Islamic extremists burned down a school for girls south of the capital and distributed letters threatening to kill anyone working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government, a senior Afghan military official said Friday. The Abu Sofian school, which was housed in a tent, was torched on Wednesday night in Logar province, 30 miles south of Kabul, said Gen. Hatiqulluh Luddin, a regional military commander. The school was closed for a monthlong holiday at the time and nobody was hurt.

South Korean police on Friday thwarted a group of activists trying to launch balloons carrying transistor radios into North Korea in a bid to undermine the communist government, an activist said.

[edit]

The group of mainly South Korean activists had gathered at Cholwon, a town 80 km (48 miles) northeast of the South Korean capital, to try to fly more than 20 balloons, each six metres (18 ft) tall and carrying about 30 small radios, into North Korea.

The "Give the Ear to a North Korean" campaign was aimed at overcoming North Korea's strict ban on its people receiving outside broadcasts.

North Korean radios and televisions are built so they can only tune in to government channels, which run mostly martial music or praise of reclusive leader Kim Jong-il.

The Voice of America and South Korea's KBS -- both government-run broadcasters -- air programmes aimed at North Korea, but face jamming.

How can the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, be expected to safeguard Israelis when he cannot safeguard his own people?

[edit]

The Israeli government, along with leaders from the United States and other countries, has ratcheted up demands that Mr. Abbas crack down on the militant groups as a precursor to any peace.

But several hours in this lawless city and a series of conversations with its embittered residents suggested severe limits to Mr. Abbas's abilities to do that.

Those limits are political as well as practical: Mr. Abbas is a man in a tight bind.

Residents of Nablus, which Israel considers a center of Palestinian terrorism, confirmed the widespread belief that if Mr. Abbas tried to shore up his international legitimacy by taking aim at militant groups, he would destroy what legitimacy he still had with Palestinians.

[edit]

Many Palestinians said today that they were already close to giving up on Mr. Abbas, commonly known as Abu Mazen, because nothing he had done, including his endorsement of the peace plan, known as the road map, had made their lives any better.

[edit]

While Israelis insist that the bombing on Tuesday demonstrates why Mr. Abbas must take action against Hamas, Palestinians described the attack as an inevitable consequence of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and assaults on suspected militants.

Mr. Abbas appears to be stuck between those diametrically opposed viewpoints.

Generals don't have to be loved; indeed, some of the best ones are hated. But it seems that Clark continually rubbed the wrong people the wrong way, which brings us back to politics. Successful presidential candidates make their mark by making either everybody happy, most people happy, or the right people angry. Those candidates who make everyone angry — or the wrong people angry — are sure to fail. Clark may be a model of a failed candidate. [Emphasis Demagogue's]

Gay Activist Groups 'Hi-Jacking' Rev. King's 'I Have a Dream' Anniversary
"The Family Research Council strongly opposes the hijacking of the civil rights movement by homosexual activists, and believes that homosexual behavior cannot be equated with such innate characteristics as sex or race."Time and again, pro-homosexual activists have attempted to forward their political agenda by associating themselves with the civil rights movement, much to the dismay of many African-Americans, who fought long and hard for their rights," said Peter Sprigg, Director of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies at the Family Research Council."

"I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people..."

"Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement," she said. "Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions."

Using the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad as a rallying cry, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sought today to build support for a new Security Council resolution that would persuade other major nations to contribute more troops and aid to secure and rebuild Iraq under the aegis of the American-led occupation.
His appeal was not rejected out of hand by any Council members, but it met with a wary response from Germany and Russia and an icy rebuke from France.

Emerging from a meeting with Secretary General Kofi Annan this morning, Mr. Powell told reporters that "We're looking at, of course, reaffirming our determination to succeed in Iraq. We're looking forward to language that might call on member states to do more."

Shortly afterward, France's deputy ambassador, Michel Duclos, told a Security Council meeting that the economic and political reconstruction of Iraq will not succeed if Washington insists on maintaining sole control of the process. "Sharing the burden and responsibility in a world of equal and sovereign nations also means sharing information and authority," Mr. Duclos said.

[edit]

But Scott McClellan, President Bush's press secretary, swiftly rejected an expanded United Nations role in the political development of Iraq. "This is an effort that is led by the Coalition Provisional Authority and that's where it stands," he told The Associated Press in an interview on Air Force One as he accompanied President Bush to Oregon.

The Australian government lied about the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to justify its involvement in the U.S.-led war, an official inquiry into intelligence on Iraq was told on Friday.

A FORMER senior intelligence analyst, Andrew Wilkie, who resigned in March in protest over Australia’s case for war, said Prime Minister John Howard, a close U.S. ally, created a mythical Iraq by dropping ambiguous references in intelligence reports.

"The government lied every time it skewed, misrepresented, used selectively and fabricated the Iraq story...The exaggeration was so great it was pure dishonesty,” Wilkie, formerly of the Office of National Assessment (ONA), told the inquiry.

The ONA is equivalent to the U.S. National Security Agency.

"Key intelligence assessment qualifications like ’probably’, ’could’ and ’uncorroborated evidence suggests’ were frequently dropped. Much more useful words like massive and mammoth were included,” he added.

Dallaire book slams U.S., UN, on Rwanda

France and the United States stood by and let 800,000 people be murdered in Rwanda in April, 1994, retired Canadian peacekeeper Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire writes in a powerful new book to be published this autumn.

The account also indicts the United Nations for its failure to respond adequately to the genocide.

"Ultimately, led by the United States, France and the United Kingdom, this world body [the UN] aided and abetted genocide in Rwanda," Gen. Dallaire writes in the book. "No amount of its cash and aid will ever wash its hands clean of Rwandan blood."

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda is Gen. Dallaire's account of his tenure as head of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), a story that has taken him almost a decade to tell. It goes on sale in November; an advance copy was obtained by The Globe and Mail yesterday.

"The UN and the secretariat are small-time culpable compared to the U.S. and France and their actions and inactions," Gen. Dallaire said in an interview yesterday. "The UN mostly in its ability to handle so many very complex problems. France and the U.S. were dominated by self-interest and the psychology of still having imperial, colonial traits."

Using the detailed daily notes that were taken by his assistant in the field, Gen. Dallaire painstakingly recreated the events leading up to the genocide and provides a minute-by-minute account of the eruption of bloodshed in April, 1994, as his pleas for reinforcements to UN headquarters in New York were ignored.

"The Security Council and the office of the secretary-general were obviously at a loss as to what to do," he writes. "I continued to receive demands to supply them with more information before they would take any concrete action. What more could I possibly tell them that I hadn't already described in horrific detail? The odour of death in the hot sun; the flies, maggots, rats and dogs that swarmed to feast on the dead. At times it seemed the smell had entered the pores of my skin . . . We had sent a deluge of paper and received nothing in return; no supplies, no reinforcements, no decisions."

The book describes how the United States sent a tip one night based on detailed intelligence information that Gen. Dallaire was targeted for assassination by a Rwandan militia. Yet at the same time, U.S. officials claimed to have so little information about what was going in Rwanda that they could not intervene.

Gen. Dallaire also describes watching the departure of a Belgian peacekeeping unit, withdrawn just as the killing reached its height: "I gave myself over to hate of a nation that had not only lost its nerve to stay in the fight but that was prepared to sacrifice the names and reputations of its own soldiers to soothe its own conscience."

The book chronicles horrifying scenes from the genocide, when the Hutu majority, led by a band of Western-educated extremists, launched a savage attack on Tutsis and Hutu moderates. Gen. Dallaire describes picking his way over stacks of bodies clogging a creek; driving between piles of them along roadsides, bones jutting through flesh and starting to whiten in the sun, and walking in front of his vehicle to move pieces of bodies out of the way.

"What's in the book is what we felt people could bear," said Anne Collins, his editor at Random House Canada, which will publish the English edition. "But Gen. Dallaire had to remember all of it. We only put in the minimum — he wanted to show what it was like, to walk through a slurry of blood and mud up to your knees. But he did not want to make a document that you could not bear to read."

Gen. Dallaire also provides a frank account of his own struggle to live with what he has seen, which has led to his sometimes public struggle with posttraumatic stress disorder.

"People thought maybe writing it was going to be therapeutic, but I don't think it really was," he said yesterday. "The only positive aspect is that I don't have it all in my head any more. The book is 600 pages, but I wrote a couple of thousand pages, and a lot of the weight in having it all in memory — it's taken away a lot of pressure."

Ms. Collins spoke of the immense effort it took Gen. Dallaire to tell the story. "He had so many things to wrestle with including his extraordinary sense of responsibility to the people of Rwanda and the soldiers he lost," she said. "It was so overwhelming at times it almost shut him up. We postponed the book for a year, because he got to [writing about] the eve of the genocide and he had to stop. He had to stop for some time just to gather himself."

Marriage is a quintessential state issue. The Defense of Marriage Act goes as far as is necessary in codifying the federal legal status and parameters of marriage. A constitutional amendment is both unnecessary and needlessly intrusive and punitive...

Make no mistake, I do not support same-sex marriages. But I also am a firm believer that the Constitution is no place for forcing social policies on states, especially in this case, where states must have the latitude to do as their citizens see fit...

I worry, as do supporters of the constitutional amendment on marriage, that a nihilistic amorality is holding ever greater sway in the United States, especially among the young. Similarly, I agree that the kernel of basic morality in America -- the two-parent nuclear family -- has eroded under the influence of the "me" generation, which has left us with an astronomical divorce rate and a tragic number of hurting families across the country.

Restoring stability to these families is a tough problem, and requires careful, thoughtful and, yes, tough solutions. But homosexual couples seeking to marry did not cause this problem, and the Federal Marriage Amendment cannot be the solution.

Pryor, a pro-life Catholic, has been nominated for a seat on the federal court of appeals and has gained the support of pro-family voters nationwide, although his position on the monument has drawn the scorn of some pro-family activists.

Vision America co-chairman Rick Scarborough criticized Pryor.

"The Attorney General of Alabama says he personally agrees with ... Moore, but must uphold the law, sounding very much like Pontius Pilate as he found no fault in our Lord, then gave him over to be crucified," Scarborough wrote in a statement on the Vision America website Aug. 19.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has pressured every country in the world to make a simple choice: Are you with the United States or with the terrorists? But by casting the choice so starkly--and expanding the war on terror to include its campaign in Iraq--Washington has alienated many natural and potential allies and made the fight against al Qaeda more difficult. It didn't have to be this way. The White House has acted as if it doesn't care what others think, and the country is paying the price for its mistake.

Schwarzenegger "said he would bring in a private accounting company (rather than the California Department of Finance) to go through the state books and produce a firm assessment of how deeply in debt the state really is."

President Bush says his religious faith is helping him deal with the challenges of the presidency, and he credits the Bible with inspiring him to push for federal funding to fight AIDS.

In an interview appearing next week in the October issue of Ladies' Home Journal, Bush says it is possible to function in the presidency without believing in God, and probably some of his predecessors did not believe in God, but he finds that faith helps.

''When you realize that there is an Almighty God on whom you can rely, it provides great comfort,'' he says. ''That's why I read every morning, the Bible and scriptures and Charles Stanley devotionals. It matters a lot to me personally.'' Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is a TV and radio evangelist and author of books on Christian living.

Oil and gas companies paid Indians whose land is managed by the government just a fraction of the amounts they paid private landowners for the right to run pipelines across their property, arrangements that were approved by Interior Department officials, according to an investigative court report released yesterday.

For natural gas and oil pipelines running across the San Juan basin in New Mexico, for example, utility companies paid $25 to $40 for the right to cross every 51/2 yards of Navajo land managed by the government. But on adjoining properties, the investigation found, the companies paid $140 to $577 to cross the same amount of land owned and managed by private individuals and companies.

Days before Rwanda holds it first real presidential election, reports are piling up of police and security agents threatening the opposition as the country's largely government-run media demonizes the leading challenger.

The vote Monday has been billed as a showcase for how far Rwanda has come in the nine years since a genocide shattered the tiny country. Officials deny the opposition is being harassed or that the media is biased.

But foreign observers, diplomats and ordinary Rwandans say otherwise, raising concerns that fear stoked by a government with a strong authoritarian bent and headed by President Paul Kagame, one of the candidates, has poisoned the atmosphere.

[edit]

A man working for the campaign of Faustin Twagiramungu, a Hutu and the only serious contender, said police told him if he didn't quit, he would be thrown in jail, or worse, killed. He was too frightened to give his name.

At a recent Twagiramungu rally, the nearly 2,000 people who turned out roared as the candidate spoke of democracy and freedom, an implication that both were lacking in Rwanda.

Few, however, were willing to engage in such talk themselves.

''We have no real ...,'' said Charles Mazamuzi, who stopped in mid-sentence and glanced around nervously. ''I cannot speak here ... they are listening.''

They, he said, are the plainclothes police who he claimed had gone through town before the rally telling people to stay home.

There was no way of verifying their presence, and it is not clear whether such acts are the work of overzealous local officials or a concerted effort by the government to shut down the opposition.

But the government has done little to assuage such fears.

Many in Rwanda — from diplomats to taxi drivers — avoid criticizing the government on the phone for fear the conversation will be overheard.

Independent journalists and human rights workers say they are regularly harassed by the police.

And four men associated with the opposition disappeared in April after the government banned their party. In a recent diplomatic note, the government said it has no information about them but said investigations would continue ''until all light has been shed on these disappearances.

"[T]o those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve."

Attorney General John Ashcroft went on the defensive yesterday over the government's antiterrorism laws, telling Philadelphia-area authorities that, without the Patriot Act, "America will pay the price in lost liberty."

Argentina's Senate voted overwhelmingly early Thursday to scrap a pair of amnesty laws dating to the 1980s that had ended trials for human rights abuses committed during the country's military dictatorship.

The senators voted 43-7 with one abstention and 21 lawmakers absent to support the proposal, which was passed last week by the lower House of Congress.

The final congressional approval marked a victory for human rights groups pressing for a national re-examination of the 1976-83 dictatorship and highlighted a new political will by Argentines under new President Nestor Kirchner to probe human rights abuses during the so-called Dirty War era.

The Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from an Alabama judicial building, rejecting a last-minute appeal from the judge who installed the display.

Writers Wanted

Ever get the itch to put your thoughts on paper? If this is the case, then take a shot at becoming a columnist for The Washington Dispatch

Consider us an open door for publication. It doesn't matter whether your write regularly or on a whim, you have a better shot of getting your work placed on our site than with most other Internet publishers. Why, you ask? Because we want to hear from you.

Everyday you may scan news and opinion sites and consistently see the regular writers who seem to be an expert on EVERYTHING. The rhetoric gets old after awhile.

The Washington Dispatch publishes the opinion pieces of real Americans, not self-professed pundits.

…

Please note that we do not pay for any work submitted.

News accounts claiming that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore had the Ten Commandments monument installed in the middle of the night are misleading, a friend and supporter of Moore noted.

[edit]

Vision America co-chairman Rick Scarborough, who helped organize an Aug. 16 rally for Moore in Montgomery, Ala., noted in an interview that news accounts have led some people to believe that Moore is deceitful.

In recent days, as the story has gained more attention nationally, news stories repeatedly have said that Moore had the monument installed "in the middle of the night."

While that is technically true, Scarborough said, other facts are left out.

"Because it weighed 5,300 pounds they had to wait until the courthouse was closed," Scarborough told Baptist Press.

The movers hired to install the monument arrived after the doors closed at 6 o'clock but soon discovered they didn't have enough men, Scarborough said, adding that it took them "hours" to get it lifted and in place.

So while the move did end in the middle of the night, it began hours before, he said.

"We need to clear that error up," Scarborough said.

In a part of the world where diplomacy usually means never saying you're sorry, South Korea's president publicly apologized to North Korea on Tuesday for a rally at which anti-communists burned a North Korean flag and an effigy of leader Kim Jong Il.

[edit]

Roh's political opponents accused him of capitulating to North Korea and demanded that he apologize for the apology.

[edit]

Conservatives were galled that the apology seemed more heartfelt than the pro forma regrets about frequent incidents in which South Korean students burn U.S. flags. Others said the government shouldn't apologize for anything that takes place at a peaceful demonstration.

"Why should President Roh apologize for the democratic right of citizens to freely express their opinion?" asked Seo Si Joo, an organizer of the rally Friday that offended the North Koreans. Seo said the demonstrators were protesting a regime that lets its people starve and threatens the world with nuclear weapons.

[edit]

The rally took place on the Aug. 15 holiday celebrating Korea's liberation from Japanese occupation at the end of World War II. About 7,000 people, most of them Korean War veterans or members of church groups, rallied in front of Seoul City Hall.

At the same time, about 10,000 students held a rival demonstration a few blocks away to protest the Bush administration's tough stance against North Korea in the ongoing nuclear crisis.

DON'T THINK for one second that Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore doesn't know he's got a hot hand with his campaign to keep a 21/2 ton granite monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery. Justice Moore claims with a straight face that his refusal to obey a federal court order to remove the monument is all about Alabama's "right to acknowledge God." But he knows better, just as does anyone else who has followed his controversial public career. Roy Moore has been riding the Ten Commandments as a campaign issue since he first struck out for judicial office. And left to his own devices, he intends to ride the Decalogue as far as his appeals to emotions and lust for power will take him.

Mr. Moore managed to get his name on the map -- and his face in the news -- when he was an Alabama circuit court judge. He took the decidedly un-judicial route of defying a court order to remove a hand-carved, wooden plaque of the Ten Commandments from behind the bench in his courtroom. Flushed with the attention and acclaim he won for that stunt and depicting himself as the "Ten Commandments Judge" and a defender of Alabama against moral decline, Mr. Moore advanced his political career in 2000 by winning an election for the chief justice post. And shortly after he settled in at the state courthouse -- and in the dead of night after his fellow justices had left the building -- Mr. Moore had the granite monument installed in the rotunda, with the entire episode recorded on film by an evangelical Christian media organization. That the organization, Coral Ridge Ministries, has used the proceeds from the sale of the film to pay Mr. Moore's legal expenses tells a story in itself about the extent to which he would exploit the Ten Commandments for his personal ends. Mr. Moore's decision to deliberately link his theology to the justice dispensed by the Alabama judiciary, to thumb his nose at the First Amendment prohibition against state establishment of religion, and then to go before an Alabama crowd of thousands and tell them that he will continue to defy a federal court order, recalls the worst days of Alabama Gov. George Wallace's defiance of federal desegregation decrees and is an affront to the rule of law.

U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson, who ordered the monument removed from the judicial building by today because it violates the Constitution, has indicated that $5,000 daily fines could be imposed against Alabama if the order is not carried out by the deadline. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta has upheld Judge Thompson's ruling, and Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr. -- President Bush's nominee for a seat on the 11th Circuit -- has said he would "exercise any authority provided" to bring the state into compliance with the federal court order, adding, "I will not violate nor assist any person in the violation of this injunction." For any law-abiding judge, that should be enough, especially when the state's chief law enforcement officer, and a conservative himself, refuses to come to the judge's defense. But this is Roy Moore, who now has evangelist Jerry Falwell and other religious conservatives whipping up the crowd in his behalf.

So what if deficit-ridden Alabama can hardly afford a $5,000 daily fine, or that Roy Moore believes he has sole discretion to decide which federal court orders to obey? There's nothing quite as intoxicating as having the power to stir up and win over people for one's own political ends, even at the expense of law and the Constitution.

"While Bush and Republican leaders in Congress resist the elimination of tax shelters for corporations that set up dummy offices abroad, the administration has sought to recover some of the soaring costs by cutting support for military families that have to relocate and for Veterans Administration medical centers, which are already falling behind in attempts to keep up with veterans' needs."

"Bush's conservatism is certainly less rigid and doctrinaire than that of Newt Gingrich and his minions ..."

"Bush's conservatism is less moralistic, more live-and-let-live, than that of many traditional conservatives. In the culture wars, Bush generally prefers quiet diplomacy. During the 2000 campaign he had little to say about abortion, affirmative action, or gay rights."

"They tend to take a keen interest in federalism, stressing the need to protect state authority from encroaching congressional legislation."

"It's almost like three-level chess on 'Star Trek,' " said John Hlinko, co-founder of the Washington-based group. "On the one hand, [Wesley Clark] definitely is the key target constituent. On the other hand, we also fully recognize that if he is going to enter . . . we want to continue building a base of supporters."

PETITION TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Whereas, it is possible that there may soon be as many as three vacancies on the Supreme Court of the United States;
and

Whereas, it is my prayer that, in choosing your next nominee to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, your decision will not be based on political considerations of gender, race, or ethnic background; and

Whereas, I urge you to select a nominee whose character and convictions comport with the principles spelled out in the U.S. Constitution by America’s Founding Fathers; and

Whereas, Judge ROY MOORE, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama – – – the TEN COMMANDMENTS Judge – – – has shown himself to be a man of valor, integrity, and comprehensive familiarity with original Constitutional principles, and a stalwart defender of religious liberty,

Therefore, I urge you to choose Alabama Chief Justice ROY MOORE to fill the next available vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

"...the use of trademarked terms in book titles is common and does not generally confuse the public into believing that the book is in any way the product of the trademark holder. No reasonable person would believe that "Where's the Beef? The Mad Cow Disease Conspiracy," by David Lamar Cole is the product of the Wendy's hamburger chain, for example. Likewise we don't believe readers are likely to believe that Mr. Franken's book is the product of Fox News."

Fox News has become the highest-rated news network on cable because we feature lively debate and all honest voices are welcome. We don't do drive-by character assassinations, and we don't denigrate opposing points of view by launching gratuitous personal attacks. Fox's presentation is in the tradition of the raucous town meeting where passion and conviction are on display. We challenge people of all political persuasions.

O'REILLY: In the "Personal Stories" segment tonight, we were surprised to find out than an American who lost his father in the World Trade Center attack had signed an anti-war advertisement that accused the USA itself of terrorism.

[Edit]

I'm surprised you signed this. You were the only one of all of the families who signed...

[Edit]

O'REILLY: You are mouthing a far left position that is a marginal position in this society, which you're entitled to.

GLICK: It's marginal -- right.

O'REILLY: You're entitled to it, all right, but you're -- you see, even -- I'm sure your beliefs are sincere, but what upsets me is I don't think your father would be approving of this.

GLICK: Well, actually, my father thought that Bush's presidency was illegitimate.

O'REILLY: Maybe he did, but...

GLICK: I also didn't think that Bush...

O'REILLY: ... I don't think he'd be equating this country as a terrorist nation as you are.

[Edit]

GLICK: Let me finish. You evoke 9/11 to rationalize everything from domestic plunder to imperialistic aggression worldwide.

O'REILLY: OK. That's a bunch...

GLICK: You evoke sympathy with the 9/11 families.

O'REILLY: That's a bunch of crap. I've done more for the 9/11 families by their own admission -- I've done more for them than you will ever hope to do.

GLICK: OK.

O'REILLY: So you keep your mouth shut when you sit here exploiting those people.

GLICK: Well, you're not representing me. You're not representing me.

O'REILLY: And I'd never represent you. You know why?

GLICK: Why?

O'REILLY: Because you have a warped view of this world and a warped view of this country.

[Edit]

O'REILLY: All right. You didn't support the action against Afghanistan to remove the Taliban. You were against it, OK.

GLICK: Why would I want to brutalize and further punish the people in Afghanistan...

O'REILLY: Who killed your father!

GLICK: The people in Afghanistan...

O'REILLY: Who killed your father.

GLICK: ... didn't kill my father.

O'REILLY: Sure they did. The al Qaeda people were trained there.

[Edit]

O'REILLY: Man, I hope your mom isn't watching this.

GLICK: Well, I hope she is.

O'REILLY: I hope your mother is not watching this because you -- that's it. I'm not going to say anymore.

[Edit]

O'REILLY: Shut up. Shut up.

[Edit]

O'REILLY: Cut his mic. I'm not going to dress you down anymore, out of respect for your father.

KARINA ROLLINS: What is your overall assessment of masculinity today?

KATE O’BEIRNE: Generally positive—as it always has been, despite the efforts of the elites. And September 11 made it more difficult for liberals to criticize traditional male characteristics and virtues. [Check out Joe Conason's essay on how the Right falsely equates liberals with elitism here.]

ERICA WALTER: Manliness has experienced a renaissance for two reasons: The Bush/Cheney administration has set the tone for the political culture. And 9/11, of course. Why did America fall in love with soldiers and firemen and traditional male occupations? Because we realized we’re at risk. The comeback of manliness is here to stay as long as national security is an issue.

JESSICA GAVORA: I am distressed by the degree to which feminism still carries political weight. Even under the current administration there is a continuing belief that groups like the National Organization for Women speak for women. And men are discriminated against in public policy, as in federal legislation like Title IX, the program to bolster female athletics in college. In the private realm we’re in better shape.

MONA CHAREN: Women used to rely on gentlemen to protect them from louts and predators. Then feminists decided that sisterhood will protect women and give them power in the world, and they dumped all men into the “bad” category. That made it much harder for men to perform their traditional role of protectors of women. I was in college when feminism was reaching its apex. In the1970s at Barnard College, the kinds of young men one met there were confused. They had no idea what they were doing or supposed to be doing in regard to women. After college, I went to work at National Review and found that conservative men were not confused.

CHARLOTTE HAYS: The modern-day loss of respect for manliness is an aberration. Men and their virtues have always been prized. The great epics aren’t about women and their virtues. The post-9/11 love affair with police, firemen, and soldiers is a return of normal relations between men and women. Most people today never needed to be carried out of a burning building. But once they see 3,000 people that need to be rescued, they know it takes men.
(snip)
[Karina] ROLLINS [AEI's interviewer]: Why are there so many wimpy male journalists?

CHAREN: Because they’re liberals. Not to say there aren’t some conservative wimps. But conservatives never really bought into the notion of androgyny or into feminism, and so conservative men never felt the need to abandon their manliness. Liberal men, on the other hand, thought that was being enlightened. So, since most journalists are liberal, a lot of them are wimpy.
(snip)
ROLLINS: Are today’s parents raising warriors or wimps?

SCHAEFER: When men aren’t inculcated with manly virtues they don’t become wimps, they become hoodlums. Recently I found myself walking around Manhattan in the aftermath of the Puerto Rican Day Parade: hordes of post-adolescent men wandering around, leering at women, making rude comments. That’s what happens when you don’t have fathers. It’s not that boys become gay and effeminate and go work for the New York Times.

O’BEIRNE: Pat Moynihan warned us about predatory males being raised by single moms.
(snip)
ROLLINS: Who has been hurt more by the confusion of sex roles?

HAYS: Men. Women now predominate on college campuses. Women are moving into men’s jobs. Masculinity is under attack. It’s men who are being shoved out and hurt more.

WALTER: Men, definitely. In the 1960s, equality rolled over America like a steamroller. That was terrible for men. It was bad for women too, but women gained a lot: equality in the workplace, a place at the table, especially women who didn’t want to have babies or get married. But men lost. Men got the right to become louts, to prey on the new promiscuity of feminists who where touting sexual liberation.
(snip)
ROLLINS: Is there anything people can do to get the male-female relationship back into balance? How do we keep the post-9/11 rebound of traditional manliness going?

SCHAEFER: I think there’s a role for religion to play. Men’s involvement in churches over the last few decades has decreased. At most religious colleges, the environment is much more tipped in favor of women. I wonder whether churches couldn’t do more to encourage manly virtues.

O’BEIRNE: I’m pessimistic about the role of religion given that most of the mainline churches have been so feminized.

HAYS: Religion is always under attack from feminizers, and too many of today’s religious leaders don’t have the guts to stand up and talk about how men and women are really different.

SCHAEFER: Churches could be a plus if run the right way.

O’BEIRNE: Right. But I don’t think that groups like Promise Keepers are very helpful. I’m not encouraged when I see a stadium filled with men hugging each other. Just go home and be a man.

ROLLINS: Do today’s women really not want more modern, equality-minded, sensitive men?

O’BEIRNE: No. Women don’t want a guy to feel their pain, they want a guy to clean the gutters.

WALTER: God save us from modern men.

For nearly a decade, special counsel inquiries and adversarial congressional hearings dominated the headlines, etched bitter partisan lines, led to the impeachment of a president and made the nation's political debates resemble hand-to-hand combat.

Now, some things have changed. The law that provided for special counsels has expired. President Bush's fellow Republicans control both houses of Congress.

[edit]

But the president's Democratic critics now face a much steeper challenge to force the administration's hand or drive the capital's agenda than Republicans had during the Clinton administration. As the minority party in Congress, the Democrats can't schedule a congressional hearing, issue a subpoena, demand a special counsel or rely on the GAO to obtain information that the White House doesn't want to give.

"I don't think [gay marriage is] a great idea; the whole idea of marriage is bringing up children."

This brazen flouting of the Vacancies Act and Congress's authority to confirm nominees has brought howls from the likes of Senator Robert Byrd. But other than critics on "the right," the rest of Washington can't even stir itself over this side of Mr. Clinton. Any politician would have nine lives given this many free passes.

The reason for all this recess manipulation is clear. The President is rewarding his party's left wing for its fealty.

President Bush is now reported to be planning to bypass the Senate and give Mr. Pipes a recess appointment while Congress is on vacation. This would allow Mr. Pipes to serve until the end of next year.

This is a good idea. The subtext of the Pipes confirmation battle is the conflict between two views of how to defeat terrorists. The pro-Pipes side believes they have to be confronted and defeated; the folks opposing him believe they can be mollified and co-opted. Appointing Mr. Pipes would send an important signal about which side is running U.S. foreign policy.

If the museum were not scrupulously nonpartisan (its advisory board includes both Stephen Breyer, the liberal Supreme Court justice, and the conservative Antonin Scalia) it might have offered an instructive exhibit asking visitors to match the constitutional rights they have just learned about with the views of Bush administration judicial nominees. One Bush choice for the courts, Michael McConnell, now a federal appeals court judge, has argued that the Supreme Court was wrong to rule that the equal protection clause required legislative districts with roughly equal numbers of people. Jay Bybee, also now an appeals court judge, has argued, incredibly, that the 17th Amendment should be repealed, and United States senators once again selected by state legislators. William Pryor, a nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, urged Congress to repeal an important part of the Voting Rights Act.

President Bush has said he wants to appoint judges like Clarence Thomas and Justice Scalia, both embarked on campaigns to undo years of constitutional progress. Justice Scalia advocates tying Americans' rights today to the prevailing wisdom of the 18th century. In a petulant dissent in the recent sodomy decision, he argued that gay sex can be criminalized now because it was a crime in the 13 original states. Justice Thomas offered the dangerous argument in last year's school voucher case that states should be less bound by the Bill of Rights than the federal government.

Mainstream conservatives approve of the onward march of the last two centuries of constitutional history. Anthony Kennedy, named to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan, eloquently observed in his majority decision in the sodomy case that "as the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom." But many Bush nominees are not conservatives but radicals. If they take over the federal courts — and in a second Bush administration they might — the scope of our constitutional rights could be very different. The National Constitution Center might be forced to reorganize its main hall in a "U" shape, so visitors can turn around and say goodbye to the rights that were taken away.

High school junior Conor Kelly lays out his path to the White House as matter-of-factly as a typical teenager plots weekend plans: A quick run for legislature in his home state of New Hampshire after college, jump to the US House of Representatives at 26, complete two terms in the US Senate and one as governor before grabbing the presidency in 2024.

With that tight schedule, there's no time to waste. So, wearing a GOP elephant lapel pin and an American-flag bow tie, Conor got a head start on his career this summer at a government- studies program at Georgetown University here.

[edit]

Conor also realizes he's far from the only aspiring commander in chief in the bunch. On his dorm floor alone there are a handful of presidential hopefuls, including Daniel Aikin, who has decorated his room with 15 American flags embroidered on everything from his blanket to a beach chair.

Daniel already tilts his head slightly like a seasoned politician, speaking in sound-bite bursts as if he's on the stump. During a break on Capitol Hill, he leads a small group of classmates to a House Appropriations Committee markup; he's watched many hearings on C-SPAN but looks forward to seeing one in person.

[edit]

[Connor] admits to realizing that the job of president comes with unimaginably heavy responsibilities. Perhaps that's why he decides to compromise with Daniel, the candidate across the hall, on their presidential bids.

Conor suggests they run together, he as presidential nominee and Daniel as the vice presidential nominee. He generously offers to serve only one term as president and let Daniel take the White House in 2028. Why does he get to run for president first?

That's simple, he explains: "I can carry the New Hampshire primary."

This is news?

According to the AP, the Bush campaign will use a "web site" to reach out to those who aren't connected enough to get invited to pay $2,000 for a hot dog with Vice President Dick Cheney. A "web site" is something on the "world wide web" (WWW) that all the young people are talking about these days. It uses state of the art "technology" to display "things" that "enable" those duped by fear and the false lure of riches to contribute part of their "severance packages" or their "reduced combat pay" to the Bush campaign. While sources were sketchy about details, the "web site" may have "buttons" and a "progress bar" showing how many legal black voters the administration has managed to wipe from the rolls this time around. It is unknown at this time whether visitors to the "web site" will "get" the "irony" of Bush trying to reach out to people he doesn't know, when the benefit of every policy decision he makes lands firmly in the lap of one of his "good buddies."

Voters will get to decide this November whether the city should do more to reduce stress.

City council members said Monday they were forced to put the question on November's ballot because resident Jeff Peckman collected 2,462 certified signatures, slightly over the required number.

The council's only options were implementing the measure right away or sending it to the voters. The council voted 11-2 to put it on the ballot - but reluctantly.

"Voters didn't send us down here to deal with fantasy and frivolousness and that's what this is," said Councilman Charlie Brown, who called the proposal "lunatic." Councilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez quipped, "I'm getting stressed out over this bill." Peckman said the council members should favor his proposal because it supports their duty under the U.S. Constitution to provide for the common defense and ensure domestic tranquility.

The measure doesn't advise how the city should reduce stress but requires the city to research the idea and scientifically prove which methods work. Some of Peckman's ideas include playing soothing music in public places and improving the quality of school lunches.

All he is saying, Peckman said after the meeting, is "Give peace a chance."

BLITZER: General, I want you to listen, during the war, when you were still working for CNN -- and just want to alert our viewers, you're no longer working for CNN as our military analyst.

CLARK: Right.

BLITZER: But during the war, early in April, Tom DeLay, the majority leader in the House, really hammered you directly. I want you to listen to what he told our Judy Woodruff then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TOM DELAY (R-TX), MAJORITY LEADER: Frankly, what irritates me the most are these blow-dried Napoleons that come on television and, in some cases, have their own agendas.

General Clark is one of them that is running for president, yet he's paid to be an expert on your network. And he's questioning the plan and raising doubts as he becomes this expert.

I think they would serve the nation better if they would just comment on what they see and what they know, rather than putting their own agenda forward as an expert.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Well, pretty strong words from Tom DeLay going after you. What do you say to that criticism?

CLARK: Well, first of all, I'd be happy to compare my hair with Tom DeLay's. We'll see who's got the blow-dried hair.

But beyond that, Wolf, he's got it exactly backward. It's upside down. I am saying what I believe. And I'm being drawn into the political process because of what I believe and what I've said about it.

So it's precisely the opposite of a man like Tom DeLay, who is only motivated by politics and says whatever he needs to say to get the political purpose. And so, you know, it couldn't be more diametrically opposed, and I couldn't be more opposed than I am to Tom DeLay.

You know, Wolf, when our airmen were flying over Kosovo, Tom DeLay led the House Republicans to vote not to support their activities, when American troops were in combat. To me, that's a real indicator of a man who is motivated not by patriotism or support for the troops, but for partisan political purposes.

"I will fight for the environment. Nothing to worry about."

We have to bring back businesses to California and to make sure that everyone in California has a great job, a fantastic job."

The women of this village call Francise Akacha "the terrorist." His breath fumes with the local alcoholic brew. Greasy food droppings hang off his mustache and stain his oily pants and torn shirt.

He's always the first one in line for the village feast, tucking into a buffet carefully prepared by the women of the village like he's diving into the ocean, no restraint. He's too skinny and has, as the women point out, terrible taste in clothes. His latest hat is a visor styled from shabby paper stolen off a local cigarette billboard.

But for all of his undesirable traits, Akacha has a surprisingly desirable job: He's paid to have sexual relations with the widows and unmarried women of this village. He's known as "the cleanser," one of hundreds of thousands of men in rural villages across Africa who sleep with women after their husbands die to dispel what villagers believe are evil spirits.

As tradition holds, they must sleep with the cleanser to be allowed to attend their husbands' funerals or be inherited by their husbands' brother or relative, another controversial custom that aid workers said is causing the spread of HIV-AIDS. Unmarried women who lose a parent or child must also sleep with the ritual cleanser.

The custom has always been unpopular among women. But in midst of an AIDS pandemic, which has led to the deaths of 19.6 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, having relations with the cleanser has become more than just a painful ritual that women must endure. Cleansers are now spreading HIV at explosive rates in such villages as Gangre, where one in every three people is infected.

If your workplace is safe; if your children go to school rather than being forced into labor; if you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights -- you can thank liberals. If your food is not poisoned and your water is drinkable -- you can thank liberals. If your parents are eligible for Medicare and Social Security, so they can grow old in dignity without bankrupting your family -- you can thank liberals. If our rivers are getting cleaner and our air isn't black with pollution; if our wilderness is protected and our countryside is still green -- you can thank liberals. If people of all races can share the same public facilities; if everyone has the right to vote; if couples fall in love and marry regardless of race; if we have finally begun to transcend a segregated society -- you can thank liberals. Progressive innovations like those and so many others were achieved by long, difficult struggles against entrenched power. What defined conservatism, and conservatives, was their opposition to every one of those advances. The country we know and love today was built by those victories for liberalism -- with the support of the American people.

Former Ugandan military ruler Idi Amin, blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the 1970s, has been buried in Jeddah, according to media in Saudi Arabia.

Medical officials said Amin died in a Jeddah hospital on Saturday at the age of 80, though his birth year is also listed as 1925. Amin, who had lived for years in exile in the port city, had been on life support since July 18, after slipping into a coma.

Amin was buried in Jiddah's Ruwais cemetery after sunset prayers on Saturday, according to a source close to the family in the Red Sea port city. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said few people attended the funeral.

[edit]

A onetime heavyweight boxing champ and soldier in the British colonial army, Amin seized power in a military coup January 25, 1971, overthrowing President Milton Obote while he was abroad.

Amin's rule was marked by extreme nationalism. He ordered the persecution of several Ugandan tribal groups and kicked all Asians out of the country in 1972, an action blamed for the collapse of the country's economy.

The dictator was personally involved in the 1976 Palestinian hijacking of a French airliner to Entebbe.

According to the CIA World Factbook, during his eight years in power, Amin's "dictatorial regime" was "responsible for the deaths of some 300,000 opponents."

Human rights groups say that figure is much higher, arguing that as many as 500,000 people were killed or simply disappeared under his rule.

Exiles said he kept severed heads in his refrigerator, fed corpses to crocodiles and had one of his wives dismembered. He was also accused of cannibalism.