Northern Alliance Radio On The Air Today

Mitch and I will be on the air at 1 pm CT for the Northern Alliance Radio Network. We'll be discussing the ISG report, Silvestre Reyes' appointment as House Intel chair, the new closed-door approach of Harry Reid, and much, much more. Be sure to tune into AM 1280 The Patriot or tap into their Internet stream. Join the conversation by calling us at 651-289-4488.

Also, if you haven't done so already, be sure to cast your votes for your favorite blogs in the 2006 Weblog Awards. I'm still in a big struggle for second place in the Best Conservative Blog category, so I can use all the help I can get. Don't forget to read one new blog each day in this contest!

Wasn't He On The Intel Committee Already?

Nancy Pelosi has struggled through a headache of her own making ever since tossing Jane Harman out of the House Intelligence Committee chair. She attempted to place Alcee Hastings into the slot, even though Hastings got impeached from the federal bench for corruption in the late 1980s. When her caucus rebelled, she instead selected Silvestre Reyes, who surprised the caucus with his support of an expanded US presence in Iraq. Now, according to CQ's Jeff Stein, Reyes has little understanding of America's explicit enemy in the war on terror:

... Reyes can’t answer some fundamental questions about the powerful forces arrayed against us in the Middle East.

It begs the question, of course: How can the Intelligence Committee do effective oversight of U.S. spy agencies when its leaders don’t know basics about the battlefield? ...

The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

Uh, no. AQ is overwhelmingly Sunni, actually more Wahhabi Sunni than anything else. Osama bin Laden and his cohorts don't cotton to Shi'ites; they consider them heretics, as Stein points out. Nor was Reyes' ignorance limited to the composition of al-Qaeda. When Stein asked him about Hezbollah -- which hasn't exactly flown under the radar this year -- he couldn't identify the Iranian proxy terrorists as predominantly Shi'ite.

Has Reyes actually attended intel committee hearings over the last few years? Has he read newspapers? People talk about George Bush being out of touch, but this should send genuine fear into the American electorate. How, Stein asks, can Reyes exercise effective oversight on American intelligence when he has so little understanding of our enemies and of the chief battlegrounds in the war on terror?

The Democrats should seriously reconsider Harman's expulsion. With the nation at war, we need people of expertise in these positions. It has become obvious that Pelosi instead considers these assignments only for their patronage value.

Progress On Oil Revenue

The thorny issue of Iraqi oil revenues appears closer to resolution, although it may still take more negotiations to finalize. The Kurds may find themselves on the short end of this debate as a result:

Iraqi officials are near agreement on a national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population, Iraqi and American officials say.

If enacted, the measure, drafted by a committee of politicians and ministers, could help resolve a highly divisive issue that has consistently blocked efforts to reconcile the country’s feuding ethnic and sectarian factions. Sunni Arabs, who lead the insurgency, have opposed the idea of regional autonomy for fear that they would be deprived of a fair share of the country’s oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Shiite south and Kurdish north. ...

Officials cautioned that this was only a draft agreement, and that it could still be undermined by the ethnic and sectarian squabbling that has jeopardized other political talks. The Iraqi Constitution, for example, was stalled for weeks over small wording conflicts, and its measures are often meaningless in the chaos and violence in Iraq today.

But a deal on the oil law could be reached within days, according to officials involved in the drafting. It would then go to the cabinet and Parliament for approval.

The major remaining stumbling block, officials said, concerns the issuing of contracts for developing future oil fields. The Kurds are insisting that the regions reserve final approval over such contracts, fearing that if that power were given to a Shiite-dominated central government, it could ignore proposed contracts in the Kurdish north while permitting them in the Shiite south, American and Iraqi officials said.

This is one issue that the ISG managed to get right in its report. Oil revenues and exploration are the most critical internal conflict in Iraq today. The sectarian fighting involves the radicals, but the only industry capable of putting food on the table of every Iraqi within a few months is energy production, and unless the various sects can agree on its management, real civil war will erupt.

This agreement may help avoid that. If the Kurds can win some guarantees that they will be able to develop their oil resources, then the new regulations can help everyone benefit from oil production and exploration. That will give the Sunnis a stake in stability that doesn't exist at the moment, and allow the Shi'ites to maintain Iraq as an integrated nation. The Kurds have accepted the principle of revenue sharing, as long as they can have influence on the development of their own resources. That part of federalism they like, and they do not want to give up what they fought so hard to have included in the constitution.

Obstacles still exist. Revenue sharing will rely on an accurate census, a topic that has been avoided since the end of Saddam Hussein's rule. The very attempt to conduct a census could destabilize the nation, especially if the counts differ significantly from the commonly-accepted ratios of the various ethnic/sectarian demographics. Security problems will also make it difficult to accurately count everyone, and the vast wealth that will be at stake will no doubt inspire plenty of cheating. The commission proposes to use the numbers from Saddam's rationing programs, but no doubt those favored the Sunnis.

Nonetheless, this is an important step to stabilization for the Iraqis. They need to iron out the rest of the related issues quickly and pass the law. If the government can successfully implement this and start delivering revenue to all Iraqis, they can quickly build confidence in their ability to properly govern the entire nation.

Iran: We'll Help US Retreat

Iran has decided that it will help the US retreat from Iraq -- as long as we are willing to pay the price. So far, the opening will require us to forego opposition to their nuclear program, but that's only the beginning:

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said Tehran is willing to help the US withdraw from Iraq. But he added that Iran would only assist if the Americans changed their attitude towards Tehran.

The BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran says Mr Mottaki did not spell out the change of attitude required. But she adds that Iran probably wants the US to drop its insistence that it freeze its nuclear programme before any kind of talks. ...

Speaking in Bahrain, Mr Mottaki said the key issue in solving the problems in Iraq was the withdrawal of foreign forces. "If the United States changes its attitude, the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to help this administration," he told a Gulf security conference.

He added: "When they have said they have decided to withdraw from Iraq, then we will explain how the region can help.

The Iranians analyzed the Iraq Security Group report most accurately; it's obviously a proposal for withdrawal and failure. Teheran would love to see this happen, but now sense that they can name their price to help us comprehend our utter defeat against radical Islamists. As long as we're willing to let them build nuclear weapons, they'll let us lose ... and again, that won't be the only concession for their 'cooperation'.

How else should the Iranians view the ISG report? They understand that they have conducted a low-level war against the US since 1979. Their proxies killed over 240 Marines in Lebanon and kidnapped Americans and other Westerners in Beirut, murdered our CIA station chief in the same period -- and the "realists" ended that phase of the war by selling Iran weapons and badly-needed spare parts. Now they have put more effort into killing American soldiers in Iraq by supplying and training their Shi'ite proxies, like Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army -- and the "realists" want to have Iran take part in determining the future of Iraq.

How many more victories do we want to hand the mullahs? And what new kind of war will the Iranians have to dream up next before we finally understand the reality of their constant war against the US?

Romney's Past Catching Up?

Mitt Romney has worked to position himself as a conservative alternative to John McCain and an ideological opponent of the more liberal Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 Presidential sweepstakes with Republican voters. He has successfully challenged both enough to get himself into the top tier for the nomination in these early days. However, the emergence of correspondence between Romney and the Log Cabin Republicans of Massachussetts in 1994 threatens to make Romney look like a (gasp!) libertarian:

Gov. Mitt Romney, the Massachusetts Republican who has built a presidential campaign on a broad appeal for conservative support, is drawing sharply increased criticism from conservative activists for his advocacy of gay rights in a 1994 letter.

Mr. Romney’s standing among conservatives is being hurt by a letter he sent to the Log Cabin Club of Massachusetts saying that he would be a stronger advocate for gay rights than Senator Edward M. Kennedy, his opponent in a Senate race, in a position that stands in contrast to his current role as a champion of a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

“We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” Mr. Romney wrote in a detailed plea for the support of the club, a gay Republican organization.

The circulation of the letter by gay rights groups in recent weeks has set off a storm of outrage among social conservatives, and by Friday was looming as a serious complication to Mr. Romney’s hopes.

Well, I'm not sure how much his positions in the letter will hurt his hopes, but it will certainly fuel the notion that Romney has a little too much flexibility in his principles. That impression has already taken hold on the issue of abortion, where Romney now professes to be pro-life but did nothing to oppose abortion during his one term as governor in Massachussetts. (Note: earlier I had incorrectly stated that Romney served two terms as Governor, and I thank the CQ readers who pointed out the error.)

Adam Nagourney and David Kirkpatrick milk this controversy for every last inch. They get both conservative activists and conservative gay activists to call Romney's supposedly shifting positions "troubling". Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, told the Times that he found the letter "disturbing". None say that they will stop supporting Romney, but it's clear the letter is making an impact.

What did Romney say that is causing such a reaction? He told the Log Cabin Republicans that he would do more than just match Ted Kennedy's record on gay rights, in order to get their support for his failed run to defeat the Massachussetts institution in 1994. He promised to make gay equality a "mainstream concern", which he said Kennedy could not do. He supported gays openly serving in the military, with "don't ask, don't tell" as just the first step towards open and honest service.

This does seem like a stretch from his current positions, which support a Constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage. It makes Romney look a little more opportunistic, which is the knock on John McCain, his main conservative opposition. Unless Romney can explain the seeming contradictions between 1994 and now, he's going to lose ground to Giuliani, and pretty quickly.

Even to me, who believes that the Republican Party has to get over its issues with gays, this pattern seems inconsistent. Frankly, the 1994 Romney position appeals to me, as it takes government farther out of the bedroom. I also oppose gay marriage by judicial fiat, which would only deepen the problems of our judicial autocracy. However, I believe that the issue of marriage recognition should be left to the states, and should follow the will of the citizens of those states. Marriage recognition is public policy, and its implementation is a decision for the voters and their representatives, not for unelected judges. I've written about this on several occasions.

However, Romney didn't just leave it at that in these early days of campaigning. He has supported a federal solution to marriage, which I think is a bad idea for many reasons, chief among them the lack of federal jurisdiction on the issue. If his views have transformed honestly over the last few years, then he needs to explain his journey from 1994 to 2006 more clearly. Even Ted Kennedy once opposed abortion in his political career; views can change, but when they do, politicians owe their constituents an honest explanation of why.

Perhaps Romney has that explanation, but at the moment, it seems more likely that he's sensing the political winds and following those rather than any deeply-held principles on the subject. That places him at a disadvantage against Giuliani, who has never felt the need to modify his positions for political gain. It's the difference between politicians and leaders, and even though Giuliani might hold many of the same positions as the 1994 Romney, he will have fewer problems from it.

Oh, When They Get Behind Closed Doors ... Watch Out

Oh, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors ...

I'm old enough to remember the old Charlie Rich ballad when it was a huge crossover hit. While the song talked about private love, the new session of the Senate may need the same reference to talk about its new approach to public policy. Harry Reid has called for a closed-door session of the entire Senate to kick off the 110th Congress, excluding the press and the public:

Senate Democrats, who campaigned on a pledge of more openness in government, will kick off the 110th Congress with a closed meeting of all 100 senators in the Capitol.

Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who will be the majority leader when the new Congress convenes Jan. 4, announced yesterday "a joint caucus meeting" for senators only, to be held that morning in the old Senate chamber, a cozy, seldom-used room. ...

Reid's staff said that the planned joint caucus will not amount to a legislative session because no business will be conducted and that it will probably occur before the new Congress officially opens. But Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, called it a bad precedent.

"When you get all 100 members of the Senate in a room, that's no longer a caucus. That's the Senate," she said. "I think the American people will see through that. I think the only way to restore public trust in what the Congress is up to is to have more transparency than less."

Normally I'd view anything from the Reporters Committee with skepticism, but in this case Dalglish has a good point. The Senate belongs to the people of the US and not Harry Reid or Mitch McConnell, who agreed to the session. If they are conducting the nation's business, then the nation has a right to see it for themselves. Even if they are attempting to reach some agreements on committee assignments and floor procedures, those negotiations affect how our nation will run, and the citizens of the US have a right to see those processes developed.

It's interesting that the party that ran on openness and clean government thinks that its first priority is to meet out of sight of the people who elected them. Reid himself talked about the need for sunlight shortly after winning the majority, ironically on Face The Nation. He said it meant "finding out what government is doing."

So why the closed-door session, if we need to find out what government is doing? Reid's spokesman says the session is meant to foster dialogue between the two parties. I'd say that Charlie Rich had a better bead on it:

She never makes a scene
By hanging all over me in a crowd
'Cause people like to talk
Lord, don't they love to talk
But when they turn out the lights
I know she'll be leaving with me

In this case, however, the only one getting screwed will be the American taxpayer.

Wannabe Jihadi, Take 2

Six months ago, the FBI took down a ring of wannabe jihadis with large aspirations for terrorism and small mental capacities to conduct it. Apparently, they discovered another benighted aspirant to radical Islam in the person of Derrick Shareef, whose brilliant cunning allowed him to get caught in a sting before he ever bought his first hand grenade:

A man has been arrested by federal agents on charges of planning to set off hand grenades at an Illinois shopping mall on Dec. 22 as part of his plan to commit "violent jihad" against civilians.

Derrick Shareef, 22, of Rockford, was arrested when he carried out a rendezvous with an undercover agent in a parking lot to trade a set of stereo speakers for four grenades and a handgun.

Federal officials said he planned to place the grenades in garbage cans at the CherryVale shopping mall in Rockford, about 90 miles northwest of Chicago.

Shareef was charged with one count of attempting to damage or destroy a building by fire or explosion and one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Officials say he was acting alone and there was never any real threat.

The WMD charge seems like a stretch, given the details of the arrest. I suppose one could make an argument that a grenade would cause massive damage, but that's putting a rather mundane twist on WMD. Using that definition, every nation in the world would have WMD, including Saddam's Iraq and the Swiss. Normally, WMD would indicate chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. I expect that the WMD charge will eventually disappear, either by the prosecutor dropping it or the judge dismissing it.

However, just as with the Miami ring of idiots, this guy should face charges of criminal stupidity. Michelle Malkin has excerpts from the affadavit, and they're entertaining. Shareef had already made his video will, a nice little piece of evidence that will go a long way to convincing a jury that this was no lark. He also picked his friends rather stupidly, as he spilled his entire plan to a partner that had already started working with the FBI. This criminal mastermind then traded his stereo speakers to buy four grenades and a gun instead of using somewhat less traceable cash -- but given that the FBI conducted the transaction, it made little difference.

This is not to say that Shareef didn't pose a danger to the community. Had he acquired his grenades without detection, he likely would have killed several people in the crowded mall. We were fortunate that Shareef couldn't jihad his way out of a paper bag, and also that the FBI somehow managed to have a confidential informant at the right place and time. If that seems a little coincidental, perhaps we should understand that our long streak without an attack doesn't come from pure luck.

Shareef may have been a lone wolf, as the FBI said, but the lone wolves are the ones we have to fret. Conspiracies involve a lot of communications, with exposure possible at many points. A competent jihadi operating alone could cause a lot of damage, and it's more impressive to me that the FBI managed to snag Shareef. Nice work, guys.

Sun Rises In East, Taxes Get Collected, And ...

... Hamas insists that it will never recognize Israel nor abide by previous agreements of the Palestinian Authority. It's hardly breaking news; Hamas has said this repeatedly even before winning control of the PA early this year. However, their latest venue does warrant a second look:

Haniyeh arrived in the Iranian capital on Thursday for a four-day visit for talks with Iranian leaders including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." ...

Haniyeh called Iran, a longtime ally of Hamas, the Palestinians' "strategic depth" because they were together in their fight against Israel.

"They (Israelis) assume the Palestinian nation is alone. This is an illusion. ... We have a strategic depth in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This country (Iran) is our powerful, dynamic and stable depth," he said.

Iran has provided the Hamas-led Palestinian government with US$120 million (€90.25 million) this year despite a US-led international financial boycott of the Palestinian government. The financial aid has boosted Iran's influence among Palestinians.

Iran and Ahmadinejad should take care. A little more of this kind of support, and they might find themselves labeled as "rejectionists".

Perhaps Not Such A Hit At Home, Either

Earlier, I wrote that the Iraq Study Group proposal bombed with the nations most directly involved in its recommendations, especially with Iraqis. The report seemed to fare much better inside the Beltway, but it turns out that even there people question the report's policy recommendations:

Members of Congress yesterday questioned the practicability of recommendations from the Iraq Study Group about how to reverse the chaos in Iraq, but they praised the panel's stark assessment of conditions there. ...

Democrats were guarded in their treatment of the report, especially its call for engaging Syria and Iran in diplomacy. In comments after a hearing yesterday with the co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group, Levin suggested that "there could be some kind of effort to generally support the recommendations."

But Republicans and Democrats alike on the Senate Armed Services panel quizzed former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) about specifics. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was the most dubious, singling out the group's decision not to call for sending more troops to Iraq. "I believe that this is a recipe that will lead to, sooner or later, our defeat in Iraq," he said.

In fact, few saw any value at all in the central recommendations of the ISG, which argued for the creation of a regional conference of Iraq's neighbors -- excluding Israel -- and negotiations with Iran and Syria. A defensive James Baker insisted that the US should at least attempt to engage Iran, if for no other reason than to show the Iranians as "rejectionist". He and Lee Hamilton also took the opportunity to scold Congress for not doing enough to influence White House policy on Iraq.

Congress didn't buy any of their arguments. Some took the opportunity to use the hearings to score political points against the Bush administration, but that's both easy and pointless, since neither George Bush nor Dick Cheney will run for office again. Members of both parties made it clear, though, that any solution that relies on Iran and Syria to play a constructive role in ending terrorism is a fantasy doomed to failure.

Baker tried strenuously arguing that point, however. He claimed that the US successfully engaged Syria in 1990 to stay out of the Gulf War despite their being a terrorist state. What he failed to mention is that (a) they continued being a terrorist state, (b) they had their own issues with Saddam Hussein at the time, and (c) they clearly saw that the war would happen and that Iraq would lose it. We also applied enough pressure to get the Syrian Army to withdraw from Lebanon, and that's only because we had 140,000 troops next door. I don't think either the Syrians or the Iranians greatly fear being labeled as "rejectionists", whatever that means. They greatly fear getting their behinds kicked like Saddam experienced twice.

Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat from Hawaii and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, put it best. He called the ISG report "theater ... devoid of any basis in reality," and predicted disaster if anyone took it seriously enough to attempt its implementation.

George Bush apparently agrees. Despite his gracious reception of the report, he made clear yesterday that he wouldn't go hat in hand to terror-supporting states:

The emerging debate over the report sets a baseline for the administration's own internal review of Iraq policy, which officials hope to complete in time for Bush to give a speech to the nation before Christmas announcing his new plan for Iraq. At a news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush called himself "disappointed by the pace of success" and said that "we'll change it if we want to succeed."

"The American people expect us to come up with a new strategy to achieve the objective which I've been talking about," Bush said.

Yet, while the president called the Iraq Study Group's ideas "worthy of serious study," he seemed to dismiss the most significant ones point by point. He noted that Blair is heading to the Middle East to promote Arab-Israeli peace, but he gave no indication that he plans an aggressive new push of his own as proposed by the commission. Bush said he, too, wants to bring U.S. troops home but noted that the group qualified its 2008 goal by linking it to security on the ground.

And he repeated his refusal to talk with Iran and Syria unless Tehran suspends its uranium-enrichment program, Damascus stops interfering in Lebanon and both drop their support for terrorist groups. "The truth of the matter is that these countries have now got the choice to make," Bush said. "If they want to sit down at the table with the United States, it's easy: Just make some decisions that will lead to peace, not to conflict."

It's hard to fight a war against radical Islamist terrorists when one is trying their best to kiss up to their biggest sponsors. That's something that James Baker, Lee Hamilton, and the rest of the ISG seem to have forgotten. Fortunately, Bush has not.

Not Exactly A Hit Abroad

The Iraq Study Group played well inside the Beltway yesterday, but it tanked on the road, according to the Times of London. If James Baker and Lee Hamilton expected swoons of delight from abroad, then they will have to prepare themselves for disappointment:

The recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group were broadly welcomed by most Republicans and Democrats in Washington yesterday, but received a far cooler reception in Iraq, Iran, Israel and from the US military.

The report, which calls for the withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq by early 2008, negotiations with Iran and Syria, and a renewed Middle East peace initiative, was a rare triumph of political compromise in Washington.

But for those directly affected by the Iraq war and the wider regional instability — the Iraqis themselves, Israel and the US troops on the ground — the report was widely seen as unrealistic and provocative. In Baghdad, it was branded by some influential Sunnis as designed to solve American, rather than Iraqi, problems.

It comes as no surprise that Israel rejects the ISG report. The only concessions it demands from anyone other than the US are from Israel, which must give up the Golan Heights just to get Syria to discuss whether or not to stop fomenting terrorism. Ehud Olmert laughed off the notion that Iraq's problems have anything to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most of the problems described in the report have more to do with 1300 years of Sunni domination over the Shi'ites. The Palestinians are just a blip on the timeline.

If Baker expected Iran to jump with joy at the prospect of talks with The Great Satan, the Iranians made it clear that they see no reason for rejoicing. The only offer mentioned for Iran in the report was that we would stop trying to press for regime change, a concession they see as next to useless. The ISG banked its entire approach on bringing Iran and Syria into a regional conference, where they supposedly would act in their own self-interest to stop the chaos in Iraq. Instead, the Iranians indicated that they see no benefit in ending the chaos, especially since they're causing most of it themselves. That underscores the naivete of the ISG in thinking that Iran would view a stable, secure democracy that cooperates with the US on the war on terror, right on their Western border, as within their self-interest. It's easily the most risible portion of the utopian wish-list that the ISG produced.

Even the Iraqis don't want the regional conference. They don't see their internal politics as the business of their neighbors, and the majority Shi'ites see the recommendation as an attempt to use Sunni influence on their government. The Sunnis have dominated Iraq for centuries and no Arab nation has had any Shi'ite government. Now the Shi'ites want their turn, and the regional conference of Sunni nations (except Shi'ite Iran and Allawi Syria) threatens it. That should have been obvious to anyone, especially a panel of "wise men" attempting to re-engineer Iraq.

Everyone but the ISG and their cheerleaders understand that the main thrust of their report is built on fantasy. Iran and Syria will not voluntarily end their support and direction of terrorism just because we ask them to a big meeting. They have a vested interest in the collapse of the Iraqi democracy and its relationship with America. Suggesting that the situation in Iraq could be improved by the Israelis giving the Golan Heights and its strategic advantages to the Syrians for nothing is nonsense on stilts, as the saying goes, and everyone but the American political elite know it.

A Shadow Attorney General?

After narrowly losing his race for governor, most of us expected Mike Hatch to take an extended vacation and then go into private practice. Instead, his replacement as Attorney General has suggested that Hatch could work for her and help run the office, which raises questions about whether Hatch arranged to effectively run for two offices at the same time:

Attorney General Mike Hatch will vacate his big office in the west wing of the State Capitol when his term ends in early January, but there's a chance he'll stay on as a staff member under Attorney General-elect Lori Swanson, who has been his long-time top deputy and confidante as solicitor general.

The arrangement would be unusual and potentially controversial, say some observers, creating a perception that Hatch is still in charge of an office that he held for two terms and often has described as his life's passion.

Swanson said Thursday that she has asked fellow DFLer Hatch to consider serving as a regular assistant attorney in the office. ...

David Schultz, a Hamline University law professor and expert in ethics, said that Hatch going to work for his former subordinate appears to be legal, but that it would make some citizens wonder "if the tail is wagging the dog. Would he be seen as the de facto attorney general? It raises all kinds of questions about who's running things, given the close relationship they've always had."

Schultz added, "Voters also have to be wondering whether Mike Hatch was running for two positions, governor and attorney general, this fall. It will be hard for him to go from top banana to second fiddle, and you don't ever see this kind of dynamic work. The smartest thing when a leader leaves is to really leave."

House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, said Hatch working for Swanson would look "odd, like kind of a switcheroo. It kind of reminds you of when Governor George Wallace [of Alabama] had his wife run for governor, and everybody knew who the real governor was."

Hatch says he'd only take the position for a short time if he does accept Swanson's offer, and Swanson insists that she would remain in charge. She claims that Minnesota does not want to lose his skills as a top-flight legal talent, but the arrangement would be highly unusual, to say the least. Swanson has worked for Hatch both in private practice and in the AG office for years, and that history will create a strange dynamic for the other assistant AGs who might well wonder where the power lies.

It also calls into question the selection of Swanson for the DFL nomination. Matt Entenza had won the nomination for the race, but had to withdraw after it came out that Entenza had spent considerable money spying on ... Mike Hatch. After the Entenza withdrawal, the Democrats had to choose a replacement for the ballot, and Hatch strongly backed Swanson for the job. Under those circumstances, it's not hard to see the quid pro quo, especially for a man like Hatch who likes power and wields it without much thought of the consequences.

Swanson should reconsider her offer to Hatch, and quickly. Otherwise, her term in office will certainly appear to be nothing more than a front for the former Attorney General with more ambition than sense.

If You're In The Voting Mood ...

... please be sure to drop by the 2006 Weblog Awards and cast a vote for Captain's Quarters as Best Conservative Blog. It looks like Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs is running away with this category, and it's hard to argue with anyone who chooses LGF -- or any of the other great blogs in this category.

I'll have an endorsement list later, but I do want to throw in a special mention for The Moderate Voice as Best Centrist Blog. In my opinion, Joe Gandelman and his co-bloggers practically define centrist blogging, and he deserves the nod. Unfortunately, that puts me at odds with another one of my favorites, QandO, which isn't really centrist but libertarian. They didn't have a group blog category this time, so QandO appears in competition with TMV.

Most of all, be sure to select a new blog every day to read!

First Mate Says Hello

Thanks for all of your e-mails and comments today in support of the First Mate. She wanted me to pass along her thanks to all of you as well. She's doing well, resting comfortably after the insertion of the stents, and she'll be out of the hospital tomorrow morning. Interestingly, I spotted an article on this very topic as I went through the various feeds. USA Today reports that drug-coated stents do not cause more heart attacks than the norm:

Drug-coated stents that prop open the arteries of about 3 million people in the U.S. don't increase the risk of heart attack or death when used as labeled but may put patients at risk for blood clots, health advisers said Thursday.

While the panel of experts broadly dismissed the more serious risks, they split on characterizing the degree of the increased clotting risk in comparison with older, bare-metal stents. They agreed only that more study of the newer devices is needed.

"There may be something there. From an evidence-based perspective, I can't say definitively one way or another," said panel member Dr. Norman Kato of the Cardiac Care Medical Group of Encino, Calif.

Another panel member, Dr. Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic, said the clotting risk was real and that only its magnitude was in question.

A stent is a wire-mesh tube about the size of a ballpoint pen. The stent gets inserted during the angioplasty on the outside of a small inflated balloon. The plaque in the artery gets crushed by the wire-mesh stent when the balloon is inflated at the desired site. When they have the stent in place, they deflate the balloon and withdraw the probe.

The doctors chose the uncoated metal stents for the First Mate, so this doesn't relate to her procedure today. The increased clotting risk requires patients to take blood thinners for six months to a year after their insertion. That would bar her from having any surgeries during that period, so the doctors decided to use the unmedicated stents instead. I'm happy with that decision, as it only requires a four-week regimen of blood thinners and lowers her chances of a stroke or heart attack, even if just slightly.

I took the rest of the afternoon off from e-mail and the blog, and watched the Pittsburgh Steelers crush the Cleveland Browns, which is a tonic for the stress from today. (I might even watch a replay!) I'll catch up tomorrow, but in the meantime, have a lovely evening.

Cleanse The Code

I had the opportunity to participate in a conference call with Senators Larry Craig and Ron Wyden regarding the Cleanse The Code project, a tax reform effort to simplify the ungainly regulations that currently exist. I've taken notes of the opening remarks:

Ron Wyden (D-OR):

There have been 15,000 changes in the tax code since the last revision, and now stretches out to 55,000 pages. None of this has made tax compliance any easier; we spend more on tax compliance than education. We either have to keep adding more regulations or "drain the tax swamp". We need a one-page 1040, which the adminstration wants as well. This is a natural opportunity for bipartisanship, and much of the activist model comes from 1986, another bipartisan effort.

The last tax reform took place during the second term of a Republican president working with a Democratic Congress. It can happen again.

Larry Craig (R-ID):

Some differences exist between his tax reform proposal and Wyden's, but they have lots of commonalities. We have to end the 6.4 billion hours of tax compliance that has to be spent every year. It's so complicated that even the IRS can't always determine how the law applies. We need to stop piecemealing it and take reform as a comprehensive project; "we should be sophisticated enough to recognize that."

Other nations have already started moving towards a flat tax to remove the manipulative characteristics of investment. Congress should not be incentivizing and disincentivizing market behaviors through taxation -- that's the job of the market itself. Georgia and Ukraine already realize this, and we need to do so as well.

I had to leave the conference early to consult with the First Mate's doctors. I'm impressed by the effort made by Wyden and Craig, but not necessarily with the direction they appear to be taking. They seem to believe that they can reform the tax system along the same lines as was done in 1986, at least in political terms, and they may be right about the bipartisan desire for simpler tax structures. However, what they propose is simply to reduce the symptoms of the disease rather than cure it altogether.

The only way to stop Congress from manipulating the economy is to strip it from its ability to manufacture the kinds of tax loopholes that benefit special interests in the first place. That would mean either a flat income tax or a transition to a consumption tax, both of which they appear to be avoiding. I asked specifically about the national sales tax proposal that would completely end income taxes at the federal level, and the response seemed a bit vague. The Senator -- I believe it was Senator Craig -- wouldn't rule it out as a solution, but he said that it would infringe on the ability of states to use sales taxes, which seems unlikely to me. Gasoline carries both federal and state taxes, for instance, as do the sale of vehicles. It's simply a matter of bookkeeping and distribution, rather simply done at either the state or federal level.

The flat income tax got further mention, but I heard more about eliminating a specific number of personal and corporate tax breaks to even out the field and to simplify the code. No doubt this would improve the lives of Americans, and it should not get dismissed; that alone would be a pretty impressive victory for tax reform. However, it leaves the same basic structure in place that we have had for the last century, and our experience during that period shows that Congress will abuse it. We'll be back here in 20 years having the same argument we have now, and that we had in 1986.

Cleansing the code is an honorable goal, but the better solution is to eliminate the code altogether and put in place a turnkey system for tax collection that does not overburden the taxpayers, and more importantly shuts the door on political tinkering for individual political gain. Wyden and Craig should focus on the larger prize.

UPDATE: Michael Combs at Strong As An Ox ... has a good post on this subject from November, pointing out the differences between Simplifiers and Complicators:

There are two kinds of people in the world, Simplifiers and Complicaters.

I can hear you Complicaters screaming right now that there are grades of simplification and complication, and each subset must be described and named, and that the differences between each subset are so subtle as to make categorization meaningless, and therefore it is impossible to make any generalizations involving simplicity and complexity.

Bottom line: Keep It Simple, Simplifiers.

Pearl Harbor at 65

About this time 65 years ago, Imperial Japan conducted a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in their bid to knock America out of the Pacific. Japan actually intended to give Cordell Hull their declaration of war an hour prior to the attack, part of a coordinated offensive that would hit US installations throughout the Pacific over a matter of hours. A delay in gaining an audience with the Secretary of State created the conditions for the perfidious bombing at Hawaii. No matter -- the attack successfully crippled the Pacific Fleet, at least for a short time. The picture below comes from the Naval Archives, a color photograph from a film shot of the USS Arizona as its ammunition magazines exploded:

This also marks what appears to be the last meeting of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. Too many of their members have passed away or have become too infirm to travel; the affiliated associations have even begun to disband for lack of membership. For sixty-five years, they have upheld their motto -- "Remember Pearl Harbor, and Keep America Alert". However, some see the 9/11 attacks as a failure of America to listen to them:

The survivors say they have more than horrific memories to offer. "Remember Pearl Harbor" is just the first half of the association's motto; the rest is "Keep America alert."

Martinez said many Pearl Harbor survivors were disheartened by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, "as if they had not done their job hard enough."

Once again, it seemed that America had been caught sleeping. Interest in Pearl Harbor and its aging survivors surged. The old soldiers are much in demand — to sign autographs, walk in parades, speak to classrooms and pose for pictures. Visits to the USS Arizona Memorial are at record levels.

Unfortunately, we seem to be attempting to learn all of the old lessons again the hard way, including appeasement. It's hardly the best way to remember Pearl Harbor or its key role in launching the United States as a superpower, but perhaps the anniversary will remind people of the feckless nature of appeasing tyrants and radicals determined to end our way of life. Let's hope so.

Michelle Malkin has an excellent post on this subject. Be sure to read it.

A Baby! Stone The Crows!

Somehow the national crisis of Mary Cheney's pregnancy escapes me. The news that Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter is expecting her first child has activists across the political spectrum in a strange dither:

Conservative leaders voiced dismay Wednesday at news that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick Cheney, is pregnant, while a gay-rights group said the vice president faces "a lifetime of sleepless nights" for serving in an administration that has opposed recognition of same-sex couples.

Mary Cheney, 37, and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, 45, are expecting a baby in late spring, said Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president. ...

Family Pride, which advocates on behalf of gay and lesbian families, noted that Virginia last month became one of 27 states with a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. ... "Unless they move to a handful of less restrictive states, Heather will never be able to have a legal relationship with her child," said Jennifer Chrisler, the group's executive director. "Grandpa Cheney has been part of an administration that has leveled unprecedented attacks [on gays]…. If this doesn't make it real for him, I don't know what will."

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America described the pregnancy as "unconscionable."

Ugh. I've never heard of a child being described as "unconscionable", which demonstrates the hysteria that accompanies the entire debate over recognition of gay relationships. Children and pregnancies are not unconscionable -- or if they were, then they would present a perfect argument for abortion. Would Crouse prescribe that solution to Mary Cheney?

I understand why people resent the push for legalizing gay marriages through judicial fiat. Recognition of marriage is a public policy, and the people should set that policy through the legislative process. It's the only legitimate means of establishing law in a representative democracy other than a referendum -- and in many states, voters have opposed gay marriage through both processes. I think that it's a misguided policy, as I do not see the state as the protector of sanctity in any case, but at least we live under the rule of law as determined by the people.

What people choose to do privately is something else entirely. Mary Cheney chose to conceive a child, and broke no laws in doing so. She's an adult and can support the child. The baby will have a supportive extended family, including the Vice President and Mrs. Cheney, who have five grandchildren already. It's really none of our business whether Mary Cheney wants to bear a child or not, as long as she's not killing the child.

Let's try to keep the hysteria down to a minimum. Calling a child unconscionable or fretting about its ability to bond with a parent outside of government recognition of a relationship is nothing more than cheap exploitation of a person merely for her publicity value. Both sides should be ashamed of themselves.

Remember Reform?

The Democrats came back to the majority in both chambers of Congress in good part due to their ability to tie Republicans to lobbying scandals and petty (and not so petty) corruptions. Nancy Pelosi promised to "clean up Congress" as one of her top priorities when she takes the gavel in January. Apparently, that leaves her a few weeks to let the Democratic caucus to cozy up to lobbyists:

Democrats may be promising a clampdown on lobbyist freebies once they take control of Congress. But ahead of that push, party leaders are collecting lobbyists' checks, while Democratic staffers angle for jobs inside their well-appointed offices.Verizon Communications Inc. earlier this week sponsored a reception for newly elected Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. Illinois Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean was the beneficiary of a Tuesday night fund-raiser in the new Capitol Hill offices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In addition to retiring Ms. Bean's debt, Chamber Political Director Bill Miller said the reception was a chance for corporations and lobbyists who didn't back her re-election to "meet her and see what a great representative she is."

Yesterday, Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, mastermind of the Democrats' House takeover, accepted donations at Sonoma, a trendy Capitol Hill restaurant that features California cuisine to match the wine list, for his leadership committee, a type of account employed by ambitious lawmakers to make donations and curry favor with their colleagues.

Separately, Moses Mercado, the Democratic National Committee's deputy executive director, will soon be joining the Federalist Group, a lobbying group with close ties to the White House that went bipartisan about a year ago. Mr. Mercado "can help our clients deal with the new majority on Capitol Hill," says Wayne Berman, the Republican founder of the firm. Senior aides to incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also have been snatched up by lobbying shops, while Democratic lobbying firms, largely frozen out in Washington for years, are being courted by dozens of new potential clients.

So much for breaking the links between lobbyists and legislation. Now the Democrats have started to hedge their statements and initiatives, promising to clamp down on those lobbyist favors like freebies to sporting events and expensive meals. They don't plan to do much about campaign donations -- and the parties this month will come before the end of the midterm cycle. That means the Democrats can collect all sorts of contributions during the Christmas party season, and the slate will be clean after the start of the new session on January 4th.

Political Money Line makes it clear that the Democrats have their eye on a large pot of gold with their embrace of the lobbying community. As of October 18th, political action committees had $280 million still unspent in the midterms, money that will have to get disbursed before the end of the midterm cycle at the New Year. That money will flood to the party in power, filling the coffers of newly-elected incumbents and putting challengers at a disadvantage even before the freshman take the oath of office.

Lobbyists have their calendars booked. They began receiving e-mailed invitations to "debt-reduction receptions" shortly after the election, and those invitations come with hefty price tags. Those wishing to "co-host" the event have to pony up $15,000 each, while mere guests only have to plop $2,500 down onto the table. Republicans have also set up a few of these receptions as well, but the lobbysists understand where their presence is more required -- as well as their cash.

I recall that more than a few people offered the opinion that Democrats could hardly be worse than the Republicans on lobbying corruption. I guess we just found out how wrong that would be.

Hospiblogging To George Michael

Today the First Mate has an angiogram/heart cath procedure that moves us one step further in the transplant process, and so I'm working from the hospital for at least part of the day. We're hoping that she has had no further occlusion than she did two years ago, when they saw about 50% narrowing of the cardiac arteries. If they do, they'll either perform an angioplasty or insert stents while she's on the table. That will mean an overnight stay; if she doesn't need any intervention, we'll head home this afternoon.

I'm logging into the Internet through the guest network that Fairview has thoughtfully provided for its patients. It works very well; even after I rebooted my laptop twice this morning, it didn't force me back through the login sequence. I may be very productive on the blog today as a result, or I might just catch up with my reading. The only downside thus far is that I have to listen to the music in the waiting room, and that meant enduring the Wham! monstrosity of a Christmas song, "Last Christmas". What the hell were we thinking in the 1980s?

I suppose I should also remind readers that voting begins today for the 2006 Weblog Awards. Be sure to vote for your favorites in every category, and don't forget to pick at least one new blog every day to read!

UPDATE: The doctor just informed me that the occlusion had gone to a point where a stent insertion became necessary -- between 80-90% at one point. Thankfully, it wasn't in a branch area, so the stent insertion should have no complications, and it should resolve the situation. We will be able to proceed with surgeries after four weeks, which is about what we had thought, anyway. During that period, she'll have to be on blood thinners that will preclude any kind of surgical procedures.

Unfortunately, that means that the FM will spend the night in the hospital, which she absolutely detests. I'm expecting that she will be in a rather foul mood for a while, but at least we have the issue under control. It could have been much worse, of course.

Hamas Shoots Its Mouth Off (Updated And Bumped)

Earlier today, the Jerusalem Post ran a story on Hamas' smuggling efforts to avoid the sanctions placed on the Palestinian Authority since they came to power. They have successfully imported $66 million, but that wasn't what caught the eye of The Anchoress when she read the article. Her jaw dropped at this:

Hamas officials have managed to smuggle more than $66 million in cash through the Rafah border crossing in the past eight months, a member of the Hamas-led government revealed Wednesday.

Meanwhile, sources close to the Hamas-led government claimed that Hamas representatives recently held talks with officials from the US Democratic Party at a secret location.

The sources told the Bethlehem-based Maan News Agency that Hamas representatives have also been holding secret talks with European government officials, including Britain and France.

However, a funny thing happened to the story in the intervening hours between The Anchoress' post and now -- the last two paragraphs have disappeared from the story. It no longer discusses any contact Hamas purports to have with any Western officials, either in Europe or the United States. The Jerusalem Post offers no explanation for the redaction, either.

It seemed a strange notion at best. While European government officials probably have some contacts with Hamas, Democratic politicians would have no basis on which to conduct talks with the Palestinian terrorist group. In fact, it might violate the Logan Act and possibly any of several laws forbidding talks with terrorist organizations. It would also be incredibly stupid, politically speaking, for Democrats to expose themselves to charges of appeasing and even enabling terrorism. Only rogue extremists from the party would be foolish enough to even consider it.

My guess at the time was that Hamas was shooting its collective mouth off, trying to pose as the more influential faction while Mahmoud Abbas tried to evict them from the government. I tend to believe that terrorists spend more time lying than breathing, and Hamas maybe more than most. I suspect the Jerusalem Post reconsidered their sourcing on the story and withdrew it without explanation, a poor journalistic choice on their part after a poor journalistic choice for including it in the first place.

At least, I hope that's the explanation.

UPDATE AND BUMP, 12/7 7:57 AM: The Israeli wire service YNet is carrying the same report, along with a little more detail:

The Palestinian news agency Maan, quoting a senior member of the Palestinian government, reported Wednesday that "ministers of the Hamas-led government recently held talks with European countries and with a delegation of the American Democratic Party. According to the source, in the talks, the European officials showed their understanding for Hamas' stance.

According to the report, several European countries are already holding talks with Hamas, and the dialogue has succeeded in bringing about a certain change in the European stance toward the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

The Palestinian official said that Hamas representatives held meeting in European countries and even succeeded in convincing the Europeans to accept the movement's stance.

Again, one has to consider the source on this. Hamas claims that they have had a breakthrough with Europe on their handling of the Palestinian government, but we have seen no evidence of any change in the European posture. They still have not released any funds to the Palestinian Authority nor have made any effort to change that policy. Hamas, it must be remembered, is fighting to keep control of the PA, while Mahmoud Abbas wants to call new elections on the basis of Hamas failures in foreign policy. Hamas wants the Palestinians to think that they have made a series of breakthroughs that only exist in their imagination -- it's nothing more than diplomatic vaporware.

As for their assertion that they do not want to harm the electoral chances for Democrats in 2008, that only proves that they read American newspapers. The Democrats would know better than to attempt to engage terrorists in an end run around the White House ... or they'd better know better.

Others blogging on this story:

It Shines For All
BizzyBlog
Stop The ACLU
Small Town Veteran
Let Freedom Ring

Giuliani, McCain Reject Israel-Iraq Linkage

At least two presidential aspiranta have publicly opposed the Iraq Study Group and its linkage of the situation in Iraq with the Palestinian conflict. Rudy Giuliani called some of the ISG's recommendations "useful", but told Dennis Prager that leaving Iraq would be a "terrible mistake", while John McCain scotched the notion of a regional conference dominated by two terror-supporting states:

"The idea of leaving Iraq, I think, is a terrible mistake," the former mayor said. The group's report, however, stresses that America should not make an "open-ended" commitment of troops and links the presence of troops to milestones met by the Iraqi government.

Mr. Giuliani also rejected the panel's recommendation that America tie the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict to stabilizing Iraq. When asked about this linkage on Mr. Prager's radio show, Mr. Giuliani said, "Israel and Palestine is an important issue. Sometimes it's used as an excuse to deal with underlying issues. But the reality here is that the Islamo-fundamentalist terrorists are at war with our way of life, with our modern world, with rights for women, religious freedom, societies that have religious freedom. And all of that would still exist, no matter what happens in Israel and Palestine."

The stark difference between the position of Mr. Giuliani, who left the Iraq Study Group this summer, and that of the rest of the group — which is headed by a former secretary of state, James Baker, and a former congressman, Lee Hamilton — indicates that the greater political world is less agreed on the group's 79 recommendations than are the group's five Republicans and five Democrats.

John McCain offered a less-certain assessment of the Iraq-Israel link, calling it "tenuous at best". He also objected to the timeline offered by the Iraq Study Group. The 2008 deadline only encourages Iraqis to move towards the militias that will endure after an American withdrawal rather than to remain firm and fight the sectarian forces in order to establish authority under their representative government. McCain also rejected the notion of a regional conference with Iran and Syria, calling the divergence of interests between those countries and the US "unlikely to change under the current regimes".

Giuliani also rejected James Baker's efforts to get the panel's recommendations adoped in toto, a peculiar demand that arises these days from such blue-ribbon committees. The 9/11 Commission made a big public-relations effort for the same, arguing that their report was not a smorgasbord. Baker made the same argument yesterday, insisting that the White House would not get any other set of policies with bipartisan support, a bold statement that presumes the ISG has discovered the only revealed truth on Iraq. Giuliani said that some would probably get adopted, and some would be rejected. Considering the list of 70+ recommendations, that appears pretty obvious to everyone, excepting James Baker.

Both men have underscored the issue of the war -- that we will not negotiate with terrorist-supporting states. Somehow Baker and his ISG forgot that we're not just fighting a war in Iraq, and that Israel is not just a problem to be solved. We are fighting the spread of radical Islamist terrorism, and the two major production centers for that very problem are Teheran and Damascus. Holding a regional conference with them to determine anything but their surrender in that war only encourages the spread of the terrorism that we seek to end.

Divided Loyalties?

The new Liberal Party leader has found himself at the center of a new controversy that might impact his national standing. Stephane Dion has dual citizenship in Canada and France through his mother and refuses to renounce it. That will create the prospect of electing a Prime Minister with at least the appearance of divided loyalties in the next national elections:

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion says his loyalty to Canada is unquestioned, despite the fact he holds French citizenship.

"My loyalty is for Canada. Period," Dion said yesterday.

The newly crowned opposition leader holds dual citizenship thanks to his mother, who was born in Paris. Faced with questions on whether he should relinquish his French citizenship because of his new position, Dion — who is one of Canada's leading defenders of federalism — shrugged and asked why.

"If nobody is questioning my loyalty, what is the point?" he said, adding that anyone who doubts his commitment to Canada should keep their "opinions to themselves."

When the Liberals selected Michaëlle Jean as the new governor general in 2005, she renounced her secondary citizenship in France as part of her acceptance of a leadership role in Canada. Dion does not appear to have the same impulse. His political opponents question his judgment on the issue; NDP leader Jack Layton responded that he would prefer party leaders that had only one citizenship.

The question of loyalty can be an issue in Canada, where their Quebec province has threatened to secede for decades. Ironically, Dion apparently does not support sovereigntists, even though he himself is a Quebecker. Still, with the question almost always at the forefront of Canadian politics, it will be an issue for the Liberals when they go to the polls next, probably in 2007.

Has there ever been a government leader with dual citizenship, either in Canada or anywhere else? Alberto Fujimori claimed not to have citizenship anywhere else but Peru, but later found that he had maintained the dual citizenship his parents established after his birth in Peru. In fact, he resigned from office by fax from Tokyo, surely a first in political history. That's hardly a great precedent for Dion, and unless a number of other more stable examples appear, he might have some difficulty explaining why he's refusing to go 100% Canadian.

The Consequences Of Withdrawal

The Times of London spells out the consequences of an American withdrawal on the many Iraqis who trusted us to see the mission through to completion. Speaking to several Iraqi Army non-commissioned officers, Ned Parker reports that several of them plan to flee their native land if the Americans pull out:

The Iraqi sergeant has dodged bullets from the al-Mahdi Army and traded fire with Sunni insurgents.

Yet in his years with the Iraqi Army he has learnt one simple lesson: once the US military pulls back in Iraq, he should leave the country if he wants to survive. “As soon as it happens, I will quit my job and live outside Iraq,” the sergeant told The Times.

“We need to give the Americans back all the authority over the Iraqi Army like before.”

Concerns abound that Iraq’s Defence Ministry is being manipulated to serve the interests of powerful Sunni and Shia political parties. A decision by the US military to hand over full control of Iraq’s Army to a Government plagued by sectarian interests, could well spell its ruin.

The sergeant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears that his criticism of the Government’s handling of the military could get him fired or killed, is one of several officers who complained to The Times of government threats against army units that have led raids against Sunni and Shia armed groups.

The Times has not been terribly supportive of the effort in Iraq, although they do not share the hostility for the mission that appears regularly in the Guardian. In this case, they show the real-life issues facing those who took America at its word and participated in the effort to build a democratic and secure nation from the debacle of Saddam's tyranny. The men and women in this position will find themselves isolated and targeted if the US loses its will to prevail -- and they know it.

The anonymous sergeant recounted the difficulties they already face with command decisions made by corrupt ministries. Mosques have increasingly been used to shelter snipers and other combatants. The American commanders taught the Iraqis that a mosque or a church ends its affiliation with God when it's used for violent purposes, a message that resonated with these men. They want to conduct raids on mosques where insurgents and terrorists launch attacks. However, the government won't let them invade Sunni mosques, and the Mahdi Army won't let them invade Shi'ite mosques. This results in the terrorists using even more mosques as they understand them to be safe havens for their operations.

And this is just a small segment of the people we will betray if we head for the nearest exit. We have won allies in business and Iraqi politics, and we have helped establish an independent judiciary. All of these will be left defenseless in the event of a precipitous withdrawal, and their only hope for survival will be to transform themselves into radicals for one cause or another. Either they will have to do that or flee Iraq altogether, and we may wind up looking at another "boat people" flood of displaced Iraqis wanting to escape to America for their freedom -- which will create a huge headache in separating the true freedom lovers from the terrorists that would no doubt take advantage of the situation to infiltrate our borders.

We had better take stock of all the implications of surrender. We have seen it before, in 1975 and the years that followed. It looks like we may need to prepare for it again.

Addendum: The Times of London has an interesting tag line on this story -- "The Times is the only British paper to maintain a full-time Baghdad bureau." I wonder how many American papers have one.

Can Brady Quinn Pull Off The Upset?

The Notre Dame quarterback didn't manage to score an upset against USC last month, but Brady Quinn has an opportunity to score one for the Heisman. The celebrated senior received word that he was selected as one of three Heisman finalists, but he faces stiff competition from another senior QB:

Troy Smith booked his trip to the Heisman Trophy ceremony before the invitations went out. Why wait? Smith, the heavy favorite to win college football's most prestigious award, was selected as a Heisman finalist Wednesday, along with Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn and Arkansas running back Darren McFadden. ...

The senior quarterback entered the season with plenty of Heisman hype and then backed it up with brilliant play for the unbeaten Buckeyes.

Smith is fourth in the nation in passer rating (167.9) with 2,507 yards, 30 touchdown passes and only five interceptions. He might be the biggest reason No. 1 Ohio State will play No. 2 Florida for the national title on Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz.

Quinn, a senior, was fourth in Heisman voting last season and has thrown 35 touchdown passes in 2006. McFadden, a sophomore, scored 16 touchdowns and led Arkansas to the Southeastern Conference title game.

McFadden will have no shot at the trophy as a sophomore, but it's an impressive showing nonetheless. Arkansas has never had a Heisman finalist, and McFadden had to start the season injured. He made a spectacular comeback and made the Razorbacks competitive.

Quinn faces long odds in beating Smith. The Ohio State QB hasn't had a bad game, while Quinn looked mediocre at best against Michigan in one of two losses this year. Quinn played his heart out against the Trojans, but watched a number of his passes fall out of the hands of his receivers. He even did something unusual -- he tore off a 60-yard scramble against USC, but to no avail.

Quinn's stats look more impressive, and he was a more important part of the team offense. While Smith threw for 2,507 yards and 30 touchdowns this year, Quinn passed for 3,278 yards and 35 touchdowns while matching Snith's 5 interceptions. Smith has a slightly better completion rate (67%-63%) and played a little tougher schedule than Quinn this year, though.

Even if he doesn't win the Heisman, Quinn will certainly do well in the NFL draft. His name comes up in discussions about the first overall pick, and he seems a lock to seal a multimillion-dollar contract shortly after the Sugar Bowl appearance in January. Perhaps Quinn can pull one more rabbit out of the hat in New York.

Float Driver Tanks Up

This story is just too weird to ignore. A float driver in a South Carolina parade got drunk and led police on a three-mile chase after swerving out of line during the event -- carrying 18 terrified riders on the float the entire way:

A man driving a float in the Anderson Christmas parade has been charged with drunk driving after he passed another float then sped down Main Street, police say.

When officers caught up to 42-year-old David Allen Rodgers, he had an open container of alcohol in the truck he used to haul the children and adults on the float for the Steppin' Out Dance Studio, Anderson Police spokeswoman Linda Dudley said.

Witnesses said Rodgers was driving in line in Sunday's parade when he pulled out to pass a tractor in the float. Rodgers sped down Main Street and ran a red light, while a witness on the float called 911 on a cell phone, police said.

One of the children on the float was Rodgers' own. I don't think he'll be getting Father of the Year awards any time soon.

Rodgers faces more than just DUI charges. Police booked him on 18 counts of kidnapping as well as assaulting an officer, whom he attacked once he pulled off the road. All told, the driver faces over three dozen charges related to this incident. He'll be lucky to attend the Christmas parade in 2010 after this stupidity.

It's Still Bad, Especially For Israel

I've had more of a chance to look through the ISG report ... and it really doesn't get any better. The fundamental problem with the ISG is to misunderstand the entire war on terror. When we invaded Afghanistan, we did it because it sheltered and promoted terrorism, specifically the terrorists that had killed almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Iran and Syria do the same; they shelter and promote the terrorists that have killed American troops in Iraq as well as our allies in Israel. Syria allows them to cross their border with Iraq at will to organize, train, and hide, and Iran provides them with weapons.

What the Baker/Hamilton group proposes is nothing less than an endorsement of their tactics. By going to Teheran and Damascus to ask for their assistance, we will have proven that their terrorism and interference pays dividends -- or did the ISG believe that they would stop their terrorism if we merely asked?

Much has been made of the fact that the word "victory" only appears three times, and all in the context of an al-Qaeda victory that would result from our withdrawal. They appear on pages xiv, 52, and 56. More important, I think, is where "Israel" appears, and where it doesn't. The ISG insists that a return of the Golan Heights to Syria is all that is needed to get Damascus to abandon its opposition to Israel. It offers an American military presence to replace the strategic defense the land offers Israel, but only if both nations request it. Besides, even if Syria did allow us to position a force on the Golan Heights, why would anyone believe we would stick around if they could just send Hezbollah to push us off? That strategy seems to be working in Iraq if we take the ISG's advice.

Israel provides all of the sacrifice necessary for peace in the region, but they do wind up missing from one important part of the ISG recommendations. On page 49, recommendation 5 seems rather incomplete:

RECOMMENDATION 5: The Support Group should consist of Iraq and all the states bordering Iraq, including Iran and Syria; the key regional states, including Egypt and the Gulf States; the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council; the European Union; and, of course, Iraq itself. Other countries—for instance, Germany, Japan and South Korea—that might be willing to contribute to resolving political, diplomatic, and security problems affecting Iraq could also become members.

The Iraq Support Group, "part of the New Diplomatic Offensive", apparently excludes Jews. The report demands that we stop blindly supporting Israel and that we press them for concession after concession, all without any demand for reciprocity, but they will not have a seat at the regional conference on Iraq. That's extraordinary, especially considering that Baker, Hamilton, and Company insist that "all key issues in the Middle East—the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Iran, the need for political and economic reforms, and extremism and terrorism—are inextricably linked." If they're inextricably linked, then why isn't Israel invited?

We have to recall that James Baker has never been Israel's friend. Here he and the ISG make that very clear. The US will ask Israel to marginalize itself in order to enable Syria and Iran to dominate a regional conference comprised mainly of Israel's enemies that will supposedly deal with their territorial integrity. If that sounds a lot like Mussolini's efforts to call a regional conference together at Munich in 1938, it's not a coincidence.

Once again, the report is not entirely worthless, and some of the recommendations regarding internal Iraqi policy make a lot of sense. The rest is pure utopian nonsense, and its implementation would signal a collapse of American will in the Middle East and the beginning of the end of our protection for Israel. Our other allies in the region and elsewhere would see our retreat and reconsider their own strategic alliances with the US. It will set back American foreign policy thirty years. The White House should reject these recommendations forcefully and quickly.

Addendum: It occurred to me that the ISG didn't include Israel because it doesn't see Israel as part of the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is "inextricably linked" to Iraq. Apparently the ISG sees Israel as a big part of the problem, however.

These Are The Realists?

The Iraq Study Group released its long-awaited report today, and while it has some important information on the current state of our operation in Iraq, its recommendations descend from some strange Utopian vision of peace and brotherhood that only exists in the fevered imagination of the so-called realists. The ISG calls for a "support group" of nations surrounding Iraq and relies on their supposed self-interest in a stable and functional Iraq:

RECOMMENDATION 3: As a complement to the diplomatic offensive, and in addition to the Support Group discussed below, the United States and the Iraqi government should support the holding of a conference or meeting in Baghdad of the Organization of the Islamic Conference or the Arab League both to assist the Iraqi government in promoting national reconciliation in Iraq and to reestablish their diplomatic presence in Iraq. ...

The Support Group would not seek to impose obligations or undertakings on the government of Iraq. Instead, the Support Group would assist Iraq in ways the government of Iraq would desire, attempting to strengthen Iraq’s sovereignty—not diminish it.

It is clear to Iraq Study Group members that all of Iraq’s neighbors are anxious about the situation in Iraq. They favor a unified Iraq that is strong enough to maintain its territorial integrity, but not so powerful as to threaten its neighbors. None favors the breakup of the Iraqi state. Each country in the region views the situation in Iraq through the filter of its particular set of interests.

The ISG wants us to believe that Iran and Syria have no interest in instability in the region. That's an interesting perspective, since the two are the most notorious terror-sponsoring states in the world. Eight pages later, the report notes that Syria is the "principal transit point for shipments of weapons to Hezbollah," the group that's presently trying to undermine the Lebanese government and that just started a war with Israel. Iran, with whom the ISG wants us to negotiate for regional stability, is presently run by a millenial theocracy that openly desires the global chaos that will herald the arrival of the Twelfth Imam.

Of course, the New Diplomatic Offensive -- which is capitalized in that self-important style throughout the report -- states that we cannot hope to achieve peace in Iraq without achieving it in the Palestinian territories. How does the ISG propose to solve that problem? Three guesses:

There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts: Lebanon, Syria, and President Bush’s June 2002 commitment to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. This commitment must include direct talks with, by, and between Israel, Lebanon, Palestinians (those who accept Israel’s right to exist), and particularly Syria—which is the principal transit point for shipments of weapons to Hezbollah, and which supports radical Palestinian groups. ...

RECOMMENDATION 15: Concerning Syria, some elements of that negotiated peace should be:

• Syria’s full adherence to UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 2006, which provides the framework for
Lebanon to regain sovereign control over its territory.
• Syria’s full cooperation with all investigations into political assassinations in Lebanon, especially those of Rafik
Hariri and Pierre Gemayel.
• A verifiable cessation of Syrian aid to Hezbollah and the use of Syrian territory for transshipment of Iranian weapons and aid to Hezbollah. (This step would do much to solve Israel’s problem with Hezbollah.)
• Syria’s use of its influence with Hamas and Hezbollah for the release of the captured Israeli Defense Force
soldiers.
• A verifiable cessation of Syrian efforts to undermine the democratically elected government of Lebanon.

Remember when we used to call James Baker and his disciples the "realists"? All we need for peace, they postulate, is to have Syria quit supporting terrorists and trying to undermine the Lebanese government. While they're at it, they should cooperate in a murder investigation that will implicate high-ranking members of the Syrian regime. At the same time, we should find Palestinians willing to acknowledge Israel's right to exist to negotiate a land swap that will end all of the violence in the territories.

If any of that had any remote possibility of happening, we wouldn't need the ISG. And if we have to wait for Syria and Iran to end their support for terrorism before we have any hope of stabilizing Iraq, then acceding to their demands will have the opposite effect of what Baker, Hamilton, and Company recommend in this report.

Not everything about this report is silly and disconnected from reality. The ISG has a series of good recommendations about how to help solidify Iraq through the adoption of policies that encourage unity. Part of that is an abandonment of de-Baathification that would allow the Sunnis to finally and fully engage in the government. Any national reconciliation will involve the forgiveness of past actions on all sides, and while some of that may not set well with Americans, it's an unfortunate necessity. They also have some intriguing recommendations on oil revenues that would incentivize Iraqis to work with each other rather than fragment on regional and sectarian lines.

This gets dissipated, however, in the general direction of withdrawal that the document takes. It insists on prioritizing disengagement over mission success, and throughout the sections on security it talks about the need to reduce the American footprint as paramount. Even when they want the US involved in military actions financially and technically, they want the US to have no control over the mission. Page 69 talks about how best to disband the militias (emphasis mine):

Both the United Nations and expert and experienced nongovernmental organizations, especially the International Organization for Migration, must be on the ground with appropriate personnel months before any program to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate militia members begins. Because the United States is a party to the conflict, the U.S. military should not be involved in implementing such a program. Yet U.S. financial and technical support is crucial.

In other words, we should shovel out money and technology to the United Nations (who ran out of Iraq because they were dumb enough to contract with former Saddam regime security forces to protect them and got bombed because of it), but should have no say on how either get used. That sounds like a terrorist financing program, not a serious attempt to reduce the violence. It's precisely this kind of utopianism that runs through all of these recommendations which makes the entire exercise a complete waste of time and effort. It's this kind of thinking, in fact, that allowed the fall of Iran in the 1970s and the rise of state-sponsored terrorism ever since.

NZ Bear has taken the time to convert the report into HTML format, and I would encourage all CQ readers to read it for themselves.

UPDATE: See my next post for more thoughts. I've also posted links to the corresponding report pages at Truth Laid Bear.

'Allahu Akbar Was Just The Opening Act'

Debra Burlingame has written on airline security topics ever since her brother, American Airlines Capt. Charles Burlingame, died in the 9/11 attack at the hands of Islamist terrorists. Today she takes on the topic of the "flying imams" of Minneapolis in the pages of the Wall Street Journal:

Given that Islamic terrorists continue their obsession with turning airplanes into weapons of mass destruction, it is nothing short of obscene that these six religious leaders--fresh from attending a conference of the North American Imams Federation, featuring discussions on "Imams and Politics" and "Imams and the Media"--chose to turn that airport into a stage and that airplane into a prop in the service of their need for grievance theater. The reality is, these passengers endured a frightening 3 1/2-hour ordeal, which included a front-to-back sweep of the aircraft with a bomb-sniffing dog, in order to advance the provocative agenda of these imams in, of all the inappropriate places after 9/11, U.S. airports.

"Allahu Akbar" was just the opening act. After boarding, they did not take their assigned seats but dispersed to seats in the first row of first class, in the midcabin exit rows and in the rear--the exact configuration of the 9/11 execution teams. The head of the group, seated closest to the cockpit, and two others asked for a seatbelt extension, kept on board for obese people. A heavy metal buckle at the end of a long strap, it can easily be used as a lethal weapon. The three men rolled them up and placed them on the floor under their seats. And lest this entire incident be written off as simple cultural ignorance, a frightened Arabic-speaking passenger pulled aside a crew member and translated the imams' suspicious conversations, which included angry denunciations of Americans, furious grumblings about U.S. foreign policy, Osama Bin Laden and "killing Saddam."

Predictably, these imams and their attorneys now suggest that another passenger who penned a frantic note of warning and slipped it to a flight attendant was somehow a hysterical Islamophobe. Let us remember that but for their performance at the gate this passenger might never have noticed these men or their behavior on board, much less have the slightest clue as to their religion or political passions. Of course, that was the point of the shouting. According to the police report, yet another alarmed passenger who frequently travels to the Middle East described a conversation with one of the imams. The 31-year-old Egyptian expressed fundamentalist Muslim views, and stated the he would go to whatever measures necessary to obey all the tenets set out in the Koran.

Make sure to read the entire column; it's well worth your time. Also, Audrey Hudson continues her work on the story at the Washington Times today, noting that three separate investigations concluded that US Air acted appropriately when they removed the activists from the flight:

The Minneapolis airport police department's report on the incident said the imams' behavior warranted their removal. The imams were not accused of breaking any laws. The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is reviewing the actions of department members who were involved in the incident. Secret Service agents questioned the imams, who are accused of making negative comments about President Bush and the Iraq war. Officials of the Transportation Security Administration were involved in screening the imams and their baggage. "There is no indication there is any inappropriate activity, at least no indication at this time," DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said. "To my knowledge, we are only doing a review, and that is a fairly routine practice with incidents like this." The Air Carrier Security Committee of the Air Line Pilots Association investigated the incident and said, "The crew's actions were strictly in compliance with procedures and demonstrated overall good judgment in the care and concern for their passengers, fellow crew members, and the company."

UPDATE: Fixed italics tag -- thanks to Kimsch at Musing Minds.

Carrots For Dear Leader

The US has made an explicit offer of aid and trade to North Korea in an attempt to get them to verifiably abandon their nuclear weapons program, an effort made outside the stalled six-party talks. The plan calls for assistance in energy and food while Kim Jong-Il dismantles his nuclear infrastructure:

The United States has offered a detailed package of economic and energy assistance in exchange for North Korea’s giving up nuclear weapons and technology, American officials said Tuesday.

But the offer, made last week during two days of intense talks in Beijing, would hinge on North Korea’s agreeing to begin dismantling some of the equipment it is using to expand its nuclear arsenal, even before returning to negotiations. ...

The combination of incentives and demands was the focal point of three-way meetings on Nov. 28 and 29 involving Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill; North Korea’s vice foreign minister, Kim Kye-gwan; and Chinese officials at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. The incentives offered by the United States include food aid from the United States, Japan and South Korea, a senior administration official said.

The offer is significant because the administration has resisted making clear to North Korea exactly what kind of aid it would receive if it agreed to begin taking apart facilities like the plutonium reprocessing facility that turns spent fuel into weapons, and to provide a list of all its nuclear facilities. Hawks in the administration, particularly in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, have long opposed what they call “rewarding” North Korea for its nuclear test.

But State Department officials have argued that while the argument has gone on in Washington, the North has produced fuel for six or more weapons. They say the only successful strategy will be one that results in the beginning of dismantlement.

The US also offered to find ways to allow Kim to comply with financial regulations in exchange for a restoral of his banking partners to the global market. This is a veiled reference to Kim's counterfeiting ring which used his Macao bank as a front for distribution of phony $100 bills, perhaps totaling over $1 billion. The Bush administration posed this as an opportunity to help Kim comply with international law, not as a concession, but the offer appears to answer Kim's demands to retract economic sanctions before his participation in further disarmament talks.

The tactic has its merits. The Bush administration has maintained a hard-line approach to the Kim regime, and a change of pace might find an opening -- especially since Bush took care to keep China engaged in the process. If it bears real fruit, it could bring an end to the nuclear standoff on the Korean peninsula. However, it also runs the risk of being seen as weakness by Kim and his cronies in Pyongyang, and in the past that has signaled a new round of intransigence and lies.

Kim will likely find another excuse to abort the process. He cannot afford to lose the US as a bogeyman. His position in a starving nation is too tenuous to allow his people to believe that no overwhelming external threat exists. If that pressure disappeared, his people could find it within themselves to cast off his dictatorship, perhaps even faster than the North Korean military could do it. The 40-carrot approach should proceed to the deployment of more sticks if Kim balks.

Changing The Work Ethic

The Democrats scored a front-page hit today with Steny Hoyer's announcement that House members will work a full-time schedule while Congress is in session. The new Majority Leader has designed a schedule that will require members to work from Monday evening to Friday afternoon, a plan that has some members of both parties grumbling:

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.

"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th."

The reporters groaned. "I know, it's awful, isn't it?" Hoyer empathized.

For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon -- and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn't in recess.

In this session, which began in 2005, Congress has worked a grand total of 103 days. That's roughly equivalent to working every Saturday over the same period, and it's lower than the so-called "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948, as Lyndsey Layton points out in the front-page Washington Post article. That doesn't count some of the committee meetings that got scheduled on off days, but it hardly sounds like a challenging schedule for people who make $165,000 a year in salary, plus a special pension and exemption from Social Security taxes.

Some claim that the expanded schedule will place too much of a burden on members. Jack Kingston, normally a voice of common sense, claimed that the new schedule amounted to an assault on families. "Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says." He's upset because he won't get Thursday through Tuesday at home with his wife and kids, but hey, if I could get a one-day work week, I'd probably take it, too.

If Congress managed to get its work done in 103 days over two years, I would have less of a problem with the schedule they worked this year. However, they didn't produce much, not even the spending bills that is their primary responsibility. Once again, they will come in a rush at the end of the session, which means that they will get larded up with pork in order to buy off enough members to limit debate. It will pressure President Bush to accept them rather than apply vetoes and take his chances with the Democrats in the next session.

The schedule failed in its primary function, which was to act as an incumbency protection system. Roy Blunt alluded to this when he noted that the incoming freshmen will get a lot less time to establish themselves in their districts, allowing the GOP to compete better against then in 2008. Unfortunately, voters didn't care whether their Representative spent time in the district or not when they went to the midterm polls.

I don't think that Congress has to meet 250 days a year in order to succeed in its mission. In fact, a smaller schedule would be desirable if it meant that we had shrunk the reach of the federal government. The Republicans failed to do that during the time of their majority, however, which is one of the reasons why that time has come to an end. For the money and benefits these elected officials receive, they will find little sympathy from working stiffs for having to work one or two days every week during the periods when Congress is in session.

CQ Nominated In 2006 Weblog Awards

Captain's Quarters has been selected as a finalist for Best Conservative Blog in the 2006 Weblog Awards, the annual readers' poll conducted by Wizbang's Kevin Aylward. I'll have some stiff competition:

Ace of Spades
Little Green Footballs
Hugh Hewitt
Michelle Malkin
Mary Katherine Ham
Patterico's Pontifications
Red State
The Jawa Report
Power Line

They're all excellent blogs, and I read all of them myself. I recommend all of them to anyone who wants to follow intelligent conservative thought ... so whoever gets the nod will definitely deserve the honor. I'm happy to be included!

Voting starts tomorrow. Vote once a day in each category for your favorites, and believe me, there are plenty of candidates and plenty of worthy blogs. Most of all, take the opportunity to check out a few blogs you may have missed along the way -- that's the best part of these awards!

UPDATE: A big thanks to Michael van der Galien at The Moderate Voice for his kind words -- and let's note that TMV is nominated for Best Centrist Blog, as it should be.

The, Er, Dramatic Return Of Saddam

Saddam Hussein has ended his boycott of his trial for genocide against the Kurds of Iraq. However, people can be forgiven if they had not heard of his extended absence from the courtroom, because it started the day before his return. One day after announcing he would not attend the proceedings because of repeated "insults", the former dictator surprised everyone by dutifully taking his place in the dock:

Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has appeared in court, despite saying a day earlier that he would refuse to attend further hearings of his genocide trial.

On Tuesday, he had said he could no longer put up with "continued insults" by the chief judge and prosecutors. ...

He entered the courtroom smiling, and took his place to hear a Kurdish medical worker describe how he treated victims of gas attacks in 1987.

Of course he was smiling. He can't pass up an opportunity to put himself at the center of attention, nor can he allow the testimony in the trial to grab all the headlines. He complained in his letter announcing his boycott that he hadn't had an opportunity to defend himself regarding the Anfal campaign against the Kurds -- but the prosecution hadn't yet ended its case against him. His turn still awaits, as he well knows.

The testimony has thus far been devastating. Saddam left enough people alive to testify to the atrocities in the north, including the infamous and cowardly chemical-weapons attack at Halabja that left thousands of women and children dead, and thousands more disfigured and sickened for life. Saddam wants to avert attention from the witnesses, so just as in his first trial, he conjures up a few antics to make his sideshow the big news instead of his victims.

Sadly, it's not really necessary. The only headlines the trials get any more is from Saddam's antics. The Western media lost interest long ago, well before Saddam got the death penalty in the first trial. They have treated the trial of one of the worst dictators in modern times -- the only one who used WMD on his own people -- into a footnote instead of the opportunity to reveal the depredations of a brutal, murderous tyranny that it is.

Civil War In The Kremlin?

The assassination of Alexander Litvinenko has put Vladimir Putin under a bright spotlight, as the former KGB/FSB agent is only the latest in a series of Putin critics who have died under suspicious circumstances. The British believe that Putin has masterminded the murders as a means of convincing potential foes of the health benefits of silence. However, Der Spiegel questions that analysis and points to an alternate theory -- that the FSB has gone rogue and now operates outside of Putin's control:

As they were leaving the church after the service, Litvinenko said: "It's quite clear that they are working down a list of targets. The state has become a serial killer." But unlike his dead friend, who, until his last breath, had accused the Russian president directly of having ordered the murder, Nekrasov finds it difficult to believe that Vladimir Putin was directly responsible for ordering the poisoning. Instead, said Nekrasov, Putin is unable to control certain elements among his allies, "people who sit in their dachas and saunas, bragging that they can find and destroy anyone -- anywhere in the world -- who displeases them."

In other words, Litvinenko wasn't the only one. Politkovskaya may also have been on this suspected list. Journalist Jan Travinsky, shot to death in the Siberian city of Irkutsk in 2004, is another possibility. And what about the former Chechen head of security Movladi Baisarov, who, after being arrested, was shot in Moscow in broad daylight on Nov. 18? And Andrey Kozlov, the deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, who fell victim to assassins on Sept. 13? Was a powerful clique behind all those murders?

The ongoing series of murders -- a series which may have found its most recent victim on Monday with the murder of Alexander Samoilenko, the general director of the gas company Itera-Samara -- has many suspecting that doing away with political opponents may once again be a favored strategy inside the Kremlin. Former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was famous for it -- and now, it seems as though the baton has been passed, with dissidents in President Vladimir Putin's Russia once again having to fear for their lives. Even former political leaders may not be safe -- doctors have been unable to diagnose a mysterious illness which befell ex-premier Yegor Gaidar in Ireland last week. Poisoning is a leading candidate.

If anything, however, DS makes a better case that Putin has decided to simply liquidate all of his political opponents. The list goes on and on, and they all have one curious attribute in common: they opposed Vladimir Putin and had the power to make him uncomfortable. Some of them had more power than that; Viktor Yushchenko moved Ukraine out of Russia's orbit and flirted openly with NATO, and Litvinenko had access to information from his own days within Russian intelligence.

It's possible that the FSB has decided to act on its own and that Putin has no guilt in these murders and attacks. However, one has to ask why the FSB would act insubordinately, but only in order to kill the enemies of its supposedly undermined chief. They do not appear to strike any of Putin's allies while purportedly defying his authority, but act instead to make that authority more secure.

If that's what passes for an enemy in Russia, Putin could hardly afford to have friends.

Besides, if Putin really faced an insurrection in his intelligence services, he would look for allies to help contain it. That hardly appears to be the case, as Putin named the price for cooperation with British investigators:

Russia named its price yesterday for providing help in the investigation into the death by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. It demanded that Britain hand over the enemies of President Putin who have been given asylum in London.

The ultimatum came as Russian officials imposed strict limits on how Scotland Yard detectives will be allowed to operate as they began their investigation in Moscow.

The offer came with one condition -- the British could not pursue any leads that pointed towards the FSB. If Russia's intel services really have risen against him, why would he protect them from the British investigators that would nail them for the assassinations? And if Putin has no interest in seeing his critics dead, then why did he demand that Britain deport them from their asylum back to Russia and Putin's control?

Attente Avec Le Souffle Chipé

Bonjour, mes amis! That may be the first words uttered by the new sensation in Internet news gathering. France 24, Jacque Chirac's long-awaited answer to the BBC and CNN for global news domination, debuts in just a few hours in both French and English. The latest state-run program to assuage French feelings of inferiority, the channel will eventually expand to offer identical broadcasts in Arab and Spanish as well ... if it can find enough money to pay for it:

Jacques Chirac's dream of a global TV news network á la française, to counter Anglo-Saxon global media dominance, becomes reality tonight as France launches a bilingual 24-hour news service.

After months of preparation and weeks of dry runs, France 24, the new state-funded network, will go live on the internet at 7.29pm GMT, with a 12-minute news bulletin including "internationally renowned guests," and updates every half hour. ...

Two back-to-back control rooms, one in English, the other in French, are poised to perform a unique broadcast balancing act – airing international news simultaneously in two languages, using the same running order, reports and even the same correspondents.

However, it remained to be seen if the quality of the English reporting would be equal to the French. A ticker on the outside of the building, on the southern outskirts of Paris, suggested there could be some communication problems, as it proudly advertised the channel's "spotligths on hot topics" and "in depths reporting". France 24 brashly claims to be "the channel that shows what the audience is not supposed to see, find out or know."

Sceptics argue that its shoestring budget – £58 million compared to CNN's £432 million – means it cannot hope to compete with the other global big hitters nor live up to its slogan of "Beyond the News". It has just 180 journalists, with an average age of 31, spread thinly over two 24-hour channels, and only 36 dedicated correspondents.

France 24 has more problems than finding English-speaking copy editors. Only a third of its programming will come from internal sources; the network will have to rely on outside news agencies and other French networks. Even its offices have not been completed, although they have a strange interior decoration scheme that involves ultraviolet and neon lights. One has to wonder whether they can even meet their modest production goals in that kind of environment, or if the staff will go blind first.

Dominique de Villepin conceived France 24 in late 2002, when France prepared to stab Colin Powell in the back during the debate over Iraq. He convinced Chirac and others that what afflicted French diplomacy most of all was the lack of a very big media conglomerate promoting the viewpoint of the Chirac government around the globe. Apparently that created more difficulties than the fact that the French were on Saddam's payroll through the Oil-For-Food program, but at least it provided the French with the capital to start the venture.

Even if France 24 serves as the mouthpiece of the Chirac government, it can't get much worse than the global networks it seeks to replace. The BBC and CNN both have demonstrated bias, as does Al-Jazeera, another target market for France 24. If nothing else, it will give French media bloggers plenty of fresh material to critique. As for me, I think I'll stick with NZ Bear's new The News Right Now page, a web-style RSS display. It costs less and provides more service than any of the four networks mentioned above.

France 24 starts at 7:29 pm GMT, which equates to 2:29 pm EST. I'm sure we'll all have our mouse pointers hovering over the link.

That Was Quick

Robert Gates made a bungee appearance at the Senate Armed Forces Committee today for his confirmation hearings to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Some expected the hearings to provide some fireworks and an opportunity for grandstanding -- but in the end, it looks like all sides just wanted to get it done quickly:

Robert M. Gates, President Bush’s nominee to be defense secretary, won unanimous approval today from a Senate panel after testifying that the United States was not winning in Iraq and that American failure there could ignite “a regional conflagration” in the Middle East.

At one point, Mr. Gates said it was “too soon to tell” whether the American invasion in 2003 had been a good idea. He added: “My greatest worry if we mishandle the next year or two and leave Iraq in chaos is that a variety of regional powers will become involved in Iraq, and we will have a regional conflict on our hands.” Mr. Gates is expected to win confirmation from the full Senate as early as Wednesday to succeed Donald H. Rumsfeld. At the daylong hearing of the Senate Armed Services committee, Democrats and Republicans praised what they called Mr. Gates’s refreshing candor.

Mr. Gates gave few firm signals today about his own favored options for Iraq, but portrayed himself as a flexible realist, open to all options for adjusting American strategy. But he made clear that he has concerns about a rapid American drawdown, and cautioned that the recommendations to be made public on Wednesday by the Iraq Study Group would be important but not “the last word.”

"It’s my impression that frankly there are no new ideas on Iraq,” Mr. Gates said, noting there are multiple government reviews underway besides the Iraq Study Group. “The question is: is there a way to put pieces of those different proposals together in a way that provides a way forward?”

The unanimous approval seems very surprising. The Democrats just won the midterm elections on the promise to challenge the Bush administration on Iraq, and this confirmation hearing gave them the best opportunity to start. Instead of making a pre-majority splash by demanding policy changes or by forcing Gates to endure a party-line vote, Democrats gave him a complete pass.

It's not to say that Democrats passively monitored the proceedings. Carl Levin, who will chair the committee in the next session of Congress, got Gates to state that the US was not winning in Iraq. That conflicts with what Bush said in October, when he said "Absolutely, we're winning," but Gates added that we're not losing, either. He promised that he would come to the Pentagon as his own man, with no debts to anyone else, but that at the end of the day, the United States only has one President. He will carry out the decisions of the Commander-in-Chief.

The unanimous endorsement points to a quick confirmation in the Senate. It may not even require a roll call vote, perhaps passing by acclamation. The Democrats have apparantly decided to keep their powder dry on this nomination, perhaps hoping that the speedy departure of Rumsfeld will help build some bipartisan communication on security matters between Congress and the White House.

Cardscam

The provincial government in Ontario has a burgeoning corruption scandal making headlines, costing taxpayers millions with little likelihood of recovery. Unlike Adscam, the notorious Liberal Party fraud in the Sponsorship Programme, this appears to have little to do with partisan politics and more to do with traditional bureaucratic corruption:

Millions of dollars charged to taxpayer-funded credit cards in Ontario are unaccounted for, the province's Auditor General Jim McCarter reported on Tuesday.

A number of Ontario's public sector workers, and managers overseeing expense accounts, are unable to account for the cash, he said. ...

Staff at Hydro One, the massive transmission utility, purchased $127-million worth of goods and services using corporate charge cards, but Mr. McCarter's annual report found few credit card slips or paperwork to justify those charges. ...

Staff at Ontario Power Generation failed to produce any receipts at all to support $6.5-million in expenditures. Managers at the government-owned power company also spent $300,000 for gifts, and $120,000 on gift certificates, for employees. The gifts included 40 leather jackets worth $8,000 each, given in recognition of five-year safety records. ...

The auditor general also examined four school boards across the province, and found one teacher spent $52,000 over two years on a purchasing card, including $4,000 spent during school breaks on DVDs, eyeglasses and Christmas lights.

The corruption appears to have spread throughout the government agencies in the Canadian province. Even quasicharitable agencies such as Children's Aid has come to light in the audit. Purchases of $60,000 SUVs and car allowances -- with some getting both simultaneously -- and Caribbean vacations got charged to Ontario's citizens, literally. They also spent money on personal trainers, gym memberships, and $150 car washes, an interesting use of funds for agencies dedicated to the benefit of underprivileged children.

The fraud centers on the use of credit cards issued to employees in government agencies and the lack of documentation that shows any relation to the mission of the government agencies. How extensive was the use of these credit cards? One school district, the Thames Valley District board, had over three thousand credit cards issued to district employees. They charged over $5 million, an average of over a thousand dollars each.

Nor was that the only fraud uncovered by the provincial audit. The investigation discovered that Ontario issued 300,000 more health cards than the total population in the province. Most of these wound up in Toronto and in communities close to the US border. Unlicensed doctors can still charge the government for services in the nationalized health-care system, calling into serious question the supposed benefit of guaranteed levels of expertise in a state-run system. It also found that CT and MRI machines get handled incorrectly, dosing children with levels of radiation far above that given adults and threatening their long-term health.

In terms of sheer damage, Cardscam appears much more significant than Adscam, and that isn't a minimization of the fraud perpetrated by the Liberals involved in that scandal. The provincial government in Ontario needs to answer some tough questions about their management of their bureaucracies. Taxpayers do not get freebie credit cards to charge personal items and services, and they don't expect to fund them for their public servants -- and they certainly expect competence from a health-care system that they are forced to use. Expect this to get more headlines over the next few weeks.

Harman Starts Looking Better To The Left?

One has to wonder what strategy Nancy Pelosi has decided to pursue in the next session of Congress. After a couple of major missteps in the days following the Democratic Party's midterms successes, she has managed to transform what had they described as a mandate for clean government and an end to the American involvement in Iraq into a serious muddle. First she champions two men for key leadership posts that have serious questions of corruption in their backgrounds. Now the man she selected to replace one of them wants to back the Pentagon and expand the American commitment in Iraq (via Hot Air):

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to “dismantle the militias."

The soft-spoken Texas Democrat was an early opponent of the Iraq war and voted against the October 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade that country. That dovish record got prominently cited last week when Speaker designate Nancy Pelosi chose Reyes as the new head of the intelligence panel.

But in an interview with NEWSWEEK on Tuesday, Reyes pointedly distanced himself from many of his Democratic colleagues who have called for fixed timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Coming on the eve of tomorrow’s recommendations from the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton commission, Reyes’s comments were immediately cited by some Iraq war analysts as fresh evidence that the intense debate over U.S. policy may be more fluid than many have expected.

“We’re not going to have stability in Iraq until we eliminate those militias, those private armies,” Reyes said. “We have to consider the need for additional troops to be in Iraq, to take out the militias and stabilize Iraq … We certainly can’t leave Iraq and run the risk that it becomes [like] Afghanistan” was before the 2001 invasion by the United States.

Reyes also stressed that there needed to be greater “political accountability” demanded of the Iraqi government. But on the core issue of the U.S. commitment, Reyes—a Vietnam War veteran who partially lost his hearing in that conflict—even compared his position to that of another Vietnam vet, Sen. John McCain, a staunch supporter of the Iraq war. Like Reyes, McCain also has called for an increase in U.S. troop strength. When asked how many additional troops he envisioned sending to Iraq, Reyes replied: “I would say 20,000 to 30,000—for the specific purpose of making sure those militias are dismantled, working in concert with the Iraqi military.”

It gets better, as Newsweek makes clear in the article. Not only does Silvestre Reyes align more or less with John McCain on Iraq, it turns out that he told Pelosi how he viewed the issue before she selected him to replace Alcee Hastings, who replaced Nancy Harman. Reyes said that he made his position "very clear" to the Speaker-elect during their discussions on the subject.

Pelosi will undoubtedly have many Democrats making their views very clear on her selection of Reyes, now that Newsweek has reported it. They expected that key chairs would go to Democrats opposed to the war in Iraq, not those who supported an escalation of American involvement. Newsweek quotes Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst that has campaigned for Bush's impeachment, as almost apoplectic:

Reyes’s comments were immediately blasted by one Iraq war critic who expressed concerns that they would give new respectability to an idea that has lost considerable support in official Washington as the violence in Iraq has escalated. “I think he [Reyes] needs a course in Insurgency 101,” said Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst who has been active in an anti-war group called the Steering Group for Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. “Have they learned nothing from Vietnam? If he pushes this and gets some support for it, and with McCain in the Senate, it could become more respectable … I think Reyes has got a lot to learn.”

McGovern has a track record of oddball pronouncements, which makes Newsweek's use of him as an analyst somewhat odd. He "testified" at John Conyers' mock impeachment hearing in June 2005, when the upcoming chair of the Judiciary Committee decided to produce articles of impeachment from his kangaroo hearing in an unused chamber in the basement of Capitol Hill. McGovern cast a damper on the festivities, as Dana Milbank reported, when he fired up the anti-Semites cheering the committee by testifying that

the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Pelosi stripped Harman of the chair that she gave Reyes primarily because of her support of the war in Iraq and a lack of partisan animus on Harman's part. While Reyes promised to vigorously pursue the issues of the warrantless NSA surveillance of international calls and other counterterrorism efforts by the Bush administration, clearly the Democrats expected someone less inclined to keep troops in Iraq, let alone add to the contingent. Even Harman has not gone on record in support of an expansion of troop levels.

So why did she replace Harman? It seems obvious that the decision had much more to do with personal issues than with policy. Democrats may want to rethink her Speakership in light of the series of strange decisions she has made in the wake of their victory. The rule of personal whim has just about destroyed their momentum and may have set up the House caucus for a devastating split at the moment of their greatest unity in a generation.

Kim's New Racket: Insurance

Kim Jong-Il has expressed indignation, fury, and even tested a nuclear device in his attempt to get the US to back down from banking sanctions that has put a damper on his counterfeiting ring, one of the few sources of hard currency North Korea had. Now Kim has a new racket to generate some badly-needed cash, and this time he's targeted the insurance industry:

The cash-strapped regime of North Korea, which has a worldwide reputation for its criminal dealings in weapons sales, drugs and near-perfect counterfeit U.S. $100 bills, may have found a new illicit source of hard foreign currency: international reinsurance fraud.

A growing number of major underwriters around the world strongly suspect that communist dictator Kim Jong-Il's regime is running an elaborate major insurance and reinsurance scam on them, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars or more.

The alleged fraud involves a wide variety of North Korean industrial and personal calamities where insurers have been presented with perfect government-controlled documentation of accidents, including deaths, along with carefully gathered photographic evidence, all compiled in a startlingly brief time.

The major portion of the new fraud appears to be life insurance. This makes sense, because if North Korea produces anything in abundance, it's dead bodies. The government falsifies the causes of death and manufactures evidence in support, and voila! (or the Korean equivalent), Pyongyang gets a check. It's amazing what someone can do when they run all of the official machinery of the state.

Make no mistake about this: Kim is conducting an economic war against the West, albeit a rather low-key and pathetic one. He wants to sap the Western systems for as much cash as he can generate, and at the same time undermine confidence in the same systems. The counterfeiting ring provides an excellent example of this. Not only did he get the cash he needed, he also managed to flood the market with American currency, lowering its value, and called into question its legitimacy.

This again represents a small amount of money overall, but a disturbing development in a market that requires some measure of honesty in the governments that participate in it. Kim has received as much as $150 million in a $1.5 trillian industry, but the number is rising sharply of late. Kim appears to have honed his fraud and is now making it very lucrative -- and his success might get copied by other rogue regimes strapped for cash. The fraud could threaten the stability of reinsurers around the world, making insurance much more costly for everyone with legitimate needs for it. If the trust in this market collapses, it could cause widespread economic damage.

The solution should be rather simple. Insurers should declare all North Korean policies null and void until Kim is removed from office. They should absolutely refuse to pay any claim buttressed by Pyongyang's documentation. Kim may find another scam shortly afterwards, but in the meantime let's shut this one down.

Dancing Girls Undermine Ahmadinejad?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have more Western tendencies than we first realized. He has come under fire from the radical Islamists he represents for watching a display of dancing girls in the opening ceremonies of the Asian Games:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who flaunts his ideological fervour, has been accused of undermining Iran's Islamic revolution after television footage appeared to show him watching a female song and dance show.

The famously austere Mr Ahmadinejad has been criticised by his own allies after attending the lavish opening ceremony of the Asian games in Qatar, a sporting competition involving 13,000 athletes from 39 countries. The ceremony featured Indian and Egyptian dancers and female vocalists. Many were not wearing veils. ...

Religious fundamentalists, usually Mr Ahmadinejad's keenest supporters, are asking why he attended a ceremony that violated his own government's strict interpretation of Shia Islam.

The Baztab website, considered close to Mohsen Rezaee, a former revolutionary guard commander with links to powerful sections of Iran's political hierarchy, said Mr Ahmadinejad's presence had offended Shias in Iran and elsewhere. "The failure of Ahmadinejad to object and his constant presence has damaged the image of Iran's Islamic revolution and its commitment to Islamic rules in contrast with the Arab countries in the Gulf," it said.

I wonder if they have any problems with lying? Ahmadinejad's staff claims he left the stadium before the dancing girls and female singers took the stage. They told the press that he had left for the airport well before that point in the show. However, the website has footage of Ahmadinejad in his seat after the end of the show, which either means he lied or he has figured a way to defeat the laws of physics and be in two places at the same time.

Is it just me, or does it seem like radical Islamists deeply fear women and their sexuality? Their entire worldview appears focused on the oppression of females -- burying them under yards of cloth, denying them any freedom of movement, and avoiding even their singing voices in public. After all of Ahmadinejad's ludicrous diplomacy and aggressive posturing, having him lose power because of a sporting event's opening ceremonies is nothing short of surrealistic.

Ahmadinejad will certainly atone for his sins shortly. All it will take is another conference on how beautiful the world will be once Iran removes Israel and the United States from it. The radicals will forgive all in their xenophobic ecstasy.

When Muslims Decide The Composition Of Holocaust Panels ...

... then we will truly have lost the war on terror. Yesterday CAIR issued a statement demanding the removal of Dennis Prager from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council for a matter completely unrelated to the Holocaust. Prager had objected to newly-elected Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison's plans to use a Qur'an for his oath of office rather than the Bible:

In a syndicated column last week, Mr. Prager asserted that a new Democratic congressman from Minnesota, Keith Ellison, was tearing at the bulwarks of American society by seeking to use the Muslim holy book at his swearing-in next month. "He should not be allowed to do so — not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization," Mr. Prager wrote. "Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as Cair, said yesterday that Mr. Prager's comments were so outrageous that he should be removed from the Holocaust board, which oversees the Holocaust museum in Washington. "No one who holds such bigoted, intolerant, and divisive views should be in a policy-making position at a taxpayer-funded institution that seeks to educate Americans about the destructive impact hatred has had, and continues to have, on every society," the group said.

Mr. Prager also came under fire from the Anti-Defamation League, which called his statement "intolerant, misinformed, and downright un-American." The ADL stopped short of calling for Mr. Prager's ouster from the Holocaust panel, but took particular aim at the commentator's suggestion that allowing Mr. Ellison to use the Koran would do more to harm America's fabric than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

I didn't write about Prager's column when it appeared, but Mitch and I discussed it at length during our Northern Alliance Radio show this weekend. The callers kept all four lines lit during the entire show on this topic, and we wound up spending an hour and a half on the subject. Unfortunately, the podcast hasn't been set up yet at Townhall, but hopefully it will go on the site sometime today.

Prager, who usually gets it right, got this issue spectacularly wrong. He wrote that any Congressman not willing to swear an oath on the Bible should not serve in Congress, and that the American fabric would suffer its worst damage since 9/11 if Ellison used the Qur'an instead of the Bible. This is utter nonsense. In the first place, the entire issue is somewhat moot since members have one ceremony where they all take the oath of office as a group on the floor of the House. The rules of the House, furthermore, allows for the use of an "affirmation" for those choosing not to swear their oaths as a religious preference -- which demonstrates that America does have a tradition of tolerance for the needs of other religions in its processes. Quakers in particular take advantage of that option, although Richard Nixon swore his oath when elected as President.

Besides, if using a religious text for an oath has any significance at all -- and our experience with courts and politics strongly suggests there isn't much -- one would suppose that it would have to be a religious text with significance to the person swearing the oath. Atheists would not feel bound by the power of Divine retribution if they swore their oath on the Bible and then broke it later. Similarly, Christians would not feel much responsibility for protecting the honor of the Qur'an if they swore their oath on that text. Why wouldn't we want Ellison to swear his oath on the one religious text he holds sacred, if we want him to feel some responsibility for acting in its defense by fulfilling his oath?

The use of religious texts in oaths of office makes little difference in any case. Ask Nixon, if you want, or Alcee Hastings, who swore his oath on the Bible and then took bribes and covered it up. He then took the oath of office for Congress after Congress stripped him of his position on the bench. Does anyone besides Nancy Pelosi believe he took it seriously?

Nonetheless, Prager's opinion on Ellison has no bearing on the Holocaust Commission, and this represents a despicable attempt by Muslims to dictate to Jews how they should remember the Holocaust. Many of the groups represented by CAIR -- and certainly a large percentage of Muslims worldwide -- reject the notion that the Holocaust ever occurred. Some of them wish Hitler had finished the job, notably Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Islamic nations such as Iran actively work towards that end to this day, and CAIR utters nary a word against Muslims who support them.

When Muslims fully recognize the historical fact of the Holocaust and reject anti-Semitism, then we can take note of their ideas on how to staff Holocaust memorial panels. Until then, CAIR and its allies represent the same problem as the Nazis in that regard, and any attempt to influence the composition of memorial committees should be soundly rejected.

Dutch Distribute Badges Of Dishonor

Remember the Battle of Srebrenica, where the UN set up a sanctuary for Bosnians during the war against the Serbs? The city had been garrisoned by troops from The Netherlands, who provided security for the city as part of the UN contingent. I'm sure you recall the brave stand by Dutch peacekeepers that saved the refugees from being massacred by the Serbians in reprisal for attacks by the Bosnian Army ... right?

What? You don't remember it that way? Well, apparently the Dutch do, because they're issuing an insignia commemorating their participation in the mission that allowed the massacre of thousands of refugees (h/t: CQ reader Mr. Michael):

The Dutch government said the troops deserved recognition for their behaviour in difficult circumstances.

Presenting the insignia to some 800 soldiers from the Dutch battalion (Dutchbat) at a military barrack in Assen, Dutch Defence Minister Henk Kamp said they had been unjustly seen in an unfavourable light.

He said they were sent to Srebrenica on a mission impossible - without enough weaponry - and a limited mandate.

Any soldier presented with this should refuse to wear it. It should be seen as the Scarlet Letter of insignias, given the nature of the collapse of the Srebrenica defense. A 2002 report split the blame for the massacre between the UN and the Dutch, noting that the Dutchbat contingent ran away from Srebrenica without firing a shot in its defense.

Without a doubt, the UN has the overarching responsibility for Srebrenica. Their peacekeeping efforts -- at the time under the charge of Kofi Annan, who would succeed to the Secretariat nonetheless -- became a model for Turtle Bay's irrelevancy today. Peacekeepers had conflicting rules of engagement that discouraged action even in self-defense, and they seriously underequipped the troops for their missions even at that. We have seen the same type of response several times from blue-helmeted units, most recently when violence erupted in Kosovo that claimed 19 lives.

However, it was the Dutch who ran without even bothering to discharge their weapons to protect the refugees of Srebrenica. Thousands of civilians were murdered, and they didn't lift a finger to stop it or prevent it. Their commander bears the blame for that decision, but the troops do not deserve any recognition for the humiliation of the collapse of their responsibilities. They have no honor coming to them for Srebrenica, and the Dutch government dishonors itself by attempting to grant it now.

The Brits Finger The Kremlin

The British intelligence services have concluded that the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko had to be an operation of the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB. This points the finger directly at Vladimir Putin in the midst of several suspicious deaths of Putin critics:

Intelligence services in Britain are convinced that the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko was authorised by the Russian Federal Security Service.

Security sources have told The Times that the FSB orchestrated a “highly sophisticated plot” and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London.

“We know how the FSB operates abroad and, based on the circumstances behind the death of Mr Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect,” a source said yesterday.

The involvement of a former FSB officer made it easier to lure Mr Litvinenko to meetings at various locations and to distance its bosses in the Kremlin from being directly implicated in the plot.

Intelligence officials say that only officials such as FSB agents would have been able to obtain sufficent amounts of polonium-210, the radioactive substance used to fatally poison Mr Litvinenko only weeks after he was given British citizenship.

Some have speculated that the obvious nature of a polonium poisoning pointed away from Putin. Such a blatant use of a closely controlled substance would immediately implicate the Russian government, the argument goes, and therefore would never have been used by real FSB agents. However, the British say that the assassination was meant to send a clear message to Putin's critics and anyone tempted to offer information to Western nations about the activities of the Putin regime.

The Russians are not happy about the direction of the investigation. They're threatening the UK by suggesting that the probe has damaged diplomatic relations. The British ought to point out that conducting assassinations in their country damages diplomatic relations as well.

Fiji Suffers A Coup

The island nation of Fiji has apparently seen its government fall to a military coup, according to its prime minister. The Fijian president dissolved the national assembly and sent the army after Laisenia Qarase, who insists that the move has no legitimacy:

Fiji's president dissolved parliament on Tuesday and sanctioned the military to remove embattled Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, said New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who immediately imposed sanctions against Fiji's military.

Qarase, who is holed up in his residence in the capital Suva, said the military was staging a coup and he would not resign but would have to be forcibly removed from office. ...

Military commander Frank Bainimarama has repeatedly threatened to topple Qarase's government, which won a second five-year term in May, claiming it is corrupt and soft on those behind Fiji's last coup in 2000.

This is the third Fijian coup since 1987 and the first since the 2000 constitution required a multiparty democracy for the republic. Both the president and the PM have held power within the bounds of that constitution since its adoption. No longer. Fiji's military has fanned out, putting up roadblocks and establishing military authority. They have surrounded the PM's house, but thus far have not made a move to extract him.

Australia and New Zealand have reacted with alarm. John Howard sent three warships to prepare for an evacuation of Australian nationals if things get bloody, which set off a warning from Bainimirama about foreign intervention against the coup. Qarase actually went so far as to request that intervention, but Howard wisely declined to send troops on an invasion of Fiji. With his involvement in Iraq giving him enough political troubles, the last thing the Aussies need is another foreign military engagement.

Fiji has managed to overcome three of these coups in a generation, but seemingly cannot establish a stable democracy despite relative ecomomic success. The Australians will have to contend with more political instability in their region, which may wind up tying down Australian counterterrorism resources from use elsewhere.

Has Bush Surrendered On Presidential Prerogative?

Two changes in the Bush administration's key foreign policy posts make it appear that the White House has signalled a full retreat on its executive prerogative. Ambassadors John Bolton and Zalmay Khalilizad have tendered their resignations, from the UN and Iraq respectively, withdrawing from the two most controversial posts in the foreign service. Following the abrupt departure of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, the Bush hardliners seem to be exiting stage right in reaction to the mid-term losses for the Republicans.

Bush had a few words about Bolton's departure:

President Bush, in a statement, said he was "deeply disappointed that a handful of United States senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate."

"They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time," Bush said. "This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country, and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation."

John Kerry believes that the Bush administration has changed direction with the Bolton resignation:

"With the Middle East on the verge of chaos and the nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea increasing, we need a United Nations ambassador who has the full support of Congress and can help rally the international community to tackle the serious threats we face," Kerry said. He said it was an opportunity for Bush to nominate an ambassador "who enjoys the support necessary to unite our country and the world and who can put results ahead of ideology."

Pardon me, but the presidency carries with it certain prerogatives, among them the power to determine the foreign policy of the United States. In fact, it's one of the chief responsibilities of the office, and normally Presidents are given the leeway to determine the people best suited to carry it out. The treatment of John Bolton was unprecedented -- the rejection of a political appointment in the foreign service not because of any disqualifying event, but because the Senate didn't like the policy of the administration.

It's a serious breach of the separation between the branches of government. Congress does not dictate foreign policy nor should they veto ambassadorships unless the nominee has no qualifications to the position. Bolton has years of service in foreign policy, and has demonstrated his ability to conduct the affairs of the US at the United Nations for the last year. It sets an awful precedent: Congress just invalidated the 2004 Presidential election that put foreign policy in Bush's hands.

It looks like Bush, for all his expressed disappointment at Bolton's departure, doesn't want to fight to retain that prerogative. Of course, he hasn't been helped by Republicans like George Voinovich and Lincoln Chafee, who have participated in the damage done to the Constitutional exercise of foreign policy management by the executive. The loss of Khalilzad has the same quality about it, even though the inside source at the White House claims that Khalilzad will get another post with the Bush administration -- perhaps the UN job vacated by Bolton:

A Bush administration official and a UN diplomat separately described the planned changes. The administration official said the switch would take place early next year. The United Nations ambassadorship being vacated by John Bolton, who announced today he will be leaving that post, is a job that may be open to the 55-year-old Khalilzad, according to the administration official.

The administration official said what job Khalilzad would get next was among the most hotly debated personnel matters within the government. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is considering him for deputy secretary of state or the role of her counselor, in addition to the UN post, the official said.

Crocker will be replaced as ambassador to Pakistan by David Satterfield, Rice's adviser on Iraq, the administration official said.

We'll see. So far, it doesn't look like the last two years of the Bush adminstration will have room for tough-minded fighters like Bolton and Khalilzad.

The BCS Bowl Battle

Preparations for the annual Bowl Championship Series battle have already gotten under way, as tradition demands, after the final week of college football games. No, I'm not talking about teams strategizing for their opponents and bowl management promoting the matchups. I'm talking about the usual hue and cry that occurs when the BCS announces its matchups. This year promises more than its share, as Michigan finds itself aced out of the national championship and an opportunity to avenge its one loss of the year:

After a month of wild upsets in college football, after all the voters cast their ballots and the computers finished computing, the Bowl Championship Series produced a touch of nostalgia to go with the usual controversy.

The final BCS standings had Florida leaping over Michigan for the No. 2 spot on Sunday, sending the Gators to face top-ranked Ohio State in the title game on Jan. 8. ...

Florida entered the weekend with one loss and was No. 4 in the BCS standings, behind Ohio State, No. 2 USC and No. 3 Michigan. But the Trojans' upset loss to UCLA on Saturday scrambled the picture.

Florida Coach Urban Meyer had openly campaigned for his team, which finished the regular season by defeating Arkansas for the Southeastern Conference championship on Saturday night.

So what happened? Two polls shifted Florida above Michigan, despite a moderately effective win against Arkansas and a bye week for the Wolverines. Had USC beaten UCLA as expected, Michigan would have likely remained in third place -- but the coaches and sports writers decided to skew the polls in order to prevent a rematch of Michigan against Ohio State for the national championship.

Why? The one answer given, that no one wants to see a rematch, is simply ludicrous. Perhaps the coaches don't want to see one, but plenty of people thought the earlier game may have been the best of the year. Fans would love another game like the first, especially for all the marbles. However, a better argument would be that a Michigan win would not really solidify them as national champions, but rather tied for the honor. After all, Ohio State went unbeaten this year. If Michigan beat them, they'd only have one loss, along with a win against Michigan earlier. It would be difficult to argue that Michigan would deserve the national championship against Ohio State with a 1-1 record against them.

The only answer for this ongoing, annoying argument is a national tournament, and the NCAA could use the BCS format for it. Simply have the top 16 teams play each other, seeded by ranking where #1 plays #16, and so on. The end of the first round would give us the BCS bowl participants, and the other eight schools could then find other bowl assignments. The next round would eliminate four other teams and assign them to the lesser bowls, and the third week would give us the semifinals, vaulting the two most worthy teams to the national championship game.

In that format, teams with national-championship aspirations could end their schedules in the second week of November. By the first weekend of December, all of the bowl assignments would be set, in plenty of time for the student athletes to prepare for their finals. Promoters would have weeks to get set for the games; networks could sell plenty of advertising. Most importantly, the young men who work hard for months would not get aced out of a national championship game simply because a few coaches and sportswriters got bored with them.

NOTE: The Fighting Irish won a slot at the Sugar Bowl, a BCS game on New Years Day. Congratulations to all my friends at Notre Dame for a fine season!

Momentum For More Troops Building

Over the last few weeks, a momentum appears to have built for the deployment of more troops to Iraq within the White House, rather than beginning a withdrawal from the country and its efforts to provide security for itself. The departure of Donald Rumsfeld and the nomination of Robert Gates, a member of the Iraq Study Group that is expected to recommend a slow retreat, supposedly signaled an exit for George Bush. Instead, as the Wall Street Journal reports, it may have freed him to try one big push to secure Baghdad:

Outside the military, most of the debate is focused on a U.S. troop withdrawal. But inside the Pentagon, the recent dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has given some new life to arguments by military officers who say the U.S. must pour more troops and money into the country to expand the Iraqi army -- the one institution in Iraq that has shown some promise -- and stabilize the capital.

Right now there are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Though there are no firm plans for an increase, some military officials said that as many as 30,000 more troops could be needed. Most of the U.S. troops would be focused on patrolling Baghdad and training the Iraqi Army. ...

The push among the uniformed military to do more in Iraq is being driven, in part, by a small study group working for Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The group's work, which is classified, lays out several options for Iraq. But it seems to favor a temporary increase in U.S. forces as part of a broader effort to build the Iraqi Army, says an officer familiar with its work.

The officers' recommendations largely run counter to Mr. Rumsfeld's own ideas, which were revealed in a leaked memorandum written by Mr. Rumsfeld in early November and published yesterday by the New York Times. In the memo Mr. Rumsfeld suggests a pulling back of U.S. forces to bigger bases and possible withdrawals of U.S. troops "so the Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country."

Most military officers, however, seem to believe that a pullback of U.S. forces would only trigger more violence and make political compromise in the country impossible. These officers argue that 20,000 U.S. troops are needed to bring order to Baghdad. Another 10,000 U.S. soldiers would also be needed to work as advisers with the Iraqi Army, which currently numbers about 134,000 troops and might need to double in size.

This option has gained more credence since the election. Rumsfeld apparently opposed the idea, not because he wanted to withdraw from Iraq but because he wanted to keep a small footprint there. His field commanders backed him on that strategy, but John Abizaid and George Casey may be replaced when Gates takes office. The incoming Secretary of Defense might decide to replace them with commanders who see a use for a larger force in Baghdad.

The key will be the dedication to the mission by the United States. As General Jack Keane, a retired commander, tells the Wall Street Journal, the American military can certainly secure Baghdad if it chooses to do so. So far, however, we have not seen that level of commitment. We would have to build an overwhelming force and impose our will on Baghdad in a manner we have not yet appeared willing to contemplate. The US would also have to find the wherewithal to attack Moqtada al-Sadr aggressively, even if it defies the wishes of Nouri al-Maliki.

Can we find that will to win? If the recent reports are accurate, it looks like the White House may be willing to try. They will have their work cut out for them, especially with the new Democratic majorities in Congress. They will have to acquire materiel and reposition troops, all expensive propositions that will have to find funding in the budget process. They will also have to extend some deployments, which does not require Congressional cooperation but which can get very complicated without it. Democrats will press hard to stop it, mindful of the impression they gave the American voters that they would stop the Iraq war once elected to majorities.

It may set up a no-win situation for the White House, where the will to win still exists but the means remain out of their reach. It will make for a difficult two years.

How Desperate Are The Democrats?

As I note below, Hillary Clinton has sucked most of the oxygen out of the discussions over the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2008, despite some major misgivings. A significant portion of the party wants to find some alternative to Hillary, and Barack Obama has materialized to help fill that need. Using terms like "rock star", Democrats have boosted Obama as a potential savior who can help bridge constituencies:

Senator Barack Obama’s announcement that he might run for president is altering the early dynamics of the 2008 Democratic nominating contest. The move has created complications for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as she steps up her own preparations and is posing a threat to lesser-known Democrats trying to position themselves as alternatives to Mrs. Clinton, Democrats said Sunday.

The declaration six weeks ago by Mr. Obama, an Illinois Democrat, has set off a surge of interest in Democratic circles, which party officials expect will only be fueled in the coming week as Mr. Obama prepares for a day of campaignlike events in New Hampshire next Sunday.

At the least, Mr. Obama’s very high-profile explorations have contributed to a quickening of the pace across the 2008 Democratic field. On Sunday, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana said that he would create a presidential exploratory committee this week. And Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa went so far as to announce his candidacy two years before Election Day, in what his aides said was a calculated strategy to grab a moment of attention before Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton blot out the sun. ...

But more than simply picking up the pace, Democrats increasingly believe that Mr. Obama has the potential of upending the dynamics of the 2008 contest more than any other Democrat who might run — short, perhaps, of Al Gore, the former vice president, whom some Democrats are pressing to run.

Obama has made quite a splash since winning election to national office in 2004. He made a stirring speech at the national convention that year, and he has expanded on that promise ever since. Magazines love to feature his face on their covers, and his thoughtful bearing plays well on talking-head political shows on television. He has practically made "hope" a synonym for his career, stealing it from Bill Clinton, the Man from Hope.

However, Democrats appear to be getting carried away, to their detriment. Obama, while politically adept, is an untested neophyte. He won one gimme election against a ridiculous campaign by Maryland's Alan Keyes, besting a Republican state party in Illinois that has collapsed over the last few years from scandal and incompetence. Obama has done little legislatively, understandable for his freshman status, although he did co-sponsor the Coburn-Obama on-line budget database. To call him "untested" is an understatement of large proportion.

Obama is only 45 years old, a young man with plenty of time to gain more experience at the national level. At any other time, party leadership would counsel patience and seasoning. Even if the Democrats win the next two terms in the White House, Obama would only be 55 years old for 2016 -- still a very young man in presidential terms. He could take the time to run for governor in Illinois to gain executive experience and broaden his resume. He has time on his side.

That's why this Obama boomlet looks like desperation. Take a look at the field so far. They have Hillary as a front-runner despite serious misgivings about her electability, and after that come Al Gore and John Kerry, two failed presidential candidates. John Edwards wants to try again, leveraging his one term in political office anywhere into a second attempt at the brass ring. After that, the field narrows to such household names as Tom Vilsack and Evan Bayh. Vilsack actually has the edge as an executive from Iowa, but even though he gained mention as a possible VP candidate in 2004, most people still have no idea who he is.

Democrats want to take a freshman and vault him not just to the varsity but to make him the captain of their team. It might work -- or it might turn out to be a disaster that would ruin Obama's chances to build a real coalition later based on a broad body of work. The Democrats may want to consider that before they start using their seed corn for their next battle.

It's The Electability, Stupid

Rumors have swirled around HIllary Clinton regarding her presumed run for the presidency in 2008, with some saying that a Barack Obama run will keep her out of the race and that she has not discovered the inner fire for the grueling campaign, a la Mark Warner. Now, however, she's begun meeting with Democratic power brokers, indicating that she's plowing ahead -- but Democrats do not appear completely thrilled by the prospect.

So who's meeting with Hillary?

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has begun a calculated series of meetings with top New York Democratic officials to signal that she is likely to run for the presidency in 2008 and to ask for their support if she does, according to one state Democratic official who spoke with her and two others who have been briefed on her plans.

Senator Clinton met last week with Charles B. Rangel, the dean of the New York Congressional delegation, in what her advisers said was an effort to meet with most New York Congressional Democrats by the end of this month to discuss her plans.

On Friday, she also spoke with Herman D. Farrell Jr., the chairman of the State Democratic Party, Mr. Farrell said, and she plans to meet with Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer as early as today. Mr. Farrell confirmed that Senator Clinton briefed him on her 2008 intentions; Mr. Rangel declined to describe their conversation.

Senator Clinton’s outreach was disclosed and confirmed yesterday by three New York Democratic officials, all on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by the Clinton camp to release the information. One of the officials said he was contacted by Senator Clinton directly about her plans. The two others said they were informed by senior Clinton advisers that she was entering a new phase of contacting officials to line up support for a possible presidential bid.

According to the New York Times and their sources, she appears enthusiastic and committed to the campaign ahead of her. She did not exude any sense of indecision or reluctance to engage in a two-year grind for the White House. The NYT, her most proximate newspaper, also fails to mention reservations from others about a Hillary run, although they acknowledge her "controversial" nature. The AP, via ABC News, gets more to the point:

Despite her centrist six-year Senate voting record, Clinton's reputation remains deeply rooted in her polarizing eight years as first lady. Skeptics say she may still be too liberal for many voters, who recall her husband's scandal-plagued presidency and her own audacious effort to reform the nation's health care system. And no one knows how her status as the first serious female candidate would play out.

"Everyone knows Hillary Clinton can raise the money and that she has a good team, but it's mitigated by all the mumbling that she's not electable," said Joe Trippi, who managed Howard Dean's upstart 2004 presidential campaign. ...

Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party not aligned with any presidential hopeful, is among the nay-sayers. "She's a senator, she'd be the first woman running, and she's Hillary Clinton," he said. "All of that is almost insurmountable for a general election."

He added: "There are people who would write a check and die for her, but there are plenty of others who wouldn't vote for her if she promised to eliminate the income tax and give free ice cream to everyone. People have made up their minds about her, and that doesn't give her much room to maneuver."

The AP doesn't bother with unnamed sources; they get Democratic power brokers on record to talk about her lack of electability. They also counter with the troika of Clintonistas that have rallied to her defense -- James Carville, Mark Penn, and Chris Lehane. All of them argue that her negatives have been overestimated. Lehane remarked that Clinton has gotten more of a test than John McCain in national politics. The other two noted that Hillary could help win states where Democrats narrowly lost in 2004 by expanding the gender gap.

The mere fact that these three notorious Clinton apologists have to make these arguments shows the difficulty that Hillary will have in the upcoming campaign. Lehane has the silliest argument. Clinton won two terms in the Senate by carpetbagging to New York. McCain has won election to the Senate since the 1980s. He also ran a tough campaign for the presidency in 2000, placing second to George Bush but winning a couple of states along the way. As for Hillary's expanded reach among women, that may well be true and could tip some contests. However, it will have to counteract the issues she has in repelling voters from both genders due to her attempt to socialize medicine the last time she was in the White House, as well as her general lack of warmth and charisma.

After twenty years of Bush and Clinton presidencies, the American public wants a fresh face in the executive. Bill Clinton may be wildly popular as an ex-president, but I doubt that Americans want him to return to the White House as First Spouse in the same numbers. A Hillary run will remind voters of more than just the health-care initiative -- we'll get the travel-office firings and phony prosecutions, and the Rose Law Firm records, and every other scandal revived in a national campaign, and not just by Republicans. Democrats will see Hillary as a money vortex that could kneecap other, more viable candidates and will press back hard to find someone with less baggage instead.

Even with attack dogs like Carville and Lehane, Hillary will find it hard to convince people of her electability. That didn't stop the Democrats from nominating John Kerry, one of the biggest stiffs to run for the White House in living memory, so that may not preclude them from actually nominating Hillary. It will, however, keep them from winning the White House if they do.

God Rest Ye Merry, Merchants

With my sister in town for the weekend, we decided to really tempt fate and risk our lives yesterday ... shopping at the Mall of America. Actually, we went to two different malls in an attempt to get all of our Christmas shopping done in one fell swoop, and we managed to live to tell the tale.

Popular culture makes Christmas shopping seem like one of the joys of the holidays, when in fact it seems like a bad reality show in which your credit cards try to vote you off the island. That's true for the employees as well. I chatted with a manager and a sales rep at a jewelry store when I bought the First Mate's gift (I'm no dummy!), and the manager told me that last year he had to work 320 hours in December. Now that he's the manager, he's being a nice guy and holding his employees to no more than 250 hours for the month.

If you're wondering why people get surly service in that last week, you have your explanation.

Normally, retail stores in malls might do as much as 30% of their business during the Thanksgiving-to-New Years Eve period. That's less true of the MOA, the nation's largest shopping mall. It's a shopping destination, and the people with whom I spoke at a couple of different locations told me that the Christmas season doesn't differentiate as much because of the shoppers who travel year-round to the Mall of America. December usually doubles their business -- which gives you an idea why locals tend to shop at other malls in the area all year long.

We spent seven hours yesterday at the malls, although the last 90 minutes was just for dinner. I don't watch football for seven hours. I can't think of anywhere I'd like to be for seven hours, especially not in crowds like we saw yesterday -- and those will only get worse until Christmas. Next year, I'll do more on line ... which is a pledge I recall making last year.

At the end of the evening, we wrapped up by wrapping the presents and watching Bad Santa, which my sister recommended as a way to recover from the shopping gauntlet. It was not a bad suggestion; it's a dark comedy with almost no socially redeeming virtues, and by the end of yesterday it was exactly what I needed. I'll listen to Christmas carols today in an attempt to recover from the case of the "bah humbugs" I contracted yesterday, a condition I believe might be contagious.

Liberals Move Left

Canada's Liberal Party has chosen its new leader almost a year after its electoral debacle that saw its majority disappear from the Adscam scandal. Instead of selecting front-running moderate Michael Ignatieff, Liberals chose the more liberal Stephane Dion to lead them into the next elections:

Stephane Dion has won the Liberal leadership in an upset win over Michael Ignatieff, who had been the front runner coming into this convention.

The final battle between the two former professors was not decided until the fourth ballot.

Mr. Dion had surged into the lead on the third ballot and went on from there, winning a clear majority of 54.7 per cent of the final vote.

Mr. Dion was the only candidate from Quebec. He now becomes the third party leader in a row from the province.

The BBC had more on the background of the candidates. Ignatieff ran into some problems because of his initial support of the war in Iraq, which may have kneecapped him with all but the centrists in the party. Dion, formerly the Environment Minister, ran on a green platform which will insist on full compliance with the Kyoto accords.

We can expect a more leftward turn for the Grits from Dion, which may give the party some problems in the next elections. They seem to have ceded the center a little bit with Dion. They may have strengthened their hold in Quebec, where Conservatives and Stephen Harper had so much success earlier. The G&M points out that this could also be a liability elsewhere, especially since Dion does not speak English fluently and might alienate other parts of Canada.

Michael Stickings has much more at The Reaction. Stickings, an excellent writer for liberal causes, is a member of Canada's Liberal party and gives his perspective as a Dion supporter. Interestingly, he sees the Quebecker as a potential liability in his home province:

Which is good for the Liberal Party and good for Canada, I think, particularly if his team heading into the next election includes Ignatieff, Rae, Kennedy, and Ken Dryden, who finished fifth. Dion is not without his problems -- he's not terribly popular in his home province of Quebec given his strident anti-sovereigntist views, and he's not exactly the most charismatic of politicians -- but he should do well.

Read the whole thing, of course, and keep an eye on Michael's posts for well-written analysis of Canadian politics from the other side of the spectrum.

UPDATE: AAAAUGH! Why did I call the Liberals Labour? I'm seriously in need of the first cup of java. Sorry -- and thanks to Dave Rywall in the comments.

The Meaning Of Rumsfeld's Leak

Many bloggers have written about the leaked Rumsfeld memo published by the New York Times on Friday and confirmed by the Pentagon later the same day, but no one has a better political analysis than Andy McCarthy at NRO's The Corner. Calling this the herald of a "train-wreck" two years of lame-duck status for the Bush administration, McCarthy shows exactly how this will be seen by the people who comprise it:

The memo itself is extraordinarily interesting, even to us non-military types, especially given (a) how little regard Sec'y Rumsfeld seems to have for a lot of the strategy either currently being employed or likely to be proposed by the Iraq Study Group; and (b) how Rumsfeld seems a lot more interested in quick strike capability against al Qaeda and Iran elements than having U.S. forces enmeshed in Iraq's sectarian infighting. ...

If high officials — in wartime, no less — figure they better not give their best, most candid advice on sensitive, publicly-charged issues because opposing policy factions are going to leak each other's memos to the press, the initiative and creativity of the smart people we want in government is stifled. And the leaks will be used to portray the administration as disintegrating into rancorous chaos, which avalanche feeds on itself.

Rumsfeld's memo contains a number of initiatives that could be taken, separately or in combination, that would significantly transform our engagement in Iraq. McCarthy has Rumsfeld's intent correct when he says that the former Secretary of Defense obviously wanted to mostly disengage with nation-building tactics in favor of conserving strength for quick strikes. That goes along with Rumsfeld's vision of a light, mobile, and highly responsive military anyway, and would also serve to reduce American vulnerabilities in Iraq while keeping our options for military operations wide open.

That begs the question: is this why Rumsfeld got fired so abruptly? We have heard from inside sources at the White House that Bush intended on replacing Rumsfeld as far back as mid-summer, which would be around the same time as the new Baghdad strategy failed to show the results we expected. However, two weeks before this memo was written, Bush had publicly endorsed Rumsfeld for two more years of service, despite the obvious political damage that would cause the Republicans in the midterms. Two days after Rumsfeld submitted this memo, he was out of a job.

The Bush administration clearly does not want to change its higher-level strategies in Iraq; Bush has made that clear on the eve of the Baker-Hamilton ISG report. If Rumsfeld hoped to pre-empt the ISG, he may have miscalculated his boss' intentions.

And if that's true, it speaks volumes about what we can expect from Robert Gates.

However, it will be interesting after this memo to see how the press and the Democrats approach Rumsfeld. They have made him the Devil incarnate for the last three years for his prosecution of the war. Now that he has endorsed a lighter approach to Iraq, similar to what the media and the opposition have demanded, will they rehabilitate Rumsfeld as a "wise man" on the war? I suspect they will if the Bush administration continues to remain unwilling to adopt whatever recommendations the ISG provides in their report this week. We will see Rumsfeld interviewed on major talk shows in a much more respectful manner, asked to expand on the thoughts in this memo and his evaluation of why we need a "major adjustment".

In fact, unlike Andy, I suspect that this memo did not get leaked by someone within the Bush administration opposed to Rumsfeld; I suspect it came from Rumsfeld himself, or one of his deputies. Like Andy, I think this signals that we are about to enter a difficult two years for the war on terror.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a good roundup on the subject; be sure to check out all the links.