More Christmas With The Family

I never got a chance to post about one of our family outings this season -- the evening we spent at Minnesota Harvest with the Little Admiral and the Admiral Emeritus. When my father came out to visit us for an early Christmas celebration, I looked around for something new and different for us to do as a family. Our radio station, AM 1280 The Patriot, has added Minnesota Harvest as a new sponsor this year. The apple orchard stays open through winter and offers an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner and a 30-minute horsedrawn hayride for $20.

Despite the bitter cold, we all thought it sounded like a lot of fun and we trooped out to Jordan, in the rural area to the southwest of the metro area. The Minnesota Harvest turns out to put out a pretty nice, low-key dinner, sort of chuck-wagon cuisine. They had turkey and ham, potatoes, beans, ambrosia, plus some excellent apple-based pastries -- which I'm not suppposed to eat but I sampled anyway.

We had a nice time listening to Cactus Willy, which the orchard bills as a Willie Nelson-style country singer but struck us more as a Burl Ives folk singer, which definitely fit the season. He aimed mostly for the small children, who seemed to think that Willy was a close relation to Santa Claus, for good reason as you can see. He was delightful in his low-key way.

We went on the hayride after we ate, which took us to review a series of Christmas lights. I had originally thought that they would take us through some residential areas, but in Jordan that would be a neat trick. The orchard instead sets up their own light displays, which would have looked very sweet had there been some snow on the ground. The displays were a lot of fun, but with the bare trees, the effect was a bit eerie. The Little Admiral was completely fascinated by it, trying her best to wriggle out of her mother's grasp to lean out of the wagon and get closer.

After riding for a half-hour in the bitter cold, we went back into the restaurant and warmed up by the fire for a while and listened to Catcus Willy sing a little more. It took us quite a while to get feeling back in our extremities, as you can see here.

We all had some good, old-fashioned fun at the Minnesota Harvest, and we plan on adding the hayride to our holiday tradition!

The Calm Before The Storm

For those of you who may have wondered why CQ was so quiet yesterday -- two posts? -- I figured you'd like to see what kept me so preoccupied. I hadn't wrapped any Christmas gifts, so while I watched the Green Bay Packers edge out the Minnesota Vikings yesterday for the division title, I got all the gifts wrapped up nicely and put under the tree. When I finished and added in all the gifts that our family sent, it wound up looking ... well, a bit embarassing:

I would say that we have quite a task getting through all of these gifts later this afternoon when our son, daughter-in-law, and the Little Admiral join us for dinner. In the meantime, we're relaxing after a long, tiring Christmas Eve topped by a beautiful midnight Mass with our good friend Ronnie (who helped me put together the table in the picture, a gift from my sister). I may continue to post until we start our Christmas, but I hope you all are having a wonderful time with your own families today.

Addendum: Here's a peek at the white Christmas we got overnight:

It's not much by Minnesota standards, but at least it looks a little better than what we expected!

While We Gather Around The Christmas Tree ...

... our brothers in Christ living in Iraq hide around theirs, afraid to demonstrate their Christianity or celebrate Christmas in public. The atttacks on churches by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has made the Chaldean and Orthodox communities in Iraq frightened into silence for this holiday season:

Huddled with his family around a kerosene heater, Sirab Suleyman, a 28-year-old Iraqi Christian, retreats into memories of Christmases past.

Before the church bombings, the threats against Christian businesses and the gathering exodus of Iraq's Christian minority, there was a time when Suleyman and his Muslim friends used to spend Christmas caroling in the streets, enjoying each other's company.

"Before the war, Muslims and Christians used to celebrate Christmas together," he said, as he rubbed his hands for warmth in his modest living room. "Muslims used to visit their Christian friends and greet them. It was a true celebration. That's over now."

Not all Iraqi Christians feel the need to hide their celebrations:

Sister Beninia Hermes Shoukwana, a nun who heads a public school near Palestine Street, has stubbornly refused to bow to the extremists. She's put up Christmas trees at her school and gotten her students to sing holiday songs.

Indeed, a number of Christians scoffed at the fears of their brethren.

Hendrawas Yunan Azar, a 74-year-old buying a Christmas tree on Arasat Street, said he'll attend mass with his sister, even though relatives of his died in a church bombing last summer. He's even bought a new set of clothes to celebrate the holidays.

"If we die in church, we will be like the saints," he said.

Let's pray that next year, the Iraqi Christians will celebrate Christmas without fear -- as will Muslims celebrate Ramadan, and Iraqis overall celebrate freedom without fear of terrorism.

Kerry The E-Mail Santa?

John Kerry took a lot of flack for hoarding over $15 million during his presidential run rather than spending it on his own candidacy or to assist down-ticket campaigns. Now the Washington Post reports that Kerry may hold his large e-mail list as a lever with which to control the Democratic Party:

The former Democratic presidential candidate built, over the course of his two-year campaign, one of the biggest e-mail lists in his party. More than 2.7 million supporters signed up to receive his campaign e-mails, which his advisers have said were critical to its fundraising success. Now, as Democrats survey the post-election landscape, some are wondering what Kerry might do with all those e-mail addresses.

It is a relatively new question. Few cared what happened, for example, to Al Gore's e-mail list when his Democratic presidential campaign folded. But with the increasing maturation of the Internet as a political tool -- and the huge sums that can be raised online -- some experts said those addresses can remain valuable long after an election.

"It could be a very powerful thing," said Eli Pariser, the executive director of MoveOn.org's political action committee. "It is part of the way that online organizing is reshaping politics, because, as opposed to the boom-bust cycle of campaigns -- where you build up all this grass-roots energy and then it dissipates -- now you can keep them connected to you for cheap. It totally changes what it means to be a losing presidential candidate."

It doesn't really surprise me that Kerry hasn't simply volunteered his list to the DNC. After all, he didn't offer the cash that sprang from it in large part until the Democrats went public with their complaints against his miserliness. Why would he turn over the keys to the bank when he won't offer even a withdrawal?

However, I think that the Post seriously overestimates the efficacy of an e-mail list, even one as vast as Kerry's (reportedly four times larger than Howard Dean's). E-mail addresses tend to change often as users move from one service to the next. If Kerry collected most of those addresses in the spring and summer, I would venture that at least a quarter of them have lapsed. Home addresses hold much more value as even notoriously rootless Americans don't move households as often as they change Internet providers. By the time the next campaigns roll around in 2006, I'd be surprised if any more than 20% of the list responds to their missives.

Kerry obviously wants to use whatever perceived power this e-mail list holds with the Internet-ignorant to force the Democrats to follow his lead, perhaps even to stage a second run at the Presidency in 2008. He'll act as a particularly picky Santa Claus, checking his list and thinking twice before using it to bestow presents on those candidates he favors. When the Democrats finally realize that the list has long gone past its expiration date, expect Kerry's influence on the party to come to a suddent halt.

Merry Christmas!

From the First Mate, Whiskey, and I to all CQ readers -- we all wish you a blessed and merry Christmas with your friends and family.

I'll be posting Little Admiral pictures during the day ...

Addendum: I'm posting this at 2 AM as we just got back home from a midnight Mass. Here's the homily from Pope John Paul II's midnight Mass homily at the Vatican:

1. "Adoro te devote, latens Deitas."

"Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore." On this night, the opening words of this celebrated Eucharistic hymn echo in my heart. These words accompany me daily in this year dedicated to the Eucharist.

In the Son of the Virgin, "wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Lk 2:12), we acknowledge and adore "the Bread which came down from heaven" (Jn 6:41, 51), the Redeemer who came among us in order to bring life to the world.

2. Bethlehem! The city where Jesus was born in fulfillment of the Scriptures, in Hebrew means "house of bread." It was there that the Messiah was to be born, the One who would say of himself: "I am the bread of life" (Jn 6:35, 48).

In Bethlehem was born the One who, under the sign of broken bread, would leave us the memorial of his Pasch. On this Holy Night, adoration of the Child Jesus becomes Eucharistic adoration.

3. We adore you, Lord, truly present in the Sacrament of the Altar, the living Bread which gives life to humanity. We acknowledge you as our one God, a little Child lying helpless in the manger! "In the fullness of time, you became a man among men, to unite the end to the beginning, that is, man to God" (cf. Saint Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, IV, 20, 4).

You are born on this Night, our divine Redeemer, and, in our journey along the paths of time, you become for us the food of eternal life.

Look upon us, eternal Son of God, who took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary! All humanity, with its burden of trials and troubles, stands in need of you.

Stay with us, living Bread which came down from heaven for our salvation! Stay with us forever! Amen!

The Shifting Standards Of Christine Gregoire

Perspective is a funny thing. When one trails in an election by 261 votes, one views the result as a "virtual tie." If the margin narrows to 42, then it becomes a flat-out tie. But when the count reverses in one's favor and amounts to 130, all of a sudden the race is over.

Such are the vagaries of Christine Gregoire, the apparent governor-elect of Washington despite having lost two of three vote counts:

Gregoire said at a news conference in the Capitol last night she would not declare victory until the election is certified next week.

"A lot of heated words have been said during this recount," Gregoire said. "But with the election coming to a close, I am confident that we can begin to move forward as one state."

Gregoire did not call on Rossi to concede, but said she would have conceded if she were the one who had lost the manual recount.

When she was 261 votes behind Rossi after the first count, Gregoire called the race a virtual tie. At 42 votes back after the first recount, she said it was, in fact, a tie. Now, she said, "It's time for this race and this election to be over."

As they paid for the hand recount and filed a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court, Democrats have been highly critical of the counting process, saying local officials chose "expediency over accuracy and equality" and calling Rossi the "accidental governor-elect" and a "thief" trying to steal the election.

If the Democrats have been "highly critical" of the counting process, then why do they accept the results of the process most likely to contain error? The Democrats demonstrate a high degree of moral flexibility in their pursuit of the governor's office, and Gregoire's own statements reflect this.

I doubt that much can be done now, unless Rossi can successfully sue for further recounts. Even a new election probably would solve nothing, as the same people will vote the same way -- and Washington voters will once again find themselves in a morass. The Democrats have managed to recount their way to victory, using the standard-bending and vote-mining methods they tried in Florida until the grown-ups made them stop. Perhaps this episode will wake Washington voters to the fraud of Democratic politics. As one CQ commenter noted earlier, thank goodness the Electoral College acts to contain such shenanigans.

Freakin' At The Freaker's Ball

Incompetence met intolerance at a Chicago-area YMCA last weekend, resulting in the dismissal of two YMCA executives and the revelation of some curious event scheduling at the ostensibly Christian organization:

YMCA director has been fired and overnight facility rentals banned after the parents of young children arriving for a morning swim meet clashed with participants in an overnight transgender fashion show and ball. ...

Authorities said a YMCA member had reserved the entire facility from 11 p.m. Saturday to 8 a.m. Sunday for the fashion show and ball. The YMCA rented out the rooms, although families were scheduled to arrive at 7 a.m to use some of the same rooms for a swim meet.

When I read this, I shook my head and wondered what the hell happened to the YMCA I used to know. Their overt Christianity has mellowed over the years, but I cannot fathom how an organization whose mission is "to develop a faith for daily living based upon Judeo-Christian teachings that they may thereby be helped in achieving their highest potential as children of God" decided to rent out the facility to a transgender fashion show and ball. For that matter, I don't understand why the transgender community would go to the Y for a rental. Maybe it's the cheapest place to hold it, but didn't they realize that families who use the facility might object and cause some sort of problem?

And while we're at it, let's not forget those parents who objected to the double-booking with slurs and hostility:

Police and private security guards were called after some parents used sexual slurs, and scuffling broke out, authorities said. No arrests were made.

I think any of us who attended middle school know exactly what kind of slurs were used. One parent is quoted as saying that he doesn't want transgenderism forced onto his five-year-old, with which I completely sympathize. I would also hope that he wouldn't want his children to learn that the way to deal with those who differ is to ridicule and beat them, but hey, that's just me.

The YMCA has fired the acting director of the facility and accepted the resignation of its scheduling coordinator. Perhaps the organization might want to gin up some guidelines on rentals as well as offer a course in anger management to its customers.

UPDATE: There's more to this story, as CQ reader Cracker Barrel Philosopher notes in the comments:

"When I got there with my 7-year-old daughter on Sunday morning, I could sense some bad mojo," said Paul N., a parent of a swimmer.

Mojo?

"It might have been the 6-foot-tall gentleman in tight, leather pants and the leather bustier and the handcuffs, or the other men in leather skirts," he said.

"But I think it was the used condoms and cigarettes in the women's locker room that got the parents upset."

They dared leave cigarette butts?

"Yes," Paul said.

And, uh, who cleaned up the used prophylactics?

"Not me," he said.

Lovely.

Democrats To Push For End To Electoral College

After the 2004 elections, the Democrats looked at the voting pattern across the United States in the presidential election. Even worse than the state-by-state breakdown, the county map showing the level of support for John Kerry demonstrated the balkanization of the Democrats into the main urban areas, primarily on the coasts. Unsurprisingly, Democrats have lost enthusiasm for the Electoral College as they see less and less likelihood of holding onto anything but the large cities in the future, and Dianne Feinstein announced today that she will propose its demise:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday that when Congress returns in January, she will propose a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a one-person, one-vote system for electing the nation's president and vice president.

In introducing the amendment, the Democrat from San Francisco is joining Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who last month introduced a similar proposal in the House, which she said she would reintroduce in the 109th Congress that convenes on Jan. 3.

The two California lawmakers say the current system makes most Americans election bystanders, pointing toward the recent campaign in which President Bush and his Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry, focused almost all their time, energy and campaign funds on a handful of undecided states in search of their electoral votes.

What Feinstein and Lofgren resent was the absence of the presidential candidates in California, which never gave much indication of any chance for George Bush to win. Despite the pair's assertions that only a handful of states got any attention, though, the two candidates spent the last few days of the campaign moving through a dozen states or more each, from high-population states such as Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania to smaller states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, and others. Even if they didn't visit any one particular state, voters across the country could hardly miss the moment-to-moment coverage in the networks, cable outlets, Internet wire services, and blogs.

The argument that California votes for electors have less impact than in North Dakota is ludicrous. First, California has 55 electoral votes because of the size of its population. Second, Feinstein isn't unhappy about the way the vote went in California; she wants the excess votes to essentially spill over into other states to dilute their voice in the election. The same exact argument could be made to eliminate the Senate with much better logic. After all, a single vote in North Dakota for Senate comprises 1 in 310,000 -- while the single vote for a Senator in California comprises 1 in 11 million. Does Feinstein also propose eliminating the upper chamber in order to address this gross misrepresentation?

All Feinstein and Lofgren (and the perpetually clueless Lincoln Chaffee, representing Rhode Islanders who should be shaking their heads tonight) propose is a switch between those states and the big four or five: California, New York, Florida, Texas, and maybe Ohio or Pennsylvania. Ten percent of the states would determine the presidency, and probably produce all of the viable candidates for the office. Not coincidentally, Democrats do better in most of these states than anywhere else in the country. This isn't about direct democracy -- which the founding fathers deliberately avoided in order to give all the states a voice in the federal government.

Let me put it another way. If the Democrats are so concerned about direct election, why don't they arrange their presidential primaries in the same manner? Until they hold all of their primary elections and caucuses on one day and name the biggest vote-getter the winner, the Democrats are just blowing smoke about a commitment to democracy. They're just desperate now that they can no longer compete under the system they ran for decades.

Rummy Steps Up

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a surprise visit to the troops in Iraq, spending Christmas Eve with the men and women in Mosul where a bomber killed twenty-two earlier this week:

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on a surprise Christmas Eve visit with the troops three days after the devastating attack on a U.S. military dining hall here, told soldiers he remained confident of defeating the insurgency and stabilizing Iraq, while noting that to some "it looks bleak."

"There's no doubt in my mind, this is achievable," Rumsfeld, who flew here under tight security, told a couple of hundred 1st Brigade soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division at their commander's headquarters. He promised them that later in life they will look back and feel pride at having contributed to a mission of historic importance.

"When it looks bleak, when one worries about how it's going to come out, when one reads and hears the naysayers and the doubters who say it can't be done, and that we're in a quagmire here," one should recall that there have been such doubters "throughout every conflict in the history of the world," he said.

No doubt naysayers will chalk this up to politics, just when George Bush made his surprise trip to visit the troops for Thanksgiving 2003. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing a "fake turkey" meme spring up in the next few days. The point is that Rumsfeld should be out there, under secure circumstances, to support the men and women doing the fighting and the dying.

But Rummy goes one step further. Rather than spew facile bon mots, Rumsfeld leveled with the warriors, allowing them to feel all right about their moments of doubt. He spoke from the heart, it appears, and didn't just come out there to blow smoke. He also apparently refused to cancel the trip even after investigators have determined that the Mosul explosion came from an infiltrator, highlighting the personal risk Rumsfeld took on making this trip.

One visit doesn't solve all of our problems out there, but when the top brass come all the way to Mosul to talk to those serving our country with respect and candor, it sends a strong message of support. I applaud Rumsfeld for his commitment to the men and women who serve under him.

The UN's Abu Ghraib? They Wish

The London Times reports that surreptitiously filmed sex videos may create an Abu Ghraib-like scandal for the UN in Congo. A UN field "expert" shot the videos using hidden cameras while he had sex with Congolese women and children supposedly under the protection of the UN and sold the videos on the black market:

HOME-MADE pornographic videos shot by a United Nations logistics expert in the Democratic Republic of Congo have sparked a sex scandal that threatens to become the UN’s Abu Ghraib. The expert was a Frenchman who worked at Goma airport as part of the UN’s $700 million-a-year effort to rebuild the war-shattered country. When police raided his home they discovered that he had turned his bedroom into a studio for videotaping and photographing sex sessions with young girls.

The bed was surrounded by large mirrors on three sides, according to a senior Congolese police officer. On the fourth side was a camera that he could operate from the bed with a remote control.

When the police arrived the man was allegedly about to rape a 12-year-old girl sent to him in a sting operation. Three home-made porn videos and more than 50 photographs were found.

The case has highlighted the apparently rampant sexual exploitation of Congolese girls and women by the UN’s 11,000 peacekeepers and 1,000 civilians at a time when the UN is facing many problems, including the Iraqi “oil-for-food” scandal and accusations of sexual harassment by senior UN staff in Geneva and New York.

The UN peacekeeping forces and professional staff have systematically exploited the women and young girls under their care, paying them for sexual services in food and cash, as little as a dollar or a jar of mayonnaise the going price. UN management has made sexual favors a prerequisite for employment. Over a hundred Congolese women and girls are pregnant with children of Uruguayan and Moroccan soldiers and at least two UN officials have also left behind pregnancies in the wake of their escapes.

Again, as these atrocities -- as the UN itself defines this kind of exploitation -- have been well known since May 2004 thanks to an exposé by the Independent (UK), one would have expected the UN to have taken action to halt the Congolese seraglio long ago. Under Kofi Annan's leadership, however, accountability holds no meaning or weight. The Secretary-General instead called for a long-term investigation that allowed the same people to remain in place while internal auditors confirmed the story -- seven months later.

Of course, that gave the perverts working for the UN an additional seven months to extort and pressure their victims for more sexual services.

Now, with a report from the UN's own investigator telling Annan that “[t]he situation appears to be one of ‘zero-compliance with zero- tolerance’ throughout the mission,” will the UN hold Annan responsible for the systematic and chronic commission of atrocities that went unchecked under his watch? Don't hold your breath. They didn't hold him accountable for the genocide in Rwanda, the lack of response to Darfur, or the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the supposedly-protected enclave of Srebrenica. Compared to that, the rape of Congo fades into insignificance.

Bush Challenges Democrats To Round Two On Judicial Nominees

After seeing the Senate minority leader lose his re-election bid in part due to Tom Daschle's efforts at obstructing George Bush's judicial nominations, the White House has anted up a second time, promising to nominate the same candidates in the new session of Congress:

President Bush said on Thursday he would renominate a group of controversial judicial nominees who were blocked by Senate Democrats, signaling the start of a second-term battle over the make-up of the nation's top courts.

Emboldened by his re-election victory and gains by Republicans in the Senate, Bush plans to renominate a total of 20 nominees to the nation's court of appeals and district courts, the White House said.

Ten of those nominees drew filibusters or threats to obstruct their progress, an unprecedented action that may have allowed the GOP to convince voters that Democrats overreached in Bush's first term. Harry Reid, Daschle's replacement as minority leader with a smaller contingent of Democrats, has pledged to block "extremist" nominees if necessary. Now he gets the chance -- and the elections of 2006, where the Democrats have to defend 5 red-state seats, hang in the balance.

This move demonstrates the boldness and brilliance of President Bush. Perhaps the single most underestimated politician in American history, Bush has proven himself a consummate poker player, and in this hand he holds most of the aces. The Democrats now understand that voters will hold Senators responsible for obstructionism in those states where Bush's support runs strong, and they cannot afford a fourth losing electoral cycle in 2006. They also face the so-called nuclear option from majority leader Bill Frist, who has threatened to enact a rule change exempting judicial nominees from cloture votes -- following rule-change precedents set by Robert Byrd (D-WV) when he ran the Senate. It would end the filibuster as a tool for the minority to hold the majority hostage and essentially render the Democrats completely toothless on any subsequent judicial nominees.

Stuck between those two pressing political realities, Reid has only two stark choices: press the filibuster and watch Frist checkmate them with the rule change, or work behind the scenes to smooth relations between Senate Democrats and Republicans to reach accommodation on nominees. With the obstructionism that the Democrats initiated the last four years, don't expect the GOP to put much effort into letting Reid off the hook with his caucus.

UPDATE: Reaction from the Democrats has been mostly cranky:

"I was extremely disappointed to learn today that the president intends to begin the new Congress by resubmitting extremist judicial nominees," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement. "Last Congress, Senate Democrats worked with the president to approve 204 judicial nominees, rejecting only 10 of the most extreme."

Reid said Bush's decision to resubmit the nominees was a "disservice" to the public because it distracted the Senate from paying attention to the war in Iraq, health care and other pressing issues.

This might surprise Harry Reid, but a large number of Americans consider filling open federal-court positions to be a "pressing issue," and don't care much for Democratic obstructionism on the process. Did Reid prefer that the positions simply be left open so Reid could spend more time on health care? One would expect the President to fill the open positions, so why would there be any more "distraction" from other legislation -- unless the Democrats plan on trying to hijack the majority again with more filibusters?

Jon Cornyn anticipates this and has his own response:

"We experienced unprecedented filibusters of the president's judicial nominees, which I believe the voters repudiated on Nov. 2, both by returning the president with a decisive victory and defeating the chief obstructionist in the Senate, that was the minority leader.

"The dynamics of 2006 are in play here," Cornyn said. "Those Democratic senators up for re-election in states Bush did very well in have to be looking at what happened to Tom Daschle in South Dakota and wondering if the same fate is in store for them if they continue to obstruct and prevent up or down votes on the president's nominees."

Exactly. For those who wonder at Miguel Estrada, he won't be renominated to an appellate court, but the AP speculates that he may wind up being Bush's first nominee for the Supreme Court.

Yanukovych Now Styles Himself An Outsider

Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, whose run-off victory in November was annulled by the Ukrainian Supreme Court after massive vote fraud provoked a huge protest movement, has lost the support of his former patron and current president, Leonid Kuchma. As a result, Yanukovych has now decided to cast his candidacy -- which once enjoyed the backing of the current government, the state-influenced media, and the Russians -- as that of the crusading outsider:

Viktor Yanukovych is trying to reinvent himself.

A prime minister who was once considered the pro-government candidate, Yanukovych has, in the runup to Sunday's court-ordered election revote, put himself forward as an opposition figure - keeping at arm's length his own boss and former backer, outgoing President Leonid Kuchma.

The reinvention came after he was abandoned not only by Kuchma, but also by his campaign manager and other key campaign advisers and supporters. Even the Kremlin, which once enthusiastically pushed his candidacy, has cooled on the 54-year-old politician from Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.

What's Ukrainian for chutzpah? Here we have the beneficiary of state-sponsored voter fraud and intimidation, the hand-picked successor to the current regime, and the darling of Russian president Vladimir Putin, trying to convince Ukrainians that he now represents their best chance for reform. It's an audacious, if insulting, new strategy. For Ukrainians to swallow this, he has to expect them to suffer a case of collective amnesia so profound that many of the voters might forget their own names first.

Of course, some Ukrainians have no problem seeing Yanukovych as an outsider, but not in the manner that the current Prime Minister would like:

After becoming prime minister, Yanukovych - a native Russian-speaker - had to struggle to improve his command of Ukrainian, a language neglected by Soviet authorities.

Ukrainian-speakers were appalled when he made two Ukrainian spelling errors when filing his candidacy papers.

I had no idea that Ukrainians were this funny, except of course for the Crazy Uke. The Crazy Uke kept us in stitches during the last smoker we had at Jasperwood. Something tells me that an evening with Yanukovych would be a great deal less amusing, and would leave one with a strong desire to shower afterwards.

I'm Siding With The Feminists On This One

Today's Opinion Journal reports on a strange Austrian custom whose time has surely passed -- The Krampus Run. This may sound like a bowel disorder to American ears, but to Salzburg natives, the Krampus rampage represents a cherished if chaotic Christmas tradition ... but the mayhem aims squarely at women, in what seems to be celebration of male rage:

The Krampus is to Salzburg what the bull is to Pamplona, an oversized beast that sends an adrenaline rush of terror through the cobblestone streets of the old town, all in the name of cultural heritage. For a full week during the start of the holiday season, scores of Krampuses stalk the cobbled ways of Salzburg and its surrounding villages. The Krampus is a hybrid-beast of pagan origins that has been affixed to the Christmas season and looks like he stepped out of the pages of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are." Only instead of inviting young boys for midnight monster romps, they stalk young women, fondling them, throwing them over their shoulders and whipping them with wooden switches until their shins and thighs are black and blue. They prowl the streets, wander onto public buses, and storm downtown restaurants where, after assaulting female patrons, they are treated to free schnapps to fuel their further fury.

According to author Timothy Ryback, some Austrian women declare themselves thrilled to participate in the Krampus tradition, while others live in fear of the ridiculously attired men. Ryback, an American who lives in Austria, faces a divide even in his own home; his wife abhors the tradition while his 9-year-old daughter delights in it.

Try doing this anywhere in America and see what happens. In blue-state America, you'd get sued into oblivion, and in red-state America, the Krampus would be lucky not to get shot. I have to indulge my cultural bias here and wonder what the hell Austrians are thinking. If the Krampuses targeted everyone, I suppose I could see it as a bit of fun, although I'd draw the line at terrorizing schoolchildren. If the Austrians developed a bit of code for willing victims -- say, a blue ribbon in the hair or some such -- then that would make more sense. But a tradition built on beating women randomly for just being out in public between four and eight in the afternoon sounds more like a male rage fantasy than a harmless holiday tradition.

Given the history of that region, one would think that the Austrians would show more circumspection about encouraging random beatings of particular demographic groups. The popularity of such a ritual seems more revealing of the Austrian and Teutonic culture than the Salzburghers might find comfortable. At the very least, I'm happy to report that American men almost universally find women's legs more attractive when they're not bleeding and bruised. Too bad Salzburg men have different predilections.

NFL Snubs Roethlisberger

The NFL announced its Pro Bowl rosters yesterday, and the AFC roster is missing a quarterback that has won 11 games in a row and is the odds-on favorite for a Super Bowl appearance. Ben Roethlisberger, the Pittsburgh Steelers rookie who has Steel City fans thinking championship for the first time in a decade, will apparently watch the Pro Bowl from home:

Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger missed out as six of his Steelers team-mates were named to the NFL's annual all-star Pro Bowl on Wednesday.

The rookie quarterback is unbeaten in 12 starts and could lead Pittsburgh to a Super Bowl crown.

But he was surprisingly overlooked in the AFC squad for the trip to Hawaii in February.

Obviously, Peyton Manning deserves the start for the AFC, with 11 wins and 47 touchdown passes in a season where he will almost certainly eclipse Dam Marino's record. However, the inclusion of Tom Brady (New England, who lost to Roethlisberger's Steelers) and Drew Brees in San Diego, who barely hung onto his starting job this year, amounts to a slap in Roethlisberger's face. The Steelers play Brees and the Chargers this Sunday, and I expect that they will use this opportunity to demonstrate the NFL's foolishness. In fact, the snub may serve to motivate Roethlisberger even more to continue his record-setting win streak all the way to the Super Bowl.

Somehow, I suspect Hugh Hewitt had something to do with the Pro Bowl selections this year ...

UPDATE: I'm mistaken; Pittsburgh plays the Ravens this weekend and finishes up against the Bills next weekend. (Hat tip: Steelskins.)

Democrats Rethinking Abortion, Or Merely Repackaging?

The Los Angeles Times picks up on a movement within the Democratic Party to moderate their views on abortion in order to capture the American political center again. Peter Wallsten and Mary Curtis report that the Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate have urged former Congressman and 9/11 Commission member Tim Roemer to run for DNC chair, against vehemently pro-abortion Howard Dean:

After long defining itself as an undisputed defender of abortion rights, the Democratic Party is suddenly locked in an internal struggle over whether to redefine its position to appeal to a broader array of voters.

The fight is a central theme of the contest to head the Democratic National Committee, particularly between two leading candidates: former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who supports abortion rights, and former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer, an abortion foe who argues that the party cannot rebound from its losses in the November election unless it shows more tolerance on one of society's most emotional conflicts.

Bear in mind that Roemer does not advocate a right-to-life position, making this less of a conflict than the Times might imply. He urges some common-sense moves towards the middle on abortion, such as supporting parental notification and banning late-term abortions. In the GOP, of course, plenty of politicians already cover this ground and routinely get pilloried for trampling womens' rights by those with vested interest in the abortion industry, like Planned Parenthood. Roemer gets the same suspicion from the same people in the Democratic Party, and these groups have tremendous clout:

Abortion rights activists are critical pillars of the Democratic Party, providing money and grass-roots energy. Some of them say they are concerned that Democratic leaders are entertaining any changes to the party's approach to abortion.

A senior official of one of the nation's largest abortion rights groups said she would be concerned if the party were to choose Roemer to head the Democratic National Committee. "We want people who are pro-choice. Of course I would be disappointed," said the official, who asked that her name be withheld because of her close alliance with party officials.

Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said Democratic strategists who were pushing for the abortion discussion had misconstrued the results of the November election by overstating the strength of "values" voters. She said the party should remain committed to the "women of America, and their health and their lives and their rights."

Activists from these organization deliver millions of dollars and votes to the Democrats every cycle, and any retreat from their extremist positions will endanger the party's already-weak political position. If the Democrats truly pursued Roemer's vision, a split could occur where the abortion industry could wind up underwriting the Greens -- especially in peacetime, when a split would be seen as less egregious.

Even with Nancy Pelosi (pro-abortion) and Harry Reid (somewhat pro-life) backing Roemer's candidacy, the DNC consists mainly of the special-interest groups that the Democrats service: unions, lawyers, and the abortion industry being predominant. I doubt that they will endanger their cash flow by selecting Roemer, especially with the more celebrated Howard Dean in the running. Even if they did, I hardly see Roemer moving the Democrats towards supporting any of the policies he urges. Roemer would be little more than a beard for abortion moderates, a way to (as Pelosi argues) demonstrate the "big tent" of the Democratic Party without actually acting on his beliefs.

As John Kerry's candidacy proved, one cannot run for office as a pro-abortion nut and still convince pro-lifers that he doesn't believe in abortion. Even Kerry himself acknowledges this, which is why he flip-flopped yet again and provided the impetus for this introspection on the part of the Democrats. His leadership on this issue makes me even more suspicious that the debate on abortion among Democrats relates to superficial lip service than any true movement to protect innocent human life. However, it measures the success of the pro-life movement in communicating the issues to Americans that the Democrats now have to scramble to catch up.

How Not To Dress For Your Flight

Michelle Malkin takes the Transportation Security Administration and its Federal Air Marshal service to task this morning, and for good reason. Earlier this month, Michelle reported on a silly dress code that the FAM hierarchy insisted on enforcing with its agents. The dress code required collared shirts and sport coats at a minimum, making the air marshals rather easily identifiable in an age of casual wear, especially while traveling. In fact, Malkin noted at the time that FAM chief Thomas Quinn threatened to suspend dozens of air marshals at Reagan International when he spotted them wearing non-conforming clothes.

After her initial report, Quinn had spokespeople hit the cable talk circuit denying any dress code exists. However, Michelle had struck a nerve with the air marshals, and now has plenty of sources that pass along information to the contrary. She posts a memo from a SAC citing a Quinn directive that puts lie to Quinn's denials:

Attached is Directive ADM 3702, dated 12/31/02, and is signed by Thomas D. Quinn, Director, Federal Air Marshal Service. That Directive, in conjunction with this memorandum, will serve as the dress code policy for the XXXXXX Federal Air Marshal (FAM) Field Office. The following information provides specifics regarding appropriate standards of dress for personnel assigned to the XXXXXX Field Office...

In addition to ADM 3702, male dress attire will consist of at a minimum, an appropriate sport coat (conservative in nature/style, color and fabric) that is readily available and worn by the FAM while on mission and in travel status...It is not acceptable to carry a sport coat in the FAMs travel bag. Appropriate dress also may include collared sport or Polo type shirts or banded type necks (turtle or crew neck).

Pants and or slacks must be clean and pressed and may not include denim of any color, nylon or other similar material, or cargo style pants. Appropriate footwear and socks shall be worn. Athletic shoes, sneakers, sandals or hiker/training boots are not allowed. Likewise, athletic sock will not be worn with dress shoes.

On a case-by-case basis, the Special Agent in Charge or their designee may grant exceptions to the directive and this policy. Failure to comply with this policy may result in disciplinary action and could be deemed as insubordination to follow directives and orders.

I may be a bit dense before my first cup of coffee, but that looks suspiciously like a dress code policy to me. The memo does not suggest clothing choices to the agents, but rather orders a particular image to be presented. In essence, it tells agents whose operational advantage is secrecy that they should stand out like sore thumbs, patently obvious to anyone who cares to research the issue. And who exactly would be interested in doing that? I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.

When I fly, I wear loose-fitting casual clothing with comfortable shoes, as the experience of cramming oneself into Coach accommodations is uncomfortable enough as it is. The shoes make it easier to walk the long distances one finds at most airports. Only when I go directly from the airport to a business meeting do I travel in dress clothing -- which, thankfully, is rare. When I look around, most if not all of my fellow passengers dress in similar fashion, and I suspect for similar reasons. Terrorists who want to take out the only line of defense on American flights therefore only have a few targets on which they need to concentrate.

Now, knowing that, do you want to dress up for your next flight? Feel like being mistaken for an air marshal by the next Mohammed Atta? And with that, how much more obvious will Quinn's contingent be?

Read all of Michelle's excellent article, which includes feedback from a number of air marshals. It's time that we start listening to the men and women at risk in these dangerous jobs. If Quinn cannot bother to respond to their concerns, then Bush needs to replace Quinn and Norm Mineta with people who do.

The Cross Shines Through

Los Angeles recently caved in to an ACLU demand to change its city seal, which had a cross in one small sector commemmorating LA's missionary history. At the time, the county board of supervisors estimated that the cost to replace the city seal in all locations and in all correspondence would total around $700,000, which they felt was cheaper than actually defending the historical nature of the seal in court. The move attracted wide derision as political cowardice, especially when people like Hugh Hewitt noted that the ACLU had not expressed any misgivings about the highly prominent rendition of the goddess Pomona. Many people also questioned the low estimate of the county's cost for the change.

Now we find out why the estimate was so low. The LA Daily News reports that the county cheaped out and used adhesive stickers to cover the old seals instead of replacing them -- and the cross underneath remains clearly visible through the material (via Drudge):

Los Angeles County supervisors expressed concern Tuesday that the $700,000 estimate to replace the official seal on thousands of items might soar because the new decals haven't effectively covered the old versions. "The original plan was just to cover up the seals," said John Musella, spokesman for Supervisor Don Knabe. "Now, they will have to pay to physically remove the old seals and put up brand new ones, which will escalate the costs greatly beyond the $700,000 estimate the Chief Administrative Office gave the board."

On Monday, county officials discovered that the tiny Christian cross on the two original seals in the Board of Supervisors' hearing room could be clearly seen through the new $1,800 seals glued on to cover up the cross. In fact, the cross is now directly over the rendering of the San Gabriel Mission, which is pictured on the new seal without a cross.

What a lovely Christmas story! As I recall from the church, Christmas celebrates the advent of the Savior, which certain cowardly politicians wanted to keep from the people. In fact, they sent word that all first-born male children in the region were to be killed in order to cover up His existence. (At least the County Board of Supervisors and the ACLU just relied on stickers.) Eventually, of course, the cross shines through.

As far as temporal matters go, the supervisors now will have to physically replace all county seals, which not only makes their Post-It Note solution a complete loss for Los Angeles taxpayers but also promises to create millions of dollars in obligations at a time when the county budget strains to the breaking point. I wonder what Zev Yaroslavski has to say now about stewardship of the people's money, the excuse he used on the Hugh Hewitt show at the time they surrendered to the ACLU like the French in WWII. Mike Antonovich's spokesman, Tony Bell, noted that the old seal "never had its day in court," and lamented the cost of appeasing the ACLU.

I suspect that Hugh will have something to say about this tonight.

We need to quit enabling ACLU hysteria about Christian imagery. The supervisors in LA are just the latest in a series of spineless politicians who refuse to defend the historical nature of symbols such as the LA county seal. Nothing in the Constitution guarantees a freedom from religion, and the waste of time and resources that the ACLU causes in fighting for picayune causes almost demands that each of their silly demands be opposed, on general principle. As LA has found out, the cost of surrender can be higher than appeasement.

Doing My Penance For Blake Magaoay

Tonight I fulfilled a promise to the First Mate and took her to a midweek Mass and reconciliation -- what we used to call confession before making it sound more friendly. Our pastor celebrates Wednesday night Mass in our chapel, due to the small turnout it receives; on a typical Sunday Mass, our church gets hundreds of people, but tonight less than 20 attended. (The below-zero temperature in Minnesota might have something to do with that, too.) With the smaller group, the congregation volunteered our own intentions rather than just having them read off to us, reminiscent of prayer groups I've attended in the past.

After Mass, we went directly to confession and wound up near the front of the line. While I am not a big fan of confession -- I've written about this before -- I always find it cathartic afterwards, especially when I pray as my penance while the First Mate does her confession. Tonight, however, the priest had a different plan for the penitents. In a basket in the library where our confessions were being heard (we don't have traditional confessions at our parish), the priest had placed slips of paper with the names of American servicepeople killed in service to our country in Iraq. He asked that instead of praying for ourselves, that we pray for these brave men and women instead.

The name I drew was Lance Corporal Blake A. Magaoay, and I dutifully lit a candle and prayed for his soul, using a prayer that the priest wrote as well as my own. When I got home later, I looked up Cpl. Magaoay and found out a little more about him:

U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii (Dec. 8, 2004) -- Overcast skies mirrored the somber hearts of Hawaii residents and Marines as they mourned the loss of one their own.

Pearl City native, Lance Cpl. Blake Magaoay, 20, died as a result of enemy action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, Nov. 29, according to a Department of Defense press release. He was assigned to the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Of course, Cpl. Magaoay left behind a family that grieves at their loss of a fine, brave son:

Tony Magaoay periodically paused and exhaled as he struggled to maintain his composure while he spoke of his son, Lance Cpl. Blake Magaoay, who was recently killed in Fallujah, Iraq.

"When he first told me he was going to join the Marines, I asked him why," said Magaoay during his burial service. "He said, 'That's what I want to do, Dad.' But I found out later why he joined. It was because he wanted to show his parents he was a man, and to make his parents proud," he said, his voice quavering.

"Blake, you made me and your mother proud," said Magaoay, pulling black sunglasses down from the top of his head to cover his tear-filled eyes.

I'm not unmindful of the Catholic Church's opposition to this war, and while I disagree with them, I respect their point of view. I suspect that part of the reason why these slips were handed out at confession is a small bit of protest, but for those of us who support this war and the overall mission, I also feel a responsibility not to shade my eyes from the results of the policy. In a way, that's what confession is all about; taking responsibility for our choices with our eyes open. Even the good choices have consequences, permanent ones that must be acknowledged.

So I'm asking CQ readers to assist me in my prayers for Lance Corporal Blake Magaoay, a good young man whose loss we all feel. Corporal Magaoay gave his life to protect us and to give Iraqis a chance to live in freedom. Here's the prayer that the priest gave me, but feel free to add or substitute your own:

Eternal rest grant unto Blake Magaoay, O Lord,
and let the perpetual light shine upon him.
May the soul of Blake Magaoay
and all the souls of the faithful departed
through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

May the families of those who have lost a loved on receive compassion from God's people and peace from God.

Washington Supreme Court OK's Ballot Mining

Washington's state Supreme Court ordered King County officials to count the 723 ballots that they claimed to have discovered after the second machine recount, which presumably would give Democrat Christine Gregoire enough of a margin to edge out Republican Dino Rossi for the governorship:

Washington state's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that more than 700 belatedly discovered ballots from Seattle's King County should be counted in the extraordinarily close governor's race — potentially enough to tip the balance in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire.

This appears to reverse their earlier ruling that previously-disqualified ballots could not be used in a recount. It looks like Washington's justices have succumbed to the Florida syndrome, in which judges substitute their own ideas of fair play for the regulations established by the state legislature. At this point, it hardly makes a difference; the mess that Washington created with its election could hardly be made much worse with this latest development.

Village Voice Scolds Democratic Conspiracy-Mongers ... For Missing The Bigger Conspiracy

Rick Perlstein in the Village Voice writes a very convoluted essay that both chides the Democrats for spewing insane conspiracy theories about the 2004 election, and at the same time spins an even more ludicrous paranoid fantasy about why Democrats keep losing elections. He wants Democrats to shut up about what he sees as trivialities and easily-explainable happenstances and instead focus on the eeeeeevil genius of Karl Rove:

It's possible that their vindication will come, that what's already being referred to as the "vote fraud community"—the allusion is to the "JFK assassination research community"—won't disappear up its very own grassy knoll. But the charges producing the greatest heat online often turn out to have the most innocent explanations. The recount isn't amounting to much, either. Last week the Franklin County Board of Elections did discover one extra vote for Kerry—offset by the extra vote they found for Bush. The irregularities volunteers have pointed to in the recount process itself are often picayune.

In many Americans' minds, it's not too hard to imagine, this will all be received as further evidence of the activist left's irrelevance. Which would, in fact, be a tragedy. For elections in America are indeed broken, badly, and vulnerable to fraud. That fact is not politically neutral: The problems in America's election system have advantaged the Republicans, in significant and consistent ways.

If the Democrats had a Karl Rove—a cunning master strategist who thinks so far in advance that he wins new wars before the other side even wakes up to discover there's been a fight—setting up an election reform movement might be the first thing he would do. It just wouldn't look anything like the reform movement we have—so uncoordinated, strategically unsound, and prone to going off half-cocked that it may end up hurting the crucial cause it seeks to help.

This article, in itself, amply demonstrates the Left's irrelevance. Perlstein writes this essay as if our election system transformed itself in 1992 from perfection to fatally flawed, with all the flaws running in favor of the GOP. That's hogwash. The electoral system we have now is the exact same system that kept Democrats in power for over four decades -- until their stridently socialist message started coming through loud and clear. Perlstein does not produce a single example of an electoral-system change to support his reasoning that the system favors the Republicans. All he can do is allege that Karl Rove and the Republican party somehow -- he doesn't explain how here, either -- game the system to GOP advantage.

Here's an example of Perlstein's support for such a notion (emphasis mine):

The national elections may—we can't prove it yet, but there's every indication —be completely crooked," says Wayne Tack, an activist in Chicago. "And the consequence of that is, in the next election cycle, the Republicans have a filibuster-proof majority. The election cycle after that, a two-thirds majority in both houses, and the possibility of a two-thirds majority in two-thirds of the states. Then you can amend the Constitution every week."

If there's "every indication", then why can't Tack offer any proof, even circumstantial? The only thing he offers is a paranoid fantasy about a lockdown issue which even Perlstein destroys. While Perlstein excoriates Democrats like John Conyers for going off "half-cocked," he lauds other Democrats for filing lawsuits before Election Day:

Democrats in Westchester County have pointed toward a better way. They knew that the state senate race between Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Nick Spano was going to be close. Explains Rosen, "So we went to court for an impoundment order in this recount the day before the election, mainly in an effort to create a public psychological perception that, whatever unofficial results were reported on election night, we wanted to reserve the presumption that there was still a recount to be had." Thus their post-election strategy proved disciplined and tough. They've got a good chance to win.

It creates a presumption with the electorate, all right: the presumption that even Democrats know they can't win an election straight up. The courtroom strategy for Democrats has been obvious the past several election cycles, and now Perlstein wants the elections to get thrown to the judicial branch before a single vote is cast. What next? Should Democrats be encouraged to venue-shop as well to ensure they get their cases heard by Democrat-appointed justices?

Perlstein later argues for federalizing all elections as a solution to the messy electoral process:

Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. has pointed out that Congress doesn't even have the power to establish a nationally uniform system of voting—everything in the Constitution concerning presidential elections is mediated through the states, which is why every state (and within every state, every county) runs elections its own way. He's proposed a constitutional amendment to right the wrong. Passing it is a daunting prospect, no doubt. But as strategy, it also has the makings of brilliance. Let the Republicans try to fight it. Put them on record as against the right to vote. Let them defend the process as it exists—where a figure like Blackwell can simultaneously be the captain of one of the teams and the game's chief referee.

Then Americans will know where the Republicans stand.

Yes, they will -- for common sense. How exactly does federalizing elections change the process of counting ballots? We still would have "old blue-haired ladies who work once a year for a hundred bucks . . . yelling out the number to their husband with a hearing aid who's going to change the eight to a zero." They would just get paid by the feds rather than the county. And what happens when the counties and states no longer control what kinds of machines are used in the precincts, or how many machines are allocated for each election? When Congress controls the election process, will Perlstein be convinced of electoral perfection when the Democrats keep losing?

In fact, what Perlstein proposes is really a Trojan horse for the elimination of the electoral college, as well as the potential for an exponential expansion of courtroom mischief after elections. Federalizing elections would remove one of the main reasons for sticking with electors rather than a direct election, which would also then give tremendous power to the four or five most populous states and shortchange residents elsewhere. America's diversity of interests would be subjugated to the needs of the cities, and taxpayers in exurban and rural areas could then expect to see their pockets picked (even more than usual) to support a panoply of social programs for the major urban areas.

It is a grand scheme envisioned by Perlstein, and somehow I doubt that electoral perfection is anything more than an excuse to implement it. Otherwise, Perlstein becomes what he scorns.

Remembering That We're At War (Updated)

Yesterday's attack in Mosul that left 15 American soldiers dead, along with scores of others wounded, serves as a reminder to Americans that we remain at war with terrorists, and not that the terrorists are winning. However, judging from some of the rhetoric that one finds coming from TV analysts, it's apparent that this lesson is somehow lost on our fellow citizens.

According to initial news accounts, the terrorists mounted a rocket attack on a vulnerable position within our base in Mosul, a forward station that expects to be targeted for attack. The Washington Post updates that with more ominous speculation:

The explosion, which came at noon, was at first believed to be caused by a mortar round or rocket that pierced the white canvas tent that serves as mess hall at Forward Operating Base Marez, near the Mosul airport.

But in an online assertion of responsibility for the attack, a radical Muslim group described "a suicide operation." Military officials said the cause of the blast was under investigation, and some security experts said the extent of injuries indicated that it was possible a bomb had been planted inside the hall.

That would conflict somewhat with eyewitness accounts, such as the one posted at the Belmont Club, which found a tactical pattern to the hail of mortars:

Regardless of what some may say, these are not stupid people. Any attack with casualties will naturally mean that eventually a very large number of care givers will be concentrated in one location. They took full advantage of that. In the middle of the mayhem the first mortar round hit about 100 to 200 meters away. Everyone started shouting to get the wounded into the hospital which is solid concrete and much safer than being in the open. Soon, the next mortar hit quite a bit closer than the first as they "walked" their rounds toward their intended target...us.

What does all this mean? It means that the Islamofascist terrorists may be crazy, but they're not stupid. First, they show the ability to learn tactics on the fly, meaning that they can adapt and also still communicate their adaptations. That would indicate that they have a functioning command-and-control operation, although it's unclear to what extent. The Fallujan fugitives were generally thought to have fled to Mosul, and they would have taken whatever expertise they had with them.

Second, it appears that the attackers had a pretty good idea of how the base lays out. That's not exactly secret information, especially given the number of locals that our bases use for translators and other jobs. It only takes one person to talk for terrorists to develop an effective attack strategy. This, too, is nothing new. In fact, it's the same problem that armies have faced since Troy got themselves a wooden horse from the Greeks.

Third, and most important, we already knew that we would face increasing attacks on our positions in Iraq as elections loomed ever closer. The Islamofascists need to stop the election from happening, or at the least delay it so that the Iraqis lose confidence in our ability to help them set up their own representative government. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said as much in his previous missives to Al-Qaeda's leadership, noting that after an election, the terrorists would wind up attacking fellow Arabs -- which would alienate the Islamists even further.

While the terrorists remain in the field, they will retain the ability to attack -- and while we remain on the defensive, they will attack on their schedule rather than defend themselves on ours. You don't need to have read Clauswitz to understand that. Unfortunately, short of performing an actual occupation, there isn't much that can be done until the US develops enough intelligence in Mosul to find the cowards who toss bombs into tents rather than allow the Iraqis to speak for themselves as to what kind of government they want. Once we have the intelligence, we need to act with all haste to remove the terrorists from Mosul just as we have in Fallujah and Samarra.

What we don't need is the silly handwringing that the American press exudes with every terrorist attack. Returning to today's Washington Post, Thomas Ricks gets a few people on record acting as though Mosul was some kind of Dieppe or Kasserine Pass instead of the skirmish it was:

Not all experts were pessimistic. Retired Army Col. John Antal said he expects more spectacular attacks in the coming weeks, but mainly because "the enemy is on the ropes and desperate to stop the elections."

But others were throwing up their hands. "This sure isn't playing out like I thought it would," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Jay Stout, author of a book about the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, in which he fought. He said he is no longer confident about what the U.S. strategy in Iraq should be.

If one attack by a rag-tag bunch of terrorists is all that it takes to have Col. Stout "throw up his hands" (the Post's characterization, not Stout's), then it's a good thing that Stout retired instead of getting promoted. I especially liked the quote from Jeffrey White, who worries about a full-scale assault on an American base:

Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst of Middle Eastern military affairs, said he is especially worried that the insurgents' next move will be an actual penetration by fighters into a base. "The real danger here is that they will mount a sophisticated effort to penetrate or assault one of our camps or bases with a ground element," he said.

You have to look far and wide to find people this clueless. The terrorists may indeed be stupid enough to attempt an assault on a fortified position without air cover, armor, and effective communications, but if they do, we shouldn't be worried about it -- we should welcome it. The terrorists cannot beat the US military in a straight-up fight, a point made clear during the initial invasion and by the terrorist strategies employed during the American administration of Iraq.

An attempt to mount an assault on an American base may inflict American casualties, but it would also result in the annihilation of the assaulting force. It's a strategy tried by others, notably the Japanese "banzai" charges in the Pacific, and it always comes to the same conclusion: a lot of dead assault troops. And the Japanese were a highly-disciplined, battle-hardened army, where the terrorists in Iraq mostly toss bombs and run away.

The Washington Post and Thomas Ricks need a healthy dose of perspective. The war on terror will be a long struggle, and casualties will result. While we should always analyze what happened so we can better prepare for the future, we should also remember to keep our perspective and understand the scope of the fight. This kind of weepiness just embarrasses us all, and worse, convinces the enemy that a few body bags will destroy our resolve. It's the Mogadishu strategy -- and the media needs to quit enabling it.

UPDATE: Apparently, the explosion came from inside the tent after all:

U.S. troops and armored vehicles clamped down on Mosul a day after an attack on a nearby base in which 22 people were killed — almost all of them Americans. The military said a suicide bomber probably carried out the blast, the deadliest single attack on U.S. troops since the war began.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that from investigations into Tuesday's blast in a mess tent on the base, "it looks like it was an improvised explosive device worn by an attacker."

The blast sprayed BBs outward, ripping through the men and materials in the mess tent -- a typical IED explosion from terrorists. That ends the debate about the mess hall being out in the open instead of inside a fortified building, which is being constructed now and is due to be finished in February. If the attacker infiltrated the base, he would have gotten inside a building as well as a mess tent.

The new development brings into question base security. Americans need to work with local Iraqis in order to allow them some ownership of their liberation, so the security issues will always be present. The fact that this is the first such incident in 20 months in Iraq demonstrates that base security procedures are probably effective as is; an investigation should determine if any more can be done within the scope of our mission.

However, this won't stop the hysterics from calling for someone's head, regardless of the cause. Be watchful for the recriminations, starting with tonight's news broadcasts.

The Growing Republican Majority

Bizjournals published a study it conducted on population shifts within the United States, and it concludes that red states will see more representation in Congress and the Electoral College after 2010 than now, and the gains will come at some expense to blue states:

Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah would each gain one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives if districts were reapportioned today, according to an analysis by American City Business Journals.

Iowa, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, on the other hand, would each lose a seat.

The U.S. Census Bureau released new state-by-state population estimates for 2004 Wednesday. ACBJ used those figures to hypothetically reapportion House seats today, six years in advance of the next scheduled reapportionment in 2010.

The gains are split between red and blue states, although Iowa barely qualified as a red state this year. Momentum seems to be shifting towards the redder states, those least likely to become battleground states, with the notable exception of Florida. Arizona, Texas, and Utah all reported double-digit wins for George Bush in the last election, while Pennsylvania barely eked out a win for John Kerry.

The question that Bizjournal needs to answer is exactly who is moving from these states? A drain of urban voters could dilute a bit of the Republican strength in the red states, but for Pennsylvania, such a drain could turn the state red. (Most of the Kerry lead came from Philadelphia; the rest of the state went red.) On the other hand, an exodus of Republicans to the West will act to polarize all states involved in the change, perhaps solidifying both parties' hold on the 2004 states. Even in that case, it's a net loss for the Democrats, as the electoral weight still shifts to the Republicans.

It demonstrates that the Republican realignment is a growing phenomenon, one that appears to have legs. Of course, with party leaders such as John Conyers, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and Jesse Jackson, the Democrats hardly appear open to the kind of self-assessment necessary to reverse its course. While they wallow in conspiracy theories and delusional victimhood, the Republicans will continue to erode their base by attracting the moderate vote. Very soon, if not already, upcoming centrist politicians will view the GOP as the best way to get elected, cementing the Democrats' minority status for at least a generation.

Annan Wants US To Move On

Kofi Annan issued a coded call for America to drop its investigations into the United Nations and leave him alone, as he cheered the end of an admittedly horrible year for the Secretary-General and the United Nations:

At a year-end news conference Tuesday, Annan said he had no intentions of stepping down over allegations of corruption in the Iraqi oil-for-food program, which have "cast a shadow" over the United Nations and especially over its relations with Washington.

"The United States needs the United Nations and the United Nations needs the United States," the secretary-general said. "And we need to find a way of working together."

"The current criticisms and the attacks have not been helpful for the relationship, regardless of which quarter it comes from, and we need to find a way of putting those kinds of acrimonious discussions behind us and move on," he added.

Annan once again shows his lack of understanding or a great talent for prevarication. As the US and UK plainly demonstrated, the UN needs the US a hell of a lot more than the other way around. Without the US to provide security forces, the UN becomes a completely toothless debating society, and to the extent that Annan and the flat-earthers attempt to keep America under wraps, they remain that anyway. In their operations without Anglo-American supervision, the UN has been hopelessly inept (Congo, Srebrenica, Sudan) or hopelessly corrupt (UNSCAM).

What has the UN done for America? They've ignored the terrorist threat by linking it to Israel's status, creating a stalemate on the Security Council and an abject surrender on the Human Rights committees that abound at Turtle Bay (and are usually run by the worst abusers). They allowed Saddam Hussein twelve long years to ignore the cease-fire accords that kept him in Baghdad, and then once we finally bypassed the UNSC, we found out that member-nations like Russia, China, France, and Germany continued selling Saddam arms in violations of the sanctions they insisted would be enough to render him harmless. The oil-for-food program that we hoped would ease the sanctions' bite on ordinary Iraqis instead was transformed by the UN into a vehicle to stuff billions of dollars into Saddam's pockets, some of which went to fund terrorism in Palestine and almost certainly against the US.

Yeah, we need the UN, all right -- like we need another 9/11.

Annan calls for a renewed cooperation from the US as a means to head off our investigation into UN corruption over which Annan has presided. Instead, we should double our efforts to find out where our money went, and we should stop sending any more money to the UN until Annan accepts responsibility for the moral and legal collapse at Turtle Bay. It's time to play some power politics in the UN and to make everyone aware that we mean business.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers, and Merry Christmas!

Ohio Recount Results In Little Change

In a story that most newspapers appear to have left on the wire, Ohio announced that their recounts have almost completed, with both presidential candidates picking up a handful of votes:

With recount results reported in 86 of 88 counties Tuesday, President Bush picked up 438 votes and Sen. John Kerry got an extra 680, narrowing Bush's 119,000-vote lead by 242 votes, according to an Associated Press survey of the counties. ...

Kerry's concession hasn't deterred critics who feel that alleged voting problems in Ohio called the outcome into question. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy have accused the Bush campaign of "high-tech vote stealing."

An AP review of electronic voting found few reports of widespread problems. Elections officials of both parties were confident the election was fair and done properly.

Jesse Jackson and the rest of the reactionaries on the Left need to be cut loose from the mainstream Democratic party if the Democrats ever intend on seriously competing for leadership in this country again. They have done nothing but gripe about the election results in the states they lost, while remaining silent about states with narrower gaps -- like Pennsylvania -- where they won. Jackson and John Conyers (see below) have a problem accepting reality and grasp at every straw to undermine confidence in the electoral system. Their refusal to admit defeat does a disservice not only to their party, but to the nation and the voters as well.

Until these fools get rebuked by the Democrats, and rebuked strongly and publicly, voters will continue to mistrust the party that wants to transform every election into a lawsuit and every loss into a conspiracy. Americans don't elect paranoid nutcases to high office, a lesson the Democrats should have learned in the past two election cycles.

Obsessed By Polling (Updated)

I used to chastise Bill Clinton for his obsession with polling data before making decisions, but the current crop of Democratic leaders put Bill to shame. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, demanded the raw exit-polling data from the 2004 election, saying that it will prove intentional voter disenfranchisement:

Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan said in a letter released Tuesday in Washington that the polling firms that conducted the polls on behalf of the news organizations, Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research, had declined to share the information with the committee.

"Without the raw data, the committee will be severely handicapped in its efforts to show the need for serious election reform in the United States," Conyers said in the letter. ...

Conyers' letter said the exit poll information could help determine whether there is evidence "of voting irregularities that occurred as a result of poor election practices and intentional voter disenfranchisement."

First the Democrats attacked the actual ballot counts in Ohio, demanding recounts in 88 counties even though Kerry lost by 119,000 votes. When that proved fruitless, they revert back to the exit-polling data that first gave them hope that their hopeless candidate would win the election -- the incomplete, half-assed numbers that even the pollers said had no predictive value. The Democrats value exit polling more than the actual vote.

Let's explain this to Rep. Conyers, and let's use small words so he can comprehend understand get it. Exit polling samples voters who cast ballots. Pollsters do not talk to every single person walking out of every single precinct. In fact, they tend to poll in larger precincts because they have a better chance of getting responses. Typically, they poll a couple of thousand voters in each state, if they can. In Ohio, that would amount to 0.03% of the voters.

Now, that can be useful for demographics -- er, sorry, Rep. Conyers, that's a big word. It means that we can see how votes broke out by economic and ethnic divisions. Exit polling has been shown over and over again to be unreliable in predicting winners of elections, especially since the networks all decided to create one shared polling group rather than do their own individual exit polling. In fact, the VNS and the NEP have yet to get it right, even once, in the past three election cycles.

But here's the big point, Rep. Conyers: America took its own poll on November 2nd, and that was the one that actually used ballots. We don't take samples to determine elections. We actually send people to cast votes, and we tell them when and where to do it. Perhaps you've heard of this. When the day is over, we count the ballots and figure out who won. We don't go out and ask 2,000 people who they think won.

If any of this confused you, Rep. Conyers, then please let us know. Next time, we'll draw pictures -- and afterwards, maybe you can take a nap to rest up after such a busy day.

UPDATE: Thomas Bray at the Detroit News takes Conyers to the woodshed over his umbrage at Ohio while overlooking the incompetence in his own back yard (via Memeorandum):

If Conyers was so concerned about voting problems, where was he in 1998 when election officials in his hometown of Detroit took a disgraceful two weeks to count ballots due to lost poll books and miscounting of precinct totals?

Where was he in 2001 when the counting of absentee ballots in Detroit had to be halted in midstream by state officials after it was discovered that the city clerk was simply ignoring state requirements for the use of software that would eject ballots that couldn't be read by machine?

And where was he when a memo allegedly drafted by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's aides in 2002 claimed that Detroit's voter rolls were overstated by about 150,000 people -- a strong hint that something may be seriously amiss in the Detroit election process, threatening the value of the ballot for people who are genuinely qualified to vote?

Conyers' outrage appears to be highly selective. The target of his investigative demand -- a demand in which he has been joined by Jesse Jackson and others -- is the Ohio secretary of state, Kenneth Blackwell, who is black and Republican. In other words, he is one of those non-conforming minorities who is threatening to bust up the liberal plantation from which Conyers and others earn a handsome living.

In the spirit of fairness, then, let's call for a federal investigation into the chronic voting irregularities in John Conyers' district. If Conyers truly wants to assure voters that all votes will count, he should have no problem approving of such a probe.

Gregoire By Eight: Dems

Democrats in the state of Washington claimed victory late last night, telling reporters that the recount totals from King County had given Christine Gregoire an eight-vote margin over Dino Rossi:

The stunning turnaround was reported late Tuesday by the head of the state Democratic Party, who said party officials' analysis of hand-counted returns from King County — the last county to finish the grueling process — showed that Gregoire had eclipsed the dwindling margin that Republican Dino Rossi has held since Election Day.

"We're confident Christine Gregoire has been elected the governor of the state of Washington," Democratic Chairman Paul Berendt said. "I believe Dino Rossi should concede."

Neither King County nor the state Republican Party could confirm the recount results that led to the Democrats' analysis. GOP officials have said they were likely to take the matter to court in the event of a Gregoire win.

This sounds rather suspicious to me. First of all, how did the Democrats arrive at their "analysis," and since when does the Secretary of State allow the Democrats access to the vote totals before announcing them officially? What kind of operation does Washington run, anyway?

The AP reports that election officials have completed all hand recounts but still have not reconciled ballot totals against reported precinct totals. That sounds as though the hand recounts either overcounted or undercounted ballots in several areas. Overcounts or undercounts would either mean that some votes got missed, some got counted twice, or previously rejected ballots were included in the counts -- which the state Supreme Court disallowed. In other words, it would invalidate the hand recount in those precincts -- which means the entire exercise would be meaningless.

The only sure fact this morning is that Washington's electoral process is a mess.

Rossi, for his part, plans on going back to court to demand that the hand recounts get tossed out. He won the first two recounts, after all, and if the hand recount cannot be reconciled properly with precinct totals (remembering that Washington recounts only apply to valid, accepted ballots), then Rossi has a legitimate gripe. I suspect that the entire quagmire will get thrown out and a new election ordered, although nothing I've seen thus far leads me to believe Washington can do any better on a do-over.

A Costly Game Of Hide And Seek

The 21st Century Democrats, a PAC affiliated with the DNC, has found out that Minnesota means business when we demand full disclosure on donations. After ruling that the Democrats had slipped in hundreds of thousands of dollars without disclosing their source, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure board issued a stinging rebuke and a six-figure fine:

Minnesota campaign regulators slapped a national Democratic political group with $317,950 in fines Tuesday for violating state campaign finance disclosure laws, the largest penalty of its kind issued in Minnesota.

The 21st Century Democrats is the same organization at the center of a campaign finance flap involving House Democratic leader Matt Entenza, whose $300,000 in contributions to the group prompted Republicans to file complaints with state and federal election watchdogs on Monday.

I posted about Entenza's checkbook politicking three weeks ago. At the time, I speculated that the 21st Century Democrats and Entenza would get off the hook, so this significant fine comes as a bit of a surprise. I argued then, as now, that the only people who benefit from the Byzantine legal codes surrounding campaign financing are the legions of lawyers who get to run up billable hours while controlling the flow of cash.

The only reform that meets any free-speech threshold is full and immediate disclosure -- which the 21st Century Democrats failed miserably to accomplish. If that's the Democratic vision of the 21st century, it looks a lot like the 20th century, only on a bigger scale. At least they'll have $300K less to hide.

The Best Mouthpieces That Genocidal Charm Can Buy

Saddam Hussein will get legal representation from around the world in his attempt to beat the rap on hundreds of thousands of murder charges, not to mention rape, torture, and war crimes. Arthur Chrenkoff takes a good look at the defense team that Saddam's family has chosen to shill for the genocidal lunatic. As expected, a number of far-left legal minds have leapt at the chance to defend one of the twentieth century's most significant fascists:

Of Emmanuel Ludot little is known outside his own country, except a for his penchant for controversial cases. In the past he represented a cancer sufferer suing over the Chernobyl disaster. In case you were wondering the suit wasn't against the Soviet Union but the French government for allowing people to consume food possibly contaminated by the radioactive fallout over France. According to one recent report, "Mr Ludot... called the Iraqi penal code 'Stone Age legislation' and said it was ill-suited to Saddam's case." One would have thought it was very well suited.

Ludot, in turn, is closely associated with another French member of the team, Jacques Verges, famous - or notorious - as defender of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and international terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Charmingly, he "is said to have been a friend of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader behind Cambodia's genocide." ...

Then there is American academic (Professor of Human Rights Law at American University in Cairo) and lawyer Curtis Doebbler. Doebbler is a former legal advisor to the Palestinian Authority, and has been representing suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay (or as this note delightfully puts it, he "served as an advisor to the Taliban on the laws of war").

Arthur has plenty more on the balmy members of the bar queuing up to service Saddam, including the sad and unexpected exclusion of Ramsey Clark. One can only presume he was too centrist to join up. While I agree that Saddam should get competent legal assistance for his trial to have credibility, the sight of all these Western lawyers climbing all over each other to get their names in print is not just unseemly; considering the many victims and the cruelty of Saddam's crimes, it's rather disgusting. Excoriating "American ... neo-imperialism" as an excuse for acting as a mouthpiece to the man who gassed thousands of Kurdish women and children to death shows twisted priorities at best, but more clearly a fatally flawed conscience.

Read all of Arthur's post for the complete scoop.

The Definition Of Insanity ...

... is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. (via Instapundit and Shot In The Dark)

UPDATE: I thought this might be too good to be true, and according to eagle-eyed CQ readers in the comments, it is. It's still pretty danged funny, regardless. According to Snopes, the first crane toppling in is real, but the second is a Photoshop job.

Putin Smells The Coffee

After a full month of openly backing the handpicked successor to Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, Vladimir Putin has suddenly reversed course and proclaimed his readiness to work with opposition candidate and frontrunner Viktor Yuschenko, the AP reports:

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who openly backed Viktor Yushchenko's rival for president of the Ukraine, said Tuesday he could work with an administration headed by the pro-Western candidate.

"We have worked with him already and the cooperation was not bad," Putin said during a visit to Germany. "If he wins, I don't see any problems."

Just a couple of weeks ago, Putin warned of a civil war in Ukraine if Yushchenko won a new run-off election. His comments sparked talks of secession in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has significant influence and where PM Viktor Yanukovych enjoys his greatest support. In fact, the AP also reports that Yushchenko's campaign caravan was denied entry into Donetsk by Yanukovych protestors, highlighting the severe tensions between the east and west.

Now that Putin has grudgingly conceded that he will work with whoever wins the new run-off, the east-west divide may heal somewhat after the election is over. Yanukovych, who has largely been abandoned by Kuchma and a significant amount of his power base, cannot feel too happy about Putin's concession.

Democratic Marginalization Picks Up Speed

The marginalization of the Democratic Party continued to pick up pace in Kentucky, where a traditionally "blue" area saw three of its elected officials switch to the GOP. The Courier-Journal reported that the local party chairman resigned the same day:

Three elected officials in the traditional Democratic stronghold of Shelby County defected yesterday to the Republican Party, the same day the local Democratic chairman resigned.

The three officials cited varying reasons for their switch, including conflicts with national Democrats on such issues as abortion, guns and taxes, and said the GOP better represents their moral and economic values.

"It certainly doesn't reflect my personal beliefs," Shelby County Attorney Chuck Hickman said of the Democratic Party, which he had been a member of for 24 years. He was joined by Simpsonville City Commissioner Cary Vowels and Shelby County Coroner Tommy Sampson.

Four deputy coroners and Sampson's son, an emergency medical technician, also joined the GOP ranks during a ceremony on the Shelby County Courthouse steps.

In what he said was a coincidence, Shelby County Democratic Executive Committee Chairman Gary Walls submitted his resignation yesterday, citing dissatisfaction with the national party's drift to the left.

It sounds like these former Democrats had a serious problem with their national party. After abortion, guns, and taxes, what exactly attracted them to the Democrats? Certainly not their national-security policy. It shows yet again that the Democrats' base erodes under the continual resistance to compromise on which their special-interest leadership insists. Take yesterday's reaction to the Judiciary Committee assignments as an example. While NARAL and PFW use war and terror analogies to smear conservatives, people in Shelbyville wonder why anyone would want to stick a scalpel into the head of an infant past the point of supposed viability -- and why an American political party considers supporting that procedure a moral duty.

Democrats have steadily lost people such as Chuck Hickman and Tommy Sampson, and electoral results have reflected that. In the past three election cycles, Democrats have lost almost 20% of their Senate seats and a big chunk of their House contingent as well. They ran far to the left against a man they painted as the most radically conservative president in American history -- and 62 million Americans disagreed with that analysis. They understood that a party hijacked by the Stalin apologists at International ANSWER and the radicals at MoveOn would see Eisenhower as radically conservative, or at least paint him as such in an attempt to grasp power.

Democrats continue to console themselves by murmuring that a switch of 100,000 votes here and there would have resulted in a Democratic sweep. Fifteen years ago, they never had to make excuses for losing, and now they have to make them every day. The push to promote Howard Dean as party chairman only shows how obstinately and deliberately clueless they remain. Four more years of this and the Democrats my have to compete with the Greens for major-party status.

Congressional Hypocrisy On 9/11 Reform

After holding the executive branch's feet to the fire to implement the 9/11 Commission reform recommendations in the intelligence agencies, Congress has decided to give itself a pass from enacting any reform on the legislative branch. The New York Times reports that recommendations to streamline intelligence oversight have gone unsupported by members who fear losing influence and power:

In its unanimous final report in July, the commission cataloged years of turf battles and incompetence by the intelligence and counterterrorism agencies, especially the C.I.A. and the F.B.I., and suggested that Congress had to share the blame for the failure to disrupt the Sept. 11 terrorist plot.

"Congressional oversight for intelligence and counterterrorism is now dysfunctional," the report said. "So long as oversight is governed by current Congressional rules and resolutions, we believe the American people will not get the security they need and want."

The commission called either for the creation of a powerful joint Congressional committee on intelligence, combining the separate intelligence committees in the House and Senate, or for keeping the House and Senate committees intact but providing them with appropriation powers, allowing them to guarantee that spy programs backed by the committees would be paid for.

The commission also called for the Homeland Security Department, which now answers to scores of Congressional committees, to be brought under the oversight of single permanent committees in the House and Senate.

But after the release of the Sept. 11 commission's report, lawmakers showed far more enthusiasm for overhauling executive branch spy agencies than for reorganizing themselves, and there is no sign that House or Senate leaders are considering the sort of broad Congressional restructuring recommended by the commission.

Part of the problem relates to the 9/11 Commission's recommendations for the executive branch. Their redesign did not create a single agency for handling intelligence, but rather kept the separate agencies intact while adding more layers of management across all of them to unite them at the top. In taking that direction for "reform", the commission allowed Congress to insist that it needs to address oversight for each organization separately. It's part of the drawbacks of the bureaucratic solution the commission used against which I've repeatedly warned.

Even granting that, the issue does not require Congress to exercise oversight separately. Nothing in the executive-branch reform forces Congress to do anything at all. This appears to be a case of hypocrisy as well as self-righteousness. Congress had no problem hauling 9/11 families in front of cameras to pressure the White House to enact the commission's recommendations in toto, but I'd bet those same victims can't get their calls taken in Congress this week. Why? Because such actions allow Congress to push all of the blame for 9/11 onto the executive branch (of both the Bush and Clinton administrations) and refuse to take any of the responsibility for themselves.

Congress shows itself to be cowardly and shortsighted. They abandoned their legislative responsibilities to the 9/11 Commission in the first place, allowing that unelected board to dictate American policy rather than form their own bipartisan committee to look into 9/11. They pushed the recommendations onto the White House even though they made little sense and actively handicaps the use of intelligence by adding new layers of bureaucracy between the intelligence communities and the President. Now they run away as soon as it becomes their turn to clean their own house. Shameful, but typically so.

Boarded-Up Bethlehem Israel's Fault?

The UN released a typically biased report about the critical economic condition in the town of Bethlehem, whence our Christmas celebration springs. It notes the rapid decline in tourism and blames Israeli defensive actions:

Urban Bethlehem, with a population of about 61,000, is now surrounded by nine Israeli settlements, roads restricted to Israelis, a multitude of checkpoints, 78 physical obstacles, and an Israeli barrier nearing completion on two sides of the town to protect against suicide attacks and other violence, the report said.

As a result, Bethlehem has become isolated from the rest of the West Bank and most importantly from Jerusalem which is only a few miles away, it said.

Tourism has plummeted from a monthly average of 91,726 visitors in 2000 to 7,249 in the first 10 months of 2004, a slight increase over 2003, it said. Since Bethlehem's residents rely overwhelmingly on the tourism sector, the economy has suffered badly.

At least in the AP report from Edith Lederer, there isn't a single mention of the triggering event in 2000 that created the need for all of this defensive action. Recall that in 2000, the Palestinians started a new phase in the ongoing intifada, unleashing suicide bombers by the score and killing Israeli women and children wherever they could be found. This Saddam-funded wave of terror against civilians in Israel required the Israelis to take steps to defend itself -- putting up the roadblocks, the wall, and the restricted roadways to Israeli settlements to protect against the suicide bombers.

As usual, the UN gives a complete pass to the murderous Palestinians and blames the violence on the victim. I suppose we can look forward to a report on Congolese refugees and the UN's mistreatment of them that blames the systematic rape and sexual slavery on the victims there, too; the 11-year-old temptresses corrupted the blue helmets into raping them. Once again, the UN demonstrates its unfitness to conduct international relations during the era of Islamofascist terror and reveals its utter lack of moral vision.

Death To The Infidel! And Where The Hell Is My Money?

Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, currently in jail in Britain for incitement to murder and subject of an American extradition effort for terrorist activities, wants the West to pay. Specifically, he wants Britain to pay for the welfare benefits he claims that are owed him:

Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who is in a British jail on incitement to murder charges, is to sue welfare officials for thousands of pounds in extra state benefits.

Hamza, who is due in court next month on incitement to murder charges, claims he has been denied benefits worth 200 pounds a week for nearly three years, The Sun newspaper said Tuesday.

His family are already taking in benefits worth over 1,000 pounds a week, it said.

Meanwhile, he is kept at the taxpayers' expense in jail, has his own personal nurse and even received a new hook worth 5,000 pounds, which is in place of his missing hand.

A jail source was quoted as saying: "He has a cheek."

He's in that Britis h jail for demanding the death of non-Muslims -- specifically but not exclusively Jews -- during sermons to his congregation. He wants the radical view of the ummah, a world run by Islam where non-Muslims are either dead or dhimmi, slaves to their Muslim masters. However, in the meantime, he doesn't mind taking our money and being on the dole.

In fact, it appears his family does quite well on British charity -- much better than we can expect to do on Islamic charity if Hamza and his Islamofascist buddies get their way.

How The GOP Made The Specter Issue Irrelevant

The GOP juggled commitee assignments today, shifting two strong anti-abortion advocates to the Senate Judiciary Commitee to give George Bush ample political support for the expected conservative nominees to federal courts this session of Congress:

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Sen.-elect Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will join the panel's eight returning Republicans next month, assuming the Republican Conference follows tradition and approves the leadership's committee assignments for all 55 GOP senators. The breakdown of Judiciary will be 10 Republicans and eight Democrats. ...

Brownback and Coburn replace Sens. Larry E. Craig (Idaho) and Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), who will shift to other committees. Craig and Chambliss are solid conservatives but are not as focused on abortion as their replacements are. Democrats, who lost four net Senate seats last month, will not replace the retiring Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) on the committee. Their eight remaining members will stay on the panel.

The Senate leadership takes the Judiciary Committee seriously, and these new assignments show how much focus the GOP will have on judicial nominations. At least one Supreme Court opening is expected in this session, for the replacement of ailing William Rehnquist, but there could be as many as three. Bush may renominate some of the stalled appellate nominations that got filibustered in the previous session as well, and the new panel will guarantee a prompt and supportive referral.

As an added plus, the new assignments exposed the leftists as reliably tone-deaf as ever. Pro-abortion activists could not refrain from using war analogies to describe the situation, a particularly silly use of language while American soldiers serve under fire:

Antiabortion groups hailed yesterday's appointments, while advocates of keeping abortion legal expressed dismay. "The color code for potential threats to the Constitution just went from orange to red," said Ralph G. Neas of People for the American Way. "It's hard to believe the Judiciary Committee could go any farther to the right, but it just did."

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said: "It appears the far right is massing troops on the border of Roe v. Wade."

Ah, yes; here we have the common strategy of comparing pro-life politicians with terrorists and invaders. I understand that they oppose the restriction of abortion, but Coburn and Brownback are not terrorists or an invasion force. The only way PFW and NARAL can motivate their hysterical constituencies is to use language in the most inflammatory way possible. What the NARAL/PFW Chicken Littles fail to realize is that their radical abortion policies -- abortion on demand at any time prior to birth -- has increasingly alienated more and more of the electorate. The more they attack Republicans in these terms, the better their steadily-decreasing core responds to fundraising efforts, but they lose electoral power -- which the Democrats finally seem to understand.

If the Democrats and the Left cannot do any better than make stupid terrorist and war analogies to explain their positions, they can look forward to more marginalization in the next two years. Coburn and Brownback will gladly assist in that transition as well.

Christmas, Phase I: The Little People Revolt

This weekend, the Admiral Emeritus and his wife came to visit us for an early Christmas celebration. We made a big Christmas dinner and invited our son's in-laws to join the First Mate and I, our son David and his wife Missy, the Little Admiral, and Missy's sister DeeAnn and her boyfriend Andy, who's renting a room at our house now. My dad and his wife wound up buying the Little Admiral a Little People Discovery Village, one of a wonderful set of Little People toys from Fisher Price. It's so wonderful, in fact, that the gift duplicated one that the First Mate and I had already bought for her. (She'll get our gifts on Christmas Day.)

Here's the Little Admiral ignoring everyone and everything else to play with her new toys, along with the Admiral Emeritus and her daddy looking on from the background:

This toy actually brought quite a bit of mirth to the adults as well as the Little Admiral, who jumped up and down squealing "My Peoples!" when she unwrapped the gift. You see the little circular roadway? That spins when a button is pressed, and music plays briefly. At the end of the music, the toy plays what supposedly is engine noise. You can judge for yourself, but the consensus is that the sample relates to a completely different kind of gas.

Of course, this matters little to Kayla, who loved the new toy. However, when you're dealing with a two-year-old toddler, sometimes it's not all good when a child is that taken with a gift. Normally, we leave her toys from our family here at our house as the First Mate watches her during the week while Mommy and Daddy are at school and work. When it was time to go home, she pitched the kind of fit that only two-year-olds can pitch, and it lasted all the way out to the car ... as far as we knew.

It turned out to last a lot longer than that. In fact, she continued her tantrum all the way home, and at one point ran out the door into the minus-19-degree night, pounding on the garage door and demanding to come back to our house so she could be with her "Peoples." (I don't expect Fisher-Price to use this as a recommendation ...) It took almost two hours to get her to calm down -- and the next day, the toy went home with the Little Admiral. I had already exchanged our set for another Little People set, so now we may well wind up with the same problem on Christmas Day.

The Admiral Emeritus, meanwhile, escaped home to California today. Coward.

Another Point Of View On Rumsfeld

Earlier today, I updated my latest post on the controversy surrounding Donald Rumsfeld with some clarifications. Dafydd ab Hugh, a regular reader and often a vocal CQ critic, sent me a private reply that I found intriguing -- even though Dafydd still disagreed with me. Seeing as how most CQ readers feel I've strayed a bit off the reservation here, I thought you might like to read Dafydd's note, and Dafydd graciously allowed me to post it here.

Dafydd responded to this point in my earlier post:

I disagree strongly with those who believe Rumsfeld is indispensable. I think he's the best man for the job, but no one is indispensable, and the Bush administration should have a succession plan in place in any case. What if Rummy dies of a heart attack tomorrow, or simply decides to retire? If that causes us to lose the war, then our war effort needs serious retooling.

Dafydd replied:

Point-missing alert: if the Donald were to die or resign for, say, health reasons, Bush would be free to pick someone who was basically a Rumsfeld clone, insensitive enough to push critical reform through, even if it ends the careers of fine people. I don't know if such a person exists right now, but Bush would have a free hand to seek him (or her), and the war -- which depends upon us reforming how we think militarily -- would remain winnable.

But if Rumsfeld were forced out via the death of a thousand paper cuts, especially if Republican senators succeeded in ousting him, then his successor would be forced upon Bush by those same rebellious senators: the president would have to name someone who would look to McCain for confirmation every time Bush gave an order. Everything would change.

Forget about reforming the military; that's the main, underlying point of contention here, though nobody on the dump-Rummy side will admit it. They want to go back to what is familiar to them... to massed armies ponderously waddled into place -- a tactic that works well when dealing with a mass invasion of one country by another but is utterly helpless in the situation we're in now and likely will remain in for the forseeable future: fighting a war against stateless terrorists who swarm like angry ants first at one spot then another, who have no territory to conquer, no real command and control structure to disrupt, who consist of a series of disconnected, autonomous cells spread across three quarters of the globe, linked only by shared ideology and the internet.

Yes, in 1990-1991, we sent about half a million men into Kuwait to kick out Hussein. I had to use a range there, two different years, because it took us six months to get them in place in Saudi Arabia prior to the attack, followed by a lengthy aerial bombardment.

You saw what happened in Iraq in 2002-2003 (another range!) when a similar delay was induced by the decision -- taken at the demand of several of these same Republican senators -- that we try to get the U.N.'s blessing: Hussein shifted the WMD stockpiles to Syria, many of the worst terrorists set up bases there (from which they now move into Iraq, organize attacks, and fade to safety again), and a strategy was hatched whereby Hussein's forces faded into the population then turned to insurgency.

We cannot allow such delays in the future. That is exactly why Rumsfeld was opposed to monkeying around with the U.N. in the first place, according to everything I have seen: he knew what a months-long delay would mean, but he was overruled by the president. Now the very thing that Rumsfeld warned about, that Hussein would have too much time to prepare some sort of defense that we could not predict, has come to pass; and the very senators who forced that situation on us are trying to use it to fire the guy who warned against it!

Colin Powell desperately wanted us to go to the U.N. Not because Powell is a bad guy but because he is an unimaginative guy: he cannot envision any other way of fighting a war than to mimic the same strategies and tactics that we used in World War II (and Korea, and Vietnam, and so forth) and that Powell studied at the Army War College. He's good at it, but it's all he knows. To a carpenter, every tool looks like a hammer and every problem like a nail.

So if those who, like Powell, cannot envision fighting the kind of war we need to fight today manage to oust Rumsfeld, they will likewise demand he be replaced with one of them, or at least someone who thinks like they think; and they will have considerably more power and support then than they have now, having proven themselves stronger than Bush: they will get what they want.

And we will lose the war. We will flounder exactly as the Russians did in Afghanistan, and for exactly the same reason: rather than fighting a new style of warfare that keeps the enemy staggering around like a blind hound in a meat shop, we'll be sending well-advertised tank columns through the Khyber Pass to be blown up by the mujahadin.

The McCainiacs, of course, will blame Bush; McCain or his clone will be the next president, and the collapse will accelerate. They will prove to the American people that the Republicans are even worse at dealing with defense and security issues than the Democrats, and we'll have another period of four or five straight presidential victories for Democrats, as we did in 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 1948. (And the Democrats probably would have won in 1952, if Eisenhower hadn't run.) This will coincide with a collapse of American power and a retreat into Fortress America, to be hit again and again by terrorists because we're not forward-deploying against them.

That would be a catastrophe, Ed... and nearly all of it would be traceable to Bush having knuckled under to the demands of a bunch of thugs, several of them Republican: that Rumsfeld be ousted because they're more afraid of real reform than they are of an American collapse.

Dafydd makes some great points in this letter. I leave the analysis to our readers.

Novak Weighs In On Frist And The Nuclear Option

Robert Novak lined up behind Senate majority leader Bill Frist and the so-called nuclear option of a rule change to eliminate filibusters on judicial nominations. Novak points out that Democratic Senator Robert Byrd created four precedents for such rule changes when he ran the Senate, and that nothing short of a rule change will stop the planned filibusters from continuing:

Ever since Frist publicly embraced the nuclear option, he has been accused of abusing the Senate's cherished tradition of extended debate. In truth, during six years as majority leader, Democrat Robert C. Byrd four times detonated the nuclear option to rewrite Senate rules.

Thus, Frist would set no precedent, would not contradict past Republican behavior and would not strip the GOP of protection as a future Senate minority. The question is whether Republican senators will flinch from the only maneuver open to confirm Bush's judges.

The unprecedented Democratic plan to filibuster judicial nominations that do not meet liberal specifications has exceeded all expectations. None of 10 filibustered Bush appellate court nominees has been confirmed, and another six are all designated filibuster victims. This is intended to have a chilling effect on Bush in filling Supreme Court vacancies.

All 16 of these nominees are dead under present procedures. Even with the net gain of four Republican senators in this year's elections, Frist falls short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate.

Let's get past the arcane and esoteric arguments on precedent and the childish debate of who did what to whom first and worst. The Senate's duty to the American public is to provide advise and consent to the Executive on its Constitutional duty to fill these posts. No one argues with the Senate's ability to reject nominees by a majority vote, either in committee or by the full Senate. If a president cannot get a majority to support a judicial nominee at any level, then the candidate should not have been nominated in the first place.

However, the Democrats have essentially hijacked the Constitution and the nomination process by applying filibusters to these nominations, and that is quite unprecedented. I agree with Novak that forcing a full filibuster won't work because it places all of the burden on Senate Republicans to maintain a large presence in the chamber 24/7. But Republicans need to end the Democrats' attempt to arrogate the judicial nomination process from the Executive to the minority party in the Senate. Filibusters may have their place in the legislative process -- and I'd argue about that, too -- but not in an advice-and-consent role.

Frist and the White House need to couch this fight in terms of protecting the Constitution and not in terms of majoritarian rule, which allows the weak-kneed to object to protect the GOP when it becomes a minority in the Senate. Using filibusters to prevent nominees to come to a vote attacks the Constitution no matter which party has the majority -- and everyone knows it. If Frist and McConnell cannot muster the courage to engage this fight, then they should step aside for two who can.

Saudi Grip On Political Power In Middle East Slipping

In an ominous sign for the Saudis, the member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -- an economic coalition of Arab states -- have rejected a call from the kingdom to negotiate with the West exclusively through the collective which the Saudis have long dominated:

Saudi Arabia called Monday for Arab Gulf states to speak with one voice, implied criticism against countries making trade agreements with the United States, but Bahrain said it had no intention of abstaining from such deals. ...

A Gulf official at the summit said the other five states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — would make their own arrangements with Washington whether the Saudis like it or not. The official spoke on customary condition of anonymity.

The Saudis sent a lower-level minister to the GCC for the first time to register their dissatisfaction with the direction of the council, but the insult is unlikely to change minds in the Gulf. The smaller states have seen the US conduct its forward engagement strategy and, always attuned to power politics, have decided that they'd rather play directly with the big dog themselves. The competition for influence and trade with the US will create more leverage for us to insist on friendlier approaches in the madrassas and the minarets towards Americans while allowing the smaller and more moderate Gulf states to influence Arab opinion more organically.

In other words, the Saudis see their dream of leading a pan-Arab coalition slowly crumbling. When a free and democratic Iraq gets added to the mix, the Wahhabists will find themselves in full retreat.

World Bank Chief Talking Transition

James Wolfensohn woke up his World Bank employees during an otherwise unremarkable end-of-year speech last week, when he suddenly mentioned "leadership succession", according to the Wshington Post's Al Kamen:

"I would like to report to you on the Senior Management Team's annual 'strategic forum,' " he began, apparently in a desperate bid to reduce his audience. He droned on for a while about meeting "Millennium Development Goals," or, as we say in the biz, MDGs, and such.

Then, just toward the end, came this:

"I know that there is anxiety regarding leadership succession at the Bank." Oh, really? "We can expect clarity on the situation early in the new year, and I have no doubt that we will make an effective transition."

Translation: Colin Powell becomes available after Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearings for her appointment as Secretary of State. After she wins Senate approval, expect to see Powell approached to replace Wolfensohn. Powell has demurred from electoral politics, declining to be drafted to run against Hillary Clinton for the 2006 Senate race in New York, but he has not ruled out continued public service.

Will Powell accept? Hard to say. The New York Times reported this notion back in April, and then the AP reported on massive corruption at the World Bank. As I wrote at the time, I can't really see Powell lending his sterling reputation to such a morass, but perhaps Powell will see it as a challenge to be conquered. A victory at the World Bank might go quite a ways to reforming its parent institution, the UN, as well. Being a supporter of the UN, the temptation for Powell may be too strong to resist.

NFL Game Causes Stir In Upper Midwest

The decision to schedule the big Vikings-Packers game for Christmas Eve has riled up pastors and congregations in both Minnesota and Green Bay, especially where churches rescheduled services to accommodate football fans. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that a segment of the faithful have called into question their church's commitment to the Lord as well as the judgment and avarice of the NFL:

When the Rev. David Pleier of St. Bernard Catholic Church in Green Bay, Wis., announced that his church was eliminating its 4 p.m. mass on Christmas Eve because it conflicts with the 2 p.m. start of Friday's Vikings-Packers game, one congregant commented, "You mean to say you're putting football ahead of the birth of Christ?"

"If we had a 4 o'clock service, we'd have family members saying, 'You go to church, but I'm not missing the second half," Pleier said. "At a time when we hope families will be together, to pray together, this game threatens to drive them apart."

The Vikings have played on Christmas Eve before -- as recently as four years ago, when they played the Colts in Indianapolis, on a Sunday, when the league offered its usual full Sunday schedule. But a midafternoon weekday game on Christmas Eve is unprecedented, prompting angry words from pastors from Minneapolis to Green Bay during a traditional time of peace.

The Strib includes a number of angry quotes from two Catholic priests, railing against the greed of NFL owners:

"The NFL's expression of commercial arrogance and fundamental disregard for things that do really matter is astounding," said the Rev. Eugene Tiffany of St. Olaf Catholic Church in downtown Minneapolis ....

"It's unconscionable that the NFL would do this -- presenting the kind of conflict that destroys families," said the Rev. Ken De Groot, of Green Bay's St. Willebrord Catholic Church ...

While I sympathize with the overall sentiment expressed by these priests and their congregations, in this case they are simply wrong. Yes, the decision to schedule the game on Friday was driven by television, but it's because the game would normally have been played on Christmas Day, as the NFL expands to both Saturdays and Sundays when college football's season ends. It's also not Christmas -- it's the day before Christmas. As much as I love Christmas Eve services, it's technically not even a holiday. When I was younger, Catholic churches only offered a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, as the day of obligation was Christmas itself. The extended Christmas Eve Mass schedules exist to make Christmas attendance easier on the congregation.

Moreover, the game will be played at 2 pm CT, which puts it in the middle of one of the busiest shopping days of the year. It hardly makes sense to put one of the biggest rivalries in the NFL up against last-minute Christmas shopping if avarice is the deciding factor, especially when that game will probably decide the division championship. By the time 6 PM Mass rolls around, most people will still be at the malls, not watching this game. Why are the priests not railing against that? Isn't the hijacking of Christmas for commercial purposes more significant than an NFL game in the middle of the afternoon on a day that has no technical significance to the Church as it is?

If these priests wanted to send a message about commitment to the Church and to the Lord, they'd schedule Christmas Masses on Christmas Day instead of allowing people to "put the gift opening before the Lord," to paraphrase the objection noted earlier. This sounds like a cheap way to garner attention on behalf of a few priests. My church will offer Masses at 4, 6, 8, and 10 on Christmas Eve, as well as a full slate on Christmas Day, just like most (if not all) Catholic parishes throughout the country. That's plenty of room for Catholics to celebrate Christmas at Mass. If Catholics fail to show in sufficient numbers to those parishes that object to the football game, perhaps the fault lies not with the NFL but with the parishes themselves.

The Transformative Power Of Free Speech

Today's Guardian (UK) reports on what likely is the vanguard of a second Iranian revolution. Iranian bloggers have made Farsi the fourth biggest language in blogs, as over 75,000 sites have opened on the Internet under the noses of one of the strictest totalitarian regimes. The number of Iranian bloggers far outstrips that of those in neighboring countries and allows democracy-minded activists a means to network information to each other and the outside world:

In the last five years up to 100 media publications, including 41 daily newspapers, have been closed by Iran's hardline judiciary. Yet today, with tens of thousands of Iranian weblogs there is an alternative media that for the moment defies control and supervision of speech by authoritarian rule. ...

While for some blogging allows them to revel in the forbidden, for others it's a way of organising action and spreading the word. As RSF's 2004 Internet Under Surveillance report states: "Weblogs are much used at times of crisis, such as during the June 2003 student demonstrations, when they were the main source of news about the protests and helped the students to rally and organise".

Ten years ago, the fax machine bypassed government controls and undermined tyrants. Now the capacity of anonymous broadcast that characterize blogs allows for quicker and more robust means for information to flow where needed. And it's not the information itself that transforms societies and frightens the powerful -- it's the communities blogs create, where like-minded people know and communicate with like-minded people. The Iranian bloggers might well have remained silent, unable to get past their own fear to connect with each other to promote freedom. Blogs reduce that security issue, although they do not eliminate it, as some Iranian bloggers have discovered:

In April 2003, when Sina Motallebi, a web-journalist, was imprisoned, Iran became the first government to take direct action against bloggers. Sina's arrest was only the beginning and many more bloggers and online journalists have been arrested since. As RSF puts it: "In a country where the independent press has to fight for its survival on a daily basis, online publications and weblogs are the last media to fall into the authorities' clutches ... through arrests and intimidation, the Iranian authorities are now trying to spread terror among online journalists".

Unless Iran simply disconnects their country from the Internet -- which they've apparently threatened to do -- or severely restricts access for their people, the problem will continue to grow. These methods of clamping down would probably result in another massive revolt among students, one the mullahs might not quell so easily anyway. The mullahs have this problem: their subjects have tasted freedom and savor it. Once acquired, that taste never disappears.

Rumsfeld Digs A Little Deeper (Updated)

In a development that hardly helps out the beleaguered Defense Secretary, Reuters reports that Donald Rumsfeld did not personally sign the sympathy notes sent to the families of American servicemen and women who died in Iraq. Lawmakers objected, with Senator Chuck Hagel mimicking John McCain's earlier statement of no confidence:

Rumsfeld acknowledged that he had not signed the letters to family members of more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed in action and in a statement said he would now sign them in his own hand. "This issue of the secretary of Defense not personally signing the letters is just astounding to me and it does reflect how out of touch they are and how dismissive they are," Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"I have no confidence in Rumsfeld," Hagel added.

More than in the kerfuffle relating to the uparmoring of Humvees, this issue gets closer to the true nature of the rupture between Rumsfeld and some GOP players. Rumsfeld has an abrasive and insensitive nature, which plays well among some supporters but comes across as arrogant and superior to his detractors. Unlike the armor, this issue has little nuance: if his office sent out sympathy cards under his name, he should have signed the notes himself. Apparently, George Bush took the time to sign his, and as Hagel noted, Rumsfeld has little excuse to put out less effort than the Commander in Chief.

Under normal circumstances, this story would amount to a nne-day wonder. However, with Rumsfeld already drawing fire from both sides of the aisle, this tone-deafness may well embarrass the White House into taking some action. The Bush administration issued a supportive statement, but this revelation of thoughtlessness can't help in putting down this minor GOP revolt.

UPDATE: Is it getting a little silly? Probably a lot silly. However, I took a quick poll amongst family members who normally believe the sun rises and sets on Rummy -- and they all were shaking their heads over this one. Consensus: if you send sympathy notes to families of dead soldiers with your name at the bottom, you'd better take the time to sign them. It's crass to take credit for sympathy notes you've never even seen.

UPDATE II: Hmmm. I appear to be outvoted -- even though I actually like Rumsfeld. Part of what I do here is analysis, and I think that this situation is rather fascinating, which is why I've written about it. I'm not advocating his removal at all, but I don't think Rumsfeld makes it very easy on George Bush and that's really my point here. So let me make myself clear on a couple of points, and then feel free to continue to beat me like a bongo drum in the comments (yes, I am a closet masochist):

* I think Rumsfeld has done a remarkable job in conducting the war on terror, and I want to see him continue to lead Defense throughout the second term.

* If that is to happen, then the White House needs to address the concerns of those GOP senators that appear to have issues with Rumsfeld, especially Lott and Coleman. I agree with y'all that Hagel, McCain, and Collins can be ignored, although not forever for McCain. The White House needs to insist on some party discipline from Frist and McConnell. We started seeing it yesterday -- finally. Doesn't anyone find it odd that the White House let Rummy twist in the wind as long as he did? I sure do.

* I disagree strongly with those who believe Rumsfeld is indispensable. I think he's the best man for the job, but no one is indispensable, and the Bush administration should have a succession plan in place in any case. What if Rummy dies of a heart attack tomorrow, or simply decides to retire? If that causes us to lose the war, then our war effort needs serious retooling.

* Yes, I think Patton should have been removed from command for slapping that soldier (two of them, actually), and in fact he was. He eventually got assigned a new command, but Eisenhower humiliated him for several months before he got a second chance. In the American armed forces, officers do not strike enlisted men, if for no other reason than enlisted men cannot hit back.

* Other than that, I pretty much agree with what's been written in the comments.

Let the beatings continue ...

Killing Them With Kindness

Nelson Mandela has created a tradition for South African Christmases where he and his wife throw a large party and hand out gifts to any children who attend -- usually the poor. Unfortunately, South Africa has no shortage of poverty, as Eastern Cape police discovered:

A children's Christmas party given by former South African President Nelson Mandela was thrown into chaos after thousands turned up for free gifts.

Police fought to hold back up to 75,000 children and adults attempting to get into the venue in Mr Mandela's home village of Qunu, Eastern Cape.

Police said they were unprepared for the massive surge. No-one was injured.

What did Mandela have to say to this tidal wave of children descending upon his party? Not much, considering he absented himself from the proceedings, although for perfectly understandable reasons: his son is critically ill and he's staying at his bedside. The rational action would have been to cancel the party, or at least postpone it.

It could have been worse; no one was injured, but before anyone could get killed the party had to be postponed. Also, a number of children collapsed from the heat and lack of food, and some of them wound up abandoned -- including a four-month-old child.

The BBC report finishes with a moment of irony:

Mr Mandela and his wife have been actively involved in promoting the welfare of children for many years.

They have, and good for them; but this annual party looks a lot like a political stunt, and a potentially deadly one. After children had to be hospitalized in 2002 for injuries due to trampling, someone should have pulled the plug on this tradition. There are other ways to ensure that poor African children get gifts, even if it makes it more difficult for elderly African statesmen to get headlines.

Palestinians Choosing Annihilation

The Jerusalem Post reports that the Palestinian leadership has once again insisted that they will never accept any "settlement" that does not include an absolute right of return for refugees -- a right that would completely destabilize democratic Israel and touch off the population bomb that Palestinians hope to use to destroy it:

The Palestinian Authority will never give up the right of return for all refugees to their original homes inside Israel, Zakariya al-Agha, head of the PLO's Refugees Department, said on Saturday. ...

The Palestinian leadership, [al-Agha] emphasized, will never sign any deal with Israel that abolishes the right of all the refugees to return to their original homes. It is "a red line for the Palestinian leadership that can't be trespassed," he said. "There won't be stability in the region until each one of the refugees feels that he has attained his freedom to return to his home. Without this, the refugees will use all methods available to achieve the right of return."

The Palestinians want to force Israel to reintroduce those Palestinians evicted in the partition of 1948 back into Israel, which would make them de facto citizens and give them the vote. And not just the ones specifically evicted, but all of their descendants as well -- pushing the numbers into the millions. Obviously, such a tidal wave of hostile immigration will destroy the territorial and cultural identity of Israel, and in the first election the crippled state could manage, the new electorate would finish Israel as a Jewish homeland and a democracy.

No one who seriously wants peace can expect Israel to blithely agree to its own destruction, and it's rather disappointing to hear Mahmoud Abbas endorsing the position as a bright "red line." Even as a negotiating tactic it's a bad idea; it handcuffs the Palestinians in future talks, setting an expectation among their population that will be impossible to meet.

It's a prescription for all-out war within the next few years, a war that the Palestinians simply cannot win. Not only have they lost their Iraqi patron Saddam Hussein, but the Syrians are now retreating from the Lebanese positions they used to pressure the Israeli military and pin them down on their border. With the American military all over Southwest Asia, other Arab nations are unlikely to step in on behalf of the recalcitrant Palestinians.

They Threw An Election And No One Came

The dictatorship of Turkmenistan conducted a parliamentary election today, electing new members for its rubber-stamp partnership with the personality-cult strongman Saparmurat Niyazov. Unfortunately for Niyazov, his oppressive rule has made elections so superfluous that polling officials had to go door-to-door to get people to vote:

Polling stations were nearly empty Sunday in elections for Turkmenistan's rubber-stamp parliament, forcing officials to carry ballot boxes door-to-door in this nation ruled by a former Soviet Communist boss who has been declared president-for-life.

The 131 candidates contesting Parliament's 50 seats all represent the Central Asian country's only party, the Democratic Party led by President Saparmurat Niyazov. ...

All the candidates officially support Niyazov's policies, and based their campaigns on promoting the ideas in his book, "Rukhnama," which sets moral and spiritual guidelines for the country's citizens. It is held as a sacred text.

The act of boycotting the elections actually represents a remarkable protest by the Turkmens, who have lived under almost-total isolation and oppression by the man who styles himself the Father Of All Turkmens. Even the failure to vote can put people at risk in Turkmenistan, and the few people who commented to the AP reporter refused to fully identify themselves. The Niyazov regime survived an assassination attempt a couple of years ago, but if this reaction gives any indication, the populace may be ready to rise up and demand significant change at the top.

Time Magazine Names Power Line Blog Of The Year

The Northern Alliance is proud to congratulate our friends and colleagues at Power Line for their honor at being named Blog of the Year by Time Magazine. CNN reports on the honor as part of their article on George Bush being named Time's Person of the Year:

This year the magazine named the conservative "Power Line" as its first "Blog of the Year." Kelly said blogs, Web sites that often mix news, gossip and opinion, are "here to stay."

Time has a complete story on the Power Line trio in its issue hitting the newsstands tomorrow; its Internet publication requires subscription. I'll be picking up my copy as soon as possible -- maybe I'll even get Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker to sign it. I can't think of three nicer or more deserving men to get this kind of recognition. Join me in congratulating my friends on their great success.

Latino Advocates Learn Lesson From Election; NAACP Clueless?

Darryl Fears reports in today's Washington Post that the 2004 elections taught at least one ethnic-advocacy group the dangers of a strictly adversarial relationship with Republicans, and the incoming leadership has decided to shift directions:

At [the National Council of] La Raza, a change in strategy is in the works. Yzaguirre, who was the group's president for more than 30 years, approached issues and politics with direct confrontation. "My posture has been we are going to award our friends and come down on our enemies," Yzaguirre said. "We are going to speak out on [Bush's] policies if they hurt our people."

But [Janet] Murguia, who served as deputy director for legislative affairs for the Clinton White House and as a liaison between the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign and constituent groups in 2000, said she is planning to improve La Raza's relations with the White House.

"One of the first lessons you learn in Washington is you have to work with people on both sides of the aisle," she said. "I am certainly going to take every opportunity I can to reach out to this administration."

Part of the impetus for Murguia's strategic shift is Bush's increasing popularity among Hispanics; he took over 40% of their vote this year, narrowing what had been a normally substantive gap that favored Democrats. Her constituency has pushed NCLR to adapt its rhetoric to the new reality on the ground. When almost half of your target audience remains sympathetic to the GOP, you have to engage them in a positive manner to maintain your own credibility.

On the other hand, the NAACP has not yet felt that kind of pressure from their membership, and so far their leadership does not feel particularly interested in leading their constituency away from the patronizing relationship the Democrats have offered for decades:

At the NAACP, the committee searching for Mfume's successor is being led by Julian Bond, the organization's chairman, who dismissed recent reports that his fiery rhetoric did not mesh with his president's attempts at diplomacy.

"Mfume and I have met at least every other week face to face, and we have communicated almost daily," Bond said. "I disagree that we've had a difficult relationship."

Still, their differences in approach were clear. The day after this year's U.S. presidential election, for example, Mfume sought to end the chilly relationship between the White House and the NAACP with a congratulatory letter. But Bond had repeatedly disparaged Bush and his party over the years -- in the days leading up to November's voting, he said the Republicans "draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics" -- and now the IRS is investigating whether his remarks during the campaign violated the NAACP's tax-exempt status.

Some voices in the African-American community speak out against the perpetual war footing that the NAACP takes with the GOP. Earl Ofari Hutchinson warns against taking an outdated approach to civil rights, and recommends focusing on social issues and reaching out to the Bush administration to push that agenda. "This is not 1960," Hutchinson warns in the article.

However, other forces feel that Mfume was simply too diplomatic with Bush and that the NAACP needs a leader like Julian Bond. Ronald Waters argues that the GOP wants to "marginalize" the black community, but what Walters doesn't see is that their lock-step voting pattern has marginalized themselves. Why should the GOP prioritize for the African-American community when their votes are in the bag for Democrats? After all, Bush went to the NAACP as a candidate in 2000, only to be rewarded by an ad campaign that accused him of sympathizing with the lynchers who dragged James Byrd to death. After assigning prominent and historic positions to African-Americans in his cabinet, the GOP only took a paltry 11% of the vote in his re-election.

Bush won without them, and that's why the NAACP strategy is doomed to failure. The bloc-voting threat only works until its shown to be an empty bluff, and that's happened in two successive presidential elections. The GOP doesn't need the current black leadership, and everyone except Julian Bond, Ronald Waters, and Jesse Jackson appears to understand that. Janet Murguia certainly does, and she's bright enough to keep her community from marginalizing itself.

AQ In Decline In Saudi Arabia

Al-Qaeda has apparently declined in stature in its own Wahhabist birthplace to such an extent that its strategies have had to shift towards avoiding Saudi targets, curtailing a key AQ goal of undermining and overthrowing the Saudi royal family. Today's Washington Post reports that AQ operations have a much narrower focus than before:

Al Qaeda forces in Saudi Arabia have shifted their strategy and are now almost exclusively searching for U.S. and other Western targets in the kingdom while avoiding attacks on domestic institutions in a bid to strengthen their flagging network, according to security officials and Saudi experts on radical groups.

While al Qaeda retains its primary goal of eventually toppling the Saudi royal family -- as Osama bin Laden made clear in an audio recording released Thursday -- an 18-month campaign of car bombings, gun battles and kidnappings has so far failed to generate many new recruits and has resulted in a backlash among many Saudis, even those who otherwise are critical of the government, the officials and experts said.

More than 80 people have died in the attacks, the majority of them Saudis or non-Western immigrant workers. Many people in the kingdom are not only angry over the bloodshed but also fearful of al Qaeda's attempt to turn Saudi Arabia, a deeply conservative tribal society, into an even more conservative Islamic theocracy, several Saudi reformers said in interviews.

In some ways, al-Qaeda has been the victim of its own radical fervor. Instead of focusing on one specific goal at a time and working outwards, which would allow them to build on their success and gather more people and power to their side, they have lashed out indiscriminately in all directions. That indiscriminate killing has alienated those who might otherwise have been sympathetic to their causes. Many Saudis probably would love to see an end to the royal family's rule and the oppression that goes with it -- but they'd balk at having them replaced with an even more oppressive and considerably more irrational ruling class.

As a result, Saudi government forces have found it relatively easy to round up or kill AQ leadership in their country. They have already neutralized two-thirds of the top-echelon leaders, and the lack of ready replacements has seriously degraded their operational capability, especially in organization. Many potential recruits aren't even in Saudi Arabia any longer; radical clerics sent the fanatical to Iraq to fight the American "occupation" there. Without a steasy stream of new recruits, their losses have crippled the terrorist organization.

Now they intend on exclusively targeting Western facilities in Saudi Arabia, a strategy that might have won them much more support had they been as disciplined from the start. Saudis see the West as a support for the royal regime and wouldn't shed many tears over successful attacks. However, it's too late both tactically and strategically. Saudi security forces have the upper hand and routinely roll up dozens of operatives before an attack even happens, or immediately afterwards. The populace has already seen the true face of al-Qaeda and its radical agenda for the kingdom, and has taken a pass.

Chemical Ali's Salad Bar

The judicial investigation of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known to Westerners as "Chemical Ali," has already revealed more about the character of the man than expected. The London Telegraph reports that tapes of Ali's tirades show the extent of the inhumanity endemic to the Saddam Hussein regime:

Gruesome tapes of Saddam Hussein's most feared henchman threatening to cut up his thousands of victims "like cucumbers" have been disclosed as Iraqi war-crimes judges began court proceedings against him yesterday.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's cousin and the man nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for gassing up to 5,000 Kurds, is also heard vowing to swamp Kurdish villages with clouds of poison for up to 15 days as part of his brutal campaign of suppression in the late 1980s.

In chilling words that foreshadow the mass graves that now litter the country, he gives warning that the body count will be so great that Iraqi forces will have to "bury them with bulldozers". His armies are thought to have murdered anything up to 150,000 Kurdish men, women and children.

The tapes, which record al-Majid's foul-mouthed tirades at Ba'ath Party meetings, are part of the vast body of evidence handed to prosecutors at the Iraqi Special Tribunal, which began hearings against Saddam's senior lieutenants yesterday.

Just as in the Nazi era, the perpetrators of genocide and sadistic oppression recorded their own proud boasts, vain and certain never to be held accountable for their crimes. Bragging about his power to slice his fellow Iraqis up like cucumbers and both predicting and celebrating the mass murders and gassings he ordered and conducted should demonstrate the necessity of removing such monsters from the levers of power.

How can anyone doubt that capturing Ali Hassan al-Majid makes the world a safer place? Can anyone seriously argue that his continued control over the prostrate Iraqis made Southwest Asia safer for Iraqis, Americans, or anyone at all except the genocidal freaks of the Hussein regime? Their own words and recordings show the necessity of putting these animals in the cages they deserve.