Annan Initially Hid Cotecna Contacts

The AP reports this morning that the Volcker investigators that resigned over the last interim report may have done so because it hid key information about Kofi Annan and his lack of cooperation with the investigation. Robert Parton's files show that Annan failed to mention his contacts with Cotecna when first confronted about the conflict-of-interest issue with his son's employment at the OFF contractor:

Secretary-General Kofi Annan neglected to mention two key meetings when he was first questioned last year about contacts with his son's company when it was soliciting business under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

After investigators first interviewed Annan in November, the secretary general revised his account of those contacts, which occurred just months before the company won a U.N. contract.

Though Annan acknowledged meeting with the officials in subsequent interviews, his revisions raised doubts for the probe's chief investigator, Robert Parton. In the months after the initial interview, Parton's team had carried out a massive search of Annan's computer files and uncovered the contacts with the officials in calendars, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Parton sought to make an issue of Annan's veracity, concluding the U.N. chief wasn't initially forthcoming and his story evolved as new facts emerged. Parton also noted Annan's account sometimes conflicted with other witnesses deemed credible. Drafts of Parton's report, however, were substantially revised.

Apologists for the UN have expressed outrage that the United States has insisted on parallel investigations into the UNSCAM embezzlement, accusing Norm Coleman and others as being shills for the Republican far right. However, the closer we look at the UN, the more that corruption appears to start at the very top. Volcker now looks suspect himself. Why would Paul Volcker edit Parton's report to edit out Annan's evasions from the record?

The idea that the UN can reform itself clearly exists either as a Utopian fantasy or a bigger scam than Oil-for-Food itself. As long as the Annan regime remains in place, the corruption and incompetence at Turtle Bay will never be cleared out. Investigations that remain responsible to Annan's office will never reveal the truth, as this episode clearly shows.

Reid's Smear Raises Eyebrows At DoJ

The comments made on the Senate floor by Harry Reid about the information in the FBI file of Henry Saad have provoked a reaction from the Justice Department, the AP reports this morning. One day after Reid referred to a vague "problem" in Saad's file, Justice sent a letter to both Reid and Majority Leader Bill Frist about the proper use of FBI files:

The Justice Department is edging into the Senate controversy over judicial nominees, writing key lawmakers after Democratic Leader Harry Reid publicly referred to an FBI file on one of President Bush's controversial appointees.

"The letter expressed concern about recent remarks on the floor of the Senate which alluded to an FBI background investigation file provided by the Department of Justice to the Senate
Judiciary Committee on a confidential basis in connection with a judicial nomination," a department official said Friday night.

The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the letter did not refer specifically to Reid, or to 6th Circuit Court nominee Henry Saad.

At the same time, it was dispatched one day after Reid alluded publicly to a confidential FBI report prepared on Saad, a 6th Circuit Court of Appeals nominee whose confirmation Democrats have sought to block.

The FBI files are provided to lawmakers by the Justice Department, who retain ultimate authority and responsibility for the treatment of the information in them. Since the FBI collects all information given to them in interviews during their security clearance investigations, and the files therefore contain large amounts of unsubstantiated hearsay, the FBI and Justice have always been highly protective of the files. The information, improperly used, can do enormous and unfair damage to reputations.

Reid knows this -- and according to the Senate's own rules, he can't even access the files himself, not being a member of the Judiciary Committee. He claimed to have gotten information from the two Democratic Senators from Saad's home state, Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, but if that is the case, then those two Senators may have broken the rules about confidentiality in regards to the file. The DoJ may well decide to strip the Senate of its clearance to view these files in the future if Reid continues to characterize the contents publicly as he has. That happened during the first Bush administration, when Senators made public references to secured material.

For those who think that Reid did nothing wrong, the Justice memo should remind everyone what the rules are and why they're in place.

Bullets End Uzbek Uprising

Uzbekistan has ended the uprising that began with the jailbreak of 23 supsected Muslim terrorists by having soldiers fire on a crowd of protestors, sending thousands running from the demonstrations that appeared to shake the Uzbek autocracy:

Soldiers loyal to Uzbekistan's authoritarian leader, a U.S. ally, opened fire on thousands of demonstrators yesterday to put down an uprising that began when armed men freed 2,000 inmates from prison, including suspects on trial for suspected Islamic extremism.

Bursts of automatic gunfire continued to rattle across the center of Uzbekistan's fourth-largest city today as troops loyal to hard-line President Islam Karimov sought to put down the insurrection, Agence France Presse reported.

The death toll from yesterday's violence in Andijan was not known. The government said nine died before the shootings in the square but gave no overall figure. Witnesses said dozens may have been killed by the troops, who rode into the square in a truck behind an armored personnel carrier as helicopters hovered overhead.

Authorities said security forces had regained control of an administration building seized earlier in the day by armed protesters. Hostages taken by the demonstrators as human shields at the building were released, a high-ranking Uzbek official said.

This stands in contrast to protests in other Central Asian former Soviet republics, but then the Uzbek protests were not the same democracy movements, either. They started by freeing Islamists from prison, which pointed to a completely different set of motivations. Unlike the revolutions in Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, the people who went to the streets employed violence as a medium for their message, reportedly holding hostages to extort concessions from the Uzbek government. They also released over 2,000 prisoners to join them in the streets.

Unfortunately, the Uzbeks learned a lesson from their neighbors, which was that delay only escalates the problem. It took them less than 48 hours to reach the Napoleonic solution of firing into the crowd to disperse them and regain order. Andijan has become a debacle for all sides and promises to present a particular problem for the US and George Bush, especially considering Bush's focus on democratization. This incident exposed President Karimov as something less than the poster boy for Bush's foreign policy, and even though our work with the Uzbeks might be critical for our war on terror, Andijan will raise eyebrows about our choice of bedfellows.

Frist: Let The Debate (And Vote) Begin

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced this afternoon that after the completion of debate and vote on the highway bill, the next order of business on the Senate agenda will be the confirmation debate for Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown to their appellate court seats. This means that a filibuster will likely be attempted in the coming week, certainly on Brown if not Owen, and Frist says that such obstructionism will be rejected:

The Majority Leader will continue to discuss an appropriate resolution of the need for fair up or down votes with the Minority Leader. If they can not find a way for the Senate to decide on fair up or down votes on judicial nominations, the Majority Leader will seek a ruling from the Presiding Officer regarding the appropriate length of time for debate on such nominees. After the ruling, he will ensure that every Senator has the opportunity to decide whether to restore the 214-year practice of fair up or down votes on judicial nominees; or, to enshrine a new veto by filibuster that both denies all Senators the opportunity to advise and consent and fundamentally disturbs the separation of powers between the branches. ...

It is time for 100 Senators to decide the issue of fair up or down votes for judicial nominees after over two years of unprecedented obstructionism. The Minority has made public threats that much of the Senate's work will be shut down. Such threats are unfortunate.

Frist sticks with his offer of 100 hours of debate on each nominee, apparently thinking that an hour per Senator will disabuse anyone of the notion that the issue involves free speech on the Senate floor. It does defuse the argument that Robert Byrd made earlier, that free speech would be "dead, dead, dead!" if the rule change was approved. However, I don't think anyone took that argument seriously at any time, and the length of debate is too long for an administration to fill all the appellate slots it expects to open during any term of office, unless Frist starts planning late-night sessions on C-SPAN 2.

However, at least Frist has finally begun moving towards the confirmation fight, ending months of fruitless negotiation with the Democrats and the loss of momentum from the successful 2004 election. The pressure from the GOP grassroots made itself felt on party leaders, who two or three weeks earlier were talking about mid-summer before taking up the issue. Frist at least has listened and acted on the intense dissatisfaction from Republicans across the spectrum who expected the highest domestic priority to have already been addressed by this point of the session.

Reuters: Canadian Gov't Will Fall

Reuters analyzes the latest manueverings in the Canadian Commons and sees little chance of the Liberal government surviving, regardless of when a confidence vote is held:

The main opposition Conservative Party wants the vote immediately but indications are that whenever it is held, the Liberals have a poor chance of surviving, even though the vote will be close.

"This government is finished," a senior member of the cabinet confided. If the Liberals fall next Thursday it would open the way to a June 27 election.

The Liberals and their left-leaning New Democrat allies have 151 seats in the 308-seat parliament, while the Conservatives and the separatist Bloc Quebecois have 153. The speaker of Parliament is a Liberal but he only votes in case of a tie. One seat is vacant.

To have any chance of winning the Liberals need the support of two independent members of Parliament, at least one of whom now says he will in all likelihood vote against the government.

The independent that has apparently switched his vote is David Kilgour. He surprised the Grits yesterday by proclaiming his dissatisfaction with Martin's reaction to the Darfur crisis and the budget allocation for it. Kilgour threatened to vote with the Tories unless Martin reconfigured his budget for more relief funds for the besieged Sudanese region. That means that Chuck Cadman suddenly becomes less crucial in all calculations, because in order to tie, the Liberals needed all three independents to support Martin.

Stephen Harper complained today that Martin's timing was designed to catch the Tories shorthanded for any confidence vote, as MP Darrel Stinson must have cancer surgery on Wednesday and will not be available for a Thursday vote. However, in a new development, NDP MP Ed Broadbent has volunteered to withhold an NDP vote to balance out the missing Tory vote of Stinson:

His absence would in theory give the Liberals a greater chance of survival but the New Democrats said for the sake of fairness they are ready to withdraw one of their own legislators from Parliament during the vote.

"What we are potentially doing is failing to take advantage of a sick member, and we're simply refusing to do that," New Democrat Member of Parliament Ed Broadbent told reporters.

Reuters shows the Tories carrying the vote by two. I suspect that when it comes down to an actual vote which will carry the stigma of supporting a political party that clearly corrupted the electoral and government systems for their own enrichment, the gap will go wider than that.

UPDATE: Harper and Duceppe just adjourned Parliament early again, 138-57, and the Liberals appear to have given up hope of accomplishing any of their agenda until the budget motion comes up for a vote.

My Blue Heaven

Tommy Lasorda has a blog. Yesterday he offered some "Fatherly Advice":

My father had five sons, and one day he called a family meeting, sat us down, and told us he wanted to bring his brother’s son, Mario, to America. He told us to treat him as an equal because he was family. When Mario arrived, my father told Mario he could live with him so while he worked hard, he could save his money and eventually bring his own family to America too.

Mario was lazy; he did not work hard, he did not save any money and his trip to America was a failure. When he returned to Italy, he blamed his failure on my father instead of taking responsibility for his own actions.

I was so mad at Mario, I wanted to go to Italy, find him, and throw him into the Adriatic Sea for ruining my father’s name.

Later, my father sat us brothers down again and told us he wanted to bring his sister’s son to America. I immediately jumped up and shouted in protest that I did not want to bring any more relatives to America. I said I didn’t want to support any more lazy Greenhorns. My father, in broken English, told me to sit down and shut up. He said because Mario was bad should not deprive his sister’s son from coming to this country.

Well, he came to America and lived in my father’s house. He worked hard and raised a beautiful family with two sons of his own, who eventually became professors in Rome.

The same principle is at work at Dodger Stadium. I do not want Frank McCourt to deprive families of the $2 True Blue Tuesday promotion because of two bad guys who ran across the outfield, and one bad sports columnist who unfairly criticizes the McCourt’s.

If you've read Tommy's memoirs or talked to him in person, you know that this is classic Tommy Lasorda. I'm delighted to welcome Tommy to the wonderful world of blogging, and I look forward to many posts with his insight into Dodger baseball and life in general. Check it out when you can, and a big thanks to Brant at SWLiP for the heads-up.

Tail-Gunner Harry

Just when we thought the smears on judicial nominees from the Democrats could not get any worse, Harry Reid moved from mere bullying to full-blown McCarthyism last night during the Senate debate. In an impromptu remark made during a prepared speech on the floor, he flatly stated that Henry Saad represented a security risk to the United States according to Saad's confidential FBI files:

Minority Leader Harry Reid strayed from his prepared remarks on the Senate floor yesterday and promised to continue opposing one of President Bush's judicial nominees based on "a problem" he said is in the nominee's "confidential report from the FBI."

Those highly confidential reports are filed on all judicial nominees, and severe sanctions apply to anyone who discloses their contents. Less clear is whether a senator could face sanctions for characterizing the content of such files.

"Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway," Mr. Reid said on the floor yesterday, about the Michigan Appeals Court judge who is nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

"All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree that there is a problem there," Mr. Reid continued.

This remark created a firestorm of outrage on the GOP side of aisle, and for good reason. None of the Senators have access to the file except those on the Senate Judiciary Committee or Saad's homestate senators (both Democrats) -- which excludes Harry Reid! Reid should never have been given access to that information, and if he has accessed the file, he would be guilty of a breach of Senate rules. Furthermore, by publicly characterizing the data in Saad's file, he has breached its confidentiality.

Worse than that, he has now floated a non-specific charge of malfeasance against Henry Saad against which Saad cannot defend. Saad himself cannot review his file, which contains anything anyone ever said about him to the FBI during his background check, regardless of whether it was true or not. Even those few Republicans who have defended judicial nominees against Reid's normal smears of "extremism" cannot offer defenses based on the FBI file, because to do so would be to break the same security clearance regulations Reid did in making this statement.

FBI clearance files contain raw data from every interview the agency conducts with people known to the person applying for the clearance. Anything said goes into the file. The FBI does not filter the information, and will usually investigate criminal activity suggested by the interview only if they find anything substantial. What this means, especially in political appointments, is that a fair amount of gossipy but usually exaggerated or false information gets entered into the file and later mentioned in the file's summary.

If the FBI finds anything worth investigating, they do so, and the investigation itself then becomes known to the target and -- unless national security is involved -- is declassified. If the FBI doesn't find a substantiated issue, it drops it when the clearance investigation is complete. Unless the FBI has an ongoing investigation on Saad that they haven't disclosed -- and note that Reid didn't mention one, even though Saad's clearance check was done two years ago -- it means that the FBI was satisfied with the results of the clearance check.

Reid just conducted nothing short of a Joe McCarthy-style character assassination, a tradition that Senate Democrats had come close to recreating on judicial nominations over the past few months anyway. Talking vaguely about information in secret files showing that Saad has some unnamed unfitness for office differs in no way from waving around a sheet of paper and claiming to possess a list of Communist sympathizers in the Army. He has now publicly smeared Saad in a manner that absolutely allows no public defense. No matter what happens, people will always wonder if Saad is hiding something, especially with an Arabic-sounding surname.

Reid may or may not have broken the law by his statement; my guess is he didn't, because I believe him to have lied in his characterization. I believe Harry Reid cowardly chose a way in which to smear Henry Saad that would not allow anyone to defend him. Reid should not just be censured by the Senate as a whole, but stripped of his leadership post and his committee assignments. Let him serve the rest of his term as a member at large, gathering dust on the back benches of the Senate, where he can live with his cowardice and his despicable acts.

ADDENDUM: The entire point of the FBI investigation is to determine whether a nominee can receive a security clearance in order to access the files a federal appellate-court justice might need to see. If he couldn't get that clearance, he wouldn't be up for confirmation, which should end speculation on the contents of Saad's file. Obviously the FBI has given the green light to Saad.

UPDATE: Bumping this to the top for the morning. Also, Jeralyn at TalkLeft argues that an inadvertent release of this information makes it public domain. She's incorrect. The status of the FBI file, or any other classified documents, can only be changed by the agency which issues the classification. Henry Saad can't change the status on the files, and in fact, Henry Saad can't even access the file himself, because the sources for the information are named in the file. Jeralyn either knows nothing about classifications or engages in sophistry on this point, and I think it's the former rather than the latter.

Inadvertent release does not mean anything legally or ethically, otherwise no one would ever be disciplined for security breaches, as a moment's thought and common sense would indicate.

UPDATE II: Byron York notes this in his column for NRO:

Saad, along with three other Bush picks for the Sixth Circuit, has been blocked by Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, not because of any ideological objections but because Levin and Stabenow are angry that two Democratic nominees for the Sixth Circuit were not confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate during the Clinton years. Levin is said to be especially angry because one of those Clinton nominees, Helene White, is the wife of one of Levin's cousins. Despite that anger, in recent weeks, Reid has offered to drop the Democratic blockade of three of the Bush Sixth Circuit candidates — Richard Griffin, David McKeague, and Susan Bieke Neilson — but has pointedly left Saad out of that group.

Republicans believe that is because Saad, who is currently a judge on the Michigan State Court of Appeals, angered Stabenow in September 2003 when he criticized her actions in blocking his nomination. In an e-mail to a supporter, Saad wrote of Stabenow, "This is the game they play. Pretend to do the right thing while abusing the system and undermining the constitutional process. Perhaps some day she will pay the price for her misconduct." But it was Saad who paid the price, because he mistakenly sent the e-mail not only to his supporter but to Stabenow's office. Stabenow immediately protested to the White House, which answered by re-nominating Saad last January.

Before the e-mail incident, there had been no public mention of any issue with Saad's FBI background report. Saad was nominated on November 8, 2001. He received a confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee on July 30, 2003. Democrats boycotted the hearing — and made no public reference made to any background problems. The committee approved Saad in a straight party-line vote on June 17, 2004.

So the entire background-check file is just a red herring. That same file had been provided to the Judiciary Committee in 2003. All this is about is some personal payback for Levin and Stabenow.

Dezainde Gets Fanciful At Gomery

Winding up some of the strangest testimony yet at the Gomery Inquiry, Daniel Dezainde continued to insist that he has remained in fear of his life after being told by Joe Morselli that he was "at war" with Dezainde, prompting two visits to the RCMP. Dezainde also managed to squeeze in more complaints about Beryl Wajsman, including alleged rudeness on the golf links, although what that has to do with Adscam has everyone scratching their heads:

Four years after a nasty encounter with a threatening, finger-pointing Giuseppe (Joseph) Morselli, a Liberal official testified yesterday that even now he is still fearful of the friend of Alfonso Gagliano.

Former senior party executive Daniel Dezainde told the Gomery inquiry that he saw the RCMP last month, ahead of his testimony, to talk to the police about his safety concerns because he was still apprehensive of Mr. Morselli, a onetime party fundraiser.

"I still felt the risks that could stem from my testimony, so I went to the RCMP directly for protection," Mr. Dezainde testified.

This conversation allegedly took place in 2001, and yet Dezainde waited until 2005 to get the RCMP to give him some sort of protection. Dezainde later admitted that he had other opportunities to get the RCMP involved and failed to do so. He had been deposed twice before in the RCMP's investigation of Adscam and mentioned neither the threat nor its supposed motivation -- the Corriveau admission that a kickback scheme had been deliberately created for the Liberals to use for political gain and personal greed.

It sounds like Dezainde wanted an excuse for keeping quiet about Corriveau. He certainly took a long enough time asking for help about Morselli's alleged threat, only going to the RCMP after it became clear that he would have to testify at the Gomery Inquiry. He also included an odd anecdote about Wajsman that speaks to a more personal and bitter animosity between Dezainde and Morselli his 'protege', as Dezainde apparently described Wajsman:

A major sore spot between the two men was fundraiser, and Morselli protégé, Beryl Wajsman, who was getting $5,000 a month from the party.

Mr. Wajsman was eventually fired later that year, after Mr. Dezainde accused him of conducting unreported fundraising. ...

Mr. Dezainde also said that, after the firing, at a golf fundraiser in August of 2001, Mr. Wajsman's foursome played behind his. He said each time he tried to tee off, Mr. Wajsman would shout at him.

If that is Dezainde's notion of life-threatening harassment, then Daniel Dezainde needs to get out more often. Wajsman should be testifying today or early next week, when we can expect a much different story about Dezainde and Morselli to surface. In fact, after Dezainde's testimony began, even Alfonse Gagliano wants another shot at the Gomery dock:

Former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano is asking for another chance to testify at the sponsorship inquiry, CTV News has learned.

The central figure in the sponsorship program has asked Justice Gomery to allow him to take the stand again at the inquiry looking into the sponsorship scandal.

This comes on a day in which Gagliano's former circle of associates were mentioned again during testimony in Montreal.

Does Gagliano have more to add -- or does he want to dispute Dezainde's testimony?

Uzbekistan Crumbling; Islamists Poised To Take Over?

A mob of outraged and disaffected Uzbeks have freed 23 Muslim defendants from the prison where they awaited trial on terrorism charges, and created a riot in the streets of Andijan. Soldiers have been taken hostage and the government has forbidden news agencies from the area, while Uzbekistan's neighbors have sealed their borders:

Outrage over the terror trial of 23 Muslims exploded into broader unrest in eastern Uzbekistan on Friday when armed protesters stormed a jail to free defendants, clashing with police in violence that brought thousands of protesters into the streets. At least nine people were killed and dozens wounded, witnesses and officials said.

One protester, who put the death toll as high as 20, said 30 soldiers were being held hostage because they were shooting at demonstrators. Two of the dead were children, Sharif Shakirov, a brother of one of the defendants told The Associated Press.

President Islam Karimov and other top officials rushed to the eastern city of Andijan, where the government insisted it remained in control despite the chaos, though it blocked foreign news reports for its domestic audience.

The unrest prompted neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan, former Soviet republics like Uzbekistan, to seal their borders.

This presents a problem for the United States, which has troops based in Uzbekistan to track Islamist groups in the region. So far, the rioters have only demanded more economic freedom and the end to the trials against Muslims, but if the instability continues, the former Soviet republic may find itself teetering into full collapse.

Unlike their Kyrgyz neighbors, the Uzbek gunmen on the streets do not appear to want democratization or a reversal of a fraudulent election. Until now, the protests in Andijan have been peaceful but rather unremarkable. Those earlier protestors appeared to have more in common with the Kyrgyz and other Central Asian nations moving towards democracy and away from strong-man rule. Whether the gunmen represent a more radical wing of this same movement or something else entirely is unclear, but given that their first objective was to free Muslims on trial for terror, it looks like the latter. Registan, as always, has more on the Central Asian front.

The Forgotten War

Feeling a bit under the weather today and coming to the end of this major headache project at work this week and next, I decided to take an evening off from blogging and watch the History Channel's special on the War of 1812. Titled "First Invasion", the two-hour show reviews what for many Americans is a forgotten war, but one that clearly shaped our early notions of nationalism and ability to stand among other nations.

The war started over an issue that had largely been resolved before the first shot was fired, and the greatest American victory of the war came two weeks after the treaty that ended it was signed. Our capitol was sacked, and only saved from burning to the ground by a hurricane and a tornado that inflicted more damage on the invaders than the American militia that the British swatted aside like flies. The Canadians beat us like a drum, and New England almost seceded from the Union in support of the British trade that was their main commercial enterprise. The city of Baltimore wound up proving that Americans could stand and fight for themselves and deserved its place among nations.

If none of that sounds familiar to you, tune in to the next showing of "First Invasion". The History Channel skillfully weaves the historical, political, and cultural issues together to present a much clearer understanding of one of our murkier wars, an unpopular war that almost undid James Madison's presidency but one which ultimately vindicated our existence as a nation. It will play again in a couple of hours, and then will likely repeat during the month.

A Demonstration Of Liberal Powerlessness

Since Paul Martin and the Liberals refused to recognize the no-confidence motion of Tuesday and the adjournment yesterday as valid signs that the Liberals can no longer effectively govern, the Tories have decided to take a different tack in proving how little power they have left. Conservatives shut down the Commons today on an early adjournment after the Liberals refused to bring their budget motion immediately, and have now started boycotting committees:

The Conservatives succeeded in a bid to adjourn the House of Commons for the day, in another move to paralyze the proceedings of government and force an immediate confidence vote in the government.

The motion that the House be adjourned until Friday at 10 a.m. passed in the House of Commons before noon on Thursday, 152 to 144.

It was supported by the Tories and the Bloc Québécois, part of a strategy to block or stall the activities of the government.

Harper and Duceppe have formulated a rather interesting strategy to get the message across to the Liberals and to Canada in general about the will of Parliament. They have refused to allow Parliament to do business with the executive, making Martin's claims that he has the confidence of the Commons transparently empty. The only reaction left to them is Tony Valeri's lame complaint about Tories and BQ voting themselves a holiday, but everyone knows that time off isn't what this vote was about. If the Liberals won't bring their budget motion forward immediately -- and the no-confidence opportunity it clearly brings -- then Parliament won't debate anything else.

For Americans, this will bring back memories of Newt Gingrich shutting down the government in a showdown with Bill Clinton, a battle that the Republicans lost. However, in that case we had two co-equal branches of government vying for power against each other. The difference for Canadians is that their executive branch answers to the Commons, and the Commons has the power to essentially fire the Prime Minister and his cabinet. Doing so carries some political risk, of course, but in the Parliamentary system, this is a normal function. The political risk falls on the executive who won't leave, not the Parliament that fired them in the first place.

Watch for tomorrow's action in the Commons. If Harper keeps the heat on, the Liberals may wilt quicker than the May 19th date Martin wanted as a launching pad for new elections. He won't get anything else done in Parliament until then.

Did Ken Starr Bash The Byrd Option?

Yesterday, CBS News reported that Ken Starr had come out against the filibuster rule change, and they quoted him as saying that the change represented a "radical departure" and that he opposed its implementation. This got a tremendous amount of exposure in the blogosphere, especially among those who normally vilify the former Whitewater special prosecutor at every other opportunity. Ramesh Ponnuru at the National Review Online contacted Starr to confirm his position on the Byrd/nuclear option -- and the response is quite different from what CBS first reported:

"In the piece that I have now seen, and which I gather is being lavishly quoted, CBS employed two snippets. The 'radical departure' snippet was specifically addressed -- although this is not evidenced whatever from the clip -- to the practice of invoking judicial philosopy as a grounds for voting against a qualified nominee of integrity and experience. I said in sharp language that that practice was wrong. I contrasted the current practice . . . with what occurred during Ruth Ginsburg's nomination process, as numerous Republicans voted (rightly) to confirm a former ACLU staff lawyer. They disagreed with her positions as a lawyer, but they voted (again, rightly) to confirm her. Why? Because elections, like ideas, have consequences. . . . In the interview, I did indeed suggest, and have suggested elsewhere, that caution and prudence be exercised (Burkean that I am) in shifting/modifying rules (that's the second snippet), but I likewise made clear that the 'filibuster' represents an entirely new use (and misuse) of a venerable tradition. . . .

"[O]ur friends are way off base in assuming that the CBS snippets, as used, represent (a) my views, or (b) what I in fact said."

In other words, once again CBS and the Exempt Media has Dowdified a response to fit their story, cutting words and phrases completely out of context to give the reverse impression of what Starr said.

So Much For The Rule Of Law

The Palestinians have a parliamentary election scheduled for July 17th that appears to be headed for a significant victory for Hamas. The Fatah faction supporting President Mahmoud Abbas has agitated for a postponement to avoid this political debacle, which would surely reveal his status as an unmandated leader elected on the basis of a fraudulent vote. Today, one of Abbas' senior aides upped the ante, saying that the current Parliament had not yet passed a new election law, making elections in July almost impossible:

The Palestinian parliamentary election set for July should be postponed, a senior Palestinian official said in an interview published Thursday, another sign that the ruling Fatah Party is deeply worried about the electoral prospects of militant Islamic groups.

The election, only the second in the 11 years since the
Palestinian Authority was founded, is scheduled for July 17, but Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior aide to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, called for a delay.

It was the strongest indication yet that Abbas might postpone the election, despite a promise to Hamas to hold the vote on time. Hamas quickly rejected the call.

Fatah activists have warned Abbas the party is headed for defeat if it goes to elections in July. Polls show Palestinian voters are fed up with corruption and inefficiency in the Palestinian government, dating to the rule of Yasser Arafat, who died last November. Without Arafat's charisma and standing, Abbas could lead his Fatah Party to a poor showing, further eroding his credibility and ability to rein in militants.

Fatah leaders say their they have a better chance if the election is held after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza this summer — something Abbas can claim as an achievement — and after a party convention in August would usher some younger, reform-minded candidates into key positions.

Don't expect the wheels of Palestinian democracy to start spinning any time soon. Hamas has outclassed Fatah in almost every election in which the former contested, and all indications are that the terrorist group would win a substantial majority of seats in Parliament in a free election. Not only would that expose Abbas as a fraud -- remember that Hamas boycotted the presidential election and Fatah kept changing the rules on Election Day to get the turnout above 30% -- but it would likely endanger the Israeli pullout from Gaza. All other negotiations would likely cease as well.

Worst of all for the Palestinian Authority, such a result would confirm that Palestinians are less interested in negotiating a peace based on co-existence with Israel than in its annihilation, the still-proclaimed end goal of Hamas. That would bring a screeching halt to some Western aid, especially from the US, which barely keeps their economy afloat as it is. Fatah wants to put that day off as long as possible to keep naive Westerners from discovering that the vast majority of Palestinians want nothing of peace or negotiations. They just want time to gather their strength and resources in order to wage war more effectively, and hopefully do so from a position of sovereignty over the West Bank.

Expect no further elections until next year. Fatah can keep the elections off the table until then simply by stalling the bill in Parliament for as long as they need. If that doesn't solve their problem, then fraud may have to do in the meantime.

Vikings Still Lead The League In Stupidity

Just when I think I've seen everything that the Minnesota Vikings can do to look stupid -- from taking a knee in a championship game and thereby neutralizing the league's most potent offense, to a star athlete walking off the field before a game had been decided, to a coach that ran his own Super Bowl ticket-scalping syndicate that exploited Vikings players for his own profit -- this morning's news reminds me that true stupidity plumbs its own new depths every day. The Vikings' leading rusher ran afoul of airport security three weeks ago with a kit to beat NFL drug tests featuring some interesting prosthetics:

The NFL was considering whether to penalize Minnesota Vikings running back Onterrio Smith after it was revealed he was caught at the Twin Cities airport with an elaborate contraption designed to beat drug tests.

A search of a bag Smith was carrying April 21 turned up several vials of dried urine and a device called "The Original Whizzinator," which includes a fake penis, bladder and athletic supporter. An NFL spokesman said using the device during a drug test would be a violation of league drug policies, but it wasn't clear whether there were penalties for possessing one outside of a testing situation.

Airport police took an interest in Smith's possessions because the urine powder looked like cocaine, according to a police report of the April 21 incident, first reported in Wednesday's Star Tribune. Smith told police the dried urine was for his cousin. Smith was briefly questioned and then released.

He carried around a fake penis for his cousin? Puh-leeeze. Smith missed the first four games of last season because he failed his second drug test in as many seasons. He got kicked out of Tennessee because he Volunteered to smoke weed rather than focus on his game. Now he's carrying around The Original Whizzinator for a "cousin". If the NFL buys that one, I have some swampland in Southern California where we can build a stadium for the next expansion team.

At least Onterrio Smith plays for the right coach and the right team. Compared to Rundown Randy Moss and Mike "The Bald Scalper" Tice, a urine-faking dildo hardly seems like a problem at all.

Adscam: Kickback Scheme Intentional

It may be somewhat of an anticlimax after the fireworks at Parliament this evening, but the Gomery Inquiry heard testimony today that the money-laundering schemes at the heart of Adscam did not arise accidentally. Daniel Dezainde testified today that Jacques Corriveau bragged to him about how Corriveau himself had created the kickback structure himself to allow the Liberals to avoid campaign-finance regulation:

Jacques Corriveau, a close friend of Jean Chrétien who made $8-million in sponsorship subcontracts, candidly told an official at the Quebec Liberal party wing that he had set up a kickback system, the Gomery inquiry heard Wednesday.

Daniel Dezainde, who was the director-general of the Liberal Quebec wing in 2001, said that the admission came during a lunch he had with Mr. Corriveau.

He said Mr. Corriveau told him: “In the past, I set up a system of kickbacks with communication agencies and I kept a part of it for my expenses and I made the rest available for the party.”

Corriveau, a close friend of Jean Chrétien and a central player in Liberal politics, has often been named during Gomery testimony. This, however, is the first time that a witness has been so explicit about Corriveau being the architect of the money-laundering organization that funneled Sponsorship Program money to handpicked contractors that would reliably give it back to the Liberals, either in cash or by using it to hire Liberal workers and allow them to work off the books. It also confirms that this conspiracy just didn't organically grow from overzealous but benign intentions, but that the system had a deliberate design to defraud the Canadian taxpayers.

Dezainde also testified that Alfonse Gagliano introduced Dezainde to his associate, Joe Morselli, who was described as "the real boss" in the Liberal Party financing scheme, even though Morselli had no official connection to the Liberals:

In other testimony, Mr. Dezainde says he was introduced to Mr. Morselli and was told he was “the real boss,” and advised not to antagonize him. Mr. Dezainde said he was baffled because Mr. Morselli had no official title.

Mr. Dezainde said Benoît Corbeil, his predecessor, introduced him to Mr. Morselli, a close friend of the former public works minister.

The meeting over espresso was at Frank's restaurant, made famous as the place where Mr. Brault left an envelope of cash on the table.

The inquiry previously heard that Mr. Dezainde and others had to go to PMO to fire a fundraiser Mr. Morselli had hired because the fundraiser, Beryl Wasjman, was organizing unreported fundraisers.

Mr. Dezainde said Mr. Morselli gave himself the title of VP finance committee and put it on a business card with party logo. He said Mr. Wasjman similarly gave himself business cards with the title “assistant director of operations.”

Beryl Wajsman, as you may imagine, has plenty to say in response to this allegation. However, we'll get back to that shortly, as Dezainde continued to expand on Morselli's notion of being a boss, as reported in the National Post, but curiously omitted in the G&M (via Small Dead Animals):

Dezainde's appearance at the inquiry also took a dramatic turn when he broke down in tears after mentioning an alleged threat by an associate of then-public works minister Alfonso Gagliano during a spat over underground party fundraising.

The witness lost his composure after explaining how the party finances at Montreal headquarters had been "taken hostage'' by Gagliano associates, including aide Joe Morselli. Dezainde said Morselli blew a gasket in July 2001 after Dezainde refused to rehire a fundraiser fired days earlier for lobbying government departments, in writing, on party letterhead.

Dezainde said Morselli confronted him in the canteen of the Montreal office and pointed a finger centimetres from his face.

"He said, 'From here on in, I declare war against you,''' recalled Dezainde.

He said he immediately reported the incident to Gagliano, who blamed the incident on Morselli's bad temper and promised to have words with his confidant.

Dezainde broke down as he recalled telling friends and family about the tense moment. Presiding judge John Gomery, just before ordering a break in the proceedings, asked him: "You considered this to be a threat of physical violence?''

Dezainde replied: "Yes.''

If that wasn't enough to get people thinking that Kate at SDA might not be far off the mark calling this group the Libranos, consider a contemporaneous report from the Ottawa Citizen a few months earlier that claimed the RCMP had suspected organized-crime infiltration of Parliamentary politics. Tim Naumetz wrote in September 2000 that Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli warned Canadians in a press conference of the threat:

During a remarkably candid news conference, Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli said yesterday that criminal groups are focusing on Parliament, the courts and other institutions with the aim of "destabilizing" the political system.

"For the first time in this country, we are seeing signs of criminal organizations that are so sophisticated that they actually are focusing on destabilizing certain aspects of our society," said Commissioner Zaccardelli. The commissioner is a 30-year veteran of the RCMP who was previously the force's deputy commissioner in charge of the fight against organized crime.

"That's a real threat to us. There are criminal organizations that target this destabilization of our parliamentary system."

Commissioner Zaccardelli's comments shocked MPs, who said the commissioner should inform the House of Commons, through Speaker Gilbert Parent, if the RCMP has evidence of political corruption or attempts to corrupt politicians.

Asked if he could cite cases where criminals have targeted politicians or whether he was "fearmongering," Commissioner Zaccardelli replied: "It's not fearmongering in the least. I can't give you, obviously, specific details, but we clearly have information that indicates that a sophisticated criminal organization, as part of their strategy, is not only to maximize their profits through illegal activity, but in doing that, in maximizing their profits, where they can attempt to try and corrupt and to try to destabilize (the) situation, that's where they flourish."

That eerily foreshadows much of what we now know about Adscam, although so far no one has tied any of it to organized crime, at least not yet. The New York Daily News has claimed that Gagliano was an associate of the Gambino family, but little in the way of substantiation has been produced publicly.

However, Beryl Wajsman says that Dezainde should not be believed. In our interview (which is still being transcribed), Wajsman particularly singled out Dezainde as a bigoted and difficult man, and in this context his alleged distaste for Italians may make his testimony unreliable. So said Wajsman in a lengthy statement rebutting a number of specific testimony given today by Dezainde:

There are severe racial and ethnic undertones in this Dezainde story that is crucial to understanding what went on at the party. Understanding that, will give you an idea of what I went through with him. The fact that he works for Saada, who is Jewish, has no bearing. That’s just a cheque for Dezainde. Saada had no connection to the Jewish community and his first exposure cam through a request he made of me some five years ago....

When I accepted the mandate from Gagliano and Morselli for this sectoral financing to cultural communities I made it a condition that we respond to concerns the communities had and do outreach.

As I wrote to Gagliano, “When citizens ask for guidance from the Party of the ruling government, we have an obligation to provide that guidance and make of our offices more than just a processing center for membership cards and cheques….That is how you build a culture of commitment…. And if you can’t, then what in blazes is that office in existence for!”

Dezainde had a meeting about these “letters” with Gagliano and Morselli who told him that Dezainde couldn’t didn’t even read English properly and the letters were perfectly innocent. The letters involved helping leaders of social and community groups with their groups activities. Not with business. ...

The business cards I had bore a public relations title that Benoit Corbeil approved.

I will post Beryl's complete statement in the extended entry (click on the link below to read it). Beryl makes his distrust and distaste of Dezainde clear, so the key will be to see which parts of Dezainde's testimony can be corroborated. Nevertheless, the pattern of money-laundering and the featherbedding has always reminded me of a typical Mafia-style situation where fake workers get added to payrolls in order to make payoffs with salaries from linked companies. If Dezainde told the truth about that portion of his testimony, it would fit nicely with the escalating fears of Mafia influence on Parliament at the RCMP.

I wonder if Gomery will allow the testimony to go down that path, or if he will instead cut off any testimony not strictly related to Adscam.

Beryl Wajsman's Statement on Dezainde Testimony

11 May 2005
Montreal

RECAP OF MY RESPONSE TO DEZAINDE TESTIMONY

There are severe racial and ethnic undertones in this Dezainde story that is crucial to understanding what went on at the party. Understanding that, will give you an idea of what I went through with him. The fact that he works for Saada, who is Jewish, has no bearing. That’s just a cheque for Dezainde. Saada had no connection to the Jewish community and his first exposure cam through a request he made of me some five years ago.

Dezainde said the PMO was not happy with my dismissal. Maybe it was because someone up there understood that if my family name was French and not Jewish Dezainde would not have considered work for social and community groups as “lobbying”?

How convenient that Dezainde “destroyed” the letters he attempts to smear me with. Well I have letters from the people we served and in what capacity and have deposited them with the Gomery Commission.

I engaged in no lobbying. There was a lot of speaking to social and cultural and community groups and responding to any needs they, or their leaders, may have had.

When I accepted the mandate from Gagliano and Morselli for this sectoral financing to cultural communities I made it a condition that we respond to concerns the communities had and do outreach.

As I wrote to Gagliano, “When citizens ask for guidance from the Party of the ruling government, we have an obligation to provide that guidance and make of our offices more than just a processing center for membership cards and cheques….That is how you build a culture of commitment…. And if you can’t, then what in blazes is that office in existence for!”

Dezainde had a meeting about these “letters” with Gagliano and Morselli who told him that Dezainde couldn’t didn’t even read English properly and the letters were perfectly innocent. The letters involved helping leaders of social and community groups with their groups activities. Not with business.

The only company stationery used was by community and social leaders on community and social issues who may have sent them on company stationary. But they did not concern business.

Dezainde just wanted to close down the opening of the party that we had started to social, cultural and community groups.

I wonder what Justice Minister Cotler would say about destruction of evidence and destruction of reputation? Great due process.

Gagliano did not tell Dezainde not to occupy himself with finance, but to deal with the financial events in the ridings and let me continue with the sectoral financings. The Federal Liberal Agency would continue as always under its own direction on corporate and large individual donors.

The business cards I had bore a public relations title that Benoit Corbeil approved.

My consulting work was clearly for sectoral community financing. The first one was at the Ritz-Carlton on Feb.22, 2001, which brought in some $150,000.

There was never an arrangement for percentage payments. There were no commissions. This is a complete fabrication. I was paid by cheque from the Liberal Party from the start. Same amount every two weeks as a consultant of $2500. Plus expenses.

The car I used was leased by party accountant Daniel Cloutier. I had nothing to do with it with the quality or terms. He said he wanted to lease it from a friend of his on the south shore

I never said to Dezainde that I worked for Joe Morselli. I briefed Dezainde fully and told him I would continue to do so as I did Minister Gagliano and Mr. Morselli. I told him that as a consultant my mandate came from the Political Minister for Quebec. Dezainde told me he was upset that Gagliano had told him to stay out of sectoral financing events and did not want these social and cultural community leaders in the finance commission. I told him to take it up with Gagliano.

The Government service and program guide I produced was not for contributors, but for the community groups we were trying to bring in. All these groups had asked what the government was doing for them. I tried to answer that together with the Liberal Faxes we did. The Party had nothing to give anyone to explain what the government was doing and why they should be contributing.

Cheques were always flowing in from my work even between the two sectoral financings as I was always speaking to groups and raising contributions. They totalled almost $300,000 in six months and all cheques were delivered to Daniel Cloutier who never gave an accounting back to Gagliano, Morselli, Corbeil or me despite countless requests. Thankfully I kept copies many of these cheques.

The government had stopped publishing this type of guide in 1995. It was called Info-Source. The guide was not issued broadly, but sent out to only a couple of dozen groups.

Dezainde was not a virgin but was aware of everything going on. His resentment came from the fact of Gagliano’s opposition to his appointment and the fact that he didn’t want the party opened up.

There was no sectoral funding before I got there. It was Morselli’s idea to create it specifically for the LPC(Q). The “big names” were controlled by the Federal Liberal Agency and the Laurier Club. It had nothing to do with my project. My names were each solicited by me.

Francoise Patry didn’t like Gagliano because she blamed him, for some reason, for her husband not being in Cabinet. But this was just anecdotal gossip in the party.

So Dezainde, in his nauseating false piety, acted as an apologist for Corriveau who passed around so much cash. Yet it was the party’s accountant Daniel Cloutier who insisted that I use Pluri-Design for all events.

Gagliano and Morselli told Dezainde to attend the University Club fundraiser three times. Dezainde chose to go to Quebec City that night.

By the end of June the LPC (Q) had received almost $300,000 from my work.

The party printed the numbered tickets for the June 28th event. I didn’t. Gagliano attended. There were 175 people leaders of all cultural communities. It was not a private cocktail. I have produced copies of all documents and pictures of all the people there including all cheques and deposited them with Gomery. Dezainde was informed every week. Cloutier got the bills and ok’d the printing as did Gagliano.

Dezainde was also wrong on corporate fundraising. That was always done by the Federal Liberal Agency. What I was doing was “sectoral” in the sense that it engaged with community sectors, not corporate. The fact that I acted as a resource for these groups and answered their questions when they had some, established a firm base whether the party was in power or not.

Beryl Wajsman
President

Ottawa Gone Wild!

Better put on your seat belts -- Ottawa's in for a bumpy ride tonight. After the Liberals ignored a no-confidence motion that passed by three votes, the Tories have upped the ante by refusing to allow for an adjournment, and immediately moved a new no-confidence motion:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper moved what he deemed a no-confidence motion in the government, the second such move made by the Tories in two days. ...

Mr. Harper said the government has "lost the moral authority and democratic legitimacy to govern this country. Madame Speaker, today is one of those more difficult days where it falls to the Leader of the Oppostion to tell the... government that they cannot carry on," Mr. Harper said in a speech to the House Wednesday afternoon.

It appears to be part of an opposition tactic to continue to push for a confidence motion to be recognized in the House.
His motion came minutes after the Liberals tried to adjourn the House for the day but lost a vote on that motion.

The motion, "that the debate be now adjourned," put forward by New Brunswick backbencher Dominic LeBlanc and Ontario MP Judi Longfield, was defeated 153 to 147.

If nothing else, a marathon session of defeated adjournments will expose the folly of the Liberal position that Parliament has not issued a no-confidence call for the Martin government. The Liberals can't even garner enough votes to get out of the chamber for dinner! Stephen Harper may intend on getting his latest motion on the table before allowing for any adjournment, which could take all night. It certainly demonstrates that the Tories have no intention of allowing Martin and the Liberals to set the election date, regardless of whether the difference only amounts to eight days. Harper also wants to avoid giving them the excuse of claiming that the no-confidence vote reflects on budgetary priorities instead of the widespread corruption revealed thus far at the Gomery Inquiry.

If the Tories keep defeating adjournment motions, the spectacle of Liberals trying to escape Parliament will become so ludicrous, and so representative of the Adscam scandal, that Martin may be forced to resign just to put a stop to it.

UN Dispatch Attacks Roger L Simon

Pity the poor United Nations. Not only is the management at Turtle Bay hopelessly corrupt and inept, its new blogosphere apologists don't appear very bright, either. Not only did they run a lame attack post about Roger L. Simon's recent focus on history's largest embezzlement scam, they sent out e-mails to bloggers asking us to promote it:

20% of Roger L. Simon's blog entries during the month of April make reference to the Oil-for-Food controversy.

0% of Roger L. Simon's blog entries during April make reference to the following UN-related issues[...]

Is Simon's hyper-focus on a single UN-related issue based on deep convictions? Unbending principles? Moral outrage? Maybe. Then again, there's his explanation:

"Thanks to the Secretary General of the United Nations for providing this blog with its first 50,000+ visitor day." - Roger L. Simon

UND then lists a number of UN initiatives that supposedly have been or are successfully being implemented. Perhaps these programs do work well, although it's hard to tell. By the time we get past issues like Annan's nepotism, Saddam's massive theft, his purchasing of UNSC vetoes staving off action against his genocidal regime, and the endemic sexual exploitation of women and young girls unfortunate enough to find themselves under the "protection" of United Nations peacekeepers and observers, we're simply too exhausted to examine the minutiae of the UN's efforts to rebuild Iraq's marshlands.

(I would point out to the bloggers at UND that this latter effort would not have been possible if the US and UK had not removed Saddam Hussein from power despite the UN's best efforts to protect him. It also would not have been necessary had the UN allowed us to march to Baghdad in 1991 when the road was open and the marshes still existed.)

Nowhere does UND attempt to dispute what Roger writes about the UN or offer evidence of improvement. It simply criticizes Roger for writing about what interests him and for not being "balanced" in his opinions about the UN, and for making a joke about Kofi Annan's continuing misrepresentation of investigative reports being a source of Roger's traffic.

A word of advice, guys. If you have a problem with Roger's posts, it had better be something substantial. Bloggers have no sympathy for arguments that start, "Why don't you write about what ____ does right?" If the UN needs a PR flack, Roger obviously isn't interested in the job. Giving us a laundry list of minor programs that haven't received any criticism as a defense against the monumental corruption of OFF and the chronic and grotesque sexual misconduct of UN staff is nothing short of laughable.

When the UN starts holding its executives accountable for their crimes and incompetence, then Roger and the rest of us won't need to spend 20% of our time blogging on the UN's fecklessness. If UND wants to criticize that, then UND has decided to be nothing more than toadies for the corrupt and incompetent at Turtle Bay.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit and Hugh Hewitt readers!

Martin Offers Eight-Day Wait, BQ Says 'Non!'

In response to the damaging loss on the contentious no-confidence motion last night, which the Liberals have refused to acknowledge, Paul Martin has now offered to table the budget motion for a vote on May 19th, eight days away. However, the Tories and Bloc Québécois have refused this offer, demanding that the Liberals table the motion today if they continue their refusal to recognize yesterday's vote to dissolve the government:

Prime Minister Paul Martin has called for a vote on the budget for next Thursday, a move that could topple his fragile minority government. However, the opposition Bloc Québécois and Conservatives refused to co-operate, saying they're not prepared to wait, and want a vote today.

"I am proposing that there will be a vote that day on the budget bill and that vote will be a vote of confidence," Mr. Martin told reporters in Ottawa Wednesday after an emergency cabinet meeting. ...

But Tory Leader Stephen Harper said he refuses to play "games" any longer.

Both he and Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe said they won't wait until May 19. If the Liberals want a confidence vote, they will agree to hold one today, the two leaders said.

Mr. Harper said Mr. Martin is simply engaging in stalling tactics.

"Face the nation, face parliament. If he has a vote he wants us to have, let's have it today," Mr. Harper said.

The Liberals need the extra week to get three more votes back into Parliament before tabling the budget motion. Two of its own members could not make it back in time for last night's vote, and one independent (Chuck Cadman) undergoes chemotherapy this week and cannot attend. Cadman has already indicated that he will support the Liberals.

Even with the extra three votes, the stall tactics may force some whose seats are at risk in the volatile political climate to think twice before voting to continue Liberal rule after the revelations already made at the Gomery Inquiry. Polls have shown public opinion to vacillate widely on support of the parties, but all polls have shown Paul Martin's support for remaining Prime Minister eroding constantly. MPs riding to Martin's rescue over the next eight days may find themselves answering difficult questions later about why they voted to keep a corrupt government in place to investigate itself.

Perhaps most despicably, the Liberal Commons leader Tony Valeri has now indicated that he may hold a new and non-partisan crime bill establishing a DNA database of criminals hostage to the confidence motion outcome. The Toronto Sun reports that the bill, which is expected to receive widespread support in Parliament, has not yet been scheduled for a vote. Valeri made it clear that it won't be scheduled unless the opposition parties back off of their threat to topple the Liberals:

KARLA HOMOLKA will be compelled to provide federal authorities with a DNA sample -- as long as the Liberal government doesn't fall before a new bill is passed into law.

MPs from all political parties agreed yesterday to fast-track Bill C-13 so Homolka and other violent offenders don't slip out of prison without their DNA being put in the national database. Currently DNA collection -- even for the most serious crimes such as murder -- isn't mandatory. ...

Conservative MP Vic Toews pressed Justice Minister Irwin Cotler to "step up to the plate" and do the right thing, but government House leader Tony Valeri was non-committal in the Commons. "When we co-operate and focus on the interests and priorities of Canadians, Parliament can in fact work," he said.

"I would ask the two parties opposite, both the Conservatives and the Bloc, that if they want to, in fact, be in Parliament and be in this Parliament for the interests of Canadians, then let us work together to ensure we can pass this DNA bill and other bills."

In other words, Valeri will refuse to schedule the bill in time for Homolka to be tested unless the Liberals win a confidence motion and are allowed to continue in power. Otherwise, the bill will have to be re-introduced in the next Parliament, delaying its implementation and allowing a number of parolees to escape its requirements, including Homolka. Even for a government that just spent $10 billion in tax money to buy off a province and a political party, this kind of political rugby seems highly cynical and utterly selfish.

This kind of activity may yet rile up a placid Canadian electorate.

Is Zarqawi A Matador Casualty?

An Italian news site reports that Iraqi forces have claimed to have either killed or seriously wounded terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi during Operation Matador. While this is not the first time such a rumor has been floated, it would come as no surprise that Coalition forces hope to capture or kill the al-Qaeda leader (via Hugh Hewitt):

The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is "serious injured, possibly dead" according to Colonel Fouad Hani Hassan, commander of the fifth division of the Iraqi armed forces, cited by 'Elaph', a popular website in the Arab world. Al-Zarqawi, considered al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, is believed to have been injured in the major offensive US-led forces have been carrying out in the western Anbar province over the last few days.

Operation Matador is centred around the town of Qaim, just a few kilometres from the Syrian border, and is aimed at destroying the strongholds of foreign fighters coming over the border into Iraq to join the insurgency. It's the fourth day of violent fighting around the town, which has been surrounded by troops since Saturday night. Bombing is said to be heavy in Qaim, where there has been house-to-house fighting between troops and insurgents.

We've been here before, and while I certainly hope this report is correct, I'm not banking on it until I see pictures of the body. What makes sense about this timing is the concentration of foreign fighters at the Syrian border and the resources they have used in fighting the Iraqi-American contingent. They obviously have access to better weapons and better training than some of the so-called insurgents in central Iraq, who now almost entirely rely on suicide bombers. It makes sense that Zarqawi would have been in that area, coordinating the recruitment, training, and disposition of terrorist militia near the Syrian lines of communication that have kept his operation alive, up to now.

With a little luck and a great deal of Marine Corps skill, perhaps that has already come to an end. We'll see.

The Liberal Catch-22

Now that the Liberals have defied a no-confidence motion passed by Parliament, their next step may well be tabling their own motion of confidence soon to try to assure the public that the Liberals still have a right to govern. John Ward of the Canadian Press explains that without some sort of explicit act that shows yesterday's no-confidence vote as a fluke or a trick, the nation will reject the Liberal explanation for why they have not yet left office:

xOpposition procedural manoeuvres may not topple the minority Liberals, but experts are predicting the government will likely have to bring forward its own confidence motion soon.

Without a demonstration that it actually does have the confidence of the Commons, the government could find itself unable to govern.

The problem that leads to all of this uncertainty is a lack of explicit rules dictating parliamentary procedure. A minority government which loses a motion on a budget agreement or tax levies is considered to have lost the confidence of Parliament, as those are two primary functions of governing. Without that ability, a government can do nothing. However, that has been a 'convention', not a law, and technically speaking there is nothing which forces the Grits to give up power after yesterday's vote. Nothing, that is, except tradition, history, and common sense.

Ward has it right. In order to reverse the damage from yesterday's vote, the Liberals have to get a confidence motion passed in the lower house, and fast. The longer they wait, the more they look greedy, grasping, and anti-democratic. The sooner they table a confidence motion, though, the stronger Harper will be in defeating it. The Liberals may not have any better options than that left to them after the vote yesterday.

Will Iraq Be Al-Qaeda's Last Stand?

Today's Washington Times analyzes the fighting in Operation Marador and asserts that Iraq has transformed itself into al-Qaeda's last stand -- which was one of the objectives of the Bush administration:

The war in Iraq is increasingly looking more like a showdown with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda followers than a battle primarily against Saddam Hussein loyalists.

The shift is making the fight a focal point of the U.S. global war against Islamic terrorists and one that might dictate whether the U.S. wins or loses, said a senior official and an outside expert.

"If they fail in Iraq, Osama and his whole crew are finished," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, a military author and analyst.

The changing dynamic was highlighted this week when the U.S. military launched a major offensive in western Iraq, primarily against foreign jihadists who crossed the border with Syria to join the al Qaeda network in Iraq led by Abu Musab Zarqawi. In a troubling sign, U.S. officers said Zarqawi's terrorists seemed well-trained and well-equipped.

The U.S. offensive, code named Operation Matador, entered its third day yesterday in the dusty border towns west of Baghdad near Syria. The command said three Marines and more than 100 enemy fighters have been killed.

"In the Muslim world and extremist world, this fight for Iraq is their key battle," said Gen. McInerney. "If they lose it, they lose the war. And so the imams are inciting young people, not particular well-educated, to head to Iraq. Most are going through Syria via Damascus.

"This is why Iraq is such a fundamental part of the global war on terrorism. When we finally defeat Muslim extremists, it will be the battle in Iraq that defeats them."

Of course, this is exactly what was meant by the "flypaper" strategy. One of the most difficult issues with fighting an asymmetrical war is finding the enemy. They survive by hiding and seeking shelter from like-minded but officially neutral states. However, if one can find a way to draw them out, it becomes much easier to defeat them, especially if they can be pinned down by geography.

That appears to be happening now, in western Iraq, as the American forces press a large AQ group against the Syrian frontier. This creates a set-piece battle in which AQ has to fight defensively from fixed positions, playing against all their strengths -- tactical surprise and small-scale offense. In that kind of match-up, the Americans can bring all of their advantages into play. No one can win a straight-up fight against the American mlitary.

So why does AQ indulge us? They have no choice, especially since they've spent the last two years waging a terror war against the Iraqis. Iraq had been part of the ummah, and even beyond that, Iraq provided a land bridge between Iran and Afghanistan on one side, and Syria, Libya, Egypt, and the Palestinian terrtories on the other. They can't afford to lose Iraq strategically, tactically, or for street crediblity. One could indeed say that AQ is stuck between Iraq and a hard place.

UPDATE: Fixed some spelling errors, but declined to remove my pun at the end. I wrote it, and there's no use in hiding it now ...

Will Racism Destroy Al-Qaeda?

Osama bin Laden built al-Qaeda from many component groups across Southwest and Central Asia, North Africa, and even Europe, all focused on the Islamist ideal. Holding these disparate groups together must have had its difficulties even while AQ had momentum. Now that it has had almost four years of unrelenting pressure, the AP reports that the fissures have started larger cracks in AQ, which may lead to its total collapse:

American and Pakistani intelligence agents are exploiting a growing rift between Arab members of al-Qaida and their Central Asian allies, a fissure that's tearing at the network of Islamic extremists as militants compete for scarce hideouts, weapons and financial resources, counterterrorism officials say.

The rivalry may have contributed to the arrest last week of one of
Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants, a Libyan described as al-Qaida's No. 3 and known to have had differences with Uzbeks. Captured Uzbek, Chechen and Tajik suspects have been giving up information about the movements of Arab al-Qaida militants in recent months, four Pakistani intelligence agents told The Associated Press, leading to a series of successful raids and arrests.

"When push comes to shove, the Uzbeks are going to stick together, and the Arabs are going to stick together," said Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism expert with the Congressional Research Service in Washington. "I think the Uzbek guerrillas have had no home. Some of this could be a battle for survival."

Islam, it seems, does not exert as strong a hold on these people as first thought. AQ took advantage of a number of political movements in Asia and Africa and fanned them into flames, but not all of them were primarily Islamist, at least not if this report is to be believed. Perhaps in the case of the Uzbeks, Chechens, and Tajiks, their concern revolves mainly around nationalism first and Islam second.

These internecine conflicts within AQ demonstrates without a doubt that the organization is approaching collapse. Successful paramilitary organizations show cohesion and a leadership which inspires its members beyond their personal interests. While they were winning, their focus was on the offensive against the West. Now that the West has responded with unprecedented tenacity, AQ has found itself stretched thin, most of their former leadership gone, and the rest hiding in caves. The groups are now reverting to their own interests, and they're going as far as to finger each other to claim the few remaining resources.

In other words, al-Qaeda is falling apart.

Leahy's Sympathy Only Extends To Leftists

He may be one of the loudest voices supporting the filibuster now, but less than five years ago, Senator Pat Leahy sang a different song on the floor of the Senate. According to the Congressional Record and an intrepid CQ reader, Leahy showed far more sympathy for the plight of judicial nominees back when Clinton did the nominating. Incredibly, he relied on then-Governor Bush's argument during the 2000 campaign that all nominees should receive an up-or-down vote to make this statement during the Senate debate on James Teilborg:

Both parties have nominated those we consider to be our best choices. Obviously, I strongly support my friend of over 20 years, AL GORE. But I also know that the Republican Party has nominated a very distinguished Governor, George W. Bush.

I mention this because Governor Bush and I, while we disagree on some issues, have one very significant issue on which we agree. He gave a speech awhile back and criticized what has happened in the Senate where confirmations are held up not because somebody votes down a nominee but because they cannot ever get a vote. Governor Bush said: You have the nominee. Hold the hearing. Then, within 60 days, vote them up or vote them down. Don't leave them in limbo.

Frankly, that is what we are paid to do in this body. We are paid to vote either yes or no--not vote maybe.

When we hold a nominee up by not allowing them a vote and not taking any action one way or the other, we are not only voting ``maybe'' but we are doing a terrible disservice to the man or woman to whom we do this. They have to put their life on hold. They do not know what is going to happen: Are they going to be confirmed, or not? It is not like when any one of us runs for election; we know that on a certain day the election occurs.

We either win or we lose. But we know that on that Tuesday, we are going to know our fate. We won or we lost.

These people come here and they never know what may happen. They don't know whether they will have a hearing. And if they have a hearing, they don't know if there will be a vote in committee. And if there is a vote in committee, they don't know whether they will come on the floor. And if they come on the floor, they don't know if they will have a vote because one person hiding in the Cloakroom will say: Don't allow it to come to a vote yet. So they may have 99 Senators voting for them but somebody mysteriously in the background says ``Don't vote,'' and they don't vote.

Helene White of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has been pending for 1,360 days. Governor Bush said we ought to have a vote up or down within 60 days. Let's have a vote on Helene White. She has been waiting not 60 days, not 600 days, but 1,360 days.

Kathleen McCree Lewis, who has been nominated for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, an outstanding African American woman, who has one of highest ratings of anybody we have ever seen come before the Senate, has been waiting for 370 days. Not the 60 days we talked about, but more than six times the 60 days. Bonnie Campbell, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, has been spending for more than 215 days.

Well, Senator Leahy, now we have two candidates who have waited for more than 1480 days, and several more that have waiting for over 700 days for their vote. They began queuing up less than 220 days after you spoke these words on the floor of the Senate. You even invoked George Bush's attempt to create a bipartisan consensus that all judicial nominees who cleared committee should receive an up-or-down vote within 60 days of their initial approval.

Were you serious, Senator? Or were you blowing hot air then, and blowing it now as well?

Corbeil: Money Funded Covert Campaign Office

Former Liberal activist Benoit Corbeil continued his testimony at the Gomery Inquiry today, revealing the covert campaign that Adscam money funded for the Grits. Corbeil also started talking about other scandals that so far have not found much resonation with Canadians:

The federal Liberals ran their 2000 election campaign in Quebec with two parallel staff — only one of which was on the payroll at their Montreal headquarters, the sponsorship inquiry was told Tuesday.

Former Quebec wing boss Benoit Corbeil said then-public works minister Alfonso Gagliano ran a team of 30 “fake volunteers” who included ministerial aides as well as lawyers and engineers. ...

“There were two sections at the headquarters — there was the registered section, where I worked, and there was the unregistered section,” Mr. Corbeil told the inquiry.

“Anyone who says they weren't aware of it ... either they've lost their memory or they aren't telling the truth. Can I be any clearer?”

Mr. Corbeil said the parallel campaign office included some of the nine workers he singled out Monday as having been paid from a $50,000 cash donation by ad man Jean Brault.

He named the same aides as yesterday as participating in the parallel campaign, which allowed the Liberals to bypass campaign-fund limits and regulations. Pointing out Gagliano as the leader of this effort connects him even further into the illegality of the party activities. However, when Corbeil started discussing other issues, Gomery quickly cut him off:

Under cross-examination by his lawyer, Guy Bertrand, Mr. Corbeil also began to expand Tuesday on allegations he made in media interviews that a powerful “Liberal network” controlled sponsorships, judicial nominations and other major government decisions.

But inquiry judge John Gomery cut him off, saying the subject was outside the commission's mandate.

One has to wonder why Gomery would consider that outside the mandate. Obviously, Adscam has its roots in Liberal Party conspiracies to launder cash and commit electoral fraud. Why would that be wholly separate from contract fraud (also an element of Adscam) and patronage? Perhaps the expansion might make the Gomery Inquiry take a few weeks longer for expanded testimony, but that at least could kick-start a proper investigation into these other allegations.

Now that Corbeil has mentioned it in testimony, expect Harper and the Tories to ask about it during the next question period. It should take its place in the debate over the no-confidence motion that Harper narrowly won this afternoon as well.

WaPo Smells The Cheese ... Finally

The Washington Post has finally sniffed out the Silence of the Cheese, the voter-fraud scandal in Milwaukee that helped turn Wisconsin blue in the 2004 Presidential election. Michelle Malkin points readers to a new development that the Post reported late this afternoon:

About 4,500 more ballots than registered voters were cast in the election last November in Milwaukee, investigators said Tuesday.

Also, more than 200 felons voted improperly in Milwaukee, and more than 100 instances of suspected double-voting were found.

No charges have been filed. Investigators found no widespread conspiracy, just isolated incidents, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic said.

"I don't think there's an election in this municipality or this state that would have been decided differently even with those numbers," said Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat.

Barrett wants this entire embarassment to go away, and the spin is designed for the national media to go back into silence mode. Having 4,500 more ballots than registered voters doesn't mean that 4500 extra votes were cast. It means many more thousands of extra votes were cast, unless Milwaukee normally gets 100% turnout for every election. Milwaukee had over 277,000 ballots cast in the election, and even if that accounted for 90% of the registered voters in the city, it would still mean 30,000 extra ballots before you even get to an overage.

Now, given that kind of turnover in balloting, the notion that all of that activity came from "isolated incidents" makes no sense whatsover. Someone had to cast those extra ballots, and if it was just ordinary Milwaukee citizens, it would mean that one in nine voters double-voted on Election Day. Perhaps the investigators could find no evidence of a conspiracy, but that hardly means that one didn't exist. The sheer scale fraudulent voting in this case almost certainly eliminates all other explanations.

John Kerry's surprise 11,000-vote margin in a state most Upper Midwest political pundits picked for Bush now appears much more understandable. While it's far too late to challenge the 2004 results, Wisconsonites should ensure that such fraud cannot occur again. The first step should be to demand photo-ID at the polling stations and the end to same-day registrations. Those politicians who oppose such reforms should be seen as enablers of voter fraud, and handled accordingly.

UPDATE: The Washington Post blew its reporting, as CQ commenter Outactrl points out. The actual report, available here in PDF format, says that 4500 more ballots came in than Milwaukee recorded as voting, not 4500 more than the number of registered voters in Milwaukee. However, let's not forget that over 30% of the 277,000 votes came from same-day registrations, which Milwaukee has yet to reconcile.

Parliament Votes For Gov't To Resign; Grits Defiant

Stephen Harper tabled his no-confidence amendment this afternoon after much debate as to whether it constituted a legal demand for dissolution, and won a narrow 153-150 vote as the NDP could not rescue Paul Martin and the Liberals. However, the Liberals still refuse to recognize the amendment's mandate for new elections:

In what was a Parliamentary squeaker, the Conservatives teamed up with the Bloc Quebecois, to defeat the Liberals who were backed by the NDP and two Independents by a vote of 153 to 150.

Opposition members rose to their feet and broke into applause after House Speaker Peter Milliken announced the results.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper rose and accused the Prime Minister of clinging to power "at all costs." ...

But the Liberals insist the vote holds no such power.

Seeking to clarify confusion over the consequences of the Conservative motion, the Liberals convened an emergency press conference earlier on Tuesday.

Addressing reporters in Ottawa, Valeri said the controversial motion is not one on which his party is willing to stake its future.

"The motion in no way asks the House to speak to its confidence in the government," Valeri said, insisting that it is merely procedural.

That procedural motion still lost, exposing the tenuous nature of Martin's grip on power. Two seriously ill Conservative MPs answered Harper's call and flew in for the vote after the motion was ruled in order by the Speaker. Two Liberals and one independent could not attend the vote, meaning that if the Liberals can convince independent Chuck Cadman to support the current government in a subsequent vote, they can still hold onto power through the summer.

The Liberals did sound a more conciliatory theme. They offered to restore some opposition days to the calendar at the end of the month, allowing the Tories and BQ to table a pure no-confidence vote then rather than now. However, that would force summer elections, which all parties have shied away from endorsing up to now.

The issue will likely go to the Governor-General, but having Ms. Clarkson rule in Harper's favor will be a long shot. Clearly the Commons has expressed a failure of confidence in the minority government of Martin, but if the motion has any procedural weakness, she will be more likely to play it safe and demand a regular motion rather than the amendment to the public accounts committee report they passed tonight. In the meantime, the move puts Martin back on the defensive, explaining to Canadians why he refuses to hold elections after losing on any motion that explicitly states a failure of confidence.

Did Gagliano Intimidate Corbeil?

Benoit Corbeil made an interesting reference to a phone call from Alfonse Gagliano during his Gomery Inquiry testimony yesterday. According to Corbeil, Gagliano called to dissuade his former associate from testifying, warning him that his reputation was at stake:

The lawyer for a sponsorship inquiry witness said Monday his client felt intimidated after Alfonso Gagliano called him and warned him about his reputation ahead of his potentially damaging testimony.

Former party official Benoit Corbeil told the inquiry Gagliano called his home last month, warning him his reputation would be destroyed if he implicated top Liberals in an alleged illicit financing scheme.

"He said 'listen, Benoit, people will come out against you, unanimously,''' said Corbeil, one-time boss of the party's Quebec wing.

"(He said) 'you'll lose your reputation and you'll lose friends.'''

Corbeil received the call from Gagliano last month after telling reporters that Gagliano knew of illicit money transfers to Liberal Party activists. Gagliano admitted making the call but denied it constituted any threat. However, Corbeil also testified that he had received anonymous phone calls from others who also warned him about risking his reputation if he testified.

The pattern doesn't sound like a rash of unsolicited but well-meaning advice. Gagliano might have meant it that way, but anonymous callers warning of damage to one's reputation sounds more like a threat. Does someone at the heart of Adscam have something on Corbeil, or do they think they can gin up something to make him look bad? Assuming Corbeil is telling the truth about the later calls, it sounds like someone wants to stop the testimony through veiled threats of slander.

As Beryl Wajsman pointed out in his interview with me last night, the Gomery testimony cannot be used to bring actions of slander in Canadian courts based on its mandate from the government. That leaves people like Corbeil and other whistleblowers in a precarious position. They can easily be discredited by other witnesses who get on the stand and simply lie about them, with little risk to those who do so. Perhaps Corbeil has more to worry about than that, too.

Owen Will Bust The Filibuster (Or Will She?)

The Washington Times reports today that Frist has decided to pull the trigger on the Byrd option using Priscilla Owen's nomination as the catalyst. Owen gives Frist the widest possible support at the moment, as well as being one of the two nominees who have waited the longest for confirmation:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans for Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to be the judicial nomination on which he uses the "nuclear option" against Democratic filibusters later this month, according to Republicans familiar with his plans.

Justice Owen, first nominated to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals four years ago yesterday, has often been seen as the most likely nominee to be pushed though. And when Mr. Frist, Tennessee Republican, made his final offer to Democrats last month to avoid a showdown, he mentioned only one nominee: Justice Owen. ...

She has impeccable academic credentials, received the highest rating from the American Bar Association and is supported by both Republicans and Democrats who know her. ... But most appealing, Republicans say, is that the very cases for which Justice Owen has been most strenuously attacked are rulings that are overwhelmingly popular with American voters.

Owen has been attacked for upholding laws that require parental notification for abortions involving underage girls, positions that have infuriated NARAL and other pro-abortion advocates that form the Democratic base. They have made Owen a target for supposedly operating far outside the mainstream of American thought. However, the laws that Owen upheld receive popular support from American voters, and the ongoing attacks on them have even some Democratic politicians like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton advising their party to start listening more and berating less when discussing abortion during their campaigns.

Owen may make a better choice than Janice Rogers Brown on paper, although I think that Brown makes a better choice given her life story and the nature of the attacks made on her by the Democratic caucus. However, I predict that the Democrats, once confronted by Owen, will refuse to filibuster her and give themselves more time to swing some Republican Senators to their side for a later vote on the Byrd option. Thanks to the long delay, the Democrats were able to shake a few loose this time around, and time could play on their side again. They wouldn't dare skip a filibuster on Brown now that they've spent so much time and hot air insulting her. If the Democrats refuse to filibuster Owen, then all of this momentum will dissipate harmlessly and Frist will have to rebuild it for the next nominee.

If the key for the GOP is to ensure that the Byrd Option gets invoked so that the Senate can finally start moving on appellate nominees, then Owen may be the wrong choice. A big anticlimax on filibusters may win a battle but cost them a war.

Schumer Eats His Words

If Charles Schumer wanted to turn public opinion against George Bush in the rhetorical battle over judicial nominations, his efforts have backfired on him, if the AP gives any indication. After Schumer's radio address decried Republican rhetoric for being "harsh", the wire ssrvice (through MS-NBC) reports today on Minority Leader Harry Reid instead as unprecedented in his personal attacks:

In an institution that prides itself as a last bastion of civility, the Senate’s new Democratic leader has on occasion turned to playground taunts and name-calling in his four-month tenure.

After accusing President Bush of lying about his role in a fight over judicial filibusters, Sen. Harry Reid last week called the president a “loser.” And Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan? He’s a “political hack,” according to the formerly soft-spoken Nevada Democrat. ...

Late last month, Reid complained that Vice President Dick Cheney’s pledge to break a tie if necessary and to vote with Republican leaders to change the rules on filibustering judicial nominees broke Bush’s promise to stay out of the fight.

“Last week, I met with the president and was encouraged when he told me he would not become involved in Republican efforts to break the Senate rules,” Reid said two weeks ago. “Now, it appears he was not being honest, and that the White House is encouraging this raw abuse of power.”

Reid told his caucus when they elected him to the leadership post that he'd rather dance than fight, but he knew how to do both. The evidence thus far shows that, at least politically speaking, he can't do either. The AP describes him as soft-spoken, but the querolous voice gets employed too often for childish name-calling, which Reid confuses frequently for biting rhetoric.

On that basis, however, he appears to be the perfect leader for an out-of-control minority caucus that has issued petulant demands to control the Senate as if it were the majority. Ever since they lost the majority in 2002, these Democrats have insisted on parity with the GOP even though the voters have clearly given the Republicans a mandate for majority status, especially after the last election. They use increasingly desperate and intellectually immature reasoning to support such demands. They claim that Republican control of the Senate somehow abrogates the Constitutional balance between the legislative branch and the executive, disregarding the votes that put the GOP in charge of both branches and the fact that the Constitution does not address checks and balances on any partisan basis at all. (It never addresses political parties at all.)

The pinnacle of this stupidity came last month, when a rash of comments led by Senator Joe Biden claimed that the GOP didn't have a majority at all. His reasoning was that the Democrats in the Senate represented a larger percentage of the population and that meant that the 44 Democrats had more of a mandate to run the Senate than the 55 Republicans did. Despite the questionable nature of this calculation -- does Minnesota count for Mark Dayton or Norm Coleman? -- the idea that the Democrats have a mandate for rule is ludicrous on its face. First, they lost a swing of eight seats in the last election. Second, the House and the Presidency both went to the GOP, and the former is actually based on population. Third, and it's embarassing to have to explain this to one of our nation's leaders, the Senate isn't supposed to provide proportional representation in Congress. Senators represent states, not people, which is why they have the duty to confirm executive-branch nominations. That duty went specifically to the Senators so that the states could ensure that the federal government composed itself in a manner acceptable to the majority of the states. Not a supermajority, for that matter, which the Constitution explicitly reserved for other purposes.

In the face of such ignorance and bitterness over losing their majority status after being in control for so long, Reid may well represent the current intellectual and emotional maturity of these Democrats. That hardly makes him a leader, and even the Exempt Media has started to notice.

Doing The GOP's Work On Brown

It's nice to see that judicial nominees are finally getting a defense from the personal attacks and political smears of the Senate Democrats. Too bad that the GOP isn't the group providing them. After the endorsement by self-described liberal Ginger Rutland of the Sacramento Bee yesterday for Janice Rogers Brown, Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice joined the fight on the pages of the Washington Times today:

The judicial confirmation process has become so savage in recent years that it would take a brave nominee to offer himself or herself for consideration. California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, for example, has been charged in a recent NAACP "Action Alert" with being "hostile to civil rights" and "having extreme right-wing views."

I do not agree with all of Justice Brown's opinions, but I write this to show how prejudicially selective the prosecution of her is by the Democrats, the NAACP, People For the American Way and her other critics. She was filibustered in the last Congress, and may be again, now having been sent to the floor on a 10-to-8 party-line vote by the Judiciary Committee. ...

Another charge by the NAACP in its "Action Alert" is that Justice Brown dissented from "a ruling that an injunction against the use of racially offensive epithets in the workplace did not violate the First Amendment." I know this case, Aguilar v. Avis Rent A Car System Inc., well, having covered it from the beginning andinterviewed lawyers on both sides. Brown dissented from an astonishing decision by the California Supreme Court that authorized the trial judge to actually put together a list of words that would be forbidden for all time in that workplace, even if uttered out of the presence of employees.

This extreme gag rule on speech turned the First Amendment upside-down, because as Stanley Mosk, a much-respected civil libertarian on that California Supreme Court, emphasized: "The offensive content of using any one, or more, of a list of verboten words cannot be determined in advance." As Brown said plainly and correctly: "We are not dealing merely with a regulation of speech, we are dealing with an absolute prohibition, a prior restraint." This could "create the exception that swallowed the First Amendment."

As I have argued for weeks in relation to Brown, her judicial positions clearly demonstrate a more libertarian bent than social conservatism, making her an ideal candidate for the center-right. However, it appears that the Democrats so fear the idea of Bush later naming her to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court that they feel they must do everything they can now to destroy her reputation. When two liberals have to point out to the Democrats that they have smeared the wrong candidate and do so in the mainstream press, one would think they'd get the message.

One person who didn't was Erwin Chemerinsky, regular contributor to Hugh Hewitt's show representing the Left to John Eastman's Right. Radioblogger has a partial transcript up for the debate between the two lawyers, during which Chemerinsky plays the exact game about which Hentoff warns in his article:

JE: No, I didn't say she would want to overrule that. And Erwin, I challenge you to point to a single opinion that she has written in the ten years that she has been on the bench, where she did not follow binding precedent, and reached out instead to overrule something because it agreed with her personal understanding of the Constitution, rather than the precedent that was binding on her. A single opinion.

EC: Sure. I'll give you an example. Her dissent in the parental notice for abortion, would overrule California precedent with regard to parental notification, and she took a position in her dissent about the California Constitution being limited in what it can do, that was really unprecedented. It would have overruled precedent.

JE: And it directly followed, Erwin, did it not, directly followed Supreme Court precedent on that subject, and by the way, it was a dissenting opinion, not a majority opinion. But it followed what the Supreme Court has said the states are allowed to do, and she upheld the legislative action, consistent with binding Supreme Court precedent on the subject.

On the other hand, perhaps the GOP might start waking up to the fact that they've been complicit in allowing this character assassination to continue as a one-sided game for years now. Arlen Specter, of all people, came close to defending them on the floor of the Senate this evening, according to The Corner:

In the exchange of offers and counter offers between Sen. Frist, the Majority Leader and Sen. Harry Reid, the Democrat Leader, Democrats have made an offer to avoid a vote on the nuclear/constitutional option by confirming one of the four filibustered judges: Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor and William Myers with the choice to be selected by Republicans.

An offer to confirm any one of the those four nominees is an explicit concession that each is qualified for the court and that they are being held hostage as pawns in a convoluted chess game which has spiraled out of control. If the Democrats really believe each is unqualified, a “deal” for confirmation for any one of them is repugnant to the basic democratic principle of individual, fair and equitable treatment and violates Senators’ oaths on the constitutional confirmation process. Such “deal” making confirms public cynicism about what goes on behind Washington’s closed doors.

Instead, let the Senate consider each of the four without the constraints of party line voting. Let us revert to the tried and tested method of evaluating each nominee individually.

It sounds like the GOP may finally wake up and smell the majority dissipating. It also sounds like Specter has decided to support the Byrd Option, which may convince one or two other GOP leaners to do the same.

Beryl Wajsman Interview At CQ

This evening, I had the pleasure of speaking at length with Beryl Wajsman, the president of Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal and an upcoming witness for the Gomery Inquiry looking into Adscam. Our first contact came when Beryl posted an unsolicited statement in CQ's comments section, which I reposted separately to ensure that everyone had a chance to read it.

Beryl, it turns out, is a man who does not remain silent gladly. As his statement suggests, he is a man of strong opinions and convictions, a man who speaks bluntly, and someone who needs little prompting to discuss difficult subjects. Despite the differences in our political viewpoints, I found Beryl very convincing and his enthusiasm contagious.

Over the next couple of days, I plan on transcribing the interview and posting it in serial form. I don't want to try quoting Beryl without having a transcript in front of me, as he already has his frustrations with what he believes is lazy reporting in the Canadian media leading to some damage to his reputation. For that reason, among others, he cannot wait to appear before Gomery and tell his story to the Inquiry.

However, as he made plain during our interview, he sees the Gomery Inquiry as a red herring -- a machination that allows Prime Minister Paul Martin to deflect attention from his own peccadilloes. According to Beryl, the structure of the Gomery Inquiry makes it almost impossible for any evidence given to it to be used to prosecute criminal or civil cases afterwards. Beryl speaks about Martin's scandals in some detail during our interview, as well as his connections to the Power Corporation, Total Group, the Desmarais family, and Saddam Hussein. He told me that the Canadian media has focused on Gomery instead of Martin's much more extensive (and expensive) financial manipulations simply because Gomery stories write themselves, and the media doesn't have to lift a finger to get the updates.

If you expect to get inside scoop on Adscam corruption, you won't find it in this interview. Beryl didn't do any work for the Sponsorship Program, and as his upcoming testimony will show, he burnt his bridges at the Liberal Party well before Jean Brault alleges that Wajsman was present at a cash drop (which reporters mistakenly attributes as an accusation that he took a payoff, which isn't what Brault said at all, according to Beryl). He does give an insider's look at some of the players involved in the scandal, though, including Martin, Alfonse Gagliano, and Daniel Dezainde, for whom Beryl has unusually harsh feelings. “Dezainde was driven crazy because he could not stomach the reality that I had brought this new coalition of Italians, Jews, blacks, Lebanese, Indo-Canadians, etc… into the heart of the party’s center of power which is the Finance Commission. (The fact that Dezainde works as Jacques Saada’s press secretary and Saada is Jewish is irrelevant. It’s just a job for Dezainde. And Saada had asked me to introduce him to the Jewish leadership some five years ago. He was never involved with the community per se.)” He also gives his own unique analysis of Canadian politics and talks about his plans for the future.

I hope that over the next few days, you'll keep up with the posts of this extraordinary interview as I get them transcribed. Beryl's is a voice that not only should be heard, it practically demands it.

NOTE: If anyone is more practiced than I am at transcriptions, let me know if you'd like to give me a hand with the task.

Corbeil: Liberal Activists Tied To Martin Took Illegal Cash

Benoit Corbeil testified at the Gomery Inquiry today that several Liberal Party activists and bureaucrats received illicit campaign contributions, including some currently serving on Prime Minister Paul Martin's staff. Included on the list was Daniel Dezainde, named in Beryl Wajsmann's statement to Captain's Quarters last night as well:

Eight Liberal officials, including high-ranking Quebec wing executives and political staff in the current government of prime minister Paul Martin, are among people who received cash payments for the 2000 election, the Gomery inquiry has heard.

The revelation came from Benoît Corbeil, the executive director of the party's Quebec wing from 1998 to 2001.

Among those whom he said got cash in envelopes for election work are Irène Marcheterre, director of communications of Transport Minister Jean Lapierre, and Richard Mimeau, a Martin loyalist who is Mr. Lapierre's special assistant for Quebec.

Another current political staffer whom Mr. Corbeil said received cash was former Quebec wing executive director Daniel Dezainde, now the press secretary of Jacques Saada, the minister for Canada Economic Development.

Corbeil partially corroborates the testimony of Jean Brault, who admitted to providing a channel for the money laundering that comprised the heart of Adscam. Brault had testified to handing over large sums of cash to Corbeil, among others, for the purpose of avoiding regulations on campaign financing as well as securing more contracts for his firm, Groupaction. Corbeil now provides the testimony linking cash payments directly to Liberals, who must now account for their failure to report the payments or face charges of conspiracy and fraud. Corbeil also testified to receiving $9,000 from Michel Béliveau in 1997 and handing it over to two Liberal ridings in Quebec, won by Denis Coderre and Yvin Charbonneau.

However, Corbeil's version of events differs slightly from Brault in that he paints Brault as the designer of the illegal payment structure, at least as far as Corbeil was involved. It doesn't necessarily discount Brault's contention that he was intimidated into making the payments, but it tends to make Brault look more involved in structuring the scheme than perhaps Brault admitted last month.

The new connections to Martin may cause more problems for the already-embattled PM. However, Martin may play it smart and simply fire anyone whose involvement in the scheme can be corroborated by two witnesses or substantiating evidence, and hope that none of the people he fires has any way to tie him directly to the payments or the management of the scheme. Nevertheless, Corbeil's testimony makes Martin's previous explanations that a small coterie of Chrétien advisors were solely responsible for all the corruption much more difficult to maintain.

BQ Will Demand Action If Liberals Ignore No-Confidence Motion

Bloc Quebecois made its intentions clear today in response to an assertion by Liberal Party leader Tony Valeri last week that the Grits can ignore a no-confidence rider on a budget amendment. BQ party leader Gilles Duceppe warned that such a blatant disregard for protocol will result in a demand to Canada's governor-general to dissolve the Liberal government by decree:

The opposition will ask Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson to intervene if the Liberals lose a coming vote and won't resign, Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe says.

"That would be the duty of the Governor General to call Paul Martin and to tell him a few things about democracy,'' Duceppe said Monday as the country's federal political leaders attended VE-Day ceremonies in Holland.

Nor is BQ alone in its ire. Stephen Harper, the Tory leader in Parliament who will likely force the issue on the amendment, warns of severe and immediate consequences for such "attitude":

Tory Leader Stephen Harper said there will be consequences for the Liberals after the politicians return home Tuesday. He didn't say what those consequences would be.

"The government cannot decide whether it has or doesn't have the confidence of the House. Only members of Parliament can decide that,'' Harper said.

"That (Liberal) decision is unacceptable now, and there will be consequences as soon as we return for that kind of attitude.

"Don't think we're going to wait until the 18th or 19th to deal with that problem.''

The NDP has also said the coming vote seems like a matter of confidence. But unlike the other parties, the NDP will not vote to bring down the government.

The key on this issue may still be the NDP. If Jack Layton's caucus believes that Paul Martin and Tony Valeri have truly abused their power by ignoring a no-confidence vote, it's possible that the NDP may split their votes, or that Harper can peel off the one or two MPs necessary to table a separate no-confidence motion. It won't take much, and in the current political climate, Harper may even be able to get a couple of Liberals outside of Ontario to consider a switch.

However, the one complicating factor is the Canadian electorate. After a surge of disgust at Adscam and the Liberal Party machinations drove the Grits' polling numbers near to NDP levels, they have rebounded in recent polling to once again surpass the Tories. Whether or not these polls accurately reflect voter anger or apathy, their existence will probably convince Liberal and NDP MPs to stick to the party line and ride out the damage. Unfortunately for Harper, unless a huge break in Adscam erupts that ties the money and/or the corruption directly to Paul Martin, the chances of winning a no-confidence vote under any circumstances appear smaller every day.

NoKos Try Orwell As They Return To Bargaining Table

The North Koreans have sent a "conciliatory" message asking for a resumption of the multilateral negotiations the US insists on using as a framework for non-proliferation talks with the Kim regime. In fact, the message was so conciliatory that the North Koreans now claim that they never wanted any other kind of framework than the six-nation approach:

Capping a week of rising tension with a conciliatory note, a foreign ministry statement issued late Sunday said Pyongyang was ready to sit down and resolve the standoff through six-party talks.

"Our will to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and seek a negotiated solution to (the nuclear standoff) still remains unchanged," the statement said Monday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

It also dropped a precondition to a resumption of the six-way talks by denying it had ever asked for separate, one-on-one talks with Washington, a demand the United States has rejected.

"We have never requested the DPRK (North Korea)-US talks independent of the six-way talks," the foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying.

Excuse me? Pyongyang has long insisted that its only obstacle to peace was the United States and that before any regional arrangements could be made, the US had to negotiate directly with Kim on a non-aggression pact. It was that same foot-stamping by Kim during Clinton's term that led Jimmy Carter to come to his rescue, pushing Clinton to agree to that framework that eventually gave Kim enough time to develop his nuclear weapons. This double-speak might fool the North Korean citizenry -- although I doubt it -- but it shouldn't fool anyone else.

Pyongyang knows that it won't move the Bush administration through threats, at least not in ways it wants. It found that out when Condoleezza Rice threw Kim's missile test back in their faces, reminding Kim that the US has more nuclear warheads on one submarine than Kim has altogether -- and that if he wants to play the game that way, we can certainly escalate it right along with him. That exchange may have been instructive for both Pyongyang and our erstwhile nonproliferation partners in Beijing. One suspects that the Chinese may have more than just a little influence on Kim's latest note of conciliation.

Once again, the North Koreans rolled the dice for belligerence, and once again they came up snake-eyes. Sooner or later, they may actually start learning that this American administration doesn't get impressed with sabre-rattling from tinpot dictators, even those with a few big guns under the desk.

Inside Out, The (New) John Kerry Story

The Boston Globe reports that John Kerry has transformed himself into that most hackneyed of political clichés, the "outsider" candidate, despite having spent the last twenty years in Washington DC. Using the hilarious notion of turning a twenty-year career in the Senate into outsider street cred, Kerry insists on firing up crowds by talking about how Washington ignores the little people:

Gone was his stump speech railing against President Bush's Iraq war policy, the sluggish economy, and the Republican agenda; even mentions of Kerry's Senate career and Vietnam War service had disappeared.

Instead, Kerry -- a veteran politician who has held office for 21 years -- took off his suit jacket and roamed a small stage in Louisiana's Old State Capitol to push a new message: Get angry at Washington.

''Washington seems more and more out of touch with the difficulties the average family is facing," Kerry told the crowd of about 150 last week in Baton Rouge. ''Go out of here, take some anger and a little bit of outrage at the fact that Washington is not dealing with the real concerns of our country."

Six months after his presidential bid ended in defeat, Kerry is on another cross-country campaign. This time, he is running against the political establishment.

Who's he trying to kid? He is the political establishment, and an embodiment of the lackadaisical effort that so many like to lampoon about DC politicians. Prior to the presidential campaign, the longtime protege of the most powerful political family in American history could count his legislative victories on one hand and still stick a pinky finger out from his silver cup at afternoon tea. It's not that Kerry's voice has been lost in the wilderness, either. If Kerry counted the entire list of legislation he'd written and submitted for consideration to the Senate, all he'd need to do would be to pull that pinky back in. For a 20-year career, that shows little evidence of being in touch with anyone's concerns except those of John Kerry.

He's trying to make up for lost time now, primarily by this silly sleight-of-hand of fomenting anger at the Establishment while denying his long and undistinguished membership in it. He also wants to escape responsibility for the terrible campaign he waged and lost against a polarizing George Bush by telling people that he didn't lose the last election -- it was stolen from him:

Although Kerry said he was not in Louisiana to talk about his loss to Bush, the senator was clearly still smarting from the 2004 campaign. He proudly noted that he received 10 million more votes than President Clinton did during his 1996 reelection campaign and suggested that terrorism warnings sounded in the midst of the last campaign may have been exaggerated to help Bush.

''Fight back against the lies, fight back against the distortions," Kerry implored the crowd. ''In the last campaign, there was an unbelievable amount of fear put out there -- 'war on terror, war on terror, war on terror.' How many alerts have we had since the election?"

Kerry insists that he is campaigning only to pass the Kids First bill, not to advance his political career.

Uh-huh.

Singapore Shuts Down A Critical Blogger

No one will ever mistake the autocratic rule of Singapore as an open society, but even by Singapore standards, the silencing of this blogger seems rather heavy-handed:

A Singapore student said on Monday he has shut down his blog and apologized unreservedly after a government agency threatened to sue for defamation. Chen Jiahao, a 23-year-old graduate student in the United States, told Reuters he closed down his personal Web site after A*STAR, a Singapore government agency focusing on science and research, threatened legal action for what the agency said were untrue and serious accusations. ...

On Sunday he posted the new apology on his "Caustic Soda" blog, saying "I unreservedly apologize to A*STAR, its Chairman Mr. Philip Yeo, and its executive officers for the distress and embarrassment caused to them."

"They sent me an e-mail with these words," Chen told Reuters on Monday by telephone from the United States, where he studies chemical physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Singapore's senior government officials apparently make a habit of suing for defamation in order to intimidate their critics into silence. Normally they target other politicians and larger media outlets, and since the suits are filed in Singapore, the laws allow for a low threshold of proof for damages. This has an obviously chilling effect on debate and criticism in Singapore, and in this case, all the way to the United States. Chen's status as a graduate student in Illinois had no bearing on his case, as he is a Singapore national and would be liable for the damages filed in a lawsuit once he returned home.

Both Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have taken a look at Chen's battle with Singapore's elite. Chen's surrender is certainly understandable, but unfortunate. Less understandable is the acquiescence of traditional media outlets in paying these judgements, as the article implies, and their silence to this point about the practice of Singapore's leaders. Rather than comply with these blatant attempts to stifle free speech, the larger outlets should simply stop reporting from Singapore and give better coverage to the government's opposition movements from bases outside Singapore.

Sometimes I wonder if the Exempt Media understands the stakes in fighting for freedom of expression.

Beryl Wajsmann, In His Own Words

Upcoming Gomery Inquiry witness Beryl Wajsmann left a lengthy statement in the comments section of this post on CQ. Mr. Wajsmann serves as President of the Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal and his pending testimony before the Inquiry promises to shed much light on Adscam. In order to ensure that everyone gets a chance to read his statement, I'm pulling it out of the comments and posting it separately. (Note: I'm awaiting confirmation from Mr. Wasjmann that sent the message, but the IP address and the e-mail from IAPM matches. UPDATE 5/9: I've confirmed this as coming fro mMr. Wajsmann.)

-------------

INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS OF MONTREAL

8 May 2005

Montreal

WAJSMAN AND GOMERY

Harry Truman said, “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” I just wanted to drop you a note to tell you that I can not only stand the heat, but we’re going after the kitchen.

I specifically want to share some comments with you on Michel Beliveau’s testimony Friday at the Gomery Commission about a certain PMO meeting that occurred in 2001, and give you a heads-up on some of my upcoming testimony. Some news stories have reported that the meeting concerned “hidden” fundraising. That is not what Beliveau said. He testified that the meeting was held because the new LPC (Q) director-general Daniel Dezainde complained that I was not respecting his authority and freezing him out. The chain of command if you like. This is all in the record.

Just to set the matter straight, this was an incident I have spoken about many times. It is not new, and I addressed it in a Le Devoir article. But some reports still got the facts wrong.

Dezainde’s claims were utter nonsense. I briefed him regularly on all the work of our cultural communities’ sectoral financing project. He simply wanted it shut down. Part of the reason was due to the fact that Gagliano had opposed his nomination as director-general in Quebec and Dezainde was doing everything to take complete control of the LPC (Q) headquarters.

It is always frustrating having to sit on evidence and wait to testify. I’ve been waiting to tell this story for four years. We knew about the PMO meeting in 2001. Percy Downe was new to his job as Chief of Staff to Chrétien. Dezainde had just come in. The whole power structure had changed in two months and no one in the PMO or the party had the basic decency to call me, Benoit Corbeil or Joe Morselli to hear what we had to say. It was a set up. When I demanded from Gagliano that he set up a meeting for me with Chrétien - that my 25 years of public involvement warranted that minimum courtesy - he refused and asked me to just keep working and be patient and let him handle Dezainde. I told him then his fecklessness would be his undoing. I still cannot forgive him that lack of courage.

I have been asking the Gomery lawyers for some weeks to testify early and I think I will finally get the chance this week. They have asked me not to distribute certain materials but hold them for presentation to the Commission. They will clear up all the allegations from Brault and Dezainde.

My testimony will include an overview of the outreach work I did during the six months I spent at the party in 2001. I responded to all manner of requests for help and advice from people for whom the party purpose itself was suspect. We obtained assistance for ethnic, communal and sporting events; established liaison for interfaith and cultural dialogue; spoke to dozens of organizations explaining the appropriate forms of approach to government agencies; produced guides to make available subsidy programs accessible and understandable; and even assisted with anti-hunger and anti-poverty initiatives.

It will also include the fact that I informed Joe Morselli I wanted to leave the party in April 2001 when I heard Dezainde call the work we were doing “marketing the party” or something like that. I wanted to leave again in May 2001 when Gagliano and Morselli themselves informed me that Dezainde had complained to the PMO that we were doing events without informing him, specifically that he was not involved enough in a June 28th 2001 fundraiser which was the second and last event we did. Mr. Morselli told me that he had confronted Dezainde and asked me to stay at least through the June 28th evening. I agreed.

Though Dezainde was always informed of all events, he had to be prodded by Mr. Morselli into attending a meeting of cultural community leaders relating to that event - and a subsequent event planned for October - on June 20th 2001 at the party’s offices. There was nothing hidden. Everything was done at the party’s offices.

A francophone Senator once told me that the real “two solitudes” in Quebec is not between English and French, but between those French-Quebecers who are heirs to arguably the most progressive political patrimony in North America from Papineau to Levesque, and those others who are the heirs of Adrien Arcand and Maurice Duplessis. I will leave you to guess from which tradition Dezainde comes.

In a letter I wrote to certain Liberal officials on June 24, 2001 (which I gave to the Commission lawyers and they want a chance to produce it there and make the identities public), I stated, “When citizens ask for guidance from the Party of the ruling government, we have an obligation to provide that guidance and make of our offices more than just a processing center for membership cards and cheques….That is how you build a culture of commitment…. And if you can’t, then what in blazes is that office in existence for!” This was five days before I left the party.

When the public learns to whom that letter was written, it will allay any doubts anyone might still have, after all my interviews and articles, about envelopes and “secret financing”. It will demonstrate that I was not allied to, nor pleased with, any aspect or affect of the Liberal Party of Canada at that time. My story is one of a party reformer opposed, not a party consultant enriched.

The reforms I tried to put in place - that I was asked to put in place - were met with revanchiste reaction. And those who had called on me to make these reforms had either left or did not have the power to protect their own imperatives and initiatives.

And that’s what it was all really about. I can’t speak for everything Morselli and Corbeil have done in every corner of their lives or what motivated them to approach me in November of 2000 to start the cultural communities’ sectoral financing project. But rest assured they really tried to open the party up and reform its processes and procedures. And even if it was not necessarily for totally altruistic motives - even if it was just to save the party wing - it was a noble effort worth doing.

This project was closed down by narrow minds at LPC (Q) headquarters, backed by several in the PMO, who wanted to keep everything a closed shop.

You’ve heard a lot about alledeged “parallel financing” that was going on. This is a bit like the debate on two-tier health care. It’s a red herring. Two-tier has existed since the first day of Medicare and continues today. The following will give you an understanding of the parallel systems of financing already in place within the Federal Liberal structure in Quebec in 2001 and why it was necessary - just to pay for the ongoing operations of the LPC (Q) never mind reduction of the debt - to launch the sectoral financing initiative I was involved with.

Ø The Federal Liberal Agency for Canada which runs the PM’s dinners and the Laurier Club raises seven figure amounts annually that are shipped to Ottawa and never returned to Quebec. It is totally under national party control. During the project of sectoral financing I ran in the six months of 2001 we could not even get a list of corporate contributors from Ottawa that might have helped us within the cultural communities. We had to get it off a two year old website. There was no co-operation between Ottawa and Montreal.

Ø The MP’s in their ridings were responsible for fund-raising activities, 10-25% of which were sent to the LPC (Q). But since the Liberals had just won Quebec for the first time in sixteen years, that fundraising base was not yet producing results.

Ø The fundraisers of the LPC (Q) itself were not very successful. As Benoit Corbeil once said to me, the old networks were burnt out.

Ø Parallel to all this were the fundraising efforts of the potential leadership candidates. Martin’s team in particular was taking a lot of money in and making it even harder to raise funds.

Ø That was why Joe Morselli and Benoit Corbeil wanted a sectoral approach to financing with regular events aimed at specific communities that would provide regular cash flow for basic LPC (Q) operational needs like rent, salaries, etc…

They supported my demand that this not be simply for raising money but would include an outreach component to the communities where their needs, questions, and concerns would be addressed so that they felt there was value in what they were involved in. That was my mandate and Gagliano, as Political Minister for Quebec, had approved it.

But it was hard to change the party culture. Black was white, white was black. Liberals had for too long allowed the sovereignty of subservience to privilege reign over the duty of service to people. That was the low estate to which the party of Trudeau liberalism had sunk.

But there are many of us who still believe in that liberalism. The liberalism of inclusion not exception. The liberalism of expanded opportunity, not low limitation. A liberalism based on the equity of just consideration, not the inequality of narrow circumstance. A liberalism that is the shield of the vulnerable and the staff of the unempowered. And I know that our members still believe that fidelity to that liberal creed can help us take our country back with a leadership that does not use power as a two-edged sword of craft and oppression

If we acquiesce in our own self-abnegation to the point where we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, how they would analyse it, judge it, tamper with it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we cannot truly call ourselves a free people.

I choose not to acquiesce.

Beryl Wajsman, President

CQ Gets Mention At BlogNashville

The finest of Tennessee's blogs got together for a major blogging conference this weekend, BlogNashville. Instapundit has been covering it extensively throughout, providing video and photo links and even tips for those looking for proper WiFi access. Longtime CQ friend and Rocky Mountain News columnist Linda Seebach was kind enough to mention my work on the Adscam scandal during one of the panels, and Ian from The Political Teen has the video here.

They picked a great weekend for the conference, too. The weather looks beautiful in Nashville and this has been a rather slow news period, as Glenn himself mentions tonight.

Happy Mother's Day!

I want to wish all CQ readers a happy Mother's Day, and hope you all have a chance to either be with your mothers or your children on a beautiful Sunday in May. I'll be taking the First Mate out with our son and daughter-in-law to brunch at Khoury's, a local favorite with a delicious brunch every Sunday. The local staff has started to recognize us, in fact. We'll get our Little Admiral fix as well as a big midday meal.

Since my mother will celebrate Mother's Day with my sister in Southern California -- I sent flowers on Friday -- I figured I'd post a Mother's Day greeting today. She occasionally comments here as Vayapaso, and here she is with a somewhat disreputable local radio-show host whose name escapes me at the moment:

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Stay away from those book-signings, though.

Liberal Editor Supports Janice Rogers Brown

Perhaps Harry Reid should get out more often before pronouncing personal judgments on people he doesn't know. Two days after calling Janice Rogers Brown a "bad person" and accusing her of a hidden agenda to return the US to Civil War status, the editor of the Sacramento Bee writes a long and passionate defense of Brown that should give the entire Democratic Senate caucus pause before signing onto Reid's disastrous filibuster project:

I know Janice Rogers Brown, and she knows me, but we're not friends. The associate justice of the California Supreme Court has never been to my house, and I've never been to hers. Ours is a wary relationship, one that befits a journalist of generally liberal leanings and a public official with a hard-right reputation fiercely targeted by the left. ...

I find myself rooting for Brown. I hope she survives the storm and eventually becomes the first black woman on the nation's highest court.

I want her there because I believe she worries about the things that most worry me about our justice system: bigotry, unequal treatment and laws and police practices that discriminate against people who are black and brown and weak and poor.

She was born and raised poor, a sharecropper's daughter in segregated Alabama. She was a single mother for a time, raising a black child, a male child. I don't think you can raise a black man in this country without being sensitive to the issues of discrimination and police harassment.

Ginger Rutland, a black woman herself and philosophically opposed to the portrait painted by most of the media and the Democrats of Brown, doesn't follow Harry Reid blindly, either politically or intellectually. Rutland visited the church where Brown attends and wound up speaking to Brown's mother, who gave her some insight into Brown's childhood. More effectively, Rutland actually looked at Brown's judicial record and finds evidence that Reid, Schumer, and the rest of the leftist smear artists have done Brown a terrible injustice these past two years.

Rutland describes the case of People v. Conrad Richard McKay, where police stopped a man for riding his bicycle the wrong way on a street and demanded to see his drivers license. He did not have it on him but provided his correct name and address. The police searched him and found a baggie of meth in his sock -- and McKay went away for 32 months. Six of the seven state Supreme Court justices voted to uphold the legality of the search. Rutland talks about the lone dissent in this case:

Brown was the lone dissenter. What she wrote should give pause to all my friends who dismiss her as an arch conservative bent on rolling back constitutional rights. In the circumstances surrounding McKay's arrest, the only black judge on the state's high court saw an obvious and grave injustice that her fellow jurists did not.

"Mr. McKay was sentenced to a prison term for the trivial public offense of riding a bicycle the wrong way on a residential street," Brown wrote.

"Anecdotal evidence and empirical studies confirm that what most people suspect and what many people of color know from experience is a reality: There is an undeniable correlation between law enforcement stop-and-search practices and the racial characteristics of the driver. ... The practice is so prevalent, it has a name: 'Driving while Black.'" ...

In her dissent, Brown even lashed out at the U.S. Supreme Court and - pay close attention, my liberal friends - criticized an opinion written by its most conservative member, Justice Antonin Scalia, for allowing police to use traffic stops to obliterate the expectation of privacy the Fourth Amendment bestows.

Do I agree with Brown on this opinion? To a certain extent, I do. I fail to see how a driver's license would be germane to a bicycle stop, seeing as how California does not require a driver's license to ride a bicycle. It's true that McKay had meth on him. It doesn't mean that the police can stop anyone who commits the most trivial of infractions and do a complete body search without some sort of probable cause. Brown wrote that she did not know McKay's ethnic background, but suspected that he did not appear to fit into the neighborhood in which he was apprehended, causing an overreaction by the police.

Whether or not one agrees with this dissent, and her fellow justices plainly did not, this hardly paints a portrait of a justice looking to destroy personal liberty and civil rights. In fact, rather than being arch-conservative, as Reid and Schumer and Leahy would like you to believe, it might mean that Brown has a more libertarian bent than previously thought. If Janice Rogers Brown was the "bad person" Reid claims her to be, she could just as easily have voted with the majority in People v. McKay and made it a unanimous decision. The fact that she dissented shows her independence of thought and her commitment to civil rights -- the true version of civil rights which protect citizens from an overreaching government.

This is the real Janice Rogers Brown, not some bogeyman dreamed up by People for the American Way and Ted Kennedy. Even her presumed political opponents in the California state capitol know better. It's high time for the GOP to put an end to the smear campaigns of the Left and get Brown the up-or-down vote she deserves.

Has Martin Bought Ontario?

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has desperately looked for ways to fend off a call for elections, trying to delay all efforts to remove the Liberal government for its massive embezzlement and electoral-fraud scheme in Adscam. Last week he cut a deal with NDP leader Jack Layton to take $4.6 billion more in taxes from Canadians and redirect them to NDP's legislative priorities. Now the price tag for Martin's continuing political career has gone past the $10 billion mark, as Martin cut a deal with Ontario to send $5.7 billion over the next five years to the Liberal power base he so desperately needs:

Ontario will be getting an extra $5.75 billion in federal financial support over the next five years -- money that will mainly go into immigration, skills training and post-secondary education. ...

McGuinty inherited a huge deficit from the former Progressive Conservative government. He started a campaign to ask the federal government for at least $5 billion in funding this year -- money which could help manage the pain of eliminating that deficit. The next Ontario budget is to be delivered on May 11. ...

McGuinty claims Ontarians send $23 billion more to Ottawa than they get back -- the "fiscal gap." The feds have previously dismissed McGuinty's argument. Prominent pundits like the Toronto Star's Thomas Walkom have also questioned it.

But the political math is simple for Martin: His party currently holds 74 seats of 106 in Ontario. He'll need every one of those if he hopes to stay in power after the next federal election.

This appears to again be a legal means of doing on a grand scale what Adscam did for the Liberals on a smaller scale -- use government money as payoffs to keep their grasp on power. Will it work? Ontarians probably like the idea. Recent polls show that 60% of voters in the province approve of McGuinty's efforts to get the cash flow reversed. However, for the western provinces, such a blatant payoff to the Liberal power base will come as a bitter pill. Many Albertans will object to the deal, as they perceive their fiscal imbalance as far more significant than that of Ontario. Other Canadians will protest just the crass pay-and-play nature of the deal.

Martin does not appear ready to accept responsibility for the criminal behavior of his party in regards to the Sponsorship Program. He's now spent $10 billion of Canada's money avoiding the judgment day that such corruption and graft deserves. He spoke to the nation two weeks ago in an unprecedented, nationally-televised political speech, asking for more time to allow the facts to be absorbed before a call for new elections. If Canadians follow his advice, the Liberal Party will have the time it needs to completely loot the federal coffers, assuring either continued Liberal rule or a giant headache for the government which follows it.

Come Home To Oppression, What's Old Is What's New

Vladimir Putin made an offer to the former Soviet republics to return to the Commonwealth of Independent States, the confederation that took the place of the USSR when the Communists lost control of Russia and its republics gained their independence. Putin used the celebration of its victory over Nazi Germany to argue for greater collaboration between Russia and its neighbors, but the lessons of the sixty years since V-E Day shows these nascent democracies the wisdom of keeping Moscow at arm's length:

Russian President Vladimir Putin told leaders of the troubled Commonwealth of Independent States on Sunday that their grouping of ex-Soviet republics remained relevant today and urged them to defend its existence.

At a summit held the day before commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, Putin said the grouping of 12 out of the 15 former Soviet republics had a key role in combatting the spread of terrorism, extremism and xenophobia and fostering peace. ...

Putin himself in March questioned the body's usefulness, saying it had been created for a "civilized divorce" of Soviet republics, unlike the
European Union, which worked to pull its members closer together.

But on Sunday he said that six decades after the end of what Russia terms the Great Patriotic War, the fraternity the peoples of the Soviet Union felt as they fought in World War II was still palpable today. Maintaining "historical unity" was a good basis for stable development of the countries, he said.

In a reflection of the disputes between the member countries, two of the leaders, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev, were not attending.

The CIS never amounted to anything much more than a face-saving way for Russia to comply with the historical march of freedom for the non-Russian republics after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The CIS allowed Russia to influence the development of its border states and adjust to the notion of eventual self-determination. In some of those republics, that day has not yet come, especially Turkmenistan, where Stalinist strong-man rule still governs. In others, notably Georgia, Ukraine, and the Baltic states, self-determination not only has become complete but the new democracies that have taken power have turned towards Europe and away from Moscow for influence.

Putin wants to reverse that latter trend. He tried to support fraudulent elections in Ukraine to keep his allies in power, and rumor has it that Russia's security services may have had a hand in the dioxin poisoning of the eventual winner, Viktor Yushchenko. Georgia refused to attend his V-E celebrations, protesting against the ongoing Russian military presence in the country against the new government's wishes. Both countries have joined Moldova in seeking NATO membership, which gives them a military alliance with Europe and the US instead of relying on Russia for their security.

Perhaps Moscow's call for unity among formerly occupied territories will find a sympathetic ear among some of them. The dictators of the region will need Putin's support, as they know now that the US will support democratization rather than the so-called stability of totalitarianism. Those flirting with self-determination may find Russian partnership attractive for economic reasons, or simply as a sort of Stockholm Syndrome after so many decades under the Soviet thumb. In the long run, however, Putin's call for the breakaway republics to willingly return to Russian domination will prove as anachronistic as calls for the restoration of the monarchy after the end of the USSR.

More Projection From The Democrats

Yesterday, Charles Schumer called on President Bush to dial down the rhetoric of the people opposing the Democrats' use of the filibuster, claiming that "harsh language" undermines the political process:

In his radio appeal, Schumer sought to draw Bush more directly into the fray by urging the president to denounce some conservatives who have used harsh language to criticize the Democrats.

"I am making a heartfelt plea to you, Mr. President. When you came to Washington, you said you wanted to change the climate in D.C.," Schumer said. "Those stating these abhorrent views count themselves as your political allies. One word from you will bring a halt to these un-American statements. That would be a way to strengthen democracy here at home."

The senator referred generally to some activists comparing judges to the Ku Klux Klan and terrorists.

The same AP report by Devlin Barrett notes that the Democrats started on the rhetoric of personal destruction far earlier, in a reminder near the end of the article:

Republicans have also complained about some of the Democratic language in the judges debate. The GOP and some Jewish groups criticized Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, for alluding to the rise of Adolf Hitler in a speech about Republican efforts to end judicial filibusters.

But that hardly describes the bald hypocrisy in Schumer's statement. Harry Reid, during his notorious Del Mar High School appearance less than 24 hours before Schumer's radio address, not only called Bush a "loser" and a "bad president", but attacked the judicial nominees in a personal and vicious manner:

Reid took students through a primer of the five most-disputed judicial nominees, arguing some were opposed to the 1973 Roe v. Wade case legalizing abortion. He charged others with trying to dismantle government programs like Social Security.

"I don't want them. I think they're bad people," Reid said of the nominees.

He described California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, one of the Bush nominees Republicans will probably float first for approval, as an African-American opposed by the Congressional Black Caucus.

"She is a woman who wants to take us back to the Civil War days," Reid said.

Coming from the man who asserted that Justice Clarence Thomas could not write above the eighth-grade level and was subsequently forced to admit that he had never read one of Thomas' opinions, Reid's judgment on judicial temperament and qualifications appears bad enough. However, calling these sitting judges and attorneys, all of whom rated as at least qualified for their nominations by the ABA, as "bad people" shows desperation and a complete lack of ethics on the part of Reid. Schumer's attempt to push the blame on George Bush for overheated criticism after that amounts to nothing more than another case of projection by the Democrats.

Harry Reid, Charles Schumer, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, and other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are attorneys and members of the Bar Association. Perhaps it has been so long for some of them since the practice of law that they have failed to recall the ABA's doctrine on ethics, especially as applied to judicial appointments. I'm not a lawyer, but it didn't take me long to find out that these so-called gentlemen of the Bar should be disciplined for ethical violations by their association. Take Canon 8, EC 8-6 (emphasis mine):

Judges and administrative officials having adjudicatory powers ought to be persons of integrity, competence, and suitable temperament. Generally, lawyers are qualified, by personal observation or investigation, to evaluate the qualifications of persons seeking or being considered for such public offices, and for this reason they have a special responsibility to aid in the selection of only those who are qualified. It is the duty of lawyers to endeavor to prevent political considerations from outweighing judicial fitness in the selection of judges. Lawyers should protest earnestly against the appointment or election of those who are unsuited for the bench and should strive to have elected or appointed thereto only those who are willing to forego pursuits, whether of a business, political, or other nature, that may interfere with the free and fair consideration of questions presented for adjudication. Adjudicatory officials, not being wholly free to defend themselves, are entitled to receive the support of the bar against unjust criticism. While a lawyer as a citizen has a right to criticize such officials publicly, he should be certain of the merit of his complaint, use appropriate language, and avoid petty criticisms, for unrestrained and intemperate statements tend to lessen public confidence in our legal system. Criticisms motivated by reasons other than a desire to improve the legal system are not justified.

Now, let's see what the Democrats have said about these nominees. Reid called them "bad people" and claimed without offering a shred of evidence that Janice Rogers Brown, a sitting state Supreme Court Justice in California for over nine years, wants to take us back to Civil War days -- a particularly nasty comment considering Brown's African-American heritage and her childhood under the oppression of Jim Crow. Ted Kennedy called her a "Neanderthal". None of their fellow Democrats -- and attorneys -- have defended Brown against these intemperate and personal attacks, and many others like them.

I suppose that the lesson here is that ethics are fine for some lawyers at some times, but Democratic attorneys who manage to get themselves elected to the Senate don't have to act within those boundaries any longer, even as they rely on their legal backgrounds for credibility in judging nominations to the bench. One would hope that the ABA would read its own canon and start making its voice heard. Does the ABA now also believe that ethics are relative?