South Dakota Politics

The New Media

Reuters:

Media outlets are finding it harder to protect the privacy of the politicians and stars they cover without losing scoops to blogs and other competitors, the editor of online magazine Slate said on Thursday.

"I very much agree that we need to have standards, but I think that in practical terms, we don't control what people find out anymore," Slate Editor-in-Chief Jacob Weisberg said at a Reuters Newsmaker event.

...

That balance is getting tougher to maintain as more people get their news from the Internet or from bloggers and others who may not feel restrained by ethical or legal considerations.

Rounds Strikes Back at AL

Sibby is reporting that Governor Mike Rounds is punching back at the Argus Leader's reporting of his record.

Dakota Today Hammers Argus

Dakota Today:

Perhaps while I write a blog with a rather uncontrolled mixture of "stuff", I should not be tossing rocks from this glass house at the Sioux Falls Argus, but, but,...what a mess it is.

I guess I have now tried to read a week or so worth of the Argus in its new clothes. My opinion of it has not improved a bit. Less is not more, no matter how it is presented. The paper format just plain sucks.

It was presented as a new way to categorize the news in the old local, state, national, sports. etc. categories, but what they have defined as local makes little sense. Local includes state and regional issues in this new dog's breakfast categorization system.

There is "dumbing down" of papers, but there is also just plain dumbing. It appears the Argus new format manages to do both. Newspapers do not need to look like the dumbest glitz TV "news" format in order to be read or to be attractive.

Readability involves both the obvious graphics stuff, but also the idea that regular readers don't have to dig past all the dribble on celebrities, local car fires, whatever randomly scrambled through the paper in different ways every issue in order to find anything of significance.

There is something sensible about a front page with the major news, state, national, international, local or with indicators of location in other sections, followed by actual sections rather than a half page "section" stuck in the middle of several half-page "sections".

A manure spreader would do a better job of layout in the Argus than the current mess.

Gaddis on the Democrats

Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis has a review of Robert Beisner's new biography of Dean Acheson in the next issue of The New Republic.  Beisner argues that Acheson was the real architect of Harry Truman's Cold War policy, which Gaddis agrees with, but also accounts for the man's flaws.  Gaddis also takes time to look at the Democrats today.  He argues that George W. Bush has stolen the Democrats' old theme of liberal internationalism by promoting freedom and democracy around the world.  Excerpts:

"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." The speaker could have been Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, or Bill Clinton. In fact, it was George W. Bush, in his second inaugural address; and what he said is what historians will probably remember as the Bush Doctrine. This poses a serious challenge for Democrats. What do you do when Republicans steal your principles?

. . .

They have responded to the first Republican president to have become a liberal interventionist by quivering–and blogging–with rage. They have offered no plan for building on the Bush Doctrine and moving on. It's as if they're imitating the Republicans of the 1930s, who quivered with rage at Roosevelt (blogging had not been invented yet) while neglecting his warnings about tyrants, as well as his vision of what a world without them might be.

. . .

More than anything else, the borrowing of ideas–often without attribution–is what has spared the United States the proliferation of single-issue parties that so often paralyzes politics elsewhere. Political plagiarism makes big tents possible. If Reagan and Bush could borrow from Truman and Acheson, then it's hard to see why Democrats today should not borrow from Reagan and Bush. To say that nothing can be learned from an opponent's ideas is to claim infallibility for one's own, a pretension to which even Acheson never aspired.

The Bush administration, like the Truman administration, has given its supporters much to apologize for and its critics much to denounce. It is from those gifts, which reflect the recalcitrance of reality when strategy tries to shift it, that the Democrats will again rise as the Republicans once did. The only question is how long it will take Democrats to remember how to do this.

POTUS Daschle Watch

According to KELOLand, Tom Daschle has moved back the timing on his decision to run for President (he had earlier said he'd decide late this year):

10/13/2006

Daschle Undecided On Presidential Bid

Former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle says he hasn't decided yet if he'll seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.

Daschle, who was defeated by Republican John Thune in a 2004 re-election bid, says he considers Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the front-runner so far among Democrats who may run for president. He says Clinton is smart and has paid her political dues.

Daschle adds that he'll probably decide early next year if he plans to get into the presidential race.

Lalley on Daschle

Argus Leader editor Patrick Lalley weighs in on Daschle's presidential run:

Daschle on the trail

Tom Daschle’s out building his base. The former South Dakota senator was in a Missoula, Mont., bar (at least it sounds like a bar) as part of his “Naked Truth” campaign talking about health care.

The granola crowd in Missoula was pretty responsive to the message that the health care system is broken. You can read the story here via the South Dakota Politics blog (yes, I’m linking to SDP) or you can get it straight from the   Missoulian

Here’s an excerpt:

“It’s totally broken,” he said. “As bad as it is, it is getting worse.”

The crowd hooted its appreciation.

The event was organized in part by Forward Montana, a nonpartisan, progressive nonprofit group formed in 2004, said Matt Singer, who fit the casual tone of the event with his scruffy beard and sandals.

Daschle needs these folks if he’s going to make any serious bid for the presidency. Regardless of how far left of center he positions himself, he needs the footsoldiers from places like Missoula to get on board, maybe pack up for a few months and volunteer in New Hampshire. He also needs them as part of any Dean-esque online strategy to get out there and pound the message.

Daschle’s affinity for health care is no secret and heading into 2008 it’s a solid topic upon which to build beyond the Birkenstock crowd. Daschle plays well with seniors on the issue as well. The danger is getting plugged as a one trick pony. Once you get the tag, it’s difficult to shake regardless of the breadth of your knowledge base, and Daschle’s is broad.

He’s clearly on the kind of early-in-the-mission footwork that makes for good campaign lore later in the process. But he’s also putting together the building blocks of national campaign. We know he can raise money. We’ll see if he can build a base of human support.

– Patrick Lalley

One Tin Soldier

From the American News:

A Navy SEAL sacrificed his life to save his comrades by throwing himself on top of a grenade Iraqi insurgents tossed into their sniper hideout, fellow members of the elite force said.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor had been near the only door to the rooftop structure Sept. 29 when the grenade hit him in the chest and bounced to the floor, said four SEALs who spoke to The Associated Press this week on condition of anonymity because their work requires their identities to remain secret.

"He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was down toward it," said a 28-year-old lieutenant who sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. "He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs' lives, and we owe him."

Monsoor, a 25-year-old gunner, was killed in the explosion in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was only the second SEAL to die in Iraq since the war began.

Terror Plot Busted

The BBC is reporting on a foiled US-UK terror plot:

Dhiren Barot, of north London, planned to use a radioactive "dirty bomb" in one of a series of attacks in the UK, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

He intended to cause "injury, fear, terror and chaos", prosecutors said.

Barot, 34, also allegedly plotted to cause explosions at several US financial buildings "designed to kill as many innocent people as possible".

...

Seven other men are due to face trial next year.

Free Speech For Me...

Peggy Noonan discusses the contemporary impatience with viewpoints that make us uncomfortable:

Let us be more pointed. Students, stars, media movers, academics: They are always saying they want debate, but they don't. They want their vision imposed. They want to win. And if the win doesn't come quickly, they'll rush the stage, curse you out, attempt to intimidate.

And they don't always recognize themselves to be bullying. So full of their righteousness are they that they have lost the ability to judge themselves and their manner.

And all this continues to come more from the left than the right in America.

Which is, at least in terms of timing, strange. The left in America--Democrats, liberals, Bush haters, skeptics of many sorts--seems to be poised for a significant electoral victory. Do they understand that if it comes it will be not because of Columbia, Streisand, O'Donnell, et al., but in spite of them?

Students, stars, media movers, academics.  She left out one: the blogosphere.  She is correct that this emanates more from the left then the right, although the right has its own bullies.  The bullies of the left have their motivation.  Self-righteously assured not only of their politics, but also of their own moral superiority, they must mock, caricature, and impugn the motives of conservatives to make it clear to their audience that conservative opinions are not respectable opinions and conservative people are not respectable people. 

 

Apes are People too! At least in Socialist Spain

Here is one of those stories I wish I had invented.  From London's Telegraph:

Spain could soon become the first country in the world to give chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and other great apes some of the fundamental rights granted to human beings under a law being proposed by members of the ruling Socialist coalition.

The law would eliminate the concept of "ownership" for great apes, instead placing them under the "moral guardianship" of the state, much as is the case for children in care, the severely handicapped and those in comas, said the MP behind the project, Francisco Garrido.

	Apes in zoos would be moved to sanctuaries

Great apes held in Spanish zoos would be moved to state-built sanctuaries, unless there was a risk that moving them would harm their emotional welfare, he said.

The law would also make it a criminal offence to mistreat or kill a great ape, except in cases of self-defence or medical euthanasia.

As a first step, Mr Garrido, a Green MP for Seville who sits with the Socialists, will propose a resolution on the rights of great apes before the parliament's environment committee at the end of this month. He said he expects the committee to approve the resolution which already has received the public support of ministers.

OOOkay.  Now I must admit a trace of sympathy for the idea.  I accept Darwinism as the correct interpretation of the various biological species, and I would like to see much more done to protect chimpanzees and bonobos, our nearest mammalian relatives, in their natural environments.  Human beings may be more than just another species of great apes, but we are at least that.  Nonetheless, the other apes are not and cannot be considered moral persons.  We can protect them and study them only by managing them in ways that would never be acceptable in the case of other human beings.  Besides, once you let the great apes in, it is hard to close the door on a lot of other species.  From the Brussels Journal:

Two problems arise: (a) the exclusion of, for instance, dolphins or jackdaws merely because they are biologically less related to humans seems to smack of “speciesism’, and (b) how does one determine the degree of relatedness to humans that is necessary for an animal to acquire human rights, i.e. why are these rights granted to great apes but not to lesser apes?

The Socialist Party does not grant the so-called ‘lesser apes’ (gibbons [Hylobates] and siamangs [Hylobates sundactylus]) the same rights, but even the more advanced ‘new world anthropoids’ [Platyrrhines] are excluded. The latter, however, include the ‘capucine monkey.’ Observations confirm that this species uses tools, something which one would expect to appeal to a workers’ party. Perhaps that omission will be rectified after the initial breakthrough of granting human rights to the great apes has been achieved.

No doubt we will soon have to provide new world anthropoid adolescents their own iPods.  But perhaps what is really behind all this is a hope that there are,among the newly enfranchised gorillas and orangutans, some simian socialists who will leave their fellows behind to join the Spanish socialist party.  If so, it may very well raise the average intelligence of both populations. 

North Korea

Historian Victor Davis Hanson has thoughts on North Korea.  Definitely give it a read.

WaPo on South Dakota Abortion Ban

Here's an opinion piece out of the Washington Post on the South Dakota abortion law.  One can admire this writer's forthright advocacy of abortion:

Why does this matter? Because contraceptives fail -- and not only in ways that can be remedied by resorting to emergency contraception (not that abortion opponents want to make access to Plan B any easier). Because even the most wanted pregnancies produce tragic genetic anomalies. Because people, teenagers especially, take stupid risks that result in unwanted pregnancies.

Pregnant women in these circumstances face a difficult -- and, yes, even tragic -- decision. But it's a choice that should be theirs, not one that's up for majority vote.

This author is honest: we need abortion for birth control and to eliminate babies with birth defects.  Not exactly the rallying cry one usually hears from the abortion proponents.  Still, she calls abortion "tragic."  If abortion is such a good thing, why is it tragic?  Perhaps the innate moral sense is being pricked?  Thanks to Joe K. for sending along the link. 

The Coming "Tolerance"

The Star-Tribune has a story on a the curriculum in Minneapolis and other Minnesota cities that teaches about homosexuality to students as young as seven years old. 

FeLicia McCorvey Preyer, who has second-grade twins at the school, was also incensed about "Families All Matter." Before the school year began, she told Sage and school officials that she didn't want her children reading books with homosexual themes, she says. "They knew my wishes and they defied them," she adds.

"Families All Matter" is supposed to teach tolerance. In fact, says Bounds, her daughter has learned that people who believe that a mother and father are best for a family are discriminatory.

This is the future of American education.  As this story says (read the whole thing), the teacher is telling his students that people who favor traditional marriage are bigots just like those who used to hate blacks.  The time is coming when schools will teach homosexuality as morally equivalent to heterosexuality and those who think differently (e.g., those who accept the traditional Biblical view of marriage) need to be "educated" out of their beliefs.

Warner

Former Virginia Governor Mark Warner is quitting the Presidential race already.  New York Times blog excerpt:

Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, who has been traveling across the country for more than a year exploring a bid for the White House, has decided not to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, party officials said today. (Read his statement)

Mr. Warner came to the decision in the last 48 hours, according to two Democratic officials close to his political operation. He began alerting some of his top contributors on Wednesday evening and disclosed the news during a hastily-convened meeting with his staff today. He is scheduled to have a press conference at 11 a.m.

Mr. Warner, who finished his single term as Virginia governor in January, has spent the majority of his time since leaving office traveling to New Hampshire, Iowa and other key states in the presidential nomination process. His political action committee, Forward Together, was assembling the framework for a full-blown presidential campaign to be formed after the midterm elections.

Does this boost Tom Daschle's chances of getting the nomination?  It's certainly something worth considering.

Corruption on the Left

In an interesting story, Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) hung up on the AP after being asked some tough questions about a corrupt looking business deal.  Here's the link and the first part of the story.  Read the whole thing and you be the judge.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

The Nevada Democrat's deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. He's never been charged with wrongdoing - except for a 1981 federal securities complaint that was settled out of court.

Pyongyang and the Peanut

Appeaser in Chief Jimmy Carter stikes again, this time in the New York Times.

IN 1994 the North Koreans expelled inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and were threatening to process spent nuclear fuel into plutonium, giving them the ability to produce nuclear weapons.  . . .

Responding to an invitation from President Kim Il-sung of North Korea, and with the approval of President Bill Clinton, I went to Pyongyang and negotiated an agreement under which North Korea would cease its nuclear program at Yongbyon and permit inspectors from the atomic agency to return to the site to assure that the spent fuel was not reprocessed. It was also agreed that direct talks would be held between the two Koreas.

But beginning in 2002, the United States branded North Korea as part of an axis of evil, threatened military action, ended the shipments of fuel oil and the construction of nuclear power plants and refused to consider further bilateral talks. In their discussions with me at this time, North Korean spokesmen seemed convinced that the American positions posed a serious danger to their country and to its political regime.

So now we know who is responsible for North Korea tested an A-bomb.  Hint: it ain't the North Koreans.  Those gentle folk melted like a candy bar in the back window under the warmth of Carter's southern smile.  It's America's fault. 

But let's take a look at what one smooth talking Southerner negotiated on behalf of another.  The "Agreed Framework" deal that Carter closed for Clinton went like this: North Korea would shut down construction of two nuclear reactors (both capable of making weapons grade Plutonium).  In return two light water (no military use) reactors would be built at South Korean and Japanese expense, and oil would be provided in the meantime.  In fact, Pyongyang cheated and proceeded to enrich Uranium.  When the U.S. confronted the N. Koreans, they pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and, apparently, proliferated themselves a few nukes.  Not exactly a triumph of diplomacy, Carter's Agreed Framework. 

Update: The Clinton Administration apparently didn't think much of Carter's deal either.  According to the Washington Post:

Clinton administration officials have privately said that they agreed to the plan in 1994 only because they thought the North Korean government would collapse before the project was completed.

The Democrats and Foley

The Washington Post's Jonathan Weismann has a very revealing story on the Foley scandal.  On the one hand, it does look like the timing of the scandal was largely accidental, contrary to what I suggested in my most recent post.  On the other, it is now clear that "Democratic Operatives" have possessed the less explicit e-mails (the ones that the House Leadership supposedly covered up) for months, and have been trying to get the press to publish them.

Two of the news media's sources of Mark Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to former House pages said this week that they came forward to expose the Florida congressman's actions, not to help the Democrats in the midterm elections.

But there are indications that Democrats spent months circulating five less insidious Foley e-mails to news organizations before they were finally published by ABC News late last month, which prompted the leaking of the more salacious instant messages. Harper's Magazine said yesterday that it obtained the five e-mails from a Democratic Party operative, albeit in May, long before the election season.

It was the publication of the "less salacious" e-mails that encouraged two former pages to release the sexually explicit ones.  One of those pages is a Democrat; the other describes himself as a staunch Republican. 

House Republicans have been accused of putting politics over the safety of children by covering up the habits of Representative Foley.  I have addressed this in my recent posts.  But if that accusation is fair, what are we to make of those still anonymous Democratic operatives who possessed the same information the Republican leadership did, and who, instead of acting openly on that information, spent months peddling it secretly to the press?

Jack Billion Short on Cash?

South Dakota Straight Talk is reporting that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Billion might be short on campaign cash.  As of now it's merely speculation, but do with it what you will:

Heard this morning that Dem Gov Candidate has pulled significant television ad purchases.

Apparently Fundraising has not kept up with expectations.

It makes little difference to the validity of his message if he cannot turn up the volume on his microphone. I suggested several months ago that Jack Billion should call the Hollywood Help Line to send in the Calvary ( Billion Get Smart And Stop).

In the last month Billion has started to show he has a campaign. He has new ad spot that takes the Governor on conerning HB1215 and his campaign looks like it is starting to get legs. Compared to several months ago a few people think he might even have a chance to win although the chance is slim.

Whether the Rumor is accurate or not Jack Billion still must turn up the volume.

Fascism Watch

St. Paul Pioneer Press:

A University of Wisconsin-Madison instructor who has come under scrutiny for saying that the U.S. government orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks compares President Bush to Adolf Hitler in an essay that his students are being required to buy.

The essay, "Interpreting the Unspeakable: The Myth of 9/11," is part of a $20 book of essays from 15 authors called "9/11 and American Empire: Muslims, Jews, and Christians Speak Out," according to an unedited copy first obtained by WKOW-TV in Madison and later by the Associated Press.

The book is on the syllabus for the twice-a-week course, "Islam: Religion and Culture," being taught by part-time instructor Kevin Barrett, but only three of the essays are required reading, not including Barrett's essay.

Barrett is active in a group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, whose members say U.S. officials, not al-Qaida terrorists, were behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Daschle on Health Care

Missoulian:

Former U.S. senator looking to raise health care awareness

By ROBERT STRUCKMAN of the Missoulian

Tom Daschle, former U.S. senator from South Dakota, sat on a bar stool under a red filtered light on a low stage at the Loft, above Higgins Alley in downtown Missoula.

Some people in the crowd of about 150 held plastic cups of beer. Most stood. Some sat on chairs. A few rested on the floor.

Daschle had come to town as part of his “Naked Truth” campaign to raise awareness about America's health care crisis.

…

Where is Daschle going from here?

On Monday, he was in California, debating Newt Gingrich. Tuesday night, he went to Denver. On Wednesday, he'll be in Washington, D.C., talking in a public forum with Bob Dole.

He'll stay on his “Naked Truth” tour, too, he said. He was inspired by Al Gore and his campaign to educate the public about global warming, which was recently the subject of a feature-length film called “An Inconvenient Truth.”

“He really does set out a good model for advocacy,” Daschle said.

As yet, Daschle has no plans for a movie, he said.

All the News Not Fit to Print

Michael Barone:

The Labor Department Friday announced that the number of jobs increased between April 2005 and March 2006 not by 5.8 million but by 6.6 million. As an editorial in the Wall Street Journal notes, "That's a lot more than a rounding error, more than the entire number of workers in the state of New Hampshire. What's going on here?" The most plausible explanation, advanced by the Journal and by the Hudson Institute's Diana Furchgott-Roth in the New York Sun, is that lots more jobs are being created by small businesses and individuals going into business for themselves than government statisticians can keep track of. Newspaper reports on the number of jobs usually focus on the Labor Department's business establishment survey. But over the past few years, the Labor Department's household survey has consistently shown more job growth than the business establishment survey. The likely explanation: The business establishment survey misses jobs created by new businesses. Our government statistical agencies do an excellent job. But statistics designed to measure the economy of yesterday have a hard time reflecting the economy of tomorrow.

The federal budget deficit has been cut in half in three years, three years faster than George W. Bush called for. Why? Tax receipts were up 5.5 percent in FY 2004, 14.5 percent in FY 2005, and 11.7 percent in FY 2006. That's up 34.9 percent in three years. And that's after the 2003 tax cuts. When you cut taxes, you get more economic activity, and when you get more economic activity, the government with a tax system that is still decidedly progressive gets more revenue.

The bottom line: The private-sector economy is much more robust and creative than mainstream media would have you believe.

Money for Nothing and Your Kicks for Free: Education Spending Note

One of the most cherished falsehoods in the politics of education is that more money spent leads to better results.  I say this with considerable reluctance.  As a professor in a public university, I am all for spending more money on public universities.  Perhaps things are simpler in K-12 education.  This from the New York Sun.

Queensbury, a small town in the Adirondacks, spends less money on each student than any other public school district in the state. Bridgehampton, a resort town in Long Island, spends six times as much. But when it comes to statewide test scores, it's hard to tell the difference between the two.

In Queensbury, which spent $8,553 per student in the 2004–05 school year, more than 80% of fourth-graders passed state reading exams that same year and more than 90% passed the math tests. The same is true of Bridgehampton, which spends $51,828 on each student, according to a July 2005 state report to the governor and the legislature.

The comparison raises a fundamental question coming to a head next week in what may be the last hearing in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit: Does money matter when it comes to student performance?

The answer is no.  Spending more money per pupil does not result in increased student performance.  If anything, there is an inverse relationship: states spending the most, like New Jersey, get worse results than states spending the least, like, well, South Dakota.  This is not to say that increasing spending on K-12 education is a bad idea in itself.  It's not.  Better lab equipment, for example, will benefit students who were going to do well in physics and biology anyway.  But outcomes depend mostly on the family background of the students, and no one knows how to turn that around. 

Back Home in time for Bad News

Actually, I heard the last game of the Twin's 2006 season on radio as my colleague in the history department, Ric Dias, gunned his Dodge T-Ruck westward out of Bismarck.  The low rumble of the over powered engine scattered ducks out of ponds for miles on either side of the road, and probably alarmed earthquake warning systems as far away as Taiwan.  Unfortunately, it wasn't loud enough to drown out the game.   Pictures of the bad lands are coming.

I returned to not unexpected news that the Republican polls were dipping south again, largely due to Foleygate.  The American Spectator reports the obvious news that the Foley revelations were timed for the election. 

One of the stories going around Democrat Party circles is that party operatives like Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and American Family Voices weren't quite ready for primetime with the opposition research materials they had gathered for the 2006 election cycle.

According to one political consultant with ties to the DNC and other party organizations, "I'm hearing the Foley story wasn't supposed to drop until about ten days out of the election. It was supposed the coup de grace, not the first shot."

So why the rush? According to another DNC operative: bad polling numbers across the country. "Bush's national security speeches were getting traction beyond the base, gas prices were dropping, economic outlook surveys were positive. We were seeing bad Democratic numbers in Missouri, Michigan, Washington, Arizona, Florida Pennsylvania, even parts of New York," says the operative. "A month before, we were looking at launching an offensive against Republicans who according to polling barely held a five-seat majority if the election were to be held at the end of August. That was doable for Democrats from September 1 to November 7. But by mid-September, Republicans were back to having held seats for a 15-seat majority. In the Senate, it looked like a wash. We held seats in Florida, Nebraska, picked up seats in Pennsylvania, but that that was about it. They were holding in Missouri and possibly within reach of Maryland and Washington. We were looking at a disaster in the making."

My reaction is that it is certainly true that someone arranged for the scandal to break sometime just before the election, but that this doesn't matter much.  It's hardball politics to hold onto damaging information about the other side until the moment it will have maximum effect, but that is how the game is played.  And anyway the news would not have had a major effect unless voters were already in a mood to be angry, and I think news from Iraq is largely responsible for this.  There is nothing unfair about that. 

If the Democrats have something to feel uneasy about, it is not that they used a scandal, but what they made the scandal up out of.  Prior to Sept. 29th, the Republican leadership in the House had no reason to believe that Rep. Foley had ever done anything wrong.  They had only rumors, one ambiguous and notably un-newsworthy e-mail, and the fact that Foley was known to be homosexual.  It is now considered scandalous that they did not publicize all this and/or quarantine Foley on account of it.  In the future gay members of Congress, especially if they are Republicans, will find themselves automatically suspect.  But perhaps that is a small price to pay for winning an election.   

DME Railroad Battle

The Associated Press is reporting on the DME railroad battle and how Tom Daschle and Bill Janklow are working against the business and development leaders in their state:

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - A $6 billion coal train project has created strange political bedfellows in South Dakota, where railroads helped pioneers settle the land when it was still Dakota Territory.

Like choosing teams for a ball game, both sides have tried to line up heavy hitters to sway public opinion on the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad's ambitious project, one of the largest in the last century.

Former U.S. Rep. Bill Janklow, a Republican, has helped project opponents, and former U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle is on the board of the plan's major detractor. The state's current governor and congressional delegation all line up solidly for the plan.

...

After nearly 10 years of planning, the argument largely boils down to a debate between a promise of unprecedented economic development for the region and the safety of a hospital considered among the world's finest.

"It's kind of like the Alieska Pipeline of South Dakota. Our rural towns are losing population. We're consolidating schools. Growth is very difficult," said Ted Hustead, president of Wall Drug, a tourist attraction not far from South Dakota's Black Hills.

"This is not an opportunity to come along in a generation. This is an opportunity that comes along maybe once in a state's history. When you understand the enormity of the project, it's really quite mind-boggling the economic impact it can have on our state."

He and a dozen or so other business, political and community leaders traveled to Washington last month to make their case on why the DM&E should get the loan.

This past week, U.S. Department of Transportation Undersecretary Jeff Shane attended a meeting on the project. U.S. Sen. John Thune, a Republican; Sen. Tim Johnson and Rep. Stephanie Herseth, both Democrats; and Republican Gov. Mike Rounds told Shane the federal loan should be approved.

The meeting was held in Huron, where the DM&E has vowed to put a $100 million operations center and up to 500 jobs.

Other South Dakota politicians who support the project include former U.S. Sens. Larry Pressler and Jim Abdnor and former Govs. Walter D. Miller and Frank Farrar, all Republicans, and former Gov. Harvey Wollman, a Democrat.

...

Daschle and Janklow have supported the project in the past.

Janklow, a lawyer, was an adviser to the clinic, where he has been a patient, but the relationship ended in July, Gade said. The former state attorney general, governor and congressman told the AP he did not want to comment on his role.

Daschle, who lost his seat in 2004 after serving 26 years in Congress, said he supports the project but believes the line should be routed around Rochester.

"How can we resolve the legitimate concerns that people have when you have a railroad of the magnitude with the length of trains, the number of trains and the kind of cargo that is contemplated? There are safety issues and problems involving risks that need to be addressed," he said.

Daschle said his involvement has been mostly answering questions and expressing his concerns in a video posted on the opponents' Web site.

He said his concern also applies to Pierre and Brookings, two South Dakota cities where some residents are not enthused about more, longer and faster trains running through daily.

McGovern Library

Washington Times:

George McGovern may have lost the 1972 presidential election, but he inspired many others to work for justice, decency and a better life for poor people around the world, former President Bill Clinton said Saturday at a ceremony in Mitchell, S.D., to dedicate a library in Mr. McGovern's honor.
    "I believe no other presidential candidate ever has had such an enduring impact in defeat," said Mr. Clinton, who directed Mr. McGovern's presidential campaign in Texas. "Senator, the fires you lit then still burn in countless hearts."
    Mr. Clinton was the keynote speaker at the official dedication of a library and study center honoring the legacy of the former Democratic senator and his wife, Eleanor. Several thousand people, including Mr. McGovern, Sens. John Thune and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota gathered at Dakota Wesleyan University.
    Mr. McGovern, 84, was remembered not only as an anti-Vietnam war candidate who lost by a landslide to President Nixon but also as a three-term U.S. senator, war hero and tireless worker for programs aimed at ending world hunger.

The Collapse of Multiculturalism

From The UK Telegraph:

The tyranny of political correctness has for years suppressed the qualms that many Britons have had about what was happening to their country. Radical imams were allowed to preach hatred while being funded with state benefits, but few dared to question such madness, let alone act against it. The doctrine of multiculturalism dictated that all beliefs should be allowed to flourish, and to challenge that view was as politically incorrect as pinning up a Pirelli calendar in Islington Town Hall or suggesting that two married parents usually provide the best start in life for a child.

Gradually, however, people are gaining the courage to defy the diktats of political correctness and to question the assumptions of what should be acceptable in Britain.

Russian Despotism

PowerLine: Russian Rumbles Left and Right

Anti-Chavez Rally

BBC:

Young and old took to the streets to throw their weight behind the campaign of Mr Rosales, a middle-class Social Democrat who governs the state of Zulia, on the Colombian border.

Many claimed that they were seeking liberty and democracy and that made Mr Rosales their only option:

"The problem of the opposition is that before we had a lot of candidates and people couldn't make up their minds whom to support," one woman said.

"Right now we have just one candidate and I believe that we have a better shot if we have just one candidate against Chavez."

Silence in Politics

After reading this article from the Washington Post, I thought of something I've thought many times before.  In order for Democrats like Stephanie Herseth to win in conservative states such as South Dakota, they must hide their positions on social issues behind a curtain of silence.  In the article, Chris Esposito of the Emily's List makes it pretty clear that for liberals to win in conservative states, they must not project their liberal social ideals, namely abortion.  The race for the Senate in Missouri is a great example, where conservative Senator Talent's opponent is hush hush on her divisive abortion stance in that state.

As a supporter of abortion rights, McCaskill fits into her party's mainstream on the biggest of all lightning rods for cultural conservatives. She responds by mostly not talking about it, and is attempting to define her values more broadly.

At Emily's List, an abortion-rights group that is supporting McCaskill, the candidate's silence is viewed not as a retreat but as shrewd politics. Chris Esposito, an Emily's List political operative who helped Rep. Dennis Moore get elected eight years ago in a GOP-leaning House district in Kansas, said McCaskill should talk about the issues that Missouri voters say they care about -- such as health coverage and national security.

The point, he said, is winning. "It's not exclusive to wedge issues," Esposito said. "It's fundamental to every campaign."

Stephanie Herseth is in the same category.  A look at opensecrets.org shows that many of Herseth's biggest contributors are abortion rights groups like Emily's List and NARAL.  In addition, Herseth has received large amounts of cash from Nancy Pelosi's PAC.  I would suggest that Nancy Pelosi is not a candidate that many South Dakotans would support, but by keeping her supporters quiet, Herseth appears to be cruising to victory.  In addition, there has been little media coverage on her stance on these issues, and her voting record on related legislation.

Bruce Whalen, Herseth's challenger, is making a valiant effort at getting Herseth's liberal stance on abortion into the discourse of the campaign.  However, he has received little financial support, and due to Wiki-gate, may have troubles creating credibility.  Yet he is doing the right thing.  Herseth voted against the interstate abortion bill making it illegal to transport MINOR girls to other states for abortion.  When a 17 year old can't go to the school nurse for an aspirin, Herseth believes it is fine to take her to Minnesota for an abortion.  I don't think her stance on this issue is popular in South Dakota, but that is exactly why she prefers to divert attention away from this position.

Herseth has a popular stance in South Dakota on gun control as she prefers to give gun owners their Second Amendment rights.  Yet I believe, for the most part, Bruce Whalen is more consistently aligned with the majority of voters in the state.  The thing that is preventing him from making this obvsious is the shrew political manuevering being seen by Rep. Herseth.  True, this is what politics is all about and I can respect her campaign team for doing everything it must to secure reelection.  Yet I hope every voter understands exactly who they are voting for in Herseth: a liberal who receives support from abortion rights groups, the liberal trial lawyer's association, and liberals like Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi.

Columbia

Instapundit:

BROWNSHIRTS AT COLUMBIA:  The D.C. Examiner editorializes:

The thugs should be expelled from Columbia and barred from admission at any other self-respecting university. But frankly, we doubt that Columbia officials will do much of anything beyond delivering figurative slaps on the wrists of the offending students and their accomplices. Too many American academic officials have become cowed by fear of appearing to violate the politically correct orthodoxy that rules most campuses.

Yes, commitments to free speech and academic debate are trotted out when it's politically useful, but it's been clear for years that many university administrators don't really believe them.

Good Economic News

Wall Street Journal:

The Labor Department released its September jobs report on Friday, and some wags are calling it the "whoops" report. The "whoops" is a reference to the upward revision of 810,000 previously undetected jobs that Labor now says were created in the U.S. economy in the 12 months through March 2006.

So instead of 5.8 million new jobs over the past three years, the U.S. economy has created 6.6 million. That's a lot more than a rounding error, more than the number of workers in the entire state of New Hampshire. What's going on here?

Our hypothesis has been that, due to the changing nature of the U.S. economy, the Labor Department's business establishment survey has been undercounting job creation from small businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs. That job growth has been better captured in Labor's companion household survey, which reported 271,000 new jobs in September after 250,000 new jobs in August, and a very healthy total of 2.54 million new jobs in the past year.

The household survey is what is used to determine the unemployment rate, which fell in September to 4.6%, the lowest level in five years. The establishment survey, meanwhile, is used to announce the monthly "new jobs" numbers. Every year the Labor Department revises its job estimates from the previous year, in essence reconciling the figures from the two surveys, and the missing 810,000 jobs was the result through March 2006.

Getting out of the statistical weeds, the news here is that the U.S. has a very tight labor market -- which is now translating into significant wage gains. Over the past 12 months wages have climbed by 4%, which is the biggest gain since 2001 and which economist Brian Wesbury points out is higher than the 3.3% average annual wage growth of the last 25 years.

Most of the media has ignored all this and instead focused on the disappointing 51,000 "new jobs" number from the establishment survey for September. But even in that survey, the jobs number for August was revised upward by 62,000 and the U.S. jobs machine continues to roll out an average of about 150,000 additional hires each month. Even the loss of residential construction jobs in September, due to the housing market slowdown, was nearly matched by payroll gains in commercial construction.

New Stunner

The Argus Leader has endorsed Jack Billion.  No surprise there.

North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon

Where do we go from here?  There are reports that North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon at an underground test site.  Though they claim to want nukes to protect themselves from an American attack, we've never threatened such an attack.  I wonder if that suggestion will now be at the discussion table that North Korea refuses to join.  Here's a link to an ABC wire story, and a short excerpt:

North Korea said Monday it had exploded a nuclear weapon for the first time, an underground test that defied international warnings but was hailed by the communist nation as a "great leap forward" for its people.

The reported test drew harsh condemnation from world powers and some warned it would destabilize the region. Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair called the test a "completely irresponsible act" and Japan said it was unpardonable.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to discuss North Korea on Monday, and the United States and Japan were likely to press for a resolution imposing additional sanctions on the impoverished country.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it recorded a seismic event in northeastern North Korea that coincided with the announced test and a South Korean expert said it was equivalent to the force of 550 tons of TNT or a relatively small bomb.

Although North Korea has long claimed it had the capability to produce a bomb, the reported test, if confirmed, would be the first proof of its membership in a small club of nuclear-armed nations. It would dramatically alter the strategic balance of power in the Pacific region and seriously undermine global anti-proliferation efforts.

Democrats Support the Wrong Veterans

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin for this story.  It appears that several days ago the Democratic National Committee had a photo of a Canadian soldier on their Veterans issue page.  Not only that, a source on her blog says that someone at the DNC took the time to photoshop out a badge on the Canadian soldier's beret.  To me this seems to be a sign of carelessness.  Hopefully when the Democrats say they support the troops, they mean OUR troops.  But judging by this mishap, can we be sure?

Below is the picture cut from their website.  Here's the link to Michelle Malkin's page.  Check it out, and then laugh.

Here's a picture of Canadian soldiers in uniform (also from Malkin's blog).

Howard Dean's Party has, since this was pointed out, changed the picture.