MSMended

Message to Readers

2006-03-29T18:38:00.000-08:00

With all the folks trying to access the blog, I know it is sometimes slow---especially on weekday nights.

I have been approached by people who want to host the blog by including ads.

We will never go that way.

Meanwhile, we are asking for your patience.

News for March 29, 2006

2006-03-29T18:34:00.000-08:00

Highlights
WAPO’s Howard Kurtz exposes liberal media
FISA Judges Support Bush
Jewish World Review takes on the libs
Iraq vet runs against anti-war Dem in NJ
Nasdaq hits 5-year high
Spanish Media Organized Nationwide Mass Protests
CNN Anchor turns advocate (do I hear “bias”?)
Lib calls libs unpatriotic
Dem Congressman Loses Appeal in Phone Taping
Covering Saddam’s Shenanigans, Not His Crimes
Something New . . . Condoleezza Rice sees significance in the Saddam documents.
ABC Misleads Viewers with "Pulitzer-Prize Winner"
Supreme Court judge says civil rights for Guantanamo inmates 'crazy'
Clinton chauffeur an illegal immigrant

Global Warming (1)?
The Times of India:
Then last Christmas, I went on vacation to Lake Argentina. The Upsala glacier and six other glaciers descend from the South Andean icefield into the lake. I was astounded to discover that while the Upsala glacier had retreated rapidly, the other glaciers showed little movement, and one had advanced across the lake into the Magellan peninsula. If in the same area some glaciers advance and others retreat, the cause is clearly not global warming but local micro-conditions.
Yet the Greenpeace photos gave the impression that glaciers in general were in rapid retreat. It was a con job, a dishonest effort to mislead. From the same icefield, another major glacier spilling into Chile has grown 60% in volume.

Global Warming (2)?
A recent Washington Post article gave this scientist's quote from 1972. "We simply cannot afford to gamble. We cannot risk inaction. The scientists who disagree are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored."
The warning was not about global warming (which was not happening): it was about global cooling!

Howard Kurtz exposes liberal media
In his column today, Howard Kurtz puts the emphasis back where it belongs: on reporters here in the United States who spin the news coming out of Iraq in an attempt to frame the war in a negative way. He compiles a list of questions such reporters asked the president last week. Questions like:
ABC's Jessica Yellin: "Are you willing to sacrifice American lives to keep Iraqis from killing one another?"
CNN's Kathleen Koch: "Do you believe [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld should resign?"
USA Today's David Jackson: "Are you concerned that the Iraq experience is going to embolden authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and make it tougher to get democracy there?"
Bob Deans of Cox News: "Is there a point at which having the American forces in Iraq becomes more a part of the problem than a part of the solution?"
The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei: Polls show "a growing number of Americans are questioning the trustworthiness of you and this White House. Does that concern you?"
Hearst columnist Helen Thomas: "Your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true."

FISA Judges Support Bush
Reuters reports:
A panel of former Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges yesterday told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush did not act illegally when he created by executive order a wiretapping program conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).
The five judges testifying before the committee said they could not speak specifically to the NSA listening program without being briefed on it, but that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not override the president's constitutional authority to spy on suspected international agents under executive order.
"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. "I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute."

Jewish World Review March 27, 2006 /27 Adar, 5766
All bad news, all the time: People are tired of journalistic practices that obscure the reality of good news
By Jack Kelly
On Thursday, the Associated Press reported an "unexpected" jump in home sales, and a "greater than forecast" drop in unemployment claims.
"Unexpected" by whom? Economic conditions are nearly the same now as they were at this point in Bill Clinton's second term. The unemployment rate last month was 4.8 percent. In February of 1998, it was 4.6 percent. Gross domestic product grew 4.1 percent last year (even with Katrina), compared to 4.5 percent in 1997.
News coverage then emphasized good economic news (Nexis indicates there were 81 stories in 1997 that used the phrase "booming U.S. economy," versus just 13 last year). News coverage now emphasizes bad news.
This likely explains the substantial disparity between the percentage of Americans who think they're doing well economically and those who think the country is. (According to the Gallup Poll, 52 percent of Americans think their personal finances are excellent or good, but only 34 percent give that description to the economy as a whole.)

From Jewish World review
Ms. Taylor is the wife of an Army sergeant who just returned from Iraq. At a town meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia Wednesday, she told the president:
"It seems that our major media networks don't want to portray the good. They just want to focus on another car bomb. They just want to focus on some more bloodshed..."
Ms. Taylor's question was greeted by a standing ovation from nearly everyone in the packed hall.
ABC News received hundreds of emails after the town meeting. "The vast majority believed the media were biased in their Iraq coverage," ABC acknowledged.
The media "jump at the chance to report completely unsubstantiated claims by Iraqis of killings or theft or abuse that simply isn't credible when you know even the first thing about the American military," said "Buck Sargent," an infantry squad leader in Iraq, in an email to radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt. "They give the ruthless killers the benefit of the doubt every time, just to spread more nonsense about us."
The news media have run many stories about Abu Ghraib, including the phony one in the New York Times March 11. But when's the last time you read a story about an American hero in Iraq?
There've been many, but journalists never seem to make it the awards ceremonies.
A recent study by the Media Research Center of broadcast network news coverage of the trial of Saddam Hussein is indicative of imbalance.
ABC, CBS and NBC have broadcast 90 minutes of air time of Saddam's trial (compared to 824 for the O.J. Simpson trial). Of that, just 11.5 minutes have been devoted to actual testimony and evidence. More air time was devoted to Saddam's complaint he was not receiving a fair trial, much more to his courtroom disruptions.
"The trial gives the world the opportunity to understand the scope and brutality of the Saddam regime," wrote Web logger Ed Morrissey. "Our media instead talks about Saddam's love of Cheetos, Ramsey Clark's complaints about Saddam's treatment, and the tyrant's utterly predictable and unremarkable political observations. No wonder we hold journalists in such low esteem"

Iraq vet jumps into 9th Dist. congressional race (NJ)
Star Ledger ^ 3/29/06 STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
An Iraq war veteran who says the U.S. should stay the course in the Middle East announced yesterday he is running for Congress against Rep. Steve Rothman (D-9th Dist.), who has called for a rapid withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.
Vince Micco, 34, is a reservist who served in Iraq for a year. He is seeking the Republican nomination in the heavily Democratic 9th District, which includes parts of Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties.

US man in Bush murder plot gets 30 years in jail
Reuters ^ March 29 2006
A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a U.S. man convicted of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush and conspiring with al Qaeda to 30 years in prison.
In November, Abu Ali was found guilty of all charges in a nine-count indictment, including conspiracy to assassinate Bush, conspiring to support al

Techs lead Nasdaq to 5-year high
U.S. stocks rallied on Wednesday, led by a surge in the Nasdaq Composite to its highest since February 2001, after positive comments by a brokerage about wireless technology makers, including Qualcomm Inc.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 67.64 points, or 0.61 percent, at 11,222.18. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 10.05 points, or 0.78 percent, at 1,303.28. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 31.07 points, or 1.35 percent, at 2,335.53.

“Nothing I have witnessed is as potentially transformative of media and olitics as the emergence of blogging — or rather, the emergence of the ‘voice of the people through blogging,’” says journalist David Kline, who recently participated in a webchat hosted by the U.S. Department of State.
Kline, author of the book “blog! how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture,” discussed the function of blogs in the political arena, how blogs fit in with mainstream news media and the blogosphere’s evolution.
“My own theory is that political bloggers will make it more possible for previously unheard voices to be heard and attract an audience — and for streams of political opinion outside the traditional two-party [Republican and Democrat] rhetoric to gain a following,” said Kline.
For the full transcript:
http://usinfo.state.gov/eur/Archive/2006/Mar/27-734425.html

Spanish Media Organized Nationwide Mass Protests
(AP)
LOS ANGELES The marching orders were clear: Carry American flags and pack the kids, pick up your trash and wear white for peace and for effect.
Many of the 500,000 people who crammed downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to protest legislation that would make criminals out of illegal immigrants learned where, when and even how to demonstrate from the Spanish-language media.
For English-speaking America, the mass protests in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities over the past few days have been surprising for their size and seeming spontaneity.
But they were organized, promoted or publicized for weeks by Spanish-language radio hosts and TV anchors as a demonstration of Hispanic pride and power.
In Milwaukee, where at least 10,000 people rallied last week, one radio station manager called some employers to ask that they not fire protesters for skipping work. In Chicago, a demonstration that drew 100,000 people received coverage on local television more than a week in advance.
"This was a much bigger story for the Latino media," said Felix Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. "If the mainstream media had been paying better attention, there would not have been the surprise about the turnout."
Adrian Velasco first learned of House legislation to overhaul immigration policy on Los Angeles' Que Buena 105.5 FM. Over two weeks, the 30-year-old illegal immigrant soaked up details about the planned march against the bill from Hispanic TV and radio. On Saturday, he and three friends headed downtown.
"They told all the Hispanic people to go and support these things," Velasco said. "They explained a lot. They said, 'Here's what we're going to do."'
One of those doing the most talking was El Piolin, a syndicated morning show radio host who is broadcast in 20 cities.
El Piolin, whose real name is Eduardo Sotelo and whose nickname means "Tweety Bird," persuaded colleagues from 11 Spanish-language radio stations in Los Angeles to talk up the rally on air.
In Milwaukee, the Spanish-language station WDDW 104.7 made a point of publicizing the House legislation and the protest against it on its morning and drive-time shows two weeks ahead of time.
Operations manager Armando Ulloa said his goal was at least 10,000 people -- and police estimated that was what the rally attracted. After the march, Ulloa said, he called some employers and asked them to be lenient on protesters who missed their shifts.
In Los Angeles, 10 prime-time Spanish-language news anchors filmed a promotion urging demonstrators to show respect, said Julio Cesar Ortiz, a television reporter who covers immigration.

Anchor-Advocate on Immigration Wins Viewers
By BILL CARTER and JACQUES STEINBERG
The nation's most prominent opponent of current immigration policy began his day yesterday on the "Today" show on NBC, debating a Hispanic defender of illegal immigrants. He moved on to "American Morning" on CNN to denounce a bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday as "an amnesty program."
By nightfall he was on a plane headed to Mexico, where he intended to assess critically the planned discussions on the issue between President Bush and President Vicente Fox of Mexico.
This central figure in the increasingly fractious debate over future immigration policy was not a senator or congressman, nor even a lobbyist on either side of the issue. It was instead, a television news anchor, Lou Dobbs of CNN.
But in the past several weeks, Mr. Dobbs has ratcheted up his criticism of Bush administration policies, first on the Dubai ports deal and now on immigration, to a point where in the view of many he has become a significant factor in shaping public opinion on these issues.
The management of CNN denied yesterday that Mr. Dobbs's soaring profile on the immigration issue — and the increased ratings he has garnered along with it — would steer the network toward adding more opinions on other news programs.
But CNN was hardly holding back yesterday on giving Mr. Dobbs opportunities to unleash opinions on the immigration debate, views that seem to have only grown more vociferous in reaction both to last weekend's mass marches in Los Angeles and other cities in support of illegal immigrants and the action Monday by the Senate committee.
On the CNN morning show he called the Senate bill "an unconscionable act" and "a sellout." He appeared again on CNN's midday "Live From..." program, saying, "I think illegal immigrants are a burden to the taxpayer, unequivocally."
Later, the network's "Situation Room" program displayed a clock counting down to the hour when Mr. Dobbs would be arriving in Mexico.
He said he did not believe that traditional objective journalism brought people closer to the truth. Asked if he himself knew what the truth was, Mr. Dobbs said: "I have strong feelings that I do. I have strong evidence I do."
CNN certainly has reason to celebrate Mr. Dobbs's expanding profile on the immigration issue. His program, which was up 24 percent in total viewers over the same period last year, is the only good news story in CNN's evening and prime-time lineup, which was otherwise down across the board in ratings for the past quarter.

Lib calls libs unpatriotic
Ultra-liberal Todd Gitlin, a Columbia professor of journalism and sociology, spoke at Yale Tuesday, and the liberal Yale Daily News reports that he questioned liberals’ patriotism:
He elaborated on his feeling of frustration concerning what he views as liberals' voluntary estrangement from the rest of the nation, citing their alleged rejection of patriotism as an example of this alienation.
"I think that the upshot is that patriotism is experienced by many people on the left as something of an embarrassment," Gitlin said.
Gitlin said he thinks left-leaning individuals are now rejecting patriotism because they believe it forces them to identify with a larger group of Americans with whom they disagree and contradicts the spirit of cosmopolitanism that they espouse.
"The left sees itself as standing outside a country that does bad," Gitlin said. "However, it is strategically disastrous to take this position as outsiders, since it is a concession to people who are not entitled to be the spokespersons of patriotism. It is a move against public life, public domain, public virtue and public-mindedness."

Congressman Loses Appeal in Phone Taping
Mar 28 1:34 PM US/Eastern
By MATTHEW DALY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Rep. Jim McDermott violated federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to reporters nearly a decade ago.
In a 2-1 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling that McDermott violated the rights of House Majority Leader John Boehner, who was heard on the 1996 call involving former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
The lower court had ordered McDermott to pay Boehner more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation. The figure includes $60,000 in damages and at least $600,000 in legal costs.
McDermott, D-Wash., leaked to The New York Times and other news organizations a tape of a 1996 cell phone call. The call included discussion by Gingrich, R-Ga., and other House GOP leaders about a House ethics committee investigation of Gingrich. Boehner, R-Ohio, was a Gingrich lieutenant at the time and is now House majority leader.
A lawyer for McDermott had argued that his actions were allowed under the First Amendment, and said a ruling against him would have "a huge chilling effect" on reporters and newsmakers alike.
Lawyers for 18 news organizations _ including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post _ filed a brief backing McDermott.
But Boehner's lawyers said McDermott's actions were clearly illegal.
By leaking the tape McDermott "chilled the free speech of others," namely Boehner and Gingrich, lawyer Michael Carvin said.
A spokesman for McDermott said Tuesday the congressman had just received the ruling and was studying it.

Remember the media’s publication of what Cheney wants when he is traveling; Maybe they should reveal what Kerry wants:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com//archive/0327061kerry1.html

Polls: Public Concerned About Immigration
By The Associated Press
Most people in the United States think illegal immigration is a
serious problem. A solid majority oppose making it easier for illegal
immigrants to become legal workers or citizens.
Some findings in recent polling:
_ Some 59 percent say they oppose allowing illegal immigrants to apply for legal, temporary-worker status, an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found.
_ More than six in 10, 62 percent, say they oppose making it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. Nine in 10 in that poll say they consider immigration to be a serious problem _ with 57 percent of those polled saying very serious.
_ Three-fourths say the United States is not doing enough along its borders to keep illegal immigrants out, a Time Magazine poll found.
The NBC-WSJ poll was taken in March, Quinnipiac in February and Time in January. The NBC-WSJ and Time polls surveyed about 1,000 adults and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The Quinnipiac poll of 1,892 registered voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

Covering Saddam’s Shenanigans, Not His Crimes
Media Research Center ^ March 20, 2006 Rich Noyes
With the Iraq war now three years old, one of its main achievements — the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s mass-murdering dictatorship — has been largely shunted to the sidelines as the media focus on bad news: terrorist attacks, U.S. casualties and pessimistic warnings that Iraq is on the verge of “civil war.”
Not even Saddam’s trial for crimes against humanity has encouraged TV to take more than a cursory look at the ex-dictator’s horrifying record. MRC analysts reviewed every mention of the trial on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news from October 16 (when the networks began previewing the trial) through March 15 (when Saddam himself took the stand).
MRC found the networks spent nearly three times as much airtime on Saddam’s courtroom antics as on the serious testimony of his victims and the documentary evidence that Saddam himself ordered the killing of more than 140 residents of the Shiite town of Dujail and the imprisonment and torture of hundreds more townspeople. Details:
■ He’s No O.J. Simpson. Saddam’s trial has been mentioned in just 64 stories (including brief anchor-read items) over the last 5 months. Total coverage amounted to just under 90 minutes. The CBS Evening News offered the most coverage (21 stories, 34 minutes) followed by ABC’s World News Tonight (23 stories, 30 minutes). NBC Nightly News aired the least: 20 stories amounting to 25½ minutes of coverage, barely five minutes per month.
In contrast, the first six months of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial garnered 431 stories (824 minutes) from those same networks, a 1994 Center for Media and Public Affairs study found. Simpson was accused of killing two people; Saddam is thought responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.
■ Saddam Steals the Show. In spite of a record equal to some of the worst tyrants in human history, reporters found Saddam’s personal reactions and orchestrated antics more compelling than the witness testimony against him. The networks gave Saddam’s behavior more airtime than any other topic — nearly 30 minutes, one-third of the coverage.
In contrast, the networks allotted just 11½ minutes for witness testimony and evidence, just slightly below the nearly 12 minutes devoted to suggestions Saddam would not get a fair hearing. On the Oct. 18 World News Tonight, ABC’s Jim Sciutto pointed out how “human rights groups doubt the former dictator will get a fair trial.” On March 15, after Saddam’s testimony was cut off by the judge, ABC showed complaints from Ramsey Clark: “Look, he’s on trial for his life. A defendant has a right to give his background and his thoughts and his emotions.”
■ Hiding the Evidence. The networks provided merely sporadic coverage of the evidence. ABC was the only newscast to air a full report on Saddam’s admission on March 1 that he ordered the Dujail killings. (CBS and NBC gave that news just 11 and 18 seconds, respectively). Only CBS mentioned the December 21 testimony of Ali al-Haydari, who was 14 when he saw evidence of torture: “I heard screaming and shouting, then silence as a body came out in a blanket.” But that same night all of the networks mentioned Saddam’s claim that U.S. soldiers had beaten him.
Despite the severity of the crimes, reporters fixated on the villain. “Saddam seemed like he was still president,” claimed NBC’s Richard Engel (Oct. 19). To CBS’s Lara Logan, Saddam’s disruptive shenanigans were winning the day: “The appearance of credibility is what really matters in this trial, and that’s what’s missing at the moment.” (Feb. 2)
The networks could have resisted the impulse to reward Saddam’s cynical strategy and focused on the evidence. Instead, they’ve played right into his hands. — Rich Noyes

Something New . . . Condoleezza Rice sees significance in the Saddam documents.
Weekly Standard ^ 03/27/2006 12:00:00 AM by Stephen F. Hayes
SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE on Sunday contradicted claims from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that documents captured in postwar Iraq and now being posted on the Internet will not contain anything new or significant.
"We're going to find some important and surprising things in these documents," Rice said in an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press.
Rice also addressed revelations, important but not surprising, that former Russian ambassador to Iraq, Vladimir Teterenko, passed the U.S. war plan to Iraq shortly before the war began. The charges, based largely on two Iraqi documents captured in postwar Iraq, came in a report issued by the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, and released by the Pentagon late last week. Rice said she is not in a position to confirm or deny the claims but vowed to take "a hard look at the reports" of Russian betrayal.

ABC Misleads Viewers with "Pulitzer-Prize Winner"
“Starting off a week’s worth of “in-depth” reporting on global warming, “World News Tonight” falsely presented a liberal journalist and author as a Pulitzer Prize winner.
“Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ross Gelbspan blames a 15-year misinformation campaign by the oil and coal industry” for the public’s lack of alarm over climate change, ABC’s Geoff Morrell told viewers of his network’s March 26 evening newscast.
“The point of this campaign was not necessarily to persuade the public that global warming wasn't happening. It was to persuade the public that there is this state of confusion,” Gelbspan told ABC News.
But it was ABC News confusing its viewers over Gelbspan’s credentials as well the scientific debate over climate change. While Gelbspan’s publisher and the group he founded, Climate Crisis Coalition, claim the journalist won a Pulitzer Prize, a search for Gelbspan on the Pulitzer Prize’s official Web site yields no results for the former Boston Globe editor.

Alec Baldwin v. Sean Hannity in Radio Donnybrook
Hollywood liberal Alec Baldwin stormed out of an in-studio radio interview Sunday night after he was confronted on the phone by radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.
Baldwin was 30 minutes into a planned two-hour-plus sitdown with WABC Radio's Brian Whitman when Hannity called in.
The fireworks commenced almost immediately.
HANNITY: Alec, I wanted to give you an official WABC welcome considering you were supposed to come on my program last week and you didn't show up. What happened?
BALDWIN: No, I wasn't supposed to come on your program, Sean Hannity.
HANNITY: No, actually you were supposed to come on the program because a deal was made with your agent that if you were going to come on with Brian, first you'd come on with me.
BALDWIN: I wouldn't dream of coming on your program, Sean Hannity. I'm here with Brian. I'm here with a really talented broadcaster.
HANNITY: [Crosstalk] that you are, you don't tell the truth.
BALDWIN: Why would I want to come on the show with a no-talent, former construction worker hack like you?
HANNITY: Are you the guy that said of our vice president, while we're at war, while we're leading troops in harm's way - are you the reckless, third-rate Hollywood actor who said that Dick Cheney is a terrorist? Are you the guy . . .
BALDWIN: Yes I am.
HANNITY: ... who said to stone Henry Hyde to death? Are you the guy who said our president is a CIA mass murderer? I wanted you to come on the program and defend that, you gutless coward.
BALDWIN: At first I thought this was a joke. But you can hear all the acid venom spewing hatred. It is Sean Hannity.
The exchange got even hotter when Mark Levin joined in.
LEVIN: We've only just begun - are you 40 or 50 pounds overweight now?
WHITMAN: Oh, C'mon now . . . .
HANNITY: Once and for all you need to be challenged. You want to call our vice president a terrorist - fine. You want to talk about stoning people to death, say it on my program. If you want to be irresponsible and call our president a mass murderer while he's at war leading troops in harm's way ...
BALDWIN: And what are you gonna do about it, Sean Hannity?
HANNITY: You don't have the courage to answer questions.
BALDWIN: And what are you gonna do? And what are you going to do about it, Sean Hannity. If I come on your program, what are you going to do?
LEVIN: He's going to show that you have a two digit IQ - that's what he's gonna do.
BALWIN: What are you going to do?
LEVIN: I just told you - you've got a two digit IQ.
BALDWIN: And who's that - who's your little cabin boy there with you.
LEVIN: I'm not a cabin boy, butt-boy.
BALDWIN: What are you doing there, cabin boy? ... I now dub you Sean Hannity's cabin boy.
LEVIN: And you know what you are? You're "Brokeback" Alec.

The confrontation continued to spiral out of control, with Whitman intermittently trying to make peace and Baldwin repeatedly urging him to move on to other callers.
BALDWIN: Listen, Sean - you incredibly ignorant boob from Long Island ...
HANNITY: Oh, ouch, Alec.
BALDWIN: No, no, no, you've spoken, let me talk, Sean. Cause you've been spewing your ...
HANNITY: You're a third-rate Hollywood egomaniac.
BALDWIN: You're a no-talent, ignorant fool from Long Island. You should go back to building houses in Hempstead.
LEVIN: Why was your [former] wife [Kim Basinger] so pissed off at you, anyway?
WHITMAN: Now, c'mon guys.
BALDWIN: OK. We're done. [Gets up and leaves the studio]
WHITMAN: Come back. Come back. Alec? They're gone. Alec? Alec has walked out of the studio. Alec, please come back.

Sandiego tribune
Myths of Iraq
By Ralph Peters
March 26, 2006
During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.
No one with first-hand experience of Iraq would claim the country's in rosy condition, but the situation on the ground is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe. Lurid exaggerations and instant myths obscure real, if difficult, progress.
I left Baghdad more optimistic than I was before this visit. While cynicism, political bias and the pressure of a 24/7 news cycle accelerate a race to the bottom in reporting, there are good reasons to be soberly hopeful about Iraq's future.
Much could still go wrong. The Arab genius for failure could still spoil everything. We've made grave mistakes. Still, it's difficult to understand how any first-hand observer could declare that Iraq's been irrevocably “lost.”
Consider just a few of the inaccuracies served up by the media:
Claims of civil war. In the wake of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a flurry of sectarian attacks inspired wild media claims of a collapse into civil war. It didn't happen. Driving and walking the streets of Baghdad, I found childrenn playing and, in most neighborhoods, business as usual. Iraq can be deadly, but, more often, it's just dreary.
Iraqi disunity. Factional differences are real, but overblown in the reporting. Few Iraqis support calls for religious violence. After the Samarra bombing, only rogue militias and criminals responded to the demagogues' calls for vengeance. Iraqis refused to play along, staging an unrecognized triumph of passive resistance.
Expanding terrorism. On the contrary, foreign terrorists, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have lost ground. They've alienated Iraqis of every stripe. Iraqis regard the foreigners as murderers, wreckers and blasphemers, and they want them gone. The Samarra attack may, indeed, have been a tipping point – against the terrorists.
Hatred of the U.S. military. If anything surprised me in the streets of Baghdad, it was the surge in the popularity of U.S. troops among both Shias and Sunnis. In one slum, amid friendly adult waves, children and teenagers cheered a U.S. Army patrol as we passed. Instead of being viewed as occupiers, we're increasingly seen as impartial and well-intentioned.
The appeal of the religious militias. They're viewed as mafias. Iraqis want them disarmed and disbanded. Just ask the average citizen.
The failure of the Iraqi army. Instead, the past month saw a major milestone in the maturation of Iraq's military. During the mini-crisis that followed the Samarra bombing, the Iraqi army put over 100,000 soldiers into the country's streets. They defused budding confrontations and calmed the situation without killing a single civilian. And Iraqis were proud to have their own army protecting them. The Iraqi army's morale soared as a result of its success.
Reconstruction efforts have failed. Just not true. The American goal was never to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure in its entirety. Iraqis have to do that. Meanwhile, slum-dwellers utterly neglected by Saddam Hussein's regime are getting running water and sewage systems for the first time. The Baathist regime left the country in a desolate state while Saddam built palaces. The squalor has to be seen to be believed. But the hopeless now have hope.
The electricity system is worse than before the war. Untrue again. The condition of the electric grid under the old regime was appalling. Yet, despite insurgent attacks, the newly revamped system produced 5,300 megawatts last summer – a full thousand megawatts more than the peak under Saddam Hussein. Shortages continue because demand soared – newly free Iraqis went on a buying spree, filling their homes with air conditioners, appliances and the new national symbol, the satellite dish. Nonetheless, satellite photos taken during the hours of darkness show Baghdad as bright as Damascus.
Plenty of serious problems remain in Iraq, from bloodthirsty terrorism to the unreliability of the police. Iran and Syria indulge in deadly mischief. The infrastructure lags generations behind the country's needs. Corruption is widespread. Tribal culture is pernicious. Women's rights are threatened. And there's no shortage of trouble-making demagogues.
Nonetheless, the real story of the civil-war-that-wasn't is one of the dog that didn't bark. Iraqis resisted the summons to retributive violence. Mundane life prevailed. After a day and a half of squabbling, the political factions returned to the negotiating table. Iraqis increasingly take responsibility for their own security, easing the burden on U.S. forces. And the people of Iraq want peace, not a reign of terror.
But the foreign media have become a destructive factor, extrapolating daily crises from minor incidents. Part of this is ignorance. Some of it is willful. None of it is helpful.
The dangerous nature of journalism in Iraq has created a new phenomenon, the all-powerful local stringer. Unwilling to stray too far from secure facilities and their bodyguards, reporters rely heavily on Iraqi assistance in gathering news. And Iraqi stringers, some of whom have their own political agendas, long ago figured out that Americans prefer bad news to good news. The Iraqi leg-men earn blood money for unbalanced, often-hysterical claims, while the Journalism 101 rule of seeking confirmation from a second source has been discarded in the pathetic race for headlines.
To enhance their own indispensability, Iraqi stringers exaggerate the danger to Western journalists (which is real enough, but need not paralyze a determined reporter). Dependence on the unverified reports of local hires has become the dirty secret of semi-celebrity journalism in Iraq as Western journalists succumb to a version of Stockholm Syndrome in which they convince themselves that their Iraqi sources and stringers are exceptions to every failing and foible in the Middle East. The mindset resembles the old colonialist conviction that, while other “boys” might lie and steal, our house-boy's a faithful servant.
The result is that we're being told what Iraqi stringers know they can sell and what distant editors crave, not what's actually happening.
While there are and have been any number of courageous, ethical journalists reporting from Iraq, others know little more of the reality of the streets than you do. They report what they are told by others, not what they have seen themselves. The result is a distorted, unfair and disheartening picture of a country struggling to rise above its miserable history.

Supreme Court judge says civil rights for Guantanamo inmates 'crazy'
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US Supreme Court judge has said it would be "crazy" to give war on terror detainees rights in civil courts, and has castigated Europeans for criticising the Guantanamo detention camp, media reports said.
The comments attributed to Justice Antonin Scalia were published a day before the Supreme Court starts hearing a key challenge to special military tribunals for "war on terror" suspects at the US naval base in Cuba.
"War is war, and it has never been the case that when you captured a combatant you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts," Scalia said during a talk on March 8 at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, Newsweek magazine reported.
"Foreigners, in foreign countries, have no rights under the American Constitution," Scalia said, according to the www.scotusblog legal website, adding that "nobody has ever thought otherwise."
"If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs," Scalia told the audience.

Clinton chauffeur an illegal immigrant
UPI ^ March 27, 2006 --
NEWARK, N.J., March 27 (UPI) -- An embarrassing hole in security surrounding former U.S. President Bill Clinton turned up when one of his chauffeurs was found to be a wanted man.
Shahzad Qureshi, 42, was in one of three cars awaiting Clinton at Newark Airport last week when a Port Authority policeman happened to check license plate numbers. The computer came back showing the Pakistani national had skipped a residency-status hearing in 2000, and a deportation order had been issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the New York Post reported.
Qureshi was still in jail Monday awaiting immigration processing, the report said.

CNN RELIABLE SOURCES
Are Media Turning Against War in Iraq?
KURTZ: I want to play for you a piece of tape involving Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio talk show how who was on "The Today Show" earlier this week and criticized "The Today Show" for not doing more from Iraq.
Let's listen to what she had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: To do a show from Iraq means to talk to the Iraqi military, to go out with the Iraqi military, to actually have a conversation with the people instead of reporting from hotel balconies about the latest IEDs going off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: What do you make of that comment about reporting from hotel balconies?
LOGAN (CBS news): Well, I think it's outrageous. I mean, Laura Ingraham should come to Iraq and not be talking about what journalists are doing from the comfort of her studio in the United States, the comfort and the safety.

NOTE: Laura Ingraham HAS been in Iraq…with the troops.

KURTZ: ... do they want objective reporting?

Richard WOLFFE(senior WH correspondent, MSNBC WOLFFE: No, they don't. They want to replace one piece of bias with another.

The WaPo ombudsperson writes an extremely long article claiming that it is too dangerous for reporters to really cover the war in Iraq.

Some comments:

1. Buried 11 paragraphs from the end of the endless article:
“A Gallup poll of the public, the military and the media, commissioned for a McCormick Tribune Foundation conference on military-press relations, showed some sobering numbers. Seventy percent of the military believes the media are too negative and only 20 percent of the public believe the coverage is balanced. Seventy-two percent of the military think media access to military officials is sufficient. Only 16 percent of those in the media agreed that the level of access is sufficient.”
2. here’s a quote: “Norrelle Combest, a Post copy aide, came by my office to say that The Post should cover more of the kind of support work done by the D.C. National Guard. She's a specialist fourth grade in the Guard.”
The writer doesn’t even care enough o get her rank correct. How can anybody believe anything else she writes.
3. She complains that the military pays reporters to write favorable articles about Iraq. The WaPo pays reporters to write unfavorable articles. Where is there any difference?
4. The whine that it is dangerous to cover a war is ludicrous. Ernie Pyle is flipping over in his grave. Even Dan rather had the courage to cover a war.

News for March 26, 2006

2006-03-26T15:15:00.000-08:00

Media ignores Bush challenge on censure
Minority of broadband users turn to local paper for news
Military spouse takes on media
Wuss David Gregory, substitute on Today show, shows he cannot take it
Al-Qaeda nuclear plot
New Saddam tapes get greater exposure
Plagiarism at WaPo; lies at NYT
New Report: Clinton inaction emboldened Saddam
More on the Saddam Docs
Media Darling Clarke: Iraq Teamed Up With bin Laden to Produce WMDs
As a matter of fact, sir, I do question your patriotism by Pat Boone (yes, THAT Pat Boone)

Alternative History: If Saddam had disarmed…
It's three years since the disarmament of Saddam and all that followed . . .
Gerard Baker
London Times
IN MARCH 2003 Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, of the UN, secured a remarkable, last-minute deal that averted war and seemed to guarantee the disarmament of Iraq. “Saddam Hussein has finally consented to eliminate all his weapons of mass destruction,” they said, in a signing ceremony with the Iraqi leader.
Saddam, flanked by his two sons, Uday and Qusay, accepted the plaudits of the UN with pomp and grace. Beaming as he smiled at a hastily assembled crowd of French, German and Russian children, he said he had saved the world from the bloodlust of George Bush and Tony Blair with a magnanimous gesture of international friendship. There were approving murmurs of support in many Western capitals. In Oslo there was talk of a Nobel Peace prize.
To enforce the deal and ensure compliance, of course the US and Britain were required to remain on a war footing, with almost 250,000 troops in the neighbouring Arab countries. Over the following months Arab terrorist groups demanded the expulsion of infidels from Muslim lands and a series of attacks sapped the morale of allied servicemen and women. Steadily, over the next few months public support in the allied countries ebbed away.
Within months of the avoided showdown, the UN gave Iraq a clean bill of health — there were no stockpiles of weapons at all, it said. The US and the UK were sceptical, insisted that Iraq retained the capability to produce weapons quickly — the real test, they said, of the scale of the threat — and pressed to keep sanctions in place. But it was a losing cause.
Saddam invited news organisations to see that the sanctions regime now seemed to be killing even more innocent women and children than it had in the previous ten years. And for what? The media hearts bled. Iraq had given up its weapons, had opened its facilities to UN inspectors: why should this punishment go on?
The reporters were not allowed to see the stream of foreign companies and officials treading a path to Saddam’s door with gifts, bribes and kickbacks to ensure their share of the wilting Oil-for-Food programme. Nor could they report that Saddam was channelling the money to terrorist groups around the world, as he had before March 2003: only this time, with more money and more international support, the funds got larger, the channels got wider and the terrorists got bolder.
Even further from the cameras, at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, dark stories of hideous abuse proliferated. These didn’t involve oddly perverted exercises — the piling up of naked bodies for bizarre photo-shoots. They were more in line with the sort of abuses that Saddam and his sons had always most enjoyed: the rapes, beatings and brutal murders of innocents. There were no congressional hearings or judicial proceedings. Saddam’s torture-mongers faced not a trial but promotion and honours. Elsewhere in Iraq Saddam strengthened his hold. Shia “enemies” disappeared by the tens of thousands; even Kurds no longer felt safe.
Outside Iraq, in the Middle East, it was business as usual. The region remained immune, as it had done for 600 years, to the currents of democratic change that had swept through the rest of the world. Syria tightened its grip on Lebanon, with targeted murders and intimidation. To distract attention from their own abuses, tyrants continued to support the Palestinian intifada against the Israelis, which grew steadily more murderous.
In Iran the theocrats’ regime interpreted Saddam’s reprieve as a green light. Iraq had defied international law and the UN for more than a decade. But Saddam had survived; indeed was looking stronger than he ever had.
An unknown scientist from Pakistan, A. Q. Khan, slipped into Teheran from Pakistan. With its Libyan ally the Iranian Government accelerated its nuclear programme. The two issued a statement saying they would use their military muscle to annihilate Israel. In March 2004 Islamists attacked railway stations in Madrid. Commentators condemned the attacks but noted that these were almost certainly the fault of US and Western policy — the plight of the Palestinians, the suffering of Iraqis, the unwelcome presence of US forces in the Middle East.
In July 2005 it was London’s turn, and again it was the UK and its allies that carried most of the blame. “Blair’s Bombs” said one magazine cover, attacking Britain’s slavish support of the US in the Middle East.
As pressure grew on governments, massive protests in solidarity with the Iraqi people were held around the world. When the US and Britain blocked a Security Council resolution to lift the sanctions, the other UN members simply ignored them.
Iraqi oil began to flow again. No one paid much interest when Iraq resumed its interest in uranium purchases from Africa. A. Q. Khan dined expensively in the best Baghdad restaurants, next to Islamist terrorists with suddenly realisable global ambitions.
I SUPPOSE in fairness I should say this is not the only alternative history of the past three years. You might prefer to believe another one in which the failure to attack Iraq produces the most benign consequences: perhaps Saddam really gives up his lifelong ambition to be the new Saladin; perhaps Iran meekly agrees under little pressure from the West to end its nuclear programmes; perhaps the tightening repression of the ever-more-restless peoples of the Middle East produces a real peace and stability. Perhaps.
The war in Iraq goes on, three years later, to the unfolding judgment of history. But that judgment should encompass not just the consequences of what was done but the consequences of what might have happened had it not been done.
The consequences of what was done in Iraq are easy to see and hard to look at. The consequences of what might have been are by their nature unrecordable. But we know that history’s greatest tragedies could and should have been avoided, but never were.

Lies, Damn Lies, and (MSM) Statistics
By: Proud Kaffir · Section: Diaries
On the third anniversary of the Iraq war, the MSM keeps bombarding us with stories and statistics trying to compare this war to the carnage in Vietnam, trying to make us think that US soldiers are dying at an alarming number due to Bush's failures.
While every lost serviceman and servicewoman is certainly tragic and should be mourned, the actual statistics tell quite a different tale from the MSM and Democratic doom-and-gloom outlook.
Take a look at the actual US Military Casualty figures since 1980. If you do the math, you will find quite a few surpises. First of all, let's compare numbers of US Military personnel that died during the first term of the last four presidents.

George W. Bush . . . . . 5187 (2001-2004)
Bill Clinton . . . . . . . . . 4302 (1993-1996)
George H.W. Bush . . . . 6223 (1989-1992)
Ronald Reagan . . . . . . 9163 (1981-1984)

Even during the (per MSM) utopic peacetime of Bill Clinton's term, we lost 4302 service personnel. H.W. Bush and Reagan actually lost significantly more personnel while never fighting an extensive war, much less a simultaneous war on two theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan). Even the dovish Carter lost more people duing his last year in office, in 1980 lost 2392, than W. has lost in any single year of his presidency. (2005 figures are not available but I would wager the numbers would be slightly higher than 2004.)
In 2004, more soldiers died outside of Iraq and Afghanistan than died inside these two war zones (900 in these zones, 987 outside these zones). The reason is that there are usually a fair number that die every year in training accidents, as well as a small number of illness and suicide. Yet the MSM would make you think that US soldiers are dying at a high number in these zones, and at a significantly higher number than in past years or under past presidents. This is all simlpy outright lies and distortion.
Taken all together, it is clear to see that the military is actually doing a fine job and suffering very low casualty rates. It also shows that our enemies are not quite as efficient as the MSM and world press would like them to be.
It would seem that Bush and Rumsfield are actually doing a wonderful job in Iraq and, although there have been setbacks, the war is far from the tragedy the press wants us to believe.
http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/Death_Rates.pdf

Clinton claims bill would criminalize the Good Samaritan, maybe Jesus
By BETH FOUHY
AP Political Writer
NEW YORK -- Invoking Biblical themes, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined immigration advocates Wednesday to vow and block legislation seeking to criminalize undocumented immigrants.
Clinton renewed her pledge to oppose a bill passed in December by the House that would make unlawful presence in the United States _ currently a civil offense _ a felony. The Senate is set to consider a version of that legislation, as well as several other bills seeking to address the seemingly intractable issue of immigration reform.
"It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures," Clinton said, "because this bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself."

Another Bad Slip for 'NY Times': Katrina Victim Unmasked
By E&P Staff
NEW YORK For the second time in less than a week, The New York Times today admitted to a serious error in a story. On Saturday it said it had misidentified a man featured in the iconic "hooded inmate" photograph from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Today it discloses that a woman it profiled on March 8 is not, in fact, a victim of Hurricane Katrina--and was arrested for fraud and grand larceny yesterday.
As it did in the Abu Ghraib mistake, the Times ran an editors' note on page 2 of its front section, along with a lengthy news article (this time on the front page of Section B). Again mirroring the Abu Ghraib episode, the newspaper revealed a surprising and inexplicable lapse in fact-checking on the part of a reporter and/or editor.

Quotes of the day
“President Bush said in a speech in Washington Thursday that al-Qa’ida once plotted a terrorist attack on Los Angeles. It makes no sense at all. People who want to destroy America would never attack Hollywood, if only out of professional courtesy.” —Argus Hamilton
"If you believe everything you read in Maureen Dowd, you better get a life."--Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, press conference, March 23

Bush challenges Dems on censure; Media ignores
(From Press conference)
Q: There (are) now three sponsors to a measure to censure you for the implementation of the terrorist surveillance program. The primary sponsor has suggested that impeachment is not out of the question. What do you think the impact of a discussion of impeachment and censure does to you and this office and to the nation during a time of war and in the context of the election?
A: I did notice that nobody from the Democratic Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program. If that's what they believe . . . then they ought to stand up and say . . . the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, "Vote for me. I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program." That's a debate the country ought to have.
Q: The national debt, which was $5.7 trillion when you took office, is now nearly $8.2 trillion. And Congress has just voted to raise it to $8.9 trillion. That would be a 58% increase. You've yet to veto a single bill, sir. I assume that means you're satisfied with this.
A: No, I'm not satisfied with the rise of mandatory spending. As you know, the president doesn't veto mandatory spending increases — those in the budget caused by Medicare and Social Security. That's why it's important for us to modernize and strengthen Social Security and Medicare.
In terms of discretionary spending, that part of the budget over which Congress has got some control and over which the president can make suggestions, we have suggested that the Congress fully fund the troops in harm's way . . . and the reconstruction efforts for Katrina, and I think that's money well spent.
We have (also) said we ought to actually reduce the amount of discretionary spending. And since I've been the president, we have slowed the rate of growth of nonsecurity discretionary spending .
One reason why I haven't vetoed any appropriations bills is because (Congress) has met the benchmarks we've set. Now, sometimes I liked the size of the pie, but sometimes I didn't particularly like the slices within the pie. And one way to deal with the slices in the pie is to give the president the line-item veto.

From a Pew study of broadband users:
These high-powered broadband users comprise 44% of all internet users who get news on the typical day. They are better educated and have higher incomes than other Americans, and, as noted, they are part of an information-elite that shapes how delivery of news and information will evolve online.
Among these high-powered users:
􀂄 71% of high-powered users get news online on the average day—three times the rate of other high-speed users;
􀂄 59% get news on the average day from local TV;
􀂄 53% get news on the typical day from radio;
􀂄 52% get news on the average day from national TV newscasts;
􀂄 43% get news on the average day from the local paper;
􀂄 21% get news on the average day from a national newspaper.

Bush’s town hall meeting in WVA, home of Dems Byrd and Rockefeller:
Q I have a comment, first of all, and then just a real quick question. I want to let you know that every service at our church you are, by name, lifted up in prayer, and you and your staff and all of our leaders. And we believe in you. We are behind you. And we cannot thank you enough for what you've done to shape our country. (Applause.)
This is my husband, who has returned from a 13-month tour in Tikrit.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yes. Thank you. Welcome back. (Applause.)
Q His job while serving was as a broadcast journalist. And he has brought back several DVDs full of wonderful footage of reconstruction, of medical things going on. And I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, for a solution to this, because it seems that our major media networks don't want to portray the good. They just want to focus -- (applause) --
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, hold on a second.
Q They just want to focus on another car bomb, or they just want to focus on some more bloodshed, or they just want to focus on how they don't agree with you and what you're doing, when they don't even probably know how you're doing what you're doing anyway. But what can we do to get that footage on CNN, on FOX, to get it on headline news, to get it on the local news? Because you can send it to the news people -- and I'm sorry, I'm rambling -- like I have --
THE PRESIDENT: So was I, though, for an hour. (Laughter.)
Q -- can you use this, and it will just end up in a drawer, because it's good, it portrays the good. And if people could see that, if the American people could see it, there would never be another negative word about this conflict.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I appreciate that. (Applause.) No, it -- that's why I come out and speak. I spoke in Cleveland, gave a press conference yesterday -- spoke in Cleveland Monday, press conference, here today. I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing to try to make sure people can hear there's -- why I make decisions, and as best as I can, explain why I'm optimistic we can succeed.
I just got to keep talking. And one of the -- there's word of mouth, there's blogs, there's Internet, there's all kinds of ways to communicate which is literally changing the way people are getting their information. And so if you're concerned, I would suggest that you reach out to some of the groups that are supporting the troops, that have got Internet sites, and just keep the word -- keep the word moving.
And that's one way to deal with an issue without suppressing a free press. We will never do that in America…. And obviously, I know you're frustrated with what you're seeing, but there are ways in this new kind of age, being able to communicate, that you'll be able to spread the message that you want to spread.

David Gregory, substitute on Today show, shows he cannot take it
Ingraham: "Well here, here's what I think David. I think with all the resources of networks like NBC. The Today show spends all this money to send people to the Olympics, which is great, it was great programming. All this money for 'Where In The World Is Matt Lauer?'
“Bring the Today show to Iraq. Bring the Today show to Tal Afar. Do the show from the 4th ID at Camp Victory and then when you talk to those soldiers on the ground, when you go out with the Iraqi military, when you talk to the villagers, when you see the children, then I want NBC to report on only the IEDs, only the killings, only, only the reprisals. When people are on the ground whether it's recently, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, whether it's recently-"
Gregory: "Okay but, but Laura let's be, hold on, let's be-"
Ingraham: "Let me finish David because you got, you guys are, no, no, let me finish, let me finish-"
Gregory: "Wait a minute Laura! Wait a second! If you want to be fair. First of all, the Today show went to Iraq. Matt Lauer was there, he reported there."
Ingraham: "Did he do a show, did you do a show from Iraq?"
Gregory: "Okay and we, and we've got a bureau there so-"
Ingraham: "Yeah. David, David to do a show from Iraq means to talk to the Iraqi military, to go out with the Iraqi military, to actually have a conversation with the people instead of reporting from hotel balconies about the latest IEDs going off. It is very difficult in Iraq. People are struggling-"
Gregory: "And you, and you think Iraq is safe enough to, have you been there long enough to venture outside the hotel balconies?!"
Ingraham, as NBC put up on screen a photo of Ingraham with troops in Iraq: "David, yes I did. I wasn't in a hotel balcony I was out with the U.S. military and it can be done in any part of the country. It is dangerous in the Sunni triangle-"
Gregory: "So, so Lau-"
Ingraham: "-but NBC and networks of the United States..."
Gregory: "-Okay hold, hold, Laura, Laura, I get, I get, I get the point. I get the, I get the anti-network point. James, the argument is that the media simply-"
n Exchange between NBC report David Gregory and radio talk show host Laura Ingraham, Today, March 21, 2006.

Al-Qaeda nuclear plot
London Daily Telegraph
LONDON: A member of a British al-Qaeda cell was involved in a plot to buy a nuclear bomb, a court heard yesterday.
Salahuddin Amin, 31, had information passed to him about a "radio- isotope bomb" while he was in Pakistan, it was claimed.
The plan was to buy the device from the Russian mafia in Belgium, the Old Bailey was told.
The gang of seven British Muslims – six trained in Pakistani camps – also planned an attack on a shopping complex in Kent, said prosecutor David Waters QC.

How Iraq hostages were freed [US-captured terrorist "talked"]
BBC News on line ^ March 23, 2006 Unsigned
Briton Norman Kember and his Canadian colleagues James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden were freed after a multinational military raid acting on information provided by a detainee, the US military says.
The rescue was completed without any shots being fired and with no kidnappers present, suggesting the operation was carefully planned and carried out.
But the crucial bit of intelligence that enabled the rescue came only after two men were captured by US forces on Wednesday night.
One of the suspects had the information which led officials to the Baghdad house where the hostages were four months into their ordeal.

CRONKITE CRITICIZES NETWORK NEWSCASTS
Walter Cronkite has castigated producers of the network nightly newscasts for including stories about "your health and mine and your backyard and mine and all that kind of thing" at the expense of more substantive reports. "It doesn't belong in the evening news," Cronkite said during an interview on Texas Monthly Talks, which airs on Texas public broadcasting stations. "We're the most important nation in the world ... and there are these other very important stories in a very complicated world that we need to cover. We can't do that in 15 or 16 minutes." Apparently suggesting that the television networks ought to dispense with commercials during their nightly newscasts, Cronkite remarked, "The networks should be giving us the full half hour. ... It's ridiculous to have as little time as we have."

ABC News says it is listening to viewer complaints about Iraq coverage:
Over the last 24 hours, ABC News has been reading hundreds of messages sent in by viewers in response to President Bush's claim that the media are undermining support for war in Iraq.
Viewer opinions ran the gamut, but the vast majority believed the media were biased in their Iraq coverage.
The media may not be covering good news from Iraq, but at least they're covering their failure to cover good news from Iraq.

ABC News on the new Saddam tapes
"Osama bin Laden Contact With Iraq"
A newly released prewar Iraqi document indicates that an official representative of Saddam Hussein's government met with Osama bin Laden in Sudan on February 19, 1995, after receiving approval from Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden asked that Iraq broadcast the lectures of Suleiman al Ouda, a radical Saudi preacher, and suggested "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. According to the document, Saddam's presidency was informed of the details of the meeting on March 4, 1995, and Saddam agreed to dedicate a program for them on the radio. The document states that further "development of the relationship and cooperation between the two parties to be left according to what's open [in the future] based on dialogue and agreement on other ways of cooperation." The Sudanese were informed about the agreement to dedicate the program on the radio.
The report then states that "Saudi opposition figure" bin Laden had to leave Sudan in July 1996 after it was accused of harboring terrorists. It says information indicated he was in Afghanistan. "The relationship with him is still through the Sudanese. We're currently working on activating this relationship through a new channel in light of his current location," it states.
(Eight months after the meeting — on November 13, 1995 — terrorists attacked Saudi National Guard Headquarters in Riyadh, killing 5 U.S. military advisors. The militants later confessed on Saudi TV to having been trained by Osama bin Laden."
(Eight months after the Riyadh attack, 19 U.S. servicemen were killed when a large truck bomb blew up the Khobar Towers military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
(In August 1996 - two months after the Khobar attack and a year-and-a-half after he entered into his "joint operations" agreement with Saddam - bin Laden issued a Declaration of Jihad outlining his organization's goals.)

"Osama bin Laden and the Taliban"
Document dated Sept. 15, 2001
An Iraqi intelligence service document saying that their Afghan informant, who's only identified by a number, told them that the Afghan consul Ahmed Dahastani claimed the following in front of him:
That OBL and the Taliban are in contact with Iraq and that a group of Taliban and bin Laden group members visited Iraq That the U.S. has proof the Iraqi government and "bin Laden's group" agreed to cooperate to attack targets inside America. That in case the Taliban and bin Laden's group turn out to be involved in "these destructive operations," the U.S. may strike Iraq and Afghanistan. That the Afghan consul heard about the issue of Iraq's relationship with "bin Laden's group" while he was in Iran.
At the end, the writer recommends informing "the committee of intentions" about the above-mentioned items. The signature on the document is unclear.

"Hiding Docs from the U.N. Team"
Document dated March 23, 1997
A letter from the Iraqi intelligence service to directors and managers advising them to follow certain procedures in case of a search by the U.N. team, including:
Removing correspondence with the atomic energy and military industry departments concerning the prohibited weapons (proposals, research, studies, catalogs, etc.) Removing prohibited materials and equipment, including documents and catalogs and making sure to clear labs and storages of any traces of chemical or biological materials that were previously used or stored Doing so through a committee which will decide whether to destroy the documents Removing files from computers.
The letter also advises them on how they should answer questions by U.N. team members. It says the intelligence service should be informed within one week about the progress made in discarding the documents.

"Al Qaeda Presence in Iraq"
Document dated August 2002
A number of correspondences to check rumors that some members of al Qaeda organization have entered Iraq. Three letters say this information cannot be confirmed. The letter on page seven, however, says that information coming from "a trustworthy source" indicates that subjects who are interested in dealing with al Qaeda are in Iraq and have several passports.
The letter seems to be coming from or going to Trebil, a town on the Iraqi-Jordanian border. Follow up on the presence of those subjects is ordered, as well as a comparison of their pictures with those of Jordanian subjects living in Iraq. (This may be referring to pictures of Abu Musaab al Zarqawi and another man on pages 4-6.) The letter also says tourist areas, including hotels and rented apartments, should be searched.

Another plagiarist at WAPO
Ben Domenech Resigns
In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.
An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.
When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.
Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.
Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

New Report: Clinton inaction emboldened Saddam
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2006/20060324_4608.html

WASHINGTON, March 24, 2006 – Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was so convinced that the United States was unwilling to accept casualties that he never believed the country would invade Iraq, and was far more worried about an internal revolt, a new, unclassified version of a Defense Department report issued today reveals.
The "Iraqi Perspective Project" views military operations in Iraq from March through May 1, 2003, through the eyes of senior Iraqi civilian and media leaders.
It depicts a country ruled by fear, deception and in some cases, delusion, where information was so compartmentalized that neither Saddam nor anyone within his regime had a clear understanding of their true military capabilities or the threats they faced, Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III, director of U.S. Joint Forces Command's Joint Center for Operational Analysis, told Pentagon reporters today.
The two-year research effort, conducted by Cucolo's directorate, provides insights into what the enemy was thinking in the run-up to and early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Through dozens of interviews with senior officials and an extensive review of captured documents, the research team pieced together a study of the mindset of the Saddam regime, Cucolo explained.
Their product - the results of which are already being incorporated into professional military education programs - provides "a substantive examination of Saddam Hussein's leadership and its effects on the Iraqi military decision-making process," Cucolo said.
It also goes a long way toward revealing the inner workings of a closed regime from the insider's point of view, something that will prove highly valuable in developing lessons learned of the Iraqi conflict, he said.
The report reveals that Saddam never believed such a conflict would ever occur, Cucolo said. "Saddam believed that the United States was casualty-averse to an absolutely incredible degree," Cucolo said.
Saddam based that on several factors: the fact that he received only a diplomatic note after Iraqi Mirage fighters fired on the USS Stark in 1987, that the United States left Somalia after losing 19 troops, and its failure to commit ground troops early on in Kosovo, the team's research revealed.
In addition, Saddam believed that Russia and France would protect their own economic interests by blocking any United Nations Security Council authorization of an invasion, the report notes. "He was counting on other members of the international community to assist him in any way that he saw fit," Cucolo said.
In reality, Saddam was far more concerned about an internal revolt than a coalition invasion, Cucolo said. "That was the No. 1 security threat to this regime," he said. "In Saddam's mind, the uprising of 1991 was the closest thing to almost ending his regime. It was much more important to him than the Iran-Iraq War, Desert Storm and all the sanction periods, ... because according to his own calculations, he lost control of all but one province, Al Anbar."
Meanwhile, Saddam had a distorted view of his military capabilities, the report shows. Following an after-action review of Operation Desert Storm, Saddam corrected his senior military leaders' assessments, declaring Desert Storm a victory, project leader Kevin Woods told reporters. "Standing up to 33 nations, not backing down in the face of the world and the world's superpowers was seen as a great victory," Woods said.
Despite this assessment, the regime experienced serious weaknesses following that war, the report shows. Years of UN sanctions and coalition bombing had reduced the Iraqi military forces' effectiveness and usefulness. Other decisions further eroded this capability, from irrelevant guidance from political leaders to the appointment of Saddam's relatives and cronies into key leadership positions.
Despite these concerns, military and ministry leaders lied to Saddam about the true state of their capabilities, and he and his inner circle began to believe their own propaganda, the report reveals. Even Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's cousin who became known as Chemical Ali after ordering the 1988 chemical attack on Kurds, was convinced Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction. Yet many of his colleagues never stopped believing in them, the report shows.
Cucolo acknowledged that some of the viewpoints and decisions revealed in the report seem unbelievable. "Some of Saddam Hussein's decisions may seem incredibly absurd to a Western military thinker, but if you take in the context of this closed regime, they make eminent sense to the Iraqis," he said. "And that is the value of this."
The report's findings provide something a standard after-action report from the "blue," or friendly, view simply can't: the "red," or enemy, perspective of the situation, he said.
Navy Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who originated the Iraqi Perspective Project when he served as commander of JFCOM, explained the benefit of that insight to Pentagon reporters during yesterday's news briefing.
"The goal of this effort was to determine how our own coalition operations were viewed and understood by the opposing side, and what insights such analysis offers for future operations," Giambastiani said. "This report provides insights into the nature of Saddam's regime, the regime's strategic calculus, operational planning, military effectiveness and execution of the Iraqi defense."
These insights weren't always what the researchers expected. "We learned things we didn't expect," he said. "There were some surprises there."
Results of the Iraqi Perspective Project are helping DoD develop important lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom that provide what Giambastiani called "a balanced, holistic view of the battlefield cause and effect."
The report represents the most extensive project of its kind to understand the views of an enemy military force since a similar project conducted just after World War II, Giambastiani noted. That effort involved a comprehensive review of recovered German and Japanese documents, along with interviews of key military and civilian leaders during the war.

More on the Saddam Docs
A handwritten dossier dated Aug. 17, 2002, confirms an operational cell of al-Qaeda inside Iraq and identifies its key member as Ahmed Fadil Nizal Al Khalaylah—also known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the current leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. Saddam's regime, from the document, seems little concerned about the terrorist's presence—even though tolerating known terrorists violated UN resolutions—and less surprised, perhaps with reason.
Another memo, dated Sept. 15, 2001, and from Afghanistan, notes a relationship between al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Baghdad, and a Dec. 1, 2001, memo reports on "the status of rumors" of 3,000 Fedayeen Saddam from Anbar Province who were dispatched "in an unofficial capacity to Afghanistan and have joined the mujahidin to fight with and aid them in defeating the American Zionist Imperialist attack."

Iraqi documents obtained by The Weekly Standard this month show Saddam supporting Abu Sayyaf, the Philippine al-Qaeda affiliate, and its leaders consulting in Manila with Iraqi diplomats during the 2002 kidnapping of U.S. missionaries Martin and Gracie Burnham.

Clarke: Iraq Teamed Up With bin Laden to Produce WMDs
The media are fascinated with the parts of former White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke's book that trash President Bush as being out to lunch on the al-Qaida threat before 9/11.
But reporters aren't talking about the chapter of "Against All Enemies" that describes how Osama bin Laden cooperated with Iraqi scientists to make weapons of mass destruction - a development that, if true, would more than justify President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq.
In his book, Clarke describes how the Clinton CIA determined in 1996 that Sudan's Shifa chemical plant, which was allegedly bankrolled by bin Laden, was producing the chemical EMPTA.
"EMPTA is a compound that had been used as a prime ingredient in Iraqi nerve gas," writes Clarke. "It has no other known use, nor had any other nation employed EMPTA to our knowledge for any purpose."
"What was an Iraqi chemical weapons agent doing in Sudan?" the terrorism authority asked.
He then explains:
"UNSCOM and other U.S. government sources had claimed that the Iraqis were working on something at a facility near Shifa. Could Sudan, using bin Laden's money, have hired some Iraqis to make chemical weapons? It seemed chillingly possible."
Invoking the 2001 testimony to U.S. interrogators of captured al-Qaida operative Jamal al-Fadl, Clarke says that he "matter-of-factly described his role in traveling to Sudan for his terrorist organization. [Al Fadl] said his assignment was to follow the work al Qaeda had underway in Khartoum to develop chemical weapons."
In fact, much remains in dispute over just what was going on at the Shifa plant, which was bombed to smithereens in a 1998 cruise missile attack ordered by President Clinton.
But since the press has crowned Richard Clarke as America's ultimate authority on the al-Qaida threat, they ought to at least be honest enough to acknowledge that his account provides ample justification for Bush's decision to oust the regime that Clarke says teamed up with bin Laden to make WMDs in Sudan.

The MSM and Iraq
by Hugh Hewitt
March 21, 2006 09:10 PM EST
Anderson Cooper runs a fair show, and even though I was booked against two MSMers from Baghdad, including Time's Michael Ware, I didn't hesitate to accept because Cooper recognizes panel imbalance and corrects it with time allocation. (Michael Yon points out that it was three Time Warner employees and me on the panel. True enough.)
My major point was that a large portion of the American public doesn't trust MSM coverage of Iraq because MSM coverage of Iraq almost always punts on context.
I began the segment by reminding the audience of CNN's Eason Jordan's confession of CNN self-censorship on the awful brutality of Saddam's regime --published in the New York Times in April of 2003-- and of MSM predictions of quagmire that began with the dust storm that interrupted the march to Baghdad, and which discounted all three of the elections that led to the current government.
You can't trust a MSM that has been wrong from the start.
I pointed out the many new media voices, like Michael Totten, Michael Yon, Laura Ingraham, Bill Roggio, Victor Davis Hanson and Robert Kaplan, have reported from Iraq and most have blasted MSM coverage as inadequate.
I concluded by asserting that some of the contempt for American media which is widely felt in the USA is rooted in the belief, widely shared, that MSM is invested in the failure of the Iraq invasion and in the idea that President Bush's policy is a catastrophe.
MSM seems to be rooting for Iraq to turn out badly, and this does not sit well with the average American.
At one point, Time's Ware got rather emotional and attempted to argue that Iraqis are worse off than they were four years ago, though he didn't quite allow himself to say as much. I'll play the audio on the program tomorrow.
Ware's argument is the equivalent of arguing Poland was worse off in 1992 than in 1988 because the transition to real democracy was so difficult. Stalinist dictatorships are pretty awful things, and Iraq under Saddam was a Stalinist dictatorship. Ware doesn't seem to get this crucial point, or to be concerned with the mass graves that keep turning up.
The vanity of western media is that if they didn't see it, it didn't happen. That Iraq under Saddam wasn't so bad because MSM Baghdad bureaus didn't exist, and those that did (CNN's) censored the news.
The takeaway: MSM wants Bush to fail, and as a result MSM's coverage of Iraq tilts to the IEDs and the terrorist successes and never, ever provides the context that the president did in the press conference today. The MSM thus allows itself to be used by the terrorists, and thus to hamper victory. MSM doesn't believe in "victory," in fact, or in Saddam's unique evil. It believes, mostly, in the necessity of humbling Bush.
But a majority of America voted for Bush. Which is why the collapse of MSM is ongoing. The opinion polling has once again seduced the opinion elite into believing that it knows better than the voters what America thinks.
If the GOP has the courage to keep the focus on the war and the threat, it will again triumph in November, 2006. The MSM is powerless to stop the voters from registering their real opinion.

As a matter of fact, sir, I do question your patriotism!
By Pat Boone
excerpt
Today, the chief targets…are the president of the United States, his vice president and administration, and any of us who still believe our leaders may actually know more than the average citizen and are diligently doing their best to protect our national interests, and indeed, all of us citizens. It's no surprise, of course, especially in an election year, that President Bush would be attacked by political opponents; but virtually every talk show host and comedian tees off on him and our government's policies obsessively. And TV dramatic shows work derisive comments and anti-Bush plot lines into many of their stories, while newspapers dig, dig, dig for anything that might convince the general public we're all being duped and led into bankruptcy, disgrace and defeat.
When challenged, the attackers so often resentfully respond, "Hey, this is a free country! I can speak my mind, and criticize our president if I want. I think he's a dumb jerk anyway, and I totally disagree with virtually everything he says and does. Hey – are you questioning my patriotism?"
And we've fallen into the habit of assuring the attacker we'd never do that, that we respect his right to express himself, and we're sure he's just as patriotic as we are.
Well, wait a minute.
Respectful disagreement is one thing. Reasoned argument, based on actual facts and not rigged half-truths, is fine. Even beneficial and stimulating. But wild-eyed, irresponsible assaults on the character and intelligence and personal motives of our commander in chief – while we're in a war and trying to hold our allies at our side – is, to me, decidedly unpatriotic!
I'm already on record accusing certain networks of treasonous actions in publicizing the Abu Ghraib abuses worldwide, knowing that the military had already investigated and stopped those indefensible violations and instituted court martial proceedings.
And recently in this space, I've asked why Big Media isn't trumpeting the audio tapes and testimonies of Saddam's generals that there were indeed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that Saddam was actively promoting terrorism in the world, and that the WMDs were smuggled into Syria.
And they may still be there, waiting to be used against us.
Could there be bias? Could there be such prejudiced ideological blindness that the truth is buried in favor of more pecking at our leadership? What do you call that – "patriotism"? I don't think so.
Because the evidence is so overwhelming that a legitimate defense of Western Civilization, indeed civilized society itself, is at hand, when people put their political prejudices ahead of our country's safety – while we're at war – they do demonstrate a failure of patriotism. Such people might as well stop saying, "Don't question my patriotism," as though it's got magical power to shut the rest of us up.
You can't wave a "peace sign" at me or still a majority of my fellow countrymen, while our bravest young men and women are in armed conflict with crazed zealots determined to wipe us off the face of the earth, and call it patriotism.
I beg to differ.

News for March 20, 2006

2006-03-20T18:14:00.000-08:00

Some highlights:
Why don’t liberals complain when peace activists are murdered in Iraq?
Media revenue continues to fall
Iraq’s prime minister tells his visioj
Harvard Tells the Truth on Taxes: they are killing us
John McCain on Iraq
US deaths in Iraq plummet
Best job market for grads in 5 years
FOX News Poll: Iraq and Iran (74%: world is safer w/o Saddam)

Questions Surround Activities of Clinton Donor
BY MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
WASHINGTON - Senator Clinton's likely Republican opponent in 2006 and a South Korean newspaper are raising questions about campaign donations the New York Democrat has received from a New York businessman who is involved in an organization that sets up cultural events in North Korea.
The organization was founded by a man who later resigned as South Korea's ambassador to America after allegations emerged that he helped establish a "slush fund" for South Korean politicians.
"Once again serious questions surround Senator Clinton's fund-raising operation," the Republican challenger in Mrs. Clinton's Senate re-election bid, a former mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer, said about the donations. "We know that federal charges were levied against her fund-raisers from her last campaign and that she has taken money linked to supporters of Iranian mullahs. Now another issue pops up. Senator Clinton needs to come clean and answer these latest questions."
A request for comment from Mrs. Clinton's Senate office was referred to her campaign spokesman, Sam Arora, who did not return repeated phone call and e-mail requests for comment Monday, Tuesday, and yesterday.
The contributions in question come from a New York-based real estate investor, Hyung Young "Daniel" Lee. According to records on file with the Federal Election Commission, Mr. Lee, 44, donated $4,100 to Mrs. Clinton's 2006 Senate re-election campaign through Friends of Hillary in May 2005. His wife, Eva, donated $5,100 in four separate contributions between August 2004 and May 2005. FEC documents show that the Clinton campaign refunded Mrs. Lee $1,000; FEC regulations cap donations to a candidate at $4,200 for an individual contributor during an election cycle.
According to a fund-raising invitation obtained by The New York Sun, Mr. and Mrs. Lee also hosted a "Korean Americans for Hillary" fund-raiser at their home in Great Neck on May 22, 2005. One of the organizers of Lees' event and a Queens-based businessman, John Park, said earlier this week that "around 60 or 70 people" attended the $1,000-a-head fund-raiser, including Mrs. Clinton.

53 Senators vote to raid the Social Security trust fund
Last week, Senators Jim DeMint and Mike Crapo introduced an amendment to prevent the current Social Security Surplus from continuing to be spent. 53 Senators voted against it.
After the vote, DeMint issued the following statement:
“Sadly, fifty-three senators turned their backs on America’s seniors,” Senator DeMint said. “There is simply no way to save Social Security if we don’t have the courage stop using the surplus as a secret slush fund. I’m thankful there were forty-six senators who stood with America’s seniors to end the raid. We will not be deterred by cynics who offer no solutions.”
“Those who voted against this amendment voted to raid Social Security,” said Senator DeMint. “Now, every senator will be on record whether they oppose or support the raid. This said absolutely nothing about personal accounts, it was about whether you believe Social Security should be saved or allowed to wither on the vine.”
Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Biden (D-DE) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Burns (R-MT) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Carper (D-DE) Chafee (R-RI) Clinton (D-NY) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Dayton (D-MN) Dodd (D-CT) Domenici (R-NM) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Jeffords (I-VT) Johnson (D-SD) Kennedy (D-MA) Kerry (D-MA) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (D-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) Menendez (D-NJ) Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Obama (D-IL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Salazar (D-CO) Sarbanes (D-MD) Schumer (D-NY) Smith (R-OR) Snowe (R-ME) Stabenow (D-MI) Talent (R-MO) Wyden (D-OR)

The DeMint-Crapo Amendment to Stop the Raid on Social Security would have allowed the Senate to pass legislation with the following requirements:
· Social Security surpluses must be used to help pay for future benefits
· That it make no changes to the benefits of those Americans born before January 1, 1950
· That it provide a voluntary option for younger Americans to obtain legally binding ownership of a portion of their benefits.

FOX News Poll: Iraq and Iran (74%: world is safer w/o Saddam)
FoxNews ^ March 17, 2006 Dana Blanton
More than seven in 10 Americans (74 percent) agree that the United States and the world are safer today without Saddam Hussein in power, including 56 percent that "strongly" agree. These results have remained fairly stable over time and are in line with surveys conducted in 2004 and 2005.
Currently, a clear 59 percent majority of Americans think the Iraqi people are better off today because of the U.S.-led military action, the same number as in early 2005, but down from 64 percent in mid-2005 and a high of 74 percent (March 2004).
Opinion Dynamics Corporation conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News on March 14-15.

Anti-war protesters in SLC, elsewhere lament apathy
Salt Lake Tribune
By the time the war protesters began their march Saturday morning in Salt Lake City, only about 50 people had gathered. Their numbers had swelled to about 200 by noon - and that was with a little high-tech help from a marcher who text-messaged friends to join him.
The early low turnout was discouraging to some, such as Susan Westergard of Holladay.
"There's just about more policemen here than people," said the Democratic candidate for the Utah House of Representatives in District 40, nodding to the squadron of eight motorcycle officers parked alongside 400 South. "I guess the longer the war goes on, the more people accept it."
The protests, like those held to mark each of the two previous anniversaries of the March 2003 invasion, were vigorous and peaceful but far smaller than the large-scale marches that preceded the war, despite polls showing lower public support for the war than in years past and anemic approval ratings for President Bush, himself a focus of many of the protesters.
In Times Square, about 1,000 anti-war protesters rallied outside a military recruiting station, demanding that troops be withdrawn from Iraq.
Police in London said 15,000 people joined a march from Parliament and Big Ben to a rally in Trafalgar Square. The anniversary last year attracted 45,000 protesters in the city.
In Turkey, where opposition to the war cuts across all political stripes, about 3,000 protesters gathered in Istanbul, police said. ''Murderer USA,'' read a sign in Taksim Square.
One of the biggest protests was in San Francisco, for decades a hub of anti-war sentiment. Police there estimated the crowd gathered outside City Hall at about 6,000 people
In Washington, a relatively small crowd of about 300 gathered at the Naval Observatory, where Vice President Dick Cheney lives, and marched to Dupont Circle. Debbie Boch, 52, a restaurant manager from Denver, said she and two friends bought plane tickets to Washington two months ago, before the demonstration had been planned. It was the fifth protest march she had attended since the war began, she said,
and among the smallest.

Arab-American Psychologist Wafa Sultan is a brave woman. Recently she criticized Islam during an Al Jazeera TV interview.

VIDEO: Interview with Wafa Sultan http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1050
TRANSCRIPT: Interview with Wafa Sultan
http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1050

Durbin: Dems Want GIs Home ASAP
On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace repeatedly asked Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin to reveal his party's Iraq war plan. Finally Durbin responded that Democrats want to bring the troops home as soon as possible.

Wallace later asked Durbin: "You talk about the lack of an administration plan. What is the Democratic plan? And be specific. What's the Democratic plan for Iraq?"

Durbin: "I'll be very specific. But I can tell you, to start with, failed policies such as the one we have in Iraq gives us few options. And we understand that. We've been painted into a corner in this situation."

Wallace: "Well, that's criticism, sir. What is your plan?"

Durbin: "Well, hold on, if you will, please. What we propose and what Senator John Warner accepted as a bipartisan approach in the Senate includes the following. This year, 2006, a year of transition, where the Iraqis take control of their own security and defense. Secondly, the Iraqis are put on notice they have to form a government that embraces all of the factions within Iraq so that we can see finally a government of unity leading to some sort of progress for the people of Iraq. And finally, we have to have from this president accountability, clear accountability, where he says every three months what progress is being made. His first report, incidentally, was not an encouraging one.

Something to think about:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh) 1787

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning a recent Presidential election:
Population of counties won by: Gore=127 million Bush=143 million
Square miles of land won by: Gore=580,000 Bush=2,242,700
States won by: Gore=19 Bush=29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore=13.2 Bush=2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."

Cheney: Don't Listen to Kennedy
Sen. Ted Kennedy is the last person to listen to in matters of national security, said Sunday.

Appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation” Sunday Bob Schieffer's quoted a cmment by Sen.Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.,,on the third anniversary of the Iraq war:
"It is clearer than ever that Iraq was a war that never we should have fought. The administration has been dangerously incompetent and its Iraq policy is not worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. President Bush continues to see the war through the same rose colored glasses he's always used. He assures the American people we are winning while the lives of our troops hang so perilously on the precipice of a new disaster."

Vice President Dick Cheney: "I would not listen to Ted Kennedy for guidance and leadership on how we ought to manage national security. I think what Senator Kennedy reflects is sort of the pre-9/11 mentality about how we ought to deal with that part of the world. We used to operate on the assumption before 9/11 that a terrorist attack, a criminal act, was a law enforcement problem. We were hit repeatedly in the '90s and never responded effectively. When the terrorists came to believe not only could they strike us with impunity but if they hit us hard enough that we'd change our policy."
“We changed all that on 9/11. After they hit us and killed 3,000 Americans here at home we said enough's enough, we're going to aggressively go after them - go after the terrorists where we can find them and go after those states that sponsor terrorism and go after people who provide them with weapons of mass destruction.
"That kind if aggressive forward-leading strategy is one of the main reasons we haven't been struck again. Senator Kennedy's approach is pack the pack and go home and retreat behind the ocean and assume we can be safe. It was learned on 9/11 that in fact what's going on 10,000 miles away in a place like Afghanistan has a direct impact on the United States when we lost 3,000 people. We know now that the biggest threat of all that we face is not just another 9/11 but a 9/11 where the terrorists have something like nuclear weapons or deadly biological agents.
"The Iraq situation has to be seen in the broader context of a global war on terror. It is a global contest. You can't look just at Iraq and make decisions there with respect as to how that's going to come out without having major consequences . I think we are going to succeed in Iraq. I think the evidence is overwhelming. I think Ted Kennedy been wrong from the very beginning, he's the last man I'd go to for guidance as to how we should conduct national security policy."

Deaths fall for U.S., rise for Iraqis
Changes in roles shift casualties
By Thomas Frank
USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — U.S. military deaths during the past month have dropped to an average of about one a day, approaching the lowest level since the insurgency began two years ago, according to a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data.
The decline in U.S. deaths comes as Iraqi casualties are the highest since the U.S. military began tracking them in 2004.
In the past month, nearly five times as many Iraqi forces and civilians were killed as troops in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, U.S. military data show.
The shift from spring 2004, when U.S. and Iraqi casualty rates were comparable, reflects an insurgency that increasingly targets Iraqis and the growing presence of Iraqi forces on the front lines.
“The Iraqi army is far bigger in number, far higher in training capability and far more willing to go where the fight is and take casualties,” British Defense Secretary John Reid said in an interview.
On the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion, however, a wave of violence against Iraqis is prompting talk of civil war. In an interview Sunday with the British Broadcasting Corp., former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi said, “We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.”
Vice President Cheney disagreed. Speaking on CBS' Face the Nation, Cheney said, “What we've seen is a serious effort by (insurgents) to foment a civil war. But I don't think they've been successful.”
According to U.S. military data, about 15 Americans and 73 Iraqis are killed or injured each day. A USA TODAY analysis of U.S. military data shows the number of U.S. forces killed during the war has declined steadily since November.
RAND Corp. military analyst Nora Bensahel says the increasing level of Iraqi casualties “means Iraqi security forces are in positions of responsibility.” The United States, which has 132,000 troops in Iraq, is “doing fewer patrols on its own and more in support of Iraqi operations,” reducing U.S. casualties.
The U.S. military also has cut the number of American deaths by thwarting the homemade bombs that are the insurgency's prime weapon. Soldiers and Marines now find and neutralize more than 40% of the bombs, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said in an interview. That compares with 30% in September. Lynch said that 41 insurgent bombmakers have been killed or captured. Insurgents “are losing skilled bombmakers,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iraq's 240,600 security forces increasingly are fighting insurgents directly, the Pentagon says. Sixty-three Iraqi units are operating independently or in a lead role with coalition support, up from 37 in September. Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari says military recruiting remains strong, despite the rising casualties.

Best job market in 5 years for grads: report
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. college graduates are facing the best job market since 2001, with business, computer, engineering, education and health care grads in highest demand, a report by an employment consulting firm showed on Monday.
"We are approaching full employment and some employers are already dreaming up perks to attract the best talent," said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
In its annual outlook of entry-level jobs, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said strong job growth and falling unemployment makes this spring the hottest job market for America's 1.4 million college graduates since the dot-com collapse in 2001.
The firm pointed to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers which showed employers plan to hire 14.5 percent more new college graduates than a year ago.
The survey also found higher starting salaries this year. Graduates with economic or finance degrees will see the biggest gain with starting salaries up 11 percent to $45,191, while accounting salaries are up 6.2 percent, business management salaries up 3.9 percent and pay for civil engineers 4.3 percent higher.
But Challenger said graduates should not assume the improved labor market will guarantee everyone a job.
"Even as demand and salaries rise, college students should not be lulled into thinking that the job search will be easy or that jobs will be handed to anyone with a degree," he warned.
The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.8 percent in February from a 4-1/2-year low 4.7 percent in January, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Employers added 243,000 new payroll jobs in the month.

Harvard Tells the Truth on Taxes James Atticus Bowden
Harvard University’s motto, Veritas, is Latin for ‘truth’. Harvard’s Alumni magazine (Jan-Feb 2006) featured an article, “The Middle Class on the Precipice” which revealed an important truth. The problem with the home economics of Middle America is taxes. Taxes are why the average family – even with two parents working outside the home - has less left over at the end of the month than 30 years ago – when the average family had one wage earner. Families have less because taxes take away more.
The article compares the average American family in the 1970s to 2004. The same average family makes more money but has less to spend freely at the end of the month. In fact the average family, 50th percentile – median, has $800 less a year ($66.67 @ month less).
The average family, two parents and two kids, in the 1970s made $41,670.00 – adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars. There was one wage earner in the family. The average family, two parents and two kids, in 2004 made $73,770.00 in current dollars. So, where did the money go?
The per cent of money spent on food, clothing, and major appliances went down. The cost of entertainment (including computers), housing and health insurance went up. Others washed out, like more on pets and less on tobacco. But the loss of money for personal choices, economic freedom, wasn’t this losing balance sheet. It was taxes.
Harvard Magazine blithely commented that the rate of taxation, from all sources, increased from 24% to only 30%. Stop. Do the math. Here’s the truth Harvard revealed even though they didn’t revile in it. If the tax rate had stayed at 24%, then the average family would have $4426.20 more of their own money. They earned more, but kept less because of government greed.
Let’s see it again. 24% of $73,770.00 is $17,824.80. 30% of $73,770.00 is $22,131.00. That’s $4426.20 lost to taxes – for the same income. That’s $368.85 a month the average family is spending on permanent, reliable, sustainable revenues, ‘investments’, for vital infrastructure and public services. Uh-huh. Bull. Ask the family of firefighter married to a teacher with two kids what an extra $368.85 a month means to them.
The average family’s taxes didn’t increase to pay the salaries of the teachers and firefighters on the government payroll. Those meager increases were covered and surpassed by inflation. The growth of local, state and federal governments exceeds inflation.
The additional money the family spent on cars, insurance, dry cleaning, etc. is a function of two parents working outside of the home. The Mom and Dad feel like they both have to work just to keep up. Not to get ahead of their parents. Just to keep up. Yet, they are both working to support government.
Suppose only one person worked. Say the average real wage hadn’t increased a penny, so the income for a family of four is $41, 670.00 in the 70s and now. If the average tax rate is 24%, then the family paid $10,000.80 in taxes. The same family, same wage, pays $12,501.00 when the taxes are an average of 30%. The difference is $2,500.20 or $208.35 @ month. Two hundred dollars more money at the end of the month for a family earning under four thousand a month is a lot of money. It means a vacation for the family. It means saving for college or retirement.
Yet, family needs count little against government greed. Are governments doing so much more, better, in 2006 than in the 1970s to increase their wealth on the backs of working families? What government services and products make up the money lost to the average family? What government good is so great that it’s worth this burden?
This price, the soaking of the average, let alone the so-called ‘rich’, Americans is lost on the Big Government Republicans and Socialist Democrats. President George Bush doesn’t get it either, or he would have vetoed the budget busting, tax feeding programs from his two terms. To his, and other Republicans’ credit, Bush supports Federal tax cuts. But, he hasn’t served the American people rightly when he fails to serve them well with forcing enough real spending cuts - beyond the bogus cuts in the rate of growth.

U.S. security depends on Iraq democracy
John McCain
Three years after the invasion of Iraq, Americans understandably wonder where we go from here. Iraq is today in the throes of another critical moment in its post-Saddam history, with both obvious difficulties and enduring hopes. We see a new constitution and parliament but greater sectarian violence; progress toward the formation of a unity government but an ongoing insurgency; more Iraqis taking on security roles but still an insufficient number to secure the country. At home, the American people wish to see us prevail but express uncertainty about the costs and strategy.
The war in Iraq has not gone as well as we had hoped, and we have made mistakes that have cost us dearly. Too many of the very best people in this country have sacrificed their lives for us in a conflict that has had many setbacks and where we will face other tough times ahead.
There's no point in denying that sad truth. There is also little to be gained from rehashing the pre-war debate over the wisdom of toppling Saddam Hussein. I continue to believe that the president was right to bring Saddam's brutal and dangerous regime to an end, but this is now a debate for historians.
What is undeniable, however, is that America is enormously invested in the outcome of the conflict in Iraq. Our national security, the strength of our international partnerships, and our commitment to all those who have fought there turn on the outcome of this war.
If we should withdraw from Iraq and simply wash our hands of the situation there, we risk creating a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, a situation that would enable terrorists to train and plan attacks against the United States with impunity.
We saw just such a situation develop in Afghanistan after international disengagement from that country, and it resulted in 9/11. We must not make that mistake again.
And by turning over security to the as-yet-unprepared Iraqi forces, we threaten to plunge that country into a true civil war that could destabilize the entire Middle East and invite intervention from Iraq's regional neighbors. If we do not prevail in Iraq, we send our partners and our enemies the same message: America has neither the capability nor the will to sustain its operations through to victory.
For all these reasons, we must see this conflict through to the end. That means correcting our mistakes, building on our progress, and helping to plant in the most dangerous region in the world the seeds of democracy that will influence its neighbors. By doing so, we can begin to promote change in the oppressed societies that have bred the terrorists who threaten us.
We can and must succeed in this effort, but we should make no mistake: It will take more time, more money, and more brave Americans will lose their lives in the service of their country.
That is the reality of the situation today. The challenge is not how to formulate a quick exit strategy, but rather to address the changes required to increase the odds of victory. From the beginning, coalition forces have lacked the requisite number of troops to stabilize the country, and so any plan for a partial withdrawal should be off the table for the near future.
Ideally we would increase our forces in Iraq but, at a minimum, newly trained and equipped Iraqi troops should supplement, not substitute for, coalition forces.
These soldiers should be engaged in a military counterinsurgency strategy, combined with traditional security operations, rather than following their previous model: sweeping into cities to root out insurgents and then leaving to do the same elsewhere.
The Pentagon has made progress in moving toward such a strategy, but it will take much more time before it can effectively neutralize the insurgency. In addition, sectarian violence and the strength of militias can be reduced by ensuring that Iraqi National Army units and their counterparts in the Ministry of Interior are integrated by ethnicity and sect, and by increasing the diplomatic effort to urge a unity government in Iraq.
This diplomatic effort needs to be constant and take place at the highest levels of our government. Various elements of our strategy, including reconstruction, intelligence and others, must receive priority over other issues in Washington.
We are in the midst of a war, and we cannot simply consign it to our armed forces to win or lose.
Above all we must stand behind the commitment we have made as a country, both to our own national security and to the Iraqi people.
Times are tough, the costs have been high, and they will grow higher yet. But morality, national security, and the honor our fallen deserve all compel us to see through our mission in Iraq to victory.
Should we abandon our responsibility at this critical time in history, we as a country will be poorer in every dimension for it.

My Vision For Iraq
By Ibrahim al-Jafari
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A15
BAGHDAD -- The elections last December in Iraq were a monumental stage in my country's history and a testament to the courage of its people, who refuse to bow to any dictator or terrorist. As the wheels of democracy have begun to turn in Iraq, the people's wishes are becoming clearer and their representatives identified. To this end I am humbled and honored to be chosen by my coalition to lead Iraq's first democratically elected full-term government.
My government's first challenge will be to stifle the terrorism that has plagued our country and defiled the name of Islam. While we are making good progress in expanding and developing Iraq's security services, the war against the terrorists cannot be won by military means alone. It is paramount that all Iraqis work together to build a democratic, free Iraq.
Since I took office, I have sought to bring every community into the political process. I refused to marginalize the Sunni Arabs after the January 2005 election boycott, ensuring they made up over a fifth of the cabinet.
Sidelining Moqtada al-Sadr's group from the Governing Council was a mistake. Had it been integrated into the political process back then, long before the formation of the Mahdi Army, events would have turned out differently in the south. I corrected this policy and brought Sadr's group into the democratic process. This inclusive approach resulted in the huge nationwide turnout for the December elections and a parliament that truly reflects Iraq.
During my term as elected prime minister, Sadr's group has not attacked any coalition troops. Furthermore, Sadr and several Sunni leaders are now catalysts for maintaining the peace in Iraq, calling on their followers not to retaliate against terrorist provocations, which aim to ignite civil war.
Unfortunately, we have suffered setbacks during the past year. The most troubling was the discovery of prisoner torture in an Interior Ministry jail in November. As soon as I learned of these despicable acts I formed an investigative committee made up solely of Sunni leaders, and I await its findings.
The long-term solution to this problem will be multifaceted. We must ensure that all security forces receive proper training and that there is a chain of command that holds commanders and officers responsible for such abuses. In addition, the various militias that fought Saddam Hussein's regime honorably must be fully integrated into Iraq's security forces without concentrating any particular group into any one division. Finally, we need to strengthen the country's nascent judiciary, which suffered years of coercion and corruption under the former regime, to guarantee its independence and impartiality.
The other major challenge my government will face is reviving Iraq's economy. Iraq has been drowned by decades of Baathist socialist policies that have made millions reliant on government handouts. We must encourage entrepreneurship and enterprise, while establishing adequate safety nets for the less privileged.
Economic rehabilitation also requires some tough and unpopular changes, such as the reduction in government subsidies for gasoline that my administration began a few months ago. Such steps can be made only by a popular government that has the trust of the people. My administration has the political capital to be able to bring about these necessary changes.
Ultimately, I will work to secure the reality of a democratic, liberal, peaceful Iraq -- a beacon for freedom in the Middle East. This is not merely a wish but an article of faith. Having lived in London for the majority of my years in exile, I appreciate the importance of liberty for both guaranteeing democracy and ensuring human development.
I am hopeful that with Iraqi determination, and the support of the multinational force, we can defeat the terrorists and make Iraq the first democratic Arab country. I believe in working toward a peaceful, stable and nuclear-free Middle East, where Iraq is not the rogue state that it was under the previous regime.
The road ahead will be tough, but the Iraqi people have demonstrated their bravery, determination and resolve. The world should not falter at such a crucial stage in history.
The writer is prime minister of Iraq.

Star Tribune ad revenue down in February (Dinosaur Media Extinction Alert)
bizjournals.com ^ March 20, 2006 Staff
The Minneapolis Star Tribune posted a 5.1 percent drop in advertising revenue in February, according to figures released Monday by the newspaper's parent company.
The Star Tribune, the largest paper owned by The McClatchy Co., a Sacramento-based media organization, reported $21.7 million in ad revenue for the month of February, compared to $22.8 million in February 20005. Year-to-date revenue, at the end of February, lagged 1.6 percent behind the same figure last year.
McClatchy as a whole reported a 0.8 percent decline in consolidated advertising revenues in February. Year-to-date advertising revenue at the chain grew 2.1 percent to $161 million.
Last week McClatchy agreed to acquire Knight Ridder Inc., the parent company of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. It will resell the St. Paul paper and 11 other acquisitions.
Shares of McClatchy (NYSE: MNI - News) stock were down 92 cents or 1.85 percent to $48.68 at about 1:30 central time.

A Deadly Silence
Leaving the Left’s victims of terror behind.
The muted reaction to the murder of Virginia-based peace activist Tom Fox earlier this month highlights a puzzling phenomenon. While terrorists in Iraq — like those who shot Fox in the head and chest and dumped his body beside a Baghdad railroad — target the kind of people the Left champions in America, liberal Democrats stay mum while “their people” get seized, maimed, and killed over there. Rather than demand the total defeat of these butchers, Operation Iraqi Freedom’s shrillest opponents instead accuse President Bush of carelessly blundering into war while brilliantly manipulating Democrats into authorizing hostilities. Al Qaeda’s man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, elicits shrugs while America’s true enemies, they suggest, are Guantanamo, the NSA terrorist-surveillance program, and the just-renewed Patriot Act.
Sen. John Kerry, who let President Bush bamboozle him into approving the Iraq War, told CBS’s Bob Schieffer last December: “There is no reason . . . that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women.” We have met the terrorists, and apparently, they are us.
As Robert Novak reported last June, activists from Code Pink and other peace groups participated in a mock war-crimes trial in Istanbul. They endorsed its final statement, which embraced Iraq’s anti-U.S. insurgency.
“The popular national resistance to the occupation is legitimate and justified,” reads the communiqué of the World Tribunal on Iraq. “It deserves the support of people everywhere who care for justice and freedom.”
In perhaps the biggest American love bomb thrown at Iraq’s bomb throwers, filmmaker Michael Moore wrote in April 2004: “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the revolution, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win.”
If terro rists in Iraq only iced bankers, oilmen, and HMO administrators, one might fathom liberal complacency about such violence. Instead, these murderers hit precisely those who the Left normally welcomes into their rainbow-hued tent. But since these victims are in Iraq, their deaths generate little evident sympathy.

McClatchy Feb ad revenue falls 0.8%; total revenue down 1.6%
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- McClatchy Co. (MNI : McClatchy Newspapers, Inc.said Monday its advertising revenues fell 0.8% in February over the same month last year, while total revenues declined by 1.6%. Year-to-date ad revenues are up 2.1%, while total revenues have gained 0.8%, the Sacramento, Calif.-based media company said.

Will the Dems and Mainstream Media Win Their War Against Iraq?
by Sher Zieve
Each and every day the Democrats and their "mainstream media" are denigrating the Iraq war, the Iraqis and US troops. Much the same as they were able to vilify those who fought in and supported the US fight against repressive communism in Viet Nam and were able to sway the American public toward opposition to that war, they are currently using their own bully pulpits to destroy any chance of democracy in Iraq.
Recently, I asked the question in an Op/Ed "Are Liberal Democrats Really Pro-Terrorist?" The answer, now, is a resounding "Yes." In fact, liberal politicians from both sides of the aisle are aiding the terrorists' ambitions. Leftist Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) has called for President Bush's censure-for working to protect the United States from these Islamo-fascists. Two of Feingold's leftist colleagues, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) have joined him in his call for censure and Sen. Dick "Turban" Durbin (D-IL) said (sort of) that he's considering it when he said on Fox News Sunday "I'm not ruling it in or out at this point in time."
Their pretended "outrage" concerns the NSA communiqué intercept program, which continues to be purposefully misrepresented by both the MSM and the liberals. The NSA program is designed to uncover terrorist plots before the terrorists can implement them against America. However, our elected liberal and leftist leaders continue to be more concerned with their own venal political aspirations, rather than any real concerns for the country. If they don't support censure, the Democrats' first step toward President Bush's impeachment (again-an "impeachment" based upon the president's attempts to actually protect the US), the left-wing money folks won't fund them in the style to which they've become accustomed. It's just that simple. Note: Watch closely. More and more liberal and leftist Dem politicians will join presidential hopeful Feingold, as their reserves require replenishing.
The MSM still refuse to write and publish anything that is remotely positive about what the United States has accomplished in Iraq. As but a very few of the "good news" items coming out of Iraq, please consider the following: Over 3,000 schools have now been built and opened in Iraq; schools that girls and young women now attend. The country has held two unprecedented democratic elections-elections which were heavily discounted by both leading Democrats and their media. Kurdistan has fast become a tourist location and Good News From the Front reports: "Farouq Al Mulla Abdullah, chairman of 'Asia Al Kurdia' company, based in Al Selaimania (350 km northeast of Baghdad) has launched its tourist project under the name of 'City of Beauty', which is considered as the biggest tourist project in the province. The project consists of a hotel of 28 floors (5 stars) and modern tourist facilities, constructed on a hill in the middle of Al Selaimania city, at the cost of 60 million dollars." And, despite the fact that terrorist suicide bombers are still continuing to affect their carnage, new banks are opening in Iraq. In addition, Iraqi troops and police are being effectively trained-as evidenced by "Operation Swarmer".
However, any and all good news does not jibe with the Democrat leftists' agenda of: "In order to destroy Bush, we have to destroy Iraq. In order to fill our coffers and get reelected, we may even have to put the country in jeopardy. But, the end will justify our means."
So, as the Dems and their leftist antiquated media continue to feign the "whole truth" and spew their daily (if not hourly) invectives against President Bush (who-by the way isn't running for any office), remember the following: Viet Nam could have been won but, the media and the leftists were able to convince the public that it "couldn't be" done. The media and the leftists are employing the same tactics as they did in Viet Nam to Iraq. The liberal and leftist "polls" are bought and paid for [by them] and are consistently skewed to their bizarre and increasingly dangerous viewpoints. The danger is to civilization, itself. Last, elected liberal and leftist politicians will do anything-anything-to regain power; even if it involves placing the country in peril.
Let's face it. Not only does the obsessive quest for power blind those who are fixated and possessed by it but, it becomes "power above all else" as the sole corrupted goal. So, the next time you read the all-negative-all-the-time portrayals from these entities, remember their true goals-goals that have neither anything to do with the continuation of the USA as a sovereign nation nor the protection of its citizens.

News for March 17, 2006

2006-03-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

Highlights:

Papers show Clear evidence of WMDs, alQaida ties
Biased Media ignores Clinton connection
Alleged bias in academia spurs action [Academic Bill of Rights]
Newspaper Stocks Continue decline
US general sees Iraq forces getting more territory
Genetically modified foods may be greener than organic ones.
Inflation Slows Sharply in February
Democrat seeks to dump Lieberman over Iraq
“Internet inventor” can’t count
Moody's may downgrade New York Times ratings
Ex-Schumer aide plans to plead guilty

Clear evidence of WMDs, alQaida ties
Today, the Department of Defense released the first of thousands of documents captured in Iraq after the invasion.

They are clear evidence that
1. Saddam had close ties to al Qaida, and
2. Saddam had WMDs

However, the news media will carefully avoid letting you read these documents; when they”report” about them, they will carefully spin them to fit the liberals’ agenda. They will do it the same way they ignored the recent release of 500 hours of Saddam's personal tapes showing his scheming on WMD.
They will do it the same way they failed to report the statement of 9-11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean the day the report was released: "There was no question in our minds that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida."

The public can now read these documents for themselves. As days and weeks go by, we can read more of Saddam’s secret papers…anddecide for ourselves

From today’s papers:

Doc # CMPC-2003-001488 (see link below)
This document is a letter written by a member of Saddam Intelligence apparatus (Al Mukabarat) on 9/15/2001--shortly after 9/11/2001) where he addressed it to someone higher up and he wrote about a conversation between an Iraqi intelligence source and a Taliban Afghani Consul.
In the conversation the Afghani Consul spoke of a relationship between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden prior to 9/11/2001, and that the United States was aware of such a relationship and that there is a potential of US strikes against Iraq and Afghanistan if the destructive operations in the US (most probably he is referring to 9/11 attacks) were proven to be connected to Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.

Translation:
Our source in Afghanistan No 11002 (for information about him see attachment 1) provided us with information that that Afghani Consul Ahmad Dahestani (for information about him see attachment 2) told him the following:
1. That Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan are in contact with Iraq and it that previously a group from Taliban and Osama Bin Laden group visited Iraq.
2. That America has proof that the government of Iraq and Osama Bin Laden group have shown cooperation to hit target within America.
3. That in case it is proven the involvement of Osama Bin Laden group and the Taliban in these destructive operations it is possible that American will conduct strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
4. That the Afghani Consul heard about the subject of Iraq relation with Osama Bin Laden group during his stay in Iran.
5. In light of this we suggest to write to the Commission of the above information.
Please view… Yours… With regards
Signature:……, Initials : A.M.M, 15/9/2001
Foot note: Immediately send to the Chairman of Commission

Form other documents:
Here, for instance, are the marching orders for Directorate 8, the Mukhabarat's "Technical Affairs" department: "The Eight Directorate is responsible for development of materials needed for covert offensive operations. It contains advanced laboratories for testing and production of weapons, poisons and explosives."
It goes on. Directorate 9, we discover, "is one of the most important directorates in the Mukhabarat. Most of its work is outside Iraq in coordination with other directorates, focusing on operations of sabotage and assassination."
The document also discusses the Mukhabarat's Office 16, set up to train "agents for clandestine operations abroad." The document helpfully adds that "special six-week courses in the use of of terror techniques are provided at a camp in Radwaniyhah."

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm#iraq

NBC’s #1 opens mouth, proves he’s a fool
Remember David Gregory, the person who holds the number 1 “reporting” position at NBC? The person who called the prresident’s press secretary “a jerk”?
Now, he shows his fair and balanced news “reporting” by asking whether the President of the United States put American lives at risk in this week’s airborne strike against terrorist strongholds just to boost his poll numbers:

From the Press Conference Transcript:
Mr. Gregory: Scott, can I ask you a question about this operation underway in Iraq? Does the President think that an offensive like this, high profile, is necessary, in part to turn public opinion around in this country about the war?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, our commanders in the theater have the authorization to make tactical decisions about the operations that they undertake. And there have been a number of operations that have been undertaken over the course of the last several months to really go after the terrorists and the Saddam loyalists who want to return to the past of oppression and tyranny. So this operation is part of our ongoing efforts to help move forward on the security front. [...]
Q But my question — I'm sorry, but you aren't done with my question, which is, beyond the merits of this particular operation, we are coming to the three-year anniversary of the war. Support for the President is at rock bottom; support for this war is at rock bottom in this country. Does the President think it's important as a show of U.S. and Iraqi force to mount these kinds of operations, to try to change public opinion in this country?
MR. McCLELLAN: I can't accept the premise of your question because this was a decision made by our commanders.

Aha! “Reporters” like Gregory ask asinine questions such as this one. The White House refuses to take them seriously. Then, the reporters leave the briefings and write that the White House is "stonewalling" them.

Conservative Baby Boom, Liberal Baby Bust
In a trend that’s found worldwide as well as in the U.S., liberals are much less likely to have children than conservatives.
That trend "augers a far more conservative future — one in which patriarchy and other traditional values make a comeback, if only by default,” Phillip Longman, a fellow at the New America Foundation, writes in an essay in USA Today.
"Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists. As a consequence, an increasing share of all children born into the world are descended from a share of the population whose conservative values have led them to raise large families.”
Conservatives, most of whom are pro-life, are also less likely to have abortions than are their politically liberal counterparts. Liberals, in essence, may be killing their own future through abortion.
Longman points to these figures:
In the U.S., 47 percent of people who attend church weekly say their ideal family size is three or more children, but only 27 percent of those who seldom attend church feel that way.
In Utah, where more than two-thirds of residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 92 children are born each year for every 1,000 women. Vermont — the first state to embrace gay unions — has the nation's lowest rate: 51 children per 1,000 women.
The average fertility rate in states that voted for President Bush in 2004 is more than 11 percent higher than the rate in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry.
Demographic data show that in Europe today, progressives who say they find soft drugs, homosexuality and euthanasia acceptable are far more likely to live alone or be in childless, cohabiting unions than those with more conservative views. Longman also points out that nearly 20 percent of American women born in the late 1950s are reaching the end of their reproductive lives without having children.

Ex-Democratic aide plans to plead guilty (Schumer-gate)
The Washington Times ^ 3-17-06 S.A. Miller
By S.A. Miller
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A former Democratic operative will plead guilty to a federal charge of illegally obtaining Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's credit report, the woman's attorney said yesterday.
Lauren Weiner, who was a researcher for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) last year when she accessed the credit data, will plead guilty to the misdemeanor offense in coming weeks, said her attorney, Whitney C. Ellerman.
She will likely be sentenced to 150 hours of community service with no jail time or fines, and her criminal record will be erased after one year of probation.
Mr. Steele, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, said he would be disappointed if the DSCC is not held accountable for the actions of its operatives.
"It is a stain on the entire organization and the operations of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee," Mr. Steele said yesterday. "It's the kind of politics that turns people off and demeans the electoral process."
The lieutenant governor said he is consulting attorneys about legal recourses to pursue.
"What is the point of the law if you are not going to feel the pinch of it?" Mr. Steele said.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, DSCC chairman and a champion of laws that combat identity theft, declined to comment on Miss Weiner's plea.
However, DSCC spokesman Phil Singer yesterday said the committee has paid the legal fees for Miss Weiner and Katie Barge, who was the committee's research director and supervised Miss Weiner at the time she obtained the credit report.

Two more women die after taking abortion pill
AP on MSN ^ March 17, 2006
WASHINGTON - Two more women have died after using the abortion pill RU-486, federal health regulators said Friday, in warning doctors to watch for a rare but deadly infection implicated in earlier deaths.
At least seven U.S. women have died after taking the pill, sold since 2000. The Food and Drug Administration cannot prove the drug was to blame in any of the cases.
In a cluster of four cases in California, the women died from an infection of the bloodstream, or sepsis. Those women did not follow FDA-approved instructions for the pill-triggered abortion, which requires swallowing three tablets of one drug, followed by two of another two days later.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! It's A $13.9 Million Pay Day For Gannett's McCorkindale
Editor & Publisher ^ March 17, 2006 Staff
CHICAGO Gannett Chairman Douglas H. McCorkindale is selling shares of the newspaper chain for $13.9 million, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange (SEC) filing Friday.
The Form 144 Notice of Proposed Sale of Securities said McCorkindale is selling 230,000 shares for $13,931,100 through a Greenwich, Conn., broker on or after Mar. 17.
According to the form, McCorkindale also sold "restricted stock units" at the first day of each month so far this year, for a total of a little more than $300,000.

St. Pat's Parade Chief Rips Hillary Clinton
he chairman of Manhattan's famed St. Patrick's Day parade is blasting Sen. Hillary Clinton, saying she only shows up to march when she's campaigning for votes.
"I haven't heard anything from [Sen. Clinton] since the last time she marched, which was years ago," John Dunleavy complained to the Irish Times yesterday. "There has been no communication with her office to say thank you, kiss my rear end or goodbye," he said.
Mrs. Clinton, who's seeking reelection this year, intends to march in today's parade.

'Hanoi Jane' Fonda Honor Withdrawn
The sponsor of an effort to honor Jane Fonda in the Georgia state Senate withdrew her resolution Thursday, after a rocky reception from some colleagues and a phone call from the actress' office.
Sen. Steen Miles, D-Decatur, said a representative for Fonda, who is out of the country, asked that she avoid the controversy the effort had stirred.
The resolution cites the Atlanta resident's work as founder of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, donations to Atlanta-area universities and charities and role as goodwill ambassador with the United Nations.
But the two-time Academy Award winner's political activities protesting the Vietnam War, including a trip to North Vietnam in 1972, have long made her a target of veterans of that war.

Moody's may downgrade New York Times ratings
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Moody's Investors Service on Friday placed New York Times Co.'s A2 senior unsecured long term debt, and P-1 commercial paper ratings on review for possible downgrade. The agency said the review is prompted by Moody's growing concerns about the media company's high financial leverage, deteriorating operating margins and weak free cash flow available for debt reduction, combined with concerns over intensifying cross media competition, including the Internet, and growing event risk in the newspaper sector. A multi-notch ratings transition will be considered in light of the company's financial and operating challenges, Moody's said.

Al, Al -- You Gotta Count Carefully
WaPo
So just how moved were conservatives by Al Gore 's global-warming slide show? While energetically flacking his new documentary at a convention of theater owners in Vegas Monday, Gore told a story about the warm reception he got at a Grover Norquist breakfast gathering here in January. In Variety's account of the speech, Gore said that D.C. conservatives "stood up afterward and said, 'You're absolutely right.' "
How many conservatives? Three people at the convention tell us Gore left the distinct impression he received multiple kudos, "many" in Variety's telling. That got a chuckle from the breakfast club, whose members recall a polite response but only one attendee approaching Gore with praise. Gore's people deny any hyperbole, saying he never claimed more than one enviro-conversion at the meal and may have been misquoted. His documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," hits theaters in May.

Democrat seeks to dump Lieberman over Iraq
MSNBC
GREENWICH, Conn. - Joe Lieberman has come a long way since the Democratic Party nominated him as its vice presidential candidate in 2000.
Then, Democrats from Florida to Oregon cheered the Connecticut senator and praised his decency. But today the party’s intense, left-leaning bloggers — such as Matt Stoller of MyDD.com — vilify Lieberman, mostly for his support of the war in Iraq.
In August the anti-Lieberman forces may get their chance for vengeance, as Ned Lamont, a Greenwich, Conn. cable television entrepreneur, tries to knock Lieberman off in the Democratic Senate primary.
Lieberman “sincerely supports the president’s war in Iraq and I sincerely think he’s wrong,” said Lamont in an interview in his Greenwich office Wednesday.
He added, “There was a rush to war. They didn’t ask the tough questions going in. Sen. Lieberman cheered on the president every step of the way. I think people should be held accountable for getting us into this mess.”
Lamont also scolds Lieberman for not filibustering Bush’s Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.
“He never took a leadership position on Alito…. He voted almost reluctantly against Alito, when the vote really didn’t matter that much,” he said.

Tim Russert, N.Y. Times Subpoenaed In CIA Leak Case
NBC10 ^
WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby have subpoenaed The New York Times, former Times reporter Judith Miller and NBC correspondent Tim Russert for documents concerning the disclosure of an undercover CIA agent's identity, as the former White House aide's legal team prepares for his trial.
Libby, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is charged with five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. Prosecutors contend he lied about how he learned of undercover officer Valerie Plame's CIA status.
A spokeswoman for the newspaper said Thursday that the subpoenas are for documents concerning the disclosure of Plame's identity.
NBC spokeswoman Barbara Levin confirmed Russert also received a subpoena. Libby told FBI agents and a federal grand jury that his information about Plame had come from Russert. But Russert has said they never discussed it.

Tribune February Revenue Falls 3 Percent
CHICAGO (AP) -- Newspaper publisher Tribune Co. said Thursday its revenue fell 3 percent in February from last year, as both advertising and publishing revenue declined.
Tribune, whose papers include the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, said its revenue fell to $407.6 million in February, down from last year's $420.1 million.
The decline included publishing revenue of $313.6 million, down 2.4 percent from $321.3 million in February 2005. It also included advertising revenue of $248.3 million, down 2.2 percent from $253.8 million last year.
Tribune's advertising losses were led by an 11.5 percent decline in national advertising revenue, mainly because of lower automotive and movie advertising. Classified advertising revenue, however, rose 7.2 on gains in real estate and help wanted ads, which rose 35 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
Circulation revenue fell 3.9 percent.

Inflation Slows Sharply in February
Yahoo (AP) ^ 3/16/2006 MARTIN CRUTSINGER
WASHINGTON - Inflation slowed sharply in February as food costs moderated and the price of gasoline, natural gas and other energy products posted big declines.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that its closely watched Consumer Price Index posted a tiny 0.1 percent increase last month after having jumped 0.7 percent in January.
Analysts said the slowdown in price pressures was certain to be welcomed at the Federal Reserve, which has been boosting interest rates since June 2004 to make sure inflation does not get out of control.
"While there is no room for complacency, the Fed can take comfort in the fact that core inflation remains tame," said Patrick Newport, an economist at Global Insight, a private forecasting firm.

Why GM is Good for Us Genetically modified foods may be greener than organic ones.
Newsweek International ^ March 20, 2006 issue Lee Silver
Farm-raised pigs are dirty, smelly animals ... They're also an environmental hazard. Their manure contains phosphorus, which ... runs off into lakes ... depleting oxygen, killing fish, stimulating algae overgrowth and emitting greenhouse gases. ...
Pigs provide more dietary protein, more cheaply, to more people than any other animal. ...
Two Canadian scientists have created a pig whose manure doesn't contain very much phosphorus at all. ...
The Enviropig is one of many new technologies that are putting environmentalists and organic-food proponents in a quandary: should they remain categorically opposed to genetically modified (GM) foods ... at the expense of the environment? Pigs can also be modified to digest grasses and hay ... reducing the energy-intensive use of corn as pig feed. ...
[T]he Enviropig secrete[s] a phosphorus-extracting enzyme in its saliva. [They] can extract all the phosphorus they need from grain alone, without ... supplements... This reduces the phosphorus content of their manure by up to 75 percent. ...
Organic farmers [boast they are] better for the environment than so-called conventional farming. ... But if you think that concern for the environment will ever persuade organic farmers to accept the Enviropig or any other animal modified to reduce pollution, you'd be wrong. ...
Organic farmers can spray their crops with many chemicals including pyrethrin, a highly toxic pesticide, and rotenone, a potent neurotoxin recently linked to Parkinson's disease. Because these substances occur in nature ... they are deemed acceptable for use on organic farms. ...
Chances are, farmers will continue to grow their polluting organic pork, their allergenic organic soy and their neurotoxin-sprayed organic apples. Worse still, they will make sure that no one else gets a choice in the matter of improving the conditions of life on earth—unless, that is, others rise up and demand an alternative.

McClatchy Stock Continues Slide: Street Skeptical?
Editor & Publisher ^ March 16, 2006 Staff
NEW YORK McClatchy's shares continued to slide Wednesday, closing at $50.72, down 4.7 percent from their value before Monday, when thye company announced that it will buy Knight Ridder.
The decline of McClatchy's stock price "says some people don't like the deal," Wall Street analyst Ed Atorino of Benchmark Co., a New York investment firm, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. There is great "uncertainty" about what McClatchy can get for the 12 KR papers it now plans to sell. But he added that McClatchy Chairman Gary Pruitt "is a smart guy" who has managed big mergers in the past.

Revenge of the "Queers"
FrontPage Magazine ^ 3/16/06 Ann Coulter
I guess the only way we'll ever find out how many blacks have worked in the Bush administration is to wait for them to get in trouble someday so we can read the breathless, triumphant stories on the front page of the New York Times about a black Republican scofflaw. It's amazing that anyone has ever heard of Condoleezza Rice – she's never even been arrested for jaywalking.
Claude Allen, whom I first heard of this week, was a top adviser to President Bush for more than 4 1/2 years. Soon after Bush was elected in 2000, he made Allen the No. 2 official at the Department of Health and Human Services. Allen later became Bush's domestic policy adviser, meeting with the president several times a week.
In 2003, Bush nominated Allen to a federal judgeship on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – which nomination was then blocked by the party that wouldn't exist without black votes. Deploying their usual strategy against black Republicans, Democrats raised questions about Allen's "legal credentials": Democrat-ese for "He's black, so he's probably not very smart." Allen went to Duke Law School, where he was remembered fondly by law professor Walter Dellinger, later Clinton's solicitor general.
During the entire time this talented, intelligent, magnificently conservative black man held high positions in the Bush administration, he was mentioned in only 11 articles in the New York Times. (A small part of Times Executive Editor Bill Keller dies every time the paper is forced to mention any black top officials in the Bush administration. It might remind people that the most highly placed black in the Clinton administration was his secretary, Betty Currie.)
But since Allen was accused of stealing from department stores a few weeks ago, the Times has mentioned him in seven articles – including a major front-page article on Monday, coverage more appropriate to the first moon landing. This makes Allen the first black alleged thief whose photo has ever appeared in the New York Times.
Allen isn't even working for the Bush administration anymore. Yet the Times is wallowing in his agony. I've never seen people enjoy another person's private pain so much – at least not since a prosecutor started investigating Rush Limbaugh for taking too many back pain pills.

NBC’;s #1 opens mouth, proves he’s a fool
Remember David Gregory, the person who holds the number 1 “reporting” position at NBC? The person who called the prresident’s press secretary “a jerk”?
Now, he shows his fair and balanced news “reporting” by asking whether the President of the United States put American lives at risk in this week’s airborne strike against terrorist strongholds just to boost his poll numbers:

From the Press Conference Transcript:
Mr. Gregory: Scott, can I ask you a question about this operation underway in Iraq? Does the President think that an offensive like this, high profile, is necessary, in part to turn public opinion around in this country about the war?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, our commanders in the theater have the authorization to make tactical decisions about the operations that they undertake. And there have been a number of operations that have been undertaken over the course of the last several months to really go after the terrorists and the Saddam loyalists who want to return to the past of oppression and tyranny. So this operation is part of our ongoing efforts to help move forward on the security front. [...]
Q But my question — I'm sorry, but you aren't done with my question, which is, beyond the merits of this particular operation, we are coming to the three-year anniversary of the war. Support for the President is at rock bottom; support for this war is at rock bottom in this country. Does the President think it's important as a show of U.S. and Iraqi force to mount these kinds of operations, to try to change public opinion in this country?
MR. McCLELLAN: I can't accept the premise of your question because this was a decision made by our commanders.

Aha! “Reporters” like Gregory ask asinine questions such as this one. The White House refuses to take them seriously. Then, the reporters leave the briefings and write that the White House is "stonewalling" them.

Tom Cruise: Free speech for me, not you
HOLLYWOOD bully Tom Cruise got Comedy Central to cancel Wednesday night's cablecast of a controversial "South Park" episode about Scientology by warning that he'd refuse to promote "Mission Impossible 3," insiders say.
Since Paramount is banking on "MI3" to rake in blockbuster profits this summer, and Paramount is owned by Viacom, which also owns Comedy Central, the tactic worked.
The "South Park" episode, "Trapped in the Closet," pokes fun at Scientology and shows Cruise, John Travolta and R. Kelly (who is not a Scientologist, but has a song called "Trapped in the Closet") literally in a closet.
The episode, which first aired last November, was set to rerun Wednesday night, but was mysteriously pulled at the last minute.

US general sees Iraq forces getting more territory
Reuters ^
By Will Dunham Fri Mar 17, 11:38 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraqi security forces will control about 75 percent of Iraq by the end of summer, up from under 50 percent now, as the United States turns over more responsibilities to allow a reduction of its forces, a senior U.S. commander said on Friday.
The development of capable, U.S.-trained Iraqi government security forces is a crucial element of U.S. plans in Iraq, which call for Iraqi forces to assume control over more and more territory, enabling the United States to draw down from its currently 133,000 troops.
Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, said the plan was for U.S.-trained Iraqi government security forces to control about 75 percent of Iraqi territory by "the end of summer."
Chiarelli declined to be more specific about the time line and did not specify the actual territory involved. He said the current total controlled by the Iraqi forces was "somewhere under 50 percent."

Newspaper Stocks Slip As Big Names Face Credit, Share Downgrades
NEW YORK (AP) -- Shares of newspaper stocks fell Friday, after credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service warned that it is considering downgrading Tribune and the New York Times Co. It also follows a stock downgrade on Tribune, whose papers also include the Chicago Tribune and Newsday in New York.
Tribune shares fell $1.10, or 3.6 percent, to $29.67 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange, putting the Chicago-based company's stock down 3 percent for the year so far.
Moody's earlier Friday said it is reviewing its debt rating on Tribune's unsecured, long-term debt, saying it has ongoing concerns about the outlook for the newspaper sector. Moody's also cited Tribune's high debt burden, versus its cash flow.
"Fundamentals in the newspaper sector will remain weak for the foreseeable future," Moody's said. "Of particular concern is the continuing downward trend in circulation and intensifying competition from online rivals."
On Thursday, Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Ginnocchio recommended that investors sell Tribune's stock, saying the company's February newspaper revenue was worse than expected, and that the second-half of 2006 "could significantly deteriorate from here." Ginnocchio previously recommended investors hold the shares.
The New York Times also faces a possible credit downgrade by Moody's. The ratings service earlier Friday said that it is concerned about the company's high financial leverage, deteriorating operating margins and weak free cash flow available for reducing debt.
New York Times shares fell 61 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $26.02 in recent trading.
The reports pulled other newspaper stocks lower as well.
Washington Post Co. shares fell $36.49, or 4.83 percent, to $718.50, while shares of local newspaper company Media General Inc. fell $1.59, or 3.2 percent, to $47.56.
USA Today publisher Gannett Co.'s stock fell $1.20 to $59.37.
Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, was down 62 cents at $40.15 in recent trading.

NBC Hypes Repetitive Low Bush Approval, Skips Intercept Approval
Without their own poll with which to batter President Bush, last Friday the NBC Nightly News led with how "the latest Associated Press poll has the President's job approval at 37 percent" as anchor Brian Williams pointed how "that matches President Clinton at the lowest point in his presidency." But NBC caught up Wednesday night with the other networks, and though its new NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey found the exact same 37 percent presidential approval rating -- so no fresh news -- Williams nonetheless led with the poll number.
Just as ABC and CBS did in reporting their polls in recent weeks, NBC ignored findings that found public support for Bush policies which the media have derided, such as how 52 percent "strongly" or "somewhat" support "using wiretaps to listen to telephone calls between suspected terrorists in other countries and American citizens in the United States without getting a court order to do so," how 75 percent "strongly" or "somewhat" support "promoting the USA Patriot Act," and that 56 percent "strongly" or "somewhat" support "making the tax cuts of the past few years permanent."

Alleged bias in academia spurs action [Academic Bill of Rights]
Kansas City Star ^ 3/16/6 David Klepper
Some Kansas lawmakers think professors at public universities are indoctrinating students with liberal notions, and they’re pushing a proposal to fight alleged academic bias.
Called the Academic Bill of Rights, the measure would encourage university faculty to teach different viewpoints and to grade based on scholarship, not on the student’s personal views. It also would prohibit faculty from using classes for “political, ideological, religious or antireligious indoctrination.”
Officials with the state Board of Regents and the University of Kansas said the measure was unnecessary and potentially damaging to academic freedom.
The measure was prompted by the furor surrounding University of Kansas Professor Paul Mirecki, who last year fell under scrutiny for e-mails in which he mocked aspects of Christianity.
But the problem is hardly limited to one professor, said writer and commentator David Horowitz, who has led the effort for the bill of rights nationally. Horowitz spoke Wednesday to a House committee considering the measure, saying departments such as women’s studies and social work often serve as recruiting grounds for Marxist and anti-American ideologies.
“Entire departments at Kansas State University and the University of Kansas, for example, are devoted to ideological and political agendas and are in fact advocacy programs designed to indoctrinate,” he said. KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway said the university has a well-established process to address complaints about faculty. He said the bill of rights is a solution in search of a problem.

Biased Media ignores Clinton connection
By Thomas Lipscomb
Editor and Publisher
(March 15, 2006) -- The New York Times began the week with a delicious glimpse of Hollywood Babylon, “A Studio Boss and a Private Eye Star in a Bitter Hollywood Tale” by David M. Halbfinger and Allison Hope Weiner. This is yet another tale of everyone’s’ favorite rogue real-life Hollywood P.I., Anthony Pellicano.
So what was it doing on page one? And why did the story so studiously ignore and fail to explore far more newsworthy material on the same subject? Pellicano is, after all, the private eye whose tough guy tactics have directly threatened more reporters, from Vanity Fair to The Los Angeles Times, than any other in the past two decades. His work for The National Enquirer in the early 1990s brought him quickly to media attention as an intimidator of sources and competition as well.
He also had a long and close association with the Clinton White House beginning in the presidential campaign in 1992.
In an attempt to combat the “bimbo eruption” that occurred during the first Clinton campaign, Pellicano surfaced evidence that the Gennifer Flowers tapes of her long-term boyfriend Bill Clinton’s phone calls were doctored. Pellicano's evidence was subsequently demolished, but the damage to Flowers’s credibility was done.
Then, within four days of Matt Drudge’s 1998 revelations about Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton’s relationship, Pellicano found Andy Bleiler. Lewinsky’s former drama coach gave the world a blow by blow account of how Lewinsky had told him she wanted a job as a White House intern so she could earn her “presidential kneepads.”
In 2003 a man who had had also worked for both The National Enquirer and The Clinton White House, David Kendall, dismissed any connection between the Clintons and Pellicano as “politically motivated and demonstrably false.” But when Pellicano was directly asked by Newsweek if he was working for the Clintons, he had “no comment.”
Kendall is a charming man whose ability to parse words as White House counsel served the Clintons well during their darkest days while Bill was still struggling over the meaning of “is” and got himself convicted of perjury and disbarred. And of course a lot of the attempts at Pellicano-Clinton connections were, are, and will continue to be politically motivated.
Nevertheless “enquiring minds want to know”-- and with Hillary Clinton as the front-running Democratic Presidential candidate so should any decent newsperson. And yet in all the coverage of the Pellicano travails of the past four years not one Mainstream Media organization has bothered to look into any of this, from The New York Times to The Los Angeles Times.
Numerous unbiased accounts of the Clintons have repeatedly stressed the importance of Hillary’s role in having the good sense to understand the danger the “bimbo eruptions” represented to her blasé husband and to deal with them before they got out of hand. And there were a lot of strange occurrences surrounding the Paula Jones case, Kathleen Willey’s dead cat and the alleged Brodderick rape case. Did the current front-running Democratic Presidential contender Hillary Clinton hire or direct any or all of Anthony Pellicano’s activities in her particular known area of interest?
You have to totally lack journalistic curiosity or be brain dead to miss an opportunity like this. And those are the more attractive possibilities. After all, if reporters continue to dance around such an obvious matter with a Presidential election looming every time another Pellicano story comes up, one would think an editor somewhere would set them straight. So far none have. Do a Lexis search for all the Pellicano stories in MSM. Now do a Google search on Pellicano and Hillary Clinton. Try to match them. Sad, isn’t it?

'Blame-the-Jews' official endorses Gore
WND ^ 17 March 2006
Al Gore got an endorsement for a second presidential bid in 2008 – from a Virginia congressman who blamed the Iraq war on American Jews.
Questioned about the contest, Democratic Rep. Jim Moran said: "I'd like to see him get into the race."
"He won the popular vote in 2000, and I think he's even stronger and more committed," Moran said yesterday on C-SPAN's Washington Journal. "But you know, he's got his own life and it's his decision to make."
A spokesman for Gore had no immediate reaction to Moran's comments.

Dayton assails Feingold's call for censuring Bush
AP ^ March 16, 2006
Minnesota Sen. Mark Dayton Thursday strongly criticized fellow Democrat Russ Feingold's resolution to censure President Bush over domestic spying.
"It's an overreaching step by someone who is grandstanding and running for president at the expense of his own party and his own country," Dayton said of Feingold, a Wisconsin senator and potential 2008 presidential candidate.
"I think it's a very dangerous territory for the democracy that we have in this country to be playing around with those kinds of resolutions, without any consultations from his colleagues. I think it was irresponsible."
Dayton is a member of Feingold's own party from a neighboring state, and has himself been one of Bush's harshest critics.

Steak and ale soothe ailing soldiers
By Kathleen Parker
WASHINGTON - Americans have heard much about coffins returning from Iraq without media coverage; they've heard about military funerals unattended by the commander in chief; they've also heard endlessly about a certain military mother who lost a son in Iraq.
What they don't hear much about are the quiet events and private meetings that often take place in the Oval Office between President George W. Bush and military families. Or the Friday-night steak dinners local restaurateurs throw for wounded vets from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
I stumbled upon one of the dinners last Friday night as I was heading to meet a longtime e-mail buddy, Russ Clark of Columbus, Ohio, a Vietnam Marine vet and minister with Point Man International Ministries of Central Ohio. Clark works with other vets as they try to adjust to civilian life. Some are recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan; others are still trickling in from Vietnam.
War takes some time getting over, Clark will tell you.
The short story is that Clark and I missed each other, to our mutual regret. Instead, I happened upon a large dining room filled with about 125 people, including many wounded soldiers in wheelchairs or on crutches. I also noticed a couple of suits by the door wearing wires.
I introduced myself and asked who in the room required security. They weren't in the mood to say, apparently, but suggested that I'd probably be able to figure it out. In a room full of camouflage and amputees, it was easy to spot a man in a dark suit casually grasping a Corona neck. I wandered over to the group surrounding him and listened as Isaac Serna, a 21-year-old Humvee gunner, described how he had been wounded.
The man in business attire was Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy defense secretary and now head of the World Bank. Wolfowitz listened intently, asked a few questions, then joined Serna and others for a group photo. And so the evening went, with the former deputy quietly making the rounds - listening and shaking hands - and lingering for a while after the wounded were headed back to Walter Reed.
In fact, I learned, you can find Wolfowitz here most Friday nights - at least twice a month - meeting with the wounded and hearing their stories. No fanfare or fuss, which is why many outside of Washington don't know about it.
"Here" is Fran O'Brien's Stadium Steakhouse in the basement of the Capital Hilton Hotel a few blocks from the White House, where owners Hal Koster, a Vietnam vet, and Marty O'Brien began hosting free dinners for wounded troops a couple of years ago. Some may recognize the setting from the "Doonesbury" comic strip, which featured O'Brien's after creator Garry Trudeau attended one of the dinners.
To accidental tourists like me, the sight of so many wounded, including many amputees, gathered in an environment of celebration is initially jarring. You feel almost ashamed of your limbs, but are quickly disabused of that vanity by the generous spirits of the soldiers themselves. Serna efficiently rolled up his pants to reveal a badly swollen leg supported by splints, reporting happily that he would keep his leg.
Sgt. Edward Wade, who has been traveling between his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Walter Reed for the two years since his "alive day" - what wounded soldiers call the day they didn't die - was less fortunate. He lost his right arm when an IED exploded and suffered enough brain damage that he wasn't expected to live.
His spunky wife, Sarah, does most of the talking and has high praise for Wolfowitz. "Of all the people, Dr. Wolfowitz is the first who has met the faces of the people who were wounded in the war," she said. "... He's more the student now. He learns from us."
Wolfowitz has taken plenty of flak for his contributions to the Iraq war strategy, now considered to be "going badly" by a majority of Americans (57 percent, according to a recent CBS News poll). Even though those figures are mirrored by Americans in the military (58 percent), I did not feel inclined to disagree with Wolfowitz on this night in this room when he said to me, "The last thing these people want is for us to cut and run."
Whatever one may observe with 20/20 hindsight, any appraisal of Wolfowitz is incomplete without a visit to Fran O'Brien's on Friday nights. There you might also bump into the Wades and hear that on Feb. 14, they were celebrating the second anniversary of Edward's "alive day" when the telephone rang.
It was Dr. Wolfowitz.

Other Arabs Noting Iraq's March to Democracy, Abizaid Says
American Forces Press Service ^ Steven Donald Smith
WASHINGTON, March 15, 2006 – Arabs throughout the Middle East are taking note of Iraq's extraordinary march toward democracy, the commander of U.S. Central Command said here yesterday. "It's interesting when I go around the rest of the Arab world; everybody wants to talk about Iraqi politics," Army Gen. John Abizaid told a congressional subcommittee on military and veterans affairs. "That's interesting because they can talk about Iraqi politics, but can't necessarily talk about politics in their own countries."
Abizaid said he believes the Iraqi people are confident they will be better off in the future than they were under Saddam Hussein. And the fact that Iraqis now have the freedom to debate their country's future is a historic event that is "unprecedented in that part of the world," he said. The general added that this fact does not play well in a world of 24-hour news programming, but will "play well in the great scope of history."
He also said there are fewer insurgent attacks against coalition and Iraqi forces today than there were in mid-2005, partly because fewer foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border. As Iraqi security forces continue to grow and improve, this trend will continue, he added.
The general said he is more concerned about the growth in sectarian strife than about the insurgency. "My concern is not the growth of the insurgence. My concern is the growth in sectarian tensions and violence," he said. "The next big hurdle for Iraq is to form a national unity government."

News for March 15, 2006

2006-03-15T16:49:00.000-08:00

Some Highlights:
Truman, FDR, Carter and Clinton: unapproved wiretaps: DURING PEACETIME!
Wolfowitz meets weekly with wounded soldiers
Feingold Blames Stalled Censure Motion on 'Cowering' Democrats
Newspapers come in third…after Internet
Gannett Reports Soft February Results
Myths of Iraq
Authorities foil an al-Qaida attack on heavily guarded Green Zone
Survey Refutes Criticism Of Medicare Drug Plan
Hillary’s hegemony helps GOP
Sex Scandal Hits CBS TV News In New York
NYTimes shows its bias…again

Your media at work:
"Preliminary results of an autopsy Sunday showed former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart, an official of the UN war crimes tribunal said."--Associated Press, March 12

He'd Rather Not Answer
A hilarious story from columnist Jim Walsh in the Courier Post of Cherry Hill, N.J.:
Here's the scene: Former CBS anchorman Dan Rather is in Cherry Hill, giving a speech about the need for journalists to do better.
"What's gone out of fashion is the tough question and the follow-up," he tells an admiring audience of about 600 people at Cherry Hill's Star Forum.
When he finishes, I hurry to a floor mike to ask Rather about an issue that will be part of my story.
"Mr. Rather," I say. "Great suggestions. But you left the anchor desk last year after your report questioning President Bush's military service was discredited. Key memos could not be authenticated. Do you think the failure to ask questions then affects your credibility now?"
Rather responds with civility--if not clarity. He notes, in part, that an independent review "couldn't determine whether the documents were authentic or not."
Eager to please, I follow up: "The Courier-Post won't run something if we're not sure it's authentic. Are you saying it's OK . . ."
But my microphone goes dead--and the audience stirs to life.

NYTimes shows its bias
The New York Times published a page 1 story on Abu Ghraib on the same day that it published a story on page 8 about the murder of a hostage, who, as the Times reported the next day on page 10, was apparently tortured before being slain. Today the Times reports its Abu Ghraib story may have been fake:
The online magazine Salon is challenging the identity of a man profiled by The New York Times in a front-page article on Saturday who says he is the iconic hooded figure in a published photograph who was abused by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004.
Salon bases its challenge on an examination of a set of 280 Abu Ghraib photographs it has been studying for several weeks and an interview with an official of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, known as the C.I.D., who says the man identified by The Times is not the detainee in the photograph.
On Monday, Chris Grey, chief spokesman for the investigations unit, asked about the challenge, confirmed to The Times in an e-mail message: "We have had several detainees claim they were the person depicted in the photograph in question. Our investigation indicates that the person you have is not the detainee who was depicted in the photograph released in connection with the Abu Ghraib investigation.
The story raising doubts about the page 1 story appeared on page 17.

FCC: CBS Facing $3.6 Million Fine
Mar 15 4:19 PM US/Eastern
By JENNIFER C. KERR
Associated Press Writer
The government proposed a fine of $3.6 million against CBS and dozens of its stations and affiliates Wednesday in a crackdown on what regulators called indecent television programming.
The Federal Communications Commission said a network program, "Without a Trace," that aired in December 2004 was indecent. It cited the graphic depiction of "teenage boys and girls participating in a sexual orgy."

Giving in to the Internet
By Carl Golden
Buyouts and layoffs are hovering over newsroom staffs as papers struggle to maintain financial equilibrium.
Just as television converted readers into viewers and drove afternoon papers into extinction, the computer - the machine I'm sitting in front of - is inflicting similar punishment on morning newspapers.
I grew up in the newspaper business, starting as a copyboy at 17 - four days out of high school - and graduating to reporter at 18 before leaving the business at 29 to seek a better income for my young family.
My newspaper habit, though, did not abandon me. I felt nothing was as satisfying as sitting at the breakfast table on a Sunday morning, a mug of fresh coffee in one hand and a stack of six newspapers at my elbow.
Once, when I was registering at a hotel in Washington, the clerk informed me I could choose a morning newspaper for delivery to my room - the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or USA Today.
"Could I get one of each?" I asked.
But I, too, have joined the growing numbers who have substituted a keyboard and monitor for paper and print.
The click of a mouse takes me to the Internet, where I can absorb news highlights from virtually every paper in the country. The rustle of turning pages has been replaced by the swish of a mouse on a foam pad.
I once read newspapers; now I navigate them.
I once perused the front page; now I stare at the home page.
I once scanned headlines; now I look for icons.
It is, obviously, my choice to do this, just as it was the choice of the millions heading home from work at the end of the day to bypass the newsstand for the television stand.
Just as television destroyed afternoon papers, I fear, the trend toward the Internet that is undermining morning papers is irreversible.

Sex Scandal Hits CBS TV News In New York
NYC papers.
The latest from TV network news in New York… Gorgeous CBS newsie caught kneeling naked near Nexus machine. TV news loves to be the arbiter of public morals, so thought I would bring you up to date on the latest from West 57th Street.
Background:
Assignment Editors are the powers-behind-the-throne in TV news. They are not the show producers who make the final decision as to what makes it on the air, but AEs decide what gets covered. They are usually tall, thin geeky guys, who score about twice a year, but that doesn’t count at network. If a story doesn’t get covered with reporter and camera crew, it’s not going on the news, so Assignment Editors are all powerful.
In addition, AEs decide which reporter covers what story. A favorite reporter gets the good stories and her career can skyrocket. A less-than-favorite reporter covers the closing prices on the Omaha Livestock Exchange…. and her career falls faster than now-brown grain that went into the cow four hours ago.
Current Situation:
A certain reporter, who has had a career that’s rapid rise was not matched by her reporting talent, was getting all the good assignments. Seems that in order to get this rapid rise, she was creating a rapid rise in a certain body parts of a male overnight assignment editor.
About 3:00 AM the other morning, they were “communicating” in the office of a very senior executive who they thought was out of town. They must have been communicating about religious matters, because our glorious female reporter had assumed a position often seen only in church.
Unfortunately, the senior executive was in town and stopped by his office after closing a few bars in Manhattan. He saw it all, and so did most other overnight staffers. Seems the door was wide open for about 30 seconds and the uproar caused the other staffers to come running to the executive wing to see what all the commotion was…. and running to the phones immediately thereafter…. and you know what happened from there.
Enter the Cuckolded Wife:
She wants a divorce, big money from the errant hubby and the Gorgeous Reporter, even from the network that created the “pervasive atmosphere.” Seems she is willing to go on Oprah if her demands are not met.
In addition, other CBS executives, who had been responsible for Gorgeous Reporter’s meteoric rise, were horrified that she had been doing the dance with no steps with a lowly pencil-geek assignment editor!
Other newsroom wives (and husbands) are now making late night stops to the workplace at all three networks.
And once-famous, now disgraced Network News Anchor is being remembered more for the women he did than the stories he did.
Newsrooms are not “Happy Places.”
The medium that once broadcast Peyton Place has become a very public pubic place… and once all-too-Holy TV News has been taken down another notch.

Hillary’s hegemony helps GOP
The Hill ^ 3/15/06 Mark Mellman
Democrats will spend much of this midterm election year “finding their voice,” as liberal Democratic activists are fond of saying.
As I argued in this space last week, the possibility that some über-liberals might suddenly rise up and scare America with their rhetoric is a major reason that Democrats seem poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But it’s not the only reason.
Hillary Clinton’s imperious control over her party’s presidential politics will also become a stumbling block to the Democrats’ prospects for recapturing control of either house of Congress this November.
The 2008 contest for the Democratic nomination for president is already over, according to activists and even some news organizations. Just last week, ABC News released polling that implied Hillary’s the only one.
Ms. Clinton’s glittering favorable ratings among Democrats, even liberal ones, make it altogether a slam-dunk. Eighty percent of all Democrats and 86 percent of liberal Democrats hold favorable impressions of Her Highness.
Evidently no other Democratic candidates are even worthy of polling in light of numbers like those. Of course, ABC tested John McCain alone on the GOP side, but they know the GOP contest is just beginning. ABC just used McCain for balance to Hillary.
So what does Hillary’s 2008 hegemony have to do with 2006? In a nutshell, Hillary’s tight control of the primary field deprives this year’s Democratic congressional candidates of the energy and money that would result from a large field of prospective 2008 Democrats. And Ms. Clinton’s back-in-the-day persona leaves Democrats without a genuine newcomer or fresh face to meet the challenge evident from polls showing that large percentages of the electorate see the nation on the wrong track.
In times like these, voters want to turn to a new generation of leadership, something that voters won’t believe a Clinton or a Bush can provide. If this weren’t true, popular Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would be a GOP front-runner for 2008.

Canada free press
Feingold Too Trigger-Happy Even for other Left-Wing Propagandists!
by J.B. Williams
Like New York Senator Hillary Clinton, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold has been busy the last few years trying to establish a more moderate public image, sometimes distancing himself from the far left extreme base in control of today’s Democratic Party, often working with folks across the aisle like Arizona Senator John McCain, who have already established themselves as world class RINOs, (Republican In Name Only).
As the 2006 mid-term elections draw near, and Feingold begins to set his sights on a Presidential run in 2008, he must find a way to re-connect with that left-wing base if he hopes to have even a snowball’s chance in a Presidential bid. It would also help better align him as a potential VP choice in a Hillary bid for the White House.
But the eager beaver from Wisconsin may have stepped too far out on the political rhetoric limb in his recent senate proposal to censure President Bush for his alleged illegal wiretap program operated by the NSA. It’s no surprise his proposal is drawing fire from both conservatives and moderates across the aisle. But even power-starved left-wingers in his own camp are running from this proposal, smart enough to realize that most Americans (even a few liberals) know the difference between illegally wiretapping innocent Americans and normal intelligence operations aimed at tracking and capturing terrorists and would be bombers currently enjoying American freedoms and liberties.
Asked at a news conference whether he would vote for the censure resolution, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada declined to endorse it. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said he had not read it either and wasn't inclined simply to scold the president. "I'd prefer to see us solve the problem," Lieberman told reporters. What a concept, solving a potential problem versus exploiting every problem, even where no problem exists…
Feingold's resolution drew empathy but no outright support from Democratic Leaders like Nancy Pelosi across the hall either.
The censure resolution reads: "Resolved that the United States Senate does hereby censure George W. Bush, president of the United States, and does condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required."
The most disturbing part of this nonsense is the notion that would-be terrorists currently plotting and planning the next 9/11 from the comfort of a US residence, would qualify as "innocent Americans", or Americans of any sort for that matter. A great example of just how delusional and perverted the progressive logic really is…not to mention dangerous.
Throwing down the gauntlet, VP Dick Cheney said, "The outrageous proposition that we ought to protect our enemies' ability to communicate as it plots against America poses a key test of our Democratic leaders." "Do they support the extreme and counterproductive antics of a few or do they support a lawful program vital to the security of this nation?" he added…noting, "The American people already made their decision, they agree with the president."

Olbermann: He's home on deranged
By Lloyd Grove
NYDaily News
The latest odd behavior by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was a rant on his 'Countdown' show prompted by a Lowdown item citing his recent C-SPAN interview.
Keith Olbermann should try the insanity defense.That might explain — though hardly excuse — the MSNBC anchor's nutty response to a small item in Monday's column regarding his comments during a C-SPAN interview.
Olbermann was quoted accurately on the subject of his corporate bosses at GE and NBC — that "they do not like to see the current presidential administration criticized at all." And that MSNBC President Rick Kaplan — who spanked him last August for his repulsive account of spitting blood into a garbage can — "is a very emotional, very high-strung, gigantic man, also a very squeamish man."
As a service to readers, I omitted Olbermann's syrupy, soporific attempts at sucking up to his superiors — which he insists on calling "context."
So what did Krazy Keith do?
He used his third-place "Countdown" show — which has one-sixth the audience of Fox News' Bill O'Reilly — to slime my assistant, Katherine Thomson, as the "Worst Person in the World." Viewers must have been scratching their heads as Krazy Keith made creepy insinuations about my twentysomething associate's long and rewarding service at MSNBC before I hired her away.
"The conflict of interest is as bad as anything I've seen in journalism," Olbermann claimed, weirdly, adding that "when she left, nobody cried." Not that any of his colleagues were sobbing when he left his last half a dozen jobs in broadcasting, including an earlier MSNBC stint when producers reportedly had to pry him from a fetal position under his desk to get him to go on the air.
I'm not a clinician, so I won't pretend to understand Krazy Keith's behavior, including sometimes locking himself in his Secaucus, N.J., office and speaking to staffers only if they've put a written request in his mailbox. "He's a sad and pathetic figure," one of his former bosses mused yesterday. But my sympathy is limited.
Hey, Krazy Keith, why don't you pick on somebody your own size?

Terrorist Leader captured - Wanted for Assassinations, Murders and Intimidation
MNF --Iraq Press Release ^ March 09, 2006
BAGHDAD , Iraq – Coalition and Iraqi forces captured a leading insurgent terrorist Dec. 27, and he is believed to be responsible for many Iraqi and Coalition Forces' deaths, assassinations as well as assassination attempts on government officials and intimidation of Iraqi citizens. Ramsi Ahmed Ismael Muhammed, aka Abu Qatada, was apprehended in a raid on his home in southern Baghdad . He was found hiding in a nearby canal.
Since his capture, Abu Qatada has provided critical information that has led to the capture of several of his terrorist associates. Coalition Forces believe additional information from Abu Qatada will lead to the eventual capture of terror cell leaders.
Coalition and Iraqi forces view Abu Qatada's capture as significant not only because of the leadership role he played in the IFLI, but because of his ties to one of the most wanted men in Iraq, Muhammed Hilah Hammad Ubaydi, aka Abu Ayman. Abu Qatada is believed to be a top associate of Abu Ayman, the former aide to the Chief of Staff of Intelligence during the Saddam Hussein regime.

Survey Refutes Criticism Of Medicare Drug Plan
Washington Post By Bill Brubaker March 13, 2006
A majority of senior citizens in a recent poll say they had no trouble using -- or signing up for -- the controversial 10-week-old Medicare prescription drug plan, health insurance officials said today.
The survey of more than 800 seniors differs from assertions by politicians and health and senior citizen advocacy groups that many Medicare enrollees have had difficulty choosing a drug plan from among the dozens that are being offered.
"The data are very encouraging," Karen Ignagni, chief executive of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the trade group that commissioned the survey, said at an afternoon briefing in Washington. " . . . What seniors are saying is this program is working for them. It's making a difference." ...
The voluntary drug plan, conceived by the Bush administration and approved by Congress in 2003, offers Medicare enrollees a prescription drug benefit for the first time. The drug plans are directed by the government's Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which, in turn, contracts with private insurers -- AHIP members such as UnitedHealth Group -- to provide the benefits. ...
The AHIP survey -- taken from March 6-11 -- shows that eight out of 10 seniors who enrolled themselves in the drug plan experienced no problems using the new benefit.

But: Pelosi attacked Republicans for writing a prescription drug bill that has seniors "paying higher prices on drugs at the pharmacy.” (Wash Post

John Kerry's Millions -- How?
Boston Magazine 3/15/06
March 2006 issue, page 117, "The 50 Wealthiest Bostonians" ..
"John Kerry may be America's wealthiest senator, with an estimated personal fortune of at least $ 164,000,000..." (Maria Theresa herself is worth between $ 750 million and $1 billion +).
Can anyone tell me how someone born with no money, who got a BCD from the Navy, and who has never held a job outside of government could have made over $ 160 million?

Authorities foil an al-Qaida attack on heavily guarded Green Zone
WTNH.com (via Jihadwatch.com) ^ 3/15/2006 Staff
The interior minister said Tuesday authorities had foiled an al-Qaida plot that would have put hundreds of its men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies as well as the Iraqi government.
A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, in an interview with The Associated Press, said the 421 al-Qaida recruits were one bureaucrat's signature away from acceptance into an Iraqi army battalion whose job is to control the gates and main squares in the Green Zone. The plot was discovered three weeks ago.
"You can imagine what could happen to a minister or an ambassador while passing through these gates when those terrorists are there," Jabr said in the interview conducted at his office inside the Green Zone -- a 2-square-mile hunk of prime real estate on the west bank of the Tigris River. The area is a maze of concrete blast walls, concertina wire and checkpoints.
The Defense Ministry official said the plot was uncovered by the military intelligence and the General Intelligence department that works under the government.

Myths of Iraq
By Ralph Peters
During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.
No one with first-hand experience of Iraq would claim the country's in rosy condition, but the situation on the ground is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe. Lurid exaggerations and instant myths obscure real, if difficult, progress.
I left Baghdad more optimistic than I was before this visit. While cynicism, political bias and the pressure of a 24/7 news cycle accelerate a race to the bottom in reporting, there are good reasons to be soberly hopeful about Iraq's future.
Much could still go wrong. The Arab genius for failure could still spoil everything. We've made grave mistakes. Still, it's difficult to understand how any first-hand observer could declare that Iraq's been irrevocably "lost."
Consider just a few of the inaccuracies served up by the media:
Claims of civil war. In the wake of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, a flurry of sectarian attacks inspired wild media claims of a collapse into civil war. It didn't happen. Driving and walking the streets of Baghdad, I found children playing and, in most neighborhoods, business as usual. Iraq can be deadly, but, more often, it's just dreary.
Iraqi disunity. Factional differences are real, but overblown in the reporting. Few Iraqis support calls for religious violence. After the Samarra bombing, only rogue militias and criminals responded to the demagogues' calls for vengeance. Iraqis refused to play along, staging an unrecognized triumph of passive resistance.
Expanding terrorism. On the contrary, foreign terrorists, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have lost ground. They've alienated Iraqis of every stripe. Iraqis regard the foreigners as murderers, wreckers and blasphemers, and they want them gone. The Samarra attack may, indeed, have been a tipping point--against the terrorists.
Hatred of the U.S. military. If anything surprised me in the streets of Baghdad, it was the surge in the popularity of U.S. troops among both Shias and Sunnis. In one slum, amid friendly adult waves, children and teenagers cheered a U.S. Army patrol as we passed. Instead of being viewed as occupiers, we're increasingly seen as impartial and well-intentioned.
The appeal of the religious militias. They're viewed as mafias. Iraqis want them disarmed and disbanded. Just ask the average citizen.
The failure of the Iraqi army. Instead, the past month saw a major milestone in the maturation of Iraq's military. During the mini-crisis that followed the Samarra bombing, the Iraqi army put over 100,000 soldiers into the country's streets. They defused budding confrontations and calmed the situation without killing a single civilian. And Iraqis were proud to have their own army protecting them. The Iraqi army's morale soared as a result of its success.
Reconstruction efforts have failed. Just not true. The American goal was never to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure in its entirety. Iraqis have to do that. Meanwhile, slum-dwellers utterly neglected by Saddam Hussein's regime are getting running water and sewage systems for the first time. The Baathist regime left the country in a desolate state while Saddam built palaces. The squalor has to be seen to be believed. But the hopeless now have hope.
The electricity system is worse than before the war. Untrue again. The condition of the electric grid under the old regime was appalling. Yet, despite insurgent attacks, the newly revamped system produced 5,300 megawatts last summer--a full thousand megawatts more than the peak under Saddam Hussein. Shortages continue because demand soared--newly free Iraqis went on a buying spree, filling their homes with air conditioners, appliances and the new national symbol, the satellite dish. Nonetheless, satellite photos taken during the hours of darkness show Baghdad as bright as Damascus.
Plenty of serious problems remain in Iraq, from bloodthirsty terrorism to the unreliability of the police. Iran and Syria indulge in deadly mischief. The infrastructure lags generations behind the country's needs. Corruption is widespread. Tribal culture is pernicious. Women’s rights are threatened. And there's no shortage of trouble-making demagogues.
Nonetheless, the real story of the civil-war-that-wasn't is one of the dog that didn't bark. Iraqis resisted the summons to retributive violence. Mundane life prevailed. After a day and a half of squabbling, the political factions returned to the negotiating table. Iraqis increasingly take responsibility for their own security, easing the burden on U.S. forces. And the people of Iraq want peace, not a reign of terror.
But the foreign media have become a destructive factor, extrapolating daily crises from minor incidents. Part of this is ignorance. Some of it is willful. None of it is helpful.
Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of 20 books.

Gannett Reports Soft February Results
By E&P Staff
NEW YORK Gannett reported today that pro forma newspaper advertising revenue slipped 2.8% in February compared to the same period last year. Run of press (ROP) and preprint volume declined 3.4% and 2.7% respectively.
Local advertising revenue decreased 3.3% on a 3.4% decline in ROP ad volume. The company’s small and medium-sized advertisers outpaced the performance of its largest advertisers.
Classified advertising revenue dropped 2.4% on a 3.1% decline in ROP volume. Within the classified category, real estate grew 12.9%. Employment was down 4.8% and automotive dropped 18.8%. Overall the company’s domestic classified results were significantly better than its UK results. In the U.S., classified revenue grew 3.6%. Real estate was up 22.4%. Employment increased 6.6%. Auto declined 16.6%.
National advertising revenue dropped 2.6% on a 7.3% decrease in ad volume. At USA Today, advertising revenues decreased 1.3% on a 3.9% decline in paid ad pages to 348 from 362.

While TV is First For News, Internet second, Newspapers Are Third
by Jack Loechner, Wednesday, Mar 15, 2006 3:00 AM EST
The results of a nationwide poll in January, by Harris Interactive, show that seven in 10 u.s. adults watch broadcast news at least several times a week and two in five adults say they listen to satellite radio programming or read a national newspaper as often.
While broadcast television news appears to be the most popular medium sought, continues the report, 64% of adults also get their news several times a week or daily by going online to get news, 63% reading a local daily newspaper, 54% listening to radio news broadcasts, 37% listening to talk radio stations, 19% listening to satellite news programming, and 18% reading a national newspaper.
Those 59 years of age and older are most likely to rely on more traditional media outlets for information, with at least eight in 10 saying they watch local broadcast news (88%), watch network broadcast or cable news (88%), or read a local daily newspaper (80%) several times a week or daily.

Feingold Blames Stalled Censure Motion on 'Cowering' Democrats
WASHINGTON — Sen. Russell Feingold on Tuesday blamed fellow Democrats for inaction on his stalled resolution to censure President Bush for his authorizing the National Security Agency's electronic terrorist surveillance program.
"I'm amazed at Democrats ... cowering with this president's numbers so low," said Feingold, D-Wis. "The administration ... just has to raise the specter of the War on Terror, and Democrats run and hide."
Feingold's resolution, introduced Monday, accuses Bush of violating the Constitution and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has failed to garner any co-sponsors.
A likely contender for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Feingold called the Bush administration "incompetent, dishonest," and said they were "rather sanctimonious."
He also said that Democrats should not be outwitted by Republicans on the legality of the wiretap program. Asked it the program is illegal, Feingold said the Bush administration "can do what they are doing now, they just need to go to FISA."
Democrats shouldn't "cower to the argument that whatever you do, if you question this administration, you are helping the terrorists," Feingold said.
On Tuesday, Democrats on Capitol Hill avoided questions about the resolution.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters he would not comment on the issue while the Democratic leadership mulls the issue. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said, "Feingold has a point that he wants to make by introducing that resolution."
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said the resolution "raises some very important issues," but she refused to discuss what they were.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has declined to endorse the resolution and said he hadn't read it.
Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who requested an immediate vote on the matter on Monday before Democrats were able to postpone it, said Tuesday that he wants to move forward with a vote or move on to other pending issues.
"If the Democrats continue to say 'no' to voting on their own censure resolution, then they ought to drop it and focus on our foreign policy in a positive way: supporting our troops in a year of transition in Iraq, confronting Iran's runaway regime and supporting positive change on the U.N. Human Rights Commission this week," Frist said in a statement. "Delay and distraction are a disservice to the American people."
On Monday, lacking in support by Democrats, Feingold was unable to get a floor vote, instead sending the language to the Senate Judiciary Committee for review.
Vice President Dick Cheney responded to the Senate fight on Monday and told a Republican audience in Feingold's home state that "some Democrats in Congress have decided the president is the enemy."

Steak and ale soothe ailing soldiers
By Kathleen Parker
WASHINGTON - Americans have heard much about coffins returning from Iraq without media coverage; they've heard about military funerals unattended by the commander in chief; they've also heard endlessly about a certain military mother who lost a son in Iraq.
What they don't hear much about are the quiet events and private meetings that often take place in the Oval Office between President George W. Bush and military families. Or the Friday-night steak dinners local restaurateurs throw for wounded vets from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
I stumbled upon one of the dinners last Friday night as I was heading to meet a longtime e-mail buddy, Russ Clark of Columbus, Ohio, a Vietnam Marine vet and minister with Point Man International Ministries of Central Ohio. Clark works with other vets as they try to adjust to civilian life. Some are recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan; others are still trickling in from Vietnam.
War takes some time getting over, Clark will tell you.
The short story is that Clark and I missed each other, to our mutual regret. Instead, I happened upon a large dining room filled with about 125 people, including many wounded soldiers in wheelchairs or on crutches. I also noticed a couple of suits by the door wearing wires.
I introduced myself and asked who in the room required security. They weren't in the mood to say, apparently, but suggested that I'd probably be able to figure it out. In a room full of camouflage and amputees, it was easy to spot a man in a dark suit casually grasping a Corona neck. I wandered over to the group surrounding him and listened as Isaac Serna, a 21-year-old Humvee gunner, described how he had been wounded.
The man in business attire was Dr. Paul Wolfowitz, former deputy defense secretary and now head of the World Bank. Wolfowitz listened intently, asked a few questions, then joined Serna and others for a group photo. And so the evening went, with the former deputy quietly making the rounds - listening and shaking hands - and lingering for a while after the wounded were headed back to Walter Reed.
In fact, I learned, you can find Wolfowitz here most Friday nights - at least twice a month - meeting with the wounded and hearing their stories. No fanfare or fuss, which is why many outside of Washington don't know about it.
"Here" is Fran O'Brien's Stadium Steakhouse in the basement of the Capital Hilton Hotel a few blocks from the White House, where owners Hal Koster, a Vietnam vet, and Marty O'Brien began hosting free dinners for wounded troops a couple of years ago. Some may recognize the setting from the "Doonesbury" comic strip, which featured O'Brien's after creator Garry Trudeau attended one of the dinners.
To accidental tourists like me, the sight of so many wounded, including many amputees, gathered in an environment of celebration is initially jarring. You feel almost ashamed of your limbs, but are quickly disabused of that vanity by the generous spirits of the soldiers themselves. Serna efficiently rolled up his pants to reveal a badly swollen leg supported by splints, reporting happily that he would keep his leg.
Sgt. Edward Wade, who has been traveling between his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Walter Reed for the two years since his "alive day" - what wounded soldiers call the day they didn't die - was less fortunate. He lost his right arm when an IED exploded and suffered enough brain damage that he wasn't expected to live.
His spunky wife, Sarah, does most of the talking and has high praise for Wolfowitz. "Of all the people, Dr. Wolfowitz is the first who has met the faces of the people who were wounded in the war," she said. "... He's more the student now. He learns from us."
Wolfowitz has taken plenty of flak for his contributions to the Iraq war strategy, now considered to be "going badly" by a majority of Americans (57 percent, according to a recent CBS News poll). Even though those figures are mirrored by Americans in the military (58 percent), I did not feel inclined to disagree with Wolfowitz on this night in this room when he said to me, "The last thing these people want is for us to cut and run."
Whatever one may observe with 20/20 hindsight, any appraisal of Wolfowitz is incomplete without a visit to Fran O'Brien's on Friday nights. There you might also bump into the Wades and hear that on Feb. 14, they were celebrating the second anniversary of Edward's "alive day" when the telephone rang.
It was Dr. Wolfowitz.

Truman, FDR, Carter and Clinton: unapproved wiretaps: DURING PEACETIME! By Terence Jeffrey
Unlike Sen. Russell Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat seeking to censure President Bush for ordering the interception of communications in and out of the United States involving persons with suspected links to al-Qaeda, Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt had no qualms about warrantless eavesdropping to protect the United States against attack.
Neither did Harry Truman.
There is a difference, however, between the eavesdropping Roosevelt and Truman authorized and the eavesdropping Bush is doing. Roosevelt and Truman did it in peacetime without congressional authorization. Bush is doing it during a war that Feingold voted on Sept. 14, 2001, to authorize.
Nonetheless, Roosevelt and Truman acted within their constitutional authority to defend the nation against attack. They were doing their duty, as is President Bush.
But in the Senate on Monday, while introducing his censure resolution, Feingold said, "The president's claims of inherent executive authority, and his assertions that the courts have approved this type of activity, are baseless."
FDR could not have agreed. On May 21, 1940, the United States was at peace, but Roosevelt wasn't taking chances. "It is too late to do anything about it after sabotage, assassination and 'fifth column' activities are completed," Roosevelt wrote Attorney General Robert Jackson in a memorandum cited by Senate Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts in a letter he sent last month to Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter. "You are, therefore, authorized and directed in such cases as you may approve, after investigation of the need in each case, to authorize the necessary investigation agents that they are at liberty to secure information by listening devices directed to the conversation or other communications of persons suspected of subversive activities against the government of the United States, including suspected spies. You are requested furthermore to limit these investigations so conducted to a minimum and to limit them insofar as possible to aliens." (Emphasis added.)
Truman went further. Testifying before the Church Committee on Oct. 29, 1975, Attorney General Edward Levi quoted a letter that Attorney General Tom Clark sent Truman in 1946. Clark wanted to continue FDR's program. Warrantless eavesdropping, he argued, was needed "in cases vitally affecting the domestic security, or where human life is in jeopardy."
In his letter to Specter, Roberts notes that "Truman broadened the scope of the authorization by removing the caveat that such surveillance should be limited 'insofar as possible to aliens.'"
Federal appeals courts have upheld the authority Roosevelt and Truman used. "(B)ecause of the president's constitutional duty to act for the United States in the field of foreign relations, and his inherent power to protect national security in the context of foreign affairs, we reaffirm ... that the president may constitutionally authorize warrantless wiretaps for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in the 1973 case of United States v. Brown.
Even after President Carter signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which required warrants for domestic intelligence wiretaps, Carter's Justice Department went into federal court to defend warrantless wiretapping for national security reasons.
Truong Dinh Hung, a Vietnamese national living in the United States, and Ronald Humphrey, a U.S. citizen who worked for the U.S. Information Agency, had appealed their espionage convictions, which resulted from Humphrey passing classified documents to Truong, who sent them to Vietnamese officials in Paris in 1977.
"Truong's phone was tapped and his apartment was bugged from May 1977 to January 1978," explained the Fourth Circuit's 1980 opinion in United States v. Truong. "The telephone interception continued for 268 days, and every conversation, with possibly one exception, was monitored and virtually all were taped. The eavesdropping device was operative for approximately 255 days, and it ran continuously. No court authorization was ever sought or obtained for the installation and maintenance of the telephone tap or the bug. The government thus ascertained that Humphrey was providing Truong with the copies of secret documents."
Lo and behold, Carter's Justice Department claimed Carter had a "constitutional prerogative" to conduct this warrantless wiretap. "In the area of foreign intelligence, the government contends, the president may authorize surveillance without seeking a judicial warrant because of his constitutional prerogatives in the area of foreign affairs," the court explained.
The judges agreed. "First of all, attempts to counter foreign threats to the national security require the utmost stealth, speed and secrecy," they said. "A warrant requirement would add a procedural hurdle that would reduce the flexibility of executive foreign intelligence initiatives, in some cases delay executive response to foreign intelligence threats and increase the chance of leaks regarding sensitive executive operations."
Does Bush have the same "constitutional prerogatives" in an authorized war that Carter had in peace? Feingold claims not, demanding censure of the president -- which ought to earn Feingold the censure of enlightened opinion.

News for March14, 2006

2006-03-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

Highlights:
Hijackers called Saudi Arabia/Syria before 9/11
Poll: NYers think Hil will run for prez; won't back her (AP)
70% say Dems have no plan for Iraq
Finding answers to Iraq’s WMD (Boston Globe, owned by NYTimes)
Communist Goals (1963) from the Congressional Record: The liberals have achieved most of them.
Dubai Results: Dollar falls, Arab banks move assets, Businesses/employees to suffer
Texas Law Linked to Drop in Abortions, Rise in Birth Rates Among Teens (Reuters)
Liberals Call for Billions in Defense Cuts (strong on defense?)
Judge tosses DeLay case subpoenas
U.S. Casualties in Iraq Continue to Drop Sharply
The Poor Get Richer
Reid Donor Broke Campaign Finance Laws
Some Sunni Arabs turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq (ap)
Al-Qaeda rebels are losing (London Daily Telegraph)

Roe v Wade for Men
By James Taranto
"Contending that women have more options than they do in the event of an unintended pregnancy, men's rights activists are mounting a long shot legal campaign aimed at giving them the chance to opt out of financial responsibility for raising a child," the Associated Press reports from New York:
The National Center for Men has prepared a lawsuit--nicknamed Roe v. Wade for Men--to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Michigan on behalf of a 25-year-old computer programmer ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend's daughter.
The suit addresses the issue of male reproductive rights, contending that lack of such rights violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
The gist of the argument: If a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood. The activists involved hope to spark discussion even if they lose.
These guys do have a point: The law regarding "reproductive rights" is so skewed toward the distaff that the Supreme Court has even held a woman has the constitutional right to abort her husband's child without so much as telling him.

Hijackers called Saudi Arabia/Syria before 9/11
By James Taranto
"The Sept. 11 hijackers made dozens of telephone calls to Saudi Arabia and Syria in the months before the attacks, according to a classified report from the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel," the Chicago Tribune reports:
According to the report, 206 international telephone calls were known to have been made by the leaders of the hijacking plot after they arrived in the United States--including 29 to Germany, 32 to Saudi Arabia and 66 to Syria.
These are calls between al Qaeda terrorists and their associates, in which one side of the call is in the U.S. and the other is in another country--that is, just the kind of call the National Security Agency listened to under the terrorist surveillance program. Had such a program existed in 2001, it might have prevented 9/11--but if some journalists and Democrats are scandalized now, imagine how they would have howled in outrage if 9/11 hadn't happened.

17-year-old with words of wisdom
Bradley Lehman of Hockessin, Del., weighs in with a letter to the editor of Wilmington's News Journal:
Because I am 17 years old, some people might say that I am not mature enough to understand many issues. However, let me just say that I get more laughs reading the opinion page than I ever have from the comics.
Delawareans seem to be fixated on bashing President Bush and proposing new conspiracy theories whenever they seem convenient.
President Bush did not cause Hurricane Katrina or the complications afterwards. New Orleans was built below sea level so they should have seen it coming and made preparations themselves.
If Dick Cheney shoots someone by accident on his own time, it is none of your business and neither he nor the president has any obligation to tell you about it.
Finally, it seems unreasonable to me that Bush was able to graduate from Yale University, be elected governor of Texas, and earn the respect and confidence of enough of his peers in the Republican Party to be nominated as their presidential candidate if he is indeed as dim-witted as you say.
I am willing to wager that the majority of Delawareans who get their information from this sorry excuse for a newspaper have barely enough brainpower to govern their own lives, let alone governing a nation of almost 300 million.

Poll: NYers think Hil will run for prez; won't back her
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALBANY, N.Y. — Six in 10 New York voters believe Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is planning to run for president in 2008, but only about a third of her home-state voters say they would back her if she did so, a statewide poll reported Thursday.
Almost half of New York voters, including three of every 10 Democrats, said they would not vote for her for president, according to the poll from Siena College's Research Institute.
The Siena findings mirror those reported by Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion in a January poll that found 59 percent of New York voters said they expect Clinton to run for president, but 62 percent said it was unlikely she could win.
Joseph Caruso, Siena's polling director, did note the former first lady's favorable rating in New York had slipped to 55 percent, down from 60 percent in January.

70% say Dems have no plan for Iraq
Byron York
How many times have you heard Democrats describe George W. Bush as “arrogant”?
Too many to count. And truth be told, a number of unhappy Republicans are using the A-word themselves when referring to the president these days.
But if you want to see arrogance — lots and lots of it — you need look no further than the Democratic Party’s plan to win the House and Senate this November.
Simply put, Democrats believe they can ask voters to give them control of the legislative branch without revealing any sort of policy or plan to deal with the most pressing issue before the country today: the war in Iraq.
And Bush is arrogant?
Not only do Democrats not have a plan, they’re proud of not having a plan.
Last December, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sat down with a group of reporters and editors of The Washington Post. The journalists asked what Democrats would do about Iraq were they to win power in 2006.
“Pelosi said Democrats will produce an issue agenda for the 2006 elections but it will not include a position on Iraq,” the Post reported. “There is no one Democratic voice ... and there is no one Democratic position,” Pelosi said.”
It was dramatic proof of the party’s disarray on the war, but the Post gave the story the most charitable headline possible: “Pelosi Hails Democrats’ Diverse War Stances.”
A better choice would have been: “Pelosi: Dems Have No Clue On Iraq.”
Now, three months later, Pelosi’s party is no closer to having a clue. And unfortunately for them, the voters know it.
Just look at the results of the latest Post poll, released this week. In the survey, the paper asked, “Do you think the Democrats in Congress do or do not have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq?”
Seventy percent of those polled said the Democrats do not have a clear plan, versus 24 percent who said they do.

It was Iraqi soldiers who won peace after mosque explosion
By RALPH PETERS
BAGHDAD
AMONG the many positive stories you aren't being told about Iraq, the media ignored another big one last week: In the wake of the terrorist bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, it was the Iraqi army that kept the peace in the streets.
t's routinely declared a failure by those who yearn for the new Iraq to fail. But an increasingly capable Iraqi military has been developing while reporters (who never really investigated the issue) wrote it off as hopeless.
What actually happened last week, as the prophets of doom in the media prematurely declared civil war?
* The Iraqi army deployed over 100,000 soldiers to maintain public order. U.S. Forces remained available as a backup, but Iraqi soldiers controlled the streets.
* Iraqi forces behaved with discipline and restraint - as the local sectarian outbreaks fizzled, not one civilian had been killed by an Iraqi soldier.
* Time and again, Iraqi military officers were able to defuse potential confrontations and frustrate terrorist hopes of igniting a religious war.
* Forty-seven battalions drawn from all 10 of Iraq's army divisions took part in an operation that, above all, aimed at reassuring the public. The effort worked - from the luxury districts to the slums, the Iraqis were proud of their army.
AS a result of its nationwide success, the Iraqi army gained tremendously in confidence. Its morale soared. After all the lies and exaggerations splashed in your direction, the truth is that we're seeing a new, competent, patriotic military emerge. The media may cling to its image of earlier failures, but last week was a great Iraqi success.

Delusions, Desperation and Democrats
Politics/Alan Burkhart
March 7, 2006
Over the last several weeks I have watched in awe as a dominant force in American and world politics has attempted to destroy itself. The Democrat Party, once a juggernaut of seemingly endless power, wealth and influence has become a laughing stock. Liberals around the world must be scratching their heads and wondering what could have happened to the Party of the Almighty Jackass. What has happened is that through their own actions they have exposed themselves better than any conservative commentator could have hoped to do.
Let’s review recent events…
The ports issue has demonstrated just how ignorant of our nation the Democrats (and a lot of Republicans) actually are. There stood Hillary and Chucky on their soapbox, blathering on and on about how no country with ties to terrorism should operate a port in America. I wonder how hard the Saudis were laughing at Hillary, given that they operate port terminals in a half-dozen states? Ahem… terrorist ties? Someone give Hillary a hanky so she can wipe the egg off her face.
Democrats were jumping for joy when it looked like the Abramoff scandal might take down a few Republicans. Until, that is, they discovered that Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton might also get their political noses bloodied. Sometimes it’s better to just keep your mouth shut. Sure, there are some corrupt Republicans in Washington. A few. Very few. And there are absolutely honest Democrats, too. A few. Very few.
With congressional elections fast approaching, the Dems are desperately seeking any inroad they can find to gain a few seats in the House and Senate. Their problem is that they haven’t had a fresh idea in 40 years. Competent, America-loving and God-fearing people are fleeing the Democrat Party in droves. The vast majority of the party’s voting base now consists of the lunatic fringe element of the far left and lifelong, uneducated welfare recipients who still swallow the Big Lie that they can’t make it on their own. That’s not going to win many elections – assuming that Republicans get off their butts and vote.
A prime example of Democrat desperation is the non-scandal of Dick Cheney’s hunting accident. The Dems and their partners in the Antique Media made the most of it, calling for investigations and insinuating that Cheney might have been drinking when the accident occurred. Police conducted an appropriate investigation and found it to be nothing more than a simple accident and closed the case. The air in Washington was thick with disappointment.
And let’s not forget the nutty conspiracy theories floating around regarding 9-11. The last time I checked, the dominant delusion was that George W. Bush arranged for explosives to be placed inside the Twin towers to bring them down. The airliners that hit the towers and the Pentagon were nothing more than diversions. It’s all about oil, see… and Bush needed an excuse to go conquer the Middle East to make money for his buddies in Big Oil. People like these may have God wondering why He didn’t just stick with the dinosaurs.

Finding answers to Iraq’s WMD
By Boston Herald editorial staff
Sunday, March 12, 2006
The time is right for another look at whether Iraq really had weapons of mass destruction. There have been just too many recent reports, impossible to brush off, that they were transferred to Syria shortly before the beginning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The place to start is the 2 million documents captured by U.S. forces in Iraq along with more than 2,500 hours of audiotapes of Saddam Hussein’s meetings with underlings.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has introduced a bill to release the material and may hold hearings this spring.
Twelve hours of tapes and 28 al-Qaeda documents captured in Afghanistan have been made public, and Hoekstra has been given 40 documents from the Iraqi pile by John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, that Hoekstra must keep secret. This is far from adequate.
Hoekstra says he has an open mind. His staff tried to check claims by former Iraqi Air Force Gen. Georges Sada that chemical or biological weapons were flown to Syria in 56 flights, but was unable to confirm it.
The suspicions do not rest on Sada alone. A former deputy undersecretary of defense, John A. Shaw, who was responsible for keeping track of Iraq’s weapons programs, says special Russian troops in civilian clothes handled the transfer of Saddam’s WMDs to Syria. An Israeli general, Moshe Yaalon, has made a similar claim. The general in charge of Pentagon spy satellites has admitted observing large truck convoys from Iraq to Syria before the war began.
Yet most of the 2 million documents have not been explored or even translated. It’s almost as if the CIA and the Pentagon don’t want to know what they contain.
The CIA’s clandestine war against the White House means the agency cannot be trusted for an honest account of what’s in this material. Hoekstra’s committee, and Congress, should make sure that an independent body with no ax to grind checks the documents and releases every last one that can be made public safely, except perhaps for the mess-kit repair orders and laundry invoices, no matter who might be embarrassed or how long it takes.
Washington isn’t Baghdad. Saddam’s secrets need not be protected, especially not at the expense of this administration’s credibility.

Communist Goals (1963) from the Congressional Record: The liberals have achieved most of them.
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm

Mafia's Role in Ports Also Raises Concerns
Associated Press ^ Saturday March 11, 5:59 pm ET David B. Caruso,
NEW YORK (AP) -- Justice Department lawyers warned eight months ago that a nefarious element had infiltrated important East Coast ports, but they weren't talking about terrorists or Arab shipping companies.
They were talking about the mafia.
In a civil suit filed in July, prosecutors accused the International Longshoremen's Association, the 65,000-member union that supplies labor to ports from Florida to Maine, of being a "vehicle for organized crime" on the waterfront.
Packed with tales of corruption, embezzling and extortion, the complaint accused union executives of being associates of the Genovese and Gambino crime families.
The U.S. attorney's office asked a judge to seize control of the union, remove its officers and "put an end to the conspiracy among union officials, organized crime figures and others that has plagued some of the nation's most important ports for decades."
The allegations, assailed by the union as unjust and untrue, are inching toward trial amid heightened concern over port security.

Dollar falls, Arab banks move assets, Businesses/employees to suffer
Foreign wires
Middle Eastern anger over the decision by the US to block a Dubai company from buying five of its ports hit the dollar yesterday as a number of central banks said they were considering switching reserves into euros.
The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, said it was looking to move one-tenth of its dollar reserves into euros, while the governor of the Saudi Arabian central bank condemned the US move as "discrimination".
Separately, Syria responded to US sanctions against two of its banks by confirming plans to use euros instead of dollars for its external transactions.
The remarks combined to knock the dollar, which fell against the euro, pound and yen yesterday as analysts warned other central banks might follow suit.
The decision Thursday by Dubai-based DP World to complete its takeover of the U.K.'s P&O while transferring or selling the U.S. operations may placate opponents on Capitol Hill, but it's likely to worry major American exporters such as Boeing (Research), GE (Research) and other companies that see growing opportunity in the oil and money-rich Gulf.
"Our members are very concerned about what the failure of this deal means," says Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a Washington trade association that represents large U.S. multi-nationals. "They haven't wanted to be visible but they're very concerned about the signals the U.S. is sending out."
Indeed, The Hill, a Washington newspaper that covers Congress, reported that Dubai's royal family is "furious at the hostility both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have shown toward the deal."
And with Boeing hoping to land a major order for its new 787 Dreamliner with Dubai-based airline Emirates down the road, the stakes are high. Elsewhere in the region, the UAE's Etihad Airways has already ordered more than $1 billion worth of 777s, and Egyptair and Royal Jordanian are longtime Boeing buyers.
"These are important customers for us in an important, growing market," says Boeing spokesman John Dern. "We are with these customers all the time. We haven't seen any impact at this point, and have no indication there will be an impact." Dern wouldn't say whether Boeing execs have specifically discussed the ports controversy with potential customers, but he notes that "we're certainly monitoring the situation."
Reinsch adds he that the doesn't think opponents of the deal on Capitol Hill gave much thought to the possibility that blocking the deal could boomerang and end up hurting U.S. companies. "It's the law of unintended consequences," he says.
According to a Gulf News poll, 64 per cent of readers say the DP World affair "changed their opinion for the worst" about investing in the United States. A number of businessmen told the newspaper yesterday that Arab investors would think about other destinations.
The whole affair served as a lesson for other Arab companies who may have thought of investing in what has proved to be a hostile US atmosphere. All the free trade talk proved to be just empty rhetoric. Another irony is that the Democrats, the supporters of globalisation, were the key opponents of the deal. There must have been something else behind the sudden change of heart.

Texas Law Linked to Drop in Abortions, Rise in Birth Rates Among Teens
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Mar 09 - Since a parental notification law was enacted in Texas, teen abortion rates in the state have fallen by as much as 20%, according to a report in The New England Journal of Medicine for March 9. In a subgroup of older teens, the law was linked to an increase in birth rates.
In 2000, Texas started enforcing a law that requires physicians to notify the parents of any minor who is contemplating abortion at least 48 hours before the procedure. Similar laws have been enacted in 35 states.
The study compared abortion and birth rates in 1998 to1999 with those in 2000 to 2002.
The enforcement of the notification law was associated with an 11% drop in abortion rates among 15-year-olds, a 20% drop among 16-year-olds, and a 16% reduction among 17-year-olds relative to the rates seen in 18-year-olds.
Among minors who were 17.50 to 17.74 years of age at the time of conception, the law was tied to a 4% rise in birth rates relative to their peers who were 18.00 to 18.24 years of age. Also, compared with 18-year-olds, subjects 17.50 to 17.74 years of age were 34% more likely to have second trimester abortion.

Tehran elite turning on extremist presidency
By John R. Bradley
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
TEHRAN -- Iran's clerical and business establishments, deeply concerned by what they see as reckless spending and needlessly aggressive foreign policies, are increasingly turning against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Within this context, many see the president's long-running confrontation with the United States and Europe over Tehran's nuclear program as an attempt to demonize the West and distract the Iranian public from pressing domestic problems.
A relatively small group of extremists "at the top of the government around the president" are seeking to benefit from a crisis with the West, because "that way they will be able once again to blame the West for all of their problems," said Mousa Ghaninejad, the editor of Iran's best-selling economics daily newspaper, Dunya Al-Eqtisad.
Millions of low-income Iranians voted for the new president last year, motivated by his firm stand against corruption and pledges to give financial priority to their needs.

FRIST DARES DEMS: MORE CENSURE TALK
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to push Democrats for a vote of censure against President Bush!
After facing down Senator Russ Feingold's censure bill on Monday and seeing Democrats of all ranks fold, Frist thinks it's time to call Democrats on their antics.
"He pushed them to the mat today, and they blinked," said one Frist associate. "He dared them to vote, and Democrat Leader Harry Reid looked like he was going to be sick as he said 'No.'''
Frist is going to continue to dare Democrats to vote on censuring the President.
"When it comes to intercepting phone calls from Tora Bora to Topeka, Frist thinks Senate Democrats have made a huge blunder, and he will lead the charge to make Democrats put up or shut up on censure," the top insider claimed.

Liberals Call for Billions in Defense Cuts
by Bobby Eberle
Despite some tough talk coming from a select few Democrats on Capitol Hill regarding defense and the war on terror, it appears that liberals are still liberals, and no amount of spin will change that fact. The latest evidence is a program sponsored by the Congressional Progressive Caucus which calls for $60 billion in cuts to the defense budget. And this is the party that wants to be seen as strong on defense?
According to a report in The Hill, the proposal would take money away from defense and shift it to “humanitarian assistance, social programs, energy conservation, homeland security and deficit reduction.”
“I think it’s time for Congress and the House to talk about the huge amount of tax dollars going for weapons systems designed to fight a Cold War that doesn’t exist,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), co-chairwoman of the 62-member Democratic group. “I don’t think people realize the billions of dollars that are being wasted.”
The first thought that popped into my head was that some Democrats who are trying to change the perception of their party are cringing at this proposal. The Hill story touched on this idea as well, stating:
Some political observers fear that publicizing a Democratic proposal to cut military spending could open Democrats up to criticism that they are weak on security issues. But Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the other co-chairwoman of the caucus, argued that the defense spending is not crucial to national defense, noting that a panel of military experts had vetted the Democrats’ plan.
Ok, let’s think about this… defense spending is NOT crucial to national defense??? Can someone please explain that one to me. Perhaps I should contact this panel of military experts who vetted the plan!
Leave it to the liberal left to consistently reaffirm to the American people that they are out of touch with the priorities of our country in the post 9-11 era.

Missing The Boom
Economy: With rising incomes, soaring wealth, bigger and better homes, plenty of jobs and low inflation, we may be living in the most prosperous time ever. Yet chances are you don't believe it one bit.
The economy isn't perfect, of course. But it's a long way from bad — a long, long way. We ponder this as a new employment report comes out, showing 243,000 new payroll jobs in February even as the number of people re-entering the labor market swelled by nearly 350,000.
So before the data are spun beyond recognition by others, let's recount the good news: Since May 2003, when President Bush's tax cuts became law, the U.S. has created 4.7 million jobs. Payrolls have now expanded for 30 straight months. The jobless rate, though up a tick at 4.8%, is still near its five-year low.
Worker pay is also on the increase. Average weekly earnings rose 3.5% last month from a year earlier — the best gain in more than four years.
Last summer, we all were fretting about the economic impacts of higher interest rates, surging energy prices and Hurricane Katrina. But over the last year, including the hurricane season, monthly job gains have averaged 197,000 — more than enough to sop up the 130,000 to 150,000 monthly growth in the U.S. labor force.
Based on the continued job growth and powerful gains in retail spending, most analysts now expect GDP to jump at least 4.5% in the first quarter and 3% for all of 2006 — even as the Federal Reserve continues to tighten credit.
In spite of all the great news, Americans remain strangely downbeat. A Gallup Poll taken earlier this year found just 38% who viewed the economy as "excellent" or "good" — down from 46% at the start of the last recession.
Why the gloom? Much of it, no doubt, stems from misreporting by the media. Against the backdrop of surging payrolls, for example, we keep seeing story after story, in print and on TV, about job "losses."
A recent study by the Media Research Center bears this out. It looked at TV news coverage of jobs in 2005 — 151 stories in all — carried on all three major networks.
This, mind you, was a year that saw the creation of 2 million new jobs, the addition of $350 billion to gross domestic product and an increase of $2 trillion in the value of household financial assets.Yet more than half of the networks' job reports focused on losses, not gains — a picture that wasn't just distorted, but wrong.
Americans deserve better. In fact, they may already know better. The same polls, including ours, in which Americans indicate they are down on the economy in general also show they are upbeat about their own financial situation.

Judge tosses DeLay case subpoenas
By R.G.RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — A state appeals court today threw out more than 30 subpoenas requested by Travis County prosecutors building a criminal case against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, saying the investigation should have stopped in December when a district judge halted proceedings in his court.
District Attorney Ronnie Earle has been issuing the subpoenas ever since Senior District Judge Pat Priest dismissed all or part of three indictments against DeLay, R-Sugar Land. Earle appealed Priest's ruling, and the judge stayed the case pending a ruling by the Third Court of Appeals.
Most of the subpoenas involved political fund-raising controversies that have involved DeLay, some dating back to 1996.

Captured Iraqi intel confirms pre-war links between Saddam's regime and terrorists
ESR ^ 3/13/06 Sam Wells
The DNC's mantra that President Bush "misled the nation into war" is losing whatever clout it once had as more and more people become better informed. The massive post-invasion evidence mounts confirming that it was the mainstream media and leading Democrats -- not the Bush Administration -- who lied to the American people on the issue of pre-war ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaida terrorists. We now know that during the years before 9/11/01 and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, over 8,000 terrorists were trained inside Iraq by the Iraqi military.
But don't hold your breath waiting for an apology from the New York Times, the TV networks, and the rest of the partisan establishment media. Having a cynical contempt for the intelligence and attention spans of the American people, the mainstream media hopes that the repeated lie that "Bush lied" will still be taken seriously by enough people for it to stick. After all, their motto is: perception is reality! And, although their influence is gradually waning, the establishment liberal-left media news twisters still have a great deal of influence on public opinion, especially on those who watch TV news, and they know it.
Will they get away with it? Not if enough informed individuals continue to point out the truth. The mainstream media can no longer ignore or cover up the growing body of evidence which confirms the terrorist links to Saddam.
Marine Corps counter-terrorism specialist W. Thomas Smith, Jr. points out that "those with connections to the U.S. special operations community have long known that the pre-war link between Saddam and the al-Qaida terrorist network is not only a fact, but one that had to be addressed as part of the global war on terror."
He recalls that the mainstream media ignored or glossed over the parts of the 9/11 Commission Report which admitted evidence for those links. As just one example, the report states that "[Osama] bin Laden himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995." Bin Laden asked the Iraqi official for weapons procurement assistance and permission to establish terrorist training facilities in Iraq. While the Commission's report claimed that it was not known what response was given bin Laden's requests, it leaves the issue somewhat hanging with the statement that "The ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections [between al-Qaida and Saddam's regime]." Elsewhere the 9/11 Report admits there was some evidence to indicate possible collaboration with al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists. Smith, who did read the report, writes:
"[T]here was Ansar al Islam, an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group with training camps in Northern Iraq prior to 2003. This group was hoping to establish an Islamist state in Iraq. But the – again, rarely read – 9/11 Commission Report clearly states, 'There are indications that [by 2001] the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.'"
Since the invasion, materials captured, translated, and analyzed have only added further evidence. Smith reports, "Intelligence gathered since the U.S. invasion indicates that as early as the late 1990’s, Iraq's Unit 999 (a special branch of the old regime’s army) was directly involved in the training of foreign terrorists inside Iraq. Intelligence about U.S. and other Western forces was shared between operatives of the Iraqi intelligence services and al-Qaida. And foreign terrorists operating in the region (outside of Iraq) who needed medical attention or other support received it once inside Iraqi borders."

PORT SECURITY AND THE LIBERAL-LEFT'S 5% MYTH
by MONTANA NEWS ASSOCIATION
Many news media reports and political leaders such as Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democrat National Committee chairman Howard Dean frequently state that the Department of Homeland Security inspects only about 5 percent of the over 10 million sea containers entering the country each year. That 5 percent figure erroneously implies that 95 percent of sea containers receive no attention or scrutiny at all from customs agents.
While partisans are creating a frenzy over this issue, the media should educate the American people about the difference between anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism operations. Anti-terrorism operations are those that are defensive in nature and visible security measures, while counter-terrorism operations are offensive in nature and usually classified. Counter-terrorism includes developing information, identifying targets and taking out those targets in covert actions. Anyone who says they can provide security that is 100% effective is either a liar or a fool.
Truth be told, it is impossible -- IMPOSSIBLE -- to check every shipping container off-loaded at US seaports. If such an endeavor were possible, the negative impact on the US -- even the world -- economy would be staggering. The cost of such an endeavor to consumers would also create adverse economic conditions in the US. Nevermind the billions of dollars that would be spent on manpower and resources in order to check every single container.
This writer's wife works as an importer of goods from the Far East -- Hong Kong, Taiwan, China -- and she complains about the cost to her company of security measures already in place the impact on business. This naturally increases the prices of goods on the retail market. Ask any politician how they plan on checking every shipping container entering the US and they best you get from them is they are working on a plan.
The truth -- which is being withheld from Americans -- is that US Customs and Border Protection screens the data and information for all of the millions of cargo containers arriving in the US each year; and closely scrutinizes and examines all shipments identified as high risk. The CBP has developed a multilayered process to target high-risk shipments and provides a fast lane for legitimate cargo. In fact, according to the CBP, examinations of sea containers are a small part of this process.
The CBP goal is not to search five percent, 10 percent, or even 50 percent of the cargo at our nation's borders and ports of entry. US Customs and Border Protection thoroughly screens and examines 100% of the shipments that pose a risk to our country and they are doing that today. The goal is to screen these shipments before they depart for the United States whenever possible. There are US CBP officers throughout the world working with foreign governments in screening shipments leaving those countries CBP receives electronic bill of lading/manifest data for approximately 98 percent of the sea containers before they arrive at US seaports. CBP uses this data to first identify the lowest risk cargo being shipped by long-established and trusted importers.
In the year 2000, nearly half a million individuals and companies imported products into the US. But 1,000 companies -- the top two-tenths of one percent -- accounted for 62 percent of the value of all imports. Some shipments for these companies are still randomly inspected, but the vast majority is released without physical inspection.

Bill Clinton's Guests Stiffing Hillary?
NewsMax.com ^ March 13, 2006 NewsMax.com
Clinton White House sleepover guests who poured money into Hillary Clinton's first Senate campaign have been a lot less generous when it comes to bankrolling her reelection race this year.
The New York Post reports that that 40 percent Bill Clinton's 1,100-plus White House guests donated to Democrats including his wife while he was still in the Oval Office.
Renting out the Lincoln bedroom netted Mrs. Clinton's Senate campaign coffers a cool $620,000.
But this time around, less than 20 percent of the Clintons' guests have coughed up campaign cash for Hillary.
Hillary spokeswoman Ann Lewis said the fact that her boss could no longer rent out the Lincoln bedroom had nothing to do with the fundraising fall off, insisting, "Since so many of the people who stayed at the White House were personal friends of the Clintons, it is hardly surprising that many of them would also contribute to the [first] campaign."
So what happened to Hillary's "friends" in the intervening six years?
"FOBs are not necessarily FOHs," University of Virginia political scholar Larry Sabato told the Post, referring to friends of Bill and Hill. "Think of the two of them - who's the one who collects friends? Bill."
But even some of Bill's Hollywood friends have turned stingy when it comes to his wife's reelection.
Former "Cheers" star Ted Danson, who ponied up more than $10,000 for Hillary's first campaign, has yet to give her a cent.
White House sleepover guests Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Dennis Quaid and Will Smith are also AWOL from the list of Tinseltowners currently bankrolling Mrs. Clinton's reelection.
Others, like director Stephen Spielberg and funnyman Chevy Chase, are still standing by their man - by giving to his wife.

U.S. Casualties Continue to Drop Sharply
(snip)
The violence has shifted away from American troops, who are suffering 60 percent fewer casualties this month than in the past year. and more towards Iraqi security forces and civilians. Part of this is because there are simply more Iraqi police and soldiers patrolling the streets and policing the neighborhoods. Where there are about two American advisors for every hundred Iraqi security troops, these Americans are there to advise, not fight.
And the Iraqis are doing the fighting, and taking the casualties. American troops are still making raids and patrols, but there has also been a sharp decline in terrorist attacks. Some six months of sweeps and battles in western Iraq has shut down many of the Sunni terrorist sanctuaries. Indeed, many al Qaeda terrorists have fled western Iraq for towns and villages on the Iranian border. Iranians don't like to advertise the fact, but they do provide support to al Qaeda, despite al Qaeda's attacks on Shias (for being heretics.) Iran would also like to see a civil war (ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs) in Iraq. If that were to happen, Shia Arabs would be 75 percent of the Iraqi population, and likely to side with Iran on many issues.

The Poor Get Richer
CNN Money
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that income inequality in the U.S. -- after 30-plus years of steadily increasing -- may be decreasing. The bad news is why that trend is reversing. It looks like another lesson in how profoundly a globalizing economy is upending what we thought we knew. Rising income inequality has settled comfortably into America's big economic picture as a reliable--and much lamented--megatrend. Starting around the late 1960s, U.S. incomes started to become more disparate. The trend was remarkably steady. Recessions might slow it down or briefly reverse it, but mostly it just marched on.
While such a large tendency has many causes, the chief explanation centered on education and skills. The late 1960s were arguably high summer of the era in which a man with 12 years of schooling could work in a unionized factory or trade and earn a solid middle-class or even upper-middle-class income. Then began the age of the info-based economy in which higher education really started to pay. The "skill premium" began growing dramatically. The college graduate's income started beating the high school graduate's income by a wider margin every year--and income inequality began to swell. That explanation makes sense, and the data support it. But now it appears just possible--based on the latest research available--that the whole chain of causation is falling apart.

McHale: DoD Acted Quickly to Provide Post-Katrina Support
American Forces Press Service ^ Gerry Gilmore
WASHINGTON, March 13, 2006 – The Defense Department acted as rapidly as law would allow in providing assistance to civil authorities coping with Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast late last August, a senior DoD official told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee March 10.
"Our department provides military support to civil authorities as part of a comprehensive national response to prevent and protect against terrorist incidents or to recover from an attack or natural disaster," Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, testified to members of the SASC's Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.
Katrina slammed into the Gulf area on Aug. 29, killing hundreds of people and causing widespread damage in coastal parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The storm's power breeched New Orleans' levee system and caused flooding of 80 percent of the city.
"DoD's deployment in response to the catastrophic events of Hurricane Katrina was the largest, fastest civil-support mission in the history of the United States," McHale pointed out to committee members.
More than 72,000 active-duty and National Guard soldiers were deployed to provide assistance in Katrina-ravaged areas between Aug. 29 and Sept. 10, he said. McHale said that was more than twice the previous record deployment of military assets in response to a natural disaster since Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
DoD acted on more than 90 hurricane-related requests for assistance from civil authorities in the wake of Katrina, McHale said. Many requests, he said, were approved orally by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, including one that had an estimated cost of $1 billion.
"DoD felt a sense of urgency and acted upon it," McHale said.
The Defense Department acted on more than 140 requests for assistance from civil authorities in 2005, McHale said, including responses to Hurricane Dennis, Ophelia and Rita, as well as Katrina-related assistance.

Reid Donor Broke Campaign Finance Laws
by Matt Margolis :: March 11, 2006 1:50 AM
Looks like Harry Reid has been the recipient of dirty money.
A prominent Las Vegas-based developer has admitted to illegally funneling a total of $37,000 in campaign contributions to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and indicted former congressional candidate Dario Herrera during the 2002 election cycle, the Federal Election Commission said Thursday.
[...]
FEC officials said Reid accepted $10,000 in the bundled contributions. Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the senator will transfer the money to the U.S. Treasury, as ordered by the FEC.
"The senator believes that campaign finance laws should be followed to the highest letter of the law," he said.
Under federal campaign finance law, corporations are barred from making campaign contributions and donors are prohibited from making a contribution on behalf of someone else. At the time, individuals were limited to donations of $1,000 in the primary and another $1,000 in the general election.
All the Rhodes employees and spouses contributed to only the Herrera and Reid campaigns, and no employee had contributed to a political campaign in the 1998 or 2000 election cycles, the complaint said.
And we're supposed to believe Reid had no idea.

Supreme Court Smackdown!
By ADAM LIPTAK
NYTimes
HUNDREDS of law professors at the nation's finest law schools, representing the all-but-unanimous views of the legal academy, filed a series of briefs last year on one side of a Supreme Court case. On Web sites and in lecture halls, the professors spoke out about the case, which they called a crucial test for gay rights and free speech.
Marshalling their collective intellectual firepower and moral outrage, the professors, from Harvard, Yale and elsewhere, made it sound obvious: Universities should be allowed, they said, to take government money but oppose the military's policies on homosexuality by restricting military recruiting on campus.
On Monday, the best minds in the legal business struck out. The vote was 8-to-0 against them — a shutout, a rout, a humiliation. It is one thing for liberal academics to fail to persuade conservative justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. But the law professors did not produce so much as a sympathetic word from liberal justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens. (The newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr., did not participate.)
And if the result was not embarrassing enough, there was also the tone of the court's unanimous decision, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. In patient cadences, the kind you use in addressing a slightly dull child, the chief justice explained that law students would not assume that their schools supported the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy if they saw military recruiters on campus.
"High school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so," he wrote. "Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."

Clinton's sleazy P.I.
Currently in jail for illegal possession of dangerous materials, disgraced Hollywood detective Anthony Pellicano is also the focus of a federal wiretapping investigation. As The Los Angeles Times reports, when police raided his office in 2002, they "hauled away computers containing ... wiretapping software and encrypted files of phone conversation transcripts." Media coverage has virgutally ignored Pellicano's Clinton connection.
In 1992, when tapes of Clinton speaking to Gennifer Flowers were made public, Pellicano claimed to be a "forensic audio expert" and dismissed them as frauds. Clinton flacks denied rumors that Clinton hired Pellicano to intimidate those who would endanger his candidacy.
Mary Matalin told a radio audience in 1997 that she received appeals from women who knew Clinton and were "threatened into silence by Mr. Pellicano," during the '92 campaign, reports NewsMax.com. Said Matalin: "I got the letters from Pellicano to these women intimidating them ... I had tapes of conversations from Pellicano to the women."
On Feb. 3, 2006, Bill Clinton bragged to New York's WCBS News Radio: "I actually liked it [the FISA law] because none of us are immune from error. And if, for example, we wiretapped a conversation of a totally innocent person, you would not want that conversation to be used in some other way, for some other reason. So I never had a problem with it."
No comment from Juanita Broaddrick.

Some Sunni Arabs turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq, a serious threat to the group
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Residents reported curious declarations hanging from mosque walls and market stalls recently in Ramadi, the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. The fliers said Iraqi militants had turned on and were killing foreign al-Qaeda fighters, their one-time allies.
A local tribal leader and Iraq's Defense Ministry have said followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, have begun fleeing Anbar province and Ramadi, its capital, to cities and mountain ranges near the Iranian border.
“So far we have cleared 75 percent of the province and forced al-Qaeda terrorists to flee to nearby areas,” said Osama al-Jadaan, a leader of the Karabila tribe, which has thousands of members living along the border with Syria.
He claimed his people have captured hundreds of foreigner fighters and handed them to authorities. The drive, dubbed Operation Tribal Chivalry, is designed to secure the country's borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to prevent foreign fighters from crossing in.
After the U.S. invasion in March 2003, residents of the province – which also includes cities like Fallujah, Haditha and Qaim – became known for their violent anti-American sentiments. The province is still the most dangerous in Iraq for U.S. troops. In the past two days alone, two U.S. Marines were killed by hostile fire there.
Relations between residents and the foreign fighters started to sour, however, when the foreigners started killing Iraqis suspected of having links to the Americans or even for holding a government job.
The rift became an outright split four months ago, with a wave of assassinations and bombings that killed scores of Anbar residents. The attacks were blamed on al-Qaeda.
In late November, tribal and religious leaders, former army officers and hundreds of ordinary Iraqis met in Ramadi with U.S. military commanders for a first-ever comprehensive dialogue on what could be done to speed a U.S. withdrawal.
Afterward, gunmen began killing some of those who had met with the Americans or who had urged Sunnis in the region to vote in the U.S.-backed parliamentary elections on Dec. 15. Several top clerics and a tribal leader were killed.
The deadliest attack – a suicide bombing Jan. 5 among a line of police recruits in Ramadi – killed at least 58, including U.S. troops.
Stunned city residents turned on al-Qaeda, and al-Jadaan, of the Karabila tribe, announced an agreement with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to help with security.

Al-Qaeda rebels are losing
London Daily Telegraph ^ March 9, 2006 PATRICK WALTERS
AL-QAEDA insurgents in Iraq have sustained significant losses and their ability to mount effective attacks is steadily diminishing, according to Australia's top soldier in the Middle East.
Brigadier Paul Symon said while Iraq was going through an "awkward period" during the transition to a new government, the US-led coalition remained confident the country would not descend into civil war.
Interviewed in Baghdad he said military operations against al-Qaeda and its affiliates were proving to be "very effective" with the organisation led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi now less agile and having to rely on much less-seasoned fighters.
"We are seeing an insurgency that is diminishing in effectiveness in its tactics and techniques. I think they have lost some of their better people," he said.

State of the Media-fact and opinion

2006-03-14T15:58:00.000-08:00

Publicists Lauded for Flackery; P.R. Gods Get Freedom From Press
By: Jason Horowitz, NY Observer “In a world where we don’t have a belief in a single source, you don’t have a Walter Cronkite anymore. P.R. is the discipline on the rise,” said Richard W. Edelman, president and chief executive of the public-relations firm Edelman.
“P.R.,” he said, “plays much better in a world that lacks trust.”
And the world must be short on trust, because public relations is long on profits. According to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private equity firm that analyzes media trends, the industry was estimated to be worth $3.4 billion in 2004 and is expected to increase at an impressive annual clip of up to 10 percent, reaching $5.2 billion by 2009. Other industry journals, like O’Dwyer’s PR Report, consider such estimates conservative.
“It used to be I would schmooze you and I was your flack,” said Mr. Edelman, whose firm netted about $260 million in 2005. “Today, if we want to get a message into the public’s conversation, we just make a post on a blog. If The Wall Street Journal goes after a client, we don’t have to accept that anymore. Let’s post the documents we gave The Journal; let’s show the interviews the newspaper decided not to show.
“You’re not God anymore,” he said.
Mr. Edelman—and he is not alone—believes that the erosion of the public’s trust in bedrock institutions after scandals in government, big business and the press only contributes to the industry’s success. Without anyone holding a monopoly on truth, the argument goes, P.R. people can get their messages across without pesky filters like, say, the news media.
Some executives suggest that the press never had control to begin with.
“The role of public-relations people is to act as the gatekeepers for news and information,” said Andy Plesser, who runs Plesser Holland Associates, the company that handled the public relations for the public-relations awards. “Many journalists want to believe they are being enterprising on their own.”
Presumptuous? Maybe. But consider the publicist’s perspective: They are incessantly reading and watching stories that they remember pitching to reporters only days before. Still, most any self-respecting journalist will bristle at the mere suggestion of dependence.
“The dark side!” joked Laurie Mayers, 47, a senior vice president at Hass MS&L and a former reporter for the St. Petersburg Times. “A lot of people in journalism think that they have a sacred mission. They think the poor pay and crummy hours are part of it.

How technology allows little guy to beat Big Media
By Frank Wilson, Philadelphia Inquirer Books Editor

“An Army of Davids:How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths
By Glenn Reynolds
Like the baby boomers who still account for much of its staff, Big Media is perpetually nostalgic. It yearns to revisit the glory days of its opposition to the Vietnam War and, of course, Watergate. So it often portrays the war in Iraq as another Vietnam. But the analogy is facile - as Mark Twain is said to have observed, "History does not repeat itself; it rhymes."
In the meantime, something very similar to what happened in Vietnam is happening - to Big Media. As Glenn Reynolds puts it in An Army of Davids: "Where before journalists and pundits could bloviate at leisure, offering illogical analysis or citing 'facts' that were in fact false, now the Sunday morning op-eds have already been dissected on a Saturday night, within hours of their appearing on newspapers' websites."
Dissected by whom? By bloggers. Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, knows as much about blogging as anyone: He's the man behind InstaPundit.com, which on some days racks up as many as a half-million page loads.
Reynolds' highly informative book - a must-read if you want to have some idea of the direction things are taking - is about a lot more than the effect of blogging on Big Media. Its theme is "the triumph of personal technology over mass technology," which is a trend Reynolds believes is only "going to strengthen over the coming decades."
Recalling that John Kenneth Galbraith's 1966 book The New Industrial State argued that the very size of big corporations protected them from both failure and competition, Reynolds points out that now, a mere 40 years later, "a laptop, a cheap video camera, and the free iMovie or Windows Movie Maker software (plus an Internet connection) will let one person do things that the Big Three television networks could only dream of in Galbraith's day, and at a fraction of the cost."
As recently as 1993, he wouldn't have been able to, because the Web was just getting started, Wi-Fi was only a couple of years old, and Google didn't exist. Most remarkable, Reynolds says, is that "the Web, Wi-Fi and Google didn't develop and spread because somebody at the Bureau of Central Knowledge Planning planned them. They developed... from the uncoordinated activities of individuals."
The changes Reynolds chronicles have proved unsettling to a number of settled institutions, including government, corporations and the media. Reynolds, who knows his away around the First Amendment, thinks that "the press establishment's general lack of enthusiasm for free speech for others (as evidenced by its support for campaign finance 'reform') suggests that it'll be happy to see alternative media muzzled."
"You want to keep this media revolution going?" he asks. "Be ready to fight for it."
I think it will prove to be not much of a contest. As Reynolds knows, "open communication, quick thinking, decentralization, and broad dispersal of skills - along with a sense of individual responsibility - have an enormous structural advantage." If Big Media could figure out how to partner with alternative media - putting together, as Reynolds suggests, "a network of freelance journalists" or "knit[ting] together a network of bloggers" - the outcome would be good for all concerned.
But that's not going to happen as long as corporate journalism continues to insist on ever more bureaucratic protocols, on making articles conform to some goofy packaging concept, and on a top-to-bottom command structure. It's as though a World War II army were marching through a jungle infested by guerrillas. Just like in Vietnam.

Press deemed in state of peril
By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 14, 2006
Americans continue to be troubled about the state of the press. But journalists themselves are troubled as well, according to "The State of the News Media 2006," a massive series of surveys and analyses released yesterday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research group affiliated with Columbia University.
Local TV news and local newspapers won the most accolades from the public. Both were rated favorably by three-quarters of the respondents with majorities agreeing that local news organizations concentrated on facts rather than opinions. Such major dailies as the New York Times did not fare so well, garnering a 38 percent favorability rating.
Overall, the public increasingly sees their press as "slanted," with 72 percent thinking the press favored one side or other, according to a poll of 1,464 adults. The number is up from 66 percent two years earlier. About 60 percent found the press politically biased, up from 53 percent.
"Republicans and conservatives are even more prone to feel this way than Democrats," the survey stated.
It found that the percentage of the public who think press criticism of the military weakens the country is at its highest point -- 47 percent -- in two decades. Although 60 percent of the public approve of the press in a watchdog role over politicians, just 43 percent say the national press is moral.
The researchers found a "values gap on social issues." In a survey of 547 journalists, 6 percent felt that belief in God is necessary to be moral; the figure was 58 percent among the general public. About 88 percent of the press, compared with 51 percent of the public, think society should accept homosexuality.
An ideological divide between the national press and the public also persists. The survey found that 20 percent of the public described themselves as liberal; the figure was 34 percent among journalists. Although 33 percent of the public deemed themselves conservative; 7 percent of the press members identified themselves as conservative. The majority of journalists -- 54 percent -- say they are moderates, compared with 41 percent of the public.
"Most liberals don't see a liberal point of view," the researchers said, noting that fewer than a quarter of the liberal journalists could think of a news organization that was "especially" liberal; 79 percent could name a conservative news outlet. Among the conservative journalists, 68 percent could name an especially liberal news organization and 68 percent could name an especially conservative one.
Meanwhile, 55 percent of both print and broadcast journalists from national news organizations say the coverage of the Bush administration has not been critical enough in recent years.
"News people are not confident about the future of journalism," the researchers said, noting that 51 percent think journalism is going in the "wrong direction" for myriad reasons.
The entire poll can be viewed at www.stateofthenewsmedia.com.

Post Co. Plans to Cut Jobs in Newsroom
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Washington Post Co. yesterday announced plans to eliminate the equivalent of 80 newsroom positions over the next year by offering an early retirement plan to eligible employees and through attrition of full- and part-time workers. The Post said it has no plans to lay off any of its more than 800 newsroom employees.
Newsroom managers told employees in staff meetings that the cuts were part of an overall effort to reduce costs while at the same time implement editorial changes to improve The Post's ability to reach audiences in multiple media.
"The goal is to bring the overall news costs back to where they were several years ago," said Post publisher and chief executive Boisfeuillet Jones Jr. He said the company planned to offer a similar buyout to the non-newsroom staff but declined to provide a specific target. "I don't have any precise set of staffing numbers, but I do have the goal of seeing overall costs in the newsroom go back to where they were."
Like many newspapers suffering from declining circulation, The Post's revenue has remained flat for several years. The number of paid subscribers has declined 4 percent a year. The Post is trying to extend its reach by adding features to its Web site, such as blogs and podcasts, and with the launch of a Washington Post radio venture later this month.
In meetings yesterday with staff members for each section, Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said The Post is doing better, financially, than many of its competitors. "But it is obvious that a significant change is taking place in our readership, with a sizable portion of it migrating to the Internet," he said.
The Post offered employees an early retirement package two years ago, and more than 100 longtime employees accepted, about half of them from the newsroom. This year's buyout appears to be more targeted than the previous one, said Rick Weiss, co-chairman of The Washington Post unit of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, which represents 600 editorial employees.

THE GRAND RUSH
TO DECLARE DEFEAT
NY Post editorial
A media obsessed with Vietnam-Iraq "parallels" ever since the day Operation Iraqi Freedom began three years this month finally got its Tet Offensive moment last month.
Such as it was.
Violence following the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra two weeks ago "proved" that, this time - for sure - America's mission to Iraq was ending in ignominy.
"IRAQ - BREAKING POINT," screamed a Time magazine cover last week. "This is it," the magazine quoted one Sunni pol saying. "This is the start of the civil war."
A front-page New York Times headline proclaimed: "Political Talks Are in Ruins." Yet, 48 hours later, the once-upon-a-time paper of record reported: "Iraqi Sunni Bloc To Rejoin Talks on Government."
So much for "ruins."
Equally reckless was The Washington Post's report that some 1,300 people died in the week-long violence after the shrine-bombing. A review by Editor and Publisher magazine of news-service accounts found no evidence to support that number.
"When our correspondent examined the books at the morgue, he could find only about 250 bodies logged in as killed in the violence," the E&P story quoted a Knight Ridder editor saying. Iraq's Cabinet said 379 people were killed.
Meanwhile, our own Ralph Peters - who's been patrolling with U.S. troops while covering the story from Iraq - also concluded that the 1,300 figure was wildly inflated.
Peters dispatches have been, to put it mildly, illuminating: He searched high and low for that civil war. "I've been trying all week," wrote Peters, a former Army intelligence officer. "I'm looking for . . . civil war . . . and I just can't find it."
Obviously, it's not there. So let's be clear.
American troops remain in Iraq out of necessity; a precipitous withdrawal would create a power vacuum that would indeed degenerate into civil war - and quickly.
That would be a catastrophic blow to American power and prestige in the region - and the world. For that reason alone, it will be some time before the last U.S. soldier leaves Iraq.
The American media, twisted with hatred of President Bush and his policies, needs to get used to this fact of life.

Jack Kelly: All bad news, all the time
In covering Iraq, mainstream media give terrorists a boost
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
More than 8,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have deserted since the Iraq war began, USA Today reported Tuesday.
"Some lawyers who represent deserters say the war in Iraq is driving more soldiers to question their service and that the Pentagon is cracking down on deserters to discourage antiwar sentiment," wrote reporter Bill Nichols.
" 'The last thing (Pentagon officials) want is for people to think ... that this is like Vietnam,' said Tod Ensign, head of Citizen Soldier, an antiwar group that offers legal aid to deserters."
Mr. Ensign is full of horse manure, as Mr. Nichols demonstrates in his story. The data show desertions have plunged since 9/11, and are much lower than during the Vietnam war.
The Army, Navy and Air Force reported 7,978 desertions in the 2001 fiscal year, but only 3,456 in 2005, Mr. Nichols noted. In 1971, the Army reported 33,094 desertions, 3.4 percent of its total force. In 2005, desertions represented just 0.24 percent of 1.4 million of active service members.
Mr. Nichols also quoted military spokesmen who said most deserters desert for reasons unconnected with political protest, and most return voluntarily.
Though it ran under a headline that emphasized the negative, the USA Today story is an example of journalism as it ought to be. Mr. Nichols reported a fact relevant to the war on terror, and put it into context.
The opposite is true of "reporting" by most news organizations in the wake of the destruction of the Golden Mosque in Samarra Feb. 22. Journalists who accused President Bush of "cherrypicking" intelligence to support the war in Iraq have cherrypicked facts and quotes to give the false impression there is civil war in Iraq.
"Much of the reporting has exaggerated the situation," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday. "The number of attacks on mosques had been exaggerated. The number of Iraqi deaths had been exaggerated. The behavior of the Iraqi security forces had been mischaracterized."
For instance, The Washington Post reported on Feb. 25 that 120 Sunni mosques had been attacked in retaliation for the destruction of the Golden Mosque, holy to the Shiites. In a March 3 news conference, Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said:
"We can confirm attacks on about 30 mosques around the country, with less than 10 of those mosques moderately damaged, and only two or three severely damaged. We visited eight mosques (in Baghdad) that were reportedly damaged. We found one broken window in those eight mosques."
Exaggeration and misinformation are hallmarks of chaotic situations, and it is hard for journalists who do most of their reporting from the safety of their hotels to sort fact from fiction. But Secretary Rumsfeld noticed a pattern in the errors:
"Interestingly, all the exaggerations seem to be on one side," he said. "The steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and give heart to the terrorists."
Here is how The Washington Post reported what Gen. Casey said above:
"He said 350 Iraqi civilians had died in a surge of sectarian killings, militia violence and revenge attacks on about 30 mosques around the country after the bombing."
There is sectarian violence in Iraq -- as there is in India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland -- but no civil war.
The Iraqi army held together and performed well in the aftermath of the attack on the Golden Mosque, reports Ralph Peters, a retired Army intelligence officer and writer who was embedded with U.S. troops during the troubles. The Iraqi army deployed more than 100,000 troops, who kept order without killing a single civilian, he noted.
Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders continue to negotiate forming a national unity government. (Two days after declaring negotiations were "in ruins," Edward Wong of The New York Times had to write: "The main Sunni Arab political bloc is close to returning to suspended talks.")
There is no civil war in Iraq, but al-Qaida would dearly love to provoke one. Knowledge of that fact should make journalists more careful about separating rumor from fact. But many apparently have chosen instead to act as the propaganda arm of our enemies.

Annual State-of-Media Report: 2005 'Three Times Worse' Than 2004
Editor and Publisher ^ 03/12/06 E&P Staff
NEW YORK The annual “The State of the American News Media” report, to be released Monday, declares that while 2004 was a bad year for the newspaper industry, with circulation and advertising declines, “2005 was about three times worse.”
It also asserts that at many old media companies “the decades-long battle at the top between idealists and accountants is now over. The idealists have lost. The troubles of 2005, especially in print, dealt a further blow to this fight for journalism in the public interest.” The report quotes an editor a major paper: “If you argue about public trust today, you will be dismissed as an obstructionist and a romantic.”
In a surprising finding, the report states that the audience for online news appears to have leveled off. The growth now is not in how many people get news online, “but how often they do so.”
The 700-page report, from the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), reveals that newspapers are expected to have lost about 1,500 jobs in 2005. That represents a drop of about 3,800 jobs, or about 7% since 2000. Since 1990, circulation will have fallen nearly 15% or more than 9 million, on weekdays.
“The variety of news sources available today makes relying on a single outlet seem like an outdated idea,” Project Director Tom Rosenstiel said. “But consumers need to be careful about where they go and even when. Stories come and go fast and getting a comprehensive picture of the news can be difficult.”

Clinton's Spying [what the antique media won't tell you]
Liberals are whipping themselves into a frenzy over "Bush's domestic spying." But the left's outrage is new. During the Clinton era, they found government surveillance just peachy. In 1999, in fact, The New York Times itself had no problem with the Clinton NSA's Echelon project, which - without warrants - monitored millions of phone calls between U.S. citizens: "Few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon," assured The Times, "to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers, and terrorists."
That was then. Now the antique press is too busy getting its panties in a wad about Bush Administration security measures to mention Bill Clinton's spying.
Let's refresh the record:
The Clinton Administration listened to every domestic conversation.
* On Feb . 27, 2000, "60 Minutes" aired a story on Clinton's massive spying program. Steve Kroft reported: "If you made a phone call today or sent an e-mail to a friend, there's a good chance what you said or wrote was captured and screened by the country's largest intelligence agency. The top-secret Global Surveillance Network is called 'Echelon' ... The mission is to eavesdrop on enemies of the state: foreign countries, terrorist groups, and drug cartels. But in the process, Echelon's computers capture virtually every electronic conversation around the world." Unlike Bush's NSA program -- which targets international calls from those with known al Qaeda ties -- Echelon's net caught everybody.
* Echelon was frequently used for economic espionage. Former CIA Director James Woolsey told France's Le Figaro that "spying on Europe is justified" in order to meet U.S. economic objectives -- such as "track[ing] corruption in international business." Mike Frost, a former member of Canadian intelligence, was quoted in The New York Times in May 1999 claiming that "[Echelon's] focus now is towards economic intelligence."
* According to Insight magazine, the Clinton Administration bugged Asian businessmen and allegedly sold the information to Democratic National Committee (DNC) donors. In mid-1997, anonymous sources told Insight that 1993's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation [APEC] conference, held in Seattle, was thoroughly bugged in a "top-secret operation run by the FBI in conjunction with intelligence personnel from the ... NSA, and the Office of Navel Intelligence, among other things.
The Clinton Administration had an online wiretapping system.
* In July 2000 The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Clinton FBI required Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to install a government "black box" on their servers which could read all of their customers' electronic communications -- chat sessions, instant messages, website visits, etc. This blanket wiretap was dubbed "Carnivore" by the FBI itself, a name that contradicted the Agency's claims that the program was equipped "with a 'surgical' ability to intercept and collect the communications which are the subject of the lawful order while ignoring those communications which they are not authorized to intercept."
The Clinton Administration argued for warrantless spying before Congress.
* In 1994, Clinton flack Jamie Gorelick made the case for "warrantless physical searches" -- obviously more intrusive than wiretapping -- before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Gorelick, was the architect of the infamous "wall" barring communication between the FBI and the CIA that thwarted pre-9/11 counter-terrorism efforts. Here's Gorelick's now-conveniently-forgotten testimony: "[T]he President has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches ... in carrying out his foreign intelligence responsibilities."
* As Byron York of National Review reports, Gorelick also "made clear that ... President [Clinton] believed he had the power to order warrantless searches for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even if there was no reason to believe that the search might uncover evidence of a crime."
* Gorelick further asserted that the Clinton Administration would reject Congress's oversight of its warrantless searches if demands "restrict[ed] the President's ability to collect foreign intelligence necessary for the national security."
The Clinton Administration used satellites for domestic spying.
* The McCurtain Daily Gazette, a small Oklahoman newspaper, recently obtained and reported on a Secret Service log detailing how a government satellite was used during the Clinton era to spy on a "white separatist compound" the feds believed may have been involved in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. "Satellite assets have been tasked to provide intelligence concerning the compound," the log says, in what even the Associated Press considered an "unusual" use of foreign surveillance equipment.
* The Gazette notes that the "domestic use of a military satellite for domestic spying is a violation of DOD [Department of Defense] and CIA regulations regarding proper use of top-secret national security satellites." And yet Sen. Robert "Sheets" Byrd (D, WV) didn't decry such spying as akin to "the thuggish practices of our enemies," as he did with the Bush wiretapping story. You'd think he would have been upset about the government spying on a "white separatist compound," but no.

Internet means end for media barons, says Murdoch Owen Gibson, media correspondentTuesday March 14, 2006The London Guardian
Rupert Murdoch last night sounded the death knell for the era of the media baron, comparing today's internet pioneers with explorers such as Christopher Columbus and John Cabot and hailing the arrival of a "second great age of discovery".
The N ews Corp media magnate nurtures a long-held distaste for "the establishment" but last night confided to one of the few clubs to which he does belong - The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers - that he may be among the last of a dying breed.
"Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry - the editors, the chief executives and, let's face it, the proprietors," said Mr Murdoch, having flown into London from New York after celebrating his 75th birthday on Saturday.
Far from mourning its passing, he evangelised about a digital future that would put that power in the hands of those already launching a blog every second, sharing photos and music online and downloading television programmes on demand. "A new generation of media consumers has risen demanding content delivered when they want it, how they want it, and very much as they want it," he said.
Indicating he had little desire to slow down despite his advancing years, he told the 603-year-old guild that he was looking forward, not back.
"It is difficult, indeed dangerous, to underestimate the huge changes this revolution will bring or the power of developing technologies to build and destroy - not just companies but whole countries."
The owner of Fox News added: "Never has the flow of information and ideas, of hard news and reasoned comment, been more important. The force of our democratic beliefs is a key weapon in the war against religious fanaticism and the terrorism it breeds."
"Societies or companies that expect a glorious past to shield them from the forces of change driven by advancing technology will fail and fall," he warned. "That applies as much to my own, the media industry, as to every other business on the planet."
"I believe traditional newspapers have many years of life but, equally, I think in the future that newsprint and ink will be just one of many channels to our readers," he said, predicting a future in which "media becomes like fast food" with consumers watching news, sport and film clips as they travel, on mobile phones or handheld wireless devices.
"Great journalism will always attract readers. The words, pictures and graphics that are the stuff of journalism have to be brilliantly packaged; they must feed the mind and move the heart," he enthused.
Following its chairman's change of heart, News Corp has splashed out close to $1bn (£578m) on internet investments.
Most tellingly, the company spent $400m on MySpace.com, the social networking phenomenon that has proved hugely popular with 35m regular users on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr Murdoch has undergone a Damascene conversion, admitting he hugely underestimated the power of the web. He said last night: "It is a creative, destructive technology that is still in its infancy, yet breaking and remaking everything in its path. We are all on a journey, not just the privileged few, and technology will take us to a destination that is defined by the limits of our creativity, our confidence and our courage."

Newspaper naysayers win
Marketwatch.com ^ March 13, 2006 Herb Greenberg
SAN DIEGO (MarketWatch) -- On a personal basis, Knight-Ridder's $4.5 billion to McClatchy is bittersweet.
As a native of Miami, I was raised on the Miami Herald, considered the flagship of what was then known as Knight Newspapers. I went to the University of Miami on a scholarship from the Herald, where I interned during college.
My first job after graduation was at the Boca Raton News, then Knight-Ridder's (KRI) smallest newspaper -- yet, at that time, probably its most innovative daily.
I later worked at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the headquarters of Ridder Newspapers before its 1974 merger with Knight. I even used my Knight-Ridder stock, bought at a discount while at the Pioneer Press as part of the employee-stock-purchase program, to pay for my honeymoon.
Now, as part of the McClatchy (MNI) deal, the Pioneer Press is likely to be sold to avoid antitrust issues, since McClatchy owns the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
St. Paul won't be the only one to go: Among the dozen Knight-Ridder papers on the chopping block: the San Jose Mercury and Philadelphia Inquirer; in their heydays, both were considered to be among the best U.S. newspapers.
That was before Knight-Ridder went on a cost-cutting spree in which it excised muscle as well as fat. The good news, from a journalist's standpoint, is that the remaining Knight-Ridder papers are going to a chain known for good journalism.
The bad news: that it had to come to this.
But that's the reality of newspaper publishing circa 2006. A year ago I wrote that I'd love nothing more than to invest in a mutual fund that owns nothing but down-and-out publishing stocks -- just as I did with biotech several years ago when it was like the plague. Newspaper stocks were so hated they appeared to be the ultimate contrarian play.
Now I'm thinking I'm lucky no such fund existed. (Yet another case of being saved from myself.)
Despite their strong cash flows and brands, newspapers, in reality, have continued to struggle to expand revenue. No need to hash over all of the obvious reasons, but let's just say that when my daughter recently looked to rent an apartment in downtown San Diego, her first stop wasn't the San Diego Union Tribune's classifieds; she headed straight to Craig's List, where she found a condo unit being rented out (not surprisingly) by someone around her age. Granted, even before the Internet became renters' primary source, niche publications had eaten away at that market for years.
Still, it's no wonder that the stocks of chains I mentioned in that year-ago column, including the likes of Tribune (TRB) , are sharply lower than they were then. Knight-Ridder, in fact, is only back to year-ago levels because of takeover talk.
Even the deal price of $67.25 is just a point or two above where Knight-Ridder was at the time. While that marks a roughly 30% premium over Knight-Ridder's October 2005 trough, before its shareholders started agitating for a transaction, news of the deal has done little to jumpstart other newspaper stocks.
That's perhaps the most troubling part of the story: No matter what happens in this space, short of rising revenues, investors want to treat newspapers -- cash flow or no cash flow -- as yesterday's news.

News for March 6, 2006

2006-03-06T16:06:00.000-08:00

Some Highlights:
Iraq Weapons come from Iran
Did Billy register as "Agent of a Foreign Principal."
Leaking Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted
How liberal are Dem candidates-to-be?
Rumsfeld Pays Surprise Visit as Wounded Troops Hit the Slopes
“Top” movies not in mainstream
Iraq's Anbar province shows signs of calm
Transcripts show media bias
Harvard Students Rip Down Controversial Pro-life Posters
Clinton gave Chinese Long Beach Port Deal
Popular Mechanics!! Kills media myths on Katrina

Intel Wars: Will Senators Have to Take Polygraph Tests?
By Jim Kouri
The United States government and its intelligence community are adopting a series of initiatives to discourage government employees from leaking classified information to journalists, The Washington Post reported in its Sunday edition.
The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws, the Post said.
During the Bush Administration, a nexus of politicians, government workers and members of the news media have worked overtime in leaking classified information. From the secret terrorist prisons to the National Security Agency's super-secret surveillance program, intelligence officials and the Bush Administration have had to watch their counterterrorism efforts neutralized for political reasons.
Special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently interviewed dozens of employees at the CIA, the NSA and other intelligence agencies as part of an intense and wide-reaching investigation. Many employees who possess security clearances at the CIA, FBI, the Justice Department and other agencies received letters from the Justice Department forbidding them from discussing even unclassified intelligence programs.
But people such as former deputy-undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin don't think the Justice Department investigators and prosecutors have the guts to indict a U.S. senator. Babbin said it would cause a battle royal on the Hill, if not a constitutional crisis.
He did say however, that any senator or congressional staffer that holds a security clearance can be asked at any time to take a polygraph. The individual can of course refuse to take the test, but failure to do so is reason to remove that person's security clearance. Babbin further said that Senators Rockefeller, Durbin, and Wyden, and some on their staffs will soon be requested to take polygraphs.
But it's not only the Bush Administration that is frustrated with all the leaks and news stories. Recently Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) said straight out that the New York Times, which ran a front page story on the top secret NSA spy program, should be prosecuted for their actions.
Some news stories have pointed fingers at Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, as a possible leaker. Others cited sources that pointed to senate staffers. Still others believe that liberal politicians in both parties are secretly leaking information to the news media for political reasons.
The debate over how much classified information the White House should share with lawmakers flared up when Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) defended himself against charges he leaked sensitive information.
Durbin actually took to the Senate floor to deny accusations that he disclosed classified information on Iraq after CIA Director George Tenet briefed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2003, which led many observers to say, "He doth protest too much."

EXCLUSIVE: Iraq Weapons -- Made in Iran?
By BRIAN ROSS, RICHARD ESPOSITO and JILL RACKMILL
March 6, 2006 — - U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border.
They are a very nasty piece of business, capable of penetrating U.S. troops' strongest armor.
What the United States says links them to Iran are tell-tale manufacturing signatures -- certain types of machine-shop welds and material indicating they are built by the same bomb factory.
"The signature is the same because they are exactly the same in production," says explosives expert Kevin Barry. "So it's the same make and model."
"I think the evidence is strong that the Iranian government is making these IEDs, and the Iranian government is sending them across the border and they are killing U.S. troops once they get there," says Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief and an ABC News consultant. "I think it's very hard to escape the conclusion that, in all probability, the Iranian government is knowingly killing U.S. troops."
U.S. intelligence officials say Iran is using the bombs as a way to drive up U.S. casualties in Iraq but without provoking a direct confrontation.
John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Februrary 2, saying, "Tehran's intention to inflict pain on the United States and Iraq has been constrained by its caution to avoid giving Washington an excuse to attack it."

Oscar Party Gift Bags Include Kid's Book Satirizing Hollywood (The Joke's on Streisand!)
PR Web, via Yahoo ^ 3/6/06
Many of Hollywood's brightest stars received an unexpected surprise in their Oscar party gift bags last night -- an advance copy of a children’s book that parodies celebrity activists.
Bestselling author Katharine DeBrecht's new book “Help! Mom! Hollywood's in My Hamper” (Kids Ahead; hardcover; ISBN 0976726912) hits stores nationwide on Tuesday, but scores of Academy Award honorees past and present were given a sneak peek at the sure-to-be-controversial book on Sunday.
The illustrated book features satirical look-a-likes resembling outspoken celebrities including Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn, Madonna, Britney Spears, Ben Affleck, and Tom Cruise. It tells the story of Janie and Sam, two girls who were happy just being kids until Hollywood stars pop out of their hamper to tell them how to behave and to sell them expensive trinkets.

DUBAI DUETS
The American Spectator ^ 3/6/06 Washington Prowler
Late Friday, Department of Justice lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel were attempting to determine if former President Bill Clinton had registered as an "Agent of a Foreign Principal."
Federal statute requires that anyone -- even a former President -- doing political or public affairs work on behalf of a foreign country, agency or official must register with the Department, and essentially update his status every six months. It was not clear the Clinton had done so.
If his status is less clear, here is what we do know: If Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton did not know about her husband's standing with the United Arab Emirates and with Dubai World Ports, members of her Senate staff most assuredly did.
"There were enough people in the Clintons' orbit who were potentially going to be part of the deal," says an employee of a firm that does work for both Clintons. "We were pursuing work on the ports deal, and we cleared our participation with Clinton's office. We didn't want there to be a conflict."
In fact, at least two senior outside advisers to Senator Clinton were attempting to get business out of the Port Deal, and President Clinton was the go-between. Associates with the Glover Park Group, which houses just about the entire shadow staff for Hillary's run-up to a Democratic presidential bid, were attempting to get a slice of the DPW deal before the deal was made public about three weeks ago. According to current and former President Clinton staff, Hillary Clinton's Senate office was aware that Glover Park was in the running to do work on the DPW deal.
"She was also very much aware of President Clinton's financial arrangements with the UAE," says a former Bill Clinton staffer. "We're talking about more than a million dollars, some of paid out soon out after they left the White House. That income helped the Clintons buy the properties that allow them to live both in New York and Washington, D.C.. This was not an insignificant financial arrangement."
What is not clear is whether or not the junior Senator from New York was aware that Clinton was acting as an agent of a foreign principal, which Clinton clearly was. According to sources with knowledge of the deal, President Clinton was advising members of the DPW buyout team in the UAE, London and Washington before the deal hit the headlines. He encouraged them to hire a number of people working in consulting firms based in Washington with whom he had both personal and financial ties: The Cohen Group, the Albright Group, and the Glover Park Group. Other sources claim that longtime Clinton confidante and golf partner Vernon Jordan's name was also suggested as potential helpful fixer in the capital.

White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks
Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
` The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.
In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the two cases.
Numerous employees at the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies also have received letters from Justice prohibiting them from discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA program, according to sources familiar with the notices. Some GOP lawmakers are also considering whether to approve tougher penalties for leaking.
In a little-noticed case in California, FBI agents from Los Angeles have already contacted reporters at the Sacramento Bee about stories published in July that were based on sealed court documents related to a terrorism case in Lodi, according to the newspaper.
Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House.
"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. "I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."
President Bush has called the NSA leak "a shameful act" that was "helping the enemy," and said in December that he was hopeful the Justice Department would conduct a full investigation into the disclosure.
"We need to protect the right to free speech and the First Amendment, and the president is doing that," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy. "But, at the same time, we do need to protect classified information which helps fight the war on terror."
Disclosing classified information without authorization has long been against the law, yet such leaks are one of the realities of life in Washington -- accounting for much of the back-channel conversation that goes on daily among journalists, policy intellectuals, and current and former government officials.
Presidents have also long complained about leaks: Richard Nixon's infamous "plumbers" were originally set up to plug them, and he tried, but failed, to prevent publication of a classified history of the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers. Ronald Reagan exclaimed at one point that he was "up to my keister" in leaks.
Bush administration officials -- who complain that reports about detainee abuse, clandestine surveillance and other topics have endangered the nation during a time of war -- have arguably taken a more aggressive approach than other recent administrations, including a clear willingness to take on journalists more directly if necessary.
"Almost every administration has kind of come in saying they want an open administration, and then getting bad press and fuming about leaks," said David Greenberg, a Rutgers University journalism professor and author of "Nixon's Shadow." "But it's a pretty fair statement to say you haven't seen this kind of crackdown on leaks since the Nixon administration."
But David B. Rivkin Jr., a partner at Baker & Hostetler in Washington and a senior lawyer in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, said the leaking is "out of control," especially given the unique threat posed by terrorist groups.
"We're at the end of this paradigm where we had this sort of gentlemen's agreement where you had leaks and journalists were allowed to protect the leakers," Rivkin said. "Everyone is playing Russian roulette now."
At Langley, the CIA's security office has been conducting numerous interviews and polygraph examinations of employees in an effort to discover whether any of them have had unauthorized contact with journalists. CIA Director Porter J. Goss has spoken about the issue at an "all hands" meeting of employees, and sent a recent cable to the field aimed at discouraging media contacts and reminding employees of the penalties for disclosing classified information, according to intelligence sources and people in touch with agency officials.
"It is my aim, and it is my hope, that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information," Goss told a Senate committee.
The Justice Department also argued in a court filing last month that reporters can be prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act for receiving and publishing classified information. The brief was filed in support of a case against two pro-Israeli lobbyists, who are the first nongovernment officials to be prosecuted for receiving and distributing classified information.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said last month that he is considering legislation that would criminalize the leaking of a wider range of classified information than what is now covered by law. The measure would be similar to earlier legislation that was vetoed by President Bill Clinton in 2000 and opposed by then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft in 2002.
But the vice chairman of the same committee, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), complained in a letter to the national intelligence director last month that "damaging revelations of intelligence sources and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of the intelligence agencies."
As evidence, Rockefeller points to the case of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer whose identity was leaked to the media. A grand jury investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald resulted last year in the jailing of Judith Miller, then a reporter at the New York Times, for refusing to testify, and in criminal charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff. In court papers, Libby has said that his "superiors" authorized him to disclose a classified government report.
The New York Times, which first disclosed the NSA program in December, and The Post, which reported on secret CIA prisons in November, said investigators have not contacted reporters or editors about those articles.
Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Post, said there has long been a "natural and healthy tension between government and the media" on national security issues, but that he is "concerned" about comments by Goss and others that appear to reflect a more aggressive stance by the government. Downie noted that The Post had at times honored government requests not to report particularly sensitive information, such as the location of CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.
"We do not want to inadvertently threaten human life or legitimately harm national security in our reporting," he said. "But it's important . . . in our constitutional system that these final decisions be made by newspaper editors and not the government."
In Sacramento, the Bee newspaper reported last month that FBI agents had contacted two of its reporters and, along with a federal prosecutor, had "questioned" a third reporter about articles last July detailing the contents of sealed court documents about five terrorism suspects. A Bee article on the contacts did not address whether the reporters supplied the agents with any information or whether they were subject to subpoenas.
Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez said last week he could not comment based on the advice of newspaper attorneys. Representatives of the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, which is conducting the inquiry, also declined to comment.
CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise Dyck declined to discuss details of the leak investigations there but said they were being conducted independently of the White House and were not aimed at pressuring journalists.

“In the United States there is no phenomenon more threatening to popular government than the unwillingness of newspapers to give the facts to their readers.” —Nelson Antrim Crawford

AP usage of 'breach' was wrong
Arizona Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 03.04.2006
WASHINGTON — An Associated Press story Thursday on this page incorrectly reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.
The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaching.
The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun.
The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn't until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches.

Wash times
'Heroes' of Senate liberalism
TODAY'S EDITORIAL
With a dozen or so U.S. senators giving serious consideration to running for their party's 2008 presidential nomination, voters will want to know how the political ideologies of these potential candidates rank among their colleagues. Arguably, voters can best discern the relative ideologies by comparing the votes they cast on identical issues.
Both the nonpartisan National Journal and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) have recently released their 2005 voting guides, ranking the ideological purity of members of Congress. Herewith is a review of those rankings among the five Democratic senators -- Evan Bayh of Indiana, Joe Biden of Delaware, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and John Kerry of Massachusetts -- who are likely to seek the Democratic presidential nomination.
ADA followed its customary practice of selecting what it considers to be the 20 most important votes of the year and awarding a senator five points for each vote in support of ADA's position. Senators voting ADA's way all the time receive a "liberal quotient" of 100 percent and are officially designated a "Hero."
After registering four consecutive scores of 95 percent (2001-04), Mrs. Clinton finally achieved the status of ADA "Hero" last year. Other "Heroes" included Messrs. Biden, Kerry and Feingold. Mr. Bayh, who scored 95 percent, was one of three Democrats to join a virtually unanimous Republican front to defeat an amendment that would have prohibited the funding of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, or "bunker buster" weapon.
The National Journal's rating system is more complex. It ranks the 100 senators on liberal and conservative continuums. In addition to providing sub-rankings according to senators' positions on economic issues (41 votes in 2005), social concerns (16 votes) and foreign-policy matters (13 votes), the National Journal provides composite liberal and conservative scores. In early 2004, it may be recalled, the National Journal's rating system identified Mr. Kerry as the most liberal senator in 2003, a distinction that the Bush White House emphasized throughout the campaign.
Although Mr. Kerry remains the only senator to be identified as the Senate's most liberal member in four different years since National Journal initiated its rating system 25 years ago, Sen. Ted Kennedy captured that position in 2005. Still, Mr. Kerry was ranked the most liberal senator among the five likely to seek the Democratic nomination in 2008. On a continuum from 0 to 100, Mr. Kerry received a composite liberal score of 86.7 in 2005, making him the eighth most liberal senator last year. Trailing him in 2005 were Mr. Feingold (85.2, 14th); Mr. Biden (80.2, 19th); Mrs. Clinton (79.8, 20th); and Mr. Bayh (70.7, 34th).
The National Journal also helpfully supplied lifetime average composite liberal scores. Among the five likely presidential candidates in 2008, Mr. Kerry's was the highest: 85.7 since 1985. The others' average lifetime liberal composite scores are: Mr. Feingold (80.6 since 1993); Mrs. Clinton (80.5 since 2001); Mr. Biden (76.8 since 1981, although he was first elected in 1972); and Mr. Bayh (63.2 since 1999).
Recall that these "composite" figures represent an aggregate liberal score based upon 70 roll-call votes classified as either economic, social or foreign-policy issues. For each of the three categories, the National Journal's system enables it to declare that a member is more liberal than a specific percent of the Senate. For example, Mr. Kerry's 86.7 liberal composite score in 2005 results from his voting record being more liberal than 91 percent of the Senate on economic issues, more liberal than 90 percent of the Senate on social issues and more liberal than 72 percent of the Senate on foreign-policy issues. Similar conclusions were drawn for the others.
Last year, Mrs. Clinton was determined to be more liberal than 84 percent of the Senate (economic issues); 83 percent (social); and 66 percent (foreign policy). The percentages for the others are: Mr. Biden (73, 83, 76); Mr. Feingold (76, 83, 90); and Mr. Bayh (66, 83, 58).

Rumsfeld Pays Surprise Visit as Wounded Troops Hit the Slopes
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, March 5, 2006 – Wounded troops participating in the third annual Vail Veterans Program here got a surprise visit on the ski slopes today when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived to cheer them on and congratulate them for their accomplishments.
Rumsfeld and his wife Joyce appeared unannounced last night, joining 24 servicemembers who lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan at the top of Vail Mountain for dinner at the Eagle's Nest Restaurant.
The secretary spent the evening circulating among the program participants, all patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and their spouses and guests. He also attended a dinner hosted by the Vail Fire Department for the program participants.
He chatted one-on-one with the troops, posed for photos around the room and offered up encouragement and thanks to all, including the Vail Veterans Program organizers and volunteers.
Today, Rumsfeld took to the ski slopes to see firsthand how the veterans were applying the skills they are learning this week.
The program, hosted by Vail Mountain and the Vail community, gives wounded war veterans an all-expenses-paid opportunity to learn how to ski and snowboard. It kicked off March 1 and wraps up tomorrow.
Rumsfeld said he was delighted to see the veterans' progress. "Being outside in fresh air and having a chance to physically do something like this, I think it gives them a sense of freedom they wouldn't otherwise get," he said.

Katie Couric Miffed Over Traditional Values Town
NewsMax ^ 3/5/06 NewsMax
NBC "Today Show" hostess Katie Couric didn't sound too pleased Friday morning with plans to develop a community that openly espouses traditional values, let alone the fact that it will have a Catholic University at its center.
Plans for Ave Maria, Florida have already drawn praise from Gov. Jeb Bush, who told NBC: "I think it'll be a model for sustainable living not just for Florida, but for the country."
But plaudits from the Florida Republican, who NBC pointedly reminded, is Catholic himself, didn't impress the folks at "Today."
Introducing the segment, reporter Michelle Kosinski lamented that Ave Maria would be a town "without condoms or birth control pills, no porn shops or strip joints, or premarital sex."
But it was Couric herself who seemed most offended, chastising her guests, Domino's Pizza mogul Thomas Monaghan and developer Paul Marinelli, for building a community that "people will see . . . as eschewing diversity and promoting intolerance."
"Does [Ave Maria] follow the tenets pretty much, Mr. Marinelli, of the Catholic church?" Couric worried. "In other words, pharmacies in this community can't sell contraception, correct?"
Not true, the developer responded - explaining that the sale contraceptive materials will be discouraged but not banned.
"You would welcome Jewish residents?" Couric queried, sounding like she expected to get a no for an answer.
"Definitely," Marinelli explained. "We anticipate that there would be synagogues as well as [a] Baptist church."
"What about gay couples?" Couric pressed, appearing confident she'd finally ferreted out the bigoted streak in the traditional values town.
Foiled again.
"We will not discriminate against anyone," Marinelli explained. "You know, we respect the Constitution, we're not going to violate the US Constitution or the Florida Constitution."

Breakouts - Which Movies Are Really in the Mainstream?
Breakpoint.org ^ March 3, 2006 Chuck Colson
If all goes as expected at this Sunday’s Academy Awards, Brokeback Mountain will win in the “Best Picture,” “Best Director,” and perhaps even “Best Actor” categories. Even if it doesn’t do as well as expected, the film is already being hailed as a “breakout” event, a kind of cultural watershed of sorts—which it almost certainly is not.
By “breakout,” I mean the idea, most famously advanced by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, that the movie would do well in the “heartland,” and that this, in turn, would signal an increased acceptance of same-sex relationships.
As USA Today summarized it, the film would change “how Hollywood portrays gay characters [and] also how gay men and lesbians are accepted by mainstream America.”
Well, it turns out that the reports of a breakout were greatly exaggerated. While admittedly, Brokeback did well at the box office, its audience was exactly whom you would have predicted all along: people in the Northeast and on the West Coast. The film made far more money in Canada than in the Great Plains or the Rocky Mountain states.
There’s nothing new in this pattern. As Mickey Kaus of Slate pointed out, it’s the same pattern we saw with Fahrenheit 9/11, the anti-Bush documentary. Then, as now, reports about the film’s alleged popularity in middle-America were treated as harbingers of a cultural shift. Then, as now, these reports were shown to be equal parts wishful thinking, spin, and propaganda.
But even if we concede that Brokeback’s $70 million-plus at the box office “is a sign of American mainstream status,” we are still left with another question. “What is $288 million or even . . . $370 million” a sign of?
This question was posed by columnist Terry Mattingly. The numbers he’s citing are the comparable box-office takes for The Chronicles of Narnia and The Passion of the Christ, respectively. These films not only made many times what Brokeback did, they did well in every part of the country. By Rich and company’s logic, this would place them and their Christian messages squarely in the “mainstream.” But don’t hold your breath waiting for such an acknowledgment.
The truth is that, as Mattingly writes, “Brokeback Mountain is a solid, artistic niche movie for the hard left in American life.” This group is “dominated by Oscar voters and Hollywood’s most loyal supporters in blue zip codes.”
The insular worldview of this group is why the “Best Picture” nominees are, as the Los Angeles Times put it, “five movies most people haven’t seen.” This year’s Oscars are a celebration of one particular group’s ideals and tell us little about what constitutes mainstream American attitudes.

Iraq's Anbar province shows signs of calm
AP ^ March 5 2006 JIM KRANE
Iraq's western Anbar province, the crucible of the Sunni Muslim insurgency since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion nearly three years ago, is showing signs of calm in recent weeks, and U.S. leaders say cooperation is emerging among once bitter enemies.
Insurgent attacks last week in the province dropped by more than a quarter, U.S. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said in a briefing here this week. At the same time, U.S. military and civilian leaders have softened their rhetoric against the largely Sunni insurgents. Rebels once denigrated as "Baathist thugs and killers" are now often described as nationalists.
U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid said last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine - and the reprisal attacks on Sunni Arabs - created a stronger impetus for Sunni-American cooperation.
"There is an improvement in Anbar," Abizaid told The Associated Press on Saturday. "A lot of people in the Sunni community are talking to us, lessening the cycle of violence. Many Sunni leaders are moving forward to take part in the political process."
U.S. military leaders have attributed improving relations in the province to several factors, including a confluence of interests. Americans frequently say Sunni participation in government is key to preventing an Iraqi civil war and the country's breakup. And Sunnis have leaned on Americans to gain leverage in Iraq's feuding political system and protection from Shiite militias.
The conservative province was one of Saddam Hussein's strongholds that violently turned on American troops after what many considered a pivotal event: Soldiers in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne fired on demonstrators in Fallujah in April 2003, killing 16 and wounding 65.

Moussaoui fights for his life
By Stewart Powell
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
The sentencing trial that opens tomorrow for confessed Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui is expected to spotlight federal authorities' missed opportunities to disrupt the unfolding plot during the 26 days between the student pilot's arrest and the devastating attacks.
Prosecutors seeking the death penalty are preparing to tell the sentencing jury that Moussaoui bears direct responsibility for the attacks and deserves execution because he "lied to federal agents to allow his al-Qaeda `brothers' to go forward with the operation" after his arrest on Aug. 16, 2001.
But Moussaoui's court-appointed defense team is ready to urge the jury that the 37-year-old Moroccan-born French citizen should be spared execution because he knew far less about the plot than top officials in the Bush administration, including then-CIA Director George Tenet.
More than 80 prospective jurors are scheduled to report to US District Court here in suburban Washington, DC, tomorrow morning for the final phase of jury selection. The pool of candidates will be whittled down to 18 jurors and alternates, who will decide whether Moussaoui faces execution or life imprisonment without release.
Lawyers' opening arguments begin tomorrow afternoon in proceedings that stem from Moussaoui's surprise guilty plea last April 22 to six charges arising from the Sept. 11 plot, including three carrying the death penalty.
Moussaoui, the only person to face criminal charges in US courts in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, claims he had nothing to do with the plot and was sent to the US for a second-wave of suicide attacks that never occurred.
Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said defense lawyers will try to shift jurors' attention away from Moussaoui "and onto government officials' failure to stop the attacks" in hopes of staving off the death penalty.
"By the time jurors face a decision on punish-ment, the government may look a lot less competent about what it did to stop the attacks," Tobias said.
Moussaoui's defense team underscored its plans to focus attention on the federal government's pre-attack actions by subpoenaing testimony from US Representative Curt Weldon (Republican, Pennsylvania). The 10-term lawmaker investigated a super-secret Pentagon intelligence operation known as "Able Danger" that raised the possibility that US officials knew about the Sept. 11 plot before it was carried out.
US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema last Thursday rejected defense lawyers' subpoena for Weldon, but granted defense lawyers' request for testimony by three specialists involved with the "Able Danger" program.
"What knowledge the government possessed before Sept. 11 regarding members of al-Qaeda, and specifically links between al-Qaeda and the eventual hijackers, is a key issue in dispute in this death penalty trial," Brinkema said in her written order.
It is unknown if Moussaoui's lawyers also subpoenaed high-ranking officials, such as Tenet or US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, because the court has sealed the list of witnesses.
But Moussaoui's defense lawyers can draw upon evidence of government missteps from the exhaustive findings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the US.

Court Upholds Campus Military Recruiting
By GINA HOLLAND
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that colleges that accept federal money must allow military recruiters on campus, despite university objections to the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays.
Justices rejected a free-speech challenge from law schools and their professors who claimed they should not be forced to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said that the campus visits are an effective military recruiting tool.
"A military recruiter's mere presence on campus does not violate a law school's right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter's message," he wrote.
The ruling upheld a law that requires colleges that take federal money to accommodate recruiters. In addition, justices said that Congress could directly demand military access on campus, even without the threat of losing federal money.
College leaders have said they could not afford to lose federal help, some $35 billion a year.
Roberts filed the only opinion, which was joined by every justice but Samuel Alito. Alito did not participate because he was not on the bench when the case was argued.

Oscar ratings down according to early figures
Mon Mar 6, 2006pm ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar organizers' fears of weak television ratings for an Academy Awards lacking in star power and box-office hits may about to be confirmed.
Preliminary figures released by Nielsen Media Research on Monday for ABC's 3 1/2-hour Oscar telecast capped by the surprise Oscar triumph of racial drama "Crash" indicate a ratings drop of about 10 percent from last year's ceremony.
Sunday night's broadcast, hosted for the first time by comedian Jon Stewart, drew an average household rating of 27.1 percent, which would be the lowest percentage of homes that has tuned into the Academy Awards since 2003, according to data Nielsen collected in the 55 largest U.S. TV markets.
By comparison, last year's Oscars ceremony, which crowned boxing film "Million Dollar Baby" as 2004's best picture, garnered an average household rating of 30.1.

“Congress is hardly a weak institution. It is composed of the only legitimate federal lawmakers in our system of government, 535 accomplished men and women who also happen to be the most skilled camera-hogging gasbags this side of professional wrestling.” —Mac Johnson

You Don't Say?
Greyhawk
In a recent press briefing General George Casey (the commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq) countered virtually every inflated claim made by the media regarding Iraq's recent "civil war" in the wake of the Shrine bombing in Samarra. But there are significant disconnects between what Gen Casey said and how his words are reported.

From the transcript:
Q General Casey, David Cloud with the New York Times. You mentioned, I think, a few minutes ago that there were reports of ISF assisting the militias. Can you expand on that a little bit, and how widespread was it? I think you mentioned east Baghdad . Can you just give us a sense of how widespread the problem of sectarian violence within the ISF has been over the last few days?
GEN. CASEY: The reports that we have is that they were allowing the Mahdi militia to pass through their checkpoints. And, obviously, this is not something that we are going to condone, nor will the Iraqi security force leadership condone.
But as I said, this is different than August '04 and April '04. The militias didn't take over anything, or if they did, it was quite fleeting. And when the Iraqi security forces showed up, they, by and large, yielded control.
We have a story of a Mahdi militia that went into a Sunni mosque in Baghdad and intended to remain there overnight. And a brigadier general from -- a brigade commander from the Iraqi army went in and talked them out and let them go on their way. Now, that's an Iraqi solution to an Iraqi problem, but it's Iraqi security forces dealing with the challenges that they're faced with.

The report on those comments that appeared in the New York Times:
Casey said that in some instances, the mostly Shiite security forces gave armed Shiites free rein in Baghdad and Basra, where reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques and clerics took days to contain.
And the Washington Post
Moreover, in Baghdad, Iraqi security forces in several instances aided the militias' movements, allowing them to pass unhindered through checkpoints, according to military reports cited by Casey. He said the militias were primarily responsible for attacks on mosques in Baghdad, where militias in neighborhoods such as the predominantly Shiite Sadr City had taken to the streets immediately after the Samarra bombing.

Immediately following the attack on the Shrine, the Washington Post reported that 120 Sunni mosques had been attacked in retaliation, other media reports claimed as many as 184. In his press conference, General Casey explained that "it took us a few days to sort our way through what we considered in a lot of cases to be exaggerated reports" and provided updated totals:
We can confirm about 30 attacks on mosques around the country, with less than 10 of those mosques moderately damaged and only two or three of those mosques severely damaged.
There are other reports -- we have sent forces out to check them -- in one instance in Baghdad , we checked eight reports -- visited eight mosques that were reportedly damaged. We found one broken window in those eight mosques.

Here's how the Washington Post reported those comments:
He said 350 Iraqi civilians had died in a surge of sectarian killings, militia violence and revenge attacks on about 30 mosques around the country after the bombing. "This, obviously, is unacceptable," he said.

The media is free to dispute the General's claims - that's expected of them. But in this case they aren't, they are simply using his words selectively in a manner that supports their own previously published fictions. There's no law that says U.S. media outlets are required to report accurately or completely on comments made by military or government officials.
Likewise there are no requirements for media outlets to acknowledge that they are printing unverified claims made by "other parties" in the war as confirmed "news" - as was the case in the aftermath of the Shrine bombing (See here and here).
But consumers of those reports should be aware of their flaws. Citing sources or linking to full texts are not difficult tasks, and certainly serve to keep people well informed. After all, a well-informed public is the motivation for all good journalism, right?

Top Democrats Question Dean's DNC Spending
NewsMax
Democratic congressional leaders reportedly gave an earful to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in a private meeting last month. Their problem: Dean’s free-spending ways.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., complained to the 2004 presidential candidate that his spending priorities at the DNC were misplaced.
Dean has been spending large amounts on organizing state parties in strong Republican states like Mississippi rather than targeting states with close congressional races in the mid-term elections.
Several anonymous sources told the Washington Post that neither side gave in. Dean claimed his strategy was necessary for the long-term health of the party. It is the same argument he made when running for the DNC chairmanship.

Sunnis Now Want U.S. Troops to Remain in Iraq
The Seattle Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two years ago, Riyadh al Adhadh cursed the U.S. soldiers who had overrun his homeland, toppled his Sunni sect from power and tormented prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A member of the City Council, he loudly demanded an American withdrawal.
Last week, his neighborhood under attack by Shiite militiamen, Adhadh found himself huddled over the telephone in panic, begging the U.S. embassy to send American soldiers.
The moment of bitter irony for the father of six captured a sharp shift in Iraqi opinion. Three years after the March 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, as the threat of civil war looms, leaders of a nervous Sunni minority have started to drop demands for an immediate U.S. withdrawal.
"We've changed our ideas," said Adhadh, 52.

Angry with union fees, state workers ponder suit
Puget Sound Business Journal ^
State employees unhappy with a requirement to pay union fees are rebelling in different ways, with some planning to file a class-action lawsuit.
Other employees who object to the mandate have different plans. About a half-dozen have been fired for refusing to pay fees in lieu of union dues. Other workers have paid and kept their jobs, but joined a nonprofit called Free Conscience that wants to end the fee through litigation or lobbying. Others who object to the mandate are working on a petition-on-wheels, a car signed by angry employees who gather in the parking lot to vent their frustration.
The mandate stems from a 2002 law that allowed the first collective bargaining for wages and benefits. An agreement between the state and the Washington Federation of State Employees, which represents about 38,000 workers, contained a union security clause requiring employees to either join the union and pay dues or pay the union a fee for its bargaining services.

Pro-Life Posters Spark Debate: Students Rip Down Controversial Pro-life Posters (Harvard)
Harvard Crimson ^ 3/6/2006 Joyce Y. Zhang
Posters depicting in utero fetuses raised eyebrows and a small uproar last week. One of the posters, the second in a series created by Harvard Right to Life (HRL), featured the picture of a fetus named Elena with the words, “I’m 25 days old...and my heart already BEATS!!”
“The posters from this semester are getting torn down left and right,” said HRL President Meghan E. Grizzle ’07. “Apparently people find the picture of a fetus gruesome and I don’t understand why, because we’re not showing pictures of an aborted fetus or a dead baby,” Grizzle said. She added that HRL had to constantly replace the posters that were removed from displays across campus.
A debate concerning the abortion posters raged over the Cabot-open e-mail list after Ndidi N. Menkiti ’06 requested in an e-mail that people stop defacing the posters.
“I had seen some posters ripped up and thrown on the ground on the first floor of Cabot,” said Menkiti. “I felt it was an immature way to react when you disagree with someone.”

Iraq's New Parliament to Convene Sunday
AP via Yahoo! ^
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's president said Monday he would convene the new parliament for the first time on March 12, beginning a 60-day countdown during which lawmakers must elect a new head of state and sign off on a prime minister and Cabinet.
The constitution requires parliament to meet no later than four weeks after the vote was certified, which occurred Feb. 12, nearly two months after the election.
"We will call today for holding the meeting on the 12th of this month because it is the last day that the constitution allows us to hold the meeting of the new parliament," President Jalal Talabani told reporters.

"The Ballad of the Green Berets"-Mumber One 40 Years Ago This Month
"Fighting soldiers from the sky...Fearless men who jump and die...Men who mean just what they say...The brave men of the Green Berets..."
The first verse of the most popular song in America during March 1966. "The Ballad of the Green Berets" was number one on the Billboard charts for three weeks and the Cashbox chart for four weeks. "Ballad of the Green Berets" tied for number one song of 1966 with "Monday,Monday" by The Mamas and Papas on the Cashbox chart.
Something good to remember here in March 2006, 40 years later.

Chinese Got Long Beach Deal (1997 - Clinton Deal)
The Daily Republican ^ March 7, 1997 Staff Investigative Journalists
LONG BEACH DESK - The Long Beach Naval Station was tentatively placed on the Military Base Closure-List by president George Bush in 1991. President Bill Clinton, closed the naval base last in 1993. That resulted in the loss to Long Beach, California of 17,500 military and civilian jobs. The economic impact of the of loss was $52.5 million and drove the California economy into the tank. It has never recovered.
Between 1995-1996, during the heat of the Clinton-Gore Campaign fund raising activity, the Clinton administration actively intervened to make sure a Communist Chinese cargo container shipping interest got a too-good deal on a Long Beach, California, shipping terminal.
The Secretary of the Navy has formally turned the base over to the City of Long Beach. But, the Port of Long Beach has signed a letter of intent to lease the property to the China Ocean Shipping Co., a steamship line run by the Communist Chinese government.
The Navy base property is about to be leased to a Communist China-owned shipping company under an agreement that was only made possible by the intervention of the White House.
After a hearing before the court, a judge ruled last week that the deal had been rushed and proper procedures had not been in place.
Clinton was so eager to push the deal through that he met twice with Long Beach officials and once at a White House meeting in 1995 that included his then-chief of staff and the Pentagon's No. 2 official and others.
The deal finally approved by the Secretary of the Navy turns over control of the Long Beach Naval Station, with a value of at least $65 million, free of charge to the City of Long Beach. The city has agreed to lease it to the China Ocean Shipping Co. of the People's Republic of China.
The Chinese deal apparently went forward without a national security review by either the CIA or National Security Council. The White House apparently avoided normal and routine government channels in pushing the deal through in 1995. '... there seemed to be no reason to check with the National Security Council on the decision ...' White House spokesman Lanny Davis said.

Popular Mechanics Takes on Katrina Myths (good read!)
The American Thinker ^ 3/6/2006 Noel Sheppard
In its March issue, Popular Mechanics took on virtually all of the media myths and misnomers that were so drilled into the citizenry by press representatives that many have become part of the public psyche. Thankfully, its authors made it clear right in the first paragraph that they planned on pulling no punches:
“In the months since the storm, many of the first impressions conveyed by the media have turned out to be mistaken.”
Myth #1: “’The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history.’—Aaron Broussard, president, Jefferson Parish, La., Meet the Press, NBC, Sept. 4, 2005”
“Bumbling by top disaster-management officials fueled a perception of general inaction, one that was compounded by impassioned news anchors. In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest—and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm’s landfall.”
Certainly, it seems hard to categorize 100,000 workers as an abandonment. Unlike many in the media that make such bold statements without verification, PM backed up its position with actual facts
Myth #2: “’This is a once-in-a-lifetime event.’—New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, press conference, Aug. 28, 2005”
“Though many accounts portray Katrina as a storm of unprecedented magnitude, it was in fact a large, but otherwise typical, hurricane. On the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale, Katrina was a midlevel Category 3 hurricane at landfall. Its barometric pressure was 902 millibars (mb), the sixth lowest ever recorded, but higher than Wilma (882mb) and Rita (897mb), the storms that followed it. Katrina’s peak sustained wind speed at landfall 55 miles south of New Orleans was 125 mph; winds in the city barely reached hurricane strength.
“By contrast, when Hurricane Andrew struck the Florida coast in 1992, its sustained winds were measured at 142 mph. And meteorologists estimate that 1969’s Category 5 Hurricane Camille, which followed a path close to Katrina’s, packed winds as high as 200 mph.”
Myth #3: “’Perhaps not just human error was involved [in floodwall failures]. There may have been some malfeasance.’—Raymond Seed, civil engineering professor, UC, Berkeley, testifying before a Senate committee, Nov. 2, 2005”
There’s been a lot of second-guessing and finger pointing concerning the levee design, and who was responsible for their failure. According to PM, these were all built according to specifications:
“Most of the New Orleans floodwall failures occurred when water up to 25 ft. high overtopped the barriers, washing out their foundations. But three breached floodwalls-one in the 17th Street Canal and two in the London Avenue Canal showed no signs of overtopping. Accusations of malfeasance were born after the Army Corps of Engineers released seismic data suggesting that the sheet-pile foundations supporting those floodwalls were 7 ft. shorter than called for in the design a possible cause for collapse. In December 2005, PM watched Corps engineers pull four key sections of the 17th Street Canal foundation out of the New Orleans mud. The sections were more than 23 ft. long-as per design specifications
Myth #4: “’They have people … been in that frickin’ Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.’—New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Sept. 6, 2005”
Both public officials and the press passed along lurid tales of post-Katrina mayhem: shootouts in the Superdome, bodies stacked in a convention center freezer, snipers firing on rescue helicopters. And those accounts appear to have affected rescue efforts as first responders shifted resources from saving lives to protecting rescuers.
“The only confirmed account of a weapon discharge occurred when Louisiana Guardsman Chris Watt was jumped by an assailant and, during the chaotic arrest, accidently shot himself in the leg with his own M-16.
“When the Superdome was finally cleared, six bodies were found—not the 200 speculated. Four people had died of natural causes; one was ruled a suicide, and another a drug overdose. Of the four bodies recovered at the convention center, three had died of natural causes; the fourth had sustained stab wounds.”
Myth #5: “‘The failure to evacuate was the tipping point for all the other things that … went wrong.’—Michael Brown, former FEMA director, Sept. 27, 2005”
Regardless, when you look at the arithmetic and the facts, this really was a very successful evacuation. PM agreed:
“When Nagin issued his voluntary evacuation order, a contraflow plan that turned inbound interstate lanes into outbound lanes enabled 1.2 million people to leave New Orleans out of a metro population of 1.5 million. ‘The Corps estimated we would need 72 hours [to evacuate that many people],’ says Brian Wolshon, an LSU civil engineer. ‘Instead, it took 38 hours.’”
Another myth in this regard was that the only people that didn’t evacuate were those that couldn’t. Not so according to PM:
“Later investigations indicated that many who stayed did so by choice. ‘Most people had transportation,’ says Col. Joe Spraggins, director of emergency management in Harrison County, Ala. ‘Many didn’t want to leave.’ Tragic exceptions: hospital patients and nursing home residents.”
Myth #6: “‘We will rebuild [the Gulf Coast] bigger and better than ever.’—Haley Barbour, Miss. Gov., The Associated press, Sept. 3, 2005”
There’s been much discussion in the media concerning what should be done with New Orleans after its destruction. PM offered a bold view in this regard. Its premise was that the current National Flood Insurance Program rewards people who live in coastal areas subject to floods, with some making multiple claims for very large sums of money:
“Just 1 to 2 percent of claims were from ‘repetitive-loss properties’-those suffering damage at least twice in a 10-year period. Yet, those 112,000 properties generated a remarkable 40 percent of the losses-$5.6 billion. One homeowner in Houston filed 16 claims in 18 years, receiving payments totaling $806,000 for a building valued at $114,000.
Myth #7: “‘You have a major energy network that is down … We could run out of gasoline or diesel or jet fuel in the next two weeks here.’—Roger Diwan, managing director, Oil Markets Group, PFC Energy, Business Week, Sept. 1, 2005”
Probably not unintentionally, PM saved the best myth for last. Some of the worst media reporting surrounding this hurricane was directly related to energy prices. In fact, we quickly heard how this was going to cause massive job cuts around the country, lead to a recession, send gasoline to $5 per gallon, and kill the Christmas shopping season.
Much like most economic predictions from the media, none of these prognostications materialized. And, according to PM, the media were all wet regarding how much damage was done to the nation’s energy complex:
“Initially, the pictures from the gulf looked bleak: oil rigs washed up along the coast, production platforms wrecked. In truth, Katrina inflicted minimal damage to the offshore energy infrastructure. Only 86 of the gulf’s 4000 drilling rigs and platforms were damaged or destroyed, and most of those were older, fixed platforms atop unproductive wells.”
Beyond this, the subsequent storms of Rita and Wilma had a larger impact on our energy complex than Katrina, though neither garnered the same media attention. However, even with all this damage, things were repaired much quicker than expected – especially by the media that never see any good in anything:
“But recovery came more quickly than many experts predicted. By the end of the year, overall production was down just 8 percent, and only three refineries were still off line.

Special: AP uses stupidity to show bias; others follow

2006-03-04T11:40:00.000-08:00

AP writes an article that shows it does not know the difference between water going over a levee and water destroying a levee…claiming once again that “Bush lied.” The lapdogs in the formerly mainstream media regurgitate the inaccuracies, showing their own bias---and stupidity. Three days later, the AP offers a very weak “clarification.”
The AP still has not retracted its claim to having new news in an “exclusive video” In fact the claim went up in smoke buried waaaay down in an AP story:
"We do have tapes," DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said. "We have the tapes from the v-tels (video teleconferences), and we've provided the transcripts - they've been in the public domain for months."

Below is the AP “retraction.” (If your local paper printed the original and not the retraction, it might make a good letter to the editor.) Also below, how the original story was played in the FMSM.

AP clarifies story about Katrina, Bush
WASHINGTON — In a Wednesday story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his Homeland Security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing.
The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.
The day before Katrina, Bush was told there were grave concerns the levees could be overrun.
It wasn’t until the next morning, as the storm made landfall, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had asked about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.

The day storm hit, Bush was worried about levees
By Bill Walsh
NO Times-Picayune Washington bureau
WASHINGTON -- On the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, President Bush and a top presidential aide were worried about whether New Orleans' levees had held, according to a transcript of discussions among disaster officials on the front lines of the storm.
Those concerns, expressed about midday Aug. 29, are in contrast to an image of a detached president and also to what happened later that night. That's when an official manning the federal emergency operations center held off acting on reports of levee breaches as he waited for confirmation.
The White House was chastised recently by a House committee for not moving more quickly to address the failed levees that ultimately plunged 80 percent of New Orleans under water.
During the call, which began at noon, then-FEMA Director Michael Brown says that he had already spoken to President Bush twice that day.
"He remains very, very interested in this situation," Brown said. "He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches. He's asking about hospitals. He's very engaged, and he's asking a lot of really good questions I would expect him to ask."
Later in the call, White House aide Joe Hagin asks specifically about the condition of the levees. Gov. Kathleen Blanco tells him that no failures were confirmed -- yet.
"We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees," Blanco said. "I think we have not breached the levee. We have not breached the levee at this point in time. That could change, but in some places we have floodwaters coming in New Orleans East and the line at St. Bernard Parish where we have waters that are 8- to 10-feet deep, and we have people swimming in there, that's got a considerable amount of water."

Blanco Wrong on Levees, Video Indicates
BY LARA JAKES JORDAN and MARGARET EBRAHIM
Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As Hurricane Katrina loomed over the Gulf Coast, federal and state officials agonized over the threat to levees and lives. Hours after the catastrophic storm hit, Louisiana's governor believed New Orleans' crucial floodwalls were still intact.
"We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29 - the day the storm hit the Gulf coast.
"We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee," she said on a video of the day's disaster briefing that was obtained Thursday night by The Associated Press. "I think we have not breached the levee at this time."
In fact, the National Weather Service received a report of a levee breach and issued a flash-flood warning as early as 9:12 a.m. that day, according to the White House's formal recounting of events the day Katrina struck.

NBC's Myers Torpedoes Olbermann's Bush Attack, But He Doesn't Notice
Posted by Brad Wilmouth on March 3, 2006 - 05:30.
For the second consecutive night, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, citing recently released videotape of Bush administration officials meeting before Hurricane Katrina struck, questioned the honesty of Bush's September statement that nobody "anticipated the breach of the levees," claiming that the possibility of a "breach" had been talked about during the videotaped meeting. But also on this second night, the Countdown host ran a story filed by NBC's Lisa Myers in which she torpedoed Olbermann's claim, citing meteorologist Max Mayfield's recollection that "nobody talked about the possibility of levee breach or failure until after it happened."
Olbermann, evidently not noticing this, continued as if her report had supported his attack on Bush rather than disproved it. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post even followed up by directly referring to Myers' report as evidence of Bush's "credibility" being undermined, even though Myers clearly argued in her piece that Bush's version of the story was supported by her investigation. Milbank: "It undermines the President's credibility, and now people are getting at this question of his honesty and his secrecy."

MSNBC's Shuster Versus NBC's Myers: Bush Caught in Lie or Vindicated by Video?
MSNBC's David Shuster, at the top of Thursday's Hardball, and NBC's Lisa Myers at the start of the NBC Nightly News, played the identical soundbites from Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center warning, on Sunday August 28, about his “grave concern” the levees in New Orleans could be “topped,” and a clip of President Bush four days later maintaining that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
But they used the soundbites to “prove” opposite assessments. Shuster contended that Mayfield's video “seems to contradict what President Bush said about Katrina” since Mayfield's warning “clearly” means that “the President's team did anticipate the breach.”
Lisa Myers, however, recognized the meaning of words and how water flowing over a levee, topping it, is not the same thing as a breaching, the collapse of a levee, which is what occurred. Myers explained: "Today Mayfield told NBC News that he warned only that the levees might be topped, not breached, and that on the many conference calls he monitored, 'nobody talked about the possibility of a levee breach or failure until after it happened.'”

Sammon Excoriates Media on Katrina Video: “Journalistic Fraud” & “Disingenuous”
The media at all levels on Wednesday pounced on video released by the AP of government conference calls held as Hurricane Katrina hit last August, with most stories portraying them as containing a smoking gun about how President Bush was warned about potential levee failure. But as FNC's Brit Hume noted on his show Thursday night, the video, which MSNBC's Hardball hyped Wednesday as “breaking news,” was hardly any such thing, or “confidential video” as the AP hyped, since the video was made public at the time and the sessions were open to the press.
During Hume's panel segment, Bill Sammon, fresh to the Washington Examiner from the Washington Times, excoriated his press corps colleagues for “journalistic fraud” as well as “disingenuous” and "bogus" reporting. Referring to the video of a meeting President Bush participated in from his Texas ranch, Sammon charged: “It's held out today and yesterday as almost a smoking gun. I would say not only is it not a smoking bun gun, it's actually a journalistic fraud for some of the reasons you've outlined where they suggested it was ‘confidential' videotape where it wasn't. It was open press. Also, they make Max Mayfield out to sound like he was sounding the alarm bells when clearly he was ambivalent in the extreme....So, to suggest that was the warning that Bush should have heeded and didn't, is disingenuous in the extreme.”
Sammon also took on the press for denigrating Michael Brown as an incompetent, but now they want to “rehabilitate him because he's now willing to trash the Department of Homeland Security....This is disingenuous of the mainstream media to suddenly rehabilitate Michael Brown for their own political purposes."

Katrina: Chris Matthews Hears What He Wants To
There’s no getting around it. Chris Matthews hears what he wants to hear even when the facts are right in front of him.
After showing the video of President Bush being briefed by Max Mayfield saying: "I don’t think anybody can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that’s obviously a very, very grave concern," Matthews took that as evidence that Bush lied when he said no one anticipated the breach of the levees.
Here’s what Matthews said after running a clip of the video: "Okay. There we saw it and I want to repeat something that I just read and I want to repeat it to you because I read a few minutes ago.
Here’s the President four days after Hurricane Katrina, that’s four days, actually five days after that briefing. ‘I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,’ that’s the President. Kate O’Beirne, square those two facts, the briefing we just saw on tape and the President saying he was never briefed as to the possibility of the water coming over from Lake Pontchartrain."

No Katrina coverup
TODAY'S EDITORIAL
Washington Times
This week's Associated Press reporting on the leaked Katrina briefing tapes contains a seemingly minor but actually quite significant factual error and subsequent hit job on President Bush. The reporting buried among sturdier assertions the claim that Mr. Bush was warned about possible breaches of the levees on Aug. 28-29, right before and during Hurricane Katrina's onslaught on the Gulf Coast. In reality, he was warned about many potential problems on these tapes -- but levee breaches weren't among them.
The AP reported this as though it were fact, and then uncritically quoted Democratic partisans who were only too happy to parrot it.
As the tapes show, the president was warned extensively about storm surges, water topping over the levees, flooding in addition to storm surges and the possibility of significant losses of life across the Gulf Coast. Clearly, warning signs were in place for a major disaster. "I'm sure it will be in the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done after the post-analysis," said the half-prescient National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield.
But breaches? There was only one mention of breaches -- which Mr. Mayfield raised briefly in a confused-sounding sentence only to dismiss the possibility. "Louisiana can talk a little bit more about this than I can, but it looks like the Federal levees around the City of New Orleans will not have been [incomprehensible] any breaches to," he said on Aug. 29. This was the very day the levees were breached.
The previous day, Mr. Mayfield had actually dismissed the possibility of major flooding in New Orleans. "[T]he forecast we have now suggests that there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself," he said. Storm surges were the overwhelming preoccupation. "The big question is going to be: will that top some of the levees?"
In other words, if the president heard any predictions that the levees would be breached, or even reports of breaches as they occured, the evidence is nowhere on these leaked tapes.
This is significant. The levee breaches were the cause of most of the destruction in New Orleans. If it were true that Mr. Bush heard predictions of levee breaches before the storm hit, then that makes a despicable and costly lie of his statement four days after the hurricane that "I don't think anybody anticipated the breaches of the levees." While that statement was plainly wrong -- federal investigators had worried for years that the levees would fail in a major hurricane -- it wasn't a lie. The truth, instead, is that no adviser warned the president of the possibility that the levees could fail.
Of course, it makes a juicier story to suggest that the president was warned. "This administration was told what Louisiana already knew: that our federally constructed levees could certainly fail," the AP uncritically quoted Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, as saying.
None of this excuses the president's handling of the crisis. It does not excuse the plainly incapable officials who advised him. And it means little to the many victims of Hurricane Katrina who died, lost loved ones or their homes and livelihoods to the floodwater. But it does show that people calling the president a liar still have no evidence for their assertions. This was a case of mismanagement, not deception. The mainstream media is helping partisans obscure that fact.

Bush Didn’t Lie About Levee Breaching
NewsMax.Com
News sources have reported that President Bush lied when he said he wasn’t warned that the levees in New Orleans could be breached during Hurricane Katrina.
But a videotape of a key meeting between Bush and hurricane officials supports the president’s contention that the breaching of the levees was unanticipated.
On September 1, four days after Katrina struck, Bush said: "I don’t think anybody anticipated a breach of the levees.”
The Associated Press on Wednesday claimed that "federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees.”
The Democratic National Committee attempted to make political hay out of the AP report, stating that "during the briefing, National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield told the president that the integrity of the levees was ‘a very, very grave concern’ that the president appears to have ignored.”
However, the tape shows that what Mayfield actually told Bush was: "I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that’s obviously a very, very grave concern.”
Mayfield told NBC News on Thursday that he warned only that the levees might be topped – that is, the storm surge could push water over the top of the levees – not breached, and that on the many conference calls he monitored, "Nobody talked about the possibility of a levee breach or failure until after it happened.”
Mayfield even told Bush: "The forecast now suggests that there will be minimal flooding in the City of New Orleans itself.”
The Washington Times, commenting on what it called a "hit job” on the president, opined: "If it were true that Mr. Bush heard predictions of levee breaches before the storm hit, then that makes a despicable and costly lie of his statement four days after the hurricane.
"The truth, instead, is that no adviser warned the president of the possibility that the levees could fail. Of course, it makes a juicier story to suggest that the president was warned.”

News for March 4,. 2006

2006-03-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

Demographer Says Religious, Cultural Conservatives on the Rise
Clinton Got $1.6 million from UAE
Pro-military mom silenced by mainstream media
Once a news organization has lost the public's trust it has very little to offer
Cheney: Strategy for Success in Iraq Is Working
Was Davifd Greghory drunk on th air?
Ginsberg dozes off during boundary case hearing
U.S. Commander Says Iraq Crisis Has Passed
Stewart to King: “Are you insane?”
Able Danger Atta Photo Mystery Solved
Diversity? Not at the NYTImes
Media Edifice wrecks

Patriot Act: Dems uproar
James Taranto
"Think of what happened 20 minutes ago in the United States Senate," declared Searchlight's dim bulb to a Democratic audience in December. "We killed the Patriot Act."
It turned out to be Harry Reid's "mission accomplished" moment. Yesterday the Patriot Act sprang back to life as the Senate voted 89-10 to reauthorize it. The dissenting votes, all Democrats except nominal independent Jim Jeffords, came mostly from states like Iowa, Vermont and West Virginia, which have few A-list terror targets. Among those voting for the Patriot Act: Harry Reid.
Another pro-Patriot Democrat turned out to be ultraliberal Barbara Boxer of California. This Angry Left heartthrob is causing heartache for Daily Kos diarist "awater":
I feel so betrayed by her and by the Democratic party in general on this issue that I don't quite know what to do. Why should I even live in this country anymore when those that say they are here to fight for the good--just sell out because they are afraid of appearing to be "soft on terror"? What is the point of voting or being here at all?
No, awater, don't do it! You have so much to live for! Like Russ Feingold, and Pat Leahy, and John Kerry* . . . Oh, wait. Sorry. You're right:
On top of this betrayal, there is John Kerry who also voted in support of the Patriot Act. A man that had the incredibly bad taste to ask for donations on this site a day or so go--to then go forward and vote for the Patriot Act--Skull and Bones indeed.
Indeed. But buck up! It turns out Kerry voted against the Patirot Act before he voted for it.
* "A whole bunch of folks in America are concerned about the way the Patriot Act has been applied. . . . People's rights have been abused. . . . Now, I voted for the Patriot Act. . . . Now that's not a flip-flop."--Oct. 8, 2004

Halliburton Eyed for Dubai Ports Deal
NewsMax ^
The Bush administration is working behind the scenes to defuse the Dubai Ports World controversy by having the UAE-based firm team up with an American company.
According to the New York Daily News, which first reported the new White House strategy on Saturday, "one snag may be that sources say the U.S. company best equipped to partner with DP World is Halliburton, once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney."
But a role for Halliburton may not be such a "snag" after all, since the controversial company's involvement has already been endorsed by leading ports security critic, Sen. Charles Schumer.
"I'd take Halliburton over U.A.E. at this point, if I had to take a choice right now," Schumer told the Fox News Channel on Feb. 20.

Air America Appears To Lose Flagship Station
Brian Maloney
While Air America Radio's loss of two affiliates in Phoenix and Missoula, Montana is generating news this week, the company itself probably hasn't been able to give either city a second thought.
Why? In a development sure to rip the heart right out of the liberal radio network's already ailing body, it appears extremely likely their leased New York City flagship station WLIB-AM will soon abandon Air America programming.
Even worse, litigation looks probable over the station's lease.
While the network's last day on WLIB isn't known for certain, an internal source providing backing documentation points to the end of March. At this time, Air America parent Piquant LLC has no firm back-up plan for where in the nation's largest radio market its programming will now air.
Without WLIB, Air America faces an immediate, crushing blow. Worth perhaps 100 small markets combined, an on-air presence in New York City is absolutely vital to the company's survival. If an immediate and suitable replacement isn't found, the consequences would be dire.

Demographer Says Religious,
Cultural Conservatives on the Rise
"Conservatives will inherit the earth" according to the cover story of the current edition of Foreign Policy magazine which argues that families that adhere to traditional morality are likely to make up a significant portion of future generations because they are producing more children.
In the "Return of Patriarchy," Phillip Longman argues that the "great difference in fertility rates between secular individualists and religious or cultural conservatives augurs a vast, demographically driven change in modern societies." Looking at polling data from Europe, Longman, a senior fellow at the left-of-center New America Foundation, notes that "how many children different people have, and under what circumstances, correlates strongly with their beliefs on a wide range of political and cultural attitudes." Those Europeans who "distrust the army," accept "soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia," and "seldom, if ever, attend church . . . are far more likely to live alone, or in childless, cohabitating unions, than those" who hold opposite opinions.
Some may argue that the children of parents who believe in traditional morality can reject that morality just as the children of 1960s largely rejected the pervasive social norms of the day. Longman says there is a key difference. " . . . during the post-World War II era, nearly all segments of modern societies married and had children. . . . disparity in family size between the religious and the secular was not so large, and childlessness was rare. Today, by contrast, childlessness is common, and even couples who have children typically have just one. Tomorrow's children, therefore, unlike members of the postwar baby boom generation, will be for the most part descendants of a comparatively narrow and culturally conservative segment of society."
Longman's article is particularly concerned with explaining why patriarchal families have historically been necessary for the survival of society. "No advanced civilization has yet learned how to endure without it," Longman writes. What marks patriarchal societies, according to Longman, are "customs and attitudes that collectively serve to maximize fertility and parental investment in the next generation. Of these, among the most important is the stigmatization of 'illegitimate' children. One measure of the degree to which patriarchy has diminished in advanced societies is the growing acceptance of out-of-wedlock births, which have now become the norm in Scandinavian countries, for example."
But Longman takes pains to make it clear that patriarchy does not mean misogyny nor should it be associated with "Taliban rebels or Muslim fanatics in Nigeria stoning an adulteress" which he describes as "examples of insecure societies that have degenerated into male tyrannies" that do not "represent the form of patriarchy that has achieved evolutionary advantage in human history."

Full story:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3376&print=1

Dubai's 'Boycott Israel' Sheik Funded Bill Clinton
Former President Bill Clinton has accepted at least $1.6 million from the United Arab Emirates, including $300,000 from a Dubai sheik who adamantly backs the country's controversial boycott of Israel.
On Jan. 17, 2002, Mr. Clinton was paid $300,000 to address the Science, Technology and Arts Royal Summit in Dubai at the invitation of Crown Prince and UAE Defense Minister Sheik Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Less than three months later, Sheik Mohammad urged the United Nations to approve the use of force against Israel's to halt what he called the Jewish state's "butchery" of Palestinians, according to London's Financial Times.
Mr. Clinton's benefactor called for then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "stand trial before the International War Crimes Tribunal," where Sheik Mohammad said he would "have a prominent place in the list of world's killers, terrorists and criminals."
The Dubai sheik then reminded that "Arabs have a wide room for political, diplomatic and economic moves and have the right, at least, to revive the Arab economic boycott to Israel."
Mr. Clinton accepted another $300,000 from the Dubai regime for a speech in 2005. And his presidential library in Little Rock has collected seven-figure sums from several Arab governments participating in the anti-Israel boycott, including Dubai.
In Sept. 2005, the New York Sun reported:
"When the library opened last year, a computer display in the exhibit halls included information on some, but not all, donors. The Saudi Royal Family and the governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar all gave $1 million or more."
The paper noted that after it published a previous list including Mr. Clinton's Arab donors, "the computer display was shut off. It has not been restored."
On Thursday morning, NewsMax called the offices of Mr. Clinton, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Charles Schumer, Rep. Peter King and the Anti-Defamation League in New York, inquiring about the appropriateness of Mr. Clinton taking so much cash from a country that boycotts Israel. None of the calls had been returned by presstime.

Ports update
Posted by Joseph Knippenberg
Earlier this week, Senator Susan Collins released this unclassified excerpt from a Coast Guard report produced in December. You can also read other stories from the AP, The Washington Times, and The New York Times.
The burden of the excerpt—a small portion of a larger report produced early in the process—is that there are questions as yet unanswered regarding security. Fair enough.
The Coast Guard says they were answered by the time CFIUS made its final decision:
At the briefing on Monday, Adm. Thomas H. Gilmour, assistant Coast Guard commandant for marine safety, security and environmental protection, said the unclassified portion of the review should be considered in the context of the full report, which is classified.
And a statement issued Monday night by the Coast Guard described the excerpt as part of "a broader Coast Guard intelligence analysis that was performed early on as part of its due diligence process." The statement said the excerpt, taken out of context, did not reflect the full analysis, which "concludes 'that DP World’s acquisition of P&O, in and of itself, does not pose a significant threat to U.S. assets in ports.'"

GOP honors NAACP
by Tim Chapman
The NAACP’s leader, Julian Bond, is no stranger to controversy and irresponsible rhetoric. In 2004, the NAACP Chairman compared the Republican Party to the Taliban regime.
Bond told a raucous crowd that the GOP’s “idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side." He went on to say that Republicans “draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics. Now they want to write bigotry back into the Constitution."
As a reward for his irresponsible and incendiary rhetoric, the House GOP leadership yesterday scheduled floor time to pass a resolution honoring his organization.
The first part of the resolution honors the NAACP for its 97th anniversary. It is the second clause in the resolution, “praising the NAACP” on the occasion of its 97th anniversary “for its work,” that is raising eyebrows.
Aside from divisive comments like the one above, for what kind of “work” is GOP House leadership so anxious to praise the NAACP? A cursory glance at their most recent congressional scorecard tells the story.

Pro-military mom silenced by mainstream media
by Todd Manzi
A A grieving mother of a soldier killed in Iraq wants to voice her opinion. She has a message about the war in Iraq and feels the American people need to hear what she has to say.
Her name is Merrilee Carlson and her story is compelling and newsworthy. Unlike another mother of a fallen soldier, Carlson is not a household name. Her message is exactly opposite of the over-exposed message of the well-known protesting mom.
Regarding the war in Iraq, Carlson says, "We have to take a step back and look at what we have asked our military to do. We have asked them to do a job. It doesn’t matter how we got there. The fact is we are there and we have a job to finish."
Carlson began trying to get her message out last August and September. She didn’t like what was coming out of Crawford and felt the need to correct the record.
In the last couple of weeks the organization that Carlson chairs, Minnesota Families United, has been in the center of a controversy that, by any objective reasoning, should have made national news.
Minnesota Families United teamed with Progress for America Voter Fund and produced two television spots. Minnesota was used as a test market for the spots and PFA made a rather large statewide television buy. The ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities market, KSTP, refused to air the spots.
The decision not to air the first MFU commercial was made by Rob Hubbard, General Manager. His objection was over two lines in the spot:
1) The media only reports the bad news, but American troops are making real progress
2) You would never know it from the news reports, but our enemy in Iraq is Al Qaeda.
Hubbard’s position was that those lines did not apply to his television station; therefore, he would not allow the spot to run. Hubbard says he would have run the spot if they edited it to make it clear they were talking about the media in general, but not KSTP specifically.
It is certainly understandable that Hubbard is worried his viewers might get the wrong impression. After all, the reason these spots were produced in the first place is that these families of our fallen heroes believe millions have gotten the wrong impression regarding the progress our soldiers have made in Iraq. Still, the question remains: Do these families deserve to have their voices heard, or should they be stifled?
This debate is not happening, because this story never made national news. To recap: In an election year, a group used Minnesota as a test market for a possible national buy and one of the prominent stations took the position that the spot should not air. Maybe this didn’t become news because of the hypocrisy of the industry. They often try their best to protect themselves from the type of stories they inflict on others.
The news hook gets better.
On Thursday, February 16th, the Chair of the Democrat Party in Minnesota called on all TV stations to pull the ad. The top Democrats in Minnesota want to suppress the message of Carlson’s group.
Merrilee Carlson was born and raised a Democrat. She doesn’t like politics and she wants to make it clear that her group is non-political. So, the Democrats in Minnesota are trying to suppress the message from mainstream families who have suffered the loss of their children from the war in Iraq. Why is this not news?
That other mom was a full-time, anti-war protester for more than a year before she came up with the PR stunt to go to Crawford during the president’s vacation. The media accepted the stunt and gave her message enormous coverage. This prompted Carlson to take action for her message. Now Carlson is in the middle of legitimate news and the media is silent.
Have we come to the point where it takes a stunt to make news? Merrilee Carlson is thoughtful, sincere, professional and respectful of those who disagree with her. Not only does she have the exact opposite message from the spectacle in Crawford last summer, she has the exact opposite approach. Regarding the efforts of her group she said, "This isn’t about us. We are not looking to be that public figure; we have stepped out because of the need. This is not about us, it is about our children."
Obviously, the mainstream media is going to do everything they can to avoid Carlson. They are not interested in balancing her view against the anti-war view they have so heavily promoted. We already knew the media was liberally biased. Now it’s apparent they are also biased against ordinary people as well. The foaming-at-the-mouth fanatical fringe gets news coverage and the people who portray the best qualities of us are ignored.

Once a news organization has lost the public's trust it has very little to offer
by Emmett Tyrrell
WASHINGTON -- So we hear this week that President George W. Bush is taking delight in the spread of the "alternative press" (read conservatives on the internet, in talk radio, in print, and at Fox) and the gentle detumesence of "mainstream media" (read liberal media, or more precisely, Democratic media). Well I join him in his satisfaction.
I have spent much of my life with journalists, beginning in competitive swimming and moving on to politics and culture. Usually, even in covering sports, the journalists have been liberal Democrats. I recall a Sports Illustrated writer who used to come out to Indiana to cover my world-champion teammates on the Indiana University swimming team. He was a very agreeable fellow, but two decades later he ended up as campaign press secretary during Al Gore's first run for the White House. Well, that is the way things have been in American journalism. From journalism one drifts into Democratic politics. From Democratic politics one drifts into journalism, often TV journalism. Think of Chris Matthews, Tim Russert and George Stephanopoulos.
Some of these journalists are very dreary duds. But others are lively. The best are energetic, curious, often intelligent, occasionally well-read. Yet I have often sensed something off-putting about them. It is as though they were members of one of those weird California cults. They seem friendly enough. On occasion they are feverishly friendly, but then one senses something else, a secretiveness, a smugness, and in many instances, a peculiar conformity. Journalists are forever breaking into dry discourses on their "journalistic ethics."
I find that odd. Why are they so sensitive about their ethics? Is it because their ethics are so elusive? Most of the time when I find myself in a journalistic controversy I do come away with the conviction that the ethics of the mainstream journalist -- the liberal, Democratic journalist -- are, well, rubbery. Consider a controversy I found myself in last month. I chaired a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference, featuring a debate between former Justice Department official Viet Dinh and former congressman Bob Barr on government surveillance. It was an intelligent give-and-take. Conservatives are divided on this issue, revealing again that there is variety of opinion among conservatives, a variety of opinion one rarely encounters among liberals. I judged the audience pretty much equally divided, as did Barr and Dinh.
A report on the debate by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post proved to be clearly inaccurate, even mischievously inaccurate. Consequently, as it was a panel I presided over, I wrote a clarifying letter to the editor, sending a copy to the paper's Ombudsman. Mainstream media have created the quaint position of the Ombudsman out of concern for journalistic "ethics." My letter has never been printed, and the Ombudsman's response was another example of the liberal journalists' weirdness.
Here is the unpublished letter: "Dana Milbank's report of the Conservative Political Action Conference's debate on civil liberties, moderated by me, is inaccurate in matters large and small. Large: it is not true that 'the crowd was against' former congressman Bob Barr's libertarian criticism of the Bush Administration's surveillance policies. Both Bob and I considered the audience pretty evenly divided. There exists considerable disagreement among conservatives on this issue, as has been widely reported. Small: I am not 'a conservative publisher' but rather the editor in chief of The American Spectator, a position I have held for nearly 38 years. As such, I have been interviewed by Milbank in the past, and my last name has not one 'r' but two. Milbank botched my middle name as well. The American Spectator's publisher is Al Regnery whose name is easier to spell."
The Ombudsman's odd response was to e-mail me that she was sending the letter to her "national editor to see about correcting your name." Of course, the burden of my complaint was that Milbank was playing sophomorically with the facts of the event and misleading his readers "in matters large and small." That is what mainstream media, and Ombudsmen, in particular, are supposed to be concerned about. Several days later, in the paper's "Corrections" section, here is what was printed: "The Feb. 11 Washington Sketch misspelled the name of R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., the editor in chief of the American Spectator."
As I say, there is often something smug and secretive about these journalists. The above "correction" hid the real issue regarding the Milbank report. Even its identification of me was cryptic, evading the initial misidentification of me. Such Byzantine maneuvering goes on all the time in the "mainstream media," which is why they have lost the trust of so many Americans. Once a news organization has lost the public's trust it has very little to offer.

The Clintons of Dubai
Robert Novak
WASHINGTON -- While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was ripping President Bush's handling of American ports management, Bill Clinton was pushing for one of his favorite White House aides to be hired to defend the deal. The former president proposed to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) his onetime press secretary, Joe Lockhart, as Washington spokesman for the UAE-owned company, Dubai Ports World.
The Lockhart deal was never consummated. But the spectacle of the two Clintons going in opposite directions on the UAE port-management question exposed a Democratic fault line. Widespread public reaction against outsourcing control of the ports was seen by Sen. Clinton and other prominent Democrats as a chance to outflank the Republicans on homeland security in this year's elections. Behind the scenes, however, Democrats aligned with the Clinton family were lobbying for the UAE.
The lineup over the DP World raises questions about how Bill Clinton's free and easy political manner will impact his wife's prospective presidential campaign for 2008. Highly disciplined Hillary Clinton plays politics by the numbers, following a carefully plotted strategy. Her husband's freewheeling, intuitive style was typified when he tried to secure a well-paid assignment for his friend and valued aide, Joe Lockhart, who now heads a Washington-based media firm.
According to well-placed UAE sources, the former president made the suggestion at the very highest level of the oil-rich state. The relationship between him and the UAE is far from casual. The sheikdom has contributed to the Clinton Presidential Library, and brought Clinton to Dubai in 2002 and 2005 for highly paid speeches (reportedly at $300,000 apiece). He was there in 2003 to announce a scholarship program for American students traveling to Dubai.
Certainly, the emirs would pay the closest attention to any request from the former president. Lockhart did confer with DP World officials, but they failed to reach agreement. The UAE sources said that Lockhart's asking price was much too high.

Something for nothing: Part III
by Thomas Sowell
The Economist magazine reports that the official unemployment rate in South Africa is 26 percent but that the real unemployment rate there may be even higher. The South African economy is growing. Why then this extremely high unemployment rate? What is going on?
What is going on in South Africa is what has been going on in other economies with huge problems. Somebody could not resist the lure of something for nothing.
Minimum wages in South Africa have been set higher than the productivity of many workers, so employers have no incentive to hire those workers, even though such workers are perfectly capable of producing much-needed goods and services.
South African labor unions say that they are not going to let their workers become "the West's sweatshop." But the irony is that a South African firm which has been manufacturing aluminum wheels solely in South Africa for two decades has begun expanding its output by outsourcing the additional jobs to Poland.
Does that mean that Poland is becoming South Africa's sweatshop? Or does it mean that there are economic consequences to setting wage levels in disregard of productivity levels?
The South African government refuses to admit that an unrealistically high minimum wage rate has anything to do with the high unemployment rate. In other words, they think that they can pass a law to give workers something for nothing.
That idea is not peculiar to South Africa. In many cities and towns across America, local politicians, activists, and even religious groups have been pushing for laws mandating "a living wage" higher than the federal minimum wage.
They too apparently think that there will be no dangers to the jobs of workers whose output is not worth what third parties choose to call a "living wage" -- in other words, that the workers can get something for nothing.
South Africa's problem is compounded by the fact that, in addition to minimum wages set above the level of many workers' productivity, the government has passed laws making it very difficult to fire an employee.
That should reduce unemployment, right? Wrong. Countries like Germany with strong job protection laws have chronically much higher unemployment rates than countries like the United States, where the government does not impose such laws on private businesses.
Making it harder to fire workers makes it more risky to hire workers in the first place. It is easier to substitute capital for labor. South African companies "rely more on capital" than labor, according to The Economist magazine.
Nothing is easier for politicians than to think up benefits that they can confer on workers by imposing the costs on somebody else. It's something-for-nothing time, and it pays off for politicians at election time.
Meanwhile, businesses can't just pick up and leave the city or the state, much less the country, overnight. But, like the South African company that expanded its output and employment in Poland, businesses can do their expansion where costs imposed on them by politicians are not so high.

Voices from the left
by Burt Prelutsky
For years, I’ve hated listening to the infantile blathering of America’s leftists. All that was required for me to come down with a splitting headache was to hear John Kerry, Robert Byrd or Joseph Biden, insist that if only they were running things, gas would cost 25 cents-a-gallon, peace would reign in the Middle East, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court.
However, not too long ago, I had an epiphany. It’s not just that the liberals are annoying because of what they say, but because of the way they say it. Have you listened to Al Gore lately? He’s as loud as a pneumatic drill. And you would think that after his meltdown following the Iowa primary, Howard Dean would tone it down a notch. Instead, he’s revved up the noise level until he sounds like a chimpanzee on speed.
But all of that is performance art. The moment these politicians see a live microphone or a TV camera, they simply can’t control themselves. The poor creatures are like Pavlov’s dogs salivating at the sound of a bell.
However, if there’s anything worse than having to listen to these shnooks screaming to the choir, it’s having to listen to the ladies on the left. I refer to the sisterhood that includes the likes of Susan Estrich, Teresa Heinz-Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Gloria Allred, Barbara Boxer, Cindy Sheehan, Barbra Streisand and, of course, Hillary Clinton. Each and every one of them has a voice that sounds like fingernails raking a blackboard.
I don’t want to suggest that their speaking voices are all alike, aside from the fact that each has the power to make your ears bleed. Some, after all, are whinier than others, some are harsher, while a few are so nasal you’d think that Estrich, for instance, must have adenoids the size of grapefruits.
And let us not forget Jane Fonda, the grande dame of the left. Even before she became the pin-up queen of the Viet Cong, it always amazed me that she was able to have an acting career in spite of being cursed with a voice that sounded like it had been transplanted from a screech owl.
It occurred to me one day that Fonda has a voice that every divorced man associates with his ex-wife, and reminds him all over again why he was so willing, even anxious, to divvy up the community property.

Bill Clinton helped Dubai on ports deal
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
Bill Clinton, former US president, advised top officials from Dubai two weeks ago on how to address growing US concerns over the acquisition of five US container terminals by DP World.
It came even as his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, was leading efforts to derail the deal.
Mr Clinton, who this week called the United Arab Emirates a “good ally to America”, advised Dubai’s leaders to propose a 45-day delay to allow for an intensive investigation of the acquisition, according to his spokesman.
On Sunday, DP World agreed with the White House to undertake the lengthy review, a move which has assuaged some of the opposition from the US Congress.
However, Mrs Clinton remains a leading voice against the deal, and this week proposed legislation to block it, arguing that the US could not afford to “surrender our port operations to foreign governments”.
Mr Clinton’s spokesman said: “President Clinton is the former president of the US and as such receives many calls from world leaders and leading figures every week. About two weeks ago, the Dubai leaders called him and he suggested that they submit to the full and regular scrutiny process and that they should put maximum safeguards and security into any port proposal.”
He added that Mr Clinton supported his wife’s position on the deal and that “ideally” state-owned companies would not own US port operations.
Mr Clinton’s contact with Dubai on the issue underscores the relationship he has developed with the United Arab Emirates since leaving office. In 2002, he was paid $300,000 (€252,000) to address a summit in Dubai.

Cheney: Strategy for Success in Iraq Is Working
American Forces Press Service ^ Feb 28, 2006 Donna Miles
WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2006 – Terrorists have demonstrated through their violence that they understand what's at stake in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney said today, insisting that the terrorists will ultimately fail and that the strategy for success is working. Speaking here to the 46th Annual American Legion Washington Conference, Cheney said terrorists are committing acts of horror in Iraq in a calculated move to shock and intimidate the civilized world. Similarly, he called last week's attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra "a clear attempt to ignite a civil war."
Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi recognize Iraq as the central front in the war on terror and the United States must do the same, Cheney said.
"This nation has made a decision: We will stand by our friends and engage our enemies with the goal of a victory," he said. "And as the president said in the State of the Union (address), 'We are in this fight to win, and we are winning.'"
While acknowledging that more violence and destruction can be expected, the vice president said he and President Bush are optimistic that Iraq's political factions will work together to form a stable, viable representative government.
"We expect, as well, that as freedom takes hold, the ideologies of hatred and resentment will lose their appeal, and the advance of democracy in Iraq will inspire reformers across the broader Middle East," he said.
As the region experiences new hope and progress, "a terrible threat will be removed from the lives of our children and our grandchildren," he said.

"Media Madness"
y Oliver North ( bio archive contact )
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The geniuses who run the Fourth Estate in American have gone nuts. This week, the commander in chief visited U.S. troops fighting a war in Afghanistan, paid a state visit to the largest democracy on earth, closed a deal on nuclear cooperation and met with the man most likely to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Big news, right? Not for the potentates of the press.
The masters of the media could have focused in-depth on one of the most important overseas trips President George W. Bush has made during his tenure. His meetings with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf are likely to produce long-term benefits for the U.S. economy and the Global War on Terror.
Apparently the network and newsroom royalty found all of this beyond their ken. So the barons of bombast chose instead to devote countless column inches and hours of air time to the "civil war" in Iraq, recriminations over a hurricane that hit Mardi Gras city six months ago, a Playboy centerfold sashaying into the Supreme Court; Jane Fonda and Babs Streisand blathering about "impeachment," and a Hollywood flick about homosexual cowboys. And they call this stuff news?
Those who wonder why fewer and fewer Americans are buying newspapers or tuning into network "news" need only look at this week's coverage to see why. "Hard" news stories are harder to come by every day, and those events and issues that do get coverage carry more than just a "tinge" of bias, ignorance or both. A few recent examples:
It's the same with the flap over "Arab ownership of American ports." Every editor, publisher and broadcast news director in the country knows that Dubai Port World isn't going to "own," "operate," "control" or be responsible for "providing security" at any U.S. seaport. Yet, all of those words and phrases are still being routinely used to describe the DP World purchase of several container-handling facilities at six American ports.
Three weeks ago these courageous media moguls decided not to show any of the Danish newspaper cartoons that precipitated violence, pillage and murder in more than a half-dozen Islamic countries. These are the same indomitable characters who "bravely" determined that it was "right" to expose a highly classified National Security Agency (NSA) program to intercept overseas calls to and from suspected terrorists.

GREGORY'S GIGGLES: NBCNEWS WHITE HOUSE REPORTER CALLS SHOW WHILE 'DRUNK'?

Audio here:
http://www.drudgereport.com/imus.mp3

NBC White House correspondent David Gregory, who apologized last week for calling White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan a "jerk," called into MSNBC's IMUS Thursday morning -- apparently drunk!
Gregory is traveling with the president in India.
IMUS: Let's go to the White House correspondent David Gregory.
DAVID GREGORY: I'm OK.
IMUS: You can call us later if you want.
GREGORY: [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter]
IMUS: Are you drunk?
GREGORY: [Laughter] [Laughter]
IMUS: Are you all right David?
GREGORY: India is a wonderful language and I've been learning, where's my little sheet here. I've been learning some new phrases to come home. But any way, that being one of them and I just think it's nice.
IMUS: It is.
GREGORY: Thank you.
IMUS: Having a lot of fun there. What's wrong with you?
GREGORY: I just think it's funny. [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter]
CHARLES: He's drunk.
IMUS: He is drunk!
CHARLES: Oh god.
IMUS: Why don't you compose yourself and get back to us. You want to?
GREGORY: [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter]
IMUS: What are you in some harem?
IMUS: What? David?
GREGORY: No, i'm fine.
(snip)
IMUS: Well that's great. But we have to go. It's always nice to hear from you.
GREGORY: I'll call you after dinner.
IMUS: NBC Chief White House Correspondant from New Delhi, India. Clearly drunk.

High Court Tackles Political Boundary Case
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A key Supreme Court justice said Wednesday that Texas Republicans appeared to hurt minority voters when they redrew congressional boundaries that helped the GOP entrench its power in Congress.
But despite Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's misgivings, it did not appear there was broad support on the high court to throw out the entire map promoted by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to help Republicans win six more seats.
(snip)
The subject matter was extremely technical, and near the end of the argument Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dozed in her chair. Justices David Souter and Samuel Alito, who flank the 72-year-old, looked at her but did not give her a nudge.

Iran Readies Plan to Close Strait of Hormuz
NewsMax.com
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are making preparations for a massive assault on U.S. naval forces and international shipping in the Persian Gulf, according to a former Iranian intelligence officer who defected to the West in 2001.
The plans, which include the use of bottom-tethered mines potentially capable of destroying U.S. aircraft carriers, were designed to counter a U.S. land invasion and to close the Strait of Hormuz, the defector said in a phone interview from his home in Europe.
They would also be triggered if the United States or Israel launched a pre-emptive strike on Iran to knock out nuclear and missile facilities.
“The plan is to stop trade,” the source said.

Media lets Al Qauda “dupe” them again.
Long dissertation, here:

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2006/02/27/american-msm-duped-by-al-qaeda-reports-of-iraq-civil-war/

NO WAR IN THE STREETS
By RALPH PETERS - In Iraq
March 1, 2006 -- THE reporting out of Baghdad continues to be hysterical and dishonest. There is no civil war in the streets. None. Period.
Terrorism, yes. Civil war, no. Clear enough?
Yesterday, I crisscrossed Baghdad, visiting communities on both banks of the Tigris and logging at least 25 miles on the streets. With the weekend curfew lifted, I saw traffic jams, booming business — and everyday life in abundance.
Yes, there were bombings yesterday. The terrorists won't give up on their dream of sectional strife, and know they can count on allies in the media as long as they keep the images of carnage coming. They'll keep on bombing. But Baghdad isn't London during the Blitz, and certainly not New York on 9/11.
It's more like a city suffering a minor, but deadly epidemic. As in an epidemic, no one knows who will be stricken. Rich or poor, soldier or civilian, Iraqi or foreigner. But life goes on. No one's fleeing the Black Death — or the plague of terror.
And the people here have been impressed that their government reacted effectively to last week's strife, that their soldiers and police brought order to the streets. The transition is working.
Most Iraqis want better government, better lives — and democracy. It is contagious, after all. Come on over. Talk to them. Watch them risk their lives every day to work with us or with their government to build their own future.
Oh, the attacks will continue. They're even predictable, if not always preventable. Driving through Baghdad's Kerada Peninsula District, my humvee passed long gas lines as people waited to fill their tanks in the wake of the curfew. I commented to the officer giving me a lift that the dense lines of cars and packed gas stations offered great targets to the terrorists. An hour later, one was hit with a car bomb.
The bombing made headlines (and a news photographer just happened to be on the scene). Here in Baghdad, it just made the average Iraqis hate the terrorists even more.
You are being lied to. By elements in the media determined that Iraq must fail. Just give 'em the Bronx cheer.

U.S. Commander Says Iraq Crisis Has Passed
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press Writer
The top U.S. military commander in Iraq said Friday it appears the crisis has passed as violence spawned by the bombing of a sacred mosque there continued with yet another deadly day.
While Gen. George Casey said anything can happen, he downplayed suggestions the country is headed for civil war.
"Now, it appears that the crisis has passed," Casey said in a briefing from Baghdad with reporters at the Pentagon. "But we all should be clear Iraqis remain under threat of terrorist attack by those who will stop at nothing to undermine the formation of the constitutionally elected government."
Thursday's violence between religious sects in Iraq claimed 58 lives.
Casey said any new major terrorist attack would have a significant impact on the country, and said the increased violence will affect his recommendations on future troop movements.
He said officials routinely hear about probable terrorist activity, but he would not confirm reports that intelligence has picked up warnings that a high profile attack in Iraq is being planned by al- Qaida.

Stewart to King: “Are you insane?”
BY DANIEL HENNINGER , WS Journal
Friday, March 3, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

excerpt
I discovered Jon Stewart seated across the table from Larry King. Mr. Stewart is the host of "The Daily Show," Comedy Central's satirical TV news program. This looked like a wave worth waiting for, and it was. The subject was Washington.
Larry King suggested to Jon Stewart that the current low ebb of the Democrats and Republicans was good for Mr. Stewart's business.
King: So, in a sense you're happy over this.
Stewart: No.
King: This gives you fodder.
Mr. Stewart replied that if government "began to solve problems in a rational way rather than just a way that involved political dividends, we would be the happiest people in the world to turn our attention to idiots like, you know, media people, no offense."
King: So, you don't want it to be bad?
Stewart: Did you really just ask me if I want it to be bad?
King: Yes because you--
Stewart: What are you--I have kids. What do you think? I want things to corrode to the point where we're all living in huts?
King: You don't want Medicare to fail?
Stewart: Are you insane?

Able Danger Atta Photo Mystery Solved
By Rory O’Connor
Sources close to the ongoing Department of Defense investigation into the controversial Able Danger data mining intelligence program, which purportedly identified Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers a year before the worst terror attacks in US history, say the mystery person who actually obtained a much-disputed photograph of Atta for the Able Danger team has now been identified.
Ever since the Pentagon-ordered destruction in 2000 of 2.5 terabytes of data unearthed by Able Danger – allegedly including a chart featuring Atta’s photograph that revealed terrorist links and patterns when clicked on – skeptics have long raised doubt about the very existence of the chart and the photograph in question.
It has now been confirmed that a female contract employee of defense contractor Orion Scientific, which provided personnel and proprietary software to the original Able Danger operation, has been identified as a result of investigation by the Pentagon’s own Inspector General.
Identification of the mystery woman lends more credence to claims by Able Danger members, such as team leader Captain Mark Phillpott, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, and Orion analyst J.D. Smith, among others, that the Able Danger program did in fact identify four 9/11 hijackers well before the attacks.

NY Times Doesn't Care About Black People
While the New York Times preaches to us about the shameful lack of diversity in schools, politics and redistricting, while they talk down to us about the "race ceiling", write about those who call our President a racist, or just generally paint conservatives as racists themselves, it appears that they have a little house cleaning of their own to do.
An article from The New York Observer talks about the 39-page confidential internal report that surfaced yesterday at The Times about the racial makeup of the company.
According to the report, the Times newsroom is currently 82.5 percent white, slightly less than the industry average of 86.5 percent. Only 14 percent of newsroom managers are minorities, the council found, and there are currently no minorities on the newspaper masthead and only one nonwhite on the company's executive committee.
It apparently isn't just George Bush who doesn't care about black people.
My personal favorite part of the article:
The council defined diversity in terms of employees' race, gender and sexual orientation. Religious and political differences were not accounted for.

Lautenberg's 'Devil and Dubai' Comments Prompt Outrage
CNSNews/crosswalk
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, has angered Arab-Americans with remarks comparing the Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai to the devil.
"Don't let them tell you that it's just a transfer of title," Lautenberg told longshoremen at the Port of Newark on Monday. "Baloney! We wouldn't transfer the title to the devil, and we're not going to transfer it to Dubai," the senator said.
Lautenberg's comments drew applause from union members, who oppose a Bush administration deal allowing a Dubai-owned company, located in the United Arab Emirates, to manage some of the terminals at six major U.S. ports.
However, some believe New Jersey's 82-year-old senior senator crossed the line.
"Mr. Lautenberg's overheated language is just plain destructive," said an editorial in Thursday's Bergen Record newspaper. "Sen. Frank Lautenberg owes the Arab-American community an apology," the newspaper added.
Arab-American and Islamic-American groups also weighed in.
"This is a flagrant example of demagoguery and hate-mongering," said Aref Assaf, president of the American Arab Forum, at a State Assembly hearing in Trenton.
The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee called the comparison of Dubai to the devil "unacceptable" and "of a larger trend of bias rhetoric and backlash surrounding the debate over port security."

Edifice wrecks
By John Burtis
Friday, March 3, 2006
Let’s start off by saying that it’s not easy - for those celebrated members of the fourth estate who waive the valued White House press credentials about for entry into the holy of holies and to impress the barstool queens, waitresses and lushes at their favorite watering holes - peppering the poor lad representing a Republican administration with spite, questions laden with vitriol and dripping with pique and looking cool, calm and collected while they do it.
Nope, journalism, as practiced today in the klieg-lit, white-hot, devil-may-care, come-what-may enclave of a White House press briefing, is all about nailing the poor slob up front with as pointed, slanted, mean and rehearsed a tirade of a question as possible, as quickly and shrilly as one can, with as large a camera-ready sneer as possible, that is, without hindering the clear transmission of the liberal message.
The first cracks in the granite edifice appeared when David Gregory had his breakdown. Or at least what was described as a loss of temper and control at Scott McClellan, the current target of the corps of vilifiers.
Poor Scott had the temerity to ask a question about the need for the super heated grilling, the over zealous behavior, and what seemed to him to push the formerly acceptable boundaries exhibited by that rapacious mob of ink slingers, during their raucous over-reaction to the Whittington hunting and Cheney quail stamp difficulties, over the edge. He received a bitter denunciation from poor David, who called him, "a jerk," and urged him to, "just answer the question." It suddenly appeared as if the guards were having trouble with the benighted prisoner.
Later, David, realizing his misfortune, its precedence and the magnitude of his emotional display - without the use of a pitch cap, thumb screws, the lash, hot bamboo spikes, hot irons, the iron maiden, the cage, the dropping of rats onto his bare face, boiling oil, submersion in a tank of foul smelling water, the dunking stool, extended solitary confinement, the iron mask, trial by fire, gouging out of his eyes, the application of ice, scourging, dragging by horses through a cactus patch, being whipped by nettles, flaying or near drowning — recanted.
But the first cracks were visible in the smooth granite edifice. The highly strung and vigilant White House Press corps had suffered its first casualty in their ongoing war against truth and reason, their battle against President Bush and their open advocacy of the liberal mien.
And now we learn that Mr Gregory is not stewing in his own juice alone and that a respected Washington area clinical psychologist has reportedly counseled a number of the White House news hounds as a direct result of the trauma they have experienced - while barraging Mr McClellan with imputations of secrecy during war, the failure of Dick Cheney to recognize their importance for the survival of the nation as we know it and the other outlandish behavior they have been forced to witness — that they feel restricted and controlled by sinister forces, and that their enormously high intellects have been bruised by this thoughtless behavior.
The edifice is cracking and the flying buttresses supporting the middle cannot hold much longer.
But further evidence came sloshing in as Thursday’s Imus "show" apparently featured a frothy debate over Indian phrases, inebriation, Imus and the seemingly haunted David Gregory calling in while on the road. Wild allegations of intemperance were made on the air concerning Mr Gregory’s irrational and incongruous mewling from a pay phone in either Calicut, Hyderabad or Cookandeatacat — the connection was somewhat poor.
Whether Mr Gregory’s reputation can withstand any further opprobrium is outside our purview, but this behavior, following the problems coming to light concerning his earlier outbursts, and with the other difficulties plaguing his fellow members, seems to indicate a further weakening of the edifice, the supporting structure, if not the foundation.
In the space of a few short weeks, the highly touted White House press corps has been reduced to a shambles, their finely hewn granite edifice wrecked, their progressive membership in tatters — with the news of their members needing psychological help the grist of every conservative mill in town, on talk radio, on the web, and pasted up on every blogger’s site - and now their spokesman is involved in another damaging and eyebrow raising flap, involving what purports to be inebriation on a nationally syndicated television show, or what appears to be at least a side-show.
The mighty are falling, the press corps is calling retreat and the White House is no longer viewed as being circled by a pack of hungry wolves but as being more or less surrounded by a band of troubled hecklers.

News for March 1, 2006

2006-03-01T18:39:00.000-08:00

Highlights:
Coast Guard: Media took “fears” out of context
Hillary Rips Bill's Panama Ports Deal, fails to mention Bill
Dem’s former aides press ethics complaints
Iraqi official blames Golden Mosque attack on Iran
Hillary’s Communist China Connection
More know Simpsons than Constitution
Unions, Government promise something for nothing
Media trade press says newspapers #1; Harris poll differs---big
Bush Cheers Decline of Mainstream Media, Rise Of Alternative Press
More Americans abducted along Mexico border than in Iraq

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006 11:45 a.m. EST
Chinese Port Operator Linked to Weapons Smuggling
NewsMax
A ship owned by a Chinese government-run company that currently operates two giant terminals at the Port of Long Beach, California was found 10 years ago to have been used to smuggle a huge cache of illegal weapons - with the smugglers saying they planned to import missiles that could "take out a 747."
On the night of March 18, 1996, undercover Customs and BATF agents discovered 2000 AK-47's in a container smuggled aboard the Empress Phoenix, a ship owned by the China Ocean Shipping Company [COSCO] docked at the Port of Oakland.
The guns were manufactured by another state-run company, Poly Technologies, the international outlet for Chinese weapons sales.
According to Vanity Fair magazine, which covered the episode in detail, the Empress Phoenix's gun cargo was earmarked for sale to deadly Los Angeles street gangs.
It was the largest seizure of fully operational automatic weapons in the history of U.S. law enforcement.
The Empress Phoenix episode has largely been forgotten as the debate rages over whether Dubai Ports World should be allowed to operate several dozen terminals at 21 U.S. ports.
But it begs the question, if Dubai Ports World - a company with no history of terrorism or smuggling operations into the United States - is unfit to play a role in U.S. ports management, what about Chinese companies?
In fact, the 1996 weapons smuggling operation was far from the only instance where questionable cargo has been discovered aboard COSCO vessels. Ships owned by the Chinese line have been repeatedly caught smuggling illegal immigrants in the United States.
In 2001, COSCO ships delivered weapons to Cuba. In 1998, when COSCO first tried to lease terminal space at the Port of Long Beach formerly used by the U.S. Navy, Congress blocked the deal over national security concerns.
Three years later, however, other tenants at the port vacated space and COSCO was able to build its own terminal. Art Wong, public information officer for the Port of Long Beach, told the San Francisco Chronicle last week that COSCO now operates terminals in a joint venture with a U.S. company, Stevedoring Services of America, with the Chinese company acting as the majority lease holder with 51 percent control.
By the end of the decade, COSCO plans to expand its Long Beach facility into a giant five terminal operation covering 300 acres, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram.

Coast Guard Denies Port Security Fears
The U.S. Coast Guard in denying a wave of media reports claiming it concluded that having Dubai Ports World run several dozen shipping terminals at U.S. ports poses a national security risk.
"What is being quoted is an excerpt of a broader Coast Guard intelligence analysis that was performed early on as part of its due diligence process," said Coast Guard Commander Jeff Carter, in a press release issued late Monday.
"The excerpts made public earlier today, when taken out of context, do not reflect the full, classified analysis performed by the Coast Guard. That analysis concludes ‘that DP World's acquisition of P&O, in and of itself, does not pose a significant threat to U.S. assets in [continental United States] ports.’
"Upon subsequent and further review," the spokesman said, "the Coast Guard and the entire CFIUS panel believed that this transaction, when taking into account strong security assurances by DP World, does not compromise U.S. security."

Hillary Clinton Rips Bill's Panama Ports Deal, fails to mention Bill
2008 presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is expanding her complaint about foreign companies owning U.S. ports - and now says a 1999 deal to let a Chinese company take over the ports at each end of the Panama Canal was a mistake.
Speaking at the 92nd Street YMCA in Manhattan yesterday, Clinton told the Jewish Community Relations Council: "There are those who say we can't [prevent foreign governments from operating U.S. ports] because look what happened in the last 20 years ... You know, we have the Chinese running the Panama Canal. We have other government-controlled entities controlling our ports."
According to the New York Observer, she then declared: "Well, just because it's been happening doesn't mean we should let it continue."
Mrs. Clinton neglected to mention, however, that it was her husband who approved the deal in question, when the Chinese company, Hutchison Whampoa, sought to buy the Panama Canal's ports.
When security concerns arose, then-President Clinton insisted that Chinese ownership posed no threat to canal operations, explaining that Hutchison was "bending over backwards to make sure that they run it in a competent and able and fair manner."

Dem’s former aides press ethics complaints
By Jonathan E. Kaplan
Two former aides to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) have alleged that he repeatedly violated House ethics rules.
Deanna Maher, a former deputy chief of staff in Conyers’s Detroit office, and Sydney Rooks, a former legal counsel in the district office, provided evidence for the allegations by sharing numerous letters, memorandums and copies of e-mails, handwritten notes and expense reports with The Hill.
In letters sent separately by each woman to the House ethics committee, the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office, they allege that Conyers demanded that aides work on several local and state campaigns and forced them to baby-sit and chauffeur his children. They also charge that some aides illegally used Conyers’s congressional offices to enrich themselves.
Maher decided she could no longer work for Conyers in such an unethical environment and quit in May 2005. Rooks had left Conyers years earlier; she was a full-time staffer working in the office for him from 1997 to 1999. Before leaving, Conyers placed her on paid administrative leave for several months and stopped paying her in April 2000.
“I could not tolerate any longer being involved with continual unethical, if not criminal, practices which were accepted as ‘business as usual,’” Maher wrote in a letter to the ethics panel dated Jan. 13, 2006.
While the ethics committee has been aware of the allegations against Conyers for at least two years, Maher’s allegations date back to 1998, a year after Conyers hired her.
Among Maher’s allegations:
• In 2002, Conyers’s aides in D.C. were sent to Detroit to help his wife, Monica, win a state Senate seat. While she lost that election, she won a seat last year on the Detroit City Council.
• On June 2, 2003, Conyers forced Maher to spend a day campaigning for Keith Williams, who won a seat on the Wayne County Commission. She became fed up and drove off after going door to door to distribute campaign literature for a few blocks.
• Carol Patton, a legislative counsel on Conyers’s personal staff, was hired in 2003 to help Williams and to help JoAnn Watson in her bid for Detroit City Council. Patton still works for Conyers and earns more than $44,000 per year, according to the 2005 House statement of disbursements.
• In a Dec. 22, 2004, letter, Maher said Conyers staffer Melody Light “conducts her law practice (charging legal fees) out of the congressional office. … She has in effect hung out her shingle on [Conyers’s] office door.”
Maher and Rooks said that Conyers tasked staffers in his district office with taking care of his two young boys, John and Carl. “If he asked you to do something, you knew you had to do it,” said Rooks, 54, who administers a homeless shelter in Detroit.
She told The Hill that she tutored “Little John,” as Conyers’s elder son is known, when he was a student at the Cranbrook School, a private school in Bloomfield Hills. The tutoring took place during normal working hours, and she was not given additional compensation for the work, nor was she reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses.
Rooks said when the son received low grades, Conyers told her, “‘Well, Rooks, you can add tutoring to your list of stuff to do.’” She added that a staffer would pick the son up from school, take him to the office, fix him a snack and help him with his homework.

S.D. school distances self from 'Brokeback' actress
By Lee Grant
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Carla Williams raised a daughter her way – a comfortable North County home, elementary and middle school at Solana Beach's Santa Fe Christian where, according to its credo, “the Bible is the standard upon which the educational program is based,” and acting classes at the “family entertainment”-oriented Christian Youth Theater.
Carla Williams is the proud mother of actress Michelle Williams, who got her start in Christian Youth Theater productions. Michelle is featured on a poster for "Annie."
Now, Michelle Williams is 25, a mom herself and an Academy Award nominee in the supporting actress category for “Brokeback Mountain,” which earned eight Oscar nods in all. The ceremony will be broadcast at 5 p.m. Sunday on KGTV/Channel 10.
Carla Williams is ecstatic about her daughter's success: “She's sweet, she has a heart, I'm so proud of her.”
Not so proud is Santa Fe Christian headmaster Jim Hopson. “We don't want to have anything to do with her in relation to that movie,” said Hopson, who turned down a request from a Union-Tribune reporter to visit the school and chat with students about the movies and one of their own being up for an Academy Award.
“Michelle doesn't represent the values of this institution. We would not approve of her movies and TV shows (including the teen drama “Dawson's Creek”). We'd not like to be tied to 'Brokeback Mountain.'
“I hope we offered her something in life. But she made the kinds of choices of which we wouldn't approve. 'Brokeback Mountain' basically promotes a lifestyle we don't promote. It's not the word of God.”

Saudi Shipping Company “Controls” 9 US Ports
That is to say the Saudis "control" these ports as much as the UAE’s Dubai Ports World ever will.
But it’s funny that our one party media hasn’t mentioned this Saudi-owned company, NSCSA, or its operation in even more ports than the UAE will have a berth.
Maybe the press don’t know about them, as the company’s only been around since 1979. And of course the longshoremen’s and DNC’s press releases, which they regurgitate verbatim, haven’t mentioned them:

The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia
Owners
Government of Saudi Arabia, Saudi individuals and establishments
Head Office Riyadh, KSA
The National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (NSCSA) was established in 1979 to meet the transportation needs of Importers and Exporters in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East.
And look at the ports where they control berths: Baltimore, MD; Newport News, VA; Houston, TX; New Orleans, LA ; Houston, Texas; Savannah, GA; Wilmington, NC; Port Newark, NJ, and Brooklyn, NY.
Where’s the outrage?

The Media's Selective Attention Span
Conservative Outpost ^ 3/1/06 Drew McKissick
Within the space of just a few days, we had a former President call for tax-payer funding of a known terrorist organization, a former Vice-President offer aid and comfort to our enemies while giving a speech in a foreign country, and a sitting Vice-President accidentally shoot a friend while quail hunting. Of these three events, the one with the least importance to our national security became the fixation of a self-indulgent media for well over a week.
Given what we already know about the selective memories of many in the mainstream media, it should come as no surprise that they also seem to suffer from a case of selective attention span. On issues that don’t present liberals in a favorable light, the press suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder. When it comes to similar situations involving conservatives however, they become obsessive-compulsives. Perhaps a dose of Ritalin is in order.
In the first of these events, we had former President Jimmy Carter call for the continuation of American aid for the Palestinian Authority which, given their recent election results, is tantamount to direct funding of Hamas, a terrorist organization with the avowed goal of the destruction of Israel. Note that in the aftermath of this comment there was no constant hounding by the press as to whether or not the former President would retract, reconsider or revise his remarks. Nor were there any stakeouts of his home attempting to catch him leaving for the office each morning to grill him as to why he refused to do so, or to demand an apology on behalf of the Jewish people.
The second example saw former Vice-President Al Gore, while speaking at a conference in Saudi Arabia, accuse his own country of “terrible abuses” of captured terrorists and “indiscriminately round(ing) up” Arabs after 9/11 on minor charges and holding them “in conditions that were just unforgivable”. He went even further and referred to the facilities where we hold captured terrorists as Bush gulags. He made these statements to an Arab audience on foreign soil, in reference to a country where he once campaigned to be President.
These two events by major American political figures went hardly noticed by the American people thanks to a nonplused media that was more interested in Dick Cheney’s hunting accident and finding out why they weren’t the first to know about it.

TV ads push Iraq war support
By Mike Dorning
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON -- In an early sign of the imagery that may flood the nation's television screens as congressional elections approach this fall, a conservative political group closely aligned with the Bush administration has launched a blitz of television ads to shore up sagging public support for the war in Iraq.
The television commercials feature vivid portraits of smoke pouring from the World Trade Center and the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Madrid and London as veterans of the Iraq war and parents of fallen soldiers make the case for continuing the U.S. military campaign in Iraq.
In what appears to be a test before the advertising campaign is rolled out to a broader audience, the political group Progress for America spent more than $1 million to air the commercials in Minnesota over a two-week period, according to a source familiar with the ad buy.
Progress for America spokesman Stuart Roy said the group purchased "a saturation buy" in which the average Minnesota television viewer saw two pro-war commercials a combined total of 22 times between Feb. 9 and 22.
One of the ads includes complaints that the media coverage of the war has been misleading. The ABC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul declined to air the commercial because of its charge that the media is misleading the public, although other stations accepted the ad.

Red Star Over San Francisco
FrontPage Magazine ^ 3/1/06 Lloyd Billingsley
San Francisco, California, boasts its own Human Rights Commission and bills itself as a bastion of tolerance, diversity and inclusion. It didn't quite work out that way when members of Falun Gong wanted to showcase their heritage in the 2006 Chinese New Year parade. They found themselves branded as a “homophobic cult” in the San Francisco Chronicle and banned from the parade. That led some observers to compare the San Francisco experience to what happens in the People's Republic of China, where Falun Gong is persecuted to the point of death.

Iraqi official blames Golden Mosque attack on Iran
Iran Focus ^ 2006 Mar 1
London, Mar. 01 – The deputy governor of the Iraqi province of Saladin, where the holy city of Samarra is situated, said preliminary investigation was pointing to Iran’s role in the bombing of the city’s revered Shiite shrine last week.
“The investigations carried out so far about the explosion in the resting place of Imam al-Hadi and Imam Hassan al-Askari in Samarra point to the involvement of the Iranian regime’s Intelligence Ministry”, Abdullah Hossein Jabbara announced. He was referring to Iran’s secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which is known to be actively operating in Iraq.

WHY HILLARY IN THE OVAL OFFICE IS A NATIONAL-SECURITY NO-NO
by Mia T et al, 10.17.03, 03.01.06
It is no secret that Hillary's past takes us through a pile of hard, cold cash from the Chinese army, Chinese army agents roaming the White House and photos with a wide variety of scoundrels.
For example, the one prominent name missing from Hillary's recent "tell-all" book is Riady. Mrs. Clinton failed to mention the Riady family at all. One would get the impression that the Riadys were not present in the Clinton White House. Hillary Clinton certainly overlooked listing the table settings and menus for White House dinners with the Riadys.
The Riadys knew the Clintons from their Arkansas years, when Moctar bought out a local bank. Moctar and his son James were close to Bill and Hillary through 1992 and into the White House. Moctar even owned the firm selected by Hillary Clinton to replace the White House travel office.
Moctar and James Riady played a key role in bringing the Clintons to power in Washington. The Indonesian billionaire and his Lippo banking company managed to contribute large sums of money to the Clintons' campaigns even though it was against the law. Moctar's gardener contributed $450,000 directly to Bill Clinton in a single check. James Riady, Moctar's son, eventually pleaded guilty to campaign violations.
The connections between the Riadys and the Clintons have a much more sinister theme than simple foreign money inside U.S. elections. Testimony before the U.S. Senate revealed Moctar Riady's involvement in Chinese espionage. The Lippo Group is in fact a joint venture of China Resources, a trading and holding company "wholly owned" by the Chinese communist government and used as a front for Chinese espionage operations.
Mrs. Clinton not only knew the Riadys but took their money as well. To prove my point I need only to cite photographic evidence. Her picture with Moctar Riady is certainly damning evidence of a relationship that spanned several bank accounts and two decades. It is often said that a picture tells a thousand words. However, Hillary's pictures not only tell stories left out of her book but they also netted $10,000 each for the DNC in illegal donations.
Mrs. Clinton has left us with a wide selection of photo evidence. Mrs. Clinton has had her photo taken with drug dealer Jorge Cabrera. Jorge donated a load of drug money to the DNC in order to get close to the first lady. Jorge is currently serving federal time for smuggling 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States.
Mrs. Clinton also has a virtual personal photo gallery of modern crime. It is almost as if she wanted to collect snapshots of herself and major crime figures.
For example, the co-presidents were photographed together with Macao criminal boss Ng Lapseng. Ng makes most of his money through the female-empowering career of prostitution.
Ng owns the Fortuna Hotel in Macao. You can stay overnight at the Fortuna for a reasonable price. In addition, you can also purchase the services of a Fortuna hostess for an additional nightly or hourly fee.
Ng frequently visited the Clintons with his close friend Charlie "Yah-Lin" Trie. It was through Charlie Trie that Ng also donated thousands of dollars to the Clintons.
Ng's Fortuna Hotel showed up again later in official State Department charges against the satellite division of Hughes. The Fortuna turned out to be a front for a Chinese army company that leased a Hughes satellite.
Johnny Chung also had several photo sessions with both Clintons. Many of the photos appear in Mr. Chung's beer advertisements. Chung passed Chinese army money to the DNC through Mrs. Clinton. In return, a very young and attractive female PLA colonel and COSTIND computer information warfare specialist was allowed inside the White House to meet Bill Clinton.

A negative savings rate?
Townhall.com ^ February 16,2006 Alan Reynolds
You must have heard that "Americans are spending everything they're making and more, pushing the national savings rate to the lowest point since the Great Depression." That line from Associated Press writer Martin Crutsinger was echoed on TV and in most newspapers, provoking columnists and editorial writers to bemoan the "savings crisis." The analogy with 1933 was designed to equate a low savings rate with hard times. Actually, the savings rate is usually highest in recessions, because of fear and because recessions crush our nest eggs. The savings rate rose above 10 percent during the stagflations of 1974-75 and 1980-82 to make up for the wealth that evaporated when stocks and bonds collapsed. A low savings rate can be a sign of optimism about the future.
Since the purpose of saving is to add to wealth, the best measure of saving is the addition to wealth. In the third quarter of last year, the Fed's measure of household net worth amounted to $51.1 trillion -- up by more than $5 trillion from a year earlier. Net worth measures assets minus debts, so that 10.9 percent wealth gain also debunks any "debt crisis." Homeowners' equity accounted for only 21 percent of total wealth, so it was not just a housing boom.
Wealth gains from financial assets benefit a rapidly rising share of the population. Tax-deferred IRA, Keogh and 401(k) plans alone amounted to $6.7 trillion in 2004. Something like half a trillion dollars in dividends, interest and capital gains from such tax-sheltered investments were excluded from last year's income statistics, particularly those based on income tax returns.
A New York Times story said, "In 2003, the top 1 percent of households owned 57.5 percent of corporate wealth, up from 53.4 percent the year before, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the latest income tax data." Yet the most that such tax data could show is that the top 1 percent own a big share of taxable investments. That is because the rules do not allow large sums to be stashed in tax-deferred or tax-exempt (Roth) savings vehicles. The rest of us, by contrast, now keep the vast bulk of our investment income hidden in such plans. It only shows up in wealth surveys.
To put one year's $5 trillion wealth gain in perspective, personal income was just $9 trillion after taxes. Even if we'd saved half of all personal income, that could not have added as much to household net worth as was, in fact, added. We clearly need to examine the household balance sheet -- not just a one-year income statement.

D’oh! More know Simpsons than Constitution
Study: America more familiar with cartoon family than First Amendment
The Associated Press
CHICAGO - Americans apparently know more about “The Simpsons” than they do about the First Amendment. Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. But more than half can name at least two members of the cartoon family, according to a survey.
The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.
Joe Madeira, director of exhibitions at the museum, said he was surprised by the results.
The survey found more people could name the three “American Idol” judges than identify three First Amendment rights. They were also more likely to remember popular advertising slogans.
It also showed that people misidentified First Amendment rights. About one in five people thought the right to own a pet was protected, and 38 percent said they believed the right against self-incrimination contained in the Fifth Amendment was a First Amendment right, the survey found.
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Editor's note: The five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment are freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.

Cheney Issues Challenge To Iraq War Critics
KPHO Phoenix ^ 3/1/06
WASHINGTON Vice President Cheney is again challenging the Bush administration's critics of the war in Iraq. The vice president told an American Legion conference today that those who are against the war should make it known if they think the U-S should "break our word and abandon our Iraqi allies."

Street name sparks outrage
Chicago Sun Times ^ 02/28/2006 Fran Spielman
Fred Hampton -- slain state chairman of the Black Panthers party that urged followers to "off the pigs" -- would join the parade of Chicagoans afforded honorary street designations, under an ordinance advanced Monday that outraged the police union.

Saddam: I Ordered Burning (Farms)
Sky News ^ 3/1/06
Saddam Hussein has admitted he ordered the "razing" of farms of those convicted of trying to kill him in 1982.
"I razed them. We specified the farmland of those who were convicted and I signed," Saddam told a court trying him for crimes against humanity in connection with the execution of 148 Shi'ite villagers in the village of Dujail.
His regime also jailed three-month-old babies, the court heard.
He has been accused of torture and illegal arrests and executions.
Documents produced at the Baghdad court outline how a crackdown on the Shi'ite town of Dujail was conducted. The paperwork proceeded the jailing of nearly 400 people, including young children, and the massacre of 148 people.
The crackdown followed an attempt on Saddam's life in 1982, it is alleged.
A further document said 96 people were executed but the remainder had been "liquidated during interrogations".

Something for nothing
Feb 28, 2006
by Thomas Sowell
Suppose someone left you an inheritance of a million dollars -- with the proviso that every cent of it had to be spent on tickets for you to go watch professional wrestling matches. If you happened to be a professional wrestling fan, you would be in hog heaven.
But what if you were not? How much would that million dollars be worth to you? Certainly a lot less than a million dollars.
What if there was a clause in the will which said that you could forfeit the million dollars and instead receive a cash amount of $100,000 to spend as you pleased? Many of us would take the hundred grand without strings, even if that was only ten cents on the dollar compared to the million for watching wrestling.
In short, money with strings is worth less than money without strings -- sometimes a lot less.
Many of us who receive money from Social Security or other government programs are learning the hard way the difference between money with strings and money without strings. For example, Social Security recipients have to be enrolled in Medicare, whether they want to be or not. "Universal" coverage means compulsory coverage, just with prettier political spin.
People who think that they are getting something for nothing, by having government provide what they would otherwise have to buy in the private market, are not only kidding themselves by ignoring the taxes that government has to take from them in order to give them the appearance of something for nothing. They are also ignoring the strings that are going to be attached to their own money when it comes back to them in government benefits.
That is not even counting the fact that government programs are usually less efficient than similar services provided by private enterprises.
Compare the service you get at the Department of Motor Vehicles with the service you get at Triple-A. No one who belongs to the American Automobile Association is likely to go to the DMV for a service that is also available through Triple-A.

Something for nothing: Part II
by Thomas Sowell
Government is not the only institution that promises something for nothing. The decline of General Motors is just one consequence of the idea that labor unions can get their members something for nothing.
Workers themselves increasingly recognize the reality that there is no free lunch through unionization and are increasingly voting to be non-union. But the word has yet to reach many among the intelligentsia, who still think of labor unions as institutions that benefit the working class.
You can always benefit particular segments of any society at the expense of some other segment but unions do not benefit even the working class as a whole -- just those who are current union members -- at the expense of other workers, current and future.
One reason that General Motors has been losing market share for years -- going from selling about half the cars in the country to selling about one quarter today -- is that its union contracts put them at a disadvantage compared to its Japanese competitors.
Even though Toyota has factories in the United States, the American employees in those factories vote to keep their jobs by staying non-union. Toyota takes business away from unionized Detroit car makers, who are forced to lay off thousands of workers while Toyota is hiring additional workers.
There may not be any big difference in pay scales but unions can create higher production costs in many other ways. Fringe benefits are just one. Work rules are another.
In some industries, employers pay their workers as much as, or more than, unionized workers receive for the same jobs, just in order to be free of red tape restrictions on how they can organize their business or discipline employees who aren't doing their jobs right.
Toyota, for example, takes fewer hours to produce cars with fewer defects than Detroit cars.
While unions are declining in the private sector, they are expanding among government employees. Government agencies are usually monopolies, so competition is no threat to their jobs.
Taxpayers get hit with the high cost of these monopolies. There is no such thing as something for nothing.
Teachers' unions fight desperately and ruthlessly against vouchers, because they must maintain a monopoly of school children under the compulsory attendance laws. Their members stand to lose jobs if forced to compete with private schools.
Monopoly is the key to unionized teachers' job security -- at the expense of children's education as well as the taxpayers' money.
People on the inside looking out benefit at the expense of people on the outside looking in. Losers include not only less experienced and lower skilled workers, whose output would not cover the cost of the minimum wage, but also future workers who may find fewer job opportunities in the unionized industries.
Some people may believe that unions benefit their members at the expense of employers -- and that big corporations should be paying a "living wage."
That may be possible in the short run. But think about it: If unionized workers producing widgets get higher pay by reducing the rate of profit of widget manufacturers, do you think investors are going to continue to invest as much in the production of widgets when they can earn higher rates of return by investing elsewhere?
The rate of return on widgets cannot remain permanently below rates of returns in other industries. Widget prices will have to rise -- and that means lower sales and lower employment. There is no free lunch, no way to get something for nothing.

Source for local News: two views
The survey commissioned by a newspaper trade pub
Newspapers Still Dominant Source for Local News by 61% to 58%
Editor and publisher
NEW YORK Newspapers are lagging as the dominant source for national information, though the medium still remains the first source for local news, according to a new study released from Outsell today.
The research and advisory firm based in Burlingame, Calif., found that 71% of those surveyed said they get their national news from broadcast news shows and cable TV, while only 33% said they get it from newspapers. Furthermore, online sites like Google/Yahoo/MSN/AOL are not far behind -- 28% of those surveyed said that's where they get their national news.
On the local front, newspapers are the main source of information. The survey shows that 61% of respondents say they get their local news from newspapers, followed by 58% for TV and 35% for radio.
Outsell surveyed 2,557 U.S. adults over the Web and 253 adults by phone during December 2005.
Those surveyed asked where they go to get news "first thing in your day," TV and cable was the go-to medium with 57%. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said print newspapers were the first place they went in the day for news.

But, let’s see what an unbiased poll shows:
The Harris Poll® #20, February 24, 2006
Seven in 10 U.S. Adults Say They Watch Broadcast News at Least Several Times a Week. Two in five adults say they listen to satellite radio programming or read a national newspaper as often
While there seems to be more outlets than ever for U.S. adults to get news, a new Harris Poll shows that majorities choose to get their news most frequently from broadcast mediums. Specifically, three-quarters (77%) of adults say they watch local broadcast news, and 71 percent say they watch network broadcast or cable news several times a week or daily. On the other hand, one in five (19%) U.S. adults say they listen to satellite news programming or read a national newspaper (18%) several times a week or daily.
These are the results of a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,985 U.S. adults surveyed online between January 12 and 17, 2006 by Harris Interactive®.
While broadcast television news appears to be the most popular medium sought, many adults also get their news several times a week or daily by going online to get news (64%), reading a local daily newspaper (63%), listening to radio news broadcasts (54%), listening to talk radio stations (37%), listening to satellite news programming (19%), and reading a national newspaper (18%).

Bush Cheers Decline Of Mainstream Media, Rise Of Alternative Press
Drudge
President Bush, for the first time, is hailing the rise of the alternative media and the decline of the mainstream media, which he now says “conspired” to harm him with forged documents.
“I find it interesting that the old way of gathering the news is slowly but surely losing market share,” Bush said in an exclusive interview for the new book STRATEGERY. “It’s interesting to watch these media conglomerates try to deal with the realities of a new kind of world.”
[STRATEGERY was ranked #5 on AMAZON.COM's sales chart early Tuesday morning.]
For example, journalist Dan Rather left the anchor chair at CBS News after Internet reporters revealed he had used forged documents to criticize Bush’s military record in September 2004. The forgeries, which Bush now calls a conspiracy, ended up helping his reelection campaign, he acknowledged in the Oval Office interview.
“It looks like somebody conspired to float false documents,” the president tells author Bill Sammon. “And I was amazed about it. I just couldn’t believe that would be happening [and] then it would become the basis of a fairly substantial series of news stories.”
Although Memogate was initially expected to harm the president, it ended up backfiring spectacularly on the press.
“The guy that it hurt most was Dan Rather and the executives at CBS,” White House strategist Karl Rove said in an interview for STRATEGERY. “It further disgraced a network which is third in ratings and, if you look at the demographics of their consumers, it’s like 70 percent Democrat.”
Rove said Rather’s eagerness to broadcast obviously forged documents proves he is “no serious reporter.” As for Rather’s insistence, to this day, that the documents are real, Rove said: “That’s really bias.”
Memogate has helped accelerate the decline of the mainstream media, generally defined as CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times and other establishment news outlets.
“I think what’s healthy is that there’s no monopoly on the news,” Bush said. “There’s competition. There’s competition for the attention of, you know, 290 million people, or whatever it is.
Having long been pilloried by the mainstream media, Bush now finds the rise of the alternative media nothing less than revolutionary.
“It’s the beginning of the twenty-first century; it also happens to be the beginning of—or near the beginning—of a revolution in newsgathering and dissemination,” he said. “Not in newsmaking—that tends to be pretty consistent.”
Rove considers Memogate a watershed in the rise of the alternative media. “The whole incident in the fall of 2004 showed really the power of the 'blogosphere',” he said in his West Wing office.
“Because in essence you had now, an army of self-appointed experts looking over the shoulder of the mainstream media and bringing to bear enormously sophisticated skills,” he added.
Rove said Rather and his producer, Mary Mapes, were gunning for the president and trying to help his challenger, Sen. John Kerry, by broadcasting the forged documents in the heat of the presidential campaign.
“They made a decision in this instance – I think quite prematurely and quite unfairly – to pursue a story that attacked the president,” he added. “And I thought it was, to me, one of the most incredible examples of how fundamentally unfair it was.”
Rove expressed astonishment that CBS ignored the warnings of document experts hired by the network to authenticate the National Guard memos.

CBS Slants Bush Poll in Favor of Democrats
In its classic "fair and balanced" tradition, CBS slanted in favor of Democrats its poll that found Bush has a 34 percent approval rating and a 59 percent disapproval rating, an all-time high for a CBS poll.
On the bottom of the PDF version of the poll (page 18) it says how many Democrats versus Republicans were contacted.
"Total Republicans" contacted: 272 unweighted and 289 weighted.
"Total Democrats" contacted: 409 unweighted and 381 weighted.
"Total Independents" contacted: 337 unweighted and 348 weighted.
Brent Baker also noted how CBS failed to highlight a key portion of its poll on the Feb. 27 "CBS Evening News." 66 percent of respondents thought the media devoted "too much time" to Cheney's hunting accident.
The new CBS poll (even after being weighted) had a population of only 28% Republicans to 37% Democrats.

More Americans abducted along Mexico border than in Iraq
By Maxim Kniazkov, Special to Insight
LAREDO, Texas – This border area is one of the least publicized international crisis zones. More Americans have been kidnapped just in this area than in all of Iraq by Islamic terrorists.
Twenty-six Americans are now officially listed as missing in the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo region of the U.S.-Mexico border—in addition to the more than 400 Mexicans reported to be suffering a similar fate.
The number of American civilians missing or kidnapped in Iraq since the beginning of the war is 23 as of last September, the latest figure released by the State Department.
“The Mexican government has lost control along the border,” fumes Rick Flores, the youthful Webb County sheriff.
“They had 176 murders in Nuevo Laredo last year, and none of them have been solved. In the first less than six weeks of this year, there were another 27 murders. Again, none solved. At the rate they are going, the death toll will be over 300 by year’s end.”
If anything, Mr. Flores said, the cartels have become more brazen, more willing to reach for their guns.
- Maxim Kniazkov is a Washington-based journalist

FAITH, BLOOD & BOMBS
By RALPH PETERS
NY Post
BAGHDAD
I FLEW over the streets of this city on Sunday. The calm made a striking contrast to the media hysteria. No mosques burned. No demonstrations seethed. The closest thing I saw to violence was a children's soccer game played in a suburb.
Baghdad isn't Candyland, of course. We skimmed the city at 300 feet — combat altitude — with the Blackhawk's guns up.
But it sure wasn't civil war. For now, at least, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his blood-cult terrorists haven't succeeded in pitting Sunni against Shia.
Our effort to help Iraqis build a rule-of-law democracy may yet fail. But it remains a better bet that Iraq will become the most equitably governed major Arab state and that a democracy, however imperfect, will stand where a monstrous regime fell.
Last week, the terrorists scored a temporary win by bombing the Golden Mosque in Samarra. Retaliatory attacks pocked Iraq's urban landscapes, providing striking TV images. Starved for headlines, the global media declared a civil war.
But the Iraqis didn't sign up. Yes, there was "unrest." And a daytime curfew was imposed. But after an initial spate of bickering, Iraq's key leaders came together — as they could not have done under Saddam — to calm the situation.
What's most notable about the sectarian disturbances of the past week is what didn't happen: Extremists on both sides had a bash in the streets, but the general population didn't turn out. Iraqi security forces responded more effectively than they could have done even six months ago. Our own troops intervened, but at a lower pitch than in the past.
To the chagrin of the press, the country's leaders continue to muddle through. That may not sound inspiring, but it should. Well-intentioned men and women from each of the country's major constituencies are trying to find a formula for a new Iraq that works.
It's a tough job, even a miserable one, exposing courageous leaders to mortal danger. But they haven't given up. From Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the dominant Shia religious voice, to wary Sunni Arabs and watchful Kurds, the unanimous position on the past week's events was that Zarqawi and his thugs could not be permitted to prevail.
And the terrorists didn't prevail. A tactical victory looks set to turn into a strategic defeat. By a huge majority, all Iraqis were appalled by the mosque attacks, whether launched by Sunni-Arab terrorists or Shia street thugs (in the end, even Moqtada al-Sadr, a foul little bully, realized that he had more to gain from opposing the strife than abetting it).
The bottom line is that Iraqi Muslims of every sect were appalled by the terrorist attacks upon faith's symbols. While foreign journalists may long for civil war, Iraqis don't.
Ralph Peters is in Iraq on assignment for The Post.