Priests Often Deviate From Vatican's Doctrine

The Vatican is furious. But is it really because of intrusive journalism or is it because Catholic church officials are forced to recognize that even many priests are not buying into the Vatican's neanderthal doctrines?

It all started when the current issue of the Italian magazine L'Espresso hit the newsstand. According to Reuters:

To write the cover story in this week’s L’Espresso, reporter Riccardo Bocca visited 24 churches in five large Italian cities and confessed sins he never committed or invented ethical dilemmas for the priest.

In one confessional in Naples he told the priest he felt guilty over his father’s death after the family allowed a doctor secretly to detach a respirator. The father had for years been paralysed, confined to a bed and unable to breathe autonomously.

Although euthanasia is officially condemned by the Church, the priest told him not to worry too much because God would be the ultimate arbiter.

“If I had a wife, a father or a son who for years was alive only because of artificial life support, I would pull the plug too,” said the priest, who then gave him absolution.

In another confessional box he faked being HIV positive and was told by a priest that whether or not he used a condom in order not to pass the virus to the woman he loved was “a very personal matter of conscience”.

The Church teaches officially that abstinence and monogamy — not condoms — are the best way to stop the spread of AIDS.

... An editorial in the Vatican’s newspaper, l’Osservatore Romano, said the report had “profaned” the sacrament of Penance ...

Bocca said it was not his intention to show disrespect for the Catholic church or its sacraments.

“What I wanted to show was the difficulties facing these priests as they try to carry out their duties in good conscience,” he told Reuters. “The differences I found were shocking even to me.”

On homosexuality, one priest told him: “Well, homosexuality is a tendency which is a valid human expression. There are even homosexual priests and lesbian nuns.”

Ya think so?

Asked if he should openly declare his homosexuality, the priest told him: “Generally the best thing to do is to be yourself. Come clean. Do what the English call 'coming out'.”

Yeah, and who knows? Someday, you might even be knighted.

A Republican Whose Legacy Lives On

At their national conventions, Republicans often quote or refer to the legacy of Abe Lincoln, but a more appropriate symbol of the Republican Party's honor and integrity may be the GOP's very first presidential nominee: John C. Frémont.

On this date in the year 1848, Frémont — who was then a U.S. Army Major — was found guilty by a court martial on the grounds of mutiny and disobeying orders.

Although this decision was later reversed by President James K. Polk, Frémont chose to resign his military commission. Frémont was chosen as the Republican Party's presidential nominee in June 1856.

Like Richard Nixon, Frémont abused his power. Like Dick Cheney, he used his political connections to become a multimillionaire.

At least Frémont was an abolitionist. There, I said something nice about him.

After the GOP's Defeat, Is Britain's Labor Next?

Just as the majority party in the U.S. lost both houses of Congress in the most recent election, the majority party in Britain may be heading for an equally sobering defeat. According to The Independent newspaper:

The Conservative Party has opened up a five-point lead as Labour's core supporters desert the party, according to the latest monthly poll for The Independent.

CommunicateResearch found there has been a sharp rise in support for the Liberal Democrats, mainly at Labour's expense. The Tories are on 34 per cent (down two points on last month), Labour on 29 per cent (down eight points), the Liberal Democrats on 21 per cent (up seven points) and [minor] parties on 16 per cent (up three points).

... It will increase fears among Labour MPs that the Government is "drifting" as Tony Blair completes his final months as Prime Minister amid bad publicity ...

Fidel: He's Not Dead (Yet)

State-controlled TV in Cuba is doing all it can to reassure the masses. According to the BBC:

Cuban television has shown its first pictures for three months of ailing leader Fidel Castro. Mr. Castro, 80, was seen standing during a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, which was said to have taken place on Monday.

[Mr. Castro] appeared frail but stronger than three months ago. Mr. Castro has not been seen in public since undergoing gastric surgery in July, prompting speculation that he had cancer or was terminally ill.

The pictures show Mr. Castro drinking orange juice and joking with Mr. Chavez ...

But was that really Castro, or was it colorized, bedside footage of Family Affairs' Mr. French?

The Anti-War Rally Altercation

Have you been following the story about the altercation between a military vet and anti-war protesters this past weekend? According to Alternet.org's Dave Johnson:

The media interest surrounding Private Joshua Sparling's claim that he was spit at during the Washington, DC protest merits skepticism considering that his previous claims of victimhood have turned out inaccurate, and that he's been a frequent associate of right-wing figures such as Sean Hannity and Oliver North.

... In December, 2005, as reported on the Fox news show Fox & Friends Sparling supposedly received a Christmas card with a death threat Sparling claimed not to have kept the envelope, just the note inside.

Sparling also appeared on right-wing radio host Sean Hannity's radio show to talk about this incident. It later turned out the Christmas card death threat was sent by a white supremacist.

Sparling also found fame as a featured Republican guest at the 2006 State of the Union address, introduced by the GOP representative from his home district ...

When the Prez Said the "Democrat Majority"

Many Dems were pissed when President Bush referred in his SOTU address to the "Democrat majority" in Congress, even though his prepared text read "Democratic majority." Bush was asked about this in his Monday interview with NPR's Juan Williams, and this was his reply:

PRESIDENT BUSH: "Yeah. Well, that was an oversight then. I mean, I'm not trying to needle. Look, I went into the hall saying we can work together and I was very sincere about it. I didn't even know I did it."

Our president is such a verbal blunderhead that I'm inclined to believe him.

Juan Williams Gets It Wrong

It makes me wonder if Juan Williams has spent too much time working as a Fox News commentator when he is this wrong about the facts. This was one of the questions that Williams asked President Bush during his exclusive interview with President Bush yesterday:

WILLIAMS: "One last thing, Mr. President, with the Democrats. You asked the Democrats on a bipartisan basis to form an advisory council and monitor the war, work with you. They haven't responded at all. What do you take from that?"

Not true. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded promptly with a joint letter to Bush on Jan. 19.

Excerpts of the Pelosi-Reid letter:

We believe that Congress already has bipartisan structures in place, like the committee system and other Congressional working groups such as the Senate’s National Security Working Group, that could produce the result you described in your speech.

We look forward to working with you within these existing structures, in a bipartisan and fully consultative way, to make progress on efforts against terrorism and other important matters.

Is "Brownie" NYC's School Transportation Director?

I'm beginning to wonder after reading this N.Y. Times article:

George A. Bonanno, a Manhattan professor, was startled to learn that under New York City’s new school bus routes that took effect today he would have to deposit his two children at separate bus stops about a mile apart, at different times, only so they could be ferried to the same elementary school.

... Parents throughout the city offered up similar tales today, complaining of chaos, confusion, crowding and lateness.

... In Queens this morning, a group of parents who had received conflicting messages about whether their children would continue to receive school bus service staged a news conference at their bus stop; three city council members showed up, but the bus never did.

In Brooklyn, a bus to a middle school for gifted children was so crammed that some students were forced to stand in the aisle; one of them clocked Isabella Cipriano, 11, in the face with his book bag.

... The changed routes were the New York City Department of Education’s latest effort to cut costs; earlier this school year, officials said they hoped to save $20 million by consolidating routes.

Fomenting Genocide Has Its Penalties

The president of Sudan had been promised the chairmanship of the African Union, but today officials of the 53-member confederation voted to pass him over and, instead, name Ghana's president, John Kufuor, as its chairman.

Given what has transpired in Darfur, it would have added insult to injury to give this role to Sudan's leader.

D'Souza Tries to Backpedal

Taking a page from Jerry Falwell's playbook, conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza argues in his new book that the cultural liberalism in America deserves some of the blame for the 9/11 attacks.

D'Souza believes the negative reaction to his argument has been “a little hysterical.” But the Carpetbagger Report wonders in this post "what kind of response D’Souza expected" to his ridiculous argument.

In Serbia, They Prefer Their Fatalism Well Done

In this portrait of two Serbian towns whose textile industry has collapsed, Nicholas Wood reminds us that the Slavs are an undaunted, resilient and optimistic people. Wood quotes a resident of one of the dying towns:

“This is the Balkans,” said a forlorn Ljubisa Svetanovic, 55, who lives in Babicko. “God has said good night. Life stopped here a long time ago.”

The books of Norman Vincent Peale must not be read widely in Serbia.

Guess Who's Citing Wikipedia?

As it turns out, a lot of judges. According to today's N.Y. Times:

When a court-appointed special master last year rejected the claim of an Alabama couple that their daughter had suffered seizures after a vaccination, she explained her decision in part by referring to material from articles in Wikipedia, the collaborative online encyclopedia.

The reaction from the court above her, the United States Court of Federal Claims, was direct: the materials “culled from the Internet do not — at least on their face — meet” standards of reliability. The court reversed her decision.

However:

A simple search of published court decisions shows that Wikipedia is frequently cited by judges around the country, involving serious issues and the bizarre — such as a 2005 tax case before the Tennessee Court of Appeals concerning the definition of “beverage” that involved hundreds of thousands of dollars ...

[Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit] recently cited a Wikipedia article on Andrew Golota, whom he called the “world’s most colorful boxer,” about a drug case involving the fighter’s former trainer, a tangent with no connection to the issues before his court.

[Posner] did so despite his own experience with Wikipedia, which included an erroneous mention of Ann Coulter, a conservative lightning rod, as being a former clerk of his.

“I have never met Ann Coulter,” he said, but added that he was heartened that the friend who spotted the error could fix it then and there.

The New Shame of New Orleans

President Bush didn't mention the city of New Orleans even once in his SOTU address. Perhaps there's a good reason why he didn't.

First, some quick background. In the year after Hurricane Katrina, 34 New Orleans public schools were taken over by the state-run Recovery School District (RSD). Due to poor planning and a dumb decision to fire virtually all teachers, the RSD has not been able to recruit enough teachers to fill classrooms and teach kids.

By the start of December, the RSD schools were still 45 teachers short of what they needed.

Could things get any worse? The sad answer is "yes." As Matt at the NCLBlog explains, the New Orleans public schools are literally turning children away.

Several GOP Senators Leave to Open Shoe Store

Yesterday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 12-9 to approve a resolution calling President Bush's plans to increase U.S. troops in Iraq "not in the national interest."

Voting on the resolution was basically along party lines — Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) was the lone Republican who supported the resolution. Perhaps Hagel sensed that some of his GOP colleagues also believed that Bush's plan is misguided, but were too gutless to actually vote that way.

In his remarks during the debate, Hagel offered this advice for his politically nervous colleagues:

"Why are you elected? If you wanted a 'safe' job, go sell shoes."

Fair and Balanced, and Remarkably Unchanged

Last night on the Daily Show, host Jon Stewart noted that Fox News gave its viewers a chance to rate President Bush's SOTU address. The final numbers — 85% of Fox News' viewers rated Bush's speech "excellent," 4% of them rated it "average" and 10% rated it "poor."

I would have expected a majority of the network's viewers to rate the SOTU "excellent," but 85%? "Those are Stalin (approval) numbers," Stewart jokingly told his viewers.

It's hard to believe that even Fox News viewers are that conservative.

The most bizarre thing, Stewart said, was the fact that the percentages — tracked "live" by Fox News on the bottom of the TV screen — remained virtually unchanged all night long. The numbers only changed when the "excellent" percentage climbed slightly from 84% to 85%.

Boehner: 60-90 Days to See If "Surge" Works

Courtesy of The Carpetbagger Report, I learned that House Minority Leader John Boehner has told CNN he's willing to give Bush's "surge" plan in Iraq three months. Boehner told CNN:

"I think it'll be rather clear in the next sixty to ninety days as to whether this plan's going to work."

Boehner didn't say exactly what he would do if the "surge" happens and 90 days go by with no genuine progress.

I Agree With Richard Viguerie

From an e-mail I received from him on the SOTU.

It is clear from President Bush’s State of the Union address that he is surrendering the domestic agenda to the Democrats.

If we do nothing and say nothing, it will be a long and agonizing two years for conservatives.

Although I don't think saying or doing anything will make much of a difference. Bush is the lamest lame duck right now, one of the few options he has left is to pretend that certain domestic initiatives were his idea in the first place, just so that he can take credit for them. Not that he's fooling anyone.

Friedman Gets a Day

Ladies and gentlemen, mark your calendars!

Conservatives have created a Milton Friedman Day to honor the economist who recently died. But don't expect any airports or highways to be named after Friedman — those are reserved for Ronald Reagan.

Thank You John Kerry!

For having enough sense to stay away from the presidential campaign trail.

Kaplan: "Bush Whiffs on Iraq"

After listening to President Bush's SOTU speech, Slate's Fred Kaplan is more convinced than ever that the prez doesn't understand what's happening in Iraq and why. He writes:

"I ask you to give it a chance to work," the president (uncharacteristically) pleaded ... (and) he proposed to set up a "special advisory council on the war on terrorism, made up of leaders in Congress from both political parties," to "share ideas for how to position America" to meet today's challenges and to "show our enemies abroad that we are united in the goal of security."

The thing is, there already are advisory councils. They're called the congressional committees on foreign relations, armed services, and intelligence.

President Bush had his chance with the ideas of a bipartisan council, the Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. He dismissed them out of hand.

... [Bush] said that [Iraq is] very important—"a decisive ideological struggle," he called it, adding, "nothing is more important at this moment in our history than for America to succeed."

And yet he also said that America's commitment to the war is "not open-ended." How can both claims be true? If nothing is more important, it must be open-ended. If it's not open-ended, it can't be all that important.

How Meaningful Is This Bush Request?

One of President Bush’s best applause lines from last night's SOTU speech was when he made this request:

… to further protect America against severe disruptions to our oil supply, I ask Congress to double the current capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

So how meaningful would it be to double the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)?

I’m willing to bet that most of the stuffed shirts (or blouses, as the case might be) who were standing and clapping to Bush’s request didn’t have much of a clue.

Well, I checked some numbers to find out, and my conclusion was that it’s a worthwhile move (although Bush could have proposed bolder steps to lessen our dependence on oil).

Eighteen months ago, there were barely 700 million barrels of oil in the SPR. That figure may be a little higher today, but probably not much higher — partly because the government tapped into the SPR soon after it reached 700 million barrels in order to ease supply shocks caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Americans use roughly 20 million barrels of oil each day. In other words, if a unified OPEC embargo and/or a large-scale war cut oil imports to a trickle, the current SPR would cover us for 35 days. Doubling it, as Bush proposes, the nation’s economy would be covered for 70 days by the SPR.

Seventy days may not seem like a long time, but we would have a few other things working in our favor. Our next-door neighbor, Canada, is one of our major energy suppliers. And we still have some domestic or off-shore supplies of oil.

One caveat: the SPR would supply us with oil, but it wouldn’t prevent big price shocks because, according to one industry source, it takes 13 days before any SPR oil actually reaches the marketplace. (The SPR is stored in a remote location in underground caverns.)

A Land Where "Googling" Only Gets You So Much

From the AP:

China is on pace to surpass the United States within two years as the nation with the most Internet users, the government and news reports said Wednesday.

China's online population grew by 23.4 percent last year to 137 million people, about 10 percent of its 1.3 billion population ...

And the number of approved, unblocked websites in China is now up to 812! Yippeee!

It Was Either That Or Drop Her From 37,000 Feet

According to the AP:

AirTran Airways on Tuesday defended its decision to remove a Massachusetts couple from a flight after their crying 3-year-old daughter refused to take her seat before takeoff.

AirTran officials said they followed Federal Aviation Administration rules that children age 2 and above must have their own seat and be wearing a seat belt upon takeoff.

"The flight was already delayed 15 minutes and in fairness to the other 112 passengers on the plane, the crew made an operational decision to remove the family," AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said.

A wire story only provides so many details, but what was reported suggests that AirTran handled this pretty damn well.

The AP reported that the parents, Julie and Gerry Kulesza, who were returning home to Boston on Jan. 14 "said they just needed a little more time to calm their daughter, Elly." This couple apparently doesn't grasp the fact that airlines take off and land on predetermined schedules, and can't be expected to wait "a little more time" for a passenger (adult or child) who won't take her seat.

AirTran reimbursed the family $595.80 for the full cost of three tickets, and it arranged for new flights to get them to Boston. The airline also has offered the Kuleszas three roundtrip tickets anywhere the airline flies. But daddy was just as inconsolable as his daughter. According to the AP: "The father said his family would never fly AirTran again."

Does Mr. Kulesza know how happy AirTran passengers are to hear that?

Advice for the Departed

CNNMoney.com has compiled a list of the "101 Dumbest Moments in Business" from last year. This was one of them:

In July, bankrupt Northwest Airlines begins laying off thousands of ground workers, but not before issuing some of them a handy guide, "101 Ways to Save Money."

The advice includes dumpster diving ("Don't be shy about pulling something you like out of the trash"), making your own baby food, shredding old newspapers for use as cat litter, and taking walks in the woods as a low-cost dating alternative.

How much did it cost an airline in brankruptcy to print that "handy guide"?

SOTU Post Mortem

I watched the speech at a great local pub with Pittsburgh's chapter of Drinking Liberally.

Just a few comments:

* Suddenly Bush cares about balancing the budget? earmarks? reigning in spending? That's pure comedy.

* No mention whatsoever of Katrina or New Orleans/Gulf Coast recovery.

* I realized how hard it must be to sit behind Bush for 51 minutes and try not to show any emotion-- basically all Nancy Pelosi did was blink *a lot.*

* Who arranged it so that Obama was sitting right in front of Hillary?

* The long screenshot of Condi looking as miserable as ever was priceless.

* The moment where Bush and Cheney took a drink of water at the exact same time-- it really made Bush look like Cheney's ventriloquist dummy.

* Bush is still as smirky as ever.

Scooter on Trial

In this post at Tapped, Jeff Lomonaco is kind enough to remind us what Scooter Libby is not on trial for.

You Mean Reagan Didn't Do It Singlehandedly?

Ever since former President Reagan died, every conservative commentator, syndicated columnist, blogger or loudmouth has painted a rather skewed version of history.

It was Ronald Reagan, they contend, who almost singlehandledly brought the Soviet Union to its knees.

So I'd love to be a fly on the wall inside the Heritage Foundation or the offices of National Review to see conservatives' reaction to this interesting disclosure from today's WaPo:

Of all the presidents he worked for, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is particularly supportive of one — but it isn't, as might be expected, Ronald Reagan, the first President Bush or even Gerald R. Ford.

Rather, in his memoirs, the new Pentagon chief leaps repeatedly to the defense of Jimmy Carter, the sole Democrat for whom he worked ...

... [Gates] thinks Carter was far tougher on Moscow than is generally recognized.

"I believe the Soviets saw a very different Jimmy Carter than did most Americans by 1980, different and more hostile and threatening," Gates writes. In both conventional weaponry and in the nuclear arena, he argues, Carter would "provide a strong foundation for Ronald Reagan to build upon."

It makes you wonder if Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer choked on their morning danish.

The Dept. of Education's Twisted Logic

After recently discovering that a private student-loan provider had charged $278 million in improper subsidies, the U.S. Department of Education decided it wasn't worth pressuring the company to repay all or most of this money.

The NCLBlog, which does a nice job of covering a variety of education issues, cites a N.Y. Times article that summarized the DOE's reasoning:

"... such a precedent might require [the DOE] to pursue other loan companies, too, possibly driving smaller ones out of business and reducing borrowing options."

The NCLBlog offered this reaction:

Think about that for a minute. It is now the policy of the U.S. government to avoid going after large companies that obtain tax money improperly in order to protect small companies that obtain tax money improperly.

Does that mean we can expect an announcement from the Justice Department that federal prosecutors will no longer investigate drug kingpins because it leads to pain and suffering for small-time dealers and recreational users?

Not Your Typical Pro-Marriage Column

Townhall.com is a website where you'd expect a column about marriage to sing its praises and/or explain how same-sex marriage (and society in general) threatens the institution of marriage. But this column by Jeff Jacoby is hard to figure out.

On the one hand, Jacoby's column includes the standard, conservative messages:

If society is to flourish and perpetuate itself, it must uphold marriage as a social ideal — it must raise boys and girls in a culture that encourages them to eventually marry a partner of the opposite sex, make stable and loving homes together, and have children ....

And so on, and so on. But, starting with the 3rd paragraph of Jacoby's column, marriage begins to take it on the chin:

"At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods," reporter Sam Roberts notes. "At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom."

That delight is voiced by nearly every woman quoted in the story.

"The benefits were completely unforeseen for me," says a 59-year-old divorcee, "the free time, the amount of time I get to spend with friends, the time I have alone, which I value tremendously, the flexibility in terms of work, travel, and cultural events."

Such are the joys of non-marriage, another woman exults, that "every day is like a present."

When an older woman says that every day without marriage "is like a present," it underscores the folly of viewing marriage as a "pro-con" issue like estate tax cuts or drilling in ANWAR.

In many cases, marriage works very well — in other cases, it legally entangles couples who were fundamentally incompatible and/or unprepared to stand by a commitment of this magnitude. And, as Jacoby (unintentionally) informs his readers, some widows are delighted "in their newfound freedom."

"Hillary, Meet Me at the R St. Starbucks at 3 P.M."

That may sound like a presumptuous request, but Senator Clinton said this past weekend that she's looking for some conversation:

"I am not just starting a campaign. I am starting a conversation with you ..."

And I have a lot of important things to converse with her about. One of my co-workers has been a real shit lately. And my monthly condo fee's going up because of the cost of cable. Great to know she's willing to take time out of her busy schedule and listen.

(Hillary's Senate campaign began as a "listening tour." Now, her presidential campaign begins as "a conversation." Why do politicians feel they have to toy with us by engaging in these bullshit word games?)

Obama and Black Voters

At Slate.com, Mickey Kaus writes:

I wanted to write an item a few weeks ago predicting — after Stanley Crouch wrote a widely-derided Barack's-not-black-like-me column — that Obama would in fact have trouble appealing to many African-Americans in the primaries because he's not a "native" African American who can trace his roots through slavery, the South, emancipation, Jim Crow, civil rights, etc. He's an African African American. His family journey from Kenya to Harvard was recent and shortcutted a lot of American black culture and politics.

... I got zero positive feedback for this thought from my friends and dropped it. But there's at least some possible support for the theory ...

Kaus cites a recent ABC-Wash Post poll showing that Hillary Clinton does much better than Obama among black Democrats — 26 points better.

Kaus' column is here.

Blogging for Choice

Today is Blogging for Choice day, a day when people are supposed to talk about their personal experiences with pregnancy.

I have never been pregnant. I took the "morning after" pill twice in college, both times due to a broken condom. I've never had a real pregnancy scare. Over the past decade the issue of contraception and unintentional pregnancy hasn't existed in my life-- one of the bonuses of being a lesbian. I did try to get pregnant via AI a few years ago and intend to try again when the time is right.

I am and have always been wholeheartedly pro-choice. All of the women in my family are pro-choice. To me being pro-choice means exactly that-- I am in favor of choice, of a woman's right to privacy and the right to control what happens to her body. I have worked on behalf of a woman's reproductive clinic and have participated in clinic defense of Planned Parenthood clinics. I also strongly support policies that help to prevent unwanted pregnancies-- through comprehensive sex education and inexpensive, effective contraception-- and would like to see a day when abortion is legal but rare.

We Hated Nixon Just a Little Bit More

ABC News:

With his unpopular troop surge on the table, [President Bush's] job rating matches the worst of his presidency: Thirty-three percent of Americans approve of his work in office while 65 percent disapprove, 2-1 negative, matching his career low last May.

Only three postwar presidents have gone lower — Jimmy Carter, Nixon and Harry Truman. And only one has had a higher disapproval rating, Nixon.

The Obama-Madrassah Story

Last week, conservative media reported what Howard Kurtz called "a thinly sourced story" that Sen. Barack Obama had been schooled at a madrassah. More from Kurtz's article in today's Wash Post:

Insight, a magazine owned by the Washington Times, cited unnamed sources in saying that young Barack attended a madrassah, or Muslim religious school, in Indonesia.

... Fox News picked up the Insight charge on two of its programs, playing up an angle involving Hillary Clinton. The magazine, citing only unnamed sources, said that researchers "connected" to the New York senator were allegedly spreading the information about her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The New York Post, which, like Fox, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, also picked up the article ...

Naturally. The Right sure knows the meaning of the word "coordination."

An spokesperson for Sen. Obama denied the charge that the senator attended a radical Muslim school as a child. And Clinton's spokespersons denied any role in the story. The Post story notes:

On Friday afternoon, John Gibson, host of Fox's "The Big Story," began a segment this way: "Hillary Clinton reported to be already digging up the dirt on Barack Obama. The New York senator has reportedly outed Obama's madrassah past ..."

Gibson's guest, Republican strategist Terry Holt, a former Bush campaign spokesman, said that the effort could be "a despicable act by an absolutely ruthless Clinton political machine" ..... There was no Democratic strategist on the segment ...

And this is the network that calls itself "fair and balanced."

It's only January of '07. This is going to get ugly.

"Jehovah Akbar!"

"To walk away from Allah is to to embrace decline for a nation.”

Imagine a Iranian official saying those words in a public speech, and you can guess what the typical reaction would be from an American watching news coverage of the event.

Yet, with the exception of the word "Allah," it was Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) who spoke these words as he announced his candidacy for president this past weekend.

I have a suggested slogan for Brownback's campaign, but I doubt he'll use it:

Sam Brownback:
Let's Roll Back the Enlightenment

Talk About Irony

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra, just recently held a screening of her new documentary film about evangelical conservatives — "Friends of God." According to ABC News:

... [filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi] had extensive interviews with The Rev. Ted Haggard, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who resigned after admitting to meeting with a male prostitute and buying illegal drugs. Pelosi finished the film before the Haggard scandal emerged.

At one point in the documentary, Haggard is seen standing outside his church talking to young men in his congregation, when he turns to Pelosi (and the camera) and tells her that surveys have found that evangelicals enjoy the best sex lives.

Haggard then turns to the young parishioners and asks them, "How many times a week do you have sex with your wife? How many times does she climax?"

Probably a lot more than Rev. Haggard's wife. The film will be aired on HBO on Thursday, Jan. 25.

Campaign Cash

Those two words sum up why Hillary Clinton was forced to announce her presidential candidacy earlier than she might have wanted to. As the N.Y. Times observed:

Her entrance into the race followed Mr. Obama’s by less than a week, and highlighted the urgency for her of not falling behind in the competition for money ...

George Soros, the billionaire New York philanthropist, has made maximum donations in the past to both candidates, for instance, and last week he faced a choice: support Mr. Obama, who created his committee on Tuesday, or stay neutral and see what Mrs. Clinton and others had to say. In this case, Mr. Obama won.

Mr. Soros sent the maximum contribution, $2,100, to Mr. Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois, just hours after he declared his plans to run.

In and of itself, $2,100 is no big deal, but Sen. Clinton had to know that the longer she waited to jump into the race, the tougher it would be for her to aggressively lock up thousands of big Democratic donors.

Pakistan: Rhetoric And Reality

"I made a call to the leader of Pakistan. We had a very good, open conversation. And there is no question that he wants to cooperate with the United States .... (in) this war against terrorism ..."
President Bush, Sept. 16, 2001

"President Musharraf is a leader with great courage, and his nation is a key partner in the global coalition against terror. ... [President Musharraf] has declared that Pakistan will be an enemy of terrorism and extremism, wherever it exists, including inside his own border."
President Bush, Feb. 13, 2002

"President Bush and President Musharraf assert that the strategic partnership between the United States and Pakistan is long-term .... Both leaders renewed their condemnations of "terrorism in all its forms and manifestations' "
U.S. State Department, March 16, 2006

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, a Sunday article in the N.Y. Times pours cold water on the Bush administration's rhetoric:

Western diplomats in both countries and Pakistani opposition figures say that Pakistani intelligence agencies — in particular the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence — have been supporting a Taliban restoration (in Afghanistan) ....

More than two weeks of reporting along this frontier, including dozens of interviews with residents on each side of the porous border ... found many signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if not sponsoring them.

... One former Taliban commander said in an interview that he had been jailed by Pakistani intelligence officials because he would not go to Afghanistan to fight. He said that, for Western and local consumption, his arrest had been billed as part of Pakistan’s crackdown on the Taliban in Pakistan.

... "The Pakistanis are actively supporting the Taliban,” declared a Western diplomat in an interview in Kabul. He said he had seen an intelligence report of a recent meeting on the Afghan border between a senior Taliban commander and a retired colonel of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

She's in.

I think I just heard Dick Morris scream.

Trading Places

Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly and Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert appeared on each other's shows last night. According to the AP:

Once inside Colbert's studio decorated for the occasion with a large "Mission Accomplished" banner and a portrait of O'Reilly placed fireside — O'Reilly seemed to be regretting the decision.

"This was a huge mistake, me coming on here," he muttered.

It may have been a greater error allowing Colbert into the Fox News headquarters, located near the "Colbert Report" studios in Manhattan. There, Colbert smuggled a microwave out of the green room, a bounty which he proudly displayed at the conclusion of his show.

Colbert's appearance on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" was more amusing to watch. At one point, Colbert heaped praise on O'Reilly's boundless energy, managing to host both a radio and TV show each weekday. Then Colbert asked:

"Where do you get your strength, Bill — Jesus Christ or Pat Robertson's protein shake?"

The Bush Manual for Gitmo Detainees

The Bush administration has developed a manual that outlines how it will prosecute Gitmo detainees. The manual reportedly declares that the accused are to be presumed innocent, and the accused have a right to independent counsel and to be provided with evidence before it is admitted into court.

On the other hand, these details are disturbing:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is submitting to Congress a manual for trials of detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay that would allow the admission of hearsay evidence and coerced testimony, a Pentagon official told reporters Thursday.

The manual was drafted to comply with a law passed last year that restored the Bush administration's military commissions created to try terrorist suspects.

The Supreme Court had struck down the commissions as unconstitutional.

… About 400 detainees are being held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The report that detainees would have the right to independent counsel is encouraging, although it is less encouraging when a top Pentagon official makes comments that seem designed to intimidate any lawyers from representing one of the Gitmo detainees.

It's Tough Being ExxonMobil These Days

The profits keep rolling in, but certain tax breaks may disappear. And their GOP friends are no longer calling the shots. The N.Y. Times reports:

House Democrats easily passed legislation on Thursday that would rescind $14 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for oil drillers and reserve the money to develop alternative energy projects and conservation technologies.

The measure passed 264 to 163 …. Passage came despite opposition from the oil industry and the Bush administration, which said the bill singled out the companies for higher taxes and could increase the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

That’s lame criticism. The bill to rescind these tax breaks “singled out” oil companies precisely because the original tax breaks singled out this industry.

One provision is intended to correct errors in drilling leases signed by the Interior Department in the late 1990s that allowed oil companies to escape billions of dollars in royalties over the next decade.

… The Government Accountability Office estimated that the mistake has cost the Treasury $1 billion, and could ultimately cost it $10 billion if the leases remain unchanged.

And it sounds like the Clinton crew may deserve a piece of the blame for this. The Times reports:

The leases entitled companies drilling in deep water to avoid royalties on much of their initial production, but in 1998 and 1999 officials during the Clinton administration omitted a standard escape clause that eliminated the incentive if oil prices climbed above $34 a barrel.

Iraq May Be in the Toilet ....

... but, hey, at least inflation is under control -- the lowest rate in three years.

Now There's a Character Reference

Barry Bonds tells a reporter he thinks Mark McGwire and Pete Rose should be voted into baseball's Hall of Fame. Of all of the current players in baseball, Bonds is probably the last one McGwire wanted to speak up for him.

Only last week, Bonds' tainted image become more tainted when news broke that Bonds had tested positive for amphetamines.

"... And the Wavin' Wheat Can Sure Smell Sweet ..."

If they ever do a revival of "Oklahoma" on Broadway, perhaps they can re-set it in Picher, Okla.

Demagogue of the Day

Is the following from a recent speech at a KKK rally or the words of a MSM talkshow host?

But basically, if you're talking about a day like today, Martin Luther King Junior Day, and you're gonna understand what civil rights has become, the con it's become in this country. It's a whole industry; it's a racket. It's a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males' birthright and steal from them what is their birthright and give it to people who didn't qualify for it.

Michael Weiner (aka Michael Savage) was clearly born in the wrong century if he believes that the "birthright" of white, Christian heterosexual men is being "stolen" by women and minorities. I sincerely wish there were a way to transport him back a few hundred years.

Jammin' Grannies

This is just so damn cool.

Religious Right Slams Obama

Barack Obama's potential White House candidacy has caught the attention of the Religious Right. Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the right-wing National Clergy Council, has updated and re-released a pamphlet critical of Obama entitled, "Barack Obama: Sheep or Goat?"

If Schenck's name sounds familiar to you, there's a good reason. Schenck was among the nutjobs who appeared at a 2005 news conference to defend Roy Moore, the former Alabama state supreme court justice who defied a federal order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse. Schenck praised Moore and called him a "white martyr."

The Religious Right is in trouble if this is the most credible person they can find to publish a screed attacking Obama.

Dissent in the Ranks

So if the majority of our troops don't support the war does that mean they don't support the troops?

It's often written or said in the media that, despite public opposition to the Iraq war here at home, military personnel strongly back President Bush's handling of the conflict. But a poll for the Military Times newspapers, released Friday, shows that more troops disapprove of the president’s handling of the war than approve of it.

It came on the day that at least four more Americans died in the war, pushing the monthly total to 107, the high point for the year -- and the total figure to 2,997, near the milestone of 3,000.

Barely one in three service members approve of the way the president is handling the war, according to the new poll for the four papers (Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Times). In another startling finding, only 41% now feel it was the right idea to go to war in Iraq in the first place.

And the number who feel success there is likely has shrunk from 83% in 2004 to about 50% today. A surprising 13% say there should be no U.S. troops in Iraq at all.

Hat tip to Carpetbagger.

McCain's Religious Right Ass-Kissin', Phase II

From the AP:

Sen. John McCain said Tuesday he hopes to patch things up with conservative Christian leader James Dobson, who recently said he wouldn't support the Republican's presidential bid under any circumstances.

In a radio interview with KCBI, a Dallas Christian station, Dobson argued that McCain didn't support traditional marriage values and said he has prayed "we won't get stuck with him."

... "I'm obviously disappointed and I'd like to continue and have a dialogue with Dr. Dobson and other members of the community," McCain said Tuesday ...

McCain has reached out to conservatives he once crossed. Last May, he spoke at Falwell's Liberty University in Virginia. In 2000, Falwell opposed McCain's campaign for the GOP nomination and supported George W. Bush. At the time, McCain labeled Falwell and others on the right and the left as "agents of intolerance."

Apparently, the so-called "Straight Talk Express" is sooooo year 2000.

What It Takes to Earn the Big Bucks

Apparently, earning the obscene pay of a CEO sometimes requires obscene behavior. According to Reuters:

Jean Pierson, the colorful Frenchman who built Airbus into Boeing Co.'s biggest competitor, dropped his trousers to seal a key U.S. plane order in 1997, according to a book to be published on Tuesday.

The bizarre tactic worked, and the resulting order helped Airbus take on Boeing in its own backyard, setting up the biggest rivalry in global business, according to "Boeing versus Airbus," by former New Yorker magazine writer John Newhouse.

Pierson, who ran Airbus from 1985 to 1998, was at US Airways' headquarters for what he thought would be a short meeting to tie up a 400-plane deal, the anecdote runs.

At the last minute, US Airways' then-chairman Stephen Wolf started arguing for a 5 percent discount on the selling price.

"Pierson began slowly lowering his trousers and saying 'I have nothing more to give.' He then allowed the trousers to fall around his ankles," says Newhouse in his book.

Wolf replied: "Pull up your pants. I don't need any more money," and the deal was signed, according to the book.

Obama's Reasons

Yesterday, Barack Obama announced he was forming an exploratory committee as he weighs a campaign for president in 2008. Obama began his announcement this way:

As many of you know, over the last few months I have been thinking hard about my plans for 2008.

Running for the presidency is a profound decision — a decision no one should make on the basis of media hype or personal ambition alone — and so before I committed myself and my family to this race ...

So I guess "media hype" and "personal ambition" are appropriate reasons to run for president — so long as they aren't the only reasons you run.

Perhaps Obama was just acknowledging a fact that his fellow candidates won't — personal ambition is a big reason why anyone decides to run for president.

Hunter: Would He Be the GOP's McGovern?

Only a few days after filing papers to create an exploratory committee, the would-be presidential campaign of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is pointing to a surprising victory from a straw poll taken in Arizona’s most populous county.

In the straw poll of 458 GOP precinct leaders officials in Maricopa County (Phoenix-Scottsdale), Hunter won 96 votes, and Gov. Mitt Romney finished second with 82 votes. Perhaps the biggest news was that homestate Sen. John McCain finished a distant 4th with 50 votes.

This is only a straw poll, and a small one at that. Still, it suggests that (at least in some states) illegal immigration could be a pivotal issue. Hunter has made this issue the centerpiece of his message, bragging that he spearheaded passage of a bill funding a new 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Although Hunter remains a longshot, the GOP would do the Democrats a huge favor by nominating someone like him. Someone who has spent 14 terms in Congress cannot position himself as an "outsider" running against Washington.

Hunter would crash and burn in the general election for a variety of reasons. For starters, it wouldn't be hard to associate him with DeLay and the rest of the discredited GOP House leadership that turned earmarks into an art form, drove up the deficit and took corruption to a whole new level.

According to the Congressional Research Service, that 700-mile fence will cost 20 times more than Hunter said it would cost to build.

In a general election, Hunter would also suffer from his steady support for Bush's policies in Iraq. And although Hunter's obsession with the illegal immigration issue might help him with GOP primary voters, it probably would cost him at least as many votes in the general election as it would gain him.

Chad-Free Voting

These days, it's virtually impossible to visit a news or media website and not be asked to "vote" on some issue or another. ABCNews.com is a good example. Minutes ago, the news network's home page offered web visitors the chance to vote on these four critical issues:

VOTE: Pretend It's 2008! Who Would You Pick For President? (Radar)

VOTE: Should Uterus Transplants Be Allowed? (Story)

VOTE: Netflix Nation: Will Watching Movies On-Line Become the New Standard? (Story)

VOTE: Golden Globes: Worst Dressed? Best Dressed? (Photos)

When it comes to educating voters, ABC News clearly takes its responsibility seriously (no matter what the issue may be). In an introductory paragraph related to the Golden Globe votes, ABC News informed us that

The dress worn by Rinko Kikuchi, nominated for her performance in "Babel," was certainly different. You didn't see anyone else wearing one like it. It's special and … puffy.

Decisions, decisions ....

Poppies and Afghanistan

Over at Tapped, Robert Farley voices surprise that Slate columnist Anne Applebaum is offering some sensible opinions. The subject? Undercutting the Taliban's comeback efforts in Afghanistan.

Bush's Volunteer Day

Yesterday, on MLK Day, President Bush made an unannounced visit to Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C. yesterday. Bush participated in a community clean-up project at Cardozo, where students and parents were painting murals.

But not all of the children at Cardozo yesterday were commemorating MLK Day by painting murals. Ironically, according to the Wash Post:

Upstairs in the school's library, children wrote hopeful letters to people in New Orleans who lives were devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Perhaps the president whose administration bungled its response to Katrina should have walked upstairs and written a few of those letters.

Brain Damage

I when I first read this my brain, acting in self-defense, exchanged "college students" for "7th graders."

I think it might have been an attempt to prevent me from bashing my head against the wall after finishing the article.

In a recent survey of college students on U.S. civic literacy, more than 81 percent knew that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was expressing hope for "racial justice and brotherhood" in his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.
That's the good news.

Most of the rest surveyed thought King was advocating the abolition of slavery.

Why are our children not learning?

In many schools across the country, teachers say social studies has taken a back seat under the federal No Child Left Behind law, which stresses math and reading. Squeezing history into the curriculum can be difficult, educators say, and taking time out of a scheduled lesson to use a federal holiday -- even King's -- as a teaching moment can be tough.

Welcome to the new America where history doesn't matter because life is too hard if you're required to think and know stuff. Context and comprehension is for the birds.

Flipping Kristol's Argument

Kevin Drum cleverly turns the tables on Bill Kristol over Kristol's pro-"surge" argument.

Hagel Slaps Lieberman (Verbally, At Least)

The Carpetbagger had the same "take" on this exchange from Sunday's "Meet the Press" that I had.

The Iraqi Plan Hadley Referred To

Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Tim Russert questioned National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, and cited this N.Y. Times article about Iraq. Russert asked Hadley whether the U.S. "continue[s] to be a crutch for the Iraqis."

This was Hadley's response:

"That is a concern. One of the things that’s different, I think, from, from that time is that we do have this unity government.

"... They are getting enormous pressure from their people to get the violence down, and that means, really, sectarian violence centered in Baghdad. They’re responding to that pressure. They’ve come forward with a plan. They have made clear that they’re going to increase their forces. They’re committed to success, but they need our help to succeed."

Yes, the Maliki regime has a plan. As the Times article explained:

Within hours of Mr. Bush’s speech, American commanders were meeting with their Iraqi counterparts in Baghdad to work out the details of a new command arrangement that would give Mr. Maliki a direct role in overseeing the new crackdown. The Iraqis named a commander for the operation, Lt. Gen. Aboud Gambar, a Shiite from southern Iraq ...

General Gambar will report directly to Mr. Maliki, outside the chain of command that runs through the Defense Ministry, which the Maliki government has long viewed as a bastion of American influence, and, because the defense minister is a Sunni, of resistance to Shiite control.

In other words, even as the Bush administration prepares to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq, the Maliki regime intends to continue operating in a way that marginalizes Sunnis.

Of course, by operating this way, the Maliki regime is likely to fuel the ongoing sectarian violence.

Is this the plan Hadley wants us to feel confident about?

Did He Bother to Read the General's Op-ed?

Via Pandagon we learn that J. Matt Barber, the new policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America, is worried sick that House Dems will push for a repeal of the discredited "don't ask, don't tell" military policy.

In his first column for CWA, Barber writes about the military's de-facto ban on gays and attacks Gen. John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The general wrote a N.Y. Times op-ed earlier this month stating that he had changed his position to one of support for allowing gays to openly serve in the military.

Barber claims that:

... Shalikashvili fails to provide any evidence whatsoever which would support his pro-homosexual contention to the contrary (other than perhaps his own “evolving” moral compass). He offers no evidence which would indicate that anything has changed or that it ever will change.

Did Barber even bother to read Shalikashvili's op-ed? The general provides a lot of evidence.

For example:

* Gen. Shalikashvili refers to numerous meetings he has had "with gay soldiers and marines, including some with combat experience in Iraq, and an openly gay senior sailor who was serving effectively as a member of a nuclear submarine crew" -- conversations that "showed me ... that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their (military) peers."

* In his op-ed, the General also cited this Zogby poll, released in December, which revealed that 73% of military service members who had served abroad feel comfortable around lesbians and gays. Of those who were certain a gay or lesbian person was serving in their unit, 64% believed these individuals had no negative impact on unit morale.

* As additional evidence, Shalikashvili notes that "24 foreign nations ... let gays serve openly, with none reporting morale or recruitment problems."

Barber is free to argue with these conclusions or to have CWA conduct a poll of its own, but he looks foolish by claiming that the general "fail[ed] to provide any evidence whatsoever" for his position.

Some Republicans Learn From Experience

Slate's Bruce Reed explains:

Earlier in the week, another Republican looked backward to roll out a completely different way forward. Arnold Schwarzenegger made headlines for two decisive breaks with conservative orthodoxy. On Monday, he proposed a pay-or-play plan for near universal health care that echoes Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign proposal.

On Tuesday, he channeled Al Gore and Tony Blair as he pledged to cut the state's auto emissions of greenhouse gases by 10 percent and require refineries to reduce the carbon content in fuels.

An Augmentation of Subterfuge

During Secretary of State Condi Rice's appearance yesterday before a Senate panel, the Wash Post reports:

(Republican Sen. Chuck) Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, angrily condemned the "escalation" of the war. "To ask our young men and women to sacrifice their lives to be put in the middle of a civil war is . . . morally wrong. It's tactically, strategically, militarily wrong."

"I don't see it, and the president doesn't see it, as an escalation," Rice replied.

Hagel looked stunned. "Putting 22,000 new troops, more troops in, is not an escalation?"

"Escalation is not just a matter of how many numbers you put in," Rice ventured.

"Would you call it a decrease?" Hagel pressed.

"I would call it, Senator, an augmentation."

Fred Barnes, the Lonely Cheerleader

If there's any venue in the media where the president's "surge" plan was sure to receive positive reviews, you'd have assumed it would be a Fox News panel. But, last night, Fred Barnes was the only cheerleader to be found during Fox News' post-speech discussion.

Morton Kondracke said Bush and the public seem far apart on Iraq. Bill Kristol was disappointed that the president didn't use the word "war" more often during his speech. (I kid you not -- that was Kristol's major whine.)

Barnes offered an analogy to explain his support for Bush's new plan -- what if the U.S. government had walked away from West Germany in 1949 or had withdrawn its troops and sought a "political" solution with the Confederacy in 1864.

But panel host Brit Hume quickly dismissed Barnes' analogy. The analogy "falters," said Hume, because the U.S. government's success in those other two conflicts wasn't premised on the promises of a regime (the Maliki government) that has no credibility.

Huckabee: A "Stubborn" Prez Is a Good Prez

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas is frequently mentioned as a possible 2008 GOP presidential candidate. Judging from the remarks he made last night to Fox News blowhard Sean Hannity, Huckabee seems to approach foreign policy much like our current president.

Asked about widespread criticism that Bush has been too stubborn and too slow to reassess policies in Iraq, Huckabee replied that being "stubborn ... is a good quality in a chief executive."

Oooo-kay.

Nation Watched a "Scared" Bush

Newsweek's Howard Fineman on last night's televised address:

George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup. I first interviewed the guy in 1987 and began covering his political rise in 1993, and I have never seen him, in public or private, look less convincing, less sure of himself, less cocky.

The "less cocky" part, at least, was a welcome change. Fineman continues:

With his knitted brow and stricken features, [Bush] looked, well, scared. Not surprising since what he was doing in the White House library was announcing the escalation of an unpopular war.

A Plan That Rests on Maliki's Flimsy Pledges

Last night, President Bush told the American people:

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.

He left out a third reason: the Maliki government is viewed by most Sunnis as a hostile regime -- one they cannot trust.

And it's not hard to see why they feel this way. Maliki has left significant chunks of the government under the control of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr or his surrogates.

This is also why it's hard to take Bush seriously when he said this:

The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts.

... These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations -- conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.

This is a strong commitment.

Strong? In whose world is this a "strong commitment"? Conducting patrols and maintaining a regular presence in neighborhoods are fundamental activities that the Iraqi police should have been handling already.

Bush said:

... the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. .... Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects ...

But Bush can't make these things happen. He only has the word of Maliki, someone who has little credibility when it comes to following through on past commitments.

Bill Richardson For President

Bill Richardson hasn't even decided if he'll run for President in 2008, but if he does, he is getting my support for pulling this off

Sudan's government and Darfur rebels have agreed to a 60-day ceasefire and a peace summit sponsored by the African Union and the United Nations as steps toward stopping the violence in west Sudan, a visiting U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Sudan has also agreed to let foreign journalists visit Darfur after a two-month ban and to remove a requirement for exit visas for aid workers, one of the biggest bureaucratic obstacles to the world's largest aid operation in Darfur.

In fairness, Khartoum and the rebels have agreed to various ceasefires and peace agreements over the last four years, not one of which has held, so this might amount to just another empty benchmark.

On the other hand, this press release [PDF] from Richardson contains some rather encouraging news

Both sides agreed that there was a compelling need for a comprehensive cease-fire to launch a political process based on the DPA that would lead to a durable end to the conflict as soon as possible. Both agreed to a 60-day cessation of hostilities by all parties within the framework of the DPA, accompanied by a start in African Union/United Nations diplomatic efforts, within the framework of the DPA, to begin narrowing the gaps between the non-signatories, including government approval of a field commanders' conference attended by the African Union and United Nations. This would be followed at the appropriate moment by an African Union/United Nations – sponsored peace summit, again in the framework of the DPA, no later than 15 March 2007.

...

The two sides noted that Governor Richardson had secured a commitment from commanders of the Justice and Equality Movement and of the Non-Signatory Front to participate in a process including a 60-day cease fire agreement within the framework of the DPA.

The Darfur Peace Agreement [DPA] was signed nearly a year ago by Khartoum and one faction of the many rebel groups and has been dead ever since. The sticking point since then has been whether to re-open new talks, essentially starting from scratch, or to try and amend the DPA in order to address the issues that prevented the other rebel groups from signing. Khartoum preferred the latter, which is not surprising considering that they only accepted the agreement "after it became apparent that at least some of the rebels would balk," while the rebels insisted on the former.

But now it appears that at least this one major hurdle to revisiting a peaceful settlement has been addressed and hopefully things can move forward.

Khartoum has a record of signing these sorts of nice-sounding agreements and then attacking rebels and civilians a few days later - we'll have to see if that happens this time. If both sides can manage to hold to the 60-day ceasefire, perhaps progress can finally be made in ending this conflict peacefully.

So all hail Bill Richardson, who pulled this off with little more than the support of Save Darfur - and all hail Save Darfur for approaching Richardson to do a little freelance diplomacy. In less than a week, Richardson managed to make more progress on ending the genocide in Darfur than the Bush Administration has been able to make in four years [it will also be worth watching to see how the administration reacts to Richardson’s diplomatic coup.]

"... And This Here Country Is Iraq"

David Frum, speechwriter to the GOP stars, has this advice for the president when he addresses the nation tonight:

No Oval Office, no big desk. Have the president stand in the Map Room, the room on the ground floor of White House in which Franklin Roosevelt reviewed strategy with his generals.

... Hang a map of Baghdad on one wall. A map of Iraq on another. Have the president stand between them with a laser pointer.

Let him show where the sectarian fighting in the city is occurring, let him detail where US troops are currently deployed. Then he can explain the new plan ....

It's rather telling that Frum believes the president needs to reassure the American people that he knows where Iraq is -- and can even point it out on a map.

House Speaker Cruella Deville

Townhall.com posted this photo of Nancy Pelosi that definitely resembles the Disney villain ....

The only thing missing is that thin, white streak through her hair.

Bush's Jobs Program for Iraq

Tonight, the president, we are told, will urge support for a U.S.-funded jobs program in Iraq. From today's N.Y. Times:

[Bush's] plan would involve pumping expertise and money for reconstruction into enterprises still owned by the Iraqi government, or privatizing some or all of the companies to force them to become more competitive.

Either way, Iraqi political and business leaders were dubious about the prospects for success. “I doubt it very much in view of the current challenges and dangers facing the country,” said Mehdi Hafedh, a member of Parliament and a former planning minister.

The state-owned enterprises are already a huge drain on Iraq’s budget, Mr. Hafedh said, and most of them produce little or nothing. Many are filled with no-show jobs.

“The Americans should have made some consultations because this is ridiculous, frankly,” Mr. Hafedh said. “What Iraq needs to do is reduce the number of employees in the state sector.”

... while the (state-owned) companies may appear alluring in reducing unemployment and sparking the economy, businessmen here said they are far from a solution.

Many of those employees actually do nothing but collect monthly paychecks and go home, says Mahmoud Othman, an Iraqi businessman who favors increasing support for the companies and privatizing some.

Splitting With His Military Commanders

From today's Wash Post:

When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: Ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.

Bush talks frequently of his disdain for micromanaging the war effort and for second-guessing his commanders.

"It's important to trust the judgment of the military when they're making military plans," Bush told The Washington Post in an interview last month. "I'm a strict adherer to the command structure."

... Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq.

Mixed-up Freudian Messages

An interesting image from an e-mail I received from Richard Viguerie:


Everyone watch out, it's a woman with power, so naturally she's wielding a VERY phallic gun!

But wait a sec, I thought San Fransisco liberals hated guns? Or is he just trying to imply that Pelosi is packing?

Tee-hee.

Where Should Bush Deliver His Wed. Speech?

Administration officials are considering the options. According to the N.Y. Times:

White House officials were still planning details of the speech on Monday.

The president’s aides were contemplating having Mr. Bush deliver it from the White House Map Room, a site replete with the history and imagery of World War II — imagery that Mr. Bush has invoked as he has sought to compare the campaign against terrorism to the struggle against totalitarianism and the Nazis. But the Oval Office, a more traditional setting, was also being considered.

If they're looking for appropriate imagery, why not have Bush deliver his speech from here?

Arlington Cemetery

When You Have No Better Explanation ...

... blame it on New Jersey. The AP:

The gas-like odor that hung over Manhattan's streets was gone Tuesday, but city officials were still trying to pinpoint its source — and eyeing New Jersey.

Charles Sturcken, a spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection, said Tuesday that his agency was pretty sure the source of the smell was along New Jersey's industrialized waterfront, just across the Hudson River from New York.

"The way we tracked the dispersion of the smell and the prevailing winds indicates that it came from New Jersey, somewhere near Secaucus," Sturcken said.

Karl Rove Ain't Laughing Much These Days

From CNBC:

The results of the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll measuring President George W. Bush’s approval rating were released today – and the numbers aren’t good for Bush: 43.

Confidence in the commander in chief is at its lowest point in the six years he’s held office. Only 34% of those polled think the president is doing a good job, and only 28% think the U.S. is headed in the right direction.

Hagel Breaks From McCain on "Surge"

Both Chuck Hagel and John McCain are GOP senators. Both have been mentioned over the years as having presidential ambitions. Both have shown a willingness to break with the administration on economic or foreign policy issues. Both are military vets.

But, when it comes to the Iraq war and McCain's call for a so-called "surge" troop deployment, the Hagel and McCain have little in common. According to this Newsweek article:

Hagel is "obsessed" with the war in Iraq, says his brother Tom, who served with him in Vietnam. "You can't have a conversation with him without this coming up."

During Christmas, Hagel looked "markedly older and grayer than when I saw him this summer down at the beach," says Tom.

In an interview with Newsweek last week, Hagel teared up when he began talking about a Purple Heart ceremony he had attended in August in Lincoln, Neb.

"You're sitting there thinking, 'Was this a waste?' " said Hagel, who voted for the original congressional resolution backing the war despite raising serious doubts about whether the invasion made sense.

... Hagel is not pushing for "Out Now." But he is almost angrily dismissive of the idea of sending an additional 10,000 to 20,000 troops to Iraq.

"Are we going to pacify Baghdad?" he asks. "Are we going to break the militia's stronghold? Are we going to use these troops to propel or force a settlement between the Shias and the Sunnis? What's the objective of it? I will guarantee that there's going to be a lot more American casualties.

... The idea that the Iraqis will respond only to more troops, he says, is "complete folly, unless you're going to kill all the Iraqis."

Punishing Poetry

From the Wash Post:

Qin (Zhongfei), 31, spent a month in jail on criminal charges because of a poem he wrote satirizing local officials accused of corruption. He was released only after several out-of-town newspaper articles related his fate and the central government in Beijing stepped in to halt the prosecution.

... What happened to Qin, a mild bureaucrat in the county education department, was by any measure an abuse of power by local authorities here in the remote and wooded hills of central China. But more broadly, it was a vivid reminder of the Communist Party's enduring determination to control information and opinion among China's 1.3 billion people.

Harry Reid Caves In

So much for the Democrats positioning themselves as deficit hawks:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday he'll back a package of tax breaks for small businesses if they are needed to win passage of an increase to the federal minimum wage.

"If it takes adding small business tax cuts to get a minimum wage increase, we are going to do it," Reid said at a press conference Friday afternoon.

Reid could have at least waited a while before showing his hand on this issue.

How often have the Republicans introduced a bill and then used the Dems' opposition as a chance to score points with the voters? Why is Reid passing up a golden opportunity to use a standoff over a higher minimum wage to define his party's values?

Bush's Unsupported Claim

From Saturday's Wash Post:

President Bush wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday that "it is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues." The claim about fueling record revenue is flat wrong, and it is shocking that the president should persist in making such errors. After all, tax cuts are the central plank of his domestic policy. How can he fail to understand the basic facts about them?

This is not just our opinion. Harvard's N. Gregory Mankiw, an economic conservative who served as chairman of Mr. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, has tested the hypothesis on which Mr. Bush's claim is based: He looked at the extent to which tax cuts stimulate extra growth and the extent to which that growth generates extra tax revenue that offsets the initial loss of revenue from the tax cut.

Mr. Mankiw's conclusion: Even over the long term, once you've allowed all of the extra growth to feed through into extra revenue, cuts in capital taxes juice the economy enough to recoup half of the lost revenue, and cuts in income taxes deliver a boost that recoups 17 percent of the lost revenue.

So a $100 billion cut in taxes on capital widens the budget deficit by $50 billion, and a $100 billion cut in income taxes widens the budget deficit by $83 billion.

Edwards' Logic-Deprived Explanation

As more Democrats formally announce their presidential candidacies, it will be interesting to see how they handle questions about same-sex marriage. Hopefully, they won't insult us like John Edwards did recently.

About a week ago, Edwards explained his position to George Stephanopoulos this way:

"... I'm 53 years old. I grew up in a small town in the rural South. I was raised in the southern Baptist church. And so I have a belief system that arises from that.

It's part of who I am. I can't make it disappear. .... Do I believe they should have the right to marry? I'm just not there yet, me, I'm not there yet."

Edwards makes his opposition to gay marriage sound almost genetic: "It's part of who I am." If we accept Edwards' explanation, then we are obliged to excuse anyone who is unwilling to reconsider the prevailing beliefs with which they grew up.

If they grew up believing that women are fragile and frivolous beings who can't be expected to handle any task more difficult than cooking a pot roast, then it's a belief they just can't make "disappear" — it's part of who they are.

Edwards' argument was used historically by white southerners to provide cover for slavery and segregation. In fact, the leading spokespersons pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage often cite their religious beliefs as the basis for their position.

Where we grow up definitely influences — but it doesn't dictate — how we look at social and economic issues. People can grow intellectually.

I've met a significant number of white southerners who work in Washington, D.C., for progressive groups, candidates, or think tanks. Most of them were probably raised by families who attended conservative Protestant churches. Yet today they embrace positions on gay rights, the environment, labor issues, the First Amendment, foreign affairs and other issues that are at odds with the prevailing belief system they grew up with.

True, each of us has a "belief system." What's at question here is whether we are willing to periodically re-examine our views and see if they reflect the new information and understanding we have gained in recent months and years. Edwards is essentially telling us that on the issue of gay marriage, he's incapable of reconsidering his belief system — "I can't make it disappear."

That's bullshit.

It would be one thing for Edwards to be politically afraid to take a "yes" position on gay marriage. But it's a whole 'nother thing when he asks us to swallow the flimsy argument he makes to justify his opposition.

Calling Vandalism "Art"

A 13-year-old in the borough of Queens, N.Y., was struck and killed Saturday by a commuter train as he finished painting graffiti near railroad tracks. CNN chose this headline for an AP story about the teenager:

Train kills teenage graffiti artist

Spray-painting public property without permission isn't art — it's vandalism.

Much of what passes as graffiti is "tagging," criminal gangs marking their supposed turf. Calling any of these people an "artist" downplays the destruction of public or private property. Graffiti costs state and localities tens of millions of taxpayer dollars each year to eradicate.

I'm sorry this teenager lost his life, but he was not an "artist." He was old enough to know that he was engaging in illegal activity, and he was also old enough to know that doing this along a busy rail corridor was hazardous.

Bill Buckner, Meet Tony Romo

Most of us have screwed something up at work or at home that seemed pretty damn simple — probably even simpler than catching a football and holding it for a second or two so a placekicker could kick it.

But, unlike the Dallas Cowboys' Tony Romo, our screw-up wasn't watched "live" on Saturday evening by tens of millions of people. And it wasn't replayed dozens and dozens of times.

Pelosi's Daughter Is Also Making Her Mark

Reading about an afternoon tea to celebrate Nancy Pelosi's rise to the House Speaker's chair is something that I would normally view as one great, big yawn -- even when it appears on Huffington Post. But buried deep within this item was some info that was interesting.

On the back-end of what was apparently a bland interview with Pelosi's husband, Huffington Post reported:

As proud as he is of his wife, (Paul) Pelosi was equally anxious to talk about his filmmaker daughter Alexandra, whose new documentary, Friends of God, premieres on HBO later this month.

A first-person look at the evangelical movement, the film includes Alexandra Pelosi's encounters with Pastor Ted Haggard, filmed before his fall from grace. It includes an amazing exchange where Haggard says, "We say moral purity is better than immorality. We say telling the truth is better than telling a lie... You know all the surveys say that evangelicals have the best sex life of any other group."

And with that, Alexandra's film has gone from interesting to Must See TV.

Good Enough For the Supreme Court...

but apparently Harriet Miers-- or Bush himself-- doesn't think she's up for the job of defending Dear President in any upcoming congressional investigations.

Bush advisers inside and outside the White House concluded that she is not equipped for such a battle and that the president needs someone who can strongly defend his prerogatives.

Unbelieveable

From an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal:

One important message I took away from the election is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to slip into legislation billions of dollars of pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by Congress. I'm glad Senator Robert Byrd and Congressman Dave Obey--the Democrats who will lead the appropriations process in the new Congress--heard that message, too, and have indicated they will refrain from including additional earmarks in the continuing resolution for this fiscal year.

But we can and should do more. It's time Congress give the president a line-item veto. [bold mine] And today I will announce my own proposal to end this dead-of-the-night process and substantially cut the earmarks passed each year.

The byline? None other than Dubya himself.

Bush talking about secrecy like it's a bad thing? Who the hell does he think he's kidding? (Just an aside, I know it's standard practice for things like this to be written by someone else and signed off by the supposed author, however, there is probably someone out there who believes that he wrote this himself. Tee-hee.)

I personally love the line where he refers to himself in third person. I wonder if he does that in meetings-- "You know what, Condi? This policy stuff is really hard. It is time for the president take a catnap."