The first thing to keep in mind about the debates is that even the most memorable ones didn't change elections--they are recalled because they crystallized what people thought of the candidates. Whoever leads on Labor Day consistently goes on to win the election, irrespective of the debates.
Second, in every open two-party election (those races without an incumbent) in modern memory the candidate perceived as less intelligent has won. So there is no percentage in being pronounced the technical winner of the debates, a de facto smarty-pants.
Third, people have been wondering why George Bush was content to play defense tonight. It's important to remember that this forced a Senator Kerry who many people still don't know and many of those who do know don't like to be the aggressor, a position from which it is difficult to seem like a nice guy at the same time. The President made effective use of a little bit of exasperation, even annoyance, in deflecting attacks, almost a physical version of: "There you go again." If you're well versed in John Kerry's career it probably looked like a pretty good night for him. If you don't know much about him or are put off by the little you do know, this kind of performance wouldn't make you like him.
Fourth, if part of John Kerry's task tonight was to seem more likable, and that was not achieved, he also had to reassure his own party that he isn't a complete disaster--and there he certainly succeeded, probably winning the debate in technical debating terms--and to try and clarify his muddled message. On that last he did not do himself much good, but it's hard to see how he could have. His message tonight was: "The war was a mistake because Saddam wasn't a threat but I voted for it because Saddam was a threat and though I disapprove of the war now, I'll prosecute it just as vigorously as the President who believes in it wholeheartedly." That just isn't a coherent position but it's one that he's trapped in after voting for the war.
Last, on a series of issues he came across as soft in exactly the ways that Republicans have been portraying him. The idea that our policies should pass a global test, that al Qaeda will attack us because of Iraq so we shouldn't have gone, that we should grant Kim Jong-il the bilateral talks he's seeking, that we should give Iran nuclear material and that we shouldn't develop the nuclear capacity to bust bunkers, even though Iran and North Korea are developing nukes, are all the kind of liberal pabulum that the GOP has been forcing back down Democrats throats for a quarter century now.
FINAL SCORE: a draw--Kerry on debating points, Bush on political
MORE:
Close debate may not sway the undecided: While both candidates hammered home familiar points in a closely contested debate, undecided voters may need to look to future encounters for defining moments. (FRANK DAVIES, 10/01/04, Miami Herald)
If the first debate of the 2004 presidential campaign accomplished one sure thing, it was to dispel hopes from either camp for a clear victory.Rarely during its 90 minutes did the event produce sparks or memorable lines, although there was plenty of friction between the two. On the plus side, clear differences emerged, which may have been a service to voters just tuning in to this campaign.
On the other side, however, the format enabled both candidates to relentlessly repeat some of their most-tested attack lines from stump speeches. As a result, the body language may have been more revealing than the verbal language. President Bush ranged from disgusted to folksy, from calm to nearly hyper. Sen. John Kerry -- often accused of being wordy and wooden -- came through as forceful, direct and able to keep his sentences short and punchy.
In the end, given that television is such a visceral medium, viewers are likely to end up where they began, leaving it to future encounters to produce the seismic change the candidates are looking for.
Both candidates proved expert at remaining relentlessly on message, hammering home the points each needed to prevent defeat, if not gain victory. [...]
Conventional wisdom holds that if there is no clear winner in a debate, that tends to favor the incumbent. But it also raises the stakes for the next debate Oct. 8 with a very different format -- a town hall forum with voters' questions on domestic issues.
''This was a tough debate to call,'' said Kathleen Kendall, a visiting professor at the University of Maryland who has watched every encounter since Kennedy-Nixon in 1960.
''Kerry hit at Bush's credibility, which was effective, but Bush never wavered from his themes,'' Kendall said. She predicted that the debate will help each candidate energize his base, but may not make sharp inroads on undecided voters.
If one key test of leadership separates the two, it is whether Bush's resolute confidence leads to stubbornness, and whether Kerry is too flexible, even opportunistic, in his positions.
Bush's Net strategy for debate spin (Frank Barnako, 9/30/2004, CBS.MW)
The Bush campaign has set up a network of Web sites to carry instant analysis of tonight's debate.The "Debate Feed" will provide the GOP spin in real time to as many as 5,000 conservative Web outlets, according to Wired News. "Our rapid response effort is based on the premise that no attack or no misstatement will go unchallenged," Michael Turk, director of the Internet campaign, told the Web site. A "war room" is outfitted with 15 computers and two TVs, monitored by two dozen staffers, ready to send out a Republican response or comment, Wired added.
The Kerry campaign is not so well organized. It has e-mailed supporters who work with local newspapers and media, telling them the Kerry campaign will provide a response after the debate, Wired reported.
We'll also keep this post at the top of the page all night so folks can comment on the debate.
Muslim freed by US issues terror threats (Julian Isherwood, 01/10/2004, Daily Telegraph)
Danish authorities said yesterday they might have to return a recently-released Guantanamo Bay prisoner to US custody after he said cabinet ministers were fair targets and vowed to travel to fight Russian forces in Chechnya."I'm going to Chechnya to fight for the Muslims," Slimane Hadj Abderahmane said in a television interview.
Earlier, Mr Abderahmane said the Danish prime minister and defence minister were targets.
"Denmark is the only country that hasn't realised that a country's leaders are legitimate targets of war in a war situation.
"If you're not prepared to accept those consequences, then don't go to war," said Mr Abderahmane, who added that he planned to go underground and would not appear in public again.
Lene Espersen, the justice minister, ordered a police investigation, particularly into whether Mr Abderahmane's plans to travel to Chechnya breached release agreements with the United States which would require his detention or return to American custody.
"I urge the government to pack him off back to the Americans," said Pia Kjaersgaard, the leader of the Danish People's Party, the minority government's coalition partner.
WRAL Poll: Race For U.S. Senate Almost Dead Heat (WRAL, September 30, 2004)
U.S. Senate candidates Erskine Bowles and Richard Burr are in a full court press. Two months ago, a WRAL News poll gave Bowles a commanding 10 point lead. After the latest poll, new numbers show only one point separates the two candidates with 11 percent undecided. [...]More than 600 likely voters were interviewed for the latest poll before and after Monday's debate.
TV exchange leaves Kerry in the mire: '11th position' on war (Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service, 9/30/04)
On the eve of a high-stakes presidential debate tonight that could help sink or save his quest for the White House, John Kerry opened himself to new accusations of inconsistency as he struggled to explain his position on the Iraq war. . . .So, is the New York Times now officially the newspaper least in touch with American politics?Republicans, who have hammered Kerry daily with charges that he is a flip-flopper, said it was the Massachusetts senator's "eleventh position" on the war. . . .
Despite escalating violence in Iraq and admissions by high-ranking administration officials that the situation is getting worse, most analysts say the pressure in tonight's debate is squarely on Mr. Kerry's shoulders.
"The debates are absolutely critical for Kerry," said Larry Sabato, director of the Centre for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Without the debates, I can't imagine Kerry winning. All Bush has to do is break even."
The stakes are higher for Mr. Kerry because "he has done a very poor job of running the campaign," said Timothy Lenz, a political scientist at Florida Atlantic University.
MORE: As an example, picked almost at random, of the distance between America and the Times, I submit the following:
"I ♥ Huckabees" is a comedy of dialectics, in which opposing dualities slug it out like wounded lovers, but it's nothing if not deeply sincere. Mr. Russell and his co-writer, Jeff Baena, are clearly furious about the state of things (you name it) but, like Jon Stewart, they slide in the knife with a smile. The film's Trojan horse strategy reaches its apotheosis in Tommy, a figure of both comedy and unexpected pathos. After turning to the existentialist detectives following Sept. 11, the firefighter peers through the keyhole opened by the catastrophe and discovers a world of sorrows (child labor, melting icecaps, the works), becoming a man who truly knows too much. Knowledge may be power, but as the history of the post-1968 left in this country suggests, it can also be an excuse for factionalism, impotence, despair.On a Stroll in Angstville With Dots Disconnected: A review of "I ♥ Huckabees", Directed by David O. Russell (Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 9/30/04).
Kerry losing ground as talk turns to Iraq: Shift in focus from economy distances some Mich. voters (Chris Christoff, Detroit Free Press, 9/30/04)
With President George W. Bush gaining ground with women, Michigan and its 17 electoral votes are now up for grabs, a Free Press poll shows.The whole point of becoming Dean Lite was to secure the base and avoid a blowout. Of course, that was the whole point of focusing on the economy early. The point of focusing on Vietnam was to show that Kerry was a fighter and to insulate him from criticism on the war. The point of this whole campaign? JFK was born to be president.The slippage in Sen. John Kerry's advantage with that group occurred as his campaign changed its focus from the economy to criticism of the Iraq war in the last 10 days. . . .
The Free Press poll of 830 Michigan voters shows the race in a statistical tie, similar to two other polls released this week. Kerry leads, 48 percent to 46 percent, among registered voters; Bush leads, 50 percent to 48 percent, among likely voters with the election just five weeks away. [Emphasis added] . . .
While the new poll shows the economy is still the No. 1 issue for Michigan voters, it's the war in Iraq that divides them most, though more now support it. . . .
Allen Cichanski of Ann Arbor spoke of the presidential race with the zeal of the recently converted.
"I've never voted for anyone other than a Democrat since JFK, but I'm going to vote for my first Republican president," said Cichanski, 65, a retired geology professor who said he did some soul-searching to switch party allegiance. "I think the Democrats couldn't have picked a more horrible candidate than John Kerry. I think he's a fraud, particularly with the whole business of terrorists and Iraq.
"He scares the hell out of me. I don't think he wants to win." . . .
Nevertheless, I just know that John Kerry, an intellectual who deigns to be my senator only due to his noble character and concern for those of us less fortunate than himself, is going to mop the floor with the President. George Bush, though undoubtedly a great man who has led us through a perilous time, is an idiot. In this debate, Kerry will put the President away for sure.
Plan Would Let U.S. Deport Suspects to Nations That Might Torture Them (Dana Priest and Charles Babington, September 30, 2004, Washington Post)
The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership's intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago.The provision, part of the massive bill introduced Friday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would apply to non-U.S. citizens who are suspected of having links to terrorist organizations but have not been tried on or convicted of any charges. Democrats tried to strike the provision in a daylong House Judiciary Committee meeting, but it survived on a party-line vote.
The provision, human rights advocates said, contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Hastert spokesman John Feehery said the Justice Department "really wants and supports" the provision.
DESPAIRING FOR DARFUR (Eric Reeves, 9/30/04, In These Times)
While there is growing attention to ongoing genocide in Darfur, this has not translated into either a meaningful international response or an accurate rendering of the scale and evident course of the catastrophe. [...]Current humanitarian requirements for Darfur dictate that the international community provide 40,000 metric tons per month of food and critical non-food items such as medicine, shelter and water purification supplies. However, there isn't half the transport and logistical capacity to meet this monthly need, which is likely to grow for the foreseeable future. (Further, breaks are predicted in the food "pipeline" – a shortfall in food supplies can be predicted on the basis of present resources and projected need.) Rich nations such as France, Italy, Japan, Saudia Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have shamelessly failed to substantially support to the aid effort.
With a woefully inadequate AU force, a meaningless U.N. resolution, and much bombast from various nations trying to substitute unctuous talk for concrete action, the future of Darfur is bleak. As the catastrophe accelerates, the international community has yet to make a meaningful response and the news media has yet to comprehensively render the genocidal realities. Our failure could not be greater.
The Vatican Deploys its Divisions in Iraq – Under the Banner of NATO: An interview with Cardinal Sodano and an editorial in "Avvenire" invoke greater military support for Allawi's government and for the emerging Iraqi democracy, through a heavy deployment of troops from the Atlantic Alliance (Sandro Magister, 9/30/04, Chiesa)
The pope and the leaders of the Roman Church did not say it themselves, but they conveyed an unmistakable message. They are strongly in favor of a massive NATO commitment in Iraq, to support the government of Iyad Allawi and to guarantee free elections.Speaking on their behalf, on the front page of its Sunday, September 26 edition, was the newspaper "Avvenire," which is headed by the Italian bishops' conference and by the organization's president, the pope's cardinal vicar, Camillo Ruini.
In an editorial by the newspaper's leading expert on international policy, Vittorio E. Parsi, a professor at the Catholic University of Milan, "Avvenire" reminded Europe and the West of its "duty" to assure free elections in Iraq, by reinforcing their military presence in the country through "the only body with the necessary resources: NATO."
An editorial so strongly exhortatory, printed on a Sunday on the front page of the bishops' newspaper, cannot be the result of chance. It is born from a decision made at the highest levels of the Church.
That such a decision was brewing could be guessed from a growing number of indications during the days immediately beforehand.
The first indication came on September 20. Cardinal Ruini spoke to the permanent council of the Italian bishops' conference, and repeated the duty of the Christian West to "oppose organized terror with the greatest energy and determination, without giving the slightest impression of considering their blackmail and their impositions," and at the same time, to transform into "our principal allies" the elements of the Muslim world that desire liberty and democracy.
Ruini is known to have been one of the protagonists of the apparent turnaround in Vatican policy on Iraq, in the fall of 2003: from the condemnation and rejection of war to determined support for the presence of western "peacekeeping" troops in the country.
The second indication came on Tuesday, September 21. An appeal was made in the newspaper "Il Foglio" for the Italian government to become a promoter within NATO and the European Union of a massive deployment of the troops of the Atlantic Alliance, "for the time necessary to secure the right of the Iraqis to vote and to select for the first time their parliament, their constitution, and their government."
The appeal was signed by Marta Dassù, the director of the magazine of the Aspen Institute in Italy; Giuliano Ferrara, the director of "Il Foglio"; Piero Ostellino, the former director of "Corriere della Sera," the leading Italian daily; and Vittorio E. Parsi, for "Avvenire." This last name is the most intriguing. Observers of Vatican affairs wondered to what extent, in taking this step, he was reflecting the orientation of pontifical diplomacy.
And the third indication gives an initial response to the question. On Wednesday, September 22, the New York correspondent of the newspaper "La Stampa," Paolo Mastrolilli, published an interview with the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
Sodano was in New York at the time for an international conference on world hunger, as a guest of the Vatican observer at the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore. In the interview, he expressed admiration for the United States and biting criticism of an excessively anti-American and secularist Europe, and also against the "wearing down" of the UN.
He was silent on the theory of preventive war. But he asked that the UN Charter recognize the right to intervene militarily in countries that trample upon human rights.
Modern evil demands medieval response (John O’Sullivan, Chicago Sun-Times, September 28th, 2004)
Hostage-taking has been a staple tactic of Mideast terrorists since the airline hijackings of the early 1970s. The IRA employed it on both sides of the Irish border. In Latin America kidnapping was started by Marxist terrorists in the 1970s, but since then it has become a profitable commercial business. A hostage is taken every hour in Latin America. The hostage is often a son or daughter of the rich. And the victims are often brutally tortured either to encourage the payment of a ransom or as punishment if it is not paid on time.Yet 40 years ago hostage-taking seemed a concept from the distant past -- something like slavery and piracy that Victorian imperialists had stopped in their old-fashioned self-righteous way. Like hostage-taking, however, piracy and slavery are making a comeback. Piracy flourishes in parts of southeast Asia, slavery in parts of Africa such as Sudan, and hostage-taking in the Middle East and Latin America.
In general they advance where terrorism has blazed the way by revealing the impotence of law and government when they are not backed by the self-confident application of lawful force. The post-modern world lacks self-confidence and shrinks from using force. It places its trust in treaties and conventions that it enforces only against those who agree in advance to be bound by them. Thus, in the week that its citizens were pleading for their lives in Iraq, the European Union was mainly concerned to prevent Turkey from making adultery a criminal offense -- a droll illustration of "European values."
This high-minded timidity permeates modern culture at high and low levels. For instance, a recent thriller about hostage-taking, "Man on Fire," directed by Tony Scott and based on a novel by A.J. Quinnell, received harsh critical reviews precisely because it seemed to approve of revenge and vigilantism. [...]
But as Bacon pointed out: "Revenge is a kind of wild justice." It will inevitably -- and arguably rightly -- become the resort of decent people when law and government fail to deliver justice. Post-modern governments fail in just that way. Humanitarian bodies such as Amnesty International are even worse: They practice a sort of unilateral civil libertarianism that holds governments to account for the smallest infraction of civil liberty but treats terrorism as a natural disaster. Transnational bodies like the U.N. and the EU are worse -- they seek to take the weapons of war and capital punishment from us in our struggles against terrorism, slavery, piracy and hostage-taking and to force us to rely instead on their own paper resolutions and elevated principles.
All these responses -- from the critical reactions to "Man on Fire" to the E.U.'s prohibition of capital punishment -- are overcivilized. That sounds almost like a compliment, as if it meant more civilized. In fact, to be overcivilized is to be less civilized because genuine civilization includes a robust willingness to enforce its order and truths on anarchy, violence, murder and superstition.
“Pale Ebeneezer thought it wrong to fight,
But Raging Bull, who killed him, thought it right.” (Hilaire Belloc)
POLITICS: DEBATE PANEL NIXES KERRY CAMPAIGN REQUEST (kfmb.com, 09-30-2004)
Democratic candidate John Kerry's campaign demanded Thursday that the lights signaling when a speaker's time has expired during debates with President Bush be removed from the lecterns because they are distracting, but the commission hosting the debates refused.An angry exchange between representatives of the Kerry campaign and the Commission on Presidential Debates took place just hours before the candidates were to meet at the University of Miami for the first of three debates, The Associated Press learned. Kerry's team threatened to remove the lights when they visit the debate site with Kerry later in the day.
"We'll bring a screwdriver," said a Kerry aide familiar with what several people called an angry exchange. The commission did not return a call seeking comment.
Kerry under spotlight as his campaign glows to code orange (Caroline Overington, October 1, 2004, Sydney Morning Herald)
There is not a woman alive who will not sympathise with the Democrat John Kerry for doing what he did this week.Who among us has not done the same thing? That is, made a stupid, stupid decision regarding our appearance right before a very important event.
Senator Kerry, who is trying to win the race for the White House, hit the bottle.
The fake tan bottle. Or perhaps the sun bed, nobody is sure. But whatever, the day before the first TV debate with President George Bush, Kerry turned orange.
Not a little bit orange. His face is like a Halloween pumpkin. Or, as the New York Post put it, Kerry - who is from icy Boston - suddenly has a tan "even George Hamilton would envy".
Everybody has noticed, of course. Talkback callers in the US jumped on the airwaves to have a good chuckle.
The comedian Jay Leno said that Kerry's face was, like a city faced with terrorism, on orange alert. Matt Drudge, who runs the Drudge Report website, wondered whether Kerry had been campaigning too much "in the rust belt".
The tan was so obvious that the Kerry camp - which wants to get back to debating the big issues, like war - was forced to explain it. It said Kerry got the tan by basking in the sun at a football match.
Knowing that they could turn the Senator into a laughingstock demonstrates, yet again, how smart George Bush and Karl Rove are about politics.
Koreans Seek Regime Change: At a two-day conference, 2,000 pastors call for an end to public executions, concentration camps and starvation under North Korea's Kim Jong Il. (K. Connie Kang, September 29, 2004, LA Times)
With tearful prayers and thunderous singing of "The Battle Hymn of Republic" in Korean, 2,000 Korean pastors from throughout the United States and Canada met in Los Angeles this week to urge an end to the repressive regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.Pastors, human rights advocates and defectors from North Korea also prayed for passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. The U.S. Senate late Tuesday passed a slightly amended version of the legislation, approved by the House in July. The measure would compel the United States to, among other things, broaden talks over North Korea's nuclear program to include discussions of human rights abuses. The bill will now return to the House for a final vote. [...]
Though many Korean churches and pastors have worked individually to improve conditions in North Korea by sending food, money and medicine, this was the first widely coordinated effort on the part of Korean Christians in the United States and Canada to focus on the goal, said the Rev. Hee-Min Park, pastor emeritus of Young Nak Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, one of the largest Korean churches in the country.
In the keynote speech, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) called North Koreans "the most helpless people in the world today … trapped in the most brutal system of government the world has ever seen."
Sacred mysteries: Pope who defied liberal forces (Christopher Howse, 25/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
At dawn on Sept 20, 1870, as the guns of enemy Italians opened up on the walls of Rome, Pope Pius IX invited the diplomatic corps to attend his early morning Mass. Afterwards they were given chocolate and ices as the Pontiff surrendered his army, if not his jurisdiction.Pope Pius IX is famous for condemning as an error the proposition that: "The Roman Pontiff may and ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation."
Looking at the television schedules, one is tempted to say "hear, hear" but television, if he'd known about it, was not the sort of technology of modern civilisation he had in mind. While he still had control of the Papal States, railways were built, telegraphs linked the towns and factories were constructed. Pius IX's enemies were not things but systems of ideas. [...]
Socialism and Communism, which he had condemned as early as 1846, were in his eyes the sponsors of an idolatry that replaced God with human self-sufficiency. This lay behind his two great acts: the declaration of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 - 150 years ago this December - and of Papal Infallibility in 1870. Both are much misunderstood.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception stated that Mary the Mother of Jesus was without sin from the first moment of her existence.
The day after its promulgation, Pius made a speech in which he stressed the terrible effects of Original Sin, from which Mary was exempt, and the need mankind had for God to reveal himself. This he contrasted to the false claims of rationalism, which saw no need for humanity to be healed.
As for Papal Infallibility, its terms were so restricted that it hardly meant more than that the Church itself was preserved from solemnly teaching erroneous doctrine.
For Pius IX, defining Infallibility meant combatting the third and most dangerous kind of liberalism that threatened the Church he had in his care.
The first had been the political liberalism, secularist republicanism rather than laissez-faire economics, whose armies prevailed. The second was the moral liberalism, sex and drugs, that remains with us.
The third was the emptying of Christian belief of its content. If, as Dr Edward Norman has argued in his latest books, the Catholic Church has retained a mechanism to preserve doctrinal integrity, it is thanks to Pius IX and his successors.
Think Again: God-phobic Jews (Jonathan Rosenblum, Sep. 23, 2004, THE JERUSALEM POST)
American Jews live in terror of religious Christians - the kind who tell their elected representatives that America will be judged by its treatment of Israel. (Well-heeled Presbyterians, who have, like most Jews, reduced religion to "good deeds," such as boycotting Israel, trouble them far less.) Every litany of the evils of George W. Bush includes his religiosity.An August 12 op-ed by Eli Valley of the Steinhardt Foundation's Jewish Life Network perfectly captured American Jewry's anti-Christian phobia and general disdain for religion. The most frightening thing about President Bush, wrote Valley, is that he "has made no secret of his spiritual devotion."
Fundamentalist Christians hope for the conversion of all Jews and thus the end of Jewish religion, warns Valley, and that should make every Jew shudder. Even if the charge were true, it should cause no shudders: Given the phenomenal success of American Jews in ending the Jewish religion through intermarriage and assimilation, there is little left for Christian fundamentalists to do.
It makes no sense, alleges Valley, to fight Islamic fundamentalism with Christian fundamentalism. That would be true, however, only if Christian suicide bombers were seeking to spread the rule of Christendom around the globe. (Two weeks ago, Al Gore used the same clumsy "fundamentalist" brush to link radical Islamists, Orthodox Jews, and George W. Bush.)
Valley further claims that devout Christians, like Bush, are incapable of fact-based reasoning, and implies that their "longing for Apocalypse" leads them to make war. No doubt he believes that. His secular faith thereby spares him the trouble of having to engage the premises of Bush's foreign policy, of which Norman Podhoretz, not generally known as either a Christian fundamentalist or a seeker of Apocalypse, offers a spirited 38-page defense in the current edition of Commentary. Podhoretz cites numerous facts, and makes many rational-sounding arguments: he does not quote Scripture.
American Jews have become positively God-phobic. Pity hapless Cameron Kerry, who promoted his brother to a gathering of Orthodox Jews on the grounds that he would never appoint an attorney-general who begins his work day with prayer. No doubt that line was a surefire winner with secular Jewish groups. How was Kerry, a Reform convert, to know that Orthodox Jews begin and end their day in the same way?
For fear of aiding and abetting religion, major Jewish organizations, including the Reform movement, consistently adopt the most extreme positions on separation of state and religion.
Of the many cultural grenades being tossed that day, though, the one must-see is "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House," a DVD that is being specifically marketed in "head to head" partisan opposition to "Fahrenheit 9/11." This documentary first surfaced at the Republican convention in New York, where it was previewed in tandem with an invitation-only, no-press-allowed "Family, Faith and Freedom Rally," a Ralph Reed-Sam Brownback jamboree thrown by the Bush campaign for Christian conservatives. Though you can buy the DVD for $14.95, its makers told the right-wing news service WorldNetDaily.com that they plan to distribute 300,000 copies to America's churches. And no wonder. This movie aspires to be "The Passion of the Bush," and it succeeds.More than any other campaign artifact, it clarifies the hard-knuckles rationale of the president's vote-for-me-or-face-Armageddon re-election message. It transforms the president that the Democrats deride as a "fortunate son" of privilege into a prodigal son with the "moral clarity of an old-fashioned biblical prophet." Its Bush is not merely a sincere man of faith but God's essential and irreplaceable warrior on Earth. The stations of his cross are burnished into cinematic fable: the misspent youth, the hard drinking (a thirst that came from "a throat full of Texas dust"), the fateful 40th-birthday hangover in Colorado Springs, the walk on the beach with Billy Graham. A towheaded child actor bathed in the golden light of an off-camera halo re-enacts the young George comforting his mom after the death of his sister; it's a parable anticipating the future president's miraculous ability to comfort us all after 9/11. An older Bush impersonator is seen rebuffing a sexual come-on from a fellow Bush-Quayle campaign worker hovering by a Xerox machine in 1988; it's an effort to imbue our born-again savior with retroactive chastity. As for the actual president, he is shown with a flag for a backdrop in a split-screen tableau with Jesus. The message isn't subtle: they were separated at birth. [...]
"Will George W. Bush be allowed to finish the battle against the forces of evil that threaten our very existence?" Such is the portentous question posed at the film's conclusion by its narrator, the religious broadcaster Janet Parshall, beloved by some for her ecumenical generosity in inviting Jews for Jesus onto her radio show during the High Holidays. Anyone who stands in the way of Mr. Bush completing his godly battle, of course, is a heretic. Facts on the ground in Iraq don't matter. Rational arguments mustered in presidential debates don't matter. Logic of any kind is a nonstarter. The president - who after 9/11 called the war on terrorism a "crusade," until protests forced the White House to backpedal - is divine. He may not hear "voices" instructing him on policy, testifies Stephen Mansfield, the author of one of the movie's source texts, "The Faith of George W. Bush," but he does act on "promptings" from God. "I think we went into Iraq not so much because there were weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Mansfield has explained elsewhere, "but because Bush had concluded that Saddam Hussein was an evildoer" in the battle "between good and evil." So why didn't we go into those other countries in the axis of evil, North Korea or Iran? Never mind. To ask such questions is to be against God and "with the terrorists."
The propagandists of "Faith in the White House" argue, as others have, that the president's invocation of religion in the public sphere, from his citation of Jesus as his favorite "political philosopher" to his incessant invocation of the Almighty in talking about how everything is coming up roses in Iraq, is consistent with the civic spirituality practiced by his antecedents, from the founding fathers to Bill Clinton. It's not. Past presidents have rarely, if ever, claimed such godlike infallibility. Mr. Bush never admits to making a mistake; even his premature "Mission Accomplished" victory lap wasn't in error, as he recently told Bill O'Reilly. After all, if you believe "God wants me to be president" - a quote attributed to Mr. Bush by the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention - it's a given that you are incapable of making mistakes. Those who say you have are by definition committing blasphemy. A God-appointed leader even has the power to rewrite His texts. Jim Wallis, the liberal evangelical author, has pointed out Mr. Bush's habit of rejiggering specific scriptural citations so that, say, the light shining into the darkness is no longer God's light but America's and, by inference, the president's own.
It's not just Mr. Bush's self-deification that separates him from the likes of Lincoln, however; it's his chosen fashion of Christianity. The president didn't revive the word "crusade" idly in the fall of 2001. His view of faith as a Manichaean scheme of blacks and whites to be acted out in a perpetual war against evil is synergistic with the violent poetics of the best-selling "Left Behind" novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and Mel Gibson's cinematic bloodfest. The majority of Christian Americans may not agree with this apocalyptic worldview, but there's a big market for it. A Newsweek poll shows that 17 percent of Americans expect the world to end in their lifetime. To Karl Rove and company, that 17 percent is otherwise known as "the base." [...]
The re-election juggernaut has not only rounded up the membership rosters of churches en masse but quietly mounted official Web sites like kerrywrongforcatholics.com as well. (Evangelicals and Mormons have their own Web variants on this same theme, but not the Jews, who are apparently getting in Kerry just what they deserve.)
MORE:
-REVIEW: of George W. Bush: Faith in the White House (Mark Moring, 08/24/04, Christianity Today)
Kerry's myth making (Robert Novak, September 30, 2004, Townhall)
John Kerry in a press conference last week repeated his accusation that Gen. Eric Shinseki was "forced out" as U.S. Army chief of staff because he wanted more troops for Iraq. The trouble is that the Democratic presidential nominee was spreading an urban myth. The bigger trouble is that it was no isolated incident.Sen. Kerry last week also said the Bush administration may push reinstatement of the military draft, when in fact that idea comes only from anti-war Democrats. At the same time, he said retired Gen. Tommy Franks complained that Iraq was draining troops from Afghanistan, when the truth is he never did. Over a week earlier, Kerry blamed Bush for higher Medicare premiums when in fact they are mandated by law (one that Kerry voted for).
Exaggeration is a familiar political staple, but presidential candidates usually are held to a higher standard. Kerry's recent descent into myth making may reflect the campaign's anxiety in the final weeks. The immediate questions are whether he will engage in misstatements during Thursday's first presidential debate, and whether he will be challenged if he does.
Human populations are tightly interwoven: Family tree shows our common ancestor lived just 3,500 years ago. (Michael Hopkin, 29 September 2004, Nature)
The most recent common ancestor of all humanity lived just a few thousand years ago, according to a computer model of our family tree. Researchers have calculated that the mystery person, from whom everyone alive today is directly descended, probably lived around 1,500 BC in eastern Asia.Douglas Rohde of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and his colleagues devised the computer program to simulate the migration and breeding of humans across the world. By estimating how different groups intermingle, the researchers built up a picture of how tightly the world's ancestral lines are linked.
The figure of 1,500 BC might sound surprisingly recent. But think how wide your own family tree would be if you extended it back that far. Lurking somewhere in your many hundreds of ancestors at that date is likely to be somebody who crops up in the corresponding family tree for anyone alive in 2004.
In fact, if it were not for the fact that oceans helped to keep populations apart, the human race would have mingled even more freely, the researchers argue. "The most recent common ancestor for a randomly mating population would have lived in the very recent past," they write in this week's Nature.
House votes to end D.C. gun ban: Bill's supporters cite 2nd Amendment rights; city officials fear rise in crime (Jim Abrams, AP, Chicago Tribune, 9/30/04)
The House voted Wednesday to end a 28-year ban on handgun ownership in the nation's capital, brushing aside pleas from city officials concerned about a surge in violence and more heavily armed criminals.We may be stupid, but we're not crazy. This, on the other hand, is brilliant."The District of Columbia handgun ban has failed. It has failed miserably," said Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), sponsor of the bill that passed 250-171.
It is unlikely the Senate will take up the measure this year. . . .
"This is absolutely crazy," said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), whose husband was killed and son wounded in 1993 by a gunman on a Long Island Rail Road train.
Why Bush Looks Good to Women (Margaret Carlson, September 30, 2004, LA Times)
Freud, on his deathbed, asked, "What do women want?" The improbable answer, it now seems, may be George W. Bush.According to pollsters, the gender gap that usually helps Democrats is shrinking. The reason may be as simple as Bush himself: Post-9/11 pollsters say women prefer certitude and clarity to nuance and verbosity, staying alive to after-school programs. Democrats wail at the loss of their usual edge with women, at the irony of the National Guard slacker beating the Silver Star warrior on the issue of strength. But bluster and repetition have apparently prevailed, especially when John Kerry has said both so much and so little. Hard to read, Kerry has let Bush and his evil genius, Karl Rove — the architect of his political life — fill in the blanks.
I don't buy Bush's strength, but in a campaign it doesn't matter what is real and what is fake; it's what will fly. Tonight, Kerry has a chance to press his case with women, notoriously late deciders with a long attention span and good impulse control. Though errant female voters are gettable for Kerry, it won't be easy. There are some troublesome biographical points. Marrying one woman vastly wealthier than you are looks like good fortune in matters of the heart. Marrying a second one looks like a calculated career move. Kerry's hooded eyes make him look like a brooder, but not the strong, silent type. At a totally superficial level, that orange tan is troublesome. Across the political spectrum, women do not trust a primper.
Colombia's president cites progress: The president of Colombia touted progress at a Miami trade fair that brought together potential American investors and Colombian ventures. (MICHAEL A.W. OTTEY, 9/30/04, Miami Herald)
Midway through his term in office, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez says that his country still has some pressing internal challenges but that it has made great strides, particularly with the economy.During remarks to reporters at a trade forum Wednesday in Miami, Uribe proudly cited an 18.6 percent increase in exports as a hallmark of Colombia's growth.
The trade conference, titled Proexport Colombia, brought together more than 600 Colombian business ventures and 250 potential American investors at the Hotel InterContinental.
Maurício Gómez, trade commissioner for the Colombian Government Trade Bureau, called the fair important for both countries' economies. A similar one was held in Cartagena, Colombia, earlier in the year. Gómez noted that such companies as JCPenney, Gap, Sysco, Kmart, Old Navy and Be, Bath & Beyond had expressed interest.
''There are many expectations from both countries, as they are targeting to exceed the amount of business from the last event,'' Gómez said in a statement.
Last year, the United States, Colombia's largest trading partner, took in 44 percent of the South American nation's exports and sent 38 percent of its goods there.
The United States is also Colombia's largest foreign investor, providing an estimated $5.7 billion in direct investment, according to the Colombian Government Trade Bureau in Washington.
Colombia exports coffee, cut flowers, oil and petroleum products, bananas and other goods. It imports from the United States electronics, machinery and such agricultural goods as wheat and corn.
But Colombia is also the conduit for most of the illicit drugs that reach the United States. According to the State Department, 75 percent of the world's cocaine production and 90 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States comes from there.
Even on that front, Uribe said, there have been reductions. With the crackdown -- with help from the United States -- even kidnappings have been reduced, he said.
Aeroflot ... we have take-off (CHRIS STEPHEN, 9/30/04, The Scotsman)
FOR years it was a symbol of the cold, grey face Russia showed to the outside world, with cramped planes, a terrible safety record and frowning stewardesses.But now the Russian airline Aeroflot insists it has changed its spots - with a little help from a British PR firm.
In a makeover of ambitious proportions, the airline has spruced up its planes, service and reliability, and insists the old service-with-a-scowl is a thing of the past.
The task was not an easy one. Until now, Aeroflot has had a well-deserved reputation as a Communist-era theme park with clunky planes that nobody trusted to stay in the air.
It is often said that an airline’s personality reflects its country - think Lufthansa’s lumbering German efficiency or Alitalia’s maddening Italian chaos.
Aeroflot’s fate is to track Russia’s many changes. Bright and hopeful at its formation in 1923, its stagnation began soon afterwards and gave the airline the reputation it has struggled to shake off. [...]
With the nation’s economy, if not its politics, now on an even keel, tough new managers have joined the airline.
They have slashed dozens of unprofitable routes, kept open from the days of the Soviet Union to former satellite countries.
Passenger numbers are up, the airline is now in the black and it harbours hopes of luring foreigners deep into the largest country in the world. This summer, Aeroflot squeezed into the top ten index of the world’s most profitable airlines, and Air France has begun talks about forming an alliance.
By contrast, many western airlines are mired in debt and a few teeter on bankruptcy.
Mr Duffy is impressed. "I fly Aeroflot 25 to 30 times a year and I have noticed a huge difference," he said.
History Can Offer Bush Hope ... (Max Boot, September 23, 2004, LA Times)
Lest we be too hard on Bush, it's useful to recall the travails of the nation's two most successful commanders in chief, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.Lincoln is remembered, of course, for winning the Civil War and freeing the slaves. We tend to forget that along the way he lost more battles than any other president: First and Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga…. The list of federal defeats was long and dispiriting. So was the list of federal victories (e.g., Antietam, Gettysburg) that could have been exploited to shorten the conflict, but weren't.
As the Union's fortunes fell, opponents tarred Lincoln with invective that might make even Michael Moore blush. Harper's magazine called him a "despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, ignoramus." As late as the summer of 1864, Lincoln appeared likely to lose his bid for reelection. Only the fall of Atlanta on Sept. 2 saved his presidency.
Most of the Union's failures were because of inept generalship, but it was Lincoln who chose the generals, including many political appointees with scant military experience. He ultimately won the war only by backing Ulysses Grant's brutal attritional tactics that have often been criticized as sheer butchery.
Roosevelt had more than his share of mistakes too, the most notorious being his failure to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor, even though U.S. code breakers had given him better intelligence than Bush had before Sept. 11. FDR also did not do enough to prepare the armed forces for war, and then pushed them into early offensives at Guadalcanal and North Africa that took a heavy toll on inexperienced troops. At Kasserine Pass, Tunisia, in 1943, the U.S. Army was mauled by veteran German units, losing more than 6,000 soldiers.
The Allies went on to win the war but still suffered many snafus, such as Operation Market Garden, a failed airborne assault on Holland in September 1944, and the Battle of the Bulge three months later, when a massive German onslaught in the Ardennes caught U.S. troops napping.
Though FDR bore only indirect responsibility for most of these screw-ups, he was more directly culpable for other bad calls, such as the decision to detain 120,000 Japanese Americans without any proof of their disloyalty. Like Lincoln, who jailed suspected Southern sympathizers without trial, Roosevelt was guilty of civil liberties restrictions that were light-years beyond the Patriot Act. And, like Bush, Roosevelt didn't do enough to prepare for the postwar period. His failure to occupy more of Eastern Europe before the Red Army arrived consigned millions to tyranny; his failure to plan for the future of Korea and Vietnam after the Japanese left helped lead to two wars that killed 100,000 Americans.
None of this is meant in any way to denigrate the inspired leadership of two great presidents. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt were brilliant wartime leaders precisely because they were able to overcome adversity and inspire the country toward ultimate victory with their unflagging will to win. That's what Bush is trying to do today.
How Would a Computer Pick the Prez? (Nelson Hernandez, Sr., 09/29/2004, Tech Central Station)
TCS contributor Douglas Kern's recent article ("President Elect - 2004") regarding the success of Commodore 64-era political game President Elect 1988 in predicting elections prompted a search by TCS staff for the designer/programmer of that game, Nelson Hernandez, Sr. We tracked him down. In this article, the man who banged out the original BASIC source code in 1981 on his Apple II+ computer explains who he thinks will win -- and why.-- The editors
My comments on Doug Kern's experimentation with my game must be general; a detailed critique of his methodology would be an impenetrably esoteric discussion for most readers. But the main point I would like to make is that the game indeed projected the 1988 election with uncanny success well in advance, but it cannot be applied to the 2004 election.
In real life as well as in President Elect 1988, each presidential election takes place within a certain contextual background wherein the electorate subjectively evaluates the relative success or failure of the incumbent party, which is then politically rewarded or punished. In every election cycle the voting population arrives at a collective answer to candidate Reagan's famous 1980 debate question, "are you better off today than you were four years ago" well before the election takes place. PE 1988 knew the actual situation in 1984 with perfect hindsight and could quantify the incumbent party's relative success or failure in 1988 based on hypothetical economic/situational inputs using a fairly simple mathematical formula I created to compare the current overall "state of the union" to what it was in the previous election.
However using PE 1988 to project 2004 is problematic because the economic and national security/foreign situation inputs Kern was plugging for 2004 were being compared to the state of the union in 1984 instead of the one which prevailed in 2000. This mismatch alone renders his experiment moot.
Waiting for Kerry's Big Finish to Start (Tina Brown, September 30, 2004, Washington Post)
On the eve of the debates people are so on edge in New York that every gathering has become like a visit to the dentist. In this town of Democrats, Karl Rove's real or imagined brilliance has got people dangerously psyched out. Someone in a group always produces some new vulnerability of Kerry's to drill down on, some fresh tactical error to palpitate about.An expectation reversal has been going on that's strange to find among a candidate's own supporters. Even without the goring Bush has given him all summer, Kerry has lowered opinions of his campaigning skills so far that he now has to make a comeback tonight just to keep his own side happy. With George Stephanopoulos on ABC last Sunday, the usually fierce congressman and former Clinton switchblade Rahm Emanuel looked so distracted and unhappy defending Kerry's war positions against Republican mouth Stuart Stevens that I half expected him to excuse himself in the middle of the show and catch a flight back to Chicago.
With all the mythology about Kerry's gift of coming from behind, New Yorkers are watching and hoping like fundamentalists awaiting the rapture. "What will it be like?" they ask one another. A mysterious subtle transformation of will that suffuses Kerry with winner's luck? A defining moment when he soothes his wounded honor with a shaft of killing wit that at last unmasks Bush? If so, could it please happen in prime time tonight? (Maybe, just in case, Kerry should wear cowboy boots to reduce the president still further to the size of Dr. Ruth.)
Among the big-donor crowd, the good-closer cliche has worn out its welcome. They have had it with reading in the New York Times that the past two months of flubs were part of some weird subliminal strategy. Who does Kerry think he is? Bob Dylan? Enough already with the near-death experiences. Mr. Closer, give us closure.
Meanwhile, it's easy enough to close as well as he did in '96. Bump Edwards and take his vp slot. Put Bill Clinton in the presidential slot. After you win have Clinton step down--to avoid the constitutional problem--and take back the top slot.
Old Democrat pick-up lines aren't working on women (Collin Levey, 9/30/04, The Seattle Times
If the Democrats are looking for a good campaign manual for the first presidential debate, they might consider Emily Post. The women's vote isn't behaving the way it's "supposed to." Maybe the problem's with the theory.After weeks of watching President Bush's post-convention lead widen, John Kerry got his latest hint of rejection from the damsels Democrats have taken for granted for the past few elections: Across the country, the ballyhooed gender gap has narrowed and, in some places, disappeared.
So ladies are now set to get what you might call a thoroughly modern courtship from the Democrats — quick and dirty. "Sen. Romeo" from North Carolina has been dispatched to lunch with women's groups and, well, no one imagines Kerry acquired that sunny glow for the fellas. Minivan moms, start your engines.
Kerry has been going "Live with Regis and Kelly" and heading to a Redbook luncheon (cookie recipe forthcoming?). And Democrats like former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry have predicted that Kerry will aim for some nice soft tones in tonight's debate, since women don't like to see bullies like Al Gore wandering and huffing about.
The Enthusiasm Gap: Also: The (Other) Great Divides; Poll Vault: A Hurricane Preparedness Tip (Richard Morin and Christopher Muste, September 30, 2004, Washington Post)
Forget the gender gap. The chasm that yawns the widest this election year is the Enthusiasm Gap.Nearly two in three likely voters who support President Bush -- 65 percent -- said they were "very enthusiastic" about their candidate while 42 percent of Sen. John F. Kerry's supporters express similarly high levels of enthusiasm for their choice, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll.
That's a 23-point difference in relative excitement. Although the polling record is incomplete for earlier elections, the available data suggest that the enthusiasm gap in the 2000 presidential campaign was negligible, at best.
In an election in which turnout is key, keeping the faithful energized is one of the most critical challenges facing Kerry as he approaches the first presidential debate tonight. Not only must he convince the small number of persuadable voters who currently support Bush to switch their vote, but he also must re-energize his own supporters to ensure that they turn out on Election Day.
While the enthusiasm gap is apparent across most key voting blocks, nowhere is it more striking than in the way that political conservatives, moderates and liberals view their respective choices.
Bush's conservative base is broadly enthusiastic about the president while political liberals are noticeably cooler to Kerry.
Kerry's Shaky Take on the War: He's missing the big picture. (Max Boot, September 30, 2004, LA Times)
Now that he's decided to close the campaign as Howard-Dean-with-a-Silver-Star, John Kerry is claiming that the war he voted to authorize in Iraq is a "profound diversion" from the things that really matter — Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, even an alleged lack of firehouses in the United States. The implication is that if only we hadn't gotten involved in Iraq, the rest of the world would be in much better shape. This is a highly debatable proposition, and it is an area where President Bush should try to pin down his slippery adversary.Part of what Kerry says is sheer demagoguery. He castigates Bush for spending $200 billion (actually $130 billion, but who's counting?) in Iraq and not spending it at home for schools, healthcare, firefighters and no doubt free treats for good little girls and boys. Yet in the next breath, Kerry attacks Bush for being profligate, period. Which is it? Is Bush spending too much or too little? It's hard to believe Kerry is serious in any case; this is merely pandering to leftist isolationism.
Kerry is on firmer ground when he suggests that Bush has allowed "the urgent nuclear dangers in North Korea and Iran … to mount on his presidential watch." True, and if one advocated a get-tough policy with Pyongyang and Tehran, the fact that 130,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq might be an impediment. (Or they might help boost the pressure on next-door Iran.) But Kerry doesn't advocate such a policy. He wants to sign a generous deal that would pay these rogue states not to produce nukes. Appeasement hardly requires military muscle.
What of Kerry's claim that Bush was so focused on Iraq that he let Al Qaeda run wild? Actually, two-thirds of Al Qaeda's senior leadership has been caught or killed. And the U.S. is getting more cooperation in fighting terrorism now than it did before 9/11, even from states that aren't fans of the Iraq war. Look at the big roundups of Al Qaeda suspects recently in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. As French Arabist Gilles Kepel argues in a new book, the jihadists are losing their war to gain control of the Muslim world.
Church's Clout Ascends in Russia: A political player again, and independent for the first time, the institution seeks its proper role. An art exhibit prosecution illustrates its muscle. (Kim Murphy, September 30, 2004, LA TImes)
When the well-known Sakharov Museum broached the subject of religion in an art exhibit, no one was surprised that an outcry followed.After all, one work featured an icon into which viewers could insert their heads. Another superimposed Christ on a Coca-Cola logo with the words, "This is My Blood."
Followers of a local priest vandalized the exhibit with spray paint. The Russian parliament voted to condemn the display and urged the authorities to "take necessary measures." President Vladimir V. Putin's spiritual advisor, Father Tikhon Shevkunov, called the artists "disease-carrying bacteria" against whom "society is using antigens."
Ultimately, the power of the state was brought to bear against a museum that has stood as a symbol of challenge to Soviet-era repression and religious persecution. Sakharov Museum director Yuri Samodurov is scheduled today to go on trial in a Moscow courtroom, accused with two other exhibit organizers of "inciting ethnic or religious hatred."
The case has attracted only a smattering of controversy in Russia, where an attack on the Orthodox Church is seen by many as a body blow to the Russian polity.
Stripped of its assets and persecuted for 70 years under atheist Soviet rule, the church of the Russian czars has once again become a key political player in Russia — one of the few civil institutions able to claim a following across the nation's far-flung landscape.
In a survey this year, 71% of Russians identified themselves as Orthodox, and more than half said they considered their religion important or very important. The church sponsors its own magazine, its own radio station and until recently had its own program on state television.
It indirectly controls at least 40 deputies in the parliament, who this week successfully carried a bill that will guarantee the church the free use of tens of millions of dollars worth of state property on which church buildings stand.
Perhaps most important, the church has a believer in Putin, though his motives have been questioned. Unlike his predecessor, Boris N. Yeltsin, who was considered a poseur every time he clutched a candle and headed toward an altar for the TV cameras, Putin has his own Orthodox priest to whom he confesses.
Syria 'to seal' border with Iraq (BBC, 9/29/04)
The US says Syria has agreed to tighten its border with Iraq to prevent militants from crossing the border. [...]The US seems to have achieved its aim of moving on from political promises to specific practical measures Syria has agreed to take, the BBC's State Department correspondent Jill McGivering reports.
This follows directly from an apparent breakthrough last week at a meeting between Mr Powell and the Syrian foreign minister, our correspondent says.
Washington may feel it has some real leverage at the moment on Damascus, which currently appears particularly isolated, with new UN pressure over its presence in Lebanon, analysts say.
Italy debates the cost of freeing hostages: Some fear consequences of alleged ransom payment. (Sophie Arie, 9/30/04, CS Monitor)
Euphoria still lingers in the air after the triumphant homecoming of two Italian aid workers held hostage in Iraq. But concern intensified Wednesday that by saving the "two Simonas," Italy may have inspired a whole new phase of kidnapping in Iraq, sending a message to criminal gangs that western hostages are worth millions of dollars.Amid reports that at least $1 million was paid for the release of Simona Pari and Simona Parretta after 21 days of agonizing negotiations with their captors, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said only that the government made "a very difficult choice."
But Gustavo Selva, chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee, confirmed that the two women were saved by cash. "The lives of the girls was the most important thing," Mr. Selva said in an interview with France's RTL radio.
"In principle, we shouldn't give in to blackmail but this time we had to, although it's a dangerous path to take because, obviously, it could encourage others to take hostages, either for political reasons or for criminal reasons," he said.
Words matter: How Bush speaks in religious code (Bruce Lincoln , September 12, 2004, Boston Globe)
George W. Bush believes God has called him to be president. You won't hear him say so openly, of course, but he regularly conveys this to a core constituency -- the religious right. [...]Twelve times Bush used the phrase "I believe," many more than any other. Sometimes it meant only "I hold this opinion," and sometimes it marked a profession of faith. But repetition hammered home the crucial point: Bush is a man who believes.
Two of these beliefs were meant to justify his wars as holy. The first -- "I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century" -- prompts a question: Called by whom? The second helps answer that query: "I believe freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman." And, a bit later: "Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom."
In the course of his speech, the president thus suggested he is a pious man, called to lead a righteous nation. Like the nation itself, he is committed to a sacred cause and is guided in all things by his Christian faith. His sole concern in Iraq -- so he insists -- is to spread freedom, and in doing this he serves the Almighty. If you heard that and can accept it, it must be terribly reassuring.
Rather less comforting is the realization that Bush is selling his dubious war to the base he has skillfully courted for years, which he knows to be credulous, fiercely patriotic, and enormously loyal.
Bush gains ground in Fla.; Kerry leads in Ohio (USA Today, 9/29/04)
Likely Voters
FL Sep 24-27 OH Sep 25-28 PA Sep 25-28Kerry/Edwards (D) 43 47 46
Bush/Cheney (R) 52 49 49
MORE:
With Bush Advancing, Missouri May Be a Battleground All but Conquered (R. W. APPLE Jr., Sept. 29, 2004, NY Times)
Is Missouri a swing state that has already swung? So it seems to many people here on the eve of the first presidential debate.John Kerry has not visited the state in nearly three weeks and may not be back, local Democrats say, until the second debate, scheduled for Oct. 8 at Washington University in St. Louis. This is no accident of scheduling.
Its 11 electoral votes are certainly a prize worth winning, and Missouri was listed as a battleground state by both parties as the campaign began. It has symbolic significance as well. In every presidential election over the last century, with the single exception of 1956, Missouri has gone with the winner, usually by a margin closely approximating the national figure.
Evidence that President Bush has moved into a notable lead over Sen. John Kerry in the important Wisconsin presidential contest increased Wednesday with the release of a fresh poll.The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, a local think tank, released a poll it commissioned by Harris Interactive, a major national polling organization, that found the Republican incumbent with a 10 percentage point lead over his Democratic challenger, 50% to 40%, with Ralph Nader - whose presence on the actual Wisconsin ballot remains uncertain - with 6%. The poll was conducted between Sept. 22 and Sunday.
The poll results were in line with others released recently that showed Bush with a lead in Wisconsin, including a Badger Poll done in cooperation with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from Sept. 15 to 21 that had Bush up by 14 points and an ABC News poll from Sept. 16 to 19 that had Bush up by 10 points.
Why I will vote for John Kerry for President (JOHN EISENHOWER, 9/29/04, Manchester Union Leader)
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry. [...]The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so.
President Eisenhower inherited two great challenges to freedom when he ended the Democrats twenty year hammerlock on the presidency: the statist accretions of the New Deal and the massive Communist empire. He did nothing about either of them, choosing peaceful accommodation with both. In effect he pushed the final reckonings onto succeeding generations at a terrible cost in lives, money, and damage to our own society. His administration was merely the deceptive eye of the storm.
Cheney changed his view on Iraq: He said in '92 Saddam not worth U.S. casualties (CHARLES POPE, September 29, 2004, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER)
In an assessment that differs sharply with his view today, Dick Cheney more than a decade ago defended the decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War, telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting "bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."Cheney, who was secretary of defense at the time, made the observations answering audience questions after a speech to the Discovery Institute in August 1992, nearly 18 months after U.S. forces routed the Iraqi army and liberated Kuwait.
President George H.W. Bush was criticized for pulling out before U.S. forces could storm Baghdad, allowing Saddam to remain in power and eventually setting the stage for the invasion of Iraq ordered by his son, President George W. Bush, in March 2003.
The comments Cheney made more than a decade ago in a little-publicized appearance have acquired new relevance as he and Bush run for a second term. A central theme of their campaign has been their unflinching, unchanging approach toward Iraq and the shifting positions offered by Democratic nominee John Kerry.
Lynne Cheney Jokes About Kerry's Tan (AP, Sep 29, 2004)
Something about Sen. John Kerry's darker appearance has caught Lynne Cheney's eye.During a campaign stop with her husband, a group of volunteers moved into the crowd with microphones for the question-and-answer period. Vice President Dick Cheney told supporters to look for the people with dark orange shirts.
When Cheney paused as if searching for the words to describe the shade of orange, Lynne Cheney said, "How about John Kerry's suntan?"
The remark drew a big laugh from the crowd and the vice president.
Louisville Slugger: The lumber that still powers our national pastime. (SCOTT OLDHAM, September 1999, Popular Mechanics)
This year, H&B will make 1.4 million wood Louisville Slugger bats for professional and amateur use (and over 1 million aluminum bats). That's 70 to 80 percent of the retail market. Each wood bat is made from white ash grown on 5000 acres of company-owned forest in Pennsylvania and New York. Why ash? Because it has just the proper amount of tensile strength and resiliency. And the weight of ash is also favorable. Hickory and maple have been tried over the years but they've proven too dense.So how is a wood Louisville Slugger bat made? Pretty much the same as it was 115 years ago. First a tree, usually between 40 and 60 years old, is chosen and cut. Although Major League Baseball rules state that bat size is limited to 42 in. in length and 2 3/4 in. in diameter, nobody uses a bat that long. So the tree is cut into 40-in.-long sections that are then cut into several cylinder-shaped 3-in.-dia. billets. The billets are dried in kilns for six to eight weeks before they are shipped to one of the company's three wood bat factories–to the Louisville site where all the adult-size and professional bats are turned, or to Ellicottville, N.Y., or Troy, Pa., where the company makes its wood youth and softball bats.
At the factory, a billet is placed in one of three types of lathes–a tracer lathe (all professional bats), a backnife lathe (adult bats) or an automatic lathe (all youth and softball bats)–where it is cut down to the bat shape. In the case of the tracer lathe, a flat metal guide, or pattern, in the shape of the bat being made, is placed in the lathe. The cutting tool follows the shape of the pattern as it cuts the wood.
Major league players all have their own bat shape and weight preferences, so each player's bat is different. And most players use several different bats over the course of their careers–or even during the season. Each bat model is assigned a model number. For instance, Babe Ruth's bats, model No. R43, varied over the years from 35 to 36 in. in length and 36 to 47 ounces. The very heavy 47-ouncer was for spring training only. Lou Gehrig's bat, 34 in. long and a fairly heavy 39 ounces, was model No. G69. By contrast, today Tony Gwynn uses a featherweight 33-in., 30 1/2-ounce bat, model No. B276C (the C means it is cupped at the end). Each model number is kept on file forever.
Hand-turning bats without a pattern guide, once the only method used, is too time-consuming, expensive and imprecise. But guys like Danny Luckett still hand-turn occasionally to demonstrate the technique to tour groups visiting the Louisville plant.
Once a bat has taken shape, the bat maker sands down the nub on the bat's thin end with 80-grit sandpaper. Then it is passed on to the brander to burn in the Louisville Slugger logo. Next, the entire bat is sanded and then finished if the bat has been ordered with a natural or flame-burned finish.
Some players want a flashier look and order special finishes. Harry "The Hat" Walker, 1947 batting champion with the St. Louis Cardinals, liked two-tone bats. The treatment is now called "The Walker Finish." The black 34-incher used by New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter goes to the sander first, then to the hand dip line for the coloring and finally to the foil brander where it receives gold lettering. If a bat is ordered with a cupped barrel end, which lightens it, the cupping becomes the final touch.
Jeter, who has used Louisville Sluggers exclusively during his still-young career, sees no reason to try other bats. "I just don't care to switch to another brand," says the 25-year-old phenom. Jeter's teammate, power hitter Tino Martinez, also uses Louisville Sluggers. "I tried other bats," says Martinez between batting practice swings at Yankee Stadium. "But I haven't been able to find the balance I look for in a bat from any other company."
And finding that balance, finding a bat that feels good, is vital. According to Mickey Mantle, the most powerful switch-hitter of all time, "The first step to hitting is to find the right bat." A thought echoed by Ted Williams, a lifetime .344 hitter, when he said, "I'd have been a .290 hitter without Louisville Slugger." During his career from 1939 to 1960, Williams, a man many consider the greatest pure hitter in history, was a frequent visitor to the Louisville Slugger plant, where he hand-picked the timber for his bats.
But even with the perfect stick, hitting is far from easy. "Hitting a baseball is the single most difficult thing to do in sport," says Williams. "It's the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed just three times out of 10 and be considered a great performer."
It's those few times you succeed, however. You read the pitch perfectly, hit that ball right on the sweet spot, and hear that wonderful, crisp crack. That's as perfect a moment as life can offer. George Herman Ruth said, "There's nothing that feels so sweet as a good solid smash."
The CIA's Insurgency: The agency's political disinformation campaign. (Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2004)
Congratulations to Porter Goss for being confirmed last week as the new Director of Central Intelligence. We hope he appreciates that he now has two insurgencies to defeat: the one that the CIA is struggling to help put down in Iraq, and the other inside Langley against the Bush Administration.We wish we were exaggerating. It's become obvious over the past couple of years that large swaths of the CIA oppose U.S. anti-terror policy, especially toward Iraq. But rather than keep this dispute in-house, the dissenters have taken their objections to the public, albeit usually through calculated and anonymous leaks that are always spun to make the agency look good and the Bush Administration look bad.
Their latest improvised explosive political device blew up yesterday on the front page of the New York Times, in a story proclaiming that the agency had warned back in January 2003 of a possible insurgency in Iraq. This highly selective leak (more on that below) was conveniently timed for two days before the first Presidential debate.
This follows Joe Wilson, whose CIA-employee wife nominated the anti-Bush partisan to assess intelligence on Iraq. Then there's the book by "Anonymous," a current CIA employee who has been appearing everywhere to trash U.S. policy, with the approval of agency higher-ups. And now we have one Paul R. Pillar, who has broken his own cover as the author of a classified National Intelligence Estimate this summer outlining pessimistic possibilities for the future of Iraq.
That document was also leaked to the New York Times earlier this month, and on Monday columnist Robert Novak reported that it had been prepared at the direction of Mr. Pillar, the National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia.
'Sandwich generation' stresses likely to grow (Oliver Moore, Globe and Mail, September 28th, 2004)
The stress of caring for both parents and children is taking its toll on the so-called “sandwich generation,” according to a report from Statistics Canada released Tuesday.It is already a substantial group and it is likely to grow, the authors warn.
These 'sandwiched' workers were considerably more likely to feel generally stressed. About 70 per cent of them reported stress, about 15 per cent more than workers with neither child-care nor elder-care responsibilities.
It is not a small group, according to the report, which is based on the 2002 General Social Survey. Compiling the data on Canadians between 45 to 64, who had at least one unmarried child under 25 living in the home, researchers found that a bit less than 30 per cent were also caring for a senior. [...]
Although the overwhelming majority of felt satisfied with life in general (95 per cent), they admitted the sacrifices that caring for an elderly person can entail.
They may feel satisfied with life now, but once we psychologists and activists get through with them, they’ll be as bitterly unhappy as they should be!
Illarionov Says Kyoto Will Be Ratified (Greg Walters, Moscow Times, September 29th, 2004)
Andrei Illarionov, the country's fiercest opponent of the Kyoto Protocol, said Tuesday that Russia will ratify the international treaty to limit greenhouse gases even though he believes the move will destroy its chances of doubling GDP by 2010.Illarionov, President Vladimir Putin's top economic adviser, said Russian officials do not believe in the treaty's scientific or economic merits but will ratify it anyway in a political gesture toward the European Union.
The EU has long been pressing Russia to move forward on Kyoto, which needs Russia's ratification to come into force.
Asked Tuesday whether Russia will ratify the Kyoto Protocol, Illarionov said simply, "I think so."
The move would be a purely political calculation for Russia, he said. But he declined to say what Russia might receive in return.
"It's not back-scratching," he said by telephone. "It's a gesture toward the European Union. Nothing more."
Illarionov said senior officials believe the treaty will not help the environment or boost the economy, contrary to claims by its supporters. He declined to comment on Putin's personal views.
"Nobody among Russian officials believes the protocol is good for Russia," Illarionov said. "Nobody sees any sense in the economic nature of this document. Nobody sees any scientific relevance in this document. Nobody sees any advantages for Russia in this document. It is just purely politics."
Isn't it reassuring to know that international law is based upon the best science available and a common altruistic resolve to make the world a better place?
Heinz Kerry still outspoken — but off center stage (Martin Kasindorf, 9/28/04, USA TODAY)
Famed for independent-mindedness, Teresa Heinz Kerry is taking a new tack during the final countdown to Election Day. She's subordinating herself to her husband's campaign strategists — but only in where she goes, not in her outspoken ways. [...]"Teresa has disappeared, by and large," says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a public policy analyst at the University of Southern California. That's the way Kerry's aides prefer it because she is prone to controversial outbursts, Jeffe says. "Every time they let her out, she says something that they don't like."
Iranian Citizens Trash Fahrenheit 9/11 (Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, September 29, 2004, FrontPageMagazine.com)
A few weeks ago, Mamoun Fandy, a media analyst, syndicated columnist and former professor of Arab Studies at Georgetown University, was interviewed on the subject of Michael Moore. Fandy stated that Iraqis who were familiar with the film found Moore’s portrayal of them to be exceedingly racist; he went on to say that Moore’s callousness to the plight of the Iraqi people and to the unbelievable human rights devastation in Iraq was outrageous.And that was only the verdict of the Iraqis.
I have also been asked to express the judgment of a number of Iranians who saw the film in Iran. They sent e-mails, faxes and even phoned me to ask me to report their reviews.
First, other than David Lynch’s film, ‘The Straight Story’, Iranians have not really been exposed to any western films in their cinemas. The Mullahs’ film board forbids the display of women’s uncovered hair and all the other “corruption” Western filmmakers spread. For Iranians, therefore, viewing Michael Moore’s film was a tremendously novel experience.
After 25 years of living in a virtual concentration camp, Iranians have become exceedingly socio-politically savvy. Moore’s anti-American propaganda did not attract anywhere near as many viewers as the Mullahs had hoped for. Tehran’s despots had hoped the film would challenge the Iranian people’s favourable notion of President Bush and promote John Kerry.
But Iranians are too smart.
U.S. to build 8 subs in deal with Taiwan (Sharon Behn, 9/29/04, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
The United States plans to build eight diesel-electric submarines for Taiwan as part of an $18 billion arms package, a decision likely to irritate China, which has opposed the sale of weapons to Taipei.Taiwan's new representative to the United States, David Tawei Lee, said yesterday that the submarines would be built "probably in Mississippi, in [former Senate Majority Leader] Trent Lott's state."
Meanwhile, wasn't it just months ago that the reflexive Right was claiming that the Bush Administration was selling out Taiwan to appease China?
Economy Grows at Weakest Rate in a Year (Martin Crutsinger, 9/29/04, AP)
The U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.3 percent in the spring, the government reported Wednesday. That was significantly better than a previous estimate but still the weakest showing in more than a year.The Commerce Department said the April-to-June increase in the gross domestic product -- the country's total output of goods and services -- was revised upward by 0.5 percentage point from its estimate just a month ago that the economy expanded at a 2.8 percent pace in the second quarter.
Dems in Senate get no help from sharing ticket with Kerry (AP, 9/29/04)
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle hugged President Bush from one end of South Dakota to the other this summer. In his own campaign commercials.The brief embrace might seem an odd claim on re-election for the man Republicans depict as obstructionist-in-chief for the president's congressional agenda. But Daschle is one of several candidates with a common political problem as Democrats nurse fragile hopes of gaining Senate control this fall.
From the South to South Dakota and Alaska, they are running in areas where Bush is popular — and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry not so much.
"The congressman is running his own race out here. ... He's not bringing any national people in," said Kristofer Eisenla, spokesman for Democratic Rep. Brad Carson in Oklahoma, where Bush won 60% of the vote in 2000.
"The presidential race is largely separate" from Inez Tenenbaum's campaign in South Carolina, said Adam Kovacevich, a spokesman for the Democratic candidate in another state Kerry has written off.
Of the eight states with the most competitive Senate races, Kerry is seriously contesting only Florida and Colorado, effectively conceding North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Alaska.
'Osama Mama' Murray Fumes at GOP Rival's Use of Label (NewsMax, 9/29/04)
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has ``a different view of Osama bin Laden,'' her campaign rival charged Wednesday in an attack ad that uses a picture of the al-Qaida leader and the senator's words to challenge her credentials in the war on terror."She did not praise Osama bin Laden and we should stop playing politics with the war on terror and get on with winning it,'' countered Alex Glass, a spokeswoman for Murray. [...]
The ad shows Murray telling an audience in 2002 that bin Laden had been at work in unnamed countries ``for decades building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities. And the people are extremely grateful,'' she says.
"He's made their lives better. We have not done that,'' she adds.
Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse (Timothy J. Dailey, Ph. D., 9/29/04, Family Research Council)
Scandals involving the sexual abuse of under-age boys by homosexual priests have rocked the Roman Catholic Church. At the same time, defenders of homosexuality argue that youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts should be forced to include homosexuals among their adult leaders. Similarly, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a homosexual activist organization that targets schools, has spearheaded the formation of "Gay-Straight Alliances" among students. GLSEN encourages homosexual teachers--even in the youngest grades--to be open about their sexuality, as a way of providing role models to "gay" students. In addition, laws or policies banning employment discrimination based on "sexual orientation" usually make no exception for those who work with children or youth.Many parents have become concerned that children may be molested, encouraged to become sexually active, or even "recruited" into adopting a homosexual identity and lifestyle. Gay activists dismiss such concerns--in part, by strenuously insisting that there is no connection between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children.
However, despite efforts by homosexual activists to distance the gay lifestyle from pedophilia, there remains a disturbing connection between the two. This is because, by definition, male homosexuals are sexually attracted to other males. While many homosexuals may not seek young sexual partners, the evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners. In this paper we will consider the following evidence linking homosexuality to pedophilia:
· Pedophiles are invariably males: Almost all sex crimes against children are committed by men.
· Significant numbers of victims are males: Up to one-third of all sex crimes against children are committed against boys (as opposed to girls).
· The 10 percent fallacy: Studies indicate that, contrary to the inaccurate but widely accepted claims of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, homosexuals comprise between 1 to 3 percent of the population.
· Homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses: Individuals from the 1 to 3 percent of the population that is sexually attracted to the same sex are committing up to one-third of the sex crimes against children.
· Some homosexual activists defend the historic connection between homosexuality and pedophilia: Such activists consider the defense of "boy-lovers" to be a legitimate gay rights issue.
· Pedophile themes abound in homosexual literary culture: Gay fiction as well as serious academic treatises promote "intergenerational intimacy."
Homosexual apologists admit that some homosexuals sexually molest children, but they deny that homosexuals are more likely to commit such offenses. After all, they argue, the majority of child molestation cases are heterosexual in nature. While this is correct in terms of absolute numbers, this argument ignores the fact that homosexuals comprise only a very small percentage of the population.
The evidence indicates that homosexual men molest boys at rates grossly disproportionate to the rates at which heterosexual men molest girls.
UN Human Rights Chief Seeks Greater International Presence in Darfur (Lisa Schlein, 28 Sep 2004, VOA News)
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, is calling for a big increase in the number of United Nations peacekeepers, human rights monitors and aid agencies to ensure security in Darfur. Ms. Arbour, who has just returned from a five-day visit to Darfur, says the international community must redouble its efforts to protect the citizens of Darfur.The U.N.'s top human rights official, Louise Arbour, says there is a great sense of insecurity and fear among the internally displaced people she met in Darfur camps. She describes conditions in the camps as miserable. While people told her they would like to go back home to a more normal life, she says they are too afraid to return to the villages they fled. She says they do not trust the government of Sudan to protect them.
Ms. Arbour says the people believe the government is in collusion with their attackers, the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.
"They claim that when they attempt to leave the narrow perimeters of the camps, they are invariably attacked and their efforts to report these attacks to the authorities lead nowhere and that is prevalent in virtually all the camps we attended…." she said. "At this point, I think the core crisis is one of safety and security."
But Ms. Arbour also notes much progress has been made in getting food and other assistance to the approximately 1.5 million displaced people in Darfur. She says security now is the greatest crisis and it must be addressed with great urgency and seriousness.
Yemen Court Sentences USS Cole Bombers to Death (Ursula Lindsey, 29 Sep 2004, VOA News)
A court in Yemen has sentenced two al-Qaida members to death for the 2000 bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole. The attack killed 17 U.S. sailors. This is the first time anyone has been sentenced to death in Yemen for an act of terrorism.Jamal al-Badawi and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were sentenced to death Wednesday, as the masterminds of the attack in which a small boat loaded with explosives rammed into the American destroyer in the Gulf of Aden.
Mr. al-Nashiri is currently being held in the United States and was tried in absentia. Four other militants were also found guilty of belonging to al Qaida and carrying out the attack on the USS Cole, and received jail sentences of five to 10 years.
Khaled Al Mahdi is a correspondent for the Arab News newspaper in Sanaa and has been following the trial since it started in early July. He notes that this is the first time a Yemeni court has punished terrorism with the death sentence.
"It's the first convictions in this country in which terrorists were sentenced to death," he said. "Of course this country had long tolerated Muslim extremists, but after the September attacks in the United States in 2001, Yemen has allied itself closely with the United States in the war on terrorism and started a widescale campaign against suspected al- Qaida sympathizers."
Jackson Joins Kerry Campaign As Adviser (AP, Sep 29, 2004)
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson joined the campaign of Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday as a poll showed support for the presidential candidate slipping among black Americans, a critical Democratic constituency.
Remembrance of Contracts Past: Newt Gingrich and other Republicans look back at the Contract with America on its tenth anniversary. (David Skinner, 09/28/2004, Weekly Standard)
YESTERDAY, September 27, marked the ten-year anniversary of the historic signing of the Contract with America on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. And this fall marks the tenth anniversary of the subsequent (some would say consequent) election of a Republican majority in Congress. So far the celebrations have been pretty low-key, an unjust and probably unintended comment on the magnitude of the event. No matter. The Republican takeover with the midterm elections of November 1994 has become for conservatives a station of the cross in the progress of rightward ideas--on par with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan in impact, a spiritual kin to the 1964 Barry Goldwater moment.Furthermore, the Contract with America remains one of the most popular things Republicans ever did.
Still one forgets the breadth of strategist Newt Gingrich's campaign to win a majority. On a panel at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday morning with political consultant Joseph Gaylord, Rep. Jennifer Dunne of Washington, journalist Michael Barone, and former majority leader Dick Armey, the former House speaker emphasized that all but a couple of Republican candidates signed the Contract with America. The election yielded an additional nine millions votes for Republicans over 1992 and a pickup of 54 seats in the House of Representatives. [...]
Why the Contract with America worked so well was much discussed. Despite the image of the class of '94 as rabble-rousing radicals, all ten agenda items on the Contract enjoyed over 70 percent support of the American public, which was in fact required for their inclusion. The other criterion was that an item had to have been blocked from a floor vote by the Democrats. The contract's populist character was underlined by its marketing, including a national ad-buy in TV Guide, which set a record for "the most expensive political ad," Gingrich noted. Also, the language of the contract had to be positive and non-political. We were "consciously editing against the New York Times," said Gingrich.
Study: Emission of smog ingredients from trees is increasing rapidly: Changes in forestry and agriculture affecting ozone pollution (Steven Schultz, 28-Sep-2004, Princeton University)
While clean-air laws have reduced the level of man-made VOCs (volatile organic compounds), the tree-produced varieties have increased dramatically in some parts of the country, the study found. The increase stems from intensified tree farming and other land use changes that have altered the mix of trees in the landscape, said Drew Purves, the lead author of the study that included scientists from four universities."There are seemingly natural but ultimately anthropogenic (human-caused) processes in the landscape that have had larger effects on VOC emissions than the deliberate legislated decreases," said Purves.
Although scientists knew that trees contribute substantial amounts of VOCs to the atmosphere, the rate of increase in recent decades was previously unrecognized. "If we don't understand what's going on with biogenic (plant-produced) VOCs, we are not going to be able to weigh different air-quality strategies properly," said Purves. "It's a big enough part of the puzzle that it really needs to go in there with the rest."
The study may help explain why ozone levels have not improved in some parts of the country as much as was anticipated with the enactment of clean-air laws, Purves said. Environmental technologies such as catalytic converters and hoses that collect fumes at gas pumps have substantially reduced human-produced VOCs. However, in some parts of the country -- particularly the area extending from Alabama up through the Tennessee Valley and Virginia -- these improvements may have been outweighed by increased VOC emissions from forests, mainly because of tree growth in abandoned farmland and increases in plantation forestry. [...]
Noting President Ronald Reagan's notorious 1980 reference to trees causing pollution (Reagan said: "Approximately 80 percent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation."), the authors conclude: "The results reported here call for a wider recognition that an understanding of recent, current and anticipated changes in biogenic VOC emissions is necessary to guide future air-quality policy decisions; they do not provide any evidence that responsibility for air pollution can or should be shifted from humans to trees."
High School Politics 101 (David Corn, 9/29/04, TomPaine.com)
I am haunted by a conversation I had the night of the Super Tuesday primary contest. John Kerry had just sealed the deal; he would be the Democrats’ presidential nominee. And I was speaking with one of his most senior advisers. The general election, this consultant told me, would turn on how “mature” the media and the electorate would be.I now know what he meant, and I want to scream, “Grow up.” [...]
What’s discouraging is that Bush and his lieutenants have been so successful in framing much of the election in juvenile terms. And the mainstream media has hardly been able to act as hallway monitor, let alone a school principal. In my darker moments, I’ve often said that human interaction doesn’t evolve all that much past high school. In this campaign, the Bush clique is doing all it can to prove this theory correct. But it is the rest of the kids—I mean, the voters—who will determine if the politics of derision, big lying, fear mongering, simplicity and immaturity will work.
Record shows Bush shifting on Iraq war: President's rationale for the invasion continues to evolve (Marc Sandalow, September 29, 2004, SF Chronicle)
President Bush portrays his position on Iraq as steady and unwavering as he represents Sen. John Kerry's stance as ambiguous and vacillating."Mixed signals are the wrong signals,'' Bush said last week during a campaign stop in Bangor, Maine. "I will continue to lead with clarity, and when I say something, I'll mean what I say.''
Yet, heading into the first presidential debate Thursday, which will focus on foreign affairs, there is much in the public record to suggest that Bush's words on Iraq have evolved -- or, in the parlance his campaign often uses to describe Kerry, flip-flopped.
An examination of more than 150 of Bush's speeches, radio addresses and responses to reporters' questions reveal a steady progression of language, mostly to reflect changing circumstances such as the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction, the lack of ties between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and the growing violence of Iraqi insurgents.
A war that was waged principally to overthrow a dictator who possessed "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised'' has evolved into a mission to rid Iraq of its "weapons-making capabilities'' and to offer democracy and freedom to its 25 million residents.
Mr. McCAIN: I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of H.R. 4655, which is at the desk.The PRESIDING OFFICER: The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 4665) to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq.
The PRESIDING OFFICER: Is there objection to the immediate consideration of the bill, There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill. [...]
Mr. KERREY: Mr. President, I rise to urge the passage of HR. 4655, the Iraq Liberation Act. Thanks to strong leadership in both Houses of Congress and thanks to the commitment of the Administration toward the goals we all share--for Iraq and the region, this legislation is moving quickly. This is the point to state what this legislation is not, and what it is, from my understanding, and why I support it so strongly,
First, this bill is not, in my view, an instrument to direct U.S. funds and supplies to any particular Iraqi revolutionary movement. There are Iraqi movements now in existence which could qualify for designation in accordance with this bill. Other Iraqis not now associated with each other could also band together and qualify for designation. It is for Iraqis, not Americans to organize themselves to put Saddam Hussein out of power, just as it will be for Iraqis to choose their leaders in a democratic Iraq. This bill will help the Administration encourage and
support Iraqis to make their revolution.Second, this bill is not a device to involve the U.S. military in operations in or near Iraq. The Iraqi revolution is for Iraqis, not Americans, to make. The bill provides the Administration a portent new tool to help Iraqis toward this goal, and at the same time advance America's interest in a peaceful and secure Middle East.
This bill, when passed and signed into law, is a clear commitment to a U.S. policy replacing the Saddam Hussein regime and replacing it with a transition to democracy. This bill is a statement that America refuses to coexist with a regime which has used chemical weapons on its own citizens and on neighboring countries, which has invaded its neighbors twice without provocation, which has still not accounted for its atrocities committed in Kuwait, which has fired ballistic missiles into the cities of three of its neighbors, which is attempting to develop nuclear and biological weapons, and which has brutalized and terrorized its own citizens for thirty years. I don't see how any democratic country could accept the existence of such a regime, but this bill says America will not. I will be an even prouder American when the refusal, and commitment to materially help the Iraqi resistance, are U.S. policy.
Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped -- by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations.To suspend hostilities, to spare himself, Iraq's dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear, to him and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations.
He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.
In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities -- which the Council said, threatened international peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored.
Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime's repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents -- and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.
Norwegian pilots land plane after axe attack by passenger (AFP, 9/29/04)
A seemingly unstable passenger attacked two pilots aboard a Norwegian passenger plane with an axe but the aircraft was later able to land, amid concerns over lax security on the country's local flights and at regional airports. [...]Shortly after the plane finally landed in Bodoe, police arrested the man, discovering a box-cutter in his pocket. Military sniffer dogs were then sent in to search the plane.
"He is from Algeria. He was born in 1970. This is an asylum-seeker who has been turned down ... As far as we can tell he is psychologically unstable," Vangen said, adding that the attacker had not spoken since his arrest and that he would soon undergo a medical examination.
Police first suspected that the man had used a security hatchet already onboard the plane in the attack, but by Wednesday afternoon it was clear that he had smuggled an axe onto the plane with him.
"At first we thought that it was the hatchet onboard but we are no longer of this opinion because that hatchet is still in its place in the cockpit," Vangen said.
According to Nils Rognli, who heads up the Narvik airport for the Norwegian civil aviation authority Avinor, it would not have been difficult for the attacker to smuggle an axe onto the plane.
"It would be very simple since we don't have any security control here in Narvik," he told AFP.
We have "the good, old fashioned system as it was in the past where you just get on the plane", he added, pointing out that he has the equipment needed for security screening, but that it has not yet been installed.
Canada's Prophets of Pessimism (Is It the Weather?) (CLIFFORD KRAUSS, 9/29/04, NY Times)
As one of Canada's pre-eminent historians, David Bercuson of the University of Calgary is not your average couch potato. But with beer in hand and feet up on the sofa, he watched the Olympics on television last month to cheer on the world champion hurdler Perdita Félicien to win a gold medal for Canada.When Ms. Félicien inexplicably stumbled into the very first hurdle like a rank amateur, Mr. Bercuson dashed straight to his computer. He knocked out a screed declaring that her sad performance, and that of the entire Canadian Olympic team, was just another symptom of "the national malaise'' that is making Canada a second-rate, uncompetitive nation.
"It's not the individual performers whose shortcomings are on display for all the world to see,'' he wrote in an op-ed article for The Calgary Herald. "It is the very spirit of the nation and the sickness that now has hold of it that is at fault.''
His acidic commentary is characteristic of the view of a growing number of historians, foreign policy thinkers and columnists from some of the nation's top newspapers. Many see themselves as part of an informal school that has no name or single mentor, but all are writing the same assessment: Canada is in decline, or at the very least, has fallen short of their aspirations.
For these thinkers, Canada is adrift at home and wilting as a player on the world stage. It is dogged by not only uninspired leaders but also by a lack of national purpose, stunted imagination and befuddled priorities even as its economy prospers.
"I'm in almost total despair,'' Michael Bliss, a University of Toronto historian, said in an interview. "You have a country, but what is it for and what is it doing?''
Tony Blair's speech to the Labour Party conference in Brighton (9/28/04)
Someone showed me an article recently about how: "Tony Blair has marginalised the Tories."I thought it's a change to read something nice.
Then I realised it was a criticism.
Like, after years in which people thought the Labour Party was unfit to govern, now they think the Tories are.
And I should be really sorry about it. [...]
For the wealthy few, every one of those challenges of the future can be overcome.
The third term mission is to overcome them for the many.
Changing Britain for better.
For good.
Not a society where all succeed equally - that is utopia; but an opportunity society where all have an equal chance to succeed; that could and should be 21st century Britain under a Labour Government.
Where nothing in your background, whether you're black or white, a man or a woman, able-bodied or disabled, stands in the way of what your merit and hard work can achieve.
Where hard working families who play by the rules are not going to see their opportunities blighted by those that don't.
And where if any of our citizens, no matter how poor, is in sickness or need, they get the best care available without any regard to their wealth.
Power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many, not the few.
Not our hands. But theirs.
Fairness in the future will not be built on the state, structures, services and government of times gone by.
Their values remain.
But the reality of life has changed.
The relationship between state and citizen has changed.
People have grown up. They want to make their own life choices.
Their expectations, their ambitions, their hopes are all different and higher.
The 20th Century traditional welfare state that did so much for so many has to be re-shaped as the opportunity society capable of liberation and advance, every bit as substantial as the past but fitting the contours of the future.
And this will be a progressive future as long as we remember that the reason for our struggle against injustice has always been to liberate the individual.
The argument is not between those who do and those who do not love freedom.
It is between the Conservatives who believe freedom requires only that government stand back while the fittest and most privileged prosper.
And we who understand, that freedom for the individual, for every individual, whatever their starting point in life, is best achieved through a just society and a strong community.
In an opportunity society, as opposed to the old welfare state, government does not dictate; it empowers.
It makes the individual - patient, parent, law-abiding citizen, job-seeker - the driver of the system, not the state.
It sets free the huge talent of our public servants and social entrepreneurs whose ability is often thwarted by outdated rules and government bureaucracy.
It changes how government works, to open up the means of delivery to every resource, public, private and voluntary, that can deliver opportunity based on need not wealth.
Sometimes I hear people describe "choice" as a Tory word.
It reminds me of when I first used to knock on doors as a canvasser and was told if they owned their own home they were Tories.
Choice a Tory word?
Tell that to 50 per cent of heart patients who have exercised it to get swifter operations and help bring cardiac deaths down 16,000 since we came to power.
Or to the parents who have made the new City Academy Schools so popular in areas of the greatest social disadvantage.
Or the people I met in Teesside a couple of weeks ago who have transformed their neighbourhood, yes with government money but most of all, by making their decisions, their choices about how it was spent and how their community was run.
Choice is not a Tory word.
Choice dependent on wealth; those are the Tory words.
The right to demand the best and refuse the worst and do so not by virtue of your wealth but your equal status as a citizen, that's precisely what the modern Labour Party should stand for.
So here are ten things a future Labour third term can do for Britain's hard-working families.
1 - Widen the circle of opportunity by low mortgage rates, rising living standards and more jobs in every region of the UK; special help for first time homebuyers and in a week where the Tories are advocating an inheritance tax cut which gives £2 billion to the richest five per cent of estates, Labour's priority will be tax relief for the millions of hard-working families, not tax cuts for the wealthy few.
2 - A society where we put the same commitment to quality vocational skills as we do academic education, with new vocational courses at school, every adult given skills free of charge up to level two and further support for level three, and 300,000 Modern Apprenticeships at the workplace.
3 - Every parent with the choice of a good specialist school, 200 new City Academies all in areas of deprivation, but with no return to selection at 11; new powers for heads to tackle disruptive pupils; all secondary schools part of the Building Schools for the Future programme, and as each wave of schools is rebuilt, modern sports facilities in every one, with a guaranteed number of hours of sport per week.
And let's work to bring the Olympics to London in 2012 and have a sporting legacy not just for the capital but for the whole country.
4 - All patients able to choose their hospital, to book the time and date for treatment.
Maximum waiting times down from 18 months to 18 weeks.
100 new hospital schemes, 2,700 GP premises improved and modernised already with more to come, life expectancy up, cardiac and cancer deaths down.
The NHS safe in the patient's hands.
5 - Life made easier for families.
More choice for mums at home and at work.
Universal, affordable and flexible childcare for the parents of all three-14 year-olds who want it from 8am in the morning to six at night and a Sure Start Children's Centre in every community of Britain.
6 - Security and dignity for everyone in retirement.
Year by year we will work to increase the numbers who can move off benefit and into work, whether from Job Seekers Allowance, Incapacity Benefit or any other benefit, and with the money saved, design a pension system that has the basic state pension at its core; gives special help to the poorest and provides incentives to save for hard-working families whatever their wealth or income.
7 - Our country and its people prospering in the knowledge economy.
Increasing by £1 billion the investment in science, boosting support to small businesses and ending the digital divide by bringing broadband technology to every home in Britain that wants it by 2008.
8 - On the back of the success of the ASB legislation and record numbers of police, we will take a new approach to the whole of law and order.
By the end of the next Parliament, all communities with their own dedicated policing team ; and the local community as well as the police have a say how it is policed.
There will be a radical extension of compulsory drug testing for offenders; a doubling of investment in drug treatment; summary powers to deal with drug dealers and with the violence from binge-drinking; and those believed to be part of organised crime will have their assets confiscated, their bank accounts opened up and if they intimidate juries, face trial without a jury.
9 - We will introduce identity cards and electronic registration of all who cross our borders.
We have cut radically the numbers of failed asylum seekers.
By the end of 2005, and for the first time in Britain, we will remove more each month than apply and so restore faith in a system that we know has been abused.
But we will welcome lawful migrants to this country; we will praise, not apologise, for our multi-cultural society and we will never play politics with the issue of race.
10 - A fair deal for all at work.
An opportunity society is one in which we stop ignoring the lives of the millions of hard working low paid families who do the jobs that we all rely on.
The jobs that get overlooked, the workers who we too often see right through, walk straight past, take for granted.
The office cleaners who do the early morning shift, clearing away the mess before the office is filled.
The security guards staying vigilant through the night.
The dinner ladies, who cook meals for hundreds of kids in the school canteen five days a week.
The hospital porters who often do as much for patient care as the nurse.
For them, we offer not just the respect they deserve, but the guarantee of a decent income, a rising minimum wage, equal pay between men and women, four weeks paid holidays from now on, plus bank holidays.
There they are: ten pointers to what a third term Labour Government would do for Britain's hard-working families.
Don't tell me that's not worth fighting for.
A stronger, fairer, more prosperous nation.
And now we have to go out and win the trust of the people to do it.
There was talk before this conference that I wanted to put aside discussion of Iraq.That was never my intention.
I want to deal with it head on.
The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong.
I acknowledge that and accept it.
I simply point out, such evidence was agreed by the whole international community, not least because Saddam had used such weapons against his own people and neighbouring countries.
And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.
The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power.
But at the heart of this, is a belief that the basic judgment I have made since September 11th, including on Iraq, is wrong, that by our actions we have made matters worse not better.
I know this issue has divided the country.
I entirely understand why many disagree.
I know, too, that as people see me struggling with it, they think he's stopped caring about us; or worse he's just pandering to George Bush and what's more in a cause that's irrelevant to us.
It's been hard for you.
Like the delegate who told me: "I've defended you so well to everyone I've almost convinced myself."
Do I know I'm right?
Judgements aren't the same as facts.
Instinct is not science.
I'm like any other human being, as fallible and as capable of being wrong.
I only know what I believe.
There are two views of what is happening in the world today.
One view is that there are isolated individuals, extremists, engaged in essentially isolated acts of terrorism.
That what is happening is not qualitatively different from the terrorism we have always lived with.
If you believe this, we carry on the same path as before 11th September.
We try not to provoke them and hope in time they will wither.
The other view is that this is a wholly new phenomenon, worldwide global terrorism based on a perversion of the true, peaceful and honourable faith of Islam; that's its roots are not superficial but deep, in the madrassehs of Pakistan, in the extreme forms of Wahabi doctrine in Saudi Arabia, in the former training camps of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan; in the cauldron of Chechnya; in parts of the politics of most countries of the Middle East and many in Asia; in the extremist minority that now in every European city preach hatred of the West and our way of life.
If you take this view, you believe September 11th changed the world; that Bali, Beslan, Madrid and scores of other atrocities that never make the news are part of the same threat and the only path to take is to confront this terrorism, remove it root and branch and at all costs stop them acquiring the weapons to kill on a massive scale because these terrorists would not hesitate to use them.
Likewise take the first view, then when you see the terror brought to Iraq you say: there, we told you; look what you have stirred up; now stop provoking them.
But if you take the second view, you don't believe the terrorists are in Iraq to liberate it.
They're not protesting about the rights of women - what, the same people who stopped Afghan girls going to school, made women wear the Burka and beat them in the streets of Kabul, who now assassinate women just for daring to register to vote in Afghanistan's first ever democratic ballot, though four million have done so?
They are not provoked by our actions; but by our existence.
They are in Iraq for the very reason we should be.
They have chosen this battleground because they know success for us in Iraq is not success for America or Britain or even Iraq itself but for the values and way of life that democracy represents.
They know that.
That's why they are there.
That is why we should be there and whatever disagreements we have had, should unite in our determination to stand by the Iraqi people until the job is done.
And, of course, at first the consequence is more fighting.
But Iraq was not a safe country before March 2003.
Few had heard of the Taliban before September 11th 2001.
Afghanistan was not a nation at peace.
So it's not that I care more about foreign affairs than the state of our economy, NHS, schools or crime.
It's simply that I believe democracy there means security here; and that if I don't care and act on this terrorist threat, then the day will come when all our good work on the issues that decide people's lives will be undone because the stability on which our economy, in an era of globalisation, depends, will vanish.
I never expected this to happen on that bright dawn of 1 May 1997.
I never anticipated spending time on working out how terrorists trained in a remote part of the Hindu Kush could end up present on British streets threatening our way of life.
And the irony for me is that I, as a progressive politician, know that despite the opposition of so much of progressive politics to what I've done, the only lasting way to defeat this terrorism is through progressive politics.
Salvation will not come solely from a gunship.
Military action will be futile unless we address the conditions in which this terrorism breeds and the causes it preys upon.
That is why it is worth staying the course to bring democracy Iraq and Afghanistan, because then people the world over will see that this is not and has never been some new war of religion; but the oldest struggle humankind knows, between liberty or oppression, tolerance or hate; between government by terror or by the rule of law.
Maybe His Watch Was Set on Paris Time (georgewbush.com, 9/29/04)
Appearing on ABC's Good Morning America today, John Kerry offered yet another explanation for his trademark line "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it" (video clip here): it was late at night, and he was tired:It was a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those moments late in the evening when I was tired in the primaries and didn't say something clearly. But it reflects the truth of the position, which is, I thought, to have the wealthiest people in America share the burden of paying for that war. It was a protest. Sometimes you have to stand up and be counted.
Just one problem: Kerry made the statement at noon. See this Washington Post article from March:
"I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it," he told a group of veterans at a noontime appearance at Marshall University.
Europe's armies 'still in cold war' warns EU arms chief (Richard Carter, 29.09.2004, EU Observer)
European armies have not adapted to modern warfare and need better technology, the head of the EU's arms agency has warned.In an interview with French daily Le Figaro, Nick Witney, head of the European Defence Agency agency created in June this year to strengthen the EU's military capabilities, said, "European armies are not adapted to the modern world, to its conflicts, to its new threats. On the whole, they are still in the cold war period".
Rather than focusing on tanks, European armies need more high-tech equipment, such as effective communication tools and analytical equipment, urged Mr Witney.
Closing the gap with the US in terms of arms technology is not about spending more, but spending more efficiently, he said.
Mr Witney also called for greater liberalisation of the European armaments market if EU firms are to compete with their US rivals.
Describing himself as "very much in favour" of market liberalisation, Mr Witney said, "defence markets are essentially national at the moment, with significant state aid in many countries. But no member state has the means to keep its industries alive like this".
After Dark, the Stuffed Animals Turn Creepy (ANDREW JACOBS, 9/29/04, NY Times)
At 5:30 p.m., the canned announcement, a pleasant but firm female voice, echoes off the East African elephants, filters through the rib cage of a fossilized stegosaurus and briefly drowns out the chanted recording of the Mbuti Pygmy tribesmen: "Your attention please. Your attention please. The museum is now closed. Any security officer can direct you to an exit."The Japanese tourists in sensible shoes, the whining, overstimulated children, the earnest art students with sketch pads trickle past glassy-eyed grizzlies and the indignant gorilla thumping its chest. They linger for a final snapshot beneath barosaurus as a towering set of bronze doors seal off the Asian Hall behind them. "Sir, the museum is closed," keeps the dawdlers moving, and by 5:45, the American Museum of Natural History has been largely drained of the living.
Depending on your point of view, this 135-year-old stone fortress is an edifying temple to life on earth or an eerie mausoleum for millions of stuffed and pickled creatures. To generations of schoolchildren who shrieked beneath that giant dangling squid, it is the site of a field trip that launched a thousand nightmares. At night, with the comforting buzz of the city blocked out by thick granite walls and the hum of air-conditioning the only aural distraction, the museum and its frozen inhabitants play tricks on the skittish, the superstitious and those with overactive imaginations.
Even after five years sweeping and mopping the exhibition halls late at night, Frank Saunders is occasionally unnerved on his lonely janitorial rounds. "Sometimes you feel like the animals are watching you," he said, unaware of the gargantuan centipede lurking behind him. "When I'm up on the third floor, with the totem poles and the Indians, you think you see the veins pulsating and the tendons moving."
Some Swing States Appear to Be Swinging to President (KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, 9/29/04, NY Times)
Days before the presidential debates begin, President Bush appears to be gaining in several swing states he lost in 2000.Experts caution that the race is highly fluid, but Mr. Bush, for now at least, is surging ahead in several crucial states. Polls show Mr. Bush making headway in Iowa and Wisconsin, both of which he lost last time. He was also building leads in Ohio and West Virginia, states he won in 2000.
All four states have been hotly contested this year. And Senator John Kerry seems to have ceded Missouri to Mr. Bush.
The shocker in the last week was New Jersey, where three polls showed Mr. Bush pulling even with Mr. Kerry. The state, never on the battleground list, has voted Democratic since 1988 and comes with a sizable chunk of electoral votes, 15. Mr. Bush's strength there was a source of concern to Democrats.
TIMESMAN TIPPED OFF TERROR CHARITY: FEDS (CARL CAMPANILE, September 29, 2004, NY Times)
The Justice Department has charged that a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity that the FBI was about to raid its office — potentially endangering the lives of federal agents.The stunning accusation was disclosed yesterday in legal papers related to a lawsuit the Times filed in Manhattan federal court.
The suit seeks to block subpoenas from the Justice Department for phone records of two of its Middle Eastern reporters — Philip Shenon and Judith Miller — as part of a probe to track down the leak.
The Times last night flatly denied the allegation.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago charged in court papers that Shenon blew the cover on the Dec. 14, 2001, raid of the Global Relief Foundation — the first charges of their kind under broad new investigatory powers given to the feds under the Patriot Act.
"It has been conclusively established that Global Relief Foundation learned of the search from reporter Philip Shenon of The New York Times," Fitzgerald said in an Aug. 7, 2002, letter to the Times' legal department.
Rethinking free trade (Robert Kuttner, September 29, 2004, Boston Globe)
WHEN PAUL Samuelson, the dean of American economists, begins questioning the benefits of free trade, it is a bit like the pope having doubts about the virgin birth. [...]Samuelson stops short of spelling out remedies. However, his blowing open of this debate has done a profound service.
But what, then, should Americans do to defend their living standard in the face of the ability of India and China to make almost anything we make at a fraction of the wage?
First, we might insist that everyone plays by the rules, which China emphatically doesn't. China both subsidizes and protects.
Second, we might try to get them to raise their domestic wages in proportion to their rising productivity and thus produce for a more affluent domestic market (which also might buy more of our products).
On the home front, the government could invest more in the creation of high-wage service jobs that America needs and that can't be exported -- like better-paid preschool teachers and nursing home workers -- and to raise the wages of all low-paid workers through higher minimum wage laws and enforcement of the right to unionize. We could also invest in advanced technologies that create lots of good domestic jobs and export winners, like universal broadband cable and energy independence.
MORE:
Where Did All the Jobs Go? Nowhere: In spite of the hoopla over outsourcing, it is not the great crisis that many believe it is. (DANIEL W. DREZNER, 9/29/04, NY Times)
The Government Accountability Office has issued its first review of the data, and one undeniable conclusion to be drawn from it is that outsourcing is not quite the job-destroying tsunami it's been made out to be. Of the 1.5 million jobs lost last year in "mass layoffs'' - that is, when 50 or more workers are let go at once - less than 1 percent were attributed to overseas relocation; that was a decline from the previous year. In 2002, only about 4 percent of the money directly invested by American companies overseas went to the developing countries that are most likely to account for outsourced jobs - and most of that money was concentrated in manufacturing.The data did show that from 1997 to 2002, annual imports of business, technical and professional services increased by $16.3 billion. However, during that same half-decade, exports of those services increased by $20.5 billion a year. In 2002 alone, the United States ran a $27 billion trade surplus in business services, the sector in which jobs are most likely to be outsourced. The G.A.O. correctly stressed that it is impossible to compute exactly how many jobs are lost because of outsourcing, but unless its figures are off by several orders of magnitude, there's no crisis here.
Many companies moving jobs overseas have also received a bum rap. Lost in all the clamor about I.B.M.'s outsourcing plan was the company's simultaneous announcement that it would add 5,000 American jobs to its payroll. For the second quarter of this year, the company reported a 17 percent increase in earnings, allowing it to trim its outsourcing plan by a third and raise its overall hiring plans by 20 percent. The conclusion is obvious: I.B.M.'s outsourcing of some jobs helped it reduce costs, increase earnings and hire more American-based workers.
None of this is to dismiss the pain endured by those who lose their jobs to lower-paid workers abroad. But the magnitude of these job losses must be placed in the proper perspective. Technological innovation is responsible for a far greater number of lost jobs than outsourcing.
Green Day looks smart with 'Idiot': The band of bratty punks produces a powerful, defiant rock opera (Renee Graham, September 29, 2004, Boston Globe)
When word began to leak out that Green Day was planning a politically charged rock opera for its latest album, American Idiot, reactions ranged from sarcastic guffaws to abject horror. This, after all, was the same band of punk brats who, a decade ago, cranked out mosh-pit ditties about soul-numbing laziness and dismissive hookers and whose crowning close-up moment was a mud-flinging free-for-all at Woodstock '94.The notion of a Green Day rock opera smacked of unearned pretentiousness and utter desperation from a band that hadn't released an album since 2000's commercially anemic but underrated "Warning." It also reeked of encroaching adulthood from these boys-to-men who suddenly seemed determined to leave childish things -- and what remained of their fans -- behind.
Yet Green Day has always been more than its signature three-chord barrage, and its members -- lead singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool -- have often invested unexpected intelligence, even poetry, into their tales of slacker ennui.
Like the reflective acoustic ballad "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" in 1997, "American Idiot" still manages to be defiantly punk by following no regimen or conventions other than the band's own ethos. Through 13 songs, including two nine-minute mini-operas, "Jesus of Suburbia" and "Homecoming," it's the sprawling story of an America staggering from terrorism and war and plagued by paranoia and disillusionment. Its main characters, Jesus of Suburbia and St. Jimmy, representing the punch-drunk masses, are raised on "a steady diet of soda pop and Ritalin," as well as lies and hypocrisy.
Since its release last week, "American Idiot" has often been compared to the Who's landmark 1969 rock-opera, "Tommy," and while such assessments are a little too facile, there are parallels to be found between Green Day's Armstrong and Pete Townshend, the Who's legendary guitarist and primary songwriter.
Why this May Be the Most Important Election Since 1860 (Martin Halpern, 9/27/04, History News Network)
[T]his is the most significant election since that of 1860. Then, as now, the very survival of a republican form of government is at stake.We have to look back to James Buchanan, the fifteenth president of the United States, to find a president as reactionary as the current occupant of the White House. Serving on the eve of the greatest crisis in the country’s history, the Civil War, Buchanan sought to stop the noisy debate about slavery by making limits on the slaveholders’ power politically and constitutionally impossible. Bush, arriving in the White House at a time of growing criticism at home and abroad of corporate-dominated globalization, has attempted to tilt the government so far in the direction of the U.S. corporate elite that it will be unassailable in the future.
Buchanan, of course, was a Democrat, but, as students in U.S. history survey classes learn, the Republican party of our day has many similarities to the Democratic party of the pre-Civil War era. The Democratic party then fashioned itself as the “white man’s party” and chastised its opponents for appealing to blacks. The Republican party in recent years has opposed affirmative action and catered to white male racism and sexism. The pre-Civil War Democrats emphasized the ideal of limited government but did not shy away from restricting the civil liberties of those who opposed slavery. Bush’s Republicans likewise employ the rhetoric of limiting the size and intrusiveness of government while increasing spending on the military and simultaneously eroding basic civil liberties of those it deems suspect.
Both Bush and Buchanan rode into office with the electoral votes of all the Southern states. Newspaper readers today know how fond Bush is of his ranch; Buchanan was equally fond of his Pennsylvania estate known as Wheatland.
Each president is closely associated with one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in U.S. history.
How to Debate George Bush (AL GORE, 9/29/04, NY Times)
In the coming debates, Senator Kerry has an opportunity to show voters that today American troops and American taxpayers are shouldering a huge burden with no end in sight because Mr. Bush took us to war on false premises and with no plan to win the peace. Mr. Kerry has an opportunity to demonstrate the connection between job losses and Mr. Bush's colossal tax break for the wealthy. And he can remind voters that Mr. Bush has broken his pledge to expand access to health care.Senator Kerry can also use these debates to speak directly to voters and lay out a hopeful vision for our future. If voters walk away from the debates with a better understanding of where our country is, how we got here and where each candidate will lead us if elected, then America will be the better for it. The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver.''
The debates aren't a time for rhetorical tricks. It's a time for an honest contest of ideas. Mr. Bush's unwillingness to admit any mistakes may score him style points. But it makes hiring him for four more years too dangerous a risk. Stubbornness is not strength; and Mr. Kerry must show voters that there is a distinction between the two.
A Fast Finisher's Reputation Now Faces the Ultimate Test (TODD S. PURDUM, 9/29/04, NY Times)
In 1996, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts was struggling to keep his job in the face of a stiff challenge by his state's popular, aw-shucks Republican governor, William F. Weld, when midway through a series of televised debates, he began a confession that suddenly became a boast."I'm very well aware that when God made me, one of the debits he gave was sort of an overlevel of intensity, maybe an overlevel of earnestness," Mr. Kerry said that August in the fourth of eight debates. "I don't sort of wear every part of me on my sleeve as easily as some people do, and I know that. On the other hand, what I do know about myself is that when you have a fight, I'm a good person to be in a foxhole with, and I know that we're in a fight right now."
Eight years later, Mr. Kerry is in the fight of his political life, against President Bush, and he and his supporters are counting on the reputation he cemented in that 1996 campaign and again in the Democratic primaries this year as a candidate who runs best from behind, a political Seabiscuit who pulls ahead after from his anxiety-producing slow starts.
Cat Stevens was guest of Canadian Hamas front (Stewart Bell, September 28, 2004, National Post)
Yusuf Islam, the British singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, was the guest of honour at a Toronto fundraising dinner hosted by an organization that has since been identified by the Canadian government as a "front" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.In a videotape of the 1998 event obtained by the National Post, Mr. Islam describes Israel as a "so-called new society" created by a "so-called religion" and urges the audience to donate to the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services to "lessen the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Palestine and the Holy Land."
A different noise: US liberals have fought back against rightwing domination of the media since their 'goring' in 2000 (Markos Moulitsas, September 28, 2004, The Guardian)
It was the year 2000, and Democrats were running on a record of peace and prosperity stewarded by the capable, if morally imperfect, Bill Clinton. It was a race that should have been won by their candidate, Al Gore. In fact, it was won by Al Gore, but the Rightwing Noise Machine kept it close enough to be stolen by the Republicans and their allies at the supreme court.What is the Rightwing Noise Machine? Conservatives in the United States have spent the last 30 years building a vast infrastructure designed to create ideas, distribute them, and sell them to the American public. It spans multiple think tanks and a well-oiled message machine that has a stranglehold on American discourse. From the Weekly Standard, Rush Limbaugh, Wall Street Journal, Drudge Report and Murdoch's Fox News, to (more recently) the mindless drones in the rightwing blogosphere, the right enjoys the ability to control entire news cycles, holding them hostage for entire elections.
An amendment to stop moral decay (Star Parker, September 28, 2004, Townhall)
Several weeks ago, black pastors from around the nation, under the sponsorship of my organization, CURE, gathered for a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to express support for President Bush's proposal for a constitutional marriage amendment. The amendment would define marriage as between a man and a woman.The date and place for the event were selected to mark the 41st anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. The congregations of the pastors who participated in this event have a combined total of well over 40,000 members.
The gay marriage issue has struck a nerve in the black community and may well mark the beginning of a sea change in black voting behavior. Pastors who have voted Democratic all their lives have told me and others that this issue has lead them out of the Democratic Party.
A CBS/NY Times poll on the marriage amendment done last March shows blacks more aligned with Republicans than with Democrats. The poll showed 59 percent overall in favor of the marriage amendment. However, 77 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of Democrats, and 67 percent of African Americans were in favor.
These pastors are worked up over this issue because it touches fundamentally the core concerns they have for their communities. They know that the bedrock on which human lives and communities are constructed is made of spiritual and moral fiber. And they know that the profound social problems in their communities stem from the shattered state of that bedrock.
One commercial claims Democrats support "abortion laws that are decimating our people," while another argues that Democrats "preach tolerance but practice discrimination."Operating largely under the radar, Americas PAC, a little-known conservative group based in Overland Park, Kan., has been airing ads excoriating Democrats on black radio stations in five states this month. The spots have drawn the ire of Democrats who claim the commercials are designed to keep a crucial voting bloc for the party at home on Nov. 2.
Americas PAC says its ads -- on issues from taxes to school choice to the economy -- are designed to encourage blacks to go to the polls in support of President Bush and Republicans. The group denies that it's attempting to suppress the black vote to help Bush, as Democrats contend.
"That claim is attached to anything Republicans do in an attempt to mobilize blacks for Republicans," Richard Nadler, the head of the group, said Tuesday. "It's not true."
Putin's Chechnya options narrow: On the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Chechnya, some say there are few alternatives to negotiations. (Scott Peterson, 9/29/04, CS Monitor)
Some argue that unofficial, secret meetings held in Europe in 2001 and 2002 created a foundation for peace that can be built upon today. Others say that the changing face of the conflict - one of deepening violence , corruption of federal forces enriching themselves through war, and the widening grip of Islamists - make a peace deal impossible."Ultimately it will require a decision at the top," says Frederick Starr, head of the Central Asia- Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University, who helped mediate those secret meetings in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. "The [Liechtenstein] provisions do not imply a loss of face for anybody. [President Vladimir] Putin could have come out looking like a peacemaker. He still could, tomorrow."
Mr. Putin has vowed not to negotiate with "child-killers" and earlier this month compared demands from Washington to engage Chechen leaders to inviting Osama bin Laden to the White House.
Putin has also lumped together moderate Chechen leaders and warlords, putting a $10 million bounty on both Aslan Maskhadov, Chechnya's president elected in 1997 and militant Shamil Basayev, who claimed the Beslan attack.
The bounty is "absolutely counter-productive, as if [Putin] is systematically closing exit routes for himself, so that he has no one to deal with, except the head of the [Moscow-backed] puppet government," says Mr. Starr.
Mr. Maskhadov - who has often calls for talks - sought distance from Mr. Basayev Friday, vowing to punish the Chechen warlord in court. Russian officials allege the two worked in "close cooperation" over Beslan.
"All these [peace] discussions, blah, blah, blah, led to nothing," says Alexei Malashenko, a Caucasus expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center. "If there is a chance now, Putin should accept that Maskhadov is more moderate and the only guy to talk to. But they have completely gotten rid of this idea."
Are the Terrorists Failing? (David Ignatius, September 28, 2004, Washington Post)
Rather than waging a successful jihad against the West, the followers of Osama bin Laden have created chaos and destruction in the house of Islam. This internal crisis is known in Arabic as fitna: "It has an opposite and negative connotation from jihad," explains [distinguished French Arabist named Gilles] Kepel. "It signifies sedition, war in the heart of Islam, a centrifugal force that threatens the faithful with community fragmentation, disintegration and ruin." [...]Rather than bringing Islamic regimes to power, the holy warriors are creating internal strife and discord. Their actions are killing far more Muslims than nonbelievers.
"The principal goal of terrorism -- to seize power in Muslim countries through mobilization of populations galvanized by jihad's sheer audacity -- has not been realized," Kepel writes. In fact, bin Laden's followers are losing ground: The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been toppled; the fence-sitting semi-Islamist regime in Saudi Arabia has taken sides more strongly with the West; Islamists in Sudan and Libya are in retreat; and the plight of the Palestinians has never been more dire. And Baghdad, the traditional seat of the Muslim caliphs, is under foreign occupation. Not what you would call a successful jihad.
Kepel argues that the insurgents' brutal tactics in Iraq -- the kidnappings and beheadings, and the car-bombing massacres of young Iraqi police recruits -- are increasingly alienating the Muslim masses. No sensible Muslim would want to live in Fallujah, which is now controlled by Taliban-style fanatics. Similarly, the Muslim masses can see that most of the dead from post-Sept. 11 al Qaeda bombings in Turkey and Morocco were fellow Muslims.
A perfect example of how the jihadists' efforts have backfired, argues Kepel, was last month's kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq. The kidnappers announced that they would release their hostages only if the French government reversed its new policy banning Muslim women from wearing headscarves in French public schools. "They imagined that they would mobilize Muslims with this demand, but French Muslims were aghast and denounced the kidnappers," Kepel explained to a Washington audience. He noted that French Muslims took to the streets to protest against the kidnappers and to proclaim their French citizenship.
Morocco: a king committed to political reform and a free trade arrangement with the U.S.--which follows the one with Jordan and precedes the one with Bahrain and negotiations with 8 other Muslim states.Tunisia: pro-American and largely untroubled by fundamentalism
Algeria: indigenous Islamicists on their last legs
Egypt: even Hosni Mubarak is encouraging open talk of the reforms that will follow him, while at the same time helping Israel crush terror groups.
Djibouti: is an American anti-terror base
Somalia: actually becoming governable and aiding with peacekeeping in Africa.
Lebanon: the U.S. is forcing Syria out and siding with the Shi'a, as Hezbollah evolves into a normal political party.
Palestine: as the U.S. and Israel force statehood upon and unwilling PLO, the Third Intifada is an intrafada, with Palestinians fighting their own corrupt leaders for the future of the country.
Syria: Baby Assad can't appease the U. S. fast enough in his desperate attempt to avoid being the next Saddam.
Turkey: though it is a tragic mistake, the Turks are making major alterations to their legal system in order to join the EU.
Yemen and Eritrea: have both been very cooperative in the war on terror
Qatar: reformist emir and used as the American base for the Iraq war.
Kuwait: the Kuwaitis are firm allies and reform apace
Iran: already facing an existential challenge from its many pro-Western young people and from the empowerment of orthodox Shi'ism in Iraq its pursuit of nuclear weapons threatens to isolate the regime even from its European friends and has made regime change U.S. policy
Pakistan: General Musharraf is not only establishing the infrastructure for a return to democracy and waging an aggressive war on al Qaeda but is reaching a rapproachment with India aimed at defusing Kashmir.
Chechnya: extremist acts like Beslan have not only delegitamized one of Islam's best cases of grievance against a Western nation but have repulsed Muslims across the world
Malaysia: Secularists trounced Islamists in recent voting.
Indonesia: is just a run of the mill democracy
Bangladesh: ditto.
MORE:
(via Tom Corcoran):
A Time for Choosing: Muslims face a moral challenge. (John F. Cullinan, 9/28/04, National Review)
The latest Islamist terror outrage — the September 3 mass murder of at least 350 students, teachers, and parents in a Russian primary school — prompted this remarkable acknowledgment of an undeniable reality: "It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims."These are the words of a prominent Saudi journalist and observant Muslim, Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of al Arabiya, the Dubai-based Arabic satellite news network that is al Jazeera's chief competitor. His bitter reflections — which deserve to be read in their entirety — are a rare and welcome departure from the Muslim world's usual pattern of post-atrocity responses: silence, denial, equivocation, or lies.
"The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim," he writes. "What a pathetic record. What an abominable 'achievement.' Does this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies, and our culture?"
"We cannot clear our names," Rashed admonishes fellow Muslims, "unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women." Rashed rightly places the unspeakable atrocity in Beslan squarely within the larger pattern of similar outrages perpetrated in the name of militant political Islam since 9/11. For it is the exact same ideology of jihad at work in the most recent mass murders in Indonesia, Israel, Iraq, and elsewhere that animated the Beslan child killers — who shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is most great) under the banner of the Islambouli Brigades (named for Anwar Sadat's assassin, not for some local Chechen martyr or grievance). [...]
Who exactly is responsible for this totalitarian ideology? Rashed rightly singles out clerical exponents of militant political Islam — the "Neo-Muslims." "Our terrorist sons," Rashed writes, are "the sour grapes of a deformed culture." Muslims as a whole, now reaping what their most prominent clerics have sown in the name of Islamism, must "confront the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to reinvent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death [e.g., as suicide bombers], while sending their own children to European and American schools and universities."
Let the confrontation over the "theology" of kidnapping and executing hostages begin.
Among Palestinians from all walks of life, there is a quiet but growing sentiment that their intifada, or uprising — which broke out four years ago today — has largely failed as an armed struggle, and lost its character as a popular resistance movement.Moreover, many Palestinians fear that what has been, in effect, their military defeat at the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has left them without leverage to extract political and territorial concessions that would help lay the groundwork for their hoped-for state.
The official Palestinian line is that the struggle continues. Veteran leader Yasser Arafat and old-line members of his Fatah faction insist that ordinary Palestinians are unbowed by the overwhelming degree of force that Israel has brought to bear in cities and towns all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which have been responsible for more than 100 suicide bombings over the past four years, also insist that they will continue to hit Israeli targets with all their strength.
But relentless Israeli strikes at the militant groups' leaders and field operatives, together with the partial construction of a security barrier meant to seal off the West Bank, are credited with reducing such attacks inside Israel by 80%.
For some time now, influential figures in Palestinian society — intellectuals, lawmakers, analysts, professionals and well-regarded local officials — have been asserting, almost matter-of-factly, that the violent confrontation with Israeli forces has reached a dead end and their people must look to the future.
"We have witnessed the destruction of Palestinian society — its civil institutions, its economy, its infrastructure," said Zuhair Manasra, the governor of Bethlehem. "The result has been a complete disaster for the Palestinians, at all levels. Now we must think how to rebuild."
Bush Probes Kerry's Weakest Issue -- Clarity (Andrew Ferguson, Sept. 28 , 2004, Bloomberg)
It's become plain what the election is really about, the issue that underlies all others: clarity. Which candidate knows how to explain to voters what it is he wants to do?This unexpected turn in what political hacks call the "issue landscape" is good news for Bush, bad news for Kerry. And it is certain to arise Thursday evening when the two rivals face each other in Florida for the first of three presidential debates.
Having lost his slim but solid summertime lead, Kerry now trails Bush in most polls. The latest CBS News poll contains one set of numbers that illustrates Kerry's clarity problem.
To the question, "Does George W. Bush say what he believes most of the time?" 55 percent said yes. Forty-two percent said he "says what people want to hear."
And Kerry? Only 30 percent said he says what he believes most of the time. A large majority -- 65 percent -- agreed he says only what people want to hear.
Sikh Group Finds Calling in Homeland Security (LESLIE WAYNE, 9/28/04, NY Times)
At the end of a dusty road, behind a barbed-wire fence, is the Sikh Dharma of New Mexico, a religious compound with a golden temple of worship, a collection of trailers used for business and a quiet group of people wandering the grounds wearing flowing white robes and turbans.In the New Age culture here, the Sikh Dharma community, founded in the early 1970's, provides a place where admirers of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader and yoga master, can live in harmony and follow their beliefs in vegetarianism, meditation and community service. Except for Yogi Bhajan, who was born in India and came to the United States in 1969, most members of the Sikh Dharma are American-born converts who moved here to pursue their way of life.
The compound is also home to Akal Security, wholly owned by the Sikh Dharma and one of the nation's fastest-growing security companies, benefiting from a surge in post-9/11 business. With 12,000 employees and over $1 billion in federal contracts, Akal specializes in protecting vital and sensitive government sites, from military installations to federal courts to airports and water supply systems.
Despite Akal's unusual lineage, Sikh Dharma members say they are following an ancient Sikh tradition of the warrior-saint - as well as showing deftness at the more modern skill of landing federal contracts. [...]
For all the group's unusual ways, government officials have few complaints about Akal. "Our people have done checks on them years ago and we have no issues with them," said John Kraus, a contracting officer for the Department of Justice. "Last I've checked, we've had freedom of religion."
One high-profile contract Akal recently garnered, beating 20 other companies, was for $250 million to provide security guards at five Army bases and three weapons depots. The Army has turned to the private sector to replace soldiers sent to Iraq.
Competition was based on ability, past performance and price, according to an Army official, who added that Akal's religious ties were not a factor, nor did Akal benefit as a religious group.
"We do not discriminate based on race, creed, religion or national origin," the official said. "It was never really a factor."
Because of that open approach, Akal has almost exclusively gone after government contracts.
"The federal government has created the fairest acquisition system in the world," Mr. Khalsa said. He added that with the company's low overhead - Mr. Khalsa, its top executive, earns a modest $90,000 - Akal is "very price-competitive" in the eyes of government agencies on tight budgets.
It’s About Abortion, Stupid: And other moral issues. Why John Kerry has trouble making the moral argument (Melinda Henneberger, Sept. 24, 2004, Newsweek)
The Democrats are likely to lose the Catholic vote in November—and John Kerry could well lose the election as a result. It’s about abortion, stupid. And “choice,” make no mistake, is killing the Democratic Party.A recent Zogby poll shows that in key battleground states including Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, Catholic voters are far more likely than the general public to vote for President George W. Bush over Kerry. In Minnesota, for instance, 60 percent of Catholics say they’ll go for Bush, versus 44 percent of all Minnesotans.
Zogby's Fritz Wenzel told the Catholic News Service he sees these numbers as a reflection of Catholic “concern about the legitimacy of the war in Iraq being overridden by ongoing discomfort with Kerry’s stand on abortion.”
It’s telling that the numbers only started to break that way in midsummer, after heavy news coverage of the debate over whether pro-choice Catholics (John Kerry, for instance. Oh, and John Kerry) were fit to receive communion.
Catholics overwhelmingly disagreed with the idea of turning anyone away from the communion rail. But the whole wafer watch, as one priest I know called it, did serve a purpose. The handful of bishops who raised the issue reminded voters that Kerry is “personally opposed” to abortion, whatever that means, but votes in favor of abortion rights. And that, of course, was the whole point.
Bush's latest tax cuts seal legacy: His annual 'relief' puts Bush in the pantheon of big tax cutters. (Gail Russell Chaddock, 9/29/04, CS Monitor)
As pure politics, the Bush tax cuts are a textbook study in how to muscle bills through Congress. "It's unprecedented, the amount of tax-cutting Bush has done: Four tax cuts, four years in a row," says Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute.A key to the Bush success: Close coordination with business and conservative groups and allies on the Hill. In addition to controlling both the House and Senate, the Bush team and conservative activists rallied the business community around annual tax cuts, even in years when business tax breaks were not included. Some business groups opposed the 1981 Reagan tax cuts, because cuts for them were not included. It's a pattern that conservatives scrambled to avoid in the Bush years.
"The goal in the first year was pro-family tax cuts and rate reduction. Business said, 'There's nothing in it for us.' We said, 'Wait until next year... Don't ever think you have to push someone off the train to make place for yourself, because there is another coming down the track," says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. He organized a business working group, including major trade associations, to lobby for the Bush tax cuts.
If Republicans pick up two Senate seats, "We will be able to make the death tax cut permanent," he adds, referring to the elimination of estate taxes. Other conservative goals in a second Bush term include reducing the capital gains tax, ending "double taxation" of dividend income, and moving toward a flat tax. Another big priority in the second term: cutting government spending. "It's a huge issue for us."
A Personal Message from George Soros: Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush (Prepared text of speech delivered at the National Press Club, Washington, DC, September 28, 2004)
I grew up in Hungary, lived through fascism and the Holocaust, and then had a foretaste of communism. I learned at an early age how important it is what kind of government prevails. I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society. [...]The war in Iraq was misconceived from start to finish -- if it has a finish. It is a war of choice, not necessity, in spite of what President Bush says. The arms inspections and sanctions were working. In response to American pressure, the United Nations had finally agreed on a strong stand. As long as the inspectors were on the ground, Saddam Hussein could not possibly pose a threat to our security. We could have declared victory but President Bush insisted on going to war.
We went to war on false pretences. The real reasons for going into Iraq have not been revealed to this day. The weapons of mass destruction could not be found, and the connection with al Qaeda could not be established. President Bush then claimed that we went to war to liberate the people of Iraq. All my experience in fostering democracy and open society has taught me that democracy cannot be imposed by military means. And, Iraq would be the last place I would chose for an experiment in introducing democracy - as the current chaos demonstrates.
Of course, Saddam was a tyrant, and of course Iraqis - and the rest of the world - can rejoice to be rid of him.
Teresa Heinz: Why John Kerry needs some of his wife's sauce. (Julia Turner, Dec. 11, 2003, Slate)
From the outset, Kerry's advisers kept a wary eye on Teresa Heinz. As the widow of Pennsylvania senator and ketchup heir John Heinz, who died in 1991 when his plane collided with a helicopter, she inherited around $500 million and responsibility for the billion-dollar Heinz family endowment. As she waded into state politics, she demonstrated a knack for the salty comments that make for riveting copy: She denounced Rick Santorum as "Forrest Gump with an attitude" when the conservative Republican ran for her more moderate first husband's seat. When she married Kerry in 1995, her association with the two ambitious senators—and speculation that the fortune of the first might bankroll the presidential ambitions of the second—made her even more intriguing than your average workaday heiress.Journalists began sizing up Heinz when Kerry was still just "considering" a presidential run. In June 2002, the Washington Post's Mark Leibovich interviewed Heinz and Kerry and delivered a dishy take on their relationship, insinuating that Heinz was still very much in love with her first husband and prone to walking all over the second. Leibovich noted that Heinz still referred to John Heinz as "my husband" and that his photo hung alongside Kerry's in the hall. In conversation with Kerry, though, Heinz "snaps," "raises her voice," works up "a full head of rage," and "mimics Kerry having a Vietnam nightmare," just moments after he denies having any.
The Insurgency Buster (DAVID BROOKS, 9/28/04, NY Times)
Conditions were horrible when Salvadorans went to the polls on March 28, 1982. The country was in the midst of a civil war that would take 75,000 lives. An insurgent army controlled about a third of the nation's territory. Just before election day, the insurgents stepped up their terror campaign. They attacked the National Palace, staged highway assaults that cut the nation in two and blew up schools that were to be polling places.Yet voters came out in the hundreds of thousands. In some towns, they had to duck beneath sniper fire to get to the polls. In San Salvador, a bomb went off near a line of people waiting outside a polling station. The people scattered, then the line reformed. "This nation may be falling apart," one voter told The Christian Science Monitor, "but by voting we may help to hold it together."
Conditions were scarcely better in 1984, when Salvadorans got to vote again. Nearly a fifth of the municipalities were not able to participate in the elections because they were under guerrilla control. The insurgents mined the roads to cut off bus service to 40 percent of the country. Twenty bombs were planted around the town of San Miguel. Once again, people voted with the sound of howitzers in the background.
Yet these elections proved how resilient democracy is, how even in the most chaotic circumstances, meaningful elections can be held.
They produced a National Assembly, and a president, José Napoleón Duarte. They gave the decent majority a chance to display their own courage and dignity. War, tyranny and occupation sap dignity, but voting restores it.
The elections achieved something else: They undermined the insurgency. El Salvador wasn't transformed overnight. But with each succeeding election into the early 90's, the rebels on the left and the death squads on the right grew weaker, and finally peace was achieved, and the entire hemisphere felt the effects. [...]
As we saw in El Salvador and as Iraqi insurgents understand, elections suck the oxygen from a rebel army. They refute the claim that violence is the best way to change things. Moreover, they produce democratic leaders who are much better equipped to win an insurgency war.
Edwards to rally Jersey (MICHAEL SAUL, 9/28/04, NY DAILY NEWS)
Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards will campaign for the first time today in New Jersey, a clear sign that the campaign is worried about losing the historically Democratic state to President Bush."New Jersey is a critical battleground state. At this point, it's pretty close," conceded Juanita Scarlett, a spokeswoman for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. "We certainly want to shore up our support."
While just last month Kerry was leading Bush by as much as 10 points in New Jersey, a flurry of recent polls show the two are now statistically tied. The state has 15 electoral votes.
Flirting With Disaster (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, September, 27th, 2004)
What will it take to convince these people that this is not a year, or a time, to be dicking around? Americans are patrolling a front line in Afghanistan, where it would be impossible with 10 times the troop strength to protect all potential voters on Oct. 9 from Taliban/al-Qaida murder and sabotage. We are invited to believe that these hard-pressed soldiers of ours take time off to keep Osama Bin Laden in a secret cave, ready to uncork him when they get a call from Karl Rove? For shame.Ever since The New Yorker published a near-obituary piece for the Kerry campaign, in the form of an autopsy for the Robert Shrum style, there has been a salad of articles prematurely analyzing "what went wrong." This must be nasty for Democratic activists to read, and I say "nasty" because I hear the way they respond to it. A few pin a vague hope on the so-called "debates"--which are actually joint press conferences allowing no direct exchange between the candidates--but most are much more cynical. Some really bad news from Iraq, or perhaps Afghanistan, and/or a sudden collapse or crisis in the stock market, and Kerry might yet "turn things around." You have heard it, all right, and perhaps even said it. But you may not have appreciated how depraved are its implications. If you calculate that only a disaster of some kind can save your candidate, then you are in danger of harboring a subliminal need for bad news. And it will show. What else explains the amazingly crude and philistine remarks of that campaign genius Joe Lockhart, commenting on the visit of the new Iraqi prime minister and calling him a "puppet"? Here is the only regional leader who is even trying to hold an election, and he is greeted with an ungenerous sneer.
The unfortunately necessary corollary of this--that bad news for the American cause in wartime would be good for Kerry--is that good news would be bad for him. Thus, in Mrs. Kerry's brainless and witless offhand yet pregnant remark, we hear the sick thud of the other shoe dropping. How can the Democrats possibly have gotten themselves into a position where they even suspect that a victory for the Zarqawi or Bin Laden forces would in some way be welcome to them? Or that the capture or killing of Bin Laden would not be something to celebrate with a whole heart?
Once again, Mr. Hitchens makes an artful, impassioned case that will resonate with many Americans. Yet it is hard to believe this old savvy trotskyite who argued that Mother Theresa was a contemptible fraud and Henry Kissinger a war criminal is as scandalized as he makes out. From Lenin onwards, the recognition that war, depression and other disasters are to be wished for and welcomed as useful in promoting political ends is introductory political re-education stuff for the cadres. Is Mr. Hitchens shocked by the fact that some people would ever think this way or by the realization that marxist analytical tools have become so mainstream they now roll blithely off the tongues of even the horsey set?
SENATE ESTABLISHING A PROGRAM SUPPORT A TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ (Congressional Record, October 7, 1998)
Mr. McCAIN: I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of H.R. 4655, which is at the desk.The PRESIDING OFFICER: The clerk will report. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 4665) to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq.
The PRESIDING OFFICER: Is there objection to the immediate consideration of the bill, There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill. [...]
Mr. KERREY: Mr. President, I rise to urge the passage of HR. 4655, the Iraq Liberation Act. Thanks to strong leadership in both Houses of Congress and thanks to the commitment of the Administration toward the goals we all share--for Iraq and the region, this legislation is moving quickly. This is the point to state what this legislation is not, and what it is, from my understanding, and why I support it so strongly,
First, this bill is not, in my view, an instrument to direct U.S. funds and supplies to any particular Iraqi revolutionary movement. There are Iraqi movements now in existence which could qualify for designation in accordance with this bill. Other Iraqis not now associated with each other could also band together and qualify for designation. It is for Iraqis, not Americans to organize themselves to put Saddam Hussein out of power, just as it will be for Iraqis to choose their leaders in a democratic Iraq. This bill will help the Administration encourage and
support Iraqis to make their revolution.Second, this bill is not a device to involve the U.S. military in operations in or near Iraq. The Iraqi revolution is for Iraqis, not Americans, to make. The bill provides the Administration a portent new tool to help Iraqis toward this goal, and at the same time advance America's interest in a peaceful and secure Middle East.
This bill, when passed and signed into law, is a clear commitment to a U.S. policy replacing the Saddam Hussein regime and replacing it with a transition to democracy. This bill is a statement that America refuses to coexist with a regime which has used chemical weapons on its own citizens and on neighboring countries, which has invaded its neighbors twice without provocation, which has still not accounted for its atrocities committed in Kuwait, which has fired ballistic missiles into the cities of three of its neighbors, which is attempting to develop
nuclear and biological weapons, and which has brutalized and terrorized its own citizens for thirty years. I don't see how any democratic country could accept the existence of such a regime, but this bill says America will not. I will be an even prouder American when the refusal, and commitment to materially help the Iraqi resistance, are U.S. policy.
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.
Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (A movie by George Butler, theatrical release 10/1/04)
Synopsis:Every once in a while, I go cruise through Democratic Underground because, first, I'm just slightly sadistic and, second, I want to make sure that I'm not the one with blinders on. The other day, I noticed a thread with the heading "October Surprise", leading to a discussion of this movie. Apparently, John Kerry was a war hero in Vietnam and then came back home to courageously oppose the war. Once the American people learn that, well, Katie bar the door, it's a Kerry landslide.Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry is a feature length documentary about character and moral leadership during a time of national crisis. Loosely based on the best-selling book Tour of Duty by Douglas Brinkley, Going Upriver examines the story of John Kerry and the key events that made him a national figure and the man he is today. The film places particular emphasis on his bravery during the Vietnam War and his courageous opposition to the war upon his return.
The film traces Kerry’s early life as a young man who chooses to enlist in the Navy and to go to Vietnam. The film reveals intimate, first person accounts of Kerry’s war service through his own private letters, his eloquent journal, and the vivid memories of the men who served at his side. When Kerry came home disillusioned by the war, he and his fellow Vietnam Veterans challenged Congress and the Nixon administration. As Kerry became a nationally known anti-war activist, the Nixon White House plotted to discredit his leadership, but significantly could find “nothing on him,” as Colson reveals via Watergate tapes. Despite Nixon’s attempt to undermine John Kerry’s political career during his 1972 unsuccessful run for US Congress, Kerry persevered, eventually winning election to the Senate and receiving the Democratic nomination for president in 2004.
Obviously, the last thing the Kerry campaign (as opposed to the candidate) wants or needs right now is more time being spent on Vietnam. And yet its friends (Butler is apparently a good friend of Kerry's) and allies won't shut up about it. Mickey Kaus has pointed to this type of mixed message as one of the benefits of McCain-Feingold: Rather than being beholden to contributers who allow him to craft his own message, Kerry is more likely to be annoyed at uncoordinated attacks that step on his message. The problem is that, if Kaus is right, this ought to be symmetrical. Bush should be having the same problem. But the Bush campaign is self-evidently in control of its message and is simply not engaging with hostile or friendly 527s. The difference is that John Kerry doesn't have a message; he has only a muddle.
The real lesson of this campaign is that McCain-Feingold is irrelevant: voters see a consistent message coming from the well-run campaign and confusion from the campaign that has lost its way. If McCain-Feingold is irrelevant, why are we limiting political speech?
Losing Faith in the Intifada: As uprising enters fifth year, some Palestinians call it a political and economic disaster. (Laura King, September 28, 2004, LA Times)
When Abu Fahdi joined a Palestinian militant group and took up arms against Israel, he thought he was serving his people. Now he believes he did them only harm."We achieved nothing in all this time, and we lost so much," said the baby-faced 29-year-old, who, because of his status as a fugitive, insisted on being identified by a nickname meaning "father of Fahdi." "People hate us for that and wish we were dead."
The young militant, a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, is not alone in such thinking. Among Palestinians from all walks of life, there is a quiet but growing sentiment that their intifada, or uprising — which broke out four years ago today — has largely failed as an armed struggle, and lost its character as a popular resistance movement.
Moreover, many Palestinians fear that what has been, in effect, their military defeat at the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has left them without leverage to extract political and territorial concessions that would help lay the groundwork for their hoped-for state.
The official Palestinian line is that the struggle continues. Veteran leader Yasser Arafat and old-line members of his Fatah faction insist that ordinary Palestinians are unbowed by the overwhelming degree of force that Israel has brought to bear in cities and towns all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Palestinian militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which have been responsible for more than 100 suicide bombings over the past four years, also insist that they will continue to hit Israeli targets with all their strength.
But relentless Israeli strikes at the militant groups' leaders and field operatives, together with the partial construction of a security barrier meant to seal off the West Bank, are credited with reducing such attacks inside Israel by 80%.
For some time now, influential figures in Palestinian society — intellectuals, lawmakers, analysts, professionals and well-regarded local officials — have been asserting, almost matter-of-factly, that the violent confrontation with Israeli forces has reached a dead end and their people must look to the future.
"We have witnessed the destruction of Palestinian society — its civil institutions, its economy, its infrastructure," said Zuhair Manasra, the governor of Bethlehem. "The result has been a complete disaster for the Palestinians, at all levels. Now we must think how to rebuild."
For too long, the citizens of the Middle East have lived in the midst of death and fear. The hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage. The forces of extremism and terror are attempting to kill progress and peace by killing the innocent. And this casts a dark shadow over an entire region. For the sake of all humanity, things must change in the Middle East.It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself.
In the situation the Palestinian people will grow more and more miserable. My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.
I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.
And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.
In the work ahead, we all have responsibilities. The Palestinian people are gifted and capable, and I am confident they can achieve a new birth for their nation. A Palestinian state will never be created by terror -- it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism.
Today, the elected Palestinian legislature has no authority, and power is concentrated in the hands of an unaccountable few. A Palestinian state can only serve its citizens with a new constitution which separates the powers of government. The Palestinian parliament should have the full authority of a legislative body. Local officials and government ministers need authority of their own and the independence to govern effectively.
The United States, along with the European Union and Arab states, will work with Palestinian leaders to create a new constitutional framework, and a working democracy for the Palestinian people. And the United States, along with others in the international community will help the Palestinians organize and monitor fair, multi-party local elections by the end of the year, with national elections to follow.
Today, the Palestinian people live in economic stagnation, made worse by official corruption. A Palestinian state will require a vibrant economy, where honest enterprise is encouraged by honest government. The United States, the international donor community and the World Bank stand ready to work with Palestinians on a major project of economic reform and development. The United States, the EU, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund are willing to oversee reforms in Palestinian finances, encouraging transparency and independent auditing.
And the United States, along with our partners in the developed world, will increase our humanitarian assistance to relieve Palestinian suffering. Today, the Palestinian people lack effective courts of law and have no means to defend and vindicate their rights. A Palestinian state will require a system of reliable justice to punish those who prey on the innocent. The United States and members of the international community stand ready to work with Palestinian leaders to establish finance -- establish finance and monitor a truly independent judiciary.
Today, Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism. This is unacceptable. And the United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure. This will require an externally supervised effort to rebuild and reform the Palestinian security services. The security system must have clear lines of authority and accountability and a unified chain of command.
America is pursuing this reform along with key regional states. The world is prepared to help, yet ultimately these steps toward statehood depend on the Palestinian people and their leaders. If they energetically take the path of reform, the rewards can come quickly. If Palestinians embrace democracy, confront corruption and firmly reject terror, they can count on American support for the creation of a provisional state of Palestine.
With a dedicated effort, this state could rise rapidly, as it comes to terms with Israel, Egypt and Jordan on practical issues, such as security. The final borders, the capital and other aspects of this state's sovereignty will be negotiated between the parties, as part of a final settlement. Arab states have offered their help in this process, and their help is needed.
I've said in the past that nations are either with us or against us in the war on terror. To be counted on the side of peace, nations must act. Every leader actually committed to peace will end incitement to violence in official media, and publicly denounce homicide bombings. Every nation actually committed to peace will stop the flow of money, equipment and recruits to terrorist groups seeking the destruction of Israel -- including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. Every nation actually committed to peace must block the shipment of Iranian supplies to these groups, and oppose regimes that promote terror, like Iraq. And Syria must choose the right side in the war on terror by closing terrorist camps and expelling terrorist organizations.
Leaders who want to be included in the peace process must show by their deeds an undivided support for peace. And as we move toward a peaceful solution, Arab states will be expected to build closer ties of diplomacy and commerce with Israel, leading to full normalization of relations between Israel and the entire Arab world.
Israel also has a large stake in the success of a democratic Palestine. Permanent occupation threatens Israel's identity and democracy. A stable, peaceful Palestinian state is necessary to achieve the security that Israel longs for. So I challenge Israel to take concrete steps to support the emergence of a viable, credible Palestinian state.
As we make progress towards security, Israel forces need to withdraw fully to positions they held prior to September 28, 2000. And consistent with the recommendations of the Mitchell Committee, Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop.
The Palestinian economy must be allowed to develop. As violence subsides, freedom of movement should be restored, permitting innocent Palestinians to resume work and normal life. Palestinian legislators and officials, humanitarian and international workers, must be allowed to go about the business of building a better future. And Israel should release frozen Palestinian revenues into honest, accountable hands.
I've asked Secretary Powell to work intensively with Middle Eastern and international leaders to realize the vision of a Palestinian state, focusing them on a comprehensive plan to support Palestinian reform and institution-building.
Ultimately, Israelis and Palestinians must address the core issues that divide them if there is to be a real peace, resolving all claims and ending the conflict between them. This means that the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 will be ended through a settlement negotiated between the parties, based on U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, with Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognize borders.
We must also resolve questions concerning Jerusalem, the plight and future of Palestinian refugees, and a final peace between Israel and Lebanon, and Israel and a Syria that supports peace and fights terror.
All who are familiar with the history of the Middle East realize that there may be setbacks in this process. Trained and determined killers, as we have seen, want to stop it. Yet the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties with Israel remind us that with determined and responsible leadership progress can come quickly.
As new Palestinian institutions and new leaders emerge, demonstrating real performance on security and reform, I expect Israel to respond and work toward a final status agreement. With intensive effort by all, this agreement could be reached within three years from now. And I and my country will actively lead toward that goal.
I can understand the deep anger and anguish of the Israeli people. You've lived too long with fear and funerals, having to avoid markets and public transportation, and forced to put armed guards in kindergarten classrooms. The Palestinian Authority has rejected your offer at hand, and trafficked with terrorists. You have a right to a normal life; you have a right to security; and I deeply believe that you need a reformed, responsible Palestinian partner to achieve that security.
I can understand the deep anger and despair of the Palestinian people. For decades you've been treated as pawns in the Middle East conflict. Your interests have been held hostage to a comprehensive peace agreement that never seems to come, as your lives get worse year by year. You deserve democracy and the rule of law. You deserve an open society and a thriving economy. You deserve a life of hope for your children. An end to occupation and a peaceful democratic Palestinian state may seem distant, but America and our partners throughout the world stand ready to help, help you make them possible as soon as possible.
If liberty can blossom in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions of men and women around the globe who are equally weary of poverty and oppression, equally entitled to the benefits of democratic government.
I have a hope for the people of Muslim countries. Your commitments to morality, and learning, and tolerance led to great historical achievements. And those values are alive in the Islamic world today. You have a rich culture, and you share the aspirations of men and women in every culture. Prosperity and freedom and dignity are not just American hopes, or Western hopes. They are universal, human hopes. And even in the violence and turmoil of the Middle East, America believes those hopes have the power to transform lives and nations.
This moment is both an opportunity and a test for all parties in the Middle East: an opportunity to lay the foundations for future peace; a test to show who is serious about peace and who is not. The choice here is stark and simple. The Bible says, "I have set before you life and death; therefore, choose life." The time has arrived for everyone in this conflict to choose peace, and hope, and life.
House Odds (Charlie Cook, Sept. 28, 2004, National Journal)
In this polarized political environment, many insiders predict fewer ticket splitters, putting House incumbents who sit in the "wrong"
district in jeopardy. Think of Republicans in Connecticut or Democrats
in South Dakota.This summer, House Democrats saw Kerry's lead in polls as an opportunity
to link blue-state GOP incumbents with an unpopular president.
Democratic challengers wanted to make races referenda on Bush, while
Republican incumbents in marginal districts focused on local issues. [...]
So where does this leave House Democrats going into the final month
before the election?
At this point, Democrats have just seven seats in serious jeopardy: five
Texas incumbents -- Reps. Martin Frost, Charles Stenholm, Max Sandlin,
Nick Lampson, and Chet Edwards -- and open seats in northern Kentucky's
4th District and southern Louisiana's 7th District. Even if Democrats
lose only four of those races, they will need to find 17 GOP-held seats
just to get to a bare majority. Republicans start with a one-seat
pick-up in Texas because Democrats are not competing for a newly created
district. [...]Bottom line: The scenario today suggests that Republicans could gain or
lose as many as three seats. That would give Republicans a majority of
as many as 233 seats or as few as 227 seats.
Anti-Bush Voters Seek Reasons to Back Kerry (Vanessa Williams, September 28, 2004, Washington Post)
Denise Mulle said she started out the election season more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry. But she read newspapers and Kerry campaign literature that helped her understand the Democratic presidential nominee's positions on the issues."It's not good enough to say that Bush is so horrible that I'd vote for Bozo before I'd vote for Bush -- even though that's what first brought me to the Kerry campaign," she said.
Mulle, 52, who runs a nursing home consulting business with her husband, Ken, said she wanted to do her part to help the Massachusetts senator, who she agrees has struggled to get his message out.
Using a list of undecided voters supplied by the Kerry campaign, Mulle sent out 100 invitations and called 80 other wavering voters to attend a reception at her home in this tony suburb of St. Louis on Sunday. About a half-dozen showed up.
As the guests sipped wine, the discussion was more a Bush-bashing session than a Kerry pep rally. "You've told us why we should not vote for President Bush," one woman said, "now tell us why we should vote for Kerry." Campaign workers rushed to answer the question, but it symbolized one of the biggest hurdles John F. Kerry faces.
Brown widens Labour divide (JAMES KIRKUP AND FRASER NELSON, 9/28/04, The Scotsman)
TONY Blair was last night urged by his allies to crush Gordon Brown’s leadership ambitions and signal a new era where challenges to his authority will no longer be tolerated.The Prime Minister’s confidantes pressed him to use his conference speech today to make clear that the Treasury can no longer be an alternative political power base.
But 10 Downing Street was last night preparing to offer yet another peace deal to Mr Brown, with Mr Blair praising his accomplishments and focusing instead on explaining the Iraq conflict to delegates and the country.
In the first full day of the Labour Party conference in Brighton, Mr Brown delivered an impassioned and personal speech where he praised the "public sector ethos" and laid out a personal manifesto for the third term.
While it drew a standing ovation from delegates, it infuriated Mr Blair’s allies who said the Chancellor was sending an anti-privatisation message to his supporters and must be dealt with firmly today.
On 'Mind,' Joss Stone soulfully stretches out (Renee Graham, September 28, 2004, Boston Globe)
It would be natural to talk about how much Joss Stone's voice has matured since her 2003 debut, "The Soul Sessions," except that this teenager has always had the seasoned, lived-in pipes of a singer decades older.A 16-year-old blonde from rural England with a voice marinated in classic Stax soul might have seemed like a gimmick. And with "The Soul Sessions," primarily a collection of obscure R&B songs, such as Joe Simon's "The Chokin' Kind," some gently dismissed Stone as a vocalist with enough of an ear to mimic soulfulness, but without the emotional ability to plumb the rich truths within the songs.
Of course, such sniping completely missed a very vi- tal point -- regardless of age or upbringing, Stone has a smashing voice, resonant with passion, power, and sass. That's even more apparent with her new album, "Mind, Body & Soul," due in stores today. Freed from the dusty grooves of her debut's old soul records, Stone gets to show off more of her own, still-developing, musical personality, as well as display her deepening confidence and grace as a singer.Go to www.boston.com/ae/music to hear clips from "Mind, Body & Soul." Stone co-wrote most of this album's tracks, and reassembles many of her debut's R&B stalwarts, including her mentor, singer-songwriter Betty Wright, guitarist Willie "Little Beaver" Hale, organist Timmy Thomas, and pianist Benny Lattimore. On various tracks she also gets assistance from Nile Rodgers (guitar on "You Had Me,") and ?uestlove (drums on "Sleep Like a Child.") Stone is the sparkling centerpiece, and it's her voice that propels this album through its 14 tracks.
Iraq too unsafe for polls, says Abdullah (Dawn, September 28th, 2004)
Iraq is far too unsafe to hold elections as scheduled in January and extremists would do well in the poll if Baghdad tried to hold it, Jordan's King Abdullah said in an interview to be published on Tuesday.Excluding troubled areas from the nation wide poll would only isolate Iraq's Sunnis and create deeper divisions in the country, he told the Paris daily Le Figaro, according to a text distributed in advance.
The United States and Iraq's interim government insist the vote should go ahead as scheduled despite the worsening security situation. But The New York Times quoted US Secretary of State Colin Powell as saying: "We've got a tough road ahead of us."
"It seems impossible to me to organize indisputable elections in the chaos we see today," said the king, who was due to meet French President Jacques Chirac in Paris on Tuesday.
But then hereditary absolute monarchs tend to set the bar high for safe elections.
Reporters Put Under Scrutiny in C.I.A. Leak (ADAM LIPTAK, September 28, 2004, 9/28/04, NY Times)
Leak investigations are often halfhearted and one-sided enterprises. Suspected leakers are questioned, not always vigorously or under oath, and the source of the disclosure is seldom found. The journalists who could say for sure are almost never subpoenaed.The Plame case is different. This is largely because, unlike most leaks, the disclosure of an undercover intelligence agent's identity is a felony. The disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity, moreover, may have been motivated by politics. And the investigation inside the government, in which the president, the vice president and many other officials have been questioned, seems to have been both exhaustive and inconclusive.
The Act primarily reaches insiders with classified intelligence, those privy to the identity of covert agents. It addresses two kinds of insiders.First, there are those with direct access to the classified information about the "covert agents." who leak it. These insiders - including persons in the CIA - may serve up to ten years in jail for leaking this information.
Second, there are those who are authorized to have classified information and learn it, and then leak it. These insiders - including persons in, say, the White House or Defense Department - can be sentenced to up to five years in jail for such leaks.
The statute also has additional requirements before the leak of the identity of a "covert agent" is deemed criminal. But it appears they are all satisfied here.
First, the leak must be to a person "not authorized to receive classified information." Any journalist - including Novak and Time - plainly fits.
Second, the insider must know that the information being disclosed identifies a "covert agent." In this case, that's obvious, since Novak was told this fact.
Third, the insider must know that the U.S. government is "taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States." For persons with Top Secret security clearances, that's a no-brainer: They have been briefed, and have signed pledges of secrecy, and it is widely known by senior officials that the CIA goes to great effort to keep the names of its agents secret.
A final requirement relates to the "covert agent" herself. She must either be serving outside the United States, or have served outside the United States in the last five years. It seems very likely that Mrs. Wilson fulfills the latter condition - but the specific facts on this point have not yet been reported.
Sleep study touts therapy over pills (Scott Allen, September 28, 2004, Boston Globe)
A handful of therapy sessions does more to help chronic insomniacs get to sleep than the top-selling sleeping pill, according to a new Harvard Medical School study, suggesting that doctors are relying too heavily on medications to treat Americans' increasingly restless nights.A quarter of adults take sleeping pills at some point during the year, according to a National Sleep Foundation survey, reflecting the difficulty that more than half of Americans have sleeping at least a few nights a week. But the Harvard study found that among people who chronically struggle with insomnia, advice from a therapist is more likely to produce a normal night's rest than Ambien, the top-selling sleep aid, with sales of $1.5 billion for 2003.
"The first line of treatment should be cognitive behavior therapy, not drugs, and in 75 percent of patients, that is going to be more effective," said Gregg Jacobs of the Sleep Disorders Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, lead author of the study.
Jacobs said sleeping pills should be prescribed mainly for people whose insomnia is caused by an event or illness, such as jet lag from a long trip or the side effects of chemotherapy. Other insomniacs, he said, are staying awake in part because of bad sleep habits that a behavior therapist can best help to change.
Therapists' advice typically includes such basics as going to bed only when drowsy and getting up at the same time every day, even after a poor night's sleep. The objective is to get insomniacs to unlearn bad habits such as paying bills in bed, worrying instead of sleeping, and keeping themselves awake at night with coffee and strenuous exercise.
Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (October 31, 1998)
An ActTo establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Iraq Liberation Act of 1998'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, starting an 8 year war in which Iraq employed chemical weapons against Iranian troops and ballistic missiles against Iranian cities.
(2) In February 1988, Iraq forcibly relocated Kurdish civilians from their home villages in the Anfal campaign, killing an estimated 50,000 to 180,000 Kurds.
(3) On March 16, 1988, Iraq used chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurdish civilian opponents in the town of Halabja, killing an estimated 5,000 Kurds and causing numerous birth defects that affect the town today.
(4) On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and began a 7 month occupation of Kuwait, killing and committing numerous abuses against Kuwaiti civilians, and setting Kuwait's oil wells ablaze upon retreat.
(5) Hostilities in Operation Desert Storm ended on February 28, 1991, and Iraq subsequently accepted the ceasefire conditions specified in United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (April 3, 1991) requiring Iraq, among other things, to disclose fully and permit the dismantlement of its weapons of mass destruction programs and submit to long-term monitoring and verification of such dismantlement.
(6) In April 1993, Iraq orchestrated a failed plot to assassinate former President George Bush during his April 14-16, 1993, visit to Kuwait.
(7) In October 1994, Iraq moved 80,000 troops to areas near the border with Kuwait, posing an imminent threat of a renewed invasion of or attack against Kuwait.
(8) On August 31, 1996, Iraq suppressed many of its opponents by helping one Kurdish faction capture Irbil, the seat of the Kurdish regional government.
(9) Since March 1996, Iraq has systematically sought to deny weapons inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) access to key facilities and documents, has on several occasions endangered the safe operation of UNSCOM helicopters transporting UNSCOM personnel in Iraq, and has persisted in a pattern of deception and concealment regarding the history of its weapons of mass destruction programs.
(10) On August 5, 1998, Iraq ceased all cooperation with UNSCOM, and subsequently threatened to end long-term monitoring activities by the International Atomic Energy Agency and UNSCOM.
(11) On August 14, 1998, President Clinton signed Public Law 105-235, which declared that `the Government of Iraq is in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations.'.
(12) On May 1, 1998, President Clinton signed Public Law 105-174, which made $5,000,000 available for assistance to the Iraqi democratic opposition for such activities as organization, training, communication and dissemination of information, developing and implementing agreements among opposition groups, compiling information to support the indictment of Iraqi officials for war crimes, and for related purposes.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS REGARDING UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAQ.
It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.
SEC. 4. ASSISTANCE TO SUPPORT A TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ.
(a) AUTHORITY TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE- The President may provide to the Iraqi democratic opposition organizations designated in accordance with section 5 the following assistance:
(1) BROADCASTING ASSISTANCE
(A) Grant assistance to such organizations for radio and television broadcasting by such organizations to Iraq.
(B) There is authorized to be appropriated to the United States Information Agency $2,000,000 for fiscal year 1999 to carry out this paragraph.
(2) MILITARY ASSISTANCE
(A) The President is authorized to direct the drawdown of defense articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense, defense services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training for such organizations.
(B) The aggregate value (as defined in section 644(m) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961) of assistance provided under this paragraph may not exceed $97,000,000.
(b) HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE- The Congress urges the President to use existing authorities under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to provide humanitarian assistance to individuals living in areas of Iraq controlled by organizations designated in accordance with section 5, with emphasis on addressing the needs of individuals who have fled to such areas from areas under the control of the Saddam Hussein regime.
(c) RESTRICTION ON ASSISTANCE- No assistance under this section shall be provided to any group within an organization designated in accordance with section 5 which group is, at the time the assistance is to be provided, engaged in military cooperation with the Saddam Hussein regime.
(d) NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENT- The President shall notify the congressional committees specified in section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 at least 15 days in advance of each obligation of assistance under this section in accordance with the procedures applicable to reprogramming notifications under section 634A.
(e) REIMBURSEMENT RELATING TO MILITARY ASSISTANCE-
(1) IN GENERAL- Defense articles, defense services, and military education and training provided under subsection (a)(2) shall be made available without reimbursement to the Department of Defense except to the extent that funds are appropriated pursuant to paragraph (2).
(2) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS- There are authorized to be appropriated to the President for each of the fiscal years 1998 and 1999 such sums as may be necessary to reimburse the applicable appropriation, fund, or account for the value (as defined in section 644(m) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961) of defense articles, defense services, or military education and training provided under subsection (a)(2).
(f) AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS
(1) Amounts authorized to be appropriated under this section are authorized to remain available until expended.
(2) Amounts authorized to be appropriated under this section are in addition to amounts otherwise available for the purposes described in this section.
(g) AUTHORITY TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE- Activities under this section (including activities of the nature described in subsection (b)) may be undertaken notwithstanding any other provision of law.
SEC. 5. DESIGNATION OF IRAQI DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION ORGANIZATION.
(a) INITIAL DESIGNATION- Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall designate one or more Iraqi democratic opposition organizations that the President determines satisfy the criteria set forth in subsection (c) as eligible to receive assistance under section 4.
(b) DESIGNATION OF ADDITIONAL ORGANIZATIONS- At any time subsequent to the initial designation pursuant to subsection (a), the President may designate one or more additional Iraqi democratic opposition organizations that the President determines satisfy the criteria set forth in subsection (c) as eligible to receive assistance under section 4.
(c) CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION- In designating an organization pursuant to this section, the President shall consider only organizations that--
(1) include a broad spectrum of Iraqi individuals, groups, or both, opposed to the Saddam Hussein regime; and
(2) are committed to democratic values, to respect for human rights, to peaceful relations with Iraq's neighbors, to maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity, and to fostering cooperation among democratic opponents of the Saddam Hussein regime.
(d) NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENT- At least 15 days in advance of designating an Iraqi democratic opposition organization pursuant to this section, the President shall notify the congressional committees specified in section 634A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 of his proposed designation in accordance with the procedures applicable to reprogramming notifications under section 634A.
SEC. 6. WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL FOR IRAQ.
Consistent with section 301 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993 (Public Law 102-138), House Concurrent Resolution 137, 105th Congress (approved by the House of Representatives on November 13, 1997), and Senate Concurrent Resolution 78, 105th Congress (approved by the Senate on March 13, 1998), the Congress urges the President to call upon the United Nations to establish an international criminal tribunal for the purpose of indicting, prosecuting, and imprisoning Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials who are responsible for crimes against humanity, genocide, and other criminal violations of international law.
SEC. 7. ASSISTANCE FOR IRAQ UPON REPLACEMENT OF SADDAM HUSSEIN REGIME.
It is the sense of the Congress that once the Saddam Hussein regime is removed from power in Iraq, the United States should support Iraq's transition to democracy by providing immediate and substantial humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, by providing democracy transition assistance to Iraqi parties and movements with democratic goals, and by convening Iraq's foreign creditors to develop a multilateral response to Iraq's foreign debt incurred by Saddam Hussein's regime.
SEC. 8. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.
Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENTTHE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
October 31, 1998
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998." This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers.
Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are: The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.
The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.
My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.
In the meantime, while the United States continues to look to the Security Council's efforts to keep the current regime's behavior in check, we look forward to new leadership in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is providing support to opposition groups from all sectors of the Iraqi community that could lead to a popularly supported government.
On October 21, 1998, I signed into law the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, which made $8 million available for assistance to the Iraqi democratic opposition. This assistance is intended to help the democratic opposition unify, work together more effectively, and articulate the aspirations of the Iraqi people for a pluralistic, participa--tory political system that will include all of Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups. As required by the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for FY 1998 (Public Law 105-174), the Department of State submitted a report to the Congress on plans to establish a program to support the democratic opposition. My Administration, as required by that statute, has also begun to implement a program to compile information regarding allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by Iraq's current leaders as a step towards bringing to justice those directly responsible for such acts.
The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 provides additional, discretionary authorities under which my Administration can act to further the objectives I outlined above. There are, of course, other important elements of U.S. policy. These include the maintenance of U.N. Security Council support efforts to eliminate Iraq's weapons and missile programs and economic sanctions that continue to deny the regime the means to reconstitute those threats to international peace and security. United States support for the Iraqi opposition will be carried out consistent with those policy objectives as well. Similarly, U.S. support must be attuned to what the opposition can effectively make use of as it develops over time. With those observations, I sign H.R. 4655 into law.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
October 31, 1998.
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.
Homestate Crowd Walks Out on Edwards (NewsMax, 9/27/04)
Half the audience who showed up last week to see John Edwards' first South Carolina appearance since he won his home state's primary in February walked out before he arrived - two hours late.And in another sign of trouble in paradise, the state's Democratic Senate candidate - whose campaign the Edwards visit was supposed to boost - declined to be seen on the same stage with him.
Democrat U.S. Senate hopeful Inez Tenenbaum "has gone to great lengths to distance herself from the national party," reports the South Carolina newspaper, The State.
Edwards "is about as close as she’s going to allow herself to get to the national party," the paper added, noting, "Tenenbaum didn’t appear on the platform with him" at either the rally or a fund-raiser scheduled for later that day.
Aides said she would have skipped the event altogether if John Kerry had been the guest of honor.
He feels Democratic but votes Republican: I'm in a political battle for my own soul. (Brian Kantz, 9/28/04, CS Monitor)
Entirely appropriate since Democratic policies derive from feelings and Republican from thought.
If Howard Dean Were the Candidate ...: Flip-flops wouldn't be the issue; Iraq would. A look at what might have been (PETER BEINART, 9/27/04, TIME)
Political punditry is harder than it looks. That's what a lot of Democratic voters must be thinking right about now. Last winter Democratic-primary voters played political consultant. They tried to step inside the minds of swing voters and figure out which Democratic presidential candidate could beat George W. Bush. With an eye cast coldly on November, they rejected the man who had first won their hearts, Howard Dean, and flocked to the more "electable" choice, John Kerry. Among New Hampshire voters who said beating Bush was their biggest concern, Kerry beat Dean by a whopping 52 points.Democratic voters should stick to their day jobs. With just five weeks until Election Day, there's reason to believe they guessed wrong — that Dean would be doing better against Bush than Kerry is. Yes, it's too late for Democrats to switch horses, but imagining how Dean might have done sheds light on what's going on now.
Al Qaeda's Uzbek bodyguards: As Pakistan rounds up more Al Qaeda operatives in its cities, hundreds of Uzbek fighters remain in the tribal hills. (Owais Tohid, 9/28/04, CS Monitor)
Hundreds of Uzbek militants now form the bulwark of Al Qaeda's defenses in South Waziristan. The Central Asians are filling the ranks left by Arab fighters who left the region for the Middle East on the orders of Mr. bin Laden months ago, say tribal sources."The Arab militants hardly participate in the [South Waziristan] fight as they have handed over control of the battlefield to these Uzbeks. This saves their ranks from losses," says tribesman Mohammad Noor. "They are using the Uzbeks cleverly here. Many locals are now unhappy with the Uzbeks" for drawing attacks from Pakistani forces.
With Al Qaeda's leadership focused on broad planning, command of the day-to-day fighting in the tribal region has been delegated to Qari Tahir Yaldashev. Mr. Yaldashev, who is directly linked to Al Qaeda's leadership, was a founding member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). He was the deputy of IMU's founder, Juma Naghanmani, who was killed in Afghanistan by US bombings following Sept. 11, 2001.
After suffering casualties from US forces in the Shah-e Kot mountains of Afghanistan, Yaldashev and some 250 families of Central Asian militants fled to South Waziristan. They joined hordes of Al Qaeda militants of Arab and African origins who escaped the US and its allies at the battle of Tora Bora.
Most of these militants found South Waziristan a haven; local mujahideen and staunch Islamist tribesmen were both ideological counterparts and fellow veterans of the US-sponsored fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Thus emerged a new anti-US triangle made up of core Al Qaeda militants, Central Asian fighters from Uzbekistan and Chechnya, and local force of tribesmen.
In the past, "Al Qaeda never let militants from other regions enter the inner circle, which is purely of Arab origin. But Al Qaeda leadership is aware of the qualities of Uzbek militants and their women.... Both are known as staunch jihadis," says Peshawar-based analyst, Mohammad Riaz.
New Health Savings Accounts Only Favor Savers (John Wasik, 9/27/04, Bloomberg)
If you are relatively young, healthy and a disciplined saver, the new Health Savings Account is like a super-sized Individual Retirement Account.On the other hand, if you are a poor saver and have chronic health
problems, the new account may be an expensive shell game that mocks the
claim of the White House and lawmakers who say it's the bright future of
U.S. health care.Touted as an "ownership" solution to health care, the HSA shifts more
medical expenses to individuals in exchange for a tax-sheltered savings
or investment account.
Meanwhile, an added benefit of the accounts is that they may tend to make people better savers generally. Even people who are not good savers will presumably prefer to keep money for themselves than squandering it on needless medical procedures and treatments, no?
At any rate, you don't design universal systems for the exceptions, but for the rule.
Town at war over 'peace monument' (Bruce Hutchinson, National Post, September 27th, 2004)
Fox News producers learned of a local plan, hatched this month, to celebrate and memorialize thousands of U.S. draft dodgers and war objectors who ran to Canada during the war in Vietnam. Dozens are said to have settled here, in this bucolic, mountainside community 700 kilometres east of Vancouver.The Fox crew arrived last week, and its story was broadcast internationally.
Nelson's city hall was immediately flooded with angry phone calls, e-mails and letters, most of them from furious Americans vowing never to set foot here again.
The dodgy celebration is the brainchild of a small group with an excruciatingly long name, and an equally cumbersome acronym: the Reunion Committee to Reunite War Resisters and Those Who Assisted Them during the Vietnam War, or RCRWRTWATDVW.
Leading the group is Isaac Romano, a local child therapist who moved here from Seattle five years ago. He envisions a ''spectacular'' weekend of discussion, and the premiere of a feature- length documentary about American war objectors in Canada.
What really seemed to rankle Fox viewers, however, is RCRWRTWATDVW's plan to unveil a metal sculpture meant to honour male and female war objectors, and Canada's role in welcoming them from the U.S. The work will depict a trio of people holding hands.
''If you think a monument to yellow belly cowards is going to somehow give a sense of respectfulness to these shameful Americans, who turned their backs on their country, you are sadly mistaken,'' one angry American wrote in an e-mail to city hall. ''I for one will never visit your town and spend a thin dime ever again, if this thing is built.''
That was among the milder comments the city received.
Contrary to popular belief, the Canadian component of RCRWRTWATDVW was not motivated by anti-Americanism. They were on a purely humanitarian mission. Somebody had to teach those guys macrame fast or they would have starved.
No French or German turn on Iraq (Jo Johnson, Betrand Benoit and James Harding, Financial Times, 9/26/04)
French and German government officials say they will not significantly increase military assistance in Iraq even if John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, is elected on November 2.The French and the Germans are not willing to fight for American principles. Senator Kerry should understand that if anyone does.Mr Kerry, who has attacked President George W. Bush for failing to broaden the US-led alliance in Iraq, has pledged to improve relations with European allies and increase international military assistance in Iraq.
"I cannot imagine that there will be any change in our decision not to send troops, whoever becomes president," Gert Weisskirchen, member of parliament and foreign policy expert for Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party, said in an interview.
Free to Clone (BRIAN ALEXANDER, 9/26/04, NY Times Magazine)
This election year, the debate over cloning technology has become a circus -- and hardly anybody has noticed the gorilla hiding in the tent. Even while President Bush has endorsed throwing scientists in jail to stop ''reckless experiments'' (and has tried to muscle the U.N. into adopting a ban on all forms of cloning, even for research), it's just possible the First Amendment will protect researchers who want to perform cloning research.Dr. Leon Kass, the chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics and a cloning foe, would like to keep that a secret. ''I don't want to encourage such thinking,'' he said during the council's July 24, 2003, session. But the notion that the First Amendment creates a ''right to research'' has been around for a long time, and Kass knows it.
In 1977, four eminent legal scholars -- Thomas Emerson, Jerome Barron, Walter Berns and Harold P. Green -- were asked to testify before the House Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space. At the time, there was alarm in the country over recombinant DNA, or gene splicing. Some people feared clones, designer babies, a plague of superbacteria. The committee wanted to know if the federal government should, or could, restrict the science.
''Certainly the overwhelming tenor of the testimony was in favor of protecting it,'' Barron, who now teaches at George Washington University, recalls. ''I did say scientific research comes within the umbrella of the First Amendment, and I still feel that way.''
Berns, a conservative political scientist who is now at the American Enterprise Institute, was forced to agree. He didn't like this conclusion, because he feared the consequences of tinkering with nature, but even after consulting with Kass before his testimony, he told Congress that ''the First Amendment protected this kind of research.'' Today, he believes it protects cloning experiments as well.
Kerry appeals for end to election advertising war (afp, 9/27/04)
Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry appealed for an end to the TV advertising war that has marked his election battle against President George W. Bush.There's so much here my head is going to explode.Kerry said the avalanche of negative television spots and attacks being shown on US screens was scaring off voters.
"Americans need a real conversation over our future," Kerry said in a speech at a school in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
"What they don't need is all these trumped up advertisements, they just make people curl up and walk away," added the Massachusetts senator.
"I'm calling them 'misleadisments,'" Kerry said of the adverts. "It's all scare tactics ... because (Bush) has no record to run on."
The Democrats have complained bitterly about a new advertisement that shows Osama bin Laden, September 11 hijack leader Mohamed Atta, Saddam Hussein and the ruins of the World Trade Center, and questioned whether Kerry was up to dealing with them.
1. "Hey, George, it's John. You know those vicious attack ads that have devastated my campaign, while not touching you? Why don't we call them off?"
2. I'm sure that makes sense to Agence France-Presse.
3. This is the perfect campaign. They haven't missed a single item on the loser's checklist.
4. How far up inside the bubble are these guys stuck? No matter how much the Democrats assure each other otherwise, the American people just don't hate the President. Showing up is not enough to elect JFK II.
5. "Misleadisments"? That's just pathetic.
6. (From Kay) Saying that the President doesn't have a record to run on doesn't actually make it so.
EU constitution a threat to freedom: Czech president (TurkishPress, September 27th, 2004)
Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Monday dubbed the embryonic EU constitution a potential threat to freedom which would not resolve the problems facing the 25-nation bloc."It is a radical text with wide-ranging consequences for freedom and for the well-being and future of the nation state", Klaus said as he wrapped up the first day of a two-day visit to Spain.
The Czech leader, a dyed-in-the-wool Eurosceptic, told a conference on "European problems and their non-solutions" that the EU constitution as drawn up by former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing "does not resolve Europe's real problems."
He slammed the blueprint for dealing with what he called "narrow" issues, such as how many EU commissioners each member country should have or what voting weight each country should be afforded.
Casting doubt on the wisdom of foisting a single monetary policy on the union, Klaus told his hosts: "I am not sure that economic and monetary union can exist long term."
Klaus, who earlier lunched with King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia at the royal Pardo Palace, earlier told El Pais daily that despite EU efforts to unite the continent "a European identity does not exist."
Klaus told El Pais that Europe was merely a "geographical abstraction," and later warned that any idea borders could be done away with "could end up destroying Europe."
He insisted it was a fallacy to regard Europe as having ever had a "collective identity" and excoriated the idea that "big is beautiful."
He told El Pais that in his view "European countries should be good partners but their differences should not be sacrificed on the altar of a united Europe, something which has never existed and which, I hope, will never exist."
They must just love him in Paris and Berlin.
A national retail sales tax? GREAT IDEA!: Aim for goals of liberty (HERMAN CAIN, 09/24/04, Atlanta Journal Constitution)
The most popular of the various national retail sales tax plans is called the FairTax. It is in both houses of Congress today as HB 25 and SB 1493. It is a replacement, not an add-on, for the federal income tax and for federal payroll taxes collected to fund Social Security and Medicare.The FairTax provides a dollar-for-dollar replacement of all revenues now collected through such taxes and eliminates the need for annual and quarterly income tax filings, the surveillance by the federal government of wages and investment income and the need for anyone to hire an expert in order to comply with federal tax laws.
The FairTax is a progressive tax. The biggest-spending wealthy will pay an effective tax of $23 for every $77 they spend on new products and services. The poorest get money back. American families would receive a monthly refund equaling the amount of sales tax a poverty-level family would normally pay.
Alaska's votes belongs to Bush, but the Senate is up for grabs (Mike Bradner, 9/26/04, Alaska Journal of Commerce)
The big question for Alaskans in the November general election is our choice in the U.S. Senate race: Republican Lisa Murkowski vs. Democrat Tony Knowles. This race will be a close one despite our general political colors.The recent primary election results don't necessarily tell us much, not with closed primaries and their restricted ballots. As we went to the polls in August, Alaska voter rolls showed 115,104 registered Republicans and 69,182 Democrats. Compared with the 2002 primary election Democratic registration was down about 2,000, while Republicans were up about 1,000.
However, both party registrations are dwarfed by a huge pool of roughly 238,000 registered voters who declare themselves "no party or undeclared," plus another 35,000 voters who declare to be Libertarians, Greens, Republican moderates, members of the Alaska Independence Party and so on. This is a sizable independent quantum of voters. In many respects, this is the "independent jury" of the public, those to which partisan candidates must appeal in the general election. However, only about 50 percent of those registered in political parties or otherwise are likely to vote in the November election.
We also have just finished a contentious primary election on the Republican side in the U.S. Senate race. While the survivor, Murkowski, marshaled 45,477 votes, her challenger, Mike Miller, garnered an impressive 29,176. There are some unhappy voters among Miller's group, and Miller himself has seemed a reluctant endorser of Murkowski.
Despite the imbalance in party registration, we have a horse race between incumbent Sen. Murkowski and former Gov. Tony Knowles. Murkowski is the Republican appointed to the U.S. Senate seat by her father, Gov. Frank Murkowski, who resigned the senate seat in 2002 to become governor. Knowles served two terms as governor and is a former mayor of Anchorage.
Hardly seems fair to Flipper
Disgraceful: The disgraceful behavior of John Kerry and his team is sufficient grounds for concern about his fitness to be president (William Kristol, 10/04/2004, Weekly Standard)
[K]erry and his advisers have behaved disgracefully this past week. That behavior is sufficient grounds for concern about his fitness to be president.[K]erry was asked about Kofi Annan's description of the war in Iraq as an "illegal" invasion. Kerry answered: "I don't know what the law, the legalities are that he's referring to. I don't know." So the U.S. government is accused of breaking international law, and Kerry chooses not to defend his country against the charge, or to label it ridiculous or offensive. He is agnostic.
Then Kerry continued: "Well, let me say this to all of you: That underscores what I am saying. If the leader of the United Nations is at odds with the legality, and we're not working at getting over that hurdle and bringing people to the table, as I said in my speech yesterday, it's imperative to be able to build international cooperation." It's our fault that the U.N. is doing almost nothing to help in Iraq. After all, according to Kerry, "Kofi Annan offered the help of the United Nations months ago. This president chose to go the other way."
Leave aside the rewriting of history going on here. The president of the United States had just appealed for help from the United Nations and its member states to ensure that elections go forward in Iraq. Kerry could have reinforced that appeal for help with his own, thereby making it a bipartisan request. He chose instead to give the U.N., France, Germany, and everyone else an excuse to do nothing over these next crucial five weeks, with voter registration scheduled to begin November 1. If other nations prefer not to help the United States, the Democratic presidential candidate has given them his blessing. [...]
Two days later, Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi spoke to a joint meeting of Congress. Sen. Kerry could not be troubled to attend, as a gesture of solidarity and respect. Instead, Kerry said in Ohio that Allawi was here simply to put the "best face on the policy." So much for an impressive speech by perhaps America's single most important ally in the war on terror, the courageous and internationally recognized leader of a nation struggling to achieve democracy against terrorist opposition.
But Kerry's rudeness paled beside the comment of his senior adviser, Joe Lockhart, to the Los Angeles Times: "The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips."
Is Kerry proud that his senior adviser's derisive comment about the leader of free Iraq will now be quoted by terrorists and by enemies of the United States, in Iraq and throughout the Middle East? Is the concept of a loyalty to American interests that transcends partisan politics now beyond the imagination of the Kerry campaign?
John Kerry has decided to pursue a scorched-earth strategy in this campaign. He is prepared to insult allies, hearten enemies, and denigrate efforts to succeed in Iraq. His behavior is deeply irresponsible--and not even in his own best interest.
There is some chance, after all, that John Kerry will be president in four months. If so, what kind of situation will he have created for himself?
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Flirting With Disaster: The vile spectacle of Democrats rooting for bad news in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Christopher Hitchens, Sept. 27, 2004, Slate)
Ever since The New Yorker published a near-obituary piece for the Kerry campaign, in the form of an autopsy for the Robert Shrum style, there has been a salad of articles prematurely analyzing "what went wrong." This must be nasty for Democratic activists to read, and I say "nasty" because I hear the way they respond to it. A few pin a vague hope on the so-called "debates"—which are actually joint press conferences allowing no direct exchange between the candidates—but most are much more cynical. Some really bad news from Iraq, or perhaps Afghanistan, and/or a sudden collapse or crisis in the stock market, and Kerry might yet "turn things around." You have heard it, all right, and perhaps even said it. But you may not have appreciated how depraved are its implications. If you calculate that only a disaster of some kind can save your candidate, then you are in danger of harboring a subliminal need for bad news. And it will show. What else explains the amazingly crude and philistine remarks of that campaign genius Joe Lockhart, commenting on the visit of the new Iraqi prime minister and calling him a "puppet"? Here is the only regional leader who is even trying to hold an election, and he is greeted with an ungenerous sneer.The unfortunately necessary corollary of this—that bad news for the American cause in wartime would be good for Kerry—is that good news would be bad for him. Thus, in Mrs. Kerry's brainless and witless offhand yet pregnant remark, we hear the sick thud of the other shoe dropping. How can the Democrats possibly have gotten themselves into a position where they even suspect that a victory for the Zarqawi or Bin Laden forces would in some way be welcome to them? Or that the capture or killing of Bin Laden would not be something to celebrate with a whole heart?
A Leak Probe Gone Awry: The year-old investigation into who named a covert C.I.A. agent has devolved, as we feared, into an attempt to compel journalists to reveal their sources. (NY Times, 9/27/04)
The focus of the leak inquiry has lately shifted from the Bush White House, where it properly belongs, to an attempt to compel journalists to testify and reveal their sources. In an ominous development for freedom of the press and government accountability that hits particularly close to home, a federal judge in Washington has ordered a reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller, to testify before a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the covert operative's identity and to describe any conversations she had with "a specified executive branch official."The subpoena was upheld even though neither Ms. Miller nor this newspaper had any involvement in the matter at hand - the public naming of an undercover agent. Making matters worse, the newly released decision by Judge Thomas Hogan takes the absolutist position that there is no protection whatsoever for journalists who are called to appear before grand juries.
This chilling rejection of both First Amendment principles and evolving common law notions of a privilege protecting a reporter's confidential sources cries out for rejection on appeal, as does the undue secrecy surrounding the special prosecutor's filings in the case.
Mr. Novak has refused to say whether he received a subpoena. But other journalists have acknowledged getting subpoenas and some have testified about their contacts with I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. They say they did so based on his consent, but consent granted by government employees under a threat of dismissal hardly seems voluntary. Once again, none of these journalists were involved in the central issue: the initial public identification of Mr. Wilson's wife.
If the communication of information was in and of itself a crime then it can not, or should not, be privileged.
However, such communication would not even be illegal if Ms Plame was not covered by the statute because not a covert operative operating outside the United States in the last five years--which seems entirely likely--or if the CIA was not concealing that she had been covert--her identity seems to have been open knowledge in Washington--or if the revealer would not have known she had been covert--again quite likely.
If it wasn't illegal to reveal that she worked at CIA then the probe should end. If it was then the reporters should reveal details of the crime they unwittingly participated in.
Hamas: Arab state may have helped Israel with assassination (Amos Harel, Yoav Stern, and Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondents, and news agencies, 9/27/04, Ha'aretz)
Hamas said on Monday an Arab country might have helped Israel assassinate one of its leaders in Damascus, an act it called "treason."
Senior Hamas official Iz a Din al-Sheikh Khalil was killed by a car bomb in the Syrian capital on Sunday."We were not convinced initially, this would be treason for an Arab security apparatus to be involved in this," Hamas Lebanon head Osama Hamdan said of a report in the Al-Hayat daily.
The Arabic daily said an Arab country had given the Israeli spy agency Mossad information about the movements and habits of Hamas leaders abroad. [...]
Syria's response to the assassination was one of weakness and confusion. The government's official news agency released a short statement from an interior ministry source saying Khalil "did not carry out any activities on Syrian soil," and that various authorities were investigating the incident.
"He is one of the Palestinian citizens who was expelled by the occupation authorities to Lebanon, and he was not allowed to return to the Palestinian territories," the statement said. No details as to how the operation was carried out or who is suspected to be behind it were given.
"Our response will be civilized and sensible," said Ahmed al-Haj Ali, an aide to Syria's information minister. "It needs to be made clear that Damascus is not open to these criminals. "
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Alleged Top al-Qaida Man in Lebanon Dies (AP, 9/27/04)
The alleged top al-Qaida operative in Lebanon, who was captured in a security operation that broke up a terrorist network, died of a heart attack Monday, hospital and security officials said.Ismail Mohammed al-Khatib was taken from his prison cell to the Bahanes Hospital, 18 miles outside Beirut, after suffering a heart attack, but doctors were unable to save his life, hospital officials said.
Lebanese security officials confirmed al-Khatib's death of a heart attack.
Al-Khatib was one of two top operatives of al-Qaida organization captured by Lebanese authorities Sept. 17 along with 10 other suspects. The other one was Ahmed Salim Mikati.
Pawlenty pushes plan to double ethanol in gasoline (Associated Press, September 27, 2004)
Gov. Tim Pawlenty proposed on Monday to double the portion of ethanol sold in every gallon of gasoline in the state, from 10 percent to 20 percent. [...]He said that increasing the use of renewable fuels was one way to lessen the country's dependence on foreign oil. [...]
Pawlenty also announced plans to reduce the use of gasoline in state government vehicles by 50 percent by 2015. That would be done by using more alternative fuels, adding hybrid vehicles to the state fleet, and other measures.
The plan would also encourage the sale of hybrid vehicles to the public by allowing those cars to drive in express lanes.
Is CIA at war with Bush? (ROBERT NOVAK, September 27, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
A few hours after George W. Bush dismissed a pessimistic CIA report on Iraq as ''just guessing,'' the analyst who identified himself as its author told a private dinner last week of secret, unheeded warnings years ago about going to war in Iraq. This exchange leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the president of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency are at war with each other.Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, sat down Tuesday night in a large West Coast city with a select group of private citizens. He was not talking off the cuff. Relying on a multi-paged, single-spaced memorandum, Pillar said he and his colleagues concluded early in the Bush administration that military intervention in Iraq would intensify anti-American hostility throughout Islam. This was not from a CIA retiree but an active senior official. (Pillar, no covert operative, is listed openly in the Federal Staff Directory.)
For President Bush to publicly write off a CIA paper as just guessing is without precedent. For the agency to go semi-public is not only unprecedented but shocking. George Tenet's retirement as director of Central Intelligence removed the buffer between president and agency. As the new DCI, Porter Goss inherits an extraordinarily sensitive situation.
Pillar's Tuesday night presentation was conducted under what used to be called the Lindley Rule (devised by Newsweek's Ernest K. Lindley): The identity of the speaker, to whom he spoke, and the fact that he spoke at all are secret, but the substance of what he said can be reported. This dinner, however, knocks the Lindley Rule on its head. The substance was less significant than the forbidden background details.
No Assault Rifle for Kerry, After All (JODI WILGOREN, 9/27/04, NY Times)
Senator John Kerry's campaign said yesterday that Mr. Kerry did not own a Chinese assault rifle, as he was quoted as saying in Outdoor Life magazine, but a single-bolt-action military rifle, blaming aides who filled out the magazine's questionnaire on his behalf for the error.
Report: Top Bin Laden deputy caught in Pakistan (THE JERUSALEM POST, Sep. 27, 2004)
Top Bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri has been caught in Pakistan, according to a report from the region quoted on Israel Radio Monday.Pakistani forces operating against al Qaida strongholds in the country report capturing the Egyptian national, who was formerly the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which operated in the past against the Egyptian regime.
Campaigns leave red state Arizona behind (The Associated Press, 9/27/2004)
The presidential campaign has left Arizona behind. Democratic Sen. John Kerry made four visits and spent nearly $4 million on television commercials in an attempt to make the state competitive. But polls this fall show President Bush with a comfortable lead, and Kerry has tabled plans for advertising in the first week of October.The Bush campaign responded by pulling down its commercials Friday. Kerry has not ruled out airing Arizona ads in late October, but advisers say privately it would take a significant shift in the race to put the state back in play.
Taking stock of GOP's revolution (John Aloysius Farrell, September 26, 2004, Denver Post)
With pomp and celebration, Republicans here are marking the 10th anniversary of the "Gingrich Revolution." [...]What hath Newt wrought? When citing their accomplishments, the Republicans can claim just credit for reforming America's welfare system.
GOP congressional leaders joined with moderate Democrats and put a welfare reform bill on Bill Clinton's desk that fulfilled his campaign pledge to "end welfare as we know it" and gave him no choice but to sign it.
The new law's work requirements kicked in during the dot-com boom - an opportune moment of low unemployment and high economic growth. All sorts of social indicators soon signaled success. The poverty rate dipped, as did the percentage of teenage mothers and the number of children living in poverty.
An underappreciated skill of governing is recognizing when a wink is as good as a shove. The Republicans can claim credit for nudging along some favorable trends that, for largely demographic and sociological reasons, have continued to improve on their watch.
Crime is down, including violent crime. The rate of home ownership is at a record high. The mean net worth of American families was $245,000 in 1995 and $395,000 in 2001.
The Bush tax cuts may have shifted more of the overall federal tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class, but the Republican-controlled Congress also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, raised the child tax credit and created a new 10 percent tax bracket that gives a break to the working poor.
Indeed, there are several positive trends in post-revolution America that don't fit the political stereotypes of Republicans as heartless, greedy polluters.
Hunger is down in America. Our air is cleaner. The death rate from AIDS fell from 16.3 per 100,000 in 1995 to 5.2 per 100,000 in 2000.
The immigrant dream is alive: The percentage of American children who speak another language at home has risen from 14.1 to 16.7.
And how's this for a sign of a strong social fabric? Under Republican rule, the number of interracial married couples has continued its climb - to 1.7 million in 2002. And African-Americans made significant gains in educational attainment and college degrees.
The GOP's economic record, it must be said, is middling. The party of business has presided over less-than-stellar growth, even with Republican Alan Greenspan chairing the Federal Reserve Board. Thanks mainly to the recession of 2001, the growth in gross domestic product since 1994 (an average of 5.16 percent) has not matched that of the preceding 10 years (6.9 percent) or the 10 years before that (10.2 percent).
Could Philip Roth's forthcoming novel tip the scales IN FAVOR of Bush?: Out next week, and right before what seems now to be a close presidential election, the book is sure to draw all sorts of contemporary comparisons and analogies. (Abe Novick, 9/27/04, Jewish World Review)
For many Jews going to the polls in November, they must wonder if the same long-standing enemies of Israel, are also the enemies of The United States due to its support of The Jewish State.It will be interesting to see the debate swirl over Roth's corrosive satire.
But what will be even more fascinating, is the novel will be appearing during a nastily contested presidential election. One with many Jewish voters torn between President Bush's War on Terror and his support for Israel, and their longstanding, traditional loyalty to leftwing ideals personified by The Democratic Party.
Bench mark: Election winner will have lasting impact (Greg Gordon, September 27, 2004, Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
With one or more Supreme Court justices inching toward retirement, the November election could reshape the court and dramatically affect laws covering everything from abortion to civil rights to environmental regulation, legal experts say.If President Bush wins, his appointments are expected to give conservatives a vise grip on the nation's highest courts for years to come. If Democrat John Kerry prevails, he is expected to swing the high court to the left of center.
"Clearly, the next president will be able to shape the course of justice in this country not just for four years, but for 40 years," said Nan Aron, president of the liberal-leaning Alliance for Justice.
If a Bush victory were followed by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, widely viewed as the court's pivotal swing vote, "then I think rights and protections that we Americans cherish will be gravely threatened, particularly in the areas of [abortion] choice, civil rights and gay rights," Aron said.
Glenn Lammi, chief counsel for legal studies at the conservative-leaning Washington Legal Foundation, agrees that the election's effects on the courts could be huge, but he doesn't expect drastic change. He said that the Republican-appointed majority on the current court has issued no "outrageous" opinions.
And it's unlikely that Bush would choose nominees seeking "radical change," Lammi said, because they would almost assuredly provoke a fierce confirmation battle with Senate Democrats.
Strong Charges Set New Tone Before Debate (ADAM NAGOURNEY and ROBIN TONER, 9/27/04, NY Times)
A senior Kerry adviser, Joe Lockhart, laid out what Democrats said would most likely be another major theme for Mr. Kerry leading up to the debate, as he accused Mr. Bush of "using the war on terror as a political tool and a political weapon" in seeking to silence dissent. [...]"There used to be a time when aiding and abetting the enemy was a treasonous offense," Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said in an interview. "Now it's become a routine political charge."
Bush Offends Sophisticates’ Pieties (John Zvesper, September 2004, Ashbrook.org)
Journalists the world over have written off President Bush’s speech at the United Nations this week as a performance addressed more to his domestic electoral needs than to an international audience. [...]What really offended the assembled delegates of the world’s governments and the watching journalists is that Bush presented this call for enhanced human dignity in the context of his call for widening the circle of liberty and democracy. As he said, "no other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women, or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace." Though Bush—as always when discussing this topic—made it clear that the development of liberal democracy takes time and cannot be imposed from without, his discussion was offensive for several reasons.
First of all, the most immediate opportunities for this widening are located in the Middle East, with Iraq naturally at the top of the list. This suggestion—in addition to offending the anti-Israeli thinking of many UN member states—provoked the ill will that many UN representatives still feel towards Bush’s defiance of the non-decisions of the UN with regard to Iraq in 2003. Because the war in Iraq continues, this ill will is now accompanied by not a little feeling that having made its bed, the United States (and its often forgotten coalition partners) must lie in it. The prim told-you-so pronounced after Bush’s speech by the Swiss president, Joseph Deiss, has been frequently quoted in the European press: "In hindsight, experience shows that actions taken without a mandate which has been clearly defined in a security council resolution are doomed to failure." (In fact, previous experience would seem to suggest that very often it is such mandates that precede failure. As for the present case, we shall see.)
Another reason that Bush’s words fell on stony ground is that no one’s call for more liberal democracy is likely to please the majority of governments in the UN, who are neither liberal nor democratic, and could hardly be expected to rally to the cause of human liberty. As Bush did not hesitate to note, it is not only terrorists but also "their allies" who "believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights, and every charter of liberty ever written, are lies, to be burned and destroyed and forgotten."
However, there was also (at best) a tepid response to Bush among the representatives of liberal democratic regimes, and this needs further explanation. What most offended these sophisticated UN delegates was Bush’s rejection of their postmodern pieties, their unwavering faith in the dogmas of pragmatism and moral and cultural relativism. Bush justified his call for the expansion of liberty by asserting that "the dignity of every human life" is "honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance." Many of these traditional liberal principles have become suspect in pragmatic, "progressive" circles. But especially grating to the postmodern mentality that dominates sophisticated minds in liberal democracies is Bush’s claim that "we know with certainty" that "the desire for freedom resides in every human heart," and that therefore the "bright line between justice and injustice—between right and wrong—is the same in every age, and every culture, and every nation." Recognition of such self-evident truths is completely inadmissible in the postmodern faith, in which the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
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Bush's UN speech, de-mythologized (Stephen Zunes, 9/27/04, Foreign Policy in Focus)
Commentators in the mainstream US media seem genuinely perplexed over the polite but notably unenthusiastic reception given to President George W Bush's September 21 address before the United Nations General Assembly. Why wasn't a speech that emphasized such high ideals as democracy, the rule of law, and the threat of terrorism better received?The answer may be found through a critical examination of the assumptions underlying the idealistic rhetoric of the US president's message. Below are a number of examples: [...]
"The dictator [Saddam Hussein] agreed in 1991, as a condition of a ceasefire, to fully comply with all Security Council resolutions - then ignored more than a decade of those resolutions. Finally, the Security Council promised serious consequences for his defiance. And the commitments we make must have meaning. When we say 'serious consequences', for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences. And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world."
First of all, the majority of member states that voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 - which warned of "serious consequences" for continued Iraqi non-compliance - explicitly stated that this was not an authorization for the use of force and that a subsequent resolution would be needed. The two times in its history that the UN Security Council has authorized the use of military force to enforce its resolution - in response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 and to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 - such authorization was quite explicit.
Second, if one were to accept Bush's interpretation of "serious consequences" as simply another term for a foreign invasion of a sovereign nation, it is downright Orwellian to claim that such "serious consequences" must be inflicted "for the sake of peace".
Finally, at the time the US launched its invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi government had allowed United Nations inspectors back in with unfettered access to wherever they wanted to go whenever they wanted to, and they were in the process of confirming the fact that Iraq had indeed dismantled, destroyed, or otherwise rendered inoperable its proscribed weapons, delivery systems, and WMD programs. Therefore, the US-led invasion did not "enforce the just demands of the world" since the demands were already being enforced without the use of military force.
What if America Just Pulled Out? (ROGER COHEN, 9/26/04, NY Times)
A decision to withdraw would focus the minds of Iraqis, and perhaps their neighbors, on the need to grapple seriously with establishing security and an inclusive political system. It would also remove a chief target of the insurgents - American infidels in uniform - and so presumably undermine their cause."A withdrawal plan says to the Iraqis: you want this to be your country, you must make the deals to keep it together," said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If we are there to fight, they won't do this. So a timetable should be established."
But the counterarguments are also powerful. Withdrawal in the absence of stability would amount to a devastating admission of failure and a blow to America's world leadership. The credibility of the United States, already compromised, would be devastated. More than 1,000 young lives would appear to have been blotted out for naught.
Iraq might descend into all-out civil war and split into three pieces, one Kurdish, one Shiite, one predominantly Sunni.
From Role Model to International Bully in Three Short Years: In September 2001, Europe wept for us. Now it won't even play baseball. (Frederic Morton, September 27, 2004, LA Times)
"How is your baseball team doing?" I asked my young bank teller friend in Vienna recently.A small pause. "Tomorrow is our final game."
"Finished for the season?"
"Well, not just for the season," he said, looking down to count again, rather unnecessarily, the dollar bills he had just counted. "Uh, it's in view of what's been happening. I mean, I guess we're over that phase. We're going back to soccer."
The New Deal Debunked (again) (Thomas J. DiLorenzo, September 27, 2004, Mises.org)
Macroeconomic model builders have finally realized what Henry Hazlitt and John T. Flynn (among others) knew in the 1930s: FDR's New Deal made the Great Depression longer and deeper. It is a myth that Franklin D. Roosevelt "got us out of the Depression" and "saved capitalism from itself," as generations of Americans have been taught by the state's educational
establishment.This realization on the part of macroeconomists comes in the form of an
article in the August 2004 Journal of Political Economy entitled "New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis" by UCLA economists Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian. This is a big deal, since the JPE is arguably the top academic economics journal in the world."Real gross domestic product per adult, which was 39 percent below trend at
the trough of the Depression in 1933, remained 27 percent below trend in
1939," the authors write. And "Similarly, private hours worked were 27
percent below trend in 1933 and remained 21 percent below trend in 1939."This should be no surprise to anyone who has studied the reality of the
Great Depression, for U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that the official
unemployment rate was still 17.2 percent in 1939 despite seven years of
"economic salvation" at the hands of the Roosevelt administration (the
normal, pre-Depression unemployment rate was about 3 percent). Per capita
GDP was lower in 1939 than in 1929 ($847 vs. $857), as were personal
consumption expenditures ($67.6 billion vs. $78.9 billion), according to
Census Bureau data. Net private investment was minus $3.1 billion from
1930-40.Cole and Ohanian write as though they were surprised--even shocked--to
discover these facts, not so much because they were bamboozled by The Myth
of the New Deal, but because of their devotion to "neoclassical model
building" as opposed to the study of economic reality. They label as
"striking" the fact that the recovery from the Great Depression was "very
weak" (a dramatic understatement). And why is it so striking? Because
"[t]hese data contrast sharply with neoclassical theory . . ." [...][V]irtually every single one of FDR's "New Deal" policies made things even worse and prolonged the Depression. Austrian economists have known this for decades, but at least the neoclassical model builders have finally caught on--we can hope.
Cole and Ohanian apparently emerged from the rarified world of macroeconomic
model building for a long enough period of time to discover that the
so-called First New Deal (1933-34) was one giant cartel scheme, whereby the
government attempted to enforce cartel pricing and output reductions in
hundreds of industries and in agriculture. This of course was well
documented in John T. Flynn's book, The Roosevelt Myth, first published in 1948. Henry Hazlitt had also written about it some fifteen years earlier. "New Deal cartelization policies are a key factor behind the weak recovery, accounting for about 60 percent of the difference between actual output and trend output," the authors write.The fact that it has taken "mainstream" neoclassical economists so long to
recognize this fact is truly astounding. For generations their own
neoclassical textbooks have taught that cartels "restrict output" to raise
prices. It has also been no secret that the heart and soul of the First New
Deal was to use the coercive powers of government to prop up wages and
prices by cartelizing the entire economy.FDR and his advisors mistakenly believed that the Depression was caused by
low prices, therefore, high prices--enforced by threats of violence, coercion and intimidation by the state--would be the "solution." Moreover, it is hardly a secret that if less production takes place, fewer workers will be needed by employers and unemployment will subsequently be higher. Thus, the First New Deal could not possibly have been anything but a gigantic unemployment-producing scheme according to standard neoclassical economic theory.
A second explanation, which grew in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, focuses on the money supply and the failure of the Federal Reserve to stem a sharp decline in it, which induced significant deflation, leading to bank failures and the subsequent paralysis of business. This monetarist
explanation, championed by Milton Friedman and others, is respected by
Smiley, who believes that bank failures and related happenings played a
major role in the big economic descent after 1929.
A third explanation builds on old neoclassical notions of the determinants
of employment and unemployment, and on the Austrian theory of Ludwig von
Mises and Friedrich Hayek. It argues that excessive monetary creation by the
Federal Reserve in the 1920s led to artificially low interest rates, which
induced a spending boom that set the stage for the 1929 stock market crash.
Subsequently, Hoover's and Roosevelt's coercion of American business
prevented appropriate wage adjustments from being taken to alleviate
unemployment. Other interferences in markets (e.g., price-fixing under the
National Industrial Recovery Act) helped prolong the downturn as well.
Smiley likes this perspective, and draws on works by Murray Rothbard, Lowell
Gallaway, and me in his account of it. For example, he provides rich detail
on how the High Wage policy worked in practice, both during the Hoover
downturn and the tepid Roosevelt recovery.
The final explanation emphasizes the international dimensions of the
downturn, a perspective stressed by Herbert Hoover himself and numerous
scholars since. The Federal Reserve's fixation on the maintenance of the
gold standard led to policies that were wholly inappropriate, such as in
1931 increasing the discount rate (interest rate) that banks had to pay to
borrow from the Fed at precisely the time when appropriate monetary policy
(from the domestic standpoint) would have been the opposite. Add to that the
folly of the Smoot-Hawley tariff, enacted in 1930, and its subsequent
disastrous impact on imports to the U.S., and you have the basis of a severe
and prolonged downturn. Smiley loves this explanation, advanced in modern
times by Barry Eichengreen and others, and gives it prime billing.
The three types of explanation that Smiley emphasizes focus on failures of
public policy-poor Federal Reserve decisions, inappropriate tariffs (not to
mention higher income taxes), government-induced manipulation of wages and
prices by presidential "jawboning," laws like the National Industrial
Recovery Act, and so forth. The modern literature, well-interpreted by
Smiley, has moved dramatically away from the traditional Keynesian story of
market failure-of the inability or unwillingness of individuals and
businesses to spend enough money to get us out of the Depression. A major
intellectual rationalization for modern big government-that it must play an
activist role to overcome market-induced spending deficiencies, thereby
preventing major downturns-stands largely discredited, not by right-wing
ideologues but by scholars of every political stripe investigating nearly
every aspect of the Depression. Perhaps unexpectedly, and certainly without
much public acknowledgement, the Depression's use as a laboratory to
evaluate economic theories has contributed to a sharp decline in Keynesian
influence in the economics profession. By masterfully summarizing most of
the research and making it accessible to the lay reader in a compelling
manner, Smiley provides a great public service.
Carter fears Florida vote trouble: Carter has monitored more than 50 elections worldwide Voting arrangements in Florida do not meet "basic international requirements" and could undermine the US election, former US President Jimmy Carter says (BBC, 9/27/04)
In an article in the Washington Post newspaper, Mr Carter, a Democrat, said that he and ex-President Gerald Ford, a Republican, had been asked to draw up recommendations for changes after the last vote in Florida was marred by arguments over the counting of ballots.Leaving to one side the idiocy of the arguments from the man who blessed the Venezuelan election, does anyone in their right mind think that this is at all helpful to John Kerry? If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that President Carter is preparing to explain why the President's reelection isn't legitimate.Mr Carter said the reforms they came up with had still not been implemented.
He accused Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood, a Republican, of trying to get the name of independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader included on the state ballot, knowing he might divert Democrat votes.
He also said: "A fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons."
Mr Carter said Florida Governor Jeb Bush - brother of the president - had "taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future".
"It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation," he added.
"With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida."
Angry Brown attacks Blair over Labour's true values (FRASER NELSON AND JAMES KIRKUP, 9/27/04, The Scotsman)
GORDON Brown has rejected the olive branch offered by Tony Blair over his demotion in the coming general election campaign, and today will launch a robust defence of his role as the guardian of Labour’s core values.The Chancellor will tell Labour’s annual conference that they must be "based on more than a set of individual policies announced by politicians" - a remark that will be seen as a direct jibe at the Prime Minister and his allies.
He will also raise the issue of "trust", a delicate point for Mr Blair, who is now facing a vote on Iraq after delegates forced the issue as a topic for debate at a conference already overshadowed by the fate of hostage Kenneth Bigley. [...]
[M]r Brown will go on to challenge the assumption - championed by Mr Milburn - that campaigning on the economy is a vote-losing cliché that cost Labour dear at the European Parliament elections last June.
"With the economy central to people’s concerns at the election, as at every election, that is the way to maintain, entrench and retain the trust of the people and pay for the much-needed reform and investments in public services," Mr Brown will say.
He will launch a coded attack on the idea - popular among Mr Milburn and his aides - that the best strategy for the election is to forge a list of individual promises, spelling out to voters what a third Labour term will do for them individually.
He will say: "I want us to build a shared national purpose, a British progressive consensus much more than a set of individual policies announced by politicians, but a set of beliefs that come to be shared by the British people."
MORE:
Tony Blair needs a big idea. Adam Smith can provide it: No need to return to old Labour thinking to combat inequality (Gareth Stedman Jones, September 25, 2004, The Guardian)
[L]abour is terrified of the E-word because it fears the reaction to higher taxation for the rich. This would be understandable if it were simply a tactical concern. But it seems more basic. For the evidence suggests New Labour agrees with the new right critique that greater equality could only be at the expense of a free-enterprise economy, and that its pursuit would consequently lead back to an ever more entrenched public sector. In short, a return to Old Labour. Therefore, giving up "socialism" means abandoning the goal of greater equality as well.This is a fallacy. It is based upon a foreshortening of history, in which the intellectual origins of neo-conservative laissez-faire are dated back to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, of 1776. Omitted from the story is the fact that Smith's original reputation was that of a progressive whose work provided the foundation of the radical critique of aristocratic monopoly and of the bellicose state that protected it.
It also forgets that the first thinkers and activists to build on Smith's work were libertarians of the left. They included people such as the English radical Tom Paine and the French revolutionary Condorcet, both of whom believed growing inequality was not the inevitable price of a free-enterprise economy, but could be remedied by science and "the social art". They were the first to propose universal pensions and schooling, death duties and tax-based systems of social insurance as remedies for poverty and ignorance. For them, two obstacles confronted social advance: "force" (aristocratic or oligarchic rule and the laws that protected it); and "fraud" (unreasoning superstition and prejudice born of ignorance). Unshackled from this legacy of injustice and oppression, capitalism went together in their minds with scientific progress, increasing equality, free trade, feminism, anti-slavery, anti-colonialism and anti-racism.
This was not the founding moment of neo-conservatism. That came a few years later at the end of the 18th century with the frightened reaction to the French revolution. In England, loyalists burned Paine's effigy. In France, Condorcet died in prison. In this climate, anti-revolutionaries such as Edmund Burke and Thomas Malthus denied the radical implications of Smith's work, ridiculed Paine and Condorcet and set in motion the long-term association between liberal economics and conservative politics.
But an accurate account of this period shows that the pursuit of equality can be conceived in terms quite other than those of socialism. The language of Paine and Condorcet was that of the coming together of commercial society and the modern democratic republic elaborated in the era of American and French revolutions. Greater equality with a minimal state, universal education, moderate redistributive taxation and social security belonged together in a language of reason and citizenship. As little reliance as possible was to be placed upon the state, since it was associated with a legacy of tyranny and corruption.
Instead, the inequality and uncertainty constantly generated by a modern exchange economy was to be curtailed by a democratic constitution in which a framework of law was maintained by a combination of voluntary associations and local authorities - in modern terms, mutual associations, friendly societies, cooperatives, elected local boards, ethically oriented companies and trade unions.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, this new language of citizenship and democratic enlightenment was increasingly pushed aside by opposing extremes: on the one side, laissez-faire individualism and a language of markets; on the other side, socialism and the language of worker and capitalist.
“I want people to hold me accountable,” Bilal says. “If in four years I don’t do what I say I’m going to do, then kick me out. This is what we should do for all politicians. If they’re not doing their job, they should go. And that is true for Stephanie Rawlings Blake.”
Bilal is an African-American man, who happens to be a Muslim and a Republican. He was the Maryland Republican Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor in 1986.
When asked how he reconciles being a Muslim and also a conservative, Bilal is quick to correct: “You assume that I’m a conservative Republican, I didn’t say that,” says Bilal, who was a staunch Democrat while growing up in the predominantly Republican town of Greenburg, N.Y., in the late ’60s. During that time, he says, he championed the Democratic cause tirelessly.
“At that time, Republicans fought a lot of civil-rights battles in the ’60s,” he says. “We had what we called ‘liberal Republicans.’ Now the party has changed.”
He says that these days being a black Republican makes good sense.
“People get too emotional about these parties,” Bilal says. “They should be used to benefit the constituents and individuals that join the party and those that they are concerned about.”
As an African-American, he says, “there’s no guarantee that either party will benefit us. No black [Democrat] has been elected [to statewide office] in Maryland, nor have they even run. The Democrats in that sense haven’t helped us.”
Bilal’s résumé is as diverse as his views: He owned and served as president and chief executive of a security firm called Security America Services for 22 years, and today he is an attorney who practices personal-injury and general-practice law for men who have been in prison. He also volunteers his legal services for Baltimore drug-treatment organization I Can’t, We Can. He’s chaired the foundation board of Coppin State College, been an assistant professor at Catonsville Community College, was a first lieutenant and military police officer in the U.S. Army, and currently sits on Provident Bank’s board of directors.
Today Bilal is focusing on the city’s needs, especially those of the 6th District. He says he’s most concerned about education, vacant homes, and instilling pride in the community.
Bush Benefiting From Divided Nation's Unity on Security (Ronald Brownstein, September 27, 2004, LA Times)
Has Sept. 11 tipped the 50-50 nation toward the GOP?Less cryptically, is a political environment centered on national security issues allowing the Republican Party to break the partisan deadlock that has characterized U.S. politics for the last decade?
That's the ominous question facing Democrats as Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and President Bush prepare for a debate on foreign policy Thursday night that could represent Kerry's best opportunity to regain the initiative in a presidential race defined primarily by war and terrorism.
For the last decade, the parties have been as evenly balanced as at any time since the late 19th century. In 2000, Bush won the second-narrowest electoral college victory ever. Voters in 2000 returned a Senate divided exactly in half. Probably not since 1880 had a national election, measured from all angles, finished so close to a tie.
Our recent partisan standoff was built on a political landscape shaped almost entirely by economic and cultural concerns. National security was probably less relevant to the elections of the 1990s than any since the 1930s.
In an environment where cultural and economic views drove most decisions, neither party had a clear or lasting advantage. The unusual Republican gains in the 2002 congressional elections, and Bush's lead now, raise the possibility that when security looms largest, the balance may tilt slightly toward the GOP. Or at least it does if Democrats can't convince voters they will do as good a job safeguarding the country.
Security was the Democrats' downfall in 2002, when Bush became only the second president since the Civil War to see his party win both House and Senate seats in the first midterm election of his White House tenure.
October Surprises: Five weeks and counting. (John J. Miller, 9/27/04, National Review)
Karl Rove insists that Republicans will pick up Senate seats this year, and Democratic senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey says control of the chamber is up for grabs. We'll know the truth in five weeks. Here's the latest rundown on the races, updating a previous report filed during the GOP convention.
Kerry Can't Take Oregon for Granted (Sam Howe Verhovek, September 27, 2004, LA Times)
Democrats have not lost a presidential election in Oregon since Ronald Reagan's landslide reelection two decades ago. And it would seem relatively safe territory for Sen. John F. Kerry: Anti-Iraq war sentiment runs strong here, and the state has had the nation's highest unemployment rate for parts of President Bush's term.Yet the double-digit lead Kerry rode in polls here earlier this summer has narrowed sharply, reflecting his general slide in national polls but also the unease many Oregonians express about Kerry's credentials as a commander in chief.
Now, just a month after Kerry drew 40,000 to a boisterous waterfront rally in Portland, Oregon's seven electoral votes are in play. The Democrat will have to spend time and money to hold onto this state, which Al Gore narrowly won in 2000. And based on the nationwide political landscape, carrying Oregon appears vital to Kerry's presidential hopes.
Bush's Oregon prospects could get a boost from a conservative turnout for a ballot measure that would amend the state's constitution to ban gay marriage. Current polls indicate the initiative is headed for passage by a wide margin. [...]
Of the four most recent statewide polls, two showed Kerry with a modest lead, one put Bush up slightly, and the fourth had the race at a statistical tie.
"I think overall, Kerry has a lead here, but it's precarious, and he's going to have to work to keep it," said Bill Lunch, the political science department chairman at Oregon State University in Corvallis and a radio analyst for Oregon Public Broadcasting.
The Genesis Project (CHARLES SIEBERT, 9/26/04, NY Times)
One morning, a little more than a year from now, a group of scientists, members of what is known as the Stardust mission, will be standing around on a remote stretch of salt flat in the Utah desert, eagerly awaiting the arrival of a very special package. It will, if all goes as planned, enter our atmosphere much like a meteorite, plunging earthward until the final stage of re-entry, when a small parachute will open. The object, about the size and overall appearance of a large metal cephalopod mollusk, better known as the nautilus, will drift harmlessly to the ground, its belly filled with the dust and debris gathered from the comet Wild 2, which scientists now expect may offer significant clues about life's origins here on earth.''These comets are thought to contain some of the most primitive material in the solar system, more or less unchanged since its formation,'' Scott A. Sandford, a NASA research astrophysicist and co-investigator of the Stardust mission, told me one afternoon this past spring. We sat talking in the dining area of a huge white plastic tent pitched in the middle of the NASA Ames Research Center campus in Moffett Field, Calif., a tree-dotted, 440-acre sprawl of tan brick laboratory buildings.
''Among the things we'll want to know about the material we've collected,'' continued Sandford, a stout, rugged-looking man with a way of talking about even the most far-flung, wondrous endeavors as though he were a plumber discussing your bathroom pipes, ''is what fraction of it is organic, what kinds of organics they are and what possible role they may have played in life's emergence on earth.''
Searching for the origins of life in the dust of a comet might sound like a bit of cosmically cockeyed indirection, something straight out of a New Age sci-fi novel. The Stardust mission, however, is typical of a number of projects to divine life's origins, all part of a $75-million-a-year scientific enterprise now being financed by NASA. It is known as astrobiology.
'Ownership society': why the US can't buy in (David R. Francis. 9/27/04, CS Monitor)
Many Americans - perhaps most of them - aren't ready for President Bush's "ownership society." The idea sounds good. Employees could shift a portion of what they pay into Social Security and put it into individual accounts that might gain higher returns in, say, the stock market.They could also reduce their tax bill by starting Health Savings Accounts, Retirement Savings Accounts, and Lifetime Savings Accounts.
These options reflect a certain conservative logic. Rather than having the government or your company decide how much retirement money or healthcare you get, you can decide for yourself.
"If you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of our country," Mr. Bush explains. "The more ownership there is in America, the more vitality there is in America."
The flaw in this logic is Americans' lack of financial sophistication. For example: Less than one-quarter of working-age people characterize themselves as "knowledgeable investors," according to surveys by John Hancock Financial Services. Even this minority shows "considerable confusion." For example: Many surveyed thought money-market funds included stocks and bonds.
That doesn't mean Americans are stupid. They just have better things to do.
Israel sends Syria tough message with Hamas strike: The killing of a Hamas operative Sunday underscores Israel's intolerance for radicals in Syria. (Ben Lynfield, 9/27/04, CS Monitor)
In Damascus, a neighbor of Khalil who identified himself only as Nabil said, "He said good morning to us like he did everyday and walked to his car. He got into his car and then the phone rang. When he took the call we heard the explosion. We rushed toward his car and found pieces in the back seat." [...]Ghazi Hamed, editor of the Hamas-affiliated al-Risala weekly, faults Washington for the bombing. "Israel would not do this without American permission," he says. "The United States is threatening Syria that 'Israel will attack you if you don't do what we want.' " [...]
Damascus, according to Mr. Paz, is no longer a safe place for Hamas not only because of Israeli military action but because of American pressure on Syria to oust radical groups headquartered there.
"Regimes like the Syrian regime might think that they are next after Iraq," he says. "And maybe [President] Bashar Assad would like to renew peace negotiations with Israel. He could easily sell out the Hamas leadership to improve his situation with the US or Israel."
Egyptians talk democratic reform: Egypt's ruling party conference yielded no major changes. But formerly taboo issues are being aired. (Dan Murphy, 9/27/04, CS Monitor)
Mr. Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) provocatively called its annual conference last week "New Thought and Reform Priorities." Speaker after speaker, from the president's telegenic son Gamal Mubarak to Mohammed Kamal of the NDP's policy committee, addressed the theme of change and renewal."One-party rule is over,'' Mr. Kamal told reporters at the start of the conference. "All the doors are open," he says. And even President Mubarak said in his closing speech he would "spread the culture of democracy."
That and other declarations set off a buzz among Egypt's weak and generally demoralized democratic opposition, who reasoned the government would have to do something concrete - perhaps easing the restrictions on political parties - to at least give its promises a gloss of legitimacy.
The conference left Egyptians with only a few proposals and no real change to the political and emergency laws that have allowed the NDP to rule unchallenged since 1978. But a combination of US pressure and a faltering economy are allowing previously taboo subjects in Egypt to come to the fore.
Should the constitution be amended with presidential term limits to prevent Mubarak from taking a fifth five-year term next fall? If the ruling party is admitting past mistakes, why shouldn't it be removed from power? And why are emergency laws enacted after Anwar Sadat's assassination in 1981 - which allow for indefinite detention without trial and cast a pall of fear over political activists - still in place?
While democratic gains are still a long way off in Egypt, the simple fact that the government is addressing the issue - which amounts to a tacit admission that it hasn't performed either in building democracy or in improving the lives of average Egyptians - gives opposition groups an opening.
End the Genocide Now (William Kristol and Vance Serchuk, September 22, 2004, Washington Post)
The U.S. government has done everything it can diplomatically to resolve the crisis. For nearly six months Bush, Powell and other senior officials have urgently and publicly demanded that the Sudanese government pull back the militia. The U.S. government has repeatedly threatened "consequences" if Sudan failed to do so. In this, the Bush administration has the support, indeed the encouragement, of a bipartisan, right-left, "never again" consensus.Now it's time for the threats to end and the consequences to begin. After all, in addition to the humanitarian imperative, the United States has a strategic interest in Sudan. Khartoum is one of seven regimes on the U.S. government's list of state sponsors of terrorism, and Sudan's dictatorship has had ties with almost every significant terrorist organization in the broader Middle East. Al Qaeda was based in Sudan during the 1990s, and other terrorist groups continue to operate there freely. This month Die Welt reported that Syria and Sudan have been collaborating in developing chemical weapons and may have used them against civilians in Darfur. Thus, in moving against Khartoum for its human rights abuses, we will also be striking a blow in the war on terrorism.
For months it has been obvious that stopping Sudan's campaign in Darfur will require putting several thousand foreign troops on the ground. It has also been obvious that some of these troops will have to be American. As in the case of the Balkans, Rwanda and Iraq, U.S. policymakers have waited for the United Nations to take the lead in authorizing such a force. But after Saturday's Security Council vote, it is clear that at least two members of the council -- China and Russia -- will veto any genuine action against Sudan. Khartoum enjoys a strategic relationship with Beijing, which is hungry for Sudanese oil and doesn't worry about human rights or, for that matter, genocide. The Kremlin has a robust weapons trade with Sudan, having just this summer shipped an order of the very MiG warplanes that have been implicated in strafing civilians in Darfur. (The Sudanese ambassador in Moscow reports that his government is "very pleased" with the purchase, which the Russians delivered five months ahead of schedule.)
Of course, U.S. policymakers might wish that the problem of Darfur could be outsourced to our allies in the region, and some African nations have indicated that they would be willing to contribute troops. But that contingent will need to be backed up by the United States. If the regime in Khartoum is going to be forced to accept foreign intervention on its territory, or if that regime is going to be changed, Washington must be a leader in the effort.
So, as is so often the case, the coalition of the willing that goes into Sudan is going to have to be largely organized, sustained and financed by the United States, most likely without a U.N. mandate.
U.S. Bombings Kill 100 Guerrilla Suspects in Fallujah, Military Says (Jim Krane, 9/26/04, Associated Press)
A month of U.S. airstrikes on rebel-held Fallujah has killed more than 100 suspected insurgents, taking a heavy toll on the terror network of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, senior U.S. military officials said on Sunday.The strikes have stopped attacks elsewhere in Iraq while setting off deadly feuds among insurgent groups holed up in the city west of Baghdad, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, deputy operations director for U.S.-led forces here.
"We're confident that, through these airstrikes, we have been able to thwart many large-scale attacks and suicide bombings that were in the planning process," Lessel said in a briefing with reporters. "We've gotten some of his associates and emerging leadership in his organization."
Al-Qaida Suspect Killed in Pakistan Raid (ZARAR KHAN, 9/26/04, AP)
Paramilitary police killed a suspected top al-Qaida operative Sunday in a four-hour gunbattle at a house in southern Pakistan that also led to the arrest of two other men, the information minister said.Amjad Hussain Farooqi had been wanted for his alleged role in the kidnapping and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 and two assassination attempts against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in December 2003.
"I as chief spokesman for the government of Pakistan confirm that our forces have killed Amjad Hussain Farooqi," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told The Associated Press by phone from Amsterdam, where he has gone on an official trip with Musharraf.
Ahmed said "two or three other people were also arrested during a big gunfight." He declined to identify them but said they were still being questioned by authorities and were "very important."
"This is the work of our security agencies, and they have done a great job," Ahmed said.
Plans: Next, War on Syria? (Mark Hosenball , 10/04/04, Newsweek)
Deep in the Pentagon, admirals and generals are updating plans for possible U.S. military action in Syria and Iran. The Defense Department unit responsible for military planning for the two troublesome countries is "busier than ever," an administration official says. Some Bush advisers characterize the work as merely an effort to revise routine plans the Pentagon maintains for all contingencies in light of the Iraq war. More skittish bureaucrats say the updates are accompanied by a revived campaign by administration conservatives and neocons for more hard-line U.S. policies toward the countries.
Al Hayat: Arab country assisting Israel against Hamas: London based Arab daily claims Arab intelligence service providing the Mossad with vital information.
(Itamar Inbari and Maariv International, 9/26/04, Ma'ariv)
The respected London based Arabic daily Al Hayat reports that an Arab intelligence agency has been cooperating with the Mossad, providing it with significant and sensitive information about Hamas, especially its international activities.According to the report, the Mossad requested the assistance, as it was unable to obtain the required information by itself, and has had little luck in penetrating Hams and other Islamic terror organizations, due to their effective counter-intelligence operational capabilities.
The information provided to the Mossad has given it detailed information on Hamas leaders, especially its leader Haled Mashal, who Israel attempted to assassinate in Jordan several years ago, and his deputy Mussa abu Marzouk. In addition the Arab intelligence agency has also furnished Mossad with detailed information on Hamas bureaus in Damascus, Beirut, Teheran and the Persian Gulf.
A western intelligence source hints that the Arab country in question may be Egypt. It claims that President Mubarak is gradually putting an audacious new strategy into place, which, if successful could provide credible foundations for a new Middle East power structure.
According to the intelligence source, the strategy is based on the assumption that Cairo can initially wean Damascus and the Palestinian terrorist organization from their alliance with Iran. The second stage is then to get Iran itself on board, after isolating it and leaving the Shiite Persians with no allies of any significance in the Sunni-Arab world.
Success of his endeavor would make the region a much friendlier place for the United States. Failure, he fears, would bring about the untimely withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and significantly weaken America’s status as a superpower.
Sending in the 'Shahwanis': U.S. Marines build their own Iraqi militia to help them go against the insurgents (Ilana Ozernoy, 10/04/04, US News)
On the outskirts of this U.S. Marine base in hostile Anbar province west of Baghdad, an Iraqi military chant in Arabic cuts through the hazy stillness of the afternoon. "I'm a bayonet, and my strike is hard! I'm ready for death, not for shame!" shout a group of Iraqi men in military garb, their arms swinging and knees pumping to the beat of the song as they march in haphazard formation. "We're the Iraqi marines!" declares one of their officers, a 39-year-old man calling himself Major Haidr. "We're the Specialized Special Forces."What makes this force really special is not that they are trained to rappel from helicopters or shoot with sniper precision, but that they are, effectively, an Iraqi militia under American command. U.S. Marine commanders hope the Iraqi force will bolster their units' strength in an area where the key to finding the enemy may be simply knowing whom to ask. "We're up against a country where we don't speak their language and don't know their culture," says U.S. Marine Capt. Jason Vose, 31, who works with the new Iraqi militia. These Iraqis, he says, "can go and identify the problems and the bad guys. They're sent into mosques that we can't go into. We've had them on the border; we've had them in Fallujah. And they just perform." [...]
The Marines call their allied Iraqi militiamen "Shahwanis," after their founder, Gen. Mohammed Shahwani, the recently appointed head of Iraqi intelligence, who fled Iraq in 1990 and was a key figure (along with current Prime Minister Ayad Allawi) in the unsuccessful 1996 CIA-backed coup against Saddam Hussein. After then occupation chief Paul Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army--a decision now widely viewed as a mistake that left a large pool of angry, disaffected Iraqis--Shahwani rounded up a few ousted Army generals and a group of former special forces instructors and last spring united them with U.S. Marines looking for a creative solution to handling the violent Anbar province. Now 700 strong, this force falls under the command of the U.S. Marines, not Iraq's Defense Ministry. "A lot of guys," Vose says, "see them as the Marine Corps's militia."
Shouldn't we get a vote?: The truth is, Washington's decisions affect us more than those taken in Canberra. (Jonathan Freedland, September 27, 2004, The Age)
There's a reason every newspaper in the world will have the same story on its front page on November 3. The American presidential election will be decisive not just for the US but for the future of the world.Anyone who doubts this need only look at the past four years. The war against Iraq, the introduction of the doctrine of pre-emption, the direct challenge to multilateral institutions - chances are, not one of these world-changing developments would have happened under a President Al Gore. It is no exaggeration to say that the actions of a few hundred voters in Florida changed the world.
So perhaps it's time to make a modest proposal. If everyone in the world will be affected by this presidential election, shouldn't everyone in the world have a vote in it?
It may sound wacky, but the idea could not be more American. After all, the country was founded on the notion that human beings must have a say in the decisions that govern their lives. The rebels' slogan of "No taxation without representation" endures two centuries later because it speaks about something larger than the narrow business of raising taxes. It says that those who pay for a government's actions must have a right to choose the government that takes them.
Protesters outnumber Neo-Nazis at own rally (Associated Press, 9/26/04)
About 100 white supremacists rallied at Valley Forge National Historical Park on Saturday as nearly twice as many opponents heckled them from a hillside.Both groups were outnumbered by federal law enforcement officers.
Battling for Iraq (David H. Petraeus, September 26, 2004, Washington Post)
Helping organize, train and equip nearly a quarter-million of Iraq's security forces is a daunting task. Doing so in the middle of a tough insurgency increases the challenge enormously, making the mission akin to repairing an aircraft while in flight -- and while being shot at. Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq.
In recent months, I have observed thousands of Iraqis in training and then watched as they have conducted numerous operations. Although there have been reverses -- not to mention horrific terrorist attacks -- there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the load for their own security, something they are keen to do. The future undoubtedly will be full of difficulties, especially in places such as Fallujah. We must expect setbacks and recognize that not every soldier or policeman we help train will be equal to the challenges ahead.
Nonetheless, there are reasons for optimism. Today approximately 164,000 Iraqi police and soldiers (of which about 100,000 are trained and equipped) and an additional 74,000 facility protection forces are performing a wide variety of security missions. Equipment is being delivered. Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being reestablished.
Most important, Iraqi security forces are in the fight ...
FANNIE MAE SCANDAL IS DEMOCRATS' ENRON (TERRY KEENAN, September 26, 2004, NY Post)
IS the growing scandal at Fannie Mae about to become the Democrats' Enron?That's the hot question in Washington this week as regulators painted a scary picture of the huge home lender, detailing accounting shenanigans, including "cookie jar" reserves that smoothed out volatile results and paved the way for tens of millions of dollars in executive bonuses.
For those, including Alan Greenspan, who have warned that this government-sponsored lender is a ticking time bomb, the revelations seem to indicate that Fannie's own management believed its operations are a lot riskier than they let on.
That's just one reason this story has Washington and Wall Street buzzing. There are many others — starting with Fannie's chairman and CEO Franklin Raines.
Raines is not your average CEO, mind you. The Harvard educated exec, who pocketed $20 million from Fannie Mae last year, is just one of a handful of Democrats who easily bridges the Washington-New York power axis.
Raines was widely believed to be Senator John Kerry's first choice for Treasury Secretary in a Kerry administration, and was even mentioned as a potential Kerry running mate.
Quick. Change the Brand. In Five Weeks. (JOHN TIERNEY, 9/26/04, NY Times)
By sticking to their theme of Mr. Kerry as flip-flopper, Republicans have put him in a bind: he could use a new message to move up in the polls, but any new message leaves him vulnerable to accusations of inconsistency. How do you reposition a candidate whose commonly perceived weakness, fairly or not, is his penchant for repositioning? And how do you do it so late in the campaign?Democrats say that a turnaround is still possible in five weeks, and so do some experts who may have a more realistic view of the job - advertising executives experienced in reviving troubled brands. But Madison Avenue's masters of image makeover say it will take a simple, emotionally appealing message, the kind that has eluded the Kerry campaign so far.
Mr. Kerry might take comfort from Bill Clinton's repositioning in 1992, after being battered by scandals and rivals during the primary season.
"Clinton reinvented himself as the boy from Hope, a political Horatio Alger," said Stephen Wayne, the author of the "The Road to the White House 2004" and a history professor at Georgetown University. "He was also helped by the fact, and this is important for Kerry, that the election was less about him and more on the incumbent's absence of leadership."
In the same way, Mr. Kerry's new combativeness on Iraq could reinvigorate his campaign and shift the debate away from his character to Mr. Bush's record.
Israel kills Hamas leader in Syria (AP, September 26, 2004)
A car bomb killed a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Damascus on Sunday and Israel claimed responsibility.Police at the scene were seen retrieving pieces of the body of Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil. His death was also reported on the official Hamas Web site and by Israeli security sources.
Earlier, the local Palestinian media center reported that Khalil, 42, had been wounded and rushed to a hospital.
The bomb went off at 10:45 a.m. in the al-Zahraa district of the Syrian capital, the center told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. A member of the Hamas political bureau, Mohammed Nazzal, told the AP in Cairo that a bomb had been planted in Khalil's car and it exploded as he tried to start it.
Nazzal accused Israel of assassinating Khalil, 42, who used to work for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Taliban Fighter Said Dead in Afghanistan (NOOR KHAN, 9/26/04, Associated Press)
Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, a former inmate at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, died in a gunbattle Saturday night in Pishi village in the southern province of Uruzgan, said Jan Mohammed Khan, governor of Uruzgan.Khan said authorities had received intelligence that Ghaffar was hiding in the village and was planning an attack against the government. Security forces launched a raid after surrounding a house, and three men, including Ghaffar, were killed in gunfire. None of the security forces was hurt.
The governor said Ghaffar had been a senior Taliban commander in northern Afghanistan and was arrested about two months after a U.S.-led coalition drove the militia out of power in late 2001. After being held for eight months in Guantanamo, he was released and returned to Afghanistan.
Khan said Ghaffar was then appointed as the leader of Taliban fighters in Uruzgan, a rugged region believed to be a stronghold of the hardline Islamic militia.
38% of teachers pick private school (MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA, September 26, 2004, Chicago Sun Times)
More than a third of Chicago Public School teachers send their children to private schools, a new report finds.They are not alone in snubbing the system where they work. Nationwide, urban public school teachers are more likely than other parents to enroll their kids in private schools, according to the report by the Washington, D.C.-based Fordham Institute and based on 2000 Census data.
CPS ranks third among the 50 largest school systems in the proportion of teacher households that send the kids to private school -- 38.7 percent.
That compares to 22.6 percent of non-teacher households in Chicago that send children to private schools.
"That's a pretty scary statistic," said parent Idida Perez, local school council member at Kelvyn Park and Prosser high schools. "What comes to mind is, 'What's wrong with my school that my school's not good enough for your kids?' "
Operation Human Rights: How evangelicals got outside their comfort zone to help the oppressed overseas.: a review of Freeing God's Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights by Allen D. Hertzke (David Neff, 09/22/2004, Christianity Today)
Evangelical Protestants have had an unusually high global consciousness ever since the 19th-century blossoming of the missions movement. For a century and a half, missionaries' support letters kept North American churchgoers aware of countries and people groups they rarely read about in newspapers. Because of connections to missionaries and relief organizations, we hear about life in places like Mozambique, Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Rwanda. And when trouble starts brewing in such places, we often hear about it through these connections first.But while missionaries and relief workers have been a great source of global connectivity—long preceding other factors in the much-ballyhooed phenomenon of globalization—they have often been slow to engage and resist the forces of oppression in the countries where they worked. It makes sense: Missionaries and relief workers serve at the discretion of their host governments. Criticizing political leaders would imperil their ministry.
Allen Hertzke's Freeing God's Children tells the story of how evangelical Protestants in the United States moved from reluctance and ambivalence about confronting persecution to passionate engagement and action. It also tells the story of unlikely alliances—as evangelicals linked arms with Roman Catholics, Jews, secularists, and feminists to address an array of human-rights issues. [...]
Secularist thinking has long been dominated by one or another variety of historical determinism. In the Marxist version, for example, history is determined by the inexorable clash and succession of economic classes. But Hertzke's tale is woven around the necessity of human action and its potential for changing history. That antideterministic thinking drove the Reagan-era confrontation with communism, and it also fueled Horowitz's passionate crusade for religious freedom.
But complementing Hertzke's antideterminism is the concept of Providence. Providential appears repeatedly in this book, suggesting (though only suggesting) a sense of divine blessing on human effort. One chapter title that illustrates this sense of history is chapter six, "The Hand of Providence in Congress." The chapter recounts the strategic decision to sponsor congressional legislation. After the initial burst of enthusiasm, the incipient movement needed a focus for its energies and "a tangible way for American Christians to exercise their citizenship on behalf of their coreligionists." The first piece of legislation to emerge was tough and offered the government only a blunt instrument with which to respond to religious persecution.
But not everyone was happy with the approach of the Wolf-Specter bill, and looked for a more calibrated, diplomatic approach. That was to be found in alternative legislation sponsored by Senators Nickles and Lieberman. Within evangelical ranks, the clash between advocates of the different approaches was fierce, and Hertzke offers glimpses of the bruising fight. He concludes that the struggle "suggests a pluralism in the born-again world not always appreciated outside the community." The outcome was the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, which blended the strengths of each approach.
Hertzke suggests "there is a theological lesson here: that partisans had to suffer through the [acrimonious] process to ensure unanimity." The sense of success and accomplishment that was in the end shared by both factions gave confidence to the fledgling movement and allowed them to continue to tackle new issues: prison rape, sex trafficking, Sudan, North Korea.
MORE:
-B uilding Alliances to Save Lives: Why evangelicals' partnership with others to fight persecution worked—and where the coalition is heading.: An interview with Allen D. Hertzke (Christianity Today, 09/22/2004)
-Falwell says evangelicals control GOP, Bush's fate (Scott Shepard, September 25, 2004, Cox News Service)
How to Pick a War President: Time to debate: This is the first foreign-policy election in a quarter century. Voters are scared; they want to know who will be the best commander in chief. Here's what to look for (Fareed Zakaria, 10/04/04, Newsweek)
The candidates should face three tests that help reveal their strengths and weaknesses as leaders in war. First, how do they define this conflict? Second, how do they define success? Finally, how do they think victory can be achieved? As we watch the debate this week, we should bear these questions in mind, listen for answers and judge the candidates accordingly.The first test is potentially the most important, because all else follows from it. What kind of conflict are we in? The Bush administration has striven to make the case that we are in a war much like World War II. Both the president and Vice President Cheney have repeatedly implied this. Cheney has often made specific analogies to it. The president's supporters explain that in a life-and-death struggle with a mortal foe, you have to fight anywhere and everywhere. Things don't always go well. Churchill and Roosevelt made many mistakes during the second world war. But they kept pressing forward. Looking back today, who knows if the North African invasion was worthwhile? Sometimes you take the wrong hill. That's war.
It's a powerful interpretation because, if accepted, it gives the administration a virtual carte blanche. All errors are forgiven, all blunders swept aside, all excesses dwarfed by the overarching conflict. Iraq may have been badly handled, but it is just one front in a many-front war. Abu Ghraib may have been appalling, but consider the pressures. During World War II, the United States interned Japanese-American civilians. It wasn't right, but it was war.
An alternative interpretation would hold that we are not in a classic war with a powerful and identifiable country. Rather, this new war is really much more like the cold war. It has a military dimension, to be sure, but in large part it's a political, economic and social struggle for hearts and minds. In such a conflict, as in the cold war, the question of where and how military force is used is crucial. Its battlefield successes always have to be balanced against political effects. An understanding of culture and nationalism becomes key because the goal is more complex than simple military victory. It is creating like-minded societies. Thus, if you are not sophisticated in your application of power, you can find yourself in a situation like Vietnam where you win every battle but lose the war.
One can argue that this is precisely the situation in Iraq, where America could easily crush the insurgency but at a political price that would make victory utterly counterproductive. And beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, of course, the conflict becomes even more complex and less military. In Iran and North Korea, the military option is more bluster than fact. And how does one defuse militant extremism in, say, Indonesia, Morocco and Egypt? By working with those governments to find terrorists, and with those societies to help modernize them. And if this is the bulk of the task going forward, does it really resemble a war?
The second challenge for the candidates is to explain what would constitute success. Here Bush has been clear. Success requires victory in Iraq, which is "the central front in the war on terror." Bush seeks to establish democracy in Iraq as a way of breaking the tyrannical status quo in the Middle East that has bred repression and terror. Kerry has argued that the war in Iraq was justifiable but disastrously botched. More recently he's said that it has been a distraction from the war on terror. Though both are defensible positions, Kerry will have to choose one of them. [...]
Bush's central problem is with the third factor: the path to success. His goals are clear and effectively stated. But he appears unaware of the situation on the ground in Iraq. He says he is "pleased with the progress" so far and speaks of a "handful of terrorists" disrupting democracy in Iraq. Contrast this picture with the one painted two weeks ago by a team from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a hawkish think tank, that conducted an extensive survey of Iraq. They concluded that in every dimension, from security to reconstruction to economics, Iraq was slipping backward. This is also the view of the CIA and almost all journalists in Iraq. Bush risks coming across not as visionary but as someone disconnected from reality.
Given this more appropriate context it seems clear that Mr. Zakaria drifts further and further off course as he goes along. Iraq is not an end in itself in this case nor is a complete victory necessary. It would be most desirable if the entire country could be democratized, but a situation where the Kurdish north and Shi'a south were relatively liberalized and only a rump Sunni triangle stayed wartorn but surrounded would be a satisfactory intermediate outcome while we turned our attention elsewhere. After all, saving South Korea but leaving North Korea under communist control was sub-optimal but hardly meant the Cold War was lost.
Mr. Zakaria is so blinded by his focus on Iraq, as earlier intellectuals were by their focus on Vietnam, that he ignores the broader reality of rapid reform and democratic normalization in the rest of Islam--from orderly and regular elections in places like Turkey and Indonesia to Libya coming in from the cold to intrafada in Palestine to democratic evolution in places like Morocco and so on. Even our most likely next target in the broader war, Bashir Assad of Syria, seems hellbent on appeasing our demands in order to avoid being deposed militarily.
If you wanted just one test for picking a wartime president, you could do worse than this: Do you believe the war in Iraq to be the War on Terror incarnate, just one battle in a larger war, or a distraction from the criminal investigation of al Qaeda? The candidates' respective answers are revealing and should be determinative.
Saddam, the Bomb and Me (MAHDI OBEIDI, 9/26/04, NY Times)
Iraq's nuclear weapons program was on the threshold of success before the 1991 invasion of Kuwait - there is no doubt in my mind that we could have produced dozens of nuclear weapons within a few years - but was stopped in its tracks by United Nations weapons inspectors after the Persian Gulf war and was never restarted. During the 1990's, the inspectors discovered all of the laboratories, machines and materials we had used in the nuclear program, and all were destroyed or otherwise incapacitated.By 1998, when Saddam Hussein evicted the weapons inspectors from Iraq, all that was left was the dangerous knowledge of hundreds of scientists and the blueprints and prototype parts for the centrifuge, which I had buried under a tree in my garden.
In addition to the inspections, the sanctions that were put in place by the United Nations after the gulf war made reconstituting the program impossible. During the 1980's, we had relied heavily on the international black market for equipment and technology; the sanctions closed that avenue.
Another factor in the mothballing of the program was that Saddam Hussein was profiting handsomely from the United Nations oil-for-food program, building palaces around the country with the money he skimmed. I think he didn't want to risk losing this revenue stream by trying to restart a secret weapons program. [...]
So, how could the West have made such a mistaken assessment of the nuclear program before the invasion last year? Even to those of us who knew better, it's fairly easy to see how observers got the wrong impression. First, there was Saddam Hussein's history. He had demonstrated his desire for nuclear weapons since the late 1970's, when Iraqi scientists began making progress on a nuclear reactor. He had used chemical weapons against his own people and against Iran during the 1980's. After the 1991 war, he had tried to hide his programs in weapons of mass destruction for as long as possible (he even kept my identity secret from weapons inspectors until 1995). It would have been hard not to suspect him of trying to develop such weapons again. [...]
In addition, the West never understood the delusional nature of Saddam Hussein's mind. [...]
So what now? The dictator may be gone, but that doesn't mean the nuclear problem is behind us. Even under the watchful eyes of Saddam Hussein's security services, there were worries that our scientists might escape to other countries or sell their knowledge to the highest bidder. This expertise is even more valuable today, with nuclear technology ever more available on the black market and a proliferation of peaceful energy programs around the globe that use equipment easily converted to military use.
Hundreds of my former staff members and fellow scientists possess knowledge that could be useful to a rogue nation eager for a covert nuclear weapons program.
Syria's President Bashir al-Asad is in secret negotiations with Iran to secure a safe haven for a group of Iraqi nuclear scientists who were sent to Damascus before last year's war to overthrow Saddam Hussein. [...]A group of about 12 middle-ranking Iraqi nuclear technicians and their families were transported to Syria before the collapse of Saddam's regime. The transfer was arranged under a combined operation by Saddam's now defunct Special Security Organisation and Syrian Military Security, which is headed by Arif Shawqat, the Syrian president's brother-in-law.
The Iraqis, who brought with them CDs crammed with research data on Saddam's nuclear programme, were given new identities, including Syrian citizenship papers and falsified birth, education and health certificates. Since then they have been hidden away at a secret Syrian military installation where they have been conducting research on behalf of their hosts.
Growing political concern in Washington about Syria's undeclared weapons of mass destruction programmes, however, has prompted President Asad to reconsider harbouring the Iraqis.
America the Conservative: Europe is in the 21st century, but we remain locked in the 18th (Edward L. Glaeser, September 26, 2004, LA Times)
Whether President Bush is reelected or Sen. John F. Kerry prevails, the United States will be the most conservative developed nation in the world. Its economy will remain the least regulated, its welfare state the smallest, its military the strongest and its citizens the most religious. According to data taken from the World Values Survey in the last decade, 60% of Americans believe that the poor are lazy (only 26% of Europeans share that view), and 30% believe that luck determines income (54% of Europeans say so). About 60% of Europeans say the poor are trapped, while only 29% of Americans believe they are. And roughly 30% of Europeans declare themselves to be left wing, but only 17% of Americans do.Why is the U.S. such an exceptionally conservative nation?
It's tempting to think that American conservatism is the natural result of exceptional economic mobility in the country, but the odds of leaving poverty in Europe are higher than those in the United States, in part because European social democrats enacted national education policies that do a better job of looking after the poor than local schools in the U.S. Instead, American conservatism stems from political stability and ethnic heterogeneity. [...]
The nation's racial heterogeneity also partly explains its conservatism. U.S. heterogeneity sharply contrasts with the much greater homogeneity in Canada, Britain and continental Europe. People are much less likely to support income redistribution to people who are members of different racial or ethnic groups. Ethnic divisions make it easier for the enemies of welfare to vilify the poor, by making them seem like parasites who could be rich but prefer to live on the public dollar. The pro-redistribution populists were defeated in the South in the 1890s by politicians who stressed that populism would help blacks (which was true) and that blacks were dangerous criminals (which was not.) The enemies of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society also employed racial messages that conveyed the idea that welfare recipients were dangerous outsiders who should not be helped. The sharp racial division that runs through American society makes it possible to castigate poor people in a way that would be impossible in a homogeneous nation like Sweden, where the poor look the same as everyone else.
Across countries, ethnic heterogeneity strongly predicts a smaller welfare state. The U.S. states with larger populations of blacks have historically been less generous to the poor (even controlling for state per capita income). Work by Erzo Luttmer, professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, shows that people who live around poor people of their own races say they want the government to spend more on welfare. But people who live around poor people of another race say they want the government to spend less on welfare. Sympathy for the poor appears to be muted when the poor are seen as outsiders.
Increased immigration to Europe is making those societies more heterogeneous, and we have already seen opponents of social welfare, such as Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, Joerg Haider in Austria and Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, use inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric to discredit generous welfare payments. We may like to believe that human beings are colorblind, but the reality is that American diversity has always made redistribution less popular here than in more ethnically and racially homogeneous places.
The Big Mahatma: Laurence Tribe and the problem of borrowed scholarship (Joseph Bottum, 10/04/2004, Weekly Standard)
In 1985, Harvard University's Laurence H. Tribe, the most famous and widely cited constitutional law professor in the United States, signed his name to a book called God Save This Honorable Court that now appears--how shall we say it?--perhaps "uncomfortably reliant" on a 1974 book called Justices and Presidents by the University of Virginia's Henry J. Abraham.POOR HARVARD seems to be going through a spate of such incidents. A national news cycle was generated in 2002 when THE WEEKLY STANDARD broke the story that Doris Kearns Goodwin--a member of Harvard's Board of Overseers and a former professor of government at the school--had done some serious copying for her 1987 book, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and then bought off one of the authors from whom she lifted her material.
Next, in a more complicated case, Harvard law school's Alan Dershowitz was accused of overusing a single secondary source for his 2003 book, The Case for Israel.
Finally, just a few weeks ago, on September 3, Charles J. Ogletree, Harvard's Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, admitted on the university's website that the assistants who'd actually prepared his new All Deliberate Speed:
Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education lifted six consecutive paragraphs from a 2001 book by Yale's Jack M. Balkin.
ODDLY ENOUGH, Laurence Tribe plays a role in two of these stories. (And peripherally touches the third, if one counts the thanks he offers Dershowitz, his "friend and colleague," in the preface to God Save This Honorable Court.)
When the Goodwin incident prompted Harvard's undergraduate newspaper, the Crimson, to call for her scalp--"Goodwin's plagiarism of sentences, nearly verbatim, from source materials is inexcusable. . . . [S]he should recognize that her action is unbecoming an Overseer and resign her post immediately"--Tribe wrote a letter in the next issue expressing "great sadness" at how "mindlessly" the students' editorial had attacked her.
Goodwin "had not the slightest intention to deceive, to claim originality for thoughts that were unoriginal, or to appropriate another's deathless prose in hopes that she might be credited with a literary gift that belongs in truth to someone else," Tribe insisted. Oh, he admitted, she had "erred in following her own paraphrased handwritten notes without checking back in every last one of the 300 or so books she cited." But Goodwin's work was "documented with something like 3,500 footnotes," which according to Tribe proved both her commitment to scholarship and her "personal integrity."
Then, this year, Tribe initially appeared willing to excuse Charles Ogletree's plagiarism altogether, telling the Boston Globe: "It clearly represents the fact that because he so often says yes to the many people all over the country who ask for his help on all kinds of things, he has extended himself even farther than someone with all that energy can safely do."
Challenged about this apparent absolution, however, he later offered a rather different analysis. In an email posted on a blog about legal topics run by Lawrence R. Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, Tribe wrote, "What I told the Boston Globe about the way in which [Ogletree] has overextended himself was not intended to be a complete explanation or justification." And there is more to say, he allowed: "The larger problem"--the "problem of writers, political office-seekers, judges and other high government officials passing off the work of others as their own"--is "a phenomenon of some significance" and worth exploring.
THAT SEEMED a little rich for one reader of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, a law professor who suggested we take a look at Tribe's own God Save This Honorable Court if we wanted to explore the "problem of writers . . . passing off the work of others as their own."
And so we did, and the result is . . . well, what? It's awkward to name what Laurence Tribe has done in God Save This Honorable Court. In his letter to the Crimson about Doris Kearns Goodwin, Tribe proudly called himself a "scholar who values his own integrity and reputation for meticulous attribution as much as anyone could."
But even Goodwin's discredited book, by Tribe's own account, contained "something like 3,500 footnotes" citing "300 or so" other works; God Save This Honorable Court, by unflattering contrast, contains no footnotes at all--nor any other sort of "meticulous attribution." Instead, at the end of God Save This Honorable Court, we find a two-page "Mini-Guide to the Background Literature," which lists Henry Abraham's Justices and Presidents as merely the twelfth of fifteen books (including two of Tribe's own previous works) that "an interested reader might wish to consult."
THE NEW FACE OF AL QAEDA: Al Qaeda Seen as Wider Threat: The network has evolved into a looser, ideological movement that may no longer report to Bin Laden. Critics say the White House focus is misdirected. (Douglas Frantz, Josh Meyer, Sebastian Rotella and Megan K. Stack, September 26, 2004, LA Times)
Authorities have made little progress worldwide in defeating Islamic extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda despite thwarting attacks and arresting high-profile figures, according to interviews with intelligence and law enforcement officials and outside experts.On the contrary, officials warn that the Bush administration's upbeat assessment of its successes is overly optimistic and masks its strategic failure to understand and combat Al Qaeda's evolution.
Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda was a loosely organized network, but core leaders exercised considerable control over its operations. Since the loss of its base in Afghanistan and many of those leaders, the organization has dispersed its operatives and reemerged as a lethal ideological movement.
Osama bin Laden may now serve more as an inspirational figure than a CEO, and the war in Iraq is helping focus militants' anger, according to dozens of interviews in recent weeks on several continents. European and moderate Islamic countries have become targets. And instead of undergoing lengthy training at camps in Afghanistan, recruits have been quickly indoctrinated at home and deployed on attacks.
The United States remains a target, but counter-terrorism officials and experts are alarmed by Al Qaeda's switch from spectacular attacks that require years of planning to smaller, more numerous strikes on softer targets that can be carried out swiftly with little money or outside help.
President Lindbergh in 2004 (Frank Rich, 9/26/04, NY Times)
PHILIP ROTH is one of America's great novelists, but you don't expect him to be barreling up the best-seller list with a book that hasn't even been published yet. "Literary fiction," as it is now stigmatized in the cultural marketplace, no longer flies off the shelves unless struck by the TV lightning of Oprah or the "Today" show. And yet there was "The Plot Against America" in the top 25 at amazon.com this week, at one point the only serious contemporary American novel on the list, sandwiched between Clay Aiken's memoir and "The South Beach Diet." It ascended without benefit of a single author's interview on TV or anywhere else and with only the first few reviews, not all of them ecstatic.Since the book isn't officially published until Oct. 5, online shoppers are quite literally judging it by its cover image, a one-cent stamp of the 1930's crisply postmarked with a swastika, and the bare bones of its story. The plot of "The Plot" belongs to a low-rent genre, "alternate history," in which novelists of Mr. Roth's stature rarely dwell. It spins a what-if scenario in which the isolationist and anti-Semitic hero Charles Lindbergh runs for president as a Republican in 1940 and defeats F.D.R. "Keep America Out of the Jewish War" reads a button worn by Lindbergh partisans rallying at Madison Square Garden. And so he does: he signs nonaggression pacts with Germany and Japan that will keep America at peace while the rest of the world, six million European Jews included, burns.
Where "The Plot Against America" fits into the hierarchy of Mr. Roth's canon, which I and so many others have followed for our entire reading lifetimes, may be beside the point over the short haul. Sometimes the public, acting on instinct, just picks up the scent of something it craves without regard for the aesthetic niceties. Whether it's major or minor Roth, this novel is on a trajectory to match the much-different "Portnoy's Complaint" in its anomalous permeation of the larger culture. That's because "The Plot Against America," set from 1940-1942, is on its face linked to the wartime of 2001-2004. It's going to be read by those who don't otherwise read Roth novels, or novels at all, as well as by those who do. Not for nothing does it sit on a best-seller list dominated, low carbs notwithstanding, by a single subject, George W. Bush.
Mussolini's tone: a review of The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton (Martin Clark, Times Literary Supplement)
Paxton regards Fascism as a five-stage process. The first stage is simply one of grievances or threats to established interests or groups, and of normal democratic processes being unable or unwilling to resolve them. Often this is because the old political system or parties have collapsed, leaving a political vacuum or at least much instability. Paxton tends to blame irresponsible intellectuals for this: they undermine liberal regimes with their constant criticism, and they have a nasty habit of apologizing for violence. At any rate, instability is common enough, and hence there have been and still are a large number of "fascist" movements in temporary agitation. We learn, in this book, about the travails of the Greyshirts in Iceland and of the Blueshirts in Ireland. However, most of these agitators progress no further, and are of academic interest at most. The second stage, "taking root", is more serious. The "fascist" movements become not only spokesmen but also organizers for the disaffected, and start tackling the grievances themselves, illegally but effectively, and with some official connivance. Paxton is right to stress the importance of this development. It was not Mussolini, sitting in Milan and sounding off about Italy's rights on the Adriatic, who made Fascism a mass movement in Italy; it was the youthful "squads" of armed vigilantes in the Po Valley, destroying socialist labour unions and throwing out newly elected socialist mayors. They then founded their own unions and ran local government themselves. Much the same happened in Schleswig-Holstein. In these regions, populist vigilantism enjoyed the support of all right-thinking, or Right-thinking men, including policemen and judges. Elsewhere, however, it did not, and Fascism progressed no further. "Taking root" is more difficult than might appear, since the movement is bound to be local, there are always rivalries and splits, and governments can usually buy off the militants or take over the agitation themselves.The third stage, "getting power", is the most vital of all. Paxton, who made a notable contribution to Franco-American relations in 1972 by pointing out, in Vichy France: Old guard and new order 1940-1944, that the Vichy regime was run not so much by Fascist zealots as by the French Establishment, argues that Fascists do not seize power, they have it thrust upon them. They make a "historic compromise" with existing state authorities, who are anxious to absorb the crude provincials into the official system and who of course assume that they themselves will continue to decide everything. The key to understanding how Fascists came to power in Italy and Germany lies, therefore, not so much with the manoeuvres of Mussolini or Hitler but with those of king or president, top army officers and a handful of others. Paxton's argument here is not novel, nor altogether convincing. Certainly both Mussolini and Hitler were appointed in a more or less constitutional manner, and certainly existing elites thought they would retain most of their power and status; but the two leaders' manoeuvres in the few months before they won office, and indeed their very personalities and their unwillingness to compromise, were vital to the outcome in both cases. They may not have needed to use much force, but they certainly had the threat of it available and they made sure everyone knew it. The existing authorities may have manoeuvred too, but the point is that they were outmanoeuvred. They did not "compromise" so much as surrender.
Paxton's fourth stage is the "exercise of power", but he has to admit that the two leaders behaved very differently once in office. Both of them, of course, got rid of their more obstreperous followers, and both managed to keep the Establishment fairly happy and to provide some rapid economic benefits. Both ended up trying to transform everything. However, Mussolini governed essentially through the state machinery, supplemented by ad hoc "parallel bureaucracies" run by state technocrats. The Party was for propaganda; also to distribute favours and to mobilize the young. Hitler was far more reliant on the Party and its parallel bureaucracies, although he too, of course, used the State. These differences were hugely important. It was not just that Mussolini had to put on a bowler hat and visit the King twice a week; it was that he did not control the armed forces, judiciary, or Senate, and that he might eventually be dismissed like any other Prime Minister when he lost the confidence of the King, that is, of the political and military elite. Hitler had no such worries. Moreover, in his later years Mussolini tried to run everything himself and allowed his colleagues little initiative; Hitler, far more idle, permitted competitive leeway. Paxton does not explain these politico- administrative contrasts, which clearly owed more to personality differences than to anything else. At any rate, generalizations about how the Fascists "exercised power" rather break down when there are only two examples, which differed as wildly as this.
Paxton's final stage is "radicalization or entropy?". He argues that both Mussolini and Hitler had to keep up the Fascist muscle tone (Paxton's phrase) by becoming ever more radical both at home and, particularly, abroad; otherwise their regimes would simply have become flabby. This looks very much like a psychological explanation, hitherto taboo. The fact is that any modern government, Fascist or no, needs to fight campaigns and proclaim resounding victories, or else the citizenry becomes restless. Perhaps Fascist governments are more liable to become extremist, but there is not much evidence: Mussolini had been in office thirteen years before he attacked Ethiopia, and only became noticeably radical at home three years after that -- by which time "entropy" had already set in. Hitler's regime also became more radical as Germany began losing. Radicalization and entropy were not alternatives, they went together.
'Hurt' Brown battles Blair over future of Labour (BRIAN BRADY, 9/26/04, Scotland on Sunday)
A WOUNDED Gordon Brown was last night preparing for a titanic struggle over the heart and soul of the Labour party, as the simmering tensions between the Chancellor and Tony Blair threatened to overshadow the start of its annual conference.Brown, who admits he was "hurt" by Blair’s decision to place Alan Milburn at the heart of formulating Labour election strategy, is privately battling to ensure his stewardship of the economy remains at the heart of the party’s bid for a historic third term.
The Chancellor’s allies fear Milburn and his fellow modernisers will ‘hijack’ the election campaign by emphasising Blairite reform of the public services.
And in another clear indication of the struggle to come, Brown’s followers last night insisted Blair was leading a party of ‘ins’ and ‘outs’, while the Chancellor was a "team player" who held out the promise of party unity. [...]
Renewed signs of tension with Brown will also make it difficult for the Prime Minister to convince his party - and voters - that he can finally deliver radical reform in a third term.
A Huge Opportunity Is Brewing (Donald Luskin, September 24, 2004, Smart Money)
THERE HAS BEEN a stock-market crash this year. You didn't know that? That's because it's invisible.Think about this: So far in 2004, earnings for the S&P 500 have grown by 19%. Yet as of Thursday's close, the S&P 500 is virtually unchanged, having fallen by 1/3 of one percent before considering dividends.
With earnings up by that astonishing amount in just nine months, and the market unchanged — that's a crash. But it's not a crash you can measure in prices. It's a crash you have to measure in value. That's why it's invisible. But it's still very real.
All else equal, with earnings up 19%, the market should also be up by 19%. In fact, I think the market should be up even more than that, because at year-end 2003, stocks were already cheap.
Put it all together, and stocks are so cheap now that my valuation model says that the S&P 500 could rise by almost 35% from here and still be only fairly valued. [...]
I don't know exactly what the news catalyst will be to send the market higher. Maybe the oil price will drop dramatically — either falling of its own weight (because there's really no reason for it to be this high in the first place), or perhaps because of the Bush administration's decision to tap the nations' Strategic Petroleum Reserve (which the Clinton administration did before the 2000 election).
Or maybe a clear victor will emerge in the first presidential debate, now scheduled for Sept. 30. The strong lead that George Bush has established in the polls already should be a major boost for the market, because it goes a long way to eliminating the enormous uncertainty of which of two very different economic visions will guide the country for the next four years. If Bush emerges victorious in the first debate, it will make him unbeatable in November — and the last of the electoral uncertainty restraining stock prices will be gone.
At the moment, it truly is still an uncertainty.
Kerry as the Boss: Always More Questions (ADAM NAGOURNEY and JODI WILGOREN, 9/26/04, NY Times)
For 15 minutes in Milwaukee the other day, Senator John Kerry pummeled his staff with questions about an attack on President Bush, planned for later that morning, that accused the White House of hiding a huge Medicare premium increase.Talking into a speakerphone in his hotel suite, sitting at a table scattered with the morning newspapers, Mr. Kerry instructed aides in Washington to track down the information he said he needed before he could appear on camera. What could have slowed down the premium increase? How much of it was caused by the addition of a prescription drug benefit? What would the increase cost the average Medicare recipient?
Mr. Kerry got the answers after aides said they spent the morning on the telephone and the Internet, but few of those facts found their way into his blistering attack.
The morning Medicare call was typical of the way Mr. Kerry, a four-term senator with comparatively little management experience, has run his campaign. And, his associates say, it offered a glimpse of an executive style he would almost surely bring to the White House.
Mr. Kerry is a meticulous, deliberative decision maker, always demanding more information, calling around for advice, reading another document - acting, in short, as if he were still the Massachusetts prosecutor boning up for a case.
Pinpointing Battlegrounds Amid Debate Preparations (Mike Allen and Lois Romano, September 26, 2004, Washington)
President Bush will consider making an expensive run for New Jersey's electoral votes and is likely to spend more money in Washington state if his leads in heartland swing states hold up after the opening presidential debate Thursday night, Republican officials said Saturday. [...]Officials said Bush aides feel that they have locked up Missouri and West Virginia, are confident about Florida and Ohio, and have barely had to fight for Arizona, Arkansas and North Carolina. Republican officials said that White House senior adviser Karl Rove and others in Bush's inner circle are laying plans to expand a potential victory well beyond the states he won in 2000, and into additional Democratic strongholds.
The campaigns were startled by recent news organization polls showing Bush tied with Kerry in New Jersey, which he lost by 16 points in 2000 and which has gone Democratic in the past three elections. Bush aides are debating whether they should reallocate final-days television money to the costly New York City market, which is needed to reach northern New Jersey. Bush has advertised from the beginning in Washington state, where he fell five points short last time, and Republicans said they are prepared to move staff and money there if other swing states become secure.
A Very, Very Thin Thread (H.D. Miller, 9/25/04, Travelling Shoes)
Friend Miller tracks down and then savages today's obligatory Nazi reference.
Britain first: Tony Blair and George W. Bush are perfect partners — Christian soldiers armed with Bibles and bazookas — but Britain now has more in common with Europe than with the United States (Niall Ferguson, 9/25/04, The Spectator)
[A]s the slow grind of détente gave way to the breakneck disarmament of the Gorbachev years, the last really compelling incentive for Anglo-American solidarity — the Soviet menace — fell away. With the benefit of hindsight, the political romance between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher was nothing more than a flicker of an old flame, sparked more by their shared preoccupations at home than by real common interests abroad. Indeed, had the Anglophobes won the argument in Washington, American support for the Falklands war might never have been forthcoming; few Republicans relished helping the British to salvage those last vestiges of South American empire.By 1990, then, nothing meaningful remained of the special relationship at the level of geopolitics; the big decisions that ended the Cold War had been taken by the superpowers; on German reunification Mrs Thatcher had simply been overruled. All that remained were those specialised relationships I have already mentioned between the military, financial and academic elites. There was therefore a compelling logic to the European orientation of British foreign policy under the Major government. Neither Douglas Hurd nor Malcolm Rifkind paid much more than lip service to Anglo-American amity. They had seen through the special relationship for the fiction that it had become; with light hearts they accepted Britain’s post-imperial destiny to be ‘at the heart of Europe’. Too bad for them that its heart turned out to be so horribly diseased.
Mr Blair’s fervid Atlanticism therefore marks a discontinuity — a break in the longer-term deterioration of Anglo-American relations. It only makes sense as a backlash against the dismal failures of the Major government’s European strategy, in particular its hopelessly miscalculated responses to the break-up of Yugoslavia and the civil war in Bosnia. For it was Blair’s conversion to the American view of the Balkan problem — that the problem was Slobodan Milosevic — that led him to favour war against Serbia in 1999. And it was the success of that war, opposed as it was by so many of Mr Blair’s critics on both the Left and the Right, that led him in turn to favour war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The road from Pristina to Baghdad led through Kabul.
As he has made clear repeatedly, and most obviously in his speech to the Labour party conference in October 2001, Mr Blair relishes the American penchant to inject morality into foreign policy. Indeed, to him, war has become an instrument not of policy but of morality — a weapon to be used against wicked dictators in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘humanity’. When he talks in these terms, he can sometimes sound like an Anglicised Woodrow Wilson. But on closer inspection, Blair’s foreign policy has its roots in Gladstone’s idiosyncratic blend of High Church exaltation and evangelical fervour. It is, of course, precisely this that has enabled the Prime Minister to connect so successfully with two such different American presidents. For practically the only thing Bill Clinton and George Bush have in common is their Christianity.
Donald Rumsfeld once said that Americans don’t ‘do’ empire, rather as Alastair Campbell once said that Downing Street didn’t ‘do’ God. Yet Mr Bush’s tacit imperialism — so much more resolute than that of his predecessor — has found its staunchest support in Mr Blair’s private faith. On they march, these two Christian soldiers, each with a Bible in one hand and a bazooka in the other.
The trouble is that while a majority of Americans are receptive to what might be called a faith-based foreign policy, very few Britons are. The Americans are still a deeply Christian people. The British ceased to be some time ago. Consider the following results from a recent BBC/ICM poll. Over half of Americans agree with the statement ‘My God is the only true god’ compared with fewer than a third of Britons. An even higher proportion of Americans (53 per cent) regularly attend an organised religious service, compared with barely a fifth of Britons. Two thirds of Americans pray regularly; just 28 per cent of Britons do. More than 70 per cent of Americans agree with the statement ‘I would die for my God or beliefs’; fewer than a fifth of Britons do.
This is just part of a fundamental divergence in popular culture which increasingly makes a nonsense of the special relationship. Combining as it does religious fundamentalism, economic individualism and red-blooded patriotism, the American conservatism so vividly described by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge in their book The Right Nation simply has no counterpart in this country. British Tories are a beleaguered minority, vainly trying to preserve a few picturesque pastimes and landscapes from the depredations of New Labour’s corrupt and cynical party apparat.
The decline of Christianity not only helps to explain the crisis of conservatism in Britain. It also forms part of the wider process of covert Europeanisation. Many of us still fondly imagine that we have more in common with ‘our American cousins’ than with our Continental neighbours. It may have been true once (though I find it hard to say exactly when). But it is certainly not true now. Travel to the United States and then to the other European Union states, and you will see: the typical British family looks much more like the typical German family than the typical American family. We eat Italian food. We watch Spanish soccer. We drive German cars. We work Belgian hours. And we buy second homes in France. Above all, we bow before central government as only true Europeans can.
And perhaps nothing illustrates more clearly how very European we are becoming than our attitudes to the United States. Asked in a recent poll to choose between the two candidates for the presidency, 47 per cent of us favoured John Kerry, compared with just 16 per cent who backed George Bush — at a time when Bush was more than 10 per cent ahead in the American polls. On the legitimacy of the Iraq war, too, the British public is now closer to Continental opinion than to American.
All this suggests that Tony Blair’s devout Atlanticism may actually represent the special relationship’s last gasp. For a strategic partnership needs more to sustain it than an affinity between the principals and the self-interest of a few professional elites. It requires a congruence of national interests. It also needs some convergence of popular attitudes. By both those criteria, the Anglo-American alliance is surely living on borrowed time.
The doomed defeatist: John Kerry is a loser and a bore and the only thing he is consistent about is his opposition to the projection of US power in America’s interests (Mark Steyn, 9/25/04, The Spectator)
Kerry has spent two months doing everything wrong, beginning with his choice of running mate. His Vietnam nostalgia-night ‘reporting for duty’ convention speech was described by yours truly in the Telegraph as ‘verbose, shapeless, platitudinous, complacent, ill-disciplined, arrogant and humourless’. But most observers seemed to think it was a stroke of genius, and attributed the unprecedented lack of a post-convention poll bounce to the fact that Kerry was so good and so ahead of the game he’d gotten his post-convention bounce before the convention. This is an example of a phenomenon I’ve noted for a couple of years: the principal effect of America’s so-called ‘liberal media bias’ is that the Democratic party and the pro-Democrat press sustain each other’s delusions.It happened again a week after the convention. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth began their anti-Kerry campaign. The senator’s people assured the media that the charges were all false, the media assured the senator’s people that nobody in the press was going to go near the story. Partly as a result of this insulation from reality, by the end of August the underfunded veterans had driven Kerry’s numbers down, extracted crucial retractions of many of his most celebrated war stories, and forced the candidate into hiding, unable to risk giving an interview even to sympathetic TV softballers.
Desperate for payback for his month of SwiftVet hell, the thin-skinned Kerry demanded that his campaign went on the attack about Bush’s fitful National Guard service back in the Vietnam era. Nobody cares. But Dan Rather and CBS did a big story on whether Bush failed to show up for a physical in the War of 1812, and the Kerry campaign promptly lost most of September because Dan’s case had been built on laughably fake memos supplied as part of a convoluted deal involving the network, a man of dubious mental stability and key Kerry campaign contacts including Joe Lockhart, the former Clinton press secretary who was brought on board to get Kerry out of last month’s mess, not land him in this month’s.
In normal circumstances, you’d send the vice-presidential nominee out to serve as your attack dog and savage your detractors. But because Kerry is aloof and cold, he chose a running mate to supply all the warmth and charm and feel-good fluffiness he himself lacks. Whatever John Edwards’s strengths, he’s no attack dog. While Dick Cheney went around the country snarling devastating cracks about Senator Flip-Flop, Edwards was reduced to pleading for Bush to call off the SwiftVet ads. He looked as though he was about to burst into tears.
There is an attack dog on the Kerry team. Unfortunately, it’s his wife, and folks don’t like that in a prospective First Lady. Teresa Heinz Kerry dismisses her husband’s critics as ‘idiots’ and ‘scumbags’, and Kerry’s new advisers seem eager to limit her visibility. I’ve lost count of the number of Democrat women who’ve said to me that they can’t stand her.
So that was the state of play in mid-September: a candidate in hiding, a lightweight running-mate way out of his league, and a motor-mouth wife duct-taped and tossed into the cellar.
In the Shadow of the Wall
WHAT NOW FOR THE INTIFADA?: As it enters its fifth year, Foreign Editor David Pratt makes an emotional return to Jerusalem to find out the effect of Israel’s security barrier on its divided populace (David Pratt, 9/26/04, Sunday Herald)
[A]s the intifada enters its fifth year, many on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide are growing ever more concerned as to where it is leading them. According to recent Israeli Defence Force (IDF) estim ates, the coming year will be a critical period for the Palestinian people and the conflict.“This year will be the year that will shape the Palestinian struggle. The Palestinian leadership will have to decide whether to aim towards a peace agreement with Israel or to continue with the armed resistance,” says one senior IDF officer.
But what of the Palestinians themselves? As Israel’s security wall daily encroaches into their territory and lives, do they also sense that a make or break showdown is fast approaching?
In the past, particularly in the years 1987 to 1993, following the first intifada or “war of the stones,” as it was known, anniversaries of the uprising were often opportunities for Palestinians to endorse resistance to the occupation through street demonstrations or an escalation of attacks on Israeli targets.
But this year the mood is different. While much of the fight against occupation by ordinary Palestinians remains heroic, these are unheroic times. Suicide bombings like that by a woman in the busy French Hill suburb of Jerusalem last week has lost the intifada some of its outside worldwide sympathy.
Meanwhile, a leadership crisis has led some to predict that what really preoccupies Palestinians these days is an “intra-fada” – an uprising not against Israel but against elements of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA), long perceived to be corrupt and politically out of touch.
Then there is the wall. It’s hard to overemphasise the sheer injustice of this concrete scar that gouges its way across olive tree orchards, family homes, grazing areas, places of work, schools and anything else that, frankly, the state of Israel decides to confiscate. Its sheer physical presence bears down when you are near it. Walking beside it, on either side, you can see Palestinians trying to live their lives under its weight. Like the South African regime during apartheid, the Israelis are well on the way with their policy of containment to creating the equivalent of the infamous Bantustans, where most black South Africans were forced to live.
“This used to be a beautiful place, now I live in the shadow, no sun, no light, even the air seems bad,” one local Abu Dis farmer tells me, struggling to make himself heard against the deafening sound of bulldozers working on the next stretch of wall nearby.
The degradation and humiliation of Palestinians is made all the worse by the employment of some of their men by private Israeli security firms to guard other Arab labourers who work on the wall’s construction.
“I know they blame us for this,” says one guard when asked what he thinks of the Palestinian villagers who stand nearby watching as a bulldozer digs up their back garden to lay cables used for high-powered security lights and electrified fencing.
Elsewhere, other Palestinian labourers can be seen daily running the gauntlet of army patrols to cross gaps in the wall before being picked up by Israeli employers to work in a variety of “dirty jobs” inside Israel itself. A useful source of cheap labour, few of these Israeli employers seem concerned by the security risk involved, or that one of their workers just might be a suicide bomber.
In these desperate economic times, most Palestinians have no choice but to take what they can that offers them a living. Even sometimes at the risk of being called a “collaborator”.
Why, most ordinary Palestinians ask, has the outside world been so quiet in its condemnation of the security wall despite the International Court’s ruling that its construction is illegal? Why is it called a “security” wall at all, when instead of just separating Israel from the West Bank it separates Arab from Arab?
Indeed, how can a people whose history is full of terrible ghettos, now themselves be building one?
Meanwhile, a leadership crisis has led some to predict that what really preoccupies Palestinians these days is an “intra-fada” – an uprising not against Israel but against elements of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA), long perceived to be corrupt and politically out of touch."
The wall is working, not least by changing an Israeli ghetto into a nation where folks are more concerned with what's happening within than attacking those without.
Language clash opens old wounds: Rwanda’s new elite wants English to replace French as the official language as Paris is probed over its role in the genocide (Fred Bridgland, 9/26/04, Sunday Herald)
Most of the guerrillas had French names – such as Jean-Jacques and Christophe – but they had already lost many Gallic customs because of their long exile in Anglophile states. They didn’t sing French songs, and certainly not the Marseillaise, as they advanced past villages dotting Rwanda’s green hills where boys drove herds of long-horned cattle through tree-shaded valleys. Instead, Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind was much favoured.Not only had the imminent victors become Anglicised, but they loathed the French government, which had supported the Hutu regime of Juvenal Habyarimana, an ally of Paris and a great supporter of the French-speaking world.
When President Habyarimana was killed in a mystery plane crash in April 1994, Mille Collines, the French-language radio station, began inciting Hutus to “eliminate Tutsi cockroaches”. Announcers said: “The graves are half full. Who will fill them? In truth, all Tutsis will perish. They will vanish from this country.”
The Tutsi victory was a huge shock for Paris. The RPF accused French soldiers of training the Hutu genocide militias, known as the Interahamwe (“those who fight together”) and of protecting the militias when they retreated before advancing RPF troops.
Now President Kagame – infuriated with France and President Jacques Chirac – has signalled that Rwanda, whose strongest relations are with English-speaking countries, is poised to supplant French – the official language since independence was won in 1962 – with English, backed by Kinyarwanda.
English is growing in dominance despite only 3% of the population speaking the language fluently against the 8% who speak French. Already, the country’s three main newspapers are published in English and a decree has been issued that all laws be made in both French and English. Anyone applying to enter university must speak both , as classes are taught in the two tongues .
Kagame has ordered that all cabinet ministers and civil servants must speak English as well as French, a language he has not yet mastered.
This blow to French cultural pride comes as Kagame has ordered the formation of a commission to scrutinise France’s role in the genocide.
Why This Is A Crime Against Islam (Ayman Gomaa, of Al Akhbar in Cairo, 9/26/04, Sunday Herald)
Moderate Muslims are united in believing that the taking and killing of hostages is forbidden by the teachings of Islam.Almost 150 foreigners have been seized in Iraq since April, in the name of Islam and under the pretext of a jihad (holy war) against infidels.
But the majority in the Islamic world describes such operations as a “grave crime which contradicts Islam and its teachings”. In fact, such teachings also forbid Muslims to kill unarmed soldiers in wartime.
Some radical Muslim clerics have scoured Islam’s sacred texts for justifications of violence and found them, but they remain a small yet very vocal minority within Islam. Safwat Hegazy, one of the most popular sheikhs in the Arab world, says: ‘‘Prior to the rise of this minority no-one ever spoke about the taking and maltreatment of hostages.
‘‘Unfortunately, some of the western media rarely give a balanced presentation of Islamic thought; they tend to over-emphasise the extreme radical fundamentalist element and largely ignore moderates within Islam.
"It should be clear that Islam maintains the protection of life and does not sanction any violation against it, irrespective of the people’s religion, race or sect.’’
John Kerry: Comfortable with format, but television won't help (SCOTT SHEPARD, 09/25/04, Cox News)
As the debates approach, Bush campaign officials have tried to portray John Kerry as a modern-day Cicero, unequaled in his command of political rhetoric.But while few presidential candidates have come to the debates with the experience of Kerry, the four-term senator from Massachusetts has a distinct disadvantage.
"Television is not a great friend of John Kerry's," said Tobe Berkovitz, the assistant dean of the communications department at Boston University, who has studied Kerry's debating talents for years.
Kerry is "an exceedingly confident debater [with] an unusual command of facts and specifics that makes him almost impossible to stump," Berkovitz said. But "television turns him into a caricature of himself, aloof and patrician," sometimes preventing him from connecting with viewers, he added.
New Jersey, a Blue State, May Be Trying on Shades of Purple (DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI, 9/26/04, NY Times)
To those who view this year's presidential race as a battle between politically polarized red and blue states, New Jersey has usually been viewed as so unquestionably Democratic that it could be colored somewhere between midnight and navy.But after trailing Mr. Kerry by 10 points in New Jersey as recently as late August, President Bush has sustained a bounce he received after the Republican convention, and three surveys released within the past 10 days suggest that the race for New Jersey's 15 electoral votes is now a statistical dead heat.
No one is certain whether Mr. Bush's surge represents a lasting shift or a momentary blip during a period when the presidential race has veered erratically between fierce personal attacks and withering exchanges about foreign policy. But the varying explanations for the tightening race offer a glimpse of the challenges facing Mr. Kerry as the campaign enters its final weeks.
As Republican strategists predicted earlier this year, the message of their convention in Manhattan, which portrayed Mr. Bush as an unflinching avenger in the war on terror, seems to have resonated in New Jersey, which lost 700 people in the 9/11 attacks, and where the gaping absence on the New York skyline is a backdrop of daily life. The state's Democrats, meanwhile, have spent the past two months buried in an avalanche of bad news: sordid corruption investigations involving Gov. James E. McGreevey's aides and contributors and Mr. McGreevey's resignation amid a sex scandal.
Beyond those local factors, Mr. Kerry's struggles in New Jersey seem to mirror national trends, in which he has lost ground among swing voters, independents and soft Democrats after the Republican National Convention.
In Magazine Interview, Kerry Says He Owns Assault Rifle (JODI WILGOREN, 9/26/04, NY Times)
Senator John Kerry, a hunter who supported the recently expired assault weapons ban, frequently tells audiences he has never met anyone who wanted to use an AK-47 to shoot a deer. But it is not clear what Mr. Kerry does with the Chinese assault rifle he told Outdoor Life magazine he kept in his personal collection.In interviews appearing in the October issue of Outdoor Life, Mr. Kerry and President Bush were asked whether they were gun owners, and, if so, to identify their favorite gun.
Mr. Bush named the Weatherby 20 gauge (although he gave a slightly different answer in a separate chat with Field and Stream magazine.) Mr. Kerry's answer was more complicated.
"My favorite gun is the M-16 that saved my life and that of my crew in Vietnam," Mr. Kerry told the magazine. "I don't own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle."
Mr. Kerry's campaign would not say what model rifle Mr. Kerry was referring to, where he got it and when, or how many guns he owned. A spokesman for the senator, Michael Meehan, said Mr. Kerry was a registered gun owner in Massachusetts. On Thursday morning, Mr. Meehan said he had not been able to ask Mr. Kerry about the rifle because of Mr. Kerry's hoarse voice; he did not respond to further inquiries.
For Edwards and Kerry, an Evolving Partnership With Awkward Moments (RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD, 9/26/04, NY Times)
The two had few things in common, beyond a friendship with Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, and had never worked closely together in the Senate, though their voting records on significant legislation are comparable.In the heat of the primary campaign they had exchanged only a few barbs, most pointedly when Mr. Kerry said during a campaign stop in Iowa: "When I came back from Vietnam in 1969, I don't know if John Edwards was out of diapers then. Well, I'm sure he was out of diapers.''
Mr. Edwards bristled and responded almost immediately, saying: "In 1969, I was sitting around a kitchen table with my parents trying to figure out how we would pay for college like so many Iowans do every single day. And that is a difference between me and Senator Kerry.''
Mr. Kerry called that same night to apologize.
After he had lost the nomination to Mr. Kerry, Mr. Edwards confided in a number of associates his feelings about Mr. Kerry's limitations as a candidate.
Upper Midwest Crucial to Kerry's Hopes (MIKE GLOVER, 9/25/04, Associated Press)
In 2000, political pundits summed up the race in three words: Florida, Florida, Florida. Here's three words to consider this fall: Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. President Bush is targeting their combined 27 electoral votes - the same total as Florida, where a bitterly contested recount settled the last election.The trio of upper Mississippi River states narrowly backed Vice President Al Gore in 2000 and are, if anything, slightly more Republican four years later, raising the possibility that Democratic Sen. John Kerry could lose one or two of them.
"They are states we lost last time, but if we can carry one or more of them, it puts Kerry's ability to win the Electoral College in serious jeopardy," said Bush strategist Matthew Dowd.
Interviews throughout the upper Mississippi region - from a diner in Austin, Minn., to a farmer's market in Dubuque, Iowa, to a mayor's office in a Wisconsin river town - revealed a mix of emotions and an anxious mood among voters.
They are worried about the economy, though not as much as Rust Belt voters to the East, and the war in Iraq is a constant source of concern - even anger. But more people approve of the president's performance than disapprove, polls show, and there is significant ambivalence toward Kerry.
Crossing the piety divide (Hillel Halkin, Jerusalem Post, September 25th, 2004)
Yo'eli is a lovely young fellow, if you can call someone "young" who is already the father of several children. He's friendly and intelligent and I'm fond of him. He lives in one of the most isolated settlements in the Gaza Strip, in a house that - so he told me at the wedding - has been hit five times by Palestinian mortar fire. (No one, baruch hashem, has been hurt.) He grinned to see me look aghast at that. There is a gulf, perhaps indeed humorous, between those who do and those who don't count on God to protect their wives and children from mortar shells.I asked Yo'eli what he thought of the Gaza disengagement plan. He was, of course, against it. As a member, he said, of the central committee of the Likud, he would do his best to prevent it.
"Fine," I said to him. "You're against it. You want to hold on to the Gaza Strip because it's part of the Land of Israel, and seven or eight thousand Jews have the right to go on living there in the midst of close to a million-and-a-half Palestinian Arabs. I understand the principle. I even sympathize with it. But what do you propose to do with all those Arabs?"
What did he propose to do with the additional two-and-a-half-million Arabs of Judea and Samaria who, together with the Gazans and the Palestinian citizens of Israel, are already half of the total population west of the Jordan and will soon, because of their far higher birthrate, be a clear and steadily growing majority?
"Don't let the numbers scare you," Yo'eli said. "When Zionism started out in this country, we Jews were barely 10%."
Yes, I answered. But there were then millions of Jews living in precarious circumstances in the Diaspora to whom Zionism offered a way out. And Zionism was then, in any case, a desperate gamble that had started with nothing and therefore had nothing to lose. Today a Jewish state is on the line."What happened then will happen again," Yo'eli said. "Millions more Jews will come. Millions of Arabs will leave."
"Come from where? Leave to where? You're dreaming," I said. "There are no countries left in the Diaspora that Jews are going to leave in droves - and even if anti-Semitism gets bad enough to make some Jews want to leave some places, say France, most have and will prefer other options, like the Jews emigrating from South Africa and Argentina. And since the Palestinians have no such options, every country in the world being closed to them, they will stay right here no matter what."
Yo'eli didn't try to argue with that. He couldn't because he had no arguments. He still had his grin, though. He said, "Your problem is that you have no faith. If you did, you'd leave it to God."
Now I was really aghast. [...]
I have no particular quarrel with those who see the hand of God in history. Give "God" a generous enough interpretation, and I might even agree with them. But I expect them to be consistent. You can't count some fingers of the hand of God and not others. The God that gave us the undivided land of Israel in the Six Day War is also the God that gave us the destruction of the First Temple, the destruction of the Second Temple, Auschwitz. And if Yo'eli and his friends are asking us to put our faith in the God of Auschwitz, they are asking us to commit a supreme act of folly, not because the God of Auschwitz does not necessarily exist but because His calculations are not the same as ours.
The belief in God can be a form of piety. But the belief that God is in one's pocket and will perform His duties like a trustworthy valet is a form of impiety.
Perhaps Christian comedian Brad Stine is trying to make the same point when he asks those sporting “God is my Co-pilot” bumper stickers whether, if God really is in the car, it might not perhaps be more respectful to let Him drive.
Romney's baaack, and with vengeance (Thomas Keane Jr., September 22, 2004, Boston Herald)
There's a ``be careful what you wish for'' aspect to the recent exploits of Gov. Mitt Romney [related, bio]. Mocked for his many absences from the state, he has returned with a vengeance, vowing to go all-out to defeat Democratic state reps and senators in November. Democrats, understandably, are cringing. Maybe he should have stayed away.Many others are cringing as well. Mitt's a new kind of Massachusetts Republican: harsh, partisan and aggressive. We remember Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci and Jane Swift with affectionate nostalgia. Romney, on the other hand, looks more and more like, well, a Tom Delay - a take-no-prisoners kind of fellow who would just as soon kick sand in your face as build castles together. [...]
A recent Boston Globe poll suggested as much, with Romney's favorable rating falling from 61 percent in the spring to 54 percent today. That's not much of a drop, and it's hardly a surprise - is there any other state that has such a great animus against George W. Bush? Still, the governor's political team couldn't let it stand.
So Romney returned, vowing to wage war on Democratic incumbents. This has been a long-standing plan and, with 134 contested races (a 14-year high) and a promise to spend millions, it has put Democrats on edge. The talking points are familiar: rolling back the state income tax rate, pushing for structural reforms and beating up on the Democratic establishment, which means taking on Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Thomas Finneran.In truth, I'm not sure Democratic incumbents should worry too much. Many have noted that the GOP candidates aren't, as a group, particularly strong, and Romney almost seems to be conceding in advance when he says it would be ``a victory'' to pick up even one seat. Still, facing a challenger is never a pleasant experience. Moreover, it is yet another sign that Romney is far different from the Republicans to which Massachusetts is accustomed.
To a degree, most of those who follow state politics keep trying to put Romney into the Weld box, thinking him another version of that genial governor's centrist politician. But Romney is the opposite. Despite campaigning against State House leaders, Weld worked effectively with them. That comity, legislators say, is now gone. There is little communication and little compromise. On both sides, politics have turned acrimonious.
All of which makes for some uncomfortable times. Yet as uncomfortable as it may be, Romney may be on to something. The old model - of GOP acquiescence to the Democratic hegemony - kept state Republicans on the sidelines, trading off real power for minor influence. Romney, plainly, is no longer willing to do that. Whether it's for reasons of national ambition, personal belief or mere tactics, he's adopted a new model, the confrontational approach so effectively used by national Republicans. He doesn't want compromises; he wants wins. And whether it's campaigning for Bush or governing the state day-to-day, the only way he wins is when Democrats lose.
Modern philosopher of tradition: a review of Michael Oakeshott by Paul Franco (Noel Malcolm, 29/08/2004, Daily Telegraph)
Asked to name the most important British political philosopher of the 20th century, most people with an interest in the field would probably hesitate for a while, and then come up with the name of Isaiah Berlin. Only a minority, I suspect, would nominate Michael Oakeshott; and yet, as time goes by, his claim to that title is arguably emerging as the stronger of the two. [...][F]ranco has produced a short but masterly introduction to the whole range of Oakeshott's writings, not only placing his thought in the context of earlier British philosophy, but also making illuminating comparisons with contemporary or later thinkers such as John Rawls, Richard Rorty and (inevitably) Isaiah Berlin.
The discussion of the earlier context of British "Idealism" (those followers of Hegel) is especially helpful. Many of the things that now seem so modern about Oakeshott - his insistence that all our knowledge and experience is by its very nature interpretative; his claim that an individual person is constituted by his social world almost in the same way that the meaning of an English word is constituted by the English language - can be seen to derive from that earlier philosophical approach.
Similarly, Oakeshott's famous defence of "tradition" as a basis for political life is shown to be not a piece of reactionary obscurantism (as his critics on the Left always claimed) but a subtle extension of his theory of man's social nature, exploring the ways in which social values can develop and change over time. Franco also explains how and why Oakeshott's later thinking moved away from this emphasis on tradition, towards a more formal analysis of the nature of freedom under the rule of law.
World War II In The West's Political Imagination (Christopher Caldwell, 18 Sept. 2004, Financial Times)
For two weeks, German newspapers have been charting an approaching storm. Earlier this month, the ruling Social Democratic party saw its vote collapse to 31 per cent in regional elections in the Saarland, where scarcely a decade ago it was winning absolute majorities. More ominous still, the far-right German National party (NPD), which had won no measurable allegiance there since the late 1960s, narrowly missed winning seats in the state parliament, with 4 per cent of the vote. Clearly, many Saarlanders were outraged by the welfare reform package advanced by Gerhard Schroder, the chancellor. And some lurched to the xenophobic parties of the right.In eastern Germany, where two more state elections take place on Sunday, the outrage is more severe and the lurch will be larger. According to Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, a German election-polling firm, the NPD is registering 9 per cent in pre-election polls in Saxony, while the equally hard-line German People's Union looks set to take 6 per cent in Brandenburg - both levels that would translate into ample parliamentary representation. This is leaving aside the Party of Democratic Socialism - the successor to the Communist party - which stands to win 27 per cent and overtake the SPD. Nothing is more novel about the upsurge of the right in Germany than the equanimity with which it is being received. In 1968, when the NPD took several dozen seats in a handful of regional parliaments, European observers anguished over the crisis. This year, the possible entrenchment of rightist parties in eastern Germany is taken seriously but not that seriously. In Germany, politicians themselves invoke the right's effect on employment as readily as they do the country's history. Mr Schroder was quoted in the Suddeutsche Zeitung as saying: "Anything linked to the brown (fascist) muck harms us, harms Germany and really harms us with foreign investors." Everywhere else, the German elections are fighting a losing battle for news space with the elections in the US.
If the world can take such an electoral realignment in its stride, part of the credit is due to the achievements of German democracy since the second world war. But there is a larger development at work: the war is losing its grip on the western moral imagination. Until very recently - and certainly as late as the Kosovo war - the second world war supplied European and American thinkers with their benchmark for the progress of civilisation, their criteria for acceptable and unacceptable statecraft and their rationales for military intervention.
Indian Country: America's military faces the most thankless task in the history of warfare. (ROBERT D. KAPLAN, September 25, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
An overlooked truth about the war on terrorism, and the war in Iraq in particular, is that they both arrived too soon for the American military: before it had adequately transformed itself from a dinosaurian, Industrial Age beast to a light and lethal instrument skilled in guerrilla warfare, attuned to the local environment in the way of the 19th-century Apaches. [...]The American military now has the most thankless task of any military in the history of warfare: to provide the security armature for an emerging global civilization that, the more it matures--with its own mass media and governing structures--the less credit and sympathy it will grant to the very troops who have risked and, indeed, given their lives for it. And as the thunderous roar of a global cosmopolitan press corps gets louder--demanding the application of abstract principles of universal justice that, sadly, are often neither practical nor necessarily synonymous with American national interest--the smaller and more low-key our deployments will become. In the future, military glory will come down to shadowy, page-three skirmishes around the globe, which the armed services will quietly celebrate among their own subculture.
The goal will be suppression of terrorist networks through the training of--and combined operations with--indigenous troops. That is why the Pan-Sahel Initiative in Africa, in which Marines and Army Special Forces have been training local militaries in Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad, in order to counter al-Qaeda infiltration of sub-Saharan Africa, is a surer paradigm for the American imperial future than anything occurring in Iraq or Afghanistan.
In months of travels with the American military, I have learned that the smaller the American footprint and the less notice it draws from the international media, the more effective is the operation. One good soldier-diplomat in a place like Mongolia can accomplish miracles. A few hundred Green Berets in Colombia and the Philippines can be adequate force multipliers. Ten thousand troops, as in Afghanistan, can tread water. And 130,000, as in Iraq, constitutes a mess that nobody wants to repeat--regardless of one's position on the war.
In Indian Country, the smaller the tactical unit, the more forward deployed it is, and the more autonomy it enjoys from the chain of command, the more that can be accomplished. It simply isn't enough for units to be out all day in Iraqi towns and villages engaged in presence patrols and civil-affairs projects: A successful forward operating base is a nearly empty one, in which most units are living beyond the base perimeters among the indigenous population for days or weeks at a time.
Much can be learned from our ongoing Horn of Africa experience. From a base in Djibouti, small U.S. military teams have been quietly scouring an anarchic region that because of an Islamic setting offers al Qaeda cultural access. "Who needs meetings in Washington?" one Army major told me. "Guys in the field will figure out what to do. I took 10 guys to explore eastern Ethiopia. In every town people wanted a bigger American presence. They know we're here, they want to see what we can do for them." The new economy-of-force paradigm being pioneered in the horn borrows more from the Lewis and Clark expedition than from the major conflicts of the 20th century.
In Indian Country, as one general officer told me, "you want to whack bad guys quietly and cover your tracks with humanitarian-aid projects." Because of the need for simultaneous military, relief and diplomatic operations, our greatest enemy is the size, rigidity and artificial boundaries of the Washington bureaucracy.
Kerry's Unlikely Detractors (Colbert I. King, September 25, 2004, Washington Post)
Two weeks later, another e-mail arrived on the same topic. It was from a Howard University classmate, a friend of 47 years, former assistant secretary of the Air Force Rodney Coleman. A Democrat, Coleman has local roots, having worked for the D.C. Council and later the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp.Bill Clinton appointed Coleman to the Pentagon post, in which he served from 1994 to 1998. Somehow, despite our running into each other over the years at various social occasions, Vietnam was never a serious topic of conversation between us. Until now. [...]
"I vividly recall Kerry's antiwar testimony in April 1971. I was a White House fellow at the time, on a leave of absence from active duty, as were five of the 17 fellows selected. Two of them had Vietnam experience with Silver and Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts awarded for their heroism. In early April 1971, I volunteered to go to Vietnam after my year as a White House fellow. I could have very easily taken steps to forgo a tour in 'Nam, but as an Air Force captain committed to the ideals of the oath of office I took, Vietnam was the only game in town."
The oath of office was a serious matter for products of Howard's ROTC programs. I know. I was commissioned in the Army; Coleman joined the Air Force. Unlike some college campuses, Howard's ROTC programs were a source of pride, having produced, according to the school, more African American general officers than any other university in the country.
"When Kerry made those critical statements of the war," Coleman wrote, "my parents, God bless them, went ballistic about their son going in harm's way. My military colleagues in the fellows program who had been there and were shot up were incensed that a so-called military man would engage in such insubordinate actions. At the time Kerry made those unfortunate remarks, America had POWs and MIAs, among them my friend, Colonel Fred Cherry, the longest-held black POW of the Vietnam War. How could a true American fighting man throw away his medals, while thousands he fought alongside of were in the midst of another example of man's inhumanity to man?"
Elián remark provokes fury: A comment by Senate candidate Mel Martinez about the return of Elián González to Cuba produces an angry response. (MARC CAPUTO AND BETH REINHARD, 9/25/04, Miami Herald)
Calling the federal agents who seized Elián González ''armed thugs,'' the campaign of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez chided Democratic opponent Betty Castor on Friday for campaigning with the U.S. attorney general who sent the shipwrecked boy back to Cuba four years ago.The language provoked outrage from Castor's campaign and from the national union that represented the immigration officers who took Elián from his Miami relatives and returned him to his father at the behest of then-Attorney General Janet Reno.
''Those were law enforcement officers doing their jobs, risking their lives,'' Castor spokesman Dan McLaughlin said of the ''armed thugs'' comment. 'Regardless of anyone's politics, I think it is outrageous to think someone would call police officers working under those conditions `thugs.' ''
MORE:
Kerry Taps Controversial Elian Attorney (News Max, 9/25/04)
The Elian Gonzalez controversy was the single most critical factor giving George Bush the presidency in 2000.It may prove to be a critical factor this year as well – thanks to John Kerry who just tapped a key figure in the Elian controversy for his campaign.
Kerry must have forgotten that after the Elian brouhaha record numbers of Cuban Americans in Florida voted against Al Gore – ceding the closely contested Florida race – and the presidency to George Bush.
The Miami Herald reported Saturday that "a lawyer unpopular with many Cuban Americans for his role in the Elián González case will help prepare John Kerry for the upcoming presidential debate to be held at the University of Miami.”
That lawyer’s name is Gregory Craig, a well-connected Washington attorney who represented Elian Gonzalez’s father.
Craig worked closely with the Cuban government and Attorney General Janet Reno to gain custody of little Elian.
In the end, armed federal immigration officers stormed the home of Elian’s uncle and seized the boy. With the help of Reno and the Clinton White House, Craig successfully returned Elian to Castro’s custody.
Keyes' unpolished candor will be his undoing (THOMAS ROESER, September 25, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
See here, Alan Keyes. You're breaking the rules of correct political discourse. You are giving the people what they say they want but don't.While they complain about candidates pandering to special-interest groups, 217 years of this republic have shown that down deep people want candidates who strive to be all things to all men. People say they want office-seekers who are candid, frank, straightforward, genuine, who tell the truth even when it hurts. Who are on the up-and-up, guileless, unartful, undesigning, unequivocal. But nobody has won running on that platform, including Lincoln, FDR and Reagan, and you will be no exception.
Voters elect only candidates who are deceptive, duplicitous, bluffers, cunning, crafty and Machiavellian. That's because voters want politicians like themselves. The media agree. So why are you out of step?
Thus, you've botched your campaign. You're going to lose by a landslide. I accuse you of being politically pure, clean, pristine, impeccable and untarnished. Your very presence embarrasses the system because you don't play by the historic rules. Now I will cite certain statements you have made that are outside the boundaries of the political game -- statements that are filled with veracity, validity and are sober and unvarnished. No candidate would be caught dead being associated with these characteristics.
Live From Miami, a Style Showdown (ALEX WILLIAMS, 9/26/04, NY Times)
IN boxing terms, you could say a matchup between John Kerry and George W. Bush is a classic case of a dancer vs. a puncher: Mr. Kerry flicks around the periphery of issues; Mr. Bush pounds right through them.The matchup on Thursday at the University of Miami, site of the highly anticipated first presidential debate, can be expected to pit the two men against each other, trading punches over Iraq and job creation. But if previous debates are any guide, the candidate who voters perceive as the winner will probably be chosen not on the substance of what he says, but on the cut of his jib.
The subtle style cues of gesture, posture, syntax and tone of voice account for as much as 75 percent of a viewer's judgment about the electability of a candidate, said Bill Carrick, a political consultant who ran Richard A. Gephardt's presidential campaign this year. In a word, he said, the mano a mano is about style — those nonverbal messages that speak to hearts, not heads.
"I think they're both aware that this is more about your `Q factor' than about scoring a debate," Mr. Carrick said. "It's much more like being a host of a television show."
Experts in body language, linguistics and personal grooming who have watched the candidates in recent weeks offered a cheat sheet to home viewers about how each is likely to come across: his strengths, weaknesses and the color of his neckties.
U.S. Health Plans Include One With Catholic Tenets (MILT FREUDENHEIM, 9/25/04, NY Times)
The Bush administration has broken new ground in its "faith-based" initiative, this time by offering federal employees a Catholic health plan that specifically excludes payment for contraceptives, abortion, sterilization and artificial insemination.The new plan, announced last week, combines two White House priorities. It is part of a $1 billion project seeking to involve religious organizations in all types of federal social programs. At the same time, the plan is a new form of coverage - a health savings account combined with high-deductible coverage - that is being promoted as a centerpiece of President Bush's health care policy.
The plan, which will begin enrolling federal workers in 31 Illinois counties in November, is sponsored by OSF Health, a unit of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, which runs the St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria and five Roman Catholic hospitals in Illinois and Michigan. [...]
Kay Coles James, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, said last week that the new additions to federal employees' health benefits would "empower" workers to control their medical spending. Ms. James, a former spokeswoman for the National Right to Life Committee, which advocates anti-abortion policies, added that the program gave federal employees "more opportunities to make choices in the private sector."
But some critics expressed concern that this trend in health care might grow into a wider phenomenon. Is this "explicit denial" the first step in "denying federal employees a normal benefit that has been traditional for 30 years?" asked Philip R. Lee, a professor of social medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a former assistant secretary for health in the Clinton administration. "Is this simply the opening wedge?"
California Backs Plan for Big Cut in Car Emissions: If the plan survives legal challenges, it would force automakers to increase sharply the fuel efficiency of millions of vehicles. (DANNY HAKIM, 9/25/04, NY Times)
Industry officials said the plan would lead them to restrict sales of large sport utility vehicles and high- performance sports cars in the state. Regulators, including the state's staff of engineers, sharply disputed that and said the industry already had much of the technology to comply on the shelf or, in the case of gas-electric hybrid cars, on the road.With seven other states in the East following California's lead on air quality regulations, the plan could potentially affect about 30 percent of the market. That would present automakers with tough choices about whether to build different vehicles for different markets or develop a unified nationwide strategy to meet the demands of California and the other states.
A representative from New York reiterated on Thursday the state's support for California's measure.
But the plan still faces an expected legal challenge on multiple fronts from automakers and could also be blocked by the Bush administration. For years, the industry has tied up previous state efforts to regulate air quality, but regulators say that they have learned from those battles and that they believe they will prevail in court.
Automakers, in sometimes combative testimony, strongly opposed the measure, saying it would be far more expensive than the state projected and that regulators are straying far beyond their traditional role of curbing local air pollution.
The industry also dismissed as unproved the board staff's presentation of a broad overview of scientific evidence on the health effects of global warming.
The regulation would require the industry to cut roughly 30 percent of the carbon dioxide and other emissions scientists have linked to climate change trends. The standards would phase in from the 2009 to the 2016 model years, with each automaker's annual new car and truck offerings required to meet increasingly stringent limits.
But the industry said critics sharply underestimated the costs of meeting the standard. The board's staff projected that the regulation would add about $1,000 to the initial cost of an average new vehicle but that gasoline savings over time would more than make up for that. The industry said it would cost an extra $3,000, much more than the potential fuel savings.
The board's staff gave some ground, but not much, modifying its cost savings projections to $2,142 from $2,691 - fuel savings minus higher upfront costs.
Saga of Dr. Zawahri Sheds Light On the Roots of al Qaeda Terror: How a Secret, Failed Trip to Chechnya Turned Key Plotter's Focus to America and bin Laden (ANDREW HIGGINS and ALAN CULLISON, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
On a winter night five years ago, Ayman al-Zawahri slipped into Russia across a narrow wedge of land between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains. Dr. Zawahri, now America's most wanted man after Osama bin Laden, was on a risky clandestine mission as head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a militant group that was scattered, battered and nearly bankrupt after years on the run. His purpose: to scope out Chechnya as a possible sanctuary for his wounded cause. Traveling in a minivan with two confederates, he came equipped with $6,400 in cash, a fake identity as a businessman, a laptop computer, a satellite phone, a fax machine and a small library of medical textbooks.His plans quickly unraveled. After a night of furtive travel, the Egyptian trio ran into a Russian roadblock on the outskirts of this ancient walled city. Police, seeing they had no visas, handed them over to the Federal Security Service, the post-Soviet version of the KGB. Dr. Zawahri spent the next six months in a crumbling jail, fretting that the Russians would discover his true identity and lock him up for years or send him back to Egypt to face likely execution.
In the end, his cover held, and he was freed. Still, Dr. Zawahri's brush with disaster, previously known to only a few Islamist chieftains, forced a critical change in his lethal planning. It also set the stage, ultimately, for Sept. 11 and the global war now under way between America and terrorists under the banner of al Qaeda. Instead of Chechnya, Afghanistan began the locus of his terrorist plotting. And America, not Egypt, became the target.
The Wall Street Journal has pieced together the story of how this happened from interviews with Islamist activists and investigators, court files and documents contained on an al Qaeda computer found in the Afghan capital of Kabul. It illuminates the evolution, motives and also weaknesses of what is today America's principal enemy.
Through apocalyptic violence and a cult of secrecy, Islamic militants torment the West with the specter of a highly disciplined and unshakably united foe. In reality, they have regularly been torn by venomous policy disputes, personal feuds and repeated failures. The Sept. 11 cataclysm both masked and flowed from militant Islam's truest feature: disarray and an inability to take and hold power in almost any Islamic country since Iran in 1979. Islamists preaching revolution in Egypt and elsewhere were in retreat, not ascendancy. Attacking America, Dr. Zawahri hoped, would reinvigorate and unite their cause. His story shows from the inside how the down-on-his-luck Egyptian Jihad leader came to link up with Osama bin Laden and contribute a critical arsenal of terrorist skills and manpower to the cause.
Latino Vote Still Lags Its Potential: The Southwest influx leans Democratic but is not registering fast enough to help Kerry. (Ronald Brownstein and Kathleen Hennessey, September 25, 2004, LA Times)
In miniature, the experience of Auyb and Rodriguez shows how the continuing influx of Latinos is reshaping the partisan balance across the desert Southwest — and why the transformation may not arrive fast enough to help Sen. John F. Kerry erase President Bush's advantage in the region this November.Slowly but inexorably, activists across the region are moving more Latinos to the polls; even with the difficulties experienced by Auyb, Rodriguez and other canvassers, their group, the Citizenship Project, has registered 3,000 new Latino voters in Las Vegas this year.
Such progress is gradually strengthening Democratic prospects not only in Nevada and New Mexico, swing states in recent presidential elections, but also in Colorado and Arizona, which the GOP has dominated. In all four states, Latinos make up a larger share of voters today than in 1992. And they are a reliably Democratic block.
Experts in both parties agree that eventually, this demographic trend could give the Southwest the largest concentration of tossup states outside of the industrial Midwest.
But Latinos are still not registering and voting in numbers large enough to maximize their influence. As a result, in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona, Latinos represent a smaller share of the vote — in some cases much smaller — than their share of the population, according to exit polls on election days.
Although Latinos are growing more important with each election, they are unlikely to become a decisive factor in these states until they overcome the barriers to political participation that plagued the canvassers in Las Vegas.
"The pool of potential voters lags way behind the growth in the Hispanic population," said Maria Cardona, director of the Latino outreach project at the New Democratic Network, a centrist Democratic group.
That gap means that Latinos, who could tip any of the Southwest's four battleground states to Kerry, are more likely to play a supporting rather than starring role in this year's fight for the region's 29 electoral votes.
"The longer-term implications for Latino empowerment in what we are seeing are great," said Louis DeSipio, a political scientist at UC Irvine who specializes in Latino politics. "But they aren't necessarily in this election."
Bush Twists Kerry's Words on Iraq (JENNIFER LOVEN, 9/24/04, Associated Press)
President Bush opened several new scathing lines of attack against Democrat John Kerry, charges that twisted his rival's words on Iraq and made Kerry seem supportive of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein. [...]Campaigning by bus through hotly contested Wisconsin on Friday, Bush sought to counter recently sharpened criticism by Kerry about his Iraq policies:
He stated flatly that Kerry had said earlier in the week "he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today." The line drew gasps of surprise from Bush's audience in a Racine, Wis., park. "I just strongly disagree," the president said.
But Kerry never said that. In a speech at New York University on Monday, he called Saddam "a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell." He added, "The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.
''If you had been elected president in 2000, in November of 2000, would we be in Iraq now?" Letterman asked the Democratic presidential nominee."No," Kerry replied...
Man who swore Bush into Air Guard speaks out (Lance Coleman, 2004-09-24, The Daily Times)
Ed Morrisey Jr. has his opinion about rumors President Bush received preferential treatment when he was allowed into the Texas Air National Guard in the late 1960s.The Blount Countian also has firsthand knowledge.
The 75-year-old Jackson Hills resident is a retired colonel with Texas Air National Guard. He swore Lt. George W. Bush into the service in May 1968.
On Thursday, Morrisey said the argument that Bush got off easy by being in the National Guard doesn't take into consideration the context of the 1960s.
``Bush and the others were flying several flights day or night over the Gulf of Mexico to identify the unknown,'' he said. ``The Cold War was a nervous time. You never knew. There were other things going on equally important to the country, and the Air National Guard had a primary role in it.''
Morrisey said the commander he worked for at the unit in Texas was sent there to rebuild the image of the unit. There were only two to four pilot training slots given to them per year, he said. Individuals questioned by an evaluation board and then chosen by the commander had to be the best.
"Bush was selected and he turned out just fine,'' he said.
According to Morrisey, after Bush began working as a fighter pilot, he became regarded as one of the best pilots there. Unit commander Col. Maurice Udell considered Bush to be one of his top five pilots, Morrisey said.
"The kid did good,'' he said.
Speech at Temple University: Remarks of John Kerry (John Kerry, 9/24/04)
My fellow Americans, the most urgent national security challenge we face is the war against those who attacked our country on September 11th, the war against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. As president, I will fight a tougher, smarter, more effective war on terror. My priority will be to find and capture or kill the terrorists before they get us.
So, from the very first, President Bush determined to raise the bar and both transform the Middle East so that it would no longer breed poverty, misery and extremism and thereby terrorist. In his Address to a Joint Session of Congress, on September 20, 2001, he was already thinking in terms of a global response to terrorism of all types as well as to regimes that harbored terrorist or themselves practiced terror:
On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars -- but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war -- but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks -- but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day -- and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who attacked our country? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are the same murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and responsible for bombing the USS Cole.
Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world -- and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.
The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics -- a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam. The terrorists' directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews, to kill all Americans, and make no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children.
This group and its leader -- a person named Osama bin Laden -- are linked to many other organizations in different countries, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. There are thousands of these terrorists in more than 60 countries. They are recruited from their own nations and neighborhoods and brought to camps in places like Afghanistan, where they are trained in the tactics of terror. They are sent back to their homes or sent to hide in countries around the world to plot evil and destruction.
The leadership of al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan, we see al Qaeda's vision for the world.
Afghanistan's people have been brutalized -- many are starving and many have fled. Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough.
The United States respects the people of Afghanistan -- after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid -- but we condemn the Taliban regime. (Applause.) It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder.
And tonight, the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban: Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. (Applause.) Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned. Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. (Applause.) Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.
These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. (Applause.) The Taliban must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.
I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. (Applause.) The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. (Applause.)
Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. (Applause.)
Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.
They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.
These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us, because we stand in their way.
We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies. (Applause.)
Americans are asking: How will we fight and win this war? We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war -- to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.
This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.
Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.
Our nation has been put on notice: We are not immune from attack. We will take defensive measures against terrorism to protect Americans. Today, dozens of federal departments and agencies, as well as state and local governments, have responsibilities affecting homeland security. These efforts must be coordinated at the highest level. So tonight I announce the creation of a Cabinet-level position reporting directly to me -- the Office of Homeland Security.
And tonight I also announce a distinguished American to lead this effort, to strengthen American security: a military veteran, an effective governor, a true patriot, a trusted friend -- Pennsylvania's Tom Ridge. (Applause.) He will lead, oversee and coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to safeguard our country against terrorism, and respond to any attacks that may come.
These measures are essential. But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows. (Applause.)
Many will be involved in this effort, from FBI agents to intelligence operatives to the reservists we have called to active duty. All deserve our thanks, and all have our prayers. And tonight, a few miles from the damaged Pentagon, I have a message for our military: Be ready. I've called the Armed Forces to alert, and there is a reason. The hour is coming when America will act, and you will make us proud. (Applause.)
This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.
Our cause is just, and it continues. Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears, and showed us the true scope of the task ahead. We have seen the depth of our enemies' hatred in videos, where they laugh about the loss of innocent life. And the depth of their hatred is equaled by the madness of the destruction they design. We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities, detailed instructions for making chemical weapons, surveillance maps of American cities, and thorough descriptions of landmarks in America and throughout the world.What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that, far from ending there, our war against terror is only beginning. Most of the 19 men who hijacked planes on September the 11th were trained in Afghanistan's camps, and so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning.
Thanks to the work of our law enforcement officials and coalition partners, hundreds of terrorists have been arrested. Yet, tens of thousands of trained terrorists are still at large. These enemies view the entire world as a battlefield, and we must pursue them wherever they are. (Applause.) So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor terrorists, freedom is at risk. And America and our allies must not, and will not, allow it. (Applause.)
Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world. (Applause.)
Our military has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in at least a dozen countries. A terrorist underworld -- including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Jaish-i-Mohammed -- operates in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centers of large cities.
While the most visible military action is in Afghanistan, America is acting elsewhere. We now have troops in the Philippines, helping to train that country's armed forces to go after terrorist cells that have executed an American, and still hold hostages. Our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy. Our Navy is patrolling the coast of Africa to block the shipment of weapons and the establishment of terrorist camps in Somalia.
My hope is that all nations will heed our call, and eliminate the terrorist parasites who threaten their countries and our own. Many nations are acting forcefully. Pakistan is now cracking down on terror, and I admire the strong leadership of President Musharraf. (Applause.)
But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will. (Applause.)
Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. (Applause.) And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.
We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons. (Applause.)
Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch -- yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch.
We can't stop short. If we stop now -- leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked -- our sense of security would be false and temporary. History has called America and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom's fight.
For too long, the citizens of the Middle East have lived in the midst of death and fear. The hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage. The forces of extremism and terror are attempting to kill progress and peace by killing the innocent. And this casts a dark shadow over an entire region. For the sake of all humanity, things must change in the Middle East.It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself.
In the situation the Palestinian people will grow more and more miserable. My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.
I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.
And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.
In the work ahead, we all have responsibilities. The Palestinian people are gifted and capable, and I am confident they can achieve a new birth for their nation. A Palestinian state will never be created by terror -- it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism.
Our commitment to democracy is also tested in the Middle East, which is my focus today, and must be a focus of American policy for decades to come. In many nations of the Middle East -- countries of great strategic importance -- democracy has not yet taken root. And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free. (Applause.)Some skeptics of democracy assert that the traditions of Islam are inhospitable to the representative government. This "cultural condescension," as Ronald Reagan termed it, has a long history. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, a so-called Japan expert asserted that democracy in that former empire would "never work." Another observer declared the prospects for democracy in post-Hitler Germany are, and I quote, "most uncertain at best" -- he made that claim in 1957. Seventy-four years ago, The Sunday London Times declared nine-tenths of the population of India to be "illiterates not caring a fig for politics." Yet when Indian democracy was imperiled in the 1970s, the Indian people showed their commitment to liberty in a national referendum that saved their form of government.
Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are "ready" for democracy -- as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress. In fact, the daily work of democracy itself is the path of progress. It teaches cooperation, the free exchange of ideas, and the peaceful resolution of differences. As men and women are showing, from Bangladesh to Botswana, to Mongolia, it is the practice of democracy that makes a nation ready for democracy, and every nation can start on this path.
It should be clear to all that Islam -- the faith of one-fifth of humanity -- is consistent with democratic rule. Democratic progress is found in many predominantly Muslim countries -- in Turkey and Indonesia, and Senegal and Albania, Niger and Sierra Leone. Muslim men and women are good citizens of India and South Africa, of the nations of Western Europe, and of the United States of America.
More than half of all the Muslims in the world live in freedom under democratically constituted governments. They succeed in democratic societies, not in spite of their faith, but because of it. A religion that demands individual moral accountability, and encourages the encounter of the individual with God, is fully compatible with the rights and responsibilities of self-government.
Yet there's a great challenge today in the Middle East. In the words of a recent report by Arab scholars, the global wave of democracy has -- and I quote -- "barely reached the Arab states." They continue: "This freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development." The freedom deficit they describe has terrible consequences, of the people of the Middle East and for the world. In many Middle Eastern countries, poverty is deep and it is spreading, women lack rights and are denied schooling. Whole societies remain stagnant while the world moves ahead. These are not the failures of a culture or a religion. These are the failures of political and economic doctrines.
As the colonial era passed away, the Middle East saw the establishment of many military dictatorships. Some rulers adopted the dogmas of socialism, seized total control of political parties and the media and universities. They allied themselves with the Soviet bloc and with international terrorism. Dictators in Iraq and Syria promised the restoration of national honor, a return to ancient glories. They've left instead a legacy of torture, oppression, misery, and ruin.
Other men, and groups of men, have gained influence in the Middle East and beyond through an ideology of theocratic terror. Behind their language of religion is the ambition for absolute political power. Ruling cabals like the Taliban show their version of religious piety in public whippings of women, ruthless suppression of any difference or dissent, and support for terrorists who arm and train to murder the innocent. The Taliban promised religious purity and national pride. Instead, by systematically destroying a proud and working society, they left behind suffering and starvation.
Many Middle Eastern governments now understand that military dictatorship and theocratic rule are a straight, smooth highway to nowhere. But some governments still cling to the old habits of central control. There are governments that still fear and repress independent thought and creativity, and private enterprise -- the human qualities that make for a -- strong and successful societies. Even when these nations have vast natural resources, they do not respect or develop their greatest resources -- the talent and energy of men and women working and living in freedom.
Instead of dwelling on past wrongs and blaming others, governments in the Middle East need to confront real problems, and serve the true interests of their nations. The good and capable people of the Middle East all deserve responsible leadership. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects -- they deserve to be active citizens.
Governments across the Middle East and North Africa are beginning to see the need for change. Morocco has a diverse new parliament; King Mohammed has urged it to extend the rights to women. Here is how His Majesty explained his reforms to parliament: "How can society achieve progress while women, who represent half the nation, see their rights violated and suffer as a result of injustice, violence, and marginalization, notwithstanding the dignity and justice granted to them by our glorious religion?" The King of Morocco is correct: The future of Muslim nations will be better for all with the full participation of women. (Applause.)
In Bahrain last year, citizens elected their own parliament for the first time in nearly three decades. Oman has extended the vote to all adult citizens; Qatar has a new constitution; Yemen has a multiparty political system; Kuwait has a directly elected national assembly; and Jordan held historic elections this summer. Recent surveys in Arab nations reveal broad support for political pluralism, the rule of law, and free speech. These are the stirrings of Middle Eastern democracy, and they carry the promise of greater change to come.
As changes come to the Middle Eastern region, those with power should ask themselves: Will they be remembered for resisting reform, or for leading it? In Iran, the demand for democracy is strong and broad, as we saw last month when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The regime in Teheran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy. (Applause.)
For the Palestinian people, the only path to independence and dignity and progress is the path of democracy. (Applause.) And the Palestinian leaders who block and undermine democratic reform, and feed hatred and encourage violence are not leaders at all. They're the main obstacles to peace, and to the success of the Palestinian people.
The Saudi government is taking first steps toward reform, including a plan for gradual introduction of elections. By giving the Saudi people a greater role in their own society, the Saudi government can demonstrate true leadership in the region.
The great and proud nation of Egypt has shown the way toward peace in the Middle East, and now should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East. (Applause.) Champions of democracy in the region understand that democracy is not perfect, it is not the path to utopia, but it's the only path to national success and dignity.
As we watch and encourage reforms in the region, we are mindful that modernization is not the same as Westernization. Representative governments in the Middle East will reflect their own cultures. They will not, and should not, look like us. Democratic nations may be constitutional monarchies, federal republics, or parliamentary systems. And working democracies always need time to develop -- as did our own. We've taken a 200-year journey toward inclusion and justice -- and this makes us patient and understanding as other nations are at different stages of this journey.
There are, however, essential principles common to every successful society, in every culture. Successful societies limit the power of the state and the power of the military -- so that governments respond to the will of the people, and not the will of an elite. Successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial rule of law, instead of selecting applying -- selectively applying the law to punish political opponents. Successful societies allow room for healthy civic institutions -- for political parties and labor unions and independent newspapers and broadcast media. Successful societies guarantee religious liberty -- the right to serve and honor God without fear of persecution. Successful societies privatize their economies, and secure the rights of property. They prohibit and punish official corruption, and invest in the health and education of their people. They recognize the rights of women. And instead of directing hatred and resentment against others, successful societies appeal to the hopes of their own people. (Applause.)
These vital principles are being applies in the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq. With the steady leadership of President Karzai, the people of Afghanistan are building a modern and peaceful government. Next month, 500 delegates will convene a national assembly in Kabul to approve a new Afghan constitution. The proposed draft would establish a bicameral parliament, set national elections next year, and recognize Afghanistan's Muslim identity, while protecting the rights of all citizens. Afghanistan faces continuing economic and security challenges -- it will face those challenges as a free and stable democracy. (Applause.)
In Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council are also working together to build a democracy -- and after three decades of tyranny, this work is not easy. The former dictator ruled by terror and treachery, and left deeply ingrained habits of fear and distrust. Remnants of his regime, joined by foreign terrorists, continue their battle against order and against civilization. Our coalition is responding to recent attacks with precision raids, guided by intelligence provided by the Iraqis, themselves. And we're working closely with Iraqi citizens as they prepare a constitution, as they move toward free elections and take increasing responsibility for their own affairs. As in the defense of Greece in 1947, and later in the Berlin Airlift, the strength and will of free peoples are now being tested before a watching world. And we will meet this test. (Applause.)
Securing democracy in Iraq is the work of many hands. American and coalition forces are sacrificing for the peace of Iraq and for the security of free nations. Aid workers from many countries are facing danger to help the Iraqi people. The National Endowment for Democracy is promoting women's rights, and training Iraqi journalists, and teaching the skills of political participation. Iraqis, themselves -- police and borders guards and local officials -- are joining in the work and they are sharing in the sacrifice.
This is a massive and difficult undertaking -- it is worth our effort, it is worth our sacrifice, because we know the stakes. The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. (Applause.) The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution. (Applause.)
Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo. (Applause.)
Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace. (Applause.)
The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country. From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the Speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle. We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history. We believe that human fulfillment and excellence come in the responsible exercise of liberty. And we believe that freedom -- the freedom we prize -- is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind. (Applause.)
Working for the spread of freedom can be hard. Yet, America has accomplished hard tasks before. Our nation is strong; we're strong of heart. And we're not alone. Freedom is finding allies in every country; freedom finds allies in every culture. And as we meet the terror and violence of the world, we can be certain the author of freedom is not indifferent to the fate of freedom.
So now John Kerry proposes to reduce the effort back to a kind of police action against al Qaeda remnants and, as he's said, chuck the notion of championing democracy in the Middle East in favor of the kind of authoritarianism that provides greater stability, at least temporarily. To a degree one would not have thought possible after the rebuke they were dealt in the 70s and 80s, Senator Kerry and his fellow liberals have returned to the Realism of Nixon/Kissinger/Ford/Carter and the idea that detente with the totalitarians of the Middle East serves our interests better than the liberationism that Ronald Reagan:
We're approaching the end of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political invention -- totalitarianism. Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression. Yet optimism is in order, because day by day democracy is proving itself to be a not-at-all-fragile flower. From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than 30 years to establish their legitimacy. But none -- not one regime -- has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.The strength of the Solidarity movement in Poland demonstrates the truth told in an underground joke in the Soviet Union. It is that the Soviet Union would remain a one-party nation even if an opposition party were permitted, because everyone would join the opposition party.
America's time as a player on the stage of world history has been brief. I think understanding this fact has always made you patient with your younger cousins -- well, not always patient. I do recall that on one occasion, Sir Winston Churchill said in exasperation about one of our most distinguished diplomats: ``He is the only case I know of a bull who carries his china shop with him.''
But witty as Sir Winston was, he also had that special attribute of great statesmen -- the gift of vision, the willingness to see the future based on the experience of the past. It is this sense of history, this understanding of the past that I want to talk with you about today, for it is in remembering what we share of the past that our two nations can make common cause for the future.
We have not inherited an easy world. If developments like the Industrial Revolution, which began here in England, and the gifts of science and technology have made life much easier for us, they have also made it more dangerous. There are threats now to our freedom, indeed to our very existence, that other generations could never even have imagined.
There is first the threat of global war. No President, no Congress, no Prime Minister, no Parliament can spend a day entirely free of this threat. And I don't have to tell you that in today's world the existence of nuclear weapons could mean, if not the extinction of mankind, then surely the end of civilization as we know it. That's why negotiations on intermediate-range nuclear forces now underway in Europe and the START talks -- Strategic Arms Reduction Talks -- which will begin later this month, are not just critical to American or Western policy; they are critical to mankind. Our commitment to early success in these negotiations is firm and unshakable, and our purpose is clear: reducing the risk of war by reducing the means of waging war on both sides.
At the same time there is a threat posed to human freedom by the enormous power of the modern state. History teaches the dangers of government that overreaches -- political control taking precedence over free economic growth, secret police, mindless bureaucracy, all combining to stifle individual excellence and personal freedom.
Now, I'm aware that among us here and throughout Europe there is legitimate disagreement over the extent to which the public sector should play a role in a nation's economy and life. But on one point all of us are united -- our abhorrence of dictatorship in all its forms, but most particularly totalitarianism and the terrible inhumanities it has caused in our time -- the great purge, Auschwitz and Dachau, the Gulag, and Cambodia.
Historians looking back at our time will note the consistent restraint and peaceful intentions of the West. They will note that it was the democracies who refused to use the threat of their nuclear monopoly in the forties and early fifties for territorial or imperial gain. Had that nuclear monopoly been in the hands of the Communist world, the map of Europe -- indeed, the world -- would look very different today. And certainly they will note it was not the democracies that invaded Afghanistan or supressed Polish Solidarity or used chemical and toxin warfare in Afghanistan and Southeast Asia.If history teaches anything it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. We see around us today the marks of our terrible dilemma -- predictions of doomsday, antinuclear demonstrations, an arms race in which the West must, for its own protection, be an unwilling participant. At the same time we see totalitarian forces in the world who seek subversion and conflict around the globe to further their barbarous assault on the human spirit. What, then, is our course? Must civilization perish in a hail of fiery atoms?
Must freedom wither in a quiet, deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil?
Sir Winston Churchill refused to accept the inevitability of war or even that it was imminent. He said, ``I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries.''
Well, this is precisely our mission today: to preserve freedom as well as peace. It may not be easy to see; but I believe we live now at a turning point.
In an ironic sense Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxist-Leninism, the Soviet Union. It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens. It also is in deep economic difficulty. The rate of growth in the national product has been steadily declining since the fifties and is less than half of what it was then.
The dimensions of this failure are astounding: A country which employs one-fifth of its population in agriculture is unable to feed its own people. Were it not for the private sector, the tiny private sector tolerated in Soviet agriculture, the country might be on the brink of famine. These private plots occupy a bare 3 percent of the arable land but account for nearly one-quarter of Soviet farm output and nearly one-third of meat products and vegetables. Overcentralized, with little or no incentives, year after year the Soviet system pours its best resource into the making of instruments of destruction. The constant shrinkage of economic growth combined with the growth of military production is putting a heavy strain on the Soviet people. What we see here is a political structure that no longer corresponds to its economic base, a society where productive forces are hampered by political ones.
The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies -- West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam -- it is the democratic countries what are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: Of all the millions of refugees we've seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the Communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving.
The hard evidence of totalitarian rule has caused in mankind an uprising of the intellect and will. Whether it is the growth of the new schools of economics in America or England or the appearance of the so-called new philosophers in France, there is one unifying thread running through the intellectual work of these groups -- rejection of the arbitrary power of the state, the refusal to subordinate the rights of the individual to the superstate, the realization that collectivism stifles all the best human impulses.
Since the exodus from Egypt, historians have written of those who sacrificed and struggled for freedom -- the stand at Thermopylae, the revolt of Spartacus, the storming of the Bastille, the Warsaw uprising in World War II. More recently we've seen evidence of this same human impulse in one of the developing nations in Central America. For months and months the world news media covered the fighting in El Salvador. Day after day we were treated to stories and film slanted toward the brave freedom-fighters battling oppressive government forces in behalf of the silent, suffering people of that tortured country.
And then one day those silent, suffering people were offered a chance to vote, to choose the kind of government they wanted. Suddenly the freedom-fighters in the hills were exposed for what they really are -- Cuban-backed guerrillas who want power for themselves, and their backers, not democracy for the people. They threatened death to any who voted, and destroyed hundreds of buses and trucks to keep the people from getting to the polling places. But on election day, the people of El Salvador, an unprecedented 1.4 million of them, braved ambush and gunfire, and trudged for miles to vote for freedom.
They stood for hours in the hot sun waiting for their turn to vote. Members of our Congress who went there as observers told me of a women who was wounded by rifle fire on the way to the polls, who refused to leave the line to have her wound treated until after she had voted. A grandmother, who had been told by the guerrillas she would be killed when she returned from the polls, and she told the guerrillas, ``You can kill me, you can kill my family, kill my neighbors, but you can't kill us all.'' The real freedom-fighters of El Salvador turned out to be the people of that country -- the young, the old, the in-between.
Strange, but in my own country there's been little if any news coverage of that war since the election. Now, perhaps they'll say it's -- well, because there are newer struggles now.
On distant islands in the South Atlantic young men are fighting for Britain. And, yes, voices have been raised protesting their sacrifice for lumps of rock and earth so far away. But those young men aren't fighting for mere real estate. They fight for a cause -- for the belief that armed aggression must not be allowed to succeed, and the people must participate in the decisions of government -- [applause] -- the decisions of government under the rule of law. If there had been firmer support for that principle some 45 years ago, perhaps our generation wouldn't have suffered the bloodletting of World War II.
In the Middle East now the guns sound once more, this time in Lebanon, a country that for too long has had to endure the tragedy of civil war, terrorism, and foreign intervention and occupation. The fighting in Lebanon on the part of all parties must stop, and Israel should bring its forces home. But this is not enough. We must all work to stamp out the scourge of terrorism that in the Middle East makes war an ever-present threat.
But beyond the troublespots lies a deeper, more positive pattern. Around the world today, the democratic revolution is gathering new strength. In India a critical test has been passed with the peaceful change of governing political parties. In Africa, Nigeria is moving into remarkable and unmistakable ways to build and strengthen its democratic institutions. In the Caribbean and Central America, 16 of 24 countries have freely elected governments. And in the United Nations, 8 of the 10 developing nations which have joined that body in the past 5 years are democracies.
In the Communist world as well, man's instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination surfaces again and again. To be sure, there are grim reminders of how brutally the police state attempts to snuff out this quest for self-rule -- 1953 in East Germany, 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia, 1981 in Poland. But the struggle continues in Poland. And we know that there are even those who strive and suffer for freedom within the confines of the Soviet Union itself. How we conduct ourselves here in the Western democracies will determine whether this trend continues.
No, democracy is not a fragile flower. Still it needs cultivating. If the rest of this century is to witness the gradual growth of freedom and democratic ideals, we must take actions to assist the campaign for democracy.
Some argue that we should encourage democratic change in right-wing dictatorships, but not in Communist regimes. Well, to accept this preposterous notion -- as some well-meaning people have -- is to invite the argument that once countries achieve a nuclear capability, they should be allowed an undisturbed reign of terror over their own citizens.
We reject this course.
As for the Soviet view, Chairman Brezhnev repeatedly has stressed that the competition of ideas and systems must continue and that this is entirely consistent with relaxation of tensions and peace.
Well, we ask only that these systems begin by living up to their own constitutions, abiding by their own laws, and complying with the international obligations they have undertaken. We ask only for a process, a direction, a basic code of decency, not for an instant transformation.
We cannot ignore the fact that even without our encouragement there has been and will continue to be repeated explosions against repression and dictatorships. The Soviet Union itself is not immune to this reality. Any system is inherently unstable that has no peaceful means to legitimize its leaders. In such cases, the very repressiveness of the state ultimately drives people to resist it, if necessary, by force.
While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move toward them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections.
The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.
This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity?
Since 1917 the Soviet Union has given covert political training and assistance to Marxist-Leninists in many countries. Of course, it also has promoted the use of violence and subversion by these same forces. Over the past several decades, West European and other Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, and leaders have offered open assistance to fraternal, political, and social institutions to bring about peaceful and democratic progress. Appropriately, for a vigorous new democracy, the Federal Republic of Germany's political foundations have become a major force in this effort.
We in America now intend to take additional steps, as many of our allies have already done, toward realizing this same goal. The chairmen and other leaders of the national Republican and Democratic Party organizations are initiating a study with the bipartisan American political foundation to determine how the United States can best contribute as a nation to the global campaign for democracy now gathering force. They will have the cooperation of congressional leaders of both parties, along with representatives of business, labor, and other major institutions in our society. I look forward to receiving their recommendations and to working with these institutions and the Congress in the common task of strengthening democracy throughout the world.
It is time that we committed ourselves as a nation -- in both the pubic and private sectors -- to assisting democratic development.
The John Kerry of the 70s and 80s was one of those whose vision was dim, who, for whatever reason, counseled surrender to and accommodation with totalitarian evil. And it would appear that when the John Kerry of today sees in the Middle East much the same thing he saw when he looked at the Eastern Europe of Iron Curtain days and still thinks democracy such a fragile flower that it can not thrive in foreign soil. Age has not improved his perceptive powers.
Photographs Do Lie: Why his Pulitzer-winning picture of a South Vietnamese general haunted Eddie Adams for the rest of his life. (Duncan Currie, 09/24/2004, Weekly Standard)
PHOTOJOURNALIST Eddie Adams died last Sunday at age 71, but his place in history is secure. Indeed, Adams made history with his famous picture of South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Taken in Saigon on February 1, 1968, the picture showed Gen. Loan's point-blank execution of a Viet Cong captain named Bay Lop. The images were searing: Loan's cold grimace; a snub-nosed .38 revolver held inches from Lop's terrified face; the fiercely clenched teeth of an officer standing nearby.It won a Pulitzer Prize for the Associated Press in 1969, and was one of the most influential still photos of the 20th century. But until the day he died, Eddie Adams regretted having taken it.
Actually, that's an understatement. Adams blamed himself for ruining Loan's life. "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera," was how he put it. His picture told one story; but his contrition for that picture told quite another. [...]
The AP subsequently assigned Adams to follow Loan around Vietnam. Then, a strange thing happened. As Adams later recalled on National Public Radio, "I . . . found out the guy was very well loved by the Vietnamese, you know. He was a hero to them . . . and it just saddens me that none of this has really come out."
Among other things, Adams learned that Loan spent considerable time lobbying for new hospitals in South Vietnam. "It's just a sad statement," Adams said on NPR, "of America. He was fighting our war, not their war, our war, and every--all the blame is on this guy." [...]
Loan died in July 1998, at age 67, from cancer. Torn up by regret, Adams penned a moving eulogy in Time magazine. It was part remembrance, part mea culpa for his 1968 picture. "Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world," he wrote. "People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?' General Loan was what you would call a real warrior, admired by his troops. I'm not saying what he did was right, but you have to put yourself in his position."
Adams also sent the Loan family flowers and a card. "I'm sorry," he wrote. "There are tears in my eyes."
MORE:
-The Myth Behind the Famous Eddie Adams 'Execution' Photo (David D. Perlmutter, September 22, 2004, Editor & Publisher)
More conservative? (Daniel Weintraub, 9/24/04, California Insider)
This new LA Times Poll says Schwarzenegger is still getting the approval of 66 percent of California voters, but more people are starting to see him as a conservative.
Hiding Behind Anonymity: `Background Briefings' Increase Under Bush (LIZ HALLORAN, September 24, 2004, Hartford Courant)
Though common practice in past administrations, many Washington reporters and editors say the Bush White House has taken the use of anonymous briefings to the extreme, compromising the media's credibility, shielding officials from accountability and transforming briefings into little more than spin zones."I've covered administrations since the Reagan years, and the prevalence has just grown and grown and grown, and for no good reasons," says Susan Page, USA Today's Washington bureau chief. "It's now become kind of a reflex on the part of a number of government agencies."
Says Sandy Johnson, Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press: "The problem is insidious."
And often ridiculous: national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, insisting on anonymity, once briefed White House reporters about the president's meetings with foreign leaders, then proceeded directly to give an "exclusive" on-camera interview with CNN during which she imparted exactly the same information. (Protests resulted in her earlier briefing being put on the record.)
But such victories are rare, says USA Today White House reporter Judy Keen, who has joined the AP in taking the lead in routinely protesting anonymous briefings.
"They have the power, they set the ground rules and they know that we have little choice but to accept the ground rules because none of us can walk out" for competitive reasons, says Keen, adding that the protests have been "utterly ineffective."
It's always annoying when a jerk achieves greatness, so a pleasure that Jeff Brokaw takes Barry Bonds down a peg.
Howard now has God on his side (Michelle Wiese Bockmann, September 25, 2004, news.com.au)
JOHN HOWARD has personally brokered a deal with the Family First party that would see the Coalition consult over policy with the Assemblies of God-backed party in exchange for preferences for most lower house candidates across Australia.With the Coalition keen to counter the Labor Party's dominance of the preference flows in a tight election, the Liberals signed off on the deal after a series of conversations between the Prime Minister and Family First chairman Peter Harris.
While the preference flows of the socially conservative minor party may have limited effect in most states, they will be crucial in the three marginal South Australian seats held by the Liberals.
It is almost a political mirror image to the sweeping preference deal between Labor and the left-leaning Greens for Senate and 26 lower house seats reached last week.
Yom Kippur, 5765 (George W. Bush, 9/24/04)
"the Lord, the Lord God Is Gracious and Compassionate, Patient, Abounding in Kindness and Faithfulness, Assuring Love for a Thousand Generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and granting pardon."Exodus: 34:6-7
On Yom Kippur, Jews around the world gather to mark the holiest day of the year, the Sabbath of Sabbaths. Jewish tradition teaches that on this day, we receive God's mercy through acts of atonement, prayer, and charity. During this season of prayer and intense reflection, may you find comfort in God's promise, which has never been broken and which is renewed in our time.
Our trust in God gives all Americans great purpose. As we are called to acts of compassion and mercy, we come closer to God and serve a cause greater than ourselves. May you trust God's faithfulness to all people, and may you be blessed with a good and happy New Year.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Gentlemen:While I received with much satisfaction your address replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced on my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.
If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good government, to become a great and happy people.
The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.
May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
G. Washington
U.S. to sell 'bunker busters' to Israel (International Herald Tribune, September 22, 2004)
The United States will sell Israel nearly 5,000 bombs in one of the largest weapons deals between the allies in years, the Haaretz newspaper reported Tuesday.The $319 million sale will include 500 "bunker busters" that could be effective against Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Israeli security sources said.
A Life less Hectic (Radio Netherlands, September 24th, 2004)
Stressed, burnt-out and broken-down workers are the collateral damage of the modern industrialised world and their numbers are rising.This body count of zombified employees is as high as 30 percent in rich countries, according to the International Labour Organisation. Once stressed, people run increased risk of heart disease, cancer and mental illness.
In the Netherlands some 300,000 people are out of work, long-term sick due to stress and psychologically related problems and in the US stress levels are also soaring.
People in the US work as much as three months longer in hours each year than we do in Europe and they receive far fewer holidays.
In fact, employers in the US aren't legally obliged to provide for paid leave at all.
This week the Amsterdam Forum talked to two campaigners trying to tackle this workplace epidemic. [...](Panelist) Ineke Setz runs the Dutch organisation Slowlife.
"Slowlife stands for things like enjoyment, living with the seasons, spontaneous meetings, sumptuous cooking, working with pleasure, dreaming, taking the time for the really important things, a love, a dream, a charity, people."
Stressed, burnt-out and broken-down workers are on the rise? That will be news to mothers, farmers, miners and steelworkers from previous generations. However, there may be something to the implied suggestion that low-grade mental illness and emotional distress are increasing. When you believe you are entitled to a life composed of dreams, sumptuous meals, pleasurable work and endless romance, the human condition may leave you a little stressed.
"We know we can't count on the French. We know we can't count on the Russians," . . . "We know that Iraq is a danger to the United States, and we reserve the right to take pre-emptive action whenever we feel it's in our national interest."It's actually not at all surprising [registration required].
Truth Be Told, the Vietnam Crossfire Hurts Kerry More (JODI WILGOREN, 9/24/04, NY Times)
The war over who did what in the Vietnam era rages on in the 2004 campaign. But it has inflicted more wounds on the candidate who saw combat, Senator John Kerry, than the one who did not, President Bush, analysts across the political spectrum say.
Networks Praise Kerry, Fox News Buries Him (Press Release, September 9, 2004)
The broadcast TV networks and weekly news magazines favor John Kerry over George W. Bush, according to a new study released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA). But the study also finds that Fox News Channel was far more negative towards Kerry than Bush.These results come from the 2004 Election NewsWatch project, conducted by CMPA, an affiliate of George Mason University , and in cooperation with Media Tenor. [...]
Major Findings:• Evaluations of John Kerry were positive by a two-to-one margin, while evaluations of George W. Bush were over 60 percent negative
• Among non-partisan sources, Kerry's evaluations were almost three-to-one positive; Bush's were over two-to-one negative.
• Among the networks, the gap between the candidates was largest on NBC; the coverage was most balanced on ABC.
• Kerry's proportion of good press declined in August, but he still fared far better than Bush until the GOP convention.
• Bush got better than Kerry only during the GOP convention, which also was the only time he received a majority of positive evaluations.
• Based on CMPA's previous studies of primary and general election coverage, Kerry has gotten the best press on network news of any presidential nominee since we began tracking election news in 1988.
Tying Kerry to Terror Tests Rhetorical Limits (Dana Milbank, September 24, 2004, Washington Post)
President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq -- a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.Appearing in the Rose Garden yesterday with Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Bush said Kerry's statements about Iraq "can embolden an enemy." After Kerry criticized Allawi's speech to Congress, Vice President Cheney tore into the Democratic nominee, calling him "destructive" to the effort in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism.
It was the latest instance in which prominent Republicans have said that Democrats are helping the enemy or that al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents and other enemies of the United States are backing Kerry and the Democrats. Such accusations are not new to American politics, but the GOP's line of attack this year has been pervasive and high-level.
The Political Sidelining of Blacks (Mike Davis, 9/24/04, Tom Dispatch)
The evacuation of New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Ivan looked sinisterly like Strom Thurmond's version of the Rapture. Affluent white people fled the Big Easy in their SUVs, while the old and car-less -- mainly Black -- were left behind in their below-sea-level shotgun shacks and aging tenements to face the watery wrath.New Orleans had spent decades preparing for inevitable submersion by the storm surge of a class-five hurricane. Civil defense officials conceded they had ten thousand body bags on hand to deal with the worst-case scenario. But no one seemed to have bothered to devise a plan to evacuate the city's poorest or most infirm residents. The day before the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, New Orlean's daily, the Times-Picayune, ran an alarming story about the "large group…mostly concentrated in poorer neighborhoods" who wanted to evacuate but couldn't.
Only at the last moment, with winds churning Lake Pontchartrain, did Mayor Ray Nagin reluctantly open the Louisiana Superdome and a few schools to desperate residents. He was reportedly worried that lower-class refugees might damage or graffiti the Superdome.
In the event, Ivan the Terrible spared New Orleans, but official callousness toward poor Black folk endures.
Over the last generation, City Hall and its entourage of powerful developers have relentlessly attempted to push the poorest segment of the population -- blamed for the city's high crime rates -- across the Mississippi river. Historic Black public-housing projects have been razed to make room for upper-income townhouses and a Wal-Mart. In other housing projects, residents are routinely evicted for offenses as trivial as their children's curfew violations. The ultimate goal seems to be a tourist theme-park New Orleans -- one big Garden District -- with chronic poverty hidden away in bayous, trailer parks and prisons outside the city limits.
But New Orleans isn't the only the case-study in what Nixonians once called "the politics of benign neglect." In Los Angeles, county supervisors have just announced the closure of the trauma center at Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital near Watts. The hospital, located in the epicenter of LA's gang wars, is one of the nation's busiest centers for the treatment of gunshot wounds. The loss of its ER, according to paramedics, could "add as much as 30 minutes in transport time to other facilities."
The result, almost certainly, will be a spate of avoidable deaths. But then again the victims will be Black or Brown and poor.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the United States seems to have returned to degree zero of moral concern for the majority of descendants of slavery and segregation. Whether the Black poor live or die seems to merit only haughty disinterest and indifference. Indeed, in terms of the life-and-death issues that matter most to African-Americans -- structural unemployment, race-based super-incarceration, police brutality, disappearing affirmative action programs, and failing schools -- the present presidential election might as well be taking place in the 1920s.
But not all the blame can be assigned to the current occupant of the former slave-owners' mansion at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The mayor of New Orleans, for example, is a Black Democrat, and Los Angeles County is a famously Democratic bastion.
AP Poll: Bush Builds Advantage Among Men (WILL LESTER, 9/24/04, Associated Press)
President Bush solidified his advantage among men during the last month and holds his highest ratings since January on job performance, the economy and Iraq, according to an Associated Press poll.Bush has a 7-point lead over Sen. John Kerry — 52 percent to 45 percent among likely voters — in the AP-Ipsos survey less than six weeks before the Nov. 2 election. Independent Ralph Nader was backed by 1 percent. [...]
Since the Republican convention, Bush's job approval is up, 54 percent among likely voters, and just over half of them approve of his handling of the economy and Iraq. His approval in all three areas is as high as it's been all year in the polling conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.
Is There Something to Anti-Americanism? (Bernard Chazelle, 9/20/04, History News Network)
When President Bush is not busy hailing freedom, he is usually occupied extolling liberty. On the lofty matters of democracy, freedom, and human rights, his administration proudly talks the talk. The walking—as ever the weak link—has gotten alarmingly wobbly. It was once proud and steady: In the wake of World War II, the United States bestrode the globe like a colossus with twice the relative economic clout it enjoys today. Fresh from liberating the world from tyranny, America was universally revered. Where Europe stood for ruin, fascism, and colonization, the U.S. spelled wealth, freedom, and self-determination.
Bush and the rise and rise of the right: Australia and the rest of the world should get used to the ascendency of the US right (Gregory Hywood, September 23, 2004, The Age)
US allies and foes alike should understand this radical approach to strategic policy is no aberration. The conservative agenda is now deeply embedded in the thinking of the American polity.In shaping Australia's security arrangements, John Howard has grasped the new American reality. Mark Latham has yet to do so. Labor still seems imbued with the notion that there is some serious moderate alternative. If it is, it is only in detail, not intent.
In their new book The Right Nation - Conservative Power in America, US correspondents for The Economist, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, explore the unique nature of American conservatism.
They note this style of conservatism, which blends individual freedom and morality, exists in no other Western country. They note the contradictory nature of the movement: godless, academic neo-conservatives co-exist with fundamentalist Christians; Western libertarians snuggle up to southern militarists.
But these groups subsume their substantial differences in their common dislike of liberal orthodoxy. It is a movement bound together by the notion of certainty, a point Bush grasped perfectly when he united conservatives in the war on terror.
"For the (American) Right terrorism is a simple thing: for the rest of the world it is a complex debate," Micklethwait and Wooldridge write. They quote a key Republican strategist as saying: "Our people, like the President, deal in absolutes. They (our European allies and the Democrats) are relativists."
The Cult of Che: Don't applaud The Motorcycle Diaries. (Paul Berman, Sept. 24, 2004, Slate)
The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a tragedy on the hugest scale.The present-day cult of Che—the T-shirts, the bars, the posters—has succeeded in obscuring this dreadful reality. And Walter Salles' movie The Motorcycle Diaries will now take its place at the heart of this cult. It has already received a standing ovation at Robert Redford's Sundance film festival (Redford is the executive producer of The Motorcycle Diaries) and glowing admiration in the press. Che was an enemy of freedom, and yet he has been erected into a symbol of freedom. He helped establish an unjust social system in Cuba and has been erected into a symbol of social justice. He stood for the ancient rigidities of Latin-American thought, in a Marxist-Leninist version, and he has been celebrated as a free-thinker and a rebel. And thus it is in Salles' Motorcycle Diaries. [...]
The modern-day cult of Che blinds us not just to the past but also to the present. Right now a tremendous social struggle is taking place in Cuba. Dissident liberals have demanded fundamental human rights, and the dictatorship has rounded up all but one or two of the dissident leaders and sentenced them to many years in prison. Among those imprisoned leaders is an important Cuban poet and journalist, Raúl Rivero, who is serving a 20-year sentence. In the last couple of years the dissident movement has sprung up in yet another form in Cuba, as a campaign to establish independent libraries, free of state control; and state repression has fallen on this campaign, too.
These Cuban events have attracted the attention of a number of intellectuals and liberals around the world. Václav Havel has organized a campaign of solidarity with the Cuban dissidents and, together with Elena Bonner and other heroic liberals from the old Soviet bloc, has rushed to support the Cuban librarians. A group of American librarians has extended its solidarity to its Cuban colleagues, but, in order to do so, the American librarians have had to put up a fight within their own librarians' organization, where the Castro dictatorship still has a number of sympathizers. And yet none of this has aroused much attention in the United States, apart from a newspaper column or two by Nat Hentoff and perhaps a few other journalists, and an occasional letter to the editor. The statements and manifestos that Havel has signed have been published in Le Monde in Paris, and in Letras Libres magazine in Mexico, but have remained practically invisible in the United States. The days when American intellectuals rallied in any significant way to the cause of liberal dissidents in other countries, the days when Havel's statements were regarded by Americans as important calls for intellectual responsibility—those days appear to be over.
Saddam's nuclear plans hidden under plant (AP, September 24, 2004)
An Iraqi scientist-turned-author says the most significant pieces of his country's dormant nuclear program were buried under a lotus tree in his backyard, untouched for more than a decade before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.In The Bomb in my Garden, Mahdi Obeidi details fallen Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's furious, and then abandoned, quest for a nuclear bomb before the 1991 war.
''Although Saddam never had nuclear weapons at his disposal, the story of how close Iraq came to developing them should serve as a red flag to the international community,'' Obeidi writes with his co-author, Kurt Pitzer.
Undermining Australia (Charles Krauthammer, September 24, 2004, Townhall)
Of all our allies in the world, which is the only one to have joined the United States in the foxhole in every war in the last 100 years? Not Britain, not Canada, certainly not France. The answer is Australia.Australia not only shares a community of values with the United States. It understands that its safety rests ultimately on a stable international structure that, in turn, rests not on parchment treaties but on the power and credibility of the United States. Which is why Australia is with us today in both Afghanistan and Iraq. [...]
Americans Overseas for Kerry is the Kerry operation for winning the crucial votes of Americans living abroad (remember the Florida recount?), including more than 100,000 who live in Australia. Its leader was interviewed Sept. 16 by The Australian's Washington correspondent, Roy Eccleston. Asked if she believed the terrorist threat to Australians was now greater because of the support for President Bush, she replied: ``I would have to say that,'' noting that ``the most recent attack was on the Australian embassy in Jakarta.''
She said this of her country (and of the war that Australia is helping us with in Iraq): ``We are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels.'' Mark Latham could not have said it better. Nor could Jemaah Islamiah, the al Qaeda affiliate that killed 11 people in the Jakarta bombing.
This Kerry spokesman, undermining a key ally on the eve of a critical election, is no rogue political operative. She is the head of Americans Overseas for Kerry -- Diana Kerry, sister to John.
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Cheney: Kerry disrespectful to Iraqi leader (AP, September 24, 2004)
Vice President Dick Cheney chastised Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on Thursday, saying his criticism of Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi showed an appalling "lack of respect."
Allawi Threatened to Behead Al Sadr (NewsMax, 9/24/04)
In a clear sign that Iraq's interim government is ready to fight fire with fire, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi reportedly threatened to have rebel cleric Moqtada al Sadr beheaded earlier this year unless violence perpetrated by his Mahdi terrorist army in Najaf subsided.On Friday NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklashevski recounted a meeting between Allawi and Grand Ayatollah al Husseini al Sistani in August, after al Sistani was brought back from London where he was being treated for a heart ailment.
Miklashevski told radio host Don Imus:
"I am told that Allawi sat down with Sistani and said, 'Look, you have 48 hours to resolve this peacefully - or I am going to have Moqtada al Sadr's head in a turban on a plate.'"
"And, guess what," the NBC Newser added. "It was resolved."
A New Productivity Paradox: The government's data says Americans are working fewer hours. But you're still staying at the office every night. What gives? (Daniel Altman, October 2004, Business2.com)
Alan Greenspan and his colleagues at the Fed are thrilled about the productivity revolution sweeping the American workplace. And justifiably so. According to government statistics, the productivity of American workers has grown more in the past three years than it did during any similar stretch since World War II, and has risen by an average of 3 percent annually since 1996. The numbers suggest the economy can grow more quickly without triggering inflation. Yet many workers complain that they're paying the price in longer, tougher workdays.Oddly, however, the official statistics tell a different story. According to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hours worked in a week actually dropped by 1 percent from the end of 2001 to the end of 2003, even as the economy grew by 6.8 percent. You and everyone you know may be clocking long hours at the office, but the BLS says you're atypical. So what's going on?
Indian, Pakistani Leaders to Meet in New York (Peter Heinlein, 23 Sep 2004, VOA News)
The leaders of South Asian rivals India and Pakistan are to meet Friday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly debate in New York. The meeting, and conciliatory remarks by both during their visit to New York, are being viewed as signs that the nuclear armed neighbors may be ready to put an end to nearly six decades of hostility.Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's General Assembly speech this week was devoid of the usual criticisms of India. The only reference to their dispute over Kashmir was a statement that he believes the two sides could resolve their differences through dialogue.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh followed on that theme Thursday in his Assembly address.
"It is known that since January of this year, India and Pakistan have initiated a composite dialogue to resolve all issues, including Jammu and Kashmir," he said. "I reaffirm our determination to carry forward this dialogue to a purposeful and mutual conclusion."
The conciliatory tone of both speeches has raised hopes of an easing of the tensions that have led to three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
In prime minister, presidential race gets a touchstone (Anne E. Kornblut, September 24, 2004, Boston Globe)
Apart from the heavy Iraqi accent, he sounded almost like a Republican official introducing President Bush at a campaign stop. But as interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi of Iraq toured the diplomatic circuit in Washington yesterday, praising Bush for ''standing firm" in the war on terror and admonishing Senator John F. Kerry as a ''doubter," he took on a far more significant role in the presidential campaign than any American partisan ever could.''When political leaders sound the sirens of defeatism in the face of terrorism," Allawi said, standing next to Bush in the White House Rose Garden, ''it only encourages more violence."
With that remark, Allawi, the former CIA operative installed in June at the helm in Iraq, became the face of the Bush administration's aspirations for Iraq, and a symbol of freedom that Democrats may attack at their peril.
Yom Kippur: The fast track to love and forgiveness (Rabbi David Aaron, 9/24/04, Jewish World Review)
There is a cryptic verse in the Book of Psalms (139:16), which, the Sages say, refers to Yom Kippur:The days were formed, and one of them is His.
Everyday of the year we see the world from our perspective but, on Yom Kippur we get a glimpse of the way the world looks from G-d's perspective and everything changes in light of that perspective. We see it all from the perspective of the World to Come where you get to see the whole picture.
The Talmud teaches that in this world when something good happens to us, we praise G-d — "Blessed is He Who is good and does good." When something bad happens we must say — "Blessed is He Who is a true Judge." However, in the future we will say - "Blessed is He Who is good and does good," even about the misfortunes in our lives.
In other words, when we will look back and see the whole picture, we will realize that every bad event that happened to us contributed to G-d's plan to bring upon us ultimate goodness. This is also true about every bad act we that we did.
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Dodger Star Will Observe, and Play on, Yom Kippur (Steve Springer and Jason Reid, September 24, 2004, LA Times)
After wrestling for weeks with an impending collision of faith and work, Dodger slugger Shawn Green said Thursday that he would play in one of two crucial games scheduled this weekend during Yom Kippur, Judaism's holiest observance."I talked with family and friends and got advice from a lot of people. When it came down to it, I realized that I just had to do what I feel is right and what's most consistent with my beliefs," Green said. "Everyone has different ways of expressing their beliefs. For me as a Jewish person and a teammate, I feel that this is the right decision for me." [...]
"I struggled with it. I definitely learned a lot through the experience, how important it is to do what you feel in your heart," he said. "Everyone can have their opinions, but religion is your relationship with God and how you want to handle it."
Although there has been support for Green's decision in the Jewish community, it has not been universal.
"I respect Mr. Green's commitment to the team," said conservative Rabbi Charles Savenor, associate dean of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. "It's impressive to see his connection to the club, but I implore him to reconsider his choice as to how to observe Yom Kippur. There are so few opportunities that people have in this world to make a public statement as to who they are and what they are. This is half a statement, and half a statement doesn't really say anything. It sort of misses the point."
Not long ago, I stood by the bedside of a dying saint. This man had been a member of my church for 50 years. He was known throughout the community as a kind and gentle man. He never lost his temper or spoke ill of anyone. For the last six years, he had spent his life in a nursing home, suffering from one ailment after another. As I stood by his bed with his family, his son-in-law looked into my face and asked, "Can you please tell me how God gets any glory for this?"Our spirituality encourages us to proclaim our victories, but we lament in silence. We have room for a God who is active in our affairs. We even have room for a Satan who is active in our affairs. But we have little or no room for a God who seems indifferent to our suffering. Certainly, we have no room for a God who moves to afflict. But the Scriptures give us such a testimony.
In the first chapter of the book of Job, we are introduced to a man who is a saint in every way. His flocks and children are among the many blessings of God in his life. But one day a dreadful storm blows into Job's life. A messenger brings the news to Job: "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine … and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died" (Job 1:18-19, nasb).
The Hebrew word for wind is ruach, also translated into English as "spirit" and "breath." This same word is used in Exodus, where we are told that the Red Sea was parted by a blast from the nostrils of God (Ex. 15:8). The great wind of God plays a significant role in the life of Job.
In Egypt, Reforms Are All Talk and Little Substance: Ruling party says it welcomes change. But presidential term limits remain a taboo issue. (Megan K. Stack, September 24, 2004, LA Times)
A ruling party official stood before a throng of journalists this week and dangled tantalizing ideas: Opposition parties would grow strong, Egyptian youth would become involved and every kind of political reform would be up for discussion, including amending the constitution."The era of one-party rule is over," said Mohammed Kamal, nodding studiously over a vast bouquet of microphones as the ruling National Democratic Party kicked off its annual conference. "Egypt welcomes any initiatives for reform. All the doors are open."
Then an Egyptian reporter stood up to ask her question: Would President Hosni Mubarak run for a fifth straight term?
A murmur rippled through the room. Mubarak has held on to his presidency with sheer muscle for 23 years — and appears set to run yet again as the lone candidate in a presidential referendum in which the choice is either "yes" or "no."
Kamal frowned a little and scratched his hands.
"This is not discussed. We are not going to discuss it in this conference," he said curtly.
Cries went up from the reporters:
"The party is silent on these matters! Why? The referendum is next year!"
"The party works according to certain directives and orders," Kamal said. "This was not part of our directive to discuss. It won't be discussed."
So goes democracy in Egypt, where the only news at this year's much publicized, heavily guarded conference seems to be that nothing much has changed since last year. Despite the Bush administration's aggressive talk of spreading democracy in the Middle East, rulers here in the Arab world's center of intellectual thought seemed untroubled this week by pressure to win democratic legitimacy among millions of impoverished Egyptians.
Bush bypasses Kerry in poll: A poll showed President Bush ahead of Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry. In the U.S. Senate race Democrat Betty Castor and Republican Mel Martinez are in a dead heat. (MARC CAPUTO AND LESLEY CLARK, 9/24/04, Miami Herald)
Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan may count as some of the biggest political contributors to President Bush's reelection campaign, according to a poll.The post-hurricane survey shows Bush surging ahead of his Democratic challenger by 49 to 41 percent -- an about-face from August, when Bush trailed Sen. John Kerry 41-47 percent, Quinnipiac University reported Thursday.
The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom (STANLEY FISH, 9/24/04, NY Times)
In an unofficial but very formal poll taken in my freshman writing class the other day, George Bush beat John Kerry by a vote of 13 to 2 (14 to 2, if you count me). My students were not voting on the candidates' ideas. They were voting on the skill (or lack of skill) displayed in the presentation of those ideas.The basis for their judgments was a side-by-side display in this newspaper on Sept. 8 of excerpts from speeches each man gave the previous day. Put aside whatever preferences you might have for either candidate's positions, I instructed; just tell me who does a better job of articulating his positions, and why.
The analysis was devastating. President Bush, the students pointed out, begins with a perfect topic sentence - "Our strategy is succeeding"- that nicely sets up a first paragraph describing how conditions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia four years ago aided terrorists. This is followed by a paragraph explaining how the administration's policies have produced a turnaround in each country "because we acted." The paragraph's conclusion is concise, brisk and earned: "We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer."
It doesn't hurt that the names of the countries he lists all have the letter "a," as do the words "America" and "safer." He and his speechwriters deserve credit for using the accident of euphony to give the argument cohesiveness and force. There is of course no logical relationship between the repetition of a sound and the soundness of an argument, but if it is skillfully employed repetition can enhance a logical point or even give the illusion of one when none is present.
The students also found repetition in the Kerry speech, about the outsourcing of jobs, but, as many pointed out, when Mr. Kerry repeats the phrase "your tax dollars" it is because he has become lost in his own sentence and has to begin again.
When he finally extracts himself from that sentence, he makes two big mistakes in the next one: "That's bad enough, but you know there's something worse, don't you?" No, Senator Kerry, we don't know - because you haven't told us. He is asking people to respond to a point he hasn't yet made and, even worse, by saying "don't you?" he is implying they should know what this point is before he makes it. As a result, the audience is made to feel stupid.
And if that wasn't "bad enough,'' consider his next two sentences.
Bush Surprises Departing Troops With Gift -- Himself (Dana Milbank, September 24, 2004, Washington Post)
It had been a pretty glum day for Spec. Brian Parker, who along with the other members of his National Guard unit said goodbye to their families and departed on a charter flight for a long-term stint in Iraq. But then, on a refueling stop here, a familiar figure boarded the plane."We were down when we left our families," Parker said, giving a thumbs down. "But then we heard Air Force One was here. It's a good morale boost."
President Bush, after a campaign appearance in Bangor, held his plane on the tarmac when he heard an MD-11 carrying 292 Army reservists and National Guard members was about to refuel here. For the troops, grimly heading toward an 18-to-24-month assignment in Iraq, it was a welcome lift. For Bush, who has been accusing his Democratic presidential opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry, of demoralizing the troops in Iraq by criticizing the war effort, it was a chance to demonstrate his devotion to the troops.
"May God bless you all," the commander in chief said over the plane's public address system. "May God keep you safe." As he worked his way up and down the plane's aisles, posing for photographs, signing autographs and shaking hands, the happily surprised troops called out to him.
"That's my president, hooah!" shouted Sgt. Wanda Dabbs, 22, a member of the 230th Area Support Group, a Guard unit from Tennessee. Others seconded her cheer.
JOHN KERRY'S JOURNEY: Echoes of a 1972 Loss Haunt a 2004 Campaign (TODD S. PURDUM, 9/24/04, NY Times)
Thirty-two years later, Mr. Kerry is once again surrounded by many of the loyalists from that first campaign - the only one he has ever lost. He is once again on the defensive over his Vietnam War service and his antiwar record, once again facing a Republican opponent who mocks him as an out-of-touch elitist, once again fighting to fulfill his campaign's early promise.So what are the lessons Mr. Kerry learned so long ago? To hit back hard when attacked? To bide his time and ration the early passion that made him such an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War and such an eloquent, appealing candidate, but also a target of criticism? Perhaps a bit of both. From that election to this, his career has been marked more by cautious calculation than bold strokes, and to a striking degree, his vulnerabilities then remain his vulnerabilities now.
Mr. Kerry's supporters acknowledge the parallels between 1972 and 2004. But they also insist that he long ago learned the lessons of that searing defeat - lessons that sent him on a slow, patient detour to law school and work as a prosecutor and private lawyer, before his return to politics and his election as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts in 1982 and senator two years later.
"I think it helped John enormously that he did not get elected," said Thomas Vallely, a fellow Vietnam veteran who worked for Mr. Kerry then and is working for him now. "If he'd gone from Congress, from being a star, right to some higher job, he wouldn't have had the political skills he acquired going to law school, becoming a prosecutor, running for lieutenant governor and Senate," all in campaigns that seemed to involve what Mr. Vallely called "near-death experiences."
"Did he learn in Lowell, always fight back?" Mr. Vallely asked. "Yes, but John's always been a pretty good fighter." And, he added, "Kerry's cooler now. He's cooler. I mean, he's less - he's more skilled. He's not nervous."
Dan Payne, another aide in that first race, said that Mr. Kerry had developed "a kind of toughness that allows him to take hits," and that he was "willing to go through these very difficult plunges in his fortunes."
John Kerry's Tipping Point (Don Hazen, September 23, 2004, AlterNet)
There is a growing sense that John Kerry's campaign has reached a tipping point. The watershed moment was a sharply worded and highly publicized speech attacking George Bush's policy on Iraq on Sept. 20 at New York University.In his speech, Kerry said he would never have supported the invasion of an Iraq that didn't have weapons of mass destruction. By asserting that America is less safe now because Bush invaded Iraq instead of pursuing Osama bin laden – "We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure" – Kerry is now drawing a sharp contrast with his opponent rather than trying to sell himself as a better version of Bush.
Suddenly, there was a sigh of relief heard round the world as Democrats and progressives finally got some sparkle in their eyes. Kerry was talking values, which in turn created greater clarity of purpose and momentum among his heretofore ambivalent, and carping, supporters. It also marked him for the first time as the anti-war candidate, clearly opposed to a war that a majority of Americans say has failed.
The speech represented a clear-cut articulation of progressive values that have been missing in his earlier, more mealy-mouthed statements about the war.
Graham defends U.S. missile plan (Alexander Panetta, Ottawa Citizen, September, 24th, 2004)
Canada's possible entry into the U.S. missile-defence program still hinges on talks with the Americans, says Defence Minister Bill Graham. But he offered an indication of which way Canada is leaning by defending the project Thursday and taking a swipe at suggestions it would lead to weapons in space. "It's an important program in the context of Canada-U.S. relations," he said. "I'm continuing these negotiations with that attitude - we're partners for the defence of North America and I think we must remain partners."To critics who dismiss the project as a Star Wars-style scheme, Graham replied that it "has nothing to do with putting weapons in space.
"It's a program that is ground-based - land-based and possibly sea-based," he said.
He defended the timing of the project against critics who dub it an elaborate Cold War relic that is outdated in the modern fight against low-budget terrorist operations.
The Americans are simply looking ahead and preparing for threats that might emerge someday from hostile nations or terrorists who get their hands on ballistic missiles, Graham said.
Graham was the Foreign Minister under Chretien and point man on Canada’s courageous no-maybe-no-maybe-no stand on Iraq. He was Mr. UN/peace/international law at the time, but when you are dealing with concrete threats to the home front rather than musing abstractly and impotently about parts faraway, you start doing Donald Rumsfeld imitations.
Bush's fundamentalism: the president as prophet (David Domke and Kevin Coe, 9/23/04, The Seattle Times)
Put simply, Bush's language suggests that he speaks not to God, but for God.It is certainly the case that American political leaders long have emphasized religious symbols and language in their addresses. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, however, the Bush administration has done something very different: It has converged a religious fundamentalist worldview with a political agenda — a distinctly partisan one, wrapped in the mantle of national interest but crafted by and for those who share its outlook. It is a modern form of political fundamentalism — that is, the adaptation of a self-proclaimed conservative Christian rectitude, via strategic communications designed for a mass-media culture, into political policy.
Bush's merger of politics and conservative faith culminates more than three decades of political engagement by U.S. religious conservatives. Ronald Reagan was the first president to be embraced by the religious right, but Bush's resonance with these voters is unprecedented. A June study by the Barna Group, a Christian polling organization, said 86 percent of self-described evangelicals plan to vote for Bush this November.
The key to Bush's support among religious conservatives is his facility in speaking their language, particularly regarding freedom and liberty. An omnipresent consideration for Christian conservatives is the "Great Commission" biblical mandate, in the Book of Matthew: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations."
The felt responsibility to live out this command, both locally and globally, has become intertwined in the eyes of the religious right with support for the principles of political freedom and liberty. In particular, the individualized religious liberty present in the United States (particularly available historically for European-American Protestants, of course) is something that religious conservatives long to extend to other cultures and nations.
One might expect, therefore, that Bush's political fundamentalism would be particularly apparent in his rhetoric about freedom and liberty. This is so. We analyzed presidential discourse about these values (often used interchangeably) in Inaugural and State of the Union addresses from Roosevelt in 1933 through Bush in 2004. For presidents other than Reagan or Bush, only four of 61 addresses (7 percent) contained claims linking the wishes of God with freedom or liberty. Such claims were present in five of 12 addresses (42 percent) by Reagan and Bush, including the latter's last two.
Likewise, you might note a prior assertion of conservative Christian rectitude: "We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."
Or consider another president who was untroubled by any doubt about his capacity to speak for God, even to predict His future actions:
[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United Government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most Governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me I trust in thinking, that there are none under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free Government can more auspiciously commence.
Democratic prospects for Hill takeover dim: Unless Kerry surges, Democrats may see hope of controlling House or Senate slip away. (Gail Russell Chaddock, 9/24/04, The Christian Science Monitor)
In a sharp change from just two months ago, Republicans are gaining a commanding position in the race for control of the US House and Senate. [...]The latest Ipsos-Public Affairs poll shows that voters now favor Republicans to control the Congress 47 percent to 45 percent. In May, voters favored Democrats 50 percent to 41 percent. [...]
Without a hot presidential race in town, many Democrats in Bush territory are running independent of the national ticket - or at least, attempting to create some distance. In one of the most striking examples in this campaign cycle, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is running an ad where President Bush appears to be hugging him. It begins with Mr. Daschle saying: "Tonight, the president has called us again to greatness. And tonight, we answer that call." In a debate Sunday on "Meet the Press," GOP challenger John Thune called the ad a bid "to throw John Kerry overboard in order to help himself."
In addition, Democrats like Erskine Bowles in North Carolina and Rep. Brad Carson in Oklahoma are siding with the GOP on some economic issues. [...]
But even in states that are not targets for the presidential race, presidential politics can move voter turnout, up or down. And lately, at least, the prospects for Democrats have been looking worse.
"Coattails still matter. It doesn't affect the landslides, but it does affect the couple of dozen House seats that are very close, as well as the half-dozen Senate contests that are pure tossups. Most will go the way of the presidential winner," says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. [...]
Meanwhile, The National Republican Senatorial Committee reported Thursday that it ended August with a cash-on-hand advantage of 2 to 1 over the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee - $22 million to $10.5 million.
EU to study transit sites in Libya for immigrants (Judy Dempsey, International Herald Tribune, September 24th, 2004)
Germany and Italy are pressing ahead with plans for setting up holding centers in North Africa for would-be immigrants to the European Union, despite sharp opposition from other EU countries and the United Nations, politicians and diplomats said Thursday.The proposals, which for the moment envisage siting the transit camps in Libya, will be thrashed out next week during a meeting of EU justice and interior ministers in the Netherlands.
Despite strong reservations from some quarters, the idea is "gaining ground," an EU diplomat said.
"Austria, Britain, Germany and Italy are pushing for it," said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified. "Spain has still to make up its mind after supporting it until the Socialist government was elected. France and Sweden are against it."
Rumour has it Libya got the job by underbidding North Korea.
Mugabe attacks Bush and Blair at UN General Assembly (Anne Penketh, New Zealand Herald, September 24th, 2004)
Robert Mugabe added a new dimension to his criticism of Britain yesterday when he accused the US president and British prime minister of establishing a new "political-cum-religious" doctrine: "there is one political god, George W. Bush, and Tony Blair is his prophet."The Zimbabwe president's comment, in a speech to the UN General Assembly, was wildly applauded by delegates from developing countries who share his fear of the effects of the global dominance of the United States and its western allies.
"The UN charter remains the only most sacred document and proponent of the relations of our nations. Anything else is political heresy," he protested, after accusing the US and Britain of tearing up the UN charter to rain "bombs and hellfire on innocent Iraqis purportedly in the name of democracy."
The Zimbabwean president complained that his country had been subjected to "unprovoked, declared and undeclared sanctions, imposed by Britain and its allies who are bent on bringing down our legitimately elected government."
Zimbabwe is organising elections in March next year but there are fears that, like the last presidential poll which re-elected Mr Mugabe, they will not be free and fair."Mr Tony Blair, the British prime minister, has arrogantly and unashamedly announced in his parliament that his government was working with Zimbabwe's opposition party to bring about regime change. Once again, the lawless nature of this man who, along with his Washington master, believes he is God-ordained to rule our world, has shown itself," the president went on.
Mr Mugabe was also applauded when he departed from his prepared speech to say: "We do not need any lessons from the Netherlands and its imperialist allies of the European Union" on organising the elections.
Meanwhile, responding pragmatically and firmly to the threats posed by terrorists and tyrants, France called for new taxes to cure world poverty, Canada wants a new supranational code that would pretty much abolish national sovereignty and Spain proposed something called an “alliance of civilizations”, the purpose of which is “to deepen political, cultural and education relations between those who represent the so-called Western world and, in this historic moment, the area of Arab and Muslim countries." Mugabe got the most applause.
Douglas on the Stump for GOP: Dems: Governor's Intervention In Legislative Races Won't Work (John P. Gregg, 9/23/04, Valley News)
As Republican Gov. Jim Douglas and Democratic challenger Peter Clavelle debate and campaign throughout Vermont, scores of local candidates are also reaching out to voters in a behind-the-headlines battle for control of the state legislature.Dozens of Democratic House candidates are traveling dirt roads and knocking on remote houses to meet, and even register, potential voters.
Meanwhile, for the first time in a generation, Republicans have an incumbent governor working to boost their legislative campaigns with local appearances and grip-and-grin photos gracing their brochures and Web sites.
At issue, officials in both parties said, is whether Republicans can maintain their narrow control of the House and Democrats can add a seat in the Senate, giving them enough to override a veto in that chamber.
Some races may come down to whether political alliances, or simply an engaging personality, will be foremost in voters' minds.
“A Republican majority in the House, I think, is very important to the state's future, and I want to be as supportive as possible,” Douglas said Monday in a telephone interview. “There are some districts where I certainly want to spend (more) time with the candidates.”
Douglas campaigned with a slew of Republican candidates throughout Vermont during a 12-day campaign swing last month, and plans more appearances in the weeks ahead, sandwiched between a series of debates with Clavelle.
But House Democratic Leader Gaye Symington of Jericho said her party fielded candidates in all but 14 districts around Vermont, part of a grass-roots effort to win back the 150-member House.
Republicans held 74 seats, while Democrats had 69, Progressives four and independents three this past session, and Symington said her party wants the legislature to “be more assertive” on issues ranging from health care to transportation funding. [...]
“Governor Douglas is liked on both sides of the political fence, and I find myself aligned with him on most policy issues, so it is helping a lot,” Kimbell said. The last Vermont Republican governor to hold office during an election year was Richard Snelling in 1984. (Snelling also was elected in 1990, but died in 1991 shortly after retaking the office, where he was succeeded by Democrat Howard Dean.)
Douglas also campaigned with several other Upper Valley Republicans last month, including former state Rep. Gary Richardson of Perkinsville, who is hoping to win a rematch against state Rep. Ernest Shand, D-Weathersfield. Shand defeated Richardson by just 34 votes two years ago.
Richardson said he received a two-sentence endorsement from Douglas this week to include in his campaign brochure -- it starts with “I need Gary back in Montpelier” -- along with a photo of the pair.
“Those kinds of things help,” Richardson said.
And David Ainsworth, a dairy farmer and town and school moderator in Royalton, campaigned with Douglas last month in South Royalton, meeting local voters and merchants.
“That's one of the reasons I want to run is to try and help the governor maintain a majority in at least one of the chambers,” said Ainsworth, who is challenging first-term state Rep. Rosemary McLaughlin, a Democrat.
Talk of poll delay worries Sistani (Dexter Filkins, September 24, 2004, NY Times)
The Ayatollah, who earlier this year sent tens of thousands of Iraqis into the streets to demand early elections, is said to be worried that a so-called "consensus list" of candidates being discussed among the larger political parties would artificially limit the power of the Shiites, who are in the majority.Under an agreement reached among exile groups in the early 1990s, the Shiites were said to comprise about 55 per cent of the population.
Ayatollah Sistani, the sources say, believes that the Shiite population has swelled since then and therefore would be under-represented on any single list based on a 55 per cent figure.
Ayatollah Sistani also expressed concern that the Iraqi Government, possibly under US pressure, would postpone the elections under the pretext that the anarchical conditions that prevail over much of the country would make the results illegitimate, the sources said.
"If he sees that what this is leading to is unfair and unfree elections, then he will not take part in it," an Iraqi close to Ayatollah Sistani said. "He will declare the elections to be illegitimate."
Since the Americans toppled Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Sistani has largely stayed away from engaging in the minutiae of partisan politics, but he has aggressively pushed for democratic elections as soon as possible.
N.B. One wonders if the folks who are moaning about the prospect of elections going forward in 15 of the 18 Iraqi provinces think Abraham Lincoln's second term was illegitimate because the Southern states weren't polled.
Worldviews That Are Worlds Apart (Jim Hoagland, September 23, 2004, Washington Post)
John Kerry would change the situation. George W. Bush would change the world.The electoral choice in 2004 is a stark and consequential one. These two candidates are night and day -- more precisely, they are emotion vs. reason, instinct vs. intellect. [...]
The incumbent president is the radical in this unorthodox election year. In his view, a new threat to U.S. security, in a new geographic region and from a new kind of enemy, demands a paradigm shift in international behavior that can be unilaterally enforced by U.S. power if necessary.
Bush believes that America's friends and foes abroad can -- and must -- be made to change their ways to make the world safer for democracies and particularly for the United States. Only by making the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia and Libya understand that their very survival is at stake can effective cooperation be gained in the war on al Qaeda and other parts of the loosely connected and fanatical Islamist network.
The challenger is for once the pragmatist and traditionalist on foreign policy. Kerry first would change the U.S. approach to the world, then persuade and gently pressure allies and adversaries to return to established patterns of cooperation or coerced behavior.
Restoring NATO's Cold War cohesion is a primary goal for Kerry but a secondary tactical issue for Bush in grappling with turmoil in the Middle East, where European interests and reflexes often run counter to those of the United States. Israel is important to Kerry as a diplomatic and political partner; to Bush as a strategic ally in waging a long, necessary war.
Transcript: Allawi Thanks America (September 23, 2004)
ALLAWI: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, it’s my distinct honor and great privilege to speak to you today on behalf of Iraq’s interim government and its people.It’s my honor to come to Congress and to thank this nation and its people for making our cause your cause, our struggle your struggle.
Before I turn to my government’s plan for Iraq, I have three important messages for you today.
First, we are succeeding in Iraq.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s a tough struggle with setbacks, but we are succeeding.
I have seen some of the images that are being shown here on television. They are disturbing. They focus on the tragedies, such as the brutal and barbaric murder of two American hostages this week.
ALLAWI: My thoughts and prayers go out to their families and to all those who lost loved ones.
Yet, as we mourn these losses, we must not forget either the progress we are making or what is at stake in Iraq.
We are fighting for freedom and democracy, ours and yours. Every day, we strengthen the institutions that will protect our new democracy, and every day, we grow in strength and determination to defeat the terrorists and their barbarism.
The second message is quite simple and one that I would like to deliver directly from my people to yours: Thank you, America.
(APPLAUSE)
We Iraqis know that Americans have made and continue to make enormous sacrifices to liberate Iraq, to assure Iraq’s freedom. I have come here to thank you and to promise you that your sacrifices are not in vain.
The overwhelming majority of Iraqis are grateful. They are grateful to be rid of Saddam Hussein and the torture and brutality he forced upon us, grateful for the chance to build a better future for our families, our country and our region.
ALLAWI: We Iraqis are grateful to you, America, for your leadership and your sacrifice for our liberation and our opportunity to start anew.
Third, I stand here today as the prime minister of a country emerging finally from dark ages of violence, aggression, corruption and greed. Like almost every Iraqi, I have many friends who were murdered, tortured or raped by the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Well over a million Iraqis were murdered or are missing. We estimate at least 300,000 in mass graves, which stands as monuments to the inhumanity of Saddam’s regime. Thousands of my Kurdish brothers and sisters were gassed to death by Saddam’s chemical weapons.
Millions more like me were driven into exile. Even in exile, as I myself can vouch, we were not safe from Saddam.
And as we lived under tyranny at home, so our neighbors lived in fear of Iraq’s aggression and brutality. Reckless wars, use of weapons of mass destruction, the needless loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and the financing and exporting of terrorism, these were Saddam’s legacy to the world.
My friends, today we are better off, you are better off and the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.
(APPLAUSE)
Your decision to go to war in Iraq was not an easy one but it was the right one.
(APPLAUSE)
ALLAWI: There are no words that can express the debt of gratitude that future generations of Iraqis will owe to Americans. It would have been easy to have turned your back on our plight, but this is not the tradition of this great country, nor for the first time in history you stood up with your allies for freedom and democracy.
Ladies and gentlemen, I particularly want to thank you in the United States Congress for your brave vote in 2002 to authorize American men and women to go to war to liberate my country, because you realized what was at stake. And I want to thank you for your continued commitment last year when you voted to grant Iraq a generous reconstruction and security funding package.
I have met many of you last year and I have in Iraq. It’s a tribute to your commitment to our country that you have come to see firsthand the challenges and the progress we have and we are making.
Ladies and gentlemen, the costs now have been high. As we have lost our loved ones in this struggle, so have you. As we have mourned, so have you.
ALLAWI: This is a bitter price of combating tyranny and terror.
Our hearts go to the families, every American who has given his or her life and every American who has been wounded to help us in our struggle.
Now we are determined to honor your confidence and sacrifice by putting into practice in Iraq the values of liberty and democracy, which are so dear to you and which have triumphed over tyranny across our world.
(APPLAUSE)
Creating a democratic, prosperous and stable nation, where differences are respected, human rights protected, and which lives in peace with itself and its neighbor, is our highest priority, our sternest challenge and our greatest goal. It is a vision, I assure you, shared by the vast majority of the Iraqi people. But there are the tiny minority who despise the very ideas of liberty, of peace, of tolerance, and who will kill anyone, destroy anything, to prevent Iraq and its people from achieving this goal.
Among them are those who nurse fantasies of the former regime returning to power. There are fanatics who seek to impose a perverted vision of Islam in which the face of Allah cannot be seen. And there are terrorists, including many from outside Iraq, who seek to make our country the main battleground against freedom, democracy and civilization.
ALLAWI: For the struggle in Iraq today is not about the future of Iraq only. It’s about the worldwide war between those who want to live in peace and freedom, and terrorists. Terrorists strike indiscriminately at soldiers, at civilians, as they did so tragically on 9/11 in America, and as they did in Spain and Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia in my country and many others.
So in Iraq we confront both, insurgency and the global war on terror with their destructive forces sometimes overlapping. These killers may be just a tiny fraction of our 27 million population, but with their guns and their suicide bombs to intimidate and to frighten all the people of Iraq, I can tell you today, they will not succeed.
(APPLAUSE)
For these murderers have no political program or cause other than push our country back into tyranny. Their agenda is no different than terrorist forces that have struck all over the world, including your own country on September 11th. There lies the fatal weakness: The insurgency in Iraq is destructive but small and it has not and will never resonate with the Iraqi people.
The Iraqi citizens know better than anyone the horrors of dictatorship. This is past we will never revisit.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me turn now to our plan which we have developed to meet the real challenges which Iraq faces today, a plan that we are successfully implementing with your help. The plan has three basic parts: building democracy, defeating the insurgency and improving the quality of ordinary Iraqis.
ALLAWI: The political strategy in our plan is to isolate the terrorists from the communities in which they operate. We are working hard to involve as many people as we can in the political process to cut the ground from under the terrorists’ feet.
In troubled areas across the country, government representatives are meeting with local leaders. They are offering amnesty to those who realize the error of their ways. They are making clear that there can be no compromise with terror, that all Iraqis have the opportunity to join the side of order and democracy, and that they should use the political process to address their legitimate concerns and hopes.
I am a realist. I know that terrorism cannot be defeated with political tools only. But we can weaken it, ending local support, help us to tackle the enemy head-on, to identify, isolate and eradicate this cancer.
Let me provide you with a couple of examples of where this political plan already is working.
In Samarra, the Iraqi government has tackled the insurgents who once controlled the city.
ALLAWI: Following weeks of discussions between government officials and representatives, coalition forces and local community leaders, regular access to the city has been restored. A new provincial council and governor have been selected, and a new chief of police has been appointed. Hundreds of insurgents have been pushed out of the city by local citizens, eager to get with their lives.
Today in Samarra, Iraqi forces are patrolling the city, in close coordination with their coalition counterparts.
In Talafa (ph), a city northwest of Baghdad, the Iraqi government has reversed an effort by insurgents to arrest, control (inaudible) the proper authorities. Iraqi forces put down the challenge and allowed local citizens to choose a new mayor and police chief. Thousands of civilians have returned to the city. And since their return, we have launched a large program of reconstruction and humanitarian assistance.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me turn now to our military strategy. We plan to build and maintain security forces across Iraq. Ordinary Iraqis are anxious to take over entirely this role and to shoulder all the security burdens of our country as quickly as possible.
(APPLAUSE)
For now, of course, we need the help of our American and coalition partners. But the training of Iraqi security forces is moving forward briskly and effectively.
The Iraqi government now commands almost 50,000 armed and combat- ready Iraqis.
ALLAWI: By January it will be some 145,000. And by the end of next year, some 250,000 Iraqis.
The government has accelerated the development of Iraqi special forces, and the establishment of a counter-terrorist strike force to tackle specific problems caused by insurgencies.
Our intelligence is getting better every day. You have seen that the successful resolution of the Najaf crisis, and then the targeted attacks against insurgents in Fallujah.
These new Iraqi forces are rising to the challenge. They are fighting on behalf of sovereign Iraqi government, and therefore their performance is improving every day. Working closely with the coalition allies, they are striking their enemies wherever they hide, disrupting operations, destroying safe houses and removing terrorist leaders.
But improving the everyday lives of Iraqis, tackling our economic problems is also essential to our plan. Across the country there is a daily progress, too. Oil pipelines are being repaired. Basic services are being improved. The homes are being rebuilt. Schools and hospitals are being rebuilt. The clinics are open and reopened. There are now over 6 million children at school, many of them attending one of the 2,500 schools that have been renovated since liberation.
(APPLAUSE)
Last week, we completed a national polio vaccination campaign, reaching over 90 percent of all Iraqi children.
ALLAWI: We’re starting work on 150 new health centers across the country. Millions of dollars in economic aid and humanitarian assistance from this country and others around the world are flowing into Iraq. For this, again, I want to thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
And so today, despite the setbacks and daily outrages, we can and should be hopeful for the future.
In Najaf and Kufa, this plan has already brought success. In those cities a firebrand cleric had taken over Shia Islam’s holiest sites in defiance of the government and the local population. Immediately, the Iraqi government ordered the Iraqi armed forces into action to use military force to create conditions for political success.
Together with the coalition partners, Iraqi forces cleaned out insurgents from everywhere in the city, capturing hundreds and killing many more.
At the same time, the government worked with political leaders and with Ayatollah Sistani to find a peaceful solution to the occupation of the shrine. We were successful. The shrine was preserved. Order was restored. And Najaf and Kufa were returned to their citizens.
(APPLAUSE)
ALLAWI: Today the foreign media have lost interest and left, but millions of dollars in economic aid and humanitarian assistance are now flowing into the cities. Ordinary citizens are once again free to live and worship at these places.
As we move forward, the next major milestone will be holding of the free and fair national and local elections in January next.
(APPLAUSE)
I know that some have speculated, even doubted, whether this date can be met. So let me be absolutely clear: Elections will occur in Iraq on time in January because Iraqis want elections on time.
(APPLAUSE)
For the skeptics who do not understand the Iraqi people, they do not realize how decades of torture and repression feed our desire for freedom. At every step of the political process to date the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people has proved the doubters wrong.
(APPLAUSE)
They said we would miss January deadline to pass the interim constitution.
ALLAWI: We proved them wrong.
They warned that there could be no successful handover of sovereignty by the end of June. We proved them wrong. A sovereign Iraqi government took over control two days early.
They doubted whether a national conference could be staged this August. We proved them wrong.
Despite intimidation and violence, over 1,400 citizens, a quarter of them women, from all regions and from every ethnic, religious and political grouping in Iraq, elected a national council.
And I pledge to you today, we’ll prove them wrong again over the elections.
(APPLAUSE)
Our independent electoral commission is working with the United Nations, the multinational force and our own Iraqi security forces to make these elections a reality. In 15 out of our 18 Iraqi provinces we could hold elections tomorrow. Although this is not what we see in your media, it is a fact.
(APPLAUSE)
ALLAWI: Your government, our government and the United Nations are all helping us mobilizing the necessary resources to fund voter registration and information programs. We will establish up to 30,000 polling sites, 130,000 election workers, and all other complex aspects mounting a general election in a nation of 27 million before the end of January next.
We already know that terrorists and former regime elements will do all they can to disrupt these elections. There would be no greater success for the terrorists if we delay and no greater blow when the elections take place, as they will, on schedule.
(APPLAUSE)
The Iraqi elections may not be perfect, may not be the best elections that Iraq will ever hold. They will no doubt be an excuse for violence from those that despise liberty, as were the first elections in Sierra Leone, South Africa or Indonesia.
But they will take place, and they will be free and fair. And though they won’t be the end of the journey toward democracy, they will be a giant step forward in Iraq’s political evolution.
(APPLAUSE)
They will pave the way for a government that reflects the world, and has the confidence of the Iraqi people.
ALLAWI: Ladies and gentlemen, this is our strategy for moving Iraq steadily toward the security and democracy and prosperity our people crave.
But Iraq cannot accomplish this alone. The resolve and will of the coalition in supporting a free Iraq is vital to our success.
(APPLAUSE)
The Iraqi government needs the help of the international community, the help of countries that not only believe in the Iraqi people but also believe in the fight for freedom and against tyranny and terrorism everywhere.
Already, Iraq has many partners. The transition in Iraq from brutal dictatorship to freedom and democracy is not only an Iraqi endeavor, it is an international one. More than 30 countries are represented in Iraq with troops on the ground in harm’s way. We Iraqis are grateful for each and every one of these courageous men and women.
(APPLAUSE)
United Nations Resolution 1546 passed in June 2004, endorsed the Iraqi interim government and pledged international support for Iraq upcoming elections. The G-8, the European Union and NATO have also issued formal statements of support.
NATO is now helping with one of Iraq’s most urgent needs, the training of Iraqi security forces. I am delighted by the new agreement to step up the pace and scope of this training.
ALLAWI: The United Nations has reestablished its mission in Iraq, a new United Nations special representative has been appointed and a team of United Nations personnel is now operating in Baghdad.
Many more nations have committed to Iraq’s future in the form of economic aid. We Iraqis are aware how international this effort truly is.
But our opponents, the terrorists, also understand all too well that this is an international effort. And that’s why they have targeted members of the coalition.
I know the pain this causes. I know it is difficult but the coalition must stand firm.
(APPLAUSE)
When governments negotiate with terrorists, everyone in the free world suffers. When political leaders sound the siren of defeatism in the face of terrorism, it only encourage more violence.
(APPLAUSE)
Working together, we will defeat the killers, and we will do this by refusing to bargain about our most fundamental principles.
(APPLAUSE)
ALLAWI: Ladies and gentlemen, good will aside, I know that many observers around the world honestly wonder if we in Iraq really can restore our economy, be good neighbors, guarantee the democratic rule of law and overcome the enemies who seek to tear us down. I understand why, faced with the daily headlines, there are these doubts. I know, too, that there will be many more setbacks and obstacles to overcome.
But these doubters risk underestimating our country and they risk fueling the hopes of the terrorists. Despite our problems, despite our recent history, no one should doubt that Iraq is a country of tremendous human resources and national resources.
Iraq is still a nation with an inspiring culture and the tradition and an educated and civilized people. And Iraq is still a land made strong by a faith which teaches us tolerance, love, respect and duty.
(APPLAUSE)
Above all, they risk underestimating the courage, determination of the Iraqi people to embrace democracy, peace and freedom, for the dreams of our families are the same as the dreams of the families here in America and around the world. There are those who want to divide our world. I appeal to you, who have done so much already to help us, to ensure they don’t succeed.
Do not allow them to say to Iraqis, to Arabs, to Muslims, that we have only two models of governments, brutal dictatorship and religious extremism. This is wrong.
Like Americans, we Iraqis want to enjoy the fruits of liberty. Half of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims already enjoy democratically elected governments.
ALLAWI: As Prime Minister Blair said to you last year when he stood here, anywhere, any time ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom not tyranny, democracy not dictatorship, and the rule of law not the rule of the secret police.
(APPLAUSE)
Do not let them convince others that the values of freedom, of tolerance and democracy are for you in the West but not for us.
For the first time in our history, the Iraqi people can look forward to controlling our own destiny.
(APPLAUSE)
This would not have been possible without the help and sacrifices of this country and its coalition partners. I thank you again from the bottom of my heart.
And let me tell you that as we meet our greatest challenge by building a democratic future, we the people of the new Iraq will remember those who have stood by us.
ALLAWI: As generous as you have been, we will stand with you, too. As stalwart as you have been, we will stand with you, too.
Neither tyranny nor terrorism has a place in our region or our world. And that is why we Iraqis will stand by you, America, in a war larger than either of our nations, the global battle to live in freedom.
God bless you and thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
On a Bridge of Sighs, the Suicidal Meet a Staying Hand (JIM YARDLEY, 9/21/04, NY Times)
The view from where Chen Si stood on the landmark Yangtze River Bridge captured the frantic, thrumming energy of China. Honking trucks and buses poured over the span as hundreds of barges slid along the dark brown water below. The sweeping downtown skyline rose in the distance.But Mr. Chen watched the people. He noticed a man standing alone, seemingly pensive, and walked toward him in short, quick steps. He watched people unloading from city buses and gauged the slump of their shoulders as they trudged along the sidewalk at the edge of the bridge.
For hours on this recent Sunday morning, Mr. Chen watched and waited for that unknowable, unthinkable moment when one of the thousands of people who cross the bridge every day might try to jump off. Mr. Chen comes almost every weekend, bringing along a thermos of tea. He has become the bridge's self-appointed guardian angel.
"If I save one person," Mr. Chen said, "one is a lot."
By his own count, Mr. Chen, who is in his mid-30's, has stopped 42 people from jumping since he began his patrols a year ago. He has talked them down and wrestled them down. He will hike up his pant leg to show a
deep laceration from one tussle. He also has watched five people slip out of his grasp and fall to their deaths in the Yangtze.It is a job that has required him to become a detective looking for clues in the souls of strangers. He stands on the southern end of the bridge, wearing sunglasses and a cap to block the boiling sun. He does not smile or talk much. He watches people, particularly the solitary figures staring down on the coffee-colored water.
"It is very easy to recognize," he said of potential jumpers. "A person walks without spirit."
Mr. Chen says he comes to the bridge because someone needs to - suicide is now the leading cause of death for Chinese aged 15 to 34.
A lonely Italian retiree puts himself up for adoption: His case is bringing awareness to the larger problem of how to care for Italy's aging population. (Sophie Arie, 9/23/04, CS Monitor)
Seven cats and a modest book collection are all that 79-year-old Giorgio Angelozzi has for company on most days.High up in the hills east of Rome, the retired teacher lives in a humble two-room flat overlooking a valley of rolling olive groves. The house is tidy, except for a layer of cat fluff that reappears after the cleaning lady's weekly visit. In a side cabinet sit Greek dictionaries and works by Horace and Pliny.
Things are quiet, too quiet.
After 12 years alone since the death of his wife, this summer Mr. Angelozzi became so desperate for human contact that he put himself up for adoption. In a newspaper classified, he offered to pay 500 euros to live with a family and teach their children.
"The days went by and I used to count," he says. "There were some days when I counted zero. I had not said a word all day."
Angelozzi's story has triggered a nationwide attack of guilt and public debate over how best to care for the elderly.
Massachusetts Democrat Brian Golden Endorses President Bush (George W. Bush Blog, 9/23/04)
Earlier today, Democratic Massachusetts State Representative Brian Paul Golden announced that he will support President Bush in November over fellow Bay State Democrat John Kerry. Golden’s endorsement comes after witnessing President Bush’s accomplishments on education, Medicare and security issues. In contrast, Golden says that after following John Kerry’s 20-year senate career in Massachusetts, he still doesn’t know what Kerry stands for.“America needs a president who cares more about doing what is right than doing what is politically expedient. Both at home and abroad, President Bush has made tough decisions and shown a clarity of purpose that makes America stronger and safer,” Golden said.
“President Bush is the right candidate to lead America in the War on Terror because his decisions are based on principle, not politics. Senator Kerry demonstrated a troubling approach to the War on Terror by voting against $87 billion in funding to equip our troops in Iraq with essential supplies like body armor. I have confidence in President Bush as Chief Executive and I will proudly work for his re-election.”
President Bush and Prime Minister Allawi Press Conference (The Rose Garden, 9/23/04)
Yes, NBC man, there -- your name?Q Gregory, sir.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Gregory.
Q Mr. President, you say today that the work in Iraq is tough and will remain tough. And, yet, you travel this country and a central theme of your campaign is that America is safer because of the invasion of Iraq. Can you understand why Americans may not believe you?
PRESIDENT BUSH: No. Anybody who says that we are safer with Saddam Hussein in power is wrong. We went into Iraq because Saddam Hussein defied the demands of the free world. We went into Iraq after diplomacy had failed. And we went into Iraq because I understand after September the 11th we must take threats seriously, before they come to hurt us.
And I think it's a preposterous claim to say that America would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power. I certainly know that that's the case for America and I certainly know it's the case for the Iraqi people. These are people who were tortured. This good man was abed in a London flat, and he wakes up with two Saddam henchmen there with axes, trying to cut him to pieces with an axe. And, fortunately, he's alive today; fortunately, we call him friend and ally. But he knows what it means to have lived under a society in which a thug like Saddam Hussein would send people with axes to try to kill him in bed in a London flat.
No, this world is better off with Saddam Hussein in prison.
Q Sir, may I just follow, because I don't think you're really answering the question. I mean, I think you're responding to Senator Kerry, but there are beheadings regularly, the insurgent violence continues, and there are no weapons of mass destruction. My question is, can you understand that Americans may not believe you when you say that America is actually safer today?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein were still in power. This is a man who harbored terrorists -- Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Zarqawi. This is a man who was a sworn enemy of the United States of America. This is a man who used weapons of mass destruction. Going from tyranny to democracy is hard work, but I think the argument that says that Saddam Hussein -- if Saddam Hussein were still in power, we'd be better off is wrong.
The Prince of Tides, Tacking and Attacking (MAUREEN DOWD, 9/23/04, NY Times)
Yet Mr. Kerry's case has a hollow center. He was asked at his press conference on Tuesday about W.'s snide reminders that his rival gave him authority to go to war (and, playing frat pledge to W.'s rush chairman, inanely agreed that he would still have voted to give that authority even if there were no W.M.D.).That vote, he replied, was correct "because we needed to hold Saddam Hussein accountable for weapons. That's what America believed."
Not all Americans.
As the President told the UN:
Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped -- by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations.To suspend hostilities, to spare himself, Iraq's dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear, to him and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations.
He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.
The comeback Kerry: How the Democrat can revive his faltering campaign (Lexington, 9/23/04, The Economist)
IN SEPTEMBER 1980 Ronald Reagan was stuck behind Jimmy Carter in the polls. His campaign was in such a shambles that he had to sack his campaign manager. And he was dogged by the belief that he was unelectable. All that changed with a single debate—and Reagan crushed Mr Carter by more than 8m votes.John Kerry is no Ronald Reagan (though one supporter recently introduced him twice as John Kennedy). But he still has time to turn his campaign round. It is true that the Republicans have the wind in their sails at the moment (New Jersey is now considered a swing state, for heaven's sake). But swing voters seem in an unusually volatile mood. Mr Kerry still has a lot going for him—particularly the energy of a Democratic rank-and-file that will do anything to get George Bush out of the White House, and widespread worries about where the country is heading.
How can Mr Kerry translate all this energy and anxiety into victory? This week the Kerry camp produced a surprising answer: focus on Iraq. Mr Kerry had originally planned to spend the autumn talking about the economy and health care. But now—thanks to the influence of a group of Clintonites who have been drafted into his campaign—he has put Iraq at the centre of his campaign. Mr Kerry's pivotal speech in New York this week, ripping into Mr Bush's Iraq foray, may prove similar to Hubert Humphrey's denunciation of the Vietnam war in late September 1968, which narrowed the gap with Richard Nixon.
Why choose Iraq? After all, Nixon still won in 1968. And Mr Kerry's performance on Iraq has been dismal. While Mr Bush has stuck to a simple message (that the war in Iraq is an essential part of the war on terror), the Democrat has tied himself in ever more elaborate knots. It is hard to think of a position on Iraq that he has not taken. For all that, he is probably right to focus on it.
This is partly to do with the paucity of alternatives.
CBS Appoints 2-Man Panel to Investigate Guard Report (JIM RUTENBERG and JACQUES STEINBERG, 9/23/04, NY Times)
CBS announced yesterday that Dick Thornburgh, a former attorney general, and Louis D. Boccardi, a former top executive of The Associated Press, would investigate the journalistic breakdowns that led to the broadcast of a flawed "60 Minutes" report about President Bush's National Guard service.While the network characterized the two men as constituting an independent panel, Mr. Thornburgh's appointment upset Dan Rather, the anchor who broadcast the report and initially vouched for documents at its heart, according to four colleagues and associates.
Mr. Rather considers Mr. Thornburgh a confounding choice in part because he served two Republican presidents, Mr. Bush's father, and Richard M. Nixon, with whom Mr. Rather publicly clashed, the colleagues and associates said.
Burr 3 points behind Bowles in latest poll (Winston Salem Journal, 9/23/04)
A new poll shows the race for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina tightening, with Republican Richard Burr closing to within 3 percentage points of Democrat Erskine Bowles.In other polls so far, Bowles - who ran for the Senate two years ago against Republican Elizabeth Dole - has led by 8 to 10 percentage points.
But the poll for N.C. FREE, a trade group in Raleigh that tracks state elections, found Bowles with support from 44 percent, Burr with 41 percent and 12 percent undecided, according to N.C. FREE members who have seen it.
The statewide poll of more than 700 likely voters was conducted by Verne Kennedy, a pollster in Florida, before the Republican National Convention began Aug. 30 and before Burr released ads last week that criticize Bowles' support of a tax increase as a member of the Clinton administration.
Homosexual Teachers Teach Children About Lesbian Sex Toys (Traditional Values Coalition, September 22, 2004)
Brian Camenker, head of the Massachusetts grassroots group Article 8 Alliance, was on NPR recently with homosexual teachers to discuss what schools will be teaching students now that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has decided that the state constitution mandates homosexual marriages.The NPR discussion featured Brookline 8th grade homosexual teacher Deb Allen who said she will draw up a chart that shows kids the various kinds of sex acts homosexuals engage in, including “kissing and hugging, and different kinds of intercourse.” Allen then asks children if homosexual sex is any different than heterosexual sex. She described her conversation with NPR: “All right. So can a woman and a woman kiss and hug? Yes. Can a woman and a woman have vaginal intercourse, and they [children] will all say no. And I’ll say, ‘Hold it. Of course, they can. They can use a sex toy. They could use—and we talk—and we discuss that.”
Female Trouble: While fretting about Karl Rove, the Democrats overlooked Karen Hughes. How she—and Laura Bush—are winning the election for W. (Naomi Wolf, New York Magazine)
Should wives matter in a presidential campaign? Is it trivial to weigh Laura Bush’s gentle, Xanax-like demeanor, her faultless librarian’s poise and sincerity, against the imperious sexuality of Teresa Heinz Kerry? [...]While Bush Inc. is flooding women’s magazines with features in which Laura Bush gets out a family-friendly feminist message, Kerry et al. remain obsessed with sending white men out onto the Sunday talk shows—which women don’t watch. While Bush Inc. understands the power of the vivid visual image—dressing the entire GOP convention, for instance, in matching tangerine and turquoise, color-coordinating the Cheney grandchildren to give a visual sense of order and unity—the Democrats keep being bumped to the inside pages because they send out their candidate and his wife in neutrals. I am convinced that Michael Deaver is the invisible hand behind the calculated visuals of the Bush campaign—the signature use of deep, majestic backdrops behind the candidate, the use of jewel tones on Laura Bush and other women associated with the administration, the trick of forcing photographers to sit close to the stage so that they must shoot sharply upward, showing the candidate from a heroic angle. By contrast, the Democrats ignore them, losing women, who are simply too busy racing to get school lunches ready and kids out the door to get their impressions about the candidates from Meet the Press.
The low value Kerry’s team is assigning to both the visual story of the campaign and the role of gender imagery explains his drop in the polls after the GOP convention. Contrary to RNC spin about “earth tones” and “alpha males,” I was actually an adviser on women’s issues for the Gore campaign. But any cultural critic can tell you that a presidential campaign involves powerful gender archetypes, and presidents are archetypes of male potency. Republicans guided by Deaver understand this: It’s why you saw Ronald Reagan posed by a horse holding a riding crop, or W. in flight gear. And spouses play a massive role in enhancing or undermining the potency of a male candidate.
So Laura Bush, in speaking warmly of her mate’s “wrestling” with issues of war and peace, enhances his potency. This does not contradict my earlier point about appealing to swing voters; it has been well established that modern women maddeningly long for men who are tender in private but authoritative in public. Unfortunately, Teresa Heinz Kerry’s speech, which all but ignored her husband, did more to emasculate him than the opposition ever could. By publicly shining the light on herself rather than her husband, she opened a symbolic breach in Kerry’s archetypal armor. Listen to what the Republicans are hitting Kerry with: Indecisive. Effete. French. They are all but calling this tall, accomplished war hero gay.
The charges are sticking because of Teresa Heinz Kerry. Let’s start with “Heinz.” By retaining her dead husband’s name—there is no genteel way to put this—she is publicly, subliminally cuckolding Kerry with the power of another man—a dead Republican man, at that. Add to that the fact that her first husband was (as she is herself now) vastly more wealthy than her second husband. Throw into all of this her penchant for black, a color that no woman wears in the heartland, and you have a recipe for just what Kerry is struggling with now: charges of elitism, unstable family relationships, and an unmanned candidate.
The Senate's New Blood? (Arianna Huffington, Arianna Online)
The passion invested by the Democratic faithful in taking back the White House has meant that not enough has been said about the imperative of taking back control of the place John Kerry will hopefully be leaving — the United States Senate.If Kerry is the next occupant of the Oval Office, he will need legislative muscle to undo the disastrous policies of the Bush administration, which have damaged our economy, degraded our environment, added millions to the roll of America's uninsured, and seriously undermined our national security. No executive order can reverse all that.
And if — close your ears, kids — Bush is actually able to scare his way to re-election, a Democratic Senate will be the only thing standing in the way of a second term all-out assault on America's working families, and the implementation of a radical right-wing social agenda. Don't forget, the next president will probably end up appointing at least a couple of Supreme Court justices — and Bush has made it clear that he'd fill any vacancies with clones of Antonin Scalia. See ya later, Roe vs. Wade; nice knowing ya, civil liberties. Don't forget to turn your clocks back a hundred years.
The good news is that the Democrats actually have a pretty good shot at turning Bill Frist into the Senate Minority Leader. (Don't you love the ring of that?)
In looking at the Senate races Democrats can win, I focused on the three open seats currently held by retiring Republicans in Illinois, Colorado and Oklahoma. In each of these states, the Democrats are putting forth a candidate — Barack Obama in Illinois, Ken Salazar in Colorado, and Brad Carson in Oklahoma — capable of bringing a new type of leadership to Washington.
Eyes Wide Shut (David Corn, DavidCorn.com)
I want this election to be done, for I am sick of griping about George W. Bush and his lying--or, if you prefer, his excessively simplistic ways. Speaking at the UN yesterday, he proclaimed that the Iraqi people "are on the path to democracy and freedom." Perhaps. We hope so. But it is far from assured that the national elections scheduled for January--which would be a true milepost on the "path to democracy"--are going to happen. Can't Bush stop being a cheerleader-in-chief? Why not say, "We've removed the tyrant of Iraq and now are doing what we can to bring democracy to Iraq"? Is that sort of nuanced, based-in-reality rhetoric beyond Bush's grasp?
What Do Steve Williams and Dan Rather Have in Common? (Doug Kern, 09/23/2004, Tech Central Station)
The thrill of the home run comes from the extraordinary difficulty inherent in hitting one. As the difficulty goes down, the meaning and value of the achievement goes down as well. A single home run hit honestly is more impressive than a hundred home runs hit dishonestly. And a player surreptitiously taking advantage of Better Living through Chemistry is not hitting anything honestly -- much less heroically.I addressed many of these problems in my article for The New Atlantis entitled "Our Asterisked Heroes," available here. In response to that article, the estimable Brothers Judd have taken me to task here on the question of artificial assistance to heroism:
"Baseball, in particular, should aggressively defend the integrity of its timeless records by testing for performance enhancers. But Mr. Kern's idea that artificial advantage lessens heroism is probably not true. In a fair fight between David and Goliath we well know that David would get whipped. But he had a sling, which was effectively like bringing a gun to the fight. It hasn't seemed to diminish his aura of heroism much. Similarly, Arthur had Excalibur, Robin Hood his long bow and so on and so forth. We've never been overly disturbed by our heroes exploiting superior technology to their advantage."
With all due respect to the fabulous Juddsters, their analysis is flawed in three ways.
First, superior tools aren't the same as superior performance. We admire the heroism of David's courage, but not his fighting prowess -- no one makes the Monster-Slayer Hall of Fame for using a slick weapon to break the eggshell skull of a freak with a pituitary gland problem.
Second, sports have rules for the precise purpose of ensuring a "fair fight." By the Judds' logic, a heavyweight boxer would achieve something heroic by pounding on scores of featherweights. Mike Tyson, call your office.
Third, David, Arthur, and Robin Hood all achieved heroism in the fight against evil. When smiting the bad guys, there is no such thing as an unfair advantage. But heroism in sports is not a battle of good against evil (unless the Steelers and the Raiders are playing). Heroism in sports is defined by the struggle of man against himself -- against the inherent difficulty of physically demanding tasks. This heroism inheres in winning the battle against your own weakness and frailty, time and time again. When man changes himself through the use of performance-enhancing drugs, he has changed the terms of the struggle. He has, in effect, slipped his opponent a Mickey.
Nothing is heroic unless it pushes the limits of what men can do. When artificial modifications change those limits, they necessarily dilute the quality of heroism. And if sports only offer diluted heroism, we may as well play MVP Baseball 2005 in our living rooms. If we must watch artificial men, we may as well give our thumbs a workout.
Maybe it's the case that we just don't require, nor particularly expect, heroes to be average men. This does make it all the sweeter when a Lenny Skutnick or a NYC firefighter or the passengers on Flight 93 or even a Kirk Gibson in the World Series behaves heroically, but that additional gloss may suggest that such depart the norm of heroism.
At any rate, by all means ban performance enhancing drugs, but it's probably unlikely that kids will view Barry Bonds with too jaundiced eyes.
Iraq Leader Addresses Congress, Vowing January Elections (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/23/04)
Offering a simple, ``Thank you America,'' Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi declared Thursday that his country is moving successfully past the war that ousted Saddam Hussein and vowed that elections will take place next year as scheduled.``Elections will occur in Iraq on time in January because Iraqis want elections on time,'' Allawi told a joint meeting of Congress, an appearance that President Bush's advisers hoped would ease American voters' doubts about the troubled campaign in Iraq.
Despite struggles and setbacks, ``the values of liberty and democracy'' are taking hold in Iraq, Allawi said. ``We could hold elections tomorrow'' in 15 of 18 provinces, Allawi said, even though terror operatives hope to disrupt them.
``The insurgency in Iraq is destructive but small, and it has not and will never resonate with the Iraqi people,'' Allawi said.
He cautioned, however, that the election may not come off perfectly. But he assured it will be free and fair, ``a giant step'' in Iraq's political evolution.
``Today, we are better off, you are better off, the world is better off without Saddam Hussein,'' Allawi said. He added: ``Your decision to go into Iraq was not an easy one, but it was the right one.''
MORE:
Senator Kerry's Remarks (September 23, 2004)
Following is a transript of remarks made by Senator John Kerry today in Columbus, Ohio. [...]QUESTION: Prime Minister Allawi told Congress today that democracy was taking hold in Iraq and that the terrorists there were on the defensive. Is he living in the same fantasy land as the president?
KERRY: I think the prime minister is, obviously, contradicting his own statement of a few days ago, where he said the terrorists are pouring into the country. The prime minister and the president are here, obviously, to put their best face on the policy.
THE ANTI-WAR TURN IS A LOSER (DICK MORRIS, September 23, 2004, NY Post)
STUNG by criticism that his campaign lacks di rection and focus, Sen. John Kerry has chosen to base his candidacy on an all-out assault on President Bush's record in Iraq — indeed, opted to move to the left decisively and attack the war head-on.Liberals will cheer Kerry's new-found decisiveness, but it opens the way for Bush to deal him a counterstroke that can all but end this election and finish off Kerry for good.
Kerry's right flank is now gapingly vulnerable to a Bush attack. According to Scott Rasmussen's tracking polls, 30 to 40 percent of Kerry's voters disagree with his new leftward tilt on Iraq.
That is, even as the Democrat condemned the war in Iraq as a "diversion" from the central mission of the war on terror, a large minority of his own voters disagrees and sees it as "integral" to the battle to respond to 9/11.
Kerry has moved to the left, leaving about one-third of his vote behind. Bush can now move in and peel off Kerry's moderate supporters.
What's in a handshake? Big news if it's ministers from Israel and Iraq (Edith M. Lederer, 9/21/2004, Associated Press)
There were hundreds of handshakes Tuesday as world leaders met for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly's annual debate but only one grabbed widespread attention: Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom greeted Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.Shalom and Allawi shook hands and exchanged pleasantries at the General Assembly, where the two countries were seated next to each other, in alphabetical order, the foreign minister told The Associated Press.
Shalom said he told Allawi he hoped for peace in the Middle East.
He also told the AP he hoped Iraq will establish relations with Israel, echoing a desire expressed by the United States a year ago.
When Shalom arrived at U.N. headquarters before the handshake he was asked about Iraq.
''We would like not to be the only democracy in the Middle East,'' Shalom said. ''We would love that Iraq will join us, and after that the rest of the countries in the Middle East. It would bring more stability to the region and more stability to the entire world.''
Notes, quotes from 2004 campaign in Wis. (RON FOURNIER,9/22/2004, The Associated Press)
The last Republican presidential candidate to win Wisconsin was Ronald Reagan in 1984, but the state grows more GOP-friendly every year.President Bush lost Wisconsin to then-Vice President Al Gore by just 5,708 votes four years ago, and he has targeted the state and its 10 electoral votes since his first day in office.
His strategy revolves around the rapidly growing suburbs and the "exurbs" ringing cities such as Milwaukee and Green Bay. The area between Eau Claire in northwestern Wisconsin and the state line is the fastest growing area of the state, with Minnesotans moving in from the Twin Cities.
A Mississippi River boat trip late in the election helped Gore win the state's mostly rural southwestern flank. That should be Bush country, say White House officials, and they've worked hard to reclaim it on Nov. 2.
Low-Income Nonapplicants to Get Medicare Drug Cards: The Bush administration said that it would simply send the cards to 1.8 million people with low incomes who are eligible but have not applied for Medicare. (ROBERT PEAR, 9/23/04, NY Times)
After struggling for months to get Medicare beneficiaries to sign up for drug discount cards, the Bush administration said Wednesday that it would simply send the cards to 1.8 million people with low incomes who are eligible but have not applied.Democrats in Congress and advocates for low-income people have been urging the government to take such steps since April.
By using the cards, Medicare beneficiaries can cut about 20 percent off retail drug prices. In addition, low-income people with no other source of drug coverage can get up to $1,200 in federal aid. [...]
President Bush has repeatedly cited the discount cards as evidence of his commitment to help older people with drug costs. The new cards will arrive in the mail in the next few weeks. They can be used starting Nov. 1, one day before Election Day.
Kerry's wartime record influences Vietnamese voters (Michael Kan, September 23, 2004, The Michigan Daily)
A whopping 71 percent of the Vietnamese-American community plans to vote for President Bush in the upcoming election, according to a recent national poll by the multi-ethnic news agency New California Media.Dan Tran, a member of Vietnamese Americans Against John Kerry, isn’t surprised. Instead he anticipates an even higher percentage, predicting Vietnamese will virtually vote unanimously for Bush.
“I think 90 percent of the Vietnamese in America will vote against Kerry,” he said.
Amid an already heated election littered with issues surrounding Iraq and the economy, in the eyes of some Vietnamese the sole factor determining their vote has been their resentment of presidential candidate John Kerry’s record with their homeland.
For anti-communist Vietnamese who fled the country, Kerry’s anti-Vietnam war stance and policies on current relations with Vietnam have only evoked anger.
The Womb as Photo Studio (SAM LUBELL, 9/23/04, NY Times)
IT'S a rite of passage for many expectant parents: baby's first ultrasound. The fuzzy images of the fetus, produced during an examination in an obstetrician's office, are prized by couples, passed around proudly among friends and relatives.Now, trying to capitalize on this phenomenon, a number of companies are selling elective ultrasounds that have little to do with neonatal health. The services, often in small offices or shopping malls, amount to fetal photo studios and use newer 3-D ultrasound technology to produce more realistic images than conventional machines.
Parents-to-be typically pay from about $80 for a short ultrasound session primarily to determine the fetus's sex to $300 for a half-hour session that is recorded on a videocassette or DVD and includes color photos.
While medical professionals warn of potential health risks from unnecessary ultrasounds, those who offer the elective examinations say they are safe and fulfill a need.
"Women love it," said Matt Evans, a lawyer, who started his company, Baby Insight (baby -insight.com), about a year and a half ago. "They get to see their baby and have an emotional experience with their baby." [...]
Some doctors do not object to elective ultrasounds. Dr. Haig Yeni-Komshian, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Chevy Chase, Md., recently accompanied a patient to Baby Insight and found the practice safe, likening it to portrait work. "There's no radiation involved with ultrasounds, just high-frequency waves," Dr. Yeni-Komshian said. "As long as women are still seeing their doctors, if they want to have this done, that's fine."
Thousands turn out for Latrobe stop (Richard Gazarik, September 23, 2004, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
President George W. Bush wasted no time Wednesday in declaring his reason for visiting heavily Democratic Westmoreland County."I'm asking for the vote. That's what I'm doing here in Pennsylvania," Bush said.
Bush was greeted by thousands of supporters who stood in the heat for hours before his arrival at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, near Latrobe.
In a scene that resembled a rock concert more than a campaign rally, vendors hawked T-shirts, caps, campaign buttons, water, food, ice cream and soft drinks. Former Pittsburgh Steeler Lynn Swann made some remarks, and country music star John Michael Montgomery played as people swayed to his music.
Left, right, the US is out of step in Iraq: Neither the resistance groups cheered on by the American left nor the parties championed by its right reflect the views of most Iraqi people: US control over Iraq's political future may already be waning. (Frank Smyth, 9/24/04, Foreign Policy in Focus)
Many American leftists seem to know little about their Iraqi counterparts, since understanding the role of the Iraqi left requires a nuanced approach. Unfortunately, the knee-jerk, anti-imperialist analysis of groups such as International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) has wormed its way into several progressive outlets. Dispatches and columns in The Nation magazine as well as reports and commentary on the independently syndicated radio program Democracy Now have all but ignored the role of Iraqi progressives, while highlighting, if not championing, the various factions of the Iraqi-based resistance against the US-led occupation without bothering to ask who these groups are and what they represent for Iraqis.By now several things about the Iraq war seem clear. The US-led invasion was the most dangerous and reckless step taken by the US since the Vietnam War, and America is already paying dearly and is sure to pay an even steeper price for this imprudent action. More than 1,000 American soldiers have died in little more than a year in a campaign that has undermined US security more profoundly than even presidential candidate John Kerry has managed to articulate. Never has the US (according to international public opinion polls) been so resented, if not loathed, by so many people around the world. And this is exactly the kind of environment in which al-Qaeda terrorists - who represent a real and ongoing threat to the US and others - thrive.
US activists who demonstrated against the war in Iraq made an invaluable contribution by letting the rest of the world know that millions of Americans opposed the US-led invasion. But the enemy of one's enemy is not necessarily one's friend. To think otherwise is to embrace an Orwellian logic that makes anti-war Americans appear not only uninformed but also as cynical as the pro-war protagonists they oppose. The irony of the Iraq war is that the Bush administration made a unilateral decision to invade a nation in order to overthrow a leader who ranked among the most despised despots in the world but, in so doing, managed to turn countless people in many nations against the US.
Whispers of regime change (Ehsan Ahrari, 9/23/04, Asia Times)
As a number of public opinion polls show a sustained, if not growing, lead that US President George W Bush enjoys over his Democratic Party opponent John Kerry, the neo-conservatives have started a whisper campaign of possible regime change in Iran after the November presidential election. The element of hubris for which the neo-cons have been notorious is being applied cavalierly about the almost inevitability of Bush's re-election, even though much can happen before polling day. If Bush is indeed re-elected, the world is likely to encounter, if not a US military invasion of Iran, believing the whisper campaign, then most likely a preemptive neutralizing of all of its nuclear reactors.Undoubtedly, Iran has intensified the conflict ...
EYES OFF CBS (MICHAEL STARRDON KAPLAN, September 23, 2004, NY Post)
Ratings for Dan Rather's "CBS Evening News" have plummeted drastically in New York since the Bush-documents scandal broke wide open this week.The perennially third-place 6:30 p.m. newscast averaged 135,000 viewers on WCBS/Channel 2 Monday — the day Rather issued an on-air apology for the mess.
That's down 49 percent from the 266,000 viewers who tuned in to Rather's newscast the previous Monday, Sept. 13, according to Nielsen.
Hope Amid the Rubble (PETER BERGEN, 9/23/04, NY Times)
Based on what Americans have been seeing in the news media about Afghanistan lately, there may not be many who believed President Bush on Tuesday when he told the United Nations that the "Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom." But then again, not many Americans know what Afghanistan was like before the American-led invasion. Let me offer some perspective.This summer I visited Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, for the first time since the winter of 1999. Five years ago, the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies were at the height of their power. They had turned Afghanistan into a terrorist state, with more than a dozen training camps churning out thousands of jihadist graduates every year.
The scene was very different this time around. The Kandahar airport, where I had once seen Taliban soldiers showing off their antiaircraft missiles, is now a vast American base with thousands of soldiers, as well as a 24-hour coffee shop, a North Face clothing store, a day spa and a PX the size of a Wal-Mart. Next door, what was once a base for Osama bin Laden is now an American shooting range. In downtown Kandahar, the gaudy compound of the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, now houses United States Special Forces units.
As I toured other parts of the country, the image that I was prepared for - that of a nation wracked by competing warlords and in danger of degenerating into a Colombia-style narcostate - never materialized.
The Politics of Social Security: Kerry to Use Study to Call Bush Plan a Wall Street Windfall (Jonathan Weisman, September 22, 2004, Washington Post)
President Bush's push to create individual investment accounts in the Social Security system would hand financial services firms a windfall totaling $940 billion over 75 years, according to a University of Chicago study to be released today.Sen. John F. Kerry plans to use the paper, by economist Austan Goolsbee, as he campaigns in Florida today, hoping to open a new line of attack against Bush. The Democratic presidential nominee is expected to say that Bush's Social Security plan is a sop to Wall Street donors, who are among the Bush campaign's biggest financial backers.
Bush has expressed strong support for allowing workers to divert some of their Social Security taxes to accounts that could be invested in stocks and bonds. But he has never embraced a specific proposal to revamp Social Security, even after his own Social Security Commission presented him with three reform options. Goolsbee, an informal Kerry economic adviser, examined the option that is often cited as the most realistic.
Under that plan, workers could invest as much as 2.5 percent of their earnings -- or about 40 percent of their share of Social Security taxes -- in private accounts, which Goolsbee anticipates would be managed by private investment firms once their balances reach $5,000. He estimated that annual management fees would be 0.8 percent, a conservative figure, he said, considering that management fees across the spectrum of mutual funds average 1.09 percent.
The result: Over 75 years, fees would total $940 billion, more than a quarter of the $3.7 trillion deficit the Social Security system will run over that time period. That would be the largest windfall in U.S. financial history, Goolsbee said, more than eight times the revenue loss that Wall Street suffered during the 2000-02 stock market collapse.
Another problem, Bret and AOG estimated--if I recall correctly--that at the .8% fee the equation assumes an average asset base over the 75 years of about $1.6+ Trillion. But the point of beginning privatization is to end with a privatized system. So in a few years or decades we'd each be putting our entire annual contribution into these accounts and our employers would be putting in their entire contribution. We'd pretty quickly reach a point where $1.6 trillion was going in each year, no? The "windfall" would be far more massive than the paltry figure he's worried about here if they're getting .8% of accounts annually 75 years from now, wouldn't it? More like $800 billion a year?
Lebanon Captures Top al-Qaida Operative (HUSSEIN DAKROUB, 9/22/04, Associated Press)
Lebanon announced the arrest of the country's top al-Qaida operative and said Wednesday that he and another Lebanese suspect plotted suicide attacks on Western embassies and recruited insurgents to fight in Iraq.Senior security officials said the two, who were arrested Friday with eight accomplices, also planned to assassinate Western diplomats and attack Lebanese security and judicial targets.
At least one of the suspects allegedly had contact with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose Tawhid and Jihad group beheaded two American hostages in Iraq this week.
Lebanese officials said the arrests were testimony to its cooperation in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. They thanked Syria - the key power broker in Lebanon - and Italy for their cooperation in breaking up the alleged plot.
Middle-Class Tax Cuts Extension Approved (MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP)
House-Senate negotiators late Wednesday approved extending three popular middle class tax cuts and Republicans, anxious to get the bill to President Bush, predicted swift passage in both chambers of Congress.The conference panel approved the bill after overriding objections from Democrats who said the tax cuts should be paid for by tax increases in other areas, limiting its impact on the government soaring budget deficit.
Bush Team Orchestrates Larger Ad Campaign (LIZ SIDOTI, 9/22/04, Associated Press)
President Bush's political team is orchestrating a vastly larger advertising campaign than thought possible under federal law, taking control of millions in Republican Party funds simply by inserting the phrase "our leaders in Congress" in selected commercials.The GOP strategy had gone unnoticed for weeks by Sen. John Kerry and the Democrats, who now may abandon their own less cost-efficient approach to advertising.
Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, said in an interview that federal election law allows the campaign access to party money "provided that your message is broader than the individual candidate and includes a discussion of the overall agenda and the message of the party." The Republican National Committee has $93 million on hand.
This month the Republicans began airing television and radio commercials paid for jointly by the president's re-election campaign and the RNC and including the words "our leaders in Congress."
Ford matches GM deals (Reuters, 9/22/04)
Ford Motor Co said on Wednesday it will match rival General Motors Corp.'s offer of interest-free car loans for up to six years on 2004 model-year vehicles.The second-largest U.S. automaker is offering the loans for 100 hours starting Sunday, two days ahead of GM's similar offer. The Ford incentives, which cannot be combined with any cash-back offers, will expire next Thursday, Ford spokesman David Reuter said.
Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label (John F. Harris, September 23, 2004, Washington Post)
One of this year's candidates for president, to hear his opposition tell it, has a long history of policy reversals and rhetorical about-faces -- a zigzag trail that proves his willingness to massage positions and even switch sides when politically convenient.The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush. Over the past four years, he abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president yielded to pressure in supporting an independent commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about whether he would allow his national security adviser to testify, or whether he would answer commissioners' questions for only an hour, or for as long they needed.
Bush shows sizable lead among Colorado voters (PETER ROPER, 9/22/04, THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
More Colorado voters trust President Bush and his handling of the Iraq war than they do Democratic Sen. John Kerry, according to a statewide voter survey commissioned by The Pueblo Chieftain.In a telephone survey last week of 600 registered voters who are likely to vote, 51 percent of the respondents said they would vote for Bush while 39 percent said they would vote for Kerry. The poll was conducted by Ciruli Associates of Denver. The margin for error in the poll is 4 percent. [...]
There are more registered Republicans than Democrats in Colorado and the survey reflected that, with 42 percent of those surveyed describing themselves as either strong or mild Republicans and 33 percent describing themselves as strong or mild Democrats.
"While state voter registration is a little closer than that, historically more Republicans turn out to vote than Democrats," Ciruli said.
Kerry: Draft Likely to Return Under Bush (The Associated Press, Sept. 22, 2004)
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, citing the war in Iraq and other trouble spots in the world, raised the possibility Wednesday that a military draft could be reinstated if voters re-elect President Bush.
The Swift Vets have put up a new ad touching on John Kerry's meeting with our enemies in Paris.
Kerry looks to clarify stance, views on Iraq (Patrick Healy, September 22, 2004, Boston Globe)
Iraq is usually the stuff of Top Ten lists on the ''Late Show with David Letterman," but the first guest, Senator John F. Kerry, was engaged in serious political strategy Monday night as he laid out his new bottom line on the war.''If you had been elected president in 2000, in November of 2000, would we be in Iraq now?" Letterman asked the Democratic presidential nominee.
''No," Kerry replied...
Contra Campaign: An Iran-Contra conspirator joins the Swift Boat crowd. It was bound to happen. (BOB NORMAN, Sep 23, 2004, New Times Broward-Palm Beach)
The life of Felix I. Rodriguez provides a tour through the dark heart of America. From the Bay of Pigs fiasco to Vietnam to the El Salvador death squads to the Iran-Contra scandal, the Cuban exile and self-described "CIA hero" was there. His most famous assassination mission came in 1967, when he led the Bolivian army group that captured and summarily executed leftist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. He's worked closely with right-wing terrorists, and some of his associates were involved in the Watergate break-in. Given his background, it's not surprising his name has surfaced in numerous JFK conspiracy theories as well.Now retired in Miami, Rodriguez, who says his CIA career was always fueled by a hope to unseat Fidel Castro, also has special relationships with both of this year's presidential candidates. George W. Bush sends him a White House Christmas card each year. The president's father counts Rodriguez as an old friend; Bush Sr. worked with him during the mid-1980s, when Rodriguez ran the operation to arm the Contras for the Reagan administration.
Democratic nominee John Kerry, though, isn't so cozy with Rodriguez. In 1986, the then-rookie senator formed a committee to investigate Iran-Contra. In 1987, the so-called Kerry Committee alleged that Rodriguez had helped steer $10 million from the notorious Medellín cocaine cartel to the Contras. The committee concluded that trafficking was rampant in the rebels' effort.
The Miami man squared off with Kerry during a closed congressional hearing. He told the Massachusetts senator point-blank that the allegation was a damned lie and, for good measure, added that he had no respect for him.
Kerry Pulls Campaign Ads From Four States (RON FOURNIER, 9/22/04, AP)
Bowing to political realities, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has canceled plans to begin broadcasting television commercials in Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana and the perennial battleground of Missouri.
MORE:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.witcover22sep22,1,4942002.column?coll=bal-oped-headlines>The state that Kerry can't afford to lose (Jules Witcover, September 22, 2004, Baltimore Sun)
Of all the swing states up for grabs on Nov. 2, none is more critical for Sen. John Kerry than Michigan. Because of its strong labor base and traditional party organizational base, the Democratic nominee can hardly afford a loss in this state.
Put another way, perhaps the surest means for President Bush to nail down his re-election would be to deny Michigan and its 17 electoral votes to Mr. Kerry. Since the Depression, Michigan has gone Democratic in most presidential elections, though in 1980 and 1984 Ronald Reagan made deep inroads among blue-collar workers, thereafter known as the Reagan Democrats, and carried the state.But without Mr. Reagan on the ballot, many of these Republican-voting Democrats, centered largely in the working-class suburbs of Macomb and Oakland counties north of Detroit, returned to the party fold. They voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and four years ago for Al Gore. Macomb County went for Mr. Gore 49 percent to 47 percent, and he carried Michigan 51-46.
Of the old Reagan Democrats, Macomb Democratic Chairman Ed Burley says: "A lot of them are dead. I think we've moved past that whole notion of things. We're not the poster child of the Reagan Democrats we used to be."
Mr. Burley's predecessor during their heyday, Leo LaLonde, says, "Most of them have turned into Republicans." And former Democratic Gov. James J. Blanchard, now campaigning for Mr. Kerry, notes that even before Mr. Reagan, many blue-collar Democrats in Macomb and Oakland counties were "Wallace Democrats," conservative supporters of Alabama Gov. George Wallace.
But overall, Mr. Blanchard says, Michigan has a progressive tradition that gives Mr. Kerry a strong shot here. A recent Gallup Poll for CNN and USA Today had him ahead among likely voters, 50-44, though other polls show it closer.
-Kerry in a Struggle for a Democratic Base: Women (KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, 9/22/04, NY Times)
It was no accident that John Kerry appeared Tuesday on "Live With Regis and Kelly'' and recalled his days as a young prosecutor in a rape case. Or that he then flew from New York to Jacksonville, Fla., to promote his health care proposals. Or that on Thursday in Davenport, Iowa, he will preside over a forum on national security with an audience solely of women.These appearances are part of an energetic drive by the Kerry campaign to win back voters that Democrats think are rightfully theirs: women.
In the last few weeks, Kerry campaign officials have been nervously eyeing polls that show an erosion of the senator's support among women, one of the Democratic Party's most reliable constituencies. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week, women who are registered to vote were more likely to say they would vote for Mr. Bush than for Mr. Kerry, with 48 percent favoring Mr. Bush and 43 percent favoring Mr. Kerry.
In 2000, 54 percent of women voted for Al Gore, the Democratic nominee, while 43 percent voted for Mr. Bush.
Democratic and Republican pollsters say the reason for the change this year is that an issue Mr. Bush had initially pitched as part of an overall message - which candidate would be best able to protect the United States from terrorists - has become particularly compelling for women. Several said that a confluence of two events - a Republican convention that was loaded with provocative scenes of the Sept. 11 tragedy, and a terrorist attack on children in Russia - had helped recast the electoral dynamic among this critical group in a way that created a new challenge for the Kerry camp.
-Why women are edging toward Bush: 'Security moms' are putting national safety at the top of their list, weakening a traditionally Democratic base. (Linda Feldmann, 9/23/04, CS Monitor)
According to [Celinda] Lake, 66 percent of undecideds are women.One of Bush's not-so-secret weapons is his wife, Laura, the most popular figure on the campaign trail. Kerry's wife, Teresa, a foreign-born billionaire, is not as accessible to middle America, and is less well-known to the public, pollsters say.
The Greed Factor: Sanctions against rogue regimes would have been abandoned if Dick Cheney had had his way. (David J. Sirota and Jonathan Baskin, 09.15.04, American Prospect)
In 1992, the Republican Party launched a vicious assault against Bill Clinton for traveling overseas and speaking out against his country’s foreign policy during the Vietnam War. It was the beginning of a strategy to demean the national-security credentials of the Democratic Party. Now, twelve years later, Vice President Dick Cheney has updated the tactic, hammering those who question George W. Bush’s prosecution of the war on terror and impugning John Kerry’s commitment to national security. His rhetoric has been so vitriolic, he actually suggested last week that a Kerry presidency would mean "we will get hit again" by terrorists.Beyond blatantly mischaracterizing Democrats’ positions on defense, these shameless attacks serve to distract from the vice president’s own proclivity for undermining American foreign policy. The record shows that over the last decade, Cheney was willing first to do business with countries on the U.S. government’s terror list, then to travel abroad and condemn U.S. counter-terrorism policy when it got in his way. In the process, Cheney proved repeatedly he could be trusted to put Halliburton’s bottom line ahead of his country’s national security.
As Secretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush, Cheney helped lead a multinational coalition against Iraq and was one of the architects of a post-war economic embargo designed to choke off funds to the country. He insisted the world should “maintain sanctions, at least of some kind,” so Saddam Hussein could not “rebuild the military force he’s used against his neighbors.”
But less than six years later, as a private businessman, Cheney apparently had more important interests than preventing Hussein from rebuilding his army. While he claimed during the 2000 campaign that, as CEO of Halliburton, he had “imposed a ‘firm policy’ against trading with Iraq,” confidential UN records show that, from the first half of 1997 to the summer of 2000, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that sold more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was in charge. Halliburton acquired its interest in both firms while Cheney was at the helm, and continued doing business through them until just months before Cheney was named George W. Bush’s running mate.
Perhaps even more troubling, at the same time Cheney was doing business with Iraq, he launched a public broadside against sanctions laws designed to cut off funds to regimes like Iran, which the State Department listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. In 1998, Cheney traveled to Kuala Lumpur to attack his own country's terrorism policies for being too strict. Under the headline, “Former US Defence Secretary Says Iran-Libya Sanctions Act ‘Wrong,’” the Malaysian News Agency reported that Cheney “hit out at his government" and said sanctions on terrorist countries were "ineffective, did not provide the desired results and [were] a bad policy.”
Zarqawi's right-hand man killed in Iraq (Insight on the News, September 22, 2004)
The right-hand man of al-Qaida's suspected leader in Iraq, Abu Misaab Zarqawi, was apparently killed in Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad, reports said Wednesday.Jordan's daily al-Ghad said Omar Youssef Jumaa, code-named Abu Anas Shami, was killed in a U.S. bombardment of Abu Ghraib Friday, while he was traveling in a car with several other Muslim militants.
The paper quoted Jumaa's family in Jordan as saying they received information about his death from reliable sources.
Jumaa, number two in Zarqawi's al-Tawheed group, was responsible for religious edicts and writing Zarqawi's addresses to the press.
Bush the Liberal: The nobility and folly of democratizing Iraq (William Saletan, Sept. 21, 2004, Slate)
I admit it. I have a soft spot for President Bush.I love it when he goes to the United Nations—as he did two years ago and again today—and tells those lazy cynics to get off their duffs. They spend their days congratulating each other, passing toothless resolutions, and giving lip service to tired pet issues. Bush is just what they need. He pokes them in the ribs. He points out that scofflaws are treating them like a joke. He tells them to enforce their threats, or he'll do it for them. He preaches freedom and democracy. He vows to serve others, no matter who else joins in the cause. He refuses to back down, no matter what the price.
Unfortunately for Bush, it's the liberal in me who loves these things. And it's the conservative—in me and other Americans—who's turning away.
This is what liberals do: They coerce or cajole the fortunate to serve the less fortunate. They spend American lives and money to serve causes beyond our national interest.
OECD Says Oil Prices and Inflation Not Hurting Industrial Economies (Douglas Bakshian, 21 Sep 2004, VOA News)
A leading economic think-tank sees a strong recovery in the second half of the year for major industrial economies, in spite of high oil prices, and says inflation is not yet a concern.The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in an interim report, says oil prices have so far had only a limited impact on core inflation and wages in the world's major economies.
Oil has recently traded around $46 a barrel - much higher than normal. However, Jean-Philipe Cotis, the chief economist for the OECD, told VOA that the impact of an oil price hike is a lot smaller today than it was 30 years ago during the first oil shock. [...]
"Inflation expectations have not moved a lot despite the small oil price shock we had," he said. "It means that price stability is well anchored in our economy and monetary policy will not have to tighten prematurely."
Missing - A Media Focus on the Supreme Court (Norman Solomon, Media Beat )
Already, Bush's impacts on the judiciary have been appreciable. Like the members of the Supreme Court, the federal judges on appeals and district court benches are appointed for life -- and in less than four years, Bush has chosen almost a quarter of all those judges nationwide.Dahlia Lithwick, a legal analyst with Slate, notes that "Bush has already had a chance to massively reshape the lower federal bench. He's now filled 200 seats" -- with judges who'll have far-reaching effects. "He has certainly put a lot of people onto the federal bench who have sort of litmus tests on issues like abortion, on issues like civil rights. And I think we are going to see -- in the far future, but not today -- the fallout of a massive, massive influx of quite conservative jurists who've been put on the bench in the last four years."
As opponents of abortion rights, civil liberties, gay rights and other such causes work to gain a second term for George W. Bush, they try not to stir up a mass-media ruckus that might light a fire under progressives about the future of the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary. Likewise, those on the left who don't want to back Kerry even in swing states are inclined to dodge, or fog over, what hangs in the balance. Kerry is hardly a champion of a progressive legal system, but the contrast between his centrist orientation and the right-wing extremism of the Bush-Cheney regime should be obvious. It's too easy to opt for imagined purity while others will predictably have to deal with very dire consequences.
"The popular constituency of the Bush people, a large part of it, is the extremist fundamentalist religious sector in the country, which is huge," Noam Chomsky said in a recent interview with David Barsamian. "There is nothing like it in any other industrial country."
Budget Deficits: Old Theories v. New Facts (Alan Reynolds, 9/22/04, Cato Institute)
Budget deficits in France and Germany are just as large as in the U.S., and the budget gap in Japan is twice as large. Yet all three countries have a current account surplus, not "twin deficits." And the interest rate on 10-year government bonds is only 1.6 percent in Japan.Australia, by contrast, has maintained budget surpluses since 1998. Yet Australia's current account deficit is larger than that of the United States, as it was in all but one of the past six years. Australia's 10-year interest rate is 5.6 percent -- substantially higher than the U.S. rate of 4.2 percent. Canada, with a budget surplus since 1997, also has a higher interest rate than the U.S, 4.7 percent. These are regular patterns, not anomalies.
From 1994 through 2003, annual budget deficits averaged 5.8 percent of GDP in Japan, compared with 1.6 percent in the U.S. If budget deficits really increased interest rates and current account deficits, then Japan should be experiencing high interest rates and a large current account deficit by now. Countries with budget surpluses, like Australia, should be experiencing much lower interest rates and current account surpluses. The facts obviously don't fit the conventional theory.
The same stubborn theory also claims budget deficits reduce national savings and that tax increases can magically add to savings. On the contrary, the U.S., U.K. and Australia moved chronic from budget deficits to surpluses in the late 1990s, but the ratio of savings to GDP did not increase at all. The U.S. savings rate was 18.2 percent from 1983 to 1989, when deficits were relatively large, and 17.5 percent from 1998 to 2001 when the U.S. budget was in surplus. Hong Kong moved secular surpluses to cyclical deficits in recent years, but the national savings rate remained at 31-33 percent of GDP.
A paper of mine on these topics was originally presented at the U.S. Treasury and later published by the Cato Institute. I concluded: "In reality, neither actual nor projected budget deficits raise real or nominal interest rates, steepen the yield curve, reduce national savings, cause `twin deficits,' or make the dollar go up or down. The logic behind such speculations is flawed and contradictory and the evidence is nonexistent".
Kerry — A Party Divider? (Chuck Todd, Sept. 22, 2004, NationalJournal.com)
One of the more remarkable things about the national campaign these days is the incredible unity enjoyed by the Republican Party.With the Democrats in the minority, there ought to be a push to unify under the party banner, yet that hasn't occurred.
As has been noted in numerous reports about the structure of the Republican campaign apparatus, the party is incredibly streamlined -- not just on the presidential level but among campaigns for the House and the Senate as well.
It's a stark contrast to how the Democrats operate. And we're not just talking about the coordination (or lack thereof) that takes place between John Kerry, the Democratic National Committee and the House and Senate committees, but the overall attitude of the consultants and candidates in many races.
Democrats running in House and Senate races have no problems publicly distancing themselves from their national party leaders. Even Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has gone out of his way to put distance between himself and the Democratic nominee. [...]
By contrast, Republicans running in blue states, with few exceptions, aren't nearly as afraid of being linked with their party and its leader. And they have certainly not run as far away from Bush as some of Southern and Western Democrats have run from Kerry. [...]
Once the Republican Party identified specific principles to which all candidates could agree (defense and taxes quickly come to mind), the GOP became the governing party. The Democrats, particularly if Kerry loses, have a lot of work to do to unify the party so that a Senate candidate in South Carolina doesn't try to find a scheduling conflict to avoid a snapshot with a national candidate. Until Democrats gets past this, they may not become a governing party for a long time.
Surprise! Housing Starts in August Rise (Mark Felsenthal, 9/21/04, Reuters)
U.S. housing starts unexpectedly rose 0.6 percent in August to their highest level in five months as low mortgage rates encouraged construction, but permits fell more than anticipated, a government report showed on Tuesday.Housing starts climbed to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.000 million units from an upwardly revised 1.988 million in July, the Commerce Department said. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected starts to ease to a 1.935 million pace.
"It suggests that the housing market is still quite healthy despite the increase in mortgage rates earlier this year," said Gary Thayer, chief economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons.
'Lost' finds its way to adventure (Matthew Gilbert, September 22, 2004, Boston Globe)
This is a great piece of TV work, a tropical island adventure fitted with more than 40 characters, conceived with an eye to marooned-traveler classics such as "Lord of the Flies," "Castaway," and "Jurassic Park," and overlorded by one of the medium's most energetic and innovative talents, J.J. Abrams of "Alias."Right from its opening minutes, after a flight to Australia has crashed on the shores of nowhere, ABC's "Lost" simulates the kind of dread we don't expect to find on the small screen. Dazed survivors wander aimlessly around the flaming debris, as if in suspended time. Explosions, silence, screams, silence. Jack, a doctor played by Matthew Fox, comes to consciousness and gradually joins the milling strangers, zeroing in on the injured, including a pregnant woman.
The show...speeds up, of course; this is action and adventure, not to mention fantasy, as unseen creatures make their Spielbergian presence known in the forest by the beach. Predatory and noisy, the creatures chase after Jack, Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) when the trio goes looking for the plane's cockpit and its communications device. They keep the pulse of the show pounding as it introduces the large international cast of characters. Resourceful and athletic, Jack will become the island society's hero -- if first impressions are right, that is, and with Abrams they often aren't.
The adrenaline of "Lost" kicks in during the flashbacks, too, as crash victims recall their last moments in the air as they wait for rescue on the beach. These are the devastating sequences ABC has been clipping for its promotions -- the fast downward spiral begins, oxygen masks pop out, the plane cracks in half, and passengers are quickly sucked into the blue. Like the harrowing descent in the movie "Fearless," the plane disaster in "Lost" is not going to make the skies any friendlier to phobic viewers. During these disturbing flashbacks, the characters' back stories begin to emerge -- Charlie, for instance, who was fumbling with a little baggie when the plane lost its pressure and began to fall. One character is seen struggling to pull down an oxygen mask while wearing a pair of handcuffs.
ABC's new drama "Lost" absolutely flies. At least for its first two episodes.Beyond that, who knows? It is a show about survivors of a plane crash, after all.
Tonight's ***1/2 debut...is certainly an exhilarating takeoff. Be sure to remain seated with your seat belt fastened until the credits signal you're free to move about.
Whether "Lost" can remain airborne and continue to soar along at its initial clip is just one of the many unknowns involving the 48 passengers now stranded on a South Pacific atoll far from where rescue teams are likely to search.
This is a series brimming with shadowy characters, uncertain situations and mysterious monsters.
Even the remote island itself has secrets it's not yet ready to share.
"Lost" creator J.J. Abrams' most remarkable trick is in taking a set-up that sounds absolutely absurd and somehow making it click.
King of the funny skin flicks (ROGER EBERT, September 22, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Russ Meyer is dead. The legendary independent director, who made exploitation films but was honored as an auteur, died Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills. He was 82, and had been suffering from dementia. The immediate cause of death was pneumonia, said Janice Cowart, a friend who supervised his care during his last years. She announced his death Tuesday.Such bare facts hardly capture the zest of a colorful man who became a Hollywood icon. Meyer's "The Immoral Mr. Teas" (1959), hailed by the highbrow critic Leslie Fiedler as the funniest comedy of the year, created the skin flick genre, and after the box office success of his "Vixen" (1968) he was crowned "King of the Nudies" in a front-page profile in the Wall Street Journal. His "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970), for which I wrote the screenplay, represented the first foray into sexploitation by a major studio (20th Century Fox).
His films were X-rated but not pornographic. Meyer told me he had two reasons for avoiding hard-core: (1) "I want to play in regular theaters and keep the profits, instead of playing in porn theaters and doing business with the mob." (2) "Frankly, what goes on below the waist is visually not that entertaining." For Meyer, what went on above the waist was a lifelong fascination; he cheerfully affirmed his obsession with big breasts.
Meyer was the ultimate auteur. He not only directed his films, but could and often did write, photograph, edit and distribute them, and carried his own camera. In a genre known for sleazy sets and murky photography, Meyer's films were often shot outdoors in scenic desert and mountain locations, and his images were bright and crisp. He said his inspiration was Al Capp's "L'il Abner" comic strip, and his films were not erotic so much as funny, combining slapstick and parody. He once told me there was no such thing as a sex scene that couldn't be improved by cutaways to Demolition Derby or rocket launches.
Fed: Economy regaining traction (JEANNINE AVERSA, September 22, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
With the economy moving ahead and the nation's payrolls picking up a bit, Federal Reserve policy-makers boosted short-term interest rates for a third time this year -- but left economists split about when the next increase might come. [...]The Fed, explaining its unanimous decision, said the economy -- which slowed earlier this year partly because of soaring energy prices -- now ''appears to have regained some traction.'' That echoed a comment Greenspan made to Congress earlier this month.
In another encouraging note, the Fed said, ''Labor market conditions have improved modestly.'' That was a better assessment than the Fed offered in August, when it said job market improvements had slowed.
''The Fed is sending a message of relative comfort with the current condition of the economy,'' said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Banc of America Capital Management. ''They suggested we are pulling out of the soft patch.'' [...]
Fed policy-makers stuck to their view that future rate increases would be gradual because inflation is expected to remain relatively low. Inflation has eased in recent months despite the rise in energy prices, the Fed said.
The Left thinks legally, the Right thinks morally (Dennis Prager, 9/21/04, Jewish World Review)
To understand the worldwide ideological battle — especially the one between America and Western Europe and within America itself — one must understand the vast differences between leftist and rightist worldviews and between secular and religious (specifically Judeo-Christian) values.One of the most important of these differences is their attitudes toward law. Generally speaking, the Left and the secularists venerate, if not worship, law. They put their faith in law — both national and international. Law is the supreme good. For most on the Left, "Is it legal?" is usually the question that determines whether an action is right or wrong.
Take the war in Iraq. The chief leftist argument against the war — before it began, not later when no weapons of mass destruction were found — was that without U.N. sanction, attacking Iraq violated international law.
Whatever their feelings about George W. Bush or about attacking Iraq, for most of those on the Left, the rightness or wrongness of toppling Saddam Hussein's regime was determined by its legality (i.e., whether it was authorized by the U.N. Security Council). On the other hand, for those who supported attacking Iraq, whether the war was deemed legal played no role in their assessment of its rightness or wrongness. To those who supported removing Saddam Hussein by force, if the United Nations did not authorize it, it was a reflection on the morality of the United Nations, not the morality of the war.
International law thus provides a clear example of the Left-Right divide. To the Left, an international action is right if nations such as China, Russia, France and Syria vote for it, and wrong if they vote against it. To the Right and to the religious, an action is good (or bad) irrespective of the votes of the world's nations. They judge it by a code of morality higher than international law.
Interestingly, this dichotomy was on display at the UN yesterday as the President made a moral case for extending democracy universally and Kofi Annan made a legal case for protecting dictatorship, Bush, Annan Speeches Show Divisions on Iraq (Maura Reynolds and Maggie Farley, September 22, 2004, LA Times)
For the second time in two years, President Bush on Tuesday defended the invasion of Iraq before the U.N. General Assembly and appealed to other countries to join the United States in spreading "freedom" and "human dignity" in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in a pointed rebuke, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that countries that hoped to instill the rule of law must first abide by it themselves.The two addresses at the opening session of the 59th annual meeting invoked values such as democracy and the rule of law, and both Bush and Annan only briefly mentioned the schism of the last two years over the invasion of Iraq. But the war was the clear context for both leaders' remarks, as it was last year, and the two sides seemed not to have moved closer in the interim.
"When we say 'serious consequences' for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences," Bush said, referring to language in a Security Council resolution warning Iraq to eliminate any weapons of mass destruction. "And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world."
Annan insisted that "every nation that proclaims the rule of law at home must respect it abroad." Although the secretary-general did not name the United States, to the scores of world leaders listening in the vaulted chamber, the target of his comments was obvious.
"Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it," he said, "and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it."
THE SON OF REAGAN (Nina Burleigh, 9/22/04, AlterNet)
Luckily for Bush, an emergency team of former Reagan aides has swooped in during these last months of the re-election campaign to help recreate the triumph of 1984 – which explains all the babbling about optimism. Collectively, they are a "Morning in America" pill, a dose of cheerful unreality in what they hope is the nick of time.Noonan has taken a leave of absence from The Wall Street Journal to work with the Republican National Committee (RNC) to help with the 2004 campaign. Michael Deaver, a former Reagan deputy chief of staff, is taking a more active role with the campaign, and even organized a recent visit between Bush and Nancy Reagan. Campaign aides reportedly now meet regularly with Ken Duberstein, who served as Reagan's chief of staff and former senior Reagan adviser Charlie Black. Former Reagan Press Secretary Lyn Nofziger is also reportedly working on the campaign, although he has publicly denied it.
The conservative pundits are also right on the message.
Wall Street Journal columnist George Melloan has even drawn parallels between Kerry's criticism of Bush and his earlier criticisms of Reagan. Senator John Kerry, he wrote:
"[N]ow on the campaign trail accusing the president of irresponsibility, was similarly scornful of President Reagan's moves to resist Soviet and Cuban efforts to grab Central America. He called the president's well- founded fears of an invasion of Honduras by the Nicaraguan Sandinistas 'ridiculous.' …
In harking back to those years, it seems clear that Ronald Reagan was no more free of political adversaries than George W. Bush today. The idea that he got along better than Mr. Bush with Europe doesn't hold up to close scrutiny either.
Having lived through 1984, though, we don't need pundits to scrutinize the real similarities between Bush and Reagan. We are going into November 2004 with tax cuts and unlimited war spending sucking the life out of the economy now and for generations to come. Meanwhile, Son of Reagan takes a break from splitting logs, wipes the sweat from his brow, grins at the gasping, barely-making-it citizenry, and asks us to buck up and take it on the chin for the sake of "Freedom."
The truth, however, is that George Bush is far, far worse than Reagan.
Kerry still sacrificing the freedom of the South Vietnamese (Edward Morrissey, 9/22/04, Jewish World Review)
John Kerry has taken to pleading for a return to debate on current issues and more relevant qualifications for the presidency in a bid to bury the debate on his Viet Nam record, which at one time was all Kerry would discuss on the stump. Speaking in New York last month, Kerry told a crowd that all the Bush campaign had was fear, while he wanted to talk about how he could outperform Bush in areas such as foreign policy.So let's talk foreign policy, as practiced right here at home, by Senator Kerry.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Bradley Clanton of the law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, in Jackson, MS and Washington, DC. Brad represents several Vietnamese-Americans who came to the US as refugees of the Communists in their native land. Some of his clients have names that students of the era would recognize, such as Bui Diem, former ambassador to the US from the Saigon government. This group of Vietnamese refugees filed a lawsuit against the University of Massachusetts (Boston) and the William Joiner Center, one of its research centers, due to irregularities in its awarding of fellowships for researching the Vietnamese Diaspora.
Jersey, Ohio polls put Dems in a tizzy (HELEN KENNEDY, 9/22/04, NY DAILY NEWS)
As new polls showed President Bush 10 points ahead in crucial Ohio and both men tied at 48% in New Jersey, once a supposedly safe Democratic state, the candidate proclaimed himself unbothered. [...]The polls showed voters are unhappy about Iraq and the economy, but they think Bush would do a better job handling terrorism.
"They see terrorism as a more important issue than the economy or health care - Kerry's issues," said Quinnipiac pollster Mickey Carroll, who surveyed the Garden State. "The vacant skyline where the World Trade Center once stood brings the threat of terrorism home to New Jersey across the river."
Kerry's press conference yesterday - his first since early August - vividly underscored his biggest problem: six weeks before the election, nine of the 11 questions were still attempts to clarify his 2003 vote for the war.
Primary voters chose Kerry largely because of that vote, believing only a hawk could successfully face Bush. But Kerry's inability to articulate a clear position has become his Achilles heel, bogging him down in a quagmire of questions about the past instead of talking about the future.
Executive Summary: Winning the Oil Endgame (Rocky Mountain Institute)
Winning the Oil Endgame offers a coherent strategy for ending oil dependence, starting with the United States but applicable worldwide. There are many analyses of the oil problem. This synthesis is the first roadmap of the oil solution—one led by business for profit, not dictated by government for reasons of ideology. This roadmap is independent, peer-reviewed, written for business and military leaders, and co-funded by the Pentagon. It combines innovative technologies and new business models with uncommon public policies: market-oriented without taxes, innovation-driven without mandates, not dependent on major (if any) national legislation, and designed to support, not distort, business logic.Two centuries ago, the first industrial revolution made people a hundred times more productive, harnessed fossil energy for transport and production, and nurtured the young U.S. economy. Then, over the past 145 years, the Age of Oil brought unprecedented mobility, globe-spanning military power, and amazing synthetic products.
But at what cost? Oil, which created the sinews of our strength, is now becoming an even greater source of weakness: its volatile price erodes prosperity; its vulnerabilities undermine security; its emissions destabilize climate. Moreover the quest to attain oil creates dangerous new rivalries and tarnishes America's moral standing. All these costs are rising. And their root causes—most of all, inefficient light trucks and cars—also threaten the competitiveness of U.S. automaking and other key industrial sectors.
The cornerstone of the next industrial revolution is therefore winning the Oil Endgame. And surprisingly, it will cost less to displace all of the oil that the United States now uses than it will cost to buy that oil. Oil's current market price leaves out its true costs to the economy, national security, and the environment. But even without including these now "externalized" costs, it would still be profitable to displace oil completely over the next few decades. In fact, by 2025, the annual economic benefit of that displacement would be $130 billion gross (or $70 billion net of the displacement's costs). To achieve this does not require a revolution, but merely consolidating and accelerating trends already in place: the amount of oil the economy uses for each dollar of GDP produced, and the fuel efficiency of light vehicles, would need only to improve about three-fifths as quickly as they did in response to previous oil shocks.
Saving half the oil America uses, and substituting cheaper alternatives for the other half, requires four integrated steps:
* Double the efficiency of using oil. The U.S. today wrings twice as much work from each barrel of oil as it did in 1975; with the latest proven efficiency technologies, it can double oil efficiency all over again. The investments needed to save each barrel of oil will cost only $12 (in 2000 $), less than half the officially forecast $26 price of that barrel in the world oil market. The most important enabling technology is ultralight vehicle design. Advanced composite or lightweight-steel materials can nearly double the efficiency of today's popular hybrid-electric cars and light trucks while improving safety and performance. The vehicle's total extra cost is repaid from fuel savings in about three years; the ultralighting is approximately free. Through emerging manufacturing techniques, such vehicles are becoming practical and profitable; the factories to produce them will also be cheaper and smaller.
* Apply creative business models and public policies to speed the profitable adoption of superefficent light vehicles, heavy trucks, and airplanes. Combined with more efficient buildings and factories, these efficient vehicles can cut the official forecast of oil use by 29% in 2025 and another 23% soon thereafter—52% in all. Enabled by a new industrial cluster focusing on lightweight materials, such as carbon-fiber composites, such advanced-technology vehicles can revitalize these three strategic sectors and create important new industries.
* Provide another one-fourth of U.S. oil needs by a major domestic biofuels industry. Recent advances in biotechnology and cellulose-to-ethanol conversion can double previous techniques' yield, yet cost less in both capital and energy. Replacing fossil-fuel hydrocarbons with plant-derived carbohydrates will strengthen rural America, boost net farm income by tens of billions of dollars a year, and create more than 750,000 new jobs. Convergence between the energy, chemical, and agricultural value chains will also let versatile new classes of biomaterials replace petrochemicals.
* Use well established, highly profitable efficiency techniques to save half the projected 2025 use of natural gas, making it again abundant and affordable, then substitute part of the saved gas for oil. If desired, the leftover saved natural gas could be used even more profitably and effectively by converting it to hydrogen, displacing most of the remaining oil use—and all of the oil use if modestly augmented by competitive renewable energy.
These four shifts are fundamentally disruptive to current business models. They are what economist Joseph Schumpeter called "creative destruction," where innovations destroy obsolete technologies, only to be overthrown in turn by ever newer, more efficient rivals. In The Innovator's Dilemma, Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen explained why industry leaders often get blindsided by disruptive innovations—technological gamechangers—because they focus too much on today's most profitable customers and businesses, ignoring the needs of the future. Firms that are quick to adopt innovative technologies and business models will be the winners of the 21st century; those that deny and resist change will join the dead from the last millennium. In the 108-year history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, only one of 12 original companies remains a corporate entity today—General Electric. The others perished or became fodder for their competitors.
What policies are needed? American companies can be among the quick leaders in the 21st century, but it will take a cohesive strategy-based transformation, bold business and military leadership, and supportive government policies at a federal or at least a state level. Winning the Oil Endgame charts these practical steppingstones to an oil-free America:
* Most importantly, revenue- and size-neutral "feebates" can shift customer choice by combining fees on inefficient vehicles with rebates to efficient vehicles. The feebates apply separately within each vehicle-size class, so freedom of choice is unaffected. Indeed, choice is enhanced as customers start to count fuel savings over the vehicle's life, not just the first few years, and this new pattern of demand pulls superefficient but uncompromised vehicles from the drawing-board into the showroom.
* A scrap-and-replace program can lease or sell superefficent cars to low-income Americans—on terms and with fuel bills they can afford—while scrapping clunkers. This makes personal mobility affordable to all, creates a new million-car-a-year market for the new efficiency technologies, and helps clean our cities' air.
* Military needs for agility, rapid deployment, and streamlined logistics can drive Pentagon leadership in developing key technologies.
* Implementing smart government procurement and targeted technology acquisition (the "Golden Carrot") for aggregated buyers will accelerate manufacturers' conversion, while a government-sponsored $1-billion prize for success in the marketplace, the "Platinum Carrot," will speed development of even more advanced vehicles.
* To support U.S. automakers' and suppliers' need to invest about $70 billion to make advanced technology vehicles, federal loan guarantees can help finance initial retooling where needed; the investments should earn a handsome return, with big spin-off benefits.
* Similar but simpler policies—loan guarantees for buying efficient new airplanes (while scrapping inefficient parked ones), and better information for heavy truck buyers to spur market demand for doubled-efficiency trucks—can speed these oil-saving innovations from concept to market.
* Other policies can hasten competitive evolution of next-generation biofuels and biomaterials industries, substituting durable revenues for dwindling agricultural subsidies, and encouraging practices that protect both topsoil and climate.
What happens to the oil industry? The transition beyond oil is already starting to transform oil companies like Shell and BP into energy companies. Done right, this shift can profitably redeploy their skills and assets rather than lose market share. Biofuels are already becoming a new product line that leverages existing retail and distribution infrastructure and can attract another $90 billion in biofuels and biorefining investments. By following this roadmap, the U.S. would set the stage by 2025 for the checkmate move in the Oil Endgame—the optional but advantageous transition to a hydrogen economy and the complete and permanent displacement of oil as a direct fuel. Oil may, however, retain or even gain value as one of the competing sources of hydrogen.
How big is the prize? Investing $180 billion over the next decade to eliminate oil dependence and revitalize strategic industries can save $130 billion gross, or $70 billion net, every year by 2025. This saving, equivalent to a large tax cut, can replace today's $10-billion-a-month oil imports with reinvestments in ourselves: $40 billion would pay farmers for biofuels, while the rest could return to our communities, businesses, and children. Several million automotive and other transportation-equipment jobs now at risk can be saved, and one million net new jobs can be added across all sectors. U.S. automotive, trucking, and aircraft production can again lead the world, underpinned by 21st century advanced-materials and fuel-cell industries. A more efficient and deployable military could refocus on its core mission—protecting American citizens rather than foreign supply lines—while supporting and deploying the innovations that eliminate oil as a cause of conflict. Carbon dioxide emissions will shrink by one-fourth with no additional cost or effort. The rich-poor divide can be drastically narrowed at home by increased access to affordable personal mobility, shrinking the welfare rolls, and abroad by leapfrogging over oil-dependent development patterns. The U.S. could treat oil-rich countries the same as countries with no oil. Being no longer suspected of seeking oil in all that it does in the world would help to restore U.S. moral leadership and clarity of purpose.
While the $180-billion investment needed is significant, the United States' economy already pays that much, with zero return, every time the oil price spikes up as it has done in 2004. (And that money goes into OPEC's coffers instead of building infrastructure at home.) Just by 2015, the early steps in this proposed transition will have saved as much oil as the U.S. gets from the Persian Gulf. By 2040, oil imports could be gone. By 2050, the U.S. economy should be flourishing with no oil at all.
How do we get started? Every sector of society can contribute to this national project. Astute business leaders will align their corporate strategies and reorganize their firms and processes to turn innovation from a threat to a friend. Military leaders will speed military transformation by promptly laying its foundation in superefficient platforms and lean logistics. Political leaders will craft policies that stimulate demand for efficient vehicles, reduce R&D and manufacturing investment risks, support the creation of secure domestic fuel supplies, and eliminate perverse subsidies and regulatory obstacles. Lastly, we, the people, must play a role—a big role—because our individual choices guide the markets, enforce accountability, and create social innovation.
Our energy future is choice, not fate. Oil dependence is a problem we need no longer have—and it's cheaper not to. U.S. oil dependence can be eliminated by proven and attractive technologies that create wealth, enhance choice, and strengthen common security. This could be achieved only about as far in the future as the 1973 Arab oil embargo is in the past. When the U.S. last paid attention to oil, in 1977–85, it cut its oil use 17% while GDP grew 27%. Oil imports fell 50%, and imports from the Persian Gulf by 87% in just eight years. That exercise of dominant market power—from the demand side—broke OPEC's ability to set world oil prices for a decade. Today we can rerun that play, only better. The obstacles are less important than the opportunities if we replace ignorance with insight, inattention with foresight, and inaction with mobilization. American business can lead the nation and the world into the post-petroleum era, a vibrant economy, and lasting security—if we just realize that we are the people we have been waiting for.
Together we can end oil dependence forever.
Texans Still at Odds Over Bush's Legal Reforms (David G. Savage, September 22, 2004, LA Times)
On his first day as governor of Texas, George W. Bush declared that limiting lawsuits was an "emergency issue" for his state."We must put a stop to the frivolous and junk lawsuits which clog our courts," he said in January 1995, a popular line he has repeated often since then.
Getting rid of "frivolous" suits — or even defining them — proved difficult, but the new governor won limits on how much money could be awarded in the biggest cases. For example, punitive damages were capped at twice the amount of a victim's loss.
But the legal-reform movement Bush launched in Texas has gone far beyond questions of monetary awards. Among other things, it has led to limits on the right to sue in the first place.
"Texas has gone from one of the most friendly states for consumer protection to one of the most anti-consumer states," said University of Houston law professor Richard M. Alderman, an expert on consumer rights. "It all began in 1995. Bush oversaw a significant retreat for consumer protection, and it was all done under the guise of attacking 'frivolous' lawsuits."
The impact has been felt by home buyers such as Mary and Keith Cohn, whose elegant new residence in this well-off Houston suburb came with a leaky roof that led to rotting and moldy wallboard throughout the structure. After their daughters became ill, the Cohns moved out. The repairs ultimately cost more than $300,000.
To their astonishment and dismay, they learned that when the builder refused to repair most of the damage, they could not sue him for redress. Instead, they could pursue private arbitration, a process they considered stacked against them.
"This is the largest purchase of your life," said Mary Cohn, "but you have zero consumer protection."
Citizens’ Arrest (Patrick O’Hannigan, 9/21/2004, The Spectator)
In 1998, retired Special Forces operators forced CNN to apologize for a story alleging that American troops had used nerve gas in Laos during a secret 1970 mission called Operation Tailwind. Although Special Forces alumni responding to the story used Web-based technologies to communicate with each other and with CNN, blogs did not then exist. Slandered veterans could not talk with each other in real time, or expect help from anyone outside their own circles. Nevertheless, these experts in "force multiplication" succeeded in getting the story's producer sacked.One year later, Pyra Labs added Blogger software to the collection of Internet tools already on the market. Blogger leveraged the increasing popularity of all things Web to make "asymmetrical warfare" by non-journalists against inaccuracies in Big Media easier than it had been before. Its debut set in motion a chain of events that would eventually cause CBS News and its iconic anchorman to come belatedly to grips with the idea that their own credibility had gone the way of Jonathan Livingston Seagull: lost in a painted sky, where the clouds are hung for the poet's eye, and the breaking news bites the network guy.
But Dan Rather's comeuppance is just the latest in a string of advances for "participatory journalism" that goes back to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Thousands of people discussed those attacks and their implications on the Internet, and more than a few of these people either started blogs at that time or saw their existing efforts come to sudden prominence.
Muslims "disillusioned with Shari'a" in Nigeria (afrol News, 21 September, 2004)
After twelve Northern Nigerian states since 2000 have introduced Islamic law, or Shari'a, the Muslim population majority is mostly disillusioned. They had hoped Shari'a courts would be better than Nigeria's old and discredited justice system, but many by now find that only the harsh aspects of Shari'a are implemented while generosity and compassion is overlooked, a new report says.North Nigerian state governments and Shari'a courts had failed to respect international human rights standards, according to Peter Takirambudde of the US group Human Rights Watch. "They have also disregarded what many Muslims argue are key principles of Shari'a itself. They have concentrated on the harsh aspects of Islamic law while ignoring its principles of generosity and compassion," Mr Takirambudde added.
The US human rights group today in London presented a 111-page report on the use of Islamic law in Nigeria. The report documents how human rights are systematically violated as a consequence of the Shari'a courts' practices, while admitting that similar abuses are at least as common in Nigeria's non-Shari'a legal system.
President Bush's Lead Balloon (New York Times, September 22nd, 2004)
Mr. Bush has never exhibited much respect for the United Nations at the best of times. But the United States now desperately needs the partnership of other nations on Iraq. Without substantial help from major nations, the prospects for stabilizing that country anytime soon are bleak. American soldiers and taxpayers are paying a heavy price for Washington's wrongheaded early insistence on controlling all important military, political and economic decision-making in post-invasion Iraq.Other nations have generally responded by sitting sullenly on the sidelines. Even when they cast grudging votes for American-sponsored Security Council resolutions, they hold back on troops and financial support. With the war going so badly and voters hostile to it in most democracies, that situation is unlikely to change unless Washington signals a new attitude, and deals with other countries as real partners whose opinions and economic interests are entitled to respectful consideration.
Mr. Bush might have done better at wooing broader international support if he had spent less time on self-justification and scolding and more on praising the importance of international cooperation and a strengthened United Nations. Instead, his tone-deaf speechwriters achieved a perverse kind of alchemy, transforming a golden opportunity into a lead balloon.
For the sake of argument, let us allow that the question of whether the United States is over-extended in Iraq is a legitimate one. Let us also allow, on the general theory that the more the merrier, that help in Iraq could be a good thing. What magical transformation of European resistance does the NYT think could have been secured by the President seizing this “golden opportunity” to call for the strengthening of the UN?
We are hearing a lot these days about how the Administration is not being honest about the situation in Iraq. Any substance to this charge pales beside the dishonesty about European objectives and capacities being spread by the liberal media and certain presidential candidates. Should not someone ask Senator Kerry directly exactly what evidence he has that countries like France and Germany would assist in Iraq under any circumstances and what would be their price for so doing? Does the Times honestly believe a rousing presidential speech about international cooperation would send Legionnaires winging their way to Baghdad?
The Times, which presumably should know, is relying on treacly rhetoric to hide the fact that the UN (and, by extension, international law) exists to thwart, not to act. Europe has no interest in American security and never has. It wishes to be left alone, except when it needs American help, as in Bosnia, in which case it doesn’t even bother to send the UN a fax. Not only would Saddam still be in power if Europe had had its way (a prospect viewed with increasing equanimity by the world’s cognoscenti), but Europe would still be resigned to paying protection money to terrorists and be trying to mediate Israel into extinction.
The die in Iraq has largely been cast, which means debates on first principles are coloured by a complex military reality and therefore “nuanced” by necessity. That is not so in Iran and Darfur. It is unfortunate that inherently cautious electoral strategies prevent anyone from challenging the Senator and the Times directly as to how exactly they believe the United States should respond to a UN refusal to do any thing to prevent Iran from building a bomb or Sudan from mass-murdering in Darfur.
Watch-List Passenger ID'd as Cat Stevens (Fox News, September 21, 2004)
A plane bound for Washington from London was diverted to Maine on Tuesday after passenger Yusuf Islam -- formerly known as pop singer Cat Stevens -- showed up on a U.S. watch list, federal officials said.
40% of children think sun revolves around Earth: poll (Japan Times, 9/22/04)
A survey of 720 students in the fourth to sixth grades at selected schools shows that around 40 percent of them believe the sun revolves around Earth, while nearly 30 percent were not aware of which direction the sun sets.
Transcript: Kerry Answers Questions at Press Conference (FDCH E-Media, September 21, 2004)
Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry answered reporters' questions at a news conference in Jacksonville, Fla. [...]At the United Nations today, the president failed to level with the world's leaders. Moments after Kofi Annan, the secretary general, talked about the difficulties in Iraq, the president of the United States stood before a stony-faced body and barely talked about the realities at all of Iraq.
KERRY: After lecturing them, instead of leading them to understand how we are all together with a stake in the outcome of Iraq, I believe the president missed an opportunity of enormous importance for our nation and for the world. He does not have the credibility to lead the world. And he did not and will not offer the leadership in order to do what we need to do to protect our troops, to be successful, and win the war on terror in an effective way.
I believe, as I set out yesterday, we need a fundamentally different approach in order to be successful in Iraq. We need to get other nations to join us. Even if they won't accept risky operations, there are other operations which would facilitate our ability to be able to manage this situation. We need not to stay the course, but the change the course so we can be successful. And the urgency grows with every single day.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
QUESTION: Senator, the president continues to quote you as saying that the world would better off with Saddam Hussein (OFF-MIKE)
KERRY: The world be better off, excuse me?
QUESTION: He said that you said the world would be better off if Saddam Hussein was not sitting in a prison cell.
KERRY: What I have always said is that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. [...]
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
KERRY: No, I have one position on Iraq, one position. What they should be confused about is what President Bush has done where he actually says to Americans that if there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no connection to Al Qaida, all of which had been proven to be true, the 9/11 Commission has shown the president wasn't truthful. His own weapons inspectors have shown the president wasn't truthful.
And the president says even though that's true, he would still have taken America to war. Now, I believe there was a better way. And I've said that consistently from day one. [...]
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
KERRY: Look. The vote for the authority was the correct vote. I've said that throughout this campaign. Never questioned it. It was the correct vote because we needed to hold Saddam Hussein accountable for weapons. That's what America believed.
But this president made a series of decisions after that that broke his promises both to the American people and to the Congress. He didn't take the time to do the hard work of diplomacy and show the wisdom and the judgment that a president needs to show as to how you bring other nations to our side. He didn't exhaust the remedies of inspections so that you either found out that there were no weapons of mass destruction, or you found that you really had to proceed with the world at your side. Either way, we would have been better off. [...]
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
KERRY: If you take the steps that I said yesterday, which evidently the president has already started not to, because today he didn't talk reality to the United Nations, you can have those elections. Sure. But the president -- unless you make Iraq more secure and live up to what the United Nations needs in order to be able to deliver, it's going to be very difficult.
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) if the world is better off with Saddam gone, how did that square with the comment last night with David Letterman, that knowing what you now know, you wouldn't have gone to war?
KERRY: Because, for several reasons. First of all, it's obvious, if he is gone, the world is better off without him.
KERRY: Everybody understands that. He's a brutal dictator. And as I said yesterday in my speech, he deserves his own special place in hell.
But that doesn't mean that you go to war in an irresponsible way that puts America at greater risk. That doesn't mean you should take your eye off the ball, which was Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida, and rush to war just to get rid of him.
Are we better off without him? Sure. But what they've done is, as I said in my speech yesterday, they have replaced a dictator with chaos, and chaos in a way that puts America and Iraqis at much greater risk.
I believe there was a more responsible way to do it. If you don't have weapons of mass destruction, believe me, Saddam Hussein is a very different person. That's what kept him in power. And I believe Saddam Hussein would not be in power.
Since even his use of WMD apparently does not allow us 100% certainty, there's no reason to believe Saddam would not still be in power under a President Kerry.
Poll: 69% of US Jews will vote for John Kerry (THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 21, 2004)
Reports indicate that a new survey by the American Jewish Committee, scheduled to be released Wednesday, finds that only 24 percent of
American Jews would vote for President Bush, while 69 percent would vote for Senator John Kerry.The finding represents a remarkable 23 percent drop in American Jewish support for President Bush since last December, when an AJC poll found that 31 percent of American Jews would vote for President Bush at that time.
Due to the margin of error associated with polling, there is statistically no difference between AJC's finding of President Bush's support today and his support in 2000 among American Jews. Voter News Service exit polls found that then-Governor Bush received 19 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000.
Gore campaign rejected allegations similar to CBS report, former campaign chief says (MATT KELLEY, September 21, 2004, AP)
Former Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign heard but did not pursue allegations about George W. Bush's Air National Guard service, similar to the information in discredited documents aired by CBS News this month, a former campaign official said Tuesday.Tony Coelho, who ran the campaign for several months in 2000, said he did not follow up on the claims because they were not serious enough to demand further attention.
"Of everyone I talked to, no one had anything that rose to the level that we should get ourselves into," Coelho said.
THE TRUTH ABOUT RIFLE STATISTICS (FREDRIC U. DICKER, September 20, 2004, NY Post)
NEW YORKERS are at least four times as likely to be punched to death than to be killed with an assault-style rifle, unpublished state crime statistics show.The eye-opening figures — obtained by The Post from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services — reveal that New Yorkers are also at least twice as likely to be clubbed to death than shot dead by an attacker wielding one of the semi-automatic rifles previously covered by a federal government ban that expired last week.
The most recent statewide statistics — murder-by-weapon-type figures from 2002 — also show that New Yorkers are at least five times as likely to be stabbed to death with a knife than they are to be shot with an assault rifle.
Of 893 murders committed two years ago, just 22 — or slightly over 2 percent — were carried out using some form of rifle, including assault-rifles, the figures show.
Trying to put Islam on Europe's agenda (John Vinocur, September 21, 2004, Intenational Herald Tribune)
About nine months ago, Francis Fukuyama, the historian, said that one of the big things distinguishing America from Europe was that, while the United States had staged its great debate on race, Europe hid from dealing frontally with how much Islam it could live with inside its borders.Now, Fukuyama, author of the celebrated essay "The End of History," has taken this message to the Europeans. In a speech in Germany about two weeks ago, he urged Europe to stop being intimidated about using its right to defend its own humanist culture. He even employed the expression "leitkultur," or leading culture - touchy among Germans because of its supposed elitist resonance - to describe the legitimacy of shoring up a distinctly European identity.
Fukuyama will return to speak in Europe this month and next. His desire to raise the issue of Islam and Europe is intriguing at the least, and surely intrusive for some Europeans. But it reflects a central concern of other leading American academics. Samuel Huntington of Harvard and Bernard Lewis, the Princeton emeritus professor and Middle East expert, men sometimes schematized with Fukuyama as conservatives (although Huntington and Fukuyama are tough critics of aspects of America's involvement in Iraq), have recently questioned the extent of Europe's stability over the coming century as a result of Islam's growing presence. [...]
Lewis, in a little-noted question-and-answer session with the German newspaper Die Welt this summer, predicted Western Europe's coming Islamization. He reiterated this view in private talks with senators here in September.
"Europe will be a part of the Arab West or Maghreb," he told the newspaper. "Migration and demography indicate this. Europeans marry late and have few or no children. But there's strong immigration: Turks in Germany, Arabs in France and Pakistanis in England. At the latest, following current trends, Europe will have Muslim majorities in the population at the end of the 21st century."
Lewis also went on to point out to Die Welt what he saw as ambiguous feelings among Europeans about Muslims and the United States, saying: "In this connection, the European Union could rename itself the community of envy. Europeans have reservations about an America which has surpassed it so clearly. And that's why the Europeans understand the Muslims - because they have similar feelings about America." [...]
In a conversation here, Fukuyama said it would be a mistake, with dangerous exclusionary overtones, for Europe to hold up Christianity as its sole defining mark.
"There is a European culture," he said. "It's subscribing to a broader culture of tolerance. It's not unreasonable for European culture to say, 'You have to accept this.' The Europeans have to end their political correctness and take seriously what's going on."
Kitty Kelley Gives Bush the Sinatra Treatment (Andrew Ferguson , 9/21/04, Bloomberg)
I don't want to suggest that ``The Family'' is completely one-dimensional. Occasionally you come across anecdotes that a lawyer would call an ``admission against interest'' -- charming stories running counter to Kelley's theme of unrelieved Bush depravity and which can therefore, by the rules of evidence, be presumed true.Since you won't find these in more sensational accounts of ``The Family,'' I will close with three of them.
Story one: Laura Welch, the future first lady, was still a mystery to the Bush family on the day she married George W. in 1978. The Bush matriarch, Prescott's widow, tried to interrogate her after the ceremony.
``What do you do?'' the old lady asked her.
``I read,'' Laura replied.
Story Two: In 1976 CIA Director George H.W. Bush was tired of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's gold-plated reputation for brilliance -- exemplified by his insistence on being called ``Dr.''
One CIA aide, referring to ``Dr. Kissinger,'' was quickly corrected by his boss.
``The (expletive deleted) doesn't perform surgery or make house calls, does he?''
Story Three: Though he's disdained Yale since his graduation in 1968, George W. Bush agreed to host a 35th class reunion.
One classmate, Petra Leilani Akwai, had undergone a sex change since graduation, and partygoers waited to see the reaction of Bush -- understood by all correct-thinking liberals to be a crude and backward boor.
Akwai greeted the president in the receiving line.
``You might remember me as Peter when we left Yale,'' she said.
``And now you've come back as yourself,'' Bush said.
It has been said by pious historians that we elect not only a man but his family to the presidency. Taken together, I'd say these three anecdotes -- funny and poignant and revealing -- form the best reason yet for President Bush's re-election. All thanks go to Kitty Kelley.
Kerry's Ideas on Iraq Praised, Questioned: Experts Say Solutions May Be Unrealistic (Robin Wright, September 21, 2004, Washington Post)
John F. Kerry's four-point plan for Iraq proposes ambitious solutions to accelerate the military transition, refocus reconstruction and ensure that democracy takes root, all while lessening the burden on the United States by bringing in greater foreign aid and support.U.S. experts on Iraq generally laud the goals, applaud the idea of a national debate on Iraq and endorse the principles outlined in Kerry's long-awaited plan. But they also question whether some of his proposals are realistic -- or even all that new. The Bush administration has already tried several of the Kerry suggestions but failed to pull them off.
The premise in all four points is that Kerry will be able to mobilize an international community that has been alienated by President Bush's strategy of preemptive strikes and by U.S. defiance of close allies and the United Nations.
Masked revelers prefer Bush: Get this one: Halloween mask sales predictor says incumbent will beat Kerry in November. (Parija Bhatnagar, 9/21/04, CNN/Money)
Forget about the guesswork from the political pundits and ignore all those election polls.The real key to predicting the outcome of the presidential election is this year's face-off of the Halloween masks.
It's as unscientific as it gets, but the theory, according to some people in the costume business, is that the winner in every election since 1980 has been the candidate whose masks were most popular on Halloween.
So far this year, Bush masks have been outselling those of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin, according to one outfit, BuyCostumes.com, the online arm of Wisconsin-based costume marketer Buyseasons Inc.
The Kerry Critique on Iraq (New Democrats Online, 9/21/04)
Yesterday John Kerry delivered a powerful and comprehensive critique of the Bush administration's stewardship of our national security, encompassing its ongoing failures in Iraq and Afghanistan; its refusal to level with the American people; its elevation of tough and resolute rhetoric over tough and resolute action; its deliberate alienation of potential allies; and its indifference to such dire threats as the proliferation of nuclear materials.Brushing aside the advice of some Democrats that he draw attention away from the national security issues that are at the heart of the president's case for re-election, Kerry directly challenged the incumbent's erratic record and his manifest unwillingness to admit, much less learn from, his mistakes. He also directly rebutted GOP efforts to tie him to "weak on defense" stereotypes of the Democrats of the past. [...]
Now that Kerry has usefully refocused the debate on the administration's record of incompetence in Iraq and elsewhere, there are three important points he should keep in mind given the torrent of abuse he's already receiving from Republicans on this subject.
First, he should remember that the case for invading Iraq did not necessarily rise or fall based on the administration's exaggeration of the evidence of WMDs, or its deliberate misstatements about Saddam's links to al Qaeda or to 9/11. Like many "Blair Democrats," we placed equal if not greater emphasis on Saddam's serial defiance of international law and the agreement to end the Persian Gulf War; his record as both a practitioner and supporter of terrorism generally; and his systemic violation of the human rights of his own people. In any event, this is hardly the time for retroactive debates on the decision to go to war in Iraq. That's now behind us, while the challenge of winning the peace should be front and center.
Second, while Kerry rightly blasts the administration for stubborn unilateralism, our allies and international institutions should not be let off the hook for their own obstruction of a truly global effort to fight terrorism and chaos. They need to be challenged, not simply asked, to do more to meet the common security threats that face us all, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
And third, in accurately portraying the mess in Iraq, we urge Kerry and other Democrats to make it clear that unlike Bush administration, they are determined to win the battle for a stable Iraq, not continue a failed course that is prompting people in both parties to call for a rush to the exits.
War is obsolete, Dalai Lama declares during Sunrise visit (James D. Davis, September 20, 2004, Orlando Sun-Sentinel)
Thousands of listeners rose, cheered and clapped wildly as the Dalai Lama not only called for peace, but declared war obsolete."My interests in the future, my economic prosperity, depend very much on others, including my enemy -- and theirs depends on me," the revered head of Tibetan Buddhism told nearly 13,000 listeners Sunday in Sunrise.
"In ancient times, nations would only think `my interests,' then destroy the enemy and enrich themselves," he continued. "Today, with modern economy and ecology, everything is interdependent. Our interests are the same as others'.
"So I think the concept of war is out of date."
The entrepreneurship cult (Martin Hutchinson, 9/13/04, UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL)
The cult of entrepreneurship was demonstrated this week at two meetings: at the Center for Global Development Wednesday, where Liliana Rojas-Suarez discussed on behalf of the Latin America Shadow Finance Regulatory Committee how to produce more entrepreneurship in Latin America, and at the National Economists Club Thursday, where Robert Litan of the Ewing Kauffman Foundation discussed how to develop more entrepreneurship in the United States. Both speakers see entrepreneurship as a "magic bullet" that produces economic growth and general welfare, and both believe in intense mechanistic activity by government and the non-profit sector as a means to create such entrepreneurship.The behavior of U.S. multifactor productivity in the relatively un-entrepreneurial and high marginal tax rate environment of 1947-73, compared to its behavior in the entrepreneur-worshipping 1990s, demonstrates that entrepreneurship does not produce productivity miracles, and may not therefore be the solution to all life's ills. (Multifactor productivity is a better measure than labor productivity of the true contribution from innovation, because it strips out the contribution of capital, which of course was available in deluging, tsunami-forming quantities in the late 1990s.)
Multifactor productivity growth averaged 1.91 percent per annum in 1948-73, minus a tiny 0.01 percent per annum in the sluggish decade of 1973-83, 0.71 percent per annum in the recovery decade of 1983-93, and 0.76 percent per annum in 1993-2001, the latest year currently available. No great increase after 1993 in other words.
The drop in 1973-83 is readily explicable; one of the major inputs into the U.S. economy, energy, quadrupled in price in 1973, and it took a decade to rebalance the economy to fit the new circumstances. The most remarkable statistic is that multifactor productivity growth in the years of the "miracle" after 1993 was less than half that of the quarter century 1948-73.
You can also compare multifactor productivity across eras by looking at periods which stretch across similar parts of the economic cycle; multifactor productivity, as one would expect, tends to decline during recessions and to be highest in the early years of long expansions. Hence, for comparison purposes, we can use three seven-year periods which stretch over similar economic territory: 1992-1999, 1982-1989 and 1960-1967. All three of these periods stretch from near the bottom of a recession to near the top of the long subsequent boom; they are thus as far as possible comparable.
Across the whole economy, multifactor productivity grew at an annual rate of 2.72 percent in 1960-67. This annual rate declined to 1.46 percent from 1982 to 1989, and declined further to 0.81 percent from 1992 to 1999.
Thus the rate of multifactor productivity growth declined from the 1960s to the 1990s, even as the level of entrepreneurship rose. This may be surprising to policymakers, but should not surprise us. Entrepreneurs are not the main innovators in the economy, because the character traits needed for successful entrepreneurship are not those that lead to great innovations. If you examine the top 25 on the "Forbes 400" list of the richest people in the United States, you find a lot of entrepreneurs, and heirs of entrepreneurs, but few great innovators.
In the 2003 listing (the most recent available) Bill Gates and Paul Allen, the founders of Microsoft, are numbers 1 and 3, while Steve Ballmer, its current chief executive officer, is number 11. Microsoft is a huge business success story, in many ways a model to others, but a famously un-innovative company; its two great successes were DOS, bought for $50,000 from a third party vendor and Windows, heavily dependent on software developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s. Gates and Allen are entrepreneurs; Ballmer is a manager -- he joined Microsoft in 1980, five years after its formation. [...]
So there you have it, the 25 richest people in the United States, almost all of them entrepreneurs or heirs of recently deceased entrepreneurs (20 years ago there would have been much more "old money" in that list.) None of them, however, were great innovators, and only a few were significant innovators. Entrepreneurship is thus neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for innovation.
Inch by Inch, Bush and Kerry Reach Agreement on Debates (RICHARD W. STEVENSON, 9/21/04, NY Times)
Spontaneity is in short supply in modern presidential politics. But during the debates, it will have been all but stamped out by the agreement, which was negotiated by two men who have cut a deal or two in their long careers, James A. Baker III for Mr. Bush and Vernon E. Jordan Jr. for Mr. Kerry.Mr. Baker and Mr. Jordan finished their talks about 10 p.m. on Sunday, having missed almost no detail, one senior administration official said, speaking on the condition that he not be named. But when Mark Wallace, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Bush, started going over the deal on Monday morning with Kerry campaign officials, they briefly got hung up on the details of the way the warning lights would work if either candidate ran over the time allotted for his answer, the official said.
The section on the timing lights also included a discussion of audible time cues. It came a bit after the one specifying that the podiums (or, more likely, lecterns), for the two debates in which they will be used, "shall measure fifty (50) inches from the stage floor to the outside top of the podium facing the audience and shall measure forty-eight (48) inches from the stage floor to the top of the inside podium writing surface"-where, it should be noted, the two candidates will be free to place paper of their own choosing.
The attention to detail is of course not unreasonable, given the stakes.
The Bush campaign, for example, wanted foreign policy to be the topic of the first - and typically the most-watched - debate, instead of the economy, as the Commission on Presidential Debates had first proposed. Mr. Kerry had accepted the commission's original plan over the summer. The final agreement gave the White House what it wanted on that score, officials said.
The Bush campaign was concerned about the original proposal that candidates would take questions from undecided voters in the Oct. 8 debate, in a town hall format in St. Louis. The final deal called for the questions to come from "soft" Bush and Kerry supporters.
Mr. Kerry also got something he wanted: three debates, although it is not clear whether the White House ever seriously contemplated forcing the plan to be scaled back to two.
Kerry Campaign Touted Forged Doc Info in April (NewsMax, 9/21/04)
The Kerry campaign made an explicit reference to information in at least one of four forged military documents broadcast 14 days ago by CBS's "60 Minutes" - in a detailed campaign press release attacking President Bush's National Guard service dated months before the Sept. 8 "60 Minutes" broadcast.Appearing in Kerry campaign literature on April 27, 2004, under the headline "Key Unanswered Questions on Bush's Record in National Guard" was the reference to "verbal orders" to recommend Bush's suspension from flying because he missed a physical - issued by Bush's commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian on Aug. 1, 1972.
Bush Takes Double-Digit Lead Over Kerry (NBC4i.com, September 21, 2004)
President George W. Bush now leads Sen. John Kerry by double digits in the latest Ohio Poll sponsored by the University of Cincinnati. [...]The telephone survey of 456 likely voters was conducted between Sept. 12 and Sept. 18.
The poll shows that 54 percent of Ohio's likely voters support Bush, 43 percent support Kerry and 2 percent support Independent candidate Ralph Nader. One percent is undecided.
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Poll: Bush-Kerry tied among likely New Jersey voters (Newsday, September 21, 2004)
President George W. Bush and John Kerry are tied among likely New Jersey voters for the state's 15 electoral votes, according to a new poll.Forty-eight percent of the likely and undecided voters leaning toward a candidate polled by Quinnipiac University said they support the president or the Democrat. Two percent favored Ralph Nader.
Message in a Babble (Tom Frank, 09.21.04, New Republic)
One can only pity George W. Bush, who has just one real campaign advisor--one who's known, moreover, for being an evil genius. John Kerry, on the other hand, is blessed with thousands of campaign advisors--few of whom are evil, none of whom are geniuses, and all of whom have something to say every day. At least they've finally agreed that their candidate lacked what The New York Times called a "simple and concise message 'frame' through which to filter all their attacks on Mr. Bush." Or, as a school teacher might call it, a topic sentence. So it will be this: Bush makes "wrong choices," whereas Kerry offers "new direction." Yesterday, after delivering a speech about Iraq to showcase his new commitment to having a point, Kerry headed uptown for a big test of his new, improved candidacy: an appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman." It would not, however, turn out to be a night for concise message frames.Unlike Jon Stewart, who, during Kerry's visit to "The Daily Show" last August, managed to step on Kerry's blabologues every time they seemed to be snowballing, Letterman let Kerry go--and go.
President Speaks to the United Nations General Assembly (George W. Bush, United Nations Headquarters, New York, New York, 9/21/04)
Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen: Thank you for the honor of addressing this General Assembly. The American people respect the idealism that gave life to this organization. And we respect the men and women of the U.N., who stand for peace and human rights in every part of the world. Welcome to New York City, and welcome to the United States of America.During the past three years, I've addressed this General Assembly in a time of tragedy for my country, and in times of decision for all of us. Now we gather at a time of tremendous opportunity for the U.N. and for all peaceful nations. For decades, the circle of liberty and security and development has been expanding in our world. This progress has brought unity to Europe, self-government to Latin America and Asia, and new hope to Africa. Now we have the historic chance to widen the circle even further, to fight radicalism and terror with justice and dignity, to achieve a true peace, founded on human freedom.
The United Nations and my country share the deepest commitments. Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice, and religious tolerance. That dignity is dishonored by oppression, corruption, tyranny, bigotry, terrorism and all violence against the innocent. And both of our founding documents affirm that this bright line between justice and injustice -- between right and wrong -- is the same in every age, and every culture, and every nation.
Wise governments also stand for these principles for very practical and realistic reasons. We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. We know that oppressive governments support terror, while free governments fight the terrorists in their midst. We know that free peoples embrace progress and life, instead of becoming the recruits for murderous ideologies.
Every nation that wants peace will share the benefits of a freer world. And every nation that seeks peace has an obligation to help build that world. Eventually, there is no safe isolation from terror networks, or failed states that shelter them, or outlaw regimes, or weapons of mass destruction. Eventually, there is no safety in looking away, seeking the quiet life by ignoring the struggles and oppression of others.
In this young century, our world needs a new definition of security. Our security is not merely found in spheres of influence, or some balance of power. The security of our world is found in the advancing rights of mankind.
These rights are advancing across the world -- and across the world, the enemies of human rights are responding with violence. Terrorists and their allies believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights, and every charter of liberty ever written, are lies, to be burned and destroyed and forgotten. They believe that dictators should control every mind and tongue in the Middle East and beyond. They believe that suicide and torture and murder are fully justified to serve any goal they declare. And they act on their beliefs.
In the last year alone, terrorists have attacked police stations, and banks, and commuter trains, and synagogues -- and a school filled with children. This month in Beslan we saw, once again, how the terrorists measure their success -- in the death of the innocent, and in the pain of grieving families. Svetlana Dzebisov was held hostage, along with her son and her nephew -- her nephew did not survive. She recently visited the cemetery, and saw what she called the "little graves." She said, "I understand that there is evil in the world. But what have these little creatures done?"
Members of the United Nations, the Russian children did nothing to deserve such awful suffering, and fright, and death. The people of Madrid and Jerusalem and Istanbul and Baghdad have done nothing to deserve sudden and random murder. These acts violate the standards of justice in all cultures, and the principles of all religions. All civilized nations are in this struggle together, and all must fight the murderers.
We're determined to destroy terror networks wherever they operate, and the United States is grateful to every nation that is helping to seize terrorist assets, track down their operatives, and disrupt their plans. We're determined to end the state sponsorship of terror -- and my nation is grateful to all that participated in the liberation of Afghanistan. We're determined to prevent proliferation, and to enforce the demands of the world -- and my nation is grateful to the soldiers of many nations who have helped to deliver the Iraqi people from an outlaw dictator.
The dictator agreed in 1991, as a condition of a cease-fire, to fully comply with all Security Council resolutions -- then ignored more than a decade of those resolutions. Finally, the Security Council promised serious consequences for his defiance. And the commitments we make must have meaning. When we say "serious consequences," for the sake of peace, there must be serious consequences. And so a coalition of nations enforced the just demands of the world.
Defending our ideals is vital, but it is not enough. Our broader mission as U.N. members is to apply these ideals to the great issues of our time. Our wider goal is to promote hope and progress as the alternatives to hatred and violence. Our great purpose is to build a better world beyond the war on terror.
Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have established a global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In three years the contributing countries have funded projects in more than 90 countries, and pledged a total of $5.6 billion to these efforts. America has undertaken a $15 billion effort to provide prevention and treatment and humane care in nations afflicted by AIDS, placing a special focus on 15 countries where the need is most urgent. AIDS is the greatest health crisis of our time, and our unprecedented commitment will bring new hope to those who have walked too long in the shadow of death.
Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have joined together to confront the evil of trafficking in human beings. We're supporting organizations that rescue the victims, passing stronger anti-trafficking laws, and warning travelers that they will be held to account for supporting this modern form of slavery. Women and children should never be exploited for pleasure or greed, anywhere on Earth.
Because we believe in human dignity, we should take seriously the protection of life from exploitation under any pretext. In this session, the U.N. will consider a resolution sponsored by Costa Rica calling for a comprehensive ban on human cloning. I support that resolution and urge all governments to affirm a basic ethical principle: No human life should ever be produced or destroyed for the benefit of another.
Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have changed the way we fight poverty, curb corruption, and provide aid. In 2002 we created the Monterrey Consensus, a bold approach that links new aid from developed nations to real reform in developing ones. And through the Millennium Challenge Account, my nation is increasing our aid to developing nations that expand economic freedom and invest in the education and health of their own people.
Because we believe in human dignity, America and many nations have acted to lift the crushing burden of debt that limits the growth of developing economies, and holds millions of people in poverty. Since these efforts began in 1996, poor countries with the heaviest debt burdens have received more than $30 billion of relief. And to prevent the build-up of future debt, my country and other nations have agreed that international financial institutions should increasingly provide new aid in the form of grants, rather than loans.
Because we believe in human dignity, the world must have more effective means to stabilize regions in turmoil, and to halt religious violence and ethnic cleansing. We must create permanent capabilities to respond to future crises. The United States and Italy have proposed a Global Peace Operations Initiative. G-8 countries will train 75,000 peacekeepers, initially from Africa, so they can conduct operations on that continent and elsewhere. The countries of the G-8 will help this peacekeeping force with deployment and logistical needs.
At this hour, the world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, crimes my government has concluded are genocide. The United States played a key role in efforts to broker a cease-fire, and we're providing humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people. Rwanda and Nigeria have deployed forces in Sudan to help improve security so aid can be delivered. The Security Council adopted a new resolution that supports an expanded African Union force to help prevent further bloodshed, and urges the government of Sudan to stop flights by military aircraft in Darfur. We congratulate the members of the Council on this timely and necessary action. I call on the government of Sudan to honor the cease-fire it signed, and to stop the killing in Darfur.
Because we believe in human dignity, peaceful nations must stand for the advance of democracy. No other system of government has done more to protect minorities, to secure the rights of labor, to raise the status of women, or to channel human energy to the pursuits of peace. We've witnessed the rise of democratic governments in predominantly Hindu and Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian cultures. Democratic institutions have taken root in modern societies, and in traditional societies. When it comes to the desire for liberty and justice, there is no clash of civilizations. People everywhere are capable of freedom, and worthy of freedom.
Finding the full promise of representative government takes time, as America has found in two centuries of debate and struggle. Nor is there any -- only one form of representative government -- because democracies, by definition, take on the unique character of the peoples that create them. Yet this much we know with certainty: The desire for freedom resides in every human heart. And that desire cannot be contained forever by prison walls, or martial laws, or secret police. Over time, and across the Earth, freedom will find a way.
Freedom is finding a way in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and we must continue to show our commitment to democracies in those nations. The liberty that many have won at a cost must be secured. As members of the United Nations, we all have a stake in the success of the world's newest democracies.
Not long ago, outlaw regimes in Baghdad and Kabul threatened the peace and sponsored terrorists. These regimes destabilized one of the world's most vital -- and most volatile -- regions. They brutalized their peoples, in defiance of all civilized norms. Today, the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they're fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of us all.
The Afghan people are showing extraordinary courage under difficult conditions. They're fighting to defend their nation from Taliban holdouts, and helping to strike against the terrorists killers. They're reviving their economy. They've adopted a constitution that protects the rights of all, while honoring their nation's most cherished traditions. More than 10 million Afghan citizens -- over 4 million of them women -- are now registered to vote in next month's presidential election. To any who still would question whether Muslim societies can be democratic societies, the Afghan people are giving their answer.
Since the last meeting of this General Assembly, the people of Iraq have regained sovereignty. Today, in this hall, the Prime Minister of Iraq and his delegation represent a country that has rejoined the community of nations. The government of Prime Minister Allawi has earned the support of every nation that believes in self-determination and desires peace. And under Security Council resolutions 1511 and 1546, the world is providing that support. The U.N., and its member nations, must respond to Prime Minister Allawi's request, and do more to help build an Iraq that is secure, democratic, federal, and free.
A democratic Iraq has ruthless enemies, because terrorists know the stakes in that country. They know that a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a decisive blow against their ambitions for that region. So a terrorists group associated with al Qaeda is now one of the main groups killing the innocent in Iraq today -- conducting a campaign of bombings against civilians, and the beheadings of bound men. Coalition forces now serving in Iraq are confronting the terrorists and foreign fighters, so peaceful nations around the world will never have to face them within our own borders.
Our coalition is standing beside a growing Iraqi security force. The NATO Alliance is providing vital training to that force. More than 35 nations have contributed money and expertise to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. And as the Iraqi interim government moves toward national elections, officials from the United Nations are helping Iraqis build the infrastructure of democracy. These selfless people are doing heroic work, and are carrying on the great legacy of Sergio de Mello.
As we have seen in other countries, one of the main terrorist goals is to undermine, disrupt, and influence election outcomes. We can expect terrorist attacks to escalate as Afghanistan and Iraq approach national elections. The work ahead is demanding. But these difficulties will not shake our conviction that the future of Afghanistan and Iraq is a future of liberty. The proper response to difficulty is not to retreat, it is to prevail.
The advance of freedom always carries a cost, paid by the bravest among us. America mourns the losses to our nation, and to many others. And today, I assure every friend of Afghanistan and Iraq, and every enemy of liberty: We will stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq until their hopes of freedom and security are fulfilled.
These two nations will be a model for the broader Middle East, a region where millions have been denied basic human rights and simple justice. For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived. We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations.
This commitment to democratic reform is essential to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Peace will not be achieved by Palestinian rulers who intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption, and maintain ties to terrorist groups. The longsuffering Palestinian people deserve better. They deserve true leaders capable of creating and governing a free and peaceful Palestinian state.
Even after the setbacks and frustrations of recent months, goodwill and hard effort can achieve the promise of the road map to peace. Those who would lead a new Palestinian state should adopt peaceful means to achieve the rights of their people, and create the reformed institutions of a stable democracy. Arab states should end incitement in their own media, cut off public and private funding for terrorism, and establish normal relations with Israel. Israel should impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people, and avoid any actions that prejudice final negotiations. And world leaders should withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause.
The democratic hopes we see growing in the Middle East are growing everywhere. In the words of the Burmese democracy advocate, Aung San Suu Kyi: "We do not accept the notion that democracy is a Western value. To the contrary; democracy simply means good government rooted in responsibility, transparency, and accountability." Here at the United Nations, you know this to be true. In recent years, this organization has helped create a new democracy in East Timor, and the U.N. has aided other nations in making the transition to self-rule.
Because I believe the advance of liberty is the path to both a safer and better world, today I propose establishing a Democracy Fund within the United Nations. This is a great calling for this great organization. The fund would help countries lay the foundations of democracy by instituting the rule of law and independent courts, a free press, political parties and trade unions. Money from the fund would also help set up voter precincts and polling places, and support the work of election monitors. To show our commitment to the new Democracy Fund, the United States will make an initial contribution. I urge other nations to contribute, as well.
Today, I've outlined a broad agenda to advance human dignity, and enhance the security of all of us. The defeat of terror, the protection of human rights, the spread of prosperity, the advance of democracy -- these causes, these ideals, call us to great work in the world. Each of us alone can only do so much. Together, we can accomplish so much more.
History will honor the high ideals of this organization. The charter states them with clarity: "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war," "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights," "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom."
Let history also record that our generation of leaders followed through on these ideals, even in adversity. Let history show that in a decisive decade, members of the United Nations did not grow weary in our duties, or waver in meeting them. I'm confident that this young century will be liberty's century. I believe we will rise to this moment, because I know the character of so many nations and leaders represented here today. And I have faith in the transforming power of freedom.
May God bless you.
Here's your debate question: Senator, under the non-intervention doctrine you've enunciated, how does your reaction to suffering in the world differ from that of those who looked on while Kitty Genovese was being murdered?
Questions Surround Man Who Provided Documents: CBS's 'Unimpeachable Source' Is Ex-Guard Officer With History of Problems and of Attacking Bush (Michael Dobbs, September 21, 2004, Washington Post)
The man CBS News touted as the "unimpeachable source" of explosive documents about President Bush's National Guard service turns out to be a former Guard officer with a history of self-described mental problems who has denounced Bush as a liar with "demonic personality shortcomings."
BILL O'REILLY:. And I want to ask you flat out. Do you think President Clinton's an honest man?DAN RATHER: Yes, I think he's an honest man.
O'REILLY: Do you really?
RATHER: I think -- I do. I think he's an honest man.
O'REILLY: Even when he lied to Jim Lehrer's face about the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?
RATHER: Listen, who among us have not lied about something?
O'REILLY: Well, I didn't lie to anybody's face on national television. I don't think you have. Have you?
RATHER: I don't think I ever have. I hope I never have. But look, it's one thing...
O'REILLY: How can you say he's an honest guy, then?
RATHER: Well, because I think he is. I think at core, he's an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so. But I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.
O'REILLY: Really?
RATHER: Yes, I do
Kerry: Bush Wanted Debate 'Life Lines' (Sep 21, 2004, AP)
Why did it take so long for the Bush and Kerry campaigns to agree on a debate schedule? Sen. John Kerry had the answer for television's Regis Philbin, who has hosted the quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?""The big hang-up was George Bush wanted to get life lines, you know, so he could call somebody," the Democratic candidate for president quipped Tuesday while appearing on "Live With Regis and Kelly."
Contestants on the multiple-choice quiz show could contact a knowledgeable friend for help if they were unsure of an answer.
Finally, Kerry Takes a Stand (DAVID BROOKS, 9/21/04, NY Times)
First, Kerry argued that Iraq was never a serious threat to the United States, that the war was never justified and that Bush's focus on Iraq was a "profound diversion" from the real enemy, Osama bin Laden.Second, Kerry argued that we are losing the war in Iraq. Casualties are mounting, the insurgency is spreading, and daily life is more miserable.
Third, Kerry argued that in times like this, brave leaders should tell the truth to the American people. Kerry reminded his audience that during Vietnam, he returned home "to offer my own personal voice of dissent," and he's decided to do the same thing now. The parallel is clear: Iraq is the new Vietnam.
Finally, Kerry declared that it is time to get out, beginning next summer. The message is that if Kerry is elected, the entire momentum of U.S. policy will be toward getting American troops out of Iraq as quickly as possible and shifting responsibility for Iraq onto other countries.
The crucial passage in the speech was this one: "The principles that should guide American policy in Iraq now and in the future are clear: we must make Iraq the world's responsibility, because the world has a stake in the outcome and others should share the burden." From a U.S. responsibility, Iraq will become the world's responsibility.
We prefer his prior, more American, standard: "Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein...don't have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president."
They Said It! (ABC's George Stephanopoulos) (RNCResearch, 9/21/04)
ABC'S GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "I should say, just before we got on the air, Joe Lockhart of the Kerry campaign denies that the Kerry campaign had anything to do with these documents. Another Kerry researcher says they learned about them on television." (ABC's "Good Morning America," 9/10/04)
Why Americans back the war (James Carroll, September 21, 2004, Boston Globe)
To the mounting horror of the world, the United States of America is relentlessly bringing about the systematic destruction of a small, unthreatening nation for no good reason. Why has this not gripped the conscience of this country?The answer goes beyond Bush to the 60-year history of an accidental readiness to destroy the earth, a legacy with which we Americans have yet to reckon. The punitive terror bombing that marked the end of World War II hardly registered with us. Then we passively accepted our government's mad embrace of thermonuclear weapons. While we demonized our Soviet enemy, we hardly noticed that almost every major escalation of the arms race was initiated by our side -- a race that would still be running if Mikhail Gorbachev had not dropped out of it.
In 1968, we elected Richard Nixon to end the war in Vietnam, then blithely acquiesced when he kept it going for years more. When Ronald Reagan made a joke of wiping out Moscow, we gathered a million strong to demand a nuclear "freeze," but then accepted the promise of "reduction," and took no offense when the promise was broken.
We did not think it odd that America's immediate response to the nonviolent fall of the Berlin Wall was an invasion of Panama. We celebrated the first Gulf War uncritically, even though that display of unchecked American power made Iran and North Korea redouble efforts to build a nuclear weapon, while prompting Osama bin Laden's jihad. The Clinton administration affirmed the permanence of American nukes as a "hedge" against unnamed fears, and we accepted it. We shrugged when the US Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, with predictable results in India and Pakistan. We bought the expansion of NATO, the abrogation of the ABM Treaty, the embrace of National Missile Defense -- all measures that inevitably pushed other nations toward defensive escalation.
The war policy of George W. Bush -- "preventive war," unilateralism, contempt for Geneva -- breaks with tradition, but there is nothing new about the American population's refusal to face what is being done in our name. This is a sad, old story. It leaves us ill-equipped to deal with a pointless, illegal war. The Bush war in Iraq, in fact, is only the latest in a chain of irresponsible acts of a warrior government, going back to the firebombing of Tokyo. In comparison to that, the fire from our helicopter gunships above the cities of Iraq this week is benign. Is that why we take no offense?
The Red Sox or the republic? You decide (Alex Beam, September 21, 2004, Boston Globe)
Assume there is a Supreme Being. Assume that She is all-powerful and beneficent. But she is not indulgent. She will grant one, and only one, of your two most fervent wishes: Either John Kerry will be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States.Or the Boston Red Sox will win the World Series this fall.
What will it be?
I hung around Downtown Crossing yesterday for about an hour running this question by 52 Bostonians. (If only Butch Hobson were still managing the Sox, we could call this a true Hobson's choice.) Many respondents were torn, but ultimately the people spoke. Twenty people felt it was more important for their junior senator to take over the White House. Thirty-two implored the Deity to intervene and send World Series rings to the Olde Towne Team. If there was a common theme, it was skepticism that either event was likely to take place.
The resort to force (Noam Chomsky , 9/22/04, Asia Times)
The 2002 National Security Strategy and its implementation in Iraq are widely regarded as a watershed in international affairs. "The new approach is revolutionary," Henry Kissinger wrote, approving of the doctrine but with tactical reservations and a crucial qualification: it cannot be "a universal principle available to every nation". The right of aggression is to be reserved for the United States and perhaps its chosen clients. We must reject the most elementary of moral truisms, the principle of universality - a stand usually concealed in professions of virtuous intent and tortured legalisms.Historian Arthur Schlesinger agreed that the doctrine and implementation were "revolutionary", but from a quite different standpoint. As the first bombs fell on Baghdad, he recalled then-president Franklin Roosevelt's words after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii: "a date which will live in infamy". Now it is Americans who live in infamy, he wrote, as their government adopts the policies of imperial Japan. He added that George W Bush had converted a "global wave of sympathy" for the US into a "global wave of hatred of American arrogance and militarism". A year later, "discontent with America and its policies had intensified rather than diminished". Even in Britain support for the war had declined by a third.
“Give Saddam a Fair Trial” (Sebastiaan Gottleib, Radio Netherlands, September, 20th, 2004)
"I have no moral qualms about defending Saddam Hussein even though I absolutely disapprove of his actions", Professor Grisay explains. "But that doesn't mean that I could defend everybody. For instance, I could never assist a man like Marc Dutroux [Belgium's most notorious child rapist and murderer], because what he did goes far beyond my understanding. That's where, in my view, lawyers should draw the line: never defend a client if you cannot understand his actions. I can in Saddam's case although I absolutely condemn what he has done.""My main focus will be on that part of the defence that deals with international law. For example, I will advise Saddam not to recognise the special tribunal, which was established with the assistance of the Americans."[...]
"We need an international tribunal like the one set up to try former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to ensure a fair trial. We can just copy the blueprint of the Yugoslav tribunal and apply it to Saddam Hussein. Of course, it cannot be based at The Hague because the Netherlands is involved in the US-led coalition that's invaded Iraq."
"The trial could be held in Brussels," the Belgium lawyer says with some measure of enthusiasm, as he wouldn't have to travel to Baghdad, where his safety cannot be guaranteed any time soon.
"We have been granted permission from the Iraqi bar to defend Saddam Hussein in front of the court, but the Iraqi authorities won't allow us into the country. They've even threatened to cut us up into pieces if we dare travel to Iraq."
What kind of a weenie lawyer is this? Surely we know from the Milosevic case that putting Mr. Hussein through a multi-year trial by an international tribunal in Europe would constitute cruel and unusual punishment and would be–dare we say it–contrary to international law. Fortunately one of Grisay’s colleagues understands the problem and is fighting for the only truly just solution for his client.
The Bush-McCain Face-Off: The McCain-Bush conflict has been one of the most-watched soap operas in Washington. Now it appears the Arizona senator may have a rude surprise for the president. (David Corn, September 21, 2004, The Nation)
[T]his year McCain sucked it up and hit the trail for Bush, even as the Bush brigade was mounting the same sort of trash-and-slash attack against McCain's colleague, John Kerry. At least, McCain could point to the war in Iraq as a point of agreement with Bush. Though McCain, according to a McCain adviser, has not accepted the neoconservatives' argument (adopted by Bush) that the Iraq war is necessary as an initial step in remaking the region, he believed that because Saddam Hussein posed a possible threat and was such a tyrant he needed "to be taken out."But maybe there was another reason beyond loyalty to the party and to the commander in chief why McCain saddled up with Bush. Perhaps he wanted to get near enough to knife Bush – metaphorically speaking, of course. As in, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. (Think The Godfather.) [...]
Earlier this month, an editor at The Nation, dreaming of magic-bullet scenarios, asked me whether Secretary of State Colin Powell might break with Bush in October and swing the election to Kerry. Not a chance I said, read this. Powell is completely in the tank for the Bush crew, enabling the neocons. But McCain – now he might cause further difficult for his "good friend" in the White House in the final weeks of the election.
President Bush ends up positioned perfectly, not just right as to strategy but in the middle politically. You've got Senator McCain emulating William Westmoreland--wanting to pursue the strategy that had made Vietnam quagmirish--and Senator Kerry reprising his own--wanting to cut and run--while Mr. Bush has learned the twin lessons that the others failed to and is Iraqifying the war, just as General Creighton Abrams won in Vietnam. Mr, Bush is the pragmatist who is utilizing what has worked well before while the hawkish Mr. McCain advocates that which has failed in the past and Senator Kerry proposes to duplicate that which was disastrous.
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Marines Bide Their Time In Insurgent-Held Fallujah: Officers Say Iraqi Army Must Be Fit to Retake City (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, September 21, 2004, Washington Post)
From the porthole of his bunker just outside the city, U.S. Marine Capt. Jeff Stevenson could see no more than the first few rows of brick-and-concrete homes along Fallujah's urban fringe as he squinted into the setting desert sun. But his obscured view was enough to sense trouble. [...]"Fallujah has become a cancer," declared Stevenson, echoing a metaphor used by several senior U.S. commanders in Iraq.
A collection of anti-American forces -- former Baath Party loyalists, Islamic extremists and foreign militants -- have been expanding their presence in Fallujah since the Marines withdrew from positions in the city in April and handed over responsibility for security to the Fallujah Brigade. According to U.S. military officials and residents, the insurgents have since taken over the local government, co-opted and cowed Iraqi security forces, and turned the area into a staging ground for terrorist attacks in Baghdad, located about 35 miles to the east.
But the U.S. military command in Iraq is in no hurry to order the Marines back into the city. Officers such as Stevenson, a tall Californian whose unit, the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, would be among the front-line forces in an offensive, are biding their time in bunkers and observation posts outside Fallujah. Most of their days are spent keeping a highway around the city free of roadside bombs.
Instead of sending Marines charging into Fallujah as they did in April -- a move that radicalized residents and drew scores of fighters from outside Iraq to join the battle -- U.S. commanders say they want to wait until Iraq's new army is large enough, and trained enough, to assume a leading role in retaking the city.
"It doesn't do any good for us to go in and clean it up if it's a pure United States or coalition operation," said Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, the top commander responsible for Fallujah and the rest of western Iraq. "We need Iraqi security forces with us. We need to be side by side when we move in, so that when it is said and done, when you open your door the next day and look out, there's an Iraqi policeman, an Iraqi National Guardsman, an Iraqi soldier on your street."
Sattler's predecessor, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who relinquished his command earlier this month, insisted that "the Marines we have there now could crush the city and be done with business in four days."
"But that's not what we're going to do," Conway said. Since the handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government in late June, he added, Fallujah "is an Iraqi problem. If there is an attack on the anti-Iraqi forces that inhabit the city, it will be done almost exclusively by Iraqis."
Dems admit bad documents, but push charges (UPI, 9/20/04)
Democrats Monday acknowledged some documents it touted in attacking President Bush's U.S. military record were false, but continued to push other evidence.
"Now that we know what's not true, let's focus on the facts," Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a statement regarding CBS's News' apology for broadcasting a Sept. 8 story about Bush's military service based on documents of dubious merit. [...]"The American people already know that strings were pulled to get President Bush into the Guard; and while in the Guard he missed months of service and was grounded. ... But what we still don't know is why Bush didn't fulfill his duty to his country or why he has continued to lie to the American people about it," he said.
Democrats had used the CBS report in their charges that Bush did not fulfill his duty in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
Ban on hunting has taken heavy economic toll (STEPHEN McGINTY, 9/21/04, The Scotsman)
WILLIAM Hodge looks across the Border to England with a mixture of pity and resignation. Hard times arrived at his stone farmhouse near Waterbeck, which he shares with his wife, Penny, two years ago when the Scottish Parliament banned fox hunting. As a similar law descends on England and Wales, he knows exactly what his fellow tradesmen can expect. "It’s been hard, very hard. Every year has been a struggle."For 17 years, the Hodges have run a stud farm near Lockerbie and, for 15 of those years, huntsmen were among their best customers. But since 1 August, 2002, a cloud has settled over their business prospects; two staff have been made redundant, the couple now work around the clock and their income has dropped by 25 per cent. Anger is their principal emotion.
"It’s ourselves and the farmers that keep the countryside," said Mr Hodge. "The townies should keep to themselves. It would be a different matter if Tony Blair banned football because of the problems of hooliganism. We are a minority, but it is OK to target us because we aren’t ethnic." [...]
Before the ban, which is yet again being challenged in court today, Scotland’s ten hunts employed 30 full-time staff; now there are only 15. In 2002, there were 1,100 hounds; today there are only 500, with more than 400 animals having been put down - a fate that may yet befall hundreds more. The irony is that, far from sparing foxes, the new legislation has resulted in a 50 per cent increase in the number of foxes killed during the newly adapted "hunts" with guns.
Under the old system, the fastest and fittest foxes would escape, leaving the hounds to dispatch the older, frailer beasts. Under the new system, riders follow the hounds as they pursue the foxes into the open, where they are then shot. There is no opportunity for the fitter animals to escape. The new adapted "hunts", where the riders are invited on to farmers’ land to help with pest control, have proved unpopular with traditionalists; many have chosen to hang up their red woollen coats and retire.
The attendance at each hunt has halved. Where, in the past, the Duke of Buccleuch’s hunt, for example, would attract as many as 100 riders, attendance is down to just over 30. What is surprising, however, is the resilience of those hard-core enthusiasts who are determined to continue. In the Borders, one group has even taken to using bloodhounds to track a human - a willing volunteer. Jeremy Whaley, who rode with the Borders Bloodhounds, explained that a local farmer and cross-country enthusiast is given a 40-minute start, then pursued. "It’s not the same, but it can be good fun."
Kerry Aide Talked to Retired Guard Officer (AP 9/21/04)
At the behest of CBS, an adviser to John Kerry said he talked to a central figure in the controversy over President Bush's National Guard service shortly before disputed documents were released.Joe Lockhart denied any connection between the presidential campaign and the papers. Lockhart, the second Kerry ally to confirm contact with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, said he made the call at the suggestion of CBS producer Mary Mapes.
"He had some advice on how to deal with the Vietnam issue and the Swift boat" allegations, Lockhart said Monday, referring to GOP-fueled accusations that Kerry exaggerated his Vietnam War record. "He said these guys play tough and we have to put the Vietnam experience into context and have Kerry talk about it more."
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CBS arranged for meeting with Lockhart (Kevin Johnson, Dave Moniz and Jim Drinkard, 9/20/04, USA TODAY)
CBS arranged for a confidential source to talk with Joe Lockhart, a top aide to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, after the source provided the network with the now-disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Texas National Guard. [...]Burkett told USA TODAY that he had agreed to turn over the documents to CBS if the network would help arrange a conversation with the Kerry campaign.
The network's effort to place Burkett in contact with a top Democratic official raises ethical questions about CBS' handling of material potentially damaging to the Republican president in the midst of an election. This "poses a real danger to the potential credibility of a news organization," said Aly Colón, a news ethicist at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
CBS backs off Guard story (Dave Moniz, Kevin Johnson and Jim Drinkard, 9/21/04, USA TODAY)
CBS News acknowledged Monday that it received disputed documents critical of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard from a former Texas Guard officer who now says he lied about where he got them and has doubts about their authenticity. [...]In interviews in recent days with USA TODAY, both in person and on the phone, Burkett said he had merely been a conduit for the records purported to be from the private files of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, one of Bush's former Guard commanders, who died in 1984. Burkett admitted lying to USA TODAY about the source of the documents but said he did not fabricate the papers.
In earlier conversations with USA TODAY, Burkett had identified the source of the documents as George Conn, a former Texas National Guard colleague who works for the U.S. Army in Europe. Burkett now says he made up the story about Conn's involvement to divert attention from himself and the woman he now says provided him with the documents. He told USA TODAY that he also lied to CBS.
Burkett now maintains that the source of the papers was Lucy Ramirez, who he says phoned him from Houston in March to offer the documents. USA TODAY has been unable to locate Ramirez.
When Burkett gave copies of the documents to USA TODAY, it was on the understanding that his identity would not be disclosed. USA TODAY honored that agreement until Burkett waived his confidentiality Monday.
"I didn't forge anything," Burkett said. "I didn't fake any documents. The only thing I've done here is to transfer documents from people I thought were real to people I thought were real. And that has been the limitation of my role. I may have been a patsy." [...]
Burkett's emotions varied widely in the interviews. One session ended when Burkett suffered a violent seizure and collapsed in his chair. Earlier, he said he was coming forward now to explain what he had done and why to try to salvage his reputation. In the past week, Burkett was named by many news reports as the probable source of the documents. [...]
Burkett said Ramirez told him she had seen him the previous month in an appearance on the MSNBC program Hardball, discussing the controversy over whether Bush fulfilled all his obligations for service in the Texas Air Guard during the early 1970s. "There is something I have that I want to make sure gets out," he quoted her as saying.
He said Ramirez claimed to possess Killian's "correspondence file," which would prove Burkett's allegations that Bush had problems as a Guard fighter pilot.
Burkett said he arranged to get the documents during a trip to Houston for a livestock show in March. But instead of being met at the show by Ramirez, he was approached by a man who asked for Burkett, handed him an envelope and quickly left, Burkett recounted.
"I didn't even ask any questions," Burkett said. "Should I have? Yes. Maybe I was duped. I never really even considered that."
By Monday, USA TODAY had not been able to locate Ramirez or verify other details of Burkett's account. Three people who worked with Killian in the early 1970s said they don't recognize her name. Burkett promised to provide telephone records that would verify his calls to Ramirez, but he had not done so by Monday night.
Thank You, No (Joseph Epstein, September 2004, Poetry)
Here are some jobs I believe are distinctly not worth having. Urologist, proctologist, seismologist come immediately to mind. In a more general line, I would add any job that entails sucking up to the rich. (Oops: eight university presidents, five museum directors, and the business managers of three opera companies just closed the magazine.) Or any job that puts you in charge of vast sums of money, which entails other people feeling the need to suck up to you. (When a man I know took a job as a foundation executive, a wise friend told him that he would probably never eat another bad lunch and no one would ever again tell him the truth.) Or any job that, because of the relentless social obligations, makes it impossible to find the time to read a book. Or any job that forces you to make life worse for other people. Or any job that causes you to lie to yourself a lot more than you now do. And finally, to close out this depressing list, there is one job instead of having which I’d rather be the last (possibly also the first) Jewish coal miner in West Virginia, or a veterinary cosmetic surgeon in Malibu, or the man wielding the wide broom who follows the elephants in the great Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus parade—and that job is poet laureate of the United States.Poet laureate of the United States—something there is exceedingly pompous, not to say a little preposterous, about the very title. Poet laureate of England does not sound quite so hollow—though closer inspection reveals it isn’t all that full, either—perhaps because poetry has so much longer a history and solider a tradition in England than in America. The first truly great American poets, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, after all, didn’t emerge until after the Civil War. Then we had to wait for the work of that remarkable generation of poets born between 1870 and 1890, the roster of whose names includes Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Marianne Moore, for the United States to stake anything like a serous claim to having a poetic tradition at all.
W. H. Auden was poet laureate neither in England nor in America, though on skill and achievement and by citizenship he qualified for both. Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford, in some ways a more prestige-laden job than that of poet laureate and one for which he was pleased to have been voted, since it gave him free rent at Oxford. Auden once said that the time for major poets was past, even for him, who was born in 1907, which was too late, for by then something had happened to poetry to change its nature, its practitioners, and its audience. One cannot know for certain, of course, but one has a strong hunch that Auden would have viewed the job of poet laureate of the United States as, at best, highly amusing, if not outright hilarious. One likes to think of him taking the money—an annual salary of $35,000—and laughing all the way to the bank.
As a man who has published a single poem, my own position is that I would like to be asked to be poet laureate of the United States so that I could refuse it, for this seems to me a job that would bring much greater glory to turn down than to take up.
Quick exit from Iraq is likely (ROBERT NOVAK, 9/20/04, Chicago Sun-Times)
Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.This prospective policy is based on Iraq's national elections in late January, but not predicated on ending the insurgency or reaching a national political settlement. Getting out of Iraq would end the neoconservative dream of building democracy in the Arab world. The United States would be content having saved the world from Saddam Hussein's quest for weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile, as those troops are redeployed to Syria and or Iran it will draw off some of the al-Zarqawi/al Qaeda crowd and give the new government of Iraq additional breathing room.
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Massive U.S. offensive reported in Ramadi (UPI, 9/20/04)
A massive offensive designed to eliminate Iraqi insurgency in Ramadi has rocked the city, U.S. military officials said.
Syrian forces positioned in Lebanon since the 1975 Lebanese civil war will commence a major redeployment toward the Syrian-Lebanese border Tuesday, and Syrian and U.S. troops will partake in joint security operations along the Syrian-Iraqi border, official sources in Damascus told United Press International Monday."This is official," said Imad Mustapha, Syria's ambassador to Washington, speaking from Damascus. [...]
The Syrian diplomat told United Press International the military redeployment -- a long-standing demand by the United States -- came about as a result of "Syria having greater confidence in the situation."
The redeployment should help thaw relations between Syria and the United States. U.S.-Syrian relations hit an all-time low when President George W. Bush signed into law the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act on Dec. 12, imposing economic sanctions on Syria for what the U.S. government deems to be support of terrorist organizations. Part of the Syria Accountability Act calls for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
Bush attends GOP fund-raiser in NYC (SCOTT LINDLAW, 9/20/04, Associated Press)
The crowd shouted him down repeatedly, once with a roar so loud he confessed it shook him up. But President Bush liked these shouters: loud voices of support in a state where he was soundly defeated four years ago."I love New York!" Bush said as Hispanic donors chanted "Viva Bush" at a $3 million fund-raiser for the Republican National Committee.
Bush returned Monday to the city where he held his nominating convention three weeks ago, and said he saw brightening political prospects here and in neighboring New Jersey and Connecticut - equally Democratic-leaning in presidential contests.
Top Republicans here said they were buoyed by new polls showing the race between Bush and Democrat John Kerry tightening in the Empire State. Two polls released last week showed Bush closing the gap but still trailing by 6 to 8 percentage points in a three-way race with independent Ralph Nader.
Nevertheless, Gov. George Pataki introduced Bush by saying, "Welcome back, Mr. President, to the swing state of New York."
Effort to Extend Tax Cuts Gains Ground (MARTIN CRUTSINGER, 9/20/04, AP)
Republican leaders, eager to deliver a pre-election victory to President Bush, moved closer to agreement Monday night on legislation needed to extend three popular middle-class tax cuts that are set to expire this year.Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley announced that a joint House-Senate conference committee, which will work out differences between the two chambers, will meet on the tax legislation for the first time Tuesday. Officials reported agreement was close on the major provisions of the legislation.
Under one optimistic scenario, the conference committee will be able to reach agreement on a bill in time for the full House to vote on the measure Wednesday and for the Senate to vote on it Thursday.
It's North Dakota politics, California style (Sacramento Bee, September 20, 2004)
Mike Liffrig, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in North Dakota, is making headlines for a shocking television advertisement that has hit the airwaves in the Midwest state this month.The 30-second spot attacking Democratic incumbent Byron Dorgan begins with shots of heterosexual couples kissing at the altar as wedding music plays in the background. It then cuts to a shot of two men at the altar as they move in for the kiss, followed by a shot of two men with one bride.
The announcer states, "With Senator Dorgan now supporting gay marriages - or whatever - you can kiss our North Dakota values goodbye."
But most dramatic is the ad's kicker: "Liffrig for Senate. Because this isn't California."
Kerry camp plans for hard road ahead: Advisers strategize to boost his 'likability' (Patrick Healy, September 20, 2004, Boston Globe)
Yet behind the Democratic presidential nominee's public confidence of victory in November, his advisers harbor concerns that not enough voters are comfortable with Kerry personally or enthusiastic about his ideas, a critical mass they long felt the senator needed to achieve by now to knock off an incumbent president. [...]This week, Kerry will also take steps to address what advisers call "the likability factor" -- trying to raise voters' comfort level with Kerry on a personal level. A Pew Research Center poll released Thursday suggested that Bush edged out Kerry when voters were asked which man was "down to earth," "honest and truthful," and "willing to take a stand, even if unpopular." Asked who was the stronger leader, voters favored Bush by a margin of 57 percent to 30 percent.
Kerry will appear on the "Late Show with David Letterman" tonight and "Live with Regis and Kelly" tomorrow, and this weekend taped a segment of the daytime show "Dr. Phil" that will air early next month. But the greatest opportunity to up the likability quotient will probably come in the debates, advisers said. Kerry plans to seclude himself with aides next weekend at his wife's home near Pittsburgh to prepare for the first debate, tentatively scheduled in Miami on Sept. 30.
The campaigns of President Bush and Senator John F. Kerry have tentatively settled on a package of three face-to-face debates, which both sides view as a potentially decisive chance to sway huge audiences ahead of the Nov. 2 election, Democrats and Republicans said yesterday.Bush's campaign, which opened the weeklong negotiations by urging two sessions involving Bush and Kerry, yielded to the full slate of debates that had been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, according to people in both parties who were briefed on the negotiations.
Kerry under pressure on Democratic turf: Polls show him tied with Bush in Pa.; behind in Iowa, Ore., N.M. (Tom Curry, 9/20/04, MSNBC)
A new crop of polls in six Democratic-leaning states released Monday showed that John Kerry has a lead in Michigan, while running neck-and-neck or trailing President Bush in five other states.Most electoral vote strategizing begins with the assumption that Kerry would be able to hold all or nearly all of the 19 states Al Gore won in 2000. He could then add some of the states Bush narrowly won four years ago in order to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
But the new polling data from Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin indicate that Kerry has much work to do on Democratic turf in the six weeks that remain before the votes are counted on election night.
With only 41 days of campaigning left, every day Kerry spends bolstering his support in states that Gore won in 2000 is a day he can't invest in the states Bush narrowly won, such as Nevada.
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Poll results from 'blue' battleground states: MSNBC/Knight-Ridder polls conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research from Sept. 13 through Sept. 14, 2004 (MSNBC, Sept. 20, 2004)
Portrait of George Bush in '72: Unanchored in Turbulent Time (This article was reported by Sara Rimer, Ralph Blumenthal and Raymond Bonner and written by Ms. Rimer, 9/20/04, NY Times)
Nineteen seventy-two was the year George W. Bush dropped off the radar screen.He abandoned his once-prized status as a National Guard pilot by failing to appear for a required physical. He sought temporary reassignment from the Texas Air National Guard to an Alabama unit but for six months did not show up for training. He signed on as an official in the losing campaign of a Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, and even there he left few impressions other than as an amiable bachelor with a good tennis game and a famous father.
"To say he brought in a bunch of initiatives and bright ideas," said a fellow campaign worker, Devere McLennan, "no he didn't."
This year of inconsequence has grown increasingly consequential for President Bush because of persistent, unanswered questions about his National Guard service - why he failed to take his pilot's physical and whether he fulfilled his commitment to the Guard. If anything, those issues became still murkier this past week, with the controversy over the authenticity of four documents disclosed by CBS News and its program "60 Minutes" purporting to shed light on that Guard record.
Still, a wider examination of his life in 1972, based on dozens of interviews and other documents released by the White House over the years, yields a portrait of a young man like many other young men of privilege in that turbulent time - entitled, unanchored and safe from combat, bouncing from a National Guard slot made possible by his family's prominence to a political job arranged through his father. [...]
After basic training and a year at flight school in Georgia, he was assigned to Ellington Air Force Base outside Houston, where he flew F-102 fighter jets. In March 1970, with his father, himself a World War II Navy pilot, in Congress, the Texas Air National Guard issued a news release announcing that the young Mr. Bush "doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed," but from "the roaring afterburner of the F-102." As he wrote in his autobiography, "It was exciting the first time I flew, and it was exciting the last time." In a November 1970 evaluation, his squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, called him a "top-notch" pilot and a "natural leader."
By 1972, though, something had changed; the excitement seemed to have waned. Mr. Bush's flying buddy from Ellington, Dean Roome, said Mr. Bush may have been frustrated because the unit's growing role as a training school left young pilots fewer opportunities to log hours in the air. Others who knew him believe he simply lost interest. He was once again at loose ends, without a regular job, having left Stratford after a year or so, unhappy in the company's buttoned-down atmosphere.
Whatever precisely was drawing Mr. Bush away from flying, it was then, in the spring of 1972, that the Alabama job came along. He had worked for Jimmy Allison before - on a 1968 Senate campaign in Florida - but this would be his first full-time job in the family business, politics. [...]
By the summer of 1973, Mr. Bush had decided to go to Harvard Business School.
Indonesia votes in ex-army general (Matthew Moore, September 21, 2004, The Age)
Indonesian voters have dumped President Megawati Soekarnoputri and elected former army general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as the country's sixth president.The findings of a nationwide sample of the result showed Mr Yudhoyono received around 60 per cent of the vote, well clear of Mrs Megawati's 40 per cent.
"It looks very clear at this point that Indonesia will have SBY (Mr Yudhoyono) as its next president," said Paul Rowland, the resident representative of the US-based National Democratic Institute.
"Anybody would be happy with that kind of victory," said Mr Rowland, whose group has helped with a survey of the results from 2000 polling booths to quickly predict the result.
He said voters had opted for a candidate seen as "firm, honest and somebody who is going to take Indonesia forward".
The political chasm isn't so deep, after all (Eric Black and Dane Smith, September 18, 2004, Minneapolis Star Tribune)
The Red-Blue America theory suggests that we are divided on everything from our musical tastes to gay marriage. But in fact there are few huge chasms over issues.Take abortion, supposedly the most divisive, all-or-nothing issue of them all. If you judge only by the voting record of U.S. senators, it's just that. Every single Republican senator received a zero ranking last year from the National Abortion Rights Action League, meaning that they consistently opposed the league. Yet, 44 percent of Minnesota Republicans believe that a woman should have the right to choose, according to the Minnesota Poll. Democrats are closer to unanimity in favor of abortion rights, but still, one-sixth of Minnesota Democrats oppose the idea that a woman should have the right to choose.
When polls offer respondents a middle choice on controversial issues, including abortion, compromise is often popular. In July, the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs asked voters in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa whether abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances or illegal in all circumstances.
The middle answer was chosen by 54 percent of Republicans, 55 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents,
"The country is obviously closely divided, maybe even bitterly divided, but in terms of policy we just are not very deeply divided," said former Rep. Vin Weber, one of the leaders of Bush's campaign in the Upper Midwest. "If you turn down the decibel level, the issues we're arguing over don't compare to the really deep disagreements of the past. We disagree about whether to shift the tax burden a little bit up and down the ladder, but nobody's talking about going back to a top rate of 70 percent." [...]
The idea that Americans live in blue and red states is dead wrong. That should be especially clear to residents of a certain longtime blue state called Minnesota, which both parties have declared a battleground this year. Candidates have visited so often they are beginning to pronounce Wayzata correctly.
Depending on how you count them, between 16 and 21 states are neither red nor blue but very much up for grabs in November. That many swing states is above average.
And bear in mind that in the 2000 election, the event that touched off the Red and Blue America craze, neither party got 70 percent of the vote in any state. In Franklin Roosevelt's heyday, he used to break 70 percent in 10 or more states, and he broke 90 in Mississippi every time he ran. Now that was a blue state.
And when Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, he didn't get above 1 percent in any Southern state. That was polarization.
The right of governing society, which the majority supposes itself to derive from its superior intelligence, was introduced into the United States by the first settlers; and this idea, which of itself would be sufficient to create a free nation, has now been amalgamated with the customs of the people and the minor incidents of social life.The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was imputed to his advisers. This notion made obedience very easy; it enabled the subject to complain of the law without ceasing to love and honor the lawgiver. The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.
The moral power of the majority is founded upon yet another principle, which is that the interests of the many are to be pre- ferred to those of the few. It will readily be perceived that the respect here professed for the rights of the greater number must naturally increase or diminish according to the state of parties When a nation is divided into several great irreconcilable interests, the privilege of the majority is often overlooked, because it is intolerable to comply with its demands.
If there existed in America a class of citizens whom the legislating majority sought to deprive of exclusive privileges which they had possessed for ages and to bring down from an elevated station to the level of the multitude, it is probable that the minority would be less ready to submit to its laws. But as the United States was colonized by men holding equal rank, there is as yet no natural or permanent disagreement between the interests of its different inhabitants.
There are communities in which the members of the minority can never hope to draw the majority over to their side, because they must then give up the very point that is at issue between them. Thus an aristocracy can never become a majority while it retains its exclusive privileges, and it cannot cede its privileges without ceasing to be an aristocracy.
In the United States, political questions cannot be taken up in so general and absolute a manner; and all parties are willing to recognize the rights of the majority, because they all hope at some time to be able to exercise them to their own advantage. The majority in that country, therefore, exercise a prodigious actual authority, and a power of opinion which is nearly as great; no obstacles exist which can impede or even retard its progress, so as to make it heed the complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. [...]
IT is in the examination of the exercise of thought in the United States that we clearly perceive how far the power of the majority surpasses all the powers with which we are acquainted in Europe. Thought is an invisible and subtle power that mocks all the efforts of tyranny. At the present time the most absolute monarchs in Europe cannot prevent certain opinions hostile to their authority from circulating in secret through their dominions and even in their courts. It is not so in America; as long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the friends as well as the opponents of the measure unite in assenting to its propriety. The reason for this is perfectly clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine all the powers of society in his own hands and to conquer all opposition, as a majority is able to do, which has the right both of making and of executing the laws.
The authority of a king is physical and controls the actions of men without subduing their will. But the majority possesses a power that is physical and moral at the same time, which acts upon the will as much as upon the actions and represses not only all contest, but all controversy.
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. In any constitutional state in Europe every sort of religious and political theory may be freely preached and disseminated; for there is no country in Europe so subdued by any single authority as not to protect the man who raises his voice in the cause of truth from the consequences of his hardihood. If he is unfortunate enough to live under an absolute government, the people are often on his side; if he inhabits a free country, he can, if necessary, find a shelter behind the throne. The aristocratic part of society supports him in some countries, and the democracy in others. But in a nation where democratic institutions exist, organized like those of the United States, there is but one authority, one element of strength and success, with nothing beyond it.
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Not that he is in danger of an auto-da-fe, but he is exposed to continued obloquy and persecution. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority that is able to open it. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before making public his opinions he thought he had sympathizers; now it seems to him that he has none any more since he has revealed himself to everyone; then those who blame him criticize loudly and those who think as he does keep quiet and move away without courage. He yields at length, overcome by the daily effort which he has to make, and subsides into silence, as if he felt remorse for having spoken the truth.
Paris Hilton's 'Confessions' (CNN, September 20th, 2004)
Celebrity socialite Paris Hilton, who shot to infamy after a raunchy sex video of her flooded the Internet, now is teaching girls how to behave and let their "inner heiress out."The 23-year-old Hilton dishes out her pearls of party-life wisdom in a 178-page book, "Confessions of an Heiress," published this month by Fireside, which is more scrapbook than memoir, with pictures outnumbering paragraphs.
"It's just a look inside my life," says the heiress to the hotel fortune, who suggests a weekend in St-Tropez in the south of France for beating the blues.
Anyone raised in the West generally has a very difficult time getting into the head of a Muslim fundamentalist. But some days...
Gays cautious about new partners law: Some opt out, fearing legal or financial troubles (Rona Marech, September 20, 2004, SF Chronicle)
Gay men and lesbians throughout California are poised to celebrate when the state's muscular new domestic partners law takes effect Jan. 1 -- but a funny thing is happening on the way to the ribbon cutting. Some committed couples are saying thanks, but no thanks.They are dissolving their current legal partnerships or declining to sign up, mainly because they're worried that under the new law -- which extends state marriage rights and responsibilities to same-sex partners -- their public benefits could be slashed, or they could wind up in a financial or legal quagmire. [...]
Randy Cupp of San Francisco is among those who view the new law as an important step toward equal rights, but will nonetheless pass up the chance to register with his partner.
"If you're going to give us the responsibilities, you need to give us the benefits as well," said Cupp, 41. "That was my overall feeling about it."
Cupp suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome; his partner, Jeff Tarvin, has chronic pain. Both are HIV-positive and collect disability. Tarvin also receives Medi-Cal, which covers the cost of all his medical care.
Cupp is worried that if they register with the state, the couple's combined worth could cost Tarvin his Medi-Cal coverage. Eligibility for Medi- Cal and other programs such as CalWorks for single parents, Supplemental Security Income for disabled people and the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants is based in part on a married couple's income and assets. [...]
Gale Golden and her longtime partner, Jeanine Reisbig, of San Francisco plan to dissolve their partnership before the end of the year to avoid jeopardizing Golden's SSI benefits. She has been dealing with chronic pain since a 1989 car accident.
Friend H. D. Miller reads Michael Moore so we don't have to.
John Kerry did the American people a great service today. In a powerful anti-war speech at NYU he laid out a vision of a Kerry foreign policy that could not be more different than President Bush's nor further diiviorced from America's traditions, Speech at New York University (Remarks of John Kerry, 9/20/04):
Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.The President has said that he “miscalculated” in Iraq and that it was a “catastrophic success.” In fact, the President has made a series of catastrophic decisions … from the beginning … in Iraq. At every fork in the road, he has taken the wrong turn and led us in the wrong direction.
The first and most fundamental mistake was the President’s failure to tell the truth to the American people.
He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war. And he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens.
By one count, the President offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.
His two main rationales – weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaeda/September 11 connection – have been proved false… by the President’s own weapons inspectors… and by the 9/11 Commission. Just last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged the facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists that the earth is flat. [...]
Two years ago, Congress was right to give the President the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. This President… any President… would have needed the threat of force to act effectively. This President misused that authority.
The power entrusted to the President gave him a strong hand to play in the international community. The idea was simple. We would get the weapons inspectors back in to verify whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And we would convince the world to speak with one voice to Saddam: disarm or be disarmed.
A month before the war, President Bush told the nation: “If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is possible. We will plan carefully. We will act with the full power of the United States military. We will act with allies at our side and we will prevail.” He said that military action wasn’t “unavoidable.”
Instead, the President rushed to war without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work. He went without a broad and deep coalition of allies. He acted without making sure our troops had enough body armor. And he plunged ahead without understanding or preparing for the consequences of the post-war. None of which I would have done.
Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is no – because a Commander-in-Chief’s first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe.
Compare the Senator's parsimonious view of America's role and responsibility in the world to that of the President, Text: President Bush's Acceptance Speech to the Republican National Convention (September 2, 2004)
The text of President George Bush's speech at the Republican National Convention: [...]This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism, and you know where I stand.
(APPLAUSE)
Three days after September the 11th, I stood where Americans died, in the ruins of the twin towers.
BUSH: Workers in hard hats were shouting to me, "Whatever it takes." A fellow grabbed me by the arm, and he said, "Do not let me down." Since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America -- whatever it takes.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: USA. USA. USA.
BUSH: So we have fought the terrorists across the Earth, not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake.
BUSH: Our strategy is clear. We have tripled funding for homeland security and trained half a million first responders because we are determined to protect our homeland.
We are transforming our military and reforming and strengthening our intelligence services. We are staying on the offensive, striking terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.
(APPLAUSE)
And we are working to advance liberty in the broader Middle East, because freedom will bring a future of hope and the peace we all want. And we will prevail. [...]
I am proud that our country remains the hope of the oppressed and the greatest force for good on this Earth.
(APPLAUSE)
Others understand the historic importance of our work. The terrorists know. They know that a vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their radical ideology of hate.
(APPLAUSE)
They know that men and women with hope and purpose and dignity do not strap bombs on their bodies and kill the innocent.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear. And they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.
(APPLAUSE)
I believe in the transformational power of liberty. The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.
As the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq seize the moment, their example will send a message of hope throughout a vital region.
Palestinians will hear the message that democracy and reform are within their reach and so is peace with our good friend, Israel.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: Young women across the Middle East will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming. Young men will hear the message that national progress and dignity are found in liberty, not tyranny and terror.
Reformers and political prisoners and exiles will hear the message that their dream of freedom cannot be denied forever. And as freedom advances, heart by heart, and nation by nation, America will be more secure and the world more peaceful.
(APPLAUSE)
America has done this kind of work before, and there have always been doubters. In 1946, 18 months after the fall of Berlin to allied forces, a journalist wrote in the New York Times wrote this: "Germany is a land in an acute stage of economic, political and moral crisis. European capitals are frightened. In every military headquarters, one meets alarmed officials doing their utmost to deal with the consequences of the occupation policy that they admit has failed," end quote.
BUSH: Maybe that same person is still around, writing editorials.
(APPLAUSE)
Fortunately, we had a resolute president named Truman who, with the American people, persevered, knowing that a new democracy at the center of Europe would lead to stability and peace. And because that generation of Americans held firm in the cause of liberty, we live in a better and safer world today.
(APPLAUSE)
The progress we and our friends and allies seek in the broader Middle East will not come easily or all at once.
BUSH: Yet Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century.
We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan, Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics, and that noble story goes on.
I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man.
I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: This moment in the life of our country will be remembered. Generations will know if we kept our faith and kept our word. Generations will know if we seized this moment and used it to build a future of safety and peace. The freedom of many and the future security of our nation now depend on us.
And tonight, my fellow Americans, I ask you to stand with me.
Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait without provocation. And the regime's forces were poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their resources. Had Saddam Hussein been appeased instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped -- by the might of coalition forces and the will of the United Nations.To suspend hostilities, to spare himself, Iraq's dictator accepted a series of commitments. The terms were clear, to him and to all. And he agreed to prove he is complying with every one of those obligations.
He has proven instead only his contempt for the United Nations, and for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.
In 1991, Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the repression of its own people, including the systematic repression of minorities -- which the Council said, threatened international peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored.
Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime's repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents -- and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.
In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolutions 686 and 687, demanded that Iraq return all prisoners from Kuwait and other lands. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke its promise. Last year the Secretary General's high-level coordinator for this issue reported that Kuwait, Saudi, Indian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian, Bahraini, and Omani nationals remain unaccounted for -- more than 600 people. One American pilot is among them.
In 1991, the U.N. Security Council, through Resolution 687, demanded that Iraq renounce all involvement with terrorism, and permit no terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. Iraq's regime agreed. It broke this promise. In violation of Security Council Resolution 1373, Iraq continues to shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments. Iraqi dissidents abroad are targeted for murder. In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American President. Iraq's government openly praised the attacks of September the 11th. And al Qaeda terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in Iraq.
In 1991, the Iraqi regime agreed to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, and to prove to the world it has done so by complying with rigorous inspections. Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.
From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs, and aircraft spray tanks. U.N. inspectors believe Iraq has produced two to four times the amount of biological agents it declared, and has failed to account for more than three metric tons of material that could be used to produce biological weapons. Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
United Nations' inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons.
And in 1995, after four years of deception, Iraq finally admitted it had a crash nuclear weapons program prior to the Gulf War. We know now, were it not for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993.
Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program -- weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq's state-controlled media has reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.
Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150 kilometers permitted by the U.N. Work at testing and production facilities shows that Iraq is building more long-range missiles that it can inflict mass death throughout the region.
In 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the world imposed economic sanctions on Iraq. Those sanctions were maintained after the war to compel the regime's compliance with Security Council resolutions. In time, Iraq was allowed to use oil revenues to buy food. Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials. He blames the suffering of Iraq's people on the United Nations, even as he uses his oil wealth to build lavish palaces for himself, and to buy arms for his country. By refusing to comply with his own agreements, he bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens.
In 1991, Iraq promised U.N. inspectors immediate and unrestricted access to verify Iraq's commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles. Iraq broke this promise, spending seven years deceiving, evading, and harassing U.N. inspectors before ceasing cooperation entirely. Just months after the 1991 cease-fire, the Security Council twice renewed its demand that the Iraqi regime cooperate fully with inspectors, condemning Iraq's serious violations of its obligations. The Security Council again renewed that demand in 1994, and twice more in 1996, deploring Iraq's clear violations of its obligations. The Security Council renewed its demand three more times in 1997, citing flagrant violations; and three more times in 1998, calling Iraq's behavior totally unacceptable. And in 1999, the demand was renewed yet again.
As we meet today, it's been almost four years since the last U.N. inspectors set foot in Iraq, four years for the Iraqi regime to plan, and to build, and to test behind the cloak of secrecy.
We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in his country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.
Delegates to the General Assembly, we have been more than patient. We've tried sanctions. We've tried the carrot of oil for food, and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has a -- nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.
The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?
The United States helped found the United Nations. We want the United Nations to be effective, and respectful, and successful. We want the resolutions of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced. And right now those resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime. Our partnership of nations can meet the test before us, by making clear what we now expect of the Iraqi regime.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles, and all related material.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans, and others, again as required by Security Council resolutions.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait, and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues, as required by Security Council resolutions.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program, to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
If all these steps are taken, it will signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq. And it could open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represents all Iraqis -- a government based on respect for human rights, economic liberty, and internationally supervised elections.
So we have, at last, a crystal clear choice in this election. Mr. Kerry would return America to a kind of neo-isolationism in which the purely internal affairs of a foreign power could never be our concern. This would give the green light to not just dictatorial repression but to ethnic cleansing and genocide. There is a strong historical strain of American opinion which would endorse this policy and it should be fairly popular--especially on the Left, as it is universally among Europeans--but it is certainly at odds with at least the last seventy years of our foreign policy and departs radically from even the doctrine of humanitarian intervention pursued by Bill Clinton in the Balkans, which was developed and continues to be championed by our closest ally, Tony Blair.
President Bush, instead, is devoted to continuing the universalist Crusade that has already seen America defeat Nazism and Communism and which treats Islamicism as just another enemy of human freedom, to be chucked on the ash heap that ushers in the End of History. This policy, begun by FDR and continued by nearly all of his successor's--of both parties--holds that "liberty and freedom are God's gift to every man and woman who lives in this world" and that America is the indispensable nation in securing these gifts throughout the world. This mission is so grandiose that it has always had opponents at home and has nearly always involved us in conflict with some considerable portion of the rest of the world, seldom if ever with steadfast allies by our side (even Britain was wobbly through much of the Cold War). Yet it has defined who we are as Americans and it has changed the world, very much for the better. It would seem foolish to retreat from our world historical task when just one "ism" in one region remains to be dealt with and when we are so clearly and rapidly succeeding, but this election now seems certain to decide whether we see it through.
MORE:
Blair says 'no weakness' in Iraq (BBC, 9/20/04)
Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the UK will "stand firm" in the face of the insecurity and bloodshed plaguing Iraq.Mr Blair acknowledged that the Iraqi situation was "terrible", but he said there was a clear choice to make between right and wrong there. [...]
"Our response has not got to be to weaken. Our response has got to be to stand firm," Mr Blair said in comments to journalists at Downing Street.
"Whatever the differences over the Iraq conflict, there is a clear right and wrong on these issues, and that is to be with the democrats and against the terrorists," Mr Blair added.
Dan Rather Statement On Memos (CBS News, Sept. 20, 2004)
Below is the text of CBS News Anchor Dan Rather's statement on the documents purportedly written by President Bush's National Guard commander: [...]Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where-if I knew then what I know now-I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.
Egypt's Ruling Party to Debate Reform Initiatives (Ursula Lindsey, 20 Sep 2004, VOA News)
Egypt's ruling party is scheduled to debate a series of reform initiatives at an annual conference that opens in Cairo Tuesday. Egyptian opposition groups are calling for constitutional amendments to change the way presidential elections are held, but National Democratic Party (NDP) officials officials say the conference will focus primarily on economic reform.According to party sources and news reports, the conference will discuss legislative amendments to strengthen civil and women's rights, as well as economic and land reform issues.
Dr. Mohamed Abdel Moneim Saiid, director of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, says the proposed changes may make it easier to register new political parties.
"There are two things we are expecting from the NDP Conference," Dr. Saiid said. "One, a number of changes in the political system, related to party law, related to freedom of expression, related to syndicate and civil society formulations, and other things. The second thing we are expecting is more economic openness that's related to moving the economic system to a much more market-oriented system."
India's Congress waves red flag at left (Ramtanu Maitra, 9/21/04, Asia Times)
Trouble is brewing between the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the left, its most important backer. Relations between the two, which have been tenuous at the best of times, seem to be getting even worse.There was some consternation in the left camp when the new deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, handpicked by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, announced in early September that he had decided to go in for an "open process of consultations". In plain English, the government wanted the opinion of foreign entities on the progress of plan schemes and the effectiveness of the country's economic policy.
What surprised some observers was that while Ahluwalia stuck out his neck for foreigners' participation in the planning process, he continued to stonewall the participation of Indian non-government organizations (NGOs). Many NGOs complained that instead of expanding the planning process to include grassroots participants, the Planning Commission was opening doors to foreign companies and the World Bank. [...]
The left parties, with about 60 parliamentary seats, have undisputed control over the lifespan of the UPA government, as the Congress does not have sufficient seats to rule on its own. They threw their support behind arch-rival Congress as they felt the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)was the "greater evil". But beyond that, the left almost believed the UPA would promote an economic program in keeping with its own. How it reached that inference is slightly puzzling though as both Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Manmohan Singh are strong believers in globalization and economic reforms a la the Washington Consensus. Prior to his appointment as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Ahluwalia served as the first director of the Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)in New York.
The left parties have indicated they won't defend the government on the issue of bringing foreign consultants into the planning process when the subject is discussed in parliament. The left's action is not surprising. They didn't approve of Ahluwalia's appointment as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission in the first place, as Communist Party of India national secretary D Raja told newsmen after the appointment: "We are not very happy with it ... We know a government's policies are not decided by a single man. So we are not making a big issue of it, though we do not favor his appointment."
Pakistan pushes for Hekmatyar (Syed Saleem Shahzad, 9/21, Asia Times)
Afghanistan has a distinguished culture and social and political order in which one of the most prominent features is that whoever, from Mughal rulers to former king Zahir Shah, leaves the country for exile, has never been able to regain his writ. Legendary Afghan resistance leader in the jihad against the Soviets in the 1980s, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is no exception.Those who know the mujahideen commander closely affirm that the firebrand Hekmatyar of the mid-1970s at Kabul University is no different from the Hekmatyar of today. In one sense this is true - he still vehemently believes in armed struggle against foreign forces in the country, and he is still intimately involved in political wheeling and dealing, in cahoots with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), just like in the mid-1970s.
However, his many years in exile in Iran - he left the country as prime minister when the Taliban came to power in 1996 - seriously undermined his command structure in Afghanistan, and except for carrying out a few sporadic attacks against US forces, his role at present in the resistance is minimal.
Asia Times Online contacts say that this situation has forced the charismatic leader of the past to fully commit to the ISI's agenda for Afghanistan by allowing the political faction of his Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) to participate in the central government in Kabul, and in the meantime they will work to strengthen interim President Hamid Karzai's position ahead of presidential elections next month. Hekmatyar himself, though, at this point is still committed to waging a guerrilla war against US-led forces in Afghanistan.
Bush, Marshal Foch and Iran (Spengler, 9/21/04, Asia Times)
Washington's strategic position in the Middle East is stronger than it has ever been, contrary to superficial interpretation. With much of central Iraq out of US control and a record level of close to 100 attacks a day against US forces, President George W Bush appears on the defensive. The moment recalls French Marshal Ferdinand Foch's 1914 dispatch from the Marne: "My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack." To be specific, the United States will in some form or other attack Iran while it arranges the division of Iraq.That Sunni diehards and Shi'ite adventurers would prevent the pacification of Iraq never was in question. Leaks of a National Intelligence Estimate warning last week of impending Iraqi civil war suggest that Washington is thinking past the loser's game of occupation. The phony war between reluctant Iraqi recruits and rebels will persist past November, but something deadly and different will follow on Bush's re-election. Russian paratroops will be busy in the Caucasus after the Beslan atrocity, making a Russian presence in Iraq unlikely, contrary to my earlier forecast. (That may have been the intended outcome of the incident.) Nonetheless, Washington has a winning card to play, and the decibel level of protests from Tehran as well as from the US opposition suggests that it is well anticipated.
If Washington chooses to dismember Iraq rather than pacify it, who will win and who will lose? Washington always has had the option of breaking up the Mesopotamian monstrosity drawn by British cartographers in 1921. The only surprise is that it has taken US intelligence so long to reach this conclusion. Whether America's policymakers are slow learners, or whether Bush chose to perpetuate the farce of Iraqi nation-building until the November elections, we may never know.
Africa's descent into nightmare (Cameron Stewart, The Australian, September 20th, 2004)
From the Ivory Coast in the west to Somalia in the east and Zimbabwe in the south, sub-Saharan Africa is in a crisis unprecedented even by the flimsy standards of its own troubled history. In a continent increasingly racked by war, economic stagnation, an AIDS pandemic, corruption and intractable ethnic and tribal divides, Africans are struggling to secure their future more than a generation after the end of colonialism.This bitter truth was been spelt out in unusually blunt fashion by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, himself a Ghanaian, following his recent visit to Darfur.
He warned that the Sudan crisis, while shocking, was only one of a host of new problems in the region that were placing African nations at risk.
"We must not let the achievements of recent years be rubbed out by a return to an Africa in which millions are plagued by terrible violence," Annan told a summit of the 53-member African Union.
But the reality is that millions are already being plagued by terrible violence –– one in five Africans now live in a state that is being torn apart by war.
Would the last person who thinks he knows the solution to Africa’s problems please remember to turn out the lights.
Waiting for the Candidate to Emerge (BOB HERBERT, 9/20/04, NY Times)
I had a feeling John Kerry was in trouble when, coming out of the primaries, voters kept saying they were for him because he could win. It was clear that many voters had cast primary ballots for Mr. Kerry not because they liked him, or because they felt strongly about his positions on the issues, or because they were drawn to his compelling vision of a better future for the United States and the world, but simply because they felt he was capable of beating George W. Bush. [...]Who is John Kerry? He doesn't seem to want to let on. More than anything else, he presents himself as someone who fought in Vietnam. But that was more than 30 years ago. Who is he now?
A longtime Democratic operative recently complained, "He's not displaying a moral center, or showing us a philosophical foundation. For him, it's all about tactics."
Mr. Kerry has suffered recently in the polls primarily because of his reluctance to put his authentic self on display.
Hillary rallies jittery state Dems (LYNN SWEET, September 20, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Just as some Illinois Democrats are getting nervous about Sen. John Kerry in the Land of Lincoln (free floating anxiety triggered by a poll of dubious credibility), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) swooped in Sunday and rallied the troops.
Taiwanese rag trade has Lesotho all stitched up: Pegged currency squeezes producers' margins, but US Agoa law makes the garment business in Maseru worthwhile (Financial Times, 9/15/04)
EVERY weekday, whatever the weather, hundreds of people flock to the factory gates of Ha Thetsane in search of work. The congested industrial zone in Maseru, Lesotho's capital, houses one of Africa's biggest clusters of textile and garment factories.Nearly all are Taiwanese owned and export their wares to the US. Some labour and environmental activists have complained about the plants' pollution levels and labour practices.
But for most people in the landlocked kingdom, a job cutting or sewing denim destined for US stores is a prized position.
"I'm happy with my job," says Makananelo Mokotoi, a mother of three who earns just more than 100 a month sewing together panels for overalls.
The textile industry has transformed Lesotho in just a few years. The country benefits from the US's African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), that exempts some clothing made in the continent's poorest countries from strict duties and quotas.
Tough Asian competitors could easily undercut even dirtpoor Lesotho on price, but Agoa's preferential US market access gives its manufacturers an edge.
So Asia has come to Lesotho instead.
Afraid of global warming? Chill out (Neil Collins, The Telegraph, September 20th, 2004)
Kyoto ranks as the most expensive confidence trick pulled on the world since Yalta in 1945. The IPCC's science is nothing of the kind, being merely a series of "scenarios" of what the weather might be like at the end of the century. Since it's hard enough to predict it for the middle of next week, to say that there are difficulties in long-term projections is putting it mildly.As Martin ÅÅgerup, president of the Danish Academy for Futures Studies, has said: "We simply do not know how much warmer the climate will be in 2100. In fact, the degree of (compound) uncertainty is so large that the mere exercise by the IPCC of providing temperature intervals is highly misleading and provides phoney confidence."*
The evidence that the world is warming is now pretty conclusive, but it's far from clear why, and the consequences are not obvious, either. Kyoto fingered CO2, perhaps because burning all that fossil fuel must surely do something bad, and every schoolboy knows about the greenhouse effect.
A warming world will melt the icecaps, and raise sea level, won't it? Well, not so far. Nils-Axel Möörner, head of paleo-geophysics at Stockholm University, has been studying the subject for 35 years. As he puts it: "No one in the world beats me on sea level."
He's been to the Maldives, often tipped as the first place to disappear under the waves, and can find no evidence that it's doing so. Satellite altimetry has only been going for 14 years, but it tells the same story.
That so much of the world wilfully downplays the threat of Islamic-sponsored terrorism and nuclear war in the Middle East while remaining lathered by a discredited artificial doomsday scenario proves that not only the left, but also the international scientific community, is quite willing to sacrifice objective truth for political and institutional gain. One might almost say it constitutes a measurable and testable proof that science is driven by faith. What strikes most about this issue is not the scientific debate, but the rage so many feel in the face of good news. Undoubtedly many of the pious reacted similarly when theologians began questioning the doctrine of a literal, fiery Hell, but at least they weren't presented with temperature records by scientists returning from an on-site study.
This issue has long moved out of the fevered imaginations of doctrinaire activists and is a genuine concern of the misinformed majority. It plays a major role in political popularity and affects international relations and reputations. So why are conservative politicians so reluctant to attack with the scathing verve and eloquence of Mr. Collins?
Petroleum under pressure (PhysicsWeb, 14 September 2004)
Scientists in the US have witnessed the production of methane under the conditions that exist in the Earth's upper mantle for the first time. The experiments demonstrate that hydrocarbons could be formed inside the Earth via simple inorganic reactions -- and not just from the decomposition of living organisms as conventionally assumed -- and might therefore be more plentiful than previously thought.Methane is the most abundant hydrocarbon found in the Earth's crust and is also the main component of natural gas. Reserves of natural gas are often accompanied by petrol, usually only a few kilometres below the Earth's surface. The possibility that hydrocarbons might exist deeper in the Earth's mantle, or could be formed from non-biological matter, has been the subject of debate among geologists in recent years.
To explore these questions further Henry Scott of Indiana University in South Bend and colleagues at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, Harvard University and the Lawrence Livermore National Lab subjected materials commonly found in the Earth's crust to temperatures of up to 1500°C and pressures as high as 11 gigapascals (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. to be published). These conditions are similar to those found in the Earth's upper mantle.
Scott and co-workers squeezed together iron oxide, calcium carbonate and water between two diamonds with flattened tips while heating up the device. The advantage of the "diamond anvil cell" technique is that the sample can be analysed in situ -- through the diamonds -- using a variety of spectroscopic techniques. The US scientists found that methane was most readily produced at relatively low temperatures of 500°C and pressures of 7 gigapascals or below.
Gut what it takes: Philly's Hopkins leaves no doubt after staggering shot to De La Hoya's midsection (Sam Donnellon, 9/20/04, Philadelphia Inquirer)
His adult life, his career, has been about muted moments, about avoiding lucrative but peril-filled shortcuts and traveling the longer, harder road to perdition.So maybe it was appropriate, on the greatest night of Bernard Hopkins' roughened-up road to the top, that most of the 16,112 at MGM's Grand Arena were turned backward toward huge video screens as the Philly middleweight literally did a somersault across the ring. Maybe it was appropriate that in his greatest moment there was concern for the other fighter, concern that transcended Oscar De La Hoya's celebrity and centered more around his health.
Maybe it was appropriate, too, that the shot that finished the game but outmuscled De La Hoya was one to the gut, a point-blank connection to his liver, the kind of shot that is really intended to set up a finishing blow to the head.
"He could throw that punch a million times and he wouldn't land it exactly in the place he landed it," said De La Hoya, who was stopped in the ninth round Saturday night. "Right on the button. Perfect spot."
Perfect to render his younger foe bent over on all fours, while much of the crowd, their view blocked by a medical team and De La Hoya's concerned camp, swiveled around toward the screens for clues to what had just happened. Later, as replays showed the hit again, and the gruesome collapse, the crowd groaned almost as loudly as the fighter did in crumpling to the ring floor, his body, he said later, paralyzed.
When he was doing time in Graterford penitentiary for robbery, and even after he'd become a world champion, Bernard Hopkins' boxing dreams were confined within the city limits of Philadelphia.If you asked him back then what he hoped to accomplish as a prizefighter, he'd tell you that one day he wanted his neighbors to place him on a pedestal occupied by such princes of Philly pugilism as Bennie Briscoe, Willie "The Worm" Monroe, Eugene "Cyclone" Hart, Bobby "Boogaloo" Watts and George Benton.
"Those guys are legends," Hopkins said in 1995, after he won the IBF middleweight title by knocking out Segundo Mercado. "I owe them a debt I can never repay because they created the tradition I've tried to live up to."
It's funny how dreams can soar with increased success. Little Donald Trump put away his Monopoly board game one day and started building actual hotels on Boardwalk. And as the victories and prestige piled up, Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins began to think of his place in the world beyond Broad Street.
So it came to pass that Hopkins, who became the first man ever to knock out the most popular fighter on the planet, Oscar De La Hoya, found himself at the podium of a ballroom here in the MGM Grand, looking very much like a 39-year-old kid whose trading-card heroes had suddenly come to life.
Mike Tyson was standing off to the side. Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran were seated in an audience mostly composed of media members who now wanted to know how Hopkins thought he stacked up in comparison to such middleweight greats as Sugar Ray Robinson, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Carlos Monzon and Jake La Motta.
Hopkins' ninth-round stoppage of De La Hoya Saturday night extended his division record of title defenses to 19. Asked if he would consider relinquishing one of his four world championship belts if presented the opportunity for a megabucks, non-middleweight fight, Hopkins shook his head. Money is important, sure, but immortality for a fighter cannot be purchased as if it were just another pricey item on the shelf at Neiman-Marcus.
"If I have to give up a belt and not reach my goal of 20 defenses, I'd be going against what I want to do for history," said Hopkins, who was paid a career-high $10 million to De La Hoya's $27 million.
Word of the Day (Dictionary.com, September 20, 2004)
fatidic \fuh-TID-ik\, adjective:Of, relating to, or characterized by prophecy; prophetic.
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Hardball ads are effective -- and win elections (GLENN GARVIN, 9/20/04, Miami Herald)
This just in: President Bush is a Hitlerian war criminal, his supporters goose-stepping Nazis.
Slogan Points Kerry in 'New Direction' (Michael Finnegan, September 20, 2004, LA Times)
After months of struggling to find a theme to capture the essence of his candidacy, Sen. John F. Kerry has settled on one: The election, he says, boils down to a decision between four more years of "wrong choices" or a "new direction."Since Labor Day, the Democratic presidential nominee has stuck to that theme relentlessly, using it to shape arguments on Iraq, the economy and nearly all other topics he broaches.
To some Democrats unnerved by President Bush's recent surge in the polls, Kerry's adoption of a clearly defined theme to draw contrasts with the Republican incumbent offers a measure of hope. The question for Kerry is whether this new approach to framing the election comes too late to matter.
CBS News Concludes It Was Misled on National Guard Memos, Network Officials Say (JIM RUTENBERG, 9/20/04, NY Times)
After days of expressing confidence about the documents used in a "60 Minutes'' report that raised new questions about President Bush's National Guard service, CBS News officials have grave doubts about the authenticity of the material, network officials said last night.The officials, who asked not to be identified, said CBS News would most likely make an announcement as early as today that it had been deceived about the documents' origins. CBS News has already begun intensive reporting on where they came from, and people at the network said it was now possible that officials would open an internal inquiry into how it moved forward with the report. Officials say they are now beginning to believe the report was too flawed to have gone on the air.
But they cautioned that CBS News could still pull back from an announcement.
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CBS to Say It Was Misled on Bush Guard Memos: Network Plans to Issue Statement on Disputed Documents Used on '60 Minutes' Broadcast (Howard Kurtz, September 20, 2004, Washington Post)
CBS News plans to issue a statement, perhaps as early as today, saying that it was misled on the purported National Guard memos the network used to charge that President Bush received favored treatment 30 years ago.The statement would represent a huge embarrassment for the network, which insisted for days that the documents reported by Dan Rather on "60 Minutes" are authentic. But the statement could help defuse a crisis that has torn at the network's credibility.
It is not clear whether the statement will include an apology for a story now believed to be based on forged documents, although that is under consideration, sources familiar with the matter said. The sources said they could not be identified because CBS is making no official statement.
CBS has stood by the story, even as numerous document experts have called the memos forgeries and a former secretary in Bush's Guard unit told reporters, including Rather, that the memos were fake -- although she said they reflected the feelings of Bush's former squadron commander in the Texas Air National Guard.
The statement was being hammered out last night after Rather went to Texas to tape an interview with Bill Burkett, the retired Guard official widely believed to have helped provide "60 Minutes" with the memos. Burkett, who has urged Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks," would not comment in an e-mail to The Washington Post on whether he had been CBS's confidential source.
A New GOP? (James W. Ceaser and Daniel DiSalvol, Fall 2004, Public Interest)
The midterm elections of 2002 brought the Republican party to the high point of its political strength in the modern era. For the first time since 1954, Republicans held the presidency as well as a majority in both the House and the Senate. President George W. Bush had led his party to gains in both houses of Congress, an unusual achievement for an incumbent party in a midterm election, and this victory seemed to provide him, for a moment at least, with the popular mandate he failed to win in the 2000 election. Republicans also had the edge in the states, with a majority of governors and control of slightly more state legislative chambers.The GOP had clearly come a long way since 1980, when Democrats dominated at the national and state levels. Except for the presidency, where the GOP had fared well since 1952, the Republican party of that era looked like — and, more importantly, acted like — a permanent minority. But the electorate’s perception of failure in Democratic leadership under President Jimmy Carter, both domestically and internationally, opened the door to a Republican revival. Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 as an apostle of national optimism and renewed resolve in foreign affairs started a slow-moving electoral wave, punctuated by a powerful surge in 1994, in favor of Republicans. As shown in Table 1, the Republican party during this period has managed to achieve at least parity with the Democrats, if not a slight advantage, and by most accounts Republicans have done more than Democrats to set the agenda of American politics. Two of the major accomplishments of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, were in fact “Republican” measures.
Will Republicans be able to maintain and consolidate their current position, or has the party now reached a peak from which its support will begin to ebb? Electoral analysts generally approach this question by studying voter groups and demographic trends. This method may be effective up to a point, but it ignores the impact of major events—those famous “tides in the affairs of men” — that can determine a party’s fortunes. A moment of this kind is now at hand. President Bush has identified the Republican party with a distinct foreign policy, which he has justified by recourse to certain fixed and universal principles — namely that, in his words, “liberty is the design of nature” and that “freedom is the right and the capacity of all mankind.” Not since Lincoln has the putative head of the Republican party so actively sought to ground the party in a politics of natural right. This has led his Democratic opponent, John Kerry, to brand the Bush administration the most “ideological” of recent times. Victory for President Bush in November will surely vindicate his policies and principles. Defeat will mean, at a minimum, a curtailment of the Bush foreign policy, and will also likely bring an end to his understanding of the Republican party. [...]
President Bush has justified his foreign policy by appealing to the universality of democracy and human rights. One might characterize this approach as “neo-natural right.” It holds that there is a structure or order to human beings and their affairs, and standards that can be both known and used to guide political action. On this point, the recent references to Leo Strauss are not without relevance, insofar as Strauss sought in the 1950s to reopen the question of natural right. He did so at a time when, as he observed, American intellectuals were coming increasingly under the thrall of the historicist idea that all human thought is nothing but the accidental product of its time, and that all conceptions of right are equally arbitrary. For Strauss, the lack of a firm foundation made liberal democracy vulnerable to challenges from other systems — at the time, chiefly communism. Strauss by no means addressed this concern only to Republicans or conservatives, many of whom were deeply suspicious of appeals to natural right — which they associated with liberalism. Indeed, one of the first to pick up on Strauss’s work was the great Progressive thinker Walter Lippmann, who called in 1955 for a renewal of the conception of natural right. Such a renewal, Lippmann almost certainly thought, would find its place in the Democratic party.
But, as it happened, this was not to be. In the post-Vietnam period of the Cold War, foundational principles instead found a home in the Republican party. There were, of course, many sources for the Republicans’ aversion to communism — religious, economic, and cultural sources — but certainly in the case of President Reagan the principle of natural right was foremost. He set this principle in stark opposition not only to the Communists’ own official ideology, but also to the relativism of many liberal thinkers in the West, who were unwilling to condemn communism. President Bush has presented his foreign policy doctrine as the successor to Reaganism. Just as Reagan broke with a realist détente, which he thought failed to rally the American populace and led to appeasement, so Bush has tried to rally opposition against a “détentist” policy toward Islamic terrorism.
The Republican party is certainly no monolith when it comes to foundational thinking. Two other strands exist within the party. Traditionalist conservatives espouse a position, going back to Edmund Burke, that is suspicious of claims of natural right, which they insist lead to rationalist excesses. Against such principles, traditionalists offer the integrity of American culture, and in some measure of all cultures as such. Libertarians, who represent the other view, are also mistrustful of rational and universal principles. In their view, true rationality is found only in the “invisible hand” of the market — in individuals pursuing their own goals or interests. Libertarians disapprove of grand politics and strategy as versions of social planning. It is from these two sources that some of the strongest criticisms of the Bush administration have originated.
But the most important source of opposition to “neo-natural right” is found in the Democratic party, although it is no simple matter to say exactly what that opposition is. Liberal intellectuals generally oppose foundational principles, at least in the strong sense. No major politician will, of course, deny or renounce them — that would be politically suicidal — but Democratic thinkers cringe when they hear this kind of talk. They deplore it as imprudent and absolutist. If liberals stopped here, their views would be little different from those of traditional conservatives and realists. In fact, some Democrats have taken recently to extolling the merits of realism. But Democrats generally go on to embrace lofty appeals to such things as human rights, human dignity, and the sanctity of the environment. Except in the current context, where some worry that expressing such views might somehow lend support to the Republicans’ position, Democratic thinkers are usually most comfortable when contrasting their devotion to such high ideals with the self-interested concerns of conservatives.
The oddity is the source for their ideals, which are not derived from any stated foundation, but which take on the aspect of right insofar as they are thought to represent an evolving consensus or a narrative of progress. This may explain the importance ascribed by liberals to the opinions of intellectuals from abroad, or to collective votes in the United Nations. For Democrats, a minimal consensus among thinkers from Berlin to Berkeley is the substitute for a foundation. If such a consensus is absent, it is a sure sign that America has gone off course. For Democrats, the 1990s was the golden era of evolving consensus and the model for idealistic anti-foundationalism.
It is now the case — and Democrats acknowledge this point even more than Republicans — that the Republican Party is the “radical” or “revolutionary” party, with a political project grounded on a clear foundation. Indeed, the Republican party is perhaps the last remaining party in a major democratic country with such an underpinning. The Democrats, by contrast, are the “conservative” party, seeking a return to normalcy. In this sense, at least, the November election presents us with a choice, not an echo.
Kerry's New Call to Arms: Battle Plan: Kerry was to spend the fall on the economy. Then came a new team of advisers—and a fresh focus for the homestretch (Richard Wolffe and Susannah Meadows, 9/20/04, Newsweek)
Sitting in his black-leather swivel chair, with his trusty world atlas beside him, John Kerry huddled with his aides in the executive-style cabin at the front of his campaign jet. Kerry was preparing to accuse the president of failing to tell the truth about "the mess in Iraq"—part of an aggressive fall strategy to challenge George W. Bush on the war. But before he spoke to the National Guard convention in Las Vegas, Kerry sought the advice of yet another sounding board on his plane: former four-star general Wes Clark. Kerry knew from Vietnam what it felt like to face the bullets without the support of the folks back home. So how, one of his senior staff wanted to know, would Kerry's attacks go down now with the troops in Iraq? "Look, the soldiers are debating it themselves on the ground," Clark reassured Kerry's inner circle. "They're coming back and they're incredibly critical. You have to call it like it is."
Evangelism on the march: a review of THE RIGHT NATION: WHY AMERICA IS DIFFERENT By John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (Graham Stewart, The Spectator)
The chasm between a militarily powerful America, with its churchgoing population and sense of righteousness, and a secular, nuanced, semi-pacifist Europe appears to be widening. In his masterful monograph, Paradise and Power, Robert Kagan outlined the nature of this division and its implications for foreign policy. Micklethwait and Wooldridge, two British journalists at the Economist, have pulled off a remarkable achievement, a study of how the United States became a conservative nation. In marked contrast to the unhinged rants of Michael Moore and the blatant prejudice of his imitators, The Right Nation is authoritative, entertaining and astonishing in its breadth and objectivity. It can perhaps make claim to an extraordinary boast as the best book on modern America in print.In 1950, the Republicans had no Southern senators and only two out of 105 congressmen. Lionel Trilling wrote that ‘liberalism is not only the dominant, but even the sole, intellectual tradition’ in the United States. Eisenhower’s victory in the presidential election two years later was the first by a Republican since 1928. Yet his policies in office merely outlined the extent to which liberalism had become bipartisan. This could not have been said at the time of the 1984 election landslide when Ronald Reagan won a majority in every region in the country, in every age group and in every occupational category except the unemployed. What had happened in the meantime was that the liberal certainties — Keynesian economics, the belief in federal government as a help rather than a hindrance, social permissiveness — had in so many American eyes been discredited by recession, low expectations, crime and social breakdown. The Republicans had fashioned a unifying vision while the Democrats had become the party of interest groups, many of them particularly objectionable to the white, patriotic, states’ rights believers of the South. ‘You haven’t left the Democratic party,’ Reagan told them, ‘the Democratic party left you.’
This was an astonishing transformation in America’s politics. The conservative crusade of the Republicans’ 1964 presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, had been a disaster. Intent on offering a choice, not an echo, Goldwater was not afraid to divide opinion, even among his supporters. When on the campaign trail an enthusiast concocted a soft drink called ‘Gold Water — the Right Drink for the Conservative Taste’, Gold- water spat it out, complaining, ‘This tastes like piss. I wouldn’t drink it with gin.’ Yet, however much the refreshingly honest candidate tried to sink the floating vote, an intellectual revolution was beginning that brought conservatives and libertarians together. After 1980 it began to roll back American liberalism. So successful was it that it even helped to undermine the senior Bush when he committed apostasy by raising taxes. It ensured that the great achievements of the Clinton years — a balanced budget, a reduced state, Nafta — were Republican ones.
Republicanism has been spread by air-conditioning and evangelism. The former facilitated population growth in terrain that proved conducive to the party’s message — the moralistic South and individualistic West. Democrats have derided such ‘flyover states’ at their peril. That a third of American voters belong to Evangelical churches has huge political significance. They are the Republican party at prayer. Indeed, religious observance is a better guide to voting intentions than bank balances. In 2000, almost 80 per cent of whites who went to church more than once a week voted for Bush (compared to only a third of voters who were non-churchgoers). He only scraped a majority of those Americans who earned over $100,000 a year.
Record 25 million Japanese over 65 (Japan Times, 9/20/04)
The proportion of elderly people continues to grow in Japan, with a record 24.84 million people, or nearly one-fifth of the total population, estimated to be aged 65 or older, according to a government report released Sunday.The estimated number of people over 65 has risen by 550,000 from the previous estimate released in September 2003 to a record 19.5 percent of the overall population, an increase of half a percentage point.
In the "Okuda Vision (Japan 2025)" report released in January 2003, Keidanren used a simulation to present the medium to longer-term prospects for Japan's fiscal and social security systems. We made it clear that the measures which would be needed to maintain the sustainability of national and local government finances -- including social security programs -- would involve cuts in public spending and a hike in consumption tax to the upper half of the 10 to 20 percent range.During the roughly 1 1/2-year period that has since elapsed, a Cabinet decision was made requiring the government to cap government expenditures as a proportion of GDP and to aim for a surplus in the primary fiscal balance by the early 2010s. The Diet also enacted pension reform legislation earlier this year. In light of these developments, Keidanren has updated the simulation used for the report, and found, in short, that this series of reforms is still not sufficient to sustain our fiscal and social security systems and that further spending cuts and tax increases are necessary.
Skilling, Lay Cases Build on Plea Deals (Carrie Johnson, September 17, 2004, Washington Post)
Mark E. Koenig, who headed the company's investor relations unit from 1998 to 2002, served as the most important link between Enron managers and outside analysts who recommended the stock to investors.Koenig pleaded guilty late last month to aiding and abetting securities fraud, telling a judge that by early 2001, he knew Enron's financial reports "intentionally concealed the true state of Enron" and in particular the success of two core businesses: Enron Broadband Services, which sent video and other data on high-speed networks, and Enron Energy Services, set up to provide energy to other large companies.
Koenig described in his plea agreement a series of conferences and telephone calls in which he misled investors to artificially boost Enron's stock price. In one such session, on Jan. 22, 2001, Koenig told analysts that a deal to sell some of the broadband unit's projected future revenue accounted for a "fairly small amount" of its quarterly revenue. In fact, the deal brought the struggling unit 84 percent of its $63 million in revenue that quarter, court papers said.
Koenig also said he and other top managers misled investors about the reason for a reorganization of two of Enron's businesses in early 2001. He told analysts the move was made to "increase efficiency," when in fact the shift allowed the company to hide hundreds of millions of dollars in losses at its retail unit by combining its finances with the vastly more successful wholesale energy division, which made large profits trading electricity, according to court papers.
That wholesale unit later came under fire for allegedly bilking West Coast energy consumers out of millions of dollars by using deceptive trading tactics. Three former Enron traders have pleaded guilty to playing a role in the price manipulation, which investigators say took place throughout the California power crisis in 2000 and 2001.
"The company was losing money virtually everywhere," including its Internet, retail gas and power, and high-tech investment portfolio, said University of San Diego law school professor Frank Partnoy, who has studied the Enron collapse. "The trading operation was the heart that remained healthy throughout but everything else died."
Perhaps the unit where the contrast between expectations and reality was the starkest was the broadband division, which was responsible for a huge spike in the company's stock price throughout most of 2000. Its onetime chief executive, Kenneth D. Rice, pleaded guilty to securities fraud July 30 and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Rice had a close friendship with Skilling, whose allegedly false optimistic statements to analysts and investors about broadband figure largely in Skilling's own indictment.
"The purpose in making these misrepresentations was to falsely portray to the investing public that [the broadband division] had a thriving telecommunications business that had successfully developed revolutionary software which would, in turn, cause Enron's stock price to increase significantly," Rice said in his plea agreement. The government claims the broadband unit never made a profit.
In Debate, Thune Claims Daschle Undermined Troop Morale (Thomas Ferraro, September 19, 2004, Reuters)
Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, fighting for political survival, angrily rejected Republic challenger John Thune's claim Sunday that he had emboldened the enemy in Iraq and undermined U.S. troop morale.Thune also charged Daschle had become an embarrassment to their home state of South Dakota by obstructing President Bush in the Republican-led Senate on matters from energy policy to conservative judicial nominees.
"His effort to demonize me won't work in South Dakota," Daschle fired back during a nationally broadcast debate with Thune, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives who polls show running in a close race with Daschle for the Senate.
"John's attacks on me, where I come from, would earn a trip to the woodshed," Daschle said, accusing Thune of deliberately misrepresenting his record. "He knows that's wrong."
Thune, sitting at Daschle's side on NBC's "Meet the Press," which hosted the showdown, ripped into the Democratic senator.
"The people of South Dakota are tired of being branded as a state where their senator is the guy who obstructs everything that they believe in," Thune said. "I believe that is embarrassing to South Dakota."
Democracy thrives in largest Muslim state: Monday's vote is for the first president directly elected by the people of Indonesia. (Tom McCawley, 9/20/04, CS Monitor)
Some 154 million Indonesians are expected to cast ballots Monday in a second-round poll in the first direct presidential elections in the country's 59-year history. This vote, say analysts, is part of a maturation of the country's democracy, which was born in 1998 after the end of a 32-year dictatorship. The past six years have seen a fitful transition in which the three presidents were chosen by an elite body of legislators.In the world's most populous Muslim nation, Yudhoyono is a practicing Muslim who was educated in a traditional pesantren, or Muslim boarding school.
That, says Ulil Abshar Abdalla, a prominent liberal Islamic scholar, is part of his appeal: a clean image, at a time when corruption is seen as a major problem. "The voters' reasoning was clear. They opted for Susilo for his personal image," Mr. Ulil says.
Still, Yudhoyono says he favors a secular approach to public affairs.
Yudhoyono's rise has been meteoric, so much so that few analysts expected his fledgling Democratic Party to win 10-percent of the seats in the April's parliamentary elections. Yudhoyono finished first with 34 percent of the vote in the first round of the elections in July. But the margin was not wide enough for an outright victory, giving Megawati a second chance to defend her job.
The telegenic Yudhoyono has also proved popular with foreign governments, including the US. As senior security minister, Yudhoyono won applause for swift action in October 2002 after terrorist attacks in Bali carried out by members of the Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group linked to Al Qaeda.
"He has a clear vision that Megawati never had," says Sofjan Djalil, a senior economic adviser to Yudhoyono.
Still, if he wins Monday, Yudhoyono will quickly face the problems that bested his predecessor Megawati. Polls show voters are dissatisfied with an Indonesian economy still shaking off the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Jakarta has also transferred much political power to outer regions in the 17,000-island archipelago, in an ambitious decentralization program. Separatist tensions still flare in two provinces, Aceh and Papua. On Sept. 9, a bomb attack on the Australian Embassy here was a strong reminder that terrorist cells are still active.
Tremor in the backyard (Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross, 9/19/04, SF Chronicle)
Pollsters for state Assemblyman Guy Houston of San Ramon, the Bay Area's lone Republican legislator, report a Bush surge out in the 'burbs.A poll of 300 likely voters on Monday and Tuesday in the Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton area found President Bush leading John Kerry, 48 to 40 percent.
The numbers are a near-reversal of a similar poll taken in August, after the Democratic convention. That one had Kerry outpacing Bush, 48 percent to 42 percent.
The polls, which have an error margin of plus or minus five percentage points, were taken by Public Opinion Strategies of Los Angeles.
What makes the latest results interesting is that -- unlike most Bay Area districts, which are overwhelmingly Democratic -- Houston's 15th Assembly District is 43 percent Republican, 38 percent Democratic, and 19 percent other parties or declined to state.
So, the district is what you might call a "swing" sample.
"And the biggest movement is among independents,'' said Republican consultant Steve Presson.
None of this is coming as much of a surprise to the Democrats. As one consultant quipped after hearing the news, "The Kerry campaign is starting to look more and more like the men's Olympic basketball team."
Agent behind fake uranium documents worked for France (Bruce Johnston, 19/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France.The man, identified by an Italian news agency as Rocco Martino, was the subject of a Telegraph article earlier this month in which he was referred to by his intelligence codename, "Giacomo".
His admission to investigating magistrates in Rome on Friday apparently confirms suggestions that - by commissioning "Giacomo" to procure and circulate documents - France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq.
A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America: A group aiming to create Islamic states worldwide has established roots here, in large part under the guidance of Egypt-born Ahmed Elkadi (Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe and Laurie Cohen, September 19, 2004, Chicago Tribune)
Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day.But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well.
These men are part of an underground U.S. chapter of the international Muslim Brotherhood, the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group and an organization with a violent past in the Middle East. But fearing persecution, they rarely identify themselves as Brotherhood members and have operated largely behind the scenes, unbeknown even to many Muslims.
Still, the U.S. Brotherhood has had a significant and ongoing impact on Islam in America, helping establish mosques, Islamic schools, summer youth camps and prominent Muslim organizations. It is a major factor, Islamic scholars say, in why many Muslim institutions in the nation have become more conservative in recent decades.
Leading the U.S. Brotherhood during much of this period was Ahmed Elkadi, an Egyptian-born surgeon and a former personal physician to Saudi Arabia's King Faisal. He headed the group from 1984 to 1994 but abruptly lost his leadership position. Now he is discussing his life and the U.S. Brotherhood for the first time.
His story, combined with details from documents and interviews, offers an unprecedented look at the Brotherhood in America: how the group recruited members, how it cloaked itself in secrecy and how it alienated many moderate Muslims. [...]
Brotherhood members emphasize that they follow the laws of the nations in which they operate. They stress that they do not believe in overthrowing the U.S. government, but rather that they want as many people as possible to convert to Islam so that one day--perhaps generations from now--a majority of Americans will support a society governed by Islamic law. Muslims make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population, but estimates of their number vary widely from 2 million to 7 million.
Federal authorities say they have scrutinized the U.S. Brotherhood for years. Agents currently are investigating whether people with ties to the group have raised and laundered money to finance terrorism abroad. No terrorism-related charges have been filed. [...]
Elkadi had a strategy to make America more Islamic that reflected a long-standing Brotherhood belief: First you change the person, then the family, then the community, then the nation.
By 1990, U.S. Brotherhood members had made headway on that plan by helping establish many mosques and Islamic organizations. Some of those efforts were backed financially by the ultraconservative Saudi Arabian government, which shared some of the Brotherhood's fundamentalist goals.
Elkadi himself helped create several noted Islamic organizations, including the Muslim Youth of North America, which attempted to draw thousands of high school students to Islam by sponsoring soccer teams, providing scholarships and offering a line of clothing. He served as president of the North American Islamic Trust, a group that helped build and preserve mosques.
Some of those organizations eventually would distance themselves from the Brotherhood. The Islamic Society of North America, the umbrella group for the Muslim Youth of North America and the Muslim Students Association, says Brotherhood members helped form those groups but that their overall influence has been limited.
Groups that the Brotherhood helped form printed Islamic books, many of which were distributed at mosques and on college campuses. They included Sayyid Qutb's "In the Shade of the Koran" and "Milestones," which urge jihad, martyrdom and the creation of Islamic states. Scholars came to view his writings as manifestos for Islamic militants.
"These books had questionable paradigms, especially a dichotomous division between `us' and `them,'" says Umar Faruq Abdallah, a noted Islamic scholar who heads a Muslim educational group in suburban Chicago. "It was very harmful. It helped to create a countercultural attitude in our community."
Inamul Haq, professor of religion at Benedictine University in Lisle, Ill., says the U.S. Brotherhood pushed Islam in a conservative direction. "They were in a position to define American Islam. Since they were well-connected in the Middle East, they were able to bring money to build various institutions."
Without the Brotherhood, he says, "We would have seen a more American Islamic culture rather than a foreign community living in the United States."
Kerry courting both sides on gun-control issue (Julie Hirschfeld Davis, September 19, 2004, Baltimore Sun)
Divergent Views of Iraq Defining Election: Despite the Pitfalls for Bush and Kerry, Candidates Stay on Topic (Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei, September 19, 2004, Washington Post)
With some Kerry advisers convinced he cannot win a debate over whether the United States should have gone to war, given Bush's relentless attacks on Kerry for shifting his positions on the war, the Massachusetts senator has settled on a two-phase plan to refocus the debate. Aides say he will first challenge the president's optimistic assessment of conditions in Iraq and then draw a sharp contrast with Bush over getting the United States out of the country within four years.The president's advisers say Bush maintains the public's confidence on Iraq and the war on terrorism, in large part because they say Kerry has yet to provide a clear explanation of why he voted to authorize the war in the fall of 2002 but later opposed $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. Kerry has been urged by some advisers to say his initial vote was wrong, given what Bush did with that authority, but he has resisted.
MORE:
Kerry Links Iraq War Cost, Domestic Woes (LIZ SIDOTI, September 19, 2004, The Associated Press)
Democrat John Kerry links the cost of the Iraq war to problems at home and vows in a new television ad to both "defend America and fight for the middle class.""200 billion dollars. That's what we are spending in Iraq because George Bush chose to go it alone," Kerry says in the ad, to start airing Monday in 13 competitive states where he is on the air.
Democrats Reassess Prospects to Win House : As Kerry's Momentum Lags, Hopes of Regaining Majority of Seats Dim, Analysts Say (Charles Babington, September 19, 2004, Washington Post)
Many GOP leaders say that their House majority is safe, and that it might even expand on Nov. 2. They point to statistics suggesting that the Democratic goal is extremely difficult. Republicans control 229 House seats, while Democrats have 206 (including a friendly independent). With Democrats failing to contest a reconfigured Texas district they now hold, they will have to pick up 13 seats in November to gain a bare majority. (Two Democratic gains in special elections this year -- in Kentucky and South Dakota -- were offset when lawmakers elected as Democrats in Texas and Louisiana switched to the GOP.)Analysts say there are fewer than 35 competitive House races this fall, with each party defending 15 to 17 at-risk seats. For Democrats to regain the majority they lost a decade ago, "they would have to win everything in the open seats and hold all their own," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the GOP's House campaign committee. They do not need a breeze, he said, "they need a monsoon."
The Democrats' task is more daunting than Reynolds suggested. They could win all eight of the competitive open seats (Republicans now hold five of those), and reelect each of their endangered incumbents, and still fall well short of the majority. To control the House, Democrats must do all of that, plus topple several GOP incumbents.
Political insiders and local reporters do not see that happening -- for now, at least -- in part because there is no national mood remotely resembling the anti-Democratic fervor of the 1994 elections or the deeply anti-Republican sentiments that sprang from the Watergate scandal in 1974.
A prime target is first-term Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.), who won a three-way race in 2002 with less than 50 percent of the vote. Democrats crowed this year when they recruited Paul Babbitt, brother of former interior secretary Bruce Babbitt. But a new poll by the Social Research Laboratory of Northern Arizona University shows Renzi still leading Babbitt by 11 percentage points, virtually identical to an April poll's findings.
Louisiana Approves Ban on Gay Marriage (Reuters, 9/19/04)
Louisiana voters on Saturday overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the state constitution banning gay marriages and civil unions.With most of the state's 4,124 voting precincts reporting, the amendment was passing by a margin of 80 percent to 20 percent.
Supporters hailed the vote as a victory for traditional marriage.
``This was an incredible mandate,'' Republican state Rep. Steve Scalise, co-author of the amendment, told Reuters. ``It shows that the people of Louisiana feel very passionately that marriage should be between a man and a woman.''
Amendment opponents vowed to fight the legislation in court.
Do we have a right to our property -- or not? (George Will, September 19, 2004, Townhall)
Soon -- perhaps on the first Monday in October -- the court will announce whether it will hear an appeal against a 4-3 ruling last March by Connecticut's Supreme Court. That ruling effectively repeals a crucial portion of the Bill of Rights. If you think the term "despotism'' exaggerates what this repeal permits, consider the life-shattering power wielded by the government of New London, Conn.That city, like many cities, needs more revenues. To enhance the Pfizer pharmaceutical company's $270 million research facility, it empowered a private entity, the New London Development Corporation, to exercise the power of eminent domain to condemn most of the Fort Trumbull neighborhood along the Thames River. The aim is to make space for upscale condominiums, a luxury hotel and private offices that would yield the city more tax revenues than can be extracted from the neighborhood's middle-class homeowners.
The question is: Does the Constitution empower governments to seize a person's most precious property -- a home, a business -- and give it to more wealthy interests so that the government can reap, in taxes, ancillary benefits of that wealth? Connecticut's court says yes, which turns the Fifth Amendment from a protection of the individual against overbearing government into a license for government to coerce individuals on behalf of society's strongest interests. Henceforth, what home or business will be safe from grasping governments pursuing their own convenience?
But the Fifth Amendment says, inter alia: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation'' (emphasis added). Every state constitution also stipulates takings only for "public use.'' The framers of the Bill of Rights used language carefully; clearly they intended the adjective ``public'' to restrict government takings to uses that are directly owned or primarily used by the general public, such as roads, bridges or public buildings.
Democracy & Religion in America: Tocqueville’s surprising linkage. (Michael Novak, 10/02/02, National Review)
Tocqueville began with a shocker: That the first political institution of American democracy is religion. His thesis went something like this: The premises of secular materialism do not sustain democracy, but undermine it, while the premises of Judaism and Christianity include and by inductive experience lead to democracy, uplift it, carry it over its inherent weaknesses, and sustain it.By its own inherent tendencies, democracy tends to lower tastes and passions, to devolve into materialistic preoccupations, and to undercut its own principles by a morally indifferent relativism. Further, democracy left to itself tends to surrender liberty to the passion for security and equality, and thus to end in a new soft despotism, tied down with a thousand silken threads by a benign authority.
Before the revolution of morals brought on by Judaism and Christianity, pagan philosophy held that most men are by nature slaves, and that "the strong do what they can, and the weak do what they must."
It was Christianity (drawing on Judaism) that established three necessary premises for modern democracy: the inherent dignity of each person, rooted in the freedom that makes each person an Imago Dei; the principle of the universal equality of all humans in the sight of God, whatever their natural inequalities; and the centrality of human liberty to the purposes and principles for which God created the cosmos.
In short, Christianity made the liberty of every individual before God the bright red thread of history, and its interpretive key. Underlying the chances of democracy, then, is its faith in the immortality of the human soul, which is the foundation of the concept of human rights and universal dignity. Lose this faith, and humans become harder and harder to distinguish from the other animals, and human rights become ever more difficult to define, defend, and uphold. [...]
In addition to these three founding premises, Tocqueville counts at least five other advantages that Judaism and Christianity bring to democracy.
First, Judaism and Christianity correct and strengthen morals and manners. While the laws of a free society allow a person to do almost anything, there are many things which religion prevents him from imagining or doing.
Second, fixed ideas about God and human nature are indispensable in the conduct of daily life, but daily life prevents most men from having time to work out these fixed ideas, and Christianity and Judaism present the findings of reason, tested in generations of experience, in forms that are clear, precise, intelligible to the crowd, and very durable. Moral clarity is a great gain in times of crisis.
Third, whereas democracy induces a taste for physical pleasures and tends to lower tastes, and thus weakens most people in their commitment to the high and difficult principles on which democratic life depends, religion of the Jewish and Christian type constantly point to that danger and demand that humans draw back, and attend to the fundamental things. Belief in immortality prods men to aspire upwards, and to aim for further moral progress along the line of their own dignity and self-government.
Fourth, faith adds to a morality of mere reason, whether of duty or utilitarian advantage, an acute sense of acting in the presence of a personal and undeceivable Judge, Who sees and knows even acts performed in secret. Thus faith adds to reason motives for doing things perfectly even when no one is looking; it gives reasons for painting the bottom of a chair, and in general for doing things as perfectly as possible. In this way, faith gives morals a personal dimension. A sin is not merely a failure to do one's duty, but in addition to that an injury to a person, who has extended the hand of friendship.
Fifth, in a democracy such as the United States, Tocqueville observes, religion does not direct the writing of laws or the formation of public opinion in detail, it does direct mores and shape the life of the home. It does this especially through women's influence upon family life and the stable morals and good order of the home. Politically incorrect as his views may appear in a feminist and relativist age, Tocqueville lays great stress on the tumultuous passions that disrupt home life in Europe, and thus render populations unfit for self-government in democracies and more prone to authoritarian forms, in comparison with the high honor paid the marriage bond and the greater severity of domestic mores observable in America. This quiet regulation of home life is another contribution of Jewish and Christian beliefs to the sustainability of American democracy.
The difficulty is that modern democracy's need for a religious basis is no guarantee that one is readily available. As disturbing as it might be for modern believers to admit, the critics of religion have a legitimate point: Christian faith is derived from a revealed book, the Bible, and from church traditions that are not necessarily liberal or democratic in their teachings. The Christian notion of human dignity, for example, is derived from the biblical idea that human beings are made in the image and likeness of God. But it is not clear if the Bible's idea of the divine image in man--the Imago Dei--entails political notions like democracy and human rights, in fact, many great theologians of the past understood it to be compatible with kingship, hierarchy, or authoritarian institutions. The Christian view of human dignity is also qualified by a severe view of human sinfulness and by other difficult doctrines--such as, divine election, the hierarchical authority of the church, and the priority of duties to God and neighbor over individual rights. These doctrines are not always easy to square with democratic norms of freedom and equality, nor are they easily discarded without removing the core of Christian faith.Thus, we must face the disturbing dilemma that modern liberal democracy needs God, but God is not as liberal or as democratic as we would like Him to be.
George Bush: a man of the people?: With six weeks until the US election, Ros Davidson finds frustration among Democrats as Kerry fails to seize the initiative (Ros Davidson, 9/19/04, Sunday Herald)
When John Kerry started to gallop to victory during the primaries, national reporters tracked down contemporaries from his prep school in New England. Who were his best friends at St Paul’s School for boys?The response was notable: nobody could quite recall. The candidate was better remembered as “Keep-the-puck Kerry”, because he would seldom pass to ice hockey team-mates before scoring.
Other times he would crash a kids’ informal game, steal the puck and shoot it into the woods. In later years, some of Kerry’s political colleagues from Massachusetts would dub him “Live Shot” not because of his war record, but because he often hogged the limelight.
Kerry was perhaps equally telling shortly after he finally announced his running mate several months ago: the charismatic and younger John Edwards. A few days later the two men were interviewed on the television news magazine, 60 Minutes. Whenever Edwards started to respond to a question, Kerry would interrupt and answer instead.
The tales are all part of a continuing theme, as are sniggers about President Bush’s mangled syntax. Is John Kerry too solitary and awkward to win in America’s populist down-home presidential politics?
The problem with Holyrood: ‘Basically, in Scotland we have a parliament that is too weak, and a press that is too strong’ (Sir Sean Connery, 9/19/04, Sunday Herald)
Seven years ago, in the final hours of the referendum campaign for our Scottish parliament, I stood shoulder to shoulder with Alex Salmond and Donald Dewar on top of Edinburgh’s Old Royal High School.Helping to win a Scots parliament is one of my proudest moments. As a living nation, Scotland needs a living parliament to manage the country’s affairs. That was true then and it’s even more true now. Of course, I believe that Scotland needs to be fully independent, so I’m pleased to see the new debate that’s raging about the case for more financial clout for Holyrood.
But in 1997 the nation came together – nationalists, devolutionists, even some renegade Tories – and agreed at least to take the first step.
It was a special time for Scotland. After all the years of disappointment, doubt and division, we finally got our act together and voted in a new era of democracy for Scotland.
Scotland registered on the international stage. Everywhere I went, people came up to congratulate me on the result. Some folk thought that we had voted for independence, including a few in Scotland!
By a quirk of fate, our referendum took place on September 11, 1997, and we should never forget the important lesson in world terms of a nation achieving significant political change in a totally peaceful and constitutional fashion.
So what went wrong? Well, in one sense, nothing. The Scottish parliament is now established as the nation’s premier political institution, and is getting on with the day-to-day business of governing. [...]
The bottom line is that polls show only a tiny percentage of Scots want to step back to the old ways and abolish the parliament, or transfer any control back to Westminster. Over two-thirds want more powers to shift from London to Scotland.
And that’s because people want democratic accountability for what goes on in Scotland to be in Scotland.
State GOP Likes Its Chances: Gaining traction from a popular governor, the party is pouring money into campaigns to wrest seats from Democrats in the Legislature. (Nancy Vogel, September 19, 2004, LA Times)
Powered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity, Republicans are launching their most aggressive assault in a decade on majority Democrats in the Legislature.After losing seats between 1994 and 2002, Republicans hope to replace at least three Democrats when voters go to the polls Nov. 2.
At stake is the balance of power and philosophy in the Legislature. Though no one believes the GOP can actually capture control of either the Assembly or Senate, even a few more Republican votes could help propel Schwarzenegger's legislative agenda.
Democrats have more cash to throw into campaigns this fall — $11 million versus $5 million — but Republicans outspent them by $1.3 million between February and June, mostly on voter registration and turnout. Spending since then probably has gained steam, but those figures are yet to be reported.
"We're raising [money] and burning through it," said California Republican Party spokeswoman Karen Hanretty, "but all with a very specific purpose in mind."
Democrats now enjoy majorities in both houses — 48 to 32 in the Assembly and 25 to 14 in the Senate. The last decade has been a particular struggle for Republicans: They steadily lost seats after 1994 until they gained three in tight 2002 races.
Today's NY Times Op-Ed page has a bunch of essays telling John Kerry how to save his campaign, including the hilariously titled: Pick a Message, Any Message.
US 'endangers Australians' (Roy Eccleston, September 18, 2004, The Australian)
JOHN Kerry's campaign has warned Australians that the Howard Government's support for the US in Iraq has made them a bigger target for international terrorists.Diana Kerry, younger sister of the Democrat presidential candidate, told The Weekend Australian that the Bali bombing and the recent attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta clearly showed the danger to Australians had increased.
"Australia has kept faith with the US and we are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels," she said, referring to the invasion of Iraq.
Asked if she believed the terrorist threat to Australians was now greater because of the support for Republican George W. Bush, Ms Kerry said: "The most recent attack was on the Australian embassy in Jakarta -- I would have to say that."
India's New PM to Meet with Bush, Musharraf at UN (Ravi Khanna, 19 Sep 2004, VOA News)
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets this week in New York with President Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.Indian officials say that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's meetings with President Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf are significant.
They say his talks with President Bush will focus on high technology transfers to India. Just two days before their meeting Tuesday, Washington lifted restrictions on nuclear technology exports to India.
Indian strategic affairs analyst Professor Raja Mohan welcomes the move.
"It is a major achievement, both in terms of breaching the technology blockade, as well as the consolidation of the relationship with the United States," he said.
Swallowing the Elephant: What the big-tent rhetoric ignores is that a more "black
friendly" G.O.P. might pay a price in white support. (HENRY LOUIS GATES Jr., 9/19/04, NY Times)
Some black Republicans will tell you that however important the legal reforms of the civil-rights era had been 40 years ago, blacks today will be well served by the party of school reform and faith-based programs, the party of the so-called ownership society. "These are going to be the pillars of the black community," Condoleezza Rice told me. "In my little community in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 50's and 60's, there were black-owned businesses everywhere, and everybody owned their own homes. That made our community strong. We've got to get back to that."Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist, says the Republicans' low levels of black support are unhealthy for the party - once the party of Lincoln, after all - and for the African-American community. Part of what's gone wrong, he told me, is that Republicans don't advertise in black media markets. "If the conversation in the community is predominantly Democrat, and we don't make the argument on urban radio and we don't pay attention to the African-American newspapers, and if we don't campaign in the community, then why are we surprised when people don't hear our arguments and don't vote for our candidates?"
What's more, many blacks are evangelical Protestants, and tend to be more conservative than their white counterparts on "social" issues like gay rights and capital punishment. "The Democratic Party is not 90 percent more black friendly than we are," Rove exclaims.
Why, then, are blacks such down-the-line Democrats? My Harvard colleague Michael Dawson, a descendant of a black Democratic congressman from Chicago, agrees with Rove that black people are socially conservative. But the issues they vote on are racial and, especially, economic.
China Pulls Up the Drawbridge: Over the summer, a number of high-profile building projects by foreign firms were halted, scaled back or savaged in the press. (CHRISTOPHER HAWTHORNE, 9/19/04, NY Times)
Reports in The People's Daily and elsewhere said the government was weighing a plan to scrap as many as half the new venues for the Summer Games. And on Sept. 10, the National Museum of China announced it was giving the job of expanding its building, on the east side of Tiananmen Square, to a collaborating group of architects from the China Academy of Building Research and the German firm von Gerkan, Marg & Partners. The winning team beat out two other finalists — Foster& Partners and the United States firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox — that had proposed more aggressively contemporary schemes. Architects and critics in China, who had been watching the competition closely, took the results as fresh confirmation that the government was moving further away from the architectural forefront."There is now a real debate going on about these big projects — whether it's appropriate to be spending so much money on them, and hiring foreign architects instead of Chinese," said Yan Huang, who led the planning and construction side of Beijing's Olympic bid. After finishing a year as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Ms. Huang returned to Beijing this summer and joined an emerging effort to rein in the Olympic budget. She said no official news about the fate of the Olympic venues was possible until after the visit of an International Olympic Committee panel late next month.
The question now is how many of the other high-profile plans for Beijing and other Chinese cities will be altered or canceled. What of Zaha Hadid's dramatic mid-rise Beijing towers, or a similar-scale project by the Australian firm Lab Architecture Studio — in both cases commissioned by Soho China, an architecturally ambitious real-estate company? Or, for that matter, what of Ms. Hadid's sleek opera house for the southern city of Guangzhou? What of Steven Holl's collection of linked residential towers slated for the capital, or the Foster & Partners airport scheme? What will Shanghai build as it gets ready to be host of the World Exposition in 2010?
"I think the really daring designs, especially public ones, will be more difficult to get built now," said Leon Yang, general manager of the Urban Planning Design and Research Company. Nonetheless, he said the nationwide interest generated by the prominent Beijing projects was not likely to disappear. "For a lot of medium-size cities, the first thing they do when they have the resources is to hold an international competition for a new building and invite foreign architects."
Mr. Scheeren said that his and Mr. Koolhaas's firm, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, had signed a contract in the last few days for an extension to a huge bookstore in central Beijing and received news that the CCTV tower was at long last moving forward, with groundbreaking possible this month. "So, surprisingly enough," he said, "it's been a good week for us." At the same time, he added, "Beijing is in the midst of an intense period of re-examining the largest projects that will certainly have a long-term effect on the architectural climate here."
Complicating the reassessment are lingering national anxieties about how great a role foreign cultures should play in a new China.
For Hussein, a Spartan Life at His Former Palace: Saddam Hussein lives in an air-conditioned 10-by-13 foot cell, tending plants and proclaiming himself Iraq's lawful ruler. (JOHN F. BURNS, 9/19/04, NY Times)
Well, Kofi Anan agrees with him.
U.S. Plans Year-End Drive to Take Iraqi Rebel Areas: U.S. commanders say they are preparing to open up rebel-held areas, especially Falluja, which is under control of insurgents. (DEXTER FILKINS, 9/19/04, NY Times)
[T]he Americans and the Iraqi interim government appear to be giving negotiations to disarm the rebels a final chance. Members of the Mujahedeen Shura, the eight-member council in control of Falluja, said they were planning to come to Baghdad on Sunday to meet with Iraqi officials to talk about disarming the rebels and opening the city to Iraqi government control."Although the Americans have lied many times, we are ready to start negotiations with the Iraqi government," said Hajji Qasim Muhammad Abdul Sattar, a member of the shura.
Dr. Ahmed Hardan, a Falluja doctor who will take part in the negotiations, said that at least some members on the council might be willing to strike a deal with the Americans.
Under the proposal to be discussed, Dr. Hardan said, the guerrillas would turn over their heavy weapons and allow a military force gathered from around Al Anbar Province to enter the city. That unit would replace the Falluja Brigade, the local militia set up after the fighting in April and which was composed almost entirely of insurgents and former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. It was routed by the insurgents, and the Iraqi government disbanded it this month.
The Iraqi government will also demand that the insurgents turn over their heavy weapons and that foreign fighters leave the city.
Similar negotiations, also at the threat of force, appear to have borne some fruit in the city of Samarra. American military forces entered the town last week for the first time in months and are hoping they can ultimately restore Iraqi government control there before the elections.
The Prediction Machine that Could (James Dunnigan, September 17, 2004, StrategyPage)
In early 2003, the Department of Defense proposed establishing a Futures Markets Applied to Prediction (FutureMAP) program. FutureMap was intended to provide some accurate predictions of events in the war on terror. This was to be done by allowing many people in the government to place "bets" on which way a future event would turn out..FutureMAP is pretty much identical to our Prediction Market. In fact, we decided to create our Prediction Market after media and political opposition caused the cancellation of the FutureMAP program. It was cancelled mainly because some members of Congress, and the media, considered it trivial and doomed to failure. Well, that was certainly a self-fulfilling prophesy. Unfortunately, most people in the Information War and financial markets business agreed that FutureMap would probably work.
So late last year we put together our Prediction Market. It’s been in beta test for nine months. And it works. So far, over 150 events have been submitted. 45 of them have reached a conclusion, and 42 of them were accurate. That’s 93 percent accuracy. Actually, it’s a little lower than that. If you take into account accuracy over every day successful item was in play, the accuracy rate is 89 percent for the ones that were correct in the end, and 84 percent overall (including the items that were not correct in the end). Sure beats flipping a coin. We still have over a hundred predictions waiting for either an event to occur, or a time limit to be reached. Some of them are quite interesting. Anyone can propose a prediction (after registering with a valid email address, which helps keep out the trolls and bombers). A StrategyPage staffer checks each proposal for spelling, grammar and logic, and then lets it go live.
The Prediction Market has accurately predicted the outcome of terrorism, military and political events all over the planet.
Office politics (Thomas Oliphant, September 19, 2004, Boston Globe)
JOHN KERRY gave a more than decent account of himself in Michigan last week in an important oration about the economy. But several new members of his campaign staff thought it more important to step all over his message and promote themselves as the new bosses of the effort.Later in the week, Kerry was even more forceful and effective in Nevada as he discussed the murderous mess in Iraq. But again, his campaign's Narcissism Caucus got between Kerry and the public by spinning the political press into glowing accounts of their campaign coup.
All this madness began unfolding while the Bush campaign was revving up its attack machine in New York. Two of the original promoters of firings at the top included onetime Clinton advisers James Carville and Paul Begala, the latter having almost but not quite come aboard last spring. The effort reached its public peak when CNN anchor Judy Woodruff, without disclosing the basis for her question, confronted senior Kerry adviser Jeanne Shaheen with "reports" of a huge shakeup and asked her if the campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill and top consultant Bob Shrum were about to be fired.
Though she was ambushed that day at the end of August, Shaheen's quick-thinking answer -- there is no change -- has stood up ever since. According to Kerry, the boss of his campaign is Cahill, and she and Shrum (along with the partners in his firm, Tad Devine and Mike Donilan) supply its strategic direction.
That's not the story that surfaced this week from recent arrivals who claimed they had taken over Kerry's daily communication and organization and through them the campaign.
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-Kerry in chaos as 'Curse of Shrum' strikes (ALEX MASSIE, 9/19/04, Scotland on Sunday)
DEMOCRAT challenger John Kerry’s election campaign is in turmoil. The presidential hopeful is in trouble and is running out of time, while President George W Bush presses ahead in the polls.In a desperate attempt to claw back the slide, Kerry decided to revamp his team by bringing in veteran Clinton operatives such as Joe Lockhart, John Sasso, Michael Whouley and Mike McCurry to oversee key parts of the campaign.
But the move has caused more division and chaos in the campaign and the arrival of the Clinton team means Kerry’s original campaign strategist, Bob Shrum, has seen his influence diminished.
In Democrat circles they are beginning to talk about "the Curse of Shrum".
Sri Lanka handball team goes missing in Berlin (The Straits Times, September 19th, 2004)
In an unusual case that has baffled the German authorities, an entire team of handball players from Sri Lanka has disappeared after turning up in the city for the game.German Sports Exchange Programme organiser Dietmer Doering told BBC News Online: 'We initially thought the team had got lost in nearby woods while jogging.'
But he said a note had been found saying the 23-strong team had gone to France.
We now know they crossed into Italy,' Mr Doering said.
But he said he felt extremely let down by the incident.
Talking to BBC's Sinhala service, he said this would be the last time they would invite teams from Sri Lanka.
'The entire team of 23 men, including the coach and the manager, has taken off,' he said.
What's worse, he added, the team had left dirty laundry behind.
Remember the good old days when stories like this made us think of calling Inspector Clousseau rather than the security services?
Dhimmi nation (Daniel Pipes, Jerusalem Post, September 19th, 2004)
The French response could not have been more different. Threats to murder the two reporters met with a massive governmental effort to save their lives, not by targeting French Muslims but by cultivating them. Paris strenuously pushed local Islamists to condemn the kidnappings, hoping that their voice would convince the terrorists to release the two men.In the process, Islamic organizations effectively took charge of the country's foreign policy, issuing statements and acting as though they represented the national population.
Bertrand Badie of l'Institut d' tudes politiques in Paris complains that French Muslims became "a sort of substitute for the French foreign ministry."
Likewise, on the international level, Paris called in chits for having stood with the Arabs against Israel and with Saddam Hussein against the US-led coalition. French diplomats openly sought the support of terrorist groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.These efforts culminated 30 years of French appeasement and, in the scathing analysis of Norbert Lipszyc, "constituted a major victory for Islamists and terrorists."
Lipszyc sees France acting like a dhimmi (a Christian or Jew who accepts Muslim sovereignty and in return is tolerated and protected).
"France has publicly confirmed its dhimmi status, its readiness to submit to Islamist overlords. In return, these have declared that France, dhimmi that it is, deserves protection from terrorist acts."
Is this not also the policy favoured by a large majority of the academic, intellectual and artistic elites throughout the West?
Chirac to push for international tax to fight poverty (AFP, September 19th, 2004)
French President Jacques Chirac will put forward ideas for an international tax scheme that would help build a 50-billion-dollar war chest to fight poverty during a 55-nation conference on economic development opening Monday in New York.Chirac will launch his initiative fortified by the conclusions of a French working group, but the idea is fiercely opposed by the United States.
The 150-page study drafted by the working group of experts is aimed at advancing efforts to reduce the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half between now and 2015, consistent with goals the United Nations adopted in 2000.
Their document suggests that a tax could be imposed on greenhouse gas emissions as well as certain financial transactions, arms sales or multinational corporations.
Other proposed approaches raise the possibility of taxes levied on ships transiting key maritime straits, airline tickets, credit card purchases as well as an international lottery.
You have to give the French one thing. They are masters at promoting inanities like this without being the slightest bit serious and then sitting back to watch the Anglosphere splutter defensively.
Ex-Guardsman: I Contacted Kerry Campaign (KELLEY SHANNON, 9/18/04, Associated Press)
A retired Texas National Guard official mentioned as a possible source for disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Guard said he passed along information to a former senator working with John Kerry's campaign. [...]The retired Guard official, Bill Burkett, said in an Aug. 21 e-mail to a list of Texas Democrats that after getting through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids" in the Democrat's campaign, he talked with former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland about information that would counter criticism of Kerry's Vietnam War service. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail Saturday.
"I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. (Cleland) said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with," Burkett wrote.
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-CBS News:A Source of Contention (Mark Hosenball, Michael Isikoff and Anne Belli Gesalman, 9/27/04, Newsweek)
CBS insiders are increasingly worried that the credibility of the network's news division has been grievously damaged by anchor Dan Rather's persistent defense of a story which relied on questionable documents about George W. Bush's National Guard service. "This has clearly hurt us," one veteran correspondent told NEWSWEEK. Network sources describe finger-pointing within the news division, with concerns greatest among "60 Minutes" producers, who fear the issue has tainted their entire program. While CBS News president Andrew Heyward has publicly backed Rather, the network has quietly assembled a team of additional producers to work the case. Rather is privately telling colleagues he remains "confident" that the story, and the memos, will be vindicated.One problem is that the network has not explained where the purported Texas National Guard records have been for the last 30 years and why they happened to surface in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign. Emily Will, a documents expert approached by CBS to examine the memos, told NEWSWEEK that she was told by a CBS News producer that the network's source had received the memos anonymously through the mail. Intense scrutiny has centered on the role of William Burkett, a former National Guard official who charged last February that he saw Bush Guard documents in a trash can in 1997—an allegation that Guard officials strongly denied. A source who worked with CBS on the story said Burkett was identified by a producer as a conduit for the documents. Three days before the broadcast, Burkett e-mailed a friend that there was "a real heavy situation regarding Bush's records" about to break. "He was having a lot of fun with this," said the friend, Dennis Adams. Burkett told a visitor that after the story ran, Rather phoned him and expressed his and the network's "full support."
In the early-morning hours of Sept. 8, Dan Rather was preparing to fly to Washington for a crucial interview in the Old Executive Office Building, but torrential rain kept him in New York.White House communications director Dan Bartlett had agreed to talk to "60 Minutes," but only on condition that the CBS program provide copies of what were being billed as newly unearthed memos indicating that President Bush had received preferential treatment in the National Guard. The papers were hand-delivered at 7:45 a.m. CBS correspondent John Roberts, filling in for Rather, sat down with Bartlett at 11:15.
Half an hour later, Roberts called "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes with word that Bartlett was not challenging the authenticity of the documents. Mapes told her bosses, who were so relieved that they cut from Rather's story an interview with a handwriting expert who had examined the memos.
At that point, said "60 Minutes" executive Josh Howard, "we completely abandoned the process of authenticating the documents. Obviously, looking back on it, that was a mistake. We stopped questioning ourselves. I suppose you could say we let our guard down."
Rivers Run Black, and Chinese Die of Cancer (JIM YARDLEY, 9/12/04, NY Times)
Cancer had been rare when the stream was clear, but last year cancer accounted for 13 of the 17 deaths in the village."All the water we drink around here is polluted," Mr. Wang said. "You can taste it. It's acrid and bitter. Now the victims are starting to come out, people dying of cancer and tumors and unusual causes."
The stream in Huangmengying is one tiny canal in the Huai River basin, a vast system that has become a grossly polluted waste outlet for thousands of factories in central China. There are 150 million people in the Huai basin, many of them poor farmers now threatened by water too toxic to touch, much less drink.
Pollution is pervasive in China, as anyone who has visited the smog-choked cities can attest. On the World Bank's list of 20 cities with the worst air, 16 are Chinese. But leaders are now starting to clean up major cities, partly because urbanites with rising incomes are demanding better air and water. In Beijing and Shanghai, officials are forcing out the dirtiest polluters to prepare for the 2008 Olympics.
By contrast, the countryside, home to two-thirds of China's population, is increasingly becoming a dumping ground. Local officials, desperate to generate jobs and tax revenues, protect factories that have polluted for years. Refineries and smelters forced out of cities have moved to rural areas. So have some foreign companies, to escape regulation at home.
The losers are hundreds of millions of peasants already at the bottom of a society now sharply divided between rich and poor. They are farmers and fishermen who depend on land and water for their basic existence.
Plain Dealer poll: Bush leads Kerry in Ohio 50-42 (Associated Press, 9/18/04)
President Bush leads Sen. John Kerry by 50 percent to 42 percent in Ohio, a state considered crucial by both campaigns, a new poll indicates. Two percent of those surveyed supported Ralph Nader.The poll commissioned by The Plain Dealer for its Sunday edition was conducted from Sept. 10 to Tuesday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research of Washington, D.C. It was based on interviews with 1,500 registered voters who plan to vote Nov. 2. The margin of error was 2.5 percentage points.
A May poll by the newspaper showed Bush leading 47 percent to 41 percent. Six percent in the most recent poll said they were undecided, down from 9 percent in May.
A CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll taken Sept. 4 to 7 showed 52 percent of people surveyed in Ohio said they would support Bush and 44 percent backed Kerry. Two percent of the 661 likely voters questioned by telephone said they would vote for Nader, and 4 percent were undecided.
Bush beat Al Gore in Ohio by 3.6 percentage points in 2000.
Our Asterisked Heroes (Douglas Kern, Summer 2004, The New Atlantis)
Attenuated heroism—in baseball and elsewhere—is our future. Performance-enhancing drugs already allow today’s athletes to surpass the records of yesteryear, and the pharmacological and genetic enhancements of the future may one day make today’s champions look average. But as our greatest athletes grow ever more capable, we may eventually look backwards for our examples of heroism. In the champions of old, we will find achievements born of something greater than science and personal choice; we will find a drama of heroism and tragedy that progress itself may now be flattening out of existence. [...]Definitions of heroism are elusive; examples of heroism are plentiful. The heroes of myth—Perseus, Odysseus, King Arthur, and Hercules, to name just a few—were not always perfect exemplars of goodness, but all of them accomplished great deeds with noble purpose. Few would question the selfless heroism of soldiers who stand their ground in battle or firefighters who rush into burning buildings while everyone else is rushing out. But can we really speak of a baseball record as heroic? A sports accomplishment saves no lives, imparts no wisdom, and lends no timeless beauty to the world. It derives its sole merit from the drama that it embodies. Athletic competition commands our attention and excites our passions, and for that reason alone we should take it seriously.
Every spectator sport reflects back to the world symbols and portents of the drama inherent in all life. The drama inherent in baseball uniquely captures the drama of ordinary life in America. It is a drama of daily labor and ordinary toils, mundane in themselves but vital in their accumulation. It is a drama rooted in the certainty of failure: the best batter will fail to get on base more often than he will succeed, and the best pitcher will give up three runs for every nine innings pitched. It is a drama of repetition and domesticity, not martial grandeur. Youth is served in the spring; the old and lame depart in the fall; and man toils under the sun in the summer.
Unlike football, basketball, soccer, and hockey, baseball does not partition the playing field into “ours” and “theirs”; teams do not march up and down an imaginary battleground, seizing and surrendering territory. Unique among all team sports, baseball moves in a circle. The drama focuses on the home—leaving from it, defending it, returning to it, just as all men do in the paths of life. Baseball is bourgeois life, at once made smaller and grander.
But the real drama of baseball—the heroic dimension of baseball—is beyond bourgeois. To hit a single home run in a major league baseball game is to defy the edges of the expected; nearly all home runs fly past the boundaries of the baseball field, well outside the prescribed zone of play—outside of the realm that the stadium itself defines to be normal. One home run is a great victory. To surpass all men in all recorded history in home runs struck in a single season is beyond belief. And beyond belief is where heroism is found.
In the Fall 1990 issue of The Public Interest, Donald Kagan defends the heroic understanding of baseball from the allegedly anti-heroic vision extolled by George F. Will in his 1990 bestseller, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball. Kagan argues that the appeal of baseball lies in the splendor of heroic accomplishments: the majesty of home runs and bat-splintering hits and acrobatic catches. He rejects Will’s preference for careful, analytical, base-to-base baseball, speculating playfully that Will prefers plodding, anti-heroic baseball because Will detects in himself more of the gritty worker than the dashing, heroic champion.
Will dismisses these arguments in his rebuttal, noting that Kagan, as a professor of classics at Yale, is a man accustomed to the company of gods. (Kagan’s article and Will’s response also appear in Will’s 1998 compilation of baseball essays, Bunts.) For men without gods for fathers, Will suggests, the modest baseball achievements that spring from thought, experience, and perception provide a sufficiently satisfying and heroic spectacle.
Will reasons carefully and intelligently, but Kagan wins the debate. We may watch individual baseball games to enjoy contemplative, strategic play, but unlikely heroic exploits inspire us to pass the tradition of baseball on to our children. Heroism cements the irrational attachment from which abiding love springs. Sturdy, determined players who make the most of their skills will always have a prominent role to play, but in the end they are the squires to the Lancelots and Galahads of the game. The four thousandth stolen base, the three thousandth game started—our minds tell us that these milestones are important. But a game-winning home run? A diving catch to save a perfect game? A headfirst slide into home? Those accomplishments speak to the heart of heroism. [...]
Science threatens to peel away this uncertainty. In his 2000 collection of essays, Hooking Up, Tom Wolfe discusses a machine that can accurately gauge the I.Q. of any given person, simply by monitoring the subject’s brainwave activity while staring at a tack on a wall. Despite the machine’s proven accuracy, no one wanted to buy one. Why not? No one wanted to know his own I.Q. with such an incontrovertible degree of accuracy. A mediocre score on an ordinary I.Q. test can be attributed to any number of factors: an upset stomach, an inability to test well, family problems, math anxiety, and so on. But from the verdict of the machine, from the verdict of science, there is no appeal.
True self-knowledge is a terrifying thing. We crave uncertainty when it comes to our abilities—for the mystery of uncertainty makes room for miracles of achievement. Uncertainty allows for the possibility of heroism. No act would be heroic if it were wholly preordained. Great heroic acts—be they home runs, battles narrowly won, breakthroughs suddenly realized, sacrifices spontaneously made—all thrill us in part because the possibility of failure was so strong. We cannot know if the champion will find within himself the resources to triumph this time, in this struggle, even if his will is strong, even if he has triumphed before. But genetic engineering reduces such uncertainty. In the future, to know a man’s genes with scientific precision will be to know his propensities, limits, and intrinsic advantages with an accuracy that mere observation cannot rival. Ordinarily, we can only guess at the measure of a man. We can only examine a man’s actions, words, and demonstrated abilities in the hope of understanding some small fragment of the enigma that is each living person. But in a world remade by genetic engineering, the mysteries of human nature and human ability are replaced with the irrefutable certainty of gene charts and case histories. The tension between success and failure is less compelling when the thumb of artificial improvement is placed on the scale. And so, for want of uncertainty, heroism is diminished.
UN Passes Resolution on Darfur; Threatens Sanctions (VOA News, 18 Sep 2004)
The U.N. Security Council has approved a U.S.-sponsored resolution threatening possible sanctions against Sudan's oil industry if Khartoum does not end the conflict in the western Darfur region.The vote Saturday was 11-0, with China, Russia, Algeria and Pakistan abstaining.
The resolution calls for an expanded African Union force to prevent attacks on civilians in Darfur. An estimated 50,000 people have been killed and 1.2 million forced out of their homes during 18 months of violence in the region.
The Christian is the real radical of our generation, for he stands against the monolithic, modern concept of truth as relative. But too often, instead of being the radical, standing against the shifting sands of relativism, he subsides into merely maintaining the status quo. If it is true that evil is evil, that God hates it to the point of the cross, and that there is a moral law fixed in what God is in Himself, then Christians should be the first into the field against what is wrong.
-Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who is There
Kerry's 'Me, Too' Campaign Seems Destined for Failure (Nicholas Von Hoffman, NY Observer)
While George Bush has been hard at work firing up his base support by advocating a marriage amendment to the Constitution, Mr. Kerry has taken another tack-he is trying to discourage his base. His astonishing avowal that, if he knew then what he knows now about weapons of mass destruction, etc., he still would have voted for the war, has had about the same effect on his hard-core supporters as an announcement by George Bush that he is in favor of abortion rights would have on his. If only by silent deception, Mr. Kerry should have understood that he must give his own workers some reason to think that, if elected, he would not be Bush lite.Mr. Kerry's critique of Mr. Bush's war and foreign policy has been fumbling,
ambiguous, unfocused and unconvincing. He gives the impression of a politician who is hiding his real intentions-which, if one can smell them out, are to walk the same path as Mr. Bush, but with the lame promise of getting more help in Iraq from NATO or the E.U. That, however, is transparent buncombe. Making nicey-nicey is not going to get French or Belgian or German politicians to send their people into the desert to get picked off by snipers and roadside bombs.It makes tactical political sense for Mr. Kerry not to attack the Iraq war head on, as the Howard Dean people might like, but a candidate has got to say something more than "Me, too." "Me, too" never got anybody elected, and the war is too big to be skipped over. Mr. Kerry has got to say something about it that is strong, clear and different from what George Bush says, and that will not alienate the lukewarms in the quivering middle.
One public position which fulfills these requirements is the argument that Mr. Bush has no plan to win the war against terrorism, only to endure it indefinitely. The war strategy is blundering overseas and posting a guard in front of every bridge, dock, pipeline, chemical plant, courthouse, office building, etc., in the country. Since homeland security is a political-patronage mill and a cash cow for crony corporations, in a pinch you may be sure half of these "first responders" will screw it up. The costs of our kind of homeland security to business must add one more competitive drag on an economy which falls farther behind in the world-trade race every year.
Mr. Kerry should be saying that there is no security in George Bush's security program. Does Mr. Bush think he can keep terrorists out of the United States? Let Mr. Kerry remind us that Mr. Bush cannot keep out thousands of tons of cocaine and tens of thousands of Mexicans. If he can't do that, how is he ever going to stop a couple of dozen terrorists?
Mr. Kerry must repeat and continue to repeat that only an end to the war, a victory or even a negotiated compromise will make the homeland secure.
Desperately Seeking Dick Cheney (RICK LYMAN, 9/19/04, NY Times)
They say that most stalkers imagine themselves to be the victim, and I guess I'm no different.My first look at Vice President Dick Cheney was from a baking lawn on Ellis Island as he made his grand entrance into New York on a National Park Service tugboat, waving to the sweating crowd. I was just part of the small pack of reporters watching as he posed before the backdrop of Lower Manhattan, my first day on Cheney duty.
The vice president travels on Air Force Two, a tech-packed wide-body with private areas in the front, a Secret Service buffer in the middle and a media cabin in the back. A crew of about 10 reporters flies with him, representing all the networks, the wire services and two or three newspapers. There are snacks, cable television and camaraderie.
But there is not a seat for me.
Nor has there been a seat for the previous two New York Times reporters sent to cover the vice president. I am told not to take this personally. Nor, I am told, is this intended as a slight against the paper, which normally maintains a seat (paid for handsomely) on all campaign planes, presidential and vice-presidential.
Frankly, there are some colleagues who suspect that antipathy toward the newspaper may be behind it. Anne Womack, the vice president's chief spokeswoman, says such suspicions are baseless. There simply are not enough seats for all of the press, and other publications got their names on the list before us. If someone drops out, they'll let me know.
So, I stalk: Flying commercial, I hopscotch around the country, booking my own flights, trying to keep one step ahead of Mr. Cheney. I make it to at least one of the vice president's campaign events every day, more if the schedule permits. At each stop I'm swept by agents, sniffed by dogs and grab myself a seat in the press pen. (Those reporters on Air Force Two are swept once, at the beginning of the day, and never leave the security bubble.)
The truth is, it's a weird kind of gift to a reporter.
'Conservative' World Order? (E. J. Dionne Jr., September 17, 2004, Washington Post)
It may sound contrived, but my affection for conservatives and conservatism has a lot to do with why I'm so frustrated over the political choices these friends of mine are making.I agree with them that the spread of democracy is good for both the United States and the world. I believe there are appropriate uses for U.S. military power. While our country has not always used its power wisely, our role in defeating the Nazis and Soviet communists vindicates the idea that the United States has been a force for good.
But I fear that my neocon buddies have embarked on a project in Iraq that risks sabotaging the very ideas and policies they cherish, in part because they did not consider those unintended consequences they so often advise us liberals to think about.
As a practical matter, I think my friends should be furious at the Bush administration over the way it has handled Iraq. The idea that our country had the capacity to transform Iraq into a thriving democracy was always a reach. But if we were going to make this enormous effort, the conservative thing to do was to assume from the beginning that it would be hard.
That's why it's astounding -- and un-conservative -- that we went in with the arrogant assumption that we are so good and our ideals were so right that even if we tried to do this with too small a force, everything would turn out fine. How could conservatives ignore the military professionals who rightly insisted that we needed many more troops to pull off such an ambitious endeavor? Isn't prudence, as the first President Bush used to remind us, a conservative virtue?
If my conservative friends were going to go out there to transform the world -- a big and seemingly liberal objective -- they needed to be honest and prepare the American people for a long and difficult struggle. They should have insisted that the effort be paid for and not depend on enormous budget deficits thrown onto those future generations that they so often invoke. The conservative thing to do was to prepare for the worst, not to assume the best.
The incoming sea of faith: atheism has been discredited by the collapse of communism and the postmodern need for tolerance (Alister McGrath, 9/18/04, The Spectator)
Although I am no longer an atheist, I retain a profound respect for its aspirations for humanity and legitimate criticisms of dysfunctional religion. Yet the sun seems to be setting on this shopworn, jaded and tired belief system, which now lacks the vitality that once gave it passion and power.To suggest that atheism is a belief system or faith will irritate some of its followers. For them, atheism is not a belief; it is the Truth. There is no god, and those who believe otherwise are deluded, foolish or liars (to borrow from the breezy rhetoric of Britain’s favourite atheist, the scientific populariser turned atheist propagandist Richard Dawkins). But it’s now clear that the atheist case against God has stalled. Surefire philosophical arguments against God have turned out to be circular and self-referential.
The most vigorous intellectual critique of religion now comes from Dawkins, who has established himself as atheism’s leading representative in the public arena. Yet a close reading of his works — which I try to provide in my forthcoming book Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life — suggests that his arguments rest more on fuzzy logic and aggressive rhetoric than on serious evidence-based argument. As America’s leading evolutionary biologist, the late Stephen Jay Gould, insisted, the natural sciences simply cannot adjudicate on the God question. If the sciences are used to defend either atheism or religious beliefs, they are misused.
Yet atheism has not simply run out of intellectual steam. Its moral credentials are now severely tarnished. [...]
Historians of ideas often note that atheism is the ideal religion of modernity — the cultural period ushered in by the Enlightenment. But that had been displaced by postmodernity, which rejects precisely those aspects of modernity that made atheism the obvious choice as the preferred modern religion. Postmodernity has thus spawned post-atheism. Yet atheism seems to be turning a blind eye to this massive cultural shift, and the implications for the future of its faith.
In marked contrast, gallons of ink have been spilled and immense intellectual energy expended by Christian writers in identifying and meeting the challenges of postmodernism. Two are of particular relevance here. First, in general terms, postmodernism is intensely suspicious of totalising worldviews, which claim to offer a global view of reality. Christian apologists have realised that there is a real challenge here. If Christianity claims to be right where others are wrong, it has to make this credible to a culture which is strongly resistant to any such claims to be telling the whole truth. Second, again in general terms, postmodernity regards purely materialist approaches to reality as inadequate, and has a genuine interest in recovering ‘the spiritual dimension to life’. For Christian apologists, this is a problem, as this new interest in spirituality has no necessary connection with organised religion of any kind, let alone Christianity. How can the Churches connect with such aspirations?
Atheism has been slow, even reluctant, to engage with either of these developments, tending to dismiss them as irrational and superstitious (Richard Dawkins is a case in point). Yet it is easy to see why the rise of postmodernity poses a significantly greater threat to atheism than to Christianity. Atheism offers precisely the kind of ‘metanarrative’ that postmodern thinkers hold to lead to intolerance and oppression. Its uncompromising and definitive denial of God is now seen as arrogant and repressive, rather than as principled and moral.
President's campaign uses optimism to attract: Strategy mines power of positive talk (Rick Klein, September 18, 2004, Boston Globe)
At a small baseball field in a town where the unemployment roll has added 1,200 names during his time in office, President Bush stood in the bright sunshine Thursday morning and trumpeted the optimistic vision that has become his campaign trademark.‘‘Our economy is strong, and it’s getting stronger,’’ Bush said during a rally. ‘‘We’re not turning back.’’
And on a day that the CIA’s dire warning about the future security situation in Iraq was made public, Bush went on to assert that the democracy is blooming in the post-Saddam Hussein era.
‘‘Freedom is on the march,’’ he said. ‘‘We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer.’’
The audience of supporters roared their approval.
In a period of national uneasiness, Bush’s message is simple, blunt, and appealing: Things are getting better. Bush is calculating that voters who have tuned in slightly to the political race will be reassured by his clear-eyed assertions and convinced that a resolute leader deserves another term, said Ron Faber, a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota who studies political communication.
‘‘Voters don’t know about all the issues, but they seem to gravitate toward certainty,’’ Faber said.
‘‘Americans like positive messages and they like consistent messages, and Bush gives them at least the hope that things will get better.’’
When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future.I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.
Bush to Focus on Iraq, Afghanistan During UN Speech (Scott Stearns, 18 Sep 2004, VOA)
President Bush will focus on Iraq and Afghanistan in a speech at the United Nations this week. The president used his weekly radio address to preview those remarks.President Bush will tell leaders gathered for the U.N. General Assembly that he will not allow violence to disrupt elections in Afghanistan next month, or a vote in Iraq scheduled for January.
"Terrorist enemies are trying to stop the progress of both those countries, and their violent and merciless attacks may increase as elections draw near," said president Bush. "But all the world can be certain: America and our allies will keep our commitments to the Afghan and Iraqi people. Our long-term security - the safety of our children and grandchildren - will be served when the broader Middle East is home to stable, democratic governments that fight terror."
At the United Nations, Mr. Bush says, he will make additional proposals to, "expand prosperity and accelerate the march of freedom."
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President's Radio Address (Charlotte, North Carolina , 9/18/04)
Good morning. Three years after the attacks of September the 11th, our nation continues to confront the threats to our security. We're acting to protect the homeland, to track and disrupt terror networks across the world, and to hold to account the sponsors of terror. We're staying on the offensive, striking the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.Americans also know that our long-term security requires a broader commitment. Our country is determined to spread hope and economic progress and freedom as the alternatives to hatreds, resentments, and terrorist violence. In hopeful societies men and women are far less likely to embrace murderous ideologies. And free governments will fight terrorists in their midst, instead of harboring them. We know that to create a safer world, we must build a better world. And we are acting.
This week, I will speak in New York to the United Nations General Assembly, and I will talk about the great possibilities of our time to improve health, expand prosperity and extend freedom in our world. America and many nations are taking a bold stand in the fight against HIV/AIDS. My emergency plan for AIDS relief will provide an unprecedented $15 billion over five years to support the fight against the AIDS pandemic throughout the world, with the focus on the most afflicted countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia. These funds are already at work, helping to prevent new infections, provide treatment and care for millions of victims.
We've also joined with other nations to create the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. In three years, the fund has raised $5.6 billion in pledges and provided funding for projects in more than 90 countries. And we will persist in the effort until these diseases are defeated.
America and many other nations are also determined to turn the tide against global poverty by taking a new approach to economic development. It is now our policy to increase foreign aid to those governments that are serious about fighting corruption and improving education, health care, and economic opportunity for their people. Modern history teaches that honest governments that invest in their people and promote economic freedom can lift millions out of poverty and despair. And governments that truly serve their people deserve our help.
The health and well-being of developing nations also depend on the defeat of hunger and illiteracy. We have launched an Initiative to end hunger in Africa, by teaching modern farming techniques and providing drought-resistant crops to farmers on that continent. And through our Africa Education Initiative, we're training teachers, distributing textbooks, and encouraging more school enrollment.
America and many nations are also building a better world by standing with the liberated peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan, as they move toward democracy. More than 10 million Afghan citizens have now registered to vote in next month's election. Iraq is approaching free elections in January. Terrorist enemies are trying to stop the progress of both those countries, and their violent and merciless attacks may increase as elections draw near. But all the world can be certain: America and our allies will keep our commitments to the Afghan and Iraqi people. Our long-term security -- the safety of our children and grandchildren -- will be served when the broader Middle East is home to stable, democratic governments that fight terror.
At the United Nations this week, I will make some additional proposals to expand prosperity and accelerate the march of freedom in our world. Never in the history of the United Nations have we faced so many opportunities to create a safer world by building a better world. For the sake of our common security, and for the sake of our common values, the international community must rise to this historic moment. And the United States is prepared to lead.
Thank you for listening.
Black primary voters decline; 33% drop concerns Democrats (Gregory Lewis and Jeremy Milarsky, September 18, 2004, Orlando Sun-Sentinel)
Attempts to fire up Broward County's black voters apparently failed last month with turnout sinking to its lowest of the past three primary elections in key minority precincts, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis.The study showed a 33 percent decline in 10 of the county's largest black precincts when comparing the Aug. 31 turnout with the 2002 late-summer primary. The turnout was off by 15 percent this year compared with the 2000 primary, also a presidential election year, according to the analysis.
The sharp decline has alarmed some who watch voting patterns in the black community, particularly in the Democratic Party where minority participation can decide an election -- also a potential issue for party officials in the Nov. 2 presidential and state elections. [...]
Some political observers also said the low turnout in the primary speaks to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's need to do more in black communities to energize voters.
"He must talk more about issues such as jobs rather than fighting the war in Iraq," said George Gonzalez, a University of Miami political scientist.
Gonzalez added that reliance on any prevailing anti-President Bush sentiment to draw African-Americans to the polls in the fall is a poor strategy for Democrats.
"The strategy that African-Americans have nowhere to go except for [John] Kerry is not true," Gonzalez said. "They may not want to cast a dirty vote. So, many may just stay home. I would not be surprised if African-Americans vote in historic lows."
End of the IRA offered to Unionists in peace deal (Thomas Harding, 18/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
An offer that could lead to the IRA's demise was made by republicans as part of a deal to restore devolution in Northern Ireland, political sources said yesterday. [...]Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, offered to decommission most of the IRA's arsenal and a form of guarantee to end all paramilitary activity was put on the table.
Before the summit at Leeds Castle in Kent started Mr Adams prepared republicans for an end to the IRA by saying that the terrorist group had to be removed as an "excuse" for Unionists refusing to share power with Sinn Fein.
More pressure was put on republicans yesterday after Albert Reynolds, the former Irish premier, told a conference in Belfast that the IRA, which was responsible for more than half of the 3,600 deaths in the Troubles, should become "a commemorative organisation".
Tony Blair tried to put pressure on Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party to accept Sinn Fein's offer and agree to go into power sharing with Mr Adams.
If he succeeds, Mr Blair would have achieved something unthinkable a few months ago because the DUP refused to share government with a party tied to terrorists.
Salute could cost Kerry the election (B. Wayne Quist, September 18, 2004, Minneaplois Star-Tribune)
It was a perfect September day at the Minnesota State Fair and I was pleased to be on stage with Sen. John McCain. I was proud to be an American, active for the first time in our political process.What got me going is the "veteran phenomenon" caused by a rupturing of the wound in the American body politic called "Vietnam." That wound has never fully healed, and it started festering again when Sen. John Kerry saluted and announced to the American people that he was "reporting for duty" at the Democratic Convention in Boston.
Kerry's statement didn't sit right with a lot of Americans, and especially with many who served in Vietnam. Most veterans admire Kerry's highly decorated Vietnam service but question his qualifications to serve as commander in chief because of his antiwar activities and ambivalent voting record on defense issues while serving in the Senate. Veterans are also concerned about Kerry because the Iraq War is the most important issue of the campaign and the bulk of the Democratic Party seems to be virulently antiwar.
Since 9/11 I have been speaking and leading seminars around the country on the origin and nature of radical, militant Islam and why the war in Iraq is so important to the future of the Western world. My audiences consist of Democrats and Republicans and include well-meaning people seeking to find answers to complex questions. Having lived much of my professional life outside the United States and in the Middle East, I try to bring a balanced perspective to the issues in the region.
But this year, because the stakes in Iraq are so great, I am actively supporting the reelection of President Bush, who advocates advancing liberty in the broader Middle East and bringing a future of hope through freedom. And I have learned in the process about the "veteran phenomenon" that is sweeping the country and helping Bush in the polls.
Social Security Poses Hurdles for President (ROBIN TONER and DAVID ROSENBAUM, 9/18/04, NY Times)
President Bush's vision of an "ownership society" is built, as much as anything else, on a sweeping promise: that he will transform Social Security so younger workers can divert some of their payroll taxes into private investment accounts.At a rally in Pennsylvania last week, Mr. Bush declared, as he does at almost every campaign stop nowadays, that "younger workers ought to be able to take some of their taxes and set up a personal savings account, an account that they can call their own, an account that the government cannot take away and an account that they can pass on from one generation to the next."
It is a longstanding promise, popular with many younger workers and with conservatives who argue that the huge social insurance programs of the New Deal and the Great Society badly need to be modernized.
The private accounts, first proposed by Mr. Bush in his 2000 presidential campaign, fit neatly into his philosophy of an "ownership society," the idea that Americans should be given more control over - and responsibility for - their health care, retirement and financial lives.
But behind the sweeping promise are some harsh political realities that could loom large in this fall's debates and the final clashes of the presidential campaign. Mr. Bush has never proposed a specific plan to reach his goal - and, critics say, for good reasons. With the budget already running large annual deficits, recent estimates of typical plans for private accounts show they would cost as much as $2 trillion over the first 10 years. [...]
[T]he changes Mr. Bush seeks are difficult politically in a polarized Congress, where many Democrats are convinced that the Bush plan would undermine one of the last pillars of the New Deal.
Taliban may be planning Tet-style election attack (GEORGE GEDDA, September 18, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Afghan forces backed by 9,000 NATO troops are poised to provide security as national elections approach, but a spectacular offensive by anti-government rebels cannot be ruled out, the top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan said Friday.Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said al-Qaida, the Taliban and allied forces are poised to try to derail the Oct. 9 presidential elections and have been cooperating with each other.
''I expect that as we go toward the election and on election day, they will try to disrupt,'' he said. ''The area where they are going to be most active is along the border with Pakistan.''
Khalilzad, who is here for consultations, said they also may carry out ''spectacular attacks'' similar to the Tet Offensive launched by North Vietnam in early 1968 against American forces.
Syria's Role Forces Hard Look at Lebanon Sovereignty: The international community has had to confront a long-ignored issue after the reported meddling in the proxy state's presidential vote. (Rania Abouzeid and Megan K. Stack, September 18, 2004, LA Times)
Why Syria would risk further antagonizing the West is baffling. With or without Lahoud, Syria was unlikely to lose its grip on Lebanon. Under current circumstances, no president would be able to run Lebanon without Syria's backing, and Damascus had its pick of favorable candidates."I think Bashar Assad is still reading from the Baathist book of the late 1960s," An Nahar publisher Tueni said. "The international community was waiting for him to produce positive signs of change within the Syrian regime."
But Assad and his advisors may have had their reasons.
Syria trusted Lahoud to protect Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia whose troops line Lebanon's southern border with Israel. Syria may also have wanted a president strong enough to counterbalance Lebanon's prime minister, billionaire businessman Rafik Hariri.
Whatever the logic, analysts called the amendment a serious miscalculation on Syria's part.
Even within Syria, a country that tolerates little debate over government policy, the move has sparked an annoyed, albeit quiet, backlash from the political elite.
And in Lebanon, the public is seething.
A longtime Syrian ally, Druze chieftain Walid Jumblatt, led the charge against the extension of Lahoud's term. The opposition lawmaker called the amendment "a coup d'etat against the constitution."
Four ministers have resigned, and the rest of the Cabinet is expected to step down before the end of the month.
"There's a feeling of depression," said Lebanese columnist Michael Young. "People are down. Economically, the country isn't doing well. People think this will perpetuate the stalemate. They feel marginalized."
MORE (via Mike Daley):
Kerry's Middle East advisor wants to reward Syria (American Thinker, September 17th, 2004)
Martin Indyk served two stints as US Ambassador to Israel during the Clinton Administration. He is one of the individuals that the Kerry campaign has identified as part of its Middle East advisory team, and many think he will return to a significant government job in the diplomatic arena, were Kerry elected. It is therefore of more than passing significance that Indyk last week argued that the Golan Heights belong to Syria, and Israel will not realize peace without surrendering it.The Indyk statement received surprisingly little media attention. The Kerry
campaign has been struggling to maintain the traditionally large Jewish
majority for Democratic candidates in Presidential elections this year, and
the Indyk statement would certainly not be reassuring to the pro-Israel
community, the segment of the Jewish voting population that is most likely
to support President Bush in November, based on his very strong record of
support for Israel.Then came the bombshell that the German newspaper Die Welt was reporting
that Syria had sent a chemical weapons team to Darfur in the Sudan to test
its chemical weapons capability. The "tests' succeeded apparently in killing
many black African victims, and incapacitated many others. The victims from
this attack in Darfur, and all the others in recent months, are Muslims of
course, but they are being killed because they are not Arabs. It can be
safely concluded that the Syrians and their Sudanese allies did not
distribute nor receive informed consent forms before the "tests" were
conducted.
Rather went on faith, not facts (Tim Rutten, 9/18/04, LA Times)
Watching Dan Rather unravel over the past week has been something like watching a train wreck unfold: You know it's all going to end badly, but you just can't look away until you've seen how many cars ultimately go off the rails. Well, now we know, and there's not much left to do but wave at the caboose as it careens over the side.A little more than a week ago, the CBS anchor presented a "60 Minutes" segment produced by Mary Mapes, alleging not only that President Bush used his family's influence to get special treatment from the Air National Guard but also that he defied an order to take a physical examination required of pilots and lost his flight status.
Over the years, there have been lots of stories about Bush's apparently fitful service with the Guard. What made this one different was its reliance on what Rather said were previously undisclosed memoranda substantiating the allegations and purportedly written at the time by Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, Bush's squadron commander, now dead. Where the alleged documents may have been all these years and who provided them to CBS remain a mystery. In less than 24 hours, questions were raised — first on the Internet and, quickly, in the mainstream media — about the documents' authenticity.
Since then, the "60 Minutes" segment has gone from sensational revelation to controversial report to utter debacle.
The weight of expert technical opinion is that the documents are forgeries...
A liberating solution (Bill Steigerwald, September 18, 2004, Pittsburgh TRIBUNE-REVIEW)
Health savings accounts are a clever way to let you control your own medical costs, choose your own doctors and save money, too. And they're coming soon to an employer near you. Much of the credit goes to Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania's junior U.S. senator. [...]Q: What exactly is a health savings account?
A: It's similar to an IRA or an education savings account, which is a tax-free account. In other words, it's money you can divert from your paycheck, and your employer can put this money into an account, tax-free.
Q: Some people have called them "medical IRAs"?
A: That's essentially what it is. It creates an opportunity for you and your employer to put money aside for you to be spent tax-free as long as you are spending it on health care. When you combine this health savings account with a catastrophic insurance account, it is a way for you to insure yourself in a way that puts you in complete control of your health care purchases. That's the beauty of this health savings account. When you combine it with a high deductible insurance plan, your employer and you can combine together to provide a very, very effective way of providing coverage. [...]
Q: So this is the government getting out of the way of a solid market solution to a major problem.
A: People say, "How are we going to control health care costs?" I say, "Look at health savings accounts as the first line of defense." I really believe this is one of the real keys to controlling health care costs.
Q: What we'd like to see on the libertarian end of things is to get the government out of the health care business altogether.
A: It's more personal responsibility and less government, but also corporate management of people's affairs by bureaucrats in corporations and insurance companies, not just bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. This is really a liberating thing and a market-based solution to the problem.
NO BUSH SKELETONS (Robert Novak, September 18, 2004, Townhall)
President Bush addressed a closed-door luncheon Wednesday at Stephen Decatur House in Washington. Answering a question, he said everything negative about him has been revealed.Bush conceded that failure to reveal his DUI conviction was a mistake, adding that its revelation near the end of the 2000 campaign came close to electing Al Gore.
Muzzling Edwards? (Robert Novak, September 18, 2004, Townhall)
Sen. John Edwards, departing from the usual pattern of vice presidential candidates appearing regularly on Sunday talk shows, has been turning down all such invitations.The absence of the articulate, attractive Edwards cannot be explained by fear that he would be a liability on TV. Well-informed Democrats have speculated that John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry have muzzled Edwards because they do not want him to overshadow the presidential candidate.
Football Fans for Truth (Press Release)
Kerry's Cast of Thousands (DAVID BROOKS, 9/18/04, NY Times)
Across the wine-dark sea they come, honing Kerry's message. They come from Harvard, K Street and the studios of CNN. "Once more into the breach!" they cry, as they join the conference call of thousands.Look at them, these great, unhuddled masses, yearning to wear White House badges. They are consultants, flacks, spinners, strategists, Knights of the Palm lunch table. And yet they come as one, from all corners of the Democratic world, to figure out what John Kerry, age 60, should believe and say.
Into the valley of hope ride the 600, the inner ring of Kerry confidants. A year ago, there was just a small and hearty band. There was the campaign manager Jim Jordan. There was Gibbs, Cherny and Mellman. But under their reign, the message was not honed. The candidate did flounder. The quest for a Kerry conviction was not fulfilled.
And so the great accretion began.
Darfur sexual violence 'catastrophic' (Jeff Sallot, Globe and Mail, September 18th, 2004)
Louise Arbour says she will demand action from Sudanese officials over "absolutely catastrophic" levels of sexual violence and other atrocities in the Darfur region as she begins meetings tomorrow on a United Nations mission to the war-ravaged African country.Ms. Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a former Supreme Court of Canada judge, said yesterday from her office in Geneva that the international community should be outraged that such violence is continuing. She is to arrive in Khartoum tonight, leading a UN delegation that includes Juan Mendez, the UN's special adviser on the prevention of genocide.[...]
In a telephone interview, Ms. Arbour said that whether the attacks on civilians in Darfur legally constitute genocide doesn't matter to the victims.
Ms. Arbour said people are suffering now, particularly women who have been sexually attacked, regardless of whether an international tribunal some day rules that the violence violates the human-rights convention that bans genocide.
Civilized people, therefore, should be "leaping up and doing something" to halt the violence, she said.
Ms. Arbour was the first Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. She has built a very successful career by arguing genocide, human rights and war crimes are or should be legal concepts to be dealt with under international law. Well, international law is now winding its pokey way towards inaction in Darfur. Is she now calling for international lynch mobs?
Why I’m backing Bush (Iain Duncan Smith, The Spectator, September 18th, 2004)
The sophisticates’ forgetfulness of history is dangerous. When there is no Lincoln, Truman, Reagan or Bush, who is there? There is Bill Clinton and the European Union. An attitude of supine indifference, glossed as multilateralism, was the fertile seedbed of Osama bin Laden and led directly, through outrages of escalating daring, to September 11. And the claim that in the absence of a strong America the EU can mount an effective response to genocide was, surely, for ever disgraced on the killing fields of Srebrenica. Let those two events stand as testament to the outlook of the liberal Left, and shame the deluded fans of Michael Moore.The protesters who marched through New York two week ago under the banner of Michael Moore were united solely by a negative. The Bush-haters have neither a plan nor a purpose. Their sophistication has become sophistry. Their panacea for global politics is to pray-in-aid the United Nations, the body which for 12 years stood by as Saddam Hussein flouted its every resolution, and whose officials — as now appears — were engaged in the systematic corruption of the oil-for-food programme, channelling funds into the pockets of Saddam’s own relatives. This outrage has gone scarcely reported, while Michael Moore makes lucrative hay with some disconnected allegations, pointing in contradictory directions, about the Bush family’s business interests.
The UN is an institution with a genius for inaction. It cannot lead nations: nations must lead it. But to the Michael Moore Bush-haters ‘leadership’ is cant for oppression and exploitation, and the rudderless UN is the institutional image of themselves — a camp whose pompous self-regard is in inverse proportion to its achievements and its vision. As Nick Cohen recently concluded in the New Statesman, ‘There is no longer a Left with a message of hope for the human race. The audiences at Michael Moore’s films ... have no policy to offer. The noise of their self-righteous anger is merely a cover for an indifference bred of failure.’
Bush makes headway in Missouri (Jo Mannies, Sep. 17 2004, St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
President George W. Bush's emphasis on national security appears to have paid
off in Missouri - especially among women and independent voters.A new poll for the Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV (Channel 4) indicates that the
president's improved standing among those two key voting blocs are the major
reasons why he appears now to be heading into the final six weeks of the
campaign with a lead over his Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry of
Massachusetts, among likely Missouri voters."What the Bush people have done right is convince women in this state that Bush
is clearly the better steward in protecting them and their families," said
pollster Del Ali, whose Maryland-based firm, Research 2000, conducted the poll
last week.Ali credits the GOP's emphasis on security, beginning with its presidential
convention just over two weeks ago. The president and prominent Republicans
campaigning on his behalf repeatedly stress the issue on the stump.The result: Among 801 likely Missouri voters polled Monday through Thursday, 49
percent supported Bush, compared to 42 percent for Kerry. Nine percent remained
undecided.
Aids epidemic a threat to Europe (BBC, September 16th, 2004)
Europe's social and economic stability is being seriously threatened by the Aids epidemic, warn experts. Some 1.8 million people in Europe and Central Asia have HIV, according to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/Aids and the World Health Organization.Both say the epidemic continues to spread unchecked and that European governments need to act now.
The European Union has a "prime opportunity" to work together to save thousands of people, the experts say.
Dr Jack Chow, WHO's assistant director-general, HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said: "Building effective partnerships is key to make a significant and sustainable contribution towards proactively addressing the HIV/Aids epidemic in Europe.
But if we ever cure Aids, who is going to
support all those unemployed Aids
activists?
Kerry must become the new anti-war candidate (Howard Zinn, September 17, 2004, Newsday)
If John Kerry wants to win, he must recognize that our military intervention in Iraq is a disaster - for Americans, for Iraqis, for the world.Kerry needs to stop boasting about his physical courage in fighting in Vietnam and instead start talking about his moral courage in opposing that war.
He needs to stop saying, as he did recently in the Midwest, that he defended this country when he was fighting in Vietnam. That is not an honest statement. If it were true, then he would not have turned against the war.
He was not defending this country when he fought in Vietnam. He was defending this country when he said we were wrong to be in Vietnam and we should get out.
He should not be saying that he will wage the Iraq war better, that he will replace U.S. troops with soldiers from other countries. If it is immoral for our soldiers to be occupying Iraq and killing Iraqis every day, then it is immoral for foreign soldiers to do the same. [...]
To those who say we must not "cut and run," Kerry can say, with some authority, we did cut and run in Vietnam - and it was the right thing to do.
Editorial: A real race for Senate (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Sept. 15, 2004)
Voters in Wisconsin sometimes complain - with good reason - that political campaigns are boring because the candidates don't disagree on all that much. No one will be able to say that about the upcoming campaign between Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and his chief opponent, GOP newcomer Tim Michels, a millionaire construction company executive and former Army officer. [...]Michels and Feingold disagree on almost everything that politicians talk about these days: the war in Iraq, President Bush's tax cuts, recent Medicare legislation, the USA Patriot Act, energy policy, free trade, abortion rights, education policy and tort reform. Their backgrounds are very different, too. Michels' only other attempt at public office came in 1998, when he ran for the state Senate and lost; Feingold, a former state legislator, is seeking his third term in the U.S. Senate.
Bush Makes Pitch to 'Security Moms': President Hopes to Narrow Gender Gap at Expense of Democratic Issues (Mike Allen, September 18, 2004, Washington Post)
In his stump speech, President Bush plays up the benefits for women of deposing Afghanistan's Taliban by describing mothers who were "whipped or killed, in some cases in the sports stadium," and singles out obstetricians who have been hurt by what he calls runaway lawsuits.Bush's strategists say he is trying to reach swing voters by showing how women benefit from his national security and economic policies, and it may be working. A few polls over the past month have shown him narrowing the gender gap that has dogged Republicans since Ronald Reagan's race in 1980. Pollsters said the change is largely because security has become a bigger issue for all voters, making "security moms" one of this election's hot categories and displacing Democrat-friendly issues such as health care and education.
Parallels Drawn Between CBS Memos, Texan's Postings (Michael Dobbs, September 18, 2004, Washington Post)
The former Texas National Guard officer suspected of providing CBS News with possibly forged records on President Bush's military service called on Democratic activists to wage "war" against Republican "dirty tricks" in a series of Internet postings in which he also used phrases similar to several employed in the disputed documents. [...]In e-mail messages to a Yahoo discussion group for Texas Democrats over the past few months, Burkett laid out a rationale for using what he termed "down and dirty" tactics against Bush. He said he had passed his ideas to the Democratic National Committee but that the DNC seemed "afraid to do what I suggest."
The other newsworthy 60 Minutes story (Ted Olsen, 09/16/2004, Christianity Today: Weblog)
Lt. Gen. William Boykin yesterday granted his first major interview about accusations that he's anti-Muslim. Specifically, he talked about his comment, "I knew that my God was bigger than [that of Somali warlord Osman Atto]. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.""Let's go back to the day that we captured Osman Atto," Boykin told 60 Minutes on last night's broadcast (CBS has a 4-minute video clip that hits the highlights, but not everything). "He was a corrupt, evil warlord who was stealing from and robbing his own people. He was a man who worshipped graft, corruption, power and money. My reference to his God being an idol was not to Allah. My reference was to his worship of corruption, of power, of money. He was a thug. He was not a good Muslim."
Does the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of Boykin's chief critics, want to dispute that? Weblog doesn't think so. So Boykin has put his detractors on the defensive: Either defend Atto as a true Muslim or lay off. There's a third option: Don't believe him. Say he's lying. Say he really meant to disparage Islam and promote Christianity.
Can't do it, says Boykin. "Look, I'm a Christian. I make no apologies for that," he said. "But I'm also not foolish enough to deliberately offend or in any way ostracize any religion. I'm not anti-Islam, I'm not anti-Allah."
Poll finds doubts on Bush, but trouble for Kerry (Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder,, September 18, 2004, NY Times)
In one particularly troublesome sign for Kerry, a majority of voters said that he is spending too much time attacking Bush and talking about the past, rather than explaining what he would do as president.By contrast, a majority said Bush has offered a clear vision of what he wants to do in a second term. [...]
The Times/CBS News Poll had Bush with 50 percent of the vote, compared with 42 percent for Kerry. When Ralph Nader, an independent candidate, is included, Bush leads by 50 percent to 41 percent, with Nader drawing 3 percent of the vote. [...]
The Times/CBS News nationwide telephone poll of 1,088 registered voters was conducted last Sunday through Thursday. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points.
The poll found that 61 percent of respondents now expect Bush to win the election in November; that is up from 44 percent in March.
The Times/CBS News poll began 10 days after the Republican convention, by which point - if history is any guide - the normal post-convention boost candidates typically enjoy has faded.
MORE:
Poll: Bush Opens Lead Over Kerry (CBS News, Sept. 17, 2004)
Bush appears to have done a much better job mobilizing the support of his base of traditionally Republican voters than Kerry has with some traditionally Democratic groups:Bush receives the support of nearly nine in ten Republicans; only 7 percent plan to support Kerry. Bush also has the votes of nearly eight in ten conservatives, and he solidly receives the vote of an important voting bloc that has traditionally backed Republicans -- white evangelicals. Conservative white evangelicals are even stronger in their support for the President.
While Kerry does have the votes of most liberals, a sizable chunk -- 20 percent -- support Bush. That is more than the percentage of conservatives who are crossing over to support Kerry. One historical source of support for Democratic candidates -- union households -- has yet to solidly back Kerry. Kerry receives just under half of the vote from this group, and nearly four in ten voters who live in a union household plan to support Bush. Nearly all African American voters are supporting Kerry.
French heed call to stand up - er, sit down and start a revolution: A new book called 'Hello Laziness' has climbed France's bestseller lists. (Frank Renout, 9/15/04, CS Monitor)
In the country that practically invented joie de vivre - the joy of life - two-hour lunches and 35-hour work weeks fit like a silk beret.But that life of leisure has come under assault of late. French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin says that economic pressures will soon make the shortened work week a thing of the past.
Enter Corinne Maier, author of a hot new bestseller called "Bonjour Paresse" - "Hello Laziness." The humorous pamphlet is a passionate plea in favor of sloth. The subtitle says it all: "The art and necessity of doing the least possible in a corporation." Ms. Maier calls upon the French to sit down and relax at work. The young author has hit a nerve here, tapping into a backlash against the rat race. She promotes a calculated loafing only the French could love. Call it the new French Revolution - or as she says, a revolution from within.
Officer Wrote Letter to Bush's Father (MATT KELLEY, 9/16/04, Associated Press)
A packet of Texas Air National Guard records released Friday showed that the commanding officer of President Bush's basic training unit took a special interest in him as a trainee and wrote to his father to praise his son.Bush's father, then a congressman from Texas, said in reply to the commander, "That a major general in the Air Force would take interest in a brand new Air Force trainee made a big impression on me."
Bush went on to say that his son "will be a gung ho member" of the Air Force and that Air Force instructors had "helped awaken the very best instincts in my son." [...]
In addition to the letter from Bush's father, the latest documents contain news releases that the Texas Air National Guard sent to Houston newspapers in 1970 about young Bush, then a second lieutenant and new pilot. "George Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed," the news release said. "Oh, he gets high, all right, but not from narcotics."
Childhood May Separate Humans From the Apes (SHARON BEGLEY, September 16, 2004, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
Big brain? Walking upright? Dexterous hands? With so many striking differences between modern humans and all other primates, including our extinct ancestors, scientists have no shortage of suspects for the essential feature that first set Homo sapiens apart from everyone else on the family tree. But new research suggests the real quantum leap in human evolution was something previously unsuspected: the invention of childhood.A high-tech examination of the only fossil of an infant belonging to the species Homo erectus -- a direct ancestor of today's humans -- indicates childhood is a much more recent development than scientists once thought. It also suggests it took childhood to produce truly modern humans. [...]
The new timeline has many implications for scientists' understanding of human evolution, says anthropologist Richard Klein of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., who wasn't involved in the study. For one thing, it suggests that many of the key developments in human evolution, such as the birth of language and stable social structures, were squeezed into much less time than had been thought. Also, although some human ancestors looked like people walking around today -- albeit shorter and hairier -- they fell far short of having the full dose of modern traits, especially intelligence and language. And the reason may well be that they didn't have childhoods.
Scientists can only speculate about how childhood, marked by a still-growing brain, arose in human evolution. Helpless newborns with undeveloped brains wouldn't have survived without constant parental care, but it is hard to see how doting parenthood would have arisen unless there was a need for it -- that is, helpless newborns. That presents scientists with a chicken-and-egg conundrum.
Iraq Support Steady in Face of Higher Casualties: Most Say Al Qaeda Is Weaker Than Before 9/11 (The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, September 17, 2004)
Most Americans think that the United States is winning the war on terrorism, and a solid majority believes that Al Qaeda and related terrorist groups are weaker now than they were before the Sept. 11 attacks. In addition, somewhat more Americans believe the war in Iraq has helped the war on terrorism rather than hurt that effort (46% helped, 40% hurt).The latest nationwide poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted among 2,003 adults from Sept. 8-13, finds public attitudes on the war in Iraq remaining stable, with a notable exception. Since August, there has been a significant increase in the percentage who say that the number of American military casualties in Iraq is growing. Nearly half (46%) say that casualties over the past month are higher than they have been in recent months; in August, just 31% thought casualties were increasing.
However, the perception that casualties are rising has not materially affected opinion regarding the war itself. A majority of Americans (53%) continue to say the war was the right decision and about as many (54%) favor keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until the situation there has stabilized. These numbers have been consistent since spring.
And perceptions of the Iraq military effort remain unchanged, despite the upswing in casualties. A narrow majority (52%) believe the effort is going very or fairly well, while 44% think it is not going well.
Voter-outreach work had a partisan tilt: Contractors used public funds, aided Democratic causes. (Gary Delsohn and Dan Smith, September 17, 2004, Sacramento Bee)
Federally funded consultants hired by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley spent time registering voters for largely Democratic constituency groups and at partisan rallies, including one to "take back the White House," according to staff activity reports released Thursday.Other contractors, paid thousands of dollars through federal funds from the 2002 Help America Vote Act, described outreach efforts at, among other things, the NBA All-Star week festivities, a reggae festival, a Janet Jackson "salute" and a community event on behalf of Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles.
In several cases, consultants delivered "letters of commendation" from the Democratic secretary of state to business leaders at community events, including one to billionaire Los Angeles businessman Eli Broad, a longtime contributor to Democratic candidates. At other events, consultants distributed "My Vote Counts" buttons bearing Shelley's name.
The documents, released after a public records act request by The Bee, for the first time offer details of the activities of the outreach program - one that Congress requires be nonpartisan - overseen by Shelley.
Kerry says Bush turns blind eye to Halliburton waste (MARY DALRYMPLE, September 17, 2004, AP)
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Friday accused the Bush administration of turning a blind eye to waste and overcharging by Halliburton, the company Vice President Dick Cheney once ran, and proposed reforming the contracting system to ensure fair competition.The Kerry campaign said a new ad, "Cheney Halliburton," will air next week in Oregon and other battleground states to criticize the administration and its no-bid contracts with the company. The ad suggests a conflict of interest for Cheney because he collects deferred benefits from the time he was chief executive of Halliburton, a multinational company that provides reconstruction and other services in Iraq.
One other question--do you suppose Teresa and George Soros might have shorted Halliburton yesterday?:
Tax Time (The Tipsheet, September 17, 2004, The Hill)
President Bush could have another tax cut in his pocket quickly -- if House and Senate tax specialists can negotiate effectively. The tax cuts would extend three popular expiring tax cuts -- the "marriage penalty," the expanded 10 percent income tax bracket, and the $1,000-per-child tax credit -- and would total about $125 billion over 10 years. All of the programs have strong support from Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Both Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) are planning to bring up the tax cuts by the end of next week.
GOP on rise on college campuses ( GOP on rise on college campuses (Andrea Jones, September 17, 2004, Cox News Service)
They idolize Ronald Reagan — never mind the fact that most were not yet born when the Gipper first hit the campaign trail.They fill their Web sites with photos of bald eagles and flapping American flags, challenge their liberal-minded professors in class and are rushing to join college church groups like never before. [...]
The new conservatives are too young to be the children of baby boomers who burned their bras or marched on Washington in the '60s and '70s. This generation, instead, grew up with moms and dads of the business-minded '80s.
"These are the children of the Reagan revolution," Alexander said. "They've been influenced by that instead."
Speaking Out: Air National Guard Colonel Denies Bush Got Preferential Treatment (ABCNEWS.com, Sept. 17, 2004)
Staudt said he decided to come forward because he saw erroneous reports on television. CBS News first reported on the memos, which have come under scrutiny by document experts who question whether they are authentic. Killian, the purported author of the documents, died in 1984.Staudt insisted Bush did not use connections to avoid being sent to Vietnam.
"He didn't use political influence to get into the Air National Guard," Staudt said, adding, "I don't know how they would know that, because I was the one who did it and I was the one who was there and I didn't talk to any of them."
Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program (Claudia Rosett and George Russell, 9/17/04, Fox News)
Did Saddam Hussein use any of his ill-gotten billions filched from the United Nations oil-for-food program to help fund Al Qaeda?Investigations have shown that the former Iraqi dictator grafted and smuggled more than $10 billion from the program that for seven years prior to Saddam's overthrow was meant to bring humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis. And the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda that continued after billions of oil-for-food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden declared his infamous war on the U.S.
Now, buried in some of the United Nation's own confidential documents, clues can be seen that underscore the possibility of just such a Saddam-Al Qaeda link — clues leading to a locked door in this Swiss lakeside resort.
Obama's Windy City Times ad (Illinois Leader, September 16, 2004
Right before the 2004 primary, Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama took out an ad in the Windy City Times, Chicago's gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender weekly publication. [...]The ad indicated Obama's positions on important social issues, as quoted:
# Opposes Constiutional [sic] amendment to ban gay marriage
# Supports repeal of Defense of Marriage Ad
# Chief co-sponsor of Human Rights Bill in Springfield
# 100% Pro-Choice voting record
# The only candiate [sic] with a legislative record
# Supports expansion of hates crimes legislation
# Supports repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy
Kerry's defense outlook 'alarming' (Sharon Behn, 9/17/04, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Taiwan's top official on China said yesterday that Taipei is unnerved by Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's recent statements on China-Taiwan relations.Comments made by Mr. Kerry on the sensitive issue of Taiwan "were a little bit alarming to us," said Joseph Wu, chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council.
He was particularly concerned by Mr. Kerry's statement during the Democratic primary race that Taiwan might have to accept a one-country/two-system policy similar to that applied to Hong Kong.
Center Right: ISRAEL'S UNEXPECTED VICTORY OVER TERRORISM. (Yossi Klein Halevi & Michael B. Oren, 09.16.04, New Republic)
Four years ago this Rosh Hashanah, when the Palestinian leadership launched this war, Israelis were caught by surprise and demoralized by the violent collapse of a peace process whose success many had assumed was imminent. Prime Minister Ehud Barak was not only negotiating under fire, but offering additional concessions. Cabinet ministers and security figures were insisting that the war against terrorism couldn't be won by military means alone. The Israeli army seemed as disoriented as the politicians: When two reservists were lynched and mutilated by a Palestinian mob inside a police station in October 2000, Israel's initial response was to bomb mostly empty buildings belonging to the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). And, when a French TV crew filmed the death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Muhammad Al Dura, killed in crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen, Israel apologized even before thoroughly investigating whether it was responsible for Al Dura's death. (James Fallows, in an exhaustively researched article for The Atlantic Monthly, concluded it wasn't, as did the reporting of a German TV station.) Rather than calling the terrorism assault a war, Israelis reflexively adopted the misleading Palestinian term intifada--implying an unarmed civilian uprising against an armed occupation. In fact, this was a war by armed Palestinians aimed mostly at Israeli civilians and launched after Israel had agreed to end the occupation--an anti-intifada.Meanwhile, European and even American leaders were still passionately courting Arafat. In one particularly degrading episode, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright literally ran after Arafat as he stormed out of cease-fire talks in Paris in October 2000 and begged him to return to the table. Washington didn't even place Hamas and Hezbollah on its list of terrorist organizations until November 2001. Rather, most of the international community held Israel responsible for weakening Arafat and his ability to restrain terrorism. Conventional wisdom insisted that the Fatah movement was different from Hamas and that "political" Hamas was different from "military" Hamas.
This is the disaster Sharon faced when he assumed the premiership in March 2001. To respond effectively, he first had to convince Israelis that negotiating under fire would only encourage terrorism and that a military solution for terrorism did indeed exist. And so, one of Sharon's first acts in office was to meet with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) general staff and demand a plan for victory. Still, he didn't immediately go to war. The Lebanon fiasco of the early '80s had taught him the danger of initiating a military campaign without the support of both the mainstream left and the U.S. administration. (By contrast, Sharon didn't waste time wooing France and other European Union countries that wouldn't support the war on terrorism no matter what Israel did.) This is the first lesson Sharon could teach democratic leaders facing a war against terrorism: Insure domestic consensus and the support of vital allies.
Sharon imposed on himself a regimen of single-mindedness and patience. He concentrated almost exclusively on security, leaving the country's economy and its foreign relations--with the exception of relations with the Bush administration--to other ministers. Nor did he allow himself to be distracted by divisive domestic issues like the secular-religious divide. By becoming the first Likud leader to endorse a Palestinian state, Sharon broke with his own party's ideology and recast himself as a consensus politician. And he established a national unity government with the Labor Party. He acted liked the leader of a nation at war, not a party at war.
Another New Kerry Position on Iraq . . .: . . . and the same one on Vietnam. (William Kristol, 09/15/2004, Weekly Standard)
He is now the anti-war candidate, this time presumably for good. Leaving aside (important) questions of Kerry's character and credibility, the stage is now set for a straight-up debate: Kerry's view is that we would be safer to have left Saddam in power. Bush's view is that we (and the world) are safer having removed Saddam, and that American strategic goals in the war on terror have been advanced.But there is one issue on which Kerry has stayed pretty constant: Vietnam. This morning, Imus asked Kerry about his post-Vietnam activities. Kerry said: "I served. I came home. I saw what I saw. And I told the truth.
And if people still have a problem with that, I'm sorry." The one lodestar is Kerry's career, the one thing on which he doesn't flip-flop, is his denunciation of the war in Vietnam as part of a "mystical war against communism," and his condemnation of American soldiers' behavior in Vietnam. In any case, Kerry is right that people should make up their own minds whether they "have a problem" with his 1971 "Genghis Khan" testimony. To help them judge, we link to it here.
Donald Rumsfelds Abound in Wave of London Plays on Iraq War (Bloomberg.com, September 17th, 2004)
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is a character in at least three plays in London.There's the Rumsfeld who says looting may be an inevitable byproduct of the birth of democracy. There's the Rumsfeld who thinks being imprisoned in cages in Cuba is not unlike a holiday in the sun. And there's Rum-Rum, who suspects, but can't quite prove, his Middle Eastern enemy kills babies and worships Satan.
The three plays -- David Hare's ``Stuff Happens,'' Tim Robbins's ``Embedded'' and ``Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom'' by Victoria Brittain and Gillian Slovo -- are among a group of political productions flooding London stages with Iraq War themes, both overt and implied. The plays thrive because playwrights are filling the gap some journalists left in their war coverage, Robbins said.
In my play, Gabriel and a host of angels visit Rumsfeld every night during the war and bless his courage and wisdom to the exquisite sounds of a massed celestial choir. I wrote it because I was ticked off CNN edited that out of their coverage.
Fed moves rates with words rather than actions (JOSEPH REBELLO, September 17, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
The unusual strategy adopted by the Federal Reserve in the summer of 2003 for stoking the U.S. economy without cutting interest rates was a clear success, researchers at the U.S. central bank have concluded in a new study.The study, led by Fed Governor Ben Bernanke, says the central bank managed to exert powerful effects on interest rates merely by promising to keep the key short-term federal funds rate low for a ''considerable period.'' Those influences were at least five times stronger than the average effect of actual interest-rate changes since 1991.
The study was posted on the Fed's Web site last week.
By July of 2003, the Fed had dropped the federal funds rate to a 45-year low of 1 percent without generating what it could consider a ''sustainable'' economic recovery.
The policy-makers decided at that point to stop cutting interest rates. They switched instead to a strategy that Bernanke and his colleagues call ''policymaking by thesaurus.'' For the first time in its history, the Fed began to make public statements about how it might change interest rates over a horizon beyond six to eight weeks.
GERMANY'S SELF-HATING CONSERVATIVES: Anti-modernism is gaining ground among the German right (Sabine Reul, 9/17/04, Spiked)
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that a new kind of anti-modernism is gaining ground in conservative thought. If even the welfare state is now seen as being the result of bad maths and cynical electioneering, how can writers and politicians who lay claim to the conservative label defend anything good in their postwar tradition? As a result, some have begun to thrash about, seeking guidance from older pre- or anti-democratic strands in nineteenth-century conservatism. In this context, political arrangements that once were seen as being essential to Western democracies are becoming the targets of vitriolic disdain.Radical conservative currents are gaining access to the political mainstream. Hans-Herrmann Hoppe, the German-born American Professor of Business Science and member of the conservative Ludwig von Mises Institute in Alabama, has found a highly receptive audience in Germany for his pamphlet Democracy - The God that Failed.
Hoppe shares the view held on the right-wing fringes of American politics that not only parties, but even the state itself belongs on the rubbish heap of history. He calls for an 'elitist civil law society', where autonomous local communities led by individuals with 'natural authority' govern themselves - and where those who possess nothing have no say. Hoppe calls for the foundation of 'free territories', in which, of course, there would be neither immigrants nor welfare systems.
His pamphlet may seem eccentric, but the proximity of his views to many current assumptions is striking - which explains the positive response it has received. Hoppe's harangue about the state as a body that only devours money, conducts unnecessary wars and prevents people from living 'naturally' is far from alien in today's anti-political climate. Though Hoppe presents an extreme version of the belief that modernity has nothing good to offer, he is certainly not alone in thinking this is so.
The tendency to draw regressive conclusions from the current crisis of confidence is gaining strength. The question is, how can relations between people and politics be made more productive and forward-looking? Though the word 'participation' has never been used as much as it is today, the distance between people and politics has rarely been bigger. This is related to the disparaging view of the citizen that prevails in political debate. In Germany, the citizen is today regarded either as a stubborn and greedy obstacle to market reform that needs disciplining, or as a faint-hearted creature in need of therapy and protection.
This degraded view of people corresponds with a mindset that sees nothing worth defending in the best our societies have achieved. It presumes that passivity and perversity are the defining features of humanity, thereby subverting the creativity, courage and commitment that, in the real world, people practice every day.
Kerry's aim is off-target (Mort Zuckerman, 9/17/04, NY Daily News)
Who would have thought that this year's presidential campaign might turn out to be more of a referendum on John Kerry than on President Bush?Who would have thought the campaign would be focusing more on the Vietnam War than on the Iraq war? Who would have thought Kerry would base so much of his convention appeal on four months of service in Vietnam and still be unable to respond to questions raised by Swift boat vets known for years to have been angered by his criticisms of the war they fought together?
Who would have thought that Kerry, vulnerable to the charge of flip-flopping, would suggest that he would have supported the war even if he knew then what he knows now about weapons of mass destruction and then reverse himself by echoing Howard Dean, saying that the war in Iraq is "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time"?
Who would have thought that Kerry would fail to develop the obvious signature grand theme that might have been an election winner: the economic squeeze on the middle class?
The Camera Blinks: A nation of fact-checkers, a network in denial. (BYRON YORK, September 17, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
For days leading up to the "60 Minutes" broadcast, CBS teased the public with word that Ben Barnes, the former speaker of the Texas House, would tell Mr. Rather on camera that he, Mr. Barnes, had pulled strings to get young George W. Bush a place in the Air National Guard. Then, shortly before the program aired, there were rumors the story might contain much more than that."The big news won't be how Bush got into the Guard but how he blew off his duties once he got there," the liberal blogger Joshua Micah Marshall, citing "several sources," wrote the day before the broadcast. "New documents--stuff that is clear and straightforward and apparently puts beyond any debate or doubt that the now-President blew off his duties that he said, as recently as this year, that he fulfilled."
Buoyed by polls, Bush shows new confidence (Judy Keen, 9/17/04, USA TODAY)
[S]ome are already talking about strategy for the congressional elections in 2006. Presidents' parties usually lose ground in such midterm elections.Brad Coker, who works for the non-partisan Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, said that sort of musing is a dangerous sign. "If they get too cocky, they could get themselves into trouble," he said. "They need to resist the temptation to start celebrating early."
Bush isn't celebrating, but he's reveling in his daily interactions with voters — even though the people who attend his campaign rallies are supporters who must have tickets. "I like to get out amongst the people and tell them where I stand, what I believe," he said at another baseball park here.
When he uses a lectern, he grips its sides with both hands, leaning forward to emphasize his comments. When he roams a stage with a handheld microphone, he pivots to make eye contact with people on all sides. He's disarming and charming. Coaxing participants in a panel on health care in Blaine, Bush said, "Ready to crank it up? All right, let's go."
After panelist Jerry Markie, 71, explained that he's saving $4,200 a year by using a Medicare discount card for prescriptions, Bush asked him, "You can use that, can't you?"
"You betcha," Markie said.
"Take mom out to dinner more frequently," Bush advised.
"More than once," Markie said.
Bush was peppy when he popped into the Brick House Deli in Anoka, mugged for cameras with owner Angel Howell's 8-month-old daughter, Kate Lynn, and ordered an egg salad sandwich. "Fire one up," he said. He settled for chicken salad when he was told egg salad wasn't on the menu.
"You can see confidence in Bush's face," says Republican strategist Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole's presidential campaign in 1996. "So much of the mood of a campaign is set by the candidate."
President Ventures to Democratic Territory (Mike Allen, September 17, 2004, Washington Post )
President Bush rode his armored, star-spangled bus through the Democratic stronghold of Minnesota on Thursday as his campaign inaugurated a major push to spend more time and money in opposition territory.Minnesota has not voted Republican in a presidential election since 1972, making it the state with the longest unbroken string of Democratic victories. But winning the Land of 10,000 Lakes, which Al Gore carried by two percentage points in 2000, has become one of the top goals for the Bush campaign.
Bush aides said they plan to move staff and advertising from several states where Bush won narrowly but is now running strong, including West Virginia and Missouri, into ones he wants to make Democratic nominee John F. Kerry defend, notably Minnesota and Wisconsin -- two states in the upper Midwest where churchgoing is heavy and issues of values play well. [...]
The Bush-Cheney campaign sent its biggest names to Gore states on Thursday. First lady Laura Bush spoke in New Jersey, where a poll last week showed Kerry barely ahead after once holding a double-digit lead. She urged supporters to court "Democrats and independents who appreciate strong and optimistic leadership." Vice President Cheney appeared in New Mexico, which Gore won by 366 votes and is a major worry for the Kerry team. [...]
Minnesota and Wisconsin, which Bush lost by 5,709 votes, have been trending Republican for at least eight years and White House strategists believe they can turn them by targeting suburbs, along with rural areas that used to be solidly Democratic, with Bush's promises of a muscular foreign policy, preservation of traditional values and attempts to lower taxes.
So how did Bush become competitive in the only state to vote for native son Walter F. Mondale in 1984, and one of only 10 carried by Michael S. Dukakis in 1988? Lawrence R. Jacobs, director of the 2004 election project at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, said the state has become more suburban, and the New Deal generation is dying out.
"It no longer looks like Little Sweden, with support for higher taxes and more government services," Jacobs said. He added that another factor is that the state "is like everywhere else" in that national security is eclipsing traditional Democratic issues such as health care.
How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy (BRENT STAPLES, 9/17/04, NY Times)
Pundits blame apathy for the decline in voter turnout that has become a fact of life in the United States in the last several decades. But not everyone who skips the polls on Election Day does so by choice. This November, for example, an estimated five million people - roughly 2.3 percent of the number of people eligible to vote - will be barred from voting by state laws that strip convicted felons of the franchise, often temporarily but sometimes for life.These laws cast a permanent shadow over the poor minority communities where disenfranchised people typically live. Children grow up with the unfortunate example of neighbors, parents and grandparents who never vote and never engage in the political process, even superficially.
As a consequence, the struggling communities that need political leadership most of all are trapped within a posture of disengagement that deepens from one generation to the next.
While many things will need to change before the country can reinvigorate the electorate, doing away with postprison sanctions - the most punitive in the democratic world - has to be near the top of the list. [...]
Neither Republicans nor Democrats are rushing to associate themselves with a campaign to restore the vote to former felons. The general public, however, understands clearly that the right to vote is a basic human right. Restoring voting rights to former felons would move the United States closer to its peers in the democratic world - and closer to its founding ideals.
Cement Sack, Yes, but With Concrete Ideas: Kerry's inept, but don't rule him out yet. (JONATHAN CHAIT, 9/17/04, LA Times)
"I don't care if John Kerry is a sack of cement," former Texas Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower said in June. "We're going to carry him to victory."At his very best, Kerry is capable of adequately delivering a prepared speech. But when speaking off the cuff, he has an inexplicable penchant to play into his opponents' hands. Bush implies (outrageously) that Kerry wants to go soft on terrorists? Kerry responds that he wants a "more sensitive war on terror." Bush portrays Kerry as an out-of-touch, Francophile elitist? Kerry tells GQ, "I love sports. French skiers." Bush paints Kerry as indecisive? Kerry volunteers that at restaurants, "You know when they give you the menu, I'm always struggling, what do you want?" It's as if he has somehow internalized his opponents' attacks upon him.
Nor can Kerry articulate his policies. Earlier this summer I listened as a friendly questioner at a Missouri event asked Kerry to describe his healthcare plan — not a trick question. He proceeded to blather on for some 10 minutes, in increasingly abstract terms, to the point where I had no idea what he was talking about. And I've written about healthcare and understand his plan, or at least I thought I did before he started explaining it.
If Kerry does not stage a comeback (and he well might — I lend great credence to the cement sack strategy), the natural next step is for people to rationalize his failure. If he can't run a campaign, the argument goes, he would never have been able to run the White House.
That sounds reasonable enough unless you consider the fact that George W. Bush is a highly competent campaigner but a flaming disaster of a president. And it is exactly those things that make him so ruthlessly effective on the stump — centralized authority, Comintern-like party discipline, total disregard for the truth — that have created a hermetically sealed petri dish in which bad policies come to life and are carried out unchallenged.
In Address to Guard, Kerry Says Bush Isn't Telling Truth on Iraq (ELISABETH BUMILLER, 9/17/04, NY Times)
The convention of more than 4,000 Guard officers responded far more coolly to Mr. Kerry than it had to Mr. Bush. The hall, which had been full on Tuesday, had scattered empty chairs on Thursday as Mr. Kerry arrived, and the group, which repeatedly interrupted the president's speech with standing ovations and hoots of approval, offered Mr. Kerry a polite but quieter reception.At the point that Mr. Kerry said Mr. Bush had not told the convention the truth, a man shouted out "No!" As Mr. Kerry finished speaking, a few officers sat in their chairs, arms crossed. Col. Joanne F. Sheridan, of the Louisiana National Guard, got up and walked out before he was done.
"Mine was a silent protest to what he was saying," Colonel Sheridan said later. "What he was saying about George Bush not telling the truth on Iraq - I just don't believe that. George Bush did tell us the truth, so I guess I couldn't believe what Kerry was saying. Here, he came before a military audience, but he said what he said for the media, for the television cameras - not for us, that's for sure."
Bush Bounce Keeps On Going: President leads Kerry by 13 points among likely voters; 8 points among registered voters (David W. Moore, 9/17/04, GALLUP NEWS SERVICE)
In a new Gallup Poll, conducted Sept. 13-15, President George W. Bush leads Democratic candidate John Kerry by 55% to 42% among likely voters, and by 52% to 44% among registered voters. These figures represent a significant improvement for Bush since just before the beginning of the Republican National Convention.In the immediate aftermath of that convention, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showed Bush receiving a modest bounce from his standing before the convention. Among likely voters, Bush's support was up two points and Kerry's was down two points. Among the larger sample of registered voters, Bush's support was up two points, while Kerry's was unchanged.
The bounce was small, whether measured among the likely or the registered voter groups, so that it was well within the margin of error of the post-convention poll. Given the sample sizes of the two groups, one could not say with 95% certainty that Bush's support had actually increased.
Now, in the new poll, the figures show Bush with a 13-point lead over Kerry among likely voters and an 8-point lead among registered voters. Both sets of figures represent significant increases in Bush's standing in the race since just before the beginning of the Republican convention in late August, when likely voters chose Bush over Kerry by a slight three-point margin (50% to 47%), and registered voters leaned toward Kerry by an even smaller margin of one point (48% to 47%). [...]
Bush's job approval rating has not changed in the past week and a half, though it did increase from 49% before the Republican National Convention to 52% right after -- where it has remained.
Nietzsche maxims (Pejman Yousefzadeh)
Siding against oneself.--Our adherents never forgive us if we take sides against ourselves: for in their eyes this means not only rejecting their love but also exposing their intelligence.
--Nietzsche, Mixed Opinions And Maxims (1879), 309
Opinion divided as Hitler film opens in Germany (Allan Hall, The Scotsman, September 17th, 2004)
A controversial film about Adolf Hitler opened in cinemas across Germany yesterday amid a raging debate about whether the dictator can be portrayed as anything less than the world’s greatest evil.The Downfall drew mixed reviews from German film critics and ordinary cinema-goers. Many applauded its gory depiction of the final 12 days of the Nazi regime, while others objected to some scenes showing Hitler’s human side. [...]
Hans Joachim Drewell, 70, a Berlin pensioner, said: "I think it’s good that a German filmmaker is confronting Hitler, but I don’t like the way Adolf comes off like such a human being.
"It was too much to take. They should have showed more of his evil side, his fanaticism, and not so much of this human side."
Quite right. A human being would never do such things
Annan backs draft resolution on Darfur (Al Jazeera, September 17th, 2004)
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has backed a US-drafted resolution on Sudan's Darfur region."It is urgent to act now. Civilians are still being attacked and fleeing their villages as we speak," Annan told reporters on Thursday of the resolution that threatens to consider oil sanctions against Sudan if it does not stop the abuse.
US Ambassador John Danforth said he expected to call a vote for Saturday afternoon in the 15-member council. Diplomats said they expected about 11 votes in favour of the resolution and were waiting for China to come to a decision. Russia, Pakistan and Algeria also had some reservations. [...]
"I think that it was a very important statement by the secretary-general," Danforth told reporters after another round of council talks.
Top Stories Photos (AP, 9/16/2004; via Drudge)
Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters ...
Three PBS staples attempt a risky comeback: New episodes have been commissioned for 'Sharpe,''Inspector Morse,' and 'Rumpole of the Bailey.' (Hilary McLaughlin, 9/17/04, CS Monitor)
To reconvene "Sharpe" (1993 to 1997), the action drama set in Napoleonic times, the producers had to lure lead actor Sean Bean - now a big-screen star in films such as "Lord of the Rings" and "Troy" - back to the small screen.But the other two series face a trickier hurdle: The principal actors of both "Rumpole" (which aired from 1978 to 1992) and "Morse" (1987 to 2000) are no longer alive. And in the case of Morse, the character also died in the final episode.
ITV's solutions are, to say the least, risky. Albert Finney has been chosen to play Rumpole, the character indelibly embodied by the late Sir Leo McKern. "Morse," meanwhile, will shift the focus to the detective's sidekick, Sergeant Lewis, played by Kevin Whately. [...]
The British, apparently, are more open to the idea than American television, where recasting Miss Ellie on "Dallas" was a spectacular failure. "Dr. Who," the iconic British sci-fi series, is about to return after a decade's absence with Christopher Eccleston becoming the ninth reincarnation of the title character. (It helps that the premise is that the Doctor is an extraterrestrial who occasionally undergoes appearance-altering regenerations.) ITV is presenting a new "Miss Marple" series this season, with Geraldine McEwan taking on the role played by the late Joan Hickson in the BBC version in the 1980s.
There's no thought of finding a new actor to play Chief Inspector Morse. The character was so much the preserve of John Thaw - and the series too recent for a remake - that producers are taking a different tack. "The project is known as 'After Morse,' " says Elliott. "It will focus on Lewis, who has probably been promoted now. It will take Lewis forward from where we last saw him."
Lewis was the more pedestrian, albeit the more likeable and grounded, of the original partnership. The relationship between the grouchy, opera-loving detective and his protegé, as well as the use of the detective's favorite music, gave the programs much of their texture.
At campaign's ground zero, Ohio tilting toward Bush (Liz Marlantes, 9/17/04, CS Monitor)
[T]he campaign's growing negativity is giving many voters doubts about both men - but particularly about the Massachusetts senator, who is the less familiar candidate. It also seems to be dampening enthusiasm about the election, despite a widespread view that major issues are at stake.Munching on an ear of roasted corn at Renick's Family Market, near South Bloomfield, Becky Papp rolls her eyes at the campaign's tone. "He didn't serve in the National Guard; he didn't do that," she mimics. Ms. Papp, an undecided voter who works in the Columbus schools, is hardly a Bush fan. She's concerned about the economy, but doesn't think Kerry could do much about it, either. "If [Kerry] could bring jobs home, I'd be for him," says Papp. "But I don't think he's going to."
Ohio has long been a bellwether, with an electorate that reflects the nation as a whole. The state combines urban industrial centers with rural agricultural regions. Parts meld into the Northeast; others are authentic Appalachia, where "you can find snake handlers and fundamentalist churches and Country Western radio stations," says John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron. "Ohio really is a microcosm of the country."
Man Wins His 11th State Horseshoe Title (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/16/04)
Call him the Michael Jordan of horseshoes: Glenn Burris has taken his 11th -- count 'em, 11 -- Pennsylvania Outdoor Horseshoe Championship. The Centre County resident, who was sidelined for a year after undergoing knee surgery in 2002, still thinks he's a bit rusty."A lot of people don't realize how much practice it takes,'' said Burris, 65.
He was ranked only fifth coming into this year's tournament in Roxbury, Franklin County, but defeated the top-ranked player and lost only one game.
Burris' father, a master in his own right, taught him to play when he was a boy. Before he died at age 52, Kenneth Burris captured 21 consecutive championships at the Centre County Grange Fair. And he did it with one arm, having lost the other in a farming accident.
Glenn Burris retired from the Grange tournament in 1989, one win short of his father's mark.
In 1990, he was inducted into the Pennsylvania Horseshoe Pitching Association's Hall of Fame, continuing to play an average of six tournaments a year until his knee surgery.
Crewmate slaps Sally Robbins (Peter Kogoy and Jenny McAsey, September 17, 2004, news.com.au)
THE same athlete who declared her team was "not punching each other" after Sally Robbins stopped rowing in Athens, will be disciplined for slapping her teammate at a post-Olympics celebration.Catriona Oliver hit Robbins across the shoulder in plain view of other guests and Robbins then pursued Oliver into the toilets, where the brawl is believed to have continued.
A senior Australian Olympic Committee staffer, who asked not to be named, said she saw Robbins follow Oliver into a women's toilet at the Sydney Superdome, where the pair had to be pulled apart.
She described the slap as "unbelievable".
"It happened at the back of the room. I know Sally left for the ladies' (toilets) in tears afterwards."
The women's rowing team were attending the party as part of Sydney's welcome home parade for the athletes on Wednesday.
Robbins, 23, was last night being comforted by friend and athlete Jana Pittman.
"All I can say is Sally is my best mate and I love her. She's here with me and staying with me," Pittman said.
M's own up politically: Most players say they're for Bush in voting booth (DAVID ANDRIESEN, September 16, 2004, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER)
Politically, the Mariners bat from the right.In a completely unscientific poll with a margin of error of 100 percent, we polled Mariners who are U.S. citizens and were handy, and asked who they supported for president. The results: Bush 13, Kerry 2, undecided 2.
"A lot of it is money, taxes, and I think most ballplayers are conservatives," Scott Spiezio said. "I think if I were making $50,000 a year, I'd still be a conservative, though."
Taxes are certainly an issue for major league baseball players, who make an average of about $2.5 million a year. Athletes also tend to come disproportionately from the South, which traditionally votes Republican.
Interestingly, Bobby Madritsch, a left-hander, and Randy Winn, who bats mostly left-handed, were the only left-leaners polled.
"I wouldn't say I'm a hard-core conservative, but I don't like a lot of Democratic views," second baseman Bret Boone said. "I don't like big government. I like small government."
"I think about what happened on 9/11, and I think about what would have happened if Al Gore had been in charge," said reliever J.J. Putz, who hails from the important swing state of Michigan. "This country would be in shambles."
Sudan peace talks collapse (Globe and Mail, September 15th, 2004)
Sudan's rebels and government broke off internationally brokered peace talks for the bloodied Darfur region Wednesday after three weeks with little progress and no deal.The government blamed the United States for the failure.
Both sides said the talks had collapsed, although they left open the possibility of trying again after a halt of at least three weeks.
Sudan's government --under threat of international sanctions over 19 months of violence in Darfur -- insisted U.S. criticism had heartened rebels past the point of compromise.
Sudan's top negotiator cited U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's declaration last week that Sudan's government and allied militia had committed acts of genocide against Darfur's non-Arab villagers.
“The attitude of Colin Powell and America generally was the main cause of the stalemate,” Sudanese envoy Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmad told The Associated Press.
“It sent a wrong message to the rebels, and that resulted in their hardening their position at the talks,” Mr. Ahmad said, insisting Sudan's problems “will never be solved from outside Africa.”
This is a clever ploy that is likely to succeed, if not in generating active support for the murderers, at least in tying the left up in ideological confusion. It would be churlish to accuse leftists of not caring about genocide, but, as with most great leftist humanitarian causes, it would be accurate to say they are only prepared to confront it within an acceptable ideological framework, which means the U.N., international law, peacekeeping, blah, blah, blah. Swift action by the United States or any other countries that were determined to save these wretched peoples would be “unilateral”, and we all know what that means.
Neither Amnesty International nor Human Rights Watch appear to have made any mention of Powell’s Darfur Declaration on their web sites, even though they are monitoring Sudan with the attention CNN is giving Hurricane Ivan.
Here is an open letter from HRW to the Security Council, which starts by expressing horror and urgency, but then slides smoothly into dry demands for resolutions, inquiries, etc. No cowboys they. No lifesavers either. It is as if 1930's humanists were calling desperately for action to halt the Holocaust, but only if done under the auspices of the League of Nations. Otherwise, forget it.
If the left was prepared to defend Saddam Hussein’s regime in the name of international law, why would we imagine they won’t mount a similar defense for the butchers of Darfur? They will argue that all would have been well if the United States hadn’t rushed in recklessly to call people names and upset the oh-so-delicate negotiations behind the scenes. When everyone is dead and they are organizing their “Darfur–What went wrong?” conferences, they will finally be moved to action and pass unanimous resolutions as to who the "real' culprits were.
Bet on it.
The Rise of a Satanic Right? (Michael Ordoña, 9/13/04, AlterNet)
Did John Kerry fight not only Viet, but Vampire Cong in the Mekong Delta? Is the GOP considering replacing Dick Cheney on the ticket with the zombified corpse of Ronald Reagan? Is the Bush family, along with Martha Stewart, embroiled in a satanic plot to take over the world?Recently, artists in various media have taken to casting the foes of the Democratic party as monsters. Literally. With so many voters dismissing the Democrats as the lesser of two evils, these characterizations call Republicans the much, much more evil of two evils, – think Barbara Bush (the elder) pulling a baby's head out of a gory sheep bladder – as if to say to conservatives, "You think we're godless and immoral? Well, you worship Satan!" [...]
Earlier this summer, Greg Knauss, a 36-year-old computer programmer who is married to a Republican, put up a website devoted to a presidential ticket of Bush and "Zombie Reagan." Not only does the site make merciless fun of the dead, it describes the late president as "a lumbering, flesh-eating corpse" who will replace Dick Cheney because of the current vice president's need to devote more time to bathing "in the blood of virgins."
According to the site, "Zombie Reagan... no longer needs to sleep and can withstand any wound save the complete destruction of his head. By way of example, Zombie Reagan would have been able to shrug off his 1981 assassination attempt and eat his attacker. He and President Bush enjoy clearing brush together."
The site has received more than 400,000 hits, most of which came during its first week online, and its content has been widely circulated on the Internet. It was popular enough to spawn a related product line (mugs, T-shirts, hats and the like) and to inspire dozens of visitors to offer campaign slogans such as "Zombie Reagan – Still Less Evil Than Cheney," "Putting the Voodoo Back in Voodoo Economics."
With the buzz generated by the site, Knauss expected a storm of criticism. It never materialized. "I mean, geez, what does it take to enrage people these days?" he complains. "Here I am, poking a recently passed icon of conservatism with a sharp stick and nobody threatens to kill me? I thought these were polarized, overly serious times!"
Wage gains stay ahead of inflation in August (Barbara Hagenbaugh, 9/16/04, USA TODAY)
Gains in workers' pay outpaced inflation for the second straight month in August, the government said Thursday in a report suggesting subdued price pressures are helping employees come out slightly ahead.Average weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation and seasonal variations, rose 0.3% in August from the prior month following a 1% gain in July, the Labor Department said. It was the first time since late 2003 that inflation-adjusted earnings rose for two straight months. The report measures pay for production and non-supervisory workers outside of farming. [...]
The earnings report accompanied other data showing the Consumer Price Index rose just 0.1% in August following a 0.1% drop in July. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, inflation at the consumer level was also up 0.1% for the third straight month.
Kurds Flooding Back Into Northern Iraq: Kurdish Exiles Pour Back Into Northern Iraq City They Once Fled, Trying to Reclaim Region (The Associated Press, Sept. 16, 2004)
Kurds are on the move again in northern Iraq but this time they're not fleeing. As many as 500 Kurds a day streamed into Kirkuk last month in a land rush that took city officials and U.S. troops by surprise. The influx, which has slowed in September, leaves the nascent city government struggling to cope with dozens of refugee camps on once vacant patches of ground. [...]If they keep coming, this city of 750,000 could have 100,000 new residents before the first elections since Saddam was ousted last year, officials here say.
The Kurds' return is viewed with alarm by those who fear an independent Kurdish state, among them Iraqi Arabs and surrounding countries with Kurdish minorities, especially Turkey, said U.S. Army Col. Lloyd Miles, who commands the Kirkuk-based brigade.
"They don't want the Kurds to get control of the oil here," said Miles. "Then they will have a source of income for an independent state."
Clinton allies reject her funding bill (Geoff Earle. 9/16/04, The Hill)
Even though Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has raised millions of dollars to aid her Democratic colleagues and is a de facto party leader in Congress, the possible presidential candidate in 2008 failed to persuade her colleagues this week to fork over homeland security money for her state.Clinton made an impassioned plea in a closed Democratic Caucus meeting Tuesday for her amendment to direct that the Homeland Security Department follow a “threat-based” approach when allocating homeland-security money. Such an approach would send more aid to cities such as New York and Washington, where the terrorist threat is deemed greatest.
But Clinton was beaten back by senators fearful that their states would lose out under a system that guaranteed less money for each state, with more money based on such factors as population or level of threat.
Kerry over? Not. (Mark Shields, September 14, 2004, CNN)
Take a deep breath.Ignore the polls. Voters care whether their jobs will be there, whether there will be good jobs for their children, whether they will be able to afford health care.
Their votes are not influenced by polls. If they were, candidates George McGovern and Barry Goldwater, who both trailed by two-to-one throughout the fall, would not have won two out of five votes each on Election Day.
Ethics complaint unravels: Bell’s case against Tom DeLay likely to be dismissed (Jonathan E. Kaplan, 9/16/04, The Hill)
The ethics complaint against Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) about improper fundraising is likely going to be dismissed by the House ethics committee, according to a source familiar with the panel’s internal discussions.
Dems ask: Where's Edwards? (Carla Marinucci, Zachary Coile, September 16, 2004, SF Chronicle)
Vice President Dick Cheney -- the usually stern GOP bulldog candidate -- was in good humor this week, ribbing his Democratic counterpart's low-key style and profile on the campaign trail."I'm mindful that I now have an opponent,'' he told supporters at an Arkansas cotton warehouse Tuesday. When the crowd giggled, Cheney mugged, "No, I really do.''
The laugh line is no laughing matter to many Democrats...
Mr. Edwards has, if possible, even less of a public identity. For him to go on the attack now, without having first established a positive image, would be disastrous. Unfortunately, the campaign doesn't have the time or money to spend on convincing voters that there's a there there. They need to just accept that they whiffed the vp pick.
Virtual Tie in Congressional Races (David W. Moore, 9/14/04, Gallup)
Public perceptions of the two major parties have gone through several changes this election year, with the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey showing Republicans and Democrats essentially tied on most rankings, and with the two parties neck and neck in the race to control Congress. The generic ballot shows Republicans up 48% to 46% among likely voters...
Beer, it's good for what ails you (JANET RAUSA FULLER, September 16, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Beer drinkers may have yet another reason to hoist a cold one -- but make that just one.According to a new study out of Canada, beer has the same heart-healthy benefits as red wine.
Researchers at the University of Western Ontario found that drinking one beer provides the same increase in antioxidant activity in the body as a glass of red wine, which has long been touted for its medicinal properties.
Three beers had an adverse effect on antioxidant activity, according to the study, which will appear in the December journal of Nonlinearity in Biology, Toxicology and Medicine.
"You get the optimum effect at one beer," said lead researcher John Trevithick.
The troubled Northeasterner (George Will, September 16, 2004, Townhall)
For four decades the Northeast, like the Senate almost forever, has not been fertile ground for producing presidents. And in the 10 or so minutes required to savor this column, the center of the American population will have moved another 4 inches south and west. According to the Census Bureau, it is moving thither 2 feet an hour -- almost 3.5 miles a year.
Bush-hating goes haywire (Richard Cohen, 9/16/04, NY Daily News)
This is not the place to examine why Bush is so hated by some people, although the war in Iraq surely takes pride of place. But even before that particular war, I heard people denounce the one in Afghanistan, that Taliban-controlled horror that harbored Osama Bin Laden. These people are infected with a corrosive doubt about their own country.A recent Pew poll found, for instance, that 51% of Democrats agreed with the proposition that "U.S. wrongdoing" contributed to the attacks of 9/11. (Only 17% of Republicans agreed.)
Those are astounding numbers, an indictment not really of America (for what?) but of those people who compulsively blame their own country for the faults of others. You can believe that America's support of Israel and the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia played a role in the 9/11 attacks, but the term Pew used was "wrongdoing." In this respect, these people and Bin Laden are in agreement.
The demonization of Bush is going to cost John Kerry plenty, if it has not done so already. It so overstates the case against Bush that a levelheaded listener would be excused for thinking that there isn't one in the first place. It squeezes the middle, virtually forcing moderates to pick which bunch of nuts they're going to join.
It's hard to know whom to loathe more - religious zealots who would censor my reading and deny me the fruits of stem-cell research or fervid hallucinators who belittle Saddam Hussein's crimes (or even 9/11) and wonder, in the throes of perpetual adolescence, whether the assassination of the President would not amount to a political mercy killing. It's all pretty repugnant.
China executes four accused of bank fraud (Reuters, 9/14/2004)
BEIJING - China executed four people, including employees of two of its Big Four state banks, for fraud totaling $15 million, the Xinhua state news agency said on Tuesday, amidst a high-profile campaign against financial crime.The executions come after a string of arrests in white-collar crime as China prepares to sell shares in its big banks.
The latest cases involved China Construction Bank, due to raise up to $10 billion in an IPO next year, and Bank of China — which is moving towards an IPO worth up to $4 billion.
A day later, Martha Stewart figures jail is looking pretty good.
The Gollum voters (Paul Lewis, September 13, 2004, Boston Globe)
THE CONVENTIONAL wisdom about the American electorate -- that all but a tiny minority of voters have made up their minds -- misses the deep ambivalence plaguing many Bush and Kerry supporters, an ambivalence that characterizes what we might call their Gollum mindset. The reference is to the villainous character in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, played by Andy Serkis in the celebrated Peter Jackson films of the past few years.By the time Gollum appears in "The Hobbit," he has been the possessed possessor of the dark ring for centuries during which he both worshipped it as his "precious" and recoiled in horror from some of its evil promptings. In the trilogy, even as his better side (Smeagol) tries to help his new master Frodo carry the ring to the fires of Mount Doom where it can be destroyed, his dark side (Gollum) urges him to kill Frodo and take back the ring.
As Bush and Kerry shift to the bland center of US politics looking for every last vote in the Shire, they count on their bases for support, hoping that the alienation they engender will not push loyalists away. But, haunted by the resisting voices of ideological clarity, these loyalists find themselves wondering more and more whether they will have the strength and willpower to hold onto their preference all the way to November and, against counter promptings of disgust and disappointment, vote for their candidate.
The Fox News poll asked Kerry supporters if their vote for the Democrat could best be described as motivated by support for Kerry (41 percent) or by opposition to Bush (51 percent). By contrast, Bush voters emphatically say, by 82-13, that they are voting for the president rather than against the challenger.
Pre-emptive Paranoia (MAUREEN DOWD, 9/16/04, NY Times)
Here's how bad off the Democrats are: They're cowering behind closed doors, whispering that if it should ever turn out that Republicans are behind this, it would be so exquisitely Machiavellian, so beyond what Democrats are capable of, they should just fold and concede the election now - before the Republicans have to go to the trouble of stealing it again.There's no evidence - it's just a preposterous, paranoid fantasy at this point. But it speaks to the jitters of the Democrats that they're consumed with speculation about whether Karl Rove, the master of dirty tricks and surrogate sleaze, could have set up CBS in a diabolical pre-emptive strike to undermine damaging revelations about Bush 43's privileged status and vanishing act in the National Guard, and his odd refusal to take his required physical when ordered.
In this vast left-wing conspiracy theory, Mr. Rove takes real evidence on W.'s shirking and transfers it to documents doomed to be exposed as phony (thereby undermining the real goods), then funnels it through third parties to Dan Rather, Bush 41's nemesis on Iran-contra. A perfect bank shot.
Economist's Corner: Will Rising Oil Prices De-Rail the Economy? (Carl Steidtmann, August 2004, Deloitte Research)
Since 1985, the real price of oil has stayed in a fairly tight range, breaking to the upside only briefly during the first Gulf War and below their price range during the Asian currency crisis.While oil prices today are above US$46 a barrel back in 1990 they peaked briefly at $51 a barrel in 2004 prices. The all time record high was hit in 1980 during the Iran hostage crisis when oil price exceeded $91 a barrel, roughly twice today’s price. Energy productivity chart, real GDP per trillion BTU, 1973-2003 Even a run up to $90 a barrel will not have the kind of impact it did back in 1980 due in large part to the steady improvement in energy productivity that the economy has experienced over the past 20 years.
Since 1973, energy productivity is up nearly 120%. From the price peak in 1980, energy productivity has risen roughly 80%. Factoring the rise in productivity into the equation energy prices today would have to rise above $164 a barrel to have the inflationary and growth deflating impact that oil prices had back in the early 1980s. Reaching such a price in the short run is not very likely even assuming a massive destruction of oil capacity which is always possible in this age of terrorism.
So while the economic pundits will wring their hands over rising oil prices and tell you that they are at all time record highs, the truth of the matter is quite different. Real oil prices are about half their record highs and the steady improvement in energy productivity has made today’s economy much less vulnerable to oil price shocks than what it was 20 years ago.
What A "Fairer" Tax Code Might Look Like: A reelected Bush may rework the existing system -- or try for a consumption tax (Howard Gleckman and Mike McNamee. 9/20/04, Business Week)
How would a shift toward taxing consumption differ from what we have now?The existing code is a complicated hybrid. We call it an income tax, but it doesn't actually tax all income: The value of fringe benefits, such as health insurance and parking, goes untaxed. And the treatment of investment income verges on haphazard. About half of all capital income goes to tax-exempt accounts such as 401(k)s or pension funds. And companies often shelter their earnings from corporate taxes.
On the other hand, many companies do pay tax on their profits, then investors pay tax again on dividends or capital gains. So returns on investment may be taxed twice, once, or not at all.
A consumption tax, by contrast, is simply a levy on spending. In other words, you would take all the money you earn, subtract what you save, and pay tax on the rest.
How would Washington collect such a tax?
It could add a sales tax to the final price of goods and services we buy at the retail level, just as most states do today. Or it could have businesses pay the tax at each stage of production and pass the cost on to consumers in the form of higher prices. This is the value-added tax, or VAT, that most European countries use. Finally, the feds could collect the money through a system of tax withholding and annual returns, much as they do today. That version is called a "consumed income tax."
How would a consumed income tax work?
Think of an unlimited individual retirement account. You would simply list your income -- including, possibly, all your fringe benefits and other goodies that are currently excluded -- then subtract everything you save and invest and calculate tax on what is left. Investment earnings would be taxed once they are cashed in and you have used them to buy something.
Isn't that like the retirement savings accounts Bush has already proposed?
Bush has proposed two new savings vehicles: retirement savings accounts (RSAS) and lifetime savings accounts (LSAS). Together they would let a couple sock $20,000 a year into savings and never pay tax on the earnings -- eliminating all taxes on capital for 95% of individual taxpayers, according to William G. Gale of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
Are those a step to a consumed income tax?
Not at all. RSAs, LSAs, and cuts in capital gains and dividend taxes are not tax reform. They are merely cuts in taxes on investment. Under a true consumption levy, allowing investment income to go tax-free would have to be coupled with ending the tax deduction for interest paid by corporations and by homeowners on their mortgages -- a huge and far less popular change. [...]
Don't many experts argue that a consumption tax is the way to go?
Only if done right. That would require eliminating interest deductions and other tax breaks -- a tall order for politicians. But if Washington did adopt a well-designed consumption tax, would be simpler than the current code, it would eliminate the double taxation of capital income, and sharply reduce the use of shelters. And most economists believe it would boost growth at least by a few tenths of a percent each year. Economist Alan J. Auerbach of the University of California at Berkeley figures it would push up gross domestic product by 9% over several decades. But a consumption tax's biggest virtue, say supporters, is that it is fair. "You work and save. I work and don't. Why should you pay more tax than me over your lifetime?" asks Urban Institute senior fellow C. Eugene Steuerle, who helped draft the 1986 tax reform.
Is Kerry moving left? (Robert Novak, September 16, 2004, Townhall)
Only two explanations are possible, and neither is reassuring to worried Democrats. Kerry could be making a conscious, though counterproductive, decision to reassure his liberal base. Or, he could be trapped by the calendar of events -- talking gun control because a deadline had been reached and talking civil rights because the Black Caucus invited him. Democratic strategists are particularly concerned by the latter explanation, suggesting a mindless campaign.The anxiety created by Kerry's return to gun control is concealed by the facade of serenity among Democrats. Their actual concern was exposed by Democratic activist Paul Begala, who has been assailed for advising the Kerry campaign while appearing as my co-host on CNN's "Crossfire." He said on Monday's program: "Anyone who's worried that I'm secretly running the Kerry campaign can rest easy . . . As an avid hunter and gun owner myself, I think Kerry's move is a political mistake, because Republicans are now going to try to scare hunters."
Kerry's emphasis on gun control contradicted not only Begala but also Begala's former boss, Bill Clinton. In his memoir, President Clinton names gun control as a principal cause of the 1994 Democratic election debacle. He asserts that "the Brady Bill (for screening of gun purchasers) and the assault weapons ban inflamed the Republican base voters and increased their turnout."
A consensus of Democratic leaders believes that in 2000, gun control delivered West Virginia -- and with it, the presidency -- to George W. Bush.
MORE:
Gun Control Still One of the Great Divides Between GOP and Democrats (George Skelton, September 16, 2004, LA Times)
Want to control guns? Elect Democrats.
Democrats Seek Louder Voice From Edwards (RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and ADAM NAGOURNEY, 9/16/04, NY Times)
Don Imus had a question for Senator John Kerry when the senator called in to Mr. Imus's morning televised radio program on Wednesday."Where's Edwards?" Mr. Imus demanded, referring to Mr. Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards. "I wondered if he was still on the ticket. We haven't heard from him."
Mr. Kerry assured Mr. Imus - the broadcasting personality who long ago endorsed Mr. Kerry - that Mr. Edwards was campaigning hard. But Mr. Imus is not the only person who is asking that question these days.
At a time when Vice President Dick Cheney has been mocking and pummeling Mr. Kerry across the country, reveling in the traditional fighting role of a vice-presidential nominee, Mr. Edwards has adopted a decidedly less belligerent and lower-profile stance as he campaigns through communities like this small town in southeast Ohio. Only in the last few days, with criticism percolating among Democrats, has he become louder in taking on the administration.
Louisiana next up in gay marriage debate (ARNOLD HAMILTON, September 15, 2004, The Dallas Morning News)
Ron Bishop hopes to marry someday. He may never get the chance. [...]"I'd at least like to have the right" to marry, said the 42-year-old restaurant manager and French Quarter resident. "I'd like the choice to be mine and not theirs."
About an hour's drive west, in the tiny Mississippi River town of St. Gabriel, La., the Rev. Alfred Thomas doesn't see it as anyone's choice.
"I believe in the Bible," said the 63-year-old pastor of Mount Bethel Baptist Church. "I don't believe there's any compromising what God says. ... It's a sin."
The debate is spreading across America like a prairie fire, sparked 10 months ago when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that same-sex couples have a right to marry in that state.
This fall, about a dozen states – including three in the Southwest: Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma – are expected to vote on referendums designed to chisel the traditional definition of marriage into state constitutions.
Especially significant: In the battleground states of Ohio, Michigan, Oregon and Arkansas, the ballot measures, analysts say, could help spur higher-than-normal turnout among social conservatives and religious evangelicals that not only oppose same-sex marriage, but also would be more likely to back President Bush over Democrat John Kerry.
Kerry's Iraq war comments leave backer Imus confused (DAVID JACKSON, September 15, 2004, The Dallas Morning News)
Every time John Kerry brings up the Iraq debate, another debate ensues between his aides and Republicans – whether he has changed positions.This time, however, even Kerry supporter Don Imus expressed confusion.
When the radio talk-show host asked the Democratic presidential candidate Wednesday if there were any circumstances under which "we should have gone to war in Iraq," Mr. Kerry said no.
"Not under the current circumstances, no, there are none that I see," Mr. Kerry said, though he continued to defend his 2002 vote to authorize possible military action. [...]
"I was just back in my office banging my head on the jukebox," Mr. Imus said. "This is my candidate, and ... I don't know what he's talking about."
On September 3rd, we posted this crystal ball analysis.
...Bush has bounced off the classic double bottom (green line) and made it thru the larger downward trend line (red) that's been in place since January. If 'he' can get through the near term resistance at 59, retest it and move on, that should become support..
Here's today's live update. The 'lifetime' chart doesn't yet show today's move up thru 67 to nearly 70, but you can see it in the pricing. Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda....And for those of you 'hedgies' who shorted Kerry to boot, Bravo.
DISCLAIMER: Betting on US Presidential races is for entertainment only and should not be used for investment purposes (just ask Teresa).
A Privatizing President: A second Bush presidency would usher in an age of privatization of our federal social programs. (E. J. Dionne, September 15, 2004, Washington Monthly)
What would President Bush do with a second term? Let's take him at his word. Bush is engaged in a bold (and, if you disagree with him, dangerous) project to dismantle the social advances of the New and Fair Deals, the New Frontier, and the Great Society. He wants to throw more risk onto the individual, free corporations and employers from regulations that protect employees and consumers, and reduce government's role in providing retirement security. He would further cut taxes on the savings and investments of the well-off and weaken the individual's right to sue corporations and heath-care providers for malfeasance.Or, to put this same list in Bush's terms, he wants to "empower" individuals, end "junk law suits," expand "incentives" for investment, give the elderly "ownership of their retirement," and free businesses from "unnecessary" regulation. A second Bush term would be a big deal, if not necessarily a fair one. [...]
Would the planks of this Bush program be passed? As long as Democrats hold at least 45 seats in the Senate – they are likely to win at least several more than that, perhaps even a majority – much of this Bush agenda will be stillborn. But you never know. Enough Democrats caved in to Bush on his tax-cut proposals to make them law. Maybe the privatized world Bush seeks could happen if Democrats are intimidated by his re-election. That makes the outcome of November's presidential vote very important.
KAMIKAZE KERRY RIDES ALONG WITH LOSER DAN (DEBORAH ORIN, September 16, 2004, NY Post)
Worried Dems say it shows lack of discipline, lack of strategy, lack of message and freelancing — just what a slipping campaign can't afford. "It's stupid, it's stupid, it's stupid. Get off the National Guard and all that bull. Every day we talk about the National Guard and Vietnam is another day that George Bush wins. No one cares about 30 years ago," a top Dem says.Another tells of a focus group of swing voters this week where no one even mentioned Rather's Guard flap but an unnerving number "parroted back" attacks on Kerry as a flip-flopper who lied about his Vietnam service. "The Kerry people think they didn't attack Bush hard enough. They're dead wrong. More attacks on Bush aren't a reason to vote for Kerry," this strategist says.
Others suspect the driving force in going after Bush on the Guard is a deep rage inside Kerry and wife Teresa — remember how she tried to paint Bush as a shirker at the Democratic convention? — over how the Vietnam issue has backfired on the Democrat candidate.
By this theory, Kerry simply can't accept the fact that the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth seriously damaged him with TV ads challenging his war and anti-war record.
Kerry, they say, is fixated on getting someone to do similar damage to Bush. But the Catch-22 is that Bush's Guard record is nothing new, while Kerry's attacks on fellow vets as rapists, pillagers and war criminals were news to most.
Post Source Reveals Identity to Leak Probers (Susan Schmidt, September 16, 2004, Washington Post)
A Washington Post reporter's confidential source has revealed his or her identity to the special prosecutor conducting the CIA leak inquiry, a development that provides investigators with a fact they have been pursuing in the nearly year-long probe.Post reporter Walter Pincus, who had been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury in the case, instead gave a deposition yesterday in which he recounted his conversation with the source, whom he has previously identified as an "administration official." Pincus said he did not name the source and agreed to be questioned only with the source's approval.
"I understand that my source has already spoken to the special prosecutor about our conversation on July 12 [2003], and that the special prosecutor has dropped his demand that I reveal my source. Even so, I will not testify about his or her identity," Pincus said in a prepared statement.
"The source has not discharged us from the confidentiality pledge," said The Post's executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr.
Pincus and Post executives said they do not know whether the source is in legal jeopardy as a result of revealing his or her identity, saying that it is a matter for the prosecutor to decide.
Dangerous Commission: Pervez Musharraf's war on al-Qaeda and on Pakistan's domestic extremists has earned him many enemies (TIM MCGIRK, 9/20/04, TIME ASIA)
Three times, the enemies of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf have attempted to take him out. They tried blowing up his motorcade twice last December. In August, police in Islamabad arrested 10 men who had an arsenal of rockets smuggled from the tribal territory along the Afghanistan border. According to the police, the plan was to launch murderous attacks during Independence Day celebrations on Aug. 14, hitting Musharraf, his Cabinet and the U.S. embassy. And that close shave came only 15 days after a suicide bomber tried to blow up Shaukat Aziz, a Musharraf ally who was sworn in as Prime Minister on Aug 27.But there is nothing in Musharraf's demeanor that shows he is rattled. With his confident, square-shouldered gait, Musharraf, 61, moves like a veteran prizefighter. When he met TIME correspondents in his Islamabad salon recently, Musharraf strode across an ornate Persian carpet clutching a memo with the names of 30 al-Qaeda suspects whom Pakistan has helped to nab over the past two months. This, said Musharraf, was Osama bin Laden's "second string" of terrorists: "We know who is whom and who is where. We've broken their backs." He claimed that a lode of al-Qaeda computer disks captured in July showed that the group's leaders have contingency plans to shift operations away from the hinterlands of Pakistan to Somalia and Sudan. And just last week, Pakistan's military said it launched an air and ground attack against a suspected al-Qaeda training camp in the tribal area of Waziristan, killing more than 60 recruits and their Uzbek and Chechen trainers.
In Musharraf's deadly bout with al-Qaeda, the latest round has decisively been his.
Calm eye in Kerry's storm (Ellen Goodman, September 16, 2004, Boston Globe)
All you need to see is the title to know that this will be an attempt to defend the utterly incompetent performance of Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill. Women won't be truly equal until they can acknowledge when one of their own is a disaster.
Doctors opposed to abortion get boost: Efforts intensify to support doctors and pharmacists who are opposed to abortion and emergency contraception. (DAVID CRARY, 9/16/04, Associated Press)
In Congress and states nationwide, anti-abortion activists are broadening efforts to support hospitals, doctors and pharmacists who want to opt out of services linked to abortion and emergency contraception.A little-noticed provision cleared the House of Representatives last week that would prohibit local, state or federal authorities from requiring any institution or healthcare professional to provide abortions, pay for them, or make abortion-related referrals, even in cases of rape or medical emergency.
In Mississippi, a bill became law in July that admirers and critics consider the nation's most sweeping ''conscience clause.'' It allows healthcare workers and facilities to refuse performing any service they object to on moral or religious grounds.
And in states across the country, anti-abortion organizations and a group called Pharmacists for Life are encouraging pharmacists to refuse to distribute emergency contraceptives, which they consider a potential form of abortion.
''We've seen increasing organization and networking to get more pharmacists to refuse to provide EC -- not just in the Bible Belt but all over,'' said Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. ``It's part of the anti-choice arrogance in which they believe they have the right to impose their ideology on everyone else.''
War on Iraq was illegal, says Annan (Alec Russell, The Telegraph, September 16th, 2004)
Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, said last night that the war in Iraq had been "illegal", and "in conformity" with neither the UN Security Council nor the UN Charter.Asked on the BBC World Service if the war was illegal, he replied: "Yes, if you wish."
My Economic Policy - A new CEO in Washington would be good for American business. (JOHN KERRY, Wednesday, September 15, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
I am not waiting for next year to change the tone on fiscal discipline. Every day on the campaign trail, I explain how I pay for all my proposals. By rolling back the recent Bush tax cuts for families making over $200,000 per year, we can pay for health care and education.
So, who is the grand "We", Senator?
By cutting subsidies to banks that make student loans and restoring the principle that "polluters pay," we can afford to invest in national service and new energy technologies. My new rules won't just apply to programs I don't like; they will apply to my own priorities as well.
Could this be any more vague? And how can we know that you'll be for all this until you're against it?
John Kerry is flanked by fellow Vietnam veterans during a rally in Washington, in this undated photo from the 1970s. (AP Photo/Thinkfilms, George Butler)
It's Gregoire vs. Rossi in governor's race (Ralph Thomas, 9/15/04, Seattle Times)
Attorney General Christine Gregoire cruised to an easy victory last night in the Democratic primary for governor, setting up a showdown with Republican Dino Rossi in the general election. [...]Rossi, a former state senator trying to become the state's first Republican elected as governor since 1980, faced no significant opposition in yesterday's GOP primary.
The general-election campaign — a seven-week scramble — will cap what is already the most expensive governor's race in state history. [...]
Rossi and Gregoire each has raised more than $3.7 million. But Rossi, facing no significant challenge in the primary, has $700,000 more in the bank. Both have fund-raisers planned today.
Republican leaders see Rossi, who calls himself a "fiscal conservative with a social conscience," as their best hope in years. During the past four gubernatorial elections, only once has the Republican nominee won more than 43 percent of the vote.
Like Gregoire, Rossi has been tailoring his message to appeal to moderate, suburban "swing" voters.
At times, in fact, it's been hard to tell the two candidates apart. Both talk often about creating jobs, oppose new taxes and talk about "growing" the economy to boost state revenue.
But Rossi and the Republicans aim to capitalize on people's frustration with Olympia and convince voters that it's time for a change.
Rossi, who spent more than 20 years in the commercial real-estate business, pointed out that Gregoire "has worked for the government her entire adult life."
With teachers, don't do as they do ... (Alan Bonsteel, 9/13/04, LA Daily News)
It's hard to imagine a better expert on the quality of Los Angeles' public schools than the teachers who work there. It may come as a shock, therefore, to discover that Los Angeles' public school teachers are abandoning those government-run schools and sending their own kids to private schools at a far higher rate than the general public.According to a new study based on the 2000 Census by educational researcher Denis Doyle of Chevy Chase, Md., 24.5 percent of Los Angeles' public-school teachers are sending their own children to private schools, versus only 15.7 percent of the general public.
If Los Angeles were exceptional, it might be easy to shrug off the numbers. But throughout the state and throughout the nation, the numbers tell the same story. In six of 11 California metropolitan areas studied by Doyle -- including four of the five largest -- public-school teachers send their kids to private schools at a higher rate than the public.
Kingpin: Rob Glaser and his geek pals from Microsoft wanted to pull pro bowling out of the gutter. So they bought the whole damn league. (Tom McNichol, September 2004, Wired)
Such a bowling geek was Glaser that he rallied a small posse of deep-pocketed execs four years ago and bought the Professional Bowlers Association for $5 million. It was chump change to the three moguls - Glaser, Chris Peters (Microsoft employee number 105), and Mike Slade, a marketing guy who became CEO of Paul Allen's venture, Starwave. But many observers considered the trio to be the real chumps. Professional bowling had lost longtime broadcast partner ABC when its contract expired in 1997 and the league was hovering near bankruptcy. Even when bowling was still on the Wide World of Sports, two-thirds of its viewing audience was over 50 years old. Getting the public excited about pro bowling would be like trying to bring back the Commodore 64 as a mission-critical corporate computer.Glaser saw it differently. "Take any of the rules of how modern sports are run - professional bowling did none of those things," he says. "Most matches weren't televised. The league didn't have personalities who generated excitement. So there was a great opportunity. If we were going to make bowling relevant to an MTV, videogame-trained generation, we had to make it exciting."
The new kingpins have added some spectacle to the sport, throwing out the old PBA rulebook and encouraging a more emotional, in-your-face style of play. A bowler rolling a strike no longer quietly returns to his seat - he shakes his fists in the air and talks trash to his opponent. Down-the-lane seating puts the audience on top of the action, and rock bands keep the crowds pumped between matches. Most important, the owners landed a stable TV contract. A deal with ESPN, first signed in 2001 and extended through 2007, means live championship matches every Sunday afternoon during the five-month season.
The opening tournament, on October 31, will culminate in a championship held in Miller Park, the Brewers' baseball stadium in Milwaukee. The league will install a mobile bowling center on the right field grass, and spectators will be treated to the thoroughly weird sight of bowlers in the outfield.
The numbers, which Glaser likes working with so much, have never looked better. TV ratings are climbing; 775,000 households watched pro bowling on ESPN last year, up 25 percent from two seasons ago. Viewership among 18- to 34-year-old males - the demo that makes or breaks most pro sports - is up 80 percent-plus. More people now watch the PBA than the National Hockey League.
The end of the Troubles, for real (Kevin Cullen, September 5, 2004, Boston Globe)
Two weeks ago, the Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, told Irish republicans that they had to be prepared to remove the IRA as an excuse for unionist refusals to share power. It was, many observers suggested, the clearest sign yet that the IRA will soon be formally disbanded as an active paramilitary organization.An IRA statement saying it was disbanding, combined with some verifiable destruction of the hidden arsenal it has stubbornly held onto, is expected to be enough to get the unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom to resume a power-sharing government with Irish nationalists and republicans who aspire to a united Ireland.
Peter Robinson, the deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party that represents most Protestants in Northern Ireland, has been making positive noises about getting a deal done when Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, sit down with the northern parties Sept. 16 at Leeds Castle in England at a three-day conference aimed at breaking the impasse that has stalled the political process since October 2002. On Tuesday, the 10th anniversary of the ceasefire, the Northern parties met to plan for the negotiations, with Ahern calling for an end to all forms of paramilitary activity and Adams proclaiming that the republicans were "genuinely interested in building the peace process."
Two months ago, as he dined at the Beacon Hill home of John Rankin, the British consul general in Boston, an upbeat Robinson expressed confidence that the IRA was preparing to put itself out of business. More remarkably, some of Robinson's deputies later retired to an Irish pub to catch up on the results of the European soccer championship. The sight of the Rev. Ian Paisley's minions enjoying a quiet pint in an Irish pub in Boston, a city long demonized by the fundamentalist DUP leader as a den of IRA sympathizers, captured more than any speech just how much has changed over the last decade.
The DUP, long derided by nationalists as a group of unreconstructed bigots, is itching to regain control of the governing apparatus in Northern Ireland, and willing to share power with Catholic nationalists provided they can be assured the IRA is no longer a threat. And, as Robinson's deputies explained between conversations about Greece's improbable run and England's predictable collapse in the soccer tournament, the DUPers see themselves as better able to secure and sell a deal to a wary Protestant population that seemed to lose faith in the more centrist Ulster Unionist Party.
When the DUP and Sinn Fein topped the polls last year, replacing moderate parties as standard bearers of their respective communities, some pundits predicted perpetual deadlock, but both of the so-called extreme representatives of Irish nationalism and British unionism have instead showed a desire to wield power instead of old slogans.
'Job Quality' -- Campaign Myth (Robert J. Samuelson, September 15, 2004, Washington Post)
There may be lots of reasons to vote for John Kerry over George Bush, but "job quality" isn't one of them. Kerry has been telling crowds that the country is "shipping jobs overseas and replacing them with jobs that pay you less than the jobs you have today." Ergo, job quality is going to the dogs. A few weeks ago I wrote that presidents have little power to influence job creation. The trouble for Kerry is that they have even less power to alter job "quality" -- the nature of new jobs, how much they pay and how much security they provide. Presidents can't do much more than you or I can. [...]From 2002 to 2012, the number of construction workers is expected to rise from 5.6 million to 6.5 million, the number of computer programmers and software engineers from 1.2 million to 1.6 million, and the number of purchasing agents from 419,000 to 455,000. Yes, a changing economy demands new skills and creates new types of jobs. In 1870 almost half the workforce was in farming. But job shifts are gradual.
I suspect that, in a narrow sense, Kerry's claims are half right and half wrong: half wrong because many jobs being lost to other countries are low-skilled and low-paying (that's why they're being lost); and half right because new jobs being created in this recovery may pay less than jobs lost -- mostly for domestic reasons -- in the recession and its aftermath. People who lose their jobs often have to take pay cuts to get new work; the latest BLS study finds a typical wage loss of about 7 percent. In a weak labor market, companies can also hire for a little less. Kerry's charge is plausible, though studies of recent job figures reach differing conclusions. But Kerry's broader message -- the one intended to impress voters -- is wrong.
He implicitly suggests that the U.S. economy under Bush can't create high-paying (aka "good'') jobs. We heard a similar refrain in the 1980s when the United States was supposedly becoming "a nation of hamburger flippers." The story was wrong then, too.
Salazar aims to clarify his support for John Kerry (GARY HARMON, 9/15/04, The Daily Sentinel)
There should be no doubt — John Salazar, the Democrat from Manassa, supports John Kerry, the Democrat from Massachusetts, a Salazar spokesman said.Salazar’s Republican opponent, Greg Walcher of Palisade, said Tuesday that it seemed Salazar had backed away from Kerry.
The Salazar camp said Walcher was taking a cheap, partisan shot.
Walcher based his comment on Salazar’s refusal to outright endorse Kerry during a Monday night debate in Snowmass.
When questioned about where he stood on “that man” — Kerry — Salazar gave a hazy response. “First of all, I didn’t say I was supporting him. Second of all, you know, for you to tell me that I am, well, I guess you are reading my mind,” Salazar said, according to a Walcher press release and audio recording of the debate supplied by the Walcher campaign.
Reeves Brown, executive director of the nonpartisan Club 20 and moderator of the debate on behalf of the Colorado Rural Electric Association, said Salazar clearly was in a difficult position, trapped between party loyalty and the generally conservative political realities of the congressional district.
“I just kind of winced” at Salazar’s response, Brown said.
Bush Gains on Kerry for Arab-American Vote (Jim Lobe, Sep 15, 2004, IPS)
Despite the worsening situation in Iraq and the continued impasse between Israel and the Palestinians, U.S. President George W. Bush has cut Sen. John Kerry's previously substantial lead among Arab-American voters in four key swing states, according to a new survey released here Wednesday.As recently as July, Kerry led Bush by better than a two-to-one margin -- or 54 percent to 24.5 percent -- among more than half a million Arab-American voters in Michigan, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in a two-man race.
His lead has now fallen to 49 percent, compared to 31.5 percent for Bush, according to the poll, which was conducted by Zogby International for the Washington-based Arab American Institute (AAI).
A particularly high 20 percent of Arab-American voters, however, remain undecided, according to the new poll. For the broader public, only about 10 percent of the votes are still considered up for grabs at this stage of the campaign.
If independent candidate Ralph Nader, who is himself an Arab American, is included in the tally, Kerry's support would decline to 47 percent, while Bush's would be undiminished, according to the poll, which was based on interviews with 502 Arab-American registered voters in the four states, which are broadly representative of the 3.5 million Arab-Americans who are citizens.
In many ways, Arab-Americans are natural Republicans. They're often enterprising, well-to-do, family-oriented and socially conservative. On many issues, they're right in sync with the GOP."There's a whole gamut of issues (on which) the Arab-American community agrees with the Republican Party," said Khamis, who lives in San Jose, Calif., and is president of California's Republican Arab American Congress. "It's just that we definitely don't agree with the way we're running foreign policy."
Hardly any Arab-Americans do. The Zogby poll shows just 10% rate Bush excellent or good on Israel and Palestine versus 82% who rate him fair or poor.
That explains Bush's poor showing among Arab-American Muslims, about 24% of all Arab-Americans. Just 5% say Bush deserves to be re-elected. A whopping 91% would like to elect someone else.
"There's tremendous disappointment with President Bush's lack of follow-through on the Palestine issue and Israel," said Bill Aossey, a third-generation Arab-American Muslim from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "The Bush administration has basically said to (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon, 'Do what you want.' "
Muslims polled favor Kerry 70% to 3%. "I would expect a more civil approach to a discussion (from Kerry)," Aossey said.
But 27% of Muslim Arab-Americans and 20% of all Arab-Americans are still undecided.
"They kinda don't know where to go," said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. "They're not happy with the president for sure. They're also not happy with John Kerry."
Just 3% of Arab-Americans backing Kerry like him as a man. Fully half are voting against Republicans.
Kerry Losing Lead Over Bush In Illinois (CBS 2 Chicago, Sep 15, 2004)
The presidential election is just 48 days away now, and according to an exclusive new poll of Illinois voters, George W. Bush and John Kerry could be in a virtual dead heat.The turn in this election tide could set up a political stunner. Illinois is a Democratic powerhouse in national elections, and John Kerry does maintain a small lead in our exclusive CBS 2 poll, but President Bush appears to be gaining support among voters.
Illinois no longer looks like a sure thing for Democrat John Kerry. His once 13 percentage point lead is now down to four points. That's exactly our survey's margin of accuracy, meaning the contest could be a dead-heat.
MORE:
USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll Shows Bush and Kerry in Dead Heat in Minnesota (PRNewswire, September 15, 2004)
USA TODAY/CNN/GALLUP have released the results of a poll of likely voters in the battleground state of Minnesota. The results show that of likely voters in that state, George W. Bush and John Kerry each have 45% of the vote, with Ralph Nader receiving 5% of the vote.The poll of 675 likely voters, conducted September 11 - 14, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Dan Rather To Bush: ‘Answer The Questions’ (Joe Hagan, 89/15/04, NY Observer)
"With respect: answer the questions," said Dan Rather, the CBS News anchor. He was asking a direct question to President George W. Bush, his re-election campaign and his political allies in the press and on the Web. "We’ve heard what you have to say about the documents and what you’ve said and what your surrogates have said, but for the moment, answer the questions."I say that with respect," he added. "They’d be a lot stronger in their campaign if they did do that."
On Tuesday, Sept. 14, Mr. Rather remained steadfast despite a brutal onslaught of criticism from Bush defenders—including Laura Bush—critics and competing news organizations over the authenticity of memos reportedly typed by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, Mr. Bush’s squadron commander in the early 1970’s, which suggested that Killian felt pressure from his superior to "sugarcoat" negative evaluations of the future President’s performance.
Since 60 Minutes reported on those documents on Wednesday, Sept. 8, their veracity has been assaulted by Web critics, politicians and document experts who put the burden of proof on Mr. Rather, his producers and on CBS News, and say that the reputation of the news organization is at stake.
Mr. Rather asserted that the lack of denial was itself evidence of the essential truth of his findings.
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Dan Rather, Terry McAuliffe and those phony papers (Byron York, 9/15/04, The Hill)
Dan Rather may have trouble finding supporters these days, but he’s always got one at 430 S. Capitol St.That’s the address of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), where on Tuesday DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe called in the press to unveil what he called “Operation: Fortunate Son.”
A prominent part of McAuliffe’s new campaign is a video that details the ways in which George W. Bush allegedly received preferential treatment in the Texas Air National Guard.
It’s the standard anti-Bush line. “Where was he?” the narrator asks of the future president. “And why did he miss his physical? This son of privilege. This fortunate son.”
McAuliffe’s video includes a clip from the now-notorious CBS “60 Minutes” program in which Rather relied on apparently forged documents said to have been written by Bush’s superior officer. CBS quickly asked the Democrats to remove the network’s footage from the video — which seemed counterproductive, since McAuliffe’s was the biggest vote of confidence Rather has gotten lately.
USA Today Probe Could Spell Trouble for CBS News: Documents on Bush’s Service in National Guard Under Review (RODERICK BOYD, 9/15/04, NY Sun)
USA Today’s willingness to investigate the authenticity of documents it and CBS News used in stories questioning President Bush’s Air National Guard Service may set off a feeding frenzy on CBS News if it turns out the documents were faked,the chairmen of two of America’s top journalism departments said yesterday.CBS said it stands by the story it ran on September 8 in which it broke the news of the documents, which alleged that Mr. Bush used political pressure to get out of the Guard early.
USA Today — which ran a front-page story last Thursday using the same documents — carried a story on Monday in which the paper’s executive editor, John Hillkirk, said the paper has become aware of questions about the documents’ authenticity and is pursuing those concerns “aggressively.”
The problems dogging John Kerry's presidential campaign deepened yesterday as a row over the authenticity of documents about George Bush's National Guard service took centre stage. {...]"The 'forgeries' have become the story, not the story itself," David Corn, the Washington editor of the Nation magazine, said.
The timing of the appearance of the documents has led some Democrats to wonder if they had been put into circulation to discredit the anti-Bush effort. Fingers have begun to point - as they often do among Democrats - at Karl Rove, the president's electoral mastermind.
"If this is Rove, it is his greatest masterpiece," a Kerry campaign adviser said yesterday.
The rumours may say more about the extraordinary powers attributed to Mr Rove by his adversaries than about the facts.
CBS Guard Documents Traced to Tex. Kinko's: Records Reportedly Faxed From Abilene (Michael Dobbs, September 16, 2004, Washington Post)
Documents allegedly written by a deceased officer that raised questions about President Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene, Tex., according to another former Guard officer who was shown the records by the network.The markings provide one piece of evidence suggesting a source for the documents, whose authenticity has been hotly disputed since CBS aired them in a "60 Minutes" broadcast Sept. 8. The network has declined to name the person who provided them, saying the source was confidential, or to explain how the documents came to light after more than three decades.
There is only one Kinko's in Abilene, and it is 21 miles from the Baird, Tex., home of retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who has been named by several news outlets as a possible source for the documents. [...]
Burkett, who served with the Texas National Guard in an administrative capacity before his 1998 retirement, has been involved in a bitter dispute with the Guard over medical benefits after suffering from a tropical disease following a military assignment in Panama. He has told reporters that he had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for depression after he left the Guard.
Rohrabacher seeks to let foreign-born citizens run for president (Sacramento Bee, September 15, 2004)
A California Republican congressman introduced a constitutional amendment Wednesday that would allow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to run for president. But he insisted the candidate he really wants to see is a 76-year-old House Democrat from Hungary."There are those here today who will interpret this constitutional proposal permitting naturalized citizens to serve as president as a political ploy," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, an early supporter of Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial bid, said in remarks prepared for the House floor.
"This is no ploy. I honestly believe that Tom Lantos should be able to seek the highest office in the land, just like any other elected official."
Lantos, D-Calif., who's served in the House for more than two decades, said he was flattered but saw no need to amend the Constitution.
Only 48 Days Left for Kerry to Explain His Position on Iraq (Official Campaign Blog, 9/15/04)
Appearing on Don Imus' radio show this morning, John Kerry said that there were no circumstances under which we should have gone to war in Iraq -- but he still would have voted for the war.IMUS: Do you think there are any circumstances we should have gone to war in Iraq, any?
KERRY: “Not under the current circumstances, no. There are none that I see. I voted based on weapons of mass destruction. The President distorted that, and I’ve said that. I mean, look, I can't be clearer. But I think it was the right vote based on what Saddam Hussein had done, and I think it was the right thing to do to hold him accountable. I've said a hundred times, there was a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. The president chose the wrong way. Can't be more direct than that."
Imus has the definitive last word on this: "I asked him a number of questions about Iraq and I can't tell you what he said."
A woman runs for office in Saudi Arabia: In the first elections in 40 years, one woman jumps in. But can women even vote? (Faiza Saleh Ambah, 9/16/04, CS Monitor)
Ms. Bakhurji's candidacy is part of a campaign by women who make up Saudi Arabia's embryonic suffrage movement. The elections next spring, for half the seats in 178 municipal councils, are part of the government's efforts to introduce political reforms in the kingdom, an absolute monarchy ruled by the Al Saud family. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia has been under intense pressure from the United States to democratize, to provide a nonviolent outlet for political dissent.During the past year, pressure for reform has increased from within, after a series of car bombings and shootouts with al-Qaeda-linked militants trying to drive foreigners out of the country.
As part of its reform efforts, the Saudi government in recent months has allowed women to participate in a series of forums, set up by Crown Prince Abdullah, to discuss challenges facing the country. Women have also recently been appointed to the executive committees of several government-controlled entities, including the Journalists' Syndicate and the National Human Rights Commission. In June, the Council of Ministers, the highest decision-making body, issued a plan to create jobs for women, including the setting up of women-only factories.
Many Saudi women consider these major steps in a country where women are not allowed to drive, travel without permission from a male guardian, appear in public without being covered, nor work alongside men.
D Is for Descendancy: The Democrats are no longer the majority party. Is this the year they'll finally admit it? (BRENDAN MINITER, September 15, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
The Democratic Party is in descendancy. It's not just that John Kerry's campaign is sinking like a stone, or that George W. Bush is turning out to be a resilient politician. The Democratic leadership is in electoral denial, failing to grasp a profound shift among American voters and therefore on the cusp not of winning back control of one of the branches of government, but of handing control over to Republicans for a generation or more.This denial has been fed by moderate electoral victories, most notably Bill Clinton's eight year control of the White House, Al Gore's popular-vote plurality in 2000, and what turned out to be transient congressional gains in 1996, 1998 and 2000. Democrats still seem to believe they can win back the White House without making any significant modification to their party's policies--that they are the natural majority party just waiting to be given back control.
A broader look, however, reveals a much different electoral landscape. Somewhere during the Carter presidency Americans lost confidence in the ideas of the Democratic Party. Bill Clinton ran and won as a "third way" Democrat in 1992, when it seemed safe not to worry about foreign threats. When he took office, he tried to move the country to the left, raising taxes and rolling out a plan to socialize medicine. [...]
Republicans have been in the White House for 16 of the past 24 years, held a Senate majority for 14 of those years and controlled the House for the past 10 years. GOP candidates aren't winning elections by luck. The Democrats had their "Great Society" and stayed in power by handing out welfare checks. It took a long time, but Republicans discovered something more valuable to hand out, a form of personal liberty that allows individuals to create real wealth. On self-interested grounds alone, health savings accounts and private Social Security accounts are an electoral inevitability. [...]
In a time of economic prosperity the electorate was nearly deadlocked over two candidates four years ago, but for more than two decades it has proved decidedly in favor of the ideas emanating from the right. After the election Democrats may blame Mr. Kerry for running an inept campaign, as they did Michael Dukakis and Al Gore. But to do so would be to fail to grasp why for the duration of the campaign the party was counting on the economy to stumble, the war to go badly or for a terrorist attack to turn public opinion against the president. Or why with less than two months from Election Day, the party's only remaining hope for victory was for Mr. Bush to stumble.
‘The Question of God’: The PBS Show (BreakPoint with Charles Colson, September 14, 2004)
It’s hard to imagine two institutions less associated with a classical Christian worldview than Harvard University and the Public Broadcasting System. That’s why it comes as a pleasant surprise that, starting September 15, the two will come together to give Christianity a chance to make its case against the secular alternative.The two-part series, airing September 15 and 22, is called The Question of God. It’s based on the book by my good friend Dr. Armand Nicholi, a professor at Harvard Medical School and editor of the Harvard Guide to Psychiatry.
The book grew out of one of the most popular courses at Harvard: Dr. Nicholi’s “Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis: Two Contrasting Worldviews.” As we’re told, “arguably, few individuals have influenced the moral fabric of contemporary Western civilization more than Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis.” That’s because Freud and Lewis represent two clear worldview alternatives: secular materialism and theism.
Freud’s worldview led to moral relativism, while Lewis’s led to a belief grounded in absolute truth. Freud saw traditional ideas about God as illusory and even infantile—that is, that we imagine God, it’s wish-fulfillment in our own minds—while Lewis championed faith grounded in reason.
As Nicholi puts it, many of Lewis’s writings can be understood as replies to Freud’s theories, which makes studying them side-by-side especially fruitful.
Just as the book made it possible for non-Harvard students to benefit from Nicholi’s work, the PBS special now spreads the benefits even more widely.
MORE:
-PROFILE: The Question of God (Ken Gewertz, 9/19/02, Harvard
Gazette)
-Dr. Armand Nicholi Dinner (Baylor U, March 31, 2003)
Dr. Armand Nicholi Jr., one of the world's leading psychiatrists on the question of God in psychotherapy, was the featured speaker at the inaugural Conference on Psychology and Faith.
The book that perhaps most successfully shows the necessity for objective moral truth written at a level young people can understand is C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man. Though Lewis is best known as a Christian apologist, in this work he sets out to discover the foundation of morality for both Christians and non-believers. That foundation he calls the Tao, "the doctrine of objective value." According to the Tao some things are true and others false; some things are right and others wrong. These standards transcend time and place. Indeed, Lewis contends that we have inherited rather than invented these standards and that "there has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world." Unlike many philosophers, Lewis contemplates the possibilities of living outside the Tao, in other words, in a world of moral relativism. In such a world, all value judgments are arbitrary: they usually give way to the raw assertion of whim or power. If everything rests on opinion, then why should I not impose my opinions by force?For young people to act virtuously, they must not only understand the difference between right and wrong; they must love the one and hate the other. Such responses emanate only from a rightly disposed "chest." According to Lewis, the modern problem is not so much a lack of reason as a loss of heart. Interestingly enough, Lewis attributes that loss of heart to modern education and especially to modern textbooks. Replacing one of those textbooks with The Abolition of Man might allow youth to recover their chests and find their voice against relativism.
Russia rejects Powell's criticism, joins forces with Israel (WorldTribune.Com, 9/15/04)
While rejecting U.S. and EU criticism of its anti-terrorism reforms, Russia plans to adopt Israel's counter-insurgency methods in Moscow's war against Chechen rebels.Russian officials said the government in Moscow has agreed to increase security cooperation with Israel and focus on counter-insurgency. The officials said the cooperation would include Israeli training and instruction on a range of issues, including aviation security and civil defense.
US vows to push Sudan resolution despite opposition (AFP, 9/16/04)
The United States said it will push for a vote on its UN resolution on the bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur region, and offered strong words in the face of a possible veto from China.The draft resolution threatens sanctions on Sudan's oil industry if the government does not rein in the Arab militias behind a spiral of violence in Darfur that has left an estimated 50,000 people dead.
But in a sign of sharp international disagreements over how to cope with the crisis, China has indicated it could use its veto power on the UN Security Council to sink the resolution, diplomats said."Anyone who vetoes will have to explain why they did not help protect the people of Darfur," Richard Grenell, spokesman for US ambassador John Danforth, told AFP on Wednesday.
Democrat Kerry Slams Bush's 'Excuse Presidency' (Patricia Wilson, 9/15/04, Reuters)
Democratic candidate John Kerry unleashed a stinging indictment of President Bush's economic stewardship on Wednesday and urged his Republican rival to take responsibility instead of playing the victim."This president has created more excuses than jobs," Kerry said in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club.
Trailing in national polls seven weeks before the Nov. 2 election and heeding advisers who have urged him to be more forceful, Kerry said he was "taking the gloves off" in his presidential campaign battle with Bush.
He rejected the White House's "perfect storm" explanation that recession, war and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks caused tepid economic performance in the United States.
Danger of no tax liability (Walter E. Williams, September 15, 2004, Townhall)
When 122 million Americans are outside of the federal income tax system, it's like throwing chum to our political sharks. These Americans become a natural spending constituency for big-government politicians. After all, if you have no income tax liability, how much do you care about how much Congress spends and the level of taxation? Political calls for tax cuts fall upon deaf ears. Survey polls reveal this. According to a Harris Poll taken in June 2003, 51 percent of Democrats thought the tax cuts enacted by Congress were a bad thing, while 16 percent of Republicans thought so. Among Democrats, 67 percent thought the tax cuts were unfair, while 32 percent of Republicans thought so. When asked whether the $350 billion tax-cut package will help your family finances, 59 percent of those surveyed said no and 35 percent said yes. Tax cuts to many Americans mean just one thing: They threaten the handouts they receive.There might be a correction for the political problems caused by large numbers of Americans with zero income-tax liability. But it might be politically incorrect to even mention it. I do not own stock, and hence have no financial stake, in Ford Motor Co. Do you think I should have voting rights, or any say-so, in the matters of the company? I'm guessing that your answer is no.
So here's my idea. Every American regardless of any other consideration should have one vote in any federal election. Then, every American should get one additional vote for every $10,000 he pays in federal income tax. With such a system, there'd be a modicum of linkage between one's financial stake in our country and his decision-making capacity.
Air rage case sparked by U.S. presidential election (Winnipeg Free Press, 9/15/04)
A retired New York military nurse is in a Winnipeg jail cell after a case of air-rage his lawyer says began with an argument over U.S. politics. Michael Husar, 58, was on his way to Alaska from New York when he got into an argument with a female passenger, John Corona said. "They were talking about the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The woman is a Bush supporter, while my client obviously supports Kerry," he said. The woman complained to a flight attendant that Mr. Husar was repeatedly touching her shoulder and leg, making her uncomfortable. She also claimed he smelled strongly of alcohol. The flight attendant told Mr. Husar to hand over a glass Snapple bottle, which did contain booze but was nearly empty, Mr. Corona said. Mr. Husar allegedly responded by dumping the contents on his seat and yelling obscenities at the Northwest employee. The Boeing 757, which was carrying more than 180 passengers and crew, was diverted to Winnipeg...
Turkey Scraps Adultery Law Plan (Amberin Zaman, September 15, 2004, LA Times)
Bowing to intense pressure from European leaders and local feminist groups, Turkey's Islam-based ruling party on Tuesday shelved a plan to criminalize adultery, a proposal that had threatened to disrupt the country's bid to join the European Union.
Bush Casts Big Net; Kerry Picks Spots: Democrat's ad spending targets fewer states, possibly signaling a steeper challenge. (Nick Anderson, September 15, 2004, LA Times)
In the first full week after the Republican convention, President Bush blitzed 17 states with television commercials in an effort to capitalize on his momentum in battlegrounds from coast to coast.At the same time, Sen. John F. Kerry spent his TV dollars in a much narrower pool of eight crucial states. [...]
"Bush is continuing with the national battleground strategy, to extend his convention bounce," said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks ads for The Times. "Kerry is now cherry-picking. He's trying to extend his money and extend his buys. Either he's trying to husband his resources or he's saying the playing field is shrinking."
Another analyst said The Times' data showed the map was tilting toward Bush.
"It's getting close to where [Kerry] has got to get an inside straight," said Kenneth M. Goldstein, director of the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project.
He noted that Kerry and the Democratic Party were no longer advertising in Virginia and Louisiana — states targeted earlier in the year — and were barely on the air in Arkansas and North Carolina.
Bush is not advertising in any of those states, which he carried in 2000. "The fact that Bush is spending zero there tells you all you need to know," Goldstein said.
And he will need to spend money there, Bush Cuts Into Kerry's Lead In New York (NY1, SEPTEMBER 15TH, 2004)
President George Bush is gaining on John Kerry in New York after holding the Republican Convention there.A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows a post-convention bounce for the president –something Kerry did not achieve.
Kerry leads Bush by just six percentage points in the race for New York’s 31 electoral votes, 47 percent to 41 percent. A month ago, the Democrat led by 18 points.
Prozac must have suicide warning (Sara Boseley, The Guardian, September 15th, 2004)
All antidepressant drugs must carry the strongest possible public warning that they could cause children to harm themselves or commit suicide, US authorities said yesterday in a landmark ruling which has repercussions for the whole class of drugs. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration at a public hearing agreed last night by a majority of 25 to one, with one abstention, that antidepressants caused young people to become suicidal.They opted to require "black box warnings" on the risks to children from all antidepressant drugs.
The outcome of the FDA advisory committee hearings is a major blow to manufacturers of the modern SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) class of drugs such as Prozac. It also has ramifications for the older antidepressants and those yet to come on the market.
All will be required to show black box warnings that children could become suicidal.
Quite the miracle drug, that. It seems to both cause and prevent suicide--one wonders whether in the same people. Would it be reasonable to surmise no one really has a good handle on what the score is and so everyone is taking the high road and running for legal cover?
All the CBS Men: Bob Schieffer is unfit for presidential debates. (NRO Editors, 9/14/04)
Until CBS cleans its own house, it cannot be considered just another news organization, in good journalistic standing. Which brings us to the presidential debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates has scheduled a debate on foreign policy for October 13 at Arizona State University. The moderator the commission has seen fit to anoint for this encounter is Bob Schieffer of CBS News.In other words, one of the greatest gifts in terms of exposure and responsibility in the fall campaign is being handed to a representative of the CBS News division.
Powell's Darfur Declaration: Why Foggy Bottom took so long to characterize the Sudanese--and Rwandan--atrocities as "genocide." (Duncan Currie, 09/15/2004, Weekly Standard)
The concern is that using the word genocide initiates responsibilities under the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Approved by the General Assembly in December 1948, the Convention obligates all signatories to stop genocide whenever it occurs. The key provision is Article 8. It reads in part: "Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide."A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told the New York Times that Powell's declaration was roughly commensurate to invoking Article 8. If so, it would be historic. As Freedom House's Nina Shea has noted, it would mark "the first instance that a party to the 1948 Genocide Convention . . . has formally charged another party with 'genocide' and invoked the convention's provisions while genocide has been in progress."
By the protocols of the Convention, if the United Nations formally uses the term "genocide" in regard to Sudan, it has a legal obligation to act. So far it has not. The Arab League and the African Union, meanwhile, have both claimed there is no genocide in Darfur. The European Union says it has insufficient information to decide.
But the Bush administration hopes Powell's Senate testimony will galvanize Security Council backing for a new U.S. draft resolution on Sudan. The resolution has three main components. First, it threatens oil sanctions if Khartoum doesn't rein in the Janjaweed. Second, it calls for a U.N. commission of inquiry to probe whether the regime and the militias are complicit in genocide. And third, it seeks an expanded African Union security force in Darfur.
According to the Washington Post, Security Council members Germany, Britain, and Spain all support establishing a commission of inquiry. But China and Pakistan, two major importers of Sudanese oil, strongly oppose sanctions, as does Algeria. Beijing has warned it may veto the U.S. resolution.
Should the U.N. route fail, Powell's declaration of "genocide" will make it harder for the United States not to act.
Kerry Drops Ball With Packers Fans (Jim VandeHei, September 15, 2004, Washington Post)
"I got some advice for him," Bush told Wisconsinites a few days after the Lambert gaffe. "If someone offers you a cheesehead, don't say you want some wine, just put it on your head and take a seat at Lambeau Field." Vice President Cheney made the obligatory pilgrimage to Green Bay last week to pile on. "I thought after John Kerry's visit here I'd visit Lambert Field," Cheney told a crowd at a Republican fundraising dinner Thursday night. Then he went in for the kill. "The next thing is he'll be convinced Vince Lombardi is a foreign leader."Perhaps Lombardi, the Hall of Fame coach who put Titletown on the map in the 1960s, is working from the beyond the grave to trip up the Massachusetts senator. After all, Richard M. Nixon considered Lombardi as his running mate in 1968. There's one problem with this: Lombardi was a Kennedy Democrat. In fact, the Kennedys' connection to the Green and Gold runs even deeper. In 1955, Packers Coach Lisle Blackbourn flirted with a talented young pro prospect in Massachusetts: Ted Kennedy, who now plays offensive line for the Kerry campaign. [...]
This strategy is not confined to Cheeseland either. Republicans poked fun of Kerry for talking about the Buckeyes (of Ohio State University) while visiting arch rival Michigan (home of the Wolverines). These seemingly innocuous digs fit into a larger Bush-Cheney plan of fashioning the president as a common man and Kerry as a pandering patrician.
Kerry's slip is rookie stuff compared with Bush's verbal blunders, including his famous creation of the word "misunderestimated."
And David Wade, a Kerry spokesman, said Packers fans will see the failed "playbook" of the Republicans. "Any Packers fan knows . . . Bush has fumbled on Iraq, did a double reverse on the assault weapons ban and dropped the ball on health care." Then Wade went personal. "I don't think we need any lectures in sports from a former cheerleader," referring to one of Bush's activities while at prep school.
NOBODY LIKES HIM (DICK MORRIS, September 15, 2004, NY Post)
The Fox News poll asked Kerry supporters if their vote for the Democrat could best be described as motivated by support for Kerry (41 percent) or by opposition to Bush (51 percent). By contrast, Bush voters emphatically say, by 82-13, that they are voting for the president rather than against the challenger.This puts Kerry in a tough position in the coming debates. He has no real base of support and any attenuation of the dislike his voters feel for Bush will weaken him substantially. All Bush has to do is to persuade a few Kerry voters to stop disliking him, and he can get their votes. There is no residual affection for the Democrat to get in the way of their switching to the president.
The polls already have shown how Kerry's own voters break almost evenly on the issues, with half supporting the war in Iraq and half opposing it, and almost equal numbers saying we must stay the course as say we should bring the troops home.
So Kerry can't use issues to hold his own in the debates: Whatever he says will antagonize some of his base. And now it's plain that he can't rely on personal popularity to hold them, since most are just voting against Bush.
If the president gives an even moderately effective presentation and comes across as even somewhat likeable, he can cut deeply into Kerry's vote.
The Problem of Chechnya (Gary Leupp, 9/15/04, CounterPunch)
The Caucasus embraces southern Russia (referring to the zone between the Black and Caspian Seas), and the three nations of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. This region is culturally linked to the west and north by Orthodox Christianity (kindred Russian, Georgian and Armenian varieties), and to the east by Islam (a legacy of past encounters between Persians and Turks and the local peoples). In this mix the Caucasus resembles the Balkans, where you have one more or less Muslim nation (Albania, where religious practice was banned for decades but which is officially now 70% Muslim); an unusually-constructed Bosnia-Herzegovina in which about 40% of the population (not all the Bosniaks) embrace Islam with varying degrees of interest; and the de facto NATO protectorate of Kosovo, which is about 90% Albanian Muslim. There are also longstanding Muslim minorities in Macedonia (29%), Bulgaria (12%) and elsewhere in the Balkans. The collapse of the Soviet bloc, the implosion of neutral "socialist" Yugoslavia involving catastrophic ethno-religious strife, and fall of the idiosyncratic Hoxhaite regime in Albania brought Balkan Muslims onto the world stage, as recipients of religious proselytization (by Arab "Wahhabis" in particular, backed up by Saudi largesse) and as the beneficiaries (at least short term) of US-NATO protection against the vilified Serbs and Croatians.In the Balkans, Washington postures as the great friend of the Muslim Bosnians and Kosovars, although its position is fraught with contradictions. U.S. acquiescence to Helmut Kohl's reunited Germany, which unlike the U.S. State Department championed an independent Slovenia in 1990, contributed to the disastrous dismantling of the Yugoslav state. (This produced much ethnic conflict, including what some term the "Bosnian holocaust.") The U.S., having labeled the Kosovo Liberation Army "terrorists" in 1999, made common cause with the Kosovar Albanians against a Serbian foe whose atrocities were wantonly exaggerated to justify the bombing of Milocevic's Yugoslavia. The Russians meanwhile posture as friends of the Serbs and other Slavs aggrieved by Washington policy.
Across the Black Sea from the Balkans, in the Caucasus, we find Armenia, ethnically homogeneous but abetting an Armenian secessionist movement within the Armenian-peopled Nagorno-Karabakh region of neighboring Azerbaijan. Armenia has occupied 16% of Azeri territory since 1994. 94% of the population of Azerbaijan are Azeri, a Muslim Turkish people. (That's seven million Muslims, double the number of Albanian Muslims; hence if Azerbaijan is in Europe, it is the largest European Muslim country.) Fellow Azeris live across the border with Georgia; 5.7% of Georgia's 4.69 million people (668,000) live in the Adhzaria region. In Abkhazia, in the north along the Black Sea, live an additional 85,000 to 100,000 Muslims speaking a Causasian language distantly related to Georgian. Altogether 11% of Georgia's population (over half a million) is Muslim. About 4% of the population of Armenia are Kurds, mostly adherents of the Yezidi faith, which reveres the Prophet Mohammed but is not commonly regarded as an Islamic sect. So within the southern Caucasus, we have Azerbaijan, Adhzaria, and Abkhazia as Muslim zones. In the northern (Russian) Caucasus, we have in addition, lined up westward from the Caspian coast, Daghestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, three republics in the Russian Federation with predominantly Muslim populations. Daghestan has about two and a half million people, of whom at least 90% are Muslim. There aren't good current figures for Chechnya and Ingushetia, but in 1989, when they were united in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic, there were 735,000 Muslim Chechens and 164,000 Muslim Ingush, together 71% of the republic's population (the rest being mostly Russian).
Bordering Ingushetia is North Ossetia, a predominantly (80%) Christian republic in the Russian Federation, with an Ingush minority. (Among the ethnic Ossetians themselves, some 20% practice Sunni Islam.) Then to the west, bordering Georgia, are the predominantly Muslim republics of Kabardino-Balkaria (Kabardins mostly Sunni Muslims, Balkarians mostly Orthodox Christian) and Karachayevo-Cherkessia, whose Muslim populations together number maybe a million. In other words, in the Caucasus you have in addition to the seven or eight million Azeri Muslims, four or five million other Muslims, living in historically Muslim districts in the Christian-majority behemoth that is Russia, and in the ancient Christian land of Georgia.
Some of these Muslims, since the breakup of the Soviet Union, have become involved in violent secessionist movements. Moscow and Tblisi, who have differences between themselves, have both become inclined since 9-11 to depict their response to such movements as counter-terrorist in character, to represent the secessionists as ideological soul-mates of al-Qaeda, and to manipulate the "War on Terror" paradigm to justify their repressive measures and to even threaten "pre-emptive" actions. Putin like Bush vows to strike at terrorists "wherever they may be" (which might mean, say, striking at Chechens in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia). Thus in the Caucasus, the implosion of the USSR, like the implosion of Yugoslavia in the Balkans, produces a welter of nationalist strivings, coupled with long-dormant religious sensibilities, that both the hyperpuissance U.S. and the weakened regional hegemon Russia seek to exploit. They do so now in the context of Bush's eternal war project, which exploits anti-Islamic sentiment in the U.S. (drawing especially on the most ignorant varieties of Christian fundamentalist intolerance), even as the administration insists before the global audience that the U.S. respects Islam as "a religion of peace." Putin, powerless to prevent the U.S.'s projection of power into formerly Soviet territory from Central Asia to Georgia, applies an "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" policy, depicting his own measures against unruly Muslims in Russia as part of the global Terror War. [...]
Of Muslims seeking independence from Russia, the Chechens receive the most attention. Their secessionist movement has been the bloodiest in the region, and exacted a most grotesque toll on Russians, in particular, from the Caucasus to Moscow. The small Chechen homeland has had a very bad press, internationally, and most Americans who've heard of Chechnya no doubt by this point associate its people with Islamic terrorism. The recent school hostage episode in Beslan, in Russia's North Ossetia, presented the world with the most nightmarish spectacle: a school commandeered, children specifically targeted, seized, terrified, shot in the back as they attempted to escape. About 330 Christians, half of them kids, killed by Muslims from Chechya, and the adjoining Muslim republic of Ingushetia, and (if one believes an early Russian report uncorroborated by reporters) Muslim Arabs. (I seriously doubt any Arab participation, simply because it too obviously serves Putin's wish to depict his repression of the Chechen independence movement as part of the global Bush-war project targeting Arabs.) Anyway, a horrible, unforgivable scenario, which some may see as Russia's 9-11.
One might suppose that, as Putin seeks to link Chechen rebels to al-Qaeda, the U.S. would support the Russian leader in his moves against Chechen separatism, rather as it endorses every single move the Likud regime in Israel takes against the cause of the Palestinians (a "terrorist" cause to the Likudists in the Bush administration), or that President Arroyo in the Philippines takes against the Moro. But no, not quite. Just as Washington found it useful to validate Bosnian and Kosovar nationalism in the Balkans (entrenching its expanding NATO-self into what was once proudly non-aligned European territory), so it has (under the Clinton and Bush administrations alike) found it useful to promote Muslim separatisms in southern Russia, to better destabilize the Russian Federation. Why? Because Russia seeks to thwart U.S. oil pipeline ambitions and the U.S.'s general pursuit of geopolitical advantage in the Caucasus. Ruling circles in both the U.S. and Russia are acting rationally in pursuit of their ends. Those anti-people ends are the problem.
(1) If all we care about is oil then why don't we just tell the Arabs they can have Israel?
(2) If Putin wants to be treated as well as Likud, all he has to do is build a wall and impose Chechen statehood as Sharon is doing in Palestine.
India, Israel to hold joint air exercise in ’05 (Indian Express, 9/14/04)
The defence relationship between New Delhi and Tel Aviv has deepened further with India and Israel agreeing in principle to hold joint air exercises involving US-made F-16s and Russian-built Su-30 MKI fighters.While the modalities of the first ever Indian Air Force and Israeli Air Force exercise will be decided by the executive steering group under the bilateral Defence Cooperation Group, Air Chief S. Krishnaswamy discussed the issue with his Israeli counterpart during his visit to Tel Aviv last week.
The IAF chief interacted with Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz and Israel’s military top brass during his week-long trip. He also also flew a one-hour sortie on a twin-seater F-16 I fighter piloted by Major Jonathan from Ramon air base, south of Tel Aviv last Wednesday.
Sources said both sides were keen on pushing interaction between the two air forces and were all for exchanging operational tactics with each other.
Somali Parliament to Select Speaker (Cathy Majtenyi, 15 Sep 2004, VOA NEws)
There are 13 candidates vying to become speaker of Somalia's 275-seat parliament, which currently sits in Nairobi. [...]Somalia's new government arises out of a two-year peace process that brought together factional leaders, civil society representatives and others to come up with a constitution and a parliament as a way of ending 13 years of civil war.
Peace process spokesman Guled Mohamed, says election of a speaker marks a major milestone in the peace process.
"This is a very big step towards attaining peace in Somalia," he said. I never dreamt of any day like this. Somalis are happy, I know."
Parliament is expected to choose a president in a week's time. The new government is to be in office for a maximum of five years, after which democratic elections are to be held.
Taxes for an Ownership Society (NY Times, 9/15/04)
When President Bush talks about an "ownership society," hold on to your wallet. The slogan, like "compassionate conservative" before it, is sufficiently vague to mean many things to many people, and the few details that Mr. Bush has provided - encouraging more home ownership and offering new tax-sheltered savings plans - seem innocuous enough. But in tax terms, "ownership society" means only one thing: the further reduction, if not the elimination, of taxes on savings and investments, including taxes on dividends and on capital gains on stocks, bonds and real estate. That, in turn, means, by definition, a shift in the tax burden onto wages and salaries - or, put more simply, a wage tax. [...]Properly understood, a consumption tax is intended to increase national savings by making it relatively more attractive to save than to spend. The main argument against it is that it hits hardest at low-income and middle-income families, who tend to spend most of what they earn. But as Peter Orszag, an economist at the Brookings Institution, pointed out in a recent speech at Georgetown University, Mr. Bush's de facto wage tax would be the worst of all worlds: it would have all the regressive aspects of a consumption tax and none of its potential for increasing national savings.
When Mr. Bush talks about new tax-favored savings accounts, he never mentions that most people don't even take full advantage of existing plans. They won't be turned into "owners" by new tax breaks for interest, dividends and capital gains.
Rosh Hashanah: Who's Judging?: On Judgment Day we tell the Creator to 'bring it on' --- why? (Rabbi David Aaron, 9/15/04, Jewish World Review)
Most people are either in denial of judgment or spend much effort evading it. January 1, the secular New Year, is also viewed by many as a day of judgment and personal evaluation. People often make resolutions for improvement in the coming year. However, that day has also become a time to get drunk. People make resolutions and then get smashed. I can understand why. Judgment is so painful, frightening and challenging. It is natural to just want to get drunk, run away, avoid and deny it.The Psalms teaches, "Happy are those who know the secret of the blast of the shofar." What is the big secret? Couldn't anybody figure out how to blow a shofar? The real secret of blowing the shofar is to know that when you lovingly accept and embrace judgment it transforms into compassion. This is because you realize that the One who is judging you is not only your King but also your Father, as the saying goes in Hebrew — Avinu Malkeinu — our Father is our King. He is judging you not because He is insulted by your behavior — you get on His nerves — so He wants to get back at you and slap you out. He is judging you because He loves you and cares about you. When you don't understand who is judging and for what purpose then you will naturally run from it. But when you understand that your Father is the Judge and all He wants is the best for you then you will lovingly embrace a day of judgment as an opportunity for change and growth.
Kerry must 'reframe' Bush -- and fast (Robert Kuttner, September 15, 2004, Boston Globe)
JOHN KERRY is in trouble because the Bush campaign has seized control of what psychologists call the "frame" of this year's presidential contest. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and company have framed the election starkly: Bush will keep us safe in a time of terror. He will put money in people's pockets by cutting our taxes, and somehow that will also be good for the economy.Bush and Cheney have also framed Kerry. He is inconstant, an effete elitist who lives in a lah-de-dah neighborhood, speaks a foreign language, keeps changing his mind on everything from Vietnam to Iraq. This signals that Kerry is culturally different from ordinary folks (like Bush) and that if he wavers on everything else, you can't trust him to be resolute on terrorists.
If this imagery hardens, Kerry is toast. Experts who study how public issues become framed in people's minds, like Susan Bales of the FrameWorks Institute, say that you can't change views merely with evidence. You have to change the frame.
For Kerry and for Democrats, the frustrating reality is that everything important about George Bush and his presidency is a lie.
CATCH THIS IF YOU CAN, DAN: FORGER CRIES HOAX (DEBORAH ORIN and IAN BISHOP, September 15, 2004, NY Post)
Ex-forger Frank Abagnale — played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie "Catch Me If You Can" — scoffed: "If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been, 'Catch Me In Two Days.' " [...]After he was finally caught and did several years in jail, Abagnale was released on condition that he'd help the feds for free, which he has done as an FBI consultant.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is featuring Rather in a new anti-Bush attack ad that it unveiled yesterday — at the very time that the CBS anchor's credibility is under heavy fire over "Memogate."
NEW KERRY MEDAL FLAP (Deborah Orin, September 15, 2004, NY Post)
A newly surfaced document from John Kerry's Navy record says he shot a lone, wounded enemy who was running away in the incident that led to his Silver Star, his highest military decoration.Members of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say the report vindicates their claim that Kerry didn't show the kind of valor that merits a Silver Star. The after-action report was obtained from the Navy archives by syndicated TV commentator Mark Hyman of "The Point." A Navy official confirmed its authenticity.
Asian-Americans lean toward Kerry (Jim Lobe, 9/16/04, Asia Times)
While both major candidates in the upcoming US presidential election continue to ignore the growing importance of the Asian-American vote, a new poll suggests that a plurality of the nearly 3 million members of that community intends to vote for John Kerry in November, not George W Bush.But one of the most surprising findings in the poll was the large percentage of the Asian-American bloc who are still undecided less than two months away from the election: 20%. [...]
Overall, Kerry leads Bush among Asian-Americans by 43% versus 36%, a significant gap in favor of the Democrats, but a good deal smaller than the 14% margin of the 2000 presidential race. In that election, former vice president Al Gore won 55% of the Asian-American vote to Bush's 41% and Ralph Nader's 3%.
While Asian-American voters are disproportionately concentrated in California, where Kerry currently leads by a large margin, they could play decisive roles in a number of so-called "battleground states" where the candidates are so close that the race could still go either way.
In Florida, for example, there are an estimated 86,000 Asian-American voters - many, many times more than the mere 500 voters who gave Bush victory there four years ago. There are 65,000 voters from that community in the critical swing states of Michigan; 50,000 in Oregon; 47,000 in Pennsylvania; 34,000 in Arizona; nearly 30,000 in both Minnesota and Nevada; and about 20,000 in Wisconsin, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee.
Along with Arab-Americans, Asian-American voters are perhaps the most bipartisan of all US citizens of color. Latino Americans, with the exception of Cuban-American voters, have traditionally identified more closely with Democrats, and Kerry currently holds an almost 2-1 advantage over Bush among that bloc.
African-American voters are identified even more closely with the Democratic Party. Kerry is expected to receive between 80% and 90% of the black vote in November.
University gender gap is even wider but no-one knows why (Kevin Schofield, the Scotsman, September 14, 2004)
Ministers were last night urged to launch an urgent investigation to find out why the gap between the proportion of young men and women entering higher education is bigger than ever.Statistics seen by The Scotsman show that 55.2 per cent of girls under the age of 21 went into higher education in 2002/03, compared to just 42.8 per cent of boys. The figures, contained in an official Scottish Executive publication, show that over the past 15 years, young women have consistently outstripped men in enrolling at college or university - and that the gap is widening.
Last night, Jack McConnell, Scotland’s First Minister, hinted at "experimentation with more single-sex classes".
He told a group of 100 schoolchildren in Glasgow: "One of the problems we have in Scottish education at the moment is that girls are achieving much more than boys. And I wonder whether or not more single-sex classes in schools might lead to boys achieving a bit more, if they could focus on the work in the classroom rather than who they are sitting beside. I can’t see us having single-sex schools everywhere, but I can see perhaps a bit more flexibility."
Perhaps it is because modern girls must expect more and more to support themselves and their children while boys just wanna have fun.
CHRONICLE OF A LIFE UNTOLD: While Bush's life story is widely known, follies and all, in
the public imagination Kerry's life appears to start at Vietnam -- although his choices before that moment speak to his character. (Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus, 9/14/04, AlterNet)
By now George W.'s story is fairly well known. It goes like this:As a young man he was a prankster and goofball. Never the brightest of Daddy's kids, George fell into drinking and maybe even drugs. His business deals always fell apart. And, because of his drinking, his marriage was on the rocks.
And then he found God. He became a family man. He became close to the evangelical community in Texas. And he helped his father politically. Just as he made the cut-and-dried decision to quit drinking cold turkey, George Bush is decisive about what's right and what's wrong because he's a man of principle. His decisiveness and moral vision has been especially important post 9/11.
At the center of it is a moment of redemption – a surrender to God. Being born again anchors Bush's appeal to the solid third of the country that self-identify as fundamentalist or evangelical Christian. And for voters who don't pay much attention to "the issues" – that is to say, the swing voters who may determine the election - George Bush's story appeals because it positions Bush as a man of principle.
Swing voters pick candidates based not on their position on Medicare or prescription drugs and but rather on whether or not they identify with – or look up to – their values. These voters decide which values candidates hold not just by their catch phrases and slogans but also by the stories their lives tell.
The Kerry campaign isn't so much telling a story about Kerry as it is making a 30 second TV ad. There is no narrative arc, there's just imagery of Kerry in Vietnam winning medals.
Testing Clout of Giuliani in the G.O.P. (JOYCE PURNICK, 9/13/04, NY Times)
OH, to be Rudy Giuliani. How many politically ambitious Republicans must be thinking that these days? At the party's convention, he showed the country that he can give a stemwinder of a speech. He can invoke Sept. 11 with near impunity, in ways even the president cannot. And as founder of his own consulting company, he, and it, can avoid intense media scrutiny but still get attention as he campaigns for Republican candidates.But there are also reasons to be skeptical of Mr. Giuliani's presidential prospects for 2008. Because, while his positions on national security, the economy and foreign affairs are in line with the mainstream of the Republican Party, his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights are out of sync with its influential conservative wing.
"I don't think it is a wing, I think it is the party," said Gary Bauer, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 and founded the organization American Values. Mr. Bauer said Mr. Giuliani would have to change his stances on social issues. But that might damage his credibility. He could risk incurring the very charge he lobbed at John Kerry in his convention speech - that he is a flip-flopper.
Mr. Bauer is one of several conservative Republicans interviewed about Mr. Giuliani after the convention. They all admired his leadership after Sept. 11, and his convention speech (which was not quite vintage Giuliani, but a revelation to a national audience unfamiliar with his loose, aggressive style).
Those interviewed were also dubious of Mr. Giuliani's presidential chances, because conservatives dominate the Republican primaries and caucuses despite the moderate image the party showed at this year's convention. That's been increasingly true since 1964, when Barry Goldwater was nominated and Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York's governor, was loudly booed at the party convention by the right wing.
"Giuliani revives the old fight between the Rockefeller branch and the grass-rooters," said Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative activist, emphasizing the Republican platform's opposition to legalized abortion. "I don't think he could succeed. I don't see how he could modify his position enough."
Houdini hogs the headlines with proof pigs can fly (WILLIAM CHISHOLM, 9/15/04, The Scotsman)
FIRST there was the Tamworth Two, then came McQueen. Now Houdini has entered the hog hall of fame with a death- defying escape to match the exploits of the country’s other headline grabbing porkers.While six of his companions were settling down to a new life on the great pig farm in the sky, Houdini the wild boar remained at large last night after fleeing from a Galashiels slaughterhouse.
The boars - each no more than 18 inches high but weighing around nine stones - had been taken to the abattoir from an East Lothian farm to be converted into a gourmet’s delight.
But the prospect did not appeal to one of them - now dubbed Houdini.
George Deans, a director of Scottish Borders Abattoir, said: "It was during the regular process of unloading that Houdini made his getaway. He flew over two five-foot fences and broke through a sliding door."
Kojève’s Latin Empire (Robert Howse, August 2004, Policy Review)
While Kojève took from Marx his conception of the human value of work, he saw early on the mistakes of Marxist economics. On the one hand, what Marx had not appreciated with his theory of “pauperization” through capitalism was that the capitalists would get smart and pay their workers enough to be able to afford the products they produced (“Fordism”). On the other hand, the economics of “central planning” was too rigid and static to produce the kind of wealth necessary to provide a minimum level of well-being to all. Kojève sometimes had entertained the possibility that the Soviet system might eventually reform itself, bringing market mechanisms into socialism. But he saw the realization of the regime of equal recognition as more likely to occur first in the capitalist world through redistributive labor and social regulation within a market economy.The philosophical basis for these deviations from Marxism is developed at length in Kojève’s treatise on law, Outline of a Phenomenology of Right, written during the Second World War but not published until the 1980s. There, Kojève points out that the End of History does not itself resolve the tension within the idea of equality — the ideal of equal recognition that is rationally victorious with the End of History embodies elements of market justice, equal opportunity, and “equivalence” in exchange (the “bourgeois” dimension of the French Revolution). But it also contains within it a socialist or social democratic conception of equality of civic status, implying social regulation, welfare rights, and the like. The Universal and Homogenous State — the consolidated global social and economic order — supposes some kind of stable synthesis between market “equivalence” and socialist equality of status. But it is not obvious, even to Kojève, when and how a permanent, stable, and universal (i.e., globally accepted) synthesis of this kind would come about.
This dimension of Kojève’s thought is of great importance in understanding his vision of the postwar world. One reason it has received little attention is the way in which Francis Fukuyama popularized and adapted Kojève’s notion of the End of History. As the Cold War came to an end, Fukuyama took Kojève’s notion of a global, universal political and social order as a basis for understanding the direction of current events. According to Fukuyama, the remaining differences between nations after communism signify different paces or degrees of movement towards a common culture of liberal capitalism. In The End of History and the Last Man (Free Press, 1992), Fukuyama uses the image of a long wagon train strung out on a road. He writes: “The apparent differences in the situations of the wagons will not be seen as reflecting permanent and necessary differences between the people riding in the wagons, but simply a product of their different positions along the road” towards the “homogenization of mankind.” From a Kojèvian perspective, Fukuyama’s mistake was to understand the collapse of communism as the triumph tout court of liberal capitalism. This turn of events instead signifies the superiority of capitalism to Soviet communism in one, albeit crucial, respect: Unlike Soviet communism and its aparatchiks, capitalism and its real-world agents, the commercial classes, proved capable of compromise. Thus, while Soviet communism proved unable to engage in market reforms and internal liberalization without collapsing, Western societies proved agile at balancing the justice of the market with a conception of substantive equality — the latter perhaps rather minimalist in the case of the United States but still of enormous social importance.
A related and important deviation from Marxist political economy in Kojève’s thought is the rejection of the idea that the logic of capitalism would ultimately drive capitalist nations to war with one another, fighting over resources in the Third World. Just as he saw that the capitalists themselves had adapted and compromised to avoid “pauperization,” so he saw that the political leaders of capitalist states might choose the route of economic cooperation and integration as an alternative to mutually self-destructive wars.
But this alternative would become evident or obvious only after the final self-destruction of the national idea itself with the demise of the Third Reich in 1945. And this brings us to Kojève’s advice to de Gaulle at that crucial historical moment.
In 1945, kojève understood that any attempt to rebuild France’s greatness as a nation-state would be delusional, given the hard realities of Anglo-American military supremacy as well as the Soviet fact. The latter decisively pushes Germany itself into the Anglo-American empire as a protection against the risk of absorption by the Soviets. Kojève seeks to convince de Gaulle that this is no reflection on France, since demographic and technological realities are such that no single nation-state in the contemporary world could ensure an adequate base in military power, that is without allying or affiliating itself with other states and peoples. Believing otherwise, according to Kojève, was Hitler’s downfall.But, Kojève proposes, France can find political purpose and direction in an Anglo-American dominated postwar world by bringing into being and assuming leadership of a Latin Empire.
This empire would be a political and economic union of the Latin Catholic states of Europe, backed by an army — albeit one unable to stand up to Anglo-American military might (and probably not to Soviet strength either) if push came to shove, but formidable enough to establish a sphere of political independence from either the Anglo-American or the Soviet Empire in time of peace.
Kojève admits that no one will fight for a Latin Empire as an abstract idea: It has to be based on felt affinity among the Latin peoples. Kojève underlines that such an affinity is not “racial.” “The “kinship” of nations is, above all, a kinship of language, of civilization, of general “mentality,” or — as is sometimes also said — of “climate.” “And this spiritual kinship is also manifested, among other things, through the identity of religion.” Here, Kojève explicitly includes the secularized Catholic ethos of even anti-clerical Latin peoples (such as the French). The Latin mentality being less materialistic and more open to beauty and leisure than the Anglo-American, Kojève anticipates that the economic philosophy of the Latin Empire will reject the brutal “laissez-faire” tendency of protestant Anglo-American capitalism. But it will also eschew rigid social planning of the Soviet kind.
If one looks at the trajectory of the project of European integration over the past 50 years, Kojève’s sketch of the “Latin Empire” seems like nothing so much as a blueprint for what is today the European Union. Although Kojève’s Latin Empire doesn’t include Britain, the United Kingdom entered the European project late and since then has never overcome its ambivalence about its choice. And while Kojève foresaw Germany as allied to the Anglo-American and not the Latin Empire, he understands this alliance as connected to the need for security against Soviet aggression (a need that would be fulfilled by nato, allowing Germany to participate in the Latin-led project of European Community). And it can hardly be denied that throughout much of the history of European integration, French politicians and senior bureaucrats have played a predominant — and later on, at the very least, a special — role, whether in Paris or Brussels.
Olympics put Greek economy in tailspin (Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, September 14th, 2004)
After a summer of fun, Games and frantic spending on the world's largest party, the people of Greece are waking up this week to an Olympic hangover of truly gold-medal proportions.Greeks were proud of an Olympics that took place on schedule and without any serious security or organizational threats, but they are now learning the true cost of all that last-minute construction and street cleaning: a bill that could cripple the country's economy for a generation.
Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis conceded yesterday that the country's deficit has soared faster and higher than that of any European country, reaching four times its projected level and twice the legal limit allowed for European Union member countries.
In response, the bond-rating agency Standard & Poor's lowered the country's debt-rating outlook from "stable" to "negative" yesterday, blaming "an accelerating loss of fiscal discipline" partly related to the Games. The agency declared Greece's fiscal position the weakest of any major European economy.
Corrupt, drug-ridden, commercial and boring. A noble and inspiring project has descended into a jingoistic, pagan festival that taxes everyone punitively so elites can have a party. Kill them.
Rip-roaring battle for Edwards’s seat in N.C. (Peter Savodnik, 9/14/04, The Hill)
Republicans raring for “skin to rip and blood to flow” in the North Carolina Senate race are about to get their wish.So says Rep. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the fifth-term congressman who has spent the past year raising oodles of cash, trekking around the state in a 1999 Acura listening to country music and Vivaldi, and, he contends, laying the foundation for a final, six-week blitzkrieg that will demolish his Democratic rival, Erskine Bowles.
This should come as a great relief to Republicans. For months, party strategists, conservative activists and other Burr supporters have been waiting for the Senate candidate to go on the attack, hoping that finally — finally — the congressman would start talking about gay marriage, abortion and stem-cell research. [...]
Most polls show Bowles leading Burr by eight to 10 points; one Republican source said a GOP poll gave the Democrat an 18-point advantage. The Bowles campaign expects the race to narrow, and many Republicans say Bowles, who has had a tough time breaking the 50-percent mark in surveys, has hit a ceiling
Bumper Sticker Insubordination: A Kerry fan gets fired, and then hired, for her politics. (Timothy Noah, Sept. 14, 2004, Slate)
One of this column's various mandates is to keep track of people who get fired from their jobs solely for holding certain political beliefs. Firing a person because you don't like his or her politics runs contrary to just about everything this country stands for, but it is not against the law. My interest in this topic was stimulated a couple of years ago when I learned that my childhood friend Michael Italie, who sewed U.S. Navy jackets for Goodwill Industries in Miami, got fired for appearing on television as the mayoral candidate for the Socialist Workers Party, in which capacity he made some predictably provocative statements. Subsequently, I wrote about Bryan Keefer, who lost his job as a research assistant with the Service Employees International Union for writing an online column critical of the coinage, "Enron conservatives." In both of these examples, the extracurricular activities that caused offense were entirely unrelated to the fired person's job and were not performed, or even discussed, in the workplace.The same is true of Lynne Gobbell of Moulton, Ala., who on Sept. 9 was fired from her job at Enviromate, a company that makes housing insulation, for driving to work with a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker in the rear windshield of her Chevy Lumina. The person who did the firing was Phil Geddes, who owns the company and is an enthusiastic Bush supporter. [...]
[L]ate this afternoon, Kerry himself phoned Gobbell. "He was telling me how proud he was that I stood up," Gobbell told me. "He'd read the part where Phil said I could either work for him or work for John Kerry. He said, 'you let him know you're working for me as of today.' I was just so shocked."
Gobbell accepted Kerry's job offer, "so I reckon I'll be working for John Kerry."
The Nicolas v Jacques show (The Economist, Sep 9th 2004)
The deal between the veteran Gaullist president and his brazen young finance minister was finally tied up quietly last week, as the country was distracted by the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq. Under the pact, Mr Chirac agreed not to block Mr Sarkozy's candidature to be head of the ruling party, the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). In return, Mr Sarkozy agreed to leave the government.For Mr Chirac, this was a much-needed reassertion of his authority. In July he declared firmly that he would fire any minister who became the party head, since this would undermine the prime minister's authority. Although Mr Sarkozy at first hoped that he could flout such a rule, in the end he agreed to go.
Yet the greater victory, symbolically and substantively, has gone to Mr Sarkozy. Symbolically, the upstart outsider has grabbed hold of the president's personal war machine (other minor candidates may stay in the race, but the result of the party members' vote in November is now a foregone conclusion). This party, after all, is the direct descendant of the one that Mr Chirac founded in 1976. In its most recent incarnation, as the UMP, it was designed solely to elect a centre-right government and then become a platform for Mr Chirac's chosen successor, Alain Juppé.
When, instead, Mr Juppé had to quit politics after being convicted of political corruption in January, la chiraquie, the president's circle, stepped up efforts to keep the party out of Mr Sarkozy's hands. “Tout sauf Sarkozy” (Anyone but Sarkozy) was its mantra, as it sought to marginalise the man whom the president has distrusted ever since he backed a rival presidential candidate, Edouard Balladur, in 1995. Yet a few months on, Mr Chirac has proved powerless to stop the party falling into Mr Sarkozy's hands.
Journalists' Iraqi captors say France is "enemy of Muslims" (AFP, 9/14/04)
The Islamic Army of Iraq, which is holding two French journalists hostage, said that France is an "enemy of Muslims," in a statement on a website that gave no details on the fate of the captives.The statement, carried on http://iaminiraq.tripod.com, cited France with a list of "crimes" that France had allegedly carried out against numerous Muslim countries.
"France has distinguished itself for its war against Islam and Muslims and has committed butchery against the nation," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be verified.
"France's history with Muslims is a black one, blemished by hatred and malice and blood. Its modern history is no less so that in the past," the statement added, calling on the "Islamic nation to unite against its enemies," such as France.
Top Dem Rips Kerry Campaign (David Paul Kuhn, Sept. 14, 2004, CBSNews.com)
Longtime Democratic insider Tony Coelho lashed out at the John Kerry presidential campaign, characterizing it as a campaign in chaos. With yet another appointment of a former Clinton administration staffer to Kerry’s team on Tuesday, Coelho argues the problem is worsening.“There is nobody in charge and you have these two teams that are generally not talking to each other,” says Coehlo, who ran Al Gore's campaign early in the 2000 presidential race. As Coelho and other detractors see it, there is a civil war within the Kerry campaign.
Sen. Ted Kennedy’s former staff members, Mary Beth Cahill, the Kerry campaign manager, and veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum are at odds with recent additions who served under President Clinton.
“Here are two groups that have never gotten along and have fought, and it is a lot over money,” says Coehlo. "Because in the Democratic Party the consultants get paid for the creation and the placement of [advertising]. Republicans only pay you for the creation.”
Kerry Distracted From Tending to Colorado (AP, September 14, 2004)
Colorado is on the fringes of the playing field in the presidential campaign, a Republican-leaning state that Democratic Sen. John Kerry has in his sights because of its weak economy and growing Hispanic population.But a dip in the polls, and other harsh political realities, have forced Kerry to focus his resources on 10 other states, including Florida and four in the Midwest, while tabling plans to put Colorado and a few other GOP bastions into play. [...]
The president campaigned here Tuesday as part of his plan to put Colorado, Missouri, Arizona, North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana out of contention before Kerry can dial up his campaign in the second-tier battlegrounds, all of them won by Bush four years ago.
Vietnam Vet: I Lied About Atrocities (Fox News, September 14, 2004)
A veteran who testified to John Kerry about atrocities he committed in the Vietnam War is now claiming that the Democratic presidential candidate coerced him to tell tales.Steven Pitkin, an Army combat veteran, told FOX News that Kerry coached him and others to say they had witnessed war crimes, even after Pitkin told Kerry that he had not.
A medical cause for 'Bushisms'? (Alex Beam, September 14, 2004, Boston Globe)
[W]hy does Bush sound stupid? One doctor thinks he shows signs of "presenile dementia," or an early onset of Alzheimer's disease.This summer, Joseph Price, a self-described "country doctor" in Carsonville, Mich., was reading a long article in The Atlantic about Bush's speaking style. Author James Fallows alluded to Bush's malapropisms and to speculation that Bush had a learning disorder or dyslexia. But those conditions generally manifest themselves in childhood. Furthermore, Fallows wrote, "through his forties Bush was perfectly articulate."
Dr. Price's children happened to have given him a daily tear-off calendar of "Bushisms" for Christmas. "They are horrible, but they are also diagnostic," Price says. When he read that Bush had spoken clearly and performed well while debating Texas politician Ann Richards in 1994, Price thought: "My God, the only way you can explain that is by being Alzheimer's."
Who Is Kerry Edwards, and What Is He Running For?
Q: Are the Democrats really as stupid as they look?
A: No one is really as stupid as the Democrats look.
(Steve Perry, 9/14/04, City Pages)
The first Kerry Edwards yard sign appeared on my street last week, ironically, just as the president was parlaying his Unreality TV moment into a double-digit lead in the latest Time and Newsweek polls. My reaction to the sign was reflexive: never heard of him.
Takuma hangs for massacre of eight kids at Osaka school: Killer had sought swift justice for '01 Ikeda stabbings (Japan Times. 9/15/04)
Mamoru Takuma, who murdered eight children at an Osaka elementary school in 2001, was hanged Tuesday at the Osaka Detention House, sources said.A three-time killer in Kyushu also went to the gallows.
Takuma, 40, was convicted of murder and attempted murder over the stabbing spree at Osaka Kyoiku University Ikeda Elementary School in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, on June 8, 2001. In addition to killing the eight children, he wounded 13 other students and two teachers.
Takuma was sentenced to death by the Osaka District Court in August 2003 and his defense team filed an appeal. But Takuma withdrew the appeal toward the end of the following month, finalizing the sentence. At the time, he said he did not want to live on without a purpose. [...]
Also executed Tuesday was Sueo Shinmaki, a 59-year-old mobster who was being held at the Fukuoka Detention House after being convicted of three murders in Kyushu in 1988.
With the day's executions, 46 people have been executed since a roughly 40-month moratorium ended in 1993.
Keyes says game plan is controversy (Rick Pearson, September 14, 2004, Chicago Tribune)
Declaring that his campaign strategy is dependent on controversy, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes told the state's top GOP donors at a recent closed-door meeting that he plans to make "inflammatory" comments "every day, every week" until the election, according to several sources at the session.The sources said Keyes explained that his campaign has been unfolding according to plan and likened it to a war in which lighting the "match" of controversy was needed to ignite grass-roots voters.
"This is a war we're in," one source recounted Keyes as saying. "The way you win wars is that you start fires that will consume the enemy." [...]
With Keyes trailing far behind Obama in cash and in public opinion polls, the Republican contender's strategy indicates he will continue to seek free media attention fed off controversy. The game plan belies the belief of some conservatives who have contended Keyes, a former talk show host from Maryland, has been maneuvered by the media into making controversial remarks.
Fuel suspected deep inside Earth: Studies suggest heat under crust may not destroy methane gas (Keay Davidson, September 14, 2004, SF Chronicle)
Oceans of fossil fuel-like gases and fluids, enough to support a high-tech society for many millennia to come, might exist far deeper inside the Earth than we've ever drilled before, researchers speculate.Since the mid-19th century, a small but enthusiastic minority of scientists have argued that petroleum and other fuels are formed by purely chemical, or abiogenic, processes hundreds of miles inside Earth. An early champion was the great Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleyev, pioneer of the periodic table that hangs on the wall of virtually every high school chemistry classroom.
But most experts scoff at the idea. According to traditional theory, fossil fuels -- energy-rich, carbon-based molecules -- are formed over millions of years by biological processes, the disintegration of primeval plants and animals into smelly or gunky hydrocarbons like methane and petroleum. Such biogenic fossil fuels exist fairly close to Earth's surface, in reservoirs such as the oil fields of the Middle East.
One objection to the theory of abiogenic fuels is that they'd quickly disintegrate in the extreme heat and pressure hundreds of miles beneath the surface.
But now, experiments and computer modeling by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere appear to have removed this objection.
For Democrats, Dampened Hopes of Winning the House (CARL HULSE, 9/14/04, NY Times)
Just a few weeks back, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, was predicting the potential of a Democratic takeover of the House in November, a power shift that he said would require the help of a political wind at the party's back. Well, he isn't feeling much of a draft these days."I think it would be less than candid to say there was a great wind out there at this point in time," Mr. Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday.
Why Bush Left Texas (Russ Baker, 9/14/04, The Nation)
Growing evidence suggests that George W. Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet.A months-long investigation, which includes examination of hundreds of government-released documents, interviews with former Guard members and officials, military experts and Bush associates, points toward the conclusion that Bush's personal behavior was causing alarm among his superior officers and would ultimately lead to his fleeing the state to avoid a physical exam he might have had difficulty passing. His failure to complete a physical exam became the official reason for his subsequent suspension from flying status.
This central issue, whether Bush did or did not complete his duty--and if not, why--has in recent days been obscured by a raging sideshow: a debate over the accuracy of documents aired on CBS's 60 Minutes. Last week CBS News reported on newly unearthed memos purportedly prepared by Bush's now-deceased commanding officer. In those documents, the officer, Lieut. Col. Jerry Killian, appeared to be establishing for the record events occurring at the time Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in May 1972. Among these: that Bush had failed to meet unspecified Guard standards and refused a direct order to take a physical exam, and that pressure was being applied on Killian and his superiors to whitewash whatever troubling circumstances Bush was in.
Questions have been raised about the authenticity of those memos, but the criticism of them appears at this time speculative and inconclusive, while their substance is consistent with a growing body of documentation and analysis.
If it is demonstrated that profound behavioral problems marred Bush's wartime performance and even cut short his service, it could seriously challenge Bush's essential appeal as a military steward and guardian of societal values.
Bush's Records Keep Trickling Out (Dana Milbank, September 14, 2004, Washington Post)
In last week's Washington Post-ABC News Poll, John F. Kerry was viewed favorably by 36 percent of registered voters, down 18 points over the past six months. But just how low Kerry's standing has fallen cannot be appreciated fully without comparing his standing with that of other household names in Gallup polls over the years. Kerry finds himself in a dead heat with Martha Stewart and Joseph McCarthy, and behind Herbert Hoover -- although he narrowly beats O.J. Simpson. [...]Democratic Party: 54 (2004)
John Ashcroft: 49 (2003)
Michael Dukakis: 47 (1988)
Prince Charles: 45 (2003)
Herbert Hoover: 43 (1944)
Jesse Jackson: 38 (2003)
Vladimir Putin: 38 (2003)
John Kerry: 36 (2004)
Former secretary says she didn't type memos (PETE SLOVER, September 14, 2004, The Dallas Morning News)
The former secretary for the Texas Air National Guard colonel who supposedly authored memos critical of President Bush’s Guard service said Tuesday that the documents are fake, but that they reflect real documents that once existed.Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said she prided herself on meticulous typing, and the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.
“These are not real,” she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. “They’re not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him.”
Mrs. Knox, 86, who spoke with precise recollection about dates, people and events, said she is not a supporter of Mr. Bush, who she deemed “unfit for office” and “selected, not elected.”
“I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it,” she said.
But, she said, telltale signs of forgery abounded in the four memos, which contained the supposed writings of her ex-boss, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984.
Scientists teleport atomic particles and push quantum computing closer to reality. (Joshua Tompkins, September 2004, Popular Science)
The Vulcan ears of Star Trek fans perked up this summer when two research teams announced that they had successfully performed teleportation. But the scientists hadn’t beamed William Shatner to Pluto (alas); their feat was solid-particle quantum teleportation, which doesn’t transport matter itself but instead transmits the quantum state of a single atom to another atom without a direct link between the two. This, experts say, is a breakthrough in the march toward the first quantum computer, a still theoretical machine that could take seconds to crunch the same numbers that today’s best processors chew on for years.Quantum teleportation—the instant transmission of information—is conducted through a phenomenon called entanglement, the mysterious connection between paired particles in which a change in one particle instantly causes the same change in the other, regardless of the distance between them.
A Lotus-Eater at the La-La Land Buffet: P.G. Wodehouse found Hollywood life fat and easy. (Robert McCrum, September 14, 2004, LA Times)
The complex relationship that F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner had with Hollywood has been described on many occasions. Less well known is what happened when P.G. Wodehouse, the English humorist and creator of Jeeves, worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the days of Irving Thalberg.From the first days of the "talkies," Wodehouse was always in the thick of the movie business. He was not alone in flirting with the studios.
The talkies had triggered a new gold rush. Herman Mankiewicz, after a visit to the West Coast, cabled his friend, Ben Hecht, that "millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around."
Oprah's Product Placement (Alyce Lomax, September 14, 2004, Motley Fool)
Will Oprah Winfrey drive Pontiacs into pop culture popularity? Maybe so, considering Oprah -- whom we recently crowned "Investment Guru" -- gave away 276 Pontiac G6 2005 sports sedans to her entire studio audience for her season premiere on Monday. The recipients were handpicked as people whose families and friends had written to Oprah stating that they needed new cars, making it an episode about aspirations and wish fulfillment.Though Oprah seems to get much of the credit for the giveaway, General Motors (NYSE: GM) donated the cars, which retail for $28,000 each.
For GM, this is a pretty savvy version of product placement in a world where people can easily buzz through commercials with their digital video recorders, such as my personal favorite new technology, TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO). (Meanwhile, news reports from early this month that Oprah had toured some GM plants were likely a good hint that something was up some sleeves -- it also implies that Oprah does her homework when she's about to give a product a high profile.)
Saudi leads Opec oil rush, resists quota increase (Stuff.co.nz, 15 September 2004)
Opec is keeping its foot to the pedal on oil production in a bid to push crude prices back below $US40 ($NZ62) a barrel.Risking a counter-seasonal fourth quarter build in stocks, Saudi Arabia will pump at a higher rate of 9.5 million barrels a day in October, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said yesterday.
With others in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at full capacity, the Saudi commitment means Opec is set to keep pumping some two million barrels a day above its official 26-million-bpd limit.
Opec Iraq, which has no quota, is pumping about another two million bpd putting total cartel supply at 30 million bpd for the first time since 1979.
Alan Greenspan's War on America's New Deal Democracy (Mike Whitney, 9/14/04, The Progressive Trail)
No one has taken on the task of bankrupting the US Treasury with greater zeal than Alan Greenspan. The wizened Fed-master has taken burgeoning budget surpluses and turned them into massive debt in less than four years.Some readers will question whether or not Greenspan can be held responsible for the actions of the administration? But, it is the Fed's monetary policy that enabled the Bush tax cuts to go forward and dump the country in a vat of red ink. Those tax cuts received the warm embrace of Alan Greenspan.
The Federal Reserve works hand-in-hand with the Washington policy-czars, keeping interest rates low when there are wars to be fought and ratcheting them up "sky-high" when anyone breathes a word about national health insurance.
Greenspan's collusive relationship with the Bush Administration has left the country teetering on brink of insolvency. This provides the perfect opportunity to take the carving knife to the many social programs that Americans have come to depend on.
Bush, Cheney Spar With Mock Debate Foes (SCOTT LINDLAW, 9/13/04, AP)
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been sparring with mock-debate partners since midsummer, getting ready for Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards.In late July, Bush began practicing with Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., inside the White House residence, officials said Monday. Gregg also played Al Gore in debate preparation in 2000.
Cheney started debate rehearsal in early August, jousting with Rep. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and longtime Bush family friend.
Black leaders call on Kerry to refocus (Brian DeBose, 9/14/04, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Sen. John Kerry is losing the interest of black voters after spending several weeks defending his Vietnam service records and responding to attacks from fellow swift boat sailors, but black lawmakers said the Democratic challenger needs to get back to his domestic-policy ideas in order to boost black voter turnout on Nov. 2."He cannot let himself get sidetracked and taken off focus by Swift Boat ads. He must stick to the issues affecting African-Americans," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). By and large, he said, "We don't care about swift boats."
Staring Down the Barrel of The NRA (E. J. Dionne Jr., September 14, 2004, Washington Post)
The expiration of the assault weapons ban was a depressing but potentially valuable lesson in the rancid politics of gun control.Honest debate on gun policy is impossible because of the cynical absolutism of the current leadership of the National Rifle Association, the Republican Party's dependence on this interest group's muscle and the fear that the NRA inspires among some Democrats.
[A] president who was happy to bring excruciating pressure on Congress to pass his tax measures lifted not a finger to get Republican leaders in Congress to put the assault weapons bill on his desk.
This is the politics of the nod and the wink. As Jim VandeHei and Paul Farhi reported in The Post, the NRA is planning to spend $400,000 a week until the election to condemn John Kerry's votes for gun control. Overall, the organization expects to spend $20 million on this election, mostly to help Republican candidates.
U.S. Wants to Cancel Poorest Nations' Debt: Other Countries Concerned Proposal May Leave Global Lenders Short of Money (Paul Blustein, September 14, 2004, Washington Post)
Bush administration officials are advancing a plan to cancel billions of dollars in debt owed by some of the world's poorest countries, a move that could boost the United States' image abroad but which institutions like the World Bank fear could leave them strapped for cash.The plan, disclosed by members of aid groups and government officials, would dramatically increase previous debt relief programs for at least 27 poor nations such as Uganda, Bolivia and Ethiopia.
The Treasury Department, which is putting the plan forward for discussion at a meeting in Paris this week, contends that the current approach has been too slow and piecemeal to truly free those nations from the burden of repaying money borrowed from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other global lenders. The Treasury is also proposing that for very poor countries, all future IMF and World Bank assistance come in the form of grants rather than loans.
The initiative, which would require broad support from the 184 member nations of the IMF and World Bank to be implemented, is getting a frosty reception from the governments of other rich countries and from the staffs of the lending institutions. Some critics oppose such drastic debt relief for certain countries as unwise and unfair to other indebted nations that don't qualify. Other opponents contend that the administration is trying to accomplish debt relief on the cheap, without imposing any direct cost on U.S. taxpayers, by fobbing off the cost on institutions like the World Bank, whose aid-giving ability may as a result be curtailed.
Report Cited Drawbacks to Tax Reform: Treasury Study Examined Simplifying U.S. System (Jonathan Weisman, September 14, 2004, Washington Post)
President Bush has vowed to make tax reform a centerpiece of a second term, but an internal Treasury Department study in late 2002 warned that any fundamental simplification of the nation's tax system would "produce windfall winners and losers," would likely lower taxes for the rich, and could have devastating political consequences for its champions. [...]In the study, Treasury economists were unambiguous in calling for the reform of a tax system that they said has grown needlessly complex, economically inefficient, unpredictable and unfair.
But they identified serious drawbacks -- both economic and political -- with each of the five reform proposals they drafted, especially a "flat consumption" tax that shifts the tax burden from savings and investment to wages and spending.
"The transition accompanying any fundamental tax reform may be disruptive and produce windfall winners and losers," the report said, but "the economic benefits of any fundamental tax reform are uncertain."
Moreover, it added, "Any reform is likely to have vocal losers and largely silent winners. In other countries, adoption of a consumption tax has led to election losses for the incumbent party."
Finally, the study said, fundamental simplification of the tax code would "run counter" to Bush's other tax policy goals. The president doubled the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000 and has championed a significant expansion of tax credits for charitable donations, proposals he wants Congress to make permanent.
Swing-state shakeout is starting (Bob Von Sternberg, September 12, 2004, Minneapolis Star Tribune)
Months ago, when it became clear that the electorate appeared to be as deeply divided as it was in 2000, analysts and campaign strategists crunched poll numbers to develop a list of the most likely swing states.Consensus settled on a core group of 17: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. [...]
But states have begun to be winnowed from several lists.
Political newsletter publisher Charlie Cook, who developed his list of 17 last winter, recently trimmed it to 10: Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. [...]
Then there are individual states that have dropped off the battleground list. Late last week, the Los Angeles Times -- which has one of the most comprehensive battleground compilations -- moved Arizona from undecided to pro-Bush after the 16-point poll was reported.
Similarly, a USA Today/CNN Gallup poll last week found that Bush had opened up statistically significant leads over Kerry in Ohio and Missouri. Although that poll showed Bush with a 14-point lead in Missouri and an eight-point lead in Ohio, both states are likely to continue to be treated as battlegrounds by both campaigns because of their long history as swing states.
Another strong indication of which states a campaign is targeting can be gleaned from where it spends its ad dollars.
Last week, the Kerry campaign announced it was limiting its TV advertising to 10 states, scaling back from a plan to spend $50 million worth of advertising time in 20 states through Election Day.
$3 Trillion Price Tag Left Out As Bush Details His Agenda (Mike Allen, September 14, 2004, Washington Post)
The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.
Bush's pledge to make permanent his tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2010 or before, would reduce government revenue by about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to administration estimates. His proposed changes in Social Security to allow younger workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds could cost the government $2 trillion over the coming decade, according to the calculations of independent domestic policy experts.
Junking Science (NY Times, 9/14/04)
The Bush administration has from time to time found it convenient to distort science to serve political ends. The result is a purposeful confusion of scientific protocols in which "sound science" becomes whatever the administration says it is. In the short run, this is a tactic to override basic environmental protections in favor of industry. In the long run, it undermines the authority of science itself.
Au`thor´i`tyn. 1. Legal or rightful power; a right to command or to act...
We Should Have Known: The warning bells were ringing over 60 Minutes' Bush documents. We just didn't hear them. (Timothy Noah, Sept. 13, 2004, Slate)
I can say with confidence that I never would have relied on the documents that 60 Minutes relied on, based on how they were described in its broadcast, had they landed in my lap. But before you pat me on the back and say "well done," you should know that I did make the error of racing to comment on the documents before actually reading the 60 Minutes transcript. (I missed the broadcast itself.) The fact that the White House had sent the documents to me and to thousands of other reporters seemed to eliminate any possibility that they were fakes. (It turned out the White House was just passing along docs that it had received from ... 60 Minutes.) The only statement I can make in my defense is that the White House didn't seem to doubt their authenticity, either.Which brings us to a larger point. The documents were entirely consistent with everything that's already been established about President Bush's National Guard service. We know strings were pulled on his behalf to get in. We know that, for whatever reason, he wouldn't take a required physical. We know that Bush agitated for a transfer to Alabama, and that for a period of six months there exists no evidence that he ever showed up. None of this makes Bush a bad person—except insofar as he feels free to question, or permits others on his campaign to question, the manhood and patriotism of his opponent, John Kerry. 60 Minutes may have inadvertently framed the president, but in doing so it framed an already guilty man.
MORE:
CBS WRITING ACE HAS RATHER WACKY BACKGROUND (DEBORAH ORIN, September 14, 2004, NY post)
Analyst Marcel Matley lists "Spirituality in Handwriting" and "Female/Male Traits in Handwriting" on the Web site for a foundation he serves as librarian. They were privately printed, but another analyst provided portions to The Post.In "Spirituality in Handwriting," Matley assesses a woman's "libidinal energy" based on her handwriting.
"She has an excellent and rich animate nature with a healthy, instinctual libidinal energy which, when integrated, will propel her into dynamic and fruitful activity and self-fulfillment," Matley wrote in 1989.
In "Female/Male Trait in Handwriting," the San Francisco-based Matley said he could analyze a woman's handwriting "to show her how she can have her womanly qualities fully realized."
The article continued: "For your male client, you will be able to recognize the facade of machismo — and also recognize the hurt boy- child who uses that as a defensive hiding place."
Employers still cautious, but expect to add jobs (XIAO ZHANG, September 14, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
More American companies expect to add jobs in the fourth quarter than a year ago, even as they remain cautious about hiring, a new survey said.Manufacturing, retail and service businesses in particular expressed strong optimism about hiring from October through December, according to the quarterly survey of 16,000 U.S. employers prepared for release today by Manpower Inc.
Overall, 28 percent of all businesses surveyed said they plan to add staff in the fourth quarter, compared with 7 percent that expect to reduce their payrolls, the survey said. Sixty percent of employers said they plan no changes in their staffing levels, and 5 percent said they were not sure.
''We are seeing that companies continue to have an appetite to hire people,'' said Jeff Joerres, chairman and chief executive officer of Manpower, a global staffing company based in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale.
The fourth-quarter outlook is a considerable improvement from a year ago, when the net percentage of companies anticipating increased hiring was half of that in the current survey.
Spain marks return to 'old Europe' (Andrew Beatty, 9/14/04, EU Observer)
Spanish premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has declared old Europe rejuvenated, following a meeting with his French and German counterparts in Madrid yesterday.Speaking after the meeting with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Mr Zapatero declared that "old Europe is as new".
The Spanish government has been keen to stress the importance of the meeting, signalling that Spain has shifted away from the pro-US policies of the Aznar administration.
Helping women balance family life, jihad (Sudha Ramachandran, 9/15/04, Asia Times)
Al-Khansa is the first jihadi publication aimed exclusively at women. The magazine's first issue appeared in August and was hosted by several extremist Islamist websites. It says it is published by an organization called the Women's Information Bureau of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and claims that Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who was killed by Saudi police in a shootout in June and Issa Saad Mohammed bin Oushan, who was killed the following month, are among its founders. Al-Muqrin and Oushan figured in Saudi Arabia's list of 26 most-wanted militants.Al-Khansa is named after a female Arab poet who was a close associate of the Prophet Mohammed. In her writings, she eulogized her brother and urged her sons to participate in the jihad. Her sons subsequently died on the battlefield.
The choice of the name al-Khansa for the magazine is not without reason. The magazine aims to motivate women to participate in jihad by bringing up their children to be good jihadis and by being supportive of their husbands, brothers and sons who are fighters.
Nader back on state ballot: Ralph Nader is back on Florida's presidential ballot, but Democrats continued to challenge the candidacy of the man they blame for putting George W. Bush in the White House in 2000. (LESLEY CLARK, 9/14/04, Miami Herald)
Ralph Nader is back. At least for now.In a dizzying turn of events, Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood returned the consumer crusader to the state's presidential ballot on Monday as lawyers for the Democratic Party, the state and Nader sought emergency court hearings to settle a dispute over whether the independent candidate can appear there.
A state judge booted Nader off the ballot last week, but Hood, in effect, reversed the ruling -- telling election supervisors now preparing absentee ballots to be mailed overseas that Nader is a candidate.
The move infuriated Democrats, who accused Hood, an appointee of Gov. Jeb Bush, of partisan politicking.
Edwards's unheard message (Joan Vennochi, September 14, 2004, Boston Globe)
DICK CHENEY, the dour vice president with the downward-curling lip, is clobbering Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards.Everyone knew that Edwards brought good looks and charisma to the Democratic ticket. But the one-term senator and trial lawyer from North Carolina supposedly offered more. During the primary season, Edwards delivered a stump speech that made liberals' eyes mist: There are two Americas, he said, the haves and the have-nots, the people buying $800 Manolo Blahnik pumps at Neiman Marcus versus the people buying flip-flops at Wal-Mart. [...]
Cheney snidely sidetracked the Democrats' message with these words: "Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual. America sees two John Kerrys." [...]
"In a game of visibility, it's a technical knock-out," says Boston political consultant Joe Baerlein. "Dick Cheney is the designated pitbull. His job is to make news and stir up controversy." He believes the Kerry campaign is deliberately choosing another strategy, using Edwards to make the case to swing voters in select markets, "in a nonpolarizing way."
Lewis vs. Freud (Matt Kaufman, September 2004, Boundless)
On consecutive Wednesdays this month (Sept. 15 and 22), PBS stations will be airing a two-part documentary, The Question of God: Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. It’s a study in contrasts between two of the most influential men of the 20th century: the atheist Sigmund Freud, who held that all human affairs could be explained by secular psychoanalysis, and the ex-atheist Lewis, who became the most popular Christian writer of his era and beyond.Recently I saw a one-hour preview of the four-hour special. Based on what I saw, I have to say, not everyone will be fascinated by every minute of it; it includes a fair amount of debate among academic types that many viewers may find heavy going. But at the heart of the show are compelling segments from the lives of both Freud and Lewis (including actors’ re-creations) that demonstrate the stark difference between life with God and life without Him.
The two men actually had their similarities. Both suffered blows to his faith early in life: the Jewish Freud when his family fell into sudden poverty, the Christian Lewis when his mother died and his father withdrew into often-tempestuous grief. Both emphasized the value of reason, though Lewis (unlike Freud) recognized its limits.
And above all, both agreed on the importance of their disagreements. As Harvard Professor Armand Nicholi (who teaches a course on which the documentary was based) says,
Are these worldviews merely philosophical speculations with no right or wrong answer? No. One of them begins with the basic premise that God does not exist, the other with the premise that He does. They are, therefore, mutually exclusive — if one is right, the other must be wrong. Does it really make any difference to know which one is which? Both Freud and Lewis thought so. They spent a good portion of their lives exploring these issues, repeatedly asking the question, “Is it true?”
No “you-have-your-truth-I-have-my-truth” wimpiness for these men; no “all that matters is that you have beliefs which have meaning for you” cop-outs. It made all the difference in the world who was right and who was wrong, and both of them knew it.
I have often asked myself why human beings have any rights at all. I always come to the conclusion that human rights, human freedoms, and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere outside the perceptible world. These values are as powerful as they are because, under certain circumstances, people accept them without compulsion and are willing to die for them, and they make sense only in the perspective of the infinite and the eternal. . . . While the state is a human creation, human beings are the creation of God.
-Vaclav Havel, The New York Review of Books
The Economics of Obesity (Inas Rashad & Michael Grossman, Summer 2004, The Public Interest)
Hardly a day goes by that we do not read about the dire consequences of the increase in obesity. In March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that obesity will overtake smoking as the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States by next year if current trends continue. “This is a tragedy,” Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers, told the Washington Post. “We’re looking at this as a wakeup call.” The obesity problem is real, Gerberding’s melodrama notwithstanding, and seems to be worsening each year. The percentage of adults who are obese has doubled since the late 1970s, and tripled among children. From increases in the size of coffins, to increases in the size of pets, to the appearance of new diets and new surgical techniques to lose weight, and to a patent for an in-car system for dieters that weighs them and tells them when they have strayed, the evidence of
America’s obesity problem is everywhere.Obesity and sedentary lifestyles accounted for approximately 400,000 deaths in 2000 compared to 435,000 from cigarette smoking, 100,000 from alcohol abuse, and 20,000 from illegal drug use. Obesity costs more in annual medical care expenditures than cigarette smoking — around $75 billion in 2003 — because of the long and costly treatments for its complications. A large percentage of these costs are borne by Medicare, Medicaid, private health-insurance companies, and ultimately by the population at large rather than by the obese. [...]
Obesity has a large genetic component, and this plays an important role in explaining why a given individual is obese. But genetic characteristics in the population change very slowly, and so they clearly cannot explain why obesity has increased so rapidly in recent decades. Researchers have instead sought to explain obesity by looking at technological changes, changes in taste and consumer habits, and at changes in the social environment. Economists have taken the lead in these efforts. Not surprisingly, they have emphasized the role of prices.
According to the economists Darius Lakdawalla and Tomas Philipson, declines in the real prices of grocery food items caused a surge in caloric intake that can account for as much as 40 percent of the increase in the body mass index of adults since 1980. Technological advances in agriculture caused grocery prices to fall, the authors show, and these declines caused consumers to demand more groceries. Government policy only heightened the effect by encouraging overproduction. Journalist Michael Pollan points to a shift in the early 1970s toward direct farming subsidies as another source of the rise in caloric intake. The old system, an agricultural-support arrangement designed to discourage overproduction of corn and other storable commodities, had much smaller effects on producers’ decisions. But the new system “free[d] them to dump their harvests on the market no matter what the price.”
Important technological changes in the home kitchen seem to have fostered more caloric intake, too. Economists David M. Cutler, Edward L. Glaeser, and Jessie M. Shapiro, present evidence that the tools responsible for reductions in the time we spend preparing meals at home — at least for certain groups in the population — have contributed to an increase in caloric consumption. Microwaveable meals and other foods that are easy to cook are desirable because they are quicker to prepare; they are also fattier and higher in caloric content.
Other factors that have contributed to the growth in obesity include the decline in physical activity and urban sprawl. [...]
While these various factors all clearly matter, we have found in our research with colleagues Shin-Yi Chou and Henry Saffer that several others seem to be more important in explaining trends in obesity. First and foremost, eating out at fast-food restaurants and full-service restaurants seems to be the most important factor in explaining the rise in obesity.
According to our research, as much as two-thirds of the increase in adult obesity since 1980 can be explained by the rapid growth in the per capita number of fast-food restaurants and full-service restaurants, especially the former. [...]
If obesity were purely a cosmetic problem, the pressing need for answers as to why this has happened and solutions to reverse it would not seem necessary. Yet obesity has been linked to various medical conditions such as hypertension, high cholesterol, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, psychological disorders such as depression, and various types of cancer. Clearly, obesity carries a high personal cost. But does it carry a high enough social cost to make it a concern of public policy? The answer is no if consumers are fully informed, and if the obese bear all the consequences of their actions. The answer is yes if consumers do not have full information or something that reasonably approximates it, or if third parties like Medicare, Medicaid, private health insurance companies and ultimately the non-obese end up bearing significant amounts of the costs.
It would seem, then, that obesity is a matter for public concern. Clearly, the non-obese do subsidize the obese.
Dictionary.com Word of the Day (Dictionary.com, September 14, 2004)
longueur \long-GUR\, noun:A dull and tedious passage in a book, play, musical composition, or the like.
Hawk vs. Hawk (DAVID BROOKS, 9/14/04, NY Times)
The debate on how to proceed in Iraq is not between the hawks and the doves: it's within the hawk community, and it's between the gradualists and the confrontationalists. [...]The gradualists point to what just happened in Najaf as their model for how the Iraq war should proceed. First, Allawi laid down tough conditions: that Moktada al-Sadr's militia had to go. Then he convinced many of the locals that their lives would be better without lawless thugs in their midst. Then the U.S. attacked and weakened the terrorists. Then Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani brokered an agreement that led to the re-establishment of government control. Now development aid can flow to Najaf again. Aid projects worth roughly $6 million are resuming, and $37 million more is on the way.
Najaf, the gradualists argue, showed it's possible to marginalize the extremists and rally the decent majority. Now the task is to build on that success in other towns, and slowly rob the terrorists of sanctuaries.
The confrontationalists can't believe the Bush folks, of all people, are waging a sensitive war on terror. By moving so slowly, the U.S. is allowing terror armies to thrive and grow. With U.S. acquiescence, fascists are allowed to preen, terrorize and entrench themselves.
Moreover, they continue, there's no reason to think the Najaf model will work in Sunni cities, where we don't understand and can't exploit the local rifts, where there is no Sistani figure to come in at crucial moments.
In Sunni cities, the so-called moderates may make deals with Allawi, but they break them just as quickly - or else are beheaded by the terrorists.
Taking On the Myth (PAUL KRUGMAN, 9/14/04, NY Times)
On Sunday, a celebrating crowd gathered around a burning U.S. armored vehicle. Then a helicopter opened fire; a child and a journalist for an Arabic TV news channel were among those killed. Later, the channel repeatedly showed the journalist doubling over and screaming, "I'm dying; I'm dying."Such scenes, which enlarge the ranks of our enemies by making America look both weak and brutal, are inevitable in the guerrilla war President Bush got us into. Osama bin Laden must be smiling.
Expert Cited by CBS Says He Didn't Authenticate Papers (Michael Dobbs and Howard Kurtz, September 14, 2004, Washington Post)
The lead expert retained by CBS News to examine disputed memos from President Bush's former squadron commander in the National Guard said yesterday that he examined only the late officer's signature and made no attempt to authenticate the documents themselves."There's no way that I, as a document expert, can authenticate them," Marcel Matley said in a telephone interview from San Francisco. The main reason, he said, is that they are "copies" that are "far removed" from the originals.
Matley's comments came amid growing evidence challenging the authenticity of the documents aired Wednesday on CBS's "60 Minutes." The program was part of an investigation asserting that Bush benefited from political favoritism in getting out of commitments to the Texas Air National Guard. On last night's "CBS Evening News," anchor Dan Rather said again that the network "believes the documents are authentic."
Blair plays it low-key as reality bites for unions (JAMES KIRKUP, 9/14/04, The Scotsman)
TRADE union leaders last night welcomed the limited promises offered in Tony Blair’s half-hearted speech to the TUC, despite rank-and-file members giving the Prime Minister a frosty reception.Mr Blair delivered a sometimes blunt message to union members that he will not "go back to the agenda of the past" by compromising on the New Labour agenda or unpicking the legal changes of the Thatcher era. His audience responded with a seated ovation that lasted barely 20 seconds.
But, in a gesture that owes more to the impending general election than to any new-found warmth for Mr Blair, the main union leaders chose to focus on the Prime Minister’s pledges on a range of second-tier issues, including boosting holiday allowances, encouraging flexible working for people caring for elderly or disabled relatives, and creating a new offence of corporate manslaughter.
Mr Blair also promised to honour a deal to incorporate union views into the Labour manifesto at the next election, and even partly encouraged workers to join unions, though only "if you want to".
"Abortion Legalization and Lifecycle Fertility" (Elizabeth Ananat & Jonathan Gruber, MIT Dept of Economics, and Phillip Levine, Wellesley College & NBER)
Previous research has convincingly shown that abortion legalization in the early 1970s led to a significant drop in fertility at that time. But this decline may have either represented a delay in births from a point where they were 'unintended' to a point where they were 'intended', or they may have represented a permanent reduction in fertility. We combine data from the 1970 U.S. Census and microdata from 1968 to 1999 Vital Statistics records to calculate lifetime fertility of women in the 1930s through 1960s birth cohorts.... Our results indicate that much of the reduction in fertility at the time abortion was legalized was permanent in that women did not have more subsequent births as a result.
Bush pulls into tie with Kerry (KEVIN WACK and BART JANSEN, 9/12/04, Portland Press Herald)
President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are in a dead heat in Maine, one of several battleground states in the Nov. 2 presidential election, according to a newspaper poll that also shows most of the state's voters believe it's time for a change in the White House.Both Kerry and Bush had the support of 43 percent of likely voters statewide in the poll conducted for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram by Zogby International, a Utica, N.Y., polling firm. Earlier polls gave Kerry a slight lead in Maine.
Ralph Nader, who last week was ruled eligible for the Maine ballot, had 3 percent of voters, and another 10 percent were undecided.
On referendum questions, Maine voters were about evenly divided on a proposal to cap property taxes, with 37 percent in favor, 36 percent opposed and 27 percent still undecided. A proposed ban on bear baiting trailed, with 52 percent of voters opposed and 35 percent favoring the ban, the poll shows.
What's most amusing about this title, Chain of Command : The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (Seymour M. Hersh), is that Mr. Hersh seems to think that a rather minor bump in the road was an endpoint. Of course, his history of Vietnam would probably be titled From Dien Bien Phu to My Lai and of WWII, From Pear Harbor to Dresden...
Bush likability trumping record: It isn't really his record that matters, but the great equalizer: the Bush persona. (Dante Chinni, 9/14/04, CS Monitor)
Deficits from surpluses? Botched life-and-death decisions? CEOs have been fired for much less. So seeing as we're all good, business-savvy board members of America Inc., why does the president enjoy a lead in the polls? Because, in the end, for all the chatter about how we want to run government like a business, many of us don't want it to.For many Americans it isn't really the Bush record or policies that matter, it's that great equalizer: the Bush persona. Even when people don't agree with the president, they often say they believe he's sincere. And in a world full of pseudo-events, pseudo-people, and even pseudo-places, that can be pretty compelling.
Many voters have made the decision that, after looking at the options, they don't mind seeing Mr. Bush's face staring back at them from the front page of the newspaper every day through 2008. He may be wrong, sometimes on serious things, but he believes he's doing the right thing and he follows his heart. And in troubled times they find that refreshing. In other words, they simply like him - or at least the image of him as reflected in the media. It's hard to know someone you have never met.
MORE (via Robert Schwartz):
Do Newspapers Make Good News Look Bad? (EDUARDO PORTER, 9/12/04, NY Times)
In a new paper, Kevin A. Hassett and John R. Lott Jr., economists at the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative research organization in Washington, say they have discovered that economic reporters commit the same archetypal sin: slanting the news unequivocally in favor of the Democrats.How can a nugget of news like the economy's addition of 308,000 new jobs in March - the biggest monthly gain in about four years - yield a report that The Associated Press labeled "Bond prices tumble on jobs data"? Bias, the researchers suspected.
The two economists combed through 389 newspapers and A.P. reports contained in the LexisNexis database from January 1991 through May 2004, during the administrations of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. They picked out headlines about gross domestic product growth, unemployment, retail sales and orders of durable goods and classified the headlines' depiction of the economy as either positive, negative, neutral or mixed. Then they crunched some numbers.
They found that Mr. Clinton received better headlines than the two Republican presidents. Even after adjusting the data to compensate for differences in economic performance under the three presidents, the Republicans received 20 to 30 percent fewer positive headlines, on average, for the same type of news, they concluded.
For instance, they said, the unemployment rate in the Clinton administration averaged 5.2 percent, only three-tenths of a percentage point less than it has under George W. Bush. But while 44 percent of Mr. Clinton's headlines on unemployment were positive, only 23 percent of President Bush's headlines on the subject have been upbeat.
Bush widens Wisconsin lead over Kerry, poll shows (USA Today, 9/13/04)
President Bush has widened his lead over Democrat John Kerry in the battleground state of Wisconsin, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows.
President Bush, discussing health care Monday in Michigan, widened his lead in Wisconsin.The week before the Republican National Convention in New York City, Bush held a 3-percentage point lead over his challenger Kerry. Now, the poll shows Bush has 8 percentage points.
Cold Fusion Back From the Dead: U.S. Energy Department gives true believers a new hearing (JUSTIN MULLINS, 9/13/04, IEEE Spectrum)
Later this month, the U.S. Department of Energy will receive a report from a panel of experts on the prospects for cold fusion—the supposed generation of thermonuclear energy using tabletop apparatus. It's an extraordinary reversal of fortune: more than a few heads turned earlier this year when James Decker, the deputy director of the DOE's Office of Science, announced that he was initiating the review of cold fusion science. Back in November 1989, it had been the department's own investigation that determined the evidence behind cold fusion was unconvincing. Clearly, something important has changed to grab the department's attention now.The cold fusion story began at a now infamous press conference in March 1989. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, both electrochemists working at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, announced that they had created fusion using a battery connected to palladium electrodes immersed in a bath of water in which the hydrogen was replaced with its isotope deuterium—so-called heavy water. With this claim came the idea that tabletop fusion could produce more or less unlimited, low-cost, clean energy.
In physicists' traditional view of fusion, forcing two deuterium nuclei close enough together to allow them to fuse usually requires temperatures of tens of millions of degrees Celsius. The claim that it could be done at room temperature with a couple of electrodes connected to a battery stretched credulity.
But while some scientists reported being able to reproduce the result sporadically, many others reported negative results, and cold fusion soon took on the stigma of junk science.
Today the mainstream view is that champions of cold fusion are little better than purveyors of snake oil and good luck charms. Critics say that the extravagant claims behind cold fusion need to be backed with exceptionally strong evidence, and that such evidence simply has not materialized. "To my knowledge, nothing has changed that makes cold fusion worth a second look," says Steven Koonin, a member of the panel that evaluated cold fusion for the DOE back in 1989, who is now chief scientist at BP, the London-based energy company.
Because of such attitudes, science has all but ignored the phenomenon for 15 years. But a small group of dedicated researchers have continued to investigate it. For them, the DOE's change of heart is a crucial step toward being accepted back into the scientific fold. Behind the scenes, scientists in many countries, but particularly in the United States, Japan, and Italy, have been working quietly for more than a decade to understand the science behind cold fusion. (Today they call it low-energy nuclear reactions, or sometimes chemically assisted nuclear reactions.) For them, the department's change of heart is simply a recognition of what they have said all along—whatever cold fusion may be, it needs explaining by the proper process of science.
The Pathetic Truth: A unified theory of everything that explains why Democrats always get outfoxed. (Michael Tomasky, 09.13.04, The American Prospect)
It's still possible that John Kerry could win -- although, of course, anytime a liberal columnist opens his column with a phrase like that, it's not a good sign.Yes, it's still possible. The Clinton bullpen squad could rally the candidate. (And don't forget: He's a great closer!!) But even if he does win, this campaign has already offered another object lesson in why Democrats tend to lose.
The problem begins with the fact that majorities of the public tend to agree with Democrats on the issues. This isn't universally true, of course, but it's true with regard to more issues (perhaps many more issues) than not. On health care, the environment, investment, education, just about everything except national defense, majorities lean toward the Democratic position.
This sounds like a good thing. But in fact, it's an incredibly bad thing, because it leads Democrats to believe that they can win on the issues. So a Democratic presidential candidate's pollster goes out into the field and comes back with data proving that 54 of percent of the people are with us on this issue, and 61 percent of them are with us on that one, and so on. And so the pollster tells the candidate, "Just talk about the issues, and everything will be ducky."
Republican pollsters, meanwhile, conduct the same polls, and they study the same data.
They tell their candidates, "Actually, boss, we can't really win on the issues, so we'd better come up with something else." Well, after the past six weeks, we all know what that something else is. It's character. That is, make the election about the other guy's character.
Life in Baghdad: Better and worse: Polls show Iraqis optimistic for longer term, worried now. (Howard LaFranchi, 9/14/04, CS Monitor)
Life in Baghdad today is a picture of better and worse, of richer and poorer - with a sense of insecurity seeming to unite everyone. Before the war, fears for one's life were for the politically repressed. Now, that fear, like the political system, is being democratized. The latest studies of economic, political, and social development show Iraq teetering between halting progress and disaster. "On a good day, I think Iraq is on the verge of takeoff," says Hussain Kubba, a successful Baghdadi business consultant who now also works with the new economy ministry. "But on bad days I think we're only headed for more chaos."The mix of enduring optimism and uncertainty manifests itself in subtle ways. For example, rich and poor families in Iraq's capital that once held wedding parties in hotels now hold them at home. New births are soaring. The school year does not start until October, yet already families are discussing how to safely transport children to school.
"We used to start school in September, but now it's October, and we are told it's because they aren't ready to ensure the children's safety," says Bushra Mohammed, who also sits outside Faqma's ice cream shop with a fast-melting scoop of vanilla. Giving her nieces a treat her unemployed brother cannot afford, Miss Mohammed says some families are even debating whether to send the kids to school at all, at least at the beginning.
"We are living in a huge chaos, like an earthquake that leaves everything upside-down," says Sadoun al-Dulame, whose Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies regularly surveys Iraqi public opinion. "We are formulating a new society, rebuilding Iraq politically, socially, economically, even psychologically. No wonder so many people are bewildered and reactions are so hard to predict."
Mr. Dulame's own surveys show that if you ask Iraqis about security they will tell you they are worse off today - but that if you ask them about the economy, most say things are better than before the war. Many salaries are higher, though there are more unemployed.
One consequence of what many here simply call the "confusion" of the postwar era is that Iraqis, while holding to an optimism about the long-term future, aren't sure what to think about the present.
MORE:
Peace breaks out in Saddam's home town: American forces feel relaxed enough to travel in open-top vehicles and pause kerbside for an ice-cream. (Toby Harnden, September 14, 2004, The Age)
Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town and the spiritual heart of his despotic regime, is now a rare island of peace.While forces elsewhere in Iraq are forced to call in air strikes, US soldiers patrol in open-top vehicles. In talks they take off their body armour, and Lieutenant-Colonel Jeffrey Sinclair, the local US Army commander, makes a daily patrol on foot.
When Colonel Sinclair took control of Tikrit in March, he could hardly leave base without a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) being fired at his convoy. "We took our hits like everyone else," he said.
Now, the town of 30,000 is being held up by the US Army as an example of how to conduct successful counter-insurgency operations.
Major-General John Batiste, 1st Infantry Division commander, said pragmatism, effective intelligence gathering and avoidance of "kinetic operations" - combat - when possible explained why Tikrit was peaceful. The British have used similar tactics in Basra.
Hey, Guys, the Action's Down There (Joel Kotkin, September 12, 2004, Washington Post)
"The Great Divide" is the self-published -- and vigorously self-promoted -- brainchild of an eccentric 83-year-old Arizona billionaire businessman named John Sperling, founder of the for-profit University of Phoenix. It suggests that Sen. John Kerry can ace the election this fall by taking advantage of a growing conflict between what the book describes as a highly sophisticated, productive "metro" economy based largely in the Northeast and on the West Coast, and a troglodyte, parasitic "retro" economy located in the South and parts of the West and Southwest.In the book's analysis, the famous Republican "red states" of 2000 are socially and culturally regressive and economically backward. Meanwhile, the Democratic blue states are the "economic engines" of America, the incubators of new industries and bastions of financial brilliance and global savvy. Kerry's challenge, Sperling and his three co-authors declare, is to convince voters in swing states such as Arizona, Colorado and the industrial Midwest that they should get hip by becoming more "metro" and less "retro."
Memo to Kerry: If only it were that easy.
There are lots of reasons why this analysis is wrongheaded. It's based on a significant misreading of many key economic indicators. And it doesn't recognize where Americans who aspire to upward mobility make their homes. But it's easy to see why it plays with the pro-Kerry crowd: In recent years, the Democratic Party has shifted away from its working- and middle-class roots to identify more and more with the rising elites of the information age. Yet this shift could cost it an election where economic issues may still prove decisive.
Look at Kerry's chief supporters and you see a new kind of elite, a veritable "hip-ocracy" of high-tech tycoons, Hollywood moguls and celebrities, and a bevy of Wall Street financiers. This group is bolstered by Americans with graduate degrees and a growing number of college and university faculty members.
These core Kerry constituencies, the technical and professional intelligentsia, increasingly show signs of seeing themselves as a new social elite, what urban guru Richard Florida has anointed as the nation's "creative class." Most make their homes in the peculiarly elitist economies of post-industrial metropolises such as greater Boston, Manhattan, San Francisco and the west side of Los Angeles, where the definition of middle class often comes with a million-dollar-plus mortgage, a PhD and, often enough, more than a few pence handed down from the parents. Kerry, a Yale graduate identified by Burke's Peerage as having more royal blood than any presidential candidate in U.S. history, educated in Swiss boarding schools and married to his second heiress, is an almost-too-perfect representative of this new class.
Bush, of course, isn't exactly from the wrong side of the tracks, and he has more than his share of corporate backers. But they're mostly from the more established business community. The Democratic elites see themselves as in
many ways smarter and much "hipper" than these good-old-boy business elites
of Dallas, Houston or Atlanta. Their collective self-image fits right into the retro/metro analysis.But the assertion that the "retro" states represent the economic past is a vast, and dangerous, exaggeration. Wyoming and Mississippi may still be backward, but it's absurd to write off North Carolina, Georgia and Texas as technological laggards.
Majority of Americans on board with stem cell research, UT study finds (Mary Ann Azevedo, September 10, 2004, Houston Business Journal)
Nearly two-thirds, or 65 percent, of Americans support the use of discarded embryos for stem cell research, according to a new poll commissioned by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and conducted by Zogby International.The nationwide, 61-part survey on health issues also found that 72 percent of those polled support the use of stem cells for finding treatments for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's or juvenile diabetes; while more than half (55 percent) do not believe it is "ethical" to conceive a child to harvest stem cells to save an existing child's life.
Milosevic trial faces yet another hurdle (Marlise Simons, International Herald Tribune, September 13th, 2004)
Just days after judges assigned two British lawyers to defend Slobodan Milosevic, his war crimes trial ran into new difficulties as scheduled witnesses pulled out in protest, threatening to unravel the proceedings.Close to 200 witnesses expected to appear to defend the former Yugoslav president have sent notice to the court or to Milosevic's aides that they will not come to the tribunal in The Hague, according to the aides.
As a result, Monday's hearing has been canceled and the court is attempting to reschedule other hearings planned for the coming weeks.
Zdenko Tomanovic, one of the aides, said Milosevic was not stopping the witnesses - the first two appeared last week - but the witnesses themselves had objected after the court ruled that Milosevic could not serve as his own lawyer and needed help. [...]
Over strenuous protests from Milosevic, the judges in charge of the case appointed two British lawyers on Sept. 3 after cardiologists had concurred that Milosevic was not fit enough to bear the strain of defending himself. The trial, involving multiple war crimes charges, has been interrupted more than a dozen times due to Milosevic's heart problems. The date of his defense, which was scheduled to begin in June, has been changed five times and delayed by three months.
In recent days, the three judges in charge of the trial repeatedly urged Milosevic to participate in his defense and ask follow-up questions when the court-appointed lawyer, Steven Kay, was finished. The former Serb leader refused, saying he would not "act as Mr. Kay's assistant." He insisted every time that he wanted his right to defend himself restored and would appeal.
Now, in a new twist in the complex trial, the court-appointed lawyers have taken the first step to appeal, following Milosevic's wishes. This puts the new defense team in the peculiar position of appealing against its own presence. Steven Kay and Gillian Higgins, as the lawyers are called, are objecting to the role played by Steven Kay and Gillian Higgins.
Trash talk trumping policy talk (Linda Feldmann and Amanda Paulson, 9/14/04, The Christian Science Monitor)
[A]ny Democrats who are celebrating over the slew of charges against Bush might think again, analysts say. In fact, the net effect could be to hurt Senator Kerry - not because some voters may believe that his campaign is somehow behind the efforts to tar the president, but because the stories take away from the Massachusetts Democrat's ability to focus the campaign on issues."Kerry would like to change the dialogue to issues that favor him, and anything that's a distraction from that is to Bush's advantage," says presidential scholar George Edwards of Texas A&M University. Polls show that voters favor Kerry on most issues, such as jobs and healthcare, with terrorism the major exception.
Kerry also faces the inherent challenge of going up against an incumbent president about whom most voters already have a fixed opinion, positive or negative. With just seven weeks to go before Election Day, many voters say they still don't know Kerry well enough to judge his character, and so he is more vulnerable to unfavorable portrayals than is the president. Pollsters tend to believe that the charges raised by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of anti-Kerry Vietnam vets who have questioned his war medals, have hurt the senator's image among some voters.
Powell targets terror comment: Kerry's response would be 'robust' (Glen Johnson, September 13, 2004, Boston Globe)
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday he believes Senator John F. Kerry would, if elected president, respond to terrorism "in a robust way," challenging a comment made last week by Vice President Dick Cheney."I can't tell you how he might respond to it. As commander in chief, I think he'd respond to it in a robust way," the retired Army general said of Kerry during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Powell added: "There's no commander in chief, no president of the United States, who would not respond to terrorism. Now, how he would respond, which strategies that individual would use, I can't predict the future."
Cheney, speaking to supporters last Tuesday in Des Moines, said: "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
Two days later, in an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer, the vice president explained he would like to "clean up" his remark. "I did not say if Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack," Cheney said. "Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks. My point was the question before us is: 'Will we have the most effective policy in place to deal with that threat?' George Bush will pursue a more effective policy than John Kerry."
EU Calls for UN Probe of Sudan Genocide Charges (Deutsche Welle, September, 13th, 2004)
On Monday, the European Union's foreign ministers urged the United Nations to conduct an inquiry into allegations of genocide in Sudan, renewing the threat of sanctions for the African country.[...]But the word "genocide" was not uttered in public comments made by any of the ministers. They know labelling the situation will determine their course of action -- and not all the bloc's governments are ready to take the steps required by UN obligations to stop genocide wherever it occurs. [...]
While Germany, France and the Britain would like to join in the United States' call for UN sanctions against Khartoum, political pressure is the best they can do at the moment because of hesitance from Italy, Spain and Greece. They would rather see the union reinforce its opposition, a move that others think would play into the Sudanese government's hands.
"I have the feeling that the government of Sudan is at the moment laughing at us, at the international community," said Ana Gomes, a Portuguese member of the European Parliament who recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Darfur. "They know how to read the contradictory signs that were given by the international community in dealing politically with this issue."
Sudan isn’t the only one laughing at them.
Internet claim on Bush award disputed (Gene J. Koprowski, 9/13/2004, UPI)
The Air Force has knocked down allegations by a Web site that said President Bush, when serving as an officer in the Texas Air National Guard, wore a ribbon he was not authorized to wear -- a military offense that could have led to a bad-conduct discharge from the service if true.The original story was offered to United Press International during late August by operatives from Democrats.com, an Internet activist group whose founder had earlier this year served as a source for The Boston Globe and other media outlets on stories about Bush's service in the guard in the 1960s and 1970s.
Kerry, Edwards and Daschle May Face Vote on Flag (Helen Dewar, Washington Post, 9/13/2004)
As senators, Kerry (Mass.), Edwards (N.C.) and Daschle (S.D.) have voted against the amendment and are described by colleagues as still opposed to it. But Kerry and Edwards, who rarely leave the campaign trail for Senate votes, are not expected to show up for the flag debate unless it appears their votes would be decisive.As it appears now, the vote could be close enough to focus attention on Kerry and Edwards if they do not suspend campaigning to return for the roll call or if they do return and their votes turn out to be critical in defeating the amendment. Similarly, if Daschle turns out to cast the make-or-break vote, Republicans will almost certainly use it against him in his close race for reelection in South Dakota.
Some Republicans believe the three Democrats' votes against the proposal -- or absence when the roll is called -- can be used against them effectively at a time of war, terrorism threats and heightened patriotism. If Kerry and Edwards vote against the amendment or fail to show up for the vote, "they're going to have to explain why," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), a key backer of the proposal.
Imagine the sea of conflicting advice from his teams of "advisers" on this one. So, Sen. Kerry, do you a) vote? [giving the illusion, albeit temporary and retractable, of taking a stand on an issue] b) not show up to ANOTHER vote? c) Resign so you can at least appear interested in being the President? or d) Blame Karl Rove . . . . again.
Kerry's new Vietnam fix: Refugees of communist takeover won't forget, forgive his past (Jan Golab, September 11, 2004, Los Angeles Daily News)
"If you want to be president, you have to talk to everybody in America, and that is what we are going to do," Sen. John Kerry declared last July, when he spoke before the NAACP. It was a dig against President George W. Bush, who had declined an invitation to speak to that organization.But there's no way Kerry will ever speak to America's 1.2 million Vietnamese-Americans, most of whom live in California. Many of California's Vietnamese-Americans will be in Washington, D.C., today to join with Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and many thousands of other veterans in a nationwide protest. [...]
As a star of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Kerry preached that the Vietnamese communists were not repressive totalitarians like the Soviets or Chinese. The Viet Cong were hippie rice farmers who just wanted to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." They were the nice communists. America, meanwhile, was an imperialist oppressor.
Millions of boomers bought into this terrible lie.
Kerry lionized Ho Chi Minh, ignored Soviet support of the NVA and accused the U.S. of being "paranoid about the so-called communist monolith." Asked by a questioning senator in 1971 what would be the effects of an immediate U.S. withdrawal from South Vietnam, Kerry responded: "Having done what we have done to that country, we have an obligation to offer sanctuary to the perhaps 2,000, 3,000 people who might face political assassination or something else."
That same week, he appeared on the Dick Cavett show. "There'd be no interest on the part of the Vietnamese to start massacring people after the U.S. has pulled out," Kerry told Cavett.
To this day, Kerry has never disavowed or apologized for those statements. Kerry has never admitted how dead wrong he was.
As in 3 million dead.
After the U.S. withdrew from Saigon on April 30, 1975, 750,000 Vietnamese were forced into re-education camps. Many did not survive. Some 130,000 took to boats and 1 million more fled overland. Next door, the Khmer Rouge claimed 2 million lives in the Killing Fields. The plight of the boat people was an unspeakable nightmare.
Lac Nguyen, director of the nonprofit Vietnamese Community of Southern California, is typical of many Orange County refugees. He served in the South Vietnamese government and as an officer in the army. After the fall of Saigon, he spent three years in jail and labor camps, as did others in his family. His father and five uncles were all killed by the communists.
"I am one of the boat people," Nguyen says. "We don't feel happy with Mr. John Kerry. The majority of Vietnamese refugees here are survivors of communist oppression. We all have family members who were killed or spent years in prison. If John Kerry comes here, he will see our reaction. And he will see it elsewhere, in New York, Boston, Florida as well." [...]
Dan Tran believes Kerry has underestimated the impact Vietnamese-Americans will have on the election. Half of our nation's 1.2 million Vietnamese-Americans live in California, a state widely considered not to be in play.
"Kerry doesn't believe there are enough in California to sway the vote," says Tran, who thinks differently, especially if Bush gets a boost in California from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I think Kerry and his campaign manager have made a very wrong assumption. Kerry went after the Cubans in Miami but he thinks the Vietnamese won't make a difference there. He's wrong. In 2000, only 500 votes made the difference. So the 20,000 Vietnamese-Americans in Florida can make the difference, as well as in other states like Arizona and New Mexico, where it's a very tight race."
Q & A: Coaching Team Kerry: This week in the magazine, Ken Auletta writes about Robert Shrum, John Kerry’s senior adviser, and whether he’s up to the job of taking on Bush. Here, with The New Yorker’s Matt Dellinger, Auletta discusses Kerry, his team, and the role of the media in the Presidential race. (The New Yorker, 2004-09-13)
MATT DELLINGER: How has the Kerry campaign performed, in your opinion, and what has Bob Shrum’s role been?KEN AULETTA: Shrum’s brilliant strategy in the primary season a year ago was that, in the post-9/11 world, the public would tire of negative campaigning, and that Kerry was the only candidate who had the potential to unite all these Democratic parties, and the only candidate, or one of the only candidates, with a war record that would potentially immunize him against charges that he was soft on defense or too liberal. He fought back those people in the Kerry campaign who wanted to attack Howard Dean, who wanted to go after him more aggressively, saying that if they did that they’d diminish Kerry’s stature, and they would polarize the Party and make it tougher for Kerry to emerge as the winner. He was proved right in that strategic choice. But where he’s probably wrong, I think, is that he’s done what generals often do: he’s repeated the same strategy for one war without realizing there’s a different war. When the Swift-boat attacks came, in early August, the Kerry campaign waited before fully responding to them. Shrum’s philosophy was that, post-9/11, people didn’t have the kind of tolerance for negative personal attacks. That has been proved false, because Kerry’s poll numbers, as they related to that topic, dropped. I think the Kerry camp misunderstood the nature of the modern campaign, where you have the Internet dovetailing with twenty-four-hour cable news, creating this kind of echo chamber.
You wrote a piece earlier this year about how the Bush White House is famously tight-lipped, more so than any Administration in recent memory. Is that kind of discipline true of Bush’s campaign, too?
Well, it’s interesting. The discipline that I saw while I was working on the piece I wrote in January, which was called “Fortress Bush,” was that they stay on message, they don’t leak, and they don’t believe they have to talk to the press. That actually is changing some. All the discipline and talking from the same message points or choir book is still there. But actually, by contrast, the Bush campaign was, in some ways, more open to me in answering questions than the Kerry campaign was. For instance, I asked the Kerry campaign how many employees they had. They refused to answer, like it was a state secret, and the Bush campaign was totally open about it. It was quite stunning. I think that the Bush people are very shrewd politically. I’m not saying that a lot of the Kerry people are not, but the Bush people understood that if they continued with Fortress Bush going into a Presidential campaign, if they were not more accessible to the press—whom they need now, but didn’t in the first three years of Bush’s Presidency—they would be hurt by it, and people would be talking about the secretive Bush White House. So they tried to change that story line; if you ask the Bush people now how many real volunteers they have, they answer exactly. It’s like pulling teeth to get that out of the Kerry campaign.
Your article raised a question about the structure of these campaigns. In the Bush campaign, it seems as though Karl Rove is the general. In the Kerry campaign, you have a campaign manager, media consultants, different spokespeople, the communications director, senior advisers, speechwriters. Is Kerry’s campaign more like a soccer team than like a football team? Is there no hierarchy?
The Kerry campaign has a lot of talented people, including Bob Shrum. But the difference that pops out at you when you look at both campaigns is that the Bush campaign has a final authority, and that’s Karl Rove. Now, there are other important advisers around Bush—political advisers; Mark McKinnon, who handles the media; Karen Hughes, who travels with Bush; Matthew Dowd, who is called chief strategist. Karl Rove is the boss, and he has a meeting every weekend at his home with these people. He signs off on everything. But in the Kerry campaign it’s much more of a committee. Shrum is probably the preëminent political adviser to him—that’s the case in this current piece—but he’s got a lot of other people now: John Sasso and Joe Lockhart, and Shrum’s partners, and Mary Beth Cahill, the campaign manager, and a lot of other people. There is no one person who has to sign off on everything. You could argue that Mary Beth Cahill does, but her forte is much more in operations than in strategy. She’s pretty much the campaign manager, and she did a brilliant job after they turned that campaign around last fall. But they don’t have the kind of hierarchy that the Bush campaign does, and every time they make a decision it is by committee.
Can you say that Kerry has taken the high road and acted more Presidential?
Well, that was the argument for doing it. The argument was that the public would not have patience for that kind of negative personal campaigning. That was Shrum’s argument, and the polls suggest that he was wrong. So far.
Canada Looks for Ways to Fix Its Health Care System (CLIFFORD KRAUSS, 9/12/04, NY Times)
The publicly financed health insurance system remains a prideful jewel for most Canadians, who see it as an expression of communal caring for the less fortunate and a striking contrast to an American health care system that leaves 45 million people uninsured. But polls indicate that public confidence in the system is eroding, although politicians remain reticent to urge increasing privatization of services.During the recent closely fought election campaign, Mr. Martin promised to fix Canada's health care system "for a generation," focusing on trimming waiting times for diagnostic tests, cancer treatment and elective surgery like hip replacements. He is eager to use this televised gathering, billed as a health care summit meeting, to reverse the current view among many Canadians that his government is vacillating and may well fall next year.
But medical professionals and local officials say a major reason it may not be easy to address the problem of slow access to treatment is because doctors who do preliminary diagnostic work, refer patients to specialists and monitor the care of chronically ill people are less and less available - especially in small towns and rural areas.
A 2002 report from the Canadian Senate said that the actual number of family doctors had decreased only slightly in recent years but that the demands of an aging population were growing. Meanwhile, several recent studies have shown that family doctors are working shorter hours.
Young doctors are more likely to seek the most lucrative work in cities or go to the United States rather than start more modest practices in small towns because of growing debts when they leave medical school. That has set off an increasing competition among small towns to attract doctors.
The Bush "Guard memos" are forgeries! (JOSEPH M. NEWCOMER, PH.D.)
Anti-Nader crusade could backfire (ROBERT NOVAK, 9/13/04, Chicago Sun-Times)
The party's limitation of Nader's ballot access has been most successful in non-battleground states. That keeps the independent candidate away from states where either President Bush or Sen. Kerry will win easily. Nader then is free to concentrate on closely contested states where he could take away enough votes from Kerry to carry them for Bush, conceivably giving him a second term.The Democrats have been able to keep Nader out of Arizona, California, Illinois, Mississippi, New Jersey, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia (with only Arizona in the battleground category). Because Nader is not running to be elected but to preach a left-wing gospel that he feels Kerry neglects, he would have campaigned in all these states were he permitted on their ballots. Until thrown off in Texas, Nader planned heavy campaigning against the president in his own state. [...]
Despite Democratic obstruction, Nader definitely will be drawing votes from Kerry in these contested states: Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire and West Virginia. Besides Florida, Nader expects also to get on the ballot in the battleground states of New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In addition to forcing Nader to concentrate on contested states, the Democratic Party's ballot attack permits criticism of the party's undemocratic methods liable to have resonance with left-of-center voters. ''By pushing the Jim Crow methods of denying our ballot access,'' Nader told me, "they are violating the sense of fair play by the American people.''
Why, then, would the Democratic Party deploy its legal brigade to keep Nader off the ballot everywhere? Because animosity toward Nader by Democratic activists is so intense that it approaches the anti-Bush hysteria. His lifetime of left-wing advocacy is forgotten, as Democratic loyalists can only remember the votes they claim he took away from Al Gore in 2000.
What the neo-cons can't tell Americans (Richard Daniel Ewing, 9/14/04, Asia Times)
Make no mistake - Bush's advisers believe that the US, guided by their policies, can change the world. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice argued that the geopolitical "tectonic plates" started shifting after September 11 as they had after World War II. Consider that comparison. That period witnessed America's determination to contain Soviet power, to reconstruct Europe and to establish a global economic system. It was the most audacious peacetime decision to use US power to reshape the planet.Bush's advisers have identical aspirations today. The collapse of the Soviet Union validated their belief that US power can be globally transformative. Wolfowitz & Co embraced a willingness to act - over the short and long runs - to enhance US security (not credibility or status). If US muscle could fell the Soviet colossus, they calculated, why couldn't it create stability in the Middle East?
The major obstacle for that policy, however, was that Americans have always been uncomfortable exercising power for naked national interest. Instead, as historian Walter McDougall argues, Americans picture their role in the world as an extension of their personal values - promoting liberty, spreading democracy, and fighting evil. Moreover, Bush's advisers believe that ordinary Americans cannot comprehend and should be shielded from complex foreign policy (or even energy policy). Knowing that the US will not go to war based on hazy geopolitical trend lines, Bush's advisers justified their grand strategy in tangible terms - chemical weapons, links to terrorists, and tyranny. September 11 provided an opportunity to cloak geopolitical transformation in righteous intervention.
e have fought the terrorists across the Earth, not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake.Our strategy is clear. We have tripled funding for homeland security and trained half a million first responders because we are determined to protect our homeland.
We are transforming our military and reforming and strengthening our intelligence services. We are staying on the offensive, striking terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.
And we are working to advance liberty in the broader Middle East, because freedom will bring a future of hope and the peace we all want. And we will prevail. [...]
I am proud that our country remains the hope of the oppressed and the greatest force for good on this Earth.
Others understand the historic importance of our work. The terrorists know. They know that a vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their radical ideology of hate.
They know that men and women with hope and purpose and dignity do not strap bombs on their bodies and kill the innocent.
The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear. And they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.
I believe in the transformational power of liberty. The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.
As the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq seize the moment, their example will send a message of hope throughout a vital region.
Palestinians will hear the message that democracy and reform are within their reach and so is peace with our good friend, Israel.
Young women across the Middle East will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming. Young men will hear the message that national progress and dignity are found in liberty, not tyranny and terror.
Reformers and political prisoners and exiles will hear the message that their dream of freedom cannot be denied forever. And as freedom advances, heart by heart, and nation by nation, America will be more secure and the world more peaceful. [...]
The progress we and our friends and allies seek in the broader Middle East will not come easily or all at once.
Yet Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century.
We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan, Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics, and that noble story goes on.
I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man.
I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.
This moment in the life of our country will be remembered. Generations will know if we kept our faith and kept our word. Generations will know if we seized this moment and used it to build a future of safety and peace. The freedom of many and the future security of our nation now depend on us.
And tonight, my fellow Americans, I ask you to stand with me.
The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.Delegates to the General Assembly, we have been more than patient. We've tried sanctions. We've tried the carrot of oil for food, and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has a -- nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one. We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming.
The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?
The United States helped found the United Nations. We want the United Nations to be effective, and respectful, and successful. We want the resolutions of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced. And right now those resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime. Our partnership of nations can meet the test before us, by making clear what we now expect of the Iraqi regime.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles, and all related material.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans, and others, again as required by Security Council resolutions.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait, and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues, as required by Security Council resolutions.
If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program, to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
If all these steps are taken, it will signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq. And it could open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represents all Iraqis -- a government based on respect for human rights, economic liberty, and internationally supervised elections.
The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people; they've suffered too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.
My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. If the Palestinian people meet these goals, they will be able to reach agreement with Israel and Egypt and Jordan on security and other arrangements for independence.
And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.
In the work ahead, we all have responsibilities. The Palestinian people are gifted and capable, and I am confident they can achieve a new birth for their nation. A Palestinian state will never be created by terror -- it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism.
Today, the elected Palestinian legislature has no authority, and power is concentrated in the hands of an unaccountable few. A Palestinian state can only serve its citizens with a new constitution which separates the powers of government. The Palestinian parliament should have the full authority of a legislative body. Local officials and government ministers need authority of their own and the independence to govern effectively.
The United States, along with the European Union and Arab states, will work with Palestinian leaders to create a new constitutional framework, and a working democracy for the Palestinian people. And the United States, along with others in the international community will help the Palestinians organize and monitor fair, multi-party local elections by the end of the year, with national elections to follow.
Today, the Palestinian people live in economic stagnation, made worse by official corruption. A Palestinian state will require a vibrant economy, where honest enterprise is encouraged by honest government. The United States, the international donor community and the World Bank stand ready to work with Palestinians on a major project of economic reform and development. The United States, the EU, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund are willing to oversee reforms in Palestinian finances, encouraging transparency and independent auditing.
And the United States, along with our partners in the developed world, will increase our humanitarian assistance to relieve Palestinian suffering. Today, the Palestinian people lack effective courts of law and have no means to defend and vindicate their rights. A Palestinian state will require a system of reliable justice to punish those who prey on the innocent. The United States and members of the international community stand ready to work with Palestinian leaders to establish finance -- establish finance and monitor a truly independent judiciary.
Today, Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism. This is unacceptable. And the United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure. This will require an externally supervised effort to rebuild and reform the Palestinian security services. The security system must have clear lines of authority and accountability and a unified chain of command.
America is pursuing this reform along with key regional states. The world is prepared to help, yet ultimately these steps toward statehood depend on the Palestinian people and their leaders. If they energetically take the path of reform, the rewards can come quickly. If Palestinians embrace democracy, confront corruption and firmly reject terror, they can count on American support for the creation of a provisional state of Palestine. [...]
I can understand the deep anger and despair of the Palestinian people. For decades you've been treated as pawns in the Middle East conflict. Your interests have been held hostage to a comprehensive peace agreement that never seems to come, as your lives get worse year by year. You deserve democracy and the rule of law. You deserve an open society and a thriving economy. You deserve a life of hope for your children. An end to occupation and a peaceful democratic Palestinian state may seem distant, but America and our partners throughout the world stand ready to help, help you make them possible as soon as possible.
If liberty can blossom in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions of men and women around the globe who are equally weary of poverty and oppression, equally entitled to the benefits of democratic government.
I have a hope for the people of Muslim countries. Your commitments to morality, and learning, and tolerance led to great historical achievements. And those values are alive in the Islamic world today. You have a rich culture, and you share the aspirations of men and women in every culture. Prosperity and freedom and dignity are not just American hopes, or Western hopes. They are universal, human hopes. And even in the violence and turmoil of the Middle East, America believes those hopes have the power to transform lives and nations.
This moment is both an opportunity and a test for all parties in the Middle East: an opportunity to lay the foundations for future peace; a test to show who is serious about peace and who is not. The choice here is stark and simple. The Bible says, "I have set before you life and death; therefore, choose life." The time has arrived for everyone in this conflict to choose peace, and hope, and life.
Historians in the future will reflect on an extraordinary, undeniable fact: Over time, free nations grow stronger and dictatorships grow weaker. In the middle of the 20th century, some imagined that the central planning and social regimentation were a shortcut to national strength. In fact, the prosperity, and social vitality and technological progress of a people are directly determined by extent of their liberty. Freedom honors and unleashes human creativity -- and creativity determines the strength and wealth of nations. Liberty is both the plan of Heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on Earth.The progress of liberty is a powerful trend. Yet, we also know that liberty, if not defended, can be lost. The success of freedom is not determined by some dialectic of history. By definition, the success of freedom rests upon the choices and the courage of free peoples, and upon their willingness to sacrifice. In the trenches of World War I, through a two-front war in the 1940s, the difficult battles of Korea and Vietnam, and in missions of rescue and liberation on nearly every continent, Americans have amply displayed our willingness to sacrifice for liberty.
The sacrifices of Americans have not always been recognized or appreciated, yet they have been worthwhile. Because we and our allies were steadfast, Germany and Japan are democratic nations that no longer threaten the world. A global nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union ended peacefully -- as did the Soviet Union. The nations of Europe are moving towards unity, not dividing into armed camps and descending into genocide. Every nation has learned, or should have learned, an important lesson: Freedom is worth fighting for, dying for, and standing for -- and the advance of freedom leads to peace.
And now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We've reached another great turning point -- and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement.
Our commitment to democracy is tested in countries like Cuba and Burma and North Korea and Zimbabwe -- outposts of oppression in our world. The people in these nations live in captivity, and fear and silence. Yet, these regimes cannot hold back freedom forever -- and, one day, from prison camps and prison cells, and from exile, the leaders of new democracies will arrive. Communism, and militarism and rule by the capricious and corrupt are the relics of a passing era. And we will stand with these oppressed peoples until the day of their freedom finally arrives.
Our commitment to democracy is tested in China. That nation now has a sliver, a fragment of liberty. Yet, China's people will eventually want their liberty pure and whole. China has discovered that economic freedom leads to national wealth. China's leaders will also discover that freedom is indivisible -- that social and religious freedom is also essential to national greatness and national dignity. Eventually, men and women who are allowed to control their own wealth will insist on controlling their own lives and their own country.
Our commitment to democracy is also tested in the Middle East, which is my focus today, and must be a focus of American policy for decades to come. In many nations of the Middle East -- countries of great strategic importance -- democracy has not yet taken root. And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free.
Some skeptics of democracy assert that the traditions of Islam are inhospitable to the representative government. This "cultural condescension," as Ronald Reagan termed it, has a long history. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, a so-called Japan expert asserted that democracy in that former empire would "never work." Another observer declared the prospects for democracy in post-Hitler Germany are, and I quote, "most uncertain at best" -- he made that claim in 1957. Seventy-four years ago, The Sunday London Times declared nine-tenths of the population of India to be "illiterates not caring a fig for politics." Yet when Indian democracy was imperiled in the 1970s, the Indian people showed their commitment to liberty in a national referendum that saved their form of government.
Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are "ready" for democracy -- as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress. In fact, the daily work of democracy itself is the path of progress. It teaches cooperation, the free exchange of ideas, and the peaceful resolution of differences. As men and women are showing, from Bangladesh to Botswana, to Mongolia, it is the practice of democracy that makes a nation ready for democracy, and every nation can start on this path.
It should be clear to all that Islam -- the faith of one-fifth of humanity -- is consistent with democratic rule. Democratic progress is found in many predominantly Muslim countries -- in Turkey and Indonesia, and Senegal and Albania, Niger and Sierra Leone. Muslim men and women are good citizens of India and South Africa, of the nations of Western Europe, and of the United States of America.
More than half of all the Muslims in the world live in freedom under democratically constituted governments. They succeed in democratic societies, not in spite of their faith, but because of it. A religion that demands individual moral accountability, and encourages the encounter of the individual with God, is fully compatible with the rights and responsibilities of self-government.
Yet there's a great challenge today in the Middle East. In the words of a recent report by Arab scholars, the global wave of democracy has -- and I quote -- "barely reached the Arab states." They continue: "This freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development." The freedom deficit they describe has terrible consequences, of the people of the Middle East and for the world. In many Middle Eastern countries, poverty is deep and it is spreading, women lack rights and are denied schooling. Whole societies remain stagnant while the world moves ahead. These are not the failures of a culture or a religion. These are the failures of political and economic doctrines.
As the colonial era passed away, the Middle East saw the establishment of many military dictatorships. Some rulers adopted the dogmas of socialism, seized total control of political parties and the media and universities. They allied themselves with the Soviet bloc and with international terrorism. Dictators in Iraq and Syria promised the restoration of national honor, a return to ancient glories. They've left instead a legacy of torture, oppression, misery, and ruin.
Other men, and groups of men, have gained influence in the Middle East and beyond through an ideology of theocratic terror. Behind their language of religion is the ambition for absolute political power. Ruling cabals like the Taliban show their version of religious piety in public whippings of women, ruthless suppression of any difference or dissent, and support for terrorists who arm and train to murder the innocent. The Taliban promised religious purity and national pride. Instead, by systematically destroying a proud and working society, they left behind suffering and starvation.
Many Middle Eastern governments now understand that military dictatorship and theocratic rule are a straight, smooth highway to nowhere. But some governments still cling to the old habits of central control. There are governments that still fear and repress independent thought and creativity, and private enterprise -- the human qualities that make for a -- strong and successful societies. Even when these nations have vast natural resources, they do not respect or develop their greatest resources -- the talent and energy of men and women working and living in freedom.
Instead of dwelling on past wrongs and blaming others, governments in the Middle East need to confront real problems, and serve the true interests of their nations. The good and capable people of the Middle East all deserve responsible leadership. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects -- they deserve to be active citizens.
Governments across the Middle East and North Africa are beginning to see the need for change. Morocco has a diverse new parliament; King Mohammed has urged it to extend the rights to women. Here is how His Majesty explained his reforms to parliament: "How can society achieve progress while women, who represent half the nation, see their rights violated and suffer as a result of injustice, violence, and marginalization, notwithstanding the dignity and justice granted to them by our glorious religion?" The King of Morocco is correct: The future of Muslim nations will be better for all with the full participation of women.
In Bahrain last year, citizens elected their own parliament for the first time in nearly three decades. Oman has extended the vote to all adult citizens; Qatar has a new constitution; Yemen has a multiparty political system; Kuwait has a directly elected national assembly; and Jordan held historic elections this summer. Recent surveys in Arab nations reveal broad support for political pluralism, the rule of law, and free speech. These are the stirrings of Middle Eastern democracy, and they carry the promise of greater change to come.
As changes come to the Middle Eastern region, those with power should ask themselves: Will they be remembered for resisting reform, or for leading it? In Iran, the demand for democracy is strong and broad, as we saw last month when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The regime in Teheran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy.
For the Palestinian people, the only path to independence and dignity and progress is the path of democracy. And the Palestinian leaders who block and undermine democratic reform, and feed hatred and encourage violence are not leaders at all. They're the main obstacles to peace, and to the success of the Palestinian people.
The Saudi government is taking first steps toward reform, including a plan for gradual introduction of elections. By giving the Saudi people a greater role in their own society, the Saudi government can demonstrate true leadership in the region.
The great and proud nation of Egypt has shown the way toward peace in the Middle East, and now should show the way toward democracy in the Middle East. Champions of democracy in the region understand that democracy is not perfect, it is not the path to utopia, but it's the only path to national success and dignity.
As we watch and encourage reforms in the region, we are mindful that modernization is not the same as Westernization. Representative governments in the Middle East will reflect their own cultures. They will not, and should not, look like us. Democratic nations may be constitutional monarchies, federal republics, or parliamentary systems. And working democracies always need time to develop -- as did our own. We've taken a 200-year journey toward inclusion and justice -- and this makes us patient and understanding as other nations are at different stages of this journey.
There are, however, essential principles common to every successful society, in every culture. Successful societies limit the power of the state and the power of the military -- so that governments respond to the will of the people, and not the will of an elite. Successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial rule of law, instead of selecting applying -- selectively applying the law to punish political opponents. Successful societies allow room for healthy civic institutions -- for political parties and labor unions and independent newspapers and broadcast media. Successful societies guarantee religious liberty -- the right to serve and honor God without fear of persecution. Successful societies privatize their economies, and secure the rights of property. They prohibit and punish official corruption, and invest in the health and education of their people. They recognize the rights of women. And instead of directing hatred and resentment against others, successful societies appeal to the hopes of their own people (Applause.)
These vital principles are being applies in the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq. With the steady leadership of President Karzai, the people of Afghanistan are building a modern and peaceful government. Next month, 500 delegates will convene a national assembly in Kabul to approve a new Afghan constitution. The proposed draft would establish a bicameral parliament, set national elections next year, and recognize Afghanistan's Muslim identity, while protecting the rights of all citizens. Afghanistan faces continuing economic and security challenges -- it will face those challenges as a free and stable democracy.
In Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council are also working together to build a democracy -- and after three decades of tyranny, this work is not easy. The former dictator ruled by terror and treachery, and left deeply ingrained habits of fear and distrust. Remnants of his regime, joined by foreign terrorists, continue their battle against order and against civilization. Our coalition is responding to recent attacks with precision raids, guided by intelligence provided by the Iraqis, themselves. And we're working closely with Iraqi citizens as they prepare a constitution, as they move toward free elections and take increasing responsibility for their own affairs. As in the defense of Greece in 1947, and later in the Berlin Airlift, the strength and will of free peoples are now being tested before a watching world. And we will meet this test.
Securing democracy in Iraq is the work of many hands. American and coalition forces are sacrificing for the peace of Iraq and for the security of free nations. Aid workers from many countries are facing danger to help the Iraqi people. The National Endowment for Democracy is promoting women's rights, and training Iraqi journalists, and teaching the skills of political participation. Iraqis, themselves -- police and borders guards and local officials -- are joining in the work and they are sharing in the sacrifice.
This is a massive and difficult undertaking -- it is worth our effort, it is worth our sacrifice, because we know the stakes. The failure of Iraqi democracy would embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the region. Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Teheran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation. The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution.
Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo.
Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace.
The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country. From the Fourteen Points to the Four Freedoms, to the Speech at Westminster, America has put our power at the service of principle. We believe that liberty is the design of nature; we believe that liberty is the direction of history. We believe that human fulfillment and excellence come in the responsible exercise of liberty. And we believe that freedom -- the freedom we prize -- is not for us alone, it is the right and the capacity of all mankind.
Working for the spread of freedom can be hard. Yet, America has accomplished hard tasks before. Our nation is strong; we're strong of heart. And we're not alone. Freedom is finding allies in every country; freedom finds allies in every culture. And as we meet the terror and violence of the world, we can be certain the author of freedom is not indifferent to the fate of freedom.
With all the tests and all the challenges of our age, this is, above all, the age of liberty.
A Trial Lawyer on Ticket Has Corporate U.S. Seeing Red: With Edwards as their lightning rod, business interests see Nov. 2 as critical to 'legal reform.' (David G. Savage, September 13, 2004, LA Times)
The billionaire chairman of an insurance company describes members of the group as "terrorists." To the head of a national wholesalers group, they seem like "predators."The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is co-sponsoring a $10-million advertising campaign to "educate voters about the devastating impact" these people are having on the American way of life.
The target of these attacks is not Al Qaeda or some new pestilence sweeping the nation. It's trial lawyers.
These days, the people who bring personal injury lawsuits against corporations, insurers and healthcare providers have replaced "union bosses" as the group that corporate America identifies as its key public enemy. And this year, more than ever before, the war of words between corporate leaders and trial lawyers echoes in the battle for the White House.
President Bush has long campaigned against what he calls "frivolous and junk lawsuits," and he hopes to make "tort reform" a centerpiece of a second term in office. Many business leaders hope he gets a chance.
"We cannot ignore what may prove to be a make-or-break election for legal reform at the national level," said Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber's president, shunning the business lobby's traditional neutrality in presidential races. "When voters go to the polls, they need to know lawsuit abuse destroys jobs, drives doctors out of business and forces companies into bankruptcy."
The assault on trial lawyers has particular resonance in 2004, as business leaders confront the prospect that a highly successful trial lawyer — Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina — will be a heartbeat away from the presidency if his Democratic running mate, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, wins the White House.
"You cannot be pro-doctor, pro-patient, pro-hospital and pro-trial lawyer at the same time," Bush said at a rally Friday in West Virginia. "You have to choose. My opponent made his choice, and he put him on the ticket."
Why Americans love George (Spengler, 9/14/04, Asia Times)
Political tourists who wish to understand the United States should seek out a medium-sized city somewhere in the country's interior, the sort of place no tourist ever would visit, and attend its Fourth of July festivities. There they will encounter a passion for country unknown on the other side of the Atlantic, and unimaginable in the Southern Hemisphere. Government, in the experience of the peoples of the world, has been an instrument by which the wealthy and powerful oppressed the weak. The passionate patriotism of ordinary Americans springs from their conviction that the American state is the shield of common folk.To Europeans, patriotism implies a near-racialist nationalism of the sort that sent hordes of soldiers to butcher their fellows during the two World Wars of the last century. American patriotism belongs to a different species. Governments, in the experience of most of the peoples of the world, exist to help the rich and powerful oppress the weak and helpless. Whenever the representatives of the weak have taken power, they turned into oppressors. Europeans never have loved their governments; love of country means love of one's race and culture, the narcissistic self-worship of tribalism.
The United States, by contrast, is populated by the descendants of individuals who decided to cease to be Europeans (or whatever) so that no one would be able to push them around. That is why Americans own guns. By some accounts the number of guns in circulation exceeds the number of Americans. Americans do not use their guns, contrary to popular myth. If the violent behavior of certain minority groups is excluded, Americans commit the same proportion of violent crimes as do Europeans. But an armed population will accept only so much abuse. Gun control, by the same token, is a liberal obsession (the Drudge Report observed that Kerry sponsored legislation that would have banned the make of shotgun that he accepted as a gift from trade-union supporters in Pennsylvania).
Among such people, the president's simple message resonates mightily. Two World Wars taught Europeans that there is no good or evil, only the insidious jealousies of contending peoples. God therefore is on no one's side, and the alternative to mutual butchery is negotiated compromise. Senator Kerry and the US coastal elite believe the same thing, namely that enlightened specialists can interrupt the tragic destiny of peoples and save the world from itself. That is an alien intrusion upon the American world view, which began, almost biblically, by separating good and evil. [...]
Once attacked, Americans want to fight back. George W Bush may have attacked the wrong country (which I do not believe), and he may have mistaken the US mission after the initial fighting was over (which I do believe), but Americans are quite willing to forgive him. They understand that it is hard to track down and destroy a shadowy enemy, and do not mind much if the United States has to trounce a few countries before finding the right ones.
MORE:
Crime rate in 2003 holds steady at a 30-year low (AP, 9/13/04)
The nation's crime rate last year held steady at the lowest levels since the government began surveying crime victims in 1973, the Justice Department reported Sunday.The study was the latest data for a decade-long trend in which violent crime as measured by victim surveys has fallen by 55 percent and property crime by 49 percent. That included a 14 percent drop in violent crime from 2000-2001 to 2002-2003.
''The rates are the lowest experienced in the last 30 years,'' Justice Department statistician Shannan Catalona said in the report. ``Crime rates have stabilized.'' [...]
James Lynch, professor at American University's Department of Justice, Law and Society, said the reason that crime is down so broadly is difficult to pinpoint.
Two recent possibilities, he said, are a prison population at a record 2.1 million and the terrorism fight's deterrent effect on routine street crime.
The fight for the Senate (Bruce Walker, September 13, 2004, Enter Stage Right)
[I]n Wisconsin, Russ Feingold may face real problems. His "reform" has proven a sick joke. Wisconsin, whose legislature is Republican, now consistently shows President Bush ahead. President Bush will be in Wisconsin - a lot - over the next two months. Feingold could lose. [...]Conventional wisdom is that Senate Reid in Nevada is a sure winner, but he is running in a state which will likely go for Bush for a job that will be much less powerful if Republicans gain Senate seats. Conventional wisdom may be dead wrong: Reid, who barely won reelection last time, may lose this time.
If this happens, look for the dam to burst. If Reid has lost in Nevada, it will mean that Republicans have gained at least a net gain of five Senate seats (in addition to his seat) and being a Senate Democrat will matter very little in 2007. Two very weak Democrats, Murray in Washington and Boxer in California, will still be facing uncast ballots.
Arnold changes the whole situation in California and the decision by President Bush to always compete in California may well prove to be his craftiest move. If President Bush actually carries California, then he will have won by an undisputed landslide and Senator Boxer will lose to a respected and well known moderate Republican.
Patty Murray is also facing a very savvy Republican who knocked off a sitting Speaker of the House exactly ten years ago. Washington State Democrats are bickering and Washington is a winnable state. If Bush carries Washington, Nethercutt will win too.
This means Republicans may reach, or come close to reaching, their filibuster-proof majority if President Bush continues to do well in head to head polls against Senator Kerry. This will put Democrats on the horns of a dilemma and we are already seeing evidence of it in South Dakota. Senate Democrat candidates in states which President Bush will carry easily (which is most of the key races) will either need to stand by Kerry and go down in flames or disassociate themselves and insure a crushing Kerry defeat.
Not Perfect, but a Recovery All the Same (BEN STEIN, 9/13/04, NY Times)
[T]he administration of the supposedly conservative Bush 43 has executed probably the most extreme and successful use of Keynesian contracyclical economic policy ever, dwarfing that of Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy.Bush 43's immense tax cuts and deficits pretty much stopped a gathering recession dead in its tracks. The mechanism would be interesting to understand, if such understanding is possible.
We know far less about economics than the entry-level economics student is allowed to realize, but it is beginning to look as if much-maligned Keynesianism may be in for rehabilitation.
We may also try to understand why substantial budget deficits generated by Bush 43's antirecessionary tax cuts did not lead to any meaningful inflation. This goes against some major economic theories and is a bit of a mystery.
In the same vein, we may wonder why the substantial budget deficits did not drive up interest rates. This is even more interesting because the budget deficits were accompanied by staggering foreign trade, or current account, deficits. These might have been expected to lead to a huge decline in the value of the dollar, even larger than its 20 percent drop in the last couple of years against the euro, accompanied by higher interest rates and inflation.
This should have led to far greater American exports and a closer approach to equilibrium in trade accounts. But none of these things happened. What did happen is a substantial, though not perfect, recovery from the economic weakness that began when Bill Clinton was president. The mystery here is why, given the state of the economy, it is still often described in the news media as shaky or by speakers at the Democratic National Convention as miserable.
The facts, though, are impressive.
Bush gets bump in latest poll (Bruce Alpert and Bill Walsh, 9/12/04, New Orleans Times-Picayune)
A new statewide poll shows President Bush comfortably ahead of Democratic nominee John Kerry in Louisiana. The survey by the Marketing Research Institute showed Bush leading 53 percent to 36 percent, a difference of 17 percentage points. A poll by the same firm in July showed the president up by 16 points. Some 600 registered voters were surveyed between Aug. 31 and Sept. 2, and the poll has a margin of error of 4.1 percent. The survey was conducted for a group of business people. The results come on the heels of a visit by Kerry to New Orleans last week and an announcement by the campaign that Louisiana is one of 20 battleground states targeted in a $45 million television ad buy. The Kerry camp said it hadn't seen the Marketing Research numbers but that it is undeterred. Since the most recent poll, the campaign has increased its Louisiana staff by about 30 people and by this week will have opened offices in seven cities. "We are charging forward," said Renee Lapeyrolerie, Kerry's spokeswoman in Louisiana.
Memos debate eclipses content (USA Today, 9/12/04)
USA TODAY obtained copies of the documents independently soon after the 60 Minutes segment aired Wednesday, from a person with knowledge of Texas Air National Guard operations. The person refused to be identified out of fear of retaliation. It is unclear where the documents, if they are real, had been kept in the intervening three decades.The White House, which was given copies of the documents by CBS, distributed them in e-mail to reporters Wednesday.
Bartlett, the White House spokesman, who was interviewed by CBS, did not address specifics contained in the memos but said as he has before that Bush fulfilled his service obligations. Bartlett cited as proof the fact that Bush received an honorable discharge.
No matter how it turns out, for now the controversy over the documents has blunted criticism of Bush's Guard record, which has been a persistent irritant for Bush since he first campaigned for the White House. It has sapped the power from an issue that had appeared to be a weapon for the Democrats against Bush.
The Statistical Christs: a review of The New Victorians by Stephen Pimpare (Jefferson Decker September 9, 2004, In These Times)
In Philadelphia, public relief spending doubled between 1850 and 1870. In New York City, expenditures doubled during the 1860s alone. But this expansion also faced a concerted counter-attack in the 1870s and 1880s, from a group of intellectuals, political reformers and charities. Through a network of Charity Organization Societies, the reformers sought to make poor relief rational, scientific—and stingy. Robert Treat Paine of Boston gave the group its motto: “Not Alms, but a Friend.” [...]The Charity Organization Societies pressed private charities to focus on moral reform rather than simply provide aid and argued that government-run public assistance was counter-productive. “Indiscriminate almsgiving is a crime against society,” complained reformer William Slocum in 1882. Reformers promoted this message through conferences, journals and the popular press—most of them underwritten by wealthy employers. The effort paid off. By the late 1890s, 39 of the 50 largest U.S. cities had reconfigured cash assistance programs to reduce amounts of public aid and subsidize moral reform. As the poet John Boyle O’Reilly wrote, in verse, “organized charity scrimped and iced / in the name of a cautious, statistical Christ.”
Alongside this history, Pimpare draws parallels with its 20th Century counterpart: the campaign against welfare that culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Like the charity reform movement, the anti-welfare forces were organized and bankrolled by a group of wealthy individuals and institutions, such as the Coors and Olin foundations. They too built a network of organizations to share information and make a case to the public. And they made the morality of the poor—a question that had receded from view during the New Deal through the Great Society—central to the debate. Anti-welfare authors such as Charles Murray in Losing Ground demonized “welfare mothers” for laziness and bearing children out of wedlock. And they blamed federal public assistance programs, especially Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), for creating a “welfare trap” that kept recipients in poverty and promoted anti-social values. These “new Victorians” got many of their wishes in 1996, when Congress voted to abolish AFDC, drive down caseloads through punitive sanctions and replace federal guarantees with block grants to state governments.
Pimpare offers a defense of generous public assistance programs on the grounds that they benefit all working-class people. Aid gives a worker with a marginal income an option—the opportunity to avoid the labor market when it pays too little or proves demeaning and the so-called “marriage market” when potential spouses are abusive or inadequate. This, Pimpare argues, boosts incomes across the low-wage workforce because employers must offer higher wages to find employees. “American businesses, especially those that needed low-wage, low-skilled workers, clearly understood the economic benefits of welfare reform just as their counterparts had over a century ago.” Too often, welfare reform simply means replacing union workers with “workfare” recipients making sub-minimum wages.
There is considerable truth to this argument, but I think it should come with significant qualification. Opposition to U.S. welfare policy as it existed before 1996 did not come exclusively from the corporate-funded conservative propagandists profiled by Pimpare. Some liberals worried that providing long-term public assistance to healthy adults violated norms of fair play and mutual responsibility that they used to defend other redistributive public policies. Others thought that the specific design of AFDC created economic incentives—for example, to take under-the-table work that could be hidden from welfare agencies instead of jobs in the formal economy—with unfortunate social consequences. Still others believed (incorrectly) that welfare mostly served African-Americans and resented it on racist grounds. By turning the entire debate into a contest between neo-Victorians and their ideological opposites, Pimpare fails to address the public opinion in between. As a result, he never explains why AFDC proved so vulnerable to attack in the first place.
Rumsfeld Mixes Up Hussein, Bin Laden in Speech (LA Times Wire Services, September 11, 2004, LA Times)
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld mixed up Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein twice in a speech Friday.Among other things, Rumsfeld talked about the world just before the Sept. 11 attacks, whose third anniversary is today. In Afghanistan, he told the National Press Club, "the leader of the opposition Northern Alliance, Masoud, lay dead, his murder ordered by Saddam Hussein, by Osama bin Laden, Taliban's co-conspirator."
Ahmed Shah Masoud, who opposed the ruling Taliban, was killed by suspected Al Qaeda operatives — not Hussein — two days before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Later, Rumsfeld said, "Saddam Hussein, if he's alive, is spending a whale of a lot of time trying to not get caught. And we've not seen him on a video since 2001."
Hussein was captured by U.S. forces in Iraq; Bin Laden has not been found.
The moderator later asked Rumsfeld if he had meant Bin Laden, and the Defense secretary replied: "I did. I meant we haven't seen Osama bin Laden."
TAX CODE: Tax cuts were just the beginning: the President is signalling a far more radical agenda. (JOHN CASSIDY, 2004-08-30, The New Yorker)
A few weeks ago, George W. Bush crossed the Potomac to a community college in Annandale, Virginia, where he hosted an “Ask President Bush” town-hall-style meeting and took up a favorite campaign theme, saying that one of the things that separated him from his opponent was his intention to create a “culture of ownership.” The same day, the Bush-Cheney campaign released a new television ad that shows pictures of houses, workers, and businesses as the President announces, “One of the most important parts of a reform agenda is to encourage people to own something. Own their own home, own their own business, own their own health-care plan, or own a piece of their retirement. Because I understand if you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of America.”The President’s ownership initiative hasn’t featured prominently in the media coverage of the campaign, which, strictly from a news perspective, is understandable: he hasn’t announced many specific proposals to back up his talk. But in downplaying the Bush Administration’s economic agenda the media is missing one of the biggest domestic stories of the 2004 campaign. When the President pledges to create an “era of ownership,” he is not talking merely about encouraging people to buy their own homes and start small businesses. To conservative Republicans who understand his coded language, he is also talking about extending and expanding the tax cuts he introduced in his first term; he is talking about allowing wealthy Americans to shelter much of their income from the I.R.S.; about using the tax code to curtail the government’s role in health care and retirement saving; and, ultimately, about a vision that has entranced but eluded conservatives for decades: the abolition of the graduated income tax and its replacement with a levy that is simpler, flatter, and more favorable to rich people.
Work on achieving this ambitious program began with the tax cuts that Congress passed in 2001, 2002, and 2003, but the conservative economists who advise Bush and the right-wing institutes that support him have more in mind than consolidating their gains. Despite a gaping budget deficit, they are pressing the President to continue down a route that will reverse almost a century of American history. Since the personal income tax was introduced, in 1913, it has been based on two principles: the burden of taxation is distributed according to the ability to pay; and capital and labor carry their fair share. The Bush Administration appears set on undermining both of these principles. [...]
Taken together, Bush’s tax cuts were even bigger than the ones Ronald Reagan introduced in his first term. In 1981, Reagan slashed income-tax rates by about a quarter, claiming that the government’s revenues would actually rise as the tax cuts unleashed the economy’s potential. This claim, which Arthur Laffer, one of the originators of supply-side economics, formalized in his famous “Laffer curve,” turned out to be wildly optimistic, and the budget deficit soared. In the ensuing years, a panicked Congress reversed some of Reagan’s tax cuts, and the White House quietly accepted the rollbacks, which increased tax revenues. When the International Monetary Fund recently compared Bush’s fiscal record with Reagan’s, it concluded that “the revenue effect of the Reagan tax cuts was considerably smaller than in the current period.” [...]
Bush’s tax cuts weren’t just bigger than Reagan’s: they were more strategic. During the nineteen-nineties, conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill broke with the deficit hawks in their party and rallied behind former Congressman Dick Armey’s 1994 proposal for a flat tax (which was similar to the one Steve Forbes campaigned for in 1996 and 2000). Partly because the economy was gaining strength after Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increases, which helped balance the budget, and partly because studies showed that a flat tax would benefit the wealthy, who would see their tax rates slashed, the Republican tax cutters failed to make much progress. After George W. Bush was elected, they changed tactics. Instead of following the Reagan model and pushing for a single revolutionary reform, they promoted a series of smaller changes that would ultimately lead in the same direction. “That’s the hidden story of what is going on under Bush,” Stephen Moore said. “People like me have been advocating a flat tax for a decade. I helped Dick Armey put together his flat-tax proposal. Nobody could get it done politically. What Bush has done, in a hidden way, is move us in baby steps toward the flat tax.”
The 2001 tax reform reduced the top rate of income tax from 39.6 per cent to 38.6 per cent, the second rate from 36 per cent to 35 per cent, the third rate from 31 per cent to 30 per cent, and the fourth rate from 28 per cent to 27 per cent, with more cuts scheduled for later years. It also introduced a new lower rate of ten per cent on the first six thousand dollars of taxable income, increased the child tax credit, reduced the tax penalty paid by married couples who file jointly, and phased out the estate tax.
Conservatives supported this reform package, but from their perspective it had a big shortcoming: the only part of it that dealt with taxes on savings was the phasing out of the estate tax, and even that wasn’t scheduled to be completed until 2010. Flat-tax enthusiasts argue that saving and investment is the key to economic growth, and they propose that most of the income generated from savings—interest payments from bank accounts and bonds, dividend payouts from stocks, and capital gains from the sale of any asset—should be tax exempt.
In 2002, Ernest Christian, a Republican tax lawyer, circulated a plan to create a flat tax in what he termed “five easy pieces.” Other conservatives developed Christian’s plan. Grover Norquist, the president of the lobbying group Americans for Tax Reform, set up congressional caucuses to support five specific changes: eliminating the estate tax; ending the taxation of capital gains; making all income generated from savings tax free; letting businesses write off their investments in a single year rather than depreciating them over a long period; and abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax, which originated in a 1969 congressional act to counter tax avoidance by the rich, who sometimes had so many deductions that they ended up paying no tax. “People don’t trust you to do twenty-seven things at once and have it come out right,” Norquist, who has close ties to Karl Rove, Bush’s political strategist, told me. “Why would you ask people to approve twenty major changes to the tax code at once, which irritate as many people as they please, as opposed to a series of five or six distinct tax cuts, each of which can be explained and sold to a constituency?”
The tax reforms of 2002 and 2003 contained significant elements of the Christian-Norquist program. The 2002 law allowed businesses to write off half of their investments immediately, through 2004, a provision that saved firms billions of dollars. The 2003 law sharply reduced taxes on dividends and capital gains, setting their maximum rates at fifteen per cent. William Beach, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, later described the 2003 tax bill as “one of the greatest supply-side changes to tax law in U.S. history.”
Also in 2003, the Administration proposed two new savings vehicles—Retirement Savings Accounts and Lifetime Savings Accounts—which would have replaced I.R.A.s and allowed many wealthy Americans to save virtually tax free. The accounts were designed to work in the same way as some existing I.R.A.s but with much higher contribution limits—seventy-five hundred dollars a year for each person—and fewer restrictions on withdrawals. If this proposal had become law, a well-to-do family of four would have been able to shelter more than a million dollars over thirty years. Middle-class families, on the other hand, would have seen little benefit, because they spend most, if not all, of their income. More than ninety per cent of American families fail to put away the maximum sum allowed under existing retirement accounts, which is three thousand dollars a year for I.R.A.s and thirteen thousand dollars a year for 401(k) plans. After the savings initiative received a lukewarm reception in Congress, the White House dropped it, only to resurrect it, in a slightly modified form, earlier this year.
The Bush Administration portrayed most of these reforms as efforts to boost a lagging economy, rather than as part of a plan to reshape the tax system in a radical way, but conservative activists knew they were making progress. “A little bit like Reagan, people get the vibes,” Norquist said. “They understand what we are trying to accomplish. Do you think it was an accident that the first three tax cuts moved toward expensing business expenditures, toward universal I.R.A.s, toward getting rid of the capital-gains tax, toward getting rid of the double taxation of dividend income, toward getting rid of the death tax? No. It is consistent with a vision.” [...]
At this week’s Republican National Convention, he is also likely to expand upon the theme of ownership. He may well talk about establishing investment accounts within Social Security, as well as Retirement Savings Accounts and Lifetime Savings Accounts outside of Social Security, and health savings accounts, which his economic advisers view as a step toward individual, portable health-care coverage. Republican strategists believe that by emphasizing individual saving and investment the President is acting astutely. “The biggest demographic shift in the past thirty years is not the number of people who speak Spanish; it is the number of Americans who own stocks,” Norquist told me. “It was twenty per cent of adults when Reagan was elected. Now it is sixty per cent, and seventy per cent of voters.”
But while the President makes bland speeches about ownership, economists close to the Administration are pushing for a top-to-bottom revision of the tax code, featuring a major overhaul of corporate income tax and further cuts in personal income tax rates. If Bush is reëlected, the anticipated reform of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which Republicans in Congress loathe, may well serve as the pretext for this agenda. The A.M.T. sets a lower limit on the amount of federal tax that people have to pay, regardless of how many deductions they have. It already hits about two and a half million taxpayers, and more people are qualifying for it every year. “The A.M.T. offers a chance to discuss fundamental tax reform,” Glenn Hubbard told me. “We would want a system that could replace the A.M.T. and the individual income tax with a new individual tax system.”
Although Hubbard returned to his professorship at Columbia last year, he still acts as an informal adviser to the Bush campaign. He is one of several Harvard-trained economists who have worked in the Bush Administration. Hubbard and Larry Lindsey, who headed the National Economic Council from 2001 to 2002, both did graduate work under Martin Feldstein, an adviser to Bush in 2000, who has long argued that taxes, particularly taxes on savings, reduce economic growth. Greg Mankiw, Hubbard’s successor as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, is a colleague of Feldstein’s in the economics department at Harvard and shares many of his views. “There are a lot of us who believe that putting less of the tax on savings would be a good thing for the economy in the long run,” Feldstein told me.
Rather than coming right out for a flat tax, the Harvard economists tend to use the less politically charged term “consumption tax.” Flat taxes and consumption taxes are closely related: both exempt saving and tax spending. Theoretically, it is possible to set up a progressive consumption tax, but most conservative economists favor a single rate set as low as possible; i.e. a flat tax.
Mr. Daley sends a link to this photo gallery from a rally against the genocide in Darfur and this great image in particular:
Indonesia and Australia draw closer in terror fight: A string of bombings has led to greater police and military cooperation between the two neighbors. (Janaki Kremmer, 9/13/04, CS Monitor)
"There's been extraordinary cooperation between the Australian Federal Police and Indonesian police and wide-ranging cooperation on terrorism," Phillip Flood, a former ambassador to Indonesia, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "But clearly there has to be much, much more and a more accelerated effort by Indonesia to tackle this [terror] problem at its source."Prior to the 2002 Bali bombing, the two countries maintained a cool relationship. Australia led a UN peacekeeping force in East Timor during its quest for independence from Indonesia in 1999.
"There has been a long-simmering suspicion of Australia's motivations in getting involved in Indonesia, stemming from the fight for freedom in East Timor," says Aldo Borgu, program director of operations and capabilities at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think tank here. He says that there is a belief among Indonesian elites that Australia wants to keep Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, from becoming a strong force to Australia's north. Australia says its goal is simply to fight terror and help Indonesia in its transition to democracy.
Consider Al Gore, private citizen. Unleashed. (Nancy Benac, September 12, 2004, Associated Press)
When Gore delivered his latest-in-a-series slam at the Republicans last week, faulting Vice President Dick Cheney for "sleazy and despicable" criticism of the Democrats, a White House spokesman dismissively responded: "Consider the source."Consider Al Gore.
Well, he used to be the vice president.
And, as he likes to say, he used to be the next president of the United States.
Now, he is Al Gore private citizen. Al Gore unleashed.
Speaking with a freedom and passion less frequently seen in his own political campaigns, Gore is happily making speeches, raking in money and generally raising hell for John Kerry and the Democratic Party these days. In his spare time, he's also teaching at three universities and raising money for himself through various business ventures.
In recent weeks and months, as an uncensored voice for the Democratic cause, Gore has skewered President Bush's team for moral cowardice, the "lowest sort of politics imaginable," aligning itself with "digital brownshirts" who intimidate the press, and political tactics as craven as those of Richard Nixon.
Owl vs. Owl: A new twist emerges in the turf war over Pacific Northwest forests as a new adversary invades the remaining haunts of the threatened spotted owl. (Sharon Levy, March 1999, Natural History)
Just before dawn, a chill fog drifts through the old-growth redwoods of northwestern California. A group of birders breathe out puffs of steam as they listen to the growing chorus of morning birdsong. Then the gentle sounds of kinglets and thrushes are buried under a torrent of avian rock 'n' roll as the wild, intense hoots of a barred owl ring out. It is one of the first recorded sightings of this species in this part of California. A couple of months later, in May 1997, an agitated barred owl will be found perched near the body of a freshly killed spotted oval in Redwood National Park, near the Oregon border, feathers of his presumed victim stuck in his talons. The latest turf war in the Pacific Northwest has reached redwood country.Dark-eyed woodland species, the barred owl and spotted owl are cousins that look so similar that novice birders have trouble telling them apart. Until recently, the two birds never met. The barred owl haunted forests east of the Great Plains, while the spotted owl lived only in old conifer forests of the Pacific Northwest. Now the barred owl is on the move--and it is moving in on the threatened spotted owl.
"My educated guess is that the barred owl will have a dramatic effect on the spotted owl," says Eric Forsman, a biologist with the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station in Corvallis, Oregon. Twenty years ago, Forsman's research on the northern spotted owl alerted conservationists to the bird's dependence on mature forests, which had Been heavily logged for decades, depleting much of the bird's habitat. This information helped lead to the owl's listing as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. More recently, Forsman and his colleagues have also been documenting the invasion of the barred owl into the Pacific Northwest.
"For the last thirty years we've been trying to come up with ways of protecting the spotted owl," says Forsman, "and now all of a sudden, this huge monkey wrench gets thrown into the works. In the past, we could assume that what we were seeing in terms of habitat would help us to understand what was happening with the spotted owl. Now we don't know if spotted owls aren't there because there is no habitat for them or because of the barred owls."
"The barred owl is a generalist, so it'll eat almost anything," says Tom Hamer, a consulting biologist who has studied the interaction of the two owls in the northern Cascade Range of Washington State. "It will eat flying squirrels and snowshoe hares, which the spotted owl also eats. But the barred owl will also hunt trout and amphibians in small streams and eat anything else that crosses its path, including grouse." Because the barred owl is such an adaptable hunter, it can live off a home range of only about 1,600 acres in the northern Cascades. But spotted owls of this region are specialists, taking mostly arboreal mammals like flying squirrels and red tree voles. To find enough food to survive, spotted owls need large areas of the older forests that support their prey. In the redwood region (from the Oregon border south to San Francisco Bay), spotted owl home ranges are generally small, because wood rats provide an abundant food source, but in the Cascades, ranges can span 30,900 acres.
During territorial disputes, the owls will hoot at each other (their calls are similar, but the spotted's has a slower, hesitant tempo) and fly at each other, but actual combat seems to be rare. "Barred owls always win," says Hamer. "When it comes to territorial competition, the spotted owl always backs off. Part of it is body size--the barred owl is about 20 percent heavier--but another part of it is behavior. The spotted owl just isn't very aggressive."
How did the barred owl end up on the beleaguered spotted owl's turf? "It's difficult to understand the failure of barred owls to colonize western North America prior to recent times without invoking human influence," says Rocky Gutierrez, a professor at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. He believes that human tinkering with the western landscape made the barred owl's range expansion possible.
Coalition holds off efforts to take rebel-run cities: US surgical strikes continue, but no major move is expected before November. (Howard LaFranchi, 9/13/04, CS Monitor)
Iraqi forces and the American military are increasing their surgical, often retaliatory, strikes into towns like Ramadi, Fallujah, and Samarra, where forces of Islamic extremists and of the former regime hold varying degrees of power and sway. Some have become "no-go" zones.Iraq's interim government announced Saturday night that its forces had begun "military operations against terrorists" in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah and in Tal Afar in the north. Sunday, Brig. Gen. Carter Ham told the Washington Post that about 200 fighters remained in Tal Afar, and the general expected the insurgents would be driven out in "a week."
State Minister Kasim Daoud said the operations were being carried out in conjunction with American and other multi- national forces.
But with Iraq's security forces still in the building stage, the task of purging Iraq's trouble spots at this stage would largely fall to the Americans. So far they show no signs of undertaking the full military offensives that many here say will be necessary.
US and Iraqi officials offer differing perspectives on why the extremist bases are being tolerated. Last week Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld placed any decision to terminate the insurgents' presence by force squarely on Iraqi shoulders, saying it was a decision for interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
On Friday, Mr. Rumsfeld said in Washington that the extremist enclaves would "eventually" be brought under Iraqi authority. "We know what will take place in Fallujah, and that is that it will be restored as something under the control of the Iraqi government eventually. What we don't know," he added, "is whether it will be done peacefully or by force."
If force is necessary, US officials say they want properly trained and equipped Iraqi forces to lead the charge and hold the cities afterwards. But they add that sufficient forces aren't yet ready.
US elections a factorYet while Iraqi officials agree that their forces are not yet up to the task, they also say the Americans are reluctant to undertake any offensive before the Nov. 2 presidential election - and especially any offensive that would almost certainly entail heavy civilian and US military losses.
How Texas' key House races are shaping up (Jack Douglas Jr., Dallas Ft. Worth Star-Telegram)
After a bitter political fight, costing millions of tax dollars and sending some Texas lawmakers scurrying to other states, the congressional redistricting battle boils down to this:Five Democrats. Five Republicans.
There are Libertarian candidates in each of the congressional races, but their political purses are small and their chances of winning slim.
Among the U.S. House candidates from the two major parties, seven are incumbents, and three are big-money contenders with powerful GOP backing.
For each of them, victory or defeat will determine whether the Republicans' big gamble paid off. [...]
In the new 32nd Congressional District, Republicans received 65.9 percent of the votes in the 2002 election, while Democrats won only 34.1 percent. [...]
In the new 17th District, Republicans received 64 percent of the votes in the 2002 elections, compared with only 36 percent for the Democrats. [...]
In the new 19th Congressional District, Republicans received 69 percent of the votes to the Democrats' 31 percent in the 2002 elections. [...]
[T]he 2nd Congressional District...has a Republican base vote approaching 60 percent. [...]
Republicans far outnumber Democrats in the new 1st District, with GOP candidates winning 63 percent of the vote, compared with the Democrats' 37 percent, in the 2002 elections.
The death of the hunt will be Blair's memorial (Max Hastings, 12/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
In the days when he was a Tory MP, George Walden observed that he was personally indifferent about the survival of fox hunting, but that any society capable of tying its legislature in knots to secure the sport's abolition had got its priorities perverted.Well, now we know that this Government is indeed willing to tie the legislature in knots, and has got its priorities perverted. A host of Labour MPs who would not look up from the trough to attend a debate on child cruelty, defence, anti-terrorist measures, rail safety, wind farms or the Day of Judgment will crowd the Chamber to abolish fox hunters.
This, of course, is what it is about. Animal welfare has nothing to do with the case. Cars will continue to kill far more foxes than hunts. In hunting countries, foxes that have been lovingly preserved for the pleasure of hunts for centuries will be shot, trapped or gassed. The ban will achieve only the visceral gratification of the Labour Party. It will give the likes of John Prescott something to crow about from his dunghill at the Party Conference - and mark my words, he will.
I predicted almost two years ago that Tony Blair would get himself into such trouble over Iraq that he would feel obliged to toss the fox hunters to his backbenchers. The jackals would need a bone to gnaw while the great issues
of the day escape unheeded up the road from Basra. So it has proved.
Don't blame God, Dr Williams (Peter Mullen, 12/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
It is depressing to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, confess on Radio Four that the Beslan atrocity has made him doubt his faith. Asked, "Does your faith not tremble just a tiny bit?" he replied, "Of course it does. Yes, there is a flicker, there is a doubt."The obvious question to the Archbishop is, "You've a tremble or a flicker in your faith in what?" Presumably in God. But it wasn't God who entered that school and murdered the infants. Why blame Him? Besides, there was an infamous precedent set by King Herod - though I don't suppose Mary Magdalene's faith went wobbly when she heard of the massacre of the innocents.
We know of course that there is such a thing as "the problem of evil", but I have never been able to see much of a problem here. The argument was classically put by David Hume when he argued that the fact of evil in the world is not consistent with belief in a good God: "If God is omnipotent, omniscient and wholly good, whence evil? If God wills to prevent evil but cannot, then He is not omnipotent. If He can prevent evil but does not, then he is not good. In either case he is not God."
The argument is trivial. The creation of anything involving freedom for what is created is bound to raise the possibility of evil. The Bible teaches that God endowed human beings with free will. Unfortunately, humankind seems frequently to choose the evil. There is a reason behind this choice and it is that referred to as Original Sin and described by St Paul in words of one syllable: "The thing I would not, that I do and what I would, I do not."
Role of a lifetime: Two top acting coaches on how to play the president (Dave Denison, September 12, 2004, Boston Globe)
The acting workshops of both Batson and Moss are well known for verging into something resembling group therapy sessions. For actors to develop emotional range, both coaches say, they must understand emotion, feel it in a real way, and go beyond faking it. It's fatal for the aspiring actor to be "blocked." Moss believes that applies to politicians, too. The best communicators can get ideas across to the audience "for a reason that's emotional to the person.""You have to send the idea for a reason," says Moss. "It can't just be an idea, it has to be connected to the body and the sound of the man who's sending it." Kerry's flat, stentorian speaking style gives an audience little clue about his feelings. "He needs to go to a really good voice coach and find how to breathe and how to resonate so that we feel his body is in his voice," says Moss. "I don't even have a sense of his voice. One of the things about Bush is he's got this kind of strident, arrogant tinny quality, but there's power behind it because there's a lot of anger behind it and a lot of fear."
Batson also faults Kerry's lack of vocal range. "If you watch him," Batson says, "he has tremendous physical ease. . .. But that ease somehow doesn't come through the verbal life." [...]
The public associates "acting" in politics with phoniness, and reacts against it. But perhaps what people are really objecting to is *bad acting -- unconvincing portrayals of a leader or emotional displays that seem inappropriate. If Americans tend to see the presidency as a heroic role, people still want someone who seems human as well, even flawed in ways they can understand. "We love actors because they remind us of our humanity," says Moss. "A political figure has to do this, also."
Batson believes one of the things that seemed "jammed" in the emotional life of Al Gore was his apparent need to be right about everything. Kerry risks alienating voters in the same way.
Professional acting coaches insist on the need to summon authentic emotion to express emotion. As Batson puts it, "The great actor digs down and really works to bring a reality to the work. The great politician has to connect in a real way to the people."
Most voters already have a firm idea about the character of the current president. This fall, many will be looking especially hard at John Kerry, searching for a "relaxed sincerity," perhaps, or some kind of authenticity. They will want to know if he seems genuine enough to be the president of the United States. He will need the skill of an actor -- which is to say, he'll need to seem as if he's not acting at all.
JIHAD IN CHAOS: The extremist ideology is in collapse. (Mansoor Ijaz, September 10, 2004, National Review)
On this third anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we have much more to be thankful for than some of our political leaders would have us believe. Islamist terrorism's global scourge has been unable to launch anything more than verbal tirades at America. And while the jihadists have won successes in lesser form — the train bombings in Spain that unseated a government, hostage-taking dramas in Iraq that forced minor players from the global antiterror team, and Iran's successful effort to sow divisiveness in the West about its nuclear ambitions while harboring much of al Qaeda's senior leadership — the fact remains that they have not been able to execute a spectacular strike in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.Osama bin Laden's global vision — of jihadists crawling from the cracks in every enemy state to strike out at infidels with weapons of mass destruction — is drowning in a swamp of confusion among senior jihadists debating who to attack next, how to do it, and for whose benefit. In short, global jihad has turned on itself, and is being destroyed from within — one botched and more wretched attack at a time.
This is largely a function of the sacrifices made by our fallen heroes — the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, and their Coalition colleagues — in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their courage and valor in conflict zones has battered the very thesis — that the enemy is too corrupt of mind, too decadent in spirit, and too weak of body to sustain the battle to victory — on which bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have sent thousands of "martyrs" to their deaths.
Zawahiri's appearance on al Jazeera this week to once again threaten the U.S. was particularly poignant, since it was the Egyptian physician who, in his infinite wisdom, wrote in 2001 prior to the September 11 attacks that if the "jihadist vanguard" improperly executed its plans to spread Islam's words by force, the movement would become isolated and separated from the Muslim masses. He was right, and is now desperately trying to rekindle the unified spirit al Qaeda had achieved prior to the 9/11 attacks.
US neo-cons: Kremlin is ‘morally’ to blame for the school massacre (Neil Mackay, 9/12/04, Sunday Herald)
WHY would a group of leading American neo-conservatives, dedicated to fighting Islamic terror, have climbed into bed with Chechen rebels linked to al-Qaeda? The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC), which includes Pentagon supremo Richard Perle, says the conflict between Russia and Chechnya is about Chechen nationalism, not terrorism.The ACPC savaged Russia for the atrocities its forces have committed in the Caucuses, said President Vladimir Putin was “ridiculous”, claimed Russia was more “morally” to blame for the bloodshed than Chechen separatists and played down links between al-Qaeda and the “Chechen resistance”.
The ACPC’s support for the Chechen cause seems bizarre, as many of its members are among the most outspoken US policymakers who have made it clear that Islamist terror must be wiped out. But the organisation has tried to broker peace talks between Russia and Chechen separatists.
The ACPC includes many leaders of the neo-conservative think-tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which advocates American domination of the world.
ACPC members who are also in the pro-Israeli PNAC include Elliott Abrams, head of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council; Elliot Cohen of the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board; Frank Gaffney, president of the conservative Centre for Security Policy; Robert Kagan and William Kristol of The Weekly Standard, the house journal of Washington neo-cons, and former CIA director James Woolsey. Former Reagan defence secretary Caspar Weinberger is also in the ACPC.
Prime Mover: Tipped as a successor to Blair, former health minister Alan Milburn now has a remit to ‘confront Gordon’. It may permanently thwart the Chancellor’s hopes of reaching Number 10 (James Cusick, 9/12/0-4, Sunday Herald)
The early afternoon sun streamed into the small manicured garden at the back of Downing Street on Thursday. After the ructions of the previous day when he brought Alan Milburn back into the government, and having chaired the Thursday morning Cabinet meeting, Tony Blair was taking it easy, sitting sunbathing on the small lawn.For the junior ministers shown into the Downing Street garden , the relaxed surroundings contradicted reports about how Blair’s government was under siege. More than one minister who learned of their reshuffled job outside in the afternoon sun, said they were “almost shocked” at how nonchalantly relaxed and cheerful the Prime Minister was.
The appointment of Milburn, the former health secretary, to the multi-jobbed role which he himself described as being put “in charge of general election planning, overall strategy and policy presentation, and the formulation and development of policies that will lead to the content of the next Labour manifesto for the coming general election”, clearly allowed Blair to relax for the first time since June when rumours suggest he seriously considered announcing that he would step down as Prime Minister before the end of the present parliament.
Downing Street last week would only say that they “did not recognise” any suggestion that the Prime Minister had seriously considered going. But having overcome the alleged wobble, Milburn’s appointment, and what lies behind it, indicates a new-found stamina and determination by Blair to continue the New Labour project still at the helm . [...]
Last week, those close to Milburn claimed the role that Downing Street had outlined to him during a first approach contained the simple objective of “confront Gordon.”
Ideologically that wouldn’t be too difficult for Milburn. Son of a single mother, and raised in a mining village in Durham, Milburn’s street credentials appear distinctly old Labour. Educated at Lancaster University (BA in history) and then at Newcastle University, he went on to become co-ordinator of the Sunderland Shipyards Campaign and subsequently a trade union co-ordinator.
Less than 10 years after formally joining the Labour Party he became MP for Darlington in 1992. His conversion to New Labour was as swift as his subsequent rise into the Cabinet where, alongside Stephen Byers (still his close friend), he came to be recognised as a modernising thinker able to envisage and articulate new ideas for lessening state power and control while challenging the established view of what Labour needed to stand for in order to hold on to power.
To stand up to Brown’s alternative vision of Labour’s ideology – just as radical and as innovative but with a greater emphasis on the state’s role as a distributist power – Milburn demanded both strong armour and strong weaponry from Blair.
The Civil Service Will Never Be the Same (Stephen Barr, September 12, 2004, Washington Post)
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, reverberate through Washington and are reshaping the work lives of federal employees, in small and large ways. [...]The big changes facing federal employees are more difficult to explain and stir emotions of a different kind. They are about overhauling pay and personnel rules at the Defense and Homeland Security departments. Developing a new workplace culture at the FBI. Reorganizing the intelligence community.
Although proposals that can affect the careers and pocketbooks of employees create anxiety, the Sept. 11 attacks appear to be creating momentum for fundamental changes. [...]
Some of the biggest changes, however, are on the drawing boards at Defense and Homeland Security. For weeks, federal union leaders have complained that the Bush administration is trying to gut union rights and undercut employee rights to appeal disciplinary actions.
What Women Voters Want (LANCE TARRANCE and LESLIE SANCHEZ, 9/12/04, NY Times)
After the Republican convention...the Bush-Cheney ticket closed to a virtual tie among women (49 percent for Mr. Kerry to 48 percent for Mr. Bush). At the same time, according to the Gallup numbers, Mr. Bush's huge lead among men (57 percent to 42 percent) remained stable.Mr. Bush's growing strength among women is the result not just of his emphasis on issues they care about. Instead, his boost stems from his skill at articulating the issues in a way that appeals to women - especially in his acceptance speech 10 days ago.
Some commentators criticized parts of Mr. Bush's speech for resembling a State of the Union address, complete with a laundry list of domestic agenda items. His references to schools, children's health care and mothers who work outside the home were seen as a transparent effort to win favor with women. Other critics portrayed the convention mostly as a testosterone-fueled rally at which Republicans stressed Mr. Bush's toughness and strength in the war on terrorism.
Our analysis of the speech differs. For the first time, the president was able to broaden his appeal to women not just by discussing social issues. He also found a way to talk about terrorism and the war in Iraq in a way that resonates with women.
The president's speech was interesting to us because it overlapped with some of the work we did this year analyzing the women's vote for a conservative women's group. Our work culminated last month with focus groups among undecided Republican and independent women voters. It soon became apparent that Mr. Bush's popularity among women would hinge on three critical elements: his building an emotional connection, humanizing himself and portraying himself as the candidate who can keep America safe.
Mr. Bush managed to hit all these points in his speech.
U.S. refuses to rule out Iran attack (Reuters, 12 September, 2004)
The United States is determined to stop Iran getting atomic weapons, and has signalled Washington will not rule out an attack if peaceful diplomacy failed to achieve this.President George W. Bush's top official on nuclear on-proliferation, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, was asked during a brief visit to Israel if the United States could consider such an attack.
"President Bush is determined to try and find a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the problem of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons," he said. "But we are determined that they are not going to achieve a nuclear weapons capability."
Gov't Confirms 'Non-Nuclear' N. Korean Explosion (Chosun Ilbo, 9/12/04)
It was reported that there was a massive explosion Thursday around the town of Yongjo-ri, Kim Hyong-jik County, Ryanggang Province. U.S. Department of State, sources familiar with North Korea and the Korean government all confirmed the explosion.A high-ranking government official said Sunday, “It is true that a large mushroom cloud about 3.5 to 4 km in diameter was observed by a satellite at around 11:00 a.m. Thursday. It was not a nuclear test, but the explosion seemed to be three times bigger than the one that took place during the Ryongchon Station accident,” and added, “Both U.S. and Korean intelligence authorities are investigating what caused the explosion.”
The Democrats' real problem (Michael Barone, 9/20/04, US News)
The problem for Kerry is that when he tries to change the subject, he seems to change his position. This is partly out of the typical politician's temperament: "Some of my friends are for the bill, and some of my friends are against the bill, and I'm always with my friends." But it also arises because the Democratic constituency that Kerry must rally to vote on Election Day and before (voting starts in Iowa September 23) is deeply split on issues like Iraq. Many think we should leave now. Others think we should persevere. Kerry is with his friends.In an August back-and-forth, Bush got Kerry to say that, knowing what he does today, he still would have voted for the Iraq war resolution. Then last week he said it was "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time" --though he had condemned a similar statement made by Howard Dean last December. On August 1, he said he would consider redeploying troops from Germany and South Korea. When Bush announced such deployments on August 16, Kerry denounced them. His latest line is to say that the $200 billion spent or to be spent on the Iraq war should have been spent on domestic needs. As a Democratic consultant once told me when I asked about an opponent's moves, "I'm puzzled by his strategy."
Puzzling as well is the Democrats' notion that attacking Bush's National Guard service is going to break the campaign wide open. Haven't they been watching the $60 million worth of anti-Bush ads the Democratic 527s have been running since March? Bush withstood that onslaught and stands, apparently, a little ahead. There's no guarantee he'll still be there after the debates or on Election Day. But, for the first time since January, it wouldn't require a sharp shift in opinion.
Westerns and Easterns (MAUREEN DOWD, 9/12/04, NY Times)
It's a remarkable feat, but teeter-tottering John Kerry is even managing to land on both sides of the ambition issue.For his entire life, he was seen as so ambitious to be president, as so eager to consort with heiresses, that it was off-putting; his St. Paul's classmates played "Hail to the Chief" on kazoos when he walked by, and in the Senate, Bob Dole mocked the Massachusetts senator's love of cameras by nicknaming him Live Shot.
But this summer, when that lust for power should have been coursing through his veins, Mr. Kerry grew timid and logy. He let the Bush crowd and Swift boat character assassins stomp all over him and, for the longest time, didn't fight back. He stumbled into every trap Bush Inc. set.
Finally, the only Democrat who has fended off the WASP Corleones reminded the nominee of the prep-school mantra: punch the bully in the face, and do it in the same news cycle.
When he hasn't been busy with his quadruple-bypass operation, Bill Clinton has been chatting with John Kerry on the phone from the hospital, urging him to juice it up.
Iran to begin processing yellowcake (UPI, 9/12/04)
Iran has announced it plans to start processing 37 tons of uranium yellowcake, the Daily Telegraph reported Sunday.
"I've Been in Worse Situations": TIME talks with John Kerry about the upcoming presidential election (KAREN TUMULTY, 9/12/04, TIME)
TIMESpeaking of clarity, a number of your allies have said that you haven't drawn a clear contrast between yourself and President Bush on Iraq.
KERRY
The contrast could not be clearer. They spent a lot of money trying to confuse people, but I have been consistent. I would not have taken the country into war the way he did. I would not have put young Americans in harm's way without a plan to win the peace. I would not have interrupted as abruptly the effort to build alliances with other countries. I would not have turned my back on the international community. And Americans are paying a $200 billion cost today because this President rushed to war.
TIME
Is the President being as aggressive as he should be in dealing with insurgent strongholds in Iraq?
KERRY
At this moment in time, I'm not sitting with the generals in front of me for the full briefing. I'm not going to comment on that right now.
An Ex-Officer Now Believes Guard Memo Isn't Genuine (RALPH BLUMENTHAL and JIM RUTENBERG, 9/12/04, NY Times)
A former National Guard commander who CBS News said had helped convince it of the authenticity of documents raising new questions about President Bush's military service said on Saturday that he did not believe they were genuine.The commander, Bobby Hodges, said in a telephone interview that network producers had never showed him the documents but had only read them to him over the phone days before they were featured Wednesday in a "60 Minutes" broadcast. After seeing the documents on Friday, Mr. Hodges said, he concluded that they were falsified.
Mr. Hodges, a former general who spoke to several news organizations this weekend, was just the latest person to challenge the authenticity of the documents, which CBS reported came from the personal files of Mr. Bush's former squadron commander at the Texas Air National Guard, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago.
Slime Time Live: In your face: Fueled by shadowy cash, the attacks get uglier and uglier. Why the mud's flying so thick and fast. (Howard Fineman and Michael Isikoff, 9/20/04, Newsweek)
"It's more vicious at this point than I have ever seen it," said George Shipley, a Democratic operative and former professor whose knack for collecting damning information once gave him the nickname "Dr. Dirt." He didn't sound entirely unhappy about it.Stung by airstrikes on his Vietnam years, Kerry and his allies are fighting back. His sidekick on the plane is now John Sasso, a Boston consultant who derailed Joe Biden's campaign in 1988 by circulating evidence that the senator had plagiarized portions of his stump speech. On the ground, a hard-core Kerry group is setting up a new "oppo" squad. Tentatively called Sealords II—Kerry's Mekong Delta mission in Vietnam was known as Sealords—the group has a $1 million budget and will be housed at the Democratic National Committee, where, one of its members says, the mission will be "message, debate prep, attack, attack." [...]
Where did the documents come from? CBS won't say. But the trail pieced together by NEWSWEEK shows that in a sulfurous season like this one, the difference between obscurity and power is small, and anyone can get a hearing. A principal source for CBS's story was Bill Burkett, a disgruntled former Guard officer who lives in Baird, Texas, who says he was present at Guard headquarters in Austin in 1997, when a top aide to the then Governor Bush ordered records sanitized to protect the Boss. Other Guard officials disputed Burkett's account, and the Bush aide involved, Joe Allbaugh, called it "absolute garbage." Burkett may have a motive to make trouble for the powers that be. In 1998, he grew gravely ill on a Guard mission to Panama, causing him to be hospitalized, and he suffered two nervous breakdowns. He unsuccessfully sued for medical expenses.
Still, in theory, Burkett may have had access to any Guard records that, in a friend's words, "didn't make it to the shredder." Fellow officers say he wasn't a crank, but rather a stickler for proper procedure—a classic whistle-blower type. Burkett was impressive enough to cause CBS producer Mary Mapes to fly to Texas to interview him. "There are only a couple of guys I would trust to be as perfectly honest and upfront as Bill," says Dennis Adams, a former Guard colleague. The White House, through Communications Director Dan Bartlett, called Burkett a "discredited source." Indeed, Bush strategists are convinced—or have convinced themselves—that the issue will backfire on its purveyors.
Republicans Pack Punch. Democrats Take It. (For Now) (JOHN M. BRODER, 9/12/04, NY Times)
DO Republicans play a rougher game of politics than Democrats?The question has been tossed around since Vice President Dick Cheney, in apparently unscripted remarks, suggested last week that electing the Democratic ticket in November would invite a devastating terrorist attack.
The Democrats cried foul, but of course there's no referee in politics. And neither party has a monopoly on ruthless, unscrupulous campaigning. It just seems that the Republicans are, today at least, more adept at the black art of attack politics, according to historians and flummoxed Democratic partisans.
"I don't think there's any question they're better at it than we are," said James Carville, the Democratic warrior-consultant who admitted to being envious of his Republican counterparts' merciless brand of campaigning.
Ex-Blair aide lifts lid on rift with Brown (NICHOLAS CHRISTIAN, 9/12/04, The Scotsman)
AN EXPLOSIVE new account of the feud between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was published last night, offering a series of extraordinary allegations about the deep rift between the two most powerful men in government.In newly published memoirs, Blair’s former economics adviser Derek Scott claims that the Chancellor was "obstructive and deceitful" towards the Prime Minister and hid information about economic policy - including the content of an upcoming budget - from him.
In his book Off Whitehall, Scott adds that Blair made a fatal error by ceding control over vast swathes of domestic policy to the Chancellor.
"It soon became known throughout Whitehall that, in some areas at least, the Chancellor could defy the Prime Minister with impunity," Scott writes.
So bad was the relationship that Blair was even deprived an insight into Brown’s 1998 budget, Scott claims.
He alleges that Brown simply rebuffed the premier’s requests for information, saying: "I haven’t made my mind up."
The book reports that Blair was reduced to pleading "Give me a hint, Gordon".
The book will fuel speculation about relations between the government’s two most powerful figures after a week in which Blair’s appointment of fellow-moderniser Alan Milburn as Labour’s campaign supremo - a position Brown has occupied in previous elections - caused further deep ructions.
When It Comes to Free Trade, Bush Outshines His Predecessors (Claude Barfield, September 12, 2004, LA Times)
No administration will ever fully satisfy the free traders, but the Bush White House — with a few notable lapses — has established a record of accomplishment in the area of trade negotiations that is stronger than any other recent administration.From 1994 to 2002, the United States was largely sidelined by the Clinton administration's inability to get Congress to renew so-called trade promotion authority (the authority for the president to conclude trade agreements and have Congress vote them up or down quickly and without amendment). In 2002, the Bush administration broke the seven-year deadlock (by one vote in the House) and reassumed leadership on trade liberalization.
Admittedly, it stumbled out of the blocks when the president disgracefully caved in to protectionist interests and raised tariffs on steel products. He then signed a retrograde farm bill that increased trade-distorting production subsidies. There were, however, mitigating moves: The president lifted the tariffs (to howls from steel executives and labor leaders) after only 20 months, and he subsequently put forward a bold proposal for agricultural trade reform in the World Trade Organization.
Since then, two novel hallmarks have defined President Bush's trade policy: He links U.S. trade policy with other political, diplomatic and security goals, and he will negotiate free-trade agreements with all comers — individual countries, groups of countries and whole regions — in pursuit of global free trade.
These policies provoked criticism within the U.S. and international trade policy communities, which argue that introducing extraneous political or diplomatic criteria somehow "pollutes" trade policy and detracts from free-market goals. But the administration counters that the pursuit of national interests has always necessitated a meshing of economic with political — and even national security — purposes. This fusion has a particular cogency in the post- 9/11 world, and thus it makes perfect sense for the administration, for strategic reasons, to include Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan and our Iraq ally Australia among its priority trade agreements.
Democrats Split on Bush Guard Story: Some see rough justice after attacks on Kerry's Vietnam-era record and welcome a comparison, but others say it distracts from pressing issues. (Mark Z. Barabak, September 12, 2004. LA Times)
The renewed controversy over President Bush's National Guard service has opened a fresh divide in the presidential contest — among Democrats who disputed the wisdom of keeping the 3-decade-old story alive.Many partisans relish the sight of the White House and Bush aides struggling to answer long-ago questions about Vietnam, after watching Sen. John F. Kerry being forced to defend his combat duty and subsequent antiwar activism. [...]
"At a minimum, George W. Bush and his campaign are not talking about what they want to talk about because they're responding to this," strategist Chris Lehane said.
Bush said to back Japan's U.N. bid (Japan Times, 9/12/04)
A senior White House official assured Japan on Friday that President George W. Bush supports its bid to become a permanent U.N. Security Council member, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa said.At a news conference concluding a four-day visit to the United States, Aisawa said Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told him earlier in the day that not only the State Department but the entire administration and Bush himself support the bid.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage voiced full support for Japan's pursuit of a permanent Security Council seat when he met with Aisawa on Thursday.
'Change' Is Vital Election Theme for Bush, Kerry: The president frames himself as the candidate of new ideas, a departure for an incumbent. It's an attempt to relate to voters' anxieties. (Ronald Brownstein, September 12, 2004, LA Times)
After nearly four years in office, President Bush has settled on a surprising new identity for his campaign's stretch run: he is selling himself as the candidate of change.On issues from Social Security and healthcare to national defense, Bush now presents his agenda as a response to "changing times" and a "changed world." He also accuses his Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry, of pursuing "the policies of the past."
Bush is relying more on this argument even as Kerry amplifies his efforts to portray the president's proposed second-term agenda as "more of the same," and his own proposals as a sharp change in the country's direction. [...]
Bush is pursuing a broader and more ambitious agenda — at home and abroad — than Clinton ran on in 1996. That may give Bush more evidence for his claim to represent change — but also provide more targets for Kerry to assail than Dole could find with Clinton.
One senior GOP strategist familiar with White House thinking said Bush was emphasizing the "change" argument less to create a contrast with Kerry than to signal to voters that he understood their anxieties and wanted a mandate for his proposals in a second term.
"This is not a frame that is being discussed because of Kerry," the strategist said. In private, "Bush has said the American people want to know that 'I understand what the country is going through and I have an idea of how to deal with it.' "
MORE:
There's another story in the LA Times today that reads almost like a parody of the Kerry campaign, Divide in Democrat's camp: Party advisors' discussion on how to forge a 'new direction' for the candidate leads to mixed messages and lost momentum. (Matea Gold and Mark Z. Barabak, September 12, 2004, LA Times)
Even as he fights to regain momentum in the presidential race, Sen. John F. Kerry faces a debate among advisors over the tone and content of his message, according to insiders and other Democrats familiar with the campaign's discussions.One continued disagreement is over how sharply the Democratic presidential nominee — as opposed to campaign surrogates — should attack President Bush. Also in dispute is how much change would be too much for Kerry to advocate in these anxious times.
In one compromise, Kerry has taken to using words "new direction" rather than "change."
Although Kerry strategists agree the Massachusetts senator needs to be more aggressive, they remain divided over how best to communicate his critique of Bush. That lack of consensus, some Democrats say, has exacerbated Kerry's inconsistency on the campaign trail, undermining his ability to drive home his central arguments that Bush has neglected middle-class Americans and made the country less safe through his policies in Iraq.
While opinion polls have shown Bush politically vulnerable on the economy and the war, the surveys also have found that Kerry is an unknown quantity to many voters who have little sense of where he would take the country as president.
Loss Leader: At 0-7, Adviser Bob Shrum Is Well Acquainted With the Concession Speech (Mark Leibovich, September 10, 2004, Washington Post)
Each day at the Democratic convention in Boston, a team of 10 speechwriters would convene in a windowless office behind the Fleet Center podium to help compose and polish that night's speeches. In the spirit of camaraderie, the speechwriters discussed making T-shirts for themselves.One suggested a design featuring the slogan "Reverse the Curse" over a picture of Bob Shrum, the Democratic strategist whom many perceived to be presidential candidate John Kerry's closest adviser. "The Curse" referred to Shrum's career-long slump in presidential campaigns, a well-catalogued losing streak that runs from George McGovern to Al Gore.
The shirts were never made for fear of offending Shrum. But the slogan endures as a joke among Kerry staffers. The implication is that Kerry is battling not just President Bush, but also the history of his ever-present aide-de-camp. It also underscores the degree to which Shrum's 0-7 win-loss record in presidential elections has become ensconced in the psyches of the campaigns he orchestrates.
The school massacre: Don't conflate 9/11, terror in Russia (Newsday.com, September 12th, 2004)
The United States was attacked by fanatics who were part of an international Islamist movement intent on inflicting massive damage on the West's most powerful nation, if not destroying it. Americans are still under threat and this conflict is open-ended, with no clear resolution in sight. It's not amenable to negotiation.Russia, instead, is under attack by nationalist rebels whose goal is to wrest an independent Chechnya out of the grasp of the Russian federation. Their goal is not to destroy Russia, however much they may despise it, but to be left alone to control their own destiny. This conflict need not be open-ended. Once passions cool, it could be resolved by negotiation. Russia could offer Chechnya a substantial degree of autonomy, followed by eventual secession if moderate Chechen leaders prevail on militants to halt their terror tactics.[...]
All terrorists aren't the same
It's a grave mistake for Russian President Vladimir Putin to lump the Chechen rebellion with global Islamist terrorism, as he has done, and to vow pre-emptive attacks anywhere in the world to combat the threat. By demonizing the Chechen separatists this way and blurring their goals with those of al-Qaida and other members of the global Islamist terror movement, Putin may be foreclosing the possibility of a negotiated solution with Chechnya.
Here is a short synopsis of Chechen history since the end of the cold war, against which we can perhaps try to measure the unity of the Chechens, the justice of the rebels’ cause, the likely nature of an independent Chechnya and the chances of successful negotiations based upon the Chechen popular will..
Size of Battleground May Be Smaller Than Expected (Dan Balz, September 12, 2004, Washington Post)
The presidential race looks closer in many battleground states than some national polls suggest, a morale boost for Democrats after Kerry's worst month of the general election. But as the number of truly competitive states has shrunk, Kerry is faced with the reality that he must pick off one of two big battlegrounds Bush won four years ago -- Florida or Ohio -- or capture virtually every other state still available. To do that, he must hold onto several states Al Gore won in 2000 that are now highly competitive.The Massachusetts senator spent much of the summer trying to expand the number of battleground states with television advertising and campaign trips to places such as Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana and Virginia. But in the past week, Kerry dramatically scaled back the number of states in which he is running ads. Democratic strategists privately acknowledge that only a significant change in the overall race will put some of the states Kerry sought to make competitive back into play. Democratic hopes for victory in Missouri have diminished sharply, as well.
Tad Devine, a senior Kerry-Edwards strategist, said the shift in advertising dollars marked a decision to ensure that Kerry can campaign fully in all of the truly competitive states in the final weeks. "We did not want to be in the situation that the Democratic nominee was in four years ago of having to choose between Ohio and Florida," he said. "That choice will not have to be made this time. We have the resources to compete in those states and many, many more." [...]
An examination of state polls and interviews with strategists in the two campaigns and the parties suggests that, with less than two months before the election, the 10 most competitive states are, in order of electoral vote strength, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia and New Hampshire.
New Hampshire, for instance, was completely swept by the GOP in the '02 midterm and will easily re-elect both Republican House members, Senator Gregg and Governor Benson. How could it go Democrat at the presidential level and why bother trying to make it?
MORE:
-THIS IS HOW THE DEMOCRATS END (Brothers Judd, 11/06/02)
Saddam’s ally switches sides (Robert Winnett, September 12, 2004, The Sunday Times)
PROSECUTORS seeking to convict Saddam Hussein for war crimes believe they have made a significant breakthrough after Tariq Aziz, the former dictator’s right-hand man, agreed to give evidence against him.Aziz, now the star witness, is understood to have agreed to “co-operate fully” with American interrogators in return for leniency. Until he made the deal Aziz, the former deputy prime minister and the only senior Christian member of the regime, was facing the death penalty.
Aziz is now expected to testify that Saddam was personally responsible for war crimes, including the slaughter of thousands of innocent Kurds and Shi’ites. In 1988 5,000 people died in a single day in the Kurdish town of Halabja after a gas attack which Saddam claims to have been an accident.
Before Aziz agreed to co-operate, prosecutors were struggling to find evidence such as signed orders or minutes of meetings that would prove the despot instigated such atrocities.
Two other senior members of the regime — Sultan Hashim Ahmad, a former defence minister, and Kamal Mustafa Abdullah, secretary of the Republican Guard — have also agreed to testify.
Prosecutors are now confident of mounting a successful case against the dictator. The US authorities are said to be delighted that Aziz seems to have turned against the former regime.
Radio Address to the Nation (John Kerry, 9/11/04)
Good morning, this is John Kerry.Three years ago today, on a bright September morning, a young couple took their three-year old daughter on her first airplane flight – American Flight 11, from Boston to Los Angeles. On that morning, a security guard stood watch at the World Trade Center, proud that in just six days, he would become an American citizen. He had already told his wife to wear her nicest dress to the ceremony. On that morning, a firefighter left his pregnant wife, and reported for duty at Rescue Company 4 to fill in for someone else. It was supposed to be his day off.
On September 11, 2001, they and nearly 3,000 others were living out the daily rhythm of life in a nation at peace. But on that morning, in a single moment, they were lost, and our land was changed forever.
In the hours after the attacks, we drew strength from firefighters who ran up the stairs and risked their lives so that others might live. From rescuers who rushed into smoke and fire at the Pentagon. From the men and women of Flight 93 who sacrificed themselves to save our nation’s Capitol. They didn’t think twice. They didn’t look back. And their courage lifted our nation.
That was just the beginning. In the days that followed, we saw an outpouring of love as people across America and around the world asked themselves, “What can I do to help?” How can I, as the Scripture says, help repair the breach? [Isaiah 58:12]
In Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania, Christians and Jews came together to attend services at a local mosque. They came to support their Muslim friends and neighbors – and together, they prayed as one.
The people of Akron, Ohio wanted to do something for the firefighters of New York. So they dug deep into their pockets and donated enough money to buy a fire truck, two ambulances, and three police cars.
And in Reno, Nevada, two little girls started a penny drive to help the families of the victims. They hoped, as one of them put it, to “make their hearts feel better.”
So while September 11th was the worst day this nation has ever seen, it brought out the best in all of us.
I know that for those who lost loved ones that day, the past three years have been almost unbearable. Their courage and faith have been tested in a way they never imagined. But day after day, they have held on. And day after day, they and we have found hope and comfort and strength by the quiet grace of God.
We are one America in our prayers for those who were taken from us on September 11th and for their families. And we are one America in our unbending determination to defend our country – to find and get the terrorists before they get us.
A poet once wrote that those who have left us “…have a silence that speaks for them at night…They say: our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them…They say: we leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.”
In the past three years, with countless acts of bravery and kindness – large and small – Americans have given meaning to those lives. That terrible day has renewed our sense of purpose. And in the years ahead we will share its lessons with our children and grandchildren. We will tell them that on September 11th, ordinary men and women became heroes at a moment’s notice – and so can you. We will tell them that we were strong because we took care of each other – and so can you. We will tell them that we came together in tragedy, chose confidence over fear, and that our love for America far outshone the darkness of those who hate us.
Finally, we will tell them that on September 11th and the days that followed, we learned in the hardest way possible that the American spirit endures. It is that spirit which leads us to defy the terrorists and affirm that freedom will win. It is that spirit which sustains the families of September 11th as they rebuild their lives. And it is that spirit which will guide us as we rebuild those towers – stronger, higher, and more beautiful than ever before. Just like America.
Thanks for listening.
THE BLAIR DOCTRINE (Tony Blair, April 22, 1999, The Chicago Economic Club)
Twenty years ago we would not have been fighting in Kosovo. We would have turned our backs on it. The fact that we are engaged is the result of a wide range of changes - the end of the Cold War; changing technology; the spread of democracy. But it is bigger than thatI believe the world has changed in a more fundamental way. Globalisation has transformed our economies and our working practices. But globalisation is not just economic. It is also a political and security phenomenon.
We live in a world where isolationism has ceased to have a reason to exist. By necessity we have to co-operate with each other across nations.
Many of our domestic problems are caused on the other side of the world. Financial instability in Asia destroys jobs in Chicago and in my own constituency in County Durham. Poverty in the Caribbean means more drugs on the streets in Washington and London. Conflict in the Balkans causes more refugees in Germany and here in the US. These problems can only be addressed by international co-operation.
We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not We cannot refuse to participate in global markets if we want to prosper. We cannot ignore new political ideas in other counties if we want to innovate. We cannot turn our backs on conflicts and the violation of human rights within other countries if we want still to be secure.
On the eve of a new Millennium we are now in a new world. We need new rules for international co-operation and new ways of organising our international institutions.
After World War II, we developed a series of international institutions to cope with the strains of rebuilding a devastated world: Bretton Woods, the United Nations, NATO, the FU. Even then, it was clear that the world was becoming increasingly interdependent. The doctrine of isolationism had been a casualty of a world war, where the United States and others finally realised standing aside was not an option.
Today the impulse towards interdependence is immeasurably greater. We are witnessing the beginnings of a new doctrine of international community. By this I mean the explicit recognition that today more than ever before we are mutually dependent, that national interest is to a significant extent governed by international collaboration and that we need a clear and coherent debate as to the direction this doctrine takes us in each field of international endeavour. Just as within domestic politics, the notion of community - the belief that partnership and co-operation are essential to advance self-interest - is coming into its own; so it needs to find its own international echo. Global financial markets, the global environment, global security and disarmament issues: none of these can he solved without intense international co-operation.
As yet, however, our approach tends towards being ad hoc. There is a global financial crisis: we react, it fades; our reaction becomes less urgent. Kyoto can stimulate our conscience about environmental degradation but we need constant reminders to refocus on it. We are continually fending off the danger of letting wherever CNN roves, be the cattle prod to take a global conflict seriously.
We need to focus in a serious and sustained way on the principles of the doctrine of international community and on the institutions that deliver them. This means:
1. In global finance, a thorough, far-reaching overhaul and reform of the system of international financial regulation. We should begin it at the G7 at Cologne.
2. A new push on free trade in the WTO with the new round beginning in Seattle this autumn.
3. A reconsideration of the role, workings and decision-making process of the UN, and in particular the UN Security Council.
4 For NATO, once Kosovo is successfully concluded, a critical examination of the lessons to be learnt, and the changes we need to make in organisation and structure.
5. In respect of Kyoto and the environment, far closer working between the main industrial nations and the developing world as to how the Kyoto targets can be met and the practical measures necessary to slow down and stop global warming, and
6. A serious examination of the issue of third world debt, again beginning at Cologne.
In addition, the EU and US should prepare to make real step-change in working more closely together. Recent trade disputes have been a bad omen in this regard. We really are failing to see the bigger picture with disputes over the banana regime or hushkits or whatever else. There are huge issues at stake in our co-operation. The EU and the US need each other and need to put that relationship above arguments that are ultimately not fundamental.
Now is the time to begin work in earnest on these issues. I know President Clinton will stand ready to give a lead on many of them. In Kosovo but on many other occasions, I have had occasion to be truly thankful that the United States has a President with his vision and steadfastness.
Globalisation
Globalisation is most obvious in the economic sphere. We live in a completely new world. Every day about one trillion dollars moves across the foreign exchanges, most of it in London. Here in Chicago the Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade contracts worth more than $1.2 billion per day.
Any Government that thinks it can go it alone is wrong. If the markets don’t like your policies they will punish you.
The same is true of trade. Protectionism is the swiftest road to poverty. Only by competing internationally can our companies and our economics grow and succeed. But it has to be an international system based on rules. That means accepting the judgements of international organisations even when you do not like them. And it means using the new trade round to be launched at Seattle to extend free trade.
The international financial system is not working as it should. The Asian financial crisis of last year, and the knock on impact on Brazil, demonstrate that.
The fact is that the Bretton Woods machinery was set up for the post war world. The world has moved on. And we need to modernise the international financial architecture to make it appropriate for the new world.
The lesson of the Asian crisis is above all that it is better to invest in countries where you have openness, independent central banks, properly functioning financial systems and independent courts, where you do not have to bribe or rely on favours from those in power.
We have therefore proposed that we should make greater transparency the keystone of reform. Transparency about individual countries’ economic policies through adherence to new codes of conduct on monetary and fiscal policy; about individual companies’ financial positions through new internationally agreed accounting standards and a new code of corporate governance; and greater openness too about IMF and World Bank discussions and policies.
We also need improved financial supervision both in individual countries through stronger and more effective peer group reviews, and internationally through the foundation of a new Financial Stability Forum. And we need more effective ways of resolving crises, like that in Brazil. The new contingent credit line at the IMF will assist countries pursuing sensible economic reforms and prevent damaging contagion. But we should also think creatively about how the private sector can help to resolve short-term
financial crises.Secretary Rubin and Chancellor Gordon Brown both put forward ideas yesterday. They highlighted the progress already made on improving transparency and in developing internationally agreed standards, particularly for the financial sector. But both identified the key challenges going forward, including how to involve the private sector in the prevention and resolution of crises. G7 Finance Ministers will be discussing these issues next week. I want to see agreement on the key outstanding questions reached by the Cologne Summit.
I hope the Summit will go further too in the case of Russia. We simply cannot stand back and watch that great nation teeter on the brink of ruin. If it slides into the abyss, it will affect all of us. A democratic, outward looking, prosperous Russia is of key importance to the West. We must not let our current differences set us on a route towards the mutual hostility and suspicion which has too often characterised our relationship in the past.
I very much hope that Russia and the IMF can reach an early agreement on a new programme to provide macro-economic stability, avoid hyper-inflation and encourage Russian companies and savers to keep their own money in the country. This however will only be a first step. I want to see a wider dialogue between Russia and the G7 focussing on all of the structural and legal reforms that are needed to improve the economic prospects for ordinary Russians. Russia is a unique economy with its own special problems and its own unique potential. We all need to build on the lessons of the last few years and develop a long term strategy for reform that respects Russia’s history, her culture and her aspirations. If Russia is prepared, with our understanding and co-operation, to take the difficult economic action it needs to reform its economy - to build a sound and well-regulated financial system, to restructure and close down bankrupt enterprises to develop and enforce a clear and fair legal system and to reduce the damage caused by nuclear waste - the G7 must be prepared to think imaginatively about how it can best support these efforts.
We will be putting forward concrete ideas on how to do this at the Cologne Summit - by opening up our markets to Russian products. by providing technical advice and sharing our expertise with the Russians, by providing support both bilaterally and through the 1MF. the World Bank and the other lEls and the Paris Club for the Russian reform efforts.
I believe passionately that we will all benefit hugely from a thriving Russia making use of its immense natural resources, its huge internal market and its talented and x~eIl-educated people. Russia’s past has been as a world power that we felt confronted by. We must work with her to make her future as a world power with whom we co-operate in trust and to mutual benefit.
International Security
The principles of international community apply also to international security.
We now have a decade of experience since the end of the Cold War. It has certainly been a less easy time than many hoped in the euphoria that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Our armed forces have been busier than ever - delivering humanitarian aid, deterring attacks on defenceless people, backing up UN resolutions and occasionally engaging in major wars as we did in the Gulf in 1991 and are currently doing in the Balkans.
Have the difficulties of the past decade simply been the aftershocks of the end of the Cold War? Will things soon settle down, or does it represent a pattern that will extend into the future?
Many of our problems have been caused by two dangerous and ruthless men - Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. Both have been prepared to wage vicious campaigns against sections of their own community. As a result of these destructive policies both have brought calamity on their own peoples. Instead of enjoying its oil wealth Iraq has been reduced to poverty, with political life stultified through fear. Milosevic took over a substantial, ethnically diverse state, well placed to take advantage of new economic opportunities. His drive for ethnic concentration has left him with something much smaller, a ruined economy and soon a totally wined military machine
One of the reasons why it is now so important to win the conflict is to ensure that others do not make the same mistake in the future. That in itself will be a major step to ensuring that the next decade and the next century will not be as difficult as the past. If NATO fails in Kosovo, the next dictator to be threatened with military force may well not believe our resolve to carry the threat through.
At the end of this century the US has emerged as by far the strongest state. It has no dreams of world conquest and is not seeking colonies. If anything Americans are too ready to see no need to get involved in affairs of the rest of the world. America’s allies are always both relieved and gratified by its continuing readiness to shoulder burdens and responsibilities that come with its sole superpower status. We understand that this is something that we have no right to take for granted, and must match with our own efforts. That is the basis for the recent initiative I took with President Chirac of France to improve Europe’s own defence capabilities.
As we address these problems at this weekend’s NATO Summit we may be tempted to think back to the clarity and simplicity of the Cold War. But now we have to establish a new framework. No longer is our existence as states under threat. Now our actions are guided by a more subtle blend of mutual self interest and moral purpose in defending the values we cherish. In the end values and interests merge. If we can establish and spread the values of liberty, the rule of law, human rights and an open society then that is in our national interests too. The spread of our values makes us safer. As John Kennedy put it "Freedom is indivisible and when one man is enslaved who is free?"
The most pressing foreign policy problem we face is to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people’s conflicts. Non -interference has long been considered an important principle of international order. And it is not one we would want to jettison too readily. One state should not feel it has the right to change the political system of another or forment subversion or seize pieces of territory to which it feels it should have some claim. But the principle of non-interference must be qualified in important respects. Acts of genocide can never be a purely internal matter. When oppression produces massive flows of refugees which unsettle neighbouring countries then they can properly be described as "threats to international peace and security". When regimes are based on minority rule they lose legitimacy - look at South Africa.
Looking around the world there are many regimes that are undemocratic and engaged in barbarous acts. If we wanted to right every wrong that we see in the modern world then we would do little else than intervene in the affairs of other countries. We would not be able to cope.
So how do we decide when and whether to intervene. I think we need to bear in mind five major considerations
First, are we sure of our case? War is an imperfect instrument for righting humanitarian distress; but armed force is sometimes the only means of dealing with dictators. Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options? We should always give peace every chance, as we have in the case of Kosovo. Third, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake? Fourth, are we prepared for the long term? In the past we talked too much of exit strategies. But having made a commitment we cannot simply walk away once the fight is over; better to stay with moderate numbers of troops than return for repeat performances with large numbers. And finally, do we have national interests involved? The mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo demanded the notice of the rest of the world. But it does make a difference that this is taking place in such a combustible part of Europe.
I am not suggesting that these are absolute tests. But they are the kind of issues we need to think about in deciding in the future when and whether we will intervene.
Any new rules however will only work if we have reformed international institutions with which to apply them.
If we want a world ruled by law and by international co-operation then we have to support the UN as its central pillar. But we need to find a new way to make the UN and its Security Council work if we are not to return to the deadlock that undermined the effectiveness of the Security Council during the Cold War. This should be a task for members of the Permanent Five to consider once the Kosovo conflict is complete.
Politics
This speech has been dedicated to the cause of internationalism and against isolationism. On Sunday, along with other nation’s leaders, including President Clinton, I shall take part in a discussion of political ideas. It is loosely based around the notion of the Third Way, an attempt by centre and centre-left Governments to re-define a political programme that is neither old left nor 1980s right. In the field of politics, too, ideas are becoming globalised. As problems become global – competitivity, changes in technology, crime, drugs, family breakdown - so the search for solutions becomes global too. What amazes me, talking to other countries’ leaders, is not the differences but the points in common. We are all coping with the same issues: achieving prosperity in a world of rapid economic and technological change; social stability in the face of changing family and community mores; a role for Government in an era where we have learnt Big Government doesn’t work, but no Government works even less.
Certain key ideas and principles are emerging. Britain is following them. It is one of the things that often makes it difficult for commentators to define the New Labour Government. We are parodied as either being Mrs Thatcher with a smile instead of a handbag; or as really old-style socialists in drag, desperate to conceal our true identity. In reality, we are neither. The political debates of the 20th century - the massive ideological battleground between left and right - are over. Echoes remain, but they mislead as much as they illuminate.
Let me summarise the new political agenda we stand for:
1. Financial prudence as the foundation of economic success. In Britain, we have eliminated the massive Budget deficit we inherited; put in new fiscal rules; granted Bank of England independence - and we’re proud of it.
2. On top of that foundation, there is a new economic role for Government. We don’t believe in laissez-faire. But the role is not picking winners, heavy handed intervention, old-style corporatism, but: education, skills, technology, small business entrepreneurship. Of these, education is recognised now as much for its economic as its social necessity. It is our top priority as a Government.
3. We are reforming welfare systems and public services. In Britain, we are introducing measures to tackle failing schools and reform the teaching profession that would have been unthinkable by any Government even a few years ago. Plus big changes to the NHS. For the first two years of this Government, welfare bills have fallen for the first time in two decades.
4. We are all tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. The debate between "liberals" and "hardliners" is over. No one disputes the causes of crime. In particular social exclusion - a hardcore of society outside its mainstream - needs a special focus. We won’t solve it just by general economic success. But we don’t excuse crime either. Criminals get punished. That’s justice.
5. We are reinventing or reforming Government itself. The Government machine is being overhauled. Here, Al Gore has led the way. But the whole basis of how we deliver Government services is being altered.
For Britain. there is a special dimension to this.
We are modernising our constitution. We have devolved power to a new Parliament in Scotland and a new Assembly in Wales. We are handing power back to local government, because we believe that power should be exercised as close as possible to the people it affects. We have introduced the concept of elected Mayors which, strange as it may seem to you here in Chicago, has not existed in the past in Britain. The first election for a Mayor of London will take place next year. And we are removing the constitutional anomalies from the past, like hereditary peers voting on legislation, that have proved too difficult to tackle previously.
We also want to change the way in which Northern Ireland is governed, and let me say something on this.
We have made great progress in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement last year was a breakthrough. We have to make one last heave to get over the one remaining obstacle, so that we can establish the executive and the North/South bodies and hand over power to the elected Assembly. The stand off on decommissioning cannot be allowed to de-rail the process when we have come so far. Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach, and I are determined to find a way through. The people will never forgive the politicians unless we resolve it.
And I would like to thank President Clinton and the Irish American community in the US for the great contribution they have made to coming this far. I know you will assist us again in the final straight.
And the final thing we all have in common, the new centre, centre-left Governments, is we are internationalists and that returns me to my original theme.
For Britain, the biggest decision we face in the next couple of decades is our relationship with Europe. For far too long British ambivalence to Europe has made us irrelevant in Europe, and consequently of less importance to the United States. We have finally done away with the false proposition that we must choose between two diverging paths - the Transatlantic relationship or Europe. For the first time in the last three decades we have a government that is both pro-Europe and pro-American. I firmly believe that it is in Britain’s interest, but it is also in the interests of the US and of Europe.
Being pro-Europe does not mean that we are content with the way it is. We believe it needs radical reform. And I believe we are winning the battle for economic reform within the EU. Two weeks ago the Conservative Spanish Prime Minister and I issued a joint Declaration on economic reform. Shortly, the German Social Democratic Chancellor Schroeder and I will be issuing a declaration on the same subject. We all understand the need to ensure flexible labour markets, to remove regulatory burdens and to untie the hands of business if we are going to succeed. The tide of Euro-sclerosis has begun to turn: the Third Way in Europe as much as in Britain.
As to Britain and the Euro, we will make our decision not on political grounds but on the basis of our national economic interests. We must however ensure that we are ready to enter if we make the decision to do so. And the government has put a national changeover plan in place to convert sterling that will make that possible if we decide to do so.
I also pledge that we will prevent the European Union becoming a closed fortress. Europe must he a force for openness and free trade. Indeed it is fundamental to my whole thesis tonight that we can only survive in a global world if we remove barriers and improve co-operation.
Conclusion
This has been a very broad-ranging speech, but maybe the time is right for that. One final word on the USA itself. You are the most powerful country in the world, and the richest. You are a great nation. You have so much to give and to teach the world; and I know you would say, in all modesty, a little to learn from it too. It must be difficult and occasionally irritating to find yourselves the recipient of every demand, to be called upon in every crisis, to be expected always and everywhere to do what needs to be done. The cry “What’s it got to do with us” must be regularly heard on the lips of your people and be the staple of many a politician running for office.
Yet just as with the parable of the individuals and the talents, so those nations which have the power, have the responsibility. We need you engaged. We need the dialogue with you. Europe over time will become stronger and stronger; but its time is some way off.
I say to you: never fall again for the doctrine of isolationism. The world cannot afford it. Stay a country, outward-looking, with the vision and imagination that is in your nature. And realise that in Britain you have a friend and an ally that will stand with you, work with you, fashion with you the design of a future built on peace and prosperity for all, which is the only dream that makes humanity worth preserving.
Now it's Bush's turn to squirm: Evidence of the president's fudged war record emerged in time to undermine the Republicans' triumphal march (Sidney Blumenthal, September 9, 2004, The Guardian)
[O]n the third day of the Republican convention, Kerry had given a penetrating and highly specific speech on the war on terrorism and Iraq, detailing how Bush's strategy amounted to a series of catastrophic blunders. "When it comes to Iraq," he said, "it's not that I would have done one thing differently, I would have done almost everything differently."
What Did Rather Know, and When Did He Know It? (Jay Bryant, September 11, 2004, Townhall)
La Femme Kerry said the other day that anyone who did not support her husband's health care plan was an "idiot," which if true means they are the same cohort of folks who still believe the CBS documents on President Bush's service record are genuine.As of this writing, the network is said to be investigating the situation. Of course, this is not a real investigation, in the police sense. CBS leaves that sort of thing to fiction, on its CSI programs, for example. What they're investigating is how to minimize the public relations damage.
They have only two choices: they must either be the duper or the dupee. In other words, either someone at CBS was in on the fraud, or they were defrauded by the con artist who passed off the forgeries as genuine.
What did Dan Rather know, and when did he know it?
Is the Housing Boom Over?: Home prices have gone up for so long that people think they'll never come down. But the fundamentals tell a different story—a scary one. (Shawn Tully, Fortune)
For years the debate has been raging: Is it a bubble or isn't it? Two years ago FORTUNE looked at the housing market and saw reasons to be concerned. While home prices nationally were only 5% to 10% overvalued, we said, some frothy markets, mainly on the coasts, were more than 20% above historical norms. Our conclusion: While the trends were worrisome, "for the nation as a whole, no housing bubble exists ... we're not there yet."Two years later it looks like "there" is finally here. The housing market is rapidly losing touch with reality. Fueled by interest rates that have remained near record lows, prices have continued to soar, and the gap between home values and the underlying fundamentals such as personal income and job growth is greater than ever. The most alarming development, though, is the change in psychology. "The market isn't acting rationally," says Christopher Thornberg, an economist at UCLA. "It's now an emotion-driven market where people are buying on the expectation of future appreciation." Increasingly Americans view houses not primarily as places to live but as foolproof, can't-lose investments. The passionate faith that money poured into real estate will magically multiply is creating a self-fulfilling speculative frenzy that's bound to end badly.
Baseball's Origins: They Ain't Found Till They're Found (BILL PENNINGTON, 9/12/04, NY Times)
Textbooks once unequivocally stated that baseball was invented in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1839, and provided as proof the picture of a dusty, ripped old ball pulled from an attic trunk. It turned out to be a hoax, baseball's first hidden-ball trick.The next official version put the origin in Hoboken, N.J., in 1846. That story stood until 2001, when a librarian found two 1823 newspaper references to "base ball" games in Lower Manhattan. Then in May, a clerk walked out of a library vault in Pittsfield, Mass., waving a faded ordinance from 1791 that banned the playing of baseball within 80 yards of the big church in the town square.
Baseball history had a new king in the eternal run home.
Until the next discovery usurps Pittsfield, moving baseball's birthplace to another state or era, or both. Which raises the question: How come history can say what John Adams had for lunch on Jan. 24, 1776 (wild goose on a spit), but baseball cannot pinpoint its genesis within hundreds of years or thousands of miles?
When it comes to baseball, there is no agreement on which century the first game was played. It could have been the 18th century; it could have been the 13th century. There is some record of each.
There is no agreement on which continent baseball was invented either. Was it North America, Europe or Africa? There is some evidence for all three.
Historians know more, for sure, about games played in 776 B.C. than they do about the first time someone hit a ball back, back, back, then broke into a preening trot.
They know more about how Roman gladiators decided who would be first in line marching into the Colosseum than they do about the first time someone made up a baseball lineup, thereby entering the first arena of grandstand second-guessing.
Stuff Happens (Michael Billington, September 11, 2004, The Guardian)
David Hare's Stuff Happens has already become a chewed-over public event. But, after attending its Olivier press night, it also strikes me as a very good, totally compelling play: one that may not contain a vast amount of new information but that traces the origins of the Iraq war, puts it in perspective and at the same time astutely analyses the American body politic.[H]are avoids the trap of agitprop by cannily subverting the play's anti-war bias. You see this most powerfully in a speech, credited to a journalist, that questions our tendency to view Iraq from a local political viewpoint. "From what height of luxury and excess," says the character, "we look down to condemn the exact style in which even a little was given to those who had nothing."
Hare, in fact, constantly creates a form of internal dialectic. The play ruthlessly exposes the dubious premises on which the war was fought. At the same time, it questions our complacency by reminding us of the pro-war arguments. A New Labour politician - possibly not a million miles from Ann Clwyd - admits that the supposed weapons turned out not to exist and that a military victory was compromised by sloppy Pentagon planning for peace. "At the same time," she argues, "a dictator was removed."
Hare's other key means of creating conflict is to view Colin Powell as a stern realist in a Bush war cabinet made up of deluded fantasists. In a big showdown with Bush, based on documented facts, Powell passionately presses the case for treating war as a last resort after diplomacy has been exhausted. In the play's best line, he points out the hypocrisy of American attitudes. "People keep asking," he says of Saddam, "how do we know he's got weapons of mass destruction? How do we know? Because we've still got the receipts."
An Augustinian Sentence (Rev. James V. Schall, S.J., July/August 2004, Crisis)
Nulla est homini causa philosophandi nisi ut beatus sit. This sentence is found in Book 19, Chapter 1 of Augustine’s City of God. I was first consciously alerted to it because it is cited, in both Latin and English, on the first page of E. F. Schumacher’s A Guide for the Perplexed. In English, it reads, “For man, there is no cause for philosophizing except (in order) that he be happy.” It is one of those absolutely riveting sentences that we frequently find in Augustine or Aquinas whose full depth we can only speculate about.I cited this sentence from memory to a friend. She replied, laughing, “You mean if I am happy, I am a philosopher?” No doubt it is probable, the correlation between laughter and philosophy, between happiness and both. [...]
If we take a second look at Augustine’s sentence—nulla est homini causa philosophandi nisi ut beatus sit—we see that it deals with the very experience of “philosophizing,” not just with what we philosophize about. The gods do not philosophize. The gods do not seek happiness. They do not need to. We are the beings in the universe who “long” for happiness because we know that we do not fully possess it.
We also know that we have enough happiness, or the beginnings of it, to seek its fullness. Were we in a totally horrid and agonizing existence, where nothing was related to anything, we would not recognize that being as such is good. We recognize, in our daily experience, the curious fact that some things simply delight us. An ordinary experience like, when hungry, eating an excellent pasta or, when thirsty, drinking a good wine or beer leaves us with the curious wonder of why it is that something outside of us can satisfy something inside of us.
US: Syria liable for Beersheba bombings (JANINE ZACHARIA and AP, Sep. 11, 2004, THE JERUSALEM POST)
Syria bears some responsibility for the twin suicide bombings in Beersheba on August 31, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Friday, although he stopped short of endorsing an Israeli retaliatory attack on Damascus.Asked in an interview with Egypt TV if Syria "should be held accountable" for the Beersheba bombings, which killed 16 and wounded dozens, Armitage said, "Why not? Syria holds and houses Hamas. Syria is a conduit of weapons from Iran to Hizbullah. It seems to me that Syria does bear some responsibility."
But asked if that meant the US would endorse an Israeli strike on Syria, Armitage said, "That I didn't say. You asked me should they be held accountable, and I said they bore some responsibility."
It seems to me that President [Bashar] Assad should take a careful look at what his nation is doing and what his government is doing in supporting violence in the territories and decide whether this is in the long-term interest of Syria. I don't believe it is."
Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East William J. Burns urged Syria on Saturday to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and stop interfering in internal Lebanese affairs, a message delivered in Damascus at a time when Syrian-American relations have been particularly strained.
Burns also said Syria must take "concrete action" in cooperating with the US-led war on terrorism by halting support for Palestinian terrorist groups based in Damascus and preventing anti-US Arab fighters from infiltrating Iraq.
Has swing state Missouri already swung? (DAVID GOLDSTEIN and STEVE KRASKE, 9/11/04, The Kansas City Star)
Missouri has long been a pivotal swing state in presidential elections, but political pollsters, strategists and activists wonder if it might be swinging the Republicans' way.Recent events hint that Sen. John Kerry's camp is acknowledging that by pulling back his efforts here and shifting resources elsewhere.
His campaign — surprisingly — did not include Missouri with the 14 other competitive states where it plans to run its latest round of television advertising. [...]
[M]issouri, which now has two Republican senators and a majority of GOP congressmen, is looking more and more like “red state” Kansas. Shifts in population and the rise of culturally conservative issues as political touchstones have led most notably to the GOP takeover of the General Assembly in recent years.
“We've seen a very slow shift to Missouri becoming a more Republican state,” said state Sen. Matt Bartle, a Republican from Lee's Summit. “Rural Missourians who historically have been strong Democrats have on many of the social issues identified more closely with the Republican Party.”
If true, that could mean trouble for Kerry and other Democrats. Only once in the last 100 years has the White House winner not won Missouri.
Wecht crossing party lines for Specter (David M. Brown, September 11, 2004, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
Allegheny County Coroner Cyril H. Wecht, a fixture in local Democratic Party politics for decades, is expected to endorse Republican U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter's re-election bid.Specter's campaign has scheduled a news conference Monday at Wecht's Downtown law office for a "major announcement," according to a release. Specter campaign manager Christopher Nicholas confirmed on Friday the event would be an endorsement by the coroner.
Wecht couldn't be reached for comment.
Wecht, a former Democratic county commissioner and past chairman of the county Democratic Committee, has long been a party stalwart. As the endorsed candidate in a party that touts solidarity, Wecht won the Democratic primary in the 1999 election for chief executive under the county's new home rule charter. He lost the election to Republican Jim Roddey. [...]
Hoeffel spokeswoman Kristin Carvell said Wecht's action won't sway Democrats.
"The bottom line is that it doesn't change the fact that Democrats in Western Pennsylvania and across the state are coming out to vote for Joe Hoeffel on Nov. 2," she said.
"Pennsylvanians statewide know that Arlen Specter has supported the failed Bush-Cheney administration policies a whopping 89 percent of the time, and they are ready for a change."
GOP Convention's Looney Tunes (ROBERT SCHEER, September 7, 2004, LA Times)
An advertising guru once warned his acolytes never to confuse the thing being sold with the thing itself. Good sizzle can always sell a lousy steak.This strategy is on brilliant display these days as the Republicans emerge post-convention, bristling with tough-sounding talk about "girlie men" and shamelessly attacking decorated war veteran John F. Kerry as some kind of traitorous wimp. The same leaders who have never apologized for being totally oblivious to the terrorist threat before Sept. 11 continue to mawkishly exploit the tragedy for political gain, all while trumpeting far-off victories for democracy that dissolve like mirages under the mildest scrutiny.
The Republicans' strategy is to counter critique with caricature, and they do it with all the panache of an old Roadrunner cartoon, effectively smashing Kerry with rhetorical frying pans.
Dr. Bouffard Speaks About Boston Globe!: INDC EXCLUSIVE!! MUST CREDIT INDC!! (INDC, 9/11/04)
I just interviewed Dr. Bouffard again, and he's angry that the Globe has misrepresented him. He's been getting hate mail and nasty phone calls since last night's story was posted, and he wants me to correct the record. He did not change his mind, and he and his colleagues are becoming more certain that these documents are forgeries.Instead of providing my analysis of our conversation, I'm largely going to transcribe his unaltered quotes (please note that he's a rather colorful, engaging older gentleman):
(I'm dynamically updating as I transcribe quotes, so keep refreshing)
"What the Boston Globe did now sort of pisses me off, because now I have people calling me and e-mailing me, and calling me names, saying that I changed my mind. I did not change my mind at all!"
"I would appreciate it if you could do whatever it takes to clear this up, through your internet site, or whatever."
"All I'd done is say, 'Hey I want to look into it.' Please correct that damn impression!"
"What I said to them was, I got new information about possible Selectric fonts and (Air Force) documents that indicated a Selectric machine could have been available, and I needed to do more analysis and consider it."
"But the more information we get and the more my colleagues look at this, we're more convinced that there are significant differences between the type of the (IBM) Composer that was available and the questionable document."
"The (new Selectric) typefaces sent to me invalidated the theory about the foot on the four (originally reported to INDC), but after looking at this more, there are still many more things that say this is bogus."
Who will insure Bill Clinton now? (Marshall Loeb, 9/10/04, CBS.MarketWatch.com)
Are you better off than you were four years ago?That famous quadrennial question was originally put by Republican challenger Ronald Reagan to Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter in the presidential election debates of 1980.
In the debates for 2004, you can be sure that Democratic challenger John Kerry will put the same crucial question to Republican incumbent George Bush. And the outcome of the election could depend on how America's voters answer that question.
The answer is not clear-cut. It depends largely on which economic data you use, and how you interpret them.
One expert who has a commanding knowledge of those numbers is David Wyss (rhymes with "geese"), the eminent chief economist at Standard & Poor's. He keeps an economic model that aims to forecast the presidential election vote based on changes in the past year of four key economic numbers that determine whether voters are indeed better off.
The most important indicator, he said, is the change in the unemployment rate, because the most important question on a voter's mind is, "Do I have a job?"
The other year-over-year indicators that Wyss incorporates are the growth in real income, the change in the core inflation rate (as measured by the consumer price index) and the change in oil prices.
One month ago, the last time we checked in with Wyss and his model, he figured that the first three indicators favored Bush. The unemployment rate was down from a year ago, personal income was strong and core inflation was down. Only the change in oil prices -- way up in a year -- worked against the incumbent president.
After crunching the numbers, Wyss concluded that the Republicans stood to win a commanding 54 percent of the two-party presidential vote.
So where do things stand now?
Bush is still farther ahead, according to Wyss. "Bush has gained one point from a month or two ago, mainly because the unemployment rate [which is 5.4 percent of the labor force] is coming down faster than I had expected," he said.
In sum, just about all the key numbers suggest that people should be feeling better off than they did four years ago.
The Perils of Decriminalization: The Kids Are Alwrong (Steve Sailer, 9/7/2004, The American Spectator)
In Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown," Samuel L. Jackson comes home to find Bridget Fonda lying on the couch, smoking dope, and giggling at the TV. Disgusted, he tells her that marijuana will rob her of her ambitions. "Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV," she replies.It's fashionable among conservative and libertarian journalists, such as the editors of National Review and Reason magazines, to demand the decriminalization or legalization of drugs, especially of marijuana. Many weighty arguments have been mobilized in support of this cause. Yet this movement has only made fitful progress in the quarter of a century since the first generation of American voters to have much first-hand experience with marijuana began to have children themselves. Parents now understand that additional marijuana use would exacerbate many of the unhealthy and unfulfilling trends already at work in our society.
The problem with marijuana is not that it's some wild and crazy thing, but
that it's middle-age-in-a-bong. Smoking dope saps the energy from youth,
turning them into sedentary couch potatoes.The parents of America already have a hard enough time getting their teenagers -- and, increasingly, their adult children who have come back home to live -- off the TV room floor when they are perfectly straight. Parents understand that changing laws to make marijuana more readily available -- and, let's not kid ourselves, that's what these "reforms" would do -- would create an even more inert and obese generation of young people. Smoking dope may not do all that many of the horrible things often attributed to it, but it definitely makes people want to sit down. And that's something even the most clean and sober young people of the 21st Century do way too much of already.
Conditions in Ohio Point to Kerry, but Bush Runs Strong (R. W. APPLE Jr., 9/11/04, NY Times)
It wasn't supposed to be like this.Everything seemed to be in place for a powerful run by Senator John Kerry in Ohio in the stretch drive after Labor Day. Al Gore lost the state by 175,000 votes in 2000, despite having pulled all his advertising early in October. Ohio has shed 250,000 jobs since George W. Bush became president. Rocked by scandals and an unpopular tax increase, the statehouse Republicans, from Gov. Bob Taft down the line, have been in unaccustomed disarray for weeks.
At the end of last month, the Census Bureau reported that Cleveland, with a poverty rate of 31.3 percent, led the country in that most dubious category, and at the beginning of this month American deaths in Iraq topped 1,000. Both developments might have given a leg up in the campaign to Mr. Kerry, a critic of Mr. Bush's economic policy and his conduct of the war. Yet Mr. Kerry seems to be falling back.
Ahead by six percentage points in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll in mid-July, Mr. Kerry trailed by nine points in a similar survey taken Sept. 3 through Sept. 7, immediately after the Republican convention. Kerry aides said the second poll had been taken too soon after the convention to be meaningful, but its results mirrored the impression of many savvy Ohio political figures. [...]
"I smell the same New England genius that I smelled in the Dukakis campaign in 1988," Mr. Austin added. "Kerry wants to run as a man of the people, and where do they put him for photo opportunities? Snowboarding in Sun Valley, shooting skeet in the Ohio valley, and windsurfing off that great working-class vacation paradise, Nantucket. Democrats - at least Ohio Democrats - play softball and touch football."
Blair ally touts Milburn as future PM (JAMES KIRKUP, 9/11/04, The Scotsman)
IN COMMENTS that threaten to inflame tensions within the Labour leadership, Stephen Byers, the Blairite former Cabinet minister, has said that Alan Milburn would make an "excellent" prime minister.Mr Byers’ remarks, the first such public endorsement by one of Tony Blair’s allies, will fuel suspicion that the Prime Minister wants Mr Milburn to be Labour’s next leader instead of the Chancellor, Gordon Brown.
Mr Milburn returned to government this week as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. As part of Mr Blair’s drive to curb the influence of the Chancellor, he has been given several of Mr Brown’s key posts overseeing Labour’s election campaign.
The Luck of the President (Fred Barnes, 9/11/04, The Weekly Standard)
Post-convention, the Bush campaign is exactly where it hoped to be. The president's lead over Kerry has given him the luxury of sticking to his campaign plan. He'll spend September talking up his domestic agenda for a second term. The first half of October is to be devoted to debates (probably two) with Kerry. And the last two weeks are the finishing kick of the campaign. Along the way, Bush will address any national security issues like Iraq that may arise. But Vice President Dick Cheney will provide the tough talk on combating terrorism.To the surprise of many, Bush has actually honed an effective economic message with interesting specifics, numbers, and comparisons. For instance, did you know that the 1.7 million jobs added in the past year in the United States "is more than [the jobs created in] Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Canada, and France combined?" Bush noted this in Colmar, Pennsylvania, last week. He also addressed the "subchapter S" issue: Under this section of the tax code, 90 percent of small business owners pay at the income tax rate, not the corporate rate. And since "70 percent of new jobs in America are created by small businesses," Kerry's plan to raise taxes on the two top brackets would be a tax on "job creators," Bush said. "It doesn't make sense."
By contrast, Kerry is tongue-tied. He won't talk to national reporters covering his campaign for fear of being asked about his claim of spending Christmas Eve 1968 in Cambodia. Nor will he sit down for questioning by columnists or commentators knowledgeable about foreign policy because he's bound to contradict his earlier statements. And not since Jimmy Carter in 1980 has a Democratic nominee been more unpopular with his base voters. I spent an evening last week at an event with Jewish voters, the majority of them Democrats. They dislike Bush, but have nothing but complaints about Kerry, mostly on foreign policy.
Can't We Get Over the Millenarian Impulses in Our Traditions? (Herbert Bix, Sept. 2004, Japan Focus):
In the second year of the U.S. occupation of Iraq many people in the U.S. still cling to a political tradition that confuses actually existing American society "with the ideal society that would fulfill human destiny."1 They tend to think of the United States not as the polyarchy and global empire that it is, but as the incarnation of "freedom and democracy," or at least the closest approximation to the democratic ideal that exists. Whatever their assessment of current U.S. foreign policy, they regard their country as the Promised Land, the embodiment of Western virtue, the deliverer of freedom to oppressed peoples.Many see it, too, as the only national state that wages perpetual war for the global good. From starting a war to setting aside the prohibitions of international law and morality, the U.S. is entitled to do, beyond its borders, what it wants when it wants, provided the action can be justified in utilitarian terms of saving American lives and the U.S. Congress goes along with it.
Whether we call this absolute veneration of "America" national essentialism or millennialism, whether we see it as the outlook of a superpower or the prerogative of a self-designated Chosen People, at its root lies "the belief that [American] history, under divine guidance, will bring about the triumph of Christian principles" and eventually the emergence of "a holy utopia."3 Such faith in the unique moral destiny of the United States may be held independently of Christian beliefs. Its historical origins, however, trace back to colonial New England, and beyond that to the Bible; and it is omnipresent in every part of the country, even though its strongest regional base presently lies in the South and West. [...]
If Hiroshima and Nagasaki, My Lai and Abu Ghraib, did not dent, let alone shatter, the conquering Chosen People ideology, what chance is there that U.S. failure in Iraq will? As long as U.S. political and economic institutions elude thoroughgoing reform, and American officials at the highest level enjoy total immunity for their crimes, the historic cycle will recur.
Reign of Terror (NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, 9/11/04, NY times)
[I] salute the Bush administration for formally declaring on Thursday that the slaughter is a genocide. [...][But] I've got some questions. [...]
For France and Germany I sympathized with your opposition to the war in Iraq. But are you really now so petty and anti-Bush that you refuse to stand with the U.S. against the slaughter in Darfur, or even to contribute significant sums to ease the suffering?
Does the Chirac government really want to show the moral blindness to Sudan's genocide that the Vichy regime did to Hitler's?
For the Islamic world You're absolutely right to hold Israel's feet to the fire over its often brutal treatment of Palestinians, but why don't you also care about dead Sudanese? In August, according to a human rights monitoring group, Israel killed 42 Palestinians, including fighters. In the same period, according to the World Health Organization, more than 10,000 people died in Darfur - virtually all of them Muslim.
Islamic Relief is doing an excellent job, but the Muslim victims of Darfur are getting far more help from Jewish and Christian aid groups than from Islamic charities.
For the United Nations Agencies like the U.N. World Food Program are working heroically to keep the victims alive, but the U.N. as a whole has failed to respond to Sudanese atrocities. Mostly that's because of the failure of member states, but I'm afraid that some of the responsibility has to be charged to a man I like and respect: Kofi Annan.
I hate to say it, but the way things are going, when he dies his obituary will begin: "Kofi Annan, the former U.N. secretary general who at various points in his career presided ineffectually over the failure to stop genocide, first in Rwanda and then in Sudan, died today. "
Poll: Bush Bounce Persists: Kerry remains behind, 52%-41%, in a three-way race (MARK SCHULMAN, Sep. 10, 2004, TIME)
Last week’s seismic voter shift to George W. Bush showed no signs of dwindling in this week’s Time Poll. Bush continues to lead Democratic challenger John Kerry among likely voters by double digits, 52% - 41%, in the three way race, with Nader at 3%, the same as last week. [...]* Job rating: Bush is now at 56% approve – 41% disapprove, solidly above the 50% historical threshold for re-electing incumbents. A month ago, he was up only 5 points, with his favorability just at 50%.
Kerry critics draw crowd, ire during speech in S.F. (Josh Richman, September 11, 2004, Oakland Tribune)
Former Deputy Assistant Navy Secretary Wade Sanders of San Diego, who commanded a swift boat alongside Kerry's and who now leads California Veterans for Kerry, called O'Neill's claims "a pack of lies." "I would go into combat with John Kerry any time, any place -- I wouldn't follow George Bush into an ice cream parlor."O'Neill "needs to be confronted with the lies he's fomenting," Sanders said. He likened O'Neill and Karl Rove to Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels, saying they "studied at that man's knee."
Why Greenspan Is Staying the Course: Despite a recent dip in inflation, the Fed chief has good longer-term reasons to continue hiking rates (Rich Miller, 9/09/04, Business Week)
When Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan kicked off his credit-tightening campaign on June 30, there was no question why he was raising interest rates. Inflation was picking up, and the recovery appeared to be on solid ground: Gross domestic product had grown at a 5.3% annual rate over the previous three quarters, and even the sluggish jobs market had finally sprung to life.Now, though, the case for tightening isn't as obvious.
Can Islam change?: Beslan and 9/11 are leading millions of Muslims to search their souls. Even clerics now question the harshest traditional laws and look for a more humane interpretation of their faith. (Ziauddin Sardar, New Statesman)
The Muslim world is changing. Three years after the atrocity of 9/11, it may be in the early stages of a reformation, albeit with a small "r". From Morocco to Indonesia, people are trying to develop a more contemporary and humane interpretation of Islam, and some countries are undergoing major transformations.Much of the attention is focused on reformulating the sharia, the centuries-old body of Islamic law deeply embedded in a medieval psychology. The sharia is state law in many Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and the Sudan. For many conservative and radical Muslims, the sharia is Islam: it cannot be changed, and must be imposed in exactly the shape it was first formulated in the ninth century. Since 9/11, there has been a seismic shift in this perception. More and more Muslims now perceive Islamic law to be dangerously obsolete. And these include the ulema, the religious scholars and clerics, who have a tremendous hold on the minds of the Muslim masses. [...]
Elsewhere, the focus is not so much on Islamic law as on Islam as a whole. In a general election last March, the Malaysian prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, argued that Islam was almost totally associated with violence and extremism and needed to be formulated anew. He called his new concept "Islam Hadhari", or progressive Islam. It was pitted against the "conservative Islam" of the main opposition party, the Islamic Pas. For the first time, the governing coalition won more than 90 per cent of federal parliamentary seats. Pas, and its version of Islam (full implementation of the sharia, without modification; a leading role in the state for religious scholars; and so on), were routed.
Badawi, who is a trained religious scholar, took the term "hadhari" from Ibn Khaldun, the 14th-century Muslim historian and founder of sociology. The term signifies urban civilisation; and Islam Hadhari emphasises economic development, civic life and cultural progress. When Muslims talk about Islam, says Abdullah Mohd Zain, a minister in the prime minister's department, "there is always the tendency to link it to the past, to the Prophet's time". Islam Hadhari gives equal emphasis to the present and the future. "It emphasises wisdom, practicality and harmony," says Zain. "It encourages moderation or a balanced approach to life. Yet it does not stray from the fundamentals of the Koran and the example and sayings of the Prophet." [...]
While Malaysia has a top-down model, Indonesia has opted for the bottom-up route. The reformist agenda is being promoted by Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the two largest and most influential Muslim organisations. Established at the dawn of the 20th century, they command between 60 and 80 million followers in mosques, schools and universities throughout Indonesia.
NU, essentially an organisation of religious scholars, is usually described as traditionalist, while Muhammadiyah, dominated by intellectuals, is seen as modernist. Since 9/11, however, the two organisations have acted, in some respects, as one. Both are committed to promoting civic society and reformulating sharia. They are campaigning jointly against corruption in public life and in favour of accountable, open democracy. The newly formed Liberal Islam Network - intended to resist radical groups such as Laskar Jihad (Army of Jihad) and Jemaah Islamiyah, which was implicated in the October 2002 Bali bombings - follows a similar programme. Its membership consists largely of young Muslims.
All three organisations promote a model of Islamic reform that they call "deformalisation". [...]
Muslims worldwide are acknowledging the need for fundamental change in their perception of Islam. They are making conscious efforts to move away from medieval notions of Islamic law and to implement the vision of justice, equality and beauty that is rooted in the Koran. If such changes continue, the future will not repeat the recent past.
Third anniversary (David Warren, September 11, 2004, Ottawa Citizen)
The Western world, in its post-Christian decadence, still does not comprehend the fire that burns in the souls of our adversaries. In the savage but not entirely unfair estimate of an Iranian correspondent, whose own life is in constant peril: "You were scared. But now you have eaten, and you have copulated, and you want to go back to sleep."Not entirely fair, for while Canada sleeps, the U.S. continues its vigil. In Iraq, it is fighting, sometimes hand to hand in towns like Fallujah and Samarra, with gunmen of the same irregular army that struck it that beautifully clear morning in 2001. [...]
In three years, the U.S. has liberated 50 million Muslims from abject and murderous tyrannies -- has overthrown the Taliban and Saddam Hussein -- and created openings that would not otherwise exist for people in Pakistan, Libya, and elsewhere. Mention this to my media colleagues, and I can expect hoots of derision and eyeball-rolling. But if I mention it instead to the people I have communicated with daily on the ground in Afghanistan, or Iraq, I find that it is still considered a miracle, like the fall of the Berlin Wall.
What the U.S. does not know, though it try, is how to create an alternative, sane political order in any of these countries, to defeat the Jihad. For that is, finally, up to the people among whom the Jihadis have nestled. The alternative being "black glass" on an unimaginable scale.
The U.S. can, and probably will in a second Bush term, escalate the battle, join it on new fronts, and I hope, pull fewer punches. But on the third anniversary of 9/11, the full seriousness of the Islamist menace -- of the lethal ideology that is still spreading mind to mind through the Muslim world -- is not yet appreciated.
Over the coming decades, either "Islamism", or the West, will be destroyed.
Amid Skepticism, CBS Sticks to Bush Guard Story (James Rainey and Elizabeth Jensen, September 11, 2004, LA Times)
As another of the corroborating experts for its report, CBS and Rather presented an on-air interview with Marcel B. Matley, a San Francisco document examiner. Rather said Matley had corroborated the four Killian memos.But in an interview with The Times, the analyst said he had only judged a May 4, 1972, memo — in which Killian ordered Bush to take his physical — to be authentic.
He said he did not form a judgment on the three other disputed memos because they only included Killian's initials and he did not have validated samples of the officer's initials to use for comparison.
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RATHER FORGES AHEAD (DEBORAH ORIN and VINCENT MORRIS, September 11, 2004, NY Post)
He produced a man named Marcel Matley as the document vetter.But Matley is primarily a handwriting expert whose expertise in document evaluation has been challenged by the head of the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners.
Matley spoke only about a signature and initials purported to be those of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian — "they are his signatures" — though two of the four memos are unsigned.
Rather also acknowledged CBS has no originals, only photocopies.
Allan Haley — a typeface expert at Agfa Monotype — said anyone who claims to definitively authenticate a photocopy "is either guessing or is a fool."
Retired National Guard members and even an Army Reservist home on leave from Iraq say they aren't bothered by memos indicating President Bush was suspended from flying because he skipped a medical exam and missed six months of training with his Texas Air National Guard unit during the Vietnam war.They said it's common for Guard members and reservists to miss drills - even up to six months - because of job conflicts, family problems or illness, and the members are encouraged to make up the drills so they don't lose pay or eligibility for retirement benefits.
"We worked around it. There's all kinds of situations ... that cause a person to go out of state for a period of time," said Ralph Bradley, 56, who served three years in Vietnam with the Air Force and 17 years with the Georgia Army National Guard.
From 1814, Tales Keep A-Comin' (JEFF Z. KLEIN, 9/11/04, NY Times)
The War of 1812 has lain mostly dormant in the American imagination for generations, its memory invoked only rarely, as in Johnny Horton's 1959 hit version of "The Battle of New Orleans" ("we fired once more, and the British kept a-comin' ") or in periodic retellings of the story of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Otherwise, the war remains an overlooked episode in American history, perhaps because it ended in a draw.But the History Channel has been doing its best to make Americans remember the conflict, heavily promoting "First Invasion: The War of 1812," a two-hour documentary that it will show at 9 tomorrow night. Why this obscure war now? The key lies in the first part of the title. It is the documentary's contention that the War of 1812 teaches a lesson about the invasion of the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
That connection is explicitly drawn in the opening moments of the documentary when the words "September 11" fill the black screen over the sound of explosions and alarm bells and the voiceover intones ominously, "America is on the brink of annihilation." The screen then brightens to show cannon and soldiers in period costume, and the title changes to "September 11, 1814" - the date British forces advanced on Baltimore after burning Washington.
According to the documentary's view of the war, the fledgling republic perseveres against the enormous odds stacked against it by the powerful British military and its own disorganization. And if "First Invasion" backs off the Sept. 11 parallel soon after the opening, it does see the war as an inspiring lesson for Americans in a time of crisis.
"It is a story of courage, endurance and a little bit of luck," the narration says. "Forged by fire, united by will, a young nation defied the odds - and won."
But the documentary, from Native Sun Productions, tells the story of the War of 1812 selectively, leaving out large portions that would show American conduct in the war in a less successful and less glorious light.
Bush and Kerry Step Up Attacks in Swing States (RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DAVID M. HALBFINGER, 9/11/04, NY Times)
Mr. Kerry's advisers concede that the drumbeat of attacks from Mr. Bush has been effective. But divisions have surfaced in the campaign and in the party over how best - and how far - to take on Mr. Bush.As a first step, the Kerry campaign this week dispatched the Democratic National Committee to go after Mr. Bush on his military record, and to begin criticizing Mr. Bush as a liar and a sheltered "son of privilege" who used connections to avoid combat in his youth and was out of touch with ordinary Americans.
Officials said these attacks were being made through the party and not the campaign to provide a measure of distance from Mr. Kerry, who is described by many officials as reluctant himself to impugn the president's character.
Now, the more difficult question, officials say, is just how the Kerry campaign - even if Mr. Kerry does not take part directly - should go after Mr. Bush. Some of Mr. Kerry's closest friends and longtime political operatives from Boston, who have now set up shop at Democratic headquarters in Washington, are pressing for more, saying the campaign and the candidate must go on the offensive, to restore Mr. Kerry's own character as a political asset and to hold Mr. Bush accountable for attacks on Mr. Kerry.
These friends and former aides, led by David Thorne, a Yale classmate, fellow Navy veteran and brother of Mr. Kerry's first wife, are agitating for the candidate himself to answer what they called the character-assassination attacks of people like Vice President Cheney and members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. They are pushing for Mr. Kerry to make a dramatic statement of his own to settle voters' doubts about Mr. Kerry's Vietnam War period.
Officials in the campaign, however, including both longstanding consultants like Bob Shrum and new additions like Joe Lockhart and other veterans of the Clinton administration, have balked at such a move, saying it could be a disaster and alienate too many swing voters who would view such an approach as mean-spirited. They said Mr. Kerry would do better to concentrate on issues where he outperforms Mr. Bush in polls, like jobs and health care.
A critical concern, several campaign officials said, is that polls have already shown Mr. Kerry's negative ratings rising recently, making it an exceptionally dangerous moment for him to attack Mr. Bush personally, since voters typically react with disapproval when candidates do so.
Mr. Kerry's "character has been damaged," said one ranking campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And the campaign failed to defend the guy. We're in a tough spot. Some of the work we do on George Bush has to come from other parties.''
As the story says, they are now well and truly stuck.
September 11 and Its Aftermath (Juan Cole, 9/11/04, Informed Comment)
In order to evaluate the aftermath of September 11, we first must understand that event. What did al-Qaeda intend to achieve? Only if we understand that can we gauge their success or failure.From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country. They believe that it once had this political unity, under the early caliphs. [...]
For al-Qaeda to succeed, it must overthrow the individual nation-states in the Middle East, most of them colonial creations, and unite them into a single, pan-Islamic state. [...]
The attack on the World Trade Center was exactly analogous to Pearl Harbor. The Japanese generals had to neutralize the US fleet so that they could sweep into Southeast Asia and appropriate Indonesian petroleum. The US was going to cut off imperial Japan from petroleum, and without fuel the Japanese could not maintain their empire in China and Korea. So they pushed the US out of the way and took an alternative source of petroleum away from the Dutch (which then ruled what later became Indonesia).
Likewise, al-Qaeda was attempting to push the United States out of the Middle East so that Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia would become more vulnerable to overthrow, lacking a superpower patron. Secondarily, the attack was conceived as revenge on the United States and American Jews for supporting Israel and the severe oppression of the Palestinians. Bin Laden wanted to move the timing of the operation up to spring of 2001 so as to "punish" the Israelis for their actions against the Palestinians in the second Intifadah. Khalid Shaikh Muhammad was mainly driven in planning the attack by his rage at Israel over the Palestinian issue. Another goal is to destroy the US economy, so weakening it that it cannot prevent the emergence of the Islamic superpower.
Al-Qaeda wanted to build enthusiasm for the Islamic superstate among the Muslim populace, to convince ordinary Muslims that the US could be defeated and they did not have to accept the small, largely secular, and powerless Middle Eastern states erected in the wake of colonialism. Jordan's population, e.g. is 5.6 million. Tunisia, a former French colony, is 10 million, less than Michigan. Most Muslims have been convinced of the naturalness of the nation-state model and are proud of their new nations, however small and weak. Bin Laden had to do a big demonstration project to convince them that another model is possible.
Bin Laden hoped the US would timidly withdraw from the Middle East. But he appears to have been aware that an aggressive US response to 9/11 was entirely possible. In that case, he had a Plan B: al-Qaeda hoped to draw the US into a debilitating guerrilla war in Afghanistan and do to the US military what they had earlier done to the Soviets. Al-Zawahiri's recent message shows that he still has faith in that strategy.
The US cleverly outfoxed al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, using air power and local Afghan allies (the Northern Alliance) to destroy the Taliban without many American boots on the ground.
Ironically, however, the Bush administration then went on to invade Iraq for no good reason, where Americans faced the kind of wearing guerrilla war they had avoided in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda has succeeded in several of its main goals. [...]
If the Muslim world can find a way to combine the sophisticated intellectuals and engineers of Damascus and Cairo with the oil wealth of the Persian Gulf, it could well emerge as a 21st century superpower.
Bin Laden's dream of a united Muslim state under a revived caliphate may well be impossible to accomplish. But with the secular Baath gone, it could be one step closer to reality.
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Chechen Rebels Mainly Driven By Nationalism (C. J. CHIVERS and STEVEN LEE MYERS, 9/11/04, NY Times)
Chechnya's separatists have received money, men, training and ideological inspiration from international Islamic organizations, but they remain an indigenous and largely self-sustaining force motivated by nationalist more than Islamic goals, Russian and international officials and experts say.The flow of financing from Islamic groups that supported Chechnya's separatist movement has slowed from its peak in the late 1990's, Sergei N. Ignatchenko, chief spokesman for Russia's Federal Security Service said in an interview on Friday. And yet Chechnya's separatists have recently managed to carry out the most devastating attacks against Russia in years, killing nearly 600 people since late June alone.
They have also organized through local means, exploiting Russia's weak security and corruption to travel and arm themselves, the officials and experts said.
Although President Vladimir V. Putin and others have accused international terrorists of sustaining the war in Chechnya, the relationship between the separatists and Islamic terrorists abroad remains only an element in a far more complicated war, they said.
Despite assertions that Arab fighters took part in the seizure of Middle School No. 1 in Beslan 10 days ago, officials have yet to establish that any of the fighters came from abroad or received training or supplies elsewhere. Of the dead identified so far, all came from Ingushetia or were ethnic Chechens, including some who raided police and other security garrisons in Ingushetia in June, killing nearly 100.
Whether he's flipping or flopping, Kerry's just wrong (THOMAS ROESER, September 11, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
John Kerry is not only uncertain about where he stands; he's politically bipolar.Hiring Bill Clinton's old staff to shore up his campaign won't work. Anyone who follows the news can tell you what's wrong with his campaign. It isn't the campaign staff -- it's the uncertainty of the candidate. Thus, we have the Kerry who says Iraq is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time while having voted for it and still defends both propositions. Kerry claims heroism in Vietnam, after which he repented for a war filled with atrocities, some of which he himself committed. This isn't only wallowing in uncertainty -- Kerry shows evidence of a serious political bipolar problem. One cannot be both Sergeant York and Daniel Ellsberg at the same time. His only supporters are the old media (eastern newspapers and the three TV networks), determined to elect him despite his bipolarity.
But the zig-zags can't be hidden. His war stories triggered the counterattack by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- and the Massachusetts senator's campaign collapsed. Consider: How can one use home movies to film himself as the gallant warrior and later say that Ho Chi Minh is the George Washington of Vietnam [according to Unfit for Command by John O'Neill, page 137]? How do you advocate troop redeployment on Aug. 1, 2004, and attack Bush for it on Aug. 18? How can he talk so warmly about a ''band of brothers'' in Vietnam and forget his 1971 testimony before the U.S. Senate about unspeakable atrocities being committed by Americans ''on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command''?
Sparks fly over EU-Turkey remarks (UPI, 9/08/04)
Dutch Commissioner Fritz Bolkestein said earlier this year Turkish membership would turn the EU into "little more than a glorified customs union," but in a speech at Leiden University in the Netherlands Tuesday, he claimed that "immigration pressure" from the south would mount dramatically.He quoted Islamic history scholar Bernard Lewis, saying that by the end of this century Europe would be predominantly Islamic.
"If he turns out to be right, the liberation of Vienna in 1683 will have been in vain," Bolkestein said, referring to the Polish, German and Austrian armies that freed Vienna from a siege led by Ottoman Turks.
Ruling Class War (DAVID BROOKS, 9/11/04, NY Times)
There are two sorts of people in the information-age elite, spreadsheet people and paragraph people. Spreadsheet people work with numbers, wear loafers and support Republicans. Paragraph people work with prose, don't shine their shoes as often as they should and back Democrats.C.E.O.'s are classic spreadsheet people. According to a sample gathered by PoliticalMoneyLine in July, the number of C.E.O.'s donating funds to Bush's campaign is five times the number donating to Kerry's.
Professors, on the other hand, are classic paragraph people and lean Democratic. Eleven academics gave to the Kerry campaign for every 1 who gave to Bush's. Actors like paragraphs, too, albeit short ones. Almost 18 actors gave to Kerry for every 1 who gave to Bush. For self-described authors, the ratio was about 36 to 1. Among journalists, there were 93 Kerry donors for every Bush donor. For librarians, who must like Faulknerian, sprawling paragraphs, the ratio of Kerry to Bush donations was a whopping 223 to 1.
Laura Bush has a lot of work to do in shoring up her base.
Major Airlines Struggle in a Jet Stream of Change: Low-fare carriers and high fuel costs keep up the pressure three years into a post-attack slump. (James F. Peltz, September 11, 2004, LA Times)
They have been pummeled by several jarring events since 2001, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks and this year's surge in fuel prices. But beyond these shocks, many analysts and industry executives say, something even more fundamental is going on: The airlines' traditional way of doing business is failing.Since the attacks, the carriers have lost a collective $27 billion.
The growth of smaller, discount airlines such as Southwest, JetBlue and AirTran is one big factor. Their rise has cut into the larger airlines' share of the market and has helped drive fares lower overall.
That has been good news for the nearly 650 million travelers who board domestic flights each year. But it has robbed the major carriers of their ability to raise prices to offset their enormous costs and stop the bleeding.
9/11 letters (Arthur Schlesinger and Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian, September 11, 2004)
Arthur Schlesinger tries to allay European anxieties about the bellicose new America. Timothy Garton Ash repliesSchlesinger:
The second world war was a far more menacing conflict with far more dangerous foes. But it did not threaten Americans in the daily rounds of their lives. Today many feel an intense personal vulnerability they have never felt before. Of course, Europeans have grown accustomed to local terrorism - ETA Basques in Spain, Red gangs in Italy and Germany, Corsicans in France, and the old IRA in Britain. For Americans terrorism is a novel and horrid experience.
This mysterious new threat led a new administration in Washington to change the basis of US foreign policy. That basis had been containment and deterrence, a combination that won us the cold war. The new basis of US foreign policy is preventive war, which cold war American presidents had abhorred and vetoed. The Bush doctrine is to attack an enemy, unilaterally if necessary, before it has a chance to attack us, a right reserved to the US. This casts the US as the world's judge, jury and executioner. Hardly a popular position.[...]
It is not likely that many people in the two opposing camps will change their minds between today and November 2, election day. The battle is for the undecided 10 per cent. The Democratic candidate, Senator John F Kerry of Massachusetts, is in the school of FDR and JFK. His campaign has faltered momentarily but in the past he has shown himself to be a hard fighter and a strong finisher.
Immediately after 9/11 a wave of worldwide sympathy engulfed America. Three years later, America is regarded with hostility around the world. Never in American history has the US been so unpopular abroad. That is not lost on the American voter. And the great strength, the great virtue, of democracy is its capacity for self-correction. So my European friends, do not despair!
ASH:
I am alarmed by the militarisation of political rhetoric in the US over the three years since this century's Pearl Harbor. Too often, the country seems to be engrossed in a mythic, heroic narrative of patriotic, martial prowess. This extends to the heroic pleasure of standing not just tall but alone, like Gary Cooper in High Noon. In real life, it helps to have a few friends.
Terrorism is never excusable, but it is often explicable. Explanations point to causes. Only if we address the political and economic causes of terrorism, as well as the thing itself, will we ever have a chance of winning this war. There is not just "terror" or "terrorism"; there are terrorisms, and they differ greatly. What the Chechen terrorists did to those children in Beslan was among the most evil acts that any human being can perpetrate against another. But it had causes, and some of them lie in the brutality and stupidity of Russian policy towards Chechnya over the last decade.
To reflect on the political causes and how they can be removed is not weakness or appeasement, as the American right insists. It's the kind of common sense that the US itself showed when it encouraged political negotiations with representatives of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Albanian-Macedonian National Liberation Army and the Irish Republican Army, all of which used the methods of terrorism to achieve their political goals.
Equally, nothing can justify Palestinian suicide bombers killing innocent Israeli civilians. Nothing. Ever. But their acts have causes, and if we are to win the war against terrorism, we have to remove those causes. We have to be strong, but also wise. At the moment, Europe needs a bit more strength and America a bit more wisdom. So, my American friends, we're in this together and we look to you. We have not forgotten; we will never forget.
The sensitive among you may wish to avoid reading this exchange on a full stomach. It contains just about every leftist shibboleth and mantra imaginable, made more nauseating by the cloying protestations of eternal love. But two questions do arise. The first is, regardless of what one may feel about European opinion, what intellectual or psychological force drives Mr. Schlesinger, who represents the stronger power, to grovel for the approval of the vastly weaker one and crave the legitimacy of its applause? Is this not unprecedented historically? The second is would Mr. Ash see any difference at all between strategies for removing the causes of unjustifiable terrorism and the causes of legitimate protest? Beyond panic, that is.
CBS falls for Kerry campaign's fake memo (MARK STEYN, September 12, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
A few weeks ago, Thomas Oliphant of the Boston Globe was on PBS' ''Newshour'' explaining why the hundreds of swift boat veterans' allegations against John Kerry's conduct in Vietnam was unworthy of his attention. "The standard of clear and convincing evidence," he said, talking to Swiftvet John O'Neill as if he were a backward fourth-grader, ''is what keeps this story in the tabloids -- because it does not meet basic standards.''Last week, we got a good idea of what Thomas Oliphant's ''basic standards'' are. Dan Rather and the elderly gentlemen at ''60 Minutes'' were all atwitter because they'd come into possession of some hitherto undiscovered memos relating to whether George W. Bush failed to show up for his physical in the War of 1812. The media had been flogging this dead horse all spring, but these newly ''discovered'' memos had jump-started the old nag just enough to get him on his knees long enough for the media to flog him all over again.
Unfortunately for CBS, Dan Rather's hairdresser sucks up so much of the budget that there was nothing left for any fact-checking, so the ''60 Minutes'' crew rushed on air with a damning National Guard memo conveniently called ''CYA'' that Bush's commanding officer had written to himself 32 years ago. ''This was too hot not to push,'' one producer told the American Spectator. Hundreds of living Swiftvets who've signed affidavits and are prepared to testify on camera -- that's way too cold to push; we'd want to fact-check that one thoroughly, till, say, midway through John Kerry's second term. But a handful of memos by one dead guy slipped to us by a Kerry campaign operative -- that meets ''basic standards'' and we gotta get it out there right away.
The only problem was the memo.
Inflation Tames -- So Should the Fed (Larry Kudlow, September 10, 2004, Townhall)
Hawkish inflationism on Wall Street took a bath with the release of an anemic producer price report late this week. The producer price index (PPI) -- a measure of what businesses are paying for goods and materials -- shows that inflation is in fact falling.Prices of finished goods have declined in two of the past three months, amounting to a 1.1 percent decline-rate over the period. More, the core PPI registered a marginal 0.5 percent at an annual rate over the past three months, including a one-tenth of a percent price drop in August. After an early-year inflation flare-up, price indexes are settling in around zero.
Noteworthy is the 2.1 percent annualized decline-rate in the price of consumer goods over the past three months, and a 13.6 percent deflation-rate for computers. Overall, capital-goods prices are rising less than 1 percent, while the price index for durable goods (in the July report for consumer spending and income) plunged 1.9 percent over the past twelve months.
50 days to go, 10 points behind, Kerry struggles for second wind (Julian Borger, September 11, 2004, The Guardian)
With 50 days left in his presidential campaign and nearly 10 points behind in the polls, John Kerry found himself this week in a familiar situation: surrounded by people willing him on, but who were having trouble understanding what he had to say. [...]After all the months on the road, many Americans are unclear about what he stands for, partly thanks to the efforts of the White House, which spent much of last week's Republican convention in New York lampooning him as a "flip-flopper".
The charge has been hard to scrape off, because it contains a large fragment of truth.
The Massachusetts senator has altered course on key issues, most notably Iraq, and he has yet to convince people that changing your mind is better than making consistently bad decisions, as he insists the president has done. [...]
[T]he inescapable truth is that the Democrats' campaign has been blown off course; the president has succeeded in conveying his simple "me strong, him weak" tune.
The tension has been noticeable in the Kerry camp, where speeches are being rewritten hours before delivery, and new faces have begun to appear on the team.
German president reaches out to U.S. (Jordan Bonfante, 9/10/04, UPI)
Exactly 10 years ago, the extensive American military garrison that had faced off against the Soviets throughout the Cold War, mothballed its Abram tanks, kissed the girls goodbye, and vacated southwestern Berlin for good. Under a September drizzle, tens of thousands of flag-waving Berliners lined the streets to watch them go. To this day, several miles of their blockhouse billeting along the Clay Allee, as well as the oversized former U.S. embassy compound across from Truman Platz, still stand forlornly empty.Gone but not forgotten. On the grounds of the American Academy in Berlin on the lakeshore of scenic Wannsee on Thursday, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder used the anniversary of that allied exit to express an effusive historical thank you. He also used it to make his latest attempt at some trans-Atlantic fence-mending. He pledged a series of noncombatant contributions that Germany is willing to make to help rebuild Iraq -- beginning with the promise to forgive a "substantial" portion of Iraq's debt repayments. [...]
On Iraq, Schroeder pledged that Germany would cooperate in a number of noncombatant ways once the security situation in under control. "We all have an interest in winning the peace and a secure and stable future in Iraq and in the entire region -- and that goes for all of us, whatever we believed about whether the war was necessary or not," he said. "In cooperation with the Iraqi interim government, we have agreed in the future to train Iraqi police and also Iraqi soldiers. As soon as the security situation allows, we will also begin with civilian reconstruction aid. We also want to promote reconstruction by being prepared, within the framework of the Paris Club (of creditors) to forego a substantial repayment of Iraqi financial commitments." He indicated that he was fully confident that Germany would get a fair shake when reconstruction contracts were handed out.
In his speech, Schroeder conspicuously played down his vehement opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq or the long Atlantic crisis that followed.
Here are links and articles we collected immediately after 9-11, but before we had the blog. Many will likely be dead by now (if you put a comment I'll try to take dead ones down), but all are reminders of what mattered to us then and it's interesting to see things like the contoversies (remember the argument over how many Muslims there are in America) and especially to see things like how the Left declared defeat in Afghanistan too.
Please also let us know in the Comments if any of the ones you read are particularly good--like this one, The Queen's Tears. (Mark Steyn, September 17, 2001, National Review)--we'll try to separate them out and post them or if you see other stuff elsewhere today that should be added. Thanks.:
TWIN TOWERS & PENTAGON ATTACK :
MEMORIAL FUNDS & MEMORIAL PAGES :
-Ryan Garland
-NEW YORK STATE WORLD TRADE CENTER RELIEF FUND
-Relief and Emergency Info (Yahoo!)
ADDRESS TO JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS :
-TEXT: of Speech
-VIDEO: of Speech
-ESSAY & LINKS : Bush Speech Wows Critics (Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, 9/20/01)
-ARTICLE: Hockey fans demand to watch Bush speech (Ira Podell, Associated Press)
-ESSAY: Rupert Cornwell: America was looking for comfort, inspiration and leadership. Bush stood up and delivered (22 September 2001, Independent uk)
-ESSAY: Echoes of Lincoln (David S. Broder, September 23, 2001, Washington Post)
-ESSAY: I opposed George W. Bush. I was wrong. (Gerald Posner, 9/25/01, Wall Street Journal)
-ESSAY: What Bush got right - and wrong (Daniel Pipes, The Jerusalem Post, September 26, 2001)
-ESSAY: Leading America Beyond Fear (BOB HERBERT, September 24, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: BUSH'S GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT : Outside In (Sam Tanenhaus, NewRepublic, 09.26.01)
-ESSAY: The 2,988 Words That Changed a Presidency: An Etymology (D.T. MAX, October 7, 2001, NY Times)
TEXTS :
-President
Bush Address to the Nation
-President Bush at National Cathedral (September 14, 2001)
-White House : Briefing Room
-ARTICLE: All Must Join Fight Against Terror, Bush Tells U.N. (UN General Assembly Speech, 11/11/2001)
-FBI Websites Document Evidence Against Bin Laden
-Joint
Resolution of Congress
GENERAL SITES :
-Hunting bin Laden (PBS Frontline)
-RESOURCES: SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 TERRORIST ATTACKS : BACKGROUND INFORMATION (Thomas Brister, Center for Civic Renewal and Department of Government and International Affairs, Sweet Briar College, Virginia)
-LINKS: Saja : September 11 Roundup
-Bert is Evil
-URBAN LEGENDS : Rumors of War
-Slate Magazine collection of editorial cartoons featuring the Statue of Liberty
-Afgha.com: The Site of the Northern Alliance
-Sign a Citizen's Declaration of War
-100 Questions and Answers about Arab Americans (Detroit Free Press)
-Pentagon
-War on Terrorism (J. C. Watts Homepage)
-LINKS: Attack on the U.S.: An Internet Guide (David Plotz, Sept. 11, 2001, Slate)
-LINKS: Trade Centre Crash (Ananova)
-NewsMax.com
-Real Clear Politics
-Stratfor.com
-Suggestions on how to pray about the American tragedy of September 11, 2001 (ChristianAnswers.Net)
-ARCHIVES: Research Buzz (9/11)
-ARCHIVES: Osama bin Laden (Salon)
-ARCHIVES: Readers' picks: best stories (Common Dreams)
WORLD TRADE CENTER :
-World Trade Center Web Site
-Terror in New York City (Skyscrapers.com)
-PHOTOS: World Trade Center - Before and After Comparison
-ESSAY: When the Twin Towers Fell : One month after the attack on the World Trade Center, M.I.T. structural engineers offer their take on how and why the towers came down. (Steven Ashley, October 2001, Scientific American)
-ESSAY: Why Did the World Trade Center Towers Collapse? (Dahlia Lithwick, Sept. 11, 2001, Slate)
-ESSAY: After Modernism (Roger Scruton, Spring 2000, City Journal)
PAPERS :
-SPECIAL EDITION : NY Times Magazine : This issue is made up of words written and images captured in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack
-Daily News : Yahoo : Full Coverage
-Washington Post: America Under Attack
-NY Daily News : Attack on America
-LA
Times : America Attacked
-USA Today : Attack
-Baltimore
Sun : US Under Attack
-Boston
Globe : New day of infamy
-CNN.com: Special Report
-NandoTimes: America Under Attack
-Philadelphia
Daily News : America Attacked
ARTICLES, ANALYSIS & ESSAYS :
-ARTICLE: On Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center in New York, causing the 110-story twin towers to collapse. Another hijacked airliner hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Some 3,000 people were killed in all. (NY Times, 9/12/03)
-SPECIAL
SERIES: Ten Days in September ( Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, Washington
Post)
-ESSAY: The Philosopher of Islamic Terror (PAUL BERMAN, March 23, 2003, NY Times Magazine)
-ARCHIVES:
America at War (Washington Post)
-Inside
the Terror Network (PBS Frontline)
-September
11 (Time Magazine)
-General
Resources on Terrorism: Osama bin Laden
-War
on Terrorism : This section contains the best of The Observer's coverage
of the terrorism crisis following September 11th
-Christian
Science Monitor Guide to Books of September 11th
-ESSAY
: It's Always Been Washington vs. the Field (EDWARD P. LAZARUS, August
11, 2002, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?: Long before the tragic events of September 11th, the White House debated taking the fight to al-Qaeda. It
didn't happen and soon it was too late. The saga of a lost chance (MICHAEL
ELLIOTT, TIME)
-ARTICLE: U.S. intelligence agencies received many more indications than previously
disclosed that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was planning imminent
"spectacular" attacks in the summer of 2001 aimed at inflicting mass casualties, according to the preliminary findings of a joint congressional intelligence panel report released yesterday. (The Washington Post)
-ARTICLE: Desperation forced a horrific decision (Dennis Cauchon and Martha T. Moore, 9/03/02, USA TODAY)
-ESSAY: Bravery and Breakdowns in a Ridgetop Battle : 7 Americans Died in Rescue Effort That Revealed Mistakes and Determination (Bradley Graham, May 24, 2002, Washington Post)
-ESSAY: A Memo to American Muslims (M. A. Muqtedar Khan)
-ARTICLE: Bush says Afghanistan just the beginning, warns Iraq and North Korea on major weapons (RON FOURNIER, November 27 2001, Associated Press)
-ARTICLE: Most Americans Back U.S. Tactics : Poll Finds Little Worry Over Rights (Richard Morin and Claudia Deane, Washington Post, November 29, 2001)
-ARTICLE: Poll: Americans still strongly support war (Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY, 11/29/2001)
-ARTICLE: Terrorism In Early America : The U.S. Wages War Against The Barbary States To End International Blackmail and Terrorism (Thomas Jewett, Early America)
-ARTICLE: British Muslim support for terror (11/04/01, Times of London)
-ARTICLE: The week it all went wobbly for the West : With public confidence slipping, military doubts growing and a PR disaster in the Middle East, the allies have discovered it will take more than B52s and a few handshakes to put the world to rights. (David Cracknell, November 4 2001 , Times of London)
-ARTICLE: Islam Experts Off on a Wild Ride, Willing or Not (ALEXANDER STILLE, November 10, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: How Many American Muslims? (Daniel Pipes)
-ARTICLE: An American Dream, Slightly Apart : N.J. Muslim Family Feels a Separateness (Anne Hull, October 27, 2001, Washington Post)
-ARTICLE: New York Cleric's Departure From Mosque Leaves Mystery (LAURIE GOODSTEIN, 10/23/01, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Security Before Liberty : Today's curbs on freedom are nothing compared with earlier wars. (JAY WINIK, October 23, 2001, Wall Street Journal)
-ARTICLE: THE DEMOCRATS : Bush Winning Gore Backers' High Praises (RICHARD L. BERKE, 10/20/01, NY Times)
-ARTICLE: Iraq 'behind US anthrax outbreaks' (David Rose and Ed Vulliamy, October 14, 2001, The Observer)
-ARTICLE: Muslim Ruling Endorses U.S. Action (RICHARD N. OSTLING, October 12, 2001, AP)
-INTERVIEW: Overrating the Taliban? (Shamus Toomey, October 14, 2001, Chicago Daily Herald)
-ESSAY: Arabs Have Nobody to Blame But Themselves : Bin Laden heads a frustrated and failed generation. (FOUAD AJAMI, October 16, 2001, Wall Street Journal)
-ARTICLE: Rumsfeld calls for end to old tactics of war (Toby Harnden, 16/10/2001, Daily Telegraph)
-ESSAY: Where is Dracula When You Need Him? (David A. Yeagley, FrontPageMagazine.com, October 15, 2001)
-ARTICLE: Citing Comments on Attack, Giuliani Rejects Saudi's Gift (JENNIFER STEINHAUER, October 12, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: The real threat is Iraq - as Bush's men have said for years (Stephen Pollard, 10/09/01, Daily Telegraph)
-ESSAY: The Case for Using Racial Profiling at Airports : If you were boarding an airplane, wouldn't you want authorities to scrutinize Arab passengers? (Stuart Taylor Jr., The Atlantic, September 25, 2001)
-ESSAY: The left's new clothes are red, white and blue : Could this conflict do what Kosovo didn't quite do and divide Blair from his party in a truly dangerous way? (Jackie Ashley Monday 1st October 2001, New Statesman)
-ESSAY: A Faith in Debate Islam: A beginner's guide. (DAVID F. FORTE, September 28, 2001, Wall Street Journal)
-ESSAY: The War: A Road Map (Charles Krauthammer, September 28, 2001, Washington
Post)
-ESSAY: ISLAM: THE ENDLESS JIHAD EVIL IN THE NAME OF ALLAH (Alan Caruba)
-ESSAY: "Relentlessly and Thoroughly" : The only way to respond. (Paul Johnson, 9/01, National Review)
-ESSAY: Terrorists are under attack even before a shot is fired (John Keegan, Daily Telegraph Defence Editor, 28/09/2001)
-ESSAY: Against Rationalization (Christopher Hitchens, The Nation)
-ESSAY: America the ignorant : After Sept. 11, Americans have rushed to educate themselves about Islam, the Middle East and foreign affairs. But how did we get so benighted in the first place? (Laura Miller, 9/26/01, Salon)
-ARTICLE: Berlusconi Comments Cause Stir (CANDICE HUGHES, Associated Press, September 26, 2001)
-ESSAY: Islam's flawed spokesmen : Some of the groups claiming to speak for American Muslims find it impossible to speak out against terrorist groups (Jake Tapper, 9/26/01, Salon)
-ESSAY: Faith and the Secular State (LAMIN SANNEH, September 23, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Why do they hate America? : The USA saved Europe from the Nazis, defeated communism and keeps the West rich. Bryan Appleyard analyses why it has become the land of the loathed (Times of London)
-ESSAY: Why Muslims are always in turmoil (James Buchan, 24th September 2001, New Statesman)
-ESSAY : Burst (Tony Judt, New Republic)
-ARTICLE: Baton Rougeans turn threats to kind words (AMY WOLD, Baton Rouge Advocate)
-ARTICLE: Of Altruism, Heroism and Nature's Gifts in the Face of Terror (NATALIE ANGIER, September 18, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Brightness falls : Jay McInerney, author of the definitive modern New York novel, witnessed the destruction of the World Trade Centre from his apartment window. He describes the week that changed his city for ever (September 15, 2001, The Guardian)
-ARTICLE: Congress Clears Use of Force, $40 Billion in Emergency Aid (John Lancaster and Helen Dewar, Washington Post, September 15, 2001)
-ARTICLE
: Bin-Laden Poster Seen at Gaza Rally (The Associated Press, Sept. 14, 2001)
-ARTICLE: Muslims witness support amid anger (Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah and Don Terry, Chicago Tribune)
-ARTICLE: Bush Encourages N.Y. Rescuers : President Makes Heavily Guarded Visit to World Trade Center Site (Edward Walsh, Washington Post, September 15, 2001)
-ESSAY: Rational Fanatics (Ehud Spinzak, Foreign Policy)
-ARTICLE: Bid to Thwart Hijackers May Have Led to Pa. Crash (Charles Lane and John Mintz, Washington Post, Thursday, September 13, 2001)
-ARTICLE: Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon (SERGE SCHMEMANN, September 12, 2001, NY Times)
-ARTICLE: Terrorists Attack New York, Pentagon (MATEA GOLD and MAGGIE FARLEY, LA Times)
-ARTICLE: A Day of Terror (Philadelphia Inquirer)
-ESSAY: How Good Were the World Trade Center Pilots? (James Fallows, Sept. 11, 2001, Slate)
-ESSAY: What Liabilities Do Insurance Companies Face From Terrorist Acts? (Timothy Noah, Sept. 11, 2001, Slate)
-ARTICLE: Report: Five Suspects Identified in NYC Attack (September 12 2001, Reuters)
-ARTICLE: Passenger called wife from cell phone shortly before Pittsburgh crash (Paul Rogers and Lisa Fernandez, Knight Ridder)
OPINION :
-ESSAY: Having Their Day in (a Military) Court (Robert H. Bork, January 2002, AEI on the Issues)
-ESSAY: Only in Their Dreams : Why is the "Arab street" silent? Because a radical Muslim fantasy has met reality (CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, December 24, 2001, TIME)
-INTERVIEW: Jihad 101 : Q&A with Mark Juergensmeyer (Adam Mazmanian, NY Press)
-ESSAY: Trial by Fury : With his order to establish military courts, Bush acts as though Congress has declared war, but it hasn't. The order's reach is so sweeping that it could lead to hideous abuse. Congress, and not a rubber stamp from the Supreme Court, must curb military tribunals.
Are you listening, Congress? (Laurence H. Tribe, New Republic, 11/30/01)
-ESSAY: Clinton Has No Clothes : What 9/11 revealed about the ex-president. (Byron York, December 17, 2001, National Review)
-ESSAY: Supposing bin Laden was Saddam's junior partner : If Iraq was behind all the recent terrorist attacks on the US, says Alan Judd, will Tony Blair brave the inevitable bloody outcome? (Alan Judd, 12/10/01, Daily Telegraph)
-ESSAY : The Mosque to Commerce : Bin Laden's special complaint with the World Trade Center (Laurie Kerr, December 28, 2001, Slate)
-ESSAY: 2011 (Niall Ferguson, December 2, 2001, NY Times Magazine)
-ESSAY: Having Their Day in (a Military) Court : How best to prosecute terrorists. (Robert H. Bork, December 17, 2001, National Review)
-ESSAY: Wake Up, America : President Bush's military tribunals represent the broadest move in American history to sweep aside constitutional protections. (ANTHONY LEWIS, 11/30/01, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Rights and Wrongs in War After September 11, civil-libertarian sanctimony is too much to take. (DANIEL HENNINGER, November 30, 2001, Wall Street Journal)
-ESSAY: Mideast experts wrong -- again (CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, November 30, 2001)
-ESSAY: Squishier than thou : Demonstrating against reality in London and Washington (P. J. O'Rourke, The Atlantic Monthly | December 2001)
-ESSAY: Book Report: The Great Game Revisited (Washington Post, October 28, 2001)
-ESSAY: Honest intellectuals must shed their spiritual turbans : Ibn Warraq on
Islam - the final taboo (Ibn Warraq, November 10, 2001, Guardian)
-ESSAY: 2001 Nights : The end of the Orientalist critique (Charles Paul Freund, 11/01, Reason)
-ESSAY: Guess what, the bombing worked like a charm : The antiwar hand-wringers kept warning us of its perils. But as the Taliban despots flee Afghan cities, and their citizens cheer, the air war's stunning efficacy is clear for all to see (Christopher Hitchens, 11/14/01, Salon)
-ESSAY: War Crimes Are Different Military tribunals are necessary in times of war. (DOUGLAS W. KMIEC, November 15, 2001, Wall Street Journal)
-ESSAY: Seizing Dictatorial Power (WILLIAM SAFIRE, November 15, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Which civilisation? : The idea of a liberal "west," standing out against fundamentalism, is a fallacy. In America, religious fundamentalism is more powerful than secular humanism. And the religious right and the romantic left in the west share an Arcadian, pre-modern vision similar
to that of Muslim conservatives (Michael Lind, November 2001, The Prospect uk)
-ESSAY: Playing for Keeps : What do we want? Revolution! When do we want it? Now! (MICHAEL LEDEEN, November 14, 2001, Wall Street Journal)
-ESSAY: Is There a Torturous Road to Justice? ( Alan M. Dershowitz, 11/08/01, LA Times)
-ESSAY: Time To Think About Torture (Jonathan Alter, 11/05/01, Newsweek)
-ESSAY: For modern spies, the Great Game is over (Alan Judd, October 29, 2001, Daily Telegraph)
-ESSAY: Politically Incorrect, Heroic All the Same (Jim Sleeper, NY Observer)
-ESSAY: Poverty Isn't The Cause Of Terrorism Y´(Bruce Bartlett, October 31, 2001, National Center for Policy Analysis)
-ESSAY: Poor Choice : Why globalization doesn't produce jihad (Brink Lindsey, 11.01.01, New Republic)
-ESSAY: Syria Yes, Israel No! : Our anti-terror coalition doesn't distinguish friend from foe (Norman Podhoretz, November 3, 2001, Weekly Standard)
-ESSAY: A corrosive national danger in our multicultural model : British Muslims must answer some uncomfortable questions (Hugo Young, November 6, 2001, The Guardian)
-INTERVIEW: The foreign correspondent Robert D. Kaplan talks about his days among the mujahideen, the killing of Abdul Haq, and why the U.S. must not be afraid to be brutal (Atlantic Unbound | November 2, 2001)
-ESSAY: The Loyal Opposition: THE WARMONGERS HAVE LANDED : Strategic Restraint is a Sign of Maturity, not Weakness (David Corn, Tom Paine)
-ESSAY : Just What is This 'Civilization'? : It's a word that can mean all things to all men, but it's also a concept used in the current conflict to suit many different purposes (Mary Riddell, Observer)
-ESSAY: Now and Then : What if today's media covered World War II? (CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY, November 10, 2001, Wall Street Journal)
-ESSAY: Righteous Fury (Mark Bowden, , November 4, 2001, Philadelphia Inquirer)
WORDS & SONGS (of Comfort and Rage) :
-Flag Handling (Roanoke Times)
-Psalm 23
-Psalm 91
-SPEECH: The Gettysburg Address (Library of Congress Exhibition)
-SPEECH: JFK Inaugural
-SPEECH: Ronald Reagan A Time for Choosing 1964
-SPEECH: The Evil Empire : President Reagan's Speech to the House of Commons, June 8, 1982
-SPEECH: Ronald Reagan : Address to the Nation: The Challenger Disaster January 28, 1986
-POEM: September 1, 1939 (W. H. Auden)
-POEM: In Flanders Fields (John McCrae)
-POEM: JOHN DONNE (1572-1631): Holy Sonnets: Death, be not Proud
-SONG: Star Spangled Banner
-SONG: Battle Hymn of the Republic
-ESSAY: Flashbacks : The Battle Hymn of the Republic (Atlantic Monthly, September 18, 2001)
-SONG: Chester
-SONG: God Bless America
-SYMPHONY: Henryk Gorecki Symphony #3
-HYMN: A Mighty Fortress is Our God
-HYMN: How Great Thou Art
RAMZI YOUSEF:
-ARCHIVES: "ramzi yousef" (Find Articles)
-ARCHIVES: "ramzi yousef" (Mag Portal)
-Ramzi
Yousef (Terrorism Files)
-ARTICLE: Jury convicts 2 in Trade Center blast (November 12, 1997, CNN)
-Mayor
Rudolph W. Giuliani's Statement Regarding Today's Sentencing of Terrorist
Ramzi Yousef (January 8, 1998)
-ESSAY: Will Bush learn from the past? ›(Debbie Schlussel, September 15,
2001, Town Hall)
-ESSAY: The past as prologue : Ramzi Yousef is in prison for plotting the
1993 World Trade Center bombing -- but we still don't know who he really
is, who he might have been working with and what he could tell us about
Sept. 11. (Russ Baker, Oct. 29, 2001, Salon)
-ESSAY: THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters
(Laurie Mylroie, The National Interest, Winter, 1995/96)
OSAMA BIN LADEN (& Terrorism generally):
-Hunting
bin Laden (PBS Frontline)
-Osama
Bin Laden: Wealth plus Extremism Equals Terrorism (This is re-produced
from an interview in May 1998 with JOHN MILLER of ABC NEWS)
-ESSAY: Holy Warrior Redux (Peter Bergen and Frank Smyth, 09.14.01, New Republic)
-ESSAY: Inside the Osama Bin Laden Investigation (Steven Emerson)
-ESSAY: He leaves no message but murder : Osama bin Laden is headed for history's dustbin. Still, his rampage holds a warning for the future. (Mark Bowden, December 16, 2001, Philadelphia Inquirer)
-ESSAY: Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize : Sudan offered up
the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors
didn't respond. (MANSOOR IJAZ, December 5 2001, LA Times)
-ESSAY: Postmodern Jihad : What Osama bin Laden learned from the Left. (Waller R. Newell, November 2001, Weekly Standard)
-ESSAY: Gods and monsters : Why do Islamist terrorist groups like al-Qaida and Hamas want to crush the west and destroy Israel? (Michael Scott Doran, December 8, 2001, The Guardian)
-ESSAY: TERRORISM AND THE GLOBAL CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS (Louis Rene Beres, October 2001, The Maccabean)
-ESSAY: Don't blame Islam or the United States, says Fareed Zakaria, a Muslim-born American. Arab rulers gave birth to religious terrorists (Times of London)
-ESSAY: The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic Terror (ROBERT WORTH, October 13, 2001, NY Times)
-ARTICLE: Osama Bert Laden (AMY HARMON, October 14, 2001, NY Times)
-ARTICLE: Endowments From bin Ladens Prove Awkward (JACQUES STEINBERG, October 3, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: 'He's mad, you know' - what the Taliban really think of Osama's men: While living among them, Sean Langan found Taliban fighters secretly loathe their leaders and Bin Laden (October 14, 2001, Times of London)
-PROFILE: Osama, This Is Your Life : A detailed guide to the life and times of al Qaeda financier and puppetmaster Osama bin Laden. (Bo Crader, 10/10/2001, Weekly Standard)
-ESSAY: Number Games : Is the WestÌs luck about to run out? (John Derbyshire, October 9, 2001, National Review)
-ESSAY: Bin Laden Adheres to Austere Form of Islam (NEIL MacFARQUHAR, October 7, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: My Lunch with Osama bin Laden ›(Rory Nugent, October 2001, Rolling
Stone)
-ESSAY: Nowhere Man : Islam didn't produce Mohamed Atta. He was born of his
country's struggle to reconcile modernity with tradition (Fouad Ajami, October 7, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Bin Laden's Vision Thing Is bin Laden saying that this whole thing is Warren G. HardingÌs fault? (James S. Robbins, , October 8, 2001, National Review)
-PROFILE: Bin Laden's Journey From Rich Pious Lad to the Mask of Evil (ROBERT D. McFADDEN, September 30, 2001, NY Times)
-ESSAY: Why this American feels safer (Daniel Pipes, The Jerusalem Post,
October 3, 2001)
-ARTICLE: Terror 'made fortune for Bin Laden' (John Hooper in Berlin, September 23, 2001, The Observer)
-ESSAY: Idea of the Day: Islamic Fascism and Diplomacy (Inigo
Thomas, Sept. 21, 2001, Slate)
-ESSAY: The demons that drive terror : Islamist extremists may not be the
Nazis of the 21st century but, says Ian Buruma, they share the same need
to be victimised (The Guardian, 9/19/01)
-ESSAY: The Mind Of A Fundamentalist (Paul Klebnikov, Forbes.com,
09.21.01)
-ESSAY: Ground Zero and the Saudi connection : Stephen Schwartz on the extreme Islamic sect that inspires Osama bin Laden as well as all Muslim suicide bombers - and is subsidised by Saudi Arabia (The Spectator)
-INTERVIEW: Hunting Osama The author of "Black Hawk Down" and "Killing Pablo"
says that American special forces have been training to go after bin Laden
for years and are more than ready (Max Garrone, Salon)
-ESSAY: The Roots of Muslim Rage (Bernard Lewis, September 1990, Atlantic
Monthly)
-ESSAY: Analysis: Bin Laden's fatwa (MARTIN WALKER, 16 September, 2001 , UPI)
-ESSAY: Why is Bin Laden still at large? : Terror in America - The man blamed
for Tuesday's atrocities has struck America before. The mystery is why
the US hasn't simply seized him. Michael Griffin reports (New Stateman)
-IDEA
OF THE DAY : The Man in the Desert (Inigo Thomas, Sept. 14, 2001, Slate)
-FBI
Ten Most Wanted : USAMA BIN LADEN
-FBI
Websites Document Evidence Against Bin Laden
-PROFILE: Origins of the bin Laden network : After joining the Afghan cause in
1979, Osama bin Laden organized, inspired Islamic radicals worldwide.
(Scott Baldauf and Faye Bowers | Staff writers of The Christian Science
Monitor)
-PROFILE: Osama bin Laden: The truth about the world's most wanted man : The truth about the prime suspect for the world's worst terrorist atrocity
is shrouded in myth and misinformation. But Chris Blackhurst has gained
unprecedented access to private dossiers, friends and family to reveal
the real Osama bin Laden (16 September 2001, Independent uk)
-Federation
of American Scientists : Terrorism
-Political
Terrorism Database. This web database was created as a resource on
political terrorism and violence. The database is divided up into geographic
areas containing an index to each region's terrorist groups as well as an international terrorism incident database
-Terrorism
Research Center
-ESSAY: Blowback chronicles : Giles Foden on the murky deals that fuelled
international terrorism (September 15, 2001, The Guardian)
-ESSAY: The Real Threat : A son amends. (Michael Ledeen, September
18, 2001, National Review)
-INTERVIEW: with Michele Zanini : A new breed of terrorism : A security expert says
it's time for the U.S. to declare war on those who are waging war on America. (Laura Miller, September 11 2001, Salon)
-ESSAY: A Former Pakistani Prime Minister Weighs In (Benazir Bhutto, October
19, 2001, Slate)
-ESSAY: The Changing Face of Terrorism : It's becoming something fundamentally
different. (David Greenberg, September 13, 2001, Slate)
-ESSAY: When Osama Met the Taliban : Who introduced them? Our intelligence "allies," Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Agency. (Ken Silverstein, October 9, 2001, Slate)
-ESSAY: The enemy with a thousand faces : In Osama bin Laden, the U.S. is confronting one of the most stealthy and formidable foes in its history. (Gary Kamiya, Sept. 13, 2001, Salon)
-ESSAY: Supposing bin Laden was Saddam's junior partner : If Iraq was behind
all the recent terrorist attacks on the US, says Alan Judd, will Tony Blair brave the inevitable bloody outcome? (Alan Judd, 12/10/01, Daily Telegraph)
-ESSAY: The Mosque to Commerce : Bin Laden's special complaint with the World
Trade Center (Laurie Kerr, December 28, 2001, Slate)
-REVIEW: of Holy War, Inc. by Peter Bergen (Laura Miller, Salon)
-REVIEW: of Holy War, Inc. (Char Simons, CS Monitor)
-REVIEW: of Holy War, Inc. (Justin Marozzi, Financial Times)
-REVIEW: of Holy War, Inc. (Malise Ruthven, Times Literary Supplement)
-REVIEW: of Holy War, Inc. (Steve Weinberg, Denver Post)
-REVIEW: of Holy War, Inc. by Peter L. Bergen (Marin J. Strmecki, Commentary)
SADDAM HUSSEIN :
-ESSAY: THE IRAQ CONNECTION : Blood Baath (R. James Woolsey, 09.13.01, New
Republic)
-ESSAY: A Saddam connection? : While the world focuses on Osama bin Laden,
some experts argue that Iraq was a likely conspirator. (David Neiwert,
Sept. 21, 2001, Salon)
-ESSAY: Osama, Saddam, and the Bombs (David Plotz, September 28, 2001, Slate)
-ESSAY: The twin towers trail leads to Saddam (DANIEL FINKELSTEIN, OCTOBER
03 2001, Times of London)
-INTERVIEW: An interview with Laurie Mylroie : Author of Study of Revenge : Saddam
Hussein's Unfinished War Against America (American Enterprise Institute)
-BOOK
SUMMARY : Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War against America
By Laurie Mylroie (AEI)
BROTHERS JUDD REVIEWS:
-REVIEW: of The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It (2002) (John Miller)
-REVIEW: of The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism (1999) (Simon Reeve)
2ND ANNIVERSARY
-Sept. 11, 2003: Complete coverage of the second anniversary of Sept. 11, with current and past articles, interactive features and slide shows. (NY Times, 9/11/03)
Bush's past brings Barnes back on stage (Dave Montgomery, Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
In the late 1960s, when Ben Barnes was embarking on a Texas political career that seemed filled with limitless promise, admirers predicted that he would one day bask in the national spotlight. Lyndon Johnson proclaimed him a future president.More than three decades later, Barnes, now a successful lobbyist and top Democratic fund-raiser, is engulfed in national exposure -- though not in the way his admirers envisioned. [...]
Barnes' role in the National Guard imbroglio has raised a fundamental question for millions of Americans unfamiliar with his early days at the center of power in Austin: Who is Ben Barnes?
The answer is essentially a rise-fall-and-rebound story in which Barnes has stubbornly persevered to become one of the best-connected lobbyists in Washington and a close friend and fund-raiser of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. He is increasingly mentioned as a potential Cabinet member if Kerry wins the presidency.
"He's the kind of guy who can take a punch, get on the mat, lay down there for five or six seconds and come back swinging with both hands," said Waco insurance entrepreneur Bernard Rapoport, another major Democratic fund-raiser and one of Barnes' best friends.
The son of a peanut farmer in De Leon in Central Texas, Barnes entered politics in 1960 when Texas was a Democratic-dominated state, winning a seat in the state House of Representatives. He was 22, and his youth, drive and ambition quickly captured the attention of the state's political leaders, including future President Johnson and John Connally, who served as governor through much of the 1960s.
Barnes became the state's youngest House speaker at 26 and, three years later, the state's youngest lieutenant governor. He seemed destined to become governor until a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation embroiled state government in what became known as the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal.
The scandal, Texas' equivalent of Watergate, stemmed from stock deals that a Houston banker offered to lawmakers in exchange for favorable banking legislation. Scores of politicians were driven from office. [...]
By all appearances, Barnes may be at the top of his game. At 66, he is president of Entrecorp, a lobbying firm with offices in Washington and Austin and a list of clients that includes Fort Worth-based American Airlines, SBC Communications and Bridgestone/ Firestone.
Although Barnes hasn't held public office in more than three decades, he is so well-known among Democratic senators that Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota once jokingly described him as an ex-officio member.
Grateful Democratic candidates, including Kerry, regard him as one of the most skilled fund-raisers in the nation. He has raised more than $100,000 for the Kerry campaign.
Barnes met Kerry nearly a decade ago and has since become a friend and golf buddy. Barnes bought a house near Kerry in Nantucket, Mass.
Polls Suggest War Isn't Hurting Bush: Mounting Deaths in Iraq Have Not Resulted in Major Backlash in Public Opinion (John F. Harris and Thomas E. Ricks, September 10, 2004, Washington Post)
This spring, when mounting casualties and a prison scandal were causing public support for President Bush's Iraq policies to plunge, his campaign strategists were confidently predicting that Iraq problems would present no major threat to his reelection once U.S. forces turned over authority to an interim government in Baghdad.In the months since, the evidence so far has proven that prediction more right than wrong. [...]
The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Bush with a 53 percent to 37 percent advantage over Democrat John F. Kerry when voters were asked who they think would do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.
These results challenge what some public opinion analysts had for years assumed was a reliable link -- which some scholars argued operated with an almost mathematical precision -- between combat deaths and erosion of support for military operations.
Man named in Bush memo left Guard before document was written (PETE SLOVER, 9/10/04, The Dallas Morning News)
The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugar coat" President Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo was supposedly written, his own service record shows.An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of Bush's service, was dated Aug. 18, 1973.
That added to mounting questions about the authenticity of documents that seem to suggest Bush sought special favors and did not fulfill his service.
Staudt, who lives in New Braunfels, Texas, did not return calls seeking comment. His discharge paper was among a packet of documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News from official sources during 1999 research into Bush's Guard record.
A CBS staffer stood by the story...
MORE:
Questions mount on Guard memos' authenticity (Rowan Scarborough, September 11, 2004, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
A handwriting expert says the two signatures on purported Texas National Guard memos aired by CBS News this week are not those of President Bush's squadron commander, as asserted by "60 Minutes." [...]Eugene P. Hussey, a certified forensic document examiner in Washington state, said yesterday there is another flaw in the CBS memos. Mr. Hussey studied the known signatures of Col. Killian on Air Force documents, and two signatures on documents dated 1972 and 1973 that aired on "60 Minutes" Wednesday night.
"It is my limited opinion that Killian did not sign those documents," Mr. Hussey told The Washington Times. He said he uses the phrase "limited opinion" because he does not have the original documents. He, like other experts interviewed by the press, relied on copies of originals first obtained by CBS. The White House then distributed copies of the memos in what is said was the interest of full disclosure. [...]
Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, told the Associated Press the superscript -- a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" -- is one piece of evidence indicating a computer forgery.
A Washington Times computer expert retyped one of the CBS memos in Microsoft Word. He then superimposed the two documents, which appeared to make a perfect match, character by character.
The Times New Roman typeface available on any word processing machine in 1972 would not have matched perfectly because of the differences in technology used to reproduce it, the expert at The Times said, adding that the line spacing in the memos wasn't available 30 years ago.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Rather said: "CBS News stands by, and I stand by, the thoroughness and accuracy of this report, period. Our story is true."On television later, he depicted questions about the veracity of the report as a counterattack coming in part from "partisan political operatives." On the "Evening News," Mr. Rather interviewed a handwriting expert who he said had helped CBS News verify the authenticity of the documents. The expert, Marcel B. Matley, said their signatures were consistent with those of Colonel Killian on records that the White House has independently given reporters.
The CBS News report also disputed critics' assertions that raised, or superscript, characters after numbers like "111th" were not consistent with Vietnam-era typewriters.
"Critics claim typewriters didn't have that ability in the 1970's," Mr. Rather said.
"But some models did," he added, showing an old Guard record previously provided by the White House that such superscripts. [...]
Dr. Philip Bouffard, a forensic document specialist in Georgia who has compiled of database of more than 3,000 old fonts, said people who bought the I.B.M. Selectric Composer model could specially order keys with the superscripts in question. Dr. Bouffard said that font did bear many similarities to the one on the CBS documents, but not enough to dispel questions he had about their authenticity.
A spokesman for I.B.M., John Bukovinsky, said he knew only that the company introduced proportional spacing to some typewriters in 1944, most notably in the Executive line.
Mark A. Robb, team leader of the type development group at Lexmark, which embodies the old I.B.M. typewriting and printing division and now focuses on printers, said specific machines could be custom fitted with the superscript letters in question and that they frequently were.
Some former engineers who worked in the typewriter division said they were not aware of a standard typewriter that could have produced the Killian documents because the superscript letters in question were so rare.
Robert A. Rahenkamp, a former I.B.M. manager who wrote a scholarly history on its typewriters for a company journal in 1981, said, "I'm not aware that we had any superscript technologies back in those days'' on standard proportional space typewriters. [...]
Experts on documents said the veracity of the CBS memos might never be known because they had been copied so many times. CBS News officials said that its papers were copies, too, and that it did not have the originals. The network said it would not identify its original source.
Mr. Rather said, "We worked long and hard and became convinced that, yes, this person had the capacity to get the documents, and, yes, this person was truthful."
Dan Rather vigorously defended his "60 Minutes" story on President Bush's National Guard service yesterday, saying the 30-year-old memos he disclosed on the show this week "were and remain authentic," despite questions raised by some handwriting and document experts."Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill," the CBS anchor said. "My colleagues and I at '60 Minutes' made great efforts to authenticate these documents and to corroborate the story as best we could. . . . I think the public is smart enough to see from whom some of this criticism is coming and draw judgments about what the motivations are."
How the Right has won in the US: the Republicans, unlike the Tories, believe in the future, not in the past (John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Spectator)
Why have the American Republicans been so much more successful at holding on to power than Britain’s Conservatives? The most basic reason is that they have ruthlessly sided with the future over the past: with growth over stagnation and the creative disruption of capitalism over the comforts of the status quo. Here the prime example is the Republicans’ ruling dynasty: the Bushes forsook the Preppie Toryism of the north-east, typified by Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, for the more southern-fried sunbelt conservatism of Texas. The current President Bush loathed his time at Prescott’s alma mater, Yale University, swapped his family’s Episcopalianism for heart-on-your-sleeve Methodism and campaigned for governor in 1996 surrounded by country-and-western singers (Prescott had used Yale’s Whiffenpoof Quartet).The Tories never made the transition; despite a spell of ‘bourgeois triumphalism’ under Margaret Thatcher, they are still identified with Olde England. The Republican party is now at its strongest in the areas of the country that are growing fastest — in the suburbs and exurbs that are marching across America’s wide open spaces and in the rapidly growing south. If George W. Bush simply repeats his performance in the 2000 election, he will win the election handily, because the states that he won have been adding population (and hence electoral votes) since 2000 whereas the Democratic states have been losing people. [...]
The problem for Britain’s Tories is that they are operating in a country that prides itself on both its cynicism and its scepticism. Right-wing parties flourish best when they can temper their support for business with morality; otherwise they merely look greedy. But the Tories have consistently failed to win the values debate. Remember Mrs Thatcher’s brief flirtation with Victorian values? Or John Major’s catastrophic Back to Basics campaign? The Tories’ problem is not just that any attempt to import American-style religious conservatism is bound to fail; it is that attempts to revive indigenous British cultural conservatism are easily caricatured as Colonel Blimpism. In Britain the Left long ago won the cultural wars.
But if British Tories would be on a hiding to nothing were they to try to import American cultural conservatism, they should at least try to import the Republican party’s enthusiasm for setting the agenda. The Republicans have not just contented themselves with exploiting their cultural advantages. They have outfought, outthought and out-organised their opponents.
Consider the battle for ideas. Back in the 1970s London was a ferment of conservative ideas, a co-founder of the Reagan-Thatcher revolution; now it is an also-ran. One building in Washington DC — which contains the American Enterprise Institute and the (Rupert Murdoch-funded) Weekly Standard — probably houses more conservative brainpower than all the British think-tanks put together.
Over the past half-century or so, American conservatism has laboriously constructed an intellectual counter-establishment to balance the liberal establishment that dominates the universities. This counter-establishment now stretches from sea to shining sea: from the mighty Hoover Institution in Stanford, California, to the Manhattan Institute in the liberal Big Apple to a veritable Panzer division of think-tanks in Washington, DC, including Heritage, Cato, the AEI and Hudson. According to one survey, more than $1 billion was pumped into right-wing think-tanks in the 1990s.
Imagine if Britain had an entire battalion of well-funded Roger Scrutons and you begin to get a sense of how different things are in America.
BUSHSPEAK: The President’s vernacular style. (PHILIP GOUREVITCH, 2004-09-06, The New Yorker)
When Bush appeared in person, moments later, he seemed surprisingly ordinary. “I’m here to ask for the vote,” he told the audience. “I believe it’s important to get out and ask for the vote. I believe it’s important to travel this great state and the country, talkin’ about where I intend to lead the country.” He made this sound like an original idea, and perhaps a controversial one, and the way he repeated the words “I believe” carried an air of defiant conviction: I’m not here offering myself to you because that’s how it’s done in a democracy but because that’s just how I am, and I don’t give a damn who says different.He wore no tie, and his sleeves were rolled up, and the simplicity of the proposition, the easy conversational forthrightness, seemed so natural, so obvious and reassuring, that it was easy to forget, as he wound on through his stump speech, that he had promised to lay out a plan for the future. He offered no such plan, or even any new initiatives. He just declared the past four years a success, and said that more and better was to come. What was the alternative? John Kerry? Bush spends a good deal of time on the stump deriding his rival, and the rest of the time he projects the attitude of a man who is running unopposed—which he could be forgiven for thinking if the election depended simply on who is the better campaigner.
Bush campaigns with the eager self-delight of a natural ham. There’s an appealing physicality about him. When he says he wants your vote, he does not just mouth the words but follows them through with his entire body, rising to his toes, tilting toward you yearningly. When he works his way along the edge of the stage, waving, shaking hands, he has the concentration of an athlete in the thrall of his game. He seems to hold nothing back. He reaches for the hands around him, tipping so far forward that it appears, in the frozen fraction of a second captured in photographs, that he has lost his balance. He twists, and stoops, and spins, and stops abruptly to wave, and the raised hand seems to lift the rest of him with it, up and forward. Bush is said to be charming, and polls show that Americans tend to find him more likable than his policies, but one does not even have to like him to admire how truly at home he appears in his body.
He has a repertoire of stock poses and expressions, as does any professional performer, but the freedom of his movements is striking. Flip through snapshots of him, and you’ll find any number that catch him in a bizarre or comical position. The mobility of his face leaves him open to lampooning, not least because of its simian modelling, which is underscored by his affectation of an equally simian gait—the dangle-armed swagger, like a knuckle-walker startled to find himself suddenly upright. But even when he looks foolish, or simply coarse, Bush is never less than an expressive presence.
The same can be said of his language. He is grossly underestimated as an orator by those who presume that good grammar, rigorous logic, and a solid command of the facts are the essential ingredients of political persuasion, and that the absence of these skills indicates a lack of intelligence. Although Bush is no intellectual, and proud of it, he is quick and clever, and, for all his notorious malapropisms, abuses of syntax, and manglings or reinventions of vocabulary, his intelligence is—if not especially literate—acutely verbal. His words, in transcription, might seem mindless, incoherent, or unintentionally hilarious (“I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family”; “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we”), but it is pretty plain what he means. “Even when we don’t agree, you know what I believe and where I stand,” he reminded the nation at Madison Square Garden, during his acceptance of the Republican nomination.
Bush’s top speechwriter, Michael Gerson, is regarded as a master of his trade. His speeches are composed of short, declarative sentences packed with substance. While John Kerry can speak rousingly for whole paragraphs without saying anything precise or concrete, Bush rarely puts ten words together in a major address without taking a position, passing a judgment, or proclaiming a purpose. He is less concise when unscripted, or—as on the stump—only loosely tethered to a text, but when he’s ad-libbing he makes up for whatever tightness he lacks with an emotional appeal, seeking and generally finding a level of connection to his supporters that eludes his rival entirely. Bush’s gift in this regard is a function of his lack of polish: the clipped nature of his phraseology, the touch of twang, the hard consonants, the nasal vowels, the dropped conjunctions and slurred or swallowed suffixes.
“I’m sorry Laura’s not here,” he told the breakfast-hour crowd in Las Cruces, and they moaned in sympathy. “I understand,” he said, and got a big laugh. “I kissed her goodbye in Crawford this morning and said, ‘I’ve got to go to work.’” More laughter. “She said, You git over to New Mexico and you remind ’em that her kinfolk were raised right here down the road in Anthony. I’m proud of Laura. She’s a great mom, a wonderful wife.” Loud yips and applause. He continued in a deadpan: “I’ll give you some reasons why I think you ought to put me back in. But perhaps the most important one of all’s so Laura’s the first lady for four more years.”
To watch Bush work a room, however cheesy his salesmanship and however canned his hucksterism, is to behold a master of the American vernacular, that form of expression which eschews slickness and makes a virtue of the speaker’s limitations—an artfulness that depends on artlessness, an eloquence that depends on inflection and emphasis.
CBS stands by challenged documents on Bush (Matt Kelley, September 10, 2004, AP)
CBS News mounted an aggressive defense Friday of its report about President Bush's service in the Air National Guard, with anchor Dan Rather saying broadcast memos questioned by forensic experts came from "what we consider to be solid sources."On Friday's "CBS Evening News," Rather said that "no definitive evidence" has emerged to prove the documents are forgeries.
"If any definitive evidence comes up, we will report it," Rather said.
The show also showed excerpts of interviews with Marcel Matley, a San Francisco document expert, who said he believed the memos were genuine.
CBS can state "with absolute certainty" that the disputed memos could have been produced on typewriters available in the early 1970s when the memos are purported to have been written, the network said. Rather said the typeface and style of the memos were available on typewriters since well before the 1970s.
Bush has opportunity to unite two groups (Ken Kurson, September 10, 2004, Newsday)
This year, President George W. Bush can do something that no other Republican candidate has had the opportunity to do in a long time. He may be able to bridge two historically divergent groups: American Jews and American evangelical Christians.In the past, American Jews and American evangelists have not enjoyed a cozy relationship. Jews tend to have liberal social beliefs, being uncomfortable with restrictions on abortion and stem-cell research, for example, and have rewarded Democrats by robotically pulling the lever for them at election time.
But concerns among those who are uneasy with picayune details such as the president's alleged shrinking of the church-state wall should understand that wall doesn't mean anything when a synagogue is on fire. The evangelical Christians around the president should not only cease being a source of discomfort to American Jews, they should be embraced - they are the best friends Israel ever had.
Take, for example, well- known and outspoken supporters of Israel, such as Pat Robertson on the national level and, locally, the Rev. A.R. Bernard. Bernard, pastor of the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, speaks of his belief that "Israel is not just necessary to the return of Christ, it is essential to it."
More and more, evangelical Christians are adopting a tone of inclusion and gratitude toward Jews. Many Christian leaders not only give thanks to Jews for the Holy Scriptures - for receiving, protecting, preserving and carrying forth the word of God - but they routinely pray for the well- being of the Jewish people and Israel.
In contrast, Democrats are catastrophically weak on their support of Israel.
Local Man Called On To Verify Bush Military Records: Polt Examines Documents For Inconsistencies (channelcincinnati.com, 9/10/04)
Richard Polt, a Xavier University professor, was called on to examine documents from the 1970s that could shed new light on information about George W. Bush's service in the military. The documents, used by "60 minutes," said Bush ignored a direct order from a superior officer and lost his status as a Guard pilot because he failed to meet performance standards and undergo a required physical exam.According to Polt, who owns more than 100 typewriters dating back to 1890, the documents would most likely have been typed on an old IBM selectric.
Upon examination, Polt said the memos seemed to be from a word processor.
One memo, dated May 4, 1972, raised questions because of the 'th' next to the number 111.
"There are some things that are very easy to do on a computer these days or happen automatically," Polt said. "The superscript ... the 'th' is a smaller font and above the 111."
Polt said it is highly unlikely that someone would change equipment on a typewriter to make the font change, Fuller reported.
A similar difference in another letter, dated Aug. 18, 1973, raises questions as well.
"The apostrophes in the document are curly apostrophes," Polt said. "Typewriters almost always had straight, vertical apostrophes."
Polt also scrutinized another letter's format. He claims the latter is too neatly centered.
"When you think about some of the details of the documents, it just adds up to something recently produced on a computer," he said.
Schwarzenegger Signs Bill Banning Sex with Corpses (Reuters, 9/10/04)
Having sex with corpses is now officially illegal in California after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill barring necrophilia, a spokeswoman said on Friday.The new legislation marks the culmination of a two-year drive to outlaw necrophilia in the state and will help prosecutors who have been stymied by the lack of an official ban on the practice, according to experts.
"Nobody knows the full extent of the problem. ... But a handful of instances over the past decade is frequent enough to have a bill concerning it," said Tyler Ochoa, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who has studied California cases involving allegations of necrophilia.
"Prosecutors didn't have anything to charge these people with other than breaking and entering. But if they worked in a mortuary in the first place, prosecutors couldn't even charge them with that," Ochoa said.
The state's first attempt to outlaw necrophilia, in response to a case of a man charged with having sex with the corpse of a 4-year-old girl in Southern California, stalled last year in a legislative committee.
DAN RATHER, DEMOCRATIC FUNDRAISER (Brent Bozell, April 6, 2001, Townhall)
It's happened. The man who almost always described Kenneth Starr to his TV audience as a "Republican independent counsel" (hinting that the first adjective canceled out the second) is now an established "Democratic objective newsman."The Washington Post gave front-page play on Wednesday to Howard Kurtz's report that Dan Rather helped raise $20,000 for the Travis County Democratic Party in Austin, Texas. When he was confronted with the story, Democrat Dan had some curious things to say.
Rather said he "wouldn't be surprised" if critics use the incident to call him a closet Democrat.
Pardon his French! (Lloyd Grove, 9/10/04, NY Daily News)
Did Secretary of State Colin Powell tell his British counterpart two years ago that the U.S. government's three top hawks were "f--g crazies"?Respected Brit journalist James Naughtie reports that in private talks with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw before the war in Iraq, a deeply frustrated Powell used just those words to describe Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Powell's chief rivals in the Bush administration.
Yesterday, Powell - through a spokeswoman - predictably denied Naughtie's account, which appears in a new book, "The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency."
"This is nonsense," Powell said. "I never said anything like that to Jack, nor him to me. Anyone who says I did is wrong."
[Blair had just returned from the meeting in the Azores and] was preparing his address to the nation announcing that Britain was at war with Iraq. Sitting in his office, pad on his knee, he wondered how he should begin. Alastair Campbell, who played a courtier's role to Blair like Karl Rove's to Bush, had a suggestion and a joke. How about: "My fellow Americans..."
MORE:
THE ACCIDENTAL AMERICAN: Tony Blair and the Presidency (JAMES NAUGHTIE)
Dean blasts Bush at Brown (LISA GENTES, 9/10/04, The Associated Press)
One-time Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean Thursday accused President George W. Bush of dishonesty that the former governor says has led to the deaths of 1,000 soldiers in Iraq."The president has said a lot of things that are untrue," Dean said in an interview before addressing a crowd of about 800 at Brown University.
"The Republicans have the best propaganda out there since Lenin, and they just make stuff up and they keep repeating it, and hope people are going to believe it," he told The Associated Press.
Three Years On: We still haven't learned the lessons of 9/11. (MARK HELPRIN, September 10, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
Three years after September 11, where do we stand?Out of fear and confusion we have hesitated to name the enemy. We proceed as if we are fighting disparate criminals united by coincidence, rather than the vanguard of militant Islam, united by ideology, sentiment, doctrine, and practice, its partisans drawn from Morocco to the Philippines, Chechnya to the Sudan, a vast swath of the earth that, in regard to the elemental beliefs that fuel jihad, is as homogeneous as Denmark.
Too timid to admit to a clash of civilizations even as it occurs, we failed to declare the war, thus forfeiting clarity of intent and the unambiguous consent of the American people. This was a sure way, as in the Vietnam era, to divide the country and prolong the battle.
We failed not only to prepare for war but to provision for it after it had begun, disallowing a military buildup, much less the wartime transformation of the economy. In the First World War our elected representatives decisively resolved that "to bring the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States." In the Revolutionary War we as a people pledged our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
What is different now of course is that we are combating neither the British Empire nor Imperial Germany, but an opponent who is fundamentally weak militarily, economically, and, in the long run, ideologically. Still, he has by his near mastery of terrorism and asymmetrical warfare necessitated that we mobilize as if we were in fact fighting a great empire.
Poll shows Vitter in lead for Senate seat (The Associated Press, 9/10/04)
Republican David Vitter is consolidating his front-running status in the U.S. Senate race, jumping to 42 percent in the latest poll by pollster Verne Kennedy.The Metairie congressman's three Democratic rivals -- state treasurer John Kennedy, U.S. Rep. Chris John, and state rep. Arthur Morrell -- are at 19, 16 and 3 percent respectively in the 600-person poll, taken while the Republican National Convention was held in New York between Aug. 30 and Sept.r 2.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent.
McAuliffe denies involvement in memos flap (Stephen Dinan, 9/10/04, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe today said neither his organization nor John Kerry´s campaign leaked to CBS documents questioning President Bush´s service record, which may have been forged.He suggested White House adviser Karl Rove could be behind the documents.
"I can unequivocally say that no one involved here at the Democratic National Committee had anything at all to do with any of those documents. If I were an aspiring young journalist, I think I would ask Karl Rove that question," Mr. McAuliffe said.
The G-Word: The U.S. makes history in seeking to save the people of Sudan. (Nina Shea, 9/10/04, National Review)
The significance of the administration's action cannot be overstated. This marks the first instance that a party to the 1948 Genocide Convention, the most fundamental of all human-rights treaties, has formally charged another party with "genocide" and invoked the convention's provisions while genocide has been in progress. In the past, the convention and the term "genocide" have been applied only retroactively by state parties, long after the violence ended. Former President Bill Clinton underscored this recently when he apologized for his administration's inaction to stop the 1994 genocidal massacres of the Tutsis in Rwanda.Moreover, in taking efforts to stop the genocide, the administration is going well beyond what is required under international law. The convention does not require parties to take any specific action other than to end their own responsibility for the human destruction. Nevertheless, the United States is taking the lead in trying to rally the international community to exert pressure on Khartoum, all the while continuing America's unilateral economic sanctions.
Citing the Genocide Convention, the United States is introducing a U.N. Security Council resolution threatening international oil sanctions, an expanded mission of African Union forces (bolstered with U.S. logistical support) and other measures against Sudan. The foundation for this was laid on July 30 when the Security Council adopted a prior U.S. resolution that set a 30-day deadline for Khartoum to rein in and bring to justice the killers — a deadline that expired ten days ago without compliance.
The United States is also providing some 80 percent of the humanitarian aid and other support to keep Darfur's 1.5 million refugees alive. While many other nations have so far failed to make good on their pledges, the U.S. is exceeding its aid commitment.
Darfur is the most recent example of the exemplary, but little acknowledged, diplomatic leadership President George W. Bush has demonstrated in pursuing peace in Sudan. On June 5, three years of persevering and creative involvement by the administration culminated in a north-south agreement to end a 20-year rebellion for religious freedom in which two million from the Christian homelands of the south had perished. The Clinton administration imposed important American economic sanctions against Khartoum but otherwise kept Sudan as a "backburner" foreign-policy issue, as was revealed in an internal Clinton administration white paper. It was the strategic diplomacy initiated by President Bush himself from the earliest months of his administration, joined with the sanctions, that proved effective. Peace has largely come to southern Sudan (even though, by its own account, Khartoum has shifted its focus to Darfur and has been unwilling to resume talks to finalize the details for implementing the far-reaching power- and revenue-sharing protocols of that agreement).
Washington Wrap (Knoller Nugget, Sept.10, 2004, CBS News)
In neither of his two campaign speeches on Thursday did President Bush make any mention of the new questions about his service in the National Guard. Nor were reporters given a chance to ask him about it. The strategy for Mr. Bush was to stay decidedly “on message.” And that he did - ridiculing John Kerry for his policies on the economy and on Iraq.It fell to White House spokesman Scott McClellan to handle the Guard matter. He called the latest round of charges a coordinated attack by Kerry and his surrogates. McClellan said it’s the "same old recycled attacks" that come up every time Mr. Bush runs for office.
State GOP lashes out at Minnesota Poll (Patricia Lopez, September 11, 2004, Star Tribune)
The state Republican Party has called on the Star Tribune to fire its longtime pollster, Rob Daves, saying that the paper has consistently underestimated Republican turnout since he was hired in 1987.State Party Chairman Ron Eibensteiner, at a news conference at party headquarters this morning, said that "the final poll results for Republican candidates have been, on average, 5.2 percent under the actual results of the election. "The inaccuracy of the Star Tribune's Minnesota Poll, he said, "is a direct result of their pollster's insistence upon underrepresenting Republican voters in his samples." [...]
Displaying a chart that showed poll results going back to the Minnesota Poll's inception in 1944, Eibensteiner said that particularly since 1998, the poll has demonstrated a pattern of underestimating Republican presence in the state.
That year, the final poll showed then-Republican gubernatorial candidate Norm Coleman with 30 percent of the vote and Democratic challenger Hubert Humphrey III with 35 percent. On Election Day, Coleman had 34 percent, Humphrey 28 percent and the winner was Independent Jesse Ventura.
In the 2000 presidential race, the Minnesota Poll showed Republicans George W. Bush and U.S. Sen. Rod Grams each with 37 percent. On Election Day, Bush took 45.5 percent of the vote, Grams 43.29 percent. In the 2002 gubernatorial race, the poll showed Republican Tim Pawlenty with 35 percent. His actual share of the vote turned out to be 44 percent.
Polls are not intended as predictors of election results, only snapshots in time, but Eibensteiner said the Minnesota Poll had so consistently shown Republican support at less than what it later turned out to be that it was the party's conclusion that the poll's methodology was flawed.
"When a newspaper conducts a poll on a political race," Eibensteiner said, "...it is doing more than reporting the news. It is also creating the news ... and could ultimately impact the outcome of an election."
New ammunition for Kerry: The lapse of the popular assault weapons ban is a timely tool for Kerry. If only he would use it (Philip James, September 10, 2004, The Guardian)
Just as John Kerry's prospects for victory appear to be dimming, along comes an issue that could catapult him back into this race, if only he would seize on it.The assault weapons ban - the landmark bill signed into law by Bill Clinton that took dangerous automatic weapons off US streets - is set to sunset next week. The Republican-led Congress is going to let it lapse and President Bush - who said he was in favour of the ban in 2000 - has kept silent, in deference to the National Rifle Association, whose endorsement he wants.
This is a made-to-measure opportunity for Kerry to reassert himself around a popular wedge issue. The assault weapons ban is widely credited as one of the reasons violent crime rates took a dive in the 90s and is supported by two thirds of voters.
If John Kerry, who the public little knows and hardly trusts, makes taking weapons from Americans a central issue of his campaign--in an America where we now fear the terrorists in the schoolhouse, not the kids; where we're more afraid of what's in the mail than who's handling it; and where snipers shoot at you while you're pumping gas--the GOP will get to 60 seats in the Senate with even safeish incumbents like Pat Leahy, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden, Blanche Lincoln, Patty Murray and Byron Dorgan facing an NRA onslaught.
MORE (via Charlie Herzog):
Kerry Tells Bush to 'Get Real' on Assault Weapons (Patricia Wilson, 9/10/04, Reuters)
Kerry, a New England blueblood who served 20 years in the Senate after two decorated tours in the Vietnam War, has tried to appeal to the more conservative voters in important battleground states by presenting himself as a lifelong outdoorsman.In the past week, he has been photographed trap shooting in Ohio and holding a gun given to him by a supporter at a rally in Racine, West Virginia.
"I mean, heavens to Betsy folks, we've had that law on the books for the last 10 years and there's not a gun owner in America who can stand up and say they tried to take my guns away," Kerry said. "I mean, let's get real. Let's get real."
He told several hundred supporters of his pheasant hunting trip in Iowa earlier this year when he was trailing in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
"I am a hunter and I'm a gun owner and I have hunted since I was about a teenager and I respect it ... and I believe in the Second Amendment," he said. "And I'll tell you this, as a hunter, I've never ever thought about going hunting with an AK-47 or an Uzi or anything else. Never."
Bush has said he would sign an extension of the assault weapons ban but he did not press for its renewal by the Congress. The politically powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby has made killing it a top priority, and some lawmakers are fearful of crossing the NRA weeks before congressional elections. Polls show a majority of Americans support renewing the ban.
The NRA has not yet formally endorsed Bush's re-election bid. A Kerry aide said the senator had never been a member of the NRA because he did not agree with its policies.
Putin out of favour with EU comrades (Catherine Field, New Zealand Herald, September 11th, 2004)
The Beslan hostage crisis has unleashed what could be the start of a rethink of Europe's ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Previously seen as sharp-minded but enigmatic, Putin's image since the bloodbath in North Ossetia has undergone a dramatic transformation in Europe where some are painting him as brutal, clumsy and autocratic.
Questions are now being asked - not only about his Government's handling of the crisis in which hundreds of abducted schoolchildren and their parents were slaughtered in a shoot-out between troops and hostage-takers - but also about his policy in the powder-keg region that straddles southern Russia and northwest Asia.
Many European newspapers are deeply critical of Russian stonewalling about key aspects of the tragedy.
They have demanded to know who the hostage-takers were and what their aims were, why the building was stormed and whether the Russian authorities had been intent on negotiating. [...]
Some European politicians have also started to distance themselves from Putin who, in any case, had no big buddy in Europe as he supposedly has in President George W. Bush.
Leaders have bitterly condemned the hostage-takers and voiced deep sorrow at the loss of lives. But none has congratulated Putin for his handling of the crisis or even sympathised with him for its outcome.
Forces refused U.S. Request out of Iraq fears: Illustrates politicized military, defence analyst says (Chris Wattie, September 10, 2004, National Post)
Canada rejected a U.S. request to send a squadron of CF-18 fighter-bombers to Afghanistan last year because of concerns that it might free more American forces for the invasion of Iraq, according to internal Defence Department documents.In documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, the two top generals in the Canadian Forces agreed that a six-month deployment of as many as 18 aircraft to the air base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, was "deemed feasible" but recommended against the proposal because of concerns over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. [...]
[D]efence critics called the decision questionable and decried it as an example of the politicization of the Canadian military.
Gordon O'Connor, the Conservative defence critic, said the Canadian fighters would have been a valuable addition to the campaign to root out the last holdouts of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
"Our guys are very good fighter pilots," he said. "They have an excellent reputation.... The U.S. wanted the Canadians there because they knew they'd do a good job."
Mr. O'Connor said that both the Liberal government and the Canadian Forces appear to put political considerations ahead of military ones. "It would seem they're more concerned about appearances than fighting the war on terrorism."
Producer Prices Drop, Trade Gap Narrows (Tim Ahmann, 9/10/04, Reuters)
U.S. producer prices dropped unexpectedly last month as the cost of gasoline plunged and prices of food and vehicles fell, according to a government report on Friday that showed inflation pressures under wraps.A separate report showed the nation's trade deficit narrowed more than expected in July as imports declined for the first time in 10 months and exports leapt higher. Still, at $50.1 billion, it was the second biggest gap on record.
U.S. bond prices rose and the dollar slipped as the price report buttressed expectations that the Federal Reserve will take a break at some point this year from the rate-rise cycle it initiated in June. [...]
Economists also said a slimmer trade gap could boost economic growth in the third quarter.
The producer price index, a gauge of prices received by farms, factories and refineries, fell 0.1 percent in August, the Labor Department said. The core index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, also dropped 0.1 percent -- the first decline since February.
Economists had expected both figures to be up 0.1 percent.
What the Bush Guard Papers Really Say: The CBS story just doesn’t add up. (Byron York, 9/10/04, National Review)
On Wednesday, CBS News released four previously undisclosed documents which it said were written by Killian, who died in 1984. One of them, dated August 18, 1973, refers to Killian's reluctance to evaluate Bush's performance. Suggesting that top Texas Air National Guard officers were putting pressure on him to "sugar coat" Bush's performance rating, Killian wrote, "Bush wasn't here during rating period and I don't have any feedback from 187th in Alabama. I will not rate."But as the first document suggests, months before, Killian — and Harris — had quite decisively declined to rate Bush's performance. If Killian was under pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's performance, he had certainly not yielded to it. Nor had anyone else "sugar coated" the Bush evaluation.
A year before the "Not Observed" rating, according to the CBS documents, Killian was again concerned about the possibility of special treatment for Bush. A document attributed to Killian, dated May 4, 1972, orders Bush to report for a physical examination. Then another document, dated May 19, 1972, says Killian had a phone conversation with Bush about the young lieutenant's desire to transfer to an Air National Guard unit in Alabama. Bush, according to the document, said he might not have time to take his physical exam. "I advised him of our investment in him and his commitment," the document says, purportedly in Killian's words. "I also told him I had to have written acceptance before he would be transferred, but think he's also talking to someone upstairs."
But according to the documents released by the White House, just seven days later, on May 26, 1972, Killian signed on to a glowing report of Bush's performance. "Lt. Bush is an exceptional fighter interceptor pilot and officer," the report, written by Harris, said. "He eagerly participates in scheduled unit activities." The evaluation even took approving note of the fact that, "Lt. Bush is very active in civic affairs in the community and manifests a deep interest in the operation of our government. He has recently accepted the position as campaign manager for a candidate for United States Senate." Below Harris's signature, there was the statement, "I concur with the comments and ratings of the reporting official," signed by Killian.
New Zealand: Easiest place in the world to do business (Francis Till, 9-Sep-2004, National Business Review)
New Zealand is the easiest place in the world to do business, according to a new report from the World Bank."Doing Business 2005" says New Zealand tops the 145 nations surveyed by the World Bank on seven measures of administrative and regulatory impediments, most of which deal with barriers to entrepreneurial undertakings rather than the actual operation of business.
The other nine of the top ten nations are, in order, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Norway, the UK, Canada, Sweden and Japan.
The top score is an average of New Zealand's performance on the seven indicators and the report does not provide a direct overall comparison set.
Nor does ease equate to a cowboy environment, the report cautions, noting that in some areas -- like securing creditor rights -- more regulation is better than less.
"All the top countries regulate, but they do so in less costly and burdensome ways. And they focus their efforts more on protecting property rights than governments in other countries," the report says.
The report demonstrates a much clearer relationship between burdensome or ineffective regulation and national poverty than the reverse. [...]
Overall, the report finds that businesses in poor countries face much larger regulatory burdens than those in rich countries. They face 3 times the administrative costs, and nearly twice as many bureaucratic procedures and delays associated with them. And they have fewer than half the protections of property rights of rich countries.
The report also concludes that heavy regulation and weak property rights exclude the poor from doing business. In poor countries 40% of the economy is informal and that hurts women, young and low-skilled workers the most.
Entrepreneurial activity is the most restricted in exactly those countries where is is most needed, the report finds.
Cowed Dems exchange yes vote for earmarks (Hans Nichols, 9/10/04, The Hill)
Many House Democrats are expected to vote for the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill today to secure the earmarks they were denied last year as punishment for voting “no.”They say they are only voting for the bill because of a “whispering campaign” of intimidation that special projects for their districts — for schools, sewers and the like — would be stripped from the bill in conference if they vote against it.
Republicans scoff at the idea that it’s a whispering campaign, saying its an explicit threat and a political reality.
Democratic lawmakers and aides admitted they were seared by the memory of last year’s process, when they were punished en masse for their uniform opposition to the bill. It has helped convince them to support the bill this year.
Sharon's brain (Jerusalem Post, 9/09/04)
However one feels about the merits of this or that Sharon policy, there is no gainsaying that his has been an unusually consequential premiership. Partly this is a function of the circumstances history dealt him: The collapse of a peace process on which Israel had staked all; a full-blown terrorist offensive; September 11. But it also has to do with Sharon's political skill - skill both his predecessors and his would-be challengers lack.Sharon's key insight is that Israel needed, after a decade of polarization, a new center. He knew that the central thesis of the Right - that separation was suicide and peace was an illusion - was only half-right. Equally, he knew that the central thesis of the Left - that separation was necessary and peace was possible - was only half-wrong.
Oslo collapsed because there was no Palestinian partner (pace Yossi Beilin, not even Yasser Abd Rabbo). But the absence of a partner does not negate the necessity of separation. On the contrary, the more Palestinians offer Israel proofs of their intransigence, the more urgent the need to separate. Transfer is not an option, nor is a return to full-scale occupation, with Israel providing Palestinians with basic social services. Nor, either, is the status quo, which, Sharon says, "would have brought Israel heavy pressure to come up with solutions."
That leaves disengagement. Problematic in its own right, it is also largely contingent on the way its carried out. Disengagement can be an alternative to negotiations, it can be a preface to them, or it can be both. "If the Palestinians do their part," Sharon told us, "[disengagement] is meant to open the door to a diplomatic process." On the other hand, if the Palestinians do not do their part, then Israel disposes of a few territorial liabilities and consolidates settlements that remain territorial assets. This approach has the merit of serving both as punishment and incentive for the Palestinians. It also has the merit of moderation.
Above all, however, Sharon's plan has the merit of being something to which most Israelis can give their (grudging) consent.
Whither the Democrats? (Margaret Kimberly, 9/10/04, The Black Commentator)
The day before the 2004 Republican National Convention began, Sunday, August 29, more than 400,000 courageous people marched through the streets of New York to tell the world that they oppose the Bush agenda.
White House lied to AP, Nation. Bush AWOL (Kos, 9/09/04, Daily Kos)
The Ben Barnes thing is subject to debate, and partisans will line up on the obvious sides (like they have with the Swift Boat Liars). But the official documents uncovered by 60 Minutes (despite the White House's attempt to cover them up)? There's no way to spin those away. The facts are there in black and white.
Dual Loyalties (Juan Cole, 9/10/04, Informed Comment)
Many readers have written me to express concern about my safety and/or reputation since I have spoken out frankly on the horrible Likud policies of stealing Palestinian lands and brutalizing them with occupation. I'm not a babe in the woods, and I know very well that saying these things is taboo in American political culture. In fact, whenever anyone comes on a cable television news show and is anything but hostile to the Palestinians, he or she is made by the interviewer to denounce terrorism. It is an outrageous implication, and not the job of a news interviewer. But pro-Israeli speakers are never made to denounce land theft or state terror.I received a very weird phone call from a prominent Jewish-American investigative journalist the other night. He kept muttering about bias against Sharon and how the Israeli security wall is no different from the wall near the Rio Grande (which isn't true: did the US annex Mexican land to build that?)
No questions right now; he's gotta run: Kerry hasn't been chatting much lately with the media traveling with him (Jill Zuckman, September 10, 2004, Chicago Tribune)
Who knows what lurks in the heart and mind of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry?Not the traveling press corps, that's for sure.
Kerry has been under wraps for the last month, declining to subject himself to what must surely be the painful process of answering national reporters' questions.
Kerry used to regularly assure his audiences that, if elected president, he would hold a press conference every month to communicate with the nation's citizenry. (That was a not-so-subtle dig at President Bush, who has held only 12 formal press conferences during his four years in office, a record low number.)
"I have pledged that I am going to have a press conference at least once a month to talk to the nation about what I'm doing because I don't have anything to hide," Kerry said during a campaign stop in Beloit, Wis., after the Democratic National Convention. "I want America to know what I'm doing. I want you to know what I'm fighting for. I want you to ask me questions."
But Kerry doesn't make that promise anymore.
Dude, where's my party? (Alex Gourevitch, 9/09/04, Spiked)
[T]his lineup was a curious one. Giuliani, McCain, and Schwarzenegger are all party outsiders, and each holds unorthodox, liberal political opinions on issues like gay rights and abortion at odds with the highly conservative Republican Party platform. Add Zell Miller, who gave a speech at Bill Clinton's nomination in 1992, and some less noted speakers, like Mitt Romney, the liberal Republican governor of Massachussetts, and one hardly has a representative sample of Republican party views.It was somewhat startling to see Bush and Cheney, the ostensible champions of conservative and neo-conservative views, capping off this hodge-podge lineup. One was left with the feel that the Republicans are somewhat embarrassed and defensive about their 'real' views, and feel the need for outside help. Lacking the confidence unflinchingly to reassert the culture wars, they seem to have fallen back on organized paranoia and a shabby, militarised crisis politics. They have substituted fear for an assertive party program, and any popular politician they can get for a show of party unity.
The lack of party unity has plagued the Republicans for a number of years, but become pronounced since the Bush administration took office. Over the past years there have been major defections of significant Republican constituencies. Pat Buchanan and the traditional, nativist conservatism he represents left the Republicans and joined the Reform Party in 1999, breathing new life into it by becoming its 2000 presidential candidate. Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative was launched in direct response to the rise of neo-conservatism, and has been one of the most persistent critics of the 'new American Empire'.
Another traditionally Republican constituency, libertarians, has also grown increasingly disenchanted with Bush's anti-libertarian domestic security program as well as his military adventurism. Reason magazine, arguably the most significant libertarian publication, was highly critical of the war, as were various members of the CATO Institute, a libertarian think-tank. Jacob Hornberger, James Bovard, and other members of the libertarian Future of Freedom Foundation, have inveighed against the administration, declaiming its 'betrayal' of former party ideals. Some have noted that 'in their treatment of the Bush administration, Attorney General John Aschroft, the Iraq war, and the Republican leadership, the libertarian magazines...read much more like the Nation than conservative outlets like the Weekly Standard'. There are suggestions that libertarians are voting with their feet, unwilling to vote for Bush in 2004.
The Note: CBS News in Crisis(?) (Mark Halperin, Lisa Todorovich, David Chalian, Marc Ambinder, Mary Hood, Annie Chiappetta, Karen Travers, Brooke Brower, Alexandra Avnet, Jan Simmonds, Nick Schifrin and Teddy Davis, 9/10/04, ABC News)
CBS's "Early Show" did a tell this morning on the document story.An anchor read: "The authenticity of those documents is now being questions. Family members doubt that Killian would have written an unsigned memo . . . "
And "there are questions about the typography, which some experts say appear to have been done on a computer."
"CBS News says it stands by the story."
And then they quoted from the second CBS statement (not the third) that said that CBS was "convinced" the documents were authentic.
That conviction was dropped from a third CBS statement, which they asked ABC News to use instead of the second.
Compare two sequential statements released by CBS News last night:
New: "As is standard practice at CBS News, the documents in the 60 MINUTES report were thoroughly examined and their authenticity vouched for by independent experts. As importantly, 60 MINUTES also interviewed close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian. They confirm that the documents reflect his opinions and actions at the time."
Old: "As is standard practice at CBS News, each of the documents broadcast on 60 MINUTES was thoroughly investigated by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity. In addition to analysis of the documents themselves, CBS verified the authenticity of the documents by talking to individuals who had seen the documents at the time they were written. These individuals were close associates of Colonel Jerry Killian and confirm that the documents reflect his opinions at the time the documents were written."
European Commission to give go-ahead for GM maize (Stephen Castle, The New Zealand Herald, September 11th, 2004)
Seventeen varieties of genetically modified maize are to be made available for planting throughout the EU after a decision that environmental campaigners claimed could lead to contamination of conventional crops.The move, which is the first of its kind by the European Commission, came as the authorities also opened the way to license the import and processing of a GM oilseed rape produced by the biotech company Monsanto
.
Environmental campaigners attacked both decisions, claiming that there was no popular mandate for wider use of GM crops. However they welcomed a separate decision by the European Commission to shelve plans for rules on seed purity, which would have set thresholds for GM content.Under pressure from the United States, which argues that EU restrictions on GM produce breach global trading rules, Brussels is moving slowly to free up Europe as a market.
Population control, generous social welfare, the supremacy of the United Nations, inevitable European integration, Kyoto, international law, anti-globalization and genetically unmodified crops. The articles of faith of postmodern Europe are looking pretty shaky these days.
U.S. Targets 3 Iraqi Cities: The moves against Samarra and other insurgent strongholds are an attempt to bolster civilian control before elections in January. (Patrick J. McDonnell, September 10, 2004, LA Times)
U.S. forces rolled into the insurgent bastion of Samarra on Thursday and sought to reestablish Iraqi government control as aircraft pounded suspected guerrilla positions in two other strongholds: Fallouja in the west and Tall Afar in the north.The show of strength — along with the stated U.S. resolve to crush a Shiite Muslim militia in a Baghdad neighborhood — underscored the military's determination to exert control over the whole country in the months leading up to elections scheduled for January.
"This is a significant step forward where the good people of Samarra are taking control of their destiny," said Maj. Gen. John Batiste, commander of the Army's 1st Infantry Division. His troops entered the city for less than 24 hours, oversaw the selection of new civic leaders, and declared the military's intention to return to help staff checkpoints in coming days.
The U.S. moves against the three insurgent centers come after a surge in attacks this week pushed American military fatalities in Iraq to more than 1,000. The actions appeared designed to dispel the perception that growing swaths of Iraq had become "no-go" zones for U.S. troops, which commanders here forcefully deny.
Bush Guard Memos Questioned (CBS/AP, Sept. 10, 2004)
Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript — a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" — as evidence indicating forgery.Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by 60 Minutes, she said.
"I'm virtually certain these were computer generated," Lines said to the Associated Press after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software.
In the Wednesday broadcast, 60 Minutes said the memos were "documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file." The program says it consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.
Why al-Qaeda is winning (Pepe Escobar , 9/11/04, Asia Times)
The members of al-Qaeda's new elite were either born in Western Europe - many hold a legitimate European Union passport - or came to the West while still very young and then became radicalized. As Bush is a born-again Christian, they are sort of born-again Islamists. The most important fact is that this "return of the repressed" (Islam) is above all a political radicalization. The new breed's brand of political Islam is much more "political" than "Islam". [...]"Al-Qaeda" the brand has now embarked on an inexorable logic of expansion - in flagrant contradiction to Bush's assertion that the world is safer. Al-Qaeda will keep deepening its alliances with ethnic and nationalist movements - with Shamil Basayev, the emir of the mujahideen in Chechnya and trainer of the Black Widow squadrons of female suicide bombers, or with sectors of the Iraqi resistance in the Sunni triangle. "Global" al-Qaeda in all these cases works and will continue to work as a sort of "Foreign Legion", as French scholar Olivier Roy puts it, a capable military vanguard that is useful for local purposes for a determined period of time.
"Global" al-Qaeda may also even profit from the fact that national liberation movements, in desperation, decide to go on an all-out offensive, improving their alliances of circumstance with al-Qaeda. The al-Qaeda brand is also becoming attractive to scattered sectors of the extreme left, because more than appealing to radical Islam, al-Qaeda has succeeded in branding its image as the revolutionary vanguard in the fight against American imperialism. The cross-fertilization between radical Islam and disfranchised Muslim youth born and raised in the West is also performing wonders: when young people convert to Islam in a dreary suburb of Brussels, Paris, Hamburg or Madrid, it all has to do with political anger rather than discovering a direct line to Allah.
At the Republican convention, while the Republicans were harping on September 11, Bush said the Iraq war was "his" war, part of a mission from God to bring freedom to the repressed. "Terrorists hate America because they hate freedom." Wrong: "terrorists" (in fact national resistance movements) hate America because America's imperial policies are the antithesis of freedom.
As nihilistic as it may be, al-Qaeda, from a business point of view, is a major success: three years after September 11, it is a global brand and a global movement. The Middle East, in this scenario, is just a regional base station. This global brand does not have much to do with Islam. But it has everything to do with the globalization of anti-imperialism. And the empire, whatever its definition, has its center in Washington. Bin Laden is laughing: Bush's crusade has legitimized an obscure sect as a worldwide symbol of political revolt. How could bin Laden not vote for Bush?
MORE:
Jihadists Failing to Win Muslim Minds (Gilles Kepel, September 8, 2004, LA Times)
Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the hostage-taking in North Ossetia and its horrendous outcome and the capture of two French journalists in Iraq have shed new light on the challenges facing Islamist terrorism.In his 2001 pamphlet, "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner," Ayman Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's chief ideologue, reminded his readers that the "jihadist vanguard" was always at risk of being isolated from the "Muslim masses." He wrote that the jihadists needed to find ways of mobilizing those masses toward the supreme political goal: the triumph of the Islamic state and the implementation of Islamic law worldwide.
Zawahiri considered the 1990s a decade of failed opportunities. Jihad had been unsuccessful in Algeria, Bosnia, Egypt and Kashmir because militants had proved unable to galvanize civil society. To reverse this trend, he came up with the idea of using spectacular terrorism to shock the enemy and make the Muslim masses see the jihadists as knights. The Sept. 11 attacks were conceived by Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden as a way of "magnifying" jihad against Israel and "burning the hands of the U.S.," Islam's "faraway enemy" and ally of the Jewish state.
But three years on, this ideology has not achieved its goal. Although Al Qaeda has resisted Cold War-inspired U.S. military strategy (Bin Laden and Zawahiri remain on the run) and directed a succession of bloody terrorist attacks from Bali to Madrid, jihad activists have not seized power anywhere. They have lost their Afghan stronghold, and U.S.-led coalition troops have pursued the war on terror to Iraq, occupying Baghdad, erstwhile capital of the Muslim caliphate.
For the ulema, the Islamic scholars, this is a catastrophe. Instead of making inroads into enemy territory, jihad has backfired and led to what they call fitna — a war within Islam, pitting Shiite against Sunni, Arab against Kurd, Muslim against Muslim — and brought nothing but chaos.
Remember the deficit (Scot Lehigh, September 10, 2004, Boston Globe)
IT'S A lamentable absence in campaign 2004: A serious discussion of the crippling debt this nation is accumulating."There are a bunch of goals about how we are going to cut the deficit in half, but no specifics on how we are going to do it," says former Commerce Secretary Peter Peterson, a leading deficit hawk and author of the newly published "Running on Empty," a cogent critique of the nation's fiscal situation.
That failure is worth contemplating during a week when we've just gotten our last pre-election look at the budgetary bottom line.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, this year's federal deficit will hit $422 billion, a record in dollar terms. Further, on our current course, the nation will still rack up a deficit of more than $300 billion in 2009 -- and will add $2.3 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years.
MORE (via Danny Postel):
Why conservatives must not vote for Bush: A Reaganite argues that Bush is a dangerous, profligate, moralizing radical -- and that his reelection would be catastrophic both for the right and for America. (Doug Bandow, Sept. 10, 2004, Salon)
George W. Bush presents conservatives with a fundamental challenge: Do they believe in anything other than power? Are they serious about their rhetoric on limited, constitutionally restrained government?Bush appears to have remained strong in the presidential race by rallying conservatives behind him. In his convention acceptance speech he derided Sen. John Kerry's claim to represent "conservative values" and seized the mantle of promoting liberty at home and abroad. Indeed, many conservatives react like the proverbial vampire at the sight of a cross when they consider casting a ballot for Kerry. Tom Nugent, a National Review Online contributing editor, wrote: "The last thing the Republican party needs is the reckless suggestion that conservatives vote Democratic." That is mild, however, compared with the American Conservative Union's mass e-mail solicitation headlined "Why Do
Terrorists Want Kerry to Win?"Republican partisans have little choice but to focus on Kerry's perceived vulnerabilities. A few high-octane speeches cannot disguise the catastrophic failure of the Bush administration in both its domestic and its foreign policies. Mounting deficits are likely to force eventual tax increases, reversing perhaps President Bush's most important economic legacy. The administration's foreign policy is an even greater shambles, with Iraq aflame and America increasingly reviled by friend and foe alike.
Quite simply, the president, despite his well-choreographed posturing, does not represent traditional conservatism -- a commitment to individual liberty, limited government, constitutional restraint and fiscal responsibility.
The clash of fundamentalists (Ehsan Ahrari, 9/11/04, Asia Times)
The post-September 11 era has unleashed fundamentalists of all stripes who are not only blossoming, but are colliding with each other frequently, sometimes even ferociously, in the process keeping us on the edge. Fundamentalism is defined here as a feeling of self-righteousness, and of the correctness of one's cause and one's objective, which also convinces, with an equal fervor, the believer that others and their causes are wrong, and they should be defeated, and, in some instance, eradicated.A fundamentalist belief system has little use for a contrary point of view. Perhaps the strong feeling of righteousness - or even righteous indignation - overpowers the inherent human curiosity and the need for inquiry. Eric Hoffer labels these fundamentalists "true believers", in his seminal work of the same title. His description of this personality type states, "It is the true believer's ability to shut his eyes to facts which in his own mind deserve never to be seen or heard which is the source of his unequaled fortitude and consistency."
In this clash of fundamentals there are a whole slew of players; some of them are well known, while others are not. The level of transnational violence is on the rise, while the level of tolerance for different beliefs, different perspectives and different outlooks is going down. [...]
The rationale underlying Bush's use of the phrases "evil one" or "evil-doers" was to unite everyone to condemn bin Laden and his methods in much the same way bin Laden was using similar phraseology to unite Muslims. In 1998, bin Laden issued a fatwa (religious edict), in which he stated, "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim." Bush's explanation of the reason al-Qaeda chose to strike at the US was that they "hate us for our freedom". Al-Qaeda's explanation was that the United States was the force of evil, an anti-Islamic force, which should be confronted and harmed everywhere in the world.
Bin Laden's use of the word "infidel" should be clearly understood in the context of a clash of fundamentalism. Even though the original meaning and intent of that word was only to describe a non-Muslim, the Wahhabi sect - of which bin Laden is a member - uses it to describe anyone, including Muslims, who do not subscribe to the cause and the world vision of al-Qaeda and its violent modus operandi.
In choosing the language of morality to characterize bin Laden, Bush was emulating his idol, former president Ronald Reagan, himself an ardent and effective practitioner of right-wing fundamentalism. [...]
[T]he US is exercising something that can be described as "secular fundamentalism". This particular brand of fundamentalism is just as dedicated for the establishment of secular democracy in the Middle East, as are Islamists about creating Islamic governments.
Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.
Voters have no choice on Iraq (ANDREW GREELEY, September 10, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
It would appear that the Vietnam War is an issue in the current election, but the Iraq war is not. Sen. John Kerry's service in Vietnam is subject to debate, though the lack of service of the president and the vice president apparently is not. But the ongoing war in Iraq has been ruled out of bounds.The senator asserts that he would have voted for the war resolution even if he had known that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and the president brags about his own success in the war. That means half of the American people who think the war was a mistake have little to choose between the two men.
How would Jesus vote? Keyes can't presume to know (CATHLEEN FALSANI, September 10, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
When the media flaks have to defend you from the Christ Himself you're getting out-campaigned.
A Visa Revoked (Washington Post, September 7, 2004)
IN ITS ESSENCE, the State Department's recent decision to revoke the visa of Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim scholar who was to begin teaching this fall at the University of Notre Dame, resembles visa decisions that the State Department hands out every day. Many of these seem capricious. Those who are refused visas are often not told why or are given explanations so brief as to be meaningless. Not surprisingly, U.S. visa policy evokes resentment around the world.In Mr. Ramadan's case, however, there are a few important differences. For one, his work visa was revoked under a section of immigration law that refers specifically to terrorist activities. Spokesmen from the State and Homeland Security departments point out that this section refers to people who are a "public safety risk or a national security threat." According to the State Department, the decision to revoke the visa was made abruptly because "new information" came to light about Mr. Ramadan in the past few weeks. DHS, while confirming that Homeland Security officials were the source of at least some information, refuses to say what it was, referring callers to the State Department, which also refuses to "comment on the specifics of this or any other case."
The case is also different because of who Mr. Ramadan is: a Muslim scholar who has consistently argued for an Islamic "reformation" and a reconciliation of Muslim and Western cultures. Mr. Ramadan, a citizen of Switzerland, has lectured many times in the United States, including at the State Department and, he says, at events organized by former president Bill Clinton. Far from having an extremist or fanatical reputation, he is usually described as a leading moderate -- exactly the sort of person, in other words, with whom dialogue should be encouraged.
Tariq Ramadan is radioactive. Speak to any Christian in the Arab world, and "roadkill" is the nicest thing you'll hear about him. For the left — especially the far left — the grandson of the founder of the incendiary Muslim Brotherhood, the most important Islamist movement of the 20th century, is just in from a little stroll on the Sea of Galilee.For France's influential Jewish intellectuals — Bernard-Henri Levy, Andre Glucksmann, Bernard Kouchner — Ramadan is a dangerously skillful anti-Semite.
Mr. Ramadan was scheduled to begin teaching Islam, conflict resolution and peace building, at Indiana's Notre Dame University this month. It was to be a tenured post. But his visa was rescinded by the Department of Homeland Security.
In a televised debate with France's then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy late last year, Mr. Ramadan declined to condemn "lapidation" — the stoning of adulterous wives as mandated by a strict interpretation of the Koran. Instead, Mr. Ramadan said he favored a "moratorium" in the practice.
A multimillionaire from the sale of countless thousands of cassettes of his mesmerizing sermons, Mr. Ramadan is lionized by the jobless, North African slum-dwellers that cling barnaclelike to France's major cities. The neo-Marxist, anti-globalization left has also hitched its bandwagon to his star-status in French-speaking Europe.
Space cowboys (John O'Farrell, September 10, 2004, The Guardian)
On Wednesday, Nasa scientists watched in shock as their Genesis solar project ended in disaster. "I can't believe it" they all said. "A space mission that went wrong? This is completely unprecedented. I mean, the last time a major space project ended in embarrassing failure was way, way back in January when our Mars rover broke down, and then before that the Beagle 2 project lost contact with its probe, oh and then there was last year's Columbia disaster, oh and the Hubble Telescope fiasco, but apart from that our record is very impressive." From now on Nasa is going to launch its rockets on the 4th of July, just so that everyone thinks they're meant to explode. [...]The so-called Genesis project received its massive funding before they realised that it had nothing to do with taking Phil Collins into deep space. In fact, the naming of the craft is not without an irony of its own, since the purpose of this trip was to inform us about the origins of our solar system. Yet the president who is paying for it all has passed an education bill allowing creationism to creep back into American schools. Why does he need to spend millions on the space probe, to find out what he says Americans can read in the Book of Genesis? Could it be that he's only claiming to take the Bible at face value in order to secure votes in America's bible belt? Or maybe they just told him that with all that fire coming off the sun there must be some oil in there somewhere?
With the tide of Christian fundamentalism that is increasingly directing scientific funding in America, soon Nasa won't be able to send out any more probes unless they are looking for a big bloke with a white beard sitting on a cloud surrounded by angels. But though their latest mission has ended in disaster, maybe this week Nasa just settled the science versus religion debate for once and for all. A huge lump of metal comes flying out of the sky at 200mph, crash lands in the United States, but it completely misses President George W Bush. Clearly there is no God; what more proof does anyone need?
The Dishonesty Thing (PAUL KRUGMAN, 9/10/04, NY Times)
It's the dishonesty, stupid. The real issue in the National Guard story isn't what George W. Bush did three decades ago. It's the recent pattern of lies: his assertions that he fulfilled his obligations when he obviously didn't, the White House's repeated claims that it had released all of the relevant documents when it hadn't.It's the same pattern of dishonesty...
Stakes rise as US declares Darfur killings genocide (Ewen MacAskill, September 10, 2004, The Guardian)
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, dramatically increased pressure on the Sudanese government yesterday by declaring the killings and destruction in its Darfur region to be genocide.Mr Powell, directly blaming the Sudanese government, said: "This was a coordinated effort, not just random violence."
The US now has an obligation under international law to act. Labelling violence as genocide is relatively rare. [...]
The US and British governments have been reluctant to declare the destruction of lives and villages in Darfur to be genocide because of the international legal obligations and to avoid unnecessarily antagonising the Sudanese government. [...]
An estimated 40,000 people have been killed and 1.2 million have fled their homes as a result of the violence.
Paul Ehrlich vs. the IPCC (Tim Worstall, 09/09/2004, Tech Central Station)
God save Paul Ehrlich, patron saint of lazy hacks (coff, coff) the world over. He appears to be incapable of opening his mouth without providing a comment suitable for refutation and derision in a thousand articles, his latest being this from the New York Times:"I have severe doubts that we can support even two billion if they all live like citizens of the U.S.," he said. "The world can support a lot more vegetarian saints than Hummer-driving idiots."
It's a less than magisterial response to an article that trashes his public stance of the past 35 years that there is nothing we can do to solve the population problem. The article pointed out that we have actually solved it and we did so by getting rich. I will agree that he got one thing right, that the world would be a better place with more saints than idiots; but that appears not to be the way the Good Lord planned it.
His more substantial point, that the world cannot support 2 billion at US standards of living, is easily refutable. In fact, it is refuted by a large and well known piece of research that the Professor himself urges us all to take note of. I refer, of course, to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. There are many here and elsewhere who have doubts about the science behind the report but let us, for a moment, take the authors at their word. The foundation of the whole process is the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) which provides the emissions that are then run through the various climate and temperature models. We know very well the conclusion that is reached, that global warming is coming and we have to do something about it. As indeed we are doing something about it, some things sensible, like researching non-fossil fuel methods of energy generation, others less so, like spending fortunes on the implementation of such methods before finishing that research.
There is one point that I would like to draw your attention to. It is that a basic assumption of the models and scenarios is that, in 2100, the entire population of the planet is assumed to be living at or around current US levels of wealth. Interesting little factoid, no?
Doctors rule out link between vaccine and autism (Press Association, September 10, 2004, The Guardian)
There is no evidence to support a link between the controversial MMR jab and the development of autism in children, researchers said today.Concern about a reported link between the triple vaccine and the disorder has led to a drop in the number of parents getting their children vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella in the UK.
But research funded by the Medical Research Council today concluded that the team could find no evidence of a link between autism and MMR.
Controversy over the jab was first sparked after a small-scale study published in the Lancet and led by Dr Andrew Wakefield suggested a link with autism and bowel problems in 1998.
After that, various large-scale studies failed to find any evidence of a link and Dr Wakefield's own research was later discredited.
The Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly urged antidepressant manufacturers not to disclose to physicians and the public that some clinical trials of the medications in children found the drugs were no better than sugar pills, according to documents and testimony released at a congressional hearing yesterday.Regulators suppressed the negative information on the grounds that it might scare families and physicians away from the drugs, according to testimony by drug company executives. For at least three medications, they said, the FDA blocked the companies' plans to reveal the negative studies in drug labels, and in one case the agency reversed a manufacturer's decision to amend its drug label to say that the drug was associated in studies with increased hostility and suicidal thinking among children.
"Why would FDA require a company to remove stronger labeling?" demanded an incredulous Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) yesterday, at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. "FDA should want to encourage a company to do that kind of thing."
Janet Woodcock, FDA's deputy commissioner for operations, responded that regulators believe the jury is still out on the drugs. The negative trials, she said, did not mean the medications were ineffective.
The Duel Between Body and Soul: In this century the great conflict between science and religion will be over psychology, and the stakes are
nothing less than our souls. (PAUL BLOOM, 9/10/04, NY MTimes)
What people think about many of the big issues that will be discussed in the next two months - like gay marriage, stem-cell research and the role of religion in public life - is intimately related to their views on human nature. And while there may be differences between Republicans and Democrats, one fundamental assumption is accepted by almost everyone. This would be reassuring - if science didn't tell us that this assumption is mistaken.People see bodies and souls as separate; we are common-sense dualists. The President's Council on Bioethics expressed this belief system with considerable eloquence in its December 2003 report "Being Human'': "We have both corporeal and noncorporeal aspects. We are embodied spirits and inspirited bodies (or, if you will, embodied minds and minded bodies)." [...]
Admittedly, not everyone explicitly endorses dualism; some people wouldn't be caught dead talking about souls or spirits. But common-sense dualism still frames how we think about such issues. That's why people often appeal to science to answer the question "When does life begin?" in the hopes that an objective answer will settle the abortion debate once and for all. But the question is not really about life in any biological sense. It is instead asking about the magical moment at which a cluster of cells becomes more than a mere physical thing. It is a question about the soul. [...]
Some scholars are confident that people will come to accept this scientific view. In the domain of bodies, after all, most of us accept that common sense is wrong. We concede that apparently solid objects are actually mostly empty space, and consist of tiny particles and fields of energy. Perhaps the same sort of reconciliation will happen in the domain of souls, and it will come to be broadly recognized that dualism, though intuitively appealing, is factually mistaken.
I am less optimistic. I once asked my 6-year-old son, Max, about the brain, and he said that it is very important and involved in a lot of thinking - but it is not the source of dreaming or feeling sad, or loving his brother. Max said that's what he does, though he admitted that his brain might help him out. Studies from developmental psychology suggest that young children do not see their brain as the source of conscious experience and will. They see it instead as a tool we use for certain mental operations. It is a cognitive prosthesis, added to the soul to increase its computing power.
CBS'S BIG BLUNDER? (JOHN PODHORETZ , 9/10/04, NY Post)
CBS made the four documents available in their original form on its Web site Wednesday night.And by yesterday morning, they were being examined with a fine tooth comb.
The Minneapolis lawyers who run powerlineblog.com were on the case early. Two of the blog's readers directed their attention to a note left on an Internet bulletin board on the freerepublic.com Web site — the 47th posting on the topic there.
Post No. 47 pointed out that there was something off about these documents from the 1970s: The spacing between the letters and the words was proportional, and only a few IBM electric typewriters could achieve that effect back then.
From there it was off to the races. Once anyone who had had experience writing and typing in the 1970s began examining the documents, it was impossible not to see some weird anachronisms that suggested they had been crafted not on a 1970s typewriter, but using Microsoft Word.
Charles Johnson, who runs the wonderful littlegreenfootballs.com, simply typed one of the memos over using Microsoft Word's New Times Roman font and, lo and behold, the document came out exactly identical to the one on the CBS site, down to the letter spacing.
The documents contain such features as superscript lettering, which is done automatically by Microsoft Word, and curly quotation marks. A brief glance at a Web site called selectric.org, run by an amateur typewriter fanatic, reveals dozens of IBM electric typefaces — and none of them has curly quotation marks.
By 3 o'clock, the very careful and honest Jim Geraghty, who produces invaluable material every day on nationalreview.com's Kerry Spot, was saying flatly, "CBS had better have one heck of a defense for this."
Gut-Check Time for Kerry: Pummeled for weeks by Bush & Co., he's now being pelted with lots of advice -- mostly bad. But the woozy Dem can still prevail (Lee Walczak, 9/05/04, Business Week))
The Bush high command has found that, more so than in previous elections, voters are intensely information-hungry in 2004. Americans want specifics about issues such as soaring health-care costs, job security, the anti-terror war, and that much-advertised light at the end of the oil pipeline in Iraq.Bush claims Iraq is on the road to democracy and has promised sweeping Ownership Society programs that are both controversial and beyond his means to deliver. So he's content to campaign wrapped in a flag of patriotism, while leaving it to surrogates to systematically destroy Kerry's character.
On the other side, Kerry is running on the promise of a hugely expensive and highly interventionist Middle-Class Safety Net that he claims would create jobs that cannot be generated by government fiat or via tax credits. He has left himself open to character assault by virtue of a long Senate career in which he often sidled up to both sides of an issue. [...]
So what will it take for Kerry to become the Comeback Lieutenant? A quasi-policy wonk with a good grasp of programmatic details, he needs to edge Bush on points in the debates by relentlessly drawing the contrast between "failed" GOP policies and his supposedly better Democratic alternatives. Then he must charge into the battleground states with a head of steam in October and count on the Democrats' potentially superior turnout machine to win the ground war -- and the election -- for him by the slenderest of margins. [...]
Even as the former President was being prepped for his heart-bypass surgery, which was performed on Sept. 6, word came that he had been spending hours on the phone with Kerry, offering detailed advice for rescuing the campaign. (I can just see the scene in the operating room, where Bubba tells the anesthesiologist to hold off for a few minutes, he's gotta get Kerry on the cell phone for one more bit of guidance about campaigning in Youngstown).
Clinton is an acknowledged political master. So what could possibly be wrong about any of this? Well, for one thing, the minute ol' Bill gets off the phone with Kerry, he tells 14 of his friends, who tell 22 reporters, who promptly write that Clinton is calling the shots from afar. We had this dynamic during the Al Gore's late Blue Period, and it wasn't favorable to the former Veep. It similarly diminishes Kerry.
A ponderous JFK-wannabe, Kerry is no Bill Clinton and never will be. What is instinctively simple for Clinton is immeasurably hard for Kerry -- one-on-one empathy. In the long run, Kerry needs to win or lose on his own terms, without backstage coaching from Cousin Bill. At a minimum, he needs to put the lid on the whispers from the Clinton camp. If these guys were as brilliant as they think they are, Wesley Clark would be the Democratic nominee. [...]
Sensing that Bush has successfully transformed the debate into a dialogue about the global war on terrorism, Democrats are urging Kerry to get off foreign policy and refocus his campaign on jobs, jobs, jobs. It would be a fatal mistake to take that advice. First off, those jobs are coming back, and unemployment is falling.
Kerry's best issue is the more complex set of social pressures known as the middle-class squeeze, but it can't be his only issue. People want to know what the Democrat would do to extricate the U.S. from the seething mess in Iraq and how he would back up his claims to be more aggressive in the pursuit of al Qaeda.
If Kerry can't nail Bush for cooking up the war to oust Saddam Hussein on essentially false pretenses and then making an unholy hash of the occupation, he has no prayer on Nov. 2, because Iraq is a topic of conversation from one end of this country to the other.
Anatomy of a Forgery (The Prowler, 9/10/2004, The American Spectator)
More than six weeks ago, an opposition research staffer for the Democratic National Committee received documents purportedly written by President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard squadron commander, the late Col. Jerry Killian.The oppo researcher claimed the source was "a retired military officer." According to a DNC staffer, the documents were seen by both senior staff members at the DNC, as well as the Kerry campaign.
"More than a couple people heard about the papers," says the DNC staffer. "I've heard that they ended up with the Kerry campaign, for them to decide to how to proceed, and presumably they were handed over to 60 Minutes, which used them the other night. But I know this much. When there was discussion here, there were doubts raised about their authenticity."
The concerns arose from the sourcing. "It wasn't clear that our source for the documents would have had access to them. Our person couldn't confirm from what file, from what original source they came from." [...]
A CBS producer, who initially tipped off The Prowler about the 60 Minutes story, says that despite seeking professional assurances that the documents were legitimate, there was uncertainty even among the group of producers and researchers working on the story.
"The problem was we had one set of documents from Bush's file that had Killian calling Bush 'an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot.' And someone who Killian said 'performed in an outstanding manner.' Then you have these new documents and the tone and content are so different."
The CBS producer said that some alarms bells went off last week when the signatures and initials of Killian on the documents in hand did not match up with other documents available on the public record, but producers chose to move ahead with the story. "This was too hot not to push. If there were doubts, those people didn't show it," says the producer, who works on a rival CBS News program.
Now, the producer says, there is growing concern inside the building on 57th Street that they may have been suckered by the Kerry campaign. "There is a school of thought here that the Kerry people dumped this in our laps, figuring we'd do the heavy lifting on the story. That maybe they had doubts about these documents but hoped we'd get more information," says the producer. "If that's the case, then we're bigger fools than we already appear to be judging by all the chatter about how these documents could be forgeries."
Some Question Authenticity of Papers on Bush (Michael Dobbs and Mike Allen, September 10, 2004, Washington Post)
Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity. [...]
CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity." The statement added that CBS reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified individuals who saw them "at the time they were written."
CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards declined to respond to questions raised by experts who examined copies of the papers at the request of The Washington Post, or to provide the names of the experts CBS consulted. Experts interviewed by The Post pointed to a series of telltale signs suggesting that the documents were generated by a computer or word processor rather than the typewriters in widespread use by Bush's National Guard unit.
A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said that a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone, and that Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."
"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."
A series of thoughts occur here:
* What will really drive this story is the chance for CBS's rivals to discredit them--Bush will just get collateral benefits.
* But, those benefits are huge. It makes him bulletproof against even legitimate questions and can't help but be tied to the Kerry campaign.
* The Left, which seems to have thought these documents were a big deal, will be despondent if they are discredited.
* Has someone checked to see if these documents were done on the same machine as Linda Tripp's talking points?
* Commander's Son Questions Memos on Bush's Service (KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JIM RUTENBERG, 9/10/04, NY Times)
A day after memos emerged suggesting that George W. Bush received favorable treatment when he was in the National Guard during the Vietnam War, the son of Mr. Bush's squadron commander said he doubted the authenticity of some of the memos his father was said to have written.The White House, meanwhile, for the second day in a row dismissed renewed questions about Mr.Bush's service as "recycled" and said they were part of a "coordinated attack" by Senator John Kerry, Mr. Bush's Democratic opponent in the presidential campaign, and his associates.
The new fracas over Mr. Bush's service began after CBS News and its program "60 Minutes'' reported on four memos they said were from the personal file of Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, who died 20 years ago. The memos said Mr. Bush had disobeyed a direct order to go for a physical in 1972 and that Colonel Killian had felt pressure to "sugarcoat'' Mr. Bush's record. [...]
Meanwhile, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has ties to the Republicans and has attacked Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam, said Thursday that it would spend $680,000 to put up a nationwide commercial that criticizes Mr. Kerry for tossing his war decorations.
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You'll be shocked to hear that the anti-Bush ad was entirely paid for by a Kerry fundraiser, TV writer gives $100G to Texans for Truth (SHARON THEIMER, 9/9/2004, The Associated Press)
A television writer and fund-raiser for John Kerry is the first six-figure donor to a new group that is criticizing President Bush's National Guard service during the Vietnam War.Daniel O'Keefe, a writer/producer whose work includes such sitcoms as "The Drew Carey Show" and "Seinfeld," donated $100,000 this week to Texans for Truth, an Austin-based group that plans to run anti-Bush television ads starting Monday.
The group spent about $100,000 on its first ad buy, an anti-Bush commercial that starts Monday in the presidential battleground states Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania.
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CBSNEWS LAUNCHES INTERNAL INVESTIGATION AFTER SUSPICIOUS BUSH DOCS AIRED (Drudge Report, 9/10/04)
CBS NEWS executives have launched an internal investigation into whether its premiere news program 60 MINUTES aired fabricated documents relating to Bush's National Guard service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned."The reputation and integrity of the entire news division is at stake, if we are in error, it will be corrected," a top CBS source explained late Thursday.
The source, who asked not to be named, described CBSNEWS anchor and 60 MINUTES correspondent Dan Rather as being privately "shell-shocked" by the increasingly likelihood that the documents in question were fraudulent.
Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father and retired as a captain in 1991, said one of the memos, signed by his father, appeared legitimate. But he doubted his father would have written another, unsigned memo - with the subject line "CYA" - which said there was pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's performance review."It just wouldn't happen," the 51-year-old Houston businessman said. "The only thing that can happen when you keep secret files like that are bad things. ... No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that."
News reports have said the memos, first obtained by CBS's "60 Minutes," were found in Jerry Killian's personal records. Gary Killian said his father wasn't in the habit of bringing his work home with him, and that the documents didn't come from the family. He said he was e-mailed the memos Thursday, but he wouldn't say by whom.
Asked if he was suggesting the memos might be fabricated, Gary Killian said, "I don't know what else to think."
The personnel chief in Killian's unit at the time also said he believes the documents are fake.
"They looked to me like forgeries," Rufus Martin said. "I don't think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years."
Marjorie Connell — widow of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, the reported author of memos suggesting that Bush did not meet the standards for the Texas Air National Guard — questioned whether the documents were real."The wording in these documents is very suspect to me," she told ABC News Radio in an exclusive phone interview from her Texas home. She added that she "just can't believe these are his words."
First reported by CBS's 60 Minutes, the memos allegedly were found in Killian's personal files. But his family members say they doubt he ever made such documents, let alone kept them.
Connell said Killian did not type, and though he did take notes, they were usually on scraps of paper. "He was a person who did not take copious notes," she said. "He carried everything in his mind."
Killian's son, Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father, also told ABC News Radio that he doubts his father wrote the documents. "It was not the nature of my father to keep private files like this, nor would it have been in his own interest to do so," he said.
"We don't know where the documents come from," he said, adding, "They didn't come from any family member."
The 32-year-old documents produced Wednesday by the CBS News program "60 Minutes," shedding a negative light on President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, may have been forged using a current word processing program, according to typography experts.Three independent typography experts told CNSNews.com they were suspicious of the documents from 1972 and 1973 because they were typed using a proportional font, not common at that time, and they used a superscript font feature found in today's Microsoft Word program.
Spokeswoman Kelli Edwards said she was aware of the charge that the documents, purportedly produced in 1972 and 1973, appear to have been forged with a modern word processor."As is standard practice at CBS News, each of the documents broadcast on '60 Minutes' was thoroughly investigated by independent experts, and we are convinced of their authenticity," she said.
Edwards refused to comment further, referring back to her statement as the final word.
Later, however, she sent an e-mail to WND, adding, "CBS verified the authenticity of the documents by talking to individuals who had seen the documents at the time they were written. These individuals were close associates of [Bush commander] Colonel Jerry Killian and confirm that the documents reflect his opinions at the time the documents were written."
Forensic authorities said that critical memos that CBS News said were written by Bush's squadron commander in the early 1970s might not be legitimate — the product of a modern-day word processor and not a Vietnam-era typewriter that Bush's commander would have used.The network, which first reported on the documents Wednesday, insisted that the four memos from 1972 and 1973 had been authenticated by the network's experts and by "close associates" of the commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who "confirm that the documents reflect his opinions and actions at the time."
The charges and countercharges came during a feverish day of politicking that began with Democrats welcoming the chance to turn the same spotlight on the president's military record that had been shone on Sen. John F. Kerry's Vietnam War service for several weeks, beginning last month.
The relish with which some launched the Democratic attack was counterbalanced, however, by some party strategists who worried that criticism of Bush's service 30 years ago would distract from issues that concern voters today.
Falling Bodies, a 9/11 Image Etched in Pain (KEVIN FLYNN and JIM DWYER, 9/10/04, NY Times)
Three years later, they remain open questions, and many people wonder if firm answers would lead to more pain or less, to practical lessons for society or to just a spectacle for the morbidly curious.How many people jumped from the upper floors of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11?
Why did so many more people jump from the north tower than the south?
What floors did they come from?
Who were they?
The attack on the World Trade Center was one of the most observed catastrophes in history, and those who fell or jumped from the towers were, briefly, its most public victims. They emerged one or two at a time from a blanket of smoke and fire that rendered mass death virtually invisible. Nearly all the others killed that day - whether high in the trade center, on board the hijacked airplanes or deep inside the Pentagon - were beyond the sight of survivors and witnesses.
Those who came through the windows of the towers provided the starkest, most harrowing evidence of the desperate conditions inside. Since then, though, they have largely vanished from consideration. Newspapers rarely publish images of the falling people. Evacuation studies concentrated on the accounts of survivors.
The 9/11 Commission, which has compiled the most detailed history of the day, mentioned those who jumped only as they affected the people on the streets below.
Even now, there has been less fact-finding than guesswork. Some researchers say more than 200 people most likely fell or jumped to their death. Others say the number is half that, or fewer. None have been officially identified.
Is It a Hoax?: Experts weigh in on the 60 Minutes documents. Says one: "I'm a Kerry supporter myself, but . . . I'm 99% sure that these documents were not produced in the early 1970s." (Stephen F. Hayes, 09/09/2004, Weekly Standard)
DOCUMENTS CITED Wednesday by 60 Minutes in a widely-publicized expose of George W. Bush's National Guard Service are very likely forgeries, according to several experts on document authenticity and typography. The documents--four memos from Killian to himself or his files written in 1972 and 1973--appear to indicate that Bush refused or ignored orders to have a physical exam required to continue flying. CBS News anchor Dan Rather reported the segment and sourced the documents this way: "60 Minutes has obtained a number of documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file," he said. The 60 Minutes story served as the basis for follow-up news reports for dozens of news organizations across the country. The memos were almost immediately questioned in the blog world, with blog Power Line leading the charge.And according to several forensic document experts contacted by THE WEEKLY STANDARD say the Killian memos appear to be forgeries. Although it is nearly impossible to establish with certainty the authenticity of documents without a careful examination of the originals, several irregularities in the Killian memos suggest that CBS may have been the victim of a hoax. [...]
There are several reasons these experts are skeptical of the authenticity of the Killian memos. First the typographic spacing is proportional, as is routine with professional typesetting and computer typography, not monospace, as was common in typewriters in the 1970s. (In proportional type, thin letters like "i" and "l" are spaced closer together than thick letters like "W" and "M". In monospace, all the letter widths are the same.)
Second, the font appears to be identical to the Times New Roman font that is the default typeface in Microsoft Word and other modern word processing programs. According to Flynn, the font is not listed in the Haas Atlas--the definitive encyclopedia of typewriter type fonts.
Third, the apostrophes are curlicues of the sort produced by word processors on personal computers, not the straight vertical hashmarks typical of typewriters. Finally, in some references to Bush's unit--the 111thFighter Interceptor Squadron--the "th" is a superscript in a smaller size than the other type. Again, this is typical (and often done automatically) in modern word processing programs. Although several experts allow that such a rendering might have been theoretically possible in the early 1970s, it would have been highly unlikely. Superscripts produced on typewriters--the numbers preceding footnotes in term papers, for example--were almost always in the same size as the regular type.
Russia shapes plan of attack (Scott Peterson, 9/10/04, The Christian Science Monitor)
President Vladimir Putin refuses to meet with top Chechen separatist leaders, whom he holds responsible for a wave of terror that includes two downed passenger jets, a suicide bomb in Moscow, and the hostage crisis. But analysts say that Mr. Putin may offer far broader autonomy to Chechnya, which adds up to "de facto independence," according to American experts who took part in a 3 1/2-hour meeting with the Russian leader.
Crossing Over: I marched against abortion rights and was adamantly pro-life...until I got pregnant. (Robin Ringleka, September 8, 2004, Sexing the Political)
Six months before I became pregnant, I marched the streets of Washington, D.C. Every January 22nd, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, thousands of 'pro-lifers' from all over the country pour into the streets to protest. The year I turned eighteen, I was one of them. How could I have known that in less than a year I would become one of "those women" against whom we were marching?
Rare Muslim debate over terrorist acts: The attack on Russian schoolchildren sparks critical self-examination among some Muslim opinion leaders. (Dan Murphy, 9/10/04, CS Monitor)
Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks - when disgust at the violence was tempered by a sense among many that the US got what it deserved - Muslim ambivalence is being replaced in a few influential corners by self-examination and demands for clerics to take a tougher stance against the killers.While unlikely to reach the hard-core terrorists, the shifting climate could alter public opinion in the longer term, say Arab analysts. Many point to the suicide bombings in Iraq and an Al Qaeda-linked attack in Saudi Arabia last November that left 17 people dead, most of them Arab, as turning points, too.
"I don't think the shock just begins with the Chechnya thing. It's been building, with the multiple attacks in Iraq. People can't square the killing of Iraqis standing in line to get bread with legitimate grievances,'' says Youssef Ibrahim, a Dubai-based political analyst who wrote a piece condemning the attacks for the Gulf News. "At first, there was a certain glee that Americans were getting a black eye in Iraq, but since, there's been some serious questioning about where Islam the religion ends and where the Islam of the political extreme begins."
There's also a growing sense among Arab opinion leaders that such events play into the Western stereotypes about Islam, and that the sins of the few are harming the interests of the majority.
House votes to block new overtime rules (JIM ABRAMS, September 9, 2004, AP)
In a sharp rebuke of a new administration policy, the House moved Thursday to block the Labor Department from carrying out overtime rules that critics argued could deprive millions of workers of their overtime pay.The 223-193 vote in favor of blocking the new overtime rules defied the White House, which has threatened to veto a massive spending bill now on the House floor if it contains any language tampering with the rules that took effect Aug. 23.
Poll finds Europeans and Democrats think alike (Peter Ford, 9/10/04, CS Monitor)
In a related story, Republicans think like Americans.
Election '04: a Guide for the Complexed: Relax, it's OK for liberals to hate Bush. (Lee Siegel, September 9, 2004, LA Times)
How did a Republican Party that has left vast stretches of the population convinced Bush stole the presidency, that dragged the nation into a purposeless war under false pretenses, that gives no quarter to dissenters within its own ranks, that compares John Kerry to Hitler and sponsors a smear campaign against him — how did this truly fanatical, extremist political party succeed in making its critics feel guilty about the intensity of their criticism?
Bush Gains Solid Lead, Poll Shows: President Strengthens Position on Key Campaign Issues (Richard Morin and Dan Balz, September 9, 2004, Washington Post)
President Bush emerged from his New York convention with a solid lead over Democratic challenger John F. Kerry, strengthening his position on virtually every important issue in the campaign and opening up a clear advantage over his rival on many of the personal characteristics that influence voters in presidential elections, according to a Washington Post-ABC News Poll.For the first time in the campaign, a majority of likely voters now say they plan to vote for Bush. Among those most likely to vote in November, Bush holds a 52 percent to 43 percent lead over Kerry, with independent Ralph Nader receiving 2 percent of the hypothetical vote. Among all registered voters, Bush leads Kerry 50 percent to 44 percent. [...]
In the five weeks since the Democratic convention, Kerry's favorability rating has plunged, after attacks on his Vietnam service from a group of anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans, self-inflicted wounds by the candidate over Iraq and a relentless pounding from Republicans. Kerry's favorable rating fell from 51 percent at the beginning of August to just 36 percent in the latest Post-ABC News poll, while his unfavorable rating rose from 32 percent to 42 percent.
Bush's favorable rating rose slightly to 51 percent and his overall approval rating rose another notch to 52 percent. An identical percentage said Bush deserves a second term. Strategists in both campaigns have watched Bush's approval rating closely through the year as an indicator of his reelection prospects. That rating fell below 50 percent in May and has been inching its way back up over the summer. History suggests that Bush will be formidable in November if his approval rating remains in the low-50s, vulnerable if he is in the 40s.
Give the Chechens a Land of Their Own (Richard Pipes, The New York Times, September 9th, 2004)
Unfortunately, Russia's leaders, and to some extent the populace, are loath to grant them independence - in part because of a patrimonial mentality that inhibits them from surrendering any territory that was ever part of the Russian homeland, and in part because they fear that granting the Chechens sovereignty would lead to a greater unraveling of their federation. The Kremlin also does not want to lose face by capitulating to force.The Russians ought to learn from the French. France, too, was once involved in a bloody colonial war in which thousands fell victim of terrorist violence. The Algerian war began in 1954 and dragged on without an end in sight, until Charles de Gaulle courageously solved the conflict by granting Algeria independence in 1962. This decision may have been even harder than the choice confronting President Putin, because Algeria was much larger and contributed more to the French economy than Chechnya does to Russia's, and hundreds of thousands of French citizens lived there.
Until and unless Moscow follows the French example, the terrorist menace will not be alleviated. It is as impossible to track Chechens scattered throughout Russia as it is to intimidate the suicidal fanatics among them. Worse, the continuation of Chechen terrorism threatens to undermine the authority of Mr. Putin, whose landslide victory in last spring's presidential election was in good measure due to the voters' belief that he could contain the Chechen threat. Russians respect strong authority, and there are new signs that Mr. Putin's inability to wield it over Chechnya makes them wonder whether he is fit to rule them. After the school siege, there was much muttering in the streets that under Stalin such atrocities would not have occurred.
Unfortunately, he seems determined not to yield an inch. "We showed weakness, and the weak are trampled upon," he said on Saturday. This may seem like a truism to Russians, but in this case it is wrong. Russia, the largest country on earth, can surely afford to let go of a tiny colonial dependency, and ought to do so without delay.
Many across the political spectrum are arguing that Chechen independence is inevitable and that to try and thwart it is futile. This argument resonates widely in the West, where instinctive popular sympathy often arises for any ethnic group seeking self-determination by breaking away from a larger state. There is something in us that is quick to associate such movements with the universal quest for freedom and that pulls our hearts like a magnet, even though we may know little to nothing of the history or culture of those we are cheering on. Many also believe that the persistence of these peoples and their willingness to sacrifice are unlimited, and that they enjoy widespread support among those they claim to represent. For folks like Mr. Pipes, they can no more be stopped than Canute could reverse the waves.
This phenomenon, pretty much unique to the West, is not new. It started when Lord Byron single-handedly invented the NGO by inspiring English romantics in Whig salons to yearn and agitate with him for Greek independence from Turkey. Using a deft mixture of classical romance and sublime verse, he painted a popular image of 19th century Greece that was far from accurate. Greece won her independence, but it took another 120 odd years of brigandage, frequent wars, brutal civil wars, an imported autocratic monarchy, fascist dictatorship and a near communist coup that was thwarted only by British troops and the American dime before the Greeks achieved anything like the freedoms their well-meaning but naive British patrons sought for them. Even today, much popular Greek opinion is to the effect that their freedom and democracy are huge favours they did the West for which we are appallingly ungrateful.
The struggles for independence of other countries, notably Poland, Ireland and Israel, benefited greatly from Western public opinion. They succeeded in presenting their national causes as epitomes of civilization’s noblest values. In more recent times, opinion on the left or right (or both) lined up pretty much unquestioningly with Ibos in Nigeria, Tibetans, Palestinians, Eritreans, anyone challenging the Soviet Union and whoever seemed to be the underdog of the moment in the Balkans. The little guy was always right.
It can be a huge and bloody catastrophe to confuse ethnic self-determination with constitutional liberalism. There are many instances where the success of the former destroyed any immediate chance of the latter (Eastern Europe and Africa) or actually led to mass slaughter (Indian Partition). Whatever their appalling history, the Chechen record during their autonomous period from 1996-9 gives little cause for us to be optimistic, while Russia herself appears to be moving in the right direction. If it is true as a practical matter that such movements are always destined to succeed, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the might of the United States can defeat any existing nation but is powerless to prevent the emergence of new ones, no matter how small, autocratic or destabilizing. Given the number of ethnic groups in this vale of tears and how they are intermingled, that is not a promising recipe for a free and peaceful world.
Either Islamicism, terror and rogue states are the most lethal threats facing us or they are not. If they are, a very welcome development would be to see the U.S., Israel, Russia and India acting in concert to meet the challenge. That isn’t likely to happen if the Russians are hammered daily over Chechnya or we become swept up by visceral sympathy for popular opinion in Kashmir. Some may worry that the failure to support causes like Chechnya would be an abandonment of the principles the war is being fought for and a cynical sacrifice of deserving peoples to the cause of great power politics. That is a perfectly reasonable worry, but it is also worth remembering that there is very little connection between what the Founding Fathers represent and the fevered dreams of murderous nationalists in many remote and savage lands.
The losing side of history (Debra J. Saunders, September 9, 2004, SF Chronicle)
THE LOG CABIN Republicans, an organization for gay and lesbian members of the GOP, announced Tuesday it would not endorse George W. Bush for re-election, even though the group endorsed Bush in 2000. This reversal largely reflects the president's support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.[...]The Bushies may be cleaving to a risky strategy of basing a win on getting people who don't always vote to turn out at the polls, while alienating those who do vote. It is oddly shortsighted.
Bush, after all, stepped up the GOP's courtship of Latino voters, and flirted with amnesty for illegal aliens in order to win the big Latino demographic. Now Bush is pulling America backward, despite polls that show Americans increasingly accepting gays and lesbians. A New York Times survey found that 41 percent of GOP delegates (who are supposed to be more conservative than the general population) support civil unions for gay couples. It is only a matter of time before most Republicans support civil unions so that gay and lesbian couples can enjoy the rights that heterosexuals enjoy. Bush is heading in the wrong direction.
Daddy Darkest: George W. Bush thinks of Americans as little kids. No wonder we’ve grown so dysfunctional. (Charles P. Pierce, 09.09.04, American Prospect)
t’s not easy for me to tell you that, at a meeting of the Maine and Massachusetts delegations during the Republican National Convention last week, my old friend Andy Card said the single most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard from a representative of an elected government -- even a dubiously elected government like the current one.Card is now the White House chief-of-staff, and it was he who had to interrupt the ensemble reading of The Pet Goat in order to tell George W. Bush that someone had flown airplanes into the World Trade Center, thus starting the clock on the now-famous Seven-Minute Glaze. Card was talking to the two delegations about that moment, clinging to the GOP talking points like a nun to her beads. The president “didn’t introduce fear into any of those young children or through the national media, to the American people,” explained Card. Then, he attempted to explain how the president feels about the 200 million-odd souls who are, after all, his employers:
“It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child. I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children.”
Let us leave aside any discussion prompted by Card’s remarks that might uncomfortably contain the word “Fatherland.” Let us take him at his word -- namely, that the president of the United States looks at the world’s longest-standing free democratic republic and sees . . .
A middle-schooler.
An Elder Challenges Outsourcing's Orthodoxy (STEVE LOHR, 9/09/04, NY Times)
At 89, Paul A. Samuelson, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, still seems to have plenty of intellectual edge and the ability to antagonize and amuse.His dissent from the mainstream economic consensus about outsourcing and globalization will appear later this month in a distinguished journal, cloaked in clever phrases and theoretical equations, but clearly aimed at the orthodoxy within his profession: Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve; N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers; and Jagdish N. Bhagwati, a leading international economist and professor at Columbia University. [...]
Sure, Mr. Samuelson writes, the mainstream economists acknowledge that some people will gain and others will suffer in the short term, but they quickly add that "the gains of the American winners are big enough to more than compensate for the losers."
That assumption, so widely shared by economists, is "only an innuendo," Mr. Samuelson writes. "For it is dead wrong about necessary surplus of winnings over losings."
Trade, in other words, may not always work to the advantage of the American economy, according to Mr. Samuelson.
In an interview last week, Mr. Samuelson said he wrote the article to "set the record straight" because "the mainstream defenses of globalization were much too simple a statement of the problem." Mr. Samuelson, who calls himself a "centrist Democrat," said his analysis did not come with a recipe of policy steps, and he emphasized that it was not meant as a justification for protectionist measures.
Up to now, he said, the gains to America have outweighed the losses from trade, but that outcome is not necessarily guaranteed in the future.
No Country for Old Men: Charles McCarry's gray-haired spies take
a curtain call. (P.J. O'Rourke, 09/13/2004, Weekly Standard)
I FIRST HEARD of Charles McCarry in El Salvador during the civil war. I was in a bar known to be frequented by covert types, having a drink with a fellow from the U.S. embassy whose title was something like "trade
attaché"--although he almost certainly wasn't, El Salvador having little
trade in anything but weapons at the time. We were talking about the things
American journalists and intelligence officers talk about when they're stuck
in third-world sinkholes: intestinal disorders, souvenir shopping, local
girls. The conversation turned to the ridiculous exaggerations of spy
thrillers set in such places. My embassy acquaintance said, "You should read
Charles McCarry. His stuff is very realistic." There was a nervous pause.
"Not that I'd know," he added.Back home, I read everything I could find of McCarry's, though finding it
wasn't always easy. McCarry is the best modern writer on the subject of
intrigue--by the breadth of Alan Furst, by the fathom of Eric Ambler, by any
measure. Read Dostoyevsky's The Possessed or Conrad's The Secret Agent for
worthwhile comparisons, and when you do, you'll see why McCarry has never
achieved the popularity of John LeCarré, the author to whom he is most often
compared.McCarry has LeCarré's interest in ethical complexities and the tart style of
LeCarré's early work. But, unlike John LeCarré, Charles McCarry knows right
from wrong. His theme is never that the other side is just like our side
except on the other side. McCarry's plots turn on the search for truth. The
author and his heroes aren't in doubt about what the truth is: Good is good,
and bad is bad.
UK sets Iran deadline to end nuclear bomb work (Ewen MacAskill, Kasra Naji in Tehran and Chris McGreal in Jerusalem, September 9, 2004, The Guardian)
The British government yesterday set a November ultimatum for Iran to suspend all activities linked to production of a nuclear bomb - a deadline that effectively marks the failure of more than a year of negotiations between Tehran and the European troika of Britain, France and Germany.
Powell says genocide committed in Sudan (Associated Press, September 9, 2004)
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that abuses by government-supported Arab militias in Sudan qualify as genocide against the black African population in the Darfur region - a determination that should pressure the government to rein in the fighters. [...]"We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed (Arab militias) bear responsibility - and genocide may still be occurring,'' he said.
He added that that as a contracting party to an international genocide convention, Sudan is obliged to prevent and punish acts of genocide.
"To us, at this time, it appears that Sudan has failed to do so,'' he said.
Powell noted that Article VIII of the convention provides that parties to the accord may call on the United Nations to take such action under the U.N. charter ``as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide ... .''
Powell called on the United Nations to undertake a full investigation.
"To this end, the U.S. will propose that the next U.N. Security Council resolution on Sudan request a U.N. investigation into all violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law that have occurred in Darfur, with a view to ensuring accountability,'' he said.
A friend of my sister's was an assistant to Paul Bremer in Iraq and is now working on a photography book called "The New Iraq". A few preview photographs can be found here: http://www.the-new-iraq.com.
The Irrationality of Terror (Anne Applebaum, September 8, 2004, Washington Post)
Funerals for 334 people, half of them children. Hundreds more -- we may never know how many -- in hospitals or "missing," presumed dead. A town ravaged, a school destroyed, photographs of bloody children, wailing mothers. This is what the Chechen terrorists who attacked and destroyed a school in Beslan, southern Russia, achieved with their guns and bombs last week.But did they "achieve" anything else? One of the hardest things to understand about tragedies such as the one in Beslan is the motivation of the murderers. At the moment little is known about their identities, except that they seem to have been led by local Chechens and Ingush. Officials claim some were Arabs, although former hostages have not yet confirmed that. Little is known about their stated aims, which allegedly included independence for the Russian republic of Chechnya, withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, and an end to the nearly 10 years of brutal Russian-Chechen conflict in Chechnya. The only certainty is that they will achieve none of them.
On the contrary: Far from helping the Chechens resist Russian invasion, they have deeply damaged that resistance. [...]
There are other examples of terrorist groups whose methods have had the opposite effect from what their leaders say they intend, the most obvious being the case of the Palestinians. Decades' worth of PLO terrorist attacks on crippled tourists and Olympic athletes achieved far less for the Palestinian people than television pictures of Palestinian children protesting in the streets. Even more was achieved, or almost achieved, when the Palestinians briefly ceased to use terrorism in the 1990s. By contrast, the resumption of Palestinian terrorism, and particularly the suicide bombing campaign, has led to a profound change of heart, a hardening of positions and, as in Russia, a much larger population of Israelis who assume that all Palestinians, whatever their views or background or grievances, are would-be terrorists.
But there are also examples of nations that have managed to repel invasions, or at least oppose them, while maintaining a degree of sympathy in the outside world, and even among the population against which they are fighting. Think of the Afghan rebels who fought the Soviet Union in the 1980s but didn't turn to terrorism.
MORE:
Our Friends the Russians: We may need an alliance with Moscow. But we should enter it with our eyes open. (CLAUDIA ROSETT, October 11, 2001, Wall Street Journal)
Terrorism looms as the urgent problem of our time, and I would not for a moment argue with President Bush's focus on it. We are of necessity deep into an awful drama in which there are definite villains, some clear lines between good and evil, and an obvious need to act.But swirling around that central clarity are a host of complex issues, especially when it comes to making common cause against terrorism with nations less sterling than, say, Britain. In both China and Russia, to name two of the big ones, the fight against terrorism is entwined with long lists of other aims that range from stupid to terrifying and that would in no way bring us closer to a better, safer world. And while we must not let these matters paralyze us, they do bear noting.
History's big warning on this score is of course World War II, when Stalin's Soviet Union, after entering into an alliance with Hitler that included the joint invasion of Poland, played a crucial part in defeating the Nazis, only to confront us with the Cold War. Maybe that was unavoidable, and maybe to some it has begun to seem less ghastly now that it's over. But it ended only after more than 40 years in which Soviet expansionism and teachings warped the development of half the world, threatened the rest and left us today still trying to cope with the fallout. To take the detail nearest to hand, it was Soviet occupation that turned Afghanistan from what was in the mid-1970s at least a functional Third World country into a blasted hell from which, ultimately, Osama bin Laden could work his schemes.
In 1989, defeated and demoralized, the Soviet troops retreated, leaving their hand-picked dictator, Najibullah, to hold the fort. In 1992, the Afghan mujahideen finally toppled Najibullah and some turned to fighting each other over the spoils. Around that time I made a reporting trip to the capital, Kabul. The war, fought mainly in the provinces, had killed some two million Afghans since the 1979 Soviet invasion and had at that stage evolved into a battle in the capital. Today many of those groups are heading back towards Kabul as the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.
Kabul was a zone of fear, gunfire and rocket attacks. I remember during a blackout one evening reading by candlelight a guidebook that seemed grounded in an entirely different universe. Published a few years before the Soviet invasion, the book was "An Historical Guide to Afghanistan" by Nancy Hatch Dupree. It described Kabul of the early 1970s as "a fast-growing city where tall modern buildings nuzzle against bustling bazaars and wide avenues fill with brilliant flowing turbans, . . . mini-skirted schoolgirls, a multitude of handsome faces and streams of whizzing traffic."
Such were the changes wrought by Soviet brutality that when I asked a group of young Afghan fighters what they would like to do in peacetime, their answer was that they knew nothing but war. They would do, said one young man, "whatever our commanders tell us to do."
All right, the Soviet Union is now 10 years down the memory hole. Why re-hash yesterday's horrors?
Well, perhaps because a similar wreck is still under way in part of post-Soviet Russia, the same modern Russia in which President Vladimir Putin has now announced himself our friend in the war against terrorism. I am speaking of Chechnya, the secessionist republic in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia.
Repeat Offense: WHY 2004 COULD BE 1980 ALL OVER AGAIN (John B. Judis, 09.03.04, New Republic)
Presidential campaigns inevitably model themselves on past successes. As was evident at this year's Republican Convention, the Bush campaign hopes that this election recapitulates the elections of 1984 and 1996, where the incumbent easily won a second term. The campaign has hired veterans of Ronald Reagan's 1984 campaign, including Michael Deaver and Peggy Noonan, and in briefing delegates, administration officials referred back to Bill Clinton's reelection victory in 1996 over Bob Dole. "The President is ahead of where Bill Clinton was in 1996," Matt Schlapp, the White House political director, told a meeting Wednesday morning of the National Republican Congressional Committee at the Sheraton Hotel. In its rhetoric, the first half of Bush's acceptance speech last night, with its mini-proposals aimed at helping workers "compete in a global market," echoed Clinton's 1996 acceptance speech. But sadly for Bush and the Republicans, there is little similarity between the 2004 election and either the 1984 or 1996 elections. If there is a clear analogy to 2004, it is the 1980 election between incumbent Jimmy Carter and challenger Ronald Reagan.
Chirac's jet flew an extra 1,200 miles to let him sleep (Christian Jennings, 09/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
The most direct route from Paris to Moscow by aircraft is to fly due east. Unless you are President Chirac, that is.The French premier likes his sleep so much that, en route to a Black Sea summit with President Putin and Chancellor Schröder, he had his flight diverted by 1,200 miles so that he could have a long sleep.
Le Canard Enchainé, France's version of Private Eye, tells a tale this week headlined "Chirac's sleep is priceless".
On August 31, Chirac was due to fly from Paris to the Black Sea resort of Sochi, to meet the German and Russian premiers.
The only problem was that the flight to the summit would not be of sufficient duration for him to get a full night's sleep.
The answer was simple: the French air force, which operates the presidential Airbus 319, was ordered to tack another 1,200 miles on to its flight so that Mr Chirac could sleep undisturbed.
Heinz Kerry Bashes Health Care Plan Foes (Greensboro News Record, September 8th, 2004))
Teresa Heinz Kerry says "only an idiot" would fail to support the health care plan proposed by her husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.Kerry's proposal includes health care subsidies for children, the unemployed, small companies and others as well as government assistance to insurers and employers that hold down premiums for workers.
"Only an idiot wouldn't like this," Heinz Kerry told the Intelligencer Journal of Lancaster for a story in its Thursday editions. "Of course, there are idiots."
To be administered by an exciting new
department that will be the last word in post-modern bureaucratic thinking.
20% of Germans want the Wall back (Reuters, September 9, 2004)
Fourteen years and a trillion euros after reunification, nearly one in five Germans would like to see the barrier that split the country during the cold war put back, according to a survey released yesterday.A poll by the Forsa institute found that a quarter of west Germans wished the 15 million east Germans could be cut off again by the Berlin wall, while 12% of east Germans did not want to be part of the united country.
If freedom entails responsibility, a fair proportion of mankind would prefer servitude; for it is far, far better to receive three meals a day and be told what to do than to take the consequences of one's own self-destructive choices. It is, moreover, a truth universally unacknowledged that freedom without understanding of what to do with it is a complete nightmare.Such freedom is a nightmare, of course, not only for those who possess it, but for everyone around them. A man who does not know what to do with his freedom is like a box of fireworks into which a lighted match is thrown: he goes off in all directions at once. And such, multiplied by several millions, is modern society. The welfare state is - or has become - a giant organisation to shelter people from the natural consequences of their own disastrous choices, thus infantilising them and turning them into semi-dependants, to the great joy of their power-mad rulers.
A plot to kill the President (The Telegraph, September 9th, 2004)
Few novelists feel obliged to defend themselves against charges of complicity in a possible murder, but the gentle, mild-mannered Baker has recently had no choice. In his latest novel, Checkpoint, a would-be assassin discusses with a friend the killing of George W. Bush. [...]Reading Checkpoint, it is not easy to find signs of Baker's empathy with Bush; the book burns with anger at what the President has done. Bush's political programme horrifies not only Jay, but also Ben, Jay's friend and interlocutor - who is, Baker says, "fairly close to me".
Ben tries to talk Jay out of his homicidal scheme; he has a hard time of it. The only point at which Jay hesitates is when Ben explains that if he kills Bush, then Dick Cheney will become President. So someone will have to kill Cheney. "Maybe some kind of tiny scorpion that climbs up his leg just as he's being sworn in, bites him, he slumps . . ." suggests Jay enthusiastically. But Cheney's successor won't be any better, so the killing will have to go on . . . and on. This gives Jay pause, but even as he recognises the political futility of assassinating Bush, he is implacable, insisting that Bush must die - and he, Jay, must be the one to wield the weapons that cause his death.
Those weapons are so crackpot that no reasonable person is going to take Checkpoint as a blueprint for murder. But, I suggest, quite a lot of unreasonable people might.
And on this subject, the number of unreasonable people appears to be growing fast.
The Right's Stuff: A Texas-based band of conservative warriors tackles the left on its own turf--the street (ROBERT WILONSKY, 9/09/04, Dallas Observer)
On a Friday afternoon in late August they've come to this street corner to raise their signs and voices to protest the venal forces that would bring down the United States. They brandish placards and peace signs, and passing motorists wave back in agreement, offer their own gestures consisting of a single middle finger or ignore them. The demonstrators are mostly white men, ranging in age from 16 to mid-40s, and among their signs is one that reads, in part, "War never solved anything!"For months this protest has been taking place in front of the Dallas offices of a company many Americans believe to be evil. With their signs and slogans the protesters stand on the front lawn of the corporation once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, Houston-based Halliburton Co., damned by Democrats for receiving billions in no-bid contracts for reconstructing Iraq.
But look closely at the signs. The one that says, "War never solved anything"? It says something just above that: "Except for ending slavery, fascism, Nazism & Communism..." And wait, what about those other signs they're holding? There's one with Osama bin Laden dressed as Uncle Sam. It reads, "Uncle Osama wants you to vote for John Kerry." There's another one with bin Laden on it: "Vote Kerry 2004 so I can kill your family." One says, "9/11 was just freedom of speech!" And another placard pleads, "Help! I'm surrounded by America-hating idiots!" And... waitaminute. That guy over there's wearing a T-shirt that reads--can this be right?--"I Halliburton."
What the hell?
Welcome to another Friday afternoon in the ongoing Operation Halliburton Defense Force being carried out by members of the Dallas chapter of a group of right-wingers called Protest Warrior. Their mission is to protest the protesters from the Dallas Peace Center who have been here since April to demonstrate against Halliburton. The Warriors' ideology is a bit more labyrinthine, a smorgasbord of conservative and libertarian ideas sprinkled with activism more commonly associated with lefties. Their motto is crystal-clear: "Fighting the left...doing it right." [...]
"Right to left, left to right, when you intrude upon someone else's event you are asking for a confrontation, not a debate," says Columbia journalism professor Todd Gitlin, who, as former president of Students for a Democratic Society, organized the first Vietnam War protest in March 1965. "When you enter into an emotionally charged arena in a pugnacious spirit you get a fight, not a debate. They will be martyrs and heroes. That sounds like pure political combat. The slogan 'Protest Warrior' is an interesting one. Is it that they are warriors or protesters?...It's another gimmick for belligerent right-wingers."
Arrogant Kerry errs in discounting Bush's ideology (GEORGE WILL, 9/09/04, Chicago Sun-Times)
[Kerry] is allowing Bush to have what he wants, a one-issue election. The issue is a conflation of the wars in Iraq and on terror in the single subject ''security.'' Kerry is trying, and failing, to pry apart judgments about the two. But even if he succeeds, he just deepens the incoherence of his still-multiplying positions on Iraq. [...]The New Republic, which supports him, says his position, which had been ''inscrutable,'' is now ''indefensible.'' He represents a party whose activists detest the war in Iraq, so he dwells on his participation in the Vietnam War, which those activists detested then or have learned to detest through liberalism's catechism. And having made a hash of his thoughts on the most serious subject, his speeches about the outsourcing of jobs appear, grotesquely incongruous, on newspaper pages carrying photographs of the broken bodies from School No. 1.
Almost any good news, about the economy or war, will help Bush. And the most likely bad news, about the war, is apt to hurt Kerry in two ways. It will make his preferred domestic policy issues seem minor, and will reinforce Bush's theme that he is the candidate most focused on and muscular about the world's multiplying dangers.
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Unraveling Kerry's Iraq Plan (NY Times, September 9, 2004)
Nobody gets angrier about Senator John Kerry's complicated position on Iraq than his own supporters. The Democratic base would love to see him lashing out at President Bush over the war. But for all of his current tough talk about Mr. Bush's "wrong choices," Mr. Kerry has blurred his message, particularly with his recent statement that he would have voted for the Senate's war resolution even if he had known that Saddam Hussein had no significant cache of weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Kerry also basically agrees with the president that it is now necessary to stay the course - something that will require a continued American military presence in Iraq for years. It's no wonder the issue hasn't provided the Democrats much traction.Despite our own grave misgivings about the chances of a happy outcome in Iraq, this page has also argued that as long as there is even a modest hope of making things work, the United States and its allies should continue to provide economic support and security. So it's hard for us to criticize Mr. Kerry for his similar stance, especially since this is not his war. People who are unhappy with the way Iraq is going may be frustrated by Mr. Kerry, but they should direct their real anger at Mr. Bush.
Still, voters need a much clearer sense of what Mr. Kerry would do differently. [...]
Although Mr. Kerry's agenda for change in Iraq lacks drama, if he truly believes that many of the problems there are caused by ineptitude in the training of local security forces, he should say so forcefully every day, while there is still a little time to improve the situation before voting begins in January. If he sincerely believes that other nations can be brought into the effort there, he should be much more forthright in explaining how he could do it.
Given the political corner Mr. Kerry has painted himself into, it's not surprising that his advisers are urging him to start concentrating on the economy. But Iraq is still the great crisis confronting the United States. While the temptation to dodge it at this point is natural, Mr. Kerry should resist.
FRUSTRATED JOHN GOES ON ATTACK WITH TEAM CLINTON (DEBORAH ORIN, September 9, 2004, NY Post)
The revelations about Kerry hurt because most voters had no idea that some Navy peers despised him or that he'd painted fellow vets as war criminals."It makes Democrats feel good, but this is like a finger in the dike," said a veteran Democratic strategist.
"The Kerry campaign is having a cerebral hemorrhage and they're putting a Band-Aid on his little toe.
"You don't win a campaign by calling a guy names. It's not about having a war room. It's not about fighting back.
"Kerry's problem is that he still hasn't explained why he wants to be president or where he wants to lead the country."
Market lesson since 9/11: Don't bet against us (TERRY SAVAGE, September 9, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
We're approaching the third anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, a date that changed our lives forever. We feared for our system. The attack was directed at the heart of our financial district, the center of our economy and the free enterprise system that has provided our country's remarkable and unique prosperity and opportunity.Our financial markets were closed, and there was concern that when they reopened prices would collapse. That day I wrote a column headlined, "We will survive and prosper." My editor asked me to try to put that situation in perspective. Here's what I wrote:
"If you look at a long-term chart of the stock market, you'll find -- without exception -- that at every juncture when our situation looked most bleak, the market was making its bottom. In fact, those fearful times created the best long-term buying opportunities. Those who had faith to stick with their investments, and buy more, were well rewarded."
Several days later I asked Ibbotson Associates, the well known market statisticians based here, to create a chart which I've used in every speech since 9/11. It illustrates the stock market reaction -- both immediate and after three years -- to four major historical events that, at the time, seemed to threaten the future of our system.
Here's the result after each of those occasions.
'I'm with those fighting for the future' (GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN, 9/09/04, The Scotsman)
[I]raq’s new ambassador to the United Nations, Samir Sumaida’ie yesterday praised Britain and the US for having the courage to go to war against Saddam Hussein, saying history would judge that Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, had been right to defy his critics.He launched a scathing attack on those who had been most vocal in their opposition to the war, dismissing them as ill-informed about the nature of Saddam’s regime and identifying George Galloway, the Scottish MP, as one of those most at fault.
"There are the George Galloways of this world and there are the Tony Blairs and I’m with those who are fighting for the future," Mr Sumaida’ie said.
"George Galloway has not been helpful in this whole saga and ... he played a role to support [Saddam’s regime]. This was very bad for us."
The new ambassador said opponents of the war had misunderstood what it was like to live under Saddam’s regime.
"The whole spectrum of these people were insufficiently informed about the catastrophic situation in Iraq under Saddam and the implications for the world community if Saddam had remained in power," he said. "I think that Tony Blair demonstrated tremendous leadership and vision.
"He has not only been unappreciated but he has come under huge political pressure and criticism and I think in 20, 30 or 50 years time historians will look back and give him the credit he richly deserves.
"Now the problems are too vivid in their minds to allow him this acclaim."
What's up with Obama secrecy? (LYNN SWEET, September 9, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Obama's campaign is hiding practically all of Obama's out-of-state treks. Obama's campaign schedule -- when there is one -- usually does not include stops outside of Illinois. Obama's manipulative, cagey campaign does not want you to know the whole picture. Obama has a passion for secrecy when it comes to raising political money or traveling to another state for a public appearance. It is not becoming of a man on the verge of a promising Senate career who is already nationally prominent. Obama is better than to preside over a stealth campaign.His own campaign blog, with one exception, covers only in-state activities. The calendars on Obama's Web site never put on non-Illinois events. But the reality is Obama is going out of state. It's not a crime. It's what big-time candidates do. Why bother to create and maintain a fiction that Obama's $9.8 million enterprise (as of June 30) is just an Illinois venture?
While it is not easy to keep track of Obama, he leaves clues. Obama's campaign is oblivious, apparently, that because of Obama's skyrocketing fame, cemented with his keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in July, he gets tracked when he travels, whether by the burgeoning blogging community or local press. Still, why should it be so hard?
Jewish GOP (Joel Mowbray, 9/09/04, FrontPageMagazine)
When President Bush talked in his acceptance speech last week about “our good friend Israel,” it did not go unnoticed, including to many Jewish voters.That it was a huge applause line definitely did not go unnoticed, particularly to Jewish voters. This was, after all, the GOP convention, filled with Catholics, Protestants, and yes, evangelical Christians. [...]
None of this is to say that Bush will clear 50% of the Jewish vote. The high water mark for Republicans in recent times was set by Ronald Reagan, garnering almost 40%. But given that Bush captured less than 20% of the Jewish vote four years ago (and his father managed just 11% in 1992), simply scoring 35% would mark a huge improvement. Especially in Florida, which has roughly 500,000 Jews.
Help the African Union (Jon Corzine and Richard Holbrooke, September 9, 2004, Washington Post)
Surprisingly, the strongest efforts to stop the fighting have come from the African Union, which is facing the first test of its viability as an organization since it replaced the weak and ineffective Organization of African Unity in 2000. Its chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, has convened talks in Nigeria that include representatives of all sides in this drama, including Chad, Eritrea, Libya and both rebel groups. These talks, however, have received too little support from Western powers and the United Nations, and they are in danger of collapsing. Only Obasanjo's standing as the leader of Africa's largest nation, and head of the African Union, keeps these talks alive. Obasanjo has also called for a significant increase in the number of African Union "monitors and protection forces" (currently a paltry 300) in Darfur. This is a useful first step toward bringing an international peacekeeping presence to the area, but it is being predictably opposed by the Sudanese government.Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to Darfur, and that of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, were valuable signals of high-level concern; they played an important role in helping to open the doors for more humanitarian assistance. But much more needs to be done by the United States and the United Nations. Washington should begin by appointing a special envoy for Darfur, following the model of former senator (and current U.N. ambassador) John Danforth's mission to Sudan, which played such a critical role in bringing the long civil war between Christians and Muslims in southern Sudan so close to a conclusion. Such an American envoy -- shuttling between Khartoum, Eritrea, Chad, Darfur and the talks in Nigeria -- speaking for the president as Danforth did, empowered with the strong support of a bipartisan congressional mandate and the backing of both presidential candidates, could have a significant effect on the shaky peace process.
Although there is anger among many Sudanese about the U.S. intervention in Iraq, we are still respected in the region, and there is power in U.S. leadership and diplomacy that has not yet been tapped. The United States and NATO should offer airlift and logistical support to the impoverished African Union to aid its monitoring mission -- and that mission, with strong U.N. Security Council support, should evolve rapidly into a full-fledged peacekeeping operation. As another sign of support, we should appoint an ambassador to the African Union, as we have to many other major international organizations.
One Weekend in April, A Long Time Ago . . .: What John Kerry thought about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. (Hugh Hewitt, 09/09/2004, Weekly Standard)
IN THE SPRING of 1985 Ronald Reagan struggled with a Democrat-dominated Congress for authority to ship aide to the Nicaraguan Contras fighting the spreading grip of the Sandinistas on their Central American country. There was quite a lot of heated rhetoric and over-the-top theater. The Sandinistas even staged a donation of ambulances to their side from American survivors of the Lincoln Brigade from the Spanish Civil War.On the eve of a major Senate vote on the issue of aid, John Kerry and Tom Harkin jetted off to Managua for a weekend of intensive talks with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega. The pair departed after holding a press conference to announce a study which listed dozens of supposed lies that the Reagan administration had told Congress and 15 allegations of law breaking (the study was done by the hard-left Institute for Policy Studies). Kerry and Harkin returned with a three page "peace proposal" given to them by Ortega.
Then-secretary of State George Shultz was outraged. "It's presumably not lawful for citizens to appoint themselves as negotiators for the United States," Shultz declared. "Members of Congress have every right to travel to Nicaragua to review the situation, but we cannot have a successful policy when they take trips or write 'Dear Commandante' letters with the aim of negotiating as self-appointed emissaries to the communist regime." Shultz called for the censure of the two senators. Charles Krauthammer, writing at the time, accurately observed that "[a]t their arrival home, only the umbrella was missing." Senator Richard Lugar remarked that "[m]ost Republicans were absolutely enraged with the Kerry-Harkin mission. That was absolutely the last straw." The Los Angeles Times reported anger among moderate Democrats as well, who "complained privately that the Harkin-Kerry trip made their party look pro-Sandinista."
The Price Of Labor's Decline (David S. Broder, September 9, 2004, Washington Post)
My seatmate, a fellow reporter, was asking questions about the changes I had seen in Congress since I started covering Capitol Hill almost 50 years ago. And when we got around to discussing lobbyists, he seemed genuinely surprised when I said that back then -- and for decades afterward -- the most influential lobbyists did not represent business or trade associations but labor unions."Labor unions!" he said, reflecting the understandable surprise of a savvy reporter who knows only the congressional power alignments of the past decade.
It made me realize how rarely observers like me make the link between the decline of progressive politics and with it the near-demise of liberal legislation, and the steady weakening of organized labor. [...]
The loss of labor's political leverage is, if anything, even more striking. As I told my seatmate, when labor lobbied powerfully on Capitol Hill, it did not confine itself to bread-and-butter issues for its own members. It was at the forefront of battles for aid to education, civil rights, housing programs and a host of other social causes important to the whole community. And because it was muscular, it was heard and heeded.
Today, the shrunken Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate are probably closer to labor -- financially and politically -- than they were in the 1970s. But an enfeebled union movement is unable to sway more than a handful of Republicans. Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford and almost all of their GOP congressional leaders understood that it was in their interest to help labor achieve some of its goals. Now, unions cannot even muster the strength to force a vote on raising the minimum wage, which has not been changed in seven years.
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Only slight pay increases seen in 2005 (FRANCINE KNOWLES, September 9, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Hoping for a big boost in pay next year? Forget about it.Base salary increases remained at record lows this year, and only slight improvement is forecast for 2005. That's according to the latest annual survey from Hewitt Associates, which shows pay-for-performance programs maintaining popularity.
Base pay increases nationally for 2004 were consistent with 2003. Union hourly workers averaged 3.1 percent increases, salaried exempt employees 3.4 percent, salaried non-exempt 3.3 percent, non-union hourly workers 3.3 percent and executives 3.7 percent.
Hate in America (Robert Novak, September 9, 2004, Townhall)
The magnificent work of the New York Police Department last week under the masterful leadership of Commissioner Ray Kelly obscured an ugly fact of life today in America. The protesters, while unable to disrupt the Republican National Convention as intended, represented a disturbing new development in the nation's politics: hatred in the streets.
The organized demonstrations were purely negative, attacking George W. Bush with scant expression of support for John Kerry. Individual marchers singled out any person they thought might be a convention delegate, firing off angry, often obscene, denunciations. The streets of Manhattan were not pleasant for anyone foolish enough to wander around wearing a convention badge.I have covered every national political convention beginning with 1960 and never before encountered so unpleasant an atmosphere. Not even the infamous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago approached last week's level of animosity. The irrational loathing expressed daily on the Internet by passionate, though poorly informed, bloggers was transferred into the streets. While Sen. Zell Miller's old-fashioned stemwinder inside Madison Square Garden was upbraided by news media critics for being too harsh, they largely ignored the real hatred in the streets.
Organizers of last week's protests in New York threatened to repeat the havoc of 1968, when blood was spilled in pitched battles with the Chicago police. But there really is no comparison. The Chicago protesters were trying to force a change in Vietnam policy by a Democratic Party where close to half its party and half the delegates supported anti-war demonstrators. The attempted disruption in New York had nothing to do with changing the position of a political party. This was an attack on "The System."
'I fear for the future of Chechnya' (Khassan Baiev, September 9, 2004, Boston Globe)
What made those scenes from Beslan so anguishing for me was that I had seen them all before. As a wartime surgeon in Chechnya I had treated the broken bodies of children -- the young girl whose parents were blown up by a bomb before her eyes, the little boy whose hair turned white overnight, small bodies pierced by hundreds of pieces of shrapnel. And everywhere blood.I do not claim to understand the mentality of a terrorist willing to sacrifice children. However, as a Chechen and a doctor with firsthand experience of the war, I can offer some context into what turns ordinary people into extremists willing to commit such atrocities.
We have been fighting Russia on and off for 400 years. Our nation is small, the size of Connecticut, with a prewar population of 1 million. In the recent 10-year war with Russia, 250,000 people died, fully a quarter of the population. Of those deaths, an estimated 42,000 were children. And our children are still dying, from gunfire, from mines, from an unexplained illness resulting from the contaminated environment caused by the war.
History has taught us to fear Russia. The belief of most Chechens that the Kremlin would like to eliminate them is fueled by the deportations. In the 19th century the czarist government exiled us to Turkey, Jordan, and Syria. In the 20th century, in 1944, Stalin herded our whole population into cattle cars and shipped us to Siberia. A third of us perished on the journey or in the harsh conditions of exile.
We had hoped that with the breakup of the Soviet Union we might at long last attain independence from Russia. We are Muslims. We speak a different language. We have different traditions. However, our dream of self-rule evaporated when Boris Yeltsin invaded our country with a force of 300,000 Russian soldiers on Dec. 11, 2003 [?].
For the past 10 years Chechnya has been occupied by a foreign invader. Occupation breeds violence, which invites lawlessness on both sides. The abuses of civilians by Russian soldiers have been documented by various human rights organizations -- Physicians for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Russian human rights organization Memoriale. Young Russian soldiers are also dying unnecessarily.
Ogletree admits lifted passages: Harvard professor cites editing mistake (Marcella Bombardieri and David Mehegan, September 9, 2004, Boston Globe)
A recent book by Harvard Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. includes six paragraphs lifted almost directly from another author's work, in what Ogletree said was a mistake made as the draft of his book passed through the hands of two assistants.After an investigation by Harvard, Ogletree published a letter of apology on the law school's website last week.
"I made a serious mistake during the editorial process of completing this book, and delegated too much responsibility to others during the final editing process," Ogletree wrote in the statement, which was approved by the school's administration. "I was negligent in not overseeing more carefully the final product that carries my name."
The book, "All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education," was published earlier this year. A long passage at the beginning of one chapter was taken, without attribution, from a book of essays edited by Yale Law School professor Jack M. Balkin. Balkin's book, "What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said," was published in 2001.
Terrorists behind fatal bomb blast (The Age, September 9, 2004)
A powerful car bomb which exploded today outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, killing at least six people, was a terrorist attack on Australia, the federal government said.While no Australians were injured, more than 100 other people were reported wounded in the explosion in the Indonesian capital, which local police confirmed was caused by a bomb.
"It is clearly a terrorist attack, it was outside the Australian embassy, you would have to conclude that it was directed towards Australia," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said in Adelaide.
The bomb exploded metres from the embassy's main entrance, tearing the heavily-fortified gates apart and shattering windows in the building.
The blast was audible up to 15 km away, Indonesian television reported.
Prime Minister John Howard said in Melbourne the death toll "could be six", while hospital officials in Jakarta said at least six were dead.
Mount Reagan piques interest (Alex Beam, September 9, 2004, Boston Globe)
"Mount Reagan" is one of the White Mountains' best-kept secrets. Not one hiker I encountered during the trek here had any idea it existed. It is barely noticeable, like an impacted tooth between the majestic peaks of Mount Washington and Mount Jefferson.But it does exist, thanks to the New Hampshire Legislature, which approved the name change last August. According to the website of the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, which is hoping to slap the Great Communicator's visage on the $10 bill (sayonara, Alexander Hamilton!) and on one-half of the country's dimes (farewell, FDR!), Mount Reagan is their only successful "dedication" in the six New England states. Our nation's capital renamed its airport; the Marshall Islands dedicated a ballistic missile defense test site. And New Hampshire threw in Mount Clay, named after the southern statesman Henry Clay, now Mount Reagan.
There's just one problem. No one calls it Mount Reagan. No signs call it Mount Reagan. The New Hampshire legislator who submitted the naming bill, Representative Kenneth Weyler, does call it Mount Reagan, and says he left a piece of paper at the top, under a cairn, reading "Welcome to Mount Reagan." The paper has vanished. But the US Forest Service sign clearly directs hikers to Mount Clay.
What gives? Well, just because the New Hampshire Legislature says something is so doesn't make it so. "There can only be one official name for a feature," Roger Payne, executive secretary of the US Board on Geographic Names, told me. (In an interview with Appalachia magazine, Payne said: "It would have been nice if it hadn't happened.") Only his board, part of the US Geological Survey, can officially change names. And the board considers name changes only after an eminento has been dead for five years. So Mount Clay it is.
Bush’s National Guard years: Before you fall for Dems’ spin, here are the facts (Byron York, 9/08/04, The Hill)
[J]ust for the record, here, in full, is what Bush did:The future president joined the Guard in May 1968. Almost immediately, he began an extended period of training. Six weeks of basic training. Fifty-three weeks of flight training. Twenty-one weeks of fighter-interceptor training.
That was 80 weeks to begin with, and there were other training periods thrown in as well. It was full-time work. By the time it was over, Bush had served nearly two years.
Not two years of weekends. Two years.
After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets. As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements. At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.
According to records released earlier this year, Bush earned 253 points in his first year, May 1968 to May 1969 (since he joined in May 1968, his service thereafter was measured on a May-to-May basis).
Bush earned 340 points in 1969-1970. He earned 137 points in 1970-1971. And he earned 112 points in 1971-1972. [...]
From May 1972 to May 1973, he earned just 56 points — not much, but enough to meet his requirement.
Then, in 1973, as Bush made plans to leave the Guard and go to Harvard Business School, he again started showing up frequently.
In June and July of 1973, he accumulated 56 points, enough to meet the minimum requirement for the 1973-1974 year.
Then, at his request, he was given permission to go. Bush received an honorable discharge after serving five years, four months and five days of his original six-year commitment. By that time, however, he had accumulated enough points in each year to cover six years of service. [...]
And, as it is with Kerry, it’s reasonable to look at a candidate’s entire record, including his military service — or lack of it. Voters are perfectly able to decide whether it’s important or not in November.
[I]t should be noted in passing that Kerry has personally questioned Bush’s service, while Bush has not personally questioned Kerry’s.
MORE:
Records Say Bush Balked at Order: National Guard Commander Suspended Him From Flying, Papers Show (Michael Dobbs and Thomas B. Edsall, September 9, 2004, Washington Post)
President Bush failed to carry out a direct order from his superior in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1972 to undertake a medical examination that was necessary for him to remain a qualified pilot, according to documents made public yesterday.Documents obtained by the CBS News program "60 Minutes" shed new light on one of the most controversial episodes in Bush's military service, when he abruptly stopped flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to work on a political campaign. The documents include a memo from Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, ordering Bush "to be suspended from flight status for failure to perform" to U.S. Air Force and National Guard standards and failure to take his annual physical "as ordered." [...]
"Phone call from Bush," Killian recorded in a "memo to file" dated May 19, 1972. "Discussed options of how Bush can get out of coming to drill from now through November."
According to "60 Minutes," Killian's personal files show that he ordered Bush "suspended from flight status" on Aug. 1, 1972. National Guard documents already released by the White House and the Pentagon show that Bush was suspended from flight status on that day for "failure to accomplish annual medical examination" but do not mention his alleged failure to comply with National Guard and Air Force standards.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Ex-Guardsman Says Bush Served in Ala. (ALLEN G. BREED, 2/13/04, Associated Press)
A retired Alabama Air National Guard officer said Friday that he remembers George W. Bush showing up for duty in Alabama in 1972, reading safety magazines and flight manuals in an office as he performed his weekend obligations.
With Scraggly Habitat Disappearing, So Is a Rabbit (FELICITY BARRINGER, 9/01/04, NY Times)
Developers and farmers in the Northeast hoping to unload overgrown parcels of land may come to rue the day that John Litvaitis dropped his study of bears and took up with the New England cottontail.Mr. Litvaitis, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of New Hampshire, has conducted several studies suggesting that the rabbit's prospects for long-term survival are waning. As land covered with scraggly second-growth turns into subdivisions or even into forests without scrub for cover, the near-sighted cottontail is increasingly forced into the open, where it often sees predators too late to escape, he says.
Relying in large part on Mr. Litvaitis's research, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is methodically moving toward designating the rabbit as an endangered or threatened species. With it would come a host of protections, mandatory field surveys and areas identified as critical habitats from southern Maine to western Connecticut.
Despite occasional headlines in local newspapers ("Bunny on the Brink," declared The Sunday Citizen of Dover and Laconia, N.H.), the potential listing and its economic implications have not yet sunk in, said Michael Amaral, a biologist with the wildlife agency. [...]
By Mr. Litvaitis's estimate - which he emphasizes is very rough, the rabbits being short-lived, multilittered and hard to spot - 2,500 New England cottontails are left in shrinking patches of their former range. "We've got them peppered through the landscape," he said, saying that their patchwork habitats were anywhere from an acre or 3 to 100 or more.
"We see one here, two there, five there," he added. "Then we have to go 20 miles to repeat the pattern. Long term, that's a matter of great concern. We've been hemming and hawing for a decade, and it's done nothing but decline. Hem and haw for another decade, and we're talking about very large declines."
But Mr. Litvaitis is not sure that people will get worked up over the cottontail.
Bush: It's About Me and My Crusade (David Corn, 09/03/2004, The Nation)
It's official: the 2004 campaign is a referendum on whether the United States should wage a crusade to bring liberty to the repressed of the world--particularly in the Middle East--in order to heed the call of God and to protect the United States from terrorists who target America because they despise freedom. Or, at least, that is how George W. Bush would like the contest to be framed.In his acceptance speech, Bush pushed the message of the week--it's the war, stupid--to lofty heights. Like the speakers of previous nights, he fully embraced the war in Iraq. But while John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Zell Miller, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Laura Bush depicted the war as an action necessary for safeguarding America, Bush also placed it within the context of an even grander mission. "America," he proclaimed from that altar-like podium, "is called to lead the cause of freedom in the new century....Freedom is not America's gift to the world. It is the Almighty God's gift." (Minutes earlier, New York Governor George Pataki described Bush as the Supreme Being's gift to the United States: "He is one of those men God and fate somehow lead to the fore in times of challenge.")
This rhetoric was nothing new for Bush. He has made these points previously. But at the end of a week in which the war was presented as the Number One reason to vote for Bush, he chose to highlight the messianic side of his military action in Iraq. It was this part of the speech that soared.
We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore (Garrison Keillor, August 26, 2004, In These Times)
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. [...]The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.
Internet prods Asia to open up: The Web challenges the region's authoritarian
governments with a freer exchange of information and ideas. (Kathleen
McLaughlin, 9/09/04, CS Monitor)
Those who study the Internet and its impact on Asia say that
although the region is rife with censorship efforts like those in China, freedom is relative and increasing by degrees. The free-wheeling and expansive nature of the online world has proved difficult to control, pushing Beijing and similar governments in the region to make concessions, much as they had to do in entering Western-style economics and trade, say analysts."The Internet will make any country freer," says Ang Peng Hwa, a professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. "If you have the Internet, you're connected to the world. If you want to be a part of the world, you have to play by the norms of the world. The world norms lean toward a freer Internet."
China's massive firewall is already showing cracks under the weight of the
Internet's expansion. The pressure has come from innumerable sources,
including an onslaught of weblogs, open-source directories, and projects like Wikipedia, an "open-content" encyclopedia.Five years ago in China, most Western newspaper websites were blocked from
viewing. Today, the Chinese censors who watch the Internet target more
specific sites - chat forums on ultrasensitive topics like Tibetan liberation and the Falun Gong religious movement. [...]So while the average Chinese still can't walk into an Internet cafe in Ningbo and pull up the homepage of the Taiwan government, he can read The New York Times.
Blind man to drive racing car (news.com.au, September 9, 2004)
A BLIND British man launched his bid yesterday to become the first non-sighted person to drive a car at more than 289.6km/h.Steve Cunningham, 41, of Oxfordshire, will have a sighted navigator with him for the challenge around a private race track in northern France.
Bush gains in 2 key states (Susan Page, 9/08/04, USA TODAY)
President Bush holds clear leads over Sen. John Kerry in the battlegrounds of Missouri and Ohio — states the president probably needs to hold to win re-election — according to USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup polls.Kerry is ahead in Washington state and tied with Bush in Pennsylvania, swing states that are similarly important to Democratic chances for victory. [...]
[Bush's] 14-point edge in Missouri raises questions about whether the traditional bellwether is still competitive. The Kerry campaign hasn't purchased air time for ads in the Show Me State this month.
In the state-by-state polls:
• Missouri, which was tied in a USA TODAY poll taken just before the Democratic National Convention in July, puts Bush ahead of Kerry by 55%-41% among likely voters. Bush carried the state in 2000 by 3 percentage points.
• Ohio, where Bush lagged by 6 points in July, now favors him by 9 points. [...]
• Pennsylvania was even two weeks ago and remains essentially tied. Al Gore carried the state by 4 points in 2000.
• Washington state is a bright spot for Kerry. He leads Bush by 8 points. Gore carried the state by 5 points in 2000.
Belgium considers euthanasia for children (Reuters, September 08, 2004)
Belgian lawmakers belonging to Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's ruling Flemish Liberal party have introduced a bill seeking to expand the country's controversial euthanasia legislation to include minors.Senators Jeannine Leduc and Paul Wille said in the bill that terminally ill children and teenagers had as much right to choose when they wanted to die as anyone else.
Why Japan prefers Bush (GLEN S. FUKUSHIMA, 9/09/04, Japan Times)
[T]he ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has for decades felt more comfortable dealing with Republicans than with Democrats. The LDP and GOP enjoyed a strong alliance against communism during the Cold War and continue to share a politically and socially conservative agenda that embraces close ties with big business.Many in the Japanese establishment prefer the order, stability, and exclusiveness represented by the GOP to the openness, inclusiveness, and diversity valued by Democrats. In addition, when Republicans are in the White House, Democrats tend to return to think tanks, law firms, and universities, whereas when Democrats occupy the White House, Republicans usually return to business and continue in the private sector to cultivate ties with their Japanese counterparts. Over time, this network of human relationships has given Japanese leaders a greater sense of familiarity and assurance with Republicans (e.g., Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) than with most Democrats.
Another reason Japanese leaders prefer Bush is their bitter experience with the Clinton administration. When President Bill Clinton assumed office in January 1993, the U.S. economy had not yet fully recovered, and Japan was still seen as a formidable economic rival. The ensuing two years of intense bilateral trade negotiations evoked considerable resentment in Japan.
No sooner had these negotiations run their course in June 1995 when, in September, three U.S. servicemen stationed in Okinawa were charged with the brutal rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl, further fueling Japanese hostility toward the U.S. And the Asian financial crisis, triggered by the collapse of the Thai baht in July 1997, led to the U.S. hectoring Japan to stimulate domestic demand and to play the role of a "locomotive" to spur Asian economic recovery, again, pressure that grated on Japan.
Japan's positive experiences with the GOP in the 1980s and negative experiences with the Democrats in the 1990s have led many leaders here to conclude that Japan's interests will be better served by having a Republican, rather than a Democrat, in the White House. [...]
But a more salient factor is North Korea. Many Japanese believe that Koizumi has no choice but to support Bush on Iraq in order to secure his cooperation with Japan on North Korea. Some may question this logic, since the Bush administration is likely to pursue its policy toward Kim Jong Il regardless of what Japan says or does. But there is a strongly held view in Japan that support for the U.S. in Iraq -- including the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces -- is essential to secure U.S. support for Japan on such issues as the Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea.
Ongoing tensions with China on the issue of Japanese responsibility for its colonial past and with Russia on the issue of the Northern Territories add to the sense of Japanese vulnerability. In effect, Japan's uneasy relationships with North Korea, China, and Russia mean that for Japan, having a U.S. administration that takes a tough stance toward these countries -- but without raising unnecessary tensions in the region -- is preferable to one that tries to improve U.S. ties with them, especially if these efforts are not closely coordinated with Japan.
Trade services jobs attractive to middle-aged workers (VICTOR GODINEZ and JAMIE GUMBRECHT, September 6, 2004, The Dallas Morning News)
Workers in trade services – including welders, machinists, auto mechanics and air conditioning repair people – are in high demand right now, industry experts say.Ironically, as younger people are increasingly turning away from such manual labor, the void is being filled in part by middle-aged people, like Mr. Mulley, who are in need of work or just a change of pace.
ATI offers classes in automotive repair, welding, and air conditioning, heating and refrigeration at its facility near Love Field. While the classrooms are full, few of the students are fresh out of high school.
"What we've found is that there's a huge demand from the adult population," said Harry Dotson, chief information officer for ATI.
Many students attending technical programs at Dallas County Community College District schools are also older, switching from jobs that may have supported a single person fresh from high school but not a family or house payments, district officials said.
Mr. Dotson said job security is one of the biggest attractions for those considering a career as a welder or mechanic.
"You can't outsource that to Delhi," he said. "There are always going to be automotive dealerships and automotive repair shops."
Convention Success: I Was Wrong (Paul M. Weyrich, September 07, 2004, CNSNews.com)
It is hard for this old, hard-bitten political commentator to admit he was wrong, but I must do so. I have been highly critical of the Bush campaign for the primetime line up they initiated for the Republican Convention in New York.The big tent has people of divergent views. It just seemed to me that people whose views were not compatible with the GOP platform were being put out there front and center whereas the stalwart conservatives were relegated to time slots that only C-SPAN junkies would see. I made my views known in a commentary that was picked up by the New York Times and then, in turn, by lots of other media. [...]
The truth is their line-up worked. The convention was a success. How much of a bounce President Bush will get remains to be seen, but I would be very surprised if it were not several points.
It is a pity that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is not pro-life and does not support traditional marriage. If he did take traditional positions on these issues, I surely could support him for the Republican nomination in 2008. His brilliant speech highlighted a toughness that is required in a President these days. And he was not afraid to take the campaign to the opposition.
Even Senator John McCain...
GOP the Religion-Friendly Party, But Stem Cell Issue May Help Democrats (Pew Forum)
As the Republicans gather in New York to nominate George W. Bush for a second term, more Americans see the Republican Party than the Democratic Party as friendly toward religion. And most express comfort with President Bush's reliance on his religious beliefs in making policy decisions. On the issue of gay marriage, Bush and his party benefit from the strong support of religious conservatives and division among Democrats. [...]The nationwide survey of 1,512 adults, conducted August 5-10 by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, shows that in a campaign dominated by the war in Iraq, terrorism and the economy, moral issues could have a significant impact.
Fully 64% of voters say the issue of "moral values" will be very important to their vote. [...]
The poll paints a portrait of a public comfortable with politicians who talk about their religious beliefs and who rely on religion in making decisions. Roughly seven-in-ten voters (72%) continue to say it is important to them that a president have strong religious beliefs. Majorities feel both Bush and Kerry mention their faith the right amount. [...]
While neither political party is seen as particularly unfriendly toward religion, somewhat more say the Republican Party is friendly toward religion (52%) than the Democratic Party (40%). There is a much bigger gap in views of whether conservatives and liberals have a favorable attitude toward religion. By roughly five-to-one (49% to 9%), more say conservatives are friendly than unfriendly toward religion. Public opinion is split over liberals; 21% say liberals are friendly toward religion, 23% unfriendly.
The 'compassion' racket (Thomas Sowell, September 8, 2004, Townhall)
Hurricanes come through Florida every year about this time. And, every year, politicians get to parade their compassion by showering the taxpayers' money on the places that have been struck.What would happen if they didn't?
First of all, not as many people would build homes in the path of a well-known disaster that comes around like clockwork virtually every year. Those who did would buy insurance that covers the costs of the risks they choose to take.
That insurance would not be cheap -- which would provide yet another reason for people to locate out of harm's way. The net result would be fewer lives lost and less property damage. Is it not more compassionate to seek this result, even if it would deprive politicians of television time?
In ABC reporter John Stossel's witty and insightful book "Give Me A Break," he discusses how he built a beach house with only "a hundred feet of sand" between him and the ocean. It gave him a great view -- and a great chance of disaster.
His father warned him of the danger but an architect pointed out that the government would pick up the tab if anything happened to his house. A few years later, storm-driven ocean waves came in and flooded the ground floor of Stossel's home. The government paid to have it restored.
Still later, the waves came in again, and this time took out the whole house. The government paid again. Fortunately for the taxpayers, Stossel then decided that enough was enough.
In politics, throwing the taxpayers' money at disasters is supposed to show your compassion. But robbing Peter to pay Paul is not compassion. It is politics.
Classical Music Meets the Martial Arts Epic -- Tan Dun's Score for Zhang Yimou's Film Hero (David Patrick Stearns, 29 August 2004, Philadelphia Inquirer)
A less-engaged composer might have fashioned a big-boned score, as Sergei Prokofiev did for Sergei Eisenstein's 1939 classic war film Alexander Nevsky. But if Hero enters film history as a special meeting of sight and sound (and it might), the reason won't just be that Tan [Dun] delivered something more imposing than his Oscar-winning folkie music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. [...][T]an's thoughtfully applied "yin" to the film's "yang" includes the sparest of percussion accompanying the film's grave, formal style of dialogue; the water-torture repetitiveness adds undercurrents of tension. Troop assemblies, so meticulously composed as to be sculptural, are seen amid wordless but robust choruses with drum ensemble, heightening expectations of what's to come.
The film stretches time with slow motion plus extended facial close-ups of characters who are nanoseconds away from either killing or being killed. This could curdle into static pretension, but thanks to the precision of Tan's sonic backdrops, such moments have an elemental depth suggesting how much these characters are pawns of karma. The film's tension between inner and outer worlds also finds an effective counterpart in Tan's juxtaposition of musical gestures in different key signatures.
Although such poetic cinematic flourishes may telegraph that Hero is not a typical martial-arts film, that notion is confirmed by the dreamlike narrative, which is like a Chinese box with flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks. Tan knits it all together, not with the usual syrupy anthems but with melodies full of ambiguous shadows reminiscent of another great Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich — namely his Symphony No. 5.
Ultimately, the score takes on burdens usually handled by the images. Hero's narrative style could be confusing to the point of bewilderment. But the score turns the film into a pageantlike series of hot, MTV-like variations on a heroic theme, unfolding in a past of such distant antiquity that anything is possible. You may sense that Zhang falls short of transcending the martial-arts genre. Thanks to Tan's music, the film comes far closer to crossing the "finished" line.
A New Documentary Suggests That Mozart Had Tourette's Syndrome (Lauren Taylor, 1 September 2004, Birmingham Post)
A TV documentary is to suggest that the musical works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were influenced by the obsessive-compulsive disorder Tourette's syndrome. The claims are made by British composer James McConnel, who himself has the condition, which can lead to uncontrollable swearing or twitching.
Kerry links Iraq war to U.S. economic woes (Tom Raum, September 9, 2004,. Associated Press)
Democrat John Kerry sought to link the Iraq war to U.S. economic woes on Wednesday, calling President Bush's move against Baghdad a "catastrophic choice'' that so far has drained $200 billion in needed resources at home.
Carter credits Redford for presidential victory (Cincinnati Enquirer, 9/08/04)
Actor and filmmaker Robert Redford played videotapes of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate "over and over" to coach former President Jimmy Carter before his debates with former President Gerald Ford."I was probably president because of Bob Redford," said Carter, who confided that before the debate leading to his 1976 election he "didn't know what in the world I was going to do."
Redford told him what not to do. He arrived at Carter's house with a projector and films of the historic debate that made Richard Nixon look dour and John F. Kennedy charismatic.
Redford "played the tape over and over and gave me advice," Carter said as part of a weekend authors' series in Provo, Utah.
A Blog by career US Foreign Service officers. They are Republican (most of the time) in an institution (State Department) in which being a Republican can be bad for your career -- even with a Republican President! Join the State Department Republican Underground. FSOs (and others)
Chechnya: Accept Reality (Samuel P. Huntington, 12/17/99, St. Petersburg Times)
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chechens quite predictably revolted again. And when they succeeded, defeating Russian armies in 1996 and achieving de facto independence, Russian nationalists quite predictably found this unacceptable and launched the current military campaign to subdue these obstinate mountain Muslims.So what implications does the Chechen War have for Russia and the United States?
Almost everywhere in today's world, people are espousing cultural and civilizational identities. Multicivilizational states are increasingly being challenged, as in Serbia, and some, like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Ethiopia, have come apart. [...]
[T]he age of multicivilizational empires is over, and Russia will be able to maintain its rule over Chechnya only at unsustainable costs. The next leader of Russia would do well to emulate Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's realism about the lost Turkish empire and espouse a Russian-only Russia rather than an obsolete dream of a multiethnic, multicivilizational empire.
The implications of the Chechen conflict for the United States are equally clear. Obviously, we have humanitarian concerns. But the United States does not have any significant national interests in Chechnya, while we have such interests in Russia. Thus, we can do little to punish Russia without imposing greater costs on ourselves.
Many foreign policy experts are saying that the United States should take several punitive steps against Russia to force it to ease up on Chechnya: linking suspension of loans from the International Monetary Fund to the end of the war; threatening exclusion from future meetings of the industrialized countries, and depressing the price of oil, if possible, to reduce Russian foreign exchange earnings. In the context of the moment, these ideas are almost ludicrous in their inconsequentiality.
The Chechen War is very popular with the Russian electorate and therefore popular with politicians running for office in this Sunday's parliamentary elections and next June's presidential elections. As long as the military appears to be succeeding, Russian politicians are not going to pull the army back because of Western wrist-slapping.
What we now see in Russia is the downside of electoral democracy: candidates competing with each other in appealing to nationalist sentiments. Even when Russia was clearly losing the war in 1996, it took the then commanding figure of Alexander Lebed to negotiate and sell to his government and people an agreement to withdraw from Chechnya.
The United States should deplore the humanitarian tragedy in Chechnya, but Clinton administration officials should also recognize that this conflict is 200 years old, and that it is one front among many in the contemporary global struggles between Muslim and non-Muslim peoples. In the long run, Russia cannot win this war, and the United States cannot significantly affect the outcome. The sooner statesmen accept these realities, the sooner peace will come to the North Caucasus.
Russia Threatens to Strike Terror Bases (Steve Gutterman, AP, 9/8/04)
Col.-Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the general staff of Russia's armed forces, asserted Russia's right to strike terrorists beyond its borders.Well, that certainly clarifies things."As for carrying out preventive strikes against terrorist bases ... we will take all measures to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world," he told reporters.
Baluyevsky made his comments alongside NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. James Jones, after talks on Russia-NATO military cooperation, including anti-terror efforts.
European Union officials reacted cautiously to Baluyevsky's statements, with spokeswoman Emma Udwin saying she could not be sure whether they represented government policy. Udwin said the 25-nation EU is against "extra-judicial killings" in form of pre-emptive strikes. . . .
The Bush administration also has a policy of pre-emptive military action against terrorists.
Faith, fertility and American dominance: a review of The Empty Cradle by Phillip Longman (Spengler, 9/07/04, Asia Times)
Rapid aging followed by depopulation on a scale not seen since the collapse of the Roman Empire threatens the modern world, writes Phillip Longman, an American journalist. Buried inside his book is the startling forecast that America's evangelical Christians will breed themselves into a position of global dominance. That idea horrifies Longman, who spends most of his pages hatching schemes to prevent this from happening.In Longman's view, modernity itself is to blame for the population debacle. "Those who reject modernity," he argues, "seem to have an evolutionary advantage, whether they are clean-living Mormons, or Muslims who remain committed to large families." [...]
Longman is right about the correlation between faith and fertility, but wrong about the cause. Mortal existence is intolerable without the promise of immortality. Animals breed and foster their young out of instinct; humankind does so in the hope that something of our mortal existence will survive us in the continuation of our culture and the remembrance of our children. Longman believes that the religious continue to reproduce because the Bible or Koran so instructs them. Religion in the broad sense means hope of immortality. By reducing culture to a hedonist's shopping basket of amusements, modernity destroys the individual's hope for immortality, and with it his incentive to create a new generation of humans. [...]
The implications of this trend appall Longman, who warns, "Such a trend, if sustained, would drive human culture off its current market-driven, individualistic, modernist course, and gradually create an anti-market culture dominated by fundamentalist values." This conclusion appears driven by prejudice. One may deplore or admire US evangelicals, but it is hard to argue that they will create an "anti-market culture". No one admires free enterprise more than American Christians, and one might conjecture that the growing proliferation of their denominations in Asia, Africa and Latin America will lend impetus to capitalist development.
The Market State President (Gregory Scoblete, 09/08/2004, Tech Central Station)
One of the most intriguing aspects of President Bush's convention acceptance speech last week was his rhetorical embrace of the Market State, a concept fleshed out by Phillip Bobbitt, a former director of intelligence in the National Security Administration under President Clinton, in his opus The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History.Through the course of 800-plus pages, Bobbitt sketches out the history of state evolution -- from Princely States to the Nation State -- arguing that both external threats and the domestic quest for legitimacy shape the relationship between government and the governed. He argues that with the passing of the Long War (defined as the period beginning with World War I and ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union) we are now in a transitional period from the Nation States that dominated the 20th century to the Market State that looks to define the 21st.
The Nation State was defined and legitimated, in part, by its ability to ensure the material well being of its citizens. In contrast, the Market State earns its legitimacy by providing the opportunity to its citizens to advance their own well being. The Nation State is characterized by top-down, government centric solutions like the welfare state, that make absolute guarantees about the material outcome of its charges. The Market State simply says: we'll guarantee a set of basic tools and an open playing field, but after that, you're on your own to make of it what you will.
Bush embraced this transition to the Market State.
Political Notebook (Jeff Mapes, September 08, 2004, The Oregonian)
A new poll of Oregon voters shows President Bush and Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry deadlocked in the state, while a ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage has strong support.The poll, conducted Aug. 26 to Sept. 1 by Riley Research Associates of Portland, included 507 interviews with registered voters who said they were "very likely" to cast a ballot in the Nov. 2 election.
Pollster Michael Riley, who conducted the survey on his own and not for a client, said the "very likely" voter screen produced the best picture of people who would vote. It projected a Republican advantage in turnout, which meant the survey probably showed more support for Bush and the marriage measure than if the poll had included all registered voters. [...]
The Riley poll showed 46 percent favoring Bush and 45 percent for Kerry, well within the survey's margin of error of 4.35 percentage points. Another 6 percent were undecided, 1 percent backed independent Ralph Nader, and 2 percent refused to answer or cited other candidates.
On Measure 36, which would prohibit same-sex marriage, 61 percent said they supported the initiative, and 34 percent said they were opposed.
Secrecy proves costly (TIM RUTTEN, September 3, 2004, LA Times)
When the case against Laker superstar Kobe Bryant finally ground to its wasteful and melodramatic conclusion Wednesday, the prosecution's explanation boiled down to this:Excessive media scrutiny and fear of more to come had intimidated a long-suffering young victim into forgoing her day in court. Over time, that conveniently pat conclusion will harden into conventional wisdom in the minds of many judges and media commentators. It will become, in other words, "the lesson of the Bryant case."
There is something to learn from this debacle, but it has nothing to do with media excess. The real problem in the Bryant case was not too much press attention or disclosure — inadvertent or otherwise — but too much legal secrecy. [...]
[Linda Deutsch, the Associated Press' special correspondent and America's premier courtroom reporter], who covered the William Kennedy Smith rape case in Florida and O.J. Simpson's murder trial, pointed out that, by contrast with the Bryant and Jackson prosecutions, both were carried out in full public view and ended in acquittals.
Missing in Action (NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, 9/08/04, NY Times)
The sheer volume of missing documents, and missing recollections, strongly suggests to me that Mr. Bush blew off his Guard obligations. It's not fair to say Mr. Bush deserted. My sense is that he (like some others at the time) neglected his National Guard obligations, did the bare minimum to avoid serious trouble and was finally let off by commanders who considered him a headache but felt it wasn't worth the hassle to punish him."The record clearly and convincingly proves he did not fulfill the obligations he incurred when he enlisted in the Air National Guard," writes Gerald Lechliter, a retired Army colonel who has made the most meticulous examination I've seen of Mr. Bush's records (I've posted the full 32-page analysis here). Mr. Lechliter adds that Mr. Bush received unauthorized or fraudulent payments that breached National Guard rules, according to the documents that the White House itself released.
Does this disqualify Mr. Bush from being commander in chief? No. But it should disqualify the Bush campaign from sliming the military service of a rival who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh.
Global poll shows a Kerry landslide (Thomas Crampton, September 08, 2004, International Herald Tribune)
If the world could cast a vote in the United States presidential election, John Kerry would beat George W. Bush by a landslide, according to a poll released on Wednesday that is described as the largest sample of global opinion on the race."It is absolutely clear that John Kerry would win handily if the people of the world could vote," said Steve Kull, director of The Program on International Policy Attitudes of the University of Maryland, a co-sponsor of the survey. "It is rather striking that just one in five people surveyed around the world support the re-election of President Bush."
The poll of 34,330 people older than 15 from all regions of the world found that the majority or plurality of people from 32 countries prefer Kerry to Bush.
Asia was the region showing the most mixed results, although Kerry still did better than Bush. Kerry won clear majorities in China, Indonesia and Japan, but slipped past Bush by only a slight margin in Thailand and India.
The most negative attitude toward the U.S. came from France, Germany and Mexico, where roughly 80 percent of those surveyed thought that the foreign policies of President Bush had made them feel worse about the United States.
Don't Duck the Debates (Washington Post, September 8, 2004)
THIS IS, or so we are constantly told by partisans on both sides, the most important election of our lives -- at least. At the Republican convention last week, Vice President Cheney called it "one of the most important, not just in our lives, but in our history." You'd think, then, that both campaigns would be eager to see that voters get as much of a chance as possible to see the two candidates debate. The bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has sponsored such encounters since 1988, has proposed a schedule of three 90-minute presidential debates (one on foreign policy, one on domestic issues and one a town-hall-style session with undecided voters) along with a vice presidential debate.Democratic nominee John F. Kerry accepted the proposal in July. But even as the time for the first debate nears -- it's set for Sept. 30 in Miami -- the Bush campaign hasn't committed and may be trying to limit the number of presidential debates to two. "We look forward to these debates," Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "We look forward to having a debate about debates. We will, in an appropriate time, which is shortly, talk about our intended participation." Rather than debating about debates, President Bush should just say yes.
Russia's second Afghanistan (Dr Michael A Weinstein, 9/09/04, Asia Times)
Russia's predicament in its rebellious republic of Chechnya is fast spinning out of control and is threatening to become Russia's second Afghanistan. After 10 years of trying to control Chechnya primarily by military force, punctuated by a period of withdrawal from 1996 to 1999, Russia still has not been able to realize its aim of ruling the republic through a compliant local political leadership. At present, the situation in Chechnya is deteriorating so badly that Moscow is increasingly faced with a series of options, all of which are unfavorable to its strategic and security interests.Located in the strategically significant Caucasus mountains, Chechnya's predominantly Sunni Muslim population has never been reconciled to its incorporation into the Russian empire in 1859. Chechens declared an autonomous republic in 1920 in the wake of the Russian Revolution, but were later absorbed into the Soviet Union. In 1944, the Josef Stalin regime accused the Chechens of cooperating with Nazi forces and sent hundreds of thousands of them into forced exile in Kazakhstan, from where they were allowed to return in 1957. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Chechens again made a bid for independence under the leadership of air force general Dzhokar Dudayev. The Russian regime of Boris Yeltsin refused to acquiesce in Chechnya's separation and invaded the republic in 1994, setting off a two-year war that ended in Russian retreat and de facto independence for Chechnya without international recognition.
During its brief period of independence, Chechnya became a failed state. The elected government of Aslan Maskhadov was unable to contain rampant crime, corruption, warlordism and Islamic revolutionist tendencies, which spilled over into neighboring Russian republics and into the heart of Russia itself. After a series of apartment house bombings in Russia in 1999 that were blamed on Chechen radicals, the Putin regime chose to invade Chechnya once again, driving Maskhadov underground and triggering a second Chechen war that continues to fester and recently has erupted with suicide bombings of Russian airliners and the seizure and bombing of a school in the republic of North Ossetia, resulting in hundreds of deaths and casualties.
The recent upsurge of violence in the Chechnya conflict stems directly from the assassination of Chechnya's Russian-backed president Akhmad Kadyrov on May 9 this year. Elected in October 2003, Kadyrov had been Moscow's hope for achieving legitimacy for its control of Chechnya. The chief religious leader of Chechnya's Sunni Muslims, Kadyrov had backed the separatist forces in the first Chechen war, but became disenchanted with the failed experiment in independence and collaborated with the Russian occupiers after 1999, becoming head of a Russian-imposed governing authority. With the death of Kadyrov, Moscow lost the only local leader with sufficient support and prestige in the Chechen population to possibly secure legitimacy for Russian rule. Politically, Russia's situation in Chechnya has reverted to what it was in the first Chechen war, in which it was defeated.
US Military Receives Education on Horn of Africa Terrorism (Jim Fisher-Thompson, September 7, 2004, AllAfrica.com)
The threat of terrorism in the Horn of Africa is real, longstanding and growing, former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn told military officers learning more about political conditions in Africa, but he added that U.S. programs are in place to counter the immediate threat to the region."The Horn of Africa has been especially susceptible to conflict in the past half century and much of the region is awash in small arms," Shinn explained September 2 to those attending the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command School at Hurlburt Field in Florida, and the result is "instability that hinders governments from exercising full control over their territory and provides terrorists with easy access to weapons."
Shinn's lecture highlighted the Bush administration's new emphasis on working with African governments to stop terrorism on the continent before it can be exported to other regions of the world. The Defense Department has made a special effort to educate its officers on political and social conditions in Africa, a region that for too long was neglected by defense intellectuals.
"Heightened concern about terrorism in the Horn of Africa," said Shinn, "led to the creation in October 2002 of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) outside the capital of Djibouti. It has responsibility for fighting terrorism in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and Yemen and in the coastal waters of the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Its stated mission is to detect, disrupt and defeat transnational terrorism and to enhance long-term stability in the region." At any given time, he said, there are between 1,400 and 1,600 American military and civilian personnel at CJTF-HOA.
On the diplomatic side, the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism began an additional program in 2003 known as the East Africa Counter-terrorism Initiative, Shinn told his audience. The $100 million program includes military training for border and coastal security, programs to strengthen control of the movement of people and goods across borders, aviation security, assistance for regional programs to curb terrorist financing, police training and an education program to counter extremist influence. There are separate programs to combat money laundering.
Oil prices fall as supplies build, storm misses Gulf (September 8, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Oil prices fell Tuesday as OPEC's president said supplies were growing faster than demand, and traders breathed easier knowing that petroleum production in the Gulf of Mexico did not suffer as a result of Hurricane Frances.''There's no news to keep prices from falling,'' said Ed Silliere, vice president of risk management at Energy Merchant in New York, noting that the market has even shrugged off recent pipeline sabotage in Iraq.
Military Must Squarely Face New 'My Lai': Abu Ghraib scandal is a test of values for the U.S. officer corps. (Andrew J. Bacevich, August 31, 2004, LA Times)
For the present generation of American soldiers, Abu Ghraib is fast becoming what the My Lai massacre was to the generation that fought in Vietnam — an episode of horrific misconduct transformed through subsequent mishandling into a full-fledged moral crisis.The similarities between the two episodes are instructive. So too are the differences. For those differences suggest what must be done to prevent the current situation from further eroding the integrity of the armed services.
The similarities between My Lai and Abu Ghraib begin with the incidents themselves. In each, units — not wayward individuals but groups of American soldiers — not only broke the law but violated the most basic standards of human decency. At My Lai in 1968, GIs murdered hundreds of Vietnamese civilians. In 2003 at Abu Ghraib (and perhaps elsewhere), soldiers systematically humiliated, abused and even tortured detainees in U.S. custody.
For a time, each episode remained hidden, as seasoned officers averted their eyes, lied or actively sought to suppress all knowledge of what had occurred. In the case of My Lai, conscience eventually moved a young draftee to blow the whistle. In the case of Abu Ghraib, a junior-ranking enlisted soldier refused to be complicit in wrongdoing.
As each incident erupted in public, it evoked a similar response from the upper echelons of the Pentagon. First came denial and then damage control. In passing off Abu Ghraib as the work of a few bad apples, Defense Department officials in 2004 behaved very much as had their predecessors in 1969. Then as now the hunt for expendable scapegoats began almost immediately, with Lt. William Calley the precursor of today's Pfc. Lynndie England.
But in one crucial respect, the two episodes differ. The numerous official inquiries that Abu Ghraib has spawned have amounted to a well-choreographed exercise in evasion. [...]
In contrast, the My Lai massacre produced an investigative report that had no difficulty in calling a spade a spade.
Putin's Misdirected Rage (Jim Hoagland, September 8, 2004, Washington Post)
Vladimir Putin directed an angry question to Western visitors this week that world leaders are likely to glide past in the interests of diplomacy. That would be a mistake. The Russian president deserves a full and candid response, particularly from the Bush administration as the third anniversary of Sept. 11 approaches."Would you invite Osama bin Laden to the White House or to Brussels and hold talks with him and let him dictate what he wants?" Putin snapped, according to journalists and foreign policy analysts who were invited to his country residence outside Moscow on Monday night. He quickly added: "But you tell us that we should talk to everyone, including child-killers."
THE WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN: Al Gore lives on a street in Nashville. (DAVID REMNICK, 2004-09-13, The New Yorker)
There is something about the postmodern way that Gore has masked his outrage about the 2000 election with a distinct blend of uncomplaining poise and media-age irony which keeps him separate in our minds from the three men in American history who have shared his peculiar fate: Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, and Samuel Tilden. [...]“I’m not of the school that questions his intelligence,” Gore went on. “There are different kinds of intelligence, and it’s arrogant for a person with one kind of intelligence to question someone with another kind. He certainly is a master at some things, and he has a following. He seeks strength in simplicity. But, in today’s world, that’s often a problem. I don’t think that he’s weak intellectually. I think that he is incurious. It’s astonishing to me that he’d spend an hour with his incoming Secretary of the Treasury and not ask him a single question. But I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and, like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reaction to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole—that can come only from genuine moral cowardice. I don’t see any other explanation for it, because it’s not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of the groups has a lot of money that they’re willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.” [...]
A Southern Baptist, he, too, had declared himself born again, but he clearly had disdain for Bush’s public kind of faith. “It’s a particular kind of religiosity,” he said. “It’s the American version of the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir, in religions around the world: Hindu, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. They all have certain features in common. In a world of disconcerting change, when large and complex forces threaten familiar and comfortable guideposts, the natural impulse is to grab hold of the tree trunk that seems to have the deepest roots and hold on for dear life and never question the possibility that it’s not going to be the source of your salvation. And the deepest roots are in philosophical and religious traditions that go way back. You don’t hear very much from them about the Sermon on the Mount, you don’t hear very much about the teachings of Jesus on giving to the poor, or the beatitudes. It’s the vengeance, the brimstone.”
Gay GOP Group Won't Endorse Bush Reelection (Johanna Neuman, September 8, 2004, LA Times)
The national board of Log Cabin Republicans, the gay political group that tried unsuccessfully to get a "big tent" unity plank in the GOP platform last week, voted Tuesday to withhold its endorsement of President Bush.The 25-member board made the decision on a 22-2 vote.
The organization, with 12,000 members nationwide, said it would instead devote its financial and political resources to elect "fair-minded Republican allies to local, state and federal offices."
The Bush hour (Cal Thomas, September 7, 2004, Townhall)
"This young century will be liberty's century," said the president with enthusiasm for this principle. But it is more than a principle. It is George W. Bush's "vision thing," and it is a vision that, if it comes true, can potentially liberate more people than the millions already set free by America in the last century and the first four years of this one.That's a worthy agenda for four more years.
Who's in charge of the Kerry campaign? (Scot Lehigh, September 8, 2004, Boston Globe)
Right now, well-placed sources say, it's not completely clear who is in charge."It is fairly chaotic over there," says one Democratic source. "Nobody has total control, and that is very dangerous." [...]
With the addition of Clintonistas Joe Lockhart, Joel Johnson, and Doug Sosnik -- and greater anticipated participation by consultants James Carville and Paul Begala and pollster Stanley Greenberg -- they describe a series of competing camps.
There's the old infrastructure of former Ted Kennedy staffers Cahill and Stephanie Cutter plus consultants Bob Shrum, Tad Devine, and Mike Donilon; there are the new Clinton recruits; and there are Kerry's longtime Boston advisers.
The current plan, they say, appears to be to avoid talk of any sort of campaign shake-up by quietly divvying up some important functions among the new recruits. But there's a problem there.
"You can't win a race like this by committee," says one Democrat observing the campaign closely.
During his two decades as a senator, Kerry has never been particularly good at building an effective, well-integrated, high-performing staff.
It's Not Because They Hate Who We Are (Ivan Eland, History News Network)
According to one of the main findings of the 9/11 Commission, the U.S. government's failure to anticipate the grave threat from al Qaeda prior to the September 11 attacks was a failure of imagination. Since those attacks, however, the Bush administration's broad "war on terror" has exhibited nothing but imagination.To begin with, President Bush has the chimerical and dangerously naïve notion that al Qaeda attacks America because of its freedoms--that is, the United States is attacked for what it is and not what it does. All evidence is to the contrary. Both Western and Islamic authorities on al Qaeda tell us that the group attacks the United States because of its foreign policy toward the Moslem world. Osama bin Laden believes the U.S. military's presence and actions in Islamic lands, as well as its support for corrupt governments there, are tantamount to a modern day "crusade." President Bush's disastrous use of the c-word to describe U.S. policy merely confirmed the obvious to many Moslems around the world. Repeated polls of the Islamic world demonstrate that intense anti-U.S. hatred is generated by U.S. foreign policy, not by U.S. culture, technology, or political and economic freedoms. In fact, those latter characteristics of U.S. society are often admired in Moslem lands.
Stage set for Chirac's revenge as his rival closes in (SUSAN BELL, 9/08/04, The Scotsman)
IT IS a tale of treachery, ambition and back-stabbing that cuts to the heart of France’s political elite. A bitter power struggle is being fought between president Jacques Chirac and his finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy for the soul of French conservatism and, ultimately, the keys to the door of the Elysée. [...]After months of plotting and back-stabbing by the Elysée in a desperate effort to prevent Mr Sarkozy seizing control of the centre-right party, created in 2002 as an electoral vehicle for Mr Chirac and his allies, the president was forced to concede victory to his former protégé last week, announcing with apparent good grace that he "approved and supported" his rival’s decision to stand for the leadership of the UMP.
On Sunday, Mr Chirac’s loyal lieutenant, the beleaguered prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, even went so far as to say that the finance minister was his "preferred candidate" for the job.
Bubbling beneath the surface of this uncharacteristic bonhomie however, the bitter feuding between the Chirac and Sarkozy camps remains.
Insiders say Mr Chirac is more determined than ever to stop his arch rival succeeding him at the Elysée in 2007 and intends to make him pay dearly for the humiliation of being forced to relinquish control of his party.
But if Mr Chirac wants revenge, he will have to bide his time. For the moment at least, Mr Sarkozy appears to have the French president backed up against a wall. Enjoying huge support within the UMP, Mr Sarkozy is assured of certain victory at the upcoming elections for party leader - a position which became vacant following the conviction of Mr Chirac’s designated successor, former prime minister Alain Juppe, on corruption charges in January.
With the right suffering historic lows in the polls, enthusiasm for a third Chirac presidential term is lukewarm at best and it is Mr Sarkozy who is widely perceived as the saviour of the party. [...]
Gambling on the fact that the media-hungry finance minister would cling to his high-profile post, Mr Chirac tried to thwart his rival’s ambitions by warning him he could not be both a cabinet minister and head of a political party.
His gamble failed as Mr Sarkozy decided he was prepared to relinquish a certain amount of media exposure in return for the exceptional power base and vast budget at his disposal as the head of the UMP - a combination which provides him with the ideal springboard for the Elysée.
In a carefully brokered agreement, Mr Sarkozy agreed to resign quietly from the cabinet upon his election as UMP president in November rather than defying Mr Chirac by pointing out that both he and Mr Juppe had both simultaneously held the posts of prime minister and party head. He also pledged not to use his position to attack the president or the struggling government.
TRANSCRIPT: U.S. Military Death's Reach 1000 Mark (CNN WOLF BLITZER, September 7, 2004)
[JOHN] KERRY: Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq. More than 1,000 of America's sons and daughters have now given their lives on behalf of their country, on behalf of freedom in the war on terror.
Ah well, at least he's not pretending that the war in Iraq isn't part of the war on terror.
Kerry Comments in August Have Him Playing into GOP Hands: Democrat Trying To Make Up for Setbacks on Iraq (Jim VandeHei, September 8, 2004,
Washington Post)
John F. Kerry's August swoon began with a detour on Iraq.Standing just feet from the edge of a sunny Grand Canyon one month ago, a calm and confident Kerry interrupted a day dedicated to domestic politics to discuss, once again, his 2002 vote for the resolution authorizing war with Saddam Hussein.
President Bush -- hoping to blur differences between the two candidates over the explosive issue of Iraq -- had challenged Kerry to declare whether he would have supported the war knowing what he does now about Iraq's weapons program. Kerry strolled up to reporters, took what two of his own aides privately called obvious political bait and declared without equivocation that "yes, I would have voted for the authority" for Bush to wage the conflict.
With one simple answer, Kerry stepped on his message for the week and provided the Bush campaign the political ammunition it sought. Kerry has since struggled to explain how he would handle Iraq differently -- and more effectively -- than Bush, as polls have shown voters losing support for his ability to do a better job than the president on this issue. [...]
As the Grand Canyon incident and a similar fight over Kerry's Vietnam War legacy showed, Kerry often played into the GOP's hands over the past month.
"From a tactical point . . . [Kerry] lost the imitative in making this election about George Bush," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), an official in the Clinton White House. "George Bush cannot handle an election about his last four years, [but] Kerry has to make this election about" that. [...]
Aides say Kerry may soon apologize for some of his most heated comments during the Vietnam War protests of the early 1970s, a move that would rekindle the debate for a few more days.
Yet strategists from both sides said the effectiveness of anti-Kerry ads speaks to another ominous development for Kerry last month: the large numbers of voters who said they still do not know what he stands for and whether they can trust him to do a better job on the twin threats of Iraq and terrorism. This was the crux of the ads run by the Bush campaign this summer and the president's argument against Kerry on Iraq, which voters rank as one of the top three issues of this presidential campaign.
You can hear the ad now: "John Kerry admits now that his anti-war activities damaged America during the Vietnam War. Can we afford to let him do further damage to America in the war on terror?"
The war on terror is being lost: The greatest obstacle to reducing the threat is the US administration (Richard Norton-Taylor, September 8, 2004, The Guardian)
In a telling comment last week, Mai Yamani, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, described the annual get-together at Oxford University of the Project for Democracy Studies in Arab Countries. The participants, she wrote in the International Herald Tribune, represented the "lost resources of an Arab world that is fast becoming isolated by illiteracy, ignorance, and repression".A new generation "denied the opportunity to participate in a range of democratic institutions or other vehicles for public self-expression, is finding more dangerous outlets for its passions". Yamani quoted a Saudi researcher at an English university as remarking: "It's easier for a young Arab to blow himself up than sweep outside his house. He doesn't feel he belongs to anything."
It is hard not to conclude that one of the greatest obstacles to the kind of better world Blair says he wants - one with less cause for terrorism, even if terrorists will always be around - is the Bush administration, and notably the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
Kerry: Bush 'made America less safe' (CNN, May 28, 2004)
Sen. John Kerry outlined his plan to improve national security on Thursday, saying President Bush has "made America less safe than it should be in a dangerous world."The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told an audience in Seattle that the Bush administration has "undermined the legacy of generations of American leadership" by using force before diplomacy was exhausted.
Kerry said that the Bush administration ignored the lesson of former President Theodore Roosevelt, who said that America should "walk softly and carry a big stick."
"That is precisely what this administration has ignored. They looked to force before exhausting diplomacy. They bullied when they should have persuaded. They've gone it alone when they should have assembled a whole team. They have hoped for the best when they should have prepared for the worst. They've made America less safe than it should be in a dangerous world," Kerry said.
Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.The Kerry-Edwards campaign immediately rejected those comments as "scare tactics" that crossed the line.
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.
If Kerry were elected, Cheney said the nation risks falling back into a "pre-9/11 mind-set" that terrorist attacks are criminal acts that require a reactive approach. Instead, he said Bush's offensive approach works to root out terrorists where they plan and train, and pressure countries that harbor terrorists.
Where Things Stand With 56 Days To Go (Charlie Cook, Sept. 7, 2004, National Journal)
Two consecutive surveys showing a lead for President Bush of 11
points and a third at seven points (if you prefer likely voter screens) strongly suggest that he's not just a point or two ahead as he was going in, and that something really did happen. Several long-time political pros, including some on the Republican side, suggest the true bounce will result in a Bush lead of five or six points, which is still a very respectable boost and larger than what Kerry got from his convention. The next question is how sustainable will it be. After all, then-Vice President Al Gore had a lead bigger than this coming out of Labor Day
weekend in 2000, only to see it dissipate after his first debate (the one where he seemed to do an imitation of "Leave it to Beaver"'s Eddie Haskell).
Cult of Death (David Brooks, NY Times, 9/7/04)
Dissertations will be written about the euphemisms the media used to describe these murderers. They were called "separatists" and "hostage-takers." Three years after Sept. 11, many are still apparently unable to talk about this evil. They still try to rationalize terror. What drives the terrorists to do this? What are they trying to achieve?This is why it is important to fight the terrorists, and to fight them in their neighborhood, rather than at our neighborhood school.They're still victims of the delusion that Paul Berman diagnosed after Sept. 11: "It was the belief that, in the modern world, even the enemies of reason cannot be the enemies of reason. Even the unreasonable must be, in some fashion, reasonable."
This death cult has no reason and is beyond negotiation. This is what makes it so frightening. This is what causes so many to engage in a sort of mental diversion. They don't want to confront this horror. So they rush off in search of more comprehensible things to hate.
Supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr use a mortar to shell an U.S. position in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday Sept. 7, 2004. U.S. forces battled al-Sadr's supporters in the Baghdad slum on Tuesday, killing at least 34 people, including one American soldier, and injuring 193. (AP Photo/Karim Rahim)
One wonders, if the mortar were pointed at the local AP Press Pool, whether the caption would read the same. So do these "journalists" just stand by and watch women get mugged in NYC, snapping photos and blandly quipping?
My new single-question IQ test (Mike S. Adams, September 7, 2004, Townhall)
Recently, a reader wrote to tell me that he had lost all faith in my intelligence because I made a derogatory remark about Charles Darwin in one of my recent editorials. The reader seemed to suggest that IQ could be measured with a single question. Apparently, his question was “do you believe in evolution?”Of course, that is not a good question to use on a single-item IQ exam. Intelligent people know that, since it was created, evolution has evolved into two theories. Micro-evolution tries to use Darwinian principles to explain variations within species over time. Macro-evolution tries to use Darwinian principles to suggest that all species have evolved from primordial soup.
The latter theory is less than unproven. In fact, it isn’t even scientific.
CIA funds liberal efforts (Bill Gertz, 9/07/04, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
The CIA's Counterterrorist Center has spent more than $15 million in the past three years funding studies, reports and conferences produced by former Democratic administration officials and other critics of the Bush administration.The latest effort was a $300,000 grant by the CIA to the Atlantic Council for a study co-authored by Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official who wrote a best seller accusing the Bush administration of failing in the war on terrorism by invading Iraq.
"The products of the [center] have a consistent theme: They criticize the Bush administration and provide ammunition for the Kerry campaign," said one U.S. official who has read the resulting reports and studies.
Tivo, Netflix Close to Internet Movie Deal - Report (Reuters, 9/7/04)
Online DVD renter Netflix Inc. and television recorder maker TiVo Inc. are close to a deal to allow Netflix subscribers to download movies over the Internet to their TiVo devices, according to the latest issue of Newsweek magazine.If you haven't heard from me in two weeks, send in a search party. Make sure they bring potato chips.
EXCERPT: from 'Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy' by Tony Kushner (NY Times, September 5, 2004)
In the play's second scene, Laura Bush discusses the first scene with the playwright. This excerpt is from that discussion.TONY KUSHNER: I just don't think you can say Dostoyevsky isn't political.
LAURA BUSH: Oh you'd definitely say Dostoyevsky's political, though I think you wouldn't even want to know who he'd vote for! If he'd vote at all, because his vision and his art transcend politics, he attains spiritual realms undreamt of by you political squabbly type guys, and, and it's, I mean what would Chekhov think? Using the stage, the theater, ART! For, for tawdry propagandizing? You oughta be ashamed of yourself.
TONY KUSHNER: I always am.
LAURA BUSH: And that explains your political affiliations! You guys are just a bunch of mopes, y'all are all just sorrowful types who haven't figured out which sock drawer you oughta shove all your personal misery and disappointment and, and guilt in. It's like a mental condition is what it is. . . . I mean it's not like there's anyone who isn't sorrowful or guilty, it's just some people don't fall back on that as the basis of a whole droopy dreary you know Weltanschauung, pardon my French — and I know, skipper, you don't think people from East Texas know big German words like Weltanschauung, but we do. You're a snob, is another thing.
TONY KUSHNER: Maybe all liberalism and progressivism and left-leaning politics are pathological but I would argue less maladaptive and delusional than, say, well, your politics, or rather your husband's — since no one knows what yours really are, which is why I find you so fascinating, it's——
LAURA BUSH: Oh you know what mine are, don't be so fascinated, you snoop, mine are just a whole lot like his are, maybe not so, not so, well that's none of your business.
TONY KUSHNER: But like I think all conservative thought is sort of a product of thought disorder, like a mild thought disorder, an inability to follow an idea or an action through to its actual consequences, or, or it's a morbid obsessional terror and the sourness and viciousness that accompanies such——
LAURA BUSH: What I think is you people are afraid of my husband, is what I
think——
TONY KUSHNER: Oh no argument about that, I mean——
LAURA BUSH: You're afraid of George because, because, well first off you hate him because he does things, I mean actually likely to act, to act on his convictions — it's not his convictions, it's that he does stuff about it.
TONY KUSHNER: Well, no, it's that he does stuff about it and also his convictions are really, really hideous, his ideological—
LAURA BUSH: Y'all can't stand his, well let's call it vividness. For people like you, a bookish pallor is a precious badge of distinction, "I have read enough to be muddleheaded enough to be 100 percent entirely immobilized!" I mean look at that gloomy old banana-face you just nominated, and sorry to be name-calling but really, take a good look! Does anyone think he's likely to do anything other than marvel at the complexity of everything and hire people who are similarly awe-struck and flabbergasted at the, at the whole magical mystery tour incomprehensibility of it all, and so you'll, you'll all get together in Washington like last time and you'll, you'll what? You'll ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone Park and then everyone in the Sierra Club'll take everyone in P.E.T.A. out for a Sunday night pizza!
TONY KUSHNER: Banning snowmobiles is better than drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge — and you have to be honest and admit that Clinton faced a Republican Congress for most of his administration that was astonishingly hostile and——
LAURA BUSH: Whee-hooh, action! Snowmobiles! Head Start! Don't-ask-don't-tell, and and lookie here, three whole forklifts full of wasted paper and — Listen, you want to talk about hostile?
TONY KUSHNER: Negotiations for peace in Ireland, in the Mideast
and——
LAURA BUSH: Just wait till you see Tom Delay if Kerry beats George! Hostile? Listen! Hark! That's the sound of Richard Mellon Scaife a-sharpening his — And, oh yeah, negotiations, like that amounted to spit!
TONY KUSHNER: And, and at least we didn't attack another country, at least with a Democrat in the White House there's less chance of——
LAURA BUSH: You go on and on about Halliburton and the Carlyle Group, Halliburton and the Carlyle Group — and no, you didn't attack another country, not like you meant it, you all just fire a missile here and a missile there and look like you are thinking real hard about the meaning of missiles!
Anger rising in volatile Caucasus: School saga is inflaming old divides between ethnic groups. (Scott Peterson, 9/08/04, CS Monitor)
Hard-liners here remember the brutality applied by Czarists, Soviets, and Russians to Muslim communities in the Caucasus, which grated under Moscow's attempts to impose its rule. One name often invoked is that of Alexei Yermolov, who vowed to subdue the region when he became military chief in 1816."I desire that the terror of my name should guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses," he declared. "Out of pure humanity, I am inexorably severe.... One execution saves hundreds of Russians from destruction and thousands of Muslims from treason."
General Yermolov's contempt was matched by that of Stalin, who on the night of Feb. 22, 1944 - at the height of war with Nazi Germany - drew resources from the front to begin a mass deportation of more than 600,000 Chechens, Ingush, and other Muslims to Central Asia. One quarter of the deportees died in the first five years.
"Stalin didn't finish things with the Chechens: He deported them but didn't kill them. He should have killed them, we are convinced of that now," says Fidarova.
Reverence for Stalin has undergone a renaissance in Beslan. Though demonized abroad for killing millions in concentration camps, Stalin is revered here in part because one of his parents was an Ossetian. A bust was erected two years ago, and "Friendship Street" was renamed "Stalin Street."
"The rate of hatred is growing across the country," says Emil Pain, head of the Center for Analytic and Regional Research in Moscow. "It is the hatred of Ossetians against Ingush, Russians against Chechens, military people against civilians, etc."
The conflict today can be traced to Stalin's deportation of Chechens, says Galina Soldatova, an ethnopsychologist at Moscow State University. Stalin's secret police "made Ossetians settle into the homes of the people who were deported at gunpoint. In the Caucasus, to seize your neighbor's house is an awful crime with far-reaching consequences, which are still felt today."
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Bush Says Kerry's Using Old Dean Lines (PETE YOST, 9/07/04, AP)
President Bush on Tuesday accused rival John Kerry of changing positions on the Iraq war by adopting the language of one-time presidential candidate Howard Dean when Kerry called the conflict "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."Kerry's criticism came Monday during a campaign stop. Dean had used such phrasing in early 2003 when he was the Democratic candidate most critical of the war. At the time, Kerry took a more moderate stand, criticizing the president for failing to build a broader coalition of allies but not condemning the war altogether.
Kerry "woke up yesterday morning with yet another new position, and this one's not even his own; it is that of his one-time rival, Howard Dean," Bush told thousands of supporters Tuesday at a rally in the Kansas City suburbs.
It's Not an 11-Point Race (John Zogby, 09/07/2004, Zogby International)
The Republican National Convention is over and score it a huge success for President George W. Bush. For one solid week he was on message and got Americans who watched to listen to the message he intends to carry in the fall campaign: leadership, decisiveness and success battling the war on terrorism. The convention actually followed another big week for Mr. Bush and equally dismal one for his opponent, Democratic Senator John Kerry.Now the first polls are out. I have Mr. Bush leading by 2 points in the simple head-to-head match up - 46% to 44%. Add in the other minor candidates and it becomes a 3 point advantage for the President - 46% to 43%. This is no small achievement. The President was behind 50% to 43% in my mid-August poll and he essentially turned the race around by jumping 3 points as Mr. Kerry lost 7 points. Impressive by any standards.
For the first time in my polling this year, Mr. Bush lined up his Republican ducks in a row by receiving 90% support of his own party, went ahead among Independents, and now leads by double-digits among key groups like investors. Also for the first time the President now leads among Catholics. Mr. Kerry is on the ropes.
Two new polls came out immediately after mine (as of this writing) by the nation's leading weekly news magazines. Both Time's 52% to 41% lead among likely voters and Newsweek's 54% to 43% lead among registered voters give the President a healthy 11 point lead. I have not yet been able to get the details of Time's methodology but I have checked out Newsweek's poll. Their sample of registered voters includes 38% Republican, 31% Democrat and 31% Independent voters. If we look at the three last Presidential elections, the spread was 34% Democrats, 34% Republicans and 33% Independents (in 1992 with Ross Perot in the race); 39% Democrats, 34% Republicans, and 27% Independents in 1996; and 39% Democrats, 35% Republicans and 26% Independents in 2000. While party identification can indeed change within the electorate, there is no evidence anywhere to suggest that Democrats will only represent 31% of the total vote this year.
Two paths to the same end (Ronald Brownstein, 23-08-2004, LA Times)
Post-election surveys in 2002 showed that Republicans outnumbered Democrats among voters, 38 per cent to 35 per cent.
California is no longer a reliably Democratic state. Until the October 7 recall that replaced Democratic governor Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republicans hadn't won a major statewide race since 1994. Bush spent millions there in 2000 but lost California by 11 points to Al Gore, who spent zilch in the state.Yet in the recall, Republicans captured 62 percent of the vote. Bush's approval rating was slightly positive (49 to 48 percent), roughly the same as in other states. In the Fox News exit poll, 39 percent of voters identified themselves as Democrats, 37 percent as Republicans--a big GOP gain since last year when the Democratic lead was 7 or 8 points. A solid majority of women voted to recall Davis and elect a Republican. According to the Los Angeles Times exit poll, 41 percent of Latinos voted for a Republican governor--over a Latino Democrat, Cruz Bustamante. California is now competitive.
Democrats insist the recall merely showed anger against incumbents. In fact, it showed California was catching up with a powerful Republican trend over the past decade. In 1992, Democrats captured 51 percent of the total vote in House races to 46 percent for Republicans. By 2002, those numbers had flipped--Republicans 51 percent, Democrats 46 percent. And Republicans have held their House majority over five elections, including two in which Democratic presidential candidates won the popular vote. They won 230 House seats in 1994, 226 in 1996, 223 in 1998, 221 in 2000, and 229 in 2002. They also won Senate control in those elections. [...]
In 1992, Democrats captured 59 percent of state legislative seats (4,344 to 3,031 for Republicans). Ten years later, Republicans won their first majority (3,684 to 3,626) of state legislators since 1952. In 1992, Democrats controlled the legislatures of 25 states to 8 for Republicans, while the others had split control. Today, Republicans rule 21 legislatures to 16 for Democrats. Governors? Republicans had 18 in 1992, Democrats 30. Today, Republicans hold 27 governorships, Democrats 23.
Not to belabor dry numbers, but Republicans have also surged in party identification. Go back to 1982, the year of the first midterm election of Ronald Reagan's presidency. The Harris Poll found Democrats had a 14-point edge (40 to 26 percent) as the party with which voters identified. By 1992, the Democratic edge was 6 points (36 to 30 percent) and last year, President Bush's midterm election, it was 3 points (34 to 31 percent).
But the Harris Poll tilts slightly Democratic. (In fact, I believe most polls underestimate Republican ID because of nominal Democrats who routinely vote Republican.)The 2000 national exit poll showed Republicans and Democrats tied at 34 percent. A Republican poll after the 2002 elections gave the party a 3- to 4-point edge. Based on his own poll in July, Democrat Mark Penn (who once polled for Bill Clinton) declared: "In terms of the percentage of voters who identify themselves as Democrats, the Democratic party is currently in its weakest position since the dawn of the New Deal." His survey pegged Democratic ID at 32 percent, Republican ID at 30 percent. A half-century ago, 49 percent of voters said they were Democrats. Today, wrote Penn, "among middle class voters, the Democratic party is a shadow of its former self."
MORE:
Bush Will Bury Kerry: The Democrat will be lucky to exceed Michael Dukakis's share of the popular vote. (BRENDAN MINITER, September 7, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
For nearly four years now, we've been told this is a 50-50 nation, that red and blue America are so evenly divided that even a small misstep could swing this presidential election either way. The media may have their own reasons for sticking to the story line--drama is good for ratings, after all--but there's mounting evidence that the electorate is not nearly as evenly divided as it was in 2000; that come Nov. 2, newscasters are going to be putting a lot more red than blue on their electoral maps. I will make a prediction here: Mr. Kerry will be lucky to top the 45.7% of the popular vote Michael Dukakis got in 1988.
A Mythic Reality (PAUL KRUGMAN, 9/07/04, NY Times)
George W. Bush isn't General Galtieri...[y]et...
Anti-Hero: A LAVISH APOLOGIA FOR AUTHORITARIANISM. (Elbert Ventura, 09.07.04, New Republic)
Nearly two years after premiering in its native China, Zhang Yimou's Hero, the most expensive production in Chinese history, has finally opened in U.S. theaters. As befitting a major new work by a celebrated auteur, critics have heaped superlatives on the movie, singling out in particular the ravishing visuals and balletic swordplay for praise. But while the movie's formal beauty certainly deserves recognition, it seems to have blinded reviewers from a more serious reckoning with the movie's subtext. For beneath Hero's kaleidoscopic swirl of color and bodies is a troubling moral of self-abnegation in the face of state power. After a career spent delicately sparring with censors, the critically-beloved Zhang has now made a most lavish apologia for authoritarianism. [...]Set in the third century B.C., the movie retells the country's creation myth via a fractured, Rashomon-style narrative. An opening crawl tells us of the King of Qin (Chen Daoming), a tyrant who dreams of bringing peace to the land by conquering its seven warring states and uniting them under his dominion. Enter Nameless (Jet Li), a warrior who claims to have vanquished three assassins whose lifelong missions were to kill the king. As a reward for his exploits, Nameless wins an audience with the ruler. The movie unfolds in flashback, as Nameless recounts each battle. But all is not as it seems. After Nameless finishes his tale, the king offers his own version, revealing to the warrior that he suspects it was all just a cover to get Nameless close enough to kill him. Confronted by a master assassin in his own court, the defiant king gives Nameless a sword to finish the job. Nameless, however, pulls back at the last moment--and tells the king that he is being spared so that he may continue his mission of uniting the land and securing lasting peace. As dictated by law, Nameless is executed, but given a hero's burial for his selfless act. The movie ends with a shot of the Great Wall (one of the real Emperor Qin's accomplishments) and on the solemn words of a closing title card: "Our Land."
That climax may well be one of the great sucker-punch endings in recent years. What had seemed a traditional, if artsy, martial arts epic is transformed into pernicious propaganda with that closing act of submission. By having its protagonist sacrifice his life for the imperial cause, the film endorses a philosophy of individual subservience to the state. Hero's portrayal of the king as a reluctant autocrat is particularly repugnant. When Nameless explains why he decides to let him live, the king is visibly moved, grateful that somebody finally understands that all he wants is peace. In a breathtaking monologue, he bemoans the endless criticism and misunderstanding of his rule, which he claims is truly dedicated to the higher cause of an end to all war. Never mind that such a vision of eternal harmony involves martial conquest--depicted here in the Qin army's attack on a neighboring, unarmed city--and the homogenization of the land's language and culture.
With its distinctly pro-government message, Hero unleashed a firestorm of debate among Asian critics and in Internet chat rooms upon its release two years ago. While pro-government media hailed the movie as a worthy exponent of Chinese cinema, critics blasted its whitewashing of Qin's legacy--not to mention its disturbing parallels with today's China. "Not only has Zhang compromised the spirit of the chivalric hero, he seems to have compromised his own integrity as well," read a review from the Taipei Times. The Straits Times, a Singapore-based regional newspaper, called the movie a "cheerleading anthem" for a resurgent China. In an interview with Time Asia upon the film's completion, Zhang himself all but acknowledged its compromised nature, conceding, "I've made adjustments to accommodate the spirit of the times."
Unfortunately, Zhang's imposed complaisance has been of little interest to American critics. While a couple of reviewers have taken the movie to task for its dubious ideology--The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter and The Village Voice's J. Hoberman--most have given the movie a free pass. Swept up by its virtuoso look and blinding star power, many critics have praised the film as a deserving addition to Zhang's canon, with nary a word about its politics. Those that raise the point do so almost apologetically, burying the lede under panting raves about the movie's stylish wonders. Salon's Charles Taylor even goes so far as to call criticisms of the film's subtext offensive to Zhang, the dissident martyr. Hero's boosters have been left contorting themselves into knots devising subversive--and unconvincing--readings of the movie's allegorical undertones.
EU frowns on Turkey's adultery ban (Washington Times, September, 7th, 2004)
Turkey's plan to outlaw adultery has raised concern in the European Union over whether the move breaks its human rights policy, The Independent said Tuesday.EU officials confirm the matter was raised with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul by Gunter Verheugen, the EU commissioner for enlargement.
Some EU officials say outlawing adultery could breach article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, creating a new legal obstacle to beginning membership negotiations.
Granted there may be good reason to hold the applause when a country that still has honour killings enacts a criminal provision like this, although it could be part of a genuine effort to prevent them. But aren’t you just dying to know what the European Convention on Human Rights has to say on the matter? Here:
ARTICLE 8
. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
There we go. Can there be any doubt that Article Eight protects the basic right of every European to get it on with whomever without let or hindrance? Just like Article One, Article Two, Article Three...
WELL, THAT WAS FUN: Huge, ineffectual protests make me proud to be a white middle-class coward. (Matt Taibbi, NY Press)
[T]he one thing that would have really shaken Middle America last week wasn't "creativity." It was something else: uniforms. Three hundred thousand people banging bongos and dressed like extras in an Oliver Stone movie scares no one in America. But 300,000 people in slacks and white button-down shirts, marching mute and angry in the direction of Your Town, would have instantly necessitated a new cabinet-level domestic security agency.Why? Because 300,000 people who are capable of showing the unity and discipline to dress alike are also capable of doing more than just march. Which is important, because marching, as we have seen in the last few years, has been rendered basically useless. Before the war, Washington and New York saw the largest protests this country has seen since the 60s—and this not only did not stop the war, it didn't even motivate the opposition political party to nominate an antiwar candidate.
There was a time when mass protests were enough to cause Johnson to give up the Oval Office and cause Richard Nixon to spend his nights staring out his window in panic. No more. We have a different media now, different and more sophisticated law-enforcement techniques and, most importantly, a different brand of protestor.
Protests can now be ignored because our media has learned how to dismiss them, because our police know how to contain them, and because our leaders now know that once a protest is peacefully held and concluded, the protestors simply go home and sit on their [butts] until the next protest or the next election. They are not going to go home and bomb draft offices, take over campuses, riot in the streets. Instead, although there are many earnest, involved political activists among them, the majority will simply go back to their lives, surf the net and wait for the ballot. Which to our leaders means that, in most cases, if you allow a protest to happen… Nothing happens.
The people who run this country are not afraid of much when it comes to the population, but there are a few things that do worry them. They are afraid we will stop working, afraid we will stop buying, and afraid we will break things. Interruption of commerce and any rattling of the cage of profit—that is where this system is vulnerable. That means boycotts and strikes at the very least, and these things require vision, discipline and organization.
The 60s were an historical anomaly. It was an era when political power could also be an acid party, a felicitous situation in which fun also happened to be a threat. We still listen to that old fun on the radio, we buy it reconstituted in clothing stores, we watch it in countless movies and documentaries. Society has kept the "fun" alive, or at least a dubious facsimile of it.
But no one anywhere is teaching us about how to be a threat. That is something we have to learn all over again for ourselves, from scratch, with new rules. The 60s are gone. The Republican Convention isn't the only party that's over.
Generation X parents outshine Baby Boomers: Group called slackers embraces family (Laura DeMarco, September 06, 2004, Cleveland Plain Dealer)
[G]eneration X is all grown up now - and having children.And when reality finally did bite the 60 million Americans born between 1965 and '79, they didn't react as might be expected. Gen-Xers are embracing family life with a vigor not seen in baby-boomers.
Generation-X includes more stay-at-home dads, fathers working from home and dads cutting back long hours than previous generations, say analysts.
Gen-X moms are distinguishing themselves from baby-boomers by embracing traditional roles. Though they're more college-educated than any previous generation, more Generation-X moms than boomers are staying home or working part time.
Xers' focus on home life shows up in several more parenting trends: they make financial sacrifices in exchange for family time; they're increasingly discipline-oriented; and they let their kids just have fun.
In part this is a reaction to their background, say sociologists. Their childhood was a time of personal and political upheaval. Xers were the first generation with large numbers raised in broken homes. Almost one-third had divorced parents, compared with 13 percent of boomers, according to the Yankelovich research analysis firm. Nearly half of all Xers had working moms. Before they were labeled slackers, they were latchkey kids.
Now Generation-Xers have become homebodies. And they're raising more than half of all children under 18 in the United States, some 40 million kids. [...]
Willingly making financial sacrifices is a common Gen-X parenting trait, notes Chung. But the cuts are aimed at parents, not children.
There is, however, one thing for their kids that they seem to be cutting back on: the permissiveness of many baby-boomer parents.
"A lot of boomer parents think they have to be friends and buddies with their kids," says Hannum. "A lot of Generation X parents have a good time with kids but have clear boundaries that they are the parents.
Adds Lynn, "You owe it to your kids to teach them how to behave and to have manners. I really believe in limits for kids."
Shift From Traditional War Seen at Pentagon (Thomas E. Ricks, September 03, 2004, The Washington Post)
Top Pentagon officials are considering a new, long-term strategy that shifts spending and resources away from large-scale warfare to build more agile, specialized forces for fighting guerrilla wars, confronting terrorism and handling less conventional threats, officials said yesterday.The proposal, presented two weeks ago to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others, could carry major implications for defense spending, eventually moving some funds away from ships, tanks and planes and toward troops, elite Special Operations forces and intelligence gathering. The shift has been building for some time, but the plan circulating at the Pentagon would accelerate the changes, analysts said.
The plan's working assumption is that the United States faces almost no serious conventional threats from traditional, state-based militaries. Thus, it says, the United States should accept more risk in that area to pay more attention to other threats: terrorism, the type of low-tech guerrilla fighting confronting troops in Iraq, and the possibility of dramatic technological advances by adversaries. Some of those priorities depend more heavily on troop strength than high-tech weaponry and could increase the pressure on the Pentagon to build the size of the Army and the Marine Corps.
"The lesson learned in [Operation] Iraqi Freedom is that in some areas, we have capabilities overmatch," said Christopher "Ryan" Henry, the principal undersecretary of defense for policy, who wrote and presented the briefing to Rumsfeld on Aug. 19. "We can't see many competitors that are coming at us in the traditional domain.
"In the business world, this is the equivalent of coming up with a new product in a new market," Henry added.
Algerian bomber tries to save Qaeda-allied group (Paul de Bendern, September 7, 2004, Reuters)
A university student skilled in bomb-making has taken charge of Algeria's largest Islamic rebel movement but the Al-Qaeda-linked group is fighting for its survival as the army pounds its hideouts and members surrender.The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which seeks a purist Islamic state in the Maghreb, made headlines last year with the kidnapping of dozens of European tourists and reportedly secured 5 million euros ($6 million) in ransom money.
After more than a decade of holy war or "jihad" resulting in the deaths of more than 150,000 people, according to human rights groups, the GSPC is the last powerful rebel force, operating with a few hundred armed members, in Muslim Algeria.
The GSPC said in an undated statement obtained by Reuters on Monday that Abdelmalek Droukdel, previously thought to have been killed in combat, had been made chief three month after the death of Nabil Sahraoui.
All the group's top leaders apart from Droukdel, 33, have either been killed in battle or arrested in recent months.
Bushism of the Day (Jacob Weisberg, Slate, 9/7/04)
"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."—Sept. 6, 2004, Poplar Bluff, Mo.Usually, Bushisms are a cheap shot, because either the President has been prefectly clear but not grammatical or he hasn't been clear, but no one has any doubt what he meant. I have no idea what he was thinking as this statement came out of his mouth. But notice how completely he is innoculated against this sort of stumble. Everyone laughs, and everyone moves on.
That Didn't Take Long (To Show Bush et. al. Were Fibbing) (David Corn, BushLies.Com)
What does it say about a presidential candidate, his campaign and his party, if upon the completion of the national convention at least two newspapers publish stories loaded with examples of instances when the candidate and his supporters spoke falsehoods about his opponent?The day after Bush's acceptance speech (for a review see the entry below), The Washington Post and The New York Times each ran articles demonstrating that the Bush campaign had distorted Kerry's record. The Post noted:
"Speakers at this week's Republican convention have relentlessly attacked John F. Kerry for statements that he has made and votes he has taken in his long political career, but a number of their specific claims--such as his votes on military programs--are at best selective and in many cases stripped of their context, according to a review of the documentation provided by the Bush campaign."
For instance, the paper reported, "Kerry did not cast a series of votes against individual weapons systems, as Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) suggested in a slashing convention speech...but instead Kerry voted against a Pentagon spending package in 1990 as part of deliberations over restructuring and downsizing the military in the post-Cold War era."
Putin rejects 'child-killer talks' (BBC, 9/07/04)
Putin is under growing pressure in the wake of the Beslan deaths
Russia's president has attacked those calling for Russia to enter talks with Chechen separatists after the Beslan school siege, where at least 335 died.Vladimir Putin also rejected a public inquiry into events that led to special forces storming the school on Friday.
He told two British newspapers that entering talks was akin to the West negotiating with Osama Bin Laden.
Laissez-Faire My Gas Guzzler, Already (SIMON ROMERO, 9/07/04, NY Times)
The four-week average for gasoline demand for the week ended Aug. 27 was 9.421 million barrels, essentially unchanged from the period a year ago, according to the Energy Information Administration.Part of the explanation is because gasoline prices actually declined during the summer, to a national average of about $1.86 a gallon, from a record of $2.05 in May, while frenzied trading in financial markets pushed the price for a barrel of oil to nearly $50 from $40. (The price of crude oil is still far from its inflation-adjusted peak of about $80 reached in 1980.) That is because refineries in the United States produced ample amounts of gasoline in the last three months, meeting demand from consumers even as speculators placed bets on future swings in the price of oil that may have had little to do with actual petroleum supplies.
"I don't think we're going back to $50 without a big supply disruption somewhere," said Juha Laiho, a Houston-based oil trader for Fortum, a Finnish oil company. "It's logical for gasoline to pull back a bit."
Of course, gasoline at $1.86 a gallon remains about 10 cents a gallon more expensive than at this time last year, according to the Energy Information Administration, crimping many drivers. Still, it would have to become much more expensive to instill a big change in driving habits.
Rebecca Lindland, a senior analyst for the automotive industry at Global Insight, estimates that gasoline prices would have to climb to a nationwide average of $3 a gallon for at least six months to alter consumer behavior.
"Gasoline is still incredibly affordable," Ms. Lindland said. "Even with inflation it's not much more expensive than it was five years ago."
MORE:
Price of oil expected to ease (San Jose Mercury News, 9/07/04)
The prospects for lower oil prices seemed to improve Monday as the head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries forecast that global crude prices would soon fall."International oil prices for the September to December period are likely to drop,'' Indonesia's mines and energy minister, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, told reporters in Jakarta.
Iraq supply should improve later this year as security there was likely to improve, Purnomo said. Iraq is a member of the 12-member OPEC grouping.
An expected resolution of the Yukos oil scandal in Russia, which is the world's largest non-OPEC oil producer, should also help tame sky-high crude prices, Purnomo said.
OPEC ministers are next set to meet Sept. 24 in Vienna, Austria. Huge demand from the United States and China, coupled with fears about terrorism, have helped push prices to two-decade highs this year.
But Bloomberg News reported Monday that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, lowered the official prices for crude it sells to the United States and Europe, a sign it may be struggling to find buyers for the extra supplies it's pumping.
Kerry, Kansas City, and the FBI files (Steve Gilbert, American Thinker.com, 9/7/04)
By now you’ve probably heard that John F. Kerry attended a meeting of his Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) group in Kansas City in November 1971, where they considered a proposal to murder top governmental leaders. You have probably even heard that Kerry met at least once in May, 1970, and maybe several times subsequently, with the North Vietnamese and Vietcong Peace Delegation in Paris, and that he went on to aggressively agitate around the country and even before the US Senate for accepting their terms.Mr. Gilbert goes on to excerpt two FBI memos reporting on "negotiations" between the North Vietnamese and VVAW, ties between VVAW and CPUSA and VVAW plans for targeted political assassinations and to promote mutinies among the troops in Vietnam.Not that long ago, the notion that John Kerry could have been involved in such activities was so unthinkable that when I first stumbled upon this information back in January, I could not find any journalists in the news media to take these stories seriously.
Kerry appears to be on the side of the angels (i.e., he opposed assassination as a political tool), but who ever thought it would be ok to run him for President?
MORE: KERRY COSPONSORED BILL BANNING GUN HE WAVES (Drudgereport, 9/7/04)
Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry was seen this weekend waving a gun which would have been banned if legislation he co-sponsored became law!Apparently, after being handed the gun, Kerry made some quip about not being allowed to bring it to the debate. Because, you know, there's absolutely no reason for John Forbes Kerry not to joke about political assassinations.Kerry co-sponsored S. 1431 last year (“The Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2003) which would have banned a "semiautomatic shotgun that has a pistol grip.”
Election 2004 (APSANet)
Elections Forecasting is now available at this page. As additional forecasts come in they will be added to the summary list and links to explanations or relevant papers will be added. PS: Political Science & Politics will run a forecasting symposium in its October issue. The table on the right of this page is a summary of forecasts. The details of the forecasts can be sought by clicking on the name of the forecaster or forecasters.
“Boos” Scandal Widens: AP Stonewalls; Knight-Ridder Also Distributed Hoax (Nicholas Stix, 9/07/04, MND NEWSWIRE)
At press time (3 a.m. Tuesday), the Associated Press still had failed to respond to inquiries by Men’s News Daily regarding the false story that it published on Friday afternoon.As reported here yesterday, Friday’s, Associated Press (AP) story by Tom Hays, Ron Fournier, Frank Eltman, David Hammer and Marc Humbert reported that a crowd of thousands at a Bush rally that day in Wisconsin booed Pres. Bush’s news that Pres. Clinton had been hospitalized with chest pains and faced bypass surgery, and Bush’s prayers and best wishes for Clinton’s speedy recovery.
The AP, a wire service founded in 1848, describes itself as “the largest and oldest news organization in the world.”
A variation on the AP’s false story was also spread by Knight-Ridder reporter Seth Borenstein.
According to Knight-Ridder’s corporate Web site, it is “The second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, it owns 31 dailies and operates the Real Cities network of more than 100 local news Web sites in 88 markets.”
Between AP and Knight-Ridder, the false story likely reached tens of millions of potential voters. Wisconsin, the site of the non-story, is a battleground state that is still in play, with ten electoral votes up for grabs.
Charter offers 'great start in life' (KATE N. GROSSMAN, September 7, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
On a desolate strip of South State Street, inside an old elementary school building, something unexpected is under way.Inside is one of the country's only high schools backed by the construction industry, a school that hopes to offer students both a vocational and a college prep curriculum.
"The industry wants kids interested in these fields who are prepared," said Louis Jones, an architect and president of the school's board of directors. "There is a queue of people who want to support this school."
ACE Tech Charter High School is one of three new charters and several new schools and programs launching in the Chicago Public School system this year. ACE Tech, 5401 S. State, opened Aug. 26. Most Chicago public schools open today. [...]
The other new schools include a new Montessori program in Bucktown, two new schools to relieve crowding in Latino neighborhoods and a high school that doubles as a teacher training academy.
Also new this year -- twice as many reading specialists at schools on academic probation and more "community schools" that stay open into the evening with classes for kids and parents. The number will jump from 35 to 65 over the school year.
The three new charters and the training academy, which has a contract with CPS, represent the future of new schools in Chicago.
In June, Mayor Daley announced plans to close roughly 70 low-performing schools and transform them into 100 new ones by 2010, two-thirds to open as charters or through contracts with CPS. Both types are public schools, but they have greater control over hiring, teacher pay, schedules, curriculum and budgeting than traditional schools.
George Bush, Our Uncommon Hedgehog: The advantages of "one big" idea. (Victor Davis Hanson, 9/07/04, Private Papers)
There are more problems than mere hypocrisy in the current critique of Bush as a dunce, and it involves the nature of intelligence itself. It was the ancient Greek elegiac poet Archilochus who posed the dichotomy of “the Fox and the Hedgehog”: “the fox knows many tricks, the hedgehog one—one big one.”While the poet’s exact meaning has been the subject of debate for over two millennia, the logical interpretation is the most natural: complex thinkers sometimes lose sight of the forest for the trees. Put simply: John Kerry can give 1,000 reasons why we should or should not stay in Iraq—or both at once. He will cite erudite foreign policy experts, and present it all as a sophisticated exegesis. George Bush cannot.
The President has instead this “one big” idea. It goes something like this. For a quarter-century Islamic fascists in the Middle East have transferred the impoverished Arab Street’s anger over its own endemic failure onto the bogeymen of the United States and Israel. And when terrorists, abetted by autocratic governments, struck the United States, they met mostly with habitual Western indifference and were further emboldened by outright appeasement. The problem with the sensitive, “don’t offend them” foreign policy of pre-September 11 is that it ensured September 11—as it would again.
Our hedgehog George Bush—hardly a fox-like Clinton, Gore, or Kerry—in both his gut and head concluded that a lot of people want to kill us for who we are, and they won’t stop until they are defeated militarily and the conditions that produced them are radically altered.
That single mindedness may seem trite or even scary to Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and Gore Vidal; but it still seems pretty smart to most common Americans with uncommon hedgehog sense.
Clinton Call Leak Sabotaged Kerry (NewsMax, 9/07/04)
Panicked presidential candidate John Kerry had every reason to believe that the conversation he had with ex-president Bill Clinton on Saturday - where the two discussed how to rescue his flagging campaign - would be kept confidential.But that expectation went up in smoke on Monday, when Kerry and his campaign aides found explicit details from the Clinton strategy session splashed all over the New York Times and other media.
Among the most damaging details to surface: Clinton's strong recommendation that Kerry abandon the crown jewel of presidential his campaign - his service in Vietnam.
Kerry himself was plainly mortified over the leak, desperately trying to downplay the significance of the Clinton call by describing the ensuing press coverage as "the most overblown thing."
Meanwhile: A tale of two Europes: MoMA goes to Berlin (Josef Joffe, 9/03/04, International Herald Tribune)
In 2003, Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie scored big with an exhibition of East German art, attracting 220,000 visitors. So when an exhibition of 200 pieces from New York's Museum of Modern Art opened in February this year, half a million visitors was thought to be the required minimum, 700,000 a "sensation."This week, attendance figures had reached one million. When MoMA-Berlin closes its doors Sept. 19, the total will probably have reached 1.2 million. To accommodate crowds still to come, the museum has again extended visiting hours.
Still, the wait is lengthy. The Berlin Tagesspiegel calculated that until early August, people had spent 446 years waiting in line. The paper pegs the individual record at nine hours. The fans bring rubber mats, thermos bottles and sleeping bags; some show up as early as 3 a.m. The paper notes that nobody has given birth in line, nor has anybody died. But once every day, an ambulance shows up.
Nonetheless, they keep coming in order to check out the Matisses and Modiglianis, and of course the paintings and objects that show off America's most famous contributions to world art, Pop and Abstract Expressionism. This makes for an startling contrast between the vox populi and the voices of the art critic establishment, which have ranged from the derisory to the downright hostile. [...]
Might there be a moral to this tale of “two” exhibits, with one stirring the fascination of the Great Unwashed, and the other, as seen by the commenting class, disclosing yet another proof of American perfidy? The moral may well be a tale of two Europes. Those who flock to MoMA-Berlin with sleeping bag and thermos in hand are mesmerized by all things American, whether highbrow or low. The other Europe, as represented by the critics cited here, resents America precisely because it is so seductive.
It is hard enough to live with a giant that spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined and unleashes its might on places like Afghanistan and Iraq. It grates even more to see this Gulliver Unbound dominate European culture from McDonald's to MoMA. The fear and loathing of America will outlive President George W. Bush.
Both shows sound unviewable, but Mr. Joffe's point is illuminating.
Russia forced to rethink US ties (Kaveh L Afrasiabi, 9/07/04, Asia Times)
Already coined as Russia's September 11 by various Russian pundits and editorials, the tragic slaughter of hundreds of innocent people in a middle school in Beslan has the potential to trigger a major tremor in the foreign policy charted by President Vladimir Putin, perhaps even as far as heralding a new chapter in US-Russia relations, much to the chagrin of the so-called Eurasianists around Putin who have for a long time been advising him to steer clear of the US's "war on terrorism".In his first post-Beslan interview, Putin, in a tone reminiscent of President George W Bush's post-September 11 behavior, has declared Russia to be in a "war" with enemies that his defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, has branded as "unseen" and "borderless". Cognitively then, the mass killings in Russia, including the victims of downed Russian airplanes and Moscow subway commuters, have seemingly spurred a politico-ideological turn around vis-a-vis the US, viewed with suspicion by the Kremlin for exploiting the September 11 tragedies for geopolitical gains at Russia's doorsteps in Central Asia and elsewhere in the Middle East, prompting Russian policy-makers to rethink their cynical gaze at the US war on global terrorism, eg, the same Ivanov has been on record for making paranoid statements about a post September 11 "dense ring of military and intelligence gathering installations belonging to the US". In the light of the severity of the Chechen-led terrorist attacks, reportedly with participation by members of al-Qaeda, Ivanov and other like-minded people around Putin are likely more apt to make similar statements about the threat of Islamist terrorism.
Does this mean that we are about to witness a foreign policy "re-orientation" in Russia featuring Moscow's new willingness to join Washington's war on global terrorism and to make the foreign policy adjustments deemed necessary for such an alliance? While we must await the passage of time to furnish the answer, the current milieu in Russia, wrought with a governmental crisis in combating terrorism, is clearly pregnant with such a possibility.
The New College Entrance Exam (Douglas Kern, 09/07/2004, Tech Central Station)
Why should hapless high school seniors have to apply to colleges? Why shouldn't colleges apply to them?College is a massive investment of time, energy, and money. Ordinarily, endeavors that require massive investment try to make themselves appealing to the consumer, and not vice versa.
Forget those stupid brochures and meaningless entries in college guide books. It's time for America's colleges to load a fresh sheet of paper in the typewriter and get to work.
Colleges must answer three of the following 15 questions. Space limit is 250 words.
Kerry camp sees hope in past finishes (Glen Johnson, September 7, 2004, Boston Globe)
This is the time when Kerry's near-mythic reputation as a strong closer based on his Senate campaigns dating to 1984 will be tested on a national stage. With an infusion of new advisers over Labor Day weekend and a message focused on employment, health care, and education issues, the hope is that Kerry can spark one more stretch run to victory in the race he has been building toward throughout his public life.The fundamental question is, can a challenger portrayed as indecisive by his Republican opponents convince the American people that he has the vision, the convictions, and the mettle to replace an incumbent president during a time of war?
Kerry's strategy includes not only sharper language about the stakes of the race, but hopes for strong performances in the upcoming debates against President Bush, a furious rallying of Democratic loyalists by himself and surrogate campaigners during the final two weeks of the campaign, and the willingness -- as shown at a midnight rally last Thursday when he questioned Vice President Dick Cheney's Vietnam deferments -- to go negative on his rivals.
Meanwhile, although going negative is an effective way of damaging your opponent the reason folks shy away from it is that it destroys you too, driving your own negatives up in the process. For a candidate as ill-defined as the Senator that seems a huge risk.
China suspends navigation on Three Gorges project as Yangtze River floods (AFP, Sep 07, 2004)
The Three Gorges Dam project has been closed to shipping for the first time since it began operation in July after the upper reaches of the Yangtze River started flooding, state media said Tuesday.Water flow at the dam has surged over the warning levels of 45,000 cubic meters per second and is expected to reach 60,000 cubic meters per second by Wednesday, the Xinhua news agency said. [...]
"The flood will challenge embankments in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and may cause mountain torrents, landslide and mud-rock flows ...," said Chen Qijing, an official with the Hubei provincial flood control headquarters.
Freedom, Liberty, Freedom: George W. Bush yet again used the crutches of "liberty" and
"freedom" to frame his candidacy. (George Lakoff, September 3, 2004, AlterNet)
Freedom was the thread linking his domestic policies to his foreign policy. In domestic matters, it is freedom from the United States government.George W. Bush: I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives.
In all these proposals, we seek to provide not just a government program, but a path – a path to greater opportunity, more freedom, and more control over your own life.
We must strengthen Social Security by allowing younger workers to save some of their taxes in a personal account nest egg you can call your own, and government can never take away.
Conservatives have long sought to destroy Social Security and Medicare, for two reasons: First, from their moral perspective, all social programs take away the need for discipline and create dependency. Since discipline is seen as the basis of all morality, all such programs are immoral. Second, there is a business motive. Businesses can make more money if they can get their hands on all the Medicare and Social Security money as investments in them, not in the people whose health and future are insured. The conservative solution is to privatize both programs, creating "personal accounts." More freedom.
The motivation for government-run Social Security was that each generation would pay for the next. In Medicare, as in any insurance program, the lucky (those not injured or diseased) would pay for those less lucky. In addition, there were the twin motivations of economy of scale and of protection, from stock market declines, bad judgment, and from an individual's squandering. But in conservatism, those not sufficiently disciplined deserve what happens to them. If you're undisciplined enough to squander your personal savings account or not shrewd enough to invest wisely, then you deserve to lose your health and retirement money. [...]
George W. Bush: The story of America is the story of expanding liberty: an ever-widening circle, constantly growing to reach further and include more. Our nation's founding commitment is still our deepest commitment: In our world, and here at home, we will extend the frontiers of freedom.
That was 40 percent of the speech. The rest was on the War on Terror, though he never once used the phrase. The frame inspiring terror had been well established on previous nights, leaving Bush to talk about spreading freedom.
Significantly, he did not once use the phrase "war on terror," but did use the word "liberty" 11 times and "free" or "freedom" 23 times. Here are a few instances of them:
George W. Bush: And we are working to advance liberty in the broader Middle East, because freedom will bring a future of hope, and the peace we all want. And we will prevail.
...Free societies in the Middle East will be hopeful societies, which no longer feed resentments and breed violence for export. Free governments in the Middle East will fight terrorists instead of harboring them, and that helps us keep the peace. ...The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march. [...]
How does the president know that victory is inevitable? Because God is on our side.
George W. Bush: ...I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man. I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the Almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.
And why is God on our side? Because we have the main conservative virtue: inner strength and discipline and the conservative compassion to promote opportunity for other disciplined people; in other words, George W. Bush's "heart of gold and spine of tempered steel," as Zell Miller put it.
George W. Bush: ...in those military families, I have seen the character of a great nation: decent, and idealistic, and strong.
The world saw that spirit three miles from here, when the people of this city faced peril together, and lifted a flag over the ruins, and defied the enemy with their courage. My fellow Americans, for as long as our country stands, people will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: Here buildings fell, and here a nation rose.
And all of this has confirmed one belief beyond doubt: Having come this far, our tested and confident Nation can achieve anything. This young century will be liberty's century. By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America. Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom.
The code words from conservative Christianity are easy to decipher: 9/11 was God's test of our mettle. Did we have enough inner strength? The response in New York (led by Mayor Giuliani) and the courage of our military shows that we have so far. Our nation is like every good person, every disciplined individual: it too can pull itself up by its bootstraps, "can achieve anything." The Resurrection of New York City signals the Resurrection of America in this election. God is calling to us "from beyond the stars to stand for freedom." To meet God's call, we must show our inner strength and resoluteness by voting for a leader with that character – not the flip-flopper, but George W. Bush!
Work for longer, survive on less: the future all face (RICHARD SADLER AND FRASER NELSON, 9/07/04, The Scotsman)
BRITAIN’S growing pensions crisis means many young and middle-aged workers will have to work into their late sixties and survive on less than the current generation enjoying a relatively lucrative retirement.New research has shown that the pensions squeeze - often spoken about as a problem for the next generation - has already kicked in by denying early retirement to millions of British employees. [...]
The Institute of Fiscal Studies, which made the presentation, said a gulf is already opening between workers - those on final-salary schemes are 10 per cent less likely to be at work at the age of 60 than those who are not.
Richard Blundell, who works at the IFS, said the main cause of the crisis is that the lifespan of the average Briton is increasing by nearly five years every two generations - with the average life expectancy now 75 for men and 80 for women.
This is not as acute in Scotland, where health problems have depressed life expectancy to 72 for men and 78 for women - among the lowest in the EU.
But Scotland has a separate issue in that the pensioner population is set to rise by 220,000 over the next 30 years, while the country’s overall population declines.
Prof Blundell said the crisis had been made worse by the generous early retirement packages which the government and employers have now clamped down on.
Edwards Stays on the Sunny Side of the Street (Dotty Lynch, Beth Lester, Clothilde Ewing, Lauren Glasser and Allen Alter, 9-3-04, CBS News)
Sources tell CBS News that Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards was apparently taken aback by the hot Kerry rhetoric.
Black boys betrayed by racist school system, says report (Hugh Muir and Rebecca Smithers, The Guardian, September 7th, 2004)
Black schoolboys have been betrayed by the education authorities for almost half a century and are struggling to overcome racism from many of their own teachers, according to a damning new report out today.Members of an influential education commission say the failure of the schools system and individuals within it to successfully engage with students of African-Caribbean origin has severely hindered them and contributed to massive underachievement. [...]
The 285-page report, which represents the most exhaustive study to date of the educational underachievement of black boys, concludes that: "The English schooling system has produced dismal academic results for a high percentage of black pupils for the best part of 50 years."
Can anyone think of a sentence that sums up everything that is wrong with modern education better than that one?
Angry Putin rejects public Beslan inquiry (Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, Tuesday)
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, last night refused to order a public inquiry into how the Beslan school was captured by gunmen and then ended with such a high death toll, and told the Guardian that people who call for talks with Chechen leaders have no conscience."Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? Why don't you do that?" he said with searing sarcasm.
"You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are childkillers?
"No one has a moral right to tell us to talk to childkillers," he added.
Well, to answer your question directly, Vladimir, if you were a sophisticated European progressive who understood all the complexities, you would see that is exactly what you should do. Haven’t you ever heard about root causes? Pity about the kids, but we’re talking HUMAN RIGHTS, here. What about the Chechen street?
GOP hope is six-seat gain in Nov. (Jonathan E. Kaplan, 9/07/04, The Hill)
Senior House Republicans believe the GOP will gain about six seats in the Nov. 2 election, increasing the party’s majority in the chamber to 35, although they say it is too early to start making hard-and-fast predictions. [...]A senior House Republican leader, who briefed reporters at the GOP convention in New York but declined a request to be identified, also said that he expected to win an additional six seats and hold the Democrats to 200 or fewer seats.
Winning six additional seats is not extraordinary given the cushion Republicans have in Texas, where Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) helped engineer a mid-decade redistricting plan earlier this year. Of six races in Texas, Republicans are likely to win five, leaving Republicans to beat one more Democratic incumbent to achieve their six-seat goal. [...]
With Rep. Doug Bereuter’s (R-Neb.) resignation effective Aug. 31, Republicans hold 228 House seats, Democrats have 205 seats, and there is one independent, Rep. Bernie Sanders (Vt.).
Republicans have to defend 19 open seats, whereas the Democrats have to keep hold of just 14. Democrats must win 13 GOP seats to reach 218, the threshold for a one-seat majority.
Vietnam duality challenges Kerry: War emphasis grows thornier (Patrick Healy, September 6, 2004, Boston Globe)
Kerry has made Vietnam far more central to his presidential campaign than in his previous seven political races. Yet interviews with aides, friends, and fellow veterans of Kerry show that his decisions to showcase his war past in the White House bid was far from automatic. As with Brinkley's book, one constant danger always loomed: Talking about his combat heroism inevitably invited talk about his antiwar activism after returning home, most notably his 1971 statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that some US soldiers had committed rape, torture, mutilation, and other "atrocities" in Vietnam.The Democrat now finds himself paying a price for those comments and the anger whipped up over the Brinkley book -- a backlash McCain had warned against and some of his own advisers had predicted.
"There was no doubt for John or for me that the far right of the Republican Party would use Vietnam to go after his patriotism, because it's the sleazy stuff they do," said David McKean, Kerry's Senate chief of staff and an adviser.
Yet in meetings with Kerry, McKean and other advisers say, they told the Democrat that he had an extraordinary story of heroism to tell Americans. Campaign advisers say they felt sure of two things: Past Vietnam critics like John O'Neill, now a leader of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, would probably resurface, but Kerry and his allies could neutralize the criticism as they had done before.
The attacks on Kerry by the swift boat group, however, have stunned many in the camp and left Kerry frustrated that the media have not dismissed the charges as unsubstantiated.
Bush's Greatness: There's a good reason he infuriates the reactionary left. (David Gelernter, 09/13/2004, Weekly Standard)
IT'S OBVIOUS not only that George W. Bush has already earned his Great President badge (which might even outrank the Silver Star) but that much of the opposition to Bush has a remarkable and very special quality; one might be tempted to call it "lunacy." But that's too easy. The "special quality" of anti-Bush opposition tells a more significant, stranger story than that.Bush's greatness is often misunderstood. He is great not because he showed America how to react to 9/11 but because he showed us how to deal with a still bigger event--the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 left us facing two related problems, one moral and one practical. Neither President Clinton nor the first Bush found solutions--but it's not surprising that the right answers took time to discover, and an event like 9/11 to bring them into focus.
In moral terms: If you are the biggest boy on the playground and there are no adults around, the playground is your responsibility. It is your duty to prevent outrages--because your moral code demands that outrages be prevented, and (for now) you are the only one who can prevent them. [...]
The Iraq war started as a fight to knock out a regime that invaded its neighbors, murdered its domestic enemies with poison gas, subsidized terrorism, and flouted the international community. Obviously such a regime was dangerous to American interests. But as the war continued and we confronted Saddam's gruesome tyranny face to face, the moral issue grew more important, as emancipation did in the Civil War. For years the Iraqi people had been screaming, in effect: "Oh, my God. Please help me! Please help me! I'm dying!" How could America have answered, "We don't want to get involved"? We are the biggest kid on the playground. If we won't help, who will?
I have just quoted the death-cries of Kitty Genovese, who died on the streets of New York 40 years ago. And I have quoted the response of an onlooker who didn't feel like helping. Her case still resonates in America's conscience, and tells us more than we want to know about the president's enemies. [...]
Reactionaries recoil from new ideas and try to suppress and defeat them. They want things to stay the same. Hence their racist hatred of uppity white conservatives, who have developed the cheek to threaten the left's cultural power. Such institutions as Fox News and the conservative Washington think tanks are hugely disturbing to reactionary liberals. The president faces the same thinking as he tries to set policy for post-Cold War America. Reactionary liberals want everything to stay just the same. All trends must continue just as they have been. (Judges must continue to subvert democracy; Congress must continue to create new entitlements.) We must treat the new totalitarians just the same as we once were forced to treat the Soviets--gingerly. Our goal must be not to liberate their victims, not to defeat and disarm their military machines, but to arrange détente with their dictators--just as we once did. (Détente with Saddam was French and Russian policy until we screwed things up.) Our antiquated pre-cell phone, pre-microchip laws and regulations must stay just the same (kill the Patriot Act!), and we must sit still and wait politely for the next terrorist outrage, just as we always have.
Bush has a simple message for the reactionary left: The times change and we change with them. He is a progressive conservative--and a progressive president in the best sense. And he has established his greatness in record time.
A Bush re-election poses new hurdles for Koizumi (YOICHI KOSUKEGAWA, 9/07/04, Japan Times)
James Przystup, senior research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies of the National Defense University in Washington, said he welcomes developments in Japan-U.S. relations since Bush took office in January 2001.Przystup said many of the recommendations included in his institution's 2000 report on a better Japan-U.S. partnership have been accomplished. "I think this is really a tremendous success story for the Bush administration and the Koizumi government."
The report, compiled by a bipartisan study group that included Richard Armitage and Michael Green, called for expanding Japan-U.S. cooperation in security and other areas. Bilateral relations moved in that direction particularly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Japan has been engaged in refueling operations in the Arabian Sea to support U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan and has dispatched Ground Self-Defense Force troops to Iraq on a reconstruction and humanitarian aid mission.
Under the Bush administration, Armitage became deputy secretary of state and Green became senior director for Asia at the White House's National Security Council.
Hiromi Murakami, a lecturer in Japan studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, said that from a Japanese perspective, the recent developments in bilateral relations may lead to "serious problems" in Japan.
"Japan was proactively involved in supporting U.S. policy toward Iraq, which was a reasonable solution for Japan in the short term, but lacked in-depth discussion at home, which is not a good domestic solution in the long term," she said.
A Republican Party platform adopted during the just-ended national convention confirmed that Bush will continue to place Japan at the center of his Asian policy if he is elected in November for a second four-year term.
"Japan is a key partner of the United States and the U.S.- Japan alliance is an important foundation of peace, stability, security and prosperity in Asia," the platform says. "America supports an economically vibrant and open Japan that serves as an engine of expanding prosperity and trade in the Asia-Pacific region."
Iraq's Survival Still at Stake, Report Warns (Reuters, 9/03/04)
Iraq could splinter into civil war and destabilize the whole region if the interim government, U.S. forces and United Nations fail to hold the ring among factions struggling for power, according to a British thinktank.The best Iraq can hope for is to muddle through an 18-month political transition that began when Washington formally handed over sovereignty on June 28, said a report released this week by the prestigious Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Under the rosiest of three scenarios set out in the report, the interim government would prove able to keep majority Shi'ite Muslims, minority Sunni Muslims, secular nationalists and Kurdish leaders broadly engaged in the political process.
"No one will be very happy, but no one will monopolize power either," the report said. [...]
Under a darker scenario, Iraq would fragment and, if U.S.-led forces left prematurely, collapse into civil war. "Even if U.S. forces try to hold out and prop up the central authority, it may still lose control," the report said.
Kurdish separatism and Shi'ite assertiveness would disrupt the path to elections, while Sunnis kept up their insurgency.
Hostility to U.S. forces would grow, even if no unified nationalist movement emerged, especially if Washington were seen to be ignoring the interim government or calling the shots.
In the worst case, instability in Iraq would suck in its neighbors and cause a regional upheaval which the report said would be "beyond U.S. or multinational control."
Kerry at center of '72 Vietnam debate in city (Jason Lefferts, Lowell Sun, 9/5/04)
On April 18, 1972, John Kerry, a war hero turned anti-war activist and a declared congressional candidate, wanted city councilors to approve a resolution condemning the war. Kerry had said many times in the preceding months since his return from Vietnam that the war was wrong.The most astonishing thing about this article is that Massachusetts gives a bonus to combat veterans.At a 1971 anti-war protest in the nation's capital, Kerry said he tossed away his combat medals to protest the government's military action. . . .
[Councilor Phil] also confronted Kerry on a little-publicized fact: Kerry had filed for and taken a Vietnam bonus of $300 from the state of Massachusetts. All returning Vietnam veterans were eligible to receive the money. The Sun, through a Freedom of Information Act request, has received a copy of Kerry's bonus check. It was issued on Dec. 17, 1969, and authorized by then-state Treasurer Robert Q. Crane.
As Kerry was running for Congress, Shea tried to show the inconsistency in Kerry's stance against the war. If you returned your medals in protest, Shea asked Kerry, why didn't you return your bonus money?
Kerry told Shea and the seven other councilors present that he returned his medals to make a point and would do the same with the money. The Massachusetts Treasurer's Office, which issues the bonus checks, has no record today that Kerry followed through on his promise. . . .
John Kerry, a war hero turned anti-war activist, kept his Vietnam combat medals and his Massachusetts bonus money.
Can competition really improve electronics?: Market choice is today a driving force behind television quality. But does it work? (Teresa Mendez, 9/07/04, CS Monitor)
No, that's not really the headline, but if it were you'd think it idiotic. Of course competition and markets work. The only facet of life where some refuse to credit the fact appears in the actual headline.
Lots to do in little time: Lawmakers return to a cramped legislative schedule (Lauren Shepherd and Bob Cusack, 9/07/04, The Hill)
Congressional leaders returning to Capitol Hill today are faced with the daunting task of passing many pieces of unfinished legislation with less than a month before lawmakers are scheduled to return to the campaign trail.Republicans in both chambers are pushing for similar legislative gains before the projected Oct. 1 recess — passing legislation to reform the intelligence community, completing work on the long-stalled highway bill, enacting corporate tax reforms and possibly reviving energy legislation.
“We’re still aiming for an Oct. 1 adjournment date,” said Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). [...]
Capitol Hill leaders have already voiced skepticism that the entire process — including the conferences to iron out any differences between the Senate and House versions of each appropriations bill — will be completed in September. Some even go further, saying the process could continue into the next year.
“There’s no chance appropriations gets done before the end of the year,” a senior House Republican leader said last week.
The list of targeted legislative objectives, as well as the appropriations work, has led some to speculate that a lame-duck session is all but unavoidable. In June, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) spokesman John Feehery said that “it’s not going to be easy” to avoid coming back to Washington after the November elections.
In debates, expect the unexpected: Bush may not deal with nuance the way Kerry does, but he has a knack for getting to the heart of an issue. (Godfrey Sperling, 9/07/04, CS Monitor)
I don't know if George W. Bush actually "beat" Al Gore in the debates four years ago. My view was that the debating points were about even. But it was Vice President Gore's overaggressive, know-it-all attitude (particularly that sighing when then-Governor Bush said something Gore thought to be outrageous) that turned him into a "loser" in those debates. A bad appearance cost Gore the debates and, arguably, the election. [...]One could argue that John Kerry, known to be an outstanding debater, will make Bush look bad. Indeed, Senator Kerry's supporters are convinced that their man possesses the better intellect and the better command of logic, and they are demanding as many debates as they can get.
But lest we forget: While Gore was making a less-than-good appearance in those debates, Bush, the underdog, remained cool as he defended himself or presented his case. He may not understand or deal with nuance the way Kerry does; but he has a knack for getting to the heart of an issue.
Bush also has a good sense of humor - which, when used right, can be a tremendous asset in these debates. Kerry hasn't struck me yet as being much on humor, although he just might fool us all by being the funnyman in these debates.
NIH Proposes Free Access For Public to Research Data (Rick Weiss, September 6, 2004, Washington Post)
The National Institutes of Health has proposed a major policy change that would require all scientists who receive funding from the agency to make the results of their research available to the public for free.The proposal, posted on the agency's Web site late Friday and subject to a 60-day public comment period, would mark a significant departure from current practice, in which the scientific journals that publish those results retain control over that information. Subscriptions to those journals can run into the thousands of dollars. Nonsubscribers wishing to get individual articles must typically pay about $30 each -- fees that can quickly add up for someone trying to learn about a newly diagnosed disease in the family.
Although patient advocacy groups and other organizations have been lobbying hard for the proposed shift, the scientific publishing industry and related interests are crying foul. The move could drive some journals out of business, they say, and bankrupt some scientific societies that are dependent on journal profits to fulfill their research and education missions.
Whatever the outcome, both sides agree change is inevitable, given society's rising expectations of easy access to information from the Internet and the enormous interest in health -- a topic that NIH officials say accounts for about 40 percent of all Internet queries.
"The status quo is not an option," NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni said last week at a meeting on the agency's Bethesda campus.
Shaking Up Islam in America (ASRA Q. NOMANI, September 5, 2004, TIME)
Pundits have long been asking whether Islam is ready for a reform. The answer is that across the U.S., a quiet tide of Islamic reform is very much under way. In Chicago last year, the Downtown Islamic Center made room for four women on its board after they protested the design of a new mosque that would have given women inadequate space in which to pray. Instead, women got access to the main hall when the new mosque opened in July. In Dearborn, Mich., earlier this year, Imam Mohammed Mardini welcomed Christian women who weren't covering their hair, over the protests of men who wanted them barred. In Sacramento, Calif., not long ago, mosque leaders wrote their bylaws with clauses guaranteeing tolerance and gender equity. In New York City an e-magazine, Muslim WakeUp!, organizes monthly gatherings for Muslims who want to make their communities more tolerant.Over the past year I have found myself on the front lines of the struggle over Islam's future in America. Last November, my mother, niece and I walked through the front door of our hometown mosque in Morgantown, W.Va., and prayed in the main sanctuary. In so doing we defied a policy that women enter through a back door and pray in an isolated balcony. Then, in the spring, my father resigned from the board of the mosque to protest speeches spewed from the pulpit that were hateful to non-Muslims. As a result of our protests, my family was vilified by local Muslims. I even face a secret trial to banish me from the mosque.
But our protests have also helped bring about a transformation. In May the first woman was elected to mosque leadership. In June mosque authorities publicly reversed policy and said women could enter through the front door and pray in the main hall. Since our actions began, more women attend worship services. Last month we won an even bigger victory. A Ph.D. student declared from the pulpit that "one of the most important fundamentals of our religion is to love and be loyal to Islam and the Muslims and to hate and renounce the disbelievers," the "cursed" Jews and Christians. I immediately protested the sermon, as did others. In the past, leaders have looked the other way. This time they called an emergency meeting and did the right thing. They fired the student from his post giving sermons.
Those of us pushing for reforms are not seeking to change Islam. We are questioning defective doctrine from an intellectual and theological position, using the Koran, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and ijtihad, or critical reasoning, as ideological weapons in the war over how Muslim communities define themselves. Islamic scholar Amina Wadud notes that we are emboldened to take public action to reject the way extremists have defined Islam since 9/11. We are in the midst of jihad li tajdid al-ruh al-Islami, a struggle for the soul of Islam.
Party should not apologise, says Hague (Benedict Brogan, 06/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
Mr Hague, who attended the Republican convention in New York last week, told the BBC's Breakfast with Frost that the Tories should dominate the centre ground, but insisted that the political centre had moved more to the Right since Labour came to power. Mr Hague said: "But many of those voters [in the centre] want a tough approach to crime, want choice in their services, want lower taxes."They want this country to continue to exist rather than its rights to be signed away to the European Union. So we mustn't be ashamed of being Conservatives. It's one of the lessons of the American Republicans or our Australian equivalents."
`W stands for wrong,' Kerry says (THOMAS FITZGERALD, 9/06/04, Knight Ridder Newspapers)
Seizing on a common campaign sign that features President Bush's middle initial, Sen. John Kerry on Monday declared that "W stands for wrong," shifting his focus from the rhetorical quagmires of Iraq and Vietnam to pocketbook issues.
Russia, Israel Agree on Anti-Terror Union (STEVE WEIZMAN, 9/06/04, AP)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that Israel's renewed offer to share its experience of combatting militant groups, in the wake of the Russian school massacre, would give a boost to the fight against global terror.Speaking to Israeli opposition leader Shimon Peres at the start of a whirlwind day of meetings with officials in Jerusalem, Lavrov said terrorism is one of the biggest challenges facing the international community.
"We appreciate the very strong readiness of the Israeli people to help Russia at this hour and this will certainly strengthen the counterterrorist coalition these days," he said.
The Bush Crusade (James Carroll, 9/06/04, Tom Dispatch )
Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched. Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers, and I see through its legends to its warnings. For example, in Iraq "insurgents" have lately shocked the world by decapitating hostages, turning the most taboo of acts into a military tactic. But a thousand years ago, Latin crusaders used the severed heads of Muslim fighters as missiles, catapulting them over the fortified walls of cities under siege. Taboos fall in total war, whether crusade or jihad.For George W. Bush, crusade was an offhand reference. But all the more powerfully for that, it was an accidental probing of unintended but nevertheless real meaning. That the President used the word inadvertently suggests how it expressed his exact truth, an unmasking of his most deeply felt purpose. Crusade, he said. Later, his embarrassed aides suggested that he had meant to use the word only as a synonym for struggle, but Bush's own syntax belied that. He defined crusade as war. Even offhandedly, he had said exactly what he meant. [...]
Given how they have been so dramatically unfulfilled, Washington's initial hubristic impulses toward a new imperial dominance should not be forgotten. That the first purpose of the war--Osama "dead or alive"--changed when Al Qaeda proved elusive should not be forgotten. That the early justification for the war against Iraq--Saddam's weapons of mass destruction--changed when they proved nonexistent should not be forgotten. That in former times the US government behaved as if facts mattered, as if evidence informed policy, should not be forgotten. That Afghanistan and Iraq are a shambles, with thousands dead and hundreds of thousands at risk from disease, disorder and despair, should not be forgotten. That a now-disdainful world gave itself in unbridled love to America on 9/11 should not be forgotten.
Nor, given Bush's reference, should the most relevant fact about the Crusades be forgotten -- that, on their own terms and notwithstanding the romance of history, they were, in the end, an overwhelming failure. The 1096 campaign, the "First Crusade," finally "succeeded" in 1099, when a remnant army fell upon Jerusalem, slaughtering much of its population. But armies under Saladin reasserted Islamic control in 1187, and subsequent Crusades never succeeded in re-establishing Latin dominance in the Holy Land. The reconquista Crusades reclaimed Spain and Portugal for Christian Europe, but in the process destroyed the glorious Iberian convivencia, a high civilization never to be matched below the Pyrenees again.
Meanwhile, intra-Christian crusades, wars against heresy, only made permanent the East-West split between Latin Catholicism and "schismatic" Eastern Orthodoxy, and made inevitable the eventual break, in the Reformation, between a Protestant north and a Catholic south. The Crusades, one could argue, established basic structures of Western civilization, while undermining the possibility that their grandest ideals would ever be realized.
Mr. Carroll correctly--a rarity for him--notes that where a Dwight Eisenhower was free to characterize the war afainst Nazism as a Crusade, President Bush is not so free because of political correctness considerations. However, no one listening to his recent acceptance speech will have had any doubt that a Crusade was precisely what he was summoning the nation to continue:
The progress we and our friends and allies seek in the broader Middle East will not come easily or all at once.Yet Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century.
We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan, Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics, and that noble story goes on.
I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man.
I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.
This moment in the life of our country will be remembered. Generations will know if we kept our faith and kept our word. Generations will know if we seized this moment and used it to build a future of safety and peace. The freedom of many and the future security of our nation now depend on us.
And tonight, my fellow Americans, I ask you to stand with me. [...]
To everything we know there is a season -- a time for sadness, a time for struggle, a time for rebuilding.
And now we have reached a time for hope. This young century will be liberty's century.
By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America.
Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America. And tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed.
Now we go forward, grateful for our freedom, faithful to our cause, and confident in the future of the greatest nation on Earth.
May God bless you, and may God continue to bless our great country.
As for Mr. Carroll's tremulousness over the fact that Afghanistan and Iraq aren't already stable liberal democracies just three years into this Crusade, it did take more than a few centuries for even the West to succumb completely. The Islamic world isn't likely to take that long, but it will take more than 36 months.
Kerry on Iraq: 'Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time' (Patricia Wilson, 9/06/04, Reuters)
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on Monday called the invasion of Iraq "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" and said his goal was to withdraw U.S. troops in a first White House term.Under pressure from some Democrats to change the subject from national security -- regarded by many as President Bush's strength -- Kerry tried to focus on the economy and other domestic issues at a neighborhood meeting in Canonsburg, but members of the audience raised Iraq.
Bush leads Kerry by 7 points (Susan Page, USA TODAY)
President Bush widened his lead over John Kerry after a combative Republican National Convention deepened questions about the Democratic candidate's leadership, especially on terrorism.As the campaign enters its last eight weeks, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday shows Bush at 52%, Kerry at 45% and independent candidate Ralph Nader at 1% among likely voters. Before the convention, Bush led Kerry by 2 percentage points.
Feminist falls into manhole, injured (The Times of India, September 3rd, 2004)
The Jewish general who beat Pakistan (Amnon Barzilai, Haaretz, 9/6/04)
"A victory by the Congress Party under the leadership of Sonia Ghandi in the elections to be held in India in May will not lead to any change in India's policy toward Israel. The good relations will continue, and in certain area even grow deeper," assesses Lieutenant General J.F.R. Jacob, a former senior Indian army officer and a Jew, who yesterday completed a five-day visit to Israel. "If I had to rank the present-day level of relations between India and Israel," Jacob adds, "I would give them a 9 out of 10.". . .Why is India interested in Israeli military technology?
"Because Israel's know-how and technology are very advanced. But also because countries like the United States and England are not as generous as Israel. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations, Israel has proved that it is happy to work together with India."
This is a big change, compared with the way things were before relations were established between the two countries.
"Actually, there is a long history to what is now happening. As early as 1962, during the war between India and China, prime minister Nehru appealed to prime minister David Ben-Gurion, asking him for military aid. Already then, Israel sent military equipment, mainly 120 mm. mortar rounds. It happened again in the war against Pakistan in 1965 and in the war in 1971: Israel supplied India with mortar rounds, even 160 mm. rounds. And Israel once again proved its generosity in the military conflict with Pakistan in 1999; on that occasion, it also assisted in supplying ammunition, even bombs meant for the Mirage jets of the Indian air force." . . .
Al-Qaida in Kashmir
In spite of the differences in size between India and Israel, there is a similarity in their geopolitical status. Both are surrounded by Muslim states, they have large Muslim minorities, and are threatened by Islamic terror. "India has no problem with Muslim countries," says Jacob. "It only has a problem with terror. And the trouble is that Pakistan has become an asylum for terror groups. The bin Laden people are active in Kashmir and we suspect that his people are active not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan. [Pakistani President] Musharraf claims Pakistan does not support terror, but it is turning out that it does not have the ability, or the means, to supervise the terror groups. And I don't know what the truth is."
The labor theory of value (Paul Greenberg, September 6, 2004, Townhall)
The old man had long ago given up fixing shoes, and had gone into other work since then, buying and selling and making a nice living. But he had never found any other line of work that gave him as much satisfaction as putting a pair of good, fresh, leather soles on a still good pair of uppers. Or putting a pair of Cat's Paw heels on shoes that still had a lot of wear in them, and doing it cleanly, securely - to last.He loved the feel and aroma of new leather, the grain in the old. He was seldom as happy as when he could hold a pair of weathered shoes in his hands, turn them over and over, feel the tread, admire the workmanship, and sometimes even name the local shoemaker who'd done it.
He would not have used a rhetorical word like Labor for his work, but he knew that what he did took sweat, patience, craft, and some ineffable quality. Call it self-respect, and respect for the work.
His boys could remember those rare occasions when the old man showed his anger, too. Once he threw a poorly repaired pair of shoes against a wall in his fury. What a sloppy waste of good leather! What a waste of time and the customer's money!
In his old age, he was unable to contain his contempt when he would drive past one of those glittery new shoe stores that sold cheap, shiny imports - the cardboard kind sure to come apart in the first rain. He took poor workmanship as a personal affront. Labor wasn't a factor of production to him, it was a calling, and a comfort.
Does shame have a future? (Roger Kimball, The New Criterion, September, 2004)
In Masaccio’s great fresco depicting the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden (ca. 1426), the Angel of the Lord hovers, sword in hand, above and behind the First Couple. Adam strides forward, naked, his face buried in his hands. Eve, however, a look of wailing misery on her upturned face, covers her breasts and privates as she walks. She is ashamed of her nakedness and strives to conceal it.I thought of Masaccio when I stumbled upon Martha Nussbaum’s essay “Danger to Human Dignity: The Revival of Disgust and Shame in the Law,” which appeared last month in The Chronicle of Higher Education. How Nussbaum would disapprove of Eve!, I thought. For Martha Nussbaum—a classicist who is currently the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics in the Philosophy Department, Law School, and Divinity School at the University of Chicago—does not approve of shame. She is not too keen about disgust, either. Both emotions, she thinks, impede “the moral progress of society.” And here we have Eve, ashamed of her body, modestly shielding her sex from view: how very unprogressive. [...]
One of the oddest features of Hiding from Humanity is Professor Nussbaum’s recurring argument that the emotions of shame and disgust encourage us to ignore or discount our mortality, our incompleteness, our animality. No doubt Professor Nussbaum has managed to embrace her own animality without the benefit of shame or disgust. But for most of us, the emotions of shame and disgust are vivid reminders of our status as imperfect creatures, fragile, animal, and therefore mortal.
This is something embodied the world over in the idea of taboo, a concept with deep connections to the ideas of shame and disgust. These are insights we arrive at not by ratiocination but by feeling. As the philosopher Leszek Kolakowski writes, “We do not assent to our moral beliefs by admitting ‘this is true,’ but by feeling guilty if we fail to comply with them.” What we are dealing with, he points out, is not an intellectual performance but “an act of questioning one’s own status in the cosmic order, … an anxiety following a transgression not of a law but of a taboo.” Professor Nussbaum wants us to “discard the grandiose demands for omnipotence and completeness that have been at the heart of so much human misery.” Good idea! But shame and disgust are accomplices, not impediments, to that attack on hubris.
Mr. Kimbrall does an excellent job here of dissecting the conceptual legerdemain progressives use in their war on morality and religion, particularly the disingenuous claims of resurgences of long gone practices and beliefs. In the last hundred years or so, just about every tenet of traditional morality has been challenged with: a) a logical deconstruction that proves it is “irrational”(gasp!); b) the conviction, backed by infallible statistics, that it has no bearing anything else in life and stands in glorious isolation from everything else we do or think; and c) the insistence that it makes a lot of really nice, ordinary people unhappy for no good reason (or worse, warps them and makes them dangerous) and thwarts their rightful journey towards a higher level of self-fulfillment or self-awareness.
Liberals use to argue that loosening of moral strictures was an act of tolerance and charity benefitting a relatively small number of decent but unlucky victims and that there was no reason to fear that the majority would change their righteous ways. Its pretty hard to sustain that argument anymore, so the Ms. Nussbaum’s of the world have to deny the reality of human nature itself and present us with a gentler, more user-friendly version of Nietzsche instead.
'Love's Refugees' Feel Betrayed by Denmark: Immigration and marriage laws send culturally mixed couples into exile. (Jeffrey Fleishman, September 6, 2004, LA Times)
The train is sleek and fast that each night carries Christina Reves away from her country and toward her husband. It races through Denmark's scattered marshes and clicks over a bridge and across the water, stopping 35 minutes later in Sweden.Reves, a Dane, is married to Walid Badawi, an Egyptian. The couple — and more than 1,200 like them — will tell you that love knows no bounds until it encounters Danish immigration laws. This nation is increasingly anti-foreigner, and its strict marriage regulations are sending hundreds of culturally mixed couples into exile each year.
"I cross what is known as 'Love Bridge' every night to Sweden, and we joke that we're love's refugees," said Reves, who is training in Copenhagen to be a real estate agent.
"I feel betrayed and sad. It's not just the rightist politicians. It's the Danish people too. We've become very small-minded. We're such a rich country, but those of us who married foreigners can't share it with our spouses."
In an Old Coal Town, the Old Party Labels Are Faded: The economy remains the central issue to voters in Ohio, but economic distress does not necessarily mean a vote for the Democrats. (KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, 9/06/04, NY Times)
Sharon Alfman, the cook at the little County Seat Diner here, might seem to be a likely John Kerry supporter. She has voted Democratic most of her life. She has no health insurance through the diner, and her husband's insurance ran out after he was on disability for more than a year. But she already knows that she is going to vote for President Bush.Mrs. Alfman, 51, said that if the Democrats could do anything about health insurance, they would have done it under Bill Clinton. Now, she said, the Democrats have "burned themselves out." And like several other people here in this gritty patch of southeastern Ohio, she has already tuned Mr. Kerry out. A Kerry commercial, in which he says his economic plan would provide "good wages and good benefits," came on the overhead television by the kitchen, and no one seemed to notice.
"Kerry doesn't know what the working-class people do; he hasn't done any physical labor all his life," said Mrs. Alfman, who gets up at 4 a.m. to start her job. "Bush's values are middle-class family values." [...]
Jeff Williams, 47, a coal miner who was eating breakfast on Friday at one of four stools at the counter in the Corner News, scoffed at the idea that he might support Mr. Kerry.
"Bush put $447 million into coal research last year," Mr. Williams said. "Kerry is a tree hugger." Besides, he said, "Kerry would just tax me."
California dreaming of a Kerry victory (FRASER NELSON, 9/06/04, The Scotsman)
AS SOON as the traffic lights turn red on the long road into San Francisco from the airport, a platoon of beggars converges on drivers. Without any pretence about washing car windows, they had written out a novel pitch for cash: "Hungry, Homeless, Bush Out."This is a fairly accurate welcome to the political climate of the city. I had come to write a portrait of an America which was evenly and agonisingly split between George Bush and John Kerry - and had started in the wrong place.
From homeless to hoi-polloi, the city seems united in its loathing for the president. The first Californian I stopped to ask about his voting intentions responded by reaching inside his shirt and producing a dog-tag engraved with his choice: Kerry-Edwards 2004. "Do you see this? I work with 200 men; we’re all wearing one," said Stephen Schwartz. "And do you know why? Because George Bush is the anti-Christ. He’s in cahoots with big business, he’s started a war on a damned lie, and we’re going to crucify him."
Mr Schwartz works for Amtrak, a railway company he believes Mr Bush intends to privatise.
His colleagues are preparing for battle and bracing their friends, family and distant cousins for operation Eject Bush 2004.
"I am so fired up," he says. "I haven’t felt this way for years. We’re going to take our country back again. It’s time for the people."
But only a certain type of people, and this, it transpires, is what the United States presidential election is all about.
Mr Schwartz, a trade union leader, has a clear idea of his enemy: Hicksville allied with Wall Street. "There are these, these," he struggles to find the word, "Christians. Mad, mad Christians. And they vote for Bush because they’re just like him."
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Republican Candidates Count On Schwarzenegger's Popularity (George Skelton, September 6, 2004, LA Times)
Let's tote up the score for some California politicians at the Republican National Convention.On a 10-point scale:
• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets a 9.
The celebrity governor enhanced his national image as a political figure with a mostly upbeat, skillfully delivered prime-time speech. It would have been perfect if he'd muted some of the partisan tone and dropped the macho line about economic critics being "girlie-men."
• Give U.S. Senate candidate Bill Jones a 6.
His overall, underfunded campaign has been a 3. In New York, White House and Senate political operatives introduced him to fresh sources of campaign cash. He also smartly hustled to be interviewed by California radio newscasters denied access to Schwarzenegger.
• GOP legislative candidates notched a 7 without trying.
They benefited, paradoxically, because President Bush probably didn't help himself much in California. If Bush had put California "in play," then Sen. John Kerry would have poured millions into the state, aiding all Democratic candidates. Without Bush-Kerry competition, Republicans hold the trump card: a popular governor.
China will send troops to Haiti (Bill Gertz, 9/06/04, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
China's Public Security Ministry is set to dispatch a 130-man "special police" unit to Haiti this month in the first deployment of Chinese forces to the Western Hemisphere, Bush administration officials say.The first advance unit of the police troops, who are specially trained for riot and crowd control, will over the next two weeks join the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the multinational force known as Minustah dispatched to the war-torn Caribbean island.
Steady on the Right, Bush Pitches to the CenterRICHARD W. STEVENSON, 9/06/04, NY Times)
To Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Senator Zell Miller, the Democrat from Georgia who delivered a scathing attack on Senator John Kerry at the Republican convention last week, is a rabid opportunist who has become the hate-spewing face of President Bush's re-election campaign."He was so frightening that parents took their children away from the television," Mr. McAuliffe told reporters in a conference call on Sunday.
To Mr. Bush, however, Mr. Miller is his new best friend.
Campaigning here on Sunday, Mr. Bush invoked Mr. Miller's support as a reason Democrats and independents could feel comfortable voting for the Republican ticket. Mr. Bush has used a version of the same line at every campaign stop he has made since the end of his convention on Thursday night, and here, as in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio in recent days, it brought rousing cheers from the audience.
Kerry Enlisting Clinton Aides in Effort to Refocus Campaign (ADAM NAGOURNEY and DAVID M. HALBFINGER. 9/06/04, NY Times)
Former President Bill Clinton, in a 90-minute telephone conversation from his hospital room, offered John Kerry detailed advice on Saturday night on how to reinvigorate his candidacy, as Mr. Kerry enlisted more Clinton advisers to help shape his strategy and message for the remainder of the campaign.In an expansive conversation, Mr. Clinton, who is awaiting heart surgery, told Mr. Kerry that he should move away from talking about Vietnam, which had been the central theme of his candidacy, and focus instead on drawing contrasts with President Bush on job creation and health care policies, officials with knowledge of the conversation said. [...]
The installation of former Clinton lieutenants is creating two distinct camps at Mr. Kerry's campaign headquarters on McPherson Square in downtown Washington.
The first is the existing Kerry high command, which includes Mary Beth Cahill, the campaign manager; Bob Shrum, a senior adviser; Tad Devine, a senior adviser; and Stephanie Cutter, the communications director. The second is the Clinton camp, which includes Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary; Joel Johnson, a former senior White House aide; and Doug Sosnik, a former Clinton political director. And Howard Wolfson, a former chief of staff to Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined the campaign yesterday.
Members of both camps played down any suggestion of a Clinton takeover of a troubled campaign and insisted there was no tension between the two groups. Still, these days, Mr. Lockhart is stationed in an office on one side of the campaign war room; Mr. Shrum's office is on the opposite side.
BTW: Mr. Clinton once again gave us an unintentional lesson about American democracy this week. Just as the legal system refused to allow him to escape a law suit just because he was president so too the medical system told him his operation could wait until after the weekend. What a country.
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Did Kerry pull a Dukakis? (CRAIG GORDON, September 5, 2004, Newsday)
It is the cardinal rule of modern American politics, and one John Kerry should know well, because he served with its namesake in Massachusetts - don't pull a Dukakis. Let no political charge sit unanswered, lest it take root.Michael Dukakis was slow to respond to Republican attacks in 1988 and got crushed by George Bush the father. Some Democrats fret John Kerry now has made the same mistake against Bush the son - letting attacks on his Vietnam record and fitness to serve go unanswered too long - and fear that Kerry is slipping badly in the face of new polls showing a Bush lead.
"Time is running out . . . to turn this around," said Tony Coelho, a former manager for Al Gore's campaign, who believes Kerry didn't respond forcefully enough. "It's not hard, and he did not do a good job on that."
Labor Day Polls (The Associated Press, 9/01/04)
A look at where presidential candidates stood around Labor Day in elections over the past 50 years and outcome of the election. Data is from the Gallup Poll. Where results don't come close to 100 percent, it may be because of the presence a third-party candidate.
New grant gives state a license to promote healthier marriages (JOEL GAY, 9/05/04, Anchorage Daily News)
Alaska state government is poised to spend $500,000 to try to reduce poverty and improve children's welfare by promoting the traditional two-parent marriage.In starting its Healthy Marriage Initiative, the state joins a growing national movement pushing the idea that children and adults in families headed by married couples fare better financially, physically and emotionally than those of single or unmarried parents.
Derided by some people as public interference in a private issue, the healthy marriage movement has gained momentum in recent years. President Bush supports the idea, and Congress is considering a bill to provide $240 million a year for marriage-strengthening initiatives.
The state, meanwhile, has received a one-time, one-year federal grant to promote marriage in Alaska and is asking community and church-based organizations for ideas. It's too early to say what the Alaska program might look like or what services it might offer, said Bob Buttcane of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.
What Matters Now (ADAM NAGOURNEY, 9/05/04, NY Times)
This presidential campaign has been marked by a succession of what were considered Big Moments, anticipated by both sides as a way of unlocking a stubbornly deadlocked contest. And while the verdict is out on Mr. Bush's convention - beware polls taken over the Labor Day weekend, which can be quite unreliable - it seems safe to say that at least going into last week, none of these once reliable big moments have proved to be very big at all.Even some Republicans were conceding that Mr. Bush's convention - described by Republicans and Democrats alike as a success - might not ultimately make that much of a difference.
"When it comes to actually affecting undecided voters, conventions are probably a draw for both parties," said Scott Reed, a Republican consultant who managed Bob Dole's 1996 campaign.
Al Gore and George W. Bush are virtually tied in the latest CNN/Time poll, and with one in five likely voters saying they could change their minds between now and November, this race is wide open.Gore has erased the double-digit lead Bush held this summer by using the Democratic convention and his campaign in the subsequent weeks to convince voters he's a strong and decisive leader who agrees with them on the issues. [...]
The CNN/Time Poll, conducted September 6-7, 2000, consisted of interviews with 1,275 adult Americans, including 735 likely voters.
CNN/TIME POLL
September 6-7Suppose that the presidential election were being held today, and it included Al Gore and Joe Lieberman as the Democratic candidates, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as the Republican candidates, Pat Buchanan and Ezola Foster as the Reform Party candidates and Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke as the Green Party candidates. For whom would you vote?
Gore 47%
Bush 46
Nader 4
Buchanan 1
Sampling error: +/-3.5% pts
All the President's Men (John Sedgwick, September 5, 2004, Boston Globe Magazine)
Oddly, it's the last vestige of the election spirit from the days of the Founding Fathers, when a candidate for elective office would never do anything so vulgar as actively campaign for the position he craved. Instead, early presidential aspirants copied George Washington's example and merely signaled their availability, leaving it to their friends to do the heavy lifting of getting them elected. So, nowadays, even A-listers like Bill Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, Clinton's Treasury deputy, Roger Altman, and longtime Delaware senator and Kerry confidant Joe Biden breathe nary a word of their future employment objectives, even as they make themselves available to the candidate for lengthy policy briefings. An administration job? It's the last thing on their minds! [...]The whole mystery is more pertinent than usual because of the fact that, for the first time since that other JFK in 1960, Kerry seeks the job from a perch as a US senator, without any significant executive experience. In a long career in public life, he has never had to staff up before. (Of course, as a senator, he at least knows how the confirmation process works, which might spare him any Zoe Baird-like snafus.) Kerry partisans like US Representative Barney Frank argue that the whole issue of executive experience is overblown -- even if it has congealed into conventional wisdom for more than a generation -- since no route to the White House offers adequate preparation. "There's nothing like being president of the United States," says Frank, who has served in Congress during four presidential administrations. "Nothing." Bill Clinton had been a governor, but of lightly populated, out-of-the-way Arkansas. "What's that?" Frank asks. "A three-day-a-week job?" George W. Bush's Texas, where he was governor for six years, is obviously a more consequential state, but the job of governor there is oddly downsized, giving the incumbent surprisingly little power to assemble his own administration. The agriculture commissioner and state comptroller, for instance, are popularly elected.
TO FRANK, THE WHOLE IDEA OF THE PRESIDENT AS ANY kind of hands-on manager is ridiculous for an entity the size of the United States. "He's not the chief operating officer," Frank says. "He's the policy guy, the one who mobilizes policy." That's why Reagan, who forgot the names of some of his Cabinet members, could still be effective. Still, Kerry's entire top staff now numbers only seven, nowhere near enough even to fill out the top ranks at the Department of Labor.
Plus, there is that aloof thing with Kerry. In caricature, at least, he is the friendless iconoclast, snowboarding alone. But intimates insist that this is a wild misconception. "He has a huge national Rolodex," says Vallely, and one that is, of necessity, based far more in Washington than in Boston. He ticks off the places from which Kerry would likely draw talent: the Council on Foreign Relations, the Rand Corporation, the Brookings Institution, "where Teresa is a board member," he notes, referring to Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. To Vallely, John Kerry's job in the federal government reflects a largeness to his thinking that contrasts with the more parochial concerns of governors. "Dukakis mastered the Massachusetts government," Vallely says. "But he viewed the United States as 50 states. I think Kerry starts with the world and then thinks of the United States' place in it."
Bush's Convention Tops Kerry's in Primetime Polling (Cynthia Littleton, 9/05/04, Hollywood Reporter)
The country may be more or less evenly divided along partisan lines when it comes to the presidential race, but the Republican Party prevailed in the Nielsen polling of this summer's nominating conventions.The GOP's four-day gathering in New York's Madison Square Garden, which wrapped Thursday, brought in an aggregate average of 22.6 million viewers in the primetime hours covered by ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC. That compares with an average of 20.4 million viewers for coverage of the Democratic Party's July 26-29 confab in Boston on the same six outlets.
On Thursday, President Bush's acceptance speech, which ran from about 10-11:15 p.m. EDT, yielded an average of 27.6 million viewers, compared with 24.4 million for the big moment in Boston for his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. [...]
Overall, the Republican Party had more pull with viewers this time around than it did four years ago. In 2000, the GOP's July 31-Aug. 3 nominating convention averaged 19.2 million viewers, while the Democrats' Aug. 14-17 gathering that crowned former Vice President Al Gore as their candidate fared slightly better with an average of 20.6 million viewers.
Europe is reaching crisis point: Forget America: the government should be worrying about the situations in France and Germany (Will Hutton, September 5, 2004, The Observer)
With all eyes fixed on the American presidential elections, the scale of the looming crisis in France and Germany has gone largely unremarked. But it may so change the political geography of Europe that British arguments for and against the EU will be made redundant. A pervasive sense of decline in both countries, only partially justified but none the less virulent, is destabilising not just the structures of the EU - but the political systems of France and Germany.Last week in France, charismatic finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy resigned from the government in order to challenge for the leadership of President Chirac's UMP party, despairing of what is seen in France as a do-nothing regime that is fiddling while the country burns. The economy is mired in low growth and high unemployment; government spending at 54 per cent of GDP can go no higher.
There is universal agreement that France needs decisive action to reverse economic decline; there are rancorous arguments about not just how the economy should be run and society organised but whether the constitution of the Fifth Republic works any more. The socialist opposition wants to limit the President's current powers to allow more pluralism. With two-and-half years to run until the next presidential elections, France is descending into acrimony and division.
In Germany, Gerhard Schröder is presiding over the wreckage of the SPD, once the standard bearer of European social democracy. September sees four key state elections, including the vital election in North Rhine Westphalia, the SPD's historic heartland. Sixteen per cent behind in the polls there, its loss would be a disaster, not just for what it signals about Schröder's standing but because it will mean control that of the German upper house will pass to the conservative CDU and make him a titular Chancellor, governing only within the parameters of what his opponents will permit. [...]
As in France, the structures of the German political system are now being put in play. Twisting and turning for any kind of electoral advantage, Schröder last week said he was prepared to reverse Germany's 54-year-long ban on the referendum, the populist tool used by Hitler to establish the Nazi regime.
Clerics order end to Iraq hostage-taking (Adrian Blomfield, 06/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
Iraq's most senior Sunni religious body said yesterday it would issue a fatwa outlawing the abduction and execution of any foreigner in the country. [...]The fatwa was issued by the country's committee of Muslim scholars, or ulema. [...]
"We are going to issue a fatwa declaring that the kidnapping of foreigners in general is not Islamic and ordering that all hostages be released immediately," said Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abdul Jabbar, a senior cleric.
Refusing to comply with a fatwa, the most serious command that can be issued in Islam, risks damnation and execution.
In Bush's Shadow (Richard Wolffe and Susannah Meadows, 9/05/04, Newsweek)
John Kerry wanted to hit back. It had been a miserable August as he took incoming fire about his military service from a gang of hostile Vietnam vets. But no, campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill and other staffers argued, the Swift Boat ads would blow over. Finally, Kerry had had enough. For three or four days, as he campaigned across the country, Kerry ripped into Cahill, furious that the mostly baseless attacks on his valor were driving his numbers down. "He was very angry," one old friend says. "The calculation had been made that this wasn't going to hurt him." Kerry's solution was to reach for an old ally. "Get Vallely," he screamed.Thomas Vallely is the leader of the pack of vets that Kerry calls his dog-hunters, a group that has beaten back the attacks on his Vietnam record since his first Senate race 20 years ago. "He knows that I know the other players," Vallely says of Kerry's Mayday call. "He knows that I also like this stuff."
The return of the old warriors marked a turning point in the Swift Boat controversy, and a rare moment when Kerry stamped his authority on a drifting campaign. "OK, time to break out the fatigues. We've been there, done that. Time to do it again," says David Thorne, Kerry's close friend, of the mood among the senator's inner circle.
And so, even as the balloons were falling at the Republicans' party in Madison Square Garden, Kerry's motorcade pulled into Clark County, Ohio, where Al Gore beat George W. Bush by just 324 votes. There, Kerry finally struck hard at his opponents' record during Vietnam. "I will not have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have, and who misled America into Iraq," Kerry told a crowd of several thousand supporters at a midnight rally in Springfield. The Bush team, as usual, responded rapidly to Kerry's decidedly unrapid response. Karen Hughes, the president's longtime message maven, accused Kerry of being "consumed" by Vietnam, saying he had "diminished himself" with the attack.
While in Reserves, Kerry met with Communists (James Laux, Lt. Colonel (Retired), U. S. Army, September 5, 2004, Valley News)
According to publicly available records, Mr. Kerry was released from active duty and transferred to the Naval Reserve (inactive) in January 1970. In January 1972, he was transferred to the standby Reserve (inactive). While a commissioned officer in the inactive Naval Reserve, Mr. Kerry traveled to Paris, France, and met with official delegations from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (the Viet Cong). The Vietnamese Communists eagerly met Mr. Kerry and benefited directly from the obvious propaganda victory.These acts are clear violations of the legal prohibitions on individual citizens negotiating with foreign powers and the constitutional prohibition against giving support to our nation's enemies in wartime. Additionally, as a commissioned officer of the Naval Reserve, Mr. Kerry was subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and likely violated it ("aiding the enemy") through his actions with the North Vietnamese/Viet Cong delegation.
Mr. Kerry returned from his private negotiations with the Vietnamese Communists to Washington, D.C., and held a news conference. At the press event, he advocated a Vietnamese Communist "peace proposal" calling for a U. S. withdrawal from Vietnam and payment of war damage reparations to the communist government. Mr. Kerry engaged in this advocacy on behalf of a foreign power with which we were at war while continuing to hold a commission as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve.
Antiwar stance is Kerry's real vulnerability (William Rusher, 09/05/2004, Arizona Daily Sun)
When Kerry returned from Vietnam, he was thinking seriously of running for political office, but was not notably concerned with the war as an issue. Through the latter part of 1969, however, his attitude hardened, and in 1970 he obtained early release from the Navy so he could run for Congress. (He subsequently dropped out of the race in favor of Robert Drinan, the antiwar Jesuit priest.)But by now Kerry was morphing into a thoroughgoing antiwar activist. He joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and participated in demonstrations organized by Jane Fonda, among others. In the spring of 1971 he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It was here that Kerry made a widely publicized series of charges concerning the conduct of American soldiers in Vietnam. He declared that antiwar veterans "told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."
This is the grim bill of particulars that John Kerry laid at the feet of his fellow Vietnam veterans in 1971. And while atrocities did unquestionably occur in Vietnam, as they do in all wars, it was bitterly unfair, and totally false, for Kerry to suggest that such behavior was common, let alone permitted by higher authority. ("These were," he declared, "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.")
Is it any wonder that thousands of Vietnam veterans who read that testimony, knowing that it was false, and realizing the damage it did to their own proud service on behalf of their country, profoundly resent the man who blackguarded and slandered them? That is the real issue that John Kerry's boasts about his heroism have dragged into this campaign.
Kerry Reshapes Campaign: Democratic Nominee Taps Two Veteran Party Strategists for Top Roles (Lois Romano and Dan Balz, September 5, 2004, Washington Post)
Under fire to shape up his presidential campaign, Democratic challenger John F. Kerry on Sunday tapped two veteran party strategists from Boston to assume top roles in an operation that has been criticized by Democratic allies for allowing President Bush to regain the initiative in the battle for the White House.Campaign officials said John Sasso, who has been running general election operations at the Democratic National Committee (DNC), will now become the senior Kerry adviser aboard the candidate's traveling charter until the election. Michael Whouley, who helped rescue Kerry's campaign in Iowa during the nomination battle, will take over Sasso's responsibilities at the DNC, reprising the role he played for Al Gore four years ago.
Kerry advisers described the moves as long planned and part of an overall effort to put the strongest possible team together for the final 60 days of the campaign. But the decisions, which caught some staff members at the campaign and DNC by surprise, were seen by other Democrats as an acknowledgement by Kerry that his campaign needed help in the wake of the most difficult month he has endured since winning the nomination last spring.
Those Democrats said Kerry had been slow to respond to criticisms and that the campaign appeared to be sluggish in some of its decision-making. They predicted that the changes would bring greater focus to the Democratic nominee's campaign. [...]
The addition of Sasso and Whouley come a few weeks after two other senior Democratic strategists joined the campaign -- Joe Lockhart, White House press secretary in the Clinton administration, and Joel Johnson, another veteran of the Clinton White House. The two were tapped to strengthen the campaign's communications operation.
Ballantine gives Easley reason to be worried: Suddenly the reluctant campaigner steps up public appearances (JACK BETTS, 9/05/04, Charlotte Observer)
In 1996, then-state Rep. Robin Hayes found out how difficult it was to run against an entrenched incumbent. After defeating former Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot for the Republican nomination for governor, Hayes found himself running against a Democrat who appeared to be everywhere at once.Jim Hunt, then in his third term and running for his fourth, knew not only how to campaign -- daily, since boyhood -- but also how to maximize the advantages of the incumbent. Nowhere did it show up more starkly than in the wake of Hurricane Fran, which struck on Sept. 5, 1996. In the following weeks, Hunt and his blue chambray work shirts were on front pages and on TV news everywhere, listening to storm victims, talking to emergency officials and bringing messages of hope.
Hayes struggled, meanwhile to get the news media to pay attention to his campaign. It must have seemed like a tidal wave for the Republican challenger as Hunt rolled to victory that fall.
Maybe it seems that way for Patrick Ballantine, too. The former Senate Republican leader wasn't given much of a chance by the Keepers of the Conventional Wisdom earlier this year when he gave up his Senate seat to concentrate on his campaign for governor. After all, everyone was betting that Vinroot, running for a third time, would win the nomination again -- and some thought he might win it outright in the July 20 primary.
I don't know if anyone is underestimating Patrick Ballantine any longer. Ballantine defied expectations and led the first primary, stunning Vinroot and causing him to reassess his future. He announced the next day that he would not call for a runoff against Ballantine, a big boost for the Wilmington lawyer. Because Ballantine didn't have to campaign in a runoff Aug. 17, he got right to the job of telling voters why he ought to supplant Gov. Mike Easley.
Still, the incumbent Easley was showing a big lead in the polls and was widely regarded as a shoo-in. Some Republican Party leaders were privately shrugging off the '04 gubernatorial race as pretty much a lost cause.
It's not entirely clear why they didn't regard Easley as more vulnerable. Easley has struggled with a host of state budget issues after an economic recession cost the state tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues that governors usually use to boost education spending and other programs. To balance the budget and pay for new programs, Easley persuaded the legislature to take money that normally goes to local governments, raise sales taxes and allow local governments to raise their taxes, too. He also reduced the usual state contribution to a state retirement fund.
What's more, Easley defied convention by ignoring the kinds of political responsibilities that his predecessor used to thrive on. He reluctantly attended to some duties, but didn't show up for a big rally for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and his running mate, N.C. Sen. John Edwards in Raleigh. He didn't go to the Democratic National Convention, either. Republicans teased Easley about those absences, but the governor's staff probably was not too displeased; it suggested that Easley was independent in his thinking and not a slave to partisan politics.
Ballantine, on the other hand, is happily embracing his party and his national ticket.
Advantage India: Bush or Kerry (CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA, SEPTEMBER 04, 2004, Times of India)
To the world at large, George Bush might appear to be a dim-wit at best and a dangerous cowboy at worst. Pilloried for engineering a war against Iraq on spurious grounds, and ridiculed for his trademark smirk, swagger and malapropisms, he is arguably the least popular American president outside the US. Popular street sentiment is mostly anti-Bush even where governments support him (Britain, Australia, Italy and Spain, for instance).Remarkably, India may also be in the pro-Bush league despite not being an overt partner in Bush's war and not articulating open support for his policies.
Here"s why: Traditionally inclined towards Democratic administrations, it appears that for the first time in decades, New Delhi sees greater advantage in a Republican second term in a changed international security environment. In three areas of national importance — terrorism, nuclear and security issues, and trade — experts argue that Bush's policies are more helpful to India than the positions articulated by his challenger, John Kerry.
Al-Sadr's Ex-Mentor Distances Himself (AP, 9/05/04)
An Iranian-based cleric who had been the former spiritual guide of radical anti-U.S. Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has distanced himself from his former pupil's actions, his Web site said Sunday.Grand Ayatollah Kazem al-Hosseini al-Haeri, who lives in the holy Iranian city of Qom, said al-Sadr, whose loyalists have engaged in deadly clashes with U.S. forces in Iraq, is no longer his representative in that war-torn country.
"Mr. al-Sadr used to be our representative ... but that was on condition of obedience to and coordination with our office in Najaf (southern Iraq)," al-Haeri said in comments posted on his Web site.
Al-Haeri said al-Sadr "does not coordinate with our office, so his agency became void." He added that al-Sadr "does not seek our advice in his stances, so we cannot endorse what he does."
The grand ayatollah has been critical of the uprising by al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, which battled U.S. forces for weeks in April and May, then once more in August.
Al-Sadr is young — in his 30s — and a relatively low-level cleric in the Shiite religious hierarchy. Al-Haeri, who holds the highest clerical rank, gave him some religious legitimacy as he built his movement.
Ruthless rebels who dream of an Islamic empire (Damien Mcelroy, 05/09/2004, Daily Telegraph)
When the Chechen terrorist mastermind Shamil Basayev hijacked hundreds of hostages including many schoolchildren in Beslan last week, it was not for a narrow nationalist cause.His objective is more radical - and less likely to be achieved - than the aims of more run-of-the-mill Chechen nationalists, who merely want full independence from Russia.
He dreams of establishing an Islamic Emirate across the North Caucasus, and to do so, he has been fomenting the Islamic rebellion that plagues states across the broad stretch of territory from the Red Sea to the Caspian.
As President Vladimir Putin waded through the cold Caucasian dawn yesterday, it was a point that he was keen to stress. "One of the tasks pursued by the terrorists was to stoke ethnic hatred, to blow up the whole of North Caucasus." Not just Chechnya, in other words - and not just Chechens.
In the horror of that moment, the Russian leader was briefly united with his sworn foe: Alsan Maskhadov, the exiled Chechen president, who disputed the suggestion that this terrible outrage could be blamed on the cause of independence.
Akhmed Zakayev, Maskhadov's London spokesman, insisted that the militants who took hundreds hostage at the school in Russia were not Chechens at all. "They were Ingush, Ossetians, Russians, but not Chechens," he said .
"But, of course, their demands have all to do with Chechnya, so whatever has happened the Chechens will be held responsible. That's what I'm afraid of."
McGreevey Stays Put, and Intrigue Builds (DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI, 9/05/04, NY Times)
Gov. James E. McGreevey's uncharted, uncertain journey toward resignation reached two important milestones in recent days, yet with each new fact that emerged, the entire ordeal seemed to grow more puzzling.The first came on Monday, when lawyers for Golan Cipel, the former aide who prompted the resignation by threatening to file a lawsuit against Mr. McGreevey alleging harassment and sexual assault, announced that he would not sue the governor after all.
Then at midnight Friday, Mr. McGreevey - who vows to remain in office until Nov. 15 and allow the Senate president to complete the final 14 months of the governor's term - outlasted the constitutional deadline that would have led to a special election this fall.
That sequence of events has bewildered many of Mr. McGreevey's supporters and left political analysts intrigued.
Is That What He Really Said? (Michael Getler, September 5, 2004, Washington Post)
"Cheney Calls Kerry Unfit," read the big, front-page headline over a story in Thursday's Post about attacks on the Democratic challenger at the Republican convention in speeches by Vice President Cheney and Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia."Unfit" is a powerful, personally damning word; it has become even more explosive in the past several weeks because it is in the title of a best-selling book, "Unfit For Command" by John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi. The book is the cornerstone of a nationwide effort by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to challenge Sen. John F. Kerry's war record.
The problem is that Cheney never used the word "unfit." Yet the headline can be seen as reinforcing the Swift boat challengers' attack. The headline writer no doubt drew inspiration from the first paragraph of the story by reporter John F. Harris, who wrote that Cheney "reached back decades" into Kerry's life, "arguing in taunting language that the Democratic presidential nominee has demonstrated through his public statements and votes that he is unfit to be commander in chief in an age of terrorism."
You could draw that conclusion from listening to what Cheney did say. But that, in my view and those of some readers, was a poor choice of words and headline. The headline went beyond what Cheney said and then spread the characterization across the front page.
Europe's Iran Fantasy (Leon de Winter, Weekly Standard, September 6th, 2004)
All but a handful of Europe's politicians, obsessed by the specter of electoral defeat, refuse to take a stand if doing so could force them to sacrifice lives. Post-historical and post-religious Europe, born in the shadow of the Holocaust, does not see sacrifice as legitimate. Of course, considering that Europe has nurtured some of the world's cruelest ideologies, the dread of scenarios that might require sacrifice is hardly surprising. The problem is that much of the world, especially the Arab Islamic parts of it, is simply not interested in the moral and ethical implications of Europe's bloody past.Since Auschwitz--the benchmark of ideological and political developments in Europe--the miracle of European prosperity and freedom has not led to the conviction that this prosperity and freedom must be defended, if necessary by force; on the contrary, the miracle has given birth to an attitude of cultural relativism and pacifism. It is as if modern Europe had divested itself of its idealistic and historical context, as if many Europeans saw the miracle of a prosperous and free Europe as an ahistorical, natural, and permanent state of affairs--as if Auschwitz had been wiped from their memory.
But anyone who is ignorant of, or ignores, the fact that tens of millions of Europeans died in the twentieth century in the struggle between good and evil--and it seems most Europeans have simply forgotten this--will fail to appreciate that the continued existence of Europe's system of liberal moral and ethical values is the result of conscious choices by courageous Europeans (and many others).
It may be something worse than amnesia: Today's Europeans may see the history of the twentieth century as scarred only by an abstract process known by the ancient Germanic word "war," a concept that for them represents some monstrous destructive force beyond good and evil that blindly spews out victims, like a flood or a hurricane. Most Europeans no longer regard Auschwitz as the disastrous result of evil ideas and the evil decisions of human beings. Instead, they see it as the consequence of something more like a natural disaster.[...]
The European landscape is littered from north to south and east to west with monuments to battles and massacres. Many of them commemorate distant conflicts that now are hard to understand, but some mark the struggle against the most recent European evils: the right-wing totalitarian fascism of Nazi Germany and the left-wing totalitarian fascism of the Soviet Union. Although carved in stone, their lessons have not been learned. For most Europeans, the monuments no longer speak to Western civilization of the essential choice between good and evil. Instead, the memorials to the millions who died, from American soldiers to murdered civilians, stand for a faraway world that today's European, safe in his postmodern cultural relativism, thinks he has long since left behind: a world as distant as the Ice Age, plagued by an abstract phenomenon called "war."
Against shifting odds, GOP's champion of freedom begins his march toward re-election (DAVID HORSEY, September 5, 2004, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER)
Michael Moore, Helen Thomas and the protesters in the streets all were useful props in the Republican morality play. These villains outside the hall and in the media seats represented the forces of chaos and weakness and surrender while the plain spoken, unflinching George W. Bush was the champion of freedom and all-American manliness and victory. That was the message from speaker after speaker for four nights in a row and an effective message it was.The first to really drive the theme home was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who followed McCain to the stage. I missed hearing Giuliani's speech. I was in lower Manhattan at a nightclub called Pressure with a gathering of young Republican women. The hostess of the event was Katherine Harris, now a member of Congress but more notorious for being the Florida secretary of state who counted the votes that made Bush president.
While Giuliani's face hovered overhead on a giant TV screen, I gobbled up free egg rolls and whisky and talked to young Republicans. They were handsome and articulate. I have no doubt they will be quickly climbing corporate ladders and getting themselves elected to Congress while the pierced-tongued anarchists will still be working nights at video stores and dropping classes at community colleges. [...]
No matter how much people pretend to vote on issues and rational analysis, most of us vote our gut, our emotions, our impulses. Clinton had a visceral appeal. Kerry does not. And, since those few undecided voters who will tip the balance of the 2004 presidential election are quite likely impulsive, emotional voters, Kerry may be in trouble.
He's also in trouble because the Republicans are projecting all the right themes and images to grab the middle-American voter on the gut level.
They've got the manly, resolute president with the swagger of a Texas rancher. The Democrats have a guy windsurfing in Nantucket.
The Republicans have a first lady who looks exactly like the good women you'd meet at church or see driving to a soccer field in a van filled with kids. The Democrats have an exotic rich woman who can't stop talking about her first husband.
The Republicans have a team of tough guys -- Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dick Cheney, McCain -- who promise to find the bad guys and keep America safe. The Democrats have Michael Moore.
The Republicans have a simple message about war: 50 million humans freed from tyrants in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats have a harder message to get across: the many ways in which Americans will pay dearly for the pre-emptive war in Iraq.
After the president's speech Thursday night, I went to Joe Allen's, a bar on 46th Street, where I crashed a party given by The New York Times. I ran into another journalistic nemesis of the Bush White House, the columnist Maureen Dowd. The first thing Maureen said to me was, "Don't you think Hillary Clinton must be starting her campaign tonight?"
Powell: Why He Might Stay (Newsweek, 9/13/04)
For nearly two years, the settled wisdom in Washington has been that Colin Powell would never stick around for a second Bush term. The secretary of State, who began his tenure as the most popular and prestigious figure in Bush's cabinet, was fed up—tired of being a moderate minority of one in a squall of neocon true believers. But last week there was a hint that the settled wisdom may now be unsettled. A former close aide and current confidant of Powell's, asked during the GOP convention whether the secretary might stay on, nodded his head eagerly and said yes.The reason, the ex-official hinted, is that global events are moving in Powell's direction. In Iraq and on other future flash points like Iran and North Korea, an administration that once short-shrifted Powell's diplomacy now badly needs it. He also has more control than he's had in a while, especially over Iraq, where America's new viceroy, Ambassador John Negroponte, answers to the secretary of State. (The previous top civilian, L. Paul Bremer III, nominally worked for Powell's archrival, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.) And Powell no doubt realizes that if he leaves now, he will be departing at what is perhaps the low point of his reputation at home and abroad; another term would allow him to recoup.
52% Believe Bush Will Win in November (Rasmussen Reports, September 3, 2004)
Fifty-two percent (52%) of Americans now believe that President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney will be re-elected this November. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 38% expect the Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards to emerge victorious.Those numbers reflect a big change from the last time we asked the question. Following the Democratic Convention, data released to Premium Members showed that 47% of voters expected Kerry to win while 43% took the opposite view. [...]
The national telephone survey of 1,000 Likely voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports September 3, 2004. Margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
Most people satisfied with jobs, survey says (Will Lester, September 5th, 2004, The Associated Press)
An Associated Press poll on the public’s attitudes about work found that most workers in the United States were at least fairly satisfied with their jobs.A sizable number say they were unhappy with the stress level, health care and retirement benefits of their jobs.
Seven in 10 surveyed said they are paid fairly. Men were more likely than women to feel this way.
Work is an important part of who people are, as that feeling was shared by six in 10 workers.
These numbers suggest yet another reason why John Kerry's candidacy is going over so badly. He's the one with the 30%ers on his side.
On outside looking in, world talks about Bush (Patrick E. Tyler, September 04, 2004, NY Times)
It's as if the whole world were voting in the American election as pundits, politicians and average blokes on street corners around the world took sides on Friday at the close of the Republican National Convention.One commentator writing in The Guardian newspaper here called it "a world election in which the world has no vote." But the world had plenty to say as the echoes of President George W. Bush's acceptance speech brought down a nimbus of celebratory kitsch from the rafters of Madison Square Garden. "Four more years of Bush," opined Der Standard, Austria's leading newspaper, as if it was already a fact.
"For almost all Europeans, this is a very unpleasant idea, but we should get used to it," the paper's editorialists admonished.
The reason, they said, was that "despite all his flaws, he comes over as a strong leader and John F. Kerry doesn't."
Losing it (Jay Bryant, September 4, 2004, Townhall)
Remember how when John Kerry didn't get any bounce from his convention and everyone went into high pundit mode and invented lots of structural reasons why such a thing could happen – like for example that with emotions so high in this election, there aren't any undecided voters left to bounce. Remember that?
Kerry Allies Take Shots at Bush, Cheney on Vietnam (Matea Gold and Nick Anderson, September 5, 2004, LA Times)
After being targeted for weeks by criticisms of his service in Vietnam and his later protests of the war, Sen. John F. Kerry looked on Saturday as a series of his supporters lambasted President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for avoiding combat service during those years.Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) made the strongest attack at an evening rally here on the banks of the Ohio River, saying that Kerry "was carrying a gun through the jungles of Vietnam while George Bush was neglecting his military service and carrying out his responsibility as a cheerleader at Yale University."
A Guided Tour of the 'Ownership Society' (Michael Kinsley, September 5, 2004, LA Times)
President Bush's "ownership society" is like his war in Iraq: It may have merits, but these do not include addressing the problem it is intended to solve. Bush might just as accurately present the war in Iraq as a way to finance healthcare and Social Security, and present his "ownership society" as a path to victory in the war on terrorism.At the moment, we are a Debtorship Society.
Amnesia in the Garden (MAUREEN DOWD, 9/05/04, NY Times)
The Manichaean Candidate's convention was a brazen bizarro masterpiece. The case to sack John Kerry featured the same shady tactics used to build the case to whack Saddam - cherry-picked facts, selective claims and warped contexts.W. took a page from Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Total Recall," a futuristic movie about inserting fully formed memories into the minds of unsuspecting victims.
The president and vice president ignored all the expert evidence now compiled indicating no link between 9/11 and Saddam, and no Saddam threat to U.S. security. After talking about "the fanatics who killed some 3,000 of our fellow Americans," Dick Cheney boasted: "In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat, and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein."
The progress we and our friends and allies seek in the broader Middle East will not come easily or all at once.Yet Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century.
We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan, Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics, and that noble story goes on.
I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man.
I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.
This moment in the life of our country will be remembered. Generations will know if we kept our faith and kept our word. Generations will know if we seized this moment and used it to build a future of safety and peace. The freedom of many and the future security of our nation now depend on us.
And tonight, my fellow Americans, I ask you to stand with me.
Brinkley: Navy Probe Could Doom Kerry Campaign (NewsMax, 9/05/04)
Sen. John Kerry's campaign biographer Douglas Brinkley said Sunday that if an ongoing Navy investigation into Kerry's military decorations turns up evidence of "purposeful" deception, it could spell doom for the top Democrat's White House bid.Praising reporter Thomas Lipscomb, who broke news of the Navy investigation on Friday, Brinkley told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg, "Journalists are going to have to see whether there's a discrepancy on [the citations posted to Kerry's] Web site - whether there's something wrong that's said there or not."
"If so," said the "Tour of Duty" author, "Kerry would have to fix it immediately - and it does raise some questions as to why that would happen."
"Is it sloppiness, is it purposeful intent, is there an easy explanation for it?" Brinkley wondered.
Oh, So Close! Bush has Slight Lead in N.M. (Andy Lenderman, 9/05/04, Albuquerque Journal)
President Bush had a slight edge over Democrat John Kerry in a Journal poll of New Mexico voters, completed as the candidates prepared for the final two months of the campaign.Bush had 45 percent support compared to Kerry's 42 percent in the Aug. 27 to Sept. 1 survey of 908 registered voters statewide.
70 killed during capture of 'Saddam's aide' (Waleed Ibrahim and Tom Perry, 9/05/04, IOL)
Iraqi and US forces arrested a man believed to be the most-wanted Saddam Hussein aide still on the run in a bloody raid on Sunday in which 70 of his supporters were killed and 80 captured, the government said.
Bush common touch is outreaching Kerry (Gwen Halley, 9/05/04, Sunday Independent)
I stayed up last Thursday night to catch Bush's address and for the first time this haughty European understood what the blancmange - sometimes crassly decorated - face of the "United States of Otherness" (David Aaronovitch's phrase) sees in George W Bush.Admirably sticking to the neo-conservative agenda, Bush continued to speak radically of America as an active non-isolationist force of reform in the world and refused to make any concessions to his critics on Iraq. But above all, Bush showed himself to be a likeable guy - "some people seem to see in me a certain swagger, which in Texas, we call walking," he delivered with dry confidence.
Bush's energy and scamp's grin make John Kerry look like Mr One Flip-Flop in the Grave. The television images the morning after Kerry's Convention speech said it all. Kerry looked feeble, smiled limply and perspired profusely. Bush was pictured bounding onto a podium in a bomber jacket like a Labrador puppy.
LAST week, 'liberated' viewers would have caught the demure First Lady's speech and realised why 70 per cent of America has a favourable opinion of Laura Bush. They would have also noticed the street cred spunky charm of the 22-year-old Bush twins, Barbara and Jenna. More representative of America's young rebels without a cause than Kerry's snooty, cosmo-elite daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa, could ever be.
There is an entrenched belief in Ireland that only civilised, sophisticated, decent Americans vote Democrat and only ignorant, hick, rednecks vote Republican. No doubt buttressed by delicate flowers like RTE's Carole Coleman who summed up Dick Cheney's brilliant political hardball speech last week as "vicious". Carole, you should get out more.
Europe, Democrats and Michael Howard's Tories have a snobby superiority complex towards Republicans that is foul. All are consumed with the fear of appearing common or vulgar.
Blacks for Bush have won my respect (MARY MITCHELL, September 5, 2004, Chicago SUN-TIMES)
It's a good thing President George W. Bush didn't have an altar call at the end of the GOP's convention. I might have joined the Republican Party.By the time the four-day Republican National Convention ended Thursday night, I had a newfound respect for black Republicans. I will never again wonder what in the world is a black person doing supporting George W.
"One would think you wouldn't have to defend being a Republican," said Jennette Bradley, the lieutenant governor of Ohio and the first African-American woman to fill that post in the history of the United States. "That time is past. We don't have to apologize for being a Republican. We have the right to choose."
And they are choosing. [...]
Although Democrats bash Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, those same Democrats rarely mention that one of the architects of the plan is Rod Paige, an African American who was appointed Education secretary in the Bush administration. Having attended segregated schools in his youth, I'm convinced that despite the act's shortcomings, Paige is committed to challenging what the Republicans call the "soft bigotry of low expectations."
So while black voters may disagree with most of the conservative wing of the party, the GOP's approach to fixing the education gap is worth considering.
During his acceptance speech, Bush made promises that should have poor and working-class families dancing in the street. In pledging to increase funding for Pell Grants and community colleges, he also promised to strengthen early intervention programs aimed at stemming the tide of black and Hispanic students that drop out of high schools every year.
As a lifelong independent, and the daughter of a die-hard Democrat, I may never bring myself to punch a Republican ballot.
But the black Republicans I ran into this week convinced me of one thing: Black people can only benefit from their courage.
Bill Jones' Campaign Quandary: With only tepid support from Bush, the GOP challenger to Sen. Boxer could use a boost from the governor -- who so far has kept his distance. (Scott Martelle, September 5, 2004, LA Times)
Support from Bush — which seems tepid at best — won't do Jones much good in a state where only two of five likely voters say they back the president. And though a public embrace from Schwarzenegger, whose job-approval rating stands above 60%, might help, the freshman governor so far has kept Jones at arm's length.This is Jones' quandary. Despite campaign swings by such high-profile Republicans as Vice President Dick Cheney, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party has not given Jones the kind of support it has given candidates in other states, a disengagement that has left the former Fresno-area rancher mired in a political bog of low name recognition, low fundraising and low voter interest.
The lukewarm Boxer-Jones campaign seems at odds with the candidates themselves. Each is capable of a hard fight, and, together, they offer what voters say they want — real choices both in substance and in strategies, with Jones running as a conservative waving Schwarzenegger's bipartisan flag and Boxer seeking to make her race a referendum on national policies by campaigning against Bush as much as against Jones.
The election is the first chance since last year's rambunctious recall for voters to define the state's political soul. Republicans hoped that Schwarzenegger's win meant a political change of wind, but Jones' lagging efforts could confirm that Gov. Gray Davis' recall was the result of the specifics of the moment — a disgruntled electorate and a high-energy newcomer with Hollywood star power — rather than a fundamental shift among the state's voters.
Shrinking population threatens an ancient faith: Zoroastrians debate inviting outsiders in (Jehangir Pocha, September 5, 2004, Boston Globe)
For centuries, this city has been the citadel where Zoroastrianism, one of the world's oldest religions, has persevered in the face of overwhelming odds.Now demographers say Zoroastrians, who live mainly in India, where they are called Parsis, and Iran, where the religion originated, could face eventual extinction because of a falling birth rate and a tradition of barring those from other faiths from converting.
The perceived threat to its existence has locked the tiny community into an emotional debate over how to maintain the faith and identity while also adapting with the times.
''We must become more broad-minded," said Khushroo Madon, a self-described reformist priest in Bombay, who noted that the Zoroastrian population in India is expected to fall from 60,000 to 25,000 by 2020. ''We must welcome children of mixed parents and maybe even some new converts into our community."
With the faith losing thousands of would-be members, Madon and some other priests have started performing the ''navjote" an initiation ceremony for children born of Zoroastrian mothers and non-Zoroastrian fathers.
Conservatives have reacted fiercely.
As rivals focus, stances seem to blur: Rifts are few on big issues (Michael Kranish and Yvonne Abraham, September 5, 2004, Boston Globe)
The homestretch of the presidential campaign appears to be set: Democrats are casting their candidate, John F. Kerry, as a battle-tested veteran who can turn a fresh page for the United States around the world, and who can boost jobs and health care at home. Republicans are portraying President Bush as a resolute, war-tested leader who will promote an ''ownership society" based on permanent tax cuts.But despite a blizzard of ads and speeches that will emphasize the virtues of one candidate and the failings of the other between now and Election Day, differences between Bush and Kerry on many key issues seem relatively narrow.
Mr. Bush proposes to begun the privatization of Social Security--Mr. Kerry wants it left as is.
Mr. Bush proposes a major restructuring of the tax system to shift away from taxing income, savings and investments--Mr. Kerry wants it left as is, except to raise taxes on the wealthy.
You can argue about whether other issues and their differences on them are are major--tort reform, energy policy, etc.--but on just those three Americans are offered completely different visions of the future.
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Bush Makes His Pitch for 'Ownership Society': The agenda includes Social Security, housing and healthcare, with people, not government, making more decisions -- and more payments. (Warren Vieth, September 5, 2004, LA Times)
In George W. Bush's America, there seem to be few societal problems a little ownership wouldn't help solve.Social Security in trouble? Let workers set up private accounts to partially finance their own retirements. Healthcare system broken? Get Americans to self-insure and monitor their own medical expenses. Communities in distress? Help more low-income people buy homes.
Those concepts are at the core of the "ownership society" agenda that President Bush endorsed at last week's Republican National Convention, and which conservative activists characterize as a bold rebuttal to Democrats' reliance on government guarantees.
"Ownership brings security and dignity and independence," Bush told GOP convention-goers in New York. "In all these proposals, we seek to provide not just a government program, but a path — a path to greater opportunity, more freedom and more control over your own life." [...]
Activists in both the conservative and liberal camps said Bush's advocacy of the ownership agenda in last week's acceptance speech set the stage for a protracted political struggle over pressing domestic policy issues such as Social Security and healthcare reform.
Wrong man for Kerry (Eileen McNamara, September 5, 2004, Boston Globe)
[John] Sasso began taking a more public role in the Kerry campaign even before the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and its Republican-backed smear campaign threw the candidate off-message and on the defensive. It was Sasso's signature on a fund-raising letter last month from the Democratic National Committee, accompanied by a machine-autographed glossy of Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards.The problem with soliciting contributions to end the "smug and arrogant tactics of misinformation" that Sasso's letter rightly attributes to Republicans is that it only works when the purveyor holds the moral high ground. That would not be Sasso, he of the attack video that torpedoed the presidential campaign of Democratic Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware in 1987, he of the audiotape that ridiculed the physical disabilities of the wife of Edward King, Michael Dukakis's gubernatorial primary opponent in 1982.
Dukakis fired Sasso for lying about his involvement in the video, which showed Biden had borrowed without attribution from a speech by a Labor Party leader in Britain. He should have canned him for the crass assault on Jody King's dignity.
If Kerry wants to fight dirty against a Bush team that has gotten away with slinging mud across two presidencies, that's his choice. But no more whining, then, about the distortions of his military career. No more laments about how the media never focus on the issues. To choose Sasso is to choose the tactics Kerry claims to abhor.
Dubya delivers, putting PM first among equals (Greg Sheridan, September 04, 2004, The Australian)
WHEN John Howard called the election a week ago one thought went through the minds of those who study US-Australia relations: would the Bush administration do something to help Howard?Yesterday, the answer was an emphatic yes.
In the most extraordinary, perhaps the only, reference to Australia in a presidential nominating convention acceptance speech, Bush declared to a television audience of tens of millions: "I deeply appreciate the courage and wise counsel of leaders like Prime Minister Howard ..."
That's right, Howard was first in the list, ahead of the Polish, Italian and British leaders, the only others to be singled out.
It is a sign of the extraordinary profile Australia now has in Washington, and throughout the US.
This is unpleasant for Mark Latham's Labor.
Bin Laden hiding in Pakistan: US general (Ashwin Honawar, 9/5/2004, The Peninsula)
A senior US Central Command official yesterday said that Saudi dissident and head of the Al Qaeda terror network, Osama bin Laden, was hiding in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) of Pakistan along the Afghan border and it was only a matter of time before he was nabbed or killed in military operations.Speaking to reporters at Camp Assailiyah near Doha, Lieutenant General Lance L Smith, who is the second in command of the Centcom said: “He is hiding in a sovereign country, Pakistan, where we have no freedom of movement. We have to rely on the Pakistani military to go after them. President Pervez Musharraf is doing a good job and we hope that the Pakistani operations will cause movement, which it already has, that will give them the opportunity to catch Bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahiri and other senior Al Qaeda leaders,” he added.
Smith, however, emphasised that there could be no predictions about when Bin Laden, who had masterminded the Septermber 11 terror attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington DC with hijacked civilian airliners, would be nabbed or killed.
As a result of the manhunt, he said, the Al Qaeda terror network had lost its central command structure and other cadres of the organisation were now more or less operating autonomously. He said that the US believed in capabilities of the Pakistan military in flushing out Al Qaeda and Taleban cadres hiding in the Fata. The US-led coalition, he said, would continue to target and hunt Jordanian-born Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and his Al Qaeda-linked terror organisation, which is currently operating in and around Fallujah in Iraq.
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Saddam Hussein's 2nd in command arrested (The Associated Press, Sept. 5, 2004)
Saddam Hussein's former second-in-command, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was arrested in northern Iraq, an Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman told al-Hurra television.Saleh Sarhan said al-Douri was captured while in a clinic where he was receiving medical treatment.
"There was a major operation around Tikrit and al-Dour and American forces supported by Iraqi civil defense corps members were able to capture Izzat al-Douri," he told the U.S. government-funded Arabic-language station in a live telephone interview. Saddam was captured at a safehouse near al-Dour in December. [...]
Al-Douri, who had a U.S. bounty of $10 million on his head, was the highest-ranking member of Saddam's government who was still at large. Once the vice chairman of the Baath Party's Revolutionary Command Council, he was a longtime confidant of Saddam.
He is No. 6 on the U.S. military's list of 55 most wanted figures from Saddam's regime. Forty-four on the list had been captured or killed.
U.S. military officials have said they believe al-Douri is playing an organizing role in the 16-month-old insurgency against U.S. forces.
Neo-Cons Under Fire (Gary Leupp, 9/05/04, CounterPunch)
They're what Marxists call "contradictions within the ruling class:" sharp differences within the power elite which weaken it collectively and can sometimes be exploited by those seeking radical change. It is a very good thing that the "intelligence community" is beginning to level an assault on the neocons. Their falling out has deep roots, dating to the 1980s when the CIA accurately assessed the Soviet military "threat," while the neocons (Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney) wanted to grossly inflate it, to justify the massive Reagan military buildup and perhaps launch a successful World War III. (The "noble lie" worked: the other side, with half the U.S.'s GDP, was obliged to match U.S. military expenditures, and essentially went bankrupt, petering out without a shot.)The present enmity dates to the days immediately after 9-11 when the CIA was called upon to prove links between Iraq, the attacks, and al-Qaeda. When the CIA was unable to find any, to the disgust of leading war advocates Donald Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz (who feel that reluctance to lie on behalf of imperial glory makes you a wuss) they created the spooky (and unforgivably under-reported) Office of Special Plans to stovepipe cherry-picked "intelligence" to the White House and thence the world.
Events and limited media exposure have shown to all sentient beings the official rationale(s) for war on Iraq do not correspond to reality. Washington can either tell the truth: "We distorted the facts to justify attacking Iraq," or dissemble: "Some of our intelligence turns out to be incorrect" But by ridiculously blaming the CIA, they insult it. And while the Company's "we will of course disavow any knowledge of your actions" culture disinclines it to rail openly against the administration it must serve, some within it are in fact rebelling.
A Speech That Delivered the Goods (David S. Broder, September 5, 2004, Washington Post)
It demonstrates how much confidence Karl Rove has in his candidate that he left so much of the necessary work of the Republican National Convention to be accomplished by President Bush's acceptance speech on the final night in Madison Square Garden.The confidence was not misplaced. Bush did almost everything he could on Thursday night, with a major assist from speechwriters Michael Gerson and Karen Hughes, who can write circles around their counterparts in John Kerry's campaign. [...]
Given his shaky ratings on both Iraq and the economy, Bush could not afford to be morning-talk-show cheerful, but he had to demonstrate confidence in what the next four years might bring.
By the end of an hour, he had done almost all those things to greater or lesser degree, while getting in a few above-the-belt shots at his opponent and reminding voters why they were drawn to him when they were first getting to know him -- his parents, his foibles and his lack of self-importance.
The weakest link in Bush's speech was his bland assurance that the economy has recovered well enough to provide more and better jobs. But Friday morning's announcement of much better job statistics did what Bush himself could not do.
Rock, Paper, Scissors: High Drama in the Tournament Ring (JENNIFER 8. LEE, 9/05/04, NY Times)
The rules were deceptively simple — rules that people all over the world grasp as young children.Paper covers rock. Rock crushes scissors. Scissors cut paper.
But like the game Othello, another childhood favorite, Rock Paper Scissors takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.
Rock Paper Scissors has gained a cult following in much of the English-speaking world over the last few years. The World Rock Paper Scissors Society, based in Toronto, says that its history dates to London in the mid-1800's and that its membership has grown to 2,300 from 5 since its Web site, www.worldrps.com, first appeared in 1995.
Word of mouth generated by the Web site, and by the world championships that the society has sponsored since 2002, have led to a spread of formal and impromptu tournaments in bars, fraternity houses, homes and high schools. A bar in Chapel Hill, N.C., for example, held a tournament on Aug. 15 that drew 40 competitors. A tournament held for the past two years at the Roshambo Winery in Healdsburg, Calif., has attracted hundreds of spectators and competitors.
It's Still Nixon's Party (Harold Meyerson, September 5, 2004, Washington Post)
[W]hat sticks from this convention is Wednesday night's public mugging of John Kerry. Zell Miller's ferocious and largely fictitious diatribe was the convention's -- and indeed the Bush campaign's -- keynote address in spirit as well as in name. Miller referred to the bipartisan support for early Cold War policies, but the Cold War politico after whom he modeled himself was Sen. Joseph McCarthy. [...][I]t's not Reagan's spirit that suffuses the Bush Republican Party; it's Richard Nixon's. The old Trickster tarred his opponents -- Jerry Voorhis, Helen Gahagan Douglas -- as closet commies when he knew full well they weren't; that was his central contribution to the practice of electoral politics. The Bush family studied and learned from the Nixon playbooks; the hallmarks of their campaigns against Michael Dukakis, John McCain and now John Kerry have been slander and lies. The current president might be a lot closer in ideology to Reagan than he is to Nixon, but when it comes to the way he seeks to cling to power, he is Nixonian to a fault. [...]
The Democrats will leave us to the mercy of our enemies; they are not patriots; they have allegiances to foreign interests and ideologies -- 50 years after the Senate censured McCarthy for the recklessness of his allegations, those allegations are back, at the very center of the president's campaign. Forget Lincoln, Ike and Teddy Roosevelt: The party of George W. Bush has chosen a different set of mentors.
School siege prompts horror, self-criticism in Arab world (AP, SEPTEMBER 04, 2004)
Images of dead, wounded and traumatized Russian children being carried from the scene of a rebel school siege have horrified the Arab world, prompting forthright self-criticism and fresh concern about an international backlash against Islam and its followers.Arab leaders, Muslim clerics and ordinary parents across the Middle East denounced the school siege as unjustifiable. Some warned such actions damage Islam's image more than all its enemies could hope. Even some supporters of Islamic militancy condemned it, though at least one insisted Muslims were not behind it.
``Holy warriors'' from the Middle East have long supported fellow Muslims fighting in Chechnya, and Russian officials said nine or 10 Arabs were among militants killed in the siege.
Middle East security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was too early to know the nationalities of the Arabs among the dead militants. However, a prominent Arab journalist wrote that Muslims must acknowledge the painful fact that Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism.
``Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture,'' Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television, wrote in his daily column published in the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. It ran under the headline, ``The Painful Truth: All the World Terrorists are Muslims!''
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History of brutality and repression fuels burning desire for independence (Angus Roxburgh, 9/05/04, Sunday Herald)
[I]t is not ancient history that fuels the Chechens’ drive for independence. During the second world war, Stalin accused the entire nation of collaborating with the Nazis and deported every one of them to Kazakhstan. Chechnya was emptied of Chechens and resettled by Russians. One of Stalin’s generals reported that the deportation from one village high in the mountains had been too tricky, so instead he had herded the 700 villagers into a barn and burned them. He won a medal for that.Only after President Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s crimes in 1956 were the Chechens allowed to return to their homeland, filled with even greater hatred and lust for revenge.
In 1991, as the Soviet Union broke up, they grabbed their chance and declared independence. But unlike republics such as Georgia or Estonia, Chechnya was part of Russia itself, and Russia was determined to hold on to it – partly because of its strategic importance as an oil-bearing region, and partly out of fear that it would lead to the disintegration of the Russian Federation.
At the end of 1994 President Boris Yeltsin sent the troops in to subjugate them again. Within a few months, Grozny was uninhabitable, bombed into oblivion, shades of Dresden and Coventry. Most of the population fled to neighbouring republics, or to mountain villages, which in turn were shelled and destroyed. Tens of thousands were killed, and thousands of Chechen men went through torture chambers known as “filtration camps”.
But by now the Chechens had become used to their freedom. They were rediscovering their Muslim religion, half- forgotten during the atheist Soviet years. It became a symbol of nationhood, and new mosques began to be built. A few years ago, they had never heard of al-Qaeda, but now it has become an inspiration to them.
The resistance movement had almost total support among ordinary Chechens.
The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe. And when and where are they to cease?But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. While the king, and all in authority under him, were believed to govern in justice and mercy, according to the laws and constitution derived to them from the God of nature and transmitted to them by their ancestors, they thought themselves bound to pray for the king and queen and all the royal family, and all in authority under them, as ministers ordained of God for their good; but when they saw those powers renouncing all the principles of authority, and bent upon the destruction of all the securities of their lives, liberties, and properties, they thought it their duty to pray for the continental congress and all the thirteen State congresses, &c.
Passionate Conservatism: Karl Rove's Republicans swerve right on the way to the middle (Rick Perlstein, September 3rd, 2004, Village Voice)
Liking Mr. Perlstein as much as we do, despite political differences, it's a disappointment not to be able to find a coherent thought in this essay to excerpt. So, just a comment on the subhead: Right is the middle.
AP Retracts 'Clinton Booed' Story (NewsMax, 9/04/04)
The Associated Press has retracted its Friday afternoon report that a crowd at a Bush rally in West Allis, Wisc., booed when President Bush offered ex-President Clinton best wishes for a speedy recovery from coronary bypass surgery scheduled for next week.
Inching Toward Elections, Palestinians Begin Voter Registration (STEVEN ERLANGER, 9/04/04, NY Times)
Palestinians began a voter registration drive on Saturday, a first step toward long overdue elections and a response to domestic and international pressure for more democracy, openness and accountability.
Sudan says internal politics drives US over Darfur (Nima Elbagir, 9/04/04, Reuters)
Sudan says the United States is wrong to try to label the conflict in Darfur as genocide and that recent hardline U.S. statements on Sudan are aimed at domestic constituencies and the U.S. elections."As long as elections are going on, and as long as both parties are competing for the votes of the African-Americans you should not expect a neutral or fair position to the situation in Darfur," Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told reporters.
Bush's tactical victory (Tom Carver, 9/04/04, BBC)
George Bush is a master at disguising the punch.In 2000, he fooled Al Gore into underestimating his talent as a politician, causing Mr Gore to overreach.
This time, he has forced John Kerry to have the wrong conversation with the voters.
When he should have been telling the voters his plan for the future, Mr Kerry has been spending his time talking about the past, believing that Vietnam was the way to establish his credibility.
Consequently, when the Republicans raised doubts about Mr Kerry's service in Vietnam last month, he had nothing to fall back on.
27 million watched Bush accept nod (Chicago Tribune, September 4, 2004)
More than 27 million viewers watched President Bush accept his party's nomination Thursday night at the Republican National Convention in New York, 3.1 million more than watched his rival, Sen. John Kerry, address the Democratic National Convention in July.
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Letter from New York (Farai Chideya, September 4, 2004, SF Chronicle)
A typical conversation went like this:Guest A: Ohmygod. Bush screwed McCain so hard in the 2000 primary, why is he kissing Bush's butt?
Guest B: Pass the vodka.
Guest A: I mean George W. all but called him an insane Vietnam vet.
Guest B: Pass the vodka.
Guest A: And you know McCain is personal friends with Kerry.
Guest B to Guest C: Can you pass the vodka? This is giving me a headache.
The guests seem stunned by, but impressed with, the ability of the Bush campaign to take people who have never shown much personal or ideological affinity for President Bush (and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would fall among these) and turn them into Zombies-for-Bush.
Near the end of the night's broadcast, I took a poll. How many people thought Kerry was going to win?
The room contained liberal and Democratic voters of different races, national origins, incomes, professions and generations. Not a single solitary one raised a hand.
My stomach did a little flip-flop. I'd underestimated the depth of John F. Kerry's problem, his lack, to quote a phrase from the Bush I years, of the "vision thing." No one can win the presidency without mobilizing the base, and Kerry's base, uninspired and dispirited, is weakening.
Tearing Kerry Down: The challengner's only hope is to get as nasty as the Bush campaign (JOE KLEIN, Sep. 04, 2004, TIME)
It should be noted that, after a long, lifeless recitation of an illusory domestic policy, George W. Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican Convention came alive when the President gleefully skewered John Kerry's foolish claim to be the candidate of "conservative values." It was the pivotal moment of the speech. From there, Bush went on to his favorite topic—his decisiveness in the war against terrorism, the need to stand firm, the need to be plainspoken. For those who hadn't fallen asleep during the domestic policy trudge, this was a very effective speech—and it followed a very effective, if sometimes sleazy convention.The message of the week was: You know where Bush stands. You can't be sure about Kerry. But that headline also came with a misleading subhead: Bush is fighting the war against terrorism, and Kerry wouldn't.
I believe in the transformational power of liberty. The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom. [...][A]mericans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century.
We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan, Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics, and that noble story goes on.
I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man.
I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world. [...]
By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America.
Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America. And tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed.
Bush: Long To Reign Over US: the ‘dirty-tricks’ campaign against Kerry ensures Bush dynasty will go on (Iain Macwhirter, 9/05/04, Sunday Herald)
American liberalism faced the possibility of defeat last week. The forward march of John Kerry has been halted by a cynical and mendacious campaign against his war record and by the asinine populism of George W Bush. Even before last week’s text-book Republican convention, Kerry’s lead in the opinion polls had been erased. It’s not over yet, but the world must now face up to the possibility of four more years of George W Bush.You have to hand it to the Republican Party: when it comes to winning elections, nobody does it better. The New York Convention was a master-piece of misrepresentation; a character assassination of Kerry; a cynical marriage of folksiness and jingoism. In other words, mission accomplished.
Bush’s people certainly didn’t trouble themselves with nuance. There was no serious attempt to explain why 1000 American soldiers and 10,000 Iraqis had to die in a war that should never have happened. Never apologise; never explain. Republican speakers showed no hint of contrition for the absence of weapons of mass destruction, for the systematic torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay or for squandering America’s affection in the eyes of the world.
You might at least have hoped for a few won’t-happen-agains. But Bush just doesn’t do regret. In Madison Square Garden, truth itself was mangled to fit the perspectives of American neo-conservatism. “Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction,” said ex-New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, in a breath-taking exercise in double-think. Removing Saddam he said, was “a wonderful thing”.
Worried Democrats Urge Kerry to Start Revving Up Campaign (ADAM NAGOURNEY and JODI WILGOREN, 9/04/04, NY Times)
President Bush roared out of his New York convention last week, leaving many Democrats nervous about the state of the presidential race and pressing Senator John Kerry to torque up what they described as a wandering and low-energy campaign.In interviews, leading Democrats - governors, senators, fund-raisers and veteran strategists - said they had urged Mr. Kerry's campaign aides to concentrate almost exclusively on challenging President Bush on domestic issues from here on out, saying he had spent too much of the summer on national security, Mr. Bush's strongest turf.
As the Labor Day weekend began, Mr. Kerry appeared to be heeding the advice with an aggressive attack on Mr. Bush's economic leadership. But many supporters also said they wanted to see Mr. Kerry respond more forcefully to the sort of attacks they said had undercut his standing and to offer a broad and convincing case for his candidacy.
Strategy Shift (Jake Tapper, 9/04/04, ABCNEWS.com)
With 59 days to go until the presidential election, the campaign of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. — trailing by double-digits in two recent national polls — has made a shift in strategy.While decrying Republican attacks on Kerry's military service and fitness for office as unfair and personal, the Kerry campaign is also attacking the military service and fitness for office of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. At the same time, the campaign almost seemed to be ceding the national security issue to the president as Kerry focuses on domestic issues.
"In the last four years, George Bush has served the American worker in the same way he served the Texas National Guard: He was absent without leave," said John Wagner, a local AFL-CIO executive, at a Kerry rally in Akron this morning.
Added Akron Mayor Donald Plusquellic: "The simple truth is that John Kerry was in Vietnam and George Bush wasn't. It's as simple as that. … George Bush was hiding in the woods in Alabama and John Kerry was defending our country."
After all, what does going negative replace?
The Kerry Crackup: The Democratic candidate does a good Al Gore impression. (Stephen F. Hayes, 09/13/2004, Weekly Standard)
It's a shame the networks didn't include Kerry's remarks in their GOP convention coverage. In just 30 minutes, Kerry provided a revealing look at himself, a reminder of his meandering views, several clues about the state of his campaign, and a hint of what the next two months will look like.Kerry sought to portray himself as an aggrieved but righteous politician, the innocent target of vicious Republican attacks. This is a substantial rewriting of history. Kerry and his campaign staff have been every bit as biting in their criticism--having, prior to this, called Vice President Cheney unfit for office and accused President Bush of using family connections to avoid serving in Vietnam. But the gamble for Kerry is not that reporters will point out the many harsh attacks his campaign has leveled at the Bush administration. The media wouldn't be so inconsiderate. The risk for Kerry is that in a campaign devoted largely to convincing voters of his strength, assuming the mantle of victim does little to inspire confidence.
"For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and my fitness to serve as commander in chief," Kerry complained.
He later added:
"Worst of all, George Bush misled America when he took us to war in Iraq."
That last line may have been the most significant one in the speech because it indicates that Kerry has veered sharply back to the Howard Dean/Al Gore/Michael Moore wing of the Democratic party.
Social security a bigger worry than economy (Japan Times, 9/05/04)
Nearly 70 percent of people in a recent survey hope the government will work for better social security services, topping for the first time the number of those demanding economic stimulus policies, the Cabinet Office said Saturday.According to this year's survey on daily livelihood, 67.7 percent of the respondents said the government should reform social security programs like health care and pensions. The figure is up 5.8 percentage points from last year.
Meanwhile, 58.6 percent said the government should stimulate the economy, down 8.8 points from last year.
Economic stimulus had topped the list every year since 1998, when the government began checking what people expect. The annual survey, on which multiple answers are allowed, was introduced in 1958.
Closing Laps in Race to November (Mike Allen and Lois Romano, September 4, 2004, Washington Post)
Kerry surrogates were also out in full force Friday, taking issue with many of the specific attacks leveled at the Democratic nominee during the GOP convention. In a morning conference call with reporters, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) vowed that "the rebuttal of what they've thrown at us has just begun."Former senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) took the defense a step further by comparing the Republicans' misleading statements to those of Nazi Germany. "You've just got to separate out fact from fiction. . . . Too often, too often, in this country, if you hear something repeated, it's the old Hitler business -- if you hear something repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated, you start to believe it," he said.
MORE (via Ed Driscoll):
Prime-time Republicans are hard to take (HUGH PEARSON, September 2, 2004, NY Newsday)
As I watched Tuesday night's network coverage of the unrelenting political propaganda hour known as the Republican National Convention, the first thought that came to mind was of old newsreels of those self-congratulatory Nazi rallies held in Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler.For many people, I'm sure, such a comparison sounds extreme. Yet, just as the Nazis were obsessed with endless displays of swastikas, the Republicans are obsessed with the red, white and blue (for that matter, the Democrats are, too).
In the same manner that the German people were told that Nazi leadership was faultless, the Republicans are telling the American public that no one knows what's best for the world except the current leadership in the White House.
"If you believe this country and not the United Nations is the best hope for democracy, then you are a Republican!" bellowed California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In the same way that Nazis rationalized doing away with democratic rights and launching a pre-emptive war to protect the self-interests of the Third Reich, Republicans this week continue to encourage the American public to ignore our Constitution's directive that only Congress has the right to declare war (thus, we are not officially at war with anyone), and that a pre-emptive war with no exit strategy will actually protect "the American way of life," rather than further endanger it.
Simultaneously, on the streets of New York City, the police are responding to dissent by protesters from around the country with a mild approximation of the kind of crackdown that happened decades ago in Germany.
George Jr sent out of Texas by father as a 'drunken liability' (Gary Younge, September 3, 2004, The Guardian)
The US president, George Bush, was transferred to the Alabama National Guard during the Vietnam war because his drunken behaviour was a political liability to his father in Texas, the wife of one of his father's former confidants revealed yesterday.Linda Allison told the political website Salon.com that throughout the time Mr Bush was in Alabama she never saw him in uniform and had no idea he was supposed to be in the National Guard.
"Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston." Asked if she had ever seen him in uniform Mrs Allison said: "Good Lord, no. I had no idea the National Guard was involved in his life."
Mrs Allison is the wife of the late Jimmy Allison, a former political consultant and newspaper owner from Midland, Texas and one time confidant of the Bush family. Motivated by pride in her husband and pique at the manner in which the Bush family discarded him once they believed he was no longer useful, the interview is the first she has ever given.
Newsweek Poll: Republican Convention 2004 (September 4, 2004, PRNewswire)
Immediately following the Republican National Convention in New York, the latest Newsweek Poll shows that, in a two-way presidential trial heat, the Bush/Cheney ticket would win over a Kerry/Edwards ticket by 54 percent vs. 43 percent among registered voters. In a three-way trial heat, including Green Party Candidate Ralph Nader, the Bush/Cheney ticket would still win 52 percent to 41 percent for Kerry/Edwards and 3 percent for Nader/Camejo among registered voters. That represents a 13-point margin bounce for Bush/Cheney since an August 5-10 poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International for the Pew Research Center.And even though more Americans (49%) say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. at this time (43% are satisfied), President George W. Bush's approval rating has gone up to 52 percent, a seven-point increase since the last Newsweek Poll (July 29-30), and the first time it's topped 50 percent since January. Also 53 percent of registered voters say the would like to see President Bush re-elected to another term. The last time a majority of Americans wanted to see the president re-elected was May 2003.
In comparing the two presidential candidates, more registered voters think President Bush has strong leadership qualities than Kerry (65% vs. 47%), is more honest and ethical (62% vs. 47%), says what he believes and not just what people want to hear (66% vs. 42%), would trust him to make the right decisions during an international crisis (57% vs. 44%), shares their values (54% vs. 42%), and is personally likeable (67% vs. 59%). In addition, more registered voters think President Bush would do a better job than Sen. Kerry on various issues: terrorism and homeland security (60% vs. 32%), the situation in Iraq (55% vs. 37%), foreign policy (54% vs. 38%), taxes (52% vs. 38%), economy (49% vs. 43%), education (48% vs. 42%), and gay marriage (44% vs. 36%). More people say Sen. Kerry would do a better job than President Bush on healthcare, including Medicare (45% vs. 43%) and the environment (50% vs. 36%).
The number of Americans who think George W. Bush will be re-elected in November has suddenly jumped 10 to 20 points in dozens of cities around the country, according to SurveyUSA tracking polls conducted before, during and after the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.SurveyUSA has been asking respondents not who they will vote for, but rather: who they think will win the presidential election in November. This question is more sensitive to changes in sentiment, and is designed to capture "momentum" swings more precisely than preference questions asked of likely voters. Tracking polls released today, 9/3/04, the day after the Republican National Convention ended, show sizeable swings in the public consciousness.
Examples:
-- In New York City, the number of adults who say Bush will win jumped from 39% on 7/22 (the week before the DNC) to 58% today: 19 points up for Bush, 17 points down for Kerry.
-- In Los Angeles, the number who say Bush will win jumped from 38% on 7/22 to 59% today: 21 points up for Bush, 18 points down for Kerry.
-- In Pittsburgh, Bush went from 44% to 64%: 20 points up for Bush, 19 points down for Kerry. [...]
"The Democrats are eviscerated," says Jay H. Leve, Editor of SurveyUSA. "Even in the most solidly Democratic corners of this country, a majority of adults suddenly believe that George W. Bush will win in November."
According to the AP analysis, Bush made small but significant gains even before the convention "bounce" became part of the equation.While the Swift boat flap turned the debate away from the ailing economy and the Iraq war, the political landscape shifted just enough in Missouri, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Nevada to nudge those states from the "tossup" category to "lean-Bush."
Three states moved from lean-Kerry to tossup -- Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New Mexico.
Virginia and Louisiana shifted from lean-Bush to solid Bush, with Kerry virtually abandoning efforts to expand the playing field deep into the South. Arkansas and North Carolina, home of Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, remain marginally in play.
The most ominous changes for Kerry are Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, two states with a combined 31 electoral votes that Democrat Al Gore won four years ago. They are the president's top targets for a pickup.
Ohio and Florida, with a combined 47 electoral votes, were won by Bush in 2000 and are Kerry's best pickup opportunities on Nov. 2. Both are in the tossup category, narrowly so.
Because of population shifts that added electoral votes to GOP states since 2000, Kerry can reclaim every state won by Gore and still fall 10 electoral votes short of 270.
Britney dumps Kabbalah for a Catholic wedding! (The Times of India, August 31st, 2004)
Pop diva Britney Spears is reportedly planning to ditch her Kabbalah faith on her wedding day by saying 'I Do' to her dancer fiance Kevin Federline in a Catholic ceremony.The 'Toxic' star and Federline have been having secret meetings at a Catholic monastery in California at the request of their Christian parents, who were upset with Britney's plans to go for a typical Kabbalah marriage.
Britney was reportedly very impressed with Malibu's Serra Retreat Center, which is home to devout Catholic monks since 1943, and the pop sensation is now keen to use it for her big day.
...and giving thanks in Jerusalem?
* So, Paul Begala and James Carville say that Zell Miller was their mentor, a conservative Southern Democrat. Bill Clinton hired them precisely because he wanted to run to George H. W. Bush's Right, against the NorthEastern Liberal Establishment of his own party--the Third Way. But at the GOP convention, when Mr. Miller endorsed a Third Way conservative Republican against a NorthEastern Liberal they say (well, scream) that it's he who has changed?
* Meanwhile, the Democrats this year chose John Kerry, who they hoped to portray as a moderate, over Howard Dean, who was running as an unabashed liberal, to try and blunt their differences with the GOP enough that they could win a closely divided 50-50 election. The President, on the other hand, is trying to win a transformational mandate of 60-40, which would match the electoral, congressional and public opinion (on wedge issues at least) split in the country and establish a permanent Republican majority. Yet the guy aiming at 60 is the divisive candidate?
Driving Takes Its Toll (OWEN D. GUTFREUND, 9/04/04, NY Times)
[W]e need to reconsider the road not taken. We must stop encouraging over-dependence on oil by under-pricing our roads and hiding the true costs of highway driving. Of course, to impose new gas taxes on top of the recent spike in prices may be politically impossible. But if oil prices drop, we should be ready to raise gas taxes. In the meantime, we should expand the use of tolls to finance expressways.The toll roads built in the 1940's and 1950's still exist, although some have been converted to free highways. But instead of removing tolls from these roads, as is occasionally suggested, we should go in the other direction. All of our major Interstates, across the country, should have tolls that are high enough to defray the full costs of building and maintaining the highway network and also high enough to make us change our driving habits.
We don't have to bring back the frustrating traffic bottlenecks at old-fashioned tollbooths now that the logistics of collecting tolls have been greatly simplified by systems like E-ZPass, FastLane and SmartTag. But by permanently raising the artificially low cost of driving, we could encourage people to drive fewer miles and to place a higher value on fuel efficiency, ultimately reducing our dependence on imported oil.
Instead of letting drivers onto our expensive, world-class highway system free, we should charge a fair price by imposing more and higher tolls, and raising gas taxes much higher, permanently. Otherwise, our insatiable need for petroleum will continue to distort our foreign policy, to undermine the stability of our economy and to damage the environment.
Bush's Second Term: If the president is elected again and acts on his words, he
may become a transformational figure. (DAVID BROOKS, 9/04/04, NY Times)
White House aides like to say that George W. Bush is a transformational president. That's an exaggeration, but if he's elected to a second term and acts on the words he uttered on Thursday night, he just might be.He's already gone a long way to transform the Republican Party. This was a party united by the idea that government is the problem, that it should be radically cut back. On Thursday night, Bush talked about government as a positive tool. "Government must take your side," he exclaimed.
He went on to propose a sprawling domestic agenda. Many of his proposals are small or medium-sized, and media rebutters have complained that not all of them are new (which is a ridiculous way to measure a policy idea). But cumulatively, they really do amount to something.
Bush proposes to build community health centers, expand AmeriCorps, increase the funds for Pell Grants, create job retraining accounts, offer tax credits for hybrid cars, help lower-income families get health savings accounts, dedicate $40 billion to wetlands preservation, and on and on and on.
Philosophically, It's a Pure Choice: Intrepid in making bad policy, or restrained but cowardly. Pick one. (Crispin Sartwell, September 3, 2004, LA Times)
A basic distinction in philosophical ethics concerns the evaluation of persons as against the evaluation of actions.The former, which revolves around questions of character, is a tradition that stretches back to Plato and Aristotle. It's called "virtue ethics." The latter often evaluates actions by their results. The utilitarians — for example, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill — assessed acts morally by whether they tended to increase or decrease the sum of human happiness.
I suggest that in the current presidential race, these two moral frameworks are in direct conflict. George W. Bush is the better man. John F. Kerry is the less disastrous maker of policy. [...]
Bush's policies have been disastrous. The Patriot Act and other legislation, as well as court cases brought by his evangelical Justice Department, constitute a serious attack on the U.S. Constitution, that is, on our basic form of government.
His tax cuts have plunged us into massive deficit spending.
His choices about where to intervene internationally have been morally indefensible: invading a quiescent Iraq while placating North Korea and watching genocide in Sudan.
On the other hand, he has pursued these aims — as well as many others that are much more morally defensible — with clarity, steadfastness and at least some degree of political courage. He is, we might say, intrepid.
I Love 9/11: The GOP convention's nostalgia for tragedy. (Chris Suellentrop, Sept. 2, 2004, Slate)
There was an honest case to be made for war with Iraq: Saddam Hussein did not possess nuclear weapons, but he was pursuing them and needed to be toppled before he acquired them. President Bush never made that case, preferring instead to exaggerate the nature and immediacy of the threat and to link al-Qaida with Iraq in the public mind. This convention continued that disgraceful record, muddying the distinction between 9/11 and Iraq, conflating the war of necessity the nation faced after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with the war of choice in Iraq, and repeatedly telling the lie that John Kerry wants to wait until the nation is struck again before crushing al-Qaida.The president's defenders say he invaded Iraq with good intentions, and I believe them. But if President Bush didn't mislead us into war, he's misleading us during one, and he deserves to be defeated for it.
I believe in the transformational power of liberty. The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom. [...][A]mericans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century.
We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan, Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics, and that noble story goes on.
I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man.
I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world. [...]
y promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America.
Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America. And tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed.
Military alters mission in Kosovo after rioting
(Peter Carstens, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 4th, 2004)
The report issued by the group Human Rights Watch did not mince any words. German troops failed in their mission and simply melted away last March as a mob raged in parts of Kosovo, the region in former Yugoslavia teeming with Serbian-Albanian tensions.A U.N. official was upset as well by the military's response, saying the sight of one tank would have caused the violent crowd to scurry away. But that tank never arrived.
Both Human Rights Watch and the U.N. official were referring to the way that German soldiers reacted to some of the bloodiest violence that has broken out in the U.N.-run region since NATO went to war against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in 1999.[...]
At first, German military commanders defended their troops. But after careful review, the leadership has come to a different conclusion. Officials in the Defense Ministry in Berlin now concede that they were more concerned with the products in the PX, the delivery times for military mail and the cell-phone connections to Germany. It says the commanders in Kosovo failed to fulfill their political and military missions. These include guaranteeing freedom of movement; protecting minorities, including their houses and churches; and helping U.N. staff members and the international police force.
This may be indicative of trouble in the German military, but it is more likely a function of morale-crushing absurdities endemic to UN missions, which have generally been disasters in the past few decades. Lack of funds and equipment, internal bickering, diffuse and confused command, UN bureaucratic inefficiency and corruption, unclear political objectives, absurd restrictions on using weapons and cultural ignorance all add up to ineffective messes. The days when blue helmets alone gave armed killers pause are long gone and no one who takes humanitarian intervention seriously (rather than ideologically) should celebrate too quickly even if the UN does eventually go into Darfur.
Highly recommended is Linda Polman’s We Did Nothing, a gritty and disturbing on-the-ground account of UN missions in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and Bosnia in the 90's. Polman is a left-wing Dutch journalist who draws a lot of wrong conclusions, but she is light on the ideology and too honest and clear-eyed to hold back from a very artful account of what she witnesses. There is a great part where she comes up against a group of hard-bitten, swaggering U.S. Special Forces in Haiti who are about to be replaced by Blue Helmets and starts to despair of just how dangerous that could be for the Haitians.
The book is published by Penguin and may not be available in the States. If not, I’ll be happy to try to help anyone who e-mails me in the next week get a copy. About twenty dollars.
New domestics make light work of modern lives (FRANK O’DONNELL AND ROSIE MCINTOSH, 9/04/04, The Scotsman)
IT IS 5am and the muffled ringing of a mobile phone rouses Debbie Dubickas from her sleep.With a six-month-old son, Blu, sleeping in the same room, keeping the phone underneath her pillow is the best way of managing the demands of motherhood with that of her 24/7 work life.
"It was a nursing agency calling me to say that a member of their staff had let them down and could I send someone out to cover for them," she explains later. "Some days we get about 20 calls like this, asking us to fill staff shortages."
The mother-of-five works a 72-hour week managing three businesses and is in the process of setting up a fourth. But she accepts that she cannot balance her work and family life without the help of a small army of staff, including dog-walker, nanny, cleaner and handyman.
But Mrs Dubickas’s reliance on hired help is no longer unusual.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Convention Speeches: Setting Kerry's record right—again (Fred Kaplan, Sept. 2, 2004, Slate)
Half-truths and embellishments are one thing; they're common at political conventions, vital flourishes for a theatrical air. Lies are another thing, and last night's Republican convention was soaked in them.In the case of Sen. Zell Miller's keynote address, "lies" might be too strong a word. Clearly not a bright man...
Short fuse betrays Kerry (Jim Wooten, 9/5/04, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
In expression and demeanor, Bush is the American ideal, the man next door who rises to the occasion, who finds his resolve in our condition. And despite the stress of crisis leadership, he retains a sense of humor about himself. He's not an easy target for angry Democrats who despise him.Rising to the challenge to address domestic issues, too, Bush laid out an ambitious agenda with a common theme: slowly weaning the country from over-reliance on government by encouraging greater self-reliance and by rewarding individuals for being responsible.
It's an ambitious agenda that, like the war on terrorism, will be completed by his successors. But there's no denying his agenda is the reflection of a vision.
"In all these proposals, we seek to provide not just a government program, but a path, a plan to greater opportunity, more freedom and more control over your own life."
Liberals hear that as conservative jibberish. They're wrong.
It may take it as long as it took to win the Cold War, but George W. Bush has a domestic and a peace agenda as grand as Ronald Reagan's.
Secrets of the Garden (ANNA DEAVERE SMITH, 9/03/04, NY Times)
Brent Williams, my bull-rider friend in Idaho, sincerely believes that President Bush would help him haul hay when he's home from the rodeos. He and his buddies appreciate how Mr. Bush took time to meet the 2003 rodeo champions. He can't see Senator John Kerry doing that.In November, the American people will show us which candidate has the broadest reach. Who finds them where they live? Who touches them where it matters? By visiting both the Democrats in Boston and the Republicans in New York, I intended to look at the theater of what each does, to see if it would lead me to understand a little bit more about the hearts and minds of the American people. I learned a lot about oratory in Boston from Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, in particular. In New York, I had the Bushes inside the hall and the demonstrators outside. I expected lots of theater.
One of the first things I noticed as I walked around this week was offstage, on the cover of Newsweek. President Bush, in a blue dress shirt that could also pass as a work shirt, is standing alone, with the words "No Excuses" emblazoned just below his chest.
I asked Elizabeth Roxas, former principal dancer at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, "If I were to play Bush, how would I exude the kind of toughness that's on that cover?" She said, "It leads from the chest. Even the way his arm is sort of separated from underneath his armpits - it's not closed in." It looks like he's going to reach for his guns.
The public has danced all over Mr. Bush's verbal gaffes for four years. It has become clearer here that it's not about the words.
Richard Slotkin, the author of "Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in 20th-Century America," explained to me how the cowboy gunslinger myth might fit with this political campaign.
"The thing that the cowboy knows, he knows instinctively," Mr. Slotkin said. "And everybody in the audience knows what it is. It's 'a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.' You are pitted against an enemy that is so merciless that it's kill or be killed."
By itself the interaction told viewers which man would be a more capable president.
On Sunday La Vanguardia published an interview with Carles Fontserè, an old Spanish leftist (now 88) from Civil War days who designed propaganda posters. He fled to France after the war was over, where he complains about being mistreated by the French, who weren't sure what to do with the horde of leftist refugees (some of them very dangerous people) and so locked them up in camps. That's where we start, in France in 1939 before the outbreak of World War II. I quote:
"INTERVIEWER: [...] Did you make it to Paris?
CF: Yes, with no money or papers. At the beginning, I was hungry, but when I got some pencils and paintbrushes I earned a good living drawing for various publications.
INT: Was there a cultural life in Nazi-occupied Paris?
CF: A great deal. Jean-Paul Sartre began to be known during those years, and Albert Camus expressly left Algeria for that Paris in order to present his works successfully. There was a lot of intellectual, artistic, and cultural life in Paris under the occupation!
INT: Clandestine?
CF: No! The Nazis organized free concerts in the streets of Paris. I came from a lousy concentration camp and I found music in the streets: marvelous!
INT: But they were Nazis!
CF: Look, the German soldiers entered Paris hand in hand with the French soldiers, and they loved Paris, and they protected it. The economic activity in France didn't change: there was electricity, telephones, everything. The head of the German General Staff in Paris, Hans Speidel, met with French artists and intellectuals like Cocteau, Guitry, Gallimard...In the streets, the German officers stepped off the sidewalks to let you pass. In the five years I was in Paris I never saw an armed German soldier in the streets. They didn't need to (carry arms)! They gave chocolate to the people in the streets.
INT: Wasn't there any resistance?
CF: Of course not. That's a myth, invented later by Gaullists and Communists. There was agreement, there was collaboration. According to what I saw, there were 40 million Petainist Frenchmen! The Germans respected the French army, and Petain, with that agreement, saved Paris and the French from destruction. It was intelligent and sensible.
The one good thing about the EU? The French and Germans deserve each other.
Bush, Republicans reduce John Kerry to a punch line (William Douglas, 9/03/04, Knight Ridder Newspapers)
Before a recent rally for President Bush in Las Cruces, N. M., campaign officials showed the crowd a video featuring John Kerry's shifting explanations of his stands on issues. The audience broke into laughter toward the end as a catchy theme from a popular `60s TV show accompanied the clip: "They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning/ No one you see is smarter than he." That tack was hardly unusual. In fact, on the campaign trail and at this week's Republican convention, Bush and other GOP speakers reduced Kerry to a punch line: a flip-flopping Boston Brahmin with a Senate record that's best used as joke fodder. [...]Kerry campaign officials aren't laughing. They say the Republican attempt to be funny at Kerry's expense has a vicious edge that often crosses the line. [...]
Experts on political humor say the zingers against Kerry serve two purposes: First, they allow Bush to go after his opponent without being seen as an attack dog.
"Humor has long been known as effective negative advertising and a way to deflect criticism upon the person making the negative attack because you laugh, if the joke is good," said Paul Gronke, the chairman of the political science department at Reed College in Portland, Ore. "Good political humor always has a biting edge to it."
The bite in the Kerry jokes, Gronke said, is designed to shrink Kerry, make him look un-presidential. "By bringing Kerry down a notch by not taking him seriously, this encourages the audience not to take Kerry seriously."
Second, using humor helps burnish Bush's image as the guy you'd like to have a beer with, said John Orman, a Fairfield University professor of politics and author of books on the role of celebrity and music in political campaigns.
"He wants to show that he's the affable, more approachable, more likable individual," Orman said. [...]
What's different about Bush's humor assaults on Kerry, Gronke and others say, is that it appears to be a big part of his campaign strategy.
81 per cent of Germans would vote for Kerry, poll shows (DPA, 1 September 2004)
Most Germans don't like US President George W. Bush and a poll released Wednesday showed a whopping 81 percent would vote for Democratic Party candidate Senator John Kerry.The Stern magazine poll showed just 8 percent of Germans would vote for Bush, with 11 percent saying they would be unwilling to cast a ballot for either Bush or Kerry.
Convention Helps Bush Gain Undecided Voters: Interviews among a small group show the message on steady leadership and the attacks on Kerry have solidified his standing. (Maria L. La Ganga, September 4, 2004, LA Times)
With its relentless reminders of Sept. 11 and some of the most aggressive speeches of the campaign, the Republican convention helped Bush solidify his standing as a steady leader who can help the country navigate a dangerous world, at least among a small group of undecided voters interviewed Friday. They were among the 5% of the electorate identified by a recent Times Poll as unsure about who to choose as president in November.For most of them, Bush largely came across as forceful and consistent during the four-day nominating convention in New York, and the majority finished the week either considering a Republican vote in November or pretty firmly in the president's column.
In addition to the convention, which was capped by the president's acceptance speech Thursday night, the undecided voters said they also were nudged by a barrage of negative ads about Kerry. The combination left many of them with a sense that the Democratic candidate could not make up his mind about questions facing the nation.
Walking back to genesis: If evolution could be re-run, how would the story end? In this exclusive extract from his latest book, The Ancestor's Tale, Richard Dawkins goes back in time to find out (Richard Dawkins, September 2, 2004, The Guardian)
It is a conceit of hindsight to see evolution as aimed towards some particular end point, such as ourselves. A historically minded swift, understandably proud of flight as self-evidently the premier accomplishment of life, might regard swiftkind - those spectacular flying machines with their swept-back wings, who stay aloft for a year at a time and even copulate in free flight - as the acme of evolutionary progress. If elephants could write history they might portray tapirs, elephant shrews, elephant seals and proboscis monkeys as tentative beginners along the main trunk road of evolution, taking the first fumbling steps but each - for some reason - never quite making it: so near yet so far. Elephant astronomers might wonder whether, on some other world, there exist alien life forms that have crossed the nasal rubicon and taken the final leap to full proboscitude.We are neither swifts nor elephants, we are people. As we wander in imagination through some long dead geologicial epoch, it is humanly natural to reserve a special warmth and curiosity for whichever otherwise ordinary species in that ancient landscape is our ancestor (it is an intriguingly unfamiliar thought that there is always one such species). It is hard to deny our human temptation to see this one species as "on the main line" of evolution, the others as supporting cast, walk-on parts, sidelined cameos.
EU wants explanation from Moscow on hostage storming (EU Business, 03 September 2004)
The EU refused Friday to rush to judgment on how Russian authorities acted in the bloody end to the hostage crisis in north Ossetia, but said it wants Moscow's explanation of the tragedy."It is premature now, without knowing the exact situation, to make a judgment on the way the Russian authorities acted," said Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency.
"We first have to evaluate the situation with the knowledge of all the details," he told reporters at the end of the first day of a two-day meeting of EU foreign ministers in the southern Netherlands.
But in a later statement Friday evening Bot said the EU will be seeking an explanation from Moscow.
"All countries in the world need to work together to prevent tragedies like this. But we also would like to know from the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened."
President Elect 2004 -- The Game (Douglas Kern, 09/02/2004, Tech Central Station)
President Elect 88 casts zero to three players in the role of campaign manager to the presidential nominees of the major parties and third parties. (Yes, zero players; the computer can simulate elections without human input.) You can choose from a set of over fifty prefabricated candidates from elections past, or create your own. Players can select any election from 1960 to 1988. At the outset of the game, the status of the economy, unemployment figures, the national mood, etc. must be provided to the computer -- or players can apply the historical information from the game's database. Based on that information, the computer gives you the initial polling data from Labor Day -- and you're off, buying commercial time, scheduling campaign stops, and strategizing for televised debates.President Elect 88 was surprisingly successful at predicting the outcome of the 1988 election. Although the game was released prior to the 1988 election, the game designers noted in the manual that Bush would probably beat any of his likely challengers by five to seven percentage points. Not a bad bit of prediction there. [...]
I was reminded of President Elect 88 while pouring over the latest polling data from the current election. Surely, I mused, my old game could predict the outcome of the 2004 Presidential campaign as well as these useless Internet pontificators, if not more so. [...]
Bush wins. Big. Almost always.Bush beats Kerry by an average of sixteen points. In fact, Kerry beat Bush in only one test run -- when Bush unwisely chose to make a diplomatic visit to a hostile country in October 1988, with disastrous results.
To make the experiment more interesting, I changed the parameters. I recreated Bush as a deformed hunchback with Tourette's syndrome. Result? Bush still wins in over fifty percent of the elections. I then gave Kerry superhuman powers of charm, eloquence, and stamina. Result? Bush still wins about half the time. Not until I jacked up unemployment while throttling back the mood of the country did Kerry win consistently.
So Kerry's best strategy is simple: cure cancer, give the Sermon on the Mount, and replace Bush with a look-alike chimpanzee. Otherwise, book the cheap caterer for the election party.
What's going on? It appears that President Elect 88 gives incumbents a huge amount of "credit" for economic growth, low inflation, and low unemployment. When these factors are coupled with reasonably good news during wartime, even Bozo the Clown will pull off an electoral landslide.
Minister cautions against U.S. insults (LES WHITTINGTON, 9/03/04, Toronto Star)
Canadians who casually insult the United States are putting jobs and the long-term economic health of this country at risk, Industry Minister David Emerson says.
Just heard some Democrat on Fox argue that the bounce in the TIME poll is misleading because the polling was done before the President's speech and it was so awful that it will drive down his numbers.
Kerry's personality may be his biggest obstacle (THOMAS FITZGERALD, 9/03/04, Knight Ridder Newspapers)
Swing voters don't like Sen. John Kerry much, one recent poll suggests, and that's just the latest survey pointing to a stubborn "personality gap" he suffers versus President Bush. Some political analysts think simple likability is the Democratic nominee's greatest challenge as the presidential campaign enters its two-month stretch run. [...]Consider:
_A Zogby/Williams Identity Poll last month found that 57.3 percent of undecided or persuadable voters would rather have a beer with Bush than Kerry (even though the president doesn't drink alcohol.) The same survey, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, found that 67 percent of undecided voters liked Bush - and 52 percent disliked Kerry, while nearly a third said they didn't know enough about him to say.
_A more whimsical poll taken in late August for the American Kennel Club found that people trust Bush more than Kerry to walk their dogs, by 51 percent to 37 percent.
Such indicators may seem irrelevant compared to war and peace, but they provide clues to voter behavior because, after all, people choose a person as much as an agenda when they vote for a president.
"People seem to feel more comfortable with Bush," said Sherry Bebich Jeffe, a professor of political communication at the University of Southern California. "It has become a critical mass, and it's dangerous for Kerry."
(1) A Popular President
(2) A Robust Economy
(3) An Incumbent Opponent
(4) A 60-40 Nation
(5) His Own Record
(6) His Lack of Ideas
(7) An Inept Campaign
then we'd slide the fact he's unlikable in around (8).
Bush's real strength (The Telegraph, 09/04/04)
To understand Mr Bush's appeal, consider his keynote speech in New York. It was, we were told, inspired by FDR, but its central theme - "a safer world, a more hopeful America" - owed at least as much to Ronald Reagan. President Reagan, too, was written off by his domestic and foreign critics, portrayed by British cartoonists as a trigger-happy buffoon.Yet he was one of the greatest figures of the post-war era. Where detractors saw a simpleton, keener observers saw a simple patriot who never allowed himself to become distracted from his two big themes: small government at home, military resolve abroad. On both questions, he was right, and he carried his country behind him by the force of his infectious optimism.
George W Bush understands this in his bones. Many years ago, when an interviewer put it to him that he was too dim to be president, he replied, with a twinkle in his eye: "That's what they said about Reagan."
Reagan-like, he has stuck to his two themes: carrying the fight to his country's foes while cutting taxes. He, too, communicates a cheerfulness that ordinary voters appreciate rather more than political commentators. In Fahrenheit 9/11, for example, Mr Bush is shown pledging to defeat the terrorists before returning to his golf swing. The scene is meant to indicate his unsuitability for office. Yet it is surely heartening to see a commander behaving with the nonchalance of Sir Francis Drake.
The same goes for Mr Bush's lack of nuance. European commentators winced at his phrase "axis of evil". Yet the concepts of good and evil mean more to American voters than to some Europeans.
Why Bush is America's natural leader, stupid (Charles Moore, 09/04/04, The Telegraph)
What single fact tells you more about George W Bush and American politics than any other? That he converted from his family's Anglicanism and became a Methodist.It is inconceivable that such a thing would happen in Britain. In the first place, Methodism has almost collapsed in this country. There are hardly any Methodists left here, let alone converts.
More to the point, the habit in Britain is the other way round. If you start life as a Methodist and then rise in the world socially, you tend to graduate ("convert" is much too strenuous a word) to Anglicanism. And even if, like Mr Bush, you wanted to distance yourself from your privileged upbringing, it would not occur to you to do so by becoming a Methodist. Buddhist, Ba'hai, Muslim even, but not a Methodist.
You could scarcely be more New England Anglican (or, as they call it, Episcopalian) posh than the Bush family. The reason the President is called George is that one of his great-grandfathers, George Herbert Walker, was named after George Herbert, perhaps the greatest poetic voice of Anglicanism ("Teach me, my God and King…" etc).
Those three names were duly given to the future George Bush senior at his baptism, and he passed the George and the Walker on to his son. The Bushes are Yale and Andover and Wall Street and all that: George W is the 13th cousin once removed of the Queen. Religion in those parts may be serious, but it is not worn on the sleeve.
Methodism was a purifying movement within Anglicanism. Eventually, it broke with its mother Church and claimed an independent existence as a cleaner, simpler, more personal faith, one that rejected worldly status. Bush junior's conversion follows that path - a turning away from personal failure (in his case drinking and getting nowhere) through a direct experience of God, a journey away from social grandeur to something that seemed more rugged, a journey from Connecticut to Texas.
No doubt this journey was and remains profound and sincere, but it was also brilliant politics. Mr Bush has the good fortune to be considered stupid by his opponents, so they don't study him properly. What he has done is not stupid at all: he has found a way of embodying and uniting the different strands of conservatism in America.
Bad and bored: Britain is sick and tired, there is no religion, no culture and no patriotism — and not even leisure can lighten our burden (Theodore Dalrymple, 9/04/04, The Spectator)
It has fallen to our generation...to create a population that is bored equally by work and leisure. (That, of course, is why ‘leisure management’ has become both an academic subject and a career.) When I meet patients who tell me that they are fed up with their work because it is so boring, and they wish they could stop working altogether, I ask them what they would like to do instead. The question comes like an unexpected thunderclap, or a flash of lightning in a darkened landscape: they’ve never thought about it, and when they do they are completely unable to answer. They realise for the first time that it is not so much work that bores them as existence.This underlying, or existential, boredom — and the desire to overcome it by whatever means — is a major cause of the epidemic of self-destructive, as well as antisocial, behaviour that has swept the Western world in the past few decades, Britain above all. In matters of self-destruction, in fact, we are in the vanguard. If gold medals had been awarded at the Olympics for senseless, self-destructive egotism, we’d have swept the board, gold, silver and bronze.
By and large, the struggle for existence, which once might have given a grim purpose to life, is over. You can’t really go hungry, whatever you do. On the other hand, it seems to millions of people that a life of labour will bring them very little more than would a life of laziness. Not only is the work unsatisfying in itself, having little or no intrinsic meaning, but it brings only marginal benefits from the point of view of standard of living. The dignity of labour is nothing, especially to people who inhabit the fantasy Hello! magazine world of Posh and Becks. To be busy, bored and poor is not much fun; in fact there are few worse fates.
Religion, except for a small minority, has long since ceased to give the transcendent meaning to existence that, for some reason as yet undiscovered, most men need. The Church of England has become social democracy at prayer, with the politics and prayer removed; the Pentecostal churches are flourishing in a small way, but not everyone can become a Holy Roller. Young Muslims of Pakistani origin have become entirely secular, except when it comes to mistreating women. No, religion is not a likely path out of our current existential impasse.
Culture — in the sense of belonging to a great tradition which one inherits and to which one does one’s small best to contribute in some way — is not a solution either. We now live in a culture of the present moment that specifically derides the achievements of the past and treats the latest thing as inevitably the best thing. There is therefore no transcendence in it, only trance and distraction.
Patriotism is as dead as religion as a source of transcendence or sense of purpose. I am not much of a flag-wagger myself, and I acknowledge that patriotism, whosever it might be, can all too easily turn into abject self-worship. Nevertheless, a sense of national achievement is a spur both to further achievement and individual self-respect, a quality in which the contemporary British are so obviously and conspicuously lacking.
What, then, is left? The day-to-day flux of existence, which is boring, banal and meaningless.
Medicare payments for U.S. elderly to rise 17 pct (Susan Heavey, 9/03/04, Reuters)
Older Americans will have to pay about 17 percent more next year for their government-run health insurance, U.S. officials announced on Friday.Starting in January, the elderly will pay $78.20 per month for non-hospital services, up $11.60 from $66.60 this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.
Most of the increase will cover the program's new prescription drug coverage and preventive services, including an initial physical exam and other tests, said Mark McClellan, head of the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.
The remaining amount, about 25 percent, will be used to help build up Medicare's trust fund, he said, adding that the higher upfront costs will help save money elsewhere.
"Medicare beneficiaries are saving money. They're paying a little more in premiums, but they're getting more savings in their out-of-pocket costs as a result," McClellan said.
But the premium increase is likely to renew controversy over the cost of the new Medicare law passed last year.
Snubbing the Tories: George W. Bush lets Michael Howard know that he doesn't appreciate the Tory leader's opportunism on Iraq. (Gerard Baker, 09/03/2004, Weekly Standard)
[T]he Bushies surely have a point.Trailing in British public opinion polls, Howard has been behaving in ways that look at best cynical, at worst, Kerryesque. When the House of Commons voted to authorize the Iraq war in March 2003, the then Tory number two was an enthusiastic backer. As the British public soured on the war in the ensuing months, Howard backpedaled furiously.
When a storm erupted over whether Blair misused intelligence on Iraqi WMDs to justify the war, Howard went into overdrive, accusing the prime minister (and by implication, the president) of lying.
When Blair was cleared of the charge of lying by no fewer than four inquiries, Howard refused to back down, and instead switched tactics, telling a British newspaper in July that if he had known then what he knows now he would not have voted for the use of force. He quickly went on to say, however, that he still thought the war was justified. Sound familiar? John Kerry couldn't have put it better.
The truth is the Tories have been opportunists about Iraq. They backed the war and lauded the efforts of British and American troops when it was going well, but since then have exploited every opportunity to undermine Bush's and Blair's defense of the war.
And there was something slightly unsettling about the way the Tories handled the Bush snub story. Howard seemed only too pleased to confirm it and issue a somber and courageous warning that no foreign power would stop him telling the truth.
My Attempts to Run for President: A computer game for political junkies. (DAVID ROBINSON, September 3, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
I'm not sure that The Political Machine will have wide appeal, but it does make a worthwhile afternoon's diversion. It models just under a year of general-election campaigning, during which you face off against a computer or a human opponent. Your choice of candidates ranges from Hillary and Arnold to FDR and Thomas Jefferson. Week to week, you fly your candidate from one state to the next giving speeches, raising money and launching ads. The programmers use 2000 Census data (and recent polling) to set up the party demographics and policy preferences of each state's electorate.Players (who serve as campaign managers) soon learn that their safest bet is to focus on the issues that will push independent voters their way in each state. Not that such a strategy is without its perils. You can tailor your message locally, but if you stray too far from your national position voters may reject you as, well, a flip-flopper.
As players fly around the map, states turn shades of red or blue depending on who is ahead. The brighter a state's color, the stronger the lead. As you might imagine, California tends to stand out in bright blue, Texas in bright red.
My main insight from playing the game was how important the Midwest is.
Faced With Poor Ratings, Networks Soul Search (BILL CARTER, 9/03/04, NY Times)
Dorrance Smith, the longtime former ABC News executive who is now a television consultant to the Republican National Convention, called Fox's dominance in the ratings this week "truly a seminal event," and said that that development could be interpreted as a serious threat to the identities of the broadcast news operations."It never ceases to amaze me how the networks can continue to rationalize their ongoing decline in both numbers and relevancy," Mr. Smith said. "The way that we and the Democrats have programmed the 10 p.m. hour has reduced their impact dramatically. By limiting their coverage, they are forced to show what the conventions have programmed, and it has reduced to a bare minimum their ability to react and opine."
Dan Rather, the CBS anchor, said that precisely that kind of stage managing had helped reduce the networks' interest in the conventions. His team, he said, was left to act less like journalists than like sports producers who show up at a prepackaged event and turn on their cameras.
"Actually, in sports you can do more," Mr. Rather said. "You can say the fullback missed a block. Here we don't even get to do that."
After beating the broadcast networks for the first time on Tuesday, Fox News dominated viewership from 10 to 11 p.m. on Wednesday, when Vice President Dick Cheney gave his acceptance speech. Fox not only pulled in more viewers than any individual broadcast network, with 5.918 million, but also attracted more viewers than CBS (2.6 million) and ABC (3.3 million) combined. NBC had 4.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
While many network news executives dismissed Fox's success as a function of its warmth toward the Republicans, many admitted that the size of the audience differential on Wednesday was startling.
"Any time you see a number of that magnitude you have to think about it," Neal Shapiro, the president of NBC News, said.
Voters find a hole in Bush's image (Stephen Brook, Guardian, 9/3/04)
George W Bush: a Dunkin' Donuts kind of guyWorks for me.
In an election where image is everything, George Bush may have a bit of brand polishing yet to do with a new survey showing voters associate him with the downmarket Dunkin' Donuts while they think John Kerry is a smooth Starbucks man. . . .But the politicians' detractors associated Mr Bush with brands they thought were outdated, such as McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. Mr Kerry was seen as expensive, like Starbucks, elite, like BMW, and lacking substance, like Motel 6, the hotel chain.
The Prompt and Nearly-Painless Path to the President's Ownership Society (Tom Giovanetti, 09/03/2004, Institute for Policy Innovation)
The President is right that Social Security must be transformed into an ownership system where workers actually own their accounts. Today the Social Security system has made promises to retirees that it cannot possibly fulfull. This is a real liability that must be dealt with somehow, and soon. With every year of inaction, the problem becomes bigger and the solution becomes more painful. Because bankruptcy of Social Security and the impoverishment of America's seniors is not an option, clearly some administration and some Congress will have to fundamentally reform Social Security.Fortunately, there is an almost painless way to permanently fix Social Security and to create the Ownership Society that the President envisions. That way is IPI's Progressive Proposal for Social Security Personal Accounts, which has been introduced as legislation as the Ryan-Sununu bill. This plan gives all Americans the opportunity to put about half of their payroll taxes into personal accounts which they own and control. The transition to such personal accounts would be paid for through a combination of federal spending restraint and government borrowing.
Reasonable spending restraints coupled with federal borrowing is the least painful way to gain the enormous benefits of personal accounts. The only other options, massive tax increases and significant benefit cuts, would be much more painful to the economy and are political suicide to any politician who embraces them.
You won’t be hearing much at the Republican Convention about jobs and wages, because job growth has stalled and wages are stagnant. But you will hear about something Republicans are now calling the "Ownership Society." The notion is to expand private ownership through more tax cuts on capital investments, tax credits for saving and privatized Social Security.Sounds nice, but here’s the problem: The Republican rhetoric assumes most Americans can save and invest.
Critics say they saw a 'subliminal' cross in the GOP podiums and they are upset and offended. (RNS, 9/03/04)
Some offended observers saw Christian crosses in the wood panels of lecterns at the Republican National Convention, but others say these critics are cross-eyed. The debate intensified Thursday when The New York Times ran a front-page photo of Vice President Dick Cheney standing behind a lectern that had multicolored panels forming an image that some are convinced is a Christian cross. To Cheney's right is a smaller lectern, in which contrasting colored patterns more clearly intersect in a cross-like pattern.
Speaking on CNN, Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist, dismissed the notion that Republicans are sending a subliminal message of Christian symbolism. "My God, where do they come up with this stuff?" Rove said.
Texas surgeon televises his own liposuction surgery, seeking to promote use of adult stem cells (AP, 8/27/04)
An overweight plastic surgeon performed liposuction on himself on camera to promote the potential use of stem cells that can be harvested in such operations.Dr. Robert Ersek, 66, who conducted the operation with the help of liposuction's French inventor, said he would encourage patients to save their liposuctioned fat from now on. Dr. Yves Gerard Illouz, who was in town for a plastic surgery seminar and who at one point during Ersek's operation advised him on his technique, agreed.
"This will be the future," Illouz said of stem cells. He said that in five years, adult stem cells derived from tissue, such as fat, and other organs will be successful in fighting disease and injuries. Illouz performed the first liposuction in 1977.
Adult stem cells are different from embryonic stem cells, which are controversial and involve the destruction of fertilized human eggs.
Campaign 2004: Bush Opens Double-Digit Lead: TIME Poll: Among likely voters, 52% would vote for President George Bush, while 41% would vote for John Kerry and 3% would vote for Ralph Nader (TIME, 9/03/04)
For the first time since the Presidential race became a two person contest last spring, there is a clear leader, the latest TIME poll shows. If the 2004 election for President were held today, 52% of likely voters surveyed would vote for President George W. Bush, 41% would vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry, and 3% would vote for Ralph Nader, according to a new TIME poll conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2. Poll results are available on TIME.com and will appear in the upcoming issue of TIME magazine, on newsstands Monday, Sept. 6. [...]Methodology: The TIME Poll was conducted August 31 – September 2 by telephone among a random sample of 1,316 adults, including 1,128 reported registered voters and 926 likely voters. The margin of error for registered voters is +/- 3% points, and +/- 4% points for likely voters. Schulman, Ronca, & Bucuvalas (SRBI) Public Affairs conducted the poll, and more complete results are attached.
MORE:
BUSH: 'I'LL NEVER RELENT' (DEBORAH ORIN, 9/03/04, NY Post)
Pollster Frank Luntz said Bush did very well with his MSNBC focus group of 21 swing voters in the much-watched state of Ohio — 17 had a positive reaction to the speech and only four were negative."This was a home run — that's the second strongest positive reaction I've ever had to a speech. Only Al Gore in 2000 did better," said Luntz, adding that 13 of his 21 voters switched to Bush from "undecided" or Kerry after the speech.
If rules of attraction decided the presidential election, President George W. Bush would win in a landslide, a new poll says.Some 67 percent, or more than two-thirds of American respondents believe Bush is more attractive than his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, says the poll by the independent global market research company GMI.
Lebanese Parliament extends pro-Syrian president's term (The Associated Press, Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service, 9/03/04, Ha'aretz)
On Thursday, the UN Security Council narrowly adopted a resolution warning against outside interference in Beirut's presidential election.The council voted 9-0 with six abstentions, the minimum vote possible, to approve the U.S-drafted resolution after the United States and co-sponsor France agreed under pressure not to mention Syria by name.
The resolution, which called for "free and fair presidential elections," aimed to head off the move to extend Lahoud's term.
"We believe Lebanon should be allowed to determine its own future and assume control of its own territory. Yet the Lebanese people are still unable to exercise their rights as a free people to make those choices and to take those steps as a nation," U.S. Ambassador John Danforth told the council before the results of the parliamentary vote were known.
"What the Lebanese people and we have witnessed over the past week in terms of Syrian actions is a crude mockery of this principle. It is clear that Lebanese parliamentarians have been pressured and even threatened by Syria and its agents to make them comply," Danforth said.
This is the first Security Council resolution clearly directed against an Arab state.
If a technical analyst were to dissect this Presidential Election Winner futures tracking chart, it might look something like this.
The explanation would be that Bush has bounced off the classic double bottom (green line) and made it thru the larger downward trend line (red) that's been in place since January. If 'he' can get through the near term resistance at 59, retest it and move on, that should become support.
On the other hand, if you're a betting man, maybe these numbers are simpler to understand.
Either way, if the current momentum continues for the next 59 days or so, Orrin might get his 50 states after all. Wanna bet?
Mr Churchill - Peace in our hearts (The Guardian, September 4, 1939)
In this solemn hour it is a consolation to recall and to dwell upon our repeated efforts for peace. All have been ill-starred, but all have been faithful and sincere. That is of the highest moral value -(her, hear), - and not only moral value but of practical value at the present time because of the whole-hearted concurrence of scores of millions of men and women whose comradeship and brotherhood is indispensable. That is the only foundation upon which the trials and tribulations of modern war can be endured and surmounted.This moral conviction alone affords that ever-fresh resilience which renews the strength and energy of peoples in long and doubtful and dark days. Outside the storms of war might blow and the land may be lashed with the fury of its gale, but in our own hearts this Sunday morning there is peace. (Cheers.) Our hands may be active, but our consciences are at rest. (Cheers)
Let us not mistake the gravity of the task which lies before us, the severity of the ordeal to which we shall not be found unequal.
We must expect many disappointments and many unpleasant surprises but we may be sure that the task which we have accepted is one not beyond the compass of the strength of the British Empire and the French Republic.
Thankfulness The Prime Minister said it was a sad day, and that indeed is true, but it seems to me there is another note which may be present at this moment.
That is a feeling of thankfulness that if these trials were to come upon our island there is a generation of Britons here now ready to prove it is not unworthy of those great men the fathers of our land.
This is no question of fighting for Danzig or fighting for Poland. We are fighting to save the world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny -(Cheers)-and in defence of all that is most sacred to man.
This is no war for domination, for imperial aggrandisement for material gain, no war to shut any country out of its sunlight and means of progress. It is a war pure in its inherent quality, a war to establish on unimpeachable rocks the rights of the individual and it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man.
Perhaps it may seem a paradox that a war undertaken in the name of liberty and right should require as a necessary part of its progress the surrender for the time being of so many dearly valued liberties and rights. In these last two days the House of Commons has been voting dozens of bills which hand over to the Executive our most dearly valued personal liberties.
We are sure that these liberties will be in hands which will not abuse them, which will use them for no class or party interests- (Cheers), -which will cherish and guard them, and we look forward to the day, surely and confidently we look forward to the day, when our liberties and rights will be restored to us and when we shall be able to share them with peoples to whom such blessings are unknown. (Loud cheers.)
At the time of this speech, Churchill was eight months away from becoming Prime Minister. He was largely isolated from, and scorned by, most of the intellectual and journalistic elites of the day, who saw him as clever with words but lacking in judgment.
* The Bush staff called that stage last night the "pitcher's mound"
A dog fight for the presidency (Frank Rich, September 03, 2004, NY times)
Only in an election year ruled by fiction could a sissy who used Daddy's connections to escape Vietnam turn an actual war hero into a girlie-man.
Fallout From Democrat's Address Still Unknown (John F. Harris, September 3, 2004, Washington Post)
Despite signs of GOP ambivalence, a focus group conducted with 17 independent voters in Ohio by GOP pollster Frank Luntz for MSNBC drew a mostly positive response. These voters, Luntz said, did not care for Miller's attacks on the Democratic Party because they were too "broad-brush," but the attacks on Kerry resonated because Miller anchored his criticism in specific arguments about Kerry's record."They liked facts," Luntz said. "They're not responding to style. They're asking for a level of detail."
The group, in which voters turned dials to register reaction to each line of the speech, thought the most "memorable" passage of Miller's speech was his recitation of weapons systems Kerry supposedly voted against, then asked how such a man could lead the armed forces. "U.S. forces armed with what?" Miller asked. "Spitballs?" [...]
Doug Schoen, a pollster for President Bill Clinton, said the Miller speech was effective, since "it is keeping the focus on Kerry" and is preventing the nominee from changing the subject to more promising topics, such as his agenda or his critique of Bush. "If this election is a debate about John Kerry" and his war service or national security record, Schoen said, "he's not going to win."
Tim Hibbitts, an independent pollster in Oregon, said that despite negative commentary from the "chattering class," he suspects the speech "may have connected with middle-American voters who are concerned about security." Even so, he believes the novelty of a Democratic endorsement of Bush would have been more effective if delivered with a more-in-sorrow-than-anger tone, and he cautioned that any impact in either direction will be short-lived: "I don't think in a week it's going to matter diddly."
Bush Offers Best Wishes for Clinton (AP, 9/03/04)
President Bush on Friday wished Bill Clinton "best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery.""He's is in our thoughts and prayers," Bush said at a campaign rally.
Bush's audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them.
Now Indians are like God for Bush (The Times of India, 8/31/04)
Several leading Indian Americans are part of a special committee announced by the Bush-Cheney campaign to re-elect President George Bush in the forthcoming November 2 presidential polls.The newly constituted 75-member Asian Pacific American National Steering Committee (APANSC) is headed by Labour Secretary Elaine Chao.
The Indian Americans include the Republican Party's Zach Zachariah, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a cardiologist and a leading fundraiser; Raghavendra Vijayanagar, also a heart surgeon in Tampa, Florida, and founder and chairman of the Indian American Republican Council; Joseph Melookaran, a chartered accountant and businessman from Overland Park, Kansas; and Pakistani American Ahmed Kabani, a Miami-based hotel and tourism industry businessman.
Mad as Hell (Susan Estrich, SEPTEMBER 1, 2004)
[M]ost of all, activists Democrats are angry. As one who lived through an August like this, 16 years ago -- replete with rumors that were lies, which the Bush campaign claimed they had nothing to do with and later admitted they had planted -- I'm angry, too. I've been to this movie. I know how it works. Lies move numbers.Remember the one about Dukakis suffering from depression after he lost the governorship? (Dukakis not crazy, more at 11.) We lost six points over that lie, planted by George W.'s close friend and colleague in the 1988 campaign, Lee Atwater. Or how about the one about Kitty Dukakis burning a flag at an antiwar demonstration, another out-and-out lie, which the Bush campaign denied having anything to do with, except that it turned out to have come from a United States senator via the Republican National Committee? Lee Atwater later apologized to me for that, too, on his deathbed. Did I mention that Lee's wife is connected to the woman running the Swift Boat campaign?
Never again, we said then.
Not again, Democrats are saying now.
What do you do, Democrats keep asking each other.
The answer is not pretty, but everyone knows what it is.
In 1988, in the days before the so-called independent groups, the candidate called the shots. To Michael Dukakis' credit, depending on how you look at it, he absolutely refused to get into the gutter, even to answer the charges. His theory, like that of some on the Kerry staff, was that answering such charges would only elevate them, give them more attention than they deserved. He thought the American people wanted to hear about issues, not watch a mud-wrestling match. In theory, he was right. In practice, the sad truth is that smears work -- that if you throw enough mud, some of it is bound to stick.
You can't just answer the charges. You can't just say it ain't so.
You have to fight fire with fire, mud with mud, dirt with dirt.
The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we're not mean enough. Dukakis wasn't. I wasn't. I don't particularly like destroying people. I got into politics because of issues, not anger. But too much is at stake to play by Dukakis rules, and lose again.
Feminists Compare Bush's 2000 Election Victory to 'Savage Rape' (Marc Morano, September 02, 2004, CNSNews.com)
A featured performer at a National Organization for Women rally accused President Bush of having "savagely raped " women "over and over" by allegedly stealing the 2000 presidential election.Poet Molly Birnbaum read aloud to a crowd of feminists gathered in New York's Central Park on Wednesday night, as part of a NOW event dubbed "Code Red: Stop the Bush Agenda Rally."
"Imagine a way to erase that night four years ago when you (President Bush) savagely raped every pandemic woman over and over with each vote you got, a thrust with each state you stole," Birnbaum said from the podium. (If something is pandemic, it affects many people or a number of countries.)
"A smack with each bill you passed, a tear with each right you took until you left me disenfranchised with hands shackled and voice restrained. Thanks for that night, Mr. President, I can barely remember my tomorrows," Birnbaum said to applause.
Here's your debate question: Sir, if you had been in Vladimir Putin's shoes, and al Qaeda had taken over an American school, would you have ordered that the school be taken by force?
Bush's camp may cut 1 debate (Billy House, Sept. 3, 2004, Ariziona Republic)
President Bush's campaign won't say for sure whether he will agree to the three debates proposed by the independent Commission on Presidential Debates, or if a Republican strategist was right this week when he said the Bush campaign would agree to only two debates.The commission, without a formal agreement by the Bush camp, set debates for Sept. 30 in Coral Gables, Fla.; Oct. 8 in St. Louis; and Oct. 13 in Tempe. A vice presidential debate between incumbent Dick Cheney and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's running mate, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, was set for Oct. 5 in Cleveland.
GOP strategist Scott Reed was quoted by the Reuter news agency this week as saying the Bush camp's position is that "two debates are sufficient and will not dominate the entire fall schedule."
"Three debates would have a tendency to be a little overbearing on your campaign strategy and tactics," Reed was quoted as saying.
Man charged in farmyard romp with pig (Tinuola Awopetu, 9/02/04, Court TV)
Austin Gullette denies the crime, but police in Ouachita, La., say they have the right man.They've charged Gullete with having sex with his sister's pig.
According to Major Royce Toney, with the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office, Gullette's sister caught the 45-year-old man in the act Aug. 30.
"She heard her pig squealing around 11 p.m. and went out to investigate," Toney said.
The woman reportedly observed her brother engaging in intercourse with her Vietnamese potbelly pig, P-Pie. When she confronted Gullette, he fled into the woods, she said.
THE GOP HIJACKS 9/11: The Republicans have exploited 9/11 with the hope that voters will abandon rational thought and rally around a "war president." (The Editors, The Nation)
Actually, no hijacking was required. As the President's speech last night made crystal clear, the choice in this election is between those who would radically transform the Middle East--in the manner that we did first our own South, then the Axis powers and then the Iron Curtain nations--and those who are not willing--perhaps with ample reason--to impose the End of History and its Western values on the Middle East. The President's call to mission is based expressly in Judeo-Christian faith, the principles of the Founding, and American history. It logically then appeals most to those who believe that these are all good things. But the Left, which is and always has been quite alienated from them, if not outright hostile, must have little reason to follow a policy that derives from them.
Past conflicts suggest that there will be a fairly substantial pool of people for Mr. Kerry to draw upon if he takes his candidacy into open opposition to the project to liberate and liberalize the Middle East. He succeeded in the Vietnam War, just as Republicans succeeded in Korea, ending wars with foes still in the field and millions oppressed. The gauze of memory makes us forget that the Civil War, WWI, and WWII ended the same way, though with more general consent from the broad electorate and political class.
Were Senator Kerry to enunciate a clear policy of isolation from the pathologies of the Middle East but dress it up in the language of multicultural humility and focussing on domestic problems he could certainly rally the Democratic Party faithful and whatever remains of the paleocon/libertarian Right, guaranteeing that the election would at least not be a complete blowout. It would make for a classic showdown between the Left, which is driven by emotion and feelings, and the Right, which is driven by faith and ideas. But there are two risks for the Senator in this strategy--the first is that for all the talk of his intelligence and George Bush's stupidity, in an election that would be fought on such fundamental ideological plains Mr. Bush has a huge advantage in his capacity for oratorical inspiration, an ability Mr. Kerry has never demonstrated, the second is that if he loses the election and the liberalization project succeeds to any degree he will be despised in historical memory, the ultimate fate of those who opposed the Civil War, WWII and the Cold War. The test for the Senator then is whether he has the courage of his lifelong convictions and is willing to risk his reputation and the cohesion of our society in a fight to prevent our further intervention against Islamicism. He's never seemed a man of much moral courage but the increasing desperation of his candidacy might force him to such an extreme.
MORE:
Sometimes a strategist just has to sit back and gasp (Dick Morris, 9/03/04, Jewish World Review)
UNTIL President Bush began his speech on the final night of the Republican National Convention, the goal of the United States' anti-terror policy was perceived by a largely supportive public as a bid to assure safety. With a rhetorical flourish worthy of the great speeches of all time, George W. Bush has transformed the war into a battle for liberty.In a speech that was at once eloquent and substantive, sensitive and dynamic, profound and familiar, Bush has risen to a level few presidents have ever reached.
Sometimes a strategist just has to sit back and gasp. Occasionally, a seasoned political observer needs to realize that he has seen something extraordinary. Tonight, Bush made me feel like that.
The choices for the US electoral are confusing in the sense that both Bush and his main rival for the presidency, John Kerry, hold similar positions regarding America's handling of situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, at the same time, both candidates also present a clear choice. Bush is about unilateralism, and about highly divisive resolve to create an American emporium without calling it so. Kerry, on the contrary, wants to reinstate the multilateral frame of mind and modus operandi, which, during the Cold War years, enabled the US to create a world order that was definitely superior to that which the Soviet Union had to offer. The continued resilience of that politico-economic order continues to serve as the ultimate accolade to the US ingenuity of the post-World War II era. Even under Kerry, the US does not have to foreswear unilateralism. No US president ever did that - it was always an option under extreme circumstances. At the same time, no US president flaunted it in the face of the international community. Only under Bush has unilateralism become America's way of dealing with the world on a regular basis.There are also stylistic differences between Bush and Kerry that were reflected during their respective political conventions. The Democratic convention, with a few exceptions, followed positive themes, and addressed major issues and Kerry's solutions for them. On the contrary, the third night of the Republican convention will go down in the history of such events as hitting a new low in terms of vituperative and malicious attacks on Kerry, his leadership, and his competence to be the commander-in-chief, and in terms of accentuating the politics of fear. Come to think of it, "politics of fear" has been a recurring theme of the Bush administration. Even in his acceptance speech of the last night of the convention, the reminder of the fear of that dark day of September 2001 was evident.
The moment is getting closer when the American people have to decide which style of dealing with global problems they prefer for the next four years: a US that would lead through multilateralism and persuasion, or one that would act as a bully and be perceived as such worldwide; a leader who will emphasize politics of inclusion of hope, or one who would not hesitate using fear to make a point.
At Your Finger TIPS: Get a hold on high inflation rates with treasury inflation-protected securities. (Scott Bernard Nelson, October 2004, Entrepreneur)
With traditional Treasury bills, bonds and notes, the interest and principal are fixed once you make the investment. Not so with TIPS. In the case of inflation-protected Treasuries, the interest rate is fixed from the time of purchase, but the principal changes in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).Say, for example, you earned 2 percent on $10,000 worth of TIPS in year one of an investment. If the CPI increased 4 percent in that time, then the next year, you'd still earn 2 percent on your investment—but the interest would be calculated from a base of $10,400. If we entered into a period of high inflation, the principal amount would move rapidly higher and protect your purchasing power.
There's just one big problem with TIPS. The interest rate you have to accept to get inflation protection is substantially smaller than you'd find with traditional Treasuries. If the going rate on 10-year TIPS is 2.25 percent, and the rate on traditional Treasuries is 5 percent, inflation would have to average 2.75 percent over the next decade for you to come out ahead with inflation indexing.
Even so, it's worth considering TIPS for at least a portion of your fixed-income portfolio. Consider it a hedge against higher inflation, if nothing else.
Text: President Bush's Acceptance Speech to the Republican National Convention (September 2, 2004)
The text of President George Bush's speech at the Republican National Convention: [...]This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism, and you know where I stand.
(APPLAUSE)
Three days after September the 11th, I stood where Americans died, in the ruins of the twin towers.
BUSH: Workers in hard hats were shouting to me, "Whatever it takes." A fellow grabbed me by the arm, and he said, "Do not let me down." Since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America -- whatever it takes.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: USA. USA. USA.
BUSH: So we have fought the terrorists across the Earth, not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake.
BUSH: Our strategy is clear. We have tripled funding for homeland security and trained half a million first responders because we are determined to protect our homeland.
We are transforming our military and reforming and strengthening our intelligence services. We are staying on the offensive, striking terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home.
(APPLAUSE)
And we are working to advance liberty in the broader Middle East, because freedom will bring a future of hope and the peace we all want. And we will prevail. [...]
I am proud that our country remains the hope of the oppressed and the greatest force for good on this Earth.
(APPLAUSE)
Others understand the historic importance of our work. The terrorists know. They know that a vibrant, successful democracy at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their radical ideology of hate.
(APPLAUSE)
They know that men and women with hope and purpose and dignity do not strap bombs on their bodies and kill the innocent.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear. And they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.
(APPLAUSE)
I believe in the transformational power of liberty. The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.
As the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq seize the moment, their example will send a message of hope throughout a vital region.
Palestinians will hear the message that democracy and reform are within their reach and so is peace with our good friend, Israel.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: Young women across the Middle East will hear the message that their day of equality and justice is coming. Young men will hear the message that national progress and dignity are found in liberty, not tyranny and terror.
Reformers and political prisoners and exiles will hear the message that their dream of freedom cannot be denied forever. And as freedom advances, heart by heart, and nation by nation, America will be more secure and the world more peaceful.
(APPLAUSE)
America has done this kind of work before, and there have always been doubters. In 1946, 18 months after the fall of Berlin to allied forces, a journalist wrote in the New York Times wrote this: "Germany is a land in an acute stage of economic, political and moral crisis. European capitals are frightened. In every military headquarters, one meets alarmed officials doing their utmost to deal with the consequences of the occupation policy that they admit has failed," end quote.
BUSH: Maybe that same person is still around, writing editorials.
(APPLAUSE)
Fortunately, we had a resolute president named Truman who, with the American people, persevered, knowing that a new democracy at the center of Europe would lead to stability and peace. And because that generation of Americans held firm in the cause of liberty, we live in a better and safer world today.
(APPLAUSE)
The progress we and our friends and allies seek in the broader Middle East will not come easily or all at once.
BUSH: Yet Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of liberty to transform lives and nations. That power brought settlers on perilous journeys, inspired colonies to rebellion, ended the sin of slavery, and set our nation against the tyrannies of the 20th century.
We were honored to aid the rise of democracy in Germany and Japan, Nicaragua and Central Europe and the Baltics, and that noble story goes on.
I believe that America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century. I believe that millions in the Middle East plead in silence for their liberty. I believe that given the chance, they will embrace the most honorable form of government ever devised by man.
I believe all these things because freedom is not America's gift to the world; it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: This moment in the life of our country will be remembered. Generations will know if we kept our faith and kept our word. Generations will know if we seized this moment and used it to build a future of safety and peace. The freedom of many and the future security of our nation now depend on us.
And tonight, my fellow Americans, I ask you to stand with me.
(APPLAUSE)
In the last four years -- in the last four years, you and I have come to know each other. Even when we don't agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: You may have noticed I have a few flaws, too. People sometimes have to correct my English.
(LAUGHTER)
I knew I had a problem when Arnold Schwarzenegger started doing it.
(LAUGHTER)
Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called "walking."
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
Now and then I come across as a little too blunt, and for that we can all thank the white-haired lady sitting right up there.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
One thing I have learned about the presidency is that whatever shortcomings you have, people are going to notice them; and whatever strengths you have, you're going to need them.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: These four years have brought moments I could not foresee and will not forget. I've tried to comfort Americans who lost the most on September the 11th: people who showed me a picture or told me a story so I would know how much was taken from them.
I have learned first-hand that ordering Americans into battle is the hardest decision even when it is right. I have returned the salute of wounded soldiers, some with a very tough road ahead, who say they were just doing their job. I've held the children of the fallen who are told their dad or mom is a hero, but would rather just have their dad or mom.
I've met with parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag and said a final goodbye to a soldier they loved. I am awed that so many have used those meetings to say that I am in their prayers and to offer encouragement to me.
Where does that strength like that come from? How can people so burdened with sorrow also feel such pride? It is because they know their loved one was last seen doing good because they know that liberty was precious to the one they lost.
BUSH: And And in those military families, I have seen the character of a great nation: decent and idealistic and strong.
The world saw that spirit three miles from here, when the people of this city faced peril together and lifted a flag over the ruins and defied the enemy with their courage.
My fellow Americans, for as long as our country stands, people will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: Here buildings fell, and here a nation rose.
(APPLAUSE)
BUSH: We see America's character in our military, which finds a way or makes one. We see it in our veterans, who are supporting military families in their days of worry. We see it in our young people, who have found heroes once again.
We see that character in workers and entrepreneurs, who are renewing our economy with their effort and optimism.
And all of this has confirmed one belief beyond doubt: Having come this far, our tested and confident nation can achieve anything.
(APPLAUSE)
To everything we know there is a season -- a time for sadness, a time for struggle, a time for rebuilding.
BUSH: And now we have reached a time for hope. This young century will be liberty's century.
(APPLAUSE)
By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America.
Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America. And tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed.
(APPLAUSE)
Now we go forward, grateful for our freedom, faithful to our cause, and confident in the future of the greatest nation on Earth.
May God bless you, and may God continue to bless our great country.
My father was the last president of a great generation. A generation of Americans who stormed beaches, liberated concentration camps and delivered us from evil.Some never came home.
Those who did put their medals in drawers, went to work, and built on a heroic scale ... highways and universities, suburbs and factories, great cities and grand alliances -- the strong foundations of an American Century.
Now the question comes to the sons and daughters of this achievement...
What is asked of us?
This is a remarkable moment in the life of our nation. Never has the promise of prosperity been so vivid. But times of plenty, like times of crisis, are tests of American character.
Prosperity can be a tool in our hands -- used to build and better our country. Or it can be a drug in our system -- dulling our sense of urgency, of empathy, of duty.
Our opportunities are too great, our lives too short, to waste this moment.
So tonight we vow to our nation ...
We will seize this moment of American promise.
We will use these good times for great goals.
We will confront the hard issues -- threats to our national security, threats to our health and retirement security -- before the challenges of our time become crises for our children.
And we will extend the promise of prosperity to every forgotten corner of this country.
To every man and woman, a chance to succeed. To every child, a chance to learn. To every family, a chance to live with dignity and hope.
For eight years, the Clinton/Gore administration has coasted through prosperity.
And the path of least resistance is always downhill.
But America's way is the rising road.
This nation is daring and decent and ready for change.
Our current president embodied the potential of a generation. So many talents. So much charm. Such great skill. But, in the end, to what end? So much promise, to no great purpose.
Little more than a decade ago, the Cold War thawed and, with the leadership of Presidents Reagan and Bush, that wall came down.
But instead of seizing this moment, the Clinton/Gore administration has squandered it. We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence.
Our military is low on parts, pay and morale.
If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report ... Not ready for duty, sir.
This administration had its moment.
They had their chance. They have not led. We will.
The Ownership Society (Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., September 3, 2004, Mises.org)
Are you already fed up with hearing about the "Ownership Society" that Mr. Bush wants to create? [...][T]he Ownership Society is a massive effort at question begging. It says nothing about the main debate over private property. It does not limit the government's control over what you own, or even suggest there ought to be limits.
Nor does it establish a principle concerning the justice of ownership, as is
clear from the first application cited by Bush administration spokesmen:
housing. The idea is that everyone should own a home. And if a person can't
buy it? The government will take money from others and give it to him. Thus
is one person's ownership secured only by robbing other people.Consider the words from a White House Fact Sheet on the topic from June 17,
2002, as discovered by James Bovard. "The single biggest barrier to
homeownership," it reads, "is accumulating funds for a down payment."And thus does the Bush administration support every manner of housing
subsidy and free-credit scheme to guarantee that all people can own right
now the most expensive good that they will ever purchase. Might this be one
reason we face a mortgage bubble, rampant delinquencies, and a housing
financial crisis?Or consider another Bush-promoted piece of "ownership": your retirement
funds. No, he is not planning to give you back the money the government has
already taken, except through a continuing promise to put you on the dole at
the age of 65. Instead, he wants to give you "ownership" over non-existent
funds by permitting the government to channel Social Security money into
stocks (while incurring trillions in new debt). It's a financially unviable
scheme to avoid the only real solution to the Social Security crisis: cut
the liabilities and end the program.
The "ownership society" is the new domestic message at the Republican National Convention. It includes a proposal to let workers put some of their Social Security taxes into personal stock accounts. According to theory, these investments would grow handsomely over the years. Workers could then retire with more money than that boring old Social Security program would have paid out.Liberals squawk loudest at any plan to privatize Social Security, but conservatives are the ones who should be screaming their heads off. Do conservatives really want the federal government getting involved in the investment decisions of American workers?
The Old Right fought the good fight when it opposed Social Security and the New Deal in the first place, but their borderline psychotic belief that they can still get rid of the massively popular social safety net makes them risible.
August Unemployment Dips to 5.4 Percent (Reuters, September 03, 2004)
The U.S. job market brightened in August as employers added 144,000 workers to their payrolls and hiring totals for the two prior months were revised up, the Labor Department reported on Friday.With the economy growing in importance as an issue in November presidential elections, the department said the August unemployment rate dropped to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent in July. It was the lowest rate since a matching 5.4 percent in October 2001 and was certain to be cited by President Bush as a sign that his tax cuts have helped stimulate economic activity.
Rate Hikes: Enough Already!: Tightening monetary policy to fight inflation seemed like a good idea six months ago -- but not now, when hiring and growth are slowing (Christopher Farrell, 9/02/04, Business Week)
Today, despite oil bouncing nearing $50 a barrel, the core inflation data (that is, minus the volatile energy and food components) is coming in at a remarkably tame pace. For instance, the core personal consumption expenditure deflator (PCE) rose by a mere 0.1% in July, following average monthly gains of nearly 0.2% since the beginning of the year. The core CPI also gained a mere 0.1% after months of 0.2% increases.The producer price index? That inflation gauge has registered down in recent months. Bond yields have tumbled lower. Indeed, in a twist that has stunned the sagest of forecasters, bonds have substantially outperformed stocks so far this year, with the Lehman Brothers U.S. Treasury index hitting a total return of 2.2%, vs. a -4.2% return in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.
The bottom line: Inflation isn't coming back anytime soon. The Fed will probably hike its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point, to 1.75%, during its next monetary policymaking meeting in late September. But with the core PCE rate running at 1.5% year-over-year and the core CPI at 1.8% -- both well within the comfort zone of America's central bank and Wall Street before oil-induced visions of inflation past -- the time for the Fed to end its tightening cycle is near.
John Zogby, the first to predict “The race is Kerry’s to lose,” tells Wall $treet Week with FORTUNE viewers that investors are moving in Bush”s direction to Kerry’s peril. (Zogby.com, September 03, 2004)
As Republican delegates say goodbye to the glitter and fanfare of Madison Square Garden, self-identified investor voters say they now favor President Bush over John Kerry by an eleven point spread (49% vs. 38%) according to a Zogby/Wall $treet Week with FORTUNE poll conducted on August 30th through September 2nd.In tonight’s post RNC Convention episode of PBS’s Wall $treet Week with FORTUNE, Zogby will be interviewed by Karen Gibbs, W$WwF co-anchor, where he will announce that President Bush now has the advantage of a double-digit lead among self-identified Investor Class voters. Of those voters who identify themselves as owning stock, 54% say they would vote for Bush compared to 34% for Kerry’s 20 point difference.
What's next for Bush-Kerry race: Republicans have momentum as campaign moves into final phase. (Brad Knickerbocker, 9/03/04, The Christian Science Monitor)
There were no surprises in the speech, no dramatic announcements of new programs or initiatives. But the address was generally well-reviewed by political observers."Bush was confident and presidential," says John Allen Williams, professor of political science at Loyola University Chicago. "I think he moved his ball ahead quite a ways."
"The Republicans clearly have the momentum now, and they will try to maintain it with attacks on Sen. Kerry's voting record on defense issues," says Dr. Williams. "Kerry would surely rather talk about economic, environmental, and health[care] issues."
"This race is far from over," political analyst Charlie Cook writes in National Journal this week. "But there is no doubt that Kerry has suffered a loss of momentum."
If the Democratic National Convention, and especially John Kerry's appearance surrounded by his combat "band of brothers," looked back at the Vietnam War, the Republican event focused on the ongoing war on terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Speaking on Bush's behalf was retired Army General Tommy Franks, who led coalition troops in both countries. Bush, he said, "is the leader we can count on to make the tough decisions."
"Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are history, more than 50 million people have been liberated, and democracy is coming to the broader Middle East," Bush said. "Free governments in the Middle East will fight terrorists instead of harboring them, and that helps us keep the peace."
The next major step between now and voting day will be the presidential debates, which are yet to be negotiated and scheduled.
"Given the underlying attitudes among voters, I think that the debates will be very important this year," says William Lunch, who chairs the political science department at Oregon State University. "If Kerry comes across well, or if Bush is perceived to stumble in the debates, then Bush will be in serious trouble because there is fairly widespread dissatisfaction with him."
Keep the Faith: A Letter from Iraq (Joe Roche, April 2004)
I'm in Baghdad, Iraq.I'm a soldier with the U.S. Army serving in the 16th Combat Engineer Battalion.
The news you are hearing stateside is awfully depressing and negative. The reality is we are accomplishing a tremendous amount here, and the Iraqi people are not only benefiting greatly, but are enthusiastically supportive.
My job is mostly to be the driver of my platoon's lead Humvee. I see the missions our Army is performing, and I interact closely with the Iraqi people. Because of this, I know how successful and important our work is.
My battalion carries out dozens of missions all over the city -- missions that are improving peoples' lives. We have restored schools and universities, hospitals, power plants and water systems. We have engineered new infrastructure projects and much more. We have also brought security and order to many of Baghdad's worst areas -- areas once afflicted with chaos and brutality.
Our efforts to train vast numbers of Iraqis to police and secure the city's basic law and order are bearing fruit.
Our mission is vital. We are transforming a once very sick society into a hopeful place. Dozens of newspapers and the concepts of freedom of religious worship and expression are flowering here. So, too, are educational improvements.
This is the work of the U.S. military.
Our progress is amazing. Many people who knew only repression and terror now have hope in their heart and prosperity in their grasp.
Every day the Iraqi people stream out into the streets to cheer and wave at us as we drive by. When I'm on a foot patrol, walking among a crowd, countless people thank us --repeatedly.
I realize the shocking image of a dead soldier or a burning car is more sellable than boring, detailed accounts of our rebuilding efforts. This is why you hear bad news and may be receiving an incorrect picture.
THE BROWN BUNNY / *** (ROGER EBERT, 9/03/04, Chicago Sun-Times)
In May of 2003 I walked out of the press screening of Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" at the Cannes Film Festival and was asked by a camera crew what I thought of the film. I said I thought it was the worst film in the history of the festival. That was hyperbole -- I hadn't seen every film in the history of the festival -- but I was still vibrating from one of the most disastrous screenings I had ever attended.The audience was loud and scornful in its dislike for the movie; hundreds walked out, and many of those who remained only stayed because they wanted to boo. Imagine, I wrote, a film so unendurably boring that when the hero changes into a clean shirt, there is applause. The panel of critics convened by Screen International, the British trade paper, gave the movie the lowest rating in the history of their annual voting.
But then a funny thing happened. Gallo went back into the editing room and cut 26 minutes of his 118-minute film, or almost a fourth of the running time. And in the process he transformed it. The film's form and purpose now emerge from the miasma of the original cut, and are quietly, sadly, effective.
Buoyed G.O.P. Says It Has Framed Agenda for Fall (ROBIN TONER and JODI WILGOREN, 9/03/04, NY Times)
Scrambling to regain their political footing, Democrats vowed to recover from the attacks of August and return the voters' focus to the economy, with an aggressive new advertising campaign that highlights Mr. Bush's "failure to deliver'' on issues like job creation and prescription drugs, and with a fiery new attack by Mr. Kerry last night on those "who refused to serve when they could have'' and "who misled America into Iraq.'' The Democrats scoffed at Mr. Bush's speech as an empty defense of the status quo, devoid of new ideas.No one will know until the postconvention polls how much the Republicans gained here, or how enduring those gains will be in a presidential race that has been essentially deadlocked for months. Given how polarized the voters have become, some experts argue that conventions are more about galvanizing the already committed than converting the undecided.
But Republican strategists have succeeded, at the moment, in setting the terms of the debate, forcing Mr. Kerry not only into defending his security credentials but also into undertaking a tough and possibly risky attack on Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney even before the Republicans had left New York.
The Republicans clearly believed that their decision to hold their convention just four miles from ground zero, to hold it unusually late in the campaign year and to use it to cast Mr. Bush as a tested commander in chief for perilous times, opposed by an untrustworthy alternative, had paid off.
China faces future as land of boys: In the past two decades in China, female births have declined markedly compared with male births. (Robert Marquand, 9/03/04, CS Monitor)
In the past two decades in China, female births have declined markedly compared with male births. The official figure - which some say is slightly low - is 117 boys for every 100 girls, based on a 2000 census. In ordinary populations, the split is closer to 104 boys for every 100 girls. Skewed sex ratios are also appearing elsewhere in Asia, particularly India, where the ratio in the state of Punjab is 126 to 100. A tilt toward male births is also beginning to be 126 to 100. A tilt toward male births is also beginning to be seen in the Caucasus and parts of Latin America and Eastern Europe.In the case of China, social scientists are talking about a future in which 15 percent of men won't have wives. According to Asia expert Nicholas Eberstadt, the trend, termed the "marriage squeeze," is an anthropological phenomenon partly due to China's "one child" policy that began in 1978 with the intent of slowing growth in the world's most populous country.
"The world has never before seen the likes of the bride shortage that will be unfolding in China in the decades ahead," writes Mr. Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, in a recent study, "Power and Population in Asia."
Chinese President Hu Jintao has earmarked the imbalance as something that needs to be adjusted in the next 10 years. The government has geared up an ambitious set of financial incentives. Ultrasound exams for non-medical purposes have been illegal since 1994, but only in recent months has there been a major crackdown on the tests, which contribute to what are known here as "selective abortions." The campaign includes an education initiative, "Care for Girls," to promote the value of both sexes.
Black Hat Trick: WHY BUSH LOVES ORTHODOX JEWS. (Noam Scheiber, 09.02.04, New Republic)
The underbelly of the Bush campaign's pitch to these voters is the idea that, even if John Kerry, who gets a stellar rating from aipac, is a reliable supporter of Israel, and even if he says he'd prosecute the war on terrorism aggressively, there are structural forces within the Democratic Party that make a Kerry administration dangerous. At just about every Jewish-themed event I attended this week--and there were multiple events each day--someone has drawn attention to the rise of the antiwar, anti-Israel left within the Democratic Party. Usually, the conversation begins with Michael Moore, who has left a long trail of anti-Israel comments, continues on to MoveOn.org and former supporters of Howard Dean, and ends with the observation that, in recent years, it has been the far left of the Democratic Party, not the far right of the Republican Party, that has been awol on votes in Congress regarding Israel. "That's going to be a major theme going into the stretch run," says one Republican strategist. "The point is, who do you surround yourself with? ... [With the Kerry] campaign, the focus is on Michael Moore, Jimmy Carter." One Jewish Republican close to the White House, who occasionally serves as a Bush campaign surrogate, told me he makes this pitch explicitly. "Even if Kerry means everything he says about Israel," he tells Jewish audiences, "the question is whether his constituency--today's Democratic Party--would really let him go there."There are signs this strategy is working. A leader of a major Jewish organization told me, "After the Democratic convention, they may well have driven Jews into the Republican camp.... I was there. I saw the reaction ... to seeing the whole thing revolve around Michael Moore." Others attribute the increasing willingness of young Jews to vote Republican--Republican pollster Frank Luntz has data suggesting that only 60 percent of Jews under 35 vote Democratic--to a reaction against campus anti-Israel and antiwar activism.
Ironically, though, the Bushies may be making their greatest inroads among a group of Jews who aren't within 5,000 miles of Madison Square Garden. Estimates suggest there are about 200,000 American citizens living in Israel, making it the fifth-largest source of American expatriates in the world. Over 100,000 are eligible to vote. Americans in Israel--and Israelis in general--tend to be favorably disposed to Bush thanks to his close relationship with Ariel Sharon. A Tel Aviv University poll conducted in early August found that Israelis prefer Bush to Kerry by a 49-18 margin. So a 527 organization called Republicans Abroad Israel has identified several thousand expats eligible to vote in each of the major swing states (about 25,000 in all) and is frantically trying to register them before a self-imposed deadline arrives in two weeks. Bush may not be playing well in Peoria. But, this year, he might gladly exchange Peoria for Tel Aviv.
George W. Bush: Compassionate War President (Terry Eastland, BeliefNet)
The centrality of compassion, or "neighbor-love," to this presidency was indicated in Bush’s inaugural address when the president referred to the parable of the Good Samaritan, which Jesus related in response to a question based on the second great commandment. That question was, "Who is my neighbor?" As he took office, Bush pledged the nation to a goal that "when we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side."At the time Bush seemed to be commending neighbor--love within these United States. His presidency, after all, was expected to be concerned mostly with domestic matters. And in the first months of his term, Bush introduced the policy most commonly identified with compassion—-his faith-based initiative. Aiming to enlist religious charities in the fight against poverty, Bush described it as "good public policy based on the willingness of our citizens to love a neighbor just like you’d like to be loved yourself." Bush also invoked compassion in contending for another big domestic policy initiative of his early presidency—-his No Child Left Behind legislation. These and other "compassionate" policies have been vigorously debated—-Democrats charge the president with "underfunding" the No Child Left Behind bill--and doubtless will be until Election Day.
But, as we all know, the world changed on September 11, and so did the Bush presidency. [...]
In fighting the war on terrorism, Bush has invoked not only justice as a reason for his actions—-but also compassion. For example, Bush explained the military effort in Afghanistan to a Connecticut audience by saying that the United States liberated an innocent people oppressed by a barbaric regime. "We’re compassionate," he said. "We care deeply about our fellow citizens in this world." Though Bush has not cited Augustine, he would seem to be tracking what that just-war theorist argued, namely that love does not foreclose "a war of mercy." Indeed, for Bush it appears to demand war if it’s necessary to protect an innocent third party from oppression.
As Bush has explained his rationale for the war in Iraq and his plans for that nation’s rebirth, he’s made it clear that compassion doesn’t stop with liberation but includes efforts to establish institutions in which "the rights of every person"—-including religious liberty, "the first freedom of the human soul"--can be protected. Compassion envisions democracy.
Asked last summer by Christianity Today to describe Bush’s foreign policy, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, the president’s long-time friend, said, "It’s love your neighbor like yourself. The neighbor happens to be everyone on the planet."
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Improve oneself or society?: What the Bible expects of us individually and collectively (Rabbi Berel Wein, Sept. 3, 2004, Jewish World Review)
One of the salient points of Judaism is that it treats and deals with individuals and their behavior while at the same time it sponsors a program for the national entity, as well.In Judaism, the individual is responsible not only for personal behavior but for society as a whole. The Talmud long ago reminded that we are all guarantors one for another.
Personal piety, if not extended into the social improvement of the society as a whole, will be found wanting on the scale of Eternal judgment. Personal piety is easier to achieve than is its exportation into societal behavior. There is a Yiddish phrase that describes this shortcoming graphically: ah tzadik in peltz — a self-righteous person wrapped in his own fur coat to protect himself from the cold. Judaism searched for those who would light a fire to warm all by its heat and not for fur coat wearers, no matter how personally pious they may be in their private lives. [...]
The month of Elul, in which we now find ourselves, has traditionally been the time for self-introspection and renewed commitment in Jewish life. Our society faces many difficult social and moral problems. But if charity begins at home, so does societal improvement. Being better people, inculcating Jewish values and outlook into our personal lives, will accomplish more for curing our society's ills than the best intentioned piece of legislation can do. Being kinder and gentler at home will eventually make us kinder and gentler on our roads, in our markets and malls and in our public discourse.
This is a goal well worth pursuing for in its achievement lies the ability to have the fairer, more equitable, democratic society that we so crave.
Out of It (The Prowler, 9/3/2004)
To prove that their campaign was not in the midst of disastrous crisis, Joe Lockhart, Tad Devine, Stephanie Cutter, and Doug Sosnik, along with a cast of thousands arrived in New York on Thursday and held a press briefing, insisting that all was well.In fact, all four of these spokespersons, sometimes speaking simultaneously to small groups of reporters, said essentially the same thing, as if by repetition all the campaign's communications troubles would be resolved. But by creating the impression that all four of them were somehow in control, the hour-long meeting only served to illustrate that the Kerry campaign continues to have big problems.
(1) He's the one seeking more debates.
(2) The hastily scheduled appearance tonight.
Mr. Bush's Acceptance Speech (NY Times, 9/03/04)
When President Bush accepted his party's nomination last night, he energetically presented himself as the man who could keep America safe in a time of international terrorism. His handlers believe that is the key to his re-election.
* A programmatic domestic section which could have used some of the rhetorical flourishes that were saved for later, but did tie into the national security section.
* Strangely, given that he's the incumbent not the challenger, his program is far more ambitious and detailed than Senator Kerry's. Much of it is left over from the first term but if enacted represents significant, even revolutionary, reform: privatizing Social Securiity, the energy bill, tort reform, tax simplification, etc.
* The section on moral issues was very strong and aggressively conservative.
* The demonstrators were unfortunate but didn't seem to disrupt the President much.
* There were a few more contrasts with Senator Kerry than I'd thought there would be, but they were all on issues that are contemporary, not a word about 35 years ago.
* The explanation of how we got to the point of war in Iraq was very nicely done, if a bit workmanlike, but the closing ten minutes were masterful. The emotion, even the tearing up were brutally personal and honest. Supposedly the staff weren't sure he could get through it.
* Overall it was about half a Clintonesque State of the Union, which I never liked but voters did, and then the Gersonesque vision of the defeat of Islamicism and the liberalization of the Middle East as a natural successor to the fights on first Nazism and then Communism.
* Personally, I'm dubious that by the end of September the nation will still be absorbed with Iraq and the war on terror, but Senator Kerry keeps leaving the door open for them to make it a national security election and they're taking advantage.
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* Senator Kerry's big rebuttal was first a lie about what Dick Cheney said, second a reversal of his own position that the war in Iraq was justified, and third
has now turned into a standard stump speech which completely fails to take into account anything that was said all week. Why was this necessary?
* Tony Blair was the second most popular guy on Earth among that GOP crowd and he wouldn't be top ten among the Democrats or maybe even among Labour.
Apparently the Kerry camp has released the text of the speech he plans to give at his midnight rally tonight and it includes something about how he won't stand for criticism from guys who didn't even serve in Vietnam or whatever. Now that's a line of argument that might have made some iota of sense a month ago, but it's way too late for it now. Meanwhile, the reason it makes only an iota is because his opponents are the Secretary of Defense who won the Gulf War and the Commander-in-Chief who won in Afghanistan and Iraq. He reported for duty at his convention, evoking his grunt status nicely. They are the commanders who such men report to for duty. If we were choosing a swift boat pilot it would be one thing, but we're choosing who should lead the entire nation in wartime. Whose military experience matters more in that case? (And isn't John Edwards unqualified by either standard?)
But the really stupid aspect of this is that he's giving this speech a few hours after President Bush gives an address in which he'll probably not even mention John Kerry, never mind attack him. There'll be a disconnect between Mr. Bush's positive vision and Mr. Kerry's attacks, especially because the Democrats have been complaining so much about negativity.
Who's driving this clattering train?
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Here's a strange glimpse into the future, Kerry says Bush 'unfit to lead this nation' (AP, 9/02/04)
Fighting back, Democratic Sen. John Kerry called President Bush "unfit to lead this nation" because of the war in Iraq and his record on jobs, health care and energy prices. He lashed out at the incumbent and Vice President Dick Cheney for avoiding service in the Vietnam War."I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq," Kerry said in prepared remarks issued as the Republican was poised to accept his party's nomination for a second term.
Portraying himself as a clear-minded and decisive leader, George Bush last night pledged that if elected for a second term, he would continue the fight against terrorists "not for pride, not for power," but to keep America and the world a safe place to live.In his acceptance speech climaxing the Republican convention here, Mr Bush offered his country "clear, consistent and principled leadership," insisting he had a "clear and positive plan" both for international affairs, and to set his country right at home.
Mr Bush's speech to a wildly cheering audience at Madison Square Garden arena capped a four-day convention launching the President into the last 60 days of a campaign which will determine whether he achieves the second White House term that eluded his father.
Immediately afterwards he left to campaign in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, which Mr Kerry must carry to win the Presidency. Though there appears to have been a slight shift of momentum towards Mr Bush in recent days, the two candidates are still running neck and neck in opinion polls.
"We have fought the terrorists across the earth not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake," Mr Bush told the 2,500 convention delegates here. "We are staying on the offensive abroad so we do not have to face them [the terrorists] here at home." For the turbulent Middle East region, he promised that his administration was working to advance freedom and peace. And, he added, "We will prevail."
President George W Bush last night promised Americans he would stay on the offensive in the global fight against terrorism as he sought to affirm his commitment to resolving domestic problems if he were to win a second White House term.
Governor George Bush's Acceptance Speech (Republican National Convention, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Thursday, August 3, 2000)
Mr. Chairman, delegates, and my fellow citizens ... I accept your nomination. Thank you for this honor. Together, we will renew America's purpose.Our founders first defined that purpose here in Philadelphia ... Ben Franklin was here. Thomas Jefferson. And, of course, George Washington -- or, as his friends called him, "George W."
I am proud to have Dick Cheney at my side. He is a man of integrity and sound judgment, who has proven that public service can be noble service. America will be proud to have a leader of such character to succeed Al Gore as Vice President of the United States.
I am grateful for John McCain and the other candidates who sought this nomination. Their convictions strengthen our party.
I am especially grateful tonight to my family.
No matter what else I do in life, asking Laura to marry me was the best decision I ever made.
To our daughters, Barbara and Jenna, we love you, we're proud of you, and as you head off to college this fall ... ... Don't stay out too late, and e-mail your old dad once in a while, will you?
And mother, everyone loves you and so do I.
Growing up, she gave me love and lots of advice. I gave her white hair. And I want to thank my father -- the most decent man I have ever known. All my life I have been amazed that a gentle soul could be so strong. And Dad, I want you to know how proud I am to be your son.
My father was the last president of a great generation. A generation of Americans who stormed beaches, liberated concentration camps and delivered us from evil.
Some never came home.
Those who did put their medals in drawers, went to work, and built on a heroic scale ... highways and universities, suburbs and factories, great cities and grand alliances -- the strong foundations of an American Century.
Now the question comes to the sons and daughters of this achievement...
What is asked of us?
This is a remarkable moment in the life of our nation. Never has the promise of prosperity been so vivid. But times of plenty, like times of crisis, are tests of American character.
Prosperity can be a tool in our hands -- used to build and better our country. Or it can be a drug in our system -- dulling our sense of urgency, of empathy, of duty.
Our opportunities are too great, our lives too short, to waste this moment.
So tonight we vow to our nation ...
We will seize this moment of American promise.
We will use these good times for great goals.
We will confront the hard issues -- threats to our national security, threats to our health and retirement security -- before the challenges of our time become crises for our children.
And we will extend the promise of prosperity to every forgotten corner of this country.
To every man and woman, a chance to succeed. To every child, a chance to learn. To every family, a chance to live with dignity and hope.
For eight years, the Clinton/Gore administration has coasted through prosperity.
And the path of least resistance is always downhill.
But America's way is the rising road.
This nation is daring and decent and ready for change.
Our current president embodied the potential of a generation. So many talents. So much charm. Such great skill. But, in the end, to what end? So much promise, to no great purpose.
Little more than a decade ago, the Cold War thawed and, with the leadership of Presidents Reagan and Bush, that wall came down.
But instead of seizing this moment, the Clinton/Gore administration has squandered it. We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence.
Our military is low on parts, pay and morale.
If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report ... Not ready for duty, sir.
This administration had its moment.
They had their chance. They have not led. We will.
This generation was given the gift of the best education in American history. Yet we do not share that gift with everyone. Seven of ten fourth-graders in our highest poverty schools cannot read a simple children's book.
And still this administration continues on the same old path with the same old programs -- while millions are trapped in schools where violence is common and learning is rare.
This administration had its chance. They have not led. We will.
America has a strong economy and a surplus. We have the public resources and the public will -- even the bipartisan opportunities -- to strengthen Social Security and repair Medicare.
But this administration -- during eight years of increasing need -- did nothing.
They had their moment. They have not led. We will.
Our generation has a chance to reclaim some essential values -- to show we have grown up before we grow old.
But when the moment for leadership came, this administration did not teach our children, it disillusioned them.
They had their chance. They have not led. We will.
And now they come asking for another chance, another shot.
Our answer?
Not this time.
Not this year.
This is not a time for third chances, it is a time for new beginnings. The rising generations of this country have our own appointment with greatness.
It does not rise or fall with the stock market. It cannot be bought with our wealth.
Greatness is found when American character and American courage overcome American challenges.
When Lewis Morris of New York was about to sign the Declaration of Independence, his brother advised against it, warning he would lose all his property.
Morris, a plain-spoken Founder, responded ... "Damn the consequences, give me the pen." That is the eloquence of American action.
We heard it during World War II, when General Eisenhower told paratroopers on D-Day morning not to worry -- and one replied, "We're not worried, General ... It's Hitler's turn to worry now."
We heard it in the civil rights movement, when brave men and women did not say ... "We shall cope," or "We shall see." They said ... "We shall overcome."
An American president must call upon that character.
Tonight, in this hall, we resolve to be, not the party of repose, but the party of reform.
We will write, not footnotes, but chapters in the American story.
We will add the work of our hands to the inheritance of our fathers and mothers -- and leave this nation greater than we found it.
We know the tests of leadership. The issues are joined.
We will strengthen Social Security and Medicare for the greatest generation, and for generations to come.
Medicare does more than meet the needs of our elderly, it reflects the values of our society.
We will set it on firm financial ground, and make prescription drugs available and affordable for every senior who needs them.
Social Security has been called the "third rail of American politics" -- the one you're not supposed to touch because it shocks you.
But, if you don't touch it, you can't fix it. And I intend to fix it.
To seniors in this country ... You earned your benefits, you made your plans, and President George W. Bush will keep the promise of Social Security ... no changes, no reductions, no way.
Our opponents will say otherwise. This is their last, parting ploy, and don't believe a word of it.
Now is the time for Republicans and Democrats to end the politics of fear and save Social Security, together.
For younger workers, we will give you the option -- your choice -- to put a part of your payroll taxes into sound, responsible investments.
This will mean a higher return on your money, and, over 30 or 40 years, a nest egg to help your retirement, or pass along to your children.
When this money is in your name, in your account, it's not just a program, it's your property.
Now is the time to give American workers security and independence that no politician can ever take away.
On education ... Too many American children are segregated into schools without standards, shuffled from grade-to-grade because of their age, regardless of their knowledge.
This is discrimination, pure and simple -- the soft bigotry of low expectations.
And our nation should treat it like other forms of discrimination ... We should end it.
One size does not fit all when it comes to educating our children, so local people should control local schools.
And those who spend your tax dollars must be held accountable.
When a school district receives federal funds to teach poor children, we expect them to learn. And if they don't, parents should get the money to make a different choice.
Now is the time to make Head Start an early learning program, teach all our children to read, and renew the promise of America's public schools. Another test of leadership is tax relief.
The last time taxes were this high as a percentage of our economy, there was a good reason ... We were fighting World War II.
Today, our high taxes fund a surplus. Some say that growing federal surplus means Washington has more money to spend.
But they've got it backwards.
The surplus is not the government's money. The surplus is the people's money.
I will use this moment of opportunity to bring common sense and fairness to the tax code.
And I will act on principle.
On principle ... every family, every farmer and small businessperson, should be free to pass on their life's work to those they love.
So we will abolish the death tax.
On principle ... no one in America should have to pay more than a third of their income to the federal government.
So we will reduce tax rates for everyone, in every bracket.
On principle ... those in the greatest need should receive the greatest help.
So we will lower the bottom rate from 15 percent to 10 percent and double the child tax credit.
Now is the time to reform the tax code and share some of the surplus with the people who pay the bills.
The world needs America's strength and leadership, and America's armed forces need better equipment, better training, and better pay.
We will give our military the means to keep the peace, and we will give it one thing more ... a commander-in-chief who respects our men and women in uniform, and a commander-in-chief who earns their respect.
A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam.
When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming.
I will work to reduce nuclear weapons and nuclear tension in the world -- to turn these years of influence into decades of peace.
And, at the earliest possible date, my administration will deploy missile defenses to guard against attack and blackmail.
Now is the time, not to defend outdated treaties, but to defend the American people.
A time of prosperity is a test of vision. And our nation today needs vision. That is a fact ... or as my opponent might call it, a "risky truth scheme." Every one of the proposals I've talked about tonight, he has called a "risky scheme," over and over again.
It is the sum of his message -- the politics of the roadblock, the philosophy of the stop sign.
If my opponent had been there at the moon launch, it would have been a "risky rocket scheme."
If he'd been there when Edison was testing the light bulb, it would have been a "risky anti-candle scheme."
And if he'd been there when the Internet was invented well ... I understand he actually was there for that.
He now leads the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But the only thing he has to offer is fear itself.
That outlook is typical of many in Washington -- always seeing the tunnel at the end of the light.
But I come from a different place, and it has made me a different leader. In Midland, Texas, where I grew up, the town motto was "the sky is the limit" ... and we believed it.
There was a restless energy, a basic conviction that, with hard work, anybody could succeed, and everybody deserved a chance.
Our sense of community was just as strong as that sense of promise.
Neighbors helped each other. There were dry wells and sandstorms to keep you humble, and lifelong friends to take your side, and churches to remind us that every soul is equal in value and equal in need.
This background leaves more than an accent, it leaves an outlook.
Optimistic. Impatient with pretense. Confident that people can chart their own course.
That background may lack the polish of Washington. Then again, I don't have a lot of things that come with Washington.
I don't have enemies to fight. And I have no stake in the bitter arguments of the last few years. I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect.
The largest lesson I learned in Midland still guides me as governor ... Everyone, from immigrant to entrepreneur, has an equal claim on this country's promise.
So we improved our schools, dramatically, for children of every accent, of every background.
We moved people from welfare to work.
We strengthened our juvenile justice laws.
Our budgets have been balanced, with surpluses, and we cut taxes not only once, but twice.
We accomplished a lot.
I don't deserve all the credit, and don't attempt to take it. I worked with Republicans and Democrats to get things done.
A bittersweet part of tonight is that someone is missing, the late Lt. Governor of Texas Bob Bullock.
Bob was a Democrat, a crusty veteran of Texas politics, and my great friend.
He worked by my side, endorsed my re-election, and I know he is with me in spirit in saying to those who would malign our state for political gain... Don't mess with Texas.
As governor, I've made difficult decisions, and stood by them under pressure. I've been where the buck stops -- in business and in government. I've been a chief executive who sets an agenda, sets big goals, and rallies people to believe and achieve them.
I am proud of this record, and I'm prepared for the work ahead.
If you give me your trust, I will honor it ... Grant me a mandate, and I will use it... Give me the opportunity to lead this nation, and I will lead ...
And we need a leader to seize the opportunities of this new century -- the new cures of medicine, the amazing technologies that will drive our economy and keep the peace.
But our new economy must never forget the old, unfinished struggle for human dignity.
And here we face a challenge to the very heart and founding premise of our nation.
A couple of years ago, I visited a juvenile jail in Marlin, Texas, and talked with a group of young inmates. They were angry, wary kids. All had committed grownup crimes.
Yet when I looked in their eyes, I realized some of them were still little boys.
Toward the end of conversation, one young man, about 15, raised his hand and asked a haunting question... "What do you think of me?"
He seemed to be asking, like many Americans who struggle ... "Is there hope for me? Do I have a chance?" And, frankly ... "Do you, a white man in a suit, really care what happens to me?"
A small voice, but it speaks for so many. Single moms struggling to feed the kids and pay the rent. Immigrants starting a hard life in a new world. Children without fathers in neighborhoods where gangs seem like friendship, where drugs promise peace, and where sex, sadly, seems like the closest thing to belonging. We are their country, too.
And each of us must share in its promise, or that promise is diminished for all.
If that boy in Marlin believes he is trapped and worthless and hopeless -- if he believes his life has no value, then other lives have no value to him -- and we are ALL diminished.
When these problems aren't confronted, it builds a wall within our nation. On one side are wealth and technology, education and ambition.
On the other side of the wall are poverty and prison, addiction and despair.
And, my fellow Americans, we must tear down that wall.
Big government is not the answer. But the alternative to bureaucracy is not indifference.
It is to put conservative values and conservative ideas into the thick of the fight for justice and opportunity.
This is what I mean by compassionate conservatism. And on this ground we will govern our nation.
We will give low-income Americans tax credits to buy the private health insurance they need and deserve.
We will transform today's housing rental program to help hundreds of thousands of low-income families find stability and dignity in a home of their own.
And, in the next bold step of welfare reform, we will support the heroic work of homeless shelters and hospices, food pantries and crisis pregnancy centers -- people reclaiming their communities block-by-block and heart-by-heart.
I think of Mary Jo Copeland, whose ministry called "Sharing and Caring Hands" serves 1,000 meals a week in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Each day, Mary Jo washes the feet of the homeless, then sends them off with new socks and shoes.
"Look after your feet," she tells them ...... "They must carry you a long way in this world, and then all the way to God."
Government cannot do this work. It can feed the body, but it cannot reach the soul. Yet government can take the side of these groups, helping the helper, encouraging the inspired.
My administration will give taxpayers new incentives to donate to charity, encourage after-school programs that build character, and support mentoring groups that shape and save young lives.
We must give our children a spirit of moral courage, because their character is our destiny.
We must tell them, with clarity and confidence, that drugs and alcohol can destroy you, and bigotry disfigures the heart.
Our schools must support the ideals of parents, elevating character and abstinence from afterthoughts to urgent goals.
We must help protect our children, in our schools and streets, by finally and strictly enforcing our nation's gun laws.
Most of all, we must teach our children the values that defeat violence. I will lead our nation toward a culture that values life -- the life of the elderly and the sick, the life of the young, and the life of the unborn. I know good people disagree on this issue, but surely we can agree on ways to value life by promoting adoption and parental notification, and when Congress sends me a bill against partial-birth abortion, I will sign it into law.
Behind every goal I have talked about tonight is a great hope for our country.
A hundred years from now, this must not be remembered as an age rich in possessions and poor in ideals.
Instead, we must usher in an era of responsibility.
My generation tested limits -- and our country, in some ways, is better for it.
Women are now treated more equally. Racial progress has been steady, if still too slow. We are learning to protect the natural world around us. We will continue this progress, and we will not turn back.
At times, we lost our way. But we are coming home.
So many of us held our first child, and saw a better self reflected in her eyes.
And in that family love, many have found the sign and symbol of an even greater love, and have been touched by faith.
We have discovered that who we are is more important than what we have. And we know we must renew our values to restore our country.
This is the vision of America's founders.
They never saw our nation's greatness in rising wealth or advancing armies, but in small, unnumbered acts of caring and courage and self-denial.
Their highest hope, as Robert Frost described it, was "to occupy the land with character."
And that, 13 generations later, is still our goal ... to occupy the land with character.
In a responsibility era, each of us has important tasks -- work that only we can do.
Each of us is responsible ... to love and guide our children, and help a neighbor in need.
Synagogues, churches and mosques are responsible ... not only to worship but to serve.
Corporations are responsible ... to treat their workers fairly, and leave the air and waters clean.
Our nation's leaders are responsible ... to confront problems, not pass them on to others.
And to lead this nation to a responsibility era, a president himself must be responsible.
And so, when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.
I believe the presidency -- the final point of decision in the American government -- was made for great purposes.
It is the office of Lincoln's conscience and Teddy Roosevelt's energy and Harry Truman's integrity and Ronald Reagan's optimism.
For me, gaining this office is not the ambition of a lifetime, but it IS the opportunity of a lifetime.
And I will make the most of it. I believe great decisions are made with care, made with conviction, not made with polls.
I do not need to take your pulse before I know my own mind. I do not reinvent myself at every turn. I am not running in borrowed clothes. When I act, you will know my reasons ...When I speak, you will know my heart.
I believe in tolerance, not in spite of my faith, but because of it.
I believe in a God who calls us, not to judge our neighbors, but to love them.
I believe in grace, because I have seen it ... In peace, because I have felt it ... In forgiveness, because I have needed it.
I believe true leadership is a process of addition, not an act of division. I will not attack a part of this country, because I want to lead the whole of it.
And I believe this will be a tough race, down to the wire.
Their war room is up and running ... but we are ready. Their attacks will be relentless ... but they will be answered. We are facing something familiar, but they are facing something new.
We are now the party of ideas and innovation ... The party of idealism and inclusion.
The party of a simple and powerful hope ...
My fellow citizens, we can begin again. After all of the shouting, and all of the scandal. After all of the bitterness and broken faith. We can begin again.
The wait has been long, but it won't be long now.
A prosperous nation is ready to renew its purpose and unite behind great goals ... and it won't be long now.
Our nation must renew the hopes of that boy I talked with in jail, and so many like him... and it won't be long now.
Our country is ready for high standards and new leaders ... and it won't be long now.
An era of tarnished ideals is giving way to a responsibility era ... and it won't be long now.
I know how serious the task is before me.
I know the presidency is an office that turns pride into prayer.
But I am eager to start on the work ahead.
And I believe America is ready for a new beginning.
My friend, the artist Tom Lea of El Paso, captured the way I feel about our great land.
He and his wife, he said, "live on the east side of the mountain ...
It is the sunrise side, not the sunset side.
It is the side to see the day that is coming ... not the side to see the day that is gone."
Americans live on the sunrise side of mountain.
The night is passing.
And we are ready for the day to come.
Thank you. And God bless you.
Bush Won't Discuss Action With Israel (Associated Press, 9/02/04)
Declining to step into a war of words between Israel and Syria, the Bush administration said Thursday it was not discussing with Israel any possible military action against Hamas leaders in Damascus."Israel has a right to defend itself, and they don't come to us and we don't approve Israeli military operations," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
"That's not a subject of discussion," he replied when asked if the Bush administration was concerned that Israel might move against Syria.
He said the United States is concerned about Syria's support for various groups.
There were no calls for restraint from the administration.
Raw Data: Excerpts of Bush Speech (September 02, 2004)
Excerpts of President Bush's remarks prepared for delivery at the 2004 Republican National Convention on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004:"I am running for president with a clear and positive plan to build a safer world and a more hopeful America. I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives. I believe this nation wants steady, consistent, principled leadership and that is why, with your help, we will win this election."
"The times in which we live and work are changing dramatically. The workers of our parents' generation typically had one job, one skill, one career often with one company that provided health care and a pension. And most of those workers were men. Today, workers change jobs, even careers, many times during their lives, and in one of the most dramatic shifts our society has seen, two-thirds of all moms also work outside the home."
"This changed world can be a time of great opportunity for all Americans to earn a better living, support your family, and have a rewarding career. And government must take your side. Many of our most fundamental systems — the tax code, health coverage, pension plans, worker training — were created for the world of yesterday, not tomorrow. We will transform these systems so that all citizens are equipped, prepared and thus truly free to make your own choices and pursue your own dreams."
Why Europe must have the Bomb (Stephen Haseler, The Spectator, September 4th, 2004)
The new world ushered in by America’s limits will be a world of great powers. And, already, as the dust settles on the Middle East imbroglio, we can see the contours of this new great power politics. According to population and economic growth projections, by mid-century the US will be one power among equals, perhaps ‘primus inter pares’, perhaps not. It will need to adjust to a world of blocs and to multiple superpowers of which the most prominent will be China, India, South Asia and Europe (and maybe even a revitalised Japan).But what of the short-run? The next ten years? The stark truth here — and it is as unpalatable to the neoconservatives in Washington as it is to those in Whitehall — is that the only new power able to come close to rivalling and balancing the US in the world is Europe. Even now Europe has the dimensions to rival the US. With a population of over 450 million (100 million or so more than the US), the world’s largest single market and economy (now, since the fall of the dollar, almost 20 per cent larger), and with the euro firmly established, Europe has already become a civilian superpower. And it also possesses that intangible virtue of economic stability (the obverse side of its alleged ‘sclerosis’) compared to a US prone to stock market gyrations, debt, deficits and dependence on febrile Asian money.
Washington’s hawks are of course right to mock Europe’s superpower pretensions while the Continent’s military spending remains so low — at about a half of the Pentagon’s budget, and falling. Europe will need to spend more, particularly on intelligence. Much more. Although Europe can get a much bigger ‘bang’ for its existing ‘buck’ by pooling its resources and finally developing a proper procurement strategy, its politicians need to start a serious campaign to secure public support for defence. The war on terror may help here. And as long as European military operations are placed in a European context, the pacifist tendencies in Germany can be held in check. Europe needs a militarily strong Germany. And — let’s not be bashful about it — Europe needs the Bomb. Talks between the EU’s two nuclear powers are still shrouded in mystery, but both Paris and London need to work out a nuclear strategy.
But does Europe have the will not just to spend more on defence but to become a superpower — to take on the grime and the glory of global responsibility? Are Europe’s leaders willing to play, rather than posture, on the world stage? Do they have the bottle to stand up to Washington? And should Washington falter or retrench, to fill the power vacuum? [...]
Franco-German ‘Core Europe’ — ‘Charlemagna’ — is back in business. Germany now sides with France (not Washington) on security issues. Although Franco-Germany virtually amounts to a superpower itself, the idea is for this ‘core’ to act as a magnet for others. Spain has slipped out of the American orbit and joined already, and Italy will too when the Berlusconi era ends. The even bigger idea — the one that truly creates the European superpower — is to turn this Franco-German duo into a troika — with Paris and Berlin being joined by London in running the new Europe’s diplomacy (as in the three powers’ Iran initiative) and, ultimately, its defence.
One of the more intriguing aspects of the surge in U.S. power and influence since the end of the cold war is the number of intellectuals who make a good living arguing that she is in decline and that powerful rivals are coming on strong to challenge her. If one posits the inevitability of this as an opening premise that speaks for itself, the road to indulge freely in all kinds of delicious fantasies is opened. In this one, we are asked to believe a continent that can’t agree on its membership or its currency, speaks dozens of languages, has a declining population, is economically ossified and has no military is on the cusp of putting the U.S. in its place, whatever Mr. Haseler thinks that would mean.
Even if, for the sake of argument, Europe can overcome its current fractiousness and record relatively healthy economic results in the near term, why in the world would it want to pursue the course urged here? How could twenty-seven states embroiled in parmanent bureaucratic posturing and jelously cooperate in maintaining a foreign policy and a sizeable, modern military? Didn't Bosnia prove they can't? What threats or enemies do Europeans fear besides one another? Hasn’t the thrust of “Charlemagna’s” position been that there are really no threats that sanctions and a few stiff Security Council Resolutions can’t check? Frankly, one can sympathize with the French leftist workers who would refuse to see their pensions cut in the name of this pipedream.(A militarily strong Germany?)
The European project has brought a lot of good things to Europe, but its survival seems to depend entirely on its elites indulging in non-stop self-admiration and self-congratulation, promoting historical fantasies and insisting, as an article of faith, that the momentum towards further growth, integration and influence is unstoppable–even when their own populations manage to stop it in its tracks. In this regard it is somewhat like a Marxist regime that survives on the lie that it is moving upwards towards a more perfect and idyllic state. If it must distort history and indoctrinate citizens, then is what it must do for the greater good of all. If it must make a bogeyman out of the U.S., tant mieux. Their greatest fear is that their populations will abandon the dream and the whole foundation will collapse.
Europe’s decline would probably not benefit anyone, but its chance of maintaining a leading influence in future global affairs has little to do with the bomb or German military might. Its best shot is probably to fuel anti-Americanism at home and abroad and convince as many uninformed Americans as possible to buy into this silliness.
The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories (Stephen C. Meyer, August 28, 2004, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington)
In a recent volume of the Vienna Series in a Theoretical Biology (2003), Gerd B. Muller and Stuart Newman argue that what they call the “origination of organismal form” remains an unsolved problem. In making this claim, Muller and Newman (2003:3-10) distinguish two distinct issues, namely, (1) the causes of form generation in the individual organism during embryological development and (2) the causes responsible for the production of novel organismal forms in the first place during the history of life. To distinguish the latter case (phylogeny) from the former (ontogeny), Muller and Newman use the term “origination” to designate the causal processes by which biological form first arose during the evolution of life. They insist that “the molecular mechanisms that bring about biological form in modern day embryos should not be confused” with the causes responsible for the origin (or “origination”) of novel biological forms during the history of life (p.3). They further argue that we know more about the causes of ontogenesis, due to advances in molecular biology, molecular genetics and developmental biology, than we do about the causes of phylogenesis--the ultimate origination of new biological forms during the remote past.In making this claim, Muller and Newman are careful to affirm that evolutionary biology has succeeded in explaining how preexisting forms diversify under the twin influences of natural selection and variation of genetic traits. Sophisticated mathematically-based models of population genetics have proven adequate for mapping and understanding quantitative variability and populational changes in organisms. Yet Muller and Newman insist that population genetics, and thus evolutionary biology, has not identified a specifically causal explanation for the origin of true morphological novelty during the history of life. Central to their concern is what they see as the inadequacy of the variation of genetic traits as a source of new form and structure. They note, following Darwin himself, that the sources of new form and structure must precede the action of natural selection (2003:3)--that selection must act on what already exists. Yet, in their view, the “genocentricity” and “incrementalism” of the neo-Darwinian mechanism has meant that an adequate source of new form and structure has yet to be identified by theoretical biologists. Instead, Muller and Newman see the need to identify epigenetic sources of morphological innovation during the evolution of life. In the meantime, however, they insist neo-Darwinism lacks any “theory of the generative” (p. 7).
As it happens, Muller and Newman are not alone in this judgment. In the last decade or so a host of scientific essays and books have questioned the efficacy of selection and mutation as a mechanism for generating morphological novelty, as even a brief literature survey will establish. Thomson (1992:107) expressed doubt that large-scale morphological changes could accumulate via minor phenotypic changes at the population genetic level. Miklos (1993:29) argued that neo-Darwinism fails to provide a mechanism that can produce large-scale innovations in form and complexity. Gilbert et al. (1996) attempted to develop a new theory of evolutionary mechanisms to supplement classical neo-Darwinism, which, they argued, could not adequately explain macroevolution. As they put it in a memorable summary of the situation: “starting in the 1970s, many biologists began questioning its (neo-Darwinism's) adequacy in explaining evolution. Genetics might be adequate for explaining microevolution, but microevolutionary changes in gene frequency were not seen as able to turn a reptile into a mammal or to convert a fish into an amphibian. Microevolution looks at adaptations that concern the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest. As Goodwin (1995) points out, 'the origin of species--Darwin's problem--remains unsolved'“ (p. 361). Though Gilbert et al. (1996) attempted to solve the problem of the origin of form by proposing a greater role for developmental genetics within an otherwise neo-Darwinian framework,1 numerous recent authors have continued to raise questions about the adequacy of that framework itself or about the problem of the origination of form generally (Webster & Goodwin 1996; Shubin & Marshall 2000; Erwin 2000; Conway Morris 2000, 2003b; Carroll 2000; Wagner 2001; Becker & Lonnig 2001; Stadler et al. 2001; Lonnig & Saedler 2002; Wagner & Stadler 2003; Valentine 2004:189-194).
What lies behind this skepticism? Is it warranted? Is a new and specifically causal theory needed to explain the origination of biological form?
This review will address these questions. It will do so by analyzing the problem of the origination of organismal form (and the corresponding emergence of higher taxa) from a particular theoretical standpoint. Specifically, it will treat the problem of the origination of the higher taxonomic groups as a manifestation of a deeper problem, namely, the problem of the origin of the information (whether genetic or epigenetic) that, as it will be argued, is necessary to generate morphological novelty.
C-SPAN Highlights
Tonight
* Republican National Convention (7:45pm) - LIVE
* Speakers Include President Bush
* Gov. George Pataki (R-NY) & Gen. Tommy Franks (Ret.)
'Listen To This Voice' (Zell Miller, Democratic Keynote Address, 7/13/92)(As prepared)
Listen to this voice.It's a voice flavored by the Blue Ridge ... a voice straight out of a remote valley hidden among the peaks and hollows of the Appalachian Mountains ... a voice that's been described as more barbed wire than honeysuckle.
That this kind of voice could travel here from a forgotten corner of Appalachia is a testament to the grace of God and the greatness of the Democratic Party.
This week we are gathered here to nominate a man from a remote, rural corner of Arkansas to be president of the United States of America.
That is powerful proof that the American dream still lives... at least in the Democratic Party.
Bill Clinton is the only candidate for president who feels our pain, shares our hopes and will work his heart out to fulfill our dreams.
You see, I understand why Bill Clinton is so eager to see the American dream kept alive for a new generation.
Because I, too, was a product of that dream.
I was born during the worst of the Depression on a cold winter's day in the drafty bedroom of a rented house, and I was my parent's hope for the future.
Franklin Roosevelt was elected that year, and would soon replace generations of neglect with a whirlwind of activity, bringing to our little valley a very welcome supply of God's most precious commodity - hope.
My father, a teacher, died when I was two weeks old, leaving a young widow with two small children.
But with my mother's faith in God - and Mr. Roosevelt's voice on the radio - we kept going.
After my father's death, my mother with her own hands cleared a small piece of rugged land.
Every day she waded into a neighbor's cold mountain creek, carrying out thousands of smooth stones to build a house.
I grew up watching my mother complete that house from the rocks she'd lifted from the creek and cement she mixed in a wheelbarrow - cement that today still bears her hand prints.
Her son bears her hand prints, too.
She pressed her pride and her hopes and her dreams deep into my soul.
So, you see, I know what Dan Quayle means when he says it's best for children to have two parents.
You bet it is!
And it would be nice for them to have trust funds, too.
But we can't all be born rich, handsome and lucky ... and that's why we have a Democratic Party.
My family would still be isolated and destitute if we had not had FDR's Democratic brand of government.
I made it because Franklin Delano Roosevelt energized this nation.
I made it because Harry Truman fought for working families like mine.
I made it because John Kennedy's rising tide lifted even our tiny boat.
I made it because Lyndon Johnson showed America that people who were born poor didn't have to die poor.
And I made it because a man with whom I served in the Georgia Senate - a man named Jimmy Carter - brought honesty and decency and integrity to public service.
But what of the kids of today?
Who fights for the child of a single mother today? Because without a government that is on their side, those children have no hope. And when a child has no hope, a nation has no future.
I am a Democrat because we are the party of hope.
For 12 dark years the Republicans have dealt in cynicism and skepticism. They've mastered the art of division and diversion, and they have robbed us of our hope.
Too many mothers today cannot tell their children what my mother told me - that working hard and playing by the rules can make your dreams come true.
For millions, the American dream has become what the poet called ''a dream deferred.''
And if you recall those words, he warned us that a dream deferred can explode.
Robbed of hope, the voices of anger rise up, rise up from working Americans, who are tired of paying more in taxes and getting less in services.
And George Bush doesn't get it?
Americans cannot understand why the rich can buy the best health care in the world, but all the rest of us get is rising costs and cuts in coverage, or no health insurance at all.
And George Bush doesn't get it?
Americans cannot walk our streets in safety, because our ''tough-on-crime'' president has waged a phony war on drugs, posing for pictures while cutting police, prosecutors and prisons.
And George Bush doesn't get it?
Americans have seen plants closed down, jobs shipped overseas and our hopes fade away as our economic position collapses right before our very eyes.
And George Bush does not get it!
Four years ago, Mr. Bush told us he was a quiet man, who hears the voices of quiet people.
Today, we know the truth. George Bush is a timid man who hears only the voices of caution and the status quo.
Let's face facts: George Bush just doesn't get it.
He doesn't see it; he doesn't feel it, and he's done nothing about it.
That's why we cannot afford four more years.
If the ''education president'' gets another term, even our kids won't be able to spell potato.
If the ''law and order president'' gets another term, the criminals will run wild, because our commander-in-chief talks like Dirty Harry, but acts like Barney Fife.
If the ''environmental president'' gets another term, the fish he catches off Kennebunkport will have three eyes.
And folks, after January, George Bush is going to have plenty of time to go fishing.
So much for the millionaire.
But we've still got ourselves a billionaire ... a billionaire!
He says he's an outsider who will shake up the system in Washington.
But as far back as 1974 he was lobbying Congress for tax breaks. He tried to turn $55,000 in contributions into a special $15 million tax loophole that was tailor-made for him.
Sounds to me like instead of shaking the system up, Mr. Perot's been shaking it down.
Ross says he'll clean out the barn, but he's been knee deep in it for years.
If Ross Perot's an outsider, folks I'm from Brooklyn.
Mr. Perot's giving us salesmanship, not leadership. And we're not buying it.
And so the choice in this election is clear - we've got us a race between an aristocrat, an autocrat and a Democrat.
I know who I'm for.
I'm for Bill Clinton because he is a Democrat who does not have to read a book or be briefed about the struggles of single-parent families, or what it means to work hard for everything he's ever received in life.
There was no silver spoon in sight when he was born, three months after his father died.
No one ever gave Bill Clinton a free ride as he worked his way through college and law school.
And the people at Yale couldn't believe it when he turned down a good job in Washington to return to Arkansas and teach.
Bill Clinton is a Democrat who has the courage to tell some of those liberals who think welfare should continue forever, and some of those conservatives who think there should be no welfare at all, that they're both wrong.
He's a Democrat who will move people off the welfare rolls and onto the job rolls.
Bill Clinton is a Democrat who has the courage to lead a real war on crime here at home.
And around the world he will be the kind of commander-in-chief this old Marine sergeant would be proud to follow. That either one of us was able, one growing up in an Appalachian valley and the other in rural Arkansas, to eventually become governors of our states is a tribute to the American dream and yes, the Democratic Party that makes it a reality.
When I was growing up back in the mountains, whenever I felt like one of life's losers, my mother used to point to the one and only paved road in our valley - a narrow little strip that disappeared winding its way through a distant gap - and
she'd say, ''You know what's so great about this place? You can get anywhere in the world from here.''Thanks to her and to God, the United States Marine Corps and the Democratic Party, I did go somewhere.
But I've never really left that mountain valley.
Shirley and I, our children and their children still live in the Appalachian town of Young Harris, Ga. And tonight, one of my sons is sitting in front of the television set in the living room of that same rock house my mother and her neighbors built so many years ago.
Tonight, let our message be heard in every living room in every home in America.
Wherever families and friends are gathered, let them know this. We have a leader and a party and a platform that says to the everyday working people of this country:
We will fight your fight.
We will ease your burden.
We will carry your cause.
We will hear all the voices of America, from the silky harmonies of the Gospel choirs to the rough-edged rhythms of a hot country band, from the razor's edge rap of the inner city to the soaring beauty of the finest soprano.
We hear your voice, America.
We hear your voice.
We will answer your call.
We will keep the faith.
And we will restore your hope.
Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America.
Ensure Stability in Middle East By Building Just, Free Societies (GEORGE W. BUSH, September 3, 2004, The Forward)
Terrorism has many faces, but all those who use terror as a weapon against free people burn with the same hatred and the same will to destroy. To build the lasting peace that we both seek in all corners of the globe, we must use every resource to defeat terror and ensure our security. America has led a relentless global campaign against terrorists and their supporters, and we are glad to have Israel at our side. [...]The peace we seek depends on defeating the violent, but the mission we pursue throughout the world is so much greater: the ideology of terrorism must be conquered and overcome. Terrorists find influence and recruits in societies where bitterness and resentment are common, and hope and opportunity are rare. Our best hope for lasting security and stability across the Middle East is the establishment of just and free societies. And so across that vital region, America is standing for the expansion of human liberty.
Freedom is at the heart of our approach to bringing peace between Israel and the Palestinian people. My administration is strongly committed to the security of Israel as a vibrant Jewish state.
For the sake of peace, we are committed to helping the Palestinian people establish a democratic and viable state of their own. Israel will benefit from a truly responsible partner in seeking to achieve peace. The Palestinian people deserve democratic institutions and responsible leaders. Progress toward this vision creates responsibilities for Israel, the Palestinian people and Arab nations. It is essential to the successful establishment of peace that all parties renounce violence and mutually pursue the war against terror.
Security is the foundation for peace. All parties must embrace democracy and reform and take the necessary steps for peace. I am troubled by the violence in Gaza and it underscores the need for all parties to seize every opportunity for peace. I strongly support the plan announced by Prime Minister Sharon to withdraw military installations and settlements from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. This plan is a bold and courageous step that can bring us closer to the goal of two states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security.
Sharon's disengagement decision has given the Palestinian people and the free world a chance to take bold steps of their own toward peace. We must now call upon the Palestinian people to reject their corrupt and failed leaders and insist on a leadership committed to reform, progress and peace. When they renounce the terror and violence that frustrate their aspirations and cost so many innocent lives, they will have the opportunity to build a modern economy, creating the institutions and developing the habits of liberty. The Palestinian people deserve a better future, just as the people of Israel deserve a better future. And democracy will deliver this future to us all.
Howard should start caring about Bush (Mark Steyn, 31/08/2004, Daily Telegraph)
It's often said that, whoever's elected, the Anglo-American relationship endures: Bush-Blair, Kerry-Howard, it makes no difference. That's not how Bush looks at it. He sees the war on terror as a struggle requiring enormous will, particularly when the default mode of fashionable transnationalism apropos anything difficult is to wait till it's too late and then issue a statement of concern (see Sudan).To Bush, Blair is a man who was prepared to face down his own party and some tough poll numbers to do the right thing. I'm not saying he thinks Howard's an unprincipled squish who reads the polls and does a U-turn just so he can join the pointless oppositionism of the Blair-bashing stampede but, if you were Bush, would you want to risk it? [...]
The damage to Republican-Tory relationships isn't the point: after all, you can't build bridges when one bank is crumbling into the river. It's the damage to the Tory party's identity. When you stand for nothing saleable that New Labour hasn't shamelessly appropriated, and when new parties are siphoning off votes on your Right, how stupid do you have to be to kick away the party's last remaining leg, the one that still seems relevant to the world we live in? If the Conservatives are no longer credible on foreign policy, what's left?
Or, as Toby Helm reported: "Among the alternative names that Tory modernisers are floating in private are the Democrats, the New Democrats, Progress." The first is the name of the US Left-of-centre party, the second is the Canadian socialist party, and the third could be anything, though it carries the vague whiff of a 1930s Mitteleuropean fascist movement.
New Jersey’s Jim McGreevey: America’s Most Corrupt Governor?: New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is the embodiment of a new reality, in which homosexuality is the last refuge of scoundrels. (Nicholas Stix, 1 September 2004, Intellectual Conservative)
New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey has managed to snatch martyrdom from the jaws of damnation. He would have the public believe that he didn’t resign his governorship on August 12 because of the scandals that sprouted from his administration like crabgrass, but because he was the victim of a homophobic society.Since August 12, the socialist, mainstream media have worked their butts off, painting sympathetic portraits of McGreevey, who in spite of having resigned, refuses to leave office. McGreevey is the embodiment of a new reality, in which homosexuality is the last refuge of scoundrels.
Wait'll you see the stage that the President is delivering his speech from.
Is Kerry Sinking? (Howard Kurtz, September 1, 2004, Washington Post)
Certainly Kerry has had a rough month. Maybe we're at a turning point in what has been a very static race. But it's too soon to tell, media hyperventilating notwithstanding.Team Kerry was slow to respond to the swift boat attacks, but it was not unreasonable, for a few days at least, to avoid giving oxygen to a tiny group buying ads in three states. What the Kerryites misjudged was how cable could turn this into an August thunderstorm that washed away everything else.
Back in the 2000 campaign, the press spent the spring and summer writing about what a horrible candidate Gore was. Then he kissed his wife on a Los Angeles stage, shot up in the polls and Slate was declaring that "Bush is toast." He wasn't.
It was only a few weeks ago that the media were pronouncing the Democratic convention a highly disciplined success. Then Kerry got no bump in the polls and the CW gradually became that Boston was a huge missed opportunity.
Kerry Sharpens Contrast With Bush: Campaign Takes the Offensive as GOP Attacks Senator's Record (Jim VandeHei, September 2, 2004, Washington Post)
After huddling with top staff in recent days in Nantucket, Kerry plans a more aggressive campaign style in the final two months -- starting with Wednesday's speech, aides said.Joe Lockhart, the Clinton White House spokesman who was hired to sharpen and simplify Kerry's message, is taking a prominent, some say the preeminent, leadership role in a department largely bereft of advisers with considerable presidential-level experience. In an interview Wednesday, he promised that no attack would go unanswered.
Despite losing ground in polls, Kerry believes he has cleared the national security hurdle with most voters and plans to focus mostly on health care and the economy leading up to Nov. 2, Lockhart said.
MORE:
DEMS' DEADLY DIVIDE (DICK MORRIS, September 2, 2004, NY Post)
In an incredibly striking contrast, Bush voters are united on virtually all the questions that divide the Kerry vote. So Bush can advance his agenda with impunity while taking aim at Kerry voters who are antagonized by their candidate whenever he has to choose a position. [...]Rasmussen asked if Iraq was a part of the War on Terror or a distraction from it. Republicans overwhelmingly said it was integral — by 79-14. But Democrats were divided. Half said it is a distraction — but 36 percent felt it was a key part of the war effort.
So what is Kerry to say? Either way, he loses votes. And if he waffles, he strengthens his reputation for flip-flopping.
Should we give a priority to finishing the mission in Iraq or to bringing the troops home? Republicans say "stay the course," 71-23. Democrats divide: 54 percent say "come home"; 37 percent want us to finish the mission.
Who is winning the War on Terror? Republicans say we are, 77-10. Democrats divide almost equally, with 33 percent saying America is winning and 42 percent saying the terrorists are gaining the upper hand.
So how is Kerry to characterize the war? Say it's a success — and alienate 42 percent of his vote — or call it a failure — and drive away 33 percent?
Republicans are sure, by 67-12, that if we'd left Saddam in power, life in America would be more dangerous. Democrats again divide, with 20 percent saying life is safer because he is out, and 34 percent saying it's not.
Should the United States follow the lead of its allies more than we do now? Republicans say "No," 72-5; 44 percent of the Democrats say "Yes," and 19 percent say "No."
So, on each of these issues, whenever Kerry opens his mouth, he loses.
Area Catholic Schools Grow, Bucking Trend (Valerie Strauss, August 29, 2004, Washington Post)
Catholic education in the region is expanding -- with the Archdiocese of Washington opening its first new elementary school in Montgomery County in a decade and hundreds of students heading to parochial schools under the D.C. voucher program.In Northern Virginia, two high schools are being planned by the Diocese of Arlington, each to house about 1,000 students within three years.
This growth runs counter to figures that show a 4 percent nationwide decline in Catholic school enrollment in the past decade, most of it occurring recently after increases in the 1990s. [...]
Beyond the Washington area's swelling population and strong economic base, Catholic educators attribute their success to a hunger among many families for religious-based values education. Parents also cite the fact that parochial school tuition is a fraction of the cost of top private schools in the region.
Bush gets religion into government by stressing faith (MARSHA MERCER, August 29, 2004, Richmond Times Dispatch)
At a prayer breakfast with thousands of evangelical Christian supporters, the president declares politics and religion inseparable."I believe that faith and religion play a critical role in the political life of our nation and always has," he says, "and that the church - and by that I mean all churches, all denominations - has had a strong influence on the state. And this has worked to our benefit as a nation."
He continues, "the truth is, politics and morality are inseparable and as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide."
Sounds like something George W. Bush might say on his way to the Republican National Convention, doesn't it?
Well, yes and no. That wasn't Bush. It was Ronald Reagan, rallying the faithful one August morning 20 years ago during the Republican National Convention in Dallas.
In 1984, when a president merely said religion and politics were intertwined, without lifting a finger to make it so, it was front-page news. Today, President Bush has welded religion and politics as a matter of government policy, and the policy has already become so ingrained that nobody notices.
Maybe that's because Bush, one of our most personally religious presidents, avoids using the word "religion." These days, "faith" and "faith-based" are the words of choice.
But Bush has done far more than Reagan ever dreamed to use the power of "a higher calling" to attack society's problems. Reagan mostly used the bully pulpit. Bush has put federal muscle and money into social-service agencies run by churches and other religious groups.
Kuwaiti editor: Bush is 'history maker': 'Who else will come to the rescue of people suppressed by dictators?' (WorldNetDaily.com, September 2, 2004)
The editor of the Arab Times and a Kuwaiti daily wrote an article yesterday in support of President Bush, hailing him as the only leader who confronts terrorism and comes to the rescue of people under the yoke of dictatorship.Writing in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, Ahmad Al-Jarallah challenged critics of the president who call the war in Iraq "baseless," according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.
He concluded with, "Bush is the president of not only the United States but the whole world, for he is making history on this small planet."
Political Victory: From Here to Maternity (Phillip Longman, Washington Post, 9/2/04)
In states where Bush won a popular majority in 2000, the average woman bears 2.11 children in her lifetime -- which is enough to replace the population. In states where Gore won a majority of votes in 2000, the average woman bears 1.89 children, which is not enough to avoid population decline. Indeed, if the Gore states seceded from the Bush states and formed a new nation, it would have the same fertility rate, and the same rapidly aging population, as France -- that bastion of "old Europe."Recent polls also show that younger Americans are increasingly anti-abortion. I don't know if there is anything to the Roe effect, but we are building a new America and a new society. What's odd is that it is the conservative party that is eager for the future to come, and the progressive-reactionary party that is now standing athwart history yelling "stop" (or, really, yelling "racist").If Gore's America (and presumably John Kerry's) is reproducing at a slower pace than Bush's America, what does this imply for the future? Well, as the comedian Dick Cavett remarked, "If your parents never had children, chances are you won't either." When secular-minded Americans decide to have few if any children, they unwittingly give a strong evolutionary advantage to the other side of the culture divide. Sure, some children who grow up in fundamentalist families will become secularists, and vice versa. But most people, particularly if they have children, wind up with pretty much the same religious and political orientations as their parents. If "Metros" don't start having more children, America's future is "Retro."
SETI has not found ET: official (Lucy Sherriff, 2nd September 2004, The Register)
Astronomers at the SETI@Home project have spoken up to dismiss suggestions that the project intercepted signals from an alien civilisation.Reports spread across the net yesterday and today after New Scientist said that an "interesting" signal had been picked up by the huge radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
The magazine quoted Dan Wertheimer, the chief scientist on the SETI@Home project, as saying that the signal was the most interesting yet identified by the project. He remarked: "We're not jumping up and down, but we are continuing to observe it."
Despite the otherwise sceptical tone of the article, his comments sparked speculation that we had actually made contact with another world. Sadly, this does not appear to be the case, and Wertheimer told ther BBC today that the idea of contact was "all hype and noise". "We have nothing that is unusual. It's all out of proportion," he said.
KERRY IS AN UNARMED MAN IN A BATTLE OF MORAL PRINCIPLE:
The first genuine moral relativist to run for president, John Kerry doesn't believe in truth enough to refrain from fraudulent campaign claims; he doesn't believe in democracy enough to promote it abroad. In six months of campaigning, he has yet to explain how any one of his positions is derived from a moral principle.
But it takes moral principle to beat moral principle. In debate, a moral relativist can have no safe position on any issue. When positions conflict, the principled man can present persuasive and inspiring moral arguments, while the relativist can only assert his position. When the relativist's position is challenged, he is likely to abandon his position for another (after all, one position is as good as another); this flip-flopping discredits him. The relativist therefore will often seek shelter from challenge by adopting his opponent's position. But since the principled man can present a moral case for his position, while the relativist cannot, the relativist only makes it appear that the principled man has, in fact, led and won the debate, brought his opponent around to his side, and united political factions. The principled man is shown to be a leader, while the relativist has demoralized his natural supporters.
Bush's best strategy is to enhance this natural dynamic: When Kerry agrees with him, thank him for supporting Bush's position and cite it as an example of Bush's success uniting the country. When Kerry disagrees, challenge him hard to expose the lack of a moral foundation for Kerry's views and push him into flip-flops. When Kerry flip-flops, mock him.
This campaign is going to be an opportunity to rout not only John Kerry, but also liberal relativism. Please, President Bush - go for the jugular.
"SQUEEZE THE NETWORKS" SQUEEZED CHENEY:
Zell got through his speech quickly, driven by anger and perhaps also because his speech may have been shortened at the last minute, as Tacitus reported at RedState. I think Cheney ended up needing to stretch his speech by at least five minutes to achieve the "squeeze out the network commentators" strategy. The many long pauses for applause made his speech a little boring. The first sign of imperfect organization in the convention.
The Future Belongs to the Fecund (James Pinkerton, 09/01/2004, Tech Central Station)
I'm old enough to remember the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade, and I must admit I had no idea that the controversy would still be raging, more than three decades later. Back then, feminism and emancipation seemed like the wave of the future. And of course, the role of women in American society has changed dramatically in the last three decades.Yet even so, today, the White House and both chambers of Congress are controlled by avowed pro-lifers. The basic freedoms guaranteed by Roe are still intact, to be sure, but as both sides in the debate argue, just one more anti-Roe justice on the Supreme Court could reverse that ruling.
So what happened? I think a lot of the answer can be found in birth-rate differentials -- demography is destiny. To put it bluntly, in the name of "empowerment," the Left has birth-controlled, aborted, and maybe also gay-libbed itself into a smaller role in American society. Yes, it was their personal-is-political choice, but others will benefit politically. We might consider, as just one example, what's happened to New York City. In 1973, the Big Apple had a population of about eight million; the population of the United States overall was 211 million. In 2004, the Apple was still at around eight million, but the country's population, in the meantime, had increased by nearly two-fifths. It's not automatically a bad thing for a population to stay stagnant -- unless, of course, the goal is to wield power through the ballot box.
What's shrinking New York and other yuppoid places is the paradoxical impact of prosperity upon fertility. Nationwide, some 44 percent of women aged 15-44 are childless; but those childlessness numbers skew above average in high-income states such as Massachusetts, Vermont, and Colorado. By contrast, the lowest percentages of childless women are in downscale states such as Alaska, Mississippi, and Wyoming. In other words, those who have the most capital -- financial, but also, often, intellectual and educational -- are the least likely to have children.
This phenomenon -- yuppie singles and couples walking down what is literally a demographic dead end -- is witnessed across the Western world. As gloomy authors such as the conservative Pat Buchanan and the liberal Phil Longman have observed, the fertility rate among women in most of Europe is well below the "replacement rate" of 2.1 children per woman. Italy, for example, faces demographic wipeout; its population today is 57 million, but if present trends continue, that number could fall to 41 million in 2050, and perhaps to 20 million in 2100.
So will these countries just be empty? Probably not. Most likely, the lands of Western Europe, having been depopulated through plunging birthrates, will be repopulated with immigrants from high-birthrate countries in the Middle East and Africa. Is this bad? Not if you're an upwardly mobile striver from Algeria or Nigeria. But of course, there's not much chance that Italian language and culture will survive such an ethnic occupation. And others might wonder about the fate of the Western alliance if Italy were ever to have a foreign minister first-named Mohammed.
One who saw all this coming was Charles Galton Darwin; his 1952 book, The Next Million Years, argued that human history is first and foremost the story of populations. As he wrote, "The fundamental quality pertaining to man is not that he should be good or bad, wise or stupid, but merely that he should be alive and not dead." That is, underneath all the concern about the pursuit of happiness and the promotion of the general welfare is one unyielding bottom line: either the population reproduces itself, or it doesn't.
Echoing the survival-of-the-fittest themes of his more famous grandfather, Darwin added, "Any country which limits its population becomes therefore less numerous than one which refuses to do so, and so the first will be sooner or later crowded out of existence by the second."
And so the more recent Darwin offered a grim prediction: the future of the world belongs to illiberal religions. Or, if you prefer, conservative religions, including not only Christianity, but also Islam and Hinduism. How come? Because those faiths that emphasize traditionalism, including traditional sex roles, are more likely to be procreative. In modern countries, feminists are free to be feminists, but if they don't have feminist children -- which is to say, boys and girls who sustain the "free to be . . . you and me" philosophy -- then the politics of the future will be shaped by those hands that do, in fact, rock the cradle -- after putting a baby inside.
And that's what's been happening. The right-to-life movement, and the social conservative movement overall, is more than holding its ground. As The Wall Street Journal observed in an August 30 news story, states that might have once been thought to be solidly Democratic for John Kerry are, instead, "in play." And why is that? Because the population-blossoming parts of the state are Republican. As the Journal explained, "Minnesota's Scott County outside the Twin Cities; St. Croix County outside Eau Claire, Wis.; and Deschutes County around Bend, Ore." are the places where the vote-ducks are to be found.
The idea that the Gopher, Badger, and Beaver states, and their 25 electoral votes, might be in play for a Texas Republican fighting a foreign war would seem absurd to the anti-war liberals and hippies who once dominated state politics. But maybe those lefty folks aren't around any more. Nearly four decades after the sit-ins of the 60s, ex-radicals are more likely to be staging die-offs -- their own. And oh yes, they forgot to have children. The future belongs to the fecund.
Fox News Beats Broadcasters in Convention Coverage (Reuters, 9/01/04)
The Fox News cable channel made a bit of television history by drawing more viewers than any of the Big Three broadcast networks on the opening night of major coverage of the Republican convention, according to figures issued on Wednesday.Fox News' presentation of Tuesday's speeches by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and first lady Laura Bush drew 5.4 million viewers, more than broadcasters ABC, CBS or NBC.
That marked what is believed to be the first time a cable channel has grabbed the biggest audience for a telecast of a single event covered by all the networks, Fox said.
Combined viewership during the 10 o'clock hour in which the Big Three joined cable outlets Fox News, CNN and MSNBC in carrying Tuesday's proceedings totaled nearly 22.2 million, according to Nielsen Media Research.
That was up from the 18.5 million six-network total for the first night of the Democratic convention in July, when former President Bill Clinton addressed the delegates.
Familiar Formula for 2nd Nomination Address: Things Are Good; More Is Coming (JAMES BENNET, 9/02/04, NY Times)
In the private theater at the White House yesterday, President Bush stood before a handful of aides to practice his speech, to be delivered Thursday night in New York. The closely held speech was written by Michael Gerson, his chief speechwriter, who has a record of rising to such occasions as well as a demonstrated tilt toward generational themes. Karen P. Hughes, Mr. Bush's longtime adviser, also contributed to the draft. [...]In 2000, Mr. Gerson wrote an acceptance speech for Mr. Bush that implicitly paralleled the nominee's own story of youthful waywardness and maturation to his generation's passage through the 1960's. Mr. Bush spoke of a new cohort rising to assume leadership from "the greatest generation" - the World War II veterans who not incidentally included his father.
Indeed, Mr. Bush said his generation faced what some might call a rendezvous with history, or words to that effect. "The rising generations of this country have our own appointment with greatness," he said. Later in the speech, he invoked Roosevelt by name.
In a poignant testament to how quickly times have changed, Mr. Bush was summoning his generation to take advantage of easy times. "Times of plenty, like times of crises, are tests of American character," he said. "We will use these good times for great goals."
The times of plenty have given way to times of crises, and the generational theme has risen again. Laura Bush repeatedly invoked it in her speech on Tuesday night as she praised her husband's leadership during "the most historic struggle my generation has ever known."
Comparing her husband as a wartime leader to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, she said, "Once again, as in our parents' generation, America had to make the tough choices, the hard decisions, and lead the world toward greater security and freedom."
Hating America: The World's Most Dangerous Ideas (Fareed Zakaria, September/October 2004, Foreign Policy)
By crudely asserting U.S. power and disregarding international institutions and alliances, the Bush administration has pulled the curtain on decades of diplomacy and revealed that the United States’ constraints are self-imposed: America can, in fact, go it alone. Not surprisingly, the rest of the world resents this imbalance and searches for ways to place obstacles in America’s way.But an equally important force propelling anti-Americanism around the world is an ideological vacuum. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama was right when he noted that the collapse of the Soviet Union also meant the collapse of the great ideological debate on how to organize economic and political life. The clash between socialism and capitalism created political debates and shaped political parties and their agendas across the world for more than a century. Capitalism’s victory left the world without an ideology of discontent, a systematic set of ideas that are critical of the world as it exists.
There is always a market for an ideology of discontent—it allows those outside the mainstream to relate to the world. These beliefs usually form in reaction to the world’s dominant reality. So the rise of capitalism and democracy over the last 200 years produced ideologies of opposition from the left (communism, socialism) and from the right (hypernationalism, fascism). Today, the dominant reality in the world is the power of the United States, currently being wielded in a particularly aggressive manner. Anti-Americanism is becoming the way people think about the world and position themselves within it. It is a mindset that extends beyond politics to economic and cultural realms. So, in recent elections in Brazil, Germany, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Spain, the United States became a campaign issue. In all these places, resisting U.S. power won votes. Nationalism in many countries is being defined in part as anti-Americanism: Can you stand up to the superpower?
Much has been written about what the United States can do to help arrest and reverse these trends. But it is worth putting the shoe on the other foot for a moment. Imagine a world without the United States as the global leader. Even short of the imaginative and intelligent scenario of chaos that British historian Niall Ferguson outlined in this magazine (see A World Without Power, July/August 2004), it would certainly look grim. There are many issues on which the United States is the crucial organizer of collective goods. Someone has to be concerned about terrorism and nuclear and biological proliferation. Other countries might bristle at certain U.S. policies, but would someone else really be willing to bully, threaten, cajole, and bribe countries such as Libya to renounce terror and dismantle their WMD programs? On terror, trade, AIDs, nuclear proliferation, U.N. reform, and foreign aid, U.S. leadership is indispensable.
The temptation to go its own way will be greatest for Europe, the only other player with the resources and tradition to play a global role.
REVIEW ESSAY: Preempting the truth (Walter C. Uhler, Sep/Oct 2004, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
Paul Waldman's book, Fraud, fuels the fire of those who have a hard time believing any of Bush's words. Waldman excoriates the news media and focuses on Bush's lies because "when George W. Bush realized that his alleged lack of intelligence in the eyes of the press gave him the opportunity to lie without consequence, he knew he had struck political gold." The book is worth reading, if only because it yields one extremely relevant nugget concerning Iraq that speaks volumes about Bush's religious piety and character.In a supposedly private moment just before his national address announcing that war had begun, Waldman writes that "a camera caught Bush pumping his fist as though instead of initiating a war he had kicked a winning field goal or hit a home run. 'Feels good,' he said." Readers may have seen the Associated Press photo of Bush's tasteless fist-pump.
Given all of the above, the words of former U.S. Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson, speaking as chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, seem especially appropriate for the Bush administration: "Any resort to war--to any kind of war--is a resort to means that are inherently criminal. War inevitably is a course of killings, assaults, deprivations of liberty, and destruction of property. An honestly defensive war is, of course, legal, and saves those conducting it from criminality. But inherently criminal acts cannot be defended by showing that those who committed them were engaged in a war, when war itself is illegal."
At any rate, they're apparently still a going concern and have learned not a doggone thing from their own past errors if this review is any indication. The whole thing is pretty noxious but that closing paragraph is priceless: "...the words of former U.S. Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson, speaking as chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, seem especially appropriate for the Bush administration..." Oddly enough, Mr. Jackson wasn't prosecuting President Truman and the American Administration but Nazis, despite the inherent criminality of our unilateral war to impose regime change on Hitler's Germany. You can't ask for a much clearer indication of the Left's moral blindness than that Mr. Uhler and the folks at the Bulletin are confused about which side represented totalitarian evil in the Iraq War.
Move Over, Confucius: A review of Jesus in Beijing by David Aikman (Joshua Kurlantzick, The New Republic)
On a visit to China several years ago, I happened to be in Shanghai after Jiang Zemin announced his theory on how the ruling party should update its ideology, so that Chinese communism would come to represent not only workers but also the country's history, culture, and most productive economic (read: capitalist) forces. This mind-numbingly boring theory, which Jiang called "The Three Represents," dominated discussion at party meetings in Beijing. So I spent my time in Shanghai chatting with acquaintances about the Three Represents. Shanghai has always been China's most urbane city, so surely its intellectuals would be feverishly arguing about Jiang's ideas.But the professors had almost no interest in Jiang's theories. At the city's markets, where sellers have encyclopedic knowledge of bad Chinese action films, reporters found that no one seemed to have heard of the Three Represents. At Shanghai's newest and hippest watering hole -- Starbucks -- Chinese yuppies' conversation revolved around business deals and new clothes. And only a few blocks from Starbucks, average Shanghainese were paying rapt attention to another theory -- actually, a set of imported theories. When
I walked into a small structure near Nanjing Lu, a main shopping street, I saw hundreds of Chinese sitting in rows, listening to a man exhorting everyone to love one another, to create grassroots networks, to give themselves over to a power uncontrolled by the party. The audience listened raptly.This scene was hardly unique. In the past decade, millions of Chinese have sought community, philosophy, and spiritual comfort outside the confines of communist ideology and their immediate families. In the first half of its reign, the Chinese Communist Party destroyed the institutions that had undergirded China's society for millennia, replacing them with Mao Zedong's all-destroying
totalitarian ideology; and in the second half of its reign, the CCP embraced the very offense with which the chairman used to charge his worst enemies. But capitalism is not a political ideology, and money offers no theories on the nature of man, nor thoughts on death, nor ideas of how to organize a society. The party has scrambled to devise an alternative mass ideology based in part on Chinese nationalism; but judging by the response to the Three Represents, it is not exactly thrilling the population. Instead, average Chinese are desperately seeking an ideology even as Beijing has repressed many of those secular actors -- liberal democrats, trade unions, non-governmental organizations -- who might have provided alternatives to Marxism or the state's new cult of money.For this reason, many Chinese are looking beyond secular civil society. Across the country, the old opiate of the people has returned, and the masses are mainlining it. China is in the early stages of its own Great Awakening. In fact, the greatest threat to Beijing today may not be George W. Bush or Chen Shui-bian or the Dalai Lama or Harry Wu, but rather an old, old figure who has played a role before in the collapse of venal Chinese regimes. I am referring to Jesus Christ.
Great to see teens think they should help pay for college (TERRY SAVAGE, 9/02/04, Chicago SUN-TIMES)
Here's what surprised me most about all the suggestions I received from financial planners for back-to-school columns. It wasn't the suggestions that you take your child shopping for clothes and school supplies to "teach them the value of the dollar." It wasn't the "this is a good time to teach the dangers of credit-card debt" pitches.It was a survey from Fidelity Investments that caught my eye. The "Surprise! Research Shows Teenagers Feel a Strong Obligation to Help Parents Meet Skyrocketing Cost of College Education!" That last exclamation point is mine. Whose kids did they survey? Do only the unspoiled, thoughtful kids of parents who have done the best job of teaching real values answer those surveys? The footnote says the study talked with "477 college-bound teens ages 14-to-17 years old," and their parents, with household incomes of $35,000 or more.
Here's what they found when they talked to the teens:
**The vast majority of teenagers (95 percent) feel obligated to shoulder some of the financial burden of their college education.
**Three-quarters (74 percent) think their parents should pay only half or less of their college expenses.
As for the parents:
**Under ideal circumstances, half of parents surveyed (50 percent) would be willing to pay for all or most of the cost. However ...
**Two-thirds (67 percent) of parents don't anticipate being able to contribute as much toward the cost of their teen's college education as they would like.
Nepalese attack mosque after executions in Iraq (BINAJ GURUBACHARYA, September 2, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Nepal's government imposed an indefinite curfew and appealed for calm Wednesday after thousands of demonstrators ransacked a mosque and clashed with police in the capital to protest the slaying of 12 Nepalese hostages by Iraqi militants.One demonstrator died late Wednesday after being wounded during the clashes, said doctors at the Bir Hospital in Katmandu. Three more protesters were in serious condition.
''We want revenge,'' the protesters shouted as they stormed the Jame mosque -- the only Muslim house of worship in the capital of this largely Hindu nation.
The Jacksonian Persuasion (Michael Barone, 9/02/04, RealClearPolitics)
Miller came to the Senate reluctantly, after Paul Coverdell, a Republican whom he had worked with in the Georgia legislature, died suddenly in July 2000. Governor Roy Barnes had to ask Miller two or three times to accept appointment to the Senate; everyone knew that Miller could win the special election to the rest of Coverdell’s term, because of his popularity as governor, but Miller did not want to serve in Washington and he certainly did not want to be engaged in the hyperpartisan politics of Capitol Hill after achieving great things in the more bipartisan politics of the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta.Finally Miller agreed to serve, but he was appalled by the partisanship of Tom Daschle’s Democratic Caucus. Since he became Democratic leader in 1994, Daschle has excelled at holding Senate Democrats together and using the rules of the Senate to frustrate the Republican majority from 1995 to 2001 and to frustrate George W. Bush when he became Majority Leader in June 2001. With winks and nods, Senate Democrats and their ultrapartisan staffers prevented Republicans from getting the 60 votes increasingly necessary to get anything through the Senate. Just stick together, Daschle said, and don’t worry about negative fallout; we’ll be protected by the increasingly partisan pro-Democratic Old Media and we can force the other side to give in.
It was a game Zell Miller did not want to play. In December 2000 he went to Austin, Texas, to visit with President-elect George W. Bush, whom he knew from their time as governors together. Miller promised to support Bush’s education bill and volunteered his support of Bush’s tax cut. Daschle, of course, was furious; Miller became a pariah in the unity-conscious Democratic Caucus.
Then came September 11. Daschle rallied to support Bush in September, but by December was holding up the economic stimulus bill by his effective partisan tactics. Then, as the focus shifted toward Iraq, Senate Democrats laid the predicate for undermining Bush’s policies. This Miller evidently identified as something close to treason. And he saw the Senate Democrats rooting against American success. As he said in Madison Square Garden, “Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator. And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.” No better friend, no worse enemy.
Republicans on a roll (Joan Vennochi, September 2, 2004, Boston Globe)
Ron Kaufman, GOP national committeeman from Massachusetts and longtime Bush supporter, says that when the Democratic presidential nominee saluted and told Democrats "I am John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty," he weakened his chance for victory and enhanced Bush's."I believe in my heart the defining moment in this campaign was when John Kerry took the microphone on Thursday night in Boston and said `reporting for duty,' " said Kaufman, aboard the USS Intrepid at a Monday night fund-raiser for Governor Romney. "I truly believe it's one of the biggest mistakes in current American politics. For the American voters, it's not about what happened 24 years ago or even the last four years."
Kerry, said Kaufman, "focused on the past. Conventions should be focused on the future."
To the average television viewer, the Republican National Convention is focused on the future. Each night showcases the stars of the post-Bush era: former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona's Senator John McCain, California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Let the media harp on the narrow GOP platform. The public reads People magazine, not issues papers, and laughs along with Schwarzenegger when he calls economic pessimists "girly-men."
Democrats took the opposite approach in Boston. They broadened their platform but forgot to broaden the appeal from the podium. They offered up Democratic icons of conventions past -- former President Jimmy Carter, former Vice President Al Gore and Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Stars like Bill and Hillary Clinton are highly polarizing. Barack Obama of Illinois, a candidate for the US Senate, has yet to win national office.
Kerry also surrounded himself with Vietnam veterans and military men, hoping to transmit an image of strength. But the first test of strength is backbone. Kerry showed little, even before the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth muddied his campaign waters. There must be polling data to support his decision to avoid making a clear statement on issues from war to abortion. But what reason could there be to let the ever-bitter emotions of a war 30 years ago poison his presidential campaign? In New York, Republicans salute the troops serving in Iraq. In Boston, Kerry saluted his own service in Vietnam, giving opponents a rationale for attack.
Parallels to the 1988 showdown between former governor Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush continue on their eerie path.
Bush's way: a taker of big, bold risks: A president who, for better or worse, has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to wield the powers of office. (Peter Grier, 9/02/04, CS Monitor)
He takes the stage at Madison Square Garden Thursday night as a politician in full - a president who, for better or worse, has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to wield the powers of office.From fiscal to foreign policy, Bush's four years have been marked by bold - some would say foolhardy - initiatives. If reelection campaigns are usually about the incumbent, then the 2004 vote may hinge on how Americans feel about this Texas gambler style of leadership.
It's ironic, in a way. By becoming an un-Yankee, he's positioned himself to surpass the achievements of his aristocratic Yankee forebears.
"Bush's most important asset is his very focused and distinct personality," says Stephen Cimbala, a political science professor at Penn State University in Media, Pa. "You may agree or disagree with his positions on various public- policy matters, but you know where he stands." [...]
Bush relatives judged George W. to be wild, but also "the smart one," according to historian Herbert S. Parmet, a George H.W. Bush biographer. And it was George W. as a young adult who served a political apprenticeship under his dad. He was assigned to keep an eye on the mercurial, aggressive political consultant Lee Atwater, for instance. And as the elder Bush's term in office wound down, it was George W. who noticed the strain in his father's face and discussed with him whether he should stand for reelection.
"I don't know that he will run again," George W. told associates at the time, according to Mr. Parmet. "There's a good chance that he won't."
Ultimately the father did run, of course. Now the son is too - and to all accounts he didn't inherit that reluctance to try for a second term.
In fact, one word experts use over and over again to describe Bush's political leadership style is "aggressive." Just look at the timeline: Barely elected to office in 2000, Bush would have to govern from the center, said pundits. He didn't. Faced with predictions that his tax cut would unleash a flood of red ink, he would have to trim it, according to many commentators. Scratch that - it passed largely intact. He'd never be able to invade Iraq in the face of international opposition, judged some experts. Then he did - despite hints that his own father thought it a bad idea.
"He is decisive, and he takes risks," says Marc Landy, a Boston College political scientist and author of a book on presidential greatness.
On the stump, Bush himself offers up his clarity of vision as the reason he should get four more years. But one person's clarity is another's stubbornness, and it is precisely the president's refusal to look back that drives many of his opponents wild.
MORE:
For Bush, a chance to tip the balance (Peter S. Canellos, September 2, 2004, Boston Globe)
The polls, which have seesawed in a small range all summer, portend a combative fall campaign, with a clear opportunity for Democratic challenger John F. Kerry. But Bush, perceived by more voters as a strong leader, can change the balance by outlining a clear second-term agenda, according to GOP delegates and independent pollsters interviewed over the past three days.Tonight's nationally televised acceptance speech will be Bush's best opportunity to answer persistent concerns about the fairness of his tax policies and his efforts to stabilize Iraq, the delegates and pollsters said.
The Bush campaign "has been telling us repeatedly that he's going to outline an agenda for a second term, and he needs to do it," said Adam Clymer, political director of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg National Election Survey, whose most recent poll released yesterday shows growing approval of Bush's leadership but skepticism about his policies on the economy, Iraq, and health care.
"If all he's doing is running on his accomplishments of the first term when there is a lot of dissatisfaction on the economy and Iraq, it's going to be very difficult for him," said Clymer, a former political reporter for the New York Times. [...]
Bush's aides yesterday offered few details of his acceptance speech, but the president has returned in recent days to some of the "compassionate conservative" themes of his campaign four years ago. He says government can help promote economic security through programs to encourage home ownership, medical savings, and Social Security investment.
Martinez's Win in Florida Could Help Bush Gain Latino Votes (John M. Glionna, September 2, 2004, LA Times)
If elected, Martinez — who served Bush as secretary of Housing and Urban Development — would become the first Cuban American in the Senate. He and Democrat Ken Salazar in Colorado are attempting to become the first Latinos to serve in the Senate since 1976.The desire among many conservative Cuban Americans to sweep Martinez into office is likely to bring more middle-aged and elderly voters to the polls. That, in turn, is expected to shore up support for Bush, who in 2000 was supported by more than 80% of Cuban American voters in Florida. Bush won the state by 537 votes.
"Having Mel Martinez out on the streets of Florida, trying to drum up votes, will definitely help President Bush in the eyes of older Cuban American voters," said Miami pollster Sergio Bendixen.
"Cubans have had a history over the past 20 years of showing up at the polls to elect one of their own, whether it's for the school board or mayor or for Congress." [...]
Demonstrating the importance the Bush camp places in his candidacy, Martinez is scheduled to speak tonight at the Republican National Convention in New York.
Supporters for Sen. John F. Kerry, Bush's Democratic opponent, said they doubted that Martinez would have much effect on the presidential race.
Kerry Gets Mixed Reception From Veterans: American Legion members' enthusiasm wanes when Democrat criticizes Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and its aftermath. (Matea Gold, September 2, 2004, LA Times)
Although many of the American Legion delegates enthusiastically applauded remarks Kerry made earlier in his speech about the need for better veterans benefits, his criticism of the administration's foreign policy was received coolly and the audience was silent as he detailed his view of what has gone wrong in Iraq.
MORE:
Kerry's war stance turns off audience: Speaking to an audience of war veterans, John Kerry sought to differentiate his position on Iraq from President Bush's, but faced a chilly reception. (THOMAS FITZGERALD, 9/02/04, Knight Ridder News Service)
While the Democratic presidential candidate was greeted with a standing ovation when he arrived, and the crowd applauded as he spoke of the need to increase funding for veterans' benefits, the room was silent when he criticized the president. Many in the audience folded their arms across their chests.Kerry was seeking to regain political momentum after a miserable month. His approval ratings have dropped amid harsh attacks on his Vietnam service record by a veterans group that he says has ties to the White House.
Prime-Time Hero Schwarzenegger May Take Act on Road -- to Ohio: Pumped up from his convention speech, the governor might stump for Bush in the key state. (Joe Mathews, September 2, 2004, LA Times)
With his speech endorsing President Bush a hit among Republicans at their national convention, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may take his message on the road this fall to a key electoral state: Ohio.The governor's chief of staff, Patricia Clarey, said late Tuesday that she had discussed the possibility of an appearance there with Bush campaign strategist Karl Rove and campaign manager Ken Mehlman. She said a decision on an appearance was not final and would depend on the governor's schedule and the president's political needs at the time.
"It's definitely on the table," Clarey said.
The move would be a departure from Schwarzenegger's reluctance until now to campaign for Bush outside California. It would put Schwarzenegger in a state in which he has long-standing business and personal ties — specifically to Columbus, a political bellwether. No Republican has won the presidency without Ohio.
UN's damning verdict: Sudan failed to halt killing 9GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN , 9/02/04, The Scotsman)
The report - which was compiled by Mr Annan’s special envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk - accuses Sudanese forces of taking part in attacks after the Security Council passed its resolution, and it paints a picture of a region whose people live in daily fear of fresh attack."It is incumbent upon the government of Sudan to ensure that no more attacks on civilians occur, whether the perpetrators are under its influence or not," it says.
"The government should be prepared to accept assistance from the international community if it is unable to stop these attacks and ensure the protection of the civilian population in the Darfur region."
Mr Annan’s report provides a blueprint for an expanded international presence. Currently, the African Union has 80 military observers protected by about 300 soldiers in Darfur to monitor a rarely observed cease-fire signed in April. Last night, UN diplomats indicated the UN plan called for about 3,000 peacekeepers, but stressed that the final decision was up to the African Union.
The 53-nation group, currently headed by Nigeria, is expected to make its recommendation in the coming days.
Lebanon's Lost Sovereignty (NY Times, 9/02/04)
Choosing a president ought to be an internal Lebanese affair, but Syria has made it an international one. That is why the United States and France are now asking the United Nations Security Council to affirm Lebanon's full sovereignty and its right to choose a new president without foreign interference.Those principles deserve the strong endorsement of every Council member. And Lebanon, the most democratically minded country in the Arab Middle East, deserves the immediate withdrawal of Syrian occupation troops.
Kerry playing to GOP view of his leadership (John Kass, September 2, 2004, Chicago Tribune)
Naturally, Democrats were upset about comments made on get-tough Wednesday. But they shouldn't be upset about what the Republicans said. It should have been expected.It's what Kerry didn't say about Kerry on Wednesday in a speech to the American Legion Convention in Nashville that should bother them.
Rather than address a series of withering commercials from the Swift Boat veterans, Kerry decided not to engage. Rather than confront the Republican mantra using his own words to show that he's a flip-flopper on Iraq, he kept silent.
Rather than engage what threatens him, Kerry offered programs, plans and government benefits to his fellow veterans. He talked about improved health care, hospitals and cheaper medicine if he is elected president in November. It was a speech about political payoff, and he offered them a piece of the pie. But he couldn't offer a piece of himself.
Query about Freedom of Press Highlights Angry Chris Matthews-Zell Miller Debate (Editor & Publisher, September 01, 2004)
Probably the most incendiary moment in all of the television coverage of the Republican National Convention so far occurred shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday night, during a Chris Matthews interview with Senator Zell Miller on MSNBC, which started hot and then grew angry after a question about reporters and freedom the press."You're hopeless," Miller told Matthews, dead serious, speaking over a hook-up from Madison Square Garden, where he had earlier delivered the keynote address. "I wish I was with you there because I want to get in your face." Then Miller said he wished they were back in the age when you could challenge someone to a duel. "I don't know why I came on this program," he added, amidst four minutes of heated exchanges.
GOP Locks In on Theme, and Opens Fire on Kerry (Ronald Brownstein, September 2, 2004, LA Times)
With only one night left, the Republican convention increasingly looks like the mirror image of the Democratic gathering. During their four nights, Democrats devoted the most effort to polishing Kerry's credentials as a potential commander in chief and to questioning Bush's strategy in the struggle against terrorism. Republicans are putting almost all of their energy into undermining Kerry's credentials to be a commander in chief and defending Bush's national security decisions.The pile-driver attack on Kerry's national security credentials at the Republican convention — following the assault on his military record from a group of Vietnam veterans over the last month — has created twin challenges for the Democrat: maintaining his credibility as a potential leader and finding ways to shift more attention to domestic issues, such as the economy and healthcare, where polls show he holds an advantage over Bush.
Senior Kerry advisors said they believed the attacks Wednesday were so heated that they would backfire with swing voters. But the intensity of the GOP assault this week could increase the pressure on Kerry from Democrats who believe his campaign has not been nearly aggressive enough in criticizing Bush and presenting a case for change.
Yet the convention's never-give-an-inch defense of Bush's strategy since Sept. 11, culminating in his decision to invade Iraq, also could seed dangers for the president later in the race.
In effect, the GOP has spent this week suggesting to voters that if reelected, Bush will not deviate from an approach to national security that has divided the nation. Bush receives strong marks in polls for his response to terrorism. But in recent surveys, including a University of Pennsylvania National Annenberg Survey released Wednesday, about half of Americans say the war in Iraq has not been worth the cost.
"It's nice to be firm in what you believe in, unless of course it's the wrong direction," said Madeleine Albright, secretary of State under President Clinton and a Kerry advisor. "At those times, resolute can be translated as stubborn and uncompromising."
Master of moral relativism (YAACOV LOZOWICK, 9/01/04, Jerusalem Post)
Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent resistance against an oppressor is surely one of the most admirable political phenomena of the 20th century. Yet ultimately his success lay in his choice of oppressor. Say what you will about the British, they regarded themselves as basically decent and, faced with Gandhi's challenge, they ultimately backed down.The Nazi, Soviet, Khmer Rouge, and Hutu genocidists never allowed the passivity of their victims to slow them down, not for a minute. When Gandhi's grandson, Arun Gandhi, recently visited Yad Vashem, it would have been fair-minded of him to reflect upon this distinction. Instead he took the opportunity to lecture the Jews on their mistakes: "We got rid of Hitler but not the philosophy of hate that still threatens and strikes," he admonished.
It's hard to know where to begin when someone implies that Zionism resembles Nazism as an ideology of hate. When someone stands at Yad Vashem and says that the practice of Zionism is akin to the persecution Jews suffered in Europe, he has opened an unbridgeable chasm between his version of events and the historical truth.
When Arun Gandhi says that the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank is worse than Palestinian suicide bombings, his listener can only reflect morosely on the devastation of moral thinking that is so common in our generation.
In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: "What about the Jews? Are you prepared to see them exterminated? If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war?" I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the "you're another" type. But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer's GANDHI AND STALIN. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi's view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler's violence." After the war he justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly.
Casting Europe as a Virtuous Upstart: a review of THE EUROPEAN DREAM: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream By Jeremy Rifkin (RICHARD BERNSTEIN, NY Times)
Here is the overall idea: "While the American Spirit is tiring and languishing in the past, a new European Dream is being born,'' he writes. That dream "emphasizes community relationships over individual autonomy, cultural diversity over assimilation, quality of life over the accumulation of wealth, sustainable development over unlimited material growth, deep play over unrelenting toil, universal human rights and the rights of nature over property rights, and global cooperation over the unilateral exercise of power."That would seem to be quite a place, Mr. Rifkin's Europe, and some aspects are real enough, at least in some of the many variable countries that make up what Mr. Rifkin calls Europe. But this imputation of a unified and homogeneous Europe is an initial conceptual problem. The European Union includes Poland and Portugal, Britain and Greece, which are as different from each other as each is from the United States. Those differences call into sharp question many of Mr. Rifkin's assertions, like this one: "The U.S. foreign policy is light-years away
from the foreign policy orientation of the 25 member states that make up the European Union."Surely, there are some ways in which the international orientation of a collection of small and medium-sized countries will be substantially different from that of a superpower. But that phrase "light-years away" is a typical Rifkinian overstatement, even when applied to countries like France and Germany, which vigorously opposed the United States on Iraq. These same countries, after all, cooperated with Washington during the last decade or so in Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including regarding the use of force in every instance. Beyond that, a solid majority of the 25 members of the European Union supported the United States on Iraq and contributed troops, wisely or not, to the
coalition.Some of what Mr. Rifkin describes as important European-American differences have been shrinking even in recent weeks. Powerful German labor unions have agreed to work longer hours without additional pay, a recognition that Germany, Europe's economic engine, may be in for more "unrelenting toil" and less "deep play" (what Mr. Rifkin means by that profound-sounding concept remains vague) if it is to restore its damaged competitiveness. German unemployment has been more than 10 percent for several years, even as unemployment benefits have been shrinking; that country's budget deficits have exceeded the levels allowed by the European Union for three consecutive years; and its leftist government
has been cutting back on social welfare.Meanwhile, Germany, like the rest of Europe, has an aging population and a low birth rate, which, unless something is done, mean, as Mr. Rifkin puts it, that "the European project will die." And, as Mr. Rifkin notes, the remedy for the looming demographic crisis, namely large-scale immigration from non-European countries, is powerfully opposed by majorities in Europe and by important minorities whose members have grouped themselves into numerous right-wing political formations with racist and nationalist appeal.
* As awesome as Zell Miller's speech was he was even better on Hardball where he lamented not living in an age when he could challenge Chris Matthews to a duel.
* Zell's heat made Dick Cheney's cool even more effective and between them they just carved up the Senator. What can Kerry have been thinking when he left it to the GOP to define his entire public career since 1968?
* Frank Luntz ran a focus group for MSNBC with "undecideds" who loved both speeches, but especially Miller who several in the chattering class were fretting had been too negative.
* They squoze the networks again, masterfully, leaving them almost no analysis time.
* Democrats are supposedly all fired up about the contrast between Dick Cheney and John Edwards for their debate, but it could be just as brutal as Bentsen vs. Quayle.
Remarks Made by Senator Zell Miller (9/01/04)
The following is the full text of remarks made by Senator Zell Miller, as prepared for delivery.Since I last stood in this spot, a whole new generation of the Miller Family has been born: Four great grandchildren.
Along with all the other members of our close-knit family -- they are my and Shirley's most precious possessions.
And I know that's how you feel about your family also.
Like you, I think of their future, the promises and the perils they will face.
Like you, I believe that the next four years will determine what kind of world they will grow up in.
And like you, I ask which leader is it today that has the vision, the willpower and, yes, the backbone to best protect my family?
The clear answer to that question has placed me in this hall with you tonight. For my family is more important than my party.
There is but one man to whom I am willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush.
In the summer of 1940, I was an eight-year-old boy living in a remote little Appalachian valley.
Our country was not yet at war but even we children knew that there were some crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they could.
President Roosevelt, in his speech that summer, told America "all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger."
In 1940 Wendell Wilkie was the Republican nominee.
And there is no better example of someone repealing their "private plans" than this good man.
He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the time.
And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.
Shortly before Wilkie died he told a friend, that if he could write his own epitaph and had to choose between "here lies a president" or "here lies one who contributed to saving freedom", he would prefer the latter.
Where are such statesmen today?Where is the bi-partisanship in this country when we need it most?
Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander-in- Chief.
What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in?
I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny.
It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city.
Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today.
Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.
And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators.
Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers.
Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers.
Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers.
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.
For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.
No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.
But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution.
They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.
It is not their patriotism - it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking. They claimed Carter's pacifism would lead to peace.
They were wrong.They claimed Reagan's defense buildup would lead to war.
They were wrong.
And, no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.
Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that won the Cold War and that is now winning the War on Terror.
Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts.
The B-1 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, dropped 40% of the bombs in the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The B-2 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hussein's command post in Iraq.
The F-14A Tomcats, that Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Khadifi's Libyan MIGs over the Gulf of Sidra. The modernized F-14D, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora.
The Apache helicopter, that Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War. The F-15 Eagles, that Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's Capital and this very city after 9/11.
I could go on and on and on: Against the Patriot Missile that shot down Saddam Hussein's scud missiles over Israel, Against the Aegis air-defense cruiser, Against the Strategic Defense Initiative, Against the Trident missile, against, against, against.
This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces?
U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?
Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric.
Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside.
Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations.
Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide.
John Kerry, who says he doesn't like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security.
That's the most dangerous outsourcing of all. This politician wants to be leader of the free world.
Free for how long?
For more than twenty years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure. As a war protestor, Kerry blamed our military.
As a Senator, he voted to weaken our military. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny protective armor for our troops in harms way, far-away.
George Bush understands that we need new strategies to meet new threats.
John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday's war. George Bush believes we have to fight today's war and be ready for tomorrow's challenges. George Bush is committed to providing the kind of forces it takes to root out terrorists.
No matter what spider hole they may hide in or what rock they crawl under.
George Bush wants to grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go to get a better grip.
From John Kerry, they get a "yes-no-maybe" bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends.
I first got to know George Bush when we served as governors together. I admire this man.
I am moved by the respect he shows the First Lady, his unabashed love for his parents and his daughters, and the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America.
I can identify with someone who has lived that line in "Amazing Grace," "Was blind, but now I see," and I like the fact that he's the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning.
He is not a slick talker but he is a straight shooter and, where I come from, deeds mean a lot more than words.
I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home, a God-fearing man with a good heart and a spine of tempered steel.
The man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family.
This election will change forever the course of history, and that's not any history. It's our family's history.
The only question is how. The answer lies with each of us. And, like many generations before us, we've got some hard choosing to do.
Right now the world just cannot afford an indecisive America. Fainthearted, self-indulgence will put at risk all we care about in this world.
In this hour of danger our President has had the courage to stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand up with him.
Thank you.God Bless this great country and God Bless George W. Bush.
The Cheney View of the World, With a Focus on Danger and Boldness (DAVID E. SANGER, 9/02/04, NY Times)
Vice President Dick Cheney reverted on Wednesday night to the simple, bold declarations of how America should exercise its power that were often heard in the first year after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had not yet been invaded, intelligence reports had not yet proved false, and 17 months of insurgency had not yet raised the question of whether George W. Bush had taken a wrong turn in the fight against terror.Instead, Mr. Cheney jettisoned the complications of the past year, honing the central argument of the Republican campaign: that the country could not trust Senator John Kerry to strike decisively in the defense of American interests. "Senator Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed 'only at the directive of the United Nations,' " Mr. Cheney said last night, according to a prepared text of his remarks.
He added: "He declared at the Democratic convention that he will forcefully defend America - after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked,'' he said, suggesting the nation cannot be safe without a president who is instinctively ready to go on offense to eliminate threats to the United States.
To some it may seem an over-distilled message, discarding much of what the Bush administration has learned, often the hard way, over the past year. It largely ignores discussion of the value of alliances, the need to treat the roots of terrorism, or the requirements of slow, patient diplomacy in places - like Iran, North Korea, even Pakistan - where there are no real military options. Mr. Bush's critics will say it sidesteps the problems of murky intelligence and deeply festering resentments of American power around the world.
But as Mr. Bush's and Mr. Cheney's advisers have said repeatedly in recent weeks, campaigns and the subtleties of national security policy do not easily mix. So they have settled on a strategy that is designed to sow doubts about their opponent's character ("Senator Kerry's liveliest disagreement is with himself,'' Mr. Cheney said on Wednesday night), while hoping that some bold declarations about taking the fight to the enemy would overwhelm memories of the missteps of the past year.
MORE:
The Strong, Silent Type; Vice President Cheney Doesn't Suffer Small Talk When He's Looking at the Big Picture (Mark Leibovich, 1/18/2004, Washington Post)
Keyes: Cheney's gay daughter a sinner (The Associated Press, September 1, 2004)
Illinois Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes labeled homosexuality "selfish hedonism" and said Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter is a sinner.The former talk show host who has made two unsuccessful runs for the White House made the comments Monday night in an interview with Sirius OutQ, a satellite radio station that provides programming aimed at gays and lesbians.
After saying homosexuality is "selfish hedonism," Keyes was asked if that made Mary Cheney "a selfish hedonist."
"Of course she is," Keyes replied. "That goes by definition.
U.S. noncommittal as Panama pardons convicted Cuban exiles (GEORGE GEDDA, September 1, 2004, AP)
Police say the four Cuban exiles had lethal intent when they were arrested, allegedly with explosives in their possession. They were suspected of plotting to assassinate a head of state, Fidel Castro, but convicted only of a lesser charge of endangering public safety.To some, it looked like a clear case of international terrorism. To others, the four were freedom fighters trying to liberate their homeland. [...]
Debate over the case has resurfaced with the decision of Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso last week to pardon the four.
Among some Cuban-Americans in Miami there was jubilation. The Cuban government was furious. The State Department declined to criticize Moscoso's action.
"This was a decision made by the government of Panama," State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. "We never lobbied the Panamanian government to pardon anyone involved in this case, and I'd leave it to the government of Panama to discuss the action."
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., said he was stunned to learn of the pardon, adding that the State Department loses credibility in refusing to voice outrage over the release of people he says are "assassins, ... terrorists."
Bush strategist says Kerry's 1971 testimony tarnished vets (RON FOURNIER, September 1, 2004, AP)
White House strategist Karl Rove said Wednesday that Sen. John Kerry had tarnished the records of fellow Vietnam veterans with his anti-war protests, prompting a blistering response from the Democrat's campaign."Who in the hell is Karl Rove, talking about John Kerry's war record?" asked retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak Another Kerry backer called on President Bush's top political adviser to resign.
Advocating a universal military draft is likewise a legitimate political position.
But are the Democrats really saying, as they increasingly seem to be, that in order to criticize John Kerry you have to have served in combat?
Typically it's the Left that compares George Bush and Republicans to the Nazis, but isn't there a whiff of fascism in such an argument?
Krugman’s Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: The Times columnist reveals his dark theories. (Byron York, 9/01/04, National Review)
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says he believes the United States needs a "mega-Watergate" scandal to uncover a far-reaching right-wing conspiracy, going back forty years, to gain control of the U.S. government and roll back civil rights. [...]"We probably make a mistake when we place too much emphasis on Bush the individual," said Krugman, who received a standing ovation when he was introduced. "This really isn't about Bush. Bush is the guy that the movement found to take them over the top. But it didn't start with him, and it won't end with him. What's going on in this country is that a radical movement...that had been building for several decades, finally found their moment and their man in Bush."
Krugman said he and other liberals had been "asleep" and unaware of the true dimensions of the danger during the years in which President Bill Clinton found himself facing a variety of scandal allegations. But Krugman said there is a "complete continuity" between today's politics and the "campaign of slander and innuendo" against Clinton. "There's complete continuity going back, really, I think — but this is my next book — you really need to go back to Goldwater. A lot of this has to do with civil rights, and the people who don't like them."
Krugman described the conspiracy as "the coalition between the malefactors of great wealth and the religious right." He offered no further details about who, precisely, is in the conspiracy but said that "substantial chunks of the media are part of this same movement."
"It's a movement that has been building," Krugman told the audience. "The one thing I think that you really have to say is that people on the left — the position formerly known as the center — people like myself have been asleep for a long time. We just didn't take it seriously. We sat through all the Clinton scandals and said oh, you know, there's probably some funny stuff going on there [and] didn't understand the extent to which this movement was being built."
Kerry Challenges Bush on Terror Policies (NEDRA PICKLER, 9/01/04, AP)
As a Massachusetts senator, Kerry voted in 2002 to give Bush the authority to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and said recently that he would still do so in hindsight, even knowing that no weapons of mass destruction have been found.But Kerry said, "I would never have diverted resources so quickly from Afghanistan," where the Taliban has been forced from power but Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaida remain free.
"I wouldn't have ignored my senior military advisers. I would have made sure that every soldier put in harm's way had the equipment and body armor they needed. I would have built a strong, broad coalition of our allies around the world.
"And if there's one thing I learned from my service, I would never have gone to war without a plan to win the peace," he said.
* He'd have frozen in place until we recovered the corpse of Osama from some rubble-sealed cave in Tora Bora or wherever?
* He'd have let the military bureaucrats have their 300,000 men in Iraq? Essentially forfeiting the role of commander-in-chief and the concept of civilian control?
* He'd have given France, Ruissia, China, etc., vetoes over American security policy?
* And he'd have insisted on something we've never had in any war we've ever fought?
If he's a pacifist why not just say so instead of enumerating so many absurd conditions as to make war impossible?
MORE:
Does explain this though, U.S. warrrior wins respect: Communists back former soldier Kerry in his bid for U.S. presidency, saying he's more realistic about war (MARINA JIMENEZ, June 22, 2004, Globe and Mail)
In the spartan banquet room of the Coolong Hotel, the Communist Party apparatchiks all agree on one thing: Democratic Senator John Kerry is the best candidate for U.S. president.Mr. Kerry, who served in Vietnam but later became an opponent of the war, is seen in the rural Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh as a brave warrior, a man to be respected "soldier to soldier."
"That George Bush is so arrogant. Mr. Kerry is better for Vietnam," says Tran Hoan Kim, the Communist Party's provincial chairman and a former Viet Cong guerrilla fighter during what was known here as the "American" war.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger " There is another way you can tell you're a Republican. You have faith in free enterprise, faith in the resourcefulness of the American people ...and faith in the U.S. economy. To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie men! "
Teddy [via The Federalist]:
"Weasel words from mollycoddles will never do when the day demands prophetic clarity from greathearts. Manly men must emerge for this hour of trial." --Theodore Roosevelt [emphasis added]
Governor Schwarzenegger (2004 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION, AUGUST 31, 2004
[T]he other party says there are two Americas. Don't believe that either. I've visited our troops in Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Germany, and all over the world. I've visited our troops in California, where they train before they go overseas. And I've visited our military hospitals. And I can tell you this: Our young men and women in uniform do not believe there are two Americas!They believe we are one America and they are fighting for it!
Many of my generation remember growing up at the height of the Cold War, hiding under desks during civil defense drills in case the communists attacked us. And now, when parents ask me, what should we tell our children - I think about those desks. We need to reassure our children that our police and firemen, and military and intelligence workers are doing everything possible to keep them safe. We need to remind them that most people in the world are good. And we need to explain that because of strong American leadership in the past we don't hide under our desks anymore.
IDF warns Syria, PA, Hezbollah after 16 killed in Be'er Sheva (Haaretz, 9/01/04)
A day after 16 people were killed in a double suicide bombing in the southern city of Be'er Sheva, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff warned that Israel would "take care of those who support terror," singling out the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Hezbollah."We will take care of those who support terror," Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon told a meeting of the Knesset House Committee. "That is those in the Palestinian Authority, the Hezbollah organization in Lebanon, in the terrorist command in Damascus, which operate with Syrian approval and those who provide funding and weapons to terrorist organizations."
The IDF chief refused to comment on Syrian involvement in terrorism, primarily the attacks in Be'er Sheva, but said that, "I don't want to get into the question of what we will do, but everyone who is responsible for terrorism against us will not sleep soundly."
The Pro-Life Vote and the 2004 Senate Elections (Jayd Henricks, 9/01/04, Family Research Council)
Thirty-four senators are up for re-election in November, and with Republicans holding onto a slim majority (51-48-1), every race will be pivotal in determining which political party will control the Senate in the 109th Congress. Overall, Democrats have 19 seats to defend; the Republicans, 15. As part of these 34 races the Democrats have five open seats--seats without an incumbent candidate--to protect (Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina), while the Republicans have three (Colorado, Illinois, and Oklahoma). [...]If the 2002 elections are any indication, the abortion issue can turn a race in favor of a pro-life candidate. It can be convincingly argued that the Republicans have a majority in the Senate because of the life issue. To increase their numbers they should emphasize the pro-life position as a strength of their platform, rather than avoid discussing the issue.
In 2002, three key Senate races were decided by seven percent or less. In Georgia, Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Max Cleland by 138,930 votes (roughly seven percent of the total vote); Norm Coleman defeated Walter Mondale by 49,451 votes in Minnesota (roughly two percent of the total vote); and finally, in the closest of the three races, Jim Talent defeated incumbent Jean Carnahan in Missouri by 21, 254 votes (slightly above one percent of the total vote).
These victories were due in part to the pro-life movement being more actively involved in campaigning and endorsing pro-life candidates. There is ample post-election data to support this claim. Zogby conducted a post-election poll in the most hotly contested Senate races that pitted a pro-life Republican against a pro-abortion Democrat. The first question asked, "Did the abortion issue affect your vote?" Of the 5,408 people polled, 41 percent said that the abortion issue influenced how they voted on the Senate race in their respective state. Of the 41 percent who responded yes to the first question, 55 percent voted for the pro-life Republican Senate candidate, while 39 percent voted for the pro-abortion Democrat.
Calculating the overall impact that the abortion issue had on the Senate races in these nine states is revealing: 23 percent of all voters cited the abortion issue as a factor in their voting for the pro-life Republican, whereas only 16 percent identified the abortion issue as a reason for their voting for the pro-abortion Democrat. That is a seven-percent net advantage for pro-life U.S. Senate candidates, which was enough votes to propel Chambliss, Coleman, and Talent to victory in Georgia, Minnesota, and Missouri. [...]
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll reported that 60 percent of those polled believe abortion should either be illegal or legal only in a few circumstances. A CNN poll found that 75 percent of those surveyed support a 24-hour waiting period, 85 percent support informed consent, and 73 percent support parental consent. In addition, 52 percent of Americans believe abortion is homicide, and 72 percent think abortion is morally wrong.
Increasingly, Americans are describing themselves as "pro-life" rather than as "pro-choice." In 1999, 43 percent identified themselves as pro-life, with 46 percent calling themselves pro-choice. An April 2004 Fox News/Opinion Dynamic poll found that 47 percent described themselves as pro-life, while the percentage of those calling themselves pro-choice dropped to 44 percent. A Zogby poll also released in April 2004 found that by a 49 to 45 percent margin, more Americans identified themselves as "pro-life" than "pro-choice."
A poll conducted April 15-17, 2004, by Zogby International showed that a majority of Americans, including African-Americans and students, are pro-life. The poll found that a total of 56 percent agreed with one of the following pro-life views: abortion should never be legal (18 percent), legal only when the life of the mother is in danger (15 percent) or legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or incest (23 percent).
Growing Group of Comedians Veer Right (Catherine Donaldson-Evans, September 01, 2004, Fox News)
Though a lot of comics and entertainers have lately been taking potshots at the president and the war he waged in Iraq, a number of right-leaning, conservative comedians have found their voices and started talking back.A group of conservative comics billing themselves as The Right Stuff have been traveling around the country and are in New York this week to get laughs out of Republican delegates at the convention.
Another of the new breed is Brad Stine, a politically conservative Christian who weaves both elements of his value system into his act. [...]
The targets of his jokes are the cast of characters you might expect: atheists, animal rights activists, the politically correct, "fanatical left-leaners," gun control advocates, divorcees and, yes, France — but Stine means no personal harm, he says.
"I never attack people — I attack ideas," Stine said. "We're all in this together. We have to be able to make fun of each other and ourselves. There is humor in differences."
Raw Deal: A review of FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression, by Jim Powell (Gregory L. Schneider, Claremont Review of Books)
Powell's main contribution is to explain how the New Deal prolonged the Depression. He points first to New Deal banking laws. The prohibition of branch-banking—the failure to allow banks to establish branches throughout the country—contributed to the banking panic and bank failures during the early 1930s. Most banks were undercapitalized institutions that should remind readers of the two-bit Bailey Building and Loan in Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life." Economic rationality suggested that capital reserves be sufficient to provide depositors a guarantee that deposits would be safe. Powell argues that government regulation of banking, the New Deal's solution to the banking crisis, was unnecessary. Instead, permitting banking institutions with sufficient capital reserves to open branches and to invest their reserves would have solved the problem. Canada, which allowed branch-banking, suffered hardly any bank failures during the Depression.Powell indicts federal monetary policy, as well. He accepts the argument, developed by economist Murray Rothbard in America's Great Depression, that the Federal Reserve system contributed to the Depression in the first place. And the Banking Act of 1935, which created the Fed's Open Market committee and further strengthened its role in shaping monetary policy, helped spark the 1938 Roosevelt recession, the third worst economic collapse in American history.
Powell's book serves also as a superb defense of the Supreme Court's famous "four horsemen of reaction," George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter, James McReynolds, and Pierce Butler. The conservative members of the Court, famous, or infamous, for declaring unconstitutional the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, are stoutly defended by Powell. All four, joined at times by Charles Evans Hughes and Owen Roberts, "did a splendid job articulating vital principles of economic liberty—fac[ing] enormous political pressure from a popular president." Rather than being reactionaries—horse-and-buggy conservatives—the four were well-regarded practitioners of the law who served ably on the Court.
At its strongest, FDR's Folly is a powerful synthesis of the economic damage wrought by the New Deal. The book shows how New Deal farm programs helped large landowners at the expense of tenant farmers and sharecroppers; how the National Industrial Recovery Act contributed to monopoly and to the development of cartels within industries, undercutting recovery; how Social Security slowed the recovery, taxing workers, removing money from the wider economy, and contributing to higher unemployment; and how African-Americans were hurt by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Wagner Act's sponsorship of unions.
Many of these arguments are well known. New Left historians in the 1960s, like Stanford University's Barton Bernstein, reached similar conclusions about the New Deal's failure, for example, to address issues of black poverty (of course, Bernstein is also critical of Roosevelt for saving capitalism). Powell does not claim that Roosevelt was a socialist. Rather, he was an opportunist, concerned with cementing his political power and little interested in how his programs affected the very constituencies he relied on for votes. For all its strengths, FDR's Folly does not come to grips with the man's political understanding and ambition. Although the New Deal failed economically, politically it was a stunning success. FDR's liberalism dominated American politics for the next four decades. Only in the '60s and '70s, when the failures of modern liberalism were apparent for all to see, did conservatives begin to make headway against the liberal establishment. But conservatives have still not proven that they can mobilize a public commitment to decreasing the size of government comparable to FDR's commitment to increasing it.
Poll: Thune Edges Past Daschle in South Dakota (Jeff Gannon, September 1, 2004, Talon News)
An internal poll shows that Rep. John Thune (R-SD) has gained enough momentum to pass Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) in the most closely watched Senate race of 2004. The Republican numbers indicate that Thune is moving up in the polls and is at or near 50% while the incumbent remains stalled at 48%.National Senatorial Committee Chairman Sen. George Allen (R-VA) announced the new numbers at a breakfast for South Dakota's delegates to the Republican National Convention on Tuesday. He told delegates that South Dakotans have the ability to "transform the United States Senate" by replacing Daschle with Thune. [...]
The NRSC chairman's remarks included a shot at Daschle, who has often been criticized for appearing to be a conservative in South Dakota, but promoting a liberal agenda in the Senate. Allen said that Thune "won't be carrying the water for Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton."
He ticked off a list of legislative initiatives that have been stymied by Daschle's obstruction by use of the filibuster. Included on the list were energy policy, tort reform and judicial nominees. On the subject of judges, Allen said that Daschle was blocking qualified nominees to the courts that would "apply the law, not invent the law."
Bush And The 'Vision Thing' (Roger Hickey, TomPaine.com)
Bush and the Republicans don’t believe in government—and they have systematically slashed public revenues. So they need an agenda that promises to address the problems, while continuing their crusade to cut taxes for the wealthy and downsize government. [...]At the convention President Bush will unveil, not for the first time, an overarching theme designed to convince voters he has a vision for a second term: the Ownership Society. The Bush team has tried out this phrase sporadically over the last year or so— in a few unnoticed speeches, press releases, fact sheets and interviews by White House staffers like Mary Matlin. And the cover story of the latest Business Week , obviously informed by White House spinners, gives us a preview of what to expect. Bush’s ”ownership society” is an attempt to repackage a set of proposals that mainly benefit the wealthy and the corporations under the pretense of addressing real “kitchen table” concerns of the middle class and the poor. Virtually all the specific proposals, when presented and explained to average voters in polling or focus groups, are very unpopular. And there is considerable evidence that most already overwhelmed and overworked Americans reject the “big idea” that individuals must take greater responsibility for designing and “owning” their health care, retirement plans, education and work time. [...]
The costs of health care premiums are skyrocketing, and the Census Bureau has just issued a report showing that 45 million Americans have no health insurance at all— a 3.2 percent increase over the 43.6 million who had no coverage a year ago. (Among people under 65, almost 18 percent of all Americans were uninsured.) In the face of this certified crisis, what is George W. Bush’s proposed solution? Tax credits for people who purchase their own health care premiums (which many experts believe will give employers and excuse to bail out of paying for health care altogether). And tax deductions for the wealthiest Americans who have enough income to shelter some of it—tax free—in Health Savings Accounts to pay for catastrophic health care costs. Many observers have noted the only way these proposals would reduce health care costs would be by placing the burden of payment on individuals, encouraging them to avoid the doctor even for crucial preventative health care. And experts have already questioned Bush’s relatively modest projections about how many Americans his plan would cover. Bush’s Ownership Society forces individuals to own responsibility for their own health care themselves— and, as usual, provides help in the way of tax subsidies only to those who are rich enough to take advantage of the subsidies. [...]
Amazingly, the Bush Ownership Society agenda would undermine the one reliable and guaranteed leg of the three-legged retirement stool: the Social Security system. Americans are increasingly insecure about their retirement. Gone are the days when most employers provided their employees with real “defined benefit” pensions. Instead, most workers are lucky if their employer contributes to an IRA or 401K account which the employee is responsible for investing in the stock market, win or lose. Most workers have little of their income left over for retirement savings after living costs are covered— and many are in debt to make ends meet. In this environment, what is the Bush Ownership Society program for retirement? They want to privatize Social Security by cutting guaranteed benefits in order to create risky private accounts invested in the stock market. Experts have shown that privatization would require more than $1 trillion in transition costs, far less than the costs of protecting Social Security’s guaranteed benefits for the next 80 years.
In the 1960s, we marched for a reason (Janet Daley, The Telegraph, September 1st, 2004)
In my day, protesters were mostly bearded, lithe and sensitive. Now they are bearded, fat and smug. Back then, demonstrators had firehoses directed at them, not fawning television interviewers. Did you see those jolly marchers in New York, staging their anti-Bush carnival of absolutely safe, no-risk, self-congratulatory dissent?When we marched against the Vietnam War, and the young men among us publicly burnt their draft cards, we could expect real punishment and victimisation, not lionisation by the Cannes Film Festival. The draft-defying men were committing a federal crime and risking imprisonment. Some of them had to live in exile in Canada for years - a truly awesome punishment - as the price of their youthful conscience.
If memory serves, the most common complaint among 1960's draft dodgers living out their “awesome punishment” was the unavailability of good Mexican food.
There seem to be a lot of middle-aged Boomers surfacing who think that marching for Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot was a far nobler and risky exercise than shilling for Saddam Hussein. They are starting to sound like their own parents telling stories of sacrifice and deprivation during the Depression and WW11. Maybe this isn’t the best time to tell them they sound ridiculous.
The Workplace: In Europe, unity has its limits (Thomas Fuller, 8/31/04, International Herald Tribune)
HALLUIN, France The residents of this border town understand the idea of Europe’s single market better than most.They dart back and forth across the nearly invisible frontier with Belgium to buy cigarettes, do their food shopping or enjoy a meal.
But don’t bother asking Frank Degezelle, a Belgian electrician who lives across the border in Menen, to fix your faulty fuse box in France.
And don’t try calling Dirk Vandenbilcke, a painter on the Belgian side, if the living room walls of your house in France need freshening up.
They will both tell you that the paperwork is a nightmare and not worth the hassle for them.
It’s been more than a decade since the European Union declared itself a single market, but the reality on the ground here shows a lot of division.
‘‘I don’t work in France,’’ said Vandenbilcke, the painter, whose office is less than a kilometer from the border. Paying taxes in both countries is very complicated, he said, and before starting a job in France he is required to fill out forms that transfer his social security and medical credits. That might take more time than the job itself.
The European Union has made great strides in the free movement of shampoo, vegetables or wine across borders but the free movement of plumbers, electricians or accountants is still slowed by a thicket of national regulations.
SPEECH: Senator Elizabeth Dole (Republican National Convention, 8/31/04)
We live in a time of stark contrasts. Four years ago America was about to tumble into recession. Today our economy is recovering. Four years ago, 911 was just an emergency phone number. Today, it is a call to arms. For Republicans, through these changes and challenges, who we are and what we believe has never wavered.The party of Abraham Lincoln has not wandered in a desert of disbelief or uncertainty. Led now by President Bush, this Grand Old Party is still guided by a moral compass, its roots deep in the firm soil of timeless truths. We still believe that character is king. We saw that lived out in the life of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Ronald Reagan, who called an empire evil and won the Cold War.
We still believe that liberty is the birthright of every soul. That's why in Afghanistan women were freed from virtual slavery and given access to books and education and a future. That's why in Afghanistan and Iraq the dark clouds of oppression have parted for 50 million people. And until they can clearly see the blue skies of freedom, we are standing by them!
Yet we know our true strength is not in our weapons. We are a great nation because we are a good people. And we are a good people because of what we believe.
We believe in the dignity of every life, the possibility of every mind, the divinity of every soul. This is our true north we believe in life. The new life of a man and woman joined together under God.
Marriage is important not because it is a convenient invention or the latest reality show marriage is important because it is the cornerstone of civilization, and the foundation of the family. Marriage between a man and a woman isn't something Republicans invented, but it is something Republicans will defend.
We value the sacred life of every man, woman, and child. We believe in a culture that respects all human life including the most vulnerable in our society, the frail elderly, the infirm, and those not yet born. Protecting life isn't something Republicans invented, but it is something Republicans will defend. We believe in the treasured life of faith.
Two thousand years ago a man said, " I have come to give life and to give it in full." In America I have the freedom to call that man Lord, and I do. In the United States of America we are free to worship without discrimination, without intervention and even without activist judges trying to strip the name of God from the Pledge of Allegiance;
from the money in our pockets; and from the walls of our courthouses. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The right to worship God isn't something Republicans invented, but it is something Republicans will defend.
We believe in the compassionate life of service. Our enemies in this war on terror say that America is selfish, self-centered, self-obsessed. They do not know America. As the President said, "If you want to help in the war on terror, love your neighbor. Love your neighbor." Americans will cross town or cross the globe to help people they've never met and will never see again. So yes, if neighbors are hungry, we feed them; if a storm named Charley or Francis strikes, we help them. Serving others isn't something Americans invented, but it is a calling we'll always accept.
These are just some of the principles that guide our party. Some may call them values. Others may call them virtues. I like to think of them simply as the truths my parents and grandparents taught me. Despite what you might hear on the news, they are the shared truths of the American people. They are true from sea to shining sea from my hometown of Salisbury, North Carolina to the South Side of Chicago, from Little Havana to Bob Dole's Russell, Kansas, from Madison Square Garden to the Space Needle, from Crawford, Texas to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The last century was known as the "American Century." In a single lifetime, I have seen Americans split the atom, abolish Jim Crow, eliminate the scourge of polio, win the Cold War, plant our flag on the surface of the moon, map the human genetic code and belatedly recognize the talents of women, minorities, the disabled and others once relegated to the shadows. We are now in the earliest years of a new century writing another chapter in American history.
And if we reaffirm these timeless and unchangeable truths, if we choose life and liberty, compassion and service, character and faith, we will honor those who came before us, and inspire the children of tomorrow. It will be said of us that we lived in a time of great challenge, and great hopes. And let it also be said that we loved our country and served her well and chose leaders wisely. That is what brings us to this convention, ladies and gentlemen.
I am honored to stand with you in support of a great American: our nominee our President . George W. Bush!
Elvis' political strategy? Bush aides will clarify (DAVE BARRY, 9/01/04, Miami Herald)
I attended a gathering of the College Republicans, a group of politically active young people whose views I wholeheartedly endorse because they gave the media free food and liquor.But I was somewhat intimidated by the College Republicans themselves. When I was a college student, back in the '60s, I . . .
OK, never mind what I did in the '60s. But I did it in very casual attire. Whereas the College Republicans, overwhelmingly male, wore nice suits and ties and had haircuts that appeared to be only minutes old. They also had firm handshakes, outgoing personalities and the easy, confident manner of young people who will someday, possibly later this year, be deciding whether to move your firm to Taiwan.
They had gathered at a Manhattan bar to hear from Karl Rove, who, depending on your political perspective, is either the (a) chief political advisor to President Bush, or (b) the Antichrist. Some people claim he's the brains behind the president, who, let's face it, does not always appear to be 100 percent aware of what he is thinking.
This was demonstrated Monday when the president said we could not win the war on terror, and his aides had to clarify this by explaining that what the president meant was that we COULD win the war on terror. (John Kerry immediately released a statement stating that he strongly disagreed with both of the president's positions.)
As far as the College Republicans are concerned, Karl Rove is Elvis.
GOP is selling hope and optimism (RON HUTCHESON, 9/01/04, Miami Herald)
Bastards!
Giuliani, McCain give Bush what Kerry sorely lacks (LYNN SWEET, September 1, 2004, Chicago Sun-Times)
Rudy Giuliani's GOP convention stemwinder, a stirring argument to vote for President Bush and a blistering critique of John Kerry, was a coming of age for the former New York City mayor, thrust into the international limelight for his leadership following Sept. 11.Giuliani electrified Madison Square Garden, commanding the stage Monday night after another one of the Republicans' most effective speakers, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), offered his testimonial to Bush, his 2000 presidential rival.
Bush is blessed to have two of the best political communicators in the business on his side.
Kerry, the Democratic Massachusetts senator, does not have the equivalent superstars in his party whom he can send anyplace in the United States and not worry that they may alienate more voters than they woo. Polls show that McCain and Giuliani are among the most popular political figures in the United States.
Furious Kerry orders shakeup (Kenneth R. Bazinet, Daily News, 9/1/04)
Sen. John Kerry is angry at the way his campaign has botched the attacks from the Swift boat veterans and has ordered a staff shakeup that will put former Clinton aides in top positions.Sources: Democratic leaders urge Kerry campaign changes: Campaign refutes reports of shake-up (CNN, 9/1/04)
"The candidate is furious," a longtime senior Kerry adviser told the Daily News. "He knows the campaign was wrong. He wanted to go after the Swift boat attacks, but his top aides said no."
There was talk of putting Sosnik on the road with Kerry. Several campaign officials and advisers say they recognize the need to have an "adult" traveling with the candidate -- as one put it, "someone who can tell him to shut up, or change something if and when that is necessary" and quickly deal with other strategic issues from the road.Somehow, I suspect Kerry will lose this fight, too.
Democrat to Appeal to Swing Voters (Maura Reynolds, September 1, 2004, LA Times)
The speech Sen. Zell Miller delivers tonight will be the first time a Democrat has delivered the Republicans' keynote address. It will also be the political swan song for the 72-year-old former governor of Georgia.Miller, an old-fashioned Southern Democrat, was reared in an Appalachian hollow where it was said that a yellow dog could get elected sooner than a Republican. He was a strong supporter of President Clinton and delivered the keynote address at the Democratic convention in 1992.
But since he entered the Senate in 2000, he has racked up a voting record more conservative than many of his Republican colleagues. He insists that he hasn't moved away from the Democratic Party — the party has moved away from him.
"I never dreamed that the party was as far left as it is until I went to Washington," Miller said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show.
Miller's job at the convention is to further the party's appeal to independents and swing voters, and he will deliver a speech explaining why he believes Democrats should vote for President Bush.
Schlafly is still making her point, unabashedly (Anne-Marie O'Connor, 9/01/04, LA Times)
Phyllis Schlafly is a longtime opponent of the gay rights movement.Over the years, she has warned that the Equal Rights Amendment would lead to a recognition of gay rights. She has said people may demand "restrictions on homosexuals for public health reasons" because of AIDS. She has complained that children's sex-education programs are misused to spread the belief that homosexual sex is acceptable if a condom is used, when educators should "just tell them to keep their hands out of what's inside your swimsuit."
If anyone has helped conservatives nail down the plank in the Republican Party platform opposing same-sex unions, it is this octogenarian stalwart, who emerged as a pivotal force this week behind language calling for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
And she did it all with the help of the oldest of her six adult children, John Schlafly, 53, her aide de camp, who is gay. [...]
Phyllis Schlafly is a disarming woman, with a genteel but very direct manner. Earlier in the day, she greets a guest in a well-lighted suite of an old-fashioned hotel that is decorated with gilt mirrors and salmon toile. She smooths the skirt of her lavender knit suit, which is set off by a gold elephant pin and another spelling out "GOP." Her blond hair is upswept in a retro marcel wave-style do.
But make no mistake: She is a shrewd political operator who has hammered a raft of conservative planks into a number of Republican Party platforms over the years. Her St. Louis-based Eagle Forum is an influential conservative group.
Christian leader Ralph Reed, the Bush campaign's coordinator for the Southeast region, said Schlafly has been a behind-the-scenes player on GOP platform issues since she began attending as a delegate in the 1950s.
"Given her leadership on the pro-life plank on the platform, she's highly respected and well-regarded and influential," he said. "She's prominent at every convention."
Fellow conservative Gary Bauer said Schlafly's role reflects her stature as a member of the anti-abortion movement, which he said is ardently opposed to gay marriage.
"The whole pro-life movement feels very strongly about that issue, as does the president," he said. "I bet if you asked the delegates to vote, it would be 99%" against same-sex marriage.
Schlafly's son, an attorney by profession, is a paid staffer, she says. He is director of an Eagle Forum office in Alton, Ill., where he lives, and helps her with fundraising, scheduling and mail.
John Schlafly is a soft-spoken man with deep, expressive eyes, whose dark khakis and light cotton shirts rumple quickly in the New York heat. He stops for a moment to collect his thoughts when asked if he supports his mother's signature issue of the week, a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
"I think the traditional definition of marriage has served our society well, and it shouldn't be changed," John Schlafly says, choosing his words slowly. "That was the law in every state, and still is except for certain court decisions. I don't see why there's anything wrong with it."
Air traffic controllers see looming shortages (Keith Reed, September 1, 2004, Boston Globe)
The retirement of hundreds of air traffic controllers in the next decade could leave too few people to direct planes over New England, the controllers union warned yesterday.About half of the controllers at the three facilities that guide planes to and from Logan International Airport will be eligible to retire within a decade, according to the union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. And it can take up to five years to fully train a controller, members of the union said at a news conference yesterday. [...]
Controllers face stressful jobs that are difficult to get into. Yesterday, controller Kevin Bianchi said he waited 18 months for his first round of training when he was hired 16 years ago. But the job can be lucrative, paying between $81,000 and $105,000 per year for 40-hour work weeks at large airports like Logan, Bianchi said.
But the union estimates half its members will retire in the next decade, so ''If you bring a lot of trainees in, who's going to train them?" asked Tom Coronite, president of the union local at Logan.
Fidelity slashes index-fund fees (Beth Healy, September 1, 2004, Boston Globe)
By cutting its index fee to a slim one-tenth of a percent, Fidelity will lose $40 million in revenue on its existing index customers, before any new business ever comes in the door, said Jeff Carney, president of the Boston company's retail group. It's cutting the fee on its Spartan 500 Index fund roughly in half, from 0.19 percent, while broader index funds will see bigger discounts.The fee on the Spartan International Index, for example, will fall to 0.10 percent, from 0.47 percent. For customers, that means a $10,000 investment will cost $10 a year, instead of $19. If, after taxes, the fund gains 10 percent in the year, or $1,000, the investor keeps $990, instead of $981.
What Fidelity gives up in the short term, it's planning to recoup through scale. In both individual accounts and in 401(k) retirement plans, it aims to garner a greater share of the money that typically goes to Vanguard. Fidelity has $41 billion in index funds, out of a total of $630 billion in funds that invest in stocks and bonds.
At Vanguard, index funds total $300 billion, or nearly half the company's $660 billion in stock- and bond-fund assets.
Said Carney, ''I view index funds as a commodity, and we need to offer a competitive price in order to attract the kind of flows we'd like to see."
US plans to slash many rent vouchers (Scott S. Greenberger, September 1, 2004, Boston Globe)
The federal government is poised to dramatically reduce the value of publicly-funded housing vouchers in Boston and other Massachusetts cities, a move that would force many low-income families out of their apartments and might prompt some landlords to withdraw from the program.In a state already starved for affordable housing, the prospect of federal payments dropping by as much as a third has united housing advocates, landlords, and city and state officials, all of whom are planning to petition the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to scrap the change. In Boston alone, there are 9,000 households using the federal vouchers to pay part of their rent.
"This is the most significant change in rent levels we've seen in 30 years," said Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the Citzens' Housing and Planning Association, a Boston-based advocacy group. "It seems like an arcane technical change, but it actually has very serious implications for the program." [...]
The agency determines average rents in each of 19 districts and comes up with voucher rates for each. The system groups high-rent cities such as Boston with neighboring cities like Cambridge and Newton, where expensive rents have kept voucher values high. But under the proposed changes, set to go into effect Oct. 1 across New England, Boston would be grouped with lower-rent cities such as Revere and Quincy, bringing the rates down.
Voucher values for a two-bedroom apartment in Boston would drop 15 percent, from $1,409 to $1,203; vouchers for four-bedroom apartments would plunge 27 percent, from $2,084 to $1,516.
Al-Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan (AFP, September 01 2004)
Pakistan has arrested a key Egyptian al-Qaeda operative who holds a senior position within the terrorist network, a security official said on Wednesday.The official, asking to remain anonymous, identified the suspect as Sharif Al-Misri and said his capture carried a significant reward.
"He is one of the top operators in al-Qaeda's hierarchy," said the official.
Why Snub the Tories? (Anne Applebaum, September 1, 2004, Washington Post)
Last week, just as [Liam] Fox and his chums were getting ready to go off to New York, a British tabloid printed an account of a recent telephone conversation between Michael Howard, the leader of the British Conservatives, and Rove. It seems that Howard was planning to visit Washington this spring but had in the meantime been critical of Tony Blair, the British prime minister, who is in turn President Bush's close personal friend. As a result, Rove was less than encouraging about the prospects of a warm reception in Washington. "You can forget about meeting the president," he said. "Don't bother coming. You are not meeting him."Howard indirectly confirmed the truth of the report by issuing a statement on Saturday. "A Conservative government would work very closely with President Bush or President Kerry, but my job as leader of the Opposition is to say things as I see them in the interests of our country," he said. "If some people in the White House, in their desire to protect Mr. Blair, think I am too tough on Mr. Blair or too critical of him, they are entitled to their opinion. But I shall continue to do my job as I see fit."
Indeed: Being critical of one's opponent is a major part of a political leader's job description. But being friendly to one's friends -- and the Tories are historically the Republicans' friends -- ought also to be a major part of any senior White House adviser's job description. Being friendly to people who might be leaders of an allied country is usually par for the course as well, and it costs surprisingly little.
The Character Question (Sebastian Mallaby, August 30, 2004, Washington Post)
Even before Sept. 11, 2001, Bush signaled his future impatience with Europe's diplomats by tearing up both the Kyoto environment treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He delivered the most radical tax cut since 1981 and transformed federal education policy, and the early signs were that he really meant to privatize Social Security. It isn't true, as some now suppose, that Bush's radicalism is merely the product of 9/11 -- that extraordinary times drove an otherwise temperate man to extraordinary measures. Bush behaved extraordinarily in ordinary times too. As he promised in his convention speech four years ago, "We will write not footnotes but chapters in the American story."Part of me quite likes this. There's plenty of stuff that's wrong with the world, and presidents ought to be activists. Bush's radicalism -- his willingness to see problems and embrace bold solutions despite urgings of caution from all sides -- can be glorious when applied to a good cause: Think of his huge expansion of international AIDS funding, which goes way beyond anything the Clinton administration ever contemplated. But Bush's radicalism has a scary side as well, and it goes to the heart of his fitness for a second term. In his zeal to be a strong leader, and in his disdain for policy detail, Bush sometimes defends positions that have no intellectual basis.
This weakness is most commonly associated with his war in Iraq -- a radical policy that has backfired on him. [...]
The clearest illustration of this inflexibility is not Iraq. It is the central plank of the economic agenda: the tax cuts. These were conceived when the economy was booming and huge budget surpluses were expected, but when the boom turned into bust, Bush showed no ability to course-correct. Almost unbelievably, Bush not only rammed through the huge tax cut he had promised in the campaign: He cut taxes again in 2002 and a third time in 2003. Even now he seems ready to sign an appalling pork-ridden corporate tax reduction. In the past, ambitious tax cuts have tended to happen only once every two decades or so. Before Reagan's in 1981, you have to go back to 1964 to find anything comparable. Bush's tax radicalism is breathtaking.
Again, this is not just a policy issue; it goes to Bush's character. How can he push such a dramatic shift in economic policy without grappling with the basic point that his cuts are unaffordable? [...]
[T]he truth is that Bush has no shortage of radical ideas. The question about his candidacy is whether he has other qualities: A willingness to grapple with the messy reality of the world and the honesty to switch course when necessary -- in a word, pragmatism.
Mr. Mallaby's notion that the radical ideas of George W. Bush are worthwhile but that he should stop forcing change anytime it turns out a little messier in reality than it was in Mr. Mallaby's imagination is a recipe for inaction. There's a certain wisdom in that reactionary posture, but if you're advocating it you oughtn't praise activism.
Kerry changes strategy, plans rallies (Frank James, August 31, 2004, Chicago Tribune)
Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday discarded the long-standing political tradition for presidential candidates to lay low the week of the opposite party's convention by scheduling two rallies in addition to a previously planned appearance before the American Legion convention in Nashville.A campaign spokesman sought to portray the move as a strategy to put Kerry on the offensive and denied speculation that the Massachusetts Democrat was concerned by the current state of the race and was trying to regain momentum.
MORE:
Kerry Campaign Weighs Shake-Up As Bush Gains Upper Hand in Race (Albert R. Hunt, August 31, 2004, Wall Street Journal)
As the Bush campaign commands an exquisitely directed convention, the faltering Kerry campaign might be on the verge of a major shake-up.Ever since the Boston convention, the Bush campaign has dominated the agenda, putting the Democratic nominee on the defensive. While polls still show a close race, everything is tilting in the GOP direction, a movement that almost surely will be enhanced by a successful New York convention.
Dispirited Democrats -- prominent senators, top fundraisers, even a few Kerry confidants -- have told the candidate, who is in Nantucket, that high-level changes are imperative. A few very well-connected Democrats report something will occur in the next few days. One person who might assume more control is Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary to Bill Clinton and a respected public-relations figure, but one who has almost no experience in the high-stakes world of presidential campaigns. Another possibility: veteran Democratic politico John Sasso, currently at the Democratic National Committee.
If there is a change -- Sen. Kerry privately is said to be "bouncing off the walls" in frustration -- it has to be imminent as the eight-week campaign is in full swing by Labor Day. "We have 48 hours," acknowledges an insider.
* Nixon's back!
* They have to stop dragging the family of the President on-stage--the Bush girls are cute enough but needn't be heard from and Mrs. Bush gave a perfectly competent speech but seemed uncomfortable doing so. Could somebody have gotten her a glass of water?
* On the other hand, the President with the baseball game backdrop was a nice touch.
* As Chris Matthews pointed out, the GOP played hardball tonight when they squeezed the networks commentary time right out of the picture by starting at ten and finishing at 11 with nary a moment between speeches.
* The next journalist who asks a Republican, "Do you feel like conservatives have been shut out since they got no primetime speaking slots?--other than the Vice President and the President", should be horsewhipped.
GOP 2004: Moore May Not Return to MSG (Joe Strupp, August 31, 2004, Editor & Publisher)
Following all the commotion Monday night, Michael Moore may not return to Madison Square Garden for the Republican National Convention. According to editors at USA Today, which is publishing his daily column this week, Moore told them that he was choosing not to return again.However, they said he would continue to write his daily column and they stressed that in no way did they second-guess their decision to have him write the commentary.
But on Tuesday afternoon, Moore e-mailed E&P to clarify his position, saying that he may return to the convention and that it is his "right as a writer to be there."
To: National Desk and Political Reporter
Contact: Allison Dobson of Kerry-Edwards 2004, 202-464-2800, Web: http://www.johnkerry.comWASHINGTON, Aug. 31 /U.S. Newswire/ --With just over two months to go before Election Day, the Kerry-Edwards campaign announced Tuesday that it has brought on board key new staff to help lead the campaign to victory on November 2nd. The new additions strengthen an already impressive campaign team and bolster the campaign's efforts to put John Kerry and John Edwards in the White House.
Martinez Wins GOP Senate Primary in Fla. (The Associated Press, Aug. 31, 2004)
Mel Martinez, the former Bush administration housing secretary hoping to become the first Cuban-American senator, won the Republican nomination for Senate Tuesday in a primary that saw a mostly trouble-free test of the touchscreen machines introduced after Florida's punch-card fiasco in 2000.In November, he will face Florida's former Education Commissioner Betty Castor, a Democrat who swept to an overwhelming victory Tuesday as her party's nominee.
