Petrified Truth

Specterated again

As predicted...and quickly, too.

After wrapping himself in President Bush's coat-tails for months to narrowly win the Republican Senate primary on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., flew a new banner yesterday, emphasizing issues that divide him and Bush.

Specter put the primary behind him and looked forward to the fall election. In his post-victory news conference, the four-term senator talked about abortion, stem-cell research, a greater international role for the United Nations in Iraq --issues that separate him and Bush.

He also proposed reducing a Bush tax cut by $250 million to pay for education. He proposed further, unspecified reforms in Bush's proposal to overhaul, and in some cases reduce, overtime pay.

[Pat] Toomey, who did not return requests for comment, said throughout the campaign that Specter would distance himself from Bush after this election. He described such comments as 'the Specter Two-Step," a device used to cater to whatever audience Specter was addressing.

I hope the White House is satisfied with the prospect of spending more quality time with this RINO.

Blather and codswallop

Well, the President and Vice President paid their dues with the 911 Commission today. The headline from the wits at Fark.com said it best beforehand:

Bush and Cheney's turn to provide meaningless, unhelpful testimony before irrelevant committee of congressional idiots.

President Bush kept a straight face afterwards. Part of the news account from Reuters...

The commission of five Republicans and five Democrats issued a statement saying Bush and Cheney had been "forthcoming and candid" and their input would be of great assistance as it looks to complete a final report by July 26.

Two Democrats on the panel, Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton and former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, left the session about an hour early. Hamilton, a former congressman from Indiana, was said to have had a prior commitment to introduce visiting Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at a lunch.

...led the omniscient InstaPundit to sum it all up:

THE 9/11 COMMISSION IS MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING...If it's worth ditching the President's testimony for a luncheon introduction, the whole enterprise can't amount to much.

Yep.

M-14

Saddam and his cadres were not idle while we were stalled in the hallways of the United Nations for months.

A Pentagon intelligence report has concluded that many bombings against Americans and their allies in Iraq, and the more sophisticated of the guerrilla attacks in Falluja, are organized and often carried out by members of Saddam Hussein's secret service, who planned for the insurgency even before the fall of Baghdad.

The report states that Iraqi officers of the "Special Operations and Antiterrorism Branch," known within Mr. Hussein's government as M-14, are responsible for planning roadway improvised explosive devices and some of the larger car bombs that have killed Iraqis, Americans and other foreigners. The attacks have sown chaos and fear across Iraq.

In addition, suicide bombers have worn explosives-laden vests made before the war under the direction of of M-14 officers, according to the report, prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The report also cites evidence that one such suicide attack last April, which killed three Americans, was carried out by a pregnant woman who was an M-14 colonel.

Its findings were based on interrogations with high-ranking M-14 members who are now in American custody, as well as on documents uncovered and translated by the Iraq Survey Group.

Wyoming's best

The cost of the war on terror is very real. Read "Taking Chance Home," an account by Lt. Col. M.R. Strobl, USMC, who accompanied the body of fallen hero Pfc. Chance Phelps home to Dubois, Wyoming earlier this month. More than 1,000 people, greater than the population of the little town, turned out in tribute, with pride, tears, patriotism, and a healing spirit.

Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn’t know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him.

You might need a tissue handy. I know I did. Read the whole thing, including the comments. Right now.

On a small personal note, we stopped in picturesque Dubois last summer, got great burgers, and used their lovely, friendly public library to get a bit of Internet access. We had spent the Fourth of July on the other side of the state in Newscastle and saw the patriotic spirit of Wyoming first-hand. God bless them all.

Specterated

So, admirably conservative Pat Toomey lost yesterday in the Pennsylvania primary to RINO and four-term incumbent Arlen Specter by a narrow margin of about 16,000 votes.

The PoliPundit team says it's a satisfying outcome:

This is a good result. It allows the GOP to put forward a 4-term incumbent as its candidate in November.

And "moderate" Republican senators have just had a loud warning shot fired across their bow. The next time they're voting on a bill, they should remember not just the ultra-liberal Washington press corps, but their conservative constituents back home. If a 4-term incumbent in a swing state can almost be defeated by a young challenger who's outspent 3-1, then no Republican senator is safe from a conservative primary challenge.

They also note an interesting voting pattern:

Central PA which is the conservtive bastion in the state went to...Specter. The results from the central counties show a remarkably tight race with Specter generally pulling out wins by a few hundred votes. This indicates that the rural conservative voters who were expected to vote Toomey instead voted for Specter. Draw your own conclusions about the Bush/Santorum endorsements. Another factor I imagine is the inability to reach these voters with the kind of saturated issues pieces/calls received in the Pittsburgh region thus leading them to rely more on the weight of the president's endorsement.

Ergo, Specter now owes his continued political career to George W. Bush and Karl Rove. Think this will cause the dimwitted Specter, widely known as "Snarlin' Arlen" and "The Arlenator" to his own staff, to vote like a Republican and actually help the President in the Senate Judiciary Committee...? Nah, I don't either.

Vietnam redux?

Ralph Peters sees a valid, and disheartening, analogy between Iraq and Vietnam, especially in the apparent standoff at Fallujah.

Our enemies are laughing at our folly, while creating a myth of heroic resistance in Fallujah - for which we will pay dearly in the months and years ahead.

Make no mistake: There can be no compromise in Fallujah. If we stop one inch short of knocking down the last door in the last house in the city, our enemies will be able to present the Battle of Fallujah to their sympathizers as a great victory: They fought the Americans to a stalemate (with the implication that, next time, the Americans will be defeated and driven from the Middle East).

Of course, we could defeat them. We know that. But in the broken world between the Bosporus and the Indus, seductive lies trump hard facts. Our insipid diplomacy plays into the hands of our enemies: It looks like cowardice. And it is.

We must not only win, we must be seen to win, graphically and decisively.

"Experts" warn that we mustn't alienate the hard-core Sunnis or the fundamentalist Shia's. Wake up and smell the cordite: They're already alienated. They'll never love us. So we'd better make damned sure they fear us.

The Battle of Fallujah isn't about one city. It's about the future of the entire Middle East. Despite the low number of casualties in historical terms, this could prove to be one of the decisive battles of history in its long-term effects.

We must win. If the enemy fights from mosques, level the mosques. If they fight from hospitals, gut the hospitals. If they open fire from orphanages, turn them into blackened shells. We cannot allow terrorists any sanctuaries. The men we face - and the watching world - interpret our decency as weakness.

The diplomats have had their chance. Now it's time to fight.

Unfortunately, our Marines and soldiers are in the position of a man in a fistfight in an alley. The other guy has total freedom of action, while our man's "friends" keep tugging at his arms and trying to restrain him. Guess who gets his teeth knocked out?

The president needs to lead, not equivocate. If there is any emerging resemblance to Vietnam, it isn't on the battlefield, but in the White House, where no one seems to have the will to win.

The terrorists pull the triggers and detonate the bombs. But the Marines and soldiers who come home in flag-draped coffins are Donald Rumsfeld's dead and Paul Bremer's corpses. President Bush is listening to the kind of men who destroyed LBJ's presidency and ravaged a generation of young Americans.

We cannot waste the lives of our troops for yesterday's bankrupt theories of international relations. Stop worrying about making our mortal enemies happy. We must either make up our minds to win, or bring our soldiers home.

Barometer

The resident Bush-despiser at the Houston Chronicle, political columnist Cragg Hines, thinks Pat Toomey is just way too conservative to deserve a win over incumbent Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary next week.

Republican strategists, including apparently Karl Rove at the White House, believe that the hard-right Toomey would be a red flag and draw more Democrats to the polls. Pragmatism still trumps orthodoxy for some Republicans.

Specter had established a fairly down-the-center voting record. In interest-group ratings in 2002, Specter got a 46 percent from the AFL-CIO, 35 percent from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action and 50 percent from the American Conservative Union.

Toomey lives up to his hard-right billing. In 2002, he got a 100 percent rating from the ACU, 13 percent from the AFL-CIO and zero percent from the ADA.

Specter's campaign says that on 76 occasions since Toomey came to the House in 1999, he has voted in opposition to all other Pennsylvania Republican representatives. The tag line to some of Specter's ads attacking Toomey is: "He's not far right, he's far out." Specter seems to have that about right.

Since Hines is reliably wrongheaded, his column alone is a convincing reason to root for Toomey against the moribund and unhelpful Specter.

That rap junk

Despite its innovations, rap/hip-hop music is a scourge on popular music and popular culture, not least because of pervasive lyrics and music-video imagery that demean and degrade women, and encourage or sanction violence.

So it's encouraging to see that young women are trying to take back their dignity, like what's happened recently at Spelman College in a controversary around misogynistic rapper Nelly.

The women leading the fight are barely 20. Many had not been born when hip-hop emerged but came of age listening to its music.

"Everyone calls it the 'Nelly controversy,' but this is bigger than Nelly," [Asha] Jennings said. "It's about empowering our sisters who think this is the only way to make it.

"We have to stop arguing that's the way it is and ask ourselves ... how do we change it?"

Pundit Roland Martin agrees with the Spelman students:

I'm not like the Bill O'Reillys of the world who denounce all of rap music. There are many songs that I enjoy because of the rapturous beats. Yet there comes a time when you have to say enough is enough.

Rap impresario Russell Simmons, in response to the criticism that rap music is obscene, often says, "poverty is obscene." He's right. But why can't we say both are obscene?

The Spelman women and men who joined them in protest deserve our praise. Maybe if more folks in black America stand up for righteousness, Nelly and his cohorts will stop the visual destruction of the sisterhood.

"Oil for Fraud"

As we suffer through the burgeoning scandal of worldwide corruption endemic to Saddam's nefarious "Oil for Food" program, Mark Steyn has had more than enough of trusting the United Nations.

For a certain type of person, any action on the international scene without the UN is unthinkable. And, conversely, anything that happens under the UN imprimatur is mostly for the unthinking.

No matter how corrupt and depraved it is in practice, the organisation's sunny utopian image endures. Say the initials "UN" to your average member of Ms Toynbee's legions of the unthinking and they conjure up not UN participation in the sex-slave trade in Bosnia, nor the UN refugee extortion racket in Kenya, nor the UN cover-up of the sex-for-food scandal in West Africa, nor UN complicity in massacres, but some misty Unesco cultural event compered by the late Sir Peter Ustinov featuring photogenic children.

So the question now is whether the UN Oil-for-Food programme is just another of those things that slip down the memory hole, and we all go back to parroting the lullaby that "only the UN can bring legitimacy to Iraq/Afghanistan/Your Basket Case Here". Legitimacy seems to be the one thing the UN doesn't bring, and I'm not just talking about the love-children of UN-enriched Balkan hookers in Kosovo...

So the conventional wisdom stays conventional - that we need to get the UN back into Iraq. No we don't. Iraq deserves better than an organisation which spent the last six years as Saddam's collaborator. As Claudia Rosett put it, "We are left to contemplate a UN system that has engendered a Secretary-General either so dishonest that he should be dismissed or so incompetent that he is truly dangerous and should be dismissed."

He should be, but he almost certainly won't be. After all, it is hardly his fault. When he set up the show, who would have thought that one day there would be US auditors in Baghdad?

Cold calculus vs. hot lead

Power Line notes that the Toomey-Specter race in Pennsylvania may be tightening before next Tuesday's primary.

Specter's main advantages are "electability" and inevitability. If Republican voters perceive that the race is wide open, many of them will swing to Toomey. This will be a fun one to watch.

Despite Toomey's conservative strengths, the Republican establishment, including Karl Rove, has rallied behind Specter's reelection bid. But ideological bombthrower Ann Coulter has a devastating summation of the case against Specter.

More than any other person in America, Arlen Specter is responsible for a runaway Supreme Court that has turned every political issue into a "constitutional" matter, giving radical liberals an uninterrupted string of victories in the culture wars. That's not a court, it's a junta.

When Reagan was president, he threatened to appoint justices who would not discover nonexistent "penumbras," which mysteriously read like a People for the American Way press release, and to return these issues to voters. The uneducated bumpkin Reagan's radical notion was that judges don't write laws, they interpret them.

Liberals exploded in righteous anger – an emotion they've never mustered toward Islamic terrorists, I note. Still, all their theatrics would have been for naught and we would already have our democracy back – but for Arlen Specter.

Tip via Power Line

Well, what we learned from Vietnam is that, if you lose a war like Vietnam, forever after people will question future wars by saying they are like Vietnam... Moral: Win your g'damn wars.

Posted by Alan at 12:44 AM

Easter Day

He is Risen. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Almighty God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech thee, that, as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

- The Collect for Easter-Day, The Book of Common Prayer (1662)

The Big Story (not)

Giving in to a hoohaw of PR pressure, the White House has released a copy of the presidential daily briefing from August 2001, wherein President Bush got the answers to his own questions about the potential threat to the U.S. homeland from al Qaeda.

For the last 72 hours, Democrats and media outlets like The New York Times have implied darkly that the White House had something to hide.

President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday.

The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford.

The disclosure appears to contradict the White House's repeated assertions that the briefing the president received about the Qaeda threat was "historical" in nature and that the White House had little reason to suspect a Qaeda attack within American borders.

Fox News and others have now posted the full text, and it's underwhelming.

Note that there has been no commentary from the Left about why a president supposedly obsessed with Iraq would have asked questions about al Qaeda, at the very time when terrorism advisor Richard Clarke says his own sage advice to focus on bin Laden was being ignored.

UPDATE: A PDF image of the brief is now available for viewing. Or, click on "Continue reading" below to view Fox's transcript.

via Fox News:

The following is a redacted text of the presidential daily briefing from August 6, 2001:

Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997' has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [deleted text] service. An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [deleted text] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members — including some who are US citizens — have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [deleted text] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar' Abd aI-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks
with explosives.

Save the children - use DDT

Thoughtful advocates for the health and welfare of millions of people in the third world are trying hard to resume the use of DDT to combat the scourge of malaria -- in the face of widely-held myths and ongoing opposition by environmentalists.

To Americans, DDT is simply a killer. Ask Americans over 40 to name the most dangerous chemical they know, and chances are that they will say DDT. Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane was banned in the United States in 1972. The chemical was once sprayed in huge quantities over cities and fields of cotton and other crops. Its persistence in the ecosystem, where it builds up to kill birds and fish, has become a symbol of the dangers of playing God with nature, an icon of human arrogance. Countries throughout the world have signed a treaty promising to phase out its use.

Yet what really merits outrage about DDT today is not that South Africa still uses it, as do about five other countries for routine malaria control and about 10 more for emergencies. It is that dozens more do not. Malaria is a disease Westerners no longer have to think about. Independent malariologists believe it kills two million people a year, mainly children under 5 and 90 percent of them in Africa. Until it was overtaken by AIDS in 1999, it was Africa's leading killer. One in 20 African children dies of malaria, and many of those who survive are brain-damaged. Each year, 300 to 500 million people worldwide get malaria. During the rainy season in some parts of Africa, entire villages of people lie in bed, shivering with fever, too weak to stand or eat. Many spend a good part of the year incapacitated, which cripples African economies. A commission of the World Health Organization found that malaria alone shrinks the economy in countries where it is most endemic by 20 percent over 15 years. There is currently no vaccine. While travelers to malarial regions can take prophylactic medicines, these drugs are too toxic for long-term use for residents.

Yet DDT, the very insecticide that eradicated malaria in developed nations, has been essentially deactivated as a malaria-control tool today. The paradox is that sprayed in tiny quantities inside houses -- the only way anyone proposes to use it today -- DDT is most likely not harmful to people or the environment. Certainly, the possible harm from DDT is vastly outweighed by its ability to save children's lives.

No one concerned about the environmental damage of DDT set out to kill African children. But various factors, chiefly the persistence of DDT's toxic image in the West and the disproportionate weight that American decisions carry worldwide, have conspired to make it essentially unavailable to most malarial nations.

Former green activist Paul Driessen, as noted here previously, calls the anti-DDT mindset "eco-imperialism." Driessen was on BookTV this afternoon with a solid presentation and Q&A on the whole topic.

Advantage McCaul?

Congressional candidate Mike McCaul received an endorsement from the Houston Chronicle today, which should be an advantage in his race against businessman Ben Streusand.

As the former chief of terrorism and national security for the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of Texas, McCaul would bring on-the-job experience to Congress concerning this nation's war on terrorism.

McCaul, 41, of Austin, wants to increase the number of Border Patrol agents on our nation's porous borders and believes Social Security could be revamped to provide recipients with greater returns.

A long-active Republican, McCaul has won the endorsements of Gov. Rick Perry and Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn for his conservative principles.

The Chronicle believes McCaul's background and experience have prepared him superbly to serve the best interests of his district, our state and this nation in the coming years.

Kerrey the hypocrite

Bob Kerrey, who knows better, acted shamefully today in the 9-11 Commission hearing with Condi Rice. Donald Sensing understood perfectly.

I say Kerrey is a hypocrite because on the one hand he wrote in the WSJ about shunning partisanship, and the same day launched a completely unjustified partisan attack against the Bush administration on a topic having nothing whatever to do with the 9/11 Commission's charter.

The 9/11 Commission's objective is to answer the following question: How--at the end of a summer of high terrorist threat--did 19 men with a few hundred thousand dollars manage to utterly defeat every single defensive mechanism we had in place that September morning and murder 3,000 innocents on American soil? ...

Who said that? Bob Kerrey, that's who, in the WSJ piece. Yet he opened his time this morning with a speech having nothing - nothing - to do with the commission's objective, as explained by Kerrey himself. I say his speech was unjustified because it was irrelevant to his duty as a commissioner, not because Bush's management of the Iraq war is off limits to political discussion. It's just off limits to this commission. The commission has no authority under law (remember delegated powers and all that?) even to bring up the Iraq war.

Fox News just announced that in Rice's appearance this morning, the commissioners spoke 60 percent of the words, Rice 40 percent. Fox's legal analyst, Andrew Napolitano, said that Rice should have accounted for 90 percent of the text.

The foremost concern of the members of the 9/11 Commission is not September 2001, it is November 2004. Their own self image falls close behind. This commission is a travesty, an example of the worst American politics has to offer.

Cox and Forkum saw it all coming way back on March 31.

Scrappleface reports that the Democrats' trap didn't work quite as planned:

Democrats in Congress appealed to the FCC to investigate the live coverage of Dr. Rice's testimony, charging that it may violate election laws.

"It was a free commercial emphasizing the competence and leadership of the Bush administration," said one unnamed Democrat House member. "We demand equal time."

Watch the full hearing for yourself via C-SPAN (Real). Read a transcript of Condi's opening remarks or of the full three hours.

Condi and the boys

Former Senator Bob Kerrey has words of warning for his fellow members of the "9-11" Commission:

Today's appearance of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will test the commission's resilience to the partisan pressures which threaten to collapse the goodwill needed to achieve consensus. Among the most dangerous forces is the tendency in politics to become personal and question motives instead of confronting the substance of the argument made by any individual. If we yield to this tendency, all hope for an honest and constructive report is lost. We will most certainly fail.

This debate becomes all the more important since the work of this commission--to examine an attack against the U.S. that occurred nearly three years ago--has been overshadowed by the events taking place in Iraq. The war there is not over. Twelve marines were killed in Ramadi Tuesday night in what has become a dramatic escalation of violence against coalition forces. I believe this escalation is taking place precisely because the country is about to be handed over to the Iraqi people to run themselves.

More importantly, I believe this commission must try to provide a foundation for bipartisan agreement on what should be done in Iraq and the broader war against radical Islamists who use terror as a tactic to destroy our will.

Whether you disagree with me or with Mr. Clarke, the only way for the 9/11 Commission to succeed is to confront every fact and every argument on its merits. If we do, the world will be safer. If we don't, we will have exercised our freedoms poorly.

It'll be a surprise if the Democrats on the Commission can resist the temptation for partisan grandstanding, but maybe the shadow of armed conflict in Iraq will shame them into at least a semblance of thoughtfulness. Expect Condi to be complete, articulate, and unflappable.

The New York Post published an admiring portrait of Rice on Wednesday.

Condi Rice is a true Renaissance woman: a classical pianist, a fanatical football fan, and so fluent in Russian that she's read "War and Peace" in the language in which Tolstoy wrote it.

Twice.

But in many ways, the most powerful woman in the world - the most powerful black woman ever - remains a mystery to many in Washington. She keeps her private life under wraps and lives by herself, although she isn't afraid to be seen out on the town.

She has a model's slim figure with a taste for deep jewel tones that show off her flawless skin. Always perfectly groomed, she rarely wears prints. She likes simple classical gold jewelry.

And even in her high-profile job she has faced the embarrassment of having a sales clerk in a fancy store show her costume jewelry instead of the real thing and mutter something like "black trash" when she asked to see the real gold.

"And so I said, 'Let's get one thing clear. If you could afford anything in here you wouldn't be behind this counter. So I strongly suggest you do your job,' " Rice recounted to Essence magazine.

"It's something that has probably happened to every black person at some point in time. You're not treated as if you are actually a customer. My view is, you just don't let that sort of thing go at all."

She's up by 5 a.m. every day, friends say, exercising on her treadmill at the Watergate apartments (yes, that Watergate) in front of the TV, where she likes to watch local news instead of cable news.

"Local news is how I know what people are really thinking," a friend quotes her as saying.

She cooks her own breakfast and is quickly off to the White House, where she's the first woman ever to serve as national security adviser.

John Hinderaker at the Power Line will be live-blogging Rice's testimony today.

Iran and Iraq

While fighting continues in Iraq today, the American Foreign Policy Council released a translated news item that just might be relevant:

Iran has taken advantage of Iraq’s lingering instability to deeply penetrate its eastern neighbor, where it has launched a massive insurgency campaign aimed at preventing the establishment of a secular, pro-Western state, a former Iranian official has revealed.

In a recent interview with London’s influential Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, the intelligence officer – identified only as “Hajj Saeedi” – disclosed that Iran has successfully infiltrated hundreds of operatives from its clerical army, the Pasdaran, into Iraq via Kurdish areas not yet firmly under the control of the Iraqi Governing Council. The Iranian agents – including members of the Pasdaran’s feared paramilitary “Qods Corps” – have since established a major presence throughout the country, where they have begun active recruitment, propaganda and insurgency operations.

According to Saeedi, such activities include the formation of a cadre of radicalized Iraqi youth, who will be mobilized during the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections, as well as the targeting and elimination of prominent opposition leaders – most notably, the assassination last summer of the Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

These efforts are reportedly subsidized by Tehran to the tune of $70 million a month, which has been used in part to pay off friendly Iraqi clerics, maintain an extensive network of safe-houses and bases for Iranian agents, and to foment sectarian strife among Iraq’s minorities. “In the 1980’s and on the orders of Imam Khomeyni, we took our battle with the United States to Lebanon,” Saeedi said. “We are today moving our battle with the United States to Iraq on the orders of the revolution guide so that it will recognize our role there too.”

That fits neatly with the report in today's Washington Times about Iranian and Hezbollah support for Iraq's so-called "cleric" Sheik Muqtuda al-Sadr:

Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr, the fiery Iraqi Shi'ite cleric who ordered his fanatical militia to attack coalition troops, is being supported by Iran and its terror surrogate Hezbollah, according to military sources with access to recent intelligence reports.

Sheik al-Sadr's bid to spark a widespread uprising in Iraq comes at a particularly pivotal time. The United States is conducting a massive troop rotation that leaves inexperienced troops in some locations, including Fallujah, which is west of Baghdad and where Sunnis have mounted another series of rebellions.

The United States suspects that his goal is to create a hard-line Shi'ite regime in Iraq modeled after Tehran's government. Military sources said Sheik al-Sadr is being aided directly by Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which plays a large role in running that country, and by Hezbollah, an Iranian-created terrorist group based in Lebanon.

One of the sources said these two organizations are supplying the cleric with money, spiritual support and possibly weapons. "Iran does not want a success in Iraq," the source said. "A democratic Iraq is a death knell to the mullahs."

Whatever the Arabic word is for "cleric," it must also translate as "gangster."

The hard way

Tuesday was a brutal day in Iraq, especially for the U.S. Marines, who lost a large number of casualties. Wednesday may be worse.

The leftists say we're acting as aggressive imperialists. Military analyst Ralph Peters wrote Monday to say we're reaping the consequences of being too Western and too considerate, including our failure to immediately pop the culprits in Fallujah who murdered four security contractors.

We viewed our non-response as disciplined - rejecting instant emotional gratification. But the insurgents, the terrorists and the mob read matters differently: Our failure to send every possible Marine and soldier, along with Paul Bremer's personal bodyguard and a squad of armed janitors, into the streets of Fallujah to impose a draconian clampdown created the impression - not entirely unfounded - that we were scared.

We broke a basic rule: Never show fear. No matter how we may rationalize our inaction, that is what we did.

Instead of demonstrating our strength and resolve, we have encouraged more attacks and further brutality - while global journalists revel in Mogadishu-lite.

Of course, we're not going to flee Iraq as President Bill Clinton ran from Somalia. But our hesitation to respond to atrocities against Americans has renewed our enemies' hope that, if only they kill enough of us, as graphically as possible, they still can triumph over a "godless" superpower.

To possess the strength to do what is necessary, but to refuse to do it, is appeasement. Since Baghdad fell, our occupation has sought to appease our enemies - while slighting our Kurdish allies. Our attempts to find a compromise with a single man - the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani - have empowered him immensely, while encouraging intransigence in others.

Weakness, not strength, emboldens opponents - and creates added terrorist recruits.

Peters is also worried about the future.

We came to Iraq faced with the problems Saddam created. Increasingly, we face problems we ourselves created or compounded.

If the administration lacks the guts to do what must be done, free Iraq will face a dismal future. As vicious as they are, our enemies have the courage of their convictions.

Do we?

One thing is sure: this administration has a proclivity for playing comeback ball. That's hard, and often not successful. Beware.

McCaul bandwagon?

Republican congressional candidate Michael McCaul hauled in more endorsements over the weekend at a rally in Brenham.

U.S. House candidate Michael McCaul has picked up several more endorsements, including that of Texas Rep. Lois Kolkhorst. Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson both announced their endorsement of McCaul at a campaign stop here Saturday.

"I am standing here today as Lois Kolkhorst, a voting constituent of Congressional District 10," said Kolkhorst, who is serving her second term as a state representative. "And with that I can say that my vote next week, and I vote early, is going to go to Michael McCaul."

Patterson said he rarely gives endorsements but decided to do so in this race. "I don't normally get involved in primaries," said Patterson. "I have an aversion to it, and I have done it only one or two times. I don't like to get involved unless there is a clear difference between the candidates.

"I don't think there's any difference as to how Michael or his opponent would vote, but there's a difference in style and a difference in the integrity of the election process."

Dr. Richard Stadelmann, Washington County's Republican Party chairman and a special guest at the event, rounded out the program by voicing his support of McCaul.

"I'm not disturbed that much by Michael's opponent's political statements, but this kind of negative campaigning demonstrates a tremendous ethical weakness in character, and so I can say without any hesitation that Michael is the person qualified for the position of Congress for the 10th District," said Stadelmann. "And now you know I promised and I'm not endorsing, but you know how I feel about it. "

Confirmation

Well, this decision by China's ruling class tells the citizens of Taiwan what to expect under reunification: prospects for democracy would be few and far between, so just do as you're told.

China says Hong Kong's government must petition Beijing if it wants to make any changes to its electoral laws.

The National People's Congress Standing Committee, made the decision in an interpretation of the Hong Kong constitution. The announcement came from Qiao Xiaoyang, deputy secretary-general of the NPC Standing Committee.

"The right to amend the law belongs to the National People's Congress," he said.

Democracy advocates see the ruling as Beijing's clamping down on the development of democracy in the territory, which Britain returned to Chinese control in 1997.

The constitution, known as the Basic Law, devised by China and Britain prior to the change in sovereignty, aims to establish a system in which Hong Kong residents can directly elect their leader. That right is not shared by their countrymen on the Chinese mainland.

In its interpretation, the NPC Standing Committee said local governments have no fixed power. It said all powers of local governments derive from the authorization of the central authorities.

Via Voice of America

Lefties at work

Even the mainstream press, this time NYT reporter Jim Rutenberg, has taken notice of the way Hollywood is making its "in-kind" contributions to the Kerry campaign this election year.

Galvanized politically in ways they have not been since the early 1990s, Hollywood's more liberal producers and writers are increasingly expressing their displeasure with President Bush with not only their wallets, but also their scripts.

In recent weeks, characters in prime time have progressed beyond the typical Hollywood knocks against Washington politicians to calling out the president directly or questioning his policies, including the decision to go to war in Iraq, the support of the Patriot Act and the backing of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

On NBC's "Whoopi," the hotelier played by Whoopi Goldberg delivered an anti-Bush screed when the president appeared at her establishment to use the facilities. "I can't believe he's in there doing to my bathroom what he's done to the economy!" she said.

One of the wisecracking detectives on NBC's "Law & Order," played by Jesse L. Martin, referred to the president as the "dude that lied to us." The character went on to say, "I don't see any weapons of mass destruction, do you?" His cantankerous partner, played by Jerry Orbach, retorted that Saddam Hussein did have such weapons because Bush's daddy sold them to someone "who used to live in Baghdad."

But the season finale of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" arguably best conveyed the growing sentiment. On that episode, the main character, played by the comedian Larry David, backed out of a dalliance sanctioned by his wife after noticing that his prospective paramour had lovingly displayed a picture of Bush on her dresser.

"You want to say to people, 'Wait a minute, is this man leading this country as an American or is he leading the country as a Christian,' " said Goldberg, who is an executive producer and writer for "Whoopi."

Asked if she would be pleased if her show could contribute to the defeat of Bush, she said, "I would like that."

Eagle-eyed Tim Blair, who must actually read the letters to the editor in Australian newspapers, notes this added commentary from a "veteran Australian showbiz correspondent:"

Jim Rutenberg is on the ball when he writes of the shameless pro-Democrat, anti-Republican propaganda flooding Hollywood-produced films and TV programs.

However, after 16 years working in Los Angeles, I would suggest that the Democrats tell Hollywood stars, celebrities, writers and others in the fame game who profess to "care" to cool it during the presidential election campaign. From my experience these superficial, self-absorbed, self-interested, egomaniacal nitwits who threw their weight and money behind Bill Clinton and now are in a lather of enthusiasm for John Kerry, raise the level of hypocrisy to the stratosphere.

While supposedly supporting Democratic Party ideals, many treat underlings no better than serfs, they wangle obscenely huge payments for their work that so deplete budgets that supporting actors find their rates cut, and they have an unofficial "black list" that works against anyone in the industry who dares voice an alternative opinion. So much for them writing and complaining about "attacks on freedom of expression".

And while they may preach to the choir, millions of Americans are aware of libertine Hollywood's role in the lowering of standards, the dumbing down of entertainment and the shameless worship of the almighty dollar over values and responsibility.

Hah

Now making the rounds of the Internet:

You Know You're Living in 2004 When...

1. You accidentally enter your computer password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.
7. When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.
8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.
10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.
11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.
12. Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get
''long-service to the company'' awards.

AND THE REAL CLINCHERS ARE...

13. You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.
14. As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your friends.
15. You got this e-mail from a friend who never talks to you anymore, except to send you jokes from the net.
16. You are too busy to notice there was no No. 9.
17. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a No. 9.
18. AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

Never again

The author of Black Hawk Down says the atrocity in Fallujah was a planned provocation that must be answered, unlike what happened a decade ago in Mogadishu.

It's time for opponents of the war to get real. Pictures like those we saw from Fallujah last week should horrify us, but they should also anger us and strengthen our resolve. The response should not be to back away from the task, but to redouble our efforts.

Which means recognizing that the gory carnival on the streets of Fallujah is not evidence of the mission's futility, nor is it something to chalk up to foreign barbarity. It was deliberate and it must be answered deliberately. The lynching of African-Americans would have ended decades earlier if authorities had rounded up and punished those participating in crimes like the one in Marion. Somalia would be a vastly different place today if the U.S. and U.N. had not backed away in horror from the shocking display in Mogadishu.

The rebels in Iraq who ambushed those American security workers in Fallujah ought to be hunted down and brought to justice, but they are not the only ones responsible. The public celebration that followed was licensed and encouraged by whatever leadership exists in Fallujah. Whether religious or secular, its insult, warning, and challenge has been broadcast around the world. It must be answered. The photographic evidence should be used to help round up those who committed these atrocities, and those who tacitly or overtly encouraged it. A suitable punishment might be some weeks of unearthing the victims of Saddam Hussein's mass graves.

The U.S. Marines are beginning Operation Valiant Resolve now, and Fallujah has been sealed off.

Local terrors

There's an interesting page one story in Sunday's Houston Chronicle about the work of a Houston-based anti-terrorism task force. We are at risk: "It is the only area in the U.S. with critical infrastructure in all risk categories."

Houston is considered one of eight U.S. cities most vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack because of:

• A porous Gulf of Mexico coastline and border with Mexico
• A petrochemical industry that holds the military's contract for fuel and supplies 50 percent of the nation's gasoline
• The Texas Medical Center
• NASA's Johnson Space Center
• A nuclear power plant in Bay City
• One of the nation's largest ports
• An international airport named for former President Bush, making it a symbolic target
• More foreign consulates (60) than any city other than New York and Washington, D.C.

Apparently Houston's task force actually dates back to 1993 and has had no lack of threats to investigate.

"We've followed thousands of leads. We get them daily," said Richard Powers, the FBI agent in charge of Houston's Joint Terrorism Task Force. "Ninety-nine percent turn out to be invalid, but I believe we have also prevented things."

Two floors of the FBI headquarters in Houston are devoted to task force operations, giving members a round-the-clock base where they can access secure telephones and computers.

The Houston task force comprises 100 members from 40 agencies. They include FBI agents, a police officer from Baytown and a detective from Texas A&M University. All are subject to background checks and are given top-secret clearance. They spend the bulk of their time following tips but also network with other intelligence sources.

"They see the most sensitive secrets we have," Powers said, "like a fire hose of intelligence."

A sidebar story has some details on four particular cases handled in recent months.

Sounds like the task force is doing its job -- I wish we could be more confident given the previous reports of lax access control at some of those critical local facilities.

Duking it out

District 10 congressional candidates Ben Streusand and Mike McCaul are still hustling for votes in the April 13 Republican primary. Both spoke at a candidate forum hosted by the Katy Chamber of Commerce and The Katy Times noticed that a few differences between the two conservatives surfaced (if its typo-riddled story is correct -- this is a newspaper that has needed a proofreader desperately for years.)

The two differed on their approaches to reforming America's healthcare system.

"I would have the federal government reimburse Medicare providers. Customers should choose their doctor and healthcare provider from the best guy or institution at the cheapest possible price. Healthcare is not competitive; it's a series of monopolies," Streusand said.

"It's truly a government-run system. We need to streamline it. I like a step toward free market principles. It would restore the relationship between the patient and physician. Congress and federal employees have a better healthcare system than the American people," McCaul said.

Streusand and McCaul each explained why they feel American jobs are migrating to foreign markets.

"We need to create the most favorable environment for businesses to stay in the country and create more jobs here. It's almost impossible to compete on a level playing field with foreign countries that don't have taxation," McCaul said.

"We should not impede the growth of American jobs. I don't think penalizing companies is the way to go. We need to enforce copyright laws and allow the currency to float against dollar. Chinese imports cost so much less and American exports cost so much more," Streusand said.

They are each generally in favor of a flat tax to replace the progressive income tax.

Both candidates said they would support action to replace the IRS with the National Fair Tax.

"I support the a National Fair Tax, which would be a federal sales tax. Every study I've seen has shown that it reduces the costs of goods and services in the country. The time has come, no longer can we fix a 100-year-old system with Band-aids," Streusand said.

This national retail sales tax would apply to everyone including foreigners and illegal immigrants and it is impossible to cheat," McCaul said.

McCaul has been endorsed by both of our fair state's U.S. Senators -- John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchinson have appeared in recent TV ads for him. At our house, we also received an endorsement letter signed by local Republicans Sheriff Tommy Thompson, Harris County D.A. Chuck Rosenthal, and Harris County Attorney Mike Stafford.

In fact, as noted last week by the Houston Chronicle, McCaul's better connected than I had realized previously.

McCaul was hired as an assistant U.S. attorney during the administration of former President Bush, who is supporting him. He served throughout the Clinton administration and during the current Bush administration until October, when he stepped down to run for office.

On Wednesday, former President Bush will attend a McCaul fund-raiser being hosted by McCaul's father-in-law, Lowry Mays, the chief executive officer of San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications and head of Texas A&M University's board of regents.

McCaul's latest direct mail has included several brochures about homeland security and his "experience fighting criminals and terrorists."

Streusand is picking up some endorsements of his own, including prominent social conservative Gary Bauer and Cathie Adams of the Texas Eagle Forum, but not from the big officeholders.

Ben Streusand, a candidate for the 10th District seat in Congress, has received an endorsement from a second former opponent. Streusand said today that he has received the endorsement of Patrick Elliott, who was also a candidate for the seat in the March 9 Republican primary. Elliott, who is from Washington County, finished sixth in the eight-person Republican primary.

Streusand earlier picked up the endorsement of former District Judge John Devine, who finished third in the primary.

The leftie Austin Chronicle isn't too impressed by the campaign, which is mostly OK with me, considering what they'd like to see.

Perhaps the highest-profile is the CD 10 run-off between Austin's Michael McCaul and Houston's Ben Streusand, since the winner will face no Democratic opposition in November and will likely automatically become one of Tom DeLay's D.C. minions. Even by the ever-declining standards of the genre, this race has become a stupid mess, with talk of issues drowned out by tub-thumping over which candidate has the larger, tougher, and more conservative Republican [well, you know]. Thousands of disenfranchised Austin liberals weep.

Now, in medical news...

FLIP-FLOPPING MAY HAVE INJURED KERRY’S SHOULDER

Doctor Advises Senator Not to Change Positions for Two Weeks

With Senator John F. Kerry (D-Mass) set for shoulder surgery in Boston today, an orthopedic surgeon familiar with the Senator’s condition said that Mr. Kerry’s penchant for flip-flopping may have caused the injury to his shoulder.

“Constant or repetitive flip-flopping can cause major orthopedic damage,” said Dr. Robert Claman of Massachusetts General Hospital. “If it goes unchecked, flip-flopping can injure a shoulder far more seriously than tennis or golf.”

Dr. Claman said that Mr. Kerry first felt a nagging pain in the tendon of his shoulder at the outset of his quest for the Democratic nomination, when he started flip-flopping on his vote to authorize military action in Iraq.

“At first he started favoring his right shoulder, but as [Former Vermont Governor] Howard Dean started gaining in the polls, he started favoring the left,” Dr. Claman said.

The orthopedic specialist added that once the surgery is completed, he would strongly urge Mr. Kerry not to change his positions for the next two weeks to give the damaged tendon time to heal.

“I told him that if he goes out there and starts flip-flopping on gay marriage or taxes, he’s going to wind up right back on the operating table,” Dr. Claman said. “He agreed with me at first, then disagreed, but then agreed with me again.”

Via The Borowotz Report