Tyson Goes Out With The Same Class As Always

Mike Tyson lost again tonight, for the third time in four fights, this time to an unknown Irish fighter named Kevin McBride. For those of us who have watched Tyson fight during his entire career, he appeared to end his career with the same level of class that he exuded during the rest of it. When his punches didn't intimidate his opponent, he resorted to deliberate fouling to sabotage the fight:

Mike Tyson's career apparently ended in yet another shocker Saturday night when he quit on the stool after taking a beating in a foul-filled sixth round against unheralded Kevin McBride. Tyson lost for the third time in his last four fights, and once again he faded badly as the rounds went on before deliberately head butting McBride in a desperate attempt to end the fight in the sixth round. ...

The 38-year-old Tyson was a huge favorite over McBride and won the early rounds. But as the fight went on, it was McBride landing the bigger punches as Tyson desperately tried to score a knockout.

Tyson was weary by the fifth round and, in the sixth round, he was penalized two points for deliberately head butting McBride and opening a cut over his left eye. The head butt came after Tyson appeared to try to break McBride's arm in a clinch like he once did against Francois Botha and after he hit him with several low blows.

Cortez warned Tyson after he grabbed McBride's arm, telling him "I don't want any more fighting with the arms, understand?"

When the action resumed, Tyson then head-butted McBride, forcing Cortez to stop the fight briefly to allow McBride to recover and to penalize Tyson.

The only move that Tyson skipped was the ear-chewing that disfigured Evander Holyfield. Tyson should have been disqualified for life after that fight, but boxing remains full of people who stand ready to rationalize anything if they can make a buck off of it. Despite his attempts to maim McBride, the Irish unknown started pounding the ex-champ in the final couple of rounds, with Tyson barely able to make it back to his corner after the sixth. He quit rather than go back out and try to fight honestly.

Tyson has always been a bully inside the ring. Fear was always his biggest weapon. Buster Douglas fought the first smart fight against Tyson, but it was Holyfield that showed the world what a coward Tyson actually was in the ring. Once Tyson realized that his opponent could not be frightened by his punches, he always resorted to biting, low blows, and manhandling, hoping to reinstill that same fear. It usually didn't work, and now it's just pathetic.

Let's hope this is Tyson's last fight. If not, perhaps it should be boxing's last fight instead.

Upcoming CQ Events

I'm taking a break at the Northern Alliance remote at White Bear Lake Superstore, which we just found out isn't being streamed to the Internet due to technical problems at the studio. Please accept our apologies for the problem; it apparently won't get fixed today.

While I'm taking a break, I want to remind everyone that I will be speaking at Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota on June 15th, starting at 7:00 PM. My appearance is being sponsored by CFACT, and I will be discussing the New Media and its impact on politics and the news media. I'll have a Q&A after the speech, which is what I like best. If you're in town, please join us.

Speaking of being in or out of town, I'll be traveling to Washington DC for Independence Day with family. While there, I will be on a panel at the Heritage Foundation on July 8th, 10:30 AM EDT, to discuss my coverage of the Canadian Adscam story and the breaking of the publication ban with the Jean Brault testimony. I'm delighted that Mark Tapscott, Director of Heritage's Center for Media and Public Policy, has arranged for Jim Hill of the Washington Post Writer's Group to appear on the same panel. Mark may even have more participants, and hopes to get C-SPAN to cover the event. If not, Heritage will still webcast the panel and the discussion on its site. Be sure to catch it.

While I'm in DC, I'm also hoping to catch up with bloggers and other media people with whom I've corresponded in the past, in between gawking at the Declaration of Independence and walking along the Mall. Drop me a line if you're in the area and maybe we'll schedule a dinner in order to make it easy for everyone to get together. I've already heard from a number of bloggers in the area, and hope to catch up with as many as I can.

This should be a memorable vacation ... and yes, I plan on bringing the laptop along to blog on events while I'm away.

You Mean The Filibuster Isn't The Center Of The Republic? (Updates Galore)

The Senate will debate whether to apologize for its role in blocking federal intervention in the quaint Southern tradition of lynching, in part by using the filibuster to block legislation making such vigilante murders a federal civil-rights offense. The Washington Post digs into its archives to reprint part of an 1894 report of the lynching of Stephen Williams, accused of "manhandling" a white woman -- the usual but hardly the only excuse for such murders -- and then notes that the Senate had three explicit opportunities to stop the practice:

At the time, there was no federal law against lynching, and most states refused to prosecute white men for killing black people. The U.S. House of Representatives, responding to pleas from presidents and civil rights groups, three times agreed to make the crime a federal offense. Each time, though, the measure died in the Senate at the hands of powerful southern lawmakers using the filibuster.

The Senate is set to correct that wrong Monday, when its members will vote on a resolution to apologize for the failure to enact an anti-lynching law first proposed 105 years ago. ...

Mob killings were often carnival-like events, attended by men, women and children who were not afraid of facing legal consequences, said Lawrence Guyot, 66, a Washington educator and civil rights activist.

Refreshments were sold. Trains made special trips to lynching sites. Schools and businesses closed to give people a chance to attend. Newspapers ran ads announcing locations and times. Corpses were displayed for days. Victims' ears, fingers and toes were taken as souvenirs, as well as parts of the ropes that hanged them.

"Lynching was the socially acceptable way to demonstrate control," Guyot said. "It sent a message that not only did this happen to this person, but if you as a black person thought about stepping outside of our racial code, it can happen to you. We want it to be public. We want everybody to see it. We want the body to stay up there as long as possible and all the gory details to be known."

Much of America, though, was revolted by the practice.

Some white writers, notably Mark Twain, railed against it. Two leading civil rights groups, the NAACP and B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League, sprang up in part to counter lynching. Black journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett devoted her career to ending lynching. Seven presidents, starting with Benjamin Harrison in 1891, argued for making it a federal offense.

None of this swayed the Senate, where southern lawmakers insisted that a federal law would intrude on states' rights. One debate tied up the Senate for a total of six weeks in 1937 and 1938, and supporters were never able to break the filibuster.

That's what made the recent debate over the use of the filibuster such a tragic joke. Having Senator Robert Byrd, a former KKK recruiter, get up in the well of the Senate and lecture the GOP and the nation that ending the filibuster presented a danger to the Republic amounted to historical revisionism of the worst kind. While Harry Reid talked about Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (one of Frank Capra's worst and most idiotically idealistic films), the real, non-Hollywood Senate used the filibuster to ensure and to tacitly endorse the racial control that lynching provided. It isn't too far of a stretch to call it Southern terrorism.

Thanks to racists like Byrd, that tradition of filibustering continues today. In fact, Byrd (who isn't even mentioned in this article) filibustered the original Civil Rights Act in 1964, eating up 14 hours of debate before his own caucus finally put an end to his embarrassing display. It is a practice that allows the entire democratic process of the United States to be held hostage by a minority, even if it now requires a larger minority than before the rule changes which eliminated the need for continuous speechmaking.

Forget Capra films and Jimmy Stewart railing from a Hollywood set about corruption. This is the true legacy and historical purpose of the filibuster. Shame on those Senators who lined up next to Robert Byrd and proclaimed that protecting this rule from modification amounted to "saving the Republic". That ghoulish statement offended the ghosts of the people who met death at the hands of mobs while the Senate found itself held hostage to racist sympathizers who used that procedure to stop a nation from putting an end to that outrageous and disgusting practice.

The Senate has the right to set its own rules, including the filibuster for its internal processes, including legislation. That doesn't make the practice glorious or righteous. If the Senate wanted to truly make amends for its transgressions, it would eliminate the procedure that kept the nooses in play for decades without fear of prosecution.

ADDENDUM and BUMP: I'm putting this on top for the morning. The more I think about this story, the more incensed I become. The Gang of Fourteen stood in front of the American people and proclaimed that rescuing the filibuster amount to "saving the Republic", and the other thirteen stood there and endorsed that point of view from Robert Byrd, of all people.

What I would like to know is what lives the Senate saved through the filibuster? What overarching principle has the filibuster ever protected that would counter the cost of the innumerable victims of lynching that the filibuster allowed? The only principle the filibuster has ever protected, as far as I see, is naked partisanship and in the case of lynching, racial oppression and terror. And yet, these same modern-day Senators stood with a man who used the filibuster to keep blacks from voting and justified its use against confirming judges to the appellate court. Thatincludes one nominee, Janice Rogers Brown, whose family suffered under the threat and terror of lynching because of the same filibuster the Democrats used to keep her from her bench assignment. That isn't ironic; it's morally depraved.

The despicable nature of that ploy has yet to be fully argued. Perhaps this latest effort to give the proper historical perspective to the filibuster will awaken the American people to its true use in our history to extend terror and oppression, and finally force the Senate to disavow the antidemocratic procedure that has been stained with the blood of hundreds, if not thousands, of victims that the Senate could have saved.

UPDATE: Two bloggers believe that I go too far. Decision '08 lets me off the hook easy; the Commissar doesn't. Read both; you decide.

UPDATE AGAIN: Neither does Beth.

Perhaps I should refrain from blogging when I get pissed off ... but if you read this carefully, you will not see me calling the Gang of 14 lynchers or racists. Their self-aggrandizing rhetoric about saving the Republic, especially coming from the only member of the Senate to have filibustered the Civil Rights Act and vote against both black Supreme Court justices, is something I find appalling considering the history of how the Senate has used the filibuster in the past. And given that history, its use in keeping Brown off the appellate bench -- given her childhood and its relation to the lynching that the filibuster allowed to continue -- is particularly repellent. And I'm still waiting for an example of some greater good accomplished by the filibuster that makes up for all of its victims.

On the other hand, at least the compromise resolved that particular injustice, which may be the only positive aspect of it from either a Constitutional or historical point of view. I'm mindful of Beth's admonitions, but as the Post article shows, you can't talk about the filibuster in honest terms without pointing out its application in keeping the federal government from interceding on behalf of black Americans for decades. Next time, I'll try to temper my irritation before I post.

UPDATE IV: I'm going to let the trackbacks handle most of the criticism I'm getting on this post, but I want to note that the phrase "quaint Southern tradition" is unfair; lynching was a "quaint American tradition", as a number of people have told me via e-mail and comments, including a few here in the Upper Midwest. Six Meat Buffet weighs in on that and a few other points. And when Beth, Preston, and Rick tell you you're drunk ... well, it might be time to give the keys up for the evening.

Maryland Dems: Dean Has More Authority On Race Than Michael Steele?

The Maryland Democratic Party wants Lt. Governor and GOP Senate candidate Michael Steele to apologize for endorsing a book that encourages Republicans to challenge Democrats for African-American votes, describing the author as "divisive". Meanwhile, they refuse to call for Howard Dean to apologize for statements from his own mouth about Republicans being racist:

The Maryland Democratic Party is calling for an apology from Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele for endorsing a book by an author who accuses Democrats of exploiting blacks but is declining to seek an apology from national party Chairman Howard Dean for describing Republicans as a 'white Christian party.'

'I don't think there is a double standard,' said Derek Walker, spokesman for the state Democratic Party.

Maryland Democratic Party Chairman Terry Lierman, who has initiated a petition drive for Mr. Steele's apology, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

The book, Back to Basics for the Republican Party, reminds Republicans of their anti-slavery legacy and urges them to return to their roots to compete for the African-American vote. The Democrats conflate the book with supposedly inflammatory rhetoric from speeches made by its author, Michael Zak, in order to create a fresh race-card controversy in Maryland's Senate race. The letter that accompanies the petition points out these passages and accuses Steele of endorsing "dangerous, deceptive, and racially divisive commentary":

"Mastery over blacks has always been Democratic Policy. Before it was cotton. Now it is misery." ... "Democrats are socialists and we should call them socialists. It's to the Democrats' advantage children grow up poor and uneducated."

The second quote doesn't even mention race, and while I haven't read Zak's speech, I'd bet that he didn't intend on limiting that sentiment to simply black children. It is harsh rhetoric, but the speeches have nothing to do with the book. Perhaps Steele should clarify his endorsement of the book to make that distinction, but Steele wasn't the person making the statements in the first place.

On the other hand, the Maryland Democrats refuse to disavow the statements made by their own party chairman on matters of race and politics. Howard Dean has said that the Republicans are the party of "white Christians" and that the only way they can increase the number of people of color attending their events is to hire more serving staff. It's difficult to imagine more "deceptive and racially divisive commentary" than those quote, and yet the Maryland Democrats stand behind Howard Dean. They don't see anything wrong with what he said.

In other words, Maryland Democrats would have us believe that a white ex-governor from Vermont who never put an African-American on his senior staff in three administrations has more authority to speak on racial matters than an African-American Southerner.

I'd ask where the White Rabbit went, except that the clueless Democratic dolts in Maryland would accuse me of making a racist reference.

The Difference Between Fanatical Idiocy And Rationality ...

... is that we don't ululate and demand a World Court trial whenever people do pointless crap like this (via Gateway Pundit and Michelle Malkin):

However, we might prosecute the three or four adults who forced a young boy to display his genitalia for the delight of the sickos in the crowd in this photograph. Makes one wonder, doesn't it? Why didn't one of the grown men drain the lizard instead? (Or why didn't the men encourage one of the women to drop trou?)

I did like this next photograph, which prompted one of Gateway Pundit's commenters to ask if the Indian Muslims thought Allah suffered from senility:

Does Allah need a reminder? Do the Muslims in Mumbai think it slipped Allah's mind?

I hope Newsweek is covering this event. After all, they did help stage it. Perhaps, as Michelle Malkin suggests, they can even use that first picture as a cover photo for their next issue. I would guess that Isikoff has been assigned to a different beat for the foreseeable future.

G&M Poll: Status Quo Ante Gomery

Today's new poll from the Globe & Mail contains mixed news for the Conservative Party and Stephen Harper. On one hand, the Decima poll appears to have been an outlier, as the new poll shows that the parties stand about where they did before the Gomery Inquiry broke wide open. On the other, it also shows that Harper has lost significant ground with the Canadian electorate during that period:

A Globe and Mail-CTV survey, conducted by the Strategic Counsel this week, also finds that, while Liberal support remains relatively stagnant since the week of the historic May 19 confidence vote, the Conservatives have dropped four percentage points and are the choice of 26 per cent of voters, eight points behind the Liberals at 34.

Perhaps the most significant results are those measuring Canadians' attitudes to their federal leaders, particularly Mr. Harper.

Compared with May 8, Mr. Harper's leadership has taken a significant hit — leaving him with the highest negative ratings of all the leaders. A month ago, Canadians were exactly divided in their feelings toward the Conservative Leader, with 50 per cent viewing him positively and 50 per cent viewing him in a negative light.

The new poll finds that 60 per cent of Canadians have an unfavourable view of Mr. Harper, compared to 40 per cent who view him positively.

The Decima poll put the Tory disadvantage at fourteen points, and worse yet, into a virtual tie with the NDP. Those numbers suggested that not only would the Tories lose a general election, they could have lost their official Opposition Party status -- a disastrous result. The new G&M poll puts the relationship between the three parties at about what they were before Jean Brault's testimony became publicly known.

However, Harper and the Tories have to be concerned about the sudden drop in Harper's popularity. Going from even-up to a twenty-point deficit in favorability shows how difficult it will be for a Harper-led coalition to unseat the Grits. It also might reflect some Tory discontent over the missed opportunity and the fumbling of the Stronach defection. Given that all other numbers have reverted to status quo ante Gomery, it seems that the only real lasting effect of the spring battles has been damage to Harper.

Paul Martin, despite the numerous allegations and corroborations of Liberal Party corruption, only dropped two points in favorability -- from 58% to 56%. The gap between Harper and Martin makes it unlikely that Harper can beat the Liberals in an election, or even gain enough seats to gain minority control over the Commons. Don't expect any new confidence motions to be tabled under these conditions.

Democrats See Bolton Compromise, Raise The Ante

How can you tell when a negotiating partner acts in bad faith? When their demands escalate every time you suggest a compromise. The Senate Democrats have done exactly that in their fight to extend the filibuster on the confirmation of John Bolton to the United Nations. After seeing Pat Roberts try to get the White House to confirm that Bolton had not used his access to check on a short list of names, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd countered by adding more names to the list:

Senate Democrats have prepared a list of approximately three dozen "names of concern" and are asking the Bush administration for assurances that John R. Bolton did not misuse his access to highly classified intelligence to seek information about them. ...

A copy of the letter was provided to The New York Times by a Congressional Democrat. A Republican Congressional official expressed surprise at the number of names said to be on the Democratic list, and noted that Democrats until now had expressed concern about Mr. Bolton's dealings with fewer people. The proposal "seems to move away from a good-faith effort toward resolving this issue," the Republican official said.

Democrats succeeded last month in blocking a Senate vote on Mr. Bolton, and they have said they will continue to oppose any decision until the administration provides more information about a dispute concerning Syria that involved Mr. Bolton and about the intercepted communications. They say they need the information to help them judge whether Mr. Bolton misused his access to the N.S.A. reports, from which the names of American individuals and companies are ordinarily deleted.

Of course, all this does nothing but provide a ruse for the Democrats to continue with their obstructionism. The two leaders of the Intelligence Committee, Roberts and Jay Rockefeller, have already reported to the Senate that Bolton did nothing wrong in his requests for information about the specific individuals. The Harry Reid-led radicalism of this Democratic caucus has decided to break out the filibuster (more on that below) to prove that the Democrats have some relevance, even though voters relegated them to minority status in both houses of Congress largely because of their obstructionism in the last session.

No one expects any Democrats who don't support Bolton to change their minds if the names don't match their ever-expanding list. Despite their reasonable rhetoric, this is nothing more than a fishing expedition and a stall tactic allowing them to continue obstructing Senate business. Unlike judicial confirmations, the UN ambassador's position isn't a lifetime appointment and is expected to explicitly represent the administration's policy.

The administration should not budge from forcing them to vote on Bolton's nomination, and if necessary, leave the UN ambassadorship unfilled while pointing to Democratic stall tactics as the reason we have no top-level representation at Turtle Bay. After all, the Democrats have spent the last four years telling us we need to work more closely with the UN. Let them explain how to do that without an ambassador.

G7 Approves $55 Billion Debt Reduction For Poor Nations

After years of trying to come to an agreement to assist the most destitute nations out of an endless cycle of poverty, the G7 has finally agreed on a plan to bail the lowliest countries out by forgiving $55 billion of debt. The move involves both the World Bank and the IMF, going beyond the agreement reached between George Bush and Tony Blair earlier this week in Washington, DC:

Eighteen of the world's poorest countries will have their debts to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund wiped out as part of a $55bn (£30.4bn) package agreed today by the G7 leading economies.

After weeks of intense negotiations, a deal brokered by the chancellor, Gordon Brown, will save countries such as Mozambique and Ethiopia a total of $15bn in debt payments over the next 10 years.

The Treasury said last night that a further nine countries would qualify for debt relief within 12-18 months, and that the total could rise to almost 40 once countries beset by civil war resolved their conflicts.

This will come as a major win for Tony Blair and a huge surprise to the British electorate, which had resigned itself to Blair coming up empty-handed from his trip to DC. Instead, Blair took the first step in allowing the poor nations off the mat -- by eliminating their debt, thus allowing cash aid to go to victims and not to service the debt interest. The money that goes to them in aid and in other kinds of direct contributions can now help build the infrastructure of the nations in order to ensure that further aid gets to the victims.

That's the vision for Live8, the effort pushed by Sir Bob Geldof. Debt relief was the first of the main pillars of their approach, tariff reform and increased aid being the other two. The nations selected, however, were not limited to Africa and have already begun the process of political reform. The British chancellor of the Exchequer acknowledged that the deal came to pass because of "outside pressure" placed on the G8 by campaign groups, Live8 certainly among them.

One nation not receiving assistance, even in the future, is Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. Sudan also missed the list as well as Somalia, although Chad is on the list for future assistance as political reform advances. The G8 wants to demonstrate that the world's richest nations will share their wealth, but only if the conditions are right for success. The debt relief makes for a good start. If these nations use the opportunity to create the conditions for ensure that further aid is used properly and goes to the people intended, then more assistance will follow. The Mugabes of the region will stay on notice that until they leave -- or until their subjects eject them -- they won't see any assistance at all.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn disagrees:

As long as Western progressives are divided into those who wish to keep Africa in a backward subsistence agriculture economy and those who wish to keep Africa in a backward subsistence agriculture economy but if the rude fieldhands break into something catchy enough when Andy Kershaw's passing they'll be in with a shot as the warm-up to Bananarama at the next all-star charity gala, the do-gooders will have no useful contribution to make to Africa's future. ...

The issue in Africa in every one of its crises - from economic liberty to Aids - is government. Until the do-gooders get serious about that, their efforts will remain a silly distraction.

Look, I think Steyn is correct in this assertion, and apparently so does the G8. Steyn pokes fun at Bob Geldof as a geriatric rocker, but in this case I think his sarcasm misses the mark and the point. Geldof also agreed that government is at least part of the problem, which is why he insisted that thugs like Mugabe would not see a cent -- and he was right. If these nations reform their government, don't we want to encourage that process? If we just sit around and let them starve to death, that reform will go out the window and the desperation will result in a complete breakdown of control.

I think we have to be prepared to take a risk at some point. The G8 has, I believe, balanced that risk well in this case.

Nuclear Blueprints Missing From UN? (Updated, With Cautions)

The Guardian and the Canada Free Press reports that blueprints for nuclear centrifuges, complete with multilanguage assembly instructions, have disappeared from the United Nations' and IAEA Vienna headquarters. The blueprints could easily guide anyone through the process of building the necessary centrifuges required to refine uranium into weapons-grade material:

[E]lectronic drawings that give comprehensive details of how to build and test equipment essential for making nuclear bombs have vanished from the UN and UN investigators are saying they could show up sale anytime on the international black market.

The blueprints, running to hundreds of pages, show how to make centrifuges for enriching uranium. In addition, the investigators have been unable to trace key components for uranium centrifuge rigs and fear that drawings for a nuclear warhead have been secreted away and could be for sale. ...

A senior official said several sets of blueprints for uranium centrifuges - the so-called P-1 and more advanced P-2 systems which were peddled by the Khan network - have gone missing.

The incompetence of the UN has just made the world a much more unsafe place. After the joint efforts of America and Pakistan to uncover tha AQ Khan network and neutralize it, the idiots at Turtle Bay failed to secure their main product -- the assembly instructions for the main component for nuclear-fuel processing. The blueprints not only show how to build the centrifuges, but also how to manufacture the component parts, and how to test and calibrate the finished centrifuge. It amounts to a do-it-yourself kit for terrorists interested in making themselves a nuclear power unto themselves.

The blueprints aren't the only items to go missing, either. Centrifuge parts ordered by Libya before they surrendered their program but never delivered cannot be found. The UN may not have ever had those parts in custody, but their disappearance has investigators concerned that if both the plans and the parts fall into the same hands, they could be combined into a working processing system.

This incident demonstrates yet again that the United Nations presents itself as an obstacle, not an asset, in fighting nuclear proliferation and terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons. Advocating a greater role for the UN in either role, or both, amounts to defeat in the war on terror under present leadership. Any other material held by the UN and IAEA should be handed over to the United States or Britain for real security.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt says this was on Drudge yesterday, but when I did a Technorati search, it came up with no hits on it, except this post. I also edited the above to reflect that the material went missing from the UN/IAEA facilities in Vienna, not the headquarters in Turtle Bay.

UPDATE II: Reg Jones has a point (in my comments) -- the article and the headline give the definite impression that the UN and IAEA had the drawings, but the farther one reads, the less that sounds correct:

The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, confessed to his secret nuclear bomb programme and gave it up in December 2003. Three months later in Tripoli, the UN inspectors were given two CD-roms and one computer hard drive. One CD contained aset of drawings and manuals for the P-1 centrifuge system, the other for the more advanced P-2.

The instructions are in English, Dutch and German, and the designs are from Urenco, the Dutch-British-German consortium which is a leader in centrifuge technology and is the source of Khan's knowhow from his time working there in the 1970s. The CDs and hard drive are at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, where they have been analysed. The investigators now know that the scanning of the original blueprints was done in Dubai and when.

Read the entire article and see if the Canadian Free Press (and afterwards, me) have the gist of this correct, or if it just means that the IAEA never had all the copies from the beginning. If the latter, then (a) the notion that the AQ Khan network has been entirely neutralized is probably incorrect, and (b) the Guardian needs to learn to write and edit their stories a little more carefully.

UPDATE III: Here's a May 2004 Washington Post report from MS-NBC archives that covered the Libya angle. That much from the Guardian does not appear to be news, which would beg the question as to when the IAEA and UN knew the drawings were missing, and how.

Confidence Decline Self-Explanatory At E&P

A new Gallup poll shows that public confidence in media outlets have hit an all-time low, a result that should surprise no one after the debacles of Eason's Fables, the CBS-Ra^ther hoax on Bush's National Guard service, and Newsweek's Qu'ran-flushing fumble. Even absent those egregious examples of the media's attempted manipulations of events and facts to further their political agendas, the constant exposure of double standards and hyperbole masquerading as reporting has taught the American public to distrust any single source of news.

One small example of this last problem comes in the reporting of the poll itself in today's on-line Editor & Publisher. Check out the use of language when comparing the declines of strong confidence between the media and the presidency in E&P's reporting (emphases mine):

Those having a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers dipped from 30% to 28% in one year, the same total for television. The previous low for newspapers was 29% in 1994. Since 2000, confidence in newspapers has declined from 37% to 28%, and TV from 36% to 28%, according to the poll.

However, some other institutions fared far worse this year, suggesting a broad level of distrust, cynicism or malaise.

Confidence in the presidency plunged from 52% to 44%, with Congress and the criminal-justice system also suffering 8% drops. Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court fell from 46% to 41%. The 22% confidence rating for Congress is its lowest in eight years, and self-identified Republicans have only a slightly more positive view of the institution than do Democrats.

Granted, we are talking about differing time frames. However, calling an eight-point drop for media credibility a "decline" (nine points for newspapers) while the same drop for the presidency is called a "plunge" amounts to the same kind of subtle game-playing that has created the impression of unreliability in the media that the polling reflects.

It's not just the big stories that the media gets wrong that shakes their credibility. It's the small editorial commentary that gets injected into news that also counts. This isn't a particularly egregious example, but it seems rather ironic to see it in a report of declining confidence in media institutions. One would have expected E&P to exercise a bit more care.

Islamists Infiltrate Oakland Tribune?

Little Green Footballs has a breaking story this morning related to the arrests of alleged members of an Islamist terror cell in Lodi, California earlier this week. Today's Oakland Tribune runs a typical celebration-of-multiculturalism article that inevitably accompanies such arrests in American cities. Entitled "Area Mosques Should Not Engender Fear", Tribune staff writer Sajid Farooq explains why mosques present no danger to American communities:

After at least five Lodi men, including two imams, were detained by the FBI, the makeup of community mosques falls under the curious eye of the public.

But despite suspicions and fears of backlash, several members of the Bay Area Muslim community said mosques — though sometimes isolated from the communities they are in — are not strange places to be feared.

Hatem Bazian, a lecturer in Near Eastern studies and ethnic studies with a specialty in Islamic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said there is no single way American mosques are run. Some are only used for five daily congressional prayers, while others double as community centers, and some run full-time schools in addition to religious services. ...

Often, the immigrant mosques are more internally focused and less known in the community because they are more concerned with preserving native languages and culture than working with interfaith groups, for example. But Bazian said there are affluent immigrant communities that do a better job of getting to know their neighbors, such as the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara, the Bay Area's largest mosque.

I agree with this assessment, to a point. Mosques in and of themselves present no more of a danger than a Mormon temple or a Christian church. That's because the buildings themselves have a neutral effect on the community. The danger comes when radical and violent people preach at any of these examples and attempt to use the mosque, church, or temple as a building block for terrorist activity. That allegedly is the case in Lodi.

In fact, Farooq selects an odd source to quote in his quest to soothe the Tribune's readership. Hatem Bazian, it turns out, does not always speak with such deference to America and the cause of peaceful and ecumenical co-existence. Bazian, a lecturer at nearby UC Berkeley, led a rally in April 2004 with the exhortation to start an intifada in America to match the one in the West Bank and Gaza Strip:

“Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Well, we’ve been watching intifada in Palestine, we’ve been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don’t have an intifada in this country? Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream... giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we’re sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every— They’re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet!”

Does that sound like a proponent of ecumenical peace, or the kind of source that gives one comfort when asserting that mosques hold no danger to America? If not, then perhaps the next question is why Farooq decided to interview Bazian for this article. If the Oakland Tribune had checked into the extra-curricular activities of its staff writer, it would have discovered that Sajid Farooq used to organize Muslim rallies at UC Berkeley:

For attendees of Saturday's Generation M conference, this was no accidental symbolism—the all-day gathering put a new face on a religion for young people who have grown more accustomed to Tupac Shakur than the "Adhan," the Muslim call to prayer.

The first of its kind in Berkeley, the event mixed lectures, readings from the Quran and socially conscious rap.

Several hundred students dressed in both traditional Islamic wear, Timberland shoes and Fat Albert T-shirts attended workshops titled "Muslim Sellouts" and "Muslim Youth: Vanguard of the Islamic Revival." ...

First held in Ottawa, Canada in the 1980s, the event was created to fend off stereotypes that Muslim youth were spiritually and politically apathetic, said organizer Sajid Farooq.

Perhaps the Oakland Tribune may want to rethink its assignment of Farooq to the multicultural beat, especially when Farooq engages in a bit of sophistry to transform a radical professor who calls for violent means of change in America as a voice of reason and peace. The Tribune's readers should certainly know this whenever they read anything about the peaceful nature of the Muslim community with Farooq's byline attached.

Expert: Grewal Tapes Clean

An audio expert retained by the Conservative Party to assess the original Grewal tapes of conversations between the MP and several members of Liberal Party leadership pronounced the tapes as unaltered and unedited this morning:

An audio expert hired by the federal Conservative party says the final full versions of Gurmant Grewal's tapes have not been altered.

The Tories released a letter from audio engineer Randy Dash that says the tapes, which have been handed over to the RCMP, appear to be clean and unaltered.

The Tories made a mistake in releasing portions of the audio rather than the entire tapes. The experts who previously analyzed the recordings and found edits and gaps worked from copies, and in some cases digitized copies, of the originals rather than from the originals themselves. While some will point out that Dash worked for the Tories to question his credibility, the willingness of the other forensic experts to make unequivocal statements about authenticity from copies when the originals are still extant renders their own credibility as suspect.

The RCMP will no doubt hire their own forensic experts to determine whether any alteration has been made to the Grewal tapes. If they come to Dash's conclusion, the Liberals will find themselves wishing they'd stuck to using taxpayer money to entice MPs to support Paul Martin. In fact, with the federal ethics commissioner now investigating Martin's chief of staff Tim Murphy as well as Ujjal Dosanjh, that day may come sooner than Martin expects.

Shafer's Takedown At Slate

If you want to know why I think Jack Shafer is one of the best media critics working within the Exempt Media, take a look at his column yesterday answering Peter Landesman's rebuttal to an earlier critique.

Landesman had written an article on sex slaves in the US for the New York Times Magazine that alleged that 30-50,000 women were being held against their will for sexual exploitation in America. Shafer had critiqued it in Slate, questioning the numbers and the methodology used to produce them. Landesman responded with a snarky and hyperbolic open letter that Slate reproduced as the first part of Shafer's sur-rebuttal:

Mr. Shafer formulates his latest set of complaints not as an argument with me but with the victims. "Because sexual slavery is the most depraved form of involuntary servitude," Mr. Shafer writes, "one would expect that if sex slaves existed in the numbers Landesman, Bales, and Miller would have us believe, more of them would have applied for the heavily publicized 'T-1 visa.' " If only. In the real world, this is akin to suggesting to a 15-year-old inmate of Bergen-Belsen, after being raped by her captors 20 times a day for a year, that she hurtle past the guards, electric fences and dogs into a foreign land, and beg for help in a language she does not speak. How many of these young women know what a T-visa is, do you think? Did Mr. Shafer know what a T-visa was before he began surfing Google? Methinks Mr. Shafer needs to get out more.

This story was not about numbers. This was an exhaustive investigation into the process of recruiting and transporting sex slaves into this country. The issue of numbers was exactly two sentences in an 8,500-word piece. That said, it is, admittedly, difficult to quantify any sort of underground commerce or black market. "The Girls Next Door" made no attempt to be definitive about this; I simply reported how big the problem could be, according to those who study it and are mandated to combat it.

Anyone who reads human-interest stories understands that advocacy pieces like "The Girls Next Door" are not meant to highlight the miserable fate of a couple of people, but are intended to expose wide-ranging misery. Of course the numbers are important; if the issue was a handful of women being held, then the New York Times Magazine would hardly take an interest in the subject, and its readers would rightly wonder why the journalist didn't just notify law enforcement of the anecdotal examples uncovered.

Shafer, rather than engage in a milquetoast collegial notation of the dispute, actually critiques Landesman in no uncertain terms. Shafer skewers Landesman in a manner that we see too infrequently in the Exempt Media, in the spirit of real competition and defense of journalistic standards:

What sort of journalist is Peter Landesman? He's the sort who inflates a piece I wrote on Monday and five pieces I wrote inside of a week 16 months ago, when his story first appeared, into a "16-month campaign." He's the sort so uncurious about his own subject that he can't bother to ask—or be asked—why, in a nation supposedly flooded with tens of thousand of new sex and labor slaves each year, only a few hundred T-visa applications were filed in the last two years. He's the sort of sensationalist who when doubted invokes the Holocaust, in which millions and millions were killed, to make his critic appear to be some sort of latter-day Holocaust denier.

If Landesman's story was not about numbers, why is the coverline for the article, "For tens of thousands of women and girls forced into prostitution around the world, the hell they're living is in the cities and towns of America"? If his story was not about numbers, why was the inside subhead for the article, "The sex-trafficking trade may begin in Eastern Europe and wend its way through Mexico, but it lands in the suburbs and cities of America, where perhaps tens of thousands are held captive and pimped out for forced sex"? I know writers aren't responsible for headlines, coverlines, and subheads. Editors write them. But if the article wasn't about the numbers, what made the editors think so when they prepared the piece for publication?

What sort of journalist is Landesman? He's such a lazy smear artist that of the many crimes against journalism he could successfully tar me with, he accuses me of blindly and silently accepting the government's illegal drug numbers in the press. Shafer to Landesman: I've made a cottage industry out of exposing the skeezy government drug numbers that journalists publish. Why else do you think I was so skeptical about yours?

Read the entire piece. In fact, read all of the articles and decide for yourself who has their ducks in a row. In my opinion, Landesman's numbers rely so heavily on unsubstantiated conjecture that they amount to little more than guesswork -- and Shafer was correct to call Landesman out for it. Landesman's histrionic reply also tells me that Shafer's critique hit pretty close to the mark.

WaPo's Leibovich Panders To The Dems New Dean Spin

In my first post today, I pointed out that the elected Democratic leadership has decided on a "blame the messenger" strategy in answering Howard Dean's critics, rather than disassociate themselves from his hate-filled rants. One would expect the media to take offense at Dick Durbin's notion that journalists reporting Dean's comments verbatim somehow become right-wing hacks. However, Mark Leibovich of the Washington Post takes up Durbin's banner and attempts to make him sound reasonable:

It was a scalding day on Capitol Hill yesterday, and that includes tempers. Things got particularly hot during a photo op in the office of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) after the minority leader and his Senate deputies completed a 17-minute meeting with the hot-tongued Howard Dean.

About 60 reporters and cameramen attempted to shove their way into an office equipped to handle about 20. The resulting spectacle offered yet another distillation of why so many people believe that politicians and the media deserve each other. ...

The madness began at 10:30 a.m. when the media horde was invited to enter Reid's office. Photographers poured in first, equipment slamming into the sides of a narrow doorway and -- in one case -- the temple of a female staffer. Reporters were invited in next, but roughly 20 reporters were unable to crowd in and were left to shout objections through the bottleneck. "You can't start yet," one yelled from the back. "The reporters aren't in."

Leibovich then describes the normal madhouse of impromptu press conferences, especially those for which proper preparations have not been made. According to Leibovich's own account, the only questions asked of Reid, Dean, and the other Senators present were about Dean's inflammatory comments and their reaction to them. Leibovich doesn't bother to name any of the correspondents -- except one:

The press chorus then devolved into a cacophony of competing screams. (And Dean knows screams!) After several seconds, a booming voice cut through the noise. It belonged to Brian Wilson, a Fox News correspondent who was standing in the middle of the crowd. He asked Dean "if people are focused on the other things that you've said about hating Republicans, about Republicans being dishonest and then this latest comment about the Republican Party is full of white Christians. You say you hate Republicans -- does that mean you also'' hate white Christians?

Dean didn't respond and Reid talked about having a "positive agenda." Wilson was so insistent that at one point, Durbin asked, "Does he run the press conference?" After Reid took the one question of the morning that was not about Dean (it was about Iraq) there were a host of disjointed and semi-decipherable follow-ups (none of which was about Iraq).

Wilson, of course, works for Fox News -- the same organization that Durbin tried telling the media is responsible for what comes out of Howard Dean's mouth. Leibovich castigates Wilson for his insistence on getting an answer from Dean and Reid, even though the two never answered his first question and instead came up with the ironic non-sequitur of having a "positive agenda". By Leibovich's own account, Wilson didn't start the topic, and everyone else save one reporter asked about nothing else other than Dean's hate-filled rants.

So why did Leibovich single out Fox News and Brian Wilson? Could it have been an effort to prove Dick Durbin's silly allegation that the entire news media takes its cues from Fox?

My friend and blog colleague Craig Westover once said that the difference between butt-kissing and brown-nosing is the depth of penetration. I'd say that Leibovich goes pretty deep on this one.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has more to this story. Pettiness reigns!

Bush's Shot Across Assad's Bow

The Bush administration sent a message to Syrian strongman Bashar Assad that the former opthalmologist could not help but see, if he keeps his eyes open. A "senior administration official" told at least two media outlets yesterday that the US has credible intelligence of Syrian plans to assassinate Lebanese leaders in their new, free electoral system:

The United States has received "credible information" that Syrian operatives in Lebanon plan to try to assassinate senior Lebanese political leaders and that Syrian military intelligence forces are returning to Lebanon to create "an environment of intimidation," a senior administration official said Thursday.

The official said that the information had come from "a variety of Lebanese sources" and that "we assess it as credible." The information, he said, was gathered after the recent assassinations of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February, and of Samir Kassir, a well-known journalist, a week ago. ...

The administration official volunteered the information about what he said was a "Syrian hit list" on the condition that he not be identified by name or agency. A spokesman for the official, asked why the official would not make the assertions more openly, said it was because of the diplomatic sensitivities involved as well as the usual reluctance to discuss intelligence matters openly.

It was clear that the official's statements, which were offered to reporters from at least two news organizations, were a deliberate signal of the Bush administration's continuing displeasure with the Syrian government's role in Lebanon.

He said that information about the threat had been disseminated to governments in the Middle East and Europe and that "we thought it would be useful to make this public as a deterrent to the Syrians."

After the assassination last week of Samir Kassir, a journalist that regularly wrote in opposition to Syrian occupation and influence in Lebanon, the Bush administration has decided to put Assad on notice. This couldn't even properly be called a leak, as its intention is so obvious that "unsigned press release" makes a better nomenclature for it. Bush already has plenty of evidence that Syria has lent material support for the insurgents in Iraq, and their continuing efforts to meddle in Lebanon after their abrupt departure violates the UN Security Council's resolutions calling for them to cease interfering in Beirut's affairs.

Now that the US has publicly accused Assad of planning assassinations, any more murders could be used by the US as an opportunity to haul Assad to the UNSC for some public humiliation -- which his teetering regime can ill afford -- or to start conducting raids on the inside of the Syrian border under a 'hot pursuit' philosophy, chasing insurgents but also undermining Assad's grip on power as the US makes him appear less and less credible as a leader to his own people. Now that the Syrians have ceased cooperating on intelligence for the war on terror to the small extent they did in the past, the Bush administration has no good reason to spare them from the Bush Doctrine.

In any event, the US has made it clear to Syria that Lebanon matters, and we will watch closely to ensure that Syria keeps its hands to itself.

Report: The Five Missed Chances Of The FBI

A report now being released due to the Zacarias Moussaoui trial determined that the FBI had five opportunities to find out about the 9/11 attacks before they happened, but that systemic problems and a lack of urgency led the agency to miss them. The report mirrors the findings of Congress and the 9/11 Commission, but brings to light the shortcomings of the FBI, which escaped most of the post-attack criticism:

The F.B.I. missed at least five chances in the months before Sept. 11, 2001, to find two hijackers as they prepared for the attacks and settled in San Diego, the Justice Department inspector general said in a report made public on Thursday after being kept secret for a year. Investigators were stymied by bureaucratic obstacles, communication breakdowns and a lack of urgency, the report said.

The blistering findings mirror those of the independent Sept. 11 commission last summer and a joint Congressional inquiry in 2002 but they also provide significant new details about the many bureaucratic breakdowns that plagued the Federal Bureau of Investigation before the attacks and are likely to fuel questions about the bureau's efforts to remake itself. The Sept. 11 commission had access to an earlier version of the inspector general's study and incorporated parts of those findings in its final report.

In the case of the San Diego hijackers, for instance, the report disclosed that an F.B.I. agent assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency wanted to pass on information to the F.B.I. about the two men in early 2000 - 19 months before the attacks - but was blocked by a C.I.A. supervisor and did not aggressively follow up. That set the stage for a series of bungled opportunities in an episode that many officials now regard as their best chance to have detected or disrupted the Sept. 11 plot.

The previous investigations have held the FBI responsible, in some degree, for the intelligence failures that created the opening for the 9/11 conspiracy, but the brunt of the blame fell on the CIA and other agencies operating entirely within the intelligence community. The new report gives fresh details on the FBI's mistakes for the first time, including:

* Two of the hijackers lived openly with an FBI informant known to have connections to radical Islamists, and yet the case handler did not investigate the pair

* A memoradum detailing a Phoenix agent's suspicions about flight training for Islamists that was placed in the FBI's faulty computerized information-sharing system did not get widely disseminated -- and those who did see it discounted the tip, believing that others had already investigated it

* The CIA and the FBI bungled information-sharing regarding one of the terrorists, Khalid al-Midhar, whose entry into the US became known to only one FBI agent (in New York) after an al-Qaeda meeting, but the CIA blocked the agent from alerting other FBI offices, and the agent never escalated the problem to his superiors

Many of the issues that caused these failures have already been addressed. The report itself goes into detail on the effect that the intelligence/law-enforcement "wall" had on analysis of the pre-9/11 threat, for example. The Patriot Act dismantled that wall, allowing a legal basis for intelligence and law-enforcement personnel to coordinate their efforts for threat analysis. The computer system at the FBI still has its problems; the FBI just announced yesterday that it intends to scrap it entirely now, and use off-the-shelf software to create a more reliable system.

However, the most disturbing aspect about the report is the effect that multicultural political correctness played in intimidating the FBI into being less aggressive about investigating leads on Islamists. Eric Lichtblau reports on that aspect of the failure (emphases mine):

The report provides new information about the bureau's mishandling of a warning from an agent in Phoenix in July 2001 about Middle Eastern extremists connected to Osama bin Laden using American schools to receive aviation training.

The F.B.I.'s cumbersome computer system - still beset by problems today - did not automatically forward the agent's memorandum to bureau officials who were supposed to receive copies of it, the report found. Those agents who did see the warning did not have the time to follow it up, or disregarded it because they felt the presence of Middle Eastern flight students was already commonly known. The agents were also concerned that racial profiling had become so "hot" an issue that they could not pursue the Phoenix agent's suspicions, according to the report.

This is one of two passages in the report which demonstrate the problems that occur when sensitivity overcomes good investigative procedure (page 80 of PDF):

Ellen told the OIG that she thought that the theory presented in the EC was "interesting,'" but that she, like Jane, believed that further research needed to be conducted before any action was taken on the Phoenix EC. Ellen also asserted, "It was a theory that certainly needed to be explored more fully before disseminating it to the [Intelligence Community] as fact or not." In addition, Ellen said that she believed that attorneys in the FBI's National Security Law Unit (NSLU) would have had to review the Phoenix EC before any action could be taken on it because the issue of racial profiling was "hot."

In other words, after determining that the lead and the theory that resulted from it had been confirmed, "Ellen" (a code name for an FBI agent) would have to run it by a committee first to see whether it offended the tender sensibilities of "racial profiling" before it could be shared with other FBI agents. While the entire law-enforcement and intelligence communities knew of a brewing threat from radical Islamists to attack the United States, at home and abroad, the FBI was more concerned with possibly offending Arabs instead of protecting US assets and American citizens.

The FBI has a lot of explaining to do. Meanwhile, however, that PC attitude remains alive and well throughout our security systems. It's time we stopped hindering the intelligence and interdiction agents that need to act in our defense with silly and self-congratulatory attitudes about multiculturalism and allow them to pursue genuine leads without fear of retribution and without having to convene an Inquisition to ensure the purity of their hearts every single time they act. If we don't act to stop that mindset, it will be our missed chance to stop the next Islamist attack.

The Devil Makes Him Do It?

After some disarray on how to handle their out-of-control party chairman, leading Democrats have finally arrived at a strategy to unite behind Howard Dean and his overactive mouth. They now blame the right-wing elements within the media for overreacting to his statements for reporting Dean's comments:

The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate yesterday blamed "the right wing" and elements of the press "in service to it" for repeating Howard Dean's remarks about Republicans and inflating them out of proportion.

"I think we all understand what's happening with you all," said Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, in remarks echoing Hillary Rodham Clinton's blaming a "vast right-wing conspiracy" for her husband's legal-ethical woes.

"The right wing has got the agenda moving. Fox [News Channel] and everybody's got the agenda. It's all about Howard Dean. You've bought into it," Mr. Durbin said.

"You can't let up on it. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

Other party leaders quickly followed suit. Harry Reid said that no one has avoided misspeaking in public, not even RNC chair and Dean counterpart Ken Mehlman, implying that the press somehow covers up for Mehlman where it reports everything that Dean says. Barbara Boxer claims his remarks were taken out of context, telling the media that they want "some kind of a controversy, so they don't give the message of Howard Dean ... We all know that the other side is bound and determined to hurt Howard Dean and destroy him, as they usually do with leaders of our party."

No, you have not inadvertently surfed to Scrappleface.

When was the last time you heard Democrats complaining about their party leaders getting too much press coverage for their speeches? It isn't as if this happened once and the press keeps bringing the same misstatement to their attention. As James Lakely notes, these comments come from almost every major speech Howard Dean gives -- and since those speeches are given in representation of the Democratic Party, they do equate to news. The press also covers Mehlman's speeches, but Mehlman doesn't allow stupid, divisive, and bigoted remarks to fly out of his mouth like spittle from a madman.

Durbin, Reid, and Boxer are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves for blaming the messenger rather than Howard Dean himself for Dean's hate-filled bile. How can these possibly be improved by context?

Mr. Dean, who took over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee four months ago, has caused a stir with a string of public statements that he "hates the Republican Party and everything it stands for" and that its members are "liars," "evil," "corrupt" and "brain-dead." ...

In February, he told the Congressional Black Caucus that the Republican Party "couldn't get this many people of color in a single room" unless "they had the hotel staff in here." And on Monday told a gathering of California journalists that the Republican "party is basically a white, Christian party," a remark he defended on NBC's "Today" show Tuesday morning.

And let's not forget the recent comment that Republicans have never had to do an honest day's work in their lives. I'm sure that message works very well among the Al Franken fringe of the party, and if that's where the Democrats want to focus their efforts, then they've picked the right DNC chair. Dean epitomizes the transition of the Democrats into a party based on hate and the capture of the leadership by the radical Left that forms the base of Dean's support.

Unfortunately, the elected Democratic leadership has chosen to abdicate to these haters and blame everyone but themselves for the problems it causes. When senior Democrats come fresh out of a strategy meeting and blame Republicans for what comes out of their DNC chair's mouth, they're only a short walk from Moonbat Land, where some already suspect that Dean may be working under orders from Karl Rove. If this is all that Democrats have to offer, they will be a minority party for a generation or more.

'They Murdered My Brother Without Regard'

I have followed the tragic and infuriating case of Robert McCartney, murdered by thugs in a Belfast pub by a group of men while several onlookers witnessed the killing. His sisters and family have stood up to threats and bribes to insist on justice for Robert -- in fact, the McCartneys have begun developing a website at www.justiceforrobert.org. Earlier today I received a letter from Gemma McCartney, one of Robert's sisters, in response to a post I wrote noting that arrests had finally been made in connection with her brother's murder. With her permission, I'm posting this as an open letter..

They murdered my brother without regard - Do they think that does not hurt? It breaks my heart.

They thought could walk away because they had the shield of the IRA. But the IRA is a more educated animal than these beasts, and true Republicans have seen through their attempts to dismiss the actions that were authorised that night. When the Army counsel held an internal inquiry the result upheld the reasoning that they must be held accountable for those actions. Despite public calls from the leader of Sinn Fein these men still act without account and dismiss the authority that they swore allegiance to.

Will time ease their conscience? I shall make it MY task to continuously remind them of the error of their ways and the debt they owe us all.

Brave men, who have fought and suffered for principles, have admitted that this has become a public embarrassment to their aspirations of Truth and Justice. This calls out to be rectified before the credibility of nationalism, republicanism or political mandates can be restored. On an international stage, the people who became embroiled in the events of that night, have been shown to have acted like a pack of hyenas, with a blood-lust that strikes fear to the core of society.

When the is no hope of mercy Justice nor accountability the very fabric of society begins to dissolve. The moral disciplines by which we live will most assuredly cast our destiny. And the Irish reputation for civility and respectability died on that night.

How can the man in the street begin to fix what has been so damaged? I am tempted to say - write to your MP (MLA, or representative). It may vent your anger or opinion but in normal society the mechanism is a system where the price for murder is imprisonment. I want people to say to their brother, sister, cousin and neighbour: "We want a fair society. Who can deliver that for us?" Rebuke those who suppress your freedom of speech by verbally attacking you, argue the case for righteousness, and stand up to threats (implied or real) because together we stand United; divided we all lose our future.

While the Police need the support of the public to prosecute criminals, witnesses to that crime need to fulfill their social and moral obligation to protect the victims. Similarly, how many of you would hesitate to telephone for an ambulance, if you arrived at a serious RTA? Regret after the event is one thing, but to remain inactive and not try to make amends is inexcusable. It may take courage, that you thought you did not possess, but doing something to prevent crime can only yield benefits for us all in the future.

Support for Justice is a flaming torch that needs to shine through any attempt at cover up. Ours is the right to claim Justice, demand Justice and expect Justice for all victims.

Gemma McCartney 9/June/05

Last Of The Guaranteed Trio Gets Confirmed

The final member of the three judges guaranteed an up-or-down vote for their confirmations to the federal appellate court has been confirmed. William Pryor, who had already started serving on the court due to a recess appointment, won confirmation by a 53-45 vote in today's Senate session:

With a vote of 53-45, Pryor was approved for 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Atlanta-based court that handles federal appeals from Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

President Bush gave Pryor a recess appointment in February 2004 after Democrats filibustered his confirmation. That appointment would have ended this year if Pryor had not been confirmed by the Senate.

The Senate has confirmed three of President Bush's most-wanted appellate nominees in less than three weeks after a deal struck by Senate centrists looking to avoid a partisan battle over judicial filibusters.

Three Republicans voted against Pryor's confirmation, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Lincoln Chafee, presumably in protest of Pryor's opposition to abortion. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Ken Salazr of Colorado were the only Democrats to vote in favor of Pryor's confirmation; Nelson also supported Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen.

That completes the commitment made by the so-called Gang of Fourteen to allow Bush's picks to come to the Senate floor. However, two Democrats signaled their willingness to support two more Bush nominees now that the stalemate has been at least temporarily resolved. According to NRO's Bench Memos blog, Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow announced that they will support Michigan judges David McKeague and Richard Griffin to the 6th District Court of Appeal, which they had not done before the compromise.

The real test for the compromise will be the later nominations. Expect to see Henry Saad and William Myers filibustered into oblivion, and the Seven Dwarves to allow it. The entire exercise is designed to set the two nominees up as a precedent that legitimizes the use of the filibuster for the upcoming Supreme Court openings. If anyone else gets filibustered, however, the deal will rapidly fall apart.

Did Amnesty International Call For Kidnapping Of American Leaders? (Updated)

John Leo wrote earlier this week about the ridiculous Amnesty International assertion that Guantanamo Bay has become the "gulag of our time" in the statement issued by AI's Secretary-General Irene Khan, in his column about Stories Not Told. The "gulag" analogy has received the thorough thrashing it deserved from bloggers and even some in the media.

However, according to Leo at the end of his column, AI also issued a press release accompanying their annual report that the media mostly ignored. In that release, Amnesty International apparently called for other nations to kidnap George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and other American officials and haul them off to the ICC for prosecution on charges of crimes against humanity:

A different omission marred the reporting of Amnesty International's report charging torture in U.S. detainment camps. The group didn't just call Guantanamo a "gulag," an over-the-top remark that was universally reported. In a press release that most reporters ignored, the group also invited foreign governments to snatch certain visiting American officials off the streets and bring them to trial for crimes against humanity. The suggested snatchees, should they travel abroad, were President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA Director George Tenet, and other unnamed civilian and military officials. Amnesty International said that "all states have a responsibility to investigate and prosecute people responsible for these crimes," just as the British pounced on Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998. The snatching recommendation wasn't new, but the Amnesty press release is a useful reminder of the dangers of signing on to the International Criminal Court.

Perhaps this has received wide release and I just missed it, but this is the first report I've seen in the American media of such a call. I have been unable to find the press release itself, but I have found plenty of approving references to the statement from left-wing websites such as Common Dreams, TruthOut, and Antiwar.com. According to Common Dreams, AI's chief of their American bureau said the following:

Speaking at the release of Amnesty's annual report, William Schulz charged that Washington has become ''a leading purveyor and practitioner'' of torture and ill-treatment and that senior officials should face prosecution by other governments for violations of the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

Among those officials, Schulz named Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet, and senior officers at U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib, Iraq.

''If the U.S. government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior U.S. officials involved in the torture scandal,'' said Schulz, who added that violations of the torture convention, which has been ratified by the United States and some 138 other countries, can be prosecuted in any jurisdiction.

''If those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them,'' he added. ''The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as (former Chilean dictator) Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998.''

That's quite a stringent call coming from AI -- a demand that foreign governments ignore diplomatic immunity and seize traveling officials from the United States, in order to put them on trial in a kangaroo court. I wonder, did Schulz make the same demand about Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-Il, the Iranian mullahs, or any of the other dictators around the world that really do practice torture on their own populations, or worse. Apparently not; Amnesty only unleashes its venom on freely elected leaders, a rather cowardly act masquerading as telling truth to power.

These revelations absolutely destroy any credibility for AI as a nonpartisan, independent organization dedicated to human rights. It has sold itself out as yet another tiresome, radical Leftist screaming machine with double standards so ridiculous that their very scope amounts to self-satire. (hat tip: CQ reader Stoo Pid)

UPDATE: Here's the link to AI-USA's statement with this call for capturing US officials while traveling abroad (hat tip: CQ reader Joe Z):

If the US government continues to shirk its responsibility, Amnesty International calls on foreign governments to uphold their obligations under international law by investigating all senior US officials involved in the torture scandal. And if those investigations support prosecution, the governments should arrest any official who enters their territory and begin legal proceedings against them. The apparent high-level architects of torture should think twice before planning their next vacation to places like Acapulco or the French Riviera because they may find themselves under arrest as Augusto Pinochet famously did in London in 1998. ...

Amnesty International’s list of those who may be considered high-level torture architects includes Donald Rumsfeld, who approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted such unlawful interrogation techniques as stress positions, prolonged isolation, stripping, and the use of dogs at Guantanamo Bay; William Haynes, the Defense Department General Counsel who wrote that memo, and Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, who is cited in the memo as concurring with its recommendations.

Our list includes Major General Geoffrey Miller, Commander of the Joint Task Force Guantanamo, whose subordinates used some of the approved torture techniques and who was sent to Iraq where he recommended that prison guards “soften up” detainees for interrogations; former CIA Director George Tenet, whose agency kept so-called “ghost detainees” off registration logs and hidden during visits by the Red Cross and whose operatives reportedly used such techniques as water-boarding, feigning suffocation, stress positions, and incommunicado detention.

And it includes Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who called the Geneva Conventions “quaint” and “obsolete” in a January 2002 memo and who requested the memos that fueled the atrocities at Abu Ghraib; Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, former Commander of US Forces in Iraq, and Sanchez’ deputy, Major General Walter Wojdakowsi, who failed to ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations at Abu Ghraib, according to the military’s Fay-Jones report, and Captain Carolyn Wood, who oversaw interrogation operations at Bagram Air Base and who permitted the use of dogs, stress positions and sensory deprivation.

But it doesn't include Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong-Il, Fidel Castro, Bashar Assad, etc etc etc.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And also Michelle Malkin's readers, too!

UPDATE III and BUMP: More of an addendum, really. It seems to me that this rhetoric is much more offensive than the "gulag" analogy, and it represents a Rubicon of sorts for Amnesty International and its supporters. I think those who fund AI and align themselves politically with Schulz and its other leaders should be pressed to answer whether they support Schulz' call for the kidnapping of American officials traveling abroad. It's a simple question and demands a straightforward answer. Those who refuse to disavow themselves of their association or support of Amnesty International on this basis will reveal themselves as radicals who will sacrifice American interests for momentary global approbation.

We elect our leaders, and we hold them accountable. Moreover, when we send our leaders abroad to interact with leaders of other countries, we expect those countries to extend normal diplomatic status, or to warn in advance when that status will not be extended. Violating that status by imprisoning our leaders and diplomats is an act of war against the United States. Those joining in Amnesty International's call for other nations to commit an act of war against us should be held politically accountable for their position.

UPDATE IV: Little Green Footballs noted the comments on May 26th, but for some reason it didn't get much play. My guess is that Charles had something else breaking big that day and it got lost in the shuffle.

Lipscomb: Kerry Did Not Release All Records

Thomas Lipscomb weighs in on the supposed release of the entire John Kerry military file to the Boston Globe in today's Chicago Sun-Times. Lipscomb reminds his readers that the SF-180 is not a magic bullet, and that the scope of release depends on how the form was filled out:

"There is nothing magic about signing a SF 180," said former Naval Judge Advocate General Mark Sullivan. "It is sort of like your checkbook. You can fill out a check for one dollar or a million. It is the same check form."

"And the Globe story says Kerry sent it to the Navy Personnel Command, which is only a limited storage location. So it is not surprising that the Globe then notes that what they received was largely 'duplication' of records previously released. The Navy Personnel Command primarily stores a subset of service records rather than a person's full military records. There is no doubt there are a lot of after-action records missing from what Kerry has released," said Sullivan.

Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs has already found a discrepancy confirmed by the Department of the Navy of "at least a hundred pages" missing from those already disclosed by Kerry.

"If you take a look at my SF 180," O'Neill said, "you will see I have authorized the total release of all my records to anyone requesting to see them. But without seeing how Kerry's SF 180 was filled out, everyone is only guessing about what was released."

As I wrote after the Globe story broke a couple of days ago, Michael Kranish has limited credibility as an impartial journalist in his coverage of Kerry, and the fact that the Globe got the file but won't release the contents in PDF format for everyone to see sounds somewhat suspicious. Many questions remain about Kerry's service, as I also pointed out. Kranish remains silent on several points of controversy that the secrecy of the files helped stoke. Namely, Kranish doesn't mention anything about Kerry's discharge, and why it took him until 1978 to get it, while he quit serving in 1972. He doesn't mention any assignment or attachment to an intelligence unit that would corroborate his later explanations of Christmas In Cambodia or gun-running to the Khmer Rouge. Kranish also doesn't reveal anything about the timeline of events or command assignments that would answer whether he tried to steal part of Tedd Peck's service record in order to provide cover for David Alston to lie about their time together during the political campaign.

When we see the documentation that answers these questions, then we might be convinced that we've seen the entire record. Until then, as Lipscomb notes, we haven't seen anything different than the peek-a-boo that Kerry tried during the presidential campaign.

Boston Union Corruption Exposed As Child's Play

Massachusetts has launched an investigation into corruption in a Boston longshoreman's union as investigators discovered falsified records of employment, listing children as young as two years old as dock workers. Union officials apparently issued worker cards to their children and grandchildren in order to build up their seniority and increase their wages and access to jobs when they became old enough to work:

The state is investigating allegations that longshoremen’s union locals in Boston have placed children as young as 2½ on the payroll in a scheme to give them higher wages as adult dockworkers.

Massachusetts Port Authority officials have turned their records over to Attorney General Thomas Reilly’s office and the State Police, said Kurt Schwartz, chief of the attorney general office’s criminal bureau. Reilly’s office has launched a grand jury probe.

Because seniority is determined by when a union member first receives a union card, regardless of the number of hours worked, union members who got their children enrolled are believed to have ensured that their children would receive higher pay, Schwartz said in a statement Wednesday.

“The attorney general is investigating allegations that the seniority of some union members has been fraudulently exaggerated, resulting in excessive wages being paid,” Schwartz said.

This story seems more than a bit ironic, as unions regularly congratulate themselves for eliminating child labor from American industry -- although that was less from altruism than it was a response to the threat that their cheap wages represented to adults. Now the union bosses stack the rolls with their kids before they even get out of diapers, and it isn't just about the wages, either. Seniority plays the largest part in determining who gets the best job assignments, and also who becomes shop stewards. Those people wind up as labor officials and move up the organization.

In effect, the union bosses have devised a corruption which allows them to create a nepotistic chain of succession that keeps union power in the hands of a few powerful families. Their children and grandchildren would wind up running the union after their retirement. That not only allows the bosses to ensure a steady and prosperous career for their progeny, but it also protects the current leaders after their retirement from prying eyes discovering other methods of corruption that may exist in the union.

This looks like an interesting application for a RICO Act prosecution. I would expect to see the feds taking a close look at this case very, very soon.

UPDATE: Forgot the story link; it's there now.

Jesse Helms Remains Clueless

For Republicans around the country, the retirement of Jesse Helms has allowed many to breathe a little easier since 2003. While Helms' stalwart positions on foreign policy provided America much-needed backbone, especially in relation to the United Nations, his domestic views often caused unnecessary controversy and embarrassment. Helms routinely fell back into name-calling on AIDS and gay-rights issues and never renounced his segregationist past. Neither of these helped the GOP in reaching out to traditionally Democratic populations and made achieving majority status substantially more difficult than it had to be.

Now Helms will publish his memoirs, "Here's Where I Stand," intending on setting the record straight. He apologizes for his earlier remarks on AIDS, but still refuses to back down on his opposition to the civil-rights movement:

In his upcoming memoir, former Sen. Jesse Helms acknowledges he was wrong about the AIDS epidemic but believes integration was forced before its time by “outside agitators who had their own agendas.” ...

Helms, 83, was one of the state’s leading voices of segregation as a TV commentator in Raleigh in the 1960s and opposed nearly every civil rights bill while in the Senate. He has never retracted his views on race or said segregation was wrong.

In the book, Helms suggests he believed voluntary racial integration would come about without pressure from the federal government or from civil rights protests that he said sharpened racial antagonisms.

“We will never know how integration might have been achieved in neighborhoods across our land, because the opportunity was snatched away by outside agitators who had their own agendas to advance,” according to the uncorrected proof. “We certainly do know the price paid by the stirring of hatred, the encouragement of violence, the suspicion and distrust.”

I'll grant Helms this much: if he had talked this way about the late 1860s and the radically punitive Reconstruction, he might have had a point. However, by the time Helms addresses had come to pass, blacks had been waiting 80 years or more for the promise of true integration in the neighborhoods of which Helms speaks. What had they received in return for their forebearance? Separate drinking fountains, hotels and restaurants that refused their business, and a Senate that used the filibuster that former KKK recruiter Robert Byrd claimed as a keystone of the Republic to block anti-lynching legislation. The South had installed Jim Crow laws specifically designed to discriminate against blacks, and they had no intention of changing them.

Did the civil-rights movements have their excesses? Of course. Did the government go too far in establishing preferences to compensate for centuries of shameful oppression? Arguably, yes. But to write in 2005 that equality and brotherhood would have dropped from the sky like manna to the Israelis if the blacks in America only had a little more patience doesn't just amount to historical revisionism, it sounds like a fantasy world concocted by David Duke.

The civil rights movement didn't create the hatred, violence, suspicion and distrust; it did make them increasingly obvious to the nation as a whole, which found itself repulsed by it. Without people such as Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, and others who dedicated their lives -- and sometimes sacrificed them -- to demonstrate the tremendous injustice of segregation and Jim Crow, that system would still be with us today. In a week where the body of teenager Emmett Till has been exhumed in an attempt to get justice for his family fifty years after he was lynched by locals after a supposed affront to their segregationist impulses, laying the violence off onto the victims of segregation is ghoulish and frankly unacceptable.

Helms may wax nostalgic for the pre-civil-rights days of the South. I'm certainly not about to wax nostalgic for the Helms era of the Senate. I can't wait for Jesse to get back to his retirement.

Who Took Their Eyes Off Of The Western Pacific, And Why?

The Washington Times reports that the CIA has missed the rapid expansion of the Chinese military over the past ten years, raising questions once again about the effectiveness of the nation's intelligence infrastructure. Starting in the mid-90s, the Chinese expansion of their submarine, missile, and other defense technologies has created "surprise" at Langley, a word that has come up a lot lately at CIA headquarters:

A highly classified intelligence report produced for the new director of national intelligence concludes that U.S. spy agencies failed to recognize several key military developments in China in the past decade, The Washington Times has learned.

The report was created by several current and former intelligence officials and concludes that U.S. agencies missed more than a dozen Chinese military developments, according to officials familiar with the report.

The report blames excessive secrecy on China's part for the failures, but critics say intelligence specialists are to blame for playing down or dismissing evidence of growing Chinese military capabilities.

What exactly got missed? According to the study, China has developed a new long-range cruise missile, a completely new submarine platform, a brand-new warship -- with stolen American battle-management systems, thankyewverymuch -- better ship-to=ship missiles to combat the US navy, and the mass importation of surplus Russian combat vessels to bolster their own navy. In other words, the Chinese have for the past ten years readied themselves to push the US out of the Western Pacific, and our intelligence services missed it entirely.

For an agency founded on the Pearl Harbor debacle and formed to avoid such surprises in the future, this failure drips with irony.

How did such a failure come to pass? Satellite technology should have picked up on some of this, especially the ship transfers between Russia and China. With only one other major power in the Pacific region, one would assume that a significant portion of intelligence operations would focus on Beijing. This failure follows on the heels of the intelligence community's goose egg on al-Qaeda prior to 9/11 and the sudden escalation of nuclear testing between India and Pakistan in South Asia.

The report blames the field personnel for not collecting the proper information. It's worth pointing out, however, that this report was written by the analysts who should have known that the information was inadequate and done something about it. The main author, Robert Suettinger, worked as the NSA expert on China for Bill Clinton. The co-author, John Culver, was a CIA expert on Asia, which should include Russia and China. Other participants included DIA analyst Lonnie Henley and Clinton's China policy man John Corbett from Army intelligence. In other words, the analysts wrote the report and let themselves off the hook for the problem.

It appears that this observation from a "former US official" appears fair:

A former U.S. official said the report should help expose a "self-selected group" of specialists who fooled the U.S. government on China for 10 years.

"This group's desire to have good relations with China has prevented them from highlighting how little they know and suppressing occasional evidence that China views the United States as its main enemy."

In fact, it appears that the problems started and mostly occurred during the prior administration, which had an unusually close relationship with Beijing. Recall, too, that the 1996 re-election campaign of the President had an influx of illegal Chinese campaign contributions which has resulted in a number of lower-level convictions, and that the money went to other Democratic candidates that cycle as well.

In light of those well-documented incursions into our political processes, we should ask these questions: was intelligence being deliberately "fixed" to discount and ignore the Chinese threat for partisan political purposes? Was the intelligence community pressured into scaling back warnings about the rise of Chinese power in order to allow the previous administration to exploit short-term economic and political advantages?

Iraqi Government To Meet Sunni Native Insurgents

The transitional Iraqi government will have its first formal meeting with representatives of the native Sunni insurgency in hopes of reaching an amnesty or other arrangement to quiet the violence and bring more Sunnis into the political process. Not only would such an agreement result in fewer civilian deaths, but it would also ironically hasten the rebuilding of Iraq and allow the foreign troops to leave the country quicker:

Iraq's new government plans to hold its first official meeting as early as tomorrow with members of the Sunni resistance in an effort to end the brutal violence that has left hundreds of civilians dead across the country. Representatives of Sunni insurgent forces from the restive western al-Anbar province plan to sit down with members of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's government tomorrow or Saturday, an Iraqi official said on the condition of anonymity.

Experts are not eager to predict whether the meeting will turn the insurgency around, but they believe the talks are an important step toward ending the violence.

"It's pretty important primarily because they have never accepted to talk before," said Patricia Karam of the United States Institute of Peace. "It is the first time the insurgents have shown an indication that they are willing to negotiate."

The group is to include Sunnis from the insurgent hotbeds of Ramadi and Mosul, said the official who works with Iraq's ruling Shi'ite alliance. He did not think representatives of the Baghdad-based insurgency would be present.

The insurgents have not suddenly turned into democrats through a Paulite Damascus conversion; if the scales have fallen from their eyes, that relates to the failure of their cause and their tactics to rally support among the Iraqis. The refusal of the Anglo-American coalition to change course in the face of their violent attacks has also untaught Osama bin Laden's lesson of Mogadishu: they have killed Americans, and yet this time we have not run away. Now they understand that the US has different leadership than in the past, and their terrorist tactics have backfired on them.

Mostly they see that events have passed them by. The elections made them somewhat irrelevant, as their certainty that a Sunni boycott would kill the validity of the polling -- an impression unfortunately advanced by certain American politicians -- created an unpleasant surprise for them last January, as the world cheered when eight million of their fellow Iraqis defied their threats and voted. They now have discovered what it means to be locked out of a democratically-elected government, especially one that has the responsibility of drafting the basic Iraqi law that will guide Iraqi life for the foreseeable future. Most Sunnis now want to have a voice in that process commensurate with their proportion in the population, if not the vote, and time is running out.

For those who give up their arms and who had little to do with the former Ba'athist regime, meaning the lower-level Sunni insurgents, an amnesty probably would be best for both sides. Foreigners like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or Saddamist henchmen like Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri should await capture and trial. To take terrorists like that into the political structure is akin to inviting cancer to invade the body. The Iraqis already know this, I'm sure.

Iran Faces Soccer Riots After World Cup Win

Reuters reports massive celebrations and rioting in Teheran and elsewhere in Iran after the Islamic Republic's soccer team won a place in the World Cup finals by beating archrival Bahrain earlier today. The blog Regime Change Iran has posted a number of reports by its internal sources that claim the celebrations have transformed into political demonstrations that threaten to topple the mullahcracy, either by accident or design:

Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets of the capital Tehran after the match, filling the night air with volleys of firecrackers, whistles and horns. State media reported similar scenes in cities across the country.

"Hello victory, hello World Cup. Iran is on its way to Germany," said Mohammad Reza Sadeghi, a shopkeeper in eastern Tehran.

Some took the opportunity to flout the Islamic state's strict moral codes. Young men and women danced together in the streets and some women briefly took off their headscarves, mandated by law, and waved them in the air.

Such behavior was last witnessed in the soccer-mad country when it qualified for the 1998 World Cup finals in France.

"I wish I could go to Germany to support my team. But they would not issue visas for us. They think we are terrorists," said Karim, a young man wrapped in an Iranian flag.

A large security operation was deployed and police blocked many main streets to try to prevent traffic snarls as thousands took to their cars to join the celebrations.

But though the mood was mostly joyous rather than tense, there were sporadic clashes between a hardline volunteer militia and revellers in eastern Tehran. A Reuters reporter saw at least three injured young people.

RCI regularly uses students and insiders to get stories out of Iran that the media either can't cover or fail to confirm. In this case, the number of reports from their partners at SMCCDI just means it's easier to start at the top and keep scrolling. I've reviewed the wire services and the major dailies, which have put tomorrow's editions out to the RSS feeds, and the international papers. So far, no one has confirmed that the nature of the riots have changed from soccer fanaticism to political operation, but from the Reuters report, the mullahs have obviously decided to take precautions against the latter.

Keep checking with RCI tonight and tomorrow, as they will have the latest updates from the inside. In the meantime, we have Michael Ledeen to remind us that the same mullahs who fear the passions of the soccer riots have done their best to kill any passion for the political choices given to them in their upcoming sham elections, disqualifying those candidates who honestly oppose the dictatorial rule of the Supreme Council and demand reform:

The cheerless creatures who rule the Islamic republic of Iran have developed a particularly wicked use of torture. Not only do they use the full panoply of physical and psychological horrors on their captives, but they then send the victims back into their homes and neighborhoods for brief periods of “parole” or “medical leave,” so that their friends and families can see with their own eyes the brutal effects of the torture. The clear intent of this practice is to intimidate the population at large, to break the will of would-be dissenters and opponents, and to maximize the effects of the victims themselves, for the brief respite from the pain of the prisons is mercilessly accompanied by the certainty that the agony will soon resume. ...

One of the most prominent dissenters and a distinguished journalist, Akbar Ganji, was given a week-long “medical leave” from Evin Prison in Tehran, and on Monday he gave an Internet interview that may well prove fatal. He called for a general boycott of the “make believe elections” for the presidency, scheduled for the 17th of the month, and urged the Iranian people to engage in large-scale civil disobedience.

“We are faced with a personal dictatorship, the dictatorship of (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei,” he said. “Khamenei has ruled for fifteen years and wants to rule for life. I oppose this and I say that this contradicts democracy.” Ganji called for Khamenei himself to submit his dictatorial rule to a public ratification. “He must take part in a free election, should the people vote him in he can rule and should they reject him he must step aside.”

Following the interview the head of the Evin Prison announced that Akbar Ganji had to return at once.

In eight days now, the Iranians will go to the polls to elect parliamentary candidates from a handpicked slate of toadies approved by the Supreme Council. In that regard, the Iranian elections have no more credibility than the Soviet single-candidate elections at which we used to openly scoff. And yet not one Western nation has yet to declare the elections the farce that they so obviously are.

Why? For the same reasons we have pretended that Abbas' election in the Palestinian Territories last January was valid, despite the eleventh-hour rule changes that removed most of the identification requirements designed to prevent fraud and multiple voting. It suits our present political needs to have these people in power. It's the same old reliance on realpolitik rather than the new emphasis we supposedly have on democratization.

We need to stop sheltering the Iranian mullahcracy and support the raging democratic impulse building up in Iran. A truly democratic Iran, freed from the Great Satan rhetoric that fuels the global terrorist networks, replaced by a representative and moderate government that admires the US and wants to work with America, could tip the GWOT inexorably to the West. The West needs to seize the opportunity. Read all of Ledeen's excellent essay.

The Modern Scientific Method: Cheating

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports tonight on a disturbing revelation in the world of research science. The University of Minnesota recently surveyed American research scientists and found that a third of them regularly broke rules and ethical guidelines meant to certify the validity of the research, including changing the results based on pressure from donors:

One in three U.S. scientists admitted in an anonymous survey that they committed scientific misconduct in the previous three years, according to a report by a team of Minnesota researchers.

While falsifying research is uncommon, the survey found that 33 percent of scientists admitted breaking rules, large and small, that are supposed to ensure the honesty of their work, the authors report in the British journal Nature.

The types of misbehavior range from claiming credit for someone else's work, to changing results because of pressure from the sponsor.

"Our findings suggest that U.S. scientists engage in a range of behaviors extending far beyond falsification, fabrication and plagiarism that can damage the integrity of science," the authors write in a commentary piece in tomorrow's journal.

The survey, which was led by Brian Martinson of the HealthPartners Research Foundation in Bloomington, questioned more than 3,200 scientists around the country about a long list of questionable actions. They range from outright fraud to improper relationships with research subjects.

The good news is that less than one percent admitted to outright falsification, but 15% amended either the design, methods, or results of their research because of pressure from donors or sponsors. The Strib's article doesn't explain the subtle difference between the two, and one suspects that the scientists probably didn't either. Less than two percent had improper personal relationships with test subjects or student assistants, and seven percent cut corners in using humans as test subjects.

With a survey sample of 3,200 scientists and a maximum range of three years, that would mean that the numbers add up to this:

* 480 scientists changed the underlying design, method, or result of scientific research

* 30 outright falsified their findings

* 45 engaged in "improper relationships" with subjects or students

* 225 disregarded rules protecting human subjects

And all of this happened in the past three years. A 33% corruption rate is an astounding statistic, especially considering the nature of the work done by these scientists. Academic institutions and professional societies need to step forward and address these concerns immediately. Credibility is all these institutions have, and if they lose that, none of their research will be trusted in the future.

Of course, in order to understand the problem, one has to rely on the researchers who compiled this survey and reported its results...

Another Canadian Publication Ban

During the time I reported on the Gomery Inquiry testimony of Jean Brault in defiance of the publication ban, I received many e-mails thanking me for the effort -- but I also received a few that expressed opposition to its publication on my blog. A few of those tended to be nationalistic, but the rest politely questioned my motives for defying the ban. They argued persuasively that the ban had intended to protect the upcoming trials of Brault, Coffin, and Guité from being derailed by information tainting the jury pool, and/or interfering with the rights of the defendants to receive a fair trial in the court instead of by the press.

Needless to say, although some of those arguments were undeniably eloquent, I disagreed with their basic premise that citizens could not tell the difference between evidence presented in court and hearsay reports in a newspaper. Nevertheless, I also conceded that in the extraordinary case of the Adscam public investigation, those opposing my publication at least had a valid point in arguing for continuing secrecy.

However, the latest in publication bans doesn't even have that extraordinary argument going for it. The pre-trial hearings of accused serial murderer Robert Pickton have come under a broad publication ban. In fact, the defense sought an even broader publication ban on the entirety of the trial, but the judge ruled against the notion of comprehensive gag order for one of the most notorious murder cases in Canadian history:

A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has rejected a bid from accused serial killer Robert Pickton's lawyers who wanted to impose an exceptionally tight publication ban on his trial.

Pickton's lawyers said they were worried that even though a publication ban would forbid Canadian media outlets from reporting on court proceedings, it would not stop Internet sites based outside of Canada to publish reports of what's heard in court.

But lawyers for various news organizations argued the ban the defence was seeking was unworkable. They also noted that, except for one incident early in proceedings, none of the sensational details from the preliminary hearing in 1993 have become wide public knowledge.

Justice James Williams of the B.C. Supreme Court decided that he would not call for a stiffer ban, noting that a section of the Criminal Code that spells out the scope of publication bans in pre-trial hearings is sufficient in the Pickton case.

Instead, he explicitly ordered the media not to report the names or addresses of websites where information from pre-trial hearings might be found, as the media have done in past cases where publications bans were in effect, particularly the Gomery inquiry into the federal sponsorship scandal.

Of course, this highlights a difference between Canada and the US, where trials have a Constitutional requirement to remain open that can only be changed for compelling reasons of security, and usually not even then. That can certainly lead to excesses such as the OJ, Michael Jackson, and Scott Peterson trials, where the majority of our media personalities go to audition for their own cable-news shows. If the excesses do exist, it's more than balanced by the hygienic pressure of full disclosure for both prosecution and the court to behave according to the law and to perform with at least a minimum expected competency. After all, the courts in the US represent the People -- the citizenry of the state or nation -- and the People deserve to see justice being served.

Canada's system has subtle differences, I'm sure, chief among them a lack of a constitution requiring open trials. However, since the publication bans do not automatically apply to pre-trial hearings or trials themselves (Judge Williams had to specifically order it for Pickton's trial), their application becomes by definition somewhat arbitrary. It seems that Canada has at least a de facto tradition of open courts, and one would expect openness in direct proportion to the interests at stake for the Canadian public.

Canadians have a solid interest in the Pickton case in ensuring that justice is competently delivered. Someone murdered twenty-seven people, and the community needs to know whether the police have the right man. They also need to ensure that prosecutors and the judge comport themselves competently and lawfully to ensure that the innocent are freed and/or the guilty punished and society protected. All of that may happen under a veil of secrecy, but human history shows those results to be more or less happy accidents.

Publication ban on trials and testimony serve only one purpose: to protect the people who operate the system, not those whom the system is supposed to serve. Canadians may want to ask themselves whether these publication bans will serve the interests of justice for all or provide cover for a few.

Irrationality The Norm From The Left On Janice Rogers Brown

The Washington Post reported today that after the rhetoric of "saving the Republic" and the schadenfreude of watching Bill Frist slowly roast over criticism from his base, the bloom may be off the judicial-compromise rose among the Left. Many have begun to complain that the Democratic centrists allowed the most objectionable jurists of President Bush's nominees to proceed to a floor vote in return for the right to block less-objectionable choices, and their favorite case is Janice Rogers Brown:

Democrats generally cheered, and Republicans groused, when a bipartisan group of senators crafted a compromise on judicial nominations last month. But with the Senate now confirming several conservative nominees whom Democrats had blocked for years, some liberals are questioning the wisdom of the deal and fretting about what comes next.

"Our problem with the compromise is the price that was paid," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said yesterday. She and other Congressional Black Caucus members plan to march into the Senate today to protest the impending confirmation of Janice Rogers Brown. ...

Several conservative commentators described the "Gang of 14" deal as a setback for Frist (R-Tenn.). Frist reinforced that notion with speeches describing his disappointment that two of the renominated judges -- William G. Myers III of Idaho and Henry W. Saad of Michigan -- appeared unlikely to be confirmed. But others say several sharply conservative judges are now being seated, and it is far from clear that the "extraordinary circumstances" clause will enable Democrats to block future conservative nominees to the Supreme Court or elsewhere.

Matt at Blogs For Bush has been live-blogging the Brown debate today, with a particularly telling comment from Charles Schumer -- that Brown is the worst nominee that Bush sent to the Senate. Certainly Nan Aron and Joe Biden appear to agree, although Mitch McConnell noted earlier today that the word "extremist" has been used so frequently by Democrats that it simply has lost any power.

But what evidence do the Democrats have that Brown is such an extreme conservative that her entire judicial philosophy exists outside the mainstream of modern thought? They excerpt a passage from a speech she gave five years ago titled "Fifty Ways To Lose Your Freedom," which underscored limiting government as the necessary means to ensuring personal liberty:

But Democrats recited a litany of Brown's controversial statements, including several from a 2000 speech titled "Fifty Ways to Lose Your Freedom." She said senior citizens "blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much 'free' stuff as the political system will permit them to extract." Elsewhere, Brown has said: "Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates. . . . When government advances . . . freedom is imperiled, civilization itself [is] jeopardized."

That may not sound pleasant to Leftists, but I guarantee you that this is not an extremist thought, not for Americans in any age. Those beholden to the AARP may not want to hear it, but the aging baby boomers have taken and will continue to take more than their share of the public trough in the years ahead, leaving the social systems that Democrats defend so passionately to be funded in large part through future contributions rather than current investments. Arguing that a growing and encroaching central government reduces personal and civil liberties isn't an extreme observation -- it's a concise analysis of what happens in autocratic and socialist societies. Try looking at Singapore or Russia, for instance, and tell us how an increasingly intrusive government increased liberty for those populations.

Certainly one can disagree with Janice Rogers Brown and her conclusions, honorably and with intellectual honesty, without being an extremist. But to the hysterics on the Left, any deviation from the politically-correct notions that more government equals better living philosophy is by definition "extreme". That hyperbolic reaction from the Democratic leadership shows itself to be reactionary to the point of embarrassment. By proclaiming that philosophies of limited government are out of the American mainstream, the Democrats reveal themselves as not only historically illiterate but politically irrational as well.

UPDATE: Vote now underway for Justice Brown's confirmation. So far, no suprises ... Chafee and Snowe vote Aye -- so does Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a crossover for the GOP ... Feinstein voted No ... Byrd voted No -- quelle surprise! ...

Brown just won confirmation 56-43, with Ben Nelson the only Democrat to cross over in her support. Congratulations to a fine and worthy jurist for her new assignment, and a nation gives thanks for your patience and forebearance.

UPDATE II: Cloture has been reached for William Pryor, 67-32.

Harper: Unhappy Grits Hold Fate Of Gov't

Stephen Harper acknowledged that the Tories had slipped in recent polling back to pre-Gomery levels this afternoon, a development that some predict will take the steam out of the no-confidence movement that had energized the Commons for the past month. However, Harper put the onus on Liberals to hold the government accountable for its transgressions, claiming that he has done all that he can:

The fate of the government lies in the hands of disgruntled Liberals, not opposition parties, when upcoming confidence votes reach Parliament next week, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Wednesday.

Speaking with reporters following his party's weekly caucus meeting in Ottawa, Mr. Harper said the Conservatives will “do whatever we can” to make sure its MPs are in the House of Commons when a pair of key budget bills come forward next week.

He said, however, that the final outcome will lie with members of the Liberal minority government.

“The numbers are clear,” he said. “This government can't be defeated unless people who were elected as Liberals decide to defeat it.”

This statement has a measure of fatalism that reflects the newest political reality in Canada. Despite the revelations of massive corruption in the Adscam program and the wholesale giveaway of tax dollars to keep the Martin government from toppling, the Liberals have apparently reclaimed popular support from the Canadian electorate. A new Decima poll shows that the Liberals lead the Tories by 14 points nationwide. Even more surprising, the NDP has gained significantly after its support of Paul Martin last month, pulling to within the margin of error with the Conservatives.

These results may have shocked the Tory leadership into changing directions. After pressing for quick elections during the worst of the Gomery testimony and being thwarted by Jack Layton and a surprise betrayal by his deputy's girlfriend, Harper has appeared somewhat outclassed in political dexterity by the ever-flexible Paul Martin. That performance, along with a steady whispering campaign about Harper's supposed "hidden agenda", probably led to the sudden erosion of support for the party which should rightfully claim to be crusading for clean government -- or could, had it put together a simple and consistent message along those lines from the start.

Harper's message now is probably the only practical strategy left to him. The Liberals have one last issue this session which could still split off enough votes to topple the Martin government, and that is gender-neutral marriage. Harper would much rather contest new elections on the basis of corruption, but this might be enough to at least initiate a successful no-confidence motion.

The only question is this: with numbers like this, why would Harper and the Tories want to undertake an election now?

More Unusual Demographics In Media Polling

I have often written about the suspect adjustments made to the sampling on CBS polls, which skew the results so that they put the Bush administration and the Republicans in a harsher light than the raw data indicates. While the new Washington Post/ABC poll doesn't appear to employ the same "weighting" technique that CBS used to shift its demographics to give the Democrats a four-point edge that its sample didn't support, the Post/ABC sample itself appears very suspect.

First, the results of the poll tend to show that the GOP has absorbed the brunt of frustration with the lack of progress on legislation and judicial nominations. Dana Milbank and Claudia Deane also note that the poll shows for the first time that a majority of adults do not believe that removing Saddam Hussein has made them any safer:

For the first time since the war in Iraq began, more than half of the American public believes the fight there has not made the United States safer, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

While the focus in Washington has shifted from the Iraq conflict to Social Security and other domestic matters, the survey found that Americans continue to rank Iraq second only to the economy in importance -- and that many are losing patience with the enterprise.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans say the number of casualties in Iraq is unacceptable, while two-thirds say the U.S. military there is bogged down and nearly six in 10 say the war was not worth fighting -- in all three cases matching or exceeding the highest levels of pessimism yet recorded. More than four in 10 believe the U.S. presence in Iraq is becoming analogous to the experience in Vietnam.

In terms of his approval/disapproval rating, both actually increased since the last polling; approval went up by one point, and disapproval by two, with undecideds dropping to the lowest point since the election. His numbers on Iraq have not appreciably changed since the first of the year; the 41% approval is the median since the December poll. His economic policy approval is unchanged since April, and the only place where he looks to have lost significant momentum is on the overall global war on terror, where he still gets a 50-49 advantage. He also has a 46-44 advantage on how he's handling judicial nominations, with a fairly large 10% undecided, indicating that the issue has not exactly caught fire with the populace. And despite the consistently low numbers for Bush on Social Security, support for his proposal to use options for personal investment rose since April by three points to 48%.

The numbers on Congress are equally vague. Its approval rate remains almost unchanged since October 2003, apparently the last time the question was asked. The last time the Post bothered to ask about Republicans in Congress was in 1999, and the GOP actually gained a point since then, to 42%, which seems odd when one considers the electoral gains made since then. Democrats, however, have lost nine points in the same time frame.

However, once again, the details of the demographics tell an odd tale. Look at page 21 of the PDF containing the polling data. For question 901, which asks about party identification, the numbers seem reasonable:

Democrat: 30%
Republican: 31%
Independent: 34%
Other: 4%

On question 904, however, the results show a serious skewing problem which should have rendered the entire enterprise moot. Question 904 asks respondents to identify to which party they lean the most, and the results seem out of whack:

Democrats: 48%
Republicans: 34%
Neither: 16%

The survey data does not say if all respondents were asked the question or merely the ones that identified themselves as independents in Q901. If this was asked to all respondents, then a 14-point gap between the party so obviously flies in the face of reality that all of the poll's results have to be seen as unreliable. If Q904 only was asked of independents, it still looks rather unusual given the election results of the last three cycles. More to the point, it results in a strange distribution when combined in the report:

Democrats: 48%
Republicans: 45%
Independent: 5%
Other: 2%

If the question was asked of all independents, then 48% of 38 (including those who answered Other, as that number also gets changed) will give the Democrats an additional 18 points. However, the 34% of 38 should only give the GOP an additional 11 points, pushing them to 42 and not 45, leaving an obviously faulty six-point gap. Some kind of weighting got applied to this poll, and it's unclear what method was used -- but the overall result shows that the sample doesn't really reflect the current political climate accurately.

That may not be the Post/ABC poll's fault. After all, polling samples depend on who answers the phone and who is willing to complete the questionnaire. However, reporting this as an accurate measure of public response and hyping the ambiguous trends here into disaster looks very much like what CBS tried with their own polling. It's unreliable, and in this case when one looks at the actual poll numbers and trends, entirely unremarkable.

UPDATE: Ankle Biting Pundits has more along the same lines.

American Jihadis

Police have arrested a father and son and two other men in a counterterrorist roundup in Lodi, California. The pair, US citizens, face charges of lying to federal investigators but remain in custody under suspicion of operating an al-Qaeda sleeper cell:

A father and son were in custody Wednesday after federal authorities arrested the U.S. citizens when the younger man allegedly confessed that he attended an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan to learn “how to kill Americans.”

Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, 47, were arrested Sunday on charges of lying to federal agents and appeared in court Tuesday.

According to prosecutors, Hamid Hayat trained with explosives and other weapons, using photographs of President Bush and other political leaders as targets. The Sacramento Bee reported his age as 22; the Los Angeles Times said he is 23.

Umer Hayat was charged in the complaint with lying about his son’s involvement and his own financing of the terror camp, which an affidavit released by prosecutors said was run by a close friend of Umer Hayat's father.

Hamid Hayat has had the FBI's attention for a while. His presence on a flight to Pakistan two weeks ago led the airplane to be diverted to Japan, where FBI agents questioned and released him to continue to his destination. On his return home, he met with his father Umer and two leaders of the local Lodi mosque. Relatives claim that Umer wore a listening device to this meeting, which the the FBI has neither confirmed nor denied. Yesterday all four men were taken into custody.

At first, Hamid denied any involvement with terrorism, but after failing a polygraph, he began talking about training camps in Pakistan where he joined AQ for the specific mission of attacking American assets from within. The Sacramento Bee reported that his targets included hospitals and food processing plants, and that his intention was to kill as many Americans as possible.

I may not be a lawyer, but in my opinion this amounts to one crime: treason. A US citizen has not only given aid and comfort to our enemy during wartime, but has explicity allied himself with them and actively pursued attempts to carry out missions against us on their behalf. If the evidence shows this to be true, Hamid should face trial in federal court for treason and suffer the consequences of that crime. Charging him with anything less would not only encourage others by a show of irresoluteness, but it would mean that no one could ever be tried and convicted of treason in the future. If what Hamid allegedly did doesn't fit the definition, then nothing will.

This also shows the fallacy of the "they hate us because they don't know us" crowd. The Hayats and the other fanatics in Lodi had the freedom to practice their religion and earn a decent living in California -- certainly they made a higher standard of living there than they could have expected in Pakistan or Afghanistan, especially before the Taliban were ejected by American military action. They don't hate us because they misunderstand us. They hate us because all they know is hate, and outreach and kind words don't make a damned bit of difference to fanatics.

It's time we understood the difference between moderates and fanatics, and the difference between youthful indiscretions and outright treason. A free society can handle moderates and survive youthful indiscretions, but it cannot abide fanatics who commit treason. We need to make that abundantly clear in the manner which we handle the latter.

Saddam's London Embassy Stockpiled Arms

For Brits who have spent most of the last three years protesting on behalf of the Saddam regime, the discovery of a major arms cache at the abandoned Iraqi embassy in London should force them to reconsider their opposition to his removal from power. London police have discovered not only firearms, but also bugging devices and even cattle prods in the safes within the empty building:

A cache of guns, bugging devices and other equipment has been discovered at Iraq’s abandoned embassy in Britain, the country’s newly appointed ambassador said on Wednesday.

Scotland Yard confirmed “a number of firearms” had been recovered from the embassy in an upmarket area of southwest London but declined to say when.

The guns could be explained as necessary for embassy security, but the cattle prods and the cameras and bugging devices reveal a different use of the embassy than most Londoners know. The bugging systems would have been deployed against Saddam's critics, and the cattle prods would have been used on those who didn't come up with the needed information through bugging alone. All of this would have happened right in the middle of London, not on the streets of Baghdad.

Perhaps the people from International ANSWER can come up with a good reason for an embassy to have cattle prods at the ready for diplomatic personnel, a reason that meshes with the notion that Saddam represented no threat to the world. Londoners looking at this cache of the tools of Saddam's trade should think again about their opposition to his removal.

Great Moments In Border Control

Question: If you're a border guard for a country at war with terrorists and you stop someone who has in his possession a homemade sword, brass knuckles, a hatchet, and a chainsaw which looks like blood all over it, what do you do?

A. Shoot the man on sight.
B. Arrest him and call for a psychiatrist.
C. Take his weapons and welcome him to America.

Apparently, choice C is American policy for security. A border guard in Maine made that decision and allowed a double murderer across the border in order to flee the scene:

Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, on April 25 carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres.

Then they let him into the United States.

The next day, a gruesome scene was discovered in Despres' hometown of Minto, New Brunswick: The decapitated body of a 74-year-old country musician named Frederick Fulton was found on his kitchen floor. The man's head was in a pillow case under the kitchen table. His common-law wife was found fatally stabbed in a bedroom.

Despres, 22, immediately became a suspect because of a history of violence against his neighbors. He was arrested April 27 after police in Massachusetts saw him wandering down a highway in a sweatshirt with red and brown stains. He is now in jail in Massachusetts on murder charges, awaiting an extradition hearing next month.

How could this happen? Despres is a naturalized US citizen, and US Customs and Border Control claims it had no basis on which to detain him. Their spokesman says that Despres was held for over two hours while they checked for any wants and warrants on both sides of the border before allowing him to leave. However, it doesn't appear that anyone checked really hard:

On the same day Despres crossed the border, he was supposed to be in a Canadian court for sentencing on convictions of assaulting and threatening to kill Mr. Fulton's son-in-law, Frederick Mowat, in August.

Mr. Mowat told police that Despres had been bothering his father-in-law for the past month. When Mr. Mowat confronted him, Despres purportedly pulled a knife, pointed it at Mr. Mowat's chest and said he was "going to get you all."

After the two murders were discovered in New Brunswick, all of a sudden law enforcement found a history of Dupres' violence against neighbors. That's when they decided to look for the man who they'd allowed to freely walk into the US, where he'd presumably have new neighbors to threaten -- and found him walking around in a blood-stained sweatshirt.

Meanwhile, the border patrol continues to make more excuses:

"Nobody asked us to detain him," Mr. Anthony said. "Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up."

Mr. Anthony conceded that it "sounds stupid" that a man wielding what appeared to be a bloody chain saw could not be detained. But he added: "Our people don't have a crime lab up there. They can't look at a chain saw and decide if it's blood or rust or red paint."

Well, how about the brass knuckles? Since when are those legal to carry, especially across the border? The entire concept of counterterrorism seems to have escaped the border patrol.

Old Europe Finds Way To Blame Britain

In the debacle caused by the collapse of the EU constitution, the EU elite have already begun to look for a scapegoat on which to shift blame, and avoid it themselves. They appear to have found it in Britain, as the architects of the EU now blame the UK's rebate for the political crisis instead of the flawed constitution or the heavy-handed elite that attempted to stuff it down Europe's throat:

European leaders lined up behind a plot to ambush Tony Blair yesterday, threatening to blame him for the spiralling European Union crisis unless Britain "saves Europe" by surrendering its multi-billion pound annual rebate.

One after the other, European premiers fell in line with a Franco-German plan to portray the rebate as the sticking point that is blocking a "miracle" last-minute agreement on the size and scope of the bloc's plans for the next five years.

As ministers and officials huddled for crisis meetings in Luxembourg and Strasbourg, they converged around a single line of attack: if Britain would only give ground on the rebate the EU would be able to defy expectations and pull off an early deal on its budget for the years 2007-2013.

That, it was argued, would convince people that the European project is in robust health, and not derailed by the votes against the constitution in France and Holland.

The French rebelled against the pact in part because the proposed constitution would have forced some market-based reform on their beloved Socialist (and failing) state. The Dutch dumped it by an almost 2-1 margin because the imposition of the euro caused real economic damage in the short term and the Dutch have had second thoughts about Muslim migration and assimilation in the EU. Now the authors of the electoral disasters in France and the Netherlands need a distraction from their own failures, and Britain's rebate makes for a handy way to deflect criticism from their own missteps.

This strawman will get more attention now that the G8 conference is coming up, and Blair starts to put the EU on the backburner in favor of Africa. The vacuum could allow the gripes of Chirac and Schroeder to register as revisionist truth, diverting the political fallout from their own folly and placing it on Blair, whom they've already seen used as a bogeyman by the Non faction.

Britain won't give up the rebate, not in any substantial amount anyway, and the failure of the budget process will mean that Chirac and Shroeder can feel free to blame Britain and its inflexibility instead of their own heavy-handedness. But in the end, it won't matter much. The EU looks dead at the moment, and arguing about who killed it may distract people from the corpse for a while, but eventually the stench guarantees that someone has to take some action to clean up.

Dean Plays Race Card

Howard Dean continued his self-immolation as DNC chair yesterday, telling a San Francisco audience that the GOP was nothing more than a "white Christian party", and then claimed he was just being "tough":

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, unapologetic in the face of recent criticism that he has been too tough on his political opposition, said in San Francisco this week that Republicans are "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people," Dean said Monday, responding to a question about diversity during a forum with minority leaders and journalists. "We're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have deliver on things: jobs and housing and business opportunities."

Howard's last broadside, that Republicans never put in an honest day's work, even had Democrats repelled. Two prominent Democratic politicians -- Joe Biden and John Edwards, who'd like to run for President if Howard hasn't destroyed the party by then -- both said that Dean didn't speak for them. He's driving off major donors, claiming that the party needs to focus on Internet collections instead of deep-pocket patrons. However, the Democrats have raised less than half the money that the GOP has since the first of the year, and his rhetoric appears to be costing them support from the center.

This last charge is hilarious coming from Dean. Recall, please, what started the Dean collapse during the 2004 primary race. Dean came to the Iowa caucuses as the acclaimed frontrunner by raising prodigious amounts of money, thanks to Joe Trippi and his visionary outreach. He had the momentum and had captured the imagination of the party. The Iowa caucuses were expected to anoint him as the dragonslayer against the hated George Bush.

Then the Iowa debate came on January 11th, and it all slipped away -- and race was his Kryptonite, and Al Sharpton his Lex Luthor. Sharpton skewered Dean so badly that he left the Vermont governor blinking into the cameras like Dan Quayle in 1988 in his debate against Lloyd Bentson:

SHARPTON: I want to -- you know, I have to ask this. I was going to ask Dennis something.

But I have to ask you this, Governor Dean, because I was disappointed you weren't in Washington the other day. But you keep talking about talking about race. In the state of Vermont -- where you were governor '97, '99, 2001 -- not one black or brown held a senior policy position, not one. You yourself said we must do something about it. Nothing was done.

Can you explain -- since now you want to convene everyone and talk about race, it seems as though you have discovered blacks and browns during this campaign. How you can explain not one black or brown working for your administration as governor?

DEAN: Well, actually, I beg to differ with your statistics there.

SHARPTON: This is according to your paper in Vermont, the Associated Press, and the Center for Women in Government.

DEAN: Well, perhaps you ought not to believe everything in the Associated Press.

SHARPTON: Oh, so you're saying they're incorrect?

DEAN: We do have African-American and Latino workers in state government, including...

SHARPTON: No, no, I said under your administration. Do you have a senior member of your cabinet that was black or brown?

DEAN: We had a senior member of my staff on my fifth floor.

SHARPTON: No, your cabinet.

DEAN: No, we did not.

SHARPTON: OK, that's not...

DEAN: ... six members.

SHARPTON: Then you need to let me talk to you about race in this country.

DEAN: Well, let me just say one thing, which I have said before but I'll say it again. If the percentage of African-Americans in your state was any indication of what your views on race were, then Trent Lott would be Martin Luther King.

SHARPTON: But I don't think that that answers the question. I think if you're talking -- if you want to lecture people on race, you ought to have the background and track record in order to do that. And I think that clearly people -- governors import talent, governors reach all over the country to make sure they have diversity.

And I think that, while I respect the fact you brought race into this campaign, you ought to talk freely and openly about whether you went out of the box to try to do something about race in your home state and have experience with working with blacks and browns at peer level, not as just friends you might have had in college.

The bombshell from the Reverend came as a shock to the national audience, which had never seen the Vermont fireplug stumble so badly -- and the Democrats suddenly started to question not only Dean's qualifications to address race but his ability to withstand the heat of a general election.

Now Mad How wants to talk about race again. All I can say is that I've seen the Reverend Al Sharpton, Howard -- and you are no Reverend Al. And you of all people should know that.

CQ On MS-NBC Today (Updated With Press Conference Notes)

I will be appearing today on MS-NBC's Connected Coast to Coast with hosts Ron Reagan and Monica Crowley at 4 pm CDT. Appearing opposite will be Michael Goeltz (sp?) from Americablog. We'll be discussing aid to Africa, the Middle East, the war on terror, and other issues we expect to be coming out of the Bush/Blair press conference this afternoon. I'll have more for you later.

UPDATE: Yes, this was my first time on national TV, and no, my face did not freeze like that naturally. Obviously, I need to work a bit on the screen presence. Apart from that, it was a lot of fun, and the folks at MS-NBC and the local studio here in Minneapolis treated me very kindly. It's an odd experience; it's akin to being locked in a closet and pretending you're talking to millions of people, which in fact is almost exactly what's happening.

The Political Teen has the video. So does Crooks and Liars.

Now, apart from my performance, the press conference had some interesting developments. Bush pledged to 100% debt cancellation for African nations which accept reforms, including funding the impact on financial institutions affected by that decision. This is no empty promise; debt cancellation is an important first step. As Bob Geldof noted yesterday, aid without debt cancellation means nothing. However, simply cancelling the debt could significantly damage the World Bank and IMF unless they get indemnified for their losses.

Both leaders talked about almost nothing but Africa. However, the reporters used the few questions they were allowed to ask about Iraq and the Downing Street memo. On the latter, both leaders categorically denied the allegation that anyone "fixed" anything. Both pointed out that the memo was dated before they went to the UN, let alone decided to use force. It's a hearsay third-party document that doesn't even quote anyone, and why anyone thinks it has any probative value is beyond me.

Both did well, although the press conference was rather short. They presented, as always, a united front ahead of the G8 conference. Blair got some of what he wanted with Bush for Africa, and perhaps he'll get even more at the G8 itself.

Defeatists Take Over Ground Zero

Michelle Malkin has a must-read exposé about how Leftist defeatists have taken over Ground Zero remembrances. The culprits? Human Rights First, the ACLU, Eric Foner -- the Columbia U professor who called for "a million Mogadishus" -- and of course, George Soros.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: From CQ readers Chris M and Ric J, Nicholas DeGenova made the "million Mogadishus" comment. Foner organized the event but had no idea that DeGenova would make that comment and did not condone it. My apologies to Eric Foner for the error.

A CQ-DC Working Vacation

I will be taking a working vacation, so to speak, the first week of July in Washington, DC. Neither the First Mate nor I have ever been to DC before, and thanks to some clever timing and some excellent rates, we have decided to celebrate Independence Day in our first visit to our nation's Capitol.

The clever timing comes courtesy of the Heritage Foundation. I have been invited to give a speech at Heritage on my experiences covering the Canadian Adscam scandal as part of a review of blogs and their impact on media and politics. The other participants in the panel have yet to be finalized, but Jim Hill, managing editor of the Washington Post Writers Group, will be among them.

Mark Tapscott, of Tapscott's Copy Desk, is the Director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at Heritage and extended the invitation. More information will come directly from Heritage later this month, but the date will either be the 8th of July, at 10:30 AM. Mark's hoping to get C-SPAN to cover the event, but in any case Heritage will probably blogcast it over its website and keep it posted there for later viewing.

While I'm in DC, I'm also hoping to catch up with bloggers and other media people with whom I've corresponded in the past, in between gawking at the Declaration of Independence and walking along the Mall. Drop me a line if you're in the area and maybe we'll schedule a dinner in order to make it easy for everyone to get together.

This should be a memorable vacation ... and yes, I plan on bringing the laptop along to blog on events while I'm away.

BUMP: To top.

Liberal MPs Considered Toppling Martin To Stop Gender-Neutral Marriage

Americans do not realize the extent to which gender-neutral marriage remains controversial in Canada, having been fed a steady diet of harangues by the Left and the media about Canada's easy acceptance of the practice. In fact, the issue carries such controversy that the party that championed it had dozens of MPs so unhappy about its spread that they briefly considered bringing down their own government to stop it:

Last Thursday morning in an office in the historic East Block, a dozen Liberal MPs opposed to the same-sex marriage bill met to plot its demise, and for a fleeting instant spoke about killing their own government as a means to an end.

It was an extraordinary meeting in which the MPs discussed strategy, talked of ways to stall the bill and tossed out various scenarios. They even spoke about the possibility of supporting the Conservatives on a no-confidence motion to bring down the government, which would, in effect, kill the marriage bill.

The suggestion didn't last long; the quick consensus was that the next government would still likely pass the bill, and the delay would have gained them nothing except another election. However, at least one of the MPs attending this caucus felt otherwise. Pat O'Brien took his leave of the Liberals as a result, claiming that his concerns had not been addressed and that promises for more debate had been broken by PM Paul Martin.

O'Brien's defection has left the Commons equally split, considering the alliances between the parties. The Tories/BQ faction has 152 seats, the same as the ruling Liberal/NDP bloc, with now four independents, including O'Brien. O'Brien indicated that he would consider voting against the government on the next confidence motion that gets tabled, which would split the independents and leave the decision once again to the Speaker, a result which would save Martin. However, if another member of that mini-caucus opposing gender-neutral marriage takes a walk to join O'Brien, Martin is in serious trouble -- and playing Let's Make A Deal, post-Grewal, probably isn't in the cards.

A summer election may still happen. Stay tuned.

Did Kerry Turn Over Full File To The Boston Globe?

The Boston Globe claims this morning that John Kerry has finally made his entire service record publicly available, at least to them. Michael Kranish, who wrote unquestioning articles about Kerry's service in Viet Name before and during the presidential campaign, proclaims that the release vindicates Kerry -- but even Kranish can't add up why Kerry kept the file secret:

Senator John F. Kerry, ending at least two years of refusal, has waived privacy restrictions and authorized the release of his full military and medical records.

The records, which the Navy Personnel Command provided to the Globe, are mostly a duplication of what Kerry released during his 2004 campaign for president, including numerous commendations from commanding officers who later criticized Kerry's Vietnam service.

The lack of any substantive new material about Kerry's military career in the documents raises the question of why Kerry refused for so long to waive privacy restrictions. An earlier release of the full record might have helped his campaign because it contains a number of reports lauding his service. Indeed, one of the first actions of the group that came to be known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was to call on Kerry to sign a privacy waiver and release all of his military and medical records.

But Kerry refused, even though it turned out that the records included commendations from some of the same veterans who were criticizing him.

On May 20, Kerry signed a document called Standard Form 180, authorizing the Navy to send an ''undeleted" copy of his ''complete military service record and medical record" to the Globe. Asked why he delayed signing the form for so long, Kerry said in a written response: ''The call for me to sign a 180 form came from the same partisan operatives who were lying about my record on a daily basis on the Web and in the right-wing media. Even though the media was discrediting them, they continued to lie. I felt strongly that we shouldn't kowtow to them and their attempts to drag their lies out."

Kranish then goes on to describe several commendations and memos of praise. Interestingly, though, Kranish remains silent on several points of controversy that the secrecy of the files helped stoke. Namely, Kranish doesn't mention anything about Kerry's discharge, and why it took him until 1978 to get it, while he quit serving in 1972. He doesn't mention any assignment or attachment to an intelligence unit that would corroborate his later explanations of Christmas In Cambodia or gun-running to the Khmer Rouge. Kranish also doesn't reveal anything about the timeline of events or command assignments that would answer whether he tried to steal part of Tedd Peck's service record in order to provide cover for David Alston to lie about their time together during the political campaign.

It did, however, contain Kerry's academic record from his four years in college. Despite the claims of his supporters, who seemed eager to paint Kerry as a towering intellect while castigating Bush as a moron, the two earned almost identical grades while at Yale:

During last year's presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.

But newly released records show that Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago.

In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript indicating that Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 for his first three years at Yale and a roughly similar average under a non-numerical rating system during his senior year.

Kerry, who graduated two years before Bush, got a cumulative 76 for his four years, according to a transcript that Kerry sent to the Navy when he was applying for officer training school. He received four D's in his freshman year out of 10 courses, but improved his average in later years.

In fact, the two men have so much in common, it's almost uncanny. Their grade points are almost identical, and both struggled through their freshman years before buckling down and working for their education. Both entered military service after graduating, and both went back afterwards for a higher degree (Bush - Harvard, MBA; Kerry - BC, law degree). Both appeared to be somewhat adrift when they did so.

The key difference, of course, is that Bush never pretended to be a great student at college, just as he never pretended to be a war hero. Nothing that Kranish reports relates to those issues. This release by Kerry still doesn't answer key questions about what he's claimed about his service and the conflicts in his narrative first exposed by the Swiftvets. Let Kerry make the entire record public, so we can all see the answers to these questions.

Michelle Malkin has a great roundup of links to this story.

UPDATE: Er, yes, a law degree is a higher degree. Mea stupida culpa. I've changed the post accordingly. Hat tip: Ted V.

I Love Hate To Say I Told You So ...

Do you remember when the 9/11 Commission released its final report, which contained a narrative of the attacks, an analysis of how the various intelligence and defense systems failed us, and recommendations for improvement? My final analysis was that the overall report merited a C-; an A for the narrative, a low-end C for the analysis, and a solid F for the recommendations.

I warned that the solution that the Commission insisted on imposing amounted to nothing more than sticking two more levels of bureaucracy on top of all the existing alphabet soup of intelligence services, and that such an approach would do nothing towards solving the lack of communication between the agencies. In fact, I warned, it would make it worse.

It didn't take long for that analysis to be proven correct:

Overlapping responsibilities among U.S. intelligence agencies could lead to failures in assessing terrorism threats, experts said Monday in examining changes at the CIA and FBI since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Part of the problem stems from the continued lack of a reliable information-sharing system within the intelligence community, according to panelists led by a member of the 9/11 commission that investigated missteps leading to the attacks.

“There’s a real vulnerability,” former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh said during the two-hour discussion — the first of eight panels hosted this summer by the commission.

“The collection of intelligence, and even its analysis, is not worth much if it’s not able to be translated into a realistic threat assessment that provide guidance for the application of resources designed to prevent terrorism,” Thornburgh said.

Commission member Jamie S. Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general, said, “We clearly need greater clarity as to who is doing what.”

Recall that this report came out in the heat of a presidential campaign and was immediately taken up by Democrats as Wisdom Handed Down From On High. John Kerry and many others in his party insisted that the entire slate of recommendations be passed into law without debate or futher analysis, and that to even debate the commission's suggestions about reorganizing intelligence agencies under a larger bureaucratic umbrella amounted to Nero fiddling while Rome burned. (Well, at least certain recommendations. The one useful part of the report about securing the Southern border got conveniently forgotten by both parties.)

This is what we get from that haste. We've added two more layers to the bureaucracy between the intelligence gatherers and the President, the ultimate decision-maker, and we're supposed to be surprised that the different agencies still don't work well together in the field. The entire problem of resource and information sharing was the bureaucracy that exists because of the number of agencies doing essentially the same job. Adding more to that doesn't solve the problem, it makes it exponentially worse.

This reminds me of the proverb of the handyman who only owns a hammer. Pretty soon, every problem begins looking like a nail. That dynamic produced this result from the table of bureaucrats who came up with the 9/11 Commission report and its recommendations. We can thank the Democrats (and at least a few Republicans, like Senator McCain) for politicizing it to such a degree that it forced Congress and the President to accept the reorganization in toto.

Gurmant's Envelope Brings A Sudden Vacation

The controversy surrounding taped conversations between Tory MP Gurmant Grewal and Liberal Party leaders just got stranger tonight. Grewal has suddenly left for a leave of absence following an altercation at the airport that saw the MP attempting to get an envelope past security by asking other passengers to carry it for him:

The Tory MP at the centre of a surreptitiously taped effort to make a deal with the Liberals is taking a stress leave from his parliamentary duties after Air Canada launched an investigation of incident at Vancouver airport.

Gurmant Grewal was spotted in a waiting area Saturday asking passengers to carry a package to Ottawa for him, said an airline source. ...

A union official said Mr. Grewal had earlier gone to an Air Canada ticket agent to ask if he could arrange for someone to carry a package to Ottawa aboard flight 166 on Saturday. He was told that was impossible because of security practices.

“The agent told him he couldn't do that. If he had a package to go on the flight he would need to go on the flight.”

The official said Mr. Grewal then re-booked himself on the Ottawa flight and passed through security to a waiting area, where he asked other agents if they could give him a list of politicians travelling on the Ottawa flight. He said he wanted one of them to carry a package for him.

He was reportedly again told that this was a violation of security.

He was then overheard asking “a number” of passengers to carry the package, the official said.

The MP apparently was successful in finding someone to take his envelope to Ottawa and went back to tell the agents in the lounge, the official said. He himself flew to Ottawa the next day.

Airport officials would not release the contents of the envelope, but given the nature of the events during the past couple of weeks, the suspicion is that Grewal had another tape he wanted to get back to Ottawa without having it found on him. Stephen Harper announced that Grewal had taken a leave of absence earlier that day because of "significant personal pressure," and that he had authorized a stress leave for the MP.

Needless to say, this bizarre incident at the airport -- the airport only confirms that they are investigating Grewal, but won't say for what -- does not build confidence in the allegations he made regarding influence peddling at the PMO. With the tapes, or at least the copies posted at his website, coming under attack as edited, Grewal may have wanted to slip out of town quietly. However, asking people to carry any item for them on an airplane has long been a security breach, even before 9/11. The idea that a sitting MP would not know this, and would not simply take advantage of a courier service or even FedEx, boggles the mind and calls Grewal's judgment and capability into sharp question.

Just for that reason alone, Harper needs to suspend Grewal until the airport incident gets unraveled. If the tapes turn out to be something less than Grewal has indicated, Harper may need to take more permanent action against the Newton-North Delta MP. And if the envelope contains one of the original tapes he claims to have made, the RCMP may make the question of suspensions and stress leaves moot.

UPDATE: I got the direction wrong initially -- Grewal was heading back to Ottawa, not out of Ottawa. I made the correction above.

Washington Court Upholds Democratic Victory Despite Irregularities

A judge has denied a challenge to the election of Christine Gregoire as Governor in Washington despite finding irregularities of more than ten times the eventual margin of victory. John Bridges ruled that since no one could show with certainty how those voters voted, the election must stand as last counted:

Gov. Christine Gregoire's narrow 2004 election victory was upheld this morning by a judge who said Republicans failed to show that voting problems in King County and elsewhere were the reason Gregoire won by 129 votes. ...

Bridges said there was evidence that 1,678 illegal votes were cast in the 2004 election, including 1,391 votes by felons. However Bridges said there was no evidence that Gregoire benefitted from the illegal votes.

Bridges said there was also no evidence of misconduct by election workers or that the probems with the election were the result of "partisan bias."

The judge said the Republican lawsuit failed to meet the high standard necessary for the courts to intervene in an election.

The GOP is widely expected to appeal the decision.

Quite frankly, I don't see how the judge could have ruled otherwise on the basis of the irregularities mentioned in the article. We know felons voted in the election, but we have no way to tell how they voted. I would have preferred to see the election challenged on the nature of the recount that wound up working for Gregoire, as a hand count should be considered less accurate than a machine count. Perhaps the state Supreme Court will address that issue, although I rather doubt it.

The state legislature should have demanded a revote, if for no other reason than the election the state held had obvious defects, especially in King County. That would have pre-empted the need for a lawsuit and allowed for a positive solution and a chance to fix the problems with illegal voters. The failure of the state legislature to act in protection of the credibility of its electoral system should be a historical black mark on this group of legislators.

See Michelle Malkin for more details, and lots of links. Also Power Line points out, "if that's the standard, election challenges are futile, since I can't see how there would ever be a record of which candidate a particular voter (real or nonexistent) voted for."

Live-8 Live Blog!

I'm taking part in the Live-8 conference call with Sir Bob Geldof about the pressing need for aid to Africa, having been invited by John Hinderaker and Joe Trippi. Sir Bob is talking with a number of bloggers despite having the flu. This is part of the Make Poverty History campaign.

12:13 - Sir Bob is giving us a history of his involvement in ending world hunger, a compelling story about personal and emotional connections to the problem. He wants to make sure that hunger doesn't become a Right/Left issue but that bipartisan efforts need to be made to keep people from starving to death ...

12:17 - The idea is to get the G8 to make Africa a high priority. Africa is the only region that continues to decline ...

12:18 - Sir Bob talks very quickly, and it's hard to keep up. However, this is being recorded so we will be able to peruse it more closely later. However, he's talking about the Ethiopian famine, about trees that bear no fruit, and how AIDS affects the producers in African society ...

12:22 - Geldof insists that something other than corruption and conflict is at play in Africa -- that they have some endemic condition throughout the continent which causes poverty to endure ...

12:25 - He's asking for a Marshall Plan for Africa -- one percent of GDP dedicated to trade improvement, debt relief, and direct aid dependent on political reform. Sounds good in theory ...

12:28 - Another concert would be pointless, Geldof says. What is needed is a groundswell of public pressure to come up with a workable plan and a significant amount for the effort. He feels that Bush is more responsive than widely thought on this issue and has an opportunity to surprise the world. Pat Robertson, Rick Warren, and other evangelicals have signed a letter asking for Bush to make this a top priority ...

12:33 - Todd Zwicki wants to know about the concept of "trade justice". Geldof: The EU is a protection racket that Al Capone would love. The trade cartels exist to protect domestic production ...

12:37 - Geldof: "Read your Adam Smith." Africa has its own issues with protectionism which need reform...

12:41 - Mugabe is "a thug", but doesn't necessarily represent the entirety of African politics.

12:46 - What they want: cancel African debt, lower trade barriers, and double the direct aid to Africa.

12:50 - Geldof: Aid doesn't get into the thugs' pockets as often as commonly thought since the end of the Cold War, when each side had their pet thugs. The debt is the biggest obstacle to the aid reaching the people who need it. The first launch of money would build the accountable structures of government in order to expedite later aid ...

12:59 - "[Americans] were born to do this! ... The American people are extraordinarily generous people." He points out that official aid comes to 0.15% of the American budget, but that people think it amounts to 15% of the GDP. He's mixing apples and oranges, but the underlying point is probably correct -- we're contributing less than we think, but we want to contribute more.

End of call -- The bloggers want linkable sites to make our arguments, and the Live8 folks will be building those resources for us. We will be following up with more contacts between that organization and the list of bloggers. Sir Bob Geldof gave us a bounty of information, and hopefully we can start sharing that with you once we get it organized.

It's exciting to see people reach out to the blogosphere on a nonpartisan basis to affect real change in the world. Keep your eyes out for more developments, here and at other blogs.

UPDATE 2:33 - Charles at LGF mirrors my feelings about the call:

Despite my skepticism (rock stars with causes, oh boy), I was impressed with Geldof�s knowledge of the situation, and by his group�s ideas to make sure that whatever aid is generated will not simply be pocketed by corrupt African dictators. Ultimately, the vision seems to be to promote freedom and reform on the African continent. Geldof said, �Robert Mugabe will not be included.�

That last quote came in response to my skeptical question about how to keep the money out of the pockets of tyrants.

UPDATE II: John Hinderaker, one of the conference-call's hosts, has this to say at Power Line:

On the merits of Geldof's campaign, I had reservations, given 1) my general preference for individual action over government action, and 2) the sad history of much foreign aid to Africa. But I figured I'd keep an open mind and hear Geldof out.

So this noon, we had a conference call in which a number of bloggers took part--I don't know the exact count--that went on for over an hour. To say that I was impressed would be an understatement. Geldof is an extraordinarily knowledgable guy. Equally important, he is not soft-headed about Africa's problems. He emphasizes free markets and the need for political reform, which should be, and according to Geldof will be, a condition of the assistance that he advocates.

Believe me, we all understand the skepticism -- perhaps Geldof most of all. We know this will be a tough sell, even to ourselves. I want to see the specifics before I go running around mindlessly supporting it. However, I think we need to ask ourselves where we want to see Africa in twenty years, and what needs to be done to get it there.

Liberal MP Leaves, Martin Back At Square One

After gaining a seat in a critical by-election in Labrador, Paul Martin has returned to square one with a critical defection today by Pat O'Brien. O'Brien won't join the Tories but will instead stand a an independent, but specifically mentioned the Adscam scandal as a reason for his decision:

Liberal MP Pat O'Brien, who opposes his party's position on gay marriage, says he's quitting the Grits to sit as an Independent. ...

In April, he decided to stick with the Liberals after Prime Minister Paul Martin promised expanded debate of the marriage bill. But O'Brien said the "full and fair'' debate he expected has not happened.

His discomfort with the party had also been growing with each revelation of malfeasance from the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal.

It sounds as if O'Brien will be reluctant to support the Liberals if another no-confidence motion gets tabled in Parliament. This brings the Commons back to a 152-all tie, assuming that the Parliamentary factions line up as before. It places even more pressure on Chuck Cadman and David Kilgour now that budget issues have mostly been addressed.

The news today was not all good for the Tories, however. Another expert claims that the Grewal tapes have been edited:

The recordings initially released by Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal were altered, and it is unlikely that the changes in the tapes he made were caused by digital copying, as the Conservatives have stated, concludes a forensic audio expert employed by The Globe and Mail to examine the controversial recordings. ...

Yesterday, Jack Mitchell, a U.S. forensic audio expert who conducted a preliminary review of portions of the originally released recordings, said they had been altered. He said he did not believe the changes occurred in the digital-copying process.

"These tapes have been edited. This is not a maybe. This is not something that's unexplained. This is not, 'Oh, this is odd.' This is a definitive statement. The tapes have been edited," Mr. Mitchell said.

However, Mitchell worked from the audio files given to the Globe & Mail and not the originals, which the RCMP still has. That seems like a curious method for a forensic expert to use when making unequivocal pronouncements. If that seems odd to readers as well, check out Angry's research on Mitchell for even more oddities.

SCOTUS Harshes Everyone's Mellow

The Supreme Court dealt a body blow to medical marijuana advocates this morning by ruling that the federal ban on consumption trumps more liberal laws approved by individual states:

Federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke pot on doctors’ orders, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, concluding that state medical marijuana laws don’t protect users from a federal ban on the drug.

The decision is a stinging defeat for marijuana advocates who had successfully pushed 10 states to allow the drug’s use to treat various illnesses.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the 6-3 decision, said that Congress could change the law to allow medical use of marijuana.

In this case, Stevens argues for judicial restraint and conservatism. The court could easily have declared for state's rights and invalidated the ban enacted by Congress and its agency, the FDA. Instead, he avoided the entire issue of the merits or lack thereof of the medicinal value of weed -- the proper position for the Supreme Court to take.

On the other hand, Sandra Day O'Connor led the trio of opposing judges arguing that states' rights allows for such legislation to supercede federal authority. She also argued that the law overreaches in its authority to keep people from growing their own marijuana in their own homes for their own purposes:

O'Connor said she would have opposed California's medical marijuana law if she was a voter or a legislator. But she said the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use."

However, O'Connor has to then ignore that Congress gave the authority for determining safety, efficacy, and propriety of pharmaceuticals to the FDA, in part to protect American consumers from the quackery of the 19th and early 20th centuries. That amounts to a compelling state interest, and Congress has the right and responsibility to act in that regard. To have SCOTUS strip that authority from Congress would have amounted to judicial activism, this time ironically from the right.

None of this actually decides whether marijuana in its smoked form has medicinal value to the chronically nauseated from chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Perhaps now that its authority has been reaffirmed, Congress will authorize a full and independent study of that question in order to settle the question once and for all.

UPDATE: Come visit my comments, where a couple of people are seriously harshing my mellow -- by pounding me (politely) over my reaction. It's painful but compelling. XRLQ and Brant from SWLiP argue for the prosecution, while I represent myself ... to predictable results.

Kurtz: Did Watergate Spoil Journalism?

Howard Kurtz has an excellent, introspective look at the lessons the Exempt Media should learn from the exposure of Mark Felt as Deep Throat in his column for today's Washington Post. Rather than lionize Felt and wax reminiscent about journalism's biggest gotcha, Kurtz looks at the damage that the glorification of anonymous sourcing has done to his craft:

Newspapermen became cinematic heroes, determined diggers who advanced the cause of truth by meeting shadowy sources in parking garages, and journalism schools were flooded with aspiring sleuths and crusaders.

But the media's reputation since then has sunk like a stone, and one reason is that some in the next generation of reporters pumped up many modest flaps into scandals ending in "gate," sometimes using anonymous sources who turned out to be less than reliable. Journalism became a more confrontational, even prosecutorial business, with some of its practitioners automatically assuming that politicians in the post-Nixon era must be lying, dissembling or covering up.

The disclosure last week that Deep Throat, Bob Woodward's secret Watergate source, was former FBI official Mark Felt provided a needed reminder that sometimes reporters have no other way to ferret out vital information than by promising anonymity. In the war-against-its-enemies atmosphere of the Nixon administration, Felt not only would have lost his job had he gone public about White House skulduggery -- he was threatened with firing just as a suspected leaker -- but might well have been prosecuted for breaking the law.

The revelation also serves as a reminder that sources may have complicated motives for whispering to the press. Felt may have worried about the FBI's integrity but he also may have been resentful, as the bureau's No. 2 official, at being passed over for the top job, and according to Woodward he came to detest the Nixon White House. Inside sources rarely have clean hands.

Three decades later, the use and abuse of unnamed sources is rampant, especially in Washington, and the media all too often protect those with partisan agendas. It's a long road from Felt telling Woodward to "follow the money" to a Bush adviser telling the New York Times that John Kerry "looks French." But such potshots have become routine in daily reporting.

Too much of the reporting and commentary that has surrounded the Felt disclosure has served as an effort to paint Felt as a hero or traitor to the nation. Kurtz gets much closer to the truth in this short treatment by acknowledging Felt's usefulness while noting his selfish reasons for providing it. His contribution to the story has been overblown, first by Hollywood and then by a generation of journalists captivated by the cloak-and-dagger sensationalism of the contact.

While anonynous sourcing may have played a key role in Watergate, it has proven disastrous in the decades since, and Kurtz shows that side with references to Jayson Blair, Janet Cook, and other journalistic scandals. The blame for this does not lie with reporters alone. Editors make the decisions on whether to publish stories, and part of that responsibility is to ensure that articles are properly sourced, whether they are named in the story itself. If reporters can be accused of having fantasies of becoming Woodward and Bernstein, then editors certainly also have Bradlee complexes as well.

Interestingly, no one in the Exempt Media is discussing the case of Todd Foster, the man who claims to have had the Felt scoop three years ago, but walked away from it. The famly had evidence that supported their contention that Felt was Deep Throat, but wanted payment for Foster's story to appear in People Magazine. Neither Foster nor People would pay for the story, but Foster decided that a book deal would be ethical and signed on with HarperCollins and agreed to split the proceeds with the family. However, as Foster reported in the News-Viriginian, once he and his collaborator started interviewing Felt himself, they realized that he no longer had the mental capacity to make the decision to reveal himself -- and they dropped the entire project, including the millions of dollars they would have made from it.

That story sounds like one that the media should pursue if it wants to restore its reputation as principled and objective. Unfortunately, the press is so busy lionizing Felt that they have no room now to report that he's suffering from dementia and can't remember what year it is or even if he really is Deep Throat on a consistent basis. That self-indulgence paints a much more accurate and accusing portrait of journalism in the 21st century, to their great shame.

UPDATE: Perhaps even better is Jay Rosen's evaluation of the press and Watergate in today's Pressthink. Jay, who always has an excellent analysis even if I sometimes disagree with his conclusions, hits the nail on the head today when he talks about the religion of journalism:

Watergate, a sustaining myth, sustains an entire press system, including its thought system. (We might also say national hierarchy. Or priesthood.) "It was more consensual," Schudson says of the scandal. What Nixon and his henchman did wrong is wrong by consensus-- or even acclamation. It's like mom and apple pie in reverse. Therefore what the Washington Post did right during Watergate is right by consensus, or even acclamation. And who doesn't want to be right like that? Who wouldn't want to sustain it?

The myth of Watergate presents the press as a powerful force but also an innocent actor because its only weapon is uncovering truth. One of the reasons I kept running into Watergate in my research is this spectacular production of innocence, which is supposed to serve as a force field against charges of agenda-serving. Of course it doesn't.

Watergate has been treated by journalists as a consensus narrative, with an agreed-upon lesson for all Americans. The Fourth Estate model not only works, it can save us. The press shall know the truth and the truth shall check the powers that be, whether Democrat or Republican. Chasing stories, exposing corruption, giving voice to the downtrodden: that's what we in journalism do, the myth says. We do it for the American people. And they understand because they know from legend--from the movies--how it was when the country was in the dark about Nixon and Watergate.

When I spoke to the Townhall meeting the other day about the New Media, I spoke about this belief system, although not as elegantly as Jay Rosen does here. And a belief system is what it is. When the high priests/priestesses proclaim Truth, the minions are expected to receive it as Wisdom, not fact-check it to death. That explains a lot about Mary Mapes, Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, Chris Cramer, Linda Foley, and to a lesser extent Michael Isikoff. It also shows why turning Watergate into a myth has crippled the American media and made good journalistic practice so hard to find.

After all, what would you rather be: a good gumshoe reporter, or a High Priest?

French Socialists In Disarray Apres Non

The Guardian (UK) reports that French Socialists have expelled former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and several of his allies after he campaigned vigorously for the 'Non' vote in last week's EU debacle:

France's Socialists were in crisis yesterday after Laurent Fabius, the former prime minister, was unceremoniously ejected from the leadership for having broken the party line and championed the victorious no vote in last weekend's referendum on the EU constitution.

Mr Fabius, the Socialists' number two, and four of his chief lieutenants were ousted from the party's 20-strong national secretariat at a stormy six-hour meeting in a Paris hotel one week after 55% of French voters rejected the constitution, triggering a government reshuffle in France and plunging the union into disarray.

"Disarray" may be putting it mildly. Fabius touched a nerve on the French Left when he stumped for Non on the basis that it would force the French to accept a more Anglicized free-market approach to economics. Getting past whether that's true and whether it is inevitable, the French clearly don't want it -- and one would expect the Socialists themselves to clearly oppose it.

However, the party voted with a 59% majority in January to support the proposed constitution, and Fabius did not comply in lockstep with that decision. That's the official word from party leader Francois Hollande, who argued that leadership had to remain united and that Fabius had undermined the "democracy' of the group by publicly remaining true to his conscience.

While Hollande intends on enforcing "democracy" by expelling those who practice it, he might be advised to take care in doing so. As it turns out, a majority of Socialists voted against the EU pact in the election, ironically by the same percentage who supported it in January: 59%. In expelling Fabius, Hollande may wind up creating a schism among French Socialists that will not be easily healed. That will only strengthen Jacques Chirac, whose performance polls show him at rock bottom in the mid-20s at the moment. With the Socialist vote potentially split between Hollande and Fabius, though, Chirac could garner enough support to win re-election in 2007.

The Socialists should be celebrating the defeat of the EU constitution, all things considered, instead of tearing themselves to shreds over it. The party's inability to determine what it represents shows that European socialism has become an empty vessel, a shadow of its former power as history increasingly exposes it for the false economic and political philosophy it is. Unfortunately, the stalwarts of Old Europe will be the last to learn that lesson.

Kuwait Names Two Women To Government Posts

Kuwait recently granted women suffrage, one of the last nations that holds regular elections to do so. Almost immediately, the Kuwaiti government has made good on its efforts, naming two women to government posts ahead of any election:

Kuwait named two women to public office for the first time Sunday, less than a month after parliament passed a historic law granting women the right to vote and run for office.

Fatema Al Sabah, a member of the royal family and an engineer, and Fawzia al-Bahr, also an engineer, were named along with four other newly appointment members to the 16-member municipal council, Kuwait's prime minister told the official Kuwait News Agency. The other 10 members, all men, are elected.

After the suffrage law was amended to insist on the application of shari'a law to womens' votes, no one was quite sure whether the government meant the action as anything more than symbolic. Less than a month later, they have sent a clear message to the conservative Kuwaiti population that women will have a voice in the future of the kingdom. The inclusion of a woman from the royal house makes it clear that the monarchy itself supports womens' suffrage in civil government.

The first election for which women will be eligible to vote will come in 2007. They may have to put up with separate polling booths, and perhaps even separate polling stations, but they will have at least two examples of women in representative government that will inspire others to follow.

Iran Waiting For An Opening?

With the United States holding a WTO membership as a carrot, the Iranians have offered to maintain their delay on uranium enrichment until the end of July, giving the Europeans a few more weeks to reach a deal with them on nuclear non-proliferation:

Iran said it will extend its suspension of uranium enrichment until the end of July to give European negotiators time to prepare a proposal it can accept, but Tehran also warned against wasting the opportunity to strike a deal.

The announcement Sunday followed Iran's agreement last month to review a European Union proposal for a new round of negotiations in the summer. Tehran's decision injects some breathing space into the international crisis over its nuclear program, at least temporarily. ...

Aghamohammadi called on the Europeans to firm up the agreement reached between Iran and the Europeans last November in Paris, which committed Tehran to suspension of enrichment and all related activities while the two sides discuss a pact meant to provide Iran with EU technical and economic aid and other concessions. Since then, the two sides have sparred over the exact terms of the agreement.

Previously, the Iranians had insisted that they would only consider a halt on uranium enrichment as temporary in order to complete a treaty on nuclear use in Iran with Europe. The WTO offer from the US may have softened that stance somewhat, for two reasons. First, the Iranians need that WTO membership in order to avoid tariffs and other costs for trade that put it at considerable disadvantage in the region. Second, the softer approach by the US may have sent a signal that the Bush administration was not going to allow Iran to split the Western alliance.

The White House's change of tone intends to make Europe accountable for Iran in the short run, and Europe understands that its credibility depends of verification of the Iranian nuclear position. Meanwhile, the US intends on focusing its efforts on democratization and mobilizing the growing groundswell of discontent with the mullahcracy in Teheran. As Iran comes ever closer to the tipping point, the Bush administration wants to be sure that the American touch that triggers it is as light as possible.

Afghani Clerics Strip Mullah Omar Of Authority

In the Muslim world, as opposed to Catholocism and some Protestant sects, the lack of a central authority for reference and authentication has made it difficult to declare clerics as radical or extreme. Clerics attract their own followings, and have the authority to make their own proclamations, and even the opposition of a number of other clerics doesn't necessarily negate the actions of the single cleric.

However, when hundreds of clerics band together to make a declaration, it does carry some weight. That's exactly what has happened in Afghanistan, where 600 Muslim clerics announced that Mullah Omar has been stripped of all spiritual authority, with another 400 signatories from other regions:

A crowd of 600 Afghan clerics gathered in front of an historic mosque yesterday to strip the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar of his claim to religious authority, in a ceremony that provided a significant boost to the presidency of Hamid Karzai.

The declaration, signed by 1,000 clerics from across the country, is an endorsement of the US-backed programme of reconciliation with more moderate elements of the Taliban movement that Karzai has been pursuing ahead of the country's first parliamentary elections, due in September.

Symbolically, the ulema shura, or council of clerics, was held at the Blue Mosque in the southern city of Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban movement.

At the same venue in 1996 the Taliban leader held up a cloak said to belong to the Prophet Mohammed, which is kept in a shrine in the mosque. He was proclaimed Amir ul-Mumineen or Leader of Muslims by the same clerical body, one of the few occasions the title has been granted anywhere in the Islamic world in the modern era.

Well, easy come, easy go, I suppose.

Not all of the news had to do with Omar, although that certainly was the highlight for the delighted Hamid Karzai administration. The proclamation explicitly called for obedience to Karzai's administration and said that any edict from previous Emirs, including Omar, were no longer valid. They also proclaimed that drug production and use were forbidden, as well as "sexual films," which appears to limit the market for Cinemax in Afghanistan. More ominously, they also insisted on womens' rights -- within the confines of shari'a law.

Michael Isikoff might want to stay out of Kabul as well. One of the proclamations specifically called for the arrest of all the Newsweek staff responsible for the false report of Gitmo guards desecrating the Qu'ran. Apparently the media push to circle the wagons around Isikoff and Newsweek by screeching about Guantanamo hasn't even fooled the Afghanis. (via Arthur Chrenkoff)

Addendum: I do think this is good news, but it's hard for me to take this too seriously. It seems like these clerics appear a little too eager to please whoever holds power in Afghanistan. If it appears that way to me on the other side of the world, imagine what it feels like to the informed Afghani, whose head has to be spinning. On one day, Omar is the Light of the World according to this council, and nine years later, he's yesterday's news. The Newsweek proclamation looks like the same thing to me.

Still, I'd rather have a thousand clerics proclaiming Omar's vices than his virtues at Friday prayers.

Portrrait Of A Cold, Cruel Man

The Guardian (UK) reports on an interview given by Ludmila Putina that her husband, Vladimir Putin, must have wished he'd never allowed after its publication. Translated from the original Russian version that appeared in the state-owned Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Putina paints a portrait of the Russian strong man as a cold, dominating husband with a cruel sense of humor and little capacity for compassion or compromise:

In September 2002, the Kremlin's first lady laid out his domestic constitution in a new authorised biography of her husband. She said he had two golden rules about women: "A woman must do everything in the home" and "You should not praise a woman otherwise you will spoil her."

The latter rule has apparently forced her to give up one of the key domestic tasks of a Russian women, she added. "He never praises me and that has totally put me off cooking. He is extremely difficult to cook for and will refuse to eat a dish if he does not like the slightest thing in it." She added: "He has put me to the test throughout our life together. I constantly feel that he is watching me and checking that I make the right decisions." The president has reportedly even banned Ludmila from having a credit card, her husband thinking this will give way to "western temptations".

The presidential sense of humour, she claims, is also trying. Putin is renowned for his black jokes - reportedly once telling a boy laid up in hospital with a broken leg after being hit by a car: "That'll teach you to break traffic regulations." She said: "I find it hard to understand dark humour, irony. I like kind, simple humour. I can't say we always have that sort of humour in the family."

Russia has a strong streak of chauvinism in its culture regarding men and women, which explains why these statements might be considered popular for the Gazeta's audience. The previous two rulers, Yeltsin and Gorbachev, had wives considered by Russians to be too assertive for their tastes, especially Raisa Gorbachev. Putin wants to assure people that Ludmila does not secretly run the country, a fear that goes back to the last Tsar, Nicholas II, whose wife Alexandria allowed the mad monk Rasputin to take de facto control while Nicholas went to the front in World War I to take command of the army. For that reason, Ludmila might be playing up the meme just a bit in the interview.

However, given the way that Putin has ruled the country, her revelations appear to be in character for the Russian autocrat. He does not suffer Ludmila's advice on his work or political issues easily, and never acknowledges any influence she may have had on his decisions. Her description leaves readers with an impression of a cold, closed-off man convinced of his own superiority in politics and strategy who has left his wife to handle the home and children completely by herself.

While this may have appeal to the majority of Russians, it also raises some questions about the amount of compromise and collaboration of which Putin is capable. Western leaders attempting to convince this man to adopt a new, more democratic course or to open Russian society to allow freer, less restrictive social policies may be wasting their time. Perhaps, in the end, that message doesn't displease Vladimir, either.

No Wonder The Exempt Media Loves Amnesty International

The Exempt Media's love affair with Amnesty International suddenly become more understandable when AI's executive director, William Schulz, responded to questions about the use of the "gulag" analogy to Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo. When asked to defend its allegation, Schulz said he didn't know that it was accurate, but he also didn't know that it was:

Despite highly publicized charges of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, the head of the Amnesty International USA said on Sunday the group doesn't "know for sure" that the military is running a "gulag."

Executive Director William Schulz said Amnesty, often cited worldwide for documenting human rights abuses, also did not know whether Secretary Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved severe torture methods such as beatings and starvation.

Schulz recently dubbed Rumsfeld an "apparent high-level architect of torture" in asserting he approved interrogation methods that violated international law.

"It would be fascinating to find out. I have no idea," Schulz told "Fox News Sunday."

In other words, Amnesty International's reoprt consists of nothing but conjecture and opinikon, not fact. It's a startling admission of the threshold used by the once highly-regarded watchdog group. They've compiled their report and their accusations based on assumptions. In fact, despite their earlier allegations, Schulz admitted that he has no idea whether the International Red Cross has been given access to all prisoners at Guantanamo, let alone other military detention facilities.

No wonder the American media loves Amnesty International -- they use the same editorial thresholds for publication. Just like Newsweek, AI apparently feels that any rumor that matches the preconceived notion of its publisher merits reporting as fact to its readers.

Wave Of Democratization -- And Bush As Icon -- Reaches Azerbaijan

Another former Soviet republic threatens to join Georgia and Ukraine, with popular demands for democracy and electoral reforms rattling the Azerbaijani authoritarian government. A demonstration of 10,000 in the streets of Baku, on the Caspian Sea, demanded that their parliament enact reforms allowing for free elections to replace the current head of state, who succeeded his father in widely discounted elections two years ago:

About 10,000 protesters chanting "Freedom!" marched across Azerbaijan's capital Saturday, urging the government of this U.S. ally to step down and allow free parliamentary elections this year. Some of them carried portraits of President Bush.

The rally in Baku was the largest opposition demonstration in the former Soviet republic since October 2003, when one person died and nearly 200 were injured in clashes between police and demonstrators protesting vote-rigging in a presidential election.

Tensions have been building in this Caspian Sea nation in the run-up to parliamentary elections set for November. Some observers predict that Azerbaijan could experience a massive uprising similar to those that toppled unpopular governments in three other former Soviet countries -- Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan -- in the past 18 months.

Supporters of several opposition parties chanted "Freedom!" and "Free Elections!" while holding placards with such slogans as "Down with robber government!" Placards with Bush's image included the call, "We want freedom!"

Note especially the iconography, which has been popular throughout the region with democratic activists. Bush has literally become the poster boy for this rising tide of grassroots activism throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia. The power of his words at his last inauguration had been widely discounted by his political opposition and a good part of the American media -- but it has not gone unheeded by those looking for liberty and freedom.

Geopolitically, it might be tough for the administration to go public with support. So far, despite its Muslim foundations, the Azerbaijanis have assisted the US in its war on Islamofascist terror, perhaps out of fear of its southern neighbor, Iran. The current Baku government has also agreed to build a pipeline for exporting oil to the West, a key strategic piece of energy independence from the more radical Islamic states to the south.

However, expect the Bush administration to press Baku on making enough reforms for respectable elections. It may wind up being a win with either faction, and a freely elected democracy bordering the north of Iran will help seal the Iranians' isolation and make it that much harder for them to export their own brand of radicalism and terror.

Frist: Vindication Will Be Mine ... Someday

Bill Frist gets a close look from the New York Times, complete with snarky photo caption and balanced in that people from both sides take their shots at the Senate Majority Leader. The result is that Frist appears somewhat out of touch with the Senate he leads -- not a terribly inaccurate picture, given what we've seen so far this session:

With lawmakers returning from the Memorial Day recess, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, faces a crucial test of whether he can re-establish his authority after a rapid sequence of events that many say diminished his standing and exposed a lack of experience in Congressional intrigue.

Adversaries, independent analysts and even some allies say the Senate leader was wounded by a compromise on judicial nominees achieved last month by a handful of Republicans who bucked him, including Senator John McCain, a potential presidential rival in 2008. The damage to his image was made worse, they say, when Democrats blocked another important White House nominee just a few days after the judicial agreement.

"It is recognized that this gang of seven has weakened him," said Paul M. Weyrich, a veteran conservative activist and Frist supporter, referring to the Republicans who circumvented the majority leader to avert a potentially explosive showdown on prohibiting filibusters against judicial nominees.

As he darted between appearances at a Nascar race and the Harvard Medical School over the Memorial Day recess, Dr. Frist acknowledged the criticism aimed his way in the aftermath of the judicial pact and the filibuster against John R. Bolton, the nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations.

But in an interview, he said he believed his stewardship would be vindicated in the days ahead once he shepherded through a string of legislation and judicial nominees.

The photo of Frist used by the Times came from that NASCAR appearance, which shows Frist waving the green flag. The caption makes reference to the fact that the flag isn't white, a reference to Frist's refusal to surrender.

However, that's not been the experience that the GOP have had with Frist since he took over from Trent Lott, and especially in this session of Congress. Rather than wave the green flag, Frist has too often appeared to wave the caution flag, even when no obstacles have been in the road. His excessive caution has created the political debacle of the current state of judicial confirmations; he allowed the media enough time to paint filibusters as the normal reaction to presidential appointments despite their use once in 214 years for such an occasion.

Frist gets some support in statements from Mike DeWine, who claims that Frist's push on nominations made the Gang of 14 compromise possible -- hardly high praise, considering the immediate filibuster on John Bolton that followed. Others opine that Frist hasn't shown the ability to lead his caucus and instead pinballs between events:

While some Senate Republicans say Dr. Frist should have moved faster on the filibuster issue, senior lawmakers like Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, say Dr. Frist has the confidence of his colleagues and is showing an important attribute of leadership: sticking to his guns despite a setback. ...

"Clearly, McCain bettered him," said Marshall Wittmann, a former aide to Mr. McCain who is now with the Democratic Leadership Council. ...

Democrats say that if Dr. Frist has problems, they are of his own making. They saw his push against the filibuster as part of a calculated effort to deepen his appeal to conservatives in anticipation of a possible White House run and said his uncertain handling of the fight reflected his own unease with the idea.

"His presidential ambitions are pushing him to do things he is uncomfortable with," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

Frist argues that his vindication will come when Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor get their confirmations and he starts getting the legislative agenda through the Senate. But that's hardly vindication; that's simply meeting the standard set by the Seven Dwarves that undercut his leadership. If Frist cannot get up-or-down votes on all judicial nominees that come out of committee, then his vindication will completely elude him. If the Senate cannot come up with some workable plan on Social Security that includes private ownership options for a portion of payments -- an option that Congress already enjoys -- then his vindication will elude him. The GOP did not turn out in record numbers to give Frist a mandate to pork up a highway bill and reform bankruptcy legislation, nor did they contribute in record numbers to Senate campaigns to get 3 out of 16 judicial confirmations Senate floor votes.

Frist says he doesn't define his career in terms of re-election to his post as Senate Majority Leader. The GOP caucus should take him at his word and find someone else who can lead Republicans by keeping their word on priorities.

Why The Euro May Collapse

Charles Moore explains in today's Telegraph why the Euro may soon disappear, as the political union it hoped to represent has been dashed by two consecutive referenda:

In this week of great events in Europe, it was something small that really caught my eye. In an article about the problems of the euro, the German magazine Stern advised readers to check their euro banknotes. The notes issued in Germany, it explained, begin their serial numbers with "X"; those issued in Italy begin with "S". Hold on to the former, was the suggestion, and get rid of the latter while you can.

Stern's X-factor advice was based on the idea that the euro zone might break up. When the euro began in 1999, it was glorious for Italy, Spain, Portugal and (prospectively) for Greece. Their interest rates halved. Boom followed. But those countries had not abolished their inflationary habits when they abolished their currency, and now they had lost their old remedy of devaluation. As a result, their competitiveness is collapsing. Italy's competitiveness against Germany has fallen by a quarter since 2000. Within the system today, all that Italy could do is to deflate, but in the resulting squeeze, revenues would fall, causing the deficit to explode. Real wages would have to be cut to compete with Germany. The politics would be horrible.

An alternative would be for the European Central Bank to inflate from the present two per cent a year to, say, four or five per cent to rescue the Mediterranean spendthrifts. But if that happened, there would be revolt in Germany. That devout believer in sound money only sacrificed her beloved deutschmark and joined the euro to make European finances German, not to make German finances Italian. It is therefore beginning to cross German minds (and other northern European ones, as the Dutch referendum vote showed) that they might be better off outside the currency. Hence the need to scrutinise the banknotes.

First, one has to wonder why Brussels has identifiers on their bills to indicate countries of issuance on the euro. It almost appears as an admission that the difference could create valuation fluctuations between national versions of the euro, an anathema to its entire raison d'etre. However, since they're there, Stern's advice is well taken. Italy and now France have openly talked about abandoning the united currency, and if the euro breaks up, those notes will likely take steeper dives than those of Germany.

I, for one, wouldn't want to hold much in euros from any country at the moment. Moore gives the euro another eighteen months, but given the cracks already showing in its foundations, that survival time frame may be optimistic. If France and Italy, two nations who benefited most from adopting the euro, decide to dump the currency, Germany will want to immediately bring back its solid and dependable deutschmark, regulated by the private Bundesbank. If that happens, the rest of the continent still using the euro will face economic ruination, as the currency will utterly collapse without German backing.