, a pre-print of Maureen Dowd's forthcoming Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk. (Irresistible Dowd-like observation: Bush? Enter? Sounds like a porn flick! Hey, there's a column in that, somewhere. . . .)

I kid, of course -- and hope Glenn has a sense of humor. But if you haven't already done so, make sure you pick up a copy of Hugh's book, which hit #1 on Amazon over the weekend. Use the link here or the one from my Blogad in the sidebar, and pick a second one up for a fence-sitter you know ...

Linda Rondstadt Discovers Free-Market Economics

My friend and Northern Alliance colleague Big Trunk at Power Line relates the economic education of yet another radical entertainer, this one Linda Ronstadt, who was relevant as late as 1987. Ronstadt misjudged her Las Vegas audience and tried to inject politics into her act during an encore, but the audience -- which paid to hear her sing, not talk -- gave her a rousing rendition of the Tremeloes' "Silence Is Golden":

Singer Linda Ronstadt not only got booed, she got the boot after lauding filmmaker Michael Moore and his new movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" during a performance at the Aladdin hotel-casino.

Before singing "Desperado" for an encore Saturday night, the 58-year-old rocker called Moore a "great American patriot" and "someone who is spreading the truth." She also encouraged everybody to see the documentary about President Bush.

Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air....

Timmins, who is British and was watching the show, decided Ronstadt had to go — for good. Timmins said he didn't allow Ronstadt back in her luxury suite and she was escorted off the property. Ronstadt's antics "spoiled a wonderful evening for our guests and we had to do something about it," Timmins said.

No one disputes Ronstadt's right to speak her mind, and conversely, no one should dispute the audience the same right to criticize Rondstadt. After all, everyone exercised their right to free speech that night, including Timmins, who I think went just a tad overboard by kicking her out of the hotel that same night. (The next morning would have been fine and just a bit more classy, IMO.)

I fully expect that Ronstadt and her colleagues will be screaming about repression of Ronstadt's rights and the new McCarthyism, especially an idiotic Elton John, who's been singing that song since before the 2000 election. Instead, someone should explain the free market to Ronstadt, where people expect to receive the services for which they've paid. In this case, they expected an evening of entertainment, and instead, Ronstadt turned the show into a political event. Not only is that dishonest, but also incredibly foolish, as the average Las Vegas patron is unlikely to be a big fan of Michael Moore. One hint is that casinos are not well-known for their popularity amongst anti-capitalists and social reformers.

The AP story has a great finish:

In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal before the show, Ronstadt said "I keep hoping that if I'm annoying enough to them, they won't hire me back."

Looks like she got her wish.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg at The Corner notes that this isn't the first time she's dedicated "Desperado" to Michael Moore, an odd thing to do considering that she didn't write the song and Moore was a schoolboy when it was first performed.

UPDATE II: Goldberg again, this time with an e-mail from someone supposedly at the Aladdin who says Timmins blew this way out of proportion ... perhaps to justify throwing Ronstadt out of the hotel. Not sure why he'd need to do that, though -- all he'd have to say is that some customers were unhappy with the political speech, which the e-mailer doesn't dispute.

Cleland Says President "Flat-Out Lied" About Iraq

Add Max Cleland to the list of lunatic conspiracy theorists. Cleland asserted in a conference call to reporters today that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld "flat-out lied" when using the intelligence gathered and reviewed over several years by two American administrations and several Western governments in making the case for war against Saddam Hussein:

US Democrats stepped up attacks on George W. Bush's anti-terror policies when an official of White House candidate John Kerry's campaign said the president "flat-out lied" over the Iraq war. ...

Asked whether they were lied to by the intelligence services or the White House, he said emphatically: "By the president, by the vice president and by the secretary of defense."

"Now why did Bush go to war in Iraq? Because he concluded that his daddy was a failed president and one of the ways he failed was that he did not take out Saddam Hussein," Cleland said, referring to the 1991 Gulf war. He added that Kerry, from Massachusetts, agreed with the assessment. "About a year ago John Kerry said,'The president lied, he lied to me personally,'" said Cleland, a badly wounded Vietnam war veteran.

Now that Cleland has decided, along with the nutcase, International-ANSWER leftists, to go into amateur psychology, perhaps Cleland could be so kind as to inform us exactly what lies George Bush told him. Cleland had access to the same intelligence reports given Bush and Bill Clinton while he represented Georgia in the Senate. Did Cleland, like Kerry, never bother to read these assessments? Has Cleland read the SSCI report on intelligence that came to the opposite conclusion, or the Butler report in Britain? I suspect that Cleland has less command of the detail involved in this argument and that any challenge to produce a "flat-out lie" will result in more ad hominem personal attacks on Bush and his staff and absolutely nothing in terms of solid evidence.

It looks to me that the Kerry campaign -- which Cleland co-chairs -- has decided that Joe Wilson is no longer a credible vehicle for the "Bush Lied" meme, since Wilson has been proven quite the prevaricator himself. Instead, Kerry has decided to wheel Cleland onto the stage to push the theme instead and banks on Cleland's sympathetic life story to keep people from responding effectively.

So far, the AP reports, the Kerry campaign has not confirmed its support of Cleland's charges, and here's the problem if it does. Back in March, Kerry himself was caught on tape calling the Bush administration the "most lying, corrupt" group of people. After a hailstorm of criticism fell on his campaign, he claimed he only referred to some Republican "attack machine" and not the President personally. If Kerry flip-flops again, he'll have to explain how that fits in with his denials that his earlier remarks referenced Bush. And if he doesn't, Cleland's position as his campaign's co-chair will look pretty odd if Kerry claims that Cleland doesn't speak for him.

I have all the sympathy in the world for Cleland's sacrifice to our country, but it's becoming clear why the voters of Georgia tossed this guy out on his ear in 2002. Cleland appears to be mentored in his post-office career by Al Gore, which is no compliment.

UPDATE: Byron York files a report from the White House on Cleland's comments, noting that Cleland really missed this week's news:

Cleland also said the president’s famous “16 word” contention that Iraq sought uranium in Africa “is a lie.” When asked if he believes former ambassador Joseph Wilson, the Bush critic whose story was substantially undermined in the new Senate report on pre-war intelligence, Cleland said, “I do believe that Joe Wilson is telling the truth. I believe he has tremendous credibility, and I’ve met with him personally for hours.”

Wow -- he met with Wilson, personally, for hours? While Cleland might think that proves Wilson credible, all it does is to prove Cleland to be gullible. All of which makes this Cleland quote all the more ironic:

“The president is living in a world of denial,” Cleland said. “So is the Vice President, and so is the Secretary of State.”

Democrats Try A Little Extortion On Nader In Michigan

Michigan Democrats have issued an ultimatum to the Ralph Nader campaign in car country -- either withdraw as an independent candidate in Michigan or face FEC charges, tying up the campaign in legal fees and scrutiny:

The Michigan Democratic Party said Friday it would file federal election complaints against Ralph Nader over what it calls illegal and excessive contributions unless Nader withdraws from the Michigan ballot as an independent candidate.

The presidential candidate hopes to get on the state ballot through the Reform Party of Michigan.

But Michigan Republican Party officials handed in 43,000 petition signatures on Thursday -- far more than the 30,000 needed -- to ensure Nader can be on the ballot regardless of whether he gets the Reform Party nomination. Nader has until Monday to withdraw as an independent candidate.

Democrats have a short memory. Twelve years ago, and again four years after that, Ross Perot received all sorts of help from Democrats to get on the ballot and into the presidential debates. Criticism that their efforts were self-serving resulted in sermons about democracy and choice. Now that the shoe's on the other foot, all of a sudden choice and democracy have become poisonous to the delicate electorate in Michigan.

I'm no fan of Republican efforts to support Nader on the ballot, nor do I think it wise of Nader to accept the help. Nader's run is based on crusading purity (to the extent it's based on much at all other than anger), and Puritans who drink from the well of corruption don't get much respect from other Puritans. For Republicans, Nader may siphon votes from Kerry, but I feel the efforts put into supporting Nader would be much better spent on supporting the President instead.

However, in the final analysis, Michigan has 43,000 citizens who want to see Nader on the ballot for whatever reason. That meets the legal threshold for eligibility, and Nader should be allowed on the ballot. Democrats who attempt to extort Nader's retreat from Michigan should instead proffer reasons to vote for Kerry rather than limit the choice of Michigan voters. That they have failed to capture the imaginations of Nader supporters is not the fault of Nader or the Republicans, but of their own party, their own candidate, and the inept campaign both have put together thus far this election cycle.

Blackmailing Nader may give some Democrats a bit of satisfaction for the moment, but it makes a mockery of their repeated attempts to characterize this President as somehow anti-democratic while establishing new democracies in the Middle East for over 50 million people. It renders their "pro-choice" arguments laughable when they attempt to strongarm political opponents off the ballot. It's a public-relations disaster waiting to happen, and happen it will if they do not drop this silly threat.

Caption Contest Winners!

Well, folks, the butt-kissing is all over -- Chris at Candpeez has made his selections. He had one heck of a time getting through all of the excellent entries this weekend, but in the end he had to boil it down to just a few entries. Before we kiss this one goodbye, though, let's take a last look at the picture:

Here are the winners!

Captain’s Award (French Kiss) The Charles M. Jones Memorial Award: Thief
[In the voice of Pepe Le Pew]

"Ah, my great bun-del of sweetness...(kiss kiss)...eet ees love, love, love at sight first, no eet ees not, yes? Ah...ZE MAD RUSH OF HOT BLOOD TO THE TEMPLES...(kiss kiss)...Ah, Golden girl, you are ze corn-beef to me, I am ze cab-baj...(kiss kiss kiss)... I like eet...

[Teresa escapes his embrace and runs]

"Come back, small one, come back! Ze corn-beef do not run away from ze cab-baj!"

You Have the Conn #1 (Lip Flop) - James:
There, just a little to the left, now you can talk out of both sides.

You Have the Conn #2 (That’s Frahnken-shteen!) - Chumley Wonderbar:
"Me like pretty girl... Me want kiss from soft pretty girl..."

You Have the Conn #3 (C’mere and give daddy some sugar!) - AH-C:
EEOC Speaker:
In this slide, we see the Kerrys demonstrate the classic "Boss steals a kiss from secretary" sexual harassment move.
Note: the death grip on the intended victim to draw her close and her strenuous but futile effort to resist.

And now in the next slide, they will demonstrate "Groping in the workplace"...
Posted by: AH-C at July 18, 2004 06:34 PM

Judge’s Special Mention (Peck on the Cheek) - First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence - CCWBass:
Epic in scale, chock-a-block with timely hilarity, and penned while paying invoices at work – TAKE A BOW, BROTHER! [you need to read the original entry in order to see this multi-stanza limerick-based poem ... and it's worth the time -- CE]

Report to Sickbay: It’s a tie! (Like kissing your sister)
The “We Were All Thinking It - They Posted It” Award! - TheMarkman:
"Not until you brush the smell of Kofi's ass out of your mouth!"
Posted by: themarkman at July 16, 2004 09:22 AM

Electoral Glossary Award - Rightwingduck:
I'm sorry darling. But tonight is not the night for your Big Bounce...

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 Chris'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.

WaPo Ombudsman: Wilson, JMM Lied, Not Bush or SSCI

The Washington Post took the unusual action of offering criticism to a blogger, although one with journalistic credentials, in its ombudsman column yesterday on the Wilson/Plame portion of the SSCI and Butler reports. Seeing that the majority of criticism towards its coverage of the SSCI report and its implications referenced Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo blog, the Post fisked Marshall in the grand tradition of blogging (via Belgravia Dispatch), as well as Joe Wilson himself:

Marshall takes issue with The Post's reporting that "contrary to Wilson's assertions . . . the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the African intelligence that made its way into the 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address." Actually, the CIA fought hard, and successfully, to keep the material about Africa, aspects of which were a matter of dispute, out of a major speech Bush gave in October 2002. But the Senate study points out that in January 2003, the CIA, which still believed Iraq was probably seeking uranium from Africa, did not tell the White House to take out those 16 words from the State of the Union address and that then-CIA Director George Tenet had not even read the speech beforehand. ...

Wilson, in his letter, refers to "the Republican-written" report. It is a bipartisan report. Wilson says "the decision to send me to Niger was not made, and could not be made, by Valerie." Neither the report, nor the story, says she made "the decision." The story says Wilson was "specifically recommended for the mission by his wife." The report says "interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife . . . suggested his name for the trip." A reports officer in her division told the committee she "offered up his name." There are other references as well to Plame's role.

Wilson takes issue with Schmidt's reporting that his report on the trip to Niger "bolstered the case" about purported uranium sales to Iraq. But the study concludes that Wilson's March 2002 report, which noted that the former prime minister of Niger said that in 1999 he was approached by a businessman insisting he meet with an Iraqi delegation (which he did not do), "lent more credibility to the original CIA reports on the uranium deal."

Note how the goalposts have moved on the Wilson/Plame issue, too. Originally, Wilson insisted that his wife had nothing to do with his assignment on the mission to Niger. Now, he's claiming that she didn't make the decision to send him. However, that was never an assertion, and the SSCI report makes clear that the original claim that Plame suggested her husband for the trip has been substantiated, an odd recommendation considering Wilson's ties to Saudi Arabia at the time. Belgravia Dispatch, meanwhile, focuses its sights on TPM:

Predictably, TPM's continued spinnin' would make Paul Begala blush. For instance, how can Josh say "most of the British judgement about uranium from Africa was based on the phony documents"? Take the September '03 UK Parliamentary Report Marshall is so enthused about.

TPM likes it so because it ostensibly makes plainer, as compared to the Butler report, that one of the British intel sources (assorted documentary evidence) was based on the forgeries. But that very same report states unequivocally:

The SIS stated that the documents did not affect its judgement of its second source and consequently the SIS continues to believe that the Iraqis were attempting to negotiate the purchase of uranium from Niger. We have questioned the SIS about the basis of its judgement and conclude that it is reasonable.

So that's two sources; one ostensibly FOPT tainted and the other not. From this, how does one divine that "most" of the British judgement was based on forgeries?

Depends on what the definition of "most" is, I guess.

Read the whole thing, as they say. Marshall has reached the tipping point on his credibility. If he continues to shill for Wilson, a completely exposed partisan and liar, he will share in Wilson's disgrace, and the blogosphere will not soon let him live it down.

Arafat Reeling

Yasser Arafat has replaced his replacement to head security in the Gaza Strip after his elevation of a close family member touched off riots and demonstrations in Gaza:

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Monday reinstated a security chief whose replacement by the veteran leader's cousin touched off turmoil in the Gaza Strip, officials said.

Abdel-Razek al-Majaideh was named director of General Security for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, replacing Moussa Arafat, whose appointment to the post on Saturday triggered clashes between gunmen and his loyalists.

Moussa Arafat's apparent demotion seemed to be an attempt by the Palestinian president to defuse the most serious leadership crisis he has faced since returning from exile a decade ago.

The Palestinians have realized, belatedly, that the intifada has failed miserably to release them from the occupation or to create a self-government that can be trusted not to exploit them. Arafat's move towards family to strengthen his position backfired as Gazans saw this (rightfully so) as a further attempt to entrench his own position from his besieged bunker. The fact of Arafat's retreat in this, as in the kidnappings earlier, shows how weak he has become in his own proto-state. Either Arafat will have to call for new elections or he will have to crack down hard on all of the insurgent elements -- and it increasingly appears that he doesn't have the muscle for the latter.

In some small way, this was what happened when King Hussein sheltered Arafat and the PLO for a short period of time. The introduction and tolerance of radical terrorist elements in a nation eventually works to destabilize it. Hussein woke up in time to expel Arafat and his bunch of thugs before it was too late. Arafat didn't learn the lesson in time, and his Palestinian Authority will likely self-destruct as a result. The only reason not to snicker is what will likely supercede Arafat: an even worse terrorocracy financed by Syria and Iran. At least no one will be under the delusion that the new "representatives" of the Palestinians will be partners for peace.

Kerry Needs Coal Dust On His Face: Byrd

Someone let Senator Robert Byrd out of his cage yesterday just long enough to make another foolish statement, this time regarding his home state and how Kerry can win it. Speaking to "Meet The Press", Byrd urged Kerry to make it real in the coal mines:

John Kerry can win West Virginia's five electoral votes by going there and getting coal "dust on his hands and on his face," the state's senior senator said Sunday. ... "I'm the son of a coal miner. I married a coal miner's daughter. I know a lot about coal," said the 86-year-old Byrd, whose Senate career began in 1959, the year before John F. Kennedy's evocation of the plight of the West Virginia coal miner helped him win the presidency.

"I've talked with him. I've told him he should go to West Virginia. He should shake hands with the people. He should be at their level and get a little coal dust on his hands. Get some of that dirty dust on his hands and on his face and live in spirit with the working people of this country, the coal miners. And always, always remember that sovereignty rests, John Kerry, sovereignty rests with the people of this country."

The Kerry campaign reaffirmed the candidate's commitment to the state's miners and pointed out that he has proposed spending $10 billion to improve clean coal technology.

Kerry may have proposed spending $10 billion in improving coal technology, but anyone who thinks that Kerry's radical constituencies will sit still for expanded use of coal for energy is out of their mind. Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and Kerry's Hollywood backers will organize against it, and the miners of West Virginia will pay the price. The notion that spreading some coal dust on the patrician face of John Kerry will camouflage his background and his environmental politics insults the intelligence of Byrd's constituency.

As for sovereignty, Byrd demonstrates his ability to use many words to convey little in intelligent and coherent thought. Since when was American sovereignty in any doubt? It seems that Byrd picks up words in the newspaper and, like someone who uses vocabulary-building exercises without comprehending them, injects them into conversations where they don't apply. Robert Byrd is a senior senator whose position has been secured by the vote several times over. He needs to explain what he meant by "sovereignty" and exactly how he thinks it has been endangered. Either that or the Senator's doctors need to give him a thorough medical examination.

LA Times: Bloggers Not Up To Our Standards Of Fairness?

I'm coming to this a day late (via Memeorandum), but I couldn't let this pass from the Los Angeles Times. Alex Jones, in an op-ed piece yesterday, inveighed against bloggers, reminding us that bloggers aren't real journalists, after all:

The Democrats and the Republicans are inviting a limited number of bloggers — those witty, candid, irreverent, passionate, shrewd and outrageous Internet chroniclers — to their 2004 conventions. It's a gesture of respect for the growing influence of the blogosphere, and if ever there were events ideally suited to bloggers, the heavily scripted and tensionless conventions top the list.

But make no mistake, this moment of blogging legitimization — and temporary press credentials — doesn't turn bloggers into journalists.

What could Jones mean? He wants people to recognize that bloggers don't uphold the traditions and standards of journalism, as taught in J-schools like Harvard, where Jones teaches on press and politics. Jones' specific complaints:

However, bloggers, with few exceptions, don't add reporting to the personal views they post online, and they see journalism as bound by norms and standards that they reject. That encourages these common attributes of the blogosphere: vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions and the array of qualities that might be expected from a blustering know-it-all in a bar.

All right ... now we know what standards and practices preclude a reporter or an organization from consideration as journalism. I have a question for Dr. Jones -- can an organization that conducted itself in the following manner be recognized as a journalistic enterprise?

* Misrepresent federal gun law in order to scare people regarding the expiration of the assault weapons ban?

* Accuse the American administrator of Iraq of leaving without the courtesy of a final address after the transfer of sovereignty when that very address was not only broadcast all over Iraq but carried in part by CNN as well -- and fail to correct that assertion for almost a week?

* Report as breaing news that the Army engineered the toppling of the Saddam statue in Baghdad based on an internal Army report, but failing to check its facts by researching other journalists' accounts who were on the scene at the time?

* Completely misrepresent an important legal ruling?

All of these examples came from the Los Angeles Times over the past month (posted, as you'll see, at our group blog Oh That Liberal Media), and all of them refer to factual errors and outright lies told by the "journalists" at the West Coast's Paper of Record. John Carroll, by the Jones standard, is no journalist. The LAT is not a journalistic enterprise. And Dr. Jones inadvertently became a contributor to the state's largest and most expensive blog.

I agree with Dr. Jones in that blogs will likely never replace journalists entirely -- we feed too much off of them, and most of us have other jobs. However, we may eventually replace editorial boards at the newspapers and force reporters to quit inserting their own political agendas into their stories. In the meantime, as we receive more credentials and more access, we'll make the professionals sweat a bit while the amateurs fill their space.

Captain's Caption Contest #19: The Kiss-Off

It's Friday, so what time is it? Time for a kiss goodnight? Time to kiss the week goodbye? Time to kiss my -- [Sorry. That's the last time I have Whoopi Goldberg do my introductions ... CE]. No! It's time for another round of the Captain's Caption Contest! This week's entry comes to us from Chris at Candpeez, one of our regular readers. He catches Kerry in an attempt to, ah, inject a little warmth into the campaign:

Another Kerry strategy down the drain!

As always, leave your comments on the comments page, and as always, put your best caption entries in the comments section -- NO e-mail, please! (E-mailed entries will be shredded, tossed lightly over a double-serving Slim-Fast shake, and served to Whoopi intravenously.) The contest will remain open until 8 pm Sunday, July 18th, at which point the comments will be closed and Chris will pick the winners.

Let the games begin!

BUMP 7/17: Great job so far! Keep it up! And don't forget to drop by Chris' blog ...

COMMENTS CLOSED: With my back out, I haven't done much blogging today. Chris will judge your excellent entries and I'll return when he's picked the winners!

Flip-Flop By Proxy

The London Telegraph reports that John Kerry has sent his brother out to Israel to shore up the Jewish vote, which appears to be slipping from the grasp of Democrats this election cycle. His brother delivered a message of total support for Israel, including on the security fence, despite earlier assertions by both Kerrys that it amounted to nothing more than a barrier to peace:

John Kerry, the Democratic senator and presidential candidate, has sent his brother Cameron, a Jewish convert, on a delicate political mission to Israel to shore up Jewish support ahead of November's election.

The visit, which was due to end last night, has delighted Israeli government officials but has dismayed left-wing Israeli peace activists and Palestinian leaders, whom Mr Kerry studiously avoided as he voiced stridently pro-Israeli views on behalf of his brother. ...

He echoed the Israeli government's line on refusing to negotiate with Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and added: "There is no Palestinian partner at this time. It is not the place of the US to pressure Israel to reach an agreement with the Palestinians."

More controversially, he said the 425-mile security wall was "essential for the security of Israel" - an apparent reversal of remarks by his brother, earlier in the campaign, in which he described the wall as "a barrier to peace".

With events overtaking the besieged Palestinian strongman, quibbling over his status may well be a moot point anyway. Otherwise, one could easily recall that just seven years ago, Kerry hailed Arafat as a "statesman" in his book on global challenges that his campaign touted earlier to build a reputation for Kerry as a visionary. However, let there be no dispute about the reversal Kerry has executed on Israeli security; eight months ago he opposed the wall, and now that he needs to hold the Jewish vote, he has flopped to the other side.

The International Herald-Tribune also notes the policy shift in an article from two weeks ago:

He calls for more forceful action to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, fully backs Israel's construction of a barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and pledges to work to push for a new Palestinian political class to replace Yasser Arafat, who is called a "failed leader."

Kerry got off to a shaky start with some Jewish groups, including his reference last October to the barrier as a "barrier to peace." The structure, which is to stretch 680 kilometers, or 425 miles, is formed mostly of electronic fencing with razor wire but has some sections that are concrete.

The new paper calls it "a security fence" and says building it is "a legitimate right of self-defense" and "not a matter" to be taken up by the International Court of Justice, which has criticized the construction.

The Telegraph also notes that the Europeans are likely to be less than thrilled with Kerry's new position, perhaps taking some of the enthusiasm for Kerry's candidacy out of those foreign leaders who were so anxious to endorse him back in the late winter. They need not be worried too much; after all, Kerry's positions will evolve back towards theirs eventually. It seems that inconsistency is the only consistency of the Kerry campaign.