Kojo and Oil-For-Food

In tomorrow's UK Times, there is an article on  Kojo Annan and his involvement with the Oil-for-Food scandal:

The son of the United Nations secretary-general has admitted he was involved in negotiations to sell millions of barrels of Iraqi oil under the auspices of Saddam Hussein.

Kojo Annan has told a close friend he became involved in negotiations to sell 2m barrels of Iraqi oil to a Moroccan company in 2001. He is understood to be co-operating with UN investigators probing the discredited oil for food programme.

Should make things a bit more interesting.

Polls open in Iraq

Polls opened in Iraq about an hour ago.  Jeff Jarvis has a round-up of Iraqi bloggers.  Little Green Footballs has a open comment thread for discussion and breaking news.  It seems FOX, CNN and MSNBC will have coverage throughout the night.  Also check out my site, the Roth Report for news as well.

UPDATE: Roger L. Simon is LIVE BLOGGING the election.  (Hat tip to my brother, Ryan). 

Bush interview on C-SPAN

C-SPAN has posted the transcript and video of Brian Lamb's interview with President Bush.  It will air tomorrow night at 8 pm EST.

At least something caught fire . . .

Here is a tasty bit off of the Daily Kos.

Former V.P. Al Gore is
apparently thinking hard about
making a comeback in '08.
Jan 28, 2005
Despite frigid temperatures in Washington on
Thursday, the Mayflower Hotel in there was
hot. Literally. Just hours before John Kerry
ended his post-election hibernation and came
out swinging on health care, the hotel's lobby
filled with smoke; apparently a planter in the
lobby had caught fire.

http://www.electgore2008.com

Diaries :: ElectGore2008's diary ::

OOOOkay.  Check out the Electgore 2008 Website.  It looks more like a groopy site than a political site.  Must be gratifying to the Gollum from Tennessee.  At any rate I find it hard to believe that a dense cloud of smoke would still be visible so soon after a Kerry speech. 

But I have another explanation to offer.  Maybe John and Al were up in the Loser's Suite reminiscing about the 60's and not inhaling.  After starring at the paisley pattern on their hotel chairs for maybe an hour one of them turned to the other and said "Dude!  Lets go talk to the Press!"  They opened the door to their room and the hall smoke detectors, which, unlike the ones in their room, didn't have plastic hair nets rubber banned on them, all went off.  That's my version of the story and I'm sticking to it.
   

More Palestian Infighting

Powerline links to a story about Hamas and Fatah fighting it out, literally.  See my comments below on this rivalry.

Democratic Strategy

Fred Barnes:

Democrats misunderstand their situation. Their view is that Republicans have been mean and bruising while they’ve been too nice and forgiving. That’s right. They think former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who was plainly obsessed with obstructing Bush at every turn, was too kindly. The lesson of the 2004 election for Democrats, then, is that they need to play rough. The real lesson, of course, is that blatant obstructionism is a failed strategy. It’s what caused Daschle to lose his seat.

Howard Dean will probably turned things around for the Democrats, however.

Fat Teddy

Yesterday's (yes, I just got to it today) Best of the Web from the WSJ contains a vicious, by which I don't mean undeserved, attack on Ted Kennedy.  I suggest readers pick up a copy of the late Michael Kelly's Things Worth Fighting For and read the essay on Sen. Kennedy.  It will be hard not to have contempt for him after completing that essay.  Here's what Best of the Web had to say:

A Degenerate Dynasty
Ted Kennedy's latest rant got us to thinking about the contrast between the two greatest American political dynasties of the past half century, the Bushes and the Kennedys. Look at the two most prominent members of each dynasty, and in both cases you will see a study in contrasts.

The first President Bush was a decent man but decidedly not a visionary. His most famous rhetorical moments are anodyne tributes to American goodness ("a kinder, gentler nation," "a thousand points of light"), a blustery promise destined to be broken ("Read my lips"), and a promise that was kept, but only just ("This will not stand," referring to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Indeed it didn't, but Saddam kept standing for more than a decade).

George W. Bush, on the other hand, was called by history to do bold things, and answered with possibly more boldness than history had expected--more, certainly, than some of his supporters are comfortable with.

Now look at the Kennedys. John F. Kennedy's presidency is hard to evaluate because it was so brief, but he is best known for the soaring rhetoric of his 1961 Inaugural Address:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge--and more.

Kennedy's brother Ted, whose 15,423 days of service make him the second most senior U.S. senator, is best known for driving off a bridge and leaving a young woman to drown. His attitude toward America's role in the world is the opposite of his brother's; it's best summed up as an inversion of FDR: We have nothing to offer but fear itself.

Here he is yesterday at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies:

The war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation. . . . The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. . . . The first step is to confront our own mistakes. . . . No matter how many times the Administration denies it, there is no question they misled the nation and led us into a quagmire in Iraq. . . . As in Vietnam, truth was the first casualty of this war. . . . As a result of our actions in Iraq, our respect and credibility around the world have reached all-time lows. . . . Never in our history has there been a more powerful, more painful example of the saying that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. . . . The nations in the Middle East are independent, except for Iraq, which began the 20th century under Ottoman occupation and is now beginning the 21st century under American occupation.

And on and on and on. That last sentence we quoted is really something when you realize that the 21st century began more than four years ago, when Iraq was under Baathist occupation.

And the idea that "the nations in the Middle East are independent" really sums up the EMK worldview. Terror-sponsoring tyrannies are just peachy, suggests brother Ted, so long as America does not have to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe.

Such harangues are to be expected from the malignantly magniloquent Massachusettsan, but why now? "It's remarkable that Sen. Kennedy would deliver such an overtly pessimistic message only days before the Iraqi election," said Republican spokesman Brian Jones in a statement. "Kennedy's partisan political attack stands in stark contrast to President Bush's vision of spreading freedom around the world."

But that's exactly the point. A successful election in Iraq will be a triumph for the Bush doctrine and the strongest rebuke yet to those Democrats who learned from Vietnam that America is a force for ill in the world. Ted Kennedy is, as The Wall Street Journal puts it today, "cheerleading for America to fail" because his ideology leaves him unfit to cope with American success. If he has his way, democracy in Iraq will suffer the same fate as Mary Jo Kopechne.

One last tax post

How many states have bills with this title: An Act to exempt swine and cattle semen from sales and use tax.

More Cigarettes

It just keeps coming.  The South Dakota Legislature also wants to raise the cigarette tax by a dollar a pack.  The bill is here. 

My thoughts concerning whether smoking is a public or private vice are aired below, so I won't rehash. Suffice it to say I think smoking is largely a private vice which requires minimal government regulation. Be that as it may, there are other objections to this bill. First, if this bill is intended to discourage folks from smoking, why not tax cigarettes at $100 a pack? I guarantee you no one in SoDak will smoke then. But I suspect this is not the intention of the bill. A tax of $100 would stop everyone from smoking, which means the tax would generate zero revenue, and that's not what the government wants. They want most people to not smoke, but they need some people to smoke so they can raise revenue from an unpopular minority (smokers) instead of from a popular majority (property owners, for example). Which leads to another objection. Cigarette taxes, like all sales taxes, are regressive. The poor pay a higher percentage of their income on the tax than do the rich. This is especially true with cigarette taxes because low income people make up a disproportionate percentage of smokers. Cigarette taxes, like lotteries, are simply clever ways to tax those who are least able to pay.

Be that as it may, if we are going to have this tax, why is most of the money going to property tax relief? The tax will raise an extra $45 million, according to Rep. Frost at the cracker-barrel this morning. Five million dollars goes to smoking cessation programs, while the other $40 million goes to property tax relief. Many this morning were upset about the reduced rate of increase (what some speciously call a cut) of state education spending this year. It was suggested by our representatives to come up with some ideas as to where the revenue for education might be found. Well, how about $5 million for smoking cessation, $30 million in property tax relief, and $10 million for education? We have to find someway to pay Prof. Blanchard's bloated salary.

Taxing political speech

I was interested to hear at our local cracker-barrel session with local legislators today that there is a proposal in the South Dakota legislature to tax political advertising. Interested parties may read the bill here. 

This bill strikes me as ill conceived. Professor Lauck might be able to speak to this, but there are certainly First Amendment issues raised by this proposal. It has often been said that the power to tax is the power to destroy, which is one reason why we exempt religious institutions from most taxation. The idea that one would have to pay the government to engage in political speech strikes me as odd, to say the least. This will also have the unintended (I assume) consequence of driving up the cost of campaigns. It is expensive enough to run a campaign, and political candidates spend enough time raising funds, I don't think we need any extra burden.

I suspect this bill is motivated by the constant barrage of advertisement we get here in South Dakota when there is a high profile race, as in our last two Senatorial races. Yes, it becomes annoying to see these ads over and over again. Isn't democracy a pain in the rear end? If only we were like Cuba or North Korea, then we wouldn't have to see political ads at election time.

Huh?

It's still January, but I think I can still safely nominate the Cheney parka story as the dumbest news item of the year.  More nominees to follow, no doubt. 

Fun on the Internet Superhighway

Google Fighting.  Found this at NRO. Jon Lauck kicks my butt. 

"Meal from Hell"

Well...what did you expect when you put high ranking officials from the United States and Iran in a room together for dinner at Davos? Reuters reports on the "Meal from Hell".  Here are some tidbits, (but read the whole thing):

Call it the meal from hell.

A World Economic Forum dinner designed to promote dialogue between Iran and the United States on Friday night began with a comic strip series of diplomatic and gastronomic blunders, and ended with a sharp exchange over nuclear weapons.

The star guest, U.S. Senator Joe Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, was missing. The organizers kept saying he was on his way [he went to the wrong hotel, the article later notes].

Moderator David Ignatius, a Washington Post columnist, apologized for the fact that wine had been served, upsetting the Muslim guests. Waiters cleared the offending glasses.

They also removed the menus since the hotel had planned to serve non-hallal meat, breaching Islamic dietary rules. Even the soup spoons were withdrawn -- erroneously, it transpired.

The questioning quickly focused on Iran's disputed nuclear program and the risk of a U.S. or Israeli military strike on its atomic facilities.

Kharrazi swore anew the program was purely for peaceful, civilian purposes, contrary to U.S. and Israeli charges that it is a front for a secret drive to build nuclear weapons. 

Perhaps feeling the atmosphere was becoming too heated, hotel staff opened the windows, sending a blast of icy alpine air (outdoor temperature -15 C) through the room.

[Senator Joseph] Biden finally arrived an hour and 20 minutes late, having gone to the wrong hotel. His wife's figure-hugging leather pants and a top that left her arms bare from the shoulders [hmm...I can't find any pictures on the AP wire] were in stark contrast to Vice-President Masoumeh Ebtekar's all-enveloping chador, although both wore black.  [Flashback to the "outrage" over Vice President's clothing choice at Auschwitz...but my friend Matt at Blogs for Bush explains and offers his opinion].

Biden, who had a long private meeting with Kharrazi at Davos last year, said Washington should join three major European nations in trying to negotiate a deal under which Iran would end nuclear enrichment in return for security and economic benefits.

He cast doubt on Kharrazi's assurances, saying he could understand why there could be consensus in Iran on the need for nuclear arms because it lived in a dangerous neighborhood.

Both Iran and the U.S. administration must "grow up" and talk to each other to get off "the course of unintended consequences," Biden said.

WOW...what I wouldn't have given to be a fly on the wall in that room....

Drought

This is one of the most interesting Argus Leader pieces I've read in a long time.  The science involved is based on samples from Devil's Lake, North Dakota (a great ice fishing lake).  Excerpt:

If the past 2,000 years are any guide, the Upper Midwest is due for the worst drought since European settlement, worse than the "dirty '30s" or any other in modern memory, a new study says.

The study of microscopic creatures at the bottom of Devils Lake in North Dakota shows a reliable wet-dry cycle of about 95 years that goes back 1,000 years. That puts North Dakota, and probably an area from South Dakota to Kansas, on schedule for a crippling water shortage in the next few decades, say researchers from the Energy and Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D.

***
The scientists were able to reconstruct history using microscopic lake creatures called diatoms, whose bodies are made mostly of silica. When they die, they settle to the bottom and remain in the sediment indefinitely.

Different species of diatoms prefer different water conditions, so researchers can discover how those conditions changed by looking at what kinds of diatoms are in the different sediment layers. In this case, they reconstructed the salinity of Devils Lake, which closely reflects how wet or dry the region was, Solc said.

For the past 1,000 years, they found an average of 95 years between droughts and wet periods. That diatom history agrees with other studies and even the oral history of the Crow Indian Tribe.

***
The implications for the future are dire. Cities, power plants and farms could run out of water stored in underground aquifers, stunting the economy.

The Limits of Free Speech in Sweden

Americans take freedom of speech for granted, and imagine that it is a bedrock principle of a free society.  Most of us probably don't realize how rare this is, even among the liberal democracies.  Consider this from Sweden:

One Sunday in the summer of 2003, the Rev. Ake Green, a Pentecostal pastor, stepped into the pulpit of his small church in the southern Swedish village of Borgholm. There, the 63-year-old clergyman delivered a sermon denouncing homosexuality as "a deep cancerous tumor in the entire society" and condemning Sweden's plan to allow gays to form legally recognized partnerships.

"Our country is facing a disaster of great proportions," he told the 75 parishioners at the service. "Sexually twisted people will rape animals," Green declared, and homosexuals "open the door to forbidden areas," such as pedophilia.

With these words, which the local newspaper published at his request, Green ran afoul of Sweden's strict laws against hate speech. He was indicted, convicted and sentenced to 30 days in jail. He remains free pending appeal.

I do not think much of Pastor Green's sermon, so far as it is here quoted.  Whatever homosexuality is, it isn't a cancer.  And I would agree with those who argue that such words may well encourage individual acts of violence against homosexuals, or even collective acts if he should gain a sufficiently large constituency. 

But dragging a preacher out of the pulpit (metaphorically speaking)  for something he said there is a violation of sanctuary in the most basic sense, and such an act has been regarded as both religiously and political impious since the time of the ancient Greeks.  If he cannot announce the principles of his faith as he understands them from that location, there is neither freedom of speech nor freedom of religion.

The American distinction between speech and action has proved to be a pretty secure bulwark against invasions of liberty, and it is a wonder that the Swedes could not come up with something like it.  But perhaps they know better than I how much danger the regimes of Europe face from their most illiberal elements.  In the U.S. freedom of speech has always rested on a faith that the voice of pernicious faction will be always be contained by the multiplicity of interests and faiths that constitutes the regime.  Maybe we are naive.  Or maybe Europe is just a more dangerous place than is commonly recognized.

Wireless and the US Military

Being the computer geek I am, this story from the AP was pretty interesting. 

Researchers work on wireless system key to future U.S. military, an excerpt:

In a drab office complex under tight security, computer engineers are devising an ambitious wireless communications network to link soldiers on the battlefield to each other and a host of remote-controlled killing and surveillance machines.

The system represents the backbone of the U.S. military's vision of warfare in the not-so-distant future. But making it a reality is no small task for the small army of private contractors led by Boeing Co. charged with making it work.

The Army has earmarked more than $14 billion for the Future Combat Systems project and is expected to add another $6 billion this year. Delivery of some of the technology is expected as early as 2008, with the goal of equipping a 3,000-soldier unit by 2014.

For more than a year, engineers here have been piecing together 18 separate types of combat systems in the network and writing software that will one day compile a universe of data drawn from the battlefield by soldiers, satellites and unmanned ground vehicles to give U.S. forces an unparalleled advantage.

In practical terms, that translates to moving data at high speeds among several thousand soldiers and hundreds of tanks, transport and support vehicles anywhere in the world.

Dean

I can't believe he might win the DNC Chair, bit it looks possible.  A theory:  Ickes endorsed Dean to eliminate a major Hillary rival in 2008.

The Vote

It's hard to believe the vote will be this soon.  About 24 hours.  Also, is it just me, or is the normally sober and unflappable Professor Reynolds completely unloading on the left in this post.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The Academic Left

From the Wall Street Journal:

There They Go Again
Hamilton College welcomes a cheerleader for the 9/11 attackers.

Friday, January 28, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

It's déjà vu all over again. Less than two months after Hamilton College tried to hire a former Weather Underground activist who was indicted in the 1981 Brinks murders, the Clinton, N.Y., liberal-arts college plans to showcase a cheerleader for the 9/11 attacks. Just the sort of thing parents pay nearly $40,000 a year in tuition and board to have their children hear.

At issue now is a panel set for Feb. 3 on "Limits of Dissent?" to be hosted by the college's Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender, Society and Culture. Among the invited panelists is Indian activist Ward Churchill, who teaches ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While Mr. Churchill has caused controversy in the past--founders of the American Indian Movement denounced him as a "white" and a "fraud"--his screeds usually attract little notice outside obscure Marxist Web sites and the like.

On Sept. 12, 2001, however, Mr. Churchill performed an act of extraordinary crepitation, even for him. In "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," he saluted the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" that struck the Pentagon and World Trade Center, asserting that the people who worked there ("braying . . . into their cell phones") and died that day deserved what they got.

Hold on Boys and Girls

Drudge links to a story saying Harold Ickes (a Shakespearean name if ever there was one) has endorsed Howard Dean for DNC chair.  The Democratic Party seems to be hitting the accelerator as it heads for the cliff.

Meanwhile, back at the looney bin, Barbara Boxer, Powerline reports, thinks the answer to her party's woes is to fight harder against minority cabinet nominees. And it seems  for Senator Goofey, like Jesse Jackson, it is always 1965 and all of Ohio is Selma (ironic, given her opposition to placing capable minorities in cabinet possitions).  The Senator rants:

 As you and I both know, this is just one more of the many battles we'll be having as we fight for our nation's future. It started with contesting the Ohio vote, it continued with the debate over Dr. Rice's confirmation, and it will certainly continue over the Gonzalez nomination and on many other looming issues. We're going to need to keep working together to make our voices heard and build a better America.

 

San Francisco Proposes Handgun Ban

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is proposing a comprehensive ban on all handguns within the city limits.  "The proposal would bar residents from keeping handguns in their homes or businesses and prohibit the sale, manufacture and distribution of any firearms or ammunition in San Francisco." 

If approved by a majority of the city's voters in November, the law would take effect in January 2006. Residents, who have bought nearly 22,000 handguns since 1996,would have 90 days to relinquish their weapons. The ban would make an exception for police officers, security guards, military personnel and others who require guns for their job.

The National Gun Lobby has promised an immediate challenge to the ban if it passes next November.  While the debate over the whether or not San Francisco can constitutionally ban handguns is an interesting topic, perhaps more interesting are the murder statistics of another area that has implemented a similar ban.  Washington banned handguns in 1976.  They saw an immediate drop in the number of murders.  However, recently the murder rate has skyrocketed. 

Last year, the district had 248 homicides, or 20.7 per month -- a rate of 44 homicides per 100,000 residents. By comparison, San Francisco, has a rate of 9.2.

It makes you wonder whether Washington's criminals turned over their handguns. 

CNN

From the mailbag:

Did you know you were just mentioned by name on CNN's "Inside Politics"?  They were doing a story on blogs.

Um, no, I didn't know that.

Hinderaker's Take on the Al Franken Interview

As Prof. Blanchard mentioned yesterday, John Hinderacker from Powerline was a guest on the Al Franken show earlier today.  I was in class so I missed the interview, but Hinderaker has posted his take on how it went.  It sounds like it really wasn't much of an interview at all. 

Who Is Running Against Harry Reid

This Opinion Journal editorial makes me think some enterprising Nevadan needs to start a HarryReidvFillInTheBlank website. 

Shocked! Shocked! To Find Gambling Going On In This Establishment!!

Evidently Hamas is a big winner in elections in Gaza. According to the Jerusalem Post, this has more to do with corruption in Arafat's Fatah Party than an endorsement of Hamas' terrorism.  Corruption?  In Fatah?  Arafat was a Nobel Prize winner, was he not?  The always perceptive Jimmy Carter thought he was a man of great vision.  Corrupt?  I don't believe it. 

Who is this crazy right-winger?

"President Bush's inauguration speech last week marks a consistent evolution of U.S. policy. He spoke of America's mission to bring freedom in place of tyranny to the world. Leave aside for a moment the odd insistence by some commentators that such a plea is evidence of the "neoconservative" grip on Washington — I thought progressives were all in favor of freedom rather than tyranny. [Go ahead — read that line again. You know you want to.] The underlying features of the speech seem to me to be these: America accepts that terrorism cannot be defeated by military might alone. The more people live under democracy, with human liberty intact, the less inclined they or their states will be to indulge terrorism or to engage in it. This may be open to debate — though personally I agree with it — but it emphatically puts defeating the causes of terrorism alongside defeating the terrorists.

Secondly, by its very nature, such a mission cannot be accomplished alone. It is the very antithesis of isolationism; the very essence of international engagement. It requires long-term cooperation.

And it is based on enlightened self-interest. Freedom is good in itself. But it is also the best ultimate guarantee that human beings will live in sympathy with each other. The hard head has led to the warm heart.

None of this means the hard head won't still be applied. America, as is perhaps inevitable being the world's only superpower, who in the end is expected not just to talk about the world's problems but to solve them, approaches all issues with a propensity to question what others assume, treat the pressure groups with resistance, and ask others to share responsibility, as well as demand it of America.

But no one could say the inauguration speech was lacking in idealism."

This is Tony Blair, in Davos Switzerland.  Hat tip, Jay Nordlinger.

Blanchard on Public Radio

I will be on South Dakota Forum (Noon to One O'clock) on Wednesday, Feb. 2nd.  The topic of discussion will be the President's State of the Union Speech and his second term.  You can hear it live online.  Find the link at: South Dakota Public Broadcasting. 

What a load of...

Compliments of a Ryne link, here's a good look at one of the by-products of cattle culture on the Plains:

Definition of Marriage Bill

It looks like South Dakota voters will determine in 2006 whether to amend the state constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman.  Via KELO

Unless something unexpected happens, South Dakotans will be voting in 2006 on a proposed constitutional amendment that would define marriage.

An existing state law already does that, but Representative Elizabeth Kraus of Rapid City thinks the definition should be in the state constitution. She's offered a joint legislative resolution that will put the issue on the 2006 statewide ballot.

The measure has 55 House sponsors and 23 Senate sponsors, virtually guaranteeing that it will clear South Dakota's 105-member Legislature.

Joint resolutions passed by lawmakers go on the ballot automatically and do not have to go to the governor for his approval.

Kraus says her measure is an important means of protecting the sanctity of marriage.

Iraq

From The Times of London:

FOR decades, voting in Iraq meant taking part in a national exercise of state-enforced adulation, as 99 per cent of the electorate would dutifully turn out to tick the box beside the name Saddam Hussein.

Yesterday the contrast could not have been starker, as the campaign for Sunday’s elections picked up pace and voters were presented with a dizzying selection of dozens of candidates and parties.

Notwithstanding insurgent terror aimed at wrecking the polls, there is finally a palpable sense in Baghdad, and other Iraqi cities, that the country is entering a new era.

***

While voters may be confused by the experiment in democracy, they cannot complain about a lack of choice. There is a Communist Party, with the message of a “free country and a happy people”, a monarchist movement pledging the restoration of the Hashemite dynasty, and even a party under the banner of Abdul Karim al-Qassim, the former brigadier-general who seized power in a military coup.

***

Political pundits agree that three of the coalition lists will dominate Sunday’s polls. The United Iraqi Alliance, a loose collection of more than 100 parties supported by Ayatollah al-Sistani, is expected to win as much as 40 per cent of the vote, drawing on the support of the majority Shia population in central and southern Iraq and Sadr City, in Baghdad. Not only do Shias believe that they will finally win power after centuries as second-class citizens, they have also been told that voting is a religious duty.

In spite of the strong religious backing, the party has been at pains to emphasise that it supports secular politics and rejects any notion of an Iranian-style theocracy. To make the point that it is not bound to Islamic doctrine, it put up posters of a beautiful girl with long, flowing black hair that looked more like an advertisement for shampoo.

If you want to follow events on the ground in Iraq during the election, go here.

Harsh Judgments on Hersh

Max Boot, whose column is one of the few reasons to check out the LA Times, writes scathingly and convincingly on Seymour Hersh, whose writings could give yellow journalism a bad name. 

Hersh . . .  is the journalistic equivalent of Oliver Stone: a hard-left zealot who subscribes to the old counterculture conceit that a deep, dark conspiracy is running the U.S. government. In the 1960s the bogeyman was the "military- industrial complex." Now it's the "neoconservatives." "They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military!" Hersh ranted at UC Berkeley on Oct. 8, 2004.

Hersh has a track record of conspiracy theories based on unnamed sources and unfounded speculations.  I remember him first from a piece that Boot describes here:

In 1986 he published a book suggesting that the Soviets shot down a South Korean airliner because they mistook it for a U.S. spy plane — a claim debunked by the opening of Soviet archives.

That was vintage yellow left journalism.  The Soviet shoot down an airliner full of innocent people and who is to fault?  The Reagan administration of course. 

But it is not Hersh's irresponsible imagination that is most appalling.  Its his stupidity. 

Hersh has also compared what happened at Abu Ghraib with Nazi Germany. (Were American MPs gassing inmates?)

If you compare the Abu Ghraib scandal with reasonable standards of interrogation it looks pretty bad, not only because the treatment of prisoners was so nasty but because it was, as far as anyone can tell, useless.  But when you compare it with Auschwitz, the Americans come off as angels.  Can you imagine any inmate of a death camp who would not regard it as divine deliverance were he to be transported to Abu Ghraib? 

Hersh's pieces are indeed an indictment of such journals as the New Yorker, who might as well be printing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for all the journalist integrity that Hersh's writing brings. 

Hobbes

Andrew Sullivan has rounded up some commentary on the situation in Iraq, which some see as a Hobbesian nightmare.  Tonight, Mort Kondracke was on television talking about how terrorists in Iraq are handing out flyers saying 'if you try to vote your blood will run in the streets.'  NBC News also ran a story tonight about how terrorists have targeted schools where voting will take place for bombings.  Even before the voting begins they're blowing them up.  First, pray for our troops who trying to make a democratic election possible.  Second, give thanks you live in a place where democratic practices and institutions are so entrenched--last fall, nearly 80% of people voted in South Dakota.  Sometimes when we write about "South Dakota Politics," the topic that launched this blog, we forget how much we've assumed.  Third, remember Afghanistan, where 10 million people registered to vote and 8 million went to the polls.  That's 80% too, just like in South Dakota.  And 80% of the registered women in Afghanistan voted.  Fourth, pray that the anti-democratic forces of Hobbesian chaos are defeated on Sunday and that the Iraqis get the same chance as the Afghans.

Mailbag

From a reader:

Did you see that the Argus gave Thune's election as a new whip in the Senate two sentences on a sidebar in section B?

No, I didn't notice that.  But now I can see how I missed it.  Today, the top story in the newspaper is about how the state might by a new airplane.  Priorities...

The Star-Trib Front

Editor & Publisher:

If you don't believe that bloggers are giving newspapers a headache, talk to Nick Coleman. A veteran newspaper columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Coleman is in the middle of an old-fashioned feud with one of the leading conservative Web logs in the country.

So far, his battle with Powerlineblog.com — Time magazine's "blog of the year" — has sparked an anger-spewing column by Coleman, an ombudsman's clarification, and a threat by a leading bank to pull advertising from the newspaper.

Moreover, it has confirmed the growing ability of blogs to get under the skin of the mainstream media. "This is just the beginning," an exasperated Coleman warns. "People need to pay attention to [bloggers]. To watch out."

Read the whole thing.  Yes, newspaper columnists no longer have the power to abuse their perches at will. 

Hindrocket Live on the Al Franken Show

Tommorow at 12:45 Jonathan Hinderaker, one of the Olympians at Powerline, is going live on the Al Franken's radio show.  You know, the one that is supposed to make up for Rush Limbaugh.  I gather you can hear it live on a link from the show's blog.  Hinderaker will go on just after Nick Coleman, the gopherhead who attack Powerline recently in the Star Tribune.  Coleman displays all the intellectual firepower of a stunted fern.  Should be fun all around.

MI5 and the Coming British Police State

For anyone who doesn't know, A&E has been running the British spy show MI5.  The first two seasons were quite good, and the third season is running now.  A recent episode focused on an attempt by a government minister to take control of MI5 and use it to arrest his political enemies.  I expect that the plot was inspired by recent proposals to give the British Government new powers with which to combat terrorism.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has announced that he will introduce house arrest without trial for British citizens as well as resident aliens suspected of involvement in terrorism.  The British Press has reacted with predictable alarm, and its hard to blame them.  Says Simon Jenkins in The Times:

It is because some ministers can degenerate to this craven state that most countries have proper constitutions. They have supreme courts, plebiscites, senates, checks and balances. Britain has none of these. It has only Parliament. Yet hands up those who think a majority of MPs will boldly cry “Liberty” and walk through the division lobby to stop Mr Clarke’s monstrous arrogation of power. Not a hope.

Still, it is one thing to complain about the measures that government is taking to deal with the terrorist threat.  Its another to offer alternatives.  One has to recognize that most folk aren't yet scared.  In spite of all the nonsense about how 9/11 changed us forever, very few Americans felt any personal fear or suffered any hardships as a consequence of the disaster.  The same, I would wager, is true of the people of Spain.  Modern societies are large enough and rich enough to absorb terrorist attacks of this scale so that the vast majority of folk never feel the shock.

But one of these days that may change.  A serious biological attack, or an attack against a nation's power grid or communications networks that caused folk every where to fear for their own lives or, what is almost as bad, caused them to loose their jobs, might well create a consensus in favor of trading civil liberties for security.  If you want to save civil liberties, then, you have to make sure that attack never happens.  So far as I can see, few civil libertarians seem willing to spare a thought for this.

It is hard for me to imagine that arbitrary house arrest makes much sense.  If a suspicion of terrorist activity is strong enough to subject someone to incarceration in any form, surely house arrest is not secure enough. 

Alice Thomson in the London Telegraph makes this point:

New Labour is more proscriptive than any Tory government. It concentrates all its energies on stopping smoking in public places, outlawing hunting, even banning large teddy bears from amusement arcades. These are all unnecessary but trivial. House arrest of British citizens without trial is serious and unacceptable.

Maybe the foxes should be subject to house arrest?

Hilliary Clinton Has a Colleciton of AK47's?

Ok, so its a joke.  The tip off is the article date.  But its a good joke.  See the London Times.

Saddam could vote...but...

Headline of the Day:

Saddam could vote in Iraqi elections but won't for technical reasons: report

[via Speed of Thought]

Email from Condi Rice

Instapundit noted this post from Citizen Smash about a email Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice sent out this morning:

Colleagues, today is the first of many days ahead that we will work together to help our country build a safer, better world. I am honored to lead the State Department at this critical time -- a time of challenge and hope and opportunity. And, like you, I owe a special debt of gratitude to our dear friend Colin Powell, who has served our nation with distinction, and has done so much to strengthen the Department of State.

Read the rest...

North Dakota

Josh Marshall is not happy with North Dakota Democratic Senator Kent Conrad on the Social Security front.

Q it up

Please welcome Quention Riggins, i.e. "Q", back to the blogosphere!  He's another great American from the West River country of South Dakota.  He blogged away during 2004 and was reliable member of the Dakota Blog Alliance and we welcome him to SDP.  Q is a law student down at University of South Dakota and will be our Vermillion correspondent.  His inaugural post is below.  SDP is assembling a great little group of posters and we're interested in thoughts from readers.  Any format or style or topic suggestions are always welcome. 

This Guy Needs Help

First off, I would like to thank Jon and Jason for inviting me to post on SDP. For those of you who don't know me, I was a member of the DBA posting at Quentin Riggins Blog.  It is a pleasure to work with Jon and Wes who I blogged with up until the election, as well as Professors Blanchard and Schaff who I was fortunate enough to have as professors during my time at Northern State University. 

A professor at the University of Colorado has written an essay which says that the people who were killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11th were not innocent victims.  Among the more controversial claims made by Professor Ward L. Churchill are the following. 

The Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children who were killed in a 1991 bombing raid and for economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War.

Hijackers who crashed jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were "combat teams," not terrorists.

The people killed inside the Pentagon were "military targets.

"As for those in the World Trade Center," the essay said, "well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."

Election Law

Associated Press: 

A move to prohibit per-head payments to workers who register voters or get them to the polls was passed Wednesday by the South Dakota House after a debate that split mostly along party lines.

The measure's main sponsor, Rep. Mike Buckingham, R-Rapid City, said HB1085 would help prevent fraud by preventing political organizations from paying workers based on how many people they get registered or deliver to polling places. Such workers could still be paid salaries or by the hour, he said.

If a driver gets paid $10 for each voter delivered to the polls, questions arise on whether the driver gives a cut of the commission to each voter, Buckingham said. "What I'm trying to accomplish here is a clean election," Buckingham said.

I wonder if he's any relation to Lindsay.

The Left

You may remember this post from last summer about how Lewis Lapham, the editor of Harper's, kept alluding in his new book to a coming fascism in the US.  Insty now points us to this video of interviews with people on the left who also think fascism has arrived.  It's very revealing.  One thing I've often found interesting is that the media will often refer to the "far right loonies" in the nation, but rarely do you see an exploration of the far left in America.  Well, watch the video and take a look.  (Hat tip: Sibby). 

Minnesota Senate Race in 2006

From today's issue of The Hotline:

MINNESOTA: Coming Straight From The Top

      In his 1/27 news conference, Pres. Bush "dismissed" Sen. Mark Dayton's (D) claim that his admin has lied "repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally" about Iraq, saying "there are 99 senators other than that person." In the Senate debate over Sec/State Condoleezza Rice's nomination, Dayton said Rice and other admin officials had a record of "lying to Congress, lying to our committees and lying to the American people." GOPers "were quick to criticize" Dayton for his "wild-eyed rants."
      Dayton spokesperson Chris Lisi said calls and e-mails to Dayton's office "overwhelmingly" supported him, but that they also received "a handful of phone calls" saying he was racist (Webb, St. Paul Pioneer Press, 1/27).
      Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Grow writes that Dayton was speaking about Rice "from his soul," but his words "didn't just fall on deaf ears. They fell on virtually no ears at all." Just 4 other Sens. were on the floor when he spoke 1/25. Dayton: "We have a lot of good speakers here. We don't have many listeners." The one-sided vote to confirm Rice "could be seen as underscoring the commonly held view" that Dayton "is a vulnerable target" for the GOP, but it is "just as possible to see him as a national leader of opposition" to the Bush admin.
      Dayton "doesn't create tingles of excitement," and "it's more powerful to read a Dayton speech than to hear one." But he "has potential leadership strengths," the "greatest" being that he is "one of the few consistent critics" of Bush's foreign policy and "its veracity problems." His criticism "is from the heart," and he "genuinely believes" that he was lied to, noting an '02 meeting with Rice in which he was "repeatedly" told that there was "absolute proof" that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.
      Most people "acknowledge that Dayton has substance and that he never has been afraid to take political risks," but substance "is a hard sell." Gustavus Adolphus College prof. Chris Gilbert: "Everything he does is going to be trapped in a reelection narrative. We're in a period when loyal dissent gets dragged down as partisan politics" (1/27).

The Press

Journalism students at the University of Tennessee are being taught about blogs.  Good idea.  When they become journalists, they won't have a news monopoly like their predecessors did. 

Iowa

Washington Times: "Republicans in the Iowa Senate are advancing a controversial proposal that would exempt residents under age 30 from state income taxes to halt a brain drain."

Daschle to Speak Tonight in New York City

From the Drum Major Institute:

DMI Event: The Progressive Agenda for 2005 with Senator Tom Daschle

Is America better off now than it was a year ago? The Drum Major Institute's 2004 Year in Review provides you with the hard facts to answer that question. Celebrate the release of DMI's 2004 Year in Review report with Senator Tom Daschle, who will offer his vision for a progressive agenda in 2005.

WHEN
January 27, 2005 / 5:30pm

WHERE
Lotus / 409 West 14th Street / New York City

Voting

Both the Dakotas, Montana and Washington became states on the same day in 1889.  Our "sister" state's race for governor keeps getting attention.  Polipundit:

WA Republicans have identified at least 240 felons who voted in the election. In addition, at least 44 people who died, before absentee ballots were mailed, ended up voting anyway.  That puts Democrat Christine Gregoire’s “victory” margin of 129 votes, after three recounts, in a new light. 

To the East, note this from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Citing a Journal Sentinel review that found more than 1,200 votes cast from invalid addresses in Milwaukee, local and federal law enforcement officials launched a joint investigation Wednesday into potential voter fraud in the Nov. 2 election.

Such problems were the target of that vote yesterday in the SD House of Representatives.

The Passion of Michael Moore

Michael Medved has a nice piece in today's WSJ about the relationship (or lack thereof) between Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11 and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.