Just The Fax, Ma'am

Kentucky officials released a violent man, who had beaten an elderly man, from a psychiatric facility after receiving a faxed order from the state supreme court demanding his release. Afterwards, the facility expressed surprise that the court had started convening in a local grocery store:

Officials released a prisoner from a state facility after receiving a phony fax that ordered the man be freed, and didn't catch the mistake for nearly two weeks.

Timothy Rouse, 19, is charged with beating an elderly western Kentucky man and was at the Kentucky Correctional & Psychiatric Center in La Grange for a mental evaluation. He was released from that facility on April 6 after officials received the fake court order.

It contained grammatical errors, was not typed on letterhead and was faxed from a local grocery store. The fax falsely claimed that the Kentucky Supreme Court "demanded" Rouse be released.

Lexington police arrested Rouse at his mother's home Thursday evening.

The holding facility released the man based on a fax that had no letterhead, but purported to be from the Kentucky Supreme Court. No one thought it odd that their highest court would have forgotten to order letterhead from the state printing office, apparently. They didn't notice that the fax came from the local grocery store because they aren't required to check the originating source for fax messages. And the spelling and grammatical errors didn't alert them that the orders were counterfeit because, as the facility director told the press, spelling and grammar mistakes are common on Kentucky court orders.

At least the facility director figured out the mistake ... two weeks later. The police recaptured Rouse at his mother's home, which makes him even more incompetent than the La Grange crew that let him go. Rouse had an entire nation in which to hide -- and he chose his mother's house. Brilliant!

I bet that Kentuckians are cringing in embarrassment tonight. The facility staff should be updating their resumes tonight as well. I hear that grocery store faxes are quite convenient in Kentucky.

CQ Radio, Blog Talk Radio, & Howard Kurtz At Air Congress

Daniel Glover at Air Congress picked up my interview with Howard Kurtz on CQ Radio earlier this week. Daniel also handles the duties at the National Journal blog, Beltway Blogroll, as well as his editorial responsibilities for the magazine. In the same post, he notes that another BTR show, RK/NLS Virginia Politics, scored a big get with their interview of Hillary Clinton's Deputy Campaign Manager, Mike Henry.

Blog Talk Radio keeps picking up steam!

CORRECTION: It was not Hillary, but Mike Henry -- but still a great interview.

Close Enough For Non-Government Government Work

Moises Naim warns readers of the Washington Post to beware of a special type of non-governmental organization (NGO) that has begun to proliferate in international circles. The new and pernicious government-organized NGO, which Naim calls gongos, not only operate as laughable oxymorons but also undermines international efforts to isolate oppressive regimes:

Some gongos are benign, others irrelevant. But many, including those I mentioned, are dangerous. Some act as the thuggish arm of repressive governments. Others use the practices of democracy to subtly undermine democracy at home. Abroad, the gongos of repressive regimes lobby the United Nations and other international institutions, often posing as representatives of citizen groups with lofty aims when, in fact, they are nothing but agents of the governments that fund them. Some governments embed their gongos deep in the societies of other countries and use them to advance their interests abroad.

That is the case, for example, of Chongryon, a vast group of pro-North Korean "civil society" organizations active in Japan. It is the de facto representative of the North Korean regime. Japanese authorities have accused several of its member organizations of smuggling weapons technology, trafficking in pharmaceutical products, and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as orchestrating a massive propaganda operation on Pyongyang's behalf.

For decades, "civil society" groups in a variety of countries have stridently defended Cuba's human rights record at U.N. conferences and have regularly joined the efforts aimed at watering down resolutions concerning Cuba's well-documented violations. Bolivarian Circles, citizen groups that support Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, are sprouting throughout Latin America, the United States and Canada. Their funding? Take a guess. Iran, Saudi Arabia and other wealthy governments in the Middle East are known to be generous -- and often the sole -- benefactors of NGOs that advance their religious agenda worldwide.

We used to have another name for gongos: front groups, or spy rings. Americans found out how these groups operate when the Nazi-sponsored German-American Bund offered friendship, cultural exchange, and peaceful coexistence while espousing the fuehrerprinzip during the 1930s. The FBI considered them a front group with the potential, and perhaps the track record, of seeking intel for the Nazis during the run-up to the war.

Gongos cause problems domestically as well. Naim points out examples in Kyrgyzstan that acted to undermine democracy activists in order to boost former president Askar Akayev, who left office just ahead of the torches and pitchforks in 2005. In Myanmar, formerly Burma, the Myanmar Womens Affairs Federation exists to give the ruling junta an excuse to keep freedom activist Aung San Suu Kyi imprisoned. Naim even belongs to an American gongo, the National Endowment for Democracy, which boosts non-governmental efforts to promote democracy and freedom abroad, which has been banned in places like Russia.

Naim says the gongo industry needs a ratings system in order to keep the malicious isolated from the benign. He proposes in general terms some sort of market response which would penalize those which act on behalf of oppressive regimes, but incentivize those which act out of principle and good intentions. I'm not so sure that will work. It sounds good, but I fail to see how such a certifying authority would have any impact on the Myanmar WAF, or on the Kyrgyzstan ANNO. Their governments will continue to fund them as long as they fulfill the government agendas, although the Kyrgyzstan ANNO is probably out of business now that the government has changed. A rating system will not convince Putin to allow NED to operate in Russia against Putin's interests, even if it had the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

The best we can do is to expose these front groups for what they are, and keep funds from flowing to them. Moises Naim can do that by continuing to write about these shadowy groups and keep sunlight on them. Ratings systems, like any self-nominating system, will only serve to limit those who have no reason to be limited in the first place.

An Iranian Agent In Phoenix Nuclear Reactor?

American authorities have arrested a Phoenix man on suspicion of violating the trade embargo with Iran -- by supplying the mullahs with details of an American nuclear reactor. Mohammed Alavi stepped off a flight from Iran to LAX and into the arms of FBI agents on April 9th:

A former engineer at the nation's largest nuclear power plant has been charged with taking computer access codes and software to Iran and using it to download details of plant control rooms and reactors, authorities said. ...

Mohammad Alavi, who worked at the triple-reactor Palo Verde power plant west of Phoenix, was arrested April 9 at Los Angeles International Airport when he arrived on a flight from Iran, authorities said. ...

He is charged with a single count of violating a trade embargo that prohibits Americans from exporting goods and services to Iran. If convicted, he would face up to 21 months in prison.

According to court records, the software is used only for training plant employees, but allowed users access to details on the Palo Verde control rooms and the plant layout. In October, authorities alleged, the software was used to download training materials from Tehran, using a Palo Verde user identification.

The FBI said there was no evidence to suggest the software access was linked to the Iranian government, which has clashed with the West over attempts to develop its own nuclear program.

This story sounds a little odd. While Teheran would like as much information on nuclear plants as they can get, Phoenix has hardly demonstrated the most reliability of American plants. The kinds of material downloaded do not appear to have a great deal of value for the Iranians. A training manual would assist in operating facilities in a general sense, but the Russians would have to train them on the specifics for the Bushehr plant.

One could consider that layouts and operational specifics of the plant would assist terrorists interested in it for a potential target. The FBI says that this has no connection to any terror investigation, though, and in the event, the Iranians would have been better off leaving Alavi in place. Alavi left that job eight months ago, which means his use in determining the best plan for a terrorist attack would have been significantly diminished. The software that Alavi used doesn't have anything to do with the operation of the reactor either, accoring to the plant's owners.

It does demonstrate that the Iranians are working all angles in attempting to penetrate the nuclear-power industry, if the allegations are true. Someone in Teheran wants that information badly. We need to understand why.

The Gates Timetable?

Robert Gates warned the Iraq government that they have to make progress on political reconciliation by this summer or he may pull American troops out of the security plan for Baghdad. Sounding a tone that one normally associates with war critics, he said that the Iraqi National Assembly had to pass key legislation quickly, as the surge will only buy them a limited amount of time in which to accomplish their goals:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, unsatisfied with the pace of political reconciliation in Iraq, laid down an implicit deadline Friday by urging Iraqi leaders to pass key laws by summer while repeating his warning that U.S. troops will not patrol Iraqi streets indefinitely.

Gates also described as "mixed" the results of two-month-old military operations to curb violence in Baghdad, which have included tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops.

"Our commitment to Iraq is long-term, but it is not a commitment to have our young men and women patrolling Iraq's streets open-endedly," Gates said at a news conference.

Gates pledged that the United States would continue training and modernizing Iraqi security forces to enable Iraq to defend itself from attack from abroad. But he made clear that in the future, U.S. troops could pull back from the day-to-day mission of providing security and combating militants. He stopped short of referring to a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country.

Iraqi politicians did not react as Gates had hoped. Nouri al-Maliki reminded Gates that the assembly is an independent body, and could not promise a specific date for passage of the legislation. One of the MPs told the press that "time is not important," and that the proposed legislation will pass because it is an Iraqi priority and not an American priority.

The tone of the demand sounds a little different from the administration's calls for patience and perseverance. Gates may be offering advice more than giving an ultimatum. The Democrats want to offer a supplemental for war funding that will only cover 60 days. That means Congress will have to start the funding process all over again, and the Democrats clearly hope to wear down the administration on forcing a withdrawal without having to assume the responsibilities of defunding the troops in Iraq. If the Iraqis do not make clear political process by then, Gates is saying, he may have no choice but to remove troops from Baghdad and let the Iraqi capital fall apart.

Gates highlighted the recent string of large-scale bombing as an indicator that al-Qaeda has adopted desperation tactics. They no longer distinguish between Sunni and Shi'ite victims, but have declared war on all Iraq, Gates argued. The series of bombings that killed almost 200 people show that AQI has no more allies even among the other insurgencies, and that the pressure of the new strategy has forced them into complete political isolation.

Hopefully, Gates has analyzed this correctly. If so, then perhaps the Iraqis will recognize their precarious position and start working quickly on the political reforms that will help speed unity.

Hillary Pandering To The Pimp Culture

Hillary Clinton takes two shots over her involvement in the degrading language of gangster rap. Last night, the women's basketball team at Rutgers blew off a meeting with their neighboring state's Senator, claiming Imus fatigue and a renewed sense of perspective on victimhood after the Virginia Tech shootings. This morning, Colbert King blasts Hillary for taking almost a million dollars from a fundraiser hosted by a man who gets rich on lyrics that would make Don Imus blush.

First, the Rutgers team passed on a chance to meet with Hillary and hear her sympathy for their victimhood:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally dropped by Rutgers to meet with the school's women's basketball coach -- but the players themselves skipped the half-hour meeting, citing their studies and Imus fatigue.

Clinton had been scheduled to meet with Scarlet Knight coach C. Vivian Stringer and an assistant, and possibly some of the players, Monday to talk with them about Don Imus's "nappy-headed ho" comments.

But that sit-down was postponed due to weather and because the story seemed far less significant after the Virginia Tech killings.

Well, finally someone got a sense of perspective. What Imus said was insulting and degrading, but it hardly amounted to the end of the world. Imus apologized, and that should have ended it for these athletes -- and apparently they agree. They have little interest in serving as poster children for politicians looking to score a few easy points.

Good for them. They should concentrate on getting an education and avoid allowing people to exploit them in the same manner as misogynistic rappers celebrate the exploitation of their "hoes".

Colbert King, meanwhile, notes that Hillary wants it both ways. She would have met with the Rutgers athletes to score points off of the wave of indignation following Imus' use of rap lingo, and almost in the same breath received $800,000 from Timbaland. King explains the "hip-hop hypocrisy":

Put me in the camp of those who implore Sen. Hillary Clinton to give it back -- "it" being the reported $800,000 that's sitting in her presidential campaign coffers thanks to a fundraiser hosted in her honor March 31 in the Pinecrest, Fla., home of a huge Clinton fan who refers to himself as Timbaland. ...

Mrs. Clinton, you may recall, took umbrage at Imus's remarks, branding them "small-minded bigotry and coarse sexism." His words, she said in an e-mail to supporters, "showed a disregard for basic decency and were disrespectful and degrading to African Americans and women everywhere."

Good for her, I say, except it must be asked why she was down in Florida making nice to -- and pocketing big bucks from -- a rapper whose obscenity-laced lyrics praise violence, perpetuate racist stereotypes and demean black women.

Here's a taste of the wit and wisdom of Timbaland, née Timothy Mosley, as provided by King:

". . . Hoes coming up short? Hoes finna get cursed out! . . . Slam the mask out of these hoes and they say, 'What is that, velvet?' And they betta meet they quota, betta yet betta meet they deadline . . . I'm a pimp all around A pimp of the town -- we pimpin 'em up, HOES DOWN."

King has Hillary pegged. She can't castigate Imus for talking about women in the same language as Timbaland while taking almost a million dollars from the rapper. The fact that she tried to wheedle her way into a meeting with the target of Imus' insult while getting funding from Timbaland makes her the worst kind of hypocrite -- the kind that makes money on the practices she derides.

Give it back, Hillary.

UPDATE: Bruce Kesler has further thoughts.

UPDATE II: Adjoran had prior thoughts at Wizbang.

NARN, The Overwhelmed Edition

The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line's John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I hit the airwaves for the second shift from 1-3 pm CT, and King Banaian and Michael Broadkorb have The Final Word from 3-5. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot, or on the station's Internet stream if you're outside of the broadcast area.

This has been an overwhelming week for national news. I'm sure we will discuss the fallout of the Virginia Tech shotings, including how the commentariat performed in both Old and New Media. Mitch and I will mention Barack Obama's use of the tragedy to equate it to outsourcing. We'll also discuss the Alberto Gonzales testimony and what it means for the administration. We may try to squeeze in the story about Iranian death squads being endorsed by the mullah's Supreme Court, as well as the ramifications of our Supreme Court upholding the partial-birth abortion ban.

Be sure to call and join the conversation today at 651-289-4488, if you're not feeling overwhelmed, or even if you are.

Sunni Tribes Form Alliance Against Insurgents

I missed this story this morning, so I'm glad Allahpundit linked to it. It gives me an opportunity to make amends for the Gaubatz story below with some good news from Iraq. Sunni tribal chiefs plan on forming an anti-insurgent political party in Anbar, reflecting the success the US has had against al-Qaeda in Iraq and the brutality of AQI against the local people:

A group of Sunni tribal leaders in beleaguered Al Anbar province said Thursday that it intended to form a national party to oppose insurgents such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and reengage with Iraq's political process.

The announcement came after 200 sheiks said to represent 50 tribes met here and agreed to form a provincial sheiks council and hold the first convention in May of their new party, called Iraq Awakening. Sheiks from three other provinces will attend, organizers said.

The driving force behind the new party, Sheik Abdul-Sattar abu Risha, said in an interview that the tribal leaders would be pushing a slate of candidates in Al Anbar provincial elections later this year, as well as in the next round of national parliamentary balloting, scheduled for 2009.

One purpose of the party, Sattar said, is to promote a better image of American-led forces "to the Iraqis here." He added that the tribes also would participate in a U.S.-backed effort to reestablish a court system in Ramadi, the provincial capital.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the security situation in Anbar has shown real improvement. Some of that improvement comes from the efforts of the local tribes, but that wouldn't be possible if the US hadn't started its new strategy of clearing and holding territory and establishing credibility in its commitment. The Marines that have boosted their numbers in Anbar have made believers out of the locals.

Now the sheikhs have given their blessings to recruitment for the Iraqi Army, which has up to now been a mainly Shi'ite force. The Sunni recruits will help to balance the security forces and bolster that group's credibility in Iraq as a whole. It's the only way that Iraq in the long run can hold itself together.

It's a start, and a good piece of news to wrap up the week.

The Axis Of Embarrassment (Updated ... BS?)

See update below -- not very credible.

Bloggers today have been linking to an article in The Spectator, a well-regarded British magazine, written by Daily Mail columnist Melanie Philips regarding Iraqi WMDs. According to the man assigned to look for them, the WMDs were there -- before the Bush Administration apparently botched security at the sites and his classified reports went missing. Meet David Garbautz, who served as an Air Force agent in Special Investigations for 12 years before his most important assignment:

Between March and July 2003, he says, he was taken to four sites in southern Iraq — two within Nasariyah, one 20 miles south and one near Basra — which, he was told by numerous Iraqi sources, contained biological and chemical weapons, material for a nuclear programme and UN-proscribed missiles. He was, he says, in no doubt whatever that this was true.

This was, in the first place, because of the massive size of these sites and the extreme lengths to which the Iraqis had gone to conceal them. Three of them were bunkers buried 20 to 30 feet beneath the Euphrates. They had been constructed through building dams which were removed after the huge subterranean vaults had been excavated so that these were concealed beneath the river bed. The bunker walls were made of reinforced concrete five feet thick.

‘There was no doubt, with so much effort having gone into hiding these constructions, that something very important was buried there’, says Mr Gaubatz. By speaking to a wide range of Iraqis, some of whom risked their lives by talking to him and whose accounts were provided in ignorance of each other, he built up a picture of the nuclear, chemical and biological materials they said were buried underground.

‘They explained in detail why WMDs were in these areas and asked the US to remove them,’ says Mr Gaubatz. ‘Much of this material had been buried in the concrete bunkers and in the sewage pipe system. There were also missile imprints in the area and signs of chemical activity — gas masks, decontamination kits, atropine needles. The Iraqis and my team had no doubt at all that WMDs were hidden there.’

There was yet another significant piece of circumstantial corroboration. The medical records of Mr Gaubatz and his team showed that at these sites they had been exposed to high levels of radiation.

Garbautz wrote sixty classified reports about what he found in those fortified bunkers under the Euphrates. None of them can be found now. Garbautz isn't sure if the destruction of his reports were accidental, done while the Air Force evacuated a base where the digital files were stored, or deliberate in order to keep things quiet. Even a Congressional investigation hit a brick wall at the CIA, which grudgingly admitted in 2005 that Garbautz' reports had indeed disappeared. At that time, the CIA went back to the fortified sites and found them looted.

Where did the material go? Unguarded, the sies got raided by Iraqi and Syrian forces, aided by Russian intel. The weapons material got shipped to Syria, in a location Garbauzt insists is known to American intelligence forces. The ironic result of the screw-up is that a terror-supporting nation has its hands on WMD, and could easily pass it to its radical-Islamist terror proxies, Hamas or Hezbollah.

And that is precisely why the Bush administration has not publicly made the case for WMD. In order to use this information, the Pentagon would have to admit that it fouled up so badly that it created the opportunity for terrorists to use Saddam's WMD. Democrats, who normally would have a field day pointing out the incompetence of the executive branch, can't use it because it would prove that George Bush was right about the WMD. Apparently, no one wants to acknowledge Garbautz's information about the existence and status of the WMD.

As Melanie Phillips says, it has proven to be the Axis of Embarrassment for both political parties. In the meantime, the truth has been hidden about the danger of Assad's grip on Saddam's weapons -- and, of course, his military partnership with Iran. Read the entire article.

UPDATE: Or, it could just be BS, as many CQ commenters have decided. Here's Gaubatz' website, which doesn't mention this story. His blog at Sanework -- Society of Americans for National Existence -- features posts by Gaubatz that asserts a link between radical Islam and the Virginia Tech shootings, and a long post about how nuclear weapons could be transported ... through the sewer systems.

OK. Melanie Phillips found him credible, as apparently did Rep. Peter King and Eli Lake at the New York Sun. Maybe all of this is true. If so, Gaubatz is an odd messenger. Color me very skeptical -- and a little embarrassed that I wasn't more skeptical at first. Mea culpa, and my apologies.

UPDATE II: Or is this Melanie Philips' stretching of Gaubatz' reasonable story? That's the conclusion at The Pink Flamingo. She's not impressed by the inclusion of John Loftus, either.

CQ Radio Today: Jules Crittenden

Our next installment of CQ Radio will feature premiere blogger and journalist Jules Crittenden, whose "good news, bad news" posts are daily delights. Jules embedded with the troops during the initial invasion of Iraq, and has written a great deal about the war on terror, Iraq, and the future of our national security efforts. We'll talk about all of these topics and more today, starting at 2 pm CT.

We'll also take your calls at 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

UPDATE: Don't forget that you can click on the sidebar player to listen to the podcasts, but you need to click on the link here to listen to the live show.

UPDATE II: Jules and I had a great time talking about media bias and the war in Iraq. Don't miss it! You can also play it on the sidebar player any time.

My Breakfast With Gateway (Updated - Still Not Working!)

As I mentioned earlier, I have had an ongoing issue with connectivity that has put me behind schedule last night and this morning. The issue involves my new Gateway laptop, the one I purchased six weeks ago as a business-contingency plan after I started considering working from home on a full-time basis.

The Gateway MT3705 has developed a nasty habit of dropping my wireless connection to the D-Link DIR-625 router, forcing me to reboot it, sometimes several times a day. Three weeks ago, I spent an hour with Gateway's tech-support chat service, which recommended that I reload the drivers for the Realtek wireless adapter to resolve the issue. That worked -- for a while, perhaps a day or two. Despite reloading it several times over the last couple of weeks, it continues to drop the network and stop recognizing it, even though I have two other computers connected to the wireless network that have no issues whatsoever.

Today, after losing two posts, I finally dug out an external USB wireless adapter and reconnected with Gateway's chat support to get them to fix the problem. What I was told was that Vista somehow interferes with the 802.11 wireless standard, and that I needed to replace my router. Somehow, Gateway wants me to verify that I'm connecting to a Vista-compatible router everywhere I travel with this laptop, rather than provide me with an adapter that connects to any 802.11-b or -g router. Seriously -- here's the transcript:

Brady_GWER9395 says: If this do not work, you should contact the router manufacturer for any update so that it will be compatible with Windows Vista,.

Edward Morrissey says: the router isn't connected to the computer -- why would there be a compatibility problem?

Brady_GWER9395 says: Yes, for some router is not compatible with Windows Vista.

Brady_GWER9395 says: And this cause the connection issue,

Edward Morrissey says: why?? they use a standard 802 communication program. why is vista having a problem with that?

Brady_GWER9395 says: Because there are firmware that is not compatible with Windows Vista.

Now, the router in question isn't attached to the laptop. It's wireless. The communication protocol is standard on routers and adapters -- the 802.11-b or -g standard. As a standard, it means it should be platform independent -- which I tried to explain to the tech:

Edward Morrissey says: look, the router shouldn't make any difference at all -- it's not being exposed to Vista, and that's my point. Either the Gateway uses the 802 standard or it doesn't. If it does, it should connect to routers that support it. If not, it's not because of Vista, it's because of the hardware being flaky. that's what "standard" is supposed to mean.

Brady_GWER9395 says: Windows Vista is the new operating system launched with Microsoft, And it's file format is different from XP.

After this, I asked to speak to a supervisor. Same story:

May_GWER2387 says: Edward, Brady already provided you steps on how to correct the issue. ...

Edward Morrissey says: are you telling me that when i travel with this laptop, i won't be able to connect to 802.11 wireless routers unless EVERYONE upgrades to Vista-compatible routers?

May_GWER2387 says: Yes, Edward

So Gateway wants me to verify everywhere I go with my new MT laptop that wireless providers have upgraded their routers to be Vista compatible. Is this correct? Does the 802.11 standard change for Vista? Perhaps I'm not clear on this, but when I'm told that the system supports the 802.11 standard, I figure that it wouldn't make any difference whether the routers likes Vista, XP, OS-X, or anything else. Otherwise, as I told Gateway, this laptop just ceased being useful at all to me. If I can't rely on it to maintain a connection to other 802.11 routers, it's useless on the road.

Besides, I've got an external on it that seems to be working just fine. How does that compute with their explanation?

They have forwarded the issue to their Advanced Technical Group -- which won't get back to me until Tuesday of next week. In the meantime, I guess I have to use my external adapter and write off the hour it took for them to escalate it to a technical expert. It's been a complete waste of time dealing with their first and second tier support, and I am either going to have to install XP or try to get my money back on the laptop. You can be sure that I will not be buying another Gateway.

UPDATE: CQ reader James sent me a link to the updated Realtek driver, which I have loaded. I've also rebooted the computer, and we'll see if the connection stays up. I've also confirmed that the D-Link router is on the latest firmware. We'll see if that solves the problem.

UPDATE II, 5:09 PM CT: Well, it failed again, and in the exact same manner. The driver does not appear to be the problem; it looks like a flaky adapter. I want to see what Gateway does about this.

Doolittle Does The Right Thing

Congressman John Doolittle stepped down from his position on the House Appropriations Committee after FBI agents raided his home in connection to a Jack Abramoff investigation. Doolittle had previously come under suspicion for his unusual arrangement with his wife's consultantcy, which allowed the Doolittles to keep 10% of all political contributions -- including those from Abramoff clients -- as personal property:

Less than a week after the FBI raided the Northern Virginia home of his wife, Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) gave up his coveted seat on the House Appropriations Committee yesterday amid concerns that he had used that post to advance the interests of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and other allies.

"I understand how the most recent circumstances may lead some to question my tenure on the Appropriations Committee," the conservative nine-term congressman wrote in a letter to House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). "Therefore, I feel it may be in the best interest of the House that I take a temporary leave with seniority from this Committee until this matter can be resolved."

Boehner accepted the decision, saying in a statement that it "is in the best interest of the House and the American people."

Doolittle's wife, Julie, operates Sierra Dominion Financial Services Inc. out of the couple's home in Oakton. Since 2005, a Justice Department task force has been looking into payments made by Abramoff and other lobbyists to Doolittle's wife and the spouses of other lawmakers. The couple's house was raided last Friday, the same day that Doolittle's former legislative director, Kevin Ring, abruptly resigned as a lobbyist for Barnes & Thornburg. Ring had been an intermediary in Abramoff's hiring of Julie Doolittle's firm as a fundraiser for a charity the lobbyist had founded.

This is an appropriate step by both Doolittle and the Republican leadership in the House. Questions remain about Doolittle's actions in appropriating contracts and money after personally benefitting from campaign donations in a unique way. After the raid, it became apparent that the FBI is taking the allegations very seriously, and it would not serve the nation's interest to have a politician suspected of corruption with their hand on the largest till in Congress.

Contrast this with the actions Democrats took with their own suspect, William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson. Faced with a corruption case that has produced two raids and a freezer fileld with $90,000, the Democrats placed Jefferson onto the critical Homeland Security committee. During a war on terror, one would presume that both parties would place only the most qualified and serious Representatives on the front lines of the war, but Nancy Pelosi insisted on having Jefferson on the committee -- probably to quiet the complaints from the Congressional Black Caucus.

It's the difference between management and leadership. John Boehner demonstrated the latter with this decision.

Canada: Bush Might Be Right

Canada, one of the staunch supporters of the Kyoto accord for the reduction of greenhouse gases, has now indicated that it might pull out of the treaty in favor of the Asian-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6). Instead of binding and economically crippling targets on Western nations while exempting the biggest Asian polluters, the Bush administration initiative creates a partnership with those polluting nations to work towards the same overall goal:

This week's announcement by the Canadian government -- that it may join a U.S.-led coalition focused on voluntary emissions cuts -- could be part of a global shift away from Kyoto's binding targets.

In a somewhat surprising development, Canada, a long-time supporter of the Kyoto Protocol, announced that it may want to join the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6), a six-nation coalition focusing on voluntary emission-reduction steps and technology transfers. Many environmentalists oppose AP6 out of a fear that it may undermine political support for the legally binding Kyoto treaty.

The partnership, launched in mid-2005, is an agreement among six countries -- Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States -- to develop and share greenhouse-gasreduction technology to combat climate change. According to the AP6 Web site, the six partner countries "represent about half of the world's economy, population and energy use, and they produce about 65% of the world's coal, 48% of the world's steel, 37% of world's aluminum, and 61% of the world's cement." The countries also account for half the world's greenhouse-gas emissions.

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the Asia-Pacific Partnership is voluntary and technology-based, and lets each country set its own goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions, rather than legally binding them to a greenhouse gas reduction target. The group sees itself as "a voluntary, non-legally binding framework for international co-operation to facilitate the development, diffusion, deployment, and transfer of existing, emerging and longer term cost-effective, cleaner, more efficient technologies and practices."

I'm interested in the phrase here about "legally binding". I believe that it means "legally binding on Canada," because it certainly doesn't apply to the US, China, or India. The US Senate, in a unanimous vote, told Bill Clinton in 1998 not to bother submitting the treaty for ratification as long as it exempted the other two nations. It has never been legally binding here, and George Bush has nothing to do with that fact.

The AP6 makes a lot more sense than Kyoto does for that very reason. Kyoto would force the West to commit economic suicide while allowing India and China to pollute to their hearts' content in reaping the rewards. Bush's AP6 engages all sides equally and uses technology sharing as an incentive for compliance. The Chinese need access to Western technology so badly that they jump through hoops to steal it. India doesn't need it as badly, but they want to create a cleaner energy system for themselves, and have expanded their nuclear program to accommodate that need.

If Canada joins the AP6, Kyoto will collapse. It will bind only those nations who already have economic difficulties, and Kyoto compliance -- which none of them have met -- will cost them even more. In the end, AP6 will bind all nations together in a manner that Kyoto explicitly rejected and will allow everyone to proceed with clean-environment initiatives on an equal footing.

First Mate Update, And First Week Review

I've received a few e-mails asking how the First Mate is faring, so it's time for an update. She's doing well, but as always in the first few weeks of a transplant, the labs get interesting. Her numbers have moved around a bit, but overall remain very positive. We're keeping a close eye on a few indicators, but they've improved this week, so it looks pretty good. Her energy level has remained low, and her anemia is back, but we expected both of those conditions. She's going to switch some medications around this weekend, and we think that she will benefit from the change.

The FM wants me to thank everyone for their prayers, too; they mean a lot to her. She tells everyone she knows about how wonderful you are.

This has been my first week working from home, and it's been quite a lot of fun. I've had some technical difficulties with my connection, which is the reason posting was light last night and early this morning. Blog Talk Radio keeps me very busy during the day, and when we launch Heading Right -- our new conservative group blog -- it will keep me even busier. I have a lot more flexibility to post during the day and cover breaking stories, and I love that ability. Hopefully it has served you all well, too.

Next week will be even better -- and make sure you tune in CQ Radio to debate the topics live!

The Nature Of Accountability And At-Will Employment (Updated)

We have had a lot of dialog on the performance of Alberto Gonzales over the past few weeks, and yesterday's live-blog and follow-up post has crystallized a few arguments on both sides. Chief among them are that a boss can fire anyone at any time with no consequences, and that criticism of Gonzales makes one less Republican and/or conservative. I'm going to challenge both of those here.

First, anyone who thinks that at-will employment in the United States means in practical terms that a boss can fire anyone at any time with no reason whatsoever has never managed or employed people. These days, that's not even true during probationary periods. Had I walked up to one of my employees in my past job who had been with the company for any length at all and just told them to clear out their desk without ever having communicated any performance issues in detail to them, it would set several unpleasant consequences in motion.

First, if the employee had half a brain, they would contact a lawyer, who would then file a lawsuit requiring me to release all of my personnel records -- and not just for the fired employee, but for all of my employees, past and present, to see if I unfairly discriminated against this employee. I would have to pay an attorney a lot of money to defend me. I would then get deposed by attorneys on the reasons for that termination, and hauled into court to answer the same questions all over again. If I didn't have a good reason for firing that person and/or if I deviated in any way from the normal termination process of my company, the former employee would (a) win a wrongful termination judgment against my company and perhaps me personally, (b) I would lose lots of money, and (c) it would create a difficult situation with the employees I had left, who understandably would be less than comfortable to see their colleague depart so abruptly.

And that's if I owned the company. If I was a CEO of a public corporation and allowed that to happen, I might get fired. If I was a manager, I'd most certainly get fired.

[see update below]

Several commenters have called me and the Senators criticizing Gonzales "fair-weather Republicans." In my opinion, that's ridiculous. I support Republicans because they usually represent competence and smaller government, not because I belong to the Republican Tribe. I'm not going to support or defend obvious incompetence on the part of Republicans, and Gonzales has been an incompetent in this matter, as Tom Coburn rightly points out. I've said it before -- if people want to read GOP apologetics, they can be found at www.gop.com. Here, you get my honest opinion, and not just a dose of tribalism.

Four months after the firings and after a month of preparation, Gonzales still couldn't completely answer Brownback on why each attorney got fired. He testified that he hadn't even met with most of them about those reasons he could recite. He admitted that he wrongly accused them of poor performance in his public statements. He told the Senate yesterday that he objected to the plan Kyle Sampson presented him in November about rolling out the terminations, and then could not answer why that plan got followed over his objections by his aide.

Is that competence? Is this our argument for 2008 in asking the American public to trust Republicans with power? If it is, and we cannot bring ourselves to demand better from this administration, be prepared for a very disappointing 2008.

I'll let Tom Coburn finish this out, and leave the last word to CQ commenters:

I believe there's consequences to a mistake. I was quoted in the paper as saying I think this has been handled in a very incompetent manner. And I believe most people -- I don't care which side of the aisle they are -- would agree with that.

U.S. attorneys' reputation that were involved has been harmed. The confidence in U.S. attorneys throughout this country has been damaged. The reputation of the attorney general's office has been tarnished and brought into question.

I disavow, aggressively, any implication that there was a political nature in this. I know that's the politics of the bloodsport that we're playing. I don't think it had anything to do with it.

But to me, there has to be consequences to accepting responsibility. And I would just say, Mr. Attorney General, it's my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled.

And it was handled incompetently. The communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It's generous to say that there were misstatements. That's a generous statement. And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered.

And I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.

UPDATE: I left out an entire paragraph here, in which I intended to close the loop on my analogy to the private sector. So here it is:

Now, we have heard that the President has the ability to fire any of these prosecutors at any time, for whatever reason he sees fit, as long as it isn't to obstruct justice. That's true. It presupposes some kind of reason, however; one shouldn't fire people without having a reason. So what were the reasons for firing each of these people? Even Gonzales couldn't explain them after a month of research and preparation for this hearing. He offered some performance issues, but couldn't say whether he had ever communicated those issues to the attorneys themselves before or during the terminations. And regardless of the political nature of the appointments, the AG and the White House had to know that people would ask questions about the rather unprecedented terminations -- and it's obvious that despite their planning, they had no good or consistent response to them.

Don't Cry For Her, America

Just in case the thought of Hillary Clinton's devastation if she loses the 2008 nomination for the presidency keeps you up nights, Bill Clinton offers some soothing words. He told Larry King that Hillary will have no problem resuming her Senate term if she doesn't win the election, and that the two of them will "have a great life":

Former President Bill Clinton told CNN Thursday his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, will have no qualms about returning to the Senate if she loses her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"You know she's not -- some people who run for president can't wait to get out of the Senate, or out of whatever other job she's got. She loves it. She's still doing it. She's still going to her committee meetings, going to upstate New York and trying to run for president as well," Clinton told CNN's Larry King. "So, for her personally she's going to be fine regardless. I think it'd be best for the country if she were elected president, but if voters make another choice, she's a great senator, and she loves her job, and we'll have a great life."

The former president also told CNN he would be willing to play some role in Sen. Clinton's presidential administration if asked.

"If she asked me to do something, whatever it was, I'd probably do something," the former president said.

Well, I'm sure he would. My guess is that Hillary will ask him not to do certain things, like holding orientation sessions for interns, and the like. I'm less sure that she will have him do any more for her after winning the election than she has on the campaign trail, and for the same reason -- he overshadows her. If she wins, Hillary will want to establish herself as an independent voice. Bill's best talents are in campaigning, and she's barely let him off the leash to do that.

Seriously, though, who had expressed any concern over Hillary's sensitivity to losing an election until now? Is this a big issue for voters to consider -- who's feelings will get bruised? It's a question apparently newsworthy enough for Larry King to ask, Bill Clinton to answer, and CNN to report.

What happened to Harry Truman, heat, and kitchens?

Coburn To Gonzales: Spend More Time With Your Family

I stopped live-blogging the Senate Judiciary Committee testimony of Alberto Gonzales at the lunch break, and at that time Gonzales appeared to be struggling to explain himself even to the Republicans on the panel. Apparently it got no better for the Attorney General after the committee came back into session. Charles Grassley (R-IA) wondered why Gonzales's story kept changing, and Tom Coburn (R-OK) bluntly told him to quit:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confronted a fresh call for his resignation from a fellow Republican Thursday as he struggled to survive a bipartisan Senate challenge to his credibility in the case of eight fired prosecutors.

"The best way to put this behind us is your resignation," Sen. Tom Coburn bluntly told Gonzales, one GOP conservative to another.

Gonzales disagreed and told the Oklahoma senator he didn't know that his departure would put the controversy to rest. ...

After a long morning in the witness chair, he returned to face fresh Republican challenges to his credibility. "Why is your story changing?" asked Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, noting that the attorney general was now accepting responsibility for the firings after initially saying he had played only a minor role.

The Democrats hammered Gonzales, but that wasn't the story. Democrats won't decide Gonzales' fate. Senate Republicans will make the determination whether he has enough credibility to survive on Capitol Hill. The early reviews are less than promising.

My good friend Paul at Power Line is sticking by Gonzo, although not enthusiastically:

Alberto Gonzales isn't exactly winning rave reviews on our Forum or, it seems, around the conservative blogosphere generally. However, the main concession his interrogators seem to have gained so far is that Gonzales approved the termination recommendations with little or no scrutiny.

Now, President Bush might well want a more hands on Attorney General, and I certainly would. But unless the decisions made by staff and approved by Gonzales were poor or corrupt ones, I don't think his deference to staff requires his resignation or termination. I've seen no account in which the Senators have made much headway in terms of showing that particular decisions were poor or corrupt.

Byron York at National Review considers today "disastrous" for the AG:

It has been a disastrous morning for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The major problem with his testimony is that Gonzales maintains, in essence, that he doesn’t know why he fired at least some of the eight dismissed U.S. attorneys. When, under questioning by Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, Gonzales listed the reasons for each firing, it was clear that in a number of cases, he had reconstructed the reason for the dismissal after the fact. He didn’t know why he fired them at the time, other than the action was recommended by senior Justice Department staff.

That doesn't mean the Justice staff fired the prosecutors for improper reasons, but it does say something about Gonzales' competence. And even with hindsight, he still couldn't come up with a good reason for two of the seven.

What does all of this mean? It means that Gonzales is toast. One can write off Senators like Specter and Graham, but Tom Coburn is part of the conservative backbone in the Senate. That is a clear message to the White House to start placing ads in the paper for the upcoming opening in senior management.

I'll add more links as I see them.

Therapy Nation

I don't normally agree with Taylor Marsh on much, and on this post, I don't agree with everything she writes. But she makes a point that NZ Bear and I discussed just a few minutes ago on the CQ Radio show (which you can stream from the sidebar) about the almost-choreographed national paroxysms of grief following any tragedy (via Michael Stickings at The Moderate Voice):

Yesterday we were treated to a media spectacle that was as gratuitous as it was blatantly self-serving, with each cable network trying to prove they cared more, could send the most people to cover it; could set up the best on sight situation room and every single anchor swallowed his or her orders like good members of the corporate hack pack. They made sure their cameras were trained on the families and students grieving in the gymnasium, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone's loss, ripping the scab off of any privacy these people and this community could grab. We even had Mr. Bush and Mr. Kaine making sure they both were up front and on camera for the event, because they had to help the people grieve. The arrogance of some politicians is choking, isn't it? Sure they cared, but who needs a politician when your life is falling apart? What was the point of televising the community's private pain, and theses two politicians and their wives? Their wives? And why is the media sticking microphones in student faces so we all can listen to their tortured stories over and over again?

Have we lost all sense of dignity? When did our pain become something we're so proud of we need to broadcast it... never mind. We are a therapy nation now, televising our grief for all to see. It's what we now do best. But did the community of Virginia Tech need our prying eyes? It likely never occurred to anyone to ask.

Oddly, when NZ brought up this very point in our show today, the first analogy that came to mind was the celebrated film The Queen, for which Helen Mirren won an Oscar. The film gives an intimate look at the reaction of the royal family and of Britain to the tragic death of Princess Diana and the controversy caused by Queen Elizabeth for her initial detachment and reserve. She grew up in an era -- World War II -- where the British admired stoicism and reserve in the face of tragedies far more broad than the death of a family member. Elizabeth had not understood that the once-phlegmatic British had turned into Therapy Nation, where they needed their leaders to drop everything and cry along with them.

America appears to have transformed similarly, as Marsh notes rather bitingly in her post. To be fair, though, Kaine and Bush showed up to Virginia Tech because they would have received the same national outrage had they not. Unlike Elizabeth, they understand all too well that the national character has changed, and that people look to Presidents and Governors to serve as mourners-in-chief. That is driven by the media coverage, which Marsh also correctly if harshly castigates for their rush to create cool graphics and to intrude on the lives of students and others in the V-Tech community.

Did anyone ask them if we should have cameras on them 24/7?

And to also be fair, she makes a good point when she notes that the same news organizations who gave us blanket coverage of V-Tech, including Fox having Mike Gallagher argue for concealed-carry in the hallways of the school the day after the shooting, have not covered the dead and injured of Iraq in that kind of detail. I would also add that they do not cover the efforts at rebuilding Iraq, either, and that they do not give much air time to anything that lacks a really good explosion. Part of the reason for that is that news outlets don't embed any longer, and many of them do not have any resources outside of the Green Zone.

As a nation, we seem to demand this dance of grief, expecting it to move along a timeline of our choosing, with anchors and other talking-head experts telling us when the "healing process" will begin, and how to achieve "closure". My goodness, some of them started talking about healing processes on the same day of the shootings! It seems as though the nation has a greedy demand to make the grief of strangers our own, in order to connect ourselves to the real victims of the crime -- and then to impose a schedule on grief on them. In that sense, the tone of the coverage is nothing short of ghastly.

I know many are upset about NBC's decision to air the Cho package last night and this morning. Maybe we should ask ourselves about all the rest of the coverage, too.

CQ Radio Today: Victory Caucus (Update and Bump)

Our next installment of CQ Radio will feature NZ Bear of the Victory Caucus, discussing the significant changes in store for the organization. The Victory Caucus plans to organize as a fundraising force to get tough on national security and the war on terror. NZ will talk about the plans and what it means for the 2008 election.

We'll also take your calls at 646-652-4889 to discuss NBC's decision to air the Cho package, the Gonzales testimony, and much more. Be sure to join the conversation!

UPDATE: CQ Radio is now the #8 show for Blog Talk Radio! And the #2 show is in Portugese, hosted by a Brazilian center-right philosopher who lives in the US now, Olavo de Carvalho.

UPDATE II: I've uploaded a Blog Talk Radio player that streams the latest CQ Radio show directly on the blog. If you want to turn off the player, click on the pause button (which looks like this: || ) and it will pause. Later, I will have one that allows CQ readers to select among the latest shows.

UPDATE III: I've received enough complaints about the auto-start that I've turned it off for now.

UPDATE IV: I will turn it back on for the live stream to do some testing with it, so be aware that it may switch around this afternoon. It will be on this post only and the main page, and only while I'm live on the air. Click on the Pause (II) button to stop the player below, or use the volume control to mute or lower the sound. (The sidebar player is not set to autoplay.) We need to reprogram this eventually so that it comes on low.

I hope you all tune in for the live show today, and now you don't have to navigate away from CQ to do it!

Potential Copycat Cho In Florida?

Fox News reported a few minutes ago that police have arrested a fourteen-year-old boy for making threats to outdo Seung-hui Cho. The teen sent an e-mail to friends that he would kill at least 100 students at school in order to set the "record" for school shootings. A concerned parent read their child's e-mail and reported the threat to the police.

So far, it hasn't hit the wires, but Fox reports that police have had the cooperation of the family and found no evidence that the boy had prepared for an attack. I'll link to the story when it hits the Internet.

UPDATE II: I'm putting this update above the other as it relates to the main topic. Fox reports that the incident occurred in Jacksonville, and that they are still awaiting official word from the police.

UPDATE III: CQ reader Paxety sends this link from a local Jacksonville TV station:

The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office announced on Wednesday it has arrested a 14-year-old Bartram Trail High School student following threats the teen allegedly made in an e-mail to conduct a mass school shooting.

Sheriff’s office authorities said they were notified late Wednesday morning of the e-mail, which had been sent to a friend of the suspect.

A parent of the friend intercepted the e-mail and called the sheriff’s office and reported the alleged threat, deputies said. ...

According to authorities, the suspect, whose name will not be used because of his age, stated in the e-mail that he was going to top the record of 33 people killed in a school shooting, and went on to state that his goal was 100 victims.

He's charged with a felony at the moment. Right now, it appears he just wanted some attention. I think he's going to get it.

UPDATE: Still nothing on this on the wires or in the Miami Herald, but Fox has a story about an idiot parent in Tennessee:

A mother of a kindergarten student was banned from a school after officials said she walked into a classroom, pointed a toy gun at students and pulled the trigger several times.

The incident happened Tuesday, a day after the shootings at Virginia Tech, and scared the teachers and students. ...

"The mom walked in toward the middle of the classroom, and the teacher heard this click, click, click, click — like four to six times," school principal Jean Heise said. "A teacher's assistant witnessed her take a gun and point it directly toward four to five kids. With everything that's happened the last couple of days, she (the assistant) was just in shock."

Later, she told the principal that she "didn't mean any harm". Uh, okay. They're considering charges against her, but at the least, I'd be concerned that she's a little too unstable to be alone with her children now.

Gonzales Hearing: Live Blog

I will be live-blogging the appearance of Alberto Gonzales at the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning at this post. I'm waiting for the hearing to start on C-SPAN now. Keep checking back ....

8:39 CT - It's already started, and Leahy's giving the committee's opening statement. Gonzales is shaking his head when Leahy asserts that Gonzales wanted to politicize the DoJ. Normally, people refrain from reacting to these statements ...

8:42 - Leahy's managed to throw in Katrina and torture in the three minutes of his speech I caught. It sounds like Leahy has no problem politicizing this hearing beyond the issue of the fired attorneys.

8:43 - Arlen Specter says the purpose of the hearing is to determine whether Gonzales should continue in his post. I hadn't realized that they had issued articles of impeachment. Specter says that Gonzales has an opportunity to re-establish his credibility and to justify the termination of the prosecutors, and takes Gonzales to task over the contradictions between his testimony and that of his underlings and the documentation.

8:48 - Specter has an eye injury or infection, and it looks painful.

8:49 - "We want the hard facts so we can make an evaluation." Specter sounds as if articles of impeachment might be in the offing.

8:52 - Both Chuck Schumer and Pat Leahy insist that the burden of proof has shifted to Gonzales to explain the firings and the contradictions in a way that refutes the criticism. Schumer wants a "clear and cogent" reason for each of the eight terminations. "If a president fired every US Attorney for having an IQ above 120 because he didn't want smart people on the job, he would be legally allowed to do so -- but a Congress that didn't challenge that silly plan wouldn't be doing its job."

8:54 - Jeff Sessions, who served as a US Attorney, says that the job is tough. He reminds Gonzales that an AG has to be above reproach, and that Gonzales' statement inappropriately minimized his role in the firing process. He tells Gonzales that they shouldn't have fired the attorneys in the first place.

8:57 - Gonzales starts off his statement, as did the Senators, by talking about Virginia Tech and the law-enforcement response that inspires him to serve its cause.

8:59 - "They deserved better ... they deserved better from me."

9:01 - His limited involvement was "a mistake I freely acknowledge". "The process was nowhere near as rigorous as it should have been.

9:04 - Okay, C-SPAN just stopped covering the event to switch to the House, which just gaveled into session. Yes, I'm sure it's much more newsworthy to watch that than the Gonzales hearing. I'm trying to pull it up from C-SPAN's website.

9:22 - Still having problems. C-SPAN's Windows Media links don't work, and I have not installed Real Player on my two laptops. I'm rectifying the second problem. I'm pretty fried that C-SPAN didn't use C-SPAN2 to televise this hearing if they were going to stop showing it on their primary channel.

9:25 - Up and running on one of the laptops now. Gonzales ended his statement, and now we're going into questioning. Of course, he's started with Virginia Tech. We get it -- everyone cares.

9:26 - Kennedy is going back to Gonzales' statement that the process was "not vigorous" and his involvement "limited". If so, how can he insist that the firings were proper? Gonzales says that his senior staff recommendations were credible, and that he has reviewed the documents since the terminations. Kennedy is staying tough on this point -- at the time of the firings, how could Gonzales have known whether the firings were improper when he signed off on them?

9:30 - Gonzales says that he didn't know why two of the attorneys were fired at the time.

9:34 - Kennedy: Did you evaluate the impact of the firings on ongoing investigations? Gonzales: The system is designed to withstand departures of this type, since assistants usually conduct the prosecutions. He also insists that he had "genuine concerns" about Carol Lam's immigration prosecutions.

9:39 - He's explaining the firings on an individual basis. On Bogden, he has no independent recollection of the reasoning. On Charlton, he disagreed with the implementation of death-penalty policy without coordination with the DoJ. Ryan: poor management in the San Francisco office. Chira (sp?): Same as Ryan, although he has discovered that only after the firing.

9:43 - Cummings: was on a "different track", as his resignation was requested much earlier. McKay: poor judgment with his colleagues and the DAG. Also sent an inappropriate message about partnership and resources to state and local officials.

9:49 - Herb Kohl is trying to get Gonzales to do some investigating on Steven Biskupic and whether he was on a list to be fired, and if so why he was taken off of it. Gonzales points out that to do that would be to interfere in the Senate's investigation. Kohl then used the rest of his time to make a statement demanding Gonzales' resignation. I'm not sure why he didn't just start with that. If he wants a resignation, why bother to ask him to go back and investigate the Biskupic affair?

9:55 - "The moment I believe that I can no longer be effective as Attorney General, I will resign." He tells Kohl that he wants to get to the bottom of all the questions.

9:56 - Apparently, some of the audience thinks that they're at a ball game; they are holding up signs either supporting or opposing Gonzales, and Leahy just warned them that anyone who does it will get ejected. Good.

9:57 - Orrin Hatch is giving Gonzales some softball questions in order to get him a chance to recover somewhat.

10:05 - Dianne Feinstein now takes her turn. She wants to know who came up with the idea of bypassing the Senate on replacement USAs. Her objection is that the change got worked into a conference committee report without coming to the Judiciary Committee. Gonzales has no recollection of why it was handled in that manner.

10:09 - Feinstein underscored the point that Gonzales didn't look at the performance reports before firing the prosecutors, which Gonzales confirms.

10:12 - Gonzales says he doesn't know whether anyone looked at the evaluations. Now she's pointing out that Lam was a highly-ranked prosecutor, and outlines her background on everything. She also points out that the majority of prosecutions in Lam's office were related to immigration, especially regarding alien smuggling. Feinstein had been told she was doing well, and no one communicated any concerns about the immigration issue to Lam directly before her firing. Gonzales disagrees; he says that a number of communications had taken place about the level of her prosecutions on immigration.

10:59 - I'm coming back to this -- got a call from the boss, which was more interesting than some of the sturmund drang of the hearing. Russ Feingold, as expected, came across forcefully in excoriating the AG for allowing the perception to arise that the fired attorneys were in some way incompetent. Now Sessions is asking questions, and he is giving Gonzales a chance to re-establish himself as a moderating influence by opposing the firing of all 93 attorneys.

11:03 - Gonzales says he opposed the idea of avoiding Senate confirmation on interim appointments, saying that attorneys need the full support of the US government to do their jobs properly.

11:07 - Gonzales insists that Lam had been informed about the concern over her numbers for immigration enforcement, and Schumer points out where Lam and Sampson both say in testimony that she had no idea about it. Gonzales says she may not have been aware she would get fired, but members of Congress and the DoJ had sent her memos about the issue. Schumer says that the issue is a key question to credibility, while Gonzales says it's a matter of communication. Expect to see this on the news shows tonight.

11:12 - Schumer's now covering the Sampson advice to "gum this to death". Gonzales says he rejected the plan for the dismissals and told Sampson he didn't like it. Schumer wants to make the point that his chief of staff implemented it anyway -- which makes Gonzales' leadership very questionable. If Gonzales rejected it, why did Sampson implement it anyway? This is one of the major problems with Gonzales' performance -- he's an absentee CEO.

11:18 - Gonzales is combative -- fighting for his job, obviously -- but he's in an impossible position. Either he's lied, or he's not been a good manager of the DoJ.

11:19 - Even Lindsay Graham isn't buying the explanation that Gonzales rejected the plan but then allowed Sampson to implement it. Graham also wonders where the change in Senate confirmation process originated.

11:24 - Graham: These explanations are a stretch. Some people just had personality conflicts with some US Attorneys and decided to get rid of them.

11:27 - Why is Dick Durbin asking questions about Patrick Fitzgerald? He didn't get fired, and in fact got appointed to be special counsel for the Plame investigation. So what's the problem how he was evaluated?

11:31 - Now Durbin wants to know whether Gonzales spoke with Rove about removing Fitzgerald. Did Fitzgerald get removed? No. So why go into this? My connection is getting pretty choppy, but this seems pretty pointless. Durbin asked a better one, about whether he regrets firing Iglesias, and Gonzales is acknowledging that the question is a fair one.

11:36 - They're breaking for lunch, and the audience is catcalling Gonzales, yelling "Liar!" and something about torture, and now "Impeach! Impeach!" It's a farce, and so is this hearing, on both sides. The Democrats still have offered not even a shred of evidence that Gonzales did anything illegal in firing these prosecutors, and Gonzales has done nothing to re-establish his credibility. He's sticking by the defense that he managed the process poorly, which should have resulted in his resignation. No one's going to come out of this looking good.

Gonzales To The Hill

In about 40 minutes, Alberto Gonzales will go to Capitol Hill for a hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to save both his job and what's left of his credibility. The Washington Post reports that Gonzales will admit to mistakes made by him and his department during and after the terminations of the federal prosecutors. The loyalty of George Bush has bought him enough time to make this last pitch to the Senate and to the American people:

As Gonzales heads to Capitol Hill today for a long-anticipated public interrogation about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, at issue is the very concept of loyalty in Bush's world. With any other president, many in Washington say, the attorney general would already be gone. Bush has defied the drumbeat from both parties to remove Gonzales, but even the White House considers today's Senate hearing make or break.

Few moments in Bush's presidency have tested the limits of loyalty more acutely than this one. For six years, the president has largely stood by those who have stood by him and has rarely given in to pressure to toss allies aside when they have come under fire. When he has, he has often resisted so long that the damage had already been done -- pulling the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers only after weeks of all-out conservative revolt and firing then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld only after a decisive midterm election defeat.

I'd call those two different cases, and loyalty wasn't entirely the issue in the latter. Miers has worked for Bush for years, and it apparently never crossed his mind that people would question her qualifications for the job. Once that happened, the White House never made the case for her other than her personal loyalty to George Bush. He pulled her nomination before it did even more damage; Peter Baker has that incorrect. Had Bush allowed her to go to the Senate for confirmation, then he would have really damaged himself with conservatives.

Regarding Rumsfeld, one can hardly call the delay loyalty, and the delay is what angered conservatives. Instead of firing Rumsfeld when Bush made the decision to let him go -- in the summertime, when it might have helped Republican candidates in the midterms -- he made the poor political decision that a resignation would weaken the GOP and waited until the day after the Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress. That's not loyalty, that's bad political analysis.

Dan Eggan reports about Gonzales' strategy:

According to his prepared testimony, Gonzales will concede that the dismissals were badly mishandled but will continue to portray himself as only marginally involved in the details of the effort. Gonzales will focus particularly on reassuring Republican lawmakers, such as Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who have so far declined to call for his resignation.

The committee, led by Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), plans to question Gonzales about contradictions between his previous statements and subsequent documents and testimony, which indicate that he was more closely involved in the firings than he has generally acknowledged. They will also focus on the involvement of Rove and other White House officials in the dismissals, Senate aides said.

Senators also may question Gonzales about other U.S. attorneys who were not fired but have drawn scrutiny in recent weeks for management problems or their handling of public corruption and voter fraud cases. Last weekend, U.S. Attorney Steven M. Biskupic of Milwaukee issued a statement defending his handling of a corruption case that was overturned by an appeals court.

In reality, it's probably too late for that approach. Gonzales has made a mess out of the follow-through, thanks to his own statements and those of his underlings not matching the document record at Justice. While it might make an interesting defense against charges of undue politicization, asserting that the Attorney General had little interest in a plan to fire eight Presidential appointees who reported to him will make him look like an absentee CEO. It's a feast of bad options, and all for a house-cleaning that would have been unusual but perfectly within the prerogative of the President -- had the DoJ just argued that from the beginning.

Loyalty is a two-way street. In times past, when a Cabinet member botched something this badly, they would have resigned out of loyalty to the man who appointed him. Gonzales should have done so rather than try to wheedle his way back into Congress' good graces, even if such a feat were possible.

Giuliani Slips In Latest Polling

The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that Rudy Giuliani has started coming back to the pack after a surprisingly successful first quarter. John McCain has managed to hold his ground, and Fred Thompson appears to be the beneficiary of Rudy's retreat. Meanwhile, Hillary has widened the gap between herself and #2 Barack Obama, but because Obama lost a little ground since the previous poll in February.

First, the Republicans:

Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's lead over his Republican presidential rivals has narrowed considerably, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has maintained her advantage in the race for the Democratic nomination, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), whose candidacy has been buffeted by lackluster fundraising and his embrace of President Bush's troop surge policy in Iraq, runs a solid second among GOP hopefuls. But there is fresh evidence in the new survey that his focus on the war and on attracting conservative support have made him more polarizing as a potential general-election candidate.

Giuliani remained the front-runner in the national poll, but his support has eroded. In a late-February Post-ABC News poll, 44 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents preferred Giuliani for the nomination; that figure is down to 33 percent. Support for McCain held steady at 21 percent.

In fact, Fred Thompson picked up nine of those points, it appears. Thompson had not been included in the polling until now, and the drop in Rudy's numbers might reflect the popularity of Thompson among conservatives looking for an electable alternative to the Mayor. He could just as easily have taken it from Newt Gingrich, though, who lost nine points from February and turned in his worst performance in the WaPo/ABC presidential poll so far, dropping down to 6%. Without Newt, though, Rudy still loses nine points in this poll and Fred gets 10%; without Fred, Rudy gets 37%. It appears most likely that Fred draws from Rudy's support.

Mitt Romney rebounded to tie Thompson, picking up five points in the last two month. Tommy Thompson remains at 2%, still with the rest of the field in being unable to beat No Opinion. No one looks ready to make a move on the frontrunners. After his remarks to the Reform Judaism center this week, Tommy probably will not be the one to break out soon.

Rumor has it that Fred Thompson will announce perhaps as soon as next month, likely starting with an exploratory committee to build some strength in the polls. He's tied for third without even breaking a sweat, and his potential entry has already shaken up the field. It's difficult to see why he wouldn't jump into the race.

For the Democrats, the big news is that Al Gore moved ahead of John Edwards for the third spot, with an impressive 17%. Hillary still has her 37%, while Obama lost four points to 20%, much closer to third than he would like at this point. It looks like Edwards and Gore benefited from Obama's retreat. Bill Richardson has quietly started to work his way out of the noise, and Joe Biden ties No Opinion, but otherwise nothing significant is happening on the lower tiers. If Gore is removed from the choices, all of the top-tier candidates benefit, including Hillary.

No Opinion, by the way, is only 2% for the Democrats, as opposed to 6% for the Republicans.

In the general election, the negatives appear pretty significant for Hillary, McCain, and Romney. Hillary has 45% of the electorate that will not even consider voting for her, a very large hurdle to overcome. Obama and Edwards have 36% and 35%, respectively. McCain fares even worse, and surprisingly so for a perceived "maverick" who could attract centrists; 47% give McCain the emphatic thumbs-down. For McCain, that's almost double from what he had in May 2006.

But the biggest surprise on negatives has to be Mitt Romney, who one would assume hasn't got the name recognition to generate high negatives. Yet the poll shows that 54% responded that they would definitely not vote for Mitt in the general election. That bodes very ill for the GOP's best fundraising campaign thus far, and one has to wonder whether the Mormon religion plays a part in that result. Nothing he has done so far would create that kind of sharp opposition.

Aussie-Yank Asylum Swap

The US and its staunch ally Australia have entered into a strange agreement to swap asylum seekers to both nations, the London Telegraph reports. Those who come to either nation illegally to seek political asylum, such as boat people from Asia and the Middle East and Cuba and Haiti would be swapped by the two nations, in a move that they claim will discourage "boat people":

Australia and the United States will swap asylum seekers under a contentious scheme to deter migrants from seeking asylum in either country.

Under the exchange scheme, asylum seekers will lose the chance of choosing their destination. The boat people held by Australia on the remote Pacific island of Nauru will be sent to the US, while Cuban and Haitian refugees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba will be sent to Australia.

The plan expands Australia's policy of dispatching Asian and Middle Eastern boat people to other countries, including Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Opposition politicians and human rights groups said that far from deterring refugees, the plan could end up rewarding them with a new life in America.

The two countries signed a legally binding memorandum of agreement on Tuesday and the first exchanges could start within months.

It is likely that the first batch to be swapped will be 83 Sri Lankans and eight Burmese, who were intercepted by the Royal Australian Navy and sent to Nauru. Under the agreement, the two countries would swap 400 asylum seekers - 200 from each country - this year and in 2008. The policy will be reviewed in 2009.

I'm unclear on the concept. Boat people from any of these places would undoubtedly prefer to live in either Australia or the United States than in their economically and politically repressed home countries. Swapping them after the fact might delay their eventual connection with family members, but it will not prevent them. Eventually they can get passports and enough money to travel between the two countries.

John Howard told Australians that this will deter boat people from attempting to make it to Australia. It seems to me that it will encourage more refugees to use it as a stepping stone to get to the US. Considering that Australia is rather close to the Muslim nation of Indonesia -- which has a fairly active group of radical Islamists -- it also makes for a good infiltration point. Radical Islamists don't have that kind of proximity to the US now, but if they learn that they can get a ride from the Aussies to the shores of the US, even the poorer of them might give it a go.

On our end, the refugees from Cuba do not appear to be an overwhelming problem, and they do serve to remind people what a rotten place Fidel Castro has made of Cuba. They assimilate into the south Florida area well under most circumstances and have a support system ready to assist them. Haitian refugees are more of a problem, but it can't be less expensive to ship them off to Australia -- especially since we'll get the same number back from Down Under. What do we do with the Asian boat people once they arrive that we couldn't do with the Haitians? Have the Coast Guard send them off to Port au Prince?

Conceptually, practically, and financially, this plan doesn't pass the laugh test. Trading Haitians and Cubans for South Asians and Middle Easterners sounds like the Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio swap that the Cubs still haven't lived down after over forty years. Howard and George Bush should end the extradition of refugees before they begin it.

A Contrarian Position Conservatives Might Like

John McCain appears to have decided on a more aggressive approach on the campaign trail, and an avoidance of political correctness. Just two days after the massacre at Virginia Tech has people talking about enacting stricter gun control measures, McCain gave a forceful defense of gun rights at an appearance in Summerville, South Carolina. Saying that we need to improve our ability to identify dangerous people before they can kill, McCain insisted that restricting gun ownership would not solve the problem of shooting sprees:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain declared Wednesday he believes in "no gun control," making the strongest affirmation of support for gun rights in the GOP field since the Virginia Tech massacre.

The Arizona senator said in Summerville, S.C., that the country needs better ways to identify dangerous people like the gunman who killed 32 people and himself in the Blacksburg, Va., rampage. But he opposed weakening gun rights and, when asked whether ammunition clips sold to the public should be limited in size, said, "I don't think that's necessary at all."

GOP rival Rudy Giuliani, too, voiced his support for the Second Amendment on Wednesday, but not in such absolute terms. Once an advocate of strong federal gun controls, the former New York mayor said "this tragedy does not alter the Second Amendment" while indicating he favors the right of states to pass their own restrictions.

Other candidates in both parties have stayed largely silent on the issue in the immediate aftermath of the killings, except to express their sorrow.

Quite frankly, the other candidates have the right idea. It's better at this stage to let the emotions calm down and allow the facts of the case to speak for themselves. Getting into a policy debate now will only make it harder to present a rational case for Second Amendment rights, and the press will probably crucify anyone who uses the massacre to score points on either side of that debate.

From the AP report, it doesn't look like McCain used the shootings to make his point until challenged by an audience member, but everyone understands the context of gun control statements this week. McCain made sure to reiterate his stance on the 2nd Amendment with reporters after the event, which means he meant to get the headlines.

It does show that McCain has decided to do what he does best: become controversial. McCain never seems as much in his element than when he's angering people by surprising them with a policy position. He did it before on gun control when he publicly crowed about opposing the NRA on demanding background checks for purchases at gun shows -- a position that the NRA probably should have abandoned earlier anyway. Those controversial positions have angered conservatives over the years, especially on immigration and campaign finance reform, but something tells me they will forgive him for attracting the media spotlight in this instance.

Somehow, McCain appears to understand that his campaign had run off the rails during the first quarter of this year. Among the frontrunners, he alone has to legislate while campaigning, and momentum has slipped away -- almost to the point where he had risked falling out of the top tier of candidates. I get the sense that McCain, with his defense of the Iraq war and now of gun rights, has decided to become more himself on the campaign trail. It may not win him enough support to get the nomination, but it will make for a more interesting ride.

You'll Never Walk Alone, Until We Kill You

Iranians have reacted with outrage to the latest decision of their Supreme Court, which threw out murder charges against members of an elite state militia because the victims were "morally corrupt". Members of the Basiji Force, a group of vigilantes which basks in the favor of the mullahcracy, had the right to kill their victims for their moral terpitude ... including the heinous and dangerous act of an unmarried couple walking together in public:

The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the murder convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered “morally corrupt.”

The reversal, in an infamous five-year-old case from Kerman, in central Iran, has produced anger and controversy, with lawyers calling it corrupt and newspapers giving it prominence.

“The psychological consequences of this case in the city have been great, and a lot of people have lost their confidence in the judicial system,” Nemat Ahmadi, a lawyer associated with the case, said in a telephone interview. ...

According to the Supreme Court’s earlier decision, the killers, who are members of the Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered their victims morally corrupt and, according to Islamic teachings and Iran’s Islamic penal code, their blood could therefore be shed.

The last victims, for example, were a young couple engaged to be married who the killers claimed were walking together in public.

The group, which used to claim a younger Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a member, killed its victims by either stoning them to death or drowning them in a pond while they sat on their chests. They selected their victims themselves, never referring them to any law-enforcement agency or court system. The Basijis literally made themselves judge, jury, and executioner in these cases.

That should present a problem to any rational court system. Essentially, the Iranian Supreme Court just made itself superfluous. They ruled that the fair-haired boys of the mullahcracy (so to speak) need not bother with courts or judges at all. They can freely operate outside the law. The families of the victims have been pressured into accepting blood money in exchange for justice in some cases, which adds another dimension to the issue: the rich can kill whomever they want, as long as they have good political connections.

Even for a regime as closely tied to the 14th century as the Iranian mullahcracy, that kind of endorsement takes one's breath away. It serves as a declaration that Iran has officially become a gangster government, and that the populace has no rights whatsoever in their Islamist mob-family system. It's the Sopranos with a burqa, only with less stable capos and bosses.

It is precisely this kind of brazen totalitarianism that should give pause to Western leaders considering a military attack on Iran. We cannot allow the mullahs to get their hands on a nuclear weapon, but if we can keep from doing so without attacking Iran, they will eventually force the Iranians to overthrow the hoodlums in charge in Teheran. The likelihood of an American attack keeps the people behind the current government to the extent they are now, but declarations of carte blanche to Mahmoud's Maniacs and other policies like that will force them to give the mullahcracy the boot -- and hopefully sooner rather than later.

Should NBC Have Aired The Cho Package?

In the two-hour spell between the two groups of murders at Virginia Tech Monday, the murderer packaged pictures, videos, and a typed manifesto produced over the previous week and sent them off to NBC in New York. With a return address name of "A. Ishmael", Seung-hui Cho mailed his legacy to the wrong address and incorrect zip code, delaying the delivery by a full day, but succeeded in placing it in the hands of an organization that earns its living by reporting information.

Should NBC have published this material? So far, the commentariat appears opposed to both the decision to publish the material and the manner in which it was handled. Mona Charen says that NBC is feeding the next monster:

NBC is doing something extremely stupid by running those photos the Virginia Tech shooter sent them. Are they crazy? This will encourage every publicity seeking loser in the world to do something similar to get himself on TV. Foolish.

Stephen Spruiell, also at The Corner, grants that some of the package could get aired in a responsible manner, but believes that NBC hasn't thought it through long enough:

NBC News will reportedly air portions of a video it received from homicidal lunatic Cho Seung-Hui on its 6:30 p.m. broadcast, 15 minutes from now. I assume I share with many Americans a morbid curiosity about what's contained on that video. But NBC News is about to give Cho an audience of around 10 million people for his deranged rantings. What kind of message does this send to other isolated, disturbed and angry youths who entertain the same violent thoughts as Cho?

Ed Driscoll makes a good point when he points out that sports broadcasters will not show people who interrupt events by running onto a field or court during a game. Why, then, give Cho the posthumous satisfaction? He also says that NBC is blowing itin the way they used it for marketing:

The photos themselves are newsworthy, and should be released to the public. What I find discouraging is how they're used as part of the Webpage's graphic design, solely to build controversy and hits, to the MSNBC site.

Hot Air is ambivalent:

Spruiell thinks this is a bad call by NBC too. I think it’s a close call, but I’m not sure I agree.

I disagree, for the most part, with the above sentiments. I agree with Stephen and Ed D that the manner in which NBC incorporated the photos into a graphics image for the story is in poor taste. I believe Stephen makes the point that the shot almost looks like a movie poster, and its use slides over the line from reporting to exploitation. I'd also criticize the manner in which NBC apparently decided to split its publication between the Nightly News program tonight and Today tomorrow. It looks like an obvious ploy for ratings, and it's rather unseemly, given the deadly circumstances of the story.

However, NBC was correct to report the contents of the package. In most circumstances, society is served better by the free dissemination of information, unless its release would put directly put lives in danger -- like, say, exposing national-security programs that had stopped terrorists from killing Americans. In this case, the crime has already been committed and the perpetrator is dead. Holding back the material would boost all sorts of rumors about Cho's involvement in any number of conspiracies, including radical Islam, that are already the subject of much speculation.

NBC made the right decision to go public, and to work with law enforcement to determine which material to release at the time, as they apparently did. They unfortunately overshadowed that correct decision with the very incorrect decision on marketing the materials. They sensationalized material that absolutely required no such effort -- and degraded their credibility as a result.

UPDATE: Howard Kurtz asks the same question.

UPDATE II: Huffington Post's Eat the Press has a roundup of the reactions that should interest both sides of the debate.

Breaking: Cho Sent Package To NBC Between Shootings

The time gap between the two sets of shootings at Virginia Tech apparently allowed Seung-hui Cho to gather writings and videotape and send it to NBC. The network turned the material over to the police and called it "disturbing":

Sometime after he killed two people in a Virginia university dormitory but before he slaughtered 30 more in a classroom building Monday morning, Cho Seung-Hui sent NBC News a rambling communication and videos about his grievances, the network said Wednesday.

Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, killed 32 people in two separate attacks Monday before taking his own life.

Network officials turned the material over to the FBI and said they would not immediately disclose its contents beyond characterizing the material as “disturbing.” It included a written communication, photographs and video.

Brian Williams posted this at his NBC blog:

NBC News has indeed received what I would call a "multimedia manifesto" from the gunman. We received it today, and immediately handed it over to Federal law enforcement authorities. We are still going over our own copy -- its a lot of material -- we are talking with law enforcement, our own standards people -- and Pete Williams, our Justice Correspondent, will join me live on the broadcast to go through the material.

NBC now says that it will provide some of the material to its viewers at its 6:30 pm ET nightly broadcast. Law enforcement believes that the package was mailed at a point in time between the two shootings. They're looking for video from surveillance systems to confirm that he was the person who mailed the package.

What does this mean? It shows a lot more preparation and premeditation than previously thought. Again, the chains on the door are significant in determining this. He apparently had planned this event, although it's not certain he planned it for that particular day. Even if not, Cho had to have had this plan in mind and already had the material to carry it out.

UPDATE: Chris Matthews has Jack Thompson, whose blaming a videogame for the shootings even though he has no evidence that Cho played the game for the last four years. The creeps are coming out of the woodwork, and Matthews is rightly blasting the attorney for using speculation as fact.

UPDATE II: The package contained 23 Quicktime videos, some of which covered his hatred of the rich. There's also a shot that NBC is using on air that shows him apparently as he was dressed and outfitted for the second shooting spree. He's trying to look tough, but it almost looks like he's crying.

UPDATE III: Tucker Carlson -- "This is like pornography. Should we even air this?" FBI expert: "We're going to live this guy's fantasy for him. I don't like it."

UPDATE IV: NBC reports that none of the images or videos are of the earlier shooting, and only contains vague references to them -- "this didn't have to happen," and so on. It's mostly a rambling, profanity-laced manifesto about how Cho hated the world.

UPDATE V: The return address name was "Ismail" or "Ishmael".

UPDATE VI: He started compiling this package last week. It makes it clear that he premeditated this, and he didn't just freak out after the first shooting. Cho also apparently hated Christianity, and that makes the Ismail Ax reference more likely to be the James Fennimore Cooper theory that Hot Air noted.

UPDATE VII: Hot Air says that one of the pictures show hollow-point bullets.

UPDATE VIII: News agencies including NBC now have a detention order for Cho in 2005 for his mental illness, saying that he was a danger to himself and others. I have some experience in this, at least indirect experience, and I can tell you that such an order and a buck will get you a lousy cup of coffee at McDonalds. Unless someone can convince a judge that a disturbed person like Cho is so completely deranged that they cannot function at all, anyone with that kind of order will be able to get out within 72 hours. That's hardly the fault of Virginia Tech. They handled two stalking incidents, but neither student pressed charges, and they had no legal basis to remove him.

UPDATE IX: He mentioned the "martyrs" Dylan and Eric -- the shooters at Columbine. NBC also showed part of the photo with the hollow-point bullets, which Brian Williams called "almost artistic".

Breaking: U of M Evacuates Buildings For Bomb Threat

The University of Minnesota has evacuated at least eight buildings this afternoon after receiving a bomb threat:

Eight buildings on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities East Bank were evacuated in response to a bomb threat Wednesday afternoon.

The buildings included Morrill Hall, where the university administration offices are located, and Walter Library. None were dormitories.

A note was found in Smith Hall, and surrounding buildings were evacuated, said University police Lt. Chuck Miner. The threat was reported about 1 p.m.

Other buildings evacuated were Appleby, Kohltoff, Frasier, Johnston and the Science Classroom Building

The buildings will be closed until 10 p.m. and classes in these buildings are canceled. Police were also searching other buildings on the central mall area and officials were urging students to leave the area and go home.

At the moment, I'm trying to track down my son to find out what he knows; he's a student there and lives nearby. As more details come in, I will update the post.

UPDATE: Got in touch with my son, and he says the police are all over the place. The area of interest is Smith Hall and Kolthoff Hall, where there are chemical labs. He says that people were working in that area earlier, perhaps to turn on a waterfall that gets shut down in wintertime. Now they have it blocked off by police, and they've also blocked off the way he normally exits the campus. He'll call me back later with more information.

UPDATE II: The U of M is one of the largest campuses in the US. Snith Hall is at the north end of the East Bank campus. It's close to the area known as Dinkytown, where Minnesota students socialize in the shops and restaurants near the campus itself.

UPDATE III: My son's home now. Nothing much to add; he's more annoyed than any other emotion. I'm still checking for updates, but I'm almost certain that the perpetrator wanted to get a charge of scaring people after what happened at Virginia Tech.

UPDATE IV: No bomb, authorities say (at the same link as above). They're pretty sure that it was a hoax, but they're still investigating it -- probably until they can find the person who left the note.

CQ Radio Today: Howard Kurtz (Bumped)

CQ Radio hits the Internet stream today at 2 pm CT with a very special guest: Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post journalist and media critic. Howard writes a must-read media review most weekdays that not only gives links to some of the most trenchant commentary of the previous day, but also his own analysis of the big stories. He also hosts CNN's Reliable Sources evey Sunday at 10 am ET.

His upcoming installment will be devoted to media coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre, but we'll get a head start on that topic today. We'll also take your calls at 646-652-4889 to discuss the shooting and the media coverage of it. Be sure to join the conversation!

Breaking: Supreme Court Upholds Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

This story may drive the Virginia Tech massacre off of the lead spot in news broadcasts for the next few hours. For the first time, the Supreme Court has upheld a ban on a specific abortion procedure, voting 5-4 to disallow an appeal to the federal ban on partial-birth late-term abortions:

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

This affects less than 10% of all abortions in the United States, so it will not have a large practical effect on the abortion industry. However, this represents the first victory of pro-life groups to limit abortions at the federal level, and it doesn't take a genius to deduce that the difference came in the new roster on the bench. Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor, who had provided the safety vote for abortion-rights activists on previous decisions. It also shows that stare decisis will not provide as much protection for previous court rulings as abortion-rights advocates hoped, a fact noted by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her dissent.

Politically, this will energize both sides of the issue. George Bush will get a boost from conservatives now that his appointees have delivered on a basic issue for them. Pro-life forces will begin fighting on a new front, hoping to overturn Roe v Wade with another, more central challenge to the court's finding of abortion rights in the Constitution. Abortion-rights advocates have evidence for their fund-raising efforts on behalf of Democrats that candidate selection for the presidency and for the Senate make a great deal of difference. This will be Exhibit A in every fundraising letter from NARAL, NOW, and the DNC for the next eighteen months regardless of who wins the nomination in either party.

It seems very unlikely that the present court will move much beyond this. Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority decision, and he carefully rested his conclusion on the rarity of the procedure and the minimal effect it will have on abortions in the US. Even if the other four justices vote to overturn Roe -- and there's no indication that Alito or Roberts would do so -- Kennedy very obviously will not, and neither will the other four on the court's liberal wing. Only if one of those four retire (or Kennedy) before the end of the Bush term will there possibly be enough votes to overturn Roe. And after this decision, you can bet that both Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens will hang onto their seats until their last breath.

Today's ruling is a victory for moderation and common sense. It will not presage any movement for this court.

Bad Lead Cost Investigators At Virginia Tech (Update)

From the moment the bullets stopped at Virginia Tech on Monday morning, people have wondered why campus authorities didn't recognize the danger after the first two murders earlier in the morning. Now the New York Times reveals that the campus police worked on another lead, one that reasonably showed promise, rather than realize what they had on their hands:

According to search warrants and statements from the police, campus investigators had been busy pursuing what appears to have been a fruitless lead in the first of two shooting episodes Monday.

After two people, Emily Jane Hilscher, a freshman, and Ryan Clark, the resident adviser whose room was nearby in the dormitory, were shot dead, the campus police began searching for Karl D. Thornhill, who was described in Internet memorials as Ms. Hilscher’s boyfriend.

According to a search warrant filed by the police, Ms. Hilscher’s roommate had told the police that Mr. Thornhill, a student at nearby Radford University, had guns at his town house. The roommate told the police that she had recently been at a shooting range with Mr. Thornhill, the affidavit said, leading the police to believe he may have been the gunman.

But as they were questioning Mr. Thornhill, reports of widespread shooting at Norris Hall came in, making it clear that they had not contained the threat on campus. Mr. Thornhill was not arrested, although he continues to be an important witness in the case, the police said.

Events proved the police wrong in this case. To be fair, though, one normally suspects significant others in murders of the type they confronted early on Monday morning. Apparently they got their information from people in the dorm, and they went to investigate the lead. In this case, though, it turned out to be something else entirely. Cho did not appear to be acting differently than usual according to witnesses in the dorm, and so no one suspected that he had committed the earlier murders.

More detail has come out about Cho and the murders themselves. They now feel that Cho planned the event, especially since he apparently chained the doors to the hall, a fact I noted on Monday that indicates preparation and planning. He obviously carried plenty of ammunition for his rampage. How much of this was calculated in two hours is difficult to determine, but he had to have bought the chains and locks (as well as the ammunition) before Monday.

There also seems to be more to his disturbed state of mind. Police found prescription medication in his backpack, which also contained his identification. The Times does not disclose the nature of the medication, but it might indicate that his mental illness had some diagnosis before the event. Also, CNN reports that Cho had been investigated for stalking a woman and had unnerved classmates by taking pictures of them from underneath his desk during classes. Combined with his disturbing plays, Cho seems to have made himself a suspicious character before the shootings.

Undoubtedly, more will be forthcoming over the next few days.

UPDATE: MS-NBC has a touching tribute to the victims, and Wizbang has the complete list.

Meanwhile, NBC also reports that Cho had been taken to a mental hospital after the stalking incident in 2005, and again at the request of his parents:

The gunman involved in the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history had previously been accused of stalking two female student and had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005, but no charges were filed, police said Wednesday.

Cho Seung-Hui worried one woman enough with his calls and e-mail in 2005 that police were called in, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.

He said the woman declined to press charges and Cho was referred to the university disciplinary system. The case was then outside the scope of the police department, he said.

In a separate incident, the department received a call from Cho’s parents who were concerned that he might be suicidal and he was taken to mental health facility, Flinchum said.

This will raise questions about the disciplinary action taken at the time of the 2005 incident, if this report proves true.

UPDATE II: Jules Crittenden as more reaction at his extensive roundup.

Searching For Scapegoats

After two days of absorbing the shock and devastation of the Virginia Tech massacre, we have already begun our search for scapegoats. One potential choice became obvious in the hours following the shooting deaths of 33 people, while the other may surprise people.

Early this morning, I did an interview with Jamaican radio's Breakfast Club, which I believe airs on 102 FM there; I couldn't find a link. It's quite a popular show there, I have heard, and they routinely get American guests for interviews on politics, culture, and current events. Today they wanted to take the political temperature for gun control in the wake of the tragedy. I explained that most Americans were still absorbing the shock, and that the prevailing attitude thus far was to wait for more details before making decisions on who to blame and how to prevent further tragedies.

The host asked me about two issues: gun control and the behavior patterns of Seung-hui Cho. On the latter, I told them that the school only had limited options based on what it saw. We can't just institutionalize people for being anti-social during adolescence and young adulthood -- not unless we want to build a vast network of asylums for that age group. (Some would argue that we already have, and we called it the public school system.) Gun control, though, has already arisen as a hot topic -- even though politicians from both parties are calling for more reflection:

After the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cautioned Tuesday against a "rush to judgment" on stricter gun control. A leading House supporter of restrictions on firearms conceded passage of legislation would be difficult.

"I think we ought to be thinking about the families and the victims and not speculate about future legislative battles that might lie ahead," said Reid, a view expressed by other Democratic leaders the day after the shootings that left 33 dead on the campus of Virginia Tech.

Democrats traditionally have been in the forefront of efforts to pass gun control legislation, but there is a widespread perception among political strategists that the issue has been a loser in recent campaigns. It was notably absent from the agenda Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled earlier this year when the party took control of the House and Senate for the first time in more than a decade.

As I explained on the radio, this is good advice, and not just for Democrats. We need to allow the investigation to proceed before we almost literally jump to the conclusions. It's easy to make facile analyses based on the facts as we know them -- but we also "knew" that the shooter was a Chinese national on a student visa, and we "knew" that the first shooting was the result of a lover's triangle. Imagine what we will "know" tomorrow.

The host asked me about American attitudes about gun control, and I replied that we are ambivalent as a nation. When polled, a plurality or majority appears to favor more restrictions on gun ownership, but we do not elect gun-control advocates to office, as a rule. The tradition of the 2nd Amendment runs strong here, and there is a real sense that abandoning it because of a few lunatics would be almost disturbingly ironic, as we would strip ourselves of defense against just such an attack. She told me that Jamaicans have a stake in American action on guns, as many of the illegal guns that come into that country originate from America. I replied that the weapons she references probably are illegal here, too -- which shows the effectiveness of gun control.

At least, though, gun control arises rationally from an event such as Columbine or Virginia Tech. People expect to engage in that debate as we try to make sense of what happened. On the other hand, people will use these tragedies to climb on their own hobby horses -- and apparently CNN and Dr. Phil McGraw managed to do that just hours after the shooting, before the gunman was even identified. This is from Larry King Live on Monday night (via Wired and Memeorandum):

MCGRAW: Well, Larry, every situation is different. Candice has given very wise people about who these people are and why they do what they do. The problem is a lot of times they are recognizable. Columbine, Colorado, Jonesboro, Arkansas, the Amish school up in New England, if you with 20 hindsight, you'd see that there are warning signs of people becoming very disturbed and oftentimes talking about this now on the website as well as to their friends and neighbors.

And you know are they treatable? They're usually dead after something like this happens because the police take them out or they take themselves out. The question really is can we spot them. And the problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me -- common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they're on a mass killing spree in a video game, it's glamorized on the big screen, it's become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high. And we're going to have to start dealing with that. We're going to have to start addressing those issues and recognizing that the mass murders of tomorrow are the children of today that are being programmed with this massive violence overdose.

KING: Well said. You're watching LARRY KING LIVE.

Well, of course we are. Where else could we find people blaming video games for a mass murder when they don't even know who committed the crime? It's one thing to talk about profiling as an investigatory method, which is where the conversation started, but it's another thing entirely to diagnose the patient without even having his identity or history, and to blame video games for the massacre. I'm no fan of violent video games or movies for young kids, but to lay this off on that industry without a shred of evidence that the perpetrator ever played them is nothing short of breathless exploitation. It's equivalent of Barack Obama's use of the tragedy to criticize outsourcing; it's despicable.

Tim Kaine said it best, about those who have already adopted the VT massacre for their own political ends: "People who want to take this within 24 hours of the event and make it their political hobby horse to ride, I've got nothing but loathing for them." He was talking about gun-control advocates, but it applies even more to the likes of Obama and Dr. Phil.

Saudis Forgive Iraqi Debt

The Bush administration won an important foreign-policy victory yesterday when Saudi Arabia agreed to write off 80% of Iraq's debt to their southern neighbor. Bush has worked for the last four years since the fall of Saddam Hussein to drastically reduce the crushing load of debt on the new Iraqi government. The Saudi decision is doubly important, as the conservative Sunnis did not appear likely to forgive so much debt from a Shi'ite nation:

Saudi Arabia has agreed to forgive 80 percent of the more than $15 billion that Iraq owes the kingdom, Iraqi and Saudi officials said yesterday, a major step given Saudi reluctance to provide financial assistance to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

But Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabr said in an interview that Russia was holding out on debt forgiveness until talks begin on concessions that Russian oil and gas companies had under Saddam Hussein. Russian Embassy officials in Washington declined to comment late yesterday.

The Bush administration has been working for months to persuade other governments to follow the U.S. lead and write off all of their shares of Iraq's debts, which Jabr said total $140 billion. Most of those loans date to Iraq's war with Iran from 1980 to 1988, when the United States, Saudi Arabia and other governments saw Iraq as a buffer against Iran.

Iraq also owes $199 billion in compensation for the Persian Gulf War that followed Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, analysts said.

The agreement by the Saudis could help convince the other Sunni nations in the Middle East to follow suit. Europe agreed to the 80% formula in 2004 after James Baker made the pitch for Bush. Arab nations have been less forgiving, at least until now.

How critical is this? Iraq owes a whopping $380 billion, almost half of it owed to Kuwait after Saddam's brutal invasion and occupation. It wuld take decades for Iraq to make good on that debt, and at the moment, the new government in Baghdad cannot even service the interest. They need new investment to rebuild their oil-production facilities in order to generate revenue, and they can't get the investment until they start servicing the debt. It's a catch-22 Bush hopes to break with his diplomatic initiative.

Russia had agreed to some level of debt forgiveness, but reneged. Vladimir Putin himself promised 65% writeoff in December 2003, and then upped it to 80% last year, according to the Iraqis. However, all of that was just to establish some leverage. Putin wants his oil contracts back, the ones he lost when Saddam Hussein lost power -- the reason why he ran interference for Hussein in the first place. It might be tempting to pay Putin directly and tell him to take a hike.

The Saudi example gives Bush a little more leverage in the region, and it underscores the fact that the Iraqi government appears to have established themselves and their legitimacy in the region. When the Wahhabis forgive Shi'ite debt, that says something about the legitimacy of the democratically-elected Iraqi government.

Obama: Insults, Outsourcing 'Violence'

The culture of victimhood has a new champion, according to the Texas Rainmaker, and that champion is Barack Obama. Faster than someone can say "Ismail Ax", Obama used the Virginia Tech massacre to decry violence in American lives -- but as it turns out, "violence" covers a lot of ground in Obama's political lexicon:

Dem presidential hopeful Barack Obama condemned a violence obsessed culture in his first Wisconsin campaign stop, reflecting on the shooting deaths of more than 30 people at Virginia Tech earlier in the day. ...

The Senator described a culture in which "the violence of children and communities" is ignored, working class jobs are outsourced overseas, and foreign policies are put into place favoring military responses.

Obama also referenced comments radio host Don Imus made last week about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

"There’s a lot of different forms of violence in our society, and so much of it is rooted in our incapacity to recognize ourselves in each other," Obama said to raucous applause. "Last week obviously had to do with Imus and the verbal violence that was directed at women who were role models for all of us."

The news report missed the pertinent quote from Obama, who decried "the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job is moved to another country."

So, in Obama's world, "violence" includes making a derogatory (and utterly insipid) statement about a women's basketball team, as well as a business decision to relocate. Where exactly is the "violence" in these actions? It used to be that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." That has apparently changed to "names may as well be sticks and stones, because either one will damage my fragile psyche." And if one wants to avoid the "violence" of losing a job, the only way to do so is to never hold one in the first place.

All of this is a despicable attempt by Barack Obama to tie his political platform to the Virginia Tech shootings. Efforts to push gun control in the hours following the shooting may be tacky, but at least the topic relates to the event. For Obama, the shootings are a valuable hook to play his class-warfare cards and to evoke Bobby Kennedy on the campaign trail.

UPDATE: I'm including the relevant clip of the speech, and it actually gets worse. Did you know that ignoring the voice of the children is another form of violence? What's next? Is voting against an insubstantial candidate with only two years of national office who exploits a shooting tragedy for political gain another form of violence that Obama insists we correct?

UPDATE II: Via Instapundit, Mickey Kaus says that the speech "doesn't come off quite as obscene as you'd expect" -- thanks to Obama's near-comatose delivery of it. I noticed that too, and even in the short clip you get the impression that he's mailing in his appearance. He has no energy at all.

UPDATE III: CQ commenter Geoff says that Obama's refusal to acknowledge his pain when his roommate switches off "American Idol" amounts to genocide. That's the spirit, Geoff!

It's All Her Fault She Was Murdered

Normally I don't write much about crimes and trials -- because if I ever did start those threads, I'd do nothing but trialblogging. Having weathered the OJ trial as an Angeleno, I have a profound distaste for what celebrity trials represent in terms of media coverage and have no real desire to add to it. Inevitably, the commentary becomes misinformed if not obnoxiously misanthropic.

Wesley Strick should have avoided commentary on the latest celebrity trial as well. The third-tier screenwriter takes on the Phil Spector murder trial in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece that reads more like a Top Ten Worst Cliches About Hollywood Women, and quite explicitly blames Lana Clarkson for her own murder:

Who knows what Lana and Phil were chatting about, in the back of that limo? They'd only met an hour earlier. Maybe Lana was staring out the tinted window as DeSouza merged onto the 710 North. Was she thinking about two other Hollywood blonds — real ones, this time — who were butchered, slaughtered: Sharon Tate and Dorothy Stratten?

Stratten would have been about the same age as Clarkson had she not found herself at the wrong end of a shotgun more than 20 years earlier. Hadn't Clarkson seen "Star 80"? But Stratten was a rube from Vancouver, a naif, whereas Clarkson was a native who'd been around the block. A survivor.

And what about Tate, another sex goddess who, like Stratten, was involved with a world-class director who'd starred her in his own movies? Clarkson would've been 7 when news of the Tate murders broke. Slain in her own home on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, Sharon was. And Lana didn't have Polanski or Bogdanovich in her corner. Just Roger Corman, and the lead in "Barbarian Queen."

I think it's fair to say that this is the most incoherent piece of tripe that has appeared on the pages of the Los Angeles Times, and that's saying something. Strick can't even distinguish between fiction and reality as he blames Clarkson for living in a dream world. He references Dorothy Stratten, who was killed by her loser ex-boyfriend and not anyone in "Hollywood", and Sharon Tate, whose murder had nothing to do with her film career. Strick fails to mention Robert Blake, probably because he didn't want to get sued for libel.

Strick starts rattling off Hollywood movies, both A-list and B-movies, in a shotgun approach that makes little sense. First comes Citizen Kane, even though Kane doesn't kill any paramour. He then mentions Beyond the Valley of the Dolls as a cautionary tale that Clarkson should have considered -- despite it being a piece of fiction almost as incoherent as his column. Strick considers it the "Rosetta Stone" of the Clarkson murder even though the facts of the Clarkson murder bear not the least resemblance to the killings in the movie, with the single exception that breast-obsessed director Russ Meyer and writer Roger Ebert (yes, that Roger Ebert) loosely based the character of the murderer on Phil Spector.

Strick uses all of these silly references to do one task: blame Clarkson for her own murder. Didn't she see BVOTD? Apparently every self-respecting Hollywood actress should do so for her own good. (The rest of you should skip it; it's a dreadful exploitation film. I've seen it.) And beyond Clarkson, somehow Hollywood is responsible as well, as Clarkson is another in a long line of actresses who have been murdered, both in real life and in fiction.

Strick's essay is a cheap shot taken at a dead woman who cannot speak for herself any longer, written by a man whose biggest credential to date is writing the movie based on the shoot-em-up computer game Doom. The LA Times should consider its editorial management of the op-ed page if this is the kind of work that makes it through the checks and balances of its mainstream media operation.

Corzine Hit At 91 MPH

Governor Jon Corzine's car was traveling at 91 MPH just before it hit a guard rail in the accident that almost killed him, New Jersey's superintendent of state police admitted yesterday. Corzine wanted to make a meeting between Don Imus and the women's basketball team of Rutgers to facilitate an apology after Imus' offensive remarks. Originally, the superintendent discounted speed as a factor:

Leading up to the accident in which Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey was critically injured, the state trooper at the wheel of his sport utility vehicle was driving at 91 miles per hour, the superintendent of the state police said this afternoon.

In a telephone news conference, the superintendent, Col. Rick Fuentes, said: “With regard to the speed of the governor’s vehicle, all investigative data points to a speed of approximately 91 m.p.h. five seconds before impact with the guide rail. The vehicle’s speed at the time of impact with the guide rail was approximately 30 m.p.h.”

The speed of 90 m.p.h. is the equivalent of 132 feet a second — or put another way, in two and one-third seconds a vehicle moving at that speed could travel farther than the length of a football field. ...

In his news conference today, however, Colonel Fuentes said: “My initial information was that it didn’t appear at the time that speed was a factor. I was giving out information I had at the time.”

Asked if he now thought speed had been a factor in the accident, he said: “What do you think? Speed is always a factor.”

We seem to have a rash of public officials speaking without having reviewed the relevant facts. Alberto Gonzales created a firestorm from a spark, thanks to his public statements that contradicted the record at the Department of Justice. Now we have Fuentes telling reporters that speed wasn;t a factor in the accident, followed shortly thereafter with an snotty, dismissive retort that of course speed was a factor.

Well, far be it from me to defend the press, but perhaps Fuentes could have acknowledged that he was the one who said speed had nothing to do with the accident in the first place.

Now, the next question is why a car driven by a New Jersey state trooper was traveling at over 90 miles per hour, with the front-seat passenger not wearing a seat belt. The car was not responding to an emergency, and the speed limit had to have been at least 20 MPH less than the speed at which the trooper drove the Governor's SUV. At that speed and at that time of day, he not only put the Governor at risk, but he made the vehicle a danger to everyone else on the highway. State troopers should act to protect the people of New Jersey, not to endanger them in an effort to get a politician to a photo op.

I hope Corzine makes a full recovery and has proper pain management to be as comfortable as possible during his recuperation. Once he recovers, however, he and the state troopers have some questions to answer for their conduct.

Islamists Gone Wild!

The introduction of shari'a law to Nigeria did not stop a band of radical Islamists from massacring thirteen people in a Kano police station yesterday. The attack follows a similar incident in Sharada, and precedes the upcoming national vote that will pit Islamists in the north with Christians in the south:

A mob killed 13 people in an attack on a police station in the northern Nigerian city of Kano yesterday, four days after unidentified gunmen shot dead a hardline Muslim cleric.

Police said that the mob, suspected of belonging to a radical Islamic sect, burnt the police station in the Panshekara district and killed the officer in charge, his wife and 11 other officers. The sect killed a divisional police officer in an attack in the Sharada district last week. Kano is one of 12 northern Nigerian states that introduced Sharia in 2000. The move alienated Christian minorities and sparked violence. Southern Nigeria is predominantly Christian.

Tensions are running high in the city of six million because of state elections held on Saturday and a presidential vote on April 21. It was not clear if the latest violence was connected to the elections.

Even the introduction of Islamic law in Kano did not stop Islamist terrorists from taking the law into their own hands. They killed the police that administer shari'a in Kano. With radical Muslims attacking shari'a police, what chance do the Christians have in peacefully co-existing with them?

This also points out the folly of those who believe that we can reach accommodation with radical Islamists. They do not act rationally, instead relying on violence and intimidation to extort the behavior they seek. Even fellow Islamists have no immunity from attack and annihilation. Islamists have begun to run wild in Nigeria, and unless something changes soon, it will follow Sudan in crumbling into civil war.

How Many Donors Paid For Edwards' Hair?

I'm the last person who should tallk about hair, I suppose, although I can talk a good game of scalp. The only reason I pay as much as I do for haircuts these days is because my stylist charges a finder's fee. Still, I pay the square root of what John Edwards pays for his haircuts, and unlike Edwards, I'm not using political contributions to pay for mine:

Looking pretty is costing John Edwards' presidential campaign a lot of pennies.

The Democrat's campaign committee picked up the tab for two haircuts at $400 each by celebrity stylist Joseph Torrenueva of Beverly Hills, California, according to a financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

FEC records show Edwards also availed himself of $250 in services from a trendy salon and spa in Dubuque, Iowa, and $225 in services from the Pink Sapphire in Manchester, New Hampshire, which is described on its Web site as "a unique boutique for the mind, body and face" that caters mostly to women. ...

Campaign records also show the former North Carolina senator's campaign paid $248 on March 1 to the Designworks Salon in Dubuque.

I guess there really are Two Americas. One believes that it contributes to presidential campaigns to support electoral events and efforts, and the other thinks that those contributions can go to personal grooming and luxurious living.

Not long ago, people rightly criticized Bill Clinton for delaying flights out of LAX while he got a $200 haircut from Christophe. The notion that a President required a Hollywood hair stylist seemed tailor-made for ridicule. For a candidate that made fiscal responsibility a primary campaign theme. In this case, we have someone who wants to win office by campaigning on class warfare -- while building himself a 28,000-square foot mansion with his own money and taking trips to fancy hair stylists and luxury spas with the money from his political contributors.

Edwards has plenty of his own money for haircuts and visits to spas. Money that people send to his campaign for his election should not go to his hairstylist and manicurist. If Edwards has this kind of judgment about his campaign contributions, imagine the kind of judgment he will have about federal funds while in charge of the executive branch.

Hugh Hewitt On Atlas Shrugged

Pam at Atlas Shrugged interviewed Hugh Hewitt tonight on her Blog Talk Radio show this evening. Hugh is one of my friends in the blogosphere, and he lends his special perpective to current events.

What's keeping you from starting your Blog Talk Radio show?

The 110th Congress Of Irony

Congress takes up many silly, superfluous, but essentially harmless bills every session. Usually these consist of naming post offices or proclaiming National Caesar Salad Month, which allows constituents back home to believe that their Representative or Senator actually does something valuable. As we have seen lately, it keeps people from asking what the hell Congress has done in its first 100 days.

However, sometimes they adopt resolutions so laughable that one has to bring hydraulic jacks to place one's jaw back in place. This week, Congress plans to dedicate a coming month to -- are you ready for this? -- financial literacy! HR 273 promises to highlight all the failings of the American people, in the biggest case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Perhaps Congress might want to consider leading by example, rather than dedicating a month of the year to scolding its constituents. They refer to the fact that "consumer debt totaled $2,400,000,000,000 in 2006, of which credit card debt alone exceeded $825,000,000,000," but fail to note that Congress once again spent hundreds of billions more than it received. They note that personal savings dropped last year for the first time since the Great Depression, but they fail to note that Congress still passes supplemental spending bills that go directly towards the nation's debt without any accountability in the budget. Rep. Hinojosa and his colleagues decry the fact that only 42% of the nation's workers have calculated how much they will need for retirement, while successive Congresses have done everything possible to avoid reforming the coming insolvencies of Social Security and Medicare.

Instead of directing the President to issue a proclamation to federal agencies, states, cities, and citizens to "observe the month with appropriate programs and activities with the goal of increasing financial literacy rates", Congress should observe the month by eliminating pork and useless federal spending. That would force them to do something other than feed lobbyists and buy influence back home with our tax dollars -- which is why Congress would prefer to outsource financial literacy. (h/t: The Heritage Foundation)

Note: You can read the full text of the resolution in the extended entry.

HRES 273 IH

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. RES. 273

Supporting the goals and ideals of Financial Literacy Month, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 27, 2007

Mr. HINOJOSA (for himself, Mrs. BIGGERT, Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. BACHUS, Mrs. MALONEY of New York, Ms. BEAN, Mr. CLAY, Mr. CLEAVER, Mr. CROWLEY, Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky, Mrs. DRAKE, Mr. GERLACH, Mr. GILLMOR, Mr. AL GREEN of Texas, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. HODES, Mr. JOHNSON of Illinois, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. KLEIN of Florida, Mrs. MCCARTHY of New York, Mr. MEEKS of New York, Mr. MOORE of Kansas, Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin, Mr. ORTIZ, Mr. PEARCE, Ms. PRYCE of Ohio, Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California, Mr. SIRES, Mr. SCOTT of Georgia, Mr. WILSON of South Carolina, Mr. GUTIERREZ, Ms. MILLENDER-MCDONALD, Mr. CASTLE, Mr. RAMSTAD, Mr. BILBRAY, Mrs. MILLER of Michigan, Mr. DENT, Mr. SHAYS, Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California, Mr. DREIER, Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida, Mr. WELLER of Illinois, Mr. BOOZMAN, Mr. CAMPBELL of California, Mr. MICA, Mr. SHIMKUS, Mr. KIRK, Mr. BURGESS, Mr. MCCAUL of Texas, Mr. PENCE, Mr. MCHENRY, Mr. TIBERI, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. ROSKAM, Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania, Mr. HALL of Texas, Mr. FORBES, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. LAHOOD, Mr. BAKER, Mr. LEWIS of Kentucky, Mr. LATOURETTE, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. TIAHRT, Mr. EHLERS, Ms. FOXX, Mr. HERGER, Mr. GILCHREST, Mr. HASTERT, Mr. FEENEY, Mr. PRICE of Georgia, Mr. MARCHANT, Mr. PUTNAM, Mrs. CAPITO, Mr. MANZULLO, Mr. WALDEN of Oregon, Mr. BILIRAKIS, Mr. BACA, Ms. MATSUI, Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. BECERRA, Mr. GONZALEZ, Mr. SALAZAR, Mr. REYES, Mr. RODRIGUEZ, Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD, Ms. VELAZQUEZ, Ms. HARMAN, Mr. DOGGETT, Mr. KIND, Mr. LARSON of Connecticut, Mr. SESTAK, Mr. FATTAH, Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California, Ms. MCCOLLUM of Minnesota, Mr. LINCOLN DAVIS of Tennessee, Mr. BARROW, Mr. SCOTT of Virginia, Ms. SOLIS, Ms. SUTTON, Ms. HOOLEY, Ms. BALDWIN, Mr. HARE, Mrs. CAPPS, Mr. CAPUANO, Mr. CONAWAY, Mr. BOREN, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. MILLER of North Carolina, Mr. LYNCH, Mrs. JONES of Ohio, and Mr. WATT) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

RESOLUTION

Supporting the goals and ideals of Financial Literacy Month, and for other purposes.

Whereas personal financial literacy is essential to ensure that individuals are prepared to manage money, credit, and debt, and become responsible workers, heads of households, investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and citizens;

Whereas personal financial management skills and lifelong habits develop during childhood;

Whereas a study completed in 2006 by the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy found that high school seniors know less about principles of basic personal finance than did high school seniors 7 years earlier, and the average scores in both years were failing grades;

Whereas in recent years, the Congress, State legislatures and Governors around the country have increasingly recognized the importance and effectiveness of financial education, and, as a result, an increasing number of States now require financial education during high school, including Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia;

Whereas 55 percent of college students acquire their first credit card during their first year in college, and 92 percent of college students acquire at least 1 credit card by their second year in college, yet only 26 percent of people between the ages of 13 and 21 reported that their parents actively taught them how to manage money;

Whereas United States consumer debt totaled $2,400,000,000,000 in 2006, of which credit card debt alone exceeded $825,000,000,000;

Whereas personal savings as a percentage of income dropped to negative 1 percent in 2006, the lowest since the Great Depression;

Whereas, although more than 42,000,000 people in the United States participate in qualified cash or deferred arrangements described in section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (commonly referred to as `401(k) plans'), a Retirement Confidence Survey conducted in 2004 found that only 42 percent of workers surveyed have calculated how much money they will need to save for retirement and 37 percent of workers say that they are not currently saving for retirement;

Whereas the average baby boomer has only $50,000 in savings apart from equity in their homes;

Whereas a study by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants found that 55 percent of people between the ages of 25 and 34 maintain an interest-bearing account or other savings instrument, a decrease of 10 percent since 1985;

Whereas studies show that as many as 10,000,000 households in the United States are `unbanked' or are without access to mainstream financial products and services;

Whereas expanding access to the mainstream financial system provides individuals with lower-cost and safer options for managing finances and building wealth and is likely to lead to increased economic activity and growth;

Whereas public, consumer, community-based, and private sector organizations throughout the United States are working to increase financial literacy rates for Americans of all ages and walks of life through a range of outreach efforts, including media campaigns, websites, and one-on-one counseling for individuals;

Whereas Members of the United States House of Representatives established the Financial and Economic Literacy Caucus (FELC) in February 2005 to (1) provide a forum for interested Members of Congress to review, discuss and recommend financial and economic literacy policies, legislation, and programs, (2) collaborate with the private sector, nonprofits, and community-based organizations, and (3) organize and promote financial literacy legislation, seminars, and events, such as `Financial Literacy Month' in April 2007 and the annual `Financial Literacy Day' fair on April 24, 2007; and

Whereas the National Council on Economic Education, its State Councils and Centers for Economic Education, the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, its State affiliates, and its partner organizations, and JA Worldwide have designated April as Financial Literacy Month to educate the public about the need for increased financial literacy for youth and adults in the United States: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) supports the goals and ideals of Financial Literacy Month, including raising public awareness about the importance of financial education in the United States and the serious consequences that have resulted from a lack of understanding about personal finances; and

(2) requests that the President issue a proclamation calling on the Federal Government, States, localities, schools, nonprofit organizations, businesses, other entities, and the people of the United States to observe the month with appropriate programs and activities with the goal of increasing financial literacy rates for individuals of all ages and walks of life.

Talking BTR With Andrea Shea King

After the end of my CQ Radio show this afternoon -- and a great interview with Bernard Goldberg -- I got the chance to speak with Andrea Shea King at WWBC in Florida, along with her guests, Free Republic posters Chris Taylor and Larry Middleton. Andrea interviewed me at length about my new position with Blog Talk Radio, and I had an opportunity to speak about all of the terrific shows and how easily anyone can make themselves into a talk-show host. I had a great time talking BTR, blogs, and current events with Andrea -- and hopefully I can do it again soon.

The segment will repeat at 9 pm CT, I believe. They do not have archives set up yet on their website, but I hope to catch the segment myself tonight ...

Bernard Goldberg On CQ Today (Bumped!)

BUMP: Just a reminder that we will be also discussing the Virginia Tech story. Be sure to call and join the conversation.

On today's edition of CQ Radio, I'll have an interview with Bernard Goldberg -- journalist and author of such excellent books as Bias and The 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America -- as he launches his new book, Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One SIde Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve. The book launches today, and on Saturday I had the opportunity to have a long conversation with Goldberg, one of the most entertaining interview subjects. We discuss:

* Don Imus -- "A very unlikable and unpleasant person ... but Don Imus is not what's plaguing black America."
* Republicans -- "Betrayed their principles"
* Al Sharpton - "If there are two people in the whole world who should not be leading a moral crusade against Don Imus, they are Al Shaprton and Jesse Jackson."
* The importance of culture - "If [culture] doesn't matter, then why is everyone so upset about Don Imus?"

You're going to hear a lot of quotable passages from Bernard Goldberg today -- so be sure to tune in at 2 pm CT. I'll have plenty of time to take calls, and I'd like to get a conversation going about the lessons we can learn from the Virginia Tech tragedy yesterday. Call in at 646-652-4889!

Ismail Ax? (Updated)

The Virginia Tech shooter had a history of odd behavior, and his professors had gone so far as to recommend him for counseling, the Chicago Tribune reports this morning. Seung-hui Cho left behind a note that blamed the "debauchery" of "rich kids" for his shooting spree, and had the words "Ismail Ax" written on his forearm when he died:

The suspected gunman in the Virginia Tech shooting rampage, Cho Seung-Hui, was a troubled 23-year-old senior from South Korea who investigators believe left an invective-filled note in his dorm room, sources say.

The note included a rambling list of grievances, according to sources. They said Cho also died with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on the inside of one of his arms.

Cho had shown recent signs of violent, aberrant behavior, according to an investigative source, including setting a fire in a dorm room and allegedly stalking some women.

A note believed to have been written by Cho was found in his dorm room that railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.

Cho was an English major whose creative writing was so disturbing that he was referred to the school's counseling service, the Associated Press reported.

No one is sure as of yet what the phrase "Ismail Ax" means. It appears to be a reference to Abraham/Ibrahim, in which Ismail and Abraham take an axe to the idols of a temple as part of his conversion to monotheism. Is this a cryptic reference to Islamist or Christian radicalism? It certainly suggests one of the two. Hot Air has a more compelling theory -- a reference to James Fennimore Cooper's "The Prairie", which makes sense, given that Cho majored in English.

Other than that, it seems rather clear that Cho had a reputation as a disturbed loner. Once the first shooting occurred in the dorm, one might have presumed that VT officials would have considered that reputation as a security risk and locked down the school -- and perhaps have gone to Cho's room to see if he was still there and where he might have gone, if not.

UPDATE: ABC News reports that Cho shot himself to end the spree, and that identification became more difficult because "part of his face was missing". Meanwhile, VT students and families want the resignations of the university president and police chief for the manner in which they handled the shootings, especially the first:

John and Jennifer Shourds of Lovettsville, Va. demanded the immediate firings of University President Charles Steger and Virginia Tech Campus Police Chief W.R. Flinchum who he said "screwed up" the handling of separate shooting incidents that left 33 students dead, including the shooter.

“My God, if someone shoots somebody there should be an immediate lockdown of the campus,” said John Shourds. “They totally blew it. The president blew it, campus police blew it.” ...

He said no apology or excuse will meet his satisfaction without the ouster of the university’s top officials. He wasn’t pleased with the Steger’s comments after the incident, either.

“I hold this president completely accountable,” said Shourds. “They are cowards. They can’t come out and say they made a mistake.”

It seems a little early to be fetching the tar and feathers, although I also think that the university has a lot of explanations due for their performance yesterday.

UPDATE II: The Smoking Gun has a copy of Cho's writing -- a play called "Richard McBeef". It's barely coherent and pretty disturbing. Small wonder that his teachers felt he could use some counseling.

The Consumer Network Prevails

Last week, I wrote about the heavy-handed efforts of JL Kirk Associates, an employment placement firm, to silence one of its dissatisfied clients on her blog. They hired a law firm and sent a cease-and-desist demand rather than addressing the cause of her dissatisfaction. When word went out about the legal brinksmanship, bloggers from across the nation linked to and discussed the story -- and apparently let JL Kirk and its legal team know about their unhappiness through a flood of e-mails. The story appears to have a relatively happy ending for the blogger, Kate Coble:

Attorneys for JL Kirk & Assocs. contacted Media Bloggers Association attorney Ronald Coleman shortly after receiving his letter stating that the MBA was representing me in this dispute on Thursday afternoon. Both sides expressed their wish to avoid litigation or further aggravation of the situation. JL Kirk’s main concern at the outset was that we communicate their position - which is different from the information originally told to me by a JL Kirk employee - that JL Kirk is not a continuation of the defunct Bernard Haldane company, either in terms of corporate identity or stock ownership, and that JL Kirk’s principal, Kirk Leipzig, is only a former Bernard Haldane employee but did not buy any assets or stock of Bernard Haldane. I can’t vouch for the truth of that statement because I have no first-hand knowledge of the facts, but evidently anyone who wants more information can obtain it from JL Kirk.

As you know if you read their cease and desist letter, the company disagrees with what I have said about them here, but they have told the MBA lawyer that they are interested in discussing this with my husband and me personally rather than litigating in court. I have not decided if I am interested in talking, but I don’t mind the idea of putting this behind me and moving on, and will not write on this topic again.

Bill Hobbs, who has provided continuous coverage of this story, blogs today about the stakes involved for JL Kirk:

The Nashville City Paper covers the story of the blogger and the company that threatened to sue her, giving yet more bad publicity to JL Kirk Associates. Among the quoted: Media Bloggers Association general counsel Ron Coleman, who is representing Coble pro bono and tells the City Paper that a settlement in the case is near.

One minor correction to the City Paper's story: The incident didn't just "set the Nashville blogosphere ablaze," it went global with bloggers around the world writing about JL Kirk's lawsuit threat - and the clueless attorney who made it - and digging into JL Kirk's business practices and history, with unflattering results.

And Brittney Gilbert underscores the danger to firms like JL Kirk:

A lawsuit was never this company's intent, if I had to guess. They just wanted to bully a blogger into taking down speech that made them look bad. Instead they set off a firestorm of fury from bloggers all across the web who take their right to tell the truth about negative corporate experiences very seriously. More seriously than even I guessed. And rightly so, because self-publishers on the web - your average, everyday citizen - no longer need to bend to the will of the ones with the most might. Bloggers no longer need to buy ink by the barrel. The ink is free.

Not only is the ink free, but so are those using it. Free to warn others about what they think is a shady business or uncooperative legislator. No longer are newspapers and television stations the only people with a platform. Through the wonder that is the tubes, a blogger with under a thousand readers a day can bring a company to its knees, especially when that company attempts to roll over an individual's First Amendment rights.

I'd say it goes even further than what Gilbert says. Companies with shady business practices and questionable ethics had better be prepared for massive publicity problems in the future. If the allegations in Coble's original post are true, then JL Kirk will suffer from the publicity they created for Coble's criticism. A bad experience with any product or service will be accessible forever through Google once someone blogs about it, and if the company makes JL Kirk's mistake of inflaming it into a full-blown national story, the stench of it will be almost impossible to remove.

Instead of suing their customers, JL Kirk would have done better to ask themselves how they could avoid such problems in the future. Other companies at risk of this kind of exposure should rethink their business approaches. Nothing will stay secret for long any more. Consumers have networked too well.

Shooting Fallout

The details are now starting to emerge from the shadows of rumors after yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech. The shooting is now the deadliest civilian attack [not quite; see update] in our nation's history, with 33 dead, including the gunman, and "several dozen" wounded. None of the wounded appear in danger of losing their lives at this point, a welcome piece of news in an avalanche of tragedy.

Despite rumors yesterday that the gunman was a Chinese national on a student visa, the Washington Post reports that the gunman was of Korean descent whose family lives in Fairfax County, Virginia:

Virginia Tech president Charles W. Steger said today that the gunman who rampaged through the campus on Monday leaving 32 dead was a student who lived in one of the school's dormitories.

The name of the assailant has not been publicly released, but Steger, in an interview on CNN, said he was an Asian male who was "a resident in one of our dormitories."

A range of sources, including federal and local officials with knowledge of the case, have told the Washington Post that the assailant was of Korean descent. His parents live in Fairfax County, one official there said.

Authorities are expected to identify the gunman at a news conference this morning, the first official event in a day of mourning that includes a 2 p.m. convocation service with President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush in attendance. A student vigil is scheduled for 8 p.m. on the university drill field.

Officials today lifted a blockade of the campus, though classes have been canceled and staffing is at a minimum.

ABC News identified the gunman as Seung Hui Cho, a permanent resident and Korean immigrant:

Seung Hui Cho, a permanent resident of the United States, a Korean national and a Virginia Tech student has been identified as the gunman in the shootings that left 33 people dead on the Virginia Tech campus Monday, ABC News has learned.

The student left a “disturbing note” before killing two people in a dorm room, returning to his own room to re-arm and entering a classroom building on the other side of campus to continue his rampage, sources said.

Cho’s identitiy has been confirmed with a positive fingerprint match on the guns used in the rampage and with immigration materials. It is believed that he was the shooter in both incidents yesterday. Sources say Cho was carrying a backpack that contained receipts for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol, sources said. Witnesses had also told authorities that the shooter was carrying a backpack. Sections of chain similar to those used to lock the main doors at Norris Hall, the site of the second shooting that left 31 dead, were found inside a Virginia Tech dormitory, sources confirmed to ABC News.

Plenty of questions will arise from the massacre, and not least the security arrangements at VT. The campus had a couple of bomb threats over the past two weeks, and people will wonder why security didn't have more of a presence in Norris Hall and other places on campus. The university also failed to keep the campus locked down after the first shooting, even though they did not have a suspect in custody, which allowed him to find students trapped in the classrooms.

Thankfully, the revelation of the shooter's identity will end the impulse to tie immigration policy to the shooting. When the rumor of the "Chinese national" started making the rounds, it began a boomlet of debate on visa policy, especially regarding student visas. That will get put aside for a debate on gun policy, and the New York Times wasted not even a day before editorializing on the subject:

Not much is known about the gunman, who killed himself, or about his motives or how he got his weapons, so it is premature to draw too many lessons from this tragedy. But it seems a safe bet that in one way or another, this will turn out to be another instance in which an unstable or criminally minded individual had no trouble arming himself and harming defenseless people.

In the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre — in which two alienated students plotted for months before killing 12 students, a teacher and themselves — public school administrators focused heavily on spotting warning signs early enough to head off tragedy. ...

Our hearts and the hearts of all Americans go out to the victims and their families. Sympathy was not enough at the time of Columbine, and eight years later it is not enough. What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.

It should be pointed out that a university is not a high school. Administrators of the latter have a great deal more control over the student body than administrators of the former. Many students do not live on campus; I believe that the ratio mentioned yesterday runs to 2:1 for non-residential students. For those who do, they still do not have the kind of oversight to "detect warning signs", as students change teachers every semester or quarter. That seems to be a rather impossible standard for any college, let alone a large university like VT.

Going to the gun issue, it isn't as cut-and-dried as the Times paints it, nor as blameworthy as gun-rights activists want it to be. The campus already had a gun ban; students and faculty were not allowed to carry guns on campus. That seems to have only been effective for the law-abiding students, as Cho apparently kept his weapons and ammunition in his dorm room. If the school insisted on disarming its student body, then it should have provided the requisite security to protect a campus full of publicly-disarmed potential victims, and it failed to do so despite the bomb threats of earlier this month.

However, concealed=carry permits would not necessarily have prevented this, either. As my cousin Mike pointed out in the comments yesterday, such permits require the holder to be 21 years of age or older. That would have disqualified at least three-quarters of the students on campus. It would have only taken one or two to confront the shooter in this case, and at Appalachian Law (also in Virginia), armed students successfully ended a rampage. However, that student was a former law-enforcement officer who retrieved his service pistol from his car, not just a student with a carry permit.

We should take care to make instant analyses based on tragedies such as this. The truth is that a free society will always be vulnerable to lunatics and terrorists, and that gun control does not and has never prevented tragedies such as this. No-gun zones and ownership restrictions only apply to those who want to obey the law. The solution lies in finding better means of securing public areas so that another gunman like Cho cannot run wild on campus.

UPDATE: Imprecision strikes me again. I should have said worst civilian shooting spree ever. As many have pointed out, the Bath School Massacre killed 45 in three bombings. Thanks for the many hat tips from CQ readers.

Tragedy And Heroism

The shootings at Virginia Tech that killed 33 people, including the gunman, will generate many stories of horror over the next few days and weeks. Already we have heard about the cold and mechanical manner in which the perpetrator selected and shot his many victims. However, the terrible day also will produce stories of courage and heroism, and the first has been that of Professor Liviu Librescu. The Romanian-Israeli engineering professor and Holocaust survivor gave his life to save his students:

As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 75-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday's shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 32 dead and over two dozen wounded.

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter, who had attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived - because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.

Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said the son, Joe.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

The same article also talks about the heroism of Derek O'Dell, who also blocked a doorway and dodged a hail of bullets to protect his fellow students. Other students joined him, and they successfully kept the gunman from entering the classroom. O'Dell survived with a bullet wound to the arm.

Unfortunately, Librescu was not as fortunate. After all he suffered in his life, the impulse to sacrifice himself to save others is doubly amazing, and exponentially inspiring. Godspeed, Professor Librescu; it's hard to believe that this world deserved you. (via Power Line)

He Likes Bagels, Too

Former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson discovered the perils of paying compliments to ethnic groups in a speech yesterday in Washington, DC. He told an audience at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism that he admired Jews for their ability to make money:

Former Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson told Jewish activists Monday that making money is "part of the Jewish tradition," and something that he applauded.

Speaking to an audience at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington D.C., Thompson said that, "I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."

Thompson later apologized for the comments that had caused a stir in the audience, saying that he had meant it as a compliment, and had only wanted to highlight the "accomplishments" of the Jewish religion.

"I just want to clarify something because I didn't [by] any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things," he said.

"What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion. You've been outstanding business people and I compliment you for that."

Thompson made two specific mistakes in his "compliment". First, mercantilism has nothing to do with the Jewish religion, and second, just about every culture on Earth understands and excels in some form of mercantilism. Whether the stereotype highlights the Jewish banker, the Yankee trader, the Arab at the bazaar, the Native American barter, they all show that people have little difficulty in pigeonholing groups for unfair trading practices.

I don't think Thompson meant any harm by his statement, but it does perhaps reflect a lack of engagement and insight into the group he met yesterday. His clumsy and mildly offensive statement shows that he should spend more time with Jewish groups, learning their history and their culture, and seeing their place in America as unexceptional in the sense that they came here and succeeded, like so many other peoples. They worked hard to overcome those stereotypes to become part of the American fabric -- as much a part as the Irish, Italians, Poles, and all the other immigrants.

How will this affect his run for the Presidency? It won't help. Perhaps he can make amends through more speeches with Jewish groups, but this is the kind of sound bite that tends to live forever. It's not the worst thing in the world to congratulate people for their success, but it will prove a low-level embarrassment for a while.

The Party Of Government

John McCain continues his efforts to assume the mantle of fiscal discipline in the Republican presidential primary. In a speech yesterday in Memphis, he assured his audience that a McCain presidency would exhibit responsible stewardship of the nation's treasury -- and scolded Republicans for becoming the "party of government":

Senator John McCain of Arizona acknowledged Monday that his fellow Republicans “forgot who we were” in recent years by spending too much, and said that as president he would rely on low taxes, greater fiscal restraint and free trade to lift the nation’s economy.

Mr. McCain, whose presidential campaign has been viewed with suspicion by some conservatives because of his initial opposition to the Bush administration’s tax cuts, used the first major economic address of his campaign to reaffirm his commitment to the free market but said he would move to overhaul the nation’s unemployment programs to help people find jobs in the new economy. And he had some strong words for the way his fellow Republicans governed when they controlled Congress.

“Worst of all, we forgot who we were: tight-fisted stewards of the federal treasury who keep our priorities straight,” Mr. McCain said in a speech to the Economic Club of Memphis. “We asked Americans to make us the governing party, and we rewarded them by becoming the party of government.”

After complaining that Congress had spent money on an indoor rain forest and studying the DNA of bears in Montana (“without knowing whether we needed to solve a criminal case or a paternity suit”), Mr. McCain restated his support for giving the president a line-item veto. Even without it, though, he pledged vetoes of pork-laden bills that drive up government spending without improving government services.

McCain says nothing in this speech that we haven't said ourselves at CQ. Interestingly, though, other Republican candidates have not said much towards scolding Congressional Republicans for the spending spree that put them out of the majority. McCain seems uniquely poised to do that, thanks to his long record of pork-busting in the Senate.

Of course, some believe him uniquely unqualified, thanks to his long track record of fighting tax cuts. The Club For Growth notes that McCain chose not to support the Bush tax cuts when first offered. McCain has acknowledged that, but promises to keep them from expiring if elected President.

At least McCain is making a campaign issue of fiscal discipline. Not enough Republican candidates have been able to command a national audience for that message. The Republicans did indeed become the party of government after a short span of years in charge, and the reminder of our folly in relinquishing our belief in smaller government for the promise of power is a necessary lesson for repeated deliveries.

Will France Abandon Socialism?

With the upcoming presidential election, France appears on the brink of making a momentous choice. The decades-long infatuation with socialism appears to be at an end, the London Telegraph reports, as the electorate has tired of the entrenched economic ennui it has brought. The news will not bode well for Ségolène Royal, the Socialist challenging Nicolas Sarkozy:

Rungis is Paris's larder.

Those who work there - from socialist porters to Right-wing suppliers of Paris's top kitchens - agree on one thing: France, for so long hampered by stifling employment laws and a groaning welfare system, needs to get back to work.

"Socialism, well we've done that. We don't need more of the Left, we have all the social protection we need. If they win, it's the end of the road," said Thierry Dumesnil, 40, shifting huge wedges of brie and other cheeses for his wholesale employer. He intends to vote "without passion" for Nicolas Sarkozy, the Right-wing front runner.

In the next section, Florient Sicard, 26, plunged a cheese-cutter into some gruyère and said he was undecided between Mr Sarkozy or the centrist François Bayrou, the surprise "third man" of the campaign. "Sarkozy can sometimes be too extreme but I'm also worried that Bayrou won't shake things up as much as Sarko. He's too soft," he said.

Roland Druais, 56, a wholesale grocer, was stacking crates of sweet gariguettes strawberries from the Dordogne. "I'm voting Sarkozy," said Mr Druais, who has worked in Rungis for 23 years. Mr Sarkozy, the head of the UMP party, is the only candidate who clearly wants to dismantle the 35-hour working week and ease employment laws.

The problem has reached a point where the French Left now believes that they cannot compete with the Right, in the form of Sarkozy. Activists want Royal to team up with Bayrou in order to form a center-Left coalition that might challenge Sarkozy, but so far both candidates have refused. Both of them undoubtedly hope to be the challenger who makes it past the first round of voting, and who then can hopefully generate enough support to best Sarkozy.

However, decades of economic stagnation and a growing catastrophe in the Muslim banlieus have taken the shine off of socialism. Small wonder. After the riots of last year and the protests over a modest reform of the labor contract, France finally had to face its decline in a global economy on the rise. Sarkozy insists on reforming the laws that constrain businesses and force them to endure unproductive workers, a position that would have disqualified him three years ago. Now the French, while still resisting the "Anglo-Saxon" model of capitalism, understand that their French model of socialism won't do, either.

This points towards a massive victory for Sarkozy, if the Telegraph reads the tea leaves correctly. If not, they had better find a better place to shop in France.

Minneapolis To Muslim Cabbies: Tough

A few Muslim cabbies at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport had demanded the right to refuse passengers who carried alcohol in their baggage. The Metropolitan Airport Commission tried to mediate the dispute, but the cabbies refused to back down from their demands, forcing the MAC's hand. Today, they gave their answer:

Starting May 11, airport taxi drivers who refuse to transport riders carrying alcohol will be suspended for 30 days. And after a second offense, their license would be revoked for two years.

The Metropolitan Airports Commission voted 11-0 Monday to approve the crackdown, which some Muslim drivers say violates their religious beliefs. Commissioners called the change reasonable, practical and important for rider safety.

"We are sending a message that if you want to drive a taxi at our airport you can't refuse our customers," Steve Wareham, operations manager of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Minneapolis has given the Muslim community a rather schizophrenic posture over the last few days. While MCTC, the city's technical college, falls over itself to install foot-washing basins for Muslim prayer, the MAC has delivered the proper message of assimilation to the small percentage of Muslims intent on enforcing their religion on the Twin Cities. If the Muslims do not like alcohol or pork, they should choose careers where they do not encounter them.

The attorney representing the cabbies predicts that the case will reach the state Supreme Court. While it's dangerous to bet that the court system will act in terms of common sense, this case should reliably prove to be a no-brainer. No one oppresses people by carrying alcohol in their baggage, and the cabbies get licenses from the MAC and from the city on the basis of serving the airport's customers. The city has the duty to make sure that their licensees service the customers outside the basis of religious biases.

Most Muslims in our community believe these cases to be as ridiculous as we do. However, a small but active minority appears insistent on confrontation and intimidation, and their actions unfortunately reflect on the whole. When cities cave in to ridiculous demands like foot-washing basins and separate facilities, it emboldens that small minority and allows them to humiliate the assimilated majority. Kudos to the MAC for refusing to play the shari'a game.

See Power Line's take on this as well. Did the MAC think that they had had enough of the Traveling Imams and decided to nip this in the bud? Perhaps.

Did Rudy Tell Pro-Lifers To Get Over Themselves?

The Des Moines Register reported that Rudy Giuliani told a crowd that social conservatives had to "get beyond issues" like abortion in order to elect Republicans. Thomas Beaumont's report sent a few shock waves through the blogosphere:

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani warned GOP activists in Des Moines on Saturday that if they insist on a nominee who always agrees with them, it will spell defeat in 2008.

“Our party is going to grow, and we are going to win in 2008 if we are a party characterized by what we’re for, not if we’re a party that’s known for what we’re against,” the former New York mayor said at a midday campaign stop.

Republicans can win, he said, if they nominate a candidate committed to the fight against terrorism and high taxes, rather than a pure social conservative.

“Our party has to get beyond issues like that,” Giuliani said, a reference to abortion rights, which he supports.

Bryan at Hot Air had a typically shocked reaction to the report, which given the way Beaumont framed it, seems like reasonable concern:

I’m a social con. I was giving Giuliani a close look in spite of quite a few things, because he projects strength on the war. But telling social conservatives to “get over it” is arrogant. It also betrays what he really thinks about the pro-life movement. We don’t define ourselves by “what we’re against,” but by what we’re for: the right to life. It’s the most basic right.

Well, I'd agree with Bryan -- as I normally do -- if that's what Giuliani meant. I contacted his office, who sent me a transcript of the entire question and answer:

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have a question about the former platform in the Republican Party allowed abortion in the case of rape, incest, and life of the mother. I believe in that and I believe that because of the abortion issue in the Republican Party it is dividing this party so badly that we may not be able to elect a Republican president and I hope-I’d like to hear what your thoughts are on that.”

MAYOR GIULIANI: “What my thoughts are on the big question? I can tell you my thoughts on both.”

AUDIENCE MEMBER: “The big question.”

GIULIANI: “On the big question my thoughts are we shouldn’t allow it to do that. Electing a Republican in 2008 is so important to the war on terror, the ability to keep up an economy that’s an economy or growth, or from the point of view of what we believe as Republicans to really set us in the wrong direction. Democrats are entitled to think something different but I think that there will be a major difference in the direction of this country whether we have a Republican or Democrat in 2008 and 2009. On abortion I think we should respect each other. I think that’s what we should do and we should respect the fact that this is a very difficult moral question and a very difficult question and that very good people of equally good conscience could come to different opinions on it. My view of it is I hate abortion. I think abortion is wrong. To someone who I cared about or cared to talk to me about it and wanted my advice, the advice I would give them is not to do it and to have adoption as an option to it. When I was the Mayor adoptions went way up, abortions went down but ultimately I respect that that’s somebody else’s decision and that people of conscience can make that decision either way and you can’t put them in jail for it. (applause) And then I think our party, our party has to get beyond issues like that where we can have people who are very good people who have different views about this, they can all be Republican because our party is going to grow and we’re going to win in 2008 if we’re a party that is characterized for what we are for and not if we’re a party that’s known for what we are against. …”

That isn't quite the same as what the Register described in its headline as "Get past social issues". Giuliani is pro-choice, and he's been very open about that. Of course he will want to play down the differences Republicans have on social issues in favor of national defense and the war on terror. That isn't the same as telling Republican voters to "get over" their values and policy preferences.

Giuliani explained himself clearly enough for the audience member, but apparently not enough for the press. Surprise, surprise.

UPDATE: Bryan has updated his post with the context -- and just to underscore this, I had the same reaction at first when I read the Des Moines Register article.

Breaking: Mass Murder At Virginia Tech (Bumped - Update: 33 Dead)

At least one gunman has killed as many as 20 people at Virginia Tech, according to the BBC:

At least 20 people have been killed and more injured after a gunman went on the rampage at the campus of Virginia Tech university in Virginia, US.

Police say there were two separate shooting incidents - one at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a student dormitory, and Norris Hall, an engineering building.

The incidents were about two hours apart. Police say that the gunman at Norris Hall is dead.

Hot Air says the gunman -- so far it looks like only one -- carried an ammo vest and shot students in classrooms indiscriminately. I'll have more as details become available.

UPDATE: The two shootings were two hours apart. The first occurred in a student dorm where an ID would be required for access. The second occurred in an engineering building.

UPDATE II: The White House presser has started, and of course the first questions are about gun control. Reporters want to know whether gun control would have prevented this. It didn't prevent a sniper from targeting people in Washington DC a couple of years ago, though.

UPDATE III: "The gunman is deceased." No one knows whether he killed himself in Norris Hall, or whether law enforcement officers killed him.

UPDATE IV: Here's a question -- why didn't VT lock the campus down after the first shooting? They apparently only locked it down after the second shooting, according to the student being interviewed now on Fox.

UPDATE V: ABC News says the casualty count has risen to 25 dead, and it may go higher. And regarding gun control, perhaps armed students could have been able to defend themselves -- but that's going to be a debate that will satisfy no one, and is best saved for later.

UPDATE VI: CNN wonders how the gunman made it across campus after the first shooting to attack three hours later. They report that VT did lock the campus down after the first shooting, but then lifted the lockdown -- and that's when the second set of shootings occurred. Bear in mind that these details will almost certainly be incomplete at best, and that information later will likely be better.

UPDATE VII: Now ABC reports 29 confirmed dead at the same link. CNN is questioning the security plan for Virginia Tech, and given that the school had just had a series of bomb threats, it's a question that many will be asking.

UPDATE VIII: Via Instapundit, we find out that VT was a gun-free zone. A bill that would have allowed students and faculty to carry weapons failed in the Virginia Assembly.

UPDATE IX: Now it's 32 dead. More can be found at Planet Blacksburg. (h/t CQ reader Hugho)

UPDATE X: President Bush will speak in a few minutes. ABC News says the number of dead has been confirmed at 29, slightly better news than before. They also report that there was only one gunman and he was wearing a bulletproof vest.

UPDATE XI: CNN expert: "Why are these cops [in the student video] standing around? ... They get their ass in the building in order to stop this thing. ... We need to have these guys inside that building and finding that threat. ... Society has really put a clamp on their ability to be aggressive." That sound pretty harsh, especially based on one cell-phone video.

UPDATE XII: 33 confirmed deaths overall, including the gunman. He had no ID, but they're still working on finding out who he is. The earlier incident in the Ambler Johnston dorm was "domestic in nature", which tends to confirm some of the rumors about a love triangle prompting the shooting.

UPDATE XIII: The police chief and the university president will not state whether the two shootings are related. Also, some of the Norris Hall doors apparently were chained from the inside, which the chief described as "unusual". The shooter may have prepped the building to keep people from getting out of or into the building.

Duncan Hunter On CQ Radio Today

Duncan Hunter will be my guest on the first installment of the daily CQ Radio show today. The Congressman and presidential hopeful will appear between 2 - 2:30 pm Central Time to discuss his candidacy, national security, and his vision for America. Hunter's candidacy has flown under the media radar thus far, and we'll ask him how he plans to make a move on the frontrunners during 2007.

In the second half, Fausta joins us to talk about her own Blog Talk Radio show. She's talking immigration and more on her show, live at 11 am CT.

The best part of Blog Talk Radio is that you can join the conversation -- live! Call me at 646-652-4889 to talk with Congressman Hunter, Fausta, or me during the show.

UPDATE AND BUMP: I forgot to link to Hunter's website; I fixed that now. And here's the Congressman posing with the talented and beautiful Fausta, taken at CPAC:

McCain Tackles The Tax Code

John McCain, looking for some conservative mojo to break out of an early slump on the stump, will outline his plan to overhaul the federal tax code at a speech today in Memphis. Speaking in the heart of what may soon become Fred Territory, McCain will pledge to end the "Byzantine" tax laws that have created an entire industry out of determining how to pay Uncle Sam:

In a major economic policy speech today, Senator McCain will pledge to fix what he calls an "incomprehensible" and "Byzantine" federal tax code, casting himself as the candidate who will fight for changes that others have failed to achieve.

The speech to the Economic Club of Memphis is the second in a series of substantive addresses Mr. McCain is delivering in an effort to revive an ailing campaign and recapture the sharp-tongued candor that won him support in his first presidential bid eight years ago.

"It won't be easy to fix a Byzantine code that has been decades in the making. But I don't want the office for the sake of the nice house, the big plane, and the car and driver," Mr. McCain plans to say, according to an excerpt of his remarks provided to The New York Sun. "I want to fix the hardest problems, and I'll fight to make the tax code simpler, fairer, flatter, more pro-growth and pro-jobs."

The tax code gets plenty of grief from conservatives and libertarians. Its extensive series of penalties and benefits comes from the efforts of Congress to mold the income tax into a weapon for politicians to use against opponents and on behalf of allies. Instead of a simple system where every taxpayer can pay the government a rational portion of one's earnings, the current system is so complex that all but the most unburdened taxpayer has to pay for outside help, personal or technological, to comply with the law.

It's a good topic for McCain. He has long been a proponent of fiscal discipline, and this flows naturally from his activism on pork and other spending issues. It also will soothe some bruised feelings over McCain's lack of support for the Bush tax cuts when they first came to Congress. Depending on how far McCain goes in his proposals, it could help blunt the addition of Steve Forbes to Rudy Giuliani's campaign.

Will it be enough? It's a start, and it hits on a powerful issue for conservatives. It can't hurt.

Sadr Plays His Last Political Card

Moqtada al-Sadr has played his final political card in Iraq by withdrawing his ministers from the Cabinet of Nouri al-Maliki. The move puts pressure on Maliki to find other factions to support his majority, and so far, Maliki has refused to buckle to demands for a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops:

The head of Moqtada Sadr's Iraqi parliament bloc says the radical cleric has ordered his ministers to withdraw from the cabinet.

Mr Sadr's bloc, which has six cabinet ministers, is trying to press Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to set a timetable for a US troop withdrawal.

Mr Maliki has refused, saying a pullout depends on conditions on the ground.

Analysts say Mr Sadr holds great power among Iraq's Shia majority, but the unity government is likely to survive.

If Maliki survives the withdrawal of Sadr's support, Sadr is finished politically. He drew only middling crowds in Najaf for his exhortation for the removal of American troops -- about 15,000 in what should be his power base. His failure to appear at the rally, or indeed in Iraq for the past three months, has apparently eroded his influence both among Shi'ites and on the government. A failure to bring down Maliki will marginalize his extremism and strengthen Maliki among moderates.

Sadr still can cause problems with his Mahdi Army, but even that seems to be less of a threat than before. The US/Iraqi surge strategy has pushed them out of their neighborhood strongholds, and the momentum has shifted to the US. The bigger issue for American troops is the Sunni insurgencies, and a weakened Sadr might mitigate all but the al-Qaeda in Iraq form of terrorism. AQI has even the other Ba'athist-remnant groups at odds, and if the Iraqi government moves away from Sadr and the Mahdis, they may be more likely to cut deals to end the fighting.

Or, Sadr could prevail. He has a nasty habit of returning from the almost-dead -- a habit enabled by Iraqi and American policies to engage him politically. It looks like Sadr is on the run now, and hopefully this time the US and Maliki governments have the good sense to keep him that way.

The End Result Of Multiculturalism

Katherine Kersten follows up today on her column last week regarding the installation of foot-washing basins for Muslims at Minneapolis Community Technical College. Kersten digs deeper into the process by which MCTC will modify its facilities to accommodate the requirements of a specific religion, and discovers the less-than-tolerant agenda of the group advising them (via Power Line):

But I also discovered something more important for colleges seeking guidance on "accommodations": Projects like MCTC's are likely to be the first step in a long process.

The task force's eventual objectives on American campuses include the following, according to the website: permanent Muslim prayer spaces, ritual washing facilities, separate food and housing for Muslim students, separate hours at athletic facilities for Muslim women, paid imams or religious counselors, and campus observance of Muslim holidays. The task force is already hailing "pioneering" successes. At Syracuse University in New York, for example, "Eid al Fitr is now an official university holiday," says an article featured on the website. "The entire university campus shuts down to mark the end of Ramadan." At Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., "halal" food -- ritually slaughtered and permissible under Islamic law -- is marked by green stickers in the cafeteria and "staff are well-trained in handling practices."

At Georgetown University, Muslim women can live apart in housing that enables them to "sleep in an Islamic setting," as the website puts it. According to a student at the time the policy was adopted, the university housing office initially opposed the idea, on grounds that all freshman should have the experience of "living in dorms and dealing with different kinds of people." That might sound appealing, Muslim students told a reporter in an article featured on the website. But in their view, the reporter wrote, "learning to live with 'different kinds of people' " actually "causes more harm than good" for Muslims, because it requires them to live in an environment that "distracts them from their desire to become better Muslims, and even draw[s] weaker Muslims away from Islam."

In other words, what we will get from this process of multiculturalism is precisely the kind of "separate but equal" facilities struck down by the Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education in 1954. These Muslim activists want to create a separate society within the United States for Muslims, and they want the US to provide them the facilities with which to create it. Separate dorms, separate cafeterias, Muslim-only physical-education classes -- they want a separate Muslim college at MCTC and everywhere else. It's self-initiated apartheid.

Forty years ago and more, we had segregationists insisting that different peoples could not live within the same area without dividing lines. They used the same excuses as multiculturalists do today, too; each culture feels more secure when they can exclude others. We heard it from white supremacists and from black separatists -- and we proved them wrong. We made sure that people knew America stood for peaceful integration and not for Balkanization, even for what seemed to be good reasons to some.

Now we have Muslims who want to reopen the argument in order to create a closed society for themselves within the US. We have no problem with Muslims who integrate into our society and become Americans in deed as well as in name. If Muslims want to open their own universities to ensure the proper exercise of their religion, well, that works too. But if Muslims want us to recreate the French banlieus and an homage to Jim Crow so they can get even more insular than they already are here in the US, then we need to put our foot down -- washed or unwashed -- and say, "Enough!"

We do not need religious apartheid at MCTC or any other public university or facility. If devout Muslims do not want to integrate into American society, then they need to find another place to live. Period.

Hillary Losing Donors To Obama

Hillary Clinton and her supporters had thought that the 2008 primary race would be nothing less than a coronation march, as the supporters of her husband all came together to return the White House keys to the Clinton family. It turned into a dogfight instead, and some of her husband's former colleagues have decided to back another dog in the fight. Barack Obama has managed to convince some of Bill's big fundraisers to support his candidacy over that of the former First Lady:

As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks to reassemble the Democratic money machine her husband built, some of its major fund-raisers have already signed on with Senator Barack Obama.

Among the biggest fund-raisers for Mr. Obama’s campaign are as many as a half-dozen former guests of the Clinton White House. At least two are close enough to the Clintons to have slept in the Lincoln bedroom.

At minimum, a dozen were major fund-raisers for President Bill Clinton. At least four worked in the administration and one, James Rubin, is a son of a former Clinton Treasury Secretary, Robert E. Rubin. About two dozen of the top Obama fund-raisers have contributed to Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaigns or political action committee, some as recently as a few months ago.

A list of Mr. Obama’s top fund-raisers released Sunday showed the extent to which the Democratic Party establishment, once presumed to back Mrs. Clinton, has become more fragmented and drifted into her rival’s camp, lending the early stages of the Democratic primary campaign the feeling of a family feud. Some of the movement would have been inevitable given Mr. Clinton’s former dominance of the party.

Why have so many former backers slipped away from the latest effort to elect a Clinton to the presidency? The short answer is that Hillary is no Bill. She does not translate well to the stump, something that many people noticed about her during her run for the Senate. While at times she can be warm and humorous, most often she exhibits almost none of the charm that her husband made famous.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, exudes charm and a gravitas that hides a rather callow CV. He has all of two years in national elective office, and has no depth on policy questions. Obama makes Hillary look experienced, and yet significant figures in Democratic fundraising have migrated to his campaign.

What does that mean for both candidates? It means that the powers of the party have started to realize that Hillary isn't inevitable. Her negatives still have not receded, and the likelihood of her winning a general election depend greatly on the Republicans nominating a stiff. She isn't inevitable even in the primary any more, and the donors have started looking for a better option -- one that they can mold into whatever they need to win it all. Obama, withi his skimpy track record, fits the bill far better than Hillary.

It shows in the donor lists, too. Much was made about Obama's impressive donor lists, which ran over 100,000 names, and his $25 million haul was seen as a triumph of grassroots activism. Reality is somewhat less glowing. Almost half of Obama's Q1 donations came from 4,800 donors who gave the maximum $2300 for the primaries. Hillary got 5,100 maximum contributions, in comparison, and almost 3,000 of those gave the maximum for her general-election fund as well. Almost every dollar Obama got was for the primaries.

Watch the money. If the donors keep shifting towards Obama, Hillary may find her return to the White House canceled due to lack of interest.

Prayers For WFB And The Anchoress

Patricia Taylor Buckley, the beloved wife of conservative godfather William F Buckley and mother of novelist Christopher Buckley (Thank You For Smoking), has passed away this weekend. National Review's The Corner has a number of touching tributes in remembrance. Bob Leibowitz, who knew Mrs. Buckley for many years, writes his personal recollections of the "den mother of the conservative movement". Our prayers go to the two Mr. Buckleys and all of their family and friends.

While you say your prayers for the Buckleys, spare a few for The Anchoress as well. My friend is struggling with a chronic illness that has incapacitated her to varying degrees, and right now she is too ill to write. I know she'll deny this, but she's one of the gentlest souls in the blogosphere. When politics got too nasty for her, she consoled herself and all of the rest of us with beautiful Catholic apologetics and essays. She's too much of a treasure for us to wait long for her next blogpost, so let's all pray that she heals quickly and feels strong enough to tackle life -- and treat us to another excellent essay. Leave her a message at her blog and let her know she's in your thoughts and prayers.

Such A Tease!

The Republicans' dream candidate gave yet a further hint yesterday that he will run for the presidential nomination for the 2008 ticket. Was it Newt Gingrich? Perhaps Fred Thompson got spotted having lunch with Mitch McConnell? Did Jeb Bush change his last name to Reagan? No -- this is even better than that (via Memeorandum):

Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) reopened the door to a possible 2008 presidential campaign during a book signing in Denver and then again, in an interview with 9NEWS.

The 2004 Democratic nominee told a crowd of more than 250 at the Tattered Cover bookstore in lower downtown Denver that he had no desire to endorse any candidate for the office right now, choosing to wait to see how they addressed the issue of global warming. ...

Afterwards, while answering a question from a viewer on the program YOUR SHOW about why he chose not to run, Kerry said he had decided it wasn't the right time.

"Could that change?" Kerry said. "It might. It may change over years. It may change over months. I can't tell you, but I've said very clearly I don't consider myself out of it forever."

Of course, we shouldn't get too excited over this prospect. Even Democrats saw that Kerry is the world's worst candidate on the campaign trail. They're not going to nominate him again, even out of desperation.

Kerry believes that he has rehabilitated himself with his apparent victory in the debate against Newt Gingrich over global warming, and that he can rebuild his presidential aspirations on that issue. However, it's safe to say that Al Gore owns that issue among presidential contenders, and if the Democrats draft anyone because of it, Al Gore would get the call. Neither man campaigns very well, but while Gore can be wooden at times, Kerry is pompous and almost always manages to say the wrong thing. Besides, there's still the matter of leaving $15 million in the bank against a very vulnerable George Bush in 2004, rather than spend it on a last-minute push to beat him.

So while Republicans can dream about facing Kerry again in the general election, it is more fantasy than probability. Hearts are breaking across red-state America, I am sure.

I Joined Blog Talk Radio Just In Time ...

... if the Democrats succeed in scaring people into re-enacting the Fairness Doctrine. According to Adam Thirer in City Journal, the Left believes that Blog Talk Radio might be part of the problem, however. Despite the explosion of communications outlets and choices for the consumer over the last twenty years since the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, Chicken Little on the Left continue their hysteria over media consolidation -- and their solutions will do far more damage to free speech than anything they decry (via Michelle Malkin):

Throughout most of history, humans lived in a state of extreme information poverty. News traveled slowly, field to field, village to village. Even with the printing press’s advent, information spread at a snail’s pace. Few knew how to find printed materials, assuming that they even knew how to read. Today, by contrast, we live in a world of unprecedented media abundance that once would have been the stuff of science-fiction novels. We can increasingly obtain and consume whatever media we want, wherever and whenever we want: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the bewildering variety of material available on the Internet.

This media cornucopia is a wonderful development for a free society—or so you’d think. But today’s media universe has fierce detractors, and nowhere more vehemently than on the left. Their criticisms seem contradictory. Some, such as Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich, contend that real media choices, information sources included, remain scarce, hindering citizens from fully participating in a deliberative democracy. Others argue that we have too many media choices, making it hard to share common thoughts or feelings; democracy, community itself, again loses out. Both liberal views get the story disastrously wrong. If either prevails, what’s shaping up to be America’s Golden Age of media could be over soon. ...

Scarcity-obsessed Dennis Kucinich has recently introduced plans in Congress to revive the Fairness Doctrine, which once let government regulators police the airwaves to ensure a balancing of viewpoints, however that’s defined. A new Fairness Doctrine would affect most directly opinion-based talk radio, a medium that just happens to be dominated by conservatives. If a station wanted to run William Bennett’s show under such a regime, they might now have to broadcast wa left-wing alternative, too, even if it had poor ratings, which generally has been the case with liberal talk. Sunstein also proposes a kind of speech redistributionism. For the Internet, he suggests that regulators could impose “electronic sidewalks” on partisan websites (the National Rifle Association’s, say), forcing them to link to opposing views. The practical problems of implementing this program would be forbidding, even if it somehow proved constitutional. How many links to opposing views would secure the government’s approval? The FCC would need an army of media regulators (much as China has today) to monitor the millions of webpages, blogs, and social-networking sites and keep them in line.

It wasn't that long ago that Democrats extolled the Information Superhighway. The man who popularized that phrase, Al Gore, took credit for creating the Internet and its beneficial streams of information at the fingertips of ordinary Americans. It didn't take long before they discovered that democratizing information would unleash the electorate -- and they apparently fear that shift in information control.

Not many remember the era of the Fairness Doctrine, but I certainly do. It produced multiple flavors of vanilla on public airwaves, with hosts like Michael Jackson (not the singer -- trust me) insisting that they were non-partisan and apolitical. (As soon as the FCC lifted the Fairness Doctrine, Jackson declared himself a liberal -- and his show didn't change a bit.) We got call-in psychologists and funny DJs like Mark and Brian, and offensive ones like Howard Stern. What we didn't get was open political debate, because the headaches of monitoring who got what airtime for what purpose made it almost impossible to manage.

Ending the Fairness Doctrine and relying on the market to manage the message allowed AM radio to rise from the dead. It took an increasingly abandoned medium and revived it with another product, and consumers rewarded those whose products they preferred. Mostly, those talk shows were conservative, and why? The public perceived that the mainstream media presented enough opportunity for the liberal perspective to get air time. Even to this day, liberal talk radio struggles to gain an audience, with a few notable exceptions like Ed Schultz.

Now, with the multiplicity of media channels available, a Fairness Doctrine makes even less sense. With blogs, podcasts, and all sorts of options for all perspectives to publish their perspective, the last thing any of us need is the government replacing the market for political speech. Re-regulation of the airwaves will kill political talk radio -- and while that might please those who cannot compete in the marketplace, it still sets a dangerous precedent for government intervention in political speech.

Even if one buys the argument that government should control the content for those using the public airwaves, the Left wants to push regulation further than that. Cass Sunstein wants to force websites to have "electronic sidewalks" and make proprietors link to sites with which they disagree. Why? Are people on the Left (or Right) too stupid to Google? Do they fear that someone will only look at the NRA's site and figure that no one else has a contrary opinion? Do we need to have government oversight to address the problems of the few idiots who can't find their way around the Internet?

In fact, the hard Left appears to think that most Americans are too stupid to think for themselves. It permeates every policy they support, and this is no exception.

The Left has indulged its hysteria about conservative media for far too long. The paranoids have begun to run the asylum. All I can say is that -- as a non-broadcast medium -- Blog Talk Radio will avoid at least the first round of regulation. Glad I'm starting my new job now.

Saudis Still Support Arab League Boycott

Despite a promise to end the boycott of Israel as a condition of entry into the World Trade Organization, the Saudis have continued to enforce the boycott. The US continues to press the Saudis, but Israeli-made goods cannot enter the kingdom:

Despite a promise made to Washington nearly 18 months ago to drop its trade embargo against Israel, Saudi Arabia continues to enforce the Arab League boycott, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

In November 2005, Riyadh pledged to abandon the boycott after Washington conditioned Saudi Arabia's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on such a move. A month later, on December 11, Saudi Arabia was granted WTO membership.

The WTO, which aims to promote free trade, prohibits members from engaging in discriminatory practices such as boycotts or embargoes.

Nonetheless, the Post has found, Saudi officials continue to bar entry to products manufactured in Israel or to foreign-made goods containing Israeli components.

The Saudis have backed away from embargoing products made outside of Israel by companies that do business there. Those goods had also been denied entry into Saudi Arabia and most other Arab nations as part of their economic pressure on Israel, but the agreement with the US forced the Saudis to change. They still refuse to abide by the agreements with both the US and WTO on Israeli-made goods, and it doesn't look like they're going to change any time soon.

In fact, the Saudis took the lead in attempting to intensify the boycott in March 2006, just three months after their admission to the WTO. They hosted a conference of the Arab League designed to shore up the boycott. Two months later, they sent a delegation to the League's boycott office to help coordinate the economic sanctions on Israel.

The WTO stands for free trade, and if the Saudis don't want to participate, then they should not reap the benefits of membership. The Bush administration undoubtedly prefers not to start a fight with the Saudis over Israel at the moment, but at some point, we need to make it clear that we do not like it when our trade partners renege on their agreements.

Yulia Warns Putin: Hands Off Ukraine

In the midst of the turmoil caused by the collapse of the Ukraine government, one of the firebrands of Ukrainian independence has a message for Moscow: hands off. Yulia Tymoshenko, the woman whose physical attraction and passion for self-determination made her the toast of free peoples everywhere two years ago, appears ready to re-align her party with that of Viktor Yushchenko in order to defeat the pro-Russian forces of former president Viktor Yanukovich, but this time she'll be in charge:

Ukraine's opposition leader has vowed to end Russia's influence over her country once and for all.

Yulia Tymoshenko may soon be able to act on her promise if she becomes prime minister once more after elections scheduled for next month.

Mrs Tymoshenko, named the world's third most powerful woman by Forbes magazine, is perhaps the one politician to have emerged stronger from Ukraine's latest political crisis, sparked by a presidential order to dissolve parliament earlier this month. The Kremlin will be quivering at the prospect of Mrs Tymoshenko being granted a fresh mandate.

I'm not sure if "quiver" is the right word, but Vladimir Putin will not be happy with this turn of events. He has worked with Yanukovich to re-establish Russian influence in Ukraine. Putin undermined Ukraine's economy with sharp increases in energy prices, the cost of Yushchenko's election and pro-Western policies. Yanukovich, whose fraudulent election in December 2004 touched off the Orange Revolution, had forced his way back to the position of Prime Minister under Yushchenko when Yanukovich rallied the pro-Russian eastern provinces to his side.

Putin's work looks about to come undone. The Orange coalition split badly two years ago, when Tymoshenko and Yushchenko parted acrimoniously over policy. If the two put the coalition back together again, they have enough power to force Yanukovich back into a weak opposition position, out of power and unable to stop the reformers. Tymoshenko this time will insist on having real power and the ability to force Ukraine even further out of the Russian orbit, and this time Yushchenko will not be able to stop her.

She also has to fight the clan structure of Ukraine's political scene. Ukraine has long been run by clans, and those clans have a great deal of sympathy for Russia. Tymoshenko calls Yanukovich a "double marionette," run by the Kremlin and by the clans, and called his Party of the Regions a "vast corporation" that runs Ukraine as a subsidiary. She has it mostly correct, and it will make it difficult for her to prevail against Yanukovich -- as Yushchenko found out. They're still pulling strings; if Yulia can cut them, she could bring Ukraine into Europe and isolate the autocracy of Vladimir Putin even further.

The New Gig

I've decided to get a head start on the new job, which officially starts tomorrow, at Blog Talk Radio. I've posted for the first time at the BTR blog, talking about the opportunities ahead for both myself and BTR:

As much as blogging represented that opportunity for writers four years ago, I believe Blog Talk Radio holds out even more opportunities for writers and talkers now. We have just begun operations eight months ago, and already we have a wide variety of shows for listeners to enjoy — and not just in politics. We expand our reach every day into new topics and new issues, and we see no limit.

Blog Talk Radio gives everyone a microphone, and more importantly, a solid technical platform that alllows for immediate dialog. Instead of posting an essay and waiting for comments and e-mails, New Media people can interact directly with those who agree or disagree — and the debate will be both entertaining and instructive for all. It democratizes the talk-show medium just as blogging democratized the print media. And as an added bonus, Blog Talk Radio will soon bring advertisers and an opportunity for hosts to share in the revenue.

Come on — who wouldn’t get excited by that?

I will be posting at the BTR blog and at a new group blog for conservative talk-show hosts at BTR called Heading Right as part of the new job. I'll also be posting more here, too, than ever before. Keep checking all three in the coming weeks and months!

Denying 'Hot Pursuit' In Waziristan

Pervez Musharraf has unequivocally stated that Pakistan will not allow US forces to operate in Pakistani territory, not in joint patrols or for any other reason. This conflicts with the more blunt assertion from the US, which noted that American forces will follow retreating Taliban and al-Qaeda forces across the Afghanistan border in "hot pursuit" cases (via TMV):

President General Pervez Musharraf has rejected "absolutely and totally" the prospect of a joint US-Pakistan military operation to pursue retreating insurgents inside Pakistan.

"The whole population of Pakistan will rise against it," he told CBS news channel in an interview.

Musharraf hit out at his Afghan counterpart, saying he was "very angry" at criticism of Pakistani progress in fighting cross-border terrorism.

Karzai's reasons for anger at Musharraf seem readily apparent; he wants Pakistan to do more in fighting the terrorists that hide in Pakistan and attack in Afghanistan. Musharraf's anger comes from an accusation that Mullah Omar hides in Pakistan, presumably with the cooperation of Pakistan's intel service, the ISI. While everyone believes that Omar and Osama bin Laden have taken refuge in Pakistan's mountainous border region, the accusation that Pakistan is actively assisting them has less foundation, at least in evidence.

However, the story here is that Musharraf has pushed back against the Bush administration on hot pursuit. The White House had been taken aback by Musharraf's deals with the tribes in Waziristan and see it as a retreat on Pakistan's part. Musharraf has pointed to the deaths of 300 Uzbeks in Wana as proof that he remains committed to fighting al-Qaeda, but he aligned himself with Taliban senior commanders to do it -- and the fight between the Uzbeks and the Pashtuns has almost everything to do with tribal politics and almost nothing to do with al-Qaeda.

If we intend to beat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in that region, we will have to conduct hot-pursuit attacks on retreating forces, and we will also have to conduct attacks on their bases if the Pakistanis won't do it themselves. If we can keep it quiet, we could do it without enraging the rest of the Pakistani nation; after all, Waziristan is a remote area with isolated tribes. Discretion here may be better than public pronouncements of our intent. A little denial may not be a bad prescription for success.

Pushback Against Putin?

A funny thing happened on the way to the Tsar-ship. It looks like Vladimir Putin's supposedly enormous popularity in Russia has not kept him from developing a vocal opposition to his increasingly autocratic rule. Yesterday, thousands of Russians rallied against Putin's rule, and police arrested former chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov for his role in leading the demonstration:

There were pensioners clutching single roses, students wearing jeans and a young man weaving through Moscow's anarchic traffic on a chopper bike.

Ranged against them were 9,000 riot police wielding truncheons and the might of the Russian state. And yet for one moment yesterday the demonstrators got the better of their opponents. After surging down the Boulevard Ring, the protesters began a defiant chant: 'Russia without Putin: Russia without Putin.' The sun burst on to a freezing Moscow morning. There was, it seemed, a whiff of revolution in the air.

'We don't agree, we don't agree,' the protesters chanted, waving flags and blocking the boulevard. 'This is our city', 'Revolution', 'Down with KGB informers'. A man held up a placard: 'I don't believe in Putin.' Others called for Russia's President to resign and go skiing.

After seven years in which he has restored Kremlin control over most areas of Russian life with scarcely a murmur of protest, Vladimir Putin was yesterday confronted with a genuine popular revolt. About 2,000 opposition demonstrators gathered in Pushkin Square, defying an official ban on their meeting and threats of arrest. It was the largest-ever anti-Putin rally in the Russian capital.

The man who was supposed to lead it, Garry Kasparov - Russia's former world chess champion - was detained as soon as he emerged from his taxi. Driven off to a Moscow court in a police van, he emerged defiant, during a break in proceedings, to tell about a dozen supporters that in its response to the protest 'the régime showed its true colours'. He was later fined 1,000 roubles - the equivalent of about £20 - and freed.

Perhaps at some point, if Kasparov succeeds in his efforts to restore democracy and the rule of law in Russia, they will call this the Rose Revolution. Those are the stakes, as Putin tries to finagle his way into an indeterminate term of rule by having his proxies in the Duma amend the constitution for those purposes. His police have arrested anyone who attempts to push back against the slow but certain efforts to return Russia to strongman rule.

Kasparov did not get lonely on the way to jail. Several dozen protestors also got arrested for demonstrating without a permit. Authorities in Moscow refused to give one on the basis that a pro-Putin children's group had booked the square for their own demonstration in favor of the government. One member of the Duma professed astonishment at the crackdown by city police, calling it "anti-constitutional", and an elderly woman said that she had not seen anything similar to this police response even during the Soviet era.

Why such a harsh reaction? The Kremlin has become paranoid about the popular uprisings in Ukraine and in Georgia. They see some vulnerability to the same kind of pro-democracy, pro-Western impulse among Russians, while at the same time working against the radical Islamist impulses in the Caucasus. Instead of allowing normal opposition to express itself in a free and democratic society, the Putin regime has systematically stripped their political environment of any means of rational opposition -- and so they have to arrest everyone who speaks out against their rule.

This heavy-handed response will not go unnoticed. Putin has put himself in an all-or-nothing position, and he will find out shortly whether that gamble worked.

Celebrating #42

George Will has few peers in politics and in baseball politics, and he proves it yet again today in his look at the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. For those confused by the Don Imus kerfuffle, here's what real prejudice and hatred looked like:

To appreciate how far the nation has come, propelled by what began 60 years ago today, consider not the invectives that Robinson heard from opponents' dugouts and fans but the way he had been praised. "Dusky Jack Robinson," as the Los Angeles Times called him, alerting readers to the race of UCLA's four-sport star, ran with a football "like it was a watermelon and the guy who owned it was after him with a shotgun."

And that was from Robinson's allies in the media. Will continues:

Eig is especially informative about the dynamics among the Dodgers, who, like many teams, had a Southern tinge. The most popular player was nicknamed Dixie (Walker) and one of the best pitchers was the grandson of a Confederate soldier. The Dodgers' radio broadcaster, Red Barber, a Mississippian, considered resigning, then thought better. Radio presented Robinson as television cameras could not have -- as, Eig shrewdly writes, "all action," undifferentiated by visual differences from his teammates.

After the opening two games against the Boston Braves, the Dodgers played the Giants at the Polo Grounds in Harlem. The president of the National League, fearing excessive enthusiasm, suggested that Robinson should develop a sprained ankle. He did not, and the crowds were large, dressed as if for church -- men in suits and hats, women in dresses -- and decorous. Soon a commentator wrote, "Like plastics and penicillin, it seems like Jackie is here to stay."

It's hard to imagine the surprise felt by commentators when a crowd of African-Americans behaved themselves in a ballpark on opening day. What did they expect? A riot? Instead, these commentators saw a people long oppressed standing in line to see a small measure of justice on the playing field -- far from their full due, but a promise that equality would not be long in coming. It would take longer than many expected, though. Not until seventeen years had passed would the US act to guarantee voting rights for the descendants of slaves and to start rolling back the Jim Crow laws that had kept them as second-class citizens since the Civil War.

Jackie, and Branch Rickey, redeemed the national pastime sixty years ago today. It took years before the redemption became complete, as owners resisted hiring black ballplayers; the Red Sox would wait several years before finally integrating, and it took more before teams dropped the notion of rationing spots on the roster to blacks to maintain some artificial racial balance. Nevertheless, today we celebrate the man who had the courage to make himself a target and step onto fields where he confronted hatred, fear, and abuse -- and in the end triumphed over all of them.

Be sure to read all of Will's excellent column.

Hillary's Conundrum

Hillary Clinton has had a difficult conundrum facing her ever since the beginning of her presidential campaign. Her vote to authorize the use of force against Iraq and Saddam Hussein in October 2002 has the anti-war base revved up to defeat her in favor of a more capitulationist candidate like Barack Obama or John Edwards. She has tried to alternately defend the vote and claim that she was misled as a defense against the activists within her own party. Last night. however, she ran into someone who refused to buy what she's been selling (via Instapundit):

After fielding many questions ranging from mental health care to veteran affairs at a Town Hall Meeting in Hampton, NH, Senator Hillary Clinton received a heated question about Iraq. A woman who had traveled from New York asked Sen. Clinton if she had read the report given to her in 2002 on intelligence and the Iraq war.

Clinton said she had been briefed on the report, and the woman screamed back, "Did you read it?!" Notably uncomfortable, the Senator repeated that she had been briefed. This exchange went back and forth about three times.

The woman sat down and Clinton explained, "If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority." Clinton also said she believed she was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq.

In most cases, legislators do not read through the text of bills on which they vote. They hire staffers to research the bills and to give them advice on the meaning of the material. Many of the lazier ones simply defer their judgment to the leadership of their party. For the most part, this makes a great deal of sense, as it would be difficult to keep up with all of the paperwork that Capitol Hill creates, in legislative sessions, committees, subcommittees, and so on.

However, on a straight up-or-down vote on whether to go to war, one would hope that Senators and Representatives would find it interesting enough to get personally involved. And Hillary's explanation here doesn't even pass the laugh test. She claims that she believed the bill to authorize only the return of inspectors to Iraq. Well, perhaps the title of the bill could have given her a clue: "A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq." The text seems equally clear:

The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

Now Hillary defends herself by saying that she never read the bill and, despite the wide coverage of the issue in the press, never knew it would allow Bush to use force against Iraq.

Not even Hillary's defenders can buy that, and it's certainly not convincing anyone else. If she can't figure out the meaning of the plain text of a bill whose title includes "authorize the use of United States Armed Forces", then why should anyone consider her bright enough to run the country? If she's so disinterested in the use of those armed forces that she didn't take the two minutes necessary to read through the brief text of HJ 114, why should anyone put her in the Constitutional role of Commander-in-Chief?

The comments at ABC's Political Radar speak volumes:

Yet another example of the Clinton's inability to answer a direct question...what is "is", etc. Why can't these people answer a direct question? ...

If she thought she was just voting to send inspectors into Iraq, she's far too stupid to be worth my vote. ...

That is like saying but I READ THE FRONT PAGE OF THE CAR MANUAL...it didn't say anything about engines. ...

Mrs. Clinton stated she "was briefed" on the vote. Which would imply she did not read the bill herself. OK. President Bush was briefed on the WMD issue. ...

She voted for War. She thought it would be a cakewalk and she would be percieved as strong. She was wrong.

Hillary is not convincing anyone with this little pas de duh, and what's worse, she's playing into the hands of the activist base by accepting their assumptions about a war she voted to authorize. A straight apology might have worked in the beginning, but it won't at this point. Either she needs to defend the vote honestly, or she needs to flip-flop -- and neither will help her much at this point.

Thompson On Taxes

Fred Thompson appeared on the pages of the Wall Street Journal yesterday to assess tax policy and its impact on the American economy. To no one's great surprise, Thompson favors tax cuts to incentivize capital investment -- and to no one's great surprise, he articulates that vision very, very well:

The results of the experiment that began when Congress passed a series of tax-rate cuts in 2001 and 2003 are in. Supporters of those cuts said they would stimulate the economy. Opponents predicted ever-increasing budget deficits and national bankruptcy unless tax rates were increased, especially on the wealthy.

In fact, Treasury statistics show that tax revenues have soared and the budget deficit has been shrinking faster than even the optimists projected. Since the first tax cuts were passed, when I was in the Senate, the budget deficit has been cut in half.

Remarkably, this has happened despite the financial trauma of 9/11 and the cost of the War on Terror. The deficit, compared to the entire economy, is well below the average for the last 35 years and, at this rate, the budget will be in surplus by 2010. ...

The richest 1% of Americans now pays 35% of all income taxes. The top 10% pay more taxes than the bottom 60%.

The reason for this outcome is that, because of lower rates, money is being invested in our economy instead of being sheltered from the taxman. Greater investment has created overall economic strength. Job growth is robust, overcoming trouble in the housing sector; and the personal incomes of Americans at every income level are higher than they've ever been.

Thompson doesn't mention that we could have been heading towards surplus sooner if Republicans hadn't spent like drunken sailors for the past six years, mostly without Thompson's participation. He does mention that politicians now want to rescind the tax cuts to fund "pet projects", but doesn't note that his former colleagues did plenty of that between 2002-6 themselves. Discretionary, non-defense and non-entitlement spending went up by 29% during the first five years of the Bush presidency.

It's not enough to lower taxes; Republicans need to stop the spending spree as well. It's great that federal revenues have increased through economic growth rather than increased confiscation, but so far we have seen Congress increase spending as a result in attempts to ensure the re-election of individuals. Thompson alludes to that in his article by noting the pending debacle of Baby Boomer entitlements, but he needs to complete the circle on fiscal discipline.

At the end, he postulates that "we need to maintain economic growth and healthy tax revenues. That is why we need to reject taxes that punish rather than reward success." He's absolutely right about that and his follow-on point about redistribution of wealth as a poor goal for tax policy, but he misses one point. In a free society, it is not the government's role to redistribute wealth among its citizens. A free government should raise taxes to fund its Constitutional and statutory responsibilities, not to fund the Charles Rangel Center for Public Service and other pork-barrel nonsense. The collection of taxes for those purposes make us less free and more the subjects of an autocratic class of incumbents who use our money to perpetuate their power. Reducing taxes reduces their ability to warp the electoral processes for their purposes.

Thompson has the right idea, and he's ahead of the pack in explaining why tax increases hurt the economy. I'd like to see at least one of the Republican candidates explain why they damage our freedom and perpetuate the ruling class in Washington. The first candidate to do so effectively will probably find themselves at the head of that pack.

Practice Run

With his Congressional testimony just two days away, Alberto Gonzales has opted for a practice run in today's Washington Post. The beleaguered Attorney General pleads his case directly to the American public. He categorically states that he would never ask for a resignation of federal prosecutors for malign purposes, but afterwards the case gets somewhat weaker:

My decision some months ago to privately seek the resignations of a small number of U.S. attorneys has erupted into a public firestorm. First and foremost, I appreciate the public service of these fine lawyers and dedicated professionals, each of whom served his or her full four-year term as U.S. attorney. I apologize to them, their families and the thousands of dedicated professionals at the Justice Department for my role in allowing this matter to spin into an undignified Washington spectacle.

What began as a well-intentioned management effort to identify where, among the 93 U.S. attorneys, changes in leadership might benefit the department, and therefore the American people, has become an unintended public controversy.

While I accept responsibility for my role in commissioning this management review process, I want to make some fundamental points abundantly clear.

I know that I did not -- and would not -- ask for the resignation of any U.S. attorney for an improper reason. Furthermore, I have no basis to believe that anyone involved in this process sought the removal of a U.S. attorney for an improper reason.

Gonzales has been ridiculed of late for holing himself up in his office and doing almost nothing but preparation for his Congressional testimony. Critics claim that if he tells the truth, he has no reason to rehearse his testimony. I disagree. First, no one expects that Gonzales will be met with professionalism and a detached objectivity when he heads up the Hill. He's going to take a beating, and deservedly so, for the rinky-dink manner in which his office handled the firings, and perhaps less deservedly for the firings themselves. Second, if Gonzales and his crew had done this kind of preparation from the start - like, say, reviewing the documents in their own possession before making contradictory public statements and testimony -- we wouldn't be here now.

That said, we can see the defenses that Gonzales will use. He opens with the statement that all eight prosecutors had served their full terms. That's true, as far as it goes. Traditionally, when a US Attorney gets carried over significantly past the end of their first term, they're considered to be working in a second term. Mid-term firings have few precedents, according to the Congressional Research Service, and almost all of them for specific misconduct.

After that, though, Gonzales does better. He acknowledges his role in fouling up the post-termination process and restates his involvement in the firings:

While I have never sought to deceive Congress or the American people, I also know that I created confusion with some of my recent statements about my role in this matter. To be clear: I directed my then-deputy chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to initiate this process; fully knew that it was occurring; and approved the final recommendations. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number and focused primarily on the review process.

During those conversations, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.

That's a start, and it goes beyond how Justice and Gonzales' apologists have attempted to defend the statements. Both Sampson and Gonzales have been burned in two different document dumps which shows their previous statements to Congress and the public as inaccurate, at the very least. The efforts to play games with definitions of "discussion", "memo", and "list" have not built confidence in the competency and trustworthiness of Gonzales and the DoJ, and have reminded many of the worst habits of the Clinton administration.

Gonzales says he looks forward to getting the facts straight in front of Congress on Tuesday. If he can do that, he may save his job -- but his credibility may be another matter entirely. The Bush administration should consider that after Tuesday's testimony.

UPDATE: Forgot to credit Memeorandum for the link. It's so useful that I sometimes forget to mention it.