The Self-Indulgence Of The American Media And Leftist Establishment

Ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere, dear readers, and friends, I submit to you that this week represents the nadir of responsible thought about the war on terror. We face Islamofascist lunatics who wish to establish Taliban-like tyrannies throughout the Middle East — and eventually the world — and who commit real atrocities in their efforts to bring those twisted dreams to fruition. We have seen their videos showing the beheadings of helpless hostages with dull knives, literally sawing off the heads of these victims while alive. They slaughter women and children as indiscriminately as possible. They even blow up Islamic mosques to kill Muslims at prayer.
Now we have had two weeks of debate over whether we have mistreated six hundred or so of these terrorists captured on the battlefield, out of uniform, bearing arms against us. What has been the focus of this controversy? Cattle prods and bullwhips for interrogation? Beatings? Naked pyramids and leashes?
No. It’s whether or not we abused a book.
This has been front-page news for two or three weeks now, ever since Newsweek decided to run a poorly-sourced item about Gitmo guards flushing a Qu’ran down a toilet. Now we have the Pentagon report detailing five supposed events where guards mistreated copies of the Muslim scripture, and the media and the blogosphere have reacted like this is another My Lai.
Guess what, people? This is a book. It’s not the Ark of the Covenant or Mohammed’s horse or a splinter of the True Cross.
If American servicemen at Gitmo have beaten or tortured prisoners, we need to know about it and put a stop to it. However, all of this hue and cry over how we treat printed material — and even the steps that the Pentagon put in place to treat it “respectfully”, such as requiring gloves and such — demonstrate a complete lack of perspective about who and what our enemy is. These are the same people that put grenades in dolls so that children get maimed and killed when they pick them up, a favorite Taliban tactic in Afghanistan. They fought for the same lunatic leaders who now kill Americans and Iraqis in the Sunni Triangle with carbombs and perhaps-not-volunteer suicide bombers.
They fought for the same people who ordered the massacre of 2900 American citizens on 9/11. And we have our panties in a twist over whether we may have hurt their feelings about how we treated … a book.
If Saturday Night Live wrote a parody of American hypersensitivity in fighting a war on terror, I doubt they could create something more ridiculous than this. Can you imagine our grandparents having this kind of debate had an American guard pissed on Mein Kampf at a POW camp for German POWs?
Short of ensuring that the Gitmo prisoners belong there and get treated humanely — three hots and a cot and no abuse — I couldn’t care less about their reading material. If they get Qu’rans, fine. If not, fine. If their Qu’rans get wet, kicked, dropped, laughed at, or ignored, let the military deal with the disciplinary issues, but it isn’t newsworthy. Why should we give a damn about it? What happened to our sense of priorities?
The media and the Leftist establishments such as the ACLU and Amnesty International use crap like this to set up impossible standards of behavior, then pretend that we’re no better than our enemies when we fail to perfectly meet them. That’s why AI used the “gulag” comparison earlier this week, and why Michael Isikoff and Newsweek decided to break the story that rampant abuse of printed material occurred at Gitmo. It’s a deliberate attempt to undermine support for a war they don’t like, and pathetically, Americans seem to have fallen for the hype.
Some Americans, however, have not. See Michelle Malkin, Austin Bay, and Instapundit for some comprehensive links.
UPDATE: I forgot to include a link to my friend and colleague Paul Mirengoff at Power Line, who also questions our sense of perspective. Also LaShawn Barber.
UPDATE II: We’re talking about this on the air right now. Join us at 651-289-4488.
UPDATE III: The always-insightful Ed Driscoll makes an excellent point:

In other words, it’s hypocrisy that hasn’t been seen on this level since the left and the media (sorry to repeat myself) turned on a dime from claiming that Clarence Thomas trying to hit on Anita Hill was a Crime Against Humanity, but all of the charges that emanated from Bill Clinton’s trousers was just between consenting adults.
If the media wants to claim that defacing the Koran in a POW camp full of captured terrorists is the crime of the century, then it needs to follow its own logic to its natural conclusion: no more claiming that “art” such as Piss Christ is a bold artistic statement. No more episodes like this on Law & Order and other TV shows, unless they’re roundly condemned by the press. An article such as Rod Dreher’s “The Godless Party” should be a multi-part investigative feature in the New York Times. There should be regular articles condemning the attacks of the ACLU against religious Christians or Christmas celebrations.
Because without a similar tone to coverage of religion in the US, Koran abuse stories at Gitmo looks exactly like it is: grandstanding hypocrisy of the worst order.

Exactly.
UPDATE IV: Bill at INDC Journal has a big issue with La Shawn’s post — and he’s got a very good point. Be sure to read his entire argument. It’s excellent.

Another Great Moment In Palestinian Democracy

The London Telegraph reports this morning that Mahmoud Abbas has suspended parliamentary elections in the Palestinian territories, an unsurprising move considering the popularity of the Hamas opposition in comparison to Abbas’ Fatah faction:

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has decided to postpone parliamentary elections which had been planned for next month.
The widely-expected move has been criticised by Hamas, the militant group, which said it stemmed from fears it would do well at the ballot box.
Mr Abbas said he had decided to postpone the July 17 poll to allow time to resolve a dispute over proposed reforms to the voting law. He gave no new date for the election.
The delay could stoke tensions between Abbas’s Fatah faction and Hamas, which had been poised to make a strong showing in its first legislative campaign.
Hamas had reacted to earlier hints of a delay by accusing Fatah of manoeuvring to cling to power.

Ever since Abbas’ own suspicious election as President, in which he ran virtually unopposed and still the election rules changed halfway through the day to boost his numbers, the election results have been disappointing for Fatah. Local elections proved that Abbas has little real mandate from the people, and parliamentary elections would have likely put the terrorist group in control of the Legislature, setting up a power struggle that Abbas had small chance of surviving, politically and literally.
Instead, Abbas now follows the Arafat option. His predecessor held an election after Oslo to mollify the Western nations and fool them into thinking he had transformed himself into a democrat and a statesman. As soon as the aid began to flow, the elections stopped. Abbas may have more commitment to elections, in part because he doesn’t enjoy the near-mythic status that Arafat did among the Palestinians, but this suspension shows that his commitment to democracy has its limits — and retaining power is his top priority.
Elections in Palestine won’t make much difference in the peace process as long as the two parties both consist of terrorists. Pitting Fatah against Hamas in a two-party system means choosing between practical terrorists or fanatical terrorists. The former is truly the lesser of the two evils, but neither represents progress. The inclination of the Palestinian people to freely choose the latter, as even Abbas now concedes, shows that not only are the Palestinians not ready for a sovereign state of their own, but that the peace process is a sham and the cease-fire hopelessly doomed.

Poll Shows Byrd In Trouble For Re-Election

Because he has been in the Senate for five decades, Robert Byrd has the reputation of being unbeatable if he chooses to run for re-election, even though West Virginia went for George Bush twice. A new poll suggests that this reputation may be seriously overblown, as he has come up in a dead heat against a Republican who hasn’t even announced an intention to run in 2006 (via Don Surber):

A new poll shows Sen. Robert Byrd and Rep. Shelley Moore Capito would run neck and neck in a possible campaign for the Senate seat now held by Byrd.
An RMS Strategies Poll released today reports that 46 percent of 401 registered voters in West Virginia would vote for Byrd if the election were held now.
A total of 43 percent picked Capito, R-W.Va., though she has not announced her intention to run.
And 11 percent said they were undecided — a percentage that could sway the vote either way.

It’s not supposed to be this way. Byrd, so the argument goes, brings home the pork — and then sticks his name on every building that benefits from it. West Virginians supposedly revere Byrd’s historic role in the Senate, don’t want to lose his influence and leadership, and want to allow the old man to retire on his own terms rather than turn him out of office. Even with the strong red-state showing from WV, most pundits have said that taking Byrd’s seat is little more than a pipe dream.
If so, then say hello to Shelley “Pipe” Cavito. The Congresswoman has not yet decided to run against Byrd and still runs within the margin of error in the polling. That’s a eyebrow-raising result for anyone running against an incumbent, and given the political direction of the state, shows that Byrd is very vulnerable in 2006.

CQ On The Stump Tonight (Update!)

I will be speaking at a monthly meeting of Twin City conservatives tonight, from 7-9 PM, on the New Media and its effects on politics and news. The meeting will take place at Park Tavern in Saint Louis Park. I want to thank the folks at Townhall for the invitation; I’m looking forward to the speech and an opportunity to discuss blogs and politics afterwards.
UPDATE: I’m at the Park Tavern and blogging away with the laptop while waiting for my early-bird sirloin steak dinner — just $4.95. I don’t live or work near here, but if I did, I’d probably drop by for a meal often.
In fact, the steak just arrived — and it’s not bad.
Hopefully, I will be able to post a video clip of my speech later tonight. I’m taping it for another project.
UPDATE II: I think everyone involved had a great time, especially me, in my debut speaking engagement. I met a lot of new friends last night and caught up with some existing ones, like Jane Bustad at the excellent real-estate blog Twin Cities Real Estate. Todd from Kowabunga has been a MOBber for a while now, and a couple of the folks from the Anti-Strib also made it, including Darrel (sp?), who originally offered me the opportunity to speak.
I’ll be working on the video later this evening — and maybe I’ll post a good excerpt or two from the presentation, if it turns out OK. If not, my next speaking gig will be at the University of Minnesota on June 15th, sponsored by CFACT at Coffman Union. I’ll post more details later on. If you’re in town, I hope you can plan on being there.

Guantanamo Fog

One of my favorite columnists and bloggers, Michelle Malkin, writes a must-read column in today’s Washington Times about the mythology of Guantanamo’s Camp X-Ray being the equivalent of the Soviet gulag, as Amnesty International accused earlier this week. This is how the Americans have mistreated the poor dears at Guantanamo:

Erik Saar, an army sergeant at Gitmo for six months and co- author of a negative, tell-all book titled “Inside the Wire,” inadvertently provides us more firsthand details showing just how restrained, and sensitive to Islam — to a fault, I believe — detention facility officials have been.
Each detainee’s cell has a sink installed low to the ground, “to make it easier for the detainees to wash their feet” before Muslim prayer, Mr. Saar reports. Detainees get “two hot halal, or religiously correct, meals” a day in addition to an MRE (meal ready to eat). Loudspeakers broadcast the Muslims’ call to prayer five times daily.
Every detainee gets a prayer mat, cap and Koran. Every cell has a stenciled arrow pointing toward Mecca. Moreover, Gitmo’s library — yes, library — is stocked with Jihadi books. “I was surprised that we’d be making that concession to the religious zealotry of the terrorists,” Mr. Saar admits. “It seemed to me that the camp command was helping to facilitate the terrorists’ religious devotion.” Mr. Saar notes one FBI special agent involved in interrogations even grew a beard like the detainees “as a sort of show of respect for their faith.”

I won’t belabor the historical illiteracy of Amnesty International, already pointed out by many others, in comparing this to the system of slave-labor camps that sent millions to their deaths in the Soviet Union. I will point out that the people at Camp X-Ray were captured on fields of battle, out of uniform and carrying weapons in opposition to our armed forces. If Amnesty International wants us to hew to the Geneva Convention, we could have just had them shot on capture.
Make sure you read the entire column, and let’s make sure people understand that this is a war, not a juvenile-crime prevention initiative. The terrorists in Camp X-Ray fought on behalf of the same people who killed 3,000 unarmed and defenseless American citizens on 9/11. While I don’t want them abused, I could frankly care less about their detention otherwise. Let them rot and die there. Better that than releasing them and having to fight them a second time.

Still Rather Clueless

Dan Rather appeared on Larry King Live last night to discuss the outing of Mark Felt as Deep Throat. King couldn’t resist the urge to compare the Watergate story to that of the disgraced 60 Minutes II report on George Bush’s TexANG service, and Rather couldn’t resist the urge to once again claim that no one had proven the Killian memos as fraudulent:

KING: Well, I don’t know another word. You might still believe the story, by the way.
RATHER: Well, without getting into that because the panel, this panel that was chosen by CBS to look into it, they issued their report. CBS adopted the report. I said at the time and I say now, I read the report. I absorbed it. I carried forward in my work. Anybody wants to know the panel’s version of what happened should read the report.
The situation that we had and still have is the last line of this has not been written. I will be very interested to see the last line of this story (INAUDIBLE) written. But, you know, I’ve acknowledged that we didn’t do it perfectly. I wish we had. Others may say, well, you didn’t do it well. They’re entitled to that judgment. …
Now, the documents were a support for those and an important support, and when questions were raised, well, how do we know that documents are true? We had some problems. However, I do want to point out, and I — listen, anybody who wants to castigate this or fuss with this, have at it. I will point out that the panel, which was headed by a President Nixon, Reagan, Bush family supporter and a journalist who said that George Bush one was one of the greatest people he ever met — this panel came forward and what they concluded, among the things they concluded after months of investigation and spending millions of dollars, they could not determine that the documents were fraudulent. Important point, that we don’t know whether the documents were fraudulent or not.
KING: Are you saying the story might be correct?
RATHER: Well, I’m saying a prudent person might take that view.

A prudent person might take that view? A prudent journalist would have taken into account the recommendations of the document examiners who looked at these memos before publication. Every one of them warned CBS of serious questions about their authenticity, except for the one that only looked at the signatures on the memos.
Furthermore, Rather flat-out lied about the findings of the Thornburgh-Boccardi report. Peter Tytell, the man hired by the panel, reported unequivocally to Thornburgh and Boccardi that the Killian memos had been created by a computer. This excerpt comes from Page 1 of Appendix 4 of their final report:

Tytell concluded, for the reasons described below, that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle . Tytell acknowledged that deterioration in the Killian documents from the copying and downloading process made the comparison of typestyles “to some extent a subjective call.” However, he believed the differences were sufficiently significant to conclude that the Killian documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.

The report lists in detail all of the discrepancies found by Tytell between known examplars of true TexANG documents and the Killian memos produced by CBS and their rabidly partisan source, Bill Burkett. That information has been in the public record for over four months. To go on national TV and claim that the CBS report does not render a judgment on the authenticity of the Killian memos is false — and given Rather’s proximity and interest in the issue, one must presume that the falsehood is deliberate.
Does anyone at CBS have an issue with one of their featured journalists appearing on national television and lying to the American public? So far, the answer appears to be no.
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Ian at the Political Teen has the video in question. And Brainster cuts to the heart of the entire issue with this observation:

You see the problem? When he says nobody’s proven the documents false or not, he’s demanding extraordinary proof of their falsity. But of course, a real newsman should be in the business of demanding extraordinary proof of their validity. That’s supposed to be the difference between CBS News and the National Enquirer.

Abramoff Was Ecumenical In His Lobbying, It Seems

Despite the Democrats’ best efforts to paint controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff as a GOP tool — especially in relation to Tom DeLay — further investigation by the Washington Post shows that Abramoff put significant money into the coffers of leading Democrats as well. In fact, two of Abramoff’s biggest winners were the present and former Senate Minority Leaders:

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff and an associate famously collected $82 million in lobbying and public relations fees from six Indian tribes and devoted a lot of their time to trying to persuade Republican lawmakers to act on their clients’ behalf.
But Abramoff didn’t work just with Republicans. He oversaw a team of two dozen lobbyists at the law firm Greenberg Traurig that included many Democrats. Moreover, the campaign contributions that Abramoff directed from the tribes went to Democratic as well as Republican legislators.
Among the biggest beneficiaries were Capitol Hill’s most powerful Democrats, including Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) and Harry M. Reid (Nev.), the top two Senate Democrats at the time, Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), then-leader of the House Democrats, and the two lawmakers in charge of raising funds for their Democratic colleagues in both chambers, according to a Washington Post study. Reid succeeded Daschle as Democratic leader after Daschle lost his Senate seat last November.
Democrats are hoping to gain political advantage from federal and Senate investigations of Abramoff’s activities and from the embattled lobbyist’s former ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). Yet, many Democratic lawmakers also benefited from Abramoff’s political operation, a fact that could hinder the Democrats’ efforts to turn the lobbyist’s troubles into a winning partisan issue.

Of course, this is the danger of playing holier-than-thou with baseless ethics complaints. The Democrats have targeted Tom DeLay not because he’s committed crimes, but because of his political effectiveness. Ronnie Earle has chased DeLay for years, and still hasn’t filed an indictment despite his highly partisan effort to get him behind bars. Howard Dean claims that’s where DeLay belongs, and both he and Nancy Pelosi have used Jack Abramoff as a chief reason for their ire.
Now, all of a sudden, the Democrats have become very, very silent. Those that have commented claim no knowledge of Abramoff’s involvement with the six Indian tribes that donated tens of thousands of dollars to their campaigns between 1999 and 2004 through Abramoff’s recommendations. While the biggest winner in this handout festival was Republican Conrad Burns ($141K), one-third of the largest recipients were Democrats. Here’s a list of a few of them:
Rep. Patrick Kennedy: $128K
Senator Harry Reid: >$40K
Senator Tom Daschle: >$40K
Rep. Dick Gephardt: $32.5K
The Democrats all of a sudden have discounted the link between donations and supposed influence-peddling by Abramoff:

A spokesman for Kennedy said the congressman’s donations from the tribes “have nothing to do with Abramoff.” Kennedy traces the money’s genesis to his family’s long-standing commitment to Indian causes, to the fact that he co-founded the Congressional Native American Caucus in 1997, and to his personal relationship with Mississippi Choctaw Chief Philip Martin, whom Kennedy met in 1999 on a fundraising trip for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “They just became close friends,” said Kennedy spokesman Sean Richardson. …
Daschle was familiar with another of Abramoff’s Democratic lobbyists, Michael Smith. According to Steve Hildebrand, who was Daschle’s campaign manager last year, Smith “helped with a lot of Democratic campaigns.” In addition, Daschle was a favorite of Indian tribes and received donations from 64, including five Abramoff clients. “We took about $150,000 in this last election cycle from Indian tribes around the country,” Hildebrand said. “Tom is viewed as a champion of Indian issues. We have nine tribes in South Dakota, and they worked hard for him.”

But by far the most difficult effort to distance himself from the Abramoff story will be that of Harry Reid. The Post reports that not only did Reid get in excess of forty grand from Abramoff’s clients, but that Abramoff hired one of Reid’s political aides, who simultaneously helped raise funds for Reid:

James Patrick Manley, Reid’s spokesman, also asserted that Reid’s connection to tribes was remote from Abramoff. He said that Reid does not know Abramoff. But Abramoff did hire as one of his lobbyists Edward P. Ayoob, a veteran Reid legislative aide. Manley acknowledged that Ayoob helped raise campaign money for his former boss. Lawyers close to the Abramoff operation said that Ayoob held a fundraising reception for Reid at Greenberg Traurig’s offices here.

That tasty revelation occurs below the jump in the Post article, but it should send a message to the rabid anti-DeLay forces in the House and at the DNC. Blowing ordinary lobbying efforts and sloppy paperwork into hysterical charges of corruption and ethics violations could hurt Tom DeLay, but it could absolutely cripple the current Democratic leadership.
As I said earlier, glass houses. Stones. Bad idea.

Is Zarqawi Dead?

Rumor #279b on the Zarqawi circuit now has it that the mastermind of the Iraqi al-Qaeda network has died on the operating table — and is currently six feet under the Iraqi soil that he has bloodied so badly (via Mystery Achievement and CQ reader Soccer Dad):

The Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq – died on Friday and his body is in Fallujah’s cemetary, an Iraqi Sunni sheikh, Ammar Abdel Rahim Nasir, has told the Saudi on-line newspaper Al-Medina. He claims that gunfights which broke out in Fallujah in the last few days involved militants trying to protect the insurgency leader’s tomb from a group of American soldiers patrolling the area.
During a telephone conversation from the city of Fallujah with the Saudi newspaper, Nasir said al-Zarqawi was taken there after being injured in the city of Ramadi around three weeks ago, and may have been treated by two doctors who had worked with his aides in Baghdad. He said the two doctors had stopped a serious haemorrhage in al-Zarqawi’s intestines, but that after his condition worsened last week, the militant died on Friday.
Nasir adds that in his will the insurgent leader left the order that no funeral should be held for him and the right to announce his death should be left to the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden.
The Al-Medina newspaper reports that it also called the headmaster of a school in Fallujah, who preferred to remain anonymous, but confirmed that many people in the city were aware of the fact that al-Zarqawi had recently been taken to the city.

I certainly hope this report is true. I also hope that the information in it leads Iraqi and American forces to locate his tomb, and to use a particular, natural method to soften the ground before exhuming the body for identification. However, these reports leave me pretty skeptical. Faking one’s death makes it more convenient to move around, for one thing. For another, if he’s really dead, that $25 million reward for bringing in his body would prove almost irresistable, I think, for some of the people involved in his funeral.

Iraq Wants More US Involvement, Not Less

Today’s Washington Post reports (on page A19) that the Iraqis, far from viewing Americans as an occupying force manipulating their politics and security, instead believe that we have withdrawn too much from both. The new government’s foreign minister met with top US officials to request that the US involve itself more closely with efforts to get their permanent constitution written and to provide more leadership on security:

To prevent the breakdown of Iraq’s troubled transition and a potential civil war, Iraq’s new government appealed to the Bush administration yesterday to take a much more assertive role, particularly on four key political and military issues, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.
In talks with Vice President Cheney yesterday and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari requested greater U.S. and coalition help in crafting a new constitution. The deadline is now less than three months away, but deliberations have been slowed as Iraq still works on the composition of a constitutional committee.
With time running out for writing the constitution and then holding elections in December for a permanent government, Zebari warned that the United States has withdrawn too much, leaving the new government struggling to cope and endangering the long-term prospects for success.

Specifically, Iraq wants the US to get around to confirming President Bush’s nominee for John Negroponte’s replacement as ambassador. Bush named Zalmay Khalilzad to the post last March, when he picked Negroponte for the new national intelligence czar post. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Dick Lugar and Joe Biden, have yet to hold hearings for Khalilzad despite the strategic and pressing nature of the appointment. The Post reports that Khalilzad will get his hearings next week, three months after his selection. That’s because the SFRC was finally able to get past the higher-priority ambassadorial postings of the Slovak Republic, Malta, and Luxembourg in their last session.
By the way, expect to see some mild fireworks at Khalilzad’s hearing. The Village Voice already alerted the Left that Khalilzad has — gasp! — worked for an oil company before. The nominee represented Unocal during the Clinton-era negotiations with the Taliban that hoped to establish a pipeline across Afghanistan to gain greater access to oil production in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The Ted Rall/Michael Moore contingent have long claimed that this effort was the true motivation behind the Afghanistan phase of the war on terror. This will give the Democrats an opportunity to show how far they’ve slid to the radical Left. If this thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory plays any role at Khalilzad’s hearing, we’ll know the lunatics have seized control of the asylum.
Iraq’s efforts to bring Americans closer to the political and security processes of the new government shows that far from being oppressive occupiers, we probably have been too sensitive to the appearance of becoming that. We should quit worrying about appearances and make sure that the mission is successful.

Not One Dime: The NRSC Bleg

The Duke at Pekin’s Prattles received a letter from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, sounding a curiously desperate note in their efforts to raise money this month. Frist claims that new funds are necessary to ensure that all of Bush’s judicial nominees get their up-or-down votes:

Dear Friend,
I need your help.
I ask that you immediately make an online contribution of $25, $50, $75 or even $100 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). To make a contribution on their secure server, please click here.
As Senate Majority Leader, I want to assure you that, if the Democrat’s campaign of judicial obstruction resumes, I will not hesitate to use the Constitutional Option.
We must ensure that President Bush’s qualified judicial nominees get the up-or-down votes they deserve.
That’s why we need to counter the Democrat’s attacks and misinformation – including the multi-state, multi-million dollar advertising by liberal special interest groups like Moveon.org and People for the American Way.
I have asked the NRSC to spearhead Republican efforts to support President Bush’s judicial nominees as we bring them to the floor of the Senate for fair up-or-down votes.
To prepare for these battles, NRSC Chair Senator Elizabeth Dole has set a goal of raising $50,000 for the month of June from fellow online Republicans.
This money is essential to our efforts to fight back against the obstruction of Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, and John Kerry.
And so I urge you to support the NRSC immediately with a contribution of $25, $50, $75 or even $100. To make a contribution, please click here.
We need your support today!
June will be a defining month for President Bush and the Republican Senate Majority.
I have asked the NRSC to be prepared to support President Bush’s nominee if there is an appointment to the Supreme Court.
We must be prepared to support the President’s nominee to the Supreme Court should a vacancy open.
I am counting on you to help the NRSC prepare for what is likely to be one of the toughest and most consequential debates in recent memory.
Help us deliver on the principle of up-or-down votes for the President’s judicial nominees.
Our need is urgent and our cause is just.
Sincerely,
Bill Frist, M.D.
Senate Majority Leader
P.S. To support the NRSC and make a contribution of $25, $50, $75 or even $100 today, please click here.

No doubt the NRSC would like to improve its fundraising, but to claim it needs more money from Republicans to force a vote on the floor of the Senate defies common sense. All the GOP needs to get a vote is the spine to demand it. We already funded their current majority; it already exists.
Claiming, as Frist does, that the NRSC needs $50K to counter “multimillion-dollar advertising” doesn’t make much sense at all. PFAW and MoveOn have access to lots of George Soros’ money, granted, but fifty grand simply won’t have any effect at all. Besides, what’s the point of advertising at this stage? The only reason it has any effect is because the GOP leadership dragged their feet in getting to this issue, waiting months while PFAW and MO polluted the issue by smearing Bush’s nominees, with only a tepid response from the Republican leadership.
Tell Senator Frist that he doesn’t need to empty our pockets to call for a vote. He needs to simply fulfill the campaign pledge made by the NRSC in 2004 by insisting on a vote for every judicial nominee that gets approved by the Judiciary Committee. Until he takes action to ensure that, Not One Dime.