The Anniversary Of Judicial Dictatorship

Today is the 32nd anniversary of the seminal Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade that raised abortion to the status of a "right" and paved the way for the destruction of 43 million fetuses. Thirty years later, this piece of judicial activism appears to hang in the balance of a re-elected conservative president with a Senate majority, but in truth abortion faces less danger than presumed:

Coming just two days after George W. Bush's inauguration, Saturday's anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion is dominated by the hopes of one side — and fears of the other — that the president will try to overturn Roe v. Wade through appointments to fill expected high court vacancies. ...

Anti-abortion lawmakers in Congress and several states, meanwhile, are introducing the latest in a wave of measures aimed at making it more daunting to obtain an abortion. The bills would require abortion providers to tell women 20 weeks or more pregnant that an abortion could cause pain to their fetus, and to offer anesthesia administered directly to the fetus.

Abortion-rights supporters, simultaneously apprehensive and determined, are engaging in postelection reassessments, some of them wondering openly if their rhetoric and strategies should be modified to better compete for public support.

Pro-abortion activists have finally figured out that their unqualified support for the worst excesses of abortion, such as the disgusting late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion, and arguing for legalization up to the point of delivery has turned off a broad swath of support across the nation. Even Democrats like John Kerry now question the wisdom of blindly defending the extremist positions of NARAL and struggle to find a moral hook on which to defend the procedures. NARAL itself continues to insist that they can win the arguments on morality:

However, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said abortion-rights supporters should not cede the terrain of "moral values" to their opponents.

"We need to talk to neighbors around the kitchen table about the values of freedom and privacy; we don't run away from the arguments," she said in an interview. "Our movement is on stronger ground when we take seriously the moral dimensions of the issue."

NARAL estimates that if Roe v Wade is overturned, up to 38 states will ban abortions, a dire consequence for the pro-abortion crowd. However, the truth is that no laws against abortion exist at the moment, and any attempt to ban them post-SCOTUS reversal will take time and public debate. The American public appears to favor limited access to abortions, making a widespread ban unlikely. Further, Congress would likely take hold of this issue under the same philosophy as controlling any other medical procedure, and the result would be much different. Congress would likely restrict abortions to adults and narrow the window for them, saving countless lives, but probably doesn't have the numbers for a complete ban. Remembering that no outright legal bans exist now, the majority would have to settle for restricted access, even with George Bush as president.

The important point of that exercise is that the laws would be legislated, not dictated by nine unelected men or women in robes. The Supreme Court hijacked the purview of the legislative branch in RvW and a number of similar decisions, finding "rights" that simply don't exist and were never contemplated by the framers of the Constitution. There exists no intellectual or precedented basis for a "woman's right to choose," and in any case, the woman's right to choose is a misnomer. Abortion isn't a choice, it's avoiding the consequence of an earlier bad choice. (I wrote about my position on abortion here.)

Perhaps on this anniversary, we can not only reflect on the 43 million victims of our love affair with expediency over human life, we can also ponder the resultant society we will see if we continue to allow unelected judges to trump the voice of the people in the legislature.

NOTE: This was the thirty-second anniversary, not the 30th, as I wrote earlier. Thanks to Dafydd ab Hugh for the math lesson!

Another Great Way To Read Blog

You say you don't have time to read Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World by Hugh Hewitt, soon to be a best-seller? I'd tell you that even though the book is a brilliant look into the transformation of information markets, it's also incredibly accessible and very quick-paced, laced with the erudition and wit of its author that is evident in his radio show.

But if you really mean that you simply cannot stop and read books the traditional way, readers can now order the upcoming audio CD of Hugh's book. Now you can get the skinny on how blogs have changed the dynamics of the media marketplace, decentralizing the flow of information from a small group of decisionmakers to the wide and diverse realm of the bloggers. For the first time since Guttenburg, technology has unleashed the consumers of information and put them in charge of its use -- and we're the better for it.

Be sure to read Blog, and make sure your friends and colleagues do as well.

More Evidence Of Iraqi Enthusiasm

After the International Republican Institute released the results of a poll that showed a likely turnout of over 80% in the upcoming Iraqi elections, many news outlets responded with a yawn. The Washington Post covered the news but ran their story on page A13; many didn't bother to cover it at all. So I expect even less coverage of a Department of Defense statement that reports an Iraqi poll verifies the IRI data (via Kokonut Pundits):

According to a public opinion survey in Iraq taken in early January, more than 90 percent of Iraqis believe it is important to vote in the election. A total of 82.9 percent said it was "very important," and 9.4 percent said it was "somewhat important."

And what of the theological difference between the Shi'a and the Sunni? Apparently that has been exaggerated, according to the Iraqi pollsters:

The breakdown along religious lines shows 70.1 percent of Sunnis listing very important and 15.9 percent listing somewhat. A total of 86 percent of Sunnis, therefore, believe the election is important to the future of Iraq.

Sunnis make up about 20 percent of Iraq's population. They were the dominant group under the former regime. Some Sunni groups have called for Sunnis to boycott the election, but this poll seems to show that the calls are not effective. ...

On the all-important question of whether they will vote or not in the election, 87 percent said they were very likely or somewhat likely to vote on Jan. 30. Along religious lines, almost 80 percent of Sunnis said they were likely to vote, and more than 90 percent of Shiias said they would go to the polls. Roughly 10 percent of the sample said they would not vote, and the rest didn't know.

The survey showed that 63.6 percent of Iraqis believe there will be free and fair elections in the country, with 17.8 percent responding they do not believe the elections will be free and fair. The rest listed don't know or not applicable. Overall, more women said they believe the elections would be free and fair than men – 65.1 percent to 62 percent.

This was released on January 19th -- and according to Technorati, the only links to this story are from Kokonut Pundits and Cool Blue Blog. A Google search on the title and one on the reporter's name shows no mainstream media links. One would think that the news of a potential 80% turnout for the upcoming parliamentary elections might be major news, especially for an American public bombarded by doom-and-gloom stories from Iraq.

If you think that, however, you just haven't been paying attention. The result of these elections will shock a world that has been fooled into almost abandoning the Iraqis to terrorists by a biased press and isolationist Left. When the Iraqis stand up and demand their freedom and self-government in anything close to these numbers, a lot of people will scratch their heads and wonder how they could have been so sadly mistaken.

Zarqawi Arrested?

The Jerusalem Post reports that Iraq's Interior Minister has suddenly gone coy about the latest rumors of an arrest of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda terror chief in Iraq:

Iraq's interior minister on Saturday refused to comment on rumors that the top terror leader in the country had been taken into custody.

"I wouldn't like to comment for the time being," Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said when asked about rumors that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been arrested. "Let's see. Maybe in the next few days we will make a comment about it."

Pressing him, a reporter asked, "Does that mean he is in custody?"

"No comment," the minister repeated.

Keep your eyes peeled; I'll try to track more down on this story. Bear in mind that we've been down this road before and found nothing. The curious response of the Interior Minister -- the non-response response -- certainly sounds encouraging.

Northern Alliance Radio Today

Don't forget to tune in the Northern Alliance Radio Network today at noon CT. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot.

Tonight, of course, is the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers event at Keegan's Pub in downtown Minneapolis, one of our sponsors. We'll be meeting people from 5 pm until whenever. If you're a blogger, a blog fan, or just want to get a drink tonight, come on down and meet the Northern Alliance gang! I'll be there, along with Mitch, The Elder, Saint Paul, King Banaian, and all of the MOB. Bring an appetite for Keegan's excellent Irish fare as well!

Bush To Submit "Tough Budget"

President Bush, fresh off his re-election and spectacular inaugural address, plans on pushing his leanest budget yet for next year, according to the Washington Times:

President Bush will propose a virtual freeze on overall non-defense discretionary spending in next year's budget and will abolish or consolidate wasteful, duplicative programs, according to administration budget officials. Deep spending cuts are slated for housing and community development block grants, scientific research, agriculture and veterans programs, among other departments and agencies that, along with higher tax revenue from a growing economy, could shrink last year's $400 billion deficit by more than $150 billion, said budget officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The officials said the budget will essentially freeze aggregate discretionary spending at this year's levels. Last year, Congress kept the rise in discretionary appropriations, excluding defense and homeland security, to less than 1 percent as Mr. Bush requested. But overall non-emergency discretionary spending increased by about 4 percent.

Fiscal conservatives should be pleased with Bush's new austerity program, even though that would overstate the effect. Despite the cuts promised in some programs, the overall change still means a 1% increase in federal spending. Besides, as the Heritage Foundation notes, coming up with Bush's leanest budget would hardly qualify as rocket science, given the large expenditures of his first term:

"It wouldn't take much to make it the leanest budget in years, given the spending spree they've been on in the last several years," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation. "Overall spending has jumped 23 percent in the last three years. Non-defense, non-homeland security discretionary spending has leaped 39 percent in the last three years. We've been on a course of runaway spending, unrestrained entitlements and crippling debt which will lead to higher taxes and a poor economy," Mr. Riedl said in an interview.

Runaway spending threatened to split conservatives and risk his presidency early on in the first term. Mavericks like Joe Scarborough in his book, Rome Wasn't Burnt In A Day, pilloried Bush as a sell-out. Bush hoped to govern from the center, Clinton-style, in order to capture a large enough plurality to make his re-election certain. He didn't calculate the extreme hatred the Left has for him, and has finally discovered that no matter how much he spends, he cannot win those people over.

Bush now appears to aim for a Reaganesque view of federal government instead of the more Rockefellerian domestic viewpoint of his first term. This budget looks to be one step towards that end. However, fiscal conservatives should remain vigilant that spending and federal growth really do shrink over the next four years, and that Bush doesn't fall back into his free-spending habits.

Dr. Dobson Explains It A Little Better The Second Time Around

After a rash of criticism following his statements to a political gathering of Congressional heavyweights, Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family clarified their objections to the music video produced by the We Are Family Foundation. Instead of focusing on SpongeBob Squarepants, Dr. Dobson clearly states that his objection comes from the use of the video and its accompanying teaching material being presented in the schools outside of the control of parents:

We applaud the ideal of championing to children the value and dignity of every human life as well as respect for our differences. What we vehemently object to is using these beloved characters to help advance an agenda that's beyond the comprehension of 6 and 7 year-old children, not to mention morally offensive to millions of moms and dads.

The video in question is slated to be distributed to 61,000 public and private elementary schools throughout the United States. Where it is shown, schoolchildren will be left with the impression that their teachers are offering their endorsement of the values and agenda associated with the video's sponsor. While some of the goals associated with this organization are noble in nature, their inclusion of the reference to "sexual identity" within their "tolerance pledge" is not only unnecessary, but it crosses a moral line.

The tone in this argument is much more reasoned than that provided by the spokesman for Focus on the Family on Thursday. When approached by the New York Times, Paul Batura said, "We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids. It is a classic bait and switch." It comes closer to my original post on the subject, in which I also expressed annoyance with the constant barrage of non-essential teaching and the focus that teachers and administrators place on that at the expense of actual learning. I agree that this practice has great potential for abuse and indoctrination and should be eliminated.

On the other hand, it's a pretty narrow line to walk to claim on one hand that moral values should be taught at home, and at the same time push for religious teachings in public schools, such as Intelligent Design and creationism, especially in earlier grades. Objectively speaking, both sides of this issue can claim that schools would fall into indoctrination, and the question becomes less pure and more partisan as to which belief systems one chooses to proclaim in public schools. That's why I argue that public schools should stick to educating students and let parents teach moral values as they see fit. (Note: I support allowing students to pray, read the Bible, and form religious clubs in public schools, as these are voluntary activities.)

At the least, though, Dr. Dobson should have anticipated the reaction towards an attack on this video program and built a complete message regarding their objections. Part of the reason this misunderstanding took place is that Focus on the Family was woefully underprepared to explain their position to believers and opponents alike. When this story broke in the Times, I searched the Focus on the Family website and could find no reference to SpongeBob except for a movie review. That's a mistake on the part of Focus leadership, and it allowed others to fill the message in for them.

I still disagree with Dr. Dobson's focus on SpongeBob (read Joe Carter's take for a good explanation), but I agree with the general thrust of his argument. I wish he had made that more clear from the start.

UPDATE: Read Hugh Hewitt for more; as always, Hugh puts things in excellent perspective. I agree that people were quick to get personal while attacking Dr. Dobson, but I think that this was self-inflicted to a certain degree.

The Cheesewash Continues

One day after Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett announced the formation of an investigative panel to look into the potential fraud surrounding same-day registrations in the last presidential election, one of the commissioners he named demonstrated her open mind by ridiculing critics of her management of the vote:

A week after questions arose over 10,000 voters who registered on election day but whose identity couldn't be confirmed with verification cards, Milwaukee's top election official declared Friday that the number is inaccurate because it is based on an estimate.

Nonetheless, she could not provide an accurate count of how many people registered Nov. 2.

"We didn't have 5,000 people who voted twice," Lisa Artison, executive director of the city Election Commission, told an elections task force. "We did not have 10,000 people who voted who shouldn't have voted." ...

At the task force meeting, which Stone attended, Artison stressed that the 84,000 number was an estimate, and then read an extensive dictionary definition of the word "estimate."

She later questioned an "agenda" by critics - including the media - in using the 10,000 number. She and others have said the gap is due to illegible cards, cards with incomplete information or cards that are duplicates, among other reasons.

As I wrote yesterday, the inclusion of Artison on any investigative panel that wants to look into the election she ran amounts to nothing more than a whitewash. Artison won't approach this with an open mind and quite obviously has much more interest in crippling the investigation than in helping it succeed. She spends her time lashing out at critics and denigrating their "agendas" instead of accounting for those voters, as Wisconsin law requires.

At the least, the panel should look into the incompetence in Artison's department. The day before the election, you'll recall, Barrett had to shift other city employees into Artison's office because three-quarters of the 20,000 voter registrations they received had not been processed by Artison's staff. It's now been eleven weeks after the election, and Artison claims she still can't come up with an accurate count of same-day registrations from November 2nd. Instead of reading dictionaries to the task force, why isn't she counting the registrations?

Greg Borokowski writes a restrained response to Artison's grandstanding:

In explaining how the estimate was derived, she said: "You take the number of people who voted on election day, the gross number, and you subtract the number of pre-registered people who voted. The difference is the estimate (of same-day registrations)."

It is unclear why the remaining number would not represent people who registered at the polls and voted, or why the city did not review polling place logs that show how many people registered at each before submitting the estimate. The state requires the actual number, not an estimate.

What also isn't clear is why Barrett named Artison to the panel, unless he wants to sweep all of this under the rug as quickly as possible. State Rep. Jeff Stone wants the panel disbanded and an investigation launched by the state legislature instead. From Artison's attack strategy and Barrett's stacking of the city's panel, it appears nothing less will suffice, and even that may be better handled by the FEC. As long as Barrett and Artison remain in charge of the investigation, the Silence of the Cheese will remain deafening.

Predicting A Win From The Bottom Of The Ninth

The recent surprise announcement of Spanish bishops of the Catholic Church in support of condom use to halt the spread of AIDS caused an uproar amongst the faithful around the world. Most have treated the debate with earnestness and thoughtfulness. Some have resorted to the absurd:

Debate in Spain on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of Aids turned to farce yesterday when an 82-year-old Vatican loyalist vowed to die without ever using one.

Manuel Fraga, the regional premier of Galicia and a former minister under Franco, backed the Vatican's stance against condoms.

"I have spent my life telling the truth without condoms and I plan to die without ever having worn one,'' he said.

How tough do you suppose that will be?

Snow Day

Minneapolis is getting five or more inches of snow as we speak, and I'm stuck at work across the city from home. If I wanted to go home, I'd have about a 3-hour drive ahead of me for an 18-mile trip. Right now the freeways out here are bumper to bumper parking lots. It's an unbelievable mess.

My best friend North Star Steve, who also works in my office, is joining me for dinner instead of driving home (we both live in the same neighborhood as well). This is what the commute looks like at the moment:

Normally it looks about the same, except all the cars are moving. These are basically parked.

More later when I finally get home ...

UPDATE: Yes, I finally made it! Of course, it was 9:15 when I finally got here, after spending an hour driving home. Let me tell you, if I knew how bad the freeways still were when I started out, I would have found a hotel room near the office instead.

The Spectre Of Specter Rises Again

Arlen Specter may find himself back on the hotseat again, according to The American Spectator (hat tip: CQ reader Caleb). Specter gained the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee only after a brief but intense controversy stirred up by Specter's warning on judicial nominees to President Bush. Now his own hiring practices have come under attack after selecting a senior aide that has strong ties to the same groups that attacked Bush's nominees in the past:

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter went back on his word to Republican caucus members and conservative groups alike when he recently hired Hannibal G. Williams II Kemerer, who until recently was the NAACP's assistant general counsel. Specter hired Kemerer against the wishes of his senior Judiciary Committee staff. "We warned him this was going to cause trouble, but Specter said it was his committee, we are his staff, and he's going to do what he believes is right," says a Judiciary Committee staffer.

Kemerer was a protégé of Elaine Jones, who three years ago, as head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, lobbied Sen. Ted Kennedy to delay confirmation of many of President Bush's judicial nominees to a federal circuit court where her group had pending litigation. When Jones and Kennedy's deal was revealed, she was forced to resign.

Specter hired Kemerer to deal specifically with the nominations and vetting of federal judicial nominees, a position many conservatives were led to believe by Specter would go, at the very least, to a Republican, and most likely to a conservative.

Majority leader Bill Frist finally endorsed Specter for the chair after extracting public promises from Specter to approve and promote all future judicial nominees from the Bush Administration. If this is how Specter plans to start, then Frist needs to get Specter either back on the bus or kick him under it. In fact, the Prowler says that Frist may be inclined to do just that:

As for Senate Republican leadership, it is believed that Sen. Bill Frist is not necessarily inclined to prevent his caucus from taking steps either to punish Specter or to leave him twisting in the wind. "When Specter was worried about his job, you didn't see Frist out there patting him on the back and telling him it would be okay," says a staffer on the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "Frist was very fair and made Specter earn it. Now Specter has pissed all that good will away, and we want blood."

And they may well get it. Rick Santorum, who collegially stood by his fellow Pennsylvanian, will come under withering attack from his fellow conservatives in the GOP caucus if he doesn't repudiate that support, and the Prowler indicates he probably will, and soon. Jon Kyl and John Cornyn plan on holding private meetings with Republican senators to see how much support can be gathered for disciplinary action against Specter.

When the issue first came up, I counseled caution and cooler heads, as I knew that this session would get bloody enough without an internecine fight. Harry Reid has already proved that, with Barbara Boxer challenging Ohio's electors and Robert Byrd delaying Condi Rice's confirmation. However, that does not and should not give Specter a sense of carte blanche to roll over the will of the vast majority of his caucus in staffing the Judiciary Committee. I advised people to give Specter a chance to prove himself. He obviously has failed the test, if this report is correct. Frist needs to take the appropriate action immediately if Specter doesn't remove Kemerer.

UPDATE: Well, I expected e-mail like this:

You supported Specter, and you got what you asked for.

Now you want to whine about getting what you asked for?

You are approaching unexpected levels of hypocrisy, in my view.

Mr. G.

I don't think that I "supported" Specter; I acknowledged that his comments indicated a problem. I just didn't want the dispute to wind up splitting the GOP caucus and hoped that Frist would gain control over the Pennsylvanian. In fact, this was my first post on the matter:

However, the timing of Specter's comments certainly call the Senator's judgement into question, explanations or no. Within hours of Bush's re-election, he mananged to singlehandedly create a huge controversy without even having a nomination in front of the committee. Moreoever, Specter's notion that he would serve as a gatekeeper on this process usurps the presidential prerogative for nominating candidates, a curious thing to do to a man who endorsed Specter for his winning candidacy. Speaking of that, Bush's support for Specter was supposed to allow Specter to help carry Pennsylvania for Bush on November 2nd, which Specter failed to deliver. Causing problems after dropping the ball should make the GOP wonder why Specter should chair any committee, let alone Judiciary.

After tossing Trent Lott out of his leadership position, the Republicans have to be careful not to give the knee-jerk reaction and bounce Specter just because of one bad press conference. They should give this some time to settle down before making a decision; after all, no Supreme Court openings are before the committee at the moment. But based on Specter's performance and lack of political judgement, and because his unfortunate statements have given the Democrats an excuse to filibuster anything coming from Judiciary, I think Specter has to go.

Even later, I wrote this, which I hardly consider a ringing endorsement:

If we start demanding ideological purity, we will drive off a significant level of support not only for Bush in the Senate but from the electorate as a whole. Why did the Democrats lose their majority status in the first place? We've spent the entire presidential election lamenting the loss of the Scoop Jackson Democrats, opposition members that supported a strong national defense and foreign policy. The International ANSWER wing of the Democratic Party drove them off over the last years of their majority status when they demanded a politically-correct party line and brooked no dissent. ...

If we want to maintain our ascendancy, we need to develop the maturity to allow those who agree with us on 75% of the issues to feel as though they belong in the GOP. Specter has already been put on notice, and as long as he has something to lose (the chair), he will be pressured to support the President's legislative agenda and judicial nominations. If he has nothing left to lose, we face not only six years of obstructionism by Specter but likely a coalition of centrist GOP Senators that will coalesce to hold the GOP majority hostage in the next two.

I did say that the GOP would be better off with him in harness than on the loose, and in that I may have been proved wrong, although it's not over yet. To suggest that I supported Specter and his mutiny is just incorrect.

ABC Gets Its Pound Of Corpse For Inauguration Coverage

Two days ago I posted about ABC's effort to find a military funeral taking place on Inauguration Day for a casualty from Iraq, presumably to "balance" the coverage of George Bush and his speech. Their web site invited anyone who knew of such a funeral to send the information to ABC News -- they even provided a web form for submission (and Doc Weasel has it better here) -- so that they could exploit the death in order to somehow shame Bush on his inauguration.

After Power Line and I wrote about this and the blogosphere erupted into protest, the page quickly disappeared -- and we presumed that wiser heads at ABC News had prevailed. Unfortunately, it appears that we overestimated ABC's capacity for shame and embarrassment. Several CQ readers have written to me this morning (and The Corner also reports this) telling me that at the 6:12 break, World News Tonight ran a brief report of a military funeral for Matthew Holloway, a 20-year-old soldier killed by an IED in Iraq:

"In Rockport, Texas today, just about the time the President was speaking, there was a funeral for a young Marine reservist: 21-year-old Matthew Holloway was killed in Iraq last week by a roadside bomb."

Just about the time the President was speaking. Of course, that's exactly what they wanted to do from the start -- to tie Bush to the funeral of the young soldier in order to attack Bush passive-aggressively. It's exploitation of the worst order, and more to the point, a cowardly act. Did ABC ever run a funeral of a soldier killed in Bosnia or Somalia during a Clinton event, let alone an inauguration? Moreover, did ABC ever pursue such an angle like this with web pleas to its viewers?

No. ABC reserves that revolting kind of hearse-chasing journalism for Republican administrations. It recalls the infamous Halperin Memo, the instruction from ABC News director Mark Halperin to his staff to focus their investigative energies on George Bush and not John Kerry:

Halperin Memo Dated Friday October 8, 2004:

It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave

I do not want to set off and [sic] endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

We can argue endlessly about which campaign distorted more, and never reach agreement. I think, however, we can all agree that it isn't ABC's job to make that decision and bend over backwards for their preferred candidate in an attempt to "balance" an election. Even more, the network has no business balancing an inauguration. ABC has decided to go full tilt down the same path as CBS in allowing its political biases to determine the content of its news programs. Those who continue to watch ABC should make their objections known at the highest levels of the network and Disney, its parent corporation.

UPDATE: Just in case, I checked the World News Tonight home page, and they don't even mention the funeral. Do you suppose they want to avoid more blogosphere criticism? If so, they've miscalculated. For more thoughts, be sure to check out LaShawn Barber and all of the trackbacks.

UPDATE: Despite what the trackbacked blog for this says, we did suffer military casualties in Bosnia -- and Bosnia isn't Kosovo. Here's one who got killed by a land mine in December 1995, for example -- Spc. Martin John Begosh.

The View From On High

A quick note: I see today that CQ has entered the TTLB Ecosystem's highest ranking today, with a new ranking of #9 now qualifying this blog as a Higher Being. I'm expecting that to change as links expire and other bloggers get hot stories, but I wanted to thank everyone in the CQ community and the bloggers who continually link back to us.

What a rush!

WaPo Buries Iraqi Enthusiasm

Despite the steady drumbeat of mainstream media analysts, the Iraqi people actually look forward to the opportunity to vote in the upcoming elections. A poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, part of Congress' National Endowment for Democracy, shows that over 80% of Iraqis plan on voting:

The poll, conducted in late December and early January for the International Republican Institute, found 80 percent of respondents saying they were likely to vote, a rate that has held roughly steady for months.

The 64 percent who said they were "very likely" to vote represented a dip of about 7 percentage points from a November survey, while those "somewhat likely" to vote increased 5 points.

Western specialists involved with election preparations said they were struck by the determination and resilience of ordinary Iraqis as they anticipate their country's first free election in half a century.

"Despite the efforts of the terrorists, Iraqis remain committed to casting their vote on election day," IRI President Lorne Craner said in a statement. The organization, which is funded by Congress through the National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for International Development, commissioned the poll, which surveyed 1,900 Iraqis in all but two of the country's 18 provinces. Poor security made two in the far north, Nineveh and Dohuk, inaccessible. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Another official at a different organization in Iraq told Karl Vick that the world will be "shocked" when they see the turnout for the parliamentary elections. Why would they be shocked? Could it be that the media has skewed the story on the determination of the Iraqi people to be free?

Could be ... after all, the Washington Post's editors managed to bury this story on page A13. Hope you can find it, Post readers. At least they covered it; as far as I can see, the New York Times didn't report it at all. Of course, I didn't get the chance to peruse its classified-ad section yet, either.

UPDATE: Edward Sisson corrects the record from the Post article, in the comments section:

Dear Capt. Ed, thanks for the reference to the National Endowment for Democracy, which I have the privilege of serving as pro bono legal counsel. I am commenting simply to note that the National Endowment for Democracy is an independent, non-government organization (a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation) and is not part of the Congress or of the Executive Branch. The International Republican Institute is a also a separate organization that receives grants from the NED as well as other sources, but is not part of the NED.

Thanks for the clarification and allowing me to correct the record!

Get The Nuclear Option Ready

The Democrats in the Senate have signaled their intent on turning up the obstructionism that cost them their party leader last election, and the New York Times reports that the signal did not go unrecognized by Republicans:

Republicans in Congress seethed Thursday over Democrats' refusal to allow a quick vote on Condoleezza Rice's confirmation as secretary of state, a dispute that provided a quick reality check about the partisan divide on Capitol Hill just hours after President Bush was sworn in.

"If this is the kind of comity we can expect for the rest of the session, we are not getting off to a good start," said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, a member of the Republican leadership. "It is churlish."

Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, said, "You want continuity in this country, and this is a senior cabinet minister." He added, "This didn't win them any merit badges." ... "I think we ought to put the pedal to the metal," said Senator George Allen, Republican of Virginia, saying Republicans should be aggressive about using their greater numbers to overcome Democratic opposition.

The GOP knew that Harry Reid had talked about bipartisanship but remained skeptical of his true purposes. The first indication of Daschlism came during the Electoral College count, when Barbara Boxer signed onto Rep. Stephanie Tubbs' challenge to Ohio's slate, forcing a two-hour tearfest from the sensitive Californian. Reid declined to stop Boxer from issuing the first challenge in 36 years and only the second in American history, over the non-issue of Ohio's election procedures.

Now Reid has moved his chess pieces again, allowing ex-Klansman Robert Byrd, of all people, to hold up the confirmation of the first black woman to serve as Secretary of State. Byrd claims that the nomination needs further debate (sheets optional), but that's traditionally what the confirmation hearings are intended to provide. A 16-2 endorsement hardly requires further debate. It's political grandstanding of the most pathetic nature, since Rice's confirmation is assured regardless, and most Democrats will probably vote for her.

It's reminiscent of the line from Animal House, when Otter says, "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part." Bluto answers, "We're just the guys to do it." The Democrats have become the party of stupid and useless gestures.

The GOP needs to take the gloves off now. Reid wants to turn this session of the Senate into a war, and the GOP should oblige by stripping the filibuster from all confirmation processes. Holding the majority hostage on a duty explicitly demanded of the Senate by the Constitution is unacceptable anyway, and should never have been allowed in the first place. The Republicans hesitate because of the disruptive effect the rule change will have on relations in the Senate. But with the Democrats pulling out all stops to tweak the GOP majority out of sheer sore-loser syndrome, the GOP needs to abandon the hope of mature and cooperative leadership from Reid.

Bill Frist should call the question on one of Bush's nominees as soon as possible and have Dick Cheney preside over the rule change. Let the Democrats continue their petty antics; apparently, nothing will stop them anyway.

Air Marshals Snow-Blindness Leaves America Unprotected

First we have the Federal Air Marshals making themselves obvious to anyone flying by wearing professional clothing on board flights, a highly visible target for any terrorists who want to commandeer a commercial flight. After we complained that the air marshals should blend in, we find out that they in fact disappear entirely when it snows:

Hundreds of federal air marshals were grounded and unable to access critical information to pinpoint potential terrorist activity for eight hours on the eve of President Bush's inauguration after snow paralyzed the Mission Operations Center in Washington, said several air marshals and a supervisor. The marshals said they could not reach the Mission Operations Center (MOC) by telephone to be placed on other flights after hundreds of flights were rerouted because of the snow, and marshals seeking information on reports of a dirty bomb in Boston were unsuccessful. "They were flying blind," said the supervisor, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "An inch of snow shut down the Federal Air Marshals system's [ability] to gather, receive or request information.

"It basically put the entire aviation security system and flying public at risk because the air marshals were not able to properly do their jobs," the supervisor said.

The supervisor said MOC sent out a message at about 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday that the "system was shut down and they were not answering phones or anything" because they did not have enough staff working.

One inch of snow kept the air marshals incommunicado? Pardon my disbelief, but one inch of snow barely qualifies as a storm in Minneapolis. Did the 911 centers in DC shut down? Were planes grounded in DC? Obviously not. People went to and from work, and phones got answered all over the city. On Inauguration Day, when one reasonably could expect some terrorist activity if it happened at all, eight hours passed by before air marshals started flying again.

The Washington Times has multiple sources for this report, but the official word is that everything was just fine at the MOC and it remained fully staffed. The FAMS spokesman, Dave Adams, refused to say how many people showed up for work but that they had no problems answering the phone. That leaves us with someone lying about the problem, either the agents and the supervisor or Adams, and neither choice makes me feel any safer. If Adams lied, then FAMS needs an outside task force to take over and start running the agency like an emergency-response team rather than a civil-service backwater.

On the other hand, if the agents and supervisor lied, it points to a severe morale problem in what should be a highly-motivated specialty interdiction team. That indicates some sort of fatal disconnect between management and the agents, one already known to exist because of the terminally stupid dress code that FAMS director Thomas Quinn imposed on his agents. Again, it appears to call for a high-level review of FAMS management.

Congress and the White House needs to address this situation. If Northwest and Delta can put the planes in the air, FAMS should be able to answer the phone. Anything else, especially on Inauguration Day, is unacceptable.

Note: It doesn't surprise me in the least that Michelle Malkin is all over this story.

Get Ready For The Cheesewash

Milwaukee city officials, under pressure for their handling of the flood of same-day voter registrations in the last two presidential elections, have now formed a panel to investigate the issue. However, Greg Borokowski reports that the independence of the city panel leaves a lot to be desired:

Amid new questions about the Nov. 2 election in Milwaukee, a task force appointed by Mayor Tom Barrett to review problems and procedures will launch its efforts today.

Members will dig into an election that featured heavy turnout, huge demand for early voting, a GOP challenge to thousands of addresses and, based on a Journal Sentinel review of election-day "incident logs," a general frenzy of activity across the city.

But the committee - consisting entirely of city officials - faces critics who question whether it will be able to conduct an impartial review.

As well they should; until the last moment, the panel consisted of seven members, all of which worked for the city and under the authority of Mayor Barrett, a Democrat whose administration has the responsibility for following Wisconsin law. Not only did he stock the panel with people who owe him their jobs, one of his selections for the panel will also provide key testimony. Lisa Artison, the executive director of the Election Commission, will find herself in the almost-unique position of judging her own testimony to the panel. (CQ readers will recall the issue of Jamie Gorelick serving on the 9/11 Commission while having large responsibility for constructing the "wall" that kept law-enforcement and intelligence agents from sharing information.)

Issues with Artison go back to before the election. In a November 1st article, the Journal-Sentinel noted that the Election Commission failed to process three-quarters of the city's registration entries before Election Day, leaving 15,000 votes in limbo:

As the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, it's Artison's job to ensure everything runs smoothly in today's election.

Yet in recent weeks, the commission has been at the center of controversy, first over how many ballots it needed, then over whether newly registered voters were listing nonexistent addresses.

Mayor Tom Barrett has accused Republicans of stirring up those controversies to disrupt voting in the largely Democratic city.

On Monday, however, Barrett admitted Artison's staff had not processed 15,000 to 20,000 voter registration cards from newly registered voters. Barrett didn't learn about the backlog until Monday, when he ordered other city staffers into the election office in a last-minute push to get the job done before voters show up.

Artison had been a controversial nominee last summer for the position:

In July, the council confirmed Artison on a 9-6 vote, the closest margin of any Barrett nominee, with former Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt lobbying against her. Besides questions about her qualifications, observers wondered whether her job was a payoff for work by her and her husband, radio talk-show host Eric Von, on Barrett's campaign against Pratt.

Artison has hardly acted like an agnostic on the presidential vote, either. She has asserted that nothing went wrong and that the critics have "an agenda at work" in their complaints. Any independent investigation of the Milwaukee vote should focus their attention on the competence and/or the potential malfeasance of Artison and her staff. Having Artison help investigate the matter makes clear the panel's purpose -- to mollify critics by slapping together a whitewash that will eventually tire out those who keep watch on the situation.

The last-moment addition of two people from the comptroller's office makes little difference to the makeup of the nine-person panel if Artison remains on board -- indeed, if the supermajority of the panel all report to Barrett, the die has been already cast. This is a last-ditch effort to head off a state investigation into voter fraud in Milwaukee. Let's hope it doesn't succeed.

Racine Election Officials Broke The Law: State Rep

While most of the focus of election fraud in Wisconsin has been on Milwaukee and its 30% same-day registration in two succeeding presidential elections, the smaller city of Racine also had its own problems. State representative Robin Vos accused Racine officials of ignoring electoral law by failing to even attempt the verification of same-day registrants as required by Wisconsin law:

State Rep. Robin Vos accused the city of Racine on Wednesday of violating state law by failing to send out voter verification cards to people who registered to vote on the same day as the Nov. 2 election.

"Racine County residents deserve fair and proper elections," Vos, R-Caledonia, said. "I'm disappointed to see that the city of Racine isn't doing everything possible to ensure this happens, especially when Wisconsin law requires it."

Racine City Clerk Carolyn Moskonas, who was recently appointed to the position, confirmed Wednesday that the city doesn't send out postcards to same-day voter registrants. She added that there is no record of the city ever sending out postcards to verify the registrations.

"My predecessor didn't do it, and there's no money in my budget to do it," Moskonas said.

At issue are the more than 3,000 people who signed up to vote in the city of Racine on election day. In the weeks leading up to the election, Moskonas and her three-person staff called or sent letters to people who registered to vote.

But since Nov. 2, Moskonas said her staff has focused on processing the election, which saw about 38,000 city residents vote. Moskonas said her office won't be done with the election until the end of January - long after anything could be done to impact the election.

Note the level of same-day registrations in Racine. While 84,000 of Milwaukee's 277,000 votes came from same-day registrants, the same process only 3,000 of Racine's 38,000 votes, or 7.9%. That comes much closer to the percentage we saw in St. Paul with similar laws (9.4%). It's too many, but a far cry from the 30% that voted in Milwaukee.

Racine obviously ignores state law, and Racine needs to be held accountable. However, the examples of both cities should propel the Wisconsin legislature to eliminate their same-day registration system in favor of something more secure. The ability of anyone off the street to find a legitimate elector (a registered voter in the precinct) to simply vouch for them in order to cast a ballot leaves the state open for mischief and fraud, with no practical way to either stop it or investigate it later. At the minimum, the state should restrict same-day registrations to those with state-issued IDs that list the address from which the voter makes his claim of legitimacy and then treat the ballot as provisional until the name can be checked against the voter rolls.

Until the state legislature acts, this will happen in every Wisconsin election. And until the legislature receives enough humiliation, they won't lift a finger to change anything.

ACLU Silences Its Internal Critics

In a move that normally would have the ACLU filing lawsuits on behalf of whistleblowers in any other organization, the whistleblowers find themselves at war with the ACLU's Board of Directors, according to the New York Times:

The American Civil Liberties Union, which since its inception has fought to protect free speech rights, is scheduled to begin a debate today over whether to discipline - or potentially move to oust - two board members for speaking to reporters.

The executive committee of the A.C.L.U. board will discuss whether Wendy Kaminer and Michael Meyers have acted inappropriately as board members. The two have criticized some actions by the executive director, Anthony D. Romero, and the executive committee for what they said was a failure to provide proper oversight.

Nadine Strossen, president of the A.C.L.U., wrote in an e-mail message responding to a reporter's questions that the subject was added to the committee's agenda at the request of its Oregon affiliate. The committee will then decide whether the entire board should address it over the weekend at its quarterly meeting.

What did the critics do to get the ACLU to reverse itself and fight on the side of suppressing free speech? They revealed that the ACLU had agreed to have its donors checked against terrorist watch lists and that the executive director told the Ford Foundation to use Patriot Act language in its grants despite official ACLU opposition to the law. Both developments enraged the general membership of the ACLU and threatened the positions of Romero and other board members who defended him. Now the same people want to either discipline the two whistleblowers or kick them out of the organization.

Most of the general membership disagrees with the board's pending consideration of disciplinary action, and it's not hard to see why. Essentially, the ACLU will validate retaliation in any organization by chasing Kaminer and Meyers out of the ACLU for speaking out. This incident shows just how far their management has led the ACLU into hypocrisy and embarrassment. If Kaminer and Meyers get kicked out for speaking their minds, it will be the final nail in the ACLU's coffin. After its embrace of the Patriot Act, revealing donor information, and cooperating with the watch lists, the Left won't stand for it and the ACLU has no friends on the right.

Remind me to mourn their passing ...

More Great Moments In British Education

As any parent can tell you, getting their child to do their homework amounts to a low-level war with a new battle every day. We have to hear about how "stupid" they find homework, while we try to both help them complete it and instill a work ethic children need to achieve success later on. While we may sometimes lose a battle or two, most parents know that they still have to win the overall war in order to ensure that their children get educated and have an opportunity to move on to college.

Unfortunately, one British school has run the white flag up on maintaining standards in schooling:

All 12-year-olds at a comprehensive will be told today that homework is being scrapped because teachers have better things to do than mark it.

Dr Patrick Hazlewood, the head teacher of St John's in Marlborough, Wilts, who has already scrapped subject teaching, will not put it quite like that, of course. He will tell them that, to make their schooling more "relevant to life in the 21st century", they are to be given responsibility for "managing their own learning".

Parents, who were told on Monday, are confused because, according to school policy, "regular homework is an essential element of learning and contributes to the development of sound study habits". They are also asked to say if they think their child has been given too little.

St. John's considers itself on the forefront of a revolutionary change in educational philosophy. Not only do they want to scrap homework, they want to eliminate work altogether in favor of a plan to encourage students to "love learning", trusting 12-year-olds to then use that love to go out and learn on their own. This will require parents to closely supervise the learning process, while the schools focus on citizenship, interpersonal relations, and information management.

In fact, what St. John's proposes is to switch places with the parents. St. John's said that teaching the national curriculum "grinds teachers into the ground," but what good are the schools if they don't teach any specific subjects? They want to teach values and how to get along with others in the sandbox while parents have to force their children to follow a curriculum in the hope that they won't give up like their teachers did.

I have a better idea for the parents of St. John's pupils. Pull them out of the school entirely and home-school them. The administration of St. John's proposes to transform itself into a day-care center for adolescents instead of an educational facility, a pointless exercise except for indoctrination. Parents will find it no more difficult to school their children directly and honestly, and this way they don't have to expose their kids to St. John's surrender ethics.

Inaugural Address: Brilliant And Historic

Unfortunately, I am buried in meetings today and could not listen to President Bush's inaugural speech, so I have to be satisfied with reading it from the White House site. I have not yet read any other reviews or commentary, so I have not yet been influenced by friends or opponents; nor have I heard the delivery, so I cannot know how well the words came across. But from reading the speech, I can only say that Bush's words will ring out as a clarion call for America to rise up and accept its mission of freedom for the world once again, for ourselves and the sake of humanity.

One element of this speech that sets it apart from other such events is the lack of any mention of programs, bills, or specific ideological issues. The upcoming State of the Union speech will contain all that and more, I'm certain. Bush briliantly avoids this petty politicking in favor of expressing a vision of an activist America standing beside those who work and suffer (and die) to advance the cause of human liberty. He picked this one theme and explores all of its reach and ramifications.

I especially liked this passage:

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

If I could have listened to just one small part of this speech, I would have chosen this passage. I believe that the declaration "no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave" will truly have historical reach. In the most basic analysis, that has always been the promise of America, even when we refused for almost 200 years to live up to that mission.

What may garner more attention in the moment is this bold statement from Bush:

Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world:

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.

That sets the bar at the highest levels for this American administration and all that follow. For too long, we have allowed those who trade stability for freedom in other nations to achieve the peace of the moment. On 9/11, we found out that this has its own price, and that we received no bargain for our efforts. Excusing dictators and kleptocrats in the long run creates fury, rage, and hopelessness that these same autocrats find useful in directing against us for their own purposes. That cycle has to end, for our own security.

In fact, in its own way, this might be one of the most radically classical-liberal American speeches in a generation.

No great inaugural speech is without a call to serve a greater vision, and Bush's speech eloquently fills this requirement:

All Americans have witnessed this idealism, and some for the first time. I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself - and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.

America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home - the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.

And the final invocation reached back to the founding of this greatest experiment in self-government and demanded recognition that it remains as relevant, audacious, and hopeful as it was 230 years ago:

When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, "It rang as if it meant something." In our time it means something still. America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength - tested, but not weary - we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.

Truly inspired. Truly inspiring. This was a speech that almost all Americans can own without regard to ideology or partisanship.

UPDATE: RattlerGator has the breakdown of "best lines" from the Fox News panel. I have to agree with Fred Barnes on this one, which I should have mentioned in my post:

By our efforts we have lit a fire as well, a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power; it burns those who fight its progress. And one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.

That almost completely sums up the theme of this inaugural address and the overall philosophy of this Bush presidency.

UPDATE II: The Elder at Fraters Libertas explains why the hard Left hates Bush. It's all about the F-word. Really. It's one of the best analyses I've read so far.

UPDATE III: Another great analysis from Brant at SWLiP looks at the similarities between Bush's speech and the writings of noted Soviet dissident turned Israeli politician Natan Sharansky. Brant is encouraged, and so am I.

Wisconsin Doesn't Follow Its Own Electoral Law

Greg Borokowski continues his dogged pursuit of the Wisconsin voting irregularities in 2004 for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, even though no one in the national media appears to notice, outside of the Washington Times. In today's paper, Borokowski reveals that despite having one of the most liberal and fraud-susceptible voter-registration systems in the country, the elections boards rarely refer invalid registrations to the district attorney's office:

In the wake of Milwaukee's inability to send confirmation cards to some 10,000 newly registered voters, a Journal Sentinel review suggests that a little-discussed - but key - safeguard in election law is not routinely followed.

The provision requires that any confirmation cards that the U.S. Postal Service cannot deliver be sent to the local district attorney's office for investigation for possible fraud.

District attorneys from around the state said Wednesday, however, that they receive few such referrals - and some did not know it was a requirement. And some cities, including Racine, don't send out confirmation cards at all. Meanwhile, some clerks have complained to state election officials that the returned cards they do submit are not investigated by authorities.

So we have in Wisconsin a system in which anyone can walk up to any precinct and register on Election Day, as long as they have someone who will vouch for their eligibility. Now we know from Borokowski's extensive report -- he quotes a number of DAs for their reaction -- that the chances of a criminal referral from a fraudulent registration approach absolute zero. Most of the Wisconsin DAs appear unfamiliar with the requirement, and all of them have yet to pursue any criminal action.

How many people do you think are aware of the Wisconsin free pass? I would guess that quite a few figured it out in time for the 2000 election, and when nothing happened from that, tried it again for 2004. Milwaukee had 84,000, or over 30% of its entire voting base, register on Election Day. Meanwhile, in Illinois, where the GOP stupidly ran the carpetbagging extremist Alan Keyes against the popular Barack Obama for the Senate and John Kerry had a comfortable lead over George Bush, the Democrats knew they could afford to relocate a substantial number of voters -- and Milwaukee is only 100 minutes away from Chicago.

The Wisconsin legislature needs to make some changes in its election law, and the FEC should look into what happened in Wisconsin.

Washington Times Notices Wisconsin Voter Fraud, CQ

Large Bill alerted me to a Washington Times editorial from yesterday which shows that the Silence Of The Cheese may start to break out in the national media. The Times reacted to John Kerry's whining about supposed disenfranchisement in Ohio, where he lost by almost 120,000 votes, and his silence on the shenanigans in Milwaukee:

At the same time, it's curious that Mr. Kerry should use Ohio as an example to trumpet his forthcoming legislation. Apparently, Mr. Kerry sees no evil in Wisconsin, where his margin of victory was 11,000 votes, and where the watchful bloggers at Captainsquartersblog.com have noticed some disturbing irregularities. Milwaukee County, which broke for Mr. Kerry 62 percent to 37 percent, saw voter turnout increase by just under 49,000 votes, or 10 percent, from 2000. For comparison, the national voter increase was 6.4 percent. A portion of that increase can be attributed to the 83,000 people who completed a same-day registration, which is more than 20 percent of all voting-age residents in the county. Blogger Captain Ed is rightly suspicious: "Now, Wisconsinites may procrastinate a bit, but in order to believe that number, you'd have to expect that 20% of the county had moved or became newly eligible within the past two years (after the previous election cycle)." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reports that now 10,000 of those registrations cannot be verified, or just under the number of votes that clinched the state for Mr. Kerry.

It's quite an honor to get mentioned in the Washington Times, especially in an editorial. I'm more happy, though, that perhaps the fraudulent balloting in Milwaukee County, and perhaps elsewhere in Wisconsin, might start getting national attention. The laxity of Wisconsin's election laws and the flood of new voters in the last two election cycles certainly show more potential for fraud than anything we've seen in Ohio or Florida. Why doesn't Wisconsin get any attention? Because the Democrats took Wisconsin in both cycles, and both times by a hair.

If one wanted to demonstrate a case for liberal media bias, all that would be necessary would be to count the mainstream media resources committed to reporting Ohio election issues the past ten weeks against those in Wisconsin. That makes the case Rather-clear.

Maybe He Bought It At A Bank (Updated)

Guess who's suddenly into guns, despite his documentary slamming the supposed gun culture of America? And unlicensed guns at that? Why, it's no one but our own cuddly teddy-bear friend, Michael Moore, and his bodyguard (via Drudge):

Filmmaker Michael Moore's bodyguard was arrested for carrying an unlicensed weapon in New York's JFK airport Wednesday night.

Police took Patrick Burke, who says Moore employs him, into custody after he declared he was carrying a firearm at a ticket counter. Burke is licensed to carry a firearm in Florida and California, but not in New York. Burke was taken to Queens central booking and could potentially be charged with a felony for the incident.

Moore's 2003 Oscar-winning film "Bowling for Columbine" criticizes what Moore calls America's "culture of fear" and its obsession with guns.

So while Moore wants to deny the right of ordinary Americans to defend themselves with firearms, he has his entourage packing heat? Not only does Moore expose himself as a hypocrite, but he's not a particularly smart one, either. Most gun owners know not to carry their weapons into an airport, licensed or not. It's part of the responsibility of gun ownership that NRA members, for instance, take seriously.

I'm sure that we will hear endless rationalizations about how Moore receives security threats all the time and needs protection. Does that mean the Second Amendment only applies to Hollywood stars? Does Moore deserve more protection than a lower-income family living in a gang-infested neighborhood? I have no problem with Moore having firearms for his protection. I just wish that Moore and others of his ilk would quit carping about others who want the same right without being accused of being bloodthirsty, Dirty Harry wannabes.

UPDATE: Gavin de Becker complained to Moorewatch, who also posted about this, that the story is somewhat false:

Our full-time employee, Patrick Burk, is not “Michael Moore’s bodyguard.” Accordingly, the headline in the Fox News Web site story is false and misleading.

If you believe Patrick Burk was ever assigned to protect Michael Moore, or any number of other public figures, you might accurately report that “A bodyguard who was once assigned to protect Michael Moore...”

You could as accurately say “A bodyguard that was once assigned to protect President Clinton,” because Patrick Burk has also been assigned to protect President Clinton in the past - but you wouldn’t be accurate if you said “President Clinton’s Bodyguard.”

Patrick Burk is not Michael Moore’s bodyguard, nor was he protecting Michael Moore or in any way involved with Michael Moore on Wednesday night, when he (Burk) was checking in at JFK for a flight to Los Angeles.

De Becker also notes that Burk wasn't carrying the weapon on his person but in his checked luggage, locked and unloaded. He also goes on to elaborate on several other alleged inaccuracies in the original Fox report, which he said has since been pulled. (Not at this time!)

Moorewatch updated its post, and I have as well, but de Becker's splitting hairs on this point. From de Becker's twisted syntax, it's apparent Moore hired Burk as a bodyguard for some period of time through de Becker's firm, although I'm sure de Becker can't reveal that for security and privacy reasons. The point of my post (and Moorewatch) is that hiring a private armed guard reveals Moore's hypocrisy on gun control (hat tip Xrlq):

MOORE: Yes, I'm talking about stopping the selling of ammunition for weapons that are specifically designed to kill human beings.

DONAHUE: And you see that as pistols, handguns.

MOORE: Handguns or weapons where you can fire multiple rounds at a time. You don't need to essentially spray the woods to get your deer. If you do, you should be, you know, doing needle point or some other sport.

DONAHUE: OK, so let's understand. You'd like a ban on the sale of handguns.

MOORE: Yes. I believe that we don't need handguns.

DONAHUE: And a ban on the sale of brrr! That kind of gun.

MOORE: Anything that fires multiple rounds like that, absolutely.

Sorry, but that doesn't square up with hiring private security guards with handguns for his protection. If he's comfortable with that, then he wants to ensure that only the rich and powerful can defend themselves from attack -- a far cry from his rhetoric.

The Overkill Of Attacking A Sponge

David Kirkpatrick reports in today's New York Times that conservative activist Dr. James Dobson has attacked a cartoon character for alleged homosexual subtext as well as its alleged involvement in a gay-rights promotional video. It appears that Dr. Dobson has not only overreacted, but has gotten some key facts wrong:

Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge" that includes tolerance for differences of "sexual identity."

The video's creator, Nile Rodgers, who wrote the disco hit "We Are Family," said Mr. Dobson's objection stemmed from a misunderstanding. Mr. Rodgers said he founded the We Are Family Foundation after the Sept. 11 attacks to create a music video to teach children about multiculturalism. The video has appeared on television networks, and nothing in it or its accompanying materials refers to sexual identity. The pledge, borrowed from the Southern Poverty Law Center, is not mentioned on the video and is available only on the group's Web site.

Mr. Rodgers suggested that Dr. Dobson and the American Family Association, the conservative Christian group that first sounded the alarm, might have been confused because of an unrelated Web site belonging to another group called "We Are Family," which supports gay youth.

Dr. Dobson refused to back down from his attack, even after getting the above information. His spokesman, Paul Batura, calls the video an "insidious means" to brainwash children and that Focus on the Family would stand by its accusations against Rodgers and SpongeBob.

I'll start with where I agree with FotF. Promoting multiculturalism and taking "tolerance pledges" with cartoons have no place in public schools. The underlying point may be good, but public schools serve the entire public, and I do think that these exercises are a class of brainwashing for political purposes. These programs are far too susceptible for particular ideologies to co-opt them. Besides, we have way too many distractions from real learning in our schools as it is. Why not focus on reading, math, and social studies, which has the benefit of supporting multiculturalism through education instead of through brainwashing?

However, in this instance, Dobson and his group show a little paranoia in their approach to opposing homosexuality. First we had the jeremiad against the Teletubbies (from Jerry Falwell's group), and now it's open season on a cartoon character? How silly do we have to get before it ends? The Times notes that gay men have made SpongeBob a mascot of sorts, but that's hardly the fault of the show's creators. Some gay men do the same thing with Joan Crawford (thanks to Faye Dunaway's campy portrayal in Mommie Dearest) and Marilyn Monroe. Does Dobson propose eliminating them from television as well?

Perhaps Rodgers is lying, and Kirkpatrick is covering for him when he reports that no mention of sexual identity can be found on this video, even though it has aired several times on television anyway. But to me, Rodgers has a pretty reasonable explanation, and Dobson doesn't. However, Dobson is correct about the tolerance pledge at the We Are Family Foundation website, if not the video, and it does mention sexual identity. That hardly qualifies as "promoting" a homosexual lifestyle; I'd say it ranges more towards the "don't pick on gay people" spectrum of tolerance, as you can see:

Tolerance is a personal decision that comes from a belief that every person is a treasure. I believe that America's diversity is its strength. I also recognize that ignorance, insensitivity and bigotry can turn that diversity into a source of prejudice and discrimination.

To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own.

Mostly, this kind of obsessive screeching gives the conservative cause a bad name. Hugh Hewitt recently described James Dobson as one of the most influential people in America; I think that's a bit of an overstatement, but Dobson has tremendous reach. With that comes responsibility, and I think Dobson has failed in that responsibility here. When influential culture warriors on the right do that, it reflects poorly on all conservatives. It's precisely this kind of nit-picking that took the intellectual steam out of the Reagan Revolution by discrediting its culture, and that led to the Clinton years.

Dobson does good work in many areas, and my family has supported his organization in the past. However, all Dobson accomplishes by attacking SpongeBob is to make himself look ludicrous. Dobson needs to quit obsessing on cartoon characters and get back to working on real-life issues.

UPDATE: The WAFF site allows users to stream the entire music video to their screens. It's just a music video of Rodgers's song "We Are Family," with a large number of characters from kids shows (animated and live-action) pantomiming the singing, which still comes from the original recording by Sister Sledge. Diana Ross even makes an appearance. Some might find that objectionable, I suppose. However, nothing in the music video makes any reference to homosexuality, and I doubt that kids can even understand the words to the song as it's played. Why anyone chooses to make an issue of this is beyond me.

Vayapaso's Dream Date?

When my mother, who comments here as Vayapaso, went to Hugh Hewitt's book signing for Blog, she got so excited by their enthusiastic welcome that she referred to me as "Eddie." Hugh and Duane didn't miss this and have mulled this tidbit over for a week now. Tonight, they decided that I must have been named after Eddie Haskell, the smarmy and phony-polite troublemaker from Leave It To Beaver.

Eddie Haskell?

When I called in to talk to Hugh, Duane even played the Leave It To Beaver theme in the background. I foresee a long run of classic-TV jokes in my future with these guys.

But why Eddie Haskell? Why not this guy:

The American Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker, was a successful race car driver, fighter pilot, airline executive, wartime advisor, and elder statesman. Few aces achieved so much in so many different lifetime roles.

His twenty-six aerial victories came in only two months of combat flying, a spectacular achievement. ...

Starting in the early 1930's, he owned or managed various commercial airlines, notably Eastern Airlines, which had its roots as a division of General Motors. He became General Manager of Eastern in 1933, and in 1938, with a group of investors, he bought it and became its president. Starting with an aggressively low bid ($0!) for a government air mail contract, he managed the company profitably for twenty years.

I'm disturbed that Hugh and Duane would immediately associate the name Eddie with a sneaky troublemaker like Eddie Haskell instead a great American hero like Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. It's an outrage! I demand a Congressional investigation! I won't settle for anything less ... unless Mrs. Cleaver sends over some homemade cookies and a glass of (lactose-free) milk. Thaaaaank you, Mrs. Cleaver, and you look especially nice today ...

How Does CBS Recover Its Crediblity?

Hugh Hewitt has a great show tonight, discussing Les Moonves' oddball ideas about revolutionizing CBS News with measures that appear to do nothing but throw a bit more window dressing on the disgrace. He's asking his listeners to call in with their ideas, just as if Les Moonves was sitting in Hugh's booth and taking notes.

After a calling in and losing my cell signal, and getting locked out of the full bank of calls Hugh draws, I sent Hugh an e-mail instead:

My suggestion for CBS was going to be to quit rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I don't care if you have one anchor or fifteen. CBS News needs to clean house and hire people who didn't grow up kissing Dan Rather's rear end. Fire Heyward and everyone who thinks like him, and retire the fossils across the board. Get a managing editor who actually knows news (hint: The Five Ws is not a girl group from the 60s) and establish a set of ethics and put the accountability necessary to make them stick. As long as Heyward and Rather are allowed to remain at Black Rock, accountability is a joke.

After that, we'll see what they do. They'll have to prove to me that they've learned by the product they put out.

I did finally get through (thanks to the Generalissimo), and Hugh challenged me to name the new anchor. When I said it made no difference, Hugh disagreed, making a good point about the influence that Brit Hume has at Fox in professionalism and round-table discussions.

So here's my choice: Chris Wallace. He has credibility with conservatives, and as Mike Wallace's son, he has some entreé with the old guard at CBS. He's sharp, he's good on camera, he's not just a pretty face, and he exudes professionalism and detachment.

Who would you choose?

UPDATE: Hugh doesn't care much for Chris Wallace as an anchor, but one of his listeners suggested Tony Snow -- a great choice, if Les Moonves has the guts to do it.

ABC News: Too Lazy To Hide The Bias

Hindrocket at Power Line found a new ABC initiative to bring balance to its news broadcasts, or at least those they intend to provide on Inauguration Day tomorrow. Obviously, the Halperin Memo is still in effect even past Election Day:

For a possible Inauguration Day story on ABC News, we are trying to find out if there any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20.

If you know of a funeral and whether the family might be willing to talk to ABC News, please fill out the form below[.]

So here we have a public broadcaster who explicitly intends on using the death of at least one American serviceperson -- specifically in Iraq, so dead American soldiers or Marines in Kosovo or Afghanistan need not apply -- as a means to make a political statement about Bush's inauguration. If your son or daughter, sister or brother, or friend or neighbor isn't lucky enough to be buried on January 20th, don't bother applying, because ABC and Disney won't give a rat's ass about him or her.

The sheer chutzpah and shallowness doesn't surprise me as much as the laziness that this demonstrates. It's not enough that some bloodsucking leech wants to use the grief of some poor family as entertainment and political theater. They are too freakin' lazy to go out and find one themselves, so they want someone to get them an invitation to the funeral.

Whoever posted this at ABC needs a soul transplant. Disgusting.

UPDATE: ABC has apparently taken down the web page, as the link above now takes me to an error page for their site. Fortunately, I archived it to my site here.

UPDATE II: My link is fixed now. It doesn't display very pretty, but if you scroll down about halfway, you'll see the bleg.

UPDATE III: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE IV: Jonathan Last notes the issue at the Weekly Standard, and gives me a nice reference.

Opening Her Mouth And Removing All Doubt (Updated!!)

Sometimes I wonder if Barbara Boxer ever listens to herself and cringes. If so, yesterday certainly provided opportunities for winces galore as the senator from California kept providing evidence of her status as one of the least intelligent members of the upper chamber. In just her opening statement for her portion of Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearing, she managed to embarrass herself and her constituents multiple times:

Dr. Rice, before I get to my formal remarks, you no doubt will be confirmed -- that's at least what we think.

We think there's no doubt? And her favorite color is plaid, too.

And if you're going to become the voice of diplomacy -- this is just a helpful point -- when Senator Voinovich mentioned the issue of tsunami relief, you said -- your first words were, "The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity for us." Now, the tsunami was one of the worst tragedies of our lifetime -- one of the worst -- and it's going to have a 10-year impact on rebuilding that area. I was very disappointed in your statement. I think you blew the opportunity. You mention it as part of one sentence.

So not only does Boxer deliberately misinterpret the word "wonderful" as a qualifier to "tsunami" instead of "opportunity" unlike any rational interpretation of that phrase, she admits that she took the quote out of context. In fact, Rice never said "wonderful opportunity" at all. Here's what she said about tsunami relief:

We're spending billions to fight AIDS and tuberculosis and malaria and other diseases, to alleviate suffering for millions and help end public health crises. America has always been generous in helping countries recover from natural disasters and today we are providing money and personnel to ease the suffering of the millions afflicted by the tsunami and to help rebuild those nations' infrastructure.

I've searched the entire transcript for the words tsunami, wonderful, and opportunity, and Rice simply never made the statement Boxer alleges. She lied. (Updated below!)

And I would hope to work with you on this, because children are suffering, we're worried they're going to get in the sex trade.

"Get into" the sex trade? We're worried that they will be stolen and forced into the sex trade. However, since the sex trade happens to be one of California's leading industries -- they produce about 90% of all the pornography in the US -- I think Boxer may have wanted to soften her stance on the issue.

I am -- Dr. Rice, I was glad you mentioned Martin Luther King -- it was very appropriate, given everything.

There's nothing like a rich white woman giving her approval of a black woman's reference to Dr. King to define the term "limousine liberal."

And one of the things that matters most to my people in California and the people in America is this war in Iraq.

Now, it took you to page three of your testimony to mention the word "Iraq." You said very little really about it, and only in the questioning have we been able to get into some areas. Perhaps you agree with President Bush, who said all that's been resolved. I'm quoting today's Post: "Bush said in an interview last week with the Washington Post that the '04 election was a moment of accountability for the decisions he made in Iraq." But today's Washington Post/ABC poll found that 58 percent disapprove of his handling of the situation, to 40 percent who approve -- and only 44 percent said the war was worth fighting.

Well, which is it, Senator? Because we held this really big poll in November with a sample size of 120 million voters, and they re-elected George Bush 51-48. Either your poll numbers are off, or it's not the biggest issue on the mind of American voters. Since the Democrats and John Kerry made the election all about Iraq, I'd say that Bush has a fair interpretation on the meaning of his victory.

I don't know if you saw the movie, "The Fog of War" -- war is a nightmare, you know that. Colin Powell I think was the most eloquent I've heard on it, because he's seen it himself -- he's been there and done it. And I don't want to have you in a circumstance where you're writing something years later about the fog of war.

Another California industry reference that explains Barbara Boxer: everything she knows she learned from the movies. Perhaps Boxer doesn't understand that Rice wasn't the Secretary of Defense, although she can be excused on this point, as none of the Democratic senators were briefed on this point. One after the other, they grilled Rice on troop levels as if she was a member of the military chain of command. She kept telling them that her job did not involve that kind of analysis, but by God they had someone on the stand they could use to score cheap shots, and all of them took that, er, wonderful opportunity to do so.

Perhaps the people of California will review this transcript and understand what an idiot they have representing them in the Senate. Unfortunately, the people of Minnesota have the same problem with their senior Senator as well. I hope that we react better in 2006 than Californians did in 2004.

UPDATE: My good friend Xrlq was certain that he heard Boxer's statement, and did a little research. It turns out (shockingly!) that the New York Times transcript was incomplete -- so Boxer didn't flat-out lie. However, it really looks even worse when you see the CNN transcript:

VOINOVICH: ... I think what we're doing in the tsunami right now is wonderful. I think it's -- but we have got to show people that we love them, that we are for democracy, that we want them to enjoy the same thing but we haven't any hidden motives. What are you planning on doing in that area to respond to that?

RICE: Senator, first of all, I do agree that the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the U.S. government, but the heart of the American people. And I think it has paid great dividends for us.

Rather than a characterization of the tsunami as a "wonderful" thing belonging to Rice, it's clear that the characterization was Voinovich's -- and Rice couched her answer around the parameters of his question. It's also quite clear to everyone with half a working cerebellum that what both meant was that the opportunity to respond was wonderful, and not the tsunami itself. Boxer didn't lie about the existence of the statement, but she certainly and dishonestly micharacterized it completely. One wonders why Senator Voinovich didn't correct the record.

And never trust transcripts from the New York Times. Apparently they can't even take dictation straight.

Showing Their Class

Condoleezza Rice received her confirmation endorsement from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this afternoon on a vote of 16-2. The two voting against?

Pending approval by the full Senate, Rice would be the first black woman to hold the job. She was confirmed by a 16-2 vote with Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California voting no.

Other Democrats, including ranking member Joseph Biden of Delaware, had said they were reluctantly voting to elevate Rice to the nation's top diplomatic job. A vote by the full Senate was expected by Thursday.

My first reaction is shock -- that John Kerry actually attended Senate business. After missing most of the last two-year session of Congress, he's now up to one in a row.

No one should be terribly surprised at either vote, or by either Senator. After an incredibly condescending introduction where Kerry expressed gooey admiration for Rice's "personal story," he joined Boxer in impugning her character by suggesting that she was nothing more than a puppet for George Bush and his policies, never giving her any credit for actually believing in the same goals and strategies. Boxer did much the same by calling Rice everything just short of a liar.

There was a time when confirmation hearings were about the candidate's credentials for the job and the work they had previously done, not a sideshow for empty posturing by demanding answers about troop levels from someone not serving in a military position. Unfortunately, that time seems to have passed, thanks to the firm of Kerry, Boxer, and Associates. If this is what passes for Democratic leadership, we're going to have a fine 2006 election cycle.

Exit Polling Flawed, Skewed To Kerry

In a development that should embarrass Jesse Jackson and shame Barbara Boxer -- but won't -- the AP reports that both firms conducting media exit polling for the presidential election found flaws that overreported support for John Kerry:

Two firms that conducted Election Day exit polls for major news organizations reported Wednesday that they found a number of problems with the way the polls were carried out last year, resulting in estimates that overstated John Kerry's share of the vote.

Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International found that the Democratic challenger's supporters were more likely than President Bush's supporters to participate in exit polls interviews. They also found that more errors occurred in exit polls conducted by younger interviewers, and about half of the interviewers were 34 or under. ...

They noted that in a number of precincts, interviewers were kept 50 feet or more away from polling places, potentially skewing results toward people motivated to go out of their way to participate in exit polls. They also found suggestions that interviewers may not have carefully followed rules for selecting voters at random, which may have skewed results.

For the past ten weeks or so, we have heard over and over from Jackson, Boxer, and the like that the exit polling "proves" that vote fraud occurred in Ohio. They point to the early lead which the data supposedly predicted, even though the firms warned that initial data could not be considered reliable for projections. The Democrats, including the Kerry campaign, used the exit-polling data as the basis for several costly legal challenges, including a recount that cost Ohio over a million dollars ... and resulted in a 0.025% change in the election returns.

Now that even the polling firms have confirmed their sloppy work in the election, perhaps we will hear an explanation from the Democrats for their hysterical and paranoid response. After all, everyone knows that exit polling samples only the willing. The big poll takes place behind the curtain, which allows everyone to be "sampled" and the results to be much more reliable. At the least, Democrats should apologize to Ohioans, especially those whose reputations they besmirched in their zeal to justify the hijacking of the political process.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that apology. From now on, the news media should take care to report the news rather than predict it, and the rest of the country should learn to exercise a little patience while the real votes are counted. Finally, Democrats should choose their candidates with more care to avoid having to sue everyone in sight to overturn fair elections.

UPDATE: Be sure to read the exhaustive analysis at Daly Thoughts.

Calling On The Times To Correct Themselves

On the suggestion from CQ reader Zuke, I decided to e-mail my objections about today's editorial from the New York Times on the Condi Rice confirmation hearings. Below is the complete text from my message, with a few formatting changes for better effect on the blog.

Dear Mr. Okrent,

In keeping with your effort to ensure that the editorial pages of the New York Times goes through proper fact-checking, I wish to direct your attention to today's unsigned editorial on the confirmation hearings for Dr. Condoleezza Rice. Your editorial board appears to compound a serious misstatement of fact by Senator Joseph Biden in yesterday's hearing regarding the level of trained Iraqi security forces:

Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware, asked Ms. Rice how big an Iraqi security force had actually been trained. When Ms. Rice, the national security adviser, offered an absurdly inflated 120,000, Mr. Biden said the people doing the training put the total at 4,000. He then suggested that Ms. Rice "pick up the phone or go see these folks," as if that has not been her job all along, especially in the year since the administration said that all information on operations in Iraq would flow through her.

And yet last month, the Washington Post reported that tens of thousands had been trained already. Walter Pincus, no fan of the Bush administration, wrote this on December 22nd:

According to figures provided by the Pentagon, the number of trained Iraqi army and police units is far below the number required. For example, as of Dec. 6, the Pentagon reported that 27,000 trained army troops were needed but that only 3,428 were listed as "trained/on hand." The figures showed that 135,000 police officers were required but that only 50,798 were "trained/on hand."

The Iraqi National Guard, which provides security forces to protect buildings and other key facilities, had a better ratio, with 40,115 troops considered "trained/on hand" of the required force of 62,000.

Those total up to 94,341 security troops trained and on hand -- a far cry from 4,000, and that data is at least a month old now. Senator Biden and the New York Times editorial board failed to do sufficient research on this topic and inadvertently passed along a ludicrously low number in order to play "gotcha" with Dr. Rice. Prior to implying that Dr. Rice is incompetent or untruthful, one would expect a news organization to do its homework. The result now implies that the New York Times is the organization that needs to worry about its competence and its truthfulness.

I hope to see a retraction and an apology from the editorial board to its readers. Thank you for your time.

As always, I will update you with any response. Do you think this will result in a retraction or a correction? Let me know in the comments.

Oh, That Crisis!

I've wanted to write on this for some time, but Jon Henke at the must-read QandO beat me to it. The Democrats have accused the Bush Administration of crisis-mongering on Social Security, which they claim remains strong and solvent. However, that's a far cry -- almost literally -- from the rhetoric used by the last Democratic administration in Washington:

* Gene Sperling - Clinton Economic Advisor: "this is a chance for both parties to actually show ... that we are saving more to meet the Social Security crisis in the future. If we don't do this, then we are just putting those burdens on a future generation." ...

* Senator Kohl - Democrat: Wisconsin [March 22, 2000]: "Comprehensive Social Security Reform is still necessary. Today's changes will do nothing to hold off the coming crisis that will begin when we start drawing down the Social Security Trust fund in 2014. Congress needs to deal with this soon, otherwise we are shirking our duty to the American people."

* WHITE HOUSE RELEASE [October 30, 1998] -- "It is normally impossible for any democracy to tackle long-term problems while the crisis is still only on the horizon. Putting the surplus off-limits until we address saving Social Security provides a strong impetus for all of us to do something to solve a fiscal challenge early so we can prevent a crisis later."

For good measure, Jon provides a number of quotes from Bill himself using the term "crisis" to describe the program's financial condition. How, then, can they complain when Bush says this:

A lot of government, if the truth be known, is crisis-oriented management. You know, we wait and wait and wait, and then the crisis is upon us and everybody demands a solution. The problem with that when it comes to a modernization of Social Security is, is that the longer we wait, the more expensive the solution becomes.

Jon has plenty more. Be sure to read his entire post.

We Want Blood, Dammit!

I read the RSS summary for the New York Times editorial this morning and took some hope that they may have decided to take a more measured look at the news, rather than stoke partisan idiocy:

With a few exceptions, Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearing was an exercise in political theater.

Unfortunately, the Gray Lady meant that not as an endorsement of the more professional and less histrionic Foreign Relations Committee members, but as a scolding for them to be more like Barbara Boxer:

President Bush is entitled to choose his cabinet, and there was never much chance of opposition to Ms. Rice, a trusted member of his inner circle. But confirmation hearings should critically examine the nominee. Another unfortunate choice for a top job, Alberto Gonzales, at least had to endure a few hours' grilling on the torture of prisoners on his way to becoming attorney general.

Yesterday, Democratic senators, and some Republicans, recited the flaws in Mr. Bush's foreign policies - most glaringly on Iraq - and then did little more than politely urge Ms. Rice to check into those things once she's confirmed.

The Times then supports one of Senator Biden's more ludicrous assertions over what has already been widely reported:

Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware, asked Ms. Rice how big an Iraqi security force had actually been trained. When Ms. Rice, the national security adviser, offered an absurdly inflated 120,000, Mr. Biden said the people doing the training put the total at 4,000. He then suggested that Ms. Rice "pick up the phone or go see these folks," as if that has not been her job all along, especially in the year since the administration said that all information on operations in Iraq would flow through her.

And yet last month, the Washington Post reported that tens of thousands had been trained already. Walter Pincus, no fan of the Bush administration, wrote this on December 22nd:

According to figures provided by the Pentagon, the number of trained Iraqi army and police units is far below the number required. For example, as of Dec. 6, the Pentagon reported that 27,000 trained army troops were needed but that only 3,428 were listed as "trained/on hand." The figures showed that 135,000 police officers were required but that only 50,798 were "trained/on hand."

The Iraqi National Guard, which provides security forces to protect buildings and other key facilities, had a better ratio, with 40,115 troops considered "trained/on hand" of the required force of 62,000.

Those total up to 94,341 security troops trained and on hand -- a far cry from 4,000. Joe Biden and the Times may need to review who they call for their information, because it's certainly not anyone who knows about the situation in Iraq. Perhaps it's Barbara Boxer, the only Senator to garner praise from the New York Times editorial board this morning, for her idiotic posturing and dishonest characterization of Rice's statement.

The Times also appears confused about the job for which Rice is being confirmed:

Ms. Rice said repeatedly that she intended to engage in "public diplomacy." We hope that doesn't mean trying to sell flawed American foreign policy to reluctant governments abroad.

The Secretary of State promotes the foreign policy of the duly-elected executive and offers her advice on goals and strategies, but the decisions reside with the President -- as they should. Does the editorial board believe that Cabinet officers should set their own policies as unelected officials in the US government? Obviously, this notion that our foreign policy is "flawed" comes from the Times' estimation of George Bush, not Colin Powell, so apparently not. Unfortunately for the Times, and against all their efforts, Bush won re-election. Somehow, though, the Gray Lady wants the next Secretary of State to implement John Kerry's foreign policy instead of Bush's.

Rarely do I seek wisdom on the Times' editorial pages, and again today I am reminded why.

Where Have We Heard This Before?

The AP reports on the ascendancy of Howard Dean for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee with a headline that smacks of deja vu -- "Dean Gaining Early Momentum in DNC Race":

On Tuesday, the former Vermont governor announced he had the unanimous backing of the Florida delegation to the DNC and also the support of Democratic chairs in Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma, Washington state and Vermont. He plans house parties around the nation later this week, like the ones he used while trying to gain the Democratic presidential nomination.

Dean dominated the Democrats' presidential race through 2003, raising more than $40 million and recruiting thousands of supporters through the Internet.

But when the voting started in Iowa, Dean stumbled as Democrats rallied around a candidate they thought was more electable — Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

I find the DNC raise mildly amusing but strategically negligible. The Democrats seem ready to line up behind the one man from the 2004 cycle who almost deliberately self-destructed as their leader for campaigning. Dean couldn't out-fight Al Sharpton in Iowa -- Iowa! -- and now the Democrats want him in charge against the GOP nationwide. He is less charismatic than Terry McAuliffe and a panderer to idealogues at a time when the Democrats need a strong, charismatic pragmatist like Bill Clinton to reach out towards the center.

It doesn't matter much, anyway. The selection of the DNC chair only really matters as an indication of the party elites, and obviously they have not yet figured out why they've gotten beat three election cycles in a row. Having Dean represent them, with all the attendant International ANSWER/Move On attachments it implies, will mean that the money will continue to pour into candidates who hew to the radical end of the leftist spectrum. Why not? George Soros has plenty of money left.

Of course, all this assumes Dean can close the deal this time. The last time we saw Howard Dean in this position, his candidacy melted down faster than MacArthur Park and all the sweet cream icing in the dark, and I don't think that he can take it again.

Addendum: The Washington Post has more on Dean's attempt to rehabilitate himself towards the center (second item):

Maddox said competence, not ideology, should be the key to picking the party leader. Noting that Dean comes from the moderate-to-conservative wing of the party, owns a gun and watches NASCAR races, Maddox said: "I'm perfectly comfortable with Governor Dean's leadership skills and think he will be a fine chairman for the party."

The abortion-on-demand Dean represents Democratic conservatives? Why? Because he watches NASCAR? They're more clueless than I thought. Get ready for the fifty-year GOP majority.

Broadcasting & Cable: 5 Questions The CBS Report Raises

Mark Lasswell at Broadcasting & Cable got no satisfaction from the Thornburgh-Boccardi report regarding Memogate at CBS News. He asks five questions of CBS that their panel report creates rather than answers:

Last week, the tortured saga of the bogus documents came to a close. Or at least the major issues were settled of how CBS News came to rely on—and then adamantly defend—dubious records of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s. As the investigative panel chosen by CBS, former Associated Press CEO Louis Boccardi and former U.S. attorney general Dick Thornburgh, reported in exhaustive detail, 60 Minutes Wednesday aired a segment on Sept. 8 that was tainted in almost every regard. But the report doesn't resolve all the questions that spring from the story of how producer Mary Mapes, with a barely engaged Dan Rather as her correspondent, rushed the story onto air. Yes, we know that Mapes obtained photocopies of National Guard documents from a longstanding Bush critic, former Texas Army National Lt. Col. Bill Burkett. And we know about what happened: According to the report, Mapes came to believe fervently in the authenticity of the documents that purported to show Bush getting into the Guard through favoritism and then avoiding punishment for breaking rules.

The panel says the producer ignored evidence that the documents might be false and she skirted the truth when dealing her supervisors at CBS as the story was haphazardly vetted and then thrown on the air. And then, when the blogosphere erupted with withering critiques of the documents, CBS News spent 12 long days denying the obvious. Rather's exit from the Evening News was hastened by the scandal. Three CBS executives were asked to resign last week. Mapes was fired. CBS announced new rules for its newsgathering operation. But the story is hardly over, and plenty of questions remain.

Lasswell asks his five questions, the first three being the most pointed and the final two more philosophical. Lasswell has interesting points for discussion on all five, but by far the most interesting are the first three. In the second, Lasswell wants to know how Andrew Heyward managed to avoid the axe -- a question that many of us would like answered:

In effect, Heyward's subordinates failed to follow their boss's instructions every step of the way. Before the story aired, Heyward specifically urged West and Howard in an e-mail to “work closely with” Rather and Mapes, cautioning the executives not let those two “stampede us in any way.” In the days after the Sept. 8 broadcast, as the torrent of criticism increased and CBS embarked on its disastrous defense of the story, Heyward ordered a systematic review of how the documents had been authenticated, raising the possibility that CBS should back away from the story.

The fact that West effectively ignored the first order and rejected the second as she plunged ahead with a strategy of hostile defensiveness no doubt sealed her fate. But wasn't Heyward responsible for leading the team and demanding results?

In most organizations, that would be the expectation. However, as Lasswell notes, Moonves values loyalty -- or yes-men -- and apparently Heyward fits that bill. Moonves let Heyward off the hook because Heyward gave the right orders, even if he apparently didn't lift a finger to ensure his orders were carried out. That kind of leadership will not inspire any kind of culture change at CBS News, let alone usher in the kind of transformation needed to ensure that this kind of incident doesn't happen again at Black Rock.

Lasswell also wants to know why CBS allowed Mapes to run with a story that essentially had died four years earlier with no new information for a resurrection:

President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard had been pretty thoroughly raked over during his first presidential campaign. In fact, Mapes herself had been working the case as far back as 1999 and even enlisted Rather to conduct a couple of interviews, although, in the end, she couldn't come up with a usable story. But plenty had been written and broadcast about Bush's military history by the time Mapes dived into the story last summer. And, indeed, in the tit-for-tat world of journalism, when John Kerry's Vietnam service became an issue last year, assignment editors almost reflexively warmed to balancing the equation by turning to Bush's record again.

But what they found was precious little information that qualified as news. Mapes was clearly riveted by what she saw in the documents turned over to her by Burkett, but others at CBS were underwhelmed. According to the investigative panel's report, Howard told them that, when Mapes showed him the first set of documents from Burkett, he “wondered why Mapes was excited about them as he did not think that they contained significant new information.”

Amazingly, Lasswell analyzes the decision to pursue the story and air the segment as competitive pressure, echoing the CBS panel. Competitive pressure to pursue a non-story for months and air a segment with no authentication? To do what -- be the first broadcaster to air a fraud? He asks the right question about the underlying motive for pursuing the non-story of the TexANG and, just like Thornburgh-Boccardi and Moonves, answers the different question as to why CBS aired the segment and used the documents. It's a slick, if disappointing, sleight-of-hand.

The most interesting question is Lasswell's first -- who created the Killian memos?

Despite the investigative panel's exhaustive fact-gathering, Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi did not even attempt to answer the biggest question of all in this matter. But the report does contain come intriguing information. On Aug. 25, two weeks before the fateful CBS broadcast, Bill Burkett wrote a commentary for Linda Starr and Bev Conover's anti-Bush Web site Online Journal that included a passage with this warning: “George W. Bush, you may be the president. But I know you lied” based on “the files that we have now reassembled.” Some observers, in addition to wondering what “reassembled” files would look like, also speculate about who the “we” in that sentence refers to.

At CBS, Dan Rather may be the only remaining soul who still clings to the thin thread of hope that the documents actually came from the files of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian of Bush's squadron. One CBS executive says, “Don't dismiss the possibility that Burkett wrote them himself.” Certainly, Burkett's Army National Guard background made him familiar with military documentation, and it might explain the appearance in the documents of Army terms such as “billet” that Air National Guard personnel found jarring. But Burkett also repeatedly implored Mary Mapes to have CBS authenticate the papers he gave her. And, indeed, Mapes herself wasn't always so convinced that the documents were genuine. She told the panel that she worried early on that they might have been planted as “a political dirty trick”—and she related a meeting when she raised the possibility with Burkett. He seemed “genuinely shocked” at the suggestion, Mapes said.

Don't be so quick to discount Burkett's role in creating the documents himself. Burkett certainly had the most opportunity; as Lasswell notes, the wording and formatting seem to coincide much more closely with Burkett's Army National Guard experience than Bush's TexANG jargon, and besides, Burkett changed his story three times on the source of the documents. He either created them himself or had someone do it for him, and the shifting stories only make sense if he wanted to direct attention away from himself as the source.

If that's true, then why does he urge Mapes on several occasions to ensure that the memos get authenticated by CBS? For one thing, it allows Burkett to pretend that the falsified memos are some sort of disinformation campaign and that he was made a patsy. That plays into his whole victim/paranoia schtick, too. But that wouldn't have been his primary motivation; he wanted to "get" Bush somehow. What did he want from Mapes? A book deal and an entreé to the John Kerry campaign in order to be the big man who showed Kerry how to stop the Swift Boat vets.

I doubt anyone will ever be able to prove it, especially since Burkett burned the originals, by his own admission. However, it's the only explanation that makes sense. "Lucy Ramirez" is a red herring, and a blatantly amateurish one at that. The documents show a similar amateurishness that almost certainly demonstrates Burkett's authorship of the entire scheme.

Read all of Lasswell's article. It isn't perfect by far, but it is interesting.

A Mighty Big Coincidence

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel continues to cover the questions swirling around the Wisconsin presidential election results, even if the national media yawns at the prospect. Greg Borokowski reports that the 84,000 election-day registrants in the city of Milwaukee just about matches the same number as 2000 (hat tip: CQ reader JB):

Lisa Artison, executive director of the city Election Commission, said the number of cards that could not be sent out this time was comparable to the number after the 2000 presidential election. ...

At issue is a gap between the city's estimate of 84,000 election-day registrants and 73,079 verification cards that were sent, as required by law. ...

If the 84,000 estimate of election-day registrants is accurate, 13% of the cards could not be processed. The 84,000 number, about 30% of the 277,535 people who voted in the November election, includes regular voters who may have moved, as well as new voters.

The 10,000 votes questioned represents 3.6% of all voters.

Part of the confusion about this story results from confusing the city and county numbers from Milwaukee, a problem I had myself earlier today. In this case, however, the MSJ specifies that the 84,000 same-day registrations came just from the city -- and that they account for 30.2% of all votes cast in the city. How many other cities had almost a third of their registered voters show up for the first time on Election Day?

As it turns out, Milwaukee did the exact same thing in the prior presidential election:

After the 2000 presidential election, she said, the initial city estimate to the state was that 81,000 people registered and voted. That year, the cards that were ultimately able to be processed numbered 73,847.

In 2000, 245,670 people voted in Milwaukee. The 7,153 same-day registrations that couldn't be processed then represented 2.9% of the total.

That means in just one four-year span, the city of Milwaukee processed 165,000 voter registrations in just two days, both of them Election Day -- in a city that turned out 245,000 and 277,000 votes on each day. Either Milwaukee has a 30% turnover in residency over a four-year period, or a substantial fraud occurred in both years.

For this election in my state of Minnesota, which allows the same kind of same-day registration, the number of successful same-day registrants (440,263) only accounts for 15.6% of all votes, and only 12% of the estimated total of registered voters in Minnesota. Even those numbers seemed high to us here, but next to Milwaukee, they're almost insignificant. In Hennepin County (Minneapolis), the most analogous to Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, the same-day registrations only account for 15.4% of the votes, while in neigboring Ramsey (St. Paul), they comprise an anemic 9.4% of the total number of votes cast.

Do a third of Milwaukee residents change their residency every four years and fail to re-register to vote? Or could it be that the overwhelming number of provisional registrations show a concerted effort to skew Wisconsin presidential elections in one particular direction? I find it hard to believe that two neighboring states could have such a wide variance in residency. Instead of focusing their ire on Bush's wide margin of victory in Ohio, the Senate should call for a federal investigation into the razor-thin results in Wisconsin for both 2000 and 2004.

CBS: The Chicago Cubs Of Network News

CBS chief Les Moonves told reporters today that he's leaning towards using a rotating series of talking heads, reading news reports from various cities, as a replacement plan for Dan Rather's position as anchorman. He inadvertently nails the problem that CBS News created while essentially surrendering to its effects:

CBS will probably replace Dan Rather on the evening news with a multi-anchor, perhaps multi-city format that changes the "antiquated" way of reporting the day's top stories, CBS chief Leslie Moonves said Tuesday.

Moonves, who will ultimately select Rather's replacement, said he believes many young viewers are turned off by a single "voice of God" anchor in the Internet age. ...

"Those days are over when you have that guy sitting behind the desk who everyone believes to the `nth' degree," Moonves told reporters. "It's sort of an antiquated way of news telling and maybe there's a new way of doing it."

Thanks to Moonves, Rather, and Andrew Heyward, no one believes the man behind the desk to the "nth degree" or anywhere else. They believe those reports that have substantiation and authenticated evidence, an issue that Moonves' rotating heads won't resolve either. Why would having four or five different people reading what other people write give CBS any more credibility than they have now? Granted, having Rather in front of a story automatically damages their viewers' trust, but the same people making the big decisions still work at CBS News: Rather and Heyward. Until CBS admits its political biases and cleans house, everything they do will be suspect, no matter how many pretty faces they put in front of the camera.

It recalls the efforts of another sad-sack organization, the Chicago Cubs, in the 1960s. Faced with a long losing streak, the brilliant minds at Wrigley Field decided that instead of hiring a manager with some intelligence, they would create the College of Coaches (see 1962). The CoC consisted of eight baseball coaches with equal rank, and all decisions would be made by consensus. The Cubs used this system for two years, and it did have a dramatic impact: they lost 103 games in 1962, finishing below an expansion club, the Houston Colt 45s (later the Astros).

Maybe Moonves wants to transform CBS into the Chicago Cubs of network news broadcasters. Someone needs to tell him they're already there.

UPDATE: In what has to be the comment of the day, Chuck G notes that I'm targeting the wrong side of the Windy City:

Speaking as a Cubs fan, I'd much prefer the term 'the Black Sox of network news'.

I mean, the Cubs might be completely unable to hit the damn ball, but at least they're honestly *trying* to. CBS, on the other hand, is deliberately fixing games.

Chuck, you do make an excellent point ...

UPDATE II: Houston Colt 45s; I've updated it above.

The New York Times Responds (Finally)

On December 27th, I posted about an op-ed column in the New York Times written by Brent Staples, decrying the Census Bureau practice of counting prisoners as residents of the county in which the prison is located. This column followed an editorial by the Gray Lady with the same assertions in a foreshadowing of what I expect to be blitz coverage of the 2010 census -- think Masters Gold Tournament.

Mr. Staples used some odd statistics in his opinion piece about the nature of disenfranchisement (emphasis mine):

The mandatory sentencing fad that swept the United States beginning in the 1970's has had dramatic consequences - most of them bad. The prison population was driven up tenfold, creating a large and growing felon class - now 13 million strong - that remains locked out of the mainstream and prone to recidivism. Trailing behind the legions of felons are children who grow up visiting their parents behind bars and thinking prison life is perfectly normal. Meanwhile, the cost of building and running prisons has pushed many states near bankruptcy - and forced them to choose between building jails and schools.

I wondered about that statistic, as it appeared overly large, especially since Mr. Staples' main argument involved the counting of felons for the census. I did my own research and found this:

Staples uses misleading or flat-out erroneous data to support his claims. He states that we have a "felon class" of 13 million people. That would be news to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which puts the entire American prison population at all levels for all crimes at just over 2 million at the end of 2003. Moreover, the rate of growth slowed in 2003 to 2.6%, down from the 3.5% rate over the past decade. Violent offenders, by the way, accounted for 63% of the increased incarceration, while drug-related crime -- which Staples claims is the main cause -- only accounted for 15%.

Even more absurd is the Times' use of New York as an example. In 2003, New York's prison population decreased by 2.8%, one of 11 states whose incarceration declined. Even without that information, New York's prison population (77,000 in 2000) won't even amount to a single Congressional or assembly representative even if they were all put into one facility. It's a non-issue that the Times insists on beating into the ground, just like their jeremiad against the Masters tournament.

I sent a letter to the reader representative, Daniel Okrent, protesting the shell game Brent Staples played with the statistics and challenged the New York Times to substantiate his column or retract it. In response, I received this message today from Gail Collins at the NYT:

The Public Editor has forwarded your letter to me. When Brent Staples wrote about the "felon class" he was referring to both ex-convicts and those currently serving time for felonies. I conveyed to him your question about where he got the number 13 million and he gave me several references, including an essay by Jeremy Travis, the president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in "Invisible Punishment 2002" and "Crime Class and Rehabilitation," an address delivered by Christopher Uggen of the University of Minnesota at the American Society of Criminology Conference in 2000.

That's the entire reply, except for the greeting and the signature. Instead of checking with official sources for his statistics, Mr. Staples apparently cherry-picked his numbers from an obscure speech at the ASCC from four years ago and an essay by a college president. Ms. Collins implies that Mr. Staples consulted other sources, but none named.

I stand by what I wrote. Mr. Staples compared apples and oranges in an attempt to create the impression that 13 million people were being incarcerated by the GOP in their districts to affect apportionment, when the numbers do not even approach that. Mr. Staples either made a large error in his calculations or deliberately misled his readers, and the New York Times owes them a retraction.

More Milwaukee County Demographics

Part of the continuing look at voter fraud in Wisconsin and the lack of media attention, which I called The Silence Of The Cheese ...

For a bit more analysis on Milwaukee County's presidential election results, let's take a look at the population dynamics over the past 13 years. As these articles make clear, Milwaukee County has seen a continuing flight of residents; the county decreased by 19,000 people between the 1990 and 2000 census, and the US Census Bureau estimates that the drop has steepened since. They now estimate that 32,000 fewer people live in Milwaukee County, including 29,000 voting-age adults.

From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel of March 8, 2001:

Meanwhile, Milwaukee County Executive F. Thomas Ament was relieved to hear that his county didn't lose more people. Milwaukee County dropped 2%, from 959,275 to 940,164.

"Obviously, I'm not pleased with losing population," he said, but this drop is "not as large as many have expected."

Ament said Milwaukee County's population decline reflected a trend of "less people per household," particularly in long-developed areas.

And it dropped further, according to Census Bureau estimates, since the last election cycle. In 2000, the Census found 692,339 adults living in Milwaukee County. In 2003, the Census Bureau estimates 663,517 adults, a drop of almost 30,000 potential voters, and a much steeper decline than in the previous decade.

Now, with that information, one would expect a decline in voter registrations and turnout, at least in real numbers. However, the election turnout has shown a remarkable and unnerving result that belies the residency figures. Ballots cast have increased, and not by a statistically insignificant margin. Here are the numbers for the last three presidential election cycles:

1996: 365,387
2000: 433,537
2004: 482,236

The increase in votes for the 2000 election was 18.7% over 1996 in a county that had had a net decrease in population of 2% over the past decade. In 2004, despite a population decrease of 3.2% in the past three years, the voter response increased in Milwaukee County by 11.2% over the already-ballooned turnout of 2000. While Milwaukee County lost 5% of its overall population over the past thirteen years and accelerating in the past three, votes cast increased an unbelievable 32% in the past eight years.

I'd like to see the statistical analysis which supports that kind of voter turnout improvements, especially with only a 6% increase overall in national turnout between 1996 and 2004. The results point to some other force at play than a monumental increase in civic response among Milwaukee County adults.

UPDATE: This certainly could be one explanation, an e-mail from a Wisconsin poll worker to Dirty Harry at Stranded On Blue Islands:

We have a large low income apartment complex located in the district covered at the polling place I worked. We had more same day registrants for that address than could live there.

We were unable to contest any of those registrations because of a little trick called "Voter verification" It goes something like this: A voter has an out of state driver's license and wants to register.They are required to present a utility bill or some other form of information that would verify they live where they say. If they don't have that, a "legitimate elector" can verify their residence.

What is a "legitimate elector" you may ask? Well let me give you an example. Groups from Move-on.org, Vote Now, ACT, and local GOTV would drop off a group of "voters". One of the drivers would act as the "Legitimate Elector" and say this person was located where he claimed. Presto - that person is a voter.

Do that enough times and the 32% increase in votes from 1996 to 2004 becomes a lot more understandable.

Still Whining After All His Tears

John Kerry stood up on Martin Luther King Day and blasted the United States for the "disenfranchisement" of thousands of voters, a reference to the Ohio election which he lost by 118,000 votes. Kerry implied heavily that the GOP engineered voter fraud in his loss to George Bush:

The Massachusetts Democrat, Bush's challenger in November, spoke at Boston's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast. He reiterated that he decided not to challenge the election results, but said "thousands of people were suppressed in the effort to vote."

"Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways. In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, 11 hours to vote, while Republicans [went] through in 10 minutes -- same voting machines, same process, our America," he said.

The complaints center on Cuyahoga County, of course, where Cleveland voters complained of standing in line for hours due to the lack of voting machines, a side effect of the higher turnout from 2000. However, what Kerry doesn't mention -- again -- is that Cuyahoga County election officials are Democrats, not Republicans. The county goes heavily Democratic in elections at all levels. If anyone screwed Cuyahoga County voters, it's the Democrats who have always promised their minority-bloc voters the moon and delivered below subsistence.

What's more, John Kerry doesn't bother to mention the douple-plus-good turnout in Milwaukee that effectively disenfranchised an entire state. Do you suppose there may be a reason for that?

The Silence Of The Cheese

Can you still hear the cheese screaming, Clar-iiiiiice?

Michelle Malkin points out a story that I had missed in neighboring Wisconsin, one that calls into question the veracity of its presidential-election results. Wisconsin wound up going for John Kerry by 11,300 votes in what came as a mild surprise to most observers in the Upper Midwest (via Stranded On Blue Islands). Al Gore had carried the state by a shade over 5,000 votes in 2000, and most pollsters had the race a dead heat or George Bush pulling slightly ahead in 2004. Instead, Kerry took Wisconsin by doubling Gore's margin.

How did that happen? Well, in one county -- Milwaukee, a traditional Democratic stronghold -- turnout increased by just under 49,000 votes, or about 10%, outstripping the nationwide increase of 6.4%. The new votes broke about 60/40 Kerry, about the trend of the county in both elections, adding a 9,000-vote margin to Milwaukee over Gore in the last election.

But here's where the Silence Of The Cheese gets ... well, stickier. According to state records, 83,000 people executed a same-day registration for Milwuakee County, which is more than 20% of all voting-age residents in the county. Now, Wisconsinites may procrastinate a bit, but in order to believe that number, you'd have to expect that 20% of the county had moved or became newly eligible within the past two years (after the previous national cycle). Not only that, but the state now reports that 10,000 of those registrations cannot be verified, a whopping 12% of all same-day registrations and almost the entire margin of victory for Kerry for the entire state.

Two more interesting statistics show up as well. In 2000, the US Census Bureau showed that Milwaukee County had 425,990 residents 18 years of age and older (incorrect -- see below), yet the 2000 election had 433,537 voters casting ballots. In order for that to be correct, the census had to miss 2% of Milwaukee's 18+ population -- and no felons had to live in Milwaukee County, nor any resident aliens, illegal aliens, or any other adult ineligible to vote. And that's just 2000. In 2004, again, the voters increased by 11% on top of what was already a 102% turnout for the previous presidential election.

But hey, let's be fair about this. Maybe those statistics are in error and Milwaukee has always turned out big in elections, although 113% does seem a bit high, even for civic-minded Wisconsin. Take a look at 1996, when Bill Clinton coasted to re-election over Bob Dole. Milwaukee was no exception either; Clinton topped Dole by a shade over 97,000 votes. The difference is that Milwaukee only cast 365,387 votes for president that year (page 52), or about an 86% turnout. That's 68,000 less than 2000 and a whopping 117,000 less than 2004.

Did Milwaukee grow that much? Or has Mayor Daley been resurrected in Milwaukee?

Despite being the fastest-growing metropolis for likely voters in the nation and despite its razor-thin margin for John Kerry, the Wisconsin voting irregularities have yet to grab the attention of the national media. Instead of long lines due to the miscalculations of Democratic Party election officials in Ohio who were too cheap to buy enough voting machines, we appear to have endemic voter fraud in Wisconsin's largest county, large enough to have returned fraudulent Electoral College results in two succeeding presidential elections. And yet Barbara Boxer has shed no tears on the Senate floor for Wisconsin voters; John Kerry has not pontificated in stentorian tones about Wisconsin disenfranchisement on Martin Luther King Day. The New York Times has not called for a federal investigation into Milwaukee's double-plus-good turnout the past two presidential elections. CBS News has not delivered a breathless report on it for 60 Minutes Wednesday. In fact, from what I can find, not one national news outlet has given any attention to the facts above. Not one.

Why? Why does the Silence Of The Cheese continue to deafen our national media? If they have their way, Clarice Starling wouldn't come within 500 miles of Milwaukee but instead would chase down red herrings in Cleveland, Ohio. It almost convinces me that political bias plays a role in mainstream media coverage. Good think Dick Thornburgh told me otherwise.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Be sure to read these blogs for more details:

Polipundit
The American Mind
Boots and Sabers
Pull On Superman's Cape

UPDATE II: I misread the data from Stranded On Blue Islands. The correct number for Milwaukee County adults in 2000 was significantly higher -- 692,339. SOBI referenced data for Milwaukee City, while I compared that to county returns. That moves the 1996 turnout to 57% of all adults (not registered voters!), 2000 to 62.5%, and 2004 to 69.7%, although the raw voter totals remain correct in my post above. My apologies; I should have confirmed that data first as it does materially affect the analysis.

However, the growth rate for Milwaukee County is almost a 20% increase in voters over an eight-year period. Does that sound like Milwaukee has grown that fast? Especially when the Census Bureau shows a net decrease in population for Milwaukee of 36,000 by 2003 (estimated)? That includes a net decrease in adults of 29,000...

UPDATE III: I've been asked why I didn't just rewrite this post with the correct data. Well, I assume that some people might be able to find the original post through RSS feeds, so that would look rather dishonest -- and besides, I screwed up, and I don't have an issue with admitting it. The new data changes this from a slam dunk to a more complicated story. I've taken a fresh look at the correct demographic data in this new post, and I hope you check it out.

Dissent In North Korea: AP

The AP reports that they have video of unprecedented demonstrations against the Kim regime in North Korea, one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world. The demonstration calls for the removal of Kim Jong-Il and follows several signs over the past few months that Kim's grip may be slipping:

A human rights group claimed Tuesday that it has obtained video footage showing dissident activities in North Korea, with demands for freedom and democracy written over a poster of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il.

If authentic, it would be the first time images of dissent in the highly secretive North have come to light. But there was no way to independently confirm the validity of the footage.

The 35-minute videotape, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, shows written statements posted on a wall, urging North Koreans to fight to retrieve freedom and democracy.

A man is heard, but not seen, reading a statement, demanding Kim Jong Il be removed from his post. "The North Korean people are suffering from hunger and poverty because of Kim Jong Il's dictatorship and dogmatic politics," the man says.

No one doubts that the Kim regime has suffered some level of strain this past year, from large explosions in its railroad system to the unusual retirement of some public portraits of the Dear Leader in the capitol. The North Koreans have starved for years, with thousands fleeing into an increasingly unhappy China. Now it looks like some North Koreans are either unwilling to abandon their homeland to the Kim regime or simply haven't the means to leave. And if they have to starve anyway, in the last gasp some will stand and fight.

Hopefully the regime will pass from the scene quietly. The cracks have lengthened and deepened, and if the North Koreans have decided to stand up and demand change, it won't take much to start a collapse.

UPDATE: Tomorrow's London Telegraph has more:

The 35-minute video clip, said to have been taken in November, was posted on the website of an opposition group based in South Korea. It shows a poster of Kim scrawled over with the words: "Down with Kim Jong-il. Let's all rise to drive out the dictatorial regime.'' ...

Such an act would be considered a grave crime in the North and would mean a death sentence without trial for the perpetrator, said Do Hee-youn, who heads the group. "It's no ordinary group of people who took this video," he told Reuters news agency.

This is the still frame that might be imperfectly analogous to Luther nailing his theses to the Wittenburg cathedral door:

Movie Review: The Aviator

The First Mate and I took my sister to see the new Martin Scorsese film, The Aviator, which wangled a couple of Golden Globes last night. (Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, my sister took us.) The long-anticipated film looks at the life of Howard Hughes, the aviation pioneer and noted eccentric whose life cast a long shadow in the movie, aviation, defense, and financial industries. While I have a lot of admiration for the attempt, I think The Aviator is fundamentally flawed, if still entertaining.

First, the film only looks at a 20-year period of Hughes' life, from 1927 when he began work on Hell's Angels to 1947, when he flew the Spruce Goose across the water in Los Angeles. He never even mentions RKO, the studio owned by Hughes from 1948 to 1955. That narrow focus disappointed me, as it shortchanged the impact that Hughes had on postwar America. I understand that a film has limited scope, unless you want a Lord of the Rings type of epic, and it's doubtful that anyone would sit still for a four-hour biopic. However, Scorsese dawdled endlessly on the Hell's Angels sequences while obviously admiring the excesses of Hughes himself on producing the film. That time could have gone towards exploring Hughes as an older man in the 1950s and 1960s, including his final descent into his obsessive-compulsive disorder in Las Vegas.

A good part of the film is dedicated to the relationship between Hughes and Katherine Hepburn, one which surprised me; none of us had been aware that they had ever had a personal relationship. The movie takes its time with Hepburn, excellently played by Cate Blanchett, but then skids past one with Ava Gardner, even though she plays a more critical part in the movie. Hughes was linked to dozens of high-profile stars as well as obscure starlets, but we only really see those two plus one starlet who goes crazy for Hughes.

Mostly, I was bothered by the overwhelming focus on Hughes' obsessive-compulsive disorder rather than the accomplishments in his life. Hints appear in almost every scene, and at one point I wanted to say, "I GET IT! HE HAS OCD!" It's the kind of thing that actors salivate to portray, and Leonardo DiCaprio does an excellent job doing so. However, OCD wasn't the be-all and end-all of Howard Hughes, and Scorsese misses the forest for the trees.

However, the film does grab attention for almost the entire run time, and some sequences are truly gripping. Hughes almost died testing one of his designs, and Scorsese shows the crash in amazing detail, a sequence that may be one of the best of its kind. The Senate hearings that a smirking Alan Alda holds also has its own power, with momentum shifting back and forth until Hughes finally breaks the committee with his audacious and forthright testimony.

The performances of the cast are uniformly excellent. As always, I didn't recognize Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner (I didn't recognize her in Van Helsing, either); she seems to melt into her roles. It's good to see Alan Alda in something meaningful, rather than Michael Moore's Canadian Bacon, and he delivers a natural performance as a Maine senator in the pocket of Pan Am's CEO. As I said earlier, DiCaprio and Blanchett do a terrific job. I even liked Alec Baldwin as Pan Am chief Juan Trippe, which says something indeed. Scorsese directs with his usual style and flair, although if I saw one more shot taking the audience into the oncoming nose of an aircraft, I would have started cheering for another crash.

I think The Aviator is a flawed but entertaining film that takes few chances. Instead of limiting its scope, Scorsese should have emulated his subject a bit more and taken a more ambitious look at Hughes' entire life, not just his OCD and Hollywood relationships. I'd recommend it for the sheer spectacle and the performances. It's rated PG-13 for language and the extremely realistic crash sequence, as well as the subject matter and several shots of DiCaprio's exposed rear.

Oliver Willis Just Can't Be Honest

I'm turning over this post to Hubris, who writes:

This is from Oliver Willis' latest post:

I'm sure the right will come up with another b.s. explanation. Can anyone tell me whatever happened to the "smoking gun" memos "unearthed" by Brent Bozell's CNSNews and conspiracy pariah Laurie Mylorie (Captain Ed: "a blockbuster find", Little Green Nazis: "the story is true", Powerline: "a great deal of detail")? Yeah, I thought so. Cash those checks, guys, but at least make sure you're getting more than Armstrong.

http://www.oliverwillis.com/node/view/1675

I clicked through to each archived story, and found the following:
-----------------------------------------------------
Captain Ed: "In a blockbuster article if their sources pan out...

"If the translations and the authentications hold up, this is a blockbuster find." [emphasis mine]

LGF: "It needs to be independently confirmed before we can fully trust the story..." [Willis actually quotes a commenter who said "the story is true]

Powerline: "The CNS account provides a great deal of detail about the documents and has links to partial translations of the documents and other material." [emphasis mine]
----------------------------------------------------

In other words, Willis uses selective, partial quotations (in one case from a commenter rather than from the site author) to create an extremely misleading post, then rounds it out with an unsupported payola accusation and sprinkles an insult regarding not caring about the troops on top.

I tried to comment at his site, but it seems that comments are not enabled on this post.

Just thought you should know. Thanks.

Hubris
http://hubris.typepad.com/

My reaction:

Hey, Oliver -- I'm not taking money from George Soros or anyone else except for my Blogads, which self-disclose. Too bad you didn't ask me before implying otherwise, but it doesn't surprise me for a half-literate buffoon who can't be bothered to read the posts to which he links.

As far as tossing Nazi references, it only shows your immaturity and historical ignorance.

Baghdadis Want To Vote: Reuters

Despite the doom-and-gloom predictions of the Western media and the American left about the upcoming Iraqi elections, Baghdad voters intend on turning out in numbers that would embarrass Americans:

Two-thirds of registered voters in the Iraqi capital say they will cast their ballots in the Jan. 30 election despite the threat of violence, an independent Iraqi newspaper survey found Monday.

A high turnout in Baghdad, a city of 5-6 million people, could raise the credibility of polls which are expected to be marred by suicide bombings by insurgents bent on sabotaging the vote in the country of 27 million. ...

The survey in the al-Mada newspaper, one of Iraq's most respected dailies, was conducted last week in eight main districts of Baghdad, one of the cities where insurgents are expected to launch attacks.

Based on a sample of 300 people, it found 67 percent of Baghdadis planned to vote. Twenty-five percent said they would not take part and nine percent were undecided.

In comparison, Americans just held our presidential election, one that received the highest turnout in 36 years. We managed to muster out a whopping 60.7% of our registered voters nationwide for our election -- and that was the best in over a generation. So far, I don't hear calls that our past nine elections should be invalidated due to their low turnout.

Many of the American Left want us to delay the Iraqi elections, despite the fact that (a) the interim Iraqi constitution requires the election to retire the interim government in place of a representative parliament, and (b) it would reward the terrorists who bomb and murder people by the score to put off an honest election. Too bad the American Left can't demonstrate the intestinal fortitude of the Iraqis themselves. In the same poll, only 23% of Baghdadis want the elections put off -- about half of what one would find in the birthplace of modern democracy. That result should shame those who call for the cowardly retreat in the face of the brutal attacks that have unnerved more Americans than Iraqis.

Don't underestimate the power and promise of self-government, especially for a people who have endured brutal and genocidal tyranny for most lifetimes. Don't overestimate the power of those who take their freedoms for granted and who appear to believe that democracy only works with Europeans. Increasingly, they have been revealed as defeatists and moral relativists who don't have much faith in democracy at all.

More Polling Shows Bush Gaining Support

Fresh on the heels of a six-point gain in the latest Time Magazine poll, AP-Ipsos shows George Bush making similar inroads among adults in general. The new polling shows George Bush gaining two-thirds support for his personal attributes, including intelligence:

A majority of Americans say they feel hopeful about President Bush's second term and have a generally positive view of him personally, but they also express continued doubts about Iraq. ...

Ahead of Bush's inauguration on Thursday, six in 10 people said they felt hopeful about his second term and in response to a separate question 47 percent said they were worried. Most said they were neither angry nor excited about his final four years in office.

Considering the partisan atmosphere that has prevailed since the Democrats went crazy in the aftermath of the 2000 election -- and continued after this past election in Ohio -- a 60% "hopeful" rating seems rather significant. It also indicates that the Bush mandate may run deeper than thought; after all, the people who oppose Bush's policies will hardly remain "hopeful" about Bush's ability to implement them with the GOP in charge of both houses of Congress.

Even more interesting is the personal affection that a large majority of the public has for George Bush. Even those who oppose his policies appear to have rejected the personal attacks leveled by the Democrats for the past eighteen months, a result that should cause some recalculations in the DNC and other strategy groups:

Nearly two-thirds of those polled described Bush as likable, strong and intelligent. A majority said he is dependable and honest. Bush is likely to need to draw on those personal strengths as he pursues an aggressive second-term agenda.

Given that the AP doesn't include the actual polling numbers in its report, I suspect that "majority" here doesn't mean 51%, but probably significantly higher -- otherwise, we'd hear qualifiers like "bare", "thin", or even a description of the result as "half". Again, Bush survived the smear campaigns of 2003-4, including the inane singsong "Bush lied, people died" slogan that cheered up the International ANSWER crowd but turned off a significant segment of the center.

What we're seeing reflects history from 20 years ago, when another strong American president did not recoil from using American economic and military power to win a war, one that had dragged on for decades. At the time, the opposition made similar charges towards Ronald Reagan: he lacked intelligence, he was a lightweight on foreign policy, Reagan was the amiable dunce who fronted for the powers behind the throne, and Reagan would cause the world to destroy itself. For those of us who were politically aware at the time, the past four years have provided an eerie sense of deja vu that gives us hope. The same people who got it wrong twenty years ago appear to be getting it wrong now, and once again they find themselves on the fringe of American opinion.

I expect that they will continue to push the same tired themes in the next four years to rally their base through the next two election cycles, mostly because they have demonstrated no ability to learn from their own history. In twenty years, however, they will sing a different tune, just as they did with Ronald Reagan's passing and the overwhelming outburst of love and gratitude that sprang from the American people. And then they will turn around and paint their current GOP president as a clueless dunce who surrounds himself with yes-men while being nothing more than a puppet for evil forces who don't like John Lennon's "Imagine."

Bet on it.

The Palestinian Three-Step

Mahmoud Abbas has called for an end to attacks on Israeli citizens in a move that will either prove his control over the regions or present the world with yet another Palestinian three-step:

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has ordered his security forces to try to prevent militant attacks on Israelis, a Palestinian cabinet minister has said.

Qadoura Fares said Mr Abbas gave orders for all violence to be stopped, "including attacks against Israel". ... Reports say Mr Abbas is due to travel to Gaza on Monday to try to persuade militant groups to agree to a ceasefire.

If Abbas can end the violence against Israeli citizens, then I find this a promising development. However, I remain deeply skeptical of both his desire and his power to do so. The Palestinians have played this game for decades now between the three power centers of Palestinian politics: the PA (Fatah), Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. One point on the triangle declares a cease-fire, or maybe two, and Israel ceases military operations, sometimes even withdrawing altogether. Then the third point attacks, killing Israeli citizens, sometimes more than once, forcing Israel to respond. When they do, the other two points blame Israel for violating the cease-fire and continuing their attacks.

It matters little whether they actually coordinate this strategy, or simply take advantage of one another to dance. The results always amount to dead Israelis who get blamed by the Europeans for the problem. Wake me up when Abbas stamps out the other two dance partners.

Inaugural Sneak Peek: An End To The "Compensation Culture"

The London Telegraph reports that a key element in George Bush's inaugural speech this week will be a call for an end to the "compensation culture" that has hijacked medicine and other business in America. The message comprises a part of an entire domestic reform package that includes income taxes and the entitlement bureaucracy:

Mr Bush wants to clamp down on the "tort" system of civil damages - intended to compensate victims of negligence and accidents - which costs the US economy $230 billion (£123 billion), or two per cent of gross domestic product.

Mr Bush plans to cap non-economic damages at $250,000 (£133,500) per case, far less than the multi-million dollar awards that have become commonplace. Medical cases are the most visible examples, but soaring damages in class actions across the commercial sector would also be restricted.

Reform would be popular with the public, who believe that lawyers are abusing the system, but is opposed by lawyers themselves, who make up a high proportion of the country's legislators.

Philip Sherwell includes intriguing and disturbing data on the net effect of the tort system in the US. Not only do torts take two percent of our GDP right off the top, but the business has proved extremely lucrative to the lawyers and bureaucrats involved. Fifty-four percent of all awards now wind up in the pockets of the attorneys or spent on administrative fees. Only 46% of the compensation goes for actual compensation, and since most of that money is subject to tax, the plaintiffs wind up seeing around a third.

These numbers represent the averages, of course. The greater abuses occur within the class-action suits -- where, like the game shows say, the stakes are higher and plaintiff's attorneys can really compete for the big money. The amount of compensation making it to the plaintiffs usually gets them a lunch at Panera, while the attorneys score fees in the millions. And these numbers don't represent the insidious nature of the problem: settlements that never see a courtroom. Class-action suits or the threat of them turn over billions of dollars in settlements, again, to the benefit of the lawyers.

Sherwell mentions that Congress will not greet these reforms with glee, since a high percentage of our elected officials are attorneys. They intend on protecting this privileged position tooth and nail. Why? The cash flow coming to them allows attorneys to continue running for Congress, where they can continue to protect the franchise. Let me put it this way: if you got to run a legal lottery where you kept 54% of every jackpot for yourself, would you vote to ban gambling?

The claims of the plaintiff bar that they want to protect the consumer are shown to be deceptive, at best, by these figures. They're keeping more than half of the compensation they claim will make their clients whole. The tort system has transformed itself into a shakedown system, a protection racket, and it's high time Congress did something about it. Now that we've sent John Edwards into retirement, perhaps we can.

Rue The Day?

Senator Harry Reid told ABC's This Week that any attempt to push through a rule change would cause the GOP heartache down the road:

The Senate's Democratic leader said Sunday that Republicans "would rue the day" if they try to make it harder for Democrats to stall judicial nominees who could not get a vote last year. ...

Reid compared Bush's talk of crisis in judicial nominations to the president's rhetoric on Social Security. "He's trying to create crisis with judges and with Social Security. They don't exist," Reid told ABC's "This Week."

"We have approved for the president of the United States 204 judges the last four years," he said. "We've turned down 10. Even in modern math, that's a pretty good deal."

He said the 10 who did not get a vote in 2004 "were rightfully turned down." The White House announced last month that Bush would renominate them.

The use of the phrase "rue the day" reminds me of the movie Real Genius, a silly but entertaining film that has some of the best one-liners of any movie in the 80s. When Kent tells Mitch and Chris that they'll "rue the day," Chris (Val Kilmer) replies, "'Rue the day'? Who talks like that?" It's the kind of histronic reply tha the desperately powerless gives when checkmated.

Reid also tries to spin what the Democrats did to the 10 judicial nominees in question in order to demonstrate Democratic reasonableness. He claims that the Senate approved 204 judges while only turning down 10. But that's not what happened. Had they received a vote in the Senate and lost, they would have been "turned down". In fact, the Democrats hijacked the confirmation process to keep these nominees from receiving a vote, something that has happened only once before in American history, when both Democrats and Republicans filibustered Abe Fortas to demonstrate his certain defeat on a full Senate vote, allowing LBJ to withdraw the nomination instead. Bush's nominees would have won confirmation in the full Senate.

Reid owes his position as Minority Leader to Tom Daschle's foolish insistence on obstructionism. The Democrats have twice as many at-risk seats in the next election than the GOP. Even if Reid can't do math, I suspect that those red-state Democrats can.

About That Poll

Time Magazine publishes a new opinion poll today that shows President Bush picking up more support in overall job approval ahead of the inaugural:

President Bush’s approval rating has risen to 53%, according to the latest TIME poll conducted January 12 and 13. His approval rating is up 4 points from his Dec. 13-14 approval rating of 49%. The President’s approval numbers have improved across a variety of issues, including his handling of the economy (51% approve, up from 40% approve in September), his handling of the situation in Iraq (45% approve, up from 41% approval in September), and his handling of the war on terrorism (56% approve, up from 49% in September).

I think some of these gains may result from the toned-down partisan environment that naturally occurs between the election and the opening of the new session of Congress. The major issue on Bush's plate continues to be the Iraq situation, and the closer that elections come and Bush remains steadfast, the more support he will garner. Social Security may be a big question mark, but if the Iraqi elections succeed in any fashion as the Afghanistan elections did, he can expect that number to escalate significantly.

However, take a look at the sample for this poll:

This TIME Poll was conducted by telephone January 12-13, 2005 among a random sample of 1,002 adults, age 18 and older throughout America.

Usually, a sample of adults overall without any qualifiers such as "likely voters" or "registered voters" results in a lower rating for conservatives. Since no election is pending for George Bush (or any national office), the lack of such distinctions does not necessarily indicate a bias in the polling. However, I find it significant that Bush does so well in the general population. It's rather unexpected, and probably means that among those who voted in November, his job approval is actually higher.

Gangs Go Hollywood

Street gangs have become much more brazen and organized in their campaigns to intimidate and eliminate witnesses, reports the New York Times today. Not only have they adopted the "Godfather"-style of Sicilian omerta in demanding utter silence from their members and neighbors as well, they've actually started producing their own terror shows on DVD to emphasize their point:

In Boston, a witness to a shooting by a member of a street gang recently found copies of his grand jury testimony taped to all the doors in the housing project where he lives.

In Baltimore, Rickey Prince, a 17-year-old who witnessed a gang murder and agreed to testify against the killer, was shot in the back of the head a few days after a prosecutor read Mr. Prince's name aloud in a packed courtroom.

And in each city, CD's and DVD's titled "Stop Snitching" have surfaced, naming some people street gangs suspect of being witnesses against them and warning that those who cooperate with the police will be killed. To underscore its message, the Baltimore DVD shows what appears to be three dead bodies on its back cover above the words "snitch prevention."

These are only a few examples of what the police, prosecutors and judges say is a growing national problem of witness intimidation by youth gangs that in some cities is jeopardizing the legal system and that bears striking similarities to the way organized crime has often silenced witnesses.

The gangs have increasingly networked with each other to create crime cartels similar to the cooperation and competition between Mafia families of old. The FBI wants to restructure its focus on gang activity to destroy them in a similar manner as they did the Mafia families. Fox Butterfield reports that the FBI has now made gangs its top criminal priority, although he overstates its importance vis-a-vis terrorism. Counterterrorism is a different if related discipline. However, the change in focus is still significant, especially when one considers that bank robbery and other such traditional federal crimes still require attention. After all, up to now gangs have been treated as a local problem.

But the FBI attention isn't the only indication that the problem has grown into a national problem. The DVD production of "Stop Snitching," a form of "entertainment" being passed around gang-controlled neighborhoods, has its own special guest star:

Last month, the Baltimore police found that a two-hour DVD titled "Stop Snitching" was being sold on the street. It features young men smoking marijuana, flashing wads of $100 bills, waving guns and making violent threats, some against specific witnesses. "He's a rat, a snitch," one man sings, continuing with obscenities. "He's dead because I don't believe he's from the 'hood."

The maker of the DVD has said he was only documenting the attitudes and concerns of people in West Baltimore.

The DVD has drawn particular attention because of the appearance on it of Carmelo Anthony, 20, a National Basketball Association star with the Denver Nuggets who grew up in Baltimore. Mr. Anthony does not make any threats in the DVD.

Calvin Andrews, Mr. Anthony's agent, said, "He was not aware a DVD was being produced. He was just hanging out with some guys from the neighborhood who had a video camera." Mr. Andrews added of Mr. Anthony: "He doesn't condone the message about intimidation." The case of Mr. Prince, the Maryland teenager murdered after his name was read in court, illustrates the difficulty of protecting witnesses.

The involvement of "Mr." Anthony only highlights the increasing ties between gang chic and the professional sports industry. It's no secret that NBA and NFL merchandising has targeted gangs and gangbanger wannabes for their products; a number of professional teams changed their colors in the 1990s to include black more prominently, a favorite of gangs for their colors. On our radio show yesterday we discussed the prison culture that permeates the NBA and to a lesser extent the NFL, and this shows the extent to which that has corrupted professional sports.

I welcome having a fresh and national focus on the gang problem. However, some of the solutions discussed for dealing with the witness intimidation threaten the openness of the American justice system:

Mr. Conley, the Suffolk County district attorney, is working with Massachusetts officials to create a state witness protection program here and to try to pass legislation that would make it a crime for anyone to distribute grand jury testimony, as happened with the witness who saw his testimony taped to the doors in the Franklin Hill housing project where he lived.

In Maryland, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Patricia C. Jessamy, the state's attorney for Baltimore City, are supporting a bill that would reclassify witness intimidation as a felony, instead of a misdemeanor, and raise the maximum punishment to 20 years in prison, from 5 years.

The bill would also create a "hearsay exception" that would allow past statements by witnesses to be admitted at a trial if the witness disappeared or was unwilling to testify.

I think that the first two suggestions make a lot of sense. In fact, I'd say that witness intimidation should be scaled to the crime involved in the primary case and carry the same penalty, up to life imprisonment in murder cases. That might keep some of the parasites off of the witnesses, although I doubt it would stop them entirely. The last suggestion has much more danger associated with it. Essentially, it allows the prosecution to use unreliable witnesses in a wide variety of cases without the defense being able to cross-examine them in court in front of the jury. I understand the thought process behind the suggestion, but the unintended consequences of this change would dramatically tip the justice system against the defendant.

Hopefully, the renewed focus of the FBI can help to eliminate the scourge of gangbangers that has reduced our inner-city neighborhoods to war zones. If we can protect witnesses better through the federal system, I'm all for it.