South Dakota Politics

Veto

Governor Rounds has vetoed the bill establishing a special board to govern state technical institutes.  Votes are in place to override the veto.  Creation of such a board may be the first step in creating a community college system in the state. 

Lincoln Rising, Brown Falling

Lincoln County is now the third largest county in the state, surpassing Brown County, according to the US Census Bureau. 

Free the Argus 16!

SDWC:  I'm not kidding. The wedding is impending....

Antiwar Thugs

In Portland, Oregon, anti-war protesters burned an effigy of a U.S. soldier (caution: strong language).  College students at the University of Toledo carry signs reading "Death to America."  Congressman Mike Rogers' office was vandalized by anti-war protesters.  A Wisconsin army recruiting office is hit by anti-war vandals.  This is the face of the radical anti-war movement.

Dem Congress Approval Rating

Power Line:  "How many times have you heard that President Bush's approval ratings are low? Guess what: the Democratic Congress's approval rating is lower."  Check out the whole thing.

The Return of McGovernism

Over at RealClearPolitics, White House assistant Peter Wehner writes about "Iraq, Democrats, and the Return of McGovernism."  Excerpt:

We are now engaged in a pivotal war, which is itself part of an epic struggle. General David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq who was confirmed by the Senate without a single vote in opposition, is one of America's great military minds and one of America's great military commanders. Why oh why, then, are so many Democrats spending so much of their time and creative energy in an effort to undermine General Petraeus's new strategy instead of supporting it? Even granting the partisan politics of this city, the effort by Democrats is a remarkably revealing thing to witness. "Come Home, America" and McGovernism are back with a vengeance -- and like Round One, in 1972, it will leave a lasting imprint on the minds of Americans, for years to come.

Case and Point

Responding to Ken Blanchard's post on Darwinism, here is Anna at the "Dakota Women" rebutting Ken by essentially putting her fingers in her ears and going "la la la la!!"  Sounds a lot like these people.  Anna, here are a couple examples.  Women have babies, men don't.  That's science, and I know other science is working hard to liberate women from the problem of having babies, but for now, it's still true.  And maybe public policy should account for that.  So if I go to a bar and order a drink no one cares.  But if an obviously pregnant woman goes to a bar and orders a drink, the bartender will refuse to serve her and the law will back up the bartender.  Maybe its unfair that only women have to deal with this potential issue, but that's just the way it is.  Also, men are more aggressive than women.  Perhaps public policy might want to account for that, and all the wishing in the world is not going to make that fact go away.  Just look at the prison population.  Also, our laws against rape pertain to men and women alike, but plainly they are in place to protect women against sexually aggressive men, not the other way around.  Perhaps the only differences between women and men have to do with their genitalia, but one would have to be seriously deficient in common sense to believe that.

SDSU WNIT Game Sold Out

Argus Leader:

South Dakota State’s third-round WNIT game Thursday night has sold out.
Tickets went on sale at 1 p.m. and sold out with some fans still waiting in line.

A crowd of about 6,000 is expected for the game between SDSU and the winner of Monday night’s game between Iona (N.Y.) and Indiana.

Like last Saturday’s second-round win over Illinois State, some tickets for Thursday’s game could be available game day. Those tickets would be part of the allotment given to SDSU’s opponent and then returned when they don’t sell.

House Dems Bribing Members For Anti-War Vote

According to this Washington Post story, House Democrats are trying to bribe members to vote for the bill ending the war in Iraq:

House Democratic leaders are offering billions in federal funds for lawmakers' pet projects large and small to secure enough votes this week to pass an Iraq funding bill that would end the war next year.

So far, the projects -- which range from the reconstruction of New Orleans levees to the building of peanut storehouses in Georgia -- have had little impact on the tally. For a funding bill that establishes tough new readiness standards for deploying combat forces and sets an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline to bring the troops home, votes do not come cheap.

But at least a few Republicans and conservative Democrats who otherwise would vote "no" remain undecided, as they ponder whether they can leave on the table millions of dollars for constituents by opposing the $124 billion war funding bill due for a vote on Thursday.

What will Stephanie Herseth do?

UPDATE:  "Um… I thought the Democrats had a 'mandate' on Iraq?  Why do they need to buy votes?"

Hockey Play Of The Year (So Far)

See the amazing goal by Minnesota's Blake Wheeler as the Gophers beat North Dakota in the WCHA Conference Championship this past weekend. 

Indoctrination, 101

Prof. Blanchard's post on the left's uneasy relationship with Darwin reminds of a panel I once attended at a political science conference.  The panel was peopled by those who teach women's studies and the subject was something along the lines of "New Ideas In The Teaching Of Women's Studies."  At one point one of the panelists mentioned the revolution in social biology.  The panelist said something like this: "There have been interesting findings in social biology recently about the ways in which brain chemistry and genetics determine our behavior.  These new findings shed light on male and female differences and how individual and social difference may be grounded in biology, not social construction.  These are remarkable findings which may revolutionize how we think about gender...and so we have to make sure our students never hear of this research."  The presenter was just that blunt.  This says much about academia, especially the academic left, and the anti-intellectualism of those disciplines most wedded to certain political assumptions which, due to the ideological nature of the discipline, cannot be challenged.

"Me Fail English? That's Unpossible!"

Or so says Ralph Wiggum in an episode of "The Simpsons."   It turns out that many residents of our nation's capital have failed English.  Thirty-six percent of all District residents are functionally illiterate.  This despite spending more per pupil than almost any other state (if DC was a state).  It may be that educational attainment has more to do with what is taught than how much money one spends. 

Senate

From the Washington Post The Fix blog:

South Dakota This race has been in stasis since Sen. Tim Johnson (D) underwent emergency brain surgery last December. The Democratic senator continues his slow-but-steady recovery, and there appears no evidence yet that he plans to do anything but run for a third term next November. We continue to believe that Johnson will at some point in the future need to make a final judgment on whether he is willing and able to run a full-fledged campaign. An open-seat race would likely pit Gov. Mike Rounds (R) against Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D) -- a match-up in which Republicans like their chances.

Mustangs

Kevin Woster:

It’s a shame that the sports chatter this week at coffee tables and their electronic extensions — Internet Web sites — will focus on the Little Wound Mustangs’ sportsmanship, or lack of it, rather than their basketball.

It was preordained, however, by the coaches and other adult leaders of Little Wound High School when they walked out of Rushmore Plaza Civic Center arena Saturday night rather than staying to accept the Class A boys basketball runner-up trophy during an all-but-obligatory post-game ceremony.

Taking a walk was an adult decision. But it’s the kids — that elegant collection of basketball players — who must live with it.

That’s sad, because we should be talking about Little Wound basketball — a truly remarkable combination of speed and execution that carried the Mustangs through an enviable 24-2 season that included a sparkling three-point win against St. Thomas More High School in December at the Lakota National Invitational.

Naturally, read the whole thing and learn more about Devon LeBeau.  And good work by Mr. Woster for tackling this story.

Life Getting Better in the U.S.?

Kevin Hasset at Bloomberg.Com has some interesting poll results from the U.S. 

A recent, thorough study of public attitudes by my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Karlyn Bowman, reveals startling patterns in the attitudes of Americans toward the economy. At this moment, they are about as satisfied as they have ever been.  . . .

In 1975, 83 percent of Americans said they are either not at all likely or not too likely to lose their job. In 1998, at the peak of the ``Clinton boom,'' 87 percent responded in that manner. In 2006, 89 percent of Americans felt secure. The sense of security is increasing.

A poll conducted by CBS News and the New York Times asked people how concerned they are that they or someone in their household might lose their job in the next year.   In 1994, 40 percent weren't concerned at all. That number declined sharply through 1996, when it troughed at 29 percent, but it was back to 39 percent in 2004. Since the middle of the Clinton presidency, feelings of job security have advanced sharply.

In 1989, Gallup asked people how satisfied they were with their work. Forty-five percent said they were completely satisfied. In 2005, that number had climbed to 52 percent.

In 1991, the Los Angeles Times began asking people about their personal financial situation. Back then, 68 percent of Americans thought their finances were either very secure or fairly secure. That number dropped to 57 percent by 1993 but climbed all the way to 71 percent by last January. Again, people feel more secure today.

That is the sort of thing you find out when you ask people who do not work at the New York Times. 

Sanford Donation Receiving Wide Attention

Argus Leader excerpt:

Sanford Health is moving more swiftly than it expected toward developing a national network of pediatric clinics and an expansive research operation aimed at curing a major disease.

Those are the hallmarks of the Sioux Falls-based health system's lofty growth plans, which are tied to the much-heralded $400 million donated last month by T. Denny Sanford.

International media coverage - hundreds of stories have been published in 31 states and nine countries by Sanford Health's count - drew a flood of responses from cities, clinics, hospitals and doctors across the continent.

Cindy Morrison, a Sanford vice president, said the health system probably won't have to formally advertise as a result and instead plans to sort through hundreds of responses it already has received and follow up with direct mailings.

"The coverage and response was much greater than we expected," Morrison said.

As they say, read the whole thing.  The rest of the story details the projects Sanford plans to pursue in the next ten years.

Creationism on the Left

The enfant terrible of the leftists turned conservatives, David Horrowitz, points out that the American left has its own version of creationism. 

The name of this theory is "social constructionism," and its churches are Women's Studies departments in universities across the United States. The feminist theory of social construction maintains that the differences between men and women -- apart from obvious anatomical ones -- are not biologically determined but created by a patriarchal social structure designed by men to oppress women. It is "patriarchal society" that turns naturally bisexual infants into male and female personalities by conditioning them from birth to adopt gender roles -- the one aggressive, masculine and destined to command, the other passive, feminine and slated to obey.

The left has always vigorously embraced Darwinism whenever it collided with Biblical faith.  The response of the various Churches to Darwinism has been either to reject it outright, or to argue, as I gather Rome does, that the human soul is a special case.  God gave one set of laws (natural laws) to all of creation except man; man alone is privy to Divine law and morality.  Horowitz points out (and I believe he is the first to recognize this) that the left in general and feminists scholars in particular, have their own theory of special creation.  Human society alone is exempt from Darwinian mechanics.  Animals behave by instinct.  Human sexual and social behavior is entirely learned. 

The only trouble with this leftist theory of special creation is that it is false.  Human beings eat, poop, and breed pretty much like chimpanzees.  They share a lot of their social and sexual habits with our hairy relatives as well.  Some years ago I organized a panel on Larry Arnhart's book, Darwinian Natural Right.  Frans de Waal served on that panel.  Today, the Washington Post reports some of his latest findings. 

When Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal read a news story that said Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, had hurled a chair across the room on hearing an employee was going to work for rival Google, the scientist immediately made a connection with his own research: "When I see such behavior, I think of a chimpanzee."

Another time, a researcher that de Waal knew told him that whenever she chatted with another scientist in the hallway, her boss would get upset. He would later drop by her office and tell her she ought to stay clear of that person.

"He was constantly interfering whenever she had a contact with an important person," de Waal said. "Chimpanzees also divide and rule. You have an alpha male, and he will try to keep his supporters away from his rivals. His supporters are in trouble if they groom one of his rivals."

Human beings are indeed a special animal.  Our souls are vast and deep beyond anything we find in the animal world.  But we are at least animals.  Human violence mirrors that of chimpanzees, and human sexual behavior shows many of the same patterns found in virtually all mammals, birds, and fish.  The left doesn't want to hear this because it doesn't want to believe that nature might put limitations on social progress.  But leftist creationism is just as unscientific as religious creationism.  The churches and Women's Studies Departments should buck up, and take an honest look at what science is telling them.  I'm guessing that the former will like it more than the latter. 

ps.  The happy couple depicted above are bonobos, not chimpanzees.  Bonobos prefer love to war. 

Life Getting BetterIn Iraq?

Yes, at least according to the Iraqis.  This, from the London Times Online: 

Four bloody and difficult years after the invasion of Iraq, it is easy to despair over its future. Much of the reporting on television and radio, and in most newspapers, conveys the picture of a country ravaged by a vicious civil war, suffering ever more appalling terrorist outrages. Many believe that the war was a dreadful mistake from which Iraq will take decades to recover and that its people would happily prostrate themselves in front of Saddam Hussein again if the hangman’s noose had not intervened.

However, a survey of more than 5,000 Iraqis by Opinion Research Business, a reliable pollster, gives an utterly different view. It shows a country which is far more optimistic than anyone would have expected. By two to one, Iraqis say that life is better under the present system. There is, as might be expected, a clear Sunni-Shi’ite split. But even 29% of Sunnis, who had it pretty easy under Saddam, say things are better now.

Reasonable Americans may well wonder whether America has benefited from the war.  Reasonable Iraqis clearly think that Iraq has benefited.  As the Times points out, this is remarkable, considering the enormous inconveniences and appalling violence that the war has cost.  Americans, largely immune to civil violence and with no memory of tyranny may find this hard to grasp.  But hope and freedom are scarce commodities in the Middle East.

The poll does raise challenges both to Bush's policy and to his critics. 

Only a quarter of Iraqis think their country is in civil war. And they also believe, by two to one, that security will improve once American and British troops withdraw. This is a rejoinder to those who believe withdrawal would unleash an all-out struggle between Shi’ites and Sunnis. The current American troop surge appears to have been a considerable success in reducing levels of violence, again contrary to conventional wisdom. True, it may be temporary, but it is working.

Maybe an American withdrawal would be a good thing.  But there is little doubt that President Bush's current "surge" policy has yielded significant rewards. 

Che Lives On

As you read this snippet from the New York Times, ask yourself: who is leading the anti-war marches?:

Saturday’s march was organized by the Answer Coalition — named for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism — an organization that was initially associated with the Workers World Party and now affiliated with a breakaway faction of that party called the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

*** Judging by the speeches and placards, the marchers on Saturday set their sights on sweeping goals, including not only ending the war but also impeaching President Bush and ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Many carried Answer Coalition signs bearing the image of the Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara.

Yes, the same Che Guevara who murdered hundreds during the Cuban revolution.  More:

Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the Answer Coalition and a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, said the group held out little hope of influencing either the president or Congress. “It is about radicalizing people,” Mr. Becker said in an interview. “You hook into a movement that exists — in this case the antiwar movement — and channel people who care about that movement and bring them into political life, the life of political activism.”

*** Many in the crowd said they were unfamiliar with the Answer Coalition and puzzled by the many signs about socialism.

Hildebrand Tewes

From the March 15 edition of Roll Call:

Hildebrand Tewes News. Changes are afoot once again at Hildebrand Tewes, a Democratic consulting firm.

Communications strategist Anne Filipic is departing the firm to work with founding partner Paul Tewes in Iowa on Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) presidential campaign.

But headed in are Leah Johnson, Scott McConnell and Sarah Berns.

Johnson previously served as regional field director and press secretary for South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, the group that successfully overturned that state’s abortion ban at the polls in the fall. McConnell was a press assistant for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

Berns worked in the previous cycle as a deputy research director for now-Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) Senate campaign, as well as in the research department of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee prior to that.

Meanwhile, Hildebrand Tewes now has a dog in the Kentucky Democratic gubernatorial primary. The firm has signed on to provide field and communications consulting services to gubernatorial candidate Bruce Lunsford (D), a wealthy businessman, and his running mate, Greg Stumbo (D).

Competing Railroads Fought Competition from DME

From the Argus Leader:

The BNSF, however, was another thing, Schieffer said. As he sought to shepherd the loan application through federal bureaucracy last year, "I certainly saw the BN coming in every office I was six times over with twice the people. They were all over the place."

While the Mayo Clinic and other entities in Rochester, Minn., and a confederation of West River and Wyoming landowners and environmental groups were the most vocal opponents, the BNSF did work hard quietly to kill the deal, Schieffer insists.

He said he knows this "from talking to people who were directly involved ... and actually from customers."

"They have been working long and hard on it both in Washington, D.C., and with customers," he said.

BNSF spokesman Patrick Hiatte declined to directly address Schieffer's claim.

The Surge

BBC News:

The US military commander in Iraq says there are grounds for optimism over the latest security drive.

Gen David Petraeus told the BBC that with two out of the five extra brigades now on the ground in Iraq, there had been fewer sectarian attacks.

He said he would have an idea of the chance of success once all extra troops were deployed in the coming months.

...

Gen Petraeus said: "By early June, we should then have everyone roughly in place - and that will allow us to establish the density in partnership with Iraqi security forces that you need to really get a good grip on the security situation."

He said there were "encouraging signs", although he added that he did not want to get "overly optimistic at all on the basis of several weeks of a reduced sectarian murder rate".

He said the new operation had led hundreds of families to return to "neighbourhoods that had really emptied out".

But Gen Petraeus also pledged to speak candidly if he thought the operation was not working.

He said: "I have an obligation to the young men and women in uniform out here, that if I think it's not going to happen, to tell them that it's not going to happen, and there needs to be a change.

"In other words, if you can't accomplish your mission, you owe that to your boss - and you owe that, more importantly, to those who are out there serving in the coalition."

Time

Time Magazine:

These are gloomy and uncertain days for conservatives, who — except for the eight-year Clinton interregnum — have dominated political power and thought in this country since Reagan rode in from the West. Their tradition goes back even further, to Founding Fathers who believed that people should do things for themselves and who shook off a monarchy in their conviction that Big Government is more to be feared than encouraged. The Boston Tea Party, as Reagan used to point out, was an antitax initiative.

But everything that Reagan said in 1985 about "the other side" could easily apply to the conservatives of 2007. They are handcuffed to a political party that looks unsettlingly like the Democrats did in the 1980s, one that is more a collection of interest groups than ideas, recognizable more by its campaign tactics than its philosophy.

Naturally, read the whole thing.

Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer:  Limousine Liberal Hypocrisy

Thompson For Pres

John Fund profiles Fred Thompson, lawyer, actor, Senator...presidential candidate?  I say, Run, Fred, Run! 

Thune In Abedeen

John Thune was in town yesterday hearing concerns about regional airlines.  Stephanie Herseth is in Aberdeen today touring the new Tech Center at NSU, among other things.  I'd be at that event, but I am moving today. 

A Touch of Reagan in the Night

I have been getting a lot of use out of CCK lately.  No reason to stop!  My friend Chad has this to say about Ronald Reagan:

The man was a failure. 

I've never really figured out why the right has deified the man.  He delivered nothing on their agenda other than empty rhetoric.  I guess the fact that he is the lone remaining object of hero worship on the right probably says more about the state of conservativsm than anything else.

Now if I am open to the charge of hero worship, it would clearly be towards Reagan rather than Bush 43.  Not long ago a colleague of mine in the history department, a firm Democrat I might add, agreed with me on one thing: Reagan ranks as the second greatest President of the twentieth century,  FDR being the first.  If he was a failure, we should always have such failures as President.  Let me mention a few points:

First, Reagan broke the back of inflation.  For most of my early life, inflation was a persistent irritant for pretty much all Americans.  Since Reagan's presidency, it disappeared as a major issue. 

Second, Reagan ushered in the longest period of steady economic growth since the nation recovered from the depression.  Except for two shallow recessions, that growth continues to the present day. 

Third, Reagan achieved the first arms control agreement that actually reduced the stock of nuclear weapons.  He did so by holding the Western alliance together when the Soviets deployed short range nuclear missiles aimed at Western Europe.  Reagan deployed our own short range nukes, and the Ruskies were forced to cut a deal. Both sets of weapons were removed. 

Fourth, Reagan's policies brought down the Soviet Union.  He launched a military build up that the Soviets tried to match, at the very moment that their economy and social structure were nearing the breaking point.  They broke.  Reagan's letters to Soviet leaders show that he knew exactly what he was doing. 

Any one of these achievements would constitute a great legacy for a president.  All four put him at least in second place among Presidents of his century.  Chad is right to say that Reagan handed conservatives some disappointments.  He allowed government to continue growing in large measure.  That was the price to pay for his military build up.  The federal deficit grew under Reagan, but as a percentage of GDP it remained manageable.  And Bill Clinton achieved a balanced budget by following Reagan's economic policies. 

Reagan's greatness, like that of FDR, depended largely on circumstances.  FDR had the great depression and WWII to deal with.  Reagan had stagflation and a tottering USSR.  A reasonable and well-informed person can find much to criticize in both cases.  To call either man a failure would suggest a deep ignorance of recent history. 

Bill Even

The Argus Leader reports that Gov. Rounds has appointed Bill Even as the new ag secretary for South Dakota.  Excerpt:

Bill Even, who grew up on a farm near Humboldt, will replace Larry Gabriel as South Dakota's secretary of agriculture.

Gov. Mike Rounds made the announcement Thursday. Even is director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development and deputy secretary of Tourism and State Development. He previously served as state energy director and was executive director for the South Dakota Energy Infrastructure Authority.

"Bill brings a wealth of personal knowledge about the agriculture industry in South Dakota," Rounds said.

Even, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, is scheduled to take over the farm agency March 26, replacing Gabriel, a former legislative leader who earned a reputation as a hard-working and plain-speaking state official.

Gabriel's tenure in the top agriculture post includes a stint shepherding the governor's Dakota Certified Beef program and several years of difficult and often controversial decisions involving changes to try to balance the books at the State Fair.

Early Primaries

The Washington Post:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed legislation yesterday moving the state's presidential primary to Feb. 5, 2008, a change that could lead to the earliest and biggest single-day test of candidate strength ever.

Half a dozen other large states, including New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey, are also considering moving their primaries to the first Tuesday in February, with the possibility that nearly two dozen contests will be held that day. Together, those states could account for more than half of the total number of delegates at stake.

While the rush to move to dates earlier in the nominating process has been motivated by states' desire to have more say in selecting the Republican and Democratic nominees, analysts said it may enhance the importance of the few small states whose contests will be held in January.

The kingmaker status of Iowa and New Hampshire, which have the first caucuses and first primary, respectively, in the nation, has been under siege in recent presidential cycles as other states have sought to shift their primaries ever earlier.

Herseth's House Colleagues

From the LA Times:

WASHINGTON— Barbara Lee once called for a U.S. Department of Peace. Lynn Woolsey tried to revoke the Boy Scouts' federal charter because the group excludes gays. And Maxine Waters accused the CIA of helping import cocaine into South Los Angeles.

Their ideas made them folk heroes to the American left.

But like slightly eccentric relatives at a family reunion, Reps. Lee, Woolsey and Waters were rarely invited to sit at the head table in Washington.

Until now.

The three California Democrats — who have been waging a passionate, four-year campaign to end the war in Iraq — find themselves in the mainstream as Congress begins debate today on a crucial war spending bill. And the group they lead, the more than 80-member Out of Iraq Caucus, controls the fate of the most important war vote since the 2003 invasion.

SDP Jazz Note: The Miles Davis Quintet

I have been slowly building a jazz collection around the great work produced between 1955 and 1965.  In the year before I was born, 1956, the Miles Davis Quintet produced a marvelous series of recordings.  The titles are Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin'.  These represent what the Quintet was doing on the road in that year.  In addition to Miles' trumpet, which might rank at the most influential piece of brass in modern jazz, John Coltrane plays his sax.  Any list of Coltrane's best recordings includes these disks.  Red Garland plays piano, Paul Chambers bass, with Philly Joe Jones on drums.  Together the four CDs make a foundation for any jazz collection.  If you have ever listened to the Guy Noir feature on A Prarie Home Companion, you have heard music that imitates this body of work. 

Firing Attorneys: Bush v. Clinton

My friend Chad at CCK urges me to be more honest about the pseudo-scandal involving the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Administration.  I quoted the Wall Street Journal, which compared the firing of these eight attorneys to Bill Clinton's firing of all 93 U.S. Attorneys.  Chad thinks this is dishonest.

You know that when Clinton came into office and "fired" all the U.S. Attorneys, it was quite a different situation than firing them when they were your own appointees.

It seems like only yesterday that Chad was accusing us of "hero worship" regarding Bush.

Dear Leader can do no wrong, and when he does, blame it on others because Dear Leader can do no wrong.

But apparently Chad thinks that Bill Clinton could do no wrong.  Slick Willie lied before a grand jury?  That's okay, because it was about sex, and apparently one can lie about that in court.  He fired all 93 U.S. attorneys, some of whom where actively investigating him and his political allies?  That's okay too.  Because they were appointed by someone else.  If Clinton can do no wrong, apparently Bush can do nothing right.  It is very bad, I gather, for a Republican President to fire people he has appointed.  Why?  Chad doesn't say. 

This is not an irrelevant distinction.  A President may wish to replace someone appointed by a predecessor because he wants someone else who shares his priorities.  Fine.  But that makes it just as reasonable to fire someone he himself has appointed if that person doesn't in fact serve his agenda.  If he promises to crack down on voter fraud, and an attorney he appointed refuses to do so, well, that's the whole point of the firing power, isn't it?

It is a settled matter of constitutional law that a President can remove executive branch officials for whose conduct the President is responsible.  Otherwise the President could escape responsibility for their conduct.  If they aren't enforcing civil rights law, or immigration law, he could say: "hey, I can't touch them!"  At Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Jack Goldsmith explain why U.S. Attorneys are and ought to be removable by the President.  They note that Congress has considered and rejected, for these good reasons, the institution of an independent Justice Department. 

Contrary to Chad's principle (which I suspect would be dropped like a hot potato if it were applied to President Hillary) it doesn't matter whether the President originally nominated that official or not.  The U.S. Attorneys are part of one of the two political branches.  They are political appointees.  There was in fact nothing wrong with Bill Clinton sacking the whole 93 of them.  Likewise, there is nothing illegitimate about Bush sacking eight of them. 

And contrary to Chad's charges of hero worship, I think that the Bush administration has handled this matter in a very incompetent way.  Instead of boldly exercising his constitutional prerogative, it looks like General Gonzales lied to Congress about what he had done and was doing.  If he did, that may cost him his job.  But that is an altogether different issue from the firing itself. 

 

KSM

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted his work goes back to 1993 and the first attack on the World Trade Center, and extends to planning assassination attempts against world leaders from Pope John Paul II and Jimmy Carter, another twenty-eight attacks on targets in the United States, and the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a string of others during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement that was read during the session, which was held last Saturday.

Mohammed claimed responsibility for planning, financing and training others for attacks ranging from the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center to the attempt by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes. And he also claimed that he was tortured by the CIA after his capture in 2003.

In all, Mohammed said he was responsible for planning 28 attacks, including many that were never executed. The comments were included in a 26-page transcript released by the Pentagon, which blacked out some of his remarks.

It might also be worth seeing this story about al-Qaeda's efforts to develop biological and nuclear weapons to attack America:

He offered a chilling confession to “managing and following up on the Cell for the Production of Biological Weapons, such as anthrax and others, and following up on Dirty Bomb Operations on American soil.”

These hearings prove how bad the attacks could have gotten.  That none of this occurred speaks well of our counter-terrorism units, it seems to me.

March 15, 2007

Beware! Especially if you know anyone named Cassius or Brutus. 

"Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past"

Prof. Newquist suggests taking a break from the vanity fair to read Willa Cather's My Antonia.  See the South Dakota Humanities Council page on the book here.  I believe My Antonia is among the finest novels ever written by an American.  It is certainly my favorite.  Summer of 2002 I made a pilgrimage to Red Cloud, Nebraska, Cather's childhood home and location of the Willa Cather Historical Site. I took some pictures that you can find here (and yes, I misspelled "Willa").  If I get some time today I will post more at the Photo Repository.  In a few weeks I will teach My Antonia in my American Political Thought course.  I cannot wait.  I urge everyone to pick up a copy of this great (and relatively short!) novel. 

Daschle Staffers

Denise Ross:  "Latest ex-Daschle staffer news."

War Funding

USA Today: "The Defense and State departments would get the full $142 billion Bush seeks in 2008 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats also kept Bush's proposed $481 billion defense budget, a $49 billion boost over this year."

Firing Line

From the Wall Street Journal:

Congressional Democrats are in full cry over the news this week that the Administration's decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys originated from--gasp--the White House. Senator Hillary Clinton joined the fun yesterday, blaming President Bush for "the politicization of our prosecutorial system." Oh, my.

This is going to be fun. 

. . . [Web] Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno--or Mr. Hubbell--gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.

At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired.

Equally extraordinary were the politics at play in the firings. At the time, Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton.

I say: let the good times roll!

US Combat Deaths Drop in Iraq

Some more positive news out of Iraq.  This would be the surge Rep. Herseth voted against:

The rate of killings of US troops in Iraq has been on the decline, down by 60 percent, since the launch of the new security measures in Baghdad, according to statistics revealed by the Multi-National Force -Iraq Combined Press Information Centre.

Only 17 members of the US military in Iraq have been killed since February 14 till March 13, compared to 42 from January 13 to February 13; the rate was on the decline during the first month of the security crackdown, compared to a month before.

Two of the 17 soldiers died at US Baghdad camps of non-combat causes.

The remarkable decrease in killings among the US troops came at a time when more of these troops were deployed in the Iraqi capital, especially in districts previously regarded as extremely hazardous for them such as Al-Sadr City, Al-Azamiyah, and Al-Doura.

Meanwhile, US attacks on insurgent strongholds north of Baghdad curbed attacks against helicopters. Before the new security plan, many such craft were downed leaving 20 soldiers dead.

The US army in Iraq had earlier said that sectarian fighting and violence in Baghdad had dropped sharply, by about 80 percent, since the launch of the plan.

The statistics excluded US troops killed in other governorates such as Al-Anbar, Diyala, and Salahiddin.

As to the latest human losses, the US army announced Wednesday that two American soldiers had been killed, one in southern Baghdad and the other northeast of the capital.

Again I advise cautious optimism, but it's hard to deny that that the reinforcements are having a positive impact.  We should have been fighting like this three years ago.

UPDATE:  Via Power Line, Iraqi officials have released data today on violence in Baghdad since the surge began a month ago.  The result has been an eighty percent reduction in fatalities in Baghdad: 

In an upbeat assessment of the first 30 days of the security plan, Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier Qassim Moussawi said the number of Iraqis killed by violence in Baghdad since February 14 was 265, down from 1,440 killed in the previous month.

The number of car bombings, a favorite weapon used by suspected Sunni Arab militants fighting the Shi'ite-led government, was down to 36 from 56, Moussawi told reporters.

Dem War Debate

From USA Today:

Tempers flared on Iraq among Democrats on Tuesday as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fielded criticism from an anti-war congresswoman over liberals' concern that the party is not doing enough to end the war.

Pelosi's behind-closed-doors exchange with Rep. Maxine Waters of California — described as heated by lawmakers and aides who asked not to be identified because of the session's private nature — came as House leaders made progress in their quest for votes on a war spending bill that would require U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by 2008.

Several Democrats said they had been persuaded to support the measure — the party's first binding action to challenge President Bush's war policies — after last-minute changes and a weekend at home with constituents.

The bill is slated for a test vote Thursday in the Appropriations Committee. It is proving a formidable test of Democratic leaders, who are steering a tricky path between liberals who oppose any funding for the military effort and conservatives who do not want to restrict unduly the commander in chief.

Leaders said they were hopeful they could sway enough Democrats to support the $124 billion plan, but a handful of left-of-center lawmakers, including Waters, have declared they won't back it.

"I am philosophically opposed to the war," Waters told reporters after the private meeting. "We're voting to give the president of the United States almost $100 billion to continue the war. I can't support it."

Where does Stephanie Herseth stand?

Al Gore's Global Warming Hype

The New York Times has, uncharacteristically, published a piece that is critical (if very cautiously) of Al Gore's Global Warming Ministry. 

Hollywood has a thing for Al Gore and his three-alarm film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which won an Academy Award for best documentary. So do many environmentalists, who praise him as a visionary, and many scientists, who laud him for raising public awareness of climate change.

But part of his scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore’s central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

There are four general claims about global warming that are key to understanding its importance and that are subject to scientific analysis, as opposed to political interpretation. 

1. The global climate, over all, is gradually warming.
2. Human activity is a significant cause of that warming.
3. Global warming will be bad, on balance, for humanity.
4. Policy can significantly mitigate the degree of global warming in the short term.

I have stated the claims in order of certitude.  Number 1 is pretty certain.  I don't know of any reputable scientist who doubts that we are indeed in a warming trend.  Number 2 is less so, but now it looks like a pretty sure proposition.  Some reputable scientist do question this, but most accept it. 

Number 3, by contrast, is very much up in the air.  Climate change is bound to be bad for some people and bad for others.  Some regions will get less rain, others a lot more.  Growing seasons will be longer for many regions, with warmer nights and less evaporation.  You'd have to be a farmer to find bad news in that. 

As for Number 4, there is no way on God's green Earth that we are going to arrest global warming in the near term.  The best science says that the world will continue warming even if we halted green house emissions at their current levels.  But the nations subject to the Kyoto protocols aren't doing that, let alone China and India. 

It is with Number 3 that puts Gore's in the worst light. 

Some of Mr. Gore’s centrist detractors point to a report last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that studies global warming. The panel went further than ever before in saying that humans were the main cause of the globe’s warming since 1950, part of Mr. Gore’s message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process.

It estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of 23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.

What Gore is doing is not science.  Its science fiction.  It is all well and good to look for ways to bring greenhouse emissions under control, and to manipulate the global climate in so far as we can.  But in the meantime, our money is best spent preparing for the effects of global warming.  For a fraction of what the Kyoto treaty would have cost us, we could give most of the world's people safe drinking water.  That would be money well spent.

Bush Worship and Iraq

My friend Chad at CCK has a provocative post in response to one of mine on the Democrat's confusion over Iraq.  Chad argues that conservatives in general are part of a "personality cult" devoted to Bush.  I think that my colleague, Professor Schaff, makes short work of this claim here and here.  In general, conservatives have not been much prone to hero worship of any kind.  There is some of that, to be sure, with regard to Ronald Reagan.  But even there prominent conservatives are not afraid to challenge the consensus, as George Will shows. 

In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis -- gratitude decaying into idolatry -- is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.

The reason that conservatives are not much given to personality cults is that we have a pretty cautious, if not outright dim view of human nature.  We have our heroes-Reagan, Thatcher, Churchill-but we do not expect them to be perfect.

Chad says:

They are completely enamored with Dear Leader. If you criticize Dear Leader, you are criticizing your country, so don't do it. Or so the story goes .....

That's what Republicans have swallowed whole and those that continue to believe it (and I think I have to count Blanchard among them) are the same remaining few who think President Bush is doing a great job in Iraq and by extension the War on Terra.

I would like to see an example of a conservative who says or believes that criticizing Bush means "criticizing your country."  I have certainly never made such a claim, because I do not believe it.  Moreover, I do not think that there is anything unpatriotic about criticizing one's country.  Both conservatives and liberals have strong traditions of criticizing American society and government, and that is as it should be. 

Nor have I argued that "President Bush is doing a great job in Iraq."  Consider, for example, the current "surge" policy.  Its either working or it isn't.  If it isn't, then that's hardly to Bush's credit.  If it is, then why did we wait so long to try it?  The best that one can say about Bush's Iraq policy from the beginning is that he had a policy, which is more than one can say about President Clinton or any Democratic leader since. 

Johnson "determined and focused" to Resume Senate Duties

From the Argus Leader:

In his first public statement since suffering a brain hemorrhage in December, U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson said he's "determined and focused" to return to the Senate.

According to a statement released moments ago, Johnson said:

“I want to thank the people of South Dakota and all of our dear friends for their support and prayers," he said.

"This has been an unexpected journey and there is a long road in front of me," Johnson added. "I am determined and focused on my recovery, and I look forward to returning to the Senate on behalf of South Dakota.”

For the first time since his hospitalization, Johnson's staff today released photographs of Johnson during his recovery at an undisclosed rehabilitation center.

The senator underwent surgery Dec. 13 to repair a malformed cluster of blood vessels in his brain, called an arteriovenous malformation.

A month later, he was transferred to the hospital's rehabilitation center, where he began speech, physical and vocational therapy.

The medical staff at the rehabilitation center has informed the Johnsons that the senator continues to progress as expected, according to the statement.

Doctors are now focusing on standing and balance training, his staff said.

AHA and GWOT

Not surprisingly, the American Historical Association has voted on a resolution voicing its opposition, collectively as "Historians," to the war in Iraq. 

Now, most Americans probably don't care what AHA  has to say about the war; it's a personal and professional interest for me.  I find some parts of their resolution agreeable, such as taking the Bush administration to task for "excluding well-recognized foreign scholars; condemning as 'revisionism' the search for truth about pre-war intelligence" and "re-classifying previously unclassified government documents."  While I might disagree over some specifics in these points, I think such issues should fall under the watchful eye of a scholarly organization.  But the remaining resolution is merely partisan points masked as professional concern.  I think that former AHA President James Sheehan (who is critical of the Iraq war) says it best (via Spinning Clio):

He said that there are two problems with the resolution. First, he said, “it seems to me that people join the AHA with certain expectations, and the fact that the association will take political positions is not one of them. In a way, you are violating the conditions of membership, and I suspect a few people will leave.”

Second, he said it was important for the association to take political stands on issues “narrowly concerned with the interests of scholars in general and historians in particular.” So he said it was important for the AHA to speak out as it does against visa denials to foreign scholars or restrictions on access to presidential records. “But by taking more general stands, we weaken our moral authority and we become identified with partisan positions,” he said. “There is only a certain amount of moral capital that we have.”

Indeed.  Related thoughts by Anthony Paletta.

Daschle Discusses Hillary's Weaknesses

The Hill excerpt:

One of Obama’s allies, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), acknowledged that Clinton has a much stronger political network than the junior senator from Illinois.

“Hillary Clinton has tremendous strength in part because of the remarkable national network that [the Clintons have] been able to create over the years,” said Daschle in an interview. “That list is as extensive as any candidate for president has had in modern times. Barack doesn’t have that. No question she’s in a much stronger position than he is at this point network-wise.”

But Daschle, a consultant at Alston & Bird, suggested that Obama may use this to his advantage by portraying Clinton as a compromised Washington insider and himself as an outsider with new ideas, not beholden to D.C.’s political and business establishment.

“The longer you’re in Washington, the less capable you are of presenting yourself to the country [in a way] that articulates the need for a change in direction,” he said. “You become part of the Washington establishment. … I found that to a certain extent I had to fight that perception in my more senior years in the Senate.”

Counterinsurgency

While there is ground for cautious optimism, the new strategy developed by Gen. David Petraeus appears to be making headway in Iraq.  USA Today reports that US and Iraqi forces have captured thousands of insurgents and a large number in the Mahdi Army (and Moqtada al-Sadr has yet to show his face):

Coalition forces have detained about 700 members of the Mahdi Army, the largest Shiite militia in Baghdad, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Monday.

The militia, which is loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and has clashed with U.S. troops in the past, has mostly avoided a direct confrontation with American and Iraqi government forces, Gen. David Petraeus said in an interview with USA TODAY.

Some of the militia's top leaders have left the capital, and Iraqi government officials are negotiating with al-Sadr's political organization in an effort to disband the militia, Petraeus said.

"I think in part one reason that al-Sadr's militia has been lying low … is due to some of the discussions being held," Petraeus said in a telephone interview from Iraq. "It's also in part due to some of the leaders leaving Baghdad" and others being arrested, he said.

More "Dear Leader" Worship

Yesterday I noted some of the conservatives who have made strong negative criticisms of George W. Bush.  Today the Wall Street Journal reprints Joseph Bottums's denunciation of Bush.  Bottums's thesis: Bush has a good heart, but is incompetent.  As the article notes, tomorrow the WSJ will reprint Michael Novak's response to Bottum.  Stay tuned. 

WaPo

The Washington Post this morning skewers the Democratic leadership for exploiting the war appropriations process and thinking about nothing but their electoral prospects in 2008:

The Democratic proposal doesn't attempt to answer the question of why August 2008 is the right moment for the Iraqi government to lose all support from U.S. combat units. It doesn't hint at what might happen if American forces were to leave at the end of this year -- a development that would be triggered by the Iraqi government's weakness. It doesn't explain how continued U.S. interests in Iraq, which holds the world's second-largest oil reserves and a substantial cadre of al-Qaeda militants, would be protected after 2008; in fact, it may prohibit U.S. forces from returning once they leave.

In short, the Democratic proposal to be taken up this week is an attempt to impose detailed management on a war without regard for the war itself. Will Iraq collapse into unrestrained civil conflict with "massive civilian casualties," as the U.S. intelligence community predicts in the event of a rapid withdrawal? Will al-Qaeda establish a powerful new base for launching attacks on the United States and its allies? Will there be a regional war that sucks in Iraqi neighbors such as Saudi Arabia or Turkey? The House legislation is indifferent: Whether or not any of those events happened, U.S. forces would be gone.

The House bill lists benchmarks for Iraqi political progress and requires that President Bush certify by July 1 that progress is being made toward them. By October, Bush would have to certify that the benchmarks all had been reached. This is something of a trick, akin to the inflexible troop readiness requirements that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) wanted to impose to "stop the surge." Everyone knows that the long list of requirements -- including constitutional changes, local elections and the completion of complex legislation -- couldn't be finished in six months. In that case a troop withdrawal would have to begin immediately. If there was no "progress" by July, it would have to begin then and be completed by the end of the year.

CAIR

Captain's Quarters:  "Is this the new focus on national security that the Democrats promised in 2006? Allowing terrorist apologists to use Capitol Hill to conduct their business hardly seems like getting tough on terrorists."  Related thoughts over at Power Line.  In somewhat related news, see this item.

Art

Kevin Woster writing in the Rapid City Journal:

I’m a reporter, not an artist. It has been said on a number of occasions that my newspaper writing rises to a level of art. Of course, that hasn’t been said since 2004 — the year my mother died.

I tend to believe that most of the rest of the world would say my newspaper work is competent and at times even entertaining. But it’s not art.

I have dabbled in artistic endeavors. I can play a few chords on the guitar and sing along. Is it art? No, it’s just haphazard, mediocre strummin’ and singin’.

If I wanted to, I could pound out enough words and meandering plot lines to fill 300 or so pages with what the kind-hearted might refer to as fiction. I could even call it a novel. But, trust me, it wouldn’t be art.

And painting? Well, I’ve sloshed oil and watercolors on canvas just enough to know there was no art there for me — or anyone else who pondered the results.

Don’t get me wrong, I think I have a limited ability to produce art — in a very narrow writing style, on certain occasions. At its best, my poetry manages to climb to an artful level. I don’t often get there, however, or remain there for long.

It’s just too hard.

That’s why I’m not a poet. That’s why Ted Kooser is. He has a gift, a type of genius that I don’t have. And he has the strength and skill and commitment to maintain it over a lifetime of hard work, and fine art.

Vomiting into a commode isn’t art. Neither is flashing your genitals. Neither is smashing a bunch of props on stage and showering the audience with chewed-up potato chips and fake feces. It’s simply reckless expression without any genius.

Real artists have done goofy things in conjunction with their artistic performances. Pete Townshend and Jeff Beck demolished some pretty nice guitars. Jimi Hendrix set a few on fire.

But those excessive antics were simply odd forms of entertainment. The genius was in the music. So was the art.

I imagine I could break or burn or jackhammer a guitar just as well as Townshend or Hendrix. But play them? Hardly. That takes a gift that most of us don’t possess.

And there’s the artistic divide.

I suppose some people are heads above the crowd at vomiting into a commode, spitting potato chips and exposing their genitals. Maybe that’s their gift.

It just isn’t art.

This story has also caught the attention of big-league blogs like Power Line and Michelle Malkin.