Asking "Why?" Without Really Meaning It

I'm not sure why I waste my time with stupid bullshit like this, but since this guy seems to believe he is open-mindedly asking a sincere question, I can't help but answer.

The title of the WorldNutDaily article is pretty straight forward, "Why would 'gays' want children?" He then goes on to disingenously claim that he is asking sincere questions, that gay people creating families and raising children only do so to further the homosexual agenda.

There is a reason for homosexual activists to have kids; it is part of the great deception that no one is to question. By having children in the picture, the attempt to complete the circle and to convince the world that such a family unit is normal is all-important.

Yes, that is the only reason we homos do ANYTHING at all. The only reason I get up in the morning is to support the homosexual agenda and destroy the family unit. As I sit in my house that I jointly purchased with my wife-- as two legally defined "single" people-- I guess I missed the line in the mortgage paperwork where we acknowledged that the only reason we did so was to stick it to the heteros. Same goes for when we got married and went on our honeymooon or everything else we've done in the past eight years-- just to stick it to the heteros. No, not because we are trying to live happy lives, not because we fell in love, but because we want to stick it the heteros.

This is another one of those instances where a straight person has it stuck in their tiny little head that our very existence, our entire lives, are all about sticking it to them. Sorry, but our lives really don't revolve around you or your thoughts about us in the way that you appear to believe. Strangely enough when I get up in the morning with my wife, have a cup of coffee, discuss the day, no part of our discussion is how to piss off those who don't approve or like us.

Naturally this all bile comes up because of his intrusion and assumptions about Mary Cheney's pregnancy. Did Mary show up on his doorstep with her positive pee stick test? No. Where does he get off thinking this has anything to do with him or others like him? On top of that he makes interesting, ignorant assumptions about the relationship between the donor and Heather Poe, Mary's partner. He assumes they have no biological connection, which might be true, but it very well might not be. How does he know it wasn't Heather's egg? For someone who believes themselves to be such an expert on homos he doesn't seem to know much about how we create our families.

I'm curious, as it has been publicly stated that Mary isn't due until the spring, if she were to end in miscarriage would these people rejoice? Something tells me they would. All in the name of being "pro-life" and "pro-family," of course. Because nothing says "pro-family" like demonizing other people's families.

I find it most interesting that in our desire to be treated like other families under the law that we are accused of wanting "special rights." The fact is they want to preserve their "special rights" be treated as inherently superior, if that isn't the essence of bigotry I don't know what is.

May Your Days Be Merry and Bright

"Get up, Aunt Martha — you're sitting on the damn fruitcake!"

Well, this is it for me. I'm signing off from the blog until right after New Year's Day. As I head to my in-laws' home in Pittsburgh, my holiday celebrations will be guided by a question that is summarized by these blessed four letters: WWJD.

Y'know, "What Would Jesus Drink?"

The "Troop Surge" Idea

There are growing signs that President Bush — once he returns from the oracle at Delphi — will propose a short-term increase in troops in Iraq. Writing in Newsweek, Christopher Dickey contends that the troop surge would be a bad idea:

I hope the president really does listen to his generals and to the Iraq Study Group and to others who are explaining to him ever so patiently that the surge would be a bad idea.

Maybe a sports metaphor would work: this is like calling a quarterback sneak for a final desperate push into the end zone — when you’re still back at the 50-yard line.

Her Royal High-Tech-Ness

From the AP:

Queen Elizabeth II's traditional Christmas speech will be available as a podcast this year for the first time. A download can be ordered in advance for free on the British monarchy's Web site, royal officials said Friday.

Internet users can also view the speech online and a text version will be posted on the royal Web site.

Naturally, the Bushies Sat on This Study

From today's N.Y. Times:

The United States offers some of the most lucrative incentives in the world to companies that drill for oil in publicly owned coastal waters, but a newly released study suggests that the government is getting very little for its money.

The study, which the Interior Department refused to release for more than a year, estimates that current inducements could allow drilling companies in the Gulf of Mexico to escape tens of billions of dollars in royalties that they would otherwise pay the government for oil and gas produced in areas that belong to American taxpayers.

But the study predicts that the inducements would cause only a tiny increase in production even if they were offered without some of the limitations now in place.

It also suggests that the cost of that additional oil could be as much as $80 a barrel, far more than the government would have to pay if it simply bought the oil on its own.

Yet more proof that we can't drill our way out of our energy problems.

The Katrina Population Shift

From today's Houston Chronicle:

Framing the massive scope of the Hurricane Katrina migration, the Census Bureau reports that Texas gained more people than any other state between 2005 and 2006, while storm-struck neighbor Louisiana lost the most.

Texas gained a whopping 579,275 people, bringing the state's population to 23.5 million by July 1, 2006. As many as 160,000 of the new arrivals were driven by Hurricane Katrina, estimates demographer Steven Murdock, director of the Texas State Data Center.

Louisiana lost nearly 220,000 of its residents, clearly exporting the lion's share of its uprooted population to Texas.

Coming Up for Air

For anyone who follows this blog with any regularity, I've been away for a bit. Which is sort of strange considering as of late I have had more free time to blog than ever-- because I recently got fired from my job. A total first for me. No matter how much I didn't like the job and the reasons were incoherent and flimsy, it still feels like I got kicked squarely in the teeth.

But I've recovered, healing nicely, I've been busy applying for new jobs, filing for unemployment, having a lot of time for soul-searching-and-taking-stock and all that. I'm hoping it could end up being one of the best/worst cliched things (you know the kind, at a cocktail party five years from now I'll say it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me) because I'm now getting ready to apply for grad school, something I've done far more talking about than actually doing for a fair number of years.

So, I just wanted to say "heya" and add that I'm really enjoying the comments section as of late, a few new voices we haven't seen before. Although maybe that'll change since I should be around more, especially since I'm one of those "happy holidays" people where this Sunday is just a Sunday like any other. (Oh, shit, they have a crazy liberal Jewish lesbian on here? I'm so outta here.)

I also want to give Frederick a big fat atta-boy for making and keeping things so lively for the past 2 weeks.

Bush Tries to Run to the Front of the Parade

President Bush speaking at yesterday's press conference:

The American people expect us to be good stewards of their tax dollars here in Washington. So we must work together to reduce the number of earmarks inserted into large spending bills, and reform the earmark process to make it more transparent and more accountable.

So says the president who hasn't vetoed a single bill with such abusive earmarks.

Mitt Romney's Mormonism

As Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney considers a presidential bid in 2008, Slate's Jacob Weisberg has a question for you:

Someone who refuses to consider voting for a woman as president is rightly deemed a sexist. Someone who'd never vote for a black person is a racist. But are you a religious bigot if you wouldn't cast a ballot for a believing Mormon?

The entire column is here.

A Whole 'Nother Level of Deception

I recently finished a book on the Kim dynasty in North Korea called "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader." When it comes to war and government-sponsored deception, the Kims have been pros; next to these guys, Bush is merely an amateur.

The author, Bradley K. Martin, notes that during the Korean War, the regime of Kim Il-sung circulated stories of soldierly martyrdom among the public. Martin translated one of the martyr stories told by the regime:

Hero Kang Ho-yung was seriously wounded in both arms and both legs in the Kamak Hill battle, so he rolled into the midst of the enemy with a hand grenade in his mouth and wiped them out, shouting:

"My arms and legs were broken. But on the contrary my retaliatory spirit against you scoundrels became a thousand times stronger. I will show the unbending fighting will of a member of the Workers' Party of Korea and unflinching will firmly pledged to the Party and the Leader!"

Then, we are supposed to believe, Kang Ho-yung blew himself up in order to kill many enemy soldiers. Of course, this story begs several questions:

1. How could North Korean officials possibly know exactly what the supposedly Kang Ho-yung shouted since he didn't live to tell them this story?

2. How could Kang Ho-yung shout anything if he had a hand grenade in his mouth?

3. How could Kang Ho-yung run "into the midst" of enemy troops and have enough time to shout 48 words before one of those enemy troops shot him dead?

This grandiose lie from North Korea makes the Pat Tillman story look like nothing.

A Goode Reason for Church-State Separation

Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) is one of several conservatives who are all bent out of shape by the fact that Congressman-elect Keith Ellison has decided to take the oath of office on the Koran, not the Bible.

But if it weren't silly enough for Goode to criticize Ellison's decision, Goode has gone one ridiculous step further by trying to link Ellison's decision to immigration. (Ellison is not an immigrant.)

Goode has sent a letter to many of his constituents, and CNN posted these excerpts of the letter:

"When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way.

"The Muslim representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.

"We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country.

"I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America ....

"The Ten Commandments and 'In God We Trust' are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran.

"My response was clear, 'As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, the Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.'"

You can put whatever you want on your wall, congressman. Just don't expect every other congressman to do the same.

Hooray For Darfur!

Congratulations to all those who have died in Darfur - your misery has become so prolonged and the situation so dire that it has finally made it into the Associated Press's list of top ten stories of 2006 - just barely

1. IRAQ

2. U.S. ELECTION

3. NUCLEAR STANDOFFS

4. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

5. SCANDALS IN CONGRESS

6. SADDAM CONVICTED

7. MIDEAST FIGHTING

7. RUMSFELD RESIGNS

9. AIRLINER PLOT

10. DISASTER IN DARFUR

You didn't make it in 2005, 2004, or 2003, but you stuck with it and continued to get killed, raped, and succumb to disease and malnutrition while being increasingly cut off from assistance as hope for any sort of solution rapidly disappeared.

It took three years, but your suffering has finally been noticed. Enjoy it while you can, because next year at this time, if you are still alive, the continuing lack of any discernable plan to alleviate your suffering probably won't qualify as newsworthy.

A Nascent Effort to Form a New Iraqi Gov't

U.S. leaders aren't the only ones who are fed up with the ineptitude of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

A move to form a new Shiite-Sunni coalition government is gaining momentum in Iraq. The major goals are to end the sectarian civil war that has raged for several months and to break the hold that Moqtada al-Sadr has over the current regime. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is reportedly backing this effort.

This is probably good news. But, as Tapped's Spencer Ackerman explains, nothing in Iraq is quite as simple or easy as it may seem.

What Does Rat Soup Look Like?

Apparently, something like this.

Zimbabwe's ambassador to United States told CNN on Tuesday that reports of people in Zimbabwe eating rats were misleading because the eating of mice in that country "is a delicacy."

But, Elizabeth, a mother of six children in Zimbabwe seems to disagree. U.S. journalists aren't permitted to operate freely in Zimbabwe, but CNN managed to interview Elizabeth by using a surrogate cameraman-journalist. CNN reports on Elizabeth and her children:

Tonight, they dine on rats.

"Look what we've been reduced to eating?" [Elizabeth] said. "How can my children eat rats in a country that used to export food? This is a tragedy."

This is a story about how Zimbabwe, once dubbed southern Africa's bread basket, has in six short years become a basket case. It is about a country that once exported surplus food now apparently falling apart, with many residents scrounging for rodents to survive.

According to the CIA fact book, which profiles the countries of the world, the Zimbabwean economy is crashing — inflation was at least 585 percent by the end of 2005 — and the nation now must import food.

Doing Wonders for the NFL's Image

Have 15 percent of your coworkers been arrested this year? That was the question posed by Kevin Hench at FoxSports.com. Hench writes:

Not even the United States Congress, despite the best efforts of Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, William "the Cooler" Jefferson, Mark Foley, et al., can claim [a 15 percent arrest] rate.

What is in the water in Cincinnati? Vodka apparently.

With Deltha O'Neal's arrest for drunk driving [Dec. 8], the (Cincinnati) Bengals organization has broken its own single-season record for stupidity and selfishness.

... Does (head coach) Marvin Lewis have a dedicated phone for these late-night calls — the DUI line? Is .10 the average blood alcohol content of the Bengals at any given moment, or is it the team's average IQ?

They weren't all DUIs. One was for "boating" under the influence. Other arrests were made for such infractions as carrying a concealed weapon, drug possession, spousal battery, vandalism and burglary.

Last night on NFL "Monday Night Football," one member of the broadcast team reported that the Cincinnati Bengals front office had arranged for a limousine service to provide a ride for any Bengals player who felt he was too drunk to drive.

Given the salaries most of these players receive, you'd think they could easily afford to have a limo and driver waiting outside the bar at which they're drinking.

Three Words That Make Gov. Romney a Liar

Trying to reassure the social conservatives in the GOP, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney attempted to clarify his position on gay rights yesterday. According to the AP:

Romney said there was nothing inconsistent between his position then and his vigorous opposition to gay marriage in Massachusetts now.

"I'm not in favor of discrimination of any kind, including people who have a different sexual preference than myself," he said. "At the same time I'm very committed to traditional marriage between one man and one woman and believe that marriage should be preserved in that way."

It's obvious that Romney is in favor of discrimination of at least one kind: marriage rights.

It might be one thing for Romney to say, "I generally oppose discrimination, but, in this case, I believe ..." However, for Romney to use the words "of any kind" is about as intellectually dishonest as you can get.

Iraq Is the "Main Front"

According to The Borowitz Report, President Bush is testing a new argument in the hope of rebuilding support for the U.S. military effort in Iraq.

Hezbollah and Deep Purple? It's "Index Time"

Some random items from a recent edition of Harper's Index:

Rank of the Lebanese government and Hezbollah, respectively, among Lebanon's top employers: 1, 2

Days beforehand that Deep Purple had to cancel the July 27 Lebanon date on its “Rapture of the Deep” tour: 4

But this item was my favorite:

Salary of the White House's new Director for Lessons Learned: $106,641

How can anyone not love Harper's Index?

Pitts Tackles Reader's Question

Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr., has received constant emails from a reader who wants to know why Pitts, who isn't gay, frequently writes about the issue of gay rights. Pitts decided it was a question worth addressing. In this column, Pitts writes:

I just find myself intrigued by the idea that if you're not gay, you shouldn't care about gay rights.

The most concise answer I can give is cribbed from what a white kid said 40 or so years ago, as white college students were risking their lives to travel South and register black people to vote. Somebody asked why. He said he acted from an understanding that his freedom was bound up with the freedom of every other man.

... I know also that some folks are touchy about anything seeming to equate the black civil rights movement with the gay one. And no, gay people were not kidnapped from Gay Land and sold into slavery, nor lynched by the thousands.

On the other hand, they do know something about housing discrimination, they do know job discrimination, they do know murder for the sin of existence, they do know the denial of civil rights and they do know what it is like to be used as scapegoat and bogeyman by demagogues and political opportunists.

They know enough of what I know that I can't ignore it. .... It seems to me if I abhor intolerance, discrimination and hatred when they affect people who look like me, I must also abhor them when they affect people who do not.

... Among the things we seem to have lost in the years since that white kid made his stand is the ability, the imagination, the willingness to put ourselves into the skin of those who are not like us.

The Best Political Moments of '06

Slate.com's John Dickerson presents us with five of the year's best political moments.

How Lax Is the Security Situation in Iraq?

So lax that, according to the N.Y. Times:

Iraq’s former electricity minister, the most senior official arrested on corruption charges here, made a brazen escape Sunday afternoon from an Iraqi jail in the heavily fortified Green Zone.

There were conflicting reports about how the former official, Aiham Alsammarae, who is a citizen of both the United States and Iraq, was able not only to break out of jail but also to elude capture in the four-square-mile area that includes the American Embassy, Iraq’s Parliament and the homes of politicians and members of the American military command.

"Tis the Season to Be Jolly ..."

Eh, Mr. Vice President?

Brownback Withdraws His Disturbing Quid Pro Quo

From today's New York Times:

Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who blocked the confirmation of a woman to the federal bench because she attended a same-sex commitment ceremony for the daughter of her long-time neighbors, says he will now allow a vote on the nomination.

... Mr. Brownback, who has been criticized for blocking the nomination, said he would also no longer press a proposed solution he offered on Dec. 8 that garnered even more criticism: that he would remove his block if Judge Neff agreed to recuse herself from all cases involving same-sex unions.

... [Mr. Brownback] said he did not realize his proposal — asking a nominee to agree in advance to remove herself from deciding a whole category of cases — was so unusual as to be possibly unprecedented. Legal scholars said it raised constitutional questions of separation of powers for a senator to demand that a judge commit to behavior on the bench in exchange for a vote.

What's particularly disturbing is that this man apparently wants to be our next president.

A War on Xmas? Blame It on Ike and the 1950s

Slate.com's David Greenberg has written an interesting article that provides an appropriate rejoinder to the hysterical Christian conservatives who keep whining about a supposed "war on Christmas." Greenberg writes:

Mary Evans Seeley's book Season's Greetings from the White House: The Collection of Presidential Christmas Cards, Messages, and Gifts shows that "Season's Greetings" was used on White House holiday correspondence by no less than Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s. Likewise, Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton all took care, as well, not to alienate non-Christian recipients of holiday mail.

Few people expressed a problem with this long-standing practice until now.

It's fitting that Eisenhower should have pioneered the tradition of all-purpose holiday messages. ... [the 1950s were] also the golden age of the "interfaith" movement and the spread of that insipid public-relations neologism Judeo-Christian (a phrase that crystallizes the conflation of Christmas and Hanukkah).

Will Herberg's classic Protestant-Catholic-Jew (1955) captured the detente achieved among America's three leading religions. The book examined the Eisenhower Era condition of "pervasive secularism amid mounting religiosity."

Herberg concluded that Americans (not unlike Ike) placed a high value not so much on God as on religion itself.

"One's particular religion is, of course, to be cherished and loyally adhered to," he wrote, "but it is not felt to be something that one 'flaunts' in the face of people of other faiths."

Most Americans in the 1950s believed in God, yet insisted that their beliefs didn't impinge much on their politics or business affairs.

In Iraq, More Platitudes, More Body Bags

The only difference this time is that it was Tony Blair, not President Bush, expressing unbridled optimism about a situation that is spinning out of control. From today's N.Y. Times:

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain pledged his support for the Iraqi government in a surprise visit here on Sunday. Less than a mile from where he spoke, gunmen in police uniforms seized 25 employees of an Iraqi aid organization.

Mr. Blair said preparations to give control of Basra, the southern city where the British military is based, to Iraqi troops were “going well.”

... American trainers have seen police cars lost and uniforms stolen or sold, “so there is the possibility that [the kidnapping] could be sectarian in nature,” he said. “It also could be for ransom based on what you know goes on in this city.”

Abductees who are not released often end up dead, their bodies found in sewers and garbage dumps. Those bodies add to the daily death toll, which in Baghdad on Sunday was 32.

Powell Disputes Need for More Troops

Only days after GOP presidential aspirant John McCain called for additional U.S. troops to be deployed in Iraq, ex-Sec. of State Colin Powell begged to differ. According to the N.Y. Times:

Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state and former chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that the Army was “about broken” and that he saw nothing to justify an increase in troops in Iraq.

“I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppression of this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work,” he said in an interview on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

... Mr. Powell said heavy demands on the Army had meant “a backlog of equipment that is not being repaired” and “repetitive tours” for soldiers assigned to Iraq.

“So if you surge now,” he said, “you’re going to be bringing in troops from the United States who have already been kept there even longer.”

For '08, What About the Governors?

So far, this is what the Democratic presidential field looks like for the 2008 presidential primaries:

Declared candidates: Tom Vilsack and Dennis Kucinich

Likely candidates: Hillary Clinton and John Edwards

Potential candidates: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Wesley Clark, Russ Feingold, Bill Richardson and Christopher Dodd

On Saturday, Evan Bayh declared he would not run. There may be other Democrats out there weighing their options, but this is my best take on the field of candidates at this moment.

Notice anything strange?

Out of the 11 candidates who have announced or may yet announce, only two of them (Vilsack and Richardson) are governors.

In the past 35 years, only two Democrats have been elected president. Both of them, Carter and Clinton, were governors — either sitting governors or governors who had just concluded their term in office.

There's a reason for this success. Unlike congressmen or senators, governors don't produce a long list of recorded votes — including procedural votes — that are easy for political opponents to cherry-pick, attack and misrepresent. On the surface, this would seem to speak well of Vilsack. But I'm not impressed by him. He might be a potential veep candidate, but he lacks the charisma to be at the top of the ticket.

Any other Democratic governors who are presidential timber?

Other than Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, the pickings are damn slim.

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner has already declared he is not going to run.

Gov. Sebelius of Kansas is one of the Democratic Party's rising stars, but she doesn't appear to have national ambitions — at least not now.

Gov. Napolitano of Arizona won a resounding re-election this November, but an unmarried woman with a five-syllable surname probably would face an uphill battle. She has already been the subject of rumors that she is a closeted lesbian.

Gov. Schweitzer of Montana is well-liked, and there's even a blog promoting his (presumed) presidential candidacy. Yet Schweitzer would have to abandon the governor's mansion in Helena (he's up in 2008) in order to make a run for the White House. There's no sign that Schweitzer wants to be president badly enough to raise the kind of money that is needed. But he definitely belongs on the list of potential No. 2's on the ticket.

Gov. Rendell of Pennsylvania will probably be on everyone's vice-presidential list, but there are rumors that he's reluctant to run (and that he may have a few skeletons in his closet). On the one hand, Rendell won re-election with an impressive 60% of the vote. On the other hand, his GOP opponent ran perhaps the worst gubernatorial campaign in the country.

West Virginia Gov. Manchin is very popular in his state and could probably pull this swing state over to the Dems if he were chosen as the V.P. candidate, but Manchin is not at all interested in the top job.

What the Rich Owe Society

As the calendar year winds down, many Americans write checks to charitable organizations. In the Sunday N.Y. Times magazine, Princeton University bioethics professor Peter Singer explores the issue of how much the rich should give.

At one point, Singer tells this story:

A few years ago, an African-American cabdriver taking me to the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington asked me if I worked at the bank.

I told him I did not but was speaking at a conference on development and aid. He then assumed that I was an economist, but when I said no, my training was in philosophy, he asked me if I thought the U.S. should give foreign aid. When I answered affirmatively, he replied that the government shouldn’t tax people in order to give their money to others. That, he thought, was robbery.

When I asked if he believed that the rich should voluntarily donate some of what they earn to the poor, he said that if someone had worked for his money, he wasn’t going to tell him what to do with it.

At that point we reached our destination. Had the journey continued, I might have tried to persuade him that people can earn large amounts only when they live under favorable social circumstances, and that they don’t create those circumstances by themselves.

I could have quoted Warren Buffett’s acknowledgment that society is responsible for much of his wealth. “If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru,” he said, “you’ll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil.”

You have to appreciate any article that manages to cite Hobbes, Kant and Bill Gates.

Turning Homeroom Into the O.K. Corral

The AP reports:

A Nevada state senator and also-ran in this year's Republican primary for governor says the Legislature should consider letting teachers carry guns in classrooms to stem a rise in school violence.

"I would expect enough teachers would be interested so it would serve as a deterrent," said Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas. He said he's preparing a bill to introduce when state lawmakers convene in February.

Not surprisingly, Beers received an "A" rating from the NRA.

As Stubborn as Her Boss

That's the only conclusion I can draw to sum up Condi Rice's reaction to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. According to the Wash Post:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday rejected a bipartisan panel's recommendation that the United States seek the help of Syria and Iran in Iraq, saying the "compensation" required by any deal might be too high. She argued that neither country should need incentives to foster stability in Iraq.

Hell, every country needs "incentives" to change its foreign policy in a significant way. The need to keep Persian Gulf oil flowing is one major incentive that has made the U.S. willing to commit thousands of troops and engage in constant diplomacy with nations in that region since the 1970s.

"If they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they will do it anyway," Rice said .... She said she did not want to trade away Lebanese sovereignty to Syria or allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon as a price for peace in Iraq.

I agree with that last point, but it's wrong to assume that these would be the only incentives that could entice Syria and Iran to exert a more stabilizing influence on Iraq.

If this is their quid pro quo, we can always say, "Well, at least we gave it a try" and walk away from the table. But what harm is there in simply sitting down with them?

When he was asked recently by NPR about the ISG's recommendation that the U.S. talk with Iran and Syria, former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson framed his response simply but eloquently. Even when Russia and the U.S. were the bitterest Cold War rivals, said Simpson, they always had a phone in Washington and Moscow that instantly connected the leaders of our two nations so they could discuss dicey issues.

His point: If we could talk then with Russia, surely we can talk now with Syria and Iran.

Beyond Hillary and Obama

The Nation's John Nichols writes:

Everyone's talking about Illinois Senator Barack Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton and the man and the woman to beat for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. So who beats the man who is generally portrayed as the leading Republican candidate for the presidency?

According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll former North Carolina Senator John Edwards is the strongest contender.

... (Edwards) tops Arizona Republican John McCain by two points: 43 percent to 41 percent.

I saw Edwards recently on MSNBC's "Hardball," and I was impressed with how well he came across.

Some Appalling Nuggets

According to The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg, there are some "appalling nuggets" of information that "lie buried in the recommendations section" of the Iraq Study Group's report. Referring to this section, he writes:

We are told, for example, that “a continuing Iraqi commitment of American ground forces at present levels will leave no reserve” — none — “available to meet other contingencies,” including urgently needed reinforcements in Afghanistan.

We are told that, five years after the 9/11 attacks, our one-thousand-strong Embassy in Baghdad has just six fluent speakers of Arabic, plus twenty-seven who aren’t fluent. (As the Report does not mention, fifty-five Arabic language specialists have been cashiered from the military for being gay.)

And we are told that while eleven hundred attacks took place one day last July, the number officially reported was ninety-three ....

The Sudden Breakup of Belgium?

Belgium wasn't such a tranquil place yesterday.

Usually, it takes an invading army of Germans to cause such panic in Belgium. But, yesterday, reports the Associated Press:

Suddenly and shockingly, Belgium came to an end.

State television broke into regular programming late Wednesday with an urgent bulletin: The Dutch-speaking half of the country had declared independence and the king and queen had fled. Grainy pictures from the military airport showed dark silhouettes of a royal entourage boarding a plane.

Only after a half-hour did the station flash the message: "This is fiction." It was too late. Many Belgians had already fallen for the hoax.

Frantic viewers flooded the call center of RTBF, the station that aired the stunt. Embassies called Belgian authorities to find out what was going on, while foreign journalists scrambled to get confirmation.

"Ambassadors who were worried asked what they had to tell their capitals," said Anne-Marie Lizin, the Senate president. "This fiction was seen as a reality and it created a catastrophic image of the country."

RTBF defended the program, saying it showed the importance of debate on the future of Belgium. But the network won few friends.

Even Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister from neighboring Luxembourg, was angry and let it be known at the opening of the European Union summit. "This is not the kind of issue you play around with," he said.

... Reporting that the royal family fled did not go down well at the palace, which said in a statement the hoax was in "bad taste."

Missing the Point

In one of his recent posts at the CNN Business blog "Generation Risk," Pat Regnier discusses America's economic safety net and the views of the Cato Institute's Brink Lindsey. Regnier writes:

[Lindsey proposes to] cut back Social Security .... Lindsey argues that Social Security and Medicare — the two biggest social insurance programs we've got — don't really count as insurance. Since everybody knows they are probably going to get old and need medical care, he says, it's not really a risk that needs insuring. You just have to be responsible and prepare for it.

But, by using this dubious standard, many types of insurance "don't really count as insurance."

Auto insurance is something that nearly all people will need because they are highly likely to get in at least a few accidents during the multiple decades in which they are driving a motor vehicle.

Insurance is more than simply covering yourself for things you don't think you'll ever need. The main point is to space those costs out over many months or years (through monthly or semi-annual premiums) and to ensure that the shock of a single event — a hurricane or flood, a head-on car crash, physical disability, etc. — doesn't wipe out all or most of your life savings.

Thankfully, even Regnier seems to see through Lindsey's soft analysis:

... Just because I'm pretty sure I'll get both old (I hope) and sick (I'm resigned), that doesn't mean I know exactly how old or how sick I'll get.

Don't I still want some insurance against the extremes? I can save enough on my own to live to, say, 90, and I might be able to set aside enough money to pay for doctor's visits and prescriptions in old age. But what if I make it to 100 and have a few very expensive strokes along the way?

Can't government help me get insurance — not a hand-out — to protect against the cost of that?

Yes, it can. And it does.

McCain Will Have One Tough Sell

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Sen. John McCain said Thursday that America should deploy 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq to control its sectarian violence, and give moderate Iraqi politicians the stability they need to take the country in the right direction.

McCain made the remarks to reporters in Baghdad, where he and five other members of Congress were meeting with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Nelson's Visit to Syria

Last night on Fox News, conservative analysts Morton Kondracke and Bill Sammon hotly debated the decision by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) to visit Syria and meet with the country's leaders. Kondracke defended Nelson's decision, while Sammon attacked it.

Courtesy of NRO"s "The Corner," here is part of their exchange:

KONDRACKE: "... we're not at war with Syria. If a member of Congress wants to go and check out a situation in a foreign country, even if the State Department suggests that he not do it, I do not see anything wrong with doing it. He's not — he has no power to negotiate with Syria. He's trying to get the lay of the land so he's an informed senator. I mean, I do not think that senators should expect to just get their information only from the administration about what our policy for Syria is."

SAMMON: "Well, [the Syrian] regime supports Hezbollah, it supports Hamas, it tries to destabilize the Lebanese government, it supports terrorism and it's not going to — if it's trying to destabilize a fledgling Democracy like Lebanon, why would it turn around and help us stabilize another fledgling Democracy like Iraq? ..."

One of Sammon's key points is that we shouldn't seek Syria's help in bringing stability to Iraq because Syria supports Hezbollah.

Yet Sammon neglects to mention that Iraq's prime minister has expressed views that were widely seen as pro-Hezbollah.

A question for Sammon: If no American should even talk to Syria because its leaders support Hezbollah, then why should any American die for Iraq if its leaders support Hezbollah?

Sen. Johnson's Diagnosis

An official statement on Johnson's condition and diagnosis from the Senator's office.

The Pentagon Doesn't Get It

Separation of church and state. It's a principle that some officers in the U.S. military continue to ignore. More from the Wall of Separation blog at AU.

This Guilt Trip is Sponsored by Frederick

If you're living as comfortably as most Americans are this holiday season, it's worth remembering that millions of people around the world are enduring some absolutely horrific conditions. Darfur is a case in point.

Fellow blogger Eugene Oregon provides constant updates on the situation there and on other regional events via the blog Coalition for Darfur.

In addition, Doctors Without Borders reports:

After a series of violent attacks over the past two months, at least 50,000 civilians in southern Darfur, Sudan, have fled to the arid countryside. Villages have been burned, civilians shot, water sources, and food stocks destroyed.

If you are in a giving mood and want to help relieve the misery of people in Darfur, consider doing two things.

1. Send a brief letter or email to your members of Congress telling them to do everything they can to publicly support U.S. participation in a multilateral action to end the violence. Yes, the situation is complicated, but sitting on our hands is simple, yet lethal.

2. Consider donating to one of the following relief organizations, each of which has received high marks for financial and organizational accountability:

* Save the Children

* Doctors Without Borders

Sen. Thune Hopes for "Best Possible Outcome"

Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) is reportedly in critical condition this morning at a hospital after undergoing emergency surgery. Johnson suffered stroke-like symptoms Wednesday.

At stake is not only Johnson's health, but also the Dems' one-vote majority of the Senate.

NPR just aired a story about Johnson's condition in which South Dakota's other U.S. senator, Republican John Thune, was quoted saying he and other South Dakotans are hoping for "the best possible outcome."

Can you be more specific, Senator Thune?

So That's What the TV Ad Means

WWRD?

In this column posted yesterday, Ed Meese, the U.S. attorney general under Reagan, writes:

What would Ronald Reagan do?

I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked that question, on virtually every issue imaginable.

As much as we all want clarity and certainty, I usually refrain from specific answers. That’s because it is very difficult to directly translate particular political decisions to another context, in another time.

But, seven paragraphs later, Meese is more than happy to declare what Reagan would do if he were president today:

... So here we are, 20 years later, having much the same (immigration) debate and being offered much the same deal.

What would President Reagan do? For one thing, he would not repeat the mistakes of the past, including those of his own administration. He knew that secure borders are vital, and would now insist on meeting that priority first. He would seek to strengthen the enforcement of existing immigration laws. He would employ new tools .....

What's Your Christmas Going to Feel Like?

Probably nothing like the two examples below.

Yesterday, on the one hand, the New York Times wrote:

The Goldman Sachs Group reported today that it earned $9.34 billion this year, the most in Wall Street history, and that it would set aside $16.5 billion for salaries, bonuses and benefits for employees. That figure works out to an average (bonus) of $622,000 for each employee, although the payouts will be far from uniform ...

Two years ago, BMW of Manhattan opened a showroom at 67 Wall Street, so that investment bankers would not have to take the time to travel uptown to its main sales and service operation at 57th Street and 11th Avenue.

On the other hand, also yesterday, the website AllAfrica reported:

... the average Liberian family lives on less than [50 cents] a day while the general life expectancy of Liberians is less than 50 years. Unemployment stands at a dreaded 85% ...

No announcement yet from BMW on when they'll be opening a dealership in Monrovia.

A Sudden Exit

Why did the Saudi minister to the U.S. suddenly resign and leave our country? Talking Points Memo speculates.

Tell Us What You Really Think, Max

The Los Angeles Times' Max Boot doesn't think much of the recently released Iraq Study Group report:

Blue-ribbon panels are easy to mock, but some actually do perform a valuable service. The base-closing commissions, for example, were able to close down military installations that weren't needed but that Congress couldn't pull the plug on.

... And then there is the Iraq Study Group. The money spent on its deliberations should have been redirected to some worthier purpose, such as figuring out once and for all how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Its much-vaunted report was an anticlimactic combination of banalities and stay-the-course recommendations leavened with generous dollops of wishful thinking.

... Its flagship recommendation has been described as calling for the departure of U.S. combat troops within a year, but it says nothing of the sort. Here is the key sentence: "By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq."

Note the weasel words I've italicized. Without those caveats, this would have been a Murtha-esque call for withdrawal. With all those caveats, this is the policy Bush is already following: "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."

Snow Struggles to Explain Bush's Delay

Yesterday, the White House announced that plans to announce a new strategy for Iraq by Christmas would be pushed back until January. At Tuesday's White House press briefing, reporters asked Press Secretary Tony Snow the reason for the delay:

REPORTER: Tony, it has been the President's own desire to do a speech prior to Christmas, right?

SNOW: Right.

REPORTER: So this wasn't a staff decision?

SNOW: Right.

REPORTER: So some might infer that the delay means he doesn't know what to do.

SNOW: No, well, that would be the wrong inference to draw. You probably -- as we've said all along, it's a complex business and there are a lot of things to take into account, and we said we would like, but we didn't make any promises. ... the fact is you would expect and desire a Commander-in-Chief, in looking at a situation, to examine military concerns, security concerns, diplomatic concerns, internal political concerns within Iraq, regional ramifications, how you get people to work in concert with one another. It is enormously complex. .... [it] requires tasking of people to go in and come back with better answers ....

REPORTER: Tony, even you have said, though, that this thing is not just driven by Baker-Hamilton, that this has been going on -- this reconsideration has been going on through -- back at Samara.

SNOW: It's been going on for some time, that's right.

REPORTER: Right. So something happened here in the last week that he realized that there was more time needed?

SNOW: No, no -- no, I don't think so. I think what happens is over time, people begin to sort of whittle away at options and to narrow things down, and to come up with different points for discussion. And what happens is, as you narrow in on certain options, then you say, okay, what are practical considerations we have to take into account? There has been no inflection point in the last week that has dramatically changed things ....

It's reassuring to know that this delay wasn't cause by an "inflection point" -- whatever that is. That term and Snow's use of the word "tasking" were among the linguistic highlights from yesterday's press briefing.

REPORTER: So just to get this clear, the reason for the delay is, number one, the complexity of the Iraq issue, and not because the President learned something in the last week that changed his mind?

SNOW: That is correct. There are also even other considerations that I've not yet mentioned ...

So what this boils down to is that Bush has now realized that the situation in Iraq is complex. What a revelation.

Ethiopia Convicts Former Dictator

In a trial that began 12 years ago, the verdict is guilty:

Fifteen years after finding sanctuary in Zimbabwe, deposed Ethiopian leader Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam has been convicted by an Ethiopian court on charges of genocide. Mengistu fled Ethiopia in 1991, and Zimabwe President Robert Mugabe is not expected to provide extradition of the former Marxist ruler.

... The Mengistu regime is said brutally to have put an estimated 50,000 dissident students, political opponents and members of Ethiopia’s middle class to death.

This Committee Chair Needs a Tutor

After a brief interview with Rep. Sylvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, the Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein writes:

... like a number of his colleagues and top counterterrorism officials that I’ve interviewed over the past several months, Reyes can’t answer some fundamental questions about the powerful forces arrayed against us in the Middle East.

It begs the question, of course: How can the Intelligence Committee do effective oversight of U.S. spy agencies when its leaders don’t know basics about the battlefield?

To his credit, Reyes, a kindly, thoughtful man who also sits on the Armed Service Committee, does see the undertows drawing the region into chaos.

... (But) Reyes stumbled when I asked him a simple question about al Qaeda at the end of a 40-minute interview in his office last week. Members of the Intelligence Committee, mind you, are paid $165,200 a year to know more than basic facts about our foes in the Middle East.

... The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

According to Stein, Reyes was equally clueless when he was asked about the group Hezbollah.

Reyes is not alone.

... If President Bush and some of his closest associates, not to mention top counterterrorism officials, have demonstrated their own ignorance about who the players are in the Middle East, why should we expect the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee to get it right?

Trent Lott, the veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, said only last September that “It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people.”

... "Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

"They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

Sympathy for the Moderately Wealthy?

Perhaps such a feeling is appropriate. In this brief article, the New York Times' David Leonhardt questions whether our assumptions about economic inequality are slightly off kilter.

Although the conventional wisdom is that educational levels (college degrees) are the greatest factor in deciding whose wages climb rapidly and whose wages stagnate, Leonhardt challenges that:

Over the last five years, the average pay of college graduates grew at only a little better rate than inflation. For now, most holders of bachelor’s degrees appear to be on the wrong side of the inequality divide, which suggests that the slice of the American work force on the right side of the divide has become extremely narrow.

Even families at the 90th percentile of the income distribution (now earning about $110,000 a year) have received only a marginally bigger raise over the last decade than those in the middle of the distribution.

What explains this trend?

... nobody has yet come up with a wholly persuasive explanation for what has caused the new inequality. Education is still a big part of the overall picture.

Beyond education, it’s possible that social mores have changed to make huge salaries for chief executives and other top earners more acceptable.

It’s also possible that the new inequality is a natural outgrowth of what Robert Frank, a Cornell professor, has called the “winner-take-all society,” in which globalization and technology have raised the relative value of the very highest paid jobs.

Or it’s possible that the rightward drift of government policy over the last generation — deregulation and falling tax rates, for example — has somehow enabled the rich to gain at everyone else’s expense.

A Conference in Denial

From the N.Y. Times:

Iran held a gathering that included Holocaust deniers, discredited scholars and white supremacists from around the world on Monday under the guise of a conference to “debate” the Nazi annihilation of six million Jews.

Among those representing the United States was the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, whose prepared remarks, issued by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, said the gas chambers in which millions perished actually did not exist.

Bear in mind that 671,000 people in Louisiana voted for Duke when he ran for governor in 1991.

An accompanying exhibition also denied the Holocaust. ... Signs pointed to smiling prisoners freed at the end of the war with the label “truth.”

I Wish Them Luck

The N.Y. Times:

After discussions with the Bush administration, several of Iraq’s major political parties are in talks to form a coalition whose aim is to break the powerful influence of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr within the government, senior Iraqi officials say.

The talks are taking place among the two main Kurdish groups, the most influential Sunni Arab party and an Iranian-backed Shiite party that has long sought to lead the government.

... Mr. Sadr controls a militia with an estimated 60,000 fighters that has rebelled twice against the American military and is accused of widening the sectarian war with reprisal killings of Sunni Arabs.

Kucinich Eyes White House, America Yawns

He's rested and ready. According to the AP:

Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2004, said Monday he is planning another bid because his party isn't pushing hard enough to end the Iraq war.

In a statement, Kucinich said he plans to formally announce his candidacy on Tuesday at Cleveland's City Hall, where he served as mayor of his hometown in the 1970s.

... He celebrated his bachelorhood on the (2004) campaign trail, telling New Hampshire audiences that he was seeking a mate. Women vied for a date with him during a contest arranged by a New Hampshire political Web site, but nothing romantic evolved from Kucinich's breakfast date with the winner.

In other words, the last time he ran for the White House, Kucinich had no more success finding a girlfriend than he had finding votes.

Fresh Meat for Conspiracy Theorists

From ABC News:

New questions are being raised about the death of Princess Diana, and the conspiracy theories are swirling again. A British investigation, due out Thursday, will say that the princess was being spied on by the U.S. Secret Service.

The report by former Metropolitan Police Chief John Stevens will say that U.S. Secret Service agents were bugging Diana's phone the night she died.

... The 36-year-old princess; her friend, Dodi Fayed, 42; and driver Henri Paul died when their Mercedes crashed inside Paris' Pont d'Alma tunnel on Aug. 31, 1997.

Where is Lyndon LaRouche? I'm sure he can explain what all of this means and how Queen Elizabeth and the drug cartels were involved.

Iranian Students Boo Their Prez

This Muslim website reports that Mahmoud, the first name of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, means "praised." But the Iranian leader received little praise when he stood before university students earlier today. According to CNN:

Iranian students have staged a rare demonstration against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, setting off firecrackers and burning pictures of him as he delivered a speech (Monday) at Tehran university, reports said.

Iran's semi-official FARS news agency and a student news Web site reported that a group of students Monday briefly interrupted Ahmadinejad's speech at Amir Kabir University by booing and chanting "Death to the dictator."

A student who attended the speech but did not want to be named confirmed those reports to CNN.

But Iran's official state-run news agency, IRNA, said the students "expressed their views in a cordial atmosphere," and chanted "Down with dictators," which was met with agreement by Ahmadinejad, who denounced the "dictatorships" in the United States and Britain.

A spokesman for Ahmadinejad's office downplayed the incident, saying that the students burned some papers but it was not clear if they were pictures of the president, as others reported.

I'm waiting for the state-run news agency to inform us that the burned pictures were actually of Ahmadinejad's cousin, Ali, who just so happens to look exactly like the president.

Borat Was Right, Those Feminists Were Wrong

In its Sunday magazine, the New York Times asked Dr. Louann Brizendine, a professor of neuropsychiatry and an author, several questions in an article about differences in the male and female brains. It was pretty interesting.

For starters, Borat of Kazakhstan was right. The male brain is bigger than the female brain — by about 9 or 10 percent. But Dr. Brizendine notes that the size of one’s brain is unrelated to one’s intelligence, and she points out that "the female brain has more connections between the two hemispheres."

And did you know that a woman's brain actually shrinks by 8 percent during pregnancy and doesn't return to its normal size until six months after the pregnancy?

Definitely interesting stuff, but this exchange annoyed me a little:

Q: Although your book draws heavily on other scientists’ research, you don’t do any clinical research yourself. Isn’t that a drawback?

No. I don’t like doing clinical research because of placebos. In a “double-blind placebo-controlled study,” as they are called, neither the doctor nor the patient knows what the patient is taking. I don’t want to give patients a placebo. It’s cruel.

But she doesn't mind basing her book on research that she considers "cruel." (That's no more principled than the person who declares: "I won't personally test potentially deadly chemicals on rabbits, but I'll use the test results as the basis for a book I'm writing.")

In any case, I don't understand why she brands them as "cruel." Unless I've overlooked something, patient participation in these clinical studies is voluntary. My understanding is that nearly all of the drugs used in these clinical studies are not otherwise available to patients.

If it weren't for double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, we would have a pretty difficult time confirming which drugs work and which don't.

The Post's Education Stats

Apparently, the Washington Post evaluates educational statistics much the way the Bush administration evaluates WMD intelligence — it excludes the pieces that don't fit its pre-ordained conclusion.

The newspaper published a story in late November comparing the performance of U.S. students on international assessments. This past weekend, in a letter to the editor, an official with the National School Boards Association blew the whistle on how the Post chose to report this story. Courtesy of the LetsGetItRight blog:

The table that compared the United States with other countries in performance in fourth-grade math gave the false impression that the United States ranked 12th out of 13 countries, and it suggested that the only country the United States outperformed was Cyprus.

Not shown were 12 countries, including Italy, Australia and Norway, that were outperformed by the United States, leaving the impression that U.S. fourth-graders were next to last in the world. In reality, the United States is among neither the highest-performing nor the lowest-performing countries in fourth-grade math.

The LetsGetItRight post suggests that the Post either did not report or glossed over the fact that U.S. fourth-graders ranked an impressive 4th out of 34 countries in reading.

But presenting something as mixed news just doesn't sell newspapers as well as it does when you take the "educational sky is falling" approach.

A Stronger Case That Reagan Knew

On the heels of Jeanne Kirkpatrick's death, this article in Saturday's New York Times reviewed her central role in shaping the Reagan era Cold War policies. Considering how many conservatives have long argued that Reagan and Bush (the elder) knew nothing about the Iran-Contra affair, I found these passages very interesting:

.... Ms. Kirkpatrick was at the June 1984 National Security Planning Group meeting that began the secret initiative that later became known as the Iran-contra affair. Congress had cut off funds for the contras. [CIA Director William Casey] wanted to obtain money from foreign countries in defiance of the ban.

Ms. Kirkpatrick was in favor. “We should make the maximum effort to find the money,” she said. [Secretary of State George Shultz] was opposed. “It is an impeachable offense,” he said.

To me, the Schultz quote adds to the strong case that can be made to conclude that Reagan and/or George H.W. Bush knew about the specifics of the illegal activities being carried out by Oliver North and company.

If Schultz was sufficiently alarmed to tell Kirkpatrick he felt that she was trying to do something that was "an impeachable offense," I can't believe he wouldn't have taken this concern up the ladder to the president or vice president. After all, they are the only persons who would have been in the position to reign in Kirkpatrick's intentions.

Keep in mind as well that Oliver North has insisted that he believes Reagan and Bush the elder knew what he was doing.

My Week With Dilbert

I just endured a week of staff meetings by my employer. These meetings included small-group discussions during which we were instructed to "engage the issues" and "develop solution-based answers" to the questions a management official had raised.

There are other examples I could give of how some senior staffer of my employer tortured the English language, but I'll spare you the agony.

Then there was the goal-setting session. We were asked to respond to the goal of increasing our organization's membership by X percent. Several of us asked how this proposed membership gain was calculated — what it was based on. At least one of our directors was honest enough to say that goal was "essentially pulled out of a hat."

I don't know what this week of work will produce, but it has to be better than last week because Dilbert seems to have left the building and everyone here is breathing a lot easier.

Have Dems Given Up on Election Reform?

After the 2000 election, Democrats made election reform a top priority. But has winning control of both houses of Congress pushed this issue to the backburner for Pelosi and company?

In Florida's 13th U.S. House District, there were 18,000 ballots (13% of the votes cast) that failed to record a vote in the hotly contested race.

This article in Sunday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explores a number of complaints by voters around the country that electronic touch screens failed to record their vote accurately. In some states, candidates couldn't vote for themselves using these machines.

So Close, Yet So Far

An interesting snippet from the former Senate majority leader's final speech from the floor-- he almost gets it.

"We are moving toward a body with a two-year vision, governing for the next election rather than a body with a 20-year vision," he said. "I urge that we also consider what our work in this chamber is really all about. Is it about keeping the majority? Is it about red states versus blue states? Is it about lobbing attacks across the aisle? Is it about war rooms whose purpose is not to contrast ideas but to destroy? Or is it more?"

Do you think it occurs to Senator Kittenkiller that he *might* have had something to do with how ugly things are? Ya know, as someone in a powerful leadership position?

Nah, I don't think so either.

Although I think Zach Wamp (R-TN) gets it, nails it in fact.

Referring to the former House majority leader, Wamp recalled: "If Tom DeLay said it one time, he said it 15 times: 'The most important thing we can do for the American people is keep our Republican majority.' That was just wrong, and it had to catch up to us in the end."

I've been waiting for someone to bring it down to the World's Biggest Asshole-- the era of Republican degeneracy is officially over.

(Just a little pre-emptive strike-- I am not an elected official, mocking and sniping politicians is what bloggers do. It's in our job description.)

Can't Say I'm Surprised

CNN reports:

The House ethics committee has found that Republican leaders did not break any rules in handling allegations against former Rep. Mark Foley, but that they were negligent in protecting the teenage pages, a congressional report said.

However,

No one will be reprimanded, the source said.

Huffington: Haughty, Hollow Hillary

I have stumbled on a good blog: CognitiveApostate. (Its preamble won me over right away.) Through this post on the blog, I learned that yet another liberal commentator has decided to choose sides in the likely Hillary-vs-Obama '08 presidential primary battle.

Arianna Huffington sums up much of my sentiment when she writes:

While the country is urgently engaged in finding a way out of the quagmire in Iraq, Hillary Rodham Clinton is busy holding private dinners for key Democrats from primary states and remaining curiously silent on the subject of Iraq.

... There are politicians with great instincts as leaders — those who recognize not just the crises directly in front of them but those around the corner as well. (And these leadership instincts come from the gut, not from a multitude of consultants, strategists and pollsters.)

And then there are politicians with great instincts as followers — those who are the first to stick their fingers in the air and notice even the slightest shift in the wind of popular opinion.

Clinton is in the latter category: She is the quintessential political weather vane.

On Iraq, she remains a captive of her and her consultants' belief that the country isn't ready for a female commander in chief who isn't a hawk. Unfortunately, she's misreading the zeitgeist.

Democrats are fed up with fence-straddling and triangulation. But that has become Clinton's brand. Smiling photo ops with Bill Frist, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Backing a bill criminalizing flag burning. Coming out against violent video games. Signing on to President Bush's missile defense plan. Shifting her language on abortion. Refusing to level with Americans on Iraq.

Media Matters and Iraq

In this analysis, Media Matters complains that "some conservative media figures are blaming Iraqis for the situation in Iraq." But the issue raised by the group is a lot more complicated than its headline suggests.

Media Matters explains it this way:

For example, during his "My Word" segment on the December 6 edition of Fox News' The Big Story, host John Gibson posed the question: "Whose fault is the trouble in Iraq? Bush's fault?" He answered his own question: "No, it's the Iraqis' fault."

[Gibson] complained that Iraqis spend all their time killing their neighbors while "we're trying to fight foreign invaders." Gibson said that "what we have is Shia killing Sunni and Sunni killing Shia and letting the whole darn country go straight to hell." .... And the Iraqis will have no one to blame but themselves."

Gibson would never admit that the Bush administration rushed to war without careful planning or analysis of how they would build a stable post-war society in Iraq. Yet Media Matters' analysis leaves the impression that it believes Bush deserves all the blame. And I think that view is equally misguided.

Gibson's "what we have" statement is essentially accurate. A major part of the reason why Iraq is a violent, fragmented land right now is because of "Shia killing Sunni." Moqtada al-Sadr and other political figures have deliberately stoked ethnic and religious tensions to advance their own radical agendas.

Media Matters is right to criticize Charles Krauthammer for claiming in a recent column that the U.S. invasion was justified because "Saddam & Sons ... posed a permanent strategic threat to the region and to U.S. interests." That view has been largely discredited by the military's failure to find WMDs in Iraq.

However, I'm not sure why Media Matters felt like highlighting the following words by Krauthammer:

... vesting the (Iraqi) Sunnis with proportionate political and financial (i.e. oil) power ... is something the Shiites, at least those now comprising the Maliki government, seem incapable of doing.

Krauthammer's assertion is tough to argument with. Indeed, most progressive groups and politicos have echoed this view. In July, for example, TomPaine.com posted this article, which summarized the views of Democratic leaders as follows:

... Maliki’s regime, despite being installed by the Pentagon’s puppeteers, maintains close ties to Iran, further complicating the ability of the United States to halt the civil war and disarm Iranian-backed Shiite death squads.

And months ago, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi observed, "For the most part, the violence is perpetrated by Iraqis against Iraqis," and she added that Prime Minister Maliki "seemed in denial" about the level of violence.

In this October report, Sen. Carl Levin, the next chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained that although Maliki claimed to have developed an agreement to end all sectarian violence, "the details were sketchy and ... (the plan) omits the most important element — specific steps leading to disarming and disbanding the militias."

Amplifying Krauthammer's assertion, Levin's report stated that it was critical that Iraqi leaders "make the necessary political compromises, i.e. sharing political power and oil resources ...... The Administration must deliver the straight message that the Iraqi leaders, and they alone, can defeat the insurgency and they and they alone will decide whether they want to unify their country or whether they want to have a civil war. "

Sure, the tone of Gibson's and Krauthammer's remarks differs from the views expressed by Dem leaders. But there seems to be broad agreement that Iraq's current instability is due largely to a lack of will or desire on the part of Maliki and other Iraqi leaders.

Another Flip-Flipper From Massachusetts?

Somewhere over the past decade or so Matt Romney has done a 180 on the two core issues he's trying to run on now-- abortion and lgbt rights. From Carpetbagger:

When running in Massachusetts [in a 1994 senatorial race against Ted Kennedy], Romney also said he believed abortion should be “safe and legal,” that the government should work to “establish full equality for America’s gay and lesbian citizens,” and had his campaign hand out fliers with his well wishes during Boston’s annual Gay Pride Parade. Romney even accepted the endorsement of the Log Cabin Republicans.

Then there's the money quote, something that really won't fly with the religious-right.

“People of integrity don’t force their beliefs on others, they make sure that others can live by different beliefs they may have,” Romney is quoted as saying.

All of this *might* be acceptable to the social conservatives *if* his change of heart had to do with a Jesus-spoke-to-me, born-again moment, however, I don't think Mormons have that option.

Wave Bye-Bye

To Little Ricky and all of his friends from the Republican Revolution.

Wages: Who the Hell Do We Believe?

Within the space of 24 hours, these two news stories about the wages of U.S. workers were published. First, an article from CNNMoney.com:

Employers are working hard to keep a lid on wage increases — and to a large extent they're succeeding .... Tuesday's government report on productivity and labor costs showed that hourly wages rose 4.3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the lowest gain so far this year ...

"I'm befuddled. I would have expected to see larger increases too, but I would have expected to see them in 2006 as well," said Joe Kilmartin, director of compensation at Salary.com, a company that tracks pay and related issues for employers and workers.

Now, the other article, which appears in today's New York Times:

After four years in which pay failed to keep pace with price increases, wages for most American workers have begun rising significantly faster than inflation.

... the buying power of American workers is now rising at the fastest rate since the economic boom of the late 1990s.

... “The labor market is pretty tight right now, so it’s not a huge surprise that we’ve started to see big wage gains,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist for the research firm Global Insight.

GOP Leaders Disdain D.C. Voting Rights

An editorial in today's Washington Post:

Don't believe for a second the excuse that a lack of time doomed the chances for legislation giving voting rights in the House of Representatives to the District of Columbia. Or that the decision was put off because of worries that a D.C. voting seat would not pass constitutional muster.

At this point, the only plausible explanation for the demise of the bill is that Republican leaders in Congress and the White House oppose democracy for anyone who happens to live in the nation's capital.

President Bush sat on his hands as House GOP leaders spurned a valiant effort by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) to get a floor vote on the issue. Never mind four years of careful negotiation; never mind broad bipartisan support. Never mind, for that matter, that it is only fair to give all citizens, no matter their addresses, a say in their government.

"Shameful, sad and worse" is the way former Republican congressman Jack Kemp, a longtime advocate of D.C. voting rights, characterized the bill's death at the hands of his party.

... The beauty of the compromise crafted by Mr. Davis and Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's Democratic nonvoting delegate to the House, was that party politics was taken out of the equation, as two new seats would have been added to Congress -- one for the mostly Democratic District and one for predominantly Republican Utah.

The people of the District will get another chance in January when Congress convenes under Democratic control.

Elvis' Microphone Has Left the Building

Thanks to the world's oldest teenager.

The Defeated, But "Talented"

In this post last month, I took a swipe at the gutless Charlie Cook for waiting until only one day before the election to change his rating of the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race from a "toss up" to "lean Democratic." (Bob Casey, the Democrat, won by a comfortable 18 points and had held double-digit leads in most polls for weeks before the election.)

Today, I am armed with yet another reason to despise that Washington breed of animal called the "political analyst." And the latest reason comes courtesy of Daily Kos. In this post, DK takes a shot at another political analyst: Stu Rothenberg. And I agree with at least one of the points DK makes about Rothenberg.

DK notes that in this post-election summary, Rothenberg provides a list of six people who ran for either the House or Senate. The list includes outgoing Senator Jim Talent of Missouri and Rep. Rob Simmons of Connecticut. Rothenberg writes:

They are talented and didn’t deserve to lose.

This is DK's reply:

Except that the people in their districts had a different idea of who should represent them. It's called "democracy." So the winners deserved to win.

Rothenberg never defines what he means by "talented," but I'm willing to bet that what he really means is a politician's ability to:

1. rely on a "canned" message that says nothing and, therefore, offends no one; and

2. steer pork projects to his/her state or congressional district by playing the "earmarks" game.

Some voters may appreciate those "talents," but most voters also pay attention to a politician's political beliefs and voting record.

Finally, on what ethically-devoid basis has Rothenberg decided that Maryland's lieutenant governor, Michael Steele, earned another chance to "run for something"? Steele still hasn't explained what role he played in a GOP flier that targeted black precincts just before Election Day. The flier, which the Washington Post called a part of "a calculated strategy," misled voters about the endorsements that Steele and Gov. Bob Ehrlich had received from black leaders.

The Taliban Wants No "Tom DeLays"

These days, the U.S. Congress is not the only group looking at reassuring the public of its ethical standards. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has circulated a handbook to its fighters with 30 rules of conduct. According to CNN:

... the Taliban has put out a code of conduct for its commanders and fighters — including when to kill teachers and how to prevent sexual abuse.

... The document, which says it was approved by the elusive Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, was apparently first given to members of the insurgent group's Shura council during a secret meeting in late September or October.

... "Taliban may not use Jihad equipment or property for personal ends" reads rule nine, while rule 10 says each Taliban is held "accountable to his superiors in matters of money spending and equipment usage."

Why Is This Congressman Hoppin' Mad?

What was Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) referring to when he recently said this to a Washington reporter:

"The Democrats could care less about families — that's what this says."

Was he talking about a tax proposal?

About an education bill?

About same-sex marriage?

None of the above. Kingston was complaining because the Democratic leadership in the House has dared to make it known that it plans on having members of Congress work a five-day work week.

The audacity of that.

Cheney Gets Pregnant -- "Deliberately"

Much as Zoe predicted, religious conservatives are not exactly thrilled with news that Mary Cheney, the vice president's lesbian daughter, is pregnant. According to CNN:

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America described the pregnancy as "unconscionable."

"It's very disappointing that a celebrity couple like this would deliberately bring into the world a child that will never have a father," said Crouse, a senior fellow at the group's think tank.

"They are encouraging people who don't have the advantages they have."

The word that jumps out in Crouse's quote is "deliberately." By using this word, Crouse states the obvious.

Anytime a same-sex couple has a child, it's deliberate. I'd prefer that to the thousands of couples — married or unmarried — who get pregnant because they ran out of condoms or someone stopped taking (or never took) birth control pills. Many of the couples who carry those unplanned pregnancies to term are not prepared financially or emotionally to care for those children.

But if you view gay people with the hostility that Crouse's organization does, then this colors everything. It means that you view a planned pregnancy by a committed, financially stable couple as "unconscionable."

Senator, You Have Some Splainin' to Do

As Senator Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) tests the waters for a presidential run in 2008, Tapped's Ezra Klein reminds us in this post that Bayh's voting record is not exactly brimming with populism.

Something Bad Is About to Happen

Things have been going from bad to worse in Darfur.

And now, if this AP article is accurate, something really bad is brewing in El Fasher as Janjaweed, rebels, and Sudanese troops appear to be preparing for battle

Pro-government janjaweed militiamen killed three students in one of Darfur's main towns, where the situation was highly volatile Wednesday, as rebels massed outide the town shaken by protests and riots, a U.N. official in Darfur said.

A coalition of Darfur rebels warned Tuesday it could attack El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, to protect the population from the janjaweed militia that looted the town's main market a day earlier. A U.N. official said the rebels were gathered about 10 kilometers (6 miles) outside El Fasher.

"That they take the town is highly unlikely, but we're preparing for the possibility of a quick raid," said the official on the telephone. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The United Nations evacuated 135 staff, diplomats and aid workers from El Fasher by late Tuesday, said Dawn Blalock, the spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan.

[edit]

Some civilians and refugees on Wednesday rioted outside the base of African Union peacekeepers on El Fasher's outskirts, stoning peacekeepers' vehicles and burning down shops, , a U.N. official said. Refugees have complained the peacekeepers do not do enough to protect them from janjaweed.

Sporadic shooting could be heard in various parts of the city, shops and schools were closed and the Sudanese army had heavily deployed in the town, the official said.

[edit]

The Sudanese military transported janjaweed fighters into North Darfur to help in an offensive against rebels launched in the fall, observers say. The janjaweed recently moved into El Fasher.

But it was not clear how much control the army had over them, U.N. and aid workers in the town said. There have been several incidents were the militia clashed with the regular government forces.

Violence broke out on Monday when janjaweed fighters looted an El Fasher cattle market and then clashed with former rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement, killing two and losing two of their own men, the AU peacekeeping mission to Darfur said.

SLM leader Minni Minawi, who is the only rebel leader to sign a peace deal with Khartoum and is now part of the government, set an ultimatum for Khartoum to rein in the janjaweed by the end of December. Khartoum denies backing the militia, but agreed to disarm them under the May peace deal.

Late Tuesday, janjaweed attacked students from El Fasher's university, killing one. On Wednesday, two students in a group demonstrating against the assault were also slain by janjaweed, an aid worker and an U.N. official in El Fasher said, on conditions of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

U.N. staff and aid workers were also largely evacuating zones of eastern Chad close to the border with Darfur. The evacuations threaten to leave more than half of the 200,000 Darfur refugees living in Chad without humanitarian assistance, the U.N. refugee UNHCR said.