It’s not that I’m feeling old, exactly, or sinking into some kind of Prufrockian slough of despond (And I have seen the Eternal Blogger read my post, and snicker, / And in short, I was afraid…). But I am starting to think more seriously about what the dreadfully earnest types like to call life’s most precious resource: time. And, as I do, I’m finding it harder and harder to justify the hours spent producing this blog. You see, the plain, unvarnished truth is that political blogging – and by that I mean good political blogging – is no longer a game for amateurs. It’s the work of professional journalists and full-time online organizers now. The rest of us (with a few notable exceptions, of course) are adding little more than hisses and huzzahs from the cheap seats. Which is probably as it should be. Cream rises to the top and all that. But it does leave one asking the question that Reverend Johnson famously posed to the Almighty in Blazing Saddles: “Oh Lord. Do we have the strength to carry on this mighty task…? Or are we just jerking off?�

For me, for now, the answer seems to be the latter, which is why I’ve been away for the past couple of months, and why I’ll almost certainly stay away for the next couple. But, good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I expect to start posting on a regular basis again at some point in the not-too-distant future. (Remember, I didn’t say that blogging wasn’t worth my time; I said that part-time, half-assed blogging wasn’t.) Until then, best wishes to all – liberal and conservative, Democrat, Republican, and Independent. And, seriously, thanks for stopping by the site. I hope to see you all again soon.

PS: C'mon, folks. Governors and senators always promote their home states' business interests. That's just a political fact of life. Besides, stones and glass houses, you know?

UPDATE: And while we're on the subject of vice presidential humor, let me add something that I somehow forgot to mention last week: Mad Kane is now podcasting.

The problem wasn't that they broke the rules sometimes. It was that they didn't believe there are any rules.

The bad news, of course, is that the administration hasn't changed its ways; if anything, they've gotten worse, as Karl Rove's recent outburst demonstrates. The good news, though, is that we centrist Democrats aren't alone anymore: heads are now exploding among moderates of all parties and persuasions.

There are at least two reasons why no one should expect any apologies from Karl Rove or the White House for Rove's controversial comments Tuesday night, in which he described the liberal approach to national security as being weak and possibly even treasonous.

1) This White House doesn't apologize.

2) Why apologize when you said exactly what you meant to say?

Yep.

And if you care about good journalism -- not just good lefty journalism, but good journalism, period -- you should, too.

UPDATE: "This is the true face of the Bush crowd: extremism in pursuit of vice. It has to be said again and again. It should certainly be a 2006 theme. Opposing thuggery is a policy--it's called decency. And I suspect some elemental sense of fair play is not dead in the land."

MORE: “Can there be any doubt that this White House and administration have no desire to work for national unity, even on issue of terrorism? It’s MO seems to be division and polarization — whipping up rage against defined enemies…which now apparently include those who compete with it at the ballot box.�

Good question.

Hmmm. . . .

PS: Yes, I know. I've seen how TPMCafe passes its "diary" URLs, and it will almost certainly take more than a simple update to the allowed characters list to make apostrophes legal. Still, most content management systems eventually solve this problem. So, uh, why not now, Scoop? You'll have the undying gratitude of O'Briens, O'Learys, O'Sullivans, and, yes, O'Tooles, the world over.

Classy. And if it were anybody else, I'd probably make some sly allusion to combustibles and the Reichstag. But since Gov. Schwarzenegger is (understandably) a bit touchy on that whole subject, and I'm nothing if not sensitive to the tender feelings of formerly steroidal movie actors with a penchant for cheap demagoguery (and gang bangs!), I'll just have to close this post by echoing the words of one Francis Urquhart, the kind of pol that Arnold would no doubt admire: "You might say that. I couldn't possibly comment."

I am someone who aspires to change a few readers' minds with what I write. And I . . . sometimes have to wonder if I'm breaking through.

In particular, I am perplexed by how much of the e-mail I get seems uninformed by the piece I wrote that spurred it. I am struck by how, instead, what I wrote often serves only as a trigger for readers to sound off on what they already believed, with no reference to my article apart from referendumlike praise or condemnation directed toward me ("you're great" or "you're an idiot"), based on whether or not we seem to agree. [Emph added]

PS: The Matt Miller column that inspired Moore's musings is here.

PPS: Just so you'll know that I'm not simply picking on those who have the temerity to disagree with your not always humble correspondent, here's an example of the kind of comment I genuinely enjoy -- and sometimes even find myself, well, persuaded by.

• President Bush was clearly dissembling throughout the summer of 2002. War wasn't a "last resort" for this administration; it was a conflagration devoutly to be wished.

• The Bushies weren't lying about WMD. They were wrong, but they weren't lying.

• Iraq probably wouldn't be the disaster area it is today if President Bush had acted upon the concerns raised by our British allies during the planning phase.

In short, the memos are a bit of a mixed bag, according to Kaplan -- considerably more damning than most on the right are willing to acknowledge, but somewhat less so than many on the left would like to believe. Which is probably just about right.

The bottom line is this: There's still a huge amount of post-Iraq anger out there toward Bush, and liberals are frustrated that the red part of the country doesn't share their view. So the press must be doing a lousy job, right?

The press performance in covering this tightly disciplined administration has been far from perfect, especially on Iraq. But it's worth remembering that during the Clinton years, it was conservatives who saw the media as being embarrassingly soft on the White House.

Jeebus, Kurtz. Brent Bozell is usually more thoughtful (and convincing) than that. . . .

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Some climate scientists and environmental campaigners said Mr. Cooney's quick shift from the White House to Exxon was evidence of a near-seamless relationship between the Bush administration and the oil industry.

"Perhaps he won't even notice he has changed jobs," said David G. Hawkins, who directs the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private environmental group.

Joe's right. That's a pretty good line. So why is it missing from the latest version of the article? As they used to say on those cheesy old National Enquirer commercials, enquiring minds want to know. . . .

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But is it? Are his questioners really just romanticizing depression, as he suggests? Or are they understandably concerned about a widely-prescribed class of psychoactive pharmaceuticals whose effectiveness is still judged almost entirely on the basis of (largely self-reported) symptomology, rather than a full understanding of the organic mechanisms at work? If I had to bet, I'd say that there's at least a little of the latter at the root of the question. And until Dr. Kramer and his colleagues can tell us precisely how these drugs cure the disease of depression (in the same way that they can explain, say, the interaction of penicillin and syphilis), the query that the good doctor finds so, well, depressing, isn’t going to go away. Nor should it. [Via Arts and Letters Daily.]

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Many thanks to Alex for maintaining the repository, and to Kimmo for creating the template itself, which won a much-deserved award in a recent WP design contest. And thanks, too, to the nonprofit for the loaner. As we say down home, I'm forever in all y'all's debt.

And now, on with the show. . . .

UPDATE: Yep, the Puppy Blogging images are breaking the design at smaller screen resolutions. Sorry about that. I'll use thumbnails in the future.

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If the Democrats in Washington aren’t going to stand up for their party chairman, then it’s up to us.

After Howard Dean noted that the Republican is “pretty much a white, Christian party,” Democrats seemingly couldn’t wait to rush to cameras and criticize the comment, leaving Dean on out a limb to defend himself.

This disloyalty builds on the bad precedent set over the weekend by Sen. Joe Biden and fmr. Sen. John Edwards, both who knocked Dean for saying a lot of Republican leaders have never made an “honest living.”

Oh, Edwards was sure to blog a day later to insist it was the awful media that unfairly blew up his comments.

Biden was sure to go on Imus to insist that he thinks it’s OK if Dean is a lightning rod.

Similarly yesterday, Dems like House Min. Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chris Dodd were sure to claim that they were just criticizing the comment, but they still support Dean.

Please.

C'mon, folks. Elected officials don't "stand up for their party chairman" -- their party chairman stands up for them. Because, believe it or not (and this concept really does seem to be a brainteaser for some Democrats), the primary purpose of a political party is pretty much to, you know, produce elected officials. And putting them at risk for the benefit of their chief cheerleader would be a little insane, no?

All this cult of personality stuff with Howard Dean is fine up to a point. Many of our strongest grassroots supporters genuinely love the guy, and that's great. But if it continues to lead to this kind of disparagement of our elected officials, Dr. Dean is once again going to find himself trying to function with little or no support outside of his personal base. And we all remember how well that worked out last time, right?

Quite right.

POSTSCRIPT: Yeah, I know. The pictures are far from perfect. But give me a little time. I'm just getting started with this whole pet blogging thing. . . .

Some Arabs came over here and killed a lot of Americans. Bush went over there and killed a lot more Arabs. Since then, no Arabs have come over here and killed Americans. Thus, Bush's invasion of Iraq is responsible for our safety since 9/11.

I don't know about you, but in conversations with non-political people during the 2004 campaign, I heard some version of this "Bush must be doing something right" argument repeated over and over again. And in my experience, telling people they are falling prey to the post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) logical fallacy is not a terribly effective rebuttal.

Republicans understood this dynamic, which is why the Bush-Cheney campaign did not dwell on back-and-forth arguments about the original rationales for the war, or respond to John Kerry's pointed criticisms of the administration's success in fighting terrorism. Their whole message was that George W. Bush's characteristic resolve and decisiveness had intimidated terrorists into inaction, making him the Indispensible Man in the war on terror.

Yep. As the only two-term Democratic president since FDR could tell you, winning campaigns don't try to change the underlying assumptions of the electorate in a matter of a few short months; they use those assumptions to frame the debate in a way that ultimately persuades a plurality of the voters to pull the lever by their guy's name.

Sooner or later, we Democrats are going to remember that. And when we do, I suspect that we're going to find that the GOP is in the same kind of trouble at the presidential level that we were in for so many years. It's hard for a majority party to consistently win the White House -- especially once the minority party grows up, and quits making their job easier than it should be.

Geez. Aren't these guys ever going to grow up?

UPDATE: I'm probably being a little unfair to Seigel up there; it's TNR more broadly that tends to irk me on the whole question of pop culture. I mean, really, now: if you're afraid to discuss, say, bestselling books without first making a special point of insulting their writers and readers with a gratuitously condescending disclaimer, why bother?

MORE: Here's Stephen King, kinda sorta making the same point as he (again, kinda sorta) thanks the National Book Foundation for honoring him with their Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award:

Tokenism is not allowed. You can't sit back, give a self satisfied sigh and say, "Ah, that takes care of the troublesome pop lit question. In another twenty years or perhaps thirty, we'll give this award to another writer who sells enough books to make the best seller lists." It's not good enough. Nor do I have any patience with or use for those who make a point of pride in saying they've never read anything by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark or any other popular writer.

What do you think? You get social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture? Never in life, as Capt. Lucky Jack Aubrey would say. And if your only point of reference for Jack Aubrey is the Australian actor, Russell Crowe, shame on you.

There's a writer here tonight, my old friend and some time collaborator, Peter Straub. He's just published what may be the best book of his career. Lost Boy Lost Girl surely deserves your consideration for the NBA short list next year, if not the award itself. Have you read it? Have any of the judges read it?

There's another writer here tonight who writes under the name of Jack Ketchum and he has also written what may be the best book of his career, a long novella called The Crossings. Have you read it? Have any of the judges read it? And yet Jack Ketchum's first novel, Off Season published in 1980, set off a furor in my supposed field, that of horror, that was unequaled until the advent of Clive Barker. It is not too much to say that these two gentlemen remade the face of American popular fiction and yet very few people here will have an idea of who I'm talking about or have read the work.

This is not criticism, it's just me pointing out a blind spot in the winnowing process and in the very act of reading the fiction of one's own culture. Honoring me is a step in a different direction, a fruitful one, I think. I'm asking you, almost begging you, not to go back to the old way of doing things. There's a great deal of good stuff out there and not all of it is being done by writers whose work is regularly reviewed in the Sunday New York Times Book Review. I believe the time comes when you must be inclusive rather than exclusive. That said, I accept this award on behalf of such disparate writers as Elmore Leonard, Peter Straub, Nora Lofts, Jack Ketchum, whose real name is Dallas Mayr, Jodi Picoult, Greg Iles, John Grisham, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connolly, Pete Hamill and a dozen more. I hope that the National Book Award judges, past, present and future, will read these writers and that the books will open their eyes to a whole new realm of American literature. You don't have to vote for them, just read them.

Just so.

Golf has made Moore County rich. There are spas, country clubs and new $2 million homes. The United States Open, to be held later this month on the most famous of the county's 43 golf courses, is expected to bring $124 million to the state.

While predominately white areas of the county, like Pinehurst, are thriving, some black areas lack even basic services like sewers and garbage collection.

But as developers rush to provide "resort quality" amenities in the newest subdivisions, some neighborhoods have been left behind - without sewers, police service, garbage pickup or even, in some cases, piped water.

These enclaves, Jackson Hamlet, Midway and Waynor Road, are virtually all black. They butt up against, or are even completely surrounded by, affluent towns that are mostly white: Pinehurst, Aberdeen and Southern Pines.

The 500 residents of these unincorporated enclaves are close enough to point out sewer lines that run past their properties en route to new developments, or to watch garbage trucks trundle past without stopping. . . .

Excluding heavily minority areas from town boundaries is a common but little examined practice, particularly in small towns in the South, civil rights advocates and geographers say. With the U.S. Open beginning on June 16 on the Pinehurst No. 2 golf course, residents of the three black neighborhoods and their advocates are making a concerted effort for the first time to win more services, holding news conferences and giving tours.

Dog bites man, I know. Nonetheless, attention must be paid. . . .

MORE: "[I]f you could pass any single piece of federal legislation related to civil rights, what would it be?"

That's good news. And James Joyner is right: The second, somewhat less sexy part of the clerics' declaration is probably even more important.

Frankly, we Democrats have enough problems in this general area already. (Not to mention this one.) It would be a bad idea indeed to add an all-too-easily caricatured position on Iraq to the issues mix.

PS: To get a sense of just how hard it is for a party to get any real traction on a big issue on which it has limited credibility, see Social Security.

Oh, well. Not for nuthin' is the guy known as "Anonymous," I guess.

It does, doesn't it?

PS: Of course, I'm withholding final judgment on Perlstein's thesis until I've read his piece in its entirety. It's possible that he addresses these sorts of concerns head on, and dispenses with them convincingly. Still, it's important to remember that we're not in George McGovern's America anymore, with Democrats solidly in control of the courts and both houses of Congress. Under the present circumstances, a devastating loss would be devastating indeed.

Upon further reflection, though, I've decided that that's just silly. (After all, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little blogging minds, right?) So, as of today, the titles are outta here.

This change will have the inevitable consequence of making some of the old stuff a little, well, cryptic, I suppose -- which is why I'm bringing all this to your attention; it gives me an opportunity to apologize in advance for any confusing posts that you may now find in the archives. (Over time, I'll make whatever changes are necessary to clarify their meaning.) So, uh, sorry for any inconvenience. And thanks, as always, for stopping by.

Over the last few decades, American liberals have lauded the German model or the Swedish model or the European model. But these models are not flexible enough for the modern world. They encourage people to cling fiercely to entitlements their nation cannot afford. And far from breeding a confident, progressive outlook, they breed a reactionary fear of the future that comes in left- and right-wing varieties - a defensiveness, a tendency to lash out ferociously at anybody who proposes fundamental reform or at any group, like immigrants, that alters the fabric of life.

As anyone who's the least bit familiar with recent Swedish history could tell you, Brooks isn't just exaggerating up there -- he's lying, at least by implication. Jesus. Can't the NYT get their crack web team to teach that guy how to Google before he picks up his pen?

MORE: Here's the Heritage Foundation -- yes, the Heritage Foundation -- lauding Sweden's radical reform of its pension system. Not flexible enough? C'mon Mr. Brooks.

(NOTE: As you would expect, the Heritage piece is misleading in some ways; you simply can't compare Sweden and the US without looking at a lot more than their respective retirement systems. Still, the Heritage analysis, which is accurate if not true, pretty clearly puts the lie to Mr. Brooks' nonsense.)

UPDATE: Oops, I almost forgot -- full disclosure here.

Huston warned in a top-secret memo that the plan was "clearly illegal." Nixon initially approved the plan anyway. Hoover strenuously objected, because eavesdropping, opening mail and breaking into homes and offices of domestic security threats were basically the FBI bailiwick and the bureau didn't want competition. Four days later, Nixon rescinded the Huston plan.

Felt, a much more learned man than most realized, later wrote that he considered Huston "a kind of White House gauleiter over the intelligence community." The word "gauleiter" is not in most dictionaries, but in the four-inch-thick Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language it is defined as "the leader or chief official of a political district under Nazi control." [Emph added]

Though I have no reason to question Woodward's larger judgment about Felt -- he may well have been "a much more learned man than most realized" -- his use of the word "gauleiter" isn't an example of it. That word was very much a part of the American vulgate in Felt's era, as were several other terms of international origin that sound somewhat exotic today (think "quisling").

Anyway, as the title of this post suggests [Note: Deep Nitpicking, before titles went the way of the dinosaur], this isn't exactly what one would call a big deal. The article is engrossing (if you're the type to find such things engrossing, anyway), and the reporting that led to it will be remembered long after our grandchildren's grandchildren have moved on to that great newsroom in the sky. But, hey, why even have a blog if you can't use it to indulge your occasional desire to play lex police?

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POSTSCRIPT: No, I don't plan to make a habit of this. Unless, of course, you consider once a week a habit. . . .

UPDATE: Okay, make that Tuesday. See you then.

That said, politics isn't just a bloodless tally of position papers and issue scorecards. And if our conservative compatriots were to read Jim VandeHei's piece in today's WaPo -- and I mean really read it, as opposed to simply scouring the text for errors and errata that might be useful in trying to knock it down -- on the ways in which Republicans have fundamentally "changed how the business of government gets done" in DC in recent years, they might be a little less puzzled by all the lefty vituperation. Fact is, when you find yourself on the losing end of one battle after another because the other guy keeps changing the rules, you don't just feel disappointed. You feel cheated. And, frankly, you have a right to.

One of these days -- and perhaps sooner rather than later -- the GOP is going to be in the minority again. And if they've managed to turn virtually every Democrat in this country into a Delay or a Frist or a Dobson by that point, the reckoning for all this nonsense is going to be unpleasant, indeed -- and they'll have no one but themselves to blame when there aren't any moderate Dems left to stop the new gang in town from choosing justice over mercy.

In all my years in journalism, I don't think I have met more than one or two reporters who have ever served in the military or who even had a friend in the armed forces. Most media hiring today is from universities, where a military career is regarded as bizarre and almost any exercise of American power is considered wrongheaded or evil. [Emph added]

Really, now. An entire generation of journalists was under arms in World War II, and John Leo, who isn't exactly a cub reporter, has only met "one or two" with military experience? Hell, I've met more than that -- and it seems pretty safe to assume that Mr. Leo enjoys a wider journalistic acquaintanceship than yours truly.

So, what gives? Why would a respected conservative columnist tell what appears to be such a transparent untruth? I dunno. But I sure hope Chatterbox is paying attention.

All this should be an alarm bell for the Bush administration and the world. Abbas believes in secular governance, the rule of law, nonviolence and coexistence with Israel. If he cannot make it, if he cannot demonstrate that his way offers a future for the Palestinian people, what message does that send? Who do we think will take his place? The possibility of Hamas's winning elections, tying his hands and eventually supplanting him is not a fantasy.

Photo opportunities will not provide him much help. And while Abbas must press harder against those resisting change, including in the security area, he needs more than rhetorical encouragement -- he needs real help from the outside. Material assistance must be provided -- not just pledged. Last December, donor nations pledged $1.2 billion to the Palestinians. Six months later, less than 10 percent of the money has materialized. And the money that has been provided -- as important as it is -- is not going to meet the urgent needs created by unemployment. Per capita income in the West Bank and Gaza was $1,800 a year in 2000 and is down to $1,000. Jobs are urgently needed; labor-intensive projects must be financed and launched now.

The international community acts as if a business-as-usual approach will suffice in providing the assistance that has been pledged. That could mean that by the time the money begins to appear, it will be Hamas, not the Palestinian Authority, making the calls on how it is spent. It's time for the Bush administration to make a major push to get donors to deliver. The Abbas visit should provide the catalyst for such an initiative.

Yep, it should. The Bush administration's policy of not-so-benign neglect toward the PA probably made sense at the tail-end of the Arafat era. Today, it's just crazy; you don't let the man who represents the best chance for peace we're likely to see in our lifetimes slowly twist in the wind. Abbas' government needs substantial and sustained assistance. And it's past time for President Bush to assemble a real coalition of the willing to provide it.

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[Via Ed Cone.]

I'm not advocating we change our position. I believe that a woman has a right to make up her own mind about what kind of health care she gets, and I think Democrats believe that in general. Here's the problem--and we were outmanipulated by the Republicans; there's no question about it. We have been forced into the idea of "We're going to defend abortion." I don't know anybody who thinks abortion is a good thing. I don't know anybody in either party who is pro-abortion. The issue is not whether we think abortion is a good thing. The issue is whether a woman has a right to make up her own mind about her health care, or a family has a right to make up their own mind about how their loved ones leave this world. I think the Republicans are intrusive and they invade people's personal privacy, and they don't have a right to do that.

Let me tell you why I think we ought to--why I want to strike the words "abortion" and "choice." When I campaigned for this job, I talked to lots of Democrats. And there are significant numbers of pro-life Democrats in the South. And one lady said to me, you know, "I'm pro-life. I don't like abortion. I would never have one. I would hope my daughter would never have one. But, you know, if the lady next door got herself in a fix, I'm not sure I should be the one to tell her what to do." Now, we call that woman pro-choice, but she thinks of herself as pro-life. The minute we start with the "pro-choice, pro- choice, pro-choice," she says, "Well, that's not me."

But when you talk about framing this debate the way it ought to be framed, which is "Do you want Tom DeLay and the boys to make up your mind about this, or does a woman have a right to make up her own mind about what kind of health care she gets," then that pro-life woman says "Well, now, you know, I've had people try to make up my mind for me and I don't think that's right." This is an issue about who gets to make up their minds: the politicians or the individual. Democrats are for the individual. We believe in individual rights. We believe in personal freedom and personal responsibility. And that debate is one that we didn't win, because we kept being forced into the idea of defending the idea of abortion.

Dean's right. There's a huge difference between taking the principled position that this difficult, often painful choice should ultimately rest with the woman involved, and trying to make the utterly fatuous argument that giving birth and getting an abortion are, in the main, morally equivalent actions that demand equal respect from the public at large. They aren't and they don't. And the only way that we Dems are going to be able to successfully defend the first proposition -- the Constitutional Option, if you will -- is by explicitly rejecting the second.

That's going to be an unpleasant rhetorical shift for some of our most committed supporters, particularly those who somehow, somewhere got it into their heads that we have an duty as Americans to celebrate people's choices rather than simply to tolerate them. But shift we must. And Dean deserves a great deal of credit for looking the base of our party in the eye and saying so.

More tomorrow.

[Mr. Russert:] Do you really hate Republicans? Do you consider them evil?

DR. DEAN: I don't--well, actually that was a little out of context. But I don't hate Republicans as individuals. But I hate what the Republicans are doing to this country. I really do. I hate deficits, as you know. When I was governor, I really was very tough on fiscal responsibility. Deficits in the long run aren't good for the country, and they do lower our standard of living. Every American family knows that you have to pay your bills. I hate the dishonesty, you know, the idea that you'd put a program through Congress without telling people what it costs, I think that's wrong. Some of the things that the president said on our way into Iraq, they just weren't true, and I don't think that's right. So...

MR. RUSSERT: Such as?

DR. DEAN: Such as the weapons of mass destruction, which we have all known about, but the...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, you said there were weapons of mass destruction.

DR. DEAN: I said I wasn't sure, but I said I thought there probably were. But the thing that really bothered me the most, which the 9-11 Commission said also wasn't true, is the insinuation that the president continues to make to this day that Osama bin Laden had something to do with supporting terrorists that attacked the United States. That is false. The 9-11 Commission, chaired by a Republican, said it was false. Is it wrong to send people to war without telling them the truth. And the truth was Osama bin Laden was a very bad person who was doing terrible things, but that Iraq was never a threat to the United States. That was the truth. It was underlined by the 9-11 Commission, headed, again, by a Republican, a well-respected group of people. I don't think you send American men and women to war, first of all without properly equipping them, and secondly without telling the truth to their parents about why it is we're asking them to make that sacrifice. So those are the kinds of things that I think are very bad about the Republicans.

Now, the second that Dean misspoke -- the very instant he opened his mouth to say "Saddam," and "Osama" fell out -- I thought about firing up the browser and offering a prize of some kind to the first O'Toole File reader who caught a conservative blogger ripping that exchange out of context in a puerile effort to score a few cheap points at the good doctor's expense. But then I thought: Nah, the right side of the blogosphere isn't that childish.

Oh, well. Another illusion shattered.

[Via Instapundit, who didn't exactly distinguish himself with his post on this subject, either.]

In some respects, of course, the last ten or so years have been a good time for American cities. Most urban areas, particularly New York, became safer and cleaner than they were in the '80s. And, certainly, we are no longer living in the dark days of the '70s--an era symbolized by the 1981 cult classic Escape from New York. These trends have made urban life more attractive to some and thereby stimulated residential construction as well as slowed--and in some cases reversed--the flight from cities of jobs.

But these developments notwithstanding, the renaissance of American cities has been greatly overstated--and this unwarranted optimism is doing a disservice to cities themselves. Urban politics has become self-satisfied and triumphalist, content to see cities promote the appearance of thriving while failing to serve the very people--families, immigrants, often minorities--who most need cities to be decent, livable places. The myths that have grown up surrounding the urban renaissance are now often treated as fact. As an urban historian who lives in a major city, I believe that recognizing these myths for what they are is a critical first step towards the redemption of urban America.

What myths? Kotkin identifies three:

• Cities are again gaining people. Urban boosters say yes, but the numbers tell a different story. In fact, relative to suburban, exurban and rural areas, most major American cities are still losing population at a fairly alarming rate.
• Cities are where the successful people are. Not really. According to Kotkin, "Sixteen of the country's top twenty counties in terms of percentage of college educated people are now suburban; only three, Manhattan (New York County), San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., are cities."
• Cool cities attract the best jobs; uncool cities don't. Again, no. "The areas that have experienced growth in new-economy jobs--such as business and financial services--have not been the pillars of cool," writes Kotkin. "In fact, since 2000 these jobs have been leaving the likes of Boston and San Francisco, while accumulating in church-going, conservative areas like Boise, Phoenix, Reno, Salt Lake City, and southwest Florida."

So, assuming one thinks that all this is a problem (a debatable point for some, I would guess), what to do? Honestly, I dunno. Kotkin talks about the need to begin with an urban reality check, which would at least force city officials to recognize the true nature and scope of their problems -- "lost jobs, dysfunctional schools, and crumbling infrastructure." But I'm afraid his Big Idea -- an "urban New Deal" that would shift city resources away from high-profile "bread and circuses" projects aimed at hipsters and the well-off, and toward basic services for the middle class -- sounds a bit fanciful in the current political climate, particularly given the fact that the middle class seems pretty enamored of the bread and circuses in question (stadiums, shopping districts, and the like).

Anyway, I hope Kotkin's right and I'm wrong. And to give his argument the full and fair hearing it deserves, read the rest here.

With the high-deductible plan, workers pay lower monthly premiums and their employers commonly help them build up a special savings account to cushion the impact of a larger annual deductible. The accounts are controlled by the employees, which has led insurers and employers to label the plans "consumer-directed."

Even if high-deductible plans offer immediate relief for many workers, and big cost savings to employers, the allure may not last. And the plans may do little or nothing to solve the basic problem of soaring health costs.

"You're beginning to see a lot of growth in these plans, not because they're going to solve America's healthcare challenge, but because it's a way for employers to cut their out-of-control benefit costs," said Robert Laszewski, a consultant to health insurance companies. "Any time an employer can raise deductibles from $200 to $1,000, it is going to reduce their costs. But will it reduce U.S. health costs generally? The jury is still really out on that."

The reason, he said, is that 10% of the people — the sickest Americans — account for 70% of total healthcare costs. "Once the sick people have gone through their deductible, they're back to a regular health plan — the incentives for them don't really change," Laszewski said.

"This is a cost shift device, and not a means to fundamentally control healthcare costs."

Moreover, the willingness of workers to sign up for less generous plans may change over time, as workers and their families get older and more likely to encounter serious medical costs.

"To make these plans truly work, they have to work for the sickest population — it can't be a plan that only works for the healthy," said Joe Walshe, a principal with the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. "It's very difficult, but that's where the challenge is."

In the meantime, the short-term appeal of high-deductible plans is easy to see. Employees get a bit more take-home pay. Employers get some relief from higher healthcare costs.

High deductibles, minimal coverage, and no real cost savings? Clearly, our nation's best HR minds are just fresh out of good ideas when it comes to protecting their employees from the depredations of a hopelessly dysfunctional healthcare system. Nice to see they haven't lost their touch with the soothing corporate euphemism, though.

Consumer. Directed. Plans.

Take that, Jacques!

MORE: Via Tapped, physician and author Robin Cook explains why human genome research will speed "the inevitable movement to universal health care" here in the US.

--Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, on why he's "getting dragged into" the Senate investigation of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff

Frankly, President Bush is right on this, and he has been from day one. Every child in this country has a right to a decent education, and the rest of us have a right to know they're getting it. That means testing, and it means reporting the results of those tests in a way that doesn't mask failure. Despite its shortcomings, NCLB delivered those things. We'd be foolish to let anyone take them away now.

POSTSCRIPT: For the record, I'm not saying that NCLB can't be improved. Like just about anything else, it can be. But Sen. Allen's legislation doesn't represent progress in that direction. And we Dems shouldn't pretend otherwise just because it gives us a chance to stroke our political allies and to bash the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Anyway, enough with the vamping already. Here's John.

PUBLIC ACTS

OF THE

STATE OF TENNESSEE

PASSED BY THE

SIXTY - FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1925

________

CHAPTER NO. 27

House Bill No. 185

(By Mr. Butler)

AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

Section 2. Be it further enacted, That any teacher found guilty of the violation of this Act, Shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction, shall be fined not less than One Hundred $ (100.00) Dollars nor more than Five Hundred ($ 500.00) Dollars for each offense.

Section 3. Be it further enacted, That this Act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it.

Passed March 13, 1925

W. F. Barry,

Speaker of the House of Representatives

L. D. Hill,

Speaker of the Senate

Approved March 21, 1925.

Austin Peay,

Governor.

That, friends, is what the real Scopes trial was all about. And we should be grateful to Mr. Colson for insisting that we remember.

[Colson link via CCC.]

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

I know I've linked to it before, but John Cole's pointed question to the bury-the-bad-news crowd bears repeating here: "Which would be worse in the war on terror in the long run -- suspicions of abuse and sacrilege running rampant for years, or said abuses acknowledged, apologized for, and punished?”

Folks, the answer to that question is so clear, so unambiguous, so self-evident at this point that I'm truly beginning to wonder whether those who can't or won't acknowledge it even realize that there's a war on. And that our side really needs to win it.

POSTSCRIPT: I can think of more enjoyable ways of having spent the first twenty minutes or so of my 39th birthday, but few more valuable ones. Seriously, set aside a little time and read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Joe Gandelman gets it just right. "[A]llegations of this kind of behavior must be investigated and if proven true prosecuted to the absolute fullest extent of the law - including up the chain of command if necessary. Those who try to defend it or dismiss it as soldiers blowing off steam or minimize the gravity of it deserve nothing but contempt from those from both parties who militantly believe in and cherish long-held American ideals."

Hear, hear.

As the president would say, we're making progress!

Big media’s melting down. Movies are in a slump. Why? The media’s losing money because contemporary secular liberalism is really a kind of religion. Liberals don’t want to make money. They’re out to win souls. Oh sure, within the acceptable parameters of their secular religion, liberals are pleased to make a profit. No doubt Hollywood and MSM do plenty of market research and such. But it’s obvious that the media would rather “make a difference” (i.e. gain converts to secular liberalism) than make money. It wouldn’t be hard for the big newspapers and magazines to attract reporters and writers from all sides of the political-cultural spectrum. In fact, a news magazine that truly covered stories from both the left and the right would excite interest, buzz, loyalty–and make money. Readers would also be more disposed to forgive mistakes. But big media doesn’t do this because, for secular journalists, making the culture more liberal is the mission that gives meaning to life.

I guess John Edwards was right. There really are two Americas -- one that gets up in the morning and quietly goes about its business in what we might be so bold as to call the real world, and another that's consumed with wacky conspiracy theories about the dark intrigues ("Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous," crows a rudely stamped Bill Keller, rubbing his ink-stained hands together with evil glee. . . .) being hatched every day by the MSM against ordinary people of faith like me and (perhaps) thee. Which would actually be okay, I suppose -- to each his own, you know -- if the latter bunch weren't pretty much running the show in Washington these days. But they are. And that, my friends, is a worrisome state of affairs, indeed.

Hard to argue with that.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, Brooks tries a bit too hard to make his piece an even-handed indictment of both right and left, when, clearly, his beef is primarily with the former. (Let's see, now. On one side, Brooks condemns the behavior of the Bush administration, large chunks of the conservative commentariat, and virtually the entire right side of Blogdom; on the other, he wags his finger at . . . The Nation. Oh, and some number of unidentified but scary-sounding "leftish web sites." Equipoise, indeed.) Still, it's worth a read.

Right?

UPDATE: Just to be clear: I'm not trying to let Newsweek off the hook here. They screwed up. Period. Still, all that Newsweek lied, people died stuff is more than a little hard to take when so much of it is coming from folks who penned not a word about the deaths in question until the precise moment that they became politically useful. Cynical stuff, that. And we shouldn't allow ourselves to be bullied or browbeaten into pretending otherwise.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Cole rebukes the would-be censors, and asks an important question. "The media was wrong for reporting a false story, but had the story been accurate, they were well within their rights and, IMHO, obligated to report this sort of thing. Which would be worse in the war on terror in the long run- suspicions of abuse and sacrilege running rampant for years, or said abuses acknowledged, aplogized for, and punished?"

In recent years, Christian conservatives have firmly aligned themselves in large numbers with the Republican Party. As a former registered Democrat, I know I have. But is that necessarily a good thing?

Click over and give the post a read. As Ed rightly says, "There are all kinds of opportunities for the Dems to open dialogue with people they sometimes write off. That means listening as well as talking."

Eliminating the increasingly unpopular alternative minimum tax could require even more unpleasant tax changes, such as reducing deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions and health care costs, the leaders of President Bush's tax panel warned Tuesday.

Lovely.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, like being president, dashing off a limerick link at 5:30 in the morning is hard work. . . .

When you go out of your way to report the bad news, and bury the good news, when you're credulous toward critics (remember the Boston Globe porn photos?) and treat all positive news as presumptive lies, and when it's clear that the enemy relies on press behavior in planning its campaigns, then you've got a problem. Huffing and puffing in response isn't constructive. . . .

Despite Matt's implication, I don't get up in the morning trying to figure out how to destroy freedom of the press in America. Instead, I keep trying to persuade the folks at Newsweek, CBS, etc. not to flush free expression down the toilet through their irresponsibility and bias. [Note: Reason link added]

Well, of course the enemy "relies" on our freedoms in planning his campaigns. He always has, from Lexington to Pearl Harbor to the dark and sometimes dangerous alleys of East Berlin. And while I understand that some conservatives choose to believe that this strategy was successful on one occasion -- that the war in Vietnam was lost due to the free and fearless exercise of American liberty -- all the right-wing revisionism in the world can't alter the simple truth that our policy in Southeast Asia was a noble mistake; nor can it obscure the fact that today, America stands as the world's only superpower, while Vietnam slowly and painfully struggles to find its way. Truth be told, the ash heap of history is littered with the mouldering remains of despots who believed that America couldn't be both free and strong, and I can't for the life of me imagine why Glenn would want to associate himself with that strange and oft-discredited notion.

As to Glenn's second point, I certainly accept his sincerity. None of us wants to see liberty flushed down the toilet. But I'm confused and more than a little disheartened by his seeming unwillingness to stand up for the American experiment. It's been quite a success, I hear, allowing an industrious and talented mix of mutts and castoffs to tame a continent and remake a world. That's not a bad record, friends. And it's more than deserving of our heartfelt and enduring devotion.

Nothing is more hopeless or courageous in politics than seeking an authentic middle ground on the abortion issue. That makes Thomas R. Suozzi a hopeless case or, as I would insist, one brave politician -- and especially so as the United States Senate tears itself apart over judicial nomination battles in which discord about abortion has played such a central role.

The 42-year-old Nassau County executive is a churchgoing Catholic who believes that abortion should remain legal. He is also a Democrat who thinks that government should take concrete steps to make it easier for women to choose against abortion. He's proposing that his suburban jurisdiction on Long Island spend some serious money to make that happen. . . .

"As a Democrat, I do not often find it easy to talk with other Democrats about our need to affirm our commitment to the respect for life and how we need to emphasize our party's firm belief in the worth of every human being," he said. "As a Catholic, I do not often find it easy to talk with other Catholics about my feeling that abortion should and will remain safe and legal, and that we should instead focus our efforts on creating a better world where there are fewer unplanned pregnancies and where women who face unplanned pregnancies receive greater support and where men take more responsibility for their actions."

Dionne calls that kind of talk "brave," which is both accurate and deeply weird. In a properly functioning republic, forthrightly articulating the majority position on an issue like abortion shouldn't put you in the running for a Profile in Courage Award. But that's precisely where we find ourselves these days. And until we can figure out a fair but effective way to make our political system a little less hyper-responsive to the folks with the mailing lists and the megaphones, it's going to continue to be frustratingly unresponsive to the needs and values of the rest of us.

As I'm sure this president knows better than most (since it's an area of special interest to him), any successful effort to change the tone in Washington will require a veritable boatload of the kind of trust that can only be built on a foundation of real transparency. Which is why a little more of it would be so greatly appreciated by those of us who share his concerns about both the nation's energy woes and the angry partisan divide in Washington.

According to the WaPo's Terry Neal, African Americans aren't buying it.

Marc Cooper would seem to agree.

Thanks, Newsweek.

UPDATE: Hmmm. . . . Perhaps I spoke too soon.

Now, why does that phrase sound so familiar?

[Via Think Progress]

Fact is, the relentless mobilization of anti-abortion activists has been central to the rise -- though, as Scott rightly notes, not the existence -- of movement conservatism here in the US, and no amount of learned analysis of the available data (which, at times, seems to be our real political forte, as opposed to, say, winning elections) by those of us on the left is going to obscure that elemental electoral truth.

We are in a critical war for world opinion. A critical part of our message is that this is not a war against Islam as such, but against Islamo-fascism and terror. And yet we see the religious right co-opting air force academies, and we hear of incidents like the alleged toilet-flush of the Koran. Since no one is ever held responsible for anything in the Bush administration, we can be sure this incident will be lied about, covered up or blamed on some poor military grunt who can be easily scapegoated. But at some point, we will have to confront the severe damage this administration has done to American prestige and credibility in a critical global battle of ideas because of its interrogation policies. These are self-inflicted wounds.

Yes, they are. And, for the life of me, I can't understand why President Bush doesn't grasp this. He is not, as so many would have it, an ignoramus. Far from it, in fact. He's just . . . unwilling to know certain things. And the dreadfully dear price that we as a nation are ultimately going to have to pay for that character defect (for make no mistake, that's what it is) will have one, and only one, upside. It will finally force us all, Democrat and Republican, Reform and Independent, to see the very messy, very human failings of Mr. Bush's predecessor for precisely what they were -- small beer, indeed. And then, perhaps, when all the spurious partisan energies have at last expended themselves, we can set this strange and angry period aside, and get back to what we as Americans do best: conducting our nation's business at home and abroad with that curious mix of rapaciousness and fundamental decency which amuses our friends and confounds our enemies.

UPDATE: Here.

The only outspoken witness in favor [of private accounts] was my old friend Derrick Max. I thought Derrick did a great job, especially given the odds. But I have to say that I thought the liberals made some very strong arguments, including [Brad] DeLong (who, to date, has never had a kind word for yours truly). I'm still in favor of reforming the system and I'm still in favor of private accounts, but I thought the arguments were pretty persuasive that there are serious downsides to the idea too.

I'm not ready to engage in any stick-a-fork-in-it talk yet, but if that's Jonah Goldberg's (!) gut reaction to an honest discussion of private accounts, this president's plan is in deep, deep doo-doo, indeed.

Maybe. But probably not. While Wallis is correct that the right's dominance of the values debate has been aided by the left's policy of disengagement (not to mention Democratic pols' distaste for, as a certain 2004 presidential candidate sniffed, "wear[ing] my religion on my sleeve"), the connection between evangelical religion and conservative politics in this country has deep and tangled roots. For reasons as much theological as political, white evangelicals (which is what people invariably mean when they talk about American evangelicalism) turned against systemic attempts to combat poverty and other societal ills long before anyone had ever heard of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, or Ronald Reagan. More specifically, the right's fixation on personal piety, while arguably unbiblically narrow, nonetheless draws its resonance from a powerful combination of factors--evangelicalism's emphasis on personal redemption, the political realities of how to galvanize and sustain a mass movement, and the basic human fascination with sex--that aren't as easily applied to issues like tax policy and Social Security reform. As a result, although American evangelicals personally may be broadening their policy interests, the community's political activism, particularly on the domestic front, is unlikely to budge much beyond the same old "core issues" involving sex and school prayer. So, while it's tempting for those unnerved by the right's politicking to latch onto the idea that the moral high ground can be reclaimed--that poverty and pollution can be turned into the defining values issues of 2008--Democrats would be wise not to bet their political future on any divine, or even divinely inspired, intervention.

That's all true. The political side of the evangelical movement is going to be dominated by conservatives for a long time to come. But there's a reason why Republicans insist that the media always balance, say, a liberal African American voice with a conservative one, and it has nothing to do with suddenly trying to compete for the 90% of the African American vote they regularly cede. It's about (a) appearing to be interested in the concerns of African American voters in order to seem friendly and inclusive to the country at large, and (b) making sure that their views are represented anytime and anyplace that somebody decides to stare into a TV screen. We Dems haven't done a very good job of that kind of thing over the years vis-à-vis the evangelical community, and movements like Jim Wallis's could be enormously helpful in turning that around.

Via Brad Plummer.

UPDATE: Avedon has some related thoughts here, and they're well worth reading.

There are several clear trends in the BRAC list: the elimination of many bases in the Northeast, the shutting of myriad civilian defense agencies' offices, and the elimination of reserve armories in towns across America. The Pentagon says the closings will save $48 billion over 20 years. But they will also have one dramatic negative effect. BRAC will separate America's military even further from America's citizenry by consolidating military bases and removing the presence of the military from hundreds of towns across the country. . . .

Today's civil-military divide is greater than at any time in American history, and these cuts will widen it. The burden of voluntary military service today is heavy, but it is being borne narrowly. And as Eliot Cohen points out in Friday's Wall Street Journal, the chasm between society and the military is widening in the area of higher education today, thanks to the scuttling of some professional military education programs and the absence of ROTC from many elite campuses. Such a gap is not healthy for a democracy which vests the ultimate decisions over whether to go to war in its political branches of government. [Emph added]

No, it isn't. In fact, over the long term, it's damned dangerous -- and one more very good reason to start taking Glastris and Carter's 21st-century draft proposal seriously.

Sheesh.

[Testimonial]

THIRTY-SOMETHING MALE: I never felt strong enough to utterly ignore Judeo-Christian ethics, even though I suspected that could get me the life I dreamed of. That's why "The Republican Guide" is so inspiring.

Believe it or not, there was actually a time when it was considered offensive to fight wars and cut taxes at the same time. In those days, conservatives were ostracized for wanting to scrap estate taxes for wealthy heirs while soldiers died in distant lands and their families scraped by on food stamps. I know - it seems so far away!

That's when I had to ask myself: if Republicans could find the courage to put these inhibitions behind them, imagine what I could do to reach for the brass ring in my own life. Now, though I'd rather not go into the details, I make more money, pay less taxes and have a beautiful wife and child.

Hey, I know that guy. . . .

--Chatri Banchuin, chief of Thailand’s Department of Medical Services, after his office issued a public health warning advising men to avoid the practice

I mean that almost literally, in that he does not construct sentences made up of commonplace English words. Rather, he speaks entirely in a patois constructed of football metaphors. Absolutely everything is second down or third down, or five yards or ten yards or a Hail Mary. If you were unfamiliar with the basic jargon of American football (as many people are), his every word would be incomprehensible. His official photo on his web site has him holding a football. Try going through a day using a football (or baseball or basketball) metaphor for every conversation, and you get a sense of what it would be like to be George Allen.

Scary thought. And the rest is here.

Fitzgerald's legal quest makes little sense to me as a leak investigation. The law is fuzzy, the evidence is ambiguous, and the case would be hard to prove. But every good prosecutor hates perjury above all. And on its face, this case raises the possibility that one of the senior administration officials who talked with Cooper or Miller has denied doing so, under oath. Otherwise, Fitzgerald would have been finished months ago.

For journalists, the case raises agonizing issues: Where is the dividing line between journalistic ethics, which demand that reporters protect their sources, and ordinary ethics, which say people should cooperate with law enforcement if they know about possible criminal activity? Do journalists have a special status that exempts them, in certain cases, from the normal responsibilities of citizenship? But this case should worry most of all any White House insider who may have talked with reporters about Valerie Plame and then lied about it under oath.

Honestly, I haven't followed the Plame case closely enough to have a real opinion Ignatius' theory. But it is interesting, and it would certainly seem to explain the facts. So, with the aforementioned caveat, and in the spirit of open and honest inquiry, I'm passing it along for your consideration.

For example, if the tax cuts for those earning above $200,000 were repealed and the inheritance tax as reformed were continued rather than eliminated, the 10-year projected deficit would be reduced by roughly $1.1 trillion, or almost 25 percent, and the 75-year fiscal reduction would be roughly $3.9 trillion, or approximately equal to the Social Security shortfall.

As Brad DeLong noted yesterday, this administration really needs to get its fiscal priorities straight.

UPDATE: Almost half of all Americans now believe that President Bush is trying to dismantle Social Security.

I wouldn't say posting ten commandments on public buildings is a good idea. It strikes me as slightly silly, mildly wasteful, and vaguely offensive. But it's honestly not a big deal. Abortion and reproductive rights matter. A lot. So does trying to maintain forward motion on the gay rights front. So do the basic economic issues, so does foreign policy. Ten commandments? "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance? Taxpayer dollars financing Christmas displays in the town square? That stuff doesn't really matter. I'd be happier were it otherwise, but if that kind of token gesture toward the concept that this is a Christian (or, as they say, "Judeo-Christian," whatever that means) country is what it takes to get support for a progressive political agenda, then sign me up. And I think most liberals will agree with me on that. The location of stone slabs is, like the precise number of bullets you can put in your ammo clip, not something that's worth losing elections over.

Hear, hear.

MORE: Fontana Labs is, well, less taken, with this line of argument: "There's something deeply creepy about this, not to mention dumb," he says.

UPDATE: So far (with some notable exceptions), the primary response to Matt's post from the liberal side of the blogosphere seems to boil down to, Well, sure, the Ten Commandments aren't really a big deal, but since we can never win the votes of the Christian right anyway, why sell out our principles? Which seems to me like a complete misreading of Matt's argument. As far as I can tell, he's not talking about winning over the far right; he's talking about about not appearing to be out of step with the vast majority of the American people on a relatively small-bore issue that really gets under their skin. That's not selling out, or anything of the kind. In fact, it's just good sense.

I don't know about you, but if I were a DeLay supporter, I don't think I'd be using the word "sellout" in any context whatsoever these days.

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British MP George Galloway has been challenged to appear before US senators to answer allegations that he received oil allocations from Saddam Hussein.

Mr Galloway denies claims by a Senate committee that he and a French minister were given the right to sell Iraqi oil to reward their support for the regime.

The committee said it would be "pleased" for Mr Galloway to appear at a hearing in Washington on 17 May.

The MP intends to accept the invitation, his spokesman said.

POSTSCRIPT: Background on the controversial Mr. Galloway here.

UPDATE: And speaking of the BBC, Jeff Jarvis seems to be quite taken with the potential of their new developer network, Backstage. [Full disclosure: I've been tangentially -- and I mean very, very tangentially -- involved in the planning and/or development of some of the Beeb's web stuff over the last few years.]

UPDATE: Kevin Drum doesn't appear to think much of the story, either.

Ruy Teixeira clears up that commonly held misconception here.

NOTE: The Matthews transcript doesn't appear to be available online yet. When it pops up, I'll add the link.

UPDATE: Ed Kilgore has more polling data, and it doesn't look like great news for the current crop of Southern GOP governors.

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The commission will have up to 15 voting members and 18 nonvoting members. The voting members will all be appointed by Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services. Mr. Leavitt rejected bipartisan Congressional pleas for an independent commission under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. [Emph added]

You know, at a certain point, all the "changing the tone" humor just stops being funny -- and all your left with is the growing suspicion that cleaning up this administration's mess may well end up being the life's work of an entire generation of Americans.

As one of my blogging betters would say, Indeed.

--Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, on the presidential prospects of his new partner in health care reform, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton

MORE: Boy, talk about thin-skinned . . . .

Nathan Newman explains why it actually represents yet another one of his many economic successes.

An Agriculture Department agency paid a freelance writer at least $7,500 to write articles touting federal conservation programs and place them in outdoors magazines, according to agency records and interviews.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service hired freelancer Dave Smith in September 2003 to "research and write articles for hunting and fishing magazines describing the benefits of NRCS Farm Bill programs to wildlife habitat and the environment," according to agency procurement documents obtained by The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Smith, contracted to craft five stories for $1,875 each, also was to "contact and work magazine editors to place the articles in targeted publications," the records show. . . .

Smith said he told magazine editors of his government contract, and he received no fee from the publications. One of the Outdoor Oklahoma articles was accompanied by a note identifying Smith as a freelance writer who works as a biologist for the agency. None of the articles appear to disclose his federal contract.

Look, I'm not going to pretend that this story is the biggest deal in the world. It isn't. But it is indicative of this administration's mindset. They just don't see a meaningful distinction between public communications and public relations -- and the national debate gets a little cheaper and a little more corrupt every day as a result.

UPDATE: Jesse Taylor has more -- much, much more, in fact -- on Miller's debut effort, and it's well worth reading.

God, who's that old fart standing between the two attractive blond women at last month's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner? Hmmm. . . .

POSTSCRIPT: I didn't even realize that that picture existed until it showed up in my email a few minutes ago. Thanks to good folks at the SC Democratic Party for sending it along.

2003 SPIN: "Make no mistake about it. Social Security as we know it is simply not sustainable without either significant benefit cuts or significant tax increases." -- Donald Luskin, December 12, 2003 [Emph. added]

2005 SPIN: "Krugman also lied when he portrayed progressive indexing as 'a plan to slash middle-class benefits.' It’s not a plan to 'slash' benefits at all, or even reduce them. Under progressive indexing, everyone’s Social Security benefits will be greater than they are today, by the rate of inflation or more." -- Donald Luskin, May 10, 2005 [Emph. added]

Well, which is it, Mr. Luskin? Would the 27% reductions you alluded to in 2003 represent "significant benefit cuts"? Or would they not, since "Social Security benefits will be greater than they are today, by the rate of inflation or more"?

I mean, I understand that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds and all. But still. . . .

IRAQ: Exit or Empire? Whether the U.S. does or does not intend to establish a permanent military presence in Iraq is a factual question.

The Bush administration has repeatedly stated that it intends to withdraw American military forces as the new Iraqi government develops the means, with our help, to defend itself and provide its own security. To my knowledge, the Administration has not positively stated, nor has it been definitively asked by the press or Congress, whether it intends to withdraw ALL troops.

There is one way to find out. Are we, or are we not, building permanent military bases in Iraq? Yes or no? If we are withdrawing ALL troops, we do not need permanent bases. If we are building military bases, we do not intend to withdraw all our troops. Simple as that.

Yep.

UPDATE: For the record -- and isn't the fact that I feel the need to add this a disturbing commentary on the way that torture has been minimized and occasionally even excused in recent days -- she's agin' it.

--The Concord Monitor, on New Hampshire Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen's proposal to start making the poorest of the poor -- families with no income at all -- pay for their Medicaid coverage

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According to a new book exclusively obtained by the Huffington Post, Saudi Arabia has crafted a plan to protect itself from a possible invasion or internal attack. It includes the use of a series of explosives, including radioactive “dirty bombs,” that would cripple Saudi Arabian oil production and distribution systems for decades.

Bestselling author Gerald Posner lays out this “doomsday scenario” in his forthcoming “Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-US Connection” (Random House).

According to the book, which will be released to the public on May 17, based on National Security Agency electronic intercepts, the Saudi Arabian government has in place a nationwide, self-destruction explosive system composed of conventional explosives and dirty bombs strategically placed at the Kingdom’s key oil ports, pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks, offshore platforms, and backup facilities. If activated, the bombs would destroy the infrastructure of the world’s largest oil supplier, and leave the country a contaminated nuclear wasteland ensuring that the Kingdom’s oil would be unusable to anyone. The NSA file is dubbed internally Petro SE, for petroleum scorched earth.

Via Jeff Jarvis.

UPDATE: For more on the traditional press and its place in the new media environment, see Joe Gandelman's typically thoughtful post on the New York Times' latest efforts to figure all this stuff out.

The only problem with this argument is that the Democrats haven’t abandoned their economic populism. This charge has been leveled from the left at every losing Democratic candidate since the 1980s, and it’s just wrong. Economic populism was a key ingredient in the campaigns of Dems from Walter Mondale onward -- incluing John Kerry, scourge of outsourcing. The reality is that economic populism is a necessary but not sufficient element for a Democratic victory.

He's right. Though bread and butter issues are, without question, the Democrats' bread and butter, they're not enough in and of themselves to convince the American people to ignore foreign and national security policy when selecting a commander in chief -- as Matt Yglesias persuasively argued in the March 5 edition of The American Prospect.

Clinton will be dead and gone before Social Security needs to be changed, but he's decided that he's had enough of seeing Bush get his ass kicked by Democrats over the issue of Social Security. Did the Republicans come up with a plan when the Clintons tried to reform Healthcare? No, and that's why Bill Clinton got the Democratic Congressional leadership's head handed to him after the '94 midterm election. [Emph. added.]

Actually, there were several Republican health care proposals in 1994, including, perhaps most famously, Bob Dole's and John Chafee's. And while each of the GOP plans had real shortcomings, their existence allowed the Republicans to successfully argue that they weren't just obstructionists; they were in favor of health care reform, just not Hillary Clinton's big government version of it. (Which was bunk, of course, but that's a post for another day. . . .)

I'm not trying to make the case here that we should take a similar approach with Social Security today -- I'm still agnostic on that question, actually -- just explaining why folks like President Clinton and James Carville may be suggesting it. It has the rather notable distinction of having worked before.

So, um . . . Onward, ho!

UPDATE (8:03 pm ET): So far, so good, I guess. More later. . . .

FINAL UPDATE (2:11 am ET): Okay, everything seems to be working on my end. Please let me know if you have any problems on yours.

Thanks . . . and good night.

A high school student was suspended for 10 days for refusing to end a mobile phone call with his mother, a soldier serving in Iraq, school officials said.

The 10-day suspension was issued because Kevin Francois was "defiant and disorderly" and was imposed in lieu of an arrest, Spencer High School assistant principal Alfred Parham said.

The confrontation Wednesday began after the 17-year-old junior got a call at lunchtime from his mother, Sgt. 1st Class Monique Bates, who left in January for a one-year tour with the 203rd Forward Support Battalion.

Mobile phones are allowed on campus but may not be used during school hours. When a teacher told him to hang up, he refused. He said he told the teacher, "This is my mom in Iraq. I'm not about to hang up on my mom."

Hmmm. Maybe for his next trick, the principal could find a cuddlesome, doe-eyed Labrador retriever puppy to kick. . . .

According to the Medicare trustees, the fiscal gap over the next 75 years created by the 2003 [prescription drug] law - not the financing gap for Medicare as a whole, just the additional gap created by legislation passed 18 months ago - will be $8.7 trillion.

That's about three times the amount President Bush proposes to save by cutting middle-class Social Security benefits.

In fact, I have a suggestion for Mr. Bush. One way to prove that he's really sincere about addressing long-run fiscal problems, that his calls for benefit cuts aren't just part of an ideological agenda, would be to put Social Security aside for a while and fix his own Medicare program.

Sincerity? From the House that Rove Built? As my wise old father used to point out on occasion, it's just silly to ask people for what they don't have to give.

It's really remarkable how unwilling Blair's antagonists -- whether Tory or Labour -- are to give him credit for what's gone right in the past eight years: the lowest rate of inflation since the nineteen-fifties; a sharp decline in unemployment; sustained economic growth for every year in office; a historic breakthrough in the Northern Ireland dispute, leading to the 1998 Good Friday agreement and a near cessation of violence on both sides; the establishment of a parliament in Scotland, an assembly in Wales, and a mayoralty in London; an improvement in, or, at least, an end to the deterioration of, public services; an increase in the number of doctors, nurses, and dentists . . . and a reduction in the waiting period for surgery.

And people have a problem with that record?

Geez, talk about a tough crowd.

UPDATE: Fellow blogger Mike Kasper was kind enough to pass along the link in the comments. Thanks, Mike!

Gary Schroen and his six-member CIA team arrived in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley two weeks after bin Laden's al Qaeda network orchestrated the attacks on Washington and New York that killed 3,000 people, prompting the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

Don't they mean America's war on terrorism? I mean, yeah, we're pretty divided these days. But not that divided. . . .

Today, the appeal of radical multiculturalism has faded, and a new challenge to American pluralism has arisen: the political philosophy of the Christian right. On the surface an analogy between the two movements seems imperfect; after all, radical multiculturalism never exercised even half the political power during the 1990s that the Christian right exercises today. And yet the two movements share one crucial attribute: Both reject the need to build a common national identity with which Americans of different backgrounds and belief systems can identify. In other words, like the radical multiculturalists of ten years ago, today's Christian conservatives reject the central project of American pluralism. They merely come to that rejection from the opposite direction. . . .

And so, in order to defeat the Christian right, liberals will have to reach out to conservatives who care deeply about pluralism. This may sound trite, or all too obvious, but the lesson of radical multiculturalism's demise is that such outreach is essential. We are starting to see signs of dissent among Republicans and conservatives, most notably in recent comments by Christie Todd Whitman, Christopher Shays, and John Danforth. (Andrew Sullivan did his part in last week's TNR cover story.) Whitman, a moderate former governor and EPA chief, called her book It's My Party Too. Shays, a member of the House since 1987, commented on March 25 that "this Republican party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy." Danforth, in an eloquent New York Times op-ed on March 30, argued that religious conservatives have "hijacked" the GOP. "Republicans," he wrote, "have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. ... [I]t has become the political extension of a religious movement." Whitman, Shays, and Danforth should receive support from liberals in these efforts. Democrats, after all, cannot fight Christian anti-pluralism alone. It will take a unified and determined effort by pluralists of all political stripes to ensure that in 2015, James Dobson is as forgotten and laughable a figure as Leonard Jeffries is in 2005.

From your lips to God's ears, Mr. Reifowitz. The rest is here.

MORE: Via Ed Cone, Sally Greene exposes yet another group of fundamentalist wolves masquerading as pedagogic sheep.

AND MORE: Marshall Wittman argues that the profoundly loony opinions held by some on the radical right, such as "Pat Robertson's bizarre view that liberal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda," provide an opening for Democrats "to reach out to the religious faithful." He's right.

For the mainly Democratic audience - this was a crowd of Washington journalists and luminaries from Hollywood and Manhattan - it was an evening of cognitive dissonance. How to reconcile this charming image on stage with the Bush they love to bash?...

The coverage of Mrs. Bush's comic debut may change some minds, but for devout Bush-bashers, it's much easier to stay the course. If you live in a blue-state stronghold, a coastal city where you can go 24 hours without meeting any Republicans, it's consoling to think of the red staters as an alien bunch of strait-laced Bible thumpers.

Otherwise, how do you explain why they're Republican? Or answer the question Democrats asked in astonishment when they saw Mr. Bush's vote totals: Who are these people?

Two points: First, he's right about one thing. Many people were astonished by Mr. Bush's vote totals -- by how low they were, that is. How in God's name did the hero of 9-11 wind up eking out a two-and-a-half point win against a TV-challenged stiff like John Kerry? That's an important, and rather puzzling, question -- and one that the GOP would do well to consider carefully between now and 2008.

Second, I really have to say that I might start taking all this "flyover country" stuff a little more seriously if Mr. Tierney -- or any of the other prominent, Ivy League, Blue State conservative types, for that matter -- packed up his family, moved down to my part of the world, took a job at the Wal Mart, and started sending his kids to the local public school. (Oops. There goes the legacy. Bummer, huh? But don't worry, Mr. Tierney -- we have any number of solid tech schools where the little'uns could learn a trade.) Until then, though, I'm afraid I'm going to have to assume that all these conservative paeans to the good life out here in Red America are precisely what they always sound like: unctuous, cynical, condescending horse manure.

Without the knowledge of his board, the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, contracted last year with an outside consultant to keep track of the guests' political leanings on one program, "Now With Bill Moyers."

In late March, on the recommendation of administration officials, Mr. Tomlinson hired the director of the White House Office of Global Communications as a senior staff member, corporation officials said. While she was still on the White House staff, she helped draft guidelines governing the work of two ombudsmen whom the corporation recently appointed to review the content of public radio and television broadcasts.

Mr. Tomlinson also encouraged corporation and public broadcasting officials to broadcast "The Journal Editorial Report," whose host, Paul Gigot, is editor of the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. And while a search firm has been retained to find a successor for Kathleen A. Cox, the corporation's president and chief executive, whose contract was not renewed last month, Mr. Tomlinson has made clear to the board that his choice is Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee who is now an assistant secretary of state. . . .

Mr. Tomlinson said he understood the need to reassure liberals that the traditions of public broadcasting, including public affairs programs, were not changing, "that we're not trying to put a wet blanket on this type of programming."

But his efforts to sow goodwill have shown that what he says he tries to project is sometimes read in a different way. Last November, members of the Association of Public Television Stations met in Baltimore along with officials from the corporation and PBS. Mr. Tomlinson told them they should make sure their programming better reflected the Republican mandate.

Mr. Tomlinson said that his comment was in jest and that he couldn't imagine how remarks at "a fun occasion" were taken the wrong way. Others, though, were not amused.

No, they probably weren't. But you know those Democrats -- no sense of humor at all. Fortunately, the reeducation camps should take care of that. . . .

POSTSCRIPT: Mr. O'Toole said that his comment about reeducation camps was in jest and that he couldn't imagine how remarks on a "fun weblog" were taken the wrong way. Others, though, were not amused.

*CORRECTION: Tom Johnson, who has a much better memory than your (appropriately) humble correspondent, emails with a correction: The "neither rare nor well done" crack is actually from Ernie Kovacs, not McLuhan.

Perhaps I should quit punning on the term "educational television" and actually, well, you know . . . watch a little.

Lance Mannion seems to share my enthusiasm -- and has a thing or two to say about mystery writer turned uber-blogger Roger L. Simon, as well.

UPDATE: Oops. I just noticed that the always-insightful Mr. Mannion wasn't in the Blogroll.

Needless to say, that inexcusable oversight has now been rectified.

POSTSCRIPT: Here. And, yes, this means that the blog is back. Thanks for your kind emails -- and patience -- during the break.

UPDATE (3/15): Well, it's Tuesday, and things are not, in fact, quite back to normal here on Jack's little acre. And since I'm not exactly sure when they will be, let's just extend the blog hiatus through the end of the month.

Thanks, as always, for your patience, and I'll see you April 1.

ANOTHER UPDATE (4/12): "Oh, Lord," prayed Saint Augustine, "grant me chastity and continence . . . but not yet." And that pretty much sums up my feelings about the blog these days; I want to get back to it, but not quite yet. Which means that I'll be exercising my right to remain silent for another few weeks, I guess.

Look for new posts (or at least a fresh update of some sort) by the end of the month. Until then, thanks for sticking around, and I hope all's well with you and yours.

Short answer: Conventional wisdom says it was because he wanted to give a pro-life speech and that's verboten at Democratic conventions. But no: the real answer is that it was because he had refused to endorse the Clinton/Gore ticket — and if you don't endorse the ticket, you don't get to speak.

But is that true? Is that what people actually said at the time? Through the magic of Nexis I pulled up about a hundred news stories from July 1992 that mentioned the Casey controversy and read them all. My conclusion: in fact, he was prevented from speaking because he wanted to give a pro-life speech.

Regular readers won't be surprised to learn that I basically agree with Kevin's sifting of the historical evidence here. (O'Toole agrees with Drum. There's a blogospheric shocker, huh?) But I think I'd probably put the em-PHA-sis on a different syl-LA-ble in my conclusion.

Yes, Gov. Casey's desire to give a pro-life speech was the proximate cause of the dispute. But the reason for it involved a much larger strategic concern -- namely, the Clintonites' determination to show that their guy, unlike Walter Mondale and Mike Dukakis, was tough enough to bring the entire Democratic party, left, right and center, to heel. In other words, the Casey matter was only about abortion to the extent that Sister Soulja was about hate speech or that Clinton's support for the death penalty was about crime control -- which is to say, not much at all. It was mostly about sending the message that Bill Clinton was a different kind of Democrat, the kind who could be trusted to stand up to what was then seen as an undisciplined party of special pleaders and narrow interests -- and, by extension, to anyone who wished decent, law-abiding Americans ill at home or abroad.

That was my take at the time, anyway, and I still think it's the most useful way to think about the Casey controversy. Love him or hate him, you just can't ever assume that Bill Clinton was really talking about what he was talking about. He usually wasn't.

NOTE: I'm offering no judgment here on whether the negative perception of the Democratic party described above was accurate or not -- just recognizing, as Clinton and his people did, that it was pervasive and problematic at the time.

UPDATE (3/7): I'm back, as are comments and trackbacks.

Fire at will.

Some posts are just slightly ahead of their time, I guess.

As I've said before, I truly do wish this president the best -- after all, it's my country, too -- and I sincerely hope that at some point we will all be able to look back and say that, on balance, this militarily and morally messy expedition was a net plus for the country. But that's really the best that we can hope for at this point. And that just ain't the stuff of presidential greatness, I'm afraid.

Four years ago, Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, asserting that the federal government was in imminent danger of paying off too much debt.

On Wednesday the Fed chairman warned Congress of the opposite fiscal danger: he asserted that there would be large budget deficits for the foreseeable future, leading to an unsustainable rise in federal debt. But he counseled against reversing the tax cuts, calling instead for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Does anyone still take Mr. Greenspan's pose as a nonpartisan font of wisdom seriously?

No, they don't. Nor should they. . . .

Free and open debate on the Senate floor ensures citizens a say in their government. The American people are heard, through their Senator, before their money is spent, before their civil liberties are curtailed, or before a judicial nominee is confirmed for a lifetime appointment. We are the guardians, the stewards, the protectors of our people. Our voices are their voices.

If we restrain debate on judges today, what will be next: the rights of the elderly to receive social security; the rights of the handicapped to be treated fairly; the rights of the poor to obtain a decent education? Will all debate soon fall before majority rule?

Will the majority someday trample on the rights of lumber companies to harvest timber, or the rights of mining companies to mine silver, coal, or iron ore? What about the rights of energy companies to drill for new sources of oil and gas? How will the insurance, banking, and securities industries fare when a majority can move against their interests and prevail by a simple majority vote? What about farmers who can be forced to lose their subsidies, or Western Senators who will no longer be able to stop a majority determined to wrest control of ranchers’ precious water or grazing rights? With no right of debate, what will forestall plain muscle and mob rule?

Many times in our history we have taken up arms to protect a minority against the tyrannical majority in other lands. We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men.

But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends. Historian Alan Bullock writes that Hitler’s dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law. Hitler needed a two-thirds vote to pass that law, and he cajoled his opposition in the Reichstag to support it. Bullock writes that “Hitler was prepared to promise anything to get his bill through, with the appearances of legality preserved intact.” And he succeeded.

Hitler’s originality lay in his realization that effective revolutions, in modern conditions, are carried out with, and not against, the power of the State: the correct order of events was first to secure access to that power and then begin his revolution. Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.

And that is what the nuclear option seeks to do to Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate.

It seeks to alter the rules by sidestepping the rules, thus making the impermissible the rule. Employing the “nuclear option”, engaging a pernicious, procedural maneuver to serve immediate partisan goals, risks violating our nation’s core democratic values and poisoning the Senate's deliberative process.

That ain't hate speech, folks, or anything like it. In fact, it's nothing more or less than a standard-issue Robert Byrd floor speech, the very kind he's been delivering to a heavy-lidded chamber for almost half a century now -- separation of powers, senatorial privilege, Horatio at the Reichstag, etc. So, a word to our Republican friends: Lighten up already, huh? The "politics of victimization" is supposed to be the Democrats' stock in trade. Moreover -- and here's a nontrivial point, so I think I'll close with it -- you good people really do need to get your own rhetorical house in order before you even think about criticizing anybody else's.

Frankly, I'm skeptical. But I never expected to actually have to learn to say the words "Congressman Nethercutt" either, so don't go by me.

What's this all about, anyway? Has the GOP become, well, objectively anti-senior citizen? I'm not sure. But it's certainly time for reasonable people to start asking the question.

"Japan's policy of absolute quarantine... did not have any scientific grounds," the government panel said.

"The health ministry, in order to secure an adequate budget for treatment, emphasised the continued need for the policy of absolute isolation to the finance ministry," it said.

Doctors, who also had vested interested as the administrators of sanatoriums, did not challenge the policy, the 1,500 page report added.

The panel also criticised Japan's courts for helping the government uphold the policy and the country's media for failing to report it.

Yes, this story should be a cautionary tale for liberals about the sometimes dangerous nature of bureaucracies. But conservatives should be even more abashed. After all, they're the ones who've been working overtime to get the science out of scientific policy-making for the last four years. And this is but a tiny example of the kind of tragedy that their irresponsible conduct is courting.

Classy, huh?

It's hard not to feel giddy, watching the dominoes fall. In Lebanon, "people power" forced the resignation Monday of Syria's puppet government; in Egypt, the Pharaonic Hosni Mubarak agreed Saturday to allow other candidates to challenge his presidency for life; in Iraq, the momentum of January's elections is still propelling the nation forward, despite bickering politicians and brutal suicide bombers.

But catastrophic change is dangerous, even when it's bringing down a system people detest. This is not a time for U.S. triumphalism, or for gloating and lecturing to the Arabs. That kind of arrogance got us into trouble in Iraq during the first year of occupation. It was only when Iraqis began to take control of their own destinies that this project began to go right. The same rule holds for Lebanon, Egypt and the rest. America can help by keeping on the pressure, but it's their revolution.

That's good advice. Let's hope that the folks in charge, as well as some of their more, uh, excitable supporters, can bring themselves to take it.

A militant brazenly challenged the new Palestinian security chief Tuesday, firing his weapon outside police headquarters in this West Bank town as the commander was holding meetings in the building. The chief ordered the gunman's arrest, but quickly backed down and let him walk away.

The confrontation between Interior Minister Nasser Yousef and Zakariye Zubeydi, a militant who is seen by residents as the ruler of Jenin, illustrated the delicate balance the Palestinian Authority must strike between reining in armed groups through persuasion and fending off international calls for a crackdown.

Like just about everyone else, I'm pretty enamored of the new Palestinian leadership at the moment. But these kinds of stories aren't terribly encouraging, are they?

Well, it may have been the first, but it certainly wasn't the last or the best; any number of good ones have come along in the years since. And Kevin Drum has found one of the most unsettling you're likely to chance upon in a month of Sundays here.

[T]he bankruptcy bill is a catastrophe. Under the current system, bankruptcy courts have broad discretion to decide who can file for Chapter 7, which allows debtors to erase their obligations after forfeiting a state-determined percentage of their remaining assets, and Chapter 13, which requires strict repayment according to court-ordered schedules. Judges base their decisions as much on why the debt was accrued as on income; this way people who come into debt through no fault of their own can get a fresh start, while a judge can decide that a careless gambler must pay what he owes. But the new bill would replace judicial discretion with a means test on household income--those above a certain level would be forced to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy--dismantling the system's ability to discriminate among worthy and unworthy debtors. . . .

Meanwhile, the bill does nothing to limit the ability of wealthy debtors to take advantage of the system's numerous loopholes, such as shifting assets into property holdings or trusts. Nor does it deal with the ability of scandal-wracked firms to enter bankruptcy to protect themselves from legal claims, a tactic employed by Enron, WorldCom, and many other companies. This sets up a perverse situation: Not only is it already easy for companies in dire straits because of financial misdeeds to file for bankruptcy, thereby absolving them of requirements to pay their employees' wages and health insurance, but the bill also makes it harder for those employees, were they to be hit by high medical costs, to apply for the same relief.

I'm still a little weak from the bug I've been fighting off for the past few days, so insert your own outrage here. And read the rest there.

POSTSCRIPT: Back to bed. . . .

Nearly two out of three Republicans say they would support President Bush even if his political opponent were the father of our country.

In a theoretical matchup between George W. Bush and the other George W., George Washington, 62 percent of Republicans said they would vote for Bush and only 28 percent said they would back Gen. Washington. But because Democrats and independents went strongly for Washington, he held a healthy, 19-point advantage over Bush.

Sure, he wins by 19 points today. But let's see how strong he looks after the Valley Forge Veterans for Truth get finished with him. . . .

UPDATE: Oh, hell. That's what I get for (a) not finishing the article before blogging it, and (b) going for the obvious joke. Turns out, Kurtz used a similar line in the last graf of the piece linked above:

How soon they forget! G.W. needs an image consultant, a PAC and some 30-second ads about that crossing-the-Delaware thing. (Though would that produce a rival blitz by Delaware Veterans for Truth?)

Sorry all.

[L]egal costs do not seem to be at the root of the recent increase in malpractice insurance premiums. Government and industry data show only a modest rise in malpractice claims over the last decade. And last year, the trend in payments for malpractice claims against doctors and other medical professionals turned sharply downward, falling 8.9 percent, to a nationwide total of $4.6 billion, according to data compiled by the Health and Human Services Department.

"There is an underlying cost push," said J. Robert Hunter, the director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, who is a former insurance regulator in Texas. "But there has not been an explosion of big jury verdicts or settlements. It's a constant drip, drip every year."

Lawsuits against doctors are just one of several factors that have driven up the cost of malpractice insurance, specialists say. Lately, the more important factors appear to be the declining investment earnings of insurance companies and the changing nature of competition in the industry.

The recent spike in premiums - which is now showing signs of steadying - says more about the insurance business than it does about the judicial system. . . .

Data compiled by both the federal government and by insurance organizations show costs for the insurance companies climbing steadily over the last decade at an average annual rate of about 3 percent, after adjusting for inflation. Over most of that period, premiums for doctors rose modestly and sometimes even dropped as the insurance companies battled for market share in a scramble to collect more money to invest in strong bond and stock markets. But when the markets turned sour and the reserves of insurers shriveled, companies began to double and triple the costs for doctors.

Like a lot of folks, I sympathize with MDs on this issue, and I'm not opposed to addressing it legislatively. Still, it doesn't seem unreasonable to demand that any proposed solution to the problem might actually have the effect of, you know, solving the problem. And since we're dealing with real people's lives here (malpractice does happen, after all, and the results are sometimes quite horrific), we need to make sure that we keep our legislative priorities straight on this one: First, do no harm. . . .

Links via James Joyner and Glenn Reynolds.

POSTSCRIPT: Speaking of Glenn, his wife Helen's surgery is now under way. Again, best wishes and Godspeed.

UPDATE: Good news indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oops. It seems I may have left a false impression above. As regular readers will know, I'm not supporting Newt Gingrich for president -- just noting that a weak field makes almost anything possible.

Besides, I speak my own sins. I cannot judge another.

UDATE/RELATED: Hunter S. Thompson, Author, Commits Suicide

Sadly, though, there's real cash to be copped in today's atomized media environment by making America's ongoing experiment in self-government look like a Sherwood Schwartz production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. And as long as that's the case, the Beltway players will keep learning their lines and hitting their marks. And the American people will keep trying to puzzle out the plot of a national debate that's all cheap jokes, chewed scenery and false choices.

And what does that mean in the real world? "I get around $460 per month now," says one retiree, "but under Social Security, I would have gotten $1,000. They are putting this up to be a model for the rest of the country. Some model."

Uh, huh. Some model, indeed. And the rest is here. (Via Charles Kuffner.)

I'd be interested in hearing the views of the "responsible" right out there. Power Line is not an obscure site by any means. Indeed, it's become one of the most prominent nodes in the conservative blogosphere. Do others out there think Jimmy Carter is on the other side? Working in league with Osama bin Laden and others who seek the mass murder of American citizens? Or is this more the sort of situation where an increasingly shrill and hysterical right-wing has, despite its monopoly on political power in this country, chosen to adopt a bizarre paranoid worldview in which the fact that many people (including almost half of the American population and an absolute majority of the citizens of the world) think it's policies are misguided is equivalent to the existence of a vast global conspiracy to advance the jihad?

That's a good question. And one that our friends on the right really do need to answer.

Anyway, to make a long story post length, one blogger I knew a little bit in those days made a point of dropping me a line from time to time during all that, offering encouragement, asking after Mrs. O'Toole File, etc. And while I would never dream of embarrassing that person by telling you who it was, I would like to take a moment this morning to wish Mrs. Instapundit all the best and a speedy recovery (an InstaRecovery?).

Mrs. O'TF and I are thinking of you both. . . .

POSTSCRIPT: Forgive the personal post. I know it's not really what you stop by here for. But at least now I probably won't get any more pissygrams ("How can you say you like InstaHack, you MORON????") when I try to leaven my occasional criticisms of Glenn's political commentary with a kind personal word or two.

Apparently, some religious conservatives in Virginia would take issue with that assessment of Mr. Jefferson's abilities.

-- David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, on the Bush administration's "failure to secure $8 billion in promised funding for the faith-based initiative in the first term," in today's Washington Post

In a stunning attack, the head of the New York Republican Party yesterday charged that Democrats are the party of terrorist supporters.

State GOP Chairman Steven [sic] Minarik, commenting on the selection of Howard Dean as the national Democratic leader, called Democrats the party of Lynne Stewart, who was convicted last week for aiding convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman.

"The Democrats simply have refused to learn the lessons of the past two election cycles, and now they can be accurately called the party of Barbara Boxer, Lynne Stewart, and Howard Dean," Minarik said.

"Howard Dean is the personification of today's national Democratic Party — elite, radical, out-of-control and, sadly, out of touch with ordinary Americans."

Minarik's bid to link the Democrats to terrorism drew a furious response.

"Don't accuse the 5.5 million Democrats in this state of treason if you hope to win our votes," said Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the state Democrats.

"And if you make that mistake again, you best be prepared to make it to my face," Wolfson added. "Because we love this country much too much to allow you to ever question our patriotism."

Needless to say, this is just, well, insane. Not only is Mr. Minarik engaging in the vilest sort of demagoguery, he's profoundly insulting a majority of the state's voters.

You know, I'm not generally one for scalp hunting, but an exception may be warranted in this case. Moreover, if I were a Republican who expected to see his name on a New York state ballot any time in the near future, I think I just might join the hunting party.

UPDATE: "The Democrats would be wise to take action on members like Lynne Stewart, rather than attacking me," says Minarik. But Republican Gov. George Pataki, who does, in fact, expect to see his name on a New York state ballot soon, disagrees: "The Democratic Party doesn't have anything to do with Lynne Stewart. . . . Obviously, she was found guilty of a heinous criminal act and that is not something within the realm of appropriate political discourse in New York state." State Senate Minority Leader David Paterson adds, "I think the Republican Party has to reconsider whether or not he should be running it."

Yep. And if we Democrats don't take advantage of this perhaps unique opportunity to establish the principle that neo-McCarthyism is completely out of bounds in the war on terror, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves as the problem metastasizes in the months and years ahead.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, we could just attack each other. . . .

MORE: "Why, oh why, do left-wing blogs not keep this kind of odious insanity ever before the public eye, like right-wing blogs with their Democratic Underground posts and their Ward Churchill obsession?"

EVEN MORE: Okay, so I've already gotten a nasty email about the friendly little poke I took at Oliver Willis above. And I'm sorry if that irked some folks. But I'm a little irked by the constant suggestion that moderate Democrats who reluctantly supported the war in Iraq are, by definition, "phony Democrats." Look, maybe Dems like Marty Frost and Joe Biden and, well, me aren't your cup of tea. That's fine. But a minority party just can't afford these kinds of unnecessary divisions. And now that Howard Dean has been elected chairman of the DNC, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to ask some of our more feisty brethren to be magnanimous enough to, uh, give peace a chance.

FINAL NOTE (I THINK): Were I as irresponsible and unfair as Mr. Minarik, I'd probably observe that it's awfully rich when the party of David Duke complains about things like this.

See? It's no fun to be accused of guilt by association. . . .

The new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, said in an interview this weekend that the war with the Israelis is effectively over and that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, is speaking "a different language" to the Palestinians. Mr. Sharon's commitment to withdraw from Gaza and dismantle all Israeli settlements there and four in the West Bank, despite "how much pressure is on him from the Israeli Likud rightists," Mr. Abbas said, "is a good sign to start with" on the road to real peace.

"And now he has a partner," Mr. Abbas said.

Pretty to think so, huh? And maybe -- just maybe -- things will prove to be different with Abbas at the helm in the PA. But no grand pronouncements or premature Peace Prizes this time, okay? As Kevin Drum wisely said the other day, baby steps. . . .

So here's an interesting -- and thoroughly apolitical -- link via Boing Boing: Tobias Buckell's "How much does a science fiction or fantasy writer make?"

Enjoy.

UPDATE: Over the weekend, Glenn responded to a related post by Ted Barlow over at Crooked Timber, and his reply contained this noteworthy passage:

But maybe the emails I get from Oliver Willis, accusing me of thinking that everyone to the left of Joe Lieberman is a traitor, reflect a broader view rather than, as I assumed, just Oliver. So, in the interest of clarity: No, I don't think that. I do think that it's unfortunate that the Democrats decided to make the war their big issue for the election -- I suspect that they do, too, now -- and I think that it was unseemly and wrong for them to embrace Michael Moore, etc. That's hardly the same as calling them terrorists. [Emph. added.]

I think Glenn is being completely sincere here. He really is offended by the Dems' "embrace" of Michael Moore. The problem is that we Democrats are being equally sincere when we say that the GOP's relentless pimping of the Swift Boat allegations was, to borrow Glenn's apt phrase, unseemly and wrong. And that makes it just about impossible to have a real dialogue. Any conservative who acknowledges that President Bush's numbers don't add up on Social Security is in league with bad people. Any lib who recognizes that the elections in Iraq went better than expected is working with the enemy.

Frankly, I don't know how we're supposed to get past this. The feelings are hard and genuine on both sides. But I do know that the blogosphere is going to be a pretty unpleasant place until we do.

UPDATE: Related story here.

Under pressure from Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency has formally agreed to a broad new interpretation of a 1998 law that requires disclosure of classified records related to Nazi war criminals, a C.I.A. document shows.

Senator Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, praised the action in an interview on Sunday as a "major breakthrough" in a dispute that had been waged in private for more than two years. Mr. DeWine presided last week over what he called "a very blunt meeting" on the subject with C.I.A. officials, and he had threatened to summon Porter J. Goss, the director of central intelligence, to testify in public on the matter.

The document was sent as an e-mail message late Friday to members of a government working group charged with reviewing the records. In the message, the C.I.A. reversed a legal stance in which it had argued that the law required disclosure only of records related to war crimes, not war criminals, and did not apply to information about the agency's postwar dealings with former Nazis....

In the message, the C.I.A. explicitly pledged for the first time to "acknowledge any relationship" between the C.I.A. and SS members, regardless of whether there was any information specifically tying them to war crimes. The message said the C.I.A. had also agreed that documents "concerning acts performed by Nazi war criminals, to include members of the SS, on behalf of C.I.A." are relevant and are subject to disclosure under the law.

LINK

NOTE: With apologies to Mort Sahl.

"It is wrong when our neighbors work full time and still live in poverty."

-- Former Democratic vice presidential hopeful John Edwards

RELATED:
Edwards to Lead UNC's New Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity

Tell me again why we should trust these guys with Social Security. . . .

RELATED:
Zuckerman: Why Bush is wrong
Details reveal drawbacks of Social Security investment plan

--Rep. Mark Foley(R-FL), on GOP reaction to President Bush's plan to end Social Security as we know it

UPDATE (2/3, 1:45 AM): So much for live-blogging the SOTU; I drifted off during the pregame show and slept right through the speech.

Ain't middle age grand?

This is a cautionary tale, instructive of what is possible and also what we ought to be aware of. I was in the Harriman administration in New York in the 1950s. Early in 1955, Harriman met with his new Commissioner of Mental Hygiene, Paul Hoch, who described the development of a tranquilizer derived from rauwolfia by Dr. Nathan S. Kline at what was then known as Rockland State Hospital (it is now the Rockland Psychiatric Center) in Orangeburg. The medication had been clinically tested and appeared to be an effective treatment of many patients. Dr. Hoch recommended that it be used system wide; Harriman found the money.

That same year Congress created a Joint Commission on Mental Health and Illness with a view to formulating ``comprehensive and realistic recommendations'' in this area which was then a matter of considerable public concern. Year after year the population of mental institutions grew; year after year new facilities had to be built. Ballot measures to approve the issuance of general obligation bonds for building the facilities appeared just about every election. Or so it seemed.

The discovery of tranquilizers was adventitious. Physicians were seeking cures for disorders they were just beginning to understand. Even a limited success made it possible to believe that the incidence of this particular range of disorders, which had seemingly required persons to be confined against their will or even awareness, could be greatly reduced. The Congressional Commission submitted its report in 1961; it was seen to propose a nationwide program of deinstitutionalization.

Late in 1961 President Kennedy appointed an interagency committee to prepare legislative recommendations based on the report. I represented Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg on this committee and drafted its final submission. This included the recommendation of the National Institute of Mental Health that 2,000 "community mental health centers" (one for every 100,000 people) be built by 1980. A buoyant Presidential Message to Congress followed early in 1963. "If we apply our medical knowledge and social insights fully," President Kennedy stated, "all but a small portion of the mentally ill can eventually achieve a wholesome and a constructive social adjustment." A "concerted national attack on mental disorders [was] now possible and practical." The President signed the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act on October 31, 1963 -- his last public bill signing ceremony. He gave me a pen.

The mental hospitals emptied out. The number of patients in state and county mental hospitals peaked in 1955 at 558,922 and has declined every year since then, to 61,722 in 1996. But we never came near to building the 2,000 community mental health centers. Only some 482 received Federal construction funds from 1963 to 1980. The next year, 1981, the program was folded into the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health block grant program, where it disappeared from view.

Talk about unintended consequences. . . .

-- Former Tribune Media Services columnist Armstrong Williams, in a recent appearance before the Greater Mullins [SC] Chamber of Commerce

(Via Jim Romenesko)

POSTSCRIPT: In addition to the rather amusing reportage on the GOP's feckless, George-Orwell-by-way-of-Wile-E-Coyote efforts to eliminate the word "privatize" from the Social Security debate, there's another reason to click over and take a look at the article linked above: it contains a textbook example of what's sometimes called the "phony balance" problem. You see, according to the article's author, Mike Allen, Democrats are no better than Republicans on this; we want to make the word "crisis" disappear.

Only that's not true. We Dems haven't tried to make the word disappear -- we've simply argued that the Republicans' privatizers' own numbers don't support the idea that there is one, which would make the president's repeated use of the term inappropriate. There's a big difference. And it would be a real service to their readers if smart, talented reporters like Mike Allen quit pretending that they're incapable of grasping those sorts of distinctions.

Except, of course, when he doesn't.

If I hear one more Democrat say this inauguration is costing too much, I am going to blow a gasket. Eight years after Bill Clinton's 33 million dollar inaugural, 40 million is apparently too much.

Most annoying is the association between the tsunami, or this idiot's association of the inauguration expense with the fallacy of unarmored vehicles in Iraq. Private donors are paying for the inauguration, but this is nothing new- Democrats are always quick to tel people how to spend their money.

But, as Bob Herbert explains in today's NYT, it's not about the money. It's about the appallingly bad taste:

In January 1945, with World War II still raging, Franklin Roosevelt insisted on a low-key inauguration. Already gravely ill, he began his address by saying, "Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice President, my friends, you will understand and, I believe, agree with my wish that the form of this inauguration be simple and its words brief."

Times have changed. President Bush and his equally tone-deaf supporters spent the past few days partying hard while Americans, Iraqis and others continued to suffer and die in the Iraq conflagration. Nothing was too good for the princes and princesses of the new American plutocracy. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on fireworks, cocktail receptions, gala dinners and sumptuous balls.

President Bush sought and won reelection as a "wartime president," which -- given the fact that 9/11, and our response to it, did take place on his watch -- was perfectly appropriate, I think. As is his opponents' insistence that he now make some effort to govern like one.

POSTSCRIPT: The nature of the blogosphere is such that we often only refer to our opposite numbers when we think that they're wrong about something. So I'd like to take a moment to point out that the aforementioned John Cole is ofttimes right, as, for example, he clearly is here.

UPDATE: And why do I make myself say these sorts of things? Probably, in part at least, so that I can feel entirely justified in looking down my nose at shameful, low-rent crap like this.

CLARIFICATION: A reader correctly notes that the object of my scorn and derision would have been clearer had the update above read, "...shameful, low-rent behavior, like that described here."

Here's hoping that Madeleine's efforts come to a happier end than mine. To echo her comments of the time, I'm not sure how I feel about a draft Biden Boxer movement -- but I'm certainly a big fan of the person behind it.

Arnold Kling writes: Max, I guess the first thing we have to try to resolve is whether Social Security can be safely left alone. Here are my thoughts on that subject.

If the definition of a crisis is that we could wake up tomorrow unable to pay benefits to those retired or about to retire, then we are not in a crisis.

What we do have is a legitimate reason to be concerned about the rate at which we are piling up government promises to future retirees in the middle of this century. If you add up the obligations under Social Security, Medicare and other government spending, including interest on the national debt, baseline projections are quite discouraging. We are not on a sustainable path, and something will have to give. Although we might earmark sufficient taxes to fund Social Security, that will only worsen the fiscal train wreck in the rest of the budget. Our future promises need to be more prudent.

Given Mr. Kling's underlying assumptions about the way the world does and should work, that's a pretty fair-minded assessment of the situation, and it leaves me with these two questions: (a) If even a deeply committed privatizer like Arnold Kling is now prepared to acknowledge that there's no "crisis" in Social Security, isn't it time for the rest of us to retire that silly trope once and for all? And (b) when, exactly, did we start to find it utterly unremarkable that bloggers consistently hold themselves to a higher standard of basic truthfulness than the national press corps holds the president of the United States?

(Via Glenn Reynolds.)

POSTSCRIPT: You know, I was in such a hurry to wrap this post up that I managed to leave out a rather important point: Game, set and match to Mr. Sawicky.

Indeed.

As you can see if you follow the links above, the issues raised were virtually identical to those in the Rather case: A reporter with a reputation for political advocacy was caught red-handed using trumped-up evidence on a network newsmagazine, and he then compounded his sin by refusing to acknowledge it immediately. Strangely, though, I don't remember hearing any calls for Mr. Stossel's head from the folks who are now (rightly) demanding Gunga Dan's.

Hmmm. Apparent evidence of a conservative double standard. Whodathunkit, huh?

UPDATE: Of course, it's not too late for conservatives to avoid the charge of hypocrisy here. After all, Mr. Stossel is still employed by ABC News -- and it's not as if there's a statute of limitations on bad journalism.

ANOTHER UPDATE: An emailer asks if I really want to see Stossel fired for a five-year-old mistake, and the honest answer to that question is ... no, I guess I don't. Then again, I also don't spend my free time composing stirring blog posts on the transcendent importance of moral clarity in American public life. . . .

NOTE: Edited slightly for style on Jan. 19.

Cuz that's just what we need, you know -- another heaping helping of rank hypocrisy and manufactured outrage from our friends in the GOP.

*CORRECTION: I should have read the AP article linked above more carefully. The folks selling the bracelets are actually donating some or all of the proceeds to charity. My apologies for the error.

In an anxiously awaited decision, the Supreme Court today took the mandatory federal sentencing guidelines and made them voluntary. The immediate effect is a healthy one: Judges will again be given some element of discretion in handing down sentences, probably leading to a less mechanistic and more thoughtful administration of justice. But the repercussions don't end there. Congress is sure to act, and quickly. Its likely response will be to again take sentencing power away from judges, this time giving it to juries. If that's what happens, then the final result could be confusion, illogic, and ultimately a system that treats defendants with less fairness, not more.

The problem, as Mulhauser goes on to explain, is that any legislative "fix" designed to save mandatory minimums would, in all likelihood, require juries to start issuing what are called "specialized verdicts" -- that is, a verdict not only on the defendant's guilt, but also on any issues that might bear on sentencing, such as whether a gun was used in the commission of the crime, or whether the accused acted with malice. And because we go to such great lengths in this country to ensure that our juries have absolutely no concept of what their verdicts mean in terms of sentencing, this could well leave us with a system in which no human being who was actually in possession of all the relevant facts would have any role in determining the proper punishment in a federal criminal case. Mr. Grisham, meet Mr. Kafka. And, both of you, meet Mr. Hugo.

Here's Dana Mulhauser again, wrapping things up:

When a judge decides sentencing factors, that judge knows the implications and can act accordingly. When a jury decides, it has no idea of the implications. By handing sentencing responsibility to a group that doesn't have access to the implications of its actions, Congress would be creating less informed and less fair decisions. And because, on appeal, juries' decisions are given more deference than judges' decisions, defendants would have a tougher time getting overly harsh sentences overturned. Maybe if Congress is going to give juries the power that used to belong to judges, it should give them the information, too. Otherwise, today's Supreme Court decision could end up being a very good ruling with very bad consequences.

Sounds worrisome, doesn't it? But, friends, there is reason for hope: after all, this criminal justice nightmare will never come to pass if Congress just decides to show half as much concern for your rights as it always does for Tom DeLay's....

POSTSCRIPT: Congratulations to TalkLeft's TChris, who successfully argued this case before the High Court.

"If you're 20 years old, in your mid-20's, and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now." -- President Bush, yesterday

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation.

The contract, detailed in documents obtained by USA TODAY through a Freedom of Information Act request, also shows that the Education Department, through the Ketchum public relations firm, arranged with Williams to use contacts with America's Black Forum, a group of black broadcast journalists, "to encourage the producers to periodically address" NCLB. He persuaded radio and TV personality Steve Harvey to invite Paige onto his show twice. Harvey's manager, Rushion McDonald, confirmed the appearances.

Williams said he does not recall disclosing the contract to audiences on the air but told colleagues about it when urging them to promote NCLB.

Lovely.

UPDATE: Tribune syndicate cuts ties with Williams

POSTSCRIPT: Like Instapundit, I don't want this post to be seen as "a big slam on Wikipedia." In fact, I'm a real fan of the project. I simply think that the editors need to find a way to make its limitations clearer to those who happen upon an entry via, say, a Google search. In short, I'm not asking Wikipedia to be a scholarly resource like the Encyclopedia Britannica -- just a little more transparent about the fact that it isn't.

MORE: Via Jeff Jarvis, Clay Shirky has a very different take on all this. And while Shirky's undoubtedly right (he almost always is) when he argues that our definition of the word "encyclopedia" will evolve enough over time to encompass "a communally-compiled and non-authoritative" knowledge base like Wikipedia, his analysis essentially elides the question of whether it should. And given the epistemological difficulties we've had for the last year or so over here on the political side of the blogosphere (and in American public life more broadly), with left, right, and center arguing not over policy or even politics in any traditional sense, but over the nature of reality itself, that would seem to be a worthwhile question to consider.

FINAL NOTE: And, uh, no, I'm not trying to get into a debate on this subject with Clay Shirky. Unlike (perhaps) the Wikipedia, I'm very clear on my limitations. . . .

The head of the Army Reserve has sent a sharply worded memo to other military leaders expressing "deepening concern" about the continued readiness of his troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warning that his branch of 200,000 soldiers "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."

In the memo, dated Dec. 20, Lt. Gen. James R. "Ron" Helmly lashed out at what he said were outdated and "dysfunctional" policies on mobilizing and managing the force. He complained that his repeated requests to adjust the policies to current realities have been rebuffed by Pentagon authorities.

The three-star general, who has a reputation for speaking bluntly, said the situation has reached a point at which the Army Reserve is "in grave danger of being unable to meet" its operational requirements if other national emergencies arise. Insistence on restrictive policies, he continued, "threatens to unhinge an already precariously balanced situation in which we are losing as many soldiers through no use as we are through the fear of overuse."

His pointed remarks represent the latest in a chorus of warnings from military officers and civilian defense specialists that the strains of overseas missions are badly fraying the U.S. Army. The distress has appeared most evident in reservist ranks. Both the Army Reserve and the National Guard last month disclosed significant recruiting slumps.

Hmmm. . . .

NOTE: That's not a prediction that Drudge won't jump on the story, by the way. He may. More importantly, he should. And it will be, well, interesting to see whether or not he actually does.

UPDATE: Somewhere up there, I should have noted that the DeLay story was originally brought to light by Dawkins at American Coprophagia. My apologies for the oversight.

UPDATE 2: Ah, hell. If I'm going to (rather fecklessly) demand fairness from Drudge, I suppose I should try to display a little myself. To wit: Just as John Cole was wrong to brand Elizabeth Edwards a "b**ch" last October (before her illness was announced, of course), Armando over at Daily Kos isn't exactly elevating the debate when he refers to Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales as a "piece of s**t" today.

C'mon, folks. As Armando's post makes clear, we're talking about a man who stands accused of some rather serious transgressions. Can't we find a way to challenge his behavior without immediately calling our own into question?

Thanks to the dramatic outpouring of public and private dollars in recent days, the first half of that formulation is now largely uncontroversial. And I'm happy to be able to report this morning that the second half seems to gaining ground as well, as this typically thoughtful (and, in fairness, slightly skeptical) post by James Joyner makes clear.

MORE: Powell hopes aid will help US image in Muslim world

POSTSCRIPT: As always, there's a veritable potload of Full Disclosure information related to POL on your right.

House Republicans suddenly reversed course Monday, deciding to retain a tough standard for lawmaker discipline and reinstate a rule that would force Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside if indicted by a Texas grand jury.

The surprise dual decisions were made by Speaker Dennis Hastert and by DeLay who asked GOP colleagues to undo the extreme act of loyalty they handed him in November. Then, Republicans changed a party rule so DeLay could retain his leadership post if indicted by the grand jury in Austin that charged three of the Texas Republican's associates.

But they're not quite there yet.

Republicans voted to go ahead with another of their controversial ethics proposals and will ask the full House to approve a change that could curtail ethics committee investigations. Under the change, a Republican vote would be required before an inquiry can begin. The committee is evenly divided between the two parties, and under current rules a deadlock means an investigation begins automatically.

Honestly, I'd like nothing better than to be able to write a thoroughly positive post on this subject (as I did just the other day on the Bush administration's evolving response to the humanitarian crisis in South Asia). So, c'mon guys. You're so close to getting this one right. Don't let it slip away now.

(ABC News link via Kos.)

NOTE: See? I don't always take the DLC's side. . . .

Writing in TNR, New Democrat Network president Simon Rosenberg argues that the current administration has failed to heed that lesson in the war on terror, and that that lapse has given Democrats just the opening they need in order to start formulating a better, more attractive alternative to the Bush national security agenda.

MORE: Sorry, I just realized that the TNR link above is subscription only. So here's a taste:

Today, the United States faces an administration that has failed to learn the critical lessons of the twentieth century and has only embraced one half of Kennan's synthesis. This administration is waging a campaign against terrorism, but it has failed to offer a credible vision of how the United States can move the world toward a peace and prosperity rooted in our own best ideals. Moreover, the Bush administration's failing Iraq policy and the serial lies about its intentions and principles have so tarnished U.S. standing abroad that they have unforgivably weakened our ability to conduct and win the struggle against Islamic extremism.

So 2004 is not 1947. The war against Islamic extremism is not the cold war, and Bush is not Roosevelt nor Truman. Our choices are different now. Yes, we as Democrats must articulate and embrace a muscular response to the threat of Islamic extremism and a twenty-first-century version of Kennan's vision of a United States that lives up to its own best traditions. We are also morally obligated to acknowledge that President Bush's record is deeply worthy of skepticism, and we can no more ignore those in our party who have rightfully voiced dissent than we can forget how we won the war against communism.

Our urgent goal as a party should be to work with those who have led the fight against Bush's dangerous policies and, together, to craft a new and compelling vision that is rooted in the very best of the United States and utterly defeats the threat of terrorism.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, yes, I realize that there's all sorts of other stuff going on up there in those grafs -- most of it involving Rosenberg's campaign to become the next chairman of the DNC. But that's Jerome Armstrong's beat, and he's been covering it quite nicely so far without my assistance, thank you very much.

Is it good for the republic that serving in Congress must be treated as a full-time job?

Newly elected Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma thinks not. And Coburn, who is also a physician, has already announced he will challenge a long-standing rule that bars him from continuing to practice medicine once he takes the oath of office Tuesday.

A conservative Republican, Coburn has always been a maverick in public life: During six tumultuous years in the House, where he served from 1995 to 2001, he cultivated an image as an angry renegade and a citizen legislator who scorned professional politicians.

But this time, he does not stand alone.

A significant number of conservative political thinkers agree that the country would benefit from a return to the tradition of the public servant who also remains a private citizen. That, it is argued, is the model handed down by the Founding Fathers.

So they say now. But I wonder how Sen. Coburn and the other "conservative political thinkers" mentioned in the piece are going to feel when America's trial lawyers suddenly realize that buying yourself a seat in the House or Senate is no longer a bar to suing the living bejeezus out of corporate America.

Hmmm. . . .

POSTSCRIPT: No , I don't really expect Coburn and Co. to get their way on this one. Still, it's an amusing scenario to ponder, don't you think?

What does a federal transportation program look like? Simple: like our highway and airport programs. The federal government doesn't operate the vehicles or market the service. There's no such company as "Amcar" or "Amflight." Instead, Washington helps the states to fund a state-of-the-art infrastructure that private operators can have access to -- highways for private cars and commercial motor coaches, airports for airliners. Congress needs to stop focusing solely on Amtrak, a government-owned train company operating on obsolete private and public infrastructure, so that it can refocus on getting matching funds out to states and communities that want to build up their intercity railroad tracks and start running fast, frequent, comfortable trains that people will pay to ride.

As a train enthusiast, I have to admit that opening the door to fundamental change in the current system makes me a little nervous; fact is, an awful lot of folks in DC are bound and determined to let passenger rail die, and they're almost certain to try to use any major reform effort as a Trojan coach car to achieve that end. Still, what Coston says above makes sense. In the end, rail can only get well if it's organized like every other mode of transportation in the country, with private companies operating in a subsidized environment (and hiring their share of lobbyists to ensure that the subsidies are sufficient to keep the whole enterprise afloat).

After all, what's good for General Motors (and Ford and JetBlue and Southwest) is good for America -- and, therefore, American rail -- right?

UPDATE: Ogged weighs in, as do a number of his readers.

Some crisis, huh?

POSTSCRIPT: Hey, here's a thought: Maybe President Bush could hire David Kay and his team to find the Social Security crisis. Those guys know all about this administration's politically motivated snipe hunts. . . .

With Bush planning to unveil the details of his Social Security plan this month, several GOP groups close to the White House are asking the same donors who helped reelect Bush to fund an extensive campaign to convince Americans -- and skeptical lawmakers -- that Social Security is in crisis and that private accounts are the only cure.

Progress for America, an independent conservative group that backed Bush in the campaign, has set aside about $9 million to support the president's Social Security plan as well as other White House domestic priorities in the new year, said spokesman Brian McCabe. The group is asking its donors for much more, he said.

Stephen Moore, head of the conservative Club for Growth, has raised $1.5 million and hopes to hit a $15 million target when his fundraising drive ends.

But their contributions are likely to be dwarfed by those from corporate trade associations, spearheaded by the National Association of Manufacturers. Other likely contributors include the financial services and securities industries and other Fortune 500 companies, GOP officials say. White House officials, led by Karl Rove and Charles P. Blahous III, the president's policy point man on Social Security, are helping to shape the public relations campaign, said the officials, who talked about private discussions with the White House on the condition of anonymity.

"It could easily be a $50 million to $100 million cost to convince people this is legislation that needs to be enacted," Moore said. "It's going to be expensive" because "it's the most important public policy fight in 25 years," he said.

Mr. Moore is right about one thing: This is the most important public policy fight in the last 25 years. Here's hoping the responsible men and women in both parties are ready for it.

Teresa Geerling is living the future of life in the middle of the American workforce.

After years cleaning the insides of airplanes and polishing their outsides, Geerling was laid off from American Airlines last year. The job was physically taxing for Geerling, 50, but the nearly $32,000 annual pay and health-care coverage helped provide a typical middle-class life in this small midwestern community.

Now, she works the overnight shift at a local hospital as a nurse's aide while completing course work to be certified as a medical assistant. That would seem to be a smart move, because unlike airlines, which are contracting, health care is one of the industries that many economists believe could generate millions more jobs in the decades to come.

Yet rarely has Geerling's work life been so precarious.

If she can't stay on her husband's health plan, her costs for health insurance offered by the hospital will be $200 a month, more than five times as much as at the airline. There are no pension benefits beyond the option for a 401(k) savings plan and few job protections. She makes $2 an hour less than before; to have a chance at higher pay, she will need to continually train herself in new areas.

Geerling is at the leading edge of changes that herald a new era for millions of people earning around the national average, $17 an hour.

This new era requires that workers shoulder more responsibility and risk on the way to financial security, economists say. It also demands that they be nimble in an increasingly fluid job market. Those who don't obtain some combination of specialized skills, higher education and professional status that can be constantly adapted will be in danger of sliding down the economic ladder to low-paying service jobs, usually without benefits.

Meanwhile, those who secure the middle-class jobs of the 21st century will have to make $17 an hour stretch further than ever as they pay more for health care or risk doing without insurance and assume much or all of the burden for their retirement. . . .

In some ways, Geerling is one of the lucky ones.... At the time she was let go, American Airlines provided training grants as part of the layoff package. The program, which no longer exists, gave her a way to learn new skills in the health care industry, where she had once worked.

Analysts say retraining will be key because tomorrow's middle-class jobs are likely to be enhanced variations of today's lower-wage jobs. Clerical positions keeping medical records, for instance, are being transformed into higher-paying technician jobs that are structured to involve both computer skills and the ability to talk to doctors and nurses.

"You can't be some kid who is good with a computer and get that job anymore," said Anthony Carnevale, senior fellow at the National Center on Education and the Economy. The successful job seeker will be "someone who can do the computer stuff but also knows the business."

It is that combination of technology savvy, analytical thinking and interpersonal skills that could be the magic formula for U.S. workers -- whether the jobs are in health care, education, financial services or any other field. Jobs that involve all three qualities, said Thomas A. Kochan, an MIT management professor, are hard to duplicate with machines or with low-wage workers from abroad, putting the Americans who fill them in a strong position to demand not just good wages, but benefits, too.

"For workers who are performing services for people that can't be made impersonal or sent offshore, those jobs could become much more attractive," he said.

This is a good piece on big issue, and there's a lot more of it. So, please, read the rest.

UPDATE: Via Josh Marshall, here's some other stuff Clinton was right about.

RELATED: And via Nick Denton, The Economist asks, "Whatever happened to the belief that any American could get to the top?"

LINK: U.S. Aid Generous and Stingy

(Via Gothamist.)

MORE: Aside from his curious contention regarding the best of the show's distaff ADAs, Ogged's summation seems sure to win over the jury.

First, on the broad question of American generosity, conservatives like James Joyner are correct; much of what the US spends in this area isn't counted in the official statistics, which leads to some rather misleading analyses, such as those that suggest that we spend only two cents per person per day on humanitarian aid. (In addition to the excellent points James makes on the deceptively narrow definition that these analyses tend to use for "humanitarian assistance," it should also be noted that virtually every aid package on the face of the Earth could arrive at its destination stamped, "Delivered from our nation to yours through the good offices of the United States Navy." Therefore, it seems only fair to factor at least some of the dollars that US taxpayers shell out to provide the security umbrella under which the entire humanitarian aid infrastructure stays warm and dry into these sorts of calculations.) Moreover, private charities in this country do raise and distribute rather large sums, and, while I think some on the right have a tendency to overstate the magnitude and effectiveness of these kinds of efforts, their good works should not go unrecognized.

That said, much of the Democratic criticism of this administration's response to the current disaster in South Asia is spot-on; yet again, President Bush appears to have squandered an opportunity to reach out to the very people whose hearts and minds we need to win in order to defeat both bin Laden and bin Ladenism, and that's just plain dumb. Publius, over at Legal Fiction, is particularly strong on this point:

For those who don’t know, I am not a world leader. Given my writing over the past year, I have a sneaking suspicion that I will never be a world leader. But if I were a world leader, I would think that humanitarian disasters in other countries would be the political equivalent of hanging curve balls. You really don’t have to exert that much effort to earn global goodwill. In fact, it's one of those rare opportunities where every single person on the planet would agree with you and appreciate your words. Even if you truly don’t give a s**t that 100,000 people have died, even if you would rather clear brush for four days than worry about it, all you have to do is have a five minute press conference, express sympathy, and promise money somewhat in excess of what you could get at a couple of political fundraisers. In fact, the only way to blow such a golden opportunity to gain sorely needed goodwill (especially in the Muslim world) is to do exactly what Bush did – nothing. It was a rather remarkable feat.

In closing, and on a semi-related matter, I'd like to second every word that Henry Farrell has to say here. Thoughtful criticism of individuals and their ideas is one thing. But at a time like this, when so many blogospherians are doing what they can to help alleviate the suffering of millions of their fellow human beings halfway around the world, we could really do without the puerile cheap shots.

VIA: Arts & Letters Daily

On the eve of World War II, the French depended confidently upon their huge and famous Maginot Line. Its enormous defensive fortresses, created almost as a necklace of cities in themselves, lined the entire border between France and Germany -- this time, the Germans would never pass!

But all the Germans had to do was to march around through Belgium to invade France. By May 1940, the vaunted Maginot Line was pitifully useless against such innovative resolve.

Today in Iraq, American officials are having to face their own verbal and rhetorical Maginot Lines. Our "answer" has been that we can get out when Iraqi forces are trained, when elections are held, and when Iraqis themselves win back the country from the "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "guerrillas" (or whatever we finally determine they are).

But in only the last two weeks, American generals and civilian officials are, in fact, admitting that they have their own similar Maginot Line problems. In Mosul, the Iraqi police force has "faded away." American generals speak of a "virtual connectivity" of the insurgents never seen before, as they use the Internet to pass along techniques, tactics and advice to one another. American generals now admit that almost all of them are Iraqis; we have created the Iraqi terrorists who were not there before . . . .

The truth no one really wants to deal with is that this war could very easily be lost by the United States. All the insurgents have to do is hang on another year. All we have to do is what the French and the British did in their colonies: Let themselves be exhausted and finally destroyed by their hubris, their delusions and their arrogant lack of understanding of the local people.

Our Maginot Lines today are our satellites, our huge bombers, our willingness to destroy a city such as Fallujah without even knowing who's there. Our Maginot minds refuse to see that the Germans sneaking around the French through Belgium to destroy them is disturbingly analogous to the insurgents in Iraq moving in cells from city to city and letting us think we are "winning."

Geez. What's wrong with Georgie Anne? Hasn't she heard about the soccer fields? And the schools . . . ?

POSTSCRIPT: As regular readers know, I (kinda sorta) supported this unremittingly awful clusterschtup, so it gives me absolutely no pleasure to link to pieces like the one above. Unfortunately, though, it seems clearer by the day that the pessimists realists like Ms. Geyer are right: we're in real danger of losing this war, and better leadership -- rather than better PR -- is our only chance of turning things around in time. Assuming, of course, that there still is time . . . .

UPDATE: It's funny. I was just reading this post over, and realized how much the terms of the debate have changed in the last year or so. Because, when I used the phrase "turning things around," it's not like I was referring to, you know, actually winning. I just meant managing to get out of there with a relatively whole skin.

And to think they used to call the Carter era the Age of Diminishing Expectations.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is leaning toward removing the House ethics committee chairman, who admonished House Majority Leader Tom DeLay this fall and has said he will treat DeLay like any other member, several Republican aides said yesterday.

Although Hastert (Ill.) has not made a decision, the expectation among leadership aides is that the chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), long at odds with party leaders because of his independence, will be replaced when Congress convenes next week.

The aides said a likely replacement is Rep. Lamar S. Smith, one of DeLay's fellow Texans, who held the job from 1999 to 2001. Smith wrote a check this year to DeLay's defense fund. An aide said Smith was favored for his knowledge of committee procedure.

Republicans are bracing for the possibility that DeLay, who is the chamber's second-ranking Republican and holds enormous sway over lawmakers, could be indicted by a Texas grand jury conducting a campaign finance investigation that the party contends is politically motivated.

The effort by DeLay and his allies to preserve his leadership post, even if he faces criminal charges, is one of the most sensitive issues facing Republicans as the new Congress begins. If Hefley is replaced by Smith, it is another signal by House leaders that they will stand by DeLay. "It certainly seems they're circling the wagons," said a GOP staff member who declined to be identified.

What's that hoary old line? Something about power corrupting -- and Tom DeLay's power corrupting absolutely . . . .

MORE: Jeff Jarvis quotes an expert as saying that "most people would have been safe if only they'd walked one mile inland or gotten to higher ground . . ."

Clark Kent Ervin . . . said in an interview last week that airport security isn't tight enough and that little has been done to safeguard other forms of mass transit. Ervin said ports remain vulnerable to terrorists trying to smuggle weapons into the country. He added that immigration and customs investigators are hampered in their efforts to track down illegal immigrants because they often lack gas money for their cars.

"There are still all these security gaps in the country that have yet to be closed," Ervin said. Meanwhile, he added, Homeland Security officials have wasted millions of dollars because of "chaotic and disorganized" accounting practices, lavish spending on social occasions and employee bonuses and a failure to require competitive bidding for some projects.

Asked what's wrong with the department, he said, "It's difficult to figure out where to start."

Ervin lost his job this month in mysterious fashion. Appointed by President Bush in December 2003 when Congress was out of session, Ervin was never confirmed by the Senate. Nor was he renominated by the White House this month when his "recess appointment" — which lasted until the congressional session ended — expired Dec. 8.

A key senator won't say why. Elissa Davidson, spokeswoman for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wouldn't comment on why Chairman Susan Collins, R-Maine, never held confirmation hearings for Ervin. "The decision not to renominate Clark Kent Ervin was purely a White House decision," she said.

This "good news" White House really doesn't like its bad news guys, does it? And that's understandable up to a point, I suppose, at least from a purely political perspective. Unfortunately, though, those are probably the very voices we need to hear on national security issues; just think, for example, how different things might be today if this administration had listened to men like Richard Clarke and Rand Beers and Eric Shinseki instead of telling them to sit down and shut up.

The saddest words of tongue or pen, indeed. So let's just hope that Clark Kent Ervin's name stays off that distinguished but deeply dispiriting list.

So what's the problem with the party of the left when it comes to national security? Despite Karl Rove's successful postelection spin that the 2004 election was about values, the truth is that reassurance and security moved the voters that made the difference. Particularly among married and college-educated women, the electorate believed that the Republicans would better protect them and their families than multi-medal, thrice-wounded John Kerry. So, while the Democrats are now fighting among themselves over whether we have values, we have done nothing to address the real thematic reason for Kerry's loss.

Democrats have conceded so much territory to the Republicans on security that we have left little room to make the case for ourselves. Our (in)actions suggest that even we have bought the line that you cannot be patriotic and be a Democrat. Since when does patriotism belong to the Republicans? Since when does the flag belong to the right wing?

Democrats are not connecting with voters, despite clear policies that favor the military, its veterans, and its families. We love issues so much that we forget to put them in a context that voters understand and, more significantly, that they feel.

The Democratic Party can do better in communicating to the American people our commitment to keeping the United States strong and safe. That means talking about security as a core principle of our party, not another policy proposal. Security for American voters means the safety of their families before it means the soundness of our borders. It means the peace of mind that comes with strong, decisive leadership before it means rewarding a candidate for the decorations of distinguished military service.

That's absolutely right. We Democrats have an unfortunate tendency to talk about national defense the same way we discuss, say, funding formulas for early childhood development programs, and the American people don't like it. Worse, they don't trust it. And until we can find a way to communicate on national security matters more effectively, we're going to keep having the kinds of problems we ran into this year, when a stupefyingly unsuccessful Republican president managed to win a narrow victory by convincing a bare majority of the electorate that they just couldn't risk turning the country over to our guy in perilous times.

UPDATE: Via Charles Kuffner, here's Jerome Armstrong's take on Fowler's Net-savvy campaign to become the next chairman of the DNC.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Supposedly, the new system will be up and running in the next week or ten days, and I'll start blogging again as soon as it is. Until then, thanks for your patience, and I hope to see you shortly.

POSTSCRIPT: Hard as it may be to believe, I haven't been wasting the hour or two a day I normally spend on this stuff; when the site returns, it will once again be running on a true blog platform -- WordPress -- and, for the first time in years, all the archives will be in one system, and all the old permalinks will be properly forwarded to their current addresses.

POSTSCRIPT 2: As bad as blogging is out here, e-mail is even worse. Much worse, actually. It literally takes a couple of hours a day for me to download the trencherman's helping of spam I get at some of the addresses associated with this blog. So, frankly, I haven't been doing it. Or at least not much of it. Which means, of course, that if you've sent me any e-mail in the last couple of weeks, I probably haven't seen it yet. I apologize for any inconvenience that may have caused, and I'll make those replies a priority as soon as the new satellite arrives.

POSTSCRIPT: Just a quick reminder: When posting is sporadic -- as it probably will be between now and the first of the year -- the easiest way to keep up with the site is by grabbing the feed.

Soon after Trudy LeBlue began working at the new SmartStyle hair salon outside New Orleans, her salon manager began worrying that business was too slow and profits were too weak.

To keep costs down, Ms. LeBlue said, the manager often ordered her and the two other stylists to engage in a practice, long hidden, that appears to have spread to many companies: working off the clock.

Many weeks, Ms. LeBlue spent 40 hours in the salon, but was ordered to clock out for 20 of them while waiting for customers to show up, she said. With the salon's computer tracking her official hours, she was told to clean up and stock merchandise during the unpaid stretches.

"If you weren't doing hair or a perm, they'd tell you to get off the clock, but you still had to stay in the salon," she said.

What angered her most was her paltry paycheck, which she said often came to just $200 for two weeks, even after 80 hours at work. For Ms. LeBlue, that worked out to $2.50 an hour, less than half of the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum wage and her official rate, $5.35 an hour.

Workers at hair salons, supermarkets, restaurants, discount stores, call centers, car washes and other businesses who have murmured only to one another about off-the-clock work are now speaking up and documenting the illegal practice.

An honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Now there's a moral value that we Democrats can champion seven days a week and twice on Sunday. It's simple, it's powerful, and it profoundly affects the lives of real people across the country.

Like the man said, you can't beat somethin' with nothin'. And vile practices like the one described above are just the kind of somethin' we Democrats need to loudly and proudly condemn in order to start making the case that the values debate currently raging in America is not now, and has never been, about right and left.

It's about right and wrong.

And on that, my friends, the party of Jefferson and Jackson and Roosevelt and Kennedy has much to say to Americans of every region, every faith, and every color: black, white, brown, Blue, and, yes -- even Red.

That said, there is a message that we Donkeys should be forcefully communicating to the press and the public in this period: namely, that Colin Powell's famous Pottery Barn Rule is now in effect. President Bush and his appointees have intentionally broken the CIA in order to "fix" it, and that makes them 100% responsible for the results. So if things go well for the next four years, they get the credit: hat's off, Rudy (or Bill or Jeb) '08, and all the rest. But if things go south -- if US policy abroad suffers a serious setback due to faulty intel, or if terror once again visits America's shores -- the President of the United States and his party are wholly responsible*.

In this new, quasi-parliamentary era (about which Matt Yglesias and others have written so well), we Democrats have an obligation to do what opposition parties do: Pray for success, and prepare for failure. And one of the ways you do that is by ruthlessly holding the party in power accountable for what happens on its watch.

Sad to say, perhaps, but that appears to be the Democratic party's primary function in the American democracy today. So let's get to it.

*Not to blame, of course -- terrorists are to blame for terror -- but, yes, completely responsible.

UPDATE (11/12): Hell, let's make it a full week. See you Monday....

FINAL UPDATE (11/15): Yep, I'm back. Look for posting to resume later today.

No, Jeff, you're wrong. He's not my president. He's not interested in protecting me, my family, or yours. He doesn't care. Ronald Reagan was my president, George H.W. Bush was my president, and Bill Clinton was my president. This man? No. He's the president of Jesusland, and answers only to them.

I'm one of those Democrats who used to get monumentally pissed off back in the '90s when prominent Republicans would occasionally utter phrases like "your president, Bill Clinton." And I was right to get angry, because people who truly love this country and its democratic form of government don't go around cavalierly undermining the legitimacy of its duly elected leaders.

So, as someone who knows that Oliver does love this nation and its democratic institutions, I'd like to invite him to join me in saying the following heartfelt words:

George W. Bush is my president. Dammit!

I guess I should have expected this, but there have already been two major published articles preemptively criticizing the DLC for arguing that Democrats need to "move to the right" in response to this year's losses. First came the normally reasonable Tim Noah of Slate, who simply assumed that's what the DLC would say and then devoted several graphs to why is was a dumb idea. And today, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman interpreted Al From's rather obvious suggestion that Democrats need to close the "cultural gap" with Republicans as a call for "Democrats to blur the differences between themselves and Republicans" and then, like Noah, Krugman was off to the races with a long diatribte about how dishonorable and politcally useless this would be.

People, people, we've got enough to argue about without making up positions and then knocking them down. I work at the DLC every single day, and I've never heard a soul say anything about "moving to the right," and pace Krugman, we've gone way out of our way on many occasions to say that dealing with our culture problem is not a matter of "moving to the right" on abortion or guns or gay marriage or anything else. And if by "blurring the differences" between Democrats and Republicans on cultural issues means challenging the perception that they care about cultural stresses on the American family and we don't, then hell, yes, we need to blur that difference, but it has nothing to do with aping conservative positions on hot-button issues. What it means is taking seriously the belief of millions of people, not just religious fundamentalists, that they are competing with a toxic and increasingly amoral culture for the character of their children. What it means is addressing those concerns in a progressive way, instead of conveying the sense that we believe they should put aside all their silly superstitions about the moral order of the universe and chow down on a prescription drug benefit.

Angry conservatives flooded Senate phone and fax lines on Friday demanding that Republicans prevent Senator Arlen Specter from presiding over the Judiciary Committee after he remarked that strongly anti-abortion judicial nominees might be rejected in the Senate.

Republican lawmakers and top Senate aides, speaking privately for the most part, said the uproar from the right was becoming an impediment for Mr. Specter, a Pennsylvania lawmaker who has coveted the chairmanship. They said while it was likely he would still get the post, it was no longer a certainty.

"He is not out of the woods,'' said one Senate aide who is closely monitoring developments on the Judiciary Committee, echoing a sentiment expressed by Republican senators and other party officials.

Most of those Republicans said they initially believed that Mr. Specter's subsequent clarification would protect him. Mr. Specter said he did not mean his remarks as a warning to Mr. Bush not to nominate to the Supreme Court a judge who would be inclined to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion.

But the Republican officials said that continuing resistance to his taking the chairmanship of the committee that examines judicial nominees was being fanned by conservative talk radio hosts and groups outraged over his comments.

The rest is here.

OUR BILL: Say this about Clinton: he always understood how to triangulate. The president who doubled the number of gay discharges form the military, signed the ban on HIV-positive immigrants, and jumped energetically on the Defense of Marriage Act, told Kerry to back marriage and civil union bans for gays in the campaign. Kerry, to his enormous credit, didn't go there. But then Kerry never presided over the execution of a retarded man for his own political purposes either.

As much as I'd like to agree with Andrew on this one, I just can't.

Kerry consistently said two things about gay marriage during the campaign: (1) he favored a federalist approach that would preserve the right of each state to make its own decision on the issue; and (2) he personally opposed the practice on traditional moral grounds. Taken together, those add up to one thing: state bans on gay marriage.

Telling a candidate that he has to get his policy prescriptions in line with his rhetoric if he wants to be taken seriously isn't triangulation. It's sound strategic advice. (It's also intellectually honest, by the way, which is something that those of us in the reality-based community are supposed to care about.) And until we Democrats are prepared to set aside sentimentality and follow that kind of tough-minded counsel even when it hurts -- especially when it hurts, actually -- people will have every right to question whether our candidates really mean what they say.

1) President Bush won a significant victory here, and it costs us nothing to be gracious -- and honest -- enough to say so.

2) As the inevitable discussions about the future of the party begin, DLCers like me need to remember that our liberal friends more than earned their place at the table by setting aside their ideological concerns and working their tails off this year.

3) At the same time, libs need to remember that we DLCers aren't the enemy. Regular readers will recall that I didn't support John Kerry during the primaries because I thought he couldn't compete in Red America. Nonetheless, I did everything I could to help him once he had the nomination. In other words, we moderates earned our place at the table too.

4) William Galston and Elaine Kamarck look as right today as they did fifteen years ago, when they first wrote about the myth of mobilization. (Yes, we need to organize, particularly in light of the GOP's now remarkably effective GOTV operation, but that's not enough in and of itself.)

5) If you aren't worried about the number of Hispanic votes President Bush got the other day, you should be.

6) Republicans have reasons for concern as well: Given the country's shifting demographics, they can't win many more elections the way they did this time.

7) As members of the loyal opposition, we Democrats have an obligation to cooperate, not collaborate. So, when the president moves to the middle (and I genuinely hope he will on some issues), we need to meet him there. But on those occasions when he insists on governing from the far right -- by, say, nominating a movement conservative for the Court, or by sponsoring another round of tax cuts that primarily benefit the very rich -- we have to dance with them that brung us.

8) I wonder if the goo goo types who talk so piously about voting for the man rather than the party will ever figure out that that kind of thinking contributes significantly to the personal nastiness in American politics that they so deplore.

9) If I were a reporter looking for a fresh angle on the future of Howard Dean and his movement, I think I'd take a good look at the final, post-election financial filings in state and local races around the country.

10) It's fine to mope around for a day or two, but don't despair. We made real progress in several important areas this year. And, bleak as it may look today, we really will get 'em next time.

More after a few hours sleep.

Based on the early voting trends, I think there's a good chance that we'll see the reverse today, with Democrats heading to the polls in record numbers to reject the GOP's pre-9/11 politics of distortion, division and diversion. (That's one of the unwritten stories in this election, isn't it? For all their talk of a post-9/11 world, the Republicans are the ones trapped in the old-style politics ... because they can't win without it.)

That's a consummation devoutly to be wished, folks. And you and I know exactly what we have to do to make it happen.

See you at the polls.

UPDATE/RELATED: Ogged correctly notes that "it's not too late to help. You can still sign up to volunteer at the Kerry site to get information about your local offices, which will probably be making (important!) calls to swing states to make sure Kerry voters are going to vote. Some random guy in the Bay Area started getting friends together to help out on election night, and now he has about 150 folks ready to call, and when I was doing call center allocation last night, it was a huge help to have that extra capacity. If you're not doing anything else, make the calls. You can even probably go down to your local office and pitch in and watch the results come in with people who want W to lose just as much as you do."

Cutbacks Threaten Work Of Homeland Security Unit A key unit of the Department of Homeland Security has slipped into a state of financial turmoil that could endanger its ability to investigate terrorists, pay informants and perform wiretaps, some department employees and officials say.

All hiring and transfers at the department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division have been banned for two months, as have almost all training, purchases of supplies and equipment, and maintenance of vehicles. Top department officials say they are committed to protecting ICE's ability to perform investigations, but agents in the field say ICE's budget shortfall of perhaps $500 million may soon threaten its national security work.

The cause of the financial hole at ICE is a set of complex accounting maneuvers used when the Department of Homeland Security was established in 2003. Those procedures have led to financial disputes among several Homeland Security agencies, officials said.

Unbelievable.

POSTSCRIPT: The state Democratic party has more, including a copy of the letter.

And yes. If you're interested, there's still time to vote.

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By this time, with one revelation after another of the mismanagement of foreign policy and national security under President Bush, I'’d hoped he would find a way to signal the electorate that things would be different in a second term; that would require a change in personnel at the top. It would have meant Dick Cheney'’s replacement with a GOP internationalist. It would also have meant a clean sweep of the neo-cons who cooked up the war -- and who misled a President who did not have the experience to be able to figure out he had been manipulated into realizing their imperial fantasies. Sadly, there is no indication a second term would be any different than a first, as all the speculation we read on personnel still has Cheney in the driver’'s seat with Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld readily at hand.

Because Mr. Bush has told us repeatedly about how he is strengthened by his faith in God, with that faith sustaining him through his tough decisions, it goes without saying that it he is re-elected he will be filled with the spirit of vindication. There not only would be no changes in the team'’s view of how the world must be dealt with. There would also be less restraint in George W. Bush's willingness to shape the world to his divinely inspired vision.

I'’ll still vote Republican for the rest of the ballot on Tuesday, where I find the smaller issues more to my taste in the G.O.P. But I will cast my first vote for the Democrat in a presidential contest since I pulled the lever for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. And I will do so with enthusiasm for the Senator's views on how to manage the world, having come to appreciate the way his mind works. It changes with new and better information. If he does win, he will have a Republican House and probably a Republican Senate to work with, finding acceptable common ground on important domestic issues. But most of all, I think he will little by little make the world a less dangerous place than it has become these last four years.

It's a strange year, folks....

POSTSCRIPT: I won't even try to explain how I wound up over there, but via Donald Luskin.

The Bush-Cheney team bears a big responsibility for this hole because it nakedly exploited 9/11 to push a far-right Republican agenda, domestically and globally, for which it had no mandate. When U.S. policy makes such a profound lurch to the right, when we start exporting fear instead of hope, the whole center of gravity of the world is affected. Countries reposition themselves in relation to us.

Had the administration been more competent in pursuing its policies in Iraq - which can still turn out decently - the hole in the heart of the world might not have gotten so large and jagged.

I have been struck by how many foreign dignitaries have begged me lately for news that Bush will lose. This Bush team has made itself so radioactive it glows in the dark. When the world liked Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, America had more power in the world. When much of the world detests George Bush, America has less power. People do not want to be seen standing next to us. It doesn't mean we should run our foreign policy as a popularity contest, but it does mean that leading is not just about making decisions - it's also the ability to communicate, follow through and persuade.

If the Bush team wins re-election, unless it undergoes a policy lobotomy and changes course and tone, the breach between America and the rest of the world will only get larger. But all Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney have told us during this campaign is that they have made no mistakes and see no reason to change.

Forgive the cliché, but you really should go read the rest.

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It's an interesting take, and one I probably would have agreed with (or at least sympathized with) a year or two ago. Post Abu Ghraib, though, I just can't; there's something very rotten at the heart of any administration that (a) allows the United States of America to become a bona fide abuser of human rights in the eyes of the world, and (b) doesn't seem to grasp (or to even care about) the terrifying moral implications of what went on in that horrible place.

As a result, I find myself unable to give Mr. Bush the benefit of the doubt on the character question anymore, which means that I tend to hold him responsible for things that I might let slide as "just politics" otherwise, like choosing to tell us only the good news (and, indeed, there is some) from Iraq. Or lying about John Kerry's health care plan. Or standing by while his henchmen savaged the war record of an honorable man who showed up for duty when his nation called.

And that's the larger problem with reelecting George Bush, I think. In one way or another, he's managed to use up his store of goodwill with just about everybody except his core supporters, which means that half of this country and most of the rest of the planet will implacably oppose each and every one of his initiatives for the next four years.

That's a recipe for a failed presidency, folks. And, as a certain campaign could tell you, the world is just too dangerous right now -- too wolf-filled, in fact -- to take that kind of a risk with America's future.

POSTSCRIPT: You'll find a grimly amusing recap of the vice president's misadventures in the private sector here.

It's nice to see that they've grown more sensitive about such things in the years since....

See you on the other side....

UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, the Drupal upgrade has turned out to be anything but routine. So you're looking at Plan B -- a slightly reformatted copy of the Blogger backup version of the site, which normally lives over at Blogspot.

UPDATE 2: I've restored the old version of the site in another directory until I can get the upgrade working. In the meantime, I've set up a redirection scheme, so all the old permalinks should still function properly. (You can find the old posts here.)

But that can't really be true. There must be plenty of pro-Bush bloggers out there who could rightly call themselves proud members of the reality-based community. (My inability to think of one off the top of my head probably has more to do with my own partisanship at this point in the cycle than anything else.) So, I'm curious.... Which conservative blogs meet that test? Who do you turn to for sound, reality-based, pro-Bush analysis?

Please drop me a line with your recommendations or leave them in the comments. I'll add any sites that aren't already there (assuming that I agree with your take on them, of course) to the blogroll.

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I've never understood why the Kerry campaign hasn't made more of the candidate's record in the Senate of holding tough, thankless, let-the-chips-fall-as-they-may investigations of the rich and powerful. Especially impressive was his pursuit of BCCI, the Arab-owned international bank which turned out to be a massive criminal enterprise that enabled terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, to finance their activities--until it was shut down, largely thanks to Kerry's relentless efforts. The campaign's weird refusal to talk about achievements like the BCCI hearings has allowed Bush to paint Kerry as a do-nothing legislator with no record of achievement during 20 years in the Senate.

But now, thanks to Newsweek, we have an explanation for the Kerry campaign's insane strategy. It seems that Bob Shrum thinks the American people are too stupid to understand what it means that Kerry shut down BCCI. "You can't talk about that because people think you're talking about the BBC," Bob Shrum, Kerry's top adviser, told one senior staffer. "Why were you investigating British TV?"

Of course, Glastris is right about one thing: The American people aren't "too stupid" to understand BCCI -- any more than they're too dumb to grasp the essentials of quantum theory if you're willing to invest enough time and resources in the process of educating them.

But that's the problem. Time and money are limited in campaigns, and you only want to pick the fights that you can afford to win. And, in this case, the Kerry people were probably right to take a pass. (After all, you'd have to start the process by giving people a civics lesson about the responsibilities of a senator, making them understand that investigations are part of the job description. Only then could you move on to the substance of Kerry's work on BCCI, which was impressive in its complexity, to say the least, making it expensive and time-consuming to explain.)

Moreover, there's a larger strategic question to consider here: namely, did the Kerry campaign really want to help the Bushies turn the election into a referendum on their guy's Senate record, which, like all lengthy legislative histories, is virtually impossible to defend in the modern media environment? (Today, the Kerry campaign tried to shift the focus away from the senator's liberal voting record on issues like taxes, military spending, and gay rights by focusing on his work as a member of the Senate Banking Committee....) Of course not.

So, while I (pretty much) buy Glastris' larger argument about Bob Shrum's limitations as a general strategist, this probably wasn't the best issue for him to use to make that point. Because, on this one at least, Shrummy may well have been right.

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Senator John Kerry could find his presidential hopes damaged this week when the 62 television stations owned or managed by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group carry a documentary about his antiwar activities 30 years ago.

But the Democratic nominee for the White House may not be the only one adversely affected.

Sinclair - the nation's largest owner of television stations, many of them in electoral swing states - is itself running a significant financial and political risk by telling its stations to pre-empt regular programming and carry the film. Already, Sinclair's decision has alienated some advertisers; enraged consumer and media watchdog groups, who are vowing to challenge its station licenses when they come up for renewal; and given pause to some analysts and investors considering the company's financial outlook.

....Sinclair is no stranger to political controversy.... But the furor over "Stolen Honor'' appears to be affecting Sinclair in ways ... previous actions did not. In some cities - among them, Portland, Me.; Madison, Wis.; Springfield, Ill.; and Minneapolis - local advertisers, including car dealers, furniture makers, supermarkets and restaurants, have taken their commercials off the company's stations.

"I've decided I don't want to advertise on them," said Adam Lee, the president of Lee Auto Malls, which owns 10 auto dealerships in Portland Me., and has ordered its advertising off the CBS affiliate, WGME. "It's a public trust. It seems they're abusing it. If it were a news show and they were really trying to do a fair and balanced story on both sides, that would be a different matter. I don't think they are. That's not their intention.''

Groups, including Common Cause, the Alliance for Better Campaigns, Media Access Project, Media for Democracy and the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, are putting together a database listing all Sinclair advertisers and will try to persuade others to withdraw their commercials. Among those on the list are chains like Applebee's International, Best Buy, Chili's, Circuit City, Domino's Pizza, Lowe's, Papa John's, Subway, Taco Bell and Wal-Mart Stores.

The groups are also vowing to find groups in cities with Sinclair stations who will challenge the broadcast licenses of every Sinclair-owned station over the next several years. Such challenges almost never result in lost licenses, but they often result in heavy legal costs for the station having to defend them.

In addition, some analysts said Sinclair might have hurt itself in the continuing battle over loosening media ownership rules, a fight in which Sinclair has been a leader. Efforts at further deregulation were stalled this year when the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, ordered the F.C.C. to reconsider its relaxation of such rules.

A report issued by the firm Legg Mason last week cited the controversy over the film and asked the question, "Is this good for investors in terms of increasing the odds for favorable deregulation?" The conclusion: "We think not."

The rest is here. And keep up the good work, folks.

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--Former Reagan and Bush 41 adviser Bruce Bartlett, on Bush 43

UPDATE: Ogged has more on the NYT Magazine piece quoted above, and it's well worth reading.

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For the record, John, Mary Cheney is not only an official employee of BC04, she's also a former board member of the Republican Unity Coalition (a gay rights organization) and the one-time director of gay and lesbian outreach for the Coors Brewing Co. Moreover, according to the AP, she actively "helped the GOP recruit gay voters during the 2002 midterm elections." In other words, complaining about her being described in public as a lesbian makes about as much sense as, say, objecting to Tom Brokaw's being "outed" as an anchorman; her sexual identity is nothing less than an elemental part of who she is and what she does for a living. And branding Elizabeth Edwards a 'bitch' for pointing that out is simply unacceptable.

Now, as regular readers know, this site has an inviolable policy of not delinking people just because I'm (temporarily) disappointed in them, so John is, of course, going to stay right where he is in the blogroll. But, as a longtime reader of Balloon Juice, I know that he's a better man than the post under discussion here would tend to indicate. And I sincerely hope he comes to his senses and apologizes to Mrs. Edwards and his readers at the first opportunity.

POSTSCRIPT: Furthermore, John, if you're really so disturbed by the respectful tone that we Democrats have used when speaking of Ms. Cheney during this election, you might want to take a look at the way movement conservatives have discussed her public activism in the past.

UPDATE: John has responded here. And, like so many others in this bitter election year, he's apparently decided that his opponents' vile depredations justify any kind of rough treatment in return, up to and including calling their wives bitches when they have the temerity to say things he doesn't like.

Oh, well. I guess my old Irish grandfather was right: class will out.

ANOTHER UPDATE: In the comments, John says that I "willfully" misrepresented his post by simply linking to it, rather than examining the reason for his anger. So here goes. John thinks that Elizabeth Edwards was wrong to say this about Lynne Cheney: "She's overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion. I think that's a very sad state of affairs. I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences. It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response."

So now you know why it's perfectly okay for John Cole to call Mrs. Edwards a bitch.

NOTE: Post updated on Jan. 6, 2005 to eliminate a redundancy.

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As U.S. Debt Ceiling Is Reached, Bush Administration Seeks to Raise It Once Again Less than a day after President Bush implied that Senator John Kerry lacked "fiscal sanity," the Bush administration said on Thursday that the federal government had hit the debt ceiling set by Congress and would have to borrow from the civil service retirement system until after the elections.

Federal operations are unlikely to be affected because Congress is certain to raise the debt limit in a lame-duck session in November. Congressional Republicans had wanted to avoid an embarrassing vote to raise the debt ceiling just a few weeks before Election Day.

Since Mr. Bush took office in January 2001, the federal debt has increased about 40 percent, or $2.1 trillion, to $7.4 trillion. Congress has raised the debt ceiling three times in three years, raising it most recently by $984 billion in May 2003.

On Thursday, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said that the federal government was about to breach the limit again and would be able to keep operating only if it started tapping money intended for the civil service retirement fund, the pension system for federal workers.

"Given current projections, it is imperative that the Congress take action to increase the debt limit by mid-November,'' Mr. Snow warned in a statement, declaring that his arsenal of financial tools "will be exhausted'' at that point.

Fiscal sanity, huh? That's a good one.

The rest is here.

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I guess we'll know more when the polls start to come in....

UPDATE: As always, Joe Gandelman has the roundup.

UPDATE 2: The first scientific poll I've seen (CNN's) has Kerry winning it 52-39.

UPDATE 3: Since the MSNBC crew I'm watching won't stop whining about Kerry's mention of Dick Cheney's daughter's sexuality, I'll point out that Mary Cheney is an official employee of the Bush/Cheney campaign. In fact, according to MSNBC's own website, "Mary Cheney is director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. She held a public role as her father’s assistant in the 2000 campaign and helped the GOP recruit gay voters during the 2002 midterm elections." [Emph. added.]

How in God's name could she be any more of a public figure?

ANDREW SULLIVAN:

I keep getting emails asserting that Kerry's mentioning of Mary Cheney is somehow offensive or gratuitous or a "low blow". Huh? Mary Cheney is out of the closet and a member, with her partner, of the vice-president's family. That's a public fact. No one's privacy is being invaded by mentioning this. When Kerry cites Bush's wife or daughters, no one says it's a "low blow." The double standards are entirely a function of people's lingering prejudice against gay people. And by mentioning it, Kerry showed something important. This issue is not an abstract one. It's a concrete, human and real one. It affects many families, and Bush has decided to use this cynically as a divisive weapon in an election campaign. He deserves to be held to account for this - and how much more effective than showing a real person whose relationship and dignity he has attacked and minimized? Does this makes Bush's base uncomfortable? Well, good.

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Mosquito bites are a nuisance. Cable outages are a nuisance. Someone shooting up a school in Montana or California or Maine on behalf of the brave martyrs of Fallujah isn't a nuisance. It's war. But that's not the key phrase. This matters: We have to get back to the place we were. But when we were there we were blind. When we were there we losing. When we were there we died. We have to get back to the place we were. We have to get back to 9/10? We have to get back to the place we were. So we can go through it all again? We have to get back to the place we were. And forget all we’ve learned and done? We have to get back to the place we were. No. I don’t want to go back there. Planes into towers. That changed the terms. I am remarkably disinterested in returning to a place where such things are unimaginable. Where our nighmares are their dreams. We have to get back to the place we were. No. We have to go the place where they are.

Now, suppose some folks on the Democratic side of the blogosphere were to spend the next several days in high lefty dudgeon over that last graf, angrily accusing Lileks of advocating a vicious and unconscionable campaign of American terror against innocent Muslim targets. ("We have to go the place where they are.")

I think we can all agree that that would be a particularly odious brand of blogospheric BS -- the very kind, in fact, that most of us could be counted on to immediately condemn, regardless of our political affiliation, because (and try not to laugh here) the blogosphere actually has standards, or at least a set of unwritten but generally-accepted rules for those who wish to sit at the grown-ups' table. And yanking a fellow blogger's words that far out of context would be a pretty clear violation of those rules.

So what I find myself wondering this morning is this: Why do our friends on the right seem to think that it's perfectly acceptable for a sitting president to debase the national debate in a fashion that they would never condone here in their own backyard? And when will they finally reject the soft bigotry of low expectations, and insist that Mr. Bush try to at least conduct himself with the probity and decency of a halfway respectable mid-level blogger?

UPDATE/RELATED: Slate's William Saletan points out that President Bush "was for reducing terrorism to a nuisance before he was against it."

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[Hostage Kenneth] Bigley's death reminds the British that, where Iraq is concerned, they have made their bed with the Americans -- something Blair has tried hard to make them forget. Until the kidnapping, the British government had tried to create the impression that Iraq had become an exclusively American problem. The government rejected all suggestions from the Bush administration that it might increase troop strength in Iraq or expand its operational area. All the reported violence was in the U.S. zone of occupation. U.S. troops were blamed for heavy-handed tactics. When the Conservative Party's defense spokesman noted, in a radio interview, that British troops around Basra were back in hard helmets and armored transports and were being subjected to attacks, this was news to many people.

Downing Street had also done a consummate job of minimizing Blair's public contact with Bush and senior administration officials. Bilateral visits were kept formal and, if possible, under wraps. Photographs à deux at international gatherings, such as the G8 summit, were avoided. Britain's foreign secretary, not Blair, represented Britain at the recent U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. If you ask his office when Blair plans to collect the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor he was awarded more than a year ago, you are told no date has been set.

Just to be clear: It's not George Bush's fault that America has brutal and dangerous enemies; the Islamists declared war on us long before he arrived on the scene. But Mr. Bush is responsible -- wholly responsible -- for the fact that we find ourselves fighting them with an ever-shrinking circle of friends.

Which points up an increasingly conspicuous truth: Anyone who takes national security seriously has no real choice but to vote for John Kerry this November. Because America can't win the war on terror alone. And we can't fight it any other way as long as George Bush is in the White House.

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Today's NYT chronicles the march of prosecutorial folly that ensued:

After winning highly publicized convictions of two suspects on terrorism charges in June 2003, the Justice Department took the extraordinary step five weeks ago of repudiating its own case and successfully moving to throw out the terrorism charges. In a long court filing, the government discredited its own witnesses and found fault with virtually every part of its prosecution.

The blame, the department suggested in its filing, lay mainly at the feet of the lead prosecutor in Detroit, Richard G. Convertino, whom it portrayed as a rogue lawyer. But documents and interviews with people knowledgeable about the case show that top officials at the Justice Department were involved in almost every step of the prosecution, from formulating strategy to editing the draft indictments to planning how the suspects would be incarcerated.

President Bush himself said the Detroit case was one of several critical investigations around the country that had "thwarted terrorists." But the wreckage of the case reveals that it was built on evidence that has since been undermined. A series of missteps and in-fighting weakened the case further, documents and interviews show. The first line of the government's indictment now appears to have been copied without attribution from a scholarly article on Islamic fundamentalism. Government documents that cast doubt on a critical piece of evidence - what was described as a surveillance sketch of an American air base overseas - were not turned over to the defense. And tensions between prosecutors in Detroit and Justice Department officials in Washington escalated into open hostility.

Mr. Convertino angered the Justice Department by testifying at a Congressional hearing held by a powerful Republican senator who is a vocal critic of the department. Mr. Convertino, who was ultimately removed from the prosecution, is now suing the department and is under investigation for his handling of this case and others. That inquiry led to the public disclosure of the name of an Arab informant in the case, who then fled the country because, he said, he feared for his safety.

The miscalculations and bad blood so overshadowed the case that the truth about the defendants' intentions may never be known.

Keep that last sentence in mind tomorrow night when President Bush tries to tell you that his Iraq-obsessed approach was the best way to protect the American people from terrorism in the wake of 9-11. And then decide for yourself whether that claim, upon which this president's argument for reelection now almost entirely rests, even passes the giggle test.

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--Vice President Dick Cheney, when reminded by Elizabeth Edwards that he had, in fact, met her husband previously

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UPDATE: Unlike the aforementioned MSNBC team, Josh Marshall was watching same debate that I was....

UPDATE 2: Atrios appears to have caught the vice president in what can only be called a transparent lie.

FINAL UPDATE: Gandelman has the roundup.

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An Honest Book Review From Kirkus? Only $350 Kirkus Reviews has long prided itself on being a sort of Consumer Reports for the book publishing industry, proclaiming its independence by steadfastly refusing to accept advertising and producing early, plain-spoken reviews that can amplify or smother a new book's early buzz.

Now, however, Kirkus is embracing a new spirit of commercialism. This fall, it is starting two new online publications with the Kirkus name: for $350 Kirkus Discoveries will review a new book from any publisher; for $95, Kirkus Reports will recommend a selected lifestyle title in a listing. And for the first time in its 71 years, the company is considering selling advertising in its flagship publication.

Kirkus executives say the changes are intended to increase revenues and visibility for Kirkus, which has the smallest circulation of several specialty magazines that provide early pre-publication reviews of new books. The program has the added benefit, they say, of potentially bringing more books to the public's attention - books that would otherwise go unreviewed and ignored.

"At a moment when more and more books are being published, there clearly is a gap in getting enough information out there," said Jerome Kramer, managing director and editor in chief of the VNU U.S. Literary Group, the publisher of Kirkus Reviews. "We want to see Kirkus become more visible across the board, and we want to serve a wider spectrum of the publishing community."

Kirkus, known for its often-tart reviews, can heavily influence what books are bought for public libraries and how many copies show up in bookstores. But some readers of Kirkus Reviews question whether Kirkus can objectively review books with one arm while, with the other, taking money from the same publishers for other reviews. Essentially, Kirkus Discoveries gives those paying customers veto power, since they could have a review killed if they didn't like it.

The rest, as they say, is here.

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Army Forcing Reenlistment, Soldiers Say A number of soldiers at this Army base near Colorado Springs say they are being pressured to reenlist or be sent to Iraq.

The allegations, which the Army denies, have sparked calls for a congressional investigation and have left the military scrambling to fend off accusations that they were trying to make up for troop shortages through coercion.

"Soldiers are being told if they don't reenlist they will be reassigned to divisions going to Iraq," said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), whose office has received numerous calls from worried soldiers and their families. "This is just wrong. It's not the way we do things in this country."

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-- from The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies, July 4, 1776

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My guess (which is, as always, worth every penny you're paying for it) is the latter, and here's why: From day one, the Bush reelection strategy has had a soft underbelly -- namely, its utter reliance on their communications shop's ability to create a vacuum seal between the campaign and what those of us on the other side like to call reality. (Plagued by continuing questions about the electability of a Boston Brahmin who wears pink ties and prefers swiss to Cheez Whiz, John Kerry tried to change the subject today by laying out a four point plan to deal with the situation in Iraq. But the important question for the Kerry forces tonight is this: Will today's address be seen as yet another Kerry flip-flop? And, if it is, is there enough man-tan on the face of the earth to save him from the Bush onslaught that's sure to come? Back to you, Tom.) But when and if that seal is ever breached -- as it was last night when Kerry looked and sounded an awful lot like a president, while Bush consistently came across as precisely the kind of preachy, condescending guy you'd never want to have a(nother) beer with -- reality doesn't tend to just start trickling through. No, it comes comes pouring in like a tidal wave in a disaster movie -- and that's always been the worst case scenario for the men and women who get paid to convince the American people not to present George Bush with the gold watch he so richly deserves.

NOTE: Kerry link via Atrios.

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We need to have a new look about how we conduct ourselves in office. There's a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, I don't want you to let me down again. And we can do better than the past administration has done. It's time for a fresh start. It's time for a new look. It's time for a fresh start after a season of cynicism. -- George W. Bush, in the first presidential debate of 2000

NOW:

The Bush administration, battling negative perceptions of the Iraq war, is sending Iraqi Americans to deliver what the Pentagon calls "good news" about Iraq to U.S. military bases, and has curtailed distribution of reports showing increasing violence in that country.

The unusual public-relations effort by the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development comes as details have emerged showing the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush's reelection campaign had been heavily involved in drafting the speech given to Congress last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Combined, they indicate that the federal government is working assiduously to improve Americans' opinions about the Iraq conflict -- a key element of Bush's reelection message.

USAID said this week that it will restrict distribution of reports by contractor Kroll Security International showing that the number of daily attacks by insurgents in Iraq has increased. On Monday, a day after The Washington Post published a front-page story saying that "the Kroll reports suggest a broad and intensifying campaign of insurgent violence," a USAID official sent an e-mail to congressional aides stating: "This is the last Kroll report to come in. After the WPost story, they shut it down in order to regroup. I'll let you know when it restarts."

Asked about the Kroll reports yesterday, USAID spokesman Jeffrey Grieco said, "The agency has restricted its circulation to those contractors and grantees who continue to work in Iraq." He said that the reports were given to congressional officials who sought them, but that the information will now be "restricted to those who need it for security planning in Iraq." An agency official said the decision was unrelated to the Post story and was based on a fear that the reports "would fall into insurgents' hands."

A season of cynicism, indeed.

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GOP Drops Work on Balanced Budget The timing seemed a bit discordant last week, when the House Judiciary Committee began considering a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, just as Congress moved to pass its fourth tax cut in as many years.

A week later, the committee has not finished its work on the legislation, and the GOP House leadership has decided to drop the issue indefinitely, fearing that any spotlight on the burgeoning deficit would backfire politically.

.... Last Wednesday's drafting session turned into a fiasco, members from both parties said. Democrats ridiculed the GOP majority, which has controlled Congress and the White House for most of the past four years while record budget surpluses turned to record deficits. Even some Republicans conceded that their hearts were not in it. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said he had not taken it "as a very serious discussion."

"We can limit [deficits] on our own," said Flake, a Judiciary Committee member. "We in Congress ought to be embarrassed by what has happened. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves."

.... Deficit hawks were amazed that the GOP even tried, after Congress had squandered a $236 billion surplus recorded in 2000. Since 2001, overall government spending has risen 23 percent. Defense spending at Congress's discretion has increased 48 percent, while non-defense spending has jumped 27 percent. Meantime, taxes have been cut four times, at a price tag of $1.9 trillion over 10 years. House and Senate negotiators began work yesterday on a major corporate tax cut that could be wrapped up by the end of next week.

Tax cuts account for 29 percent of the swing from surpluses to deficits over the past three years, according to White House budget documents.

"The idea that the balanced budget amendment could even be taken up by the Judiciary Committee almost defies description," steamed Stanley E. Collender, a federal budget analyst at Financial Dynamics Business Communications. "The cynicism in the whole effort is just astounding."

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The Federal Election Commission said yesterday that it will appeal a federal judge's decision to strike down more than a dozen of the government's current rules on political fundraising.

In a statement, however, the commission said it had not decided whether to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals to review all or some of the rules sent back to the agency by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.

....Besides requesting new rules governing coordination between candidates and outside parties, she also ordered the FEC to say how far the law goes in banning corporate, union and unlimited "soft money" donations. The judge also ordered the commission to take a step it had resisted: regulating at least some political activity conducted over the Internet. [Emph. added.]

Like many others, I've argued ad nauseum over the years that M-F-style campaign finance reform is a real threat to the Democratic party for two basic reasons: (a) it seeks to shut down our primary source of income while actually increasing the GOP's; and (b) it's always -- always -- the guys with names like Moulitsas and Black, not Scaife and Murdoch, who wind up getting burned when we start playing with matches around the First Amendment.

Besides, it's not as though there aren't smarter, better ways of addressing the nation's campaign finance problem....

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No, it was just another one of Mr. Cheney's terminological inexactitudes:

Prewar Assessment on Iraq Saw Chance of Strong Divisions The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said Monday.

The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.

One of the reports also warned of a possible insurgency against the new Iraqi government or American-led forces, saying that rogue elements from Saddam Hussein's government could work with existing terrorist groups or act independently to wage guerrilla warfare, the officials said. The assessments also said a war would increase sympathy across the Islamic world for some terrorist objectives, at least in the short run, the officials said.

POSTSCRIPT: You know, I've had to visit this URL so often in the past few years, I'm thinking of making it my homepage.

UPDATE/RELATED: At this point, I should probably note that a number of admirably plainspoken types have simply abandoned the euphemistic approach, opting instead for what our friends on the right like to call "moral clarity" in response to the linguistic challenge so frequently presented by Messrs. Bush and Cheney.

In other words, they've decided to just start calling a spade a bloody shovel.

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--Christian Coalition national field coordinator Bill Thomson, using "military imagery to fire up the Christian Coalition activists to get out the vote"

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NOTE: I wish I could take credit for the pun at the top of this post, but I can't; it's from an old, half-remembered Dick Cavett interview with one of Roth's fellow literary heavyweights -- Saul Bellow, I think.

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Which, apparently, would be the God's honest truth -- if there were only about 95,000 more....

MORE: Via Oliver Willis, here's the president fantasizing about John Kerry.

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Which would probably sound at least a little less fatuous this morning if Kevin Drum weren't so clearly correct in his assessment of Mr. Bush's bizarre, welcome-to-Fantasy-Island performance in the Rose Garden yesterday:

Thursday's press conference was just scary. It's no longer clear if George Bush is merely a cynical, calculating politician — which would be bad enough — or if he actually believes all the happy talk about Iraq that his speechwriters produce for him. Increasingly, though, it seems like the latter: he genuinely doesn't have a clue about what's going on. What's more, his staff is keeping him in a sort of Nixonian bubble, afraid to tell him the truth and afraid to take any positive action for fear that it might affect the election.

Like Kevin, I honestly don't know whether President Bush is an unusually good prevaricator, or so far removed from reality that he winds up saying things that just don't compute. Either way, though, the results are the same: the American people get lied to, and our fighting men and women get the shaft. And that's every bit as unacceptable today as it was the last time we found ourselves in that situation.

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--Sen. John Edwards, on now-confirmed reports that the Republican National Committee recently sent "mass mailings to residents of two states warning that 'liberals' seek to ban the Bible"

UPDATE/RELATED: In today's WaPo, Dana Milbank notes that making reckless accusations appears to be standard operating procedure for the Republican party these days:

Tying Kerry to Terror Tests Rhetorical Limits President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq -- a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.

Appearing in the Rose Garden yesterday with Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Bush said Kerry's statements about Iraq "can embolden an enemy." After Kerry criticized Allawi's speech to Congress, Vice President Cheney tore into the Democratic nominee, calling him "destructive" to the effort in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism.

It was the latest instance in which prominent Republicans have said that Democrats are helping the enemy or that al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents and other enemies of the United States are backing Kerry and the Democrats. Such accusations are not new to American politics, but the GOP's line of attack this year has been pervasive and high-level.

ANOTHER UPDATE: With regard to the Milbank piece quoted above, Mathew Gross asks, "Why aren't there any Democrats on the talk shows saying the obvious counterpoint, that George W. Bush is the biggest friend to al Qaeda's recruitment efforts, second only to Osama bin Laden himself?"

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Bid to Save Tax Refunds For the Poor Is Blocked Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a vote in the Senate today.

....The dust-up centers on an obscure provision in the 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut that Congress passed in 2001. That tax cut expanded the $500-per-child tax credit to $1,000, but it also made another child credit available as a tax refund to some poor families who pay little or no federal income taxes.

Such families were allowed to claim a child credit worth as much as 10 percent of their earnings over $10,000. But the 2001 law stipulated that the $10,000 threshold would rise with inflation, effectively slicing into or eliminating refunds for families whose income does not keep up with inflation. The threshold now stands at $10,750.

Because incomes at the bottom end of the workforce have largely stagnated, the rising threshold has had a significant impact, said Leonard E. Burman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. Of the 11 million families claiming the child tax refund, more than 4 million -- with 9.2 million children -- will see their credit shrink or disappear in 2005, Burman estimated.

Compassionate conservatism, indeed, as one of my blogging betters would say. And the rest is here.

UPDATE: In case you missed it yesterday (as I somehow did), Jesse Taylor has discovered yet another fine example of compassionate conservatism at work.

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Over at at TOPDOG04.COM, the blogger known simply as "Mike" (who, like many others, wants to know "why this catastrophic failure has not been a campaign issue") carefully lays out the relevant facts in a well-documented Tora Bora-Iraq timeline, and, in the process, raises perhaps the most critical question of Election 2004: Why, just months after al-Qaeda's brutal attacks on New York and Washington, did President Bush decide to trade the most dangerous terrorist in the world for a quagmire?

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NOTE: Comments are currently disabled. Look for them to return when we do.

UPDATE (Sept. 21 - 11:09 AM): We're back, and so are comments. Normal blogging should resume shortly.

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MORE: Digby argues in favor of the Rovian dirty trick hypothesis.

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Oliver Willis has the details.

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[S]pending time on the trail with Bush is like being transported to a parallel universe. The only music is Christian rock and country tunes about plain-talking everymen. The only people who ask the president questions are his most feverish supporters, never the press. In this alternate universe, Iraq and Afghanistan are marching effortlessly toward democracy. The economy is, in the words of former Broncos quarterback John Elway, who introduces Bush in Greenwood Village, "the best in the world." John Kerry, whose platform is to the right of Clinton's in 1992, is calling for a massive expansion of government. Meanwhile, Bush's two most radical ideas, the ones that House Republicans privately insist will top the agenda in Washington next year if Bush wins--a shift toward privatizing Social Security that will cost at least a trillion dollars and a move toward a flat tax--are mentioned only in passing, buried in a laundry list of minor proposals.

I'm not sure which is more worrisome, really -- the fact that Ken Kesey appears to be driving the Bush campaign bus, or the unmistakable sense one sometimes gets that the president and his merry prankster cabinet have been tossing back the Kool Aid. Either way, though, one thing is clear: If you like the results that this unwillingness or inability to face reality has produced on Iraq and terrorism and jobs and education and healthcare and the environment and more, you need to cast your vote for the guy sitting up there at the front of the bus with a glass in his hand.

Otherwise, these two gentlemen would sincerely appreciate a moment of your time to discuss a few matters of national importance.

NOTE: Obviously, the "glass in his hand" above is simply a bloggerly attempt to close the circle on the Acid Test reference, and not a cheap shot about the president's reported problems in another life. I haven't gotten into that kind of stuff in the past, and have no intention of doing so now or in the future. Which isn't to say that the issue is or should be off limits for any other blogger, commentator, or voter; as with Bill Clinton's somewhat tangled personal history, it's a question that each person has to weigh for him or herself.

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After a long swoon marked by snoozy stumping, staff feuds, and the inevitable campaign shakeup, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is trying to claw his way back into the...presidential race.

....Kerry has to do something he has failed at thus far: provide a compelling rationale for his candidacy. Indeed, he has trouble coming across as a passionate pol who fights for Middle America. With his attenuated frame, sparkling starched shirts, and aristocratic mien, he looks every inch the Beacon Hill Brahmin. The "real deal"? That's the nickname of former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield, who was a great fighter in his almost 20-year career but never managed to electrify the crowd.

God, talk about a nightmare. Of course, I have to tell you, I'd probably be even more concerned if the article didn't also include this:

With the Jan. 27 New Hampshire primary looming and Dean holding a commanding lead in the state, the pressure on Kerry to break out is immense. But even on his home turf, there are troubles. In a Nov. 19-21 poll by RKM Research & Communications, he trailed Dean by 9 points in Massachusetts. What's the problem? Kerry's detached sang-froid seems to pale in the face of Dean's fiery populist orations. "Dean is having a virtual coronation in New Hampshire," says a Democratic strategist. "If you're second, you have to take the guy down. Kerry isn't making Dean play defense."

'Nuff said?

POSTSCRIPT: Please, folks, can we just relax already? Digby's right. And so's Teixeira. This race is a long, long way from being over, and anybody who tells you otherwise is either panicking without reason or spinning for the president. Or trying to make their bones at a place like BusinessWeek.

UPDATE: Almost forgot. Digby link via Atrios.

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You don't have to turn on the TV to see campaign ads these days. You can watch Congress.

The Republican-controlled House and Senate have begun taking up bills, not with any expectation they will become law, but with the intention of stoking the presidential campaign and energizing the party's political base.

...."If you can't make a law, you make a point," said John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of government at Claremont-McKenna College.

Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky added: "There's no doubt that Congress is trying to use votes on hot-button topics for political gain before the November election. There is perceived political gain in just having a vote."

Your Congress at work. Really makes you proud, doesn't it?

POSTSCRIPT: Had enough of this garbage? Then help put a stop to it -- here and here.

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-- Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN), on Iraq

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UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias (correctly) notes that "nothing of importance, not even anything of importance about Bush's Guard service, hinges on the authenticity of the memos."

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The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.

A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.

....The White House has declined to provide a full and detailed accounting of the cost of the new agenda. The administration last week provided a partial listing of the previously unannounced proposals, including "opportunity zones," that totaled $74 billion in spending over the next 10 years. But there was no mention of the cost of additional tax cuts and the creation of Social Security private accounts. Discussing his agenda during an "Ask the President" campaign forum in Portsmouth, Ohio, Bush said Friday that he has "explained how we're going to pay for it, and my opponent can't explain it because he doesn't want to tell you he's going to have to tax you."

You know, I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I've been so thoroughly worn down by this administration's persistent and systematic dissembling over the last four years that I just can't seem to rouse myself enough to add the outrage-fueled close that this post so obviously cries out for. So I guess I'll just give you the link and move on.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan notes that three trillion dollars "doesn't even sound any better when Dr. Evil says it."

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The outgoing U.S. Marine Corps general in charge of western Iraq said Sunday he opposed a Marine assault on militants in the volatile city of Fallujah in April and the subsequent decision to withdraw from the city and turn over control to a security force of former Iraqi soldiers.

That security force, known as the Fallujah Brigade, was formally disbanded last week. Not only did the brigade fail to combat militants, it actively aided them, surrendering weapons, vehicles and radios to the insurgents, according to senior Marine officers. Some brigade members even participated in attacks on Marines ringing the city, the officers said.

The comments by Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, made shortly after he relinquished command of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force on Sunday, amounted to a stinging broadside against top U.S. military and civilian leaders who ordered the Fallujah invasion and withdrawal.

....With no security forces in Fallujah now -- U.S. troops do not patrol inside the city limits -- the area has become a haven for insurgents, Marine officers said. Among the foreign-born fighters believed to be holed up in Fallujah is Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who is alleged to have organized car bombings, kidnappings and other attacks targeting Americans and Iraqis.

What a mess. And yet, somehow, we appear to be holding an election in which the central truth of our national life today -- the fact that we may actually be losing the war in Iraq -- is just off the table.

It's remarkable. Insane, really. But, you know, as long as it's other people's kids who are being asked to give the last full measure of their devotion to this dubious adventure, I guess it's okay for the rest of us to continue to pretend that Election 2004 is really about Botox and swift boats and typewriter fonts and panic!

After all, we glib, plugged-in types are paying for this campaign extravaganza. And we expect a little goddamned entertainment -- even as we quietly look down our noses at all the regular Americans who can't seem to make sense of a brie-and-circuses political process that blithely refuses to address the very real possibility that, once again, one of them is going be the last man asked to die for a mistake.

UPDATE: Sen. Joe Biden points out that our problems in Iraq have actually gotten worse since the transfer of power in June.

MORE: Bloody Sunday.

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--President George W. Bush, December 11, 2001

President Bush's Radio Address

Sen. Kerry's Radio Address

Senator John Edwards, on a "day of remembrance and mourning"

President Marks 9/11 With Quiet Observances

Families Mark Third Anniversary of 9/11

NYT Archive: Remembering 9/11

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Truth be told, only a fraction of the new site is ready, and I've done my best to wall you off from all the unfinished parts. (If I've failed at that task -- a real possibility, I'm afraid -- and you suddenly find yourself wondering around in an obvious construction area, just click on the fellow in the upper left hand corner to get back to the main blog site.) Look for the new sections and features to start coming online in the next week or so.

Which leaves us with only one more thing to discuss before I get back to regular blogging, and that's the tricky subject of site registration. For the record, I don't like it, and I presume you don't either. On the other hand, the comment spam has gotten completely out of hand in recent weeks, and something had to be done. So, for now, at least, I'm going to ask people to register if they wish to have their say. (If you'd rather just send an e-mail, that's fine, too; simply include the word "comment" in the subject line -- as in, "Comment: New website, same liberal horse#$%&!" -- and I'll assume it's for publication.)

Well, I guess that's about it for now. Welcome again to the new site. I hope you like it.

POSTSCRIPT: If you're looking for the old site archives, please read the announcement on your left.

UPDATE: I meant to mention the site's new publishing engine, Xaraya, in the post above. If you're looking for a CMS that's flexible, extensible, and just plain smart as hell, do yourself a favor and check out Xaraya today.