BusinessWeek Versus the AARP

Seems the sainted AARP has some conflicts of interest to worry about:

Just as important is the question of whether a group that makes millions selling financial services to its members is quite as impartial a player in the debate over private accounts as it would appear. While wearing its policy hat, AARP, headed by CEO William D. Novelli, presents itself as a nonpartisan organization serving the interests of its over-50 members. And there's little doubt that most do not want to see any change to the current system for fear of benefits cuts.

But it is equally clear that AARP makes a substantial sum of money from its partners' sales of mutual funds and other investment products to members. That raises the appearance of a potential conflict of interest. Whatever version of reform passes -- whether Bush's accounts carved out from payroll taxes, or the "add-on" accounts that many liberals favor to encourage retirement savings -- the overhaul is likely to create new markets and opportunities for some suppliers of financial products and lead to diminished opportunities for others. AARP has a stake in that debate. Unlike financial firms, however, AARP has the flexibility to drop waning products and team up with other partners on any new alternatives that emerge.

Follow the money.

Was the Grey Lady Selling Herself to John Kerry and the UN?

The New York Times' October Surprise for George W. Bush has strangely gone the way of the dodo now that he's been reelected.

Jonah Goldberg weighs in:

But, as to the intentions of these critics, the most revealing facts were ones that did not appear in that first broadside in the Times. The frightening multi-author article, which dropped like manna from heaven for the Kerry campaign, couldn't find room to mention that the 380 tons of missing explosives constituted a fairly small fraction of the 400,000 tons of explosives and weapons that had been either destroyed or secured from more than 10,000 sites. In that context, what Kerry was calling the greatest blunder of the war suddenly was more like a regrettable but not quite remarkable lapse, in the midst of an extremely fluid situation.

Oh, and they left something else out: The weapons might have been removed before the invasion. Over the course of the week, the Times was forced to concede, often grudgingly and obliquely, that the weapons may not have been there for U.S. forces to secure in the first place. Moreover, it became increasingly implausible to imagine a convoy of trucks absconding with the explosives without U.S. intelligence noticing in the early days after the fall of Iraq. The United States owned the roads and watched them from the air.

Howard Kurtz might want to get in on this one BEFORE some more of Pinch's boys do the perp walk out of the Times building.

The Man Who Nabbed Eichmann

Michael Ledeen has an excellent review of the life and exploits of an incredibly effective intelligence operative, Peter Malchin (aka Zvika):

My favorite Zvika story had to do with Egypt. The Mossad was determined to place listening devices in Nasser's conference room, so that Israel could be privy to discussions at the highest level of the Egyptian regime. Zvika got into the room during the long lunchtime break and crawled under the table — which was covered with a very large cloth that hung down to the floor — to place the bug. As he was finishing, he heard people entering the room, and he remained under the table during the meeting. "The big problem was to watch those feet and figure out which one was getting ready to move." God only knows how he managed it. Afterwards, back in Israel, he delivered a typically wry after-action report: "The manual is incomplete. We only tell how to break in, but we have to add a chapter on breaking out. Sometimes quickly."

One senses that our CIA and Homeland Security people spend too much time behind the desk and not enough time under it.

Howard Kurtz: Quisling

I'm not quite sure who Kurtz is sucking up to in this column, but let's Fisk him anyway, for the sheer fun of it:

Could this be the perfect storm of bad news for the news media?

Already hemorrhaging readers and viewers and losing public trust, the mainstream media are being battered hourly by the surging denizens of the blogosphere, accused of raw partisanship, rank incompetence and conspiratorial coverups.

Oh, the drama!

And hasn't the MSM made a cottage industry accusing various groups they don't care for en masse of raw partisanship, rank incompetence, and conspiratorial coverups?

Newspapers, networks and magazines aren't likely to vanish anytime soon (and if they did, what would the bloggers talk about?), but their credibility is under assault as never before, and a series of self-inflicted wounds haven't helped.

Well, the MSM has always pretended to favor the cleaning power of sunshine, right?

In just two years, the fabrications of Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley have led to the ouster of the top editors of the New York Times and USA Today; CBS News melted down in using apparently bogus documents for a story on President Bush; major outlets published mea culpas on their flawed reporting about the White House's march to war in Iraq; columnist Robert Novak revealed the name of a CIA operative, sparking a probe that could send two other reporters to jail; more journalists were fired for plagiarism; Sinclair Broadcast Group planned to air an anti-John Kerry film close to Election Day before backing off; Fox's chief political reporter ridiculed Kerry as a metrosexual, and Armstrong Williams and two other columnists acknowledged taking money from the Bush administration. Not to mention the usual array of biases and blunders (remember that New York Post cover on Kerry picking running mate Dick Gephardt?).

Hmm, seems a little slanted toward the only extant examples of pro-conservative bias, doesn't it?

Didn't we miss a couple of big ones here, Howie?

Oh yeah---wasn't there some sort of scandal which cost your CNN boss his job?

Even journalists aren't defending journalism these days. In one poll last year, nearly half said that reporting is increasingly sloppy and filled with errors, and that reporters often let their ideological views color their work.

So is it the job of journalists to "defend journalism" or to disseminate facts?

Given your omission of Eason Jordan's resignation in the above paragraph, Howard, I guess we know how you'd answer that question.

So do the much-maligned media do anything right?

Well, they do whore for Democrats pretty well.

Maybe a few things. It's mighty expensive to cover wars and maintain bureaus around the world. Some news organizations do that.

How do they manage to do it?

The meat-and-potatoes of community news -- city council meetings, zoning changes, school boards -- are still blanketed by local papers.

Yeah, no way bloggers could handle the awesome task of covering zoning changes.

Old-fashioned, shoe-leather investigative reporting -- from Bernard Kerik's business problems to the Abu Ghraib abuses -- is regularly executed by staffers at large organizations who specialize in developing sources and sifting through documents. (It was newspapers that revealed Blair and Kelley's lies and Williams's $240,000 Education Department contract.)

It is also newspapers who lie and refuse to correct the record when caught doing so.

And television remains unsurpassed at covering breaking news (wars and tsunamis) and bringing the nation together at times of tragedy and sadness (9/11, space shuttle explosions, Ronald Reagan's death).

Hmmm, where's that wonderful 9/11 television coverage now?

But now, for the first time, millions of people with access to a wide audience (at least among the wired) are looking over the shoulders of journalists, or practicing journalism themselves. They are Googling and Nexis-ing and dissecting video and transcripts. Many bloggers are careful and thought-provoking, others partisan or mean-spirited. But they are here to stay, and by and large they provide a healthy check on those who once monopolized the news agenda.

I suppose that the people on the bulletin boards, the folks at the Media Research Center and other watchdog groups, in addition to the various talk radio shows which routinely discuss media bias---all competitors in some form or fashion to your potemkin media criticism show on CNN---were illegitimate and beneath notice, but now that bloggers have taken out your CNN boss, we suddenly rate?

Are you getting a bit nervous, Howard? Feeling insecure, perhaps?

If I were the Baghdad Bob of the tottering MSM regime, I'd be nervous too.

In the wake of CNN executive Eason Jordan's resignation under pressure following harsh online criticism over his remarks about the U.S. military, Steve Lovelady, who edits the online edition of Columbia Journalism Review, complained to another blogger about a "lynch mob" of "salivating morons," later writing that no one "can mediate the wrath when the headhunters smell blood."

Ahh, so we saved the Jordan story to reintroduce the bloggers-as-lynch-mob meme the MSM's been trying to peddle.

This drew a rather pointed response from Will Collier at VodkaPundit: "We're not impressed by either your bluster or your insults. You aren't higher beings, and everybody out here has the right -- and ability -- to fact-check your [butts], and call you on it when you screw up and/or say something stupid. You, and Eason Jordan, and Dan Rather, and anybody else in print or on television don't get free passes because you call yourself 'journalists.' "

Umm, so Steve Lovelady's calling bloggers' "salivating morons" isn't to be considered "pointed"? How do you characterize such silly, paranoid remarks, Howard? "Reasoned"?

But Duncan Riley countered in the Blog Herald: "What is unique in the war on blogging is that the battles are not one based on politics, but one based on hatred of the blogosphere by the old media as it continues to lose readership and the revenues a large readership attracts."

Who was he countering? You make it sound like he was correcting VodkaPundit, instead of lending weight to his argument.

If only you had editors, unlike those bloggers---wait, you do!

Charlie Madigan, who writes a blog for the Chicago Tribune, had this message for his Old Media colleagues: "Shut up with your whining and appreciate the fact that, after generations of stagnation, something new has arrived. . . . Conventional journalism seems aghast that a whole collection of independent voices from all sides of the political spectrum are popping up now to pick and smear and slander and point accusing fingers, wreck careers, cast aspersions and introduce something besides a century-old sense of entitled hierarchy to the formula for news presentation."

Somebody gets it, anyway. The bloggers could be your best friend, Howie, if you actually cared to call a spade a spade when your MSM buddies screw the pooch.

If there's one thing bloggers enjoy more than bashing the press, it's arguing with each other. Matt Dattilo at Opaque Lucidity says: "There's a saying in football: When you get to the end zone, act like you've been there before. The blogosphere threw a harsh light on a 'journalist' [Jordan] who needed a smackdown. Congratulations. . . . If the blogosphere is going to insist on doing a little celebratory jig every time some liberal [butthead] puts his foot in it, we will all soon look as if we ARE hunting for heads to put on the wall."

Excuse me for noting that nailing Dan Rather and Eason Jordan are RARE victories for those committed to media accountability. Thanks to guys like Howard Kurtz who dislike real accountability, and instead use their "media critic" platforms to diminish MSM felonies (when they deign to cover them at all) while damning conservative misdemeanors, guys like Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw get a complete pass on their naked biases and politicking.

Those who dismiss the new cybercritics should remember that bloggers draw strength from their relationship with readers. It was typography experts sending e-mail that enabled conservative blogs to blow the whistle on Dan Rather's National Guard documents, while Web experts helped liberal bloggers reveal former White House reporter Jeff Gannon's real name and X-rated background. In reporting, it turns out, a little interactivity goes a long way.

Something certainly for you to keep in mind, Howard, say the next time you run an "interactive" q&a and somehow fail to take questions on a breaking media scandal involving your boss.

Of course, after he resigned, you took questions and commented on how "important" a story you had to be dragged kicking-and-screaming to cover was---from the safe perspective of hindsight.

All of which prompted Captain's Quarters to coin the verb "To Kurtz", meaning "to provide cover for someone through the deliberately selective reporting of facts, just enough of which to protect the reporter against charges of falsification while accomplishing a purposeful misdirection."

Don't bother sucking up to the blogosphere now, Howard. We know what you're about.

[Edited to include link to Kurtz' column---Teflon]

Ever Been in a Turkish Bible Study?

Apparently, the very prospect is unnerving some Turks:

At the end of the day, what Turkey must comprehend is the need for a separation of church and state. This was put forth brilliantly in the New Testament two millennia ago: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; Render unto God what is God's." In Turkey, the Caesar has been very lustful and dominant for many decades. The time has come to limit his powers and render unto God what is God's. Missionaries should have the right to preach the Gospel and open their churches. Muslims should have the right to advocate Islam and run their mosques. (At present they are supposed to believe in "official Islam," attend the state-controlled mosques, and act as non-Muslims in the public square.) And every other creed should be free to sermonize according to its own teaching.

I think the author misses a fundamental point here.

Kemal Ataturk founded the modern Turkish state along strict secular lines. Since Ataturk's reign, there has been considerable tension between religion and government within Turkey. The Turkish military is a strictly secular institution which views itself as the guardian of Ataturk's legacy and occasionally interposes in governmental affairs whenever it believes that legacy to be in jeopardy. The net result is that Turkey's government is less insterested in Islamic practices than its population, particularly its rural population.

Ironically, it is the Europeans who are pressuring Turkey to embrace Islam more in its governmental affairs, since EU membership for Turkey is in part contingent upon weakening the role of the military in Turkish society (the EUnuchs don't like the military unless it's a foreign one marching through their conquered lands, at which point the bootlicking begins immediately). The weakening of the military necessarily strengthens the hand of the current Islamicist government. And that, in turn, endanger's Ataturk's legacy of strict secular rule.

Turkey missed out on a chance to help formulate policy for post-war Iraq in such a way as to reduce the ability of Kurdish terrorist groups to agitate in southeastern Turkey. The EUnuchs dangled the EU membership carrot before the Turks on the condition that they refuse to allow the U.S. to stage out of Turkey, as had been done in the past.

Thus Turkey, which one would think would be very pleased at the prospect of emerging democratic rule in the Mideast, is now in a bit of a quandary. Does it side with its Cold War ally, America, and thus gain prestige and influence in the region at the expense of EU membership? Or does it continue to alienate itself from the U.S., hoping that the Europeans will eventually follow through with full EU membership?

The answer is actually quite clear, should the Turks allow themselves to admit it. The Europeans are liars and will never allow Turkey into the EU. Moreover, the increasing Islamicist penetration of Western Europe ensures that moderate, democratic Turkey will continue to hold a special place within the singular hatred of the growing Muslim minority in these countries, and their influence will continue to color the policies of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the rest toward Turkey.

Turkey's best bet is to rekindle the alliance with America and leverage it to increase her domestic security, increase her regional influence, and angle for the potential oil pipeline to the Black Sea to run from Iraq through Turkey, and not from Iran through the former Soviet republics.

Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Fatuous Judge

Michael Billok nails the foolishness of the judge seeking to free Jose Padilla:

Instead, much like a certain presidential candidate, Judge Floyd believes that "this is a law enforcement matter, not a military matter." Indeed, the judge views detention of enemy combatants as punishment and not, as the Supreme Court plurality held last summer in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, a "fundamental and accepted" part of war. Captured enemy combatants must be detained until the end of hostilities, because though initial attacks may be thwarted, combatants and terrorists will try again if freed. Should Judge Floyd still disagree, he could meet with the terrorists who, after signing peace pledges, were set free from Guantanamo Bay only to wage terrorism and face recapture. Or better still, he could rent "Saving Private Ryan" and watch Tom Hanks' character suffer death at the hands of an enemy soldier he had set free earlier in the film. War is more serious than, and should not be confused with, mere criminal activity.
Finally, the court completely ignored Supreme Court precedent. During World War II, U.S. citizen Herbert Haupt was captured while trying to blow up bridges, railroads and manufacturing plants for Nazi Germany. The Supreme Court held in its "Ex parte Quirin" decision that Haupt could be tried by military tribunal, and he was subsequently executed. Haupt and Padilla were both United States citizens; both planned acts of destruction on behalf of an enemy of the United States; and both were captured on U.S. soil, oddly enough, in Chicago. Yet the court practically dismissed Quirin out of hand, even stating that "Quirin involved a war that had a definite ending date. The present war on terrorism does not."
Enter Encyclopedia Brown. The boy detective creation of Donald Sobol, Brown could solve any mystery over dinner and before dessert. He once examined a sword that was supposedly inscribed and presented "at the First Battle of Bull Run" in 1861 and immediately classified it a hoax. How so? In 1861, there hadn't yet been a Second Battle of Bull Run, so nobody could know the 1861 battle was the "first," and not simply the only, battle.
So, a question for the judiciary: How did the Supreme Court know in 1942, the year Quirin was decided, that World War II would have "a definite ending date" in 1945? Do presidents in wars with known ending dates have more discretion to fight the enemy than presidents in wars where the conclusion is unknown? What's the matter? You haven't touched your dessert.

This is why the people who man the judiciary matter.

This is why Senator Frist needs to get his act together.

Can NHL Hockey Be Saved?

Duncan Currie thinks so.

Here's what I think:

Stop the creeping European sissyism. The prima donnas are ruining the sport, and the tough American style of play is giving way to "finesse".

If A Klansman Is Your "Conscience", You're No Moral Paragon

Hugh Hewitt, Blogfather, feels pretty good about the upcoming judicial war against the Dems:

IF THE GOP sets up the confrontation with care, it could set the Democrats back another ten years. The American public knows that a simple majority is the essence of fairness, and that the number "40" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. They also know that Democrats have raised the bar highest for nominees with orthodox religious views; their campaign against Catholic judge David Pryor is especially offensive. Imagine the handicap newly announced Democratic Senate candidate Bob Casey--the pro-life Treasurer of Pennsylvania--will face in his race against incumbent Senator Rick Santorum given his party's bigotry towards devout Catholics like Pryor. Is Casey serious about making the argument that the rights of the unborn will be better off with another Democratic vote added to the caucus of obstruction? And if Casey promises to be open-minded about judges, will the GOP hesitate to point to newly elected Democratic Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado--who took less than two months to reverse his campaign position that all judicial nominees should get an up-or-down vote?

Update:

Senator John Cornyn delivers the goods against Byrd in the form of noting Senator Byrd himself argued for Senate rules changes limiting filibusters and the ability of the minority to avoid voting on the floor four times.

Robert Byrd: hypocrite, bigot, Democrat.

Europe's Leading Export---Hot Air

Do you think they might be the root cause of global warming?

Victor Davis Hanson takes 'em down a peg or two:

Our cousins abroad cannot figure out why a crass nation of former European rejects, led by a cowboy from Texas, is wealthier, stronger, and more willing to sacrifice for principle than a more venerated, cultured, and aristocratic civilization. Europe, it turns out, worships class and privilege in the flesh while it damns them in the abstract — even as the uncouth popular culture of America that has corrupted the planet is most welcome and at home in, of all places, Europe

.

Think of that the next time you Biggie Size your fries, Francois.

Do Feminists Dig Burkas?

They must, given it takes a conservative man to celebrate the liberation of Afghan women.

Potemkin Nonproliferation, or Why the Mullahs Are Smiling

John Kerry wanted this:

What could be so wrong? Plenty.

First, although it received scant notice in the press, the contract Moscow rushed to cut with Tehran runs out in a mere ten years. For the remaining 20 to 40 years of the reactor's operation, Iran has announced that it will supply Bushehr with enriched fuel itself. Previously, Britain, France, Germany, and Washington insisted that Iran had no need to enrich uranium since Tehran could count on Russia to fuel Bushehr over the machine's entire lifetime. Not any longer.

Second, although the contract calls for Iran to return any spent fuel to Russia, Iran is not required to do so any sooner than several years after the fuel is delivered. This leaves ample time for literally hundreds of bombs worth of weapons-usable plutonium to mount up in Iranian spent-fuel ponds. The contract, in short, does nothing to limit the dangers of Iran's diverting enough spent fuel to a covert reprocessing plant to make not just one, but an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons.

This highlights a more basic problem: As long as there is reason to fear Iran might have a covert enrichment or reprocessing program hidden away, there's a danger fresh or spent fuel from Bushehr could be diverted to make bombs before inspectors could detect or block the diversion. This means that Iran could seize this material openly, withdraw from the NPT, and then make bombs or, alternatively, steal the material, covertly make bombs, and then withdraw.

BTW, I believe the correct pronunciation is "po-tyom-keen", not "po-tem-kihn". My college Russian is as hazy as my distance vision these days.

Margaret Carlson, Fool

She's at it again:

To Margaret Carlson, such idealism is an outrage -- literally. She termed it her "Outrage of the Week" on CNN's Capital Gang on February 19. With her usual mix of ignorance and snobbery (she couldn't resist mentioning that the Huckabees lived in a double-wide while the governor's mansion was renovated), Carlson argued in her syndicated column that Huckabee's a political huckster crassly manipulating moral issues in preparation for a potential White House bid. While Huckabee "flaunted his moral values... [in a] made-for-TV wedding" like Prince Charles's first wedding, "Charles and Camilla are likely to do a lot more than Mike and Janet for the institution of marriage, for the simple reason that their wedding is for them, not us."

To Margaret Carlson, any politician who voices the idea that the state ought to discourage divorce is an opportunist cashing in on the culture war. But Huckabee was just laudably drawing attention to a crisis that demands more coverage and discussion.

The real outrage is that Time magazine can't find a female pundit with more brains than your average turnip.

If Only Jimmy Drank the Kool-Aid

Why am I not surprised by this "Inside the Beltway" blurb (emphasis mine):

Apology accepted

As a San Francisco Examiner religion reporter more than 30 years ago, veteran White House correspondent Lester Kinsolving sensed something sinister about Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple — long before the sect leader, 912 of his followers and a U.S. congressman perished in the jungle of Guyana.
"I went to the religion editors of 40 newspapers — including The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times — begging them to send reporters" to the temple's California headquarters during the early 1970s, he says.
On numerous occasions, the reporter was told and even witnessed for himself bizarre behavior by Jones, his armed guards and the temple's congregation.
"Not one of them sent anybody," Mr. Kinsolving tells Inside the Beltway. "They refused."
Besides newspaper editors, the sect leader was fooling most everybody in those days, from San Francisco's mayor to the future vice president and even the first lady of the United States.
"We had exposed this [sect activity] in 1973," Mr. Kinsolving recalls. "Then, wouldn't you know? Rosalynn Carter invited Jones to have dinner with her [at a California hotel]. She had a whole bunch of Secret Service agents with her, and when Jones showed up with his 'gunslingers' they still managed to work it out.
"And can you believe Walter 'Fritz' Mondale entertained Jones on his campaign plane?" Not everybody was so enchanted.
Armed with Examiner newspaper articles questioning the activities of the temple and its subsequent exodus to South America, Rep. Leo J. Ryan, California Democrat, traveled to Jonestown, Guyana, to investigate. Before he could report back to Capitol Hill, the congressman was slain by Jones' followers on Nov. 18, 1978 — hours before the mass suicide.
"I remember when the news hit Washington that more than 900 people died ... and all the major media began acting as if it was something new," Mr. Kinsolving says. "Any way you look at this, it was such a terrible refusal of the major media not to tell the whole truth.
"There was only one person that I had gone to [in the early 1970s] who later apologized for not looking into it further — Brit Hume [now with Fox News]. He worked for [syndicated columnist] Jack Anderson then."
Now, about three decades later, somebody else has apologized to Mr. Kinsolving, who suffered a heart attack recently and is recovering in his suburban Washington home.
Tim Stoen, the former outspoken chief legal adviser to Jones who is a California deputy district attorney, wrote a lengthy letter to Mr. Kinsolving in recent weeks asking for forgiveness.
"You were right... I was totally wrong," wrote Mr. Stoen, having once filed a libel lawsuit (later dropped) against Mr. Kinsolving to squelch his reporting. "From my heart, I apologize for my mistreatment of you ... and castigating your motives."
"I was very surprised to receive the letter," Mr. Kinsolving tells this column. "I am very grateful."

Character is revealed in these moments. Rosalynn Carter's character is quite different than Brit Hume's, obviously.

But we knew that already.

Scratch A Liar, Find A Thief

Disgraceful:

Police said on Thursday they had recovered boxes of original recordings of soul music legend Ray Charles from the home of an audio engineer accused of taking advantage of the singer's blindness to steal the tapes in the final months of his life.

Terry Howard, 48, who shared in three Grammy Awards last month for his work on Charles' final album, "Genius Loves Company," was arrested Feb. 17 during a search of his home. He was formally charged on Tuesday with grand theft by embezzlement and receiving stolen property, authorities said.

In unrelated news, Sandy Berger was seen walking briskly down a nearby street humming, "Hit the Road, Jack."

Homophobia at the New York Times

Ann Coulter hoists a very hypocritical Gray Lady on her own petard:

So now liberals are lashing out at the gays. Two weeks ago, the New York Times turned over half of its op-ed page to outing gays with some connection to Republicans. There is no principled or intellectual basis for these outings. Conservatives don't want gays to die; we just don't want to transform the Pentagon into the Office of Gay Studies.

By contrast, liberals say: "We love gay people! Gay people are awesome! Being gay is awesome! Gay marriage is awesome! Gay cartoon characters are awesome! And if you don't agree with us, we'll punish you by telling everyone that you're gay!"

(Hat tip: Powerline)

The Terrorist We Tolerate

Our friend Pat over at Brainster's calls the attention of the blogosphere to a forgotten front in the War on Terror---those bloody-handed lads in Ireland.

Are terrorists only evil when their skins are brown and their loathsome utterances not made in a lilting brogue and with a charming wink?

Gerry Adams is due in the States March 12th. Unlike Cat Stevens, he'll be allowed off the plane onto American soil unless the Bush Administration stops him.

We Read Lefty Propaganda So You Don't Have To: The Democratic Underground

Okay, I'm going into the belly of the beast.

Here're ten topics currently being discussed over at the Democratic Underground:

1. Is Bill Frist seeking higher office?

You mean he could hurt the GOP even more somehow?

2. 66 Frenchmen charged with child molestation.

In France for once, not in Africa.

3. 4 Mounties killed in marijuana raid.

Of course, they might have had the opportunity to lay down their lives in a raid on prescription drugs bound for America had marijuana only been legalized...waitaminute, isn't it already legal in enlightened Canada?

4. The American military is working on a weapon to remotely deal excruciating pain from 2 kilometers away.

Color me a cynic, but somehow I don't think it's practical to make speakers loud enough to hear Ashlee Simpson from that distance.

5. Bush reassures CIA employees about Agency.

If they were any good at their jobs, they'd already know what Bush planned to do with them.

6. Senator Clinton wants to see Syria punished, much to the DUers dismay.

Might I suggest she punish them with her presence?

7. Conservative columnist Joseph Perkins resigns.

Did Karl Rove have a hand in this to cover up his role in Gannongate, JFK's assassination, and the XYZ Affair?

8. Honduras ratifies the Central American Free Trade Agreement, prompting a DUer to lament, "There go the jobs...again."

If the DUers jobs are so terrible, why do all these people seem to want them?

9. Whistle blown on head of whistleblower agency.

Why did I think this was about Charlie Sheen hitting the escort services again?

10. Autism rises in Japan despite ban on measles, mumps, and rubella vaccinations.

Curiously, measles, mumps, and rubella also rose.

Pretty tame over there---glad I got in and got out without needing to wear my tinfoil hat disguise.

How to Talk Terror

Deroy Murdock has a must-read column on the use of language in the War on Terror. Must-read for anyone who wants us to win it, that is:

Victims of terrorism do not "die," nor are they "lost." They are killed, murdered, and slaughtered.

Likewise, many say that people "died" in the Twin Towers and at the Pentagon. No, people "die" in hospitals, often surrounded by their loved ones while doctors and nurses offer them aid and comfort.

The innocent people at the World Trade Center, the Defense Department, and that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, were killed in a carefully choreographed act of mass murder.

Specify the number of human beings who terrorists destroy.

— "3,000" killed on 9-11 sounds like an amorphous blob. The actual number — 2,977 — forces people to regard these individuals as men and women with faces, stories, and loved ones who miss them very much.

— The precise figures are 2,749 killed at the World Trade Center, 184 at the Pentagon, and 44 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

— Likewise, the Bali disco bombings killed 202 people, mainly Australians.

— The Madrid train bombings killed 191 men, women, and children.

Somehow, a total of 191 people killed by al Qaeda's Spanish franchisees seems more ominous and concrete than a smoothly rounded "200."

Amen.

2,977 Americans crushed and incinerated.

We shall never forget.

The Piltdown Man, Part Deux

Here's my bold prediction:

The "hobbit" found in Indonesia will be established to be either a hoax or not a human ancestor at all within the next 5 years.

Anyone predisposed to think that scientists are somehow immune to embracing hoaxes and myths (yeah, I'm talking to you, Derbyshire) needs to stop hitting the sauce before their livers pickle.

Here's a thought experiment for you:

A man stops you on the street and tells you that the universe rests on the back of a turtle, and that evil is nothing more than tremors resulting from the turtle's swimming through the void.

If you laugh and say, "That can't possibly be true," but offer no alternative explanation regarding either the nature of the universe or the nature of evil, are you a Luddite?

If the man has a doctorate in Physics, are you a fool?

Evolutionists claim that the diversity of species is explained by the mechanism of natural selection. The fossil record has produced no evidence thus far of the transmutation of one species into another that I am aware of (I assume it would be big news were it so), and such events as the Cambrian explosion of diversity tend to argue against the theory, assuming the fossil record might show such evidence at all.

This is not to say that natural selection does not exist (it clearly does) nor that species do not change significantly over time (this seems like a reasonable inference from what we know of biology).

It is a leap of faith to go from microevolution to macroevolution without some compelling evidence. As someone who employs statistical analysis tools daily in practicing my profession, I am exceedingly leery of small sample sizes, particularly sample sizes of one, as with Piltdown Man or this "hobbit".

Evolutionary theory is elegant and quite simple to understand in its basic conception---these are two points in its favor, one would think. For its advocates to claim that its macroevolutionary aspects have been proven correct is a bridge too far. As there is enormous money to be made in producing the elusive final piece of the evolutionary puzzle, the smoking gun which will establish once and for all that the various religious conceptions of the creation of the world are simple superstition, each new "find" ought to be treated skeptically, in particular by those professional scientists whose credibility is their currency.

It would help if evolutionary theory produced anything remotely so useful as Newton's theories have---God knows we could use speedy macroevolution once the glaciers hit the equator and the global warming doomsayers are proven mistaken once and for all.

The Death of American Jurisprudence

The aged mediocrities of the Supreme Court have done it again:

The justices conceal their despotism in rhetoric and flat-out lying. As Antonin Scalia demonstrated in his dissenting opinion, the "national consensus" that the justices cite to justify the decision doesn't exist. Kennedy and company did a shoddy job of lining up this lie, first inventing a national consensus against executing 17-year olds, then conceding that it doesn't exist by whining about America's refusal to ratify international treaties that forbid the practice.

As the Supreme Court writes a new constitution, the justices are using as their co-authors foreigners not Americans. This now routine reliance on foreign fashions illustrates their alienation from and distrust of the American people. In citing the "overwhelming weight of international opinion" in the Roper decision, the justices are in effect saying to the American people: we are right, you are wrong; since you won't support our boutique views, we will look abroad for support.

If anything underscores the need for Bill Frist to get real serious real quickly about the judicial nominations battle, it is the prospect of more 5-4 legal decisions by cackling old fools who've apparently never met an Armani-clad Brussels bureaucrat or ersatz Dr. Phil-style pop psychologist they didn't admire.

I guess Americans will just have to get used to the notion that 17-year-olds are wise enough to litter foreign battlefields wearing an American military uniform but are too stupid to know the difference between murder and misdemeanors.

Hitting Syria Where It Hurts

Every tyranny has its weaknesses:

Moreover, international support for such a policy is growing. President Bush's calls for the end of Syria's occupation of Lebanon ahead of that country's May parliamentary elections during his recent European tour found a receptive audience in European capitals. Moreover, French president Jacques Chirac's February 22 declaration that France was ready to support U.N. sanctions against Syria has provided the U.S. with the diplomatic opening for an economic blockade designed to deprive Syria of its primary source of externally generated revenue.

If such economic pressure is not sufficient, however, less subtle options also exist. Hundreds of miles of cross-country pipelines that ship crude from the northeastern Syrian fields to aging refineries on the Mediterranean coast are vulnerable to sabotage. And a naval blockade of Syrian ports by U.S. or allied vessels could effectively terminate Syria's crude export sales.

The resulting loss of revenue would have an immediate impact on Damascus, curtailing Syria's capacity for rogue behavior. It would also send a clear signal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad: resisting the spread of democracy in the Middle East could have perilous consequences.

Assad's regime in particular has cultivated an aura of omnipresence and fear. The surest way to erode this is through a public display of the weakness and impotence of the regime. Iraq was one avenue, Lebanon another. Stealth aircraft taking out oil and communications targets would be still another.

Once the Syrians realize that Assad's grip is weaker than his father's, regime change will happen quickly.

Those Smoking Boots Belong to Susan Estrich

Man, did Avi Klein take gasoline-gargler Susan Estrich down in this piece:

Actually, scratch that last sentence. She isn't entirely consistent. Only with the Times did she actually follow through on her threat to go to the press with her complaints. When her bete noire was just mild-mannered Kinsley, a man at whom she felt comfortable tossing out insults such as "your illness may have affected your brain, your judgment, and your ability to do [your] job," she felt comfortable mau-mauing him within an inch of his life. (Kinsley was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.) "How's your health? Are you enjoying this?" she teased in a different email. Kinsley, ill health or not, refused to submit to such shabby treatment and so Estrich took it to the streets -- er...Internet -- with a very public attack on his character.

But when up against Al Gore and Bill Clinton, two men with real power who could cause her professional harm, who invited her to their parties, she caught the vapors. All of a sudden she forgot her sworn "obligation to make a contribution during the brief time we have here on this earth." She didn't just bury the lede: she spiked the piece and refused all public comment until she'd had time to publish the story in Sex and Power with the facts sanded and stained until she gleamed like those painted mahogany saints one finds in typical Los Angeles bodegas. In truth, she seems to have killed the piece in exchange for the watery pottage of a White house sleepover invitation. And it didn't hurt that Al Gore threatened her right back; as they say in the mean Compton streets that surround USC, "you can't play a player."

Couldn't happen to a nicer person, in my opinion.

Mary Mapes: I Know Why the Canned Producer Sings

Get set for the guilty pleasure of 2006's book rack:

The book will constitute Ms. Mapes’ defense against charges of journalistic misconduct. According to Wesley Neff, president of the literary and lecture agency that is representing Ms. Mapes, the producer plans to argue for the veracity of the four memos supposedly typed by President Bush’s former National Guard squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, in the early 1970’s.

The independent panel that investigated the segment for CBS did not reach a verdict on those memos, which were at the center of the scandal. In its Jan. 10 report, the panel wrote that it could not conclude "with absolute certainty whether the Killian documents are authentic or forgeries."

Ms. Mapes’ book proposal will include 40 pages of analysis and documentation that she offered to the panel to back up the documents’ authenticity. In an addendum to that material—supplied on the condition it not be directly quoted—Ms. Mapes avoids direct discussion of fonts and character spacing.

Hmm, that's odd---why wouldn't she want to talk about...oh, right, gotcha.

This should be the Left's new "Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

Betcha David Brock writes the New York Times' book review.

Should Child Molesters Be Allowed to Vote?

That's what Shawn Macomber thinks:

Close to five million Americans are currently barred from voting because of felony convictions. Of this number, nearly two million have completely paid their debt to society in the form of time served behind bars, parole, and probation. There is no legitimate moral argument for denying those who have regained their status as free citizens through public penance the most basic right of a citizen.

The most basic right of a citizen is not to vote. Voting is not a right at all.

For most of American history, the voting franchise was severely restricted. At first, only free male property owners could vote. After slavery was abolished, the franchise was extended more or less to all men of a certain age, although in practice the poor and the racial minorities found this a hard privilege to exercise.

The franchise was extended to women after the First World War, nearly a century-and-a-half after the nation's founding.

Voting has been regarded as a privilege since the inception of the Republic. When one commits a felony, which is by definition a serious crime, one gives up that privilege. Why should this not be so? By committing such crimes, are these individuals not stepping outside the bounds of society? Why should 5 millions Americans who choose to commit felonies by allowed to sway elections?

Macomber argues that they have paid their debt to society. I should like to see what proof he has that that is so---isn't it just as likely that they were released because the State no longer had the wherewithal to incarcerate them? There is no requirement that someone be fully rehabilitated before release.

The prohibition against felons' voting is a time-honored bit of good sense. If one really cares about casting their ballot, wouldn't they avoid the kind of behaviors that lead to felony convictions?

If felons should vote, why not resident aliens? Why not illegal aliens? Why not prisoners? Why not the mad? Why not children? Why not the comatose? All live here, all are a part of American society. If voting is a right, surely all of these people possess that right.

Voting is not a right. It is a privilege, one that no amount of egalitarian utopianism should diminish.

Released convicts have regained their liberty. That is sufficient.

Update:

Shawn Macomber doesn't think I've addressed his argument and that the header to this post is a bad joke made reality. He's entitled to his opinion, and disagreement with his position on this issue does not connote diminishing admiration for his work, which ranks with the best of political columnists out there today.

I've said it before and I'll say it again---if you're not reading The American Spectator Online every day, you should be.

Nothing Ever Changes Except When It Does

Mark Steyn in fine form yet again on the Middle East:

Assad's regime knocks off a troublemaker in Lebanon. Big deal. They've done it a gazillion times. But this time the streets are full of demonstrators demanding an end to Syrian occupation.

A suicide bomber kills four Jews. So what's new? But this time the Palestinians decline to celebrate. And some even question whether being a delivery system for plastic explosives is really all life has to offer, even on the West Bank.

Mubarak announces the arrest of an opposition leader. Like, who cares? The jails are full of 'em. But this time Condi Rice cancels her visit and the Egyptian government notices that its annual cheque from Washington is a month late.

The Left had better burn their shoelaces and belts, because George W. Bush is going to go down in history as one of the greatest liberators mankind has ever known.

The world has changed, and it's changed in large part because Dubya forced it to.

Terrorist Threat? Nah, Just the Neocons' Squashing Liberty

Another bit of disinformation in Karl Rove's ongoing Big Lie, surely:

A British computer specialist tried to set up a terrorist training camp in Arizona, where he met with Islamic radicals who claimed ties to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), a government attorney alleged Wednesday.

Babar Ahmad, who is being held in London on charges he ran terrorist fund-raising Web sites, met in Phoenix in 1998 with Yaser Al Jhani, a member of the Islamic mujahedeen militia, and others who claimed to have access to bin Laden, said John Hardy, a British lawyer representing the U.S. government.

"He expressed an interest in developing a training system in Arizona," Hardy told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from London. "That is, a training system, in effect for the mujahedeen to visit and train to fight abroad."
A British computer specialist tried to set up a terrorist training camp in Arizona, where he met with Islamic radicals who claimed ties to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), a government attorney alleged Wednesday.

Babar Ahmad, who is being held in London on charges he ran terrorist fund-raising Web sites, met in Phoenix in 1998 with Yaser Al Jhani, a member of the Islamic mujahedeen militia, and others who claimed to have access to bin Laden, said John Hardy, a British lawyer representing the U.S. government.

"He expressed an interest in developing a training system in Arizona," Hardy told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from London. "That is, a training system, in effect for the mujahedeen to visit and train to fight abroad."

Where's Lynne Stewart when you need her?

Oh, yeah.

Howard Dean Says We're Eeeeeevil

Anyone surprised?

"Moderate Republicans can't stand these people (conservatives), because they're intolerant. They don't think tolerance is a virtue," Dean said, adding: "I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant."

And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, he added: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."

When told of Dean's remarks, Derrick Sontag -- executive director of the Kansas Republican Party -- said he was "shocked."

"My immediate reaction to that whole dialogue is, it's full of hatred," Sontag said. "The Democratic Party has elected a leader that's full of hatred."

John Tierney Tapped to Fill Safire's Times Slot

Tierney's in.

(Hat tip: Michelle Malkin)

Here's a great piece on recycling Michelle pointed us to which gives a sense of Tierney's contrarianism.

Lifelike Pundits Lands Jeff Gannon

Check out Lifelike Pundits for an interview with the man at the heart of "Gannongate".

Terror Takes One More

Very bad news from Iraq: the judge presiding over Saddam Hussein's trial has been murdered.

Drudge also sets in motion the next media scandal. He reminds us that The Independent, a British newspaper, published the judge's name.

Here's the disgusting, weasel-worded justification of the editor of this paper, whose ink-stained hands are now blood-stained:

Simon Kelner, editor of The Independent, defended his decision, saying: "This was not a British court, it was an Iraqi court. We don't want to compromise the judge's safety but the cameras showed side views of him and he was instantly recognised by many Iraqis."

A good man and a patriot is dead because evil men desired it and foolish men failed to prevent it.

Perhaps those clowns with the "We're sorry" signs would care to send similar sentiments to the judge's bereaved family and countrymen.

Update:

The initial reports were apparently wrong---it was not the presiding judge who was murdered, but another judge working on the tribunal, according to MSNBC, who identifies the presiding judge within their story, which I won't link to for that reason. Thanks to Captain Ed for quickly alerting me to this new information---he remains the example for the rest of the blogosphere.

I regret the error, but not my high dudgeon. ---Teflon

Update II:

The aformentioned Captain Ed shows how this sort of thing is done and gives a generous-but-sadly-undeserved hat tip to MoltenThought.

Welcome to the shrewd purveyors of Captain's Quarters. Our main page is located here.

You Should Be Reading Michael Ledeen Right Now

Another must-read from a man who knows a thing or two about the Middle East:

Many of the brave people in the suddenly democratic Arab streets are inspired by America, and by George W. Bush himself. It should go without saying that we must support them all, in as many ways as we can. Most of that support will be political — from unwavering support by all our top officials, to support for radio and television stations, and tens of thousands of bloggers, who can provide accurate information about the real state of affairs within the Middle Eastern tyrannies, to financial assistance to workers so that they can go on strike — but some might be military, such as hitting terror camps where the mass murderers of the region are trained. We are, after all, waging war against the terrorists and their masters, as is proven by the daily carnage in Iraq and Israel, and the relentless oppression and murder of democrats in Iran.

2005 is to the Middle East what 1989 was to Eastern Europe. In the words of the masterful Mr. Ledeen: "Faster, please."

And I Shall Name My Firstborn Antonin

Gotta love Scalia in dissent (although I wished such occasions were more rare):

The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation's moral standards--and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent.

(Hat Tip: The Blogfather)

A Fine Line Between Clever and Stupid

Walid Phares thinks Assad may be smarter than we think:

Why would Syria, which is in trouble in Lebanon and under pressure because of its role in Iraq, want this additional "problem" with the Israelis? Isn't this yet another miscalculation? Possibly: But the Baathist regime needs to heat up the conflict with Israel so that the nature of its confrontation in Lebanon with an increasingly united opposition of Christians, Druze, and Sunnis (and some moderate Shiites) can change. This post-assassination unity is a lethal threat to Syria's interests in Lebanon. The regime cannot afford to withdraw from the country it has occupied for decades. Bashar Assad was offered a way out several times by the U.S. since 2002 but he continues refusing to relinquish control. With a U.N. resolution pending, and a vigorous Lebanese diaspora putting pressure worldwide, Syria's Baath is in real trouble in Lebanon. Hence, they are now using the tools at their disposal: the jihadist organizations. By striking Israel, they aim to force it to retaliate in a limited way, which will give Hezbollah the pro-Syrian regime in Beirut an opportunity to crush the opposition. Will they be successful?

I don't buy it. I think Assad quite simply overestimated both his ability to take out Hariri without Syrian fingerprints on the assassination and his own control of Lebanon.

Assad's clearly attempting to shore up his own rule in Syria by appearing strong in the face of continual setbacks in the region. His grip on power is contingent upon the fear his underlings have of him. Once that fear is gone, so is he.

Don't Know Much About the Lebanese

Here's a great roundup of recent Lebanese history and the current situation.

Kobe Bryant, Class Act

I hope the payout's greater than the ring Bryant bought his soon-to-be-ex-wife:

Sources told ABC news that Bryant and his accuser have agreed to a settlement for emotional and other injuries she said she sustained in connection with the alleged rape. Sources say the parties are meeting this week to work out the details of the settlement, which could be signed by both parties by the end of the week.

I'm not a huge fan of rape shield laws, but the judge in the criminal case who proved utterly incompetent in enforcing Colorado's law is a disgrace. This woman's name was readily available, thanks to the Keystone Cops out West.

BTK: Speechless is the word

After over 30 years of living in terror and a frustrating and dangerous investigation, authorities in Wichita, Kansas, are confident they have the "BTK" serial killer. They've formally charged Dennis Rader with 10 counts of first-degree murder.

But he's the most unlikely candidate. He's a Boy Scout leader, an officer in the Lutheran Church, involved in town enforcement, and the married father of two.

PARK CITY, Kan. — Dennis Rader was a confusing and often frustrating man for many of his neighbors.

Most said the man now accused of being the BTK serial killer was a bureaucratic bully, an ordinance enforcement officer for this suburb 7 miles north of Wichita who, they said, often went out of his way to find reasons to give people citations.

One neighbor said his wife's grandmother once found Rader measuring grass in her front yard with a tape measure to see if it was too long. Another said he and his wife sometimes caught Rader filming their house, ostensibly documenting a possible violation.

And yet, there were hints at a pleasant side. He helped elderly neighbors with yard work, was active in his church and acted as a Cub Scout leader.

He was definitely two-sided," said Jim Reno, who has lived across the street from Rader and his wife for 16 years and has had several confrontations with him over what he considered Rader's "harassment."

Rader moved into the neighborhood almost 30 years ago. He graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in administration of justice in 1979. But he never became an officer, instead going into code enforcement, or what one critic called "a glorified dog catcher."

He lived with his wife, whose parents lived around the corner. No one answered the door at the residence Saturday afternoon. Public records indicate he has two adult children.

Many residents praised his wife and her family, saying the problem was Rader.

Bill Lindsay, 38, lived behind Rader and said something about the man unnerved him. Lindsay said his wife, Tina, caught Rader in their adjoining backyards filming the back of their house.

"He really acted really funny," said Lindsay, a truck driver. "I'd be on the road and my wife would tell me, 'Dennis has been out again, taking his pictures."'

And yet, Lindsay, as well as other neighbors interviewed, said they never thought that Rader was possibly something much darker.

This is the man authorities say slaughtered nearly an entire family on his (presumably) first round of murder, and who subsequently strangled several female victims. Other unsolved investigations have been reopened as a result of his capture. Officers are doing their best to keep details out of the media to ensure a fair trial, yet sources have managed to report that Rader has confessed to 6 of the killings.

So many questions go unanswered. Other than the obvious, "How could someone do such a thing?" to "How could he remain anonyous under the noses of investigators and family?"; there is the still more puzzling question: why did he wait 18 years between correspondence to police? Were I an investigator, I would start the questioning with his wife.

Rader’s younger brother, Jeff Rader, told The Wichita Eagle in Tuesday’s editions that no one in the family believes his brother is the BTK serial killer.

“I don’t think my brother is BTK,” he said. “But if he is — if that’s the truth — then let the truth be the truth. And may God have mercy on his soul.”

The Fulcrum of the Middle East

Captain's Quarter's has the best post I've seen yet laying out the strategic imperatives of the ongoing American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It all comes down to geography and the notion of interior lines.

Whither Lebanon? Wither, Syria

Great news continues for lovers of liberty:

Minutes after Prime Minister Omar Karami announced he was stepping down, jubilant demonstrators — shouting, waving flags and handing red roses to soldiers — demanded that Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud (search) bow out, too, and pressed on with their calls for Syria to withdraw its troops from the country.

This puts Assad in an untenable position. If he crushes dissent in Lebanon, he'll run afoul of the international community (insignificant) and the Coalition (very significant).



Prior to the Iraq War, the U.S. options were limited to attacking Syria from Turkey (dicy proposition nowadays) or from Israel (not going to happen, ever).

Placing the bulk of the U.S. Army in Iraq changes the equation significantly.

Add a friendly Lebanon to the mix, and Assad's days are numbered.

Messing with the "insurgency" looks to have been a very, very stupid move for Assad.

Eat Ladies, Eat!

Behold the rarely seen but highly feared "Swankback"!



And the dreaded "Portmansternum"!



Gasp! Now the "Waistaway"!

SSSCCCRRREEEAAAMMM!!!

Unexpected Error Found In High School Educations---System Shutdown in Progress

Bill Gates isn't getting much for the money he donated to education:

The governors painted a dire picture of the state of public high schools, releasing statistics that, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, showed 68% of ninth-graders graduate from high school on time.

But, measuring a different way, U.S. government statistics show steady increases in high school graduation rates, particularly among whites and African Americans, although less so for Latinos.

For example, the high school graduation rate for adults 25 years or older was at an all-time high of 85% in 2003, as was the 27% share of adults holding at least a bachelor's degree.

Behind the national numbers, there is general agreement that wide disparities exist among high schools and that geography, income, race and ethnicity affect the value of a diploma.

Of course, there's a major fallacy here the educats invariably like to inject: we educate people to do things, not to be things. The value of a diploma has nothing whatsoever to do with geography, income, race, or ethnicity---it's what you can do with the skills you've mastered on your way to the diploma.

It does no good to crank out more diplomas if those diplomas don't truly signify an ability to work and contribute in some significant way to society. That's the "Do" part of the "Know-Do" loop. And that's where high schools are failing, according to Gates:

His involvement began with a college scholarship program for minority students. But then he and his wife realized many of the students they were sponsoring did not have the academic skills to survive in college.

"The more we looked at the data, the more we came to see that there is more than one barrier to college," Gates said. "There's the barrier of not being able to pay for college, but there's the barrier of not being prepared for college."

Gates called for a new design for American high schools, based on smaller schools with higher standards for math and language proficiency, instruction that is relevant to students' goals in life and better support from teachers and counselors.

He also called for a get-tough approach toward schools that fail.

"When the students don't learn, the school must change," Gates said. "Every state needs a strong intervention strategy to improve struggling schools."

"This needs to include special teams of experts who are given the power and resources to turn things around," he said.

Do you think Microsoft's technical support is a wonderful innovation? That's what Gates is pushing for schools: teams of empowered experts to intervene with failing schools.

A better strategy is the one most of us turn to when Microsoft's products fail: shut down and reboot.

Is the Senate More Like Ward Cleaver or More Like Tony Soprano?

Andrew McCarthy hits on a major faultline in the Democrats' argument that the advice and consent clause entitles them to prior consultation and prior veto of the President's appointments:

Nor need we content ourselves with such linguistic deductions about what the framers must have intended. As Mark Levin has recently pointed out in his bestselling book, Men in Black (188-89), Hamilton made it abundantly clear. In Federalist No. 66, he flatly asserted: "It will be the office of the President to nominate, and, with the advice and consent of the senate, to appoint. There will, of course, be no exertion of choice on the part of the Senate. They may defeat one choice of the Executive, and oblige him to make another; but they cannot themselves choose — they can only ratify or reject the choice he may have made." (Emphasis added.)

In Federalist No. 76, moreover, Hamilton offered an extensive explanation of the rationale, precluding any suggestion of a senate role in nominations. The framers believed that reposing this power in the "sole and undivided responsibility of" a single official, the president, would "naturally beget a livelier sense of duty and a more exact regard for reputation" than could be achieved were the decision left to a committee. For them, a committee (such as the one Senator Schumer suggests) would only serve to multiply the number of "personal considerations" (as opposed to considerations of competence and fitness) that might result in poor choices.

Keeping with this theme of minimizing personal considerations, Hamilton also argued that because the power to nominate would be vested in the president alone, and because the senate would be limited to the power to overrule once the nomination was made, senators would realize that all they could achieve by overruling was yet another candidate of the president's unilateral choosing. The idea — which has rich resonance today — was precisely to discourage the unreasonable withholding of consent, since the senators "could not assure themselves," Hamilton wrote, "that the person they might wish would be brought forward by a second or by any subsequent nomination."

Simply put, advice is something one can take or leave without dire consequences, of the sort Ward Cleaver gives, not Tony Soprano.

David Gergen, Mouth of Eason

Mealymouthed milquetoast David Gergen Quisling was named Enemy of the Week by The American Spectator:

Barney Frank, the hero of Davos, deserves to be feted for saving the world from Eason Jordan. And thus from David Gergen, who would empty a Correspondents' Dinner faster than a fire marshal. Jordan can only be described as a fool, falling in love with one Sharon Stone just as she decides she's at a point in her life at which women might be more attractive. But Gergen is something else entirely. He's been oozing sycophancy on behalf of privilege since at least the reign of Louis XVI, finding time eventually to put in a good word for Robespierre while serving as Talleyrand's gofer. But whereas the last survived purely to give cynicism a place at the table, Gergen always does so in the name of morality. So at Davos he famously suggested Mr. Jordan had "walked himself back" from the poison he'd planted, as if dropping the big one were the equivalent of tossing a water-filled balloon.

Needless to say, Gergen's intervention was about successful as Putin's in Ukraine. Undeterred, he returned to the U.S. in time to inject himself into the Harvard wars, this time with a call of unpalatable advice to its Jeff Gannon, one Lawrence Summers. A leading critic of Summers had said she had to leave the room on hearing what he'd said, lest she threw up. Thanks to EOW Dave Gergen, we know the feeling.

When making the crucial decision as to whose boots to lick, David, it pays to pay attention to their long-term prospects for remaining in power. Soon-to-be-impeached Presidents and executives prone to accusing the U.S. military of murdering civilians are wastes of your sniveling minion skills.

Congratulations "Ray"

You've earned it. Here's a kleenex. And a hug. Good job.

Saudis Unmasked

Looks like Saudi Arabia is up to something after all...
Hmm...
Even after we learned the identities of the 9/11 bombers almost FOUR years ago there are still those who maintain the Saudis have no ties to terror.
Riiiiiight...
Grab the link and notice how many times the word "duh" springs to mind.

Getting Syrious

Hmm, wonder what prompted this gesture of "goodwill" on Assad's part:

Iraqi officials said Sunday that Syria captured and handed over Saddam Hussein's half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency, ending months of Syrian denials that it was harboring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.

Perhaps he gave up harboring mass murderers for Lent.

I Know Why the Hyena Laughs

Just sittin' around the carcass of liberalism with a few of my cackling buddies, like John Leo:

Liberals have been slow to grasp the mainstream reaction to the no-values culture, chalking it up to Karl Rove, sinister fundamentalists, racism, or the stupidity of the American voter. Since November 2, the withering contempt of liberals for ordinary Americans has been astonishing. Voting for Bush gave "quite average Americans a chance to feel superior," said Andrew Hacker, a prominent liberal professor at Queens College. We are seeing the bitterness of elites who wish to lead, confronted by multitudes who do not wish to follow. Liberals might one day conclude that while most Americans value autonomy, they do not want a procedural republic in which patriotism, religion, socialization, and traditional values are politically declared out of bounds. Many Americans notice that liberalism nowadays lacks a vocabulary of right and wrong, declines to discuss virtue except in snickering terms, and seems increasingly hostile to prevailing moral sentiments.

Success invariably contains within it the seeds of failure. In this case, the moral equivalence and nonjudgmentalism that so appealed to Americans in the 20th century is already played out in the earliest days of the 21st. We've seen where nihilism gets you, and we're now fighting for our lives and freedom against the bleakest nihilists yet to crawl from the chasm.

Sitting in a Bunker, Here Behind the Wall

...waiting for Europe to implode. At least, that's what Mark Steyn thinks the Bush Administration was up to with the European tour:

A week ago, the conventional wisdom was that George W. Bush had seen the error of his unilateral cowboy ways and was setting off to Europe to mend fences with America's ''allies.''

I think not. Lester Pearson, the late Canadian prime minister, used to say that diplomacy is the art of letting the other fellow have your way. All week long President Bush offered a hilariously parodic reductio of Pearson's bon mot, wandering from one European Union gabfest to another insisting how much he loves his good buddy Jacques and his good buddy Gerhard and how Europe and America share -- what's the standard formulation? -- ''common values.'' Care to pin down an actual specific value or two that we share? Well, you know, ''freedom,'' that sort of thing, abstract nouns mostly. Love to list a few more common values, but gotta run.

And at the end what's changed?

Will the United States sign on to Kyoto?

No.

Will the United States join the International Criminal Court?

No.

Will the United States agree to accept whatever deal the Anglo-Franco-German negotiators cook up with Iran?

No.

Why everyone continues to underestimate the President is beyond me. He is clearly one of the most gifted politicians of his generation, exiling Democrat after Democrat to obscurity and rolling up one electoral triumph after another.

Why should the Europeans be any different?

Vox Blogoli 2.2: Objective in Sight

Here's an After Action Review of the battle to this point over the GOP Senate judiciary strategy and whether Republicans should ape Grant (fight!) or McClellan (prepare):

Good and Evil News believes the judiciary will be the key lever of power for decades to come---Grant.

Budman doesn't like the choices; war is hell, after all---Sherman.

View from A Height finds a precedent in former GOP House Speaker and master tactician Thomas Reed---Grant.

Carreterus Linnaeas recommends the first strike option---Grant.

Bunker Busting Bunnies advises letting the chips fall where they may, and notes that forcing the MSM to cover this helps the GOP---Grant.

Kyzylkum wants to see the rules changed around cloture votes and a group slate up-or-down vote---Grant.

GrannyHelen at Kos says the GOP must compromise or die, and that the Democrats are simply representing their constituents by obstructing Bush's judicial picks---McClellan.

Matthew Maynard counters that one definition of tyranny is minority rule---Grant.

Opaque Lucidity posits that the best guarantor of the will of the people being honored is to seat judges which will not overturn it arbitrarily---Grant.

Mythusmage says render the Dems irrelevant, and wants a stronger option than Grant---Sherman.

The Mortgage Blog issues a call to arms for the GOP---Grant.

Right Mom points out that Harry Reid is Newt Gingrich minus ideas, and the GOP should welcome the opportunity to expose the Dems' lack of same---Grant.

The Curt Jester is skeptical of Republican intestinal fortitude, but prefers the nuclear option to having Lucy jerk the football away from Charlie Brown yet again---Grant.

Little Red Blog explodes the fallacy of the Senate as co-equal with the President in the arena of judicial appointments, and notes that their historic adoption of filibustering judicial appointees is nothing less than an effort to force the GOP to attain a supermajority where no such requirement previously existed---Grant.

At the Hundredth Meridian notes that to follow Grant's strategy, one must be led by a Grant, as the GOP is not---McClellan.

Taxable Talk sees some sort of compromise between Grant and McClellan in the offing, though hopefully not a Petain---Neither.

Spinning Clay notes that when your enemy is going Lee, you'd be well-advised to go Grant yourself---Grant.

XBIP calls, "Shut it down"---Grant.

Americanian fears that Grant is nonexistent in the GOP Senate ranks---McClellan.

One Clear Call says minority rule is tyranny and going Grant is a no-brainer---Grant.

All right, so some new angles in this batch.

The questions raised this round seem to me to be:

1. Should the Democrats be allowed to filibuster judicial nominees and therefore impose a 60-vote supermajority for advise and consent for them?

2. Will anyone in the GOP Senate leadership have the guts to vigorously oppose the Democrats on this?

3. Will obstruction of Bush judicial appointees help or hurt the Democrats?


To the first question, I think the answer is clearly no. GrannyHelen at Kos tries to advance the claim that Democrats are merely representing their constituents and that the GOP should be forced to pick appointees which Democrats support. That is patent nonsense, for the reasons several bloggers mention---namely majority rule. The objective is to satisfy the majority of Americans, not a rump minority. Moreover, 45% of Americans are not opposed to Bush's judicial nominees, even though 45% of the Senate is in lockstep opposition. This has a lot more to do with party strategy and discipline than it does with representing your average Americans.

Moreover, within each Senator's constituency is a large number of folks who didn't vote for them. How is it that representing a Senate constituency means advancing the cause of a bare majority at best, while the only man to go before the electoral judgment of every single voting American needs to appeal to more than 60%? I think you know the answer.

And if the shoe was on the other foot, you'd hear Kos advocating passionately for "the will of the people" and majoritarian view. It's a weak argument, even if politely put this time.

As for the second question, the history of the Senate GOP hardly warms the heart that our senators will have the backbone to fight Wimpy Harry. That's okay---we'll be their backbone. Arlen Specter received a taste of what is to come if the GOP wavers. We won't let them cave, and neither will Bush.

To whether all this will help or hurt Democrats, I think the answer is it will hurt them. Tom Daschle was tossed out of office for being a liar and a whiner. He gladhanded with Bush whenever he needed to pull the wool over South Dakotans' eyes yet again, then went back and fought like a demon to prevent Bush from doing anything he was elected to do. He's gone now.

If you want a good indication of what the likely outcome is for Senate Democrats, keep a close eye on Hillary Clinton. She's tacking Right to provide some cover for the battles to come. She's not doing that because she wants to---she's the Madame DeFarge of the Democratic Party, after all. She's doing that because her lust for power outweighs her lust for her ideology.

Senators have to be more centrist than House members because their constituents are much more politically diverse. If the Democrats fail to fire up their base into a frenzy over this, they're done.

Moreover, the rules they set now will come back to haunt them in any future Democrat administration. The Republicans are a lot closer to a 60-seat supermajority in the Senate than the Democrats are, after all.

Note also that every blog who wishes well for the GOP advocates a Grant (or Sherman!) approach, even if they think the GOP will go McClellan. That's significant.

The GOP base is strapping on their shields and sharpening their swords. Whether Frist is McClellan or Grant, I guarantee you he will be in the thick of the fray shortly, like it or not.

[Edited to note that it was GrannyHelen at Kos, not Kos, who posed the Democrats-representing-their-constituents argument. Also eliminated the description of Kos as a Democratic party hard-liner, as I have no idea whether such a description would fit GrannyHelen. Thanks to Beldar for commenting on this post, for catching the error, and for thus giving me the opportunity to correct it. My apologies to Kos for the original erroneous attribution. Also edited to fix link to Mythusmage---Teflon]