The Shame Of Western Journalists

When Salman Rushdie got knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his literary work, it touched off another round of Islamist madness, similar to that seen during the Danish cartoon controversy. Over the past week, Muslims around the world have protested the honor, with Pakistani government officials endorsing assassination attempts against Rushdie, and an Iranian organization confirming that their gangster's contract on Rushdie still has a $150,000 reward.

Oddly, though, Sir Salman's Western comrades in letters issued hardly a peep at the threats aimed at Rushdie. Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times wants to know why free men offer no rebuttal, let alone outrage (via Instapundit):

When news of knighthood spread last weekend, the flames of fanaticism rekindled. An Iranian group offered $150,000 to anyone who would murder the novelist. Effigies of the queen and the writer were burned in riots across Pakistan. That country's religious affairs minister initially said that conferring such an honor on Rushdie justified sending suicide bombers to Britain, then — under pressure — he modified his statement to say it would cause suicide bombers to travel there. Pakistan's national assembly unanimously condemned Rushdie's knighthood and said it reflected "contempt" for Islam and Muhammad. Various high-ranking Iranian clerics called for the writers' death and renewed their insistence that Khomeini's fatwa still is in force. Riots spread to India's Muslim communities.

Friday, the Voice of America reported that Pakistani "lawmakers passed a second resolution calling on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to apologize 'to the Muslim world' " and that, "on Thursday, a hard-line Pakistani cleric awarded terrorist leader Osama bin Laden the religious title and honorific 'saifulla,' or sword of Islam, to protest Britain's decision."

If you're wondering why you haven't been able to follow all the columns and editorials in the American press denouncing all this homicidal nonsense, it's because there haven't been any. And, in that great silence, is a great scandal.

Bloggers didn't hesitate to defend Rushdie. Why have the professional class of pundits shrugged off the affront to free speech and the open exchange of ideas? Rutten has a theory:

Equally to the point, what is the societal cost of silence among those who have not simply the moral obligation but also the ability to speak — like American commentators and editorial writers?

What masquerades as tolerance and cultural sensitivity among many U.S. journalists is really a kind of soft bigotry, an unspoken assumption that Muslim societies will naturally repress great writers and murder honest journalists, and that to insist otherwise is somehow intolerant or insensitive.

Writers are not required to opine on every topic, a point I make to commenters here on occasion. Sometimes one gets so overwhelmed with the amount of news that each day generates that topics get left in the bit bucket, so to speak. It's not possible for each writer to talk about every important story and subject that comes across the feedreader or wire service.

However, when hardly anyone in the commentariat bothered to call out these thugs, that silence spoke volumes. Unfortunately, that silence at least improved on the media's reaction to the prophet cartoon controversy, when pundits and newspapers scolded the Danish journalists for unnecessarily provoking the murderous rage of Muslims through their insensitivity, and then refusing to publish the cartoons themselves so that their readers could see whether the newspapers involved had really been all that insensitive.

It's not often that one looks to South Park for wisdom, but Trey Parker and Matt Stone gave voice to the best of the criticism at that time. They had one of their characters, Mr. Tweak, tell the town that if they buried their heads in the sand about the cartoons (literally, in a hilarious bit), then all they showed was that they believed in free speech -- but wouldn't lift a finger to defend it. Unfortunately, Comedy Channel proved themselves just as guilty when they blacked out Parker and Stone's depiction of Muhammed, but allowed a fecal-shooting Jesus one minute later in the same broadcast.

The silence of the Western media to the hail of threats coming at Rushdie amounts to the same head-burying that Parker and Stone predicted. It shrugs off the widespread lunacy of radical Islam, and pretends that it doesn't matter. Worse, the silence treats it as an expected and therefore acceptable response from governments such as Pakistan and Iran.

That's not just soft bigotry -- it's a prescription for radicalization. These kinds of threats have to be challenged, and not just by a couple of writers here and there. They need to be challenged by those who don't just believe in free speech, but work to defend it as well. Those who make their living through the blessing of free speech should have been in the vanguard, and Rutten rightly castigates them for remaining silent while Sir Salman Rushdie relives the nightmare -- again. Kudos to Tim Rutten for not remaining silent.

A Last Crack At The Sopranos Finale (Update/Bump)

The beauty and horror of HBO is that everything airs repeatedly, especially with the satellite HBO package, which has seven HBO channels. When they air Serenity or Thank You For Smoking, it's a blessing, but pure torture with Date Movie. Over the last few days, I've had a chance to watch the Sopranos finale two or three more times, and I think I understand the ending much more clearly than before.

The key is the very beginning of the diner scene. When Tony first walks into the diner, he sees himself at the booth, and he's dressed differently. He comes in wearing a drab gray shirt under his leather jacket, looking frazzled, but at the booth he's wearing a different shirt [update: same shirt] and looking rather normal and relaxed. That's the setup that tells us what happens in the rest of the scene is a fantasy, lived only in Tony's mind.

What does Tony fantasize about? A normal family life. His son has become well-adjusted. His wife seems happy. But reality begins to intrude; Carmela starts talking about Carlo, and Tony notices the man wearing the Members Only jacket nervously.

The entire series has been about Tony's attempt to fantasize himself as a normal family man. Since the first episode, Tony sought therapy as a means in which to resolve the conflict between his fantasy and his reality. He lived in denial of his true murderous, sociopathic nature for the entire arc of the series, abetted by Dr. Melfi, who actively tried to help him do so. He wanted his belief in his supposed goodness and normality to become his reality.

Instead, in this fantasy, Tony finally realizes that he's deluding himself. David Chase throws in a red herring with Meadow and the parallel parking, but otherwise it's all about Tony's delusion crumbling. His daughter succumbed to his fantasy, giving up a career in medicine to defend people like Tony, whom the FBI supposedly persecute because of their Italian descent. His son now works for him and Little Carmine. His wife openly discusses the one brutal piece of reality that he most wants to forget -- Carlo, the guy who's probably going to put Tony in the joint for the rest of his life.

It's not for nothing that fantasy-Tony plays "Don't Stop Believing" at the jukebox. Tony has held tight to this fantasy of normality for years. It's been the root of his depression and probably of his panic attacks, which started when he began the life; recall that Tony's first faint happened when he was supposed to go do a heist with his cousin Tony Blundetto. His fantasy self is telling him not to end the delusion.

But that's exactly what he does. Tony doesn't get whacked in the final episode; Tony just kills the fantasy. That's what the abrupt ending means, with the song cutting out at "Don't stop --". The delusion is dead -- and Tony finally has to face reality about who he is and what is in store for him. The series' main story arc has come to an end.

And that's an ending that befits the series.

UPDATE: The First Mate had an interesting interpretation of Meadow's parallel parking in the final fantasy sequence. She has been pulling away from the family at times, and at other times, in the same kind of denial as Tony. The back-and-forth of the parallel parking in Tony's mind might reflect her vacillation, but in the end she joins the family fantasy. That might be what brings Tony to end the delusion -- once she rushes into the diner, it abruptly ends.

UPDATE II: CQ commenter Jimboster discovers why I'm such a Sopranos fan -- were James Gandolfini and I separated at birth? Only Vayapaso knows for sure ...

UPDATE III: It could be the same shirt, as commenter mscala believes I've watched the sequence in slow-mo a few times, and it looks like a different shirt to me, but I could be wrong about that detail. I don't think it undermines this analysis, though.

UPDATE IV: I've added the YouTube for the final 4:49 of the show. Tony walks into the diner, then the camera cuts to Tony's perspective staring at an empty booth. It cuts back to Tony's face, and then back from Tony's perspective again, with Tony sitting in the previously empty booth. It's a signal that we're in Tony's fantasy.

Here's another series of clues. When Tony is waiting for Carmela and the family to join him, the camera focuses on three song selections on the jukebox. The first is "Who Will You Run To/Magic Man" by Heart. The second is "Don't Stop Believing/Any Way You Want It" by Journey. The third is "I Gotta Be Me/A Lonely Place" by Tony Bennett. Tony chooses the second choice in his fantasy rather than the third; he doesn't want to be himself, which would certainly put him in a lonely place. Unfortunately, Tony stops believing.

NARN, The Unfairness Doctrine 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.

Today Mitch and I will unpack the argument from CAP that says government should impose fairness standards on talk radio and ownership of broadcast licenses, as well as look at the status of the immigration bill, the CIA's family jewels, the fallout from Hamas' coup in Gaza, and lots more.

Be sure to call 651-289-4488 to join the conversation!

Concessions To The Right

Backers of the immigration reform bill in the Senate keep trying to find a formula that will quell the storm of protest from conservatives the compromise has created. The latest effort changes some of the objectionable elements of the bill -- but will it be enough to satisfy the opponents of the bill?

New requirements to track down, deport and permanently bar people who overstay their visas would be added to a broad immigration bill under a GOP bid to attract more Republican support.

The amendment, which also would prevent illegal immigrants from gaining lawful status until they pass a background check, is one of those the Senate will consider next week when it returns its attention to the immigration measure. The bill is likely to see a final vote by month's end.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., an architect of a broader deal to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants, said Friday that the amendment "will help substantially" in persuading his Republican colleagues to support the compromise.

Clearly, the protests against this bill have had an effect on its evolution. The backers have had to start changing elements of the legislation that could not withstand the sharp sunlight of public scrutiny. Critics had focused on the temporary pass that applicants got if the government could not conduct a background check in 24 hours, a flaw that many people believe would grant de facto amnesty to all 12 million illegals in the country.

Already we have seen the administration offer $4.4 billion to do what it should have done after 9/11 -- tighten border security. The new slate of amendments also proposes to fix holes in the visa system known since Mohammed Atta exploited them to remain inside the US. These are good ideas, but ones that the administration and Congress should have addressed in the wake of the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC.

The debate has begun to splinter the core coalition that brought the bill to the floor. Jon Kyl took Mel Martinez to task for announcing his intent to amend the bill in a fashion that would weaken the points-based system for immigration the bill imposes. Kyl called Martinez' amendment a "non-starter", indicating that Kyl could move away from the bill just as it comes back to the Senate floor.

If so, he would join an increasing number of his GOP colleagues. Kay Bailey Hutchison, John Cornyn, Gordon Smith, new Wyoming Senator Barasso have all announced that they will oppose cloture in an attempt to kill the bill. If Kyl bails, the coalition itself will collapse -- and perhaps Congress and the White House will start taking its responsibilities for security a little more seriously. They have seen that we have lost patience for their horsetrading, and not just conservatives, either.

Rule Of Law?

I haven't followed the kerfuffle over Dick Cheney's handling of classified material very closely, mostly because it looked like one of the mountains that Cheney's critics like to make out of molehills. However, this issue does hold a political if not legal vulnerability for the White House and Republicans over the perception of way that the administration wields its power, and is worth a second look for conservatives (via Memeorandum):

The White House defended Vice President Cheney yesterday in a dispute over his office's refusal to comply with an executive order regulating the handling of classified information as Democrats and other critics assailed him for disregarding rules that others follow.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Cheney is not obligated to submit to oversight by an office that safeguards classified information, as other members and parts of the executive branch are. Cheney's office has contended that it does not have to comply because the vice president serves as president of the Senate, which means that his office is not an "entity within the executive branch."

"This is a little bit of a nonissue," Perino said at a briefing dominated by the issue. Cheney is not subject to the executive order, she said, "because the president gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should."

Democratic critics said Cheney is distorting the plain meaning of the executive order. "Vice President Cheney is expanding the administration's policy on torture to include tortured logic," said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). "In the end, neither Mr. Cheney or his staff is above the law or the Constitution."

This dispute has two aspects to it, one political and one legal, and neither benefit the White House, at least not the way it is handling the issue. President Bush set rules governing the handling of classified material for the entire executive branch in a 2003 presidential order. If he wanted to exclude the White House and the Vice-President's office in that order, he could have explicitly done so at the time. Without another order specifically doing that, the 2003 order should cover all executive-branch offices, including Bush and Cheney. The rule of law applies, not the rule of whim, and without another order outlining the specific responsibilities of the President and VP, that's what Bush and Cheney's demands appear to be.

While the legal case is tenuous at best -- no one disputes that Bush could modify the order if necessary -- the political case is solidly foolish. Why pick this fight? Is there a rational reason why the President and VP cannot comply with the same standards applied to the rest of the executive branch? If so, that argument has not found its way outside of the administration, leading people to wonder what the two have to hide.

The VP has strained credulity by arguing that he doesn't belong to the executive branch at all, and that the order therefore doesn't apply. Of course the VP is a member of the executive branch; he's elected in tandem with the President through the Electoral College. He didn't get elected President of the Senate, a title that springs from the authority of being VP, not the reverse. Arguing otherwise makes Cheney look ridiculous and desperate, begging the question of what has caused the desperation.

American culture and identity was formed on the basis that no man is above the law, not even Presidents and Vice-Presidents. If the executive order puts too much burden on the White House, then Bush should revoke or amend it, and explain why it's necessary to do so. Stop trying to pretend that the VP is a member of the legislature and playing damaging games.

UPDATE: I'd say the Constitution is rather clear on this. Article 2, section 1 starts:

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

Arguing that the VP belongs to the legislative branch either looks like desperation or a Constitutional illiteracy that should disturb everyone, not just Democrats.

UPDATE: I asked Glenn Reynolds what he thought of the argument made by Cheney. Answer: not much. Joe Gandelman has a round-up of reactions.

US Captures Two Senior AQI Leaders In Baqubah

Despite reports that the leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq bugged out of Baqubah just ahead of the five-day-old American offensive in Diyala, American forces captured two senior AQI commanders today. Other American operations in Iraq netted suspects in Tikrit and Mosul. A Sadr City operation captured militants with Iranian ties as well:

U.S. and Iraqi troops captured two senior al-Qaida militants and seven other operatives Saturday in Diyala province, an Iraqi commander said, as an offensive to clear the volatile area of insurgents entered its fifth day.

The U.S. military also cracked down elsewhere in Iraq, saying in a statement that seven other al-Qaida fighters were killed and 10 suspects detained in raids in Tikrit, east of Fallujah, south of Baghdad and in Mosul.

Three other militants suspected of having ties to Iran were detained in a predawn operation by U.S. forces working with Iraqi informants in Baghdad's main Shiite district of Sadr City, the military said separately.

The Americans have accused Tehran of providing mainly Shiite militias with training and powerful roadside bombs known as explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs, that have killed hundreds of U.S. troops in recent months.

That's not a bad day's work. The capture of senior members of AQI gives the American and Iraqi forces an opportunity to get good intel. It also provides the means to work on undermining the morale of the remaining AQI forces in Diyala. Their capture means that any plans or safe houses in their knowledge have to be treated as compromised, forcing AQI to regroup and move to stay ahead of the Americans. That creates opportunities for mistakes, and even greater gains by the Coalition.

So far, the operation has resulted in 55 dead terrorists and 23 captured, while the citizens of Baqubah have increased their assistance to the Coalition. They want AQI out of Diyala, thanks to the brutality of the foreign fighters. The Iraqis have no more use for al-Qaeda than anyone else but terrorists and their sympathizers do.

Interestingly, the Coalition discovered a field hospital for AQI with some sophisticated medical equipment, including defibrillators. Since AQI doesn't go out on the market to have these items shipped to them, the obvious conclusion is that they are stripping medical facilities in areas they control -- leaving regular Iraqis without the medical care they need. It's another reason that Diyala residents have come to the same conclusion as those in Anbar, and have worked to aid the Coalition in ejecting them from their province.

Attacking Capital

Democrats in the House have begun following the example of their Senate colleagues in pushing for tax hikes. Once again, the Democrats have targeted capital, this time by more than doubling the capital-gains rate for investment firms:

Top House Democrats today introduced wide-ranging legislation that would more than double the tax rate that private equity firms, venture capital funds and many hedge funds pay on their gains.

The proposed legislation would cause the most comprehensive change to the capital gains tax law in decades. It was authored by Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.) and introduced by Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee. ...

The proposed legislation represents the first comprehensive measure to raise rates on the tax treatment for all hedge funds and buyout firms, which have drawn congressional attention because of billion-dollar paydays for fund managers, Bloomberg news service reported.

Lawmakers are targeting carried interest as part of a broader examination of how hedge funds and buyout firms are taxed. Informal estimates show that taxing carried interest at the same rate as salaries may generate at least $4 billion a year in additional taxes, Bloomberg said.

The new tax attacks the engine of American economic growth: capital investment. These funds provide the funds that start businesses and create jobs. The lower tax on gains allows more money to stay in the economy, as investors can pursue greater risk when they keep more of the gains they earn. Reduce the earnings, and not only is there less to reinvest, it creates more hesitancy to risk what there is left.

Of course, the Democrats don't see that. They see an opportunity to raise revenue in the short term without considering the long term effects. The expansion of the last four years has taught them nothing. They want to start passing new top-down programs, and they need to start passing more confiscatory tax policies to fund them.

This is why elections matter. The Republicans certainly didn't cover themselves in glory on spending issues the past six years, but we're about to see Congress go sharply in the wrong direction. They will claim fiscal responsibility by passing more taxes to pay for their spending, which will make even more money available for earmarks, lobbyists, and the like. That's the real trap of government expansion -- it feeds on itself, and the money always runs short.

We have sixteen months of a Democratic Congress to endure. Hopefully they will leave a few dollars in our pocket by then, but at the rate they're going, it's looking grim.

Look Who's On BlogTalkRadio!

Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has discovered the power of BlogTalkRadio! The Huckabee team has created a BTR channel for their campaign to keep their supporters informed of Governor Huckabee's activities. Their premiere show aired today at 10 am CT, and they have another scheduled for tomorrow morning at 2:30 pm CT. Of course, just as with any other BTR show, you can download the podcasts and bookmark the RSS feed -- so be sure to add it to your feedreader.

CQ Radio listeners can listen to my BTR interview with Gov. Huckabee here.

UPDATE: I had the times wrong; the Huckabee show for Saturday will air live at 2:30 pm CT.

CQ Radio: The Generalissimo Returns

Today on CQ Radio, Duane Patterson -- the Generalissimo from the Hugh Hewitt show -- joins me to talk about the storm over talk radio, the CAP report, Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton, the Fairness Doctrine, and more. We'll also cover the release of the CIA "family jewels", John Edwards' efforts on behalf of the (vote-)poor, and much more!

Call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

UPDATE: Don't miss our Nancy Pelosi-approved Salute To Canada!

The live player will start automatically if you click on the link to the extended entry. You can also listen from the player on the sidebar.

Bobby Kennedy Approved CIA Tap On Journalists

The CIA has released its so-called family jewels -- memoranda and archival evidence of its transgressions in the years prior to Watergate. The intelligence agency violated the law, sometimes with the approval of high-ranking government officials, on several notable occasions. For instance, the agency concluded that it had broken kidnapping laws by detaining a Soviet defector inside the US for over two years without charges, as well as wiretapping journalists.

One instance of the latter had cooperation from the Kennedy administration -- specifically, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy:

In 1963, the CIA wiretapped two columnists -- Robert Allen and Paul Scott -- following a column in a newspaper in which they disclosed certain national security information. CIA records indicate that the wiretapping was approved by McCone after "discussions" with then Attorney General Robert Kennedy and then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The wiretaps, which continued from March 12 to June 15, 1963, were described as "very productive" -- among those overheard calling Allen and Scott were twelve Senators, six Congressmen, and so forth. Apparently, the tap did not disclose the source of the security information published in the Allen-Scott column.

I find the conclusion reached by the CIA curious. If they could not find the leak from the wiretaps, then why did they believe them to be "very productive"? It sounds like the CIA was on a fishing expedition for inside political information -- and that Kennedy and McNamara may have been interested in what the wiretaps discovered.

Interestingly, this is the only one of the 14 separate rogue programs at the CIA that mentions any approval outside the CIA itself, with the exception of mail-reading programs at JFK Airport, apparently approved by AG John Mitchell in Nixon's term. It's not the worst of the abuses, though. The CIA conducted burglaries inside the US when it suspected various people of potentially disloyal activities. They also did their own study on the effects of drug use -- on unsuspecting subjects. They also had a "faint connection" to the people who assassinated Dominican Republic leader Rafel Trujillo.

Besides the dirty 14, the memo also admits that the CIA actively spied on Americans in anti-war groups during the 60s and 70s. They did so many times at the invitation of the FBI, accoring to the document. They collected data for files on 9900 US citizens, two-thirds referred to them by the FBI. That's a clear violation of the CIA's rules and the FBI's jurisdiction under the law both then and now, and it makes the reports of interagency envy at the time a little more suspect -- and potentially self-serving -- than before.

It's a fascinating, and chilling, look into an agency that has rarely had to answer for its violations of the law. Be sure to check the entire archive at your leisure, and think about the fact that the CIA conducted these operations in administrations of both parties, with either their explicit endorsement or willful ignorance.

UPDATE: Rafael Trujillo, not Donald -- not sure how I mixed that up. Thanks to several CQ readers for the correction.

Shouldn't The Speaker Know Which Army She Supports?

I guess the Democrats never learn to do research before putting pictures on websites. Nancy Pelosi, on her official government website as Speaker of the House, informs visitors that Democratic leadership will offer the largest expansion of veteran benefits for members of our armed forces. She helpfully displays a picture of an Army officer consulting with a doctor.

Unfortunately, it's the wrong army (via QandO):

If you look close enough at the epaulet, you'll see the name "CANADA", which is the first clue that the Army officer doesn't hail from the Lower 48. Is there a message here? Is Nancy bucking for a Canadian-style health care system?

No, she's just following a tradition of Democratic cluelessness. Last October, the DNC did the same thing a month before the midterms. They also used a picture of a Canadian soldier to demonstrate their commitment to America's military community. Despite getting wide derision over their failure to recognize the difference, the DNC didn't bother to adjust its web site for at least a couple of days.

It might make American armed forces more confident in Democratic support if Democrats could learn to spot an American uniform.

Helping Others By Helping Himself?

It looks like John Edwards believes that charity begins at home after all, even when home is a 28,000-square-foot mansion. Edwards' Two Americas rhetoric has given him a reputation as a voice for the poor, but the New York Times reports that his non-profit for fighting poverty mostly benefitted the vote-poor John Edwards:

John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.

Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.

A spokesman for Mr. Edwards defended the center yesterday as a legitimate tool against poverty.

The organization became a big part of a shadow political apparatus for Mr. Edwards after his defeat as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and before the start of his presidential bid this time around. Its officers were members of his political staff, and it helped pay for his nearly constant travel, including to early primary states.

While Mr. Edwards said the organization’s purpose was “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation,” its federal filings say it financed “retreats and seminars” with foreign policy experts on Iraq and national security issues. Unlike the scholarship charity, donations to it were not tax deductible, and, significantly, it did not have to disclose its donors — as political action committees and other political fund-raising vehicles do — and there were no limits on the size of individual donations.

First, it seems significant that the New York Times broke this story. Given their proximity to Hillary Clinton, one cannot help but wonder about the provenance for this article.

Regardless, it's a good piece of reporting by Leslie Wayne. Edwards used the poor as a Trojan horse to rake in an untold amount of money away from the prying eyes of the FEC. Instead of spening it on those he champions from the stump, he spent it on foreign-policy retreats. That has the obvious intention of bolstering his gravitas for another presidential run -- and doing so in a sneaky, underhanded manner.

Not only did he do that, but he also used the organization to keep his political team together between elections. The Center for Promise and Opportunity apparently employed a number of Edwards' campaign staffers in the time since his last run for the presidency. That allows him to make sure they remain available for this campaign, using his front organization to pay their salaries while not having to report the expenses as part of his campaign.

Too bad the BCRA didn't address this kind of abuse of electoral processes.

UPDATE: Some readers didn't pick up the irony of that last sentence, thinking somehow that I had forgotten when Edwards' tactic got used in the past. I have not forgotten that John McCain did much the same thing in sheltering his campaigners at the Reform Institute. I wrote about that in March 2005, noting the hypocrisy inherent in using a campaign-finance organization to keep campaign staffers on the payroll. The Reform Institute played a major part in getting the BCRA passed.

This seems a little more egregious, though. Edwards formed the non-profit ostensibly to help the poverty-stricken Americans on whose backs he campaigns for President. Instead of assisting them, he's exploiting them as a campaign funds dodge.

Talk Radio & The CAP Report

Since talk radio has become a hot topic in and of itself, Wednesday's report from the Center for American Progress has become the center of the debate. I actually agree with the what looks to be the central argument of the report -- liberal ideas require government intervention to force more than a few people to listen to them. At Heading Right, I look at the underlying assumptions the report makes in its attempt to impose government rationing of political speech in open markets, and why the demand for a new Fairness Doctrine is just another stalking horse to kill a market in which liberals have proven, thus far, uncompetitive.

UPDATE: Mark Levin notes that the author of CAP's study, Paul "Woody" Woodhull, failed to disclose his professional and financial connections to two liberal syndicated radio show hosts, Bill Press and Ed Schultz. Can you say "conflict of interest"? I knew you could!

Last Chance For Abbas

As usual, Charles Krauthammer hits the nail squarely on the head in today's column on Mahmoud Abbas. Krauthammer generally agrees with the policy of engagement with Abbas in the wake of the Hamas uprising in Gaza, but he warns people not to get too excited. Abbas has not exactly built a track record of success as a leader:

But let's remember who Abbas is. He appears well intentioned, but he is afflicted with near-disastrous weaknesses. He controls little. His troops in Gaza simply collapsed against the greatly outnumbered forces of Hamas. His authority in the West Bank is far from universal. He does not even control the various factions within Fatah.

But the greater liability is his character. He is weak and indecisive. When he was Yasser Arafat's deputy, Abbas was known to respond to being slapped down by his boss by simply disappearing for weeks in a sulk. During the battle for Gaza, he did not order his Fatah forces to return fire against the Hamas insurrection until the fight was essentially over. Remember, too, that after Arafat's death Abbas ran the Palestinian Authority without a Hamas presence for more than a year. Can you name a single thing he achieved in that time?

Moreover, his Fatah party is ideologically spent and widely discredited. Historian Michael Oren points out that the Palestinian Authority has received more per capita aid than did Europe under the Marshall Plan. This astonishing largess has disappeared into lavish villas for party bosses and guns for the multiple militias Arafat established.

However, as Krauthammer notes, Abbas is not Hamas, either. Egypt and Israel recognize this and have jumped at the chance to prop Abbas up, mindful of the alternatives. It's bad enough for both nations that Hamas has seized Gaza, but it would be disastrous for Israel, Egypt, and Jordan if Hamas takes control of the West Bank. At the moment, Abbas is their only real alternative, and they want to make sure that any movement from Abbas comes in the direction of moderates and not radicals.

Egypt made a smart move in this regard by inviting Jordan and Israel to meet with Abbas in Egypt in order to renew a push towards a peace plan. It isolates Hamas -- which Egypt fears for its connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist opposition to Mubarak. Egypt has a very large interest in seeing Hamas fail for that reason, and may start finally taking action on the Gaza border because of it. Mubarak wants to see the moderates succeed in the West Bank in order to discredit Hamas in Gaza, and hopefully have the Palestinians overthrow Hamas in the long run.

However, Abbas has to prove this time that he can deliver -- and Israel should insist in solid timetables for reform and verification of progress. The West gave Yasser Arafat a pass on both at Oslo in 1993, and as a result nothing changed in 14 years. Arafat gave Hamas the opening by calling for intifadas and radicalizing the Palestinians even further than before, making them open to Islamist influence. Without benchmarks of progress this time around, Abbas will likely do nothing but buy off his opponents in the West Bank and shoot those who refuse.

We have an opportunity for real progress, at least in the West Bank. It may not have a great chance of success, but as Krauthammer argues, it's worth pursuing to see what we can gain.

Right Approach, Wrong Reason

David Sokol calls for a new Apollo program on "climate change" in order to force a shift towards renewable energy in the US. He wants the government to "live up to their rhetoric" on cleaner energy sources, comparing it to the Kennedy mission to get a man to the moon. Sokol has the right idea, but the wrong reasons -- and a mistaken analogy:

In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy committed the nation, by the end of that decade, to landing Americans on the moon and bringing them safely back to Earth. Kennedy identified specific interim goals, such as developing a lunar spacecraft, new rocket booster technologies, and the deployment of satellite communication and weather observation systems.

In asking Congress to support his goal, he said that the effort "will last for many years and carry very heavy costs" and that it demanded "a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower."

Today, many political leaders say that climate change is the defining challenge of our generation. Unfortunately, they fail to provide Kennedy's understanding of what is required, much less the resources and leadership, to succeed.

Let's start with the bad analogy first, which lends a touch of the ironic. The headline on this column, which in fairness may not have come from Sokol, shows an ignorance of the space program. Apollo was the final phase of flights and research that went into the lunar program. It was preceded by the Mercury and Gemini phases, which tested the theories of space flight and maneuvering necessary to achieve the final goal. It took six years to get to Apollo, and even after that, two more years to get to the moon.

I note this because many people put the cart before the horse on implementing renewable energy. Sokol does not; he notes that the technology simply doesn't exist at the moment for mass production of renewable energy. He calls for a twenty-five year program of partnership between government and private enterprise to develop those technologies, a massive effort that will remake American energy production. Sokol argues, effectively, that it will take that kind of effort to succeed in this task.

I suggested this approach eight months ago, but not for the reason that Sokol suggests. Climate change is hardly the defining challenge of our generation, and the headline is doubly ironic for that reason. Apollo was the god of the sun in ancient times, and it's the sun that drives climate change. Unless Sokol intends on controlling the impact of solar cycles on the planet, the program will not have much effect on the climate.

However, energy independence will end the reliance of the world on Middle East kleptocrats for enery resources. That money funds, both directly and indirectly, the terrorism that really is the defining challenge of our generation. Ending the West's dependence on the oil spigots of Arabia will severely undercut the ruling cliques that oppress their people and create the impulses for Islamist terror, as well as strip their ability to directly fund it. Sokol's plan would allow us within a generation to become self-reliant on the energy we need to expand our economy without having the threat of extortion from tinpot dictators.

Sokol has the right idea, even if he has the wrong motivation and a bad headline writer for it.

Barbara Boxer And Hillary Clinton Will Target Talk Radio: Inhofe

Senator James Inhofe told talk-radio host John Ziegler that Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton want to introduce legislation aiming to control talk radio. This sounds like the story he told on CQ Radio yesterday, describing a conversation he overheard in an elevator about two "very liberal" Senators complaining about the effect talk radio has in organizing oppositon to their policies. The Senator wouldn't name the names at the time, but Ziegler got him to cough them up later.

It's an interesting story, and in both tellings, Inhofe reminded them that the success of conservative talk-radio shows comes from its market attractiveness. This is, of course, something that drives people like Boxer and Clinton up the wall. They know that audiences flock to conservative talk shows, but with a few exceptions, liberal talk shows don't get those kinds of numbers. Air America has gone bankrupt trying to lease air time for their hosts in the major markets, and no one's listening to them.

If Hillary gets elected President and the Democrats gain a few more seats in Congress, the Fairness Doctrine will return -- and that will end political talk radio. Broadcasters will not risk their licenses in the hoop-jumping that will be required to demonstrate "balance" and "fairness" in political rhetoric, where every interest group will file complaint after complaint in an attempt to harass hosts with whom they disagree off the air. The AM band will revert to self-help shows and promotional broadcasts, or perhaps sports radio will expand even further, but political talk will disappear.

However, we have less to fear from Boxer and Clinton than we do from Trent Lott and others on the center-right who use talk radio as scapegoats for their own failures and frustrations. Lott said much the same thing as Boxer and Clinton did to Inhofe about the effect talk radio has had on the immigration debate. I reminded Inhofe of this, and Inhofe told me that Lott was "wrong" -- and that Lott needed to rethink his criticism. (That comes at around the 50-minute mark of the show.) If the center-right starts attacking talk radio, they will give momentum to the Fairness Doctrine's return.

Aren't Journalists Allowed To Be Americans?

Many in the blogosphere have linked to this MS-NBC report on the political contributions of mainstream journalists, mostly to point out their overwhelmingly Democratic sympathies. That should get some discussion, but the secondary theme of the article seems at least as disturbing, if not more so:

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The donors include CNN's Guy Raz, now covering the Pentagon for NPR, who gave to Kerry the same month he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq; New Yorker war correspondent George Packer; a producer for Bill O'Reilly at Fox; MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough; political writers at Vanity Fair; the editor of The Wall Street Journal's weekend edition; local TV anchors in Washington, Minneapolis, Memphis and Wichita; the ethics columnist at The New York Times; and even MTV's former presidential campaign correspondent. ...

But with polls showing the public losing faith in the ability of journalists to give the news straight up, some major newspapers and TV networks are clamping down. They now prohibit all political activity — aside from voting — no matter whether the journalist covers baseball or proofreads the obituaries. The Times in 2003 banned all donations, with editors scouring the FEC records regularly to watch for in-house donors. In 2005, The Chicago Tribune made its policy absolute. CBS did the same last fall. And The Atlantic Monthly, where a senior editor gave $500 to the Democratic Party in 2004, says it is considering banning all donations. After MSNBC.com contacted Salon.com about donations by a reporter and a former executive editor, this week Salon banned donations for all its staff.

First, let's just finally acknowledge that this validates the point conservatives have made for years, if not decades. The people who write the news, who edit the content, and who decide what makes it into print or on the air have an almost unanimous affiliation with the Democratic Party. In a nation where 34% of voters affiliate with Democrats and 30% with Republicans, 90% of journalists that donate to political parties donate to Democrats.

Unfortunately, the reaction of these media outlets tends towards cover-up rather than openness. In that sense, they take a page from modern campaign-finance reform by trying to solve a problem through top-down suppression of political action rather than just opting for full disclosure. As my friend Paul Mirengoff notes, demanding an end to political donations does nothing to establish balance or objectivity; it just hides the evidence of bias a little more effectively. It hides information from the news consumers that could give them a more informed basis on which to judge the product.

And there's an even more fundamental problem with this approach. Why should journalists have to trade away their rights to political expression in order to work in the media? They are Americans, after all. Again, in this instance, it's exactly like the BCRA; it strips a fundamental right of political assembly and speech from a segment of American society. Regardless of how one feels about bias in the media, that approach is fundamentally wrong. Journalists should demand an end to those policies, and First Amendment activists should support them.

UPDATE: If I expected any answer at all, I should have expected it from my good friend King Banaian at SCSU Scholars:

There are, however, many rights we trade away in return for certain jobs. Athletes have contracts that prohibit activities that put their bodies at risk (Ben Roethlisberger says hi, Ed.) Some individuals who perform personal services give up speech rights as well, which is after all what campaign contributions are.

What's worth probing in Ed's question is why some news organizations would have rules against political contributions. I don't think it's necessarily an act of stupidity. News organizations sell themselves as agents (the journalists) to provide information to the principals (the readers) that is to be reliable. Because there is asymmetric information -- the journalist usually in fact DOES know more about a particular story than the readers, sometimes even more than the blogger -- there is a potential conflict of interest. The journalist can filter the news to turn a story that is sold by his bosses to be "truth" into propaganda.

Be sure to read all of King's response. I want to rebut it in a specific sense, however. I like the Ben Roethlisberger reference, and not just because I'm ready for the Pittsburgh Steelers QB to lead them to the next Super Bowl. The Steelers apparently put certain clauses in his contract to keep him from riding motorcycles without helmets after last year's accident. If so, then Roethlisberger accepted them as part of his (lucrative) employment contract. Employees in most companies accept restrictions on certain kinds of speech in non-disclosure agreements, although those are usually limited to proprietary commercial information.

Why do I find these media restrictions objectionable? They go to the heart of being an American. We define ourselves by our representative government and honor involvement. It's an essential component of being a free person. It should be anathema to Americans that media executives demand that their employees refrain from free assembly and free speech.

But please, Ben ... wear the helmet. Or drive a Hummer. Really.

CQ Radio: Senator James Inhofe

Today on CQ Radio, Senator James Inhofe joins us in the second half of the show to discuss the immigration bill and his grassroots efforts to oppose it. Senator Inhofe wrote a guest post today about Secure Borders Now, his new petition drive. He'll explain how it works and how you can add your voice to the debate.

In fact, you can do that by calling 646-652-4889 and joining the show!

UPDATE: Rick Moran will join me for the first half to discuss his Pajamas Media column today on Rudy Giuliani, as well as his new gatekeeping duties for Michelle Malkin. I've seen some of the comments Michelle gets -- and I hope Rick keeps disinfectant handy in his new task.

The live player will start automatically if you click on the link to the extended entry. You can also listen from the player on the sidebar.

A Dangerous Crisis In Confidence

Mark Tapscott hits a deep vein of discontent in his essay today at the Examiner. He notes the crisis in confidence we currently have in our political system, and warns that both parties can expect to reap the whirlwind:

First, the dramatic reversal of partisan political power seen in the November 2006 election was either simply a fluke or, more likely in my view, an inevitably lost opportunity for the winning Democrats. Short of an historically unprecedented philosophical reversal of course by the majority, it is hard to see Congress regaining anything remotely like a high level of public respect any time soon.

Seen in this light, Rep. Rahm Emanuel's recent declaration that the American people "are very happy with the things we have done" seems especially out of touch.

In fact, having raised and then frustrated public hopes for a fundamental change of course in Washington, the Democrats lost opportunity could well end up accelerating the crisis of public confidence that became increasingly evident as the previous GOP congressional majority frittered away the support that had kept it in power for a dozen years.

Second, Republicans should take no comfort in the Democrats' declining ratings. President Bush's insistence on pushing a bi-partisan immigration reform measure that is opposed three-to-one by people who are familiar with its provisions is indicative of the overall alienation of the political class from the views and concerns of everyday Americans.

The opposition to the Bush/Kennedy/McCain immigration reform appears to be hardening, too, as indicated by this UPI/Zogby International survey that finds only three percent - three percent! - of those surveyed approve of the way Congress is handling the issue. Bush gets only a nine percent approval rating on the issue in the survey, which has a 1.1 percent margin of error.

This results from more than just a bad policy choice on immigration in this session, but the immigration experience serves as a good example of what ails the political process. Congress has decided to pursue a deeply unpopular solution to a generational failure of both parties. Congress has made promises and passed laws that purported to fix the immigration problem, but usually has failed to follow up and ensure that the solutions get implemented. The border wall of last year and the visa reform of 2004 are excellent examples of why Congress has little credibility.

It doesn't limit itself to pressing issues of national security, either. Everyone in politics knows that the entitlement programs will drown the American government in red ink, both sooner (Medicare around 2016) and later (Social Security around 2025). We've known this for at least 25 years, and clearly Congress needs to act in some fashion to modify both programs to keep them solvent without bankrupting American taxpayers. In the past 25 years, Congress has done nothing of significance to stave off the coming economic crisis, paralyzed by demagoguery on both sides.

Both parties have won control of both chambers of Congress by promising to end undue influence of lobbyists and corruption on Capitol Hill over the last 15 years. As soon as both come to power, they inevitably conclude that maintaining their power overrules their promises of clean government, although the Democrats may have set a speed record in that regard this session.

Is it any wonder that the public now rates Congress as less credible than almost any other national organization?

It's a dangerous development. Congress is, after all, the people's branch of the government. The judiciary has no accountability to the people, and the states elect the President, at least formally. Congress writes laws, determines tax policy, and in general dictates the direction of our representative government. If we cannot trust ourselves with that power, eventually the people will turn to another, less representative form of government to get the difficult issues addressed.

What will America look like when that happens?

UPDATE: I meant to include this as part of the argument regarding immigration, but had Congress actually and honestly done its job on border security and visa reform, I suspect they'd have at least somewhat less opposition to the normalization process they're proposing.

Kay Bailey Hutchison Is A No

The vote count on immigration reform has drawn plenty of interest from backers and opponents of the compromise bill. The compromise coalition needs only 15 Republican swing votes in order to gain cloture on the latest version of the bill, and the focus has fallen on a narrow band of Republicans that have offered moderate views on immigration in the past.

One of the key Senators in that group is Kay Bailey Hutchison. Being from Texas, one of the border states most affected by immigration issues, her input on this bill may carry significant weight on the rest of the undecideds. If so, the bill's backers may have a real problem on their hands. A Senate source told me a few minutes ago that Hutchison intends to vote against cloture, and will have a statement to that effect later today.

Keep your eyes and ears open on this development. When it becomes official, she may carry others with her, such as Lamar Alexander and Orrin Hatch.

UPDATE: Fixed the misspelling of Hutchison's name, h/t to CQ commenter Bob.

Arising From The Dead Yet Again

Ralph Nader has Democrats looking for a wooden stake and a truckload of garlic. Nader, who helped bury two Democratic presidential campaigns, threatens to run again -- and has already taken aim at the frontrunner:

Ralph Nader says he is seriously considering running for president in 2008 because he foresees another Tweedledum-Tweedledee election that offers little real choice to voters.

"You know the two parties are still converging -- they don't even debate the military budget anymore," Nader said in a 30-minute interview. "I really think there needs to be more competition from outside the two parties." ...

And while Nader, 73, realizes he might once again be accused of being a "spoiler" candidate, he says the Democrats could win in 2008, unless they spoil things for themselves.

"Democrats have become, over the years, very good at electing very bad Republicans," Nader said. "Democrats always know how to implode, how to be ambiguous, how to waver, how not to be authentic."

Nader didn't do enough damage to John Kerry to get the blame for George Bush's relection, but he kneecapped Al Gore enough in Florida to cost the Democrats the White House in 2000. Ever since, he has plagued the party in two ways -- by presenting an alternative for disaffected Democrats in the elections themselves, and by providing a rallying point for the hard Left between them. Democrats keep declaring him politically dead, but he seems to keep resurrecting himself just enough to remain painfully relevant.

He still has fangs, too, which he unleashed on Hillary:

"She is a political coward," Nader said. "She goes around pandering to powerful interest groups on the one hand and flattering general audiences on the other. She doesn't even have the minimal political fortitude of her husband."

Just when Democrats and the media have started to salivate at the thought of an independent run from Michael Bloomberg, their bete noir returns.

The Openness Smokescreen

As part of their effort to clean up Capitol Hill, Democrats have proposed a new ethics process in the House that allows outside groups to file complaints. However, the proposal has hit a brick wall with these watchdog groups that would presumably use the new process to hold Congress accountable for ethics violations. Democrats want these groups to reveal their entire donor list when they file any complaint to the new ethics panel.

The irony of open-government groups may be palpable, but at Heading Right, I argue that the irony only exists on the surface. The requirement supposes an equation between government and citizen groups that is simply fantasy, and acts as a smokescreen for a hostility to open government that seems to have increased in the 110th Congress.

Senator James Inhofe: Secure Borders Now

I am pleased to welcome Senator James Inhofe, R-OK, for his first guest post at Captain's Quarters. Senator Inhofe introduces his petition drive to get grassroots action on immigration that focuses on securing the nation's borders.

Thank you, Captain Ed for allowing me to submit this guest post. I want to briefly discuss illegal immigration, an issue I know many, if not all, CQ readers care deeply about.

Before long, the U.S. Senate will engage in yet another round of debate and backroom deal making on the comprehensive immigration reform bill. And once again, the overwhelming majority of Americans who are deeply concerned about this bill will stand up in opposition. It’s the American people that have prevented its passage so far, and only the American people can stop it a second time. My fellow Senators, under tremendous pressure from party leaders, need to be reminded now more than ever that American citizens have strong opinions on immigration reform and border security.

The inescapable fact is that this bill guarantees amnesty for 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants with no clear indication that the border will be secured once and for all. Until real progress is made in stepping up border security and preventing the flow of new illegal immigrants, the question of what to do about illegal immigrants already here is irrelevant. As long as the source of illegal immigration, a porous border left irresponsibly neglected, remains unaddressed, it is impossible to have a meaningful discussion about a path to citizenship for those already here.

In preparation for the upcoming debate, I’ve started the Secure Borders Now online petition at www.SecureBordersNow.com. It gives American citizens a direct voice into the Senate debate. Already, just a few days after the site launched, we have received thousands of signatures and touching personal messages in opposition to the bill. They range from a story of personal achievement for a proud Texan who immigrated legally to a story from a gentleman who gave twenty years of military service, but now wonders how his children and grandchildren can remain safe when we don’t even enforce our own border security laws.

Now, more than ever, we need signatures from every part of the country. I’ll be sending each Senator the petition signatures from the citizens of his or her state as well as a summary of the tremendous response nationwide. We must remind them how passionately the American people feel about this issue.

Please take a moment to sign the petition at www.SecureBordersNow.com, and I hope you will share the link with your friends and family who care as much as I do about protecting this country and doing what’s right.

Senator Inhofe will join me today on CQ Radio, 2 pm CT. Be sure to join us!

Under Pressure, Egypt Offers Peace Conference

Egypt has decided to grasp an opportunity to play peacemaker in the wake of the Hamas coup in Gaza. Under pressure from the US, it wants to demonstrate its moderate bona fides and attempt to use this moment as an opportunity to bolster the more moderate and secular faction in the West Bank. So far, the invitees to Egypt's conference sound enthusiastic:

The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, has invited the Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian leaders to a summit next week, Palestinian officials have said.

Israel said a meeting could take place, but that nothing had been decided.

The talks between Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, would be the first since Hamas won elections 18 months ago.

The conditions could be right for a real advance in peace negotiations, and it couldn't come at a better time for Hosni Mubarak. Congress just voted to partially restrict aid to Egypt, tiring of Mubarak's lack of action on the Gaza border. They want Egypt to stop the tunnelling operations that allowed Hamas to garner so much weaponry for its coup, and also reportedly allows other Islamist groups access to Gaza as well. Mubarak could lose $200 million a year if he doesn't do something spectacular soon.

For Mahmoud Abbas, the time may also be right. Under attack from the Islamists, he needs powerful friends if he expects to remain alive for any length of time. Saeb Arakat stated the obvious: if the PA is to remain viable, it has to deliver an end to occupation and a peace settlement with which everyone can live -- literally. The longer conditions remain unstable, the more likely Hamas or other Islamists will eventually conduct a similar coup in the West Bank. Now that Hamas has rebelled and has sequestered themselves idiotically in Gaza, Abbas no longer has to court their agreement on a deal for the West Bank, which gives him more flexibility with Israel.

Israel and the US have to enjoy the conditions on the ground for this round of talks, which the US apparently will not attend. For the first time in years, they can ignore Hamas and its leadership in Syria. Also, for the first time, they have a purported partner in Abbas who needs a deal more than Israel does. That could give them an actual opening for a settlement that would satisfy at least the moderate Arab nations, and help them to isolate Iran and Syria diplomatically.

The time may be right for these peace talks -- because Abbas has lost his triangle-strategy partners at long last.

Baqubah Day 2: No One's Dropping Leaflets

Michael Yon continues his reporting from the front on the new massive operation to trap and kill al-Qaeda in Diyala. Despite the heat and the good fighting form of the enemy, which Yon estimates as better than most in Iraq, the US has systematically trapped them in the area -- and aren't offering any surrender deals:

The combat has only just begun, and media has now figured out this is serious business. During the morning brief (June 20th), Major Robbie Parke mentioned that CNN, TIME, Reuters and some others, are trying to get out here now. Problem is space. Looks like Gordon and I are mostly alone for now. Others are said to be in Baqubah, but if they are here, they are missing some of the most important parts, and if they were at the important commander’s meetings, I would have seen them.

The heat is intense for the enemy and for us. Soldiers, during any chance, would lay-down during the heat of day, and in complete body armor and helmets, fall asleep in the dirt. I took photos of course. Our guys are tough. The enemy in Baqubah is as good as any in Iraq, and better than most. That’s saying a lot. But our guys have been systematically trapping them, and have foiled some big traps set for our guys. I don’t want to say much more about that, but our guys are seriously outsmarting them. Big fights are ahead and we will take serious losses probably, but al Qaeda, unless they find a way to escape, are about to be slaughtered. Nobody is dropping leaflets asking them to surrender. Our guys want to kill them, and that’s the plan.

This isn't a hearts-and-minds operation, obviously. AQI forces have little desire for peaceful coexistence. The Iraqis have learned this, though, and Yon reports that the US forces have received some very good intel from people happy to be rid of AQI in their neighborhoods.

Yon also reports that the fighting is very intense. The US intends on wiping out AQI in Diyala, and have cut off avenues of escape in a more effective manner than in previous operations. He estimates that civilian casualties have occurred, although no one really knows the extent. They don't have numbers because the battle is too hot to get a good count, but they did confirm 30 AQI dead the first day, while our forces took one casualty and five wounded.

We'll keep an eye on Michael's reporting from the front. In the meantime, follow the link and donate a few dollars to keep Michael funded for his independent efforts to keep us informed.

UPDATE: The Washington Post has more on Day 2:

"We have found three warehouses and factories where car bombs cars were built, as well as large stashes of TNT and mortar rounds used to make" roadside bombs, said Mohammed al-Askari, an Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman. "We also found the swords that they used to slaughter people in their so-called courts, in addition to sniper rifles and silencers." ...

The U.S. military has been sharply criticized -- particularly from within its own ranks -- for earlier offensives against al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents that allowed them to slip away and regroup in other areas. As soon as U.S. forces withdrew, the insurgents typically returned.

This time, military planners are trying to avoid that outcome by drawing a tight ring around Baqubah that locks insurgents inside, where they can be captured or killed. The challenge was illustrated Tuesday by the capture of six uninjured men who were trying to escape from Baqubah in an Iraqi ambulance, the U.S. military said in a statement.

Commanders "said we need to cordon off the city and control access in and out, which is what we did yesterday morning, and now we are very deliberately doing house-to-house clearing," said Capt. Jon Korneliussen, a U.S. military spokesman. "Many houses were wired with explosives."

This American success story (at least thus far) appears on page A18 in today's paper. Where do you think they will run the story if the ratio of enemy deaths slips significantly lower than 41:1?

Libya To Release Nurses?

Sources in Libya indicate that one of the contentious issues between the EU and Moammar Ghaddafi may be closer to resolution. Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor have sat in prison for years, purportedly for giving HIV to children, a case that outside experts insist got trumped up to cover for Libya's own incompetent hygiene at its medical facility. Now a financial deal may set them free as soon as next month:

Hopes are rising that five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to death in Libya for allegedly infecting children with the HIV will be released within weeks in a deal involving a multimillion-dollar international fund for healthcare to treat the victims.

European diplomats said last night they were now "cautiously optimistic" that the eight-year saga could be nearing its end, paving the way for improved relations between the EU and the Gadafy regime.

Optimism increased yesterday when the supreme court in Tripoli announced that its final decision on the sentences will be given on July 11. Observers described the session as businesslike and less confrontational than previous occasions, though families of the victims protested outside, holding pictures of their infected children, 56 whom have died.

Even though the six got the death penalty, Ghaddafi has been slow to execute them. He knows that their execution would create another huge rift between Libya and Europe, and Ghaddafi needs better relations with the West. Relations with other Arab countries have soured over the last few years, and the dictator needs friends somewhere.

Europe must feel similarly, spending $50 million to buy Ghaddafi's friendship, or at least a ransom for the lives of the six. It has a high profile; Tony Blair pressed Ghaddafi on the case during his state visit to Tripoli earlier this year, and some of Europe's most senior diplomats have worked to set the six free. Bulgaria joined the EU this year and the EU wants to show that it has the clout to protect Europeans abroad.

If all goes well, the court will meet next month and commute the sentences to time served, once the money gets to LIbya. It won't go to the children who contracted HIV, but rather go to the state for AIDS-awareness programs -- or so Libya claims. In any case, it looks like the interests of Libya and Europe have finally converged enough to allow Ghaddafi to finally release the six. Let's hope that remains the case.

Rudy: Against The Line-Item Veto Before He Supported It?

Rudy Giuliani has had a tough week, and he's making it even more difficult. Today, Giuliani sang the praises of the line-item veto, an idea conservatives have boosted even during Democratic administrations. However, Rudy omitted a little personal history regarding the line-item veto that Congress passed in 1995:

In his speech, Giuliani called for the country to enact a constitutional amendment that allows for a line-item veto so the president could strip wasteful spending from legislation. "The president doesn't have that power under our Constitution," he said. "You're only going to change that with a constitutional amendment."

As mayor in the 1990s, Giuliani successfully sued to challenge the constitutionality of the line-item veto that would have given President Clinton that such power.

Technically, this isn't entirely inconsistent. Giuliani wants a Constitutional amendment adding the line-item veto -- so that people like Rudy Giuliani can't sue to end it if it just gets passed as federal legislation. Kim Strassel covered this in April at the Wall Street Journal:

Take the line-item veto. For decades New York had taken advantage of a special program that allowed it alone to reap extra federal Medicaid dollars. The city's broken health system was dependent on this booty, and its loss would have required painful change. Mr. Giuliani instead sued, portraying the issue as us-against-them. When he won, his press release declared it a "great victory" for "the people of the city, the state and the constitution of the U.S." No mention of the other Americans who got to float NYC's bills.

The line-item veto is a good idea, and Rudy is right to support it now. It should have been in force ever since Congress passed it during the Clinton administration. The Supreme Court should have allowed Congress to set its own terms with the executive branch on budget process, understanding that Congress could rescind the line-item veto at any time as well. Unfortunately, Rudy helped put it in front of the Supreme Court and cheered their faulty decision.

He should explain his journey from LIV opponent to LIV proponent in clearer terms than this.

The White House Responds To CQ On Immigration And Passports

Earlier today, I wrote that the failure of the government to adequately prepare for the new passport restrictions Congress passed in 2005 reflected on their ability to tackle comprehensive immigration reform. A few minutes ago, the White House's communication staff responded in the comments section, but I'll give them a more prominent spot here at CQ to make their rebuttal:

I can see how, in order to score a quick point, it would be tempting to equate the passport backlog with the issue of Z visas.

However, you make a false analogy.

Background checks are not a significant factor contributing to the current backlog in processing passport applications. Instead, the key reason for the delay is the non-automated and very labor-intensive process of verifying that the individual is indeed a U.S. citizen. Another major reason for the passport backlog is the time-consuming process for producing the passport itself, which requires an electronic chip, a machine readable strip, and other tamper-resistant features.

By contrast, adjudication of a Z visa application does not require verification of citizenship status because the individual acknowledges at the outset that he or she is illegal. And any delays due to production of the document, of course, are irrelevant to DHS's ability to handle the background checks.

The background check at issue for the current undocumented is an automated process involving an electronically captured print that will be run through database checks.

Of the five components of the background check, four of them nearly always generate answers within 24 hours. The DHS Interagency Border Inspection System check is immediate as is the DHS immigration records check. The biometrics check in DHS’s IDENT is completed within 24 hours and so is the FBI biometrics. The current FBI fingerprint load is about 60,000 per day. Assuming checks had to be done for all 12 million over a six-month period, this adds another 67,000 name checks per day – well under FBI’s current capacity of up to 200,000 per day.

The only one of the five that sometimes takes longer than 24 hours is the FBI Name Check. 68 percent of names checks are returned within 48 hours and another 22 percent are returned within 60 days. Others may take significantly longer, but if the FBI name check is not completed within 24 hours, it will continue during the probationary period -- and if any adverse information is found, the alien’s probationary status will be terminated, and the Z applicant will be deported with no chance of gaining a Z visa. No Z visas will be awarded until all appropriate background checks begun during the probationary period are completed to the satisfaction of the Homeland Security Secretary.

I have a few thoughts about this response, as I'm sure the CQ community also has. First, I appreciate the timely response to the post. I have to say that the White House seems to have improved its communication efforts in the past few months, although I wish it would serve to support some other efforts more than the immigration bill. The improvement is a welcome development.

However, this isn't quite responsive to the main thrust of my argument. It does address the issues surrounding the 24-hour background checks, but not the main point about allocation of resources and the instant creation of a new bureaucracy that will have to handle upwards of 12 million applications almost immediately. They'll have to do that on top of revamping the existing visa system and establishing tight border security to meet the triggers in the bill within eighteen months, or 3 years, as the CBO predicts.

Where is the capacity to handle 12 million applicants, or more, when this bill gets signed into law? The State Department still hasn't fixed their system more than two years after Congress mandated the changes. Why should we assume that DHS will do better handling multiple and larger-scale mandates? Why not just do one thing at a time successfully, and then move on to the next task?

What do you think?

UPDATE: AJ Strata thinks I'm gnowing at a bone of amnesty conspiracy thinking. Actually, my original post had nothing to do with "amnesty"; it had to do with competence, and AJ missed the point. He claims that the government has the ability to process 100,000 illegal aliens a day, but where is this supposed to happen and who's supposed to do it? I'm sure that eventually they could get it done, but they don't have the capacity to resolve an extra 5 million passport applications over a one-year period despite having an eighteen-month head start on it.

Obviously, it's possible to do it, but this bill doesn't provide the resources for it -- and it's one of several mandates in the bill that have to be accomplished concurrently. That's my point, and neither AJ nor the White House addressed it.

UPDATE II: Just to make sure everyone knows, I didn't take any offense to AJ's post. I know his writing style and his point of view. I consider AJ a good friend, and disagreements on policy doesn't change that.

CQ Radio: Robert Bluey, Liz Mair

Today on CQ Radio, we will look at two new tax proposals in detail. In the first half of the hour, Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation helps us dissect the Baucus-Grassley oil taxes that will get attached to the energy bill in the Senate. In the second half, Liz Mair from GOP Progress will review a tax on public partnerships -- also sponsored by Senators Baucus and Grassley. If you want to see what a Congress controlled by Democrats will impact your pocketbooks, you can't miss this show!

Call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

Dissent Without Borders

Hugo Chavez may have chased his critics off the air in Venezuela, but he has not chased them out of Venezuelan homes. Radio Caracas Television could soon start transmitting its programming -- and its criticism of the Chavez government -- from Mexico, confounding the dictator's efforts to silence RCTV:

The head of an opposition-aligned Venezuelan television station that was forced off the air by that nation's government said he has received offers to co-produce and transmit programming from Mexico.

Marcel Granier, whose Radio Caracas Television went off the air May 27 after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez decided not to renew its broadcast license, vowed Tuesday to keep trying to reach Venezuelan audiences by any means possible.

He said he had "good friends" in Mexico's two major TV networks.

"Our commitment ... is to re-establish that contact [with Venezuelans], either from Venezuela or from abroad, by any means possible, by cable, by satellite, by Internet," Granier told reporters.

The distance would be too great for television broadcasts, unless RCTV can get repeaters closer to Venezuela to carry their signal. Cable seems problematic, as Chavez can probably keep providers from carrying the new station. RCTV's best opportunities will be satellite and Internet ventures.

This will force Chavez to impose ever-stricter state control over the media if he expects to block them. Those kinds of censorship will only inflame opposition even further, creating a vicious circle of despotism that will undo Chavez in the long run.

Democrats Try To End Secret Ballots For Union Elections

No one can accuse Democrats of reneging on this pledge. Senate Democrats plan to have a showdown with the GOP over a bill that would force workers to cast unionization votes without a secret ballot. They're trying to keep a campaign promise to union bosses who funded their campaigns:

Senate Democratic leaders moved Tuesday to force a vote on organized labor’s top legislative priority, a bill that would make it far easier to organize workers. But Republican leaders vowed to kill the measure, voicing confidence that they could defeat a motion cutting off debate and bringing it to a vote this week.

The bill, already approved by the House but facing the threat of a veto by the Bush administration, would give employees at a workplace the right to unionize as soon as a majority signed cards saying they wanted to do so. Under current law, an employer can insist on a secret-ballot election, even after a majority sign.

Union leaders see enactment of the bill as the single most important step toward reversing labor’s long-term loss of membership and might. Virtually all Democrats in Congress are backing the legislation, partly because they recognize that a stronger labor movement, providing campaign contributions and volunteers, could translate into a stronger Democratic Party.

How will it restore labor's position? Through intimidation and fear. Rather than conducting elections by secret ballot, the workers would be forced to fill out union cards instead, identifying them and their vote on unionization It doesn't take a genius to understand that people opposed to unionizing their workplace might feel a little intimidated if they knew that the union could identify everyone who voted against them. The unions aren't exactly known for a history of milquetoast tactics, and putting that kind of information into their hands will win them elections just from fear of retaliation.

In fact, that's the reason America uses secret ballots for elections. We have seen the results of elections where voters have to identify their ballots, rather than just their registration. People like Saddam Hussein win 99.8% of votes in elections under those conditions. Secret ballots allow voters in any kind of election to vote without fear of retribution -- and we should treat demands to eliminate the secret-ballot system with great skepticism.

So why do Democrats want to force workers into a position where they can be easily intimidated? Perhaps this information explains it best:

Senator........Total Labor Contributions.......Total Labor Contributions 2007

Landrieu............$919,300.00............................$46,000.00
Pryor................$436,000.00............................$50,500.00
Baucus..........$1,062,402.00............................$30,500.00
Harkin............$1,680,086.00............................$36,500.00
Biden................$479,677.00..............................$5,000.00
Durbin...............$882,225.00............................$63,500.00
Kerry..................$51,556.00............................$42,000.00
Lautenberg.....$1,253,764.00............................$33,500.00
Levin..............$1,257,276.00............................$51,500.00
Reed.................$718,900.00...........................$44,100.00
Rockefeller........$983,728.00............................$55,000.00

It looks like the unions have paid at least a half-million to these Senators to get this legislation passed. It's a small investment, considering the payoff they'll get from all the dues they expect to collect from workers intimidated into paying them.

China Wins The Coaled Medal

China has overtaken the US in carbon emissions, thanks to a growth rate that has far exceeded predictions and a suprising reduction in US emissions. Of course, the Guardian fails to mention that aspect in its report, but it does note that the US warned that any emissions protocols that excluded China would fail:

China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, figures released today show.

The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China's growing role in driving man-made global warming and will pile pressure onto world politicians to agree a new global agreement on climate change that includes the booming Chinese economy. China's emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the world's biggest polluter, for several years, although some reports predicted it could happen as early as next year.

But according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, soaring demand for coal to generate electricity and a surge in cement production have helped to push China's recorded emissions for 2006 beyond those from the US already. It says China produced 6,200m tonnes of CO2 last year, compared with 5,800m tonnes from the US. Britain produced about 600m tonnes.

The Senate saw this outcome in 1997, when they refused to consider the Kyoto treaty as long as it excluded China and India. The treaty resembled an economic suicide pact as it hamstrung energy production in Western nations while allowing the emerging economic powerhouses in Asia unrestricted use of its coal and oil resources. The Bush administration agreed and tried to implement an agreement that would have included China and India in a series of voluntary targets and financial incentives.

Europe objected to the effort, claiming that the Bush administration wanted to undermine emissions controls. However, their own track record shows that they have given nothing but lip service to the protocols they champion. A report last year shows Europe on pace to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by a whopping 0.6% by 2010 -- less than half of what we achieved last year alone here in the US.

China's emergence as the top emitter years ahead of schedule shows the folly of both relying on Kyoto experts for predictions and the Kyoto treaty to reduce global emissions.

A Lesson For Expanding Bureaucracies

For those who support the establishment of new Z- and Y- visa programs to settle the status of illegal immigrants, consider the scope of the management function this requires. The immigration compromise envisions a system that can process and manage a minimum of 12 million people who have never registered for services in the past, and one that can do so successfully almost immediately -- as a matter of national security. However, the government's track record on system management in this field looks decidedly poor, especially if you've been unfortunate enough to travel abroad recently:

Federal officials in Washington acknowledge that they failed to anticipate just how much the post-Sept. 11 travel regulations would fuel demand for passports; did not hire enough workers to handle the increase; and neglected to notice or react to signs early this spring of a burgeoning problem.

The State Department estimates that the number of Americans seeking passports this year will reach 17.5 million, up from 12 million in 2005 — the result of new rules requiring such documentation for air travelers returning from Mexico, Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean. Applicants' average wait time has swelled from six weeks to 12 weeks or more. ...

In an effort to ease the backlog, the State Department announced earlier this month that it would waive the new rules — which took effect in January — through Sept. 30 for travelers who already had applied for passports. Under current plans, the requirements for airline passengers will apply to travelers arriving by land and sea as well in January 2008.

The regulations grew out of recommendations made by the Sept. 11 commission, which in 2004 called for a standardized form of identification for all U.S. travelers to boost border security. In April 2005, the Homeland Security and State departments unveiled the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which required passports, rather than simply driver's licenses or birth certificates, for travelers returning from nearby countries.

Legislate in haste, repent in leisure.

At the time, critics warned that the crush of new regulation and the expansion of passport requirements would create massive backlogs. George Bush went along reluctantly with the new rules but warned Americans that their trave could get complicated to the point of impossibility while the new system came into being. It has taken more than two years since Congress mandated these rules, and it still hasnn't fully materialized -- and now we have to create bypasses in the regulations just to get American citizens out of the country, which was hardly the national-security problem this new system meant to solve.

Now the Senate wants to establish a brand-new system of government documentation for illegal immigrants on top of this meltdown at State. This system won't need to process an additional 5 million people over a two-year period; it will have to process 12 million or more people in a matter of weeks.

Once the immigration bill passes with these visas, illegals will want to register immediately for the temporary status that will keep them from the risk of deportation. Where will they go? How can the existing system, which already does a terrible job of keeping up with its existing demand, possibly withstand the traffic the bill will generate? If a good-sized DMV could process 1,000 applications for licenses a day, it would take more than 400 such offices around the country to process 12 million applications in the first 30 days.

That doesn't even consider the lack of infrastructure for the visas. We need computer systems developed, staff hired, documents designed and printed, and so on. The State Department had all of that infrastructure available, and they still couldn't get the job done more than two years after the mandate.

We're going to wind up in exactly the same place as the passport system. Applications will be locked in closets, people will not get responses from the bureaucrats, and Congress will angrily grill officials about the stupidity of the system Congress created.

And the same President that questioned the ability of State to handle an expansion of the passport regulations suddenly believes that the DHS can create a massive bureaucracy out of thin air to manage 12 million illegal immigrants.

Legislate in haste, repent in leisure.

UPDATE: I realize that the "incompetence argument" can be used to negate any sort of proposed government program, including border security. I'm not exactly arguing it to that extent, although it does explain the multitude of failures on border security rather nicely. What I'm saying is that this bill doesn't even begin to plan for the massive bureaucracy it will create. It ignores reality, sets up goals without the resources to meet them, and therefore promises something it will never deliver..

That's why it's better to tackle this one step at a time.

They Sent It Back?

One has to wonder what Georgian border officials were thinking when they encountered a car full of nuclear materials at the Azerbaijan border. Instead of confiscating the car and the materials -- which could have use in weapons -- they sent it back to Azerbaijan instead:

Georgian customs officers sent a car carrying a mixture of plutonium and beryllium back into Azerbaijan after foiling an attempt to smuggle the materials over the border, Georgian television reported.

Customs officials found the materials, which can be used in nuclear bombs, in what appeared to be a routine check as the car was driven over the border from Azerbaijan, the Imedi television station reported.

"Georgian customs detected a high level of radiation," Imedi reported.

Of course, now that the material is back in Azerbaijan, it allows the smugglers to try to get it out again. The rocky economy and the proximity to radical Iran makes this attempt sound rather ominous. Given the fight in the nearby Caucasus between Russian and Islamist forces, the attempt to push the expensive material into Georgia sounds like an organized attempt to help the Islamist terrorists try something spectacular in Chechnya or another Russian state on the Caucasus.

Maybe the next time, Georgia could just confiscate the material instead.

Democratic Fire Sale Renewed

Remember the 1992 presidential campaign, and the two-for-one deal offered by Bill Clinton? A vote for Bill also got Hillary as a bonus. Now, Carl Bernstein tells the London Telegraph, Hillary has renewed the offer -- but Bill will run the White House behind the scenes.

At Heading Right, I look at the implications of this end-run around the 22nd Amendment. If Bill has better political judgment than Hillary, then why isn't the Democratic Party looking for a President who can stand on his/her own two feet instead?

UPDATE: 22nd Amendment, not 25th. Back to civics class! Thanks to CQ commenter AA for the correction.

Uncle Chuck's Suck-Up Strategy: Staffers

With much more bright light shining on relationships between politicians and lobbyists, the process of buying votes has evolved. Now that people have demanded openness regarding schedules of elected officials, the focus of lobbyist interaction has fallen on senior staffers to these officials instead. Chuck Schumer, one of the Democratic leadership that demanded an end to the "culture of corruption", has issued invitations to lobbyists to attend a reception with "Individuals Representing Members of the Senate Democratic Caucus" -- with "suggested donations" starting at $1,000 a plate:

This invite first appeared (in print only) in Jeffrey Birnbaum's K Street column in Tuesday's Washington Post, but Capitol Briefing can add a few notable details. Read the fine print and you'll see that senators aren't the draw at this event, slated for July 10 at the DSCC's Mott House across the street from the Capitol.

Officially, lobbyists are asked to give or raise $2,000 to be a "host" or $1,000 to be a "DSCC friend" in order to meet "individuals representing" Senate Democrats. That's code word for chiefs of staff and staff directors of committees, according to lobbyists who received the fundraising pitch. The image of the invite that was e-mailed to Capitol Briefing included the file name of "chiefs invitation".

It's part of what some lobbyists say is an emerging technique in fundraising by the campaign committees -- gathering a group of top advisers to lawmakers rather than the principals themselves. Lobbyists say they've heard that later this year House Democratic chiefs of staff will be the draw at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The invitation itself has to be seen to be believed. It features a prominent graphic of Chuck Schumer as Uncle Sam, pointing at the recipient and grinning. Why is Uncle Chuck smiling? Because Uncle Chuck has figured out how to get around clean-government efforts and still suck thousands of dollars out of the pockets of lobbyists.

Basically, Uncle Chuck has built a bypass to lobbyist money. Instead of coming into direct contact with lobbyists, the Democrats will send their aides instead. Lobbyists will harangue the chiefs of staff and senior aides within the politicians' offices, and this way the politicians themselves have complete deniability. "What's that you say? No, I never met with Lobbyist X. My legislation couldn't possibly have been influenced by him."

This way, the DSCC still gets its money, the lobbyists still retain their influence, and everyone inside the Beltway stays happy. The only people who lose are the fools who thought the Democrats would end lobbyist influence and clean up Washington once they returned to the majority. Instead, Uncle Chuck has come up with even more ways to hide lobbyist influence from the prying eyes of American voters.

Uncle Chuck may want lobbyists, but does America still want Uncle Chuck or the Democrats?

Bloomberg Switches ... Again

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York City, announced that he would no longer remain a Republican. This comes six years after he announced that he would no longer remain a Democrat in order to run as Rudy Giuliani's successor in 2001:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is leaving the Republican party and will remain unaffiliated with any political party, CBS 2 HD learned Tuesday night.

The move will clearly begin advancing rumors that the mayor is gearing towards a presidential run, which he has denied in the past.

In a statement, however, the 65-year-old billionaire indicated this doesn't change his plans for his political future.

It's interesting, only for the fact that Bloomberg seems to have a problem in figuring out which company he likes to keep. While politicians seem to have an affinity for changing certain policy positions, it's not often you find one that has three party affiliations in six years. In New York City, that may not make much difference, especially since Bloomberg has only a couple of years left as mayor anyway -- but it will make a big difference in the presidential race, if he chooses to enter it.

Bloomberg seemed an unlikely choice for the Republicans anyway. Rudy Giuliani has had a tough time keeping conservatives on board, but Bloomberg would make Giuliani look like Fred Thompson. His nanny-state inclinations seem more at home with the Democrats, but he dumped them once already, and Bloomberg probably doesn't want to get into a primary fight in either party.

Republicans should look forward to his independent bid. He'll draw much more from left-leaning independents and Democrats who cannot stand Hillary Clinton than from the GOP, to the extent that he draws anyone at all. Bloomberg obviously wants to be the next Ross Perot, but he sounds more like the next John Anderson.

Mark Tapscott explains the reference, while Michelle Malkin and Sister Toldjah yawn. Flip, on the other hand, has a headache. (via Instapundit)

UPDATE: Allahpundit reminds readers that Bloomberg had trouble dealing with a power outage in Queens. I'm fondly recalling his endorsement of eminent domain in the wake of the Kelo decision, myself.

Rudy's Very Bad Day

When Rudy Giuliani has a bad day, he goes all out. America's Mayor spent June 19th parrying three different national stories, all of them reflective on his campaign for the presidency, and none of them complimentary. The first story was his sudden drop into second place in the latest Rasmussen poll. The second was his sudden departure from the Iraq Study Group:

Rudolph Giuliani's membership on an elite Iraq study panel came to an abrupt end last spring after he failed to show up for a single official meeting of the group, causing the panel's top Republican to give him a stark choice: either attend the meetings or quit, several sources said.

Giuliani left the Iraq Study Group last May after just two months, walking away from a chance to make up for his lack of foreign policy credentials on the top issue in the 2008 race, the Iraq war.

He cited "previous time commitments" in a letter explaining his decision to quit, and a look at his schedule suggests why -- the sessions at times conflicted with Giuliani's lucrative speaking tour that garnered him $11.4 million in 14 months.

Giuliani failed to show up for a pair of two-day sessions that occurred during his tenure, the sources said -- and both times, they conflicted with paid public appearances shown on his recent financial disclosure. Giuliani quit the group during his busiest stretch in 2006, when he gave 20 speeches in a single month that brought in $1.7 million.

And the third story features his South Carolina campaign state chair, Thomas Ravenel. who just got indicted on serious drug charges:

State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted Tuesday on charges of cocaine possession and intent to distribute it. Gov. Mark Sanford immediately suspended him from state office.

“Given the grave nature of these charges and what is alleged in this indictment, we’re left with no choice but to suspend Treasurer Ravenel immediately,” Gov. Sanford said Tuesday afternoon. “These are obviously very serious allegations that we’re constitutionally bound to act upon, and they’ll ultimately be decided by the courts.”

At a press conference late Tuesday, South Carolina Law Enforcement Department Chief Robert Stewart said Ravenel emerged as a participant in an ongoing cocaine sting in Charleston County. He said Ravenel was charged with possession and was sharing — not selling — powder cocaine with an undisclosed number of people.

None of these stories will do permanent damage to Rudy, but having them all hit at once certainly gives the sense of a campaign under fire. Giuliani's campaign has responded to the latter two stories, mostly to distance Rudy from both. They claim that Rudy left the ISG because of his pending presidential campaign, and that they have no information regarding Ravenel and his drug use.

The one story that will resonate the most will be that of the ISG dismissing Rudy, or Rudy quitting, depending on the version one believes. While Rudy's point about presidential politics has some validity -- it even drew some remarks at the time that Rudy might have considered using it to put some space between his Iraq policies and those of George Bush -- the fact that he failed to show for any meetings makes him look a bit like a dilettante. It conflicts with Rudy's hands-on management style and persona.

Will it slow Rudy down? Given the results of the ISG, he may be better off not having it on his resume anyway. However, the manner in which he departed the ISG may haunt him a little, reducing his gravitas on the Iraq war, which undoubtedly will be a big part of the 2008 campaign. It will also impair his ability to cast Fred Thompson as a less-than-motivated officeholder in the primaries.

It's easy to overhype this, though. Everyone knew Giuliani would be running for President at the time the ISG was formed. Rudy can't charge for his speeches now, at least not to benefit him personally, and probably figured that he would spend 2006 banking as much as possible in order to free himself of any financial concerns in 2007-8.

Anyway, the campaign has a brand-new day tomorrow, and at least it can't get any worse. Or so they hope.

Slapping Taxes On Big Oil

Yesterday, I highlighted an effort by Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley to impose a new tax on publicly traded partnerships. That effort will likely result in these partnerships incorporating overseas, which will actually reduce the tax revenues coming to the federal government. Today's effort by the Baucus-Grassley partnership will do a lot more harm to American drivers, and to the overall economy:

A proposal to hit oil companies with $29 billion in new taxes advanced in the Senate on Tuesday, targeting the money to energy conservation, wind turbines, electric hybrid cars and clean coal technology.

The massive tax package, double what Democrats had talked about as recently as last week, is "designed to promote clean and sustainable energy," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee that approved the measure by a 15-5 vote.

It will be added to energy legislation being considered by the full Senate. ...

On the Senate floor, meanwhile, senators rejected two proposals Tuesday aimed at accelerating the development of liquefied coal for use as a substitute for diesel and jet fuel. Environmentalists argue liquefied coal produces more than twice the greenhouse gases of conventional diesel.

I agree that we should pursue energy alternatives that reduce or eliminate hydrocarbon emissions, but mostly that reduces or eliminates our dependence on foreign sources for energy production. We can do that by leveraging nuclear power for domestic energy production while pursuing coal technology for specialties such as jet fuel. That technology can produce massive amounts of energy in the near future, while the wind-turbine technology not only has fairly severe limitations, it also gets opposed by people like Ted Kennedy when they start appearing in their backyards.

Slapping massive new taxes on oil, however, only works when people have a viable alternative to gasoline -- and we don't. The cost at the gas pumps will rise to cover the new costs, as shareholders won't like the notion of losing money on their investments. Those shareholders, by the way, include you and me -- if you have a retirement account that relies on stocks and market funds.

It won't just hike prices at the pump, either. You know who else uses gasoline? The trucks that bring goods to stores. Increased transportation costs affect prices across almost every distribution channel. Do you order on-line? The shipping costs will shortly go up. It's a multiplier effect when dealing with goods that move more than once from manufacturer to consumer, too.

In short, Baucus and Grassley have built a substantial inflation rise into next year's economy. The same Congress that demanded a minimum-increase will now ensure that the buying power of that increase gets even weaker than it will be in the long run anyway.

Remind me again why Baucus and Grassley seem obsessed with raising taxes rather than cutting spending ...

UPDATE: Heritage has taken a look at the numbers, and has state-by-state projections on how much gas prices will rise under this new tax scheme. By next year, it will climb 31 cents per gallon in Minnesota if the market remains steady -- and will go up to $6.46 by 2016.

CQ Radio: John Hawkins

Today on CQ Radio, John Hawkins of Right Wing News returns to talk immigration. Both of us interviewed Senator John Ensign, the NRSC chair, and we'll talk about the different takes we had on our interviews. We'll also talk about John's continuing efforts to pressure Republicans in the Senate to defeat the immigration bill, and the effort in the House to work on the different issues separately. If we can, we'll even squeeze in some discussion about Jimmy Carter's latest jaw-dropping idiocy.

Next Thursday evening, I will debate James Boyce of the Huffington Post at BlogTalkRadio's Debate Central at 7:30 pm ET. The topics: Fred Thompson's impact on the Republican race, and Bill Richardson's policy on Iraq. Don't miss it!

The live player will start automatically if you click on the link to the extended entry. You can also listen from the player on the sidebar.

Might Makes Right?

What kind of world leader would instruct the international community to engage with Hamas, even though it just committed an armed insurrection against the Palestinian Authority? Who among the world's experts would argue that the coup d'etat legitimized their claim to speak for the Palestinian people? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Bashar Assad?

We wish:

The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former US President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.

Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who was addressing a conference of Irish human rights officials, said the Bush administration's refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was "criminal."

Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas fighters routed Fatah in their violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week. The split prompted Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing government with his rivals in Hamas and set up a Fatah-led administration to govern the West Bank.

So let's get this straight. Bush's refusal to engage with a terrorist group -- one that has long been on the State Department list of outlawed terrorist organizations -- is "criminal". Wouldn't it literally have been a criminal act to engage with Hamas? Federal law prohibits such direct contacts and the transmission of aid to terrorist groups such as Hamas.

Even more ridiculous, Carter feels that we should applaud the organizational skills of a terrorist group that just murdered its way to the top of the Gaza power structure. He applauds their "superior skills and discipline," while turning a blind eye to the ways in which they apply them. Rather than scold them for using violence to achieve their political goals, Carter wants the global community to welcome and reward them for it.

Carter started his post-presidential period as a model for retired politicians and statesmen. Had he stayed retired and focused on building homes for the poor, he would have gone some way towards mitigating his feckless presidency. Instead, Carter has become an apologist for terrorists -- and in this case, a cheerleader for them. Carter has embarrassed his nation and solidified his status as the appeaser-in-chief who coddled radical Islam at its birth, and seems determined to midwife it at every successive turn.

UPDATE: These are the people that Carter champions:

Hundreds of terrified Gazans fleeing Hamas rule were trapped at a main crossing with Israel on Tuesday, hoping to gain permission to pass through Israeli territory to sanctuary in the West Bank.

Fearing death or persecution, Gazans flocked to the Erez passage after Hamas militants wrested control of the coastal strip from Fatah security forces last week. Israel, which has no interest in letting masses of Gazans pass through its territory and possibly destabilize the quieter West Bank, has refused to let most of them in, saying their lives were not in danger. ...

On Monday, gunmen allied with Hamas disguised themselves as fleeing civilians and hurled hand grenades at Israeli soldiers and Palestinians at Erez, killing a relative of a slain Fatah warlord, and injuring 15 other Palestinians.

But they organized the attack so well! They showed superior skills and discipline in murdering civilians and engaging in terrorism! Jimmy Carter must have been so proud ...

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin has a roundup, called Jimmy Carter Said What? Part 999, which puts it neatly in perspective. John Hinderaker loves the notion that the US has been "criminal" for its refusal to fund a terrorist group, but Carter can't bring himself to mention the real crimes of Hamas.

Thompson Hits #1 With A Bullet

Rasmussen's latest polling shows that enthusiasm continues to build for a Fred Thompson candidacy. In fact, Fred pushed his way to the top of the poll, dislodging Rudy Giuliani from the top spot for the first time:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson earning support from 28% of Likely Republican Primary Voters. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani attracts support from 27%. While Thompson’s one-point edge is statistically insignificant, it is the first time all year that anybody but Giuliani has been on top in Rasmussen Reports polling. A week ago, Thompson and Giuliani were tied at 24%.

It remains an open question as to how Thompson will hold up once he actually enters the campaign and has to compete directly with other candidates. To date, he retains the allure of the new kid in town while GOP voters already know the things they don’t like about the others. Still, Thompson’s rise to the top provides a telling measure of how the other GOP hopefuls have failed to capture the imagination of the party they hope to lead.

Once gain this week, Arizona Senator John McCain and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney are tied for a distant third. This week, both men attract 10% support. Last week, they were both at the 11% level of support. For McCain, this is a continuation of a downward trend. For Romney, it reflects a fairly steady position. Romney is doing well in selected state polls but has been unable to gain much traction and expand his support nationwide.

Rasmussen has this as essentially a four-man race at this point, with two front-runners and two struggling to stay in the top tier. They eliminated Newt Gingrich from the polling this time, which undoubtedly helped Fred surpass Rudy, as most Newt voters want a solid conservative alternative with national pull. John McCain and Mitt Romney didn't get helped at all by that change, both losing slight ground instead and remaining tied for third place at a distance.

The second tier has all but faded from the scene. Combined, the rest of the field only gets 3%, under the margin of error for the whole poll. The only bright spot for Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo, Jim Gilmore, and Ron Paul comes from the 18% who haven't made up their minds as yet -- although even if one of them got all 18%, it would onl make them third in this race.

Fred's advent will come as his popularity is cresting. The Rasmussen report wonders aloud whether he can keep the momentum as a candidate, but Fred has hardly cloistered himself for the last six months. He's been offering policy positions and debating from his vantage point as a pundit, engaging the media on his terms and delving deeply into the Internet for his support. Unless he stumbles, as Rudy did on abortion in April, he's certainly establishing himself as the popular conservative in the race -- and successfully, as Rasmussen has determined.

The Liberal Case For Scooter Libby

Conservatives have argued vociferously for George Bush to pardon Scooter Libby, convicted on four of five counts of perjury and obstruction. They have argued that the prosecution had political motivations and that Libby didn't get a fair trial from a Bush-appointed judge. Today they have some surprising company -- Richard Cohen, the liberal columnist from the Washington Post. Cohen argues that Patrick Fitzgerald's runaway prosecution has damaged the American media and rule of law, and scapegoated Libby as a punishment for the Bush administration's policies in Iraq.

At Heading Right, I take a look at Cohen's argument, especially the accusations of hypocrisy he levels at his fellow liberals. Would a pardon or commutation actually act as a bulwark against further out-of-control prosecutions, or would they give the appellate courts no means of administering a more effective sanction?

Beware Of Getting Your Wishes, Hamas Version

Hamas finally got what it wanted last week -- unfettered control of Palestinian territory and an end to Fatah opposition to its radical-Islamist agenda. The coup that Hamas conducted, and their operations to cleanse Gaza of Fatah, turned out more successful than they hoped. In fact, they succeeded to the point where the West Bank government has outlawed them and refuse to even negotiate for a reconciliation, putting Gaza in deep isolation and endangering Hamas' status with Palestinians in both territories.

Now they want to kiss and make up:

Facing growing international isolation, the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday called for a "national dialogue" with their vanquished Fatah foes.

"We are shocked and surprised by the voices forbidding discussions with us, while they enter discussions with Israel," Khalil al-Haya, a prominent Hamas lawmaker, said at a news conference. "We are still prepared for a brotherly serious and responsible national dialogue."

The statement followed a decision made by Fatah's top leadership body to cut off all contacts with Hamas, a participant said. The decision was made in a meeting of the Fatah Central Committee, said Azzam al-Ahmed.

"The Fatah Central Committee decided today not to conduct any kind of contact, dialogue or meetings with Hamas unless it ends its military coup in Gaza and restores the situation to normal," al-Ahmed said. "Fatah will have no relationship with Hamas on any level."

"Brotherly and serious dialogue" got tossed out the window by Hamas when they conducted an armed insurrection in Gaza. It's inconceivable that Fatah would allow Hamas to operate in the West Bank after that; Abbas would have to be insane to give them an invitation to repeat their coup there. Suggesting such a relationship shows that either Hamas wants to fool the Palestinians or are fooling themselves, or perhaps equal measures of both.

Khaled Mashaal has seriously miscalculated this time. In one fell swoop, he alleviated Abbas of all the baggage in the Palestinian Authority He no longer has the responsibility for dealing with the catastrophe in Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal. Hamas has to figure out how to feed 1.5 million people during an international embargo that only got worse this week. Even other Arab countries won't help Hamas after their armed rebellion.

And now, Abbas can get all the international aid for himself and his organization. Free of Hamas, the West can now lift their sanctions; the US already has. That means that Abbas will start paying salaries again, bringing in food, and establishing (unfortunately) a patronage system that will only strengthen his political power. Anyone who wants to eat in the West Bank will eschew Hamas in favor of Fatah, or hopefully an even more moderate and rational organization.

Hamas just got stuck with the short end of the stick, and now they want to renegotiate the deal they themselves forced on Abbas. I think they'll be a long time waiting for a brotherly response from the people they stabbed in the back ... and shot in the head .. and threw off the tops of buildings.

Hillary -- Inevitable?

The line on Hillary Clinton in this election cycle has her as an inevitability for the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite misgivings over her strong negatives, the Democrats have not seen any candidate of substance challenging her in the primaries. Her two closest announced challengers have a grand total of eight years' experience in national office combined, and Hillary has run an adept and disciplined campaign.

However, as Howard Kurtz points out, that still hasn't ended the questions about Hillary's negatives and the nagging feeling among some Democrats that they are heading for a fall:

That, at least, is the consensus view of media wizards, strategists, pollsters and other kibitzers, that HRC is a virtual lock for the nomination. An official with a rival campaign told me that Hillary has an 80 percent chance of being the party's candidate, and most neutral observers would probably go with a higher number.

So why is there such unease about her within the party?

The conventional explanations don't fully cut it. Yes, the former first lady carries a fair amount of baggage from the 1990s. Yes, there will be concern about alternating Bush-Clinton dynasties. Yes, there is that first-woman thing, given that only men have occupied the Oval Office. And Hillary's high negatives, which were 50 percent in a recent Gallup poll.

But I don't think any of that gets at the reservations that some Democrats have about the New York senator. The baggage has been endlessly publicized. Her gender attracts lots of women. Negatives can come down if the electorate warms up to a candidate over the course of a campaign. There is something else, hinted at in that "1984" video, that some people find off-putting.

As James Carville might say, it's the arrogance, stupid. It seems to infect everything she does. Kurtz notes a number of articles appearing in the media, including leftist The Nation, questioning the wisdom of nominating Hillary -- and not just because voters have tired of Clintons and Bushes. The Los Angeles Times reports on one Democratic in Kentucky who pledged to vote for the Republican nominee if Hillry wins the nomination. Lakshmi Choudry says that Hillary's run actually damages feminism, and that women should oppose her representation of the patriarchy.

The arrogance factor is nothing new. Newsweek recalls Hillary's boast about pursuing a career instead of "stay[ing] home to bake cookies and have teas," a rip on stay-at-home mothers that still resonates to this day. The Clintons, Newsweek argues, miscalculated when they attempted the two-for-one campaign in 1992, but that was not the real problem in that race. The problem was then and is now the very clear impression of Hillary Clinton as an arrogant and not terribly likable politician.

Does this make her less inevitable? Apparently not, as the polls have shown. The only potential candidate within reach would be Al Gore, who seems to be happier as global-warming prophet than as electoral politician. Besides, Hillary has control of the vast Clinton campaign machine, which Gore used in 2000 in a narrow loss. But it puts Hillary and the Democrats at a significant disadvantage in a general election -- and the Democrats know it, even if they don't have an alternative at this point.

The Republicans have an opportunity to pull off an upset in 2008 by nominating a candidate who puts her negatives in stark relief. At the moment, that does not appear to be a terribly difficult task.

Diyala's Turn

The US has achieved a significant level of success in Iraq's Anbar province in driving terrorists out. Tribal leaders have allied themselves with American forces and have even started a grassroots political force called the Awakening, acting to pursue al-Qaeda and other foreign Islamists from their territory. As a result, violence has dropped by a third in Anbar over the last four months, and now the US wants to take that show on the road -- to Diyala:

About 10,000 US soldiers have launched an offensive against al-Qa'eda in Iraq, killing at least 22 insurgents.

The raids, named Operation Arrowhead Ripper, took place in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, and involved air assaults under the cover of darkness. The operation is still ongoing.

The troops were accompanied by attack helicopters, Strykers and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, a statement from the military said.

Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim al-Rubaie, the commander of Iraqi military operations in Diyala, said handcuffs, swords and electricity cables - apparently used as torture implements - had been seized from militant safe houses in the area.

The operation is part of a new US and Iraqi campaign aimed at clearing out Sunni insurgents, al-Qa'eda fighters and Shia militiamen who had fled the capital and Anbar during a four-month-old security operation.

The pursuit of AQI meant that Diyala was the logical next step. Its sectarian mix not only allowed AQI to move into Baquba and its environs, it also gave them opportunities to inflame sectarian tensions. While the US has worked hard to turn the corner in Anbar, AQI fled to fight another day, and that day is today.

The expansion of the effort against AQI and the other insurgencies comes as a result of General David Petraeus getting the final brigade of the surge within the last few days. It took over four months for the necessary troops to arrive in Anbar and Baghdad, and even so, the new strategy and tactics have worked to reduce violence in those areas. However, the new, aggressive tactics have ended up acting like a game of whack-a-mole, with insurgents adjusting to the deployment by setting up shop elsewhere, as in Diyala.

At some point, the terrorists will have no more places to run, but that will take quite a long time. Petraeus wants to get them out of Baghdad in order to allow the central government to finally take steps towards national reconciliation. No one thinks that a military solution exists that will solve all of Iraq's problems, but the military needs to give enough space to allow the political solutions to take place and to root themselves firmly in the Iraqi culture.

At some point, chasing insurgents will become the exclusive province of the Iraqi Army. We will probably work on AQI ourselves for the next few years, but we want to hand everything else off to a strong, representative government in Baghdad in the very near future, if possible. By keeping the pressure on AQI and other terrorists in Baghdad, Anbar, and now Diyala, we're giving that solution the best possible chance to succeed.

UPDATE: Michael Yon reports from the front:

Few ears have heard even rumors of this battle, and fewer still are the eyes that will see its full scope. Even now—the battle has already begun for some—practically no news about it is flowing home. I’ve known of the secret plans for about a month, but have remained silent.

This campaign is actually a series of carefully orchestrated battalion and brigade sized battles. Collectively, it is probably the largest battle since “major hostilities” ended more than four years ago. Even the media here on the ground do not seem to have sensed its scale. ...

But now the AQ cancer is spreading into Diyala Province, straight along the Diyala River into Baghdad and other places. “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia” (AQM) apparently now a subgroup of ISI (the Islamic State of Iraq), has staked Baquba as the capital of their Caliphate. Whatever the nom de jour of their nom de guerre, Baquba has been claimed for their capital. I was in Diyala again this year, where there is a serious state of Civil War, making Baquba an unpopular destination for writers or reporters. (A writer was killed in the area about a month ago, in fact.) News coming from the city and surrounds most often would say things like, “near Baghdad,” or “Northeast of Baghdad,” and so many people have never even heard of Baquba.

Well, I'm getting the story from a British newspaper, which underscores Michael's point.

So Why Can't The Senate Do It?

Critics of the immigration reform bill in the Senate have asked repeatedly why Congress can't address border security and visa-system overhauls first before addressing normalization and guest-worker programs. Even those of us who do not oppose some form of normalization as part of a national-security effort understand that Congress needs to build trust with the American people on the two key portions of controlling entry into and exit from the United States before creating huge new bureaucracies to deal with the 12 million people already illegally in the US. However, when asked, Senators talk about triggers instead of severability.

The House, however, seems to have few problems with severability, at least in theory:

House Democrats say they may break the immigration issue up into a series of smaller bills that would put off the tougher parts and allow others to pass, such as border security, and high-tech and agriculture worker programs that have clear support.

That could buy Democrats more time to work out the tougher aspects of immigration, such as what to do about the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens now here, but it would go against the Senate's massive catchall approach and contradicts President Bush's call for a broad bill to pass. ...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, says he is committed to getting a "comprehensive" bill done before releasing the Senate for its Fourth of July vacation, and he has the support of top Republican leaders.

In the House, though, Republicans are more uniformly opposed, and many vulnerable freshman Democrats could be hurt by a bill labeled "amnesty." That leaves Democratic leaders trying to see what they can pass.

In our interview last week, Rep. Tim Walberg said that the House would take a very different approach to immigration. Walberg also told us then that the GOP caucus in the House almost unanimously opposed the Senate approach to immigration, and that the prospects were not good that a bill could even get past a conference committee. It makes sense; all 435 House members face the voters in 2008, and they are much more vulnerable to voter anger. The Senate only has one-third of its members running for re-election in any given cycle, and can afford to be less responsive in the short run.

House leadership has apparently read the polls in this case. They know that the American public supports some rational form of normalization by a thin majority, but that they overwhelmingly support strengthening border security and visa programs first. They want to take the common-sense approach of fixing the actual underlying problems that create illegal immigration first, and then worry about correcting the symptoms once the problems have been resolved.

House Republicans encourage this approach. Eric Cantor, the deputy whip for the GOP, rightly says that Congress has to rebuild trust with the public on border security before we will accept the rest of the package. Those portions of the bill in the Senate, Cantor says, is no more than what Congress has already passed and then effectively ignored. Attempting to foist that on the American public again will anger the electorate, and not just conservatives.

If the House can figure out a way to effectively tackle immigration one step at a time, why can't the Senate?

CQ Media Alert

At 8 pm CT, I'll join Rob Breckenridge on his CHQR show, The World Tonight, to discuss -- well, whatever Rob wants to discuss. I've been a guest on his show a number of times, and Rob is a terrific and generous host. If you're not in Calgary, be sure to listen on the live Internet stream.

Don't forget that I'll also join James Joyner for his first Outside the Beltway BTR show at 6 pm CT! You can join that conversation by calling 646-716-7030.

Does This Sound Familiar?

The Senate decided to tackle an immigration reform by using backroom deals and bypassing the normal legislative process, and the bill's backers then tried to blow it through a short debate. Instead of getting their bill passed, they got caught in a backlash of resentment, forcing the dealmakers to try again.

The American Conservative Union warns that the Senate will try the same approach with a tax bill sponsored by Charles Grassley and Max Baucus:

It never fails, whenever the free market is poised to succeed and innovate further, there is always an effort to tax or regulate it from reaching its true potential. The most recent example: efforts to impose new punitive taxes on publicly traded partnerships.

In view of several pending and potential Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) by private equity firms seeking to join the public markets, U.S. Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) unveiled punitive legislation in S.1624 late last week to actually RAISE taxes on ALL existing and new publicly traded partnerships.

Like bad tax policy before it, this legislation was offered without the benefit of normal Congressional or Joint Tax Committee hearings or any analysis from the U.S. Treasury or the Internal Revenue Service.

The free market community is united against any new tax increases and will oppose this bill vigorously. Not only is this legislation a major tax increase, it will actually depress tax revenues as other partnerships will choose to stay private or reincorporate abroad – neither of which is good for the economy, the government or investors.

Do we really need another piece of public policy that bypasses the normal legislative process? The backroom strategy hardly helped the comprehensive immigration reform effort, so it's hard to understand why Grassley and Baucus feel the need to use it for their tax effort. After all, if the policy is good for the country, then hearings with the IRS and analysis from the Treasury should confirm it .. right?

The question answers itself, doesn't it?

In fact, the two Senators have no idea whether this will wind up raising any significant revenue for the federal government, as the Wall Street Journal reports:

But having scored their points with the public, it's possible that lawmakers will lose interest in the measure if it runs into heavy opposition or if it doesn't raise much money for the government to spend. Sens. Baucus and Grassley haven't said how much revenue they expect to raise from the measure.

Once again, the Senate -- supposedly the world's greatest deliberative body -- appears poised to rush bad public policy without any deliberative process at all. Grassley and Baucus should do their homework and allow for hearings and analysis on this legislation ... or better yet, stop looking for taxes to raise and start looking for spending to cut.

That Didn't Take Long

Duke University moved quickly to end the debacle that they themselves stoked over the false accusations of rape against three of their students. Two days after the North Carolina State Bar disbarred prosecutor Mike Nifong for his role in railroading the lacrosse team members, Duke settled the civil claims brought against the university:

Duke University has reached an undisclosed financial settlement with three former lacrosse players falsely accused of rape, the school said Monday.

Duke suspended Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans after they were charged last year with raping a stripper at an off-campus party. The university also canceled the team's season and forced their coach to resign.

"We welcomed their exoneration and deeply regret the difficult year they and their families have had to endure," the school said in a statement. "These young men and their families have been the subject of intense scrutiny that has taken a heavy toll." ...

The players said in a joint statement that they hoped the agreement would "begin to bring the Duke family back together again."

"The events of the last year tore the Duke community apart, and forcibly separated us from the university we love," they said. "We were the victims of a rogue prosecutor concerned only with winning an election, and others determined to railroad three Duke lacrosse players and to diminish the reputation of Duke University."

The "others" referenced in that statement undoubtedly means the Duke 88, those faculty members who publicly libeled the three accused in a newspaper ad. The report by the AP does not mention whether the agreement includes an end to action against the 88. If it does, Duke must have ponied up a lot of money to get the three players to talk about "love" and the university in the same breath.

If not, the 88 may find themselves the target of another lawsuit -- but probably after the three get finished with Nifong himself. His belated remorse will not likely save him from the legal wrath of those he went out of his way to wrong. They have millions of dollars in legal bills to defray, and those attorneys will make sure someone pays the piper.

CQ Radio: I Get Around (Update: The LDS Church Explains Their Political Neutrality)

I'm a busy man today. At noon Central, I'll be a guest on Silvio Canto's BlogTalkRadio show. We'll talk blogging and immigration, and you can join the conversation at 646-478-4933.

At 6 pm Central, I'll join James Joyner for the premiere broadcast of Outside the Beltway's new BTR show. James will also have Dr. Steven Taylor from Poliblog as a guest, and you can join that conversation by calling 646-716-7030.

Today on CQ Radio (2 pm CT), I'll have Mike Otterson, the Director of Public Affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He'll talk about the LDS Church's politically neutral stance and the effect that the Romney campaign has had on their organization. Afterwards, we'll have more or less an open forum for CQ Radio listeners and CQ readers. We'll talk about whatever's on your mind. Call 646-652-4889 to start the debate!

Next Thursday evening, I will debate James Boyce of the Huffington Post at BlogTalkRadio's Debate Central at 7:30 pm ET. The topics: Fred Thompson's impact on the Republican race, and Bill Richardson's policy on Iraq. Don't miss it!

The live player will start automatically if you click on the link to the extended entry. You can also listen from the player on the sidebar.

Pakistan Endorses Suicide Bombing -- For Assassinating Authors

A high-ranking Pakistani minister endorsed suicide-bombing attacks on British author Salman Rushdie after he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. The move comes as the White House endorsed Pervez Musharraf as an ally against terrorism (via Memeorandum):

Pakistan on Monday condemned Britain's award of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie as an affront to Muslim sentiments, and a Cabinet minister said the honor provided a justification for suicide attacks.

"This is an occasion for the (world's) 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, said in parliament.

"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body, he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the 'sir' title," ul-Haq said.

This points up a well-known problem among Muslims, even those considered somewhat moderate and cosmopolitan. They refuse to allow for any criticism of their faith, even from fellow Muslims. While Christians and Jews and Buddhists react to criticism with debate and protest, Muslims react with violence, usually encouraged by governments throughout Asia. Twenty years ago, it was Iran that encouraged assassins to target Rushdie, and now Pakistan has renewed the contract.

With Iran, the US and the rest of the West could easily castigate the mullahcracy for their barbarity. It will be tougher to do that with Pakistan, especially since the US is trying very hard to bolster Musharraf against the radicals:

Top U.S. officials visiting Pakistan on Saturday reiterated their confidence in the country's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, even as thousands of people took to the streets to demand his ouster.

Musharraf's public support here has been in free fall since March 9, when he suspended the nation's chief justice, a move that was widely seen as a bid to consolidate power before elections expected this year. Since then, a campaign to reinstate the judge, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, has evolved into a full-fledged movement to end eight years of military rule.

It's not a good sign. The campaign against the radicals of Islam appears to have stalled, at least in Pakistan.

More Rezko Woes For Obama

Barack Obama has worked mightily to distance himself from former fundraiser Tony Rezko, but the Chicago Sun-Times keeps finding more bread crumbs between the two. According to their sources, the indicted businessman contributed three times as much money to Obama's campaigns, including some critical assistance in the primaries for his current position in the Senate:

During his 12 years in politics, Sen. Barack Obama has received nearly three times more campaign cash from indicted businessman Tony Rezko and his associates than he has publicly acknowledged, the Chicago Sun-Times has found.

Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.

But seven months ago, Obama told the Sun-Times his "best estimate" was that Rezko raised "between $50,000 and $60,000" during Obama's political career.

Obama, who wants to be the nation's next president, has been purging some of those donations -- giving charities more than $30,000 he got from Rezko and three of his business partners referenced in Rezko's federal indictments. All three attended a lavish fund-raiser Rezko hosted for Obama four years ago.

Obama, however, has kept $6,850 from others who also are referenced in Rezko's indictments. Obama also has hung on to contributions from doctors whom Rezko helped appoint to a state-government panel involved in some of Rezko's alleged fraud schemes.

How critical was Rezko's assistance? In 2003, when Obama first began his run for the Senate, the Democrats didn't believe he could compete against the wealthy Blair Hull and state Comptroller Dan Hynes. Obama needed to show he could raise funds in large enouugh amounts to stay abreast of the two better-known potential candidates, as well as against the Republican incumbent, Jack Ryan. The latter turned out to be no problem, as Ryan imploded as details of his divorce became public.

Obama has unloaded most of the money, more than three years later, but not all of it. They have retained some money from people named in the Rezko indictments, but that may be a temporary situation. The campaign has had to bactrack so much to find these donations that they may simply have failed to catch up to these.

Earlier, it appeared that Obama would put Rezko behind him; the peccadillo of the land swap with his former supporter didn''t gain much traction, perhaps rightly so. It didn't enrich Obama except to add a little more yard space to his lot. Unlike that, this shows that Rezko played a key role in moving Obama from a state legislator to a national candidate for President, and during a time that Obama's law office did business with Rezko on his questionable absentee-landlord business. Those kind of connections might get more traction, especially if the Obama campaign keeps getting caught fudging the numbers.

John Ensign, Interview Transcript

On Friday's installment of CQ Radio, I interviewed Senator John Ensign, chair of the NRSC and an important voice on the immigration debate. Ensign twice voted against cloture in the Senate showdown ten days ago, but he says he still hopes that the bill can get amended to the point where it solves our border and immigration problems. The full transcript of the interview is now up at Heading Right.

I asked him several questions about immigration and his views on the bill:

EM: Let’s talk about that for just a second, because there are a lot of people who are complaining is what congress should do first is just focus on border security and fixing the visa program first and then once you have established creditability on that, then the American public will be more open to the idea of things like normalization and temporary guest worker programs. Why can’t this be done in two stages?

SE: Well, that’s why I think it’s very important that the triggers, be real triggers in the bill and that we actually fund those triggers. We fund those types of programs before other of programs goes into effect. The funding has to be mandatory funding, not where it’s like a wink and a nod to future funding. We actually have to make sure that the funding is there to secure the borders and interior enforcement. People forget that about forty percent of the folks who are here illegally are people who came in legally then overstayed their visa ...

As I noted this weekend, we don't ever get a clear answer as to why the issues cannot be addressed separately. When that question gets asked, the responses fall back to the triggers in the comprehensive bill. So far, the Senate does not seem to grasp that they lack enough credibility to have us trust that the triggers will be honored over the 2-3 year period the CBO envisions for their completion.

I then asked him about the 854 miles of border fencing authorized last year:

EM: What about the bill that was passed last year to build eight hundred and fifty four miles of double fencing on the southern border? Where is that going?

SE: It’s not being funded enough. It’s not being funded enough and that’s why I said it’s so critical that we get the funding in place. Ok, there is a lot of things that we do in the Senate that we’ll authorize but if you don’t appropriate the money, you know, you pass a law that yes you can do it but then you have to fund it. That’s why it’s critical for this immigration bill that it gets funded on all the enforcements mechanisms. If you don’t have the funding in place, it’s not guaranteed that those enforcement mechanisms will be in place.

Which neatly sums up our misgivings about the triggers.

I then asked him, as chair of the NRSC, how the Republican candidates can rebuild the trust the party has lost over the last six years on core values such as limited government and fiscal responsibility:

EM: Well, what are you going to frame as the core values of the Republican Party for 2008? I mean, you’ve talked a little about lower taxes and reducing spending but those are, I would almost argue, sort of second layer issues. I mean, are you going to be arguing for smaller government, if so, where do you see the reduction in government so we don’t have to have as much taxes?

SE: Well, that’s where fiscal responsibility comes in leads to more limited, more effective government. More personal responsibility; lower taxes are because you believe that families and businesses can do better with their dollars than the government can do with their dollars. And those are the basic core principles that Republicans stand for and all of this gets down to its’ cores principle and that is the belief in freedom. The belief that we should be free to succeed and free to fail. The freedom to fail is one of the greatest freedoms we have in America and too many people try to put a safety net under everything that we do and that actually is harmful in the long run.

Be sure to read the entire transcript at Heading Right.

UPDATE: John Hawkins has his own interview with Ensign at Right Wing News. Also, this interview has generated some hostile reaction, and I think it may be a little overheated. Ensign didn't say he'd flat-out oppose the immigration bill, but he did say it would have to be a lot better than it is now before he'd vote for it:

EM: And I just want to remind the listeners here that Senator John Ensign, the chairman of the NRSC, voted against cloture on both counts eight days ago, which tabled the bill. So, I mean, like you said, you’ve opposed this bill because there are things in it that you don’t like. You’re hoping that you’ll going to be able to get a bill that fixes all those problems that you can vote for but you have actually fought against it in it’s current form. Now, we’ve heard ...

SE: I think it was outrageous what the Democrats did in trying to wrap this bill up when this is a very complex piece of legislation and you need to have amendments to be able to be offered to the bill, they’re legitimate amendments, they not just people trying to kill the bill, there’re actually people trying to improve the bill. For instance, I think it’s outrageous right now that the bill still allows folks who are here illegally, who stole people’s social security numbers, used them to work, ruin people’s credit, and then this bill allows them to get credit for that social security work and allows them to get social security benefits. I have an amendment that will fix that. Well the Democrats have not allowed me to offer that amendment at this time because they know that the American people are against them on that and they hate that amendment but they know that American people against them on that. And there are several amendments like that, that we need to make sure we’re able to offer to the bill and then if they go down, well then, we can vote against the bill and know that we tried everything we could to fix it but if some of the things on interior enforcement, on exit visa program, on making sure that the funding is there for the triggers and it’s there before these other things go into effect, then no illegal immigrate gets social security benefits. If we do those things, then maybe we can actually vote for a bill. But, until we get those things, we’re not going to be able to vote for a bill.

Like I said, read the whole thing before making up your mind. This is one of the Republicans who got the bill tabled ten days ago, so he's not exactly working with the compromisers at the moment.

Obama Recedes, Fred Surges

The new Gallup poll for the presidential campaigns shows the front-runners, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, still leading their respective races. The action takes place below as the contenders jockey for position -- and Obama has dropped off the pace just a little:

A USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted earlier this month found Clinton's chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, pulling even with Clinton. However, in the current poll Obama has fallen back to a tie for second place with former Vice President Al Gore. At 21%, current support for Obama is near the low end of the support range seen for him since January, while Gore's 18% ties with an early March poll as his best result.

Former Sen. John Edwards, once tied with Gore for third place, has been stalled in the 11% to 12% range since May. The only other candidate earning the support of at least 5% of Democrats is New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

Even when the question is posed between Hillary and Obama, the Illinois Senator has lost ground. Since April, he had steadily increased his support against Hillary, peaking at the beginning of the month to come within the margin of error, 49-46. It marked the first time this year that Hillary didn't get a majority of voters in a head-to-head contest. However, Hillary has rebounded to a 53-42 gap, and Obama has more people questioning his credibility as a national candidate for the presidency.

The Republicans have a different story among their challengers. Rudy still leads, but he's now down to 28%. Gallup has joined the other pollsters in showing Fred Thompson at second place, nine points back in the overall race. Rudy does better head-to-head against Fred, 53-41, but that's a pretty impressive showing for a man who has not yet taken the wraps off of the campaign. McCain barely trails by a point for a third-place showing, and Mitt Romney still can't catch fire at 7%.

South Carolina could be a wild card for everyone, however. New state polling shows Fred and Obama ahead. Seven months out from the primary, Obama has a 34-25 lead over Hillary Clinton, whose Iowa woes don't look to get much improvement here. The bigger news is that Fred had leapfrogged everyone without spending a dime, leading Rudy 25-21. Even more surprising, John McCain has dropped to 7 percent, just two points above Mike Huckabee in a state that McCain figured to win.

It's still a wide-open race, but give Fred credit. If he can make this much of an impact on the race without spending any money, consider how he will do once his campaign gets its official start.

What About The Duke 88?

Now that Mike Nifong has had his law license revoked and may face criminal contempt charges, attention has turned to another Durham institution that involved itself in the non-rape case: Duke University. Dinesh D'Souza writes at his Townhall blog that the 88 faculty members that took out an ad castigating their innocent students should also face some retribution:

From the time the first reports of sexual assault at Duke University surfaced, these intellectual vigilantes went to work. Houston Baker, a professor of English and Afro-American Studies, issued a public letter condemning the "abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence and drunken white male privilege loosed among us." He seems to have simply presumed the students guilty.

Shortly after that, 88 members of the Duke arts and science faculty--the so-called Gang of 88--signed a public statement praising campus demonstrators who had distributed a "WANTED" poster that branded the lacrosse players as "rapists." The Gang of 88 didn't use that term, but its statement referred to "what happened to this young woman." Ignoring calls to wait for the evidence, the gang instead went into full social-justice gear.

"What is apparent every day now is the anger and fear of many students who know themselves to be objects of racism and sexism, who see illuminated in this moment's extraordinary spotlight what they live with every day...We're turning up the volume in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait. To the students speaking individually and to the protesters making collective noise, thank you for not waiting and for making yourselves heard." In other words, Go vigilantes go!

Now it is time to hold these folks accountable. I know it’s too much to expect that these politically correct vigilantes have their teaching licenses taken away. But perhaps it’s not too much to ask that they be officially reprimanded by the university.

This seems a rather tall order for the Duke University administration. It didn't exactly act with much courage itself, succumbing to internal and external pressure and punishing the entire team for what turned out to be nothing more than one night of bad judgment. Some members of the team hired two strippers for a party -- not illegal, but in poor taste -- and the school fired the coach, forfeited the remaining season, and put three players on suspension despite not having any evidence they committed a crime.

D'Souza expects this same administration to punish the 88 faculty members who joined them on the torch procession? The university itself encouraged their attack with its own response. It can hardly waggle its finger at these supposedly free-thinking academics when everyone involved acted like shrieking hysterics, rather than calmly looking at evidence and its lack to determine their best course of action.

In truth, the non-rape case shows just how far academia has fallen from its mission. Universities, especially top-flight schools like Duke, sprang from an age of Enlightenment, where reason and rational thought were prized and education meant learning through those processes. In the last few generations, however, reason and rational thought have fallen away, and the virtues celebrated on campuses now are histrionics, diatribe, and invective.

The Duke 88 aren't an anomaly that will receive scorn and rebuke from their colleagues. They represent the norm, and Duke as well.

Sarkozy Loses Some Steam

New French President Nicolas Sarkozy got his majority in the National Assembly, but managed to look like a loser anyway. Anticipating a massive victory of perhaps 500 of the 577 seats in the parliament, his UMP only won 346 instead. Even more embarrassing, his second-highest-ranking Cabinet minister lost his race and tendered his resignation as environmental minister:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling party won a majority in parliamentary runoff elections Sunday, but Socialists -- contrary to all poll predictions -- gained more seats than they had held in the previous assembly, foreshadowing tough battles ahead for the new government's proposals.

Leftist candidates appeared to be boosted by public fears about Sarkozy's reform efforts, including an announcement last week of a plan to raise sales taxes, and by a low turnout of Sarkozy voters anticipating a runaway sweep of the National Assembly.

Final results from the Interior Ministry showed the ruling Union for a Popular Movement party, or UMP, and its allies on the right with 346 of the 577 parliamentary seats; the Socialist and leftist parties with 226; the centrist Democratic Movement, or MoDem, party with three seats; and other independent parties with two seats. Sarkozy's party won 314 seats, a loss of 45 seats, while the Socialists won 185 seats, a gain of 36 members, according to the Interior Ministry's final figures.

Complacency dented Sarkozy's momentum, apparently. The European press had all but conceded the parliamentary elections to the UMP, and apparently UMP voters took that too much to heart. They allowed the Socialists to eke out a substantial minority, enough to cause complications for the reform measures that Sarkozy wants to begin.

Sarkozy says he still has a significant mandate for change, and the solid majority means that he has some leeway to push it through. However, he'll have to do it without Alain Juppé, his environmental minister. Juppé had been convicted of financial misdealings and wound up losing his seat to a Socialist challenger by just two percentage points.

The Socialists have their share of problems, too. The Socialist challenger to Sarkozy, Ségolène Royale, has kicked her common-law husband and political partner François Hollande out of the house, apparently as the result of infidelity. Hollande, the Socialist party leader, had sparred publicly with Royale towards the end of the presidential campaign, and Royale has told newspapers that she let Hollande free to pursue his "love interest", a fairly clear accusation.

The Socialists have to wonder whether they could have done better without the Bickersons leading the party this year. The Royale campaign consisted of one stumble after another, and with this new information, it seems that their top candidate and their party leader had other issues on their mind than attracting voters. Although they did better than they expected in the National Assembly, they can't help but think that a more focused effort could have produced better results.

The Upcoming Budget Wars

If you got bored with Beltway politics in the first six veto-free years of the Bush administration, buckle your seatbelts -- because the ride is about to get bumpy indeed. Congress has twelve appropriations bills coming to the White House, and three-quarters of them look ripe for vetoes, as President Bush has decided to try fiscal responsibility in his last two years in office:

Addressing a Republican fundraising dinner at the Washington Convention Center on Wednesday night, President Bush declared: "If the Democrats want to test us, that's why they give the president the veto. I'm looking forward to vetoing excessive spending, and I'm looking forward to having the United States Congress support my veto." That was more than blather for a political pep rally. Bush plans to veto the homeland security appropriations bill nearing final passage, followed by vetoes of eight more money bills sent him by the Democratic-controlled Congress.

That constitutes a veto onslaught of historic proportions from a president who did not reject a single bill during his first term. Of the 12 appropriations bills for fiscal 2008, only three will be signed by the president in the form shaped by the House. What's more, Bush correctly claimed that he has the House votes needed to sustain these vetoes. The unpopular president is taking the offensive on fiscal responsibility. After bowing to Republican demands on earmarks, Democratic leaders face a battle of the budget.

Bush refused to veto a single appropriation bill sent to him by the Republican-controlled Congresses during the first six years of his term. He threatened vetoes on a number of occasions, resulting in just enough pork-trimming to ensure his approval. After six years of profligacy, voters finally rebelled and sent Democrats to Congress instead -- apparently convinced that it would result in lower spending.

Surprise! They've turned out to be even more profligate than the Republicans. The Homeland Security bill is 14% higher than last year, thanks to the healthy dose of pork that David Obey tried mightily to hide in the conference report process. They've boosted the military construction-veterans affairs bill by 30%, but the President won't veto that one -- he doesn't want to be seen as taking money away from veterans, even though he proposed a 22% increase himself.

In fact, the only bill that the Democrats brought under the budget request was for financial services and general government. Bush plans to sign that bill and the appropriation for Congress itself. Otherwise, it will be an almost total pushback to the first Democratic Congress that Bush has had to encounter.

It's late in the game for Bush on out-of-control spending, but at least he's finally decided to fight. The battle over the budget should highlight the expansionist designs of the Democrats, who won the midterms in part over the irresponsibility of Republicans on spending. The remaining GOP caucus in the House has enough votes to uphold vetoes on spending, and they want to reinstate themselves as the good stewards of the public purse. Thanks to the Democratic overreach, they have that opportunity just five months into their minority status -- and can position themselves well for the 2008 elections.

Hamas Burns Church In Gaza City

The Hamas coup has freed the Islamists to do what they do best -- terrorize non-Muslims. Hamas militants burned the Latin Church in Gaza City and went on a rampage at the Rosary Sisters School, while Fatah decided that the occupation in the West Bank has its good points after all:

Fatah leaders have appealed to Israel to halt security measures against Fatah gunmen in the West Bank and promised to continue their massive crackdown on Hamas there, Palestinian Authority officials here said on Sunday.

The appeal was delivered to the government via US and European officials who met with several Fatah leaders here in the past few days, the officials told The Jerusalem Post. ...

Leaders of the Christian community in the Strip expressed deep concern over the fate of the Christians living under Hamas. They said most of them wanted to leave the Gaza out of fear for their lives. An estimated 2,500 Christians live in Gaza City.

Abbas condemned the attack as barbaric and despicable, and blamed Hamas militiamen.

Fatah needs the Israelis on their side if they start a bloody battle with Hamas in the West Bank. For one thing, the IDF controls the territory, and Fatah risks getting their own people killed by conducting militia operations without Israeli coordination. They also need the Israelis to at least cooperate to the extent of sharing intel, if not actively fighting Hamas themselves.

Abbas has issued a series of directives outlawing Hamas militias. Stating that they had contributed to an armed revolt, Abbas directed that anyone belonging to or assisting them would get punished in accordance with the law. So far, Abbas has been careful not to outlaw Hamas altogether, apparently preferring to keep his political options open. However, after kicking out all of the Hamas ministers from his cabinet and ignoring the Hamas-led assembly, he has created a de facto ban on Hamas political activity as well.

This has led to even more heated -- and ridiculous -- political rhetoric. A Hamas official in Gaza accused Abbas of a 'constitutional coup', apparently oblivious to their own military coup last week. In response, a Fatah official in the West Bank scoffed at the notion that Abbas should account himself to an assembly run by the organization that conducted military operations against the Palestinian Authority, and warned other Arab nations to rid themselves of radicals or risk the same fate as Gaza.

In the meantime, Hamas will continue its campaign against Christians in Gaza. One of their subsidiary groups threatened to "target all Crusaders" in Gaza, including in their homes "as they sit intoxicated". They claim to want a formal apology from the Pope before they'll stop, but even if that came, they would simply find another excuse to commit murder and mayhem. When they run out of Christians, they'll start working on Muslims that do not fully comply with their strictures, until Gaza becomes a ghost region.

Israel doesn't need to kill them all; they're going to wind up doing that to themselves.

Abbas Outlaws Hamas Militias

Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new cabinet today and outlawed Hamas militias, two moves that will widen the gulf between the West Bank and Gaza. His counterpart, former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, insists that Hamas still controls the government, but at this point they have found themselves isolated on the Gaza Strip without any lines of communication back to the Palestinian Authority's power base:

The hurried swearing-in ceremony of the new Cabinet left the Palestinians effectively with two governments the Hamas leadership in Gaza and the new Cabinet in the West Bank led by respected economist Salam Fayyad.

Abbas issued decrees Sunday annulling a law requiring the new government to be approved by parliament, which is dominated by Hamas, and outlawing the Islamic group's militias.

"There is one authority, one law and one legitimate gun in all areas of our homeland, in the West Bank and Gaza," he said later.

In Gaza, deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh who has ignored Abbas' order firing him called the new government illegal and insisted he remains in power. "The council of ministers considers the steps adopted by President Mahmoud Abbas to ... have no basis in law," he said. "The national unity government asserts here that we are fulfilling our duty according to our law."

In an apparent response to Abbas' decree, Haniyeh fired the head of internal security and the director general of the Palestinian police, Hamas-allied Al Aqsa TV said. The decisions were symbolic because both men moved to the West Bank.

Hamas has a problem that will start emerging in the coming days. It only had one real trump card to play against Fatah, which was its standing and military strength in Gaza. It could threaten Abbas with a military coup there and extort concessions from their superior bargaining position -- but only while they held that trump card in abeyance.

Now that they have played it out, Abbas can cut loose the much poorer Gaza from his calculations. In the West Bank, where the Israelis maintain security, the standard of living is not as desperate. Moreover, by firing Hamas and outlawing them, he can restart Western aid to the Palestinian Authority. That influx of cash will make him much stronger than his Hamas rivals, and may help push a settlement in the West Bank that would have been impossible with Hamas as a partner.

Israel has played its first card in this game as well. It cut off oil deliveries to Gaza, which will mean no fuel for vehicles in a short period of time. That will eat into Hamas' military strength and make them less mobile in a fight against the Israelis, and also in case of a popular uprising.

Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal may have gotten the upper hand in Gaza, but they may have lost the wider war to Mahmoud Abbas. If he plays his cards correctly, Abbas can put himself squarely in the driver's seat for the next couple of years.

My Two Fathers

Today is Father's Day, and Americans will celebrate with their families. Some are fortunate enough to spend the day with their fathers and grandfathers, while others only have memories to recall today. My good friend Joe Gandelman, for instance, just lost his father three weeks ago. Dr. Helen also points out that there are plenty of fathers for whom today serves as a reminder of the children who don't want to remain in contact with them.

I'm fortunate today, because I get to celebrate two fathers in my life. The Admiral Emeritus is still hale and hearty at 75, but he's 1500 miles away today. Normally, he's even farther away than that, because he's spending his retirement traveling the world. We catch up with Dad between trips, with plenty of new stories and adventures to recall.

Even so, Dad's always near enough to lean on when necessary. When I hurt my back last year, he and his wife flew out to Minneapolis on a couple of days' notice to spend the first two weeks after my surgery to take care of me and the First Mate. He's a great sounding board when I need advice, and that's been often. He's had my back in more than one way for 44 years, and he's been a rock for me.

The other father in my life is, actually, my son. Fatherhood came early for him, and motherhood for my daughter-in-law, but both of them immediately transformed into two wonderful and responsible parents overnight. I sometimes get a sense of vertigo trying to reconcile the teenager that he had been with the father he has become, a fairly common experience among grandparents, I have been told.

My son has been a blessing in my life that I'm certain I have not earned, but for which I am grateful. We had our share of difficulties, but we've also had many more good memories and good times with each other. He gave me my fatherhood, a role that I value just below husband, and one that allows me all the joy of being a grandfather.

Today, I'll celebrate both fathers in my life, even though both are elsewhere. I hope CQ readers have as much fortune as I do in celebrating today.

The Freshman Who Doesn't Know His Place

It's not easy being a freshman Congressman in any circumstances, but especially in the session after your party loses its majority. Tim Walberg, one of only 13 Republican freshmen in the House this year, has plenty of reason to act like a backbencher and spend the session learning from his colleagues. Instead, he has decided to take action against those who want to rescind the Bush tax cuts and effectively deliver the largest tax increase in American history -- and he's calling out those Blue Dog Democrats who won in Republican districts last year to stand up and be counted:

Democrats in Congress are discounting advancements made possible by the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts passed by Congress and are trying to slap U.S. taxpayers with a $400 billion tax increase that will slow our economy's current progress.

If Democrats follow through on their budget promises, the American people will face the following:

• A $500 per child tax increase.
• A 55 percent Death Tax.
• A 13 percent tax increase for many small businesses.
• A 33 percent tax increase on capital gains.
• A 164 percent tax increase on dividends.

I believe Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in Congress must join together to ensure the American economy is not crippled by a massive tax increase. I recently introduced the Tax Increase Prevention Act, legislation that would make permanent tax relief passed in 2001 and 2003.

I interviewed Walberg on Friday, who squeezed in the appearance on CQ Radio just before he left DC for the weekend. We talked about the efforts he's making on behalf of sane tax policy, and Walberg noted how difficult this fight would be. So far he has 82 co-sponsors, but none of them Democrats -- and without some bipartisan support, he won't get the bill to the floor.

The aim is to make the new Blue Dog caucus responsible for their position on taxes. Most of them represent former Republican districts and ran as conservatives on issues like taxes and spending. They won because Republicans lost credibility on fiscal responsibility during the previous six years, but not because their constituents want to see taxes increased. Walberg wants to put them on the spot between now and the next election, forcing them either to support the tax cuts or to support massive tax increases, the latter of which will likely make them ripe for Republican challengers in 2008.

Walberg notes that the Heritage Foundation estimates that the rescinding of the tax cuts will cost the average family in his district $3,019 dollars a year. It will also kill 2,272 jobs in his Michigan district and dent its economy to the tune of $207 million. I challenged Rep. Walberg in our interview to build a Java applet for people to calculate their own losses with the Democratic plan, and he said he'd start working on that right away. As soon as he has it, I'll be sure to post it here.

Some people just don't know their place. Thankfully, Tim Walberg is one of those people.

Will Israel Go After Hamastan?

The Times of London reports that Israel's new minister of defense, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, has drawn up plans for a massive strike on Gaza. Instead of police actions on limited scales, Barak would launch an all-out war on Hamas in the Strip, now that Fatah has no assets remaining there -- and would intend on wiping out all Islamist offensive capability in the region:

ISRAEL’s new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there.

According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas’s military capability in days.

The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings.

Barak, who is expected to become defence minister tomorrow, has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets, against Hamas.

This sounds a little optimistic. Barak's plan acknowledges that the Israelis would find stiffer resistance than they did in southern Lebanon last summer. Gaza has a much higher population density than the sub-Litani region did, and they will have to deal with much more urban fighting than in Lebanon. Normally an armed force would want a 2-1 advantage in troops before advancing against an entrenched enemy, but even that might be light for the kind of warfare Israel would likely face from Hamas -- hiding in civilian garb, using non-combatants as shields, and so on.

The Israeli Air Force would have less effect in this fight than one might think. They can target Hamas assets out in the open, but most of those assets will remain hidden in cities. Unless the Israelis plan on carpet-bombing places like Gaza City and Rafah, the Air Force will remain mostly irrelevant. Air power will probably have to be limited to helicopter gunships in support of infantry and armored units, and they will be vulnerable to missile attack.

Israel has to do something about Hamastan, without a doubt, but the question is what can they do most effectively. They would be better off taking out the major military points of Hamas and sealing off Gaza. Otherwise, the Israelis would not only have to roll across the entirety of Gaza, but they would also have to re-occupy it to keep Hamas from rising up again in the vacuum of their withdrawal. That does not sound like a promising use of the IDF, especially while Lebanon and Syria threaten Israeli security from the north.

It's Official: Bias At The BBC

Critics of the BBC have long complained of its liberal bias, contending that the political views of its management regularly seep into its reporting. Viewers and readers of the service have begun discounting its product as a result, and earlier formed a committee to investigate. They have returned a verdict that attempts to have it both ways:

The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded.

The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased - and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement. ...

After a year-long investigation the report, published today, maintains that the corporation’s coverage of day-to-day politics is fair and impartial.

But it says coverage of Live 8, the 2005 anti-poverty concerts organised by rock star campaigners Bob Geldof and Bono and writer Richard Curtis, failed to properly debate the issues raised.

Instead, at a time when the corporation was renegotiating its charter with the government, it allowed itself to effectively become a promotional tool for Live 8, which was strongly supported by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In fact, the BBC turned themselves into the Africa network during the Live 8 period, and not just in its news programming. The BBC had its popular sitcom series The Vicar of Dibley adopt the Live 8 campaign as a story arc in which all of its characters endorsed the effort. It also aired a week-long series of documentaries by Sir Bob Geldof, and added a day-long celebration of the National Health Service to boot.

It got so bad that Sky News' political editor Adam Boulton accused the BBC of running government propaganda at a House of Lords committee hearing.

Given this ludicrous boosterism for pet causes, the overall conclusion that the BBC's news programming remains "fair and impartial" is equally ludicrous. An organization that thinks nothing of imposing its political agenda on its scheduling and its entertainment programming certainly wouldn't stop at just those portions of its broadcast. It makes it sound as if the only projects that BBC staff think about are Africa aid and socialized medicine.

The BBC should have itself audited by outside agencies. This report comes from a process managed entirely by BBC personnel. It admits the obvious while shielding the government-run network from the broader accusation of endemic political bias. An organization that could turn itself into a shill for Geldof, Tony Blair, and Bono at the drop of a hat is not one that delivers objective news on a regular basis. They got caught twice, and they're hoping that an admission on those points bolsters their denials on a myriad of other examples.

That makes them about as credible as the Vicar of Dibley cast and producers.

The Putin Bait-And-Switch

Vladimir Putin surprised George Bush at the G-8 summit by offering to help the US place the missile-shield system in Azerbaijan rather than Poland and the Czech Republic. Given the conditions of the offer, which was that the system would remain in Russian control rather than American, the US has responded cooly to Putin's horsetrading. Now it looks as though Putin had no intention of staging our system anywhere, as Iranian diplomats have told reporters:

Iran said Sunday it had received indications from Russia's president that he would not follow through with an offer to allow the U.S. to use a radar station in neighboring Azerbaijan for missile defense against Tehran.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed Washington use a radar station in northeast Azerbaijan — rented by Moscow — to counter a potential threat from Iran. It was a surprise counteroffer to U.S. plans to install a missile defense shield in eastern Europe to protect NATO allies against a missile launch by Tehran.

But Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday that Russian officials had indicated to Tehran that Putin would not allow the plan to go through.

"It seems Russia does not plan to make decisions that may cause instability and insecurity in the region, where it (Russia) is located," said Hosseini. Azerbaijan shares borders with both Russia to the north and Iran to the south.

So Putin has been exposed -- again -- as a double-dealer. He never intended to sponsor American military assets in Azerbaijan, especially a missile shield. That would give the US a very strategic position with which to monitor Russian activity in the Caucasus, and we already have too many of those positions now for Putin's comfort. He wanted to trip Bush up at the summit and burnish Putin's image as a reasonable autocrat.

The issue of Iranian missiles has reached crisis proportions with the Iranian effort to produce nuclear material. Their latest rocket, the Shahab-3, has a range of 1,200 miles, as the Iranians acknowledged in 2005. That puts Eastern Europe within range of the rocket, which is why the US has focused its anti-missile efforts in that area. Poland and the Czech Republic have aligned themselves with the US on a missile screen designed to defend against a small number of missiles -- but not the overwhelming attack Russia could stage on Europe.

Reports on Iranian missile development warn that Teheran is working on the Shahab-4 as a military weapon. That missile will have a range of 1,900 miles, which will put most of Europe in its sights. The Iranians claim the Shahab-4 will only be used for commercial space ventures and not for military purposes, when they talk about it all.

The big-mouthed Iranian diplomats have probably scrapped the Putin gambit to divert American efforts to build the missile shield. Putin's frustration will continue, and he will look for the next method to split Europe from the US over the shield. That will come through extortion over energy supplies, probably when the summer heat taxes electrical power. Expect the next move to be against Europe in late July.