Off To Watch The Irish

I'll be leaving in a few minutes to drive to the Colisseum to watch Notre Dame take on USC in the biggest football game of the year. Somehow in the last 24 hours, this turned into an early-morning trek, as my uncle and I will spend the day tailgating before we stagger up to our seats in the stadium. I'll take plenty of pictures and have more reporting for you later ...

Why I Oppose Pork - And Why You Should Care

This morning, as I prepared for the annual Battle Between Good And Evil (also known as the Notre Dame - USC game), I received an e-mail from a Minnesota reader, Frank S, who scolded me for my insistence on fighting pork. He writes that American voters are a lost cause to the addiction:

So, let me get this straight. Independent mush-minded robots, who voted for "change" by putting bigger spending, bigger govt., bigger porker, surrender monkey Democrats into power can be won over to us Republicans by promising smaller govt., less spending, less pork, and promises of victory? We are a nation of fat, slobbering cowards, standing on the shoulders of great men, all the while making a mockery of our former glory. Most Americans, including the independents you find yourself bootlicking, determined that this war is just taking to damn long to finish. And anyway, CNN says that US troops are committing war crimes on a daily basis, and why shouldn't we trust good old CNN? Did it ever occur to you, Captain, that maybe we don't deserve to survive as a nation any longer?

PS...Stop ranting about pork. Voters LOVE pork! Robert C. Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and yes, your buddy from Mississippi, will NEVER face a serious challenge for their job, thanks in large part because all three of these men know how to "...bring home the bacon.".

Well, they'll never face a serious challenge until people start organizing to challenge them, and that's the political reality we face. Simply standing on the sidelines complaining about pork but doing nothing to stop it because it's supposedly a lost cause becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Are Americans in love with pork? I find that hypothesis doubtful. Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has crusaded against pork in Congress, ran on an explicitly anti-pork platform in Arizona for his re-election campaign. He promised to keep pork from flowing into his district -- and he won re-election by a margin of 74%-26%, outpolling his challenger by 71,000 votes out of 147,000.

Why did Flake win? Voters in his district understand that pork and earmarks are the gateway drug to corruption. Every major corruption scandal has revolved around earmarking federal funds for grants and contracts to specific entities, who have returned the favor by showering the politicians with favors, gifts, and cash -- plenty of cash. Bribery does not work as easily on the macro level in Congress, because it takes so many votes to get a bill passed. Instead, corrupting influences focus on gaining federal money through amendments and earmarks because those are routinely carried as a professional courtesy into the final version of the legislation.

If one cares about clean government, then one has to oppose pork and the earmarking process. At the very least, the process should be stripped of its anonymity and exposed to the taxpayers who foot the bill. If we can stop earmarks, then we can limit the damage possible from corrupt politicians. We need to promote more Jeff Flakes for office, and fewer Robert Byrds, Trent Lotts, and Ted Kennedys.

Before we can end pork, we have to find candidates who will oppose it -- and that takes effort, time, and hope. I have all of those in differing measures at differing times. I do not think this nation is a lost cause now, nor I will never believe it ever. We get the government we deserve because we are a free people, and a free people can choose to end corruption if they want it badly enough. I do. and I will continue to fight pork whenever and wherever I can ... and if you want to do more than gripe about corruption and influence peddling, then you should join me and the other Porkbusters as well.

Racists And Buttheads And Lawyers, Oh My

One of the most embarrassing spectacles in American pop culture just got a little more despicable. After Michael Richards shouted a series of racial epithets in response to hecklers at his comedy routine, we hoped Richards and the story would both disappear as soon as possible. Unfortunately, once Gloria Allred enters the picture, naked greed usually follows close behind, and this case is no exception. The hecklers now want "some money" from Richards in return for their pain and suffering:

Two men who say they were insulted by actor-comedian Michael Richards during his racist rant at a comedy club want a personal apology and maybe some money, their lawyer said Friday.

The men, Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, said they were part of a group of about 20 people who had gathered at West Hollywood's Laugh Factory to celebrate a friend's birthday. According to their attorney, Gloria Allred, they were ordering drinks when Richards berated them for interrupting his act.

When one of their group replied that he wasn't funny, Richards launched into a string of obscenities and repeatedly used the n-word. A video cell phone captured the outburst. ...

Allred, speaking by phone from Colorado, said Richards should meet McBride and Doss in front of a retired judge to "acknowledge his behavior and to apologize to them" and allow the judge to decide on monetary compensation.

"It's not enough to say 'I'm sorry,'" she said. She did not mention a specific figure, but pitched the idea as a way for the comic to avoid a lawsuit. "Our clients were vulnerable," Allred said. "He went after them. He singled them out and he taunted them, and he did it in a closed room where they were captive."

Perhaps I missed this in the never-ending press coverage that accompanies the legal profession, but when did extortion become legal? Allred has publicly threatened Richards, telling him to bring his checkbook or she will file a lawsuit against him. For all intents and purposes, this is extortion, and Allred should be facing an ethics investigation for her bald-faced threats.

Don't get me wrong; Richards disgusted me with his racist rant. He claimed in his rambling and unconvincing apology on Letterman not to be a racist, but anyone who screams "N****r!" several times at the top of his voice while reacting to adverse reaction on stage pretty much qualifies himself as such. He's embarrassed and humiliated himself and his community of performers, and deserves the ostracization that will undoubtedly come soon.

However, let's not forget that these two guys aren't exactly peaches, either. For far too long, audience members at comedy clubs have believed themselves to be part of the act. It's annoying and self-absorbed, and while professional performers know how to handle themselves when they interrupt, hecklers are about as necessary to comedy as tire-slashers are to elections.

Now these two self-absorbed idiots think that being called names in public grants them the right to some monetary compensation. They think Richards owes them money as well as an apology. In order to claim that, they have to believe themselves damaged financially in some manner -- while giving a series of interviews to national media in order to wallow in their victimhood. It's ludicrous on the face of it, but entirely predictable given their association with the Queen of Victimhood as their attorney.

Richards will have no career after this debacle, unless he shows some significant atonement, and that's the appropriate remedy for this kind of racist rant. Joe Gandelman has more on this story; be sure to read his entire series of posts on the Richards meltdown.

A Lunch With A Few Friends

It's not often that someone can blow into a town and have lunch with a couple of dozen friends that one has never seen before. Blogging, however, opens some pretty unusual doors, and today I got to spend a few hours with some terrific people. We had an informal meeting of CQ readers at the El Torito Restaurant in Fullerton, enjoying lunch and some great conversation. Of course, the CQ community includes some pretty impressive bloggers, such as Patterico, Mike Lief, Darleen Click, the Grumpy Old Man, NZ Bear, OC Chuck, and Achillea. It boasts equally impressive readers and commenters, and I'm happy we got the chance to get together. For such short notice, we got quite a few people together -- I think the final count was 22.

For all of those who made the time to join me, I thank you for spending a little time getting to know one another today. For those who couldn't do it today, I hope we get another chance in the future. In the meantime, here are a couple of snapshots of the party today for everyone's enjoyment.

LA Times: Newspaper Or Propaganda Repeater?

Patterico has a must-read post today on how the Los Angeles Times reports on Iraq. Earlier this month, the LAT reported that 30 Iraqi civilians died from an airstrike conducted by US forces in Ramadi. However, the military denied that any airstrike had taken place at all, and instead the Coalition had killed a number of terrorists in the act of planting IEDs. In fact, it appears that the Times relied on Islamist propaganda to create its report -- calling into question their entire coverage in Iraq.

Patterico writes:

* The soldier claimed that there were no airstrikes in Ramadi that day, while the L.A. Times stringer claimed there had been an airstrike. When I checked into it, the weight of the evidence indcated that the soldier was right and the L.A. Times was wrong.

The military flatly denies that there was an airstrike — a denial that the L.A. Times has failed to report to this day. Several other media reports state that civilians died from small-arms fire and tank fire, and not an airstrike.

* The soldier claimed that only insurgents were killed in the fighting, while the L.A. Times claimed that women and children were killed. Once again, the soldier’s claims appeared to be true, and the L.A. Times claim false.

Other than the L.A. Times report, there is no evidence that women or children were killed in the attack. The available evidence, including other media reports and information through a contact at a Ramadi hospital, indicates that the bodies brought into a Ramadi hospital were all adult males. This fact is suggestive of the possibility that those killed were insurgents, not innocent civilians.

* The soldier claimed: “No houses were destroyed and only one courtyard wall was damaged”; by contrast, the L.A. Times stringer claimed that “at least 15 homes were pulverized by aerial bombardment.” There are no media reports with reliable firsthand accounts of pulverized homes.

Indeed, I found only one story (published by Reuters) in which a journalist claims to have been on the scene to report observations of the damage firsthand, and he said: “One small structure was burnt out in that street.” Once again, the objective evidence seemed to favor the claims of the soldier.

There's far more to this story. Make sure you read the entire post. Patterico has once again done brilliant work in his coverage of bias at the Los Angeles Times.

Empty Seats Defy The Realists

In the last few months, many in the US have been urging the Bush administration to open direct talks with Syria and Iran on security issues in Iraq, among other issues. They have stated that we have to engage with Syria in order to stabilize Lebanon as well as Iraq. However, Michael Young of the Beirut Daily Star writes in the London Times that Syria's record of assassinations in his country should signal the US that no partner for stability and democracy exists in the Assad regime:

In recent weeks the idea that the United States and the UK should “engage” Syria, but also Iran, to stabilise Iraq has been all the rage. On Tuesday, in an east Beirut suburb, Lebanon’s industry minister, Pierre Gemayel, showed what the cost of engagement might be. The scion of a prominent Christian political family was assassinated in broad daylight. This was the latest in a series of killings and bomb attacks that the UN investigator looking into the murder of the late Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri, has determined are linked.

Mr Gemayel’s allies quickly accused Syria or its allies of the crime, and it’s difficult to disagree. With the late minister dead and six pro-Syrian ministers having just resigned, Lebanon’s Government is near the stage where it will be constitutionally forced to resign.

This is a priority for Syria as it would undermine Lebanon’s formal endorsement of the court being established by the UN to try suspects in the Hariri case. Syrian officials fear being fingered by the UN investigation.

Syria has encouraged its powerful Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, to bring down the Government. The recent ministerial resignations were led by the party which has been planning demonstrations to force the Government out.

Engagement only works when both parties have goals in common in an area or on an issue. It does no good when the parties have diametrically opposed goals, and that certainly appears to be the case with Lebanon, if not Iraq. Syria has assassinated two pro-democracy, pro-Western ministers in the past year and actively support the radical Islamist terrorists in the sub-Litani region of Lebanon. The US wants to help democracy succeed in Lebanon and opposes radical Islamists around the globe. Where is the overlap of mutual concerns? It doesn't exist.

Furthermore, the engagement of the assassin regime in Damascus will signal the Lebanese that we care more about "stability" than in democracy -- a message the realists from both parties have eagerly sent for the past four or five decades. The Cedar Revolution gained momentum from the shift in American policy towards open support of people's revolutions for democracies, but it succeeded because the Syrians knew that George Bush would have reacted militarily to any use of its army to quell the uprising that forced them from Lebanon. "Engagement" would remove that key containment of Assad's military options, both against Lebanon and against Israel.

Similarly, engagement with both Syria and Iran on Iraq sounds nice but will not further our goals for a free and independent Iraq. Neither nation wants Iraq to be either free or independent; they want Iraq under their control. We betrayed the freedom fighters of Iraq in 1991, and negotiating their security with the mullahcracy in Teheran and the Ba'athist dictatorship in Damascus will make them believe that we're preparing to do it again. We're not going to get a commitment for freedom from a couple of the most oppressive regimes in the world, and that's the basic problem with the entire realist agenda.

The other basic problem with a realist agenda is the people who won't be at the table, as Young points out ... people like Rafiq Hariri and Pierre Gemayel. They understood the reality of oppression much more clearly than the leftover realists from the previous Bush administration.

A Nuclear End For A Putin Critic

The former KGB agent that turned into a powerful critic of Vladimir Putin died of radiation poisoning, the British announced today. A high level of an unusual radioactive substance in Alexander Litvinenko's urine establishes that the people who poisoned him have access to highly secret nuclear substances -- which puts the blame squarely on the Russians:

A former KGB agent turned Kremlin critic who blamed a "barbaric and ruthless" Russian President Vladimir Putin for his fatal poisoning had a toxic radioactive substance in his body, the British government said Friday.

In the statement dictated from his deathbed, Alexander Litvinenko accused the Russian leader of having "no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value." In his first public remarks on the allegations, Putin said he deplored the former spy's death but called the statement a political provocation.

The Health Protection Agency said the radioactive element polonium-210 had been found in Litvinenko's urine.

The agency's chief executive, Pat Troop, said that the high level indicated Litvinenko "would either have to have eaten it, inhaled it or taken it in through a wound."

The Admiral Emeritus and I discussed the case earlier in the week, and he thought it sounded like a case of severe radiation poisoning. When Litvinenko's hair fell out and his bone marrow died, the AE noted that it paralleled similar cases from early American experiments in atomic development. Both of us recognized the implications of using a radioactive poison; once introduced in great enough quantities, no one could stop the damage to Litvinenko. His death was assured, even though it took a while to complete.

For those who recall the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, this may sound somewhat familiar. Viktor Yushchenko got a severe case of dioxin poisoning, narrowly avoiding death but suffering facial disfigurement. Yushchenko had promoted a pro-Western polity for Ukraine, wanting to de-emphasize Russian ties and separate the former Soviet republic from Moscow and Putin. He survived, but clearly he was not meant to do so. In Litvinenko's case, his assassins made sure they did the job right.

The use of polonium strongly indicts the Russian government in this murder. One does not find polonium just laying around somewhere; it's rather rare, and difficult to produce in any quantity. However, small quantities are all that are needed for poisoning someone, as the maximum safe ingested dose is 0.03 microcurie. It's 25 billion times more poisonous than hydrocyanic acid. Anyone who attempted to deploy this as an assassin's weapon has to have a lot of expertise in handling polonium -- which again strongly indicates a government assassin at work. It practically convicts Putin by its use.

The Generational Thumpin'

John Podhoretz takes a look at the analysis of the midterm vote provided by Jay Cost at RCP and discovers a very alarming shift away from the Republican Party. The trend portends not just a one-time loss of control of Congress, but perhaps another generation of Democratic control, unless Republicans can convince independent and centrist voters that they've learned from their mistakes:

According to vote-cruncher Jay Cost of Realclearpolitics.com, 54 percent of the ballots in open races were cast for Democrats and 46 percent for Republicans. Between 2004 and '06, the GOP's share of the vote fell an astonishing 10 percentage points.

Cost puts it like this: "Republicans should thus count themselves very lucky. With this kind of vote share prior to 1994, the Democrats would have an 81-member majority, as opposed to the 29-member majority they now enjoy." Only certain structural changes in U.S. politics since 1990 prevented that mega-thumpin'. That is, Republicans in the House were spared a decimation of their ranks by forces beyond their control.

But those forces aren't beyond Democratic control - which should panic Republican politicians. Many of the structural changes that saved them this time can be undone, especially after the census of 2010 leads to new congressional maps - which it appears will be supervised in a majority of the states by legislatures controlled by Dems.

Republicans need to do more than rebuild trust with the voters; they need to rebuild their state and local organizations and focus on finding candidates at those levels. Minnesota felt the impact of the Democratic sweep more profoundly than the GOP did at the national level, losing 19 seats in the state House and relinquishing the majority for the first time in several years. State legislatures around the country went Democratic as the anti-Republican sentiment made its way down ballot.

This demonstrates the return of the Middle in American politics. For the last three electoral cycles, Karl Rove's analysis was brilliant in his focus on turning out the base. Those elections proved Rove correct in that the middle had shrunk to a narrow portion of the electorate, perhaps 6-8% -- but that was when the Republicans offered a big tent based on a few central principles. The more they tried to add to those core focus issues, the more centrists they created. In addition, a war always tends to polarize people and create divisions where compromise once existed. Independents and Reagan Democrats who supported the GOP over economic and libertarian issues found the party too concerned with other issues to continue their support.

If this trend continues, we will face a generational minority on the Right. In four years, the new census will launch redistricting efforts in every state, and we have seen little evidence from either party that they intend to be reasonable about it in 2010. If the Republicans do not return to power in these states, the Congressional districts that result will provide an even higher bar for them to clear in order to return to a House majority. Clearly the Republicans have to switch gears, and fast, to reconnect to voters on all levels.

How do we do that? How do we convince independents and moderates to return to the GOP? We have to focus on our core principles and allow for a wide range of opinion on all else. Republicans have to ask themselves the reason why they want the majority -- and simply keeping the Democrats out of it will not be enough. What will we do if we get the keys to the car again? What would constitute success? In my First Principles posts, I've tried to show how we can achieve a generational success: shrink the federal government, eliminate pork and earmarks, confirm judges that will stop legislating from the bench, protect private property, eliminate the levers of corruption in government, and secure the nation from infiltration and attack.

If we remain focused on those issues, demanding loyalty only on our core beliefs and really sticking to that agenda, we can rebuild trust with voters in the middle -- the ones who abandoned the GOP in droves in the midterms. Otherwise we are heading for another generation in the wilderness.

Has Teheran Reconsidered?

Iran has agreed to allow IAEA inspectors to review the operating records of its uranium enrichment program, opening its books in an attempt to show that its program poses no threat to the West. The development might indicate that the Iranians have had more trouble with their nuclear program than first thought:

Iran has agreed to crack open the books on its uranium enrichment activities, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday -- a move that could give experts a better grasp of a program the Security Council fears could be misused to produce atomic bombs.

The concession appeared timed in hopes of heading off a rejection by the International Atomic Energy Agency of Iran's request for technical help in building its Arak plutonium-producing reactor. Unmoved, the IAEA's 35-nation board denied the aid for at least two years.

Tehran's decision to provide access to the operating records of its pilot uranium enrichment plant at Natanz came with another carrot -- a pledge to allow U.N. inspectors to take more samples from a facility that had yielded suspicious traces of enriched uranium.

The Iranians appear motivated towards their new-found openness due to some serious problems in their nuclear program. They applied for assistance on their Arak power plant from the IAEA, but their application got rejected for the next two years due to their intransigence on other matters before the agency. Their offer is intended to get the IAEA to reconsider its position and help get Arak on line.

This could mean a couple of different things. The Iranians could have built enough of a bogus front to fool the IAEA when they inspect their records. It also could mean that their efforts to build nuclear weapons have run aground, and that they haven't even worked out all the kinks for the necessary enrichment for the nuclear power plant they claim as their sole ambition. Otherwise, they would not set any store by IAEA assistance at all, especially after they've blown off Mohammed ElBaradei for the last few years.

Only a program failure could have gotten Teheran to reconsider cooperation with the IAEA. The US and the West should use this leverage to ensure that the Iranians come completely clean.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is perhaps the only family holiday that really asks us a profound question: what do we have in our lives that earns our gratitude? So much time in our lives is devoted to striving and achieving that we lose sight of the blessings around us. On Thanksgiving, we are called to to pause, consider, and reflect, activties that are somewhat anathema to Americans on this most American of all holidays.

Every year I try to make my list, and every year I feel I miss the mark, in some fashion. But the process is valuable in itself, I believe. Just taking the time to look around us and measure the value of the people and places in our lives reminds us that they have an intrinsic value and an impact on who we are. Our family and friends shape us in ways both subtle and obvious. If we value ourselves, then we have to value them beyond our casual appreciations, even during those times when appreciations are difficult. Thanksgiving calls us to that greater appreciation, that clearer understanding, that self-analysis that we mostly avoid the other 364 days of the year.

In that vein, I'm going to give thanks for those who differ and oppose me politically. They are Americans who believe they are pursuing the best policies for this country that we love so much. They provide a needed counterbalance to ensure against abuse, as we do for them. They help me to hone my arguments, and in some cases, help me to see where I've been mistaken. Most of all, they demonstrate that democracy works, and that the nation will survive and strengthen itself through the open exchange of ideas and beliefs.

I'm also going to give thanks for the people in my family who choose not to celebrate with us. I'm sure most families have internal strife at some time, where people stop talking to each other, and my extended family is no different. Putting aside all of the developments that brought us to this state, they still remain a part of me and a part of my life for which I'm grateful. Hopefully, next Thanksgiving will bring us all back together again, but for now, I'm thankful for the part of my life they represent.

I'm thankful for the friends I no longer know. People come and go out of our lives, and each time represents a kind of death. The constant motion of life, the moves, marriages, births, divorces, and other clutter put friendships on a carousel where it feels like we jump from one horse to the next. I hope they are all doing well, and I treasure the time we spent together. I give thanks for the love they showed at the time I needed it, and I hope they feel the same about me.

Of course, I have plenty of family and friends around me for which to give thanks. We'll spend the day today with family, and some of my new friends in the blogosphere will get together tomorrow with me for lunch. I feel very grateful and quite humbled by the CQ community, the best in the 'sphere, I believe. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

UPDATE: Let's remember to give thanks to our men and women in the armed forces, and put our money where our thanks are. The Weekly Standard reminds us of two worthy charities that could use your support. First, Unmet Needs provides support for military families facing financial difficulties. They also mention the Wounded Warrior Project, which assists severely wounded soldiers and their families. Give a little something to both as a measure of our thanks for their sacrifices.

Rummy's Exit Reflecting On Bush

The abrupt departure of Donald Rumsfeld may have delighted critics of the war in Iraq, but dismayed many in Washington DC, especially others who serve at the pleasure of the President. Robert Novak reports on questions being asked about George Bush and the one quality of leadership that has garnered him the most admiration -- loyalty:

Donald Rumsfeld, one week after his sacking as secretary of defense, was treated as a conquering hero, accorded one standing ovation after another at the conservative American Spectator magazine's annual dinner in Washington. The enthusiasm may have indicated less total support for Rumsfeld's six-year record at the Pentagon than resentment over the way President Bush fired him.

Rumsfeld had recovered his usual aplomb as he basked in the Spectator's glow. But the day after the election he had seemed devastated -- the familiar confident grin gone and his voice breaking. According to administration officials, only three or four people knew he would be fired -- and Rumsfeld was not one of them. His fellow presidential appointees, including some who did not applaud Rumsfeld's performance in office, were taken aback by his treatment. ...

The treatment of his war minister connotes something deeply wrong with George W. Bush's presidency in its sixth year. Apart from Rumsfeld's failures in personal relations, he never has been anything short of loyal in executing the president's wishes. But loyalty appears to be a one-way street for Bush. His shrouded decision to sack Rumsfeld after declaring that he would serve out the second term fits the pattern of a president who is secretive and impersonal.

Lawrence Lindsey had been assured that he would be retained as the president's national economic adviser, but he received word around 5 p.m. on Dec. 5, 2002, that he would be fired the next day. Before Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill embarked on a dangerous mission to Afghanistan, he requested and received assurances that he would still have a job when he returned. Instead, he was dismissed in tandem with Lindsey.

Bush has a reputation of almost obstinate loyalty to his appointees, but that might be a little overstated. Novak's reminder about Lindsay and O'Neill shows a bit of a pattern to Bush's end game with his appointees. Remember "Heck of a job, Brownie"? The axe apparently makes no noise on the way down, and if Novak recounts the circumstances of O'Neill's dismissal accurately, it's no wonder that he got so bitter in his memoirs.

With Rumsfeld, it seems that we got the worst of both worlds. Bush held the decision to fire Rumsfeld for months, apparently hoping that he could outlast the midterm wave long enough to keep his Congressional majorities before making the change. While terminating Rumsfeld in the last days of the cycle would have been politically disastrous, a change over the summer might have allowed the GOP to at least hold the Senate, given the impact of the Iraq war on the elections. Instead, Bush reiterated his support for Rumsfeld, convincing voters that he had not listened to their dissatisfaction.

And then, instead of giving Rumsfeld some time to absorb his fate, Bush announced his termination the day after the elections. He gave the Democrats Rumsfeld's head without any real benefit in return, at least not publicly. Worse, the abrupt change in direction humiliated the SecDef that had served Bush faithfully for over five difficult years. Even if a change needed to be made, it should have been handled with more class, more dignity, and more recognition of Rumsfeld's service, rather than an affirmation of his status as albatross.

Bush comes by this honestly, in a manner of speaking. People think of Bush as a dilettante prior to his run for Governor, but that was only true during his younger years. He reportedly worked in his father's campaigns and White House in an unofficial capacity as hatchet man. Bush 41 had trouble cutting loose employees and appointees who transformed from asset to political liability, but W had no problem tackling that for his father. He's got a pragmatic streak that allows him to judge these decisions dispassionately, even cold-bloodedly. That may have its virtues, but it leads to debacles, and Rumsfeld's termination is one of those instances.

We might expect his Cabinet appointees to keep their resumes updated, or to start looking for other opportunities before the axe falls on them. They certainly know now that a public defense of their appointment by the President means that someone will be measuring the drapes soon afterwards.

Two Sites For Lebanon Updates

I'll be putting the blogging aside for the most part today, but fortunately two bloggers will stay on top of developments in Lebanon. First, make sure to keep watching Michael Totten. He's spent enough time in the Middle East to have a clear perspective on events there, especially in Lebanon. If you missed Hugh's show yesterday, be sure to catch the podcast of at least the first hour, as Totten delivered important context for understanding the political currents in Lebanon.

The other blog to watch is Rick Moran's Right Wing Nuthouse. He's committed to keeping up on developments today, including the funeral of Pierre Gemayel, which has drawn hundreds of thousands of protestors. The speakers have demanded Hassan Nasrallah acknowledge that Hezbollah does not represent the majority of Lebanese, a direct challenge to Nasrallah's open bid for power. The Cabinet of Fuad Siniora have now holed themselves up in a government building in an attempt to keep any more ministers from resigning. Rick has lots more and links to other sites covering the crisis.

Movie Review: Casino Royale

I've always been a mild fan of the James Bond films. I think this comes from the state of the series when I got old enough to see them in the cinema; Sean Connery had given way to Roger Moore by then, and the series had grown cartoonish and self-effacing. Only later did I watch Connery master the role, and then see Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan tackle it in a serious manner, and I discovered the fun of Bond. Nevertheless, the fatal flaw of all the films came from their formulaic focus on sexy women and technogadgets rather than a believable plot or characters made out of more than cardboard.

In Casino Royale, however, the producers have hit the Reset button, almost literally. Daniel Craig makes his first appearance as Bond, replacing the excellent Pierce Brosnan, and the producers said they wanted to rethink the Bond approach with this casting change. They have returned to Ian Fleming's Cold War stylings, but updated for the war on terror, and they have done a masterful job of it. What we see is much closer to a taut, engaging spy thriller that almost makes the viewer forget that they're watching a Bond movie.

Craig's Bond has just been granted 00 status in response to a crisis at MI-6 -- a double agent who runs one of their foreign bureaus. After carrying out his first two kills, the hired assassin (as he plainly views himself) spectacularly botches his next assignment, emperiling Britain's mission to smoke out a terrorist financing network. Bond will have to atone for his mistake by finding another lead, and in doing so, he will eventually rediscover his soul.

The movie features excellent performances by Craig, who may have produced the most original Bond performance since Connery, as well as Eva Green as the woman who helps him find himself. Green made a splash in Kingdom of Heaven as Sibylla, the key to the succession in Crusader Jerusalem. Danish film veteran Mads Mikkelson plays the main villain in a debut of sorts for American audiences, and he's probably the most familiar element of the Bond genre, outside of Judi Dench's M: a creepy and somewhat eccentric villain. Giancarlo Giannini plays a key role in the middle of the film at the semi-climactic high-stakes Texas Hold'Em tournament, but sounds a bit more like a Greek chorus in explaining the amount of money in the pot.

Overall, it's an excellent fresh start for the venerable Bond series. It moves away from a successful but limited formula, perhaps not completely but certainly significantly. At 38, Craig is young enough to make several Bond films and re-establish the series as more gritty and realistic spy thrillers that stand on their own. If you're looking for a cinematic escape from the effects of tryptophan today, this should be high on your list.

CQ Media Alert

I'll be visiting Hugh Hewitt today at his studio, and I might appear on the air, depending on what Hugh has planned. In any case, be sure to tune in to Hugh's show today and every day between 3-6 pm PT. He's the national radio host most engaged with the blogosphere, and one of the nicest people you'll ever want to meet.

UPDATE: Just got home from Hugh's studio in Orange County, and I hope you all had a chance to listen to the show. Hugh had both the FM and I on for the first two hours, along with Michael Totten and Walid Phares on the phone. He gets the best guests and best information; Michael had plenty of context for the events in Lebanon. I'll write more about it after dinner.

UPDATE II: One of the qualities that Hugh's listeners comprehend almost immediately, but that his critics almost always miss, is the joy that he brings to his work. When you get a chance to work with him, it's obvious. He's smiling and laughing throughout the show, bantering good-naturedly with Duane, Andy, and his interns. It's not at all like the caricature of radio hosts, especially those on the Right. It's a lot of fun being in the middle of all that -- and the FM and I had a blast today. Hope you did, too.

Bush, The Internationalist?

Tom Tancredo reminds people today why he will forever remain a fringe element in American politics. Tancredo told World News Daily that George Bush -- widely seen (unfairly) as a unilateralist -- is in reality an internationalist who wants to eliminate national borders altogether (via Hot Air):

"People have to understand what we're talking about here. The president of the United States is an internationalist," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. "He is going to do what he can to create a place where the idea of America is just that – it's an idea. It's not an actual place defined by borders. I mean this is where this guy is really going."

Tancredo lashed out at the White House's lack of action in securing U.S. borders, and said efforts to merge the U.S. with both Mexico and Canada is not a fantasy.

"I know this is dramatic – or maybe somebody would say overly dramatic – but I'm telling you, that everything I see leads me to believe that this whole idea of the North American Union, it's not something that just is written about by right-wing fringe kooks. It is something in the head of the president of the United States, the president of Mexico, I think the prime minister of Canada buys into it. ...

"And they would just tell you, 'Well, sure, it's a natural thing. It's part of the great globalization ... of the economy.' They assume it's a natural, evolutionary event that's going to occur here. I hope they're wrong and I'm going to try my best to make sure they're wrong. But I'm telling you the tide is great. The tide is moving in their direction. We have to say that."

This is absurd. George Bush may not have responded very well to immigration concerns from his base, but he's done more than his father, Bill Clinton, and even Ronald Reagan in bolstering border security. Tancredo is engaging in mindless demagoguery with these doomsday descriptions, and moving closer to the realms of paranoia.

The immigration problem needs attention. It doesn't need more conspiracy theories about supposed New World Orders. Tancredo should know better than to fan these flames just to garner attention to the issue of immigration, but apparently he's most concerned about attracting attention to himself.

Scarce? Expensive? Count Me In!

According to ticket brokers, this weekend's matchup between USC and Notre Dame (hereafter known as the Dark Forces and the Holy Warriors, respectively) has broken records for demand. Only two other games have created this kind of demand in the last six years, and it may not be over yet:

So, you're not a big-time USC athletics donor and you still need tickets to Saturday's USC-Notre Dame game at the Coliseum for less than the down payment on a luxury SUV?

Steve Lopes has three words for you: "There aren't any."

Lopes, the USC senior associate athletic director who oversees ticket operations, said the school has only a handful of tickets left — and they are reserved for athletics donors with last-minute needs.

Fighting Irish fans don't have it any better. Notre Dame officials say this game is the most-requested road game in school history. Josh Berlo, director of ticket operations, said his office fielded 33,251 requests — and that's only from the alumni and benefactors who participated in a ticket lottery last summer.

With three days to go, the game is already the No. 3 college football game in StubHub's six-year history — exceeded only by the 2006 Rose Bowl and last week's Ohio State-Michigan game — according to a company spokesman.

Fortunately for me, my aunt gave up her ticket so that I could see the game live at the Colisseum on Saturday -- and she didn't even charge me a dime for it. Of course, I had to agree to come out to California, but that was hardly a big sacrifice. She's going to tailgate instead during the game along with my mother and other family members, and we're making it an all-day affair. We'll tour the campus, eat lots of grill, watch some other college football games on TV as a warmup .... and then head to our end-zone seats for the big show.

Of course, I'll be outnumbered in the stands, but apparently not by much. Over 30,000 Irish fans will invade the Colisseum for this event, and I'll have plenty of company. I'm planning on wearing my green Irish jersey to the game, which my uncle will attempt to counter by wearing as much crimson and gold as he possibly can don. It should be a raucous good time.

So who will win? Both teams have only one loss, and both teams have had moments where it looked like they would have more. The Trojans just came off a tough game against Cal, while Notre Dame had a couple of warmups against Army and Navy. Brady Quinn has really hit his stride while John Booty still seems to be struggling. I'm picking the Irish by a touchdown, but it will probably go down to the wire like it did last year.

One last item: I'm thinking about blogging the tailgate, if not the game. I have to find out what power facilities will be available, but if I can do it, I will.

GO IRISH!

How Could You Tell?

A new study by the University of Wisconsin reports that Midwestern voters got more exposure to political advertisements than election coverage in the broadcast media. Local and regional news services turned themselves into tip sheets rather than reporting on the policy issues at stake in the election:

A study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's NewsLab found that in the month before the Nov. 7 elections, television stations in seven Midwest markets aired an average of 4 minutes and 24 seconds of political ads and 1 minute and 43 seconds of election news during a typical 30-minute broadcast.

The study analyzed early and late evening newscasts on 28 stations in five states. The markets were Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Cleveland, Columbus, Ohio, and Wisconsin's Madison and Milwaukee. Most regions featured competitive gubernatorial, Senate or House races that resulted in significant spending on political advertising.

Ken Goldstein, a political scientist who directed the study, said the coverage of politics and elections increased in the past month and reached its peak in the week before the election. But Goldstein said the news stories tended to focus on the horse race aspect of politics rather than on the views and policies of the candidates.

"There was an overwhelming focus on strategy and polling as opposed to a focus on the issues," he said.

The Wisconsin study sparked outrage from media outlets. They claimed that researchers skewed the study by not including televised debates and news programs airing in the mornings, noon, and weekends. This, however, is a silly and self-defeating argument. Having watched those kinds of local broadcasts for many years, I can tell you that even the broadcasters themselves don't take the news seriously for these shows. Instead, they have turned the morning shows into inane gabfests, where news gets a whole two minutes at the top and bottom of each hour, with the balance of the show dedicated to celebrity gossip, diet tips, and local human-interest stories. Lunch-hour news programs tend to cover the headlines and skip any kind of in-depth analysis, and weekend shows get so little viewership that they could run naked circus performers and it would probably escape the FCC.

Everyone understands that weekday prime-time broadcasts attract the most viewers by far, and the most diverse. Their advertising rates demonstrate that quite clearly. Are these broadcasters charging more for time in mornings, noontime, and weekends? Hardly. If they want to pursue serious news coverage for the majority of their viewers, they would do so during their evening news programs -- and clearly they did not.

Even when they did cover the races, what did they cover? The study shows that news broadcasts primarily covered the ads running on their own stations. For some purposes, this was a necessary evil -- especially in the Patty Wetterling campaign, which unleashed a series of misleading advertising -- but if the study is correct, it shows a rather incestuous relationship between the news media and their advertisers. It also demonstrates a completely facile strategy for informing viewers of the issues at stake in the election. After all, their viewers already saw the ads; they didn't need them repeated ad nauseam.

It's an indication of how badly local and regional news media have abdicated their responsibility to provide real information on real issues. Hard news has long since gone out of style in the sub-national level, and this confirms that it won't be making a comeback any time soon.

Another No-Knock Disaster?

Police in Atlanta shot and killed a 92-year-old woman in a raid yesterday, apparently looking for illegal drug activity. The details are murky, but police claim that the woman shot three plainclothes detectives approaching the house to serve a search warrant, probably after an informant fingered the location:

Three Atlanta police officers were shot and wounded and an elderly woman killed at a house in northwest Atlanta Tuesday night.

The woman, identified by relatives as 92-year old Kathryn Johnson, opened fire on the officers from the narcotics division at a house at 933 Neal Street, according to officials. Authorities say they received a tip of drug activity taking place at the home and officers were headed to the house with a search warrant. ...

"They kicked her door down talking about drugs, there's no drugs in that house. And they realize now, they've got the wrong house," Dozier said. "I'm mad as hell." Officials say they had the correct house and that the warrant they had was legal.

Assistant Chief Alan Dreher says the officers had a legal warrant and "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door. He said they were justified in returning fire when they were fired upon.

CNN, however, explicitly says the men were shot approaching the house, in contrast to Dreher's statement:

As the plainclothes Atlanta police officers approached the house about 7 p.m., a woman inside started shooting, striking each of them, said Officer Joe Cobb, a police spokesman.

One was hit in the arm, another in a thigh and the third in a shoulder. The officers were taken to a hospital for treatment, and all three were conscious and alert, police said.

This makes little sense. Had the men been shot approaching the house, the police officers would not have stood in front of the front door, knocking and announcing themselves while under fire from inside. They would have either stormed the house or called a SWAT team to deal with the situation. And how likely is it that a 92-year-old woman would get the drop on the three plainclothes detectives so completely that she could shoot and hit three of them before they ran for cover?

Radley Balko at Reason sees this as another Corey Maye situation (among others):

Details are sketchy, but unless a nonagenerian was pushing dope and using lethal force to protect her supply, the most likely explanation here is that someone sent the tactical team to kick down the wrong door after a bad tip from an informant. Again. Only this time, the spunky old broad inside met the intruders with gunfire ... This of course is why you don't kick down doors for nonviolent offenses in the first place, especially if all you've got is a CI's tip.

In order to untangle this situation, we need all of the relevant facts, and fast. We cannot believe that the men got shot and that they properly executed a warrant afterwards. If Mrs. Johnson started firing on the men before they even approached the house, then lethal force would have been justified -- but we should see blood-spatter evidence of that where they were hit. From Chief Dreher's description, it sounds much more like they briefly announced themselves before invading Mrs. Johnson's home, and that she fired in response, believing herself to be victimized by the drug dealers the police wanted to catch in the first place. That would explain the multiple hits coming from a panicked nonagenarian rather than the ridiculous sniper story we're being asked to believe.

There may be legitimate reasons for no-knock entries or for the split-second announce-and-crash entries that caused this situation, where a 92-year-old woman got shot to death and three detectives got wounded. However, considering all of the ways it could possibly go wrong, they should only be employed when police have established a high probability of risk to the lives of officers and bystanders and no other means exists of mitigating it. That means surveillance and independent investigation and not just relying on an informant's tip. It certainly seems that the police in this case got the wrong house and got an innocent woman killed.

CQ Get Together On Friday Lunch? (Update & Bump)

I've had a number of requests from CQ readers and fellow bloggers here in the Southern California area to find a time to get together. With the family obligations, it's going to make it difficult to find time, especially since the First Mate has three dialysis runs this week. However, that does allow us a window of opportunity, if people can make it out to Orange County on Friday. Since the FM will be dialyzing between 10-1:30, we could get together for a lunch at the El Torito restaurant in Fullerton, perhaps starting at 11:30 am. If you have any interest in this, leave a comment or drop an e-mail with the subject "CQ Lunch". Let's see what we can put together.

UPDATE: Okay, we're definitely going to do this. I'll need RSVPs by Thursday so I know what to tell the restaurant. I'm looking forward to it!

UPDATE II: The place we're going to meet is the El Torito on Harbor Boulevard and Orangethorpe in Fullerton. It's on the northwest corner, next to the In-N-Out (which I had yesterday!). I'll start getting a count of attendees and give them a warning of our arrival later today or tomorrow. I hope to see a lot of CQ readers there!

Starting The Normalization Of Polygamy

Quite a while back (two years ago), I wrote that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v Texas would open a Pandora's box about all sorts of cultural norms currently supported by statute throughout the United States. At the time, Jonathan Turley had written about the impending sentencing of Tom Green for polygamy, and opposed it on the basis of personal choice. I wrote:

I don't see anything particularly wrong with gay marriage, as long as a majority of voters approve it. I also think that the Texas sodomy laws were about as stupid as you could have found in any penal code. ... However, the Court used a sledgehammer when a flyswatter would have prevailed, and the consequences of their decision has led -- logically -- to the appeal of all anti-polygamy statutes. If in fact the Court applies the same thinking to polygamy as it did to the sodomy statutes, then they have no choice but to free Green and declare all anti-polygamy statutes null and void.

Perhaps that is the Libertarian stance. Maybe that's for the public good, although I highly doubt it. But the court once again has set itself in a position where its own precedent requires it to legislate, a usurpation of their Constitutional authority just as much as Lawrence was.

Not everything that transpires between consenting adults is legal or should be legal, let alone given Constitutional protection. But that's where the SCOTUS has left us. They should take the opportunity to reverse their precedent and acknowledge the error they made in Lawrence, before Constitutionally guaranteed prostitution and adult incest come next.

Today, we see the same argument, this time in a report on the efforts of polygamists to rehabilitate themselves in the media by the Washington Post. Their supporters use Lawrence much as Justice Scalia predicted in his dissent:

Valerie and others among the estimated 40,000 men, women and children in polygamous communities are part of a new movement to decriminalize bigamy. Consciously taking tactics from the gay-rights movement, polygamists have reframed their struggle, choosing in interviews to de-emphasize their religious beliefs and focus on their desire to live "in freedom," according to Anne Wilde, director of community relations for Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy group based in Salt Lake. ...

In their quest to decriminalize bigamy, practitioners have had help from unlikely quarters. HBO's series "Big Love," about a Viagra-popping man with three wives, three sets of bills, three sets of chores and three sets of kids, marked a watershed because of its sympathetic portrayal of polygamists. The U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which voided laws criminalizing sodomy, also aided polygamy's cause because it implied that the court disapproved of laws that reach into the bedroom.

Since then, liberal legal scholars, generally no friend of the polygamists' conservative-leaning politics, have championed decriminalization. One of them is Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who has written two op-eds for USA Today calling for the legalization of bigamy -- and same-sex marriage.

Scalia predicted legal assaults on bans against a whole range of sexual behavior as a result of the decision, but primarily polygamy. It seems from the description in this article that the local authorities may have read the writing on the wall from Lawrence and now decline to pursue cases against polygamists. The sheriff featured in the article has adopted what he calls a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that sounds very familiar indeed.

Clarence Thomas, in his dissent, said he would have voted to repeal the "silly" law overturned by Lawrence, and I agree. That's how it should have been handled, and the Supreme Court should have refused to impose a Constitutional standard in overturning it. They brought a sledgehammer where a scalpel should have been employed, and they established a standard of privacy that will undermine a host of well-established public policies, unless they repudiate Lawrence at some later date. They also signalled law enforcememt agencies that they cannot rely on any long-term stability in the law, undermining the law before they can even address it.

This again demonstrates the damage the court can do when it strays from its role of interpreting the Constitution as written, rather than as how they would like it to be.

The Decline Of The Democrats' Diva

The 2008 presidential primaries had long been considered a coronation process for Hillary Clinton. Certainly, other names have surfaced as contenders for the throne, but most of them have been revealed as pretenders instead. John Kerry and Al Gore garner laughs and shudders, while Barack Obama just got to Washington two years ago. John Edwards has disappeared from view after his attempt to leverage half of his first term in any political office to become the Vice President -- except for that incident where his staffer went to the Evil Empire (Wal-Mart) to buy his kids a new game system.

Part of the consideration of Hillary's inevitability came from the massive war chest she amassed for her re-election bid to New York's Senate seat in the midterms. Facing no real competition, analysts presumed she would retain most of it for the 2008 primaries, giving her a huge head start and eclipsing most of the competition before the race even began. However, the New York Times reports that she has dissipated most of the money despite winning the race by over 30 points:

She had only token opposition, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton still spent more on her re-election — upward of $30 million — than any other candidate for Senate this year. So where did all the money go?

It helped Mrs. Clinton win a margin of victory of more than 30 points. It helped her build a new set of campaign contributors. And it allowed her to begin assembling the nuts and bolts needed to run a presidential campaign.

But that was not all. Mrs. Clinton also bought more than $13,000 worth of flowers, mostly for fund-raising events and as thank-yous for donors. She laid out $27,000 for valet parking, paid as much as $800 in a single month in credit card interest and — above all — paid tens of thousands of dollars a month to an assortment of consultants and aides.

Throw in $17 million in advertising and fund-raising mailings, and what had been one of the most formidable war chests in politics was depleted to a level that leaves Mrs. Clinton with little financial advantage over her potential rivals for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination — and perhaps even trailing some of them.

The first rule of political campaigns, as expressed in a joke told by John F Kennedy, is not to buy a single vote more than you need. Not only did Hillary overbuy, but she didn't even do so very efficiently. Chuck Schumer spent half of what Hillary spent on his re-election bid in 2004, when George Bush and the Republicans won the electoral cycle, and he wound up with a higher margin of victory. In 2006, when all of the portents pointed to a Democratic victory -- and in New York, where her re-election was assured -- Hillary blew a lot of cash to get her 2-1 margin over an earnest but doomed Republican challenger.

So who got the money, besides the florists? The same political consultants who -- surprise! -- told her to spend the money. Her pollster, Mark Penn, got over a million dollars in a race that no one considered at risk. Mandy Grunwald got almost a million for communications consultant services, again for a race where Hillary got tremendous coverage in the press. Millions went out in advertising in an election that Clinton had sewed up before even moving out of the White House in 2001.

Democrats, naturally, wonder how Hillary can manage a presidential campaign when she can't exert any discipline over a gimme re-election bid. The money that was supposed to convince donors that she had a lock on the nomination has mostly gone, and with it any hope of keeping the kingmakers in line. Granted, she has a huge advantage with her highly popular popular husband on the fund-raising circuit, but even the most starry-eyed Democratic donors have to wonder which florist will wind up with their money.

Even beyond that, what happens if she wins the Presidency? It's hard to run as a fiscally disciplined executive when one keeps running profligate election campaigns. Spending $746,000 on entertainment, $125,000 of it at the New York Hilton alone, makes it look like Hillary will be less than circumspect with taxpayer money as well as donor contributions. It's the kind of high-profile consumption one expects from a Hollywood diva, and not from a serious political candidate who wants to build trust with the American electorate.

Hillary has given her Democratic competition a huge opening, and not just financially, in the 2008 primaries. Its doubtful that anyone can force Hillary to do anything, but if Democrats are serious about electing the first woman President, they'd better start providing her with better fiscal management.

Will Iranian Prostitution Spell The End Of The Mullahcracy?

An article in the Asia Times makes the rather unusual argument that the West has already won the clash of civilizations with Iran and the radical Islamists -- because they have begun selling their women. Spengler argues that nations signal their collapse when they turn their females into sexual commodities (via Instapundit):

Wars are won by destroying the enemy's will to fight. A nation is never really beaten until it sells its women.

The French sold their women to the German occupiers in 1940, and the Germans and Japanese sold their women to the Americans after World War II. The women of the former Soviet Union are still selling themselves in huge numbers. Hundreds of thousands of female Ukrainian "tourists" entered Germany after the then-foreign minister Joschka Fischer loosened visa standards in 1999. That helps explain why Ukraine has the world's fastest rate of population decline. On a smaller scale, trafficking in Iranian women explains Iran's predicament. ...

What is it that persuades women to employ their bodies as an instrument of commerce, rather than as a way of achieving motherhood? It is not just poverty, for poor women bear children everywhere. In the case of Iran, deracination and cultural despair impel millions of individual women to eschew motherhood. Prostitution is a form of psychic suicide; writ large, it is a manifestation of the national death-wish, the hideous recognition that the world no longer requires Ukrainians or Moldovans.

It's certainly a provocative argument, but a rather silly one. I'm sure Iranians have a prostitution industry, even if it's one that exists mostly underground, but to hold that out as a contrast to Western nations is just a little disingenuous. Spengler notes that estimates of prostitution have over 300,000 women in Teheran plying their trade. In a nation of 70 million and a metropolitan population of over 12 million, that is a significant number. However, it's a figure that has little context; is this a vast increase, or is this business as usual? Spengler says it's rising, but gives no figures for it.

The United States, using the same criterion, might also be described as a collapsing civilization. Prostitution has continued unabated in the US, and estimates fifteen years ago had 1 million American women working as prostitutes. On top of that, estimates of child prostitution ranged from 500,000 to 1.2 million victims of this exploitation. Over 100,000 women get arrested for prostitution each year as of 1991; it dropped to 65,000 by 2004, but whether this indicates a drop in the incidents of prostitution is another question.

In Europe, where people see sexual policies as more enlightened, prostiution has been legalized for decades and has become a significant industry. ICASA estimated that the Netherlands realizes over $1 billion from prostitution, and Thailand gets 14% of its overall GDP from the sex industry. Western European brothels get staffed primarily by Eastern European women. Iranian women do not appear to be much of a factor.

We can hope that the Iranian mullahcracy will collapse of its own internal rot. Pointing out their prostitution problem seems a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, however.

The Play The GOP Left In The Locker Room

The Democrats intend on making a show out of a series of reforms in the opening days of their new Congressional majorities. Rather than offer a comprehensive packages of reform initiatives, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will break them out into separate House rules -- which will allow them to dominate the reform agenda for days and weeks:

Despite divisions among Democrats over how far to go in revising ethics rules, House leaders plan a major rollout of an ethics reform bill early next year to demonstrate concern about an issue that helped defeat the Republicans in the midterm elections.

But they will do it with a twist: Instead of forwarding one big bill, Democrats will put together an ethics package on the House floor piece by piece, allowing incoming freshmen to take charge of high-profile issues and lengthening the time spent on the debate. The approach will ensure that each proposal -- including banning gifts, meals and travel from lobbyists as well as imposing new controls on the budget deficit -- is debated on its own and receives its own vote. That should garner far more media attention for the bill's components before a final vote on the entire package. ...

The approach may be the first indication of how the Democrats plan to use their ability to control the House agenda as the majority power, setting the terms of debate while lifting the strict rules that Republicans used to curtail dissent.

And Democrats hope to show that they are attentive to issues of corruption that, according to exit polling, proved to be of major concern to voters on Nov. 7. House and Senate GOP leaders pledged early this year to pass major lobbying reforms in the aftermath of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal but never delivered on their promise.

We've talked about Pelosi's ability to shoot herself in the foot, amply demonstrated by her support of John Murtha in the leadership elections and the decision to elevate disgraced former federal judge Alcee Hastings to the chair of the Intelligence committee. However, this plan shows that Pelosi and her fellow Democrats will not get everything wrong in this session. The plan to hold extended debate on these initiatives, one at a time, is nothing short of brilliant -- and it will serve as a constant reminder of the opportunity that the GOP let slip away.

In the days following the revelation of the Jack Abramoff corruption scandals, voters pressed Congress for action on lobbyist influence and corruption. Republicans said they supported reform, but did little to pass legislation to address it. Either they felt that the problem wouldn't find enough resonance with voters, or they really didn't want to end some of the lobbyist perqs that came with being in Congress. Either way, they proved themselves tone-deaf and let a golden moment slip by that would have reinforced their connection to the 1994 "revolution".

The Democrats do not want to let the same opportunity pass, and they have strategized for maximum publicity in the opening weeks. They will assign different components of their bill to freshman Representatives, especially those in conservative districts, as a means to shore up their prospects for re-election in 2008. Disagreement on various initiatives will not slow the overall reform process, and in fact will serve to heighten awareness in the media. Certainly, the Democrats risk exposing some of their anti-reform members, but the overall effect will be to show the Democrats as the party of reform.

The Republicans can watch this spectacle from the sidelines. They should also realize that they had plenty of opportunity to do exactly what Pelosi and Reid have planned, but left that particular play in the locker room. The GOP may have a long time for regrets on that decision.

A Familiar Refrain In Lebanon

Once again, a politician opposed to Syrian hegemony in Lebanon has been assassinated, and again the victim hails from a family with a long history of supporting Lebanese independence. Pierre Gemayel, whose brother Bashir was also assassinated in 1982, died in a suburban hospital after a shooting:

Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, his Phalange Party Voice of Lebanon radio station reported.

The shooting will certainly heighten the political tension in Lebanon, where the leading Muslim Shiite party Hezbollah has threatened to topple the government if it does not get a bigger say in Cabinet decision-making.

Gemayel was rushed to a nearby hospital, according to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. and the Voice of Lebanon, the Phalange Party mouthpiece reported. The party later announced that he was dead.

Gemayel, the minister of industry and son of former President Amin Gemayel, was a supporter of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, which is locked in a power struggle with pro-Syrian factions led by Hezbollah.

The assassination of Rafik Hariri set a popular revolt in motion that eventually saw most of Lebanon rise up peacefully against their Syrian occupiers, forcing them out of the country. That assassination came in the form of a sophisticated car bombing, which made it clear that the Syrians committed it. It seems they learned a lesson from the last time, or their Hezbollah proxies did.

Will this assassination resonate like Hariri's? Perhaps. In the case of Hariri, Hezbollah attempted a counter-demonstration in the days of the Cedar Revolution, calling close to a half-million people into the streets. Lebanese patriots then performed a counter-counter demonstration that dwarfed Hezbollah's and sent a powerful message to the Shi'ite radicals, one that had them reeling at the time.

Hezbollah and/or their Syrian sponsors may have overstepped once again. The Lebanese people ejected the Syrians in a powerful but peaceful manner. Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah did not get the message that time. They may have won some respect for their survival against Israel, but they have thrown it away in this ill-timed and ill-considered assassination. Expect severe consequences for this murder, and this time it may not come as peacefully as the Cedar Revolution.

Brownback The Great Conservative Hope?

Calling himself a "full scale Ronald Reagan conservative," Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas tossed his hat into the ring for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Brownback, who has a consistent record of conservative positions, hopes to emerge as the strongest conservative in the race against a field that appears to tilt significantly towards Rockefeller Republicanism:

Sen. Sam Brownback, who is considering a White House bid in 2008, said Monday the Republican field has room for a "full-scale Ronald Reagan conservative" and pledged to make a final decision next month.

The Kansas senator said he was not discouraged from running by the Democrats' strong gains in this month's midterm elections, including majority control of the House and Senate.

"It does not make it less likely," he said in an interview. "I really believe that the basic conservative ideas and ideals were not repudiated. Our execution was." ...

Brownback, who was elected in 1996, is a forceful foe of abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. He also has taken a prominent role in the fight against genocide in Sudan's Darfur region.

Brownback has made several trips to Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and other states that hold early presidential nominating contests. While national polls show McCain and Giuliani running strong, similar polls have shown Brownback in the low single digits.

An undercurrent of support has existed for Brownback since earlier this year, when it became plain that conservatives had grown disaffected with the GOP. He faces little competition on the right of the GOP field. His colleague John McCain has tried to convince Republicans to consider him for the conservative choice, but too many of them mistrust him over the free-speech suppression of the BCRA and his leadership in the Gang of 14 in 2005. Newt Gingrich has also attracted quite a bit of interest, but his negatives bode ill for a general election, and it's possible that Newt won't excite even the primary voters. Mitt Romney also has set some moderate expectations, but the process of governing a liberal state like Massachussetts will create some suspicion about Romney's consistent support of conservative values.

However, Brownback has the same problem as any Senator or Congressman -- a lack of executive experience. Legislators reach compromises, and those come back to haunt candidates on the presidential trail. One only recall John Kerry's clumsy explanation that he supported the $87 billion emergency war appropriation before he opposed it during the 2004 campaign to see how such consensus-building efforts can damage one's prospects for the Oval Office.

On the other hand, Brownback doesn't appear to have too many of these waffling points on the resume. On abortion, for instance, Brownback gets a perfect 100 from the National Right to Life Committee and a perfect 0 from NARAL. Likewise on the 2nd Amendment, he gets high praise from firearms groups and the worst ratings possible from gun-control advocates. He gets high marks from budget and tax hawks, but on immigration he appears to be a little bit of a squish. He supported the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform plan, a vote that will find him at odds with the conservative base he claims to represent.

It may not make much difference. Most of the oxygen is already getting sucked up by McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich. Brownback may have some name recognition among the politicos and the blogs, but he barely registers among rank-and-file voters. He and Duncan Hunter have the same problem -- no one will vote for a candidate unknown to them. Brownback would have to suddenly become a household name, and thus far his career has proven him less than dynamic.

Brownback may still surprise. Unless he does something spectacular soon, he simply won't knock Giuliani, McCain, Romney, or Gingrich off the front pages, though. Without that kind of coverage, and seemingly unable to generate that much attention throughout most of his career, Brownback doesn't look promising as the Great Conservative Hope.

Porker Of The Month?

Citizens Against Government Waste has named John Thune its Porker of the Month. Thune earned this distinction by getting a $2.3 billion loan for Dakota, Minnesota, & Eastern Railroad, a former client of his during his lobbying days, and Congress has barely even debated the outlay:

The loan guarantee from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) would allow the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern Railroad (DM&E) to expand and improve a rail line that is used primarily to transport coal from Wyoming to Minnesota. In apparent anticipation of the loan, Sen. Thune was instrumental in increasing the FRA’s loan guarantee authority from $3.5 billion to $35 billion in the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act. DM&E paid Thune $220,000 in 2003 and 2004 to lobby for the loan before his election to the Senate.

According to BearingPoint (a strategic consulting firm), the loan would require an annual payment of $246 million on top of the $15 million from another loan. Even if the rail upgrade increases DM&E’s current annual revenue of $200 million, the deal presents a poor credit risk to taxpayers, who will be forced to foot the bill if the company defaults. A senior manager at BearingPoint stated, “This loan finances a project with many financial uncertainties, ultimately calling into question whether or not DM&E can repay the loan.”

The DM&E loan is being compared to the $1.5 billion Chrysler bailout in 1980. However, at least that expenditure was the subject of intense public and congressional debate; the DM&E loan is quietly moving through Congress thanks to behind-the-scenes lobbying and legislative maneuvers.

Supporters of this loan argue that DM&E represents a strategic interest for American energy policy, as they service Wyoming coal fields. However, other railroads also service the same fields, and they do it more efficiently and more safely. In fact, DM&E has the worst safety record among the 43 large-scale rail carriers in the US. The other two railroads that service the coal fields will be put at a competitive disadvantage by the government bailout of DM&E, which promises to subsidize failure rather than allow the market to work properly.

Furthermore, unlike the Chrysler bailout, DM&E doesn't appear to have the capacity to repay the loan. DM&E has not released its financials to the public, making it almost impossible to tell whether the loan is necessary and for what purpose it will be used. DM&E currently makes less than $200 million in annual revenue; the loan repayments will start at $246 million in six years, and that's on top of a $15 million annual payment for their current $233 million loan. That sounds like a recipe for financial collapse, especially considering their safety record -- they're unlikely to find many new contracts.

Minnesota's Norm Coleman has come out in opposition to this bailout, although not in principle:

Sen. Norm Coleman said Thursday that he will oppose an expansion plan by the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad unless the Department of Transportation comes up with a plan to address the concerns of the Mayo Clinic.

"I need to soon see a mitigation plan," Coleman, R-Minn., said in a conference call with reporters. "If there isn't a plan, then I'll do everything in my prerogatives as senator to stop this project, either through the appropriation process or the legislation process."

Coleman said he wants to see a plan by the end of the year.

The entire project needs to be shelved. The federal government should not put itself in the business of bailing out private corporations, especially when other alternatives exist in the market. DM&E appears to have made itself a failure, and taxpayers should not reward incompetence. Thune needs to withdraw this request, and failing that, Congress needs to stop it as soon as possible.

What The GOP Leadership Elections Communicate

In the aftermath of the midterm elections, the Republican caucuses in Congress rushed into leadership elections without taking any time to analyze the failures that led them to lose control in both chambers. Instead, they hurriedly reaffirmed their existing leadership, which sent the strange message that they believed themselves on the right track. Even worse, the one change they made sent a message that the GOP would go backwards in their efforts to rebuild trust with the American electorate. In my Washington Examiner column this morning, I reflect on the message that Trent Lott's elevation sends to voters in 2008:

Rather than digest the message and the data from the election, the GOP ran pell-mell to re-elect the same leadership that lost the midterms. John Boehner and Roy Blunt are capable representatives, but they provided the leadership that continued to abuse earmarks for political gain, and ran the Republican House caucus during the period when Abramoff and other lobbyists corrupted the legislative process.

However, that pales in comparison to the action that the Senate GOP caucus took when it elected Trent Lott as minority whip. Lott’s attitude towards pork, and especially his attitude about the people who oppose pork spending, perfectly encapsulates why voters have grown disgusted with Congress and the Republican majority. ...

Lott told an AP reporter that “I’ll just say this about the so-called Porkbusters. I’m getting damn tired of hearing from them.”

Porkbusters are taxpayers, and we have every right to question how our money gets spent. The fact that the question came in response to a $700 million project to relocate rail tracks in Mississippi that we had just spent $300 million repairing makes the point even more clear.

Lott belongs to a generation of politicians that believe that they are above the criticism of their constituents, and that we should just shut up and let our betters decide what to do with us.

Again, one has to wonder why Republicans felt so rushed in selecting their leadership. The various candidates for those positions insisted that they had to hit the ground running in order to get the staffers they needed, and to start playing counter to the Democrats in the opening days of Congress, and so on. But as Hugh Hewitt said during one of those interviews, no organization in the world would make decisions on leadership after a significant setback within ten days, at least not without serious reflection on a new direction and the necessary qualities of new leadership to succeed in that new direction.

And the selection of Trent Lott is the worst of all these decisions. Lott lost his Majority Leader position for waxing nostalgic for Strom Thurmand's Dixiecrat run at the Presidency. He was being nice to an old man, of course, but someone in politics as long as he has been should have known what Thurmond's Dixiecrats represented and how foolish it would be to endorse that in 2002. His ham-handed pork politics represent everything that the 1994 Republicans wanted to change in Washington. Elevating him to leadership tells voters that reform is secondary to power -- the exact wrong message for a party in the minority.

The only thing that's kept the Republicans from completely dissipating their base of support is the foolishness of the Democrats. Unfortunately, we cannot rely on Nancy Pelosi to pull our chestnuts out of the fire for the next two years. The Republicans had better determine what they want to represent, and then rethink the leadership choices that clearly represent business as usual, if they want to return to the majority in 2008 or beyond.

Forced To Govern, Part 2

It seems that the Democrats have hit on a theme for their agenda, now that they have control of both chambers of Congress. Voters will recognize this theme, as Democrats have used it for decades as a lever for power -- market distortion. In yet another example of why Democrats represent a difference from Republicans, Chuck Schumer laid out a government-interference model for economics that will disincentivize industry and create inflationary pressures without any corresponding increase in productivity:

Senator Schumer, who concentrated his party's firepower on Iraq during an election in which he masterminded a narrow victory in the Senate, laid out the Democratic Party's less talked about domestic agenda yesterday.

"It's high time that Congress address issues that matter to the average family," Mr. Schumer, who was recently elected no. 3 in the Senate and will oversee the party's policy and strategy, said yesterday in New York.

Although Mr. Schumer presented the raft of policies — which included allowing prescription drug prices to be negotiated; restoring college tuition tax credits; raising the minimum wage, and tackling energy prices — as bipartisan and uncontentious, they immediately ran into trouble from conservatives who said many of the measures would not achieve their aims.

First, let's wallow in the irony of Chuck Schumer defining "bipartisan" and "non-contentious". Here's the Senator who ran the DSCC, an organization most noted for its theft of Republican Michael Steele's credit report, and a man who made identity theft his signature issue, opining on the nature of partisanship. That takes a lot of chutzpah, even for Schumer, whose level of that quality is legendary.

Besides, his agenda of top-down government control of economics hardly qualifies as bipartisan, no matter who makes the claim. For one, he wants to raise the minimum wage by over 40% over the next three years. Minimum wage raises are inflationary by nature, as they raise the costs of production without increasing either production or productivity. It forces employers to either raise prices or cut other expenses, and the effect of those choices becomes cumulative along the entire production-delivery line. The net effect of such mandates usually is a combination of higher prices and higher unemployment, especially among younger workers.

After that, he intends on having the federal government use its Medicare leverage to drive down the retail price of prescription medication. While this will indeed create lower prices for the Medicare prescription program, it will create a severe market distortion that will have one of two effects in response to the massive loss of profit for pharmaceuticals. Either they will have to raise prices to non-government distributors to make up for the losses, or they will have to put less money into research and development. Pharmaceuticals are all publicly-held corporations, and millions of people have invested retirement funds into them, in part. They want to see that investment continue to grow, and they will not get that when profits decline. The loss will either have to be made up, or the investments will decrease; it's one or the other.

Schumer also wants to "tackle energy prices", but somehow it's difficult to believe that he intends on using increased domestic supply to do so. Instead, he wants to mandate flexible-fuel technology in vehicles. That's not a bad idea, but government mandates for ethanol will not lower energy prices, not even at the pump. Ethanol does not travel well and it provides less power, gallon for gallon, than gasoline. Schumer also wants to give big federal grants to local mass-transit projects which have never been shown to lower energy prices. Not surprisingly, Schumer wants to direct most of those funds for New York.

We can see now why the Democrats resisted revealing their agenda for the past several years. It's the same, tired, top-down government intervention models that they have championed for the last several decades.

Forced To Govern, Part 1

The Democrats spent the last six years sniping from the sidelines without publicizing much of their own agenda. They made the valid point that any agenda they would propose would not get to the floor of the House or Senate under Republican control, and they concluded that they had no responsibility to formulate one -- at least not publicly. For three straight electoral cycles, they ran as the anti-GOP, and they finally succeeded in the last election in wresting control of Congress.

Ubfortunately, that forces the Democrats to actually pursue a political agenda -- and from what they've shown the voters, that should result in a very short time at the helm. First, Charles Rangel decided to revive the draft again, an idea he floated three years ago to the delight of Republicans:

The incoming Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means panel says he will introduce a bill to reinstitute a military draft in order to provide the U.S. with more troops, while Sen. John McCain continued his call for increase of troop levels in Iraq.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel of New York first called for a draft in January 2003, when Democrats were the minority party in both houses of Congress. Now that his party controls Capitol Hill, he was asked yesterday on CBS' "Face the Nation" if he was still serious about the proposal.

"You bet your life. Underscore 'serious,' " he said. "I don't see how anyone can support the [Iraq] war and not support the draft," said Mr. Rangel, alluding to Mr. McCain's call for increased troop levels in Iraq and to the need to combat threats elsewhere in the world. "If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft."

Rangel actually gave a number of reasons in the past for reinstituting the draft, but bolstering the war effort in Iraq wasn't among them. Even yesterday, he told an interviewer that the main reason was to discourage the deployment of troops anywhere. He again made the claim -- refuted by an exhaustive Heritage Foundation study -- that the poor and powerless are overrepresented in the military.

This is, on its face, ludicrous. We have an all-volunteer army, which means that no group gets forced into overrepresentation. Rangel wants to make the typical liberal case that adults are incapable of free choice, and that government exists to protect them from the consequences of those choices. The volunteer military produces more motivated recruits and a more disciplined military corps than America has ever fielded in the past, because the men and women who comprise it chose to be there.

No one's "children" go into the military, and in fact many "kids from their [politicians'] communities" enter the military. The construct that calls military men and women "children" is insulting beyond belief. They're adults, and their parents don't send them into the armed services. Beyond that, however, Rangel simply repeats a canard about the composition of the military that continues to have great credence on the Left. As I discussed the week prior to the election, military recruits actually tend towards the better educated and economic middle:

In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004–2005) sup­port the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight dif­ferences are that wartime U.S. mil­itary enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on aver­age than their civilian peers.

Recruits have a higher percent­age of high school graduates and representation from Southern and rural areas. No evidence indicates exploitation of racial minorities (either by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). Finally, the distri­bution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than that of the entire youth population. ...

By assigning each recruit the median 1999 household income for his hometown ZIP code as deter­mined from Census 2000, the mean income for 2004 recruits was $43,122 (in 1999 dollars). For 2005 recruits, it was $43,238 (in 1999 dol­lars). These are increases over the mean incomes for the 1999 cohort ($41,141) and 2003 cohort ($42,822). The national median published in Cen­sus 2000 was $41,994. This indicates that, on aver­age, the 2004 and 2005 recruit populations come from even wealthier areas than their peers who enlisted in 1999 and 2003.

When comparing these wartime recruits (2003– 2005) to the resident population ages 18–24 (as recorded in Census 2000), areas with median household income levels between $35,000 and $79,999 were overrepresented, along with income categories between $85,000 and $94,999. (See Chart 2.) Though the mainstream media continue to portray the war in Iraq as unpopular, this evi­dence suggests that the United States is not sending the poor to die
for the interests of the rich.

If anything, the draft created the kind of disparities that Rangel deplores, through college deferments for people with enough money to go to college. Rangel's new plan removes that loophole by stripping the choice for service from every man and woman in America. He plans on turning the military from the most effective fighting force in world history to the government's biggest social engineering program.

If one wants to see the difference between Republicans and Democrats, this gives a clear example. Rangel wants to solve a social ill that really doesn't exist, caused by too much choice, and use the government to eliminate all of the options available to Americans. Republicans have used a market approach to define the choices available and built the mightiest armed force in the world, by making sure the people who enter want to be there. We can expect to see this same template for health-care "reform", entitlement "reform", and a number of other "reforms" that the Democrats will now pursue.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin reminds us that the Democrats used the draft as a scare technique during the 2004 presidential election, claiming that George Bush would stuff a draft down the throats of college-age Americans. Now we see which party freedom-minded young adults such fear.

I Love LA

So we landed here yesterday afternoon, and the first fun thing I did was surprise the First Mate with a convertible for our rental car. I've never driven a convertible before, and I decided to rent one last week. We drove along the coast on our way up meet the family, and it was pretty darned sweet. We're about to head back down to the beach for some cruising and some shopping, and we'll take some pictures along the way.

The Internet connection has been very dicey here, but we're going to improve that later today. More later ...

UPDATE: Here's a picture of the FM and I at Huntington Beach, hanging out in the Chrylser Sebring convertible. It's a terrific ride and handles well, and we enjoyed driving back and forth from Fullerton to Surf City and then to Downtown Disney, where we all did some shopping. Now that's an interesting shopping mall; they have much more than just Disney shops there, and they have musicians performing live along the walkways. A country-music duo drew quite a crowd, with the fiddler playing a mean version of "Orange Blossom" to the delight of the crowd. Two toddlers entertained us with their dancing to the music, and it made for a bit of unpredicted fun.

I can get used to this ride -- but somehow I don't think it will translate to Minnesota ...

A Look At Blogs, Elections, And Political Parties

Jon Henke, one of my earliest friends in the blogosphere, spent the last three months trying to rescue a flailing George Allen campaign in Virginia, landing himself in the middle of one of the biggest mud-flinging campaigns of the election season. Having had that kind of experience, Jon had a unique vantage point from which to see the interaction between political parties, voters, and the blogosphere. He's written his post-mortem, in which he congratulates the liberal blogs for their impact:

Perhaps the biggest success of the Leftosphere happened here in Virginia, as Jim Webb took a long-shot campaign and, with a significant boost from the netroots, capitalized on the general anti-Republican zeitgeist and the missteps of George Allen to pull out a win.

Make no mistake, without the netroots, Webb would not have won. He may not even have been close. It was a long-cultivated activism/outreach/media-hounding New Media campaign that brought Webb to the attention of the institutional Democrats, sold him to the activists and shaped the narratives of both Webb and Allen for the media.

Specifically, I’d draw your attention to the Raising Kaine (run by Webb campaign staff) and Not Larry Sabato (a surrogate "oppo" outlet with plausible distance from the campaign) blogs, both of which have now played a major part in the elections of Tim Kaine and Jim Webb. Though there were aspects of their efforts with which I had real problems, there is no denying that their efforts to (a) generate local and national attention, (b) develop the narratives early and (c) sell Webb carefully were tremendously effective.

Without a doubt, they had a good election -- but I question whether they would have had that kind of year regardless of the efforts of the blogosphere. The race in Virginia was close enough to where they undoubtedly had an effect, but I thought Jon was pretty effective engaging conservative bloggers.

However, one point cannot be easily dismissed, and that was the power of the blogs on the Left to organize. We tried something similar on the Right, but we started too late to have much of an impact. I think many of us felt more comfortable in providing analysis rather than engaging in a more participatory fashion. That may spring from our critcisms of the press for being too participatory, or from an impulse to maintain some fistance for credibility.

If the Right blogosphere (which Dafydd ab Hugh calls the dextrosphere) wants to be a player in elections, it needs to start now. The outcry over the GOP's Congressional leadership elections may have galvanized us, convincing us that engagement has to take place soon in order to help shape a Republican Party that will deliver on the core principles we have discussed at length. That's the reason why I've started working on the First Principles project, which has already attracted interest from other significant right-leaning bloggers. I'll be doing some work on this during my California vacation, and I'm hoping to have this running before Christmas.

Somehow, though, I think Jon will be busy with other work. If the new Republican leadership in Congress wants to start taking the blogs seriously, then they can leverage Jon's experience under fire to help engage us -- but only if they're willing to listen.

Saudis Play Hardball With Blair

Tony Blair has been warned by the Saudis to force British investigators to drop a probe into a multimillion-pound slush fund or face the loss of diplomatic relations. The Saudi royal family has also threatened to stop all interagency intelligence cooperation on al-Qaeda and other counterterrorism efforts (via King Banaian):

SAUDI ARABIA is threatening to suspend diplomatic ties with Britain unless Downing Street intervenes to block an investigation into a £60m “slush fund” allegedly set up for some members of its royal family.

A senior Saudi diplomat in London has delivered an ultimatum to Tony Blair that unless the inquiry into an allegedly corrupt defence deal is dropped, diplomatic links between Britain and Saudi Arabia will be severed, a defence source has disclosed.

The Saudis, key allies in the Middle East, have also threatened to cut intelligence co-operation with Britain over Al-Qaeda.

The contretemps started over a corruption probe at British defense contractor BAE. The executivs set up a slush fund totalling 60 million pounds, or roughly $100 million, in order to help the royals maintain their lavish lifetyle. They wined and dined the Sauds in style, providing luxury items like a gold Rolls Royce and expensive holiday trips. In exchange, the Saudis kept their business with the British.

However, the British authorities discovered the corrupt connections and indicted several BAE executives. More pointedly, they convinced Swiss banking officials to open the accounts through which the fund operated and discovered the scope of the fraud and kickback scheme. The funds came from inflated payments to other units, which then kicked the monies back through Switzerland so that BAE could pimp for the Sauds.

The Sauds hit the roof when their Swiss bankers told them of the investigation, according to the Times of London source. They sent an emissary to 10 Downing Street, making it clear that the entire British-Saudi relationship hinged on getting their gold Rolls Royces supplied by British contractors, and that the entire war on terror depended on whether royals could still sun themselves on exclusive beaches.

This should be a warning to the West as to the fragility of Saudi support on the efforts to stop radical Islamism ... such as it is. They appear to only support the war as long as their endless supply of luxury items, supplied by fraud and corruption, continues without interruption. Counting on their efforts in the long run is a bad strategy. We need to do what we can to avoid antagonizing them, but we had better start working on alternate strategies to work around their petulant obstructionism.