Kabbalah Cult Leader Blames Jews For Holocaust

In a shocking development that may put a quick end to Hollywood's infatuation with their latest spiritual fad, a leader of the modern Kabbalah discipline blamed Jews for the Nazi Holocaust, claiming that they disdained the "Light" and brought the genocide onto themselves:

Eliyahu Yardeni, of the London Kabbalah Centre, made the astonishing claim to an undercover reporter investigating high-pressure sales techniques employed by the group, which promotes its own brand of beliefs, part ancient Jewish mysticism and part pseudo-science.

The probe also revealed how Kabbalah Centre representatives claimed bottles of "healing" spring water sold by the group could help cure cancer - and how they sold a batch to a sufferer for hundreds of pounds.

Talking about the wartime massacre of the Jews, Mr Yardeni said: "Just to tell you another thing about the six million Jews that were killed in the Holocaust: the question was that the Light was blocked. They didn't use Kabbalah."

That will be news to the survivors and their families, as well as to millions of Jews in general. The center's apparent philosophy on Nazi atrocities came as part of a sales pitch for the modern version of an ancient and respected Hebrew discipline. The new and hip Hollwood version, according to the BBC, sells bottled water with supposed miraculous qualities, even though it's produced by a Canadian company with previous government warnings on its quality.

Practitioners of the ancient Kabbalah protest against the hucksterism of the cultish London center, which has captivated Madonna, David Beckham, Demi Moore, and other high-octane celebrities trying to appear spiritually enlightened. Israel refuses to certify it as a proper charity for accounting irregularities, and Britain has criticized it for the same reasons. The BBC will run an expose this week on its news program, and the article details even more irregularities in its operation. Read the whole thing.

30 Days Hath September, April, June, And November

That little mnemonic could have saved the United Nations a few million dollars in contractor fees, according to UN audits demonstrating outright incompetence and relatively minor corruption. Among other issues, the UN completely missed the repeated billing for 31 days of work in June over several years:

Internal audits conducted by the United Nations of its oil-for-food program revealed lapses in U.N. oversight that allowed contractors to overcharge by hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to copies obtained by The Associated Press.

Two of the audits examined irregularities including overcharging by two companies who were hired to monitor oil sales and the import of humanitarian goods under the program. Another detailed financial mismanagement by a U.N. agency administering humanitarian aid under the program. ...

But the panel distributed the documents to congressional investigators two days early. A congressional aide provided the AP with copies of three of the 56 audits, including one that found that the United Nations was billed over several years for 31 days of work in June, which only has 30 days.

It's hard to believe that the UN had no one who could look at a calendar to see that June has only 30 days. Not only did they miss this once, the UN apparently failed to detect this every year of the program's run. These overpayments comprise only a small part of the general mismanagement by UN staff and corruption by their contractors. The Volcker commission promised no red flags for the massive graft that the US Senate has uncovered, but the audits show enough incompetence to discourage anyone from allowing the UN to run any significant aid program in the future.

Absentee Shenanigans In Florida Exposed

Florida has granted immunity to a well-traveled political consultant that has implicated politicians of both parties in illegal absentee brokering:

A campaign consultant said he was hired by several Florida politicians over the past seven years to gather absentee ballots during their elections, a violation of state law.

Ezzie Thomas, who has been granted immunity, told prosecutors that he was paid numerous times since 1998 to gather absentee ballots, most recently by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer's campaign last year, his attorney said Friday.

Thomas told prosecutors four months ago that he was hired to do similar work for U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez when he ran for Orange County chairman in 1998, Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood's 2000 campaign for Orlando mayor, and two other minor campaigns.

Florida made it illegal in 1998 to pay or accept money "for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, delivering or otherwise physically possessing absentee ballots." The law was passed after the 1997 Miami mayor's race was marred by allegations of absentee ballot fraud.

This promises to provide embarassment more than legal risk for the candidates involved. Florida may grant Thomas immunity, but in order to prove criminal action on behalf of any candidate, the prosecutor will need to establish a clear intent to break the absentee law on the part of the campaign. Short of getting such orders on tape or in writing, the burden of proof will likely be insurmountable.

As my friend Brian "Saint Paul" Ward reminded us during our radio show today, elections routinely have mistakes and petty frauds that only become issues when election results are uncommonly close. This case also reminds us that the frauds sometimes go beyond the petty, and that the states must prosecute those responsible when uncovered. I question the immunity grant in this case for the man who perpetrated the fraud -- indeed, was known for it -- in favor of the possibility of a few more dicey prosecutions that will probably only get headlines rather than convictions.

Northern Alliance Radio Today

Don't miss our Northern Alliance Radio Network show today -- we'll have Charles from Little Green Footballs in our second hour, and we'll be talking about the issues of the day, including tsunami updates, Armstrong Williams, Washington state governor's race, and much more. We're on from noon to 3 pm CT!

Addendum: Don't forget to call in and chat with us at 651-289-4488!

UPDATE: That's 1-4 pm Eastern, for the time-challenged ... in other words, now!

Does Nicholas Kristof Read Captain's Quarters?

Earlier this week, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column on Western -- and particularly American -- stinginess when it comes to helping poor nations and their struggles. He gave full marks to the US when responding to emergent tragedies like the tsunami and its victims, but claimed that on more chronic and devastating issues like the rampant malaria that claims as many victims monthly as the tsunami did (so far), we pitch in little money for assistance:

The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know.

But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea (140,000).

And that's where we're stingy.

I wrote in response:

[T]he answer to malaria isn't treating the symptoms as much as it is eliminating the disease altogether. The best proven method for this is DDT. Everywhere it has been introduced it has produced radical decreases in malaria. It's cheap, and the vast drop in malaria cases would allow the more expensive medicine to be prescribed more often. However, environmentalists insist on blocking the use of DDT anywhere in the world, claiming that its effect on the environment outweighs the human lives it saves. That's all well and good in the US, where malaria doesn't exist and other pesticides can replace DDT, but in poorer nations, the other pesticides aren't effective against the mosquitoes that carry malaria.

There are many kinds of stinginess. There are many kinds of aid. Before the Europeans start pointing fingers at our development aid, perhaps they should take a look at how much they spend on their own defense, and how much we've paid for it since World War II. And if the Left thinks that malaria is a good issue on which to discuss American stinginess, then let them take the wraps off of DDT and eliminate malaria in Africa for good.

Well, kudos to Nicholas Kristof, because in his very next column, he answers my challenge. Kristof writes that the time has come to quit allowing environmental squeamishness to get in the way of using the best tool to combat the malaria plague in Third World nations:

In the 1950's, 60's and early 70's, DDT was used to reduce malaria around the world, even eliminating it in places like Taiwan. But then the growing recognition of the harm DDT can cause in the environment - threatening the extinction of the bald eagle, for example - led DDT to be banned in the West and stigmatized worldwide. Ever since, malaria has been on the rise.

The poor countries that were able to keep malaria in check tend to be the same few that continued to use DDT, like Ecuador. Similarly, in Mexico, malaria rose and fell with the use of DDT. South Africa brought back DDT in 2000, after a switch to other pesticides had led to a surge in malaria, and now the disease is under control again. The evidence is overwhelming: DDT saves lives.

But most Western aid agencies will not pay for anti-malarial programs that use DDT, and that pretty much ensures that DDT won't be used. Instead, the U.N. and Western donors encourage use of insecticide-treated bed nets and medicine to cure malaria.

The resistance to DDT costs lives, usually just to enable do-gooders to believe they're protecting other species at the expense of humans. However, DDT does not pose nearly any danger when used properly. No one disputes that the US used DDT in far too large quantities during its legal run here, which led to environmental damage. But the dosages needed to combat malaria -- indeed, to wipe it out -- are much smaller and environmentally sound. Even Greenpeace, as Kristof notes, warns against dogmatism on DDT. But Western aid agencies haven't listened.

Hopefully, Kristof's answer will open some eyes and allow the most potent weapon against the slaughter of the young in Africa and elsewhere to be unleashed, finally. And if Mr. Kristof has become a regular CQ reader, I say -- welcome aboard, sir. (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.)

Nabbing Another Terrorist Leader In Mosul

Carrying out terrorist operations contains a certain amount of risk, as operatives get exposed during planning and rehearsals and witnesses watch as action unfolds. These risks usually get minimized by using "cells" to shield higher leadership in the organization. So it is surprising that the US has captured its second major leader of the Zarqawi organization within hours of each other, this time the chief of operations in the Mosul area:

A statement identified the man as Abdul Aziz Sa'dun Ahmed Hamduni, also known as Abu Ahmed, and said he had assumed command of "terrorist operations" in the northern city of Mosul.

He had served as the deputy of the top Mosul militant leader identified as Abu Talha, the statement said.

"Abu Ahmed admitted to receiving money and weapons from Abu Talha as well as coordinating and conducting terrorist attacks in Mosul, the statement said. It said Hamduni was detained on December 22.

"The capture of Abu Ahmed, and the subsequent capture of Abu Marwan on 23 December, show significant progress in the inevitable destruction of the Abu Talha-led Al-Qaeda-Zarqawi terrorist network in Mosul," said U.S. Brig. Gen. Erwin Lessel, spokesman for Multi-National Forces-Iraq, in the statement.

The US announced Marwan's capture last week, one that had presumably launched the series of raids that followed. The announcement of Hamduni's capture came much later, although Hamduni actually came into custody first. Rather than squeezing Marwan, it looks like Hamduni squealed first, allowing the US to round up a number of lower-level operatives as well as Marwan and other more valuable targets, 50 in all.

The bombings continue, and Zarqawi pushes to rain destruction on Iraqis, especially those who work to bring freedom to their fellow citzens. Make no mistake; Zarqawi wants to bring a second fascist darkness to Iraq, not liberate the people from foreign influences. Iraqis themselves have learned this and at least some of them are working with the US and the Coalition to uncover the lunatics and murderers in their midst. Otherwise, the leadership of Zarqawi's organization would not be nearly as vulnerable as it has proven.

Paying Journalists For Coverage Stinks

The blogosphere buzzed yesterday with the revelation that pundit Armstrong Williams received $241,000 from the Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind Act and push other commentators to do the same. Williams did not disclose the payment while pushing NCLB in several columns and on his television appearances; instead, he represented his opinions as his own independent views. Howard Kurtz writes in today's Washington Post:

In taking the money, funneled through the Ketchum Inc. public relations firm, Williams produced and aired a commercial on his syndicated television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, touted Bush's education policy, and urged other programs to interview Paige. He did not disclose the contract when talking about the law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his newspaper column. ...

Alex Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein media center, said he is "disgusted" by what he called "the worst kind of fakery and flackery" on Williams's part. "It's propaganda masquerading as news, paid by government, truly a recipe from hell," he said. "It would make any thinking person hearing any pundit speak want to say, 'Okay, how much did they pay you to say that?' " Jones said the contract also shows that "the Bush administration neither understands nor respects the idea of an independent media.

Yeah. What he said.

I find it very difficult to believe that an experienced journalist or commentator, one who has to make his living off of his independence, could honestly see his way clear to accepting what amounts to a quarter-million-dollar bribe to support a government policy. I don't care what administration we're talking about -- that plain stinks, and any reasonable person knows it. Williams' wishy-washy statements about how he can understand "why some people think it's unethical" and that "it's fair" for people to think he sold out are forms of denial.

Williams, in short, is a journalistic whore. He's finished as a commentator. He claims that he will self-syndicate -- but who will buy his commentary now?

Like any instance of prostitution, of course, the action involves more than one wrongdoer. If Williams is a whore, the Education Department is his john. Who got the bright idea to spend a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer money to bribe one journalist? The department's spokesman, John Gibbons, tried talking his way around it:

The Education Department defended the contract, which Paige knew about in advance, as a minority outreach effort through Williams's syndicated program, "The Right Side."

"Our contract was for advertising," said department spokesman John Gibbons. "Our intent was to reach out to minority audiences. Armstrong went out and talked about it -- we didn't have anything to do with that."

But the contract also required Williams to "utilize his long term working relationship" with black producers to "encourage" them to "periodically address the No Child Left Behind Act."

"Our objective was to put out basic information to audiences. . . . We certainly had no intention to do it in an underhanded way," Gibbons added.

Well, that explanation might keep Paige or someone else from an indictment, but I note that the Education Department didn't exactly trumpet its arrangement with Williams, either. Someone knew to protect Williams' phony credibility by keeping the arrangement quiet. That indicates pretty clearly that they also knew the public would react with disgust, even if the illegality of the arrangement might not be clear.

Someone needs to have their ass fired at Education over this. Now. Congress has every right to prompt the inspector general to investigate this smelly arrangement. And the Bush admnistration had better make clear to all its staff that paying people off for their commentary is not only unethical and a waste of taxpayer money, it's illegal to boot.

UPDATE: Just to show that the conservative commentators also have deep revulsion about the payola issue, please read Michelle Malkin, who commented first; Jonah Goldberg; and the always-trenchant LaShawn Barber has some special scorn for Williams as a fellow black conservative:

For example, during the election, Rush Limbaugh disclosed that he was an unpaid consultant for the Bush campaign. It was out in the open. He had nothing to hide and he wasn’t outed by the media seeking a scandal.

Williams has done the opposite, and it looks bad. I don’t care about him; I care about honesty and integrity. It’s about character.

Contrary to what liberals think, black conservatives are not a monolith. Williams is responsible for his own actions, but the perception he leaves in his wake is detrimental to the cause so many black conservatives fight for. I take that personally.

Read the whole thing -- she's got the most thoughtful take on this.

DDOS Attack On Hosting Matters

For those of you who have experienced some difficulties in accessing CQ, Power Line, Instapundit, or other blogs over the past eight hours, you were not alone. I intended to post last night on one or two more topics, but I could not access my site either. It turns out that our service provider, Hosting Matters, had to turn back two DDOS attacks overnight. These malicious attacks take some time to identify and counter, and the good folks at Hosting Matters worked as quickly and diligently as they could.

It appears the attacks are over and access should be no problem. Thanks for your patience.

Hillary's Bagman Gets Invite To Club Fed

In a blow to her presidential aspirations and possibly her re-election run for the Senate, Hillary Clinton's money man from her first Senate run has been indicted on election-fraud charges stemming from one of her fundraisers. Her fundraiser failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in in-kind contributions, allowing Clinton to spend more hard cash in her campaign:

The indictment of David Rosen, unsealed in Los Angeles, focuses on his fund-raising for an Aug. 12, 2000, gala for Clinton in Los Angeles. The New York Democrat was still first lady at the time.

While the event allegedly cost more than $1.2 million, the indictment said, Rosen reported contributions of about $400,000, knowing the figure to be false.

The indictment charged that Rosen provided some documents to the an FEC compliance officer but withheld the true costs of the event and provided false documents to substantiate the lower figure.

The AP's Larry Margasak gives a better explanation than WNBC about why the lower figure matters:

The indictment, rare for a political campaign, was unsealed in Los Angeles charging David Rosen with four counts of filing false reports with the Federal Election Commission. The charges focus on an Aug. 12, 2000, dinner and concert supported by more than $1.1 million in "in-kind contributions" — goods and services provided for free or below cost. The event was estimated to cost more than $1.2 million.

The FBI previously said in court papers that it had evidence the former first lady's campaign deliberately understated its fund-raising costs so it would have more money to spend on her campaign. ...

During former President Clinton's administration, a Justice Department campaign finance task force charged more than two dozen individuals and two corporations with fund-raising abuses from the 1996 election cycle. Many of the charges involved Democratic fund raising.

The news that Clinton used dirty money to push Rick Lazio out of the Senate will definitely interest the GOP nominee in 2006 opposing her re-election. That may wind up being Rudy Giuliani, although he has not acknowledged any interest in the race as yet. The Clinton association with illegal fundraising will not pass unnoticed the next time around, especially with a high-profile indictment pending. Even more, Rosen may wind up cutting a deal if the shenanigans went further up the campaign, making the entire mess even more embarassing for Hillary, and reminding New Yorkers of the ethical morass of the Clinton administration.

If Hillary overcomes this to get re-elected to the Senate, it may lose some force in 2008 for the presidential election. I doubt that the GOP will allow it to be completely forgotten, nor should it be. Any fundraising in Hollywood by Democrats will undergo much more suspicion for the near term.

Staples Reverses Course? (Updated!)

After a day of capitulation to Media Matters for America, Staples must have read its e-mail this afternoon. Reversing course from its statement published in yesterday's Washington Post, Staples now claims it never intended to stop advertising on Sinclair news broadcasts:

To clarify that Staples does not have a policy against advertising on Sinclair Broadcasting news, Staples has the following statement:

Our media buying process with Sinclair Broadcasting stations has recently been misrepresented by an organization with no affiliation to Staples. Staples regularly drops and adds specific programs from our media buying schedule, as we evaluate and adjust how to best reach our customers. We do not let political agendas drive our media buying decisions.

Staples does not support any political party. We advertise with a variety of media outlets, but do not necessarily share the same views of these organizations or what they report. As we have done for a number of years, Staples will continue to advertise on Sinclair Broadcasting stations.

It appears that Staples has reversed itself, at least for public consumption. I wonder how many e-mails it took to convince them to publish that retraction. They certainly received more than a few from CQ readers. Nice job. (Hat tip: CQ reader Illini Tom)

UPDATE 1/7: Media Matters for America doesn't take kindly to Staples calling MMA's release a misrepresentation. Their latest release calls Staples' clarification into deep suspicion:

As you may know, Staples, Inc. officials reviewed, edited, and approved the Media Matters press release of January 4, 2005, in both draft and final form. That release stated that Staples was not renewing advertising on Sinclair local news programming due in part to concerns registered by visitors to the SinclairAction.com website, which was launched December 14, 2004, to protest the conservative slant of Sinclair's news programming, in particular a nightly conservative commentary called "The Point."

Visitors to the SinclairAction.com site who contacted Staples, Inc. received email replies from the company informing them that as of January 10, 2005, Staples, Inc. would no longer advertise on Sinclair local news programming.

On January 4, 2005, Staples, Inc. confirmed these facts both to Media Matters and to reporters. For example, on January 5, 2005, Staples, Inc. spokesman Owen Davis was quoted as telling the Chicago Tribune: "In general, we don't explain decisions regarding our media buys. But we did consider the concerns expressed by our customers with some political partisan programming, specifically 'The Point.'" And also on January 5, 2005, The Washington Post quoted Mr. Davis as saying that "Staples did consider among other factors the concerns expressed by our customers" regarding the content on Sinclair news programs.

Sounds like Staples hasn't been very honest to their customers, one way or the other, about its position on Sinclair. If what David Brock wrote here is true -- and the Post article substantiates most of it -- I don't blame him a bit for being unhappy with Staples' last release, which they've copied to everyone who e-mailed them to complain. They need to quit playing cute word games and make a decision on what they intend to do.

Five Embeds Kicked Out Of Iraq

Editor and Publisher reports today that five embedded reporters working with Coalition forces in Iraq have been booted from their privileged positions for transmitting information that endangered the security of the troops:

As Iraq moves closer to its first democratic elections later this month, the number of news organizations requesting embedded slots with military units there is on the rise, according to officials. But those new embeds better watch their step. E&P has learned that five journalists have been kicked out of embed slots in the past three months for reporting secure information.

"They were all for operational security reasons, (revealing) something that would have been of use to the enemy," Maj. Kris Meyle, who runs the embed program, told E&P from Baghdad this morning. "Generally, it gets done very quickly. Usually it was something that was not done intentionally by the reporter."

Meyle did not disclose the identities of the embeds sent home, but did note that they all represented broadcast media and not newspapers. Reporters embedded with troops get clear instructions not to disclose information that could be used by enemies to target the troops on the ground; failure to comply gets a reporter kicked out, as has happened here. During the invasion, reporters didn't seem to have a problem complying with the standards, but that's probably due to the moment-to-moment action of the battles they covered. Now they have more time to develop stories and more pressure to deliver sensational reports, which leads to errors in judgment.

E&P also reports that more requests for embeds have come in as the Iraqi elections draw closer, an interesting and somewhat contradictory development. The media has trumpeted the lack of security that threatens to derail the elections -- and yet more reporters want to be at the polling places to report the story. I'm not questioning the courage of the reporters, but does it occur to them that the Iraqis themselves might have more at stake in this election and will have the motivation to risk a visit to these same polling stations?

Paying It Forward

Thirteen years ago, a natural disaster in the South Pacific killed hundreds and left thousands more homeless. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo created an emergency for Filipinos and the American dependents of the servicemen and servicewomen station in the Philippines. George Bush (41) sent the US Navy to provide disaster relief and to evacuate Americans from the area, in a manner similar to what we are doing with tsunami relief today.

One of the people sailing to the relief of the tsunami victims understands exactly what they have experienced -- because she was rescued from Pinatubo by the same ship she serves now:

Standing in the hangar bay of this mammoth aircraft carrier, Seaman Joviena Kay looks across the waves toward the devastated coast of Sumatra, remembering a time 13 years ago when she huddled on the same deck with evacuees from another great Asian disaster.

Joviena was 6 years old then, a refugee from a volcano. The Filipino-American eventually joined the U.S. Navy, and she is serving on the ship that rescued her as its sailors help the survivors of an earthquake and tsunami.

Joviena Kay's story puts a human face on the tragedy of this disaster, and the hope that can still exist afterwards. She sounds like a remarkable young woman, one that we can be thankful is representing the United States in Sumatra's hour of need. Make sure to read the entire story.

Digging Up The Vote In King County

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports today that Christine Gregoire can credit her disputed victory in Washington's gubernatorial election to an aggresive get-out-the-vote campaign. In fact, Democrats succeeded so well at motivating their base that they managed a few resurrections:

At least eight people who died well before the November general election were credited with voting in King County, raising new questions about the integrity of the vote total in the narrow governor's race, a Seattle Post-Intelligencer review has found.

The evidence of votes from dead people is the latest example of flaws in an election already rocked by misplaced votes and allegations that there were thousands more votes counted than actual voters.

County officials say they are investigating the cases pointed out by the P-I. "These are not indications of fraud," said Bill Huennekens, King County's elections supervisor. "Fraud is a concerted effort to change an election."

Who is Huennekens kidding? Dead people casting ballots doesn't constitute vote fraud? Perhaps Huennekens entertains the possibility that the newly dead managed to become corporeal just long enough to punch the ballot, but decided against dropping by to see friends and family.

Casting a ballot under someone else's identity is vote fraud, whether or not it materially affects the outcome of the election. If King County election supervisors don't understand that basic concept, small wonder that their election turned out as the fiasco we see now. It begs the question as to what else Huennekens and other King County officials consider acceptable in voting behavior.

I liked this quote best:

Doris McFarland said she voted for her husband, Earl, who died Oct. 7.

"I called up the elections board and said, 'Can I do it because he wanted me to vote?' " the Duvall woman said. "The person ... said, 'Well, who would know?' I said, 'I don't want to do anything that is wrong.' "

Huennekens disputed that election workers would say such a thing.

Why would he doubt that, when he told the P-I that such an act doesn't amount to vote fraud? This election is disintegrating before our eyes. The state of Washington needs to throw out this farce and conduct a new election, one that uses specific rules regarding absentee and provisional balloting and eliminates the ludicrously flawed hand-count method. Perhaps they can also find election officials that understand that dead people aren't eligible to vote.

UPDATE: Photo of King County voters courtesy of CQ reader Mark Campbell.

UPDATE II: Welcome Instapundit readers!

Vote For Hugh's Blog Poster!

Radioblogger (aka Generalissimo Duane) has the finalists ready for your vote in his Blog poster contest. Photoshopped entries from around the globe have been submitted -- 325 in all -- an Duane has whittled it down to 10 deserving finalists. Make sure you take a look at all of them, but don't forget to vote for your favorite. If you're from Seattle, you can vote for dead relatives as well. (And don't forget to demand recount after recount until your candidate wins, either.)

For those looking for a little guidance, I'm trying to stay neutral ... but longtime CQ reader/commenter Peyton Randolph has made it into the finals. I'm not going to tell y'all which one is his, but let's just wish that the Force is with him on Sunday evening!

UPDATE: I should also have noticed that another CQ reader, Derek Brigham, is in the lead right now with his Uncle Hugh entry. Decisions, decisions ...

UPDATE II: And I completely missed that CQ reader Slubgob entered the FrodoHugh poster ... Wow. If I get a couple of more CQ readers in that Top 10, Barbara Boxer will probably challenge the election results ...

Kerry's Baghdad Disgrace

A time existed in American politics when politicians kept foreign-policy disputes at the shoreline. In a time of war, criticizing US policy from foreign locales used to be considered a craven and disreputable act. But having a sitting US Senator and a failed presidential candidate go to the theater of war to stage a protest against the current administration goes far beyond the pale:

Baghdad -- Sen. John Kerry, whose seemingly shifting positions on the U.S. war in Iraq plagued him throughout his presidential campaign, came to this war- torn capital Wednesday to see for himself whether the country was moving toward stability or deeper into chaos. ...

The senator said he was more interested in asking questions of soldiers, U.S. officials, Iraqis and even the journalists themselves instead of rehashing the political battles of the past campaign season.

But in several instances, Kerry attacked what he called the "horrendous judgments" and "unbelievable blunders" of the Bush administration. The mistakes, he said, included former U.S. occupation leader Paul Bremer's decisions to disband the Iraqi army and purge the government of former members of Hussein's Baath Party. Both moves are widely believed to have fueled the largely Sunni insurgency.

"What is sad about what's happening here now is that so much of it is a process of catching up from the enormous miscalculations and wrong judgments made in the beginning," he said. "And the job has been made enormously harder."

I have no problem with Kerry criticizing US policy in the Senate or on the campaign trail, even if I think he does little more than engage in Monday-morning quarterbacking. He had months to convince American voters that he had a better plan -- and could never produce a coherent alternative to what Bush already was doing. Now, in an attempt to make himself politically relevant, he travels to a hot zone and uses troops on the front lines to undermine the chain of command.

I first read this on Newsmax earlier in the day, and I hoped that this item was a mistake or an exaggeration. I waited to post about this until I read a separate confirmation. Apparently and appallingly, Newsmax got it right. This is yet another example of Kerry's selling out the troops for his own political gain. He did it in 1971 by smearing his "band of brothers" as war criminals, and now he's doing it by using them as props for the media to boost his chances at running again in 2008.

When he returns to the Senate, Bill Frist should call for an investigation into his conduct with troops serving under fire. He deserves the contempt of the Senate and the American people. The voters of Massachusetts should be ashamed to have selected that man to represent them.

UPDATE: Kevin McCullough has his own thoughts on this disgrace.

UPDATE II: CQ reader Sharon notes this picture from DU (released by the Army). Does it look to anyone like these guys are "cheering" Kerry as the headline stated?

Yanukovych -- The Ukrainian Barbara Boxer?

Ukrainians celebrated Orthodox Christmas today, hopeful that the Presidential Election That Wouldn't Die has finally been laid to rest. The Central Election Commission is now expected to officially declare the election for Viktor Yushchenko, giving Viktor Yanukovych one last appeal to the Supreme Court. However, that avenue looks rather bleak:

The ruling cleared the way for the central election commission to publish the final, official results of their historic December 26 rematch election and officially declare Western-leaning Yushchenko the winner -- a declaration that the pro-Moscow Yanukovich has vowed to challenge.

But the speed with which the court handed its ruling -- it deliberated for about an hour after a four-hour hearing -- has led to speculation that it may not even accept for consideration a second appeal from Yanukovich.

That means that Yushchenko could be inaugurated as the third president of an independent Ukraine as early as next week, with most expecting the ceremony to take place on January 14, which is New Year's Day according to the Julian calendar.

Yanukovych should have accepted reality by this time and set aside the vain appeals. However, according to the French wire service AFP, he has studied Democratic Party electoral tactics and decided that the appeals have helped his standing as an opposition candidate:

While admitting that his appeals are unlikely to be granted, Yanukovich has vowed to exhaust them all, in what many observers say is an attempt to boost his image as a Yushchenko adversary ahead of next year's crucial parliamentary elections.

Now we know exactly how the Americans affected Ukraine's electoral process. We gave them the Secret of Perpetual Minority Status -- the Sore Loser strategy. Hopefully, Ukrainians can contain the damage this corrosive approach takes on their new democratic processes. The Boxer Method certainly promises more problems here.

Rumsfeld Wants Another Set Of Eyes On Iraq

One of the recent memes abounding on the Left these days is that George Bush and his administration surrounds itself with "yes-men", people who agree so closely with Bush's policies that Bush gets no dissenting information. (They also claim he's a puppet, which seems a bit contradictory to me.) The biggest issue for this meme is the war on terror and specifically in the Iraq theater, where Democrats claim the administration has lost touch with reality.

Those people should delight in the presence of Donald Rumsfeld if that is what they believe. The Defense Secretary has selected a retired four-star general, Gary E. Luck, to take a team of analysts into Iraq and perform an open-ended review of the situation and progress there:

The Pentagon is sending a retired four-star Army general to Iraq next week to conduct an unusual "open-ended" review of the military's entire Iraq policy, including troop levels, training programs for Iraqi security forces and the strategy for fighting the insurgency, senior Defense Department officials said Thursday.

The extraordinary leeway given to the highly regarded officer, Gen. Gary E. Luck, a former head of American forces in South Korea and currently a senior adviser to the military's Joint Forces Command, underscores the deep concern by senior Pentagon officials and top American commanders over the direction that the operation in Iraq is taking, and its broad ramifications for the military, said some members of Congress and military analysts. ...

At a meeting Thursday with his top military and civilian aides, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld instructed that General Luck look at all areas of the operation, identify any weaknesses and report back in a few weeks with a confidential assessment, senior defense officials said.

"He will have a very wide canvas to draw on," said Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman. Mr. Di Rita emphasized that Mr. Rumsfeld was very satisfied with his commanders in Iraq, but wanted to give them all the help they needed in assessing "the very dynamic situation."

Rumsfeld likes to shake things up and keep the thinking fresh. This effort allows him to get another perspective from the ground on the issues our troops and our Iraqi allies face, and to recast expectations and plans for continued progress. It's not, as this somewhat hyperventilating report suggests, an imminent sign of collapse in Iraq, although it's certainly no vote of confidence either.

Perhaps the American media can make up its mind about what it wants to see from the Bush administration. On one hand, it complains when policymakers stick to a planned strategy, and on the other it gets hysterical when they adjust tactics to meet that strategy -- or in this case, simply start a review of tactics.

Accountability At The CIA?

The inspector-general of the CIA has completed his investigation into the agency's performance prior to 9/11 and has readied his report to Congress, according to the New York Times. Douglas Jehl reports that the conclusion reached by John Helgerson points to George Tenet and Director of Operations James L. Pavitt for poor performance and providing inadequate counterterrorism resources:

An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that officials who served at the highest levels of the agency should be held accountable for failing to allocate adequate resources to combating terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to current and former intelligence officials.

The conclusion is spelled out in a near-final version of a report by John Helgerson, the agency's inspector general, who reports to Congress as well as to the C.I.A. Among those most sharply criticized in the report, the officials said, are George J. Tenet, the former intelligence chief, and James L. Pavitt, the former deputy director of operations. Both Mr. Tenet and Mr. Pavitt stepped down from their posts last summer. ...

The report says that Mr. Pavitt, among others, failed to meet an acceptable standard of performance, and it recommends that his conduct be assessed by an internal review board for possible disciplinary action, the officials said. The criticism of Mr. Tenet is cast in equally strong terms, the officials said, but they would not say whether it reached a judgment about whether his performance had been acceptable.

Many people will see this as a long-delayed necessary step to hold people in the intelligence agencies accountable for their failures. One of the nagging questions that dogged George Bush during the years after 9/11 was why no heads rolled after the failure to detect and stop the coordinated attacks. The 9/11 Commission found no specific job performance problem, but they actively avoided making such judgements, which is why Congress asked the inspector-general to perform this separate investigation. One answer, of course, has been that the plot was one of many that our agencies worked to uncover and stop, which has the agreement of this member of the service:

A former intelligence official who criticized the findings said that "plenty of fault can be found" with the agency's performance "with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight." But the former official said, "Everyone I knew - analyst, operator, support personnel, seniors and juniors - were working flat out many, many months in advance of the 11 September attacks to stop those and like attacks."

"To round up the good guys and shoot them for doing their jobs - I can't help but shake my head in dismay," the official said.

Also mentioned at the end of the article -- below the jump, of course -- is the atmosphere in which Tenet and Pavitt worked. Congress and the Clinton Administration had targeted the CIA for significant budget cuts in the 1990s. Two years before the 9/11 attacks, the budget cuts resulted in a 30% decrease in the CIA's counterterrorism efforts, although Jehl leaves unclear whether those cuts were mandated by Congress or Tenet:

Among the episodes that the officials said was cited in the report was a 30 percent cut in the budget and personnel of the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorist Center, imposed in the autumn of 1999, not long after Mr. Tenet issued a memorandum saying that the agency was at war on terrorism. In testimony before Congress, Cofer Black, who took charge of the Counterterrorist Center that year, has said the cuts left the center undermanned and underfinanced.

Tenet's spokesman points out that Tenet increased funding over a four-year period to the center (97-01) by 50% and staffing by 60%. Cofer Black also receives criticism in this report.

Obviously, the CIA knew we were under attack by Islamofascist forces during this period, and if they did not perform to standard, then those who failed should be held accountable. However, one also has to take into account that the political leadership of the time hardly seemed focused on the Islamofacist threat, even after the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 should have woken everyone up. The administration chose to pursue terrorism as a law-enforcement problem, which left the CIA in an awkward position, since their efforts would almost certainly never be allowed in court by either the courts or the agency itself. It may provide some political satisfaction to fire a few high-ranking officials, but in the end the failure was political, not operational.

Jehl indulges in some irrelevant posturing of his own at the top of this article, trying to get some mileage out of Tenet's Medal of Freedom:

The findings, which are still classified, pose a quandary for the C.I.A. and the administration, particularly since President Bush awarded a Medal of Freedom to Mr. Tenet last month. It is not clear whether either the agency or the White House has the appetite to reprimand Mr. Tenet, Mr. Pavitt or others.

Reprimands and medals are not mutually exclusive. It is entirely possible to recommend Tenet for a reprimand for some job failing prior to 9/11 and to honor him for his performance afterward. I don't know if he deserves either, but Jehl's inclusion of this editorial speculation only cheapens his reporting. Does he have any information on what the agency or the White House think? No. It's "not clear" to Jehl because he has nothing to report. In that case, he should have stopped writing.

Islamists Begin Infiltrating Tsunami Relief Efforts

As predicted, Islamists have begun their own relief efforts in Indonesia in an attempt to establish their credentials in the Muslim nation. In Banda Aceh, the Washington Times reports that Western military units providing humanitarian assistance have been warned about the potential security risks:

An extremist Islamic group with links to al Qaeda has set up relief operations in Aceh province on Sumatra island, raising concerns that international relief workers will become terrorist targets as in Iraq.

Amid hundreds of aid workers near the airport in Banda Aceh, Laskar Mujahidin posted an English-language sign that reads "Islamic Law Enforcement."

The group, known for hunting down and killing Christians during a long-running sectarian conflict in another part of Indonesia, said yesterday it is collecting corpses, distributing food and spreading Islamic teachings among refugees.

U.S., Australian and South Korean government officials said they were aware of security threats in the region and were taking precautions. One major aid agency said its staff had been ordered not to fly in U.S. helicopters.

We knew that the tsunami's devastating effects in Indonesia and the Indian Ocean region would give radical Islam an opportunity to gain a toehold through the cover of relief efforts. Undoubtedly, this is one of the considerations taken into account in our own response to the area, although a secondary one at best. Western nations have been fortunate that the regimes funding and sheltering radical Islamists have mostly been AWOL from relief efforts up to now.

Having an AQ-affiliated gang of terrorists in Banda Aceh risks a provocation between the lunatics and our troops, although the greater danger will be a whispering campaign that creates the wild conspiracy theories and rampant rumors that we've already seen. With people missing by the thousands and normal society and communications wiped out, it won't be difficult for groups like Laskar Mujahidin to convince people that Americans stole children, caused the tsunami, poisoned the water or food -- and you can bet they'll try.

The US and other Western nations must work hard to marginalize groups like Laskar Mujahidin in Aceh and other areas in the region to keep their mischief to a minimum. Working with the Indonesian military for relief efforts will help, as the Times article notes, but also promoting non-military relief would take the steam out of the terrorists. Our comprehensive approach to the crisis is our best assurance of a positive outcome for all concerned.

Hugh Hewitt & Kevin McCullough Support CQ's World Relief Day

I've been fortunate to have received tremendous support from many friends in the blogosphere for World Relief Day, our January 12 fundraiser for World Vision and tsunami victims in the Indian Ocean region. Hugh Hewitt has put the link at the top of his blog every day, and Kevin McCullough has even created a Blogad for his site, which he's donated to promote the cause. I can't thank both men enough for their friendship and support.

Kevin says that other bloggers can add this to their sites as well:

I created a powerful blog ad - I had even had my in house test marketers run the phraseology through a demo. It came back with high marks. I have linked to your WORLD VISION PAGE. If people want to place this ad they can copy from my web-site or send me passcodes for free blog ads and I will go manually put them on. Either way - this will be a much more VISIBLE symbol of Jan 12 standing out on each blogger's page that is doing it.

We've raised over $15,000 so far in our efforts, and we still have six days left to surpass our goal of $25,000. Thanks to all of the bloggers who keep linking back to this post and sending their readers to World Vision.

Bostonian Proposes New Voting Process

Pennywit draws my attention to a comment on an earlier CQ post by Bostonian, which suggests a new way to vote with safeguards built in for each voter to ensure their vote was counted.

In addition to making sure that every ballot is legal (for which many proposals have been floated), we need two things:

1) Independent verificiation of the totals
2) Certainty that every vote was counted

For 1, when a voter submits his ballot, he provides one copy to a Republican and one copy to a Democrat. There's a unique ballot number on the ballot, which can be used to verify that the identical ballot was included in both totals.

Both parties tally up the votes separately, compare the results, and if the error is too large, nail down every last discrepancy.

For 2), the voter takes home a paper stub with the same ballot number, and he can look online to see if that ballot number was counted *and* he can see how his ballot was interpreted.

This process would solve a number of problems. First, it would require that a voter show evidence that his vote was counted improperly (or not counted at all) before filing a challenge. That alone would probably put a halt to post-election shenanigans. It would greatly simplify the validation of vote counts, a problem that has mushroomed into a complete debacle in Washington's gubernatorial election. Recounts would not have to rely on outsiders trying to divine voter intent, along with the ubuquitous photos of ballots held high in the air by squinting precinct workers.

This system has its drawbacks as well. I think that having the political parties doing separate counts may not work out well, especially in areas where Greens or Libertarians have more than just a token presence. Besides, the political parties have no statutory role in a general election, although in a closed primary that may be less of a problem. People may object to the on-line verification of the ballot, as lower-income voters have less access to the Internet and therefore arguably would be disadvantaged for checking that their votes were counted properly. The counties would have to supply access to voters regardless of area for that purpose to ensure that all voters were treated fairly. Also, what happens if a voter says that their ballot wasn't counted properly? Would they be allowed a revote, with a new count? It seems that provision could be exploited for some mischief.

Lastly, and most critically, numbered ballots are going to be a tough sell. Having sequentially-numbered ballots associated with identification of the voter may generate a lot of opposition among the tinfoil-hat crowd, who are unlikely to give up anonymous balloting. (Remember the objections when a similar proposal was aired for overseas military personnel?)

If that latter objection could be overcome, having the state do the initial count subject to strict recounts with voter challenges allowed for a short period of time, this system could work well. What are your thoughts?

UPDATE: I should retract the tinfoil-hat comment; anonymous balloting has proven very useful, and that's a bit too dismissive of a legitimate concern. My apologies.

Another Strikeout For Yanukovych

Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych keeps swinging and missing on his appeals to overturn the results of the last run-off election. The Ukrainian Supreme Court turned back another challenge by Yanukovych today, one considered an "intermediate" challenge while Ukraine certifies the results of the December 26th balloting:

Ukraine's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected losing presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych's appeal of last month's repeat election, bringing the former Soviet republic a step closer to resolving its political crisis.

Yanukovych has not exhausted all of his options, however. His campaign has said that his main appeal would be filed with the court only after the Central Election Commission announces the final results of the Dec. 26 vote. Preliminary results of the balloting showed opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko winning by a decisive margin.

Yanukovych has only one last at-bat left. Apparently, he's determined to go down swinging -- and go down he will.

Will Virginia Become The Next Washington?

Not according to blogger James Behan, self-proclaimed as the first elected blogger. He predicts a healthy margin of victory for the GOP nominee for Virginia's governor in 2005, and he's picking James Kilgore to be that standardbearer. Behan gives a great look at Virginia state politics. Don't miss it.

Boxer Signs Onto Ignominy

Barbara Boxer signed onto John Conyers' challenge of the Ohio electors this morning, setting up a useless two-hour debate in both chambers on the election won by George Bush two months ago:

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., signed a challenge mounted by House Democrats to Ohio's 20 electoral votes, which put Bush over the top. By law, a challenge signed by members of the House and Senate requires both chambers to meet separately for up to two hours to consider it. Lawmakers are allowed to speak for no more than five minutes each.

While Bush's victory is not in jeopardy, the Democratic challenge will force Congress to interrupt tallying the Electoral College vote, which is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. EST Thursday. It would be only the second time since 1877 that the House and Senate were forced into separate meetings to consider electoral votes.

"I have concluded that objecting to the electoral votes from Ohio is the only immediate way to bring these issues to light by allowing you to have a two-hour debate to let the American people know the facts surrounding Ohio's election," Boxer wrote in a letter to Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, a leader of the Democratic effort.

What a waste of time and effort. Hand recounts and smearing Ohio's Secretary of State and Chief Justice of their Supreme Court isn't enough for the lunatics of the American Left. They want to hold Congress hostage for two hours in order to rant away at their abject failure to win an election in Ohio. Their excuse? Long lines and a lack of voting machines in predominantly Democratic counties -- where the officials in charge of the election were Democrats! Just as in Florida, the Democrats blame the GOP for what they consider poorly-run elections, when Democrats themselves ran them.

Boxer, Conyers, and Harry Reid will get their debate -- a two-hour marathon of smoke and bile which will change nothing, except their prestige and honor with the American electorate. They continue their Great March To The Fringe, now at double-time.

Don't Get Your Hopes Up

USA Today and the AP have two different analyses of the reception US aid to tsunami victims has received from Muslims in the Middle East. Barbara Slavin and Kathy Kiely take a rosier view of the effect on the Islamic world that our efforts may bring:

U.S. relations with Indonesia have been strained in recent years. Though most Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam, the country is home to a number of extremist groups that have advocated violence against Christians and other non-Muslims. The U.S.-led war in Iraq prompted protests in some Indonesian cities; a group known as the Islamic Defenders Front claimed to have signed up 400 volunteers in "jihad registrations."

But in Aceh, the province where Islam first took root in Indonesia and where a less tolerant, more conservative form of the faith is practiced than elsewhere in the country, residents this week were showering praise on the Americans who have come bearing instant noodles, water and other supplies.

"I really, really appreciate the U.S. coming," said Cutbang, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name. "We look in the sky and see only U.S. planes."

We discussed the politics of aid and its impact on the war on terror on our last Northern Alliance radio show. Just as Senator Brownback notes later in the USA Today article, we agreed that the aid need to go to Indonesia simply because people are in dire need of it, and it would be unconscionable for us to allow people of any creed to needlessly die. The politics of assisting the largest Muslim country in its worst catastrophe in living memory, however, still bears some thought, even if it is a secondary consideration.

None of us had great hopes that the massive US airlift would transform Islamists into Western-loving democrats. In fact, our concern was that Islamist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranians and Saudis would pre-empt our efforts there, digging a bigger toehold in the non-Arab nation and vastly complicating the war on terror. It turns out that we worried needlessly; so far, the Muslim nations have been singularly silent in their response to the tsunami, a terrible blunder for them politically. (The Saudis just upped their contribution to $30 million.) The Muslims of Indonesia know that the Saudis and the Iranians have vast resources -- and their failure to share will not be quickly forgotten.

However, given the aid that the US and the West provided to the Muslims of the Balkans and the mighty thin credit we received from those efforts, don't expect too much for our generosity in the Indian Ocean area among Islamists. The AP's Nadia Abou el-Magd reports that the Muslims of Southwest Asia retain much of their suspicion of US activity and motives in our aid response:

On the streets of Tehran, technician Dariush Darabian accused Americans of "talking more than they actually do." Jordanian columnist Aida al-Najjar wrote in the daily Ad-Dustour that America's was exploiting "the suffering of people" to try to improve its image.

In the pages of leading pro-government Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, prominent columnist Salah Montasser scoffed that America's initial allocation of $15 million "is less than what America spends every minute in its war in Iraq."

The Middle East has given birth to many conspiracy theories, and the tsunami just gives more energy to the lunatics who spin them. The aid will likely only change the minds of those directly impacted by it, while the rest of the ummah will simply shrug their shoulders and continue to view us as the Great Satan. It doesn't mean we shouldn't provide as much aid as possible -- we do that for our own humanity. We should remain realistic about the long-term transformative power of handouts. It only gives us a short opening in Indonesia and the surrounding areas, not anywhere else.

We Made Our Point (Update: Maybe Not Enough)

Colin Powell announced today that the tsunami relief "core group" of India, Japan, Australia, and the US would disband and fold itself into the UN effort -- now that the world body finally met to organize its relief efforts:

"The core group helped to catalyze the international response," Powell told a tsunami relief conference in Jakarta according to a prepared text released by the State Department. "Having served its purpose, it will ... now fold itself into the broader coordination efforts of the United Nations."

The analysis by Reuters' Arshad Mohammed credits formation of the group to criticism that George Bush and the US were slow to respond. However, the four nations formed the core group and began distributing aid before the UN even called its meeting to discuss it -- which, coincidentally, occurred today. The UN proved itself to be little more than a lumbering roadblock. Had we waited for the UN's schedule, our ships and our aid would have waited until today to be deployed and properly managed.

That is the difference between talking about a response and actually responding. Critics, like those at Reuters, continue to ankle-bite Bush for not feeling the pain in public for three days. Bush, however, was working to alleviate the pain instead.

UPDATE: It appears that the UN hasn't done much good up to now, according to the New Zealand Business Review (via Instapundit). They reference an oustanding blog, The Diplomad, in their reporting:

The blog says: "Just today the city's Embassies got a letter from the local UN representative requesting a meeting for 'Ms. Margareeta Wahlstrom, United Nations Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Secretary-General's Special Coordinator for Humanitarian Assistance in Tsunami-afected countries'" -- an astonishing title that seems to hold great administrative power. But, the blog says, what Ms Wahlstrom wanted from her short (January 4-5) visit was to arrange "high-level consultations with the concerned governments in order to facilitate the delivery of international assistance" and to thereby "provide leadership and support to the international relief effort."

Just who is Ms Wahlstrom and what has she accomplished on her mission?

According to one news source, Ms Wahlstrom is the bringer of very blurry news.

In Sri Lanka, when asked when UN reconstruction aid would be raised and, eventually, arrive, she told reporters: "The period and timing is not fixed. It could be few months down the line."

She then went on to say psychiatric assistance for survivors was "the key thing as people have lost everything."

Again, the UN shows that feeling the victims' pain has a much higher priority than solving their problems. The notion that people who have no potable water and no food supplies, living in sewage and at extreme risk for fatal diseases such as dysentry, need psychiatric assistance before food, water, and shelter only proves that the UN needs a couple of headshrinkers for themselves.

If this is the best that the UN can do, we should continue to bypass them.

Conyers Launches Challenge To Ohio Electors

In a sign that the Democrats are determined to pursue their scorched-earth policy on elections to its bitter conclusion, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has filed an objection to Ohio's presidential electors. John Conyers of Detroit published a report that claims irregularities in Ohio's election accounts for more than the 118,599 votes that George Bush won over John Kerry:

The 102-page report titled "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio?" lists such problems as unusually long lines, a shortage of voting machines in Democratic-leaning areas, confusion over provisional ballot rules and computer problems.

The report also contends there were widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation, improper purging of voter registration lists, a lack of inspection for about 93,000 ballots where no vote was cast for president, and vote totals not matching registration numbers or exit poll data.

"In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio," the report said.

We've gone over the nuts and bolts -- mostly nuts -- of Conyers' arguments on this blog and others. After a costly recount and the move of just over 300 votes, Conyers and the Democrats know that further recounts won't win them the election, and so they intend on casting aspersions on the legitimacy of the contest itself. They have chosen Kenneth Blackwell as their bete noir, just as they smeared Kathleen Harris in Florida four years ago. As I wrote below, in the face of the inexplicable (How could Bush actually beat Kerry?), conspiracy theories grow like mushrooms in the dark.

Of course, the explanation that the Democrats fielded a terrible candidate that ran a lousy campaign never occurs to them.

Conyers needs a sponsor in the Senate to invoke a joint session to consider the objection. Barbara Boxer of California is rumored to be mulling over the idea of jumping on board Conyers' runaway train. It should enrage the country that the Democrats want to hijack yet another presidential election and embarass the nation, this time while we're at war. The Democrats apparently learned nothing from 2000 and the shellacking they took in the next two election cycles. No one will trust them with leadership while they pursue this kind of lunacy; even moderate Democrats can count the difference between 566 and 118,599.

Conyers would better spend his time tracking down what his staff did with the 60 turkeys they stole from poor families this Thanksgiving than to stuff this turkey down the throat of Congress and the nation.

As If Things Weren't Bad Enough

Human nature dictates a particular need for order in the midst of chaos. It's one of the driving forces behind our capacity to believe in conspiracy theories to explain random, tragic events. That being said, this still surprises me:

Just 11 days after Asia's tsunami catastrophe, conspiracy theorists are out in force, accusing governments of a cover-up, blaming the military for testing top-secret eco-weapons or aliens trying to correct the Earth's "wobbly" rotation.

In bars and Internet chatrooms around the world questions are being asked, with knowing nods and winks, about who caused the submarine earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, and why governments were so slow to act in the minutes and hours before tsunamis slammed into their shores, killing almost 150,000.

"There's a lot more to this. Why is the US sending a warship? Why is a senior commander who was in Iraq going there?" whispered designer Mark Tyler, drinking a pint of beer at a bar in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district.

"This happened exactly a year after Bam," said Tyler, referring to the earthquake in Iran which killed 30,000 on December 26 last year. "Is that a coincidence? And there was no previous seismic activity recorded in Sumatra before the quake, which is very strange," he said, nodding somberly.

I'd like a pint of what Mark Tyler's drinking. Unfortunately, Tyler's not the only one spouting conspiracy theories about a 9.0 earthquake and the predictable tidal waves that followed the massive temblor. The rumors run the gamut from aliens correcting a wobble in Earth's orbit (question: why??) to fisherman-hating Americans. No one wants to face the notion that the world creates freakish, random events that can wipe out entire towns and people by the tens of thousands.

I understand the impulse, but the results are simply embarrassing. It only demotivates the people affected to help out, give assistance, do something to help. It gives people an excuse to give up. Aliens caused it? How can we fight that? The Americans let it happen, so let them clean it up. The people in the region closest to the victims prefer to drink the Kool-Aid and wallow in conspiracies rather than do something constructive. It's a shame, and it will cost lives if enough people simply shrug off the catastrophe. That is the price of living in a fantasy world.

Technical Difficulties Today At Hosting Matters

We have been experiencing a number of technical difficulties today with Hosting Matters, which they have diligently worked to correct. If you have had problems loading the page, just keep trying back. The problem affects everything, including the comments programming and my access to the system. Please be patient and keep checking on our status.

In the meantime, don't forget to check our progress on World Relief Day!

NOTE: Unfortunately, the system ate my gracious and generous post congratulating USC for winning the national championship last night in the Orange Bowl. I know this will disappoint James from Folsom, but I just can't recall what I wrote. Darn.

UPDATE 5:45 PM: Still more problems this afternoon. Sorry for the down time; this second outage appears to have affected all Hosting Matters servers.

UN To Visit Iranian Military Site

The IAEA announced that the UN will inspect an Iranian military site that the US believes was used for nuclear weaponization activities:

The inspection will be part of the U.N. investigation into allegations Iran has carried out work linked to nuclear 'weaponization,' the process of testing or assembling a warhead and attaching it to a delivery system. ...

According to globalsecurity.org, a Web Site run by a private Washington-based research group, the massive Parchin complex, around 30 km (19 miles) south of Tehran, is the center of Iran's munitions industry.

Officials from the United States and several other countries said in September that Parchin may be a site where Iran was testing explosives that would be appropriate for an atom bomb.

Although ElBaradei played down the U.S. allegations at the time, agency inspectors asked Tehran to visit the site. They want to take environmental samples to rule out the possibility that Iran had been working with nuclear materials at Parchin.

Either Iran has cleaned up Parchin or the intelligence was faulty. The mullahcracy would not risk detection with a voluntary inspection. The US and the EU-3 also know this, so perhaps the UN and IAEA will look for other indicators at Parchin. I suspect, however, that the end result of this inspection will be a public-relations win for Iran.

Did Conyers' Staff Steal Food From The Hungry?

Drudge carried a report from the Detroit Free Press that the staff of Rep. John Conyers took turkeys from a Detroit food bank and passed them to their cronies, rather than to the poor people in Conyers' district. The Grinches at Conyers' office has thus far refused to provide an accounting of the food:

The director of a Detroit food bank wants to know what happened to 60 turkeys -- 720 pounds of frozen birds -- that his charity gave to members of U.S. Rep. John Conyers' local staff two days before Thanksgiving to give to needy people.

Conyers' Detroit office promised an accounting of any turkey distribution by Dec. 27, but the Gleaners Community Food Bank had received no paperwork as of Tuesday, said the charity's director, Agostinho Fernandes.

Fernandes said he became suspicious that the turkeys didn't get to poor people after hearing from a friend that a federal court worker had said he was offered free turkeys from a member of Conyers' staff.

Conyers has long held himself out as a hero of the downtrodden. Now it looks like the hero has a staff of knaves. They claim to have received a list of the needy from Michigan's Family Independence Agency, but the FIA not only never heard of the Conyers giveaway, they almost never release names to anyone.

Gleaners CFB has asked multiple times for an accounting, as has the Detroit Free Press. None has been forthcoming from John Conyers or his staff. The DFP reports that an unnamed source says the fate of the turkeys is murky even in the office and that no one really knows what happened to the food for the hungry. It appears that Conyers' staff took the holiday meals for the most vulnerable in Detroit and used them to spread a little influence among the more powerful. It's detestable, and if Conyers can't provide an accounting for the food -- for which his staff never reimbursed Gleaners -- the House Ethics Committee should look into it, as well as the Detroit PD.

Staples Folds, Will Join Sinclair News Boycott

The attack on Sinclair Broadcasting by Media Matters for America has claimed its first scalp. Staples, the huge office-supplies retailer, has pulled its advertising for all Sinclair news programming, effective January 10th:

Office-supply retailer Staples Inc. is pulling its advertising from news programming on Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. television stations, saying the decision was fueled in part by e-mails from customers angry at what they consider to be the broadcaster's right-wing bias in news and commentary. ...

Staples, which has 1,400 stores, will continue to buy advertising during other programs on Sinclair's 62 stations but, as of Jan. 10, no longer will advertise during news programs, which include "The Point," a daily conservative commentary by Sinclair Vice President Mark E. Hyman.

MMA claims a "partial" victory, stating that all they want is to raise the issue of fairness in regards to the Sinclair commentary rather than a boycott. However, listing all the advertisers for Sinclair and urging their readership to complain certainly looks, smells, and sounds like a boycott, whether MMA chooses to acknowledge it or not. Their statement distancing themselves from any boycott action is disingenuous at best.

MMA, as I've stated before, raises a complete non-issue at Sinclair. The Point is an editorial; it's supposed to take a point of view. Sinclair should not be forced into publishing political speech of which it disapproves, and other stations certainly have the opportunity to broadcast their own editorials in response. Biased reporting doesn't spring from editorials but from poorly-executed news reports that fail to account for all sides of an issue. For real bias, all one has to do is see CBS' forgeries in their TANG smear on George Bush. (Catch up on that story here.)

Besides, boycotts are a free-market approach to political action. MMA shouldn't be ashamed to call for one, if that's what it wants -- and they obviously do. In fact, Staples might want to hear from other people who don't share MMA's point of view on Sinclair's editorials. If you'd like to make your feelings known, simply go here and tell Staples what you think of their courage in support of free speech. You can remind them that Office Depot and Office Max can easily replace Staples for office-supply needs.

North Korean Civil Defense Plans: Protect The Portraits!

North Korea issued civil-defense guidelines to its people in anticipation of attack by the United States, with preparations ranging from the mundane to the ridiculous:

North Korea has ordered its people to be ready for a protracted war against the United States, issuing guidelines on evacuating to underground bunkers with weapons, food and portraits of leader Kim Jong Il. ...

The manual urged the military to build restaurants, wells, restrooms and air purifiers in underground bunkers where government offices and military units will move in if war breaks out.

When North Koreans evacuate to underground facilities, they should make sure that they take the portraits, plaster busts and bronze statues of Kim and his parents so that they can "protect" them in a special room.

Kim signed the order himself as the chairman of the Central Military Committee, a position that had not been publicly associated with anyone after the death of Kim's father. It also appears to end speculation on Kim's status after a series of contradictory impressions over the past few months, with reports of Kim's pictures being removed from public places. Or it could just as easily be a reaction to pressure coming from within the North Korean military to unseat Kim, which would explain all of the above.

How seriously should people take this order? It's the first time that any such document has been publicly released by the notoriously clandestine North Koreans, which means that they intend it for political effect. An edict creating special protective rooms in underground shelters for pictures of Kim sounds like a satire in and of itself, although it will certainly stir the domestic population into a temporary unity behind Kim. Kim's problem will occur when the threatened US invasion never materializes, cutting his credibility even further with his people.

If Kim needs this piece of hysterical propaganda in order to get his restful population into compliance, his regime may well be in danger of crumbling from its own internal rot. The military would be the most likely place for a palace coup to start, and Kim's sudden and public announcement of his command appears to be some sort of effort to bring them to heel.

Kristof: Yes, We're Stingy -- And Full Of Ourselves

The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof channels his inner Jan Egeland and scolds us for being stingy in our assistance to poorer nations. Using both public and private aid, he lambastes the US as a "Land of Penny Pinchers":

The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know.

But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea (140,000).

And that's where we're stingy.

Kristof points out that America spends 15 cents per day per person on official development aid -- a key qualifier -- and even with private development aid, that number only goes to 21 cents. As Kristof points out, that amounts to about a third of our daily soft-drink outlay. That puts us among the lower ranks of industrialized nations for development aid, although Kristof leaves our exact position murky.

However, that qualifier misses quite a few cents that we've spent over the past few decades. First, we've footed 25% of the bill for the United Nations, as well as absorbing all of the security costs and the land at Turtle Bay. Next, we've provided military security for Europe the past sixty years -- so much so that the Europeans (excluding the UK) were able to neglect their own military readiness in favor of social programs and foreign-aid handouts. We spend a fortune on defending some of the wealthiest countries in the world, and then they have the temerity to scold us for a lack of assistance?

Besides, the example that Kristof uses as a comparison to tsunami relief has a simple solution that the Left won't tolerate. He complains that the tsunami deaths equal that of the annual victims of malaria. After acknowledging that Americans see foreign aid as money "down the rathole", he says this:

One of the most unforgettable people I've met is Nhem Yen, a Cambodian grandmother whose daughter had just died of malaria, leaving two small children. So Nhem Yen was looking after her four children and two grandchildren, and she could afford only one mosquito net to protect them from malarial mosquitoes. Each night, she had to choose which of the six children would sleep under the net.

Do we really think that paying $5 for a mosquito net to keep Nhem Yen's children alive would be money down a rathole?

When I contracted the most lethal form of malaria, in Congo, I was easily cured because I could afford the best medicines. But to save money, African children are given medicines that cost only 5 cents a dose but aren't very effective; the medicine that would actually save their lives is unaffordable, at $1 a dose. Do we really think $1 a dose for medicine to save a child is money down a rathole?

But the answer to malaria isn't treating the symptoms as much as it is eliminating the disease altogether. The best proven method for this is DDT. Everywhere it has been introduced it has produced radical decreases in malaria. It's cheap, and the vast drop in malaria cases would allow the more expensive medicine to be prescribed more often. However, environmentalists insist on blocking the use of DDT anywhere in the world, claiming that its effect on the environment outweighs the human lives it saves. That's all well and good in the US, where malaria doesn't exist and other pesticides can replace DDT, but in poorer nations, the other pesticides aren't effective against the mosquitoes that carry malaria.

There are many kinds of stinginess. There are many kinds of aid. Before the Europeans start pointing fingers at our development aid, perhaps they should take a look at how much they spend on their own defense, and how much we've paid for it since World War II. And if the Left thinks that malaria is a good issue on which to discuss American stinginess, then let them take the wraps off of DDT and eliminate malaria in Africa for good.

Sheriff Trump

Power goes to a person's head, sometimes more quickly than others. The new sheriff of Clayton County, Georgia seems to be one of the former. Victor Hill celebrated his first day in office by firing 27 people, stationing snipers around the office and driving the fired officers home in prisoner transports:

The sheriff, Victor Hill, 39, defended the firings and said he had the right to shake up the department in whatever way he felt necessary.

Sheriff Hill also said it was necessary to fire the workers the way he did, including taking some deputies home in vans normally used to transport prisoners because the deputies were barred from using county cars.

A Georgia judge disagreed with Sheriff Hill, ordering the 27 officers to be reinstated. Hill tried to use the murder of Derwin Brown in nearby DeKalb County as an excuse to not just fire the 27 officers but in the overkill security preparations Hill employed. However, Hill doesn't have any evidence to show that the 27 employees conspired to kill him. In fact, Hill didn't give any reason at all for firing them, some of whom were the department's longest-tenured officers.

One reason has become apparent. Hill, the first black sheriff of Clayton County, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he would replace the fired officers -- all white -- with black officers. The new affirmative-action program enraged the new chairman of the county commission, Eldrin Bell, who also happens to be black. He filed the lawsuit that resulted in the restraining order.

Sheriff Hill had an eventful first day in office. Unless the county commission or the citizens of Clayton County recall Hill, I foresee this restraining order as the first in a long series for Hill.

Mystery Voters Grow In Washington

The uncertainty surrounding the gubernatorial election in Washington continues to grow, as even the Seattle Post-Intelligencer now reports wide discrepancies between ballot counts and voter rolls:

Thousands of "mystery voters" in the counties of King, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark and Kitsap appear to be Republican Dino Rossi's best prospect for challenging the legitimacy of the closest and most contentious gubernatorial election in the state's history.

The state Republican Party yesterday called on county election officials to explain what the GOP says is a nearly 8,500-vote discrepancy between county vote tallies and the number of people credited with actually voting in the election.

Democrats claim that the GOP used preliminary lists and that the discrepancies will narrow once counties update their voter rolls. However, no one now disputes that the election will have little credibility if the margin does not significantly decrease. The difference gives the appearance that several thousand more ballots got counted than were cast -- and in an election that wound up with a difference of 130 votes, that may be enough to successfully contest the results. The Secretary of State, who just certified Christine Gregoire the winner over Dino Rossi, stated that this issue could undo Gregoire's win.

Former governor Dan Evans wrote that the only solution, given all the problems with the conduct of the election, is a new run-off between the two candidates. It seems likely that Gregoire will not sit easy in the mansion either way.

Clintons Losing Grip On Democrats?

In a move that calls into question Hillary Clinton's expected run for the presidency in 2008, Harold Ickes has pulled out of the race for chair of the Democratic National Committee:

Former Clinton aide Harold Ickes and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk let top Democrats know Tuesday that they won't be running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. ...

Ickes, a longtime Democratic activist, also let party members know he would not be running.

"I just decided I probably did not have enough of the attributes (a chairman needs) to do the party justice," Ickes said in an interview.

Ickes has strong ties to the Clintons. He served for years as Bill Clinton's deputy chief of staff and has been a big money man for both Bill and Hillary. While the DNC chair may have been more high-profile than usual for Ickes' comfort zone, having him ensconced at the heart of DNC strategizing would have been a tacit endorsement of Hillary for 2008.

Obviously, Ickes could not generate the necessary support for the DNC chair. The two front-runners appear to be Howard Dean and Tim Roemer, neither of which have much connection to the Clinton entourage. The Democrats appear to be shying away from the Clintons, making Hillary's presidential aspirations more remote than ever. With Dean, one can expect Democratic money to back a candidate that will energize the Deaniacs -- not exactlt the best match for Hillary's newly-found centrism. Roemer likely will want to find a candidate that attracts moderates on abortion and Midwesterners, again an unlikely draw for Hillary.

For better or worse, it appears that the Democrats have finally begun to shrug off the Clinton influence. Hillary sat out the 2004 presidential race in the assumption that Bush could not be beaten and that her time had not yet arrived. Instead, she may have missed her best chance.

The Best Television Since The Chevy Chase Show

Al Gore's new TV "network", dubbed INdTV for now, recently sent out a prospectus for potential partners that outlined the type of original programming the former VP plans to air. Richard Leiby reports in today's Washington Post that INdTV hardly appears ready to raise the level of politics in the US:

An insider cautioned us yesterday that the e-mail represents just a sliver of the conceptual pie, but the potential must-see lineup includes:

• "That's F*&#ed Up: Is there something unfathomable going on around the corner or down the street? Some state of affairs that just doesn't make sense? You can rant all you want -- it just better be good TV."

It looks like Gore aims at what he and his backers see as the hip-hop audience, complete with expletives -- even if they don't have the cojones to spell it out. In fact, the rest of the lineup for INdTV shows a similar commitment to quality programming, whether it's "All Nighter," an amateur carbon-copy of Comedy Channel's "Insomniac," or "INdTV Paparazzi," which asks viewers to get someone famous to say something substantial on video. The common thread to all of INdTV's programming is that their viewers must supply it, only receiving payment ($200) if it's used. Think of it as "America's Most Pathetic Political Videos," with a bigger stiff at the helm than Bob Saget.

It's possible that Al Gore might use this to energize the youth vote and capture them for the Democrats. That was his stated goal when he created the INdTV venture. It seems to me, though, that what INdTV aims to do is to capture the idiocy of its viewers as sideshow-type entertainment. Reality TV like American Idol may pull in viewers, but the platform on which it runs (Fox) ensures that the producers will find enough gems in the rough to put together some compelling performances. INdTV may find a couple of gems, but the overwhelming majority of their submissions will wind up being the same quality as the so-bad-they're-hilarious outtakes that AI plays occasionally.

Gore could have run for President again this cycle; instead, he backed Howard Dean just before the front-runner's implosion and sunk his time and money into creating INdTV. Dean had his one-time meltdown, but Gore has slowly dissolved over the past four years, and INdTV appears to be his "Yeeargh!"

Sick Day

Off to a slow start today, obviously -- fighting a cold and fever. I'll be posting this afternoon as soon as I go through some e-mail.

The World Relief Day has skyrocketed, thanks to all of you!

CQ On Hugh Hewitt Tonight

I'll be on Hugh Hewitt's show at 5:30 PM CT tonight to discuss World Relief Day. Be sure to tune in!

Osama's Nightmare

Claude Salhani at the Washington Times presents an analysis of Osama bin Laden's reaction to the two outbreaks of democracy in Southwest Asia this month, and talks about how desperate the terror chief is to stop them:

Osama bin Laden, the man who since 9/11 brought fear into the hearts of millions, is now running scared. The master terrorist is afraid; he is very afraid.

What frightens bin Laden today are not American B-2 super-stealth bombers capable of dropping tons of high explosives on him from unseen heights, nor the tens of thousands of troops and legions of intelligence officers looking for him since September 2001. He knows how to cope with them. What frightens bin Laden today is the ballot box.

The leader of al-Qaida appears particularly concerned over the prospects of pending elections in two Arab countries -- the Palestinian Authority and Iraq -- both scheduled for later this month.

Salhani discusses how Osama wants to form a new, pan-Islamic caliphate throughout Southwest Asia, with its capitol no doubt being Jerusalem, if not Mecca itself. His Wahhabist outlook stands in diametrical opposition to self-rule through democracy. The Caliphate, after all, hearkens back to strongman rule through the appointment of Allah, not the petty concerns of Muslims and dhimmis in general.

Unfortunately for Osama, a caliphate sounds pretty good to those trapped in oppressive lands ruled by petty, tribal tyrants -- but it begins to lose its appeal once the people have a taste of running their own government. While he can rile the Sunnis in Iraq by claiming that the elections there are an American sham (a point of view that our mainstream media helps to feed), the Palestinian elections are harder to write off. With Arafat gone, Palestinians have their first opportunity ever to take their destiny into their own hands by demanding a fair and transparent electoral process that puts real power into the Palestinian legislature. Once achieved, Osama's vision of single-caliph rule will pale by comparison.

Again, the wisdom of combating terror by freeing the people of the Middle East becomes plain. As long as Arabs see themselves as unfit for democracy, either through religious dogma or tribal history, Osama's call for a caliph to put all things right remains a seductive fantasy even with its failed history in the Ottoman Empire. For that matter, as long as the West considers Arabs unfit for democracy, that fantasy thrives in opposition. With the examples of Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian Authority to demonstrate the power of self-rule, Osama's fantasy becomes a fairy tale, a la Brothers Grimm, of the destructive power of unrealistic wishes.

That's Osama's nightmare, and that is how he loses the war on terror. He knows it and will pull out all stops to keep elections from fruition. That is why no delay should be considered in conducting the elections, and why we need to stick with the strategy of liberation and forward engagement.

Ankle-Biting My Christianity

Mitch at Shot In The Dark drew my attention to a piece by local crank Mark Giselson on his blog that calls into question the Christianity of the Northern Alliance bloggers. (No, I'm not kidding.) He manages to figure out a search engine well enough to find how many times we've all mentioned Jesus on our blogs and from there discerns that we have little faith in our Christianity.

Mitch explodes this drivel in great detail. I won't go that far, although anyone who presumes Power Line is some crypto reference to Christianity clearly needs the enema of a really good fisking. (Missing the fact that at least one of the three Power Line bloggers is Jewish also demonstrates Giselson's idiocy.) Here's what Giselson has to say about me:

Despite higher hopes for Captain’s Quarters, I got an immediate negatory noise when I searched for Jesus on their front page. I also drew a complete blank with Google which I knew couldn’t be correct, so I scrolled down and found their internal search engine which immediately pulled up 31 links. OK, not bad. But subtract Mel Gibson and you’re suddenly down to 27 links, lose The DaVinci Code and you’re at 26, losing Reggie White makes it 25 . . . the fact is the Cap’n doesn’t seem terribly obsessed with Jesus.

Actually, I'm tempted not to gripe too much, as the not bad represented the highest rating of the group. However, what appears to have escaped Giselson's notice is that we are political bloggers, not religion bloggers. I've some experience with Catholic apologetics, but I don't find that a topic that interests me enough to write posts on it. I do sometimes write about my faith, when inspired to do so, but mostly I refer people to the Anchoress and to Joe Carter for better work in these areas.

Interestingly, my posts on Mel Gibson directly spoke to matters of faith; I'm not sure why Giselson discounts them out of hand. Perhaps it's because he never bothered to read them. If he did, he has some comprehension issues that would explain this post.

Why don't I write more about Christianity and my faith? I don't think CQ readers will find my insights terribly interesting, for one thing. I also tend to consider my Catholicism as a private matter rather than blog fodder. When I'm inspired, I write about it; otherwise, I leave it to those more inspired than me. It doesn't mean that I don't consider myself a practicing Catholic or that my faith doesn't have much import in my life. I think that point would have been obvious to most people.

Jesus instructed his followers not to judge the status of others' souls or faith. That arrogates to man what is God's alone. When I start a faith-based blog, then perhaps Giselson can gain some insight into my faith and its strength or weakness. Until then, Giselson should remember to put his straw-man dolls away when playing with his keyboard. The confusion obviously overwhelms him.

Good Luck On That Sale

Drudge links to a Broadcasting & Cable item that reports on a meeting between beleaguered CBS News president Andrew Heyward and the White House. Heyward, rumored to be on the chopping block when the long-awaited internal investigation of the Rathergate fiasco is released, may need a truce with the White House to save his job:

Let the fence-mending begin. According to a Broadcasting & Cable source in Washington, D.C., CBS News president Andrew Heyward, along with Washington bureau chief Janet Leissner, recently met with White House communications director Dan Bartlett, in part to repair chilly relations with the Bush administration. ...

Heyward was “working overtime to convince Bartlett that neither CBS News nor Rather had a vendetta against the White House,” our source says, “and from here on out would do everything it could to be fair and balanced.” CBS declined to comment.

On its face, Heyward's mission appears doomed. No one at the White House will buy CBS' protestations of neutrality for a moment. Even if Heyward and CBS were sincere, the broadcaster has a long history of skewed reporting against Republicans in general, and the Bush family in particular. None of the decisionmakers involved in the forged-memos scandal have left CBS yet, either voluntarily or otherwise. Mary Mapes, the producer who green-lighted the memos, spent five years on her crusade to find something with which to smear George Bush. The White House now should believe that Mapes will play straight down the middle, or Rather in his new duties at 60 Minutes Wednesday?

But even worse, the sight of a broadcaster going to the White House to plead its case of neutrality just plain smells bad. CBS should have worked at being objective for fifty years, and had they done so, Heyward wouldn't need to go, hat in hand, to Dan Bartlett to beg forgiveness. In fact, all they need to do is start being objective in their news coverage (or at least balanced) and their work would speak for itself. Heyward's supplications look like butt-covering than any real change of direction for his news division.

What's more, CBS shouldn't go pleading to the White House for a break. It makes them beholden to Bush in a manner that does more to damage their credibility than to repair it. Conservatives may revel in the humbling of the Tiffany Network, but the result will be to undermine anything positive reported by CBS on the Bush Administration. They will become suspect through their debt.

If nothing else, Heyward's diplomatic mission shows that the Thornburg report likely has harsh criticism of the CBS News division. If not, Heyward would have stayed home and rode this one out.

US Helicopters Bring Hope, But Children Increasingly At Risk

US helicopters flew missions into Aceh yesterday, airlifting the badly wounded they found and distributing crucial water and food supplies to the survivors they found in the tsunami-devastated region:

U.S. helicopters shuttled the injured and the homeless, many of them children, out of some of the worst-hit parts of tsunami-devastated Aceh province on Monday, as reports surfaced of trafficking in orphans from the disaster.

Pilots skimmed low over flattened villages and jungles on the west coast of Sumatra island looking for signs of life, touching down briefly to collect the badly injured and fling out packages of food and water.

"They were ecstatic as we flew in. They were blowing us kisses. I think they were really amazed to see us, although some of the children seemed a bit spooked," U.S. Seahawk pilot Lt. Cmdr. Joel Moss told Reuters after his second mission.

"Yesterday was the best day of flying ever in my career. My mission is normally combat and search and rescue. We are picking up people, giving out food. I could do this for a year. None of us wants to go home."

The children aren't just spooked, according to this same Reuters report. They're being victimized in the aftermath of the tsunami, although no specifics are given:

Indonesian officials said meanwhile that they had launched an investigation into unconfirmed reports of child trafficking in the wake of the disaster that wiped whole towns off the map.

"We cannot say that it has happened, because at the moment it is a chaotic situation. However, the ministry will investigate as we cannot tolerate such a thing," said Makmur Sunusi, a social ministry official.

Earlier reports talked about newly-childless parents adopting orphaned children ad hoc in order to ease the grief suffered by all. However, this sounds like a more exploitative situation, such as black-market adoption sales or something more abusive. Unfortunately, with the destruction wrought by the tidal waves, the local governments have collapsed and until they can be reconstituted or martial law effectively imposed, the Indonesians may not be able to stop it.

This demonstrates the wisdom of Bush's quick action to dispatch several thousand American servicepeople and the transport facilities of two carrier groups to the Indian Ocean. What's needed is fast action, not a lot of on-screen emoting. We cannot allow Sumatra and Indonesian society to descend into complete collapse, as what will replace the democratic structure likely won't be very pretty for the West.

South Korea Sells Out

The New York Times reports today on the sudden distaste for asylum-seekers from North Korea with the Russians, but James Brooke's report talks more about South Korea than the Russian Federation. Defections from Kim Jong-Il's workers paradise has always neen an issue for the Russians (as well as the Chinese), but one that the Russians had tolerated until now. The change appears driven by North Korea and, surprisingly, South Korea as well:

In a new twist, diplomats from South Korea now work to discourage defectors from North Korea.

Under new rules, South Korea is reducing resettlement payments to North Koreans by two-thirds. Defectors are to be scrupulously investigated. South Korea says that will help weed out criminals, spies and ethnic Koreans from China.

Human rights advocates say South Korea's stricter policy is intended to curry favor with China and North Korea, and to slow a rising influx of refugees, which hit a record high of 1,850 at the end of 2004.

"The situation in South Korea itself has changed," said an ethnic Korean-Russian travel agent here who used to help North Koreans get to Seoul. "Now it seems that North Koreans are not welcomed there anymore."

Seoul appears to be less concerned with security issues than with appeasing and enabling the Stalinist North Korean government. Suddenly now that the two Korean capitols are immersed in nuclear negotiations, the South Koreans have withdrawn the traditional and laudable hospitality they've offered to their cousins escaping Kim Jong-Il's oppression and starvation. Russians have followed suit, if only because they don't want North Korean refugees staying in Russia permanently due to Seoul's refusal to accept them.

South Koreans need to ask themselves if they believe in freedom for all Koreans, or just below the 38th Parallel.

UPDATE: Read Tim Worstall's piece for better perspective on Russian motivations, which appear much more understandable than those of South Korea.

The Morrissey Method?

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has long been one of my favorite blogs on ... well, a whole range of topics, especially matters of faith. Joe and I started blogging within a couple of weeks of each other and we've occasionally corresponded on our progress in our avocation. Tonight Joe provides his readers with a primer on successful blogging that is much too kind to me:

Not being a member of this elite circle of bloggers, I can’t provide advice from my own personal experience. But just as a biographer can glean insights from a study of great presidents, I think a study of the “A”-list can provide a few clues into what makes them successful. After giving the subject a considerable amount of thought and attention, I’ve noticed three specific ways for breaking into the top tier of bloggers:

A. Possess the attributes of the top ten bloggers (e.g., white American male Ivy League-educated lawyer/journalist/academic). (For more see: Notes on Blogging #9 -- How to Become a Higher Being)

B. Be hired by Nick Denton, the foremost blog entrepreneur and purveyor of smut/gossip/smutty gossip within the blogosphere.

C. Follow the “Morrissey Method.”

Joe may not consider himself an "elite" blogger, but I think he is too modest here. What Joe calls the "Morrissey Method" could just as easily be called the "Carter Method", and just as accurately. Joe does wonderful work, both on his blog and in his service to the country, and his kind words are much appreciated.

Read Joe's entire series on blogging for the beginner. He has some great insights for those who are new to the blogosphere, both as reader and blogger.

Syria Injects Itself Into Iraqi Elections

Syria has started an initiative to facilitate voting amongst its Iraqi expatriate community in the upcoming elections, according to the AP:

Iraqi expatriates in Syria will have the opportunity to vote in this month's Iraqi elections under an agreement signed Sunday between the Syrian government and the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration.

More than 250,000 Iraqis are believed to be living in Syria. Many of them fled here to escape worsening security conditions since the onset of the U.S.-led war that ousted former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein last year.

The agreement says Iraqis wishing to cast their votes in Syria must prove their eligibility and register at a Damascus election center from Jan. 17 to 23. Polling will take place over three days, from Jan. 28 to 30.

Does anyone in the State Department think this is a bad idea? The Iraqis in Syria likely will be the Saddam loyalists that fled in the face of the American invasion, hardly likely to support a democratic process in their homeland. Nor do their Ba'athist cousins in Syria have much use for representative government. Since when does a military dictatorship like Syria get trusted to conduct an honest election for another country? It seems to me that the US, UK, and the Iraqis themselves want to avoid Syrian influence on this election, not invite it.

Richard Armitage, unfortunately, appears to have endorsed this:

Following a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus on Sunday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told reporters he had stressed the "absolute importance of the Iraqi elections" and the full participation of all Iraqis.

"I believe I found here in Syria the same view," he said.

Following his visit, a Foreign Ministry statement said the Syrian and U.S. sides "agreed on the need for Iraqi elections to succeed in a way that represents the entire Iraqi people."

If this is an example of the Powell approach to foreign affairs and the war on terror, I look forward to Condoleezza Rice's stewardship at State with an impatient glee. Hopefully Armitage will already have left before she gets her coat off.

Can The UN Be Saved?

The New York Times reports on what can only be called an intervention for Kofi Annan in a Manhattan apartment that recently took place. Former US diplomat Richard Holbrooke hosted a conference that told an impassive Annan that he needed to clean up his act and that of his staff in order to quit poking the American bear:

At the gathering, Secretary General Kofi Annan listened quietly to three and a half hours of bluntly worded counsel from a group united in its personal regard for him and support for the United Nations. The group's concern was that lapses in his leadership during the past two years had eclipsed the accomplishments of his first four-year term in office and were threatening to undermine the two years remaining in his final term.

They began by arguing that Mr. Annan had to refresh his top management team, and on Monday he will announce that Mark Malloch Brown, 51, the widely respected administrator of the United Nations Development Program, will become Mr. Annan's chief of staff, replacing Iqbal Riza, who announced his retirement on Dec. 22.

Their larger argument, according to participants, addressed two broad needs. First, they said, Mr. Annan had to repair relations with Washington, where the Bush administration and many in Congress thought he and the United Nations had worked against President Bush's re-election. Second, he had to restore his relationship with his own bureaucracy, where many workers said privately that his office protected high-level officials accused of misconduct.

What this intervention appears to have emphasized is style rather than substance. Sure, Annan apparently agreed to shake up his staff and reached out to Condoleezza Rice, but that's more or less what he's paid to do. The participants urged Annan to repair relations with an administration that they tacitly acknowledge he sabotaged in recent elections -- which makes George Bush less than motivated to save Annan's bacon. He's not paid to interfere with domestic politics anywhere, and his credibility won't improve much with any amount of apple-polishing. His undersecretary, Jan Egeland, didn't help matters any by accusing Western nations of being "stingy" earlier this week.

Besides, the style isn't really the problem. Americans have serious questions about Annan's integrity and competence after his son got paid off by a major player in the Oil-For-Food corruption and his right-hand man, Benon Sevan, took money from the Iraqis in the form of oil futures worth millions. Aid programs in the Congo have descended into depravity, with UN staffers as well as troops exploiting women and children for sexual favors in relief camps, turning victims into prostitutes for survival. We don't see why our tax dollars should go to support any institution that allows such atrocities to happen regardless of who is in charge, nor do we want to remain associated with the stench of these scandals.

Whether Annan stays or goes is really secondary to the fact that the UN has no accountability for its failures. The General Assembly shows no remorse for the atrocities committed by the UN or for its abject corruption -- not surprising, as many benefitted from it. The prevailing mood in the Assembly and among some members of the Security Council is that the UN's mission is to check American power rather than free people from tyranny or stop terrorism. Annan only matters to the extent he enables this and refuses to accept any responsibility for the degradation of the UN under his administration.

Until the UN reforms itself and its approach, Annan and the UN are irrelevant. Holbrooke and his Kofi klatch would have been better making that point clear.

Heartless Media Morons

Sometimes Western journalists really make us all look so callous that Third World resentment becomes much more understandable. Case in point: London Times columnist Matthew Parris, who asks us to enjoy the tsunami and its aftermath, as natural disasters keep the world from being too boring. No, I'm not kidding:

If it were our choice to trigger this seizure, our hand upon the lever of human fortune, would we have pulled the lever? Of course not.

So why the thrill?

I have hesitated before using that word “thrill”. It is easily misunderstood. It might seem to make light of the blackest few days ever experienced in the lives of millions. But all the reciting in the world of the scale of these miseries, all the acknowledgement we can make of the sympathy which they evoke, cannot hide a small, uncomfortable thought which (I am pretty confident) has occurred to you as it has occurred to me.

The thought is expressed in the word (and the punctuation) “Wow!”

I'm glad he can appreciate the "thrill" of seeing 150,000 people die in a few moments of cataclysmic destruction. However, the people closest to it don't consider the loss of their loved ones a thrill of any sort, nor do I suspect they would endorse the notion that people should take some sort of entertainment from their devastation. Another case in point would be the parents of the children swept out to sea or crushed beneath the waves, lost forever. These mothers and fathers not only fail to see the thrill of nature, but have not yet accepted its results:

As dawn breaks over Sri Lanka's coast, dozens of parents come to the beach where huge waves seized their children a week ago. "They believe their kids are alive and the sea will return them — one day," UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy said on Sunday, after touring this island country's tsunami-devastated shore.

Children accounted for a staggering 40 percent, or 12,000, of Sri Lanka's death total of 30,000, officials said. But without bodies to mourn over, many parents find it hard to believe their children are dead. Some children were buried in mass graves, before parents were told. Many were swept out to sea. Others may still await discovery in some of the island's 800 refugee centers.

Mr. Parris should interview these people to determine their answer to his coldhearted and shallowminded question. I'd bet that they would pay every last cent they have to just have one more moment with their beloved children. The editors at the Times exercised the same poor judgment and taste as Parris by allowing it to run while the dead still await burial and the people in the Indian Ocean area face grave threats to their existence from thirst, starvation, and disease. Someone should apologize for this travesty, and immediately.

Two Playoff Teams Going In Opposite Directions

The First Mate and I both are fighting off colds, and so we cut short a shopping day after a few stops to spend the rest of the day in bed. I decided to keep tabs on my two NFL teams, both of which played early games, televised in the Twin Cities.

My favorite team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, had little to gain from this road game in Buffalo. Their tremendous rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had been injured in the last game and the Steelers listed him only as the emergency QB for the game. In fact, most of the Steelers sat out this game, allowing the Buffalo Bills to hope that they could squeak into the playoffs against the second- and third-string Pittsburgh lineup they faced.

However, even with the replacements, the Steelers dominated the Bills while rolling to a 29-24 win. With future Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis sitting on the bench and most of the starting offensive line resting up, RB Willie Parker took up the slack with a 100-yard game on 19 rushes. The defense scored its own touchdown to cinch the victory. They became the first AFC team ever to go 15-1.

The Steelers took a game that meant nothing -- they'd already clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs -- and allowed their benchers to up the intensity to championship levels. With the depth the Steelers have at all positions, it looks near-impossible to stop the Pittsburgh juggernaut.

On the other hand, the Minnesota Vikings backed into the playoffs with a typically embarrassing effort against the lowly Washington Redskins. The Skins won only their sixth game all season against what's supposed to be one of the most explosive offenses in the league. Instead, the Vikings could only muster ten points until the final three seconds of the game, when they added a touchdown and a two-pointer to come within a field goal.

And here, amazingly, the Vikings managed to shame themselves even further. An onsides kick, quickly recovered, could have given the Vikings one last shot at the end zone and an honorable entry into the playoffs, although with just two seconds left, the chances were mighty slim. Incredibly, the man that the Vikings would have needed to take that one last shot walked off the field before the kickoff! No one who watches Viking football should have been surprised to see Randy Moss giving up on his teammates with the game on the line -- but the humiliation of his lazy-assed canter into the lockerroom while the Vikings special-teams squad tried to inspire themselves shows the missing heart that plagues this Vikings team.

The juxtaposition of these two teams could not have been more dramatic. On one hand, the team that had no reason to push themselves played a gritty, determined game that sent a message to every AFC team in the playoffs. On the other, we have a team that had to win today to guarantee a playoff spot and they couldn't even be bothered to stick it out to the end. Pathetic doesn't even begin to cover it.

Still Clueless After All These Weeks

Two articles on the Internet this afternoon show that the Democrats and their candidate still have no clue why they lost the presidential election, even after eight weeks of soul-searching. Adam Nagourney reports on the analyses promulgated by party leaders about their loss and what it means for their future:

With exception of a few Democratic outliers in Ohio, few people dispute that the election for president is done and decided: President Bush won and John Kerry lost.

But as the new year begins, no such consensus exists among Democrats about why Mr. Kerry was defeated, and the party is locked in a battle of interpretation over just what went wrong. Was it values? Terrorism and Iraq? A better Republican get-out-the-vote operation or a rush of Hispanics to President Bush? A gawky candidate with little to say?

Presidential elections often produce a clear story line, a lesson for winners and losers alike. Not this one, at least not yet, and that is a matter of increasing concern for Democrats who would like to learn from the past as they face a series of critical decisions, including picking a new party chairman and laying out a plan to avoid even more losses in the 2006 Congressional races. And there is the immediate tactical question of how stridently to push back against Mr. Bush's efforts to change Social Security and the tax code.

Harry Reid tells Nagourney that the Democrats failed to speak to rural voters, noting that the Republicans blew Democrats out in rural Nevada. Well, that's hardly news; anyone who looks at a county-based red/blue map could provide that analysis. Reid doesn't explain why, nor does he pretend to know:

"We all have come up with our individual thoughts, but as far as coalescing on what happened - I don't think there's been a determination about what really happened," said Harry Reid, the new Senate Democratic leader. "It's not that easy to figure out."

Isn't that why they pick party leaders -- to figure these things out? Thus far, Reid has hardly distinguished himself on any particular issue ever since succeeding former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. He started his career as the Democrats' point man by issuing a bizarre statement calling Clarence Thomas an "embarrassment" as a Supreme Court justice, without specifying exactly what Reid found embarrassing. In the same statement, he dismayed a large section of his party by endorsing Antonin Scalia for Chief Justice.

Now we understand just how badly the GOP damaged the Democrats by chasing Daschle out of office.

On the other hand, the Democrats' other Congressional leader hardly does any better. Nancy Pelosi can't come up with anything better than claiming that GOP lies did them in:

Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, said that Democrats, despite their best efforts, had been outgunned on voter turnout by Republicans and that they didn't push back hard enough against what she described as false attacks.

"I don't subscribe to any of these notions that we have to examine our conscience as to who we are," Ms. Pelosi said. "We know who we are. We know what we stand for. We'll make it clearer in the non-presidential election year what the differences are between the Democrats and the Republicans."

Of course. The only explanation that Pelosi can ever come up with is that Republicans lie, led by the eeeeeeevil Karl Rove. The Democratic leadership shows itself about as inept as any in recent memory. Nor does their candidate have much to add. Matt Drudge reports on an upcoming Newsweek article that has John Kerry sounding just about as clueless as the rest of the Democrats:

While he quarreled with descriptions of his speaking style as "soporific," Kerry tacitly acknowledged that he failed to connect with enough voters on a personal level. Jose Ferreira, Kerry's nephew, told his uncle, "Some people are saying that your candidacy was driven by ABB [Anything But Bush]." Kerry replied: "Do you think so?" Ferreira said that once people got to know Kerry, they were intensely loyal. "Those are the people I let down," Kerry said, falling silent. In conversation with Newsweek, Kerry seemed particularly interested in trying to find a way to speak to ordinary voters that didn't sound too grandiose or "political." Though Kerry did not directly criticize his friend Bob Shrum, it's clear he did not feel well served by his message makers and speechwriters.

The deeper problem may be Kerry's personality, which may be too distant or reserved to win mass affection. As Thomas left Kerry's house in November, Kerry called out and followed him down the street. Kerry wanted to show a letter from a schoolgirl that had been left on his stoop. The letter read, in part, "John Kerry, you're the greatest!" Kerry looked into the reporter's eye. "The pundits have never liked me," he said. "Is it the way I look? The way I sound?" He seemed vulnerable for a moment, then caught himself, smiled and walked home to his empty house.

So for Kerry, the problem was Bob Shrum or possibly the pundits who "never liked" him. So far, no one in the Democratic Party seems willing to take ownership of the lousy campaign run by Kerry this year. Not only did the superior intellect get snookered on multiple occasions by the supposed doofus of George Bush, but Kerry changed positions on almost every important issue in the campaign. Even on abortion -- about as safe an issue as the Democrats have amongst their faithful -- he managed to bone it up by claiming to believe in life at conception while approving of late-term abortions.

Ill do the Democrats a favor and explain it. Kerry made himself into one of the most untrustworthy candidates ever fielded, and the Democrats' surrender to the radical leftists in this campaign made them untrustworthy to a large number of centrists. Those voters may not like Bush's approach to abortion or to health care, but they weren't going to give the national-security reins to a candidate and a party that couldn't tell the truth if their lives depended on it.

When the Democrats finally figure it out, they may start reversing their six-year slide into minority status. I doubt that time will come with their current leadership.

UPDATE: Newsweek has released the article to the Internet. If you wanted a picture of Democratic cluelessness, you couldn't find any better example than this:

He never quite came out and said it, but Kerry sounded very much like a man who was running for president again. He has a mailing list with 2.9 million names and an organization in every state. His moneymen have not backed away. By and large, Kerry has not been blamed for the defeat, at least not the way former vice president Al Gore was after the 2000 election. Some of Kerry's followers are already plotting how Kerry can defeat Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses in 2008. The conventional wisdom, already congealing before Bush's second Inaugural, pictures Kerry and Clinton as the early Democratic front runners.

Conventional wisdom by whom? Teresa and Bill? If the Democrats think that John Kerry remains blameless for the terrible candidate that he was, whose fault is it? He couldn't beat Bush in an election that had their far-left base fired up instead of defecting to the Greens. Had the Democrats picked someone with any credibility on national security -- like Joe Lieberman -- they might have won this election. The GOP can't wait to run in 2008 against Kerry again.

Bush's Core Allows India To Flex Her Muscles

In a sign that George Bush had more in mind than just humbling the UN, Reuters analyzes the role India is playing in relief efforts for the massive tsunami damage and how that may transform India-US relations:

Within hours of the tsunami, India geared up for its biggest-ever relief operation, but not just with its own devastated coasts in its sights.

As New Delhi launched a relief effort along the eastern coast, ten warships -- backed by helicopters and transport aircraft and loaded with relief supplies -- also headed for Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Maldives, three neighbours badly hit in one of world's worst natural disasters.

A country campaigning for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, India refused to portray itself as a helpless victim.

"India has been trying to convey the image that it is a regional power, and a credible power in terms of having the ability to step in when required," said Uday Bhaskar of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

After Bush's invitation to form the "core group" along with Japan and Australia that will run the Indian Ocean relief efforts, India expressed gratitude towards the US -- and well it might. One key issue for India is Pakistan's involvement in relief efforts in key areas, such as the islands surrounding India. India wants to deploy a forward strategy to pre-empt any militant Islamic outreach to these militarily sensitive areas, let alone Indonesia or any other areas. As I wrote earlier, the devastation that has swamped the entire region gives everyone an opportunity to pursue political goals as well as humanitarian, and India wants to be sure that Islamofascism doesn't take advantage of it. Bush knows that India provides a powerful bulwark against terrorism, and what's more, they're already on the scene and resisting the role of victim.

Interestingly, India jumped aboard this idea even though the world's largest democracy has campaigned hard for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It measures the impact and usefulness of the UNSC that India willingly went along with Bush's plan to join the core group even though it embarrassed the aid agencies at the UN. Even those who wish to promote the UN apparently no longer trust it to deliver on its promises of aid, not surprisingly given its history (Oil-For-Food, Congo, Srebrenica, etc).

What does this tell us? No one really trusts the UN to guarantee security. If India did, they would have spurned Bush's offer and worked exclusively through Turtle Bay. The only people who still believe in the UN's "moral authority" are Clare Short and her coterie of benighted leftists around the world -- who mostly can be found in the media and on university campuses.