Petrified Truth

Chaplaincy

Military chaplains are sending back home some insightful, and often moving, dispatches from Iraq. Here are two recent examples, both from Fallujah, both anonymous (for now):

Saddam could not and did not control Faluja. He bought off those he could, killed those he couldn't and played all leaders against one another. It was and is a 'difficult' town. Nothing new about that. What is new is that outside people have come in to stir up unrest. How many are there is classified, but let me tell you this: there are more people in the northeast Minneapolis gangs than there are causing havoc in Faluja. Surprised?

We have a battle hand-off going on here. The largest in recent American history. The Army is passing the baton to the Marines in this area. There is uncertainty among the populace and misinformation being given out by the bad guys. As a result there is insecurity and the bad guys are testing the resolve of the Marines and indirectly you, the American people. The bad guys are convinced that Americans have no stomach for a long haul effort here. They want to drive us out of here and then resurrect a dictatorship of one kind or another.

Okay, what do we do? Stay the course. The Marines will get into a battle rhythm and, along with other forces and government agencies here, they will knock out the crack houses, drive the thugs across the border and set the conditions for the Falujans to join the freedom parade or rot in their lack of initiative. Either way, the choice will be theirs. The alternative? Turn tail, pull out and leave a power vacuum that will suck in all of Iraq's neighbors and spark a civil war that could make Rwanda look like a misdemeanor.

Hey, America, don't go weak kneed on us: 585 dead American's made an investment here. That's a whole lot less than were killed on American highways last month. Their lives are honored when we stay the course and do the job we came to do; namely, set the conditions for a new government and empower these people to be the great nation they are capable of being.

Via Andrew Sullivan

Imagine a place the size of Lakeland Shores with 5 times the population. One asphalt street, two dirt roads. Due to the siege..no sanitation service for three day..that includes pumping satellites...We are on the edge of the town..we see the minarets of the city and we hear the imams sermons as they rail against us....good thing few here understand Arabic cause I can tell you the preachers weren't teaching the golden rule today.

Morale, sky high...extra intensity..friends are on the line. the senior NCO's and officers here, feel the pull the most. They have served with or trained everyone on the line..The Corps is a small community. This is very personal. If a person can do something to help the outcome of the fight..they'll find a way..it's that kind of day..all for one, one for all. I divide the day; Holy Week service planning, convoy prayers, and COC intercessory prayers.

...twice a day I go to the 'Cave'..the combat operations center..which is housed in a former palace..poorly lit and the hub of fighting the battle...I stand in the corner and pray for each person/position and those they represent. I don't know many of them, but God does. I pray for wisdom, strength, mercy, endurance and God's presence for each warrior all those they serve or represent. I cover the Cave and the battle field as I look at live imagery projected on the wall. I don't know how the marines do it..

The place exudes the warrior spirit. If you are a civilian I can't explain it and won't apologize for it. If you are a veteran you don't need to have it explained..the warrior spirit. These marines are in a street fight. They don't have the word 'lose' in their vocabulary. They've been bloodied and their anger is up. The intensity in the COC is contagious. This is a tribe of warriors. They exist to close with and destroy the enemy. They have their tribal mores, rituals and rites. Their enemy has desecrated members of the tribe and taunted the marines. They've asked for a fight. The marines are in full pursuit and absolutely determined to annihilate their foe.

I'm sure that sounds harsh to politically correct ears and those for whom this type of violence is anachronistic. It does not sound foreign here...it is status quo. We are in a violent land, with an evil element and they are having violence visited upon them. There is no room here for half measures. This is a test of wills...one side will prevail. That is clearly understood and never discussed..it is obvious. We aren't playing paintball..we are at war.

Via The Braden Files

The average American man

Wise Peggy Noonan has a take on what Americans think of their president...

Americans do not think Mr. Bush has a persona to dazzle history, they think he is the average American man, but the average American man as they understand the term: straight shooter, hard worker, decent, America-loving, God-loving.

They can tell he is not doing it all by polls and focus groups. If he were doing it by polls and focus groups he wouldn't have defied the U.N., invaded Iraq, and pursued its democracy. He would have talked instead about nuance, multilateral negotiations and the need for child safety seats in SUVs. He moved on Iraq because he thought it was right and it would make the world safer. You can agree or disagree with him, but it is hard to doubt his guts, his seriousness and his commitment. And Americans respect guts, seriousness and commitment.

That does not mean Americans will give him a blank check and say: Go do what you want. It means they'll give him the benefit of the doubt and stand by him with cool eyes as long as they feel it's right for them and the country.

Mr. Bush has the calm and anxious face of an American man who believes in God but just read the raw threat file. He knows what trouble we're in and he knows what time it is. He is alert and determined but ultimately trusting and hopeful, because there really is a God and he really is watching. This is very American.

... as well as on the guy who wants the job.

So far he doesn't seem like a possible president. He seems somewhat shifty, somewhat cold, an operator. He has a good voice but he seems to use it most to slither out of this former statement or that erstwhile position. It's OK that he looks like a sad tree, but you can't look like a sad, hollow tree. And it looks a little hollow in there. As if Iraq is an issue Kerry feels he has to handle deftly, and not a brutal question we have to solve, together. As if homeland security is an issue, or civil defense, or preparedness.

They're not issues. They're life and death. Mr. Kerry doesn't seem to know.

Crystal ball at work

Pollster David Hill comments that new survey results in Florida are very encouraging for President Bush.

Given the likelihood that Florida will again almost certainly play a pivotal role in the battle for the presidency, a recent Mason-Dixon poll there showing George Bush with a strong lead over John Kerry is of tremendous significance.

Most of Florida’s prestigious newspapers have accepted Mason-Dixon’s dominance and subscribe to its results — so when Coker’s latest survey of 625 Florida voters taken at the beginning of this month showed Bush beating Kerry 51 percent to 43 percent, Republicans had a strong justification for joy.

Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) himself provided the poll’s most encouraging results. His unfavorable name recognition has risen to 42 percent in Florida, twice what it was last November, the last time Mason-Dixon polled, and several points higher than President Bush’s negatives.

The poll’s cross-tabs showed that Kerry has several notable problems. First, he’s losing 18 percent of the state’s Democrats to Bush. By comparison, Bush is losing only 7 percent of Republicans. Kerry’s problem with his base is also evident in the minority community, where 11 percent of blacks said they plan to vote for Bush.

But the most encouraging minority result is for Hispanic voters. Only 36 percent of Cubans and other Hispanics plan to vote for Kerry.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and Press, said this morning on NPR that Bush is benefitting from a "rally" effect by voters who don't want to go wobbly during this troubled period in Iraq.

Online pundit John McIntyre notes the gap between current poll data and the tone of press coverage about the political contest:

The pattern that is beginning to emerge is the press is simply incapable of accurately handicapping this race because they have an inherent, ideological opposition to President Bush and his approach to the War on Terror that is completely out of whack with the majority of the American people.

Reporters see Iraq as a debacle and a quagmire and just assume it has to hurt President Bush. They watch the President's news conference and become more convinced the President is an idiot, while the average American watches the same press conference and sees a resolute and determined leader.

Second thoughts?

Very tough days in Iraq and Bob Woodward's book on the war seem to be causing a small outpouring of reflection among those have supported the war from the beginning. David Brooks thinks "it might be useful to describe the doubts and thoughts going through the mind of one ardent war supporter" (i.e., himself) in a column worth reading.

Better yet is tough-minded Christopher Hitchens, who has more penetrating take:

The thing that I most underestimated is the thing that least undermines the case. And it's not something that I overlooked, either. But the extent of lumpen Islamization in Iraq, on both the Khomeinist and Wahhabi ends (call them Shiite and Sunni if you want a euphemism that insults the majority), was worse than I had guessed.

And this is also why I partly think that Colin Powell, as reported by Woodward, was right. He apparently asked the president if he was willing to assume, or to accept, responsibility for the Iraqi state and society. The only possible answer, morally and politically, would have been "yes." The United States had already made itself co-responsible for Iraqi life, first by imposing the sanctions, second by imposing the no-fly zones, and third by co-existing with the regime. (Three more factors, by the way, that make the Vietnam comparison utterly meaningless.) This half-slave/half-free compromise could not long have endured.

The antiwar Left used to demand the lifting of sanctions without conditions, which would only have gratified Saddam Hussein and his sons and allowed them to rearm. The supposed neutrals, such as Russia and France and the United Nations, were acting as knowing profiteers in a disgusting oil-for-bribes program that has now been widely exposed. The regime-change forces said, in effect: Lift the sanctions and remove the regime. But in the wasted decade of sanctions-plus-Saddam, a whole paranoid and wretched fundamentalist underclass was created and exploited by the increasingly Islamist propaganda of the Baath Party. This also helps explain the many overlooked convergences between the supposedly "secular" Baathists and the forces of jihad.

When fools say that the occupation has "united" Sunni and Shiite, they flatter the alliance between the proxies of the Iranian mullahs and the Saudi princes. And they ignore the many pleas from disputed and distraught towns, from Iraqis who beg not to be abandoned to these sadistic and corrupt riffraff. One might have seen this coming with greater prescience. But it would have made it even more important not to leave Iraq to the post-Saddam plans of such factions. There was no way around our adoption of Iraq, as there still is not. It's only a pity that the decision to intervene was left until so many years had been consumed by the locust.

That's courage, all right

On Meet the Press, more insights from deep thinker John Kerry, who apparently doesn't believe that since Sept. 11, 2001 we've been experiencing anything like "a war or something terrible." D'oh.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, again, in the interest of candor and clarity, you have promised to create 10 million jobs...

SEN. KERRY: Yep.

MR. RUSSERT: ...and cut the deficit in half in your first four years.

SEN. KERRY: Yes, sir.

MR. RUSSERT: If you don't achieve those goals, would you pledge that you would not seek re-election?

SEN. KERRY: Well, it would depend on the circumstances. If I don't because there's a war or something terrible happens, of course I'm not going to make that pledge.

Cold calculus

The Weekly Standard examines the unfortunate situation in Pennsylvania, where accomodationist, dimbulb Senator Arlen Specter is holding back a primary challenge with help from President Bush and the Republican establishment.

There is little doubt that if President Bush could handpick the next senator from Pennsylvania, he would choose Pat Toomey. A young, smart, and likable conservative, Toomey currently serves in the House of Representatives from Lehigh Valley. He lines up with the Bush administration on nearly all of its policies, foreign and domestic, and articulates them in a no-nonsense, common-sense manner. He would be a tremendous asset in the Senate in a second Bush term.

Not only is the White House political machine not supporting Toomey, however, but Karl Rove and the entire Republican establishment are working against him. That includes Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania's other senator and a solid conservative. Toomey is challenging Senator Arlen Specter, also a Republican, whose chief (some might say only) virtue is that he is the incumbent. And in Washington, D.C., that makes all the difference.

Surely the only reason for the President to support this incumbent is that Specter's political machine might offer critical assistance to Bush in the Pennsylvania election in November.

Cubans behaving badly

A meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva has seen some strange, even violent actions by members of the Cuban delegation, all of which make it even more obvious that servants of the dictator Castro should not be allowed to attend such a meeting in the first place.

Here's the statement by Ambassador Richard Williamson, the U.S. representative to the commission, expressed with undiplomatic bluntness:

April 16, 2004

Right of Reply -- Cuba
Ambassador Richard Williamson
Head of the U.S. Delegation to the 60th Commission on Human Rights

During the course of this session of the Commission, our delegation has witnessed and experienced a number of acts of intimidation, threat and aggression by members of the Cuban delegation, or their affiliates, aimed at the United States and its representatives and supporters.

A member of our delegation was threatened by a member of the Cuban delegation on March 30 with the words, "You know you will pay a high toll for what you are doing, and we will be the ones to do it."

On a second occasion, this same US delegate, while distributing copies of a newspaper article to interested attendees of the session was approached by a member of the Cuban delegation who demanded to know what he was distributing, and ripped the copies of the article from his hands. A UN guard, who witnessed the incident, had to restrain the Cuban delegate.

In a third incident, a member of our delegation was jogging on the streets of Geneva on a Saturday when a van pulled up and a member of the Cuban delegation leaned out and told the delegate that he "better watch out. We're keeping an eye on you."

Finally, many of us witnessed yesterday the outright physical attack by a member of the Cuban delegation on a representative of an American-based NGO in the lobby just outside this very room. The victim was attacked from behind and knocked to the floor. UN Security guards had to physically subdue the Cuban delegate. This kind of behavior is not only outrageous but shows disrespect for this Commission and its members.

It is, unfortunately though, fully consistent with the attitude and practice of the Cuban regime under Fidel Castro throughout the last half century, demonstrating once again the importance of maintaining international attention to the situation of human rights in Cuba.

Yesterday this Commission adopted a resolution concerning the Human Rights situation in Cuba and then witnessed another attempt at intimidation by the Cuban delegation when it tabled a resolution concerning the United States in obvious retribution for the Commission's adoption of the Cuba resolution.

Whatever individual members felt about the merits of the Cuba resolution or any of the other resolutions we considered yesterday, I think all of us would agree that their consideration by this Commission was squarely within the core business of this body and squarely within the parameters of Item 9.

The same cannot be said for the resolution Cuba tabled yesterday.

It should be seen for what it is - a calculated act of retribution -- a reprisal, pure and simple. Cuba did not get the result it desired on the Item 9 resolution, so it now seeks to inflict more of its guerrilla theater on this commission through misuse of our proceedings under Item 17.

Such misuse of the Commissions procedures should be rejected.

Cuba's acts of intimidation should be rejected.

Cuba should be asked to show respect for the other delegates of this Commission and for its procedures.

Thank you.

No blood drawn, just ketchup

John Kerry last Friday:

"I'm tired of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and a bunch of people who went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve, when they had the chance. I went. I'm not going to listen to them talk to me about patriotism and asking questions about the future of our country."

Pointing to a giant flag suspended from a crane above Bigelow Boulevard, he added, "You see those stars and stripes over there; I fought under that flag ... and I saw that flag draped over the coffins of friends, and I've seen how these people in the White House today, in their twisted sense of ethics and morality ... they don't think twice about pretending to America that I somehow don't care about the defense of our nation."

"[They] don't think twice about challenging [Sen.] John McCain and what happened to him when he was a prisoner of war; they don't think twice about challenging Max Cleland, who left three limbs on the battlefield in Vietnam and challenge his patriotism," he said.

John Kerry in 1992:

The race for the White House should be about leadership, and leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them; that one help identify the positive things that we learned about ourselves and about our nation, not play to the divisions and differences of that crucible of our generation.

We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it. Are we now, 20 years or 30 years later, to forget the difficulties of that time, of families that were literally torn apart, of brothers who ceased to talk to brothers, of fathers who disowned their sons, of people who felt compelled to leave the country and forget their own future and turn against the will of their own aspirations?

Are we now to descend, like latter-day Spiro Agnews, and play, as he did, to the worst instincts of divisiveness and reaction that still haunt America? Are we now going to create a new scarlet letter in the context of Vietnam?

Wise Max Boot, last month:

Today's caricature that all soldiers are pacifists at heart is no more accurate than the older cliche that they're all warmongers. Like the rest of us, soldiers have differing opinions on the use of force. Some opposed the Iraq war; many (I would guess most) supported it. Their opinions ought to be given due consideration, and their lives should never be endangered cavalierly or unnecessarily, but in a democracy the final decisions have to be made by civilians, many of whom inevitably aren't military veterans.

Of our three costliest wars, two were fought and won under the direction of presidents (Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson) who had never served in the armed forces. The third was won by a president (Abraham Lincoln) whose military experience was limited to about 90 days of noncombatant service in a state militia. Other wartime presidents without any wartime service include James Madison and James Polk.

More recently, Bill Clinton -- who, like Cheney and Wolfowitz, had a student deferment during the Vietnam draft -- sent U.S. troops into harm's way in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. A few conservatives complained that a "draft dodger" had no moral right to be commander in chief, but he was vociferously defended by Democrats....

John Kerry's advice was right in 1992, and it's right today. How ironic it is, then, that many of those who were outraged to hear Clinton labeled a chicken hawk are now the very ones tossing that ugly slur around.

al Qaeda and WMD

Reports have been trickling out of Jordan for weeks about a frenzied hunt for al Qaeda terrorists who entered the country armed to the teeth, planning to execute a large-scale assault. Many/most of the operatives were nabbed in a series of dramatic captures -- now the Associated Press is reporting that they were armed with weapons of mass destruction.

An al-Qaida-linked terrorist cell recently dismantled in Jordan was plotting to detonate a chemical bomb capable of killing thousands of people and to attack the U.S. Embassy and prime minister’s office with poison gas, officials said Saturday.

Officials close to the investigation told The Associated Press that several terror suspects arrested in Jordan last month have confessed the plots were hatched by Jordanian militant Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, thought to be a close associate of al-Qaida boss Osama bin Laden.

The officials, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity, said the terrorist cell was planning to attack Jordan’s secret service — the General Intelligence Department — with a chemical bomb that would have killed as many as 20,000 people and caused large-scale destruction within a half-mile radius.

On Saturday, the officials told the AP that the terror cell was also apparently planning to carry out simultaneous poison gas attacks against foreign diplomatic missions, including the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in Amman, vital Jordanian public establishments like the prime minister’s office and unspecified civilian targets.

They declined to elaborate, but stressed the plot had been foiled with the arrests late last month and earlier this month of an unspecified number of terrorist suspects.

Jordanian officials say the arrests occurred after suspected militants entered Jordan from neighboring Syria in at least three vehicles filled with explosives, detonators and raw material to be used in bomb-making.

Syrian officials have denied the claims.

Among those arrested last week were two Palestinian militants identified as Suleiman Darweesh and Muwafaq Adwan, thought to be close associates of al-Zarqawi.

The story was noted at the Power Line last night, and they made this highly pertinent observation:

The obvious question is whether the chemical weapons originated in Iraq and, as many suspect, were shipped to Syria before the war began. If so, the next question is whether Saddam (or perhaps his henchmen) intended from the beginning to get the weapons into al Qaeda's hands.

More regime change required

Michael Ledeen has been observing the connections between Iran and the evolving conflict in Iraq. The recent actions of "thuggish" Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia have brought even more clarity to the situation.

The editor of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Seyassah recently wrote a front-page editorial saying that Hezbollah and Hamas were working with Sadr, "backed by the ruling religious fundamentalists in Tehran and the nationalist Baathists in Damascus." No classified information was required for that claim, since Sadr himself has publicly proclaimed that his militia is the fighting arm of both Hezbollah and Hamas. Nonetheless, the State Department still doesn't believe--or won't admit publicly--that there's a connection between Sadr's uprising and Iran's mullahs. Just last week, State's deputy spokesman, Adam Ereli, told reporters that "We've seen reports of Iranian involvement, collusion, provocation, coordination, etc., etc. But I think there's a dearth of hard facts to back these things up."

One wonders what Foggy Bottom's analysts make of Sadr's recent visit to Iran, when he met with Hashemi Rafsanjani (the No. 2 power in the regime), Murtadha Radha'i (head of intelligence for the Revolutionary Guards) and Brig. Gen. Qassim Suleimani (the al-Quds Army commander in charge of Iraqi affairs). And what might they say about the fact that much of Sadr's funding comes straight from Ayatollah al-Haeri, one of the closest allies of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?

Americans must understand that the war in Iraq is in reality a regional war which unites religious fanatics like the Iranians and radical secularists like the Syrians and Saddam's Iraqi supporters. The terrorists include Shiites like Sadr and murderous Sunnis like al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi (who, despite his celebrated contempt for Shiites, has openly proclaimed common cause with Sadr).

Iraq cannot be peaceful and secure so long as Tehran sends its terrorist cadres across the border. Naturally, our troops will engage--and kill--any infiltrators they encounter. But we can be sure that there will be others to take their place. The only way to end Tehran's continual sponsorship of terror is to bring about the demise of the present Iranian regime. And as it happens, we have an excellent opportunity to achieve this objective, without the direct use of military power against Iran. There is a critical mass of pro-democracy citizens there, who would like nothing more than to rid themselves of their oppressors. They need help, but they neither need nor desire to be liberated by force of arms.

Above all, they want to hear our leaders state clearly and repeatedly--as Ronald Reagan did with the "Evil Empire"--that regime change in Iran is the goal of American policy. Thus far, they have heard conflicting statements and mealy-mouthed half truths....

It would be fair to say that we are now at war with Iran, through its proxy armies and agents inside Iraq -- a non-trivial development, especially given Iran's feverish efforts to possess nuclear arms. Compare and contrast that significance with the small-minded mewlings emanating from the politicians in Washington, D.C. and you too will reach for anti-nausea pills.

Messy choices of the present

Scholar Victor Davis Hanson is ticked off and more than a bit gloomy about the inanity and contradictions that abound in what passes for public discourse in a time of crisis and war. Unfortunately, he's entirely correct. As always with Dr. Hanson, read the whole thing and get smarter.

Is there any general explanation for all these contradictions? I think very little other than the general lesson that we can draw about a rather humane, affluent, and leisured society after September 11 finding itself confused and in a baffling war against medieval enemies it thought were not supposed to be around in the 21st century. Who, after all, wishes to relax on the sofa to watch The Apprentice or Extreme Makeover — and then channel surf to images of barbarians promising to roast and eat Japanese aid workers or scenes of charred bodies being dissected by Attila's modern-day spiritual successors?

Apparently, even after 9/11, we trust that we really are so strong and so competent that our military can provide us with the (false) assurance that American soldiers alone — without our own engagement, consistency, or sacrifice — can stop such savages from once more crossing the Rhine and Danube to mass murder us. So here at home in Rome, in our world of utopian perfection and material surfeit, we fiddle in hearing rooms and in focus groups while our enemies burn — on the assumption that there is no room for human error, that hindsight is always perfect, that the messy choices of the present are never between bad and worse, and that humans are always expected to be godlike rather than fallible.

Deep down we know that some sort of freedom is what most Iraqis want — and what Islamic extremists in and outside Iraq most fear. But we wish its creation to proceed flawlessly without loss of blood or treasure. And at all times we insist on gratitude from those we aid, who are humbled, perhaps even furious, because we are giving them precisely what they seek — but also what in the past they lacked the resources, skill, or courage to obtain on their own.

What a weird war we are in. The president of the United States gives a press conference to steel our will and endures mostly inane cross examination — at the very time the New York Times best-seller list has five of its top ten books alleging that he is a near criminal. Various disgruntled, passed-over or fired employees (Clarke and O'Neill), buffoonish provocateurs (Franken), and conspiracists (Phillips and Unger) all assure us in their pulp of everything from Bush family ties with Nazis to a First Family perennially plotting to get Americans killed for nothing other than cheap oil.

If that was not enough, a U.S. senator, with a reprehensible record of personal excess and abject immorality, now in his dotage damns the war in Iraq on moral grounds — even as young Marines seek to protect a nascent and tottering consensual government from thugs and killers. An ex-president who calibrated his campaign for a Nobel Prize by criticizing his successor in a time of war to the applause of foreign powers now steps forward to call for a more principled nation. Such are the moralists of our age.

Are we crazy? I think in fact we almost are. But the tragedy is that if we are paradoxical, self-incriminatory, and at each other's throats, our enemies most surely are not. They know precisely what they want from us — an Islamic world of the 8th century, parasitic on the resources and technology of the 21st, by which all the better to destroy a supposedly soft and bickering West. And if the present chaos here at home continues, they are apparently on the right track.

Not one of the beautiful people

Apparently defeated candidate Ben Streusand doesn't want to give up the thrill of campaigning.

After a grueling and expensive Republican runoff that likely decided who will represent the newly drawn 10th Congressional District, both candidates plan to keep campaigning. Winner Michael McCaul, who faces no Democratic opposition on the November general election ballot, said he will return to the campaign trail this fall to help other Republicans win congressional seats in Texas.

Ben Streusand, who lost to McCaul in Tuesday's runoff, said he is contemplating a future political run and is telling his supporters that they can anticipate his campaigning for another office.

Streusand, a Houston mortgage banker, spent more than $3 million of his own money.

Streusand led in the March 9 voting, winning every county in the district but Travis. In the runoff, McCaul won every county except Lee. Besides those counties, the district includes all or part of Austin, Bastrop, Burleson, Harris, Waller and Washington counties.

"Streusand realized that all the beautiful people would be with McCaul," said Republican political consultant Allen Blakemore. "He tried to run a grass-roots versus elected leadership race. "It failed, and credible endorsements ruled."

Streusand, who moved from The Woodlands to the Spring area to be inside the 10th District, said he will stay in the area and look for another political office in which he can push his conservative positions such as the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service.

If his business experience was in oil, not mortgages, Streusand would understand the significance of having drilled a dry oil.

Snidely done

Communicator par excellence Peggy Noonan reviews the President's news conference and notes both his good points and not-so-good ones as well. She also noticed the behavior of the callow press corps, and thinks the American people did too.

They are so clearly carrying water for the left-liberal establishment, they were so clearly carrying water for the preening and partisan hacks who dominate the 9/11 commission, and the Washington Post's coverage of the news conference yesterday morning was so clearly teeing up Bob Woodward's next book, that the media nullified their hostility. They could have done some damage to the president with a grave and honest spirit of inquiry.

Instead, they played left-wing Snidely Whiplash. They almost twirled their mustaches, and I don't mean only the women: Will you apologize, Mr. President? Do you feel personally responsible for Sept. 11? Do you think you're a loser as a communicator? What was your worst mistake? Do you really like that tie? Do you ever consider hanging yourself from a cornice in the East Room with your tie? When you look in the mirror do you feel mild disgust or just that feeling of shame where you sort of want to tear your face off and run screaming from the room?

Imagine it is April, 1943 and FDR is meeting with the press. Mr. President, why did you fail us on Dec. 7? You call it a day of infamy, but didn't it reveal your leadership style to be infamous? Why did you let the U.S. fleet sit sleepy and exposed at Pearl Harbor? Do you think your physical infirmity, sir, has an impact on your ability to think about strategic concerns, and will you instruct your doctors to make public your medical records?

But of course they wouldn't have asked these questions. Our press corps in those days was more like Americans than our press corps is today. They were both less self-hating and more appropriately anxious: Don't be killing our leaders in the middle of a war, don't be disheartening the people. Win and do the commentary later.

Her conclusions are spot on:

Should a president under crisis go into any venue that does not call on his greatest strengths? No. Get him out there doing speeches, meeting with citizens, taking a few shouted questions, again and again. That's how Mr. Bush best communicates his convictions, logic and plans, and that is the purpose of presidential communication.

More and more it seems to me Mr. Bush is not only Bill Clinton's successor but his exact opposite: Mr. Clinton perfectly poised and hollow inside, a man whose lack of compass left him unable to lead within the Oval Office but who gave a compelling public presentation of the presidency, and Mr. Bush a strong president with an obvious soul, decisive at the desk, but with no dazzling edifice. It's actually amazing that two such different men came so close together. Lucky for us, considering the history, that Mr. Bush was the one who came now.

"You're working for no one but me"

Today is federal income tax filing day. Brian Riedl of The Heritage Institute offers some details of where our money is going.

The federal government is projected to spend $21,671 per household in 2004 — the most since World War II and $3,500 more than in 2001. Tax revenues will reach $16,981 per household through a combination of the income tax, payroll tax, gas tax, estate tax and assorted business taxes typically passed on through higher prices and smaller investment returns. The remaining $4,690 represents the deficit per household, which will be dumped in the laps of our children.

Here is a breakdown of where that $21,671 goes:

• Social Security and Medicare: $7,165
• Defense: $4,240
• Low-income programs: $3,479
• Interest on the federal debt: $1,460
• Federal employee retirement benefits: $835
• Health research and regulation: $619
• Education: $583
• Veterans benefits: $565
• Unemployment benefits: $451
• Highways and mass transit: $400
• Justice administration: $389
• International affairs: $320
• The remaining $1,165 is allocated to all other federal programs, including farm subsidies, environmental programs, space exploration, air transportation and community development.

Feel better? Me neither. Read the whole thing for additional details about what's in those categories.

The late George Harrison summed it up once:

Now my advice for those who die, declare the pennies on your eyes. Cause I'm the tax man, yeah I'm the tax man. And you're working for no one but me.

District 10 results

Interim polling numbers, with 114 out of 182 precincts reporting, show Mike McCaul leading Ben Streusand about 2-1.

UPDATE: It's a wrap: McCaul wins 63% - 37%. Seems like the best outcome.

Leverage your vote today

Today is runoff primary election day in Texas. If you live in Harris County and don't know your polling location, the HarrisVotes! website will let you look it up. All you need to know is your name.

The Houston Chronicle says overall voting may be as low as 2% of eligible voters, but perhaps higher for the District 10 race between Mike McCaul and Ben Streusand.

In Harris County, the state's largest, 3,428 Republicans and 1,696 Democrats cast ballots in person during early voting for the runoff. That compares with 17,150 Republicans and 18,232 Democrats voting early before the March 9 primary, county officials said.

In the county as a whole, less than 2 percent of registered voters were expected to cast ballots in the election, said David Beirne, spokesman for Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman. There was only one local Democratic runoff race, for constable.

But in Congressional District 10 -- where a heated Republican primary is being decided -- the early voting turnout has been comparable to that seen before the March 9 primary, he said.

Five GOP congressional primaries will be decided today. The race for District 10, stretching from Houston to Austin, has become one of the most expensive U.S. House races this year with nearly $5 million spent.

McCaul - Streusand

Tuesday is runoff election day, and the Houston Chronicle points out that the District 10 race has become very, very expensive... and why.

The Republican primary runoff for the 10th Congressional District between mortgage banker Ben Streusand and former federal prosecutor Mike McCaul likely will turn on a handful of costly votes.

On Tuesday, just a few thousand voters may select the next congressman representing the 651,620 people who live in the district that includes all or part of eight counties between west Houston and north Austin.

To reach their supporters, the two candidates have contributed a combined $4.65 million to their campaigns, making it one of the most expensive House races in the country.

Streusand, of Houston, has given his campaign $3.25 million. McCaul, of Austin, has provided $1.4 million of his own money. Total spending will exceed $5 million. That means that between them, their spending per vote cast in the runoff could be $500 if, as both campaigns project, turnout is as low as 10,000.

Rice University political science professor Bob Stein said the two candidates can spend so much money because they know the winner likely will remain in the seat as long as he wants without serious competition.

"Look, this is the only time they will have to raise money," Stein said. "This district was created for a Republican and it is unlikely the winner will get opposition in a party primary in the future."