Ante Up For Chelsea: The Live Blog

7:09 pm CT: I arrive and pay my money. We expect 85-90 people, which translates into a fine four-figure start for Chelsea Decker. I found out that the room was donated by the Saturn dealership that employed Charles, and they're picking up the keg as well.

Our table fills fast, with Uncle Ben, Learned Foot, Mitch Berg, and a few civilians (ie, people with lives) joining our table. We all are trying to review the rules, where I eschew them...it only extends the suffering, in my opinion ...

7:29 - Good news! I'm still breaking even! Bad news -- we haven't started yet. If CQ readers want to send a donation to Chelsea's fund, please send a check to:

Diedre Chang
4112 Skylark Lane
Eagan, MN 55122

Please put "Chelsea" in the memo line. I think we'll start playing soon.

7:38 - Uncle Ben and I start talking Sitemeter stats; Learned Foot's eyeballs audibly roll ... I think we need more of that free beer.

7:55 - Social hour is almost over. Sandy joins our table and promptly dumps her drink on the table ... so we move to a free table. The bloggers have already made their reputation here at the Chelsea benefit ...

8:08 - We're just about ready to begin -- and we've already raised $3000 ...

8:12 - The lovely Mrs. Foot wins the first hand ...

8:22 - I win my first hand ... the smallest pot so far...

8:27 - Foot wins the biggest pot so far. He also has a small bladder, or so rumor has it ...

8:45 - Hey, I'm still in this! I won a pretty large pot, which just extends the pain just that much longer. I found out that Learned Foot's real name is Phil Helmuth, by the way -- he lost his driver's license on the last hand to his wife ...

9:00 - 1st break, and I'm still in it, but Mitch is ruling the table at the moment. We're stealing his chips while he gets more beer ...

9:14 - Sandy is first blogger out. Mitch took her out with a two-pair hand...

9:32 - And just like that, the dream is over. Sandy, Lesa (Mrs. Foot), John and I are chased out of the game by a whopping straight. Mitch moves up to the second round, along with Foot and Ben....

9:56 - Learned Foot just got squeezed out by Riverboat Mitch in Round Two. He has words of wisdom for us: "A flush still beats a high straight, even if Mitch doesn't realize it until much later." Sounds like Mitch is backing into success ...

10:17 - Some beginner! Riverboat Mitch makes it to Round 3 ...

10:22 - Another blogreader, Tony, introduces himself. I'm easy to spot. I'm the guy NOT playing poker, sitting by himself, with a computer on his lap. Mitch, on the other hand, just pulled a six-gun and shot someone for dealing off the bottom of the deck. Down, boy, this is for charity! ...

10:31 - Riverboat Mitch is taking a break. His words of wisdom: "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em ... never count your money when you're sitting at the table ..." Somewhere, a hound dog will soon enter into this soliloquy, I just know it ...

10:56 - Mitch made it into the next round -- and he's squared off against a 12-year-old girl. He claims she's palming aces, but we've disarmed Mitch and we believe she's safe -- for the moment ...

11:00 - After the girl mistakenly thought the betting was over, she showed her hand -- and Mitch bet, causing her to fold, even though she had the better hand. Riverboat Mitch stole a pot from a little girl!! The blogosphere erupts!! ...

11:10 - Mitch's strategy of tossing little girls under buses seems to be working ... he makes it to the final round! My son gets bounced out by Mitch as well...

11:43 - Mitch ends his incredible run, finishing 6th overall! Little girls weep all across the Twin Cities, but Mitch looks pretty danged pleased with himself, as he should ...

The Civil War Continues

Hamas has stopped aiming at Israel in its war for control of the Palestinian areas and now set its sights on Fatah, the faction of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. The New York Times reports that Hamas abducted and wounded a key Fatah intelligence operative in Gaza overnight. Fatah, however, may have provoked the fight:

A senior official in the Palestinian intelligence service was kidnapped and shot Thursday night in the Gaza Strip, then dumped in a street in Beit Lahiya with serious wounds, the newspaper Haaretz reported Friday.

The official, Samir al-Jour, is a member of the main Fatah movement. His abduction was another sign of the continuing tension between Fatah and the radical Islamic group Hamas.

Later Thursday, three Hamas officials were abducted in the West Bank in apparent response. A little known group, the Omar bin al-Khattab Brigades, took responsibility for the kidnappings, saying in a statement, "This is a response to Hamas's violations and disregard for law and order and their attacks on security institutions and Palestinian leaders."

Palestinian officials suggested that the Khattab group was a cover for Fatah.

Now we have proxy terrorist groups as stand-ins for the "official" terrorist groups of the Palestinian government, such as the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Hamas attacking Palestinians. In the meantime, Gaza appears to slip further and further into an anarchic mess, much more violent and potentially dangerous in the war on terror than anything in Baghdad. This shows what happens when the world insists on a withdrawal of the only forces capable of keeping peace; we get another Mogadishu.

How long before the world begs Israel, or worse, the UN to march into Gaza for "peacekeeping"? We should veto any such proposal. What we now see is the utterly predictable result of granting statehood to people who clearly lack the resources or the will to manage themselves in a non-violent manner. Let them kill each other for a change rather than innocent victims in Israel and Egypt. They seem to want a civil war in Gaza, and until they choose to forego war for their political ends, we will never see any improvement.

Ante Up For Chelsea: A Final Reminder (And A Live Blog!)

One of my son's friends, Charles Decker, died recently in a traffic accident at the age of 23. Charles left behind a little girl, Chelsea, who will have to grow up without her dad. Charles' friends, including my son David, have arranged for a benefit Texas Hold 'Em tournament tonight at the Clarion Hotel in Bloomington. Clarion has donated the use of one of its ballrooms for the event and will have free beer and snacks for those who enter the tournament. The buy-in is only $20, and all proceeds will go into a trust fund for Chelsea.

I'd like all Twin Cities bloggers to join me next Saturday at 7 pm for the bargain price of $20 to assist Chelsea and Charles's friends. Let's get together for a good cause, show how bad we are at poker -- I've never played Texas Hold 'Em before -- and help a little girl face life without her father with a little bit of a better start. Please RSVP to 651-293-1626 if you can ante up for Chelsea. Maybe several of us can also live-blog the event, and I'll try to get a PayPal link so that those who cannot attend can still pitch in a few dollars to help Chelsea out. (Note: they really need solid numbers on this, so please RSVP if you plan to show up.)

The hotel is at 5151 American Boulevard West and can be reached at 952/830-1300. If you have an opportunity to travel to the Twin Cities, staying at the Clarion would be a good way to show them gratitude for their generosity towards Chelsea and the Decker family.

UPDATE: I just checked with the hotel, and while they don't offer wireless, they think I can still connect to the Internet from the meeting room. I'll start live-blogging the tournament, with my camera, just as soon as I lose out. With my well-known wizardry at poker, that should take me about ... ten minutes or so.

Levees Didn't Overflow, Second Study Concludes

The failure of the levees in New Orleans did not come from the overflowing of Lake Pontchartrain over the tops of the walls, but rather from soil failures under the levees, the Los Angeles Times reports today. This is the second study that refutes the claims made in the days after Hurricane Katrina's destruction that the government should have foreseen the levee failure given the intensity of the storm:

The levee breaches along two major canals that flooded New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina resulted from massive soil failures under concrete storm walls, not from hurricane surges that sent water over the tops of the walls as Army officials initially said, according to teams of investigators who have examined evidence in the last week.

The findings appear to chip away at the simple story that the storm surge was much larger and higher than the walls were designed to handle, though investigators caution that it is too early to blame design or construction. ...

Immediately after the storm, the Army Corps of Engineers thought that a surge from Lake Pontchartrain had moved up drainage canals in the city and overflowed concrete storm walls, eroding foundations and leading to the breaches.

Investigators have found no evidence of such overflow and foundational scouring at the breaches in the London Avenue and 17th Street canals, two main failures behind the central New Orleans flooding. In fact, in one case, water marks are a full 2 1/2 feet below the tops of the walls.

Instead, investigators have found strong evidence that the soil structure was too weak for the pressure of the water, wind and waves.

The blame for the destruction, inasmuch as anyone can blame anyone for a hurricane, would then appear to fall onto the original designers of the levees -- and also create a much bigger problem than before. The first Corps report would have resulted in an extension of the existing levee system, raising the walls higher to contain larger surges than those caused by Level 4 hurricanes. Now we find out that not only would those changes have proven worthless, but would have likely added to the design deficiencies of the soil and the pressure.

This shows the foolishness of making snap judgments about fault in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe. The experts, both locally and at FEMA, had concluded that based on water levels at the levees the city would be safe from a systemic failure and widespread flooding. That resulted in the cheery prognoses offered by Michael Brown, Ray Nagin, and others on the Monday of the levee failures. No one knew that the levees had base design deficiencies, nor could they tell until after the levees failed. That does not let Louisiana or New Orleans off the hook for not properly evacuating the city in accordance to its plans, but it at least shows why the concern dropped after Katrina passed through the area.

The bad news will come wheh the government gets the estimate for completely tearing out the existing levees and replacing them with a system designed to handle a Level 5 hurricane. That will cost billions and will displace a number of New Orleans citizens -- assuming they come back to the Big Easy after Katrina anyway.

Miers Analysis At WaPo Sympathetic, So Far

So far, the analysis of Harriet Miers at the Washington Post appears mostly sympathetic, a marked contrast to the initial work done on John Roberts in the first few weeks of his nomination to the Court. Jo Becker, who wrote some of the more egregious material on Roberts, provides a more nuanced and attractive look at the cipher whose nomination has touched off an internecine war on the Right:

Now President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, Miers served one term on the Dallas City Council, from 1989 to 1991, a period that offers a rare view of her political philosophy and style. Her campaign, votes and public stances defy easy characterization.

She would meet with abortion rights advocates and gay rights activists but tell them firmly she did not agree with them. She backed a redistricting plan aimed at electing more minorities even though conservatives called it a quota system. She voted to raise taxes two years in a row, disagreeing with some colleagues who favored deeper budget cuts.

"That's the thing about Harriet -- she did things she didn't have to do and that, if you were only looking out for yourself, you wouldn't do," said John Wiley Price, the Democratic county commissioner whose arrest sparked the protest. "She was gutsy."

At the same time, Miers's supporters and detractors say the woman who campaigned on a promise to bring "good manners and decorum" to the rancorous City Council was never comfortable with the more rough-and-tumble aspects of politics.

A loner who liked to say that she made her decisions based on "the facts," Miers brought a lawyer's intellect and courtroom demeanor to a venue where ego-massaging, compromise and vote trading were more common. She left elected office of her own choosing after one term, lamenting to a local reporter that "decisions are more political" than an effort to reach the "right result."

Becker obviously wants to communicate that Miers has an independent streak and will follow her own mind on issues, but that may not sound like terrific news to conservatives looking for a more substantial reason to trust George Bush. In fact, though, the further one reads into Becker's review of her Dallas city council tenure, the more nervous they will become. Miers made a habit of switching sides on issues, as Becker notes:

She also had a tendency to switch stances on critical issues, a trait supporters said showed her thoughtfulness but that critics labeled indecision.

"We spent about 1,200 hours together and had in excess of 6,000 agenda items, and I never knew where Harriet was going to be on any of those items until she cast her vote," former council colleague Jim Buerger said. "I wouldn't consider her a liberal, a moderate or a conservative, and I can't honestly think of any cause she championed."

That sounds like she might wind up being much more of an O'Connor than a Rehnquist and wouldn't move the Court in any direction except more vacillation -- an outcome sure to displease the hard Right. Granted, Miers' tenure on the Council ended fourteen years ago, but it also provides the majority of the public evidence of Miers' approach to law and social issues. It almost looks as if the Post wants to reassure Democrats about Miers rather than Republicans, an interesting dynamic supported by the two editorial pieces in the Post that offer cautious support for Miers and tell naysayers from both parties to calm down.

The lead editorial castigates Republican conservatives for their "unfair ... snap judgements and demeaning rhetoric." Colbert King writes an excellent column reminding readers that the Supreme Court does not have to be the last word on anything if the people elect courageous representatives willing to work hard to pass legislation negating the Court's more egregious excesses. He also plays the "enemy of my enemy" game to consider supporting Miers.

What can we discern from all of this comity? First, Miers will undoubtedly get her confirmation. Bush will not withdraw Miers; it simply isn't in his character to back down from a fight, a quality which we on the Right normally admire. The mainstream media has realized that a Harriet Miers will be the most palatable candidate they'll ever see from Bush and will not allow her defeat to force them to deal with a less-pleasant possibility. If it becomes necessary to do so, the Senate Democrats will push her nomination through to victory before giving Bush an excuse to send Janice Rogers Brown as a replacement.

Does that mean Miers will be a disaster for the Right? Possibly, although I still have my doubts about that. She may be less formidable than some have painted her, but she still pretty much goes her own way. And for the past ten years, that has led her to stick very close to Bush and the center-right, passing up major income opportunities to work in close proximity to a politician and President whose judicial philosophies she knows well.

As I have said before, we need to acknowledge that this nomination may well have been a mistake, but like the proverbial bell, it can't be unrung. Forcing a showdown with a President who has stared down Putin, Chirac, Saddam Hussein, the UN, and Tom Daschle wastes time and political capital, especially when he holds all the cards. He will get Miers on the bench, and probably on a voice vote on the floor of the Senate. The bickering should cease and we should look Colbert King's advice to elect a Senate with a stronger will to fight for better Court candidates.

Message Received, Moonbat

I remember a conversation I had a few years ago with my neighbor's son. He and his father had an argument about the way he dressed and he asked me my opinion. He had recently adopted a pseudo-gangster chic that ran as a fad with suburban kids for a while, and I asked him whether he meant to support gangbanging when he walked out the door. The Kid then accused me of superficialism, and that his dress didn't say anything about what kind of person he was.

"Then you tell me," I said, "why you dress like that."

"I want to express myself," he replied. "This is who I am."

"I understand that," I said, "but if you want to send a message by the clothes you wear, you can't blame us if we see the message and judge you for supporting it. If you're expressing yourself by wearing gangster chic, then you either support gangbanging or you're a phony."

The Kid stopped arguing at that point -- he's actually pretty sharp and just hadn't thought his argument through to its conclusion. Unfortunately, some adults appear incapable of doing so no matter what age they attain (in chronological terms). A 32-year-old woman wants to sue Southwest Airlines for ejecting her from a flight after other passengers objected to an obscene T-shirt she wore on the flight:

Lorrie Heasley, 32, boarded a Southwest Airlines flight in Los Angeles wearing a T-shirt with a design including the images of President George W Bush, Dick Cheney, the Vice President, and Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, above an obscene variation on the title of the hit comedy film Meet the Fockers.

When the plane made a scheduled stop in Reno, Nevada, passengers joining the flight complained to cabin crew. Ms Heasley, who was accompanied by her husband Ron, was asked to wear her top inside out, but she refused and was ejected. ...

Ms Heasley, a lumber trader from Washington state, said she wore the top as a joke for her Democrat-voting parents who were waiting to collect her from the airport in Portland, Oregon.

She said she planned to file a civil rights complaint against the airline.

I doubt the complaint will get anywhere. The airplane does have rules that allow them to deny service to anyone dressed in a lewd or obscene manner, and someone deliberately wearing a shirt with the word "F***ers" rather prominently displayed should not find herself surprised to receive undue attention. The likeliest outcome will be a refund from Southwest Airlines and an invitation to try other carriers in the future.

Heasley claims that this ejection violated her civil rights, which is clearly balderdash. Southwest Airlines, as a private enterprise, has the right to set terms and conditions for their services as long as those rules do not unfairly apply to certain classes of people. If Ms. Heasley wants to claim that a ban on obscenities prominently displayed on clothing unfairly discriminates against the tasteless and rude, she may have a point, but those are not protected classes .. at least not yet.

In fact, the rational Left should find the popularity of this shirt appalling. It made quite a number of appearances during our state fair this year -- where children and their parents could judge the tenor of political debate coming from the supposed grown-ups in the so-called Loyal Opposition. It surpasses even the ladylike Teresa Heinz Kerry's distribution of the "Asses of Evil" buttons as campaign trinkets for Democratic staffers.

Doesn't this level of emotional and intellectual immaturity ever embarrass liberals? Even a little? None I see make the connection that The Kid understood after two minutes of debate. If the Left wears obscenities and immaturity almost literally on its sleeves, why would they expect anyone to take them seriously?

UN Might Get Around To The Kosovo Quagmire ... Real Soon

The London Telegraph reports this morning that UN chief Kofi Annan has taken a break from his normal duties promoting nepotism and dodging investigators to review the status of Kosovo, the region that has existed in a UN-protectorate limbo for over six years now. The status of the province has remained suspended in mystery while UN forces have occupied it since 1999 without lifting a finger to determine its final political resolution. Now Annan says that the UN might sponsor negotiations on Kosovo's final status ... real soon:

Talks on the future of Kosovo, including the prospect of independence for the former province of Serbia, are to begin in the near future, despite Nato's failure fully to pacify the region.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, said yesterday that he would ask the Security Council to authorise negotiations "very soon".

He is to appoint a special negotiator - rumoured to be the former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, who brokered the end of the 1999 Kosovo war.

The UN took over Kosovo after NATO kicked the Serbs out in 1999 as part of the containment and eventual toppling of Slobodan Milosevic for his policies of "ethnic cleansing" against various minorities in what was formerly Yugoslavia. Despite the Left's insistence that the UN has the only mandate to enforce international agreements and stop genocide, Kosovo has long provided an example of why the UN has no capability of doing the job. It went into the ethnically Albanian province with little understanding of the politics involved, no willingness to return fire -- NATO had to take over the military aspects of occupation -- and no political plan for victory. We've seen nothing but an endless occupation and actions only designed to support the status quo; no one at the UN even had an idea whether Kosovo should remain part of the country whose forces it kicked out, or should instead get independence.

Contrast that with the so-called "planless" Iraq War staged by the Coalition in 2003. Both actions removed genocidal nutcases from power, but the Coalition did so directly and quickly. Within a year, sovereignty was returned to the Iraqi people. Elections for a new national assembly successfully took place seven months afterwards, and now we have a constitutional plebescite and a second round of national elections taking place in the next three months.

It took the Coalition less than three years to destroy Saddam Hussein's government and grip on power, establish a democracy, transform the population from a fear-gripped set of victims to a courageous electorate, start the rebuilding of a security force answerable to civilian control, and hold two national elections.

In over six years in a much-less volatile Kosovo, what has the UN done to resolve its status? Absolutely nothing.

But maybe they'll hold a meeting to talk about it.

Very soon.

How Many Bali Bombings Before Indonesia Takes It Seriously?

Bali has found itself an al-Qaeda terrorist target four times over the past three years, thanks to its majority Hindu population and its proximity to Australia and its tourists. However, it also appears that Jemaah Islamiyah gets a boost from an Indonesian government that turns a blind eye to its terrorism against its own people:

In Bali, one of Southeast Asia's most-wanted fugitives slips away hours before a police raid.

In central Indonesia, an Islamic school started by the reputed spiritual leader of the region's most feared militant group operates undisturbed by authorities. The group he allegedly inspires has not been outlawed.

Philippines authorities, meanwhile, suspect members of the same group — al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah — could be planning to reopen training camps for Islamic fighters and are busy fund-raising in the Middle East for further terror attacks.

The Oct. 1 bombings in Bali — the second on the resort island in three years — raises a question: Has the world's most populous Muslim nation done enough to fight Southeast Asia's leading terrorist group?

Obviously, the answer is no. The authorities still don't take terrorism seriously, as evidenced by their sloe resonses in taking on al-Qaeda. Over 250 people died in these attacks, and yet the masterminds run around free. No one has shut down their madrassas, nor has the Indonesian goverment done anything to bolster security in the tourist areas.

How many more people have to die before the Indonesians round up real AQ terrorists instead of the usual suspects? Either they want to rescue their tourist industry and their Hindu brethren, or they have too much sympathy for the terrorists to crack down on them. Would-be visitors to Bali should demand an answer from the government before puttng their money into a vacation that may leave them targets for the next oh-so-brave suicide bombers.

Dionne Notes Chickens Coming Home To Roost

Earlier, I warned about the approach taken by some conservatives to rely so publicly on the evangelicalism of Harriet Miers could create a political environment that we will later rue legitimizing. E.J. Dionne notices my post and picks up on the contrariness of Republican objections to their righteous anger at Democratic criticisms of appointees based on their "deeply held personal beliefs" and their push to note Miers' dedication to her religion now:

Shortly after Bush named John Roberts to the Supreme Court, a few Democrats, including Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), suggested that the nominee might reasonably be questioned about the impact of his religious faith on his decisions as a justice.

Durbin had his head taken off. "We have no religious tests for public office in this country," thundered Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), insisting that any inquiry about a potential judge's religious views was "offensive." Fidelis, a conservative Catholic group, declared that "Roberts' religious faith and how he lives that faith as an individual has no bearing and no place in the confirmation process."

But now that Harriet Miers, Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, is in trouble with conservatives, her religious faith and how she lives that faith are becoming central to the case being made for her by the administration and its supporters. Miers has almost no public record. Don't worry, the administration's allies are telling their friends on the right, she's an evangelical Christian.

When members of the Democratic caucus used religion, disguising it as they did, to filibuster people like John Roberts and Janice Rogers Brown for their staunch Catholocism, everyone knew it -- and we Republicans rightly called them out for conducting religious tests for office. Well, religious tests work both ways. One cannot eat their cake and have it too on questions of faith as prerequisites for office. Either it's off limits and no one uses religious affiliations to deny or promote candidates, or we start having open wars over the nature and truth of religion on every candidate sent for Senatorial confirmation.

Do we really want to use Congress for this kind of debate? No; it will take an already divisive process and start the kind of debilitating social stress that the Founders wanted to avoid in Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution. Congress does not exist to pursue the True Religion or the Meaning of Creation; it exists to provide rules of law that the Executive enforces and that the Judiciary considers when ruling on cases brought before it.

If Miers' evangelicalism remains the top selling point of her nomination, then I submit that the White House has already lost this battle. They need to stop promoting religion as a legitimate point of consideration on Miers' curriculum vitae, or else conservative nominations will face nothing less than an Inquisition on every confirmation -- an Inquisition endorsed by the foolishness of short-sighted conservatives.

Extremism Will Not Win Elections

Two leading Democratic analysts conclude that the Howard Dean approach to national politics will prove damaging to Democrats over the long term, and that a return to centrism provides the only realistic way for the opposition to compete for power. The two former Clinton aides claim that celebrating the base may mean more funding, but it alienates the mass numbers from the center needed to defeat Republicans:

Since Kerry's defeat, some Democrats have urged that the party adopt a political strategy more like one pursued by Bush and his senior adviser, Karl Rove -- which emphasized robust turnout of the party base rather than relentless, Clinton-style tending to "swing voters."

But Galston and Kamarck, both of whom served in the Clinton White House, said there are simply not enough left-leaning voters to make this a workable strategy. In one of their more potentially controversial findings, the authors argue that the rising numbers and influence of well-educated, socially liberal voters in the Democratic Party are pulling the party further from most Americans.

On defense and social issues, "liberals espouse views diverging not only from those of other Democrats, but from Americans as a whole. To the extent that liberals now constitute both the largest bloc within the Democratic coalition and the public face of the party, Democratic candidates for national office will be running uphill."

In other words, people like Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer, who lecture the Bush administration and its judicial nominees for being out of the "mainstream" have themselves abandoned mainstream thought some time ago. Instead, they rush to fill the void with radical ideas while attempting to tell their constituents that their opinions don't count towards "mainstream" thought. Hillary at least understands the strategy of appealing to the center, although her movements towards those positions remain obligatory, inconsistent, and half-hearted.

This hypocritical approach also gets critized by Galston and Kamarck, who warn against using rhetorical legalese to confound voters into buying a heavily-leveraged "centrist" position. They also reveal that the GOP base comprises a significantly larger segment of the population, which is why Rove's strategy worked so well in 2000 and 2004. A motivated GOP base easily outstrips a motivated Democratic base -- and therefore the Democrats need to beat the Republicans for the center.

In other words, the DNC picked the worst possible national figure for its chair that they possibly could select. The creation of Mad How and his International ANSWER minions as the Democratic Poster Boy may go down as one of the most inept blunders made by a major party. His vile smears and reckless rhetoric repels the very segment the Democrats sorely need to return to power, and every day he has the DNC as his pulpit, he makes it that much harder for Democrats to win elections.

This report did not make the front page of the Post. One wonders if the DNC will ever bother to read it.

Al-Qaeda Strategic Planning Found By Coalition

An important document from al-Qaeda's Number Two leader and strategic thinker, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to Iraqi minion and terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has given the coalition important insight into the planning and long-range thinking of the terrorists, in and out of Iraq. The letter makes clear that AQ wants much more than the Americans to leave Iraq, and that they see our withdrawal as a necessary condition for their ultimate success, not an end in itself:

The United States has obtained a letter from Osama bin Laden's deputy to the leader of Iraq's insurgency that outlines a long-term strategic vision for a global jihad, with the next phase of the war to be taken into Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, according to U.S. officials. ...

The letter of instructions and requests outlines a four-stage plan, according to officials: First, expel American forces from Iraq. Second, establish a caliphate over as much of Iraq as possible. Third, extend the jihad to neighboring countries, with specific reference to Egypt and the Levant -- a term that describes Syria and Lebanon. And finally, war against Israel. ...

But bin Laden's deputy also purportedly makes clear that the war would not end with an American withdrawal and that anything other than religious rule in Iraq would be dangerous.

"And it is that the Mujaheddin must not have their mission end with the expulsion of the Americans from Iraq, and then lay down their weapons, and silence the fighting zeal. We will return to having the secularists and traitors holding sway over us," the letter reportedly says.

The Washington Post reports more on the scolding that Zawahiri gives Zarqawi for the brutality of his attacks, especially beheading hostages and releasing the videos. Robin Wright hears from her Coalition sources that this message did not get through to Zarqawi, evidenced by his use of that tactic even as recently as the last couple of weeks. Zawahiri doesn't want further alienation from the Muslims in the area, who so far appear to approve more of a democracy than a re-established Caliphate.

It also asks for money for other AQ operations. Given the stretched nature of the Zarqawi network in Iraq and the difficulties they have in fighting the Americans and growing Iraqi forces, that request appears rather extraordinary. Has the Coalition been able to damage AQ's operational capability through the little-publicized financial war George Bush pledged to wage? Given the central role Zarqawi's success would have to play in any overall execution of Zawahiri's plan, one would expect AQ to support Zarqawi and not the other way around.

This does show that President Bush had it right in his speech yesterday; AQ and its associates don't fight to push the Americans from Southwest Asia. They terrorize people in the hope of re-establishing a dictatorial and absolute Caliph that will run all of the former Arabic lands, including Israel. Pulling our troops out will only bring them that much closer to success.

UPDATE: Cleaned up typos; thanks to CQ reader Brian B.

Did Earle Break The Same Campaign Finance Law?

The Washington Times reports that Ronnie Earle may have broken the same laws on which he based the indictments of Tom DeLay and accepted campaign contributions from corporations. Stephen Dinan looked into Earle's campaign records after DeLay leveled the accusation yesterday and found evidence that Earle took money that violated state law, including union contributions:

Rep. Tom DeLay said District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who is prosecuting him for trying to involve corporate money in Texas politics, has taken such contributions himself.

"It's real interesting he has this crusade against corporate funds. He took corporate funds, and he's taken union funds, for his own re-election. That's against the law," Mr. DeLay told The Washington Times yesterday.

A review of Mr. Earle's campaign-finance filings in Texas shows that he has received contributions from the AFL-CIO, including a $250 donation on Aug. 29, 2000. He also has received contributions listed on the disclosure forms only as coming from the name of an incorporated entity, often a law firm.

Mr. Earle has said repeatedly that state law bars corporate and union contributions. Attempts to reach Mr. Earle yesterday for comment, including a phone message left on his assistant's voice mail detailing Mr. DeLay's charge, were unsuccessful.

Uh-oh. Earle's crusade against DeLay looks less and less like the lone gunslinger taking on government corruption than it resembles a grandstanding practitioner of it slowly unraveling under national scrutiny. Earle first got an indictment that failed to allege any criminal act, then miraculously got a second indictment from a second grand jury for money-laundering ... except that it was a third grand jury, who coughed up an indictment on it first day of existence, after the second one refused to issue any indictments at all.

While the "everyone does it" defense may not play well as a legal defense, it does matter in the political arena. Having a highly partisan DA go after a member of the opposition for illegal campaign contributions while he took them himself to get elected will not win the Democrats much support; in fact, it makes the whole exercise look venal and corrupt, using fake indictments to reverse the results of a fair election. That analysis only firms up when people consider the shotgun approach that the Democrats have taken against DeLay, attacking him for nepotism, travel paperwork, and any issue that comes to mind -- and then discovering every single time that their own members conduct themselves in the same manner or worse.

The Democrats will find that DeLay season has just about concluded, but the hunting of Earle will continue. Texans will want to know how much of Earle's efforts really came from his own initiative, or whether Earle's grand-jury shopping for indictments came from a coordinated national campaign to smear DeLay. That might result in a conspiracy indictment for Earle, one which could have more basis in law than the pathetic indictment he first tried to pass off.

Can We Remember Who Our Friends Are?

I disagree with Hugh Hewitt to a large degree on the Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court. I base my support for Miers on a wish to avoid a destructive party schism that will threaten our hold on one or both houses of Congress next year, a loss which we cannot afford during the war on terror. Realistically speaking, Miers will probably be a disappointment but is unlikely to be another Souter or even a Kennedy. Her defeat does not outweigh coughing up Congress.

Disagreement, however, only goes so far:

"Shill," "toady," "kool-aid drinker," and --yes-- W's "Joe Conason" --the unkindest cut of all-- have all been attributed to me by colleagues on the center-right. Actually, there are even worse descriptions, but I maintain a PG blog. Fine, all around. Let fly, friends, you owe me nothing except your candid opinions. But you might owe the president more.

I disagree with Hugh here as well. Many of us owe Hugh a lot more than our candid opinions, and we damned well know it. He doesn't demand an oath of obedience for the helping hand he's extended to so many of us in the blogosphere, nor should we feel obliged to give one, but at least we should credit Hugh for the integrity he's so often demonstrated. Hugh doesn't shill or toady for anyone.

I think Hugh has unwarranted faith in the purported brilliance of the Miers nomination, and his unrelentingly positive analysis keeps many from resigning themselves to the reality that we will have to live with what essentially is a blunder and a wasted opportunity. But I don't doubt for a moment that the analysis is his honest opinion and represents his true beliefs. Integrity and honesty are among Hugh's enduring qualities, which his friends should remember.

Hugh may well turn out to be dead right, dead wrong, or somewhere in between on Miers, as may I or my friends Michelle Malkin or The Anchoress. However we may disagree, we will remain friends because in the end we trust each other to give our honest opinions and credit each other with having our own minds on issues.

After the Miers kerfuffle has long gone, we will still have each other, people. Let's try to remember that and not burn all our bridges. Let's remember who our friends are.

Canadian Bloggers Are Not 'Pussies'

Siri Agrell, writing for the Canadian site Maisonneuve, wonders why the Canadian blogosphere has not uncovered a major scandal or exposed political shenanigans in the national government. Agrell notes the long track record of American bloggers in uncovering journalistic malpractice and governmental stupidity, resulting in high-profile career damage to luminaries like Dan Rather, Trent Lott, Eason Jordan, and others. Agrell suggests that Canadian bloggers are "pussies", and uses me as an example:

US political bloggers have appeared on the cover of the New York Times magazine and were accredited to cover the 2004 Republican and Democratic conventions. But in Canada, blogs remain the domain of pundits and policy wonks, an outlet for little more than chest-thumping, crystal-ball gazing, slander and self-promotion.

Only one major Canadian political story broken by bloggers has made its way through to the mainstream media and into our consciousness: the leaking of Jean Brault's testimony to the Gomery Inquiry. The leak revealed a new dimension of the sponsorship scandal and showed us just how powerful an independent online voice could be. Unfortunately, in this case, the voice was American—that of Edward Morrissey, aka Captain Ed, who influenced the course of Canadian politics from his Minnesota-based Captain's Quarters blog. ...

But the fact remains that, in a year when American bloggers led major stories on both sides of the border and Canadian politics reached new levels of intrigue and animosity, political blogs in this country made little—if any—impact. McMillan places part of the blame on a disinterested public and a media that largely ignores the sites as a source of information or ideas.

While I appreciate the recognition from Agrell, I have to disagree with the thrust of the headline. The Canadian blogosphere may not have the saturation of its American cousin, but that does take time to develop. Political wars don't play as much of a role in Canadian lives as it does with Americans, and plenty of both will argue that likely indicates better mental health north of the border.

More than that, though, the article tends to downplay courageous Canadian bloggers. Kate MacMillan actually played a role in my publication of the Gomery testimony, which she appears in this article too modest to acknowledge; she wanted the story to come out and sacrificed the scoop to make sure it did. Stephen Janke defied the publication ban and linked me during the Gomery testimony, as did Neale News, despite the threat of prosecution for doing so -- showing a bit more bravery than most of the Canadian press at the time. John at Newsbeat1 has already built a following doing the kind of reporting that Agrell wants, and he does so with some risk, if readers pay attention to the nature of his prolific links.

Canadian bloggers work hard to position themselves for the inevitable day when their fellow countrymen decide that their diversity-challenged media have not served them well and begin to demand the answers to questions Americans learned to ask after Watergate. If they're not quite reaching the traffic levels of American blogs now, they will soon enough. I've met them and know their mettle -- and they will be ready when the time comes. (h/t: Canadian reader Tim H.)

Does Bush Have The GOP Senate Caucus On Miers?

George Bush and the White House yesterday told their critics -- when they weren't calling them sexists and elitists -- that the only votes that matter now belong to the 100 Senators that have to confirm or reject the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Sounding confident in their standing among that constituency, the administraion then sent emissaries to soothe the waters with their followers, to disastrous results.

It also appears that they may find more of the same in the Senate, despite their sanguinity about Miers' confirmation. Key Republicans have gone on record claiming that Miers leaves them underwhelmed as a candidate. Some openly question the "trust me" approach of the White House:

"There are a lot more people - men, women and minorities - that are more qualified, in my opinion, by their experience than she is," Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, told MSNBC on Wednesday. "Right now, I'm not satisfied with what I know. I'm not comfortable with the nomination, so we'll just have to work through the process."

Senator George Allen, Republican of Virginia, considered a potential presidential candidate, said that "people who I have a great deal of admiration for" had said they were "disappointed or deflated" by the choice.

"I want to be assured that she is not going to be another Souter," Mr. Allen said, referring to Justice David H. Souter, a George H. W. Bush appointee who has upheld abortion rights and other liberal precedents. "I understand the president knows her well, but I don't."

George Allen has his sights on a presidential run in 2008 and has collected a fair amount of attention from movement conservatives. He may find himself forced into a position where he has to oppose Miers, which would open the door for Lott and others to do the same. Bush might wind up having to rely on Democrats to save Miers on the basis of being the friendliest candidate that they're likely to see. Even John Thune, who just got to keep his air force base, expressed his dismay with Miers' selection, although he issued a caveat against an intraparty war he sees coming.

Thune, of course, hits the nail on the head. It's a war we can't afford at this time, which is one of the reasons why I have decided not to oppose Miers' confirmation. However, if war comes to the GOP, we will all know who started it -- and how Bush let a historic opportunity to bolster conservative scholarship on the court slip through his fingers while doing so.

The White House Spy Scandal That Maybe Wasn't

Last night, ABC News broke a story that a spy had been discovered inside the White House, working for Dick Cheney's staff -- a headline that wound up at Drudge and rounded the blogosphere. ABC said that the arrest of Leandro Aragoncillo created the "first case of espionage in the White House in modern history."

Not so fast.

The New York Times provides important clarification this morning, noting that Aragoncillo did his spying after his security detail at the White House, and that no evidence exists (yet) of any such activity during his tenure as a security staffer for Al Gore and Dick Cheney:

The F.B.I. agent, Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, of Woodbury, N.J., an American citizen who was born in the Philippines, was charged Sept. 12 with passing classified information to government officials in Manila.

The charges filed against Mr. Aragoncillo relate only to classified information that officials say he took from F.B.I. computers after joining the agency in July 2004. ...

ABC News reported Wednesday night that Mr. Aragoncillo was accused of stealing classified material from White House computers at the vice president's office, including information damaging to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

On Wednesday, government officials said they had no corroboration that any material had been taken from the vice president's office, but they acknowledged that investigators had been focusing on Mr. Aragoncillo's work at the White House.

Once the FBI and CIA identify and detain an espionage suspect, a thorough investigation of his or her previous access takes place. This case only looks unusual because of his assignment at the White House under two administrations. That doesn't make it a "White House espionage case". Aldrich Ames may have been to the White House on a number of occasions as well, but he didn't do his spying from there, either.

Aragoncillo may well have been an active spy for a decade or more, but that isn't want the charges filed thus far claim, and the FBI and CIA specifically say that they haven't discovered any evidence yet to show otherwise. One wonders why ABC seems so anxious to tie Aragoncillo to the White House. Or, perhaps, it doesn't seem that mysterious at all.

Radioblogger and Michelle Malkin have more.

Grand Jury Shopping And Intimidation = Texas-Style Justice?

More about Ronnie Earle's legal practices as District Attorney for Travis County has come to light after garnering a snap indictment for money laundering against Rep. Tom DeLay. It turns out that Earle convened a third grand jury to add more charges -- because an unannounced second grand jury refused to indict DeLay at all, provoking Earle's ire:

A prosecutor tried to persuade a grand jury that Rep. Tom DeLay tacitly approved illegal use of campaign money and became angry when jurors decided against an indictment, according to two sources directly familiar with the proceeding.

"The mood was unpleasant," one source said Wednesday, describing prosecutor Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle's reaction. ...

Little was previously known about the grand jury that refused to indict DeLay, who has maintained his innocence and accused Earle — a Democrat — of bringing the prosecution to politically damage him. Earle has denied the allegation and pointed out he has indicted far more Democrats than Republicans.

One source said the sole evidence Earle presented to the grand jury that declined to indict was a DeLay interview with the prosecutor in August. DeLay reportedly said he was generally aware of activities of his associates.

The source said Earle tried to convince the jurors that if DeLay "didn't say, 'Stop it,' he gave his tacit approval."

Now we have a conspiracy charge based on a failure to say "Stop it", three tries at grand-jury indictments, and a bit of intimidation tossed in on top. This case against DeLay looks more and more like a bill of attainder against Earle, one that should result in sanctions on his ability to practice law in Texas rather than anything that DeLay should have to answer in criminal court.

How many other grand juries refused to indict DeLay on this "evidence"? How many others has Earle empaneled over the last few years, only to come back with nothing for his efforts? How much taxpayer money has gone down the Travis County drain for Earle's personal crusade against Tom DeLay?

Gasoline On The Fire

As if the eruption of war among conservatives had not gotten bad enough, the White House sent Ed Gillespie out to settle tempers down yesterday by inviting activists to a private meeting. Instead of assuaging their fears, he insulted them by calling them elitists and sexists, touching off a new round of recriminations about an administration that has clearly lost touch with its base:

A day after Bush publicly beseeched skeptical supporters to trust his judgment on Miers, a succession of prominent conservative leaders told his representatives that they did not. Over the course of several hours of sometimes testy exchanges, the dissenters complained that Miers was an unknown quantity with a thin résumé and that her selection -- Bush called her "the best person I could find" -- was a betrayal of years of struggle to move the court to the right.

At one point in the first of the two off-the-record sessions, according to several people in the room, White House adviser Ed Gillespie suggested that some of the unease about Miers "has a whiff of sexism and a whiff of elitism." Irate participants erupted and demanded that he take it back. Gillespie later said he did not mean to accuse anyone in the room but "was talking more broadly" about criticism of Miers.

Has Gillespie ever made such a stupid statement in his life? Perhaps he might have a point about elitism, at least in terms of the criticism of Miers' scholastic record. However, no one would have brought up her choice of law schools if they could find any other interesting qualifications in her background that give any indication that she makes a remarkable candidate for the highest court in the land, let alone the "most highly qualified" candidate that the White House insists she is.

But "sexism" hardly plays into this when the critics of the decision practically begged to see Janice Rogers Brown go up against the Judiciary Committee in prime time. The same people who Gillespie insulted pushed for Priscilla Owen to get confirmed and not thrown under the bus like Henry Saad in the Senate compromise. Names with long track records of conservative jurisprudence like Edith Hollan Jones got left by the wayside while President Bush selected the person who, not coincidentally, ran his candidate search committee.

If Ed Gillespie thinks that makes me a sexist, then Gillespie has spent too much time drinking the MoveOn Kool-Aid. This response to the base qualifies as easily the stupidest, most ill-considered, and least prepared White House campaign yet seen. Has Bush declared war on the GOP? Has his staff decided to send him down in flames, a political version of Wotan and Valhalla? It looks that way from here.

For those who think that the Miers nomination shows some secretly brilliant strategem, this should provide a wake-up call. The nomination itself may work out passably well in the end, but it clearly came from an arrogance that no one on the right would question Bush's decision -- and the woefully inept response from the White House, accusing its heretofore loyal foot soldiers of sexism for daring to question Bush's judgment, demonstrates a complete lack of strategic thinking at all.

Able Danger Foxtrot VII: The Zaid Interview

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to talk at length with Mark Zaid, the attorney for Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, about the status of the Judiciary Committee hearings and other questions regarding the Able Danger story. Mark and I spoke for about an hour, and his outlook on the runaround he and Shaffer have received about talking with Congress forms the basis of my new column at the Daily Standard, "The Able Danger Foxtrot Continues":

"We're presumably waiting for them to reschedule," Zaid said. "Officially, the Defense Department and the DIA are taking the position--at least with me--that Shaffer is not allowed to testify." That gag order clearly has allowed the momentum of the story to slow in the last few weeks. When asked about the gag order's origin, Shaffer's attorney cannot tell for certain who ordered it. "These guys are talking out of both sides of their mouths," he replied when asked to identify the agency responsible for blocking the testimony. "The first time around, when the hearing on the 21st was scheduled to happen," he explained, "the Defense Department was calling the shots, and DIA was continually relaying messages from DIA to me."

That seems to have changed since the cancellation of the first Judiciary hearing. After Zaid informed the DIA that Shaffer had invitations from other Congressional committees to deliver unclassified briefings, the DIA took charge of the clearance issue--and placed hurdle after hurdle in front of the career officer and his attorney, preventing them from sharing Able Danger's details with the legislators. "The DIA is calling the shots . .
. First, I had Tony call that [a request for permission] in himself," Zaid said, "and they refused to act on that. Then I submitted it to Congressional Affairs, and they refused to act on that. They say I'm not specific enough."

"I said that House Judiciary wants to meet with him. Congressman Davis wants to meet with him. The House Committee on Government Reform wants to meet with him," Zaid continued. "Somehow, it's not specific enough because I didn't list the individual staff members." Zaid wonders why the DIA wants to know about the names of each staff member that may or may not be present during the presentation of an unclassified briefing. "They don't want him meeting with certain staff members that might be hostile to them? Well, sorry, that's not the way it works."

Zaid tends to think that this reflects incompetence rather than a sophisticated attempt to keep testimony about Able Danger from the public. It sounds a bit more suspicious to me, however, especially when one considers which committees have not asked for a briefing on the program -- a fact which CQ readers can discover in the column itself.

I will post an entire transcript of the interview later in the week when I get more time. Zaid and I discussed numerous details of the case, including the Atta timeline and other issues that Zaid clarifies during the conversation. In the meantime, if people want to see Shaffer and the other AD team members tell us how they identified the AQ cells a year before the 9/11 attacks and no one seemed to notice it, contact the Senators and Representatives involved to get Zaid some help in getting the DIA and DoD to start cooperating.

Will Religion Provide The Hinge For Miers?

For a group that has repeatedly argued that the religious practice of judicial nominees has no bearing on their confirmation, conservatives suddenly have discovered a lot of interest in the evangelical outlook of Harriet Miers. The Washington Post devotes a front-page article to the topic in their profile of the new Supreme Court nominee, and discover that Miers still resists easy categorization:

Hecht and other confidants of Miers all pledge that if the Senate confirms her nomination to the Supreme Court, her judicial values will be guided by the law and the Constitution. But they say her personal values have been shaped by her abiding faith in Jesus, and by her membership in the massive red-brick Valley View Christian Church, where she was baptized as an adult, served on the missions committee and taught religious classes. At Valley View, pastors preach that abortion is murder, that the Bible is the literal word of God and that homosexuality is a sin -- although they also preach that God loves everybody.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino declined to comment on Hecht's recollection yesterday but said President Bush did not ask Miers her personal views on abortion or any other issue that may come before the court. "A nominee who shares the president's approach of judicial restraint would not allow personal views to affect his or her rulings based on the law," Perino said.

Some religious conservatives have expressed deep dissatisfaction with the Miers nomination, grumbling that she has never taken public stands on hot-button social issues. But her friends point to Valley View as evidence that she is cut from conservative cloth. They say she's not a "holy roller" who flaunts her religion on her sleeve but she lives her faith as a born-again Christian. ...

Even in Dallas, home of groups such as the Texas Eagle Forum and the Republican National Coalition for Life, some religious conservatives say Miers, 60, has demonstrated an insufficient commitment to family values. They cited a questionnaire she filled out for a gay rights group in 1989 as a candidate for Dallas City Council, indicating that gay people should have the same civil rights as straight people and that the city should fund AIDS education and services. After her election, she appointed an openly gay lawyer to an influential city board.

"For goodness' sake, why elevate AIDS over cancer? She shouldn't have filled out that questionnaire at all," said Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum. "President Bush is asking us to have faith in things unseen. We only have that kind of faith in God."

For my part, I would much rather rely on a firm body of Constitutional scholarship or judicial opinions than church attendance for faith in this candidate. The push by more enthusiastic Miers supporters to consider her religious outlook smacks of a bit of hypocrisy. After all, we argued the exact opposite when it came to John Roberts and William Pryor when they appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for their appointments. We derided Chuck Schumer and his references to "deeply held personal beliefs". Conservatives claimed that using religion as a reason for rejection violated the Constitution and any notion of religious freedom. Does that really change if we base our support on the same grounds?

We need to put an end to this line of inquiry about Miers. If this is all we get in terms of evidence on which to support her candidacy, then the White House and the Miers cheerleaders need to acknowledge their error. Otherwise, we will hand the Schumers all the ammunition they need to keep evangelicals and Catholics off the Supreme Court for the next generation. Either come up with more substantial and appropriate evidence for supporting her nomination, preferably some exceptional scholarship or casework, or withdraw her nomination.

More On The Rosenberg Ring And The Vigilance Required For Security

The New York Sun has a book review that sheds more light on the case of Julius Rosenberg and his participation in Soviet spy rings. Ronald Radosh reviews Engineering Communism, a look at the escape of two Rosenberg recruits from the US and how they helped transform the Soviet Union into a military powerhouse -- using American technology:

It has taken almost half a century, but Steven Usdin, in "Engineering Communism" (Yale University Press, 329 pages, $40), has finally told the story of the two men recruited by Julius Rosenberg to be Soviet spies and how they evaded the FBI and escaped to carry on their work on behalf of the Soviet state. Barr and Sarant rose to the pinnacle of power in the Soviet establishment and managed the building of the postwar modern Soviet military machine and microelectronics industry.

Mr. Usdin's greatest accomplishment is to clear up remaining gaps in the story of the Rosenberg espionage network. The Rosenbergs' defenders have long claimed that whatever the couple did, it was for genuine anti-fascist motives and that they only were concerned with helping an American ally. Mr. Usdin puts that argument to rest. He emphasizes that Rosenberg was recruited as a Soviet spy before June 1941 - i.e., during the years of the Nazi-Soviet Pact - and his primary motive was that he saw himself "as a partisan fighting behind enemy lines ... on behalf of Soviet Communism." He and his recruits wanted to "do anything they could to help the Soviet cause - before, during, and after the war against Hitler." Barr, Sarant, and Rosenberg were Soviet patriots above all else.

The book clearly details the importance of the military information the network stole for Stalin. They passed on the 12,000-page blueprints for the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, the first American jet produced in large quantities and the workhorse of the Air Force in the Korean War. The detailed knowledge helped the Soviets build the MIG-15, whose superiority shocked the U.S. military in Korea. Barr and Sarant gave the KGB information on every project they worked on, including airborne radars for nighttime navigation and bombing and other new radar technology. One of these, an exact copy of the American device, was used in both Korea and Vietnam to direct artillery fire against American planes. "Rosenberg's band of amateur spies," Mr. Usdin writes, "turned over detailed information on a wide range of technologies and weapon systems that hastened the Red Army's march to Berlin, jumpstarted its postwar development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and later helped communist troops in North Korea fight the American military to a standoff."

Since the case of the Rosenbergs usually gets treated as true-belief dogma by their defenders on the Left, who ignore even the data from the Soviets showing their involvement, I suspect this will change few of those minds. For the rest of us, this book might make a fascinating read and a warning about allowing our technology to escape to potential enemies. That warning should have been heeded long before now, especially in regards to mainland China. Our long debate over the nature of the Rosenberg perfidy clouded that issue and made it more difficult to remain vigilant against such thefts.

Iraq Reverses Controversial Rule Change

The Iraqi National Assembly has reversed itself after heavy UN criticism and US pressure forced it to reconsider an electoral rule change that almost precipitated another Sunni boycott. The parliament earlier passed a law that changed the threshold for rejection of the proposed constitution from two-thirds of all votes to two-thirds of all voters, a bar so high that its attainment would be impossible under almost any circumstances:

After a brief debate and with only about half of its 275 members present, the assembly voted 119-28 to restore the original voting rules for the referendum, which will take place Oct. 15. Washington hopes a "yes" vote in the referendum will unite Iraq's disparate factions and erode support for the country's bloody insurgency. ...

The original rules, now restored, mean that Sunnis can veto the constitution by getting a two-thirds "no" vote in three provinces, even if the charter wins majority approval nationwide. Sunni Arabs are dominant in four of the 18 provinces.

On Sunday, Iraq's Shiite- and Kurdish-controlled parliament effectively closed that loophole with their rule change. The legislature decided that a simple majority of those who cast votes means the constitution's victory — but that two-thirds of registered voters must cast "no" ballots in three provinces to defeat it.

That interpretation had raised the bar to a level almost impossible to meet. In a province of 1 million registered voters, for example, 660,000 would have had to vote "no" — even if that many didn't even come to the polls.

That "loophole", as the AP describes it, exists in every democracy. Without it, governments could simply call plebescites and then decree that any absence of a vote counted as support for their position -- and then take action to keep people from showing up at the polling stations. A 30% turnout would transform into a 70% mandate for a government position, a ludicrous proposition but one attempted by the Shi'a and the Kurds, who really should know better.

This provided a rare occasion for the UN and the US to band together out of mutual interest and not just political necessity. In order for the Iraqi constitution to achieve any kind of legitimacy, it has to get accepted by the Iraqis in a manner which lends authenticity to their favorable reaction. That means giving them an achievable manner in which to reject the pact. Requiring two-thirds of the people to vote "no" in at least one-quarter of the provinces does that, but the rule change would have rigged the election.

No matter how desirable the outcome, the process matters more. If the Iraqis get democracy, they cannot get it through fraud, or they won't really have it at all. The National Assembly did the right thing in reconsidering their previous decision, and the US and UN acted correctly in pressing them to revisit it.

Kuwait Weighs Its Stance Towards Israel

Long one of the hard-line nations against Israel despite their American ties, Kuwait has served as a bastion of Arabic thought for decades. They housed Yasser Arafat and thousands of PLO activists during the group's heyday in the 70s and early 80s, when the entire movement went on the run. Now, however, the unilateral Gaza withdrawal has chnaged the calculations of the region, and Kuwait is no exception, the New York Times reports today:

Kuwaiti newspapers in recent days have floated the idea that the country could take steps to reduce hostility toward Israel as a means of helping the Palestinians, prompting a quiet debate about Kuwait's decades-old strategy of isolating Israel.

The discussion breaks long-held taboos and brushes at an emotionally explosive subject for Kuwaitis, who had long considered themselves among the standard-bearers for the Palestinian cause. But experts emphasize that it remains no more than a discussion at this point.

"After a long time, we have finally decided to leave the Palestinian cause to Palestinians, because it is they who are really concerned with this issue," Ahmed al-Jarallah, editor in chief of the English-language Arab Times, wrote in an editorial on Sept. 22.

In order to prove that Arabs are seeking peace, he contended, the Arab world must no longer use Palestinians as a tool of its policies. Referring to recent decisions by Bahrain, Qatar and Tunisia to ease their policies toward Israel, he said, "We Arabs have also reached a unanimous agreement to make peace with Israel as our strategic choice, before conducting negotiations with that country."

This change has taken a long time to take root in the country's conservative nature. It started with the first Gulf War, not just for the US's rescue of their nation, but also the forbearance of Israel from retaliation for Saddam's scud missiles. That refusal to answer the genuine act of war allowed the other Arabic countries to stand down. The Palestinian decision to stab the Kuwaitis in the back and throw in with Saddam opened their eyes to the nature of that conflict as well. It didn't cause the Kuwaitis to dump their cause entirely, but they now see it as a political conflict for open resolution, instead of the pan-Arabist terms in which they have traditionally viewed it before.

Rumors about lifting a trade embargo seem premature. The government wants it; for one thing, it cannot get favorable trading terms with the US while it remains in place. The more reactionary National Assembly would probably block, for now, any attempt to lift the embargo despite other Arab nations' direct negotiations with Israel on trade. However, the existence of the debate itself does show the progress towards multifactional democracy in Kuwait and the general failure of pan-Arabism. That might stick in the craw of pan-Islamists as well, even though Kuwait has hardly promoted that particular cause.

It appears that Ariel Sharon may have shown how much Israel gained by unilaterally forgoing Gaza, diplomatically and also fiscally, as it finally begins to gather trading partners in the region and sink the decades-long embargo on their production. His action not only made his military situation easier but also may result in the further isolation of the Palestinians, a group of people who operated under the delusion that the Arabists actually cared about their plight. Sharon, it seems, knew what he was doing.

US To 'Ally': Please Stop Teaching People To Hate Us

The Saudis have come under fire repeatedly since 9/11 for their sponsorship of radical Wahhabbism and incitement of violent jihad in their madrassas at home while selling themselves as dedicated anti-terrorists abroad. It turns out that they have been selling more than that here in the US, according to the New York Sun, and the US government has finally spoken publicly to embarrass the Saudis into changing course:

The American government is demanding that Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate material to American mosques, as the State Department pressed Saudi officials for answers last week and as the Senate later this month plans to investigate the propagation of radical Wahhabism on American shores.

The flurry of activity comes months after a report from the Center for Religious Freedom discovered that dozens of mosques in major cities across the country, including New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, were distributing documents, bearing the seal of the government of Saudi Arabia, that incite Muslims to acts of violence and promote hatred of Jews and Christians.

A Washington-based group that is part of the human rights organization Freedom House, the Center for Religious Freedom also found during its yearlong study that the Saudi-produced materials describe democracy and America as un-Islamic. They instruct recent Muslim immigrants to consider Americans as enemies and the materials urge new arrivals to use their time here as preparation for jihad. The documents also promote the version of Islam officially embraced by Saudi government and several of the September 11, 2001, hijackers, Wahhabism, as the only authentic Islam.

The Saudis have done this for some time; the CRF noted this activity in January of this year and produced a detailed report on the activity at that time. The Saudis spread this kind of propaganda everywhere it goes, although one would think that after 9/11, they might have had the good taste to forego it here, especially considering the importance of maintaining a friendly relationship with one of the countries that makes the House of Saud the richest family in the world.

Not so. The material itself aims straight at the heart of the multiculturalism that allows its dissemination. It calls on Muslims within the US to reject our laws and civil society, and condemns democracy as un-Islamic, for example. It urges them to consider themselves, as Muslims in the US, as soldiers "behind enemy lines" -- a strange concept for an ostensible ally to push with its sympathizers. It advocates violence against those Muslims who convert out of the faith, imams who preach tolerance, and those who have sex outside of marriage.

These materials do not bear the imprint of a couple of wackos within the massive and unwieldy House of Saud, either. The publishers include the Saudi Air Force, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and the Cultural Attache of the Saudi Embassy in DC.

The Bush administration has quietly tried to get the Saudis to stop disseminating this material at all, but especially within the US. The Saudis have apparently promised to do so, but have continued anyway. The issue came to a head when Karen Hughes, traveling across the Middle East on an outreach mission for the President, mentioned the closed-door efforts to the press. Arlen Specter also wants to hold a Senate Judiciary Commitee hearing this month on the ongoing problem.

All of this signals that the Bush administration has given up on reforming the Saudis and will settle for embarrassing them instead. The First Amendment does not require us to tolerate foreign governments from sending violent propaganda and identifying us as enemies to their followers. Instead of holding hands with King Abdullah the next time they meet, perhaps Bush might want to slap them instead.

How To Tell When A Nomination Has Hit Trouble

One of the first indications Howard Kurtz had that the Harriet Miers nomination would have trouble came from the White House itself, which scheduled the announcement of the pick at 8 am on a Monday. Kurtz says he doesn't understand why the Bush administration didn't copy its rollout of the John Roberts nomination:

An hour after Bush nominated Harriet Miers at the deeply strange hour of 8 a.m. eastern, I realized the nomination had problems.

Not on the left, but on the right. ...

By the way, after a prime-time rollout for John Roberts, why would Bush have announced Miers on television at 8, which is 5 a.m. on the West Coast? Was the thinking to have clips of her dominate the cable/evening news cycle all day before today's papers could weigh in? Her schoolmarm persona has got to be a plus--she just doesn't look threatening. The cable networks soon moved on to weather reports, hurricane cleanup, etc. Everyone knew so little about Miers that the commentators soon ran out of things to say.

The White House has a perfectly good explanation for that change -- they knew that the Democrats would not immediately attack Miers. Reid and Schumer had already mentioned the White House counsel as a likely pick for a low-resistance confirmation, and therefore Bush's staff didn't think avoiding the press cycle would give them any advantage. With Roberts, people will recall that the late announcement effectively delayed the newspapers from extensive commentary for 24 hours or more, creating a gap which the Bush staff used to define Roberts directly.

The early-morning announcement told me that the White House had no concerns about the media acceptance of its nominee. My e-mail, however, told me that they knew it would inflame the conservative base.

I wound up deleting most of the GOP talking points e-mail I received on Monday, but I wish I'd kept it at least to count the messages. In fact, I learned of the nomination when the first e-mail hit my Inbox about five minutes after the first "official" leak that morning, confirming the AP report. At least two dozen others would follow, most of them pure boilerplate from the GOP's initial release. In the afternoon, a new wave of e-mails broke across my bow, this time round-ups of the positive comments from around the political world about the nomination of Harriet Miers.

Harry Reid got quoted as high as third on most of those, which should have set off red flags at GOP headquarters with whomever sent the e-mails out. Hello!, I wanted to shout. Harry Reid isn't exactly high up on our list of credible voices.

The GOP knew it had a problem as soon as it got this nomination, and it still knows it. Harriet Miers has a strong background as a groundbreaking attorney in Texas and a longterm aide to the President. Inasmuch as a nomination to the Supreme Court has no prerequisites other than Presidential approval, she cannot be described as unqualified. However, pretending that she has the highest qualifications for this position insults the intelligence of the people who have consistently supported George Bush, especially those who did so relying on his oft-stated demand for only the best-qualified nominees to this lifetime appointment which has the power to shape so much of our lives.

That being said, I plan on supporting Miers' confirmation to the Supreme Court, barring any revelation of malfeasance or incompetence.

I got a laugh from Michelle Malkin, who read my posts on this subject earlier today and pronounced me between Ill and Chill. She's right (as she so often is) -- I'm actually both. I share Michelle's disappointment and bitterness that despite handing Bush a damned-near bulletproof Senate majority in 2004, he decided to nominate his second stealth candidate instead of a proven "movement" conservative. With the Democrats forced to defend their filibuster for a potential John Paul Stevens replacement later in Bush's term, they could not have long opposed a J. Michael Luttig or Michael McConnell, or if a woman was wanted, an Edith Hollan Jones. If running a law firm as managing partner made Harriet Miers a thoroughly qualified candidate, then Bush had thousands from which to pick -- and I daresay some of those might have shown more Constitutional law energy and experience than Miers.

In the end, though, we owe Bush the same consideration we demand from the Democrats -- a recognition that the President picks the nominee based, most times, on his view of the country's best interests. He won election from more than just the right-wing bloggers. I don't truly believe that Miers will turn into David Souter; I think her personal views will make her at worst another O'Connor.

Some ask me to join in bombarding Senators to vote her down. To what purpose? Bush will never withdraw her from consideration, and the splintering among the base will only serve to weaken the Bush Predidency. That, unfortunately, gives us three years of lame-duck representation and probably will cost us the chance to make good on our electoral advantages in the 2006 Senate races. If the Democrats have to rescue Miers, they will -- if only to ensure that Bush doesn't throw them a Luttig or a McConnell as a punishment for having rejected Miers.

Our voices have been heard by the GOP, which has gone into overdrive to get us to buy the song and dance they've offered for two days on Miers. She may turn out well on the bench, but we only get opportunities a couple of times in a generation to put a true and tested conservative scholar on the Supreme Court, and the Bush Administration blithely ignored one here. That doesn't make Miers a bad pick, but certainly a disappointment.

Now, though, enough is enough. We've made our point. It's time to move on and remember that we have other priorities at stake, and we need a center-right President to even have a shot at getting them accomplished. We need a Senate that has the leadership to get nominees through the process without damaging them or ourselves. Setting a match to all that we have accomplished in three electoral cycles just to protest a single nomination makes as much sense as lecturing us that Harriet Miers had better qualifications than the thousands of other managing partners in law firms around this country, the constitutional scholars who have spent their time studying the issues that Miers will be tasked with solving, or the judges who have performed that work at state and federal appellate levels for years.

The choice has already been made, by the man we elected to make it. We have demanded deference to presidential prerogative from the Democrats for the past five years on judicial nominations, and now it's our turn to demonstrate that we know what that means.

UPDATE: Be sure to read Joe Gandelman's roundup of reactions to the Miers nomination, day 2. As always, Joe does an excellent job of gauging the temperature of the blogosphere.

Ante Up For Chelsea: A Twin Cities Blog Challenge

One of my son's friends, Charles Decker, died recently in a traffic accident at the age of 23. Charles left behind a little girl, Chelsea, who will have to grow up without her dad. Charles' friends, including my son David, have arranged for a benefit Texas Hold 'Em tournament on October 8th at the Clarion Hotel in Bloomington. Clarion has donated the use of one of its ballrooms for the event and will have free beer and snacks for those who enter the tournament. The buy-in is only $20, and all proceeds will go into a trust fund for Chelsea.

I'd like all Twin Cities bloggers to join me next Saturday at 7 pm for the bargain price of $20 to assist Chelsea and Charles's friends. Let's get together for a good cause, show how bad we are at poker -- I've never played Texas Hold 'Em before -- and help a little girl face life without her father with a little bit of a better start. Please RSVP to 651-293-1626 if you can ante up for Chelsea. Maybe several of us can also live-blog the event, and I'll try to get a PayPal link so that those who cannot attend can still pitch in a few dollars to help Chelsea out. (Note: they really need solid numbers on this, so please RSVP if you plan to show up.)

The hotel is at 5151 American Boulevard West and can be reached at 952/830-1300. If you have an opportunity to travel to the Twin Cities, staying at the Clarion would be a good way to show them gratitude for their generosity towards Chelsea and the Decker family.

BUMP: To top.

Cohen To Democrats: Think Or Shaddap

It's not often that the Democrats lose Richard Cohen, one of the Washington Post's op-ed writers. It usually happens in any week with two Tuesdays, but otherwise it takes a blatantly bad move on their part to raise his ire. Remarkably and to his credit, Cohen castigates Democrats over two issues that they widely see as great openings for themselves in reversing their political fortunes -- Tom DeLay's indictments and the mostly ill-informed criticisms of Bill Bennett. Cohen chides the Democrats for not only forgetting their manners but also their good sense in trying to make political hay out of either:

That was especially the case last week when I started reading what Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, had to say about Tom DeLay, her Republican opposite. I fully expected boilerplate, something about innocent until proved guilty. But Pelosi crossed me up. DeLay, as it turned out, was guilty until proved innocent.

"The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom DeLay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people," Pelosi said -- apparently forgetting to add the boilerplate about the American system of justice. If she had those thoughts, they're not on her Web site and not mentioned anywhere. Instead, the reference to a Republican "culture of corruption" shows that when it comes to a punctilious regard for the legal process, in this instance the Democrats ain't got no culture at all.

That only provides the warm-up for Cohen. After giving a brief but accurate synopsis of Bill Bennett's remarks on the air, he slams Democrats for deliberately misinterpreting Bennett and even hauls out the M-word to describe them:

Actually, it is Reid and the others who should apologize to Bennett. They were condemning and attempting to silence a public intellectual for a reference to a theory. It was not a proposal and not a recommendation -- nothing more than a possible explanation. But the Democrats preferred to pander to an audience that either had heard Bennett's remarks out of context, or merely thought that any time conservatives talk about race, they are being racist. The Democrats' obligation as politicians, as public officials, to see that we all hear the widest and richest diversity of views was suspended in favor of partisan cheap shots. (The spineless White House also refused to defend Bennett.) Because I came of age in the McCarthy era, I have always thought of the Democratic Party as more protective of free speech and unpopular thought than the Republican Party. The GOP was the party of Joe McCarthy, William Jenner and other witch-hunters. Now, though, it is the Democrats who use the pieties of race, ethnicity and gender to stifle debate and smother thought, pretty much what anti-intellectual intellectuals did to Larry Summers, the president of Harvard University, when he had the effrontery to ask some unorthodox questions about gender and mathematical aptitude. He was quickly instructed on how to think.

Cohen's surprise seems a bit strange. After all, the political correctness movement hardly came from conservative thought, and that has stifled free speech (especially regarding race) for over thirty years. Conservatives don't impose speech codes on college campuses, and they don't come up with new names for medical conditions such as blindness (visually challenged?) to assuage sensitive souls every decade. However, reading Cohen gives hope that even liberals indoctrinated in PC still see its end result and can rail against it when the Road to Damascus moment comes. Kudos to Cohen for recognizing it.

Schroeder Fading From Office -- Slowly

In what may soon be known as The Long Good-Bye, Gerhard Schroeder finally and publicly acknowledged that his reign as Chancellor has all but ended, after backroom manueverings have failed to vault him over Angela Merkel. The CDU/CSU leader who took the conservative union to a disappointing plurality will shortly become the first female German chancellor, barring a last-minute reprieve by political parties hardly fond of Schroeder:

In the latest twist in the post-election political tap dance, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder told his Social Democrat party he would not stand in the way of it forming a government, even if it meant he would not be leading his country. His comments, which appeared to pave the way for his resignation, represented a U-turn after his assertion on election night two weeks ago that only he could lead a stable government. ...

Mr Schröder yesterday placed his political future in the hands of SDP party members negotiating a grand coalition with Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats.

"It is not about me," said Mr Schröder. "It is about the leadership position of the SPD. I do not want to stand in the way of the continuation of the reform process I have started or the creation of a stable government.''

Some have floated a compromise that would have Schroeder continue as Chancellor for two years, followed by two years of Merkel. If someone wanted to gin up certain gridlock and failure, they could hardly design worse. Two years gives little time for any serious reform, only patchwork pandering that would take Merkel's two years to undo. The arrangement guarantees two two-year terms of lame ducks and dooms the Germans to the status quo until the next election. It looks remarkably like the arrangement Gerald Ford tried pushing onto Ronald Reagan when he offered Ford the VP slot in 1980 before giving it to George HW Bush.

The SPD wants to believe it still has a majority, but must eventually come to terms with its minority, second-place finish. That no-confidence motion from the German voters meant something significant -- they want a change at the top. The sooner the SPD understands that and quits trying to manipulate Rube Goldberg solutions to desperately hang onto the reigns of power, the sooner they can start working to restore voter confidence in their leadership. Schroeder quit listening to the voters and suffered the consequences, and now the SPD wants to try the hair of the dog that bit them as a hangover remedy.

The Second Indictment: Second Verse Stinks Worse Than The First

The grudge match between Ronnie Earle and Tom DeLay went from blatantly political to surreal yesterday after Earle managed to get an indictment within hours of empaneling a grand jury that had eluded him for months with a previous panel. After DeLay's attorney Dick De Guerin filed an expected motion for an expected dismissaal of the indictment Earle issued, one that lacked any mention of lawbreaking on DeLay's part, Earle's sudden ability to add money laundering to the charges raised eyebrows throughout the legal world:

The new indictment was brought on the first day of deliberations by a newly empaneled grand jury in Austin. The grand jury that brought the original conspiracy charges against Mr. DeLay, and which had been investigating the lawmaker for months, was disbanded last week.

Without an explanation from the prosecutors, local criminal law specialists seemed perplexed by Mr. Earle's actions, saying they may reflect an effort by the prosecutor to ensure that some charge sticks to Mr. DeLay even if the conspiracy indictment is dimissed.

George E. Dix, a law professor at the University of Texas and a specialist in criminal procedures, speculated that prosecutors "saw a potential problem" with the conspiracy counts "and didn't want to hassle over it, so they went with a legal theory on money laundering that wouldn't present the same problems." He said if that was the case, it could be embarrassing to Mr. Earle because "it is a little awkward to have to change a theory before your horse is out of the gate." ...

Within hours, Mr. Earle responded with the new money-laundering indictment, brought before a grand jury that was in its first hours of operation. Mr. DeGuerin said in a telephone interview that the new grand jury could not have understood what it was approving: "These are 12 people who are newly sworn in, and just getting them oriented takes them all day."

Earle, in other words, appears to have abused the grand jury system to get an indictment that his previous panel denied him, and rightfully so. As has been pointed out numerous times, if the Republicans laundered money through the transactions Earle uses as evidence, then the Democrats did exactly the same thing -- and yet Earle, who raised over $100,000 for Democrats last May talking about this case, has done nothing to pursue them for either conspiracy or money-laundering:

At stake in 2002 was control of the Texas legislature, which was to redraw congressional district lines. Corporate contributions to legislative candidates are illegal in Texas. The DeLay aides stand accused of violating that prohibition, along with eight companies like Sears Roebuck that provided the funds. The corporate money, however, never went to the candidates. Instead, it went to a much larger fund for state elections controlled by the Republican National Committee in Washington. That committee made contributions to Texas legislative candidates, constituting what Earle now charges is "money laundering."

The only problem is that similar transactions are conducted by both parties in many states, including Texas. In fact, on October 31, 2002, the Texas Democratic Party sent the Democratic National Committee (DNC) $75,000, and on the same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $75,000. On July 19, 2001, the Texas Democratic Party sent the DNC $50,000 and, again on the same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $60,000. On June 8, 2001, the Texas Democratic Party sent the DNC $50,000. That very same day, the DNC sent the Texas Democratic Party $60,000.

District attorneys represent all of the community and as officers of the court have strict responsibilities to enforce the law equally, without bias or prejudice. Their actions can have far-reaching consequences as they have access to fairly one-sided legal mechanisms that can cause great havoc in the lives of citizens. For that reason, most states require DAs to hold to a high standard of personal conduct in their role as the legal representative of The People.

The quick issuance of this additional indictment shows that Earle not only has focused on DeLay for strictly personal and political reasons -- fixated might be a better word -- but that he fully understands that his original indictment had no chance of being upheld. He betrayed the trust invested in him as an officer of the court and used those mechanisms to push his personal, political goals. Not only should the state of Texas start an investigation into Earle's activities in abusing his office, but the state Bar should begin questioning his standing to remain an attorney at all.

The Liberal Editorial Triumvirate On Miers: Stealth Or Legacy?

The Big Three liberal dailies -- the LA Times, NY Times, and Washington Post -- all issue similar verdicts on the Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court in this morning's editorial pages. While the East Coast papers seem more optimistic about the potential for Miers, the LA Times sees little for which to cheer except her gender. And if George Bush hoped to get a pass on a big political fight at the Judiciary Committee, it won't come with the blessing of the Big Three.

The LA Times echoes the disappointment of many conservatives when first told of the Miers nomination:

This pattern of relying on advisors he knows and trusts was also on display with the export of several White House confidants, including Condoleezza Rice, Margaret Spellings and Alberto Gonzales, to various federal departments after Bush's reelection.

Extending the pattern to the Supreme Court, a separate branch of government, is more problematic. Is being a Bush crony Miers' chief qualification for serving on the Supreme Court?

The president's desire to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with another female justice is welcome, and Miers is undoubtedly an accomplished lawyer. But she and her White House patron will have to make the case in coming weeks that she is more than just that, because Americans want truly exceptional jurists to serve on the highest court, not merely smart loyalists to the president.

The Gray Lady, on the other hand, sees more daylight than darkness in the choice. The editorial refers to the "odd routes" taken by some of the best Supreme Court justices to the bench, and expresses hope that Miers' work in the ABA and corporate law will moderate any conservative impulses she has -- one of the worries of the conservative base's concerns. They note that the efforts of Senators Reid, Schumer, and other senior Democrats to moderate nominees may have paid off with Miers, but once again wants to get Miers on record committing to policy support as a prerequisite to confirmation:

The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Senator Charles Schumer of New York and other Senate Democrats made it clear that an extremist nominee would face a tough confirmation battle, and they may have helped convince Mr. Bush not to nominate a judge or law professor with a long record of opposing privacy rights, civil rights and other freedoms. But choosing Ms. Miers, a member of his team who was also his own personal lawyer, is still very much in character with the president's tendency to reward familiarity and loyalty over independence and a reputation for excellence.

The American people are certainly entitled to know a lot more about Ms. Miers. As a non-judge who has largely operated behind the scenes, she does not have a lengthy record of judicial opinions, law review articles and public comments. While this page complained about the lack of information available about John Roberts, the new chief justice was a veritable font of background records compared with this new nominee.

This administration likes to argue that Ruth Bader Ginsburg declined to say much about her views when she was nominated. But she had been a federal appeals court judge for more than a decade, and her approach to judging was well known. The Senate needs to ask Ms. Miers directly where she stands on important legal issues, and it should not confirm her unless she makes clear her commitment to well-settled rights that Americans take for granted.

Again we see the theme of the previous rules not applying to the new candidate that we expected no matter whom the President nominated, but I suspect that many conservatives might feel similarly with Miers. The Washington Post also calls for strict questioning of Miers once in front of the committee, but perhaps comes closest in ferreting out the true reason why Bush selected Miers in the first place -- one we may have missed yesterday:

IN REPLACING Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, President Bush could have opted for ideological confrontation and an automatic confirmation battle. His nomination of Harriet Miers, his White House counsel, may save the country from that ugly outcome. Ms. Miers, like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., is not known as an ideologue or a cultural warrior. A corporate lawyer, she served as president of the State Bar of Texas and was active in the American Bar Association, an organization of which many conservatives are suspicious. In her bar activities, she pushed for greater legal representation for the poor. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) suggested that Mr. Bush consider someone like Ms. Miers. Mr. Bush's decision, particularly in light of the heat he is now taking from the right, seems like a significant gesture of conciliation.

That's the good news. It also should be said that Ms. Miers's background is not insubstantial: She has managed a major law firm and been a prominent corporate litigator; she served on the Texas Lottery Commission and the Dallas City Council. Her combination of bar activity and legal practice calls to mind that of the late Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. There's something to be said for a diversity of legal experience on the court; not every justice has to be a former federal appellate judge and constitutional scholar.

And yet, Ms. Miers is not the most evidently qualified nominee available to the president -- far from it. Her clearest distinction is her service and loyalty to Mr. Bush. She has served on his White House staff from the inception of his administration; she was on his transition team when he became governor of Texas; she has done personal legal work for him as well. She and Mr. Bush have a long and close relationship -- and this is an administration that puts an enormous premium on political loyalty.

Of the three papers, the Post's editorial board has usually remained the most supportive of Bush's efforts, and I wonder if they come closest to the mark here. Harry Reid's chief of staff remarked to Salon yesterday that Reid mentioned Miers' name as one that could gain easier confirmation, although he says Reid stopped short of outright promising his public support (which Reid provided anyway yesterday, at least initially). Considering Miers' long record of service to Bush and her lack of judicial experience, that offer may have intrigued him and gave him the idea that a Miers confirmation could help resolve the generation-long impasse over judicial nominees.

Bush, like most second-term presidents, wants to leave a substantive legacy after the end of his term. One of the initial promises he made to the people during his first presidential campaign was the oft-cited vow to be a "uniter". Unfortunately, with the radical Left in charge of the Democrats these days, the opportunity to fulfill that role has not often appeared. With Reid giving Bush a pass to nominate an evangelical with little record of legal scholarship to the Supreme Court as a political peace offering, he may have hoped to cement his place in history by not only confirming one of the brightest legal minds of the era as Chief Justice but in using his second pick as a bridge to an era of better cooperation between the White House and Senate -- while still getting a conservative on the bench.

Will it happen? The Post not only seems to believe so, it wants to celebrate it. If Bush knows Miers as well as he believes -- and after more than a decade of close service, he should -- then he may well have pulled off the biggest hat trick of his career. We will soon find out when Miers starts her confirmation hearings at the Judiciary Committee.

My Grudging Support, Such As It Is

Before we on the Right get a head of steam on what I believe to be completely justified disappointment in the Harriet Miers nomination, I would urge all of us to reflect on a few points made by others with a more optimistic approach. The Anchoress and Hugh Hewitt appear to think that Miers will turn into some kind of Derek Jeter on the Supreme Court, and Dick Cheney predicts that we will thank George Bush ten years from now for picking Miers for this opening. Marvin Olasky tells us all about Miers based primarily on her private life instead of her legal practice.

Miers could well surprise all of us and turn out to be another Scalia or Thomas, or more likely a Rehnquist. Even if she turned out to be an O'Connor with a bit more consistency, it still moves the court to the right. If outcome-based nominations were all that interested us, that would certainly prove satisfactory.

However, we have long argued against such a strategy. Conservatives have waited a very long time to have both a Republican president, a GOP-controlled Senate, and an opening on the Supreme Court that allowed us to nominate not just any lawyer willing to pay lip service to the philosophy of judicial "humility", as John Roberts put it, but someone with a track record of putting it into practice. We had a one-time shot, with the Democrats having to play defense for a potential retirement of John Paul Stevens, to have another true constitutional scholar and conservative philosopher confirmed to the Supreme Court.

What did we get? Another long-term Bush buddy getting a lifetime job on the basis of proximity instead of excellence.

Don't get me wrong; I'm certain that Harriet Miers is a fine attorney in private practice and has performed admirably as one of Bush's long-term aides. However, nothing in her career shows that she has any remarkable experience or aptitude for this assignment. As Brant at SWLiP (an attorney himself) points out, Miers came from a second-tier law school with no law-review experience, no noticeable record of scholarship or significant practice at constitutional law. That describes thousands and thousands of fine attorneys around the country with whom I would place my trust to sort out my personal legal struggles. For a Supreme Court selection, that background at best can only be called remarkably unremarkable.

With Harry Reid recommending her and running interference for her on Day One, as the Washington Post reports, she won't get much opposition on the Hill for her confirmation:

"I like Harriet Miers," said Reid, who had voted against John Roberts as chief justice in Roberts' confirmation vote last week, in a statement. "In my view, the Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer."

Later when meeting with Miers at the Capitol, Reid noted that 39 other people have been appointed to the Supreme Court without having experience as a judge. He praised her experience as a trial lawyer, an occupation he shares with her.

"So anyone with that background makes me feel good -- someone who has been a courtroom, tried cases, answered interrogatories, done all those things that lawyers need to do," Reid said.

Reid supposedly urged Bush to consider Miers during their consultations on the open court seat. It's unlikely that any but the most knee-jerk Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferers, like Barbara Boxer and Ted Kennedy, will vote against her with Reid shilling for the confirmation. If Reid did suggest Miers, he can hardly vote against her -- and if he did, that would give Bush an opening to jettison all future consultations on judicial nominations.

The only way that Miers doesn't get confirmed, therefore, is if the GOP decides to derail the nomination -- and I would urge people not to push that option. First and foremost, I do trust Bush to nominate someone who will at least vote correctly once on the Court. We really didn't have much more on which to rely for Roberts; the difference between the two was the remarkable experience and scholarship that Roberts had gave him so much more credibility than his critics. Bush knows Miers very well, even if we don't, and I'm certain that he wouldn't pick a Souter. (Incidentally, that's also why I didn't think Gonzalez would be another Souter; I just think he has too much political baggage to be an effictive nominee.)

We have expressed our disappointment in clear and factual terms. Unlike the Julie Myers nomination to ICE, that should satisfy us, absent any disqualifying revelations in the next few weeks. If Bush knows his counsel well enough, we will have avoided a bloody battle and won most of the war. Let us continue to insist that future nominees to all posts demonstrate a level of excellence that makes all of us proud to support, instead of a level of proximity that leaves us all scratching our heads.

UPDATE: A clarification:

No, this does not mean that we let up on the Senate. In my opinion, the lack of leadership in the Senate made this choice possible, although given the odd nature of some of Bush's recent nominees -- like Myers -- it might have happened anyway. It doesn't mean we let up on Bush and his instinct to pick nominees from his close circle of friends. We need to insist on excellence, especially for lifetime appointments.

But at the same time, we have to be realistic. The choice has already been made. I don't want to inflict unnecessary political wounds now, especially at a critical juncture with the Iraq elections and Iranian nuclear proliferation on the foreign-policy table. Pulling Miers off the table for even a Maureen Mahoney, who would have been a much more remarkable "cipher" candidate, would trigger the war that we could have fought on much better terms had Miers never been nominated at all. It would have been worth fighting under the right political conditions, but now would make Bush look like a puppet to the "radical right" and play into the hands of the Exempt Media.

Bush blew it, but Miers may still surprise us, so let's not compound the mistake.

Let's get through the Iraqi parliamentary elections and focus on conservative, fiscally responsible, and excellence-supporting candidates in 2006. The next stage will be to create a new fundraising machine that will challenge the GOP to match its rhetoric with concrete actions; perhaps we will take Not One Dime More or some other mechanism in that direction next year...

Two Years Of Blogging Bliss

Two years.

5,556 posts.

53,148 comments.

12 million visitors and counting.

Thank you for two years of pure blogging bliss. I have so many people to thank that I no longer dare to go into specifics. I have too many friends to count, and that is by far the best blessing I could ever have received. My deepest appreciation goes out to all of them, as well as the entire CQ community.

UPDATE: It's the second blogiversary for Sister Toldjah, too!

Harriet Miers Gets The Nod

The AP reports that a "senior administration official" confirms that President Bush will nominate Harriet Miers, currently the White House Counsel, to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Miers has never served as a judge at any level, and her nomination appears to give the President an opportunity to push a "stealth" candidate onto the Supreme Court:

President Bush has chosen Harriet Miers, White House counsel and a loyal member of the president's inner circle, to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, a senior administration official said Monday.

If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Miers, 60, would join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the nation's highest court.

Miers, who has never been a judge, was the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association.

Without a judicial record, it's difficult to know whether Miers would dramatically move the court to the right. She would fill the shoes of O'Connor, a swing voter on the court for years who has cast deciding votes on some affirmative action, abortion and death penalty cases.

After the tussle back and forth on the day the White House announced Roberts' nomination, I'd normally take this with a grain of salt. However, at the same time that the AP reported this, the GOP sent out an info sheet on Harriet Miers confirming her nomination. They want to provide plenty of ammunition for the President's supporters on the choice of Miers, so it doesn't appear that this is a trial balloon or a dodge for a different candidate.

Miers does answer two big criticisms of John Roberts raised by the Democrats during his confirmation hearings. Miers has extensive trial litigation experience, and she also has held public office, although she limited her political career to the Dallas City Council. Her work on cleaning up the Texas Lottery Commission will look good in terms of real-world experience, and her connections at the American Bar Association will also smooth some rough sailing.

All that being said, I find this pick mystifying. Miers just turned 60 years old, not exactly ready to retire but potentially giving up at least a decade for the Bush legacy on the Supreme Court. Other women with judicial experience and/or a stronger track record of conservatism could have been found. She didn't graduate from a top-drawer legal school (SMU), and she didn't clerk for a highly influential jurist (US District Judge Joe Estes).

Not only does Harriet Miers not look like the best candidate for the job, she doesn't even look like the best female candidate for the job. If judicial experience is a liability, why not Maureen Mahoney, who is younger, has argued cases at the Supreme Court, and worked within the Deputy Solicitor's Office after clerking for William Rehnquist? Better yet, why not nominate J. Michael Luttig or Michael McConnell, with their brilliant and scholarly approaches to the law and undeniable qualifications through years of judicial experience? Why not Edith Hollan Jones, if Bush wanted to avoid the confrontation that Janice Rogers Brown would have created?

Miers may make a great stealth candidate, but right now she looks more like a political ploy. Color me disappointed in the first blush.

Fatah And Hamas Start The Civil War

The New York Times reports that the Palestinian Civil War may have already begun, less than a month after the withdrawal of the Israelis, as a series of gun battles tore through Gaza City after the ruling Fatah government attempted to disarm Hamas terrorists. The results from the first confrontation attempted by the Palestinian Authority against its internal nemesis left one police officer dead and dozens of people wounded, overflowing the local hospital:

Palestinian police officers and Hamas gunmen waged running gun battles on Sunday night in Gaza City. The shooting began when the police tried to confiscate illegal weapons.

At least two Palestinians were killed, including one policeman, and about 40 people were wounded in the fighting, the worst internal Palestinian violence since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip last month.

Last week, the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, began enforcing a prohibition against militants carrying weapons in public in Gaza.

But when police officers stopped a car carrying Hamas members on Sunday evening, shooting erupted and spread through two neighborhoods in Gaza City that are known as Hamas strongholds, witnesses and the Palestinian security forces said.

Again, we see that the PA has done little to improve its security approach. The "road map" required Mahmoud Abbas to streamline security so that all armed forces operated under his command, and that all militias get disarmed. Until now, Abbas has refused to implement this policy, which led to numerous "rogue' attacks on Israel.

Now, with the Israeli presence removed from Gaza, the PA had no further excuse to allow Hamas and Islamic Jihad to remain armed. Hamas refused to disarm, and in a further provocation, held a demonstration while brandishing live arms in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal. Their incompetence in handling the weapons resulted in an explosion which killed and wounded dozens attending the rally. Unable to admit their own culpability in that incident, Hamas blamed Israel instead and shot a few Kassams over the border from Gaza -- which resulted in a long and deadly response from their former occupiers.

That left Abbas with no other options. Either he needs to control Hamas or cede Gaza to the people with the weapons. Hamas will refuse to accept Fatah control -- and civil war will result. It looks like it has already begun, and unfortunately, neither side shows much promise as partners for a two-state peace plan.

Miller's Lawyer Wanted Same Deal A Year Ago

This revelation didn't receive a lot of notice, but the lawyer for Judith Miller told reporters yesterday that he asked Patrick Fitzgerald for essentially the same deal a year ago that sprang Miller from prison last week. This seems to indicate that Fitzgerald really wanted testimony from Miller on another matter and later on settled for testimony about Scooter Libby instead:

Floyd Abrams, the attorney for New York Times reporter Judith Miller, said Sunday he had tried a year ago to reach an agreement with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald concerning Miller's testimony about the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity. ...

Appearing Sunday on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Abrams said: "I tried to get a deal a year ago. I spoke to Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, and he did not agree at that time to something that he later did agree to, which was to limit the scope of the questions he would ask, so as to assure that the only source he would effectively be asking about was Mr. Libby."

The Times reported that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President
Dick Cheney's chief of staff, was Miller's source. In a statement Thursday, Miller said, "My source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations." She appeared before the grand jury Friday.

Miller held out, Abrams said Sunday, in part because "she has other sources and was very concerned about the possibility of having to reveal those sources, or going back to jail because of them." Before she finally testified, Fitzgerald promised to limit his questioning to the Libby contacts regarding Plame.

This changes the context of the new agreement in a couple of subtle ways. First, the jailing of Miller never had anything to do with Libby or his statements to Miller. According to Abrams, the grand jury could have heard that testimony from Miller at any time as long as Fitzgerald agreed to only ask about Libby. Fitzgerald refused, which seems to clearly indicate that his investigative thrust didn't include Libby as a potential target. If so, it means that Fitzgerald's belated acceptance of this limitation acknowledges that he lost the battle with Miller and wanted to wrap up her situation before the grand jury mandate expired later this month.

It also exposes the PR last week from the New York Times as yet another bit of grandstanding flackery. The Times made it appear that Libby kept Miller in jail by refusing to issue an unequivocal and clear release for Miller's testimony. Libby responded by letter and phone to point out all the waivers he had issued (and Power Line has the original waivers that clearly show he wanted Miller to testify). Despite the Times' assertions from last week and their overall self-congratulation over the protection of journalistic sources -- especially in comparison to Time Magazine's cooperation with Fitzgerald -- this shows that the Gray Lady had no problem coughing up sources of a certain (Republican) kind, as opposed to others that might have less political conflict with its editorial board.

Does this indicate that Fitzgerald has given up on any indictments in the Plame controversy? Possibly. However, the main effect applies to Miller and the New York Times, both of which demonstrate a large measure of hypocrisy in their public statements this week.

Balinese Wonder: Why Us?

After having now been the target of al-Qaeda terrorist attacks at least four times over the last three years, the people of Bali openly wonder why Islamist terrorists have focused so much of their efforts on them. The French press service AFP reports that anger has risen among the Balinese as they survey the damage from this latest atrocity:

Anger is mounting over the latest bomb attacks by Islamic extremists in Indonesia, where yet again most of the dead have been locals and most of the damage has hit local businesses. ...

"Why is it only us? Why is Bali again the target of bombs?" asked I Gede Wiratha, the head of the Bali chapter of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Wiratha said strong rumors were circulating in predominantly Hindu Bali that witnesses heard one of the suicide bombers shouting "Allahu Akbar" or "God is great" before blowing himself to smithereens.

Made Mangku Sudita, 36, who owns a beach restaurant just next door to the cafe where the first blast occurred in Jimbaran, expressed the public mood when he called for vengeance against those responsible.

"We have to kill those terrorists", he told AFP.

Similar sentiments were aired by many others, including taxi driver Wayan Rampa who lost his job in the silver industry after the October 2002 bombings devastated Bali's tourism sector.

"There is no need to take them to prisons... they should be taken to Bali to be turned into skewered meat or be grilled," he said of the culprits.

The Balinese have, up to now, exhibited a kind of phlegmatic resignation in the face of the violence similar to that of the British in World War II during the Blitz. That now appears to have given way to some anger, and a questioning of motives that will sound oddly familiar to Americans. After the one devastating attack on the US that left thousands dead, many asked the same question: why us? The American Left had many answers ready for that question. Perhaps we can see whether they apply to the Balinese.

* A policy of support for Israel? Well, Bali remains part of Indonesia, which can hardly be accused of being an Israeli ally. Like all Muslim nations, it opposes Israel's occupation of the West Bank and does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

* Supporting Middle East tyrants in order to steal the oil from the devout Muslims of the Arabian peninsula? Indonesia has plenty of its own oil.

* Occupation of holy lands? The Balinese do not have troops on Saudi soil, or anywhere else other than Bali.

* Occupation of Iraq? Not hardly.

It seems that all the usual answers Americans hear for their responsibility in provoking the Islamists' rage don't apply to Bali or the Balinese. What could keep al-Qaeda coming back to bomb the people and businesses of Bali? Perhaps the fact that Bali, part of mostly Muslim Indonesia, has a majority Hindu population could have something to do with Jemaah Islamiyah's obsession with bombing the Balinese. It provides the only consistent thread for AQ's attacks around the world: an all-out holy war against all non-believers, simply on the basis of their non-belief.

This should dispense with all of the blather about how our foreign policy of global engagement creates terrorism. Let's quit blaming the victims and start really fighting the war that the terrorists have declared on us.

The Female John Roberts?

While various news organizations continue reporting that President Bush still hasn't made his decision on a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, the speculation on the candidates keeps widening. A newer name gets added today by MS-NBC, a potential stealth candidate that may appeal to the White House as a female version of John Roberts. Maureen Mahoney, who testified on behalf of Roberts during his confirmation hearing at the Judiciary Committee hearing, might rise to the top of Bush's list even as she flies mostly below the media radar:

There continues to be talk in legal circles that he could pick one of three longtime Bush loyalists: White House counsel Harriet Miers, the first women president of the Texas State Bar and Bush’s former personal attorney; Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Bush’s longtime friend, who would be the first Hispanic on the court; and corporate lawyer Larry Thompson, who was the government’s highest ranking black law enforcement official when he was deputy attorney general during Bush’s first term.

Other candidates mentioned most frequently in recent days include conservative federal appeals court judges J. Michael Luttig, Priscilla Owen, Karen Williams, Alice Batchelder and Samuel Alito; Michigan Supreme Court justice Maura Corrigan; and Maureen Mahoney, a well-respected litigator before the high court.

Mahoney's name has not appeared on many short lists bandied about in the media, and the public knows little about her. A quick check into her background could generate some interest, as she not only resembles John Roberts in her background, but could even negate some of the smears launched against Roberts early in the confirmation process.

Mahoney litigates for Latham & Watkins as a partner specializing in appellate law. Like Roberts, she has experience before the Supreme Court, having argued thirteen cases. Her first case came in 1988 and her last just recently, when she successfully overturned the Arthur Anderson conviction in the Enron case. That could count as a strike against her with Democrats, who would love to paint her as a player in that kind of scandal, but no one would argue that Arthur Anderson should have been denied counsel in its appeals -- and she won the case on a unanimous decision. She also defeated the Bush administration in its affirmative-action case against the University of Michigan, a case that a few Judiciary Committee members tried to use to paint Roberts as a racist.

Mahoney has similar tenure within the US government as Roberts as well. She served with Roberts in the Bush 41 administration in the Solicitor General's office for a couple of years before getting a nomination to the appellate bench herself, one that went nowhere before Clinton took office, when she returned to L&W and continued her distinguished career as an appellate specialist. L&W lists among her accomplishments such recognition as this:

* Rex Lee Advocacy Award
* Nat'l Law Journal's naming her one of the top 50 female litigators
* Appointed by Rehnquist as Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission

Also, like Roberts, Mahoney clerked for William Rehnquist prior to his elevation to Chief Justice. Mahoney never served on the bench, while Roberts had less than two years, but no one has insisted on appellate experience for a Supreme Court justice. Democrats even suggested nominating a Republican Senator instead of a practicing attorney for the last nomination, which makes a lack of appellate experience a non-starter for an argument against Mahoney. However, her conservative outlook seems beyond question, according to this blurb at the blog Underneath Their Robes:

--she was previously nominated for a federal judgeship under Bush I (but President Clinton took office before she could be confirmed);

--she is Republican, and she was on the Bush II transition team (and made the maximum contribution allowable under federal law to President Bush's 2000 presidential campaign);

--she was reportedly considered by the Bush Administration for the post of Solicitor General, before Ted Olson got the job, and also for a seat on the D.C. Circuit;

--she was picked, presumably by the White House Counsel's Office or the DOJ's Office of Legal Policy, to testify on behalf of Judge Roberts at his recent confirmation hearings (alongside such conservative stalwarts as Jennifer Cabranes Braceras, Robing Room Report's Most Delicious Diva);** and

--Nina Totenberg has described Mahoney as "a very, very conservative woman Catholic."

If anyone wants to look for a surprise candidate, one that could duplicate many of the same problems for the Democrats that the Roberts nomination created, Maureen Mahoney might just be that nominee.

UPDATE: A couple of thoughts based on the comments posted thus far. I still prefer Janice Rogers Brown for the nomination. I just wanted to highlight what I think might provide an interesting choice for Bush if he wants to follow the John Roberts model for the next nominee. Mahoney hasn't received a lot of press attention to this point.

Also, don't get hung up on her clients. She represents people who pay for her services; just like John Roberts, she is a hired gun for appellate litigation. Her background and her work on behalf of the Bush administration will provide more guidance of her philosophy than her client list.

Bad Day For Rangel On The Blogs

Rep. Charles Rangel had a bad day on the blogs yesterday. First Mark Tapscott completely discredits Rangel's assertions that the all-volunteer armed services draw disproportionally from poor families in his latest research. The Heritage Foundation compares recruitment data from 1999 to 2003 by zipcode and income levels, and finds that the Clinton-era recruitment relied more heavily on lower-income enlistees:

Note the proportions of recruits from each of the five demographic quintiles, organized according to per capita income by zip code. The percentage of recruits from the poorest quintile is actually lower in 1999 and 2003 than the percentage for the richest quintile.

In fact, the percentage difference between the richest and poorest quintiles increases between 1999 and 2003! And the highest percentage is actually in the second richest quintile of recruits, followed by the richest quintile. It is no exaggeration to say America's most prosperous families bear the greatest share of the burden of fighting in America's defense.

So much for the mythology, pushed hardest by Rangel, that the poor have done most of the fighting and dying for the Bush administration. Rangel used this assertion to push for a new draft, asserting that the only way to get enough pressure to undermine the war on terror was to force the rich to send their kids off to war. Rangel only has two problems with this hypothesis -- he has no idea how the military recruits its enlistees as the Heritage Foundation demonstrates, and no one, no one, sends their kids off to war. Men and women make that decision for themselves, something that Rangel and the rest of the nutcases on the fringe keep forgetting in their infantilization of the US armed services.

Speaking of mythology, Radioblogger stops another Rangel urban legend before it gets rolling. Rangel told a local New York reporter that Dick Cheney should resign as Vice President, because Cheney is "too old for the job, and he doesn't have any experience." Apparently between guffaws of laughter, Duane "Generalissimo" Patterson points out that Rangel misses a few facts regarding Cheney's experience and the age of American politicians:

Dick Cheney was born on 1/20/41. He currently is 64 years old. At the time he was sworn into the Vice Presidency, he was a week shy of 60. As for experience, he had been a Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and White House Chief of Staff, among other government positions. He also was very successful running private sector businesses as well. I may be mistaken, but there was this little company called Halliburton that he ran. Anyway, the point being, Rangel just loses credibility when he tries to maintain with a straight face that Cheney has no experience for the job. As Chief of Staff, you're pretty attuned to the workings of the Executive branch.

Charley Rangel, the man who thinks Cheney's too old, was born on June 11th, 1930. He is 75 years old. But I guess ageism doesn't count if it's applied to Republicans.

Other Democratic notables for whom Rangel needs to reserve rooms at the retirement home:

John Kerry: 62 in December
Joe Lieberman: 63
Nancy Pelosi: 65
Robert Byrd: 87

Rangel should lead by example, and resign immediately. I'm sure the rest of the above will follow shortly. Trust us, Charlie ... trust us.

Al-Qaeda Behind New Bali Bombings That Killed 26

Indonesia claims it has evidence that al-Qaeda planned and executed yesterday's bombings on Bali that killed 26 people and wounded more than 100 others. Counterterrorist investigators claim that two "fugitive" AQ masterminds still want to hit more soft targets -- in other words, civilians:

Indonesia said Sunday it suspected two fugitives linked to al-Qaida masterminded the suicide bombings of crowded restaurants in tourist areas of Bali that killed at least 26 people and injured more than 100. The nation's president, meanwhile, warned that more terrorist attacks are possible. ...

Maj. Gen. Ansyaad Mbai, a top Indonesian anti-terror official, identified the two suspected masterminds of Saturday's bombings as Malaysians alleged to be key members of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah terror group.

They are also accused of orchestrating the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, as well as two other attacks in the Indonesian capital in 2003 and 2004. The nightclub bombings, which also struck venues crowded with tourists on a Saturday night, killed 202 people, most of them foreigners.

Six Americans were wounded in the attack. No one knows whether the Indonesians counted the suicide bombers among the 26 dead, but they definitely identified which remains are the terrorists. "All that is left is their head and feet," Mbai told the Associated Press, saying that the missing middle indicates waist belts for explosives.

The AQ plotters wanted by the Indonesians are Azhari bin Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top. Neither have become household names, but they aren't completely unknown, either. The Australian mentioned both of them earlier this week in a now-foolish column by Gareth Evans dismissing the threat of Jemaah Islamiyah:

As to the specific risk posed by terrorist groups operating in and from Indonesia -- naturally centre-front in people's minds given the horrors perpetrated against Australian targets in Bali in 2002 and Jakarta last year -- Crisis Group's perception is that the Jemaah Islamiyah regional division that covered Australia has been effectively smashed by Indonesian police and intelligence operations (well supported by Australian agencies), and that JI no longer poses a serious threat in Indonesia or elsewhere.

The fugitive Malaysian bomb-makers for the embassy attack - Noordin Mohammed Top and Azhari bin Husin - may be tempted by another Western target in Indonesia, but a household name US enterprise is seen as more likely than anything identifiably Australian. And we have never had any information suggesting that there are sleeper cells in Australia or any thought of targeting Australia in this way. ...

Of course there have been some apparent successes, such as the capturing or killing of two-thirds of al-Qa'ida's leadership, but while this has undoubtedly diminished al-Qa'ida's organisational capacity it hasn't done anything to diminish its global following.

Much more successful was the police operation in Indonesia against JI. Interestingly, in Crisis Group's judgment, it was done in a way that avoided arbitrary arrests, with every person being detained for more than a few days being held on the basis of solid evidence. In doing so, the police helped create the necessary political space to work against terrorism.

Evans claimed in his column and speech at the University of NSW that the Indonesian approach to Islamofascist terror -- the law-enforcement approach -- had effectively ended the terror threat against Indonesian targets. His New South Wales audience can be forgiven for their confusion less than a week later to see Bali blown apart again by the same JI that Evans dismissed so casually on Tuesday.

Thanks to that law-enforcement approach, Top and Husin will become household names now.

That Blue Placard Gets More Than A Parking Spot In Denmark

Since the First Mate lost her sight over twenty-five years ago and has had a number of medical conditions as complications to diabetes (now cured), she has a handicapped parking placard which allows us to use the closest spots in public lots, as well as forego parking meter fees in most areas. Since she often has minor problems in walking, the placard helps tremendously.

In Denmark, however, that placard gets the disabled much more personal service than it does in the United States. The London Telegraph reports that the Danes have government assistance programs that subsidize prostitution for those with disabilities so that they can have sexual fulfillment:

Disabled Danes are being encouraged to make monthly visits to prostitutes and reclaim the cost from the taxpayer, under laws intended to guarantee them equal rights.

In a move that has provoked angry protests but has delighted the country's legalised sex industry, the Danish government has launched an information campaign advising the disabled how best to go about obtaining erotic services.

Stig Langvad, the chairman of the Danish Association for the Disabled, hailed the campaign as a triumph for equality. "Sexual frustration can be a major problem for the disabled, and in some cases the last solution is to visit a prostitute," he said. "Politicians can debate whether prostitution in general should be allowed, but if it is, why should the disabled be the only ones prevented from having access to it?" ...

Now the regulations are being used to pay for visits to prostitutes after a disabled man - not named for legal reasons - won a legal action forcing officials to pay his expenses for the services of a call girl. Councils across Denmark have been left with no choice but to follow suit.

I've heard of getting screwed by government, but this really is ridiculous.

On a more serious note, this pattern shows what happens when people force government into legitimizing choices in a socialist model. We have seen this in our own country with abortion. First, a runaway Supreme Court ruled that not only should abortion be legalized but that it ascended to a "right", based on emanations from a penumbra at that point undiscovered in almost two centuries of jurisprudence. Once it assigned abortion as a "right", activist groups started pressuring governments at the federal and state level to subsidize them, arguing that equal access to this "right" required that taxpayers foot the bill for a procedure at least half of them opposed in any form.

We can laugh at the Danes who feel it necessary to have government pay for prostitution, but it follows the same model as the US uses with abortion. It is symptomatic of a government culture where everything that isn't outlawed becomes mandatory -- the typical socialistic approach that results in idiotic processes such as what the Telegraph describes today.

Will Fitzgerald Attempt A Conspiracy Indictment? (Update)

Most of us have wondered why Judith Miller's testimony about Scooter Libby held such importance to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he allowed her to walk away from a contempt charge merely to provide what appears to be corroborative testimony to what Libby has already told a grand jury. Miller wouldn't talk until Libby and his attorney practically had to beg her to do so, as Power Line notes with their discovery of the letters sent by Libby's attorneys to Bob Bennett, who represents Miller. Fitzgerald wound up giving Miller the same deal he gave Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post, which only required them to testify on a narrow basis about specific sources.

Now the Post reports that inside sources in Fitzgerald's office tell them that the strategy has evolved. Instead of finding an act of criminal behavior, which they have apparently not found, Fitzgerald wants to create a conspiracy to commit an overall criminal end -- exposing Valerie Plame in retribution for Joseph Wilson's outspokenness -- by comitting a series of non-criminal acts:

Many lawyers in the case have been skeptical that Fitzgerald has the evidence to prove a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which is the complicated crime he first set out to investigate, and which requires showing that government officials knew an operative had covert status and intentionally leaked the operative's identity.

But a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.

Then Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus throw in this beaut of a disclaimer:

Lawyers involved in the case interviewed for this report agreed to talk only if their names were not used, citing Fitzgerald's request for secrecy.

Which begs the question: when will Fitzgerald start investigating the leakers in his own office, and did they have an overarching criminal purpose in talking to the Washington Post, even if the leak was technically legal? Fitzgerald's operation should be held to a similar standard, one would think, since it involves secret grand jury testimony which the attorneys do not have the privilege to reveal. (Witnesses can speak openly of their own testimony in most cases, but not the attorneys.) Note: see correction below.

The entire idea reeks of desperation, and the Post article doesn't help by getting key facts incorrect and stretching others to the breaking point. If Fitzgerald cannot find a single act of criminal behavior, then he almost assuredly cannot establish the mens rea necessary for a criminal conspiracy. For a conspiracy to exist, it has to involve the explicit intent to break the law. If no laws get broken in the commission of this conspiracy, it presents a prima facie argument against intent altogether. If prosecutors could get convictions by warping conspiracy laws in such a manner, then anyone could get convicted of almost any kind of conspiracy at any time.

VandeHei and Pincus fail to note a few things in their article, chief among them that Joseph Wilson serially leaked secret government material and lied about its contents. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reached that conclusion in its report on Iraq War intelligence, and names Pincus himself as one of the dupes Wilson used to get out his misinformation. Why didn't Pincus bother to mention that? And why isn't Fitzgerald investigating Wilson and Plame for those leaks (the other dupe was NY Times Nicholas Kristof) for a possible CIA conspiracy to illegally undermine the foreign policy of the duly elected American government?

The Post also claims that the Niger intelligence "was central to the White House's rationale for war," when plainly it was not. The vast majority of the intelligence from most Western nations had concluded that Saddam still had WMD, and that his lack of compliance with the sixteen UN resolutions on full, verifiable, and permament disarmament demonstrated that he still retained that capability. Moreover, the trip that Wilson took actually corroborated that conclusion, as the prime minister of Niger told Wilson that the only purpose of a secret Iraqi delegation he could divine was to trade for yellowcake uranium -- which Wilson admitted to the SSCI bolstered, not undermined, the case for war against Iraq.

If indeed Fitzgerald has decided on this strategy, then he has embarked on a foolish and dangerous expansion of conspiracy law. The Washington Post, meanwhile, continues to embark on its policy of half-truths on the Wilson-Plame story in order to cover up its position of supine gullibility in regards to Joe Wilson. Why Walter Pincus has remained on this case as a reporter is anyone's guess, but as long as the editors of the Post continue to use him in such a fashion, their reporting will continue to be suspect.

CORRECTION: I misread the excerpt -- the Post uses unnamed attorneys representing witnesses who talk about what they've heard from Fitzgerald's team ... surmising that Fitzgerald wants to use this strategy. This seems even thinner than it did before.