Changes Coming, And Right Soon (Updated)

Captain's Quarters will undergo a few changes in the next few weeks. It has been more than two years since the last site redesign, and it needs some serious retooling to match my new efforts in New Media. I've engaged the design firm that retooled Michelle Malkin's site earlier this year -- and already they have impressed me with their professionalism and their insight.

The redesign has several goals, among them increased functionality for myself and CQ readers, quicker load times, better commenting features, all while retaining the CQ brand. We will also have new print and e-mail functions for posts, two long-term requests from CQ readers. There are a couple of more surprises that I will save for the new site launch, which should be in a few weeks.

One change, though, I can announce today. The pop-under ads have been removed. I hope that will please readers, especially those who rightly complained about the bandwidth required to load some of them.

UPDATE: I'm getting great feedback in the comments section, and I want to clarify a point that has concerned some CQ readers. I like Michelle's new design, but because it matches her concept of her site so well. I have a different concept, and therefore it will be somewhat different. I plan to maintain more of the blog style, and our designers understand the differences.

UPDATE II: Let me address another concern -- Day by Day is staying put!

UPDATE III and BUMP: I've bumped this back to the main page for the weekend. I want to ask CQ readers this: what other features would you like to see, and how can we make the site work better for you?

Pakistan Reforming?

The London Telegraph reports that Pervez Musharraf has reached an accommodation with moderate opposition figure Benazir Bhutto that will kick-start Pakistan's dormant democracy. While the final arrangements remain in limbo, especially the choice of Prime Minister, it promises to further marginalize the radical Islamists if successful:

President Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan’s exiled former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, have struck an outline power-sharing deal to run Pakistan, ministers said.

Under the reported agreement, struck late on Friday night, Gen Musharraf would step down as commander in chief of the country’s armed forces but would be able to retain the presidency.

Mrs Bhutto would be permitted to return to the country to stand in parliamentary elections, and the constitution would be changed to allow her to become prime minister for a third term.

The "present crisis of religious militancy" has forced the hand of Musharraf. A supporter of the Taliban during his first years in power, 9/11 forced Musharraf to reverse his earlier alliances. That has led to various short truces, notoriously in Waziristan over the past two years. However, the Red Mosque standoffs show that Musharraf has gained nothing from his attempts to rekindle his political alliances with the jihadis.

Bhutto's return will prompt a return to democracy in Pakistan as well. She will insist on presidential elections in September. Bhutto has also insisted that Musharraf resign as head of the armed forces, a particularly tough condition for Musharraf at this point. In any case, it seems unlikely that Musharraf will get elected back into power in a fair poll, so he may opt to retire from politics and remain at the head of the military in the long run.

This presents both a crisis and an opportunity for the US. Losing Musharraf could mean losing Pakistan as a partner against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, if the elections go badly. However, it could also mean gaining a stronger partner, one with a real mandate from the Pakistani electorate. It could also help discredit the radicals in Pakistan if they lose a general election badly enough.

NARN: The Privileged 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 talk about the stories of the week, including the YouTube debate that was and the one that may or may not be in the future. We'll talk about the Rasmussen poll on liberal media bias, Congress' vote on John Doe whistleblower protection, and yes, we'll talk about executive privilege.

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

UPDATE: Our guest in the second hour was Michael Mannske, who wrote the thriller, Foreign and Domestic: Campaign II--Battle for the Middle States">Foreign and Domestic, which is available now!

Reagan Wins!

I guess we're polling on everything these days. Instead of just using terms like "liberal" and "conservative" as internal polling demographics, Rasmussen decided to test the terms in a poll earlier this week, and to see what formulation generates the highest positive response. Somewhat surprisingly, Ronald Reagan wins:

During last Monday’s Democratic Presidential debate, Senator Hillary Clinton indicated that she preferred to be called “progressive” rather than “liberal.” The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that is probably a good move--Americans are more receptive to the term progressive.

Just 20% said they consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically liberal while 39% would view that description negatively. However, 35% would consider it a positive description to call a candidate politically progressive. Just 18% react negatively to that term. Those figures reflect a huge swing, from a net negative of nineteen points to a net positive of 17 points.

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, being called politically conservative is considered a positive description by 32% and negative by 20%. It’s much better for a candidate to be described as being like Ronald Reagan—44% consider that a positive description and 25% negative. That swing is meaningful, but not as dramatic as the difference between liberal and progressive. Being called conservative generates a net 12 point positive response that jumps to 19 points when someone is said to be like Reagan.

Fabulous. When do the Ronald Reagan t-shirts start appearing on celebrity torsos as they tour the Andes?

The crosstabs on these questions are even more humorous. Both men and women prefer the Reagan reference, but it gets a majority of men reacting positively, and that stays true for all age groups. Of all racial groups, blacks tend to be the most unaffected by labels, although 40% react negatively to the Reagan reference. The liberal connotation can't get any more than 28% support from any income demographic -- and it gets the best reception for the $100K+ income level. In contrast, the Reagan reference gets no lower than a 40% positive reaction.

So what does this mean? Neither party has a Reaganite in the race as of yet. Fred Thompson wants to make that argument, and if he sticks to the federalism argument, he may have a chance, but it will take a lot of hard work to make the sale. Reagan himself lost in his first presidential bid, running as a federalist. Other GOP candidates want to run as conservatives, which has a net +12. Democrats have been trying to redefine themselves as progressives, which has a +17 reaction -- but are more associated with being "liberals", with the net -10 reaction.

Get ready for Republicans to accuse the Democrats of being liberals, while Democrats try to appeal to moderates by evoking Ronald Reagan. In other words, get ready for business as usual this cycle. It's interesting academically, but that's it.

Everyone Talks About The 10th Amendment ...

One of the themes that recurs in Republican politics is federalism, which its proponents use to move power back towards the states and closer to the electorate where it belongs. The 10th Amendment forms the great touchstone of federalism, in which all powers not expressly delegated to the federal government in the Constitution should remain with the states. Small-government advocates argue that the 10th Amendment got overrun by FDR in the New Deal and has never recovered its proper place in limiting federal power.

However, the 10th Amendment has much in common with Mark Twain's observation about the weather: it gets plenty of discussion, but no one does anything about it. Fred Thompson says he'll do more than just talk if elected President:

A good first step would be to codify the Executive Order on Federalism first signed by President Ronald Reagan. That Executive Order, first revoked by President Clinton, then modified to the point of uselessness, required agencies to respect the principle of the Tenth Amendment when formulating policies and implementing the laws passed by Congress. It preserved the division of responsibilities between the states and the federal government envisioned by the Framers of the Constitution. It was a fine idea that should never have been revoked. The next president should put it right back in effect, and see to it that the rightful authority of state and local governments is respected.

It is not enough to say that we are “for” federalism, because in today’s world it is not always clear what that means. What we are “for” is liberty for our citizens. Federalism divides power between the states and government in Washington. It is a tool to promote freedom. How we draw the line between federal and state roles in this century, and how we stay true to the principles of federalism for the purpose of protecting economic and individual freedom are questions we must answer. Our challenge – meaning the federal government, the states, our communities and constituents – is to answer these questions together.

Mark Tapscott gets back from his vacation just in time to note the importance of this essay to conservatives looking for a champion in this presidential primary, and maybe not just conservatives:

I often remind my liberal friends in the mainstream media and non-profit advocacy communities who believe Washington has become too secretive that you can have open government or you can have big government, but you can't have both simultaneously.

Liberals who want the government to be efficient in addressing critical social challenges should recognize the value of the 10th Amendment in assuring that officials can actually address those problems effectively.

It's encouraging that Thompson seems intent upon moving the presidential campaign towards a debate on first principles. It is too little recognized among the current generation of conservatives that Reagan's great advantage during his career was that he always sought to put issues and proposals in the context defined by first principles.

I agree with Mark. We hear plenty from Republican candidates about reducing the size of government, accompanied by spending proposals for a new raft of federal programs. That was the absurdity of "compassionate conservativism" -- not that conservatism can't be compassionate, but because in the version offered over the last six years, it's amounted to a miniature version of the Great Society.

Thompson gives a clear indication of how federalism can apply to today's government to reduce its reach and to allow more control over self-government by communities and states. The founders included the 10th Amendment because they knew the farther power traveled from the voters, the less accountable the powerful would become. The nightmare bureaucracy of Washington DC today would be their worst nightmare come to life, with its control over all aspects of American life far outside the boundaries of the Constitution.

When I wrote yesterday that Thompson has conducted a philosopher's campaign, this is what I meant. In his way, Thompson has conducted the most substantive campaign of the cycle. Hopefully, he will continue that effort once he officially enters the race.

A Tragedy Waiting To Happen

An entire television genre has generated from the overhead helicopter camera. The now-familiar tracking shot of live police chases from the air gets featured in reality shows and breaking news alerts on news channels. The love affair between viewers and helicopter shots started in earnest with OJ Simpson's Ford Bronco chase and has grown steadily since then.

Unfortunately, the desire to compete for those scenes has resulted in four deaths in Phoenix:

Two news helicopters covering a police chase on live television collided and crashed to the ground today, killing all four people on board in a plunge that viewers saw as a jumble of spinning, broken images.

Both helicopters went down in a park in central Phoenix and caught fire. No one on the ground was hurt. ...

KNXV reporter Craig Smith, who was among the dead, was reporting live as police chased a man driving a construction truck who had fled a traffic stop. The man was driving erratically, hitting several cars and driving on the sidewalk at times.

Police had blown the truck's tires, and the man eventually parked it, then carjacked another vehicle nearby.

It's remarkable, given the numerous opportunities over the last few years, that this has not happened before now. To that extent, it shows the professionalism of the pilot corps, a point that the Associated Press makes in its report. The pilots have to watch both the action on the street as well as the crowd of other helicopters that now track these chases, a situation that calls for every ounce of talent and training these men and women have.

However, what pressing story did these four people die to cover? Someone fled a traffic stop and the police engaged in a chase. The eventually arrested the man after he crashed his truck and hijacked another vehicle. That's pretty standard fare, even for these spectacles. It's a story that had little impact outside of sensationalism, and at least three news stations put helicopters in the air to get breathless live coverage of it.

The remaining helicopter got live coverage of the crash -- and the Los Angeles Times hosts the video of that on its website.

Some stories really do require that kind of coverage. When I lived in Los Angeles, the North Hollywood Bank of America got robbed by two men armed to the teeth and protected by body armor. It resulted in a lengthy shootout in which the LAPD was woefully outgunned. They had to run to a local gun store -- a customer of ours -- and borrow heavy-duty weaponry and bullets to finally stop the pair. That was a news story that the helicopter shots made much more clear and understandable -- and one in which pilots had more than just air traffic putting their lives at risk, too.

Most of what these helicopters cover, though, are just standard police chases that may get encouraged by the notoriety provided by the breaking-news reports and reality shows they spawn. Local news stations should reconsider their impulses to send pilots and cameramen into dangerous situations for no real news purpose other than voyeurism.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has links to the video reporting at The Moderate Voice.

Will Obama's Debate Answer Impact Your Wallet?

Pundits have been chewing on the answer Barack Obama gave in the YouTube debate Monday night about meeting with heads of state from rogue nations such as Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and the potentially rogue Venezuela. Hillary Clinton's public scolding of Obama as "irresponsible" raised the stakes and gave her an opportunity to highlight the difference in experience between herself and Obama. It may wind up strengthening her grip on the nomination.

Wall Street Journal reporter John Harwood has just launched his new Political Capital blog at CNBC, and he argues that these events could carry a cost for taxpayers -- and it's good to start planning early:

The world of business and finance may consider the fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over foreign policy, which emerged at this week's YouTube debate, as irrelevant to their concerns. That view is wrong.

It's true that, in a narrow sense, neither Wall Street nor the investor community has a direct stake in the back and forth over whether either prospective Democratic president would agree to face to face meetings with Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or other anti-American tyrants. The Obama-Clinton sparring was quintessential political sparring.

Yet, it was sparring that could affect the trajectory of the 2008 race. Anything that moves the needle on who's likely to become the next president by definition makes it an issue for investors to follow. And there's reason to think Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming presidential took a small step forward this week.

John's a smart guy, and I'd trust him with my investments any day -- probably more than I'd trust myself. However, I think this is just a little premature. In the first place, this is still July 2007, and we still have six months before anyone casts a single vote in a primary. Each of these dustups may impact the final outcome, or something more significant could happen next week or next month. It's too early to declare turning points or to start writing political obituaries.

John doesn't explain any difference between the two candidates in terms of their approach to finance and business, either. I'm certain they have some points of disagreement on taxation and regulatory policy, but somehow I don't think the differences will be that significant. It's much more likely that the Democratic nominee will adhere to fairly traditional Democratic policies on economics. That would only be wrong if the party nominated a radical such as Dennis Kucinich, which will only happen if Repulicans manage to find Aladdin's lamp.

If Hillary has hit on a formula that made her more electable in a general election, where the differences between Republican and Democratic policy are more known and pronounced, then John would be more correct than he is here. That would also depend on the Republican nominee, too, a race that is harder to gauge than the Democratic primary campaign at the moment. Again, though, we have six months to go before the primary season starts, and sixteen to the general election.

Be sure to keep an eye on John's new blog to keep up with the intersection of politics and finance.

So What's New?

Senator Chuck Schumer got quite a reaction from his announcement that he would fight any new Supreme Court nominee from George Bush. Waggling his finger into the camera, he accused Bush of duping him while somehow also accusing Bush of being a man of his word:

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.” ...

“There is no doubt that we were hoodwinked,” said Schumer, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. ...

“When a president says he wants to nominate justices in the mold of [Antonin] Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas,” Schumer said, “believe him.”

Let's break this down carefully. Schumer understood that George Bush got elected and re-elected partly on the basis of the kind of judges he would nominate for the federal bench. During both elections, Schumer acknowledges that Bush promised to nominate judges in the tradition of Scalia and Thomas. Bush appointed two justices to Supreme Court, and when they turned out to be in the tradition of Scalia and Thomas, Schumer pronounces himself "duped".

Apparently Chuck isn't the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.

This isn't even a new declaration from the senior Senator from New York. He voted against both Alito and Roberts in the confirmation hearings in the Judiciary Committee, and he railed against both during the questioning. He's been talking obstruction since Bush started nominating judges to the federal bench. The only change is that the Democrats now have a thin majority in the Senate.

Elections have consequences -- in both branches. The Supreme Court (and the federal bench in general) reflects the voter choice for President, but in modern times, it's affected by the voter choice for the Senate. Gone are the days when Bush could count on clear sailing for his nominees, and he has to now work with the Democrats to get judicial nominees acceptable enough to all sides to get confirmed. That may not be how the system should work, but that's how it's going to be, and both branches will be better off by realizing it sooner than later.

In the meantime, I say give Schumer all of the airtime he wants. I can't imagine that Democrats will win many converts by declaring the kind of stupidity to which Schumer admits in this statement.

White House Conference Call On Executive Privilege (Update: Executive Privilege Analysis)

The White House hosted a blogger conference call to discuss the issues surrounding the Bush administration's use of executive privilege in the probe of the firings of eight federal prosecutors. The White House arranged the call based on a recommendation by this blog, in order to familiarize the blogosphere with the legal and political arguments on which the administration will rely to prevail in the upcoming fight regarding the contempt citations Congress seems likely to approve.

It took a few moments to get the call started, but it started with a quick outline of the issues. A senior official called Congress' action an extraordinary act. Congress has never attempted a contempt citation against a president's staff in our history. The action is even more outrageous in this context, considering the President's offers to cooperate in the probe. They have released 8500 pages of documentation, and a number of officials have testified or been interviewed as part of the probe. Bush also offered to allow senior members of his staff available in "an interview setting" -- but no oath or transcription, as Presidents have always maintained that Congress has no authority to demand testimony from presidential advisors.

Executive privilege is particularly strong in this case. The power to hire and fire federal prosecutors belongs exclusively to the executive branch. Congress has no particular oversight in these matters, and so the executive privilege claim is very compelling in this instance.

The White House feels that this is just an attempt to embarrass the administration. In fact, Congress has no power to compel prosecution of such a contempt charge from federal prosecutors -- which Pat Leahy confirmed in 1999, in a similar situation during the Clinton administration. It is "of a piece with other actions we have seen," including the subpoena for Karl Rove, which he will not honor.

Questions:

* If Congress pursues criminal contempt and the DoJ refuses to prosecute, how do they move forward? -- No one really knows. There isn't any precedent on this point. The White House's offer to cooperate remains on the table. The pursuit of this prosecution would be unconstitutional, as Congress cannot order a federal prosecutor into action.

* [My question] Who's more at risk if this goes to the Supreme Court, and does the administration expect the normal course of a civil complaint? -- They will be met at the courthouse door if they do file the complaint, and that's the course the White House expects. The risks seem more for Congress in finalizing a Supreme Court decision on executive privilege. If the Court rules in favor of the administration, it will set a precedent that will allow the executive branch to ignore these kinds of probes in the future. Perhaps Congress already recognizes the risk -- and that's why they're pulling publicity stunts.

The criminal contempt process hits on separation of powers issues. If Congress went to the Court through a lawsuit, at least it would make sense in a mediation sense.

* What about the call for a special counsel on Alberto Gonzales? -- The law no longer exists for an independent prosecutor, and the "special counsel" is accountable to ... Alberto Gonzales. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but then again, neither does much of what Congress has tried in this probe, either.

* How do you assess the risks for the executive in this case? SCOTUS has hinted that executive privilege is not unlimited, and that allegations of criminal activity could overcome it -- There has been no evidence of criminality in this probe, so they don't consider it to be very risky at all. The question the court would address will be whether the President properly applied executive privilege, not so much on content but more on process. Most of these areas have not been litigated to any degree -- and that may be why Congress has gone through the criminal process instead.

* Any concern that this is a prelude to impeachment, gathering material for a new effort to remove Bush? -- The Speaker has ruled that out, and the senior official hopes they see the futility of that path. However, this Congress has gone out of their way in breaking precedent in this probe, so no one really knows.

* Congressional oversight; why can they exercise oversight over agencies but not the White House, and what does that have to do with the concept of the "unitary executive"? -- The difference is that the President cannot be subpoenaed, and neither can his advisors, who do not require Congressional confirmation to serve. The President has the power to order them to keep silent about their advisory activities.

My analysis: The White House seems convinced that these efforts by Congress will go nowhere. The path of criminal prosecution is closed to them without consent of the White House, which will certainly not be forthcoming. They so far have not chosen to file a lawsuit in order to gain Supreme Court mediation, which the White House believes they will lose in any case. Their analysis is that the Democrats have gotten so frustrated with their inability to find anything criminal in the firings that they want to offer a futile, asinine denouement that will allow them to retreat, eventually.

We'll see. I suspect the Democrats may indeed try a lawsuit soon, and that will turn out quite badly -- for Congress.

UPDATE & BUMP, 4:00 pm CT: I found an intriguing analysis of executive privilege in a quick Google search, prompted by the White House's argument:

Most importantly, compelling compliance with a congressional subpoena in this context would be difficult. The civil contempt mechanism normally available to Congress, see 28 U.S.C. § 1365, specifically exempts subpoenas to the executive branch. The criminal contempt mechanism, see 2 U.S.C. § 192, which punishes as a misdemeanor a refusal to testify or produce documents to Congress, requires a referral to the Justice Department, which is not likely to pursue compliance in the likely event that the President asserts executive privilege in response to the request for certain documents or testimony. Thus, the only legal way to enforce this subpoena would be to hold a witness in contempt using its “inherent contempt authority,” but this would require a contempt trial on the floor of the Senate. ...

Executive privilege is used by the President and the executive branch to shield presidential communications, advice, and national security information from disclosure in judicial proceedings, congressional investigations and other arenas. While the proper scope of executive privilege is the subject of much debate, at a minimum, it covers presidential communications, and may also protect the decision-making, or deliberative process, of the executive branch in general.

Courts have recognized a “presumptive privilege” for presidential communications that is grounded in “a President’s generalized interest in confidentiality” and is viewed as important to preserving the candor of presidential advisors and protecting the freedom of the president and his advisors to “explore alternatives in the process of shaping policies and making decisions and to do so in a way many would be unwilling to express except privately.” U. S. v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 708, 711 (1974); In re Sealed Case, 121 F.3d 729, 743 (D.C. Cir. 1997). This privilege is “inextricably rooted in the separation of powers under the Constitution” and “flow[s] from the nature of enumerated powers” of the President. Id., 418 U.S. at 705; 121 F.3d at 743.

This would appear to bolster the arguments made in this blogger conference call today. This analysis was written eight years ago, however, by Pat Leahy.

Also, let me extend a welcome to Raw Story readers.

UPDATE II: Jon Henke at QandO notes some of the more hysterical reaction to the notion of participating in a conference call with the White House. I won't go into a long dissertation about this, but Jon notes that some of the same hysterics participate in other partisan conference calls themselves. I'm not sure what that has to do with "integrity", especially since I made it plain where the information I reported originated. As far as "independence" goes, readers can judge that for themselves -- but I somehow don't think my repeated calls for Gonzales' resignation come from a talking-points download from a Karl Rove brain implant.

Thompson's Philosophical Campaign

John Solomon does a better job in today's Washington Post in reporting on the non-campaign campaign strategy used thus far by Fred Thompson than yesterday's attempt to use his law-practice client list as a political football. Solomon notices that, far from the attempt to paint Thompson as substanceless, the advocate for federalism has been offering a blizzard of policy positions all year long -- and that might have a price later in the campaign:

On the Internet sites where conservatives gather to read and chat each day, Fred D. Thompson, the as-yet-unannounced Republican presidential candidate, has been laying out his positions on dozens of issues with little public notice and plenty of rhetorical flair. ...

The musings seem to constitute Thompson's early effort at assuring the core conservatives of the Republican Party that he is one of them -- despite his run-ins with the bloc as a U.S. senator who supported campaign finance reform and opposed federal limits on malpractice lawsuits and attorneys' fees.

"They were wildly popular," said Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, where three dozen commentaries by Thompson have been posted since he started testing the presidential waters in March. "It was a great way to introduce himself. He had just the right balance of red meat and substance to feed a conservative audience -- at least as an opener."

Thompson's writings could prove problematic in a general election, where he would have to win over moderate voters.

"Today, everything is out there forever, and you don't have any luxury of claiming there was a misunderstanding," said Ed Rollins, a veteran Republican strategist. "If a campaign is putting some of these comments out there, they are going to have to live with them for the rest of the campaign."

The popular knock on Thompson has been his reluctance to engage in the primary battle, but that really hasn't been the case. He hasn't participated in the debates as a result of delaying his entry, but anyone who has watched those events do not confuse them with sober discussions of policy in any case. Thompson has steadily analyzed current events, both in the domestic and foreign-policy realm, and offered his position on various solutions. He may be the most engaged candidate on policy, even though he is not officially a candidate at all.

As Solomon reports, such position papers could create problems for Thompson down the road, at least in a general sense. Just as with bloggers, subsequent events can prove spot analyses wrong. For bloggers, that's par for the course, but in a national election, such errors can get magnified quickly. Those publications never disappear in the new online world, and anyone can eventually find and link material that creates the impression of inconsistency or error.

Fred has not seemed terribly concerned about this potential landmine. Primarily, he has written about his federalist principles, and in that he has remained consistent. None of the positions he has taken will rankle the base, and some of them might even appeal to libertarian moderates. In essence, the essays have bolstered the image of a man comfortable enough in his own skin to give a straightforward account of himself and allow the chips to fall where they may.

Solomon also gives a balanced report on the shakeup in Thompson's team, although along with most people, he probably gives it more thought than it's worth. The shift of Tom Collamore was not unexpected by the campaign team, according to a source close to the campaign. The loss of the oppo research director may have been more of a surprise, but it's not a meltdown situation. The Thompson campaign had always looked to gain more high-profile leadership before its official launch, and this moves them in that direction. Interestingly, Solomon doesn't mention the addition of Spencer Abraham, which has produced some criticism from conservatives concerned about Abraham's previous positions on immigration.

The Thompson campaign will need to get itself started soon, though. Thus far they have successfully flown under the radar while building a substantial amount of support, but they risk allowing outsiders to define the campaign while Fred stays on the sidelines. The essays have done their job, but Republicans need to see how Fred campaigns before he can take over the primary race.

CQ Radio: Duane Patterson

Today on CQ Radio (2 pm CT), we'll welcome back Duane "Generalissimo" Patterson of the Hugh Hewitt show, to recap the week in politics. We'll talk about the two conference calls today, the YouTube debates, and the rest of the week's stories. Don't miss it!

Call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

Did you know that you can listen to CQ Radio through your TiVo service? Click here for the instructions. Also, you can subscribe to CQ Radio through iTunes now by clicking this link:

On My Desk: Hard Call

John McCain has a new book hitting the shelves in a couple of weeks, and it isn't about his presidential bid or his own personal story. He and longtime aide Mark Salter have written a book titled Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them, which appears to be somewhat similar to Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy. According to the book jacket, it recounts momentous decisions in history by "telling the remarkable stories of men and women who have exemplified composure, wisdom, and intellect in the face of life's toughest dilemmas." Sounds interesting, and I'll probably get started on the book after I finish with Stephen Hayes' new biography of Dick Cheney.

While not overtly political, at least at first glance, its appearance in this presidential cycle has an arguably-subtle message. If McCain can recognize composure, wisdom, and intellect in these instances, then isn't he the best choice to deploy the same qualities as President? I don't know if he can make that argument stretch to that degree -- but as a person interested in history, I'm looking forward to his review of these critical instances of human decision.

Also, I just wanted to remind CQ readers about Thunder Bay, the novel authored by my friend William Kent Krueger. It jumped over a thousand places in the Amazon rankings this week after my last link. Let's help Kent get into the top 100 It's a gripping novel -- I read it cover-to-cover as soon as I got my advance copy. I'm certain you'll enjoy it, too.

Conference Call: Ninewah Progress

I had the opportunity today to attend a conference call with Colonel Stephen Twitty, Commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Multi-National Division-North (MND-N) on the progress in Ninewah. Col. Twitty had just completed a press briefing, which I could not catch, but he covered the same material with us. Better known as Ninevah, the province has been rife with al-Qaeda in Iraq elements, and the latest surge strategy aims to correct that situation.

Col. Twitty started off by noting they took command of the battle theater in December, and started by consolidating the battalion in Mosul. That's training the Iraqi army, and it has performed brilliantly, according to the Colonel. He noted some "interesting dynamics" in Ninewah. The average attacks per day has been cut in half in this province, which he credits to better training for native forces -- 40,000 of them in Ninevah alone -- and the new, aggressive tactics ordered this year. Progress is steady on security, and that has allowed the US to start a lot of reconstruction projects.

Note: Despite Robert Gates' fence-mending with Hillary Clinton over the withdrawal rhetoric coming from Congress, Col. Twitty confirms that the highly-publicized demands to retreat from Iraq have damaged his command's ability to get good intel from the local populace. It has left them distrustful of the Americans, and fearful of a takeover by the terrorists in the wake of our departure. See the Colonel's answer to my question at the bottom.

In his last comment at the end, Col. Twitty noted how difficult it is to get the media to come to Ninewah and his command to get a better sense of the progress we have made there. The blogger conference calls are all we have, apparently.

Questions:

* Biggest story that Twitty would want publicized? -- The great work that the native forces are doing in Ninewah. Most of the operations conducted in the province are commanded by the Iraqi Army. The second-largest city in Iraq has only one American battalion, which is a tribute to their skill.

* AQI: Can you paint a picture of the AQI network in this province and its cooperation with the Sunni insurgencies? -- Biggest threats are AQI and Ansar al-Sunnah. They have a marriage of convenience. They will coordinate when necessary. On 16 May, the last serious offensive operation, the two organizations coordinated, but it mostly came to nothing. They're watching to ensure that the pressure in Diyala and Baghdad doesn't allow them to re-establish themselves in Ninewah. They do have a strong ability to regenerate leadership.

* Are there more foreign fighters in your area now? -- Not really; they've only captured a dozen or so in Ninewah. Most of the problems come from native insurgents. Not to say that none are coming in, but they're not apparent.

* EPTs and PRTs -- helpful? -- Twitty loved that question. They haved helped on completed projects and coordinating with local leaders. A great asset.

* What measures of effectiveness are used to get a sense of commitment to the central government? -- 3,000 new police are ready to come on line, three new battalions in the IA, all in Mosul, all locally recruited. That's a good measure of effectiveness and commitment. These are predominantly Sunni, and part of a reconciliation effort that will hopefully bring Sunnis into the mainstream. HUMINT reporting has increased "huge" since they first arrived in December. The 16 May attacks turned the locals against AQI and Ansar al Sunnah.

* Logistics and supply capacity? -- These Iraqi forces are weak in this area, and we need to put more pressure on the Iraqi government to fix this. They have problems sustaining themselves in fuel, ammo, and uniforms. They are getting training on logistics, but they need the goods.

* [My question] Withdrawal debate - has it made the Iraqis fearful and damaged HUMINT capabilities? -- "Absolutely". It comes up daily. They accuse us of betraying them, and have stopped giving good intel as a result. It's significant.

UPDATE: It should have read "three new battalions", not two. I've made the correction, thanks to DJ Elliott.

Add Who To The Club?

Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed membership to the nuclear club for a surprising candidate nation. Given this country's track record -- and specifically that of its leader -- Westerners might find themselves shocked over the suggestion. After all, it has been less than three years since we stripped him of his membership card, and now France wants to reinstate it.

At Heading Right, I look at that track record, and look at Sarkozy's assertion that we risk a "war of civilizations" unless we give terrorist-supporting dictators nuclear power. It seems that Sarkozy has allowed his country's mercenary interests to supercede the world's security interests.

Violent Jihad's Author To Recant?

The Guardian reports that the philosophical founder of modern terrorist jihad has apparently experienced a change of heart. Sayid Imam al-Sharif, the man behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat and whose writings led an entire generation of radical Islamists to terrorism, now says that the theological underpinnings of such actions are completely faulty and should be discarded:

Sharif, a surgeon who is still known by his underground name of "Dr Fadl", is famous as the author of the Salafi jihadists' "bible" - Foundations of Preparation for Holy War. He worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor and now Bin Laden's deputy, before being kidnapped in Yemen after 9/11, interrogated by the CIA and extradited to Egypt where has been serving a life sentence since 2004.

Sharif recently gave an electrifying foretaste of his conversion by condemning killings on the basis of nationality and colour of skin and the targeting of women and children, citing the Qur'anic injunction: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors." Armed operations were wrong, counterproductive and must cease, he declared sternly.

Zawahiri, evidently rattled, rounded sarcastically on him in a video message broadcast after Sharif's statement - faxed from Torah prison to an Arabic newspaper - announced not only his change of heart but a book-length repudiation endorsed by hundreds of other former militants, and which is due to be published soon.

Not surprisingly, Zawahiri has continued his denunciations of his former partner. He ridiculed Sharif by asking whether Egypt had recently installed fax machines in prison cells, a thinly-veiled accusation against Sharif of being Mubarak's stooge. Three years of imprisonment, Zawahiri implies, can change the heart of even the most dedicated jihadist, although one would have to wonder whether that really helps Zawahiri's argument much at all.

It's easy to see why Zawahiri has to destroy Sharif's reputation before he comes out with his new treatise. It would entirely undermine the al-Qaeda position on jihad. In fact, it would specifically argue that al-Qaeda is, in effect, un-Islamic and therefore an apostasy to be shunned, not a movement to support. That argument has been made by moderate Muslim clerics in the past, but not from one of the leaders of the radical Islamist movement. Coming from a man with the background of Sharif, it would be a stunning blow, at least rhetorically, to Osama bin Laden and the rest of the radical jihadis.

That's not to say that Sharif has transformed into a cosmopolitan Muslim who embraces diversity. His main argument is that violent jihad has not benefitted the Islamist cause, and that it serves the imperial ambitions of the crusaders and the Jews. That will help his credibility among the jihadis, but it hardly moves the ecumenical dialogue in a helpful direction.

Will it stop the suicide bombings and the terrorist attacks? Not immediately, no. Sharif's detention in Egypt will convince most of the current crop of jihadis of his status of turncoat. However, if Sharif's writings get wide enough dissemination -- and he has Arab newspapers champing at the bit to publish them -- he could start a significant counterargument to violent jihad to seriously undermine Osama and AQ in the long run.

Red Mosque Redux (Update: Explosion Kills Several)

After radical Islamists seized hostages and holed up in the Red Mosque, Pakistan conducted a seige for days before finally raiding it, killing dozens. In the aftermath, the radicals staged violent protests and suicide attacks against Pervez Musharraf and his military. Now radicals have once again seized the mosque in an extortion attempt to get their comrades released:

Hundreds of students have occupied Pakistan's Red Mosque as it reopened for prayers, demanding the return of its arrested pro-Taleban cleric.

Security forces stood by as protesters raised a black flag, and clambered onto the roof of the Islamabad mosque to daub it with paint. ...

The students chanted slogans against President Pervez Musharraf and pushed journalists out of the building.

Musharraf has tried patching up the truce he had negotiated with radicals in Waziristan after the first Red Mosque standoff. This apparently is their answer. Despite having released most of the arrested radicals in the first standoff -- the government says that 567 of 620 captured had been freed already -- the radicals have come back to demand the release of the rest. If they start hostaging again, Musharraf will be right back where he started.

This puts a damper on the British support for Musharraf's appeasement policy in Waziristan. Not only did it fail to prevent the Taliban and al-Qaeda from gathering their strength in the Pakistani frontier, it has failed to keep their radicalism from the the rest of Pakistan, especially the capital. Less than a fortnight after seizing the mosque, the radicals have seized it right back from under Musharraf's nose.

Radical Islamists are not interested in appeasement. They're interested in domination. Appeasement, as we have seen in the past with other absolutist movements, does not result in generating respect, but only in forcing retreat for the opponents of absolutism. Musharraf looks to learn this lesson the hard way, and another Red Mosque bloodbath may be in the cards. How many of these can he withstand politically in Pakistan before radical and non-radical alike figure he's incapable of maintaining Pakistani stability?

UPDATE: This situation is rapidly deteriorating. An explosion has killed several people at the mosque, and it appears it came from the students holding the site:

An explosion has rocked Pakistan's Red Mosque after violent clashes between police and Islamist students, killing several people, officials say.

There were unconfirmed reports that the blast was a bomb aimed at police, and that at least one officer was killed.

Earlier police fired tear gas at stone-throwing students who had occupied the building in Islamabad.

Apparently the students couldn't wait to gather some local hostages first. Will Musharraf retake the mosque now, or wait for more violence first?

Krauthammer: Obama Is The New Tom Hagen

One of the nagging questions that has trailed Barack Obama on his meteoric rise to the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates took on new import this week after the YouTube debate on CNN. Obama's assertion that he would meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar Assad, Kim Jong-Il, and Fidel Castro drew a sharp rebuke from Hillary Clinton and most others as "irresponsible and naive," which drew attention once again to the very thin resumé Obama brings to the race.

Charles Krauthammer points out that Obama made the same mistake in an earlier debate, and concludes that Obama is no wartime president:

To be on the same stage as the leader of the world's greatest power is of course a prize. That is why the Chinese deemed it a slap in the face that President Bush last year denied President Hu Jintao the full state-visit treatment. The presence of an American president is a valued good to be rationed -- and granted only in return for important considerations.

Moreover, summits can also be traps if they're not wired in advance for success, such as Nixon's trip to China, for which Henry Kissinger had already largely hammered out the famous Shanghai Communique. You don't go hoping for the best, as Hillary's husband learned at the 2000 Camp David summit, when Yasser Arafat's refusal of Israel's peace offer brought Arafat worldwide opprobrium -- from which he sought (successfully, as it turned out) to escape by launching the second intifada. Such can be the consequences of ill-prepared summits.

Obama may not have known he made an error, but his staff sure did. In the post-debate spin room, his closest adviser, David Axelrod, was already backpedaling, pretending that Obama had been talking about diplomacy and not summitry with rogue state leaders.

Obama enthusiasts might want to write this off as a solitary slip. Except that this was the second time. The first occurred in another unscripted moment. During the April 26 South Carolina debate, Brian Williams asked what kind of change in the U.S. military posture abroad Obama would order in response to a hypothetical al-Qaeda strike on two American cities.

Obama's answer: "Well, the first thing we'd have to do is make sure that we've got an effective emergency response -- something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans."

In both cases, it shows that Barack Obama doesn't have the mindset of an executive. Like Tom Hagen in The Godfather, he doesn't have the cunning instinct necessary for success in understanding the layers of communication and symbolism that goes into becoming a good Commander in Chief. He doesn't even have enough of those skills to present a credible threat to Hillary Clinton for the nomination.

Initially, though, Hillary's response wasn't all that much better. She didn't really rule out meeting with the same people. She said, "I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be." Only after the debate, while Obama's people tried to convince people that Obama didn't say what he said, did Hillary realize the opening she had and drove her rhetorical Mack truck straight through it.

Obama has wrongfooted himself twice now on national-security questions, and the pattern Krauthammer highlights paints a picture of an amateur trying desperately to become a master overnight. No one doubts Obama's ability as a communicator, but the national healer schtick has run thin. People don't want to elect a Dr. Phil to the White House in a time of war; they want someone who knows how to protect America and keep our enemies at bay.

If Obama can't turn this around, he may wind up risking his shot at the bottom half of the ticket At one point, he seemed a natural for Hillary's running mate, but a VP has to have a grip on foreign policy and national security. Hillary may have to look elsewhere for her running mate, especially if the two keep sniping at each other the way they have this week.

The Monty Hall Forum

The buzz around the political blogs has the Republican presidential campaigns backing away from the September YouTube debate. Mitt Romney has publicly sniffed at the notion that serious candidates should take questions from talking snowmen, and Marc Ambinder reports that Giuliani will likely bow out. Patrick Ruffini says that most of the rest of the field will back out because of the lack of top-tier candidates;John McCain and Ron Paul are so far the only two committed to appear.

Romney took offense to the question selection by CNN:

In an interview Wednesday with the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, Romney said he's not a fan of the CNN/YouTube format. Referring to the video of a snowman asking the Democratic candidates about global warming, Romney quipped, "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."

Danny Glover says that CNN deserves a black eye for its question selection:

Though utterly predictable for a party with a history of ignoring, fearing and attacking the Internet, It would be a shame if Republicans abandoned their own CNN/YouTube debate. As much as I hated the snowman question, neither it nor the other low points of Monday's debate (think "This is my baby") should become the excuse for even one candidate to turn against the most innovative and voter-friendly format to come along in 15 years.

But if that happens, CNN will bear much of the blame because it took upon itself the weighty responsibility of picking the debate questions -- and then embraced a cheap entertainment ploy more suited to MTV than "the world's news leader."

Patrick Ruffini agrees:

This is a big mistake. The Democrats are afraid to answer questions from Big Bad Fox News Anchors, and the Republicans are afraid to answer questions from regular people. Which is worse?

It's stuff like this that will set the GOP back an election cycle or more on the Internet. No matter the snazzy Web features and YouTube videos they may put up, if they're fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of interacting with real people online, what's the point?

I agree with Patrick that canceling the debate carries some political risk, but just as with the Democrats' snub at Fox, I think it's pretty limited. The general election will come 14 months after this debate has been scheduled. There will be plenty of time for other, more interactive debates both closer to the primaries and in the general election. Ask the Democrats if they're still feeling the damage from rejecting the Fox debate.

Besides, most if not all of these candidates hold town hall meetings with unscripted live questions all the time. It isn't a question of fear but of endorsing a "Let's Make A Deal" atmosphere that demeans the presidential race. For those too young to remember the long-running game show, it featured zany audience members dressed up and acting like idiots to get host Monty Hall's attention so that they could play the game. CNN turned the debate into a LMAD-like spectacle, where they encouraged inanity and childishness for a forum where serious matters should have been taken seriously. And for the most part, it resulted in asinine questions as well, as the transcript reveals.

Why should the Republicans further endorse this practice? It won't stop by blithely jumping into the next debate. Someone will have to point out that the emperor has no clothes, and that won't happen if the GOP panders to YouTube and give the same people another chance to stage another round of Monty Hall forums rather than town hall forums.

We don't have to embrace talking snowmen in order to embrace the Internet. In fact, most of us who work daily in politics on the Internet should take offense to that notion. Patrick asks if the GOP is afraid of interacting with "real people", but that's not what CNN selected from the YouTube entries -- they selected a talking snowman. How many more LMAD entries will get on the air next time?

Even Joe Biden was disgusted with the proceedings by the time the last debate ended.

The Republican candidates should insist on major changes to the format if they agree to participate in the next debate. That should include a new selection team for the questions -- and if they really want to "embrace the Internet", perhaps they should insist on representatives from the blogosphere being a part of that process. Otherwise, CNN should pull the 86-year-old Monty Hall out of retirement and give up all pretense of serious debate.

UPDATE: Rick Moran disagrees, and switches from Frosty to the Wizard of Oz.

Let Las Vegas Turn Out The Lights

Harry Reid has threatened to use his position in Congress to block the construction of four coal-fired electrical plants in Nevada. In a letter to three separate firms, Reid told them in no uncertain terms that his state doesn't need any of their dirty electricity -- in places like Las Vegas:

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada sent a letter this week to four companies telling them not to build planned coal-burning power plants in his state.

Reid's letter, dated Monday, was addressed to the corporate leaders of the Sierra Pacific Resources, private equity LS Power Group, Dynegy Inc. and Sithe Global Power LLC. A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

"I am writing to each of you regarding your company's proposal to build new coal-fired power plants in eastern Nevada and to express my strong opposition to those plants," Reid wrote.

The Democratic senator said he will use his influential post in Congress to keep coal plants out of Nevada.

"Because I believe that developing renewable energy in Nevada is far preferable to coal for the sake of our economy, public health and the environment, I will use every means at my disposal to prevent the construction of new coal-fired power plants in Nevada that do not capture and permanently store greenhouse gas emissions," Reid wrote.

More than most states, electricity is critical to Nevada's growth. The state has almost unbearably hot weather in its south most of the year, and any expansion relies on the modern marvel of air conditioning. Gaming, its biggest draw, relies even more heavily on reliable power generation.

Nevada's population increased 150% between 1980 and 2000, and it has not let up since. It has been the fastest-growing state most of the last 25 years. That kind of growth requires infrastructure, including electricity. So what does Harry have in mind for his home state? He says the state's needs can be met through "new renewable energy, energy efficiency and demand-side management."

That would be wonderful -- but shouldn't that be a decision for Nevada's state government? Why would Reid stick his nose where it doesn't belong? Well, the people who represent the coal-plant owners might give you an idea. Bracewell & Giuliani LLC handle the PR for Sithe Global Power ... and yes, that means Rudy Giuliani, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.

Could this be another kind of power play altogether?

I Miss Tony Blair Already

In their rush to distance themselves from Tony Blair and the alliance with the Bush administration, Gordon Brown's new government has already demonstrated a talent for undermining the war on terror. David Miliband, on his first visit to Pakistan, praised Pervez Musharraf for the Waziristan accord that has allowed al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup:

Differences between British and American strategy in dealing with Taliban militants emerged yesterday during the Foreign Secretary’s first visit to Pakistan.

David Miliband, the newly-appointed Foreign Secretary, emphasised that a purely military solution to violence in Pakistan’s tribal areas would not alone quash the insurgency. ...

Pakistani officials underscored the difference in approach between the two allies by stating that Britain understood that political agreements were also needed to bring peace.

Well, perhaps they should ask themselves if retreating from their own territory in Waziristan bought Pakistan any relief? All it did was allow the Taliban and al-Qaeda to focus their attention on Afghanistan, an inconvenient fact that Hamid Karzai points out every chance he gets. Now that the Islamists in the frontier have grown strong enough, they have begun conducting operations in Pakistan's cities, such as the Red Mosque showdown that coincidentally resulted in violence across the nation when it ended in a military strike.

Miliband joins other British diplomats who have voiced opposition to the American strategy of fighting the war in Afghanistan as though it were a war. British NATO commanders got replaced after conducting a series of truces with the Taliban as they established control in Afghan communities last year. American commanders put an immediate end to the truces and drove the Taliban back across the border, and then kneecapped their "spring offensive" by acting like a military at war rather than a group of UN peacekeepers.

Even the British reported it as a success:

The Telegraph includes a video presentation that should be seen as a companion to the article. In it, the narrator says that "the effect on the Taliban has been dramatic," and it certainly was in this case. The commander who died in this engagement was Mullah Najibullah, a commander in the original Taliban who eluded us in 2001. He had been an official in Mullah Omar's government in Afghanistan prior to getting ejected in the American invasion after 9/11.

The Pakistani foreign office liked the British approach better. Their representative said that “Even if it failed it bought peace for a period.” The peace of terrorist oppression might appeal to the Pakistanis, and possibly to the Brown government, but it won't to Americans or Afghans. I'm missing Tony Blair even more than I feared.

Democrats Getting Into Life?

Democrats have long tried to eat into the Republican grip on voters of faith, and now that they have control of Congress, they may have hit on a formula that works. Instead of their normal absolutist position on abortion rights, the Democrats have offered two bills that work to support women who choose to have their babies. Some Republicans are calling foul, however:

Sensing an opportunity to impress religious voters — and tip elections — Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail have begun to adopt some of the language and policy goals of the antiabortion movement.

For years, the liberal response to abortion has been to promote more accessible and affordable birth control as well as detailed sex education in public schools.

That's still the foundation of Democratic policies. But in a striking shift, Democrats in the House last week promoted a grab bag of programs designed not only to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but also to encourage women who do conceive to carry to term.

The new approach embraces some measures long sought by antiabortion activists. It's designed to appeal to the broad centrist bloc of voters who don't want to criminalize every abortion — yet are troubled by a culture that accepts 1.3 million terminations a year.

The Democrats may have discovered a middle ground on abortion, one that has been rumored to exist but few have seen. They have taken a few steps towards the middle with the Reducing the Need for Abortions Initiative, attempting to recast government services away from incentivizing abortions. It uses the same big government approach that once funded abortions, but now counsels women on the adoption option, home nurses for pregnant women choosing to have their babies, and even federal day care for those who keep the children themselves.

Republicans such as Mike Pence sense clouds in all this silver lining, however. Noting that Planned Parenthood would garner substantial new funding from these programs, Pence says that sending federal monies to the nation's largest provider of abortions in the name of reducing abortions makes no sense at all. Traditional pro-choicers see issues in the new approach as well; New York's Rep. Louise Slaughter argues, women don't have abortions because they can't afford day care.

This new, moderate approach will not win over the entire pro-life caucus, and for good reason -- it doesn't do anything to impede abortions. Democrats still refuse to mandate a review of ultrasounds before an abortion, which pro-lifers insist will reduce the number of abortions. It also seems more than a little like a stalking-horse for government-run medical care.

However, it will provide some hope of saving some children from the abortionist's vacuum pump, and that means that some in the pro-life movement may find themselves swayed by these efforts. Primarily, that will be the pro-lifers who have less investment in the rest of the Republican platform. While that number may be small, it won't take much to boost Democrats in these days of razor-thin margins in state and federal elections.

It's a smart move by Democrats, and as they turn away from their knee-jerk endorsement of abortion, we should applaud the change. However, it really shows how much Republicans have resonated on this issue, and how bad being associated with over 40 million abortions has become for the Democrats.

Did Gonzo Lie? (Updated: FBI Chief Contradicts Gonzo)

Alberto Gonzales performed poorly as a witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, as he usually does. As I pointed out yesterday, his shifting explanations about correcting a misleading statement at a press conference calls into question how he ever got the job in the first place, and whether he has ever learned anything about preparing for testimony.

But did Gonzales lie about a key meeting with Congressional leaders? The AP seems to think so, but its logic seems a bit off:

Documents indicate eight congressional leaders were briefed about the Bush administration's terrorist surveillance program on the eve of its expiration in 2004, contradicting sworn Senate testimony this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Does it contradict the testimony? Not really, not even by the AP's own reporting:

Gonzales, who was then serving as counsel to Bush, testified that the White House Situation Room briefing sought to inform congressional leaders about the pending expiration of the unidentified program and Justice Department objections to renew it. Those objections were led by then-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey, who questioned the program's legality.

"The dissent related to other intelligence activities," Gonzales testified at Tuesday's hearing. "The dissent was not about the terrorist surveillance program."

"Not the TSP?" responded Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. "Come on. If you say it's about other, that implies not. Now say it or not."

"It was not," Gonzales answered. "It was about other intelligence activities."

Gonzales said that the dissent that sent him and Andy Card to the hospital to seek John Ashcroft's approval of an intel program had to do with something other than the NSA's controversial terrorist surveillance program (TSP). The Congressional briefing itself covered the TSP, but also could have -- and probably would have -- covered a range of secret programs that the intel community operated. It's perfectly reasonable to believe that the meeting covered the TSP, and that another program included in the briefing created some resistance.

It's also perfectly reasonable to think otherwise. After all, the timeline corresponds to some changes that took place in the TSP after the White House heard Congressional objections about it, changes reportedly prompted by Ashcroft, among others. Other attendees at the briefing have mixed recollections; the Democrats insist that they wanted the TSP shut down pending those changes (which is supposedly why Gonzales went immediately to Ashcroft in the hospital), while at least one Republican says that no one suggested shutting down the TSP.

James Comey, who revealed the late-night hospital run, refused to say which program was discussed at the hospital, as John Hinderaker notes. Given that the TSP was unfortunately in the public domain at that time, the reticence seems to indicate that it was, as Gonzales stated in his testimony, a different program to which the Congressional delegation objected. And as incompetent an administrator as Gonzales is, it's almost impossible to believe that he's such a bad lawyer as to leave himself open to such an easy perjury trap.

In any case, the AP has "proved" nothing here. And it's worth noting that Gonzales offered more than once to talk about the program in closed session, but that the Judiciary Committee refused his offer. If they really wanted to know about it, they could have agreed to that very appropriate request.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire has an open thread on Gonzales; be sure to check it out.

UPDATE II and BUMP: FBI director Robert Mueller says that the conversation did indeed involve the TSP, and not another program:

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said Thursday the government's terrorist surveillance program was the topic of a 2004 hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials, contradicting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sworn Senate testimony. ...

"Did you have an understanding that that the conversation was on TSP?" asked Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. TSP stands for terrorist surveillance program.

"I had an understanding the discussion was on a NSA program, yes," Mueller answered.

Jackson asked again: "We use 'TSP,' we use 'warrantless wiretapping,' so would I be comfortable in saying that those were the items that were part of the discussion?"

"The discussion was on a national NSA program that has been much discussed, yes," Mueller responded.

Well, this is not good for Gonzales, no matter how one wants to paint this. Gonzales made it quite clear yesterday that the conversation did not involve the TSP (see above). Mueller did not participate in the meeting, but instead spoke with Ashcroft immediately afterwards, and can reasonably be considered a reliable witness in this regard.

This seems like a very clear conflict. Gonzales testified that he did not discuss the TSP with Ashcroft, and Mueller says Ashcroft told him that the TSP was the subject of the conversation. There is virtually no wiggle room here. If Gonzo lied, he absolutely has to go.

CQ Radio: Michael Ledeen

Today on CQ Radio (2 pm CT), Michael Ledeen joins us to review recent developments in the Middle East, especially on Iran. Michael has a new book coming out soon, and we'll ask him about that as well.

Call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

Did you know that you can listen to CQ Radio through your TiVo service? Click here for the instructions. Also, you can subscribe to CQ Radio through iTunes now by clicking this link:

Senator Norm Coleman's Father Passes Away

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just announced on the Senate floor that Norm Coleman's father has passed away. Norm Coleman, Sr, was 82 years old, I believe, a veteran of the Normandy campaign in World War II, and had been close to the Senator all during his public career. Needless to say, the Senator will take a few days away from Washington business to care for his family and make arrangements for Norm Sr's memorial.

Please send your prayers and thoughts to the Coleman family; you're welcome to use the comments section to do so. He and his family will be in our thoughts and prayers today.

Border Security Finally Gets Addressed (Update: 89-1 Approved)

The Senate finally decided to listen to their constituents and allocate funds for increased border security and visa tracking today, after an overnight compromise between Democrats and Republicans. The agreement puts the White House in a bind, as President Bush had already threatened to veto the homeland security bill for spending too much money:

Senate Democrats and Republicans came together Thursday to devote an additional $3 billion to gaining control over the U.S.-Mexico border, putting Congress on a path to override President Bush's promised veto of a $38 billion homeland security funding bill.

The deal resurrects a GOP plan launched Wednesday to pass some of the most popular elements of Bush's failed immigration bill, including money for additional Border Patrol agents and fencing along the southern border. ...

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, resolved their differences overnight and announced agreement Thursday morning. Cornyn won a promise to have some of the money used to go after immigrants who had entered the United States legally but had overstayed their visas.

Yesterday, an amendment offered by Lindsey Graham on this very basis got rejected by the Democrats as non-germane to the underlying bill on a party-line vote. The Democrats apparently reconsidered overnight, after Harry Reid admitted that he misunderstood the thrust of the amendment. The Senate just voted on this amendment again, and it passed, although several Senators missed the vote and afterwards demanded recognition that they would have voted in its support.

This will put Bush in a tough position. He wanted to veto the bill on the basis of overspending, an action that would help assist the GOP on fiscal responsibility. Now, however, the Republican caucus would likely override a veto to ensure that the border-control funds get approved and the border fence extended. It kicks out a key piece of leverage out from under the White House on a pork-laden bill that probably should get reconsidered.

The amendment does move towards better border security and visa management, even it is just a start on both. It funds more fully the efforts approved in the last Congress, but it does more than that. It gives Congress an opportunity to build trust with the American public by actually securing the borders and plugging the obvious holes in our visa management systems. If Congress can deliver on their promises in those two areas, we can once again revisit the question of what we do with the existing illegals after we've blocked entry for any more illegal entries. It could put real reform on the plate for a future session of Congress -- assuming that the executive branch follows suit and fulfills the requirements now funded by Congress.

In all likelihood, the administration will probably wait for a more propitious opportunity to utilize a veto. The Democratic Congress will undoubtedly provide more such opportunities on future appropriations bills. Let's get started on real border security now.

UPDATE: The Graham amendment passed 89-1. The lone holdout? George Voinovich, R-OH. Ten Senators did not vote, including Norm Coleman for obvious reasons, but also presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama. Kent Conrad and Ron Wyden were the two Senators who complained that they did not get the opportunity to vote in support of the amendment.

Border security looks a lot more bipartisan than it did two months ago, doesn't it?

Thompson -- The New Maverick?

Yesterday, I noted the strange appearance of two appellate briefs relating to the legal career of Fred Thompson and wondered aloud what the Washington Post had in mind by publishing them. Today the Post ran a front-page story that looks at Thompson's record as an attorney and his resistance to federal regulation and tort reform, as well as noting the apparent dichotomy of running for the Republican nomination and his involvement in these cases:

Before he was elected as a tough-on-crime U.S. senator from Tennessee or played a New York prosecutor on TV's "Law and Order," Fred Dalton Thompson worked as a lawyer who argued against the government's authority to regulate drug paraphernalia or to search a boat packed with 14 tons of marijuana.

Once, two decades ago, he urged that more witnesses refuse to testify before grand juries by invoking their constitutional right against self-incrimination, boasting that "I start on the assumption that my client will not testify." And over the years, lawsuits he filed helped a state worker win reinstatement to her job while exposing a parole bribery scheme and won money for the family of a Marine pilot killed by a helicopter blade when the family could not sue the Defense Department. ...

His work representing white-collar criminals, drug defendants and lawsuit victims has given Thompson an affinity with one of the Republican Party's perennial targets, trial lawyers, and he carries that connection with him even today as he prepares to seek the GOP presidential nomination. It also helped shape a view on lawsuit reform that has frequently put him at odds with his own party.

"We viewed him as someone we could work with, particularly given he had been an advocate in court for individuals and corporations, and had an innate understanding of what went on in a civil jury," explained Linda Lipsen, the chief lobbyist for the American trial lawyers lobby group that Republicans often pilloried for opposing tort reform during the 1990s.

Unlike many Republicans during the 1990s, Thompson easily collected large sums of political donations from lawyers during his Senate career -- more than $1.5 million over eight years. The trial lobby's political action committee gave him maximum $10,000 donations during each of his two Senate campaigns.

Again, it looks as though the Post wants to focus on Thompson's record as an attorney rather than his record as a Senator -- which is quite different than what John Solomon paints in this article. It's true that Thompson resisted some efforts to impose tort reform on states, insisting that federalist principles meant that the federal government should not impose those remedies on the states. As much as we want tort reform, the federal government should only concern itself with reforming torts at the federal level.

And it appears that Thompson did indeed follow that principle. According to Project Vote Smart, Thompson had six opportunities to vote on federal tort reform -- and he supported it each time. In May 1995, he voted to limit awards on product-liability lawsuits. He also voted to limit punitive awards in securities-fraud torts and to require an establishment of intent for damages. He voted for that bill three times, the final vote overriding a presidential veto issued by Bill Clinton. In 1998, Thompson also voted to force securities-fraud litigation involving 50 or more parties to be heard in federal court -- and therefore limited by the legislation he had earlier supported.

That track record doesn't exactly paint Thompson as a tool of the trial lawyers. Solomon doesn't find room in his 1700-word essay on Thompson for these votes. He does note the 89 rating the ACU gave Thompson in his final year, and the comment from ACU chair David Keene that Thompson's votes might give conservatives "an excuse rather than a reason" to vote against him. Thompson's only two votes in opposition to ACU positions came from supporting a campaign-finance limitation and opposing an amendment on malpractice issues on a bill he voted against in the end anyway.

On the other hand, Solomon's profile could be seen in an entirely different light. It may be that the media is looking for another Republican Maverick, the man who isn't afraid to challenge party orthodoxy in favor of deeply-held principles. Solomon makes this reference more than once in his article, almost as if searching for the new John McCain. Rudy Giuliani would appear to fit that bill more closely, but Rudy is leading the race for the nomination, and the meme usually gets applied as a scold to the base, waggling a finger and remonstrating us for not supporting a man of true principle

If so, detailing Thompson's career as an attorney seems a bit of a stretch. He may have represented people who did drugs, but that doesn't make Thompson an addict. It sounds a lot more exotic than it is, as most lawyers would be eager to confirm. All it shows is that Thompson made a living as an attorney, by reputation an ethical and successful living, and that he decided to go into politics in order to pursue his philosophical goals of federalism and small government.

Perhaps future profiles will stick closer to the real issues and the facts.

The Truest Separation

Michael Yon has another dispatch from his embed mission in Iraq, reporting on the surge from the front lines of Baqubah. He details the planning that goes into even a spot response to terrorists, and the consequences of error. Yon also talks about the difficulty of maintaining the balance of power after driving out al-Qaeda of neighborhoods, as Shi'ite militias such as the JAM appear poised to fill the vacuum in the immediate aftermath:

As AQI is run off or bashed down, one of the larger concerns is that the Shia JAM militias will fill the power vacuum. Even as LTC Johnson and others were arranging food drop-offs in late June, the politics of whether to drop supplies to Sunni or Shia first became acute and gave rise to arguments. Soldiers don’t want to be seen as killing al Qaeda only to pump up JAM, which exists to “protect” Shia, usually by attacking Sunnis before they can attack first. Some months ago, a soldier told me that JAM reminds him of the KKK. I said “That’s strange; JAM reminds me of the KKK too, but I have no idea why.”

Yon also touches on an underlying reason why reconstruction has gone so slowly and why reforms seem stalled in Iraq. The populace has plenty of residual pessimism, and can't seem to understand why America can't deliver a turnkey middle-class republic:

I have wondered now for two years why is it that American military leaders somehow seem to naturally know what it takes to run a city, while many of the local leaders seem clueless. Over time, a possible answer occurred, and that nudge might be due to how the person who runs each American base is referred to as the “Mayor.” A commander’s first job is to take care of his or her forces. Our military is, in a sense its own little country, with city-states spread out all around the world. Each base is like a little city-state. The military commander must understand how the water, electricity, sewerage, food distribution, police, courts, prisons, hospitals, fire, schools, airports, ports, trash control, vector control, communications, fuel, fiscal budgeting, fire, for his “city” all work. They have “embassies” all over the world and must deal diplomatically with local officials in Korea, Germany, Japan and many dozens of other nations. The U.S. military even has its own space program, which few countries have. ....

We live far better on base here in Baqubah than many people who are living downtown (though there are some very nice homes), and it’s not all about money. Not at all and not in the least. When Americans move into Iraqi buildings, the buildings start improving from the first day. And then, the buildings near the buildings start to improve. It’s not about the money, but the mindset. The Greatest Generation called it “the can-do mentality.” It’s a wealth measured not only in dollars, but also in knowledge. The burning curiosity that launched the Hubble, flows from that mentality, and so does the revenue stream of taxpayer dollars that funded it. Iraq is very rich in resources, but philosophically it is impoverished. The truest separation between cultures is in the collective dreams of their people.

When I listen to people in these civil administration meetings inventorying the obstacles, giving detailed and passionate speeches about why the things that need to happen cannot, often next comes the tired lament, “You can do these things because America is rich.” This seems like a chicken-egg argument, but it’s not. They will stare at you like a bird. Blinking. Blinking. As if waiting for an answer to a question that seems to forever loop back on itself. “But you are rich! You put a man on the moon!”

Let's not be too hard on the Iraqis, though. Only a celebrated few were ever allowed the power to run anything in Iraq before 2003, and most of those either fled, perished, or have been barred from power. The people who now need to grasp the reins and govern responsibly have never had much practice at it, and the only examples in their personal experience all involve kowtowing to a brutal dictator -- not exactly the model we'd prefer them to follow. We've had a lot more practice about building communities in a peaceful and democratic manner.

It's another intriguing post, but be warned, Yon includes a lot of photography; the bandwidth requirements may mean slow loading for most readers. It's another reminder of why readers should kick in a few dollars to keep Yon's bills from bringing an end to his self-employment as a front-line journalist.

Russian Expulsions Raise The Stakes

When Russia announced the expulsion of four British diplomats, some hoped that the Putin government had exercised some restraint in the diplomatic row between Russia and Britain. The British had expelled four low-level Russian diplomats as a consequence of Vladimir Putin's refusal to extradite suspected assassin Andrei Lugovoi in the Alexander Litvinenko murder, and the matching number appeared to indicate a willingness to stop an escalation.

However, the Russians expelled a senior British diplomat seen as key to international investment in Russia, a choice that will definitely be seen as an escalation:

Concerns that the Kremlin could target Britain's vast investments in Russia mounted today after it emerged that the British embassy's top trade representative had been ordered to leave the country.

Andrew Levi, who as counsellor for economic affairs is regarded as the third most senior official at the British embassy in Moscow, was among four diplomats expelled last week, according to the Moscow Times newspaper. ...

It is understood that the Russian diplomats ordered to leave Britain held middle ranking and junior positions. ... Given his seniority, Mr Levi's alleged departure has come as an unwelcome surprise to the British business community in Russia.

Britain's investment stake in Russia is very significant. In the first quarter of this year, the UK has put over two billion pounds into the Russian economy, as investors followed the government's lead of engagement. Those investments appear at risk now. The Moscow Times reports that the Putin government will start to cut British-backed firms off from government contracts -- and warned that tax authorities might start giving "tougher scrutiny" to British investors.

Putin has decided on some real brinksmanship here. He apparently wants to extort a retreat from the British government, which will have to face the ire of investors who followed their lead in Russia if they lose their shirts over this diplomatic breach. However, Putin is playing with fire himself. Other investors will not rush to fill the gap left by a British withdrawal from their markets, especially given the mercurial treatment of said investors by a government dominated by the increasingly megalomaniacal Putin. He may wind up wrecking his own economy while only inconveniencing the Brits.

How will Britain react? It seems that the ball is in their court now. They could halt the economic engagement that has helped float the Russian economy, essentially calling Putin's bluff. They could also start expelling senior diplomatic figures from Britain, overtly escalating the row and threatening a complete diplomatic and economic break. The British could, as an even more stinging rebuke, work to get Russia tossed out of the G-8, membership in which Putin has prized.

The only point on which the world can rest assured is that this is not over.

UPDATE: The New York Times blog, The Lede, also picks up this story.

I'd Have Preffered A Couple Of Hail Marys

John Murtha threatened to kill all of Mike Rogers' earmarks after the Michigan Republican challenged one of the Pork King's own. Because Murtha was foolish enough to issue that threat openly on the House floor, Rogers filed a resolution on the floor rebuking Murtha for what amounted to a threat of extortion. Murtha apologized -- and now he has spent our money on his penance:

The powerful Democrat, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that doles out defense spending, eventually apologized for his bad behavior in a letter to Rogers. But Murtha's decision to grant Rogers three of the 10 projects he requested is the ultimate sign of benevolence.

According to the measure that members considered Wednesday, Murtha set aside money for Lowery Computer Products in Brighton, Mich., to test an advanced security system for military bases, money for Michigan State University to test composite materials, and money for a cold-weather clothing manufacturer in Lansing, Mich.

Isn't it great when our elected representatives kiss and make up? It costs us millions of dollars, but we get our money's worth in the warmth and goodwill that results. In fact, it creates such strength and friendship in Congress that they have a renewed sense of purpose in divvying up taxpayer monies to help retain their incumbencies and ensure that no meaningful reform ever occurs.

Pork. We're what's for dinner.

It's For The Children!

Sometimes bipartisanship leads to bigger problems, and the Senate Commerce Committee apparently intends to prove it. Chair Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and ranking member Ted Stevens (R-AK) issued a demand for government "filtering" of the Internet -- and they want it for the children, of course (via Instapundit):

US senators today made a bipartisan call for the universal implementation of filtering and monitoring technologies on the Internet in order to protect children at the end of a Senate hearing for which civil liberties groups were not invited.

Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Vice Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) both argued that Internet was a dangerous place where parents alone will not be able to protect their children.

“While filtering and monitoring technologies help parents to screen out offensive content and to monitor their child’s online activities, the use of these technologies is far from universal and may not be fool-proof in keeping kids away from adult material," Sen. Inouye said. “In that context, we must evaluate our current efforts to combat child pornography and consider what further measures may be needed to stop the spread of such illegal material over high-speed broadband connections."

Before we get into free-speech issues, let's deconstruct Inouye's statement for a moment. Keeping kids away from adult material morphs very quickly into combating child pornography, but they aren't at all connected. Kids don't get victimized by child pornographers by surfing the web, but by being exploited in person by child pornographers. The distribution of child pornography occurs on the Internet -- but that's already illegal, and law enforcement resources have already been committed to fighting it.

If Inouye wants to strengthen the penalties and commit more resources to prosecute child porn and its distribution, that sounds good to me. It doesn't require government "filtering" to do either.

What did Ted Stevens have to say about the subject? Nothing terribly coherent:

"Given the increasingly important role of the Internet in education and commerce, it differs from other media like TV and cable because parents cannot prevent their children from using the Internet altogether," Sen. Stevens said. "The headlines continue to tell us of children who are victimized online. While the issues are difficult, I believe Congress has an important role to play to ensure that the protections available in other parts of our society find their way to the Internet."

To quote the great philosopher of our time -- the Geico Caveman -- er, what? "The protections available in other parts of our society"? Would Stevens like to explain exactly what those protections are? I'm not aware of any government filtering programs on media, except to make child porn illegal. The government does not pre-inspect Hustler, for instance, to ensure that the models are all 18 and over; they just require publishers to keep records to substantiate it on request. They do the same thing with Internet porn sites, at least those who operate within the US. Every legitimate restriction on the distribution of information and images that exists in the brick-and-mortar world already applies to the Internet.

How does the Internet differ from TV and cable in that parents can't prevent their children from using it? Parents who want to cut off Internet access at their house will find it rather easy to do. True, their children can access Internet elsewhere, but they can access television elsewhere, too, even at school.

The committee wants the FCC and the FTC to start working on methods of identifying and blocking certain methods of transmission to keep child pornography from getting distributed. Not only does that sound like a dangerous expansion of their specific missions, it sounds absurd from a technological point of view. The decentralized nature of the Internet makes this suggestion a never-ending game of "duck-duck-goose", as transmissions will adapt to government interference -- as proven in China, Iran, and a host of other dictatorships.

We don't need a nanny state deciding what to block for our own good. Track child porn and prosecute everyone involved, but don't use that as an excuse to start filtering access to the Internet.

New Life For Mideast Peace Process?

The stalemate between the Israelis and the Palestinians ironically started to melt when Hamas conducted a coup in Gaza. Now the Arab League, nervous about Iran's growing influence in the region, has decided to take the unprecedented step of officially sending representatives to Israel to begin peace talks:

Arab League envoys paid a historic visit to Israel on Wednesday to present a plan calling for a comprehensive regional settlement, saying they were extending "a hand of peace" on behalf of the Arab world.

The one-day visit by the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan marked the first time the 22-member group has sent representatives to Israel. The Arab League peace plan envisions full recognition of Israel in return for an Israeli withdrawal from lands captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The visit highlights a dramatic change of direction for the Arab body, which actively pursued Israel's destruction after the Jewish state was created in 1948. The league refused to recognize Israel for decades afterward and suspended Egypt in 1979 for a decade after it become the first Arab state to make peace.

The instability in the Middle East has forced the hand of the moderate Arab states. They have realized, somewhat belatedly, that the greater threat to their fiefdoms comes not from Israel or the West but from the radicals they have nurtured as threats against both. Joining the threat from Islamist groups like Hamas and al-Qaeda is the ancient Persian threat of domination over the Arabs, risen once again in the near-nuclear mullahcracy in Teheran.

These states need to tend to their own back yard. They never really cared about the Palestinian cause, using it as a strawman to channel the rage their populaces felt at their oppression. Now that rage threatens to swallow their regimes, and they need to find a way to moderate their citizens -- and reaching accommodation for the Palestinians will bring them a measure of peace, and hopefully marginalize the radical Islamists they have unleashed.

And Iran threatens to use that weapon against them. With their influence over Hamas and control over Hezbollah, Iran has the ability to undermine most of the rest of the Gulf states, save perhaps Saudi Arabia -- which has its own issues with radical Islamists nonetheless. The Arab states can see a grand design of domination flowing from the Iranian pursuit of nuclear weapons and their stoking of Islamist rage in the region.

That doesn't mean that peace will drop like a ripe fruit from a tree. The conflict has critical obstacles, including what to do with the extensive settlements in the West Bank. However, agreeing to meet is the first step necessary for peace, and the fact that the Arab League is willing to do so openly is a significant development.

The Avoidable Conclusion To Executive Privilege Tension

It appears that Congress and the White House will come to a resonating conclusion to the lifelong tension over the use of executive privilege, and it will be fought on the White House's turf. The House Judiciary Committee took the extreme step of recommending contempt citations for two senior administration officials after they refused to testify under subpoena regarding political advice at the White House:

The House Judiciary Committee voted today to issue contempt citations for two of President Bush's most trusted aides, taking its most dramatic step yet towards a constitutional showdown with the White House over the Justice Department's dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.

The panel voted 22-17, along party lines, to issue citations to Joshua B. Bolten, White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, former White House counsel. Both refused to comply with committee subpoenas after Bush declared that documents and testimony related to the prosecutor firings were protected by executive privilege. ...

Republicans on the panel argued strongly today against issuing contempt citations, and Democrats shot down two proposed GOP amendments before voting for the contempt findings.

"I believe this is an unnecessary provocation of a constitutional crisis," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.). "Absent showing that a crime was committed in this process, I think the White House is going to win an argument in court."

Tony Snow rather forcefully responded to this development, calling it a singular event in American history, where the legislative branch will direct the executive branch -- in the form of the federal prosecutor -- to file contempt charges against itself. The Department of Justice reminded Congress that administrations of both parties have long held that Congress has no power to issue contempt citations for claims of executive privilege. Obviously, the current leadership in Congress doesn't care.

It portends a showdown in the Supreme Court over the nature of executive privilege, and Sensenbrenner is correct. Absent any evidence of criminal conduct, the Supreme Court is highly unlikely to grant the legislative branch free rein to pursue contempt charges or to undo executive privilege. Nancy Pelosi will in all likelihood force a ruling that will firmly establish executive privilege and leave Congress with less power than it has had, after having finally called its own bluff.

It's unfortunate that the Democrats chose to pursue this course. Even though I believe that Alberto Gonzales should resign for incompetence, no one has established any criminal conduct at the DoJ, nor are they likely to do so by calling Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten for testimony. It's a fishing expedition in both chambers of Congress. They can conduct all of the fishing expeditions they want, but they have no right to abrogate executive privilege to do so. Absent clear evidence of criminality, the President has the right to confer with his aides without Congress demanding to know what was said -- which is the heart of executive privilege.

If the main body of Congress is foolish enough to endorse this course of action, then it will set the stage for its diminishment. Up to now, smarter leadership in the Legislature has carefully wielded the threat of contempt to compel greater cooperation on matters of national interest. In one action in a situation that amounts to little more than a sideshow for a nation at war, the Democrats will throw that leverage away on the inhospitable shores of the Supreme Court in a case where they cannot even demonstrate any criminality.

That may sound great for the Republicans at the moment -- but only as long as the Executive branch remains in the hands of the GOP. I'd prefer the historical tension and the traditional give-and-take to what will shortly follow.

CQ Radio: Thurman Gaskill

Today on CQ Radio (2 pm CT), we'll talk with Thurman Gaskill of the Rudy Giuliani campaign. Gaskill will talk about the energy policy of the Giuliani campaign, but since he's the Chair of Iowa Farmers for Rudy, we'll talk ag policy as well, and maybe get some insights into Rudy's push in Iowa. We'll also talk about the latest developments surrounding Alberto Gonzales, including the contempt citations just issued by Congress against Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers.

Call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

Did you know that you can listen to CQ Radio through your TiVo service? Click here for the instructions. Also, you can subscribe to CQ Radio through iTunes now by clicking this link:

The Next Fred Smear?

I noticed that the Washington Post has published a legal brief from 1981 on its website without an accompanying story, at least as of noon CT, and that piqued my curiosity. The amicus brief relates to a First Amendment challenge in Illinois that involved the sale of magazines with drug references at a local store. It didn't take long to see why the Post published the brief; it was filed on behalf of American Businesses for Constitutional Rights by Fred Thompson.

Apparently, the Post wants to argue that this will somehow shake conservative confidence in Thompson. They're very wrong, and a quick read of the brief will explain why:

Vague laws offend several important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant *7 dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application. Third, but related, where a vague statute "abuts upon sensitive areas of basic First Amendment freedoms," it "operates to inhibit the exercise of those freedoms." Uncertain meanings inevitably lead citizens to "steer far wider of the unlawful zone ... than if the boundaries of the forbidden area were clearly marked." (Citations omitted.)

It is the third constitutional value offended by vague laws, the inhibiting effect on the exercise of citizens' First Amendment rights, that is the primary thrust of this analysis.

One could apply this reasoning, in whole, against the Fairness Doctrine as well as a community ban on High Times, or whatever other "head" publication Hoffman Estates banned in 1981. It also related to the distribution of drug paraphernalia, which this brief also argued was unconstitutionally vague as a law. The appellant had to remove 72 specific items from their shelves, which may have included items that could have had other uses, but were too closely adjacent to obviously illegal implements.

It's an interesting case, but that's all it was -- and in the end, Hoffman Estates prevailed. Thompson did what lawyers do in representing a client with a perceived interest in the case. That interest looks intriguingly libertarian, but that applies to the ABCR and not necessarily the attorneys that represented them on their amicus brief.

Honestly, will the Post and other mainstream media outlets insist on conducting law-school classes for the rest of the campaign by publishing quarter-century-old cases for consideration? Vayapaso always wanted me to be a lawyer. Can I apply for a degree when the Post finishes its curious retrospective?

UPDATE: Lane found another example in the Post today. This one involves Fred's representation of a man accused of drug crimes, and his inability to meet the court schedule -- which the appellate court considered of no consequence, since the defendant had adequate counsel nonetheless.

US-Iran Talks Creating A 'Purge Committee'?

Stratfor takes a look at the high-level talks that took place yesterday between the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, and the Iranian ambassador, Hassan Kazemi Qomi. After Crocker declared that the trilateral talks will continue despite accusations from the US and Iran of undermining Iraq, the analysts look at what common ground the two nations may have found (subscription required):

Iran and the United States now appear to have made enough progress to begin implementing agreements from the May meeting. After the second round of talks, Crocker said the U.S., Iraqi and Iranian governments plan to create a security committee to discuss containing violence in Iraq, addressing everything from "support for violent militias" to al Qaeda to border security.

Translation: The two countries will create a purge committee; the United States will kill any Iraqi Sunnis who do not cooperate, while the Iranians do the same to rebellious Iraqi Shia.

Now that the expectations have been set, the coming days will give us an idea of who will sit on this committee and when it will begin operations. But there is still one large task at hand. After all, though Washington clearly has more cards to play with the Sunnis, and the Iranians pull substantial weight among the Shia, this does not mean compliance will come easily. We use the words "purge" and "kill" for good reason; there are many in (and beyond) Iraq who are terrified of any U.S.-Iranian detente.

If the US and Iran have begun to cooperate on Iraqi security, the building blocks of that cooperation would come within the spheres of influence now in Iraq. Clearly the Sunni see us as a shield against Shi'ite retribution for decades of official oppression, as well as an ally against the bloodthirsty al-Qaeda organization that terrorizes all Iraqis in the western provinces. They do not want us to leave until they can be assured of their own security against a sectarian-driven army and police forces.

We have not heard a lot about Baghdad and the surge lately, which could tend to support the Stratfior analysis. Iran could be pressuring Sadr and his militias to stay quiet while the US tries to settle the violence in the capital, seeing that as the most direct route to our withdrawal. The Shi'ites will have a natural affinity for Iran, and seeing that grow stronger is disturbing -- but it may be the only way at this point to get a temporary respite from the violence. If so, it seems to be working.

However, if Stratfor's blunt analysis is correct, the new policy will not win many allies here in the US. It sounds as if all of the bad consequences of the ISG strategy will have come to fruition, only with our overt assistance rather than just passive neglect. We don't want to leave Iraq as an Iranian satellite any more than we want it as a chaotic terrorist haven. We certainly shouldn't be participating in a "purge committee" that acts on an extra-legal basis just to enforce a deadly form of realpolitik.

Their analysts believe that the recent Iranian invitation to the IAEA for an inspection of their Arak nuclear facility came as a result of these talks. The Iranians used their nuclear program to gain a leading position in talks about Iraqi security -- or conversely, the US leveraged their concerns over our foothold on one of their borders to put pressure on their nuclear efforts. If that horsetrading results in an end to their nuclear program, then it's a good trade, but that has to be a verifiable conclusion, and not just another series of promises by the mullahcracy.

There may be many in and out of Iraq who fear an Iranian-US detente, but there are many more who question what such a truce would buy us and the region, especially considering the nature of the regime in question.

Doesn't This Man Need To Spend More Time With His Family?

Alberto Gonzales once again threw gasoline on a fire in his testimony yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Hill reports that Gonzales once again spent the hearing zig-zagging and backtracking, stoking calls this time for a special prosecutor from one of the Republicans on the committee. He managed to reverse himself twice on the late-night meeting with John Ashcroft in one hearing, among other dubious achievements, some of which I watched on C-SPAN.

At Heading Right, I look at the latest in a series of poor performances by the Attorney General and question what value he provides to this administration. As Gonzales continues to flounder in a sea of his own contradictions, one has to wonder why the White House continues to allow this bleeding to continue.

Churchill Hits The Road

Ward Churchill, who made headlines when he called the victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns" who deserved their deaths, has been fired by the University of Colorado tonight. The action comes from a lengthy review of his past representations of his experience and his background rather than the political stances he took, but Churchill promises to sue for wrongful termination:

The University of Colorado Board of Regents voted to terminate controversial professor Ward Churchill on Tuesday evening.

The Board of Regents passed a motion to accept the recommendation from CU President Hank Brown to fire Churchill from his position in the Ethnic Studies department. ...

"This case was an example not of mistakes, but an effort to falsify history and fabricate history and in the final analysis, this individual did not express regret or apologize," said Brown. "This is a faculty that has an outstanding reputation and this move today protects that reputation."

"At the end of the day we had to look at what these three committees had presented to us and what 25 tenured faculty had said and that was really important to all the board members," said Hayes.

Quite frankly, I find this all a bore. Churchill inflated his resume and claimed a Native American heritage that turned out to be adopted. I don't see those as particularly heinous violations in Academia these days. I find speech codes much more offensive than a literary phony with tenure at one campus.

However, I don't feel particularly sorry for Churchill, either. He has misrepresented himself and sought to inflate his public profile on the backs of dead victims of terrorism. His firing has little to do with this, and so it has little to do with issues of academic freedom. The only connection comes from his own efforts to draw attention to his hateful diatribes, which launched a thousand research projects into his background. Churchill is a ridiculous and petty figure.

His termination will probably allow him another 15 minutes of inexplicable fame. I'm not sure the trade is worth it.

UPDATE and BUMP, 7-25 8:14 am CT: I wasn't being terribly clear when I wrote this post. I don't disagree with UC's decision to fire Churchill. It's just that I hardly see this as a national crusade. Ward Churchill is not the only professor to exaggerate his CV or make anti-American statements. Hang around long enough in Academia and you'll probably find plenty of both. For that matter, you'll find the same in the private sector, too.

Churchill is just one man at a public university, and the attention he gets is all out of proportion to the influence he wields. The national campaign to get him fired has given him more credibility than ever, and his termination will give him a patina of martyrdom, too. Was all of the effort worth it?

Polling Follies, Chapter 37B

Yesterday, I noticed that the Washington Post had published another of its series of polls, and I decided to take a look through the sampling. Given that the only use of it last night was for analyzing the Republican primary race, in which only Republican responses got used for data, I decided to hold off on writing about it until the Post used the overall data for other purposes. This morning, Peter Baker obliged with a story about George Bush's historic low approval ratings:

President Bush is a competitive guy. But this is one contest he would rather lose. With 18 months left in office, he is in the running for most unpopular president in the history of modern polling.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News survey shows that 65 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance, matching his all-time low. In polls conducted by The Post or Gallup going back to 1938, only once has a president exceeded that level of public animosity -- and that was Richard M. Nixon, who hit 66 percent four days before he resigned.

I'm not going to argue that Bush doesn't have low approval ratings or that he is solidly unpopular at the moment. I think that has been pretty well established, especially after he alienated his own base over immigration reform -- if you'll pardon the pun. However, the Post's polling has such a sampling problem that it calls into serious question how accurately they could measure his disapproval ratings.

After a few years of relative equality, Democrats have pulled ahead of Republicans in party affiliation, as NBC noted in February. Nationally, Democrats enjoy a 34.3%-30.4% advantage in registrants. This has caused some analysts to predict that the GOP will have a tougher time in the Electoral College than in the last two elections, which was the general point of the article.

Now let's look at the Washington Post sample. On question 901, respondents answered that they were 35% Democrats, which is close enough to the national average. However, only 23% identified themselves as Republicans, which amounts to a 24% underrepresentation (see update below) of the GOP in this sample. In fact, the Post consistently underrepresents Republicans, and has for the past two years. The last time it came close to reality was in November 2006 -- when the Post needed to make sure its election predictions came close to the results.

Not surprisingly, that was also the last time the Post's polling on George Bush's approval ratings came close to reality, too. His disapproval then was 57%, which the elections seem to have confirmed. At the time, Rasmussen -- which has been historically more accurate than the Post -- had it at 56%. They now have it at 59%, actually down from a high of 65% in the first part of July during the immigration debate.

Bush is not popular, by any means. However, by seriously underrepresenting Republicans in its polling samples, the Post exaggerates his unpopularity and renders its polling unreliable. If their pollsters cannot generate a sample that resembles the American electorate, then they should find new pollsters.

UPDATE: A few people have questioned the "24% underrepresentation" remark, but it's accurate. If the proper representation of Republicans in the electorate is 30.3%, and the Post's sample is only 23% Republican, then it underrepresents Republicans by 24% -- not because I think its off by 24 percentage points and it should be 47%, but because it only includes 76% of the proper Republican sample. That means the sample of Republicans is off by 24%. That's not insignificant, and therefore any general conclusions made from this poll are unreliable at best.

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Expect Grade Inflation Here

How badly has the BBC's reputation been damaged in its game-show scandals and false allegations of prima donna behavior by the Queen? Its executives now will teach courses on honesty to its staff -- apparently a subject with which the BBC lacks familiarity:

John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman will be required to join Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC, on a mandatory new training programme to teach honesty to BBC staff.

The Safeguarding Trust course is being set up as part of the damage limitation exercise by the corporation after the revelation that six children's and charity television programmes had misled viewers.

Mark Byford, the deputy director general, giving evidence to a Commons Culture Select Committee yesterday, said all employees, no matter how senior or famous, would have to attend the course if involved in making programmes.

Mr Byford, who was giving evidence with Caroline Thomson, the chief operating officer, said: "Everyone must be reminded about what the BBC stands for and what trust is."

First, speaking as a former mid-level manager, the best course in honesty is a good and public firing for dishonesty. If an employee lies and perpetrates frauds, immediate termination usually sends a pretty clear message to the rest of the organization. If, as in this case, an entire business unit conspired to act dishonestly, lopping off the first level of management sends an even clearer message.

Believe me, a few people getting their desks cleared out by Security has an impact on the rest of the staff, especially when the people fired are rather high-level managers and executives. Word gets around .

Besides, if the BBC acts dishonestly, it's because it has dishonest people -- and they will not be moved to honesty through management lectures. BBC executives can hand out all the internal training certificates they print, but if they still have dishonest staff at the end of the day, the only thing they will have learned is to cover their tracks better. If they want to take this seriously, BBC executives should set up an anonymous tipline that reports to an independent panel with the authority to conduct investigations and publicize the results. And once the investigations reveal dishonesty, the terminations can commence forthwith.

That's not even the best, or worst, part of this story. The BBC is a news organization as well as an entertainment company -- and it's funded through forced public contributions. What does the need for Honesty School say about the BBC's commitment to truth in its reporting? What does it tell the British taxpayer and license holder about the value they have received for subsidizing an organization that not only acts dishonestly, but then has no clue how to cleanse itself?

An organization with responsibility to stockholders instead of living off of government subsidies would know how to handle this situation. Honesty School is nothing more than a desperate dodge to fool people into the next con game.

John Doe Protection Restored?

A last-minute press by Republicans in a conference committee may have restored protection for national-security tipsters against litigation, according to the Associated Press. The conference report for the stalled security bill has not yet been released, but it appears to have been salvaged for political expediency, as Democrats have despaired of getting anything accomplished this year:

Congressional negotiators reached tentative agreement Tuesday on steps to strengthen air and sea defenses against terrorists in legislation aimed at fulfilling recommendations made three years ago by the 9/11 Commission.

The bill outlines plans to inspect all cargo on passenger planes within three years and screen, within five years, all U.S.-bound cargo ships for nuclear weapons before they leave foreign ports.

It also realigns the formulas for distributing federal security funds so that states and cities most at risk of terrorist attack receive a larger share.

This was one of the key promises made by Democrats in last year's election -- to fully implement the remaining 9/11 Commission recommendations. The Republicans agreed on most of the points, but had some notable objections. The GOP refused to budge on allowing unionization of TSA screeners, which had prompted a veto threat. They resisted the requirement to inspect 100% of cargo coming to the US at the foreign port of export for radiation, since the technology still doesn't exist and may not by the time the five-year deadline arrives. However, White House didn't threaten a veto on that clause, and it appears to have survived the compromise.

What did the GOP get in return?

The last obstacle was cleared when negotiators crafted language to satisfy a Republican demand giving immunity from lawsuits to people who report suspicious behavior. The issue grew out of an incident last fall where six Muslim scholars were removed from a flight in Minneapolis after other passengers said they were acting suspiciously. The imams have since filed a lawsuit, saying their civil rights were violated.

Finally, the government will extend the same kind of whistleblower protection to tipsters on national security as they do in other industries -- and take away a tool of intimidation from those who wish to cow the American traveling public into silence. Since we now have TSA reporting an increase in probing events at airports, getting the public to assist in security seems like a pretty good idea. And since the Flying Imams incident that prompted this legislation appears to have been a kind of probing incident in itself, it seems fitting that Congress acts now, rather than wait for the next attack to have already occurred.

If the conference report does not contain the John Doe protections, we will need to step up our communications to our Representatives and Senators in Washington to get it passed immediately on another upcoming bill.

TSA: Dry Runs Indicate Terrorist Attack Near

The Transportation Security Administration has issued a bulletin that confirms that an uptick in suspicious incidents indicate that a terrorist attack on airliners may be close at hand. The items seized by TSA include clay-like substances, potential IED components such as wires and switches, and cell-phone components that could be used as remote triggers (via Michelle Malkin):

Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September.

The unclassified alert was distributed on July 20 by the Transportation Security Administration to federal air marshals, its own transportation security officers and other law enforcement agencies.

The seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included “wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances,” including block cheese, the bulletin said. “The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern.”

TSA told NBC that they issue bulletins like this on a fairly regular basis, and that the traveling public should not panic. Over 90 such bulletins have been issued in the past six months on similar security-related issues. It's part of their job to keep the entire network informed and focused on the task at hand.

However, this seems to be a little more than the usual alert. The bulletin specifically warns that these kinds of activities have peaked in the past just before terrorist attacks -- and that part of the value in them is to desensitive security personnel to the probes. Part of the desensitization comes from using the same substances repeatedly -- and in this bulletin, cheese and clay keep coming up again and again.

Here are the four seizures:

* San Diego, July 7. A U.S. person — either a citizen or a foreigner legally here — checked baggage containing two ice packs covered in duct tape. The ice packs had clay inside them rather than the normal blue gel.

* Milwaukee, June 4. A U.S. person’s carryon baggage contained wire coil wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three tubes and two blocks of cheese. The bulletin said block cheese has a consistency similar to some explosives.

* Houston, Nov. 8, 2006. A U.S. person’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a 9-volt battery, wires, a block of brown clay-like minerals and pipes.

* Baltimore, Sept. 16, 2006. A couple’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a block of processed cheese taped to another plastic bag holding a cellular phone charger.

One interesting note about these probes: they came at airports one might consider as secondary targets. If terrorists wanted to make the biggest splash, they would have targeted LAX, O'Hare, JFK, LaGuardia, Reagan, Dulles, or one of the Midwest line of major international hubs such as Minneapolis-St. Paul. The airports mentioned in the bulletin are major airports, but they wouldn't be as critical as the others -- which means that the terrorists may be looking to see if security is consistent across the network.

So far, TSA apparently has passed that test. With reports of terrorist chatter reaching levels seen just before the 9/11 attacks, let's hope they can continue to uncover the probes and keep track of those who conduct them.

The Brahmins Of Labor

Progressives used to argue that the workers had more moral standing than owners and other elites because they actually did the work than enriched the upper classes. The proletarian status of the working class found favor from Karl Marx to George Meaney, and inspired the modern labor movement. Now its heirs have decided on their own division of labor .. by outsourcing picket lines:

The picketers marching in a circle in front of a downtown Washington office building chanting about low wages do not seem fully focused on their message.

Many have arrived with large suitcases or bags holding their belongings, which they keep in sight. Several are smoking cigarettes. One works a crossword puzzle. Another bangs a tambourine, while several drum on large white buckets. Some of the men walking the line call out to passing women, "Hey, baby." A few picketers gyrate and dance while chanting: "What do we want? Fair wages. When do we want them? Now."

Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members.

They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs. ...

Carpenters locals across the country are outsourcing their picket lines, hiring the homeless, students, retirees and day laborers to get their message across. Larry Hujo, a spokesman for the Indiana-Kentucky Regional Council of Carpenters, calls it a "shift in the paradigm" of picketing.

The ironies here are so thick that one could cut them with a labor-produced knife. Does the union offer these workers a chance to organize? Perhaps they should form Picket Line Walkers Local #1 and demand a better wage than $8 per hour. The working conditions sound rather grim as well. Do these workers get paid breaks, health-care coverage, and a safe working environment? Er ... no.

And let's take a look at that wage for just a moment. They're getting paid a whopping eight dollars per hour, almost certainly with no benefits. The Wal-Mart protest site, You Are Worth More, puts the average Wal-Mart hourly pay at $9.26 per hour -- which means they pay better than Labor pays its protest workers by 16%. Another site, Wake Up Wal-Mart, notes that the lowest paid job at the retailer still pays $8.23 per hour, and it doesn't involve hours of pacing in the hot sun during the summertime. And while some may consider Wal-Mart's benefits package insufficient, at least it exists.

The union's colleagues aren't impressed, nor should they be. The carpenters use what are essentially scabs for picket work because they apparently don't have enough out-of-work members to staff picket lines. That doesn't cut it for Wayne Ranick of the United Steelworkers, who says it doesn't leave a "positive impression" for labor. Homeless advocates interviewed by the Post call it an exploitation of the downtrodden, and wonder why the carpenters' union doesn't do some real good by providing these picketers with job training.

It seems that there is a class distinction within labor, perhaps even more pronounced than outside of it. The elites make the big money, while the workers sniff at the proles walking the picket lines.

CQ Radio: Debate The YouTube Debate

Today on CQ Radio (2 pm CT), I'll be joined by two terrific New Media stars to review the YouTube debate from last night. John Hawkins and Robert Bluey will talk about the format, the questions, the answers, and the implications for the Republican version in September. We'll also hear from NZ Bear, who will bring us up to date on the newly-relaunched Victory Caucus blog, and all of the information that it brings readers.

Call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

UPDATE: Tomorrow, I'll have Rudy Giuliani advisor Thomas Gaskill on the show to talk about Rudy's energy policy. On Thursday, we'll have National Review contributor and American Enterprise Institute fellow Michael Ledeen to talk about Iran, the Middle East, and his new book. On Friday, we'll welcome back Duane "Generalissimo" Patterson for the week in review!

Did you know that you can listen to CQ Radio through your TiVo service? Click here for the instructions. Also, you can subscribe to CQ Radio through iTunes now by clicking this link:

My Villainy Hits The Bookstands Today

A month ago, I let CQ readers know that my good friend and award-winning author, William Kent Krueger, would publish another of his series of Cork O'Connor mystery novels, set here in Minnesota. The new book, Thunder Bay, has a new villain: me.

Kent and I both volunteer at Twin Cities Marriage Encounter, and he often offers to name characters in his novels as items in our fundraising auctions. When I won the bid over a year ago, Kent asked me if I wanted to be evil or good, and I immediately chose evil. He asked me if I wanted to just be nasty or really eeeeeeeevil -- and I chose the latter.

He made me sign a release. Now you can find out why. You can order the book or the audio tape through the links below (full disclosure: I'll make a few cents on every copy sold through these links) and find out just how eeeeeeeeevil Kent made me. I've already read the book -- and I can tell you, you'll not only enjoy it, but you'll also want to read the other books in the series.

I'm hoping to schedule Kent for an interview soon!

UPDATE, 1:30 pm CT: Right now the book is ranked 2,319th on Amazon's best-seller list. Let's see how high we can push this!

ID Cards For Illegal Immigrants?

In the absence of immigration reform, advocates of the McCain-Kennedy bill from this summer warned us, states and localities would start responding with their own patchwork of oddball legislation. Some opponents of the reform bill welcomed the idea, but probably won't delight in this development from New Haven, Connecticut:

This city is becoming the first in the nation to offer identification cards to illegal immigrants, trying to bring them out of the shadows even as many municipalities crack down on them.

Beginning Tuesday, New Haven will offer the ID cards to all of its 125,000 residents, including some 10,000 to 12,000 illegal immigrants.

The cards will allow immigrants to open bank accounts and use other services that may be unavailable without driver's licenses or state-issued IDs. If they can open bank accounts, immigrants will be less likely to carry large amounts of cash, a practice that makes them easy targets for robbers.

City officials say the cards will also encourage immigrants who are crime victims or witnesses to cooperate with police.

I'm torn on this idea. First, most if not all of the legal residents of New Haven would probably opt for a state-issued ID card, which would have more legitimacy, if not a driver's license. The only people who would likely apply for this card would be those who are here illegally -- which would make it very easy to find them later.

That's not why New Haven created the card, of course. They claim it's so that illegal immigrants don't have to carry large amounts of cash, and so that they can cooperate with the police on criminal investigations. The latter makes little sense. Illegals don't cooperate with law enforcement because they're here illegally, not because they lack identification. This ID would reinforce their illegality, and if the police decided to cooperate with immigration officials, it would flag them immediately to get ICE involved.

And if the immigrants work so hard for such little pay, where do they get the large amounts of cash that New Haven deems so dangerous?

On the other hand, it's hard to credit the critics of the plan on their major objection. They claim that the ID card will create a demand for more illegal immigrants. That also makes little sense, because illegals don't come to the US because of a lack of picture IDs in their home country. They're here for the work .. if we're lucky.

However, it seems rather strange to have a government program that provides legitimacy to those who remain in violation of federal law. Had a normalization program been passed, then New Haven's city ID would have been superceded by a federal immigration ID anyway. This looks like a publicity stunt by Mayor John DeStefano and the city council to get their names in the papers around the country. Apparently, they don't care if they look as goofy as DeStefano's picture in the process.

No SmoKim

Rumors have Kim Jong-Il suffering from serious heart disease and complications of diabetes, and recent pictures indicate some significant weight loss. Patients coping with these illnesses usually get advised to avoid cigarette smoke. And when you're the Dear Leader of the DPRK, you can clear a lot of air:

In most cities, smoking bans are intended to protect the non-smoking majority from the minority who insist on lighting up.

In Pyongyang, the latest and most unlikely international capital to be subject to a ban, it is the other way round.

The ban is to protect one man from the effects of his puffing compatriots, but since that man is the reclusive North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, it is still likely to be vigorously implemented. ...

Sang Jong-min, a former South Korean MP and academic who has visited Pyongyang and monitors developments there, says he was told about the ban by a Chinese diplomat. "Kim's home, office and all other places he goes to have been designated as non-smoking areas. Even the highest-ranking officials are going outdoors to smoke,” he said.

Even though Kim may run the world's biggest nanny state, smoking has been one of the few vices allowed by leadership to the people. Estimates of smokers in the DPRK run as high as 40%. Servicing those 9 million smokers is one of the only Western companies to invest in Kim's dictatorship, British American Tobacco, which produces the cigarettes in the DPRK.

Kim himself used to smoke until his health began to fail. Now that he has ended his own habit, he apparently wants everyone else to smoke outside. Will the new push towards respiratory health kill one of the few industries to actually work inside the DPRK? It's hard to tell, but if Kim presses the ban, at least the starving millions in his country won't have to endure the horrors of second-hand smoke.

Let's Prepare For The Next YouTube Debate (Update: Accountability?)

The problem with last night's debate didn't have so much to do with the venue or the format, or even the use of questions through YouTube -- but with the quality of those questions. As I wrote earlier, the questions selected had little substance, which allowed the candidates to use tired campaign talking points instead of talking about real issues.

After writing this, one CQ commenter reminded me that we have two months before the Republican YouTube/CNN debate, which will air from the key primary state of Florida. Teresa challenged me to get YouTube, CNN, and the candidates prepared for the debate by hosting our own contest for the CQ community -- to produce intelligent, cogent YouTube video questions that will produce specific answers from our Republican candidates.

That sounds terrific to me! We'll start immediately. Contestants can either post the YouTube code to the comments section here, or better yet, e-mail the code and a description of the video to this new e-mail address: youtube - at - captainsquartersblog.com. I'll post them as we go along, and we'll set the end of the contest for Labor Day. The top five will all get $20 Amazon gift certificates from CQ. I may contribute one or two of my own, but I'll be ineligible for the prizes.

Let the video cameras roll! And let's show YouTube and CNN how the New Media really works!

UPDATE: Juan Paxety notes in the comments that generating good questions may not be enough. YouTube had good questions, he said, but CNN overlooked them for the silliness they aired instead. Well, this makes it even more critical to put these together at the CQ community. If we produce substantive and entertaining questions that get passed over for inanities, then we will have the proof right on our site to demonstrate it.

It's called accountability -- and we're glad to provide it.

McCain Conference Call

John McCain has gotten back to holding regular conference calls with bloggers, and today he talked about his economic plan for a McCain presidency. He spoke about the issues surrounding displaced workers, and he underscored the need for some efforts to support and possibly retrain the unemployed. He did manage to mention his outrage over the suspension of consideration for the defense authorization bill -- for the first time in forty-five years, the bill is at risk. McCain called this "disgraceful", especially since Harry Reid has not scheduled its consideration on the Senate floor as of yet.

Questions:

Robert Bluey: Barack Obama committed to meeting with Ahmadinejad, Catro, Chavez, and others -- A bit naive. Face-to-face negotiations tend to bolster the credibility of tyrants. What's going to be the topic of discussions? The elimination of Israel?

Jennifer Rubin: Do you feel that some of your GOP competitors are "softening" on Iraq, as you implied earlier? -- Don't know one way or the other, although Romney alluded to some secret plan for Iraq withdrawal. He's going to stay engaged in support of the war effort.

Philip Klein: Newt Gingrich said you'd drop out as soon as you get your FEC money? -- Newt has no knowledge of what I'm doing, and he has no basis for making that statement. He has not made the decision to take matching funds, but even if he did, it wouldn't mean he's dropping out of the race.

Me: AMT? - It's the elephant in the room, and it needs to go. He's already working on legislation to end it, and will introduce it this year or next.

* Do you want to leave corporate taxes as they are, or reduce them? -- He opposes the tax increase proferred by the Democrats, but would likely leave them where they're at, at least at the moment. He wants to see a simplified tax code. $140 billion got spent on tax preparation.

* Barack Obama said that preventing a genocide in Iraq isn't a national-security issue -- McCain said, What's Plan B? How can we advocate stopping genocide in Darfur while allowing it in Iraq? It's embarrassing that we allowed Rwanda, and McCain is proud of our interventions in the Balkans. He wants some kind of intervention in Darfur. McCain says he needs to do a better job of explaining the geopolitical implications of Iraq, because once Americans understand it, they'd support the effort.

Betsy Newmark: Kelo and eminent domain two years ago, and the federal efforts to deny funds to Kelo-type redevelopment have stalled. -- McCain has some specific proposals coming out on this topic. He says its a sleeper issue, but he plans on highlighting it in his campaign.

* Can we expect to hear more from you on energy policy, and have the GOP ceded it to the Democrats? McCain says that climate change and energy independence are intertwined, and the GOP needs to lead. Energy is a national-security issue, and we need to become independent for our own economic and physical security. We will hear more on this from him.

Ryan Sager - Early state strategy; will you still be focusing on Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina? -- Yes, absolutely, although he will be campaigning hard in states like Michigan and Florida.

Me: Fair tax -- can we shift to a consumption tax? McCain says that it would be complicated to determine what to tax. Bread? Milk? We'd be left to taxing Bentleys, "which as you know most bloggers drive". He wants to form a commission to look at the options. Estonia has a 22% flat tax. Why can't we do the same?

Paul Mirengoff: Sarbanes-Oxley; do you support DeMint's proposal to reform SOX? McCain says it's a good proposal. Whenever government tries to solve a problem, they create more of them, "and that's Sarbanes Oxley in spades". It penalizes small business. McCain acknowledges his error in voting for the proposal, and says it needs to be redone.

Addendum: McCain's campaign would be well advised to continue these conference calls. It keeps McCain sharp on policy, and usually gives him a chance to allow his natural sense of humor to break out. I'd also note that the questions offered by bloggers on these calls far outstrip those asked at last night's YouTube debate for substance.

Coleman: I Really Told You So

As I noted last week, Senator Norm Coleman had the last laugh on British MP George Galloway. The Parliament has handed down a rare rebuke and punishment on the raving Saddam Hussein supporter, suspending him for a month for his part in the Oil-For-Food scam at the UN, and later lying about it repeatedly. Coleman writes about the controversy and the Senate's role in exposing Galloway in today's Wall Street Journal:

The report relied heavily on evidence uncovered by my subcommittee, the U.N.'s investigation and the U.K. Charity Commission. But the Parliament report went further, even enlisting a forensic scientist to determine that other official Iraqi documents, which provide detailed descriptions of Mr. Galloway's personal involvement in nefarious deals, were authentic. Moreover, the report reveals the official Iraqi minutes of a meeting between Mr. Galloway and Saddam in which Mr. Galloway overtly discusses Iraqi oil deals -- the very deals he's denied knowing about. According to the minutes, which have been authenticated by the Iraqi government, Mr. Galloway complained to Saddam that problems with oil prices are reducing "our income" and delaying "our dues."

These documents should quash any notion that Mr. Galloway did not know about oil transactions and had no idea his wife and his political operation were receiving under-the-table money. In short, this report and the volumes of evidence presented in it appear to confirm that Mr. Galloway was neck-deep in Oil for Food deals and that his vociferous denials were nothing more than a web of misleading half-truths.

Mr. Galloway is already claiming that the Parliament's report relies on fraudulent documents and mendacious witnesses. His shtick rings hollow. It is clear that he is putting up (to borrow his words) "the mother of all smokescreens."

Consider that roughly six months after his Senate testimony, in October 2005, my subcommittee released another report presenting extensive evidence that Mr. Galloway's testimony was filled with false or misleading statements. That evidence included bank records showing that his wife received $150,000 from an Oil for Food deal, and that the political operation he portrayed as a children's charity received at least $446,000 from oil deals. Days later, the U.N.'s investigative committee revealed a different oil deal in which $120,000 went to Mr. Galloway's wife, and other deals in which hundreds of thousands of dollars went to his political operation. ...

At each point, Mr. Galloway has vehemently denied every accusation and all the evidence. But the record should be clear: Mr. Galloway appears to have been personally involved in oil deals under the Oil for Food program and indirectly -- through his political operation and his wife -- received hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result. The U.K. report exposes a fraud who personally benefited at the expense of the Iraqi people -- the very people he was pretending to help.

We should all thank Senator Coleman for his hard work in persevering against the lies and manipulations of Saddam's chief Western toady. Those who cheered Galloway in 2005 should reconsider whether their partisanship should really take priority over exposing corruption on behalf of genocidal maniacs.

UPDATE: MP, not PM -- typed a little too fast. Thanks to CQ commenter kfarg for the correction.

UPDATE II: Delicious schadenfreude:

George Galloway, the Respect MP, was ordered out of the House of Commons last night during a debate on a motion to suspend him for 18 days over his alleged financial links to Saddam Hussein's regime. ...

Mr Galloway said the committee was a "politicised tribunal". Mr Martin intervened repeatedly and as the MP was ordered from the chamber, he shouted that he would continue his speech outside for anyone who wanted to hear it.

Rudy: Energy Independence Vital

Rudy Giuliani, who has spent the summer hiring an impressive roster of experts on foreign policy and the judiciary, has turned his attention to energy policy as well. In a campaign stop in San Francisco, Giuliani gave his views on energy independence, although the California audience may not have received some of his platform with great enthusiasm. And therein lies the rub.

It's safe to say that everyone knows what it will take to achieve energy independence It’s just that almost no one likes the solutions as a whole. At Heading Right, I review the path to energy independence, and ask whether America can unite for another "moon shot" scientific quest -- and whether Rudy is the leader who can bring us together for it.

Tomorrow on CQ Radio, I'll speak with Rudy's energy advisor, Thomas Gaskill, to find out more.

Vick Suspended

Last week, news that Michael Vick had been indicted on dogfighting and conspiracy charges stunned sports fans -- and apparently NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Yesterday, he ordered Michael Vick barred from preseason camp pending his own probe into the charges. Vick could find himself with plenty of time this fall to prepare for his defense:

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell yesterday ordered quarterback Michael Vick not to report to training camp with the Atlanta Falcons until the league has reviewed his legal troubles stemming from federal dogfighting charges.

Vick's playing status is to be determined by Goodell, and the NFL gave no timetable for the decision other than to announce that the review would be completed "as soon as possible." ...

Others in the league have said that Vick, 27, could face a lengthy suspension under the NFL's toughened conduct policy imposed by Goodell in April. The policy empowers Goodell to suspend a player even if he has not been convicted of a crime. After enacting the policy, Goodell suspended Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones for a full season and imposed half-season suspensions on Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry and former Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tank Johnson.

Goodell met with Vick in April on the allegations of dogfighting and gambling, the latter of which really will concern the NFL. Vick apparently insisted that he had no idea what had happened on the property, but the indictments allege that Vick had been an active participant in staging the fights, killing the dogs, and gambling on the events. If Goodell determines that Vick lied in their initial meeting, that may be enough for Goodell to open up a starting QB slot for Joey Harrington in Atlanta for the entire season.

While animal lovers would cheer that decision, the real problem stems from the illegal gambling. The nexus of gamblers and athletes results in questions that shake the integrity of the games they play. Especially for an athlete whose inconsistencies are so widely noted, the presence of illegal gambling -- especially on a vile and illegal "sport" such as dogfighting -- will prompt fans to wonder whether Vick may have paid off some debts through point-shaving. The NFL has a deep interest in keeping the game clean and eliminating these kinds of questions, and Goodell will probably act long before Vick tries to defend himself in court.

Vick and his dwindling band of supporters will protest, saying that he has not been convicted in court of any wrongdoing -- but that doesn't require the NFL from acting in its own interest. If they find evidence that Vick has violated his contract and associated with gamblers in violation of their rules, then Vick needs to go. Goodell isn't required to sacrifice the NFL for the sake of one player's extraordinarily bad judgment.

YouTube Lost This Debate

When YouTube and CNN announced that they would stage a debate in which the questions came from the American people, where the questioners would momentarily star on national television, it created a lot of excitement. It rated as a watershed moment in citizen journalism, where ordinary people closed the gap between the electorate and the elite. Journalists who embedded their agendas into debate questioning would get bypassed, and the American people would get real answers to the tough issues of the day.

I missed the show, but if the transcript is any guide, YouTube and its citizen journalists missed the boat. The questions ranged from the inane to ... well, the inane. Here are the first five questions posed by the YouTubers selected by CNN (via Memeorandum):

1. Issues don't matter. How are you different?

2. Dennis Kucinich, how are you better than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

3. Hillary, how do you define the word "liberal"?

4. If you had to pick a Republican for VP, who would it be?

5. What's with the white hair?

Okay, the fifth came from Chris Dodd, in his own YouTube campaign commercial, but it wasn't much worse than the rest of the questions. The real fifth question asked whether the botched response to Hurricane Katrina came because of the racial composition of New Orleans (Dodd said yes). The very next question from YouTube, selected by CNN, questioned how Barack Obama could prove himself black enough for the election, and how Hillary could prove herself feminine enough. It wasn't until the seventh question that CNN actually hit on policy and issues, and that was in a video from two women wondering which candidate would allow them to marry each other.

Under these circumstances, it makes little difference what kind of candidates appeared at the debates. These inane questions drew no substantive answers, although they did allow the candidates to rely on their talking points more than usual for responses. One can hardly blame them for doing so, as they had literally nothing with which to work. The same can be said for Anderson Cooper, whom the transcript shows cutting off answers to get to the next question in the hope of something substantive.

Even when the questions got substantive, as they did in regards to Iraq and Darfur, though, the answers didn't move much from a regurgitation of talking points. Joe Biden may have given the best answer on Iraq, especially since it came right after a demand for American action in Darfur. None of the candidates caught the irony of the juxtaposition -- that we would abandon Iraq to genocide while diving into the Sudan to stop another, but Biden at least sounded realistic:

COOPER: Senator Biden, how do we pull out now? That was the question.

BIDEN: Anderson, you've been there. You know we can't just pull out now. Let's get something straight. It's time to start to tell the truth. The truth of the matter is: If we started today, it would take one year, one year to get 160,000 troops physically out of Iraq, logistically.

That's number one.

Number two, you cannot pull out of Iraq without the follow-on that's been projected here, unless you have a political solution. I'm the only one that's offered a political solution.

His political solution is, of course, to break Iraq into three autonomous cantons, a move that Turkey has warned would lead to war. Biden keeps forgetting to mention that, as well as the fact that most Iraqis do not want to see their country dismembered. At least Biden understands the logistics of withdrawal better than his colleagues.

Afterwards, it went back to inanities. One man questioned Mike Gravel on a statement he made at a prior debate about soldiers dying in vain in Viet Nam. Another asked Hillary Clinton whether Muslim governments would treat her like a second-class leader because of her status as a woman -- a question which Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan could have answered over a decade ago, and many other female world leaders before and since. Did anyone ask that of Margaret Thatcher, or ever suspect that she gave a damn about how Muslim nations viewed her as a leader?

If anything, one had to sense the glee that mainstream journalists must have felt while watching this debate. It proved that, while many journalists use their own agendas to craft debate questions, at least they tend to keep them focused on real issues and demand real answers from the candidate. The only question YouTube missed was "boxers or briefs".

Let's hope that CNN can pick better questions in the next YouTube debate in September, with the Republicans -- and that YouTubers give them better material.

UPDATE: John Hawkins has some excellent excerpts that show the candidates tripping over themselves. Be sure to read it.

Former Gitmo Prisoner In Suicide Bombing

The US has released hundreds of detainees from its Guantanamo Bay prison under pressure from human-rights groups, demanding an end to the detention of suspected terrorists captured mainly in Afghanistan. The US has warned that releasing these prisoners will result in their return to terrorism, creating more danger for civilians and for the military still working to bring an end to the Taliban and their allies, al-Qaeda. More than a few have been captured a second time or killed in battle with Western forces.

This time, the terrorist committed suicide by grenade rather than get captured alive in an attempt to take a couple of his enemies with him:

A former Guantanamo Bay prisoner wanted for the 2004 kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan blew himself up with a grenade during a clash with security forces on Tuesday, officials said.

One-legged Taliban militant Abdullah Mehsud killed himself to avoid capture after troops raided his hideout, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema told AFP.

The Islamic rebel's death comes amid intensifying US pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to take military action against Al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

Mehsud spent 25 months at Gitmo before getting released in March 2004. It took him all of six months to ascend to a leadership position with the Taliban afterwards. He ran a hostaging operation that went awry, holding two Chinese hydroelectric engineers captured at a dam project. The Pakistanis tried to rescue the pair in a military operation, but botched it. One hostage died, and Mehsud slipped away.

He spent the next three years conducting terrorist operations. The Pentagon had identified him as the leader of cross-border raids that attacked American forces in Afghanistan, the kind that has so frustrated NATO and led to American demands for the right to hot-pursuit missions into Pakistan. Mehsud also has at least one other connection to Taliban leadership: his brother Baitullah, a leading commander who has conducted a wave of suicide bombings in Pakistan recently.

Not only did Mehsud have information that could have helped intel to this very day, he's exactly the kind of higher-level terrorist we wanted to keep off the battlefield. His release cost many lives, starting with the Chinese engineer but likely Coalition troops as well, which are primarily American. Why did he get released from Gitmo? More importantly, why do we want to release any more of them?

This is war, not a case of organized crime. Combatants who do not conduct themselves according to the Geneva Conventions do not get POW status when captured -- and they certainly shouldn't get normal criminal rights in their place. We need to keep the unlawful combatants detained until the end of all hostilities, even if that means decades, for the safety of our troops and civilians around the world. How many more of these repeats do we need to see before people finally learn that lesson?

BTR's YouTube Coverage

I'll be out tonight and will miss the YouTube-sponsored debate for the Democratic presidential primary candidates tonight, but BlogTalkRadio will have its own recap later this evening. My colleague Frank at Political Vindication Radio will have a recap at 8 pm PT/11 pm ET tonight, and the details are at Heading Right. If the debate doesn't interest you, Andrea Shea-King will interview Jerome Corsi at 9 pm ET and John Bootie, an independent Christian running for President.

More Shenanigans In Milwaukee?

After the 2004 election, widespread claims of voter fraud arose from the close election results in our neighboring state of Wisconsin. At the time, the claims focused on the lax voter registration laws in Wisconsin that apparently allowed for massive overvoting in the critical precincts of Milwaukee. Over 4500 ballots got cast over the number of ballots that Milwaukee recorded as voting in that election, calling into question the reliability of the razor-thin margin of victory by John Kerry of 11,000 votes overall.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel did an excellent job of reporting the shenanigans in 2005, leading to an investigation that ended up going nowhere. The county, state, and federal governments could reach no real conclusion as to the existence of fraud, despite the obvious imbalance in votes versus the records. Now a blogger on the Left has discovered what three levels of government investigators could not (via Memeorandum):

The Optech IIIP Eagle optical scanner claims it scanned 1219 ballots. On the poll book certification page, the poll workers checking in voters and handing out blank ballots claim they handed 1071 ballots to electors. On the Inspectors’ reports with the forged signatures, it is claimed only 981 ballots were handed to electors. If I believe the machine and the poll book, then the ballot box in Ward One was stuffed with 148 extra ballots. If I believe the machine and the apparently forged inspectors’ report, the ballot box is stuffed with 238 extra ballots. If I ignore the machine altogether, the ballot box is stuffed with 90 extra ballots.

This leads to several questions.

1. How many ballots are currently sealed in the ballot bag for Ward One; 1219 ballots, 1071 ballots, 981 ballots, or some other number of ballots? Has anyone checked? Ever?

2. How is it that this anomaly was never discovered after two years of "investigation" by the Joint Task Force of the FBI, Milwaukee Police department, the Milwaukee county District Attorney and the US Attorney for Eastern Wisconsin? What have US Attorney Biskupic and the County District Attorneys E. Michael McCann and John Chisholm been doing for two years if such clear statute violations were missed?

John Washburn, guest-blogging at Brad's Blog, has more questions about the implications of this discovery, but there are more still. It took months for Washburn to receive the materials from a FOIA request; he got stalled by excuses of materials transfers between agencies. Now that Washburn has the materials, it hardly seems credible that the joint investigation could reasonably shrug off the complaints. The election inspectors signed their names as "Jane Smith", "Judy Doe", and "John Doe", and as mentioned before, the numbers are quite a bit off from the optical-scan machines, which should be highly accurate.

John asks who benefits from the apparent ballot-stuffing in this one ward. Given that Milwaukee has a strong Democratic registration advantage and that the electoral mechanics in that county are controlled by Democrats, I'd find it extremely unlikely that it represents a Republican conspiracy. Democrats needed a wide margin of victory for Kerry in Milwaukee to overcome the advantage Republicans have in most of the rest of the state -- and it seems as though some people were determined to maximize that margin through any means necessary.

However, no one can prove this, because we rightly do not match ballots to names. We rely on strict accounting to ensure a fair election with fair results. Regardless of who tried to game the system, all citizens should be demanding a new investigation into Milwaukee's 2004 election, who ran it, and most importantly who corrupted it. After that, we need to find out why the last investigation failed to proceed with charges against the officials in this ward that falsified the controls.

John says that "it is the duty of sovereign citizens to watch public officials vigilantly and eternally." He's right.

CQ Radio: Media Bias Discovered!

Today on CQ Radio (2 pm CT), I'll review the Rasmussen data on media bias. Joining me will be my friend and St. Cloud State's chair of economics, King Banaian, who will help me plow through the implications of the crosstab data on demographics. We're going to compare that to this UCLA study from late 2005. We may also try to figure out who sponsored over $7 million in earmarks for Minnesota, including $400,000 for an "International Species Information System for the ZIMS project" in my town. King and I may also review the changes to the Venezuelan economy that threaten to end private enterprise under Hugo Chavez.

Call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation!

Did you know that you can listen to CQ Radio through your TiVo service? Click here for the instructions. Also, you can subscribe to CQ Radio through iTunes now by clicking this link:

Oh Hell, Why Not Add Another Front?

Al-Qaeda continued its efforts to disenchant yet another region with a declaration of war against North Africa today. Despite their general inability to prevail in Iraq, successfully detonate explosives in Britain, and do anything else in the US, AQ warned Muslims to stay away from their own government buildings on the south side of the Mediterranean:

Al-Qaeda threatened in an Internet statement on Monday to escalate attacks against the "enemies of Allah" in North African countries, warning Muslims to stay away from government sites.

"The Mujahedin (holy warriors)... have many hidden surprises for the enemies of Allah in the countries of the Islamic Maghreb, which will come in an escalating sequence," said the Al-Qaeda Movement in the Islamic Countries of the Maghreb.

"We call upon all our Muslim brothers to stay away from the centres of the infidels and official apostates, as well as security (gatherings) of army and police," it added in the statement posted on a website used by Islamic militant groups.

"The Mujahedin are determined to target their quarters, centres and barracks with all available means of detonation, bombing and demolition," added the statement whose authenticity could not be verified.

The group used to be known as the GSPC, a notorious Salafist group responsible for attacks in their native Algeria. They have stepped up operations of late, with at least three recent attacks in Algeria and another one in Morocco. According to their own releases, they have killed more than two dozen Algerian soldiers, and claimed that it had scrubbed other attacks because of the presence of Muslims at the attack sites.

So who were the soldiers -- Jehovah's Witnesses?

The announcement either means that AQ feels strong enough to expand its operations, or too weak to do anything more that issue empty threats. I'd like to think it's the latter, but the activity indicates it's the former. At some point, though, AQ is going to have to start producing victories to make up for all of the Muslims they alienate through their terrorist attacks on Muslim targets. And if they keep chasing Muslims away from their own government centers, won't that make the ummah less self-sufficient and not more so?

McCain The Tax Cutter?

John McCain took a lot of heat for opposing the sweeping tax cuts during George Bush's first term. He warned that the cuts would starve government of the funds needed to fuel the war, among other issues -- and got proven wrong. Now as McCain looks to reconnect with Republican primary voters, he has vowed to cut taxes as President, starting with the alternative minimum tax that has ensnared more and more middle-class taxpayers:

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain is pledging to repeal the alternative minimum tax and hold down government spending with vetoes and line-item-veto authority.

The Arizona senator, in remarks prepared for delivery Monday evening to the Economic Club of Southwest Michigan, promised to eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which he said would affect as many as 30 million people by 2010. The tax was originally intended to make sure the wealthy do not exploit tax loopholes.

"I am committed to repealing this tax before millions of American families are forced to devote even more of their hard work to paying for the spending largesse in Washington," McCain said in excerpts from his speech released by his campaign.

McCain said he would fight for line-item veto power, which the Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional, but wouldn't hesitate to use the veto as it now exists to crack down on spending.

"Give me the pen, and I'll veto every single pork-barrel bill Congress sends me, and if they keep sending them to me, I'll use the bully pulpit to make the people who are wasting your money famous," he said.

McCain's opposition to the tax cuts came mainly on the last round, which McCain thought excessive at the time. As the rejuvenated economy filled the coffers of the federal government at a rate higher than projected, McCain acknowledged his error on the cuts. This appears consistent with his later positions, in which he advised making the tax system more fair for taxpayers.

The AMT, however, represents everything wrong with progressive tax schemes and will be hard to kill as a result. It originated as a means to force the rich to pay their fair share of taxes, but Congress did not allow indexing for inflation. Now taxpayers in the middle class have begun getting hammered by the AMT, but Congress has been paralyzed into inaction. Everyone would like to take credit for saving the middle class from the AMT, but the defeat of this particular dragon would cost tens of billions in revenue. Without an alternate source of revenue to replace the monies lost, Congress has been unable to act.

This shows how Beltwayitis works, too. Instead of looking for matching reductions in expenditures, Congress has thrown up its hands until it can find new revenue streams to replace the money it shouldn't be collecting at all. "Fiscal responsibility" seems to mean confiscating more of other people's money rather than trimming budgets and reducing government bloat and redundancy.

McCain's promise to attack the AMT will likely get echoed by most presidential contenders, but the question will be what they can actually do about it. The same holds true for the line-item veto, which McCain also will endorse today. In both instances, he may be able to do more as a member of the Senate than as President, although nothing much will happen while the Democrats control Congress on either. On the other hand, we need to make sure the next President keeps the pressure on Congress to do something other than dither.

Rasmussen: Liberal Bias In American Media

Rasmussen has conducted a series of polls on consumer attitudes on the media, and the results show a widespread conclusion that the American media has a liberal bias. Not only do the major networks have a bias, according to the American news consumer, but so do most of the major newspapers and cable-news outlets:

In the final poll of a series measuring perceptions of media bias, the Associated Press, local television stations, MSNBC, and CNBC are all perceived as tilting to the left when reporting the news.

Earlier releases showed that Americans tend to believe the major broadcast networks, CNN, and NPR have a liberal bias. Fox News is seen as having a bias in the other direction. In print, the New York Times, Washington Post, and local newspapers were also seen as having a liberal bias. ...

The current survey finds that 30% of American adults believe the Associated Press has a liberal bias and only 12% believe it leans the other way. Local television news is viewed as having a liberal bias by 30% and a conservative bias by 17%. MSNBC is seen as being a bit more to the left—33% say it has a liberal bias and 13% say the opposite. For CNBC, 29% say it has a liberal bias and 14% say a conservative bias.

In order to properly deconstruct this, we have to look at the surveys and find what the actual numbers show. In the case of the broadcast networks, the reporting looks fairly straightforward. Thirty-nine percent of respondents believe the major networks (CBS, ABC, NBC) to have a liberal bias, while only 25% believe they report without any bias. CNN comes closer to a tie on this point; 33% believe they have a liberal slant, while 32% believe they have no slant. NPR is one of only two national broadcast outlets where objectivity wins, 37%-27% against liberal bias.

None of them have more than 20% responding that they show a conservative bias, except for Fox News. Interestingly, despite frothing attacks from the Left, Fox is the other major broadcast outlet seem by a plurality as objective. Thirty-six percent say Fox has no bias, compared to 31% who perceive a conservative bias.

Next, Rasmussen looks at the print media. The ubiquitous wire service, the AP, gets 30% of respondents saying it has a liberal bias, but 37% say that AP remains objective. The rest fare more poorly. Local papers skew to liberals, according to 35% of the respondents, but the New York Times gets 40% claiming bias, while only half of that number believes the Gray Lady to be objective. The Washington Post has a better split, 30%-21%, but it still has the overall taint of liberal bias, according to news consumers. The Wall Street Journal gets 29% for objectivity, the plurality for those who give a substantive answer.

The crosstabs are intriguing. Almost without exception, men perceive liberal biases more than women, who are more likely to perceive objectivity. Cynicism about motives appear to peak in the 40s, especially concerning liberal biases. It also peaks in the middle-income brackets, rather than among the wealthy, as might be expected. Entrepeneurs have the highest sensitivity to liberal bias, outstripping race, age, and income demographics.

It seems rather clear that the American public perceives the media to be biased in a particular direction -- not exactly news to most of us who follow the trends, but perhaps a surprise to the news outlets themselves.

UPDATE: I decided to take a narrower look at the data by focusing on self-identified moderates, which should have the least stake in the outcome of the polling and be more likely to see reporting as objective. The outcomes are very interesting:

Broadcast networks (excluding Fox): 36% liberal bias, 29% objective
Fox: 35% objective, 34% conservative bias
CNN: 36% objective, 29% liberal bias
NPR: 43% objective, 24% liberal bias
Local paper: 33% objective, 27% liberal bias
New York Times: 37% liberal bias, 20% objective
Washington Post: 24% liberal bias, 23% objective, 34% not sure

Victory Caucus Relaunches

The Victory Caucus has its new website up and running, and NZ Bear has applied his talents towards expanding the information on Iraq and Afghanistan to put data in easy reach. Want to know the statistics on weapons-cache discoveries? A handy graph on the main page tells you that the success rate has skyrocketed this year. Another graph details the decline in sectarian violence since the start of the surge. NZ has linked blogs, official military sources, and news feeds into one daily stop for all readers.

Be sure to bookmark it!

UPDATE: Don't miss Michael Yon's tribute to the recently-departed General Wayne Downing:

As a warrior of renown in the Special Operations community, Downing might have been expected to keep his knowledge clandestine. But as a scholar of COIN, Downing knew the powerful role that media must play in fighting the Great War on Terrorism. And so he became one of the first—and certainly the most prominent—special operations experts willing to give all journalists the benefit of his insight. This willingness extended even to those practitioners of the so-called “alternative media,” or blogs. In fact he and I had exchanged emails just weeks ago, about the reports I’d been publishing on Operation Arrowhead Ripper in Baqubah[.]

Transcript: Dean Ronald Cass On CQ Radio

Ronald Cass, Dean Emeritus of Boston University’s college of law, appeared on CQ Radio last week. Cass, a member of Rudy Giuliani’s advisory board on judicial matters, spoke about the candidate’s direction on judicial appointments. I've posted the transcript at Heading Right, and it's an interesting look into the direction that the Giuliani campaign has gone thus far to assuage conservatives about Giuliani's policies. The Mayor's social liberalism has gotten a lot of play, perhaps even more so than his efforts to clean up New York City through hard-nosed enforcement of laws that could hardly be claimed as liberalism run amuck.

First, I asked about the composition of the judicial panel, with plenty of representation from the Federalist Society:

MORRISSEY: Now going over the list of people here who are on the committee with you, it’s a very impressive list. I noticed there are at least a couple people here from the federalist society, including yourself and that is certainly something that I think will help conservatives feel a little bit more at ease with Rudy Giuliani. Of course, he’s had some blow back on some of his positions on social issues and some concern over the types of judges that he would appoint. What does it say that you have, first off you have yourself and you have Steven Calabresi who is the co-founder of the federalist society on his committee advising Rudy Giuliani?

CASS: Well let me–again I have to answer this in a couple of parts. First as you know Ed, the federalist society doesn’t take positions, it doesn’t endorse candidates. It’s simply a group of people who share common commitment to the constitution and like to come together to talk about it in an environment where other people will engage with you. So we have a lot of people on the committee who are in the leadership of the federalist society including Ted Olson as well as the one’s you’ve mentioned. But it’s not something that should be seen as an endorsement by the society, there will be lots of people who have their own views and their own candidates. But those of us who have been participants of the federalist society, that have been in the leadership of the federalist society are there because we believe deeply in the values of the constitution. We believe in the values of the democracy under law, we believe in the fact that our constitution carves out roles for the states and the federal government for the different branches of the government. That are designed to minimize the power of any one person, individual, official, to engage in activity that reduces our liberty.

Cass underscored the Giuliani campaign's insistence that they would continue appointing jurists in the same tradition as George Bush's nominees. I gave Cass an opening to distance their efforts from the White House, and he demurred:

MORRISSEY: I’m sure you are and what would be the one change that you would say that at least in terms of–the scope of your advisory committee–what would be the one change that you would say we would see between the current administration and the Giuliani Administration? Or if you think there are stronger parallels, what would the parallels be?

CASS: I’m not going to draw distinctions between different Republican presidents and administrations. I will say this, I think you know if you look at Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, you see two of the appointments made by President Bush that were excellent appointments. They’re people who understand the limited role of the courts, the limited role of the judges who have great respect for constitutional text and structure. I think that sort of appointment is a terrific appointment. I think Mayor Giuliani would make appointments that are very similar to the court. I think Mayor Giuliani has a deeper understanding and exposure to the legal system because he’s been a lawyer in private practice. He’s been a prosecutor, he’s been an Associate Attorney General, he’s been a US attorney. He has dealt with the system as mayor, he had to over see the application of the system, particularly the criminal system in his compacity as a fellow running a city. He’s seen the system inside and out so much, he’s intimately familiar with it. He understands the issues throughly and this is a top priority for him.

Be sure to read the entire transcript; Cass was an open and engaging guest. In fact, the transcript may not do him much justice. If you get the chance, download the podcast -- you'll get a much better sense of Dean Cass and his quick wit.

Fear-Mongering? No, CYA

The Director of National Intelligence says that no operational al-Qaeda cells are known to exist in the US, although individuals appear to be raising funds for AQ's efforts here. But Admiral Michael McConnell says he worries about sleeper cells, terrorists he doesn't know exist -- and a former CIA officer says he's not just whistling Dixie:

McConnell says small numbers of al Qaeda operatives are in this country raising funds. But he said he knows of no al Qaeda cells in the country that are capable of launching a strike at this time.

"I worry that there are sleeper cells in the U.S.," McConnell said. "I do not know."

Michael Scheuer, who once ran the CIA's al Qaeda desk, says the Bush administration is not merely fear mongering.

"The intelligence community is being very frank about what it knows so it doesn't get Shanghaied or blamed for something that wasn't its fault, as it did after 9/11," Scheuer said.

In other words, the intel community wants to make sure everyone understands the constant danger -- but not that much has changed since 9/11. Open societies will always have vulnerabilities to terrorism, and while some can be mitigated, the best defense is a constant vigilance. We want our intel agencies to give us total protection, but without total control, all they can do is try their best to identify threats off of very subtle clues -- and as 9/11 taught us, connecting those dots become harder when open societies put obstacles in the way, whether for good reasons or not.

McConnell and Scheuer's colleagues just spent the last six years getting beaten up over the failures that led to 9/11, especially the notion that the public wasn't informed of the dangers. This time, they're not leaving that as a criticism for the future. It's not fear-mongering, but a healthy case of CYA. They want these warnings as a type of inoculation against the criticisms they have suffered in the past.

None of what McConnell said yesterday is news. McConnell gets paid to worry about the sleeper cells, although it would be easier for him if we had a visa system that tracked overstays, which might allow law enforcement to dig up a few leads in that direction. His analysis that AQ had decided to work on conventional large-scale explosives rather than wait for unconventional weapons technology to become available also qualifies as a non-headline. It's a review of what we already know about the threat from AQ; they will use whatever they can to conduct attacks that will kill many people, disrupt the economy, and shake up the political order.

We knew all of that on 9/10/01, or at least those who paid attention did. McConnell wants to make sure that everyone pays attention now.

UPDATE: Beaten, not beated, and no, I'm not from Joisey. Maybe I watched The Sopranos too often! Correction thanks to CQ commenter Leftnomore.

AQI Informants In Baghdad

Apparently, the leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq has become too sadistic even for its own members. The Times of London reports that US and Iraqi forces have developed dozens of informants within AQI in Baghdad, a nearly unthinkable accomplishment just a few months ago. The bloodthirsty actions of its leaders have soured the rank-and-file on its mission:

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

“They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area.

The sewage-filled streets of Doura, a Sunni Arab enclave in south Baghdad, provide an ugly setting for what US commanders say is al-Qaeda’s last stronghold in the city. The secretive group, however, appears to be losing its grip as a “surge” of US troops in the neighbourhood – part of the latest effort by President Bush to end the chaos in Iraq – has resulted in scores of fighters being killed, captured or forced to flee.

The more pressure that the US and Iraqi forces have put on AQI, the more barbaric it has become. The increase in barbarity creates a counter-impulse even among its own members, which increases the pressure on AQI. It's a vicious circle that results in massive disaffection from the Islamist impulse, and the US has an opportunity to push hard and eliminate AQI altogether in Iraq -- assuming we have the tenacity to do so.

Even their leadership seems disgusted by their atrocities. An American officer described the capitulation of a captured mid-level AQI leader, who needed no prompting to cooperate with the Americans. When asked why he decided to talk, the detainee said, "I hate them, and I am done."

What's changed? The Americans have stuck around in Doura this time. The residents have more confidence in cooperating with us, assuming that we will remain to protect them after their cooperation. Under General David Petraeus, the American forces have become part of the neighborhood, protecting ordinary people from the ravages of the terrorists -- and even some of the terrorists see that as a lifeline back to normality. They see an opportunity to rid themselves of the worst elements in their community.

That's how one beats an insurgency. AQI can only win if the US lets up, or it reforms itself and eliminates the sadists from its leadership. Obviously they are betting on the former, and Iraqis have wagered their lives that AQI has underestimated American resolve. Have they?

Britain: Kremlin Hypocrisy On Constitution

Britain kept the pressure on Russia over its demands for extradition in the assassination case of Alexander Litvinenko. Responding to the Kremlin's claims that their constitution forbids the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi, the British Ambassador in Moscow pointed out that Russian compliance with its constitution has been rather situational:

Sir Anthony Brenton, the British Ambassador in Moscow, said yesterday that Russia could get around the prohibition if it wanted to cooperate in bringing Andrei Lugovoy to trial. Mr Lugovoy is accused of poisoning Litvinenko with radioactive polonium210 at a London hotel in November, but insists that he is innocent.

In comments timed to infuriate the Kremlin, Sir Anthony highlighted sections of the Constitution that are routinely ignored in Russia. His remarks came as Britain prepared to step up pressure on Russia by raising Mr Lugovoy’s extradition at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels today. Russia’s Prosecutor-General is expected to respond by setting out details of the cooperation that it has given Britain in investigating the case. Russia says that Article 61 of its Constitution forbids extradition of citizens to face trial abroad. ...

“For example, it states that economic activities aimed at monopolisation are prohibited (Article 34); that people have the right to choose freely their place of residence in Russia, including in Moscow (Article 27), and that Duma deputies cannot engage in paid work (Article 97),” he said. “We are not asking Russia to violate its Constitution, but to work with us creatively to find a way around this impediment, given the serious and unprecedented nature of this murder. Such cooperation has not been forthcoming.”

Despite the constitutional provisions, Gazprom has a monopoly on gas supplies in Russia, citizens can live in Moscow and other main cities only if they can get a registration certificate, and most deputies in the Duma, Russia’s parliament, have outside business interests. The Constitution also guarantees the right to demonstrate, but police routinely break up opposition marches against President Putin.

Clearly, Britain has not decided to allow the dispute to cool. If Vladimir Putin believed that its tit-for-tat expulsions and the threat of non-cooperation on terror would stop the British from pressing the issue, he obviously miscalculated. It seems highly unusual for an ambassador to scold his host country over its hypocrisy on enforcing its own laws, unless that country did not fret over a complete diplomatic break. The Brown government appears ready to risk that.

Russia has responded by attempting to minimize the damage it has caused itself. The Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov, said in a recent speech that Russia might turn towards the East rather than the West for its future development, primarily India and China. The head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepeneurs hinted that Russians might pull out of the London stock markets, creating an economic crisis for Britain.

These are empty threats. Russia needs British and Western investment far more than Britain needs Russian capital. Britain provides the largest foreign investment in Russia, and an end to that flow of capital would have significant repercussions for the Russian economy and the Putin regime as a result. India and China need capital themselves, and while they could send some investment to Russia, they have rightly focused on self-investment while they attempt to compete with the West.

The Brits are serious about Lugovoi, and the Russians are running out of options.

If You Can't Say Anything Nice, I'll Deport You

To say that Hugo Chavez has a thin skin qualifies as an understatement. The Venezuelan dictator has announced that any foreigner who criticizes him insults the "national dignity" and will be forcibly removed from the country:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has vowed to expel foreigners who publicly criticise him or his government.

"No foreigner can come here to attack us. Anyone who does must be removed from this country," he said during his weekly TV and radio programme.

Mr Chavez also ordered officials to monitor statements made by international figures in Venezuela.

This outburst came after Mexican politician Manuel Espino, head of the National Action Party that controls the government, spoke at a pro-democracy conference in Caracas. Did he call Chavez a tyrant? Implore Venezuelans to conduct a coup d'etat? Espino didn't do either; he pointed out that Chavez' plan to end term limits on the presidency would turn him into a Presidente-for-life and undermine democracy.

For this unforgivable sin of pointing out the obvious, Chavez has decided to expand the police state. Not only will foreigners get expelled for voicing criticism of Chavez, the dictator wants his security forces to monitor them constantly just in case tourists get crabby in Caracas. It promises to become a Gestapo-like regime, where every little complaint gets reviewed by police to determine whether it offends to the point of deportation.

And if Venezuelans think this system will only affect foreign visitors, they will be fooling themselves. Chavez' paranoia will not limit itself to foreigners, who wouldn't be his biggest threat in any case. When calling the dictator a tyrant becomes a crime against the state, the law will not apply to non-citizens alone.

Chavez is well on his way to making Venezuela another Cuba, and perhaps even worse. The cult of personality has already begun under his dictatorship, and is history is any guide, it will get worse in a short period of time. Venezuela looks set to become the Turkmenistan of South America, and Chavez its new Turkmenbashi. And if anyone wants to travel to Venezuela, they'd better develop a case of laryngitis first.

UPDATE: This may not be the most disturbing story out of Venezuela today. Sean Hackbarth notes that Chavez is expanding his petroleum monopoly into all sorts of other ventures, squeezing out private enterprise in the meantime:

Petróleos de Venezuela, the state oil company that controls the biggest reserves in South America, may begin making shoes, building ships and farming soybeans as President Hugo Chavez widens the government's role in the economy.

Chavez has approved the creation of seven subsidiaries that range from oil services to agriculture, according to a written report to the company's management.

The plan would make PDVSA an even bigger force in the country's daily life and put it in competition against companies from around the world.

PDVSA already controls the oil production that accounts for 90 percent of Venezuelan foreign trade and about half of government revenue. The effort to expand may siphon off managers and capital, hobbling efforts to reverse a slide in energy production.

"Having more of the economy under one roof, you're more and more vulnerable," said Robert Bottome, an analyst at Caracas-based research company Veneconomia. "The state is taking over everything. Maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea if they knew what they were doing." Declining oil output "suggests they don't know what they're doing," he said.

He knows what he's doing when it comes to imposing a dictatorship. That seems to be the extent of his talent.

IBD: Why Do Democrats Want To Help Terrorists?

Investors Business Daily's editors wonder why Democrats in Congress want to make it easier for terrorists to attack our transportation infrastructure. That's the result of their below-the-radar attack on the John Doe protections that the House passed in the transportation bill in a bipartisan vote, but which Democrats have removed in the conference report:

Were it not for the courage and sacrifice of the passengers of United Flight 93 who forced their plane into a Pennsylvania field, many in Congress might not be here today, with a gaping hole where the U.S. Capitol still stands. We wonder if this fact is appreciated by those trying to block final passage of the so-called "John Doe" provision protecting from legal action those who report suspicious behavior on airplanes.

Today's passengers have an advantage. They know what can happen. They know what to look for. They will not be taken by surprise, and they are willing to take action. But some in Congress would sacrifice their lives on the altar of political correctness. ...

As a federal air marshal in Las Vegas observed: "The crew and passengers act as our additional eyes and ears on every flight. If they are afraid of reporting suspicious individuals out of fear of being labeled a racist or bigot, then terrorists will certainly use these fears to their advantage in future aviation attacks."

What bothers us is why some Democrats want to let them.

This move really seems inexplicable. The explanation from the Democrats makes little sense, but neither does anything else. Democrats said they feared the legislation would lead to profiling by transportation security, but profiling has nothing to do with responding to tips. Profiling means investigating people without any substantive basis except superficial characteristics.

When travelers pass tips to airline and airport security, those professionals then evaluate the information and determine the best course of action. That might involve rescreening specific passengers, but not on the basis of prejudice but on the basis of potential threat information. The onus should be on the professionals to ensure that they properly evaluate the information, not on the travelers who are just trying to help keep our transportation secure.

If Congress allows tipsters to remain vulnerable to legal intimidation, it will result in less secure airports and flights. No one will worry about tipping off police if they see a bomb or a gun, but more subtle clues might go uninvestigated as travelers have to weigh the importance of informing security against the potential hassle of getting sued. Eventually that will give terrorists a wider opening to exploit our transportation in a similar manner as 9/11.

After those attacks, the American government reminded everyone that we all had to help protect America from terrorist attacks. Inexplicably, the Democrats have decided to abandon tipsters to legal intimidation. (via Power Line)

Censure Off The Table, Too

Something tells me that we'll need to bookmark these statements for future use. Senator Russ Feingold said that he would offer a motion to censure President Bush on several points, including mismanaging the war and making "misleading" statements -- but Harry Reid said that the Senate had more important work to do:

Liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution. ...

Feingold, a prominent war critic, said he soon plans to offer two censure resolutions — measures that would amount to a formal condemnation of the Republican president.

The first would seek to reprimand Bush for, as Feingold described it, getting the nation into war without adequate military preparation and for issuing misleading public statements. The resolution also would cite Vice President Dick Cheney and perhaps other administration officials.

The second measure would seek to censure Bush for what the Democrat called a continuous assault against the rule of law through such efforts as the warrantless surveillance program against suspected terrorists, Feingold said. It would also ask for a reprimand of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and maybe others.

The censure does nothing but make a political statement. It would carry no weight nor force any change in policy. It amounts to little more than a temper tantrum and is at least arguably inappropriate in terms of the Constitutional separation of powers. Congress uses censure to punish its own members, not members of other branches. It has only been used once against a president -- in 1834 against Andrew Jackson -- and the succeeding Congress vacated it.

Congress considered censure as an alternative to impeachment in 1998 against Bill Clinton for his perjury and obstruction of justice in his defense of the civil lawsuit brought by Paula Jones. It was rejected as inappropriate, basically on Constitutional grounds, but also because it essentially would have been meaningless, as well as easily reversible.

Harry Reid, asked in a later program about Feingold's announcement, wisely rejected it. Feingold tried censure once before but only managed to garner a handful of Senators to support it. After losing several cloture votes over the last few weeks, Reid certainly has better things to do than to get stomped on a censure motion that wouldn't gin up a third of the votes needed to pass, let alone gain cloture. Under the leadership of Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the 110th already is well on its way to becoming the least-accomplished Congress in a generation, and stoking partisan flames over a useless resolution would be like throwing gasoline on a fire.

That could change, however, if Reid thinks that he could gain some partisan advantage in pursuing censure. It's a good idea, then, to mark this statement for future reference.

Waziristan Erupting

Despite Pervez Musharraf's attempt to put the genie back in the bottle, the Waziristan region continues to erupt with Islamist violence. Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists set off bombs and started firefights that wound up costing them at least 19 fighters today:

Islamic militants detonated bombs close to military convoys and attacked government positions in Pakistan's restive northwestern tribal region, sparking gunfights that left 19 insurgents dead, government officials said Sunday.

The fighting was the latest in North Waziristan since militants announced the termination of a peace agreement with the government last week following a deadly military raid on a radical mosque in the Pakistani capital. The tensions have raised concerns over the threat posed by Islamic militants to the military-led government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Since the July 10 raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque, suicide attacks and shootings have killed at least 289 people in Pakistan, mostly in the volatile northwest.

The latest violence in North Waziristan began when militants attacked various security posts overnight near Ghulam Khan, a town close to the Afghan border, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the army's top spokesman.

The fighting makes the collapse of the previous truce between Islamabad and Waziristan plain. These attacks do not have the appearance of lone-wolf suicide attacks but careful planning of ambushes. It also demonstrates the lack of skill shown thus far in those ambushes, as the ambushers have sustained most of the losses.

President Bush noted that he has not taken any options off the table in the war on terror, and the uprising in Waziristan could eventually make some of those options more viable. With the Islamists attempting an insurrection, Musharraf may decide that the benefits of a limited American excursion in the region outweigh the problems it would cause. He's tried to repair the truce for the past two weeks, but as that possibility dims, he may have to bite the bullet and get the nearest help he can find in suppressing the uprising. And the US would be happy to attack the root causes of the Islamist rebellion in Waziristan.

Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, noted that al-Qaeda has picked up momentum in Waziristan, a result of Musharraf's hands-off policy in Waziristan. Let's hope he makes better decisions in the near future.

CORRECTION: Mixed up my Mikes. McConnell is DNI, and Hayden is the director of the CIA. Thanks to CQ commenter ddh for the correction.

There Once Was A Man With No Class ...

John Kerry has decided to broaden his public appeal by branching into humor -- deliberately, as it turns out, rather than just being a joke as in 2004. He delivered his highbrow brand of humor at a DSCC fundraiser last weekend, but the Hill just got around to reporting it on Friday. His joke came at the expense of his colleague, David Vitter, and his woes from the connection to a criminal case of prostitution (via The Moderate Voice):

Speaking at a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) fundraiser last weekend, Kerry recited a five-line poem about Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who recently found himself in hot water when his phone number showed up on the records of a woman accused of running a Washington prostitution ring. ...

Kerry made light of the situation with a limerick when he spoke at the event, which was held, appropriately enough, in Nantucket, Mass.

“There once was a man named Vitter/Who vowed that he wasn’t a quitter/But with stories of women/And all of his sinnin’/He knows his career’s in the — oh, never mind,” Kerry said.

Yes, what a classy display that must have been! John Kerry, whose relevance has continued to diminish after his run as the worst major-party presidential candidate since his Massachussetts colleague Mchael Dukakis, decided to score a few points for hipness by attacking Vitter. As limericks go, the best that can be said for Kerry's poetry is that it rhymes. It doesn't take much imagination to match up Vitter with "s*****r". Vitter's grammar-school classmates undoubtably did that much by the time they turned eight, which is apparently Kerry's emotional age.

Besides, if Democrats want to make fun of women & sinnin', Republicans will have no problem mentioning the husband of their current presidential-primary frontrunner. Bill Clinton's track record makes Vitter look like a cloistered nun. And although Vitter broke the law, at least none of his paramours ended up dead in the back of a car, unlike Kerry's colleague in the Senate. Interestingly, that didn't put Ted Kennedy's political career in the toilet, although it should have done so.

In the interest of political humor, though, we should attempt to help Kerry improve his limerick writing. Be sure to offer your own limericks in the comments section. I'll post the best of them here later today!

Where's Rodney King When You Need Him?

The Washington Post's editorial board asks essentially the same question as did Rodney King fifteen years ago in regards to the standoff between Congress and the White House on testimony and subpoenas. Crying a pox upon both houses, the Post asks for a modicum of reasonableness from both sides:

For months the White House has resisted Congress's attempts to compel administration officials to testify about the controversial U.S. attorney firings in 2006. Congress's propensity to let subpoenas fly has been matched only by the administration's hair-trigger reaction of trying to block them by invoking executive privilege. The two sides have thus far failed to strike a compromise; as a result, Bush administration officials, most notably former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers and current chief of staff Joshua B. Bolten, find themselves threatened with criminal contempt for following the president's orders to snub congressional demands. If Congress were to make good on the threat, it would probably try to direct the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia to lodge the contempt charges in federal court here.

Last week the White House said it would never let that happen. As legal justification, it dusted off a 1984 Justice Department memorandum that concludes that allowing Congress to order around a federal prosecutor would violate the separation of powers, permitting Congress to usurp a role the Constitution clearly assigned to the president. The Clinton administration relied on similar logic in a 1995 legal opinion. We believe that argument has enough merit to discourage lawmakers from taking this route. ...

The White House, as it has promised, should make officials available for questioning, but it should drop its insistence that the questioning be done off the record and without a transcript. If lawmakers are truly serious about getting information -- rather than milking the situation for all its political worth -- they should drop their more questionable tactics. If all else fails, Congress could consider other, less constitutionally troubling options, such as filing a civil suit in federal court so that a judge could decide whether the administration was properly invoking executive privilege.

The problem with this entire issue is that Congress has no real basis for continuing its probe, especially considering the loud but substanceless allegations of criminality that have surrounded it. They have found nothing illegal despite holding hearings for the last four months. They want to conduct fishing expeditions with White House advisors, and the White House refuses to play along.

That's not to say that the White House has acted in its best interest or in the best interest of the nation in this probe. It became apparent from Alberto Gonzales' first appearance in Congress that the termination of the eight prosecutors revealed a level of incompetence at the DoJ and specifically with Gonzales that should have resulted in his resignation. The fumbles and contradictory statements showed that Gonzales had little control over his own department and even less ability to determine what happened after the fact. It's been an ongoing embarrassment for the White House, and a self-inflicted one at that.

However, we knew all of that three months ago, and the Democratic Javerts have come up with no reason to continue pursuing the case. This realization has apparently caused a great deal of desperation within their caucus, as no administration would ever willingly agree to submit to the subpoenas of the kind issued by Congress to presidential advisors. They're going for a high-stakes bluff without having any kind of hand at all, hoping to scare Bush into acquiescence -- or just to make him look bad.

Perhaps the best answer to this would be for Congress to get back to its legislative duties rather than issue blizzards of subpoenas for an issue that has already given them all the political capital they will get from it.

Turkey Faces The Polls

Turkey faces a critical test today in its national elections, and the results could have wide implications for the entire region. The government has remained unsettled since the attempt to elect Abdullah Gul president and the threatened military coup that scotched Gul's rise. Now the Turks will recast its parliament, and the West waits to see whether Islamists can grab enough power to change the relentlessly secular government (via Michelle Malkin):

Turks voted for a new Parliament on Sunday in a contest viewed as pivotal in determining the balance between Islam and secularism in this nation of more than 70 million.

Many people cut short vacations to head home to cast their ballots, and lines at some polling stations were long as people voted early to avoid the summer midday heat. In Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city, traffic jammed some main roads and police officers stood guard outside the gates of schools serving as polling stations. ...

The new Parliament will face a host of challenges, including a presidential election, violence by Kurdish rebels and a growing divide over the role of Islam in society.

The election was called early to defuse a political crisis over the Islamic-oriented ruling party's choice of presidential candidate, and the three-month campaign was peaceful. Turkey has made big strides after the economic and political chaos of past decades, but some feared the vote could deepen divisions in the mostly Muslim nation.

The current government has provided a rather stable economic and political environment, although the latter began to erode after the attempt to put Gul in the presidency. Gul is a committed Islamist, who was seen as a threat to push religious dictates into law. His party also espouses Islamist values, but until Gul's candidacy, had been careful to make those more or less guiding principles rather than legislative goals.

Turkey has been a singular success in the region as a Muslim democracy. (In the South Pacific, Indonesia would be the other.) That success comes from the constant threat of a military coup; the army has taken control of the government on several occasions when it felt that the secular nature of modern Turkey was threatened. That threat keeps Islamists like Tayyip Erdogan from attempting to create an Iran-like state at the juncture of Europe and Asia.

Erdogan's party will likely win the elections today. The question will be how large their share of Parliament will be, and therefore how emboldened they may feel to push for deeper changes. The nomination of Gul suggests that they may feel strong enough to push the military, and these elections could provide some substantiation for their confidence.

The outcome could have tremendous repercussions for the region, especially Iraq. The PKK has created a lot of tension near the Iraqi border, and the Erdogan government has threatened to send the military into Iraq to target the PKK bases from which the Turks claim the attacks originate. That kind of military incursion could pit the US against Turkey and certainly would enrage the Kurds on both sides of the border, leading to an eruption of fighting in the region. We can't afford to have Turkey turn against us, not when we have our hands full with Iraq, Iran, and Syria. We can hardly afford to lose our best success in the Kurdish north, either.

The count should be completed shortly. We shall see what direction Turkey has chosen.

UPDATE: Erdogan has won an impressive victory today:

Turkey's Islamic-rooted ruling party won parliamentary elections Sunday, taking at least 331 of 550 seats despite warnings from the secular opposition that the government was a threat to secular traditions.

The state-run Anatolia news agency said the ruling Justice and Development Party had won with 85 percent of the votes counted. Two secular parties, the Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Action Party, won 124 seats and 76 seats respectively, Anatolia said. Independents won 19 seats.

The Justice and Development Party now can form a single-party government, with a clear mandate for continuing its current policies. That may not be very good news for the US, Iraq, or Europe, but it isn't all that bad, either. At least so far, Erdogan and his party has resisted the urge to impose Islamist policies on Turkey, out of fear of the military response. These elections, while a clear victory, do not eliminate that boundary.

Technical Problems At CQ

If you have been experiencing any access issues this weekend at CQ, you are not alone. My hosting service, Hosting Matters, discovered some hardware failures on the server that hosts this site. They have had to perform an emergency transfer to a new platform -- no easy feat -- and it seems there may have been a few issues with that move. My access to the blog's scripts has been spotty, and my e-mail is currently down. Tech support is looking into all of the issues right now, but it may take a while before everything gets ironed out.

Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience!