Media Omissions

Don Surber notes a curious omission from the media regarding the Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi story:

The U.S. announced on Friday that it captured the mastermind behind the 7/7/2005 bombings in London.

But you would not know it by reading the New York Times, the Washington Post or the Associated Press.

None of them mentioned the London bombings in reporting on the capture of the man who organized that attack, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi (aka, Abu Abdallah).

Instead, reporters concentrated on where this major player in the war on terrorism was held after his capture.

Incredible.

Indeed.  Also, John Hinderaker writes:  "So al-Hadi, a former Iraqi soldier who became a top al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan and later supervised that organization's operations in Iraq was caught re-entering that country from Iran: three entities that, we are told, cannot possibly have anything to do with one another."

Meet the New Congress, Same as the Old Congress

See this story entitled "Shift in Congress Brings Little Change, Most Americans Say."  Excerpt:

Six in 10 Americans say restoring Democrats to control of Capitol Hill “hasn’t brought much change.” Amid House Democrats’ opening 100-hour legislative blitz to pass minimum-wage increase and other measures, a 42% plurality said the change in party control had “brought the right kind of change.”

House Democratic leader Rahm Emanuel cautions that his party “can’t be a one-trick pony” by focusing solely on the Iraq war at the expense of health care, education and other domestic issues. The 31% job-approval rating for Congress, unchanged since March, falls below President Bush’s 35% mark.

Some 58% of liberals rate House Speaker Pelosi favorably, compared with 24% of moderates and 14% of conservatives. [edit: italics in original]

Journalism

Brent Bozell:  "Conservatives often ponder why more young conservatives don't go into journalism. Here's one easy reason: The path to prizes and prestige doesn't come from fierce investigative probing into liberal sacred cows or sharp-eyed conservative commentary. It comes from pleasing liberals with stories that advance their agenda. . . .  After all, the panels of judges are stuffed with longstanding figures in the liberal media establishment."

The Folly of Timetables

Prof. Reynolds:

FROM AUSTRALIA: "The US Congress' vote to push for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq was wrong and will bring comfort to Al-Qaeda insurgents, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Friday."

From Iraq: "I am an Iraqi. To me the possible consequences of this vote are terrifying. Just as we began to see signs of progress in my country the Democrats come and say, ‘Well, it’s not worth it.Time to leave’."

UPDATE: A look at the effect of timetables in Basra: "Now that the Brits and Danes have given the people of Basra a drop-dead date for their withdrawal, they have set in motion a fight for power that will only amplify as the withdrawal date approaches. Instead of throwing in with the central government, the flight of the Coalition has convinced Iraqis in that area that they have to find the strongest warlord for protection. We can expect this across the country if the US withdraws precipitately from Iraq. A pullout will embolden the violent and frighten the law-abiding, and the end result will be a completely failed state. Regardless of whether one supported the invasion or not, it is obviously not in the American interest to leave behind a collapsed Iraq where the boldest and most vicious terrorists rise to power in fiefdoms small and large."

Some people don't care, though, if it might give them a leg-up in the next election.

Tim Pawlenty: Conservative Populist

The Weekly Standard profiles Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and finds his "Sam's Club conservatism" attractive.  This article reminds me of why I was first attracted to George W. Bush in 1999.  Bush articulated a "compassionate conservatism" that moved beyond the stale and uninspiring anti-government rhetoric coming from congressional Republicans in the 1990s.  As president Bush has been distracted by foreign policy and has not done much with the "compassionate conservative" agenda, and the incompetence of his administration has long turned me off to Bush as an inspiring leader.  I have grown to doubt whether the pathological government bureaucracy can actually be used to further conservative ends, but it might prove interesting to see Tim Pawlenty try.   

Modern Soul

Don't miss this speech by Archbishop Charles Chaput and Joe Knippenberg's commentary.  A snippet:

The tidal wave of our toys, from iPods to the Internet, is equally effective in getting us to ignore history and ignore our own emptiness. The struggle for real human freedom depends upon the struggle for human history. Unlike the ideologies that deny the importance of the past and the present and focus on the illusions of a perfect future, Christianity sees the most important moments of the human story to be the past event of the Incarnation and the present moment of my individual opportunity to love.

I have a colleague who asks his students in a freshman level class to come up with a "perfect society."  Three times I have been asked to judge their presentations.  The students are quite creative and earnest.  But their "perfect societies" have some commonalities.  In order to reach "perfection" they must destroy human freedom or ignore human sin.  Either citizens are forced to fit a preconceived notion of perfection, or it is assumed that people are naturally good and left to their own devices things will work out splendidly.  I do not mean to criticize the students, who are after all just completing an assignment.  But it does give us a window into the ultimate emptiness of progressive politics, best exemplified by Herbert Croly's claim, "For better or worse, democracy cannot be disentangled an an aspiration toward human perfectibility."  Christians and the American Founders (I do not wish to conflate the two) thought differently, best expressed by Madison's admonition in Federalist #51 that we are a government of men over men, not a government of angels by angels, so we must take into account human self-interest, not wish it away.  We are best served by lowering our expectations for our politics.  The same colleague mentioned above said to me yesterday that one year he had a group of students who refused to create a "perfect society."  They settled for a "good enough" society.  That works for me. 

Rising Gas Prices

This article once again tackles the question of whether we will see $4 a gallon gas this summer.  Not long ago government sources were predicting a peak in gas prices in May.  The new information tells us that inventories are at a 20 year low and our refining capacity is totally inadequate.  It has been 31 years since we built a new refinery in the United States.  Government regulations make it nearly impossible to add to refining capacity.  Even if we had all the supply we needed, we would not have the refining capacity to meet our substantial demand. 

Not Ready for Prime Time Player Obama

It is common lore among political junkies that Michael Dukakis lost the 1988 presidential election when he gave a weak answer to a question about capital punishment (what if your wife were murdered . . . ) during a televised debate.  It's not true.  His entire campaign was a disaster.  But his flabby response to a terrible question did stick as an example of his character.  So Barack Obama should have been ready for this one in the recent South Carolina debates (Byron York at National Review):

“If, God forbid, a thousand times, while we were gathered here tonight, we learned that two American cities had been hit simultaneously by terrorists,” [Brian] Williams said, “and we further learned beyond the shadow of a doubt it had been the work of al Qaeda, how would you change the U.S. military stance overseas as a result?”

That question is very strong in its first half, and way too vague in its second.  But it was good enough to send the Illinois Wonderkid into the mat.  Here is his response:

“Well, first thing we’d have to do is make sure that we’ve got an effective emergency response, something that this administration failed to do when we had a hurricane in New Orleans,” Obama said. “And I think that we have to review how we operate in the event of not only a natural disaster, but also a terrorist attack.”

So the first thing President Obama would do in response to a terrorist attack on two American cities would be to determine whether FEMA is adequately prepared for the next hurricane.  That will calm fears. 

“The second thing,” Obama continued, “is to make sure that we’ve got good intelligence, A, to find out that we don’t have other threats and attacks potentially out there; and B, to find out do we have any intelligence on who might have carried it out so that we can take potentially some action to dismantle that network.”

So after FEMA is squared away, President Obama would launch an investigation of our intelligence services, to find out whether there are "other threats and attacks potentially out there."  I can tell him that.  They are out there. 

Finally he would try to find out what is already assumed by the question, that al Qaeda did it, so that we can "potentially take some action to dismantle that network."  These are the words of someone who cannot so much as bring himself to talk about actually using force against some foe.   This guy is in close second place for the Democratic nomination. 

Abortion and Democracy

My friend Chad at CCK directs his readers to an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune.  It turns out that states have a lot of different laws regarding abortion, and that the Gonzales v. Carhart decision is encouraging a lot of folks to attend to them. 

Lawmakers have already enacted hundreds of state laws restricting the circumstances under which abortions can be performed. Many of those laws have been upheld by federal courts, and activists on both sides predict an avalanche of new curbs in the wake of the high court decision upholding the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

   More than half the states have bans on this kind of  abortion procedure, but they were unenforceable under previous Supreme Court rulings. On Monday the justices ordered appellate courts in St. Louis and Richmond, Va., to reconsider Missouri's and Virginia's laws in light of last week's ruling on the federal statute.

So a lot of elected legislatures are now a wee bit more free to legislate.  Some of them will do all they can to "incrementally chip away at abortion rights."  But not all. 

   More than 70 members of  Congress -- including Democratic Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr., Rahm Emanuel, Danny Davis and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois -- have signed on as co-sponsors of the federal Freedom of Choice Act. The bill would codify the protections conferred by the Supreme Court in its 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision -- protections the sponsors say have been eroded over the intervening years.

   And on Wednesday, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he would introduce legislation to shore up abortion rights in that state and officially decriminalize the procedure.

As the Scarecrow said to Dorthy: "of course, people do go both ways."  All this looks suspiciously like democracy to me.  Pro-choicers will insist that abortion rights, like freedom of religion, speech, etc., should be protected against the whims of state legislatures and Congress, and especially from any popular majority anywhere. 

The trouble with that argument is that religious liberty, freedom of speech and of the press, equal protection, were all put into the Constitution by the People.  They are shining examples of a people forming a republic by placing limitations on popular power.  The right to an abortion has no such origin.  It is "in the Constitution" only because seven of nine black robes said it was there, and stays only so long as at least five of nine continue to say so. 

Democracy is a messy business.  I still prefer it to rule by a council of nine elders. 

Top al Qaeda Man Caught in Iraq

The Pentagon announced today the capture of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who they describe as "one of al-Qaida's most senior and most experienced operatives."  He's a native of Iraq who served in Saddam's military before heading to Afghanistan to join Osama bin Laden:

After being secretly held by the CIA for months, an Iraqi who was one of al-Qaida's most senior and experienced operatives has been shipped to the Guantanamo Bay military prison for terror suspects, officials said Friday.

Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi is believed responsible for plotting cross-border attacks from Pakistan on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and he led an effort to assassinate Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and U.N. officials, the Pentagon said.

The transfer of al-Iraqi, said to have been an associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, makes him the 15th so called "high-value" detainee known to be handed over to military officials at the military facility in Cuba from CIA control.

Good news.

UPDATE:  Tom Joscelyn: "Questions For Another Baathist Turned Al Qaeda Bigwig."

UPDATE:  Also see this from Bill Roggio, who discusses the capture of al-Iraqi and Gen. Petraeus's disclosure of Iran's involvement in the January attack in Karbala.

Campaign Predictions

Joel Rosenthal of South Dakota Straight Talk says the Democratic candidates in 2008 will be Stephanie Herseth for U.S. Senate and Brendan Johnson, Tim Johnson's son, for U.S. House:

As a consequence when the dominoes fall, our Congresswoman will announce for the U S Senate. This is after all a well-traveled South Dakota tradition of our U S Representative becoming Senator.

Senator Johnson’s son, Brendan, then will then announce for her Herseth Sandlin’s house seat. Surely there would be sympathy support and of course the important name identification – ask Stephanie Herseth.

Both will be formidable candidates – Republicans must prepare, foremost with proven talent and then with treasury and organization.

Clinton Revamping Campaign

With a recent Rasmussen Poll showing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 32%, the Clinton campaign is making changes to try and make up ground lost to the senator from Illinois.  Time excerpt:

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was designed and built to be a dreadnought, an all-big-gun battleship that would rule the waves without being dented, slowed or thrown off course. But it has been caught off guard by a submarine named Barack Obama, running silent, running deep--until he surfaced with a spectacular showing in the first round of fund-raising numbers. What startled Clinton's team was not just Obama's totals or his success at drumming up contributions over the Internet but also how much he is collecting from the big donors who have fueled Clinton enterprises for the past decade and a half. "It was a real wake-up call," says a Clinton strategist.

Clinton's campaign still professes publicly to be unperturbed, maintaining that it never believed the race would be a cakewalk. "The game plan that we began this campaign with is the game plan we are using today," insists spokesman Phil Singer. But Clinton's advisers privately acknowledge that she is retooling her strategy on four fronts: intensifying her fund raising, emphasizing her experience and policy depth (she's counting on the upcoming debates to put those on display), pondering when and how to go on the offensive against Obama and dusting off the "two for the price of one" theme of her husband's 1992 campaign. But this time it's Bill you would get in the bargain.

Read the whole story.

SDP Jazz Note: The Real McCoy

I recently suggested to my SDP colleage Jason Heppler that he have McCoy Tyner play for his wedding reception.  I remain hopeful.  Right now I am listening to The Real McCoy, probably Tyner's best known album.  Tyner's fame is forever attached to John Coltrane, and he is often thought of as Coltrane's piano player.  The Real McCoy shows how unfair that is.  Jazz is all about expanding a basic melody in new directions.  Tyner is as good as anyone at highlighting the melody by playing against it. 

I have few regrets in life.  One of them is that I missed Bill Evans when he came to Tucson Arizona, while I was attending the University of Arizona.  Another is that I missed McCoy Tyner when I was in Philadelphia last year.  If you like Jazz, don't miss this cd. 

SDP Jazz Note: Ken Laster's Kind E-mail

Ken Laster, whose excellent podcast, In the Groove: Jazz and Beyond, I have frequently praised, sent me this very kind note:

Ken,

I have been away for a week on vacation (as you probably know, if you have heard my latest 'cast'). When I returned, I happened to check out your web site. Lots of posts, and as I scrolled way to the bottom, I noticed some very nice things you said about my shows... again ... thanks.

But what I really wanted to tell you was that right above that post was your tribute to Liviu Librescu. A very very well written piece, and one that touched me deeply. Thank you for that.

Peace,

Ken

Thanks, Ken.  Obviously, the Librescu story touched me as well. 

Blanchard v. Roe and Chad

My friend Chad at CCK responds to my post "Roe was a Disaster for the Court" at some length and with serious arguments.  For the most part he refrains from attacks on my character.  This is something of a surprise, so let me respond in kind. 

William Baude, writing in the New York Times last year, outlines the chaos that would be created if today's Supreme Court would decide to overturn the Roe decision.

What Chad calls "chaos," the Founders called "federalism."  Having fifty state governments with their own sets of laws sometimes creates conflicts.  Resolving these conflicts is one of the things we have a national court for.  If Roe were overturned, as I believe it should be, some states might prohibit abortion.  This is by no means certain, but it is surely possible.  It is almost certain that other states would not do so.  William Baude worries about this:

States could make it illegal to cross state lines in order to abort a fetus -- a tactic Ireland tried in the early 1990's, until a court decision and subsequent constitutional amendment recognized a right to travel. While the Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right to travel across state lines, it has also recognized exceptions.

This is what judges and Court scholars call "a parade of horribles."  It is pure speculation about what might happen if the Court did other than what it has been doing.   In fact there is no reason to believe that this problem would arise, because the conditions for it are already present.  Webster v. Reproductive Health Services allowed states to put substantial restrictions on abortion (one day waiting period, no use of public facilities, etc.) which are likely not to be in place in neighboring states.  If the problem Baude imagines has not yet occurred, why suppose it will occur in the future?

And if it did occur, the Court could then resolve it in accord with Constitutional text, precedent, and tradition.  That, applying existing rules to current conflicts, is what Courts are all about.  The Court has a lot of standards in the founding document and traditional readings both by previous courts and Congress to resolve such conflicts between the states.  The Justices have no grounds, except those they have willfully invented since 1973, to decide whether abortion is a constitutional right or not.

And that is why every Supreme Court nomination since Ronald Reagan put Robert Bork has occasioned a political crisis.  The only thing that most members of the Senate Judiciary committee are really interested in is the nominees position on upholding Roe.  No other question has ever created this sort of problem.  For Heaven's sake, we now have pundits asking whether there are too many Catholics on the Supreme Court!   Is this modern America, or 19th century Ireland?  This situation is clearly bad for the Court, which is supposed to represent a group of umpires, not a place to win or lose the game. 

If the Court did overturn Roe, all the political pressure would shift away from the Court and back to the state and national legislatures where it belongs.  Questions of whether states could prohibit women from crossing state borders to seek abortions might come before the Court.  Given the commitment of the anti-Roe judges (Scalia, Thomas, and presumably Roberts and Alito) to a Federalist solution to the abortion question, I think it very unlikely that the Court would allow one state some control over the legality of abortion in another.  But such questions would be peripheral to the main question: whether abortion is legal at all.  If that question belongs to the states and Congress, it would no longer matter much what the next nominee thinks about abortion.  That would allow the Court to back to its proper job: interpreting the fundamental laws of the United States. 

Chad says this:

One additional point that I believe needs to be raised is in reference to Blanchard's statement that Roe "gave a total victory to one side." I would argue that just the opposite is true under Roe.  The decision gave each woman to choose what is best for them in their unique situation.  Those who are opposed to abortion are free to choose to bring a pregnancy to term just as those who in their unique situation find that terminating pregnancy is the best option for them.

Chad ignores the fact that this matter involves the status of the unborn child.  Is the unborn child a person or not, under the Constitution?  Consider a perfectly healthy fetus, days away from natural birth.  Is this fetus a person or not?  Once outside the womb (a mere accident of time in the last days), he or she is clearly a legal person.  To kill a healthy human infant a few days after birth is murder, is it not, Chad?  So what about a day before birth?  The Court says that the same human being has no rights or claim to personhood at that point.  That is giving a total victory to the prochoice side. 

Roe created a right to abortion which has no ground in the text, logic, or history of constitutional law.  It rests solely on the will of five or more out of nine.  This turns every Supreme Court appointment into a political crisis, in which competence and judicial philosophy are eclipsed by the single question of what that judge would do about abortion.  No other court decision has created this kind of political dysfunction. 

Joe Lieberman

Senator Joe Lieberman made an eloquent statement against the legislation that would require US troops to leave Iraq by October 1, 2007.  This is probably the longest item I've ever posted on SDP, but here it is in full:

Earlier this week the Senate Majority Leader spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center and laid out the case for why he believes we must do this—why the bill now before this chamber, in his view, offers a viable alternative strategy for Iraq.

I have great respect for my friend from Nevada. I believe he has offered this proposal in good faith, and therefore want to take it up in good faith, and examine its arguments and ideas carefully and in depth, for this is a very serious discussion for our country.

In his speech Monday, the Majority Leader described the several steps that this new strategy for Iraq would entail. Its first step, he said, is to "transition the U.S. mission away from policing a civil war—to training and equipping Iraqi security forces, protecting U.S. forces, and conducting targeted counter-terror operations."

I ask my colleagues to take a step back for a moment and consider this plan. When we say that U.S. troops shouldn't be "policing a civil war," that their operations should be restricted to this narrow list of missions, what does this actually mean?

To begin with, it means that our troops will not be allowed to protect the Iraqi people from the insurgents and militias who are trying to terrorize and kill them. Instead of restoring basic security, which General Petraeus has argued should be the central focus of any counterinsurgency campaign, it means our soldiers would instead be ordered, by force of this proposed law, not to stop the sectarian violence happening all around them—no matter how vicious or horrific it becomes.

In short, it means telling our troops to deliberately and consciously turn their backs on ethnic cleansing, to turn their backs on the slaughter of innocent civilians—men, women, and children singled out and killed on the basis of their religion alone. It means turning our backs on the policies that led us to intervene in the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the principles that today lead many of us to call for intervention in Darfur.

This makes no moral sense at all.

It also makes no strategic or military sense. Al Qaeda's own leaders have repeatedly said that one of the ways they intend to achieve victory in Iraq is to provoke civil war. They are trying to kill as many people as possible today, precisely in the hope of igniting sectarian violence, because they know that this is their best way to collapse Iraq's political center, overthrow Iraq's elected government, radicalize its population, and create a failed state in the heart of the Middle East that they can use as a base. That is why Al Qaeda blew up the Golden Mosque in Samarra last year. And that is why we are seeing mass casualty suicide bombings by Al Qaeda in Baghdad now.

The sectarian violence that the Majority Leader says he wants to order American troops to stop policing, in other words, is the very same sectarian violence that Al Qaeda hopes to ride to victory. The suggestion that we can draw a bright legislative line between stopping terrorists in Iraq and stopping civil war in Iraq flies in the face of this reality. I do not know how to say it more plainly: it is Al Qaeda that is trying to cause a full-fledged civil war in Iraq.

The Majority Leader said on Monday that he believes U.S. troops will still be able to conduct "targeted counter-terror operations" under his plan. Even if we stop trying to protect civilians in Iraq, in other words, we can still go after the bad guys. But again, I ask my colleagues, how would this translate into military reality on the ground? How would we find these terrorists, who do not gather on conventional military bases or fight in conventional formations?

By definition, targeted counterterrorism requires our forces to know where, when, and against whom to strike—and that in turn requires accurate, actionable, real-time intelligence. This is the kind of intelligence that can only come from ordinary Iraqis, the sea of people among whom the terrorists hide. And that, in turn, requires interacting with the Iraqi people on a close, personal, daily basis. It requires winning individual Iraqis to our side, gaining their trust, convincing them that they can count on us to keep them safe from the terrorists if they share valuable information about them. This is no great secret. This is at the heart of the new strategy that General Petraeus and his troops are carrying out.

And yet, if we pass this legislation, according to the Majority Leader, U.S. forces will no longer be permitted to patrol Iraq's neighborhoods or protect Iraqi civilians. They won't, in his words, be "interjecting themselves between warring factions" or "trying to sort friend from foe."

Therefore, I ask the supporters of this legislation: How, exactly, are U.S. forces to gather intelligence about where, when, and against whom to strike, after you have ordered them walled off from the Iraqi population? How, exactly, are U.S. forces to carry out targeted counter-terror operations, after you have ordered them cut off from the very source of intelligence that drives these operations?

This is precisely why the congressional micromanagement of life-and-death decisions about how, where, and when our troops can fight is such a bad idea, especially on a complex and changing battlefield.

In sum, you can't have it both ways. You can't withdraw combat troops from Iraq and still fight Al Qaeda there. If you believe there is no hope of winning in Iraq, or that the costs of victory there are not worth it, then you should be for complete withdrawal as soon as possible.

There is another irony here as well. For most of the past four years, under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the United States did not try to establish basic security in Iraq. Rather than deploying enough troops necessary to protect the Iraqi people, the focus of our military has been on training and equipping Iraqi forces, protecting our own forces, and conducting targeted sweeps and raids—in other words, the very same missions proposed by the proponents of the legislation before us.

That strategy failed—and we know why it failed. It failed because we didn't have enough troops to ensure security, which in turn created an opening for Al Qaeda and its allies to exploit. They stepped into this security vacuum and, through horrific violence, created a climate of fear and insecurity in which political and economic progress became impossible.

For years, many members of Congress recognized this. We talked about this. We called for more troops, and a new strategy, and—for that matter—a new secretary of defense. And yet, now, just as President Bush has come around—just as he has recognized the mistakes his administration has made, and the need to focus on basic security in Iraq, and to install a new secretary of defense and a new commander in Iraq—now his critics in Congress have changed their minds and decided that the old, failed strategy wasn't so bad after all.

What is going on here? What has changed so that the strategy that we criticized and rejected in 2006 suddenly makes sense in 2007?

The second element in the plan outlined by the Majority Leader on Monday is "the phased redeployment of our troops no later than October 1, 2007." Let us be absolutely clear what this means. This legislation would impose a binding deadline for U.S. troops to begin retreating from Iraq. This withdrawal would happen regardless of conditions on the ground, regardless of the recommendations of General Petraeus, in short regardless of reality on October 1, 2007.

As far as I can tell, none of the supporters of withdrawal have attempted to explain why October 1 is the magic date—what strategic or military significance this holds. Why not September 1? Or January 1? This is a date as arbitrary as it is inflexible—a deadline for defeat.

How do proponents of this deadline defend it? On Monday, Senator Reid gave several reasons. First, he said, a date for withdrawal puts "pressure on the Iraqis to make the desperately needed political compromises." But will it? According to the legislation now before us, the withdrawal will happen regardless of what the Iraqi government does. How, then, if you are an Iraqi government official, does this give you any incentive to make the right choices?

On the contrary, there is compelling reason to think a legislatively directed withdrawal of American troops will have exactly the opposite effect than its Senate sponsors intend. This, in fact, is exactly what the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq predicted. A withdrawal of U.S. troops in the months ahead, it said, would "almost certainly lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict, intensify Sunni resistance, and have adverse effects on national reconciliation."

Second, the Majority Leader said that withdrawing our troops, and again I quote, will "reduce the specter of the U.S. occupation which gives fuel to the insurgency." My colleague from Nevada, in other words, is suggesting that the insurgency is being provoked by the very presence of American troops. By diminishing that presence, then, he believes the insurgency will diminish.

But I ask my colleagues—where is the evidence to support this theory? Since 2003, and before General Petraeus took command, U.S. forces were ordered on several occasions to pull back from Iraqi cities and regions, including Mosul and Fallujah and Tel'Afar and Baghdad. And what happened in these places? Did they stabilize when American troops left? Did the insurgency go away?

On the contrary—in each of these places where U.S. forces pulled back, Al Qaeda rushed in. Rather than becoming islands of peace, they became safe havens for terrorists, islands of fear and violence. So I ask advocates of withdrawal: on what evidence, on what data, have you concluded that pulling U.S. troops out will weaken the insurgency, when every single experience we have had since 2003 suggests that this legislation will strengthen it?

Consider the words of Sheikh Abdul Sattar, one of the leading Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province who is now fighting on our side against Al Qaeda. This is what he told the New York Times when asked last month what would happen if U.S. troops withdraw. "In my personal opinion, and in the opinion of most of the wise men of Anbar," he said, "if the American forces leave right now, there will be civil war and the area will fall into total chaos."

This is a man whose father was killed by Al Qaeda, who is risking his life every day to work with us—a man who was described by one Army officer as "the most effective local leader in Ramadi I believe the coalition has worked with... in Anbar [since] 2003."

In his remarks earlier this week, the Majority Leader observed that there is "a large and growing population of millions—who sit precariously on the fence. They will either condemn or contribute to terrorism in the years ahead. We must convince them of the goodness of America and Americans. We must win them over."

On this, I completely agree with my friend from Nevada. My question to him, however, and to the supporters of this legislation, is this: how does the strategy you propose in this bill possibly help win over this population of millions in Iraq, who sit precariously on the fence? What message, I ask, does this legislation announce to those people in Iraq? How will they respond when we tell them that we will no longer make any effort to protect them against insurgents and death squads? How will they respond when we declare that we will be withdrawing our forces—regardless of whether they make progress in the next six months towards political reconciliation? Where will their hopes for a better life be when we withdraw the troops that are the necessary precondition for the security and stability they yearn for?

Do my friends really believe that this is the way to convince Iraqis, and the world, of the goodness of America and Americans? Does anyone in this chamber really believe that, by announcing a date certain for withdrawal, we will empower Iraqi moderates, or enable Iraq's reconstruction, or open more schools for their children, or more hospitals for their families, or freedom for everyone?

Mr. President, with all due respect, this is fantasy.

The third step the Majority Leader proposes is to impose "tangible, measurable, and achievable benchmarks on the Iraqi government." I am all for such benchmarks. In fact, Senator McCain and I were among the first to propose legislation to apply such benchmarks on the Iraqi government. But I don't see how this plan will encourage Iraqis to meet these or any other benchmarks, given its ironclad commitment to abandon them—regardless of how they behave.

We should of course be making every effort to encourage reconciliation in Iraq and the development of a decent political order that Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds can agree on. But even if today that political solution was found, we cannot rationally think that our terrorist enemies like Al Qaeda in Iraq will simply vanish.

Al Qaeda is not mass murdering civilians on the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenues. Its aim in Iraq is not to get a seat at the political table. It wants to blow up the table—along with everyone seated at it. Al Qaeda wants to destroy any prospect for democracy in Iraq, and it will not be negotiated or reasoned out of existence. It must be fought and defeated through force of arms. And there can be no withdrawal, no redeployment from this reality.

The fourth step that the Majority Leader proposed on Monday is a "diplomatic, economic, and political offensive... starting with a regional conference working toward a long-term framework for stability in the region." I understand why we are tempted by these ideas. All of us are aware of the justified frustration, fatigue, and disappointment of the American people. And all of us would like to believe that there is a quick and easy solution to the challenges we face in Iraq.

But none of this gives us an excuse to paper over hard truths. We delude ourselves if we think we can wave a legislative wand and suddenly our troops in the field will be able to distinguish between Al Qaeda terrorism and sectarian violence, or that Iraqis will suddenly settle their political differences because our troops are leaving, or that sweet reason alone will suddenly convince Iran and Syria to stop destabilizing Iraq.

Mr. President, what we need now is a sober assessment of the progress we have made and a recognition of the challenges we face. There are still many uncertainties before us, many complexities. Barely half of the new troops that General Petraeus has requested have even arrived in Iraq, and, as we heard from him yesterday, it will still be months before we will know just how effective his new strategy is.

In following General Petraeus' path, there is no guarantee of success—but there is hope, and a new plan, for success. The plan embedded in this legislation, on the other hand, contains no such hope. It is a strategy of catchphrases and bromides, rather than military realities in Iraq. It does not learn from the many mistakes we have made in Iraq. Rather, it promises to repeat them.

Let me be absolutely clear: In my opinion, Iraq is not yet lost—but if we follow this plan, it will be. And so, I fear, much of our hope for stability in the Middle East and security from terrorism here at home.

UPDATE:  Also see Senator Lieberman's op-ed in today's Washington Post.

Herseth: "The War is Not Lost"

The Associated Press has this story about Stephanie Herseth Sandlin declaring that, contrary to Harry Reid, the "war is not lost."  Excerpt:

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, who voted with fellow Democrats Wednesday in passing a measure that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, says South Dakotans generally are realistic about Iraq.

The Senate on Thursday voted 51-46 for the legislation that the House passed 218-208 Wednesday night. The president has vowed to veto it.

The votes in both houses were largely along party lines and were far short of the two-thirds override margin.

The Iraq war has become a partisan debate in Washington, but South Dakotans generally aren't strident, Herseth Sandlin told South Dakota reporters Thursday.

''The comments I get from constituents don't seem to be marked with the same partisan divide,'' she said, adding that South Dakotans take more of a ''realist and centrist approach.''

Herseth Sandlin said they realize ''we need to get beyond the partisan rhetoric and to recognize the war is not lost, in my opinion.''

A week ago, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada declared the war is lost, sparking an angry backlash by Republicans. Vice President Cheney accused Reid of ''defeatism'' and political opportunism in trying to set a troop withdrawal timetable in the war spending bill.

The war is not lost, but she voted in favor of pulling out our troops in October?  Representative Herseth Sandlin is trying to have it both ways, and that just doesn't work.  Though, just for the record, here's a trip down memory lane: 

04/26/07: "We need . . . to recognize the war is not lost, in my opinion."  "Herseth Sandlin: The War is not Lost," AP

04/25/07: Herseth Sandlin voted with fellow Democrats Wednesday in passing a measure that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1

3/28/07:  "I have always rejected arbitrary or irresponsible timelines that would tie the hands of our military leaders, and I will continue to do so." SHS, Press Release

12/06/06:  "I do not support an artificial timetable for withdrawal of American troops.”  SHS, Press Release

June 2006: Herseth Sandlin joined 41 House Democrats saying they supported completing the mission in order to "create a sovereign, free, secure and united Iraq."

12/14/05: "We owe it to the troops overseas to craft a practical strategy for Iraq that enjoys bipartisan support," SHS, Press Release

12/14/05:  "We will watch this progress closely as we continue to implement a policy that finishes the job, gets our troops home, and returns control of Iraq to the Iraqi people."  SHS, Press Release

12/14/05:  "I think the president reached out to Democrats that are committed to victory in Iraq and have not been supportive of immediate withdrawal," "Herseth meets with Bush, Cabinet officials on Iraq," AP

The Silence of the SD MSM

A few days ago, national political columnist Robert Novak wrote about the Tim Johnson situation and how experts didn't think Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin could win his Senate seat.  Also a few days ago, Congressional Quarterly reported on how Tim Johnson's signature was mysteriously showing up on documents and nobody seems to know how.   None of this was ever reported in South Dakota.  When will the silence end?   

More GOP Losses Ahead?

Over at Power Line, John Hinderaker wonders if the GOP might lose more seats in 2008.  It's early to speculate on such an issue, but it could be possible given the state of the Republican Party lately.  Last November, the Democrats, who covered every issue except the war and lost (remember Ned Lamont?) when they put the war on top, now claim the elections were a mandate on Iraq.  In my view that's hardly the case, and Republicans lost in November because of their miserable performance on everything else.  But remember that the elections were very close, and had the GOP simply improved its performance it probably would have maintained control of Congress. 

The GOP has moments today where they could put Democrats in  a tough spot and challenge them, such as endorsing Tom Coburn's anti-pork crusade or forcefully pointing out their flawed withdrawal idea for Iraq, but the Republicans, by and large, are just as corrupt as the Dems, so it's impossible to challenge the status quo without looking hypocritical.  They seem content just to sit back and do just enough to maintain a majority, and if that's what they want, that's what they'll get.  The rest of us, meanwhile, not only in the blogosphere but in every political venue who want to see our party elected as the clear majority in the country, will continue to fight and endorse the candidates that we see fit to lead.  If one thing is clear, it seems the GOP has a lack of leadership.  Think for a moment whose name stands out when you think of the Republican Party.  George W. Bush?  What about a successor, someone willing to step up and correct the problems of the Bush administration, step up and challenge Democrats?   

There seems to be a general frustration with America's political class.  Just take a look at the approval numbers of Congress and the President.  The President has been isolated, Nancy Pelosi is acting like she's President, and Rep. Tom Lantos has argued the Democrats have their own foreign policy, Constitution be damned.  The most fundamental problems that affect Americans -- the economy, health care, education, social security -- continue to go unaddressed in Washington.  American politics has become somewhat shameful, with the radical left "netroots" pressuring the Democratic Party into shrill partisanship (case in point, Harry Reid) and the Republicans losing more and more ground by abandoning the principles of the Reagan Revolution and the 1994 Contract with America.  Look at our choices in 2006: it effect we chose one set of politicians behaving badly for another set behaving even worse.  Even here in South Dakota, things are looking dour.  Several of our fellow colleagues in the South Dakota blogosphere, both left and right, have hammered the South Dakota legislature for working on pointless legislation and expanding the nanny state.  The stalemate will eventually break, but the level of dissatisfaction with the political status quo isn't going away anytime soon.

That said, John Hinderaker has a point in remaining optimistic.  John wonders if "the voters at large are as impressed by the Democrats' obsession with investigations as those inside the Beltway seem to be."  I would venture that they're not, that they're more interested in issues affecting them personally than in partisan battles.  He's right to note that Democrats are also at risk as voters may conclude they're using their newfound power to wage war against the Bush administration rather than find solutions to problems.  The atmosphere in 2008 may not be as bad as some of us think, but things don't look good at the moment.

More Reid

The Washington Post's David Broder:  "Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats -- a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance. If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end."

House Passes Iraq Withdrawal Bill

The House has passed the bill demanding withdrawal from Iraq by October 1 of this year.  The vote was 218-208, with two Republicans voting in favor and thirteen Democrats opposing it.  Stephanie Herseth Sandlin voted for it.

UPDATE:  Jules Crittenden:  "The People Have Spoken!"

SDP Jazz Note: Arturo Sandoval

A friend of mine here at SDSU, knowing my fondness for jazz trumpeters and Lee Morgan (and myself being a former trumpet player for seven years), recommended I give Arturo Sandoval a listen.  I'm glad I did. 

Sandoval is from Artemisa, in the Havana Province of Cuba.  He defected to the United States in 1990 while touring with Dizzy Gillespie and became a naturalized citizen in 1998.  While in Cuba in his early days, he listened to the jazz greats Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie.  These three were the pioneers of modern postwar jazz, developing a sound unlike anything jazz had heard before by placing a premium on virtuosity, blistering tempos, and technical variations on a standard set of chord changes.  The 1950s in general were a transitional period for jazz, shifting from bebop to hard bop, and if you listen to At Basin Street by Clifford Brown and Max Roach (Brown on trumpet, Roach on drums, and Sonny Rollins on tenor sax), you'll get a taste of the changes jazz underwent.  Songs like "What is This Thing Called Love?" and "I'll Remember April" are in the classic bebop tradition, while others like "Step Lightly (Junior's Arrival)" and "Powell's Prances" look ahead to the hard bop genre pioneered by groups like Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers or artists like Bud Powell (of whom "Powell's Prances" is named). 

The musical influence of Gillespie et al. is easily discernable when you listen to Sandoval.  You also sense his Latin roots in his music, which might also have been influenced by Sandoval's hero, Dizzy Gillespie, who was a big proponent of Afro-Cuban jazz for years (this style became known as "Cubop" for a time).  Give Sandoval's rendition of "A Night in Tunisia" (originally performed by Gillespie and Parker) a listen to get a flavor of his style.  "I Remember Clifford" (which I first heard performed by Lee Morgan) is also worth listening to.  That, folks, is good jazz performed by a first-rate trumpeter. 

Violence on the Left

John Hinderaker:

Given the level of hysteria that is constantly being whipped up by the Party of Hate, we've worried for a while that someone is going to get hurt. Cases of voter intimidation and violence against Republican campaign headquarters were widely reported during the last election cycle. A Democratic poster whom we had to ban from the Power Line Forum recently went to the home of a Republican campus leader and assaulted him, resulting in criminal charges.

Most recently, a Democrat and (it appears former political candidate named Matthew Hunter Kramer has been arrested for threatening the executive director of the Republican Party of Nevada with a rifle, tearing photos of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney off the wall of the party's headquarters, threatening staffers at the Republican Party's office, and "warning that he would be back if President Bush vetoed an emergency war spending bill being considered by Congress."

It's no secret that Democrats are trying to bully their way back into power. But bullying with rifles--as well as "swords, knives, a flare gun, a shotgun and shells," which also were found in Kramer's car, ups the ante considerably. I'll say it again: if the Democrats keep up their campaign of hate, someone is going to get hurt.

Countering Terrorism Financing

Back when it was announced that President Bush was sending reinforcements to Iraq, I wrote that we still had no answer to how we would halt terrorism financing.  The Counterterrorism Blog points out that three members of the House Financial Services Committee have introduced a bill to improve coordination between the major players in counterterrorism financing, specifically Treasury and State.  Here's a section from the bill (PDF alert) explaining its purpose:

The Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury shall negotiate and enter into a Memorandum of Agreement (hereafter in this section referred to as the ‘‘Agreement’’) specifying the role of each of the Secretary’s respective Department in the delivery of counterterrorism financing training and technical assistance provided to countries abroad (without regard to whether any country is designated as a priority country or a nonpriority country by the Terrorist Financing Working Group). [From Sec. 3 (a), p. 6]

The bill was inspired by an October 2005 GAO report entitled "Terrorist Financing: Better Strategic Planning Needed to Coordinate U.S. Efforts to Deliver Counter-Terrorism Financing and Technical Assistance Abroad" (PDF alert).  The report concluded that agencies relevant to terrorist financing have failed to communicate well together on a very essential issue, so the Congress is working to order the Secretaries of State and Treasury to coordinate.  In today's world inter-agency communication is essential, so this seems like a good development to me.

Can I Jazz Post, Too?

Powerline notes the birthday of Ella Fitzgerald.  Just recently I picked up a set of the new Ella Fitzgerald postage stamps. 

I believe Fitzgerald to be the finest female popular singer of the recording era, and in the top two or three overall (up there with Sinatra and Crosby).  Her voice was smooth and pure and boasted an incredible range.  She could also sing with passion without shouting or without performing what I call "vocal gymnastics" ("love" is a one syllable word, people!).  I have noticed how many guest coaches on American Idol this year have suggested that the contestants "just sing the melody."  This is a lesson one could learn from listening to Ella Fitzgerald. 

Fitzgerald herself did not like to be described as a "jazz vocalist."  She considered herself to be a pop singer first and foremost.  Indeed, her finest recordings, in my opinion, are the "American Songbook" series from Verve Records, where Fitzgerald sings the popular songs of Gershwin, Porter, Rogers and Hart, Harold Arlen, and various other great songwriters. While oftentimes singing more "jazzy" in live performances (see the "How High the Moon" recording at Powerline), her studio recordings are more conventional and, in my opinion, more satisfying.

You'll note that the postage stamp is part of a series promoting "Black Heritage." I don't know of the overall merits of this series, but I am sorry to see Ella Fitzgerald be part of it.  Ella Fitzgerald was too good, and too important to the history of popular music, to be relegated to "Black Heritage."  Ella Fitzgerald is not part of simply Black heritage.  She is part of American heritage. If she is important enough to be celebrated in a U.S. postage stamp, and I believe she is, she is important enough to be celebrated for her contributions as an American to America, not just a black American to black America.   

Brown County Votes!

In yesterday's election, close to 45% of eligible voters in our county voted on the TIF ballot question for Northern Beef Packers.  Think about that.  Forty-five percent on one ballot question in April.  Some jurisdictions don't get this kind of turn out for presidential elections.  Way to go Brown County!

NY Post Hammers Reid

Excerpt from the New York Post:

From the start, Reid and the Democrats have seen the war in Iraq as a partisan opportunity.

They refuse to present a unified front to the rest of the world - especially to America's enemies - because, in their pinched view, to do so would be to weaken their own prospects for retaking the White House in 2008.

No, Reid didn't repeat his declaration of defeat during yesterday's speech from the Senate floor.

It probably has dawned on him just how big a political blunder he committed - witness Sen. Chuck Schumer's gentle contradiction of the majority leader over the weekend, insisting that "the war is not lost."

Then again, Reid didn't have to repeat his original remarks - because the imposed timetable he announced, if enacted, would bring about precisely the same result.

That is, a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from the region - if Reid thinks the bug-out would stop at Iraq, he's dumber than he sounds - followed by:

* A rapid, al Qaeda/Iranian-driven descent into regional chaos.
* Most likely, a general war.
* And, almost certainly, a Mideast nuclear-arms race as Saudi Arabia, Eygpt and (probably) Turkey rush to arm themselves in anticipation of an Iranian bomb.

At the very least, Reid has to understand that his rhetoric can only encourage short-run insurgent attacks on Americans in Iraq.

Their blood stands to be on his hands.

And that's a terrible price to pay for a political payday that's so tentative that even an instinctive gut-fighter like Chuck Schumer recoils from the risk.

Harry Reid needs to put a cork in it.

Today.

NYT Shareholders

Shareholders of the New York Times have given the newspaper a thumbs down:

New York Times Co. shareholders, led by Morgan Stanley, withheld 42 percent of their votes from directors to protest the Sulzberger family's control over the company.

An average of 52.5 million of the 124.2 million shares voted declined to support the directors' re-election, the company announced on its Web site following the annual shareholder meeting in New York.

The withhold tally compared with 28 percent at last year's meeting, which marked the beginning of a yearlong campaign by Morgan Stanley. The firm and it supporters, concerned about falling profits and a slumping share price, complained that New York Times' two classes of stock give shareholders too little say in the company. Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. should give up one of his roles, they said.

The vote ``is a clear mandate for meaningful change,'' Morgan Stanley said in a statement. ``The withhold vote this year is significantly higher than last year and is an emphatic call for accountability.''

The shares for the New York Times (NYSE: NYT) have been steadily falling for some time now.  They reached a low point in the 1990s, but falling nearly fifty percent in three years?  That's quite a drop.

UPDATE:  Also see this Editor & Publisher article entitled "Circ Numbers To Take Another Big Hit."

House Votes On Iraq Pullout

The Washington Post reports that the House is set to vote today on a bill that would require US troops to start leaving Iraq by October 1 of this year.  The Democrats are moving ahead with this plan, despite promises by President Bush that he will veto it:

The House has scheduled a vote today on a bill that would require U.S. troops to begin pulling out of Iraq by Oct. 1. Democratic leaders predict they will have enough votes to pass the legislation and send it on to President Bush for his promised veto.

Several House members said they would go along with the bill negotiated with the Senate in a bid for party unity despite their desire for an earlier, binding withdrawal date.

The House vote scheduled Wednesday would come as the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and other defense officials try to convince lawmakers that a timetable would push Iraq into chaos. Bush's promise guarantees a showdown with Democrats emboldened by last year's election, which handed them control of Congress.

"For the first time, the president will have to be accountable for this war in Iraq," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Tuesday. "And he does not want to face that reality."

The $124.2 billion bill would fund, among other things, the war in Iraq but trigger the withdrawal of troops beginning this fall. It sets a nonbinding goal of completing the pullout by April 1, 2008.

Troops could remain in Iraq after the 2008 date but only for limited non-combat missions, including counterterrorism operations and training Iraqi forces.

Will our lone representative in the House, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, vote once again to set a surrender date?

Aberdeen TIF/Beef Plant Passes

From the Aberdeen American News:

Aberdeen is on its way to having a beef-packing plant south of town.

Unofficial results from Tuesday's election show 6,902 yes votes (66.54 percent) to 3,471 no votes (33.46 percent) .  There are 23,913 registered voters in Brown County.

Dennis Hellwig of Aberdeen, the head of Northern Beef, celebrated with about 40 of his supporters at the Ward Hotel on Tuesday night.  The process of finishing up financial paperwork for the plant will begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Hellwig said, because everything was on hold until after the election. Dirt work will resume at the plant site once the paperwork is done.

The TIF means Northern Beef will use approximately $8.6 million in revenue from bonds, issued by the county, to pay mainly for infrastructure at the plant site. Most of the company's property taxes will be used to pay off the bonds over a maximum of 20 years.

Professor Schaff and I both voted in today's election, and I think it's safe to say that we were both in favor of the beef plant coming to Aberdeen.  We never denied that this involves challenges.  However, as my colleague has said before, and I'll say right now: "managing growth is hard, but managing decline is horrible." 

If the above results hold up, it means that the vote was two to one in favor of the plant.  I think that this is reasonably encouraging.  The motives of those who voted against the plant were a mixed bag, based on available evidence.  Some, no doubt, opposed the plant because it probably means that more immigrants will come to town.  Of those, some were apparently motivated by racism, but others had altogether legitimate concerns about assimilating a new and perhaps Spanish speaking minority into the community and its schools.  A dear friend of mine doubts the ability of our police department to deal with such a minority.  Others were concerned with the effects of economic growth.  Still others dislike the very idea of TIFs and other tax breaks for corporations.  I have sympathy with all of these concerns except the racism, which I hope was a small factor. 

Those of us who voted in favor of the plant were more homogeneous in our motives.  We support economic development, and we believe that Aberdeen is a strong enough community to meet all the challenges it will bring.  A gentleman who called me after my TIF essay was published in the American News spoke of a friend of his who said he would move away if the plant goes in.  I do not want to lose anyone, but I do believe that this is a time to have faith in Aberdeen. 

Nancy's No Show

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have insisted that America has done nothing to improve the situation in Iraq, with Reid even going so far as to declare the war lost and refuses to believe assessments from General David Petraeus.  Pelosi takes a much simpler approach and avoids him:

As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion troop funding bill — which would also mandate that U.S. combat troops begin withdrawing from Iraq on Oct. 1 at the latest — Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to come to the Hill tomorrow to brief lawmakers on the progress of the recent troop escalation.

ABC News has learned, however, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will not attend the briefing.

"She can't make the briefing tomorrow," a Democratic aide told ABC News Tuesday evening. "But she spoke with the general via phone today at some length."

A Pelosi aide said the speaker on Tuesday requested a one-on-one meeting with Petraeus but that could not be worked out. He said their phone conversation lasted 30 minutes.

What is so important that Pelosi could not attend a briefing on progress in Iraq?  What does this say about the Democratic leadership, when Pelosi cannot find time in her schedule to listen to the lead man in Iraq (but seems to have time for Bashar Assad), and Reid cannot bring himself to listen to commanders in the field?  Iraq is the most pressing issue facing the United States.  Certainly the Democrats believe this, since they've made it a point to force the U.S. into a position of retreat.  If this is the face of the Democratic leadership, than neither deserve to hold their position.

Nevada Reserves Disagree with Reid

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

"We're not losing this war."

That's how a Las Vegas Army Reserve sergeant and Iraq war veteran who is heading out again for Operation Iraqi Freedom reacted Friday to Nevada Sen. Harry Reid's assessment that the war in Iraq is "lost."

"I don't believe the war is lost," Sgt. George Turkovich, 24, said as he stood with other soldiers near a shipping container that had been packed for their deployment to Kuwait.

The soldiers leave today for a six-week training stint at Camp Atterbury, Ind., before heading overseas to run a camp in support of the war effort. It is uncertain if their yearlong tour will take them to Iraq.

"Unfortunately, politics has taken a huge role in this war affecting our rules of engagement," said Turkovich, a 2001 Palo Verde High School graduate. "This is a guerrilla war that we're fighting, and they're going to tie our hands.

"So it does make it a lot harder for us to fight the enemy, but we're not losing this war," he said.

For the most part, the 50-plus soldiers from a detachment of the Army Reserve's 314th Combat Service Support Battalion expressed similar views about Reid's war-is-lost comments this week. They respectfully disagreed with the Democrat.

All volunteers, they were upbeat and excited about the deployment. Some said they were nervous and were trying not to dwell on leaving their families for a year.

Spc. Marvin Castillo, 31, said he hoped to be back next year in time for his son's second birthday in June.

"It's very hard," he said. "The best thing to do is not think about it."

Pfc. Joshua Nance, 18, said he feels Las Vegas supports the troops going to Iraq. "As far as everybody I've ever run into, yes, they support us. Absolutely."

Reid tried to persuade President Bush this week to "bring this war to a responsible end." But Bush said he would veto war funding legislation because it is tied to a Sept. 1, 2008, deadline for troops to withdraw.

While the soldiers discussed their views on the war at the Army Reserve facility on East Sahara Avenue, Reid, the senate majority leader, delivered a speech on the Senate floor, responding to criticism from Bush.

"The partisans who launched attacks on my comments are the same ones who continue to support a failed strategy that hurts our troops," Reid said.

He noted earlier that "no one wants us to succeed in Iraq more than the Democrats."

"We've proven that time and time again since this war started more than four years ago," Reid said. "We take a back seat to no one in supporting our troops, and we will never abandon our troops in a time of war."

In the eyes of Turkovich, who served as an infantryman with the 82nd Airborne Division for seven months each in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mission is nearing completion but is not over yet.

"Our mission statement when we first went into Iraq was to get Saddam out of power and stand up a new government and a new army," Turkovich said.

"We've gone in there. Saddam is now out of power, and we've stood up a new army and we've stood up a new government," he said. "Now we're just kind of the crutch, nursing it along for right now, and hopefully they'll be able to get off those training wheels soon and they'll be able to stand for themselves."

The 314th's stateside commander, Lt. Col. Steven Cox, said the political controversy swirling around the war "does weigh upon us because the representatives are supposed to represent American sentiments."

"I find it exceedingly difficult to believe that the American people would leave their military dangling in the wind the way the good senator is doing," Cox said.

"Defeatism ... from our elected officials does not serve us well in the field," he said. "They embolden the enemy, and they actually leave them with the feeling that they can defeat us and win this.

"All they have to do is wait us out because the American resolve is waning," he said.

Cox said he's "not sure the senator accurately echoes the people he represents. ... I believe his tactics are more of shock in trying to sway public opinion. He may have spoken out of turn."

The lieutenant colonel, who experienced firsthand the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, said the military "never sets timelines. If we establish a timeline, all the enemy has to do is make us miss that timeline, and they can claim victory regardless of the outcome from there."

Where's the Beef Plant? 2

Update: as of 9:42, Keloland News declared that the TIF/Beef Plant proposal had passed:

04/24/2007

Aberdeen Beef Plant TIF Passes

 

Voters in Brown County approved a tax district developers of beef plant say they needed to complete their project.

66.5% of voters said yes to the special tax district and 33.4% said no.

43.4% of Brown County voters turned out for the vote Tuesday.

As of 9:08 pm (Aberdeen American News):

With 14 of Brown County's 22 precincts reporting, the beef plant is headed for approval. Yes votes total 4,238 (64.78 percent) and no votes total 2,304 (35.22 percent.) Precinct by precinct totals won't be available until the final vote is in.

Brown County voters are deciding whether they should uphold the county's decision to grant a tax increment financing district for Northern Beef Packers, which wants to build a beef-packing plant south of Aberdeen.

Jan Crawford Greenburg on Gonzales v. Carhart

Okay, so Rosie is an easy target.  But she also roasts former University of Chicago Law School Dean Geoff Stone.  See Legalities. 

Pox On Both Your Houses

Peter Lawler links to this post by Patrick Deneen on why one should be neither a progressive liberal nor a libertarian.  Both have an idealistic view of humanity which is not supported by the evidence, says Prof. Deneen.  I would add that both, in certain prominent strains of their thinking, take an essentially materialistic view of man, i.e., the good life is a life of material comfort.  While not denouncing material comfort (I am all for it), perhaps we should recognize that there is more to living a full and free life than merely acquiring wealth.  See this post on education for further bloviating on the subject. 

Beef Vote Update

I was the 425th person to vote in my precinct.  The ladies there said the precinct that votes in the same place had similar numbers.  I'd say that's a fairly good turn out for one ballot question in April. 

On a related note, I happen to vote next to the Northeast Council of Governments office because the Aberdeen Armory, where I usually vote, is under repair.  On the NECOG wall is a poster that has the population trends for all the counties in Northeast South Dakota between the 1990 and 2000 censuses.  Guess what, every county lost population except one, which grew at a rate of .3%, or essentially stagnant.  Yet change would be bad.  Really bad.  Or so some say.  Go here to easily research population trends in our area.  For example, see that from 2000 to 2005 Brown County lost 2.1% of its population. I've said it before and I will say it again: managing growth is hard, but  managing decline is horrible.   

Where's the Beef Plant?

I have heard rumors that the absentee vote is coming strongly in favor of the TIF/beef plant.  That's all I got.

War Funding and . . . Minimum Wage?

The House and Senate has reached an agreement on the supplemental funding bill for the Iraq war.  The Washington Post reports that the timetable for withdrawal could be initiated as early as July 1, and maintains some pork-barrel items to ensure passage of the bill.  In addition, the Democrats have attached their minimum-wage increase to the bill, an odd addition to war funding:

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement yesterday on war-funding legislation that would begin bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq as early as July, setting a goal of ending U.S. combat operations by no later than March.

The $124 billion bill, slated for final votes in the House and Senate tomorrow and Thursday, sets up a veto clash with President Bush by week's end. Some congressional Democrats had considered making advisory all dates for withdrawing U.S. troops in the hopes of persuading Bush to sign the bill, which Democratic leaders said provides $96 billion -- more than the White House requested -- for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But with the president standing firm on his plans to veto any language on the timing of the war, Democratic leaders stuck to binding dates for initial troop pullouts.

...

Democrats hope to put the president on the spot for rejecting the money he has said he badly needs to prosecute the war. The compromise bill provides $95.5 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $4 billion more than he requested. It would spend on veterans' health care $1.8 billion that Bush had not asked for and boosts funding for troop training and equipment. It also includes $2 billion more than the White House requested for homeland security.

On the domestic side, Democrats stripped out some items that Bush and congressional Republicans ridiculed, but defied criticism on others. The final legislation will no longer fund peanut storage facilities and relief for spinach farmers harmed by product recalls. Nor will it aid Christmas tree farms, or beet or sugar cane growers. But it keeps $3.5 billion in agricultural assistance, less than the House and Senate had approved. It retains $500 million for wildfire emergencies, and $425 million for a rural schools and roads program that was set to expire.

Note that this paragraph on minimum wage doesn't appear until the last paragraph in the story.  Democrats are throwing in whatever they can to get this passed in Congress, which is probably headed for a White House veto anyways.  That means Congress will have to start from scratch, unless they can override the veto, but with such a narrow majority, that's unlikely. 

Also note the fine print on the Democrats withdrawal plan:  "After combat forces are withdrawn, some troops could remain to protect U.S. facilities and diplomats, pursue terrorist organizations and train and equip Iraqi security forces."  Which is what the troops in Iraq are doing today.  There are no details on how few troops would be left for this mission, or how they would be chosen.

Iraqi Red Crescent

See this from The Hill:

The president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, the only relief organization operating in Iraq, is calling on the Democratic-led Congress to rethink its troop withdrawal strategy and recognize that Iraq suffers from a worsening humanitarian crisis.

His call follows on the heels of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) announcement yesterday that Appropriations Committee conferees will set a non-binding goal, as part of the 2007 emergency war supplemental, of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by April 1, 2008.

...

In Washington for a series of advocacy meetings in Congress, Said Hakki, the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, expressed concern that by setting a withdrawal timetable, the U.S. would abandon Iraq at the height of a humanitarian crisis.

“It is important that Congress identifies that there is a humanitarian crisis in Iraq,” Hakki said in an interview with The Hill. “If they agree there’s a crisis, let’s not have America be a problem but the solution.”

...

Insisting that he is not a politician, Hakki — a U.S. citizen who spends most of his time in Iraq’s red zones — is pushing for a time-out in what he calls the “partisan squabble” over the U.S. troop withdrawal timetable.

HT to the Blogfather.

Brown County Votes Today

Today we have a vote in Brown Country regarding the TIF for Northern Beef Packing plant.  Prediction: it's close.  Never underestimate the powers of nativism. 

Yeltsin

The New York Times:

Boris Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy as the country's first post-Communist president, has died, a Kremlin official said Monday. He was 76.

Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov told The Associated Press that Yeltsin died, but gave no cause of death or further information. The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart failure.

Reid

Harry Reid gets slammed by his hometown paper for his position on Iraq:  "The Democratic strategy to use the ongoing violence in Iraq to their political advantage in the run-up to the 2008 elections requires some skill and nuance. But it's growing harder to believe Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- Nevada's own -- actually possesses those skills."

Remember that Senator Reid was one of the seventy-seven senators who voted to go to war in Iraq.  HT to Instapundit.

UPDATE: In a related topic, see these thoughts on the war, politics, and message control from The Mudville Gazette.

UPDATE:  Bill Kristol:  "What Harry Reid said is much more disgraceful than anything Trent Lott said. And I do think Democrats should ask Harry Reid [to] step down."  Investor's Business Daily is also calling on Reid to step down: 

In aiding and comforting the enemy in wartime, Reid has betrayed the office he holds, shamed the Nevadans he represents and made the Democratic Party he leads synonymous with surrender. There is one way he can repair the damage he's done to the nation: step down.

UPDATE:  Nevada soldiers are not happy with Harry Reid.

Liberal Democracies

Eric Posner:  "Liberal democracies, not activists and international law, protect human rights."

Y'all People

This video is getting major promotion around the web.  Hear Hillary Clinton slip into a fake Southern accent as she addresses Al Sharpton's National Action Network   Wanna bet she does not talk like this when she is raising money on the Upper West Side?

A City With A Great Future Behind It

The Inter Press News Service, which my journalism major daughter recommended to me, gathers stories from people living in the places they are reporting on.  I found a story by Zoltán Dujisin about the Polish city of Nowa Huta. 

Construction of Nowa Huta (New Steel Mill), now a district north-east of Krakow, a city of 1.4 million about 300km south of capital Warsaw, began in 1949 as authorities of then People's Republic of Poland decided to build an autonomous model city around the Lenin Steel Works.

The monumental city grew rapidly with migrant workers coming mostly from the countryside, and its steel mill became the largest in Poland. The city came to be known as the perfect example of socialist-realist urban planning and architecture, with a Polish touch.

The Soviets loved to create "model cities" to show how top-down planning could create the communities of the future.  As the lawyers say, the model proved too much.  The model cities worked only when lavishly supported from outside.  When that support collapsed, so did the model. 

Once employing 43,000 workers, the steel mill was downsized to a workforce of 9,000, and much of it lies abandoned as only few sections were sub-leased to private companies.

"Politically and economically everything has changed, but I'm not sure people are happier," Aleksander, a former engineer at the Lenin Steel Works told IPS. "Perhaps there is more freedom, but many more people don't find work. Maybe our work wasn't that good, but it was work."

Ah yes.  Working to prove a political point is good work if you can get it.  But someone has to actually make the things your pay check will buy.  Real economic growth always comes from below.  The task of rational government is not to "grow economies" but to foster their growth.  Radical leftist government is like the father in the Berenstain Bears books.  He is there to show us what not to do. 
 

Roe v. Wade was a Disaster for the Court

Roe v. Wade was not the worst decision in the history of the United States Supreme Court.  Dred Scott, which declared that freed men could not be citizens of the United States, and that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in U.S. territories was worse.  It may not have made the Civil War inevitable, but it surely made it more likely.  Plessy v. Ferguson was worse.  That decision protected American apartheid from challenge under the Equal Protection Clause, and set back racial progress a good half century.  Even if you see abortion as wrong in the same way that slavery and segregation were wrong, as I do, those decisions did more damage to the foundations of the American Republic. 

But Roe did more damage to the Court itself than any other decision in its history.  In Dred Scott the Court wildly invented false constitutional principles, but the Court at least had some text and tradition to stand on.  The Constitution did, lamentably, include protections for slavery.  In Plessy the Court ignored the obviously unconstitutional intention of legal segregation, but its decision did have both logic and tradition behind it.  "Separate but equal" was a disastrously bad interpretation of equal protection, but it was an interpretation, and it was consistent with prior legislative histories. 

In Roe v. Wade the Court took sides in a deep political conflict, without a shred of evidence in the text or traditional interpretations of the Constitution.  It gave a total victory to one side, but that victory rests entirely on the whim of any five members of the Court.  Worse still, it sometimes depends on only one, a fact that is perfectly evident in Gonzales v. Carhart.  Four justices would overturn Roe and let the states and Congress decide.  Four would strike down virtually any limitations on abortion.  That leaves Mr. Justice Kennedy, one single citizen out of about three hundred million, to decide exactly what kinds of abortions American women have a right to. 

This is disastrous for the Court because it turns every Supreme Court appointment into a single issue election.  Questions of intellect and competence cease to weigh much with most of the Senators and activists.  Imagine for a moment that the typical pro-life or pro-choice advocate had to choose between a competent candidate whose position on Roe was uncertain, and a candidate whose competence was uncertain but who clearly shared the advocate's position.  You see what I mean.  Senators and pundits talk a lot about "judicial philosophy," but what they almost always mean by that is the nominee's position on Roe. This is like hiring only those umpires who would call the most strikes against the White Sox.  (Wait a minute, I'm for that). 

This is very bad for the Court.  Roe should be struck down.  Then the Court can go back to its role as the umpires of American politics.  Abortion may be central to the lives of women, as pro-choice advocates advocate.  But war and peace, liberty and security, global warming and economic development, are all central to the lives of all Americans, and yet we are content to let Congress put the questions.  If Roe does go down, it would not lead to the end of legal abortion in America.  I suspect it would lead to more compromise between the choices available to women and the rights of unborn sons and daughters.  I think that would be better for the Republic.  It is clear it would be better for the Courts. 

An UglyTruth

Steve Chapman on partial birth abortion:

The court cited one nurse's account of this procedure. The doctor, she said, "delivered the baby's body and arms -- everything but the head." At that point, she said, "The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby's arms jerked out . . . . The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby's brains out."

The striking fact about the debate here is not that some people are appalled and revolted by what is done in these instances, but that some people are not. They don't flinch from the violence visited on well-developed fetuses in the name of reproductive freedom. Any abortion, in their eyes, is a justifiable abortion.

Novak on Johnson

See this from Bob Novak:

TIM JOHNSON'S SEAT

National Democratic Party strategists believe that Sen. Tim Johnson, out of sight since suffering a brain hemorrhage last Dec. 13, will be able to run for re-election in South Dakota next year. But if he cannot, they fear Democrats will lose the seat in the heavily Republican state.

These strategists doubt Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, the probable Democratic nominee if Johnson does not run, can win a Senate race. The strongest Republican candidate would be Gov. Mike Rounds. Other possibilities are Lt. Gov. Steve Kirby and State Senate Majority Leader Dave Knudson.

South Dakota Republican insiders say they doubt Johnson will be able to be a candidate. His office has said he may return to the Senate as early as this summer, with the help of a wheelchair.

The Dance in France 3

It looks like Sarkozy and Royal will face one another in a runoff after today's French presidential election.  From CNN:

Four polling agencies put Sarkozy ahead of Royal, and both of them in the May 6 run-off, eliminating the 10 other first-round candidates.  Sarkozy won 29-30 percent and Royal 25-26 percent of the vote, leaving their competitors far behind, according to the projections.  The projections were based on actual vote counts from representative samples of hundreds of polling stations across the country.

Money Does Grow Trees

Last night, after attending a rousing NSU Theater production of The Mikado, we stopped by a local establishment at which an area singer was performing.  With great earnestness he announced that tomorrow (or today as I write this) was Earth Day.  An earnest invocation of Earth Day is never a sign of good music to come.  He asked the crowd if we had seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and suggested that if we ever have a couple free hours we should watch the film.  I was sure that never would I have two hours that free (ok, as one of the few Americans who has read Earth in the Balance  maybe I will see the movie).  The singer then launched into a song entitled "Money Doesn't Grow Trees."  Get it.  It's a take on "Money doesn't grow on trees."  Genius. Actually, it was a clever song, but factually wrong.  It is private land that is more effective in growing trees.  Private lumber companies tend to manage their land better than the government manages the public land.  There are fewer fires and more trees.  Naturally, the lumber companies are interested in the continuing existence of trees, since that's how they make money.  So if you want more trees, make it profitable to have more trees.  In that sense, money does grow trees.