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Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Around-the-horn on the Senate "Deal of the Century":

GOP Senator John Cornyn is as insightful as ever on this topic:

Conservatives have good reason to be unhappy with the agreement announced last night concerning the Senate’s judicial-confirmation process. The agreement does not guarantee up-or-down votes on all of President Bush’s judicial nominees, nor does it restore the Senate’s unswerving 214-year tradition of majority vote for all judicial nominees. In addition, the agreement attempts to rewrite Article II of the Constitution, by giving the Senate an advise-and-consent role in the nomination, as well as the appointment, of judges (see here and here for more). Our objectives are still within reach, however. As one of the signatories to the agreement made clear last night, the agreement does not foreclose the use of the Byrd option in the event that the filibuster continues to be abused. Moreover, conservatives should be proud of the principled manner in which they have conducted this debate.

The other side’s position, by contrast, is an intellectual shambles. The agreement guarantees up-or-down votes to Justice Priscilla Owen, Justice Janice Rogers Brown, and Judge William Pryor — three well-qualified nominees who were once deplored as extreme and dangerous (as late as yesterday afternoon). The agreement is thus an effective admission of guilt — an admission that these fine nominees should never have been filibustered in the first place. Moreover, by forbidding future filibusters of judicial nominations except under “extraordinary circumstances,” the agreement establishes a new benchmark for future conduct in the United States Senate — namely, that other qualified judges who are firmly committed to the law, like Owen, Brown, and Pryor, deserve an up-or-down vote, too.

Given that virtually all of these Senate Democrats are arguing a position 180 degrees from their position on the exact same subject in 1995, and the MSM won't call them on it, I'm not sure how much has been gained here. After all, Robert Byrd led the effort to quash filibusters then, he's leading the effort to save this cherished institution now. Some "conscience of the Senate" he turned out to be.

Our buddy Pat over at Brainster's has a great take as well:

It's really on what happens in the future. Obviously Frist is the big loser today, for failing to keep his caucus in line. If this doesn't work out, the Republican mods will pay a stiff price, especially the ones with further aspirations (McCain & Graham). But it might work out. Remember this deal isn't with Harry Reid & Ted Kennedy, it's with Democratic mods like Joe Lieberman. And the reaction on the Left has not been triumphant as yet.

Yup, demoting Trent Lott and promoting Arlen Spector looks like a great move now, doesn't it?

Bulldog of the Ankle Biters is ready to bite the hand which feeds us over this debacle:

They ought to be ashamed. Every damned one of them. The sight of these RINO bastards smiling makes me literally ill. More to come. How does it feel to be sellouts? Mother-bleeping cowards. Talking about faith. I'm fuming. Sorry for the profanity.

Screw your "great institution" McCain (RINO-Media). Oh Geez, he's thanking Sheets Byrd. Vote for cloture for Brown, Rogers and Owen. What about the Rogers and Saad? Oh, that remains open. Great. Sickening. The President's nominees and the President himself got thrown down the river. At least give them the vote.

So this is how liberty dies, to the thunderous applause of Katie Couric.

The Prowler fiddles while the Senate burns:

"There is no way this agreement that breaks Democratic obstruction can be spun any way other than as a victory for Republicans and the Bush Administration," said a Republican Senate leadership aide late Monday night, regarding the agreement reached by 14 senators to avert a showdown vote on the so-called nuclear option that would have ended Democratic filibustering of Bush judicial nominees.

The parameters of the deal insure that six of eight obstructed Bush nominees to the federal judiciary will receive an up or down confirmation vote in the Senate. The three most opposed Bush nominees to the court, Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor, will not have their nominations blocked any longer; also, three other Bush nominees will eventually receive an up or down confirmation vote as well; the only two nominees who still may be filibustered are Michigan judge Henry Saad and William Myers.

Also as part of the compromise, the Democrat moderates promise to prevent any future filibuster of Bush appeals court and Supreme Court nominees. While Democrats were able to have their "extraordinary circumstances" clause inserted in the deal, no one anticipates that such a situation will arise, assuming Democrats keep their promise. And it appears that a number of promises were being tossed around the negotiation room on Monday afternoon.

Several Republican senators involved in negotiations swore that not only will the six Bush nominees be given an up or down vote, but that Democrats in the room were aware that Republicans involved in the negotiations had agreed to vote cloture on Myers as well, and that Democratic negotiators had agreed that such a move could take place, thus also allowing Myers an up or down vote in the Senate. "Assuming that our guys hold themselves to that promise," says another Republican staffer working on the Judiciary committee, "then we're looking at a clean sweep for confirmations."

Sure, and Snarlin' Arlen will fight for conservative nominees any day now, so chastened is he by his promotion and media praise.

Cap'n Ed's on the case:

What does all this tell us?

1. Saad got tossed under the bus, although it may come from a failed confirmation vote rather than a filibuster, no matter what Reid says. If Reid demands a filibuster and all seven Democratic signatories support it, it will qualify as "bad faith," resulting in a resurrection of the Byrd option. I think all seven GOP signatories agreed to oppose Saad in a floor vote.

2. Myers may also have been tossed under the bus, although it looks from this that it may still be left to the individual conscience of the Senators.

3. Other than that, it appears that we have returned to status quo ante with an implicit admission from the GOP that filibusters are legitimate, and a matching one from the Democrats that they abused it. "Extraordinary circumstances" will probably be deciphered as ethics problems and not ideology, although the language after Part II-B seems to warn the White House about nominating strict ideologues to the bench from now on.

What we don't know is how this affects the rest of the nominees in the pipeline. One has to assume that the agreement explicitly names all those considered to have issues, and that all other nominees will be treated in accordance with the new rules from the centrists. That will prevail for as long as they can remain united in defense of their agreement.

In short, this could be merely objectionable and not a debacle, depending on how the GOP signatories interpret "extraordinary circumstances". One must suspect that this has already been defined confidentially within the group, and like Sean Rushton surmises, ideology doesn't play a part in it any longer. Under no circumstances can this be seen as a good deal for the Senate majority or for Constitutional rule. The net effect is that an even smaller minority in the Senate has hijacked the confirmation process than we saw during the filibusters -- and like all tyrannies, we can only hope for benevolent despotism rather than disaster.

We can hope for much more---like Bill Frist growing gonads. Why do I pine for the days of Bob Michel's shaky hand on the reins of the GOP caucus? Has it really gotten that bad?

Well, at least the nostalgia for Benevolent Bob beats the weird yearning Democrats have for fictional senators.

Where Have All the Deaniacs Gone?

Howard Dean's even failing as a fundraiser:

No job description of "national chairman" could exclude the responsibility of raising the money necessary to mount a respectable performance in 2006. Here again, though, Dean has fallen short. Way short. During the first quarter of 2005, Dean's Democrat National Committee raised $16.7 million. In contrast, Ken Mehlman's Republican National Committee raked in $32.3 million, nearly twice the amount. Indeed, the Republicans nearly matched Dean's three-month take in one night: May 17, on which the GOP raised $15 million.

Asked about this on Meet the Press on May 22, Dean pretended it was no big deal. "Well, that's -- I think that's fine. You know, Republicans have always been better at raising money than we have," he said. But Dean wasn't being honest. For example, during the 2004 election the Democratic National Committee raised and spent more money in its losing effort than did the GOP.

I can't believe the GOP is losing to this idiot on judicial nominations.

What About Bashar?

Syria certainly isn't with us, so she must be against us:

On that terrible morning of September 11, 2001, there was no way to get out of Washington. Sitting in my office about two blocks from the White House and seeing nothing more constructive to do such as run through a subway tunnel, I sat down at my computer and wrote about how we should respond to the most deadly attack on our soil since Pearl Harbor. The article was published in the Washington Times the following day.

The article made two points. First, that we couldn't allow ourselves to be weakened by empty rhetoric urging a "proportional response." Our response to the 9-11 attacks had to be decisive, and to be so our counterattack had to be in proportion to our strength and not the enemy's relative size or weakness. Second, that no matter who the enemy was, and no matter where he chose to seek refuge, we could allow him no sanctuary. We would have had to attack the al Qaeda stronghold wherever it was. Had it not been Kabul but Damascus, Tehran, Beijing, Pyongyang or Moscow our action would have had to be the same. If we had learned anything from Vietnam it was that to allow sanctuary is to hand the means of victory to the enemy.

President Bush took much this same position in his tough speech to Congress a week later. Nations had to choose, he said then, to be with us or with the terrorists. Since then something has been lost. Syria has chosen to be with the terrorists, and we have done nothing decisive about the regime of Bashar Assad. We are paying too high a price -- in the lives of our soldiers -- for this to continue one moment longer.

Commencing weeks before American forces slashed into Iraq in March 2003, our reconnaissance forces saw a steady flow of cars and trucks going into Syria along the Baghdad-Damascus highway. About ten days into the fighting, there was an intense fight near the border city of al-Qaim where our special forces took on a sizeable Iraqi force moving through al-Qaim into Syria. The fierceness of the fight there -- as intense as any other before Baghdad fell -- told us that the Iraqis were moving something they thought was of tremendous value. Was it money, weapons or people the Iraqis moved then? It matters not. What matters is that Syria chose to provide first a sanctuary for members of Saddam's regime and its assets and then comprehensive support for the Sunni insurgents who fight only to prevent Iraq from becoming stable and free, and kill as many Americans as they can in the process.

Corporate Leftism

General Motors' assault on private health care is a great example of what I've maintained for years---big companies are almost always Leftist in nature:

The fact of the matter is GM has consistently signed contracts with the United Auto Workers that do little to contain health care costs. Americans should not suffer the indignity of a single-payer system because GM has failed to bargain effectively with the unions.

Unfortunately, the idea of co-opting CEOs as props for government-run health care is gaining currency among the left. In Thursday's New York Times, Matt Miller of the Center for American Progress [sic] proposed a major effort by Corporate America to deal with the issue:

A dozen marquee C.E.O.'s would convene a "Manhattan Project"-style effort on the future of health care. They'd propose a new goal: instead of health costs rising from today's 15 percent of G.D.P. to 20 percent by around 2020, as is now projected, the nation should shave two to three percentage points of G.D.P. (or more) off projected growth in ways that improve quality, even as we extend coverage to the 45 million uninsured.

Of course, Miller is willing to stack the deck in favor of a particular solution: "...eligible C.E.O.'s have to grasp that most rhetoric in the health debate...is rubbish. Republican C.E.O.'s who think 'big government' is always the problem may be at special psychic risk." One wonders if Miller has already signed up GM's entire board of directors.

The reason for this is simple---big companies spend most of their time worrying not about their fellow big companies, but about niche players taking away market share. Regulatory costs can be easily absorbed by Fortune 500 companies, who can afford to devote a small portion of their labor to compliance or can pack up and move their headquarters to Jamaica. Those small, niche players, on the other hand, get crushed.

Who do you think is likelier to get a big government bailout---GM or Anthony's Pizzeria?

Given that the proprietor of Anthony's hasn't got any Congressmen or corrupt union officials in his pocket, I know who to place my money on.

Michael Kinsley, Sith Lord of the Cult of Death

It must take a unique combination of arrogance and ignorance to be Michael Kinsley:

For columnist Michael Kinsley human embryos are at once valuable and valueless. Their parts contain a possible cure for his Parkinson's disease, yet they are "biologically more primitive than a mosquito," he wrote last Sunday in the Los Angeles Times. Kinsley is very enamored with this mosquito-embryo comparison. He's used it before in previous columns to drive home the point that disposing of human embryos should generate even less thought than swatting a mosquito. For good measure in this column Kinsley also calls human embryos "tiny clumps of cells" lest we fail to grasp how silly it is to consider them worthy of respect.

Historians of ideas should clip Kinsley's columns on this subject as a straightforward example of the American elite's rancid and heedless moral philosophy circa 2000. They reveal that as the age of cloning advances, the elite, demanding longevity at all moral costs, consoles itself with the thought that the class of lab humans they hope to form are "more primitive" than insects. The human embryo is the one endangered species they won't protect and will use as their utopian science's slave.

What inspired Kinsley's most recent column was the news that South Korean scientists had cloned human embryos as spare parts for science. Kinsley regards this as a wonderful development. But he is upset with those like Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, who in the wake of the news were mulling "morality and all that." The usually skeptical Kinsley has boundless confidence in these South Korean scientists and rebuked ethicists like Kass for challenging these all-knowing men with time-wasting questions.

But if Kinsley won't question science, he will question God. "I have no trouble feeling that the government should value my life more than the lives of these clumps," he wrote. "God may disagree. But the government reports to me and to other adult Americans, not to God."

We should note, of course, that Michael Kinsley himself, the great opinion scribe and liberal stalwart, arose from such biologically-primitive clumps of cells as he would like to see destroyed in the quixotic hope of a cure for his affliction.

That might be a generous read on his position. After all, he had no trouble encouraging women to eradicate millions of these biologically-primitive clumps of cells prior to getting Parkinson's.

What amazes me is not that Kinsley and his ilk view human embryos as biologically-primitive clumps of cells, but that God does not view us in that way, even though we may deserve His disdain, as Kinsley and the other death merchants surely do.

We Report. You Die. Pt IV

Kurtz kurtzes some more:

Some analysts see parallels between the Newsweek debacle and Dan Rather's "60 Minutes Wednesday" story on President Bush's National Guard service, in that both took on the administration, both should have been held for further checking and both relied on unnamed sources. But while CBS's source turned out to be an anti-Bush zealot, Newsweek says Isikoff spoke to a senior government official who had been reliable in the past. And while CBS defended the Guard report for 12 days, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker apologized and said the story was wrong in just over a day.

That hasn't stopped White House, Pentagon and State Department officials from denouncing Newsweek. But presidential spokesman Scott McClellan's insistence that the magazine "help repair the damage" in the Muslim world has triggered a backlash on the left.

"Now it's Newsweek's job to repair the image of the U.S.?" scoffs liberal radio host Stephanie Miller. "It's amazing they want Newsweek to take accountability when no one in the administration has taken accountability for either the unnecessary war or Abu Ghraib.

"This is part of the chilling effect the administration wants to have on the media, an attempt to shut down any further investigative reporting. Most of the media is so scared they'll do anything not to appear liberal."

One other parallel: Some people believe that the Koran desecration, as alleged by a number of detainees, is "likely true," as Miller put it, just as former CBS producer Mary Mapes says the botched National Guard story is still true. The appalling abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib certainly makes seem the Koran incident seem plausible. But as CBS and now Newsweek have learned, believing something could well be true is a long way from journalistically proving it.

So after defending Michael Isikoff and quoting Torie Clarke defending the media against an anti-military bias, Kurtz reports the Tinfoil Hat Brigade's claim that Scott McClellan responding to a question Terry Moran pressed him on somehow has "a chilling effect" on an MSM which couldn't even be bothered to attempt to flush a Koran down their own toilet to substantiate a wild claim made by America's enemies. Some chilling effect.

John Leo, as usual, shows Howie Kurtz what a real media critic does for a living:

It's official. conservatives are losing their monopoly on complaints about media bias. In the wake of Newsweek 's bungled report that U.S. military interrogators "flushed a Qur'an down a toilet," here is Terry Moran, ABC's White House reporter, in an interview with radio host and blogger Hugh Hewitt: "There is, I agree with you, a deep antimilitary bias in the media, one that begins from the premise that the military must be lying and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong." Moran thinks it's a hangover from Vietnam. Sure, but the culture of the newsroom is a factor, too. In all my years in journalism, I don't think I have met more than one or two reporters who have ever served in the military or who even had a friend in the armed forces. Most media hiring today is from universities where a military career is regarded as bizarre and almost any exercise of American power is considered wrongheaded or evil.

Not long ago, memorable comments about press credibility came from two stars at Newsweek: Evan Thomas and Howard Fineman. During the presidential campaign, Thomas said on TV that the news media wanted John Kerry to win. We knew that, but the candor was refreshing. Fineman said during the flap over Dan Rather and CBS's use of forged documents on the George Bush-National Guard story: "A political party is dying before our eyes--and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about the 'mainstream media' . . . . It's hard to know now who, if anyone, in the 'media' has any credibility." It's worth mentioning here that the unrepentant Rather and his colleague Mary Mapes, who was fired for her role in presenting the forged documents, received a major industry award last week, a Peabody, as well as "extended applause" from the journalists in the crowd. (What's next? A lifetime achievement award for New York Times prevaricator Jayson Blair?)

Journalism is not a profession. Professions have standards, and enforce them.

Mark Steyn simply knows everything:

On the other hand, there are those who point out it's hardly Newsweek's fault that some goofy foreigners are so bananas they'll riot and kill over one rumor of one disrespectful act to one copy of one book. Christians don't riot over ''Piss Christ'' and other provocations by incontinent ''artists.'' Jews take it in their stride when they're described as ''a virus resembling AIDS,'' which is what Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris said a week ago in his sermon on Palestinian state TV, funded by the European Union. Muslims can dish it out big-time, so why can't they take it, even the teensy-weensiest bit?

All of which is also true, but would be a better defense of Newsweek if the media hadn't spent the last 3-1/2 years bending over backwards to be super-sensitive to the, ah, touchiness of the Muslim world -- until the opportunity for a bit of lurid Bush-bashing proved too much to resist. In a way, both the U.S. media and those wacky rioters in the Afghan-Pakistani hinterlands are very similar, two highly parochial and monumentally self-absorbed tribes living in isolation from the rest of the world and prone to fanatical irrational indestructible beliefs -- not least the notion that you can flush a 950-page book down one of Al Gore's eco-crazed federally mandated low-flush toilets, a claim no editorial bigfoot thought to test for himself in Newsweek's executive washroom.

Watching the media circling the wagons around the beleaguered Isikoff this week, Martin Peretz of the New Republic described them as ''a profession that is complacent, self-righteous, and hopelessly in love with itself.'' The media are the message: But, hey, enough about the war, let's talk about me.

As for the wackiness of Muslim fanatics, well, up to a point. But, you know, we've been told ever since 9/11 that the allegedly seething ''Muslim street'' was about to explode, and for four years it's remained as somnolent as a suburban cul-de-sac on a weekday afternoon. Invade their countries, topple their rulers, bomb their infrastructure from the first day of Ramadan to the last, arrest their terrorists, hold them at Gitmo for half a decade, initiate reforms setting the Arab world on the first rung of the ladder to political and economic liberty, and the seething Muslim street gives one almighty shrug.

BTW, Googling "Mark Steyn" and "I wish I'd written that" yields 37,100 hits.

Of course, since Newsweek did nothing wrong, one wonders why they felt the need to change their policy:

"From now on, only the editor or the managing editor, or other top editors they specifically appoint, will have the authority to sign off on the use of an anonymous source," Richard M. Smith, Newsweek's chairman and editor-in-chief, wrote in the edition of the magazine for sale this week.

The name and position of such a source will be shared with the top editor, and the magazine will try to characterize the source appropriately, Smith said in his letter to readers explaining how news-gathering procedures would be improved following the retracted report.

"The cryptic phrase 'sources said' will never again be the sole attribution for a story in Newsweek," he said.

Must be that "chilling effect".

The Cult of Death, Again

It continues to spread like an inkstain on a map:

Word has it that Howard Stern's radio contract only has about six months left to it; so he might be relegated to cable. But there's someone to take his place. Elliott in the Morning on D.C. 101 Radio provided a jarring wake up call last Tuesday morning. In response to the reports of a new abortion study that reveals more women are having repeat abortions, Elliot hosted a call-in contest for women who'd had the most abortions. Far from exploring the tragic nature of the act, Elliot laughed and joked with his callers as he commended them for their abortions.

Unfortunately, this probably won't fall under the interests of the Federal Communications Commission since, in the FCC's terms, it's neither obscene nor indecent. But listen to the stories of the callers from a recording of a nine-minute segment of Tuesday's show. If anything, they make the case against abortion even stronger. Despite — or perhaps because of — widespread access to contraception, they demonstrate the tendency to use abortion as an expensive contraceptive. So much for safe, legal, and rare.

No big deal, it's just tissue, right? Right?

A Day Which Shall Live in Perfidy

Cowardly GOP Senators give Senate Democrats veto authority on Republican judicial appointees:

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a dramatic reach across party lines, Senate centrists agreed Monday night on a compromise that clears the way for confirmation of many of President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, leaves others in limbo and preserves venerable filibuster rules.

"In a Senate that is increasingly polarized, the bipartisan center held," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., one of 14 senators _seven from each party - to sign the agreement that pledged lawmakers to "mutual trust and confidence."

"The Senate is back in business," echoed Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C..

Under the terms, Democrats agreed to allow final confirmation votes for Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor, named to appeals court seats. There is "no commitment to vote for or against" the filibuster against two other conservatives named to the appeals court, Henry Saad and William Myers.

The agreement said future nominees to the appeals court and Supreme Court should "only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances," with each Democrat senator holding the discretion to decide when those conditions had been met.

"In light of the spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement," Republicans said they would oppose any attempt to make changes in the application of filibuster rules.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., swiftly noted he had not been a party to the deal, which fell short of his stated goal of winning yes-or-no votes on each of Bush's nominees. "It has some good news and it has some disappointing news and it will require careful monitoring," he said,

Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada seemed more receptive - although he hastened to say he remains opposed to some of the nominees who will now likely take seats on federal appeals courts.

"We have sent President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the radical right of the Republican party an undeniable message ... the abuse of power will not be tolerated."

So essentially these fools folded on a winning hand and preserved for Senate Democrats a power which has never been exercised before---the routine filibustering of judicial appointees. (Abe Fortas was filibustered to prevent the man the embarassment of being voted down for his ethical lapses). Will anyone be surprised when each Democrat senator discovers every single Bush Supreme Court nominee is an extremist worth the "extraordinary" measure of a filibuster? You can bet they'll have countermeasures against "the nuclear option" in place by then, too.

Once again, the GOP is playing solitaire while the Democrats play chess.

I wouldn't be surprised if McCain and his clowns now vote against Owen, Brown, and Pryor, as a measure of "good faith."

He Said, She Said: Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith

WordGirl and I attended a joint screening of George Lucas' latest Star Wars installment today and violently agreed on the movie.

That makes for boring blogging, so we'll devote a "He Said, She Said" to the topic in an effort to better inform the public. There will probably be SPOILERS, so be prepared for that eventuality as the discussion goes on.

I'll take the positive angle and attempt to make a compelling case why Star Wars: ROTS is the best movie of its type ever made.

1. The special effects are simply amazing, and in a completely non-intrusive manner. Whereas previous installments have had laugh-out-loud moments where the CGI looked completely out of place (say Yoda's impersonation of Rocky the Flying Squirrel from Episode II), in this movie Lucas' vision and ILM's wizardry come together seamlessly. It feels like a real world out there.

2. The dozens of plot threads still hanging between the first trilogy and the second are virtually all tied up, often in very elegant and logical fashion. How did the Emperor come to look the way he does? How do Luke and Leia wind up on different worlds cared for by different families? Why does C3PO know nothing of the events of the first trilogy, while R2D2 often seems to know far more than he lets on? How exactly did Anakin Skywalker become Darth Vader, and how was the simpering Luke able to subdue him fairly easily in Episode VI? How did the Emperor become a Sith Lord? And, perhaps most importantly, what happened to the Jedi and the Republic? All of these issues are resolved.

3. Anakin Skywalker's arc is that of a classic tragic hero. The redemption scenes so jarring in "Return of the Jedi" now make sense---if Episodes III-V were "Oedipus the King", Episode VI is "Oedipus at Colonnus". Anakin didn't become Darth Vader because he was a bad man, but rather because he was a weak man who wanted to be a strong man and he simply lacked the wisdom to choose the righteous path. He pays an enormous personal price in his quest, and winds up with no seeming alternative but to play the villain. As the ancient Greeks knew, it is the tragedy which makes him a compelling villain in the end, and Episode III should make Darth Vader even more interesting as a result.

4. Some of the performances are quite good. Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan is excellent, and amazing feat for a young actor essentially paying homage to a performance Alec Guinness didn't even take seriously in the first trilogy. Ian McDiarmid's Emperor Palpatine is simply outstanding, an over-the-top villain who doesn't seem that over-the-top much of the time. The performances which seem wooden are more a result of the limitations of the genre---space opera. The leads in space opera are SUPPOSED to be wooden. Blaming actors' performances for this in this genre is rather like accusing the "Seinfeld" troupe of lacking emotional depth---that's the whole point of the thing.

5. Lucas atones for many earlier clunkers. The execrable Jar Jar Binks gets a brief cameo. Yoda's movements are much more natural and aren't unintentionally funny any longer. There are some scenes with powerful emotional impact, such as Obi-Wan's reaction to his apprentice's fall. The glacial pace of Episodes I and II is largely gone in III, which accelerates steadily from the middle of the film onward. The ham-handed Lefty politics and New Age religious riffs of the earlier movies is at a low ebb here, which is a good thing. Moreover, the story actually goes somewhere, unlike the previous two films which seemed to meander endlessly.

In short, it's a space opera, which like the "Flash Gordon" serials of yore is simply supposed to tittilate and excite viewers. There's a ton of action, plenty of explosions, and the fulfillment of the quest at the end. Add in some fairly fulfilling tragedy and you've got what might possibly be the best-executed space opera ever.

Surely George Lucas deserves some praise for that, WordGirl.

Doesn't he?

New ThoughtPicks

Take a gander to the right and you'll note we refreshed our favorite products under the ThoughtPicks header.

We'd do this more frequently if Amazon.com made it less of a pain to do so.

A few notes on the picks:

Seinfeld Season 4 - This was my favorite season of the show, which contained my favorite episode, "The Contest". It's the Master of its Domain, you might say.

Lawrence of Arabia - Probably the greatest epic film ever made.

HP Photosmart 8150 Printer - The best all-in-one photo printer I've found. Prints straight from Compact Flash, Memory Stick, Microdrive, Memory Card, Secure Digital, SmartMedia, xD-Picture Card, and PictBridge. Built-in LCD means you can layout and print photos without being connected to a computer. When connected to a computer, printer works just like any other printer, while images can be uploaded and downloaded to cards or camera. Picture quality is excellent, in my estimation.

Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant - A much-needed expose of the MSM's infatuation with the fascist-in-fatigues himself, Fidel Castro.

Marvel Masterworks: The Golden Age Captain America Volume 1 - I don't know about you, but I just can't get enough of seeing Adolf Hitler get punched in the face by a burly American wearing the Stars and Stripes.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Quite possibly the greatest work of history ever conceived. Sir Winston Churchill learned to write magisterial prose by reading Gibbon's masterpiece as a young officer. As in so many things, Churchill's reckoning was sound.

'Allo 'Allo Series DVD - Listen carefully---I shall say this only once: "'Allo 'Allo" is the funniest Britcom ever. It manages to make fun of the Germans, the French, and the Brits while simultaneously skewering the obsession with WWII. If "Hogan's Heroes" had been funny, this is what it might have been like.

Mitch Hedberg "Strategic Grill Locations" CD - I'm picky about my stand-up, and it's rare for me to endorse the audio output of any comic. Mitch Hedberg, who recently died, was a worthy successor to the absurdist one-liner school of comedy perfected by Steven Wright. This is his first CD and a good example of his style.

VH-1 Presents The Corrs: Live in Dublin CD - Well, Europeans can't be wrong all the time. The Irish folk-rock band The Corrs is fantastic. And I'm not just saying that because lead singer Andrea Corr is frickin' hot.

"If I Didn't Know Aslan, I Would Be Afraid of Them"

Several years ago, I thought I knew what "God" was, in the conceptual sense. I bought into the Unitarian, New Age, George Lucas brand of religion -- that there was a Higher Force, we just all called it something different and worshiped it in different ways. Why else would there be so many religions, right?

I noted several ubiquitous characteristics in all major religions; concentration on inevitable human error, sacrifice to put right that error, seeking the true will of the Deity, and uncertainty as to what that was. Worship seemed to be marked by constant tension between "right" and "wrong". And if you could find a mechanism that achieved "enlightenment" (a.k.a., freedom from lust, greed, fury, jealousy, pride, etc.) then that was a perk, too.

But the Deity was impersonal, vague, fickle, mutable, tenuous. Adherents were never certain what was actually going on. And "God" was envisioned as either a fuzzy sleeping grandfather or a wrathful taskmaster bent on bloody punishment. Both conceptions came complete with endless lists of tricks and prayers meant to appease. Still, it was never guaranteed that these remedies would work.

I hated Christians; stupid, mindless, hypocritical, Pollyannas, the whole lot of them. Not one had ever impressed me. Not one had ever brought me anything remotely like Truth upon which to chew. The only thing I ever saw them actively engaged in was condemnation and snobbery. I had never studied the Bible but was under the impression, thanks to my university education, that it was a laundry list of "don't's" along with tricks and prayers meant to appease God.

Instead I filled my time reading about Taoism, Buddhism, Native American religions, Hinduism, whatever I could get my hands on. The "survey course" material available in various bookstores made these systems look much more enlightened than any brand of Christianity I had ever encountered. I had my astrological charts drawn up; I cast druidic runes for answers to perplexing questions; I carried crystals around in my pockets; I observed the Cherokee practice of replacing anything I picked up in the outdoors with sunflower seeds; I studied yoga. It didn't all make sense, but there was a certain practicality in it.

Yet something was missing. There was a hole. Morality was largely a subjectivity; a loose and free concept that had no consequence outside one's own conscience. And there was no way to conquer injustice, error, and evil (though I dared not call it that). No remedy; other than tapping into the "power within."

But I wanted to know God, not just about Him. (Yes, even after I minored in Women's Studies, I still understood God in the masculine.) I wasn't getting what I needed. I was adrift, wondering where Truth was, if it existed at all. No one seemed to be able to help me or answer my questions.

Finally someone crossed my path who contemplated and debated like a mystic. A Christian mystic. What? Well, this had to stop. I was determined I must convince this simpleton the error of his ways. He had to be woken up from his stupor into enlightenment.

So in our discussions, I spit out the rhetoric I had been taught. Yet I was constantly rebutted with Scripture, which of course I had never heard. I could wax on critical interpretations of the Bible from feminist, Marxist, and Freudian points of view. But since no firsthand knowledge existed in me from which to draw, I was at an impasse. At this point, I was issued a challenge, "If you want to know what the Bible says, read it." How very Tolstoy.

I'm sorry, what? *Snort* That's preposterous. Please. Read the Bible... Pah! It's beneath me. What would I want with that outdated drivel?

But never one to back down from a challenge, (and being perfectly sure that once I read and decoded the text I could bring this fool down, hair by hair) I popped into the closest Christian bookstore for a little purchase. And the most uncomfortable shopping trip of my life.

I was sure everyone was looking at me, and that some alarm would sound as soon as I walked in the door. Lights would flash and a bullhorn would threaten me to put the book down and back away. Lockdown would be enforced and the police would be called. For I was an imposter, not one of them. To my surprise I purchased the book without incident, being sure to save the receipt. I didn't look through it until later that night.

I don't remember what I read first, but it was something that hacked me off. Something about condemnation and moral law that made me want to throw the book across the room. But I pressed on until I stumbled into Ecclesiastes. Whoa, meaty. I got this. And it struck me like a thunderbolt.

This man, this king, the wisest and wealthiest in history, could not reconcile the Secret of the Ages. The Wind of Whom he spoke could not be contained or explained, determined or understood. But still, the wise king followed Him. His tortures were no different than mine. His questions, longings and modes, no different. Solomon had reached across the chasm of time and mortality and spoken directly to me. And I knew.

I knew this book was the truest thing I'd ever read; that I had been wrong; that what I held in my hand was what I had been seeking all along. I knelt and prayed to the Father for forgiveness, and for my life, so that I might come home. It was the quietest prayer I'd ever prayed, the strangest breath I'd ever breathed, the most silent breaking I'd ever felt.

By the time I really met Jesus (in the way only one of His children can), I was in love with this God Man. He wasn't impersonal, vague, fickle, mutable or tenuous. Nothing of the sort. He lived and breathed and cried; He sang and danced and told jokes; He cared about people; He healed those with no hope; He rebuked the proud; He stood up for justice; He shielded even the smallest and lamest of His lambs; and He died so that I might partake of His life. He finished what I -- what all of humanity -- could not; Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu. There was no more work to be done. No more peace to reach for. He had done it. He had brought it to us.

Even now, the notion brings a tearful swelling to my heart. What a man. What a God. I couldn't love anyone else with such desperation. My heart, like Peter's, is sick with the longing to see Him. Someone I've only read about in stories. But Someone that I know lives inside me, helping every breath along, making every beat possible; going with me on every thought journey, every hard path, every joyous endeavor.

But you know what happened next... I latched on to my new church with a fierceness. The quietness gave way to shouting. These people knew what was going on. This was where it was at! I happily surrendered anything in my habits, books, art, television viewing, relationships, and personality that did not conform. I wanted so much to be a part of "God's family" that I didn't ask what my flotsam cost.

And don't misunderstand, there were grave things to be dealt with. I certainly needed to burn certain books on the pyre. But when spiritual leadership drew no line between wicked and normal, I eventually came to see myself and everything God made me as Other. I was a vessel to be purged and flogged. I had no worth, I was merely smiling hands and feet.

My mantras: Be good. Don't question. If you have a question, suppress it. Squash it. Drown it out with praise music. That's wrong. And it will land you in hell. I was reduced to watching nothing but Fox News and reading only my Bible. Those were the only "safe" things. I threw away most of my secular CD's, almost all my movies, cut ties with friends and quit my band.

Then, after 4 years of trying to be perfect, I burned out. I burned out, I sought help within my church and was told I was what I had feared all along -- I was weak. My church duties came first. My mother (who had just had knee replacement and could not get out of bed unassisted) would have to fend for herself.

But that's just a symptom. They did me an immeasurable favor by forcing me to choose.

The problem was that I felt as if everyone else were praying to a different God than I. And I don't mean in a hedonistic sort of way. I mean... the God I had known these last long years was tender and merciful. He showed me things and reproved me, bending me into who He wanted me to be. He was quiet and sweet but with a warrior's strength. I knew firsthand the God I had cried with, sang to, and under Whom I learned. Their fiery mountain God was foreign to me. The wrathful God they prayed to demanded blood, conformity, and blind obedience. In my quest to "belong" I became a stupid, mindless, hypocritical, Pollyanna; most actively engaged in condemnation and snobbery.

*Sigh*

Deprogramming is still in progress. And I'm enjoying it -- for the most part.

What are my biggest complaints? Glad you asked:

The saturation of "Christian culture" that demands we all be squeaky clean, smiling, cardboard cutouts of each other, not varying in size, shape or appearance. The unspoken dogma goes something like this:

"Every word should be quiet and sweet, every action helpful and soothing. Don't disagree. Don't make waves. For heaven's sake, don't raise your voice or laugh too loudly. And ladies! Remember, pearls and skirts on Sunday. We aren't allowed to read, watch, discuss or agree with anything that has not been approved by Billy Graham, Focus on the Family, The 700 Club or another governing body. We are too stupid to possibly know what's good for us. We must surrender to their authority. Don't like it? Then you're a heathen destined for Hell. You might as well cuss, attend a yoga class, read mythology, and hang out with sinners while drinking a glass of wine. SUCCUBUS!"

Various problems:
I am not a cardboard cutout of anyone, thank you. And if you try to shove me in that box again, you're going to lose an appendage, pal. I'm not afraid to go to yoga class. Bikram Yoga is cool (... well, for a humid 108 degrees). Greek mythology has helped me to better understand Christ. "Sinners" can't hurt me -- anymore than I can hurt myself.

So this is my disclaimer (because some blogs are under the impression that I'm trying to teach here, which I'm not): I'm trying NOT to become one of those Christians I hated before I was one. I'm trying to figure out how to lose myself to Christ and regain the self He intended for me before I gummed up the works. In the process, I'm going to be moody, unpleasant, searching, seeking, floored, impressed, dazzled, and disillusioned. I might even cuss.

But one thing I will not be, is a clone of anyone other than the Me Christ intended.

What Did You Do in the War, Mommy?

Does the President even care about the women-in-combat issue?

The San Diego congressman deserves kudos for resisting the military's accelerating political correctness. Since George Bush hasn't shown any real interest in this problem (he passively said in January that "as far as I'm concerned," "no women in combat," which makes it sound as if the matter is out of his hands even though he is the commander-in-chief of the military), and Donald Rumsfeld doesn't appear to care either (his spokesman told the Washington Times that women in forward support companies "is not an issue he has delved into a lot"), Hunter's legislation is critical.

One would think that George Bush might feel alarm, or even a little embarrassment, at the sight of his Army officials this week joining forces with Democratic feminists like Loretta Sanchez (D-Cal.) to oppose Hunter's legislation. His Army's condemnation of it sounded like something Hillary Clinton could have crafted. "The proposed amendment will cause confusion in the ranks and will send the wrong signal to the brave young men and women fighting the global war on terrorism," wrote General Richard A. Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, in "a letter of protest for use by Rep. Ike Skelton, Missouri Democrat," reports the Washington Times.

One of Bush's improbable legacies may end up being a military more feminized than Bill Clinton's. As of this spring, 17,000 female soldiers had been dispatched to Iraq and Afghanistan, many of them serving in de facto combat roles, thanks to his military's fudging of the line between combat and noncombat positions. Could the ban on women in combat be abolished altogether under a Republican president? Yes, and if it does, it will be one more irony of American history showing that momentous cultural transformations often take place under "conservative" presidents who lull their constituents into a sense of complacency.

Fact is, much of the Army's current top brass were products of Clinton's unprecedented politicization of the promotion process back in the 90s. One need not wonder why the Army's getting more feminized on their watch.

So why do Rummy and Dubya stand meekly for it?

Trump to Freedom Tower Architect: "You're Fired!"

Finally, some sanity regarding the WTC site rebuild:

Trump is proposing an 11th-hour scrapping of the plans for the World Trade Center site, specifically the much-maligned Freedom Tower, in favor of what he calls Twin Towers II. His idea is just what it sounds like -- a rebuilding of the original towers, a bit higher for good measure, with enhanced safety features. His timing is terribly late and his motives unclear, but his aim is true. Who would have thought that nearly four years after the attacks of September 11, Donald Trump would represent New York's last chance for a dignified redevelopment of Ground Zero?

Trump says that he wants to build "a taller, stronger, more beautiful version of the Twin Towers." He also says, more memorably, that the Freedom Tower is "the worst pile of crap architecture I've ever seen in my life." Given that Trump is an authority on crap, his assessment carries weight, but more importantly his view of the Freedom Tower is widely shared. Beyond its creator, the German architect Daniel Libeskind, few are in love with the monstrosity that is the Freedom Tower. Trump describes it aptly as a "skeleton," and it does have the appearance of a starved-out, postmodern pastiche of a skyscraper, or a sort of nightmare architectural vision of America conquered by the European Union. For those who point out that the original Twin Towers themselves were hardly an aesthetic ideal, the Freedom Tower reminds us of how much worse things can get.

I'd like to make that big antenna thicker, put a fingernail on it, and point it straight toward Osama bin Laden.