State of the Union, My Thoughts

This was not a timid speech. Slightly compromising, but he's still claiming victory for his policies and for the course of the war. And that stands to reason, the Democrats and the media have been impugning his honor for years now, for every policy and action he's taken. And President Bush doesn't do neutral, he does bold, big, visionary. He's big picture. And that's what this speech was.

On the war - he confronted the issue of the look of democracy, and the time it takes to get there (his shout out to the Palestinians and Iraq). He blasted the Democrats for their pathetic waffling and partisan backstabbing, and he dared - pretty much everyone - to disagree with him that the NSA program is necessary and must continue. He's going to win this issue, and bury the Democrats in November if they don't shut up about it. The problem for the Democrats though is that the media and the fringe won't let it go. And why? Because they believed every bit of pap shoveled at them about the program and his motives. But no one has ruled it illegal, nor called for it to be stopped - and Bush's line of "we're not going to sit back and wait to be hit again" is really the crux of the argument. It's not about warrants, it's about war. And he's saying we're in it to win it, and we're stupid to just sit back and wait for terrorists.

Iraq - curious how he's still attacking the debate. We're too far into the process of democracy to stop now, he said. Not a bad way of calling the Dems out on their defeatism. He's not attacking them, but he's telling them to pretty much shut up and sit down while he cleans out the

Iran - Bush went further here than he ever has. He spoke of the free and democratic Iran. Them's fightin words... But he gave a nod to Europe for their solution, and talked about dividing the people of Iran from the leadership. It's a good move, but unfortunately the first thing sanctions are going to do is hurt the people of Iran and not the leadership - they could care less about the Western lifestyle the public loves. But military strikes...they really are going to be the last resort.

Domestic issues - ugh. Except for making the tax cuts permanent and fixing the damn border (which he is not going to do in any meaningful way) I heard nothing here that makes me cheer all that loudly. The entire "we're addicted to oil" thing is not all that sound a science, plus "addicted" is such a poor choice in words, Americans don't want to be told that they have a problem when they know they don't. This isn't an intervention. People want their SUVs not so they can go out and waste oil, but because they need big freakin vehicles to carry their families around with and haul stuff with. Public transportation and hybrid cars (which are damn expensive) are not going to cut it. Nuclear power is cool, but it is going to take years to get that stuff online. Reducing dependency on foreign oil is not really the answer, it's reducing our risk for blackmail by foreign countries who have oil that we need. ANWR would have fixed this entire mess. Think about it this way, if Bush had gotten ANWR when 9-11 happened, the first oil wells would be coming on line right about now. Production would then ramp up over the next year, or two to three years from now. And what's going to be happening in the next year? Iran may put the stopper on it's oil wells or disrupt Middle East oil shipments in order to blackmail the world into backing down and allowing them to get nukes. It's utter mindless craziness from the environmentalists and Democrats that have tied both are hands behind our backs and left us open to this type of scenario. It's a mess.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for what I found to be major points of the speech. A more comprehensive point-by-point analysis can be found over at American Princess, who was live-blogging and playing the SOTU drinking game at the time. National Review has a post up about the oil and energy issues. Presidential poll numbers from the speech, a round-up by John McIntyre. Reaction from PowerLine. Captain's Quarters live-blogged it. Hugh Hewitt reaction. WSJ's take on how the speech could affect House leadership. Also I encourage this, the actual transcript of the speech. Interesting how it reads, as opposed to how it sounds.

And if you want to catch up on the other side's reactions, or read something that will tempt you to bang you head against the wall, check out Nancy Pelosi's blog at The Huffington Post for her rebuttal. Yes, and if you feel like trading up from head-bashing to hard liquor, apparently Rep. John Conyers and his merry little band of Impeachment Proceedings paper holders are going to be live-blogging right now, for some odd reason. But then again, it's Conyers.

Aw, heck, just go and watch the left implode over at the DU and Daily Kos.

The Money And The Madness

Possibly the most spot on editorial about the Democratic attempt at filibustering Samuel Alito and the party's current woes was by Deborah Orin in the New York Post (registration req'd). The gist of her analysis was that the spat taking place within the Democratic party made this nomination an easy one for Bush. And Kerry and Kennedy, venturing off into the fever swamp weeds as Kos bloggers, is only helping split the party more, and possibly put a permanent dent in Hillary Clinton's quest for the White House.

Not only did Kerry lose, he lost big time — just 25 Democrats were willing to join him as the party split apart over Alito, just as it has ripped apart over the Iraq war.

The vote was 72-25 against filibuster, so Team Kerry lost 3-1.

Worse yet, plenty of Democrats who did vote for the filibuster — like New York's Sen. Chuck Schumer — left little doubt that they were livid at Kerry's stunt, since it turned into a dream come true for Bush political guru Rove.

Senate Democrats had already huddled and agreed that a filibuster would be dumb: They lacked the votes — and Americans backed Alito by 2-1, so it could alienate the desperately needed swing voters.

But then Kerry, hobnobbing with hotshots in posh Davos, Switzerland, got his marching orders from The New York Times and the left-wing blog Daily Kos (which can be hard to tell apart these days). Presto: Insta-filibuster, like it or not.

It's the latest example of how Kerry — plus 2000 loser Al Gore and the left wing of the blogosphere — are all yanking the Democratic Party hard to the left, instead of the center (where most of the votes are).

Among those who felt they had to follow Kerry was likely 2008 rival Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) — after all, liberal activists decide Democratic primaries, and Clinton can't afford to alienate that base after voting for the Iraq war. But she clearly wasn't happy — she didn't speak in favor of filibuster on the Senate floor and just issued a rather tame written statement.

Still, the fact that Kerry's filibuster lost by such a huge margin gives Republicans more ammunition to paint Clinton as out-of-the-mainstream, which is just where they want her.

Lest there be any doubt that centrists thought Kerry's stunt was a dumb idea, consider how many Democrats from red (Republican) states and — and even, like Florida's Bill Nelson, from swing states — voted against it.

Another worry for Democrats was the fact that the reaction on the lefty blogs wasn't to think that maybe they'd had a dumb idea but instead to vow revenge and political death to Democrats who opposed the unpopular filibuster.

"Moron and coward"; "Primary challenge"; "Take down their names and kick their a-- in the next election" — just a few of the angry messages for Democrats posted on the Daily Kos site as his bloggers realized the filibuster was going down.

In fact, Kerry's allies seemed so angry at Democrats that they almost forget to attack Republicans.

Exactly. And now Bush is back on top. His poll numbers are back at 50% - they've been steadily climbing since the NSA wiretapping story broke. The diplomacy with Iran seems to be moving, where I have no idea, but it is moving with unanimous world support at the moment, and that's a good thing. Of course catching Iran red handed with documents about how to build bombs isn't helping their cause very much.

Democrats are lost on foreign policy, for which I'm glad at the moment. Cindy Sheehan, of all people, is about to put the final nail in the coffin on that chapter anyway, as she takes her anti-war message and autographed photo of Hugo Chavez with her as she wages war against Diane Feinstein and her senate seat.

So what's the next front in the civil war within the Democratic party? Oddly enough, it's going to be their lack of money. As Ms. Orin again explains:

Dean's team has just $5.5 million cash on hand, according to the latest reports, while the Republican National Committee has $34 million — a $29 million advantage for Bush's team. Anger doesn't seem to fill the coffers.

"The liberals in the party are marching like lemmings into the sea again," laments a veteran Democratic activist. "Sometimes I think the left wing is turning into a cult. It just doesn't allow for disagreement. If you disagree, you're a traitor."

The revelation that Howard Dean has fallen flat on his face with fundraising, and perhaps squandered the little money they did have on fighting the wrong fights, is quite telling of how badly they've been wounded (heh, though predictably somebody is making out a bit better). But the funny thing is, it's almost entire self-inflicted wounds.

If Bush can come out with a solid agenda, put forward tonight in his State of the Union, and the Congress can get it's act together, I think the Republicans have a chance at keeping things in order so that we can face down Iran, tackle the border problem, cut the damn spending, kill more terrorists and finish mopping up in Iraq.

The Democrats are no longer a serious party, on national security, on the war, on anything but wild conspiracies apparently. And it's sad, really, because I'll be the first to admit that Republicans need a check. They need a good opposition party, not one taken with utter fantasy and paranoia and mindless terror policies. The world is too dangerous for unseriousness, and as a country we need to act with unity - especially in the case of Iran.

Let's hope Bush's speech tonight is a good one. This country needs a pep talk.

Baby Has Surgery Before Birth

The news wire services are burying this story, but it needs highlighting. The first surgery of it's kind, a baby has had heart surgery - while still inside her mother's womb.

An infant, named Grace, who underwent the world's first heart "stent" procedure in the womb was discharged to go home on Friday, according to a press release from Children's Hospital Boston, the center where the landmark operation took place.

The stent was placed in the developing fetus at 30 weeks of pregnancy on November 7, 2005 to treat a heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). She was born January 10 and underwent the first part of a definitive three-stage corrective operation on January 13. The physicians credit the earlier stent placement with protecting her lungs and making her recent operation run more smoothly than usual for these types of cases.

With HLHS, the most common heart disease-related cause of death during the first week of life, the left side of the heart is underdeveloped and can accept very little blood. Frequently, there is a hole that lets blood from the left side flow to the right before leaving the heart. In Grace's case, however, there wasn't a hole, so blood accumulated on the left side and backed up into her lungs, which over time can cause serious damage.

To prevent the lung damage that would occur as the pregnancy went on, Dr. James Lock, from Children's Hospital Boston, and colleagues decided to create a connection between the left and right sides of Grace's heart using a stent, which acted like a tiny channel for the blood.

Under ultrasound guidance, the doctors inserted a small catheter into the mother's abdomen and uterus and then into the fetal heart. After two holes were created in the wall between the left and right sides of the heart, the stent was placed.

After several uneventful weeks, the mother returned to the hospital in January for delivery. An ultrasound performed just before birth suggested that the stent procedure had worked: Grace looked like a typical HLHS baby, instead of one in the highest risk category as would have been expected without treatment. At birth, Grace was breathing without major difficulty and did not need to be put on a mechanical ventilator.

Pretty darn amazing.

Judge Samuel Alito Confirmed!

Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. became the nation's 110th Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, confirmed with the most partisan victory in modern history after a fierce battle over the future direction of the high court.

The Senate voted 58-42 to confirm Alito _ a former federal appellate judge, U.S. attorney, and conservative lawyer for the Reagan administration from New Jersey _ as the replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a moderate swing vote on the court.

All but one of the Senate's majority Republicans voted for his confirmation, while all but four of the Democrats voted against Alito.

That is the smallest number of senators in the president's opposing party to support a Supreme Court justice in modern history. Chief Justice John Roberts got 22 Democratic votes last year, and Justice Clarence Thomas _ who was confirmed in 1991 on a 52-48 vote _ got 11 Democratic votes.

Alito watched the final vote from the White House's Roosevelt Room with his family. He was to be sworn in by Roberts at the Supreme Court in a private ceremony later in the day, in plenty of time for him to appear with President Bush at the State of the Union speech Tuesday evening.

Alito will be ceremonially sworn in a second time at a White House East Room appearance on Wednesday.

When All Else Fails...

...make fun of the bad guy.

After the Hamas election victory, The New York Times was hoping for moderation. Europe and the U.S. prayed for a renunciation of terror. Israel prayed for a flood. A big one. Yet what's actually happening?

As Hamas, predictably, is starting to crack down on the fun, they're being met by their own electorate with...jokes.

Mobile phones are abuzz with text messaged jokes prophesying a new police uniform mirroring the short dress and baggy pants worn by the former hardline Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, and a discount on taxes for Christians who convert to Islam within a week.

Speeding ticket? Pay for it with extra prayers.

The jokes in the West Bank reflect the rawest nerves because Palestinians there tend to be less traditional than in Gaza, where the militant Hamas is strongest.

In Gaza in the early 1990s, after the first Palestinian uprising in Israel, Hamas used a quasi-police force to shut down restaurants serving alcohol and to impose a conservative dress code.

While an overwhelming majority of people chose Hamas on election day, the wide circulation of the jokes reflects how conflicted people are over their choice, said Nadia Najjab, a social psychology professor in the West Bank Birzeit University.

"The jokes are really expressive of our fears," said Anis Barioush, a 50-year old teacher in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "The new rulers will change our traditions and impose a Taliban rule."

They probably will. But the people voted. So now they get to deal with it.

Still, I gotta admire their newfound disrespect for the terrorists. At least over here if you're a bad comedian the worst that could happen is you get a show like Bill Maher. If these kids aren't careful and Hamas takes offense they could find themselves forced to go out and model the latest fashion in suicide bomb packs.

hmm...but if they had Jack Bauer's cell phone they could probably learn how to enact some text-messeging revenge of their own.

Chili Isn't The Answer

The imminent elevation of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court - with few blows, if any, landed by Democrats - has caused a bit of a panic amongst the various abortion proponent groups.

As evidence of their panic, aside from the fact that they're now claiming the battle for abortion is lost, they held a "chili for choice" fundraiser dinner last Thursday. Yes. Chili.

In Wichita, Kansas, abortion rights supporters held a "chili for choice" fund-raising dinner. In Pierre, South Dakota, they plotted strategy in the "Back Alley" meeting hall. And in Minneapolis, volunteers led women past protesters into an abortion clinic.

It was just a typical week in Middle America where the decades-old debate over abortion rights has become a full-blown battle. But even as they continue to raise money and march around state capitols, the view from the pro-choice side is this is a fight they are losing.

The expected Senate confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of conservative jurist Samuel Alito, who is favored by anti-abortion advocates, is seen as a key turning point. Yet it is only the latest in a series of blows to abortion rights advocates.

The pro-choice groups find themselves facing a virtual avalanche of state legislation that ranges from laws banning abortions in almost all circumstances to laws limiting the disbursement of birth control and restricting sex education.

President George W. Bush is a vocal supporter of the anti-abortion movement. Conservative church groups across the country increasingly oppose abortion.

"I think Roe in the short term will be dismantled," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "We have an anti-choice president, an anti-choice Congress and now ... with the confirmation of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court, we are seeing the potential for a very right-leaning, anti-choice Supreme court."

Actually, I rather see it as America is making their choice. Much like British women, who it appears, are also making their choice.

A majority of women in Britain want the abortion laws to be tightened to make it harder, or impossible, for them to terminate a pregnancy.

Evidence of a widespread public demand for the government to further restrict women's right to have an abortion is revealed in a remarkable Observer opinion poll. The findings have reignited the highly-charged debate on abortion, and increased the pressure on Tony Blair to review the current time limits.

It's interesting to note that the pro-choice groups are blaming technology (and George Bush, Karl Rove and the religious right, though I'm sure you know that goes without saying from them). I find that a sort of ironic twist, that the groups that threw out religion and the idea of life in the womb, are now being thwarted by science that can more readily place an actual identity to the growing child.

Among the key factors is enhanced technology, such as 4-D ultra-sound, that allows pregnant women to clearly view the features of the fetus they might abort.

"The technology has allowed someone who before had no face and no voice to become an actual child," said Mary Spaulding Balch, director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee. "In the 70s and 80s whenever you debated abortion you talked about the mother. Now the baby is being brought into the debate."

Michelle Malkin posted a link to one of her previous columns on the matter, one I had not read before. But in it she highlights the scanning procedure.

For the past two years, the medical facility has offered state-of-the art 3-D/4-D scanning equipment services to expectant parents. Campbell performs an average of 30 scans a week. His outspoken enthusiasm for this blessed technology is refreshing. "Parents love them," he told the Mirror. "I hear so many couples laughing when they see the pictures - it's wonderful."

Campbell's high-tech window to the womb also shows the babies moving their limbs at 8 weeks, leaping and turning by 12 weeks, curling their toes and fingers at 15 weeks, and yawning at 20 weeks. The clients' reactions are overwhelming, Campbell said, "especially with fathers, who rarely get involved. Before they sat in the corner. Now they really show emotion. I enjoy scanning and looking at babies. It is so informative about babies and behavior. Every scan is an adventure."

Contrast this to the fundraiser described above, and the Saturday highlight of escorting women to abortion clinics, and the dichotomy of purpose becomes strikingly clear. And of course Planned Parenthood and NARAL's statement on the matter comes across as, well...

...pro-abortion advocates have attacked legislation in Congress, introduced by Fla. Republican Cliff Stearns, which would guarantee free ultrasound screenings to any woman who visits a non-profit crisis pregnancy center that receives subsidies for sonogram equipment. Kathryn Allen, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, griped: "With all the problems going on in our world, I can't imagine that Congress would spend its time and energy on ultrasound for anyone." Alison Herwitt, director of government relations for NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington, also attacked pro-life supporters of the bill: "They don't want women to go to Planned Parenthood, where they'll get their full range of options," said Alison Herwitt, "They just want them to go to crisis pregnancy centers, where women will be exposed to this weapon at taxpayers' expense."

The sonogram as a weapon. That's a new one.

But even with such advances, will abortion in the U.S. ever be deemed illegal? I doubt it. I think the pro-abortion groups are overstating their losses. Medically, the choice of abortion is here to stay, as a majority of the public do want that option in some form. But it does appear that as we grapple with the toughest questions about life, technology is once again going to outpace us all and show us that the certainty with which we "choose" in this world has more to do with honing our ability to will of our own mortal power than any claim to understanding the mystery and miracle of our existence.

I can only hope that as technology continues to advance, humanity continues to find a way to choose life more often than death.

If You Want Something Done Right...

Cindy Sheehan is upset. It appears that Diane Feinstein's "no" vote on Alito is just not good enough.

Gold star mother Cindy Sheehan has decided to run against California Senator Diane Feinstein if Feinstein does not filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel Alito.

Someone apparently told her this was a good idea, because now she's firmed up her opposition to Feinstein and decided to make a go of it.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist who set up camp near President Bush's Texas ranch last summer, said Saturday she is considering running against Sen. Dianne Feinstein to protest what she called the California lawmaker's support for the war in Iraq.

"She voted for the war. She continues to vote for the funding. She won't call for an immediate withdrawal of the troops," Sheehan told The Associated Press in an interview while attending the World Social Forum in Venezuela along with thousands of other anti-war and anti-globalization activists.

"I think our senator needs to be held accountable for her support of George Bush and his war policies," said Sheehan, whose 24-year-old soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Feinstein's campaign manager, Kam Kuwata, said the senator "doesn't support George Bush and his war policies."

"She has stated publicly on numerous occasions that she felt she was misled by the administration at the time of the vote," Kuwata said by phone from California.

But with troops committed, Feinstein believes immediate withdrawal is not a responsible option, Kuwata said.

"Senator Feinstein's position is, let's work toward quickly turning over the defense of Iraq to Iraqis so that we can bring the troops home as soon as possible," he said.

This is why Democrats cannot maintain any sensible policy for national security. Being liberal is not the problem, it's what Democrats and their media allies have done in the name of political victory that's led to this current plague of phoniness, Bush Derangement Syndrome and general moonbattery. Note this exchange about the NSA intelligence gathering program from the recent interview of Vice President Dick Cheney by James Taranto:

Mr. Cheney says key members of Congress--the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, and sometimes both parties' top leaders from each chamber--were fully informed. "These sessions with Congress, most of which I presided over . . . answered every question that they wanted to ask. We've always said, look, if there's anything else you need to know, just let us know."

The lawmakers, Mr. Cheney says, shared the administration's view that secrecy was essential. "Public debate and discussion about the program would have done--in our view and in the view of members of Congress who were consulted--damage to our capabilities in this respect. We'd rather not have this conversation about this program, except for the fact that the New York Times went public with it."

Yet after the Times broke the story, Democratic members of Congress changed their tune from the one Mr. Cheney says they had sung in private.
....

If the vice president's account is accurate, how does one explain Mr. Rockefeller and Ms. Harman's about-face? It may be that their party's base--the Angry Left--is so implacably opposed to the administration and to the war effort that leading Democrats can afford to be responsible about national security only behind closed doors.

Exactly. And the New York Times, with it's army of leakers and circular and selective reporting, is going to make sure it pushes enough red meat out there to get people like Cindy Sheehan and the Kos crusaders so enraged that it becomes impossible for elected Democrats to follow even the bare minimum of a national security policy out in the open (not that they even have a plan aside from surrender anyway).

And if you don't believe me (because yes, I'll grant you that Cindy Sheehan cannot win in California) please recall these recent spectacles where liberal bloggers have started turning on their biggest cheerleaders in the MSM - not only for being "right-wing" - but for not proclaiming their own ideology and views about the "BushHitler regime" as gospel.

But this is what happens when truth gives way to ideology. The left is so obsessed with being right and taking Bush down they have given in to absolutely mindless political stances and conspiratorial Republican motives - though luckily for America they are also much more comfortable about stating what they really believe. Note the latest "unveiling" so to speak, of journalist Joel Stein, making the case for what liberals should really be saying. Perhaps the Kos crusaders will find him more agreeable, because as Mark Steyn so accurately articulates "...Stein is a hawkish chicken, disdaining the weasel formulation too many anti-war folks take refuge in."

Democrats have been trying to walk the national security tightrope for years, and now the far left is removing the net. We've got Cindy running for office, Kos and company rooting out the true believers (amongst elected officials and journalists), while the remaining journalists are finding it easier - and perhaps in the near future almost necessary - to out themselves as blatantly anti-war. It really is shaping up to be the moonbat trifecta for the Democratic party - which most likely equals a loss for them come November.

hmm...Tradesports seems to agree.

Irony Doesn't Even Come Close

With something between amused pity and outright disgust (yes, it's possible), I've been watching this last minute train wreck that blogger John Kerry, who also appears to be a U.S. Senator, and fellow blogger Ted Kennedy (yet another Senator, from the same little state no less) have set in motion.

Phoning in his outrage from Davos, Kerry has the new distinction of starting the first international filibuster of a Supreme Court Justice nominee.

This is laughable. Even Reuters has all but conceded Alito will be confirmed. Whenever they end an article like this -

Sen. Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, emerged from a meeting with Alito saying he was not ready to announce how he would vote. But, he said, "I have decided that I will not participate in a filibuster."

Conrad pointed out that the American Bar Association had given Alito its highest rating, polls show most Americans support him, and that "elections have consequences."

Bush won two terms as president, promising to put conservatives on the Supreme Court. Last year he chose conservative John Roberts to be chief justice of the court.

- you know it's over. Yet here we have Kerry and Kennedy braying about the dangers of lifetime appointments and conservative agendas - from two men who's tenure in politics nearly outdistances (though in the case of Kennedy eclipses) even Sandra Day O'Connor's time on the Supreme Court.

Sandra Day O'Connor (born March 26, 1930) has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1981.

That's about 25 years on the court. Yet here we have Kerry:

Term of office: January 1985 - present

And as long as he doesn't give up his Senate seat he is surely to continue to be re-elected for the foreseeable future. And then we have blustering Ted Kennedy:

Term of office: January 1963 - –Present

That's forty three years, in the Senate! That's fourteen years longer than Mary Jo Kopechne's lifetime! And don't even get me started on Robert Byrd (1959 to present!) - though ironically, his tenure and re-election have everything to do with him voting for Samuel Alito.

But seriously folks, why now? Why all this filibuster fuss? Is it for real, or is this just the beginning of pre-election madness? Most likely the latter.

John Kerry, who lost the 2004 election for president to George W. Bush, said Thursday that he does not rule out a repeat run.

And also because of this.

The DNC raised $167 million to the RNC's $238 million.

Which takes us to the small civil war taking place within the Democratic party right now. You have fringe supporters who want Democrats to go down fighting - and they contribute a lot of money to the war effort - and moderate Senators trying to avoid the partisan scourge as they try to win re-election in their conservative states. But the Democrats need money and they need energy, badly.

But their problem in getting those things is not that their party is divided, heck I think the Republican party is worse in that regard, it's because - news flash! - they still stand for nothing! Look:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) repeatedly told colleagues this week that he wanted to avoid a filibuster, party members said. He looked frustrated in the Senate chamber yesterday as he told Frist he could not avert the parliamentary tactic. Shrugging his shoulders, Reid said he hoped "this matter will be resolved without too much more talking, but . . . everyone has the right to talk."

Party sources said Reid and others worry that a filibuster, while likely to fail, will nonetheless detract voters' attention from issues that Democratic leaders consider more promising. They include Bush's controversial domestic surveillance program, the indictments of a top White House official and a congressional leader, and the unfolding scandal centered on former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Party leaders especially worry about forcing a filibuster decision on Democrats seeking reelection this fall in GOP-leaning states, including Nelson and Kent Conrad (N.D.).

Notice anything? Every "promising" issue is some type of scandal that the Democrats and the media want to blast the President with. Not one issue listed has anything to do with a plan, let alone a direction, for the country. This is a not the mark of leadership. It's the mark of childishness and weakness. And we're seeing this on every issue, Iraq, the economy, the core War on Terror (NSA), not just with Judge Alito's confirmation. To quote John McIntyre:

Why the Democrats continue to focus their attacks on national security related issues (Iraq, wire-tapping, Gitmo, and torture) is beyond me. I suspect a big reason is the Howard Dean/Moveon.org/DailyKos influence that is becoming increasingly more mainstream in the Democratic Party. And while this influence may bring increased grass roots energy to the Democratic side, it also leads to Democratic politicians in Washington losing touch with where the average American is on these fundamental national security issues. The NSA wiretapping story that the left pounced on as some kind of Nixonian crime is likely going to turn into a complete public relations debacle for the Democrats.

And yes, that's the reason for me poking fun at Kerry and Kennedy's blogging exploits (Michelle Malkin has more here). This courting of the lefty blogosphere, while perfectly fine and dandy for stoking the coffers, is leading them farther and farther away from the mainstream of America.

Because now here we are with a mock filibuster, a political show, in addition to the previous political show at the confirmation hearings.

"Judge Alito's confirmation would be an ideological coup on the Supreme Court," Kerry said. ''We can't afford to see the court's swing vote, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, replaced with a far-right ideologue like Samuel Alito."

Kerry knows he has to slide to the left of Hillary (though recently even her Presidential viability has come into doubt) if he hopes to do well in the primaries (and for money and for the vocal fringe), but once again, such designs will doom his candidacy.

And that's a good thing.


Update: Speak of the devil...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday announced she'll join potential 2008 presidential rival John Kerry in voting to filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, just as top Democratic leaders predicted the effort is likely doomed.

Analysts said Clinton had little choice but to back the filibuster, given Kerry's Thursday announcement that he was reviving the stop-Alito movement. For all the talk of Clinton's shift to the center on abortion, she can ill-afford to let a possible adversary outflank her on the left among liberals who favor abortion rights, according to Jennifer Duffy, who monitors the Senate for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

"It's an empty gesture," Duffy said of Clinton's announcement. "What Democratic primary voter is going to vote for her if she didn't do everything to oppose Alito? ... She had to join John Kerry."

Empty gestures...I think at last we have a Democratic political platform.

Google's Got No Buzz

So, Google caves in to China with nary a whisper, yet decides to fight the U.S. government tooth and nail over aggregate data...

...the kind that Yahoo! proudly displays for free. Curious...

The Terrorist Election

I read the European reactions, and U.S.'s, to the Hamas electoral victory and I have to admit, I find their shock and disbelief risible. Yes, it seems that all the fawning by elite Europeans, the dialogue with the U.S. bureaucracies, and the unearned platitudes from the crusty ole U.N. couldn't keep the terrorists from winning again.

World leaders, uneasy at the prospect of a Hamas-led Palestinian government, immediately exerted pressure on the Islamic militants Thursday to recognize Israel and renounce violence as a precondition for support.

That a group listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States won seemingly fair-and-square at the ballot box compounded the dilemma for foreign governments. While they welcomed the smooth running of the Palestinian legislative elections, the militants' stunning showing also unsettled many and threw Middle East peacemaking into turmoil.

"Hamas won," said Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. "Hamas is surely not a democratic movement. Its ideas are surely not humanistic ideas.

"What do we do now?"

It's sad really, the state of things over there (pun intended), but honestly what did everyone expect? The choices were between "moderate" hard-liners [Fatah] with ties to terrorists and a legacy of terrorism (continually undermined by opposition terror groups [Hamas] who felt they weren't hard-line enough), and hard-line fanatics [again Hamas] who's creedo proudly pillars on the destruction of Israel. The "moderates" went on a vote grabbing and intimidation rampage, while the fanatics feigned order and - while the voting took place - took a break and went and cleaned their guns and polished up the buckles on their suicide belts. This morning they've come out to claim their prize, much to the chagrin of the U.N. and Europe and (yes) the United States.

A senior European Parliament lawmaker, Elmar Brok, warned of a possible cutoff of European Union aid for the Palestinians if Hamas does not change its policies.

"You cannot have one foot in politics and another in terror," said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, adding that for the United States, Hamas is still a terrorist organization.

"The whole of the international community has the responsibility to accept the outcome of any fair and democratic election," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "But in this case Hamas has a clear responsibility to understand that with democracy goes a rejection of violence."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman was blunt: "We can only do business with people who renounce terrorism," he said.

Concern crossed political divides, with traditional supporters of the Palestinian cause -— such as Italy's center-left opposition -— among those expressing concern. The Italian government said Hamas' victory could indefinitely postpone any chance of Israeli-Palestinian peace and make the creation of a Palestinian state more difficult.

"It is a very, very, very bad result," Italian news agencies quoted Premier Silvio Berlusconi as saying.

But of course, the vote was peaceful and democratic, or so Jimmy Carter said. Obviously everything went smoothly just like Kofi Annan wanted. There wasn't even any voter fraud (yes, the one election where the census probably outnumbers the amount of people who actually voted).

So what does all this mean? Was it an embrace of terrorism as a political policy, or a people fed up with the current leadership? Will Hamas put down the guns and the plastique belts and start toiling away to get the roads updated and that new mall put in?

Here's the secret. Hamas will do whatever it has to do in order to complete it's stated objective. Hamas' objective is to destroy Israel.

Why should we believe that Hamas will do anything other than murdering thousands of people and installing a terrible dictatorship over Palestinians? Well, there's always naive wishful thinking. Or in the Times' words: "We can only hope that if Hamas wins a share of power, Palestinians will expect the same of it as they did of the PLO. If the Islamic militants persist in provoking Israeli incursions, roadblocks and assassinations, their welcome will soon wear thin."

Yes, I hope so, too. But I sure wouldn't risk the future of millions of people on that hope. Perhaps we should hope that Osama bin Laden comes to power in Saudi Arabia as the most effective way of defeating international terrorism.

Yet contrary to such expectations, rulers have used guns and ideology to keep their welcomes from wearing thin, as substitutes for high living standards and broad civil rights. This combination has long worked in the Middle East and continues to do so despite spectacular failures and rampant corruption.

....

How do you prove that the assertions about a moderate Hamas are false? You can quote a tonne of Hamas statements and documents that say it will continue terrorism and never accept Israel. You can look at its daily violent acts. You can examine other precedents -- including the PLO, Communist regimes and fascist parties -- which prove moderation is not inevitable.

And you can do a sophisticated analysis to show that Hamas has become strong precisely because of its militancy and promises of total victory. You can suggest that extremists may actually believe their ideology, mean what they say, and cannot be bought off.

Or course, this takes us back to the shock factor that the entire world, most of all Europe, is professing because of the elections. But why? They had already decided to deal with Hamas.

Now, as the Financial Times says in a Jan. 18 article, the members of the European Union are preparing to do business with Hamas despite the fact that it is on their list of banned terrorist groups. Their rationale is "that heavy-handed actions by the EU could prove counterproductive, pushing Hamas further from the political mainstream."

Get it? In other words, if the EU is tough on Hamas it might become radical! Why it might even demand Israel's destruction, dispatch suicide bombers, and be anti-Semitic! (Irony watch: Yes, that is what they are already doing.)

Ah, the old "fighting the terrorists only makes them stronger" meme. The American Left loves that one, but the Europeans have crafted it into a form of high art. Now merely taking a tough stance is enough to provoke more terror from terrorist groups.

Still, I suppose this is a more nuanced approach. Saying that "attacking something only makes it stronger" sounds like Hollywood movie physics (Conservation of Mass? - Gravity? - Thermodynamics? - they can't be bothered with such nonsense) or maybe something out of a bad Superman comic. It's a regression into fear, really, a hope against hope that those who are out murdering and calling for the destruction of an entire race are really just having a tantrum and if everyone would just wait patiently and give them respect (key word: give, not earn), then they will join the productive community of nations and contribute to the true goal of every human - the construction of a liberal utopian paradise. Right?

Apparently not.

Hamas's founding charter is uncompromising in its intolerance of Israel. It strives "to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine" and prescribes "resistance and quelling the enemy" as "the individual duty of every Muslim, male and female."

Some may seek comfort in the belief that an ascent to government could prompt a greater sense of responsibility, a move to moderation. But Hamas's intolerance is based on a perceived religious imperative. No believing Muslim, in the Hamas conception, can be reconciled to Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East. To deny that, for Hamas, is blasphemy.

And that is the ideology to which the Palestinian people, for whatever reason and by their own free hand, have just tied their fate. That is the guiding ideology with which Israel and the West will now have to grapple.

Grapple sounds about right. The Palestinian people have decided, of their own free will, the course and group that they see best meets their interests.

And why does terrorism, or at the very least the most militant and radical stance possible, serve their interests?

Because when Israel backs down, when Europe caves in, when America loses interest, when the U.N. takes Israel off the map, when the EU gives aid money to the "peace process" that everyone knows gets funneled into terror groups, when Iran supports terror, and Syria supports terror, when Arafat is welcomed by the White House and the U.N. and Europe (and received medical care and then died in France, incidentally, that was not by accident), when the elites of the world project their own view of American hatred onto religious fanatics, when the terror groups create political wings that cry and moan to the media and get coverage, when Hollywood celebrities like Brad Pitt or Ricky Martin say they know how to solve the problem (though scores of world leaders have tried and failed to build historical legacies upon the mere hint of success), and when the entire world, with it's 6.5 billion people, along with the most powerful nations in the history of the world, focuses their full power and might, their whole being of effort, onto a region of land smaller than the state of New Jersey - and has been since the end of WWII - and has achieved what can only be called the most tenuous of stalemates, all because terrorists have refused to back down and stop their fight because no one has had the guts to step forward and once and for all eradicate their plague of barbarism from the face of the earth...it seems to me that terrorism, at least in this regard, works.

Heck, Hamas is so giddy they're even showing their hand.

A senior Hamas official on Thursday said recognizing Israel and negotiations with the Jewish state are "not on our agenda" after the group apparently won a decisive victory in legislative elections.

"Negotiations with Israel is not on our agenda," said Mushir al-Masri, who won election in his home district in the northern Gaza Strip. "Recognizing Israel is not on the agenda either now."

Fighting the terrorists does not make them stronger, but giving in to them does. And that is why we are here today. That is why Hamas got elected. Terrorism was tolerated, and is tolerated still, by too much of the free world. And as such, terrorism was legitimized as a negotiating tactic. Terrorism was shown to work as a weapon for victory, so they used it, and are still using it.

And now they can win elections with it. What possible incentive do they have to stop?

The End Of The Emoticon

Some will be happy... :-)

Some will be disappointed... :-|

Some will be sad... :-(

Some may be angry... :-@

Or some may even cry... :'(

When stupid Cingular wins approval for patenting the emoticon.

The USA based mobile operator, Cingular Wireless has managed to get a patent on the concept of using emoticon on mobile phones. While the aim of the patent is to enable the displaying of MSN style graphics on handsets, they also managed to patent the delivery of text based emoticon - so presumably sending :) via an SMS - if selected via a dedicated or softkey, would be a breach of the patent in future.

I foresee millions upon millions of breaches.

When The Media Censors [Googles] The Public

The recent kerfuffle over Google deciding to cave to China's oppressive government, banning such evil words like "Tibet" and "Taiwan" or the ever nefarious "Tianamen Square" from it's searches, got me thinking about another bit of censoring that's going on, but right here at home.

And no, I'm not talking about the voluntary ear drum removal that some people have opted for after listening to "PopoZao." I'm talking about the plague of brackets that have started popping up in a lot of recent coverage of hot button topics. Take abortion for example.

Maryland has some 38 crisis pregnancy centers, where counselors try to persuade pregnant women to have their babies. Many centers are in rural areas that don't have clinics that provide abortions. At least two offer free sonograms, an attempt to emphasize to pregnant women the reality of their fetuses. "It makes a powerful difference when they can see [the fetus]," says Pamela Palumbo, executive director of the Bowie Crofton Pregnancy Center, which sees about 1,000 women a year.

[The fetus]? [The fetus is in brackets]? [Why]? [Why would the journalist put "the fetus" in brackets]? [It's obvious Pamela Palumbo said something, what did she say]? [Was it vile]? [Vulgar]? [Is it dangerous]? [Contagious]? [What is this bracketed thing she was referring to]?

James Taranto explains:

Notice that in the quote, the words "the fetus" are in brackets. This is a journalistic convention; it means Palumbo didn't actually say those words, but the reporter has put them in to clarify the meaning. We can't imagine what Palumbo might actually have said.

Might Ms. Palumbo have said the word "baby"?! What's going on here? Surely this is an isolated incident. What journalist would ever "correct" someone who was being quoted like that?

Apparently more than one.

"What that program shows is exactly what is at the heart of the matter," Johnson said. "The [fetus'] heart beats, the fingers move, and it has its own unique DNA, all before the mother is considered too far along to seek an abortion. It is a live human being."

Ah, the beating heart of a [fetus]. Some friends of mine had their first [former fetus] a few months ago. Yes, imagine their surprise when everyone started calling [the fetus] a baby. They still can't get used to it, they've opted for [the baby] for now, in preparation for [terrible twos], [adolescence], and [the reason we'll never retire].

But seriously folks, what the heck is wrong with [journalists] today that they've opted to pre-empt not only public debate and the legislature (as the Supreme Court did years ago), but now even majority opinion and have declared "we've decided" on the matter of how all life should be labeled? I'd say they had an agenda, but there's no way the MSM could ever get that organized.

Most likely the answer is that they've just quit pretending, much like Joel Stein and his "I don't support the troops" ramblings. And why should they pretend anymore? They've made protesting the war into a Presidential quality, turned a liar like Joe Wilson into a martyr, turned the people who leaked the classified information about the NSA program into whistleblowers, and made the U.S. military out to be Koran desecraters and paid thugs - and all of this with near impunity. (yes, I know there are many, many more incidences I could cite, but I think we all get the point) Who are they even hiding from anymore?

The Google motto - former motto anyway - of "Don't be evil" comes to mind. Perhaps an "unless there's money to be made or political ideologies to carry water for" codicil could be added, and the whole thing framed and gifted to the New York Times or some such "news" agency.

Perhaps Reuters. They have an "affinity" for scare quotes, maybe they need to think about [branching] out?

Quiet Moves Against Iran

There's been so much focus recently on Iran, Iraq, the U.S., Europe, Israel, China, Russia - heck even Venezuela got in there somehow - that everybody forgot about Saudi Arabia. But here they come, tip-toeing onto the world stage. Apparently the Kingdom just made a play for Iran's oil exports to China.

China and Saudi Arabia signed an energy cooperation agreement Monday during a landmark visit by Saudi King Abdullah that both sides said would usher in an era of closer economic ties.

King Abdullah, who arrived on Sunday on his first trip outside the Middle East since taking the throne in August, met President Hu Jintao on Monday at the Great Hall of the People.

King Abdullah and Hu oversaw the signing of five agreements, including one on "oil, natural gas and mineral cooperation", and another on "economic, trade and technical cooperation".

This story bears watching. Alone it may not seem like much. China traditionally gets a lot of oil from Iran, but since the country is growing so much the Kingdom wants in on the action. On the face of it, this seems bad news for the U.S., and the Wall Street Journal makes a relatively convincing case. But when you take that story and combine it with this story -

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Egypt on Monday at the start of a brief Middle East tour including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

In meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, they will discuss "the president's (President George W. Bush's) freedom agenda and the war on terror", said a statement from Cheney's office.

- this bizarre story -

On Thursday, Chirac for the first time raised the threat of a nuclear strike on any state that launches "terrorist" attacks against France.

Although he did not single out any country, the warning could be intrepreted as including Iran -- frequently accused of sponsoring terrorism and under pressure over its disputed nuclear programme.

- and especially this story -

The explosion came just after further talks between Georgian and Iranian officials about a possible gas pipeline to Armenia and on to Georgia. The United States is against the plan.

Georgia also has an agreement to buy gas, at a steep discount to world prices, from a pipeline running through its territory between Azerbaijan and Turkey and due to be completed towards the end of this year.

Analysts say that deal would greatly reduce Georgia's dependence on Russian gas.

- it starts to take on another quality altogether.

I'm not sure on the outcome, but I'd wager that the U.S. and Europe have quite a bit of shrewd diplomacy going on right now, attempting to checkmate win over China, and possibly Russia, on Iran. As the Washington Post reported on China's oil policy this summer:

"No matter if it's rogue's oil or a friend's oil, we don't care," said an energy adviser to the central government [China] who spoke on the condition he not be identified, citing the threat of government disciplinary action. "Human rights? We don't care. We care about oil. Whether Iran would have nuclear weapons or not is not our business. America cares, but Iran is not our neighbor. Anyone who helps China with energy is a friend."

Enter the Kingdom to save the day.

Don't Be Evil, Except When You Help Oppress Freedom

I nominate the title above for Google's new motto. The company that prides itself on it's "don't be evil" saying has apparently decided that for the greater good, then they'll do evil just this once.

To obtain the Chinese license, Google agreed to omit Web content that the country's government finds objectionable. Google will base its censorship decisons [sic] on guidance provided by Chinese government officials.

Although China has loosened some of its controls in recent years, some topics, such as Taiwan's independence and 1989's Tiananmen Square massacre, remain forbidden subjects.

Google officials characterized the censorship concessions in China as an excruciating decision for a company that adopted "don't be evil" as a motto. But management believes it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

"We firmly believe, with our culture of innovation, Google can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel.

Google's decision rankled Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog group that has sharply criticized Internet companies including Yahoo and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com for submitting to China's censorship regime.

"This is a real shame," said Julien Pain, head of Reporters Without Borders' Internet desk. "When a search engine collaborates with the government like this, it makes it much easier for the Chinese government to control what is being said on the Internet."

Exactly. And who are they controlling? Their citizens. Now that's what I call real censorship and oppression. And, in light of recent Google antics, also hypocrisy.

Google is cooperating with China's government at the same time it is battling the U.S. government over a subpoena seeking a breakdown of one week's worth of search requests - a list that would cover millions of terms.

Nice how Google chooses to fight the free country asking for aggregate, unidentifiable data about searches for a court case, not the oppressive one targeting actual people as political dissidents. So now Google joins the ranks of China's thought police alongside Yahoo! and Microsoft.

hmm...come to think of it, if they're mimicking Microsoft, maybe Google's co-founders are angling for Time magazine's Person of the Year?

Canadian Conservatives Win

Congratulations to the Canadian conservatives for pulling off an election victory yesterday. Hopes were high for a majority win, but looking at it with a half-full glass I still say a narrow win is better than no win at all.

Newspapers everywhere were quick to scream "no mandate" for Stephen Harper, but I disagree. I won't pretend to be an expert on Canada, but the climate is ripe for change, and as long as Harper is pragmatic about his policies I think he'll succeed.

Now what does this mean for U.S./Canada policy? I tend to agree with this take from The American Thinker.

A stronger Harper victory would have been good news for President George W. Bush. Both Martin, and his Liberal predecessor, Jean Chretien, were highly critical of the Bush administration -— refusing to give it even moral support on its liberation of Iraq, and refusing to join the missile defence shield program.

During the campaign, Martin and the Liberals painted Harper as a stooge of the U.S. and implied he was being backed by extreme rightwing elements south of the border. None of the slurs against Harper were true, but he does want to rebuild the once warm relationship Canada had with American during the years when Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was in power between 1984-93.

The increasingly anti-American tone -— or anti-Republican -— stance of the Martin regime infuriated American Ambassador to Ottawa David Wilkins. Wilkins'’ predecessor, former Massachusetts governor Paul Cellucci, even wrote a book entitled "‘Unquiet Diplomacy"’ expressing his own disappointments with the Chretien regime.
....

While the slim Conservative victory will still be a relief for Bush, Harper will have to soft-peddle his pro-American stance for a time to avoid accusations he has sold out to Washington, and slowly persuade voters that his determination to rebuild relations with Washington will pay off dividends for Canadians in the long run. Harper plans abandon the Kyoto Accord signed by the Liberals, and will likely agree to join the missile defence shield program, rejected by the Liberals.

If President Bush could solve the ongoing bitter softwood lumber dispute, in which his administration has imposed some $5 billion in duties on Canadian softwood lumber exports to the U.S., it would be a big plus for Harper and the Conservatives in their quest to prove being friendly with Washington can pay off in a big way.

However, the Conservative victory is subdued somewhat by not only the thin minority status but the knowledge that the Senate, the Supreme Court and the upper echelon bureaucracy are all dominated by the Liberal hierarchy and will surely throw roadblocks in front of Conservative policy changes.

On the plus side, Liberal and New Democrats MPs will likely be fearful of a voter backlash if they reject Harper'’s plans to cut the much disliked federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) from 7% to 5% and to provide the $1,200 subsides to families with children under six years of age.

Harper is also likely to get the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois onside with his moves to clean up curruption and patronage in government with his Federal Accountability Act, and the Bloc Quebecois onside with his proposals to hand promore rights back to the provinces.

Also, optimistically, many political observers believe Harper is essentially a solid, decent common sense type, and given a chance an increasing number of voters will recognize his qualities, so he could well become a prime minister with a popularity unmatched for decades. and accomplishments unmatched, too.

As I said, a narrow win, but in the long run I think this is going to be a solid victory for conservativism. Congrats conservatives! - and beware the Left's derangement syndrome. It'll be starting soon, if not already.

The President On The NSA

The President gave yet another great speech the other day at Kansas State University. I wish the media would cover these more - or at least accurately. He's saying things the American people need to hear. His best point about the NSA eavesdropping program:

This is a -- I repeat to you, even though you hear words, "domestic spying," these are not phone calls within the United States. It's a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States. I'm mindful of your civil liberties, and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process. We briefed members of the United States Congress, one of whom was Senator Pat Roberts, about this program. You know, it's amazing, when people say to me, well, he was just breaking the law -- if I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?

Indeed.

And of course, here's how the AP covered the story:

President Bush pushed back Monday at critics of his once-secret domestic spying effort, saying it should be termed a "terrorist surveillance program" and contending it has the backing of legal experts, key lawmakers and the Supreme Court.

Several members of Congress from both parties have questioned whether the warrantless snooping is legal. That is because it bypasses a special federal court that, by law, must authorize eavesdropping on Americans and because the president provided limited notification to only a few lawmakers.

"It's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he's just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" asked Bush. One of those who had been informed, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., was sitting behind Bush during his appearance at Kansas State University.

Bush's remarks were part of an aggressive administration campaign to defend the four-year-old program as a crucial and legal terror-fighting tool. The White House is trying to sell its side of the story before the Senate Judiciary Committee opens hearings on it in two weeks.

"Sell it's side of the story" is a nice bit of professional condescension on the AP's part. And of course, note the most important distinction the AP makes, where to put the "" for the labels.

Bush pushed back Monday at critics of his once-secret domestic spying effort, saying it should be termed a "terrorist surveillance program" and contending it has the backing of legal experts, key lawmakers and the Supreme Court.

It's the underhanded way of saying "we don't believe you, but say what you're going to say anyway." Unfortunately for the AP, most Americans do understand what terrorist surveillance means, and they know how necessary it is to their safety.

The Intelligence Bureaucracy And The Spying Press

(-Updated-)

The recent exchange between Lt. General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA, and the press regarding the NSA eavesdropping program is a real eye opener. The reporters revealed themselves to be quite clueless, as they didn't even seem to know what they were asking, let alone understand why Gen. Hayden was so confident of his answers. Here's a small excerpt of the Q&A session (via Powerline):

QUESTION: Justine Redman with CNN. How was national security harmed by The New York Times reporting on this program? Don't the bad guys already assume that they're being monitored anyway, and shouldn't Americans, you know, bear in mind that they might be at any time?

GEN. HAYDEN: You know, we've had this question asked several times. Public discussion of how we determine al Qaeda intentions, I just -- I can't see how that can do anything but harm the security of the nation. And I know people say, "Oh, they know they're being monitored." Well, you know, they don't always act like they know they're being monitored. But if you want to shove it in their face constantly, it's bound to have an impact. [C]onstant revelations and speculation and connecting the dots in ways that I find unimaginable, and laying that out there for our enemy to see cannot help but diminish our ability to detect and prevent attacks.

....

QUESTION: General Hayden, the FISA law says that the NSA can do intercepts as long as you go to the court within 72 hours to get a warrant.

I understood you to say that you are aggressively using FISA but selectively doing so. Why are you not able to go to FISA as the law requires in all cases? And if the law is outdated, why haven't you asked Congress to update it? [Ed: Note how the journalists immediately encapsulate the Democrats' critique of the NSA program in their questions.]

GEN. HAYDEN: Lots of questions contained there. Let me try them one at a time. First of all, I need to get a statement of fact out here, all right? NSA cannot -- under the FISA statute, NSA cannot put someone on coverage and go ahead and play for 72 hours while it gets a note saying it was okay. All right? The attorney general is the one who approves emergency FISA coverage, and the attorney general's standard for approving FISA coverage is a body of evidence equal to that which he would present to the court. So it's not like you can throw it on for 72 hours. [Ed.: This is one of the points that we made here.]

In the instances where this program applies, FISA does not give us the operational effect that the authorities that the president has given us give us. Look. I can't -- and I understand it's going to be an incomplete answer, and I can't give you all the fine print as to why, but let me just kind of reverse the answer just a bit. If FISA worked just as well, why wouldn't I use FISA? To save typing? No. There is an operational impact here, and I have two paths in front of me, both of them lawful, one FISA, one the presidential -- the president's authorization. And we go down this path because our operational judgment is it is much more effective. So we do it for that reason. I think I've got -- I think I've covered all the ones you raised.

And a few of the General's remarks about the NSA lawyers who reviewed the program:

And so even though I knew the program had been reviewed by the White House and by DOJ, by the Department of Justice, I asked the three most senior and experienced lawyers in NSA: Our enemy in the global war on terrorism doesn't divide the United States from the rest of the world, the global telecommunications system doesn't make that distinction either, our laws do and should; how did these activities square with these facts?

They reported back to me. They supported the lawfulness of this program. Supported, not acquiesced. This was very important to me. A veteran NSA lawyer, one of the three I asked, told me that a correspondent had suggested to him recently that all of the lawyers connected with this program have been very careful from the outset because they knew there would be a day of reckoning. The NSA lawyer replied to him that that had not been the case. NSA had been so careful, he said -- and I'm using his words now here -- NSA had been so careful because in this very focused, limited program, NSA had to ensure that it dealt with privacy interests in an appropriate manner.

In other words, our lawyers weren't careful out of fear; they were careful out of a heartfelt, principled view that NSA operations had to be consistent with bedrock legal protections.

You know, the 9/11 commission criticized our ability to link things happening in the United States with things that were happening elsewhere. In that light, there are no communications more important to the safety of this country than those affiliated with al Qaeda with one end in the United States. The president's authorization allows us to track this kind of call more comprehensively and more efficiently. The trigger is quicker and a bit softer than it is for a FISA warrant, but the intrusion into privacy is also limited: only international calls and only those we have a reasonable basis to believe involve al Qaeda or one of its affiliates.

The purpose of all this is not to collect reams of intelligence, but to detect and prevent attacks. The intelligence community has neither the time, the resources nor the legal authority to read communications that aren't likely to protect us, and NSA has no interest in doing so. These are communications that we have reason to believe are al Qaeda communications, a judgment made by American intelligence professionals, not folks like me or political appointees, a judgment made by the American intelligence professionals most trained to understand al Qaeda tactics, al Qaeda communications and al Qaeda aims.

And then for dessert the General smacks the Press around for mislabeling the program as "domestic spying":

Let me emphasize one more thing that this program is not -- and, look, I know how hard it is to write a headline that's accurate and short and grabbing. But we really should shoot for all three -- accurate, short and grabbing. I don't think domestic spying makes it. One end of any call targeted under this program is always outside the United States. I've flown a lot in this country, and I've taken literally hundreds of domestic flights. I have never boarded a domestic flight in the United States of America and landed in Waziristan. In the same way -- and I'm speaking illustratively here now, this is just an example -- if NSA had intercepted al Qaeda Ops Chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Karachi talking to Mohamed Atta in Laurel, Maryland, in say, July of 2001 -- if NSA had done that, and the results had been made public, I'm convinced that the crawler on all the 7 by 24 news networks would not have been "NSA domestic spying."

Had this program been in effect prior to 9/11, it is my professional judgment that we would have detected some of the 9/11 al Qaeda operatives in the United States, and we would have identified them as such. I've said earlier that this program's been successful. Clearly not every lead pans out from this or any other source, but this program has given us information that we would not otherwise had been able to get. It's impossible for me to talk about this any more in a public way without alerting our enemies to our tactics or what we have learned. I can't give details without increasing the danger to Americans. On one level, believe me, I wish that I could. But I can't.

This guy is good. And I think the press corps was in way over it's head - as is the New York Times et al.

That said, I think the hearings on this matter are going to be a nightmare for Democrats. They are completely unserious about protecting this country. They have no agenda save that which hurts the President. Do you really want these people protecting you?

I caught an interesting reminisce at Austin Bay blog that serves as a good coda to the shenanigans of the press corp and the continuing travesty by the New York Times.

...coming off of four and a half years active military duty, I was the odd man in the seminar of twenty or so students. The telling indicent is rather chilling. Mr. Isaacs took us through one of his many "“ethical scenarios." This particular Isaacs'’ "“hypothetical"” scenario involved three editors, one in Knoxville, Tennessee, one in St Louis, and one at a paper in New Mexico. Isaacs said that in his scenario the US was at war. About thirty seconds into the scenario I figured out he was talking about the Manhattan Project and the wartime development of the American atomic bomb. (My connections: Knoxville and Oak Ridge; New Mexico and Los Alamos.) My chin settled on my folded hands and I waited as Isaacs built a cleverly disguised historical trap. Finally, he asked the class: "“How many of you will run this story, about a secret government project?"” Isaacs showed how the reporting from Tennesseee and the reporting from New Mexico "“fit"” to give a rather effective sketch of this super secret program.

The class vote, as I recall, was 15 for running the story, three against. The "“aginners"” consisted of me, a very off-the-wall reporter who had returned to J-school after working for five years at a paper in rural Connecticutt, and a non-journalist school teacher who was on sabbatical from her job. (I believe she had won a sponsored study scholarship and was auditing the class.) Those are your three "“nays."”

The "“ayes"” had a leader. I do not remember the fellow's name. He was short, chunky, had a Saddam-type mustache, and hair to his ears. He and I had "“sharp differences" during the course. I do remember I called him "Dan Junior" - –as in Dan Rather Junior. And I refered to him by that handle in class. Yes, he told me after one heated exchange, he admired Dan Rather and wanted to be just like him. Actually, most of the class wanted to be Dan Rather, but I made it clear I considered Dan a poor model. Watergate was quite recent and in one of our class brawls I got off a soundbit Isaacs' liked. I told Dan Junior “"If your goal is "“to get Nixon"” you may not get the story."

But back to the wartime scenario. Dan Junior jumped it. He was publishing tomorrow. The people needed the truth. The three naysayers? We were lackeys, pro-government clowns, militarists. But we naysayers got our chance. The interesting reporter from Connecticutt (he happened to be black) said he wouldn'’t run the story because he didn'’t know the story's full implications. (Yes indeed– not only was he ethical and judicious, he was highly intuitive.)

Mr Isaacs had been watching my eyes and I think he knew that his "“hypotethical"” had historical roots. "“Mr. Bay, why would you not run it?"

My response: "Because I'’m not going to spy for Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Your story is the atomic bomb project, and running the story blows it."

Mr. Isaacs nodded and said "Austin is exactly right."” He then named the editors and publishers who among themselves had pieced together the bits and pieces of the Manhattan Project and then quietly, wisely, sat on the story.

"Sat on the story?"” Forgive that sentence. This wasn'’t "“a story,"” it was a national, strategic military secret. These editors understood context.

Mr. Isaacs then made the point that journalists needed to understand the role of the free press in a free society. A free press is only one part of a free society– a vital part, but not the sole source of authority.

For a long, delicious moment a stunned silence gripped the class'’ "“progressives."” Then they started in with "“the Watergate"” ritual, and the press'’ "“responsibility"” to stand up to the government, etcetera, etcetera.

I do remember one woman in the class. She had voted to publish, but after our discussion she had second, third, and fourth thoughts. Isaacs class room exploration had reached her. She'’d learned something. She asked me after class how I had guessed Isaacs'’ faux-hypothetical. My answer: "I'’ve read a lot about the development of the atomic bomb. It wasn'’t built on a desert island. People have to live someplace. And people talk. You can'’t hide everything. What Norman described is the way a good spy or investigator operates. I also figured he was setting a trap. In a war some thing’s you discover you can'’t write, because of the damage they'’d do to the military effort."

She replied that not publishing the story entailed choosing sides. I said something to the effect "“damn straight."” In the scenario Isaacs'’ offered we had to choose. At the personality level, it'’s Hitler and Tojo versus Churchill and FDR. At the political-historical level, it'’s a choice between an open, rule of law system versus the hell of tyranny and terror.

Does the New York Times identify itself with America? Who's interests are they looking after? America's interests? Or the terrorists'? They're so willing to sift through our intelligence practices, our strategies, and spin them up with their own political slant - what have they done to investigate al Qaeda? - what has the New York Times done to explain how the enemy propaganda works (where bin Laden's videos come from, how Iraq used CNN for propaganda)? - what has the American press done to investigate those who would slander the name of the United States (that we tortured prisoners in Guantanamo, or pissed on their Korans, or any other such nonsense)? - or the good names of our soldiers (like when John Kerry calls American soldiers out for terrorizing Iraqis)?

Oh yeah, that's right. The press has done nothing. In fact, they've led the charge against America. And yet in light of these inaccuracies and slanders we're supposed to still listen to them?

One wonders why.

Oh Look, Another Sign This Guy Is Stark Raving Mad

The Iranian president was in Damascus on Friday, expressing support for terrorists and fantasizing about the end of the world. Here's the entire article. You just have to read it to believe it.

President Ahmadinejad said Friday Palestine is the center of the final stages of the battle between Islam and arrogance, saying the Palestinian Intifada is progressing.

The plots hatched by enemies against Palestine should not be overlooked even for a moment, Ahmadinejad noted in a meeting with leaders of the Palestinian resistance movements in Damascus, Syria.

Ahmadinejad arrived in Damascus on Thursday upon the official invitation of his Syrian counterpart -- President Bashar al-Assad.

He spoke of the importance of the Palestinian cause and stressed the cause will not come be materialized if occupiers continue to occupy even a tiny part of Palestine's territories.

He stressed that unity, coordination and sympathy among resistance groups for the Palestinian cause is the only guarantee for Palestine's liberation.

The Islamic Republic of Iran supports the Palestinian cause of statehood and liberation of Islamic territories from occupiers, he added.

Elsewhere, he noted that one of the reasons westerners were lined up against Iran's undeniable right to gain peaceful nuclear technology was because of Iran's uncompromising support for Palestine.

The visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Syria is considered another gesture of political support to Damascus and the Islamic resistance, said Hamas political leader Khaled Mishaal.

The Hamas official extended his thanks to the Iranian president for his firm stance on the Palestinian issue, saying the resistance group, Hamas, considers resistance the only way to resolve the Palestinians' rights and success of their avowed goals.

Yet one more blatant sign that this guy means business. And unlike Iraq, where we acted before the threat became imminent, now the threat is imminent. This is an extremely dangerous situation, and I think we need to start preparing ourselves for the unfortunate inevitability of military action.

The New Germany

Well, perhaps not so new, but certainly taking new steps. It appears that the new Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is anxious to put her own mark on foreign policy and Germany's image in the world. And as the Wall Street Journal points out, she may be the key to bringing the U.S. and a rapidly chilling Russia closer together.

In Washington last Friday, Ms. Merkel made a point of speaking -- both in public statements and privately to President Bush -- of the strong "friendship" that links the two NATO allies. In Moscow on Monday, she avoided displays of personal or rhetorical warmth, instead speaking of "the strategic partnership" that Germany wants to maintain with Russia.
....

Ms. Merkel's habit of explaining big points through her own life story -- a 51-year-old former East German physicist, she grew up in a communist dictatorship and came to politics after reunification in 1990 -- also seemed more likely to bond her to Mr. Bush than to Mr. Putin, a former KGB officer in East Germany.

Ms. Merkel is not nostalgic for the Cold War or for the American protectorate over Germany. She recognizes that Germany, which imports more than one-third of its energy from Russia, has to maintain a good working relationship with Mr. Putin's country.

In an eloquent dinner speech to enthusiastic American dignitaries here last week, Ms. Merkel tossed out an intriguing thought: At times she might be able to be "a mediator" for Washington and Moscow, and not "someone who polarizes" relations between the two powers. She did not have to mention Mr. Schroder.

It's unclear how a mediator's role would work. But Ms. Merkel's clear-eyed realism about both Washington and Moscow makes her a potentially stabilizing force of leadership in a world sorely in need of that quality.

An interesting tack. For the United States, it's worth exploring how a new Germany could bring us closer to Russia, especially with Iran serving as a large wedge at the moment.

Ms. Merkel presents herself as a pragmatist, much more so than Mr. Schroder ever did. And she is not tied to the past contentions about the Iraq war. Many have suggested that the "grand coalition" would weaken her position, make it impossible to get reforms through the government.

Possibly. But in the area of foreign affairs, she seems to be calling the shots quite nicely. This is definitely a good thing.

He Spoke, But What's He Saying?

Osama bin Laden said:

He offered a "long-term truce with fair conditions that we adhere to. ... Both sides can enjoy security and stability under this truce so we can build Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been destroyed in this war.

"There is no shame in this solution, which prevents the wasting of billions of dollars that have gone to those with influence and merchants of war in America," he said.

He's been missing in action for over a year. He claims they've been planning, and that America is not safe...yet, he wants a truce; he wants peace. Interesting. Very interesting.

How to interpret this? Is he for real? Or is he bluffing? For a ruling, let's go to the master.

"One who seeks peace without setting any prior conditions is executing a stratagem."

Sun-tzu - on Maneuvering the Army, "The Art of War"

So it could be a trap. Although I found this to be a bit more persuasive.

"One who has emissaries come forth with offerings wants to rest for a while."

Sun-tzu - on Maneuvering the Army, "The Art of War"

I say the enemy is weakened. And that's why we haven't heard from Bin Laden in so long. But they perceive that we have been weakened as well (thank you anti-war crowd). And so they are killing themselves to try to get the message out and exploit whatever situation they can hope for.

But why now? First, because we blew up their little dinner party the other day, and al Qaeda has to prove to the world it's still functioning. And second, because America's been making friends, and the situation with Iran is coming to a head (When was the last time you heard France threaten to use nukes against another country? - excuse me, when have you ever heard France even talk about their nuclear policy, let alone reiterate they would use them in response to terrorism? Think about it.).

And if Iran goes down, so does a huge portion of the money fueling terrorism in the world. We have to keep the pressure on: Iran, Bin Laden, in Iraq, in Syria. Now more than ever.

The CIA Brings Dessert

Apparently a bunch of terrorists in Pakistan held a dinner party the other night. The CIA wasn't invited, but that didn't stop them from crashing. Initial reports suggested the strike was a bust, and indeed a debacle as several civilians were killed and the main suspected terrorist - Ayman al-Zawahri, al Qaeda's number 2 - didn't even show up. But now the information is trickling out that the CIA did score a hit, a major hit.

A Pakistani security official on Thursday said at least three top al-Qaida operatives were believed killed in a U.S. missile strike last week, including an explosives expert on the U.S. most-wanted list and a close relative of the terror network's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to speak to media, said Egyptian Midhat Mursi was among the three top al-Qaida figures who were present in Damadola village at the time of the attack and whose bodies were believed to have been taken away by sympathizers.

The U.S. Justice Department says on its Web site that Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, is an expert in explosives and poisons who operated a terrorist training camp at Derunta, near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.

The Web site also says Mursi has written training manuals containing recipes for crude chemical and biological weapons, some of which were recovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The site says Mursi's exact whereabouts are unknown but adds that he may be residing in Pakistan, and offers $5 million for information leading to his arrest.

The Pakistani official named two other foreign militants as suspected killed in the missile strike: Abu Ubaida, whom he said was the main operations chief for al-Qaida in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province, which lies opposite Pakistan's Bajur tribal region where Damadola is located; and Abdul Rehman al-Misri, a close relative of al-Zawahri, possibly his son-in-law.

This ought to keep the terrorists occupied for just a bit, while they figure out who ratted them out, or how the CIA knew to surveil them. Hopefully we'll be able to exploit their fear and discord even further.

With Iran in the forefront and possibly facing sanctions and military action, we cannot underestimate their ability to stoke the terrorist fires to create a diversion. So we need to turn up the heat from our side as well. Keep crashing the parties, I say.

Experts: NYTimes Headline Writers Should Demand Bias-Pay

I got a good laugh out of this one. A North American Patriot has linked up a few funnies from The People's Cube, with this one topping my list - The New York Times headline generator.

Now you too can have a snazzy headline, distort the news, imply dire peril, float a conspiracy, promote your political agenda, or incite general fear and panic in the population - just like the professional journalists do it!

A few of my creations:

Analysts: Watching Fox News Is A Cause For Concern

European Leaders: US Military Victory Makes Us Less Secure

Pollsters Agree: Democracy, Freedom Is Melting Polar Ice Caps

That last one is my favorite. Go try it out!

I Hope We're Ready To Call

I'm so glad the ACLU is on the case, trying to get the NSA eavesdropping program shut down.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is suing Bush, the head of the National Security Agency and the heads of the other major security agencies.

The organization, which represents hundreds of men held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, must now audit old communications to determine whether "anything was disclosed that might undermine our representation of our clients," said Bill Goodman, the center's director.

The Detroit lawsuit, which names the National Security Agency and its director, said the program has impaired plaintiffs' ability to gather information from sources abroad as they try to locate witnesses, represent clients, do research or engage in advocacy.

It was filed by the ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Greenpeace and individuals on behalf of journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations that communicate with people in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere.

Do they have a restraining order we can issue against the terrorists? Perhaps if they found a terrorist wearing a cross in a school or building a copy of the Ten Commandments, then would they be in favor of listening in on their conversations?

For those in the ACLU who cannot understand this, the NSA program is like Googling for terrorists. Or, put another way, it's like a containment field. And we all know what happened when they shut down the containment field, don't we?

(Ghostbusters HQ - Outside, Day)
(Several Police cars drive up. Walter Peck is back and he's got the police with him.)

(Ghostbusters HQ - Inside)
(Walter enters with a policeman and an electric company man.)
Walter: This way.
Janine: Excuse me. Excuse me! Just where do you think you're going?
Walter: Stand aside, miss, or I'll have you arrested for interfering with a police-
Janine: Oh no, hold on! I've seen TV, I know you can't come in here without a warrant or writ or something!
Walter: (holding up some papers) Cease and desist all commerce order, seizure of premises and chattels, ban on use of public utilities for unauthorized waste handlers, and a federal entry and inspection order. (he pushes past her)

(Basement)
Egon: Vince, there's one more test I'd like to perform�
(Janine comes down the stairs followed by Walter and his goons.)
Janine: Egon, I tried to stop them! He says they have a warrant.
Egon: Excuse me, this is private property!
Walter: (pointing to the containment area) Shut this off. Shut these all off.
Egon: I'm warning you, turning off these machines would be extremely hazardous.
Walter: I'll tell you what's hazardous. You're facing federal prosecution for at least half a dozen environmental violations. Now either you shut these beams off or we shut them off for you.

(Ghostbusters HQ - Outside)
(Peter arrives in a taxi.)

(Ghostbusters HQ - Basement)
Egon: Try to understand. This is a high voltage laser containment system. Simply turning it off would be like dropping a bomb on the city.
Walter: Don't patronize me! I'm not grotesquely stupid like the people you bilk!
Peter: (coming down the stairs) At ease, officer. I'm Peter Venkman. I think there's just been a slight misunderstanding and I wanna cooperate in any way that I can.
Walter: Forget it, Venkman! You had your chance to cooperate, but you thought it'd be more fun to insult me. Well, now it is my turn, wise ass.
Egon: He wants to shut down the protection grid, Peter.
Peter: You shut that thing down and we are not going to be held responsible for whatever happens.
Walter: On the contrary! You're going to be held responsible.
Peter: No! We won't be held responsible!
Walter: Shut it off!
Peter: Don't shut it off. I'm warning you.
Electric Co. Guy: I - I've never seen anything like this before.
Walter: I'm not interested in your opinion, just shut it off.
Peter: (stopping the electric guy) My friend, don't be a jerk.
Policeman: Step aside!
Walter: If he does that again, you can shoot him.
Policeman: You do your job, pencil neck! Don't tell me how to do mine!
Peter: Thank you, officer.
Walter: Shut it off!
(Peter starts going up the stairs. Egon and Janine follow, as does Vince. As Egon goes by the Policeman he makes gestures with his hands and mouths 'Boom'. The electric co. guy pulls the lever, shutting off the protection grid. Alarms go off and lights flash.)

(Dana's Apartment)
(Dana tosses in her sleep.)

(Ghostbusters HQ - Basement)
(The walls begin to shudder, and everyone begins running for the stairs and out of the building.)
Electric Co. Guy: Oh shit.
(Everyone continues to run like hell out of the building.)
Egon: Clear the building!

(Ghostbusters HQ - Outside)
(Louis runs out. The roof of the building explodes as all of the ghosts and ghouls escape.)

(Dana's apartment)
(Dana wakes with a start.)

(Ghostbusters HQ - Outside)
(The ghosts and ghouls continue to stream out of the containment area.)
Louis: This is it! This is the sign! (begins to walk off)
Janine: Yeah, it's a sign all right. We're going out of business.
(Ecto-1 drives up. Police start to arrive. Ray and Winston get out of the car and look around at what's happened.)
Ray: What happened?
Egon: The storage facilities blew. He shut off the protection grid.
Ray: Oh, great.
Winston: That's bad, isn't it?
Ray: Yeah.
Peter: Where's the Keymaster?
Egon: Shit!
Ray: Who's the Keymaster?
Egon: Come on!
(They take off to look for Louis, but Peck and some Police officers stop them.)
Walter: Hold it! I want this man arrested. Captain, these men are in criminal violation of the Environmental Protection Act, and this explosion is a direct result of it!
Egon: Your mother�!
(Egon launches himself at Walter, but the police hold him back.)

(The ghosts continue to pour out of the containment facility.)

(New York City)
(Pink and Orange streams of light fly over the city.)

(Dana's apartment)
(Dana walks over to the window, smiling.)

Ghostbusters was a fiction, yes. But an apt analogy I think. We cannot shut down the NSA program. Our intelligence agencies cannot operate without the information it gathers. And we will be flying blind against a deceptive, nearly invisible, and opportunistic foe.

He's No Dr. Evil

In their rush to brand Judge Alito as something other than perfect for the job, Democrats underestimate how silly their flailing appears to the average voter. Kennedy criticizing Judge Alito for a whim-driven college membership to a group of young snobs, suddenly "discovering" that he still belonged to a club from Harvard that excluded women, the press making a fuss over the one lone conservative Democratic Senator who has publicly stated he will vote for Judge Alito as though someone such as Justice Ginsberg, a hardcore leftist and former lawyer for the ACLU did not receive nearly unanimous Republican support for her confirmation - it all speaks to the same say-anything-do-anything party that has no vision except what drapes to hang in the Oval Office.

It smacks of hypocrisy, and frankly a whiff of desperation. It's so sad that I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps Judge Alito shouldn't have obliged them. Because the deplorable manner he's being treated is more akin to a nominee who had this to say:

"Gentlemen, and I use the terms in conformance with its most elastic definition, I submit to this appearance with equal amounts of rue and bemusement, particularly since it falls during the time I usually thrash my footman for sins both real and contemplated. It seems I must explain myself to a series of low-born mountebanks and trust-fund wastrels, in order to ingratiate myself with the herd of sheep over whom my rulings will fall. Very well.

"I was born in a manger, surrounded by farm animals, attended by wandering kings -– Mother had entered one of her rustic moods, and had the servants build a creche in the west ballroom. The kings were authentic, mostly second-tier low-country rabble -– but one of them, a rather sweaty Belgian, told my mother I had the mark of greatness on me. He referred of course to this birthmark on my skull in the shape of the Masonic emblem; it is the reason I shave my head, of course. In any case, I attended expensive colleges, served as judge for two decades, translated the Federalist Papers into six languages. I will rule according to the words of the Constitution, and damn the consequences. Now if you don'’t mind, I am late for my weekly colonic irrigation with a solution of ambergris and champagne. So get on with it.."

As opposed to a man who actually said this:

It's been a great honor for me to spend my career in public service. It has been a particular honor for me to serve on the court of appeals for these past 15 years, because it has given me the opportunity to use whatever talent I have to serve my country by upholding the rule of law.

And there is nothing that is more important for our republic than the rule of law. No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law.

Fifteen years ago, when I was sworn in as a judge of the court of appeals, I took an oath. I put my hand on the Bible and I swore that I would administer justice without respect to persons, that I would do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I would carry out my duties under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

And that is what I have tried to do to the very best of my ability for the past 15 years. And if I am confirmed, I pledge to you that that is what I would do on the Supreme Court.

Democrats, quit making fools of yourselves and jonesing around for campaign contributions. Confirm the man already.

Why Iran Will Never Stop Seeking The Bomb

In addition to denying the Holocaust and calling for the end of the state of Israel, it appears that the Iranian leadership is dead set on building "The Bomb."

So how serious a situation is this? Should we be worried? Is Iran seeking a nuclear weapon to turn Israel into a stained glass mosaic or are they merely jonesing for an international trade fix and a bump on the world stage?

Both, apparently.

And considering that the three major powers of Europe have finally relented and - with U.S. prodding (no doubt John Bolton had his hands on his hips, and possibly an actual cattle prod...) - have drafted their resolution for the IAEA to recommend Iran to the U.N. Security Council, that Israeli fighter pilots and IDF troops are prepared to strike, and that Iran is shifting revenues from it's oil sales back into the country - at huge losses - in preparation for any foreign seizure of assets, I'd say we have reason to be very, very concerned.

Though sadly, having reached this point, any sense of relief is essentially moot, because the solution being crafted, one of international rebuke and sanctions, will most likely fail.

As Michael Rubin points out - "Europe's engagement with Iran has failed."

...while Mr. Bush and his European allies may agree to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, traditional diplomacy will not work for a simple reason: Iran's quest for nuclear weapons has nothing to do with the U.S. or Europe. The crisis with Tehran is ideological, not political.

So many commentators and hand-wringers have fretted over the Iranian quest for nukes, asking themselves why Iran would be so blatant, so obvious, so belligerent, so politically helpful to President Bush (yes, they are saying it), and yet for lack of understanding they tepidly conclude that it must really be some big mistake, that President Ahmadinejad is a harmless nut, and that Iran - while certainly crafty and probably supporting extremists - really does need electricity for it's population. Why risk sanctions? Why would they want to provoke international rebuke? Why would they invite a military strike? Why would they ever wish for a nuclear standoff? MAD worked against the Soviets, didn't it?

It did, but only against the Soviets.

MAD was a system designed to play off fear, or to tempt the other side into a desire to want to live. And then we waited each other out - though Reagan decided to end it and just spent them into bankruptcy. Yet therein lies the fallacy when applying the nuclear standoff scenario to Iran. Iran is in this for the endgame, for a religious goal, not a standoff, and as such they will use the standoff only as a means of lulling us into complacency (and into using the standoff playbook). They are going to cut off the world, destroy their internal opposition, and enshrine their vision of religious fulfillment as a cultural paradise. And death plays a large role in this vision.

The Iranian religious leadership recognizes that demography is against them. Reform is a slippery slope, democracy a theocrat's hemlock. For the Ayatollahs, there can be no Orange, Rose, or Cedar Revolutions. Popular will is irrelevant. Legitimacy comes not from the people, but from God as channeled through a cabal of religious leaders.
....

Only with a nuclear deterrent can the ayatollahs launch the Cultural Revolution that will ensure their survival without fear of outside interference. The Revolutionary Guards are preparing for not one, but dozens of Tiananmen Squares.

As they cleanse their home front, the theocrats may use their nuclear capability to act upon their ideological imperative to destroy Israel. The West once ignored Saddam Hussein's threats against Kuwait. But dictators often mean what they say. Even if Iran does not use its bomb, a nuclear deterrent will enable it to lash out conventionally without fear of consequence...Diplomacy can only work when both sides are sincere.

Exactly. And when it comes to attaining nuclear weapons, Iran is anything but sincere. Yet knowing that we know this, how can Iran hope to prevail? Is there a method to their madness? As it turns out, perhaps yes.

What is the West facing in the government of Iran? I read in yesterday's Times that President Ahmadinejad is a "naive extremist". It is an assumption of Western foreign policy elites that extremists are, by definition, naive, but is it so?

The point about Iran since 1979 is that it has been governed by revolutionaries; and the history of revolutionaries - successful ones, anyway - is that they are often mad and bad and incredibly skilful all at the same time.

Thus Hitler could genuinely believe in crazed racial theory and outmanoeuvre the chancelleries of Europe. Thus Chairman Mao could promote deranged, famine-inducing economics, while at the same time keeping a grip on power for a quarter of a century.
....

The Bomb, blessed by God, will make Iran proud. It will force the West to let Iran dictate terms in the region, give Mr Ahmadinejad the prestige to crush dissent in his own country and help him grab world Muslim leadership, taking over Iraq. Mad, perhaps, terrifying, certainly, but perfectly sane as a way of staying on top.

Madness knows no defeat; and it never will. For madness defines where reason fails. The Soviets were not mad, nor were they radicals. Yet combine madness with the radical mind, and such a person, or group, knows no shame from criticism, ostracism, threats or violence. Such a person or group can only be stopped through a total suppression of will (cut Iran off from the world), annihilation of reach (take out their nuclear capability), or complete destruction (regime change).

But such enemies are not stupid or silly, or given to easily exploited mistakes. They are cold and methodical, and in this case committed to the death. And that is why it is imperative that we deal with this threat now, before Iran has a few nuclear weapons to play with, because even with a united Europe our diplomatic options will have limited effect. As John Keegan explains:

Iran, moreover, does not seek such weapons for psychological reasons. It wants them for practical purposes, including, according to a statement by its new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former revolutionary guard, to "wipe Israel from the map".
....

The pressing question is, indeed, what is to be done when a report to the Security Council fails to bring Iran to desist from nuclear enrichment? Economic and other sanctions are widely cited as a means to restrain Iran; and it is certainly true that the interruption of trade and the supply of technical equipment would cause its government serious inconvenience.

It is much more doubtful whether sanctions would make Iran change its policy. The ayatollahs do not suppose they are popular abroad, nor do they much care. Sanctions would interfere with the Western lifestyle of Iran's educated young people. The ayatollahs, however, have little interest in supporting that lifestyle, indeed, rather the opposite, while Iran's educated youth have given heavy proofs that their national pride weighs heavier than their access to Western luxuries.
....

Moreover, Iran, as the possessor of the second largest oil reserves in the world and occupier of a strategic position athwart the sea routes delivering oil to most of the consuming world, has its own means of retaliation ready to hand.
....

Nevertheless, the West cannot simply let things drift. Military action by whatever agency cannot be written out, but will be a last resort. In the meantime, all means short of military action, including economic and political ostracism and economic sanctions, must be tried, together with the building of alternative oil pipelines to bypass the current routes of oil supply down the Gulf. And, of course, the intensification of anti-terrorist measures.

For if the West is considering military action, so are the ayatollahs...This is a bad and worrying time in world affairs.

Indeed. And to make matters even worse, it appears that Iran is not standing alone. Analysts, internationalists, Democrats, Hollywood, and even network anchors, have heaped continued criticism upon the President for outlining the "Axis of Evil" during his 2002 State of the Union Address. How dare he suggest that the rogues of the world even think about one another, let alone calling them out for being evil! For shame!

So much effort was thrown into political memes in order to discredit the President politically that the denial of reality has frozen the left's brains against common sense. Will the enemies of freedom not band together? - not aide one another? - not fight to their greatest advantage? - or to the death if necessary? This is their last stand, after all. But yet the hordes of special interest groups, races, atheists, Catholic Democrats, homosexuals, heterosexuals, media personalities, Hollywood elites, poor advocates and a good deal of Canadians and Europeans have joined forces to say "no," people who are not the same will never join forces.

Right, and Iraq would never deal with terrorists either.

Of course, for anyone who can read, apparently reality says "yes," the rogue nations of the world are still banding together. And now that Iraq has gone down, it seems a new contender is angling for a spot on the Axis.

With Iranian nuclear aspirations gaining notice, it's worth directing attention to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The Reagan administration repulsed Soviet efforts to set up camp in Central America. Iranian designs on Venezuela perhaps deserve similar U.S. attention.

The warmth and moral support between Ahmadinejad and Chavez is very public. The two tyrants are a lot more than just pen pals. Venezuela has made it clear that it backs Iran's nuclear ambitions and embraces the mullahs' hateful anti-Semitism. What remains more speculative is just how far along Iran is in putting down roots in Venezuela.
....

The Iranian news agency MEHR said last year that the two countries have signed contracts valued at more than $1 billion. In sum, Iranians, presiding over an economy that is itself crumbling into disrepair, are going to build Venezuela 10,000 residential units and a batch of manufacturing plants, if MEHR can be believed. Chavez reportedly says these deals--presumably financed with revenues that might be better employed repairing the vital bridge--include the transfer of "technology" from Iran and the importation of Iranian "professionals" to support the efforts.

Details on the Iranian "factories"--beyond a high-profile tractor producer and a widely publicized cement factory--remain sketchy. But what is clear is that the importation of state agents from Hugo-friendly dictatorships hasn't been a positive experience for Venezuelans. Imported Cubans are now applying their "skills" in intelligence and state security networks to the detriment of Venezuelan liberty. It is doubtful that the growing presence of Iranians in "factories" across Venezuela is about boosting plastic widget output. The U.S. intelligence agencies would do well to make a greater effort to find out exactly what projects the Chavez-Ahmadinejad duo really have in mind. Almost certainly, they are up to no good.

Unfortunately we can't manage such mischief with the wave of a wand. Though it may be time for those anti-war protestors to dust off their "No Blood For Oil" placards, because we may soon have a real war for oil in our midst - and one not started by the U.S. Sanctions against Iran may rob them of goods and gasoline, but a retaliatory strike where the top oil producing nations shut off the oil supply, especially if the situation in Nigeria intensifies, could bring us to the 1970s all over again.

Yet even as the U.S. and Europe face the grim reality of shouldering such a burden, the plotting Axis has not gone unnoticed by the other powers on the Security Council. Though again, unfortunately for us, China and Russia more often fall onto the Iranian side of the equation. As Victor Davis Hanson explains:

Its [Iran's] theocracy poses a danger to civilization even greater than a nuclear North Korea for a variety of peculiar circumstances. Iran is free of a patron like China that might in theory exert moderate influence or even insist on occasional restraint. North Korea, for an increasingly wealthy and capitalist China, is as much a headache and an economic liability as a socialist comrade.

In contrast, Iran is a cash cow for Russia (and China) and apparently a source of opportunistic delight in its tweaking of the West. Iranian petro-wealth has probably already earned Tehran at least one, and probably two, favorable votes at the Security Council.

Of course, Tehran'’s oil revenues allow it access to weapons markets, and overt blackmail, both of which are impossible for a starving North Korea. And Iran'’s nuclear facilities are located at the heart of the world'’s petroleum reserves, where even the semblance of instability can drive up global oil prices, costing the importing world billions in revenues.

No one is flocking to Communism, much less Pyongyang's unrepentant, ossified Stalinist brand. Islamic radicalism, on the other hand, has declared war on Western society and tens of thousands of jihdadists, whether Shiia or Sunnis, count on Iran for money, sanctuary, and support. Al Qaeda members travel the country that is the spiritual godhead of Hezbollah, and a donor of arms and money to radical Palestinian terrorists.

North Korea can threaten Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the western United States, and so poses a real danger. But the opportunities for havoc are even richer for a nuclear Iran. With nukes and an earned reputation for madness, it can dictate to the surrounding Arab world the proper policy of petroleum exportation; it can shakedown Europeans whose capitals are in easy missile range; it can take out Israel with a nuke or two; or it can bully the nascent democracies of the Middle East while targeting tens of thousands of US soldiers based from Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf.

And Iran can threaten to do all this under the aegis of a crazed Islamist regime more eager for the paradise of the next world than for the material present so dear to the affluent and decadent West. If Iran can play brinkmanship now on just the promise of nuclear weapons, imagine its roguery to come when it is replete with them.

Not the kind of imagining that John Lennon had in mind. Yet ironically it was his type of imagining that helped foster the idea that harmony and peace were there for the taking, that evil only existed to further the hallucinations of the warmonger, and that you could live in peace with anyone so long as you sought to truly understand them and make no war against them.

But the absence of conflict is not the guarantor of peace, but cool acquiescence, subservient to the whims of the greater will. Hitler took half of Europe before firing a shot, not because he was crazy, or prepared, or powerful, or peaceful, or crafty - but because the rest of the world gave in.

The truth of it is, Iran is not going to stop. Why should they? They have no reason to stop, no fear of Europe, the U.N., Israel, the U.S., or apparently even CNN, and yet every incentive to keep going.

So what do we do? Sanctions? War? All of the above?

The Europeans and the Americans right now must accelerate their efforts and bring the crisis to a climax at the Security Council to force China and Russia publicly to take sides. India, Pakistan, and the Arab League should all be brought in and briefed on the dilemma, and asked to go on record supporting U.N. action.

The public relations war is critical. Zen-like, the United States must assure the Europeans, Russians, and Arabs that the credit for a peaceful solution would be theirs. The lunacy of the Iranian president should provide the narrative of events, and thus be quoted hourly -— as we remain largely silent.

Economically, we should factor in the real possibility that Iranian oil might be off the global market, and prepare - we have been here before with the Iranian embargo of 1979 -— for colossal gasoline price hikes. This should also be a reminder that Ahmadinejad, Saddam, Hugo Chavez, and an ascendant and increasingly undemocratic Putin all had in common both petrodollar largess and desperate Western, Chinese, and Indian importers willing to overlook almost anything to slake their thirst. Unless we develop an energy policy that collapses the global oil price, for the next half-century expect every few years something far creepier than the Saudi Royals and Col. Moammar Gadhafi to threaten the world order.

The Democratic leadership should step up to the plate and, in Truman-esque fashion, forge a bipartisan front to confront Iran and make the most of their multilateral moment. If the Democrats feel they have lost the public'’s confidence in their stewardship of national security, then the threat of Iran offers a Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, or John Kerry an opportunity to get out front now and pledge support for a united effort -— attacking Bush from the right about too tepid a stance rather from the predictable left that we are "“hegemonic"” and "“imperialistic"” every time we use force abroad.

Finally, the public must be warned that dealing with a nuclear Iran is not a matter of a good versus a bad choice, but between a very bad one now and something far, far worse to come.

Far worse? Try nightmarish.

You Should Be Watching "24" Right Now

Season 5 starts tonight. 8 Eastern / 7 Central. On Fox. Two hours tonight. Two hours tomorrow night. Turn it on. And click the link for details if you've never seen the show. Trust me.

This is the show you want to watch. Jack Bauer is the bane of terrorists and expendable middle-men everywhere.


He routinely ends up shooting the bad guys, or torturing them for information, so he can move along to the next bad guy.


Along with his trusty sidekick, his cell phone, which never runs out of battery juice despite non-stop use and satellite downloads, Jack takes us on a roller coaster 24 hours of nonstop action.

Of course, here is was the real reason to watch the show.

*sigh*... Rest in peace, Michelle... They always said it was a badge of honor to get bumped off on the show. But I never thought it would be you.


Her name is Michelle. And she is secretly the star and heroine of every season. Don't ask questions, just watch. Right now.

Why Alito Scares Democrats

It appears that the judicial hearings circus has given way to Democrat blustering about why Judge Alito deserves a "no" vote for the Supreme Court. As the Wall Street Journal highlights, this involves the liberal - and at times the comfy Senate Republican - idea of judicial precedent.

Having failed to lay a glove on Samuel Alito this week on ethics, liberal opponents are now falling back on a hardy perennial to justify their votes against him: He lacks due regard for Supreme Court precedent, and in particular he might vote to overturn that holiest of liberal precedents, Roe v. Wade.

But as is plainly obvious, liberals, who always talk of the Constitution as a "living document" reek of hypocrisy when they announce that settled law must not be trifled with. What they mean, of course, is that their idea of settled law (abortion, affirmative action, etc.) must not be changed. Anything they want, such as gay marriage, government health care and a nod towards international law, those things are fair game and the court must bend the Constitution until the justices "discover" those rights. In the press, the rhetoric plays out quite well, because the majority of reporters feel this is mainstream thought. However when confronted by someone like Judge Alito, the Democrat argument falls apart, because he doesn't think in terms of activism.

We haven't a clue whether Judge Alito would vote to overturn Roe, and we suspect he may not know either. His record on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, where he ruled on several abortion cases and sometimes in ways that upheld abortion rights, shows he's not a results-oriented jurist. As he told New York Democrat Chuck Schumer, "If I have had an agenda to uphold any abortion regulation that came along, I would not have voted as I did in my Third Circuit cases." How he votes on abortion will almost certainly depend on the nature of the case before him, the arguments at issue, and perhaps how many other Justices might vote along with him.

What we're confident Judge Alito won't do is join the Court's liberal wing on cases such as Lawrence, and intrude willy-nilly into social matters best left to legislatures to solve. This is what really has liberals worried, since in her later years they could often count on Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to join them. With Judge Alito set to replace her, the High Court is likely to return to the centrist majority that prevailed before Byron White was replaced by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993.

I have to say I think Judge Alito was an excellent pick on President Bush's part. I believe that the President is going to leave us with a very capable and qualified Supreme Court, that will hopefully protect the Constitution from activism for decades to come.


I missed this second Wall Street Journal editorial by Jonathan Adler where he discusses the "results-oriented" political climate that has taken over the judicial nomination process. It's subscription only, but here is a snippet:

Journalists have also treated judicial nominees like political candidates. Several media outlets conducted quantitative analyses of Judge Alito's decisions, detailing how often he held "for" or "against" a given side. Instead of analyzing his reasoning, and the extent to which it adhered to or departed from applicable precedent, the analyses tallied his opinions based upon their results -- such as whether he ruled for or against plaintiffs alleging discrimination, immigrants contesting deportation, or convicted criminals seeking death-row appeals. These analyses, in turn, were relied upon by senators seeking to tar Judge Alito as "for" or "against" given causes.

Setting aside the methodological problems -- such as the failure to account for a representative cross-sample of Judge Alito's opinions, or the makeup of the Third Circuit and its docket -- such analyses are not particularly probative of judicial fitness. Knowing how often a judge ruled for criminal defendants has little instructional value. The relevant question is not who won or lost but whether the judge applied the law in a neutral and consistent manner. Curiously, the Knight-Ridder reporters found such consistency a defect, characterizing Judge Alito's decisions as "so consistent that it appears results do matter to him." Were there evidence that he disregarded precedent or relevant legal doctrines in pursuit of "results," such a charge might have merit, but the various analyses showed nothing of the kind.

Viewing judges as life-tenured politicians who get to impose their own policy preferences furthers the downward spiral of judicial politicization. To be sure, judges themselves are not blameless. The Supreme Court's willingness to inject itself into controversies traditionally resolved by the political branches of government only encourages interest groups to devote resources to shaping the federal bench.

Combined with the special interests groups who "want something" out of their judges, it's a tough ship to turn around. But I think President Bush is doing well with his picks - the picks that make it past his base, that is. It's a very good article; read it all if you have a subscription.

The U.S. Media Blackout Continues

Ever see this headline? "Plans to 'top' 9/11 strikes"

Rome - Three Algerians arrested in an anti-terrorist operation in southern Italy are suspected of being linked to a planned new series of attacks in the United States, interior minister Giuseppe Pisanu said Friday.

The attacks would have targeted ships, stadiums or railway stations in a bid to outdo the September 11 2001 strikes by al-Qaeda in New York and Washington which killed about 2 700 people, Pisanu said.

The Algerians, suspected of belonging to a cell established by an al-Qaeda-linked Algerian extremist organisation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), were named as Achour Rabah, Tartaq Sami and Yasmine Bouhrama.

Strange that the U.S. media hasn't reported it yet. You have to go to the international press to get any follow-up reporting. But of course, it's what the foreign press is reporting that might have the U.S. media reluctant to break their silence.

The three in custody are also alleged to have procured false papers and funds to finance the GSPC, a hardline fundamentalist movement that rejects the Algerian government's attempt to draw a line under years of Islamist rebellion.

Pisanu said Friday's swoop was part of a wider operation involving other countries.

Links were uncovered between the GSPC's Italian activities and groups in Britain, the Italian news agency Ansa reported.

Interesting. And how were the links uncovered?

Italian authorities stepped up their internal surveillance programs after July's terrorist bombings in London. Their domestic wiretaps picked up phone conversations by Algerian Yamine Bouhrama that discussed terrorist attacks in Italy and abroad.

Italian authorities arrested Bouhrama on November 15 and he remains in prison. Authorities later arrested two other men, Achour Rabah and Tartaq Sami, who are believed to be Bouhrama's chief aides in planning the attacks.

The arrests were a major coup for Italian anti-terror forces, and the story was carried in most major newspapers from Europe to China.

Well would you look at that - wiretapping! Who would have thought? Gosh it's too bad the U.S. media won't report on that, because that would actually go a long way in helping the American public understand that whole NSA thing that was leaked to the New York Times.

"My impression is that the major media want to use the NSA story to try and impeach the president," says Cliff Kincaid, editor of the Accuracy in Media Report published by the grassroots Accuracy in Media organization.

"If you remind people that terrorists actually are planning to kill us, that tends to support the case made by President Bush. They will ignore any issue that shows that this kind of [wiretapping] tactic can work in the war on terror."

"The mainstream media have framed the story as one of the nefarious President Bush 'spying on U.S. citizens,' where the average American is a victim not a beneficiary," commented Brent Baker, vice president of the Media Research Center, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to encouraging balanced news coverage, "so journalists have little interest in any evidence that the program has helped save lives by uncovering terrorist plans."

The Associated Press version of the story did not disclose that the men planned to target the U.S. Nor did it report that the evidence against the suspects was gathered via a wiretapping surveillance operation.

As I've said before, this is the war on terror, protecting the homeland. This is not Iraq. This is not even Afghanistan. And there is no amount of classified program leaking, article writing, media scaremongering, media blackout-ing, Cindy Sheehan wailing, Senate hearing, poll skewing, scandal swearing that will turn the public against a program that is demonstrably keeping this country safe. Whatever the public feels about wiretapping or their rights, they understand that they'll have no rights (except maybe last rights) if they're dead.

But the media dares not report on this, because such stories would support the President. And so they will dig themselves even deeper by keeping something like this quiet.

Pretty despicable if you ask me.

And Now A Word About The "Judges"

It appears that Judge Alito is going to be confirmed as the next associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The odds were pretty good going in, but the process has to play out. Nothing said during the hearings has shaken the majority opinion, so he has the votes.

Samuel Alito coasted toward probable confirmation as the 110th Supreme Court justice Thursday, with the only question after 18 hours of grueling Senate interrogation being how many Democrats would support him.

Alito said nothing to undermine his solid support by the Senate's majority Republicans during three days of aggressive questioning by Democrats who challenged his credibility, judicial philosophy and independence.

"I am my own person, with whatever abilities I have and whatever limitations I have," Alito declared as he wrapped up his final public appearance before senators begin voting on his nomination to replace retiring Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor.

Democrats contend the former Reagan administration lawyer is likely to swing the court to the right in replacing the centrist O'Connor, who has provided decisive votes on such important issues as abortion, capital punishment and affirmative action.

Judiciary Committee senators will meet on Tuesday to begin debating the 55-year-old federal judge's nomination. Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., wants a committee vote that day, though Democrats could delay it for a week.

Delay is not likely to change Alito's support among the Senate's 55 Republicans.

I expect all the Republicans and maybe ten or fifteen Democrats crossing over to vote for Judge Alito, less than crossed over for Chief Justice Roberts, that's for sure.

It is interesting though, how Judge Alito's Democratic questioners, sitting in judgment of him, who most assuredly will vote against his nomination, probably couldn't even pass their own worthiness test either. Tom Bevan, of Real Clear Politics, lays it out:

Not Ted Kennedy: for obvious reasons.

Not Joe Biden: he has a plagiarism problem.

Not Dianne Feinstein: she's had a Guatemalan houskeeper issue, was fined $190,000 in 1992 for failing to properly report $3.5 million in campaign expenditures, and her husband runs a company that scored a $600 million Iraq war contract in 2003. Imagine what the Dems would do with this last one.

Not Charles Schumer: two of the people under his employ at the DSCC are currently being investigated for illegally obtaining Michael Steele's credit report last year. In 1983, Schumer narrowly escaped indictment for misusing state funds in his 1980 Congressional race. The U.S. Attorney in the case, Raymond J. Dearie, actually recommended that Schumer be indicted, but the Reagan Justice Department turned down the request citing "lack of jurisdiction."

Not Dick Durbin: he would never get around his pro-life past. Durbin is on the record in the 1980's saying that he "believed that Roe v. Wade was incorrectly decided" and that "the right to an abortion is not guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution."

That leaves Pat Leahy, Herb Kohl, and Russ Feingold as the only Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who - at least at first glance - might possibly be able to survive one of their own confirmation hearings. Three out of eight. That's it.

It makes what the Democrats are trying to do to Samuel Alito all that much more distasteful and highlights how partisan and out of control the whole process has become.

UPDATE: We're down to two. I missed Pat Leahy's 1987 resignation as Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee for leaking classified information to a reporter.

Amazing the things that simply drop off the radar because the media chooses to forget. In a way, this is why the Democrats are such a sorry lot. The media holds the bar so low for them, even to the point of carrying them over it at times. It's no wonder they reek of hypocrisy to the even moderately well informed.

Now This Is News

Civil war in Iraq...between the insurgents and the terrorists that is. Reports of such rifts have been cropping up since last year, but mostly it's been under the radar. Now it appears the internal violence and discord is severe enough that even the New York Times feels it's newsworthy.

According to an American and an Iraqi intelligence official, as well as Iraqi insurgents, clashes between Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Iraqi insurgent groups like the Islamic Army and Muhammad's Army have broken out in Ramadi, Husayba, Yusifiya, Dhuluiya and Karmah.

In town after town, Iraqis and Americans say, local Iraqi insurgents and tribal groups have begun trying to expel Al Qaeda's fighters, and, in some cases, kill them. It is unclear how deeply the split pervades Iraqi society. Iraqi leaders say that in some Iraqi cities, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and local insurgent groups continue to cooperate with one another.

American and Iraqi officials believe that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is largely made up of Iraqis, with its highest leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian. Even so, among Iraqis, the group is still perceived as a largely foreign force.

And the success of the past years elections will accelerate this discord between the insurgents - former insurgents - and the terrorists. Continued violence by al Qaeda, instead of cowing the citizens, has encouraged them to fight back and resist. So much for the meme that "fighting the terrorists only makes them stronger."

The excitement over the vote spurred Al Qaeda into action. At night, men put up their own posters threatening, "He who votes will be beheaded." Then, two days before the Oct. 15 referendum, a group of Qaeda fighters confronted an imam in one of the local Sunni mosques and lectured him about how voting contradicted the Koran. According to the imam, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety, two of the men appeared from their accents to be from Algeria and Syria. They vowed to kill anyone who removed their posters.

"Why are you driving the troubles into our town?" the Sunni cleric said he asked the men. "If you want jihad, the U.S. military is there."

Imams from five Sunni mosques tore down the Qaeda posters wherever they could find them.

"I myself tore those into pieces," the Sunni cleric said.

Al Qaeda got the message. On election day, Dhuluiya's voters streamed into polling places. The streets were quiet, with only a single attack on a polling center.

"All of them voted," the resident said. "All of Dhuluiya. There was no one sitting in his house."

We're a long way from gaining an ally in the insurgents, but I will say that this is definitely a big step in the right direction.

John Kerry Warns Iran

I find it ironic that Senator John Kerry is wagging the finger at Iran over their nuclear ambitions. Isn't he the one who advocated the Democratic position during the last presidential race that his administration would give nuclear fuel to Iran? Now he says - they're making a big mistake.

U.S. Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said on Thursday that Iran was making a dangerous choice in pushing ahead with its nuclear ambitions.

"Iran has made a dangerous and silly decision of confronting not just the U.S. government but the entire international community," Kerry told reporters in the southern Indian technology hub of Hyderabad during a visit to India.

Translation: "I'm trying to help you get your power, because I know in my tolerant and empathetic heart that you only hate America because of George Bush - yet you insist on helping him politically!"

Ha. I jest. Sort of.

But in addition to marveling at Kerry's sudden backbone on the issue, I'm still wondering why Reuters is writing an article on Iran and only quoting him.

Kerry's statement came as officials from Britain, France and Germany plan to meet their counterparts from China, Russia and the United States in London next week to discuss Iran's decision to restart sensitive nuclear work.

Kerry said Iran could be referred to the U.N. Security Council if the crisis continued.

"If all diplomatic channels fail, we have no choice but to take the issue before the international body," Kerry, a strong proponent of nuclear non-proliferation, said.

Separately in London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he thought it highly probable that Iran would be referred to the Security Council over its decision to restart sensitive nuclear work.

See? Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary. Him I expect to hear from - to speak to the British position on the matter. Where are the quotes from the Bush administration? Condoleeza Rice, President Bush, I'd even take a blurb from John Bolton. But Kerry?

Come on, Reuters, Kerry may be on the Foreign Relations Committee and be an almost-President, but he isn't the President. When it comes to Iran and the almost-war we have right now, let's quote the current administration, thank you very much.

Hubble - Still Taking Pictures

Panoramic view of the Orion Nebula:

In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star formation region is one of astronomy's most dramatic and photogenic celestial objects. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars.

Excellent wallpaper sizes here. All photo credit goes to:

Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team.

Don't Do Whatever It Takes?

It seems that Russell Tice, former NSA employee, was one of the main leakers to the New York Times about the secret eavesdropping program. In all the rush to lift him out of the jail cell and onto the whistleblower pedestal, the media barely batted an eye as Mr. Tice revealed the fallacy of his entire way of thinking.

"I specialized in what's called special access programs," Tice said of his job. "We called them 'black world' programs and operations."

But now, Tice tells ABC News that some of those secret "black world" operations run by the NSA were operated in ways that he believes violated the law. He is prepared to tell Congress all he knows about the alleged wrongdoing in these programs run by the Defense Department and the NSA in the post-9/11 efforts to go after terrorists.

"The mentality was we need to get these guys, and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them," he said.

Tice says the technology exists to track and sort through every domestic and international phone call as they are switched through centers, such as one in New York, and to search for key words or phrases that a terrorist might use.

"If you picked the word 'jihad' out of a conversation," Tice said, "the technology exists that you focus in on that conversation, and you pull it out of the system for processing."

According to Tice, intelligence analysts use the information to develop graphs that resemble spiderwebs linking one suspect's phone number to hundreds or even thousands more.

Remember, not one Democratic lawmaker, bureaucrat, FISA Judge, ACLU member - not a one, has called for the end of the NSA program.

I haven't even heard the leakers call for an end to the program! Have they? Nope.

There are "questions," and "concerns," and "worries" by Democrats, all the way up to Senate Intelligence committee member Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller - who was so concerned that he wrote a letter about it and locked it in a safe. The letter, by the way, that the New York Times knew about - the letter that no one in the world except Rockefeller supposedly did.

How many leakers did the New York Times say they had? A dozen? Let's find out.

Democrats, in full Bush Derangement Syndrome mode, have forgotten that this is the war on terror. This is not about Iraq, not even about Afghanistan, this is about protecting against another 9-11. The program is working and it cannot be shut down. We all saw what happened in Ghostbusters when they turned that containment field off. You'll just have to hunt them all down again, the hard way, and lord knows the chaos in the meantime.

So have the Senate hearings, Democrats. Even Bush wants the hearings now. And have the DOJ investigation - and get the courts in on this too. Let's invite the entire world.

Because somebody is going to jail, and it's not going to be the President.

Judge Who?

So linked with an AP article about Judge Alito's hearings (Democrats Say Alito's Answers Inconsistent) we find this photo, matched with a caption. Note the incorrect spelling of the judge's name. Apparently the AP says "Alioto" now.

A woman who identified herself as Susanna Doe and is opposed to the nomination of Judge Samuel Alioto to the Supreme Court holds up a protest banner outside U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's San Francisco office on Monday, Jan. 9, 2006. Women in hospital gowns soaked with simulated blood joined other protesters to mark the opening of Judge Alito's confirmation hearings in Washington.(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

A spelling error? Or is the AP taking cues from Ted Kennedy?

...Judge "Alioto" has not written one single opinion on the merits in favor of a person of color alleging race discrimination on the job. In fifteen years on the bench, not one.

Oh AP, say it ain't so. Please, follow anyone but Ted Kennedy. He'll lead you right off a bridge.

For more on the continuing saga between Judge Alito and Ted Kennedy's Band of Bloviating Senators, see Michelle Malkin's day three post.

Alito's "Grilling"

To read the press accounts of the Alito hearings one might get the impression this could turn out to be a real grilling for the Judge. However, watching the events tells a completely different story. He's running circles around these Senators, and that's putting it nicely. I can't even offer a witticism, the Senate's performance is just laughably sad.

So I'll defer to Ed Whelan of Bench Memos, who had this to say about Senator Fienstein's questioning:

Feinstein starts with Court's Commerce Clause rulings in Morrison and Lopez (in both of which, as she notes, O'Connor was part of the 5-justice majority). Says that she read the Third Circuit's long opinion in Rybar "over the noon break". (Nice job preparing for the hearing, senator.) Poses a hypothetical Q and then says that it's "not hypothetical." Asks Alito about federalism and Steve Calabresi article describing Lopez as revolutionary. Alito says Lopez was a startling development for a lot of people.

I have no clue where Feinstein is headed, and I don't think she does either.

To all Democrats who think their elected officials are putting up a serious fight against Judge Alito, think again. In fact, if I were a Democrat who donated to any of these "Stop Alito" causes, I'd be asking for my money back. Because their Kung-fu just ain't that strong, as this little gem about the NARAL campaign to tell the Senate what America really thinks about Alito reveals.

NARAL's Goal:

"To Convince Enough Senators That Alito Is Wrong For Our Country, We Are
Setting A Goal Of Gathering 500,000 Petition Signatures To Deliver To
The Senate." (NARAL Email, "Just 5 Days Left!" 12/5/05)

NARAL's Result:

"With The Help Of More Than 50 Volunteers We Were Able To ... Enter
2,000 Signatures Into Our Activist Database From The 'Oppose Alito'
Petition Drive ..." (NARAL Email, "Thanks For Your Hard Work!" 1/10/06)

And topping that for the day is the "there they go again" eye-roll worthy report about how the press has reverted to once again attack Alito for...how he looks, dresses and drinks water.

Do the chick reporters at USA Today want a male supermodel on the Supreme Court? To read the "reporting" of the paper's persnickety Kathy Kiely and Joan Biskupic, you'd think so.

It appears they think appearance and lack of thirst are the top crednentials for our nation's highest court.

Here's the insulting, absurd description they wrote in today's edition of McPaper:

The judge cut a different profile than the smooth John Roberts, whom the Senate confirmed in September as chief justice of the United States. Alito's suit and hair were a bit rumpled. He paused before he began testifying to take a long drink of water.

HUH?! So, now, even drinking water is suspect (when you are an "evil" conservative nominee)?

Of course drinking water is suspect! It's Moonbat 101! It's so simple: Water is related to "drinking", which Ted Kennedy does a lot of, but it's also related to "leaking." And the eagle-eyed press perceived how Alito was "nervous" while he was drinking because it might remind the Senators of the association (except perhaps Ted, who might need his dog Splash to explain it to him). And as every moonbat knows, in some cases a Bush pawn would want to stop the leak (NSA), while in other cases you'd want to foster the leak (Plame). And just because he drank water in their presence, the Senate would want Judge Alito to recuse himself if the FISA case ever came before the Supreme Court. And the BushHitler regime cannot have that, because they need Alito in there. Isn't it obvious?

Anyway, before the drip of sarcasm becomes a flood and washes my page away, I'll pass on the link to Michelle Malkin's day two post, where she catalogues more media and Democrat antics and inanity. Though honestly, I think this thing is about over. Barring any overnight Senatorial brain transplants, Judge Alito will be confirmed as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court.

To make a mockery of a quote from an unnamed Democratic aide: "Stick a fork in the Senate - they're done."

The Truth of It

Stanley Kurtz lays it out for us. The situation with Iran is serious.

We are at war. We are not losing the war, but if Iran goes nuclear we will be. Iran is acting because it knows that Europe is weak, and because it sees the United States as paralyzed by domestic opposition to the war. During the presidential campaign, the Democrats wanted to offer Iran a "grand bargain:" we'll give you nuclear facilities if you send us the spent fuel for safe-keeping. It'’s obvious now (as it should have been then) that such a bargain is hopeless. Iran wants the bomb, and nothing but a military strike will deter it. Read that piece by Robbins and you'’ll see what'’s at stake. Reflecting on the question of a military strike, it seems that the main argument against it is political: Dovish Europeans, the America's Democratic Party, and Middle Eastern countries will be angry at us for resorting to military means. This strikes me as a bad reason to hold back. The doves will be discredited when we see what comes of a nuclear Iran. But by then it will be too late.

Here is an excerpt from the James Robbins article:

Nuclear weapons are not most effective when lobbed between nuclear powers; they are best used as leverage to augment military actions in the conventional or unconventional realm by arming countries with the threat of escalation.

Let'’s look at some examples.

Scenario One, very familiar to U.S. war planners. Tehran closes off the Straits of Hormuz and subjects the world to energy blackmail, an "“access denial" strategy. Currently the Coalition would respond by sending a flotilla to force an entry, probably accompanied by a punitive air campaign against every available worthwhile target in Iran. At present the regime would have no effective way to respond to that. But if they had nuclear weapons, particularly with long-range missiles or other delivery systems, our war planning would be immensely complicated. How close would we risk sending a Carrier Battle Group? How punitive would we pursue an air campaign, knowing that when we bomb Tehran the Iranians might have the capability to strike back, perhaps against domestic targets using terrorist surrogates? Can we count on our allies if Iranian missiles can reach Europe -— they cannot now, but if they have nukes, how can we stop Iran from developing longer-range weapons?

Scenario Two. Iran launches a ground invasion through southern Iraq and into Kuwait, then, not making the mistake Saddam Hussein made, drive right on into Saudi Arabia. They would control four of the top five oil reserves in the world. Iran makes no further demands, and keeps the oil flowing. How would we respond, knowing that Iran would have recourse to nuclear weapons if the fight got too tough? Would we even take action and risk shutting off most Middle Eastern energy exports? Would we really care whether Arabia was under the sway of Wahabbism or Shia Fundamentalism -— and if we did care would it be worth the risk?

Scenario Three. The long-awaited democratic revolution begins to develop in Iran. Massive crowds turn out in the streets demonstrating against the increasingly harsh laws imposed by the radical government. Students, liberal oppositionists -— even joined by some army and police units -— begin to coalesce into a true revolutionary force. The regime sends in the Pasdaran, the Revolutionary Guards, the only instrument left they can trust, to put an end to it. In a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown, tanks roll in to crush (literally) the revolutionaries, who plea for Coalition intervention. If it happened tomorrow, we could give the uprising enough air and other means of support to at least stave off catastrophe, maybe to tip the balance in their favor, and do so with majority support of the international community. But if the regime had nuclear weapons, would we risk intervening? Or would it be Hungary 1956 all over again? Moreover, say the liberal revolution looked like it would succeed without anyone'’s help -— would we be as eager to see the current regime destabilized if the endgame for the mullahs was a last-minute Armageddon-style nuclear launch when they were going down and had nothing to lose? Wouldn'’t we tell the democratic opposition to cool it?

The reality of the world is not a U.N. mandated peace or IAEA inspections (Iran could care less about the U.N. or Europe); it is not a peaceful co-existence between Israel and Iran (not while their President so easily calls for the eradication of the Jews - to the relative silence of the world, no less); and it is not an Iran using nuclear power to stave off the "detrimental global warming effects" of their vast oil supply.

If Iran goes nuclear the fanatics will have gained ground, possibly irreparably so without serious sacrifice on the part of America and the world.

And that is the case for the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption. These threats must be addressed and taken care of before they reach the point of no return. And for Iran, the diplomatic window is closing fast, if it hasn't shut already; and the military option is closing right behind it.

Nicely Said

Judge Samuel Alito (from his opening statement of today's U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing):

When I became a judge, I stopped being a practicing attorney. And that was a big change in role.

The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand. But a judge can't think that way. A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case and a judge certainly doesn't have a client.

The judge's only obligation -- and it's a solemn obligation -- is to the rule of law. And what that means is that in every single case, the judge has to do what the law requires.

Good judges develop certain habits of mind. One of those habits of mind is the habit of delaying reaching conclusions until everything has been considered.

Good judges are always open to the possibility of changing their minds based on the next brief that they read, or the next argument that's made by an attorney who's appearing before them, or a comment that is made by a colleague during the conference on the case when the judges privately discuss the case.

It's been a great honor for me to spend my career in public service. It has been a particular honor for me to serve on the court of appeals for these past 15 years, because it has given me the opportunity to use whatever talent I have to serve my country by upholding the rule of law.

And there is nothing that is more important for our republic than the rule of law. No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law.

Fifteen years ago, when I was sworn in as a judge of the court of appeals, I took an oath. I put my hand on the Bible and I swore that I would administer justice without respect to persons, that I would do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I would carry out my duties under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

And that is what I have tried to do to the very best of my ability for the past 15 years. And if I am confirmed, I pledge to you that that is what I would do on the Supreme Court.

Ted Kennedy and His Dog "Splash"

No, really. He named the dog in his new children's book "Splash." (via Michelle Malkin)

Meet the latest children's author, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and his Portuguese Water Dog, Splash, his co-protagonist in "My Senator and Me: A Dogs-Eye View of Washington, D.C."

Scholastic Inc. will release the book in May.

"I am very excited about the opportunity to create a book for young readers and their families that will deepen their understanding of how our American government works," Kennedy said in a statement Monday issued by Scholastic.

According to Scholastic, Kennedy's book "not only takes readers through a full day in the Senator's life, but also explains how a bill becomes a law." Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, was inspired to write the book from his work with a Washington-based reading program, "Everybody Wins!"

A full day in the Senator's life? Is that suitable for children? Perhaps if he'd given an account of his high-seas rescue, but I can't see how drinking and swearing and misrepresenting facts, the law, and slandering Supreme Court nominees qualifies as child-friendly.

Plus he named his dog "Splash!" Unbelievable.

The Enemy Evades

Sun-tzu, speaking on the art of war, said:

"The means by which enlightened rulers and sagacious generals moved and conquered others, that their achievements surpassed the masses, was advance knowledge.

Advance knowledge cannot be gained from ghosts and spirits, inferred from phenomena, or projected from the measures of Heaven, but must be gained from men for it is the knowledge of the enemy's true situation."

And he had some rather fatally sharp words for any spy or informant who betrayed the general's plans and the mission to the enemy, because as he saw it the hierarchy of battle to achieve victory fell out this way:

"The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances; next to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their fortified cities."

And what he meant by this was that if you could foil the enemy's plans, you could win before the fight began. Therefore, the intelligence gained by spies and spying on the enemy, of knowing their plans, was paramount to the quickest and most assured victory. And putting it in terms of today's fight, that means rounding up the terrorists before they strike.

Now here is the most disturbing passage from a new article in Time magazine by Joe Klein, concerning the fallout from the leaks about the NSA eavesdropping.

It would have been a scandal if the NSA had not been using these tools to track down the bad guys. There is evidence that the information harvested helped foil several plots and disrupt al-Qaeda operations.

There is also evidence, according to U.S. intelligence officials, that since the New York Times broke the story, the terrorists have modified their behavior, hampering our efforts to keep track of them - but also, on the plus side, hampering their ability to communicate with one another.

So we have reduced our advantage to a momentary draw, in all probability to be reduced even further to a permanent loss of intelligence once the terrorists figure out another way of communicating with one another.

The bickering over war powers, intelligence gathering methods, the speed and necessity of wiretaps and classified programs could have been carried out behind closed doors. Any Democrats or FISA judges privy to the program could have called for hearings or additional briefs. As the papers have reported, merely upon concerns from then Attorney General Ashcroft, the program was suspended until the concerns were addressed and fixed. And even now, not one Democrat, Republican, judge or legal analyst has called for the program to be stopped and discontinued.

Yet the New York Times sold a few more papers. And James Risen is getting money for his book.

Now...who's put the country in jeopardy again?

Sobering Words

The other day Hugh Hewitt had Father Joseph Fessio on his radio program to talk about the Pope, Islam and the West. The interview is here as a transcript. I highly recommend the read.

Hugh highlights the part of the discussion in which they talked about the problem of Islam and modernity.

JF: Yeah, that Christianity can engage modernity just like it did...the Jews did Egypt, or Christians did to Greece, because we can take what's good there, and we can elevate it through the revelation of Christ in the Bible. But Islam is stuck. It's stuck with a text that cannot be adapted, or even be interpreted properly.

HH: And so the Pope is a pessimist about that changing, because it would require a radical reinterpretation of what the Koran is?

JF: Yeah, which is it's impossible, because it's against the very nature of the Koran, as it's understood by Muslims.

HH: And so, even the dialectic that was the Reformation is not possible within Islam?

JF: No. And then a second thing which he did not say, but which I would have said, I might have said at the time, is that...and this is from a Catholic point of view, there's no one to interpret the Koran officially. the Catholic Church has an official interpretor, which is the Holy Father with the bishops.

They then proceed to talk about the coming population problem in Europe - also closely related to Mark Steyn's article in last weeks Opinionjournal. But the part of the interview that I found the most sobering had to do with the objective of Islam.

JF: Yeah. Well, I mean, the one good thing about this is that I do think the thing being the incursion of Islam...and look, let's face it. Muslims, many of them, perhaps a majority of them are serious about their faith. They're devout. But they have a religion whose principle is based on God's word, not in the words of men, but God's word delivered directly to Mohammed, which can't be interpreted, can't be changed, can't be adapted. And that word is to conquer the word, or render everyone subject to the one true religion, which is Islam. I mean, it is not a religion of stasis or peace. It's a religion of evangelization...or that's not a good word, because that's a Gospel word. But I mean it's a religion of missionary conversions.

HH: Father Fessio, now I have Muslim friends who will argue that that's not what Jihad means. How do you respond to them?

JF: Well, your Muslim friends are wrong, because Jihad can be largely interpreted to be a spiritual struggle. But the text themselves talk explicitly about the extension of Islam to all peoples, and they allowed either to accept, or if they reject it, they have to be...pay a tax, you know, and you become dimis, or second class citizens, or subject citizens to Islam. Actually, it's interesting. I was in Rome, actually Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence, in September of 2005. His former students met with him, and the topic of our meeting was the Islamic concept of God, and its consequences for a secular society. And we had two people there who gave talks, one of them extraordinary, a man named Kalil Safir Kalil(?), who is an Egyptian born Coptic Catholic, Lebanese Jesuit priest who runs an Islamic-Christian center in Lebanon, and he's got a book called Ciento Domande Su Islam, 100 Questions On Islam. He knows it inside and out. And he quotes key Islamic leaders saying the following: Because of your religious tolerance in Europe, we will overtake you. We will be coming into Europe. Because of our religious beliefs, we will conquer you. I mean, there should be no doubt about it. They're intent, and I don't blame them for this. They believe they got the true religion. They are going to overcome here. They've been trying to do it for...since the 600's.

Indeed they have.

Immigration Reform

Was it a bad weekend for rallies, or is the public starting to show some visible movement on the illegal immigration issue?

Illegal immigration protests organized across the country Saturday drew small numbers, and some were outnumbered and out-shouted by those who support immigrant rights.

The so-called "Stop the Invasion" protests were organized in 19 states, demanding the government increase border security and penalize employers who hire illegal workers.

"We are keeping the debate on illegal immigration in the forefront of the American consciousness," said Joseph Turner of Save Our State, who was among about two dozen protesters who waved American flags outside a home-supply store in a Los Angeles suburb.

But Turner's group in Glendale was surrounded by more than 100 drum- beating supporters who chanted, "Racists go home." The two groups traded shouts and obscene gestures for more than an hour. One man was arrested for assault, police said.

In Farmingville, N.Y., where immigration-related violence erupted several times in recent years, only about a dozen protesters showed up and argued against the growing number of day laborers on eastern Long Island.

Paul Streitz, who organized the demonstrations, said members believe illegal immigrants are taking jobs from citizens while driving down property values.

"This is not a racist thing," said Daniel Anastasia, 46, a construction worker from Westchester, N.Y. "We pay taxes, they don't. I get paid what the union says. The contractor pays them cash. It's not fair to me."

Analysts for both political parties have dubbed this issue essentially untouchable (the Minutemen were ostracized by both parties). Too many votes at stake. And obviously the Associated Press is in the tank for a world commune [the so-called(?) "Stop the Invasion" protests... What's so-called about it? That was the name of the protest. Names are what they are, they are not "so-called", and should be reported as they are labeled - regardless of political disagreement].

But regardless of the AP's so-called reporting... I have to wonder - if the events are this anemic, what does this say about true public opinion?

No Government for You!

The press, and some lefty bloggers, fuss a lot about the President's recess appointments. The press slyly intertwines the argument over judicial appointments with executive branch appointments, and as such helped stoke the fires during John Bolton's confirmation hearing to the United Nations, Secretary Rice's hearings, etc.

All the while the Senate pontificates - or cries, as in the case of Senator George Voinivich - about the President's choices, as the people chosen do not sit with their approval. And they pass themselves off as the sole arbiters of both legislative and executive power. What the press doesn't want to talk about is how the executive branch is a co-equal branch of government. It is the equal of the other branches, not subservient.

And the President deserves to be given latitude when it comes to the appointments within his own branch of government. The judicial appointments are another matter, as he is selecting a person for another branch of government. And while I find it ludicrous that the Senate has taken it upon itself to put up a toll bridge in this process, I do believe they need to be involved, as servants of the people, to investigate the person being nominated.

However, getting back to the issue of executive branch appointments, I found this commentary in the Wall Street Journal interesting, as it highlights the most recent appointments, and further illustrates the unrelenting attempt by Democrats, and at times the Congress as a whole, to curtail the President's authority and duty to populate the executive branch.

The appointees include Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, whose nomination has been in limbo since last spring. Also, Dorrance Smith, assistant Defense secretary for public affairs; Julie Myers, assistant Homeland Security secretary for immigration; Benjamin Powell, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Security; and Ellen Sauerbrey, an assistant secretary of State for population, refugees and migration.

Without recess appointments, several bodies -- including the National Labor Relations Board, the Amtrak Reform Board and the Federal Election Commission -- would have lacked quorums to operate. The appointments expire at the close of the next session of Congress, at the end of 2007.

Several on the recess list were victims of an unwritten Senate tradition known as the "hold," whereby an individual Senator can delay indefinitely a Presidential nomination. Michigan Democrat Carl Levin is the biggest abuser here -- he has holds on Mr. Smith (for the sin of writing an article for this page), Mr. Powell and Ms. Myers, as well as on other senior Defense officials whom Mr. Bush recess-appointed earlier this year. The President's fellow Republican, Olympia Snowe, has a hold on Mr. England, who in his earlier job as Navy Secretary didn't direct enough ship-building pork to her home state of Maine.

Pure vindictive politics. It's pretty sad. Too bad Senator Voinivich and the others - and the media - can't shed a tear over that.

The Bear in the Woods

In this interesting column by Jonathan Gurwitz, he references the famous "Bear in the woods..." campaign commercial that Reagan ran in the final days before his landslide 1984 re-election. As Gurwitz notes, it was a "devastating allegory."

It was an allegory, and a devastating one at that, reminding the American people that the leadership of one party was actively confronting a menace to the United States, while the leadership of the other party was, at best, incapable of recognizing that menace or, at worst, undermining efforts to advance American security interests.

And it seems as though we're in for a repeat.

I realize I say this in light of "scandal" after "scandal". But that's just it. All the recent media hysteria has done is show once and for all that the Democrats are the party of cut-and-run, of failure, of self-loathing and - seemingly - terrorists' rights.

...can they avoid pandering to the hard-left interests that have repeatedly spelled electoral disaster for them since 1968 and instead address the concerns of average Americans? Can they prove that they see the bear and have a strategy for victory?

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean already provided an answer when he said, "The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong."

And it came from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid when he gloated to party activists, "We killed the Patriot Act."

Reid might have attenuated his partisan boast to say, "We forced the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress to consider greater protections for civil liberties in the Patriot Act." He might even have said, "We are working to fix a flawed yet essential Patriot Act."

Instead, Reid just killed it and tossed out the red meat.

And much to the Democrats dismay, I do not think the NSA eavesdropping story is going to help them. And the reason it won't? - because most Americans understand that reality is not a talking point, or the discussion of rights in the abstract. The media has been pumping this story since before Christmas, and where has it gotten them?

They have skewed poll numbers (after the first poll showed 64% of Americans approved of the program), a new book to sell on Amazon, and a DOJ investigation to contend with now.

The public is willing to give the President a lot of leeway in this area, because it's about protecting the country. This is not about Iraq or Afghanistan - and the Democrats forget this at their peril. As Mark Steyn notes:

The Democrats and the media want to upgrade every terrorist into O.J. Simpson, insulated by legalisms and entitled to his own dream team. (Their figleaf, the court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which previously denied not a single request, has turned down hundreds in the years since 9/11.) The practical effect of the Dems' approach is to extend the protections of the U.S. Constitution to any dodgy character anywhere on the planet who has a U.S. telephone number in his Rolodex. Indeed, given that perfectly ordinary cell phones can be used almost anywhere -- this week, I spoke to an American in London by dialing his Washington cell number -- if the Democrats have their way, all terrorist cells in Europe or Pakistan would have to do to put themselves beyond the reach of U.S. intelligence is get a New Jersey-based associate to place a bulk order for Verizon cell phones.

If there's one thing Americans understand, it's cell phones. Put it in those terms, and it's obvious - even if the President and Congress want to fight it out over whose authority it is for wiretapping - some type of program to do this is needed. And if the Congressional hearings determine that the FISA court is not cutting it, I would predict that the majority of Americans would support doing whatever was necessary to make sure the President could act when needed - and not the other way around as Democrats contend.

This "gotcha" game that the Democrats and media play is sorely misplaced. This NSA thing will play out in the courts, most likely to the eventual Supreme Court ruling in favor of the President. But regardless - and here is where Democrats fail to see the truth of things - the public wants terrorists dead or caught, not given more Constitutional protections, or even afforded them in the first place. They want a President who's got their back, not someone hand-wringing over the minutiae of an international call.

By The Way...Iraq Trained Terrorists

To the heartbreak of moonbats everywhere, it appears that vindication is the word of the day - for President Bush, that is. The treasure trove of documents gleaned from Iraq in the days after the war are starting to pay off.

Iraq trained terrorists. Extensively so.

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.

The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S.
intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq war.

The discovery of the information on jihadist training camps in Iraq would seem to have two major consequences: It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and U.S. intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator. It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years.

Yes, it does.

Now I could also go off spouting about how good things come to those who wait, or how patience is a virtue. But I won't bother. This stuff needs to be sifted through right now, and released to the media.

Of course you may be asking why it's taken so long for this stuff to come out. There are two reasons.

Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent. Despite the hard work of the individuals assigned to the "DOCEX" project, the process is not moving quickly enough, says Michael Tanji, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18 months. "At this rate," he says, "if we continue to approach DOCEX in a linear fashion, our great-grandchildren will still be sorting through this stuff."

Most of the 50,000 translated documents relate directly to weapons of mass destruction programs and scientists, since David Kay and his Iraq Survey Group--who were among the first to analyze the finds--considered those items top priority. "At first, if it wasn't WMD, it wasn't translated. It wasn't exploited," says a former military intelligence officer who worked on the documents in Iraq.

So it appears the hunt for WMD, while insanely important, trumped looking for terrorist training. Now one thing to clarify, the "gotcha" mode of the press and the DNC talking points has clouded the extent to which our intelligence services, and ally intelligence services, tracked terror links to the regime. There were links to terrorists, most assuredly. But the naysayers and disgruntled leakers always gave the press the soundbites they needed to drive a wedge between reality and their fantasy of a secular Saddam vs. Fundamentalist terrorists (never the twain shall meet, so to speak).

I've always found this hypothesis rather ridiculous. The motivations of a dictator is one of power, advantage, ego, envy and fear. Yes, they are afraid. And Saddam feared everyone, even his own people. But he was a savvy despot, and as Stephen Hayes points out:

Reaching out to Islamic radicals was, in fact, one of the first moves Saddam Hussein made upon taking power in 1979. That he did not do it for ideological reasons is unimportant. As Barodi noted at last week's hearing, "He used us and we used him."

And that is exactly the same type of links we're seeing today with the terrorists and the remains of the regime insurgents. The simplistic notion that religion is anathema to the secular is a liberal projection of their own aversion to religion - because note how the secular left is more than willing to use religion for their own purposes (Howard Dean talking about courting religious voters after saying everyone needs to stop voting on "God, guns and gays"). Their break with reality leaves them at a disadvantage when it comes to deciphering the motives and wiles of a user like Saddam.

To them he becomes the misunderstood grandfather, tricked by the evil America during the Cold War and afflicted with a bad case of penis envy. Yet all the while the mass graves are still being uncovered, the tales of torture and murder continue to sicken, the tentacles he put around the U.N. and the world powers are still strangling them, and - surprise! - Saddam used terrorists to further his own ends.

But this escapes the average reporter, and does not fit with the known media line. And so of course, this is why early ideas about releasing these documents to the media were shouted down.

The main worry, says DiRita, is that the mainstream press might cherry-pick documents and mischaracterize their meaning. "There is always the concern that people would be chasing a lot of information good or bad, and when the Times or the Post splashes a headline about some sensational-sounding document that would seem to 'prove' that sanctions were working, or that Saddam was just a misunderstood patriot, or some other nonsense, we'd spend a lot of time chasing around after it."

This is a view many officials attributed to Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone. (Cambone, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed.) For months, Cambone has argued internally against expediting the release of the documents. "Cambone is the problem," says one former Bush administration official who wants the documents released. "He has blocked this every step of the way."

Now, I sympathize. The war against the Bush administration has been carried out by the DNC, the print and televised media, and an army of Democrat leakers in the bureaucracy. It's been a hell of a fight. And of course, without widespread WMD finds or a love note penned by Osama to Saddam, it's been impossible to get the mainstream press to relent in their march to impeachment and surrender.

But now is the time to fight back. And it appears that the administration is ready.

Other members of Congress--including Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Senators Rick Santorum and Pat Roberts--also demanded more information from the Bush administration on the status of the vast document collection. Santorum and Hoekstra have raised the issue personally with President Bush. This external pressure triggered an internal debate at the highest levels of the administration. Following several weeks of debate, a consensus has emerged: The vast majority of the 2 million captured documents should be released publicly as soon as possible.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon's role in expediting the release of this information. According to several sources familiar with his thinking, Rumsfeld is pushing aggressively for a massive dump of the captured documents. "He has a sense that public vetting of this information is likely to be as good an astringent as any other process we could develop," says Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita.

And apparently we ain't seen nothing yet. The links are broad, extensive, and presented a danger beyond what our intelligence services new.

Other officials familiar with the captured documents were less cautious. "As much as we overestimated WMD, it appears we underestimated [Saddam Hussein's] support for transregional terrorists," says one intelligence official.

Yeah, let that sink in for a second. Remember how happy the media was to report how wrong we were about WMD? Let's see if they'll report this "error" in intelligence as well.

Probably not. Because it would mean the war was worth it.

(for more extensive coverage on this, see Michelle Malkin) And as she says:

This is important news. It ought to be on the front pages. It won't be. So spread the word.

Yes. Everyone must spread the word. This goes to the heart of the war on terror.

The Washington Post Needs To Get It's Story Straight

The latest MSM bumbling-in-the-face-of-bloggers takes a turn for the hilarious, as The Washington Post, on the heels of slandering prominent embed blogger Bill Roggio, is finally getting around to answering it's critics. Actually, they're not really answering, but saying an answer will be forthcoming.

But the problem is, the dog ate their rough draft. No no - they left their laptop at home. No no wait - the reporters are sick! No no no, I know - the reporters are in Iraq right now, they'll answer your concerns shortly.

Michelle Malkin is taking up the collection of reader responses from the Post. Here are the two she's received so far.

A reader wrote the following in an e-mail to WaPo ombudsman Deborah Howell...

The appearance is that the Washington Post does, indeed, write from an agenda instead of observed facts and careful analysis...You and your organization should defend yourselves and your actions, less the appearance remain reality through your own inaction.

Howell wrote back and agreed:

I totally agree with you we need to answer. The reporters are in Iraq in the field and it's been a problem getting them and researching it. There will be an answer. Deborah

Another reader e-mails:

I just spoke to the WAPO editor of the Iraq desk...

The editor of the Iraq desk is Andy Mosher, and one of the two writers of the WAPO article about Roggio works for him. I don’t recall which one.

Mr. Mosher said that there were a couple of corrections that need to be made, and as it turns out he has been sick all week and it just did not get done. A correction is probably coming either tomorrow or early next week.

As any child who has broken the lamp on the end table knows, you and your siblings get your story straight first, before mom and dad get home. Otherwise you'll be finding out...well, what it's like.

Of course all of this kerfuffle arose because the Post tried to show bloggers what it was like, and singled one out for slander. Apparently they didn't think he'd call them out, as Mr. Roggio so eloquently did right here.

I have been repeatedly asked what would motivate the Washington Post to write such an inaccurate and obviously antagonistic article. I can only speculate on the causes. I am a mere blogger, a citizen who is interested in the situation in Iraq and has focused on the subject for well over a year. My analysis and predictions have proved to be accurate over time, and this drew the attention of the Marines, who subsequently invited me to come to Iraq to witness the results of recent operations for myself, to go there for myself and report. And what I am most interested in right now is clearing the good name of my work.

In less than three weeks I organized a trip to Iraq and raised well over $33,000 as well as thousands in equipment and services. I had to be creative and sought out alternative media organizations to provide credentials, as I knew the established media would have little interest in sponsoring me. I took a leave of absence from my job, and traveled to Iraq.

I then did what many reporters in Iraq admitted to me they do not do: Embedded with frontline units to tell the stories of those serving. I saw, and reported great success, in the once-troubled areas of Western Iraq. I suppose that's a threat to the mainstream media -— a challenge to their traditional monopoly on war reporting. An upstart blogger and amateur has exceeded his pajama-clad place and done what much of the media in Iraq will not do.

It's funny to watch such a prominent paper at a loss for words and running for cover when the object of their ire fights back. Who knows, perhaps they've seen the thrashing the L.A. Times is receiving for their own blogger hit piece and are looking for a way out?

My favorite part is where Hiltzik goes off the deep end and compares critics of his newspaper, including me, to Stalinists:

To back up their assertions, they often quote articles selectively, take out of context what they do quote, and ascribe imaginary motivations to reporters and editors, which they then feel free to decry. As any student of history knows, these are tools and techniques that were used to great effect during the Stalinist show trials of the 40s and 50s.

(Students of history also know that the show trials resulted in people being executed in trials without meaningful evidence -— in other words, they were state-sanctioned murders. Nice comparison.)

Funny.

Perhaps when the two reporters for The Washington Post get back from Iraq and recover from their malaria they can come up with a reason why they decided that the most pressing news of the day was to slander a blogger who's only crime was to scrape together some money so he could go to Iraq and get the word out about what our fine soldiers are doing over there.

But don't hold your breath.

Not to be outdone by Iran's President

It appears Hugo Chavez is also in the running for anti-Semitic statement of the year by a head of state.

"Some minorities, descendants of the same ones who crucified Christ ... took all the world's wealth for themselves," Chavez said in the Dec. 24 speech.

"In your words, the two central arguments of anti-Semitism emerge ... the accusation that Jews killed Jesus (and) associating them with wealth," the Center said in a letter sent to Chavez. "Our center strongly condemns your anti-Semitic declarations."

Chavez did not did not mention the Jewish people explicitly in the speech, which was broadcast on national television. A spokeswoman for the president's office said it had no immediate response to the complaint.

During the speech, Chavez also praised Jesus Christ as a revolutionary hero, saying he was the world's first true socialist.

I'm curious, where in the Bible did Jesus advocate cradle to grave government entitlements?

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

This guy is some piece of work, and in a race with Pat Robertson to the bottom. But Iran will soon have nukes, and they support terrorists (and "elect" them), so let's deal with Ahmadinejad first.

Iran's president said Thursday he hoped for the death of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the latest anti-Israeli comment by a leader who has already provoked international criticism for suggesting that Israel be "wiped off the map."

"Hopefully, the news that the criminal of Sabra and Chatilla has joined his ancestors is final," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency.

Ahmadinejad was referring to Sharon, who as defense minister in 1982 directed Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon. An Israeli commission found him indirectly responsible for a massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps by Christian Phalangist soldiers.

The Associated Press, by the way, which was kind enough to attempt to provide context for the Iranian president's calls for death, does not offer Israel the same courtesy and explain why Israel invaded Lebanon. So I'll go ahead and do their job for them.

When the Palestine Liberation Organization (led by the now deceased Nobel laureate and terrorist Yasser Arafat) - after having been kicked out of Syria for causing all kinds of chaos - came to reside in Beirut, they began conducting raids into Israel. Now Lebanon was in the midst of a civil war, Muslim against Christian, and as the government collapsed, Syria sent troops in.

Israel, in an effort to stop the PLO raids, went into southern Lebanon and set up a buffer zone. This didn't work, and so (where the AP picks up) Israel launched a full scale invasion in 1982, reached Beirut, and drove the PLO out.

Multinational peacekeeping forces failed to rectify the situation (the American and French troops killed by terrorists in 1983), and after they pulled out Lebanon remained almost entirely under Syrian control. And so Israel, fearing Syria's aspirations and hatred of their state, and in light of more attacks, refused to withdraw from the southern buffer zone it had established.

Thus, a very brief history, that the AP should have told you. And I find it rather rich that Ahmadinejad labeled Sharon a criminal for being Israeli defense minister during the Lebanese invasion, and sad (though obvious) that the irony would be lost on the AP. Because does anyone remember what Iran was doing in 1982? It was two years after Iraq had attacked Iran because of Hussein's want of disputed land. Iran had just repelled the Iraqi forces and, instead of stopping at the (disputed) border, decided to push back into Iraq for a land grab of their own.

And they used conscripted troops and chemical weapons to do it.

More than Amanpour

Ah the rumor mill...don't you just love it? It churns out more BS than actual raw meat though. Still, this rumor seems notable, not for the rumor, but for the facts that are so blithly being glossed over.

Yesterday, MSNBC.com published a transcript of Andrea Mitchell's interview with author James Risen about the CIA's domestic spying program. In it, Mitchell asked Risen if he had uncovered evidence that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour was eavesdropped upon. It was a specific and pointed question that led AMERICAblog to ask if the veteran journalist had been spied on by the Bush administration. This afternoon, MSNBC.com removed the portion of the transcript that referred to Amanpour.

The lefty blogs are in a frenzy, because a reporter asked a question. However, as Stephen Spruiell points out, it may not be all that out of line for this to have happened.

If the rumor turns out to be true (which I doubt), it will have to be evaluated in context. Was she wiretapped because she had made contacts with al-Qaeda in the course of pursuing a story (more likely)? Or was she wiretapped because the nefarious Bush administration wanted to listen in on her giggling chats with Jacques Chirac (much less likely)? Regardless, the left-wing blogosphere is not waiting for it to be confirmed before delaring it "incredibly big news."

Sounds reasonable, considering the amount of journalists "showing up" to take photos when insurgents and terrorists attack. But all of this is rumor, springing from the one question. However, what I find interesting is something one of Mr. Spruiell's readers pointed out.

MB reader Todd F. has an interesting take:

Of course, I dont think she's a US citizen which might make her fair game, ironically. But the lefties are pursuing the "She's married to Kerry campaign operative, so this must be Watergate redux....." line.

Not realizing the story behind the story of course that a major news player is MARRIED to a high level Dem. operative. Nothing to see here.

This is key, because don't forget there are more news players married to Democratic operatives. Matt Cooper of Time magazine for one. The same Matt Cooper who was involved in the Plame leak scandal.

(Matthew Cooper, of Time), who is married to a prominent Democratic operative (Mandy Grunwald, a consultant to the Clintons).

Oh yeah, sure, no conflict of interest there! And for those of you who say, "Yeah, well that's only two reporters." Think again. (via Powerline)

A reader has written to point out some interesting facts about Jennifer Loven's hit piece. Check it out:

In Georgetown's East Village, Roger Ballentine and his wife Jennifer Loven have sold their quaint two bedroom semi- detached Federal house at 1346 29th Street, N.W.

Roger Ballentine is president of Green Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in energy and environmental issues, and was previously deputy assistant to President Clinton for environmental initiatives and chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force. He also sits on the board of directors of Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF)along with actors Ed Begley, Jr. and Larry Hagman. Jennifer Loven is a reporter for the Associated Press.

Jesus on Trial...Again.

Well NBC may believe in Jesus, but a court in Italy - and the atheist suing the Church - does not. It seems the court now wants the priest named in the lawsuit to provide proof that Jesus existed.

An Italian court is tackling Jesus -- and whether the Roman Catholic Church may be breaking the law by teaching that he existed 2,000 years ago.

The case pits against each other two men in their 70s, who are from the same central Italian town and even went to the same seminary school in their teenage years.

The defendant, Enrico Righi, went on to become a priest writing for the parish newspaper. The plaintiff, Luigi Cascioli, became a vocal atheist who, after years of legal wrangling, is set to get his day in court later this month.

"I started this lawsuit because I wanted to deal the final blow against the Church, the bearer of obscurantism and regression," Cascioli told Reuters.

This story has been percolating around the Internet for a few days now, and I wasn't going to post on it because it seemed particularly ridiculous, reeking of double jeopardy as it were (I mean they already put Jesus on trial 2000 years ago). But this Reuters article has a quote from the plaintiff that just begs for ridicule.

...Cascioli admits that the odds are against him, especially in Roman Catholic Italy.

"It would take a miracle to win," he joked.

Ha.

Prayers for Ariel Sharon

Ariel Sharon is in need of prayers. His situation is stable, but dire.

A brain scan after surgery showed that the bleeding had been stopped, and the 77-year-old prime minister was transferred to the intensive care unit, said Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, the director of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

At a midafternoon briefing, Mor-Yosef said Sharon was in serious but stable condition on a respirator in "deep sedation." He will remain sedated for another 24 hours at least, Mor-Yosef said.

President Bush had some kind words.

President Bush praised Sharon as "a man of courage and peace," saying he and first lady Laura Bush "share the concerns of the Israeli people ... and we are praying for his recovery."

For the most part, the Palestinian response has been muted and stoic - which I feel is the bare minimum considering the verbal restraint Israel showed when Arafat, the Father of modern terrorism and Nobel laureate, fell ill and died. But, of course, there always will be the ones who can't help themselves and give in to their hatred.

Ahmed Jibril, a radical Palestinian leader in Damascus, Syria, called the stroke a gift from God.

In Syria...I never would have guessed.

Jesus Goes to NBC

"The Book of Daniel" is coming to your living room. And no, not the Bible Book, this one is in High Definition and on your plasma screen TV.

Apparently, the executives at NBC have divined that what viewers really want to see is a Vicodin-addicted Episcopal priest, his martini-drinking wife, his gay Republican son, his pot-dealing daughter, and an adopted son who is sleeping with...well, everyone.

And that's not even the half of it. Here's the full description:

"a drug-addicted Episcopal priest; his alcoholic wife; his son, a 23-year-old homosexual Republican; his daughter, a 16-year-old drug dealing daughter; a 16-year-old adopted son who is having sex with the bishop's daughter; his lesbian secretary who is sleeping with his sister-in-law; and a very unconventional white-robed, bearded Jesus who talks to the priest."

I see Emmys, don't you?

The buzz is this is the hippest Jesus you've seen yet. He answers no questions, takes no positions on religious issues (or political hot-points for that matter), but does come up with witticisms and self-help book titles galore. Buddy Jesus has nothing on Hollywood's latest Son of the Most High.

Shall we tune in? Shall we boycott? Shall we write letters to NBC?

Honestly, I'm laughing too hard to do any of those things. Besides, NBC and the writers and stars have already stated they couldn't care less what the outcry is:

The actor portraying the priest, Aidan Quinn, addressed potential objections, saying that they were misplaced.

If "Daniel" offends some Catholics, "I don't really care that much," he said, according to the Associated Press. "That's certainly not the intent. That's certainly not the truth. There are filters it (the show) goes through, including Jack's (the show's creator) and mine."

Quinn said the show's main character has good intentions but has a long way to go.

Now the show is about Episcopalians, so the jab at Catholics eluded me until the media swooped to my rescue, telling me that the reason I'm offended is because the writer is a gay Catholic.

I find this rather ridiculous, seeing how gay is normal when compared to that rat's nest of a plotline.

And don't forget Daniel's brother-in-law, who runs off with church funds earmarked for a new school, forcing Daniel to seek the help of a slimy, mob-connected priest straight out of The Sopranos. The taut scripts are crammed with outrageous incidents and amusing dialogue. In the midst of a family dinner, Daniel's addled mother says of her clergyman husband, "He's always showing me his penis." And when one of the characters is revealed to be having a lesbian tryst, Daniel's wife quips, "She did go to Vassar."

The media fascination with gay Catholic writers notwithstanding, can you imagine this plotline if transposed onto some other religious backdrop? How about the head of a local Mosque who has a drug problem, who's wife is an alcoholic (can the head of a local Mosque marry? - no matter, it's Hollywood), has a gay son who can't get a job so he joins a terror cell and a daughter who drops out of college to go into porn - all while the father speaks to the Prophet and struggles with the mysteries and beauty of Sha'ria law.

It's the average family! Can't we just all watch and laugh as they use Islam as a backdrop for sexual jokes and societal taboos?

Ha. The Fatwas would be dropping faster than NBC's ratings.

And make no mistake, ratings is key. NBC is praying you'll believe in their miracle, because their top executives are sweating in their search for a show that will out-desperate the 'Housewives'.

Though Kenny won't discuss it, NBC desperately needs a show like "The Book of Daniel"--well-written, impeccably cast and destined to push a whole lot of buttons--to make some noise after the network's fourth-place finish in the ratings this past season. Throughout the development process, the notes from NBC entertainment president Kevin Reilly focused almost entirely on minor details.

"And I said, 'But Jesus, the Vicodin, the marijuana, that's all OK?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah, yeah, that's fine."'

And no doubt these things are fine to an NBC executive. But I just don't see middle America rushing to finish up the family dinner so they can sit in on one of Daniel's weekly sermons as he and his family are inundated with plagues, illicit sex and a barely-making-it plotline.

While it is true that many families have such problems, I find NBC's approach a bit mindless, if not hypocritical, and the writer's agenda a tad...well, read for yourself:

Kenny never intended for "The Book of Daniel" to be anything more than a writing sample to branch out of a career in sitcoms. But as he showed it to people, he realized he was on to something more than a means to a new job. "Organized religion is, to me, almost the same organism as the Mafia," he says. "It's got its internal politics, it's got rules that it follows, rules that it doesn't follow, who's allowed to do what to who. It's got skeletons in the closet and scandals and all those things. It skirts the law because it can. They do it legitimately, where the Mafia does it illegitimately. I always wanted to explore religion the way `The Sopranos' explored the Mafia, through the focal lens of a family."

Don't you see, church-going America? - you're part of the Mafia, now watch the show and love it!

Kenny isn't shy about his own political beliefs, but insists that with this show, "I don't have a platform, I don't have a political idea. If the notion of abortion or gay rights or civil rights or anything was to come up, I would never have Jesus give an opinion about it. But I would have Jesus encourage Daniel to search his own soul for his opinion."

I must admit, I'm a bit hazy on my scripture, but I believe Jesus was rather fond of the parable as a means of teaching, and they do seem to apply quite well even today. And, taking an even harder line, didn't Jesus say something like "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me."

I don't recall the part where Jesus counseled moral relativism. Perhaps that's in Hollywood's Extended Special Edition Director's Limited Cut of the Bible?

Perhaps not.

Speaking of Spying and Human Rights

While Time magazine is busy lauding Bill Gates as being one their Person's of the Year, reports keep coming in about Microsoft's MSN networks shutting down Chinese blogs that are using banned words and phrases.

And by "banned," I mean..."(like "Falun Gong," "Tiananmen massacre" and "Tibet independence")". As Rebecca MacKinnon explains:

...the whole blog had been taken down, just like Anti's was on Dec.31st, with an error message: "This space is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

Now, It is VERY important to note that the inaccessible blog was moved or removed at the server level and that the blog remains inaccessible from the United States as well as from China. This means that the action was taken NOT by Chinese authorities responsible for filtering and censoring the internet for Chinese viewers, but by MSN staff at the level of the MSN servers.

So my question is when did Microsoft become a subsidiary of the Chinese government? And - as mentioned in the article - apparently start spying, or providing spy software, to read through the blogs and find banned words that the writers even try to hide by using extra spaces between letters.

Talk about civil rights violations; in China even mentioning contentious issues is enough to get you shut down.

Now granted, Microsoft is a company providing a service. They can ban anybody they want. But why do China's totalitarian dirty work for them? China has been banning Typepad and Blog-city blogs all on their own apparently. I don't think Microsoft needs to be oppressing the speech of the Chinese people for the government.

Come on, Bill, be a man. Stand up to China. I know, software piracy and their big bad government has you scared. But look, even Starbucks is getting their way over there.

And, just to make a point, this incident is yet another example of why the United States needs to retain ultimate control of the Internet.

NYTimes - Winning Terrorist Hearts and Minds

Alexandra at All Things Beautiful highlights the latest effort by The New York Times to keep the enemy informed, as they blow the lid off of U.S. tactics to combat the torrent of terrorist propaganda flowing into Iraq and being taught by radical Muslims.

A Pentagon contractor that paid Iraqi newspapers to print positive articles written by American soldiers has also been compensating Sunni religious scholars in Iraq in return for assistance with its propaganda work, according to current and former employees.

The Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, was told early in 2005 by the Pentagon to identify religious leaders who could help produce messages that would persuade Sunnis in violence-ridden Anbar Province to participate in national elections and reject the insurgency, according to a former employee.

Since then, the company has retained three or four Sunni religious scholars to offer advice and write reports for military commanders on the content of propaganda campaigns, the former employee said. But documents and Lincoln executives say the company's ties to religious leaders and dozens of other prominent Iraqis is aimed also at enabling it to exercise influence in Iraqi communities on behalf of clients, including the military.

"We do reach out to clerics," Paige Craig, a Lincoln executive vice president, said in an interview. "We meet with local government officials and with local businessmen. We need to have relationships that are broad enough and deep enough that we can touch all the various aspects of society." He declined to discuss specific projects the company has with the military or commercial clients.

"We have on staff people who are experts in religious and cultural matters," Mr. Craig said. "We meet with a wide variety of people to get their input. Most of the people we meet with overseas don't want or need compensation, they want a dialogue."

What the Times doesn't care to mention is that none of the stories published in the Iraqi newspapers were false. In fact, the effort is part of the same process to get the good word out on Iraq - the word that the U.S. media and international media will not report on.

Oh, but they will report on classified programs, bad news - and if it is good news, or should be good news, they'll spin that into some nefarious program or motive for the Bush administration quest for world domination.

This is not a scandal, nor news, merely an endless supply of classified leaks to create talking points for Democrats. And all The New York Times has done is ruin yet one more effort by the military to win the war in Iraq, to get the good news out there and to reduce the allure of terrorism and the terrorist cause by stemming the tide of negative press.

A New Year, a New "Scandal"

Now that the real leak investigation has begun, it's funny to watch Democrats and the media scrambling for cover. Whistleblower, is the word of the day now. And this is Democratic code to the actual leakers - get with the program, otherwise we can't save your butt.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said the Justice Department investigation should explore the motivation of the person who leaked the information.

"Was this somebody who had an ill purpose, trying to hurt the United States?" Schumer asked. "Or might it have been someone in the department who felt that this was wrong, legally wrong, that the law was being violated?"

I don't know, Chuck. Maybe it could have been somebody with a political grudge against the President. That's another possibility. I mean, don't you and your staff know all about people doing illegal things to attack other elected officials?

...two Schumer staffers at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had hacked into the credit report of Maryland Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, according to committee officials.

"It's an ironic and uncomfortable position for Chuck," said Baruch College politics professor Doug Muzzio.

In July, DSCC research director Katie Barge, 26, and researcher Lauren Weiner, 25, allegedly accessed Steele's report using his Social Security number in preparation for a possible Senate bid by Steele.

Schumer, chairman of the campaign committee, reported their actions to the U.S. attorney in Washington within hours of the alleged violation, say officials familiar with the case.

And the senator's allies have repeatedly said Schumer isn't a target of the investigation.

Yes, but as Michelle Malkin notes, there is an ongoing federal investigation into this.

(I checked with the US Attorney's Office in DC, by the way, and the investigation into Barge and Weiner's involvement in illegally obtaining a credit report on Maryland’s lieutenant governor Michael S. Steele is still ongoing.)

Care to give us an update, Chuck? Have they questioned you yet about how your staffers got the idea to steal credit report information?

Ah well, old news I suppose, not that this ever made the news much anyway. But getting back to the point, why the sudden sputtering now on the part of Democrats?

Because any serious legal mind who has looked at this issue knows the President was within his bounds of authority. And the poll numbers are racing in Bush's direction on this issue.

And the revelation yesterday, about the NSA sharing intelligence information with other intelligence agencies - the next new "scandal" - is really more of a testiment to the seriousness with which the administration took the lessons of 9-11. Anybody remember "the wall" of separation between the domestic and international spy agencies that led to the intelligence breakdown before 9-11? Remember how the press and Democrats clamored for the Department of Homeland Security? - how it was all about how Bush didn't connect the dots before 9-11? - that it was his administration's fault for not divining the intent of terrorists using all those faulty intelligence practices?

Yeah, convenient how such things die in the press. Now it's a new attack, exactly the opposite of what it was before.

Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.

The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.

At least one of those organizations, the DIA, has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further. Spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, declined to comment on the use of NSA data.

And why is this dangerous? According to the Post, because back in the 60s the NSA gathered information about the connections between "peace activists" and foreign governments.

Today's controversy over the domestic NSA intercepts echoes events of more than three decades ago. Beginning in the late 1960s, the NSA was asked initially by the Johnson White House and later by the Army, the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to intercept messages to or from the United States. Members of Congress were not informed of the program, code-named Minaret in one phase.

The initial purpose was to "help determine the existence of foreign influence" on "civil disturbances occurring throughout the nation," threats to the president and other issues, Gen. Lew Allen Jr., then director of NSA, told a Select Senate Committee headed by then-Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) in 1975.

Allen, in comments similar to recent Bush administration statements, said collecting communications involving American citizens was approved legally, by two attorneys general. He also said that the Minaret intercepts discovered "a major foreign terrorist act planned in a large city" and prevented "an assassination attempt on a prominent U.S. figure abroad."

Overall, Allen said that 1,200 Americans citizens' calls were intercepted over six years, and that about 1,900 reports were issued in three areas of terrorism. As the Church hearings later showed, the Army expanded the NSA collection and had units around the country gather names and license plates of those attending antiwar rallies and demonstrations. That, in turn, led to creation of files on these individuals within Army intelligence units. At one point a Senate Judiciary subcommittee showed the Army had amassed about 18,000 names. In response, Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence Security Act, which limited NSA interception of calls from overseas to U.S. citizens or those involving American citizens traveling abroad.

So you see the connection? Obviously we should be taking our cues from the 60s, because that's what journalists do. It's all some big bad conspiracy by the government to go after peace activists and the president's polical enemies. Be afraid!

And the media wonders why they have zero credibility...

Now let's get serious. First of all, the Post is glorifying the Church committee, which effectively gutted our intelligence agencies. Second, the Post is not even citing numbers or statistics about the current NSA program, they are leaping into the past with both feet and hoping you jump along with them.

And why? Because there is not one iota of proof that the new system is breaking the law or is beyond the president's constitutional authority. And the forcefullness of President Bush's defense has the Democrats and media on edge. This is why you're hearing calls about whistleblowing - they're trying to gin up sympathy for leakers who "had a heavy conscience". The same leakers, by the way, who did not resign or call attention to these concerns using the protective system already in place for whistleblowers.

Let's take a closer look at the righteousness and concerns of the detractors.

Senator Jay Rockefeller - writes a CYA letter and hides a copy.

"In his letter ... Senator Rockefeller asserts that he had lingering concerns about the program designed to protect the American people from another attack, but was prohibited from doing anything about it," Mr. Roberts said in a statement yesterday. "A United States Senator has significant tools with which to wield power and influence over the executive branch. Feigning helplessness is not one of those tools."

In his 2003 letter to Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rockefeller said the program raised "profound oversight issues" and he regretted that high security of the program prevented him from seeking advice on the matter. Mr. Rockefeller also told Mr. Cheney that he had made a handwritten copy of the letter, which he distributed to the press Monday.

If Mr. Rockefeller had these concerns, Mr. Roberts said, he could have raised them with him or other members of Congress who had been briefed on the program.

"I have no recollection of Senator Rockefeller objecting to the program at the many briefings he and I attended together," Mr. Roberts said. "In fact, it is my recollection that on many occasions Senator Rockefeller expressed to the vice president his vocal support for the program," most recently, "two weeks ago."

A man truly concerned with your civil liberties would have sought closed committee hearings, or at least certainly raised concerns with the other Senate members privy to the program.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - she wrote a letter too. But apparently it was classifed, so she hasn't shown it to anyone. No, really, I'm not making this up.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, announced that she wrote a letter, too, but couldn't provide it because, she said, it was classified.

The FISA court - aware of the program, but decide to feign indignation about the program anyway - one judge resigns, the rest consider disbanding.

As it launched the dramatic change in domestic surveillance policy, the administration chose to secretly brief only the presiding FISA court judges about it. Officials first advised U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, the head of FISA in the fall of 2001, and then Kollar-Kotelly, who replaced him in that position in May 2002.

So they were briefed...but are mad anyway...

One judge, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said members could suggest disbanding the court in light of the president's suggestion that he has the power to bypass the court.

The New York Times - sits on the story for a year, and all their reasons why are suspect. Even their own public editor is getting the silent treatment.

THE New York Times's explanation of its decision to report, after what it said was a one-year delay, that the National Security Agency is eavesdropping domestically without court-approved warrants was woefully inadequate. And I have had unusual difficulty getting a better explanation for readers, despite the paper's repeated pledges of greater transparency.

For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States.

I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future.

At least not until their reporters start going to jail. Hence the whistleblower angle.

Times reporter James Risen - writes a book about the NSA program and other Bush administration intelligence programs. Yes, that's right, he was so concerned with your civil liberties that he decided to write a book and make money off of it - and delaying the story, so that he could write the book. And yes, the book goes on sale January 3rd.

Of course the media frenzy and the Democrat huffing and puffing could not blow the Bush White House down. As everyone has seen, the public support for the NSA program is around 64%. And as I see it any further articles that come out showing that Bush was doing his job and protecting this country will raise those numbers even further.

Bush needs to keep giving speeches on this, and keep pushing his point home to the press. The more forceful and open the president is on this issue the better. You can't attack statements like this:

Asked what he would say to those who claim the eavesdropping violates privacy, Bush said: "I can say that if somebody from al-Qaida is calling you, we'd like to know why. ... This program is conscious of people's civil liberties, as am I."

The press will try to gin up controversies, as they have with Bush's April statement about the government seeking warrants for wiretaps (he was referring to the roving wiretapping authority of the Patriot Act, not the intelligence gathering practices of the NSA), but the media is beating a dead horse. There is no scandal when it comes to the president protecting Americans - and learning from the intelligence failures that led to 9-11. If the administration can drive that point home, this entire "scandal" will evaporate, and leave Bush with a higher public standing than before.